in Scripture I find three Answers to this Question The one is that of St. Peters Acts 2.31 Repent and be Baptized another is that of St. Paul Acts 16.31 Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved The other is that of our Saviour to the young Man asking him What good thing he should do that he might inherit Everlasting Life Saith our Saviour Keep the Commandments Those three Texts will give you compleat directions 1. Keep the Commandments You will reply but you tell us that no Man is able to keep the Commandments but because you cannot do all which God doth require can you do nothing Well but you will say Shall we be saved if we do all that we can to keep the Moral Law I Answer No What then 2. St. Peter tells you Acts 2.38 Repent and be Baptized you will reply but it is God who must give repentance unto life True we say God must change the heart the Blackamore cannot change his skin nor the Leopard his spots But cannot you consider your sins Cannot you turn from open sins Do what in you lieth in order to your Repentance Well but you will say If we do this Is this enough I Answer No What then 3. St. Paul telleth you Act. 16. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved Still you will say But is not Faith the gift of God Have we a power to believe We Answer No It must be given to men on the behalf of Christ to believe But cannot you read the Word of God Cannot you come and hear the Word preached When you have heard it Cannot you meditate therein Cannot you apply your souls to the Word though it be Gods work to apply the Word to your souls and make it to dwell in you Cannot you beg of God a power to believe God will not be wanting to that soul that is not first wanting to it self The difference betwixt us and the bold Patrons of free-will lies here They hold that a man hath a natural power and ability to actions formally and spiritually good This we deny but yet say That man hath a power to actions that are morally and materially good and if he would go about as far as his Natural power would help him though indeed he could merit nothing at the hand of God We do not believe that God would be wanting to him as to habits of spiritual and effectual grace Now this is that which I am pleading with you for that you might not destroy you selves 1. That you would not give your self a liberty and let your selves loose to do things contrary to the Law of God wherein you might restrain your selves 2. That you would not neglect to do those things which God requireth of you and which are in your power to do I shall conclude this but with Two very weighty considerations 1. No punishment is more justly and smartly inflicted than that which a man hath chosen and wilfully brought upon himself when a man hath chosen death rather than life and judged himself unworthy of everlasting life and despised his own mercy certainly every man must say he is justly punished and adjudged to that portion which he hath chosen to himself 2. Secondly As no punishment is so justly and smartly inflicted so none is more intolerable to be born There will be in Hell another fire which shall never go out but this will be the worm that shall never die I have done and shall shut up my Discourse with the words of Moses I have this day set before you life and death blessing and cursing I have told you which way you must go down into the pit of destruction if ever you come there you must of your selves go into it O let not your destruction be of your selves especially considering what God hath done and what he is daily doing to evidence that in him is your help if you will apply your selves unto him SERMON LI. Rom. 2.12 For as many as have sinned without the Law shall also perish without the Law and as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged by the Law THE business I am upon as you know is the expounding some hard Chapters in the Book of Divine Providence I am upon the last head upon which I propounded to speak to some appearing difficulties viz. Gods unequal dispensations of Grace whether such as are more common or such as are more special and saving as a basis to this Discourse I have premised and handled Two preliminary Propositions 1. Prop. That God in the dispensations of his grace acteth by Prerogative in a way of Soveraignty freely and unaccountably 2. Prop. That in his paenal dispensations of this nature he never proceedeth but justly upon the previous demerits of sinners I now come to speak to some Questions relating to these dispensations of Divine Providence The Two first of this nature which I shall speak to relate to Gods unequal distributions of common grace but such as are spiritual means in order to the obtaining of special and effectual grace and his unequal distributions of special and effectual grace without which none can be saved I shall put both these together and for a short Discourse upon these I have made choice of this Text. The business of the Apostle in this excellent Epistle is to establish the great Doctrine of the Gospel concerning the Justification of the soul before God by the righteousness of Christ on Gods part imputed and reckoned to sinners and on mans part apprehended and applied by Faith in opposition to the Doctrine of the Doctors of the Jews who held the Justification of the Soul by the works of the Law In opposition to whom he had laid down his grand Proposition Rom. 1.17 That the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith That is That righteousness wherein a Soul another day must stand just and righteous before God is not a righteousness of our own arising from our performance of the Law but the righteousness of Christ revealed in the Gospel which is apprehended and made ours by Faith His first Argument by which he proveth this is obvious to any considerate Reader If any be justified by works they must either be the Gentiles or the Jews but neither are the works of the Gentiles such as will justifie them Nor are the works of the Jews such as will justifie them As to the Gentiles he proveth at large Chap. 1. That their works were such as were so far from Justifying them That the wrath of God was revealed against them for the wrath of God is revealed against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and as he at large sheweth the works of the Heathen were works of most notorious ungodliness and unrighteousness and therefore could not possibly justifie them So in this Chapter he proveth that the works of the Jews were not such as could justifie them before God for though they condemned
greatness and power of others and so for other perfections it is not because they want means but because they want an heart to seek after God as to this there is no want of any thing but a wise contemplation of them and a rational concluding from the perfections of the effects to the greater excellency and perfection of the first cause and being The Book of Creation will learn us much of the nature and admirable perfections of the Divine Being The Book of Scripture will learn us more of it and instruct us in sublimer Mysteries than Reason could discover The Doctrine of the Trinity the two Natures united in the Person of the Mediator They will tell us of Gods Covenants of Christs performances of the Covenant of Redemption of the Will of God to be done by us and the Will of God to be done unto and upon us in his Promises and threatnings The Apostle sums up all when he tells us they are able to make the man of God wise to salvation throughly furnished to every good work But there is yet another Book which is less obvious to the eye of sense than the Book of Creation is and to the eye of Reason too and upon which fewer Commentaries have been wrote than upon the Books of holy Scripture that is the Book of Actual Providence A Book in which much of God is written and from which much of God may be learned but it is commonly taken for the Vision of a book that is sealed which is given to one who is learned with a command to read it but he saith I cannot for it is sealed Some more brutish than the Heathens deny any such Book dreaming of the old Pagan Fate or blind Fortune Others will allow it in part but will have much of it spurious dreaming that the World is like a Clock which once set in order and wound up goes alone without further use of the Workmans hand Others will allow Divine Providence a more universal influence but yet love not to hear of any Specialties of it Some again highly conceited of their own reason will subject the Providence of God to their rational Conclusions Few or none make any observations upon the motions of Divine Providence though certainly nothing more conduceth to true Spiritual wisdom Others stumbling at some difficulties relating to the motions of Providence either wholly deny it or form to themselves strange Ideas of God which no way agree to his most holy and perfect essence This Madam hath encouraged me to attempt something both to recover the Actual Providence of God from the Atheism of this age and the groundless prejudices which vain men have taken up against it and by it to recover for God that just Fear Faith Love Patience and other homage which both the excellency of his being and of his holy working calleth for And certainly Madam if learned men have thought it worth their while as some have done to give the World a rational account of Divine Offices of the Modes and circumstances of Ecclestastical constitutions in Rites and Garments Liturgies and Ceremonies c. It must needs be a noble work to undertake to give the world a Rational of Divine Operations Such especially which seem to be the hardest Chapters in the book of Providence and least easie to be understood and indeed this was my original design But while my thoughts were exercised in this my work grew upon my hand considering especially the Atheism of the age in which we live together with the circumstances of the Church and people of God in most European parts of the world and the particular temptations I have observed attending many and those very excellent persons I was further drawn on by the pleasantness and usefulness of the subject in all but especially in evil times and the apparent tendency of it to make men fear and love hope and trust in and with patience to wait upon God These things Madam made me resolve to open the Doctrine of Providence more fully though not in its full compass and latitude resolving always to carry along with me the capacity of those to whom I spake or wrote I was Madam the more encouraged in this from my observation that amongst the many excellent Books with which this age doth abound there are fewer of this Argument than any other Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick a great Divine treats in two or three Sermons about the Specialties of Providence and the late eminent Bishop Wilkins hath in a short Tract learnedly and piously discoursed the symmetry and beauty of it Another in a larger Discourse called an Introduction into the Doctrine of Providence hath made and a little enlarged upon several Observations upon the motions of it I projected and have at last finished a fuller Discourse than any of these though possibly much more imperfect so far as they did discourse this excellent argument and resolved to divide my discourse into three parts which accordingly I have done In the first Part Madam after two Preliminary Discourses the first concerning Gods Predeterminations where I had no mind to meddle with any present Controversies that was not a popular work the second concerning Creation Your Ldiship will find me plainly discoursing of the Nature of Providence in the notion in which alone I intended to speak to it There I have from Scripture and Reason proved That there is a constant care of God extended to the whole Creation That the Creature stands not in its own strength nor moveth meerly from a principle within it self nor is governed meerly by its fellow-creatures in a superior order much less acteth casually or under the necessity of any fate but is under the daily inspection government care and influence of the first cause its great Creator who both preserveth and governeth it There I have shortly shewed the particular acts by which God preserveth and governeth created Beings in their several capacities A point Madam of inexpressible use to possess us of a true notion of God of our daily dependencies upon him and consequently our duty toward him David saith he was fearfully and wonderfully made we are fearfully and wonderfully preserved In the second Part I have discoursed 1. Of the Specialties of Providence more especially to the Church and to every individual soul that loves and fears him shortly opening wherein they lye and shewing the reasonableness of it 2. Then I more shortly discourse the unsearchable things of it for Madam who dare pretend more than to shew a part of his ways Who can by searching find out God Who can find out the Almighty to Perfection This I have done to check curiosity and keep off good people from vain guesses and Prophetical conclusions without bottom 3. From that the discourse will lead your Ladiship to consider the duty of a good Christian in the observation of the motions of Providence and the advantage from it resulting to an observing soul To help my Reader in this
the beginning with God but he is no-where call'd the word of God I chuse therefore rather to interpret it of that word of Power and Command which Moses Gen. 1. telleth us God used in the making of the world and the fitting and joynting of it together He said Let there be light and there was light c. Thus the Worlds were made by the Word of God so as the term is both exclusive of any other instrumental cause in the Creation of the world and expressive of the true instrumentally efficient cause which was the mighty powerful commanding virtue of the Word of God And this is enough for the explication of this term But Quest 3. What is the meaning of this that the things which are seen are not made of those things which do appear The Vulgar Latin Version reads Vt ex invisibilibus visibilia fierent that visible things should be made of those which are invisible by a transposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but our Copies are otherwise If by the invisible things be meant those invisible things of God the Apostle speaks of Rom. 1.20 His eternal power and godhead So it is true and the sense much the same with what went before but else it is as Beza saith Perperam immo false Some would make the sense of the words this That the world was not made of those things which now do appear to us and are the objects of our senses but of invisible principles and elements which are not now the objects of our senses Others thus That it was made according to an invisible Platform and Idea which was Plato's notion Others say That by invisible things or things which do not appear is to be meant nothing that must be an invisible thing and the world was not made of any pre-existent matter but it was created that is produced out of a meer and total not being into a being Which sense if we allow the Apostle by it as to the Creation of the world asserteth the Truth of God against the Heathen Philosophers who could not by reason comprehend how something especially such a something as the world is should come out of nothing and therefore grew very vain in their imaginations about the pre-existing matter of which the world should be made Estius and Calvin also take notice of a much differing sense as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it were to be read thus We by faith understand that the worlds were made by the Word of God that they might be the looking-glasses of those things which do not appear The thing indeed is true for the Apostle telleth us Rom. 1.20 That the invisible things of God are known by the things that are made But I cannot agree it the sense of this Text not only for that which Beza noteth that it is a very harsh interpretation to interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but because as Pareus observeth it seemeth not to be any thing of the Apostle's design to express the end here why the World 's were made by God I do therefore take the Text to be a Divine assertion of the Creation of the World against the vain imaginations of the Heathens who either dream't that it was eternal or made of a casual concourse of Atoms or from some Idea's It was saith the Apostle made of nothing by the Word of God of nothing that doth appear And so I have done with the first Member of the Proposition That the worlds were framed by the Word of God the things which are seen were not made of those things which do appear I proceed to the second Mem. 2. That we understand this by faith Here I shall speak to two things 1. What is here meant by faith 2. How do we by faith understand this Faith in Scripture sometimes signifieth the object of faith the Word of God Thus Gal. 1.23 He which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which he once destroyed Thus you read of the hearing of faith Gal. 3.2 Received you the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith that is of the Word of God particularly the Gospel sometimes it signifieth the act of faith which as it respecteth the Proposition of the word for its object is a firm and steady assent the agreement of the mind to the truth of the Proposition as it respecteth the person of the Mediator is a resting relying and recumbency upon him which is what we call the justifying act of faith you may understand the term Faith in either sense By the word of faith revealing it and by our souls acting faith in agreeing and assenting to the truth of that word we understand that the world heaven and earth was at first brought into being fitted and joynted together by the powerful Word of God commanding the production of all those Beings which are in the world and that beauty and order in which we see them placed But secondly How doth the Apostle say we understand it by faith May not this be understood by Reason if it may what need Faith in the case or why or how doth the Apostle say by faith we understand this Wherein doth Faith give us a further knowledg of this than Reason hath given the Philosopher To which I answer Undoubtedly reason hath gone a great way and may go a great way to make men understand that the world was made by God That the world was eternal was indeed the opinion of a great Pagan Philosopher but his master Plato was of another mind and he is said to have learned it from Hesiod and the most and wisest amongst the Heathens acknowledged that the world was at first by a Divine power produced out of a not-being into a being Nor indeed would their Reason allow them to judg otherwise the infinite motions the measures of things in the world their order and succession their alterations and corruptions duly considered forbiddeth reasonable souls with any consistency to themselves to affirm the world to have had an eternal existence All motions must be in time and have had a being all successions and corruptions of things plainly speak that they had a beginning if we had no assistance in the proof of it from the word of faith 2. The same Reason will agree that it gave not a first being to it self nothing is the efficient cause of it self experience tells us that it is not in the power of a man to make the least hair of his head white or black much less to make an hair Man is the noblest sublunary Creature but cannot make the meanest vegetable all that his art can do is but to counterfeit and dissemble nature if it be but as to a spire of grass or to the meanest flower of the field Now if it were not eternal if it did
man who hath by the Law of Creation a Dominion and Rule over all must cry out Who is like unto thee O Lord who is like unto thee glorious in holiness fearful in praises working wonders We may from hence observe the vanity of those Philosophers of this world who would either make the world Vse 3 as fitted and joynted together to be eternal and without a beginning or at least some Chaos or heap of confused matter to have been so as also of those who as to the Creation of the world will have God at first to have made such a confused Chaos or Mass and then out of that to have made all things The Potter indeed must have such an heap of Clay before he can make his Pots of several sizes and fashions but if he were to create this Clay certainly he would go the furthest way about for by the same power that he must first have to give being to his Clay he might make his several sorts and sizes of Vessels and save himself that double labour I conclude by Faith we understand that the worlds were made by the Power or by the Word of God His Power was the efficient cause of it his Goodness the final cause of its Creation his Wisdom the exemplary cause 4. Vse 4 We may from hence learn the usefulness necessity and excellency of faith Faith taken for the object of it Faith taken for the habit and act of it The Word of God the habit of Faith the exercise of it they are all useful We have great magnifyings of Reason and indeed Reason is a noble faculty it is that to the soul which the eye is to the body which light is to the eye but Faith is not useless because Reason is useful yea Reason must ride but in the second Chariot Reason would have taught us little of Spirits indeed we by Faith know little of them but we know so much as God will please to reveal we had known much less if left only to what conclusions we could have raised from natural principles Reason would have taught us nothing in particular how and in what order or in what time the world was made Nay 2ly There is not an use of Faith only but a necessity of it The Creation of the world is an object of our Faith and to be received upon the credit of the Word of God we must so assent to it as by our assent to give an homage to Gods Authority in revealing it this we cannot do but by Faith Finally from this discourse appeareth the Excellency of Faith it maketh us to understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God it puts our mind beyond doubts and endless disputes and incertain fluctuations it leaveth us not to the endless inquiries of Philosophy how these things could be c. Lastly Vse 5 Learn hence how every inanimate and brute creature praiseth God and how infinitely all rational creatures are obliged to the service and obedience of God 1. How every inanimate and brute creature praiseth God The heavens saith the Psalmist declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth his handy-work Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night declareth knowledg there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard their line is gone out to the end of the earth and their words to the end of the world In them hath he set a tabernacle for the Sun c. Psal 19.1 2 3 4. There is no Creature but giveth a mute praise to God they shew the Lords Glory and praise him as the picture finely drawn doth praise the Limner or the building praiseth the Mason or Carpenter as any great effect praiseth its efficient cause And this is a thing we ought to attend and observe in our Contemplation and use of the Creatures we should view God in them see how God is glorified in their brave and useful structure and composition Oh how sweet a Contemplation would this be if we could view the Glory Power Wisdom infinite Goodness of the Creator in them all But secondly How particularly is man concerned to praise love and serve God the Creator of Heaven and Earth to man he hath alone given Reason to make conclusions to man hath he given the word of Faith for man he hath made all these things and given him a Dominion over the work of his hands Now who planteth a vineyard saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 9.7 and eateth not of the fruit thereof The world is a great Vineyard God hath planted it he hath let it out to the Sons of men as his husband-men Should he not eat of the fruit thereof The inanimate Creatures they declare the glory of God the Heavens declare his Glory the Earth sheweth his handy-work the Sun the Moon the Stars carry the high Praises and Glory of God to the utmost ends of the Earth Do not you that are Fathers think your Sons obliged to serve and to honour you Yet you were but partial causes of their being God did much more than you to their production Doth not the Master think his servant is obliged to serve and to honour him because he hath made him he hath raised him up to some capacity of living in the world to some dignity The Potter thinketh that he may command the Pots which he hath made and shall not man be the servant of the most high God who made him and who made the world for him 1. In Reason he ought to be so he oweth his being his well-being all that he hath all the accommodations of his life unto God 2. God expecteth it from him Nulla necessitate coactus saith Holy Augustine nulla sua cujusdam utilitatis indigentia permotus sed sola bonitate ac liberrima voluntate fecit Deus quicquid fecit God was not compelled to make the world he needed it not he made it meerly of his own goodness and for the use of man Can any one think that God doth not expect homage and service from man And from hence three things must follow 1. That the presumptuous sinner must necessarily be the most unnatural creature he serveth not the end of his Creation The grass was made for the food of the beast that serveth its end it grows is cut down c. The beasts serve their end they were made for the use of man for his food his covering they dye daily are clipped shorn flea'd and all for man only the sinner serveth not his end He was made for the Honour and Glory of God he doth nothing less yea his whole life is a dishonouring God an abusing of his holy name and things 2. That this sinner is the most ingrateful creature in the world he acts from his will and choice with the use of Reason Now doing so considering that not only he is born in the Lords house and is his Creation but all the Creatures upon which he lives by the use of which his life
dishonour God and so cross him in the great end of his governing the World which is his glory Now it pleaseth God to influence some of the children of men to such actions as do truly and immediately tend to his glory ex intentione agentis from the intention will and design of the agents and also ex fine operis from the end and issue of the action such are acts of repentance faith and all manner of holiness The glory of God in these actions is first in the intention of the agent and also in the issue of the work Joshua exhorteth Achan to confess his sin and give glory to God The Apostle saith Rom. 4 That Abraham was strong in the faith giving glory to God And our Saviour tells his Disciples Joh. 15.8 Herein is my father glorified if you bring forth much fruit the fruit of Holiness Now so depraved is the heart of man that he neither could nor would do any of them if not influenced and over-powered by God Without me saith Christ you can do nothing God therefore as to actions of this nature doth influence the heart of man making him willing and able so that as to the event the actions are necessary but as to the manner of working they do them freely willingly and chearfully and this is another piece of Governing Providence by which he ruleth and governeth the motions and actions of men to his praise 7. A seventh act by which God governeth the motions and actions of rational creatures 1. His permission and overruling their oblique intentions and actions 1. He permitteth the doing of them 2. He overruleth and ordereth them when done to his own ends Concerning Gods permission of sin I may have hereafter a more proper and particular opportunity to speak His overruling and ordering of them when done to his own wise ends is what I shall speak to and but shortly in this place It is the great art and wisdom of a civil or military Governour amongst men to make use of the several humours and passions of those under his Command to make them serve the great ends which he hath proposed to himself in his Government The great and infinite power and wisdom of God in the Government of the world is in this wonderfully perspicuous making use of the several lusts passions and humours of men to his own praise and glory for God governeth man so as he putteth no force upon his will If he doth any thing that is good acceptable and well-pleasing unto God he doth it willingly and freely The power of God indeed is seen in making some souls willing he giveth to will saith the Apostle not in overruling him to do the action whether he will or no Man acting thus freely many men do that which is evil from the sinful inclination of their own hearts not corrected by the power of Divine Grace God permits mens sins Act. 14.16 Who in times past suffered all Nations to walk in their own ways but the actions being done his power is seen in overruling the oblique action beyond or quite contrary unto the intention of the agent to the glory of his holy and great name this is that which the Psalmist saith Psal 56.10 Surely the wrath of man shall praise him and the remainder of wrath he shall restrain You have an eminent Text to prove this Isa 10.5 6 7 O Assyria the rod of mine anger and the staff in their hand is mine indignation I will send him against an hypocritical nation and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge to take the spoil and to take the prey and to tread them down like mire in the streets Howbeit he meaneth not so neither doth his heart think so but it is in his heart to destroy and to cut off nations not a few The business was this Israel that is the ten tribes had grievously provoked God God was determined to punish them they were an hypocritical Nation There must be an instrument to bring divine wrath upon them Assyria shall be the instrument therefore called the rod of Gods anger and the staff of his indignation Possibly the inward cause moving the Assyrian was his own lust the enlargement of his Territories some revenge of himself the robbing of their treasures he meant not so his heart never did think so meerly to serve God in the execution of his wrath but herein was the governing and overruling Providence of God seen that he so ruled the lust ambition and revenge of the King of Assyria that he accomplished his pleasure upon mount Zion And indeed thus God doth as to all the sinful actions of men God will have his glory from them but it is by the overruling power of his Providence the sinner meaneth not so neither is it in his heart to think so The persecutor saith I will satisfie my lust or I will supply my self with moneys for the satisfaction of my lust that is his end in the mean time God by his Providence overruleth his malitious actions so as he chasteneth his people for their sins and ripeneth the sinner for destruction God in this doth with sinners as the wise Faulconer doth with the Hawk The Hawk is a bird of prey a ravenous bird that flyeth at the Pheasant or Partridg for it self to satisfie its rapacious quality but the Faulconer by his art tameth the Hawk and maketh use of its ravenous quality to serve his own table and this is a wonderful piece of Divine Providence in governing of the world Most of the motions and actions of men in it are diametrically opposite to Gods glorious end yet they are all made to serve the manifestation of Gods glory and to bring about his great designs in the world But this is enough to have spoken Doctrinally to this point of the Governing-Providence of God I cannot at this time compass all which I would speak of for the Application of this point Only let me mind you again from hence Vse 1 how great the God of Heaven must necessarily be and that not only in respect of the immensity of his Being as he filleth Heaven and Earth but in respect of his activity and power he is called the King of Kings the ruler of Princes The Persians thought themselves great Princes that ruled one hundred and twenty seven Provinces The Turk glorieth in the greatness of his Empire so doth the Spaniard upon whose dominions they say the Sun never sitteth But alas what are all these to the Lords Kingdom who ruleth over all and that after another manner than any Earthly Prince who exerciseth a dominion over his Subjects and Vassals how justly therefore is greatness ascribed unto God and who is there that can be compared with him or like unto him The Unity of the Divine Being also may be concluded from hence for if he ruleth over all then all is subject unto him and there cannot be another God imagined but must be in subjection
but he findeth that such knowledg as David saith was too wonderful for him In my Text he doth referre pedem draw his foot backward I will go back saith he I will wade no further O the depth There are some truths and ways of God which are unsearchable We may discourse a little and more generally of them but we shall never be able to find the bottom of them It is wisdom for us in time to retreat and cry O the depth But what depth is this The blessed Apostle tells you of the wisdom and knowledg of God in man knowledg and wisdom are two differing habits a man may be a knowing man yet not a wise man Knowledg apprehends things Wisdom directs the practice to the best ends of humane life Knowledg is a speculative habit Wisdom a practical habit In God also though he be but one simple act we may conceive a difference betwixt Wisdom and Knowledg but in this Text possibly it is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one thing expressed by two terms he is speaking of the wisdom the unsearchable wisdom of God in some particular acts of his Providence How unsearchable are his Judgments and his ways past finding out Here are two terms Judgments and Ways Both again here signifie 1. the same thing Judgments in Scripture sometimes signifie the ways and statutes of God because of the Justice and righteousness that is in them By Justice God measureth his own Words and Laws 2. Sometimes the Term signifieth corrections and chastisements because God measureth out all these likewise in Justice and in them acteth as a righteous Judg But here doubtless Judgments and ways signifie the same thing All Gods ways are Judgments ways of Justice and Equity and Righteousness The term ways is also used in more senses than one Sometimes it signifies the way of Duty wherein we ought to walk towards God or the course of mens actions so you read of the way of the wicked the way of sinners here it is applied to God and signifies The course and series of his actions towards his creatures so it signifies here Of these Judgments and ways of God of this wisdom and knowledg of God it is said They are unsearchable they are past finding out Vnsearchable that is such as we can by no means search out by no means come to the bottom of The only Proposition I shall insist upon from these words is this Prop. The ways of Gods counsels and Providence are unsearchable and not to be found out In the handling of this Proposition 1. I will endeavour to prove it to you that it is so 2. I will shew you how far it is our duty to behold and to search into them and to shew you also wherein they are unsearchable and not to be found out Then I shall make some application Let us first see how this is established from Scripture Eccles 8.17 Then I beheld all the works of God that a man cannot find out his work that is done under the Sun yea though a man labour to seek it out yet he shall not find it yea though a wiseman thinketh to know it yet he shall not find it A Text which must be understood of Gods works of Providence The Wiseman saith a man cannot find them out yea though a man labour to seek it yet he shall not find it He that spake this was Solomon a man to whom God had given Wisdom above all that had been before him and said that there should be none after him who should be like unto him He tells us ver 16 That as he was indued with Wisdom enriched with this Talent so he had not laid it up in a Napkin but had made it his business to improve it I have saith he applied my heart to wisdom and to see the business which is done on the earth V. 17 you have the conclusion That the ways of God were not to be found out yea though a wise man think to know it yet he shall not find it out Psalm 36.6 His righteousness is like a great mountain his judgments are a great deep Not a deep only but a great deep The Sea is called a great deep there is no sounding the bottom of it in many places For saith the Apostle what man knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of a man that is within him even so no man knoweth the things of God but the spirit of God and it must be so if we consider the infiniteness of the Divine Light Wisdom and Understanding His understanding is infinite Psalm 147.5 Now it is said of the works of God In wisdom hath he made them all There is the infinite wisdom of God in the works and contrivances of his Providence The Apostle telleth us he dwelleth in that light to which none can approach 1 Tim. 6.16 and so he walks in that light which none can see and fully comprehend There is no searching out of his understanding Isa 40.28 The way of the Lord is like the way of an Eagle in the air of a Serpent upon a Rock not to be seen not to be tracked Incomprehensibilis Dei sapientia inter angustias humanae rationis coarctari non potest It is the saying of a grave Author Gods unsearchable incomprehensible wisdom cannot be cooped up within the straits of humane Reason but the Doctrine is experimentally and de facto evident enough In the second place here may arise a Question How far our duty extendeth as to the ways of Divine Providence for certainly we have a duty a great duty incumbent upon us to Divine Providences I remember it is the saying of Cicero Si vera est sententia quorundam philosophorum qui omnino nullam rerum humanarum procurationem docent habere Deos Quae potest esse pietas Quae Religio Quae sanctitas Cicero de Nat. Deorum If the opinion of some Philosophers who deny that the Gods exercise any providence or take any care of humane affairs be true What piety can there be What Religion What Holiness A sentence which will let us know that there were some amongst the Heathens that were less Atheists than some amongst those who are called Christians Now the case is the same supposing this Divine Procuration or Providence if we may not or do not at all take notice of it Let me therefore discourse a little concerning the duty of man with reference to the Providence of God and then I shall shew you the boundaries of it and wherein it is unsearchable I shall open the first in three or four particulars 1. It is doubtless the duty of Gods people To see and behold the works of the Lord indeed we cannot but see them they are before our eyes every day But my meaning is to behold the things that are done in the earth as the works of the Lord. There are too many that do see and not see they see pluckings up and plantings of Nations and Families but
a credit to his word if his faith be weak and languid the exemplifying of the thing revealed in the Word of God by the issues of Providence tendeth much to the confirmation of the souls faith and assent and therefore it is laid to the charge of the Israelites as a great aggravation of their sins That they believed not for all his wondrous works And this was the great aggravation of the sin of the Pharisees and the Jews that lived in the time when our Saviour was upon the Earth that although the Providence of God had declared Christ to be the Son of God by his doing such works as no man ever did and by such evident signs and tokens as never before were declared as to any man yet they believed him not to be the Son of God 2. As Faith is one great principle of all our spiritual actions so Fear is another Now the observing of Divine Providences much conduceth to this It is particularly remark't by the Holy Ghost upon the sudden death of Ananias and Saphira That a great fear came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard of those things And in the Law of Moses you shall find God commanding exemplary Justice to be done upon some remarkable offenders for this very end That all Israel might hear and fear It is particularly said Jonah 1.16 When Jonah had told them the cause of the storm and they had thrown him over-board Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered sacrifices and made vows Severe Providences without the word make men startle and put them into a passion of fear but when they follow a word of threatning and they do but see God doing what in his word he hath said he will do this must needs have a great power and influence upon the heart especially upon the hearts of such as before had an habit of Divine Fear wrought in them though it were smothered with the ashes of too much carnal security 3. Love to God is a third principle of spiritual action an habit wrought in the soul of every Child of God but not at all times so lively and quick and working as it ought to be Now the observation of Gods good and gracious Providences serves hugely to excite it and to blow up the Coals of it in the soul Psal 37.23 O love you the Lord all his Saints for the Lord preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer But this will be further enlarged upon in my discourse upon the second branch of the Proposition which I now come to discourse upon Mem. 2. Whoso observeth the Providences of God he shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I take the word understand here to signifie three things 1. Knowledg 2. A more clear and distinct knowledg 3. A more demonstrative and experimental knowledg 1. He shall know the loving-kindness of the Lord understand it with reference to the Church and People of God for Gods Providence is like the Cloud which conducted the Israelites out of Egypt and through the Red-sea it hath a light-side which hath an aspect upon Gods Israel and it hath a black and dark-side towards his enemies Now he who observeth Divine Providence will know this That all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth to those that fear God Psal 25.10 A slight and transient view of Divine Providence will not bring a man to the knowledg of this but a wist view and observation of Divine Providence in the course and series of it will do it The word of God speaketh much of the Love and Favour of God to his People Providence to the strict and constant observer of it will confirm all these words God himself speaking after the manner of men to Abraham speaks as if he had not known his love and obedience to him till he had made an experiment of it and saw that he would not have withheld from him his Son even his only Son We know nothing of the loving-kindness of God before we see it experimented and brought into demonstration in comparison with what we know upon such an evidence and this we gain by our considerate observation of the motions of Divine Providence 2. He who observeth the motions of Providence shall have a more distinct knowledg of the loving-kindness of God He shall not only know that God is good to Israel and to all that are of a clean heart but he shall also see something of the Methods of God in the exercise of his loving-kindness When we speak of the Love and Favour of God to his People we are prone to understand by it nothing but pleasing Providences grateful to our senses now the loving-kindness of God is not only seen in pleasing dispensations but in adverse Providences also Whom he loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth All things are yours saith the Apostle This knowledg must be gained by observation Sense looks upon cross dispensations of Providence and it may be Reason judging of them from present appearances and effects cryeth out All these things are against me Here is nothing of promised loving-kindness in all this Is his mercy clean gone doth his promise fail for evermore But whoso observeth Divine Providence will in these things also understand the loving-kindness of the Lord and know that it is the method of Divine Providence to deal out the loving-kindness of God to the Souls of his People through crosses and tryals and afflictions in a way which at present they do not understand and know but shall know hereafter No affliction saith the Apostle is joyous at present but grievous but it bringeth forth afterward the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby Heb. 12.11 3. Vnderstanding thirdly may signifie experience and indeed there is no such understanding as experience gives Every Child of God that observeth Divine Providence shall find it let the wind of it blow which way it will giving him an experiment and demonstration of the Love of God to his Soul But thus much shall serve to have spoken to the Explication of this Proposition in both branches I come to the proof of it to shew you how it appeareth That he who observeth the motions of Divine Providence and he alone shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. It will appear to you if you but consider 1. That however things go in the course of Providence yet it is most certain that they are mercy and truth to them who fear God For this we have a certain word Psalm 25.10 All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his Covenant and his Testimonies And again Psalm 73.1 Truly God is good to Israel In my former Discourse I shewed you three Objects of special Providence 1. Rational creatures are a more special object of Providence than either inanimate or brute creatures 2. Amongst rational Creatures those men and women in the World which make
wheel we see nothing in it that resembleth God the great workman we see in it nothing of the Divine Wisdom possibly nothing of the divine goodness and loving-kindness but could we have patience till the Lords work came off the wheel we should easily see it in quite another representation we often see in Gods works of Providence nothing but confusion and blood and trouble and multiplied troubles and disturbances to those who most fear him and desire to walk most closely with him But in the evening of that day saith the Prophet Zech. 14.6 it shall be light The day neither light nor dark but in the Evening it shall be light Gods peoples days sometimes are plainly darkness thick darkness but would we have patience to the evening of them we should see light The Evening is the close and making up of the day When God cometh to close up his days work did we but observe Divine Providence we should easily understand that it would be light Sorrow may be for a night but joy shall be in the morning So as I say again This is one great reason why at all times we cannot understand the loving-kindness of the Lord to his Church and his people because we do not observe the motions of Divine Providence but take only a slight and superficial view of them I shall conclude this Discourse with an Exhortation to the duty of the Text The observation of the motions of Divine Providence Vse 2 In my last discourse I discovered to you some unsearchable things in Divine Providence and cautioned you against too curious an Enquiry into them My business now is to call upon you non caecutire in revelatis not to be blind as to those things which God hath revealed This also is your duty as well as the other by the former you acquit your selves from an unwarrantable curiosity by this from a wretched unthankfulness The Providence of God is daily working in order to the fulfilling of Gods great end the glorifying of his great and holy Name the establishing of his people c. 1. Do not rest in a meer view of what is done in the World but fix your eyes upon it Lay up the things in your heart let your thoughts dwell upon them the remarkable passages of them especially You see and hear of Wars and rumours of Wars inundations fires changes and over-turning in Nations of powers and Dominions you at present understand not the tendencies and indications of them you cannot make up a judgment of them and prophecy what will and shall be from them but yet observe them lay up these things in your minds yea and let them not pass out of your minds as we are to hear for the time to come so we are to behold and observe the motions of Providence with a respect unto a time to come too Do not think you can expound every Providence presently the vision oft-times is for an appointed time and is to be expounded by time in the mean time only to be diligently marked and observed taken notice of as a great work of God the meaning of which we shall understand hereafter Divines say That the meaning of many Providences and our clear understanding of them is one of those things wherein our knowledg shall be bettered and perfected in the day of Judgment and till that time when the hidden things of God as well as of men shall be made manifest we must be content to know but in part 2. Do not secondly observe meer single acts of Divine Providence but let your Eye follow it in its motions God sometimes hath his works a long time upon the wheel especially those relating to his Church I will give you two famous instances 1. The establishing of his ancient Church of the Jews in Canaan The promise was out for it Gen. 12 to Abraham it was more than five hundred years before this work was off the wheel of Providence four hundred years before they went out of Egypt where they were in bondage forty years they travelled in the wilderness then during all the time of the Judges yea and in Sauls time too they were but in a very unquiet condition In David and Solomon's time they came to a setled estate in the promised Land There was a Promise given out unto Christ for having the ends of the earth for his possession David mentioneth it Isaiah prophesieth much of it After this Christ comes was crucified c. And it was three hundred years after this before these Promises had any considerable accomplishment Indeed as to particular persons their beings are of shorter duration and the Providence of God brings about the promises to them in much shorter periods or they could see nothing of Gods loving-kindnesses in the issues or contextures of them but take heed there of resting your Eye upon the observations of some single acts of providence relating to them those who should thus have observed the motions of Providence with reference to Abraham Jacob Joseph David Daniel Job would have seen little of that loving-kindness of the Lord to them which yet is evident enough to all that keep their Eye upon their story to the winding up of their bottoms Now to this observation of Providence you have two great Arguments in the Text 1. It is an Indication of spiritual Wisdom A wise man looketh not only at present things but at things past and yet to come Now Wisdom is a lovely thing It is justified of her children saith our Saviour Every man desireth the reputation of a wise man and studiously avoideth the reproach of a fool Two things speak a fool 1. To observe and mind nothing Or 2dly Meerly to take notice of things present and gather conclusions from them 2. Thus you shall understand the loving-kindness of God Then you will see that all the paths of God towards his Church are mercy and truth Truth not a word failing of the promise and mercy working for the good of them that love God yea thus you that fear the Lord shall understand the loving-kindness and truth of God to your particular souls A thing the evidence of which is and ought to be of more value to you than the whole World I will conclude my Discourse by giving you three Cautions to direct your observation 1. Observe the Providence of God when it seemeth to move contrary to his Word but never determine the Indication of it without the Word Indeed the Providence of God never moveth contrary to the Word it is always a servant to some Declaration of the will of God in some promise or threatning but it often seemeth to us to move contrary which made the Psalmist cry out Doth the promise fail for evermore The reason of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that deceiveth us is our imperfect knowledg or understanding of the Word of God and non-acquaintance with the Counsels of God and contrivances of his Wisdom and the variety of those
to him for his possession and to his seed after him when as yet he had no children Fourthly What if we should say That God doth this that he might be the more admired in the works of his Providence when they came to an issue and have the more of the praises and thanksgivings of his people We are never so deeply affected either with with the good or evil that be tideth us as when we are surprised with it and it comes upon us fearing or looking for the contrary Evils unthought-of are more heavy and more dejecting and afflictive Good things not look'd for are more affecting and raise up holy affections more to the high praises of God Now when the Providence of God hath moved obliquely and to our appearance quite contrary as we judged unto the Promise when it cometh home unto it to give it a being and issue it cometh upon us as it were upon the sudden and contrary to the expectation of our sense and reason and so wonderfully affects our hearts and enforceth from us great and high acknowledgments of the Omnipotency and power of God of his mercy and goodness of his truth and veracity It is the common infirmity of our Natures that we more know our mercies by wanting them than by enjoying them If the Providence of God moved in a right line to bring promised good to them who love and fear God he would neither have so much of the prayers and cryes of his people during the want of their desired good nor yet so much praise upon the bestowing of it You shall observe That God is not so much praised for mercies of common Providence which we receive every day how valuable soever as our sleep in the night our appetite to our meat c. As for such Dispensations as are more rare and extraordinary the reason is because we look for the former they are common with us and we expect them Providence more keâ—peth a road as to them than as to others But it is time I should come to the Application of this Observation In the first place Vse 1 This Observation should bespeak us aforehand that no such oblique and seemingly contrary motions of Providence may be any prejudice to our faith in the Promise Wâ—nder not if you still see the Providence of God keeping the same Methods that it hath alway in all the great things which it hath brought to pass in the World Particularly as to Gods great works relating to his Church God hath used to begin a work in one age which it may be he hath not finished or will not finish till that age be out Thus you have heard that it was in the first plantation of the Gospel begun in the Apostles time Thus it hath been in the Reformation of the Church when corrupted there is nothing more ordinary than this If therefore you see any-where foundations of Reformation laid and then the Providence of God seems to desert its work and the foundations laid seem to be plucking up again and all things to run in the old Channels trouble not your selves at it this is but an ordinary Method of Divine Providence But let us secondly from hence collect what is our duty with reference to such times Vse 2 when to our appearance the Providence of God seemeth to move obliquely or contrary to the Promise This I shall attempt to open to you 1. With reference unto God 2. With reference to the Promise 3. With reference unto Providence 1. Quest What is our duty relating more immediately unto God under the posing and astonishing Dispensations of his Providence In the first place we doubtless ought to take heed of charging God foolishly I borrow the expression from Job Chap. 1 In all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly To charge God foolishly upon the account of his Providences is by occasion of them to utter vain and foolish things that are not fit to be spoken of the Majesty of God as if he failed either in his truth or mercy or goodness to his people It is an exellent precept of the Apostle in this case though given in another 1 Cor. 4.5 Judg nothing before the time There is a time when God will give us leave to judg of his ways whether they be not both mercy and truth to them that fear him Only Judg not before the time before God hath finished his work and brought off what he hath upon the wheel Now it is this hasty Judgment which is the cause of all our murmuring and repining of all our hasty sayings like the Psalmist in his passion Will the Lord cast off for ever and will he be favourable no more Is his mercy clean gone for ever Doth his promise fail for evermore Hath God forgotten to be gracious hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies Selah Psalm 77.7 8 9. If this be the usual method of Providence in the accomplishment of Promises to move obliquely and contrary as to humane appearance and yet at last most certainly to bring the Promise to effect we have no reason under the oblique or seemingly contrary motions of Providence to charge God as if he failed in his truth or failed in his mercy he is only fetching a compass in order to the verifying and justification of both For us so much as to suspect or to think the contrary is to charge God foolishly not observing nor understanding the ordinary methods and courses of Divine Providence in accomplishing of his greatest Promises 2. It is our duty to admire God in those providential Dispensations which we do not understand Man vainly studieth to find out God in his unsearchable Counsels and motions of Providence Vain man would be wise Now the ways of God as I have shewed you are in many things past finding out Where we can fee God in his ways of mercy there is an opportunity for our love and thankfulness where we cannot see him there is an opportutunity for our fear and admiration stand upon this bottom That all the ways of God are mercy and truth to them that fear him Let nothing shake you from this foundation nor move you from this Rock where this is not matter of demonstration to your sense and reason let it yet be matter of admiration to you Be admiring at the wisdom of God that can out of a Chaos bring order out of darkness bring light But secondly 2d Quest What at such a time is our duty with reference to the Promise 1. I answer to stand fast by it I would have every good Christian think at such a time as Providence to his appearance moveth obliquely and contrary to the Promise to think that he heareth it speak unto him as Christ sometimes spake to his Disciples Matth 5 Think you that I am come to destroy the law and the Prophets I am not come to destroy them but to fulfil them I say I would have you think you hear the Providence of
is a divine stamp too though of a different nature what means are proper must be used how mean soever they appear in our eyes What proportion was there betwixt Jonathan and his Armour-bearer and the whole Garrison of the Philistines between Jeroboams Army and Abijahs This but four hundred the other eight hundred thousand between the Army of Asia and that of the Ethiopians and Lubims 2 Chron. 14. God often works yea he ordinarily worketh by small means and Providence brings forth its great work in the day of mans small things If we be sure that we are in Gods way and about his work let the means be what they will if lawful and rational it is our duty to use them God must be honoured in his own Institutions and sought in his own way though the means be small and our humane hopes small yet if we expect Gods blessing this mercy must be sought in the use of those means which the Providence of God layeth before us 2. But secondly The duty of a Christian will lye much in the exercise of his Faith in God beyond the probability of the means This is the great duty of a Christian and the very end which God aimeth at in cutting us short of means many times I think we may say Vbi media deficiunt ibi fides incipit where means begin to fail there faith begins to work Where we are out of sight as to means there 's a room for faith For it is saith the Apostle the evidence of things not seen By faith here I mean a trusting and relying upon God as a God able and faithful But to open this a little more clearly to you I will shew you 1. In what cases we may warrantably exercise a faith in God beyond the vertue and probability of means 2. What means we may use for the help of our faith in this case 3. What encouragements we may take to our selves in such a case to set our faith on work 1 Quest In what cases may a Christian exercise faith in God for the accomplishment beyond the vertue efficacy and probability of humane means to be used in order to it 1. To this I answer The object of faith must be a Promise It is ridiculous to talk of an exercise of faith in God for an accomplishment for which we have no word to warrant us in the expectation of it But now a Promise may be either particular or General of old many had particular persons and the Nation of the Jews had particular promises made to them by God immediately or mediately by his Prophets we have no such God hath left us unto his written Word There are many general promises which shall be made good still to particular Churches and persons Hence is our difficulty to conclude what it is we may exercise a faith in God for bringing to pass To direct you a little 1. Where you have a particular promise the case is plain Some such there are as for the destruction of Antichrist c. 2. In the want of a special particular Promise a general promise is a sufficient object for our faith General promises made to the Church and people of God are applicable to particular Churches and particular Saints 3. Every Precept doth imply a Promise God hath certainly promised a blessing upon the doing of that which he hath commanded us to do no man serveth God for nothing 4 Whatsoever issue certainly conduceth to the glory of God is under a Promise God hath resolved to glorifie himself and he ordereth all his actions in order to that end The substance of all this amounts to thus much We may exercise a faith in God and trust in him for accomplishing by his Providence whatsoever in his Word he hath either more particularly or generally promised or whatsoever he hath commanded us to act in tendency unto or whatsoever doth certainly tend to the glorifying of his great and holy Name Now if any thing of this nature be upon the wheel although we see the present visible means in order to the accomplishment of it be small and in all appearance disproportioned to the greatness of the event yet a Christian using what lawful means the Providence of God lays before him may warrantably trust in God for the exerting a further power for the accomplishment of it than is in the means which at present are apportioned to it But this is now an hard thing to us Let me therefore secondly direct you what you should do in a day of small things for the advantaging of your faith in this noble Exercise I shall offer but two things in the Case 1. Keep your Eye as much off the means and as much upon God as you can We have so much of sense and reason in us that we are very prone from one or other of them to take all our measures about future events If we would keep our hearts steady in a time of such exigencies as these we must shut the Eyes both of our sense and reason Faith credits a Proposition neither upon the demonstrations of the one of these nor the conclusions of the other but the meer authority of God Men count it wisdom when they are upon precipices never to look downward but upward if they look downward their weak heads are apt to be giddy Christians in such stresses of Providence as these are have nothing else to do if they look downward their sense their reason saith how can these things be If God would make windows in heaven saith that Nobleman these things could not be Our poring upon means in the day of our small things hindereth the exercise of our faith in God If the foundations be destroyed saith the Psalmist Psal 11.3 what can the righteous do Means are the foundations of our natural hopes now if these be destroyed if there be little or nothing of these what can we do Wicked men are indeed at their wits-ends they despond and despair but saith the Psalmist v. 4 The Lord is in his holy temple the Lords throne is in heaven his eyes see his eye-lids try the children of men God is still where he was and hath the same power the same knowledg of things the same rule and dominion Twice in Scripture Abraham is propounded to us as a noble Example and a father of the faithful in this thing Rom. 4. God had promised him a Son a Son of his Wife Sarah he grew to be an hundred years old his Wife many years past child bearing here was no means yet Abraham believeth for a Child and he was not weak in the faith saith the Apostle Rom. 4.18 19 20. How doth he behave himself The Apostle telleth you That he considered not his own body now dead when he was about an hundred years old nor yet the deadness of Sarahs womb he staggered not at the Promise but was strong in faith giving glory to God being fully perswaded that what he had promised
a knock or a bruise and lose such Instruments as might have been useful But at last we see God bring forth his work the world is as to its circumstances fitted to it then we see our folly David was anointed to the Kingdom of Israel and Judah after this he is called to Court he is made the Kings son-in-law If any one upon this should have made a party for David to have rent the Kingdom from Saul a defensive party he indeed had to protect him from Sauls rage but no more he had undoubtedly but made himself a prey But David waiteth year after year till God had fitted the circumstances of that Kingdom to his design till Saul and Jonathan were gone and the peoples hearts were inamoured and set upon David and the Captain of the Army was turned also to him and when these circumstances concurred then he brings forth his great work and setteth his Servant David peaceably upon the Throne promised unto him Thus far I have enlarged upon the Explicatory part of this Observation I now come to the Application of it Vse 1. In the first place Let us learn from hence to adore the wisdom of God in his great productions of Providence There is much very much of God to be seen in his great products of Providence but he is to be seen in them in nothing more than this his adopting and fitting the world to his designs With how much blood must David have come to the Kingdom the children of Israel been brought out of Egypt and Babylon had it not been for this Oh the infinite unsearchable wisdom of God! his footsteps are not known his ways are past a creature 's finding out Wisdom in action is then much seen when the action is not attempted but at such a time as it takes effect The wisdom of the Smith teacheth him to strike when the Mettal is hot and malleable The wise General opens not his trenches till all is ready to make the Sally or assault nor springs the Mine till it be carried right under the wall Herein is the infinite wisdom of God seen that he attemptâ— not a great work until he hath accommodated circumstances to it Vse 2. Secondly Observe from hence That the miscarrying of a good design must be the product of mans improvidence not of Gods directive Providence There are many instances might be given of mens miscarrying in a good design that is in the attempt of things which God will certainly bring to pass How many have perished in their undertakings of works of Reformation their works miscarried The Providence of God is not indeed excluded out of these events it permitted those persons so to act it governed their action But it was their own ungrounded zeal and sinful passions and undue precipitancy that caused their miscarriage God's effective Providence never miscarrieth in its designs for it always either produceth a thing by an almighty-Power miraculously or else so fitteth the worlds circumstances afore-hand that if it be to be done mediately it is certainly produced It is only mans haste and mis-guided zeal that makes any good work abortive By a good work here I understand whatsoever is made the Object of a Divine Promise and by the way this may teach us not to let go our hold on the Promise upon any such disaster If the work be of God if it be any thing which God hath promised it shall be effected though it may miscarry in a first or second undertaking either because the Providence of God is driving another design viz. in the accomplishment of it first to punish some undertakers in it for their sins which was the case of the Israelites against Benjamin and against Ai or for their precipitancy and rash setting upon it out of Gods time or their ill-managery of it yet let not your faith fail in the Promise for the work shall revive in Gods time when he hath fitted the Worlds circumstances a little better to it it shall go on But thirdly Vse 3. Let me call upon you to Observe this in Gods providential Dispensations both towards the Church and towards your own Souls in particular Whoso is wise observeth these things saith the Text and he shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. This is a very observable thing it will make us spiritually wise it will make us to understand much of the Lords loving-kindness in the products of his Providence 1. I say first it will give us spiritual wisdom and in a great measure make us to understand Gods time for the production of his great works and very much guide us as to our duty in the use of means what and of what nature is seasonable and proper for us to make use of For Example There is a great expectation of the Conversion of the Jews whether the whole Body of them shall be converted or no and whether they shall return to Jerusalem and again build and inhabit that once holy City I cannot say But the Scripture seemeth to incline very much That there shall be a far greater conversion of them and calling of them in than yet hath been But to look for this suddenly or to fix it upon any certain year must needs be a very great an idle and groundless vanity we must first see the Worlds circumstances much better fitted to it than we yet do whilst either the lives or blasphemies of the Jews are such as it is not reasonable that Christian Princes should endure them in their Territories or the spirits of Christians are such as they will not so endure them or such Idolatries and Superstitions are amongst Christians as are abomination to that people the circumstances of the World do not seem fitted to the production of such a great and noble work If we should live to see the bitterness of the Jews against Christ abated and the bitterness of Christians Spirits against them more generally allayed The lives and worship of Christians more reformed from such superstitions as they abominate and the lives of the Jews more reduced to rules of Christians we might then hope for something of this nature and judg Gods time at hand To give another instance Protestants do believe or at least did till of late some have began to doubt it That the Pope of Rome was the great Antichrist That wicked one of whom the Apostle prophecied 2 Thess 2.8 that should be revealed whom God would consume with the spirit of his mouth and with the brightness of his coming He it is ver 4 who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God shewing himself that he is God The mysterie of his iniquity began to work even in the Apostle's time though there was none of many years after owned the name of Pope or arrogant title of Vniversal Bishop or Vicar of Christ c. But the Apostle ver 6 tells us there was something
to Pharaoh and to demand the dismission of the Israelites God suffereth not Pharaoh nor any of his Courtiers notwithstanding their threats to do them any hurt Caleb and Joshuah adventure to bring up a good report of the land of Canaan God protecteth them from the mutiny of the people and they are the only two are suffered to go over into the promised land Numb 14.6 7 10 24. Elijah the three children and Daniel were great adventurers in the case of God so was Esther in her going in to the King to speak for the Jews so were the Apostles in the first Plantation of the Gospel The Providence of God strangely watched over them and delivered them as you read in the story of their Acts. A man cannot be too bold if he keeps within the latitude of his duty Indeed we read of some whom God strangely watched over in the doing of some actions that we cannot evince to have been their duty as that of Phinehas Numb 25.7 8. in killing the Moabitish-woman and the Israelite in the act of adultery That of Elijah's killing Baals Priests 1 King 18 yet God protected them and rewarded them there are many things said in the defence of Phinehas and Elijah to reduce their actions to the ordinary rule of Justice It is certain that by the Laws of God the adulterers ought to have dyed so also the false Prophets but for the persons that executed the vengeance of God upon them all that we can say is this Their call was doubtless clear to themselves their actions were most certainly approved by God he protects them upon the doing of them he rewards them for doing of them but non fueâ—unt ordinaria sed facta quaedam extra usum ordinem communem they were not ordinary actions but depended upon a special call of God By vertue of such a call too it doubtless was that Moses slew the Egyptian for which St. Stephen justifieth him Acts 7. But a man cannot be too bold for God if he keeps within the latitude of his certain duty 2. Provided secondly He keepeth to reasonable rules of prudence our rule obligeth us to be wise as serpents But I will not enlarge upon this Theme for the truth is the Providence of God strangely watcheth over bold adventurers in his cause and service who have acted under such circumstances as are hardly reconcileable to what our reason calls Prudence yet certainly that will not warrant a rash and imprudent managery of a good cause I need not give you more instances than I have done to justifie this Observation in sacred History Moses and Aaron Caleb and Joshuah Elijah and Elisha Esther Daniel the three Children all the Apostles afford a plentiful proof of this Observation and in other stories the instances are without number Luthers whole life was an instance of this the Archers shot sorely at him he ventured as high as any in opposition to them yet his bow abode in his strength Luther dyed in his bed in peace Nor doth this seem an unreasonable motion of Divine Providence if we either consider how far the honour of God is concerned in the upholding and maintaining his Embassadors and rewarding his servants or the faithfulness of God in justifying his promises or the further use that God will make of men in the accomplishment of his designs in the world 1. Let us but consider the relation wherein the Ministers of Christ stand to him they are his Missionaries be hath sent them as the father hath sent him so he hath sent them nay they are no ordinary servants they are the Lords Embassadors they come in Christs name and as in Christs stead they intreat men to be reconciled unto God It is beneath the honour of a Prince to suffer an Embassador to starve or any way to perish for want of that protection which he is able to afford him indeed if any run before they are sent or instead of Gods work to their own Gods honour is not concerned in them unless to chastise their presumption and to take vengeance upon them as in such a case no Prince would think himself further concerned but supposing Ministers of the Gospel to be sent by him and to be ready faithfully to deliver their masters messages and this we must suppose and believe or disown the Scriptures which expresly assert this God is highly concerned in point of honour having power in his hand and the command of all the hearts of men to provide for his faithful Ministers and they shall not want 2. God secondly is not only concerned in honour as a great King and God above all but as a God of truth and faithfulness that can sooner suffer Heaven and Earth to pass away then a word to fail of what he hath spoken he hath made many promises to his faithful servants in the Ministry and to those that he hath employed in hazardous employments for him he of old promised to satiate the souls of his priests with fatness Jer. 31.14 He of old appointed no inheritance to the sons of Levi amongst their brethren because he was their inheritance as he had promised them Deut. 10.9 he hath told them he will cloath them with salvation Psal 132.16 he told Jeremiah and Ezekiel he would be with them to deliver them Jer. 1.7 8 18 19. Ezek. 2.6 He hath told Gospel Ministers he will be with them to the end of the world Matth. 28. he hath bidden them take no thought what they should eat drink or put on when he sent out the twelve Matth. 10.9 10. he bid them to provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in their purses nor scrip for their journey nor two coats nor shooes for the workman is worthy of his meat Now after all this if God should suffer his Ministers to want bread to sustain their lives or their families what would men say of the faithfulness of God 3. Lastly Let us but consider God as having many designs yet to accomplish a great deal of work yet to be done in the world to be done by the hands of men who can imagine God should not eminently protect and provide for those that are and have been faithful who would work for that Master that will not find them bread What subject would be free to go as an Embassadour for that Prince that would never protect him in the faithful discharge of his trust or reward him proportionably to his affronts or losses Now God knows that we are flesh and much led by our sense and reason and must not be encouraged to our duty only by rewards which are the objects of our faith but by sensible rewards at least to such a proportion as is necessary to uphold us to our work It is therefore not to be wondred at that God should in a way of special Providence eminently take care of the Ministers of his Gospel he hath call'd them and sent them to his work he hath by that call
Apostle tells us Rom. 11.11 12. They did not stumble that they might fall but through their fall salvation came unto the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousie The Apostles upon their going out to preach to the Gentiles gives this account of it Forasmuch as you have judged your selves unworthy of eternal life that was by not receiving the Gospel we turn unto the Gentiles What shall I need say more there is no soul brought to Heaven but is an eminent instance of this If they had not sinned they would have no need of any pardon or justification from the guilt of sin no need of a Saviour or Mediator God suffereth the souls of his People to be concluded under the guilt of sin that he might have mercy upon them It is also an ordinary observation of Divines That God often suffereth people to fall into some gross and scandalous sins that he might take that advantage to awaken them to repentance and make use of their falls to a rising again to a new life and this is often seen in those that have lived civilly and might be prone to trust to their own Moral Righteousness But I shall inlarge no further in the Justification of so obvious an Observation It follows that I should shew you the reasonableness of this motion of Divine Providence 1. The truth is in the first place it is hard to conceive how otherwise some of Gods greatest works of Providence could have been produced What would the Revelation of a Covenant of Grace have signified to the world if the Covenant of Works had not first been violated by the first mans transgression How could else any man imagine that the salvation of the world should have been accomplished by the death of Christ if God had not made use of the wicked action of those who took him and by wicked hands crucified him The Apostle assureth us that in all they did against our Lord they did but execute what the counsel of the Lord had predetermined should be done If sin did not abound how should grace much more abound Rom. 5. In the pardon of sins the justification of a guilty soul the Scripture tells us That all are concluded under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe What should we say to the great work of Providence in trying his Saints by afflictions and persecutions from the hands of violent men God maketh use of the sins of Persecutors to perfect his Saints by the exercises of their faith and patience it could not be without the sins of those who persecute others for righteousness sake 2. Again God by this getteth himself a great deal of glory I have spoke something to this under the seventh Observation but let me here add a little 1. He gets himself the glory of his power There is a fancy hath possessed the Philosophers of the world That metals of a baser nature may by art be turned into nobler metals brass c. into gold and they will tell you that some such thing hath been done and aboundance of time and money hath been spent by the vain and covetous Philosophers of the world to little purpose to find out this Philosophers stone as they call it but supposing such a thing possible yet there must be some similar quality to help or they will not pretend to any such thing no Philosopher ever yet pretended by all his Chymistry to fetch gold out of a dunghil But now in sin there is nothing of a similar quality to the glory of God there is nothing so opposite to the glory of God as the sins of men and women For God to fetch water out of a rock argued great power to raise up Abraham children from the stones of the field it must speak great power but yet not so much as for God to fetch his own glory out of peoples sins There is in sin an infinite opposition to the glory of God nothing so diametrically opposite to God's honour and glory as sin is Sampson put forth a riddle Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness But what is this riddle to that which I am speaking of for the glory of God to come forth out of the dunghil the woful dunghil of the worst of mens actions for God to work out his own righteousness out of the vilest actions of men O it speaketh an infinite Power in God! it is a greater work to fetch light out of darkness I will saith God get me glory upon Pharaoh For God to get himself glory out of Pharaoh's hard heart was more than to get his people water out of an hard rock 2. God by it gets himself the glory of his infinite wisdom I told you in my former discourse that he is accounted the best Politician that can make the best use of all humours and serve his own designs even of his utter Enemies this is the top of a Politicians wisdom How great then must the Wisdom of God appear in this nothing hath such an enmity to God and his glory as sin hath Job speaketh it to the great glory and honour of God Job 5.13 He taketh the wise in their own craftiness and the counsels of the crafty are carried head long It speaketh the wisdom of a man that he can make use of the capacious quality of a bird or a beast to catch a prey for him thus the faulconer maketh use of the hawk the huntsman of the dog the fisher-man of a fowl to catch birds or beasts or fish for him This I say speaketh the wisdom of a man above other creatures O how it speaketh the admirable Wisdom of God that he can make use of the worst belchings of lusts in mens hearts the most vile and rebellious actions of men and out of them fetch his own glory 3. But in the last place God above all doth by this magnifie the riches and freeness of his grace This is that wherein the Lord delights to have glory he predestinated adopted us c. to the praise of the glory of his grace Eph. 1.6 If God had taken man out of a state of innocency into Heaven we should never have admired free-grace so much as now it marvellously affects the heart of a child of God to see God make use of his falls of his sin and corruption and manifold rebellions to make his free-grace exceeding glorious We should never so much admire free-grace and mercy if we were not so great transgressors This is it which maketh grace precious in our eyes when we cry out of the belly of hell and he heareth us Thus far I have shewed you that God maketh a very ordinary use and a very remarkable use of peoples sins But I also added that it was a spotless use and thus it must be if God maketh it For he that is of purer eyes than that he can behold iniquity must be of a purer will
of it I think is that to David which we have Psal 89. from the 20 to the 35. v. Vers 28. he tells him That he will keep his mercy with him for evermore and his covenant should stand fast with him but yet he reserveth himself a liberty to punish him and his seed for sins vers 30. If his children for sake my law and walk not in my judgments if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments then will I visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes nevertheless my loving-kindness I will not utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail my Covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips So that notwithstanding the Covenant of Grace for eternal life and pardon of sin and all grace in order to the obtaining of this life and notwithstanding the blood of Christ which was the blood of this Covenant God hath yet a liberty to visit the transgressions of his people even their past as well as renewing transgressions with rods and their iniquity with stripes yet he doth not break his Covenant nor alter any thing that is gone out of his lips 3. Nor is it reasonable that any should fancy that God by the establishment of the Covenant of Grace or by acceptance of the satisfaction of his Son as the blood of this Covenant to make an atonement and reconciliation for iniquity should have barred himself of his liberty to punish the sins of his people or that any who hath accepted this Covenant upon the exhibition of it in the Gospel should be excused from such chastisements if we consider 1. That some of these chastenings are made the matters of a promise Mark 10.30 Persecutions are reckoned amongst Christs rewards in this life Heb. 12.6 7 8. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth c. Thence the ancients were wont to call Martyrdom a Crown and Luther was wont to complain That God would not honour him to wear that Crown Saint Paul prayeth to be made conformable to the death of Christ if the Saints did not fight how could they triumph how should they conquer yea be more than conquerers 2. That afflictions are the path-way to death and death the door into eternal life Every affliction is a blow at the root of our tree preparing it for its fall and if we did not dye how should we live in Heaven We must all dye or be changed or our corruptible could never put on incorruption nor our mortal put on immortality It is reported of Zaleucus a lawgiver amongst the Indians that he should say If God had not appointed that all should dye it had been reasonable for men to have made a law in the case and we read of some Indians who being asked why they worshipped the Sun gave this reason Because it was the Author of death Give me leave to say That death is so necessary and afflictions are so wholesom for Christians that they deserve rather to be reckoned amongst those things which Christ hath purchased for them than such things as he hath purchased them a liberty from 1. All sorts of afflictions of this life are means of grace not so much means of begetting as reviving and increasing grace for as the fire softneth the wax and hardneth the clay so I have usually observed That afflictions make the wicked man worse but godly men better they revive repentance they are times when usually men call sin to remembrance they draw out the exercises of faith and both work and exercise patience Tribulation saith the Apostle worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope David before that he was afflicted went astray after he learned to keep Gods Statutes God while he punisheth his people for their sins doth not barely chasten them but he also teacheth them out of his Law 2. They secondly prepare the Saints for glory and this not only as they restrain sin and tend to perfect grace but as it pleaseth God of his grace to reward the sufferings of his people and the faith and patience of his people shewed in and under their sufferings with the greater glory Thus the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 4.17 That our light and momentany afflictions work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory And thus much may serve to have cleared this Objection that I may hasten to the practical Application of this Observation This motion of Divine Providence in punishing with temporal punishments past and pardoned sins even in the best of Gods People appears exceeding reasonable 1. In regard of the Justice of God The Justice of God having taken a satisfaction in the blood of his Son and been paid a price for the sins of his people will not allow him to punish them with an eternal punishment yet it is reasonable they should not go altogether unpunished that the world may see that he is a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity in any I remember what God said by the Prophet Jeremiah to the Jews Jer. 30.11 I will not make a full end of thee but I will correct thee in measure and will not leave thee altogether unpunished You have the same again Jer. 46.28 2. It is reasonable secondly in order to the eternal salvation of their souls 1 Cor. 11.32 When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world It is P. Martyrs note upon that Text that the Apostle in that passage particularly respecteth such as fear God for the case is otherwise with wicked men whose punishment but begun in this life shall be perfected in the world that is to come But I have spoken enough to the Doctrinal part of this Observation Let me now come to some practical Observation shewing you what use we may and ought to make of it Vse 1. This in the first place serves to justifie God in those sore afflictions which we often see him bringing upon his own people When we look upon the holiness of a Job and see him a man fearing God and eschewing evil and see such a person under sharp tryals of affliction we are ready to startle at it and cannot understand Divine Justice in it But God is many ways to be justified 1. Who liveth and sinneth not enough against God to justifie the severest dispensations under which God exerciseth him 2. If he did not yet it is an ordinary thing and very righteous for God to write bitter things against his people for the sins of their youth though past and pardoned Now who hath so passed his youth that he hath not been guilty of sin enough to justifie God in his punishments yea and to make him acknowledg that he hath been punished seven times less than he hath deserved And if neither of these could be seen as a meritorious cause yet God hath a liberty by afflictions to try the faith
You shall observe it often repeated in Scripture Such a one did evil and walked in the steps of his Father in all the sins of his Fathers c. you shall constantly observe that it is set as a mark of dishonour upon those that did so and they perished in their transgressions God according to what he threatned the Jews Isa 65.7 punished upon them their iniquities and the iniquities of their fathers together We are very prone to walk in the steps of our Fathers especially if they have trodden awry and turned aside from the Commandments of God and usually in matters of Religion though we have nothing to say for the superstition and vanity of former generations yet we think it a sufficient plea that our fathers did thus or thus and indeed this was the old plea of the woman of Samaria Joh. 4. Our father 's worshipped in this mountain Thus the Heretick said in one of the Councils but was well answered Immo errantes ab errantibus yes erring children from erring parents The wickedness of a preceding generation especially in the matters of Divine Worship is so far from being a plea for us or excusing us that it doth but increase and aggravate guilt upon us The most righteous persons may without due and seasonable humiliation smart for the sins of their Fathers but if they go on in the same sins they have nothing to expect but that God should punish their sins and the sins of their Fathers together Vse 5. In the last place This observation layeth upon us all a new engagement to holiness and serviceableness to God in the stations in which the Lord hath set us As sin entaileth a curse so holiness and eminent service for God entaileth a blessing to our posterity Godliness hath not only the promise of this life and of that which is to come to our own persons but it hath promises of blessing to those that shall come after us God sheweth mercy to thousands of those who love him and keep his Commandments Jehu was no godly man yet his service he did for God procured him a reward to the fourth generation Abraham was a godly man David a perfect man a man according to Gods own heart Blessings for their sakes came upon their posterity to many generations But I shall add no more to this Observation SERMON XXXIII Psal CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Proceed yet to offer you some further Observations concerning the motions of Actual Providence I have already made many Last of all some with reference to its distributions of rewards and punishments Let me now go on to a Observ 20. When God calleth any to any new work or relation he ordinarily giveth them a spirit suited to it Every work and relation requires some particular dispositions fitting the persons for it Now I say you shall observe in the motions of Actual Providence that it fitteth those persons for work whom God calleth to it you shall see it in several instances God called Moses to go in to Pharaoh to require him to let the children of Israel go and so to conduct the children of Israel out of Egypt Moses saith to God Exod. 3.11 Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt God saith vers 12. I will be with thee Again chap. 4.10 Moses excuseth himself that he was not eloquent but slow of speech and of a slow tongue see what God saith to him ver 11. Who hath made mans mouth or who maketh the dumb or deaf or seeing or blind Now therefore ver 12. go and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say When God called Saul to be King over Israel the text 1 Sam. 10.9 saith That God gave him another heart When God called David to the Kingdom what a spirit of government did God give him What courage and valour that coming from keeping of sheep he durst adventure to encounter Goliah Concerning Solomon the case is plain 1 King 3.8 9. he begged of God a wise and understanding heart to judg his people The text telleth you that God gave it him Lo saith God ver 12. I have given thee a wise and understanding heart As to the Ministry the case is plain as to Jeremiah God ordained him to be a prophet to the nations Jer. 1.5 Jeremiah excused himself he was a child and could not speak vers 6. But the Lord said to him Say not I am a child for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak Be not afraid of their faces for I am with thee to deliver thee saith the Lord then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth and the Lord said to me Behold I have put my words into thy mouth vers 7 8. The like you have concerning Ezekiel Ezek. 2. The like you find upon Christs sending out the seventy and the twelve It is true God doth this several ways and by several rites and ceremonies but God never yet call'd any to any new relation or new work but he gave them a spirit fit for it But let us a little understand what the meaning of that is Quest Wherein lyeth the sutableness of a persons spirit to his work or relation I answer It lyes in two things 1. An inclination or willingness to it 2. A fittedness or preparedness for it 1. An inclination or willingness to it Indeed Gods first call of a person to a work doth not always meet with a willing mind it did not in Moses in Jeremy in Saul but God always makes those willing whom he calls to any service Whom shall I send here am I send me saith the Prophet Isaiah God made Moses and Jeremy willing before he sent them The gravity and burthen of the work to which God calleth may discourage flesh and blood at first but God makes them willing before they take their Commission Hence that in Timothy He that desireth the office of a Bishop c. 2. But this is not all God never sendeth any to any work but he fitteth and prepareth them for it giving them a frame of spirit and abilities of mind capacitating them for the parts of their work or duties of that relation several callings require several gifts and endowments For the magistracy courage and wisdom is necessary for the ministry is necessary not only courage and wisdom but knowledg utterance c. a sound understanding in the holy Scriptures which he is to open to the people and apply to their consciences and so in inferiour relations even Bezaliel the son of Vri whom the Lord called by name to the building of the Tabernacle Exod. 35.31 Was filled with the spirit of God in wisdom and in understanding and in knowledg and in all manner of workmanship and to devise curious works to work
designed Discourse In my first I asserted the Doctrine of Divine Providence against ancient and modern Atheists I opened it in the nature and principal Acts of it In the Second I 1. shewed you the specialties of it 2. Wherein you must stand still and admire it in the depths and unsearchable things of it 3. I directed you how to make some observations upon the more ordinary and intelligible motions of it I am now come to open some hard Chapters in this great and excellent book and to reconcile this great work of God to his most holy nuture and that infinite justice goodness wisdom and truth which are inseparable from it I take it to be a work worthy of a Divine to make a rationale divinorum operum to give a reasonable account of the Divine works humbly adoring God in them yet inquiring into them and that non tam ad mentis otium quam ad cordis usum as Nierembergius saith not so much for the exercise of our wits as for the use of our souls It advantageth the works of God to our souls when they appear no other than reasonable to us and I think the same Author speaketh well when he saith Nullum puto consilium Divinum cujus non aliqua ratio reddi potest nullum cujus omnis reddatur ita inscrutabilia sunt divina opera digna ut scrutemur facilia that is I do not think any Divine Counsel can be named of which we may not give some reasonable account though there be likewise none of which we can give a perfect account so as the Divine works are at the same time both unsearchable and also worthy and easie to be searched out I shall not so much as propound to my self or you to resolve all the seeming riddles and difficulties of Actual Providence I shall only discourse some of them which seem most obvious and readiest to stumble our thoughts and those which I shall speak to shall chiefly refer to these heads 1. The exhibition of the Covenant of works after the establishment of the Eternal Covenant of Redemption and Grace and the exhibition or tender of grace indefinitely to all after the decree of election and the fall of man 2. The permission of sin and so much sin in the world 3. The punitive Providence of God 4. The dispensation of the external or internal more effectual means of grace I shall speak to divers seeming difficulties that will fall under these four heads and at this time begin with the first of these It was one of the first acts of Divine Providence that we read of immediately succeeding the creation Gen. 2.15 And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it and the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden thou maist freely eat but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye Under that threatning is a promise of life upon condition of obedience as to the Law of God written in Adams heart So to that positive Law given him for the trial of his obedience I shall not engage my self deeply in the question what death it is which God there threatneth to Adam I am aware of the varieties of opinions I take it for granted that whatsoever falleth under the notion of death in Scripture is all comprehended under that threatning In dying thou shalt dye saith the Hebrew phrase which we translate Thou shalt surely dye The threatning mentioneth neither one death nor another but is indefinite and of the same force as if universal and it is accordingly used in Scripture to signifie all kind of death as Ezek. 18. and in many other places and out of doubt there falleth under that threatning whatsoever was contrary to the felicity of Adam in that estate I do therefore agree with the ancient and modern Divines who understand death Corporal Spiritual and Eternal there threatned in case of disobedience and life Corporal Spiritual and Eternal there promised in case of obedience Now hence ariseth a great difficulty there were two great Acts of God with relation to man passed before this Act of Providence 1. The decree of Election by which God had not only stated the number of those that should be saved but chosen us in him before the foundation of the world Ephes 1.6 2. The eternal Covenant of Redemption and Grace By which the salvation of man was setled to be obtained not by working but by believing in him that justifieth the ungodly that is not to be obtained by the merits of our own works but by the merits of Christ imputed to us for righteousness and to be by faith apprehended and applied Now here ariseth the difficulty Quest How it could consist with the wisdom and truth of God having thus in his eternal counsels resolved that there should be no other name under heaven no other way or means of salvation but by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ to propound a way of salvation to be obtained by mens working and obedience to the Law of God especially when he did aforeknow that man would break this first Covenant and no man should be saved upon the terms of it That I might speak something to shew you the reasonableness of this motion I have made choice of this Text in which you have 1. An assertion The Scripture hath concluded all under wrath 2. The end or reason of the thing asserted That the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe A text much parallel to that Rom. 11.32 He hath concluded all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all This Text saith the Scripture hath done it that text saith God hath done it there 's no contradiction in it the Scriptures are the word of God if the Scripture hath concluded all under wrath God hath done it Now how hath the Scripture done this or how hath God done it but by first making man in his own image writing his law in his heart then adding that positive law forbidding him to eat of the tree of forbidden fruit after this suffering him to eat by which not Adam only but all mankind then in him lost the Image of God and all were concluded under sin and to what purpose was all this The text telleth us That the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to all that believe If you please I shall make my whole discourse but a demonstration of this Proposition Prop. That God in infinite wisdom by his Providence gave out the Law or Covenant of works suffering the first man to fall and all in him by the fall to be concluded under wrath My business must be to shew you the exceeding reasonableness and wisdom of God in this dispensation I shall open this to you in five or six particulars 1. It neither was nor could be Gods
design in it that any one soul should be saved by the fulfilling of it but that he might by it make way for the exhibition of the Covenant of Grace which is indeed what the text saith That the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe It is manifest that it was never any part of Gods design and counsel in his first exhibiting the Covenant of Works or making it rather for that was made immediately betwixt God and Adam in paradise that any soul should be saved by it for as to this the Apostles words are true Gal. 3.21 If there had been a law which could have given life verily righteousness should have been by the law The Apostle in that text may be speaking of the law given to man in his lapsed estate but I say it is as true concerning the law given in the estate of innocency But why could not the law give righteousness As to our lapsed estate the Apostle tells you Rom. 8.3 Because it was made weak through our flesh But this cannot be said of man in his estate of innocency and original integrity he then certainly had a posse non peccare but then the eternal Counsel of God hindred who had fixed the salvation of man upon another foot having from eternity set apart the son of his love for the head of his elect and chosen us in him and ordained mans salvation by faith in him The law given in innocency in respect of it self might have given life what should have hindred Eternal life was then the gift of God and God had annexed the promise of it to mans obedience but it is as true that if we respect the eternal Counsels of God having fore ordained men to salvation upon a Covenant of grace made with the Son of his love even that law could not give life it was not consistent with our being chosen in Christ In short the power in the law to give life may be considered in a threefold habitude or respect 1. With respect to the law it self Thus the law could have given life if man had kept it the law given to Adam could in this sense have given life the law afterward upon Mount Sinai could have in this respect have given life If thou wilt enter into life saith our Saviour keep the Commandments As to our lapsed estate the Apostle saith no more than that it is weak through our flesh that is because we are not able to keep it or else secondly 2. The law may be considered with respect unto man and he is considerable either in his primitive state of innocency or in his lapsed estate if we consider man in the first estate the law again might have given life for it was the perfect rule of God at that time concerning man and man had a power to keep it so as nothing hindred but that the law might have given life but indeed if we consider man in his lapsed estate the case is quite otherwise for man was now made weak through his flesh and unable to keep that law which yet approved it self to his reason in that state as holy spiritual just and good 3. But thirdly the law may be considered in its power to give life with respect to Gods counsels and purposes fixed concerning the end and means of mans salvation from all eternity and so the law never had a power to give life that is it never was any ordination of God in order to such an end nor ever was designed by God as an effectual means in order to that end nor indeed is it possible that it should for then it had been possible that the counsel of God could have been frustrated of its intendment for never yet was any saved by any works of their own But the giving of the law to man in innocency was not nor could be intended by God further than as a proper mean for the exhibition of the Covenant of Grace and for this it was so proper that upon this Hypothesis that the elect were as the Apostle saith chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world and that a Covenant of Grace was made for mens salvation through faith and believing in Christ yet it is very difficult to imagine how the Providence of God could have brought this about otherwise than by first making a Covenant of Works with man then suffering him to fall and violate it and so be concluded under sin and wrath I say it is hard to imagine how otherwise God could have given out the promise to them that should believe in Jesus Christ This I shall yet further open to you in five or six particulars To this end I shall intreat you to consider 1. That man was created in a state of innocency The Scripture saith so that in the image of God he created man and that is expounded to us by the Apostle to have been in knowledg righteousness and holiness and indeed it was impossible that he should come out of the hands of God other than holy and righteous Divines say the Image of God lay in Righteousness and Holiness and that dominion over the Creatures with which God invested him the last indeed was not necessary but coming immediately out of the hands of an holy God it was necessary that he should be created in righteousness and holiness God saw all that he had made that it was good good according to the nature Every inanimate and sensitive creature had a goodness suitable to its nature a natural goodness man must also have a goodness suitable to his being and considering him a rational creature he must have a moral goodness a purity and integrity a freedom from any spots or stains of sin and so consequentially from any guilt of sin God made man upright this is a confessed principle and needeth no further enlargement of discourse 2. Man in this state was not capable of salvation in that way wherein God had foreordained the salvation of men viz. by a Redeemer the whole need not a physician but the sick men must be lost before they are found they must be captives before they are capable of Redemption they must be unrighteous before they can be capable of a bring made righteous Christ came not as himself telleth us to call the righteous but sinners to repentance 3. Man could no other way become lost than by some actual transgression The first man could have no original guiltiness We are guilty by imputation as we were all in the first man and sinned in him and sell with him but Adam being the first man could derive no guilt from any proparent We become guilty by traduction deriving guilt from our immediate parents we were conceived in sin and in iniquity did our mother bring us forth and so we were by nature the children of wrath But Adam came immediately out of the hands of God and therefore must necessarily be without spot or wrinkle 4. From hence
followeth in the fourth place the necessity of a law to be given unto man in his state of innocency For saith the Apostle where there is no law there is no transgression sin being the transgression of the law Now this Law with the promise annexed to it was the Covenant of Works on Gods part and the restipulation on mans part must be presumed or man had been a transgressor before the fall by a rebellion to the Divine Will and this formally maketh up the Covenant of Works God promising him life upon condition of his Obedience and man accepting the promise and agreeing to the terms or condition of life imposed on him Now God having given this Law and made this Covenant man by the violation of it became guilty a debtor to the Justice of God and so capable of a Redemption a Remission and Justification 5. I desire you to consider That the Covenant of Grace and promise by faith on Gods part could not possibly have been made good without the destruction of the first Covenant of Works and the promise of life made upon that this is that which the Apostle saith in my text That the promise by faith of Jesus might be given to them that believe I pray observe here are three things to be considered 1. The matter of the promise 2. The means by which the promise is to be obtained 3. The objects of it The promise intended is doubtless the promise of eternal life so often called in Scripture as being indeed the great and most valuable promise what is the means of obtaining it On Gods part it must be given out on mans part it must be received by faith for it is given to them that believe and it is therefore called the promise by faith in Jesus Christ Now the promise of life by works under the first Covenant was wholly inconsistent with this promise of being saved by faith in Christ Though the first Covenant comprehended a faith in God as being a piece of that internal homage which every soul oweth to God yet it could not comprehend a faith in Christ as our Mediator there being no need of a Saviour till we were in danger nor of a Mediator till we were become transgressors How therefore was it possible that the promise of faith in Christ to those who believe in him should be given out till first the Covenant of Works was both given out and also violated Though the law by the promise of saith in Christ was not destroyed so far forth as it was a directive and obligatory rule of life and conversation unto all yet so far as it was a Covenant of life it must be both given out and also destroyed that the promise of faith might be given out 6. In the last place I desire you to consider That as on Gods part the promise of life by faith in Christ was inconsistent with the promise of life upon the doing of the works of the law so on our part we should never have come to Christ that we might have life if we had not first been concluded under wrath And this will appear to every intelligent soul that will but consider That the going out of the soul unto Christ for life is a disclaimer of its own righteousness and a very great piece of self-denial to which the soul will never move naturally but must see it self constrained to it by necessity Isa 57.10 Thou hast found the life of thy hand therefore thou wert not grieved so long as a man seeth help in himself and thinks that he hath found life in his own hands so long he is not grieved not at all concerned as to his eternal state And this is the true reason why you see the greatest brokenness of heart and sense of sin yea and the greatest holiness of life too in those men that yet look to be saved by faith in Jesus Christ for our free-will men that maintain a power in man to believe and repent or to keep the Law of God perfectly they have said they have found life in their own hands and then I hope they have none but themselves to blame if they miss and come short of it if they do not repent and turn unto God to day they can do it to morrow It was necessary as on Gods part in order to his giving out of the promise of faith in Christ and exhibition of the Covenant of Grace to the world so also on our part in order to our acceptation and taking hold of any such Covenant and the application of our souls unto God upon the terms of that Covenant for the sure mercies of it that there should first be a Covenant of Works made with man and a law of works given unto him for had there been no such Covenant made no such Law given man could not have broken and violated it and if he had not violated and broken it he could not have been a transgressor he could not have been a lost sinner and consequentially had needed no Saviour nor would man have ever been perswaded to have gone out of himself and to have accepted of the righteousness of Christ for his righteousness had he not first been rendred in a forlorn desperate and hopeless condition without Application unto Christ Vse 1. For the practical Application of what you have heard now in this discourse This in the first place should mind us not to be hasty to deny nor too forward to stumble at some things in the dispensations of God which at first seem to us hard to be understood Who can find out God or search out the Almighty unto perfection I do not know any thing that looketh more inconsistently in appearance to us at our first view of it than this That God should from eternity six the salvation of man upon a Covenant of Grace and write it in his book That there should be salvation in no other than in Jesus Christ nor any other name given under heaven amongst men whereby they might be saved that he who believeth should be saved and he who believed not should be damned for all these things were decrees in the rolls of eternity or they could never have been Revelations of Gods Will in Scripture Heb. 10.5 6 7. and Psal 40.7 In the volume of Gods book it was written of Christ that he should come into the world and do the Will of God relating to the salvation of man I say that God should thus setle mans salvation in the order of its causes and upon the terms of free-grace the merit and satisfaction of Christ and Faith in him and yet when mankind was created God should treat him upon a Law of Works and make a Covenant with him for life and salvation upon condition of his perfect obedience both to the Law written at that time upon his heart and this positive precept of not eating of the tree of forbidden fruit yet there is nothing clearer in Scripture than that God
did do this for to say that these were second thoughts about mans salvation when he was lapsed and fallen were to blaspheme by attributing change of mind and purpose to God and a successive knowledg of things such as we have upon the events so ascribing humane imperfections to a most holy God If God from all eternity did settle the business of mans salvation as the Apostle saith he did Ephes 1.4 5 6 7. Cousing us in him before the foundation of the world that is in Christ as ver 3. that we should be holy and without blame before him in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved in whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace and this as vers 8. was the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he had purposed in himself sure we are he created man in a state that was not capable of these spiritual blessings until he was fallen from it and that God according to that holy and guiltless state wherein he made man did first stipulate with him in a Covenant of Works and offered him life upon his doing the Law of God I would gladly know of those who so flutter with their little ratiocinations about the seriousness of Gods actings in his offers of grace and would make us believe that God doth not serio agere act seriously in calling men to believe and repent unless there were a possibility of salvation for them all or unless Christ intentionally dyed for all or men had a power in their lapsed estate to do things spiritually good I say I would fain know of them whether God was in earnest or no with Adam when he promised him life upon the Covenant of Works It is most certain that he either never intended that Adam or any of his posterity should go to Heaven that way or that he was frustrated of his intention which God cannot be If he never intended that any should be that way saved I would know of them whether God was serious or no with Adam in such a proposal of life unto him if they can find out an answer in this case it will also serve in the other God was serious with Adam in the making of the Covenant of Works with him serious with respect unto his own end which was not that any should be saved by the fulfilling of that Covenant which he knew none would but that it should be as a School-master to lead us to Christ as the Apostle speaketh of the Law contained in Ordinances and introductive to the exhibition of that better Covenant which God had established with the Son of his Love and upon which he had fixed the salvation of the Elect. Vse 2. We may learn from hence That it is consistent enough with the holiness of God to require things of persons which it is not his Will of purpose that they should do and to make conditional promises to them who he knoweth will never fulfil the condition These are two things which some make a great pudder with that they might establish their universalities and obtain against the Election of Grace They think that if God had determined the certain number of those who should be saved or for whom Christ dyed others should not be called to or required to believe or repent nor a promise of life and salvation and life made to them in case of their repenting and believing for they apprehend it inconsistent with the truth and holiness of God to require that of men which it is not his will or purpose they should do or to offer them life and salvation upon a condition from the performance of which they are precluded by the purpose of God We must adhere to this that there is nothing contingent to God no event which he did not from eternity foreknow and therefore foreknow because he willed either to effect or to permit it We can neither allow of any ignorance to be imputed unto God nor any succession in his knowledg nor apprehend it possible that God should from all eternity know who would believe and repent which none could without his special grace without willing that grace to them by vertue of which they should put forth these saving acts and therefore such to whom he did not by his eternal purpose will those habits of grace must be passed over But then say they who have other apprehensions How is it consistent with the truth and holiness of God to call all men to believe and to repent and to promise them eternal life and salvation upon the terms of faith and repentance We ask them how it was consistent with the truth and holiness of God to require of Adam under the Covenant of Works not to eat of the tree of forbidden fruit and to promise him life upon his not eating thereof when-as it is plain that God had purposed to permit him to eat thereof and foreknew that he would eat thereof and never intended that Adam or any of his posterity should come to Heaven by the fulfilling of that Covenant But then say they to what purpose are these Precepts or Promises Divers answers are given by Divines as to that question concerning those who are called to repent and to believe which possibly will hereafter fall in my way to touch upon At present as to this purpose it is enough to say Gods end in making the Covenant of Works with Adam was to make way for the publication of the Covenant of Grace For the exhibition and publication of which to the world there was no room until the Law and Covenant of Works was violated and man that was created in the Image of God and state of Holiness had fallen from that state and become concluded under wrath In the mean time observe here is a precept given which God had never intended should be obeyed a conditional promise made from which God never intended that any man should have any advantage and in that appeareth the advantage of this instance for in the calls of the Gospel to faith and repentance though the Lord hath told us Many are called and few are chosen Although all to whom the Gospel is Preached be not the chosen of God and within his purpose of eternal life and salvation yet some are and some say Non proprie per se reprobos hortatos esse ad fidem poenitentiam sed per concomitantiam quatenus electis externa societato permiscentur That is that reprobates are only called to faith and repentance as they are mixed together with the elect But here Adam and in him all mankind were called to a fulfilling of the Covenant of Works and life was upon that condition promised to them all when-as yet it was
and soul must be for ever and ever when all the Vials of Divine wrath shall be poured out upon them I do not doubt but many a soul in glory is this day blessing God for its life of trials pains and afflictions and could we hear them speak they would tell us they were beholden in a great measure to the thousands of little hells they suffered here for the Heaven to which they have crouded through much tribulation and waded through many waters of Marah which they found it difficult while they were in their delicate flesh to drink of because their tast was bitter 2. By afflictions and troubles the saints are fitted for the Kingdom of God They are such good things as accompany salvation and make the heirs of salvation fit for the Kingdom of God We must be made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light before we come to it Col. 1.12 and we are made so by afflictions in a great measure Do you sometimes see some beautiful stones in a famous structure shining with variety of Colours and adorning the places where they are How came they think you by this beauty were they only beholden to the Painter for an ingenious mixture and laying on of colours This would never have made them so without hewing and smoothing and polishing but both these together complete their beauty The Stone-cutter first hews off their roughness and polisheth them then the Painter layeth his colours upon them Amongst other expressions by which the Scripture expresseth the blessed state of the saints this is one promise Rev. 3.12 I will make him that overcometh a pillar in the house of my God To make a Soul a Pillar a beautiful glorious Pillar in the House of God it is not enough that the holy spirit comes and like a Painter adorneth the soul with its varieties of gracious habits but the Providence of God especially as to some of them who are of courser rougher constitutions must also come and hew and cut and polish them with varieties of trials and afflictions and thus they become at last beautiful Pillars beautiful for faith and patience for self denial and meekness strong to bear the cross and submissive to the burthen of it Thus by many tribulations they enter into the Kingdom of God by many tribulations not only as the road to Heaven the dark entry into that place of light but as means fitting them for Heaven Files filing off that rust with which they could never enter in there Even the man according to Gods own heart confessed that before he was afflicted he went astray and that his afflictions had contributed to his learning of the Lords Statutes We sillily call afflictions evils but consider thy self saith an acute Author how often hast thou been made better by those things those afflictions which thou defamest with the name of evils Augustine lamented that a Fever had corrected that lust in him which the love of God and the meditation of that could not extinguish Certainly the same reason which forbids us to call that good which maketh us worse will likewise restrain us from calling that evil which maketh us better God doth ex dispendio naturae parare compendium gratiae in the phrase of an ingenious Writer he maketh the outward man decrease that the inward man may by it increase so that troubles and afflictions seem but Divine inventions to make the saints both more holy and more happy How should we have lien grovelling on the earth if God had not prepared us there a bed of thorns and lien always sucking at the worlds breasts if God had not rubbed them with this wormwood How often would the pitifully wanton heart of a good Christian have been priding it self at a Looking-glass if God had not spoiled her smooth face with the Small Pox or some other deforming disease How often is the love and delight of a soul canton'd out to a Wife or an Husband to a Child or a Friend and how little a share hath God of it until he cuts off these suckers from the roots of our souls How little time can a man or woman oft times find for Meditation or Prayer for examining his heart and reflecting upon his ways till God shutteth him up in a Prison in a sick Chamber c. that he hath nothing else to do then he cries with the Church Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. How little how seldom should we with any seriousness or in any solemn manner remember God if God sometimes did not forget us When should we be willing to entertain thoughts of a better life of a more enduring substance if we always had full measures of the contentments of this life The uncertainty we have of earthly riches makes us look for the more enduring substance A banishment from our Country or daily persecution and vexation in it makes us think of and prepare for a better Country By dying daily we become willing to dye and to be with Christ If we did not see the gourds that refresh us and keep the heats of the world from our heads come up in a night and go down by an East wind the next night we should cry it is good for us to be here let us build us Tabernacles We should be married to the world and unwilling ever to think of a divorce or a being married to Christ if God did not sometimes let us experience that we had a lye in our right hand were fond of a picture and embraced a shadow The Gaols and prisons of the earth make the earth more bitter and the liberty of the sons of God more sweet The pains of the earth and the labours of the world make the rest of Heaven and the joys thereof more desirable Besides that faith and patience are no Summer-graces if we should never have any Winters when should they have any exercise Tribulation worketh patience and the hour of trial is the time for its perfect work But this were almost an infinite Theme to discourse in its latitude the variety of good which floweth to the souls of Gods people from afflictions and troubles they are by them tried purged made white they are by them made more holy and humble all which good justly entituleth God to a being the Author of them they do not only flow from his justice as the just punishments of sin but they are the noble effluxes of his goodness and are so far from derogating from the glory of that that they exceedingly tend to the commendation of it and we are mistaken in the notion of them when we call them evils and make up the judgement meerly from sense which indeed so nick-nameth them I know indeed there is another Phaenomenon of difficulty here and that is how it can stand with the justice of God to punish his people for those sins for which he hath accepted a satisfaction from the Lord Jesus Christ and given an
I remember it is a saying of Salvian Repugnanti corporis valetudine quae optamus facere non facimus many a time the want of strength and health in our bodies hindreth us from doing that sin which we have a mind to commit The great enjoyments of the world are not only the things which make men unwilling to die but both they and the great businesses and employments of the world are those things which keep Christians fettered they cannot pray they cannot wait upon God in ordinances they cannot fast they cannot solemnly worship God as others less intangled can amongst other advantages therefore of a poor and afflicted state an ingenious Author reckons this for one he saith it is puritatis condimentum the pickle of purity and holiness They are the very salt of the Earth without which the best of men would putrify in their full enjoyment They are you know sharp and acrimonious things that are the Enemies to putrefaction salt seasoneth things vinegar makes a good pickle preservative of things Sugar quickly corrupteth It is true there are too too many that have little enough of these things and as little of any gracious habits poverty and afflictions will not give grace but that is a rare Christian that abounds with the affluences of this life and yet keepeth his integrity is as pure as holy as full of duty as others who have less of this worlds goods they are no fountains of grace but they are great preservatives of it 2. Nay this is not all in the second place they conduce much to the improvements of grace especially of faith and patience They are two habits of grace that like Solomons brother and friend are made for adversity Tribulatio patientiae Robur operatur patientia fidei probationem parit Tribulation addeth to the strength of patience and patience bringeth forth the tryal of Faith If the people of God never met with affliction how should the trial of their faith appear more pretious than that of Gold which perisheth How should their patience have its perfect work Faith is never seen till we be out of sight of the thing which we pretend to trust God for Hope which is seen is no hope but if we hope for that which we see not then do we with patience wait for it Job's faith in God and love to God was seen in his trusting in him and adhering to him while God seemed to be killing of him Practical habits are improved by exercise The Souls of the Saints ordinarily come out of their trials more strong in faith more confirmed in hope more exercised in patience more flaming in love to God how then shall we call those things evils which instead of depraving the Soul and making it worse do tend to the improvement of the Soul and making of it better 3. Lastly the highest good which the Soul is capable of is the beatifical vision and enjoyment of God to all Eternity To this the low estate of the people of God doth exceedingly conduce 2 Cor. 4.17 Our light Affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Those who shall sit with God upon thrones are those which continue with him in tribulations The great multitude which St. John saw Rev. 7.9 10 11 12 13. which no man could number of all Nations kindreds people and tongues which stood before the throne and before the Lamb clothed with white robes and palms in their hands upon inquiry were found to be those who came out of great tribulation and had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb v. 14. Our sufferings in this life do not merit glory alas there is no perfection in our suffering and sufferings are but our duty nor is there any proportion betwixt light and momentany afflictions and a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory but they work for us a far more exceeding weight of glory Thou art mistaken then O Christian in thy Judgment God doth not as thou dreamest distribute good things to his Enemies nor yet evil things to his friends the business is no more than this Deus per ficta mala punit suos per larvata bona impios remunerat Nierem God indeed by things in appearance good rewardeth wicked men and by things in appearance evil he punisheth those that are his own people Nor let any one think to quibble here as if God mocked either the one or the other for although these things which the wicked enjoy are not real and substantial good things yet as they are the things which they desire delight in which they chuse above other things more solidly and substantially good they are to them really good and they have a tendency to make them better and the afflictions of the people of God as they have in them an enmity to their flesh and are ingrateful to their senses so they have something of real evil in them but comparatively with other evils or the greater good things which God hath prepared for his people they have nothing of evil in them In short every observing man discerneth the difference betwixt the love of an indulgent cockering mother and a wise and prudent father The father sheweth his love to the Child by fitting it to live in the world another day learning it to be a man to know the world and to converse with it to this purpose he inureth it to hardship he sends it to school and keepeth it under a severe discipline thus he sheweth his love to his Child and when the Child cometh to years of discretion the Child thanks him for it though under the discipline of its youth possibly the Child thinks the father its worst enemy The mother possibly sheweth her love by cockering the Child dandling it upon her knee providing fine clothes for it giving it sweet-meats c. Which things indeed have nothing of true love in them and do only tend to emasculate the Child and make it of an effeminate temper and more unfit to converse with or live in the world another day Patrium Deus habet in bonos animum saith an ingenious Author God loves good people not like a mother but like a father whom he loveth he chastneth and scourgeth every Child whom he receiveth he keeps them at the school of affliction and educateth them under the discipline of the rods and ferulaes of many trials and afflictions he suffereth not the world which is their natural mother according to the flesh to hug them in her bosom nor to dandle them upon her knees he chasteneth them that they might not be condemned with the wicked he hath said blessed is he whom thou chasteneth and teachest him out of thy Law This is but a fatherly dealing of God with his people God thus fitteth them for Heaven polisheth them for shafts in his own quiver by this darkness makes them fit for the Saints in light Why
shall not fall Mat. 16.18 The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Psal 94.14 For the Lord will not cast off his people neither will he forsake his inheritance Mica 4.4 11 12. So quite through this Psalm there are many promises of the same import Now the work of faith is to perswade the soul of the certainty and undoubted verity of these words of God to settle the soul in this perswasion That sooner shall Heaven and earth pass away than any of these things shall fail which God hath spoken Then the work of faith is further to carry out the soul without any carping trouble or disputing to rest wholly upon these words A Christian seeth the word of God what he hath said for its relief now faith teacheth the soul to agree this as the word of him who cannot lye or repent and calleth upon the soul to trust in God for the fulfilling of it to roll it self upon the promise and to commit it self its cause its way unto the Lord the soul of a Christian is very solicitous and careful for the concern and interest of God in the world faith teacheth the soul to cast its care the burthen of its spirit upon the Lord assuring it that God careth for it Faith speaketh to the soul in the language of Solomon Eccles 5.8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent perverting of Justice and Judgment in a Province marvel not at the matter for he that is higher than the highest regardeth and there be higher than they I say this is a great piece of the Child of Gods duty in such a time when the vilest men are exalted and the wicked walk on every side and the people of God are troden under foot as the mire in the streets It is the Will of God concerning them The just shall live by faith This is the proper time for the exercise of Faith when the eye of sense faileth Faith is the evidence of things not seen the substance of things hoped for The proper operation of Faith is where sense faileth where God is trusted and not seen Blessed are they saith our Saviour who have not seen and yet believe This is Opus diei in die suo Though the people of God ought to be careful of all duty at all times yet they ought to have a special regard to the duty of their day the seasonableness of a duty addeth much to the weight and importance of it The foundations are shaken saith the Psalmist Psal 11.3 4 What shall what can the righteous do Mark what follows The Lords Throne is in Heaven his eyes see his eye-lids try the children of men This is that life which the Saints have lived yea and they have lived well upon it When David had lost all the Amalekites had taken Ziglag and in it all that he had 1 Sam. 30.6 the Text saith David encouraged himself in God the Truth Power and Goodness of God nor did he hope in God in vain as you shall read in that story What had Hezekiah to live upon but Faith when Sennacherib had besieged him with his mighty Army and ranted against him and the God of Heaven too after that rate you read What had all the Patriarchs all the Saints and Servants of God to live upon but Faith of whom you read Heb. 11. Nor is there any life which so glorifieth God as this it eminently glorifieth three Attributes of his his Power Goodness and Truth No man will trust in a bruised Reed or lean upon a broken Staff therefore the Apostle speaking of Abrahams faith Heb. 11. saith He believed that God was able to raise him from the dead and again Rom. 3 He believed that he who promised was able to perform It giveth God the glory of his goodness for the expectation of his soul is the Mercy and Goodness of God and it also giveth God the glory of his truth for the proximate object of Faith is the Word and Promise of God O therefore let this be your care when you cannot live by sense live by Faith It is the happiness of a Child of God he hath something to live on in the worst of times Psal 34.10 The young Lions shall be hunger-bit but there is no want to them that fear the Lord. One would think that of all creatures the Lion should be most out of danger of being hunger bit The Lion the King of the Forest all other Beasts are subject to this Beast yet if an old Lion that cannot run for its prey that hath lost much of its strength may be hunger-bitten one would think a young-Lion that is in its full strength should not Yes saith the Psalmist a young Lion may be hunger-bitten those that have most of the world wicked men that have greatest honours greatest power great advantages to provide for themselves they may be hunger bitten they may come to want but there shall be no want to them who fear the Lord there shall be no time so ill but they shall live if they cannot live upon bread they shall feed upon truth How much better is the estate of a godly man than that of his neighbour It is a great point this a great piece of duty Let me therefore a little further enlarge upon it three ways 1. Shewing you how a Christian may know if he liveth this life 2. Directing you in order to it 3. Perswading it by Arguments 1. Will some Christian say how shall I know if I live this life Suffer me to give you five or Six Characters of it 1. It is a Spiritual life Our life saith the Apostle is hid with Christ in God What Christ sometimes said to his Disciples when they would have had him to have eaten something that a Child of God may say to all the world I have meat to eat you know not of His life is a spiritual life such is the life of Faith both with respect to the subject and to the object of it As to the subject of it it is the soul that lives the body lives by bread the soul lives by truth by the promise There are many that in evil days their bodies have enough to feed upon but their souls have nothing hence their hearts become like Nabals dead as a stone yea and as to the object it is spiritual too he that feedeth upon truth feedeth upon Jehovah It is the truth of God in the word which the soul liveth upon the soul of a Believer can no more live upon Words and Syllables than another soul No but it is the truth of God in these words his power and ability to perform what he hath said his inclination and good-will to the performance and his truth and faithfulness Every life in an evil day is not a life of faith some may live upon fancy and foolish hope some may live upon means with which their eye feedeth them another may live upon a Roman spirit of his own Tu
produced to demonstrate to the world and that we cannot see this before is our weakness and imperfection The malice of men in the persecutions of Gods People looketh upon us with an horrid aspect these indeed God doth not effect but he hath willed they should be and hath told us they must come yea and he worketh too permitting others to bring them about and suffering them in the execution of their malice whom he could easily hinder but when these things are over we often see both infinite wisdom and goodness too in them How should the salvation of Sinners have been purchased if God had not permitted Judas to have betrayed his Master Pilate to have condemned him and the Jews to have nailed him to the Cross had it not been for the persecution of the Jews how should the Gospel have gone to the Gentiles But yet for a close of this discourse and that we may not mistake our Duty we ought not to be so far satisfied upon the Contemplation of this great truth but that 1. We must be piously affected with the sad Providences which God measureth out to his Church and People What saith the Psalmist If I forget thee O Hierusalem let my right hand forget her cunning The sad rebukes of Gods Providence ought by us to be laid to heart Though persecutions and other punishments be contrivances of infinite wisdom and products of certain and infinite love yet to the present sufferers they may be punishments of sin and marks of Divine displeasure and therefore ought not to pass over our heads without our taking some notice of them and the causing of some sad thoughts within us the crucifying of Christ was the product of infinite wisdom and goodness to the People of God but yet a just cause of sadness to the Disciples of Christ We must take things as they appear to us being not able to see to the end and bottom of Gods designs That they shall at last issue in the Glory of God and the good of his People is indeed matter of faith and will be matter of joy to us when we see it but in the mean time it is matter of sadness to us to see Gods Vineyard rooted up his People eaten up like bread and wicked men suffered to devour those that are more righteous than themselves 2. Again We have reason to be afflicted both for our own sins and the sins of others Although it be as to the event true that both our own and others sins shall issue in Gods Glory yet it is as true that God hath no need either of ours or any others lyes for his Glory and that God is both by our sins and the sins of others actually dishonoured That they are made to issue in Gods Glory is the product of Gods Wisdom not our oblique and irregular action or intention and therefore they ought to be causes of sad reflexion to us But thus far we may satisfie our selves 1. That as I said before the event was necessary and nothing that hath come to pass could with our utmost care and diligence have been otherwise than it is We may talk after the manner of men and reason after the measures of humane probabilities If such a thing had not been another had not followed but there is nothing issued in time but was ordered from all eternity 2. We ought again in this to be satisfied That of whatsoever the Lord hath promised nothing shall fail We are full of unbelief and when we see Gods Providence working as we judg directly contrary to what he hath promised we are presently giving up all for gone and lost but if every thing be wrought according to the Counsel of the Divine Will and the Holy Scriptures be such part of this will as he hath pleased to reveal to us God knoweth both what he hath said and how he hath laid things in his eternal thoughts and sooner shall Heaven and Earth pass away than any word he hath spoke Prov. 19.21 Isa 40.8 The counsel of the Lord shall stand and the word of our God shall stand for ever 3. And lastly As I have before told you we may be thus far satisfied That whatsoever doth or ever shall come to pass in the world shall serve Gods great ends because it is ordered by the Counsel of the infinitely wise God and therefore must necessarily serve his designs In the end of the world we shall say God could not have had so much Glory but for such a persecution such a disorder Surely the wrath of man shall praise him SERMON II. Heb. XI 3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear THE last time I shewed you That God hath from eternity setled all events by an eternal purpose according to the Counsel of his Will nothing cometh to pass in time but what was determined before time I told you my design was to discourse concerning Gods Acts of Providence which are acts in time and particularly to discourse some things relating to actual Providence which do not fall into ordinary discourse and often give occasion of trouble to the spirits of Christians but in order to that I thought it reasonable First to discourse a little of Gods Settlement of all futurities things which were to be fulfilled in their season by an act of his eternal Counsel Nor can I yet come fairly at my intended subject without speaking to Gods first Act in time that was Creation concerning which we must suppose a Decree of God according to that known Rule in Divinity Decretum Dei ejus executio exquisitissime conveniunt nihil est in Dei opere quod non fuit in decreto nihil fuit in decreto quod non sequitur in opere That is the Decree of God and the execution of that Decree most exquisitely agree God worketh nothing but what he first decreed and he decreed nothing but hath had or shall have its issue in his working and when we say God doth any thing we by it do understand no more than a new effect of his eternal Will According therefore to the Counsel of his Will God first made of nothing the world and all that is therein And indeed according to some notion of Providence amongst Divines this is a part of it Now for a foundation of a short Discourse upon this subject I have chosen this Text. The Apostle subjoyneth the words of my Text to a description of Faith which he had given vers 1. Where he had told us That faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen In the second verse he had told us That by this the Elders had obtained a good report Here he saith By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God c. In the Text you have 1. A Divine assertion The worlds were framed by
God things which are seen were not made of things which do appear You have the work of Creation described in its Causes Negatively the world did not make it self one part of it did not make another then Positively it was framed by God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word used 2. You have the way described how we come to comprehend this in our understanding By faith The Proposition of the Text is this Prop. That by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by God and the things which are seen were not made by those things which do appear Here are two things 1. The worlds were framed by the Word of God the things seen were not made of those things which do appear 2. We understand this Through faith In the opening of these I must enquire 1. What is here meant by the Worlds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 What is the meaning of this That the worlds were made by the Word of God 3. What is the meaning of this That the things which are seen are not made of those things which do appear 4. What is here meant by faith or through faith 5. How do we understand it by faith that the worlds were framed by God After this I shall come to the Application Quest 1. What is here meant by the Worlds The word here used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth often signifie an age sometimes and so generally in St. John's Gospel Eternity but is sometimes in Scripture translated World Matth. 12.32 The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Matth. 13.32 39 40 49. The harvest is the end of the world Heb. 1.2 By whom he made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the worlds The term properly signifieth The duration of the world but in Heb. 1.2 and here it must signifie the Mass the things of it It carries here its own Interpreter with it in the other part of the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The things which are seen but neither is that term adequate to it the object of Creation is larger than the objects of Sense Spirits are not seen but yet they are created Let Moses expound it Gen. 1.1 In the beginning God created the heaven and earth In short all the Creatures whatsoever is not the Creator must here fall under the notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world and all that is therein excepting him who as the Creator made all and filleth heaven and earth the world and the things thereof the world and the persons therein heaven and earth the world of things and the world of persons this world was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. The word in the Greek signifies to make to joynt or fit together to restore it signifieth to make or rather to make up according to our English Idiom to perfect It is used Matth. 21.16 Thou hast perfected praise we translate it perfect or perfected Luk. 6.40 And be you perfect 2 Cor. 13.11 1 Thes 3.10 That we might perfect that which is lacking in your faith Heb. 10.5 A body hast thou prepared or made me So Heb. 13.21 The world was made established made perfect by God Vt totum quidpiam quod suis omnibus partibus apte inter se cohaerentibus componitur The worlds gave not a being to themselves they were not eternal and of an original from themselves nor made of any casual concurrence of Atoms according to the Heathens Philosophy but they had their Original their perfection their establishment from God 2. The word signifieth to be made perfect to joynt to be put together The world is a beautiful composition it hath not only a Being but a beautiful Being all the parts of it being fitted and joynted together this is also from God it oweth not only its Being and Original unto God but whatsoever it hath of Beauty and Ornaments that one part of it is fitted to another the beautiful composition of it the subordination of the parts of it one to another all this is owing unto God This is part of the sense of it 1 Cor. 1.10 That you may be perfectly joyned together Whoso looketh upon the Creation wistly must see it consist of a great variety of things but all fitted together so as there is no discord but a beautiful subordination of things in that vast composition so as they serve one another and notwithstanding all their different affections and qualities yet they destroy not nor invade each other this also is from the Lord. The world was not only by God made and produced out of a not-being into a being but it was fitted ordered joynted together by God 3. The word signifieth also to restore and bring again into order what is disordered and so it is used sometimes to mend nets Rem lacer am aliquam resarcire collapsam reparare And this seemeth to be the primary and most proper signification of the word Thus it is translated restore Gal. 6.1 If a brother be fallen restore such a one A Metaphor say some taken from Chyrurgions putting a bone out of order into its place again The world at first made perfected established and joynted by God in the Fall of Adam was disordered and put out of joynt God by sending his Son put the world in joynt again set its broken bones created a new heaven and a new earth Thus also the worlds were made as it were made again and restored by God But I take the two former senses rather to agree to this place where the Apostle rather speaks of the first Creation of the world by God than of the Redemption of it by Jesus Christ The world then was made that is it had its first Original its Order Ornaments beautiful composure from a Divine creating Power it did not give a Being nor a Beauty and Perfection to it self The Verb is passive it had its Original from another and this other was he whom we call God But Quest 2. What is the meaning of this that the worlds were made by the Word of God None can understand here by the Word of God the Holy Scriptures which are called the Word that is the revealed will of God spoken by holy men as they were inspired by God Nor do I think that the same is meant here by the Word of God that is understood John 1.1 In the beginning was the word of that word it is said That it was with God in the beginning that it was God all things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made that is to be understood of Christ Of him our Apostle saith Heb. 1.2 By whom also he made the worlds but besides that the Gospel of John seemeth to be the only Scripture in which the second person in the Trinity is stiled the Word neither is he there call'd the Word of God it is there said The word was God and in