last made their rest But these like Apoplectick diseases surprized the Turret of Nature at the first and descended with stupefaction upon the whole And though so much hath been still preserved by that Goodness which delights not in immediate ruines as serves to administer spirits to the body yet all these are threats of what would immediately ensue if there were a total oppression of that Magazin of life every offer at which is much more dangerous then heavier down-falls upon less noble parts and speak severest intentions of that displeasure that cut us so deep in that head or one neck Lastly if we should appeal to the Prognosticks of the most sober Breasts upon the present Scheme of our condition would they not be very trembling seeing besides the incertainty what a day may bring forth we look more like a people reprieved then restored and setled Yet greater Symptoms of danger are those our sins discover upon us and these not softned or mitigated with those things that may stay off the blow so much as from our own days If then we can neither deny those several appearances of Judgment nor say that God doth any thing without design nor plead our own Reformation how can we but expect the successions of Judgment till there be some evident determination of things by them which yet may be hid and concealed in a present Truce under the favour of which our affairs may essay a motion back to their rest and that bosom of peace which when it is firm opens to receive all publick and private Interests into it self that there they may be cherished after a long languor It is sufficiently known Judgments may intermit and suspend themselves though they intend their own retrieve as a snare is taken up that hath taken nothing that it may be more conveniently placed and at a better time Or as a Discourse that hath several full points and yet begins afresh till the whole be compleated or like the Cockatrice springing from the root of the Serpent that seemed dead For the Judgments of God take their own leasure and discover themselves at such distances of time as seem meet to them sporting as it were with humane affairs yet always including those benigne and serious morals of patience leading to repentance Yea Interposals of mercy may have place when destruction shall yet be the last act Thus Israel delivered from Egypt was in that Generation destroyed in the Wilderness Hoseahs Prophecy of the final Captivity of the ten Tribes took its beginning under the Reign of Jeroboam the Second wherein that Kingdom was in a hopeful posture We our selves have seen the state of our Nation triumphing back to its own Center where alone it could be supposed to stay and fix after so long and uneasie an Anarchy and yet how soon have we seen it trembling upon that very Center and full of new perplexity If mercies then leave us insecured what will any of the vain confidences and good hopes of men avail which we see in no case can ward from evil but as refuges of lyes surrender themselves and the persons intrusted to them to that overflowing scourge that passes along and sweeps before it for things of reality and grounded upon certain causes keep their way and maintain their greatness never considering whether they are believed and looked for before-hand or not But which way soever it shall please the great Ruler of all things to command our affairs or what hand soever he shall guide them with either of mercy or Judgment we have great reason with attent consideration to behold either his severity or his goodness so as to move us home to him If it should be unexpected and undeserved goodness that like a melior natura ballances and disposes those seeds of Boute-feumotions rolling in our bowels that out of them may arise a happy Universe which else would in their contracts destroy each other and expose all to flames yet this goodness is to be feared that we may continue in it For no Nation is the root that bears mercy it will be mercy though we perish But it is mercy bears up all humane condition which hangs like a ball in the air supported by infinite kindness It is the great miracle we are preserved not that we are in distress being so apt to danger that we are crushed before the moth so worthless that we perish by multitudes without any regarding it Lastly so guilty that all Creatures in Heaven and Earth give their applause to divine Judgments upon us which are unwilling to proceed till the stone cry out of the wall and the beam out of the timber answer it that is till the most insensible things are ready to joyn with and even provoke them up If then mercy carries all our happiness what reason have we to revere it Nor is mercy less wise and holy of smaller counsel and intention then Judgment In God it is not a softness of Nature or indulgence to sin it is not resembled by the tenderness of a weak but of a severe and wise man and therefore is not to be trifled with It is true indeed the womb of mercy is infinitely pregnant if it were not hindered by our sins it would be to thousands if it made up its circle and were not interrupted in its course it would be from everlasting to everlasting but then the hearts of men must be suppled and oyl'd sweetned and purified by it the reasons of it must be pursued that it may not be abused for it delivers at last into the hand of vengeance when it is neglected and disobeyed it accomplishes dreadful ends upon those that despise it giving them opportunity to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and those that hate its counsels are repaid even to the third and fourth Generation in the days wherein the righteous Judgments of God reveal themselves Seeing then that the ends of all Gods disposes are that the world may partake his Holiness if he uses the soft arguments of favour towards us after those of displeasure is it not a sin of the greatest aggravation to contemn the riches of his goodness For it either argues this kind of Atheism that men take all the good they receive for the course of Nature and kinder conspiration of contingencies and so regard not the work of Gods hand and these God destroys and will not build up or else which is a greater Atheism it is as if we should say we are delivered to do all these abominations To sin against mercy shews an exceeding obduracy of men in sin that nothing will take them off for mercy is the proper argument the cords of a man he kicks against bowels that offends it it shews the greatest sensuality that men turn all that way as the Israelites gave those good things to their Idols which they received from God In such a case nothing remains but that God vindicate himself by Judgments These things I have subjoyned concerning mercy to a Discourse of Judgments with a prospect upon the hopes of a more prosperous condition and in meditation of that of Ezra After all this is come upon us for our evil deeds and great trespasses Seeing that thou O our God hast punished us less then our iniquities deserve and given us a breathing should we go on to break thy Commandements and to continue our strict alliances with former abominations Wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst consumed us so that there should be no remnant or escaping But alas seeing one sinner destroys much good and we see them with their sins by multitudes thronging into the broad light while in publick appearance we have very little of the preservations against Judgments or the usual reasons of their suspensions how can we but fear our clouds should return after the rain till we are punished to seven times more Yet because there are better hopes though retired into the secret closets and corners we may not despair a preservation from utter ruine through that Mystery of Providence to be observed in the Government of the world whereby God without that desolation by which States are dashed in pieces like a Potters vessel redeems their converts with the Righteousness and Judgment he executes purges away their dross and Tin by the spirit of burning exciting the fire to a just intention to such an end purifies them seven times in the seven-fold punishment and then re-instates them in Glory and over that Glory creates a defence Let us now hear the conclusion of the whole matter which is That God hath not only a time to judge every work of every single person but he hath appointed seasons now to judge whole Nations not so properly capable of that future Judgment This falls out at certain periods ordained by him according to the strict measure of time even to half an hour which doth not only bring forth Events designed to it but even exacts and calls for them It is then the whole Duty and Interest of Nations to fear before him to keep his Commandements and advance his Glory and Truth by not contending with but obeying it This conclusion is so indented with the mind that it more closely twines with it then that circuit of reason used to demonstrate it and more speedily rises up out of the confession of the Soul then those Engines that are fit to raise it can be applyed So that of making many Books or long Discourses there is no end Yet because the mind resting upon its own conclusion and inlarging also upon the whole circle of truth about it stands both better to view and with more benefit collects practical inference from it it is good to take the advantage of what may be subservient hereunto FINIS
world and that which inflames torment always bewailed though it was carried as a priviledge here All things else lose themselves more perfectly in that state then whatever we can imagine most trivial here when it is utterly out of date and succeeded by a contrary however it presumed before in the moment of its flourish With this Judgment then God infinitely assoils his Justice from the scoffes of men that say When is the promise of his coming from the sensuality of men that put the evil day far from them with this he divides the world that all may discern between the righteous and the wicked between him that feareth and serveth God and the prophane and him that serveth him not By this he adjusts to every of both these their due portion honour to whom honour stripes to whom stripes with their degrees and number however they lye huddled now and the best oft-times in the darkest place And this Judgment is plentifully declared to the world that every one may make a right use of it in giving Glory to God and prejudging things not against but with that day If any do otherwise he that sits in the Heaven observes their folly and laughs at it For he seeth that this day is coming as he that is sure of his revenge upon a contumacious ingrate first in compassion warns him and that rejected with a secret derision observes him in his foolish boldness and with a contented patience bears his continued affronts expecting quietly the season of his punishment or as a wise man that knows his own grounds in a point of truth tranquilly rests upon them and bears with a merciful disdain the clamour of a conceited Opinionist so God having setled things with an unmoveable Righteousness and a patience also that yet carries dread with it says to those that will not believe such a Judgment He that is filthy and unrighteous let him be so still 2. Whereas God may seem by the suspension of his Judgments careless of that purgation of the world by their present execution let us observe what other provisions his Holiness Wisdom and Goodness have made herein 1. That Eternal Sacrifice of Jesus Christ that in one act of offering himself gives that perpetual glory to Justice that doth not only countervail but infinitely preponderate and effect more then those daily repeated Sacrifices or those more solemn ones to which yet the reason of all the world hath ever made recourse for lustration of themselves The life and actions of our Blessed Saviour of such incomparable innocency divine perfection hath set Holiness at such an elevation that no depression of it by the iniquities of men are at all comparable with the exaltations of it in him He as our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath contracted upon himself all our guilt anâ— being made a curse for us hath devoured our curse and paid an uttermost compensation to punitive Justice He by a most Chrystalline purity resplendent in our Nature hath discovered the beauties of Holiness beyond all possible obscurations of ours the efficacies of which his mediatory negotiation are much clearer in Heaven the proper Region whither he carried his merit to be seated in an unintermitted Intercession and whence he pours down the benefits of it upon Earth As God therefore is well pleased and always smells a savour of rest in Jesus Christ upon which he cannot only stay his severity but bless the world without injury to his Justice or dishonour to his Holiness so is the world it self seasoned by so great a Sanctity perfumed with the odour of it This indeed eminently is the safety of them that believe but extends it self to all for he is the Saviour of all though especially of them that believe and tasted death for every man which therefore avails for the reprieve of those whom yet it doth not protect from condemnation That which relieves good men from eternal sufferings due to sin with the perfect atonement of Justice and Holiness can without the offence of those Attributes continue under patience and long-suffering those that at the last through impenitency pay themselves to the glory of vengeance in the day of wrath 3. Under the wing of this Priesthood lye the humiliations obediences and intercessions of gracious men who are also the Priests of the world and obtain pardon upon Earth in the virtue of the Mediator in Heaven They who giving God no rest day or night prevail for mercy and live the Horsemen and Chariots of Israel the great security and defence of their Country of which when any City or Nation is naked they are immediately the prey of Justice their Righteousness being from the Grace of God a salt that preserves their time from putrefaction To this we may subjoyn the happiness of some times that are fuller of the days of the Son of Man that is have clearer effusions of the Gospel and Divine Truth upon the world which carrying a sway upon the consciences of men give universal estimation to God and his ways and have a train of moral Virtues attendant which may make general Judgments less necessary vindications of contemporary sins and may at least delay Judgments till after-times Examples of which we observe in Sacred Story Lastly we have already said instances of Judgment do not breathe out themselves in the present moments nor so much as in the present Age but derive themselves upon following time and are accepted for such a period Like the great expiation that in one day purged the whole year In all times there are yet foot-steps of Judgment though in more private and retired walks that continually fall out like those Sacrifices that were daily offered though of less solemnity and those that were appointed in particular cases of a more ordinary occurrence 3. If it seem the disadvantage of any time that it is not disciplined by these chastisements we must know that Judgments are not equal with those Ordinances of God or like his Word that have in their institution an immediate accommodation to such ends but are useful through the intervening instruction of that Law that God teaches out of when he chastises without which men dye under those strokes unreformed Other courses of Providence have also their witness of God and peculiar fitnesses to be managed by his truth to the ends of conversion and repentance for thither the patience and goodness of God lead attâ—mpered to the more ingenuous Elements of mans Soul that are touched with the magnetisms of love Even as Judgments take eare of those that are moved by fear and therefore have their operation in the more corrupted parts of degenerate Nature To sum all Suspension of Judgments is a beautiful place in the contexture of Providence and illustrates that Being to us whom we know in the various discoveries of himself but chiefly in his goodness which yet would be unknown if he did not thus administer things His patience and long-suffering in which
God contemporary with the other and rich acts of his bounty which do most eminently bless whole Nations as well as persons and recommend the times current over them to posterity as prosperous and happy but all the whole world is neither acquitted from this guilt of universal corruption nor exempted from the misery so closely woven into every state of it This condition of the world hath given occasion to great inquiries how it lapsed into it some resolution of which is hereafter intended but now we observe how much even this differs from the more tumultuous and dissoluted appearance of things under Judgment when a resemblance of the Garden of Eden becomes a Wilderness and what we now call Prosperity is clouded with over-ruling adversity We come into the world and finding it as it is in its most constant estate think it was never better till by way of negation removing the evils we perceive to be such and viâ eminentiae measuring how much higher things might have been we ascend in our thoughts to the first perfection But Judgments without any such circuit or elaboration are down-right proofs of wrath and misery and that things are not as they were designed to be 2. The intention of this Discourse is especially to observe Judgments as they comprehend Nations and infold Communities For though God visits obscurest persons and Families with them yet they renown themselves by their large spread upon greater pieces of the world and the stretch of themselves upon Thrones Cities and Countries over which they draw the line of confusion and desolation in so much that their descriptions are proportionable to that general dissolution of all things at the end of the world of which they are indeed smaller Maps and preparatory introductions The Prophet foretelling these speaks in a language proper to the day of Judgment when the mountains shall tremble out of their places and the foundations of the earth discover themselves the Sun and Moon resign their light and the Stars forsake their Orbs and fall from their Heaven All which solemnities are borrowed to represent the down-fall and judgment of particular places and Kingdoms While we consider them thus they are upon a hill and fitter for general observation as being more publick and instructions from them more comprehensive though the same reasons have place and like admonitions arise from the hand of God however it plants it self or grounds its work if the motions of it fall under our view and offer themselves to our notice 3. These Evils arise sometimes from Nature turned out of its course and losing that poise God hath with greatest wisdom given it from whence come all those inequalities and intemperatures that produce Famines Pestilences Earthquakes Storms and Deluges For when all things were setled by God in number weight and measure for the advantage of the world and welfare of the whole Creation there necessarily follows when they are disordered ruine and misery according to the degrees of the disorder both through the cessation of that benefit their right course carried with it and also through the violence of causes out of their places and those exorbitant motions which are the fury and rage of Nature Besides these there are also the terrible conflicts of the lusts and passions of men striving upon the great Sea of the world roaring like Thunder flashing like Lightning tearing more greedily then Tempests and that put all things into greater Convulsions then Earthquakes There are no greater evils upon Mankind then those of which he himself is the Engineer Blood War Rapine and Terror devouring without mercy are bred in his own bowels and executed by himself being the combates of those fiery exhalations which arise from his unruly Soul From whence come wars and fightings among you Come they not hence Even from your lusts that war in your members And these often introduce as suddenly and inevitably those Famines and Pestilences which come more kindly out of the hand of what in this case we style Nature Throughout Scripture and all History we find God in justice using man against himself and creating him the severest enemy of his own kind He prosecutes peccant Cities Nations by some others that are fitted to bring to pass his righteous ends being no less under him then the several Creatures that seem more immediately his instruments and the reins of which are acknowledged in his hand to turn them every way as he pleases 4. All these we define to be Judgments that is They come upon the world through the design and counsel of the supreme Cause of all things God himself and are neither Revolutions that arriving at such a Period must needs shew themselves like Eclipses in such a Nodus or accidental and eventual things that through long tosses of them hither and thither fall out and happen to be and by constant throwing of them hit sometimes thus sometimes otherwise But they are the most mature and sage determinations of an infinite mind and understanding that though he cuts the lines of his own motions often and labyrinths them through one another so that we can find no certain path yet will he at last adjust all he disposes to the conviction of the whole world And yet we stay not here but pursue the sense of this awful word Judgments in which the Scripture comparing spiritual and divine things with themselves so much delights They are the execution of a just and righteous Sentence of God upon the evil actions of man according to Laws of unquestionable equity wherein his own glory and the truest peace of the whole Creation lye together concerned the establishment of Order and Government requiring so necessarily the punishment of sin so that they are neither the displays of his meer pleasure or the Arcana Imperii the Cabals of his Dominion or Rule of the world but the presence of his infinite Justice and Jurisdiction over all things how much soever the administration of so great an Empire falls within it which doth certainly conspire herein as is hereafter to be shewn CHAP. III. An Endeavour to demonstrate by sound Reason That Judgments are from God THe great matter of debate we are first to take notice of in the account we have given of Judgments is That they are from the infinite Wisdom Counsel of God carrying a course of Justice in the world which is established by these following perswasions 1. By those reasons and assurances we have for the truth of the Scriptures all which must needs come home to the proof of what they do most industriously assert and teach and which they make so great a point of their Doctrine To every one that acknowledges them the Word of God it is out of all Controversie that all the evil that is in the City is to be ascribed to his directing and over-ruling hand who forms the light of prosperity and creates the darkness of adversity and that this he doth for the punishment of
Nation are let out in great mortalities and slaughters to weaken and impair it but that they give advantage to the surviving part yet it will not come home to the objectors purpose For whatever we set in the throne of things Nature or but Chance that it should do so much well and either not have contrived a sweeter translation of things or as luckily as in other things have happened upon it is enough to give an overthrow to this whole supposition But to us that acknowledge and humbly adore God it cannot be thought that he should govern and bring to pass ends with the grief and unhappiness of his innocent Creatures who could with the same ease to his Divine power and wisdom and more agreeable to that goodness have administred them with all the mildness and clemency in which that richest Being delights it self But things carried so different hereunto argue as high as may be the sense of a Judgment That God should make room in the world by the hurries of men out of it which might have been as well by a gentler transplantation that he should change seasons by the ministeries of storms and tempests and shew the wonderful events of his Providence by flashes of Lightning and Blazing-stars which would have been as clearly understood by the kinder beams of his goodness assures us he is necessitated by his righteousness and justice to transact by ways strange to him and in which he hath no pleasure and therefore puts them into such a frame that they may at once discover his Attributes and Counsels with that wrath and severity that have their only display upon the sins of men Thus the iniquity of the Amorites fall moved God by so dreadful a displacing of them to give the inheritance to Israel wherein his Bounty to one fell in with his Justice upon the other the former of which infinite understanding could have carried in another Channel had there not been righteous reasons for the latter also The Jews infidelity introduced the Adoption of the Gentiles upon their own rejection which yet was so little necessary otherwise that their reconciliation will be as life from the dead CHAP. V. The discussion of this Scruple How can it stand with the Author of Nature to disorder it BEcause the wrath of God in his Judiciary Acts is as we have observed so often discovered in the irregular moves of Nature which is guided by an intelligence extern to it self and so can commit no offence and this intelligence is no lower then that which created it so that no errour can be charged upon Creatures with which nothing was supremely intrusted but must be ascribed to God originally It may add much to the clearness of what hath been so earnestly asserted of his hand in all the evils that are in the world to discourse the reasonableness of his administration when he unravels in displeasure that order of the Creation he hath with so wise and skilfull a hand composed and interrupts the chain of things himself hath interwoven upon occasion of the sins of men lest it should seem dishonourable to his goodness and unchangeable counsel if he chuses so or derogatory to his wisdom power if he is so necessitated For whenever sinful disorders provoke him to disanul or confuse those things wherein he hath shewed himself so wise something suitable befals his works to that Solomon complains of as one of the greatest grievances of humane Nature in its acquests and that made him go about to despair of all his labour viz. That a foolish Son arises and dissipates that state of things the wisdom of his Father transmitted to him with beauty and splendour To the resolution of this will be most conducing the loosing of the doubts that arise from the constant weakness debility and incompleteness of things to their ends their frequent aberrations and miscarriages from them which advantagiously solved will contribute much light to this case of Judgments Let us then search the original order of the world and see how fairly the disorder of it either general or more extraordinary in time of Judgments agrees with the goodness and providence of God and is reconciled with the glory of the first Creation 1. When things were in their primordial state set into such a posture that at the same time they expressed the bounty and wisdom of the Creator and their amity one with another man stood at the head of them in whose happiness they conspired and paid him their several tributes as to a native Prince They rejoyced in his Glory and Grandeur receiving from him the honour of a near alliance and bowed to him with humblest obedience as fit to command them through the excellency of a high-born spirit They all in their several degrees of Being were disposed as one common ear to take the sound of mans contentment which rebounded from Heaven to Earth and the Eccho so conveyed that it took hold of both ends of the Creation at once The Heavens hearing the Earth the Earth the Corn and Wine and all Man The Heavens send him down their sweetest and kindest influences The Earth breathed nothing upon him but innocent The Clouds most liberal of their fruitfullest distillations and the Earth an open bosom of its own riches to this lower Angel who being a Spirit placed in a body hath the opportunity of tasting the pleasures arising from them Thus all things were created with an aspect upon man and for his sake ordered into their several classes and prepared to their various motions wherein we cannot indeed but cry out What is man that thou art mindful of him But who could challenge God for it whose counsels and influences are all his own and all the whole imaginary space out of him Nothing What then could implead God out of its nothing for doing what he pleases with his own Man being thus the center wherein the Sovereign goodness of God and the service of all things met for in him their series and happy order ended his obedience to God was made the security of his condition wherein was intrusted his own welfare and the blessing of the whole Creation For while all things were so fixed that they could chuse no other state then their own man having the sum of free-will in himself to use it for the good of himself and all the Creatures under him by continuing in his duty to God the knot wherein all was infolded what wonder is it if when he by transgression lost his own station for whose advantage all things stood in their first and most beautiful order they also run out of their ranks and joyn in the confusion he is to be punished by For they run not with such an exorbitancy but that they pay as great an honour to the wisdom of God united with his Justice as they first did to the same wisdom in conjunction with goodness and that service to his indignation that they had done to his bounty
of that treasure for he that is infinitely rich hath provided a great abundance of all things and from a little we may argue there is a whole Element of the same within his command when he sees good and that the like or greater reason calls for and requires it in the same or greater measures when God had use of the water for a deluge not only that we see and account for but unknown Cataracts were opened There are hidden powers in God to create things of which we see no prints nor are so much as able to conceive who are in every thing confined by what we see and know is done because of the little grasp of our mind we call into question of impossibility what we have never seen and of improbability what we seldom see That we may therefore be led to further conviction of such a Judgment then the bare affirmation of it though from him whose word is a Creation that were enough God sets the realities of it before us in which we may behold all in a little as a man is drawn in an infant and therefore he uses to express that little by the whole that we might be the more acquainted with it we see his power hereby to call to account whom he pleases how and when he pleases he accustoms Nature to frequent dislocations before that final remove And because our incredulity of it is so much and so faulty besides our other demerits like Zachary we are confirmed by a punishment inflicted on us for the time being In our flesh is printed the certainty of an Eternal Judgment by a temporary one God chastising our unbelief as well as our sins by this his hand or as Christ evinced his pardoning authority in Heaven by his pardon of sins on Earth that was by an act of his goodness expressed in such effects of it as men upon Earth measure the power of causes by So these his Judgments drawn down to us where we are and composed to our present sentiments are the fittest demonstrations of that which is as much above us as the Heaven above the Earth of that to come of which we are always doubtful whether it will be or no For with slender reason can we dispute against the futurity of such a Tribunal that is out of the reach of our calculation whether it shal be or not had we not a revelation of it who are daily surprized with the wonders wrought before us which we would not have believed if they had been told us before they came to pass though much more near our Prognosticks then the other From whence we may well infer All the declarations we have of these things from God shall certainly be fulfilled in their season since things so unexpected to us the search of which and their likelihoods of event is not so far out of our depth do yet appear and all we have to say against them is but this we never thought it What may not then be that is assured shall be in those things we can pretend to no acquaintance with though we are not aware of them before But further then this when we see some times and persons that have the marks of Judgment upon them and that look as smitten of God others again that have no such scars and yet we cannot but say deserve punishment and often equally with the others if there were not a Judgment to come it would argue a partiality in that Justice which yet we know is so great and free that it accepts no mans person for being great nor over-looks any as too small for its eye If there were not a Judgment to come and that universal our Saviours discourse that we should not rate sin and sinners by their sufferings here would fall when he says All that do not repent shall perish in like manner that is as notoriously as those upon whose destruction the eyes of the world are set and yet we see many flagitious persons passing impune out of this life having given charity it self no hopes of their penitence His perswasives of the necessity of repentance from thence would be of no force or strength if there were not a Judgment to come and a perishing beyond all we see here There were no place of Argument if it could establish it self so great against Divine Providence and Righteousness or against all Religion and Christianity as that which supposes there is no everlasting and final determination further off then now to reconcile the great inconsistencies of things with their disorders which do but seem to be because there is a Judgment but would indeed be if there were none If then there be such a day of God and his righteous Judgment and the lesser acts of it deserved messengers of so immediate a mission sealed often with miracles that which is so much greater and in which all is summed by proportion should have the most solemn embassie accordingly God takes care for the Doctrine of it is delivered by his Son and confirmed by his Resurrection from the dead All the Judgments of God from the very beginning down to the end offer themselves as the premonitions of that Day the eldest Prophets spake of it Enoch the seventh from Adam said The Lord cometh with ten thousands of his Saints and the most ancient of Judgments the Angels thrown into chains of darkness declare the Judgment of that great Day because it is the acquittal of Providence that hath seemed crooked here while it hath run through the mazes of the froward and strange ways of men and therefore appeared as confused and intangled as they God not depending upon time as an unquestionable or indisputable representation of his Rule of the world hath throught it worthy of himself to provide by a last Judgment to assoil his Government of it from all possible calumny by shewing the greatness of his skill then in those cross lines those shades and lights that encounter one another now and look like perplexity and errour in the parts but in the whole picture will present adorable wisdom excellent in this above all that it hath made every thing with such aspects upon this end of things and with such direct motions to this center If that therefore were taken away the several lines and paths in the world would lead no whither nor rest any where and not only so but the great points of Christianity leaning upon this Postulare would fall As therefore God doth indeed hasten all things hither that they might not wander over-long though by a measure of time that seems tedious to us yet without any delay in himself or in the thing it self For yet a little time and he that shall come will come and will not tarry So doth he support the inclining faith of men concerning it with all reasonable assurances of it that what it will fully do at last it may proportionably do now if it be not wilfully disbelieved and
slighted CHAP. IX Fourth Reason expressing the Government of the World falling in with Judgments WHen from the sins of men and Gods Government over them arise those reasons of Judgment of so deep an Interest in his Righteousness and Goodness as we have already given and shall yet add it is no way dishonourable to God to interpose this as one account of Judgments That he takes occasion from hence to variegate his administration and providence and to adorn that great Table of Time with those mixed colours which when seen at that true light we last spoke of will reflect the beauty of infinite understanding and wisdom as in a curious piece of Tapestry the pleasure of which is its well placed diversity when we see it on the right side and fully infolded till then it may seem an unskillful confusion God I say takes advantage from the sins of men thus to govern the world by his Judgments not that there was any thing new to Providence in the breaking out of sin that it did not think of before yet it became the infinitely good and holy Creator to give the first model of things answerable to himself and when out of deep Counsel he determined to suffer a perturbation even then to undertake the guidance of those many cross and unruly motions that certainly fall out upon so great a disorder for the further displays of his Eternal understanding As the skill of the Painters hand may be as great and appear far greater the sudden varieties giving an advantage and the difficulty enhansing the Art when he draws a confusion then when he shadows an accomplished piece of order and the prudence of a Leader more known when it turns it self to every accident in a mutiny or ungoverned medley then when it leads a well-governed Army and only keeps pace with the known Rules of Military Discipline It is first most natural to God to rule and to rule with infinite wisdom and goodness next having permitted things to distemper through the sin of man to over-rule that very distemper to set off the excellency of his own conduct by it For when the sins of men have brought it to that pass that there must be Judgments it is most worthy of God that by them the state of the world should be also managed which if that case had not been put should have been conducted by mercy only But now Judiciary Providence is a bridle that God puts into the mouth of humane affairs and turns about the whole body of them how furious and fiery soever It is a Helm with which he wheels about the most bulkie actions and driven of boisterous winds raging and impetuous passions It rolls down States and Governments and carries huge mountains of times and seasons before it Dominion is whirled about to several points Monarchies are dashed in pieces that could have prescribed for themselves and others rise out of their ashes He divides the Nations and the everlasting Hills bow themselves he weighs and measures out Princes he gives the Earth to whom he pleases he shews his signs and tokens in Heaven and Earth by his Judgments and in these things none can stay his hand either with power seeing every thing depends upon him nor by reason or pleas of right seeing all that he gave is forfeited back into his hand by sin Of this reason of Judgments Scripture is not at all silent but avows with highest confidence the translation of things according to the pleasure of God who worketh all things after the counsel of his will who created all things and for whose pleasure they are and were created and yet he never moves them from their rest but with just respects to sin for he takes pleasure in righteousness The righteous Lord loveth righteousness and his Throne the Emblem of his Dominion hath its habitation as well in equity as Judgment and exercise of power CHAP. X. Fifth Reason expressing the usefulness of Judgments to reform Reas 5 THat they may be forcible recommendations of repentance and reformation which account of them removes them from Mount Sinai and places them upon Mount Sion like those precepts that were first given with all circumstances of terrour and after adapted into the mildness and gentleness of the Evangelick Law For there is nothing wherein God is more gracious to man then in those advantages he gives him to return to a right mind when he takes those methods that are rough and severe in themselves and makes use of them for medicine they lose whatever is hard and grievous in them are even chusesable thus far That it is more to be desired God should chastise and not hate us then with a greater indignation and revenge not be angry with us It is better we should pass through his fire then be unpurged and even boiled in his Cauldron melted in his Furnace and brayed in his Mortar then remain in our own impenitency dross and folly God the best as he is the greatest in those things wherein he is most potent is also most benigne and therefore casts beams of his goodness upon his most dreadful disposes He made not the night without some beauties of the day As the Father of Heaven and Earth and more peculiarly of the spirits of men he takes care of his off-spring and family with the bowels of the Father of mercies But then as the infinite Holiness as the Ruler and Judge of all the world he plants all his works even of mercy in righteousness from both which arise a discipline most conducible to the participations of his Holiness guiding us first by Rules and after admonishing us by corrections and reducing us by chastisements which are most proper acts of a paternal Government This sweetens and mollifies those more awful respects he carries upon the world as supreme in his Dominion and Judgment though even in those it is agreeable with increated mercy to leave nothing untryed and without its experiment that might conduce his Creatures much more as he governs the world in a Mediator all his relations to mankind are infinitely endeared and made kinder by the presence of God with us While this reason of all others doth most not only vindicate but addulce and commend these severities of God to us because it stands so fair with all his Attributes and level with the good of man we will take a freer account of the use of Judgments under it In the general we may understand there is nothing in the works of God so thin or volatile as for sight only but would imbody fix it self in use In Nature it self those things which afford us only speculation because we have not the Mechanicks of them in our own hand nor any Engines to move them with are yet in their own place full of that common labour and industry Solomon speaks of to serve the world and by the screws of one thing upon another fastned on them in Creation they are applyed more