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AN ESSAY UPON THE WORKS OF Creation and Providence BEING AN Introductory Discourse TO THE History of Remarkable Providences Now preparing for the Press To which is added a FURTHER SPECIMEN of the said WORK AS ALSO Meditations upon the Beauty of Holiness By William Turner M. A. and Vicar of Walberton in Sussex The Heavens declare the Glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his Handy Work Psalm 19.1 LONDON Printed for John Dunton at the Raven in Jewen-street and are also sold by Edm. Richardson near the Poultry Church 1695. To the Worshipful JAMES BUTLER OF Patcham in Sussex Esq AND HIS Virtuous Consort Sir and Madam MY Design is not to offer you here any Flattering Encomium but to acknowledge a Score that I have run upon in your Books for some time to make a little Apology for the seeming negligence and forgetfulness I have been guilty of And this I the rather do because you will guess by these Presents not only that I am alive but the Favours you have sometime shewed me are alive in my thoughts too Only my self lie half-buried in Cares and Books so that I want leisure to pay my Debts and Devoirs in due time and manner and faculty to do it in due measure Be pleased to contemplate a little while with me here the Beauty of the Outward Parts of Heaven and thence make conjecture at the Wisdom of Him that made the World and the Provision He hath made in the Highest Heavens for all that Love and Obey Him in Truth This is but a Harbinger for a more Compleat History of Divine Providence designed e're long for the Press It cannot be improper certainly to Ascend Pisgah by degrees we may see the Outward Skirts of Heaven from the Foot of the Mount When we can get to the Top our desire is to take a prospect of the whole Hemisphere to leave the Stars whilst we make enquiry after all the Invisible Host of the Middle Region that are employed about us either as Friends or Enemies The God of Heaven make your Graces shine more and more in the mean time that they may outshine and outlast the Stars and you your selves be fixed in their room for ever so pray I for you pray you so for Worshipful Sir and Worthy Madam Your Obliged Servant W. T. TO THE READERS SIRS 'T IS the Prerogative of Human Nature that me have not only a Lofty Figure and Visage but Intellectuals too far superiour to all the Bruitish kind And this Endowment bestowed upon us by Him that made us for very Wise and Good Ends Not to be more ingeniously Wicked and Dishonest to immerge our selves deeper in the Concerns and Pleasures of a Material and Sensual World but to live Above it My Design is to climb a Jacob's Ladder to satisfie a little the Curiosity of my Nature to inform my self first of all and then my Fellows so far as soberly and modestly I may with all the Phenomena of the Etherial Region To acquaint my self and others with the Outward Face of Heaven first of all and all the Visible Furniture of the Outward Court Those Glorious Spangles of Stars and Planets those Fiery Meteors and other Strange Exhalations and Vapours that occur to our Senses and common Observations And this not for Bare Contemplation only but with a Design to make as Natural Genuine and Reasonable Deductions for Practice as possible This is all I aim at in this Treatise but with a full purpose if it please God to spare my Life and Health to make a New Survey e're long of that Spiritual and Invisible World where those Dii Medioxami Intermediate Agents are employed as Reporters and Transporters Monitors Couriers Apparitors Guardians Adversaries between This and the other World For certainly 't is lawful whilst we live here to peep out of our Prison and take acquaintance in what degree lawfully we can with Angels and Naked Spirits Vpon the score of our Kindred and Alliance to them and Concernment with them we are obliged so far we must do it or we are not only Disingenuous but blind to our own Interest And why doth the Almighty use so frequently and remarkably in the World those Intelligent and Spiritual Ministers in the Exercise of his Providence if we might not enquire after them and take acquaintance with them Is He ashamed of his Spiritual Train and Family Or are they so mighty strange and foreign to our Natures or so very far above us that we must run away like People Afrighted out of our Wits to hide from all such Apparitions in Corners of Thick Darkness But why should we be so ungrateful to those Angelical Creatures as to suppress all those Occurrences of History all those conspicuous Remarks of the Divine Providence wherein their Footsteps are plainly visible not only to their Grief and Dishonour but to the Great Encouragement of Atheism and Infidelity in the World Thus far I humbly conceive we may safely climb Our Scala Coeli to the Veil that interposeth between us and the Inner Court to the Gate of the New Jerusalem and no farther The Lord Guide us the Angels Guard us in all our ways till we are got safe into that place where we shall be satisfied with Glories which now we little know or comprehend where we shall be sweetly surprized and bravely entertained with Joyous Company and Glorious Objects and Tread not only the Moon but all the Starry Globes under our Feet for evermore Amen Your Servant in all Christian Offices W. T. THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. OF the greatness of the Heavens CHAP. II. Of the Quality of the Heavens CHAP. III. Of the Scituation of the Heavens CHAP. IV. Of the Stars and Planets CHAP. V. Of Comets Thunder and Lightning Air and Winds Storms and Tempests Hail Rain Snow and Frosts Extraordinary Signs and Apparitions CHAP. VI. Of the Continuation of the Heavenly Bodies CHAP. VII Of the Extensiveness of the Heavens CHAP. VIII Of the Glorious Body of the Sun Meditations on the Beauty of Holiness A Scheme of the History of Providence A further Specimen of the said History AN ESSAY UPON THE WORKS OF Creation and Providence IN my Contemplation of this Subject my Design is to take measure by the Sublimity of Our Aspect and the Excellency of the Object for the Order and Method of my Thoughts Both these seem naturally disposed to determine my Choice of the Heavens and Heavenly Bodies and the Appurtenances that are more nearly related to them and depend upon them for the Subject of my present Discourse leaving this Globe of Earth the very Sediment of the Creation and the most Dreggy Part of the World for my future Thoughts and Meditations And because in all our Disquisitions and Actions we ought to propound to our selves for our main End the Glory of God I shall consider I. The Greatness of the Heavens II. The Quality of them III. Their Scituation IV. The Stars and Planets V. Other Inferior Appurtenances
South to North again as some of them do and this continually is an augmentation of the wonder 4. Without Period Flowers wither Trees rot Stones decay Man dies The very Face of things below will shortly cease to be and another succeed The Day dies and so doth the year And Stones and Castles here decay every thing here is weary of Motion The Apostle tells us The whole Creation groans But here it Groans and Dies only what is a kin more nearly to Heaven and borders upon that Court is of a more lasting Constitution of a more constant Motion of a more perpetual Duration Since the Fathers fell asleep all things of that kind relating to the upper Regions continue as they were from the beginning of the Creation 2 Pet. 3.4 7. For the Heavens are by the same word of God by which they were Created kept in store reserved unto Fire against the Day of Judgment 5. Without Interruption No faulter in their Courses no breach of Continuity in this long space of time Nothing hath been able to stop these great Bodies in the progress of their Motion or intermit the exercise of their Vertues and Operations 6. Without Error or Mistake or Deviation Tho great and many and various in their Qualities and incredibly swift in their Motions yet have they committed no remarkable fault in all this tract of years and revolutions They have all kept close to the Path Chalkt out for them by their Creator and have never leapt out of their Orbs. Nothing hath been able to tempt them from the Faithful Execution of their Offices and Employments Who hath ever becken'd the Sun out the Firmament or pusht the Moon out of its place or made the Stars wander into strange courses Or amidst all their divers Motions Mingled them into confusion or disorder When was ever Day and Night jumbled together or the Seasons of the year reversed or the Order of the Coelestial Bodies turn'd backward Illic justo foeders rerum veterem servant sidera pacem 2. Practical Inferences Learn we then 1. To hold on from day to day from night to night in the excellent Offices of a Christian Life let day to day utter speech and night to night shew knowledg of our continual goodness Mankind is born with his Eyes higher set than all the rest of the Creation besides his looks are by Nature more sublime and lofty Let us look up earnestly towards those lucid Spangles those sparkling Globes over our Heads and use our Eyes to some good purpose Let us make thence some Practical Deductions for our imitation at least emulation and scorn to Truant and Loiter here at that rate as usually we do Let no Temptation sosten our Spirits into an unnecessary repose nothing provoke us unduly to depart our Orbs to run back or start aside Let us never be weary of well doing Particularly 1. Let us never be weary of the duty of Prayer 'T is an excellent exercise and such as we ought continually to be intent upon Our Saviour spoke a Parable Luke 18.1 2. unto his Disciples that men ought always to Pray and not to Faint And the Apostle Col. 4.2 Continue in Prayer and Watch in the same with thanksgiving c. And 1 Thes 5.17 Pray without ceasing And let this amongst many others be one Argument to perswade us to assiduity in this kind of Devotion viz. That God Almighty is continually from day to day from night to night serving and supplying our necessities by the Ministery of the lower Heavens all the Hosts of the Etherial Regions are in continual employment for our Good why then should we disdain to bestow some few Minutes upon warm and serious Addresses to the God of Heaven Let neither the Day or Night go away without a Testimony of our Devotion Let not God hereafter ever cite the Sun Moon or Stars for to bear witness to our Ingratitude You know the Story of Daniel Recorded to the honour of his Memory That three times every day he open'd his Windows and set his Face towards Jerusalem and Prayed to the God of Heaven even then when pinch'd with the close Temptations of the Court under a Heathen Emperor Let us at least twice a day do Obeysance to Heaven Offer as God appointed to the Jews a Morning and Evening Sacrifice continually Let our Altars burn with Incense at least so often and this shall not only perfume our Days and Nights and make our Conversations smell sweeter to our selves and Neighbours but be a fragrant Odor in the Nostrils of the Almighty And please the Lord better than a Bullock c. Job 1.5 2. Let us Praise God continually as long as we live let us praise the Lord yea let us sing praises to him whilst we have any being Psal 34.1 His Praises continue in my mouth Psal 36.9 3. Let us be continually employed in doing Good to others And let us remember this that our God causeth his Sun to shine and Rain to Descend on the Just and Unjust Let us try what we can to be like him like our Heavenly Father diffusing our Rays to as wide a Circuit as possibly we can not limiting our goodness to a few individual Persons or a Single Party or a narrow bound but as our faculties will extend to the Church Catholick and the wide World in general This is to be in truth like the God of Heaven And let our Charity never be discouraged never tired To do good and to distribute forget not c. To make it plainer yet God hath given us a Copy of his Infinite Goodness in General to the whole World in the face of the outward Heavens as of his special goodness to the Church in the Revelation of the Gospel If we contemplate seriously the structure and Properties and several Vertues of the Heavenly Bodies we may read there in legible Characters not only the Greatness and Glory but the infinite Goodness also of him that made them and that to the whole Race of Mankind and that not for a spurt a short fit of two or three Ages but of continual Duration his Patience is Indefatigable and his Beneficence reacheth to the end of time Let us then if we will aim at Perfection and try to tread in our Father's steps Do good unto all men without weariness and Communicate the Light of our Graces to a whole Nation a whole World if possible and never grudg to lend our Candles to the Assistance of those that are about us And as for those narrow Souls that confine their goodness to a Canton or whose Light is like that of a flaming Meteor or an Ignis Fatuus or a Falling Star they deserve to lie down in Darkness and never more rise up again to Light or Glory Levit 24.2 Cause the Lamps to burn continually 2. Let us consider a little the Imployment of the Saints and Angels in Heaven 'T is pretty hard to conceive with our present apprehensions the business of
TURNER Meditations UPON THE Beauty of Holiness 'T IS a laborious Task to commend unto the sinful World the Love of our Religion and requires a more than Humane an Angel's Skill the Tongue of Cherubims the most strenuous Arguments and sweetest Eloquence in the World And when we have done all that we can unless we can also open blind eyes and make them see a Beauty there where with their natural Eyes and Understandings they see nothing but Deformity our labour is still lost and we must return without our Errand My Design at this time is to treat upon this Subject and yet when I have set out the Constitution of our Religion in its Native beauty and presented the Figure of it in its most amiable Complexion I must leave it at your Censures and desire you to begg of God the Illumination of your Understandings the opening of your Eyes that you may pass a right Judgment in the Case This will be the drift of my following Discourse viz. I. To shew that Holiness and the Divine Worship are in themselves beautiful II. To exhort you to keep up what you can this Beauty of Divine Worship and a Holy Life First That there is a certain Beauty in the Exercise of Religion and especially in the Divine Worship and this may be evinced by the opening of these particulars 1. The God whom 2. The Christ thro' whom 3. The Ministers by the instrumentality of whom 4. The Place where 5. The People who 6. The Graces wherewith 7. The Ordinances wherein 8. The Glory for which we worship Are all Beautifull This I shall shew first of all and afterwards the Deformity of the contrary Impiety and Irreligion 1. The God whom we worship is a Beautiful God If there be any Beauty in the World any Comeliness and Excellency in any Creature any pleasant Figures or Shaddows of Decency to be found upon any Being within the Circuit of the wide Vniverse they are all but borrowed Beams from this Sun The Psalmist makes it his most Cordial request his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his only Petition to Heaven to see the Beauty of the Lord Psal 27.4 Here he could be content to inhabit all his dayes to contemplate the Beauty of the great Jehova to gaze and spend his Eyes upon the glorious lustre of this Sun a thousand Mouths and a thousand Tongues tho' as fluent all of them as those of Angels would be too little to praise this Beauty to describe this Glory but one Ray of it darted in full vigour upon us now would be enough not only to strike our Senses with blindness and astonishment but even to crack our mortal Tabernacles and lay us all flat upon the Dust Why the Divine Glory is inaccessible to Creatures dwelling in corruptible bodies in Houses of meer Clay not yet purged from the rottenness and rust of Sin and refined for Glory the God whom we worship is a God of eminency of excellent Beauty of incomprehensible unconceivable Glory all the Jewels and Inferiour Beauties of this sublunary World and all the Spangles of the Starry Spheres put together would be nothing compared to this excellent amiable Being Could we but see him a little in his Robes of Majesty Glory and Beauty now as we shall hereafter Face to Face a glimpse would be a Charm Face to Face a glimpse would be a Charm and a single Glance a Spell to all the Cares and Pleasures of this poor transitory World Then we should dote as David did upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and cry out in the same manner One thing O Lord this one thing I desire this I will seek after that I may dwell in thy house for ever that I may spend not only the few Minutes of the present short Life but may wear an Eternity in thy house c. Then with St. Paul after his Visions let the World lye all of it under foot let all the Charms besides of Wealth or Pleasure be despised as Dross and Dung in comparison of this Beauty this Glory I would but cannot speak somewhat worthy of that God and his desirableness whom we worship for not only our Tongues but our Senses faulter when we soar aloft and begin to talk of that Infinite Glory His own Works speak louder for him than our words All his Works praise him Every Creature hath a Tongue to say somewhat in the Commendation of him that made them and can we live in the croud in the very midst of his Encomiasts and hear and see nothing I would not Sirs that ye should be put into Raptures now God finds it not convenient to distribute our Rewards to us 'till we have done our Work he hides at present his Beauty from us in retirement within the Vail but I would not that Men should be stark-blind and not see something of his Excellency whose Glory fills the Heavens and Mercies extend themselves over all the World 2. The Christ through whom we Address our selves to God and by whose Intercession we hope for Acceptance in our religious Services Our Mediator is sweet and lovely the most amiable amongst ten thousand fairer than all the Children of Men his Lips are full of Grace and Truth his Garments smell of Myrrh Alloes and Cassia out of the Ivory Pallaces His Incarnation humble Birth excellent Doctrine holy Life divine Miracles meritorious Death and glorious Resurrection all are pourtrayed to us in the Lineaments of a perfect Beauty here we may see the blessed Cherubims clasping their Wings over the Propitiatory Truth and Mercy Righteousness and Peace issing each other the Terrors of the Law and the Blessings of the Gospel met together in the sweetest Embraces and if there be any profane incredulous Souls that wink and dazle at this Prospect and say as in the Prophet He hath no form or comeliness and tho' we see him we see nothing in him that we should desire him Isa 53.1 If he be despised and rejected of Men as 't is very true he is by too too many if this Jewel be a stone of stumbling we know the reason 't is because the God of this World hath blinded their Eyes and drawn such deep Prejudices over their Understandings that like Owls of the Desert they cannot see the Noon-Sun Away then with that unholy Generation that prize not their Mediator nor make their Applications to Heaven in his Name but make a Mock of that Jesus that dyed in Jerusalem and resolve all the Mystery of our Redemption into a meer figure as if our Jesus were but a shadow and our Redemption a vanity and those also that place so much Perfection in themselves as makes the application of Christ's Merits impertinent and unnecessary or those either that patch the Merits of their Saviour with their own Works and to make him more compleat adjoin other Mediators to him For us we know no other Name under Heaven so sweet so salutary so efficacious with God the Father by whom
was the Subject of general Discourse for a long time after and 't is not doubted but that his Lordship's Letter to Mr. Glascock which was never printed but in this Specimen will be as well received and 't is hoped may have the same good Effect as the former had The Gentleman who hath communicated to us these Letters sent by the Earl of Marlbourgh to Sir Hugh Pollard and Mr. Glascock is a Person of Quality now living in London and if any one hath the curiosity to be satisfied from his own mouth about perfect certainty of the matters therein Related if he repairs to Mr. Darker in Bull-head-Court near Cripple-gate he will be always ready to bring any Gentleman to speak with him for further confirmation It must needs be obvious to every considering Reader that the same holy spirit who breath'd from the mouth of Solomon the wisest of men That all things in this World are Vanity and Vexation of Spirit did make this Great Man sensible of the Truth thereof by his own Experience and to express it accordingly and how observable is it that that very Truth which he so ingeniously confesses himself to have neglected and dispised did at last make an entire Conquest over him and force him to submit as if God would thereby let us see that though not many Noble and not many Wise are called yet he does not leave the Gospel without a Testimony even from such but obliges them to confess That the Wisdom of this World is meer Foolishness with God which will appear yet more by the following Instances It 's taken notice of that Sir * In Sir Alan Brodericks Funeral Sermon by Nathan Resbury Minister of Wandsworth Decemb. 3. 1680. Alan Broderick who was a Gentleman of Extraordinary Learning and Accomplishments did own with much Contrition that a Long Scene of his Life had been acted in the Sports and Follies of Sin that he had sometime pursued a Pagan and abandon'd way Scepticism it self not excepted wherein the poinancy of his Wit and the strength of his Reasoning even in that very Argument the using of which proclaims a man in the Language of the Holy Scriptures a Fool may have been the occasion of a great deal of mischief towards some that are already gone to their Accounts Yet some years before his Death the bent and tendency of his Life and Actions was Devout and Religious and in his Private Conversation with his Minister he would alway be Discoursing some Cases of Conscience about Retir'd Closet-prayer or the Nature and Necessity of True Religion and in his last Sickness he thought himself under a mighty Incumbency to Pray but was much harassed and anxious what to do because of his fear of not performing it with all becoming Reverence and Seriousness For look you saith he my Conscience is now as tender as wet Paper torn upon every apprehension of the least guilt before God And as he had much studied the Nature of Repentance he would frequently complain That he had a great jealousie upon himself least he had not yet conceiv'd an horror answerable to his past Exorbitancies of Life and had not made those smart and pungent Reflections upon himself that might become one that had so long and in such Exalted Degrees violated the Laws of his Maker and made himself so Obnoxious to the Vengeance of his Judgment and that if the cutting off one of his Hands with the other were but a proper or likely way through the anguish of such a wound to give him a just horror for his sins he would do that as willingly as he ever did any one Action that had given him the greatest pleasure of Life He also said that by the grace of God he had such a sense of the Conviction and folly and unreasonableness of Sin that no Argument no Tentation should prevail upon him to do the like again Having taken notice that all my Lord Rochesters Religious breathings were accounted by some the Raves and Delirancies of a sick Brain he did resolve to have given the World a publick Account of the sentiments he had of Religion both as to the Faith and Practise of it but was prevented But the next instance of the E. of Rochester is still more convincing who as it appears by his Funeral Sermon did with very much abhorrence exclaim against that absurd and foolish Philosophy which the World so much admired and was propagated by the late Mr. Hobbs and others which had undone him and many more of the best parts of the Nation * See my Lord Rochester's Funeral Sermon preached by Mr. Parsons Aug. 9. 1680. My Lord Rochester being awak'd from his spiritual Slumber by a pungent Sickness as appears by his Funeral Sermon Preached by Mr. Parsons Augufl 9. 1680. Upon the Preachers first visit to him May 26. My Lord thank'd God who had in Mercy and good Providence sent him to him who so much needed his Prayers and Counsels acknowledging how unworthily heretofore he had treated that Order of men reproaching them that they were proud and Prophesied only for rewards but now he had learnt how to value them that he esteem'd them the Servants of the most High God who were to shew to him the way to everlasting Life At the same time continues our Author I found him labouring under strange trouble and conflicts of Mind his Spirit wounded and his Conscience full of terrours Upon his Journey he told me that he had been arguing with greater vigour against God and Religion than ever he had done in his Life time before and that he was resolv'd to run them down with all the Arguments and Spite in the World but like the great Convert St. Paul he found it hard to kick against the Pricks for God at that time had so struck his heart by his immediate hand that presently he argued as strongly for God and Vertue as before he had done against it that God strangely opened his heart creating in his mind most awful and tremendous Thoughts and Ideas of the Divine Majesty with a delightful Contemplation of the Divine Nature and Attributes and of the Loveliness of Religion and Vertue I never said he was advanc'd thus far towards happiness in my Life before tho' upon the commissions of some Sins extraordinary I have had some checks and warnings considerable from within but still struggl'd with them and so wore them off again The most observable that I remember was this One day at an Atheistical meeting at a Person of Qualities I undertook to manage the Cause and was the principal Disputant against God and Piety and for my performances receiv'd the Applause of the whole Company upon which my Mind was terribly struck and I immediately replied thus to my self Good God! That a man that walks upright that sees the wonderful Works of God and has the uses of his Sence and Reason should use them to the defying of his Creator But tho' this was