affection to thy Isaac is extinguish'd by the more powerful flame of affection to my Will and Command I now accept thee and count thee a meet subject of my choicest Benefits or now I know that is I have made known and manifested the Faith of Abraham to himself and to the World Thus Paul uses the word know 1 Cor. 2.2 I have determined to know nothing that is to declare and teach nothing to make known nothing but Christ Crucified or else now I know that is I have an evidence and experiment in this noble fact that thou fearest me God often condescends to our capacity in speaking of himself after the manner of men as if he had as men do known the inward affections of others by their outward actions 4. God knows all the Evils and Sins of Creatures 1. God knows all Sin This follows upon the other If he knows all the actions and thoughts of Creatures he knows also all the Sinfulness in those acts and thoughts This Zophar infers from Gods punishing men Job 11.11 for he knows vain man he sees his wickedness also he knows every man and sees the wickedness of every man He looks down from Heaven and beholds not only the filthy persons but what is filthy in them Psal 14.2 3. all Nations in the World and every man of every Nation none of their iniquity is hid from his eyes He searches Jerusalem with Candles Jer. 16.17 God follows Sinners step by step with his eye and will not leave searching out till he hath taken them a Metaphor taken from one that searches all Chinks with a Candle that nothing can be hid from him He knows it distinctly in all the parts of it how an Adulterer rises out of his Bed to commit Uncleanness what contrivances he had what steps he took every circumstance in the whole progress not only evil in the bulk but every one of the blacker spots upon it which may most aggravate it If he did not know Evil how could he permit it order it punish it or pardon it Doth he permit he knows not what Order to his own holy ends what he is ignorant of Punish or pardon that which he is uncertain whether it be a Crime or no Cleanse me saith David from my secret faults Ps 19.12 secret in regard of others secret in regard of himself how could God cleanse him from that whereof he was ignorant He knows Sins before they are committed much more when they are in act he foreknew the Idolatry and Apostacy of the Jews what Gods they would serve in what measure they would provoke him and violate his Covenant Deut. 31.20 21. he knew Judas his Sin long before Judas his actual existence foretelling it in the Psalms and Christ predicts it before he acted it He sees Sins future in his own permitting Will he sees Sins present in his own supporting act As he knows things possible to himself because he knows his own power so he knows things practicable by the Creature because he knows the Power and Principles of the Creature Fotherby Atheoma p. 132. This Sentiment of God is naturally writ in the fears of Sinners upon Lightning Thunder or some Prodigious operation of God in the World what is the Language of them but that he sees their Deeds hears their words knows the inward sinfulness of their hearts that he doth not only behold them as a meer Spectator but considers them as a just Judg. And the Poets say that the Sins of men leapt into Heaven and were writ in Parchments of Jupiter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cross Anthol dec 1. cap. 395 p. 101. scelus in terram geritur in coelo scribitur sin is acted on Earth and recorded in Heaven God indeed doth not behold Evil with the approving eye he knows it not with a practical knowledg to be the Author of it but with a speculative Knovvledg so as to understand the sinfulness of it or a knovvledg simplicis intelligentiae of simple intelligence as he permits them not positively vvills them he knovvs them not vvith a knovvledg of assent to them but dissent from them Evil pertains to a dissenting act of the mind and an aversive act of the Will and vvhat tho' evil formally taken hath no distinct Conception because it is a privation a Defect hath no Being and all knovvledg is by the apprehension of some Being vvould not this lye as strongly against our ovvn knovvledg of Sin Sin is a privation of the rectitude due to an act and vvho doubts mans knovvledg of Sin by his knovving the act he knovvs the deficiency of the act the subject of evil hath a Being and so hath a conception in the mind that vvhich hath no Being cannot be knovvn by it self or in it self but vvill it follovv that it cannot be knovvn by its contrary as vve knovv darkness to be a privation of light and folly to be a privation of vvisdom God knovvs all good by himself because he is the Soveraign good Is it strange then that he should knovv all evil since all evil is in some natural good 2. The manner of Gods knowing Evil is not so easily known And indeed as vve cannot comprehend the Essence of God tho' it is easily intelligible that there is such a Being so vve can as little comprehend the manner of Gods Knovvledg tho' vve cannot but conclude him to be an intelligent Being a pure Understanding knovving all things As God hath a higher manner of Being than his Creatures so he hath another and higher manner of knovving and vve can as little comprehend the manner of his knovving as vve can the manner of his Being But as to the manner Doth not God knovv his ovvn Lavv and shall he not knovv hovv much any action comes short of his Rule he cannot knovv his ovvn Rule vvithout knovving all the deviations from it He knovvs his ovvn Holiness and shall he not see hovv any action is contrary to the Holiness of his ovvn nature Doth not God knovv every thing that is true and is it not true that this or that is evil and shall God be ignorant of any Truth Hovv doth God knovv that he cannot lye but by knovving his ovvn Veracity Hovv doth God knovv that he cannot Dye but by knovving his ovvn Immutability and by knovving those he knovvs vvhat a Lye is he knovvs vvhat Death is so if Sin never had been if no Creature had ever been God vvould have knovvn vvhat Sin vvas because he knovvs his ovvn Holiness because he knevv vvhat Lavv vvas fit to be appointed to his Creatures if he should Create them and that that Lavv might be transgrest by them God knovvs all good all goodness in himself he therefore hath a foundation in himself to knovv all that comes short of that goodness that is opposite to that Holiness As if Light vvere capable of Understanding it vvould knovv Darkness only by knovving it self by knovving it self it vvould
value and virtue of the Redeemers Merit which God from the beginning intended to magnifie The Value of it in taking off so much successive Guilt and the Virtue of it in washing away so much daily filth Th◠Wisdom of God hereby keeps up the Credit of Imputed Righteousness and manifests the Immense Treasure of the Redeemers Merit to pay such daily Debts Were we perfectly Sanctified we should stand upon our own Bottom and imagine no need of the continual and repeated Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ for our Justification We should confide in Inherent Righteousness and slight Imputed If God should take off all Remainders of Sin as well as the Guilt of it we should be apt to forget that we are Fallen Creatures and that we had a Redeemer But the Reliques of Sin in us mind us of the necessity of some higher strength to set us right They mind us both of our own Misery and the Redeemers perpetual benefit God by this keeps up the Dignity and Honour of our Saviours Blood to the height and therefore sometimes lets us see to our own cost what filth yet remains in us for the employment of that Blood which we should else but little think of and less admire Our Gratitude is so small to God as well as Man that the first Obligations are soon forgot if we stand not in need of fresh ones successively to second them we should lose our Thankful Remembrance of the first virtue of Christs Blood in washing us if our Infirmities did not mind us of fresh Reiterations and Applications of it Ours Saviours Office of Advocacy was erected especially for Sins committed after a Justified and Renewed state * 1 John 2.1 We should scarce remember we had an Advocate and scarce make use of him without some sensible Necessity but our Remainders of Sin discover our Impotency and an impossibility for us either to expiate our Sin or conform to the Law which necessitates us to have recourse to that Person whom God hath appointed to make up the breaches between God and us So the Apostle wraps up himself in the Covenant of Grace and his Interest in Christ after his conflict with Sin Rom. 7. ult I thank God through Jesus Christ Now after such a Body of Death a Principle within me that sends up daily steams yet as long as I serve God with my Mind as long as I keep the main Condition of the Covenant there is no Condemnation †Rom. 8.1 Christ takes my part procures my acceptance and holds the Band of Salvation firm in his hands The brightness of Christs Grace is set off by the darkness of our Sin We should not understand the Soveraignty of his Medicines if there were no Reliques of Sin for him to exercise his Skill upon The Physicians Art is most experimented and therefore most valued in Relapses as dangerous as the former Disease As the Wisdom of God brought our Saviour into Temptation that he might have Compassion to us so it permits us to be overcome by Temptation that we might have due Valuations of him 3. God hereby often engageth the Soul to a greater Industry for his glory The highest Persecutors when they have become Converts have been the greatest Champions for that Cause they both hated and opprest The Apostle Paul is such an Instance of this that it needs no enlargement By how much they have failed of answering the end of their Creation in glorifying God by so much the more they summon up all their Force for such an end after their Conversion to restore as much as they can of that Glory to God which they by their Sin had robb'd him of Their Sins by the order of Divine Wisdom prove Whetstones to sharpen the edge of their Spirits for God Paul never remembred his Persecuting Fury but he doubled his Industry for the Service of God which before he trampled under his feet The further we go back the greater Leap many times we take forward Our Saviour after his Resurrection put Peter upon the exercise of that Love to him which had so lately shrunk his head out of Suffering ‖ Iohn 21.15 16 17. and no doubt but the consideration of his base Denial together with a reflection upon a gracious Pardon engag'd his Ingenuous Soul to stronger and fiercer flames of Affection A Believers Courage for God is more sharpned oftentimes by the shame of his Fall He endeavours to repair the faults of his Ingratitude and Disingenuity by larger and stronger steps of Obedience As a Man in a fight having been foil'd by his Enemy reassumes new Courage by his Fall and is many times oblig'd to his Foil both for his Spirit and his Victory A gracious Heart will upon the very motions to sin double its Vigor as well as by good ones It is usually more quickned both in its motion to God and for God by the Temptations and Motions to Sin which run upon it This is another Good the Wisdom of God brings forth from Sin 4. Again Humility towards God is another Good Divine Wisdom brings forth from the Occasion of Sin By this God beats down all good opinion or our selves Hezekiah was more humbled by his fall into Pride than by all the Distress he had been in by Senacharibs Army 2 Chron. 32.26 Peters Confidence before his Fall gave way to an humble Modesty after it You see his Confidence Mark 14.24 Though all should be offended in thee yet will not I and you have the mark of his Modesty John 21.17 't is not then Lord I will love thee to the death I will not start from thee but Lord thou knowest that I love thee I cannot assure my self of any thing after this Miscarriage but Lord thou knowest there is a Principle of Love in me to thy Name He was asham'd that himself who appeared such a Pillar should bend as meanly as a Shrub to a Temptation The reflection upon Sin lays a Man as low as Hell in his Humiliation as the Commission of Sin did in the Merit When David comes to exercise Repentance for his Sin he begins it from the Well-head of Sin * Psal 51.5 his Original Corruption and draws down the streams of it to the last commission Perhaps he did not so seriously humble himself for the Sin of his Nature all his days so much as at that time at least we have not such Evidences of it And Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart not only for the Pride of his Act †2 Chron. 32.26 but for the Pride in the Heart which was the Spring of that Pride in Act in shewing his Treasures to the Babylonish Ambassadors God lets Sin continue in the Hearts of the best in this World and sometimes gives the Reins to Satan and a Man 's own Corruption to keep up a sense of the ancient Sale we made of our selves to both II. In regard of our selves Herein is the wonder of Divine
into his heart which forced that Terrible cry from him My God my God why hast thou forsaken me he adores this Perfection of Holiness v. 3. But thou art holy Thy Holiness is the Spring of all this sharp Agony and for this thou Inhabitest and shalt for ever inhabit the Praises of all thy Israel Holiness drew the Vail between Gods Countenance and our Saviours Soul Justice indeed gave the stroke but Holiness order'd it In this his Purity did sparkle and his Irreversible Justice manifested that all those that commit Sin are worthy of death this was the perfect Index of his Righteousness †Rom 3 2◠that is of his Holiness and Truth then it was that God that is Holy was sanctified in Righteousness Isai 5.16 It appears the more if you consider 1. The Dignity of the Redeemers Person One that had been from Eternity had laid the Foundations of the World had been the Object of the Divine Delight He that was God blessed for ever becomes a Curse He who was blessed by Angels and by whom God blessed the World must be seiz'd with Horrour The Son of Eternity must bleed to death Where did ever Sin appear so irreconcileable to God Where did God ever break out so furiously in his detestation of Iniquity The Father would have the most Excellent Person one next in order to himself and Equal to him in all the glorious Perfections of his Nature * Phil 2.6 Die on a Disgraceful Cross and be exposed to the flames of Divine Wrath rather than Sin should live and his Holiness remain for ever disparaged by the Violations of his Law 2. The near Relation he stood in to the Father He was his own Son that he delivered up Rom. 8.32 His Essential Image as dearly beloved by him as himself yet he would abate nothing of his Hatred of those Sins imputed to one so dear to him and who never had done any thing contrary to his Will The strong Cries utter'd by him could not cause him to cut off the least Fringe of this Royal Garment nor part with a Thred the Robe of his Holiness was woven with The Torrent of Wrath is open'd upon him and the Fathers Heart beats not in the least notice of Tenderness to Sin in the midst of his Sons Agonies †Lingend Tom. 3. p. 699 700. God seems to lay aside the Bowels of a Father and put on the garb of an Irreconcileable Enemy Upon which account probably our Saviour in the midst of his Passion gives him the Title of God not of Father the Title he usually before Addrest to him with Math. 27.46 My God my God not My Father my Father why hast thou forsaken me He seems to hang upon the Cross like a disinherited Son while he appear'd in the garb and rank of a Sinner Then was his Head loaded with Curses when he stood under that Sentence of Cursed is every one that hangs upon a Tree Gal. 3.13 and look'd as one forlorn and rejected by the Divine Purity and Tenderness God dealt not with him as if he had been one in so near a Relation to him He left him not to the Will only of the Instruments of his Death he would have the chiefest blow himself of bruising of him Isai 53.10 It pleased the Lord to bruise him the Lord because the power of Creatures could not strike a blow strong enough to satisfie and secure the Rights of Infinite Holiness It was therefore a Cup temper'd and put into his hands by his Father a Cup given him to drink In other Judgments he lets out his Wrath against his Creatures in this he lets out his Wrath as it were against Himself against his Son One as dear to him as himself As in his making Creatures his Power over Nothing to bring it into Being appear'd but in pardoning Sin he hath power over himself so in punishing Creatures his Holiness appears in his Wrath against Creatures against Sinners by inherency But by punishing Sin in his Son his Holiness sharpens his Wrath against him who was his Equal and only a reputed Sinner As if his Affection to his own Holiness surmounted his Affection to his Son For he chose to suspend the breakings out of his Affections to his Son and see him plunged in a sharp and Ignominious Misery without giving him any visible Token of his Love rather than see his Holiness lie groaning under the Injuries of a Transgressing World 3. The Value he puts upon his Holiness appears further in the Advancement of this Redeeming Person after his Death Our Saviour was Advanc'd not barely for his Dying but for the respect he had in his Death to this Attribute of God Heb. 1.9 Thou hast loved Righteousness and hated Iniquity therefore God even thy God hath Anointed thee with the Oil of Gladness c. By Righteousness is meant this Perfection because of the opposition of it to Iniquity Some think Therefore to be the final Cause as if this were the sense Thou art anointed with the Oil of Gladness that thou mightest love Righteousness and hate Iniquity But the Holy Ghost seeming to speak in this Chapter not only of the Godhead of Christ but of his Exaltation the Doctrine whereof he had begun in Verse 3. and prosecutes in the following Verses I would rather understand Therefore For this cause or reason hath God anointed thee not to this end Christ indeed had an Unction of Grace whereby he was fitted for his Mediatory Work He had also an Unction of Glory whereby he was rewarded for it In the first regard it was a qualifying him for his Office in the second regard it was a solemn Inaugurating him in his Royal Authority And the Reason of his being setled upon a Throne for ever and ever is because he loved Righteousness He suffered himself to be pierced to Death that Sin the Enemy of Gods Purity might be destroy'd and the Honour of the Law the Image of Gods Holiness might be repair'd and fulfilled in the Fallen Creature He restored the Credit of Divine Holiness in the World in manifesting by his Death God an irreconcileable Enemy to all Sin in abolishing the Empire of Sin so hateful to God and restoring the rectitude of Nature and new framing the Image of God in his chosen Ones And God so valued this Vindication of his Holiness that he confers upon him in his Humane Nature an Eternal Royalty and Empire over Angels and Men. Holiness was the great Attribute respected by Christ in his dying and manifested in his Death and for his Love to this God would bestow an Honour upon his Person in that Nature wherein he did vindicate the Honour of so dear a Perfection In the Death of Christ he shewed his Resolution to preserve its Rights In the Exaltation of Christ he evidenced his mighty pleasure for the Vindication of it In both the Infinite value he had for it as dear to him as his Life and Glory 4. It
to the last committed this minute The line of his patience hath run along with the duration of the World to this day and there is not any one of Adams posterity but hath been expensive to him and partaked of the riches of it 4. All these he bears when he hath a sense of them He sees every day the Roll and Catalogue of sin increasing he hath a distinct view of every one from the sin of Adam to the last fil'd up in his Omniscience and yet gives no order for the arrest of the World He knows men fitted for destruction all the instants he exerciseth long-suffering towards them which makes the Apostle call it not simply long suffering without the addition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much long-suffering Rom. 9.23 There is not a grain in the whole Mass of sin that he hath not a distinct knowledge of and of the quality of it He perfectly understands the greatness of his own Majesty that is vilified and the nature of the offence that doth disparage him He is sollicited by his Justice directed by his Omniscience and armed with judgments to vindicate himself but his arm is restrained by patience To conclude no indignity is hid from him no iniquity is beloved by him the hatred of their sinfulness is infinite and the knowledge of the malice is exact The subsisting of the World under such weighty provocations so numerous so long time and with his full sence of every one of them is an evidence of such a forbearance and long-suffering that the addition of Riches which the Apostle puts to it Rom. 2.4 labours with an insufficiency clearly to display it III. Why God doth exercise so much patience 1. To shew himself appeaseable God did not declare by his patience to former ages or any age that he was appeased with them or that they were in his favour but that he was appeasable that he was not an implacable Enemy but that they might find him favourable to them if they did seek after him The continuance of the World by patience and the bestowing many mercies by goodness were not a natural revelation of the manner how he would be appeased That was made known only by the Prophets and after the coming of Christ by the Apostles and had indeed been intelligible in some sort to the whole World had there been a faithfulness in Adams posterity to transmit the tradition of the first promise to succeeding Generations Had not the knowledge of that dyed by their carelesness and neglect it had been easie to tell the reason of Gods patience to be in order to the exhibition of the Seed of the woman to bruise the Serpents head They could not but naturally know themselves sinners and worthy of death they might be easie reflections upon themselves collect that they were not in that comely and harmonious posture now as they were when God first wrought them with his own finger and placed them as his Lieutenants in the World they knew they did grievously offend him this they were taught by the sprinklings of his judgments among them sometimes And since he did not utterly root up mankind his sparing patience was a prologue of some further favours or pardoning Grace to be display'd to the World by some methods of God yet unknown to them Though the Earth was something impair'd by the curse after the fall yet the main pillars of it stood the strate of the natural motions of the Creature was not chang'd the Heavens remain'd in the same posture wherein they were Created the Sun and Moon and other heavenly bodies continued their usefulness and refreshing influences to man The Heavens did still declare the Glory of God day unto day did utter speech their line is gone throughout all the Earth and their words to the end of the World Psal 19.1 2 3. 4. Which declar'd God to be willing to do good to his Creatures and were as so many legible letters or rudiments whereby they might read his patience and that a further design of favour to the World lay hid in that Patience Paul applies this to the Preaching of the Gospel Rom. 10.18 Have they not heard the word of God yes verily their sound went into all the Earth and their words unto the end of the World Redeeming grace could not be spell'd out by them in a clear notion but yet they did declare that which is the Foundation of Gospel Mercy Were not God patient there were no room for a Gospel Mercy so that the Heavens declare the Gospel not formally but fundamentally in declaring the long-suffering of God without which no Gospel had been fram'd or could have been expected They could not but read in those things favourable inclinations towards them And though they could not be ignorant that they deserved a mark of justice yet seeing themselves supported by God and beholding the regular motions of the Heavens from day to day and the Revolutions of the seasons of the year the natural conclusion they might draw from thence was that God was placable Since he behav'd himself more as a tender Friend that had no mind to be at War with them than an enraged Enemy The good things which he gave them and the patience whereby he spar'd them were no arguments of an impâ—acable disposition And therefore of a disposition willing to be appeased This is clearly the design of the Apostles arguing with the Lystrians when they would have offered Sacrifices to Paul Acts 14.17 When God suffered all Nations to walk in their own ways he did not leave himself without witness giving Rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons What were those Witnesses of Not only of the Being of a God by their readiness to sacrifice to those that were not Gods only supposed to be so in their false imaginations but witnesses to the tenderness of God that he had no mind to be severe with his Creatures But would allure them by ways of Goodness * Amyrald dissert pag. 191. 192. Had not Gods patience tended to this end to bring the World under another dispensation the Apostles arguing from it had not been sutable to his design which seems to be a hindering the sacrifices they intended for them and a drawing them to embrace the Gospel and therefore preparing the way to it by speaking of the Patience and Goodness of God to them as an unquestionable testimony of the reconcileableness of God to them by some sacrifice which was represented under the common notion of Sacrifices These things were not Witnesses of Christ or syllables whereby they could spell out the redeeming person but Witnesses that God was placable in his own nature When man abused those noble faculties God had given him and diverted them from the use and service God intended them for God might have stript man of them the first time that he mis-employed them and it would have seemed most agreeable to this wisdom and Justice not to suffer himself to be
what it is or was 'T is indeed a Being but a different Being from what it was before But if God were changed it could not be said of him that he is but it might also be said of him that he is not or if he were changeable or could be changed it might be said of him he is but he will not be what he is or he may not be what he is but there will be or may be some difference in his Being and so God would not be I am that I am for though he would not cease utterly to be yet he would cease to be what he was before 2. Again If his Essence were mutable he could not be perfectly blessed and fully rejoyce in himself If he changed for the better he could not have an infinite pleasure in what he was before the change because he was not infinitely blessed and the pleasure of that state could not be of a higher kind than the state it self or at least the apprehension of a happiness in it If he changed for the worse he could not have a pleasure in it after the change for according to the diminution of his state would be the decrease of his pleasure His pleasure could not be infinite before the change if he changed for the better it could not be infinite after the change if he changed for the worse If he changed for the better he would not have had an infinite Goodness of being before and not having an infinite Goodness of Being he would have a finite Goodness of Being for there is no medium between finite and infinite Then though the change were for the better yet being finite before something would be still wanting to make him infinitely blessed because being finite he could not change to that which is infinite for finite and infinite are extreams so distant that they can never pass into one another that is that that which is finite should become infinite or that which is infinite should become finite So that supposing him mutable his Essence in no state of change could furnish him with an infinite peace and blessedness 3. Again If Gods Essence be changed he either encreaseth or diminisheth * Hugo Victorin in Petavio Whatsoever is changed doth either gain by receiving some thing larger and greater than it had in it self before or gains nothing by being changed If the former then it receives more than it self more than it had in it self before The Divine Nature cannot be encreased for whatsoever receives any thing than what it had in it self before must necessarily receive it from another because nothing can give to it self that which it hath not But God cannot receive from another what he hath not already because whatsoever other things possess is derived from him and therefore contained in him as the Fountain contains the Vertue in it self which it conveys to the Streams so that God cannot gain any thing If a thing that is changed gain nothing by that change it loseth something of what it had before in it self and this loss must be by it self or some other God cannot receive any loss from any thing in himself he cannot will his own diminution that is repugnant to every Nature He may as well will his own destruction as his own decrease Every decrease is a partial destruction But it is impossible for God to dye any kind of Death to have any resemblance of death for he is immortal and only hath Immortality * 1 Tim. 6.16 therefore impossible to be diminisht in any particle of his Essence nor can he be diminisht by any thing in his own Nature because his infinite simplicity admits of nothing distinct from himself or contrary to himself All decreases come from something contrary to the nature of that thing which doth decrease Whatsoever is made less than it self was not truly unum one and simple because that which divides it self in separation was not the same in conjunction Nor can he be diminisht by any other without himself because nothing is superior to God nothing stronger than God which can oppress him But whatsoever is changed is weaker than that which changeth it * Victorinus in Petavio and sinks under a Power it cannot succesfully resist Weakness belongs not to the Deity Nor lastly can God change from a State wherein he is to another State equal to the former as men in some cases may do for in passing from one state to another equal to it something must be parted with which he had before that some other thing may accrue to him as a recompense for that loss to make him equal to what he was This recompense then he had not before though he had something equal to it And in this case it could not be said by God I am that I am but I am equal to what I was for in this case there would be a diminution and increase which as was shewed can not be in God 4. Again God is of himself from no other * Austin Fulgen in Petavio Natures which are made by God may increase because they began to be they may decrease because they were made of nothing and so tend to nothing the condition of their original leads them to defect and the Power of their Creator brings them to increase But God hath no original he hath no defect because he was not made of nothing He hath no increase because he had no beginning He was before all things and therefore depends upon no other thing which by its own change can bring any change upon him * Petav. Tom. 1. p. 173. That which is from it self cannot be changed because it hath nothing before it nothing more excellent than it self But that which is from another as its first cause and chief good may be changed by that which was its efficient cause and last end 2. God is immutable in regard of Knowledge God hath known from all Eternity all that which he can know so that nothing is hid from him He knows not at present any more than he hath known from Eternity and that which he knows now he always knows All things are open and naked before him Heb. 4.13 A man is said to be changed in regard of knowledge when he knows that now which he did not know before or knows that to be false now which he thought true before or hath something for the Object of his Understanding now which he had not before But 1. This would be repugnant to the Wisdom and Omniscience which belongs to the Notion of a Deity That cannot be God that is not infinitely wise that cannot be infinitely wise that is either ignorant of or mistaken in his apprehension of any one thing If God be changed in knowledge it must be for want of wisdom all change of this nature in Creatures implies this defect preceding or accompanying it Such a thought of God would have been unworthy of him that is only
shooting Arrows against it * Gamach in prim part Aquin. quest 9. cap. 1. part 72. 3. God were not the most simple Being if he were not immutable There is in every thing that is mutable a Composition either essential or accidental and in all changes something of the thing changed remains and something of it ceaseth and is done away as for example in an accidental change If a white Wall be made black it loses its white Colour but the Wall it self which was the Subject of that Colour remains and loses nothing of its substance Likewise in a substantial change as when Wood is burnt the substantial part of Wood is lost the earthy part is changed into Ashes the airy part ascends in Smoke the watery part is changed into Air by the Fire There is not an annihilation of it but a resolution of it into those parts whereof it was compounded and this change doth evidence that it was compounded of several parts distinct from one another If there were any change in God 't is by separating something from him or adding something to him if by separating something from him then he was compounded of something distinct from himself for if it were not distinct from himself it could not be separated from him without loss of his Being if by adding any thing to him then it is a compounding of him either substantially or accidentally Mutability is absolutely inconsistent with Simplicity whether the change come from an internal or external Principle If a change be wrought by something without it supposeth either contrary or various parts in the thing so changed whereof it doth consist If it be wrought by any thing within it supposeth that the thing so changed doth consist of one part that doth change it and another part that is changed and so it would not be a simple Being If God could be changed by any thing within himself all in God would not be God his Essence would depend upon some parts whereof some would be superior to others If one part were able to change or destroy another that which doth change would be God that which is changed would not be God so God would be made up of a Deity and a non-Deity and part of God would depend upon God part would be dependent and part would be independent part would be mutable part immutable So that Mutability is against the notion of Gods Independency as well as his Simplicity * Ficinus Zachar mitylen in Peta Tom. 1 p. 169. God is the most simple Being for that which is first in Nature having nothing beyond it cannot by any means be thought to be compounded for whatsoever is so depends upon the parts whereof it is compounded and so is not the first Being Now God being infinitely simple hath nothing in himself which is not himself and therefore cannot will any change in himself he being his own Essence and Existence 4. God were not eternal if he were mutable In all change there is something that perishes either substantially or accidentally All change is a kind of death or imitation of death that which was dies and begins to be what it was not The Soul of Man though it ceaseth not to be and exist yet when it ceaseth to be in quality what it was is said to die Adam died when he changed from Integrity to Corruption though both his Soul and Body were in being * Gen. 2.17 and the Soul of a regenerate Man is said to die to Sin when it is changed from Sin to Grace * Rom. 6 1â— In all change there is a resemblance of death So the Notion of Mutability is against the Eternity of God If any thing be acquired by a change then that which is acquired was not from Eternity and so he was not wholly eternal If any thing be lost which was from Eternity he is not wholly everlasting If he did decrease by the change something in him which had no beginning would have an end if he did increase by that change something in him would have a beginning that might have no end * Austin in Pet. Tom. 1. p. 201. What is changed doth not remain and what doth not remain is not eternal Though God alway remains in regard of Existence he would be immortal and live alway yet if he should suffer any change he could not properly be eternal because he would not alway be the same and would not in every part be eternal For all change is finished in Time one moment preceding another moment following but that which is before Time cannot be changed by Time God cannot be eternally what he was that is he cannot have a true Eternity if he had a new Knowledge a new Purpose a new Essence if he were sometimes this and sometimes that sometimes know this and sometimes know that sometimes purpose this and afterwards hath a new purpose he would be partly temporary and partly eternal not truly and universally eternal He that hath any thing of newness hath not properly and truly an intire Eternity Again by the same reason that God could in the least cease to be what he was he might also cease wholly to be and no reason can be rendred why God might not cease wholly to be as well as cease to be intirely and uniformly what he was All changeableness implies a corruptibility 5. If God were changeable He were not Infinite and Almighty All change ends in addition or diminution if any thing be added he was not infinite before if any thing be diminisht he is not infinite after All change implies bounds and limits to that which is changed but God is infinite His Greatness is unsearcheable * Psal 145.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â— end â—â—term We can add Number to Number without any end and can conceive an infinite Number Yet the Greatness of God is beyond all our Conceptions But if there could be any change in his Greatness for the better it would not be unsearchable before that change if for the worse it would not be unsearchable after that change Whatsoever hath limits and is changeable is conceivable and searchable But God is not only not known but impossible in his own Nature to be known and searched out and therefore impossible to have any diminution in his Nature All that which is changed arrives to something which it was not before or ceaseth in part to be what it was before He would not also be Almighty What is Omnipotent cannot be made worse for to be made worse is in part to be corrupted If he be made better he was not Almighty before something of Power was wanting to him If there should be any change it must proceed from himself or from another if from himself it would be an inability to preserve himself in the perfection of his Nature if from another he would be inferior in Strength Knowledge and Power to that which changes him either in his
is the mysterious and manifold Wisdom of God 3. The end of this Vnion 1. He was hereby fitted to be Mediator He hath something like to Man and something like to God If he were in all things only like to Man he would be at a distance from God If he were in all things only like to God he would be at a distance from Man He is a true Mediator between Mortal Sinners and the Immortal Righteous One. He was near to us by the Infirmities of our Nature and near to God by the Perfections of the Divine as near to God in his Nature as to us in ours as near to us in our Nature as he is to God in the Divine Nothing that belongs to the Deity but he possesses nothing that belongs to the Human Nature but he is clothed with He had both the Nature which had offended and that Nature which was offended a Nature to please God and a Nature to pleasure us A Nature whereby he experimentally knew the excellency of God which was injured and understood the Glory due to him and consequently the Greatness of the Offence which was to be measur'd by the Dignity of his Person And a Nature whereby he might be sensible of the Miserie 's contracted by and endure the calamities due to the Offender that he might both have Compassion on him and make due Satisfaction for him * Gomb de relig p. 42. He had two distinct Natures capable of the Affections and Sentiments of the two Persons he was to accord he was a just Judge of the Rights of the one and the demerit of the other He could not have this full and perfect Understanding if he did not possess the Perfections of the one and the Qualities of the other The one fitted him for things appertaining to God Heb. 5.1 and the other furnisht him with a sense of the Infirmities of man Heb. 4.15 2. He was hereby fitted for the working out the happiness of man A Divine Nature to communicate to man and a Human Nature to carry up to God 1. He had a Nature whereby to suffer for us and a Nature whereby to be meritorious in those Sufferings A Nature to make him capable to bear the Penalty and a Nature to make his Sufferings sufficient for all that embraced him A Nature capable to be exposed to the flames of Divine Wrath and another Nature uncapable to be crusht by the weight or consum'd by the heat of it A Human Nature to suffer and stand a Sacrifice in the stead of Man a Divine Nature to sanctifie these Sufferings and fill the Nostrils of God with a sweet savour and thereby atone his wrath The one to bear the stroak due to us and the other to add merit to his Sufferings for us Had he not been Man he could not have filled our place in suffering and could he otherwise have suffered his sufferings had not been applicable to us and had he not been God his Sufferings had not been meritoriously and fruitfully applicable Had not his Blood been the Blood of God it had been of as little advantage as the Blood of an ordinary Man or the Blood of the Legal Sacrifices †Heb. 9.12 Nothing less than God could have satisfied God for the injury done by Man Nothing less than God could have countervail'd the Torments due to the offending Creature Nothing less than God could have rescued us out of the hands of the Jaylor too powerful for us 2. He had therefore a Nature to be compassionate to us and victorious for us A Nature sensibly to compassionate us and another Nature to render those Compassions effectual for our Relief he had the Compassions of our Nature to pity us and the Patience of the Divine Nature to bear with us He hath the affections of a Man to us and the power of a God for us A Nature to disarm the Devil for us and another Nature to be sensible of the working of the Devil in us and against us If he had been only God he would not have had an experimental sense of our Misery and if he had been only Man he could not have vanquish'd our Enemies Had he been only God he could not have died and had he been only Man he could not have conquered Death 3. A Nature efficaciously to instruct us As Man he was to instruct us sensibly as God he was to instruct us infallibly A Nature whereby he might converse with us and a Nature whereby he might influence us in those Converses A Human Mouth to minister Instruction to Man and a Divine Power to imprint it with efficacy 4. A Nature to be a pattern to us A Pattern of Grâ—ce as Man as Adam was to have been to his Posterity ‖ Amyrant morals Tom. 5. p. 468 469. A Divine Nature shining in the Human the Image of the invisible God in the glass of our Flesh that he might be a perfect Copy for our Imitation Col. 1.15 The Image of the invisible God and the first-born of every Creature in conjunction The Vertues of the Deity are sweetned and tempered by the Union with the Humanity as the Beams of the Sun are by shining through a colour'd Glass which condescends more to the weakness of our eye Thus the Perfections of the invisible God breaking through the first-born of every Creature glittering in Christ's created state became more sensible for Contemplation by our Mind and more imitable for Conformity in our practise 5. A Nature to be a ground of confidence in our approach to God A Nature wherein we may behold him and wherein we may approach to him A Nature for our comfort and a Nature for our confidence Had he been only Man he had been too feeble to assure us and had he been only God he had been too high to attract us But now we are allured by his Human Nature and assured by his Divine in our drawing near to Heaven Communion with God was desired by us but our Guilt stifled our hopes and the Infinite Excellency of the Divine Nature would have dampt our hopes of speeding but since these two Natures so far distant are met in a Marriage-knot we have a ground of hope nay an earnest that the Creator and believing Creature shall meet and converse together And since our sins are expiated by the Death of the Human Nature in conjunction with the Divine our Guilt upon believing shall not hinder us from this comfortable approach Had he been only Man he could not have assured us an approach to God Had he been only God his Justice would not have admitted us to approach to him he had been too terrible for guilty Persons and too holy for polluted Persons to come near to him But by being made Man his Justice is tempered and by his being God and Man his Mercy is ensured A Human Nature he had one with us that we might be related to God as one with him 6. A Nature to
what God hath hid as to be careless of what God hath manifested Too great an inquisitiveness beyond our line is as much a provoking arrogance as a blockish negligence of what is revealed is a slighting ingratitude 2. Submit to God in his Precepts and Methods Since they are the results of Infinite Wisdom disputes against them are not tolerable What orders are given out by Infallible Wisdom are to be entertained with respect and reverence though the reason of them be not visible to our purblind minds Shall God have less respect from us than Earthly Princes whose Laws we observe without being able to pierce into the exact reason of them all Since we know he hath not a Will without an Understanding our observance of him must be without Repining we must not think to mend our Creators Laws and presume to judg and condemn his Righteous Statutes If the flesh rise up in opposition we must cross its motions and Silence its Murmurings his Will should be an acceptable Will to us because it is a wise Will in itself God hath no need to impose upon us and deceive us He hath just and righteous waies to attain his glory and his Creatures good To deceive us would be to dishonour himself and contradict his own nature He cannot impose false injurious Precepts or unavailable to his subjects happiness not false because of his Truth not injurious because of his Goodness not vain because of his Wisdom Submit therefore to him in his Precepts and in his Methods too The honour of his Wisdom and the interest of our Happiness calls for it Had Noah disputed with God about building an Ark and listned to the scoffs of the sensless World he had perished under the same fate and lost the honour of a Preacher and worker of righteousness Had not the Israelites been their own enemies if they had been permitted to be their own guides and returned to the Egyptian bondage and furnaces instead of a liberty and earthly felicity in Canaan Had our Saviour gratified the Jews by descending from the Cross and freeing himself from the power of his Adversaries he might have had that Faith from them which they promised him but It had been a faith to no purpose because without ground they might have believed him to be the Son of God but he could not have been the Saviour of the World His death the great ground and object of Faith had been unaccomplished they had believed a God pardoning without a content to his Iustice and such a Faith could not have rescued them from falling into eternal Misery The Precepts and Methods of Divine Wisdom must be submitted to 3. Submit to God in all Crosses and Revolutions Infinite Wisdom cannot err in any of his paths or step the least hairs bredth from the way of Righteousness There is the Understanding of God in every motion an Eye in every Wheel the Wheel that goes over us and crusheth us We are led by Fancy more than Reason We know no more what we ask or what is fit for us than the Mother of Zebedees children did when she Petitioned Christ for her sons advancement when he came into his Temporal Kingdom * Mat. 20.22 The things we desire might pleasure our Fancy or Appetite but impair our health One man complains for want of Children but knows not whither they may prove Comforts or Crosses Another for want of Health but knows not whither the health of his Body may not prove the disease of his Soul We migh◠lose in Heavenly things if we possess in Earthly things what we long for God in regard of his infinite Wisdom is fitter to carve out a condition than we our selves our Shallow reason and self-love would wish for those things that are injurious to God to our selves to the World but God alwaies chooses what is best for his Glory and what is best for his Creatures either in regard of themselves or as they stand in relation to him or to others as parts of the World We are in danger from our self-love in no danger in complying with Gods Wisdom When Rachel would dye if she had no Children she had Children but Death with one of them †Gen. 30.1 Good men may conclude that whatsoever is done by God in them or with them is best and fittest for them because by the Covenant which makes over God to them as their God the conduct of his Wisdom is assured to them as well as any other Attribute And therefore as God in every transaction appears as their God so he appears as their wise Director and by this Wisdom he extracts good out of evill makes the affliction which destroys our outward Comforts consume our inward Defilements And the waves which threatned to swallow up the vessel to cast it upon the shore And when he hath occasion to manifest his Anger against his People his Wisdom directs his Wrath. In Judgment he hath a work to do upon Zion and when that work is done he punishes the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria ‖ Isa 10 1◠As in the answers of Prayer he doth give oftentimes above what we ask or think Eph. 3.20 so in outward concerns he doth above what we can expect or by our short-sightedness conclude will be done Let us therefore in all things frame our minds to the Divine Wisdom and say with the Psalmist Psal 47.4 The Lord shall chuse our inheritance and condition for us 6. Exhortation Censure not God in any of his waies Can we Understand the full scope of Divine Wisdom in Creation which is perfected before our Eyes Can we by a rational knowledge walk over the whole Surface of the Earth and wade through the Sea Can we Understand the Nature of the Heavens Are all or most or the thousandth part of the particles of Divine Skil known by us yea or any of them throughly known How can we then Understand his deeper methods in things that are but of yesterday that we have not had a time to View We should not be too quick or too rash in our Judgments of him The best that we attain to is but feeble conjectures at the designs of God As there is something hid in whatsoever is revealed in his Word so there is some thing inaccessible to us in his Works as well as in his Nature and Majesty In our Saviours act in washing his Disciples feet he checkt Peters contradiction John 13.7 What I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter God were not infinitely wise if the reason of all his acts were obvious to our Shallowness He is no profound States-man whose inward intention can be sounded by vulgar Heads at the first act he starts in his designed method The wise God is in this like wisemen that have not breasts like glasses of Christal to discover all that they intend There are secrets of Wisdom above our reach * Iob 11.6 nay when
truly in it self all Power who wrought them without Engines without Instruments and therefore this Power must be infinite and possessed of an unalterable vertue of acting If it be eternal it must be infinite and hath neither beginning nor end what is eternal hath no bounds 〈◊〉 it be eternal and not limited by time it must be infinite and not to be restrain'd by any finite Object His Power never begun to be nor ever ceaseth to be it cannot languish men are fain to unbend themselves and must have some time to recruit their tyred spirits But the Power of God is perpetually vigorous without any interrupting qualm Isa 40.28 Hast thou not known hast thou not heard that the everlasting God the Lord the Creator of the ends of the Earth fainteth not neither is weary That Might which suffered no diminution from Eternity but hatcht so great a World by brooding upon nothing will not suffer any dimness or decrease to Eternity This Power being the same with his Essence is as durable as his Essence and resides for ever in his Nature 8. The Eighth Consideration for the right understanding of this Attribute The impossibility of Gods doing some things is no infringing of his Almightiness but rather a strengthning of it 'T is granted that some things God cannot do or rather as Aquinas and others 't is better to say such things cannot be done than to say that God cannot do them to remove all kind of imputation or reflection of weakness on God ‖ Robins observat p. 14. and because the reason of the impossibility of those things is in the nature of the things themselves 1. First Some things are impossible in their own nature Such are all those things which imply a Contradiction as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time for the Sun to shine and not to shine at the same moment of time for a Creature to act and not to act at the same instant One of those parts must be false for if it be true that the Sun shines this moment it must be false to say it doth not shine So it is impossible that a rational Creature can be without reason 'T is a contradiction to be a rational Creature and yet want that which is essential to a rational Creature So it is impossible that the Will of man can be compelled because Liberty is the Essence of the Will while it is Will it cannot be constrain'd and if it be constrain'd it ceaseth to be Will. * Magalano de scientiâ Dei part 2. c. 6. § 3. God cannot at one time act as the Author of the Will and the Destroyer of the Will 'T is impossible that Vice and Virtue Light and Darkness Life and Death should be the same thing Those things admit not of a Conception in any Understanding Some things are impossible to be done because of the incapability of the subject as for a Creature to be made infinite independent to preserve it self without the Divine concourse and assistance So a Brute cannot be taken into communion with God and to everlasting spiritual Blessedness because the Nature of a Brute is uncapable of such an Elevation A rational Creature only can understand and relish spiritual delights and is capable to enjoy God and have communion with him Indeed God may change the nature of a Brute and bestow such Faculties of Understanding and Will upon it as to render it capable of such a Blessedness but then 't is no more a Brute but a rational Creature but while it remains a Brute the excellency of the Nature of God doth not admit of communion with such a Subject So that this is not for want of Power in God but because of a deficiency in the Creature To suppose that God could make a Contradiction true is to make himself false and to do just nothing 2. Some things are impossible to the Nature and Being of God As to dye implies a flat repugnance to the Nature of God To be able to die is to be able to be cashierd out of being If God were able to deprive himself of life he might then cease to be He were not then a necessary but an uncertain contingent being and could not be said only to have Immortality as he is †1 Tim. 6.16 He cannot dye who is life it self and necessarily Existent He cannot grow old or decay because he cannot be measur'd by time And this is no part of Weakness but the perfection of Power His Power is that whereby he remains for ever fixed in his own everlasting being that cannot be reckoned as necessary to the Omnipotence of God which all Mankind count a part of weakness in themselves God is Omnipotent because he is not Impotent and if he could dye he would be Impotent not Omnipotent Death is the feebleness of Nature 'T is undoubtedly the greatest impotence to cease to be Who would count it a part of Omnipotency to disenable himself and sink into nothing and not being The impossibility for God to dye is not a fit Article to impeach his Omnipotence this would be a strange way of arguing a thing is not powerful because it is not feeble and cannot cease to be powerful for Death is a cessation of all Power ‖ August God is Almighty in doing what he will not in suffering what he will not To dye is not an active but a passive Power a defect of a Power God is of too noble a Nature to perish Some things are impossible to that eminency of Nature which he hath above all Creatures as to walk sleep feed these are Imperfections belonging to Bodies and compounded Natures If he could walk he were not every where present Motion speaks Succession If he could encrease he would not have been perfect before 3. Some things are impossible to the glorious perfections of God God cannot do any thing unbecoming his holiness and goodness any thing unworthy of himself and against the perfections of his Nature God can do whatsoever he can will As he doth actually do whatsoever he doth actually will so it is possible for him to do whatsoever it is possible for him to will He doth whatsoever he will and can do whatsoever he can will but he cannot do what he cannot will He cannot will any unrighteous thing and therefore cannot do any unrighteous thing God cannot love sin this is contrary to his Holiness he cannot violate his Word this is a denial of his Truth he cannot punish an Innocent this is contrary to his Goodness he cannot cherish an impenitent Sinner this is an injury to hâ—s Justice He cannot forget what is done in the World this is a disgrace to his Omniscience he cannot deceive his Creature This is contrary to his faithfulness none of these things can be done by him because of the perfection of his Nature Would it not be an imperfection in God to absolve the Guilty and condemn the Innocent Is
it congruous to the righteous and holy nature of God to command Murder and Adultery to command men not to worship him but to be base and unthankful These things would be against the Rules of Righteousness As when we say of a good Man he cannot rob or fight a Duel we do not mean that he wants a courage for such an Act or that he hath not a natural strength and knowledge to manage his Weapon as well as another but he hath a righteous Principle strong in him which will not suffer him to do it his will is setled against it No Power can pass into Act unless applied by the will But the will of God cannot will any thing but what is worthy of him and decent for his Goodness 1. The Scripture saith 't is impossible for God to lye * Hebr. 6.18 and God cannot deny himself because of his faithfulness †2 Tim. 2.13 As he cannot dye because he is life it self as he cannot deceive because he is goodness it self as he cannot do an unwise action because he is wisdom it self so he cannot speak a false word because he is truth it self If he should speak any thing as true and not know it where is his infinite Knowledge and Comprehensiveness of Understanding If he should speak any thing as true which he knows to be false where is his infinite Righteousness If he should deceive any Creature there is an end of his Perfection of Fidelity and Veracity If he should be deceiv'd himself there is an end of his Omniscience we must then fancy him to be a deceitful God an ignorant God that is no God at all ‖ Becan sum Theolog. p. â—3 If he should lye he would be God and no God God upon supposition and no God because not the first Truth All Unrighteousness is Weakness not Power 't is a Defection from right Reason a Deviation from Moral Principles and the Rule of perfect Action and ariseth from a defect of Goodness and Power 'T is a Weakness and not Omnipotence to lose Goodness * Maximus Tyrius God is Light 't is the perfection of Light not to become Darkness and a want of Power in Light if it should become Darkness His Power is infinitely strong so is his Wisdom infinitely clear and his Will infinitely pure Would it not be a part of Weakness to have a disorder in himself and these Perfections shock one against another Since all Perfections are in God in the most Soveraign height of Perfection nothing can be done by the Infiniteness of one against the Infiniteness of the other He would then be unstable in his own Perfections and depart from the infinite rectitude of his own Will if he shoul do an evil action Again †Ambrose What is an Argument of greater strength then to be utterly ignorant of Infirmity God is Omnipotent because he cannot do Evil and would not be Omnipotent if he could Those things would be Marks of Weakness and not Characters of Majesty Would you count a sweet Fountain impotent because it cannot send forth bitter Streams Or the Sun weak because it cannot diffuse Darkness as well as Light in the Air There is an inability arising from Weakness and an ability arising from Perfection 'T is the Perfection of Angels and blessed Spirits that they cannot sin And it would be the Imperfection of God if he could do Evil. 2. Hence it follows that 't is impossible that a thing past should not be past If we ascribe a Power to God to make a thing that is past not to be past we do not truly ascribe Power to him but a Weakness For it is to make God to lye As though God might not have created man yet after he had created Adam though he should presently have reduced Adam to his first nothing yet it would be for ever true that Adam was created and it would for ever be false that Adam never was created So though God may prevent sin yet when sin hath been committed it will alway be true that sin was committed It will never be true to say such a Creature that did sin did not sin his sin cannot be recalled Though God by pardon take off the Guilt of Peter's denying our Saviour yet it will be eternally true that Peter did deny him It is repugnant to the Righteousness and Truth of God to make that which was once true to become false and not true that is to make a Truth to become a Lye and a Lye to become a Truth This is well argued from Hebr. 6.18 'T is impossible for God to lye ‖ Becan sum Theol. p 84. Crel de Deo cap. 22. The Apostle argues that what God had promised and sworn will come to pass and cannot but come to pass Now if God could make a thing past not to be past this consequence would not be good for then he might make himself not to have promised not to have sworn after he hath promised and sworn And so if there were a power to undo that which is past there would be no foundation for Faith no certainty of Revelation It cannot be asserted that God hath created the World that God hath sent his Son to dye that God hath accepted his death for man These might not be true if it were possible that that which hath been done might be said never to have been done So that what any may imagine to be a want of Power in God is the highest perfection of God and the greatest security to a believing Creature that hath to do with God Fourthly Some things are impossible to be done because of God's Ordination Some things are impossible not in their own nature but in regard of the determin'd Will of God So God might have destroy'd the World after Adam's fall but it was impossible not that God wanted Power to do it but because he did not only decree from Eternity to create the World but did also decree to redeem the World by Jesus Christ and erected the World in order to the manifestation of his glory in Christ Eph. 1.4.5 The choice of some in Christ was before the foundation of the World Supposing that there was no hinderance in the Justice of God to pardon the sin of Adam after his fall and to execute no punishment on him yet in regard of Gods threatning that in the day he eat of the forbidden fruit he should dye it was impossible So though it was possible that the Cup should pass from our blessed Saviour that is possible in its own nature yet it was not possible in regard of the determination of Gods Will since he had both decreed and publisht his Will to redeem Man by the Passion and Blood of his Son These things God by his absolute Power might have done but upon the account of his decree they were impossible because it is repugnant to the Nature of God to be mutable 'T is to deny his own
Body of Man should be polisht in the lower parts of the Earth as he calls the Womb verse 15. in so short a time with Members 〈◊〉 a various form and usefulness each labouring in their several functions Can any man give an exact account of the manner how the Bones do grow in the womb Eccles 11.5 'T is unknown to the Father and no less hid from the Mother and the wisest Men cannot search out the depths of it 'T is one of the Secret works of an Omnipotent Power secret in the manner though open in the effect So that we must ascribe it to God as Job doth Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about Job 10.8 Thy hands which formed Heaven have formed every Part every Member and wrought me like a Mighty workman The Heavens are said to be the work of Gods hands and Man is here said to be no less The forming and propagation of Man from that Earthy matter is no less a wonder of Power than the structure of the World from a rude and indispos'd Matter †Trismegist in Serm. Greek in the Temple p. 57. A Heathen Philosopher descants elegantly upon it Dost thou understand my Son the forming of Man in the womb who erected that noble Fabrick who carv'd the Eyes the Christal-windows of light and the conductors of the Body who bor'd the Nostrils and Ears those Loop-holes of scents and sounds who stretched out and knit the Sinews and Ligaments for the fastning of every Member who cast the hollow Veins the Channels of Blood set and strengthned the Bones the Pillars and Rafters of the Body who digg'd the Pores the sinks to expel the filth who made the Heart the repository of the Soul and formed the Lungs like a Pipe What Mother what Father wrought these things No none but the Almighty God who made all things according to his pleasure 't is He who propagates this Noble piece from a pile of Dust Who is born by his own advice who gives stature features sence wit strength speech but God 'T is no less a wonder that a little Infant can live so long in a dark Sink in the midst of filth without breathing And the eduction of it out of the Womb is no less a wonder than the forming increase nourishment of it in that Cell A wonder that the life of the Infant is not the death of the Mother or the life of the Mother the death of the Infant This little Creature when it springs up from such small beginnings by the Power of God grows up to bâ— one of the Lords of the World to have a Dominion over the Creatures and propagates its kind in the same manner All this is unaccountable without having recourse to the Power of God in the government of the Creatures And to add to this wonder Consider also what multitudes of Formations and Births there are at one time all over the World in every of which the Finger of God is at work and it will speak an unwearied Power 'T is admirable in one Man more in a Town of Men still more in a greater and larger Kingdom a vaster World there is a Birth for every Hour in this City were but 168 born in a Week though the Weekly Bills mention more What is this City to Three Kingdoms what Three Kingdoms to a populous World Eleven Thousand and eighty will make one for every Minute in the Week what is this to the Weekly propagation in all the Nations of the Universe besides the generation of all the Living Creatures in that Space which are the works of Gods fingers as well as Man What will be the result of this but the notion of an unconceivable unwearied Almightiness alway active alway operating 3. It appears in the Motions of all Creatures All things live and move in him Acts 17.28 by the same Power that Creatures have their Beings they have their Motions They have not only a Being by his powerful Command but they have their minutely Motion by his Powerful concurrence Nothing can act without the Almighty influx of God no more than it can exist without the Creative Word of God 'T is true indeed the ordering of all Motions to his Holy ends is an act of Wisdom but the motion it self whereby those Ends are attained is a work of his Power 1. God as the first Cause hath an influence into the motions of all second Causes As all the Wheels in a Clock are moved in their different motions by the force and strength of the principal and primary Wheel if there be any defect in that or if that stand still all the rest languish and stand idle the same moment All Creatures are his Instruments his Engines and have no Spirit but what he gives and what he assists Whatsoever Nature works God works in Nature Nature is the Instrument God is the Supporter Director Mover of Nature that what the Prophet saith in another case may be the language of universal Nature Lord thou hast wrought all our works in us Isai 26.12 They are our works subjectively efficiently as second causes Gods works originally concurrently The Sun moved not in the Valley of Ajalon for the space of many hours in the time of Joshua †Josh 10.13 nor did the Fire exercise its consuming quality upon the Three Children in Nebuchadnezzars Furnace ‖ Dan. 3.25 He withdrew not his supporting Power from th ir Being for then they had vanâ—shed but his influencing Power from their qualities whereby their motion ceas'd till he return'd his influential concurrence to them which evidenceth that without a perpetual derivation of Divine Power the Sun could not run one stride or inch of its race nor the Fire devour one grain of light Chaff or an inch of Straw Nothing without his sustaining Power can continue in Being nothing without his co-working Power can exercise one mite of those qualities it is possessed of All Creatures are wound up by him and his hand is constantly upon them to keep them in perpetual motion 2. Consider the variety of motions in a single Creature How many motions are there in the Vital parts of a Man or in any other Animal which a Man knows not and is unable to number The renewed motion of the Lungs the Systoles and Diastoles of the Heart the Contractions and Dilatations of the Heart whereby it spouts out and takes in Blood the power of Concoction in the Stomach the motion of the Blood in the Veins c. all which were not only setled by the Powerful hand of God but are upheld by the same preserv'd and influenc'd in every distinct motion by that Power that stampt them with that Nature To every one of those there is not only the sustaining Power of God holding up their Natures but the motive Power of God concurring to every motion for if we move in him as well as we live in him then every particle of our motion
proper subsistence by it self which now it borrows from its union with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Word but that doth not belong to the Constitution of its Nature Now let us Consider what a wonder of Power is all this The knitting a Noble Soul to a Body of Clay was not so great an exploit of Almightiness as the espousing Infinite and Finite together Man is further distant from God than Man from Nothing What a wonder is it that two Natures infinitely distant should be more intimately united than any thing in the World and yet without any confusion That the same Person should have both a Glory and a Grief an infinite Joy in the Deity and an unexpressible Sorrow in the Humanity That a God upon a Throne should be an Infant in a Cradle the Thundering Creator be a weeping Babe and a suffering Man are such expressions of mighty Power as well as condescending Love that they astonish Men upon Earth and Angels in Heaven 3. Power was evident in the progress of his life In the Miracles he wrought How often did he expel malicious and powerful Devils from their habitations hurl them from their Thrones and make them fall from Heaven like Lightning How many Wonders were wrought by his bare Word or a single Touch Sight restored to the Blind and Hearing to the Deaf Palsie Members restored to the exercise of their functions a dismiss given to many deplorable Maladies impure Leprosies chas'd from the Persons they had infected and Bodies beginning to putrifie rais'd from the Grave But the mightiest Argument of Power was his Patience That he who was in his Divine Nature elevated above the World should so long continue upon a Dung-hill endure the contradiction of Sinners against himself be patiently subject to the Reproaches and Indignities of Men without displaying that Justice which was essential to the Deity and in especial manner daily merited by their provoking Crimes The Patience of Man under great Affronts is a greater Argument of power than the Brawnyness of his Arm A Strength employ'd in the revenge of every Injury signifies a greater infirmity in the Soul than there can be ability in the Body 4. Divine Power was apparent in his Resurrection The unlocking the belly of the Whale for the deliverance of Jonas the rescue of Daniel from the Den of Lions and the restraining the Fire from burning the Three Children were signal declarations of his Power and types of the Resurrection of our Saviour But what are those to that which was represented by them That was a power over Natural causes a curbing of Beasts and restraining of Elements But in the Resurrection of Christ God exercis'd a power over himself and quencht the flames of his own Wrath hotter than Millions of Nebuchadnezzars Furnaces unlockt the Prison doors wherein the Curses of the Law had lodg'd our Saviour stronger than the Belly and Ribbs of a Leviathan In the rescue of Daniel and Jonas God overpowered Beasts and in this tore up the strength of the Old Serpent and pluckt the Scepter from the hand of the Enemy of Mankind The Work of Resurrection indeed considered in it self requires the efficacy of an Almighty Power Neither Man nor Angel can create new dispositions in a Dead Body to render it capable of lodging a Spiritual Soul nor can they restore a dislodged Soul by their own power to such a Body The restoring a Dead Body to life requires an Infinite Power as well as the Creation of the World But there was in the Resurrection of Christ something more difficult than this while he lay in the Grave he was under the Curse of the Law under the execution of that dreadful Sentence Thou shalt die the death His Resurrection was not only the re-tying â—he Marriage knot between his Soul and Body or the rouling the Stone from the Grave but a taking off an infinite weight the Sin of Mankind which lay upon him So vast a weight could not be removed without the strength of an Almighty Arm. 'T is therefore ascrib'd not to an ordinary operation but an operation with Power †Rom. 1.4 and such a Power wherein the Glory of the Father did appear Rom. 6.4 Rais'd up from the dead by the glory of the Father that is the glorious Power of God As the Eternal Generation is stupendous so is his Resurrection which is called a new begetting of him Acts 13.33 'T is a wonder of Power that the Divine and Humane Nature should be joyn'd and no less wonder that his Person should surmount and rise up from the Curse of God under which he lay The Apostle therefore adds one expression to another and heaps up a variety signifying thereby that one was not enough to represent it Eph. 1.19 Exceeding greatness of power and working of mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead It was an hyperbole of Power the excellency of the Mightiness of his Strength the loftiness of the expressions seems to come short of the apprehension he had of it in his Soul Secondly This Power appears in the Publication and Propagation of the Doctrine of Redemption The Divine Power will appear if you consider 1. The Nature of the Doctrine 2. The Instruments employed in it 3. The Means they us'd to propagate it 4. The Success they had I. The Nature of the Doctrine 1. It was contrary to the common received reason of the World The Philosophers the Masters of Knowledge among the Gentiles had Maxims of a different stamp from it Though they agreed in the Being of a God yet their Notions of his Nature were confus'd and embroil'd with many Errors the Unity of God was not commonly assented unto They had multiplied Deities acâ—ording to the Fancies they had received from some of a more elevated Wit and refin'd Brain than others Though they had some notion of Mediators yet they placed in those Seats their publick Benefactors Men that had been useful to the World or their particular Countries in imparting to them some profitable Invention To discard those was to charge themselves with Ingratitude to them from whom they had received signal benefits and to whose Mediation Conduct or Protection they ascrib'd all the Success they had been blessed with in their several Provinces and to charge themselves with Folly for rendring an Honour and Worship to them so long Could the Doctrine of a Crucified Mediator whom they had never seen that had conquer'd no Country for them never enlarg'd their Territories brought to light no new profitable Invention for the increase of their Earthly welfare as the rest had done be thought sufficient to balance so many of their reputed Heroes How ignorant were they in the foundations of the True Religion The belief of a Providence was staggering nor had they a true prospect of the nature of Vertue and Vice Yet they had a fond Opinion of the strength of their own Reason and the Maxims that had
crucified at Jerusalem Honours and Wealth were to be despis'd Flesh to be tam'd the Cross to be borne Enemies to be loved Revenge to be satisfied Blood to be spilt and Torments to be endured for the Honour of One they never saw nor ever before heard of who was preached with the Circumstances of a shameful Death enough to affright them from the Entertainment And the Report of a Resurrection and glorious Ascension were things never heard of by them before and unknown in the World that would not easily enter into the belief of men The Cross Disgrace Self-denial were only discours'd of in order to the attainment of an invisible World and an unseen reward which none of their Predecessors ever returned to acquaint them with a Patient death contrary to the pride of Nature was publisht as the way to Happiness and a blessed Immortality The dearest Lusts were to be pierced to death for the honour of this new Lord. Other Religions brought Wealth and Honour this struck them off from such Expectations and presented them with no Promise of any thing in this Life but a prospect of Misery Except those inward Consolations to which before they had been utter Strangers and had never experimented It made them to depend not upon themselves but upon the sole Grace of God It decried all natural all moral Idolatry things as dear to men as the Apple of their Eyes It despoyl'd them of whatsoever the Mind Will and Affections of men naturally lay claim to and glory in It pulled Self up by the Roots unman'd carnal Man and debas'd the Principle of Honour and Self-satisfaction which the World counted at that time noble and brave In a word it took them off from themselves to act like Creatures of God's framing to know no more than he would admit them and do no more than he did command them How difficult must it needs be to reduce men that plac'd all their happiness in the Pleasures of this Life from their pompous Idolatry and brutish Affections to this mortifying Religion What might the World say Here is a Doctrine will render us a company of puling Animals Farewel Generosity Bravery Sense of Honour Courage in enlarging the Bounds of our Country for an ardent Charity to the bitterest of our Enemies Here 's a Religion will rust our Swords Canker our Arms dispirit what we have hitherto called Vertue and annihilate what hath been esteem'd worthy and comely among Mankind Must we change Conquest for Suffering the increase of our Reputation for Self-denial the natural Sentiment of Self-preservation for affecting a dreadful Death How impossible was it that a Crucified Lord and a Crucifying Doctrine should be received in the World without the mighty Operation of a Divine Power upon the Hearts of Men And in this also the Almighty Power of God did notably shine forth II. Divine Power appear'd in the Instruments employ'd for the publishing and propagating the Gospel Who were 1. Mean and worthless in themselves Not noble and dignified with an earthly Grandeur but of a low Condition meanly bred So far from any splendid Estates that they possessed nothing but their Nets without any Credit and Reputation in the World without Comliness and Strength as unfit to subdue the World by Preaching as an Army of Hares were to conquer it by War Not learned Doctors bred up at the feet of the Famous Rabbins at Jerusalem whom Paul calls the Princes of the World * 1 Cor. 2.8 nor nurs'd up in the School of Athens under the Philosophers and Orators of the time Not the Wise-men of Greece but the Fishermen of Galilee naturally skill'd in no Language but their own and no more exact in that than those of the same Condition in any other Nation Ignorant of every thing but the Language of their Lakes and their fishing Trade except Paul call'd sometime after the rest to that Imployment And after the descent of the Spirit they were ignorant and unlearned in every thing but the Doctrine they were commanded to publish for the Council before whom they were summon'd prov'd them to be so which increased their wonder at them Acts 4.13 Had it been publish't by a Voice from Heaven That Twelve poor men taken out of Boats and Creeks without any help of Learning should conquer the World to the Cross it might have been thought an Illusion against all the Reason of Men yet we know it was undertaken and accomplish't by them They publish't this Doctrine in Jerusalem and quickly spread it over the greatest part of the World Folly outwitted Wisdom and Weakness over-powred Strength The Conquest of the East by Alexander was not so admirable as the Enterprise of these poor men He attempted his Conquest with the hands of a Warlike Nation though indeed but a small number of Thirty thousand against Multitudes many Hundred thousands of the Enemies yet an Effeminate Enemy a People inur'd to Slaughter and Victory attack'd great Numbers but enfeebled by Luxury and Voluptuousness Besides he was bred up to such Enterprizes had a learned Education under the best Philosopher and a Military Education under the best Commander and a natural Courage to animate him These Instruments had no such advantage from Nature the Heavenly Treasure was placed in those Earthen Vessels as Gideons Lamps in empty Pitchers Judges 7.16 that the excellency or Hyperbole of the Power might be of God 2 Cor. 4.7 and the strength of his Arm be display'd in the infirmity of the Instruments They were destitute of earthly Wisdom and therefore despis'd by the Jews and derided by the Gentiles the Publishers were accounted Mad men and the embracers Fools Had they been Men of known natural Endowments the Power of God had been vail'd under the Gifts of the Creature 2. Therefore a Divine Power suddenly spirited them and fitted them for so great a Work Instead of Ignorance they had the knowledge of the Tongues and they that were scarce well skill'd in their own Dialect were instructed on the sudden to speak the most flourishing Languages of the World and Discourse to the People of several Nations the great things of God †Acts 2.11 Though they were not enricht with any Worldly wealth and possessed nothing yet they were so sustained that they wanted nothing in any place where they came a Table was spread for them in the midst of their bitterest Enemies Their Fearfulness was chang'd into Courage and they that a few days before skulk'd in Corners for fear of the Jews ‖ John 20.19 speak boldly in the Name of that Jesus whom they had seen put to death by the Power of the Rulers and the Fury of the People They reproach them with the Murder of their Master and out-brave that great People in the midst of their Temple with the glory of that Person they had so lately Crucified * Acts 2.23 Acts 3.13 Peter that was not long before qualm'd at the presence of a Maid was not daunted
God is able to make him to stand Rom. 14.4 5. From this Attribute of the Infinite Power of God we have a ground of comfort in the lowest estate of the Church Let the state of the Church be never so deplorable the condition never so desperate that Power that created the World and shall raise the Bodies of men can create a happy state for the Church and raise her from an overwhelming Grave Though the Enemies trample upon her they cannot upon the Arm that holds her which by the least motion of it can lift her up above the heads of her Adversaries and make them feel the thunder of that Power that none can understand By the blast of God they perish and by the breath of his nostrils they are consumed Job 4.9 they shall be scattered as Chaff before the wind If once he draw his hand out of his bosom all must fly before him or sink under him * Psal 74.11 And when there is none to help his own Arm sustains him and brings salvation †Isa 63.5 and his fury doth uphold him What if the Church totter under the underminings of Hell What if it hath a sad heart and wet eyes In what a little moment can he make the night turn into day and make the Jews that were preparing for death in Shushan triumph over the necks of their Enemies and march in one hour with Swords in their hands that expected the last hour ropes about their necks Esth 9.1.5 If Israel be pursued by Pharoah the Sea shall open its arms to protect them If they be thirsty a Rock shall spout out Water to refresh them If they be hungry Heaven shall be their Granary for Manna If Jerusalem be besieg'd and hath not Force enough to encounter Senacherib an Angel shall turn the Camp into an Aceldema a Field of Blood His People shall not want deliverances till God want a power of working Miracles for their security He is more jealous of his Power than the Church can be of her Safety And if we should want other Arguments to press him we may implore him by virtue of his Power For when there is nothing in the Church as a Motive to him to save it there is enough in his own Name and the illustration of his Power Psal 106.8 Who can grapple with the Omnipotency of that God who is jealous of and zealous for the honour of it And therefore God for the most part takes such opportunities to deliver wherein his Almightiness may be most conspicuous and his Counsels most admirable He awakened not himself to deliver Israel till they were upon the brink of the Red Sea nor to rescue the three Children till they were in the fiery Furnace nor Daniel till he was in the Lions Den. 'T is in the weakness of his Creature that his strength is perfected not in a way of addition of perfectness to it but in a way of manifestation of the perfection of it As it is the perfection of the Sun to shine and enlighten the World not that the Sun receives an increase of light by the darting of his Beams but discovers his Glory to the admiration of Men and pleasure of the World If it were not for such occasions the World would not regard the Mightiness of God nor know what Power were in him It traverses the Stage in its fulness and liveliness upon such occasions when the Enemies are strong and their strength edg'd with an intense hatred and but little time between the contrivance and execution 'T is a great comfort that the lowest Distresses of the Church are a fit Scene for the discovery of this Attribute and that the Glory of God's Omnipotence and the Churches Security are so straitly link't together 'T is a promise that will never be forgotten by God and ought never to be forgotten by us that in this Mountain the hand of the Lord shall rest ‖ Isa 25.10 that is the Power of the Lord shall abide and Moab shall be trodden under him even as Straw is trodden down for the Dunghill And the Plagues of Babylon shall come in one day death and mourning and famine for strong is the Lord who judges her Rev. 18.8 Use III The Third Vse is for Exhortation 1. Meditate on this Power of God and press it often upon your Minds We conclude many things of God that we do not practically suck the comfort of for want of deep thoughts of it and frequent inspection into it We believe God to be true yet distrust him we acknowledge him powerful yet fear the motion of every straw Many Truths though assented to in our Understandings are kept under hatches by corrupt Affections and have not their due influence because they are not brought forth into the open air of our Souls by meditation If we will but search our hearts we shall find it is the Power of God we often doubt of When the heart of Ahaz and his Subjects trembled at the Combination of the Syrian and Israelitish Kings against him for want of a confidence in the Power of God God sends his Prophet with Commission to work a miraculous sign at his own choice to rear up his fainting heart and when he refus'd to ask a sign out of diffidence of that Almighty Power the Prophet complains of it as an affront to his Master * Isa 7.12 13. Moses so great a Friend of God was overtaken with this kind of unbelief after all the Experiments of God's miraculous Acts in Egypt the Answer God gives him manifests this to be at the Core Is the Lord's hand waxed short Numb 11.23 For want of actuated thoughts of this we are many times turned from our known duty by the blast of a Creature as though man had more power to dismay us than God hath to support us in his commanded way The belief of God's Power is one of the first steps to all Religion without settled thoughts of it we cannot pray lively and believingly for the obtaining the Mercies we want or the averting the Evils we fear we should not love him unless we are persuaded he hath a Power to bless us nor fear him unless we were perswaded of his Power to punish us The frequent thoughts of this would render our Faith more stable and our Hopes more stedfast it would make us more feeble to sin and more careful to obey When the Virgin stagger'd at the Message of the Angel that she should bear a Son he in his Answer turns her to the Creative power of God Luke 1.35 The Power of the highest shall over-shadow thee Which seems to be in allusion to the Spirits moving upon the face of the Deep and bringing a comely World out of a confus'd Mass Is it harder for God to make a Virgin conceive a Son by the power of his Spirit than to make a World Why doth he reveal himself so often under the title of Almighty and press it upon us but
and Evil set in the midst of the Garden of Eden had no violent influence on man to force him to eat of it his liberty to eat of it or not was reserved intire to himself no such Charge can be brought against any Object whatsoever If a man meet accidentally at a Table with Meat that is grateful to his Palate but hurtful to the present temper of his Body doth the presenting this sort of Food to him strip him of his liberty to decline it as well as to feed of it Can the Food have any internal influence upon his will and lay the freedom of it asleep whether he will or no Is there any Charm in that more than in other sorts of Diet No but it is the habit of love which he hath to that particular Dish the curiosity of his Fancy and the strength of his own Appetite whereby he is brought into a kind of slavery to that particular Meat and not any thing in the food it self When the word is proposed to two persons 't is embrac'd by the one rejected by the other is it from the word it self which is the Object that these two persons perform different acts The Object is the same to both but the manner of acting about the Object is not the same Is there any invasion of their liberty by it Is the one forced by the word to receive it and the other forced by the word to reject it Two such contrary effects cannot proceed from one and the same Cause Outward things have only an objective influence not an inward †Amyral de libero arbit p. 224. If the meer proposal of things did suspend or strike down the liberty of Man no Angels in Heaven no Man upon Earth no not our Saviour himself could do any thing freely but by force Objects that are ill used are of God's Creation and though they have allurements in them yet they have no compulsive power over the will The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was pleasing to the sight it had a quality to allure there had not else needed a Prohibition to bar the eating of it but it could not have so much power to allure as the Divine threatning to deter 2. The Objects are good in themselves but the ill use of them is from mans corruption Bathsheba was by God's Providence presented to David's sight but it was Davids disposition moved him to so evil an act What if God knew that he would use that Object ill yet he knew he had given him a power to refrain from any ill use of it The Objects are innocent but our Corruption poisons them The same Object hath been used by one to holy purposes and holy improvements that hath been used by another to sinful ends when a charitable Object is presented to a good man and a cruel man one relieves him the other reviles him The Object was rather an occasion to draw out the Charity of one as well as the other but the refusing to reach out a helping hand was not from the person in Calamity but the disposition of the Refuser to whom he was presented 'T is not from the nature of the Object that men do good or evil but from the disposition of the person what is good in it self is made bad by our Corruption As the same Meat which nourishes and strengthens a sound Constitution cherisheth the Disease of another that eats at the same Table not from any unwholsom quality in the Food but the vitious quality of the humours lodging in the Stomach which turn the Diet into fuel for themselves which in its own nature was apt to engender a wholsom juyce Some are perfected by the same things whereby others are ruin'd Riches are used by some not only for their own but the advantage of others in the World by others only for themselves and scarcely so much as their necessities require Is this the fault of the wealth or the dispositions of the Persons who are covetous instead of being Generous 'T is a Calumny therefore upon God to charge him with the sin of man upon this account The rain that drops from the Clouds upon the Plants is sweet in it self but when it moystens the root of any venomous Plant 't is turn'd into the juyce of the Plant and becomes venomous with it The Miracles that our Saviour wrought were applauded by some and envied by the Pharisees the sin arose not from the nature of the Miracles but the Malice of their spirits The Miracles were sitter in their own nature to have induced them to an adoration of our Saviour than to excite so vile a Passion against one that had so many marks from Heaven to dignifie him and proclaim him worthy of their respect The Person of Christ was an Object proposed to the Jews some worship him others condemn and crucifie him and according to their several Vices and base ends they use this object Judas to content his Covetousness the Pharisees to glut their Revenge Pilate for his Ambition to preserve himself in his Government and avoid the Articles the People might charge him with of Countenancing an Enemy to Caesar * Amyrald Ironic p. 337. God at that time put into their minds a rational and true Proposition which they apply to ill purposes Caiphas said that it was expedient for one man to dye for the people which he spake not of himself Joh. 11.50 51. God put it into his mind but he might have applied it better than he did and considered though the Maxim was commendable whether it might justly be applied to Christ or whether there was such a necessity that he must dye or the Nation be destroy'd by the Romans The Maxim was sound and holy decreed by God but what an ill use did the High Priest make of it to put Christ to death as a seditious Person to save the Nation from the Roman Fury 3. Since the natural Corruption of men will use such Objects ill may not God without tainting himself present such Objects to them in subserviency to his gracious Decrees Whatsoever God should present to men in that state they would make an ill use of hath not God then the Soveraign Prerogative to present what he pleases and suppress others To offer that to them which may serve his holy purpose and hide other things from them which are not so conducing to his gracious ends which would be as much the occasions of exciting their sin as the others which he doth bring forth to their view The Jews at the time of Christ were of a turbulent and seditious humour they expected a Messiah a Temporal King and would readily have embraced any occasion to have been up in arms to have delivered themselves from the Roman yoke to this purpose the People attempted once to make him King And probably the expectation they had that he had such a Design to Head them might be one reason of their
God is then considered in a disposition contrary to this which can be nothing but his Righteousness If you that are unholy and have so much Corruption in you to render you cruel can bestow upon your Children the good things they want how much more shall God who is holy and hath nothing in him to check his mercifulness to his Creatures grant the Petitions of his Suppliants 'T was this Attribute edg'd the siduciary importunity of the Souls under the Altar for the revenging their blood unjustly shed upon the Earth Rev. 6.10 How long O Lord holy and true dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the Earth Let not thy holiness stand with folded Arms as careless of the eminent Sufferings of those that fear thee we implore thee by the holiness of thy Nature and the truth of thy Word 2. This renders him fit to be confided in for the comfort of our Souls in a broken condition The reviving the hearts of the spiritually afflicted is a part of the holiness of his Nature Isa 57.15 Thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity whose name is holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble He acknowledgeth himself the lofty One they might therefore fear he would not revive them but he is also the holy One and therefore he will refresh them he is not more lofty than he is holy besides the argument of the immutability of his Promise and the might of his Power here is the holiness of his Nature moving him to pity his drooping Creature His Promise is usher'd in with the name of power high and lofty One to bar their distrust of his strength and with a declaration of his holiness to check any despair of his Will There is no ground to think I should be false to my word or misemploy my Power since that cannot be because of the holiness of my Name and Nature 3. This renders him fit to be confided in for the maintenance of grace and protection of us against our spiritual Enemies What our Saviour thought an argument in Prayer we may well take as a ground of our confidence In the strength of this he puts up his sute when in his mediatory Capacity he intercedes for the preservation of his People John 17.11 Holy Father keep through thy own Name those that thou hast given me that they may be one as we are Holy Father not merciful Father or powerful or wise Father but holy and Verse 25. righteous Father Christ pleads that Attribute for the performance of God's Word which was laid to pawn when he past his word For it was by his Holiness that he swore That his seed should endure for ever and his Throne as the Sun before him †Psal 89.36 which is meant of the perpetuity of the Covenant which he made with Christ and is also meant of the preservation of the mystical Seed of David and the perpetuating his loving kindness to them ‖ Vers 32 33. Grace is an Image of God's holiness and therefore the holiness of God is most proper to be used as an Argument to interest and engage him in the preservation of it In the midst of Church provocations he will not utterly extinguish because he is the holy One in the midst of her * Hos 11.9 Nor in the midst of Judgments will he condemn his people to death because he is their holy one †Hab. 1.12 but their Enemies shall be ordained for Judgment and established for Correction One Prophet assures them in the Name of the Lord upon the strength of this Perfection and the other upon the same ground is confident of the protection of the Church because of Gods holiness engag'd in an inviolable Covenant 3. Comfort Since holiness is a glorious Perfection of the Nature of God he will certainly value every holy Soul 'T is of a greater value with him than the Souls of all men in the World that are destitute of it Wicked men are the worst of vilenesses meer dross and dunghil ‖ Psal 12.8 The vilest mâ—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Purity then which is contrary to wickedness must be the most precious thing in his esteem he must needs love that quality which he is most pleas'd with in himself as a father looks with most delight upon the child which is possess'd with those dispositions he most values in his own nature His Countenance doth behold the upright Ps 11.7 He looks upon them with a full and open Face of favour with a countenance clear unmaskt and smiling with a Face full of delight Heaven it self is not such a pleasing Object to him as the Image of his own increated holiness in the created holiness of Men and Angels As a man esteems that most which is most like him of his own Generation more than a piece of Art which is meerly the product of his wit or strength And he must love holiness in the Creature he would not else love his own Image and consequently would undervalue himself He despiseth the Image the wicked bears * Psal 73.20 but he cannot disesteem his own stamp on the godly he cannot but delight in his own work his choice work the Master-piece of all his works the new Creation of things that which is next to himself as being a Divine Nature like himself †2 Pet. 1.4 When he overlooks strength parts knowledge he cannot overlook this He sets apart him that is godly for himself Psal 4.3 as a peculiar Object to take pleasure in he reserves such for his own complacency when he leaves the rest of the World to the Devils power he is choice of them above all his other works and will not let any have so great a propriety in them as himself If it be so dear to him here in its imperfect and mixt condition that he appropriates it as a peculiar Object for his own delight how much more will the unspotted purity of glorified Saints be infinitely pleasing to him So that he will take less pleasure in the material Heavens than in such a Soul Sin only is detestable to God and when this is done away the Soul becomes as lovely in his account as before it was loathsome 4. 'T is comfort upon this account That God will perfect holiness in every upright Soul We many times distrust God and despond in our selves because of the infinite holiness of the Divine Nature and the dunghil Corruptions in our own but the holiness of God engageth him to the preservation of it and consequently to the perfection of it as appears by our Saviour's Argument Joh. 17.11 Holy Father keep through thy own name those whom thou hast given me to what end that they may be one as we are one with us in the resemblances of Purity And the holiness of the Soul is used as an Argument by
or Wisdom to have let Man perpetually wallow in that Sink wherein he had plung'd himself since he was Criminal by his own will and therefore Miserable by his own fault Nothing could necessitate this Reparation If Divine Goodness could not be obliged by the Angelical Dignity to repair that Nature he is further from any Obligation by the meaness of Man to repair Humane Nature There was less necessity to restore Man than to restore the fallen Angels What could Man do to oblige God to a Reparation of him since he could not render him a Recompence for his Goodness manifested in his Creation He must be much more impotent to render him a Debtor for the Redemption of him from Misery Could it be a salary for any thing we had done Alass we are so far from Meriting it that by our daily Demerits we seem ambitious to put a stop to any further Effusions of it We could not have complain'd of him if he had left us in the Misery we had courted since he was bound by no Law to bestow upon us the Recovery we wanted When the Apostle speaks of the Gospel of Redemption he giveth it the Title of the Gospel of the Blessed God †2 Tim. 1.11 It was the Gospel of a God abounding in his own Blessedness which receiv'd no addition by Mans Redemption If he had been blessed by it it had been a goodness to himself as well as to the Creature It was not an Indigent Goodness needing the receiving any thing from us but it was a pure Goodness streaming out of it self without bringing any thing into it self for the Perfection of it There was no Goodness in us to be the Motive of his Love but his Goodness was the Fountain of our Benefit 3. It was a distinct Goodness of the whole Trinity In the Creation of Man we find a general Consultation * Gen. 1.26 without those distinct Labours and Offices of each Person and without those rais'd Expressions and Marks of Joy and Triumph as at Mans Restoration In this there are distinct Functions The Grace of the Father the Merit of the Son and the Efficacy of the Spirit The Father makes the Promise of Redemption the Son Seals it with his Blood and the Spirit applies it The Father Adopts us to be his Children the Son Redeems us to be his Members and the Spirit Renews us to be his Temples In this the Father testifies himself well pleased in a Voice The Son proclaims his own delight to do the will of God and the Spirit hastens with the Wing of a Dove to fit him for his work And afterwards in his apparition in the likeness of Fiery Tongues manifests his zeal for the propagation of the Redeeming Gospel 4. The Effects of it proclaim his great Goodness 'T is by this we are deliver'd from the Corruption of our Nature the Ruine of our Happiness the deformity of our Sins and the punishment of our Transgressions He frees us from the Ignorance wherewith we were darkned and from the Slavery wherein we were fetter'd When he came to make Adams Process after his Crime instead of pronouncing the Sentence of Death he had merited he utters a Promise that Man could not have expected His Kindness swells above his provoked Justice and while he chaseth him out of Paradise he gives him hopes of regaining the same or a better Habitation and is in the whole more ready to prevent him with the Blessings of his Goodness than charge him with the horrour of his Crimes †Gen. 3.17 'T is a Goodness that pardons us more Transgressions than there are Moments in our Lives and overlooks as many Follies as there are Thoughts in our Heart He doth not only relieve our wants but restores us to our Dignity 'T is a greater Testimony of Goodness to instate a Person in the highest Honour than barely to supply his present Necessity 'T is an admirable Pity whereby he was inclin'd to Redeem us and an incomparable Affection whereby he was resolv'd to exalt us What can be desir'd more of him than his Goodness hath granted He hath sought us out when we were lost and Ransom'd us when we were Captives He hath Pardon'd us when we were Condemn'd and rais'd us when we were Dead In Creation he rear'd us from nothing in Redemption he delivers our Understanding from ignorance and vanity and our Wills from impotence and obstinacy and our whole Man from a Death worse than that nothing he drew us from by Creation 5. Hence we may consider the height of this Goodness in Redemption to exceed that in Creation He gave Man a Being in Creation but did not draw him from unexpressible Misery by that act His Liberality in the Gospel doth infinitely surpass what we admire in the Works of Nature His Goodness in the latter is more astonishing to our belief than his Goodness in Creation is visible to our Eye There is more of his Bounty exprest in that one Verse * Joh. 3.16 So God loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son than there is in the whole Volume of the World 'T is an incomprehensible so a so that all the Angels in Heaven cannot Analyze and few Comment upon or understand the dimensions of this so In Creation he form'd an Innocent Creature of the Dust of the Ground in Redemption he restores a Rebellious Creature by the Blood of his Son It is greater than that Goodness manifested in Creation 1. In regard of the difficulty of effecting it In Creation meer nothing was vanquisht to bring us into Being In Redemption sullen Enmity was conquer'd for the enjoyment of our Restoration In Creation he subdued a Nullity to make us Creatures In Redemption his Goodness overcomes his Omnipotent Justice to restore us to Felicity A word from the Mouth of Goodness inspir'd the Dust of Mens Bodies with a living Soul but the Blood of his Son must be shed and the Laws of Natural Affection seem to be overturn'd to lay the Foundation of our renew'd Happiness In the first Heaven did but speak and the Earth was form'd In the second Heaven it self must sink to Earth and be clothed with dusty Earth to reduce Mans Dust to its Original State 2. This Goodness is greater than that manifested in Creation in regard of its Cost This was a more expensive Goodness than what was laid out in Creation The redemption of one Soul is pretious †Psal 49.8 much more costly than the whole Fabrick of the World or as many Worlds as the understandings of Angels in their utmost extent can conceive to be Created For the effecting of this God parts with his dearest Treasure and his Son Eclipses his choicest Glory For this God must be made Man Eternity must suffer Death the Lord of Angels must weep in a Cradle and the Creator of the World must hang like a Slave he must be in a Manger in Bethlehem and die upon a Cross on
he be a Fountain and Sea of Goodness he cannot be weary of doing good no more than a Fountain or Sea are of flowing All goodness delights to communicate it self Infinite goodness hath then an infinite delight in expressing it self 't is a part of his goodness not to be weary of shewing it He can never then be weary of being sollicited for the effusions of it If he rejoyces over his People to do them good he will rejoyce in any opportunities offer'd to him to honour his Goodness and gladly meet with a fit Subject for it He therefore delights in Prayer Never can we so delight in addressing as he doth in imparting He delights more in our Prayers than we can our selves Goodness is not pleased with shyness To what purpose did his immense Bounty bestow his Son upon us but that we should be accepted both in our Persons and Petitions * Eph. 1.6 †Psal 34.15 His Eyes are upon the Righteous and his Ears are open to their Cry He fixes the Eye of his Goodness upon them and opens the Ears of his Goodness for them He is pleased to behold them and pleased to listen to them as if he had no pleasure in any thing else He loves to be sought to to give a vent to his Bounty * Job 22.21 Acquaint thy self with God and thereby good shall come unto thee The word signifies to accustom our selves to God The more we accustom our selves in speaking the more he will accustom himself in giving He loves not to keep his Goodness close under lock and key as Men do their Treasures * Matth. 7.7 If we knock he opens his Exchequer His Goodness is as flexible to our importunities as his Power is invincible by the Arm of a silly Worm He thinks his Liberality Honour'd by being apply'd to and your Address to be a Recompense for his Expence There is no reason to fear since he hath so kindly invited us but he will as heartily welcome us The Nature of Goodness is to compassionate and communicate to pity and relieve and that with a heartiness and chearfulness Man is weary of being often sollicited because he hath a finite not a bottomless goodness He gives sometimes to be rid of his Suppliant not to encourage him to a second approach But every Experience God gives us of his Bounty is a Motive to sollicit him afresh and a kind of Obligation he hath laid upon himself to renew it * 1 Sam. 17.37 'T is one part of his goodness that it is boundless and bottomless We need not fear the wasting of it nor any weariness in him to bestow it The Stock cannot be spent and infinite Kindness can never become niggardly When we have enjoyed it there is still an infinite Ocean in him to refresh us and as full Streams as ever to supply us What an encouragement have we to draw near to God We run in our straights to those that we think have most good will as well as power to relieve and protect us The oftner we come to him and the nearer we approach to him the more of his influences we shall feel As the nearer the Sun the more of its heat insinuates it self into us The greatness of God joyned with his goodness hath more reason to encourage our approach to him than our flight from him because his greatness never goes unattended with his goodness and if he were not so good he would not be so great in the apprehensions of any Creature How may his goodness in the great gift of his Son encourage us to apply to him since he hath set him as a days-Man between himself and us and appointed him an Advocate to present our Requests for us and speed them at the Throne of Grace and he never leaves till Divine Goodness subscribes a Fiat to our believing and just Petitions 2. Here is Comfort in Afflictions What can we fear from the conduct of infinite Goodness Can his hand be heavy upon those that are humble before him They are the hands of infinite Power indeed but there is not any motion of it upon his People but is order'd by a Goodness as infinite as his Power which will not suffer any Affliction to be too sharp or too long By what ways soever he conveys Grace to us here and prepares us for glory hereafter they are good and those are the good things he hath chiefly obliged himself to give * Psal 84.11 Grace and glory will he give and no good thing will he with-hold from them that walk uprightly This David comforted himself with in that which his devout Soul accounted the greatest Calamity his absence from the Courts and House of God Verse 2. Not an ill will but a good will directs his Scourges He is not an idle Spectator of our Combats His thoughts are fuller of kindness than ours in any case can be of trouble And because he is good he wills the best good in every thing he acts in Exercising Vertue or Correcting Vice There is no Affliction without some apparent mixtures of goodness When he speaks how he had smitten Israel * Jer. 2.30 He presently adds †Verse 31. Have I been a Wilderness to Israel a Land of darkness Though he led them through a Desert yet he was not a desert to them He was no Land of darkness to them While they marched through a Land of barrenness he was a Caterer to provide them Manna and a place of broad Rivers and Streams How often hath Divine Goodness made our Afflictions our Consolations Our Diseases our Medicines and his gentle Strokes reviving Cordials How doth he provide for us above our deserts even while he doth punish us beneath our Merits Divine Goodness can no more mean ill than Divine Wisdom can be mistaken in its End or Divine Power over-rul'd in its Actions Charity thinks no evil * 1 Cor. 13.5 Charity in the Stream doth not much less doth Charity in the Fountain To be afflicted by a hand of Goodness hath something comfortable in it when to be afflicted by an Evil hand is very odious Elijah who was loth to die by the hand of a Whorish Idolatrous Jezabel was very desirous to die by the hand of God * 1 Kings 19.2 3 4. He accounted it a misery to have died by her hand who hated him and had nothing but Cruelty and therefore fled from her when he wished for death as a desirable thing by the hand of that God who had been good to him and could not but be good in whatsoever he acted 3. The third Comfort flowing from this Doctrine of the Goodness of God is 'T is a ground of assurance of Happiness If God be so good that nothing is better and loves himself as he is good he cannot be wanting in love to those that resemble his Nature and imitate his Goodness He cannot but love his own Image of goodness where ever he finds
Why did he give Grace to Abel and not to Cain since they both lay in the same womb and equally deriv'd from their Parents a taint in their Nature But that he would show a standing example of his Soveraignty to the future ages of the World in the first posterity of man Why did he give Grace to Abraham and separate him from his Idolatrous Kindred to dignifie him to be the root of the Messiah Why did he confine his promise to Isaac and not extend it to Ishmael the Seed of the same Abraham by Hagar or to the Children he had by Keturah after Sarahs death What reason can be alledged for this but his Soveraign Will Why did he not give the fallen Angels a moment of Repentance after their sin but condemned them to irrevocable pains Is it not as free for him to give Grace to whom he please as Create what Worlds he please to form this corrupted clay into his own Image as to take such a parcel of dust from all the rest of the Creation whereof to compact Adam's body Hath he not as much jurisdiction over the sinful mass of his Creatures in a new Creation as he had over the Chaos in the old And what reason can be rendered of his advancing this part of matter to the nobler dignity of a Star and leaving that other part to make up the dark body of the Earth To compact one part into a glorious Sun and another part into a hard Rock but his Royal Prerogative What is the reason a Prince subjects one Malefactor to punishment and lifts up another to a place of truth and profit That Pharoah honoured the Butler with an attendance on his Person and remitted the Baker to the hands of the Executioner It was his pleasure And is not as great a right due to God as is allow'd to the worms of the Earth What is the reason he hardens a Pharoah by a denying him that Grace which should mollifie him and allows it to another 'T is because he will Rom. 9.18 Whom he will he hardens Hath not man the liberty to pull up the sluce and let the water run into what part of the ground he pleases What is the reason some have not a heart to understand the beauty of his ways Because the Lord doth not give it them Deut. 29.4 Why doth he not give all his converts an equal measure of his sanctifying Grace some have Mites and some have Treasures Why doth he give his Grace to some sooner to some later some are inspir'd in their infancy others not till a full age and after some not till they have fallen into some gross sin as Paul some betimes that they may do him service others later as the Thief upon the Cross and presently snatcheth them out of the World Some are weaker some stronger in nature some more beautiful and lovely others more uncomely and sluggish 'T is so in supernaturals What reason is there for this but his own will This is instead of all that can be assigned on the part of God He is the free disposer of his own Goods and as a Father may give a greater portion to one Child than to another And what reason of complaint is there against God may not a Toad complain that God did not make it a man and give it a portion of reason Or a Fly complain that God did not make it an Angel and give it a Garment of Light had they but any spark of understanding as well as man complain that God did not give him Grace as well as another Unless he sincerely desir'd it and then was denyed it he might complain of God though not as Soveraign yet as a promiser of Grace to them that ask it God doth not render his Soveraignty formidable he shuts not up his Throne of Grace from any that seek him he invites man his Arms are open and the Scepter stretched out and no man continues under the arrest of his Lusts but he that is unwilling to be otherwise and such a one hath no reason to complain of God 3. His Soveraignty is manifest in disposing the means of Grace to some not to all He hath caus'd the Sun to shine bright in one place while he hath left others benighted and deluded by the Devils Oracles Why do the Evangelical dews fall in this or that place and not in another Why was the Gospel publisht in Rome so soon and not in Tartary Why hath it been extinguisht in some places as soon almost as it had been kindled in them Why hath one place been honoured with the beams of it in one age and been covered with darkness the next One Country hath been made a sphear for this Star that directs to Christ to move in and afterwards it hath been taken away and placed in another Sometimes more clearly it hath shone sometimes more darkly in the same place what is the reason of this 'T is true something of it may be referred to the Justice of God but much more to the Soveraignty of God That the Gospel is publisht latter and not sooner the Apostle tell us is according to the Commandement of the Everlasting God Rom. 16.26 1. The means of Grace after the Families from Adam became distinct were never granted to all the World After that fatal breach in Adam's Family by the death of Abel and Cain's separation we read not of the means of Grace continued among Cain's Posterity it seems to be continued in Adam's sole Family and not publisht in Societies till the time of Seth. Gen. 4.26 Then began men to call upon the Name of the Lord. It was continued in that Family till the Deluge which was 1523 years after the Creation according to some or 1656 years according to others After that when the World degenerated it was communicated to Abraham and setled in the posterity that descended from Jacob Though he left not the World without a witness of himself and some sprinklings of revelations in other parts as appears by the book of Job and the discourses of his Friends 2. The Jews had this priviledge granted them above other Nations to have a clearer Revelation of God God separated them from all the World to honour them with the depositum of his Oracles Rom. 3.2 To them were committed the Oracles of God In which regard all other Nations are said to be without God as being destitute of so great a priviledge Eph. 2.12 The Spirit blew in Canaan when the Lands about it felt not the saving breath of it He hath not dealt so with any Nation and as for his Judgments they have not known them Psal 147.20 The rest had no warnings from the Prophets no dictates from Heaven but what they had by the light of Nature the view of the works of Creation and the Administration of Providence and what remain'd among them of some ancient Traditions deriv'd from Noah which in tract of time were much defaced We read but
and he is punctually obeyed by them as a Soveraign Lord. All Creatures stand ready for his call and are prepared to be Executioners of his vengeance when he speaks the word they are his Hosts by Creation and in array for his service at the sound of his Trumpet or beat of his Drum they troop together with their Arms in their hands to put his Orders exactly in execution 6. The Dominion of God is manifest in appointing to every man his calling and station in the World If the hairs of every mans head fall under his Soveraign care the Calling of every man wherein he is to glorifie God and serve his Generation which is of a greater concern than the hairs of the head falls under his Dominion He is the Master of the great Family and divides to every one his work as he pleaseth The whole work of the Messiah the time of every action as well as the hour of his Passion was ordered and appointed by God The separation of Paul to the Preaching of the Gospel was by the Soveraign disposal of God Rom. 1.1 By the same exercise of his Authority that he sets every man the bounds of his habitation Acts 17.26 he prescribes also to him the nature of his work He that ordered Adam the Father of mankind his work and the place of it the dressing the Garden Gen. 2.15 doth not let any of his posterity be their own choosers without an influence of his Soveraign direction on them Though our Callings are our work yet they are by Gods order wherein we are to be faithful to our great Master and Ruler 7. The Dominion of God is manifest in the means and occasions of mens Conversion Sometimes one occasion sometimes another one word lets a man go another arrests him and brings him before God and his own Conscience 't is as God gives out the order He lets Paul be a Prisoner at Jerusalem that his cause should not be determined there moves him to appeal to Caesar not only to make him a Prisoner but a Preacher in Caesars Court and render his chains an occasion to bring in a Harvest of Converts in Nero's Palace 1 Phil. 12.13 His bonds in or for Christ are manifest in all the Palace not the bare knowledge of his bonds but the soveraign design of God in those Bonds and the success of them the bare knowledge of them would not make others more confident for the Gospel as it follows v. 14. without a providential design of them Onesimus running from his Master is guided by Gods soveraign order into Pauls Company and thereby into Christ's arms and he who came a fugitive returns a Christian. Phil. 10.15 Some by a strong affliction have had by the Divine soveraignty their understandings awakened to consider and their wills spirited to conversion Monica being call'd Meribibula or toss-pot was brought to consider her way and reform her Life A word hath done that at one time which hath often before fallen without any fruit Many have come to suck in the Eloquence of the Minister and have found in the Hony for their Ears a sting for their Consciences Austin had no other intent in going to hear Ambrose but to have a tast of his famous Oratory but while Ambrose spake a Language to his Ear God spake a heavenly Dialect to his heart No reason can be render'd of the order and timing and influence of those things but the soveraign pleasure of God who will attend one occasion and season with his blessing and not another 8. The Dominion of God is manifest in disposing of the Lives of men He keeps the key of Death as well as that of the Womb in his own hand he hath given man a Life but not power to dispose of it or lay it down at his pleasure And therefore he hath ordered man not to murder not another not himself man must expect his call and grant to dispose of the Life of his Body Why doth he cut the thred of this mans Life and spin anothers out to a longer term Why doth one die an inglorious death and another more honourable One silently drops away in the multitude while another is made a Sacrifice for the Honour of God or the safety of his Countrey This is a mark of Honour he gives to one and not to another Phil. 1.29 To you it is given The manner of Peters death was appointed John 21.19 Why doth a small and slight Disease against the Rules of Physick and the Judgment of the best Practitioners dislodge one mans Soul out of his Body while a greater Disease is master'd in another and discharges the Patient to enjoy himself a longer time in the Land of the Living Is it the effect of means so much as of the soveraign disposer of all things If means only did it the same means would alway work the same effect and sooner master a dwarfish than a Gyant-like Distemper Our times are only in Gods hands Psal 31.15 Either to cut short or continue long As his soveraignty made the first Marriage knot so he reserves the sole Authority to himself to make the Divorce 4. The Dominion of God is manifest in his being a Redeemer as well as Law-giver Proprietor and Governour His Soveraignty was manifest in the Creation in bestowing upon this or that part of matter a form more excellent than upon another He was a Law-giver to Men and Angels and prescribed them rules according to the Councel of his own Will These were his Creatures and perfectly at his disposal but in Redemption a soveraignty is exercised over the Son the second Person in the Trinity one equal with the Father in essence and works by whom the worlds were created and by whom they do consist The whole Gospel is nothing else but a declaration of his soveraign pleasure concerning Christ and concerning us in him 't is therefore call'd the Mystery of his Will Eph. 1.9 The Will of God as distinct from the Will of Christ a purpose in himself not mov'd thereunto by any the whole design was fram'd in the Deity and as much the purpose of his soveraign Will as the contrivance of his immense Wisdom He decreed in his own pleasure to have the second person assume our Nature for to deliver mankind from that misery whereinto it was fallen The whole of the Gospel and the Priviledges of it are in that chapter resolved into the will and pleasure of God God is therefore called the head of Christ 1 Cor. 11.3 As Christ is superior to all men and the man superior to the woman so is God superior to Christ and of a more eminent dignity in regard of the constituting him mediator Christ is Subject to God as the Body to the Head Head is a Title of Government and Soveraignty and Magistrates were called the heads of the People As Christ is the head of Man so is God the head of Christ and as man is subject to Christ so is Christ
as he would have done those sinners in whose stead he suffer'd Without this Act of Soveraignty in God we had for ever perished For if we could suppose Christ laying down his life for us without the pleasure and order of God he could not have been said to have born our punishment What could he have undergone in his Humanity but a temporal death but more than this was due to us even the wrath of God which far exceeds the calamity of a meer bodily death The Soul being principal in the crime was to be principal in the punishment The wrath of God could not have dropt upon his Soul and render'd it so full of Agonies without the hand of God A creature is not capable to reach the Soul neither as to comfort nor terror and the Justice of God could not have made him a sufferer if it had not first consider'd him a sinner by imputation or by inhaerency and actual commission of a crime in his own person The latter was far from Christ who was holy harmless and undefiled He must be considered then in the other state of imputation which could not be without a Soveraign appointment or at least concession of God For without it he could have had no more Authority to lay down his life for us than Abraham could have had to have sacrific'd his son or any man to expose himself to death without a call Nor could any Plea have been entred in the Court of Heaven either by Christ for us or by us for our selves And though the death of so great a person had been meritorious in it self it had not been meritorious for us or accepted for us Christ is deliver'd up by him Rom. 8.32 in every part of that condition wherein he was and suffer'd and to that end that we might become the Righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 That we might have the Righteousness of him that was God imputed to us or that we might have a Righteousness as great and proportion'd to the Righteousness of God as God requir'd It was an act of Divine Soveraignty to account him that was Righteous a sinner in our stead and to account us who were sinners Righteous upon the merit of his death 4. This was done by the command of God by God as a Law-giver having the supream Legislative and Praeceptive Authority In which respect the whole work of Christ is said to be an answer to a Law not one given him but put into his heart as the Law of nature was in the heart of man at first Psal 40.7 8. Thy Law is within my heart This Law was not the Law of Nature or Moral Law though that was also in the heart of Christ but the command of doing those things which were necessary for our Salvation and not a command so much of doing as of dying The Moral Law in the heart of Christ would have done us no good without the Mediatory Law We had been where we were by the sole observance of the Precepts of the Moral Law without his suffering the penalty of it The Law in the heart of Christ was the Law of suffering or dying the doing that for us by his death which the blood of Sacrifices was unable to effect Legal Sacrifices thou would'st not thy Law is within my heart i. e. thy Law ordered me to be a Sacrifice It was that Law his obedience to which was principally accepted and esteem'd and that was principally his passive his obedience to death Phil. 2.8 This was the special command received from God that he should dye John 10.18 'T is not so clearly manifested when this command was given whither after the incarnation of Christ or at the point of his constitution as Mediator upon the transaction between the father and the son concerning the affair of Redemption The promise was given before the World began Tit. 1.2 Might not the Precept be given before the World began to Christ as consider'd in the quality of Mediator and Redeemer Precepts and Promises usually attend one another Every Covenant is made up of both Christ consider'd here as the Son of God in the Divine Nature was not capable of a command or promise but consider'd in the relation of Mediator between God and Man he was capable of both Promises of Assistance were made before his actual incarnation of which the Prophets are full why not Precepts for his obedience since long before his incarnation this was his speech in the Prophet thy Law is within my heart However a command a law it was which is a fruit of the Divine Soveraignty That as the Soveraignty of God was impeached and violated by the disobedience of Adam it might be own'd and vindicated by the obedience of Christ That as we fell by disloyalty to it we might rise by the highest submission to it in another head infinitely superior in his person to Adam by whom we fell 5. This Soveraignty of God appears in exalting Christ to such a Soveraign dignity as our Redeemer * Lessius de perfect divin lib. 10. p. 65. Some indeed say that this Soveraignty of Christ's Humane Nature was natural and the right of it resulted from its Union with the Divine as a Lady of mean condition when Espous'd and Marryed to a Prince hath by virtue of that a natural right to some kind of jurisdiction over the whole Kingdom because she is one with the King But to wave this the Scripture placeth wholly the conferring such an Authority upon the pleasure and will of God As Christ was a gift of God's Soveraign will to us so this was a gift of God's Soveraign will to Christ Matt. 28.28 All power is given me And he gave him to be head over all things to the Church Eph. 1.22 God gave him a name above every name Phil. 2.9 And therefore his Throne he sits upon is call'd the Throne of his Father Rev. 3.21 And he committed all Judgment to the Son i. e. All Government and Dominion An Empire in Heaven and Earth Joh. 5.22 and that because he is the son of Man v. 27. which may be understood that the Father hath given him Authority to exercise that Judgment and Government as the son of man which he Originally had as the son of God or rather because he became a servant and humbled himself to death he gives him this Authority as the reward of his Obedience and Humility conformable to Phil. 2.9 This is an act of the high Soveraignty of God to obscure his own Authority in a sence and take into association with him or vicarious subordination to him the Humane Nature of Christ as united to the Divine Not only lifting it above the heads of all the Angels but giving that person in our nature an Empire over them whose nature was more excellent than ours Yea the Soveraignty of God appears in the whole management of this Kingly Office of Christ for it is managed in every part of it
Garden one follow'd immediately the other Gen. 2.15 16. The Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and the Lord God commanded the man saying of every Tree of the Garden thou mayest freely eat but of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it c. Nothing was to be enjoyed by man but upon the condition of obedience to his Lord and it is observ'd that in the description of the Creation God is not call'd Lord till the finishing of the Creation and particularly in the forming of man Gen. 2.7 And the Lord God form'd man Though he was Lord of all Creatures yet it was in man he would have his soveraignty particularly manifested and by man have his Authority specially acknowledged The Law is prefac'd with this Title I am the Lord thy God Exod. 20.2 Authority in Lord sweetness in God the one to enjoyn the other to allure obedience and God enforceth several of the commands with the same Title And as he begins many precepts with it so he concludes them with the same Title I am the Lord Levit. 19.37 and in other places In all his communications of his Goodness to man in ways of blessing them he stands upon the preservation of the rights of his soveraignty and manifests his graciousness in favour of his Authority I am the Lord your God your God in all my perfections for your advantage but yet your soveraign for your obedience In all his condescensions he will have the rights of this untoucht and unviolated by us When Christ would give the most pregnant instance of his condescending and humble kindness he urgeth his Authority to ballast their Spirits from any presumptuous eruptions because of his humility John 13.13 You call me Master and Lord and you say well for so I am He asserts his Authority and presseth them to their duty when he had seem'd to lay it by for the demeanour of a Servant and had below the dignity of a Master put on the humility of a mean underling to wash the Disciples feet all which was to oblige them to perform the command he then gave them ver 14. in Obedience to his Authority and imitation of his Example 4. All Creatures obey him All Creatures punctually observe the Law he hath imprinted on their nature and in their several capacities acknowledge him their soveraign they move according to the inclinations he imprinted on them The Sea contains it self in its bounds and the Sun steps not out of its sphear the Stars march in their Order they continue this day according to thy Ordinance for all are thy Servants Psal 119.91 If he Orders things contrary to their primitive nature they obey him When he speaks the word the devouring fire becomes gentle and toucheth not a hair of the Children he will preserve The hunger-starv'd Lions suspend their ravenous nature when so good a morsel as Daniel is set before them And the Sun which had been in perpetual motion since its Creation obeys the writ of ease God sent it in Joshua's time and stands still Shall insensible and sensible Creatures be punctual to his Orders passively acknowledge his Authority Shall Lions and Serpents obey God in their places and shall not man who can by reason argue out the soveraignty of God and understand the sence and goodness of his Laws and actively obey God with that will he hath enricht him with above other Creatures Yet the truth is every sensitive yea every senseless Creature obeys God more than his rational more than his gracious Creatures in this World The rational Creatures since the fall have a prevailing principle of corruption Let the Obedience of other Creatures incite us more to imitate them and shame our remissness in not acknowledging the dominion of God in the just way he prescribes us to walk in Well then let us not pretend to own God as our Lord and yet act the part of Rebels Let us give him the reverence and pay him that obedience which of right belongs to so great a King Whatsoever he speaks as a true God ought to be beleiv'd whatsoever he orders as a Soveraign God ought to be obey'd Let not God have less than man nor man have more than God 'T is a common principle writ upon the reason of all men that respect and observance is due to the Majesty of a man much more to the Majesty of God as a Law-giver 2. As this Doctrine presents us motives so it directs us to the manner and kind of our Obedience to God 1. It must be with a respect to his Authority As the veracity of God is the formal object of faith and the reason why we believe the things he hath reveal'd so the Authority of God is the formal object of our obedience or the reason why we observe the things he hath commanded There must be a respect to his will as the rule as well as to his Glory as the end 'T is not formally obedience that is not done with a regard to the order of God though it may be materially obedience as it answers the matter of the Precept As when men will abstain from excess and rioting because it is ruinous to their health not because it is forbidden by the great Law-giver This is to pay a respect to our own conveniency and interest not a Conscientious observance to God a regard to our health not to our Soveraign a kindness to our selves not a justice due to the rights of God There must not only be a consideration of the matter of the Precept as convenient but a consideration of the Authority of the Law-giver as Obligatory Thus saith the Lord Ushers in every order of his directing our eye to the Authority enacting it Jeroboam did God's will of prophesie in taking the Kingdom of Israel And the devils may be subservient in God's will or providence but neither of them are put upon the account of obedience because not done intentionally with any Conscience of the Soveraignty of God God will have this owned by a regular respect to it So much he insists upon the honour of it that the Sacrifice of Christ God-man was most agreeable to him not only as it was great and admirable in it self but also for that ravishing obedience to his will which was the Life and Glory of his Sacrifice whereby the justice of God was not only owned in the Offering but the Soveraignty of God owned in the Obedience Phil. 2.8 He became obedient unto death Wherefore God highly exalted him 2. It must be the best and most exact obedience The most Soveraign Authority calls for the exactest and lowest observance the highest Lord for the deepest homage being he is a great King he must have the best in our flock Mal. 1. Obedience is due to God as King and the choicest obedience is due to him as he is the most excellent King The more majestick and noble
own affections according to the holiness of his own Will As it is the effect of his power so it is an argument of his power the greatness of the effect demonstrates the fulness and sufficiency of the Cause The more feeble any man is in reason the less command he hath over his passions and he is the more heady to revenge Revenge is a sign of a Childish mind the stronger any man is in reason the more command he hath over himself Prov. 16.32 He that is slow to Anger is better than the mighty and he that rules his own Spirit than he that takes a City He that can restrain his Anger is stronger than the Coesars and Alexanders of the World that have fill'd the Earth with slain Carcasses and ruin'd Cities By the same reason God's slowness to Anger is a greater argument of his Power than the creating a World or the power of dissolving it by a Word In this he hath a Dominion over Creatures in the other over himself This is the reason he will not return to destroy because I am God and not Man Hosea 11.9 I am not so weak and impotent as man that cannot restrain his Anger This is a strength possessed only by a God wherein a Creature is no more able to parallel him than in any other So that he may be said to be the Lord of himself as it is in the verse before the Text that he is the Lord of Anger in the Hebrew instead of furious as we translate it so he is the Lord of Patience The end why God is Patient is to shew his Power Rom. 9.22 What if God willing to shew his Wrath and to make his Power known endured with much Long-suffering the Vessels of Wrath fitted to destruction To shew his Wrath upon Sinners and his Power over himself in bearing such indignities and forbearing punishment so long when men were vessels of wrath fitted for destruction of whom there was no hopes of amendment Had he immediately broken in peices those Vessels his power had not so eminently appear'd as it hath done in tolerating them so long that had provoked him to take them off so often There is indeed the power of his Anger and there is the power of his Patience and his power is more seen in his Patience than in his Wrath. 'T is no wonder that he that is above all is able to crush all But it is a wonder that he that is provok't by all doth not upon the first provocation rid his hands of all This is the reason why he did bear such a weight of provocations from vessels of wrath prepar'd for ruine that he might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shew what he was able to do the Lordship and Royalty he had over himself The power of God is more manifest in his Patience to a multitude of Sinners than it could be in Creating Millions of Worlds out of nothing this was the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a power over himself 5. This Patience being a branch of Mercy the exercise of it is founded in the Death of Christ Without the consideration of this we can give no account why Divine Patience should extend it self to us and not to the fallen Angels The threatning extends it self to us as well as to the fallen Angels The threatning must necessarily have sunk man as well as those glorious Creatures had not Christ stept into our relief * Testaâ—d de natur Grat. Thes 119. Had not Christ interposed to satisfie the Justice of God man upon his sin had been actually bound over to punishment as well as the fall'n Angels were upon theirs and been fettered in chains as strong as those Spirits feel The reason why man was not hurl'd into the same deplorable condition upon his sin as they were is Christs promise of taking our nature and not theirs Had God design'd Christ's taking their nature the same Patience had been exercised towards them and the same offers would have been made to them as are made to us In regard of these fruits of this Patience Christ is said to buy the wickedest Apostates from him 1 Pet. 2.1 Denying the Lord that bought them such were bought by him as bring upon themselves just destruction and whose damnation slumbers not ver 3. he purchased the continuance of their lives and the stay of their execution that offers of Grace might be made to them This Patience must be either upon the account of the Law or the Gospel for there are no other rules whereby God governs the World a fruit of the Law it was not that spake nothing but Curses after Disobedience not a letter of Mercy was writ upon that And therefore nothing of Patience Death and Wrath was denounced no slowness to Anger intimated It must be therefore upon the account of the Gospel and a fruit of the Covenant of Grace whereof Christ was Mediator Besides this perfection being God's waiting that he might be Gracious Isaiâ—h 30.18 that which made way for Gods Grace made way for his waiting to manifest it God discovered not his Grace but in Christ And therefore discovered not his Patience but in Christ 't is in him he met with the satisfaction of his Justice that he might have a ground for the manifestation of his Patience And the Sacrifices of the Law wherein the Life of a beast was accepted for the sin of a man discovered the ground of his forbearance of them to be the expectation of the great sacrifice whereby sin was to be compleatly expiated Gen. 8.21 The publication of his Patience to the end of the World is presently after the sweet savor he found in Noah's sacrifice The promised and design'd coming of Christ was the cause of that Patience God exercised before in the World And his gathering the Elect together is the reason of his Patience since his death 6. The naturalness of his Veracity and Holiness and the strictness of his Justice are no barrs to the exercise of his patience 1. His Veracity In those threatnings where the punishment is exprest but not the time of inflicting it prefixt and determined in the threatning his veracity suffers no dammage by the delaying Execution so it be once done though a long time after the credit of his Truth stands unshaken As when God promises a thing without fixing the time he is at liberty to pitch upon what time he pleases for the performance of it without staining his faithfulness to his Word by not giving the thing promised presently Why should the deferring of Justice upon an offender be any more against his Veracity than his delaying an answer to the petitions of a suppliant But the difference will lie in the threatning Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death The time was there setled In that day thou shalt dye some referre day to eating not to dying and render the sentence thus I do not prohibit thee the eating this fruit for
a day or two but continually In whatsoever day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye but not understanding his dying that very day he should eat of it Referring day to the extensiveness of the prohibition as to time But to leave this as uncertain it may be answered that as in some threatnings a condition is implyed though not exprest as in that positive denouncing of the destruction of Niniveh Jonah 3.4 Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroy'd the condition is imply'd unless they humble themselves and repent for upon their Repentance the sentence was deferred So here in the day thou eatest thereof thou shall dye the death or certainly dye unless there be a way found for the expiation of thy crime and the righting my honour This condition in regard of the event may as well be asserted to be implyed in this threatning as that of Repentance was in the other Or rather thou shalt dye thou shalt die spiritually thou shalt loose that image of mine in thy nature that Righteousness which is as much the Life of thy Soul as thy Soul is the life of thy Body that Righteousness whereby thou art enabled to live to me and thy own happiness What the Soul is to the Body a quickning Soul that the image of God is to the Soul a quickning image Or thou shalt dye the death or certainly dye thou shalt be liable to death * Perer in loc And so it is to be understood not of an actual death of the Body but the merit of death and the necessity of death thou wilt be obnoxious to death which will be avoided if thou dost forbear to eat of the forbidden fruit thou shalt be a guilty person and so under a sentence of death that I may when I please inflict it on thee Death did come upon Adam that day because his nature was vitiated He was then also under an expectation of death he was obnoxious to it though that day it was not poured out upon him in the full bitterness and gall of it As when the Apostle saith Rom. 8.10 The Body is dead because of sin he speaks to the Living and yet tells them the body was dead because of sin he means no more than that it was under a sentence and so a necessity of dying though not actually dead So thou shalt be under the sentence of death that day as certainly as if that day thou shouldst sink into the dust And as by his Patience towards man not sending forth death upon him in all the bitter ingredients of it his Justice afterwards was more eminent upon mans surety than it would have been if it had been then employ'd in all its severe operations upon man So was his Veracity eminent also in making good this threatning in inflicting the punishment included in it upon our nature assum'd by a mighty person and upon that person in our nature who was infinitely higher than our nature 2. His justice and righteousness are not prejudiced by his patience There is a hatred of the sin in his holiness and a sentence past against the sin in his justice though the execution of that sentence be suspended and the person reprieved by patience which is implyed Eccles 8.11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil Sentence is past but a speedy execution is stopt Some of the Heathens who would not imagine God unjust and yet seeing the villanies and oppressions of men in the World remain unpunisht and frequently beholding prosperous wickedness to free him from the charge of injustice denyed his providence and actual Government of the World for if he did take notice of humane affairs and concern himself in what was done upon the Earth they could not think an infinite goodness and Justice could be so slow to punish oppressors and relieve the miserable and leave the World in that disorder under the injustice of men They judged such a patience as was exercised by him if he did govern the World was drawn out beyond the line of fit and just Is it not a presumption in men to prescribe a rule of Righteousness and conveniency to their Creator It might be demanded of such whether they never injur'd any in their lives and when certainly they have one way or other would they not think it a very unworthy if not unjust thing that a person so injur'd by them should take a speedy and severe revenge on them And if every man should do the like would there not be a speedy dispatch made of Mankind Would not the World be a shambles and men rush forwards to one anothers destruction for the wrongs they have mutually received If it be accounted a virtue in man and no unrighteousness not presently to be all on fire against an offence by what right should any question the consistency of Gods patience with his justice Do we praise the lenity of Parents to children and shall we disparage the long suffering of God to men We do not censure the righteousness of Physitians and Chirurgeons because they cut not off a corrupt member this day as well as to morrow And is it just to asperse God because he doth deferr his vengeance which man assumes to himself a right to do We never account him a bad Governour that deferrs the tryal and consequently the condemnation and execution of a notorious offender for important reasons and beneficial to the publick either to make the nature of his crime more evident or to find out the rest of his complices by his discovery A Governour indeed were unjust if he commanded that which were unrighteous and forbad that which were worthy and commendable But if he delayes the execution of a convict offender for weighty reasons either for the benefit of the state whereof he is the Ruler or for some advantage to the offender himself to make him have a sence of and a regret for his offence we account him not unjust for this God doth not by his patience dispense with the holiness of his Law nor cut off any thing from its due Authority If men do strengthen themselves by his long suffering against his Law 't is their fault not any unrighteousness in him He will take a time to vindicate the Righteousness of his own commands if men will wholly neglect the time of his patience in forbearing to pay a dutiful observance to his Precept If Justice be natural to him and he cannot but punish sin yet he is not necessitated to consume sinners as the fire doth stubble put into it which hath no command over its own qualities to restrain them from acting But God is a free agent and may choose his own time for the distribution of that punishment his nature leads him to Though he be naturally just yet it is not so natural to him as to deprive him of a dominion over his own acts and a