Joh. 1. 4. 2. The life of grace and it is God alone that quickens men that are dead in trespasses and sins to live the life of godliness Eph. 2. 1. 3. The life of comfort Sorrow is called death Psa 116. 8. Thou hast delivered my soul from death mine eyes from tears c. What is the eternal death of the damned but eternal sorrow sorrow is called the vale of death Now it is the Lord that speaks peace and creates joy to disconsolate spirits Vita nihil aliud est quam actio cum delectatione as some define it and what is the life of Angels and Saints but unspeakable and endless joy in God 4. Resurrection of dead men to life God onely by his almighty power can command the graves to yeild up their dead and make each soul to possess its own body after a long divorce made by death God alone brings these two old friends together which at first were loth to part and then shall never part again but shall then live with God for ever or else dye a living death with Devils in Hell 5. A life of glory which he alone gives to all the godly Christ saith of his sheep Joh. 10. 28. I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish CHAP. III. Of the Properties of the life of God with reasons to prove him to be a living God NOw I shall explicate Gods life further in the properties of it 1. It is a most perfect and blessed life because there is nothing wanting to make his life most perfect he living of himself independing 2. It is an immutable life there is no change nor alteration of his life man is up and down sometimes brought as low as death anon revived and walks again in the land of the living Gods life is always the most happy glorious and delightsom life 3. It is an immortal and eternal life it hath no beginning neither is it capable of dying God cannot cease to be Now I shall prove that God is a living God by Scripture and Reason For Scripture read Deut. 32. 40. I lift up my hand to heaven and say I live for ever This lifting up the hand was either a sign of swearing or a gesture used by such as took an oath Gen. 14. 22. as Abram said to the King of Sodom I have lifted up my hand to the Lord the most high God the possessor of heaven and earth Sometimes it was a sign to make the hearers more attentive Thus saith the Lord Behold I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles and set up my standard to the people c. Isa 49. 22. Both ways it may be taken here though in the former properly for there Moses brings in God swearing I say I live for ever God speaks like a living God I say saith God None but he can say so Should creatures be so impudent as to say I say I live God will make them appear to be but dead dogs God saith I live for ever admit creatures may say we live yet herein is the living God discerned I live for ever Before the world was I lived and when the world shall have an end I live Psal 42. 2. David calls him the living God Now the Reasons of it are these Reas 1. Because whatsoever is a perfection in the creature is most eminent in God Of all natural perfection life is the principal it is better then beauty strength wisdom nothing is more dear then life Skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life A living Dog is better then a dead Lion Eccles 9. 4. One living Souldier is better then an huge Army of dead Souldiers a living beggar is better then a rich Nobleman Now if life be such a perfection then surely God is living and his life is most perfect and most eminent If God were a dead God he should want the greatest perfection then many living creatures would be better then God himself he is no God if he be not a living God Reas 2. From the actions of God we may evidently argue him to be a living God he knows all things he wills all things he makes all things he is a God that heareth our prayers and granteth the very desires of our hearts giveth the very things we beg which he could not do were he not a living God What makes him the onely true God but because he is a living God The false gods the Idolls the vanities of the Gentiles have eyes and see not ears and hear not hands and work not Baal could not hear his Priests crying aloud to him O Baal hear us therefore they are no gods But God hath eyes to see all things yea the secrets of mens hearts ears to hear the desires and groans of the poor and dictressed therefore he only is the true and living God Reas 3. All our life is from him therefore he is a living God therefore Christ is called The author of life Acts 3. With thee is the fountain of life Psal 36. 9. Life natural spiritual eternal is from God as the fountain therefore he is called life not onely because he is life essentialitèr essentially but also effectivè effectually And by the Platonists he is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The soul of the world he quickens and governs the whole world and hath all the lives of his creatures in his hands I kill I make alive I save I destroy Deut. 32. 39. CHAP. IV. Of the Immortality of God NOw because the Immortality of God though it be a distinct Attribute falls under and in with the life of God I will annex a brief discourse of the nature of it and so make application of the life and immortallity of God together God is a living God and this life of God is not subject to death wherefore he is called immortal Now I shall give a brief description of Gods Immortality It is that perfection of God Desâ—r whereby his life cannot be separated from him by death God cannot cease to live God cannot dye 1 Tim. 1. 16. The Reasons of it are these Reas 1. Because God is most simple void of all composition of body and soul or a principle of life and life it self being the same in God his own essence is his life Only things which are compounded are subject to dissolution Man being compounded of soul and body is obnoxious to a separation by death where there is no union there is no separation where there can be no separation of parts there can be no death or mortality Quest But are not Angels and the souls of men immortal who are not subject to death therefore not God onely Sol. 1. It is true Angels and the souls of men are immortal but they are subject to annihilation which God is not Angels and souls of men may cease to be but God cannot cease to be 2. Angels and the Souls of men are immortal dependently God conserveth them in
their being they are kept by the power of God but God is immortal absolutely and independently 3. Angels and souls of men are immortal per participationem by participation God makes them partakers of his immortality 4. There is an analogical mortality in Angels and the souls of men though they cannot cease to live yet they may cease to be happy and to live miserably to eternity The damnation of the Apostate Angels is a kind of death so the damned souls suffer a kind of death Damnation is called in Scripture the second death it were better that such souls did perish as the souls of beasts and when they cease to live this natural life in the body that they did cease to be CHAP. V. Vses drawn from the life of God IF God be the living God then Vse 1. he is the onely true God to be feared of all and to be worshipped 1. To be feared because he only can kill and make alive he alone preserves men from destruction and turns men into destruction The vanities of the Gentiles can neither do good nor hurt neither save nor destroy they have hands but cannot strike a man into destruction nor pluck a man from destruction When Daniel was cast into the den of lions the living God preserved him from death when his accusers were thrown in their Idols and golden images could not preserve them but the living God destroyed them See what a good use Darius an heathen King made of it and what a charge he giveth Dan. 6. 26. I make a decree that in every dominion of my Kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel the reason followeth for he is the living God the Images whom we adore for God are dead things how doth he prove that God is a living God vers 27. he delivereth and rescueth c. therefore fear and tremble before him the gods whom we serve can neither deliver nor rescue nor work signs and wonders the like argument Christ useth to perswade us to fear God because being a living God he can destroy both body and soul 2. He is the onely true God to be worshipped because a living God and therefore can hear help and save all such as worship him in spirit and truth men shew no greater madness in the world nor do more un-man themselves then in worshiping dead stocks and stones who have carved hands but are dead hands and cannot save have carved ears but are dead and cannot hear such were the gods of the Heathen and to adore dead stocks was the fruit of their blind Religion and the Papists that pretend to know the true God are no less sottish what is their Bread-Worship Altar-Worship Crucifix-Worship but a robbing of the living God of his glory and giving it to dead senseless creatures Vse 2. Is God a living God then commit your lives to him in well-doing trust the eternal living God with your mortal lives and fear not the rage and malice of evil men for they cannot take away your lives from you unless God permit them not an hair shall fall from your head without his knowledge then much less shall a drop of your blood fall much less a limb shall be cut off from your bodies much less shall they take away your lives from you if the living God will keep them and preserve them See Davids practice in a time when his enraged Enemies consulted to take away his life from him They devised to take away my life but I trusted in thee O Lord I said thou art my God my times are in thy hand deliver me from the hand of mine enemies c. Psalm 31. 13 14 15. all our times are in the hands of the living God our time of life the continuance and length of it our time of death the manner moment and instrument of it all is in the hands of the living God thy life and death are not in thine enemies hands they cannot take away thy life at their pleasure wherefore commit thy life to God and fear not the rage of enemies Should we at any time forsake God to please men for the preservation of life and betake our selves to sinful shifts it may fall out to us as Christ foretold He that saves his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for Christs sake shall save it even this natural life or the eternal life of the immortal soul Therefore if ye will have us to dye let us not be much troubled but be ready to give up our lives into the hands of the living God and if he will have us dye we can but dye as the Leapers said at the gate of Samaria the living God can give us a better life and if the Lord will he can deliver us from death The three Children were more regardful of their duty to God then of their lives Dan. 3. 16 17 18. this was the sum whether God would deliver them or not deliver them they were not anxiously careful they were careful to serve God but careless about the saving of their lives Better it were that the fiery Furnace should consume their lives then that the fire of Hell should consume their souls Vse 3. Hence there is good ground we should place all our confidence in God and in no creatures whatsoever because they are all dead perishing vanities if we may confide in any creature then may we put confidence in Princes because they are great and powerful they are Gods on earth and can afford the best aid and help to men in distres yet consider that in Psa 146. 3 4 5. Put not your trust in Princes nor in the son of man in whom there is no help Princes though they are great in power yet they are the Sons of men and obnoxious to the common condition of mankind they are vain mortal they dye and perish and when they dye all their thoughts perish all the purposes plots designs and intentions of Princes to do men good dye with them and their favourites are left to shift for themselves Then the Psalmist Vers 5. breaks forth into admiration of such a man who maketh God his help his aid his confidence and hope he is a living God he cannot dye he is a great God and his greatness is a living greatnes and none of all Gods thoughts perish but they endure from one generation to another if we must not put confidence in Princes then much less are we to trust in uncertain riches in uncertain honours in in Houses and Lands for these are all dead things and more vain and less able to help then man when riches are gone and perish the living God will and can aid us all the creatures are by fits but so many dead dogs before the living God Vse 4. â—s God a living God and the fountain of all life and motion then we should not despair of any though they through corrupt lusts do even stink in the nostrils of the godly
more to depend upon him in present or in future states and conditions because he is a God that changeth not Are the like fears difficulties dangers upon thee now remember the Lord is the same who changeth not and he will give the like comforts support deliverance as formerly he did David did find a change of his conditions but never found a change in God but when he made him his trust he found God alwayes his Deliverer and Câ—mforter Not only our experience but whatsoever we find Recorded what God hath done for other Saints may strengthen our trust in God Put thou thy trust in God and he will do for thee as great things because he is the same God Did he deliver Lot he can deliver thee Hath God pardoned others he can pardon thee and will do it if thou repentest There is no shadow of change in God but he is immutably merciful and gracious Brethren take the Bible read over the several passages of Gods Wisdom Grace Mercy Power Goodness to his Children and know whatsoever is written is written for your learning and comfort make ye the like use of God who is alwayes the same and changeth not There is no condition can befall thee but in this Paradise thou maist find an healing Herb apply thou the same promises to thy self Sect. 6. 6. If God be unchangeable in his Use 6. Decrees Promises and Gifts what Comfort doth it speak to all the Godly for being once made holy you are immutably holy and shall be immutably happy Gods Immutability is the Jachin and Boaz the firm and inconcussible Pillars of our salvation never shall a child of God fall away finally from God because his Eternal Election is an immutable Decree ordaining thee to holiness to glory his promises are unchangeable Hath God spoken the word it is the word of an immutable God that hath said Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast off Joh. 6. 37. Fear not God will never cast thee off Hath God said That he will put his fear into thy heart that thou shalt never depart from him Fear not falling away though a thousand Devils suggest to thee that thou wilt prove an Apostate and wilt before death depart from God Fear not I say thou jealous Christian God hath promised that thou shalt never depart from him All the Devils in Hell all the glory and miseries in the world all the lusts in thy heart shall never pull thee off from Gods hand for every child of God is a precious Signet on Gods right hand Gods promises are immutable therefore thy state of grace is unchangeable The gifts and calling of God are without repentance Art thou called from a state of Nature to Grace from sin to Christ thou art immutably called Art thou justified thou art immutably justified Ye that are godly take comfort in this ye are eternally immutably gracious and holy and shall be immutably glorious and happy though death change thee yet the Lord our God changeth not and at the Resurrection day thy corruption shall be changed into an immutable state of immortality how unhappy poor miserable despicable soever you are for the present ye shall be changed into an immutable state of happiness because the Lord our God is unchangeable Lastly If God be immutable and Use 7. change not then endeavour to be like unto your God our constancy is our likeness to God's Immutability 1. Be constant in thy Affections to God maintain a burning love to him maintain a vehement desire after him God likes not ebbs and flows in our Affections he regards not blazing Affections like Straw-fires that are quickly in and quickly out He loves thee to the end John 13. 1. Do thou love him to the end he rejoyceth over thee to the end do thou rejoyce in the Lord alwayes Phil. 4. 4. 2. Be constant and immutable in your Promises Covenants Resolutions and Purposes which ye make to God Oh never deny thy self and lye to thy God in promising to be His and then fall off and serve thy lusts far be it from thee 3. Be constant and immutable in all thy Duties and in a course of holines Pray continually rejoyce evermore in every thing give thanks Hear the Word upon every occâ—sion walk all the dayes of thy life in the fear of God all things to thee are Mercy and Truth let all thy wayes be Sincerity and Righteousness God will make thee immutably happy and glorious if thou wilt be constant to him as the old men said to Rehoboam concerning the Tribes of Israel Be thou theirs to day and they will be thine for ever So say I to thee Be thou the Lords to day and he will be thine for ever A Discourse of God's Invisibility 1 Tim. 1. 17. Now unto the King eternal immortal invisible c. be honour and glory for ever and ever Amen CHAP. I. SAint Paul having in the foregoing part of this chapter laid down the sâ—pâ—rabundant grace of God in Christ in making him of a persecutor to become a nursing father of the Church of one that was injurious to the saints to be most loving and tenderly affected to them of a blasphemer to be an excellent preacher of the Gospel and in receiving him into special favour that was the chiefest of sinners such are the the miraculous effects of God's superabundant grace in Christ here his zeal love and thankfulness to God breaks forth into fervent praising of God giving him the honour due unto his name Now to the King eternal invisible c. be honour and glory for ever and ever Amen As if he should say seeing God hath evidently manifested to me his goodnesse grace and mercy in my conuersion let him have all the honour and glory for ever and ever And lest his conversion should seem strange he sheweth who was the Author of it 'T is God that hath converted me who is an eternal King who can do all things with whom nothing is impossible the eternal King can raise children out of stones can make the greatest sinner the greatest Saint 'T is an immortal God who ever liveth and can give life to the dead he that can make the earth to yield up her dead he can make the graves of sin likewise to give up their dead this immortal God raised up me from this death of sin It is an Invisible God man cannot see him nor his way of working his works are visible but the manner of his working is Invisible that Paul was a convert is as clear as the sun shinneth but the manner of Gods working in his conversion was invisible it was above the ken of a carnal eye It is a wise God who sweetly ordereth wisely brings to passe his counsels therefore it is not impossible with God to convert the greatest sinners Here you see are four attributes given to God 1. King everlasting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 King of Ages so called for two reasons 1. Because
appears by this Chapter and by the fourth and tenth Chapters In his speaking of Christ he sets him forth two ways 1. In his absolute and personal excellency in the beginning of the first Chapter 2. In his comparative excellency being compared with Angels Prophets and Priests and Levitical Sacrifices he sheweth how Christ infinitely transcends all these He sheweth how far he excelleth all the glorious Angels in the first Chapter and that in divers particulars 1. He is the natural Son of God 2. He is the heir of all things 3. He is the Creatour and Lord of Angels him all the glorious Angels worship and adore Then he shews Christs transcendent excellency above all Prophets he instanceth in Moses the first and Prince of Prophets here in this third Chapter setting forth the excellency of Moses in an high manner that he might the better declare the transcendent excellency of Christ above him The thing chiefly commended in Moses was his faithfulness in Gods House by house understand not a material but a spiritual house his Church Now Christ excelled Moses in two things 1. Christ was the Son of God Moses a Servant 2. Christ was builder and Master of the House Moses was part of this house Now in the following Verses the Apostle strongly inferreth that Christ is more excellent then Angels and Moses We ought to give more heed to the word spoken by him then to the word spoken by Angels or by Moses and this he presseth from the danger of unbeleif after men have heard and received the Gospel of Christ Those that did not beleive Moses were not suffered to enter into Canaan but perished in the Wildernes Now the Apostle tells the Hebrews that as God dealt with their forefathers for their unbelief so will he deal with all unbeleivers they shall never enter into his glorious rest but shall perish eternally My Text is a serious admonition to all to beware of unbeleif seeing it shuts men out of heavenly rest and throws them headlong into hellish torments Wherefore Calv. in loc for so Calvin thinketh is to be referred to this twelfth verse all the foregoing words being a Parenthesis take heed lest there be in any of you c. In the words there are these three things considerable 1. A dangerous disease to which those that make profession of Christ are subject viz. Apostacy from Christ who is here stiled a living God 2. The cause of that dangerous disease is an evil heart of unbeleif it is an hebraism put for an evil unbeleiving heart where the Apostle doth describe unbeleif by an elegant paranomasia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unbeleif is Apostacy 3. The cure and remedy both of the root and disease Take heed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 look about you look circumspectly above all things take heed of an unbeleiving heart for in time of trial it will make you to fall off from God There are these four points observable from these words 1. That an unbeleiving heart is Observ the evil heart 2. That an unbeleiving heart is the cause of Apostacy from God 3. Christians must specially watch and keep their own hearts 4. That our God is a living God CHAP. II. MY purpose is onely to handle the last point viz. that attribute of the life of God That God from whom unbeleivers back-slide is a living God The life of God is taken two ways in Scripture 1. For that life whereby God liveth Vita Dei dicitur vel quâ vivit in nobis qui regenerati sumus in his Saints or a Saints godly life â—ph 4. 18. The Apostle setting forth the state of unregenerate persons men addicted to their lusts saith They are alienated from the life of God that is have no acquaintance with the holy heavenly and spiritual life this life is here called the life of God and Gal. 2. 20. it is called the life of Christ I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me this life is also called the life of the spirit and beleivers are also said to live in the spirit Gal. 5. 25. But this life I am not to speak of 2. T is taken for that essential Vel quà ipse vivit in sese life of God or that life which God liveth himself and in himself and which is very God himself In him was life saith John of Christ as God John 1. 4. that is essentia vivens ab aeterno in aeternum that living essence who lives for ever and ever giving life to all others and this I am to speak of As the life of God is taken two ways so again living God is taken two ways in Scripture 1. Either it is opposed unto dead and false gods 1 Thes 1. 9. Ye turned from idols which cannot hear speak or do any thing for you to the living and true God Or 2. Living God implies that God is a powerful lively and effectual God Heb. 10. 31. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God most powerful able to destroy body and soul or who eternally liveth to take eternal vengeance on your immortal souls This being premised I will briefly shew what the life of God is Thus it is described It is Gods own divine being Descr who of himself doth all things and is the Author of all life in his creatures Or thus It is the divine being who of himself understandeth willeth and loveth infinitely and is the fountain of all life being and motion in all his creatures both bodily and spiritual Let me give it in parts 1. It is the divine being so it is Anima vivere operationes vitae distinguished from the life of creatures for in their life are three things the soul by which it liveth the life it self and the actions of life distinguished in the creatures but in God the essence life and the actions of life are one and the same his life is nothing else but his very being hence he is called that life and life eternal and the living God 2. Who of himself doth all things or of himself understandeth willeth and loveth all things and in this he is distinguished from the life of creatures for they live in another live move and have their being in God but he most independently lives of himself understandeth and willeth of himself therefore called Jehovah who hath being from himself 3. He is the Author of all life in his Creatures in him they live if he withdraw himself Creatures are turned into destruction if he say Return again ye sons of men they live Psa 90. 3. of dry bones he makes living men and of living men he makes dry bones T is said he breathed the spirit of life into Adam and he takes away mans breath again Some Divines make a fivefold life of men 1. The life of nature and this God is the Author of he made man a living soul In him was life and that life was the light of men