will to please him longings to enjoy him as a holy and sanctifying God in his Ordinances as well as a blessed and glorified God in Heaven What do we expect in our approaches from him That which may make divine impressions upon us and more exactly conform us to the divine nature Or do we design nothing but an empty formality a rowling eye and a filling the Air with a few words without any openings of heart to receive the incomes which according to the nature of the duty might be conveyed to us Can this be a spiritual worship The Soul then closely waits upon him when its expectation is only from him Psal 62.6 Are our hearts seasoned with a sense of sin a sight of our spiritual wants raised notions of God glowing affections to Him strong appetite after a spiritual fulness Do we rouze up our sleepy Spirits and make a Covenant with all that is within us to attend upon him So much as we want of this so much we come short of a spiritual worship In Psal 57.7 My heart is fixed oh God my heart is fixed David would fix his heart before he would engage in a praising act of worship He appeals to God about it and that with doubling the expression as being certain of an inward preparedness Can we make the same appeals in a fixation of Spirit 2. How are our hearts fixed upon him How do they cleave to him in the duty Do we resign our Spirits to God and make them an intire Holocaust a whole burnt-offering in his worship Or do we not willingly admit carnal thoughts to mix themselves with spiritual duties and fasten our minds to the Creature under pretences of directing them to the Creator Do we not pass a meer complement on God by some superficial act of devotion while some covetous envious ambitious voluptuous imagination may possess our minds Do we not invert Gods Order and worship a Lust instead of God with our Spirits that should not have the least service either from our Souls or Bodies but with a spiritual disdain be sacrificed to the just indignation of God How often do we fight against his Will while we cry hail Master instead of crucifying our own thoughts crucifying the Lord of our Lives Our outward carriage plausible and our inward stark naught Do we not often regard iniquity more than God in our hearts in a time of worship Roul some filthy imagination as a sweet morsel under our tongues and taste more sweetness in that than in God Do not our Spirits smell rank of Earth while we offer to Heaven and have we not hearts full of thick Clay as their hands were full of blood * Isa 1.15 When we sacrifice do we not wrap up our Souls in communion with some sordid fancy when we should entwine our Spirits about an amiable God While we have some fear of him may we not have a love to something else above him This is to worship or swear by the Lord and by Malchom * Zeph. 1.5 How often doth an Apish-fancy render a service inwardly ridiculous under a grave outward posture skipping to the Shop Ware-house Compting-house in the space of a short Prayer And we are before God as a Babel a confusion of internal languages and this in those parts of worship which are in the right use most agreeable to God profitable for our selves ruinous to the Kingdom of Sin and Satan and means to bring us into a closer communion with the Divine Majesty Can this be a spiritual worship 3. How do we act our graces in worship Though the Instrument be strung if the strâ—ngs be not wound up what melody can be the issue All readiness and alacrity discover a strength of nature and a readiness in Spirituals discovers a spirituality in the heart As unaffecting thoughts of God are not spiritual thoughts so unaffecting addresses to God are not spiritual addresses Well tâ—en what awakenings and elevations of Faith and Love have we What strong outflowings of our Souls to him What indignation against Sin What admirations of redeeming Grace How low have we brought our corruptions to the foot-stool of Christ to be made his conquered Enemies How straitly have we claspt ouâ— Faith about the Cross and Throne of Christ to become his intimate Spouse Do we in hearing hang upon the lips of Christ in prayer take hold of God and wil not let him go in confessions rent the Caul of our hearts and indite our Souls before him with a deep humility Do we act more by a soaring love than a drooping fear So far as our Spitits are servile so far they are legal and carnal so much as they are free and spontaneous so much they are evangelical and spiritual As men under the Law are subject to the constraint of Bondage * Heb. 2.15 all their life-time in all their worship so under the Gospel they are under a constraint of love * 2 Cor. 5.14 How then are believing affections exercised which are alway accompanied with holy fear a fear of his goodness that admits us into his presence and a fear to offend him in our act of worship So much as we have of forced or feeble affection so much we have of carnality 4. How do we find our hearts after worship By an after carriage we may judge of the spirituality of it 1. How are we as to inward strength When a worship is spiritually performed grace is more strengthened corruption more mortified The Soul like Sampson after his awakening goes out with a renewed strength As the inward man is renewed day by day that is every day so it is renewed in every worship Every shower makes the grass and fruit grow in good ground where the root is good and the weeds where the ground is naught The more prepared the heart is to obedience in other duties after worship the more evidence there is that it hath been spiritual in the exercise of it 'T is the end of God in every dispensation as in that of John Baptist To make ready a People prepared for the Lord * Luke 1 17. When the heart is by worship prepared for fresh acts of obedience and hath a more exact watchfulness against the incroachments of Sin As carnal men after worship sprout up in spiritual wickedness so do spiritual Worshippers in spiritual graces Spiritual fruits are a sign of a spiritual frame When men are more prone to sin after duty 't is a sign there was but little communion with God in it and a greater strength of sin because such an act is contrary to the end of worship which is the subduing of Sin 'T is a sign the Physick hath wrought well when the stomach hath a better appetite to its appointed food and worship hath been well performed when we have a stronger inclination to other acts well pleasing to God and a more sensible distaste of those temptations we too much relisht before 'T is a sign of
Holy-Ghost for the Apostle would never have called the Spirit of God his own Spirit but with my Spirit that is a sincere frame of heart A Carnal-worship whether under the Law or Gospel is when we are busied about external rites without an inward compliance of Soul God demands the heart * Pro. 23.26 my Son give me thy heart not give me thy tongue or thy lips or thy hands these may be given without the heart but the heart can never be bestowed without these as its attendants A heap of services can be no more welcome to God without our Spirits than all Jacobs Sons could be to Joseph without the Benjamin he desired to see God is not taken with the Cabinet but the Jewel He first respected Abels Faith and Sincerity and then his Sacrifice he disrespected Cains Infidelity and Hypocrisie and then his Offering * Moulin Sermons Decad. 4. Ser. 4. P. 80. For this cause he rejected the Offerings of the Jews the Prayers of the Pharisees and the Alms of Ananias and Sapphira because their hearts and their duties were at a distance from one another In all spiritual Sacrifices our Spirits are Gods portion Under the Law the Reins were to be consumed by the Fire on the Altar because the secret intentions of the heart were signified by them Psal 7.9 The Lord trieth the Heart and the Reins It was an ill Omen among the Heathen if a Victim wanted a heart The Widows Mites with her heart in them were more esteemed than the richer Offerings without it Not the quantity of service but the will in it is of account with this infinite Spirit All that was to be brought for the framing of the Tabernacle was to be offered willingly with the heart * Exod. 25.7 The more of Will the more of Spirituality and Acceptableness to God Psal 119.108 Accept the Free-will-offering of my lips Sincerity is the Salt which seasons every Sacrifice The heart is most like to the object of worship The heart in the body is the spring of all vital actions and a spiritual Soul is the spring of all spiritual actions How can we imagin God can delight in the meer service of the Body any more than we can delight in converse with a Carcass Without the heart 't is no worship 'T is a Stage-play an acting a part without being that person really which is acted by us A Hypocrite in the notion of the word is a Stage-player We may as well say a man may believe with his body as worship God only with his body Faith is a great ingredient in Worship and it is with the heart Man believes unto Righteousness * Rom. 10.10 We may be truly said to worship God though we want perfection but we cannot be said to worship him if we want sincerity A Statue upon a Tomb with eyes and hands lifted up offers as good and true a service it wants only a voice the gestures and postures are the same nay the service is better 't is not a mockery it represents all that it can be framed to But to worship without our Spirits is a presenting God with a Picture an Eccho Voice and nothing else a Complement a meer Lye a compassing him about with Lyes * Hos 11.12 Without the heart the tongue is a Lyar and the greatest Zeal dissembling with him To present the Spirit is to present with that which can never naturally dye to present him only the Body is to present him that which is every day crumbling to dust and will at last lye rotting in the Grave To offer him a few Raggs easily torn a Skin for a Sacrifice a thing unworthy the Majesty of God a fixed eye and elevated hands with a sleepy Heart and earthly Soul are pitiful things for an ever blessed and glorious Spirit Nay it is so far from being spiritual that it is Blasphemy To pretend to be a Jew outwardly without being so inwardly is in the Judgment of Christ to blaspheme * Revel 2.9 And is not the same title to be given with as much reason to those that pretend a worship and perform none Such a one is not a spiritual Worshipper but a blaspheming Devil in Samuel's Mantle 4. Spiritual Worship is performed with an unitedness of heart The heart is not only now and then with God but united to fear or worship his name * Psal 86.11 A spiritual duty must have the engagement of the Spirit and the thoughts tyed up to the spiritual Object The union of all the parts of the heart together with the body is the life of the body and the moral union of our hearts is the life of any duty A heart quickly flitting from God makes not God his treasure he slights the worship and therein affronts the Object of Worship All our thoughts ought to be ravished with God bound up in him as in a bundle of life But when we start from him to gaze after every feather and run after every bubble we disown a full and affecting excellency and a satisfying sweetness in him When our thoughts run from God 't is a testimony we have no spiritual affection to God Affection would stake down the thoughts to the Object affected 'T is but a Mouth-love as the Prophet phraseth it * Ezek. 33.31 But their hearts go after their Covetousness Covetous Objects pipe and the heart danceth after them and thoughts of God are shifted off to receive a multitude of other imaginations The heart and the service stayed a while together and then took leave of one another The Psalmist * Psal 39.18 still found his heart with God when he awak'd still with God in spiritual affections and fixed meditations A carnal heart is seldom with God either in or out of worship If God should knock at the heart in any duty it would be found not at home but straying abroad Our worship is spiritual when the door of the heart is shut against all Intruders as our Saviour commands in Closet-duties * Mat. 6.6 It was not his meaning to command the shutting the Closet-door and leave the Heart-door open for every thought that would be apt to haunt us Worldly affections are to be laid aside if we would have our worship spiritual This was meant by the Jewish custom of wiping or washing off the dust of their feet before their entrance into the Temple and of not bringing mony in their girdles To be spiritual in worship is to have our Souls gathered and bound up wholly in themselves and offered to God Our Loyns must be girt as the fashion was in the Eastern Countries where they wore long Garments that they might not waver with the Wind and be blown between their leggs to obstruct them in their travel Our faculties must not hang loose about us He is a carnal Worshipper that gives God but a piece of his heart as well as he that denies him the whole of it that hath
up and the Devil stands ready to tempt us to self-confidence You know how it was with Paul * 2 Cor. 12. from v. 1. to v. 7. His buffetings were occasions to render him more spiritual than his raptures because more humble God suffers those wandrings starts and distractions to prevent our spiritual pride which is as a Worm at the root of spiritual worship and mind us of the dusty frame of our Spirits how easily they are blown away As he sends sickness to put us in mind of the shortness of our breath and the easiness to lose it God would make us ashamed of our selves in his presence that we may own that what is good in any duty is meerly from his Grace and Spirit and not from our selves That with Paul we may cry out by Grace we are what we are and by Grace we do what we do We may be hereby made sensible that God can alway find something in our exactest worship as a ground of denying us the successful fruit of it If we cannot stand upon our duties for Salvation what can we bottom upon in our selves If therefore they are occasions to make us out of love with any righteousness of our own to make us break our hearts for them because we cannot keep them out If we mourn for them as our sins and count them our great afflictions we have attained that brokeness which is a choice ingredient in a spiritual Sacrifice Though we have been disturbed by them yet we are not robbed of the success we may behold an answer of our worship in our humiliation in spite of all of them 2. For the baseness of our Nature These unsteady motions help us to discern that heap of vermin that breeds in our nature Would any man think he had such an averseness to his Creator and Benefactor such an unsutableness to him such an estrangedness from him were it not for his inspection into his distracted frames God suffers this to hang over us as a Rod of Correction to discover and fetch out the folly of our hearts Could we imagin our natures so highly contrary to that God who is so infinitely amiable so desirable an Object or that there should be so much folly and madness in the heart as to draw back from God in those services which God hath appointed as pipes through which to communicate his grace to convey himself his love and goodness to the Creature If therefore we have a deep sense of and strong reflections upon our base nature and bewail that mass of aversness which lies there and that fulness of irreverence towards the God of our mercies the Object of our worship 't is a blessed improvement of our wandrings and diversions Certainly if any Israelite had brought a lame and rotten Lamb to be sacrificed to God and afterward had bewailed it and laid open his heart to God in a sensible and humble confession of it That Repentance had been a better Sacrifice and more acceptable in the sight of God than if he had brought a sound and a living Offering 2. When they are occasions to make us prize duties of worship When we argue as rationally we may that they are of singular use since our corrupt hearts and a malicious Devil doth chiefly endeavour to hinder us from them And that we find we have not those gadding thoughts when we are upon worldly business or upon any sinful design which may dishonour God and wound our Souls This is a sign Sin and Satan dislike worship for he is too subtle a Spirit to oppose that which would further his Kingdom As it is an argument the Scripture is the Word of God because the wickedness of the world doth so much oppose it so it is a ground to believe the profitableness and excellency of worship because Satan and our own unruly hearts do so much interrupt us in it If therefore we make this use of our cross steps in worship to have a greater value for such duties more affections to them and desires to be frequent in them Our hearts are growing spiritual under the weights that would depress them to carnality 3. When we take a rise from hence to have heavenly admirations of the graciousness of God That he should pity and pardon so many slight addresses to him and give any gracious returns to us Though men have foolish rangings every day and in every duty yet free grace is so tender as not to punish them Gen. 8.21 And the Lord smelt a sweet savour and the Lord said in his heart I will not curse the Ground for mans sake for the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth 'T is observable that this was just after a Sacrifice which Noah offered to God v. 20. But probably not without infirmities common to human nature which may be grounded upon the reason God gives that though he had destroyed the Earth before because of the evil of mans imaginations Gen. 6.5 He still found evil imaginations He doth not say in the heart of Cham or others of Noah's Family but in mans heart including Noah also who had both the Judgments of God upon the former world and the mercy of God in his own preservation before his eyes yet God sawevil imaginations rooted in the nature of Man and though it were so yet he would be merciful If therefore we can after finding our hearts so vagrant in worship have real frames of thankfulness that God hath spared us and be hightned in our admirations at Gods giving us any fruit of such a distracted worship we take advantage from them to be raised into an Evangelical frame which consists in the humble acknowledgments of the grace of God When David takes a review of those tumultuous passions which had rufled his mind and possessed him with unbelieving notions of God in the persons of his Prophets * Psal 116.11 how high doth his Soul mount in astonishment and thankfulness to God for his mercy * verse 12. Notwithstanding his distrust God did graciously perform his promise and answer his desire Then it is what shall I render to the Lord His heart was more affected for it because it had been so passionate in former distrusts 'T is indeed a ground of wondring at the patience of the Spirit of God that he should guide our hearts when they are so apt to start out as it is the patience of a Master to guide the hand of his Scholar while he mixes his writing with many blots 'T is not one or two infirmities the Spirit helps us in and helps over but many * Rom. 8.26 'T is a sign of a spiritual heart when he can take a rise to bless God for the renewing and blowing up his affections in the midst of so many incursions from Satan to the contrary and the readiness of the heart too much to comply with them 4. When we take occasion from thence to prize the mediation of Christ The
understandings and divide our Spirits from God Were our hearts ballanced with a love to God the world could never steal our hearts so much from his worship but his worship would draw our hearts to it It shews a base neutrality in the greatest concernments a halting between God and Baal a contrariety between Affection and Conscience when natural Conscience presses a man to duties of worship and his other affections pull him back draw him to carnal objects and make him slight that whereby he may honour God God argues the prophaness of the Jews hearts from the wickedness they brought into his house and acted there Jer. 23.11 Yea in my house that is my worship I found their wickedness saith the Lord. Carnality in worship is a kind of an Idolatrous frame when the heart is renewed Idols are cast to the Moles and the Batts Isa 2.20 3. It shews much hypocrisie to have our Spirits off from God The mouth speaks and the carriage pretends what the heart doth not think there is a dissent of the heart from the pretence of the body Instability is a sure sign of Hypocrisie Double thoughts argue a double heart The Wicked are compared to Chaff * Psal 1.4 for the uncertain and various motions of their minds by the least wind of fancy The least motion of a carnal Object diverts the Spirit from God as the scent of Carrion doth the Raven from the flight it was set upon The People of God are called Gods Spouse and God calls himself their Husband whereby is noted the most intimate union of the Soul with God and that there ought to be the highest love and affection to him and faithfulness in his worship but when the heart doth start from him in worship it is a sign of the unstedfastness of it with God and a disrelish of any communion with him It is as God complains of the Israelites a going a whoreing after our own imaginations As grace respects God as the object of worship so it looks most upon God in approaching to him Where there is a likeness and love there is a desire of converse and intimacy if there be no spiritual entwining about God in our worship it is a sign there is no likeness to him no true sense of him no renewed image of God in us Every living Image will move strongly to joyn it self with its original Copy and be glad with Jacob to sit steadily in those Chariots that shall convey him to his beloved Joseph Motion 3. Consider the danger of a carnal worship 1. We lose the comfort of worship The Soul is a great Gainer when it offers a spiritual worship and as great a loser when it is unfaithful with God Treachery and perfidiousness hinder commerce among men so doth Hypocrisie in its own nature communion with God God never promised any thing to the Carcass but to the Spirit of worship God hath no obligation upon him by any word of his to reward us with himself when we perform it not to himself When we give an outside worship we have only the outside of an ordinance We can expect no kernel when we give God only the shell He that only licks the outside of the Glass can never be refreshed with the rich Cordial enclosed within A cold and lazy formality will make God to withdraw the light of his countenance and not shine with any delightful communications upon our Souls but if we come before him with a liveliness of affections and steadiness of heart he will draw the vail and cause his glory to display it self before us An humble praying Christian and a warm affectionate Christian in worship will soon find a God who is delighted with such frames and cannot long withold himself from the Soul When our hearts are enflamed with love to him in worship 't is a preparation to some act of love on his part whereby he intends further to gratifie us When John was in the Spirit on the Lords day that is in spiritual employment and meditation and other duties he had that great Revelation of what should happen to the Church in all ages * Rev 1.10 His being in the Spirit intimates his ordinary course on that day and not any extraordinary act in him though it was followed with an extraordinary discovery of God to him When he was thus engaged he heard a voice behind him God doth not require of us spirituality in worship to advantage himself but that we might be prepared to be advantaged by him If we have a clear and well disposed eye 't is not a benefit to the Sun but fits us to receive benefits from his Beams Worship is an act that perfects our own Souls they are then most widened by spiritual frames to receive the influence of divine blessings as an eye most opened receives the fruit of the Suns light better than the eye that is shut The communications of God are more or less according as our spiritual frames are more or less in our worship God will not give his blessings to unsutable hearts What a nasty Vessel is a carnal heart for a spiritual communication The chief end of every duty enjoyned by God is to have communion with him and therefore it is called a drawing near to God 'T is impossible therefore that the outward part of any duty can answer the end of God in his institution 'T is not a bodily appearance or gesture whereby men can have communion with God but by the impressions of the heart and reflections of the heart upon God Without this all the rich streams of grace will run besides us and the growth of the Soul be hindered and impaired A diligent hand makes rich saith the wise man a diligent heart in spiritual worship brings in rich incomes to the humble and spiritual Soul 2. It renders the worship not only unacceptable but abominable to God It makes our Gold to become Dross it soyls our duties and bespotts our Souls A carnal and unsteady frame shews an indifferency of Spirit at best and luke warmness is as ungrateful to God as heavy and nauseous meat is to the stomach he spues them out of his mouth * Rev. 3.16 As our gracious God doth overlook infirmities where intentions are good and endeavours serious and strong so he loaths the services where the frames are stark naught Psal 66.118 If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear my Prayer Luke warm and indifferrent services stink in the Nostrils of God The heart seems to loath God when it starts from him upon every occasion when it is unwilling to employ it self about and stick close to him And can God be pleased with such a frame The more of the Heart and Spirit is in any service the more real goodness there is in it and the more savoury it is to God the less of the Heart and Spirit the less of goodness and the more nauseous to God who loves Righteousness
Province a Rebel if he disobeys the Orders sent him by the soveraign Prince that commission'd him Rebellion against God is a crime of Princes as well as Rebellion against Princes a Crime of Subjects Saul is charg'd with it by Samuel in a high manner for an act of simple disobedience though intended for the service of God and the enriching his Country with the spoils of the Amalekites 1 Sam. 15.23 Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft like Witchcraft or Covenanting with the Divel acting as if he had received his commission not from God but from Sathan Magistrates as commission'd by God ought to act for him Doth humane authority ever give a Commission to any to rebel against it self did God ever depute any earthly soveraignty against his glory and give them leave to out-law his Laws to introduce their own No when he gave the vicarious dominion to Christ he calls upon the Kings of the Earth to be instructed and be Wise and kiss the Son Psal 2.10.12 i. e. To observe his orders and pay him homage as their Governour What a silly doltish thing is it to resist that supream Authority to which the Arch-Angels submit themselves and regulate their employments punctually by their instructions Those excellent Creatures exactly obey him in all the acts of their subordinate Government in the World those in whose hand the greatest Monarch is no more than a silly fly between the fingers of a Giant A contradiction to the interest of God hath been fatal to Kings The four Monarchies have had their wings clipt and most of them have been buried in their own ashes they have all like the imitators of Lucifers pride fallen from the Heaven of their Glory to the depth of their shame and misery All Governours are bound to be as much obedient to God as their Subjects are bound to be submissive to them Their Authority over men is limited Gods Authority over them is absolute and unbounded Though every Soul ought to be subject to the higher powers yet there is a higher power of all to which those higher powers are to subject themselves they are to be keepers of both the Tables of the Law of God and are then most soveraigns when they set in their own practice an example of obedience to God for their Subjects to write after 2. They ought to imitate God in the exercise of their soveraignty in ways of Justice and Righteousness Though God be an absolute soveraign yet his Government is not Tyrannical but managed according to the rules of Righteousness Wisdom and Goodness If God that created them as well as their Subjects doth so exercise his Government 't is a duty incumbent upon them to do the same Since they are not the Creators of their people but the conductors As Gods Government tends to the good of the World so ought theirs to the good of their Countries God committed not the government of the World to the Mediator in an unlimited way but for the good of the Church in order to the Eternal Salvation of his people Eph. 1.22 He gave him to be head over all things to the Church He had power over the Devils to restrain them in their temptation and malice power over the Angels to order their Ministry for the Heirs of Salvation So power is given to Magistrates for the Civil preservation of the World and of humane Society They ought therefore to consider for what ends they are placed over the rest of mankind and not exercise their Authority in a licentious way but conformable to that Justice and Righteousness wherein God doth administer his government and for the preservation of those who are committed to them 3. Magistrates must then be obey'd when they act according to Gods order and within the bounds of the divine Commission They are no friends to the soveraignty of God that are Enemies to Magistracy his Ordinance Sam was a good Governour though none of the best men and the despisers of his Government after Gods choice were the Sons of Belial 1 Sam. 10.27 Christ was no Enemy to Caesar To pull down a faithful Magistrate such an one as Zerubbabel is to pluck a Signet from the hand of God For in that capacity he accounts him Hag. 2.23 Gods servants stand or fall to their own Master How doth he check Aaron and Miriam for speaking against Moses his servant Numb 12.8 Were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses against Moses as related to you in the capacity of a Governour against Moses as related to me in the capacity of my servant To speak any thing against them as they act by Gods order is an invasion of Gods soveraign right who gave them their Commission To act against just power or the justice of an Earthly power is to act against Gods Ordinance who ordained them in the World but not any abuse or ill use of their power 2. USE How dreadful is the consideration of this doctrine to all rebels against God Can any man that hath brains in his head imagine it an inconsiderable thing to despise the soveraign of the World It was the sole crime of disobedience to that positive Law whereby God would have a visible memorial of his soveraignty preserved in the eye of Man that showered down that deluge of misery under which the World groans to this day God had given Adam a Soul whereby he might live as a rational Creature and then gives him a Law whereby he might live as a dutiful Subject For God forbidding him to eat of the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil declared his own supremacy over Adam and his propriety in the pleasant World he had given him by his bounty he let him know hereby that man was not his own Lord nor was to live after his own sentiments but the directions of a superior * Chrysost in Gen. Hom. 16. As when a great Lord builds a magnificent Palace and brings in tanoher to inhabit it he reserves a small duty to himself not of an equal value with the House but for an acknowledgment of his own right that the Tenant may know he is not the Lord of it but hath his grant by the liberality of another God hereby gave Adam matter for a pure Obedience that had no foundation in his own Nature by any implanted Law he was only in it to respect the will of his soveraign and to understand that he was to live under the power of a higher than himself There was no more moral evil in the eating of this fruit as considered distinct from the command than in eating of any other fruit in the Garden Had there been no prohibition he might with as much safety have fed upon it as upon any other No Law of nature was transgrest in the act of eating of it but the soveraignty of God over him was denied by him and for this the death threatned was inflicted on him and his posterity For
a bitter potion we are rather haled than run to it There is a contradiction of sin within us against our service as there was a contradiction of sinners without our Saviour against his doing the Will of God Our hearts are unweildy to any Spiritual service of God we are fain to use a violence with them sometimes Hezekiah it is said walked before the Lord with a perfect heart 2 Kings 20.9 he walked he made himself to walk Man naturally cares not for a walk with God If he hath any Communion with him t is with such a dulness and heaviness of Spirit as if he wished himself out of his Company Mans nature being contrary to holiness hath an aversion to any act of homage to God because Holiness must at least be pretended In every duty wherein we have a Communion with God Holiness is requisite Now as men are against the truth of Holiness because it is unsutable to them so they are not friends to those duties which require it and for some space divert them from the thoughts of their beloved lusts The word of the Lord is a Yoke Prayer a drudgery Obedience a strange Element We are like fish that drink up iniquity like water * Job 15.16 and come not to the bank without the force of an Angle No more willing to do service for God than a fish is of it self to do service for Man T is a constrained act to satisfie Conscience and such are servile not Son-like performances and spring from bondage more than affection If Conscience like a task Master did not scourge them to duty they would never perform it Let us appeal to our selves whether we are not more unwilling to secret Closet hearty duty to God than to joyn with others in some external service as if those inward services were a going to the rack and rather our pennance than priviledg How much service hath God in the world from the same principle that Vagrants perform their task in Bridewel How glad are many of evasions to back them in the neglect of the Commands of God of Corrupt reasonings from the flesh to way-lay an Act of obedience and a multitude of excuses to blunt the edge of the precept The very service of God shall be a pretence to deprive him of the obedience due to him Saul will not be ruled by Gods Will in the destroying the Cattle of the Amalekites but by his own and will impose upon the Will and Wisdom of God Judging God mistaken in his Command and that the Cattle God thought fittest to be meat to the fouls were fitter to be Sacrifices on the Altar * 1 Sam. 15.3.9.15.21 If we do perform any part of his Will is it not for our own ends to have some deliverance from trouble Isa 26.16 In trouble have they visited thee they poured out a Prayer when thy Chastening was upon them In affliction he shall find them kneeling in Homage and Devotion In prosperity he shall feel them kicking with contempt they can poure out a Prayer in distress and scarce drop one when they are delivered 2. There is a slightness in our service of God We are loath to come into his presence and when we do come we are loth to continue with him We pay not an Homage to him heartily as to our Lord and Governour we regard him not as our Master whose work we ought to do and whose Honour we ought to aime at 1. In regard of the matter of service When the torn the lame and the sick is offered to God * Mal. 1.13.14 so thin and lean a Sacrifice that you may have thrown it to the ground with a puff so some understand the meaning of you have snufft at it Men have naturally such slight thoughts of the Majesty and Law of God that they think any service is good enough for him and conformable to his Law The dullest and deadest times we think fittest to pay God a service in when sleep is ready to close our eyes and we are unfit to serve our selves we think it a fit time to open our hearts to God How few Morning Sacrifices hath God from many persons and Families Men leap out of their beds to their carnal pleasures or worldly employments without any thought of their Creator and Preserver or any reflection upon his Will as the rule of our dayly obedience And as many reserve the dregs of their Lives their Old-age to offer up their Souls to God So they reserve the Dreggs of the Day their sleeping time for the offering up their service to Him How many grudge to spend their best time in the serving the Will of God and reserve for him the sickly and rheumatick part of their Lives the remainder of that which the Devil and their own Lusts have fed upon Would not any Prince or Governour judge a Present half eaten up by Wild-beasts or that which died in a Ditch a contempt of his Royalty A corrupt thing is too base and vile for so great a King as God is whose Name is dreadful * Mal. 1.14 When by Age Men are weary of their own Bodies they would present them to God yet grudgingly as if a tired body were too good for him snuffing at the Command for Service God calls for our best and we give him the worst 2. In respect of Frame We think any frame will serve Gods turn which speaks our slight of God as a Ruler Man naturally performs duty with an unholy heart whereby it becomes an abomination to God Pro. 28.9 He that turns away his Ear from hearing the Law even his prayers shall be an abomination to God The Services which he commands he hates for their evil frames or corrupt ends Amos 5.21 I hate I despise your Feast-days I will not smell in your Solemn Assemblies God requires gracious services and we give him corrupt ones We do not rouze up our hearts as David called upon his Lute and Harp to awake Psal 57.8 Our hearts are not given to him we put him off with bodily exercise The heart is but Ice to what it doth not affect 1. There is not that natural vigor in the observance of God which we have in worldly business When we see a liveliness in men in other things change the Scene into a motion towards God how suddenly doth their vigoâ— shrink and their hearts freeze into sluggishness Many times we serve God as lanâ—guishingly as if we were afraid he should accept us and pray as coldly as if we were unwilling he should hear us and take away that lust by which we are Governed and which Conscience forces us to pray against as if we were afraid God should set up his own throne and Government in our hearts How fleeting are we in Divine Meditation how sleepy in Spiritual exercises but in other exercises active The Soul doth not awaken it self and excite those animal and vital Spirits which it will in bodily recreations and
a posture to be his Mate Other sins Adultery and Theft c. could not be committed by him at that time but he immediatly puts forth his hand to usurp the power of his Maker This Treason is the old Adam in every man The first Adam contradicted the Will of God to set up himself The second Adam humbled himself and did nothing but by the Command and Will of his Father This principle wherein the venom of the Old Adam lies must be Crucified to make way for the Throne of the humble and obedient principle of the New Adam or quickning Spirit Indeed sin in its owns nature is nothing else but a willing according to self and contrary to the Will of God Lusts are therefore called the Wills of the flesh and of the mind * Eph. 2.3 As the precepts of God are Gods Will So the violations of these precepts is mans Will And thus man usurps a God-head to himself by giving that Honour to his own Will which belongs to God appropriating the right of rule to himself and denying it to his Creator That Servant that acts according to his own Will with a neglect of his Masters refuseth the duty of a Servant and invades the right of his Master This Self-love and desire of Independency on God has been the root of all sin in the World The great controversy between God and man hath been whether he or they shall be God whether his Reason or theirs his Will or theirs shall be the guiding principle As Grace is the union of the Will of God and the Will of the Creature so sin is the opposition of the Will of self to the Will of God Leaning to our own understanding is opposed as a natural evil to trusting in the Lord * Pro. 3.5 a supernatural grace Men commonly love what is their own their own inventions their own fancies therefore the ways of a wicked man are called the ways of his own heart * Eccl. 11.9 and the ways of a superstitious man his own devices Jer. 18.11 We will walk after our own devices We will be a law to our selves And what the Psalmist saith of the tongue our tongues are our own who shall controul us is as truly the language of mens hearts our Wills are our own who shall check us 2. This is eviden in the dissatisfaction of men with their own Consciences when they contradict the desires of self Conscience is nothing but an actuated or reflex knowledg of a superior power and an equitable law a law imprest and a power above it impressing it Conscience is not the law-giver but the remembrancer to mind us of that law of nature imprinted upon our Souls and actuate the considerations of the duty and penalty to apply the rule to our acts and pass Judgment upon matter of fact T is to give the charge urge the rule enjoyn the practice of those notions of Right as part of our duty and obedience But man is much displeased with the directions of Conscience as he is out of love with the accusations and condemning sentence of this officer of God We cannot naturally endure any quick and lively practical thoughts of God and his Will and distast our own Consciences for putting us in mind of it They therefore like not to retain God in their knowledge * Rom. 1.28 that is God in their own Consciences they would blow it out as it is the Candle of the Lord in them to direct them and their acknowledgments of God to secure themselves against the practice of its principles They would stop all the avenues to any beam of light and would not suffer a sparkle of Divine knowledge to flutter in their minds in order to set up another directing rule suited to the fleshly appetite And when they cannot stop the light of it from glaring in their faces they rebel against it and cannot endure to abide in its paths * Job 24.13 He speaks not of those which had the written word or special Revelations but only a natural light or traditional handed from Adam Hence are all the endeavors to still it when it begins to speak by some carnal pleasures as Sauls evil Spirit with a fit of Musick or bribe it with some fits of a glavering devotion when it holds the Law of God in its commanding Authority before the mind They would wipe out all the impressions of it when it presses the advancement of God above self and entertain it with no better Complement than Ahab did Elijah hast thou found me O my Enemy If we are like to God in any thing of our natural fabrick t is in the superior and more Spiritual part of our Souls The resistance of that which is most like to God and instead of God in us is a disowning of the Soveraign represented by that Officer He that would be without Conscience would be without God whose Vicegerent it is and make the sensitive part which Conscience opposes his Law-giver Thus a man out of respect to sinful self quarrels with his natural self and cannot comport himself in a friendly behaviour to his internal implanted principles He hates to come under the rebukes of them as much as Adam hated to come into the presence of God after he turned Traytor against him The bad entertainment Gods deputy hath in us reflects upon that God whose cause it pleads T is upon no other account that men loath the upright Language of their own reasons in those matters and wish the eternal silence of their own Consciences but as they maintain the rights of God and would hinder the Idol of self from usurping his God-head and prerogative Tho this power be part of a mans self rooted in his nature as essential to him and inseparable from him as the best part of his being yet he quarrels with it as it is Gods Deputy and stickling for the honour of God in his Soul and quarrelling with that sinful self he would cherish above God We are not displeased with this faculty barely as it exerciseth a self-reflection but as it is Gods Vice-gerent and bears the mark of his Authority in it In some cases this self-reflecting act meets with good Entertainment when it acts not in contradiction to self but sutable to natural affections As suppose a man hath in his passion struck his Child and caused thereby some great mischeif to him the reflection of Conscience will not be unwelcome to him will work some tenderness in him because it takes the part of self and of natural affection But in the more Spiritual concerns of God it will be rated as a busy body 3. Many if not most actions materially good in the world are done more because they are agreeable to self than as they are honourable to God As the word of God may be heard not as his word * 1 Thes 2.13 but as there may be pleasing Notions in it or discourses against an opinion or
lay the Plot of our own Affairs and then come to God not for Counsel but Blessing Self only shall give us counsel how to act but because we believe there is a God that governs the world we will desire him to contribute success God is not consulted with till the Counsel of self be fixed then God must be the Executor of our Will Self must be the Principal and God the Instrument to hatch what we have contrived 'T is worse when we beg of God to favour some sinful Aim the Psalmist implies this Psal 66.18 If I regard Iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me Iniquity regarded as the aim in Prayer renders the Prayer succesless and the Suppliant an Atheist in debasing God to back his Lust by his holy Providence The Disciples had determined Revenge and because they could not act it without their Master they would have him be their Second in their vindictive passion Luke 9.55 Call for fire from Heaven We scarce seek God till we have modell'd the whole Contrivance in our own Brains and resolved upon the Methods of Performance as though there were not a fullness of Wisdom in God to guide us in our resolves as well as Power to breath Success upon them 4. In impatience upon the refusal of our desires How often do mens Spirits rise against God when he steps not in with the Assistance they want If the glory of God swayed more with them than their private interest they would let God be Judge of his own glory and rather magnifie his Wisdom than complain of his want of Goodness Selfish hearts will charge God with neglect of them if he be not as quick in their supplies as they are in their desires like those in Isa 58.3 Wherefore have we fasted say they and thou seest not wherefore have we afflicted our Souls and thou takest no knowledge When we aim at Gods glory in our importunities we shall fall down in humble Submissions when he denies us whereas self riseth up in bold Expostulations as if God were our Servant and had neglected the service he owed us not to come at our call We over-value the satisfactions of self above the honour of God Besides if what we desire be a sin our impatience at a refusal is more intolerable 'T is an anger that God will not lay aside his holiness to serve our corruption 5. In the actual aims men have in their Duties In Prayer for temporal things when we desire Health for our own ease Wealth for our own sensuality Strength for our revenge Children for the increase of our Family Gifts for our applause as Simon Magus did the Holy-Ghost or when some of those ends are aimed at This is to desire God not to serve himself of us but to be a Servant to our worldly interest our vain glory the greatning of our names c. In spiritual mercies begged for When pardon of sin is desired only for our own security from eternal Vengeance Sanctification desired only to make us fit for everlasting blessedness Peace of Conscience only that we may lead our lives more comfortably in the world when we have not actual intentions for the glory of God or when our thoughts of Gods honour are overtopt by the aims of self advantage Not but that as God hath prest us to those things by motives drawn from the Blessedness derived to our selves by them so we may desire them with a resepect to our selves but this respect must be contained within the due banks in subordination to the glory of God not above it nor in an equal ballance with it Gurnall Part. 3. Pag. 337. That which is nourishing or medicinal in the first or second degree is in the fourth or fifth degree meer destructive poyson Let us consider it seriously though a Duty be heavenly doth not some base end smut us in it 1. How is it with our Confessions of Sin Are they not more to procure our Pardon than to shame our selves before God or to be freed from the chains that hinder us from bringing him the glory for which we were created or more to partake of his benefits than to honour him in acknowledging the rights of his Justice Do we not bewail sin as it hath ruined us not as it opposed the Holiness of God Do we not shuffle with God and confess one sin while we reserve another as if we would allure God by declaring our dislike of one to give us liberty to commit Wantoness with another not to abhor our selves but to daub with God 2. Is it any better in our private and Family Worship Are not such Assemblies frequented by some where some upon whom they have a dependance may eye them and have a better opinion of them and affection to them If God were the sole end of our hearts would they not be as glowing under the sole eye of God as our tongues or carriages are seemingly serious under the eye of man Are not Family duties performed by some that their voices may be heard and their reputation supported among Godly Neighbours 3. Is not the Charity of many men tainted with this end self * Mat. 6.1 as the Pharisees were while they set the miserable Object before them but not the Lord bestowing Alms not so much upon the necessities of the people as the friendship we owe them for some particular respects Or casting our bread upon those Waters which stream down in the sight of the world that our Doles may be visible to them and commended by them Or when we think to oblige God to pardon our transgressions as if we merited it and Heaven too at his hands by bestowing a few pence upon indigent persons And 4. Is it not the same with the Reproofs of men Is not Heat and Anger carried out with full Sail when our worldly interest is prejudic'd and becalm'd in the concerns of God Do not many Masters reprove their Servants with more vehemency for the neglect of their Trade and Business than the neglect of Divine Duties and that upon Religious Arguments pretending the honour of God that they may mind their own interest But when they are negligent in what they owe to God no noyse is made they pass without rebuke Is not this to make God and Religion a Stale to their own ends 'T is a part of Atheism not to regard the injuries done to God as Tiberius * Dei injuria Deo curae Let Gods wrongs be looked to or cared for by himself 5. Is it not thus in our seeming Zeal for Religion As Demetrius and the Craftsmen at Ephesus cried up aloud the greatness of Diana of the Ephesians not out of any true zeal they had for her but their gain which was increased by the confluence of her Worshippers and the Sale of her own Shrines Acts 19.24.28 4. In making use of the Name of God to countenance our Sin When we set up an opinion that is a
cleared over their Heads The whole book of Judges makes mention of it And tho an Evangelical light hath chased that Idolatry away from a great part of the world yet the Principle remaining Coyns more Spiritual Idols in the heart which are brought before God in acts of Worship 2. Hence all superstition received its rise and growth When we Mint a God according to our own Complexion like to us in mutable and various passions soon angry and soon appeased t is no wonder that we invent ways of pleasing him after we have offended him and think to expiate the sin of our Souls by some Melancholy devotions and self Chastisements Superstition is nothing else but an unscriptural and unrevealed dread of God * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When they imagined him a rigorous and severe Master they cast about for ways to mitigate him whom they thought so hard to be pleased A very mean thought of him as if a slight and pompous Devotion could as easily bribe and flatter him out of his rigors as a few good words or baubling rattles could please and quiet little Children And whatsoever pleased us could please a God infinitely above us Such narrow conceipts had the Philistins when they thought to still the anger of the God of Israel whom they thought they possess'd in the Ark with the present of a few Golden mice * 1 Sam. 6.3 4. All the Superstition this day living in the world is built upon this foundation So natural it is to Man to pull God down to his own Imaginations rather than raise his Imaginations up to God Hence doth arise also the diffidence of his mercy tho they repent measuring God by the contracted Models of their own Spirits as tho his nature were as difficult to Pardon their offences against him as they are to remit wrongs done to themselves 3. Hence Springs all Presumption the Common disease of the world All the wickedness in the World which is nothing else but presuming upon God rises from the ill interpretations of the goodness of God breaking out upon them in the works of Creation and Providence The Corruption of Mans nature engendred by those Notions of goodness a monstrous birth of vain imaginations Not of themselves primarily but of God whence arose all that folly and darkness in their minds and conversations Rom. 1.20.21 They glorified him not as God but according to themselves imagined him good that themselves might be bad fancyed him so indulgent as to neglect his own honour for their sensuality How doth the unclean person represent him to his own thoughts but as a Goat the Murderer as a Tyger the sensual person as a Swine while they fancy a God indulgent to their Crimes without their repentance As the Image on the Seal is stampt upon the wax so the thoughts of the heart are Printed upon the actions Gods Patience is apprehended to be an approbation of their Vices and from the Consideration of his forbearance they fashion a God that they believe will smile upon their Crimes They imagine a God that plays with them and tho he threatens doth it only to scare but means not as he speaks A God they fancy like themselves that would do as they would do not be angry for what they count a light offence Psal 50.21 Thou thoughtest I was such a one as thy self That God and they were exactly alike as two Tallies * Gurnal part 2. p. 245. 246. Our wilful misapprehensions of God are the cause of our misbehaviour in all his worship Our slovenly and lazy services tell him to his face what slight thoughts and apprehensions we have of him Compare these two together Superstition ariseth from terrifying misapprehensions of God Presumption from self pleasing thoughts One represents him only rigorous and the other careless One makes us over officious in serving him by our own rules and the other over bold in offending him according to our humors The want of a true Notion of Gods Justice makes some Men slight him And the want of a true apprehension of his goodness makes others too servile in their approaches to him One makes us careless of duties and the other makes us look on them rather as Physick than food an unsupportable pennance than a desirable priviledge In this Case Hell is the principle of Duty performed to Heaven The superstitious Man believes God hath scarce mercy to Pardon the presumptuous Man believes he hath no such perfection as Justice to punish The one makes him insignificant to what he desires kindness and goodness the other renders him insignificant to what he fears his vindictive Justice What between the Idolater the superstitious the presumptuous person God should look like no God in the world These unworthy imaginations of God are likewise A vilifying of him Debasing the Creator to be a Creature of their own fancies putting their own stamp upon him and fashioning him not according to that beautiful Image he imprest upon them by Creation but the defaced Image they inherit by their fall and which is worse the Image of the Devil which spread it self over them at their revolt and apostacy Were it possible to see a Picture of God according to the fancies of Men it would be the most Monstrous being such a God that never was nor ever can be VVe honour God when we have worthy opinions of him sutable to his nature when we conceive of him as a being of unbounded loveliness and perfection VVe detract from him when we ascribe to him such qualities as would be a horrible disgrace to a wise and good Man As Injustice and Impurity Thus Men debase God when they invert his order and would Create him according to their Image as he first Created them according to his own And think him not worthy to be a God unless he fully answer the mould they would cast him into and be what is unworthy of his nature Men do not conceive of God as he would have them but he must be what they would have him one of their own shaping 1. This is worse than Idolatry The grossest Idolater commits not a Crime so hainous by changing his glory into the Image of Creeping things and senseless Creatures as the imagining God to be as one of our sinful selves and likening him to those filthy Images we erect in our fancies One makes him an earthly God like an earthly Creature the other fancies him an unjust and impure God like a wicked Creature One sets up an Image of him in the Earth which is his footstool the other sets up an Image of him in the heart which ought to be his throne 2. T is worse than absolute Atheism or a denial of God Dignius credimus non esse quodcunque non ita fuerit ut esse deberet was the opinion of Tertullian * Tertul. cont Maxim lib. 1. cap. 2. T is more Commendable to think him not to be than to think him such a one
from some powerful Principle so that every one may subscribe to the speech of the Apostle that when we would do good evil is present with them No reason of this can be rendred but the natural temper of our Souls and an affecting a distance from God under any consideration For though our guilt first made the breach yet this aversion to a converse with him steps up without any actual reflections upon our guilt which may render God terrible to us as an offended Judge Are we not often also in our attendance upon him more pleased with the modes of Worship which gratifie our fancy than to have our Souls inwardly delighted with the Object of Worship himself This is a part of our natural Atheism To cast such duties off by total neglect or in part by affecting a coldness in them is to cast off the Fear of the Lord. * Job 15.4 Not to call upon God and not to know him are one and the same thing Jer. 10.25 Either we think there is no such Being in the world or that he is so slight a one that he deserves not the respect he calls for or so impotent and poor that he cannot supply what our necessities require 3. No desire of a thorough return to him The first man fled from him after his defection though he had no refuge to fly to but the grace of his Creator Cain went from his presence would be a Fugitive from God rather than a Suppliant to him when by Faith in and application of the promised Redeemer he might have escaped the wrath to come for his Brothers blood and mitigated the sorrows he was justly sentenced to bear in the World Nothing will separate prodigal Man from commoning with Swine and make him return to his Father but an empty Trough Have we but husks to feed on we shall never think of a Fathers presence It were well if our sores and indigence would drive us to him but when our strength is devoured we will not return to the Lord our God nor seek him for all this * Hos 7.10 Not his drawn Sword as a God of Judgment nor his mighty Power as a Lord nor his open Arms as the Lord their God could move them to turn their eyes and their hearts towards him The more he invites us to partake of his grace the further we run from him to provoke his wrath The louder God called them by his Prophets the closer they stuck to their Baal * Hos 11.2 We turn our backs when he stretches out his hand stop our ears when he lifts up his voice We fly from him when he courts us and shelter our selves in any bush from his merciful hand that would lay hold upon us nor will we set our faces towards him till our way be hedged up with thorns and not a gap left to creep out any by-way * Hos 2.6.7 Whosoever is brought to a return puts the Holy-Ghost to the pain of striving he is not easily brought to a spiritual subjection to God nor perswaded to a Surrender at a Summons but sweetly over power'd by storm and victoriously drawn into the Arms of God God stands ready but the heart stands off Grace is full of intreaties and the Soul full of excuses Divine love offers and Carnal self-love rejects Nothing so pleases us as when we are furthest from him as if any thing were more amiable any thing more desirable than himself 4. No desire of any close imitation of him When our Saviour was to come as a Refiners fire to purifie the Sons of Levi the cry is who shall abide the day of his coming Mal. 3.2 3. Since we are alienated from the Life of God we desire no more naturally to live the Life of God than a Toad or any other Animal desires to live the Life of a Man No heart that knows God but hath a holy ambition to imitate him No Soul that refuseth him for a Copy but is ignorant of his Excellency Of this temper is all Mankind naturally Man in Corruption is as loth to be like God in Holiness as Adam after his Creation was desirous to be like God in Knowledge his Posterity are like their Father who soon turned his back upon his original Copy What can be worse than this Can the denial of his Being be a greater injury than this contempt of him as if he had not goodness to deserve our remembrance nor amiableness fit for our converse as if he were not a Lord fit for our subjection nor had a Holiness that deserved our imitation For the use of this It serves 1. For Information 1. It gives us occasion to admire the wonderful Patience and Mercy of God How many Millions of practical Atheists breath every day in his Air and live upon his Bounty who deserve to be Inhabitants in Hell rather than Possessors of the Earth An infinite Holiness is offended an infinite Justice is provoked yet an infinite Patience forbears the Punishment and an infinite Goodness relieves our wants The more we had merited his Justice and forfeited his Favour the more is his affection inhanc'd which makes his hand so liberal to us At the first invasion of his rights he mitigates the terror of the threatning which was set to defend his Law with the grace of a Promise to relieve and recover his rebellious Creature * Gen. 3.15 Who would have looked for any thing but tearing Thunders sweeping Judgments to rase up the foundations of the apostate world But oh how great are his Bowels to his aspiring Competitors Have we not experimented his Contrivances for our good though we have refused him for our happiness Has he not opened his Arms when we spurned with our Feet held out his alluring mercy when we have brandisht against him a rebellious sword Has he not intreated us while we have invaded him as if he were unwilling to lose us who are ambitious to destroy our selves Has he yet denyed us the care of his Providence while we have denyed him the rights of his Honour and would appropriate them to our selves Has the Sun forborn shining upon us though we have shot our Arrows against him Have not our Beings been supported by his Goodness while we have endeavoured to climb up to his Throne and his mercies continued to charm us while we have used them as weapons to injure him Our own necessities might excite us to own him as our happiness but he adds his invitations to the voice of our wants Has he not promised a Kingdom to those that would strip him of his Crown and proclaimed Pardon upon Repentance to those that would take away his Glory And hath so twisted together his own end which is his Honour and mans true end which is his Salvation that a man cannot truly mind himself and his own Salvation but he must mind Gods glory and cannot be intent upon Gods honour but by the same act he promotes himself
there but to behold the beauty of the Lord * Psal 27.4 and taste the ravishing sweetness of his presence No doubt but Elijah's desires for the enjoyment of God while he was mounting to Heaven were as fiery as the Chariot wherein he was carried Unutterable groans acted in worship are the fruit of the Spirit and certainly render it a spiritual service * Rom. 8.26 Strong appetites are agreeable to God and prepare us to eat the fruit of worship A spiritual Paul presseth forward to know Christ and the power of his Resurrection and a spiritual Worshipper actually aspires in every duty to know God and the power of his Grace To desire worship as an end is carnal to desire it as a means and act desires in it for communion with God in it is spiritual and the fruit of a spiritual life 5. Thankfulness and admiration are to be exercised in spiritual services This is a worship of Spirits Praise is the adoration of the blessed Angels * Isa 6.3 and of glorified Spirits Rev. 4.11 Thou art worthy oh Lord to receive Glory and Honour and Power And Rev. 5.13.14 they worship him ascribing Blessing Honour Glory and Power to him that sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever Other acts of worship are confined to this Life and leave us as soon as we have set our foot in Heaven There no notes but this of Praise are warbled out The Power Wisdom Love and Grace in the dispensation of the Gospel seat themselves in the thoughts and tongues of blessed Souls Can a worship on Earth be spiritual that hath no mixture of an eternal heavenly duty with it The worship of God in Innocence had been chiefly an admiration of him in the works of Creation and should not our Evangelical worship be an admiration of him in the works of Redemption which is a restoration to a better State After the petitioning for pardoning Grace * Hos 14.2 there is a rendring the Calves or Heifers of our lips alluding to the Heifers used in Eucharistical Sacrifices The Praise of God is the choicest Sacrifice and Worship under a dispensation of redeeming Grace This is the prime and eternal part of worship under the Gospel The Psalmist Psalm 149. and 150. speaking of the Gospel times spurrs on to this kind of worship Sing to the Lord a new Song Let the Children of Zion be joyful iâ—â—â—â—ir King Let the Saints be joyful in glory and sing aloud upon their beds Let the high praises of God be in their mouths He begins and ends both Psalms with praise ye the Lord. That cannot be a spiritual and evangelical worship that hath nothing of the praise of God in the heart The consideration of Gods adorable perfections discovered in the Gospel will make us come to him with more seriousness beg blessings of him with more confidence fly to him with a winged Faith and Love and more spiritually glorify him in our attendances upon him 7. Spiritual Worship is performed with delight The Evangelical worship is prophetically signified by keeping the Feast of Tabernacles * Zach. 14.16 they shall go up from year to year to worship the King the Lord of Hosts and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles Why that Feast when there were other Feasts observed by the Jews That was a Feast celebrated with the greatest joy typical of the gladness which was to be under the exhibition of the Messiah and a thankful comemmoration of the Redemption wrought by him It was to be celebrated five days after the solemn day of Atonement Levit. 23.34 compared with v. 27. wherein there was one of the solemnest types of the Sacrifice of the death of Christ In this Feast they commemorated their exchange of Egypt for Canaan the Manna wherewith they were fed the Water out of the Rock wherewith they were refresht In remembrance of this they poured water on the ground pronouncing those words in Isaiah they shall draw waters out of the Wells of Salvation which our Saviour referrs to himself John 7.37 inviting them to him to drink upon the last day the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles wherein this solemn Ceremony was observed Since we are freed by the death of the Redeemer from the Curses of the Law God requires of us a Joy in spiritual priviledges A sad frame in worship gives the lye to all Gospel-liberty to the Purchase of the Redeemers Death the Triumphs of his Resurrection 'T is a carriage as if we were under the influences of the legal Fire and Lightning and an entring a Protest against the Freedom of the Gospel The Evangelical worship is a Spiritual worship and Praise Joy and Delight are prophecied of as great ingredients in attendance on Gospel Ordinances Isa 12.3 4 5. What was occasion of terror in the worship of God under the Law is the occasion of delight in the worship of God under the Gospel The Justice and Holiness of God so terrible in the Law becomes comfortable under the Gospel since they have feasted themselves on the active and passive obedience of the Redeemer The approach is to God as gracious not to God as unpacified as a Son to a Father not as a Criminal to a Judge Under the Law God was represented as a Judge remembring their Sin in their Sacrifices and representing the punishment they had merited in the Gospel as a Father accepting the Atonement and publishing the Reconciliation wrought by the Redeemer Delight in God is a Gospel frame therefore the more joyful the more spiritual The Sabbath is to be a delight not only in regard of the Day but in regard of the Duties of it * Isa 58.13 in regard of the marvelous work he wrought on it raising up our blessed Redeemer on that day whereby a foundation was laid for the rendring our persons and services acceptable to God Psal 118.24 This is the day which the Lord hath made we will be glad and rejoyce in it A lumpish frame becomes not a day and a duty that hath so noble and spiritual a mark upon it The Angels in the first act of worship after the Creation were highly joyful Job 38.7 They shouted for joy c. The Saints have particularly acted this in their Worship David would not content himself with an approach to the Altar without going to God as his exceeding joy Psal 43.4 My triumphant joy When he danced before the Ark he seems to be transformed into delight and pleasure 2 Sam. 6.14 16. He had as much delight in Worship as others had in their Harvest and Vintage And those that took joyfully the spoiling of their Goods would as joyfully attend upon the Communications of God Where there is a fullness of the Spirit there is a waking melody to God in the heart * Eph. 5.18.19 and where there is an acting of love as there is in all spiritual services the proper fruit of it is joy in a neer
him through the universal Corruption of Nature Now he hath manifested himself a God of Truth mindful of his Promise in Blessing all Nations in the Seed of Abraham The Fury of Devils and the Violence of Men could not hinder the propagation of this Gospel Its Light hath been dispersed as far as that of the Sun and that Grace that sounded in the Gentiles Ears hath bent many of their Hearts to the Obedience of it 5. Observe That Libertinism and Licentiousness find no encouragement in the Gospel It was made known to all Nations for the Obedience of Faith The Goodness of God is publish'd that our Enmity to him may be parted with Christs Righteousness is not offered to us to be put on that we may roul more warmly in our Lusts The Doctrine of Grace commands us to give up our selves to Christ to be accepted through him and to be ruled by him Obedience is due to God as a Soveraign Lord in his Law and 't is due out of gratitude as he is a God of Grace in the Gospel The discovery of a further perfection in God weakens not the right of another nor the obligation of the Duty the former Attribute claims at our hands The Gospel frees us from the Curse but not from the Duty and Service We are delivered from the hands of our Enemies that we might serve God in Holiness and Righteousness Luke 1.74 This is the will of God in the Gospel even our Sanctification When a Prince strikes off a Malefactors Chains though he deliver him from the punishment of his Crime he frees him not from the Duty of a Subject His Pardon adds a greater obligation than his Protection did before while he was Loyal Christs Righteousness gives us a Title to Heaven but there must be a Holiness to give us a fitness for Heaven 6. Observe That Evangelical Obedience or the Obedience of Faith is only acceptable to God Obedience of Faith Genitivus speciei noting the kind of Obedience God requires an Obedience springing from Faith animated and influenced by Faith Not Obedience of Faith as though Faith were the Rule and the Law were abrogated but to the Law as a Rule and from Faith as a Principle There is no true Obedience before Faith Heb. 11.6 Without Faith it is impossible to please God and therefore without Faith impossible to obey him A good Work cannot proceed from a defil'd Mind and Conscience and without Faith every mans Mind is darkned and his Conscience polluted * Tit. 1.15 Faith is the Band of Union to Christ and Obedience is the Fruit of Union we cannot bring forth fruit without being Branches †John 15.4 5. and we cannot be Branches without Believing Legitimate Fruit follows upon Marriage to Christ not before it Rom. 7.4 That you should be married to another even to him that is raised from the dead that you should bring forth fruit unto God All Fruit before Marriage is Bastard and Bastards were excluded from the Sanctuary Our Persons must be first accepted in Christ before our Services can be acceptable those Works are not acceptable where the Person is not pardoned Good Works flow from a pure Heart but the Heart cannot be pure before Faith All the Good Works reckoned up in the 11th Chapter of the Hebrews were from this Spring those Heroes first believed and then obeyed By Faith Abel was righteous before God without it his Sacrifice had been no better than Cains By Faith Enoch pleased God and had a Divine Testimony to his Obedience before his Translation By Faith Abraham offered up Isaac without which he had been no better than a Murderer All Obedience hath its Root in Faith and is not done in our own strength but in the strength and virtue of another of Christ whom God hath set forth as our Head and Root 7. Observe Faith and Obedience are distinct though inseparable The Obedience of Faith Faith indeed is Obedience to a Gospel Command which enjoyns us to believe but it is not all our Obedience Justification and Sanctification are distinct Acts of God Justification respects the Person Sanctification the Nature Justification is first in order of Nature and Sanctification follows They are distinct but inseparable every Justified Person hath a Sanctified Nature and every Sanctified Nature supposeth a Justified Person So Faith and Obedience are distinct Faith as the Principle Obedience as the Product Faith as the Cause Obedience as the Effect the Cause and the Effect are not the same By Faith we own Christ as our Lord by Obedience we regulate our selves according to his Command The acceptance of the Relation to him as a Subject precedes the performance of our Duty By Faith we receive his Law and by Obedience we fulfil it Faith makes us Gods Children Gal. 3.26 Obedience manifests us to be Christs Disciples John 15.8 Faith is the Touchstone of Obedience the Touchstone and that which is tried by it are not the same But though they are distinct yet they are inseparable Faith and Obedience are joyned together Obedience follows Faith at the heels Faith purifies the heart and a pure Heart cannot be without pure Actions Faith unites us to Christ whereby we partake of his Liâ—e and a living Branch cannot be without fruit in its season and much fruit John 15.5 and that naturally from a newness of Spirit Rom. 7.9 not constrained by the rigors of the Law but drawn forth from a sweetness of Love for Faith works by Love The Love of God is the strong Motive and Love to God is the quickning Principle as there can be no Obedience without Faith so no Faith without Obedience After all this the Apostle ends with the celebration of the Wisdom of God To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever The rich Discovery of the Gospel cannot be thought of by a gracious Soul without a return of Praise to God and Admiration of his singular Wisdom Wise God His Power before and his Wisdom here are mentioned in conjunction in which his Goodness is included as interested in his establishing Power as the ground of all the Glory and Praise God hath from his Creatures Only Wise As Christ saith Mat. 19.17 None is good but God so the Apostle saith None Wise but God As all Creatures are unclean in regard of his Purity so they are all Fools in regard of his Wisdom yea the glorious Angels themselves * Job 4.18 Wisdom is the Royalty of God the proper Dialect of all his Ways and Works No Creature can lay claim to it He is so Wise that he is Wisdom it self Be glory through Jesus Christ As God is only known in and by Christ so he must be only worshipped and celebrated in and through Christ In him we must Pray to him and in him we must Praise him As all Mercies flow from God through Christ to us so all our Duties are to be presented to God through Christ In the Greek verbatim
yet he cannot but approve of that Law as it prohibits every man from doing him the like injury and disgrace The sutableness of the Law to the Consciences of men is further evidenced by those furious reflections and strong alarms of Conscience upon a transgression of it and that in all parts of the World more or less in all men So exactly hath Divine wisdom fitted the Law to the Reason and Consciences of men as one Tally to another Indeed without such an agreement no mans Conscience could have any ground for a Hue and Cry nor need any man be startled with the Records of it This manifests the wisdom of God in framing his Law so that the Reasons and consciences of all men do one time or other subscribe to it What Governour in the World is able to make any Law distinct from this revealed by God that shall reach all places all persons all Hearts We may add to this the extent of his Commands in ordering goodness at the root not only in action but affection not only in the motion of the Members but the disposition of the Soul which suting a Law to the inward frame of man is quite out of the compass of the wisdom of any Creature 4. His Wisdom is seen in the incouragements he gives for the studying and observing his will Psal 19.11 In keeping thy Commandments there is great reward The variety of them there is not any particular Genius in man but may find something sutable to win upon him in the revealed will of God There is a strain of Reason to satisfy the Rational of Eloquence to gratify the the Fanciful of Interest to allure the Selfish of Terror to startle the Obstinate As a skilful Angler stores himself with Baits according to the Appetites of the sorts of fish he intends to catch so in the Word of God there are varieties of Baits according to the varieties of the Inclinations of men Threatnings to work upon Fear Promises to work upon Love Examples of holy men set out for Imitation and those plainly neither his Threatnings nor his Promises are dark as the Heathen Oracles but peremptory as becomes a Soveraign Law giver and plain as was necessary for the understanding of a Creature As he deals graciously with men in exhorting and incouraging them so he deals wisely herein by taking away all Excuse from them if they ruine the interest of their Souls by denying Obedience to their Soveraign Again the Rewards God proposeth are accommodated not to the Brutish parts of man his Carnal Sense and Fleshly Appetite but to the Capacity of a Spiritual Soul which admits only of Spiritual Gratifications and cannot in its own Nature without a sordid subjection to the Humors of the Body be moved by Sensual Proposals God backs his Precepts with that which the Nature of Man longed for and with Spiritual Delights which can only satisfy a rational Appetite And thereby did as well gratifie the noblest Desires in man as Oblige him to the noblest Service and Work * Amytaut Indeed Vertue and Holiness being perfectly amiable ought chiefly to affect our Understandings and by them draw our Wills to the esteem and pursuit of them But since the desire of Happiness is inseparable from the Nature of Man as impossible to be dis-join'd as an Inclination to descend to be severed from heavy Bodies or an instinct to ascend from Light and A ry of Substances God serves himself of the Inclination of our Natures to happiness to engender in us an esteem and affection to the Holiness he doth require He proposeth the enjoyment of a supernatural Good and everlasting Glory as a Bait to that insatiable longing our Natures have for Happiness to receive the impression of Holiness into our Souls And besides he doth proportion Rewards according to the degrees of mens Industry Labour and Zeal for him and weighs out a Recompence not only suted to but above the service He that improves five Talents is to be ruler over five Cities that is a greater proportion of Honour and Glory than another Luke 19.17.18 As a wise Father excites the affection of his Children to things worthy of Praise by varieties of Recompenses according to their several Actions And it was the Wisdom of the Steward in the Judgment of our Saviour to give every one the portion that belonged to him Luke 12.42 There is no part of the Word wherein we meet not with the will and Wisdom of God varieties of Duties and varieties of Encouragement mingled together 5. The Wisdom of God is seen In fitting the Revelations of his will to after-times and for the preventing of the foreseen Corruptions of men The whole Revelation of the mind of God is stored with Wisdom in the words connexion sence It looks backwards to past and forwards to Ages to come A hidden wisdom lies in the bowels of it like Gold in a Mine The Old testament was so composed as to fortify the New when God should bring it to light The Foundations of the Gopel were laid in the Law The Predictions of the Prophets and figures of the Law were so wisely framed and laid down in such clear expressions as to be Proofs of the Authority of the New Testament and Convictions of Jesus his being the Messiah Luke 24.14 Things concerning Christ were written in Moses the Prophets and Psalms and do to this day stare the Jews so in the face that they are fain to invent absurd and Nonsensical Interpretations to excuse their Unbelief and continue themselves in their obstinate Blindness And in pursuance of the efficacy of those Predictions it was a part of the Wisdom of God to bring forth the Translation of the Old Testament by the means Ptolomy King of Egypt some hundreds of years before the coming of Christ into the Greek Language the Tongue then most known in the World And why to prepare the Gentiles by the reading of it for that gracious call he intended them and for the entertainment of the Gospel which some few years after was to be publisht among them that by reading the Predictions so long before made they might more readily receive the accomplishment of them in their due time The Scripture is written in such a manner as to obviate Errors foreseen by God to enter into the Church It may be wondred why the Vniversal Particle should be inserted by Christ in the giving the Cup in the Supper which was not in the distributing the Bread Mat. 26 27. Drink ye all of it Not at the distributing the Bread Eat you all of it And Mark in his Relation tels us They all drank of it Mark 11.23 The Church of Rome hath been the occasion of discovering to us the Wisdom of our Saviour in in s erting that Particle all since they were so bold to exclude the Communicants from the Cup by a trick of Concomitancy Christ foresaw the Error and therefore put in a little word to obviate a
immense Holiness Slight approaches and drossy frames speak us to have imaginations of God as of a slight and sottish Being This is worse than the Heathens practis'd who would purge their Flesh before they Sacrific'd and make some preparations in a seeming Purity before they would enter into their Temples God is so holy that were our Services as refin'd as those of Angels we could not present him with a Service meet for his holy Nature * Josh 24.19 We contemn then this Perfection when we come before him without due preparation as if God himself were of an impure Nature and did not deserve our purest thoughts in our applications to him as if any blemâ—sht and polluted Sacrifice were good enough for him and his Nature deserv'd no better When we excite not those elevated Frames of Spirit which are due to such a Being when we think to put him off with a lame and imperfect Service we worship him not according to the excellency of his Nature but put a slight upon his Majestick Sanctity When we nourish in our Duties those foolish Imaginations which creep upon us when we bring into and continue our worldly carnal debauch'd Fancies in his Presence worse than the nasty Servants or bemired Dogs a man would blush to be attended with in his Visits to a neat Person To be conversing with sordid Sensualities when we are at the feet of an Infinite God sitting upon the Throne of his Holiness is as much a contempt of him as it would be of a Prince to bring a Vessel full of nasty Dung with us when we come to present a Petition to him clothed in his Royal Robes Or as it would have been to God if the High Priest should have swept all the Blood and Excrements of the Sacrifices from the Foot of the Altar into the Holy of Holies and heapt it up before the Mercy Seat where the Presence of God dwelt between the Cherubims and afterwards shovel'd it up into the Ark to be lodged with Aarons Rod and the Pot of Manna 8. God's Holiness is slighted in depending upon our imperfect Services to bear us out before the Tribunal of God This is too ordinary The Jews were often infected with it †Rom. 3.10 who not well understanding the enormity of their Transgressions the interweaving of Sin with their Services and the unspottedness of the Divine Purity mingled an Opinion of Merit with their Sacrifices and thought by the cutting the Throat of a Beast and offering it upon God's Altar they had made a sufficient Compensation to that Holiness they had offended Not to speak of many among the Romanists who have the same notion thinking to make satisfaction to God by erecting an Hospital or endowing a Church as if this injur'd Perfection could be contented with the Dregs of their Purses and the offering of an unjust Mammon more likely to mind God of the Injury they have done him than contribute to the appeasing of him But is it not too ordinary with miserable men whose Consciences accuse them of their Crimes to rely upon the mumbling of a few formal Prayers and in the strength of them to think to stand before the tremendous Tribunal of God and meet with a Discharge upon this account from any Accusation this Divine Perfection can present against them Nay do not the best Christians sometimes find a Principle in them that makes them stumble in their goings forth to Christ and glorifying the Holiness of God in that method which he hath appointed Sometimes casting an eye at their Grace and sticking a while to this or that Duty and gazing at the glory of the Temple-building while they should more admire the glorious Presence that fills it What is all this but a vilifying of the Holiness of the Divine Nature as though it would be well enough contented with our Impurities and Imperfections because they look like a Righteousness in our estimation As though Dross and Dung which are the Titles the Apostle gives to all the Righteousness of a Fallen Creature * Phil. 3.8 were valuable in the sight of God and sufficient to render us comely before him 'T is a Blasphemy against this Attribute to pretend that any thing so imperfect so daub'd as the best of our Services are can answer to that which is Infinitely Perfect and be a ground of demanding Eternal Liâ—e 'T is at best to set up a guilded Dagon as a fit Companion for the Ark of his Holiness our own Righteousness as a sutable Mate for the Righteousness of God As if he had repented of the Claim he made by the Law to an exact conformity and thrown off the Holiness of his Nature for the fondling of a Corrupted Creature Rude and foolish Notions of the Divine Purity are clearly evidenced by any confidence in any Righteousness of our own though never so splendid 'T is a rendring the Righteousness of God as dull and obscure as that of Men a meer Out-side as their own As blind as the Heathens pictur'd their Fortune that knew as little how to discern the Nature and value of the Offerings made to her as to distribute her gifts as if it were all one to them to have a Dog or a Lamb presented in Sacrifice As if God did not well understand his own Nature when he enacted so Holy a Law and strengthned it with so severe a Threatning which must follow upon our Conceit that he will accept a Righteousness lower than that which bears some sutableness to the Holiness of his own Nature and that of his Law and that he could easily be put off with a pretended and counterfeit Service What are the Services of the generality of Men but Suppositions that they can bribe God to an Indulgence of them in their Sins and by an Oral Sacrifice cause him to devest himself of his Hatred of their former Iniquities and countenance their following Practises As the Harlot that would return fresh to her Uncleanness upon the confidence that her Peace Offerings had contented the Righteousness of God †Prov. 7.14 As though a small Service could make him wink at our Sins and lay aside the Glory of his Nature when alas the best Duties in the most gracious Persons in this life are but as the steams of a Spiced Dunghil a composition of Myrrh and Froth since there are swarms of Corruptions in their Nature and secret Sins that they need a cleansing from 9. 'T is a contemning the Holiness of God when we charge the Law of God with rigidness We cast Durt upon the Holiness of God when we blame the Law of God because it shackles us and prohibits our desired Pleasures and hate the Law of God as they did the Prophets because they did not Prophesy smooth things but called to them to get them out of the way and turn aside out of the path and cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before them Isai 30.10 11. Put us
Goodness would not have oblig'd the Creature to any thing but what is not only free from damaging him but wholly conducing to his VVelfare and Perfective of his Nature Infinite Wisdom could not order any thing but what was agreeable to Infinite Goodness As his Laws are the most Rational as being the contrivance of Infinite Wisdom so they are the best as being the Fruit of Infinite Goodness His Laws are not only the acts of his Soveraign Authority but the Effluxes of his Loving-Kindness and the Conductors of Man to an enjoyment of a greater Bounty He minds as well the promotion of his Creatures Felicity as the asserting his own Authority As good Princes make Laws for their Subjects benefit as well as their own honour What was said of a more difficult and burdensom Law long after Mans fall may much more be said of the easie Law of Nature in the state of Mans Innocence that it was for our good * Deut. 10.12 13. He never pleaded with the Israelites for the observation of his Commands upon the account of his Authority so much as upon the score of their benefit by them †Deut. 4.40 * Deut. 12.28 And when his Precepts were broken he seems sometimes to be more griev'd for Mens impairing their own felicity by it than for their violating his Authority †Esaiah 48.18 Oh that thou hadst hearken'd to my Commandments then had thy Peace been as a River Goodness cannot prescribe a thing prejudicial whatsoever it enjoyns is beneficial to the Spiritual and Eternal Happiness of the Rational Creature This was both the design of the Law given and the end of the Law Christ in his Answer to the Young mans Question refers him to the Moral Law which was the Law of Nature in Adam as that whereby Eternal Life was to be gained Which evidenceth that when the Law was first given as the Covenant of VVorks it was for the happiness of Man and the end of giving it was that Man might have Eternal Life by it There would else be no strength or truth in that Answer of Christ to that Ruler And therefore Stephen calls the Law given by Moses which was the same with the Law of Nature in Adam * Acts 7.38 The living Oracles He enjoyned Mens Services to them not simply for his own Glory but his Glory in Mens VVelfare As if there were any Being better than himself his Goodness and Righteousness would guide him to love that better than himself because it is Good and Righteous to love that best which is most amiable So if there were any that could do us more good and shour down more happiness upon us than himself †1 Kings 18.21 he would be content we should obey that as Soveraign and Steer our Course according to his Laws If God be God follow him but if Baal then follow him If the observance of the Precepts of Baal be more beneficial to you If you can advance your Nature by his Service and gain a more mighty Crown of Happiness than by mine follow him with all my heart I never intended to enjoyn you any thing to impair but increase your Happiness The chief design of God in his Law is the Happiness of the Subject and Obedience is intended by him as a means for the attaining of Happiness as well as preserving his own Soveraignty This is the reason why he wished that Israel had walked in his ways that their time might have endured for ever Psal 81.13 15 16. And by the same reason this was his intendment in his Law given to Man and his Covenant made with Man at the Creation that he might be fed with the finest part of his Bounty and be satisfied with Honey out of the Eternal Rock of Ages To Paraphrase his Expression there The Goodness of God appears further 3. In engaging Man to Obedience by Promises and Threatnings A Threatning is only mentioned Gen. 2.17 but a Promise is implied If Eternal Death were fixed for Transgression Eternal Life was thereby design'd for Obedience And that it was so the Answer of Christ to the Ruler evidenceth that the first intendment of the Precept was the Eternal Life of the Subject order'd to obey it 1. God might have acted in settling his Law only as a Soveraign Though he might have dealt with Man upon the score of his absolute Dominion over him as his Creature and signified his pleasure upon the right of his Soveraignty threatning only a Penalty if Man transgressed without the promising a bountiful acknowledgment of his Obedience by a Reward as a Benefactor yet he would treat with Man in gentle Methods and Rule him in a tract of Sweetness as well as Soveraignty He would preserve the rights of his Dominion in the Authority of his Commands and honour the condescensions of his Goodness in the allurements of a Promise He that might have solely demanded a compliance with his Will would kindly Article with him to oblige him to observe him out of love to himself as well as Duty to his Creator that he might have both the interest of avoiding the Threatned Evil to affright him and the interest of attaining the promised Good to allure him to Obedience How doth he value the Title of Benefactor above that of a Lord when he so kindly Sollicites as well as Commands and engageth to Reward that Obedience which he might have absolutely claim'd as his due by enforcing fears of the severest Penalty His Soveraignty seems to stoop below it self for the elevation of his Goodness and he is pleased to have his Kindness more taken notice of than his Authority Nothing imported more condescension than his bringing forth his Law in the Nature of a Covenant whereby he seems to humble himself and vail his Superiority to treat with Man as his equal that the very manner of his Treatment might oblige him in the richest Promises he made to draw him and the startling Threatnings he pronounced to link him to his Obedience And therefore is it observable that when after the Transgression of Adam God comes to deal with him he doth not do it in that thundring Rigor which might have been expected from an enrag'd Soveraign but in a gentle Examination * Gen. 3.11 13. Hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat To the Woman he said no more than What is this that thou hast done And in the Scripture we find when he cites the Israelites before him for their Sin he Expostulates with them not so much upon the absolute right he had to challenge their Obedience as upon the equity and reasonableness of his Law which they had transgrest That by the same Argument of sweetness wherewith he would attract them to their Duty he might shame them after their Offence †Isaiah 1.2 * Ezek. 18.25 2. By the Threatnings he manifests his Goodness as well as by his Promises He Promises that
Gift an unparallell'd Gift springing from unconceivable Treasures of Goodness * John 3.16 What is our turning our backs upon this Gift but a low opinion of it As though the richest Jewel of Heaven were not so valuable as a Swinish pleasure on Earth and deserv'd to be treated at no other rate than if meer Offals had been presented to us The plain language of it is that there were no gracious intentions for our welfare in this present and that he is not as good in the Mission of his Son as he would induce us to imagine Impenitence is also an abuse of this Goodness either by presumption as if God would entertain Rebels that bid defiance against him with the same respect that he doth his prostrate and weeping Suppliants That he will have the same regard to the Swine as to the Children and lodge them in the same Habitation Or it speaks a suspicion of God as a deceitful Master one of a pretended not a real Goodness That makes promises to mock Men and invitations to delude them That he is an implacable Tyrant rather than a good Father A rigid not a kind Being delightful only to mark our Faults and overlook our Services 4. The Goodness of God is contemned by a distrust of his Providence As all trust in him supposeth him Good so all distrust of him supposeth him Evil either without Goodness to exert his Power or without Power to display his Goodness Job seems to have a Spice of this in his complaint * Job 30.20 I crie unto thee and thou dost not hear me I stand up and thou regardest me not 'T is a fume of the Serpents Venom first breath'd into Man to suspect him of Cruelty Severity Regardlesness even under the daily Evidences of his good Disposition And it is ordinary not to believe him when he speaks nor Credit him when he acts To question the goodness of his Precepts and misinterpret the kindness of his Providence As if they were design'd for the supports of a Tyranny and the deceit of the Miserable Thus the Israelites thought their miraculous deliverance from Egypt and the placing them in security in the Wilderness was intended only to pound them up for a slaughter * Numb 14.3 Thus they defil'd the lustre of Divine Goodness which they had so highly Experimented and placed not that confidence in him which was due to so frequent a Benefactor and thereby Crucify'd the rich Kindness of God as Genebrard translates the word limited * Psal 78.41 'T is also a jealousie of Divine Goodness when we seek to deliver our selves from our straights by unlawful ways as though God had not kindness enough to deliver us without committing Evil. What did God make a World and all Creatures in it to think of them no more not to concern himself in their Affairs If he be Good he is diffusive and delights to Communicate himself and what Subjects should there be for it but those that seek him and implore his assistance 'T is an indignity to Divine Bounty to have such mean thoughts of it that it should be of a Nature contrary to that of his Works which the better they are the more diffusive they are Doth a Man distrust that the Sun will not shine any more or the Earth not bring forth its Fruit Doth he distrust the goodness of an approved Medicine for the expelling his Distemper If we distrust those things should we not render our selves ridiculous and sottish And if we distrust the Creator of those things do we not make our selves contemners of his Goodness If his Careing for us be a principal Argument to move us to cast our Care upon him as it is 1 Pet. 5.7 Casting your Care upon him for he Cares for you then if we cast not our Care upon him 't is a denial of his Gracious Care of us as if he regarded not what becomes of us 5. We do contemn or abuse his Goodness by omissions of Duty These sometimes spring from injurious conceits of God which end in desperate Resolutions It was the Crime of a good Prophet in his passion * 2 Kings 6.33 This Evil is of the Lord Why should I wait on the Lord any longer God designs nothing but mischief to us and we will seek him no longer And the complaint of those in Malachy Mal. 3.14 is of the same nature Ye have said 't is vain to serve God and what profit is it that we have kept his Ordinances We have all this while serv'd a hard Master not a Benefactor and have not been answered with advantages proportionable to our services We have met with a hand too niggardly to dispense that Reward which is due to the largeness of our Offerings When Men will not lift up their Eyes to Heaven and sollicite nothing but the contrivance of their own brain and the industry of their own heads they disown Divine Goodness and approve themselves as their own Gods and the Spring of their own Prosperity Those that run not to God in their necessity to crave his support deny either the Arm of his Power or the disposition of his Will to sustain and deliver them They must have very mean sentiments or none at all of this Perfection or think him either too empty to fill them or too churlish to relieve them That he is of a narrow and contracted Temper and that they may sooner expect to be made better and happier by any thing else than by him And as we contemn his Goodness by a total omission of those Duties which respect our own advantage and supply as Prayer so we contemn him as the chiefest Good by an omission of the due manner of any act of Worship which is design'd purely for the acknowledgment of him As every omission of the material part of a Duty is a denial of his Soveraignty as Commanding it So every omission of the manner of it not performing it with a due esteem and valuation of him a surrender of all the Powers of our Souls to him is a denial of him as the most amiable Object But certainly to omit those Addresses to God which his Precept enjoyns and his Excellency deserves speaks this language that they can be well enough and do well enough without God and stand in no need of his Goodness to maintain them The neglect or refusal in a Malefactor to supplicate for his Pardon is a wrong to and contempt of the Princes goodness Either implying that he hath not a goodness in his Nature worthy of an Address or that he scorns to be oblig'd to him for any Exercise of it 6. The Goodness of God is contemned or abus'd in relying upon our Services to procure Gods good Will to us * Amyral Moral Tom. 4. p. 291. As when we stand in need either of some particular Mercy or special Assistance When Pressures are heavy and we have little hopes of ease in an ordinary way When the
upon it and perhaps never think of it more after he is satisfied 4. And Lastly Imitate this Goodness of God If his Goodness hath such an influence upon us as to make us love him it will also move us with an ardent Zeal to imitate him in it Christ makes this use from the Doctrine of Divine Goodness * Matth. 5.44 45. Do good to them that hate you that you may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven for he makes his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good As Holiness is a Resemblance of Gods Purity so Charity is a Resemblance of Gods Goodness And this our Saviour calls Perfection Verse 48. Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect As God would not be a perfect God without Goodness so neither can any be a perfect Christian without Kindness Charity and Love being the splendour and loveliness of all Christian Graces as Goodness is the splendour and loveliness of all Divine Attributes This and Holiness are order'd in the Scripture to be the grand Patterns of our imitation Imitate the Goodness of God in two things 1. In relieving and assisting others in distress Let our heart be as large in the capacity of Creatures as God's is in the capacity of a Creator A large heart from him to us and a strait heart from us to others will not suit Let us not think any so far below us as to be unworthy of our Care since God thinks none that are infinitely distant from him too mean for his His infinite Glory mounts him above the Creature but his infinite Goodness stoops him to the meanest Works of his hands As he lets not the Transgressions of Prosperity pass without punishment so he lets not the distress of his Afflicted People pass him without support Shall God provide for the ease of Beasts and shall not we have some tenderness towards those that are of the same Blood with our selves and have as good Blood to boast of as runs in the Veins of the mightiest Monarch on Earth and as mean and as little as they are can lay claim to as ancient a Pedigree as the stateliest Prince in the World who cannot ascend to Ancestors beyond Adam Shall we glut our selves with Divine Beneficence to us and wear his Livery only on our own backs forgeting the Afflictions of some dear Joseph when God who hath an unblemisht felicity in his own Nature looks out of himself to view and relieve the miseries of poor Creatures Why hath God increased the Doles of his Treasures to some more than others Was it meerly for themselves or rather that they might have a bottom to attain the honour of imitating him Shall we embezzel his Goods to our own use as if we were absolute Proprietors and not Stewards entrusted for others Shall we make a difficulty to part with something to others out of that abundance he hath bestow'd upon any of us Did not his Goodness strip his Son of the Glory of Heaven for a time to enrich us and shall we shrug when we are to part with a little to pleasure him 'T is not very becoming for any to be backward in supplying the necessities of others with a few morsels who have had the happiness to have had their greatest necessities supplied with his Sons Blood He demands not that we should strip our selves of all for others but of a pittance something of superfluity which will turn more to our account than what is vainly and unprofitably consumed on our Backs and Bellies If he hath given much to any of us 't is rather to lay aside part of the Income for his Service Else we would Monopolize Divine Goodness to our selves and seem to distrust under our present Experiments his future Kindness as though the last thing he gave us was attended with this language Hoard up this and expect no more from me Use it only to the glutting your Avarice and feeding your Ambition which would be against the whose scope of Divine Goodness If we do not endeavour to write after the Comely Copy he hath set us we may provoke him to harden himself against us and in wrath bestow that on the Fire or on our Enemies which his Goodness hath imparted to us for his Glory and the supplying the necessities of poor Creatures And on the contrary he is so delighted with this kind of imitation of him that a Cup of cold Water when there is no more to be done shall not be unrewarded 2. Imitate God in his Goodness in a kindness to our worst Enemies The best Man is more unworthy to receive any thing from God than the worst can be to receive from us How kind is God to those that blaspheme him and gives them the same Sun and the same Showers that he doth to the best Men in the World Is it not more our glory to imitate God in doing good to thâ—se that hate us than to imitate the Men of the World in requiting evil by a return of a sevenfold mischief This would be a goodness which would vanquish the hearts of Men and render us greater than Alexanders and Caesars who did only triumph over miserable Carcases Yea it is to triumph over our selves in being good against the sentiments of Corrupt Nature Revenge makes us Slaves to our Passions as much as the Offenders and good Returns render us Victorious over our Adversaries * Rom. 12.21 Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good When we took up our Arms against God his Goodness contrived not our Ruine but our Recovery This is such a Goodness of God as could not be discover'd in an Innocent State While Man had continued in his Duty he could not have been guilty of an Enmity And God could not but affect him unless he had denied himself So this of being good to our Enemies could never have been practised in a State of Rectitude since where was a perfect Innocence there could be no spark of Enmity to one another It can be no disparagement to any Mans Dignity to cast his influences on his greatest Opposers since God who acts for his own Glory thinks not himself disparag'd by sending forth the Streams of his Bounty on the wickedest Persons who are far meaner to him than those of the same Blood can be to us Who hath the worse thoughts of the Sun for shining upon the Earth that sends up Vapours to Cloud it It can be no disgrace to resemble God if his Hand and Bowels be open to us let not ours be shut to any A DISCOURSE UPON GODS Dominion PSALM CIII Verse 19. The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens And his Kingdom Ruleth over all THE Psalm begins with the praise of God wherein the Penman excites his soul to a right and elevated management of so great a duty Ver. 1. Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me bless his
actions than the Actor it self The Actor hath a Soveraignty over others in action but the end for which any one works hath a Soveraignty over the Agent himself A Limner hath a Soveraignty over the Picture he is framing or hath fram'd but the end for which he fram'd it either his profit he design'd from it or the honor and credit of skill he aimed at in it hath a Dominion over the Limner himself The end moves and excites the Artist to work it spirits him in it conducts him in his whole business possesses his mind and sits triumphant in him in all the progress of his work 'T is the first cause for which the whole work is wrought Now God in his actual Creation of all is the Soveraign end of all for thy pleasure they are and were created Rev. 4.11 The Lord hath made all things for himself Prov. 16.4 Man indeed is the subordinate and immediate end of the lower Creation And therefore had the Dominion over other Creatures granted to him But God being the ultimate and principal end hath the Soveraign and principal Dominion all things as much referre to him as the last end as they flow from him as the first Cause So that as I said before if the World had been compacted together by a jumbling chance without a wise hand as some have foolishly imagined none could have been an Antagonist with God for the Government of the World but God in regard of the excellency of his nature would have been the Rector of it unless those Atomes that had composed the World had had an ability to Govern it Since there could be no universal end of all things but God God only can claim an intire right to the Government of it For though man be the end of the lower Creation yet man is not the end of himself and his own being he is not the end of the Creation of the supream Heavens he is not able to govern them they are out of his ken and out of his reach None fit in regard of the excellency of Nature to be the chief end of the whole World but God And therefore none can have a right to the Dominion of it but God In this regard Gods Dominion differs from the Dominion of all Earthly Potentates All the subjects in Creation were made for God as their end so are not People for Rulers but Rulers made for People for their protection and the preservation of Order in Societies 4. The Dominion of God is founded upon his preservation of things Ps 95.3 4. The Lord is a great King above all Gods Why In his hand are all the deep places of the Earth While his hand holds things his hand hath a Dominion over them He that holds a stone in the Air exerciseth a dominion over its natural inclination in hindring it from falling The Creature depends wholly upon God in its preservation as soon as that Divine hand which sustains every thing were withdrawn a languishment and swooning would be the next turn in the Creature He is call'd Lord Adonai in regard of his sustentation of all things by his continual influx The Word coming of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a basis or pillar that supports a building God is the Lord of all as he is the sustainer of all by his power as well as the Creator of all by his Word The Sun hath a Soveraign dominion over its own beams which depend upon it so that if he withdraws himself they all attend him and the World is left in darkness God maintains the vigor of all things conducts them in their operations so that nothing that they are nothing that they have but is owing to his preserving power The Master of this great Family may as well be called the Lord of it since every member of it depends upon him for the support of that being he first gave them and holds of his Empire As the right to govern resulted from Creation so it is perpetuated by the preservation of things 5. The dominion of God is strengthened by the innumerable benefits he bestows upon his Creatures The benefits he conferrs upon us after Creation are not the original ground of his dominion A man hath not Authority over his Servant from the kindness he shews to him but his Authority commenceth before any act of kindness and is founded upon a right of purchase conquest or compact Dominion doth not depend upon meer benefits Then Inferiors might have dominion over Superiors A Peasant may save the Life of a Prince to whom he was not subject he hath not therefore a right to step up into his Throne and give Laws to him And Children that maintain their Parents in their poverty might then acquire an Authority over them which they can never climb to Because the benefits they conferre cannot parallel the benefits they have received from the Authors of their Lives The bounties of God to us add nothing to the intrinsick right of his natural dominion they being the effects of that Soveraignty as he is a Rewarder and Governour As the benefits a Prince bestows upon his favorite increases not that right of Authority which is inherent in the Crown but strengthens that dominion as it stands in relation to the receiver by increasing the obligation of the favorite to an observance of him not only as his natural Prince but his gracious Benefactor The beneficence of God adds though not an original right of power yet a foundation of a stronger upbraiding the Creature if he walks in a violation and forgetfulness of those benefits and pull in peices the links of that ingenuous duty they call for and an occasion of exercising of Justice in punishing the delinquent which is a part of his Empire Isaiah 1.2 Hear O Heavens and give Ear O Earth the Lord hath spoken I have nourished Children and they have rebelled against me Thus the fundamental right as Creator is made more indisputable by his relation as a Benefactor and more as being so after a forfeiture of what was enjoyed by Creation The benefits of God are innumerable and so magnificent that they cannot meet with any compensation from the Creature And therefore do necessarily require a submission from the Creature and an acknowledgement of Divine Authority But that benefit of Redemption doth add a stronger right of dominion to God Since he hath not only as a Creator given them Being and Life as his Creatures but paid a price the price of his Sons blood for their rescue from Captivity so that he hath a Soveraignty of Grace as well as Nature and the ransom'd ones belong to him as Redeemer as well as Creator 1 Cor. 6.19 20. Ye are not your own For ye are bought with a price therefore your Body and your Spirit are Gods By this he acquir'd a right of another kind and bought us from that uncontroulable Lordship we affected over our selves by the sin of Adam that he might use us
there was not from Eternity any Creature under the Government of it but in regard of the foundation of it his Essence his Excellency 't is Eternal As God was from eternity Almighty but there was no exercise or manifestation of it till he began to Create Men are Kings only for a time their lives expire like a Lamp and their dominion is extinguisht with their lives they hand their Empire by Succession to others but many times it is snapt off before they are cold in their Graves How are the famous Empires of the Chaldeans Medes Persians and Greeks mouldred away and their place knows them no more And how are the wings of the Roman Eagle cut and that Empire which overspread a great part of the World hath lost most of its Feathers and is confin'd to a narrower compass The dominion of God flourisheth from one Generation to another He sits King for ever Psal 29.10 His session signifies the establishment and for ever the duration and he sits now his Soveraignty is as absolute as powerful as ever How many Lords and Princes hath this or that Kingdom had In how many Families hath the Scepter lodg'd When as God hath had an uninterrupted dominion As he hath been always the same in his Essence he hath been always glorious in his Soveraignty Among men he that is Lord to day may be stript of it to morrow the dominions in the World vary he that is a Prince may see his Royalty upon the Wings and feel himself laden with Fetters And a Prisoner may be lifted from his Dungeon to a Throne But there can be no diminution of God's Government His Throne is from Generation to Generation Lament 5.19 It cannot be shaken His Scepter like Aarons Rod is alway's green It cannot be wrested out of his hands none rais'd him to it Nâ—ne therefore can depose him from it it bears the same splendor in all humane affairs he is an eternal an immortal King 1 Tim. 1.17 As he is eternally Mighty so he is eternally Soveraign and being an eternal King he is a King that gives not a momentary and perishing but a durable and Everlasting Life to them that obey him A durable and eternal punishment to them that resist him IIII. Wherein this Dominion and Soveraignty consists and how 't is manifested 1. The first act of Soveraignty is the making Laws This is Essential to God no Creatures Will can be the first rule to the Creature but only the Will of God He only can prescribe man his duty and establish the rule of it hence the Law is call'd the Royal Law James 2.8 It being the first and clearest manifestation of Soveraignty as the power of Legislation is of the Authority of a Prince Both are joyn'd together in Isaiah 53.22 The Lord is our Law-giver the Lord is our King Legislative power being the great mark of Royalty God as a King enacts Laws by his own proper Authority and his Law is a Declaration of his own Soveraignty and of mens moral subjection to him and dependance on him * Suarez de Legib. p. 23. His Soveraignty doth not appear so much in his promises as in his precepts A man's power over another is not discovered by promising For a promise doth not suppose the promiser either superior or inferior to the person to whom the promise is made 'T is not an exercising Authority over another but over a man's self No man forceth another to the acceptance of his promise but only proposeth and encourageth to an embracing of it But commanding supposeth always an Authority in the person giving the precept It obligeth the person to whom the command is directed A promise obligeth the person by whom the promise is made God by his command binds the Creature by his promise he binds himself He stoops below his Soveraignty to lay obligations upon his own Majesty By a precept he binds the Creature by a promise he encourageth the Creature to an observance of his precept What Laws God makes man is bound by vertue of his Creation to observe that respects the Soveraignty of God What promises God makes man is bound to beleive but that respects the faithfulness of God God manifested his dominion more to the Jews than to any other people in the World He was their Lawgiver both as they were a Church and a Commonwealth As a Church he gave them Ceremonial Laws for the regulating their Worship As a State he gave them Judicial Laws for the ordering their Civil Affairs and as both he gave them Moral Laws upon which both the Laws of the Church and State were founded This dominion of God in this regard will be manifest 1. In the Supremacy of it The sole power of making Laws doth originally reside in him James 4.12 There is one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy By his own Law he Judges of the eternal States of Men and no Law of man is obligatory but as it is agreeable to the Laws of this supream Lawgiver and pursuant to his righteous rules for the Government of the World The power that the Potentates of the World have to makes Laws is but derivative from God If their dominion be from him as it is For by him Kings Reign Prov. 8.15 Their Legislative power which is a prime flower of their Soveraignty is deriv'd from him also And the Apostle resolves it into this original when he orders us to be subject to the higher powers not only for wrath but for Conscience sake Rom. 13.5 Conscience in its operations solely respects God And therefore when it is exercised as the principle of Obedience to the Laws of Men 't is not with a respect to them singly considered but as the Majesty of God appears in their station and in their decrees This power of giving Laws was acknowledged by the Heathen to be solely in God by way of original And therefore the greatest Lawgivers among the Heathen pretended their Laws to be received from some Deity or supernatural power by special Revelation now whither they did this seriously acknowledging themselves this part of the dominion of God For it is certain that what soever just orders were issued out by Princes in the World was by the secret influence of God upon their Spirits Prov. 8.15 By me Princes Decree Justice by the secret conduct of Divine Wisdom or whither they pretended it only as a publick Engine to enforce upon people the observance of their Decrees and gain a greater credit to their Edicts yet this will result from it that the people in general entertain'd this common notion that God was the great Lawgiver of the World The first founders of their Societies could never else have so absolutely gain'd upon them by such a pretence These was always a Revelation of a Law from the mouth of God in every age The exhortation of Eliphaz to Job Job 22.22 Of receiving a Law from the mouth of God at the time before
following evidence The Church he would bring out from the Countries where she was scattered and bring the people into the bond of the Covenant He sometimes cuts off the Spirits of Princes Psal 76.12 i. e. cuts off their designs as men do the pipes of a water-course The hearts of all are as open to him as the riches of heaven where he resides He can slip an inclination into the heart of the mighty which they dream'd not of before and if he doth not change their projects he can make them abortive and way-lay them in their attempts Laâ—an marched with fury but God put a padlock upon his passion against Jacob. Gen. 31.24.29 The Devils which ravage mens minds must be still when he gives out his soveraign orders This soveraign can make his people find favour in the eyes of the cruel Egyptians which had so long opprest them Exod. 11.3 And speak a good word in the heart of Nebuchadnezzar for the Prophet Jeremy that he should order his Captain to take him into his special protection when he took Zedekiah away prisoner in chains and put out his eyes Jerem. 39.11 His people cannot want deliverance from him who hath all the world at his command when he is pleased to bestow it he hath as many instruments of deliverance as he hath Creatures at his beck in Heaven or Earth from the meanest to the highest As he is the Lord of Hosts the Church hath not only an interest in the strength he himself is possessed with but in the strength of all the Creatures that are under his command in the Elements below and Angels above in those armies of Heaven and in the inhabitants of the Earth he doth what he will Dan. 4.35 They are all in order and array at his command There are Angels to employ in a fatal stroke Lice and Froggs to quell the stubborn hearts of his Enemies He can range his Thunders and Lightnings the Canon and Granado's of Heaven and the Worms of the Earth in his service He can muzzle Lions calm the fury of the Fire turn his Enemies Swords into their own bowels and their Artillery on their own breasts set the wind in their Teeth and make their Chariot-wheels languish make the Sea enter a quarrel with them and wrap them in its waves till it hath stifled them in its lap The Angels have Storms and Tempests and Warrs in their hands but at the disposal of God when they shall cast them out against the Empire of Antichrist Rev. 7.1 2. then shall Satan be discharg'd from his Throne and no more seduce the Nations the everlasting Gospel shall be preached and God shall reign gloriously in Sion Let us therefore shelter our selves in the divine soveraignty regard God as the most High in our dangers and in our petitions This was Davids resolution Psal 57.1 2. I will cry unto unto God most high This Dominion of God is the true Tower of David wherein there are a thousand shields for defence and encouragement Cant. 4.4 IV. USE If God hath an extensive Dominion over the whole World this ought to be often meditated on and acknowledged by us This is the universal duty of mankind if he be the soveraign of all we should frequently think of our great Prince and acknowledge our selves his Subjects and him our Lord. God will be acknowledg'd the Lord of the whole Earth the neglect of this is the cause of the Judgments which are sent upon the World All the Prodigies were to this end that they might know or acknowledge that God was the Lord. Exod. 10.2 As God was proprietor he demanded the first-born of every Jew and the first-born of every Beast the one was to be Redeemed and the other Sacrificed this was the Quit-Rent they were to pay to him for their fruitful Land The first Fruits of the Earth were ordered to be paid to him as a homage due to the Landlord and an acknowledgment they held all in chief of him The practice of offering first-fruits for an acknowledgment of Gods soveraignty was among many of the Heathens and very ancient hence they dedicated some of the chief of their spoils owning thereby the Dominion and Goodness of God whereby they had gain'd the Victory Cain own'd this in offering the Fruits of the Earth and it was his sin he own'd no more viz. His being a sinner and meriting the Justice of God as his Brother Abel did in his bloody Sacrifice God was a soveraign Proprietor and Governour while man was in a state of innocence but when man proved a Rebel the soveraignty of God bore another relation towards him that of a Judge added to the other The First-fruits might have been offered to God in a state of innocence as a homage to him as Lord of the Manour of the World the design of them was to own Gods propriety in all things and mens dependance on him for the influences of heaven in producing the fruits of the Earth which he had ordered for their use The design of Sacrifices and placing beasts instead of the criminal was to acknowledg their own guilt and God as a soveraign Judge Cain own'd the first but not the second he acknowledged his dependance on God as a proprietor but not his obnoxiousness to God as a Judg which may be probably gathered from his own speech when God came to examine him and ask him for his Brother Gen. 4.9 Am I my Brothers keeper Why do you ask me though I own thee as the Lord of my Land and Goods yet I do not think my self accountable to thee for all my actions This Soveraignty of God ought to be acknowledged in all the parts of it in all the manifestations of it to the creature We should bear a sense of this always upon our Spirits and be often in the thoughts of it in our retirements We should fancy that we saw God upon his Throne in his Royal Garb and great attendants about him and take a view of it to imprint an awe upon our Spirits The meditation on this would 1. Fix us on him as an object of trust 'T is upon his Soveraign Dominion as much as upon anything that safe and secure confidence is built for if he had any superior above him to controul him in his designs and promises his veracity and power would be of little efficacy to form our souls to a close adherency to him It were not fit to make him the object of our trust that can be gainsaid by a higher than himself and had not a full Authority to answer our expectations If we were possessed with this notion fully and believingly that God were high above all that his Kingdom rules over all we should not catch at every broken reed and stand gaping for comforts from a pebble stone He that understands the Authority of a King would not wave a relyance on his promise to depend upon the breath of a changeling favorite None but an ignorant man would
than a Talent without it In the little Paul did he comforts himself in this that with the mind he serv'd the Law of God Rom. 7.25 The Testimonies of God were David's delight Psal 119.24 Our Understandings must take pleasure in knowing him our wills delightfully embrace him and our actions be cheerfully squar'd to him This credits the Soveraignty of God in the World makes others believe him to be a gracious Lord and move them to have some veneration for his Authority 8. It must be perpetual Obedience As man is a subject as soon as he is a creature so he is a Subject as long as he is a Creature God's Soveraignty is of perpetual duration as long as he is God Man's obedience must be perpetual while he is a man God cannot part with his Soveraignty and a creature cannot be exempted from subjection We must not only serve him but cleave to him Deut. 13.4 Obedience is continued in Heaven his Throne is established in Heaven it must be bow'd to in Heaven as well as in Earth The Angels continually fulfil his pleasure 7. Exhortation Patience is a duty flowing from this Doctrine In all strokes upon our selves or thick showers upon the Church The Lord reigns is a consideration to prevent muttering against him and make us quietly wait to see what the issue of his divine pleasure will be 'T is too great an insolence against the Divine Majesty to censure what he acts or quarrel with him for what he inflicts Proud clay doth very unbecomingly swell against an infinite superior If God be our Soveraign we ought to subscribe to his afflicting will without debates as well as to his liberal will with affectionate applauses We should be as full of patience under his sharper as of praise under his more grateful dispensations and be without reluctancy against his penal as well as his preceptive pleasure 'T is God's part to inflict and the creatures part to submit This Doctrine affords us motives and shews us the nature of Patience 1. Motives to it 1. God being Soveraign hath an absolute right to dispose of all things His Title to our persons and possessions is upon this account stronger than our own can be We have as much reason to be angry with our selves when we assert our worldly right against others as to be angry with God for asserting the right of his Dominion over us Why should we enter a charge against him because he hath not temper'd us so strong in our bodies drawn us with as fair colours embellisht our spirits with as rich gifts as others Is he not the Soveraign of his own goods to impart what and in what measure he pleaseth Would you be content your servants should check your pleasure in dispensing your own favors 'T is an unreasonable thing not to leave God to the exercise of his own dominion Though Job were a pattern of patience yet he had deep tinctures of impatience he often complains of God's usage of him as too hard and stands much upon his own integrity But when God comes in the latter Chapters of that book to justifie his carriage towards him he chargeth him not as a criminal but considers him only as his Vassal He might have found flaws enough in Job's carriage and corruption enough in Job's nature to clear the equity of his proceeding as a Judge but he useth no other medium to convince him but the greatness of his Majesty the unlimitedness of his soveraignty which so appales the good man that he puts his finger on his mouth and stands mute with a self-abhorrenc before him as a soveraign rather than as a Judge When he doth pinch us and deprive us of what we most affect his right to do it should silence our lips and calm our hearts from any boysterous uproars against him 2. The property of all still remains in God since he is soveraign He did not devest himself of the property when he granted us the use The Earth is his not ours the fulness of the Earth is his 't is not ours the fulness any of us have as well as the fulness others have After he had given the Israelites Corn Wine and Oyl he calls them all His and emphatically adds My to every one of them Hos 2.9 His right is universal over every mite we have and perpetual too He may therefore take from us what he please He did but deposite in our hands for a while the benefits we enjoy either Children Friends Estate or Lives he did not make a total conveyance of them and alienate his own property when he put them into our hands we can shew no Patent for them wherein the full right is past over to us to hold them against his will and pleasure and implead him if he offer to reassume them He reserved a power to dispossess us upon a forfeiture as he is the Lord and Governour Did any of us yet answer the condition of his grant It was his indulgence to allow them so long There is reason to submit to him when he reassumes what he lent us and rather to thank him that he lent it so long and did not seize upon it sooner 3. Other things have more reason to complain of our soveraignty over them than we of God's exercise of his soveraignty over us Do we not exercise an Authority over our Beasts as to strike them when we please and meerly for our pleasure and think we merit no reproof for it because they are our own and of a nature inferior to ours And shall not God who is absolute do as much with us who are more below him than the meanest Creatures are below us They are Creatures as well as we and we no more Creatures than they they were fram'd by omnipotence as well as we there is no more difference between them and us in the notion of Creatures As there is no difference between the greatest Monarch on Earth and the meanest Beggar on the dunghil in the notion of a man The Beggar is a man as well as the Monarch and as much a man the difference consists in the special Endowments we have above them by the bounty of their and our common Creator We are less if compared with God than the worst meanest most sordid Creature can be if compared with us Hath not a Bird or a Hare if they had a capacity more reason to complain of mens persecuting them by their Hawks and their Dogs but would their complaints appear reasonable since both were made for the use of man and man doth but use the nature of the one to attain a benefit by the other Have we any reason to complain of God if he le ts loose other Creatures the devouring Hounds of the World to bite and afflict us We must not open our lips against him nor let our heart swell against his scourge since both they and we were made for his use as well as other Creatures for ours This is
notwithstanding the clamour of the sins of the multitude Judea was ripe for the sickle but God would put a lock upon the torrent of his judgments that they should not flow down upon that wicked place to make them a desolation and a curse as long as tender hearted Josiah lived who had humbled himself at the threatning and wept before the Lord 1 King 22.19 20. Sometimes he bears with wicked men that they might exercise the Patience of the Saints Rev. 14.12 The whole time of the forbearance of Antichrist in all his intrusions into the Temple of God invasions of the rights of God usurpations of the Office of Christ and besmearing himself with the blood of the Saints was to give them an opportunity of Patience God is Patient towards the wicked that by their means he might try the Righteous He burns not the wisp till he hath scowred his vessels Nor layes by the hammer till he hath formed some of his matter into an excellent fashion He useth the worst men as rods to correct his people before he sweeps the twiggs out of his house God sometimes uses the thorns of the World as a hedge to secure his Church sometimes as instruments to try and exercise it Howsoever he useth them whither for security or tryal he is Patient to them for his Churches advantage 6. When men are not brought to Repentance by his Patience he doth longer exercise it to manifest the equity of his future justice upon them As Wisdom is justified by her obedient children so is justice justified by the rebels against Patience the contempt of the later is the justification of the former The Apostles were unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that perish as well as in them that were saved by the acceptation of their message 2 Cor. 2.15 Both are fragrant to God his Mercy is Glorified by the ones acceptance of it and his Justice freed from any charge against it by the others refusal The cause of mens ruin cannot be laid upon God who provided means for their Salvation and sollicited their complyance with him What reason can they have to charge the Judge with any wrong to them who reject the tenders he makes and who hath forborn them with so much Patience when he might have censured them by his Righteous Justice upon the first crime they committed or the first refusal of his gracious offers Quanto Dei magis Judicium tardum est tanto magis justum * Minuc Felix pag. 41. After the despising of Patience there can be no suspition of an irregularity in the acts of Justice Man hath no reason to fall foul in his charge upon God if he were punished for his own sin considering the dignity of the injured person and the meanness of himself the offender But his wrath is more justified when it is poured out upon those whom he hath endured with much long suffering There is no plea against the shooting of his Arrows into those for whom this voice hath been loud and his arms open for their return As Patience while it is exercised is the silence of his justice so when it is abused it silenceth mens complaints against his justice The riches of his forbearance made way for the manifesting the treasures of his wrath If God did but a little bear with the insolencies of men and cut them off after two or three sins he would not have opportunity to shew either the power of his Patience or that of his wrath But when he hath a right to punish for one sin and yet bears with them for many and they will not be reclaimed the sinner is more inexcusable divine Justice less chargable and his wrath more powerful 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 for destruction The proper and immediate end of his long suffering is to lead men to repentance but after they have by their obstinacy fitted themselves for destruction he bears longer with them to magnifie his wrath more upon them and if it is not the finis operantis 't is at least the finis operis where Patience is abused Men are apt to complain of God that he deals hardly with them The Israelites seem to charge God with too much severity to cast them off when so many promises were made to the fathers for their perpetuity and preservation which is intimated Hos 2.2 Plead with your mother plead by the double repetition of the word plead Do not accuse me of being false or too rigorous but accuse your Mother your Church your Magistracy your Ministry for their spiritual fornications which have provoked me For their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 intimating the greatness of their sins by the reduplication of the word lest I strip her naked I have born with her under many provocations and I have not yet taken away all her Ornaments or said to her according to the rule of divorce res tuas tibi habeto God answers their impudent charge She is not my Wife nor am I her Husband He doth not say first I am not her Husband but she is not my Wife She first withdrew from her duty by breaking the Marriage Covenant and then I ceased to be her Husband No man shall be condemned but he shall be convinced of the due desert of his sin and the justice of God's proceeding God will lay open Mens guilt and repeat the measures of his Patience to justifie the severity of his wrath Hos 7.10 Sins will testifie to their face What is in its own nature a preparation for Glory men by their obstinacy make a preparation for a more indisputable punishment We see many evidences of God's forbearance here in sparing men under those blasphemies which are audible and those prophane carriages which are visible which would sufficiently justifie an act of severity Yet when mens secret sins both in heart and action and the vast multitude of them far surmounting what can arrive to our knowledge here shall be discovered how great a lustre will it add to God's bearing with them and make his justice triumph without any reasonable demurr from the sinner himself He is long suffering here that his justice may be more publick hereafter IV. The VSE I. For Instruction 1. How is this Patience of God abused The Gentiles abused those Testimonies of it which were written in showers and fruitful seasons No Nation was ever stript of it under the most provoking Idolatries till after multiplyed spurns at it Not a person among us but hath been guilty of the abuse of it How have we contemned that which demands a reverence from us How have we requited God's waitings with rebellions while he hath continued urging and expecting our return Saul relented at David's forbearing to revenge himself when he had his prosecuting and industrious enemy in his power 1 Sam. 24.17 Thou art more Righteous