Creatures to magnifie the absoluteness of his Dominion why do we raile at Tyrants and Devils when they upon the same account take pleasures in the miseries of others God is supposed to delight in the advancement of his own glory but can we suppose him to delight in the eternal miseries of Innocents Was there ever any Tyrant so salvage as to please himself in the endless and most exquisite Tortures of an harmless Infant 'T is the propertie of Devils whose malice is boiled up to an infinite rancour and crueltie to make anothers torment their pleasure and do mischeif for mischeifs sake And shall we fasten that upon God which is the Devils Reproach Shall he contrive Mischeif feed and recreate upon Misery and glut his Vengeance with Innocent blood Shall he that delights not in the Death of Sinners seek Pleasure and Glory in the Eternal Miseries of Innocents This is the very top and extremity of Cruelty so that were it thus we must add Cruelty to the Divine Attributes and believe him as Infinite in that as in any other Besides all this meer Existence without Perception carries in it no more Goodness or Happiness then Non-existence and is only desireable before it in reference to those Perceptive Capacities which are founded in it 'T is all one not to be and to be in a state of senseless inactivity take away Perception and 't is indifferent whether the substance remain or utterly perish as suppose the Poets Metamorphosis had been as great Realities as they were Fictions it had been indifferent to the Persons that suffered them whether they were chang'd into Trees Stones and Flowers or into nothing and it would have been the same thing to Niobe whether she were petrified or annihilated Upon this account arose that ancient Dispute Whether never to have been born had not been better then to be For they considering only the present Stage of affairs where these measures of good and evil seem to be dispensed in equal proportions were doubtful which way to determine but those of them who thought the world to be more replenish'd with ungrateful and displeasing objects then the contrary preferred Non-existence the chief assertors whereof were some of the melancholy Philosophers such as Heraclitus and Empedocles together with the Tragedians who in the Persons of forlorn and miserable men are full of little sentences and discourses to this purpose and this opinion was so ancient ut Author Initium illius prorsus ignoretur as Gassendus asserts But they who with more truth counted the world was fuller of pleasures then miseries did with more satisfaction esteem their existence a priviledge so that they preferred not existence before non-existence upon its own score but upon the account of those pleasant perceptions which were founded in it Well then it being evident that existence is good or evil in order to the perceptions that are founded in it where 't is the basis of nothing but tormenting Perception and where the continuence of life is nothing else but the continuance of misery there 't is the greatest because 't is the fountain of all miseries So that if God can create a Being only to make it miserable and condemn it to the Regions of sadness and eternal darkness his creation would be so far from being any kind of benefit that it would be the greatest ill-turn or injury he could possibly act Nay this still raises the Crueltie in that rather then want an object for it he would make one and set infinite power on work only to exercise an infinite crueltie and manifest himself as absolute in Tyranny as he is almighty in Power From all this I suppose 't is unquestionably evident that for God to Create an innocent Creature to make it everlastingly miserable would be the highest act of crueltie imaginable It was long since observed that there was never any opinion so absur'd which was not maintain'd by some of the ancient Philosophers but yet there are not to be found among them any such hateful sentiments concerning Gods transactions with his Creatures as this I am discoursing against which carries in it such apparent contradictions to the Divine Attributes that it could never have found entrance into the minds of men had they not thought it was suggested to them by Revelation for the only thing that is pleaded on its behalf is the grossly mistaken ninth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans which they apply to Gods eternal Decrees although nothing can be more apparent then that it treats of a quite different matter For Saint Paul having discoursed of the universal Apostacy of both Jews and Gentiles from the practise of true goodness and of Gods merciful designments to pardon and receive them all into favour so they would be content to obtain it that way which he had made known to the world by Jesus Christ and not by the works of the Mosaick Law and also that many of the Gentiles had accepted of the conditions proposed to them in the Gospel and therefore that if the Jews should persevere in their obstinate adherence to the Mosaick dispensation God would cast them off and take in the Gentiles for his favourites Saint Paul having I say discoursed of these things in the fore-going Chapters he here supposes this would seem very strange and absurd to his Country-men that God should casheire his peculiar darling Nation upon whom he had bestowed so many signal priviledges To whom pertaineth the Adoption and the Glory and the Covenants c. To which he answers that the supream Sovereign was not tyed to any peculiar Nation but that he could adopt whom he pleased to be his favourites and that though the Jews had been blest with greater advantages then the Gentiles yet notwithstanding God might discard them and take in these as he had made the Israelites his peculiar People rather then the Edomites notwithstanding they were of the younger Family c. And that this is the genuine scope of Saint Pauls discourse is unexceptionably evident from its conclusion verse 30 31 32. What shall we say then that the Gentiles which followed not after Righteousness have attained to the Righteousness which is of faith But Israel which followed after the Law of Righteousness hath not attained to the Law of Righteousness Wherefore because they sought it not by faith but as it were by the works of the Law Now what can be more clear then that he speaks of the rejecting of the Jews because of their obstinate adherence to the Mosaick Law and of the calling of the Gentiles because of their Faith and closing with the Gospel But if you would see this improved to the strength and evidence of a Demonstration you need only be at the pains to read over Episcopius his Paraphrase upon the Chapter Before I conclude I will endeavour a little more fully to illustrate and confirm my fore-going Propositions by a brief Arbitration of a late fiercely argued dispute
Scripture opposes to Benignity Rom. 11. 22. Behold therefore the Goodness and Severity of God on them which fell severity but towards thee Goodness And Rom. 9. 13. Iocob have I loved but Esau have I hated The reason whereof is v. 15. Because I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion The sole cause then why God shewed greater bounty to Iacob then to Esau was a free determination of his own will without the intervention of any extrinsique motive to incline it For v. 11. the Children were yet unborn and had done neither good nor evil that the purpose of God according to Election or choice might stand The Argument suggested by the Apostles Discourse beside his express resolving Gods Beneficence into his free-will is this that if the flowings forth of Gods Goodness were necessary then Esau must have been blest with as great expressions of favour as Iacob because there could be no cause that could make a difference Not Gods Goodness for its exertions being necessary it would stream forth equally into equal Capacities and therefore if they were equally capable the emanations of the divine Goodness must have been equal so that there was nothing could put a difference unless the Persons themselves but the difference was made before they could make it viz. before they were born or had done any good or evil but were in all respects equal The Spirit of God has recorded in Scripture almost as many instances of his severity as of his clemency because the exercise of these contrary vertues depends on his free will which being indifferent to either sometimes displays the one and sometimes the other whereas those attributes that are Physical and Necessary are determin'd one way antecedently to the determinations of his Will From all which premises we see 1. that Gods benignity goodness and beneficence consist in a gracious Propensity to let forth the Communications of his fulness to his Creatures which being lodged in the Divine will does not only suppose its freedom but is also subject to its determinations so that though it may incline yet it cannot either command or destroy its liberty because if it should it would not only interfere with Gods moral accomplishmets but would withal be inconsistent with it selfe And therefore it rather approaches to the nature of a habit seated in the Divine will then to the condition of an Essential faculty whence a habit and custome of goodness and clemency are frequently attributed to God in Scripture but only acts and single instances of severity for though contrary habits cannot lodge together in the same faculty yet single actions of the one may sometimes issue from that Power in which its contrary is entertained and therefore though the expressions of Gods bounty be his usual and constant work yet he sometimes le ts forth the eruptions of anger and severity though with some unwillingness and reluctancy for Lament 3. 33. He does not willingly or from his heart afflict the children of men and therefore the holy Ghost Esa. 21. 21. stiles it his strange work as if by reason of its seldom exercise he were unacquainted with it so that though Gods inclinations to acts of Beneficence and Goodness be vastly great and vigorous yet they are free and depending upon the determinations of his will and are upon this score consistent with Gods dealing sometime with us by more severe and rigorous measures which God is pleased at certain seasons to dispense according to the unsearchable Counsels of his own will 2. That the Communications of Gods goodness consist in the use and exercise of his Dominion for the good and benefit of his Creatures for they being all originally nothing all the advantages they enjoy to render their condition more desirable then Non-existence are the free gifts and effects of Divine goodness which being free and unconstrained has distributed its favours with an infinite variety having made innumerable kinds of Beings and endued them all with perceptive faculties and capacities proportion'd to their respective natures and provided suitable objects in order to their gratification so that although he has according to the free pleasure of his own will created some in a more imperfect state then others yet he has provided liberally for the happinesse of them all having furnished each order with objects agreeable to their respective faculties in the perception and enjoyment of which consists all pleasure and satisfaction Now if we will measure how large and ample the communications of Divine goodness are they are as vast as free Psal. 145. 9. The Lord is good to all and his tender Mercies are over all his Workes Psal. 38. 5 6. Thy goodness O Lord reacheth to the Heavens and thy faithfulness to the clouds Thy Righteousness is like the great Mountains thy Iudgments or works of Providence are a great deep thou preservest man and beast c. i.e. Gods goodness is of equal extent with his works as vast and wide as the Universe running through all parts of the Creation But to speak only of that goodness which concerns our selves how free and unstreitned have been the expressions of Gods bounty to mankind Not to mention the pleasures and enjoyments of life it self in which the Divine munificence has made provision not only for our necessity but for our delight and curiosity too nor the great variety of perceptive faculties he has endued us with nor the innumerable instancies of his Mercy Clemency Patience Long-suffering towards the sons of men his slowness and unwillingness to punish and his readiness to pardon our Impieties nor his demanding only such homage and service from us as cannot be more our duty then t is our happiness with infinite more inestimable vouchsafements and expressions of his tenderness and good inclinations towards mankind I will only instance in his rewarding that obedience that is our debt with such great and inestimable blessings viz. not only earthly and secular but spiritual and eternal pleasures He might have sent us into the world to act our parts a while and have endear'd our duty to us only by its own appendant delights and then have remanded us back into our pre-existent state of not being But that he should recompence the bare discharge of our duties with the rewards of Heaven and Eternity is such a stupendious height of goodnesse as not only puzzles conceit but outreaches wonder and admiration And yet that which enhances the value of the Reward is not more its greatnesse then its freenesse though some are so arrogant as to challenge a natural and necessary right in it Arrogant I say because if it were our due we must derive it not from Gods goodness but from our own desert for nothing beside Gods goodness can create us a right to future happiness but our own Merits which from a Creature to its Maker implies the greatest contradiction And if in any respect Heaven be
our due God would be obliged by the natural measures of Equity to bestow it and so our happinesse would not derive from the free grant of Divine goodness but from the prime and intrinsique Laws of Justice For if there were any natural and eternal necessity that Happinesse should wait on Vertue that the Vertuous are happy would be no thanks to the Divine favour because that cannot be an act of favour which is demanded by Justice and natural Right And therefore those passages in Scripture that seem to make our future reward just and due speak upon supposition of Gods gracious Promise and Covenant with mankind as Heb. 6. 10. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work labour of love which ye have shewed towards his Name 2 Tim. 4. 8. Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the righteous Iudge shall give me at that day and not unto me only but unto all them also that love his appearing In which and other passages the assured hope of our future reward is therefore argued from Gods Justice because 't is essentially just that he should perform his Promises and therefore although Gods Promise or Covenant were not an act of Justice but of Grace for 't is impossible for God to enter into any Covenant with his creatures but a Covenant of Grace yet its performance when made is absolutely just and necessary and that in which God cannot fail without gross deceit and falseness he having engaged his Veracity to discharge all the debts of his Grace And therefore as some learned Men have noted this Justice in Scripture is promiscuously expressed by Justice Truth and Faithfulness Rom. 3. 3 4 5. they are all used to express the same thing And 1 Ioh. 1. 9. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins Because if he be just and faithful he will perform his Promise If I were to prove the necessity of future Rewards and Punishment from the nature of any of the Divine Attributes I should rather fetch my Arguments from the Attributes of Wisdom then any else because they are as might easily be evinced so hugely useful and well-nigh necessary to the Government of the World whence the Rabins reckon Paradice and Hell among those seven Pillars upon which they say God founded the world supposing it could not subsist without them But yet no one sort of means being absolutely necessary to Almighty Power and Wisdom in order to any end God could have found out in finite ways to engage us to obedience though he had never acquainted us with future Rewards and Punishments So that whatsoever Rationalities may be drawn from the Divine Attributes to prove a future state yet it depending wholly on the Divine will and the Divine will being absolutely free we can have no rational inducements to bring us to any sufficient knowledge of it but by a clear Revelation of the Divine will and therefore God to compleat the Instances of his Goodness sent the blessed Jesus into the world to bring life and immortality to light and to encourage us to Vertue and Goodness by greater Rewards then were before proposed to mankind So that though we could enhance the expressions of Gods love and bounty to mankind to their utmost pitch and value yet we have just reason to conclude that the peculiar and unequal'd eminency of the Divine benignity consists not so much in the greatness as in the freeness of its Emanations as streaming forth from a fountain of free and self-moving Goodness Of the Preexistence of Souls THough the foregoing Discourses are as useful and important Theories as any in Divinity there being not any other Articles so universally interested in Theological Speculations as these nor any thing that has occasioned so much Errour and Ignorance in other points as false and confused conceits concerning these two grand Attributes of Dominion and Goodness Yet they cannot be more important and concerning in themselves then they will be useful and necessary for the successful management of this ensuing discourse against Preexistence because the most plausible Argument alleadged on behalf of this Hypothesis is grounded upon such mistaken notions of the Divine goodnesse as I have already I think evidently enough disproved in what I have discoursed concerning that Attribute so that I am so far before hand in the Dispute as to have prevented the strongest Objection I am liable to be Assaulted with This premised I immediately proceed 1. to give an account of the Hypothesis it self and the grounds on which it bottoms and then 2. to give in my exceptions both against it and them And that you may be sure of my faithfulness in the first I will perform it as near as I can in the very words of its most Peremptory assertours Their account then is this That the Souls of men are not then first produced when they are united to the Bodies prepared for them by generation but were created all at first in an incomparably more Blessed and Divine Condition of Life then that they are now condemned to in this sad Region of sin and misery but that at several times and occasions by their Revolt from God his righteous laws they forfeited their better life and condition and so were thrust down into these terrestial Bodies partly to be punished for their former prevarications and partly that by acting their parts well here they might recover that more happy state from which they lapsed into this And this they endeavour to prove 1. from the nature of Divine Goodness which say they is constrained alwaies to do what is best for the Souls of men being capable of eternall existence and happiness backward as well as forward and it being much better that they should have enjoyed the pleasure of their life and actions from eternal Ages then either to have layn so long in the comfortless night of nothing or to have been at first created in so mean and wretched a condition as that is which they suffer in this Region of Death and Misery and then God being infinitely good and gracious and infinite Goodness doing by the same necessity that which is best as infinite fire will necessarily burn whatever is combustible if put to it it clearly and unavoidably follows say they that they must have existed of old before they came into these Bodies 2. From the Actions of Providence which will not otherwise correspond to those holy Attributes in the Deity Righteousness and Benignity according to which he Governs and Orders the affairs of all the World And this Argument they make use of two waies viz. in respect of the place and time wherein we are born and of the temper and disposition of the body wherewith we are born As to the first of these there is no man doubts but that education institution and company are of such wonderful moment to the making us good or bad as that where vice