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
well pleasing The first is from nature the second from sin the third from Grace The first is implanted by Creation the second the fruit of Corruption and the third is by the powerful operation of Grace This Carnal self-love is set up in the stead of God as our last end like the Sea which all the little and great streams of our actions run to and rest in And this is 1. Natural It sticks as close to us as our Souls it is as natural as sin the foundation of all the evil in the world As self-abhorrency is the first stone that is laid in Conversion So an inordinate self-love was the first in let to all iniquity As Grace is a rising from self to Center in God so is sin a shrinking from God into the mire of a Carnal selfishness Since every Creature is nearest to it self and next to God it cannot fall from God but must immediatly sink into self Mâ—râ— Dial. 2. § 17. pa. 274. And therefore all sins are well said to be branches or modiâ—â—â—ations of this fundamental passion What is wrath but a defence and strengthning self against the attempts of some real or imaginary evil Whence springs envy but from a self love grieved at its own wants in the midst of anothers enjoyment able to supply it What is impatience but a regret that self is not provided for at the rate of our wish and that it hath met with a shock against supposed merit What is pride but a sense of selfworth a desire to have self of a higher Elevation than others What is drunkenness but a seeking a satisfaction for sensual self in the spoils of reason No sin is committed as sin but as it pretends a self-satisfaction Sin indeed may well be term'd a mans self because it is since the loss of original righteousness the form that overspreads every part of our Souls the understanding assents to nothing false but under the Notion of true and the Will embraceth nothing evil but under the Notion of good but the rule whereby we measure the truth and goodness of proposed objects is not the unerring word but the inclinations of self the gratifying of which is the aim of our whole lives Sin and self are all one What is called a living to sin in one place * Rom. 6. is called a living to self in another * 1 Cor. 5.15 That they that live should not live unto themselves And upon this account it is that both the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in Scripture to express sin properly signifie to miss the mark and swerve from that white to which all our actions should be directed viz. the glory of God When we fell to loving our selves we fell from loving God And therefore when the Psalmist saith Psal 14.2 there were none that sought God viz. as the last end he presently adds they are all gone aside viz. from their true mark and therefore become filthy 2. Since t is natural T is also universal * Psa 14.1 The not seeking God is as universal as our ignorance of him No Man in a state of nature but hath it predominant no renewed Man on this side Heaven but hath it partially The one hath it flourishing the other hath it strugling If to aim at the glory of God as the chief end and not to live to our selves be the greatest mark of the restauration of the Divine Image * 1 Cor. 5.15 and a conformity to Christ who glorified not himself * Heb. 1.5 but the Father * Joh. 17.4 then every man wallowing in the mire of Corrupt nature pays a homage to self as a renewed Man is byast by the honour of God The Holy-Ghost excepts none from this Crime Phil. 2.21 All seek their own T is rare for them to look above or beyond themselves Whatsoever may be the immediate subject of their thoughts and enquiries yet the utmost end and stage is their profit honour or pleasure Whatever it be that immediatly possesses the Mind and VVill self sits like a Queen and sways the Scepter and orders things at that rate that God is Excluded and can find no room in all his thoughts Psa 10.4 The wicked through the pride of his Countenance will not seek after God God is not in all his thoughts The whole little World of Man is so overflowed with a Deluge of self that the Dove the Glory of the Creator can find no Place where to set its Foot and if ever it gain the favour of Admittance 't is to disguise and be a Vassal to some carnal Project as the Glory of God was a Mask for the murdering his Servants 'T is from the Power of this Principle that the difficulty of Conversion ariseth As there is no greater pleasure to a believing Soul than the giving it self up to God and no stronger desire in him than to have a fixed and unchangeable Will to serve the designs of his Honour So there is no greater torment to a wicked Man than to part with his carnal Ends and lay down the Dagon of self at the feet of the Ark. Self-Love and Self-Opinion in the Pharisees way-layd all the entertainment of Truth John 5.44 They sought Honour one of another and not the Honour which comes from God 'T is of so large an Extent and so insinuating Nature that it winds it self into the exercise of moral Virtues mixeth with our Charity Matt. 6.2 and finds nourishment in the Ashes of Martyrdom 1 Cor. 13.3 This making our selves our End will appear in a few things 1. In frequent self Applauses and inward overweening Reflections Nothing more ordinary in the Natures of Men than a dotage on their own Perfections Acquisitions or Actions in the World Most think of themselves above what they ought to think Rom. 12.3 4. Few think of themselves so meanly as they ought to think This sticks as close to us as our Skin And as Humility is the Beauty of Grace this is the filthiest Soyl of Nature Our thoughts run more delightfully upon the track of our own Perfections than the excellency of God And when we find any thing of a seeming worth that may make us glitter in the eyes of the World how chearfully do we grasp and embrace our selves When the grosser Prophanesses of Men have been discarded and the Flouds of them damm'd up the Head of Corruption whence they sprang will swell the higher within in self-applauding speculations of their own Reformation without acknowledgements of their own weaknesses and desires of Divine Assistance to make a further Progress I thank God I am not like this Publican * Luke 18.11 A self-reflection with a contempt rather than compassion to his Neighbor is frequent in every Pharisee The vapors of self-affections in our clouded understandings like those in the Air in misty mornings alter the appearance of things and make them look
He will have variety to encrease delights and eternity to perpetuate them This will be the fruit of the enjoyment of an infinite an eternal God He is not a Cistern but a Fountain wherein water is always living and never putrifies 4. If God be eternal Here is a strong ground of comfort against all the distresses of the Church and the threats of the Churches Enemies Gods abiding for ever is the Plea Jeremy makes for his return to his forsaken Church * Lament 5.19.20 Thou O Lord remainest for ever thy Throne from Generation to Generation The Church is weak created things are easily cut off What prop is there but that God that lives for ever What though Jerusalem lost its Bulwarks the Temple were defaced the Land wasted yet the God of Jerusalem sits upon an eternal Throne and from everlasting to everlasting there is no diminution of his Power The Prophet intimates in this complaint that it is not agreeable to Gods Eternity to forget his People to whom he hath from Eternity bore good will In the greatest confusions the Churches eyes are to be fixed upon the Eternity of Gods Throne where he sits as Governour of the world No Creature can take any comfort in this perfection but the Church other Creatures depend upon God but the Church is united to him The first discovery of the Name I am which signifies the Divine Eternity as well as Immutability was for the comfort of the opprest Israelites in Egypt * Exod. 3.14 15. It was then publisht from the secret place of the Almighty as the only strong Cordial to refresh them It hath not yet it shall not ever lose its vertue in any of the miseries that have or shall successively befall the Church 'T is a comfort as durable as the God whose name it is He is still I am and the same to the Church as he was then to his Israel His spiritual Israel have a greater right to the glories of it than the carnal Israel could have No oppression can be greater than theirs what was a comfort suted to that distress hath the same sutableness to every other oppression It was not a temporary name but a name for ever his memorial to all Generations * v. 15. and reacheth to the Church of the Gentiles with whom he treats as the God of Abraham ratifying that Covenant by the Messiah which he made with Abraham the Father of the Faithful The Churches enemies are not to be fear'd they may spring as the grass but soon after do wither by their own inward principles of decay or are cut down by the hand of God * Psal 92.7 8 9. They may be instruments of the anger of God but they shall be scatter'd as the workers of inquity by the hand of the Lord that is high for evermore v. 8. and is engaged by his promise to preserve a Church in the World They may threaten but their breath may vanish as soon as their threatnings are pronounc'd for they carry their breath in no surer a place than their own Nostrils upon which the eternal God can put his hand and sink them with all their rage Do the Prophets and instructors of the Church live for ever * Zach. 1.5 No. Shall then the Adversaries and Disturbers of the Church live for ever They shall vanish as a shadow their being depends upon the eternal God of the faithful and the everlasting Judge of the wicked He that inhabits Eternity is above them that inhabit Mortality and must whither they will or no say to Corruption thou art my Father and to the Worm thou art my Mother and my Sister * Job 17.14 When they will act with a confidence as if they were living Gods he will not be mated but evidence himself to be a living God above them Why then should mortal men be fear'd in their frowns when an immortal God hath promised protection in his word and lives for ever to perform it 5. Hence follows another comfort since God is eternal he hath as much power as will to be as good as his word His promises are established upon his eternity and this perfection is a main ground of trust * Isa 26.4 Trust in the Lord for ever for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 His name is doubled that name Iah and Jehovah which was always the strength of his people and not a single one but the strength or rock of Eternities not a failing but an eternal truth and power that as his strength is eternal so our trust in him should imitate his Eternity in its perpetuity and therefore in the despondency of his people as if God had forgot his promises and made no account of them or his word and were weary of doing good he calls them to reflect on what they had heard of his Eternity which is attended with immutability who hath an infiniteness of power to perform his will and an infiniteness of understanding to judge of the right seasons of it * Isa 40.27.28 His Wisdom Will Truth have alway's been and will to Eternity be the same He wants not life any more then love for ever to help us since his word is past he will never fail us since his life continues he can never be out of a capacity to relieve us and therefore when ever we foolishly charge him by our distrustful thoughts we forget his love which made the promise and his eternal life which can accomplish it As his word is the bottom of our trust and his truth is the assurance of his sincerity so his Eternity is the assurance of his ability to perform His word stands for ever * Isa 40.8 A man may be my friend this day and be in another world to morrow and though he be never so sincere in his word yet death snaps his life asunder and forbids the execution But as God cannot die so he cannot lie because he is the Eternity of Israel * 1 Sam. 15.29 The strength of Israel will not lie nor repent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perpetuity or eternity of Israel Eternitie implies immutability we could have no ground for our hopes if we knew him not to be longer liv'd than our selves The Psalmist beats off our hands from trust in men because their breath goes forth they return to their earth and in that day their thoughts perish * Psal 146.3 4. And if the God of Jacob were like them what happiness could we have in making him our help As his Soveraignty in giving precepts had not been a strong ground of Obedience without considering him as an eternal Law-giver who could maintain his rights So his kindness in making the promises had not been a strong ground of confidence without considering him as an Eternal promiser whose thoughts and whose life can never perish * Crellius de Deo cap. 18. p. 44. 45. And this may be one reason why
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
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
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
SEVERAL DISCOURSES UPON THE EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. By that late Eminent Minister of Christ Mr. STEPHEN CHARNOCKE B. D. And sometimes Fellow of New-Colledge in Oxon. LONDON Printed for D. Newman T. Cockerill Benj. Griffin T. Simmons and Benj. Alsop M DC LXXXII TO THE READER THIS long since promised and greatly expected Volume of the Reverend Authour upon the Divine Attributes being Transcribed out of his own Manuscripts by the unwearied diligence of those worthy Persons that undertook it Mr. J. Wichens Mr. Ashton is now at last come to thy hands Doubt not but thy Reading will pay for thy waiting and thy satisfaction make full compensation for thy patience In the Epistle before his Treatise of Providence it was intimated that his following Discourses would not be inferiour to that and we are perswaded that ere thou hast perused one half of this thou wilt acknowledge that it was modestly spoken Enough assure thy self thou wilt find here for thy entertainment and delight as well as profit The sublimeness variety and rareness of the Truths here handled together with the elegancy of the Composure neatness of the Style and whatever is wont to make any Book desirable will all concur in the recommendation of this What so high and noble a Subject what so fit for his Meditations or thine as the highest and noblest Being and those transcendently glorious Perfections wherewith he is clothed A meer Contemplation of the Divine Excellencies may afford much pleasure to any man that loves to exercise his Reason and is addicted to speculation But what incomparable sweetness then will holy Souls find in viewing and considering those Perfections now which they are more fully to behold hereafter and seeing what manner of God how wise and powerful how great and good and holy is he in whom the Covenant interests them and in the enjoyment of whom their happiness consists If rich men delight to sum up their vast Revenues to read over their Rentals look upon their Hoords if they bless themselves in their great Wealth or to use the Prophets words Jer. 9.23 glory in their Riches well may Believers rejoyce and glory in their knowing the Lord vers 24. and please themselves in seeing how rich they are in having an immensely full and All-sufficient God for their Inheritance Alas how little do most men know of that Deity they profess to serve and own not as their Soveraign only but their Portion To such this Author might say Acts 17.23 as Paul to the Athenians Whom you ignorantly worship him declare I unto you These Treatises Reader will inform thee who he is whom thou callest thine present thee with a view of thy chief good and make thee value thy self a thousand times more upon thy interest in God than upon all external Accomplishments and worldly Possessions Who but delights to hear well of one whom he loves God is thy Love if thou be a Believer and then it cannot but fill thee with delight and ravishment to hear so much spoken in his Praise David desired to dwell in the House of the Lord that he might there behold his beauty How much of that beauty if thou art but capable of seeing it mayest thou behold in this Volume which was our Author's main business for about three years before he died to display before his hearers True indeed the Lord's Glory as shining forth before his heavenly Courtiers above is unapproachable by mortal Men but what of it is visible in his Works Creation Providence Redemption falls under the cognizance of his Inferiour Subjects here and this is in a great measure presented to view in these Discourses and so much we may well say as may by the help of Grace be effectual to raise thy Admiration attract thy Love provoke thy Desires and enable thee to make some guess at what is yet unseen and why not likewise to clear thy Eyes and prepare them for future sight as well as turn them away from the contemptible Vanities of this present Life Whatever is glorious in this World yet as the Apostle in another case hath no glory by reason of the glory that excels 2 Cor. 3.10 This excellent Glory is the Subject of this Book to which all Created Beauty is but meer shadow and duskyness If thy Eyes be well fixed on this they will not be easily drawn to wander after other Objects If thy heart be taken with God it will be mortified to every thing that is not God But thou hast in this Book not only an excellent Subject in the general but great variety of Matter for the employment of thy Understanding as well as enlivening thy Affections and that too such as thou wilt not readily find elsewhere many excellent things which are out of the rode of ordinary Preachers and Writers and which may be grateful to the Curious no less than satisfactory to the Wise and Judicious It is not therefore a Book to be play'd with or slept over but read with the most intent and serious Mind for though it afford much pleasure for the Phancy yet much more work for the heart and hath indeed enough in it to busie all the Faculties The Dress is compt and decent yet not garish nor Theatrical the Rhetorick masculine and vigorous such as became a Pulpit and was never borrowed from the Stage the Expressions full clear apt and such as are best suted to the weightiness and spirituality of the Truths here delivered 'T is plain he was no empty Preacher but was more for sense than sound filled up his words with matter and chose rather to inform his Hearers Minds than to claw any itching Ears Yet we will not say but some little things a Word or a Phrase now and then he may have which no doubt had he lived to Transcribe his own Sermons he would have altered If in some lesser matters he differ from thee it is but in such as Godly and Learned Men do frequently and may without breach of Charity differ in among themselves in some things he may differ from us too and it may be we from each other and where are there any two Persons who have in all especially the more disputable Points of Religion exactly the same Sentiments at least express themselves altogether in the same terms But this we must say that though he treat of many of the most abstruse and mysterious Doctrines of Christianity which are the Subjects of great Debates and Controversies in the World yet we find no one material thing in which he may justly be called Heterodox unless old Heresies be of late grown Orthodox and his differing from them must make him faulty but generally delivers as in his * Treatise of Providence and of Thoughts former Pieces what is most consonant to the Faith of This and other the best Reformed Churches He was not indeed for that Modern Divinity which is so much in vogue with some who would be counted the
of Man Folly is the disturber of Families Cites Nations The disgrace of human nature First I. T is pernicious to the World 1. It would root out the foundations of Government It demolisheth all order in Nations The being of a God is the guard of the world The sense of a God is the foundation of Civil order without this there is no tye upon the Consciences of men What force would there be in Oaths for the decisions of controversies what right could there be in Appeals made to one that had no being A City of Atheists would be a heap of confusion there could be no ground of any commerce when all the sacred bands of it in the Consciences of men were snapt asunder which are torne to peices and utterly destroyed by denying the Existence of God What Magistrate could be secure in his standing what private person could be secure in his right * Lessius de Provid p. 665. Can that then be a truth that is destructive of all publick good If the Atheists sentiment that there were no God were a truth and the contrary that there were a God were a falsity It would then follow that falsity made men good and serviceable to one another That error were the foundation of all the beauty and order and outward felicity of the world the fountain of all good to man If there were no God to believe there is one would be an error and to beleive there is none would be the greatest wisdom because it would be the greatest truth And then as it is the greatest wisdom to fear God upon the apprehension of his Existence * Psal 111 1â— So it would be the greatest error to fear him if there were none It would unquestionably follow that Error is the support of the world the spring of all human advantages and that every part of the world were obliged to a falsity for being a quiet habitation which is the most absur'd thing to imagine T is a thing impossible to be tolerated by any Prince without laying an Axe to the root of the Government 2. It would introduce all evil into the World If you take away God you take away Conscience and thereby all measures and rules of good and evil And how could any Laws be made when the measure and standard of them were removed All good Laws are founded upon the dictates of Conscience and reason upon common sentiments in human nature which spring from a sense of God So that if the foundation be demolisht the whole superstructure must tumble down A man might be a Thief a Murderer an Adulterer and could not in a strict sense be an offender The worst of actions could not be evil if a man were a God to himself a Law to himself Nothing but evil deserves a Censure and nothing would be evil if there were no God the Rector of the world against whom evil is properly committed No man can make that morally evil that is not so in it self As where there is a faint sense of God the heart is more strongly inclin'd to wickedness so where there is no sense of God the bars are removed the flood-gates set open for all wickedness to rush in upon mankind Religion pinions men from abominable practices and restrains them from being Slaves to their own passions An Atheists arms would be loose to do any thing * Lessius de Provid p. 664. Nothing so villanous and unjust but would be Acted if the natural fear of a Deity were extinguisht The first consequence issuing from the apprehension of the Existence of God is his Government of the world If there be no God then the natural consequence is that there is no supream Government of the world Such a Notion would cashiere all sentiments of good and be like a Trojan Horse whence all impurity tyranny and all sorts of mischeifs would break out upon mankind Corruption and abominable works in the text are the fruit of the fools perswasion that there is no God The perverting the ways of men oppression and extortion owe their rise to a forgetfulness of God Jer. 3.21 They have perverted their way and they have forgotten the Lord their God Ezek. 22.12 Thou hast greedily gained by extortion and hast forgotten me saith the Lord. The whole Earth would be filled with violence all flesh would corrupt their way as it was before the deluge when probably Atheism did abound more than Idolatry and if not a disowning the being yet denying the Providence of God by the posterity of Cain Those of the Family of Seth only calling upon the name of the Lord Gen. 6.11.12 compared which Gen. 4.26 The greatest sense of a Deity in any hath been attended with the greatest innocence of life and usefulness to others And a weaker sense hath been attended with a baser impurity * Iessius de Provid p. 665. If there were no God Blasphemy would be praise-worthy As the reproach of Idols is praise-worthy because we testifie that there is no Divinity in them What can be more contemptible than that which hath no being Sin would be only a false opinion of a violated Law and an offended Deity If such appresensions prevail what a wide door is opened to the worst of villanies If there be no God no respect is due to him all the Religion in the world is a trifle and Error and thus the Pillars of all human society and that which hath made Common-wealths to flourish are blown away Secondly 2 T is pernicious to the Atheist himself If he fear no future punishment he can never expect any future reward All his hopes must be confined to a Swinish and despicable manner of life without any imaginations of so much as a dram of reserved hapiness He is in a worse condition than the filliest animal which hath something to please it in its life Whereas an Atheist can have nothing here to give him a full content no more than any other man in the World and can have less satisfaction hereafter He deposeth the noble end of his own being which was to serve a God and have a satisfaction in him to seek a God and be rewarded by him And he that departs from his end recedes from his own nature All the content any Creature finds is in performing its end moveing according to its natural instinct As it is a joy to the Sun to run its race * Psal 19.5 In the same manner it is a satisfaction to every other Creature and its delight to observe the Law of its Creation What content can any man have that runs from his end opposeth his own nature denies a God by whom and for whom he was Created whose Image he bears which is the Glory of his nature and sinks into the very dregs of bruitishness How elegantly is it described by Bildad * Job 18.7.8 c. to the end his own Counsel shall cast him down terrors shall make him afraid on
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
a bitter potion we are rather haled than run to it There is a contradiction of sin within us against our service as there was a contradiction of sinners without our Saviour against his doing the Will of God Our hearts are unweildy to any Spiritual service of God we are fain to use a violence with them sometimes Hezekiah it is said walked before the Lord with a perfect heart 2 Kings 20.9 he walked he made himself to walk Man naturally cares not for a walk with God If he hath any Communion with him t is with such a dulness and heaviness of Spirit as if he wished himself out of his Company Mans nature being contrary to holiness hath an aversion to any act of homage to God because Holiness must at least be pretended In every duty wherein we have a Communion with God Holiness is requisite Now as men are against the truth of Holiness because it is unsutable to them so they are not friends to those duties which require it and for some space divert them from the thoughts of their beloved lusts The word of the Lord is a Yoke Prayer a drudgery Obedience a strange Element We are like fish that drink up iniquity like water * Job 15.16 and come not to the bank without the force of an Angle No more willing to do service for God than a fish is of it self to do service for Man T is a constrained act to satisfie Conscience and such are servile not Son-like performances and spring from bondage more than affection If Conscience like a task Master did not scourge them to duty they would never perform it Let us appeal to our selves whether we are not more unwilling to secret Closet hearty duty to God than to joyn with others in some external service as if those inward services were a going to the rack and rather our pennance than priviledg How much service hath God in the world from the same principle that Vagrants perform their task in Bridewel How glad are many of evasions to back them in the neglect of the Commands of God of Corrupt reasonings from the flesh to way-lay an Act of obedience and a multitude of excuses to blunt the edge of the precept The very service of God shall be a pretence to deprive him of the obedience due to him Saul will not be ruled by Gods Will in the destroying the Cattle of the Amalekites but by his own and will impose upon the Will and Wisdom of God Judging God mistaken in his Command and that the Cattle God thought fittest to be meat to the fouls were fitter to be Sacrifices on the Altar * 1 Sam. 15.3.9.15.21 If we do perform any part of his Will is it not for our own ends to have some deliverance from trouble Isa 26.16 In trouble have they visited thee they poured out a Prayer when thy Chastening was upon them In affliction he shall find them kneeling in Homage and Devotion In prosperity he shall feel them kicking with contempt they can poure out a Prayer in distress and scarce drop one when they are delivered 2. There is a slightness in our service of God We are loath to come into his presence and when we do come we are loth to continue with him We pay not an Homage to him heartily as to our Lord and Governour we regard him not as our Master whose work we ought to do and whose Honour we ought to aime at 1. In regard of the matter of service When the torn the lame and the sick is offered to God * Mal. 1.13.14 so thin and lean a Sacrifice that you may have thrown it to the ground with a puff so some understand the meaning of you have snufft at it Men have naturally such slight thoughts of the Majesty and Law of God that they think any service is good enough for him and conformable to his Law The dullest and deadest times we think fittest to pay God a service in when sleep is ready to close our eyes and we are unfit to serve our selves we think it a fit time to open our hearts to God How few Morning Sacrifices hath God from many persons and Families Men leap out of their beds to their carnal pleasures or worldly employments without any thought of their Creator and Preserver or any reflection upon his Will as the rule of our dayly obedience And as many reserve the dregs of their Lives their Old-age to offer up their Souls to God So they reserve the Dreggs of the Day their sleeping time for the offering up their service to Him How many grudge to spend their best time in the serving the Will of God and reserve for him the sickly and rheumatick part of their Lives the remainder of that which the Devil and their own Lusts have fed upon Would not any Prince or Governour judge a Present half eaten up by Wild-beasts or that which died in a Ditch a contempt of his Royalty A corrupt thing is too base and vile for so great a King as God is whose Name is dreadful * Mal. 1.14 When by Age Men are weary of their own Bodies they would present them to God yet grudgingly as if a tired body were too good for him snuffing at the Command for Service God calls for our best and we give him the worst 2. In respect of Frame We think any frame will serve Gods turn which speaks our slight of God as a Ruler Man naturally performs duty with an unholy heart whereby it becomes an abomination to God Pro. 28.9 He that turns away his Ear from hearing the Law even his prayers shall be an abomination to God The Services which he commands he hates for their evil frames or corrupt ends Amos 5.21 I hate I despise your Feast-days I will not smell in your Solemn Assemblies God requires gracious services and we give him corrupt ones We do not rouze up our hearts as David called upon his Lute and Harp to awake Psal 57.8 Our hearts are not given to him we put him off with bodily exercise The heart is but Ice to what it doth not affect 1. There is not that natural vigor in the observance of God which we have in worldly business When we see a liveliness in men in other things change the Scene into a motion towards God how suddenly doth their vigoâ— shrink and their hearts freeze into sluggishness Many times we serve God as lanâ—guishingly as if we were afraid he should accept us and pray as coldly as if we were unwilling he should hear us and take away that lust by which we are Governed and which Conscience forces us to pray against as if we were afraid God should set up his own throne and Government in our hearts How fleeting are we in Divine Meditation how sleepy in Spiritual exercises but in other exercises active The Soul doth not awaken it self and excite those animal and vital Spirits which it will in bodily recreations and
than a Rock can carve it self into the Statue of a man or a Serpent that is an Enemy to Man could or would raise it self to the Nobility of the humane Nature That Soul that by Nature would strip God of his Rights cannot without a Divine Power be made conformable to him and acknowledg sincerely and cordially the Rights and Glory of God 7. We may here see the reason why there can be no justification by the best and strongest works of Nature Can that which hath Atheism at the root justifie either the action or person What strength can those works have which have neither Gods Law for their Rule nor his Glory for their End that are not wrought by any spiritual strength from him nor tend with any spiritual affection to him Can these be a foundation for the most holy God to pronounce a Creature righteous They will justifie his Justice in condemning but cannot sway his Justice to an Absolution Every natural man in his works picks and chuses he owns the Will of God no further than he can wring it to sute the law of his Members and minds not the honour of God but as it justles not with his own glory and secular ends Can he be righteous that prefers his own Will and his own Honour before the Will and Honour of the Creator However mens actions may be beneficial to others what reason hath God to esteem them wherein there is no respect to him but themselves whereby they dethrone him in their thoughts while they seem to own him in their religious works Every day reproves us with something different from the Rule Thousands of wandrings offer themselves to our eyes Can Justification be expected from that which in it self is matter of despair 8. See here the cause of all the apostacy in the World Practical Atheism was never conquered in such They are still alienated from the Life of God and will not live to God as he lives to himself and his own honour * Eph. 4.17 18. They loath his Rule and distaste his Glory are loth to step out of themselves to promote the ends of another find not the satisfaction in him as they do in themselves They will be Judges of what is good for them and righteous in it self rather than admit of God to judge for them When men draw back from Truth to Error 't is to such opinions which may serve more to foment and cherish their Ambition Covetousness or some beloved Lust that dispates with God for precedency and is designed to be served before him John 12.42.43 They love the praise of men more than the praise of God A preferring man before God was the reason they would not confess Christ and God in him 9. This shews us the excellency of the Gospel and Christian Religion It sets man in his due place and gives to God what the Excellency of his Nature requires ∴ It lays man in the dust from whence he was taken and sets God upon that Throne where he ought to si◠Man by Nature would annihilate God and deisie himself the Gospel glorifies God and annihilates Man In our first revolt we would be like him in knowledge in the means he hath provided for our recovery he designs to make us like him in Grace The Gospel shews our selves to be an Object of Humiliation and God to be a glorious Object for our Imitation The Light of Nature tells us there is a God the Gospel gives us a more magnificent report of him The light of Nature condemns gross Atheism and that of the Gospel condemns and conquers spiritual Atheism in the hearts of men Use 2. Of Exhortation 1. Let us labour to be sensible of this Atheism in our Nature and be humbled for it How should we lye in the Dust and go bowing under the humbling thoughts of it all our days Shall we not be sensible of that whereby we spill the blood of our Souls and give a stabb to the heart of our own Salvation Shall we be worse than any Creature not to bewail that which tends to our destruction He that doth not lament it cannot challenge the Character of a Christian hath nothing of the divine Life and Love planted 〈◊〉 his Soul Not a man but shall one day be sensible when the Eternal God shall call him out to Examination and charge his Conscience to discover every Crime which will then own the Authority whereby it acted when the heart shall be torn open and the secrets of it brought to publick view and the World and Man himself shall see what a viperous Brood of corrupt Principles and Ends nested in his Heart Let us therefore be truly sensible of it till the consideration draw tears from our Eyes and sorrow from our Souls Let us urge the thoughts of it upon our hearts till the Core of that Pride be eaten out and our Stubborness changed into Humility Till our Heads become Waters and our Eyes Fountains of tears and be a spring of Prayer to God to change the heart and mortifie the Atheism in it and consider what a sad thing it is to be a practical Atheist And who is not so by Nature 1. Let us be sensible of it in our selves Have any of our hearts been a Soyl wherein the Fear and Reverence of God hath naturally grown Have we a desire to know him or a will to embrace him Do we delight in his Will and love the remembrance of his Name Are our respects to him as God equal to the speculative knowledge we have of his Nature Is the heart wherein he hath stampt his Image reserved for his Residence Is not the world more affected than the Creator of the world as though that could contribute to us a greater happiness than the Author of it Have not Creatures as much of our love fear trust nay more than God that framed both them and us Have we not too often relyed upon our own strength and made a Calf of our own wisdom and said of God as the Israelites of Moses As for this Moses we wot not what is become of him Exod. 32.1 and given oftener the glory of our good success to our Dragg and our Net to our Craft and our Industry than to the wisdom and blessing of God Are we then free from this sort of Atheism * Lawson body of Divinity pa. 153. 154. 'T is as impossible to have two Gods at one time in one heart as to have two Kings at one time in full power in one Kingdom Have there not been frequent neglects of God Have we not been deaf whilst he hath knocked at our doors slept when he hath sounded in our Ears as if there had been no such Being as a God in the world How many struglings have been against our approaches to him Hath not folly often been committed with vain imaginations starting up in the time of Religious Service which we would scarce vouchsafe a look to at another time
directions upon emergent occasions In counting the actions of others to be good or bad as they sute with or spurn against our fancies and humors Man would make himself the Rule of God and give laws to his Creator In striving against his Law Disapproving of his Methods of Government in the world in impatience in our particular concerns envying the gifts and prosperity of others Corrupt matter or ends of Prayer or praise Bold interpretations of the Judgments of God in the world Mixing Rules in the Worship of God with those which have been ordained by him Suting interpretations of Scripture with our own minds and humors Falling off from God after some fair compliances when his Will grates upon us and crosseth ours 2. Man would be his own end This is natural and universal This is seen in frequent self applauses and inward overweening reflections In ascribing the glory of what we do or have to our selves In desire of self pleasing Doctrines In being highly concerned in injuries done to our selves and little or not at all concerned for injuries done to God In trusting in our selves In workings for Carnal self against the light of our own Consciences this is a usurping Gods prerogative vilifying God destroying God Man would make any thing his end or happiness rather than God This appears in the fewer thoughts we have of him than of any thing else In the greedy pursuit of the world In the strong addictedness to sensual pleasures In paying a service upon any success in the world to instruments more than to God This is a debasing God in setting up a Creature But more in setting up a base lust T is a denying of God Man would make himself the end of all Creatures In pride using the Creatures contrary to the end God hath appointed This is to dishonour God And it is Diabolical Man would make himself the end of God In loving God because of some self pleasing benefits distributed by him In abstinence from some sins because they are against the interest of some other beloved Corruption In performing duties meerly for a selfish interest which is evident in unwealdiness in Religious duties where self is not concern'd In calling upon God only in a time of necessity In begging his assistance to our own projects after we have by our own Craft laid the Plot. In impatience upon a refusal of our desires In selfish aims we have in our duties This is a vilifying God a dethroning him In unworthy imaginations of God universal in Man by nature Hence spring Idolatry Superstition Presumption the common disease of the world This is a vilifying God worse than Idolatry worse than absolute Atheism Natural desires to be distant from him No desires for the remembrance of him No desires of converse with him No desires of a through return to him No desire of any close imitation of him A DISCOURSE UPON GODS BEING A SPIRIT JOHN 4.24 God is a Spirit and they that Worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth THE words are part of the Dialogue between our Saviour * Amiraut Paraph. sur Jean and the Samaritan Woman Christ intending to return from Judea to Galilee passed through the Country of Samaria a place inhabited not by Jews but a mixt Company of several Nations and some remainders of the posterity of Israel who escaped the Captivity and were returned from Assyria and being weary with his Journey arrived about the sixth hour or noon according to the Jews reckoning the time of the day at a Well that Jacob had digged which was of great account among the Inhabitants for the Antiquity of it as well as the usefulness of it in supplying their necessities He being thirsty and having none to furnish him wherewith to draw water at last comes a Woman from the City whom he desires to give him some water to drink The Woman perceiving him by his Language or Habit to be a Jew wonders at the question since the hatred the Jews bore the Samaritans was so great that they would not vouchsafe to have any Commerce with them not only in Religious but Civil affairs and Common Offices belonging to Man-kind Hence our Saviour takes occasion to publish to her the Doctrine of the Gospel and excuseth her rude Answer by her Ignorance of him And tells her that if she had askt him a greater matter even that which concern'd her Eternal Salvation he would readily have granted it notwithstanding the rooted hatred between the Jews and Samaritans and bestowed a water of a greater vertue the water of life * ver 10. Or living water The Woman is no less astonished at his reply than she was at his first demand It was strange to hear a Man speak of giving living water to one of whom he had beg'd the water of that Spring and had no Vessel to draw any to quench his own thirst She therefore demands whence he could have this water that he speaks of * ver 11. since she conceived him not greater than Jacob who had digged that Well and drunk of it Our Saviour desirous to mak a progress in that work he had begun extols the Water he spake of above this of the Well from its particular vertue fully to refresh those that drank of it and be as a Cooling and Comforting Fountain within them of more efficacy than that without * ver 13.14 The Woman conceiving a good opinion of our Saviour desires to partake of this Water to save her pains in coming dayly to the Well not apprehending the Spirituality of Christs discourse to her * ver 15. Christ finding her to take some pleasure in his Discourse partly to bring her to a sense of her sin before he did Communicate the excellency of his grace bids her return back to the City and bring her Husband with her to him * ver 16. She freely acknowledges that she had no Husband whether having some check of Conscience at present for the unclean life she led or loth to lose so much time in the gaining this water so much desired by her * ver 17. Our Saviour takes an occasion from this to lay open her sin before her and to make her sensible of her own wicked life and the prophetick excellency of himself and tells her she had had five Husbands to whom she had been false and by whom she was divorced and the person she now dwelt with was not her lawful Husband and in living with him she violated the Rights of Marriage and encreased guilt upon her Conscience * ver 18. The Woman being affected with this discourse and knowing him to be stranger that could not be certified of those things but in an extraordinary way begins to have a high esteem of him as a Prophet * 〈◊〉 19. And upon this opinion she esteems him able to decide a question which had been Canvast between them and the Jews about the place of Worship
Glory belonging to all the Attributes of God 'T is not a single perfection of the Divine Nature nor is it limited to particular Objects thus and thus disposed Mercy and Justice have their distinct objects and distinct acts Mercy is conversant about a Penitent Justice conversant about an obstinate Sinner In our notion and conception of the Divine Perfections his Perfections are different The Wisdom of God is not his Power nor his Power his Holiness but Immutability is the Center wherein they all unite There is not one Perfection but may be said to be and truly is immutable none of them will appear so glorious without this Beam this Sun of Immutability which renders them highly excellent without the least shadow of imperfection How cloudy would his Blessedness be if it were changeable How dim his Wisdom if it might be obscur'd How feeble his Power if it were capable to be sickly and languish How would Mercy lose much of its lustre if it could change into wrath and Justice much of its dread if it could be turned into Mercy while the object of Justice remains unfit for Mercy and one that hath need of Mercy continues only fit for the Divine Fury But unchangeableness is a Thread that runs through the whole Web 'T is the enamel of all the rest none of them without it could look with a triumphant aspect His Power is unchangeable * Isa 26.4 In the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength his Mercy and his Holiness endure for ever He never could nor ever can look upon iniquity * Hab. 1.13 He is a Rock in the righteousness of his ways the truth of his word the holiness of his proceedings and the rectitude of his nature All are exprest Deut. 32.4 He is a Rock his work is perfect for all his ways are Judgment A God of Truth and without Iniquity just and right is he All that we consider in God is unchangeable for his Essence and his Properties are the same and therefore what is necessarily belonging to the Essence of God belongs also to every perfection of the nature of God none of them can receive any addition or diminution From the unchangeableness of his nature the Apostle James 1.17 infers the unchangeableness of his Holiness and himself in Mal. 3.6 the unchangeableness of his Counsel 3. Vnchangeableness doth necessarily pertain to the Nature of God 'T is of the same necessity with the rectitude of his Nature He can no more be changeable in his Essence than he can be unrighteous in his Actions God is a necessary Being He is necessarily what he is and therefore is unchangeably what he is Mutability belongs to contingency If any perfection of his nature could be separated from him he would cease to be God What did not possess the whole Nature of God could not have the Essence of God 'T is reciprocated with the Nature of God Whatsoever is immutable by Nature is God whatsoever is God is immutable by Nature Some Creatures are immutable by his Grace and Power * Archbolâ— Serm. God is holy happy wise good by his Essence Angels and Men are made holy wise happy strong and good by Qualities and Graces The Holiness Happiness and Wisdom of Saints and Angels as they had a beginning so they are capable of increase and diminution and of an end also for their standing is not from themselves or from the nature of created strength holiness or wisdom which in themselves are apt to fail and finally to decay but from the stability and confirmation they have by the Gift and Grace of God The Heaven and Earth shall be changed and after that renewal and reparation they shall not be changed Our Bodies after the Resurrection shall not be changed but for ever be made conformable to the glorious Body of Christ * Phil. 3.21 but this is by the powerful Grace of God So that indeed those things may be said afterwards rather to be unchanged than unchangeable because they are not so by nature but by soveraign dispensation As Creatures have not necessary Beings so they have not necessary Immutability Necessity of being and therefore Immutability of being belongs by nature only to God otherwise if there were any change in God he would be sometimes what he was not and would cease to be what he was which is against the nature and indeed against the natural notion of a Deity Let us see then 1. In what regards God is immutable 2. Prove that God is immutable 3. That this is proper to God and incommunicable to any Creature 4. Some propositions to clear the unchangeableness of God from any thing that seems contrary to it 5. The Use First in what respects God is unchangeable 1. God is unchangeable in his Essence He is unalterably fixed in his Being that not a Particle of it can be lost from it not a Mite added to it If a Man continue in being as long as Methuselah Nine hundred and Sixty nine years yet there is not a day nay an hour wherein there is not some alteration in his substance though no substantial part is wanting yet there is an addition to him by his Food a diminution of something by his Labour He is always making some acquisition or suffering some loss But in God there can be no alteration by the accession of any thing to make his substance greater or better or by diminution to make it less or worse He who hath no being from another cannot but be always what he is God is the first Being an independent Being He was not produced of himself or of any other but by nature always hath been and therefore cannot by himself or by any other bechanged from what he is in his own nature That which is not may as well assume to it self a Being as he who hath and is all Being have the least change from what he is Again because he is a Spirit he is not subject to those mutations which are found incorporeal and bodily Natures Because he is an absolutely simple Spirit not having the least particle of composition he is not capable of those changes which may be in created Spirits 1. If his Essence were mutable God would not truly be It could not be truly said by himself I am that I am * Exod. 3.14 if he were such a Thing or Being at this time and a different Being at another time Whatsoever is changed properly is not because it doth not remain to be what it was That which is changed was something is something and will be something a Being remains to that thing which is changed yet though it may be said such a thing is yet it may be also said such a thing is not because it is not what it was in its first being 't is not now what it was 't is now what it was not 't is another thing than it was it was another thing than it is it will be another thing than
the things known were the cause of his Knowledg and so before his knowledg and therefore before his action Bradward lib. 1. cap. 15. God would not then be the first in the order of knowing Agents because he would not act by Knowledg but act before he knew and know after he had acted and so the Creature which he made would be before the act of his Understanding whereby he knew what he made Again since Knowledg is a Perfection if Gods knowledg of the Creatures depended upon the Creatures he would derive an excellency from them they would derive no excellency from any Idea in the Divine mind he would not be infinitely perfect in himself if his Perfection in Knowledg were gained from any thing without himself and below himself he would not be sufficient of himself but be under an indigence which wanted a supply from the things he had made and could not be eternally perfect till he had created and seen the effects of his own Power Goodness and Wisdom to render him more wise and knowing in Time than he was from Eternity Who can fancy such a God as this without destroying the Deity he pretends to adore for if his Understanding be perfected by something without him why may not his Essence be perfected by something without him that as he was made knowing by something without him he might be made God by something without him How could his Understanding be infinite if it depended upon a finite object as upon a cause Is the Majesty of God to be debas'd to a Mendicant condition to seek for a supply from things inferior to himself Is it to be imagin'd that a Fool a Toad a Fly should be assistant to the knowledg of God that the most noble Being should be perfected by things so vile that the supream cause of all things should receive any addition of knowledg and be determin'd in his Understanding by the notion of things so mean To conclude this particular all things depend upon his knowledg his knowledg depends upon nothing but is as independent as himself and his own Essence Proposition 4. God knows all things distinctly His understanding is infinite in regard of clearness God is light and in him is no darkness at all John 1.5 he sees not through a Mist or Cloud there 's no blemish in his Understanding no mote or beam in his eye to render any thing obscure to him Man discerns the surface and outside of things little or nothing of the Essence of things we see the noblest things but as in a glass darkly 1 Cor. 13.12 the too great nearness as well as the too great distance of a thing hinders our sight the smallness of a mote escapes our eye and so our knowledg also the weakness of our understanding is troubled with the multitude of things and cannot know many things but confusedly But God knows the forms and essence of things every circumstance nothing is so deep but he sees to the bottom he sees the mass and sees the motes of Beings his Understanding being infinite is not offended with a multitude of things or distracted with the variety of them he discerns every thing infinitely more clearly and perfectly than Adam or Solomon could any one thing in the Circle of their knowledg What knowledg they had was from him he hath therefore infinitely a more perfect knowledg than they were capable in their natures to receive a communication of All things are open to him Heb. 4.13 the least fibre in its nakedness and distinct frame is transparent to him as by the help of Glasses the mouth feet hands of a small Insect are visible to a man which seem to the eye without that assistance one intire piece not diversified into parts All the causes qualities natures properties of things are open to him he brings out the Host of Heaven by number and calleth them by Names Isa 40.26 he numbers the Hairs of our heads what more distinct than number thus God beholds things in every unity which makes up the heap He knows and none else can every thing in its true and intimate causes in its original and intermediate causes in himself as the cause of every particular of their Being every Property in their Being Knowledg by the causes is the most noble and perfect Knowledg and most suited to the infinite excellency of the Divine Being he created all things and ordered them to a universal and particular end he therefore knows the essential Properties of every thing every activity of their nature all their fitness for those distinct ends to which he orders them and for which he governs and disposeth them and understands their darkest and most hidden qualities infinitely clearer than any eye can behold the clear Beams of the Sun He knows all things as he made them he made them distinctly and therefore knows them distinctly and that every individual therefore God is said Gen. 1.31 to see every thing that he had made he took a review of every particular Creature he had made and upon his view pronounced it good To pronounce that good which was not exactly known in every Creek in every Mite of its nature had not consisted with his veracity for every one that speaks truth ignorantly that knows not that he speaks Truth is a Liar in speaking that which is true God knows every act of his own Will whether it be positive or permissive and therefore every effect of his Will We must needs ascribe to God a perfect Knowledg but a confus'd Knowledg cannot challenge that Title To know things only in a heap is unworthy of the Divine Perfection for if God knows his own ends in the Creation of things he knows distinctly the means whereby he will bring them to those ends for which he hath appointed them No Wise man intends an end without a knowledg of the means conducing to that end an ignorance then of any thing in the World which falls under the nature of a means to a Divine end and there is nothing in the World but doth would be inconsistent with the Perfection of God it would ascribe to him a blind Providence in the World As there can be nothing imperfect in his Being and Essence so there can be nothing imperfect in his Understanding and Knowledg and therefore not a confus'd Knowledg which is an Imperfection Darkness and Light are both alike to him Psal 139.12 he sees distinctly into the one as well as the other what is Darkness to us is not so to him Proposition 5. God knows all things infallibly His Understanding is infinite in regard of certainty every Tittle of what he knows is as far from failing as what he speaks our Saviour affirms the one Math. 5.18 and there is the same reason of the certainty of one as well as the other his Essence is the measure of his Knowledg whence it is as impossible that God should be mistaken in the knowledg of the least
by Violent Persecutions till she was establish'd in the Faith He would not expose her to so great Combats while she was weak and feeble but gave her time to fortifie her self to be render'd more capable of bearing up under them He stifled all the motions of Passion the Idolaters might have for their Superstition till Religion was in such a condition as rather to be increased and purified than extinguish'd by Opposition Paul was sâ—cured from Neroes Chains and the Nets of his Enemies till he had broke off the Chain of the Devil from many Cities of the Gentiles and catched them by the Net of the Gospel out of the Sea of the World Thus the Wisdom of God is seen in the Seasons of Judgments and Afflictions 3. It is apparent in the gracious issue of Afflictions and Penal Evils It is a part of Wisdom to bring Good out of Evil of Punishment as well as to bring Good out of Sin The Church never was so like to Heaven as when it was most Persecuted by Hell The Storms often cleans'd it and the Lance often made it more healthful Jobs Integrity had not been so clear nor his Patience so illustrious had not the Devil been permitted to afflict him God by his Wisdom out-wits Satan when he by his Temptations intends to pollute us and buffet us God orders it to purifie us he often brings the clearest light out of the thickest darkness makes Poysons to become Medicines †Turretin Serm. p. 53. Death it self the greatest Punishment in this Life and the entrance into Hell in its own Nature he hath by his Wise contrivance made to his People the Gate of Heaven and the passage into Immortality Penal Evils in a Nation often end in in a publick Advantage Troubles and Wars among a People are many times not destroying but Medicinal and cure them of that Degeneracy Luxury and Effeminateness they contracted by a long Peace 4. This Wisdom is evident in the various Ends which God brings about by Afflictions The attainment of various Ends by one and the same Means is the fruit of the Agents Prudence By the same Affliction the Wise God corrects sometimes for some base Affection excites some sleepy Grace drives out some lurking Corruption refines the Soul and ruines the Lust discovers the greatness of a Crime the Vanity of the Creature and the Sufficiency in himself The Jews bind Paul and by the Judge he is sent to Rome whiâ— his Mouth is stopt in Judea 't is open'd in one of the greatest Cities of the World and his Enemies unwittingly contribute to the increase of the knowledge of Christ by those Chains in that City ‖ Acts 28.31 that triumphed over the Earth And his afflictive Bonds added Courage and Resolution to others Phil. 1.14 Many waxing confident by my Bonds which could not in their own Nature produce such an effect but by the order and contrivance of Divine Wisdom In their own nature they would rather make them disgust the Doctrine he suffered for and cool their Zeal in the propagating of it for fear of the same disgrace and hardship they saw him suffer * Daille sur Philip. Part 1. pag. 116 117. But the Wisdom of God changed the nature of these Fetters and conducted them to the glory of his Name the encouragement of others the increase of the Gospel and the comfort of the Apostle himself Phil. 1.12 13 18. The Sufferings of Paul at Rome confirm'd the Philippians a People at a distance from thence in the Doctrine they had already received at his hands Thus God makes Sufferings sometimes which appear like Judgments to be like the Viper on Pauls hand Acts 28.6 a means to clear up Innocence and procure favour to the Doctrine among those Barbarians How often hath he multiplied the Church by Death and Massacres and increased it by those means used to annihilate it 5. The Divine Wisdom is apparent in the Deliverances he affords to other parts of the World as well as to his Church There are delicate composures curious threds in his Webs and he works them like an Artificer A goodness wrought for them curiously wrought Psal 31.19 1. In making the Creatures subservient in their Natural order to his gracious Ends and Purposes He orders things in such a manner as not to be necessitated to put forth an extraordinary Power in things which some part of the Creation might accomplish Miraculous productions would speak his Power but the ordering the Natural course of things to occasion such effects they were never intended for is one part of the glory of his Wisdom And that his Wisdom may be seen in the course of Nature he conducts the Motions of Creatures and acts them in their own strength and doth that by various windings and turnings of them which he might do in an instant by his Power in a Supernatural way Indeed sometimes he hath made Invasions on Nature and suspended the Order of their Natural Laws for a season to shew himself the Absolute Lord and Governour of Nature Yet if frequent Alterations of this nature were made they would impede the knowledge of the Nature of things and be some bar to the discovery and glory of his Wisdom which is best seen by moving the wheels of Inferiour Creatures in an exact regularity to his own Ends. He might when his little Church in Jacobs Family was like to starve in Canaan have for their preservation turn'd the Stones of the Country into Bread but he sends them down to Egypt to procure Corn that a way might be opened for their removal into that Country the Truth of his Prediction in their Captivity accomplish'd and a way made after the declaration of his great Name Jehovah both in the fidelity of his Word and the greatness of his Power in their Deliverance from that Furnace of Affliction He might have struck Goliah the Captain of the Philistines Army with a Thunderbolt from Heaven when he Blasphemed his Name and scar'd his People but he useth the Natural strength of a Stone and the Artificial motion of a Sling by the Arm of David to confront the Giant and thereby to free Judea from the ravage of a potent Enemey He might have delivered the Jews from Babylon by as strange Miracles as he used in their Deliverance from Egypt He might have plagu'd their Enemies gather'd his People into a Body and protected them by the bulwark of a Cloud and a Pillar of Fire against the Assaults of their Enemies But he uses the differences between the Persians and those of Babylon to accomplish his Ends. How sometimes hath the veering about of the Wind on a sudden been the loss of a Navy when it hath been upon the point of Victory and driven back the Destruction upon those which intended it for others And the accidental stumbling or the Natural fierceness of a Horse flung down a General in the midst of a Battle where he hath lost his life
incourage our Obedience as to illustrate his Glory We cannot conceive â—hat could be done greater for the salvation of our Souls and consequently what could have been done more to enforce our observance We have a Redeemer as man to copy it to us and as God to perfect us in it It would make the heart of any to tremble to wound him that hath provided such a salve for our Sores and to make Grace a warrant for Rebellion Motives capable to form Rocks into a flexibleness Thus is the Wisdom of God seen in giving us a ground of the surest confidence and furnishing us with incentives to the greatest Obedience by the horrors of wrath death and sufferings of our Saviour 8. The Wisdom of God is apparent in the Condition he hath settled for the enjoying the fruits of Redemption and this is faith a wise and reasonable Condition And the concomitants of it 1. In that it is suted to mans lapsed state and Gods Glory Innocence is not required here that had been a Condition impossible in its own nature after the Fall The rejecting of Mercy is now only condemning where mercy is proposed Had the Condition of Perfection in Works been required it had rather been a condemnation than redemption Works are not demanded whereby the Creature might ascribe any thing to himself but a Condition which continues in man a sense of his Apostacy abates all aspiring Pride and makes the reward of Grace not of Debt A Condition whereby Mercy is owned and the Creature emptied Flesh silenc'd in the Dust and God set upon his Throne of Grace and Authority The Creature brought to the lowest debasement and Divine Glory raised to the highest pitch The Creature is brought to acknowledge Mercy and seal to Justice to own the Holiness of God in the hatred of sin the Justice of God in the Punishment of sin and the Mercy of God in the pardoning of sin A condition that despoils Nature of all its pretended excellency Beats down the glory of man at the foot of God 1 Cor. 1.29.31 It subjects the Reason and Will of man to the Wisdom and Authority of God it brings the Creature to an unreserved submission and intire resignation God is made the Soveraign Cause of all the Creature continued in his emptiness and reduced to a greater dependance upon God than by a Creation depending upon him for a constant influx for an intire happiness A Condition that renders God glorious in the Creature and the fallen creature happy in God God glorious in his Condescension to Man and Man happy in his emptiness before God Faith is made the Condition of mans recovery that the lofty looks of man might be humbled and the haughtiness of man be pulled down Isa 2.11 that every towring imagination might be levelled 2. Cor. 10.5 Man must have all from without doors he must not live upon himself but upon anothers allowance He must stand to the provision of God and be a perpetual Sutor at his Gates 2. A Condition opposite to that which was the cause of the Fall We fell from God an unbelief of the Threatning he recovers us by a belief of the Promise by Unbelief we laid the Foundation of Gods dishonour by Faith therefore God exalts the Glory of his free Grace We lost our selves by a desire of self dependence and our return is ordered by a way of self-emptiness 'T is reasonable we should be restored in a way contrary to that whereby we fell We sinned by a refusal of cleaving to God t is a part of divine Wisdom to restore us in a denial of our own righteousness and strength * Laud against Fisher p. 5. Man having sinned by Pride the Wisdom of God humbles him saith one at the very root of the Tree of Knowledge and makes him deny his own Vnderstanding and submit to Faith or else for ever to lose his desired Felicity 3. It is a Condition suted to the Common Sentiment and custome of the World There is more of belief than reason in the World All Instructers and Masters in Sciences and Arts require first a belief in their Disciples and a resignation of their Understandings and Wills to them And it is the Wisdom of God to require that of man which his own reason makes him submit to another which is his fellow Creature He therefore that quarrels with the Condition of Faith must quarrel with all the World since Belief is the beginning of all Knowledge †Bradward p. 28. yea and most of the Knowledge in the World may rather come under the title of Belief than of Knowledge For what we think we know this day we may find from others such Arguments as may stagger our Knowledge and make us doubt of that we thought our selves certain of before Nay sometimes we change our Opinions our Selves without anâ— Instructor and see a reason to entertain an Opinion quite contrary to what we had before And if we found a general Judgment of others â—o vote against what we think we know it would make us give the less Credit to our selves and our own Sentiments All Knowledge in the World is only a belief depending upon the testimony or arguings of others for indeed it may be said of all men as in Job 8. Job 9. We are but of yesterday and know nothing Since therefore Belief is so universal a thing in the World the Wisdom of God requires that of us which every man must count reasonable or render himself utterly ignorant of any thing It is a Condition that is common to all Religions All Religions are Founded upon a Belief Unless men did believe future things they would not hope nor fear A Belief and Resignation was required in all the Idolatries in the World so that God requires nothing but what a universal custome of the World gives its suffrage to the reasonableness of Indeed justifying Faith is not suted to the Sentiments of men but that Faith which must precede iustifying a beliefe of the Doctrine though not comprehended by Reason is common to the custome of the World * Jâ—neway p. 88. 'T is no less madness not to submit our Reason to Faith than not to regulate our Fancies by Reason 4. This Condition of Faith and Repentances is suted to the Conscience of Men. The Law of Nature teaches us thâ—t we are bound to believe every revelation from God when it is made known to us And not only to assent to it as true but embrace it as good This Nature dictates that we are as much obligeâ— to believe God because of his Truth as to love him because of his Goodness Every mans Reason tells him he cannot obey a Precept nor depend upon a Promise unless he believes both the one and the other No man's Conscience but will inform him upon hearing the revelation of God concerning his excellent contrivance of Redemption and the way to Enjoy it that it is very reasonable he should strip off
Sun and not that Worldly wisdom which is like a Shadow For that Wisdom whose effects are not so outwardly glorious but inwardly sweet seek it from him and seek it in his Word that is the Transcript of Divine Wisdom through his Precepts understanding is to be had* †Psal 119 1â—4 As the wisdom of Men appears in their Laws so doth the Wisdom of God in his Statutes By this means we arrive to a Heavenly sagacity If these be rejected what Wisdom can be in us a dream and conceit only Jer. 8. They have rejected the word of the Lord and what Wisdom is in them Who knows how to order any concerns as he ought or any one faculty of his Soul Therefore desire Gods direction in outward concerns in personal family in Private and Publick He hath not only a Wisdom for our Salvation but for our outward Direction He doth not only guide us in the one and leave Satan to manage us in the other Those that go with Saul to a Witch of Endor go to Hell for craft and prefer the Wisdom of the hostile Serpent before the holy Counsel of a Faithful Creator If you want health in your Body you advise with a Phisitian if direction for your Estate you resort to a Lawyer If passage for a voyage you address to a Pilot why not much more your selves your all to a Wise God As Pliny said concerning a Wise man Oh sir how many Cato's are there in that wise Person how much more Wisdom than men or Angels possess is infinitely centered in the Wise God 5. Submit to the Wisdom of God in all cases What else was inculcated in the first Precept forbidding man to eat of the Fruit of the tree of Knowledge of good and evil but that he should take heed of the swelling of his mind against the Wisdom of God T is a Wisdom Incomprehensible to flesh and blood We should adore it in our minds and resign up our selves to it in our practise How unreasonable are repinings against God whereby a Creatures Ignorance endites and judges a Creators Prudence Were God weak in Wisdom and only mighty in Power we might suspect his Conduct Power without Wisdom and goodness is an unruly and ruinous thing in the World But God being Infinite in one as well as the other we have no reason to be jealous of him and repine against his methods Why should we quarrel with him that we are not as high or as wealthy as others that we have not presently the Mercy we want If he be Wise we ought to stay his time and wait his leasure because he is a God of Judgment Esa 30.18 Presume not to shorten the time which his discretion hath fixed t is a folly to think to do it By impatience we cannot hasten relief we alienate him from us by debasing him to stand at our bar disturb our selves lose the comfort of our lives and the sweetness of his mercy Submission to God we are in no case exempted from because there is no case wherein God doth not direct all the acts of his Will by Counsel Whatsoever is drawn by a strait rule must be right and strait the rule that is right in it self is the measure of the straitness of every thing else Whatsoever is wrought in the World by God must be Wise Good Righteous because God is essentially Wisdom Goodness and Righteousness Submit to God 1. in his Revelations 1. Measure them Not by Reason The truths of the gospel must be received with a self emptiness and annnihilation of the Creature If our Reason seems to lift up itself against Revelation because it finds no testimony for it in its own light Consider how Crazy it is in natural and obvious things and therefore sure it is not strong enough to enter into the depths of Divine Wisdom The Wisdom of God in the Gospel is too great an Ocean to be contained or laved out by a Cockleshell It were not infinite if it were not beyond our finite reach our Reason must as well stoop to his Wisdom as our Wills to his Soveraignty How great a vanity is it for a Glow-worm to boast that it is as full of light as the Sun in the firmament for reason to leave its proper sphear is to fall into confusion and thicken its own darkness We should settle our selves in the belief of the Scripture and confirm our selves by a meditation on those many undeniable arguments for its divine authority The fulfilling of its predictions the antiquity of the writing the holiness of the precepts the heavenliness of the Doctrine the glorious effects it hath produced and doth yet produce different from human methods of success and submit our reason to the voice of so high a Majesty 2. Not to be too curiously inquisitive into what is not Revealed There is something hid in whatsoever is Revealed We know the son of God was begotten from eternity but how he was begotten we are ignorant We know there is a Union of the Divine Nature wi h the Human and that the Fulness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily but the manner of its inhabitation we are in a great part ignorant of We know God hath chosen some and refused others and that he did it with Counsel but the reason why he chose this man and not that we know not we can referr it to nothing but Gods Soveraign pleasure 'T is revealed that there will be a day wherein God shall judge the World but the particular time is not reveal d. We know that God Created the World in Time but why he did not create the World millions of years before we are ignorant of and our Reasons would be be wildred in their too much curiosity If we ask why he did not create it before we may as well ask why he did create it then And may not the same qâ—â—â—â—ion be ask'd if the World had been Created millions of years before it was That he Created in it six days and not in an instant is revealed but why he did not do it in a moment since we are sure he was able to do it is not revealed Are the reasons of a wise mans proceedings hid from us and shall we presume to dive into the reason of the proceedings of an only wise God which he hath Judged not expedient to discover to us Some sparks of his Wisdom he hath caused to issue out to exercise and delight our Minds others he keeps within the center of his own breast We must not go about to unlock his Cabinet As we cannot reach to the utmost lines of his Power so we cannot grasp the intimate reasons of his Wisdom We must still remember that which is Finite can never be able to comprehend the Reasons Motives and Methods of that which is Infinite It doth not become us to be resty because God hath not admitted us into the Debates of Eternity We are as little to be curious at
what God hath hid as to be careless of what God hath manifested Too great an inquisitiveness beyond our line is as much a provoking arrogance as a blockish negligence of what is revealed is a slighting ingratitude 2. Submit to God in his Precepts and Methods Since they are the results of Infinite Wisdom disputes against them are not tolerable What orders are given out by Infallible Wisdom are to be entertained with respect and reverence though the reason of them be not visible to our purblind minds Shall God have less respect from us than Earthly Princes whose Laws we observe without being able to pierce into the exact reason of them all Since we know he hath not a Will without an Understanding our observance of him must be without Repining we must not think to mend our Creators Laws and presume to judg and condemn his Righteous Statutes If the flesh rise up in opposition we must cross its motions and Silence its Murmurings his Will should be an acceptable Will to us because it is a wise Will in itself God hath no need to impose upon us and deceive us He hath just and righteous waies to attain his glory and his Creatures good To deceive us would be to dishonour himself and contradict his own nature He cannot impose false injurious Precepts or unavailable to his subjects happiness not false because of his Truth not injurious because of his Goodness not vain because of his Wisdom Submit therefore to him in his Precepts and in his Methods too The honour of his Wisdom and the interest of our Happiness calls for it Had Noah disputed with God about building an Ark and listned to the scoffs of the sensless World he had perished under the same fate and lost the honour of a Preacher and worker of righteousness Had not the Israelites been their own enemies if they had been permitted to be their own guides and returned to the Egyptian bondage and furnaces instead of a liberty and earthly felicity in Canaan Had our Saviour gratified the Jews by descending from the Cross and freeing himself from the power of his Adversaries he might have had that Faith from them which they promised him but It had been a faith to no purpose because without ground they might have believed him to be the Son of God but he could not have been the Saviour of the World His death the great ground and object of Faith had been unaccomplished they had believed a God pardoning without a content to his Iustice and such a Faith could not have rescued them from falling into eternal Misery The Precepts and Methods of Divine Wisdom must be submitted to 3. Submit to God in all Crosses and Revolutions Infinite Wisdom cannot err in any of his paths or step the least hairs bredth from the way of Righteousness There is the Understanding of God in every motion an Eye in every Wheel the Wheel that goes over us and crusheth us We are led by Fancy more than Reason We know no more what we ask or what is fit for us than the Mother of Zebedees children did when she Petitioned Christ for her sons advancement when he came into his Temporal Kingdom * Mat. 20.22 The things we desire might pleasure our Fancy or Appetite but impair our health One man complains for want of Children but knows not whither they may prove Comforts or Crosses Another for want of Health but knows not whither the health of his Body may not prove the disease of his Soul We migh◠lose in Heavenly things if we possess in Earthly things what we long for God in regard of his infinite Wisdom is fitter to carve out a condition than we our selves our Shallow reason and self-love would wish for those things that are injurious to God to our selves to the World but God alwaies chooses what is best for his Glory and what is best for his Creatures either in regard of themselves or as they stand in relation to him or to others as parts of the World We are in danger from our self-love in no danger in complying with Gods Wisdom When Rachel would dye if she had no Children she had Children but Death with one of them †Gen. 30.1 Good men may conclude that whatsoever is done by God in them or with them is best and fittest for them because by the Covenant which makes over God to them as their God the conduct of his Wisdom is assured to them as well as any other Attribute And therefore as God in every transaction appears as their God so he appears as their wise Director and by this Wisdom he extracts good out of evill makes the affliction which destroys our outward Comforts consume our inward Defilements And the waves which threatned to swallow up the vessel to cast it upon the shore And when he hath occasion to manifest his Anger against his People his Wisdom directs his Wrath. In Judgment he hath a work to do upon Zion and when that work is done he punishes the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria ‖ Isa 10 1◠As in the answers of Prayer he doth give oftentimes above what we ask or think Eph. 3.20 so in outward concerns he doth above what we can expect or by our short-sightedness conclude will be done Let us therefore in all things frame our minds to the Divine Wisdom and say with the Psalmist Psal 47.4 The Lord shall chuse our inheritance and condition for us 6. Exhortation Censure not God in any of his waies Can we Understand the full scope of Divine Wisdom in Creation which is perfected before our Eyes Can we by a rational knowledge walk over the whole Surface of the Earth and wade through the Sea Can we Understand the Nature of the Heavens Are all or most or the thousandth part of the particles of Divine Skil known by us yea or any of them throughly known How can we then Understand his deeper methods in things that are but of yesterday that we have not had a time to View We should not be too quick or too rash in our Judgments of him The best that we attain to is but feeble conjectures at the designs of God As there is something hid in whatsoever is revealed in his Word so there is some thing inaccessible to us in his Works as well as in his Nature and Majesty In our Saviours act in washing his Disciples feet he checkt Peters contradiction John 13.7 What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter God were not infinitely wise if the reason of all his acts were obvious to our Shallowness He is no profound States-man whose inward intention can be sounded by vulgar Heads at the first act he starts in his designed method The wise God is in this like wisemen that have not breasts like glasses of Christal to discover all that they intend There are secrets of Wisdom above our reach * Iob 11.6 nay when
Wisdom which contriv'd them and his own Will which resolv'd them not to do that which he had decreed to do This would be a diffidence in his Wisdom and a change of his Will The impossibility of them is no result of a want of Power no mark of an Imperfection of Feebleness and Impotence but the Perfection of Immutability and Unchangeableness Thus have I endeavoured to give you a right Notion of this excellent Attribute of the Power of God in as plain terms as I could which may serve us for a matter of Meditation Admiration Fear of him Trust in him which are the proper Uses we should make of this Doctrine of Divine Power The want of a right understanding of this Doctrine of the Divine Power hath caused many to run into mighty Absurdities I have therefore taken the more pains to explain it II. The second thing I proposed is the Reasons to prove God to be Omipotent The Scripture describes God by this Attribute of Power Psal 115.3 He hath done whatsoever he pleased It sometimes sets forth his Power in a way of derision of those that seem to doubt of it When Sarah doubted of his ability to give her a Child in her old Age Gen. 18.14 Is any thing too hard for the Lord They deserve to be scoff't that will despoil God of his strength and measure him by their shallow Models And when Moses uttered something of unbelief of this Attribute as if God were not able to feed 600000 Israelites besides Women and Children which he aggravates by a kind of imperious scoff Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them to suffice them Or shall all the fish of the Sea be gathered together for them c. Numb 11.23 God takes him up short vers 23. Is the Lords hand waxed short What can any weakness seize upon my Hand Can I not draw out of my own Treasures what is needful for a supply The Hand of God is not at one time strong and another time feeble Hence it is that we read of the Hand and Arm of God an out-stretched Arm because the strength of a man is exerted by his Hand and Arm the Power of God is called the Arm of his Power and the right hand of his Strength Sometimes according to the different manifestation of it it is exprest by Finger when a less power is evidenc'd by Hand when something greater by Arm when more mighty than the former Since God is Eternal without limits of time he is also Almighty without limits of strength As he cannot be said to be more in Being now than he was before so he is neither more nor less in strength than he was before As he cannot cease to be so he cannot cease to be Powerful because he is Eternal His Eternity and Power are link't together as equally demonstrable * Rom. 1.20 God is called the God of Gods El Elohim †Dan. 11.36 the Mighty of Mighties whence all mighty persons have their activity and vigor He is called the Lord of Hosts as being the Creator and Conductor of the heavenly Militia Reason 1. The Power that is in Creatures demonstrates a greater and an unconceivable Power in God Nothing in the World is without a power of Activity according to its Nature No Creature but can act something The Sun warms and enlightens every thing It sends its Influences upon the Earth into the bowels of the Earth into the depths of the Sea All Generations owe themselves to its instrumental Vertue How powerful is a small Seed to rise into a mighty Tree with a lofty top and extensive branches and send forth other Seeds which can still multiply into numberless Plants How wonderful is the Power of the Creator who hath endowed so small a Creature as a Seed with so fruitful an Activity Yet this is but the vertue of a limited nature God is both the producing and preserving cause of all the vertue in any Creature in every Creature The power of every Creature belongs to him as the Fountain and is truly his Power in the Creature As he is the first Being he is the original of all Being as he is the first Good he is the Spring of all Goodness as he is the first Truth he is the source of all Truth so as he is the first Power he is the Fountain of all Power 1. He therefore that communicates to the Creature what power it hath contains eminently much more power in himself Psal 94.10 He that teaches man knowledge shall not he know So he that gives created Beings power shall not he be Powerful The first Being must have as much Power as he hath given to others He could not transfer that upon another which he did not transcendently possess himself The sole cause of created Power cannot be destitute of any Power in himself We see that the power of one Creature transcends the power of another Beasts can do the things that Plants cannot do besides the power of growth they have a power of sense and progressive motion Men can do more than Beasts they have rational Souls to measure the Earth and Heavens and to be repositories of multitudes of things Notions and Conclusions We may well imagine Angels to be far superior to man The power of the Creator must far surmount the power of the Creature and must needs be Infinite for if it be limited it is limited by himself or by some other if by some other he is no longer a Creator but a Creature for that which limits him in his Nature did communicate that Nature to him not by himself for he would not deny himself any necessary Perfection We must still conclude a reserve of Power in him that he that made these can make many more of the same kind 2. All the power which is distinct in the Creatures must be united in God One Creature hath a strength to do this another to do that every Creature is as a Cistern filled with a particular and limited power according to the capacity of its nature from this Fountain all are distinct Streams from God But the strength of every Creature though distinct in the rank of Creatures is united in God the Center whence those lines were drawn the Fountain whence those Streams were deriv'd If the power of one Creature be admirable as the power of an Angel which the ‖ Psal 103.20 Psalmist saith excelleth in strength how much greater must the power of a Legion of Angels be How unconceivably superior the power of all those numbers of spiritual Natures which are the excellent Works of God Now if all this particular power which is in every Angel distinct were compacted in one Angel how would it exceed our Understanding and be above our power to form a distinct Conception of it What is thus divided in every Angel must be thought united in the Creator of Angels and far more excellent in him Every thing is in a more noble
first of Genesis in the whole Chapter unto the finishing the Work in six Days God is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is a Name of Power and that Thirty two times in that Chapter but after the the finishing the six days Work he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which according to their notion is a Name of Goodness and Kindness * Mercer 9.7 col 1 2. His Power is first visible in framing the World before his Goodness is visible in the sustaining and preserving it It was by this Name of Power and Almighty that he was known in the first Ages of the World not by his Name Jehovah Exod. 6.3 And I appeared unto Abraham Isaack and Jacob by the name of God Almighty but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them Not but that they were acquainted with the Name but did not experience the intent of the Name which signified his Truth in the performance of his Promises They knew him by that name as promising but they knew him not by that Name as performing He would be known by his Name Jehovah True to his Word when he was about to effect the Deliverance from Egypt a Type of the Eternal Redemption wherein the Truth of God in performing of his first Promise is gloriously magnified And hence it is that God is called Almighty more in the Book of Job than in all the Scripture besides I think about Thirty two times and Jehovah but once which is Job 12.9 unless in Job 38. when God is introduc'd speaking himself which is an Argument of Jobs living before the Deliverance from Egypt when God was known more by his Works of Creation than by the performance of his Promises before the Name Jehovah was formally publish'd Indeed this Attribute of his Eternal Power is the first thing visible and intelligible upon the first glance of the eye upon the Creatures †Rom. 1.20 Bring a man out of the Cave where he hath been Nurst without seeing any thing out of the confines of it and let him lift up his Eyes to the Heavens and take a prospect of that glorious body the Sun then cast them down to the Earth and behold the Surface of it with its Green cloathing the first Notion which will start up in his Mind from that spring of Wonders is that of Power which he will at first adore with a Religious astonishment The Wisdom of God in them is not so presently apparent till after a more exquisite consideration of his Works and Knowledge of the properties of their natures the conveniency of their situations and the usefulness of their functions and the order wherein they are linkt together for the good of the Universe 2. By this Creative Power God is often distinguisht from all the Idols and False gods in the World And by this Title he sets forth himself when he would act any great and wonderful Work in the World He is great above all gods for he hath done whatsoever he pleased in Heaven and in Earth Psal 135.5 6. Upon this is founded all the Worship he challengeth in the World as his peculiar glory Revel 4.11 Thou art worthy Oh Lord to receive glory honour and power for thou hast Created all things And Rev. 10.6 I have made the Earth and created Man upon it I even my hands have stretched out the Heavens and all their Host have I commanded Isai 45.12 What is the issue Verse 16. They shall be ashamed and confounded all of them that are makers of Idols And the weakness of Idols is exprest by this Title The gods that have not made the Heavens and the Earth Jer. 10.11 The portion of Jacob is not like them for he is the former of all things Verse 16. What is not that God able to do that hath created so great a World How doth the Power of God appear in Creation 1. In making the World of Nothing When we say the World was made of Nothing we mean that there was no Matter existent for God to work upon but what he rais'd himself in the first act of Creation In this regard the Power of God in Creation surmounts his Power in Providence Creation supposeth nothing Providence supposeth something in Being Creation intimates a Creature making Providence speaks a thing already made and capable of Government and in Government God uses second Causes to bring about his Purposes 1. The World was made of nothing The Earth which is describ'd as the first Matter without any form or ornament without any distinction or figures was of Gods forming in the Bulk before he did adorn it with his Pensil * Gen. 1.1 2. †Suarez Vol. 3. p. 33. God in the beginning creating the Heaven and the Earth includes two things First That those were created in the beginning of time and before all other things Secondly That God begun the Creation of the World from those things Therefore before the Heavens and the Earth there was nothing absolutely created and therefore no Matter in being before an act of Creation past upon it It could not be Eternal because nothing can be Eternal but God it must therefore have a beginning If it had a beginning from it self then it was before it was If it acted in the making it self before it was made then it had a being before it had a being for that which is nothing can act nothing The action of any thing supposeth the existence of the thing which acts It being made it was not before it was made for to be made is to be brought into being It was made then by another and that Maker is God 'T is necessary that the first Original of things was from nothing When we see one thing to arise from another we must suppose an Original of the first of each kind As when we see a Tree spring up from a Seed we know that Seed came out of the bowels of another Tree it had a Parent and it had a Matter we must come to some First or else we run into an endless Maze We must come to some first Tree some first Seed that had no cause of the same kind no matter of it but was meer nothing ‖ Suarez Vol. 3. p. 6. Creation doth suppose a production â—â—â—m nothing because if you suppose a thing without any real or actual Existence 't is not capable of any other production then from nothing Nothing must be supposed before the World or we must suppose it Eternal and that is to deny it to be a Creature and make it God The Creation of spiritual Substances such as Angels and Souls evince this those things that are purely spiritual and consist not of matter cannot pretend to any Original from Matter and therefore they rose up from nothing If spiritual things arose from nothing much more may corporeal because they are of a lower nature than spiritual And he that can create a higher Nature of nothing can create an
to make it good is to pretend to have an Arm like God and be able to thunder with a Voice equal or superior to him as the expression is Job 40.9 All Security in Sin is of this strain When Men are not concerned at Divine Threatnings nor stagger'd in their sinful Race they intimate that the Declarations of Divine Power are but Vain-glorious boastings that God is not so strong and able as he reports himself to be and therefore they will venture it and dare him to try whether the strength of his Arm be as forcible as the Words of his Mouth are terrible in his Threats this is to believe themselves Creators not Creatures We magnifie Gods Power in our wants and debase it in our Rebellions as though Omnipotence were only able to supply our Necessities and unable to revenge the Injuries we offer him 2. This Power is Contemn'd in Distrust of God All Distrust is founded in a doubting of his Truth as if he would not be as good as his Word or of his Omniscience as if he had not a Memory to retain his Word or of his Power as if He could not be as great as his Word We measure the Infinite Power of God by the short Line of our Understandings as if Infinite strength were bounded within the narrow compass of our Finite Reason as if He could do no more than we were able to do How soon did those Israelites lose the Remembrance of Gods Outstretched Arm when they utter'd that Atheistical Speech Psal 78.9 Can God furnish a Table in the Wilderness As if he that turned the Dust of Egypt into Lice for the punishment of their Oppressors could not turn the Dust of the Wilderness into Corn for the support of their Bodies As if he that had Miraraculously rebuked the Red Sea for their Safety could not provide Bread for their Nourishment Though they had seen the Egyptians with lost Lives in the Morning in the same place where Their Lives had been miraculously preserved in the Evening yet They disgrace that Experimented Power by opposing to it the Stature of the Anakims the Strength of their Cities and the height of their Walls Numb 13.32 And Numb 14.3 Wherefore hath the Lord brought us into this Land to fall by the Sword As though the Giants of Canaan were too strong for Him for whom they had seen the Armies of Egypt too weak How did they contract the Almightiness of God into the littleness of a Little man as if he must needs sink under the Sword of a Canaanite This Distrust must arise either from a flat Atheism a denial of the Being of God or his Government of the World or unworthy Conceits of a Weakness in him that he had made Creatures too hard for himself that He were not strong enough to grapple with those mighty Anakims and give them the possession of Canaan against so great a Force Distrust of him implies either that He was alway destitute of Power or that his Power is exhausted by his former Works or that it is limited and near a Period 'T is to deny him to be the Creator that moulded Heaven and Earth Why should we by Distrust put a slight upon that Power which he hath so often exprest and which in the minutest Works of his hands surmount the force of the sharpest Understanding 3. 'T is Contemn'd in too great a fear of Man which ariseth from a distrust of Divine Power Fear of Man is a crediting the Might of Man with a disrepute of the Arm of God it takes away the glory of his Might and renders the Creature stronger than God and God more feeble than a Mortal as if the Arm of Man were a Rod of Iron and the Arm of God a brittle Reed How often do Men tremble at the Threatnings and Hectorings of Ruffians yet will stand as Stakes against the Precepts and Threatnings of God as though he had less Power to preserve us than Enemies had to destroy With what disdain doth God speak to Men infected with this humor Isai 51.12 13. Who art thou that art afraid of a Man that shall die and of the Son of Man that shall be made as grass and forgettest the Lord thy Maker that hath stretched forth the Heavens and laid the foundation of the Earth and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the Oppressor To fear Man that is as Grass that cannot think a Thought without a Divine concourse that cannot Breath but by a Divine Power nor touch a Hair without License first granted from Heaven This is a forgetfulness and consequently a slight of that Infinite Power which hath been manifested in founding the Earth and garnishing the Heavens All Fear of Man in the way of our Duty doth in some sort thrust out the Remembrance and discredit the great Actions of the Creator Would not a Mighty Prince think it a Disparagement to him if his Servant should decline his Command for fear of one of his Subjects And hath not the Great God just cause to think himself disgrac'd by us when we deny him Obedience for fear of a Creature As though he had but an Infant ability too feeble to bear us out in Duty and uncapable to ballance the strength of an Arm of Flesh 4. 'T is Contemn'd by trusting in our selves in Means in Man more than in God When in any Distress we will try every Creature-refuge before we have recourse to God and when we apply our selves to him we do it with such slight and perfunctory frames and with so much despondency as if we despair'd either of his Ability or Will to help us and implore him with cooler Affections than we sollicite Creatures Or when in a Disease we depend upon the virtue of the Medicine the ability of the Physician and reflect not upon that Power that endued the Medicine with that virtue and supports the quality in it and concurs to the operation of it When we depend upon the activity of the Means as if they power originally in themselves and not derivatively and do not eye the Power had of God animating and assisting them We cannot expect relief from any thing with a neglect of God but we render it in our thoughts more powerful than God We acknowledge a greater fulness in a shallow Stream than in an Eternal Spring we do in effect depose the True God and create to our selves a New one we assert by such a kind of acting the Creature if not superior yet equal with God and independent on him When we trust in our own strength without begging his Assistance or boast of our own strength without acknowledging his concurrence as the Assyrian By the strength of my hand have I done this I have put down the Inhabitants like a valiant Man Isai 10.13 'T is as if the Ax should boast it self against him that hews therewith and thinks it self more Mighty than the Arm that wields it verse 15. when we trust in
Encourage or Excite or Incline to sin How can he excite to that which when it is done he will be sure to condemn How can he be a Righteous Judge to sentence a sinner to Misery for a Crime acted by a secret Inspiration from himself Iniquity would deserve no reproof from him if he were any way positively the Author of it Were God the Author of it in us what is the reason our own Consciences accuse us for it and convince us of it that being God's Deputy would not accuse us of it if the Soveraign Power by which it acts did incline us to it How can he be thought to excite to that which he hath enacted such severe Laws to restrain or encline Man to that which he hath so dreadfully punished in his Son and which it is impossible but the excellency of his Nature must encline him eternally to hate We may sooner imagine that a pure Flame shall engender Cold and Darkness be the Off-spring of a Sun-beam as imagine such a thing as this What shall we say is there unrighteousness with God God forbid The Apostle execrates such a thought Rom. 9.14 6. God cannot act any Evil in or by himself If he cannot approve of sin in others nor excite any to iniquity which is less he cannot commit Evil himself which is greater What he cannot positively will in another can never be willed in himself he cannot do evil through Ignorance because of his Infinite Knowledge nor through Weakness because of his Infinite Power nor through Malice because of his Infinite Rectitude He cannot will any unjust thing because having an infinitely perfect Understanding he cannot judge that to be true which is false or that to be good which is evil his Will is regulated by his Wisdom If he could will any unjust and irrational thing his Will would be repugnant to his Understanding there would be a disagreement in God Will against Mind and Will against Wisdom He being the highest Reason the first Truth cannot do an unreasonable false defective Action 'T is not a defect in God that he cannot do Evil but a fulness and excellency of Power As it is not a weakness in the Light but the perfection of it that it is unable to produce Darkness God is the Father of Lights with whom is no variableness James 1.17 Nothing pleases him nothing is acted by him but what is beseeming the Infinite excellency of his own Nature The voluntary necessity whereby God cannot be unjust renders him a God blessed for ever He would hate himself as the chief Good if in any of his Actions he should disagree with his Goodness He cannot do any unworthy thing not because he wants an Infinite Power but because he is possessed of an Infinite Wisdom and adorn'd with an Infinite Purity and being infinitely pure cannot have the least mixture of impurity As if you can suppose Fire infinitely hot you cannot suppose it to have the least mixture of Coldness The better any thing is the more unable it is to do evil God being the only Goodness can as little be changed in his Goodness as in his Essence The Second thing 2. The next enquiry is The Proof that God is holy or the manifestation of it Purity is as requisite to the blessedness of God as to the Being of God As he could not be God without being blessed so he could not be blessed without being holy He is called by the title of blessed as well as by that of holy Mark 14.61 Art thou the Christ the Son of the Blessed Unrighteousness is a misery and turbulency in any Spirit wherein it is For it is a privation of an excellency which ought to be in every intellectual Being and what can follow upon the privation of an excellency but unquietness and grief the moth of Happiness An unrighteous man as an unrighteous man can never be blessed though he were in a local Heaven Had God the least Spot upon his Purity it would render him as miserable in the midst of his Infinite Sufficiency as Iniquity renders a man in the confluence of his earthly Enjoyments The Holiness and Felicity of God are inseparable in him The Apostle intimates that the Heathen made an attempt to sully his Blessedness when they would liken him to corruptible mutable impure man Rom. 1.23 25. They changed the Glory of the Incorruptible God into an Image made like to Corruptible Man And after he entitles God a God blessed for ever The Gospel is therefore called The glorious Gospel of the blessed God 1 Tim. 1.11 In regard of the holiness of the Gospel Precepts and in regard of the Declaration of the holiness of God in all the Streams and Branches wherein his Purity in which his Blessedness consists is as illustrious as any other Perfection of the Divine Being God hath highly manifested this Attribute in the state of Nature in the Legal Administration in the dispensation of the Gospel His Wisdom Goodness and Power are declared in Creation his Soveraign Authority in his Law his Grace and Mercy in the Gospel and his Righteousness in all Sutable to this threefold state may be that ternal Repetition of his Holiness in the Prophecy Isai 6.3 holy as Creator and Benefactor holy as Law-giver and Judge holy as Restorer and Redeemer 1. His holiness appears as he is Creator in framing man in a perfect Vprightness Angels as made by God could not be evil for God beheld his own Works with pleasure and could not have pronounced them all good had some been created pure and others impure Two Moral Contrarieties could not be good The Angels had a first estate wherein they were happy * Jude 6. and had they not left their own habitation and state they could not have been miserable But because the Scripture speaks only of the Creation of man we will consider that the Humane Nature was well strung and tun'd by God according to the Note of his own Holiness Eccl. 7.29 God hath made man upright He had declared his Power in other Creatures but would declare in his Rational Creature what he most valued in himself and therefore created him upright with a Wisdom which is the rectitude of the Mind with a Purity which is the rectitude of the Will and Affections He had declared a purity in other Creatures as much as they were capable of viz. in the exact tuning them to answer one another And that God who so well tun'd and compos'd other Creatures would not make Man a Jarring Instrument and place a crackt Creature to be Lord of the rest of his earthly Fabrick God being holy could not set his Seal upon any Rational Creature but the Impression would be like himself pure and holy also He could not be created with an Error in his Understanding that had been inconsistent with the Goodness of God to his Rational Creature if so the erronious motion of the Will which was to follow the dictates of the
God is then considered in a disposition contrary to this which can be nothing but his Righteousness If you that are unholy and have so much Corruption in you to render you cruel can bestow upon your Children the good things they want how much more shall God who is holy and hath nothing in him to check his mercifulness to his Creatures grant the Petitions of his Suppliants 'T was this Attribute edg'd the siduciary importunity of the Souls under the Altar for the revenging their blood unjustly shed upon the Earth Rev. 6.10 How long O Lord holy and true dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the Earth Let not thy holiness stand with folded Arms as careless of the eminent Sufferings of those that fear thee we implore thee by the holiness of thy Nature and the truth of thy Word 2. This renders him fit to be confided in for the comfort of our Souls in a broken condition The reviving the hearts of the spiritually afflicted is a part of the holiness of his Nature Isa 57.15 Thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity whose name is holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble He acknowledgeth himself the lofty One they might therefore fear he would not revive them but he is also the holy One and therefore he will refresh them he is not more lofty than he is holy besides the argument of the immutability of his Promise and the might of his Power here is the holiness of his Nature moving him to pity his drooping Creature His Promise is usher'd in with the name of power high and lofty One to bar their distrust of his strength and with a declaration of his holiness to check any despair of his Will There is no ground to think I should be false to my word or misemploy my Power since that cannot be because of the holiness of my Name and Nature 3. This renders him fit to be confided in for the maintenance of grace and protection of us against our spiritual Enemies What our Saviour thought an argument in Prayer we may well take as a ground of our confidence In the strength of this he puts up his sute when in his mediatory Capacity he intercedes for the preservation of his People John 17.11 Holy Father keep through thy own Name those that thou hast given me that they may be one as we are Holy Father not merciful Father or powerful or wise Father but holy and Verse 25. righteous Father Christ pleads that Attribute for the performance of God's Word which was laid to pawn when he past his word For it was by his Holiness that he swore That his seed should endure for ever and his Throne as the Sun before him †Psal 89.36 which is meant of the perpetuity of the Covenant which he made with Christ and is also meant of the preservation of the mystical Seed of David and the perpetuating his loving kindness to them ‖ Vers 32 33. Grace is an Image of God's holiness and therefore the holiness of God is most proper to be used as an Argument to interest and engage him in the preservation of it In the midst of Church provocations he will not utterly extinguish because he is the holy One in the midst of her * Hos 11.9 Nor in the midst of Judgments will he condemn his people to death because he is their holy one †Hab. 1.12 but their Enemies shall be ordained for Judgment and established for Correction One Prophet assures them in the Name of the Lord upon the strength of this Perfection and the other upon the same ground is confident of the protection of the Church because of Gods holiness engag'd in an inviolable Covenant 3. Comfort Since holiness is a glorious Perfection of the Nature of God he will certainly value every holy Soul 'T is of a greater value with him than the Souls of all men in the World that are destitute of it Wicked men are the worst of vilenesses meer dross and dunghil ‖ Psal 12.8 The vilest mâ—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Purity then which is contrary to wickedness must be the most precious thing in his esteem he must needs love that quality which he is most pleas'd with in himself as a father looks with most delight upon the child which is possess'd with those dispositions he most values in his own nature His Countenance doth behold the upright Ps 11.7 He looks upon them with a full and open Face of favour with a countenance clear unmaskt and smiling with a Face full of delight Heaven it self is not such a pleasing Object to him as the Image of his own increated holiness in the created holiness of Men and Angels As a man esteems that most which is most like him of his own Generation more than a piece of Art which is meerly the product of his wit or strength And he must love holiness in the Creature he would not else love his own Image and consequently would undervalue himself He despiseth the Image the wicked bears * Psal 73.20 but he cannot disesteem his own stamp on the godly he cannot but delight in his own work his choice work the Master-piece of all his works the new Creation of things that which is next to himself as being a Divine Nature like himself †2 Pet. 1.4 When he overlooks strength parts knowledge he cannot overlook this He sets apart him that is godly for himself Psal 4.3 as a peculiar Object to take pleasure in he reserves such for his own complacency when he leaves the rest of the World to the Devils power he is choice of them above all his other works and will not let any have so great a propriety in them as himself If it be so dear to him here in its imperfect and mixt condition that he appropriates it as a peculiar Object for his own delight how much more will the unspotted purity of glorified Saints be infinitely pleasing to him So that he will take less pleasure in the material Heavens than in such a Soul Sin only is detestable to God and when this is done away the Soul becomes as lovely in his account as before it was loathsome 4. 'T is comfort upon this account That God will perfect holiness in every upright Soul We many times distrust God and despond in our selves because of the infinite holiness of the Divine Nature and the dunghil Corruptions in our own but the holiness of God engageth him to the preservation of it and consequently to the perfection of it as appears by our Saviour's Argument Joh. 17.11 Holy Father keep through thy own name those whom thou hast given me to what end that they may be one as we are one with us in the resemblances of Purity And the holiness of the Soul is used as an Argument by
this Sentiment when the Jews Educated by God in a wiser School were wedded to that Notion The Pharisees were highly fond of it it was the only Argument they used in Prayer for Divine Blessing You have one of them boasting of his frequency in Fasting and his exactness in paying his Tithes †Luke 19.12 as if God had been beholding to him and could not without manifest wrong deny him his demand And Paul confesseth it to be his own Sentiment before his Conversion he accounted this Righteousness of the Law gain to him * Phil. 3.7 he thought by this to make his Market with God The whole Nation of the Jews affected it †Rom. 10.3 Going about to Establish their own Righteousness compassing Sea and Land to make out a Righteousness of their own as the Pharisees did to make Proselytes The Papists follow their Steps and Dispute for Justification by the Merit of Works and find out another Key of Works of Supererogation to unlock Heavens Gate than what ever the Scripture informed us of 'T is from hence also that Men are so ready to make Faith as a Work the cause of our Justification Man foolishly thinks he hath enough to set up himself after he hath proved Bankrupt and lost all his Estate This Imagination is born with us and the best Christians may find some sparks of it in themselves when there are springings up of joy in their Hearts upon the more close performance of one Duty than of another as if they had wiped off their Scores and given God a satisfaction for their former neglects We have forsaken all and follow'd thee was the boast of his Disciples What shall we have therefore was a Branch of this Root †Mat. 19.27 Eternal Life is a gift not by any Obligation of Right but an abundance of goodness 't is owing not to the dignity of our Works but the magnificent Bounty of the Divine Nature and must be sued for by the Title of God's Promise not by the Title of the Creatures Services We may observe 3. How insufficient are some Assents to Divine Truth and some Expressions of Affection to Christ without the Practice of Christian Precepts This Man Addrest to Christ with a profound Respect acknowledging him more than an ordinary Person with a more Reverential Carriage than we read any of his Disciples paid to him in the day of his Flesh he fell down at his Feet kist his Knees as the Custom was when they would testifie the great Respect they had to any eminent Person especially to their Rabbins All this some think to be included in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 †Vers 17. Lightfoot in loc He seems to acknowledge him the Messiah by giving him the Title of Good a Title they did not give to their Doctors of the Chair He breaths out his opinion that he was able to instruct him beyond the ability of the Law He came with a more than ordinary Affection to him and expectation of advantage from him evident by his departing sad when his expectations were frustrated by his own perversity it was a sign he had a high esteem of him from whom he could not part without marks of his Grief What was the cause of his refusing the instructions he pretended such an affection to receive He had Possessions in the World How soon do a few drops of Wordly advantages quench the first Sparks of an ill grounded love to Christ How vain is a complemental and cringing devotion without a supream preference of God and valuation of Christ above every outward allurement We may observe this 4. We should never admit any thing to be ascrib'd to us which is proper to God Why callest thou me Good There is none Good but One that is God If you do not acknowledge me God ascribe not to me the Title of Good It takes off all those Titles which fawning Flatterers give to Men Mighty Invincible to Princes Holiness to the Pope We call one another Good without considering how Evil and Wise without considering how Foolish Mighty without considering how Weak and Knowing without considering how Ignorant No man but hath more of Wickedness than Goodness of Ignorance than Knowledge of Weakness than Strength God is a jealous God of his own Honour he will not have the Creature share with him in his Royal Titles 'T is a part of Idolatry to give Men the Titles which are due to God a kind of a Worship of the Creature together with the Creator Worms will not stand out but assault Herod in his Purple when he Usurps the Prerogative of God and prove stiff and invincible Vindicators of their Creators Honor when summoned to Arms by the Creators Word †12 Acts 22.23 The Observation which I intend to prosecute is this Doct. Pure and Perfect Goodness is only the Royal Prerogative of God Goodness is a choice Perfection of the Divine Nature This is the true and genuine Character of God He is Good He is Goodness Good in Himself Good in his Essence Good in the Highest Degree possessing whatsoever is Comely Excellent Desirable the Highest Good because the First Good whatsoever is perfect Goodness is GOD whatsoever is truly Goodness in any Creature is a resemblance of God * Ficin in Dionys. de divin nom cap 511. All the Names of God are comprehended in this one of Good All Gifts all variety of Goodness are contained in him as one common Good He is the efficient cause of all Good by an over-flowing Goodness of his Nature He refers all things to Himself as the end for the representation of his own Goodness Truly God is Good †Psal 73.1 Certainly it is an undoubted Truth 't is written in his Works of Nature and his Acts of Grace * Exod. 34.6 He is abundant in Goodness And every thing is a Memorial not of some few Sparks but of his greater Goodness †Psal 145.7 This is often celebrated in the Psalms and Men invited more than once to Sing forth the Praises of it * Psal 107.8.15.21.31 It may better be admired than sufficiently spoken of or thought of as it Merits 'T is discovered in all his Works as the Goodness of a Tree in all its Fruits 't is easie to be seen and more pleasant to be contemplated In General 1. All Nations in the World have acknowledged GOD Good 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was one of the Names the Platonists exprest him by and Good and God are almost the same words in our Language All as readily consented in the Notion of his Goodness as in that of his Deity Whatsoever divisions or disputes there were among them in the other Perfections of God they all agreed in this without dispute saith Synesius * Empedocles One calls him Venus in regard of his Loveliness †Hesiod Another calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Love as being the Band which tyes all things
because he doth not act for his own profit but for his Creatures welfare and the manifestation of his own Goodness He sends out his Beams without receiving any addition to himself or substantial advantage from his Creatures 'T is from this Perfection that he loves whatsoever is good and that is whatsoever he hath made For every Creature of God is good * 1 Tim. 4.4 Every Creature hath some Communications from him which cannot be without some Affection to them Every Creature hath a Footstep of Divine Goodness upon it God therefore loves that goodness in the Creature else he would not love himself †Cajetan in secund ' secundae Qu. 34. Ar. 3. God hates no Creature no not the Devils and Damn'd as Creatures he is not an Enemy to them as they are the Works of his Hands He is properly an Enemy that doth simply and absolutely wish Evil to another but God doth not absolutely wish Evil to the Damned that Justice that he inflicts upon them the deserved Punishment of their Sin is part of his Goodness as shall afterward be shewn This is the most pleasant Perfection of the Divine Nature His Creating Power amazes us His Conducting Wisdom astonisheth us His Goodness as furnishing us with all Conveniencies delights us and renders both his amazing Power and astonishing Wisdom delightful to us As the Sun by effecting things is an Emblem of Gods Power by discovering things to us is an Emblem of his Wisdom but by refreshing and comforting us is an Emblem of his Goodness And without this refreshing Vertue it communicates to us we should take no pleasure in the Creatures it produceth nor in the Beauties it discovers As God is Great and Powerful he is the Object of our Understanding but as Good and Bountiful he is the Object of our Love and Desire 6. The Goodness of God comprehends all his Attributes All the Acts of God are nothing else but the Effluxes of his Goodness distinguisht by several names according to the Objects it is exercised about As the Sea though it be one Mass of Water yet we distinguish it by several names according to the Shores it washeth and beats upon as the Brittish and German Ocean though all be one Sea When Moses long'd to see his Glory God tells him he would give him a prospect of his Goodness †Exod. 33.19 I will make all my goodness to pass before thee His Goodness is his Glory and Godhead as much as is delightfully visible to his Creatures and whereby he doth benefit Man I will cause my Goodness or Comeliness as Calvin renders it to pass before thee what is this but the Train of all his lovely Perfections springing from his Goodness * Exod. 34.6 The whole Catalogue of Mercy Grace long-suffering abundance of truth summed up in this one word All are Streams from this Fountain he could be none of this were he not first Good When it confers Happiness without Merit 't is Grace when it bestows Happiness against Merit 't is Mercy when he bears with provoking Rebels ' its long-suffering when he performs his Promise 't is Truth when it meets with a person to whom it is not oblig'd 't is Grace when he meets with a person in the World to which he hath obliged himself by Promise 't is Truth * Herle upon Wisdom cap. 5. p. 41. 42. when it Commiserates a Distressed Person 't is Pity when it supplies an Indigent Person 't is Bounty when it succours an Innocent Person 't is Righteousness and when it pardons a Penitent Person 't is Mercy all summ'd up in this one name of Goodness And the Psalmist expresseth the same Sentiment in the same words †Ps 145.7 8. They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness and shall sing of thy righteousness The Lord is gracious and full of compassion slow to anger and of great mercy the Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works He is first Good and then Compassionate Righteousness is often in Scripture taken not for Justice but Charitableness This Attribute saith one †Ingelo Bentivolio Vran Book 4. p. 260 261. is so full of God that it doth defie all the rest and verifie the Adorableness of him His Wisdom might contrive against us His Power bear too hard upon us one might be too hard for an Ignorant and the other too mighty for an Impotent Creature His holiness would scare an impure and guilty Creature but his goodness conducts them all for us and makes them all amiable to us Whatever Comeliness they have in the Eye of a Creature whatever Comfort they afford to the Heart of a Creature we are oblig'd for all to his goodness This puts all the rest upon a delightful Exercise this makes his Wisdom design for us and this makes his Power to act for us This Vails his Holiness from affrighting us and this Spirits his Mercy to relieve us †Daille Melang part 2. p. 704 705. All his acts towards Man are but the Workmanship of this What moved him at first to Create the World out of nothing and erect so noble a Creature as Man endow'd with such excellent gifts was it not his goodness What made him separate his Son to be a Sacrifice for us after we had endeavoured to raze out the first marks of his favour Was it not a strong bubling of goodness What moves him to reduce a Fallen Creature to the due sense of his Duty and at last bring him to an Eternal Felicity is it not only his goodness This is the Captain Attribute that leads the rest to act This attends them and Spirits them in all his ways of acting This is the Complement and Perfection of all his Works had it not been for this which set all the rest on work nothing of his Wonders had been seen in Creation nothing of his Compassions had been seen in Redemption The Second thing is some Propositions to explain the Nature of this Goodness 1. He is good by his own Essence God is not only good in his Essence but good by his Essence The Essence of every created thing is good so the unerring God pronounced every thing which he had made * Gen. 1.31 The Essence of the worst Creatures yea of the impure and Savage Devils is good but they are not good per essentiam for then they could not be bad Malicious and Oppressive God is good as he is God and therefore good by himself and from himself not by participation from another He made every thing good but none made him good Since his goodness was not received from another he is good by his own Nature He could not receive it from the things he Created they are later than he Since they received all from him they could bestow nothing on him and no God preceded him in whose Inheritance and Treasures of Goodness he could be a Successor He is absolutely
Judgments upon some to form a new Generation for himself He destroy'd an old World to raise a new one more Righteous As a Man pulls down his old Buildings to erect a sounder and more stately Fabrick To sum up what hath been said in this particular How could God be a Friend to Goodness if he were not an Enemy to Evil How could he shew his enmity to Evil without revenging the abuse and contempt of his Goodness God would rather have the Repentance of a Sinner than his Punishment but the Sinner would rather expose himself to the severest frowns of God than pursue those Methods wherein he hath setled the conveyances of his kindness You will not come to me that you might have Life saith Christ How is Eternity of Punishment inconsistent with the Goodness of God Nay how can God be good without it If Wickedness always remain in the Nature of Man Is it not fit the Rod should always remain on the Back of Man Is it a want of goodness that keeps an incorrigible Offender in Chains in a Bridewell While Sin remains it 's fit it should be Punished Would not God else be an Enemy to his own Goodness and shew favour to that which doth abuse it and is contrary to it He hath threatned Eternal Flames to Sinners that he might the more strongly excite them to a Reformation of their Ways and a Practice of his Precepts In those Threatnings he hath manifested his Goodness And can it be bad in him to defend what his Goodness hath Commanded and Execute what his Goodness hath Threatned His Truth is also a part of his Goodness for it is nothing but his Goodness performing that which it oblig'd him to do That is the first thing Severe Judgments in the World are no Impeachments of his Goodness 2. The Afflictions God inflicts upon his Servants are no violations of his Goodness Sometimes God aflicts Men for their Temporal and Eternal good for the good of their Grace in order to the good of their Glory which is a more excellent Good than Afflictions can be an Evil. The Heathens reflected upon Vlysses his hardship as a Mark of Jupiters goodness and love to him that his Virtue might be more conspicuous By strong Persecutions brought upon the Church her Lethargy is Cur'd her Chaff Purg'd the glorious Fruit of the Gospel brought forth in the lives of her Children The number of her Proselytes multiply and the strength of her weak ones is increased by the Testimonies of Courage and Constancy which the stronger present to them in their Sufferings Do those good Effects speak a want of goodness in God who brings them into this condition By those he cures his People of their Corruptions and promotes their Glory by giving them the honour of suffering for the Truth and raiseth their Spirits to a Divine pitch The Epistles of Paul to the Ephes Philip. and Colos wrote by him while he was in Nero's Chains seem to have a higher strain than some of those he wrote when was at liberty As for Afflictions they are Marks of a greater measure of Fatherly Goodness than he discovers to those that live in an uninterrupted Prosperity who are not dignifi'd with that glorious Title of Sons as those are that he chasteneth * Heb. 12.6 7. Can any question the goodness of the Father that Corrects his Child to prevent his Vice and Ruine and breed him up to Vertue and Honour It would be a Cruelty in a Father leaving his Child without Chastisement to leave him to that Misery an ill Education would reduce him to God judges us that we might not be condemned with the World †1 Cor. 11.32 Is it not a greater Goodness to separate us from the World to Happiness by his Scourge than to leave us to the condemnation of the World for our Sins Is it not a greater Goodness to make us smart here than to see us scorcht hereafter As he is our Shepherd it is no part of his Enmity or ill will to us to make us feel sometimes the weight of his Shepherds Crook to reduce us from our Stragling The visiting our Transgressions with Rods and our Iniquities with Stripes is one of the Articles of the Covenant of Grace wherein the greatest lustre of his Goodness appears * Psal 89.33 The advantage and gain of our Afflictions is a greater Testimony of his Goodness to us than the pain can be of his Unkindness The Smart is well recompenced by the accession of clearer Graces It is rather a high Mark of his Goodness than an Argument for the want of it that he treats us as his Children and will not suffer us to run into that Destruction we are more ambitious of than the Happiness he hath prepared for us and by Afflictons he fits us for the partaking of by imparting his Holiness together with the inflicting his Rod †Heb. 12.10 That is the third thing God is Good The Fourth thing is The manifestation of this Goodness in Creation Redemption and Providence 1. In Creation This is apparent from what hath been said before That no other Attribute could be the Motive of his Creating but his Goodness His Goodness was the Cause that he made any thing and his Wisdom was the Cause that he made every thing in Order and Harmony He pronounced every thing good i. e. such as became his Goodness to bring forth into Being and rested in them more as they were Stamps of his Goodness than as they were Marks of his Power or Beams of his Wisdom And if all Creatures were able to answer to this Question What that was which Created them The Answer would be Almighty Power but employed by the Motion of Infinite Goodness * Cusan p. 228. All the varieties of Creatures are so many Apparitions of this Goodness Though God be one yet he cannot appear as a God but in variety As the greatness of Power is not manifest but in variety of Works and an Acute Understanding not discover'd but in variety of Reasonings so an Infinite Goodness is not so apparent as in variety of Communications 1. The Creation proceeds from Goodness 'T is the Goodness of God to extract such multitude of things from the depths of nothing Because God is Good things have a Being If he had not been Good nothing could have been Good Nothing could have imparted that which it possessed not Nothing but Goodness could have communicated to things an Excellency which before they wanted Being is much more Excellent than nothing By this Goodness therefore the whole Creation was brought out of the dark Womb of Nothing This formed their Natures this beautified them with their several Ornaments and Perfections whereby every thing was enabled to act for the good of the Common World God did not Create things because he was a Living Being but because he was a Good Being No Creature brought forth any thing in the World meerly because it is
to guide us and a Cordial to refresh us 'T is a Lamp to our Feet and a Medicine for our Diseases a Purifier of our Filth and a Restorer of us in our faintings He hath by his Goodness seal'd the truth of it by his efficacy on multitudes of Men He hath made it the Word of Regeneration * Jam. 1.18 Men wilder and more monstrous than Beasts have been tam'd and chang'd by the power of it It hath rais'd multitudes of dead Men from a Grave fuller of horrour than any Earthly one Again Goodness was in all ages sending his Letters of Advice and Counsel from Heaven till the Canon of the Scripture was clos'd Sometimes he wrote to chide a froward People sometimes to chear up an oppressed and disconsolate People according to the State wherein they were as we may observe by the several Seasons wherein parts of Scripture were written It was his Goodness that he first reveal'd any thing of his Will after the Fall it was a further degree of Goodness that he would add more Cubits to its Stature before he would lay aside his Pensil it grew up to that bulk wherein we have it And his Goodness is further seen in the preserving it He hath triumphed over the powers that opposed it and shewed himself good in the Instruments that propagated it He hath maintain'd it against the blasts of Hell and spread it in all Languages against the obstructions of Men and Devils The Sun of his Word is by his kindness preserv'd in our Horizon as well as the Sun in the Heavens How admirable is Divine Goodness He hath sent his Son to die for us and his written Word to instruct us and his Spirit to edge it for an entrance into our Souls He hath open'd the Womb of the Earth to nourish us and sent down the Records of Heaven to direct us in our Pilgrimage He hath provided the Earth for our habitation while we are Travellers and sent his Word to acquaint us with a felicity at the end of our Journey and the way to attain in another World what we want in this viz. a happy Immortality 5. His Goodness in his Government is evident In Conversions of Men. Though this Work be wrought by his Power yet his Power was first sollicited by his Goodness It was his rich Goodness that he would employ his power to pierce the scales of a heart as hard as those of the Leviathan It was this that opened the Ears of Men to hear him and draws them from the hurry of Worldly cares and the Charms of Sensual Pleasures and which is the top of all the impostures and Cheats of their own hearts It is this that sends a spark of his wrath into Mens consciencies to put them to a stand in sin that he might not send down a shower of Brimstone eternally to consume their persons This it was that first shewed you the Excellency of the Redeemer and brought you to taste the sweetness of his Bloud and find your security in the Agonies of his Death 'T is his Goodness to call one man and not another to turn Paul in his course and lay hold of no other of his companions 'T is his Goodness to call any when he is not bound to call one 1. 'T is his Goodness To pitch upon mean and despicable Men in the eye of the World To call this poor Publican and over-look that proud Pharisee this Man that sits upon a Dunghil and neglect him that glisters in his Purple His Majesty is not enticed by the lofty Titles of Men nor which is more worth by the Learning and Knowledge of Men. Not many Wise not many Mighty * Cor. 1.26 27 28. not many Doctâ—rs not many Lords though some of them but his Goodness condescends to the base things of the World and things which are despised The Poor receive the Gospel * Mat. 11.5 when those that are more acute and furnisht with a more apprehensive Reason are not toucht by it 2. The worst Men. He seizeth sometimes upon Men most soyl'd and neglects others that seem more clean and less polluted He turns Men in their course in sin that by their infernal practices have seem'd to have gone to School to Hell and to have suckt in the sole instructions of the Devil He lays hold upon some when they are most under actual demerit and snatcheth them as Fire-brands out of the Fire as upon Paul when fullest of rage against him And shoots a Beam of Grace where nothing could be justly expected but a Thunder-bolt of Wrath. 'T is his Goodness to visit any when they lie putrifying in their loathsome Lusts To draw near to them who have been guilty of the greatest contempt of God and the light of Nature The murdering Manassehs persecuting Sauls Christ-crucifying Jews Persons in whom Lusts had had a peaceable possession and Empire for many years 3. His Goodness appears In converting Men possest with the greatest enmity against him while he was dealing with them All were in such a state and framing contrivances against him when Divine Goodness knockt at the door * Col. 1.21 He lookt after us when our backs were turned upon him and sought us when we slighted him and were a gain-saying People * Rom. 10.21 when we had shaken off his convictions and contended with our Maker and mustered up the Powers of Nature against the Alarms of Conscience strugled like wild Bulls in a Net and blunted those Darts which stuck in our Souls Not a Man that is turn'd to him but had lifted up the heel against his Gospel-Grace as well as made light of his Creating Goodness Yet it hath employed it self about such ungrateful Wretches to polish those knotty and rugged pieces for Heaven And so invincibly that he would not have his Goodness defeated by the fierceness and rebellion of the Flesh Though the thing was more difficult in it self if any thing may be said to have a difficulty to Omnipotency than to make a Stone live or to turn a Straw into a Marble-Pillar The Malice of the Flesh makes a Man more unfit for the one than the nature of the straw unfits it for the other 4. His Goodness appears in turning Men When they were pleased with their own misery and unable to deliver themselves When they preferr'd a Hell before him and were in love with their own Vileness when his Call was our torment and his neglect of us had been accounted our felicity Was it not a mighty Goodness to keep the Light close to our Eyes when we endeavoured to blow it out and the corrosive near to our hearts when we endeavoured to tear it off being more fond of our Disease than the Remedy We should have been scalded to death with the Sodomites had not God laid his good hand upon us and drawn us from the approaching ruine we affected and were loath to be freed from And had we been displeased with our state
such a return that he hath usually aggravated from the Benefits he hath bestow'd upon Men. Every thought of him should be attended with a Motion sutable to the Excellency of his Nature and Works Can we think those nobler Spirits the Angels look upon themselves or those Frames of things in the Heavens and Earth without starting some practical Affection to him for them Their knowledge of his Excellency and Works cannot be a lazy Contemplation 'T is impossible their Wills and Affections should be a thousand Miles distant from their Understandings in their Operations 'T is not the least part of his condescending Goodness to Court in such Methods the Affections of us Worms and manifest his desire to be beloved by us Let us give him then that Affection he deserves as well as demands and which cannot be with-held from him without horrible Sacriledge There is nothing worthy of love besides him Let no Fire be kindled in our hearts but what may ascend directly to him 7. The seventh Instruction is this This renders God a fit Object of trust and confidence Since none is good but God none can be a full and satisfactory Ground or Object of confidence but God As all things derive their beings so they derive their helpfulness to us from God they are not therefore the principal Objects of trust but that Goodness alone that renders them fit Instruments of our support They can no more challenge from us a stable Confidence than they can a Supream Affection 'T is by this the Psalmist allures Men to a trust in him * Psal 34.8 Taste and see how good the Lord is What is the consequence Blessed is the Man that trusts in thee The Voice of Divine Goodness sounds nothing more intelligibly and a taste of it produceth nothing more effectually than this As the Vials of his Justice are to make us fear him so the Streams of his Goodness are to make us rely on him As his Patience is design'd to broach our Repentance so his Goodness is most proper to strengthen our assurance in him That Goodness which surmounted so many difficulties and conquer'd so many motions that might be made against any repeated Exercise of it after it had been abus'd by the first Rebellion of Man That Goodness that after so much contempt of it appeared in such a Majestick tenderness and threw aside those impediments which Men had cast in the way of Divine Inclinations This Goodness is the foundation of all reliance upon God Who is better than God And therefore Who more to be trusted than God As his Power cannot act any thing weakly so his Goodness cannot act any thing unbecomingly and unworthy of his Infinite Majesty And here consider 1. Goodness is the first motive of trust Nothing but this could be the encouragement to Man had he stood in a State of Innocence to present himself before God The Majesty of God would have constrain'd him to keep his due distance but the Goodness of God could only hearten his Confidence 'T is nothing else now that can preserve the same temper in us in our lapsed Condition To regard him only as the Judge of our Crimes will drive us from him but only the regard of him as the Donor of our Blessings will allure us to him The principal Foundation of Faith is not the Word of God but God himself and God as consider'd in this Perfection As the Goodness of God in his Invitations and Providential Blessings leads us to Repentance * Rom. 2.4 so by the same reason the Goodness of God by his Promises leads us to Reliance If God be not first believed to be good he would not be believed at all in any thing that he speaks or swears If you were not satisfied in the goodness of a Man though he should swear a thousand times you would value neither his Word nor Oath as any security Many times where we are certain of the goodness of a Man we are willing to trust him without his promise This Divine Perfection gives Credit to the Divine Promises they of themselves would not be a sufficient ground of trust without an apprehension of his truth nor would his truth be very comfortable without a belief of his good will whereby we are assured that what he promises to give he gives liberally free and without regret The truth of the Promiser makes the Promise Credible but the goodness of the Promiser makes it chearfully relied on In Psal 73. Asaphs Penitential Psalm for his distrust of God he begins the first Verse with an assertion of this Attribute v. 1. Truly God is good to Israel and ends with this fruit of it Verse 28. I will put my trust in the Lord God 'T is a mighty ill Nature that receives not with assurance the Dictates of Infinite Goodness that cannot deceive or frustrate the hopes we conceive of him that is unconceivably more abundant in the breast and inclinations of the Promiser than expressible in the words of his Promise All true faith works by love * Gal. 5.6 and therefore necessarily includes a particular eying of this Excellency in the Divine Nature which renders him amiable and is the Motive and Encouragement of a love to him His Power indeed is a foundation of trust but his Goodness is the principal Motive of it His Power without good Will would be dangerous and could not allure Affection and his good Will without Power would be useless and though it might merit a love yet could not create a Confidence both in conjunction are strong grounds of hope Especially since his Goodness is of the same infinity with his Wisdom and Power and that he can be no more wanting in the effusions of this upon them that seek him than in his Wisdom to contrive or his Power to effect his Designs and Works 2. This goodness is more the foundation and motive of trust under the Gospel than under the Law They under the Law had more evidences of Divine Power and their trust eyed that much though there was an eminency of goodness in the frequent deliverances they had yet the Power of God had a more glorious dress than his Goodness because of the extraordinary and miraculous ways whereby he brought those deliverances about Therefore in the Catalogue of Believers in Heb. 11. you shall find the Power of God to be the Center of their Rest and Trust and their Faith was built upon the extraordinary Marks of Divine Power which were frequently visible to them But under the Gospel goodness and love was intended by God to be the chief Object of trust suitable to the Excellency of that Dispensation he would have an Exercise of more ingenuity in the Creatures Therefore 't is said Hosea 3.5 A promise of Gospel-times They shall fear God and his goodness in the later days when they shall return to seek the Lord and David their King 'T is not said they shall fear God and his Power but
it he cannot but be bountiful to it for it is impossible there can be any love to any Object without wishing well to it and doing well for it If the Soul loves God as its chiefest good God will love the Soul as his pious Servant As he hath offer'd to them the highest allurements so he will not with-hold the choicest communications Goodness cannot be a deluding thing It cannot consist with the nobleness and largeness of this Perfection to invite the Creature to him and leave the Creature empty of him when it comes 'T is inconsistent with this Perfection to give the Creature a knowledge of himself and a desire of enjoyment larger than that knowledge a desire to know and enjoy him perpetually yet never intend to bestow an Eternal Communication of himself upon it The Nature of Man was erected by the goodness of God but with an enlarg'd desire for the highest Good and a Capacity of enjoying it Can Goodness be thought to be deceitful to frustrate its own Work be tired with its own Effusions to let a gracious Soul groan under its burthen and never resolve to ease him of it To see delightfully the aspirings of the Creature to another State and resolve never to admit him to a happy issue of those desires 'T is not agreeable to this unconceivable Perfection to be unconcern'd in the longings of his Creature since their first longings were placed in them by that Goodness which is so free from mocking the Creature or falling short of its well grounded Expectations or Desires that it infinitely exceeds them If Man had continued in Innocence the goodness of God without question would have continued him in Happiness And since he hath had so much goodness to restore Man would it not be dishonourable to that goodness to break his own Conditions and defeat the believing Creature of Happiness after it hath complied with his terms He is a Believers God in Covenant and is a God in the utmost extent of this Attribute as well as of any other and therefore will not communicate mean and shallow Benefits but according to the grandeur of it Soveraign and Divine such as the gift of a happy Immortality Since he had no obligation upon him to make any promise but the sweetness of his own Nature the same is as strong upon him to make all the words of his Grace good They cannot be invalid in any one tittle of them as long as his Nature remains the same And his goodness cannot be diminisht without the impairing of his Godhead since it is inseparable from it Divine Goodness will not let any Man serve God for nought He hath promised our weak Obedience more than any Man in his right Wits can say it Merits * Matth. 10.42 A Cup of cold Water shall not lose its Reward He will manifest our good actions as he gave so high a testimony to Job in the face of the Devil his Accuser It will not only be the happiness of the Soul but of the Body the whole Man since Soul and Body were in conjunction in the acts of Righteousness it consists not with the goodness of God to reward the one and to let the other lie in the ruines of its first nothing To bestow joy upon the one for its being principal and leave the other without any Sentiments of joy that was instrumental in those good Works both commanded and approv'd by God He that had the goodness to pity our Original Dust will not want a goodness to advance it And if we put off our Bodies 't is but afterwards to put them on repair'd and fresher From this Goodness the Upright may expect all the Happiness their Nature is capable of 4. It is a ground of Comfort in the midst of publick dangers This hath more sweetness in it to support us than the malice of Enemies hath to deject us because he is good he is a strong hold in the day of trouble * Nah. 1.7 If his goodness extends to all his Creatures it will much more extend to those that honour him If the Earth be full of his goodness that part of Heaven which he hath upon Earth shall not be empty of it He hath a Goodness often to deliver the Righteous and a Justice to put the Wicked in his stead * Prov. 11.8 When his People have been under the power of their Enemies he hath chang'd the Scene and put the Enemies under the power of his People He hath clapt upon them the same Bolts which they did upon his Servants How comfortable is this Goodness that hath yet maintain'd us in the midst of dangers preserved us in the mouth of Lyons quencht kindled Fire Hitherto rescued us from design'd ruine subtilly hatcht and supported us in the midst of Men very passionate for our destruction How hath this watchful goodness been a Sanctuary to us in the midst of an upper Hell 3. The third Use is of Exhortation 1. How should we endeavour after the enjoyment of God as good How earnestly should we desire him As there is no other Goodness worthy of our supream love so there is no other Goodness worthy our most ardent thirst Nothing deserves the name of a desirable good but as it tends to the attainment of this Here we must pitch our desires which otherwise will terminate in nullities or unconceivable disturbances 1. Consider nothing but good can be the Object of a Rational Appetite The Will cannot direct its motion to any thing under the notion of evil evil in it self or evil to it whatsoever Courts it must present it self in the quality of a good in its own nature or in its present Circumstances to the present state and condition of the desire it will not else else touch or affect the Will This is the language of that faculty Who will shew me any good * Psal 4.6 And good is as inseparably the Object of the wills motion as truth is of the understandings inquiry Whatsoever a Man would allure another to comply with he must propose to the Person under the notion of some beneficialness to him in point of honour profit or pleasure To act after this manner is the proper Character of a Rational Creature And though that which is evil is often embrac'd instead of that which is good and what we entertain as conducing to our felicity proves our misfortune yet that is from our ignorance and not from a formal choice of it as evil for what evil is chosen it is not possible to choose under the conception of evil but under the appearance of a good though it be not so in reality 'T is inseparable from the Wills of all Men to propose to themselves that which in the opinion and judgment of their understandings or imagination is good though they often mistake and cheat themselves 2. Since that Good is the Object of a Rational Appetite the purest best and most universal good such as God
own affections according to the holiness of his own Will As it is the effect of his power so it is an argument of his power the greatness of the effect demonstrates the fulness and sufficiency of the Cause The more feeble any man is in reason the less command he hath over his passions and he is the more heady to revenge Revenge is a sign of a Childish mind the stronger any man is in reason the more command he hath over himself Prov. 16.32 He that is slow to Anger is better than the mighty and he that rules his own Spirit than he that takes a City He that can restrain his Anger is stronger than the Coesars and Alexanders of the World that have fill'd the Earth with slain Carcasses and ruin'd Cities By the same reason God's slowness to Anger is a greater argument of his Power than the creating a World or the power of dissolving it by a Word In this he hath a Dominion over Creatures in the other over himself This is the reason he will not return to destroy because I am God and not Man Hosea 11.9 I am not so weak and impotent as man that cannot restrain his Anger This is a strength possessed only by a God wherein a Creature is no more able to parallel him than in any other So that he may be said to be the Lord of himself as it is in the verse before the Text that he is the Lord of Anger in the Hebrew instead of furious as we translate it so he is the Lord of Patience The end why God is Patient is to shew his Power Rom. 9.22 What if God willing to shew his Wrath and to make his Power known endured with much Long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction To shew his Wrath upon Sinners and his Power over himself in bearing such indignities and forbearing punishment so long when men were vessels of wrath fitted for destruction of whom there was no hopes of amendment Had he immediately broken in peices those Vessels his power had not so eminently appear'd as it hath done in tolerating them so long that had provoked him to take them off so often There is indeed the power of his Anger and there is the power of his Patience and his power is more seen in his Patience than in his Wrath. 'T is no wonder that he that is above all is able to crush all But it is a wonder that he that is provok't by all doth not upon the first provocation rid his hands of all This is the reason why he did bear such a weight of provocations from vessels of wrath prepar'd for ruine that he might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shew what he was able to do the Lordship and Royalty he had over himself The power of God is more manifest in his Patience to a multitude of Sinners than it could be in Creating Millions of Worlds out of nothing this was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power over himself 5. This Patience being a branch of Mercy the exercise of it is founded in the Death of Christ Without the consideration of this we can give no account why Divine Patience should extend it self to us and not to the fallen Angels The threatning extends it self to us as well as to the fallen Angels The threatning must necessarily have sunk man as well as those glorious Creatures had not Christ stept into our relief * Testaâ—d de natur Grat. Thes 119. Had not Christ interposed to satisfie the Justice of God man upon his sin had been actually bound over to punishment as well as the fall'n Angels were upon theirs and been fettered in chains as strong as those Spirits feel The reason why man was not hurl'd into the same deplorable condition upon his sin as they were is Christs promise of taking our nature and not theirs Had God design'd Christ's taking their nature the same Patience had been exercised towards them and the same offers would have been made to them as are made to us In regard of these fruits of this Patience Christ is said to buy the wickedest Apostates from him 1 Pet. 2.1 Denying the Lord that bought them such were bought by him as bring upon themselves just destruction and whose damnation slumbers not ver 3. he purchased the continuance of their lives and the stay of their execution that offers of Grace might be made to them This Patience must be either upon the account of the Law or the Gospel for there are no other rules whereby God governs the World a fruit of the Law it was not that spake nothing but Curses after Disobedience not a letter of Mercy was writ upon that And therefore nothing of Patience Death and Wrath was denounced no slowness to Anger intimated It must be therefore upon the account of the Gospel and a fruit of the Covenant of Grace whereof Christ was Mediator Besides this perfection being God's waiting that he might be Gracious Isaiâ—h 30.18 that which made way for Gods Grace made way for his waiting to manifest it God discovered not his Grace but in Christ And therefore discovered not his Patience but in Christ 't is in him he met with the satisfaction of his Justice that he might have a ground for the manifestation of his Patience And the Sacrifices of the Law wherein the Life of a beast was accepted for the sin of a man discovered the ground of his forbearance of them to be the expectation of the great sacrifice whereby sin was to be compleatly expiated Gen. 8.21 The publication of his Patience to the end of the World is presently after the sweet savor he found in Noah's sacrifice The promised and design'd coming of Christ was the cause of that Patience God exercised before in the World And his gathering the Elect together is the reason of his Patience since his death 6. The naturalness of his Veracity and Holiness and the strictness of his Justice are no barrs to the exercise of his patience 1. His Veracity In those threatnings where the punishment is exprest but not the time of inflicting it prefixt and determined in the threatning his veracity suffers no dammage by the delaying Execution so it be once done though a long time after the credit of his Truth stands unshaken As when God promises a thing without fixing the time he is at liberty to pitch upon what time he pleases for the performance of it without staining his faithfulness to his Word by not giving the thing promised presently Why should the deferring of Justice upon an offender be any more against his Veracity than his delaying an answer to the petitions of a suppliant But the difference will lie in the threatning Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death The time was there setled In that day thou shalt dye some referre day to eating not to dying and render the sentence thus I do not prohibit thee the eating this fruit for
than Enemies to it he frees himself from any such imputation even in the judgment of those that shall feel most of his wrath 't is this renders the equity of his Justice unquestionable and the deliverance of his people righteous in the Judgment of those from whose fetters they are delivered Christ Reigns in the midst of his Enemies to shew his power over himself as well as over the heads of his Enemies to shew his power over his Rebels And though he retards his promise and suffers a great interval of time between the publication and performance sometimes years sometimes ages to pass away and little appearance of any preparation to shew himself a God of Truth 'T is not that he hath forgotten his Word or repents that ever he passed it or sleeps in a supine neglect of it but that men might not perish but bethink themselves and come as friends into his bosome rather than be crush'd as enemies under his feet 2 Pet. 3.9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise but is long-suffering to usward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to Repentance Hereby he shews that he would be rather pleased with the conversion than the destruction of men 3. We see the reason why sin is suffered to remain in the Regenerate To shew his Patience towards his own for since this attribute hath no other place of appearance but in this World God takes opportunity to manifest it because at the close of the World it will remain closed up in the Deity without any further operation As God suffers a multitude of sins in the World to evidence his Patience to the wicked so he suffers great remainders of sin in his people to shew his Patience to the Godly His sparing mercy is admirable before their conversion but more admirable in bearing with them after so high an Obligation as the conferring upon them special converting Grace 2. The second Vse is of comfort 'T is a vast comfort to any when God is pacified towards them but it is some comfort to all that God is yet Patient towards them though but very little to a refractory sinner His continued Patience to all speaks a possibility of the cure of all would they not stand against the way of their recovery 'T is a terror that God hath anger but it is a mitigation of that terror that God is slow to it While his Sword is in his sheath there is some hopes to prevent the drawing of it Alas if he were all fire and sword upon sin what would become of us We should find nothing else but over-flowing deluges or sweeping Pestilences or perpetual flashes of Sodom's Fire and Brimstone from Heaven He doomes us not presently to execution but gives us a long breathing time after the crime that by retiring from our iniquities and having recourse to his mercy he may be with-held for ever from signing a Warrant against us and change his Legal Sentence into an Evangelical pardon 'T is a special comfort to his people that he is a Sanctuary to them Ezek. 11.16 A place of refuge a place of Spiritual Communications But it is some refreshment to all in this life that he is a defence to them for so is his Patience call'd Numb 14.9 Their defence is departed from them Speaking to the Israelites that they should not be afraid of the Canaanites for their defence is departed from them God is no longer Patient to them since their sins be full and ripe Patience as long as it lasts is a temporary defence to those that are under the wing of it but to the believer it is a singular comfort And God is called the God of Patience and consolation in one breath Rom. 15.5 The God of Patience and Consolation grant you to be like-minded All interpreters understand it effectively The God that inspires you with comfort and cheares you with comfort grant this to you Why may it not be understood formally of the Patience belonging to the nature of God and though it be exprest in the way of Petition yet it might also be proposed as a pattern for imitation and so suits very well to the Exhortation laid down ver 1. which was to bear with the infirmities of the weak which he presseth them to ver 3. by the example of Christ And ver 5. by the Patience of God to them and so they are very well linkt together God of Patience and Consolation may well be joyned since Patience is the first step of comfort to the poor creature If it did not administer some comfortable hopes to Adam in the interval between his fall and God's coming to examine him I am sure it was the first discovery of any comfort to the creature after the sweeping the destroying deluge out of the World Gen. 9.21 After the savour of Noah's Sacrifice representing the great Sacrifice which was to be in the World had ascended up to God the return from him is a publication of his forbearing to punish any more in such a manner And though he found man no better than he was before and the imaginations of mens hearts as evil as before the deluge that he would not again smite every living thing as he had done This was the first expression of comfort to Noah after his exit from the Ark And declares nothing else but the continuance of Patience to the New World above what he had shewn to the Old 1. 'T is a comfort in that 't is an argument of his Grace to his people If he hath so rich a Patience to exercise towards his enemies he hath a greater treasure to bestow upon his friends Patience is the first attribute which steps in for our Salvation and therefore called Salvation 2 Pet. 3.15 Something else is therefore built upon it and intended by it to those that believe Those two letters of his name a God keeping Mercy for Thousands and forgiving iniquity transgressions and sin follows the other Letter of his long suffering in the Proclamation Exod. 34.6 7. He is slow to anger that he may be merciful that men may seek and recieve their pardon If he be long suffering in order to be a pardoning God he will not be wanting in pardoning those who answer the design of his forbearance of them You would not have had sparing mercy to improve if God would have deny'd you saving mercy upon the improvement of his sparing goodness If he hath so much respect to his enemies that provoke him as to endure them with much long suffering he will surely be very kind to those that obey him and conform to his will If he hath much long suffering to those that are fitted for destruction Rom. 9.22 he will have a muchness of mercy for those that are prepared for Glory by Faith and Repentance 'T is but a natural conclusion a gracious Soul may make if God had not a mind to be appeased towards me he would not have had
fruition of them we can scarce tell whether they are contentments or no because sorrow follows them so close at the heels 'T is not an unnecessary exhortation for good men the best men have been apt to place too much trust in them David thought himself immutable in his Prosperity and such thoughts could not be without some immoderate outlets of the heart to them and confidences in them And Job promised himself to dye in his Nest and multiply his days as the Sand without any interruption * Job 29.18 19. c. but he was mistaken and disappointed Let me add this trust not in men who are as inconstant as any thing else and often change their most ardent affections into implacable hatred And though their affections may not be changed their Power to help you may Hamans Friends that depended on him one day were crest-fallen the next when their Patron was to exchange his Chariot of State for an ignominious Gallows 3. Prefer an immutable God before mutable Creatures Is it not a horrible thing to see what we are and what we possess daily crumbling to dust and in a continual flux from us and not seek out something that is permanent and always abides the same for our portion In God or Wisdom which is Christ there is substance * Pro. 8.21 in which respect he is opposed to all the things in the world that are but shadows that are shorter or longer according to the motion of the Sun mutable also by every little body that intervenes God is subject to no decay within to no force without nothing in his own nature can change him from what he is and there is no Power above can hinder him from being what he will to the Soul He is an Ocean of all Perfection He wants nothing without himself to render him blessed which may allure him to a change His Creatures can want nothing out of him to make them happy whereby they may be inticed to prefer any thing before him If we enjoy other things 't is by Gods donation who can as well withdraw them as bestow them and it is but a reasonable as well as a necessary thing to endeavour the enjoyment of the immutable Benefactor rather than his revocable Gifts If the Creatures had a sufficient vertue in themselves to ravish our thoughts and engross our Souls yet when we take a prospect of a fixed and unchangeable Being what beauty what strength have any of those things to vie with him How can they bear up and maintain their interest against a lively thought and sense of God All the Glory of them would fly before him like that of the Stars before the Sun They were once nothing they may be nothing again as their own nature brought them not out of nothing so their Nature secures them not from being reduced to nothing What an unhappiness is it to have our affections set upon that which retains something of its non esse with its esse it s not being with its being that lives indeed but in a continual Flux and may lose that pleasureableness to morrow which charms us to day 2. This Doctrin will teach us Patience under such Providences as declare his unchangeable Will The rectitude of our Wills consists in conformity to the Divine as discovered in his Words and manifested in his Providence which are the effluxes of his immutable Will The time of tryal is appointed by his immutable Will * Dan. 1 't is not in the Power of the Sufferer's Will to shorten it nor in the Power of the Enemies Will to lengthen it Whatsoever doth happen hath been decreed by God Eccles 6.10 That which hath been is named already therefore to murmur or be discontented is to contend with God who is mightier than we to maintain his own purposes God doth act all things conveniently for that immutable end intended by himself and according to the reason of his own Divine Will in the true point of time most proper for it and for us not too soon or too slow because he is unchangeable in Knowledge and Wisdom God doth not act any thing barely by an immutable Will but by an immutable Wisdom and an unchangeable Rule of Goodness and therefore we should not only acquiesce in what he works but have a complacency in it and by having our Wills thus knitting themselves with the immutable Will of God we attain some degree of likeness to him in his own Unchangeableness When therefore God hath manifested his Will in opening his Decree to the world by his work of Providence we must cease all disputes against it and with Aaron hold our peace though the affliction be very smart * Rev. 10.3 All Flesh must be silent before God * Zach. 2.13 For whatsoever is his Counsel shall stand and cannot be recall'd all struggling against it is like a brittle Glass contending with a Rock For if he cut off and shut up or gather together then who can hinder him Job 11.10 Nothing can help us if he hath determined to afflict us as nothing can hurt us if he hath determined to secure us The more clearly God hath evidenced this or that to be his Will the more sinful is our struggling against it Pharaoh's sin was the greater in keeping Israel by how much the more Gods Miracles had been Demonstrations of his setled Will to deliver them Let nothing snatch our hearts to a contradiction to him but let us fear and give Glory to him when the hour of Judgment which he hath appointed is come * Revel 14.7 that is comply with the unchangeable will of his Precept the more he declares the immutable will of his Providence We must not think God must disgrace his Nature and change his Proceedings for us Better the Creature should suffer than God be impair'd in any of his Perfections If God changed his Purpose he would change his Nature Patience is the way to perform the immutable Will of God and a means to attain a gracious Immutability for our selves by receiving the Promise Heb. 10.36 Ye have need of Patience that after ye have done the Will of God ye might receive the Promise 3. This Doctrine will teach us to imitate God in this perfection by striving to be immoveable in goodness God never goes back from himself he finds nothing better than himself for which he should change and can we find any thing better than God to allure our hearts to a change from him The Sun never declines from the Ecliptick line nor should we from the paths of Holiness A stedfast obedience is encouraged by an unchangeable God to reward it 1 Cor. 15.58 Be stedfast and immovable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Unstedfastness is the note of an Hypocrite Psal 78.37 stedfastness in that which is good is the mark of a Saint 't is the Character of a
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