endeavours to unite and become one with that ever-blessed Being subtracting his affections from all earthly vanities as finding something more noble and worthy to bestow them upon Lib. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus as Porphyry speaks of the Egyptian Priests 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He hath given up his whole life to Divine Contemplation and search after the Deity Such Power have Evangelical Truths over the minds of men that they transform them into their own native image and similitude and the more they are looked into the more they enravish them with their heavenly beauty and pulchritude And because afflicted and persecuted Vertue could not be thought eligible meerly for it self nor be a sufficient argument to induce us to the love and practice of it who were so fatally addicted to the concerns of sense therefore God who knew our frame and how far and to what degrees we had apostatiz'd from his holy Nature did not only propound good things to our choice but solicit our wills to the embracing of them by the strongest evidences and most attractive motives that our Natures were capable of receiving The life of sense being more powerful and laying a greater though not a juster claim to our minds as we are born into this World God was pleased to deal with us after a sensible manner and in a way of condescending Wisdom proportioning the Truths he delivered to us to our capacity of reception And this was that the Apostle called the Foolishness of Preaching wherein God stoops down and puts on the garb and frailties of humanity and suits the results of his will with our mean and shallow apprehensions Great is the Mysterie of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh and cradled in the circle of a Virgins arms which clearly demonstrates even to outward sense the exceeding Goodness and Wisdom of Almighty God that he hath not cast off the care of Mankind but is at peace with the World and hath put on the bright robes of Loving-kindness and Mercy which he hath given a large Specimen and full proof of in the Mission of the Lord Christ from heaven God would have all men lay aside their hard thoughts and causless-jealousies and suspicions of his Nature as if he did not from his heart intend them good but only suspended his anger for a time which might again break out upon them in prodigious floods of vengeance and fury For this is the most certain sign that God wills and desires our happiness and welfare in that he hath united himself to our Nature and sent down his only begotten Son for no other purpose but to seek and to save that which was lost And if he spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things What is there now can lay a greater tie upon ingenuous spirits then the discovery of so much undeserved kindness and love What heart is there so obdurate and rocky that this will not dissolve into the tears of love and joy to behold the blessed Jesus hanging between heaven and earth upon the Cross that he might reconcile all things that are in heaven and earth and become a propitiatory Sacrifice for all mens sins in the World It is said of Socrates that he was so inamour'd with this Divine passion of Love that he styled himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A servant of Love Let therefore Love which is the Proxenet of Nature the great instrument of conciliating hearts beget in thee a return and retribution of Love and never think of those streams of blood which so copiously flowed from the wounded body of thy dying Lord without a passive and melting spirit but be likewise a servant of Love and act under that generous principle for Love is of God And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God And that we may not think we are set to remove mountains or perform impossibilities when we are exhorted by the Gospel to the participation of Gods holy life we shall never be left alone to sink under our load and die but shall have the assistance of that Almighty and Demiurgical spirit of Love who hovered over the dark Chaos and brought into Being the goodly frame of heaven and earth and replenished all the immense tracts of space with sutable inhabitants Wisd ch vii This is that Wisdom which is the brightness of the Everlasting the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his Goodness which remaining in her self makes all things new and in all ages entring into holy souls makes them friends of God and Prophets She will not lodge in a sinful body nor abide when unrighteousness cometh in For she is more beautiful then the Sun and above all the order of stars being compared with the light she is found before it This kind and loving spirit will God bestow upon every one that asks it of him to repair his broken and decayed Nature to raise up the Divine Image to joynt and confirm every perverse dislocation in the frame of his soul and to perfect and compleat the living efformation of Christ within him Let no man then despair of attaining to a state of Blessedness under the Gospel for this Benign Spirit whose delights are with the Sons of Men pervades the whole World and touches and overshadows every man with out-stretched wings who is willing to have the Divine Image and Pourtraiture formed in him and doth not by impurity and uncleanness chase it away Though our enemies are mighty and our souls weak yet let none despair of Victory for through the assistance and conduct of that Almighty we shall be able to overcome them He is ever cherishing and fostring the life of God wherever it 's born into any soul and sweetly insinuates into our minds and hallows and sanctifies all our powers and excites us to a serious and hearty pursuit after the indispensable laws of Truth Righteousness and Goodness We are not fallen and degenerated beyond the power of God but his Spirit is able to raise and bring up our souls from the lowest Hell and to renew and reform our debased and wretched Natures For what cannot he do who at first made us faultless and happy till we ruined and defaced his blessed Image and rendred our selves the miserable objects of his compassions What is there in our frame so stubborn and insequacious that he cannot rectifie and redress who at first created all things and brought into Being all the Beauty and Harmony of Heaven and Earth He will never leave us destitute and forlorn but will take hold of every fitness and capacity till he have perfected in us the Divine life and brought us unto Glory But because Examples are more prevalent with mankind then Precepts and Instructions that God might not leave any thing undone which would in any kind conduce to our Interest he hath recommended to us the Example
the nutrition and augmentation of the parts of their Natural bodies 3. The usual way and method by which the first disseminators of the Gospel implanted and begot the image of Christ in the minds of men was by exhorting them in the first place to the plain and obvious duties and exercises of Morality such as Justice and Equity Temperance and Chastity great love and compassion towards all men relieving and comforting the necessitous and calamitous according to their several wants and indigencies and such like acts of Virtue and Reason which are the preparatory qualifications for the introducing the Divine Spirit to attempt the formation of the living Image of Jesus Christ and between these and the Divine life there is the same cognation as between the blade and the full-ear'd corn For it is utterly impossible to conceive the life of God without them or to imagine that he can be really Baptiz'd into the life and spirit of Jesus who is unjust to his Neighbour and unpitiful and contemptive of the compassionate needs and sighs of his poor Brother It is sufficiently seen and the sad experience of every man will declare it to him how deplorably Apostate our Natures are when we first come into the World and how vitiously inclined our souls when they begin to exert themselves in acts of Reason and Intellect so that they appear almost breathless and inactive to the concerns of Immortality or whatever offers to better their condition and pull them out of the mire and clay wherein their feet are held And to think that God will forcibly draw them out and hale them like unwilling captives into a state to which they have no cognation or vital congruity awakened in them beside that it is derogatory to his spotless and pure Nature it is likewise inconsistent with the nature of the thing it self considering mens minds so vitiated and totally discomposed by a long and assiduous inflexion and distortion to degenerate Vice For Divine generations as well as Natural require a sutable proportionateness and as every matter is not capable of conciliating and uniting with every formative principle so neither is every temper of humane souls congruously disposed for the inaction of that Divine Spirit which never falls to work but where the subject is rendred plyable and sequacious by timely preparations and fit dispositions and capacities And if it were otherwise that meer Power or the Naked Presence of the Divine Essence dispreading it self through the whole Creation were sufficient to give us any hopeful expectation of our Spiritual Regeneration by it without any precedent assimilation or fitting dispositions I do not see how this boundless and compassionate Goodness can behold the World in so sad and miserable a plight the whole Earth being filled with Violence and the Habitations of cruelty and Oppression and mens spirits so degenerated that saving their outward shape and a little more cunning and craft in contriving and executing self-designs and interests they are hardly distinguishable from the Beasts of the field I do not see I say how that Love which is the inmost centre of the Deity and from whence flow all the perfective irradiations of his blessed Nature can behold the sons of men so unlike himself and yet not reform and change them since the business lies wholly upon the exertion of his Almighty Power But we finding no such thing we may confidently averr that there are some precedaneous qualifications required to the perfection of the Divine birth and these can be no other then Justice and Righteousness purity and abstracted affections from Mundane forms Chastity and moderation of bodily pleasures and a dear and tender regard of the whole Creation Which things have so near an affinity with the Divine life that the one necessarily inferres the presence and existence of the other these requisites being the basis and foundation upon which the heavenly building is framed 1 King vi 7. now as in the structure of the material Temple there was neither sound of ax nor hammer in like manner that heavenly edifice which the Eternal Architect endeavours to erect in the soul of every man is compleated and perfected without any sound or noise the Holy Jesus neither crying nor lifting up his voice in the streets to give a sign of his approach when he renews and forms his image in the sons of men For that image which God shapes out in our Natures is not any thing different and distinct from our moral and inherent Righteousness or any new infused quality but the exaltation and freeing of that principle which though weak and depressed by a load of corruption yet being immortal and incorruptible bears a Divine stamp and exerts it self in acts of Sobriety Justice and Goodness and being assisted and corroborated by the powerful conduct of the Spirit of God successively displayes it self and continually arises to greater measures till the living efformation of Christ be perfectly compleated An instance of this we have in Cornelius Acts x. and the more devout and religious Heathens in whom the life of God was in a good measure radicated and discovered it self in his frequent Prayers and Charitable actions who when he was renewed and sanctified by the gracious illapse and descent of the Holy Ghost was not devested of those Moral accomplishments of his Nature or endued with any thing different from them but his Righteousness and perfections of his mind were increased and sublimated and fitted for the rellishing such delicate and tender impressions which things being seriously considered it cannot be that any one should perceive the beginning or determine the time of the vegetation and increase of the Divine Image and Nature 2. The second illation which concludes the infallible certainty of his Perseverance who is once in a state of Grace and collects himself to be under the immutable decree of life by those Characteristicks delivered from the mouth of no mean Dictator of that pleasing Doctrine as it is destructive of Piety and casts a malevolent aspect upon true Religion and Virtue so it hath not the least print or footstep in the Holy Scriptures nor can alledge any thing but fancy and the prejudice of impotent affections to maintain it's credit in the world as will appear from these subsequent Propositions 1. That the Decrees of God whether of life or death look upon men according to the exigency and import of their present states and conditions not of their potential or future Beings As suppose God foresee and discern that this man righteous at present will hereafter forsake his righteousness and apostatize from the holy Commandement and do wickedly yet so long as he continues righteous he is under the favourable eye of Heaven and is treated as one whose name is written in the Book of Life Whosoever doth righteousness is righteous but he that committeth sin is of the Devil 1 Joh. iii. 7 8. And more plainly yet The righteousness of the righteous shall
had an eye to when in Artic. xvi they express themselves thus After we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from the grace given to us and fall into sin and this is the dictate of Reason for Habits as they are acquired by assiduous and repeated acts so they may likewise be lost by inobservance and negligence according to that of the Poet Neglectis urenda filex innascitur agris For the soul of man being a perpetual motion and activity will be alwayes catching at something and if once it cool and flag in the wayes of Righteousness will undoubtedly be wrought off and spend it's strength and powers in the service of that other principle which being not wholly mortified will certainly revive and confirm it's hold when the Counsels and Inspirations of the Divine life are in any measure rejected and it left free to regain the Dominion from whence it was most justly by the powerful and efficacious influence of Gods grace detruded And he that shall further consider that long and confirmed degeneracy the soul lay under before a new and Divine principle began to act in it and how agreeable the objects and impressions of sense are to be our present state and how eligible by us will perceive that the Nature of Man may oft be overcome and the Divine life driven from it's rightful throne till by a sharp and persevering contention it be throughly settled and radicated in a quiet peace and tranquillity by putting all it's enemies under it's feet But for a more clear inspection into this Doctrine of Perseverance we must recurr to what was said above Chap. V. concerning the Liberty of Mans Will and consider all true and sincere Believers under a threefold state for the Divine life arises gradually and increases in due measures and proportions till it arrive to a full and compleat perfection and invest the soul of man with immortality and glory 1. The Scripture speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Infants and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 New-born babes who are fed with the Milk of the Word with the plain Doctrines and Principles of Christianity their Criterion being not yet purged enough to have a true sense and rellish of stronger meat and the more sublime and Mysterious part of Christianity And these are those Lambs which the Lord Christ the great Shepherd when he was leaving the World so affectionately bequeathed to the care and conduct of St. Peter redoubling his request in those passionate terms Feed my Lambs And this is the sense of that Mystical Prophecy denoting the compassionate care of Christ Gathering the Lambs with his arme and carrying them in his bosom and gently leading those that are with young who are pregnant with the Divine form and Image of the Holy Jesus From this infant-state of Grace the descent is easie by reason of the strength and powerfulness of the adverse principle which hath taken so firm and deep a radication and watches all opportunities to propagate and dispread it's infectious Nature that the man is perpetually within the confines of danger till by strong and continued habits of Virtue he have totally mortified and extirpated every lust passion and inordinate desire which hinders and obstructs his passage to that quiet and serene state where all things are plain easie and delightsome Hence is that admonition of St. Paul to Timothy 1 Epist c. iii. v. 6. that he suffer not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Novice one newly converted and brought into the faith of Christ to take upon him the office of a Bishop because that state of Grace is subject to infinite hazards and dangers by reason of the potenr opposition of the contrary life and the prevalency of the Corporeal Nature which till it be perfectly subdued will alwayes breath a fuliginous steam and more or less obnubilate Reason the eye and guide of the soul 2. There are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 young men which have overcome the wicked one and which have in a great measure brought low and weakned the power of the unrighteous Nature such who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfect men and through a faithful and constant exercise and uninterrupted habit of Holiness have a true discriminating sense of good and evil and have purified and sublimated their intellectual powers by an assiduous mortification and eradication of every perverse desire and motion of the inferior life To these well-grown Christians true Religion displayes it self and appears in it's native beauty and excellency and they embrace it with delight and joy and looking beyond the Horizon of time and change behold nothing but a bright and never-ceasing day and this fills them with a peaceful consolation that the just Judge of Heaven and Earth will not fail to crown his own life witn that glory and felicity which he himself partakes of in the highest heavens But though this state be so glorious and lovely yet it is not wholly out of the reach of danger but needs often admonitions and great diligence accompanied with frequent acts of Devotion which may fan and kindle the heavenly fire lest the dying and perishing principle of the contrary life revive and get the upper hand This degree of grace although it be able to overcome many and great difficulties and defeat the latent stratagems of powerful enemies yet it is sometimes though not so easily or frequently as the former captivated by the undiscerned force of Pride or Hypocrisie or some other refined sin For it may so happen that a good man who cannot be drawn to the commission or acting of a gross impiety by any temptations in the world yet may fall through the prevalency of an intellectual Vice and court the shadow and fantastick image of sin and yet never descend into the brutish and ferine life of action 3. There are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fathers who are arrived to the highest perfection the nature of Man is capable of in this life and these a Plantonist would call Heroically Good although this Divine frame and God-like temper be infinitely more precious and transcendent then the highest reach and comprehension of pure Platonisme and not attainable by the exercise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Paradigmatical Virtues which wholly extirpated the first motions of sin and did in their sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deifie a man and transform them into Intellect and place him out of the noise and perturbations of the inferior life in a quiet and serene contemplation of the first and ever-blessed Author of all things Here the whole will and desires are so farr conformable and resigned to the Will of God as the ordinary course of things and the earthly state will permit and the Man is perfectly dead to himself and to every rellish of bodily motions and the life of God triumphantly seated in the mind from whence it rules and governs every thought word and action with unspeakable ease and pleasure and replenishes the soul with a
historiâ colligimus licere Deo si vellet ab illo jure quod positum est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ea facere quae ab Arminianis injusta esse judicantur Causa enim certè illius erit in Majestatis eminentiâ immensâ quae quia immensa est praestabit ex aequo ut quae minus quae magis injusta sunt facere possit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Statue igitur quantamlibet injustitiae magnitudinem in â—o quòd creatura insons addicitur cruciatibus aeternis attamen id si Deus faciat Majestatis quae in ipso est magnitudo actionem ab omni reprehensione aut coërcitione vindicabit So likewise Szydlovius in Praefat. ad Vindic. as he is cited by the same Author Dico hic ingenuè qd scil Deus possit unius peccatum alteri imputatum morte aeternâ punire possit ad interitum ordinare obligare hominem ad impossibile ob non praestitum hoc quod ei dare non decrevit eundem punire Quod velit peccatum Quod prohibendo aliquid contrarium ejus facere ipsemet possit Quod quae velit ideò justa sint quia vult non verò ideò velle quia justa sint c. Quae omnia cùm verissima sint ideò tantò periculosius negata fuerûnt quantò propius ut sic dicam Dei potestatem extenuabant enervabant These Positions are so full of horrid consequences so inconsistent with the blessed Nature of God and so contrariant with the natural and easie Idea's of our minds that it shall be enough to have transcribed them In the mean time it highly concerns every Good man to think as honorably of God as possibly he can and render his apprehensions of that adorable Being amiable and lovely for the time will come when God will unmask all the false and unworthy conceptions men have entertained of him and vindicate his abused Glory from all the defiled spots they have sullied it with and discover to them their perverse and obstinate Errors by a light clear as the noon day and every one shall be ashamed that hath not thought so magnificently of his Nature as he ought to do But here I foresee it will be Objected by some That since none of mankind can be good to God as advantaging him any thing and the sole end of their Creation being for their own good and happiness that benign Author considering what and how he had made them and what was likely to be the sad doom of most of them by revolting from his blessed life through the necessary imperfection of their Natures Lapsability being essentially interwoven in the very contexture of their beings he should be obliged through the infinite fertility of that principle of Love out of which he made them and which delights not in the calamity of any of the Creation to have made them impeccable that so they might never have lost those beautiful forms he engraved in them and consequently never incurr'd the severity of his displeasure And here that I may keep my self within the bounds of sober Theology and determine nothing inconsistent to those Sacred Oracles whose Authority ought to be tenderly regarded I answer 1. That God making all things according to their respective Idea's which eternally shone in his All comprehensive Wisdom it became necessary that he should bring into being such lapsable Creatures as the souls of men for there being a fair possibility of such intermediate Essences as humane souls which should be something below the Nature of Angels and yet superiour to Bruts and the Divine Fecundity being such as to speak with reverence did necessarily constrain him to expand his infinite Plenitude in the production of whatever included no incomposibility of Existence it is not to be imagined that his Nature should be less fruitful then the conceptions and apprehensions of men who can distinctly and rationally place another Species of Beings and fill up that empty Chasme between those two so vastly distant degrees of life Angels and Beasts And therefore if men had been made Impeccable there would want such an order of Creatures in the World as might with those glorious Morning-starrs actuate a body of an Ethereal and heavenly consistency and yet with Brute-Animals be furnished with a congruity to inform courser matter and appear upon the earth clothed with flesh and blood 2. God who is in himself a full and compleat Happiness did likewise grant to all the productions of life a power of exerting those faculties his bountiful hand bestowed upon them and so of enjoying themselves in the free use and exercise of them and like an indulgent Father permitted them the pleasures and gratifications of every degree of life he had placed in them so that it seems a Benefit or Sacred Donative collated on mankind that they were not stated in an inamissible Happiness For though we should say with some that such is the Nature and Fabrick of humane souls that unless we engage Divine Power in a perpetual Miracle they could not be constituted in an Illapsable condition yet that All-knowing mind foresaw that the calamity which many of them were like to undergo by deserting their primitive Happiness was not sufficient to out-ballance the good which might accrue to themselves and the rest of the Creation in their production for albeit they were made Lapsable yet it was no wayes necessary that they should actually recede from their blessed life and it was only their careless and negligent use of Gods paternal bounty in taking to themselves too great a liberty of enjoying the pleasures resulting from Corporeal life which were allowed them in due measures and degrees whereby the Animadversion was too farr called off from a steady observance of the Commands and Laws of the Divine life that turned Adam and the rest of his Off-spring out of a Paradisiacal felicity into a World of briers and thorns But beside this God eternally beholding in himself the Idea's of such mutable creatures which being brought into Being would afterwards ruine themselves did as it were on set purpose interweave many acerbities and incommodities in the structure of their beings which might check and restrain their otherwise exorbitant lusts when they are seducing them to an easie descent and seasonably remind them of that better state they are apostatizing from Lastly God beholding the lapse and degeneracy of humane souls and considering that it somewhat proceeded from that incompossibility he himself had wrought in their Essential structure he determined to send down upon earth the Messias whose pure and immaculate soul never left the bright Mansions of Innocency with the rest of his degenerate Brethren to the intent that he might declare to fallen men the unfeigned desire and will of God to re-instate them in the possession of their ancient glory and in pursuance of this good intention of his to assure them of the powerful conduct of his everblessed Spirit which should be in them a
never-failing principle of life both in this World and the other Thus we see that notwithstanding the infinite fulness of the Divine Goodness abundantly shed abroad upon the whole Creation yet was not God at all obliged to create man impeccable 2. To determine by an absolute and positive act the Happiness of some Prop. 2. and the Misery of others and yet to Decree the same upon condition of their Obedience or Disobedience is inconsistent with the light of Reason That the same thing be both Absolute and Conditional is as great a contradiction as can be imagined and therefore to decree a benefit to any person absolutely and without any respect whatever and yet to propose the same under certain terms and conditions of acting must needs be of the same Nature But here that the Asserters of Gods Absolute Decrees concerning the Salvation and Damnation of particular persons might save the credit of their Doctrin from those absurdities it lies obnoxious to they have invented a pretty Subterfuge and they tell us That God doth irresistably work the condition in those whom he intends to save And what is this but to make God a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one that acts upon such arbitrarious Principles as every wise man would be ashamed to own in the conduct of his life and actions 'T is very stange to see how men will labor and toil to support and keep up a ruinous fabrick which if let fall would assuredly prove an advantage to the Christian world but surely God needs no such Patrons to defend the righteousness and equity of his dealing with the sons of men and I may say to them as once Job expostulated with his Friends Will ye speak wickedly for God or talk deceitfully for him will you accept his person This is as he afterwards tels them to mock God as one man mocketh another For if he determine salvation to men hypothetically that is with respect to their obedience and he himself work the condition in them by a supervenient and irresistable force How can they be said in propriety of speech to have performed it and how can their Obedience if it can be called so be termed an act of their duty which is alwayes in respect of a Superior when they themselves are wholly passive Wherefore according to this rate of speaking God must be said to reward himself Lastly He that promises a reward upon condition of Obedience supposes the person to be in a capacity of disobeying and the reward is added as an incitation to quicken and actuate his Obedience otherwise it will be as ridiculous as to confer a benefit upon a man if he will breathe for the man is no more able to disobey then a stone not to fall downward or flame not to ascend Now if God transact the whole business by his Almighty and never-failing Power without any the least attempts or offers of man towards it how is he left in a possibility of disobeying and What need there any reward be adjudged to man for the performance of that which God intends to bring to perfection without his co-operation or endeavours So on the other side Is it not a strange dispensation and wholly unworthy the God of Truth thus to deceive his Creatures by telling them that tey are the cause of their own ruine and that it is only their own obstinate and perverse wills which deprive them of that Blessedness he prepared for them and cause them to inherit bitterness and sorrow when he did by an Antecedent and Inconditionate Decree destinate and mark them out to an Eternal Misery The truly knowing Spirit will not be put off with Pageantry and fair shows but will look for something solid and substantial which may be indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy of that Excellen◠Goodness and Wisdom which brought into being the beautiful frame of Heaven and Earth If such shifts therefore as these may pass for currant at the Great day of God I cannot see how Wicked mens mouths can be stopped and the whole unrighteous World become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Subject and obnoxious to the just Judgment of God For how easie is it for them to plead an exemption from Punishment although they never performed the conditions of the Gospel because the same absolute and peremptory Will which of old designed their destruction did likewise perfectly disable them from doing any thing that might conduce to their Happiness and What were they that they could withstand God 3. Prop. 3. To command men to Act according to a Law under a certain and severe Punishment and yet to take away all Power and Ability of Acting according to the Tenor of that Law is contrary to the dictates of Right Reason That I may fully clear this Proposition I shall go by these Gradations 1. That men may reasonably come under any Obligation by a Law it is necessary that that Law be Promulgated otherwise it is no Law nor can it reach or have influence upon any mans person for the Promulgation of it is an Essential qualification of a Law according to that known Maxime of the Canon Law Leges Constituuntur cùm Promulgantur Laws are then Constituted when they are Promulgated And that of the Civilians Leges quae constringunt hominum vitas intelligi ab omnibus debent Those Laws which have influence upon Mens lives ought to be understood of all Thus among the Romans the manner of publishing a Law after it had been approved and recorded was by hanging it up in Tables of Brass in their Market-places or at their Church doors as Tacitus in his Annals reports whence legem figere is to Enact and Establish a Law Hence it is that the Jewish Law has no obligation upon Christians because it was Promulgated only to them and so became peculiar to their Nation Audi Israel Hear O Israel and if any part of it have influence now upon the Christian World it must be because it is repeated anew by the Son of God the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Christian Oeconomy for whatever is contained in it beside conformable to the laws and dictates of Nature obliges us not as given by Moses but by virtue of that antecedent Universal law common to all rational beings Nor was the Heathen World at all concerned in the Jewish Discipline upon the same account because it was restrained and confined to the Judaical Republick for had it been of an Universal extent there is no doubt but it would have been published to the Pagans also and the Jewish Prophets when they reprehended the Heathen Kings for their enormities would likewise have taken notice of this in especial manner that they did not conform to the Discipline of the Jewish Church and accordingly sharply reproved them for it which we never find they did at any time 2. That a Law may have force and obligation upon Men and they be reasonably punished for the transgression of it
those beautiful Daughters of Heaven the souls of men can be thus murder'd by those Benign Hands that first gave them life Had he considered that glorious beauty wherewith the soul of Man was once possessed and of which now that she is born into the World she retains but a very slender memory conversing with it as it were in a Dream and beholding a glimpse of it through the cranies of Mortality and had he beheld this Eternal Pulchritude thrown from it's Celestial Mansion and all those living rayes of Virtue and efflorescences of Divinity plunged into an obscure and dull piece of Earth and that by the Blessed Author of all things he could not but infinitely resent such an harsh Act. 2. Are not all our faculties very much depraved and vitiated insomuch that there is in us a natural proclivity to Vice and we dayly make choice of forbidden instances Are not our Understandings very dark and blind our Wills refractory and stubborn and our Affections violent and head-strong for the most part in the prosecution of base and unworthy objects And if this be our Case as we come into the World as certainly it is and much worse Original sin must be a real depravity of our souls and not an ill temperament of our bodies The Author having determined the Measure and Extent of Gods Sovereignty and Dominion according to his own fancy and humour he endeavours page 25. to frame such an Idea of Divine Goodness as may correspond with the Notion he hath pitched upon of Gods Dominion and therefore he tells us That the Idea of God consists mainly in his Dominion and Sovereignty and that the Notion of him in Scripture never refers to his Essence but alwayes to his Power and Empire But he must give me leave to take the same liberty in rejecting so bold an Assertion that he does in obtruding it upon the World however I shall be so fair and candid to him as not to contradict what he sayes without shewing him a Reason for it The most consistent Idea that we can frame of God is That he is a Being endued with Absolute Perfection now there are no Perfections in the Deity but what may be referred to these three Infinite Goodness Wisdom and Power which being not of equal worth and excellency by Axiome II. it will follow That what is most pretious is likewise most active and energetical and therefore must be the standard and measure of all the rest by Axiome III. and IV. Wherefore when we frame any Notion or make any Representation of God Reason it self will tell us That we ought to express him by that which is most pretious and Sovereign in him which is not Will and Power but Perfect Goodness And methinks the Scripture mightily favours this 1 John iv 16. God is Love sayes the Apostle which Notion if it refer not to Gods Moral Essence I am sure it hath no relation to his Power and Empire It is true when the Jews dwelt under a Theocracy and God went forth as their Captain against their Enemies he owned the Title of the Lord of Hosts and the Expressions of his Sovereign Power Majesty and Dominion were more frequent but when the Evangelical Oeconomy was set on foor God laid aside these Titles and now he expresses himself by no other Attributes but what carry abundance of sweetness along with them and wholly refer and lead us to the consideration of that which is the Flower and Summity of his Being that is Love Therefore I may subjoyn Mr. P's own words with a little Transposition Pag. 26. That no Property which complies not with Goodness can be attributed to God and consequently that that 's a false Notion of his Dominion that interferes with his Goodness Let us see now how he confutes the Platonists with whom he is very angry for asserting That God being Infnite Goodness will necessarily do that which is best page 27. His first Argument to prove the falsity of this Position he sets down page 29 30. c. the sum of which in brief is this That the necessity of Infinite Wisdom doing that which is best takes away the liberty and freedom of the Divine Will To which I answer That the liberty of the Divine Will consists not in an Arbitrary Indifferency of acting or not acting but in acting alwayes sutably and conformablely to his own Infinite Rectitude and Perfection As the true Excellency and Freedom of our wills consists not in an indifferency or dubious suspension between Good and Evil for this is a debility and imperfection in us but in a constant Election of that which Right Reason and Intellect propound to them as Best So that when once that Eternal Providence which sent us down upon Earth shall reinstate us in the Possession of our Native Glory our Wills which shall then obtain their freedom in it's greatest latitude and dimensions yet shall not be left to a bare Indifferency but will as certainly adhere to that which is Good as a wise and prudent man will alwayes give the same judgment of the same thing in the same circumstances Wherefore to answer in short I say that Gods actions are not so fatal and necessary as the motions of an Automaton or Engine because he is endued with an Energetical Power of Reason and Intellect but are free and unconstrained by any external Principle but because his Nature is infinitely Good it will alwayes do that which is Best because Goodness is the chief and first active Principle in it The proof of this lies in Axiome II. III. IV. His second Argument is this That if the Divine Goodness or Beneficence be necessary it would then destroy it 's own Nature because 't is absolutely necessary to the Nature of Beneficence that it proceed from a free and elective Principle page 33. I suppose this Argument is only cast in as a surplusage and not with any intent to convince any of his Readers unless Mr. P. imagine them so unwary and credulous as to be imposed upon by fallacies and sophisms For if by Gods Bounty and Beneficence he mean his gracious Donations and Benefits above what may render his Creatures happy in their several states and capacities then I say it is most free because when any Beings have forfeited their Felicity God is not obliged to re-instate them in all the circumstances of it again But if we take Bounty or Goodness for the Eternal Perfection of Gods Blessed Nature whereby he communicates himself to all capable receptacles this is as necessary as his Being and against this Mr. P. ought properly to have levell'd his Argument Nor does this make the Divine Goodness ever a whit the less Moral because then none of Gods actions would be capable of Being Morally Good for this impossible and blasphemous to assert That the Divine Will is indifferent either to Good or Evill God doth necessarily Love himself as the highest and most Absolute Good and cannot but