upon the Omniscience of God for if he did foreknow all that every Creature would do tho his Benevolence did arise from their Actings yet it could not be from the singular Acts but from the Prevalence Were it then possible that from Eternity he should have Good-will and Hatred to the same Person much less that he should have so many Changes of it If he did foreknow that after the attainment of Grace that Creature would finally forsake him could it consist that he should have the Love of Benevolence to that Creature The Lord hath said I am God and change not and therefore the Sons of Jacob are not consumed And whom he loveth he loveth to the end which can only be understood of his Love of Benevolence not of his Complacence The Reason of the Difference is manifest because his Benevolence is anterior in the Order of Nature to any moral Goodness in the Creature which are the Effects of it but his Beneplacence presupposeth Goodness given by God to the Creature This Unchangeableness of God is further illustrated by his Omniscience for from Eternity knowing all things that were to come to pass there could no unexpected Case arise that might give occasion to him to change and therefore this Unchangeableness is an incommunicable Perfection of God Creatures could not act sutably to their Natures and to their Duty if in many of their Purposes they should not change if Matters of moment that they expected not should occur their Constancy reacheth no further than that upon small and light Occasions which they might neglect or contemn they would not change their professed Resolutions in Matters of moment The Unchangeableness of God importeth not that he is inexorable and that it is in vain to pray to him because he hath from Eternity immutably decreed all things that were to come to pass and indeed it were a too hard Objection if God did not determine with Foresight and Consideration of the earnest Desire and fervent Supplication of his Creatures as the Object of his Decree and not as the meer Antecedents of it But seeing he doth so decree we may with as good Warrant and Confidence supplicate as if he were undetermined when we pray whence only there can a rational Account be given why we should pray with Divine Approbation even in relation to the Change of inscient Nature as against Drought Barrenness Inundations c. Are we thereby allowed to implore of God a Miracle that by his Omnipotence he should alter the course of Nature No but because he hath so ordered the course of Nature upon his foresight of the Necessity and of the earnest Desire and Supplication of his Creatures so that it should be correspondent to their Desire It doth not import a Changeableness in God that he doth not inflict the Judgment he denounceth against Sinners generally or particularly And when he said to Adam of the forbidden Fruit In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Or when Isaiah from the Lord said to Hezekiah Set thy House in order for thou shalt die and not live And yet by the same Prophet he saith I have heard thy Prayer I have seen thy Tears behold I will heal thee and thou shalt go up to the House of the Lord on the third day and I will add unto thy Days fifteen Years And when by Jonah he prophesied to the Ninevites Yet forty Days and Nineveh shall be overthrown which doubtless hath been upon a particular atrocious Sin for which they humbled themselves with Fasting and Mourning in Sackcloth and tho their Mourning was not Repentance unto Eternal Life yet thereupon God forgave their Overthrow which he had threatened These and like places signify not God's Will which is never without Effect but the Sanction of his Justice intimating what is deserved or to be observed as his Pleasure I know some Men have considered the Intimation of Hezekiah's Death and Nineveh's Overthrow as Predictions wherein not only the Unchangeableness but the Veracity of God is concerned And there is a whole Treatise written on that Subject whether the Term of Life be determined and fixed and different Judgments thereon which I think strange that any thing should be supposed undetermined by the eternal Decree of God to do or permit any thing that was to come to pass seeing it is expresly said Known unto God are all his Works from the beginning But the Addition to Hezekiah's Life imports no more than God's not inflicting his threatned Judgment against Hezekiah for his Confidence in his own Strength by his Armour and Treasury which he shew to the Messengers of Babylon Nor is it congruous to say that the Prophet's Design was to show when Hezekiah by the course of his Nature would die for it 's evidently a threatning for his Pride and Self-confidence which appeared more after his Recovery but it was lurking before For before his Sickness it is said that he was magnified in the sight of all Nations There is no Example where God did ever use such Expression but in the way of threatning for Sin Neither do I like that Interpretation of Jonah's Denunciation that there was ever a secret Exception of Repentance in the Denunciation of all Judgments which the Ninevites by the Light of Nature knew seeing Jonah did not know it but was angry that God spared Nineveh lest he might be thought a false Prophet But it is certain and frequent in Scripture that when God denounces Evil for Sin it is no Prediction but a Threatning importing no more but that it is just to be inflicted if there be no Redress MEDITATION XII Upon the Goodness of God I Do conceive that the first Divine Perfection in the natural Order arising from God's Unchangeableness Godlikeness or Holiness in relation to Creatures is his Goodness for the Acts of his Goodness behoved to be before the Acts of his Justice Mercy and Faithfulness all which presuppose the Existence of Creatures but the giving or designing to give them Existence and such a Nature as God gave them are Acts of meer Goodness which no Meritmonger can pretend to arise from any thing in the Creature and therefore the clearest way to a distinct Apprehension of the Divine Perfections is to follow their natural Order Goodness is in ordinary use of very different Significations sometimes it comprehendeth all Perfections natural and moral For all that is morally good or that is profitable and pleasant are comprehended in that kind of Goodness to which all the Acts of Reason are bounded and it is not within the Latitude of the largest Freedom to choose any thing but what in some of these ways is or appears to be good But Goodness in this Latitude is not to be attributed to God who never acteth upon meer Appearance but all his Actings towards Creatures are morally good even then when the Effect is naturally evil as it is said There is no Evil in the City which the Lord hath not
God's Pleasure neither to be an Act of his Understanding nor of his Will but a distinct Act resulting from his Knowledg of himself in his Divine Perfections Decrees and Dispensations and in the Effects of them And seeing this Knowledg is unchangeable so must his Pleasure be and so must his Will be of the continuance of that Pleasure as it results from the natural or moral Perfection of his Creatures in which his Pleasure differs from the Pleasure of Creatures who cannot necessarily have the Objects of Pleasure His Pleasure also is infinite and can be no greater nor no less intensively tho it may be extensively for he delights not only in the Idea of his Creatures when they exist not but he does also delight in the Works of his Hands when they do exist yet doth no more fully delight nor is more happy when they do exist than before The infinite Perfections of God and the infinite Pleasure thence resulting admit of no Grief in which also his Pleasure differs from the Pleasure of Creatures and we can no otherwise understand Expressions ascribing Grief to God than as we understand those which ascribe to him a Face a Heart Eyes or Hands that is by Resemblance or Similitude Yet it is truly and properly said that God taketh no Pleasure in the Evil of Sin and yet he hath no Grief arising thence but Displeasure and it is the Divine Prerogative that he doth take Pleasure in good Things when they are but hath no Grief or abatement of his Pleasure when they are not whereof great Souls have some shadow of Resemblance they can take Pleasure in all things so far as is congruous to their Principles inbred or infused and yet have no Grief for wanting of them and therefore have more noble Minds than the Stoicks who do endeavour to eradicate all Pleasures that they might not be grieved by the wanting of them which is only fit for weaker Minds who find in themselves that Effect I have great aversion from the Thoughts that any Will of God should be ineffectual which I cannot see consistent with his Infinite Perfections and therefore I do not apprehend that his Commands Prohibitions Institutions or Laws are Acts of his Will but of his Pleasure or Acceptance which is his Pleasure in those things that are offered to him which he doth not reject Otherwise they could not be without effecting the thing commanded or ordain'd but being Acts of his Plasure they do oblige the Creature to be obsequious and by the annexed Penalties and Rewards according to his Pleasure they become Divine Laws and they are the Ground of his rewarding and punishing Justice whereby his Will may be exercised about them to apply Rewards Punishments or Remission which are ever effectual Tho the Will of Creatures is not productive of Natural Effects yet it is productive of Moral Effects not only by Promises whence there arises a Right or Power of Exaction but in Dominion and Property which by the Law of Nature is transmitted by the Will alone but the Will of God must have the intendéd Effect and therefore it is not God's Will but his Pleasure that is implied in his Commands and Laws so that there is never a Discrepancy between what is expressed and what is meant These Thoughts are very sutable to those two eminent places in Scripture For I have no Pleasure in the Death of him that dieth saith the Lord. And again As I live saith the Lord I have no Pleasure in the Death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live Turn ye turn ye from your evil Ways for why will ye die O House of Israel Here is a Command to turn expresly attributed to God's Pleasure not to his operant Will which could not have failed in the Effect to make them to turn but their turning and their living were both pleasing and their not turning and dying were also both displeasing unto God There can be no doubt concerning their turning or not turning but it may be more doubtful how God should have no Pleasure in the Death of the Wicked or that it should not be by his Will seeing it is the Execution of his Justice and I am satisfied that it is his Will as it is an Act of Justice but not simply and in it self There is no Difficulty that a just Judg may at once not only have Pleasure in but may will the Death of a Malefactor but would be very far from taking Pleasure in or willing his Death if it were not by a necessary Act of Justice but on the contrary would have Pleasure in the continuance of his Life tho it be said God will have all Men to be saved the former Texts clear it to be only God's approbative Will or Pleasure I am convinced that it must be a dangerous Error to conceive that God willeth the Death of his Rational Creatures as being in the order of Nature prior to the permission of Sin or that he hath Pleasure in it without consideration of Sin in the order of Nature antecedent which I can conceive no way reconcilable with these Texts For if it should be said that God hath Pleasure in the Misery of a Creature as an Act of his Soveraignty or Freedom if any can please themselves in that there is no Contradiction they cannot reconcile yet that were no way consistent with the Sincerity Bounty or Goodness of God and far from representing him as infinitely amiable I think it far from giving Satisfaction or from making a difficult Objection from that Metaphysical Maxim That which is last in Execution is first in Intention which is very improper to be applied to God whose Intentions are all together and hath its Exceptions even as to Creatures For a Law-giver doth not first intend the Death of his Subjects by a Capital Law neither at all intend their Death simply nor can he so take Pleasure in it if he be not a Tyrant and yet is pleased in the Execution after the Capital Crime deserving it But the blessed and benign God doth never intend the Misery of his Creature abstractly and simply for his last End is his own Glory whereunto the Misery of the Creature is no Mean but his Act of Justice upon the sinning Creature neither is Sin willed or intended by God who exerciseth no other Act in it but Permission which is immanent having no positive extrinsick Effect but Restraint and over-ruling of it and upon the occasion of it doing holy Acts for his Glory so that all the Joints of that Objection are enervated There is another eminent Difference between the Will of God and our Will we do oft-times wish that which is impossible as that that which is past were recalled or that we might enjoy all sinful Pleasures and also the Favour of God and Blessedness There is properly no Wish to be attributed to God for tho sometimes he doth express himself as wishing or wondering that
having promised he is not indifferent as to Performance The Performance of God's Promise is attributed oft-times to his Faithfulness or to his Bounty but to speak accurately it is only to be referred to his Justice For after the manner of Men it is said That God is faithful who hath promised where both Faithfulness and a Promise are joined So God may promise that which his Justice would require without a Promise as he does also to confirm Men not only promise but sometimes swear to perform Commutative Justice is not competent to God For who hath given to him that he should repay Yet such is his gracious Condescension to Men that he hath frequently entered with them in Covenant the most excellent of which is the Covenant of Grace which yet cannot be called commutative as if God's part and Man's part were the mutual Causes every converted Man enters in the Covenant of Grace by his Consent to God's offer of Grace But the freest Grant requires Acceptance when by way of Offer in which it differs from an absolute Gift which is effectual if it be not rejected but Man's Acceptance or Consent is also by the Gift and Grace of God The Distributive Justice of God consists in the distribution of Rewards and Punishments and hence it is divided into Premiative and Punitive Justice both are exactly proportioned to the occasion to which God's Holiness directs it self which is called the deserving or meritorious Cause no other way than as an occasion comes in among Causes when a merciful Man sees a miserable lie hath Compassion and helps him Could this Miser boast that his Misery is the cause of the Mercy No it was indeed the occasion of it but the Man's Mercifulness was the Cause So it is in God's Justice tho Mankind were like the Beasts of the Field and the Fish of the Sea devouring each other it could not reach God but it is the Congruity of his glorious Nature which is the cause why he rewards the Good and punisheth the Evil. All Christians agree that God's Punitive Justice is adjusted to desert or merit but some have been so impudent as to claim eternal Happiness by their own Merit and that God could not be just if he did not give it not by his Promise nor for Christ's Merit alone as only taking away Punishment but they think the Reward is from their own Merit Others have so much abhorred this that they have run to the other Extream holding that all Rewards are absolutely free without any thing of Justice so that God should only have Punitive and not Premiative Justice as Man's Condition now standeth after the Fall And that if Man had not fallen he had by his Merit been translated into the Heavenly Estate not by God's Promise or by his Bounty but by his Premiative Justice but that now Man having fallen nothing belongs to him by the Premiative Justice of God There are many and great Authorities of Learned Men on all hands in this matter but when I look up to God and make use of the Light of Scripture and Reason he hath given me I cannot assent to either of these Extreams when I consider that God hath with so strong an Asseveration declared Verily there is a Reward for the Righteous to whom he faith also That it is just with God to give Tribulation to them that trouble you and to give to you that are troubled Peace with us and that God is not unrighteous to forget their Labour of Love yet these Righteous were not Innocents I am not moved with that Argument That all sinful Men even when regenerated do deserve eternal Damnation tho for Christ's sake it be forgiven and therefore if any thing they could do could deserve Good from God they forfeit that by their deserving Death for one may as well withhold from an Enemy that which was due as take from him that which was his own But when I consider that Christ hath by his Merit through the Covenant of Grace procured a full Pardon of all the Sins of the Regenerate through Repentance and Faith both the Similitude and the Reason of it fail for he hath taken away the Enmity and hath made Reconciliation whereby the Justified become not only Servants but Sons Heirs and Coheirs with Christ of Glory I am far from fancying that any meer Creature doth or could deserve the Glory of Heaven no not Adam tho he had continued innocent nor the most glorious Seraphim The Angels were created in the state of Celestial Glory which was by God's free Bounty they could pretend no Merit for deserving that Glory that they had at the first instant of their Being nor do I believe that their Consirmation and Assurance is an Act granted by God of rewarding Justice but of free Bounty it being so high an Advancement from a fallible to an infallible State which the best of their Service could not deserve It was congruous to the Freedom of God and the Dependance of his Creatures and his Dominion and Government of them that they should all be capable of Rewards and Punishments and be ruled by the righteous Laws of God and that therefore they should be in a labile Estate and even in that Estate God did reward the Improvement of their Natural Capacities by adding farther degrees to them of their Love to him and Joy in him which crowns their Happiness but his Promise or the Manifestation of his Purpose that if during their Trial they were faithful in that fallible Estate he would never suffer them to fall I do not doubt that they acknowledg it as his free Bounty and even in that confirmed Estate their Perfections can never be so great but they can be increased and therefore there is still place for God's Premiative Justice If then the Angels have the Celestial Glory without Merit by meer Bounty and yet God by his Premiative Justice is still adding to their Perfections which is clearly revealed by the Fall of the evil Angels and that these that stood are declared to be the elect Angels whence all I have said will follow could Man tho innocent pretend by Merit and Justice to arrogate more to himself than the Angels He was created innocent able to have so continued but in all Perfections far inferiour to the Angels In his fallible Estate he was capable of God's rewarding Justice as were the Angels in the like Estate before Confirmation But could he have deserved Confirmation and Exaltation from an Animal to an Angelical from an Earthly to an Heavenly State At Man's Creation God had promised him Immortality not by his Nature for his Body was fragile and might by second Causes have been rendered unserviceable to his Soul but only by God's Providence he behoved to eat drink sleep rost We have no ground to believe that his Children so soon as they were born needed not his Care and Trouble tho they had been as perfect as Christ in the State of his
of Children from the Covenant of Grace yet the Covenant of Grace is one for all the Son having covenanted from Eternity for all the Elect to bring them into the Covenant of Grace by Regeneration exerted according to their Capacity by actual believing of those who are capable so to act which also is an Evidence that the Act of Faith is not saving by any thing absolutely necessary in it self but by the free Choice and Institution of God The third Point proposed is what Act of Faith that is by which Men enter into the Covenant of Grace and which is their Part of the Covenant Many hold it to be a Perswasion of the covenanting Person that Christ died for him whereby it must be an Act of the Understanding but I see not how that can hold for covenanting must be by an Act of the Will promising or otherwise performing the Covenanter's Part which is oftentimes in the one Party no more than an Acceptance as in a Trust or Commission the one Party gives the Trust or Commission which doth make no Covenant but an Offer but when the other Party accepts then the Contract is compleat and the Accepter is thereby bound to follow the Trust and Commission and make an Account and the Giver is obliged to refund the Expences Albeit Contracts be by mutual Consent and that Consent signifies to have the same Thought yet Agreement in one Mind makes no more a Covenant than when two are of one Opinion in Contemplation but a Covenant is ever somewhat practicable and therefore tho Acts of Understanding precede the Covenant it self is by Acts of the Will The Description of saving Faith by Perswasion is but by a Consequent which ought to be endeavoured by all yet is not attained by all for many are in the Covenant of Grace that come not the Length of Perswasion that Christ died effectually for them and that thereby they are reconciled to God and shall be saved for tho they were perswaded that Christ died for all and every Man that would import nothing to saving Faith for it were much more evident that the Effect of Christ's Death for all Men were not the same seeing so many trample under Foot the Blood of the Covenant and so few are saved Therefore no Man hath just Ground to be perswaded that Christ died effectually for him or with Intention to make him holy and happy or any further than to put him in a Condition to be holy and happy if he himself did not hinder it Therefore tho believing in Christ were not only proposed to all but imposed on all as a Duty yet it is only a Duty in the Order God hath imposed it to wit that all Men should consider their sinful natural Estate and that the just Reward of Sin would be eternal Death without Repentance which none could escape who cleaved to any kind of Sin and hated to be reformed and that therefore they should be willing and endeavour to be reformed and use the Means appointed by God for that End and should throw themselves upon God's Mercy through Christ's Merit if thereby they found that the delighting in Sin in those Kinds especially which did most easily beset them did cease and that the Love to and Delight in God did in some measure take Place But to think to reach the highest Step of the Scale per Saltum were altogether without warrant unless it were extraordinary as in Paul's Conversion Paul to the Romans gives the true Warrants of that Perswasion As many as are led by the Spirit are the Sons of God The Spirit it self beareth Witness with our Spirit that we are the Children of God and if children then Heirs Heirs of God and Joint-Heirs with Christ. Hence it is evident how little Moment is in that Arminian Quibble so much magnified by them that Christ must have died for all Men because all Men are bound to believe he died for them We must therefore yet enquire the particular Convenanting Act of Faith which being so necessary is many Ways expressed and set forth in Scripture that it may be reached by several Capacities it is called a Looking to Christ for Salvation Look unto me all ye Ends of the Earth and be saved A turning to God Turn ye turn ye for why will you die O House of Israel A coming to Christ Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy ladened and I will give you rest to your Souls And to the Refractory it is said Ye will not come to me that ye may have Life A drawing near to God Draw near unto God and he will draw near unto you An answering of God's Call Thou saidst Seek ye my Face my Heart answered Thy Face Lord will I seek hide not thy Face from me A receiving of Christ He came to his own but his own received him not but to all that did receive him he gave Power to become the Sons of God So then the saving Act of Faith must imply all these not that he who entereth in the Covenant must have expresly all these Acts but that the Act he must have must imply and import them all and be virtually as much as they all The Spirit of God in this Branch of the Covenant of Grace does not proceed in one way with all the Elect As the Wind moveth whither it listeth and no Man knoweth whence it cometh or whither it goeth so is the Spirit of God Some are chased in by the Thundrings and Terrors of the Law running as a pursued Man to a Rock a Fortress a Tower or a Strength or as in the hazard of Shipwrack running into an Harbour As those who by Peter's Sermon convincing the Jews that they had denied the Holy One and the Just and had killed the Prince of Life Let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this they were pricked in their Hearts and said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles Men and Brethren what shall we do And God opened their Ears and their Hearts to receive Instruction But God gaineth others by the sweet and still Voice of the Gospel alluring their Hearts to trust in his Mercy and Faithfulness as being so gracious that he delights not in the Death of a Sinner but rather that they should repent and live that he will not disappoint those who becomingly trust in him He sometimes begins with the Light of Nature to lead in the revealed Light of the Gospel as Paul dealt with the Athenians and saith to Timothy God hath not given us the Spirit of Fear but of Power and of Love and of a sound Mind With some the Spirit proceeds by degrees giving a Spirit of Bondage to fear before the Spirit of Adoption as Paul saith We have not received the Spirit of Bondage again to fear but we received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba