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
only sound Divines having tasted the old he did not desire the new but said the old is better Some Errours especially the Socinian he sets himself industriously against and cuts the very Sinews of them yet sometimes almost without naming them In the Doctrinal Part of several of his Discourses thou wilt find the depth of Polemical Divinity and in his Inferences from thence the sweetness of Practical some things which may exercise the profoundest Scholar and others which may instruct and edifie the weakest Christian nothing is more nervous than his Reasonings and nothing more affecting than his Applications Though he make great use of Schoolmen yet they are certainly more beholden to him than he to them he adopts their Notions but he refines them too and improves them and reforms them from the barbarousness in which they were expressed and dresseth them up in his own Language so far as the nature of the matter will permit and more clear terms are to be found and so makes them intelligible to Vulgar Capacities which in their original rudeness were obscure and strange even to Learned Heads In a word he handles the great Truths of the Gospel with that Perspicuity Gravity and Majesty which best becomes the Oracles of God and we have reason to believe that no judicious and unbiassed Reader but will acknowledge this to be incomparably the best practical Treatise the World ever saw in English upon this Subject What Dr. Jackson did to whom our Authour gave all due respect was more brief and in another way Dr. Preston did worthily upon the Attributes in his day but his Discourses likewise are more succinct when this Authours are more full and large But whatever were the mind of God in it it was not his Will that either of these two should live to finish what he had begun both being taken away when Preaching upon this Subject Happy Souls whose last breath was spent in so noble a Work * Psal 146.2 praising God while they had any being His Method is much the same in most of these Discourses both in the Doctrinal and Practical Part which will make the whole more plain and facile to ordinary Readers He rarely makes Objections and yet frequently answers them by implying them in those Propositions he lays down for the clearing up the Truths he asserts His Dexterity is admirable in the Applicatory Work where he not only brings down the highest Doctrines to the lowest Capacities but collects great varietie of proper pertinent useful and yet many times unthought of Inferences and that from those Truths which however they afford much matter for Inquisition and Speculation yet might seem unless to the most intelligent and judicious Christians to have a more remote influence upon Practice He is not like some School Writers who attenuate and rarefie the Matter they Discourse of to a degree bordering upon Annihilation at least beat it so thin that a puff of breath may blow it away spin their Thred so fine that the Cloth when made up proves useless Solidity dwindles into Niceties and what we thought we had got by their Assertions we lose by their Distinctions But if our Author have some Subtilties and superfine Notions in his Argumentations yet he condenseth them again and consolidates them into substantial and profitable Corolaries in his Applications And in them his main business is as to discipline a prophane World for its neglect of God and contempt of him in his most adorable and shining Perfections so likewise to shew how the Divine Attributes are not only infinitely excellent in themselves but a grand Foundation for all true Divine Worship and should be the great Motives to provoke men to the exercise of Faith and Love and Fear and Humility and all that holy Obedience they are called to by the Gospel And this without peradventure is the great end of all those rich Discoveries God hath in his Word made of himself to us And Reader if these elaborate Discourses of this holy Man through the Lord's blessing become a means of promoting Holiness in thee Psal 109.1 and stir thee up to love and live to the God of his praise we are well assured that his end in Preaching them is answered and so is ours in publishing them Thine in the Lord EDW. VEEL RI. ADAMS The several Discourses in this Volume VIZ. Page 1. 47. THE Existence of God and Practical Atheism from Psal 14.1 The Fool hath said in his heart there is no God c. Page 109. 129. God a Spirit and Spiritual Worship from John 4.24 God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth Page 179. The Eternity of God from Psal 90.2 Before the Mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the Earth and the World Even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God Page 203. The Immutability of God From Psal 102 26 27. They shall perish but thou shalt endure Yea all of them shall wax old like a Garment as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy years shall have no end Page 241. The Omnipresence of God from Jer. 23.24 Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him saith the Lord. Do not I fill Heaven and Earth saith the Lord Page 272. God's Infinite Knowledge from Psal 147.5 Great is our Lord and of great Power His Vnderstanding is infinite Page 341. God's Infinite Wisdom from Rom. 16.27 To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen Page 417. God's Infinite Power from Job 26.14 Lo these are parts of his ways but how little a portion is heard of him But the Thunder of his Power who can understand Page 493. God's Infinite Holiness From Exod. 15.11 Who is like unto thee O Lord among the Gods Who is like thee glorious in holiness fearful in praises doing wonders Page 577. God's Infinite Goodness from Mark 10.18 And Jesus said unto him Why callest thou me good There is none good but one that is God Page 697. The Dominion of God from Psal 103.19 The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom ruleth over all Page 787. God's Infinite Patience from Nahum 1.3 The Lord is slow to Anger and great in Power and will not all acquit the Wicked The Lord hath his way in the Whirlwind and in the Storm and the Clouds are the Dust of his feet A DISCOURSE UPON THE Existence of God Psalm 14.1 The fool hath said in his heart there is no God they are corrupt they have done abominable Works there is none that doth good THIS Psalm is a description of the deplorable corruption by Nature of every Son of Adam since the withering of that Common Root Some restrain it to the Gentiles as a Wilderness full of Bryars and Thorns as not concerning the Jews the Garden of God planted by his Grace and watered by the Dew of Heaven
dived into the depths of Nature have been more studious of the qualities of the Creatures than of the excellency of the nature or the discovery of the mind of God in them who regard only the rising and motions of the Star but follow not with the wise men its conduct to the King of the Jews How often do we see men filled with an eager thirst for all other kind of knowledge that cannot acquiesce in a twilight discovery but are inquisitive into the causes and reasons of effects yet are contented with a weak and languishing knowledge of God and his Law and are easily tired with the Proposals of them He now that nauseates the means whereby he may come to know and obey God has no intention to make the Law of God his Rule There is no man that intends seriously an end but he intends means in order to that end As when a man intends the preservation or recovery of his health he will intend means in order to those ends otherwise he cannot be said to intend his health So he that is not diligent in using means to know the mind of God has no sound intention to make the Will and Law of God his Rule Is not the inquiry after the Will of God made a work by the by and fain to lacquy after other concerns of an inferior nature if it hath any place at all in the Soul which is a despising the Being of God The Notion of the Soveraignty of God bears the same date with the Notion of his Godhead and by the same way that he reveals Himself he reveals his Authority over us whether it be by Creatures without or Conscience within All Authority over Rational Creatures consists in commanding and directing the duty of Rational Creatures in compliance with that Authority consists in obeying Where there is therefore a careless neglect of those means which convey the knowledge of Gods Will and our Duty there is an utter disowning of God as our Soveraign and our Rule 2. When any part of the Mind and Will of God breaks in upon Men they endeavour to shake it off As a Man would a Sergeant that comes to arrest him they like not to retain God in their Knowledge Rom. 1.28 A natural Man receives not the things of the Spirit of God that is into his Affection he pusheth them back as men do troublesome and importunate Beggers They have no kindness to bestow upon it They thrust with both shoulders against the Truth of God when it presseth in upon them and dash as much contempt upon it as the Pharisees did upon the Doctrine our Saviour directed against their Covetousness As men naturally delight to be without God in the world so they delight to be without any offspring of God in their thoughts Since the Spiritual Palate of Man is depraved Divine Truth is unsavoury and ungrateful to us till our taste and relish is restored by Grace Hence men damp and quench the motions of the Spirit to Obedience and Compliance with the Dictates of God strip them of their Life and Vigor and kill them in the Womb. How unable are our Memories to retain the substance of spiritual Truth but like Sand in a Glass put in at one part and runs out at the other Have not many a secret wish that the Scripture had never mentioned some truths or that they were blotted out of the Bible because they face their Consciences and discourage those boiling Lusts they would with eagerness and delight pursue Me thinks that interruption John gives our Saviour when he was upon the Reproof of their Pride looks little better * Mark 9.33.38 than a design to divert him from a discourse so much against the grain by telling him a story of their prohibiting one to cast out Devils because he followed not them How glad are men when they can raise a Battery against a Command of God and raise some smart Objection whereby they may shelter themselves from the strictness of it 3. When men cannot shake off the Notices of the Will and Mind of God they have no pleasure in the consideration of them Which could not possibly be if there were a real and fixed design to own the Mind and Law of God as our Rule Subjects or Servants that love to obey their Prince and Master will delight to read and execute their Orders The Devils understand the Law of God in their minds but they loath the impressions of it upon their Wills Those miserable Spirits are bound in Chains of Darkness evil Habits in their Wills that they have not a thought of obeying that Law they know It was an unclean Beast under the Law that did not chew the Cud 'T is a corrupt Heart that doth not chew Truth by Meditation A natural man is said not to know God or the things of God he may know them notionally but he knows them not affectionately A sensual Soul can have no delight in a spiritual Law To be sensual and not to have the Spirit are inseparable Jude 19. Natural Men may indeed meditate upon the Law and Truth of God but without delight in it if they take any pleasure in it 't is only as 't is knowledge not as it is a Rule for we delight in nothing that we desire but upon the same account that we desire it Natural Men desire to know God and some part of his Will and Law not out of a sense of their practical excellency but a natural thirst after knowledge and if they have a delight 't is in the act of knowing not in the Object known not in the Duties that stream from that Kowledge they design the furnishing their Understandings not the quickning their Affections like idle Boys that strike Fire not to warm themselves by the heat but sport themselves with the Sparks Whereas a gracious Soul accounts not only his Meditation or the Operations of his Soul about God and his Will to be sweet but he hath a joy in the object of that Meditation * Psal 104.34 Many have the knowledge of God who have no delight in Him or his Will Owls have Eyes to perceive that there is a Sun but by reason of the weakness of their sight have no pleasure to look upon a Beam of it So neither can a man by Nature love or delight in the Will of God because of his natural corruption That Law that riseth up in men for Conviction and Instruction they keep down under the power of Corruption making their Souls not the Sanctuary but Prison of Truth Rom. 1.18 They will keep it down in their hearts if they cannot keep it out of their heads and will not endeavour to know and taste the Spirit of it 4. There is farther a rising and swelling of the Heart against the Will of God 1. Internal Gods Law cast against a hard Heart is like a Ball thrown against a stone Wall by reason of the resistance rebounding the further
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
as well as Heathens who used the outward Ceremonies not as signs of better things but as if they did of themselves please God and render the worshippers accepted with him without any sutable frame of the inward man * Amirald in loc It is as if he had said now you must separate your selves from all carnal modes to which the service of God is now tyed and render a worship chiefly consisting in the affectionate motions of the heart and accommodated more exactly to the condition of the object who is a Spirit In Spirit and Truth * Amirald in loc The Evangelical Service now required has the advantage of the former that was a Shadow and Figure this the Body and Truth * Muscul Spirit say some is here opposed to the legal Ceremonies Truth to hypocritical services or * Chemnit rather truth is opposed to shadows and an opinion of worth in the outward action 't is principally opposed to external Rites because our Saviour saith v. 23. The hour comes and â—oâ— is c. Had it been opposed to Hypocrisy Christ had said no new thing For God always required Truth in the inward parts and all true Worshippers had served him with a sincere Conscience and single Heart The old Patriarks did worship God in Spirit and Truth as taken for sincerity Such a Worship was always and is perpetually due to God because he always was and eternally will be a Spirit * Musâ—al And it is said the Father seeks such to worship him not shall seek He always sought it it always was performed to him by one or other in the world And the Prophets had always rebuked them for resting upon their outward Solemnities Isa 58.7 and Micah 6.8 But a Worship without legal Rites was proper to an Evangelical State and the times of the Gospel God having then exhibited Christ and brought into the world the substance of those shadows and the end of those institutions There was no more need to continue them when the true reason of them was ceased All Laws do naturally expire when the true reason upon which they were first framed is changed Or by Spirit may be meant such a Worship as is kindled in the heart by the breath of the holy Ghost Since we are dead in sin a spiritual light and flame in the heart sutable to the nature of the object of our worship cannot be raised in us without the operation of a supernatural Grace And though the Fathers could not worship God without the Spirit yet in the Gospel-times there being a fuller effusion of the Spirit the Evangelical State is called the administration of the Spirit and the newness of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.8 in opposition to the legal Oeconomy entitled the oldness of the Letter * Rom. 7.6 The Evangelical State is more suted to the Nature of God than any other Such a Worship God must have whereby he is acknowledged to be the true Sanctifier and Quickner of the Soul The nearer God doth approach to us and the more full his manifestations are the more spiritual is the Worship we return to God The Gospel pares off the rugged parts of the Law and Heaven shall remove what is material in the Gospel and change the Ordinances of Worship into that of a Spiritual Praise In the words there is 1. A Proposition God is a Spirit The Foundation of all Religion 2. An Inference they that worship him c. As God a Worship belongs to him as a Spirit a spiritual Worship is due to him in the inference we have 1. The manner of Worship in Spirit and Truth 2. The necessity of such a Worship must The Proposition declares the Nature of God the Inference the Duty of Man The Observations lie plain Ob. 1. God is a pure spiritual Being He is a Spirit 2. The Worship due from the Creature to God must be agreeable to the Nature of God and purely spiritual 3. The Evangelical State is suted to the Nature of God For the first D. God is a pure spiritual Being 'T is the Observation of one * Episcop insti tut l. 4. c. 3. that the plain assertion of Gods being a Spirit is found but once in the whole Bible and that is in this place which may well be wondred at because God is so often described with hands feet eyes and ears in the form and figure of a Man The spiritual Nature of God is deducible from many places but not any where as I remember asserted totidem verbis but in this Text Some alledge that place 2 Cor. 3.17 the Lord is that Spirit for the proof of it but that seems to have a different sense In the Text the Nature of God is described in that place the operations of God in the Gospel * Amyrald in loc 'T is not the Ministry of Moses or that old Covenant which communicates to you that Spirit it speaks of but it is the Lord Jesus and the Doctrin of the Gospel delivered by him whereby this Spirit and Liberty is dispensed to you He opposes here the Liberty of the Gospel to the Servitude of the Law 'T is from Christ that a Divine Vertue diffuseth it self by the Gospel 't is by him not by the Law that we partake of that Spirit * Suarez de Deo vol. 1. P. 9. Col. 2. The Spirituality of God is as evident as his Being If we grant that God is we must necessarily grant that he cannot be corporeal because a Body is of an imperfect Nature It will appear incredible to any that acknowledge God the first Being and Creator of all things that he should be a massy heavy Body and have Eyes and Ears Feet and hands as we have For the explication of it 1. Spirit is taken various ways in Scripture It signifies sometimes an aereal substance as Psal 11.6 A horrible Tempest Heb. A Spirit of Tempest Sometimes the breath which is a thin substance Gen. 6.17 All Flesh wherein is the breath of Life Heb. Spirit of Life A thin substance though it be material and corporeal is called Spirit And in the bodies of living Creatures that which is the principle of their actions is called Spirits the animal and vital Spirits And the finer parts extracted from Plants and Minerals we call Spirits Those volatile parts separated from that gross matter wherein they were immerst because they come nearest to the nature of an incorporeal substance And from this notion of the word 't is translated to signifie those substances that are purely immaterial as Angels and the Souls of Men. Angels are called Spirits Psal 104.4 who makes his Angels Spirits * Heb. 1.14 And not only good Angels are so called but evil Angels Mark 1.27 Souls of men are called Spirits Eccl. 12. And the Soul of Christ is called so John 19.30 whence God is called the God of the Spirits of all Flesh Numb 22.16 and Spirit is opposed to Flesh Isa
Wisdom that God many times makes a Sin which Meritoriously fits us for Hell a Providential occasion to fit us for Heaven when it is an occasion of a more humble Faith and believing Humility and an occasion of a through Sanctification and growth in Grace which prepares us for a state of Glory 1. He makes use of one Sin 's breaking out to discover more and so brings us to a Self-abhorrency and Indignation against Sin the first step towards Heaven Perhaps David before his gross Fall thought he had no Hypocrisie in him We often find him appealing to God for his Integrity and desiring God to try him if any guile could be found in his Heart as if he could find none himself But his Lapse into that great Wickedness makes him discern much Falseness in his Soul when he desires God to renew a right Spirit within him and speaks of Truth in the inward parts Psal 51.6 10. The stirring of one Corruption makes all the Mud at the bottom appear which before a Soul did not suspect No Man would think there were so great a Cloud of Smoke contain'd in a little Stick of Wood were it not for the powerful operation of the Fire that both discovers and separates it Job that Cursed the Day of his Birth and uttered many Impatient expressions against God upon the account of his own Integrity upon his Recovery from his Affliction and Gods close application of himself was wrought to a greater Abhorrency of himself than ever we read he was exercis'd in before ‖ Job 42.6 The Hostile acts of Sin increase the Souls hatred of it and the deeper our Humiliations are for it the stronger impressions of Abhorrency are made upon us 2. He often orders it to make Conscience more tender and the Soul more watchful He that finds by his Calamity his Enemy to have more strength against him than he suspected will double his Guards and quicken his Diligence against him A being overtaken by some Sin is by the Wisdom of God dispos'd to make us more fearful of cherishing any occasion to enflame it and watchful against every motion and start of it By a Fall the Soul hath more experience of the Deceitfulness of the Heart and by observing its methods is render'd better able to watch against them 'T is our Ignorance of the Devices of Satan and our own hearts that makes us obnoxious to their Surprizes A fall into one Sin is often a prevention of more which lay in wait for us As the fall of a small Body into an Ambush prevents the design of the Enemy upon a greater As God suffers Heresies in the Church to try our Faith so he suffers Sins to remain and sometimes to break out to try our Watchfulness This advantage he brings from them to steel our Resolutions against the same Sins and quicken our Circumspection for the future against new Surprizes by a Temptation Davids Sin was ever before him Psal 51.3 and made his Conscience cry Blood Blood upon every occasion He refused the Water of the Well of Bethlehem 2 Sam 23.16 17. because it was gained with the hazard of Lives He could endure nothing that had the taste of Blood in it Our fear of a thing depends much upon a Trial of it A Child will not fear too near approaches to the Fire till he feels the smart of it Mortification doth not wholly suppress the Motions of Sin though it doth the Resolutions to commit it but that there will be a proneness in the Reliques of it to entice a Man into those Faults which upon sight of their blemishes cost him so many Tears As great Sicknesses after the Cure are more watch'd and the Body humour'd that a Man might not fall from the Craziness they have left in him which he is apt to do if Relapses are not carefully provided against A Man becomes more careful of any thing that may contribute to the resurrection of an expir'd Disease 3. God makes it an occasion of the Mortification of that Sin which was the matter of the Fall The livelyness of one Sin in a Renewed Man many times is the occasion of the death of it A wild Beast while kept close in a Den is secure in its life but when it breaks out to Rapine it makes the Master resolve to prevent any further mischief by the death of it The impetuous stirring of a humor in a Disease is sometime Critical and a Prognostick of the strength of Nature against it whereby the Disease loseth its strength by its struggling and makes room for health to take place by degrees One Sin is used by God for the destruction both of it self and others As the Flesh of a Scorpion cures the biting of it It sometimes by wounding us loseth its Sting and like the Bee renders it self uncapable of a second Revenge Peter after his gross Denial never denied his Master afterwards The Sin that lay undiscovered is by a Fall become visible and so more obvious to a mortifying stroke The Soul lays the faster hold on Christ and the Promise and goes out against that Enemy in the Name of that Lord of Hosts of which he was too negligent of before and therefore as he proves more strong so more successful He hath more strength because he hath less confidence in himself and more in God the prime strength of his Soul As it was with Christ so it is with us while the Devil was bruising his Heel he was bruising his Head and while the Devil is bruising our Heel the God of Peace and Wisdom is sometimes bruising his Head both in us and for us so that the strugglings of Sin are often as the faint groans or bitings of a Beast that is ready to expire 'T is just with a Man sometimes as with a Running Fountain that hath Mud at the bottom when it is stirred the Mud tinctures and defiles it all over yet some of that Mud hath a vent with the Streams which run from it so that when it is re-settled at the bottom 't is not so much in quantity as it was before God by his Wisdom weakens the Sin by permitting it to stir and defile 4. Sometimes Divine Wisdom makes it an occasion to promote a Sanctification in all parts of the Soul As the working of one Ill-humor in the Body is an occasion of cashiering not only that but the rest by a sound Purge As a Man that is a little Cold doth not think of the Fire but if he slips with one Foot into an Icy-puddle he hastens to the Fire whereby not only that part but all the rest receive a warmth and strength upon that occasion Or as if a Person fall into the Mire his Cloaths are washed and by that means cleansed not only from the filth at present contracted but from the former Spots that were before unregarded God by his Wisdom brings secret Sins to a discovery and thereby cleanseth the Soul of them Davids Fall
easily be cured than when it becomes Chronical and inveterate The strength of a Disease or the complication of many magnifies the Power of the Physician and efficacy of the Medicine that tames and expels it What Power is that which hath made Men stoop when Natural habits have been grown Giants by Custome when the putrefaction of Nature hath engendred a multitude of Worms when the Vlcers are many and deplorable when many Cords wherewith God would have bound the Sinner have been broken and like Sampson the wicked Heart hath gloried in its strength and grown more proud that it hath stood like a strong Fort against those Batteries under which others have fallen flat Every Proud thought every Evil habit captivated serves for matter of Triumph to the Power of God †2 Cor. 10.5 What resistance will a multitude of them make when one of them is enough to hold the Faculty under its dominion and intercept its Operations So many Customary habits so many Old natures so many different strengths added to Nature every one of them standing as a Barricado against the way of Grace all the Errors the Vnderstanding is possessed with think the Gospel Folly all the Vices the Will is filled with count it the Fetter and Band. Nothing so contrary to Man as to be thought a Fool nothing so contrary to Man as to enter into slavery 'T is no easie matter to plant the Cross of Christ upon a Heart guided by many Principles against the Truth of it and byast by a World of Wickedness against the Holiness of it Nature renders a Man too feeble and indispos'd and Custome renders a Man more weak and unwilling to change his Hue ‖ Jer. 13.23 To dispossess Man then of his Self-esteem and Self-excellency to make room for God in the Heart where there was none but for Sin as dear to him as himself to hurle down the Pride of Nature to make stout Imaginations stoop to the Cross to make desires of Self-advancement sink under a Zeal for the glorifying of God and an over-ruling design for his Honour is not to be ascrib'd to any but an Out-stretched Aâ—m wielding the Sword of the Spirit To have a Heart full of the Fear of God that was just before filled with a Contempt of him to have a sense of his Power an eye to his Glory admiring Thoughts of his Wisdom a Faith in his Truth that had lower Thoughts of him and all his Perfections than he had of a Creature To have a hatred of his Habitual Lusts that had brought him in much Sensitive pleasure to loath them as much as he loved them to cherish the Duties he hated to live by Faith in and Obedience to the Redeemer who was before so heartily under the conduct of Satan and Self to chase the acts of Sin from his Members and the pleasing thoughts of Sin from his Mind to make a stout Wretch willingly fall down crawl upon the ground and adore that Saviour whom before he out-dar'd is a Triumphant Act of Infinite Power that can subdue all things to it self and break those multitude of Locks and Bolts that were upon us 3. Against a multitude of Temptations and Interests The Temptations Rich Men have in this World are so numerous and strong that the entrance of one of them into the Kingdom of Heaven that is the entertainment of the Gospel is made by our Saviour an impossible thing with Men and procurable only by the Power of God * Luke 18.24 25 26. The Divine Strength only can separate the World from the Heart and the Heart from the World There must be an Incomprehensible Power to chase away the Devil that had so long so strong a footing in the Affections to render the Soyl he had sown with so many Tares and Weeds capable of good Grain to make Spirits that had found the sweetness of Worldly prosperity wrapt up all their Happiness in it and not only bent down but as it were buried in Earth and Mud to be loosened from those beloved Cords to disrelish the Earth for a Crucified Christ I say this must be the effect of an Almighty Power 4. The Manner of Conversion shews no less the Power of God There is not only an irresistible Force used in it but an agreeable Sweetness The Power is so Efficacious that nothing can vanquish it and so Sweet that none did ever complain of it The Almighty Vertue displays it self Invincibly yet without Constraint compelling the Will without offering Violence to it and making it cease to be Will Not forcing it but changing it not dragging it but drawing it making it will where before it nill'd removing the Corrupt Nature of the Will without invading the Created Nature and Rights of the Faculty not working in us against the Physical nature of the Will but working to will †Phil. 2.13 This work is therefore called Creation Resurrection to shew its Irresistible Power 'T is called Illumination Perswasion Drawing to shew the suitableness of its Efficacy to the nature of the Humane Faculties 'T is a drawing with Cords which testifies an Invincible strength but with Cords of Love which testifies a Delightful conquest 'T is hard to determine whether it be more Powerful than Sweet or more Sweet than Powerful 'T is no mean part of the Power of God to twist together Victory and Pleasure to give a blow as delightful as strong as pleasing to the Sufferer as it is sharp to the Sinner II. The Power of God in the application of Redemption is evident in the Pardoning a Sinner 1. In the Pardon it self The Power of God is made the ground of his Patience or the reason why he is Patient is because he would shew his Power ‖ Rom. 9.22 'T is a part of Magnanimity to pass by Injuries As weaker Stomacks cannot concoct the tougher food so weak Minds cannot digest the harder Injuries He that passes over a Wrong is superiour to his Adversary that does it When God speaks of his own Name as Merciful he speaks first of himself as Powerful Exod. 34.6 The Lord the Lord God that is the Lord the strong Lord Jehovah the strong Jehovah Let the Power of my Lord be great saith Moses when he prays for the Forgiveness of the People * Numb 14.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be exalted Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stâ—ength c. The word Jigdal is written with a great Jod or a Jod above the other Letters The Power of God in Pardoning is advanc'd beyond an ordinary strain beyond the Creative strength In the Creation he had power over the Creatures in this power over himself In Creation not Himself but the Creatures were the Object of his Power in that no Attribute of his Nature could article against his Design In the Pardon of a Sinner after many Overtures made to him and refus'd by him God exerciseth a power over himself for the Sinner hath dishonour'd God prâ—â—ok'd his
especially this dominion in the peculiarity of its extent is seen in the exercise of it over the Spirits and Hearts of Men. Earthly Governours have by his indulgence a share with him in a dominion over mens bodies upon which account he graceth Princes and Judges with the Title of Gods Psal 82.6 But the highest Prince is but a Prince according to the Flesh as the Apostle calls Masters in relation to their Servants Colos 3.22 God is the Soveraign Man rules over the Beast in Man the Body and God rules over the Man in Man the Soul It sticks not in the outward surface but peirceth to the inward Marrow 'T is impossible God should be without this if our wills were independent on him we were in some sort equal with himself in part Gods as well as Creatures 'T is impossible a Creature either in whole or in part can be exempted from it Since he is the fashioner of hearts as well as of Bodies He is the Father of Spirits And therefore hath the right of a paternal dominion over them When he established man Lord of the other Creatures he did not strip himself of the propriety And when he made man a free Agent and Lord of the acts of his Will he did not devest himself of the Soveraignty His Soveraignty is seen 1. In Gifting of the Spirits of Men. Earthly Magistrates have hands too short to inspire the Hearts of their Subjects with worthy sentiments When they conferre an employment they are not able to convey an ability with it fit for the station They may as soon frame a Statue of liquid water and guild or paint it over with the costliest colours as impart to any a State-Head for a State-Ministry But when God chooseth a Saul from so mean an employment as seeking of Asses he can treasure up in him a Spirit fit for Government And fire David in Age a stripling and by Education a Shepherd with Courage to Encounter and skill to defeat a massy Goliah And when he designs a person for Glory to stand before his Throne he can put a new and a Royal Spirit into him Ezek. 36.26 God only can infuse habits into the Soul to capacitate it to act nobly and generously 2. His Soveraignty is seen in regard of the inclinations of mens Wills No Creature can immediately work upon the will to guide it to what point he pleaseth though mediately it may by proposing reasons which may Master the understandiâ—g and thereby determine the Will But God bows the Hearts of men by the 〈◊〉 of his dominion to what Centre he pleaseth When the more overweeniâ—g sort of men that thought their own heads as fit for a Crown as Sauls scornfully dâ—spis'd him yet God touched the hearts of a band of men to follow and adhere to him 1 Sam. 10.26 27. When the Anti-Christian Whore shall be ripe for destruction God shall put it into the Heart of the ten Horns or Kings to hate the Whore burn her with Fire and fulfil his Will Rev. 17.16 17. He Fashions the Hearts alike and tunes one string to answer another and both to answer his own design Psal 33.15 And while men seem to gratifie their own ambition and malice they execute the Will of God by his secret touch upon their Spirits guiding their inclinations to serve the glorious manifestation of his Truth While the Jews would in a reproachful disgrace to Christ Crucifie two Theives with him to render him more uncapable to have any followers they accomplisht a Prophesie and brought to light a mark of the Messiah whereby he had been charactered in one of their Prophets Isaiah 53.12 That he should be numbred among Transgressors He can make a man of not willing willing the wills of all men are in his hand i. e. under the power of his Scepter to retain or let go upon this or that Errand to bend this or that way as Water is carried by Pipes to what house or place the owner of it is pleas'd to order Prov. 21.1 The Kings Heart is in the hand of the Lord as the Rivers of waters he turns it whithersoever he will without any limitation He speaks of the Heart of Princes Because in regard of their height they seem to be more absolute and impetuous as waters yet God holds them in his hand under his dominion turns them to acts of clemency or severity like waters either to overflow and dammage or to refresh and fructifie He can convey a Spirit to them or cut it off from them Psal 76.12 'T is with reference to his efficacious power in graciously turning the Heart of Paul that the Apostle breaks of his discourse off the story of his conversion and breaks out into a magnifying and glorifying of God's dominion 1 Tim. 1.17 Now unto the King eternal c. be Honour and Glory for ever and ever Our Hearts are more subject to the divine Soveraignty than our members in their motions are subject to our own wills As we can move our hand East or West to any quarter of the World so can God bend our Wills to what mark he pleases The second Cause in every motion depends upon the first and that will being a second Cause may be furthered or hindered in its inclinations or executions by God he can bend or unbend it and change it from one actual inclination to another 'T is as much under his Authority and Power to move or hinder as the vast engine of the Heavens is in its motion or standing still which he can effect by a word The work depends upon the workman the Clock upon the Artificer for the motions of it 3. His dominion is seen in regard of Terror or Comfort The Heart or Conscience is Gods special Throne on Earth which he hath reserv'd to himself and never indulg'd humane Authority to sit upon it He solely orders this in ways of conviction or Comfort He can flash terror into mens Spirits in the midst of their Earthly jollities and put death into the pot of Conscience when they are boyling up themselves in a high pitch of worldly delights and can raise mens Spirits above the sense of torment under Racks and Flames He can draw a hand Writing not only in the outward Chamber but the inward Closet bring the Rack into the inwards of a Man None can infuse Comfort when he writes bitter things nor can any fill the heart with Gall when he drops in Hony Men may order outward duties but they cannot unlock the Conscience and constrain men to think them duties which they are forced by humane Laws outwardly to act And as the Laws of earthly Princes are bounded by the outward man so do their executions and punishments reach no further than the case of the Body But God can run upon the inward man as a Gyant and inflict wounds and gashes there 5. Proposition 'T is an Eternal Dominion In regard of the exercise of it it was not from Eternity Because
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
is a God in being and the Apostle doth not say that they know God but they profess to know him True knowledge and profession of knowledge are distinct It intimates also to us the unreasonableness of Atheism in the Consequence when men shut their eyes against the beams of so clear a sun God revengeth himself upon them for their impiety by leaving them to their own wills lets them fall into the deepest sink and dregs of iniquity and since they doubt of him in their hearts suffers them above others to deny him in their works this the Apostle discourseth at large * Rom. 1.24 The Text then is a description of mans Corruption 1. Of his mind The fool hath said in his heart No better title than that of a fool is afforded to the Atheist 2. Of the other faculties 1. In sins of Commission exprest by the loathsomeness corrupt abominable 2. In sins of Ommission there is none that doth good he lays down the Corruption of the mind as the cause the corruption of the other faculties as the effect I. Doct. 1 'T is a great Folly to deny or doubt of the Existence or Being of God Or An Atheist is a great Fool. II. Practical Atheism is natural to man in his corrupt State 'T is against Nature as constituted by God but Natural as Nature is depraved by Man The absolute disowning of the Being of a God is not natural to men but the contrary is natural but an inconsideration of God or mis-representation of his Nature is natural to Man as corrupt III. A secret Atheism or a partial Atheism is the Spring of all the wicked Practices in the world The disorders of the Life spring from the ill dispositions of the Heart For the first every Atheist is a Grand Fool. If he were not a Fool he would not imagine a thing so contrary to the stream of the Universal Reason of the world contrary to the rational Dictates of his own Soul and contrary to the Testimony of every Creature and Link in the Chain of Creation If he were not a Fool he would not strip himself of Humanity and degrade himself lower than the most despicable Brute 'T is a Folly for tho God be so Inaccessible that we cannot know him perfectly yet he is so much in the light that we cannot be totally ignorant of him As he cannot be comprehended in his Essence he cannot be unknown in his Existence 't is as easie by Reason to understand that he is as it is difficult to know what he is The Demonstrations Reason furnisheth us with for the Existence of God will be Evidences of the Atheist's Folly One would think there were little need of spending time in evidencing this Truth since in the Principle of it it seems to be so universally own'd and at the first proposal and demand gains the assent of most men But 1. Doth not the growth of Atheism among us render this Necessary may it not justly be suspected that the swarms of Atheists are more numerous in our times than History Records to have been in any age when men will not only say it in their hearts but publish it with their lips and boast that they have shaken of those Shackles which bind other mens Consciences Doth not the bare-fac'd Debauchery of men evidence such a setled Sentiment or at least a careless Beleif of the truth which lies at the root and sprouts up in such venemous branches in the World Can mens hearts be free from that Principle wherewith their Practices are so openly depraved 'T is true the light of Nature shines too vigorously for the Power of Man totally to put it out yet loathsom Actions impair and weaken the actual thoughts and considerations of a Deity and are like Mists that darken the light of the Sun though they cannot extinguish it their Consciences as a Candlestick must hold it though their unrighteousness obscure it Rom. 1.18 Who hold the Truth in Vnrighteousness The engraved Characters of the Law of Nature remain though they dawb them with their muddy Lusts to make them illegible So that since the inconsideration of a Deity is the cause of all the wickedness and extravigancies of men and as Austin saith the Proposition is always true the Fool hath said in his heart c. and more evidently true in this age than any it will not be unnecsseary to discourse of the Demonstrations of this first Principle The Apostles spent little time in urgng this Truth it was taken for granted all over the world and they were generally devout in the Worship of those Idols they thought to be Gods That age run from one God to many and our age is running from one God to none at all 2. The Existence of God is the Foundation of all Religion The whole Building totters if the Foundation be out of Course If we have not deliberate and right Notions of it we shall perform no Worship no Service yeild no affection to him If there be not a God 't is impossible there can be one for Eternity is Essential to the notion of a God so all Religion would be vain and unreasonable to pay Homage to that which is not in being nor can ever be We must first beleive that he is and that he is what he declares himself to be before we can seek him adore him and devote our Affections to him * Heb. 11.6 We cannot pay God a due and regular Homage unless we understand him in his Perfections what he is and we can pay him no Homage at all unless we beleive that he is 3. 'T is sit we should know why we beleive that our Beleif of a God may appear to be upon undeniable Evidence and that we may give a better reason for his Existence than that we have heard our Parents and Teachers tell us so and our acquaintance think so 'T is as much as to say there is no God when we know not why we believe there is and would not consider the Arguments for his Existence 4. It is necessary to depress that secret Atheism which is in the heart of every man by nature Though every visible object which offers it self to our sense presents a Deity to our minds and exhorts us to subscribe to the truth of it yet there is a Root of Atheism springing up sometimes in wavering thoughts and foolish imaginations inordinate actions and secret wishes Certain it is that every man that doth not love God denyes God now can he that disaffects him and hath a slavish fear of him wish his Existence and say to his own heart with any chearfulness there is a God and make it his cheif care to perswade himself of it he would perswade himself there is no God and stifle the seeds of it in his Reason and Conscience that he might have the greatest liberty to intertain the allurements of the Flesh 'T is necessary to Excite men to daily and actual considerations of
out from the Creation of the World there could not be engaged a considerable number to frame a Society for the profession of it It hath died with the Person that started it and vanish'd as soon as it appeared To conclude this is it not folly for any man to deny or doubt of the being of a God to dissent from all mankind and stand in contradiction to humane Nature What is the general dictate of Nature is a certain Truth 'T is impossible that Nature can naturally and universally lie And therefore those that ascribe all to Nature and set it in the Place of God contradict themselves if they give not credit to it in that which it universally affirms ‖ Cicero A general consent of all Nations is to be esteemed as a Law of Nature Nature cannot plant in the minds of all men an assent to a falsity for then the Laws of Nature would be destructive to the reason and minds of men How is it possible that a falsity should be a perswasion spread through all Nations engraven upon the minds of all men men of the most towring and men of the most creeping understanding that they should consent to it in all places and in those places where the Nations have not had any known commerce with the rest of the known World A Consent not settled by any Law of Man to constrain People to a belief of it And indeed 't is impossible that any Law of man can constrain the Belief of the mind Would not he deservedly be accounted a fool that should deny that to be gold which hath been tryed and examined by a great number of knowing Goldsmiths and hath past the test of all their touch-stones what excess of folly would it be for him to deny it to be true gold if it had been tryed by all that had skill in that metal in all Nations in the World Secondly 2. It hath been a constant and uninterrupted consent It hath been as Ancient as the first age of the World no man is able to mention any time from the beginning of the World wherein this Notion hath not been universally owned t is a old as man-kind and hath run along with the course of the Sun nor can the date be fixed lower than that 1. First In all the changes of the World this hath been maintained In the overturnings of the Government of States the alteration of Modes of Worship this hath stood unshaken The reasons upon which it was founded were in all Revolutions of time accounted satisfactory and convincing nor could absolute Atheism in the changes of any Laws ever gain the favour of any one Body of people to be established by a Law When the Honour of the Heathen Idols was laid in the dust this suffered no impair The being of one God was more vigorously owned when the unreasonableness of multiplicity of Gods was manifest and grew taller by the detection of counterfeits When other parts of the Law of nature have been violated by some Nations this hath maintained its standing The long series of Ages hath been so far from blotting it out that it hath more strongly confirmed it and maketh further progress in the confirmation of it Time which hath eaten out the strength of other things and blasted meer inventions hath not been able to consume this The discovery of all other Impostures never made this by any society of men to be suspected as one It will not be easy to name any Imposture that hath walked perpetually in the world without being discovered and whipped out by some Nation or other Falsities have never been so universally and constantly owned without publick controul and question And since the world hath detected many errors of the former age and learning been increased this hath been so far from being dimm'd that it hath shone out clearer with the increase of natural knowledge and received fresh and more vigorous confirmations 2. The fears and anxieties in the Consciences of men have given men sufficient occasion to root it out had it been possible for them to do it If the Notion of the Existence of God had been possible to have been dasht out of the minds of men they would have done it rather than have suffered so many troubles in their Souls upon the Commission of sin since there did not want wickedness and wit in so many corrupt ages to have attempted it and prospered in it had it been possible How comes it therefore to pass that such a multitude of profligate persons that have been in the world since the fall of man should not have rooted out this principle and dispostest the minds of men of that which gave birth to their tormenting fears How is it possible that all should agree together in a thing which created fear and an obliligation against the Interest of the Flesh if it had been free for men to discharge themselves of it No man as far as corrupt nature bears sway in him is willing to live contrould The first Man would rather be a God himself than under one * Gen. 3.5 Why should men continue this Notion in them which shackled them in their vile inclinations if it had been in their power utterly to deface it If it were an Imposture how comes it to pass that all the wicked ages of the world could never discover that to be a cheat which kept them in continual alarums Men wanted not will to shake off such apprehensions As Adam so all his Posterity are desirous to hide themselves from God upon the Commission of sin * Gen. 3.9 and by the same reason they would hide God from their Souls What is the reason they could never attain their will and their wish by all their endeavours Could they possibly have satisfied themselves that there were no God they had discarded their fears the disturbers of the repose of their lives and been unbridled in their pleasures The wickedness of the world would never have preserved that which was a perpetual molestation to it had it been possible to be rased out But since men under the turmoils and lashes of their own Consciences could never bring their hearts to a setled dissent from this Truth it evidenceth that as it took its birth at the beginning of the world it cannot expire no not in the ashes of it nor in any thing but the reduction of the Soul to that nothing from whence it sprung This conception is so perpetual that the nature of the Soul must be dissolved before it be rooted out nor can it be extinct whiles the Soul endures 3. Let it be considered also by us that own the Scripture that the Devil deems it impossible to root out this sentiment It seems to be so perpetually fixed that the Devil did not think fit to tempt man to the denial of the Existence of a Deity but perswaded him to beleive he might ascend to that Dignity and become a God himself Gen. 3.1 Hath
several valves or doors for the thrusting the blood forwards to perform its circular motion 3. The Brain fortified by a strong skull to hinder outward accidents a tough membrane or skin to hinder any oppression by the skull the seat of sense that which coins the animal spirits by purifying and refining those which are sent to it and seems like a curious peice of Needlework 4. The Ear framed with windings and turnings to keep any thing from entring to offend the Brain so disposed as to admit sounds with the greatest safety and delight * Eccles 12.4 filled with an air within by the motion whereof the sound is transmitted to the Brain As sounds are made in the Air by diffusing themselves as you see Circles made in the water by the flinging in a stone This is the Gate of knowledge whereby we hear the Oracles of God and the instruction of men for arts T is by this they are exposed to the mind and the mind of another Man framed in our understandings 5. What a curious Workmanship is that of the Eye which is in the body as the Sun in the World set in the head as in a Watch-Tower having the softest nerves for the receiving the greater multitude of Spirits necessary for the act of Vision How is it provided with defence by the variety of Coats to secure and accomodate the little humor and part whereby the vision is made Made of a round figure and convex as most commodious to receive the species of objects shaded by the eye-brows and eye-lids secured by the eye-lids which are its ornament and safety which refresh it when it is too much dried by heat hinder too much light from insinuating it self into it to offend it cleanse it from impurities by their quick motion preserve it from any invasion and by contraction confer to the more evident discerning of things Both the eyes seated in the hollow of the bone for security yet standing out that things may be perceived more easily on both sides And this little Member can behold the earth and in a moment veiw things as high as Heaven 6. * Coccei sum Theol. cap. 8. § 49. The Tongue for speech framed like a Musical instrument the Teeth serving for variety of sounds the lungs serving for Bellows to blow the Organs as it were to cool the Heart by a continual motion transmitting a pure Air to the Heart expelling that which was smoky and superfluous T is by the Tongue that communication of Truth hath a passage among men it opens the sense of the mind there would be no converse and commerce without it Speech among all Nations hath an elegancy and attractive force mastering the affections of men Not to speak of other parts or of the multitude of Spirits that act every part he quick flight of them where there is a necessity of their presence Solomon 12 Ecclesiast makes an elegant description of them in his Speech of old age And Job â—peaks of this formation of the body Job 10.9 10 11 c. Not the least part of the body is made in vain The hairs of the Head have their use as well as are an ornament The whole Symmetry of the body is a ravishing object Every Member hath a Signature and mark of God and his Wisdom He is visible in the formation of the Members the beauty of the parts and the vigor of the body This structure could not be from the body that only hath a passive power and cannot act in the absence of the Soul Nor can it be from the Soul How comes it then to be so ignorant of the manner of its formation The Soul knows not the internal parts of its own body but by information from others or inspection into other bodies It knows less of the inward frame of the body than it doth of it self But he that makes the Clock can tell the number and motions of the wheels within as well as what figures are without This short discourse is useful to raise our admirations of the Wisdom of God as well as to demonstrate that there is an Infinite Wise Creator And the consideration of our selves every day and the wisdom of God in our frame would maintain Religion much in the world Since all are so framed that no man can tell any error in the constitution of him If thus the body of man is fitted for the service of his Soul by an infinite God the body ought to be ordered for the service of this God and in obedience to him 2. In the admirable difference of the features of Men. Which is a great argument that the world was made by a wise Being This could not be wrought by Chance or be the work of meer nature since we find never or very rarely two persons exactly alike This distinction is a part of infinite wisdom otherwise what confusion would be introduced into the World Without this Parents could not know their Children nor Children their Parents nor a Brother his Sister nor a Subject his Magistrate Without it there had been no comfort of Relations no Government no commerce Debtors would not have been known from strangers nor good men from bad Propriety could not have been preserved nor justice executed the innocent might have been apprehended for the nocent wickedness could not have been stopt by any Law The Faces of men are the same for parts not for features A dissimilitude in a likeness Man like to all the rest in the World yet unlike to any and differenced by some mark from all which is not to be observed in any other species of Creatures This speaks some wise Agent which framed man since for the preservation of human society and order in the world this distinction was necessary Secondly II. As mans own nature witnesseth a God to him in the structure of his body so also in the nature of his Soul * Coâ—cei sam Theolog. cap. 8. § 50.51 We know that we have an understanding in us a substance we cannot see but we know it by its operations as thinking reasoning willing remembring And as operating about things that are invisible and remote from sense This must needs be distinct from the body for that being but dust and Earth in its original hath not the power of reasoning and thinking for then it would have that power when the Soul were absent as well as when it is present Besides if it had that power of thinking it could think only of those things which are sensible and made up of matter as it self is This Soul hath a greater excellency it can know it self rejoyce in it self which other Creatures in this world are not capable of The Soul is the greatest glory of this lower world and as one saith * More There seems to be no more difference between the Soul and an Angel than between a Sword in the Scabbard and when it is Out of the Scabbard First I. Consider the vastness
every side destruction shall be ready at his side the first born of Death shall devour his strength his confidence shall be rooted out and it shall bring him to the King of Terrors Brimstone shall be scattered upon his Habitation he shall be driven from light into darkness and chased out of the World they that come after him shall be astonished at his day as they that went before were affrighted and this is the place of him that knows not God * Ver. 21 If there be a future reckoning as his own Conscience cannot but sometimes inform him of his condition is desperate and his misery dreadful and unavoidable T is not righteous a Hell should entertain any else if it refuse him Vse 2 2. How lamentable is it that in our times this folly of Atheism should be so rise That there should be found such Monsters in human nature in the midst of the improvements of Reason and shinings of the Gospel who not only make the Scripture the matter of their Jeers but Scoff at the Judgments and Providences of God in the World and envy their Creator a being without whose goodness they had had none themselves who contradict in their carriage what they assert to be their sentiment when they dreadfully imprecate damnation to themselves Whence should that damnation they so rashly wish be poured forth upon them if there were not a revenging God Formerly Atheism was as rare as prodigious scarce two or three known in an age * And those that are reported to be so in former ages are rather thought to be counted so for mocking at the senceless Deities the common people ador'd and laying open their impurities A meer natural strength would easily discover that those they adored for Gods could not deserve that title since their original was known their uncleanness manifest and acknowledged by their worshippers And probably it was so * As Justin infâ—rm us since the Christians were termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they acknowledged not their vain Idols I question whether there ever was or can be in the world an uninterrupted and internal denyal of the being of God or that men unless we can suppose Conscience utterly dead can arrive to such a degree of impiety For before they can stifle such sentiments in them whatsoever they may assert they must be utter strangers to the common conceptions of reason and despoile themselves of their own humanity He that dares to deny a God with his lips yet sets up something or other as a God in his heart Is it not lamentable that this sacred truth consented to by all Nations which is the band of civil societies the source of all order in the world should be denyed with a bare face and disputed against in Companies And the Glory of a wise Creator ascribed to an unintelligent nature to blind chance are not such worse then Heathens They worshipped many Gods these none They preserved a notion of God in the world under a disguise of Images These would banish him both from Earth and Heaven and demolish the Statues of him in their own Consciences They degraded him these would destroy him They coupled Creatures with him Rom 1.25 Who worshipped the Creature with the Creator as it may most properly be rendred And these would make him worse than the Creature a meer nothing Earth is hereby become worse than Hell Atheism is a perswasion which finds no footing any where else Hell that receives such persons in this point reforms them They can never deny or doubt of his being while they feel his stroaks The Devil that rejoyces at their wickedness knows them to be in an error for he believes and trembles at the belief * Jam. 2.19 This is a forerunner of Judgment Boldness in sin is a presage of vengeance especially when the honour of God is more particularly concern'd therein It tends to the overturning human society taking off the Bridle from the wicked inclinations of men And God appears not in such visible Judgments against sin immediately committed against himself as in the case of those sins that are destructive to human society Besides God as Governor of the world will uphold that without which all his ordinances in the world would be useless Atheism is point blank against all the Glory of God in Creation and against all the glory of God in Redemption and pronounceth at one breath both the Creator and all Acts of Religion and Divine Institutions useless and insignificant Since most have had one time or other some risings of doubt whether there be a God tho few do in expressions deny his being it may not be unnecessary to propose somethings for the further impressing this truth and guarding themselves against such temptations 1. T is utterly impossible to demonstrate there is no God He can choose no Medium but will fall in as a proof for his Existence and a manifestation of his excellency rather than against it The pretences of the Atheist are so ridiculous that they are not worth the mentioning They never saw God and therefore know not how to believe such a Being they cannot comprehend him He would not be God if he could fall within the narrow Model of an humane Understanding He would not be infinite if he were comprehensible or to be terminated by our sight How small a thing must that be which is seen by a bodily Eye or graspt by a weak Mind If God were visible or comprehensible he would be limited Shall it be a sufficient Demonstration from a blind man that there is no fire in the Room because he sees it not though he feel the warmth of it The knowledge of the effect is sufficient to conclude the existence of the cause Who ever saw his own Life Is it sufficient to deny a man lives because he beholds not his Life and only knows it by his motion He never saw his own Soul but knows he hath one by his thinking power The Air renders it self sensible to Men in its Operations yet was never seen by the eye If God should render Himself visible they might question as well as now whether that which was so visible were God or some delusion If he should appear glorious we can as little behold him in his Majestick Glory as an Owl can behold the Sun in its brightness we should still but see him in his Effects as we do the Sun by his Beams If he should shew a new Miracle we should still see him but by his Works so we see him in his Creatures every one of which would be as great a Miracle as any can be wrought to one that had the first prospect of them To require to see God is to require that which is impossible 1 Tim. 6.16 He dwels in the Light which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see 'T is visibe that he is for he covers himself with Light as with a Garment Psal 104.2
some might take in beholding the Miracles of our Saviour who could not endure his searching Doctrine The light of speculation may be pleasant but the light of conviction is grievous that which galls their Consciences and would affect them with a sense of their duty to God Is it not easy to perceive that when a man begins to be serious in the concerns of the Honour of God and the duty of his soul he feels a reluctancy within him even against the pleas of Conscience which evidenceth that some unworthy principle has got footing in the hearts of men which fights against the declarations of God without and the impressions of the Law of God within at the same time when a man 's own Conscience takes part with it which is the substance of the Apostles discourse Rom. 7.15 16 c. Close discourses of the Honour of God and our duty to him are irksome when men are upon a merry pin They are like a damp in a Mine that takes away their breath they shuffle them out as soon as they can and are as unwilling to retain the-speech of them in their mouths as the knowledge of them in their hearts Gracious speeches instead of bettering many men distemper them as sometimes sweet perfumes affect a weak head with aches 3. As t is most contrary to self Men are unwilling to acquaint themselves with any truth that leads to God because it leads from self Every part of the Will of God is more or less displeasing as it sounds harsh against some carnal interest men would set above God or as a Mate with him Man cannot desire any intimacy with that Law which he regards as a Bird of prey to pick out his right eye or gnaw off his right hand his lust dearer than himself The reason we have such hard thoughts of Gods Will is because we have such high thoughts of our selves T is a hard matter to Believe or Will that which hath no affinity with some principle in the understanding and no interest in our Will and Passions Our unwillingness to be acquainted with the Will of God ariseth from the disproportion between that and our corrupt hearts We are alienated from the life of God in our minds Eph. 41 18 19. As we live not like God so we neither think or Will as God There is an antipathy in the heart of man against that Doctrine which teaches us to deny our selves and be under the rule of another But whatsoever favours the ambition lusts and profits of men is easily entertainable Many are fond of those Sciences which may enrich their understandings and grate not upon their sensual delights Many have an admirable dexterity in finding out Philosophical reasons Mathematical demonstrations or raising observations upon the Records of History and spend much time and many serious and affectionate thoughts in the study of them In those they have not immediatly to do with God their beloved pleasures are not impaired T is a satisfaction to self without the exercise of any hostility against it But had those Sciences been against self as much as the Law and Will of God they had long since been rooted out of the World Why did the Young-man turn his back upon the Law of Christ because of his worldly self Why did the Pharisees mock at the Doctrine of our Saviour and not at their own traditions because of Covetous self Why did the Jews slight the person of our Saviour and put him to death after the reading so many Credentials of his being sent from Heaven because of ambitious self that the Romans might not come and take away their Kingdom If the Law of God were fitted to the humors of self it would be readily and cordially observed by all men Self is the measure of a world of seeming Religious actions while God seems to be the object and his Law the motive self is the rule and end Zach. 7.5 Did you fast unto me c. 2 As men discover their disowning the Will of God as a rule by unwillingness to be acquainted with it so they discover it by the contempt of it after they cannot avoid the Notions and some impressions of it The rule of God is burthensome to a sinner he flies from it as from a frightful bug-bear and unpleasant Yoke Sin against the knowledge of the Law is therefore called a going back from the Commandment of Gods lips Job 23.12 A casting Gods word behind them * Psal 50.17 as a contemptible thing fitter to be trodden in the durt than lodged in the heart Nay it is a casting it off as an abominable thing for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies Hos 8.3 Israel hath cast off the thing that is good an utter refusal of God Jer. 44.16 As for the word which thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord we will not hearken In the slight of his precepts his essential perfections are slighted In disowning his Will as a Rule we disown all those attributes which flow from his Will as Goodness Righteousness and Truth As an Act of the Divine understanding is supposed to precede the Act of the Divine Will so we slight the infinite reason of God Every Law tho it proceeds from the Will of the Law-giver and doth formally consist in an Act of the Will yet it doth presuppose an act of the understanding If the Commandment be holy just and good as it is Rom. 7.12 if it be the image of Gods holiness a transcript of his righteousness and the efflux of his goodness then in every breach of it durt is cast upon those Attributes which shine in it and a slight of all the regards he hath to his own Honour and all the provisions he makes for his Creature This Atheism or contempt of God is more taken notice of by God than the matter of the sin it self As a respect to God in a weak and imperfect obedience is more than the matter of the obedience it self because it is an acknowledgment of God So a contempt of God in an act of disobedience is more than the matter of the disobedience The Creature stands in such an Act not only in a posture of distance from God but defiance of him It was not the bare act of Murder and Adultery which Nathan charged upon David but the Atheistical principle which Spirited those evil acts The despising the Commandment of the Lord was the venom of them * 2 Sam. 12. ◠1◠T is possible to break a Law without contempt But when men pretend to believe there is a God and that this is the Law of God it shews a contempt of his Majesty * Claud. Men naturally account Gods Laws too strict his Yoak too heavy and his limits too strait And he that liveth in a contempt of this Law curseth God in his life How can they believe there is a God who despise him as a Ruler How can they believe him to
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
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
bigger than they are This is thought by some to be the Sin of the fallen Angels who reflecting upon their own natural Excellency superior to other Creatures would find a Blessedness in their own Nature as God did in his and make themselves the last end of their Actions 'T is from this Principle we are naturally so ready to compare our selves rather with those that are below us than with those that are above us and often think those that are above us inferior to us and secretly glory that we are become none of the meanest and lowest in natural or moral Excellencies How far were the gracious Pen-men of the Scripture from this who when possessed and directed by the Spirit of God and filled with a Sence of him instead of applauding themselves publish upon Record their own faults to all the Eyes of the World And if Peter as some think dictated the Gospel which Mark wrote as his Amanuensis 't is observable that his Crime in denying his Master is aggravated in that Gospel in some Circumstances and less spoken of his Repentance than in the other Evangelists When he thought thereon he wept * Mark 14.72 But in the other He went out and wept bitterly * Matt. 26 75. * Luke 22.62 This is one part of Atheism and Self-Idolatry to magnifie our selves with the Forgetfulness and to the injury of our Creator 2. In ascribing the glory of what we do or have to our selves to our own Wisdom Power Vertue c. How flaunting is Nebuchadnezzar at the Prospect of Babilon which he had exalted to be the Head of so great an Empire Dan. 4.30 Is not this great Babilon that I have built For c. He struts upon the Battlements of his Palace as if there were no God but himself in the World while his eye could not but see the Heavens above him to be none of his own framing attributing his Acquisitions to his own Arm and referring them to his own Honour for his own delight not for the Honour of God as a Creature ought nor for the advantage of his Subjects as the Duty of a Prince He regards Babilon as his Heaven and himself as his Idol as if he were all and God nothing An Example of this we have in the present Age. But it is often observed that God vindicates his own Honour brings the most heroical men to contempt and unfortunate ends as a punishment of their Pride as he did here Dan. 4.31 While the Word was in the Kings Mouth there fell a Voice from Heaven c. * Sandersons Sermons This was Herods Crime to suffer others to do it He had discovered his Eloquence actively and made himself his own end passively in approving the flatteries of the people and offered not with one hand to God the glory he received from his people with the other Acts 12.22 23. Samosatenus is reported to put down the Hymnes which were sung for the glory of God and Christ and caused Songs to be sung in the Temple for his own Honour When any thing succeeds well we are ready to attribute it to our own Prudence and Industry If we meet with a Cross we fret against the Stars and Fortune and second Causes and sometimes against God as they curse God as well as their King Esa 8.21 not acknowledging any defect in themselves The Psalmist by his Repetition of Not unto us not unto us but to thy Name give Glory Psal 115.1 implies the naturality of this temper and the difficulty to cleanse our Hearts from those Self-reflections If it be Angelical to refuse an undue Glory stollen from Gods Throne Revela 22.8 9. 't is Diabolical to accept and cherish it To seek our own Glory is not Glory Pro. 25.27 'T is vile and the dishonour of a Creature who by the Law of his Creation is referred to another end So much as we sacrifice to our own credit to the dexterity of our hands or the sagacity of our wit we detract from God 3. In desires to have self-pleasing Doctrines When we cannot endure to hear any thing that crosses the Flesh though the wise man tells us 't is better to hear the Rebuke of the Wise than the Song of Fools Eccles. 7.5 If Hanani the Seer reprove King Asa for not relying on the Lord his passion shall be armed for self against the Prophet and arrest him a Prisoner 2 Cron. 16.10 If Micaiah declare to Ahab the Evil that shall befall him Amon the Governour shall receive Orders to clap him up in a Dungeon Fire doth not sooner seize upon combustible matter than Fury will be kindled if self be but pincht This interest of lustful self barr'd the heart of Herodias against the entertainment of the Truth and caused her savagely to dip her hands in the blood of the Baptist to make him a Sacrifice to that inward Idol Mark 6.18 19 28. 4. In being highly concerned for Injuries done to our selves and little or not at all concerned for Injuries done to God How will the blood rise in us when our Honour and Reputation is invaded and scarce reflect upon the Dishonour God suffers in our sight and hearing Violent Passions will transform us into Bonarges in the one Case and our unconcernedness render us Gallios in the other We shall extenuate that which concerns God and aggravate that which concerns our selves Nothing but the Death of Jonathan a first born and a generous Son will satisfie his Father Saul when the Authority of his Edict was broken by his tasting of Hony though he had recompensed his Crime committed in Ignorance by the Purchase of a Gallant Victory But when the Authority of God was violated in saving the Amalekites Cattel against the Command of a greater Soveraign than himself he can daub the busines and excuse it with a Design of sacrificing He was not so earnest in hindring the people from the breach of Gods Command as he was in vindicating the Honour of his own 1 Sam. 15.21 He could hardly admit of an excuse to salve his own Honour but in the Concerns of Gods Honour pretend Piety to cloak his Avarice And it is often seen when the violation of Gods Authority and the stain of our own Reputation are coupled together we are more troubled for what disgraces us than for what dishonours God When Saul had thus transgrest he is desirous that Samuel would turn again to preserve his own honour before the Elders rather than grieved that he had broken the Command of God v. 30. 5. In trusting in our selves When we consult with our own Wit and Wisdom more than inquire of God and ask leave of him As the Assyrian Isa 10.13 By the Strength of my hands I have done it and by my Wisdom for I am prudent When we attempt things in the strengh of our own heads and parts and trust in our own Industry without application to God for Direction Blessing and Success we
sin lies in the neglect of these all grace lies in the practice of them Without some degree of the mortification of these we cannot make profitable and comfortable approaches to God When we come with Idols in our hearts we shall be answered according to the multitude and the baseness of them too * Ezek. 14.4 What expectation of a good look from him can we have when we come before him with undeifying thoughts of him a Petition in our mouths and a Sword in our hearts to stab his honour To this purpose 1. Be often in the views of the excellencies of God When we have no intercourse with God by delightful Meditations we begin to be estranged from him and prepare our selves to live without God in the world Strangness is the Mother and Nurse of disaffection We slight men sometimes because we know them not The very beasts delight in the Company of men when being tamed and familiar they become acquainted with their disposition A dayly converse with God would discover so much of loveliness in his nature so much of sweetness in his ways that our injurious thoughts of God would wear off and we should count it our honour to contemn our selves and magnifie him By this means a slavish fear which is both a dishonour to God and a torment to the Soul * 1 Joh. 4.18 and the root of Atheism will be cast out and an ingenious fear of him wrought in the heart Exercised thoughts on him would issue out in affections to him which would engage our hearts to make him both our rule and our end This course would stifle any temptations to gross Atheism wherewith good Souls are sometimes haunted by confirming us more in the belief of a God and discourage any attempts to a deliberate practical Atheism We are not like to espouse any principle which is confuted by the delightful converse we dayly have with him The more we thus enter into the presence Chamber of God the more we cling about him with our affections the more vigorous and lively will the true Notion of God grow up in us and be able to prevent any thing which may dishonour him and debase our Souls Let us therefore consider him as the only happiness Set up the true God in our understandings possess our hearts with a deep sense of his desirable excellency above all other things This is the main thing we are to do in order to our great business All the directions in the world with the neglect of this will be insignificant Ciphers The neglect of this is Common and is the basis of all the mischiefs which happen to the Souls of men 2. To this purpose Prize and study the Scripture We can have no delight in Meditation on him unless we know him and we cannot know him but by the means of his own Revelation When the Revelation is despised the Revealer will be of little esteem Men do not throw off God from being their rule till they throw off Scripture from being their guide and God must needs be cast off from being an end when the Scripture is rejected from being a Rule Those that do not care to know his Will that love to be ignorant of his nature can never be affected to his honour Let therefore the subtilties of reason vail to the Doctrine of faith and the humor of the Will to the Command of the word 3. Take heed of sensual pleasures And be very watchful and cautious in the use of those comforts God allows us Job was afraid when his Sons feasted that they should Curse God in their hearts * Job 1.4 It was not without cause that the Apostle Peter joyned sobriety with watchfulness and Prayer 1 Pet. 4.7 The end of all things is at hand be ye therefore sober and watch unto Prayer A moderate use of worldly comforts Prayer is the great acknowledgment of God and too much sensuality is a hindrance of this and a step to Atheism Belshazzars lifting himself up against the Lord and not glorifying of God is charged upon his sensuality Dan. 5.23 Nothing is more apt to quench the Notions of God and root out the Conscience of him than an addictedness to sensual pleasures Therefore take heed of that snare 4. Take heed of sins against knowledge The more sins against knowledge are committed the more careless we are and the more careless we shall be of God and his honour We shall more fear his judicial power and the more we fear that the more we shall disaffect that God in whose hand vengeance is and to whom it doth belong Atheism in conversation proceeds to Atheism in affection and that will endeavour to sink into Atheism in opinion and Judgment The Sum of the Whole And now consider in the whole what has been spoken 1. Man would set himself up as his own Rule He disowns the Rule of God is unwilling to have any acquaintance with the Rule God sets him negligent in using the means for the knowledge of his Will and Endeavours to shake it off when any notices of it breaks in upon him VVhen he cannot expel it he hath no pleasure in the Consideration of it and the heart swels against it VVhen the Notions of the Will of God are entertained it is on some other Consideration or with wavering and unsetled affections Many times men designe to improve some lust by his truth This unwillingness respects Truth as t is most Spiritual and holy as it most relates and leads to God as it is most contrary to self He is guilty of Contempt of the Will of God which is seen in every presumptuous breach of his Law In the natural aversions to the declaration of his Will and mind which way soever he turns In slighting that part of his Will which is most for his honour In the awkwardness of the heart when it is to pay God a service A constraint in the first engagement slightness in the service in regard of the matter in regard of the frame without a natural vigour Many distractions much weariness in deserting the Rule of God when our expectations are not answered upon our service in breaking promises with God Man naturally owns any other Rule rather than that of Gods prescribing The Rule of Satan the Will of Man In complying more with the dictates of Men than the Will of God In observing that which is materially so not because it is his Will but the injunctions of Men. In obeying the Will of Man when it is contrary to the Will of God This Man doth in order to the setting up himself This is natural to Man as he is corrupted Men are disatisfied with their own Consciences when they contradict the desires of self Most actions in the world are done more because they are agreeable to self than as they are honourable to God As they are agreable to natural and moral self or sinful self 'T is evident in neglects of taking Gods
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
understandings and divide our Spirits from God Were our hearts ballanced with a love to God the world could never steal our hearts so much from his worship but his worship would draw our hearts to it It shews a base neutrality in the greatest concernments a halting between God and Baal a contrariety between Affection and Conscience when natural Conscience presses a man to duties of worship and his other affections pull him back draw him to carnal objects and make him slight that whereby he may honour God God argues the prophaness of the Jews hearts from the wickedness they brought into his house and acted there Jer. 23.11 Yea in my house that is my worship I found their wickedness saith the Lord. Carnality in worship is a kind of an Idolatrous frame when the heart is renewed Idols are cast to the Moles and the Batts Isa 2.20 3. It shews much hypocrisie to have our Spirits off from God The mouth speaks and the carriage pretends what the heart doth not think there is a dissent of the heart from the pretence of the body Instability is a sure sign of Hypocrisie Double thoughts argue a double heart The Wicked are compared to Chaff * Psal 1.4 for the uncertain and various motions of their minds by the least wind of fancy The least motion of a carnal Object diverts the Spirit from God as the scent of Carrion doth the Raven from the flight it was set upon The People of God are called Gods Spouse and God calls himself their Husband whereby is noted the most intimate union of the Soul with God and that there ought to be the highest love and affection to him and faithfulness in his worship but when the heart doth start from him in worship it is a sign of the unstedfastness of it with God and a disrelish of any communion with him It is as God complains of the Israelites a going a whoreing after our own imaginations As grace respects God as the object of worship so it looks most upon God in approaching to him Where there is a likeness and love there is a desire of converse and intimacy if there be no spiritual entwining about God in our worship it is a sign there is no likeness to him no true sense of him no renewed image of God in us Every living Image will move strongly to joyn it self with its original Copy and be glad with Jacob to sit steadily in those Chariots that shall convey him to his beloved Joseph Motion 3. Consider the danger of a carnal worship 1. We lose the comfort of worship The Soul is a great Gainer when it offers a spiritual worship and as great a loser when it is unfaithful with God Treachery and perfidiousness hinder commerce among men so doth Hypocrisie in its own nature communion with God God never promised any thing to the Carcass but to the Spirit of worship God hath no obligation upon him by any word of his to reward us with himself when we perform it not to himself When we give an outside worship we have only the outside of an ordinance We can expect no kernel when we give God only the shell He that only licks the outside of the Glass can never be refreshed with the rich Cordial enclosed within A cold and lazy formality will make God to withdraw the light of his countenance and not shine with any delightful communications upon our Souls but if we come before him with a liveliness of affections and steadiness of heart he will draw the vail and cause his glory to display it self before us An humble praying Christian and a warm affectionate Christian in worship will soon find a God who is delighted with such frames and cannot long withold himself from the Soul When our hearts are enflamed with love to him in worship 't is a preparation to some act of love on his part whereby he intends further to gratifie us When John was in the Spirit on the Lords day that is in spiritual employment and meditation and other duties he had that great Revelation of what should happen to the Church in all ages * Rev 1.10 His being in the Spirit intimates his ordinary course on that day and not any extraordinary act in him though it was followed with an extraordinary discovery of God to him When he was thus engaged he heard a voice behind him God doth not require of us spirituality in worship to advantage himself but that we might be prepared to be advantaged by him If we have a clear and well disposed eye 't is not a benefit to the Sun but fits us to receive benefits from his Beams Worship is an act that perfects our own Souls they are then most widened by spiritual frames to receive the influence of divine blessings as an eye most opened receives the fruit of the Suns light better than the eye that is shut The communications of God are more or less according as our spiritual frames are more or less in our worship God will not give his blessings to unsutable hearts What a nasty Vessel is a carnal heart for a spiritual communication The chief end of every duty enjoyned by God is to have communion with him and therefore it is called a drawing near to God 'T is impossible therefore that the outward part of any duty can answer the end of God in his institution 'T is not a bodily appearance or gesture whereby men can have communion with God but by the impressions of the heart and reflections of the heart upon God Without this all the rich streams of grace will run besides us and the growth of the Soul be hindered and impaired A diligent hand makes rich saith the wise man a diligent heart in spiritual worship brings in rich incomes to the humble and spiritual Soul 2. It renders the worship not only unacceptable but abominable to God It makes our Gold to become Dross it soyls our duties and bespotts our Souls A carnal and unsteady frame shews an indifferency of Spirit at best and luke warmness is as ungrateful to God as heavy and nauseous meat is to the stomach he spues them out of his mouth * Rev. 3.16 As our gracious God doth overlook infirmities where intentions are good and endeavours serious and strong so he loaths the services where the frames are stark naught Psal 66.118 If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear my Prayer Luke warm and indifferrent services stink in the Nostrils of God The heart seems to loath God when it starts from him upon every occasion when it is unwilling to employ it self about and stick close to him And can God be pleased with such a frame The more of the Heart and Spirit is in any service the more real goodness there is in it and the more savoury it is to God the less of the Heart and Spirit the less of goodness and the more nauseous to God who loves Righteousness
and Truth in the inward parts * Psal 51.6 And therefore infinite Goodness and Holiness cannot but hate worship presented to him with deceitful carnal and flitting affections They must be more nauseous to God than a putrified Carcass can be to Man They are the prophanings of that which should be the habitation of the Spirit They make the Spirit the seat of duty a filthy dung-hill and are as loathsome to God as Mony-changers in the Temple were to our Saviour We see the evil of carnal frames and the necessity and benefit of spiritual frames For further help in this last let us practise thesâ— following directions Direction 1. Keep up spiritual frames out of worship To avoid low affections we must keep our hearts as much as we can in a setled elevation If we admit unworthy dispositions at one time we shall not easily be rid of them at another * Fitzherbert Pol. in relig part 2. cap. 19. § 12. As he that would not be bitten with Gnats in the Night must keep his windows shut in the Day when they are once entred 't is not easie to expel them In which respect one adviseth to be such out of worship as we would be in worship If we mix spiritual affections with our worldly employments worldly affections will not mingle themselves so easily with our heavenly engagements If our hearts be spiritual in our outward calling they will scarce be carnal in our religious service If we walk in the Spirit we shall not fulfil the lusts of the Flesh * Gal. 5.16 A spiritual walk in the day will hinder carnal lustings in worship The Fire was to be kept alive upon the Altar when Sacrifices were not offered from morning till night from night till morning as well as in the very time of Sacrifice A spiritual life and vigour out of worship would render it at its season sweet and easie and preserve a spontaneity and preparedness to it and make it both natural and pleasant to us Any thing that doth unhinge and discompose our Spirits is inconsistent with religious services which are to be performed with the greatest sedateness and gravity All irregular passions disturb the serenity of the Spirit and open the door for Satan * Eph. 4.26.27 Saith the Apostle Let not the Sun go down upon your wrath neither give place to the Devil Where wrath breaks the Lock the Devil will quickly be over the Threshold and though they be allayed yet they leave the heart sometime after like the Sea rowling and swelling after the storm is ceased Mixture with ill company leaves a tincture upon us in worship Ephraims allying himself with the Gentiles bred an indifferency in Religion Hos 7.8 Ephraim hath mixed himself with the People Ephraim is a Cake not turn'd It will make our hearts and consequently our services half Dough as well as half bak'd These and the like make the holy Spirit withdraw himself and then the Soul lies like a wind-bound Vessel and can make no way When the Sun departs from us it carries its Beams away with it then doth Darkness spread it self over the Earth and the Beasts of the Forests creep out * Psal 1â—4 2â— When the Spirit withdraws a while from a good man it carries away though not habitual yet much of the exciting and assisting grace and then carnal dispositions perk up themselves from the bosome of natural corruption To be spiritual in worship we must bar the door at other times against that which is contrary to it As he that would not be infected with a contagious disease carries some Preservative about with him and inures himself to good scents To this end be much in secret ejaculations to God these are the purest slights of the Soul that have more of fervor and less of carnality they preserve a liveliness in the Spirit and make it more fit to perform solemn stated worship with greater freedom and activity A constant use of this would make our whole lives lives of worship As frequent sinful acts strengthen habits of sin so frequent religious acts strengthen habits of grace Direction 2. Excite and exercise particularly a love to God and dependence on him Love is a commanding affection a uniting graces it draws all the faculties of the Soul to one Center The Soul that loves God when it hath to do with him is bound to the beloved Object It can mind nothing else during such impressions When the affection is set to the worship of God every thing the Soul hath will be bestowed upon it As David's disposition was to the Temple 1 Chron. 29.3 Carnal frames like the Fouls will be lighting upon the Sacrifice but not when it is enflam'd Though the scent of the flesh invite them yet the heat of the fire drives them to their distance A flaming love will singe the Flies that endeavour to interrupt and disturb us The happiness of Heaven consists in a full attraction of the Soul to God by his glorious influence upon it There will be such a diffusion of his goodness throughout the Souls of the Blessed as will unite the affections perfectly to him These affections which are scattered here will be there gathered into one flame moving to him and centring in him Therefore the more of a heavenly frame possesses our affections here the more settled and uniform will our hearts be in all their motions to God and operations about him Excite a dependence on him Pro. 16.3 Commit thy works to the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established Let us go out in Gods strength and not in our own vain is the help of man in any thing and vain is the help of the heart 'T is through God only we can do valiantly in spiritual concerns as well as temporal the want of this makes but slight impressions upon the Spirit Direction 3. Nourish right conceptions of the Majesty of God in your minds Let us consider that we are drawing to God the most amiable Object the best of Beings worthy of infinite honour and highly meriting the highest affections we can give a God that made the world by a word that upholds the great frame of Heaven and Earth a Majesty above the conceptions of Angels who uses not his power to strike us to our deserved punishment but his love and bounty to allure us a God that gave all the Creatures to serve us and can in a trice make them as much our Enemies as he hath now made them our Servants Let us view him in his greatness and in his goodness that our hearts may have a true value of the worship of so great a Majesty and count it the most worthy employment with all diligence to attend upon him When we have a fear of God it will make our worship serious when we have a joy in God it will make our worship durable Our affections will be raised when we represent God in the most reverential endearing and obliging
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
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
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
to see and he hath a great Wrath to Punish The Wheels in Ezekiel are full of Eyes A piercing Eye to behold the Sinner and a swift Wheel of Wrath to overtake him God is Light and of all things Light is most difficultly kept out The secretest Sins are set in the light of his Countenance * Psal 90.8 as legible to him as if writ with a Sun Beam More visible to him than the greatest Print to the sharpest Eye The Fornications of the Samaritan Woman perhaps known only to her own Conscience were manifest to Christ * John 4.16 There is nothing so secretly done but there is an infallible Witness to prepare a Charge Though God be invisible to us we must not imagine we are so to him 't is a vanity therefore to think we can conceal our selves from God by concealing the Notions of God from our sense and practice If Men be as close from the Eyes of all Men as from those of the Sun yea if they could separate themselves from their own Shadow they could not draw themselves from Gods Understanding How then can darkness shelter us or Crafty Artifices defend us With what shame will Sinners be filled when God who hath trac'd their Steps and writ their Sins in a Book shall make a Repetition of their Ways and unvail the Web of their Wickedness 2. What a dreadful Consideration is this to the juggling Hypocrite that masks himself with an appearance of Piety An infinite Understanding judges not according to Vails and Shadows but according to Truth He judges not according to appearance * 1 Sam. 16.7 The outward Comeliness of a work imposeth not on him his Knowledg and therefore his Estimations are quite of another Nature than those of Men. By this Perfection God looks through the Vail and beholds the litter of Abominations in the secrets of the Soul the true Quality and Principle of every Work and judges of them as they are and not as they appear Disguised Pretexts cannot deceive him the Disguises are known afar off before they are weav'd he pierceth into the depths of the most abstruse Wills all secret Ends are dissected before him Every action is naked in its outside and open in its inside all are as clear to him as if their Bodies were of Chrystal so that if there be any secret reserves he will certainly reprove us * Job 13.10 We are often deceiv'd we may take Wolves for Sheep and Hypocrites for Believers for the Eyes of Men are no better than Flesh and dive no further than appearance but an infinite Understanding that fathoms the secret depths of the Heart is too knowing to let a Dream pass for a Truth or mistake a Shadow for a Body Though we call God Father all our days speak the language of Angels or be endowed with the Gifts of Miracles he can discern whether we have his Mark upon us He can espy the Treason of Judas in a Kiss Herod's intent of Murdering under a specious pretence of Worship A Pharisees fraud under a broad Philactery A Ravenous Wolf under the softness of a Sheeps Skin And the Devil in Samuels Mantle or when he would shrowd himself among the Sons of God * Job 1.6 7. All the Rooms of the Heart and every atome of Dust in the least chink of it is clear to his Eye He can strip Sin from the fairest Excuses pierce into the Heart with more ease than the Sun can through the thinnest Cloud or Vapour and look through all Ephraims ingenuous Inventions to excuse his Idolatry * Hos 5.3 Hypocrisie then is a senseless thing since it cannot escape unmasking by an infinite Understanding As all our force cannot stop his Arm when he is resolved to Punish so all our sophistry cannot blind his Understanding when he comes to Judge Woe to the Hypocrite for God sees him all his juggling is open and naked to infinite Understanding 3. Is it not also a senseless thing to be careless of Sins committed long ago The old Sins forgotten by Men stick fast in an infinite Understanding Time cannot raze out that which hath been known from Eternity Why should they be forgotten many years after they were acted since they were foreknown in an Eternity before they were committed or the Criminal capable to practice them Amalek must pay their Arrears of their ancient Unkindness to Israel in the time of Saul though the Generation that committed them were rotten in their Graves * 1 Sam. 15.2 Old Sins are written in a Book which lies always before God and not only our own Sins but the Sins of our Fathers to be requited upon their Posterity * Isai 65.6 Behold it is written What a vanity is it then to be regardless of the Sins of an Age that went before us because they are in some measure out of our knowledge are they therefore blotted out of Gods remembrance Sins are bound up with him as Men do Bonds till they resolve to sue for the Debt The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up * Hos 13.12 As his fore-knowledge extends to all acts that shall be done so his remembrance extends to all acts that have been done We may as well say God fore-knows nothing that shall be done to the end of the World as that he forgets any thing that hath been done from the beginning of the World The former Ages of the World are no further distant from him than the latter God hath a Calendar as it were or an Account Book of Mens Sins ever since the beginning of the World what they did in their Childhood what in their Youth what in their Manhood and what in their Old Age He hath them in store among his Treasures * Deut. 32.34 He hath neither lost his Understanding to know them nor his Resolution to revenge them As it follows * Verse 35. To me Vengeance belongs He intends to enrich his Justice with a glorious manifestation by rendring a due Recompence And it is to be observed that God doth not only necessarily remember them but sometimes binds himself by an Oath to do it Amos 8.7 The Lord hath sworn by the Excellency of Jacob surely I will never forget any of their works Or in the Hebrew If I ever forget any of their works That is Let me not be accounted a God for ever if I do forget Let me lose my Godhead if I lose my remembrance 'T is not less a Misery to the Wicked than it is a Comfort to the Godly that their Record is in Heaven 4. Let it be observed That this infinite Vnderstanding doth exactly know the sins of Men he knows so as to consider He doth not only know them but intently behold them * Psal 11.4 His Eye-lids trie the Children of Men a Metaphor taken from Men that contract the Eye-lids when they would wistly and accurately behold a thing 't is not a transient and careless look Psal 10.14
Thou hast seen it Thou hast intently beheld it as the word properly signifies He beholds and knows the actions of every particular Man as if there were none but he in the World And doth not only know but ponder * Prov. 5.21 and consider their works * Psal 33.15 He is not a bare Spectator but a diligent Observer * 1 Sam. 2.3 By him actions are weighed To see what degree of good or evil there is in them what there is to blemish them what to advantage them what the quality and quantity of every action is Consideration takes in every Circumstance of the Considered Object Notice is taken of the place where the minute when the Mercy against which it is committed the number of them is exact in Gods Book They have tempted me now these ten times * Numb 14.22 against the demonstrations of my Glory in Egypt and the Wilderness The whole Guilt in every Circumstance is spread before him His knowledge of Mens Sins is not confused such an Imperfection an infinite Understanding cannot be subject to 'T is exact for iniquity is markt before him * Jer. 2.22 5. God knows Mens miscarriage so as to judge This use his Omniscience is put to to maintain his Soveraign Authority in the exercise of his Justice His notice of the Sins of Men is in order to a just Retribution Psal 10.14 Thou hast seen mischief to requite it with thy hand The Eye of his Knowledge directs the Hand of his Justice and no sinful action that falls under his Cognizance but will fall under his Revenge they can as little escape his Censure as they can his Knowledge He is a Witness in his Omniscience that he may be a Judge in his Righteousness He knows the hearts of the Wicked so as to hate their Works and testifie his abhorrency of that which is of high value with M n * Luke 16.15 Sin is not preserved in his Understanding or written down in his Book to be moth-eaten as an old Manuscript but to be open'd one day and Copied out in the Consciences of Men He writes them to publish them and sets them in the light of his Countenance to bring them to the light of their Consciences What a terrible consideration is it to think that the Sins of a day are upon Record in an Infallible Uunderstanding much more the Sins of a week What a number then do the Sins of a Month a Year ten or forty Years arise to How many actions against Charity against Sincerity what an infinite number is there of them all bound up in the Court Rolls of Gods Omniscience in order to a Tryal to be brought out before the Eyes of Men Who can seriously consider all those Bonds reserv'd in the Cabinet of Gods Knowledge to be sued out against the Sinner in due time without an unexpressible horror 4. The fourth Use is of Exhortation Let us have a sense of Gods Knowledge upon our hearts All Wickedness hath a spring from a want of due Consideration and sense of it David concludes it so * Psal 86.14 The proud rose against him and violent Men sought after his Soul because they did not set God before them They think God doth not know and therefore care not what nor how they act When the fear of this Attribute is remov'd a Door is open'd to all Impiety What is there so villanous but the minds of Men will attempt to act What Reverence of a Deity can be left when the sence of his infinite Understanding is extinguisht What Faith could there be in Judgments in Witnesses How would the Foundations of Humane Society be overturn'd The Pillars upon which Commerce stands be utterly broken and dissolved What Society can be preserved if this be not truly believed and faithfully stuck to But how easily would Oaths be swallowed and quickly violated if the sense of this Perfection were rooted out of the minds of Men What fear could they have of calling to Witness a Being they imagine blind and ignorant Men secretly imagine that God knows not or soon forgets and then make bold to Sin against him * Ezek. 8.12 How much does it therefore concern us to cherish and keep alive the sense of this If God writes us upon the Palms of his Hands as the Expression is to remember us let us engrave him upon the Tables of our Hearts to remember him It would be a good Motto to write upon our Minds God knows all he is of infinite Understanding 1. This would give check to much iniquity Can a Mans Conscience easily and delightfully swallow that which he is sensible falls under the Cognizance of God when it is hateful to the Eye of his Holiness and renders the Actor odious to him Doth he not see my ways and count all my steps saith Job * Job 31.4 To what end doth he fix this Consideration To keep him from wanton glances Temptations have no encouragement to come near him that is constantly arm'd with the thoughts that his Sin is Book't in Gods Omniscience If any impudent Devil hath the face to tempt us we should not have the impudence to joyn issue with him under the sense of an infinite Understanding How fruitless would his Wiles be against this Consideration How easily would his Snares be crackt by one sensible thought of this This doth Solomon prescribe to allay the heat of Carnal imaginations * Prov. 5.20 21. It were a useful Question to ask at the appearance of every Temptation at the entrance upon every Action as the Church did in Temptations to Idolatry * Psal 44.21 Shall not God search this out for he knows the secrets of the heart His Understanding comprehends us more than our Consciences can our acts or our understanding our thoughts Who durst speak Treason against a Prince if he were sure he heard him or that it would come to his knowledge A sense of Gods knowledge of Wickedness in the first motion and inward contrivance would bar the accomplishment and execution The Consideration of Gods infinite Understanding would cry stand to the first glances of the heart to Sin 2. It would make us watchful over our hearts and thoughts Should we harbour any unworthy thoughts in our Cabinet if our heads and hearts were possess'd with this useful truth That God knows everything which comes into our minds * Ezek. 11.5 We should as much blush at the rising of impure thoughts before the Understanding of God as at the discovery of unworthy actions to the knowledge of Men If we lived under a sense that not a thought of all those millions which flutter about our Minds can be conceal'd from him how watchful and careful should we be of our hearts and thoughts 3. It would be a good preparation to every Duty This Consideration should be the Preface to every service The Divine Understanding knows how I now act This would engage us to serious
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
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
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
a Chain as a ravenous Lion or a furious wild Horse by the Creator and Governour of the World What remedy could be used by Man against the activity of this unseen and swift Spirit The World could not subsist under his Malice he would practise the same things upon All as he did upon Job when he had got leave from his Governour turn the Swords of Men into one anothers bowels send Fire from Heaven upon the Fruits of the Earth and the Cattle intended for the use of Man Raise Winds to shake and tear our Houses upon our Heads daub our Bodies with Scabs and Boils and let all the humors in our Blood loose upon us He that envied Adam a Paradise doth envy us the pleasure of enjoying its out-works If we were not destroyed by him we should live in a continued vexation by Spectrums and Apparitions affrighting sounds and noise as some think the Egyptians did in that three days Darkness He would be alway winnowing us as he desired to winnow Peter Luke 22.31 But God over-masters his strength that he cannot move a hairs breadth beyond his Tedder not only he is unable to touch an Upright Job but to lay his fingers upon one of the Unbelieving Gadarens forbidden and filthy Swine without special licence Mat. 8.31 When he is cast out of one place he walks through dry places seeking rest Luke 11.24 new objects for his Malicious designs but finding none till God le ts loose the reins upon him for a new employment Though Satans Power be great yet God suffers him not to tempt as much as his Diabolical appetite would but as much as Divine Wisdom thinks fit And the Divine Power tempers the others active Malice and gives the Creature victory where the Enemy intended spoil and captivity How much stronger is God than all the Legions of Hell Luke 11.22 as he that holds a strong man from effecting his purpose testifies more ability than his Adversary How doth he lock him up for a Thousand years in a Pownd which he cannot leap over Rev. 20.3 and this restraint is wrought partly by blinding the Devil in his designs partly by denying him concourse to his motion As he hindered the active quality of the Fire upon the Three Children by withdrawing his power which was necessary to the motion of it and his power is as necessary for the motion of the Devil as for that of any other Creature Sometimes he makes him to confess him against his own interest as Apollo's Oracle confest †Caeteâ—â—â— deos aeâ—eos esse c. Grot. â—eâ—it reâ— lib. 4. And though when the Devil was cast out of the possessed person he publickly owned Christ to be the Holy one of God Mark 1.24 to render him suspected by the People of having commerce with the Unclean Spirits yet this he could not do without the leave and permission of God that the power of Christ in stopping his mouth and imposing silence upon him might be evidenced and that it reaches to the Gates of Hell as well as to the quieting of Winds and Waves This is a part of the Strength as well as the Wisdom of God Job 12.16 that the deceived and the deceiver are his Wisdom to defeat and Power to over-rule his most Malicious designs to his own glory 2. In the restraint of the Natural Corruption of Men. Since the impetus of Original Corruption runs in the Blood conveyed down from Adam to the Veins of all his Posterity and universally diffus'd in all Mankind what wrack and havock would it make in the World if it were not supprest by this Divine Power which presides over the hearts of Men Man is so wretched by Nature that nothing but what is vile and pernicious can drop from him Man drinks Iniquity like water Job 15.16 being by Nature abominable and filthy He greedily swallows all matter for Iniquity every thing suitable to the mire and poyson in his Nature and would sprout it out with all fierceness and insolence God himself gives us the description of Mans Nature Gen. 6.5 that he hath not one good imagination at any time Rom. 3.10 c. And the Apostle from the Psalmist dilates and comments upon it There is none righteous no not one their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness their feet are swift to shed blood c. This Corruption is equal in all natural to all 't is not more poysonous or more fierce in one Man than in another The Root of all Men is the same all the Branches therefore do equally possess the Villanous nature of the Root No Child of Adam can by Natural descent be better than Adam or have less of baseness and vileness and venom than Adam How fruitful would this loathsom Lake be in all kind of steams What unbridled Licentiousness and head-strong Fury would triumph in the World if the Power of God did not interpose it self to lock down the Floud-gates of it What rooting up of Humane society would there be how would the World be drencht in Blood the number of Malefactors be greater than that of Apprehenders and Punishers How would the prints of Natural Laws be raz'd out of the heart if God should leave Humane nature to it self Who can read the first Chapter to the Romans 24 25 26 27 28 29 Verses without acknowledging this Truth where there is a Catalogue of those Villanies which followed upon Gods pulling up the Sluces and letting the malignity of their Inward Corruption have its natural course If God did not hold back the fury of Man his Garden would be over-run his Vine rooted up the Inclinations of Men would hurry them to the worst of Wickedness How great is that Power that curbs bridles or changes as many head-strong Horses at once and every minute as there are Sons of Adam upon the Earth The floods lift up their waves Psal 93.3 4. the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many Waters yea than the mighty waves of the Sea that doth hush and pen in the turbulent Passions of Men. 3. In the ordering and framing the hearts of Men to his own ends That must be an Omnipotent hand that grasps and contains the Hearts of all Men the Heart of the Meanest person as well as of the most towring Angel and turns them as he pleases and makes them sometime ignorantly sometime knowingly concur to the accomplishment of his own purposes When the Hearts of Men are so numerous their Thoughts so various and different from one another yet he hath a Key to those Millions of Hearts and with Infinite Power guided by as Infinite Wisdom he draws them into what Chanels he pleases for the gaining his own ends Though the Jews had embrued their hands in the Blood of our Saviour and their Rage was yet reeking-hot against his Followers God bridled their Fury in the Churches Infancy till it had got some strength and cast a Terror
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
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
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
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
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
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