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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	creature_n	heaven_n	world_n	8,020	5	4.5844	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96272	Two sermons one against adultery, the other of the nature, art, and issue of the Christian warfare : with a discourse shewing the consistency of God's infinite goodness with His foreknowledge of the fall of man / by Nathanael Whaley ...	Whaley, Nathanael, 1637?-1709.; Whaley, Nathanael, 1637?-1709. A discourse shewing the consistency of God's infinite goodness with His foreknowledge of the fall of man.	1698 (1698)	Wing W1533A; ESTC R43579	50,933	141

and then he must be infinitely good and was so when he made the World and will be so to eternal Ages being the same yesterday to day and for ever This is as bright a Truth as any is within the whole Circle of Science There is no foundation of Certainty if there is no God and there can be none that is not perfectly good Let us therefore hold to this Principle that God is Infinite in Goodness and Knowledge and all other Perfections and the consequence will be that his creating Man after he had foreseen his Fall is no reasonable Objection against his Goodness or any of his glorious Attributes because it is impossible for a Being that has all possible Perfection in himself to act beneath the Dignity of his Nature or to injure his Creatures by doing any thing which they might justly to Eternity accuse him of This I confess does not ease us of the difficulty of apprehending how it consists with the Goodness of God to make a Creature who he knew would sin and be miseralbe But then the greater that Difficulty is the more clearly it shews the Weakness and Incompetency of our Understandings to censure and sit in Judgment upon the Actions of God and that it becomes us to content our selves with what we certainly do or may know and believe concerning him and his Attributes Who art thou Rom. 9.20 21. O man that repliest against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over the Clay Rom. 11.33 Oh the depth of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his Judgments and his Ways past finding out Prop. II. Tho' God is infinitely good in himself we must not expect that he should make his Creatures perfectly good and happy For as absolute Perfection is essential to the Notion of God so is Dependence and Imperfection to the Notion of a Creature which proves that there are Degrees of Perfection which are not communicable to Creatures and for those which are all we can expect from a good Creator is that he should communicate such competent Degrees of Goodness to every Creature as are agreeable to their several Natures and Capacities and conducive to wise and excellent ends i.e. that every thing should be made good in its Kind and in Proportion to the good end of its Creation And this Rule as Moses tells us was exactly observed to the least Mite or Insect Gen. 1.31 And God saw every thing that he had made and behold it was very good Which could not have been said of every Creature if there was any Defect in the Creation of Men or Angels who are the Top and Glory of the Creation And if they were made very good in the unerring Judgment of God tho we may fancy still that they might have been made better we cannot accuse the Goodness of God for making them as they were made both because he judges infinitely better than we do and because to be made very good implies no less than that God advanc't them at first to a very happy Condition and gave them all that was needfull to secure and improve their Happiness and more than this we have Reason to think was not suitable to his infinite Wisdom and since God is as wise as he is good all we can promise our selves is that he will do all the good that can be wisely done but no more The Summ of this is that absolute and perfect Goodness being essential to God we must not look for it in the Creatures whose Natures are uncapable of it and that relative or creating Goodness is and must be commensurate to the Nature of Creatures and the good ends for which they were created And then if God gave Man an excellent Nature and endued him with all the Perfections of Mind and Body that were requisite to his temporal and eternal Happiness it is evident that he has done all that became a good and bountifull Creator to do for him Now let us put the matter upon this Issue all that was requisite to the present or future Happiness of Man was provided to his hand when God made him a reasonable innocent and immortal Being and gave him power to secure and enlarge his Happiness by acting according to the Dictates of his Reason and persevering in his Innocence and Obedience to his Maker Was not this an Act of adoreable Goodness And did it not deserve the highest Returns of Duty and Gratitude to the Author of it But where was then the Error in Man's Creation Was it that it brought him into a State of Subjection to his Maker But this is essential to every Creature and by this Argument there ought to have been no Creation at all Or was it that Man being made a free and reasonable Being might possibly abuse the Goodness of his Maker transgress his Commandments and so make himself miserable when nothing but himself could do it 'T is true this was the primitive State both of Angels and Men but the question is where is the fault of it when both the one and the other were made faultless and happy and might have continued so had they pleased for ever If there was no fault in the Creature there could be none in the Creator and then it will be hard to find one any where else But still some Men cannot bring their Minds to apprehend but that it must needs argue a Defect in creating Goodness to make a Creature of the most curious Form and the noblest Endowments of Mind and Spirit that can act below the Dignity of its excellent Nature and by sinning make it self miserable But I would fain know what rational Ground these Men have for so transcendent a Conceit as this Would they be more than Angels or any Creature they can possibly frame an Idea of And because God is unchangeably good and happy will they charge his Goodness for not making them equal to him They don't use to question the Goodness of God for making so vast a difference as he has done between the several Orders of Creatures for not giving every Plant the Fragrancy of a Rose or every Flower the Beauty of a Tulip or every Beast the Courage and Majesty of a Lion or for making the Earth and all the Furniture of this inferiour World for the Service of Men. And far less Reason they have to tax him for creating Man for his own reasonable and peculiar Service which is the highest Freedom and Glory of a Creature or for not setting him above the Angels of Heaven as he must have done if he had created him in a fixt and unchangeable State of Happiness And why should they imagine that God cannot without reproaching his Goodness make a reasonable Creature subject to Change and Vanity to Sin and Misery when they see a World of such Creatures before them Do they really think that

from the least Defect or Error in the Creation of Man But still some Persons are troubled to think that God should intrust Man with a Liberty of Choice when he was infallibly certain beforehand that he would abuse it and this they apprehend to be inconsistent with perfect Goodness But what Reason have they to think so And what is their meaning by this Objection Is it to blemish the History of Man's Creation or to clear the Goodness of God by denying his Prescience Do they mean to prove that God did not create Men or Angels and then leave them to their own Choice to stand or fall to be happy or miserable This they may be sure he did not if it was inconsistent with his Goodness and if it was not why are they troubled to think that he did do it Or would they prove that God did not foresee the consequence of creating a free Agent Let them first answer all the Arguments Affirmations and Predictions in Scripture which plainly prove that the free Thoughts and Actions of Men lie open and naked to the Prescience of God and then let them consider what they gain by excluding his Prescience Does it at all mend the matter to say that God made innumerable Creatures that would sin and be miserable but knew it not till it was too late to prevent it or can they seriously allow themselves to think that he laid the Foundations of the Earth and created Man upon it before ever he was master of his Design or was sure whether it would turn to account or not How could he make a Covenant with Abraham and his Seed for ever Gen. 18.18 19 and distinguish them from all the Families of the Earth if he did not foresee that his Children would keep the way of the Lord or that there would always be a Generation of Men in the World of the same Stamp and Integrity that would prefer the Worship and Service of the true God before the Pleasures of Sense and signalize their Faith as Abraham did by the Freedom and Ingenuity of their Obedience to him Let them I say impartially weigh the Consequences on both sides and they will clearly see that they bear as hard upon the Wisdom of God by denying his Prescience as they fear they should do upon his Goodness by asserting it Now to ease them of this Fear that God's Foreknowledge of the Fall of Man was no blemish to his creating Goodness will I doubt not sufficiently appear if they candidly consider these three things 1. That his Prescience had not the least Influence upon their Fall or Disobedience to him Our first Parents might have lived and been eternally happy upon the Stock of their original Virtues and Endowments and the Divine Favour reflected upon them had they used them as they ought and if they had done so God had never foreseen their Sin or Misery Neither did they sin because he foresaw they would but merely because they would sin and therefore they would have sinned whether he had foreseen what they would do or not and so their Fall could not in any respect be imputed to his Knowledge of it no more than the Death of those eighteen Persons upon whom the Tower in Siloam fell Luk. 13.4 was imputable to the Eye that beheld the Falling of that fatal Tower Now if the Prescience of God had no Influence upon the Apostacy of his Creatures his Goodness in creating them in a happy State could be never the less for his Knowing that they would abuse it 2. That his Foreknowledge of their Fall did not hinder him from using the most proper and likely means to prevent it When God made Man upright he gave him power to stand and and persevere in his Innocence and to secure improve and immortalize his Glory and Happiness and when he had done this he gave him a loud and timely warning of the great danger of Failing in his Obedience to him telling him that in the day of his Transgression he should surely die Gen. 2.17 And is not this a fair Representation of the Goodness of God in the utmost degree that became a wise a holy and a faithfull Creator Does not this plainly demonstrate that the making Man a free Agent was no Contrivance of his Creators to draw him into Sin or Misery And that his Prescience was so far from serving any such end that it took the most natural and proper course to prevent it admonisht him of his imminent Danger and foretold his dying day to be the same with that of his eating the forbidden Fruit Which certainly God had never done after he had put him into a way to live for ever if either he had not foreseen his Danger or was willing to connive at his Death and Misery But more than this 3. God's Foreknowledge of Man's Abuse of his Goodness was no real Disparagement to it because it was in his power to turn that Abuse to an excellent end and to take occasion by our Fall to manifest the Glory of his Attributes in a far higher degree than was possible merely by his act of Creation 'T is the glorious Prerogative of God to bring good out of evil which must have been concealed for ever if he had never suffered evil to have entred into the World The Glories of the Divine Wisdom Love and Goodness in the Redemption of Mankind the Glories of God's Patience Mercy and Justice towards the different Ranks and Degrees of Sinners do all depend upon his Permission of the Sins and Follies of Men and applying suitable Remedies to them and had never appeared upon the Theatre of this World if it had not been for the tragical Miscarriages of our first Parents The fall of Man was indeed a vast Unhappiness in it self but then it opened wonderfull Scenes of happy and surprizing Providences 1 Pet. 1.12 which the Angels of Heaven desire to look into and will be the Delight and Admiration of all good Men to Eternity Above all the Incarnation of the Son of God for which there would have been no occasion in a State of Innocence was a prodigious Demonstration of his unparallelled Love and Favour to the lapsed Race of Mankind a strangely proper and most powerfull means to reconcile the World unto himself to promote Holiness in several Instances and Virtue in several Kinds which could never have grown in Paradice and to advance the humane Nature far above the State and Dignity from which the first Adam fell For the Union of the humane Nature with the Divine is not only an Argument of the sincerest Love and good Will to Men but a most efficacious and transcendent Principle of the highest Perfection and Happiness that the Nature of Man is capable of It is certain the Recovery of Mankind required another kind of Dispensation than what was suitable to a State of Innocence and surely God would never have manifested himself in the Flesh or discovered

have left him opportunity for 'T is certain that God has pardon'd some very great and infamous Sinners but then they were great Penitents too And surely there is nothing more becoming such as have been very bad themselves than to attempt some generous and eminent thing towards the Reformation of a degenerate and adulterous Age something that may heal the Honour of Virtue that may help to appease the Anger of Heaven and to banish the Vices which they their Families and Country have dearly smarted for that the World may be once the better for them before they leave it and their good Actions may help to bury the Memory and I fection of their bad 2. Such as have not defiled themselves with carnal Lusts and particularly those that are young and tender of the Honour they owe their Bodies or are curious in their Washes and Dresses and love to appear orient and gay without the least Spot of Soil or Impurity ought to be extremely cautious of all Approaches to this notoriously shamefull and odious Vice 1 Cor. 6.18 Other Sins comparatively as the Apostle speaks are without the Body but he that committeth Fornication sinneth against his own Body i.e. he deflowers the Purity of his excellent Nature he commits a Rape upon himself and so defiles his holy Profession 1 Thess 4.4 which is to preserve his Body as a sacred Vessel in Sanctification and Honour and to keep himself unspotted from the World And then what foolish and fulsome Hypocrisie were it to pretend to the minutest Decencies and profess the highest Degrees of Nuptial Sanctity and after all contract the indelible Stain and perfidiously embrace such a Dunghill Lust Take heed therefore of every impure and guilty Thought of all unchast Desires and Complacences lascivious Glances and Dalliances of all Immodesty in Word or Gesture with all other Incentives to gratifie the Flesh with its Affections and Lusts These besides their proper Guilt and Defilement are the common Anteludes by which the sly Tempter seeks to play you into the dreadfull Crime and then by shunning the Occasions of them you keep out of the road at least of vulgar Danger in the pure Aethereal way whither the unclean Spirit never or rarely presumes to come But suppose you were surprized by a rude and violent Temptation as Joseph or sad Lucretia was Lusts fiery Darts will not enter into a chast and undefiled Breast where there is nothing gross enough to catch or feed the Flame Prov. 4.23 Keep therefore thy Heart with all Diligence and if thine Eye chance to be struck with strange erratick Beauty call in the mighty powers of Faith and Reason arm your self with a Reverence of God's all-seeing eye Ps 139.3 which pierceth into all your Paths and is ever about your Bed call to mind your infinite Obligations to him and look on every Instigation of lustfull Appetite as a dangerous Approach to the flaming borders of Hell and Ruin where the Worm of Conscience dieth not and the Fire of Divine Wrath is not quenched Say now to thy self How can I do so false so foul an Action that have plighted my Faith and espoused my self by most solemn and religious Vows as a chast Virgin unto Christ as a Lover of the purest and holiest Jesus How can I hope to appear before him amongst those bright and spotless Souls Matth. 25.33 that have escaped the Pollutions that are in the World through Lust May he not justly set me with the Goats on his left hand in the great discriminating Day if here I should live like them in turpid and lawless Pleasures Should I stoop to this lewd Desire Whither oh whither shall I cause my shame to go How shall I behold the Face of God or Angels Is this to purifie my self as they are pure Shall I then for a moments Pleasure forfeit an immortal Crown and incur the eternal Anger of him whom at last I must obey when he bids me depart into everlasting Fire Shall I shew less reason in my Conduct be more brutish than any Man and run directly upon the Rock by whose fatal side I have lately seen the Ruins of so many tall and gallant Vessels so many brave and goodly Persons fearless and undaunted Men with desperate Numbers of the smaller Craft miserably lost and cast away for ever And for those few Adventurers that have hardly escapt with Life and Limb how have I seen them stalking about the Streets like Ghosts with Death and strange Remorse in their Faces Only more chang'd from what they were than Death usually alters a man from his living Form I will say but one thing more you have Life and Death before you consider the various Issues of a wise and foolish Choice declared by the everlasting Gospel which forbids you no innocent Pleasure Rom 8.13 If you live after the Flesh you shall die but if through the Spirit you mortifie the Deeds of the Body you shall live in ravishing and endless Joys in eternal Acts of unspotted and Seraphick Love in the Arms of him that loved you to the Death in the Beatific Vision and Fruition of God and the dearest Embraces of Virgin Spirits made perfect in Heaven To which God of his infinite Mercy guide us through the Snares and Fallacies of this evil World for the Merits of his Blessed Son Jesus Christ our Lord. A SERMON ON THE Christian Warfare S. James IV. 7. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you 'T Is a peculiar Thought of a late conceited Philosopher who loved to quarrel with the best sense of Mankind that War is founded in Nature or a Right as he calls it in every man according to his power to seize on every Mans Possessions till he gives it away by Compact The plain and naked Meaning of which Assertion is That Power and Right are but one and the same thing in Nature That all the difference between them arises from positive Laws and Covenants That till such Laws and Covenants were made no man was bound to his good Behaviour to his Neighbour that to oppress ravish and murther were once fair and innocent Actions the harmless Effects of Power pursuant to that original Right which fond Nature gave the stronger to all the Delights and Possessions of the weaker But not to follow the Chace of this wild and impious Hypothesis we need go no farther than the Text to discover the great Incendiary of War and Contention and the first Cause and Author of all Disorder and Confusion in the World that is the Devil the common and inveterate Enemy of God and every Creature that bears his Image Him therefore S. James exhorts us to resist and least we should be daunted at the Fame of his mighty Conquests and the vast Destructions he hath every where wrought in the Earth to support us under this Discouragement the Divine Herald assures us that the Issue of our Conflicts with him will be safe and honourable