meaning of it from what Noah had often told them and this must needs convince them of the terrible Justice and Vengeance of God And the gradual increase of the Flood gave them some time to repent in and to beg God's pardon and I 'm sure this makes a glorious representation both of the Goodness and Wisdom of God in the most terrible Judgment that ever was executed upon the world if we had sufficient reason to believe as there want not some fair appearances of it that God intended the Deluge as well to convince and save all that could be brought to repentance in the Old World as to reform the New Thus since God had determined to destroy that wicked Generation of men and to preserve only Noah and his three Sons to destroy the Earth by a Deluge and to shut up Noah in the Ark was as great or a greater mercy to Noah than his preservation was Let us suppose that instead of drowning the world God had at once destroyed all Mankind by Plague or Thunder from Heaven or some other sudden stroke excepting Noah and his Sons who should be Eye-witnesses of this Terrible Execution and live to see the Earth covered with dead Bodies and none left to bury them and their Cities lie waste and desolate without Inhabitants who can conceive what the horror of such a sight would have been who would have been contented to live in such a world to converse only with the Images of Death and with noisome Carkasses But God in great mercy shut up Noah in the Ark that he should not see the Terror and Consternation of Sinners when the Flood came and he washed away all their dead Bodies into the Caverns of the Earth with all the marks and signs of their Old Habitations that when Noah came out of the Ark he saw nothing but a new and a beautiful World nothing to disturb his imagination no marks or remains of that Terrible Vengeance This indeed destroyed all other living Creatures as well as Sinners excepting those that were in the Ark with Noah but this I suppose is no great objection against Providence that the Creatures which were made for man's use were destroyed with man since God preserved some of each Kind for a new increase and yet the Wisdom of God was very visible in this for had the World been full of Beasts when there were but four men in it the whole Earth would quickly have been possessed by Wild and Savage Creatures which would have made it a very unsafe habitation for men To conclude this Argument the sum of it in short is this When the wickedness of Mankind was grown universal and incurable it became the Wisdom of God to put an end to that Corrupt State and to propagate a new Race of men from a Righteous Stock and to take the most effectual course to possess them with a lasting belief of his Being and Providence and with a religious awe of his Justice and Power To this end he destroyed the Old World with a Deluge of Water and preserved Noah and his Sons in the Ark which had all the advantages imaginable to deter men from sin which brought a Deluge upon the Old World and to encourage the practise of true Piety and Vertue which preserved Noah from the Common Ruin We see in this Example that numbers are no defence against the Divine Justice and therefore no security to Sinners when all flesh had corrupted his ways God destroyed them all nay we see that the more wickedness prevails in the world the nearer it is to destruction that the great multitude of Sinners is so far from being a reasonable temptation and encouragement to sin that it is a fair warning to considering men to separate and distinguish themselves from a wicked world by an exemplary Vertue that God may distinguish them also when he comes to Judgment which an universal corruption of manners shews to be very near and it is a dangerous thing to sin with a multitude when the multitude of Sinners will hasten Vengeance Here we see that though Sinners may be very secure they are never safe as our Saviour observes it was in the days of Noah they were eating and drinking marrying and giving in marriages until the day that Noah went into the Ark and knew not until the flood came and took them all away 24. Matth. 37 38 39. God may delay punishment a great while and seem to take no notice of what is done below till Sinners begin to think that he is such a one as themselves but their Judgment all this while neither slumbers nor sleeps there may be the greatest Calm and the serenest days before the most terrible Earthquakes and the longer God has kept silence the more reason have we to expect a severe and surprizing Vengeance which makes the Psalmist's Advice in such Cases very seasonable Now consider this ye that forget God lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver And who would be afraid or be ashamed of Noah's singularity to be good alone and to be the single Example of Piety and Vertue that remembers that he alone with his three Sons were saved from the Deluge and he that would be a Noah in the Ark must be a Noah in a wicked World But this is sufficient to justify the Wisdom of Providence as to Noah's Flood which put an end to the Old World and now let us take a view of the New Notwithstanding that late terrible Example of God's Power and Justice in the destruction of the Old World that new Generation of men began to grow very corrupt as God foresaw they would but resolved to try some new methods and not to drown the world any more When Noah had offered a Burnt-offering to the Lord of every clean beast and of every clean fowl after his coming out of the Ark The Lord smelled a sweet savour and the Lord said in his heart I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth Neither will I again smite any more every living thing as I have done 8. Gen. 20 21. The first Exploit we hear of them was their building the Tower of Babel which Story is so briefly related by Moses that we cannot give a perfect account of the Reasons and Circumstances of it The most probable Account seems to be this that Nimrod the Son of Cush and Grandson of Ham in which Line True Religion and Piety first decayed affecting an Universal Empire to prevent the dispersion of the People persuaded them to build a magnificent Seat for his Empire which should be a center of Union for them at what distance soever they should be forced to remove That the whole Earth should be but one Kingdom and Babel the Royal Palace Had this Design succeeded the whole world would have been but one People and the Universal Monarchy in the Line of
Parents to imitate their Vertues that they may inherit all the Blessings of their Fathers We think it a great advantage for Children to inherit the fruits of their Parents Industry but to inherit the rewards of their Vertues is much greater And this none but vertuous Children can do A Prodigal Son may inherit the Estate of an Industrious Father but can't keep it but a wicked Son of a vertuous Father forfeits his Inheritance And though some Good men meet with very little or with no reward in this world nay suffer very severely for their Vertue this is no discouragement to their Children but gives them reasonoble hopes to expect the more For an exemplary Vertue shall have its reward at one time or other even in this world and if the Father had it not the Son and the Son's Son through all the Line of a vertuous Succession shall when Good men suffer or miss of the rewards of Vertue in this world they have the greater rewards in Heaven and their Children on Earth 3. To reward Good men and to punish the Wicked in their Posterity better answers the Wise ends of Providence in this world than the Personal rewards and punishments of every particular Good and Bad man I have already observed that there are very wise Reasons why some Bad men should be Prosperous and some Good men Afflicted in this world and since this world is not the place of Judgment the Divine Wisdom does not require that every Good or Bad man should be rewarded according to his works but yet the Wisdom and Justice of Providence does require that Vertue should be rewarded and Vice punished and that in such degrees and in such a manner as shall lay all reasonable restraints on the Lusts and Vices of men and encourage their Vertues Now Vertue is rewarded and Vice punished when it is rewarded or punished if not in the Persons yet in the Posterity of Good or Bad men which leaves room for the tryal of the Faith and Patience of Good men and for the exercise of God's Goodness and Patience to sinners and for the Ministries of Bad men in the service of Providence and yet very effectually discourages Wickedness and encourages Vertue 2dly Another instance of the Wisdom of Providence is That God very often punishes sin with sin and many times with sins of the same kind Our daily observation may furnish us with examples enow of it which are visible and publickly known and it may be there are few Sinners but know some which concern themselves which the rest of the world does not know Thus God punished the Murther and Adultery of David with the Incest and Rebellion of his Son Absolom and thus Oppression is often punished with Oppression Adultery with Adultery Murther with Murther and Wicked men are made Plagues and Scourges to each other And God thinks it no dishonour to the Holiness of his Providence to attribute all such retributions to himself for God can serve the Wise ends of his Providence by the sins of men without contributing to their sins and it is certain there is not a fitter Punishment in the world for Sinners than to suffer the Evils they do that is to be punished by the very sins which they commit Nothing more sensibly convinces them of a Just Providence than this nothing can give them a more just abhorrence of their sins than to feel the evils and mischiefs of them nothing can more awaken and rouse their Consciences than to suffer the Evils which they have done And one would reasonably think nothing should make them more afraid to do any Evil which they are unwilling to suffer So that nothing could better serve the Wise ends of Providence to convince men of a Divine Nemisis and Vengeance to give them an abhorrence of their sins and to make them afraid to commit them 3. Another instance of the Wisdom of Providence is in so often disappointing both our hopes and fears When we are in the greatest expectation of some great good either we are disappointed in what we expected or if we have what we wished for it does not answer our expectations we find our selves deceived in our enjoyments and that it had been better for us if we had been without them And when we are terrified with the apprehensions of some great evil which is just ready to fall on us either the evil does not come as we feared or it proves no Evil but a very great Good to us This is so often every man's case that I need only appeal to your own Observations for the proof of it Now what more effectual way could God take to convince us that we live in the dark and know not what is good for our selves that we disturb our minds with vain hopes and with as vain fears that it becomes us to leave all to God and to depend securely on his Providence who over-rules all things with a Sovereign Will That this is the only way to be easy and safe to chuse nothing for our selves not to prescribe to Providence but to do our duty and then quietly expect what God will do Is it possible there should be a happier temper of mind than this more honourable for God or more secure for our selves Does any thing more become Creatures Is there any more perfect act of Religion than to depend entirely on God without hopes or fears in a perfect resignation to his Will with a full assurance of his protection And could Providence more effectually convince us of this than to let us see by every days experience how apt we are to be mistaken and to chuse ill for our selves that our wishes and desires were they answered would very often undo us and that we are saved and made happy by what we feared and why then should we desire why should we fear any longer let us do our duty and mind our own business and leave God to take care of the world and allot our portion in it 4thly We may observe also that God very often defers the deliverance of Good men and the punishment of the Wicked to the utmost extremity When Wicked Tyrants and Oppressors are at the heighth of their Pride and Glory and Good men are reduced to a hopeless state beyond the visible relief of any Human Power This was the case of Israel in Egypt when God sent Moses to deliver them with a Mighty Hand and an outstretched Arm. This was several times their case in the days of the Iudges when they were oppressed by their Enemies and God raised up Saviours and Deliverers for them Thus it was in the days of Hezekiah when God in one night destroyed the mighty Army of the Assyrians Thus it was in Queen Hester's days when that Wicked Haman had conspired the destruction of the Iewish Nation And there want not Examples of it in Christian Story Never was there a fiercer Persecution of Christians than when God advanced Constantine to the Throne
and to arbitrate the Differences of Princes and the Fate of Men and Kingdoms And if God govern men by Nature he must govern Nature too for necessary Causes cannot be fitted to the government of free Agents without the direction and management of a Divine Providence which guides exerts or suspends the Influences of Nature with as great freedom as men act Men do not always deserve well or ill and if the kind or malign Influences of Nature must be tempered to mens deserts to punish them when they do ill and to reward them when they do well Natural Causes which of themselves act necessarily without Wisdom or Counsel must be guided by a Wise Hand Thus reason tells us it must be if God govern the world and God challenges to himself this Absolute and Sovereign Empire over Nature God has bestowed different Vertues and Powers on Natural Causes and in ordinary cases makes use of the Powers of Nature and neither acts without them nor against the Laws of Nature which makes some unthinking men resolve all into Nature without a God or a Providence because excepting the case of Miracles which they are not willing to believe they see every thing else done by the Powers of Nature and if it were not so God had made a World and made Nature to no purpose to do every thing himself by an immediate Power without making use of the Powers of Nature But the ordinary government of Nature does not signifie to act without it or to over-rule its Powers but to steer and guide its motions to serve the Wise Ends of his Providence in the government of Mankind For as God does not usually act without Nature nor against its Laws so neither does Nature act by steady and uniform motions without the direction of God But while every thing in the material world acts necessarily and exerts its Natural Powers God can temper suspend direct its Influences without reversing the Laws of Nature As for instance Fire and Water Wind and Rain Thunder and Lightning have their Natutral Vertues and Powers and Natural Causes and God produces such effects as they are made to produce by their Natural Powers he warms us with Fire invigorates the earth by the benign Influences of the Sun and Moon and other Stars and Planets refreshes and moistens it with Springs and Fountains and Rain from Heaven fans the Air with Winds and purges it with Thunders and Lightnings and the like but then when and where the Rains shall fall and the Winds shall blow in what measure and proportion times and seasons Natural Causes shall give or withhold their Influences this God keeps in his own Power and can govern without altering the standing Laws of Nature and this is his government of Natural Causes in order to reward or punish men as they shall deserve Thus God reasons with Iob concerning his Power and Providence 38. Job 31 32 c. Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons knowest thou the ordinances of heaven or canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds that abundance of waters may cover thee canst thou send lightnings that they may go and say unto thee here we are This is above Human Power but belongs to the Government and Providence of God Fire and hail snow and vapour and stormy winds fulfil his word 148. Psal. 8. Sometimes God restrains the influences of Nature shuts up heaven that it shall not rain 2 Chr. 7. 13. At other times he calls to the clouds that abundance of water may cover the earth He gives the former and the latter rain in its season and preserveth to us the appointed weeks of harvest 5. Jer. 24 as he promised to Israel 11 Deut 14 15. I will give you the rain of your land in his due season the first rain and the latter rain that thou mayst gather in thy corn and thy wine and thy oyl and I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle that thou mayst eat and be full He prescribes in what proportions it shall rain 2. Joel 23 24. Be glad ye children of Sion and rejoyce in the Lord your God for he hath given you the former rain moderately and he will cause to come down for you the former rain and the latter rain in the first month Nay God appoints on what place it shall rain 34. Ezek. 26. And I will make thee and the places round about my hill a blessing and I will cause the shower to come down in his season there shall be showers of blessing 4. Amos 7 8. And also I have withholden the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest and I caused it to rain upon one city and caused it not to rain upon another city One piece was rained upon and the piece whereupon it rained not withered So two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water but they were not satisfied It is impossible to give any tolerable account of such Texts as these without confessing That God keeps the Direction and Government of all Natural Causes in his own hands for particular Effects and all the Changes of Nature can never be attributed to God unless the Divine Wisdom and Counsel determines Natural Causes to the producing such particular Effects Great part of the Happiness or Miseries of this Life is owing to the good or bad Influences of Natural Causes that if God take care of Mankind he must govern Nature and when he promises Health and Plenty or threatens Pestilence and Famine how can he make good either if he have not reserved to himself a Soveraign Power over Nature The sum is this That all Natural Causes are under the immediate and absolute Government of Providence that God keeps the Springs of Nature in his own hand and turns them as he pleases For meer Matter though it be endowed with all Natural Vertues and Powers which necessarily produce their Natural Effects yet it having no wisdom and counsel of its own cannot serve the Ends of a Free Agent without being guided by a Wise Hand and we see in a thousand Instances what an Empire Human Art has over Nature not by changing the nature of things which Human Art can never do but by such a skilful application of Causes as will produce such Effects as unguided and if I may so speak untaught Nature could never have produced and if God have subjected material Nature to Human Art surely he has not exempted it from his own Guidance and Power This shews how necessary it is that God by an immediate Providence should govern Nature for Natural Causes are excellent Instruments but to make them useful they must be directed by a Skilful Hand and those various Changes which are in Nature especially in this Sublunary World which we are
of particular Creatures but of the good of the whole And this in some Cases may make the greatest and most terrible Acts of Severity such as are enough to afright and astonish the World Acts of the greatest Goodness and Mercy too which will vindicate the Goodness of Providence when God seems to be most severe and to have forgot all Goodness and Compassion As to explain this in some particular Cases The good government of the World requires the defence and protection of Mankind from violent and unjust Oppressions and the most exemplary Vengeance executed upon such private or publick Oppressors is a great Act of Goodness and a great deliverance to the Oppressed 136. Psalm the Psalmist exhorts us To give thanks to the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever And among other Expressions of the Divine Goodness and Mercy he mentions the Plagues of Egypt and the Deliverance of Israel by the overthrow of Pharaoh in the Red-Sea To him that smote Egypt in their first-born for his mercy endureth for ever And brought out Israel from among them for his mercy endureth for ever With a strong hand and with a stretched-out arm for his mercy endureth for ever To him which divided the Red-sea into parts for his mercy c. and made Israel to pass through the midst of it but over-threw Pharaoh and his host in the Red-sea for his mercy c. To him who smote great kings and slew famous kings Sihon king of the Amorites and Og the king of Bashan and gave their land for an heritage even for an heritage to Israel his servant for his mercy endureth for ever This ought to be well considered before we object the Evils and Calamities which befall Bad men against the Goodness of Providence For there are few Bad men who suffer any Remarkable Vengeance but that their Sufferings are a great kindness and deliverance to others and it may be to the Publick in breaking their Power or taking them out of the World And in all such Cases the Psalmist has taught us a very proper Hymn I will sing of mercy and judgment unto thee O Lord will I sing 101. Psal. 1. Thus the good government of the World requires some great and lasting Examples of God's Justice and Vengeance against Sin And as terrible as such Examples are they are a great publick Good to the World Some few such Examples as these will serve to warn an Age nay many succeeding Ages and Generations of men which prevents the more frequent Executions of Vengeance and justifies the Patience and Long-suffering of God to Sinners If such Examples in any measure reform the World as God intends they should it makes this World a much happier place for the better men are the less hurt and the more good they will do and the less evil there is committed in the World the less Mankind will suffer and the greater Blessings God will bestow on them And though there be a great deal of Wickedness committed in the World after such Terrible Warnings as these God may exercise great Patience and Forbearance towards Sinners without the least blemish to his Holiness or Justice For such Frightful Executions convince the World of God's Justice and when God has publickly vindicated the Honour of his Justice he may try gentler Methods and glorify his Mercy and Patience towards Sinners And thus God punishes that he may spare is sometimes very terrible in his Judgments to prevent the necessity of striking often that Sinners may have sufficient warning and that he may be good to Sinners without encouraging them in sin Thus the destruction of the Old World by a Deluge of Water when they were past being reformed is a warning to all Sinners as long as this World lasts and is a publick and standing Confutation of Atheism of such Scoffers as say where is the promise of his coming for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation The constant and regular course of Nature without any Supernatural Changes and Revolutions tempts men to think that there is no God in the World who changes Times and Seasons but this St. Peter tells us is visibly confuted by the destruction of the Old World for this they are willingly ignorant of that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished And this is reason enough to fear and expect what God has threatned That this present World shall be burnt by fire But the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men 2 Peter 3. 5 6 7. Such Destructions as these can be attributed to no Natural Causes but the same Word which made the World destroyed the Old World by Water and will destroy this by Fire which makes it a visible Demonstration of the Power and Justice of God The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by Fire from Heaven is not only a general Warning to Sinners but an Example of a Divine Vengeance against all Uncleanness and Unnatural Lusts. As St. Iude tells us Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire v. 7. Thus the Destruction of Ierusalem by the Romans which was attended with the most terrible Circumstances that we ever meet with in Story is a lasting Confutation of Infidelity and a glorious Testimony to Christ and his Religion So that most of the terrible Examples of God's Vengeance how terrible soever they were to those who suffered are Acts of great Goodness to the World and therefore belong to the Goodness of Government by some severe Executions to protect and defend the Innocent and reclaim other Offenders without the necessity of terrifying the World in every Age with such repeated Severities Nay we may observe farther That when the World is grown very corrupt and degenerate and such Sinners if they be suffered to continue in it will certainly propagate their Atheism Infidelity and Lewdness to all Posterity it is great Goodness to all succeeding Generations to cleanse the World of its impure Inhabitants by some great Destruction by Sword or Plague or Famine to lessen the number of Sinners and to possess those who escape with a greater awe and reverence of God's Judgments Nay to observe but one thing more Many times these terrible Shakings and Convulsions of the World are intended by God to open some new and more glorious Scene of Providence Thus it was in the Four Empires which preyed upon each other and were at last swallowed up by the Roman Powers though they made great Destructions in the World yet they carried Learning and Civility into
cannot subsist without it 2dly And yet it is a very great mistake to think that the Happiness of men differ as much as their Fortunes do that a Prince is as much happier as he is greater than his Subjects for all the World knows that Happiness is not entailed on Riches and Power and Secular Honours as they have their advantages so they have very troublesome and sowre allays and it may be upon a true estimate of things as different a show and appearance as men make in the World they are pretty equal as to true Enjoyments There is very little difference in eating and drinking while we have wherewithal to satisfy Nature for Appetite makes every thing delicious and the hard Labour of a Poor man is much more tolerable than Gout and Stone and those sharp or languishing Diseases which so commonly attend the Softness and Luxury of the Rich and as for Opinion and Fancy it self which creates the greatest difference every Rank of men make a Scene among themselves and every man finds something to value himself upon That it may be there is nothing wherein all Mankind are so equal as in Self-love and Self-flattery and a value for themselves that though there are many men who would change Fortunes with others there are few that would change themselves and the difference of Fortunes is very inconsiderable while every man is so well satisfied with himself 3dly This inequality of Fortunes is for the great good of all Ranks of men and serves a great many wise Ends of Providence It makes some men industrious to provide for themselves and Families it inspires others with emulation to raise their Fortunes it gives life and spirit to the World and makes it a busy Scene of Action to keep what they have and to make new acquisitions to excel their Equals and rival those above them And though through the folly and wickedness of men this occasions a great deal of mischief yet the World would be a very dull place without it there would be no encouragement no reward for Vertue Providence it self would have very little to do for the visible Rewards of Vertue and Punishment of Wickedness is in the change of mens Fortunes when Industry Prudence and Vertue advance men of a low Condition to the greatest Places of Trust and Honour or at least to a plentiful and splendid Station and Prodigality Luxury and Impiety bring Misery Poverty and Contempt upon Rich and Noble Families Such Revolutions as these are great Examples of the Wisdom and Justice of Providence and therefore the inequality of mens Fortunes is so far from being an Objection against Providence that there could be little visible Exercise either of the Goodness or Justice of Providence without it I cannot without some indignation reflect upon the baseness and ingratitude of Mankind who live and move and have their being in God who know how little they deserve of him and feel every day how many blessings they receive from him and yet seem never better pleased than when they can find or ignorantly invent some plausible Pretence to reproach his Goodness the Sense of all Mankind confutes such Objections and I should not have thought it worth the while to answer them were it not a great satisfaction and of great use to contemplate the Divine Goodness even on the darkest side of Providence Which will teach us a patient and thankful submission to God under all our Sufferings inable us to bear them and direct us how to prevent or remove them and give us a more transporting admiration of the Divine Goodness when we see it like the Sun break through the blackest Clouds If the Goodness of God conquer the Sins the Perverseness of Mankind and shines through all those Miseries which foolish Sinners every day bring upon themselves how good is God when his Goodness flows with an undisturbed uninterrupted Current CHAP. VIII The Wisdom of Providence THE Unsearchableness of the Divine Wisdom as I observed above is a very good reason why we should not judge or censure such mysterious Passages of Providence as we cannot comprehend but yet it becomes us to take notice of and to admire that wonderful Wisdom which is visible in the government of Mankind We cannot by searching find out God we cannot find out the Almighty to perfection it is as high as heaven what canst thou do deeper than hell what canst thou know the measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea 11. Job 7 8 9. But though we cannot discover all the Wisdom of Providence no more than we can the Wisdom of the Creation yet we may discover enough to satisfy us that the World is governed as well as made with Infinite Wisdom When we contemplate God it is like losing our selves in a boundless prospect where we see a great many Glories and Beauties but cannot see to the end of it We may discover admirable and surprizing Wisdom in that little we see of Providence as I have already briefly observed upon several Occasions but we know so little of what has been done in the World and by what means it was done and what ends it served that it is no wonder if we have as imperfect a view of the Wisdom of Providence as we have of the History of the World But yet whoever diligently applies his mind to the study of Providence will see reason to admire a great many Events which careless Observers make objections against Providence which will be of such great use to confirm us in the belief of a Providence and to give us a profound veneration of the Divine Wisdom that I shall venture to make some little Essay of this nature which though I am sensible must fall infinitely short of the dignity of the Subject yet will suggest some very useful thoughts and shew us the most delightful and profitable way of studying Histories and Providence And to do this in the best manner I can I shall 1. Consider some great Events recorded in Scripture which are as it it were the Hinges of Providence whereon the various Scenes of Providence turned 2. I shall take notice of some other visible Marks and Characters of Wisdom in the more common Events of Providence especially such as are made objections against Providence 1. Some great Events recorded in Scripture which gave a new face of things to the World and opened new Scenes of Providence The state of Innocence wherein man was created was a state of perfect Happiness There was no death no sickness no labour or sorrow but the fall of man made a very great change in this visible Creation Man himself became mortal and was condemned to an industrious and laborious life according to that Sentence Cursed is the ground for thy sake in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shalt eat the herb of the field In
because Moses has recorded it in his Writings who we know was Divinely inspired And we know also that there has been no satisfactory account given yet from the Principles of Nature and Philosophy how the whole World could be drowned at least none that will agree with the Mosaical History either of the Creation or of the Deluge and it is better to have no Account than such an Account as confutes Moses could any such be given for this confutes or at least discredits the Story it self for which we have no Authentick Authority when the Authority of Moses is lost But indeed it is no service to Religion to seek after Natural Causes for the destruction of the World any more than it is to resolve the making of the World into Natural Causes for it is great good nature in men to own a God if they can make and destroy a World without him there can be no such thing as natural Causes till the World is made and every thing endowed with its Natural Vertues and Powers and united into a regular frame with a mutual dependance and connexion and therefore it is a vain thing to talk of making the World by Natural Causes when it is demonstrable that there can be no Natural Causes till the World is made And it is as certain that Nature must move unnaturally and be put into an universal disorder before the World can be destroyed for while Natural Causes keep their Natural Course they will preserve not destroy the World and therefore the destruction of the World is not owing to Natural Causes but to praeternatural Disorders and what Philosophy can give an account of that What can put Nature into such an universal disorder but the same Divine Power which put it into order and gave Laws to it And this is what God intended in the destruction of the Old World to give a visible and lasting proof of his Being and Providence to the New by such a Miraculous Deluge as could be attributed to no other Cause but a Divine Vengeance That universal Corruption of Mankind would persuade us that the very belief and notion of a God was lost among them or if it be hard to conceive how that should be when the World by computation was not Seventeen hundred years old and Lamech Noah's Father lived fifty years with Adam himself that it seems impossible that the Tradition of God's creating the World should have been lost in so short a time yet at least they could have no sense of God's Justice and Providence they could not believe that God took any notice of their Actions or would execute such a terrible Vengeance on them for their sins We do not read of any one Act of Judgment which God exercised before the Flood and it is not improbable that his sparing Cain when he had killed his Brother Abel might encourage them with hopes of impunity whatever wickedness they committed and therefore the Divine Wisdom saw it necessary to put an end to the Old and to begin the New World with a visible demonstration of his Power and Justice to teach men the fear and reverence and worship of that God who not only made the World but has once destroyed it and therefore can destroy it again with all its wicked Inhabitants whenever he pleases Now to make this a lasting proof of God's Power and Justice it must be evident beyond all contradiction that it was God's doing and therefore it was necessary that God should destroy the world in so miraculous a manner as could be attributed to no other Cause for it is the true Spirit of Atheism and Infidelity to attribute nothing to God which they can ascribe to any visible Cause Had all Mankind excepting Noah and his Sons been destroyed by Plague or Famine or Wild Beasts though such a general destruction would have convinced Wise and Reasonable men that the Hand and the Vengeance of God was in it yet if we may judge of the rest of Mankind by the wonderful improvements in Wit and Philosophy which our Modern Atheists have made they would think scorn to attribute Plague or Famine or such like evil Accidents to God though all Mankind were destroyed by them But when they hear of a World drowned and know not where to find water to drown it without a miraculous dissolution of Nature they must either laugh at the Story which men in their wits can't well do or they must believe a God and a Providence But whatever shift the Infidels of our Age may make to disbelieve the Universal Deluge it must be confessed that it was a very wise and most effectual means to convince that new Generation of men while the uncorrupted Tradition of the Deluge was preserved 2dly The Wisdom of the Divine Providence was seen in destroying that wicked Generation of men without destroying the Earth God did not intend to put a final end to the Race of Mankind but the Earth was to be again inhabited by a new Generation and a Deluge of Waters was best fitted to this purpose which did no hurt to the Earth when it was dried up again but rather moistened and impregnated it with new Seeds and Principles of life There are but two ways we know of to destroy this Earth either by Water or Fire it has already been destroyed by Water and will be destroyed by Fire and it is enough to satisfy any man that this is not Accident but a Wise Design to consider that a Deluge of Water was made use of to purge and reform the World but Fire is reserved for the final destruction of it Whereas had this Order been inverted as it might have been had it been mere Chance it is evident that the Earth could neither have been preserved from Fire nor utterly destroyed by Water without a perpetual Deluge A Deluge of Water does not destroy the Earth nor make it uninhabitable after the Deluge ceases but Fire destroys the Frame and Constitution of it and melts all into one confused mass there is some defence against a Deluge Noah and his Sons were preserved in the Ark to people the New World but there is no defence against Flames the whole Earth and all the wicked Inhabitants of it must burn together And this is one wise Reason why God chose to drown the World not to burn it because the end of all things was not yet come 3dly There is great variety of Wisdom to be observed in God's preserving Noah and his Sons in the Ark from perishing by Water For first as I observed before this was very necessary to preserve the Race of Mankind to new-people the World which much more became the Divine Wisdom than to have created man a-new When all flesh had corrupted his ways it became God to try new Methods of reforming the World for this opens new and surprizing Scenes of Providence and displays such a multifarious Wisdom in the government of Mankind as is much more wonderful
whom they supposed intrusted with the immediate Care of particular Countries And how could God give a more sensible demonstration to the world That he would not allow the paying Divine Honours to any but himself than by raising up a new People distinguished and separated from all the rest of the world by the sole Worship of the One Supreme God and owned by him for his peculiar People by as distinguishing Providences for this not only proves a Divine Power and Providence but that there is but One God whom we ought to worship And this may satisfy us That God is not so partial in his Favours as to prefer one Nation before all the rest of Mankind for they were no Nation nor People when God chose them for God entred into Covenant with Abraham and his Seed when there was none but himself but when all the rest of the world were Idolaters God promised to multiply Abraham's Seed into a great Nation and to make them his own peculiar People that is he made a New People and Nation in great kindness to mankind to preserve the Knowledge and Worship of the One Supreme God and by degrees to extirpate Idolatry out of the World But besides this it was one of the peculiar Privileges of the Iews That to them were committed the Oracles of God and it is certain it was for the great good of the world that these Divine Oracles a System of Laws both for Religious Worship and Civil Conversation should be deposited somewhere for their Idolatry did every day corrupt the Manners of men and was likely in time to destroy all the Natural Notions of Good and Evil which made a Written Law necessary from whence men might learn their Duty whenever they pleased and it is evident these Laws could be given to no other People but the Iews who alone acknowledged and worshipped the One Supreme God For it is not to be conceived That God should give Laws to Idolaters who did not own and worship him for their God or that they should receive Laws from him And tho these Laws were immediately given only to the Iews because there was no other Nation at that time which owned and worshipped the One Supreme God yet as the Knowledge and Worship of God prevailed in the world so these Laws would be of more universal use as we see it is even to this day Nay even while Idolatry prevailed the Writings of Moses and the Prophets very much reformed the Pagan Philosophy gave them better Notions of God and of Religious Worship and more Divine Rules of Life as is visible in the Philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato who are generally thought to have learnt some of their best Notions from their Conversation with Iewish Priests But yet the Question is not What use the World did make of this But What use they might have made of it And whether as the state of the world then was any thing could be more wisely designed than to preserve the Knowledge and Worship of the One True God and a System of Divine Laws in a Nation raised up on purpose to season the world and to preserve it from an universal Apostacy But God had a more glorious Design than all this in entring into Covenant with Abraham and chusing his Seed for his peculiar People He had promised That the seed of the woman should break the serpents head which contains the Promise of the Messias who in the fulness of time was to appear in the world to destroy the works of the Devil And this is the Covenant which God made with Abraham That in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed It was not fitting that the Messias and Saviour of the World should descend from Idolaters and that when he came into the world he should find no Worshippers of the One Supreme God in it and therefore God entred into Covenant with Abraham who seems to have been the only Man of that Age who was free from Idolatry and promises to multiply his Seed and to preserve his Name and Worship among them and that the Messias should descend from his Loins And if we consider what necessary Preparations were required for the coming of the Messias and for his reception in the world when he should appear it will satisfy us how wisely this was designed by God The Appearance of the Son of God in the world was very surprizing and it could not be thought that any one who made such Pretences should find credit unless the world had before-hand been prepared to expect him and had some Infallible Marks and Characters whereby to know him when he came And this was the principal end of all the Types and Figures and Prophesies of the Law to contain the Promises and Predictions of the Messias and the Characters whereby to know him The Temple it self and the whole Temple-Worship was little more than Types and Figures of Christ of his Incarnation or living among men in an Earthly Tabernacle of his Priesthood and Sacrifice his Death and Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven there to intercede for us at God's Right Hand as the High-Priest entred once a Year into the Holy of Holies Now this could not have been done had not the One Supreme God had a Temple and Priesthood and Sacrifices on earth that is a People peculiarly devoted to his Worship and Service for the Temples and Priests and Sacrifices of Idols could not be Types of the Son of God who came to confound all the Pagan Gods and their Idolatrous Worship Thus there could have been no Prophesies of Christ had there been no Prophets of the True God and these Prophecies would have met with little Credit had they been found in Idols Temples So that God's chusing the Posterity of Abraham for his peculiar People was not only necessary to preserve the Knowledge and Worship of the One True God in the world but also to receive and to convey down to Future Ages with an unquestionable Authority all the Types and Prophecies of the Messias This gives us a general View of the Divine Wisdom in that Covenant God made with Abraham and his Posterity and this will enable us to discover the wonderful Wisdom of all the various Dispensations of the Divine Providence towards the Iewish Nation which will be both so useful and entertaining a Meditation that I cannot pass it over without some short Remarks Now God having chosen the Posterity of Abraham to be his peculiar People on purpose to make them a visible Confutation of Idolatry and to establish and propagate the Knowledge and Worship of the One Supreme God in the world in order to effect this Four things were manifestly necessary 1. That it should be visible to all that knew them that God had chosen Israel for his peculiar People 2. That it should be as visible That the God of Israel is the One Supreme God the Maker and Sovereign Lord of the whole World 3.
we owe to Providence 345 A particular Acknowledgment of Providence in all Events Ibid. Submission to the Providential Will of God 347 Concerning Submission to God under Afflictions and Sufferings 348 Submission to the Will of God with respect to our several states and conditions of life 354 Concerning Hope and Trust in the Divine Providence 366 Concerning the Duties of Prayer and Thanksgiving 378 A DISCOURSE OF THE Divine Providence The INTRODUCTION MY Chief Design in this following Treatise is So to Explain the Nature of Providence as to reconcile men to the Belief of it and to possess them with a Religious Awe and Reverence of the Supreme and Absolute Lord of the World For it is very evident That the Mistakes about the Nature of Providence are the principal Objections against it which tempt some men to deny a Providence or so weaken the sense of it in others that they are very little the better for believing it That a Divine Providence does Govern the World I have proved largely enough for my present Design in the Discourse concerning a Future Iudgment which I refer my Reader to But that this Work might not seem to want a Foundation I have not wholly omitted the Proof of a Providence but have at least said enough to convince those of a Providence who believe That there is a God which must be supposed in a Discourse of Providence The Whole is divided into Nine Chapters I. The necessary Connection between the Belief of a God and of a Providence II. The General Notion of Providence and particularly concerning a Preserving Providence III. Concerning God's Governing Providence IV. The Soveraignty of Providence V. The Justice of Providence VI. The Holiness of Providence VII The Goodness of Providence VIII The Wisdom of Providence IX The Duties we owe to Providence The Explication of these Things will not only answer many Difficulties in Providence but will give us a clearer Notion of the Divine Attributes and of some of the principal Duties of Religion CHAP. I. The necessary Connection between the Belief of a God and of a Providence INstead of other Arguments to prove a Providence I shall at present insist only on this That the Belief of a God infers a Providence That if we believe there is a God who Made the World we must believe that the same God who Made the World does Govern it too 1. For first It is as absurd and unreasonable to think That the World is Governed by Chance as to think That it was Made by Chance for Chance can no more Govern than it can Make the World One principal Act of Providence is to uphold all things in being to preserve their Natures Powers Operations to make this lower World again every Year by new Productions For Nature seems to decay and dye and revive again in almost as wonderful a manner and as unintelligible to us as it was first made Now tho it is very absurd to say That Chance which acts by no Rule nor with any Counsel or Design can make a World which has all the Marks and Characters of an admirable Wisdom in its Contrivance yet it seems more absurd to say That Chance can preserve that it can uphold the things it has made that it can repair the decays of Nature nay restore it when it seems lost That it can not only do the same thing twice but repeat it infinitely in new productions That Chance can give Laws to Nature and impose a Necessity on it to act regularly and uniformly that is That Chance should put an end to Chance and introduce Necessity and Fate Were there not a Wise and Powerful Providence it is Ten thousand times more likely that Chance should unmake and dissolve the World than that it should at first make it for a World that came together by Chance and has nothing to keep it together but the Chance that made it which is as uncertain and mutable as Chance is will quickly unmake it self Should the Sun but change his place come nearer this Earth or remove farther from it there were an end of this lower World and if it were placed there by Chance it is wonderful that in so many Ages some new unlucky Chance has not removed it And therefore the Psalmist attributes not only the Creation but the Preservation of all things to God Praise him sun and moon praise him ye stars of light Praise him all ye heavens and ye waters that are above the heavens Let them praise the name of the Lord for he spake the word and they were made he commanded and they were created He hath made them fast for ever he hath given them a law which shall not be broken 148. Psal. 3 4 5 6. 2dly The same Wisdom and Power which Made the World must Govern it too It is only a Creating Power that can preserve That which owes its very Being to Power must depend upon the Power that made it for it can have no principle of Self-subsistence independent on its Cause It is only Creating Wisdom that perfectly understands the Natures of all things that sees all the springs of Motion that can correct the Errors of Nature that can suspend or direct the Influences of Natural Causes that can govern Hearts change mens Purposes inspire Wisdom and Counsel restrain or let loose their Passions It is only an Infinite Mind that can take care of all the World that can allot every Creature its portion that can adjust the Interests of States and Kingdoms that can bring Good out of Evil and Order out of Confusion In a word the Government of the world requires such Wisdom and such Power as no Being has but he who made it and therefore if the World be governed it must be governed by the Maker of it 3dly If there be any such Being as we call God a Pure Infinite Eternal Mind it is a Demonstration That he must Govern the world Those who deny a Providence will not allow that God sees or takes notice of what is done here below The Epicureans tho in Civility and Compliment to the Superstition of mankind rather than from a real belief and sense of a Deity they did own a God nay a great many Gods such as they were yet never allowed their Gods to know any thing of our affairs which would have disturbed their profound Ease and Rest the sole Happiness of the Lazy Unactive Epicurean Deities and this secured them from the fear of their Gods who lived at a great distance from them and knew nothing concerning them And in the same manner this is represented in Scripture That wicked men would not believe that God saw or heard or took any notice of what they did 64. Psalm 5. They encourage themselves in an evil matter they commune of laying snares secretly they say Who shall see them 10. Psalm 11. He hath said in his heart God hath forgotten he hideth his face he will never see it
two distinct and different Acts of Power to Make and to Preserve For how can any man know this who neither knows how God creates nor how he preserves Thus much is certain That to Create is to give being to that which was not before to Preserve is to continue that in being which was made before and when any thing is once created it can never be new created till it fall into nothing again for to create is to make out of nothing not to make a thing which already is but by what Acts of Power either of these is done we cannot tell nor are we concerned to know for what way soever this is done we equally depend on God we live and subsist in him But there is one thing fit to be observed That this Act of Preservation which consists in upholding all things in being is fixt by a perpetual and unchangeable Decree That though God will dissolve this present frame of things and it may be cast the World into a new Mould yet nothing that is made neither Matter nor Spirit shall be annihilated or reduced into nothing again This I think we may safely conclude from the Promises and Threatnings of Eternal Rewards and Punishments which supposes that both Good and Bad men shall live for ever the one to be happy the other to be miserable to Eternity and then we may reasonably conclude That the World whatever Changes it may suffer will continue as long the Inhabitants of it do This is the first Act of what we call Preserving Providence to uphold all things in being in distinction as I observed before from those several Acts of Preservation which concern a Governing Providence A Second Act of Preserving Providence is what the Schools call God's Co-operation and Concourse with Creatures in all their Actions that we not only live and have our being but that we move in God that whatever we do we do by a natural Power received from God and this is as certain as that we have our being in him for if we live we must move in him But then whether God's Co operation and Concourse be a different Act from his preserving the natural Vertues and Powers of Action is a nicer and more intricate Speculation and neither the thing nor the reason of it is easy to be conceived Natural Powers are Internal Principles of Action when a Creature acts from an inward Principle of Nature but if these Natural Powers while they are preserved in their full force and vigour by God can do nothing themselves without a new extrinsick determining motion from God then they seem to be no Natural Powers for they cannot act by Nature if this be true the Fire don't burn by nature for though God preserves its nature it cannot burn without some new co-operating Power which is not in its nature A man don't reason and judge chuse and refuse by Nature for though God preserve his Natural Powers and Faculties of Understanding and Will yet he can neither understand nor will unless he be moved acted determined by God This seems to make the whole World a meer Apparition and empty Scene which has nothing real Whatever we see done in the World is not done by Creatures who seem to do it for they are only acted like Machines not from the Internal Principles and Powers of Nature but from External Motion But God does every thing himself by an immediate Power even all the Contradictions and Contrarieties we see in the World This is a very great difficulty which I will not undertake to determine one way or other but thus much I think we may safely say That if we will attribute any thing to Creatures if we will allow that they ever act from a Principle of Nature we must confess that God co-operates only to the natural Power of Action that is That he only enables them to act according to their Natures without changing influencing determining their Natures otherwise than these Natural Powers would naturally act For this is all that is necessary to Action when God has created the Natural Powers and this is all the co-operation that can belong to God as the Maker and Preserver of all things Whatever is more than this as I acknowledge there is a great deal more that God does it belongs to a Governing not to a Preserving Providence God does a great deal more than merely co-operate with our Natural Powers to perform Natural Actions but this he does as a Governour not merely as a Preserver The not distinguishing of which has occasioned great mistakes in the Doctrine of Providence as to show this briefly God has endowed all Creatures with such Natural Powers and Vertues as may answer the End for which they were made He has made the Sun to shine to enlighten and refresh the World the Fire to burn the Earth to bring forth all sorts of Herbs and Grass and Corn and Fruit the Vapours to ascend out of the Earth to purge and fan the Air with Winds and to fall down again in fruitful Showers every Herb and Flower and Tree has its peculiar Seeds to propagate its Kind as all living Creatures have Now as it had been to little purpose for God to have made a World without upholding it in being for Creatures can no more preserve than they can make themselves so it had been to as little purpose to have endowed all Creatures with such Vertues and Powers as belong to their several Natures without such a natural Co-operation whatever that be as shall enable their Natural Powers to act and to attain the ends of their Natures and therefore God established this Natural Concourse and Co-operation to actuate all the Powers of Nature by a perpetual Law which is that Blessing God bestowed upon all Creatures at the time of the Creation For though this Blessing to Encrease and Multiply and to replenish the Sea and Air and Earth which preserves and invigorates the Powers of Nature be expressed only of living Creatures the Fish and Fowls and Beasts and Men yet it equally belongs to the whole Creation as will be easily granted and makes Nature regular and constant in all its Motions and Productions But there are other Acts belong to God's Government even of the Material World as I shall shew you more hereafter As to direct the Vertues and Influences of Nature or to suspend and restrain them To make the Earth fruitful or barren the Air wholsome or Pestilential to withhold the Dews and Showers of Heaven or to give the former and latter Rain in its Season to cause it to Rain upon one City and not upon another and so to temper the Influences of Nature as to punish the Wickedness or to reward the Obedience of Mankind these are Acts of Government and of a quite different kind from actuating the Powers of Nature to attain their Ends and to do what they were made for Thus to consider the Rational World God has endowed Man
not to have made an Immortal Creature who could sin and be miserable for ever I shall conclude this whole Argument with some few Inferences 1. If Creatures must be preserved as well as made by God then the present continuance and preservation of all things is a visible Argument of the Being of God Some men will not believe that God made the world because they did not see him make it but they see a world preserved when there is no one thing in the world more able to preserve than to make it self and who then is it that preserves this world and all things in it This must be a work of Reason and Wisdom as well as Power and the only reasonable Creature in this visible world is Man and Man cannot preserve himself and knows that he can preserve nothing else and therefore the Preservation of all things must be owing to some Invisible Cause whom we call GOD. 2. If we live and move and have our being in God we are entirely his and owe all homage and obedience to him for he did not only make us but we have our constant dependance on him we live and subsist in him Had he only made us at first that had given him a title to us for ever but could we have lived without him when he had made us tho it had not been a less fault yet it had been less foolish and absurd to have lived without any notice or regard of him as some ungrateful persons deal by their Friends and Patrons when they have set them up in the world and enabled them to live by themselves but to forget that God in whom we live who preserves and upholds us in being every moment is to affront a present Benefactor if we value being and tho we cannot tempt God by this to let us fall into nothing yet we shall make it just for him to punish us to preserve us in being to feel the weight of his Wrath and Vengeance which is infinitely worse for happy had it been for such a man that he had never been born 3. For if he not only made but upholds and preserves us in being he must be our Sovereign Lord and Governor for no other has any original and absolute interest in us we are in his hands and none can take us out of them nor touch us but by his order To give being and to preserve it is the foundation of all other acts of Government no other Being has a Right to govern no other Power can govern He alone can give Laws can reward or punish can govern Nature can direct over-rule controul all other Powers for all things are in his hands and therefore he commands them all 4. And this may convince us how irresistible the Divine Power is for all the power of Creatures is derived from him and depends on him as Light does on the Sun and therefore they can have no power against him and what distraction then is it to provoke that Almighty God whom we cannot resist Humble thy self Sinner before thy Maker thy Preserver and thy Judge obey his Will to whose Power thou must submit let him be thy Fear and thy Dread thy only Fear for thou needest fear none else all Power is his none can resist him none can act without him he sets bounds to the Raging of the Sea to the Fury of Princes to the Madness of the People Thou art safe in his hands safe in obedience to his Will but thou canst never escape him never flie from him never defend thy self against him for thou livest in him 5. This also proves that God must see and know all our actions for we live and move in him He is always present with us privy to our most secret thoughts and counsels observes all our wandrings sees us in all our retirements There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity can hide themselves This the Scripture in express words teaches and the reason of the thing speaks it for if we cannot think nor move nor subsist without God he must be always intimately present with us which should possess us with a constant Awe and Reverence of his Pure and All seeing Eye CHAP. III. Concerning God's Governing Providence NEXT to Preservation as that signifies God's upholding all things in being and preserving and actuating their Natural Powers we must consider God's Government of the world for God is the Supreme and Sovereign Lord of the world who doth whatsoever pleaseth him both in heaven and in earth and therefore the Absolute Government of all things must be in his hands or else something might be done which he would not have done This all men grant in general words who own a Providence but when they come to particulars there are so many excepted cases which they will hardly allow God to have any thing to do in that they seem to mean little more by God's Government than a general Inspection of Human Affairs his looking on to see the World govern it self for three parts of four of all that is done in the world they resolve into bare Permission as distinguish'd from an Ordering and Disposing Providence and then it can signifie no more than that God does not hinder it and if this be all God governs the world in such cases no more than men do The only difference is that God can hinder when he don 't but men don't hinder because they can't but still merely not to hinder does not signifie to govern But rightly to understand this matter the best way is to consider how the Scripture represents it and because there are great variety of acts in the government of the world of a very different consideration I shall distinctly enquire into God's government of Causes and his government of Events 1. God's government of Causes and we must consider three sorts of Causes and what the Scripture attributes to God with respect to each 1. Natural Causes 2dly Accidental Causes or what we call Chance and Accident and Fortune 3dly Moral Causes and free Agents or the government of mankind 1. Natural Causes or God's Government of the Natural World of the Heavens and Earth and Seas and Air and all things in them which move and act by a Necessity of Nature not by Choice Now the Scripture does not only attribute to God all the Vertues and Powers of Nature which belongs to Creation and to a Preserving Providence but the direction and government of all their Natural Influences to do what God has a mind should be done God does in some measure govern the Moral by the Natural World he rewards or punishes men by a wholsome or pestilential air by fruitful or barren seasons he hinders or promotes their designs by winds and weather by a forward or a backward Spring and makes Nature give Laws to men and set bounds to their Passions and Intriegues to overthrow the most powerful Fleets and Armies to defeat the wisest Counsels
punishments that if we admit of it there is an end of all Religion of all Vertuous Endeavours of all Great and Generous Attempts it is to no purpose to pray to God or to trust in him or to resist temptations or to be diligent in our business or prudent and circumspect in our actions for what will be will be Or if any means be to be used that is no matter of our choice or care but we shall do it as necessarily and mechanically as a Watch moves and points to the Hour of the Day for Fate has by the same Necessity determined the Means and the End and we can do no more nor less than Fate has determined I shall not now trouble you with an account of the various Opinions of the Ancient Philosophers about Fate none of whom ever dreamt of such a terrible Fate as some Christians have fancied which reaches not only to this world but to all Eternity What I have already discoursed is sufficient to vindicate the Doctrine of Providence from the least imputation of Necessity and Fate For 1. Though God over-rules the actions of men to do what he himself thinks fit to be done yet he lays no Necessity upon human actions men will and chuse freely pursue their own interests and inclinations just as they would do if there were no Providence to govern them and while men act freely it is certain there can be no Absolute Fate God indeed as you have already heard sometimes hinders them from executing their wicked purposes and permits them to do no more hurt than what he can direct to Wise Ends but no man is wicked or does wickedly by Necessity and Fate Tho he may be restrained from doing so much wickedness as he would yet all the wickedness he commits is his own free Choice even when it serves such ends as he never thought of and therefore he is and acts like a free Agent notwithstanding the Government of Providence 2dly Tho God determines all Events all the good and evil that shall happen to Men or Nations yet it is no more nor no other than what they themselves have deserved and therefore they are under no other Fate than what they themselves bring upon themselves by the good or bad use of their own liberty that is they are under no other Fate than to be rewarded when they do well and to be punished when they do ill but this is the Justice of Providence not the Necessity of Fate Those who do ill and deserve ill and suffer ill might have done well and have made themselves the Favourites of Providence and therefore are under no greater Necessity of Suffering ill than they were of Doing ill The reason why God keeps all Events in his own hands is not because he has absolutely determined the Fates of all men but that he may govern the world wisely and justly and reward and punish men according to their deserts as far as the Reasons of Providence require in this world Now while the liberty of human actions is secured and the Events of Providence are not the execution of Fatal Absolute and Unconditional Decrees but acts of Government in the Wise Administration of Justice and dispensing Rewards and Punishments how Absolute soever God's Govenment be of all Events it is not Necessity and Fate but a Wise and Just and Absolute Government This indeed is what some of the Wisest Heathens called Fate and all that they meant by the Name of Fate That God had fixed it by an irreversible Decree that Good men should be rewarded and the Wicked punished and thus far we must all allow Fate and Providence is only the Minister and Executioner of these Fatal Decrees and to that end God keeps the Government of all Events in his own hands Now whether we say That God determines what good or evil shall befal men at the very time when they deserve it or That foreseeing what good or evil they will do and what they will deserve did beforehand determine what good or evil should befal them according to their deserts this makes no alteration at all in the state of the Question for if all the good or evil that befalls men have respect to their deserts this is not Fate but a Just and Righteous Judgment In a word God's Government of all Events is indeed so Absolute and Uncontroulable that no good or evil can befal any man but what God pleases what he orders and appoints for him and this is necessary to the good Government of the World and the Care of all his Creatures but then God orders no good or evil to befal any men but what they deserve and what the Wise Ends of his Providence require and this is not Fate but a Wise and Just Government of the World 4. That the Exercise of a Particular Providence consists in the Government of all Events I have often wondred at those Philosophers who acknowledg'd a Providence but would not acknowledge God's particular Care of all his Creatures Some confined his Providence to the Heavens but would not extend it to this lower world and yet this world needs a Providence as much and a great deal more as being a Scene of Change and Corruption of furious Lusts and Passions which need the Restraints and Government of Providence No Creatures need God's Care more than the Inhabitants of this Earth and if he take Care of any of his Creatures one would think he should take most Care of them who need it most Others who would allow That the Providence of God reached this lower world yet confined God's care to the several Kinds and Species of Beings but would not extend it to every Individual as if God took care of Logical Terms of Genus and Species but took no care of his own Creatures which are all Individuals or as if God could take care of all his creatures without taking care of any particular creature i.e. That he could take care of all his creatures without taking care of any one of them Thus they would allow God to take care of the great Affairs of Kingdoms and Commonwealths but to have no regard to particular Men or Families unless they made a great Figure in the world as if Kingdoms and Commonwealths were not made up of particular Men and particular Families or that God could take care of the whole without taking care of every part or as if there were any other reason for taking care of the whole but to take care of those particulars who make the whole To talk of a General Providence without God's Care and Government of every Particular Creature is manifestly unreasonable and absurd for whatever Reasons oblige us to own a Providence oblige us to own a Particular Providence If Creation be a Reason why God should preserve and take care of what he has made this is a Reason why he should take care of every creature because there is no creature but what he made and
if the whole world consists of particulars it must be taken care of in the care of particulars for if all particulars perish as they may do if no care be taken to preserve them the whole must perish And there is the same reason for the Government of Mankind for the whole is governed in the Government of the parts and Mankind can't be well governed without the Wise Government of every particular Man I 'm sure that the Objections against a Particular Providence are very foolish Some think it too much trouble to God to take care of every particular as if it were more trouble to him to take care of them than it was to make them or as if God had made more creatures than he could take care of as if an Infinite Mind and Omnipotent Power were as much disturbed and tired with various and perpetual Cares as we are Others think it below the Greatness and Majesty of God to take cognizance of every mean and contemptible creature or of every private man as if it were more below God to take care of such creatures than it is to make them as if numbers made creatures considerable to God that tho one man is below God's care yet a Kingdom is worthy of his care and notice when the whole world to God is but as the drop of the bucket and the small dust of the balance Now it is certain there can be no particular Providence without God's Government of all Events for if any good or evil happens to any man without God's Order and Appointment that is not Providence whatever other name you will give it So that if God does take a particular care of all his creatures this is a demonstration that he has the Absolute Government of all Events for without it he cannot take Care of them and if God have the Government of all Events as the Scripture assures us he has this confirms us in the belief of a particular Providence for if all the Good or Evil that happens to every particular man is appointed by God that is proof enough that God takes Care of every particular Man God's Government of all particular Events and his Care of all Individuals include each other in their very Natures The Care of particular Creatures consists in the Government of all particular Events and the Government of all Events is the Exercise of a particular Providence as our Saviour represents it 10. Matth. 29 30 31. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father But the very hairs of your head are all numbred Fear ye not therefore ye are of more value than many sparrows Where God's particular Providence over all his Creatures is expressed by his particular care of all Events which extends even to the Life of a Sparrow and to the Hairs of our Heads Thus much is certain That without this belief That God takes a particular Care of all his Creatures in the Government of all Events that can happen to them there is no reason or pretence for most of the particular Duties of Religious Worship For most of the Acts of Worship consider God not merely as an Universal Cause could we form any Notion of a general Providence without any Care of particular Creatures or particular Events but as our particular Patron Protector and Preserver To fear God and to stand in awe of his Justice to trust and depend on him in all Conditions to submit patiently to his will under all Afflictions to pray to him for the supply of our Wants for the relief of our Sufferings for Protection and Defence to love and praise him for the Blessings we enjoy for peace and plenty and health for friends and benefactors and all prosperous Successes I say these are not the Acts of Reasonable men unless we believe that God has the Supreme Disposal of all Events and takes a particular Care of us For if any Good or Evil can befal us without God's particular Order and Appointment we have no reason to trust in God who does not always take Care of us we have no reason to bear our Sufferings patiently at God's hand and in Submission to his Will for we know not whether our Sufferings be God's Will or not we have no reason to love and praise God for every Blessing and Deliverance we receive because we know not whether it came from God and it is to no purpose to pray to God for particular Blessings if he does not concern himself in particular Events But if we believe that God takes a particular Care of us all and that no Good or Evil happens to us but as he pleases all these Acts or Religious Worship are both Reasonable Necessary and Just. But of this more hereafter CHAP. IV. Concerning the Sovereignty of Providence HAving in the former Chapter shewn That the Government of the Divine Providence consists in Over-ruling and Disposing all Events For the better understanding of this and to prevent a great many ignorant Objections against it besides what I have already said it will be necessary more particularly to explain the Nature and Essential Characters and Properties of God's Governing Providence And I shall begin with 1. The Sovereignty of Providence For God being the Sovereign Lord of the World must Govern with a Sovereign Will For a Sovereign Lord is a Sovereign and Absolute Governor For which reason the Scripture so often resolves all things into the sole will and pleasure of God and in many cases will allow us to seek for no other Cause He doth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth Whatever the Lord pleased that did he in heaven and in earth in the seas and all deep places That the Will of God is Sovereign and Absolute and Unaccountable needs no other proof but that his Power is Absolute and his Wisdom Unsearchable for Absolute Power makes an Absolute Will He who has Power to do whatever he will can do whatever he will and that is the definition of a Severeign and Absolute Will And thus the Scripture resolves the Sovereignty of God into Power That none can stay his hand or say unto him what dost thou He is wise in heart and mighty in strength who hath hardened himself against him and hath prospered And indeed a Power which is Supreme and Absolute which can do all things and which has no greater Power above it none equal to it has a right to Sovereignty For Absolute Power must be the Maker of all things and that must give an Absolute Right to all things and that gives a Right to Absolute Government if there be any such thing as a Natural Right to Government for if God have a Natural Right to Govern his Creatures he must have a Right to Absolute Government because the Right he has in his Creatures is Absolute and Uncontroulable No Creature has
the Will is moved how it is determined or determines it self whether by the Constitution of its Nature it always necessarily chuses what it chuses or might have not chose or have chosen any thing else Now whatever other men may do I 'm sure I know nothing of the Philosophy of these matters and therefore they don't concern me Others make God himself to be nothing else but Necessity and Fate who by Eternal and Irreversible Decrees as necessary and essential to him as his own Being has determined whatever shall come to pass but no man can pretend to know this without an Immediate Vision if I may so speak of the Naked Essence of God His Attributes and Moral Perfections give us no notice of such Fatal Decrees his Wisdom Holiness Justice Goodness contain nothing of Fate and Necessity and those who can see the very Essence of God to be Fate must be able to contemplate his Pure Essence and to know God after another manner than he ever yet manifested himself to Creatures or it may be than it is possible for God to show himself to Creatures Others conclude the Fatal Necessity of all Events from God's Prescience for they say that God can foreknow things only in his own Decrees and therefore if God foreknows all things all things are decreed or however what God foreknows will come to pass will certainly and necessarily come to pass and therefore all Events are certain and necessary if they are all foreknown by God But these are Conclusions which no man can be certain of without pretending perfectly to understand the Nature of Prescience or how God foreknows things to come for if God can foreknow what he has not decreed and can foreknow what does not come to pass necessarily then the Prescience of God does not infer a Fatality of all Events And yet this may be for ought we know unless we perfectly understand the Nature of Prescience and how God foreknows things to come and then we may foreknow things our selves The like may be said of God's concourse with his Creatures in all their actions from whence they conclude That the Will of man in all its elections is determined by God without whose concourse it cannot act nor determine it self These are all Nice Philosophical Speculations which creatures who are so ignorant of the Natures of things can know nothing of and therefore they are not fit to be made Arguments for or against any thing The Sum is this That since we must confess our selves so very ignorant of the Works of Nature without the knowledg of which in Ten thousand Instances it is impossible to understand the Wisdom of Providence it is unreasonable and absured for us to demand an account of God's Providences but we ought to be satisfied to leave God to Govern the World with the same Sovereign and Unaccountable Wisdom which at first gave Being to all things Thirdly That the Wise Government of the World requires secret and hidden Methods of Providence and therefore at least in this state we ought not to expect or desire a particular Account or Reason of all Events The Wise-man tells us It is the glory of God to conceal a thing 25. Prov. 2. It is the Glory of the Divine Nature that it is Incomprehensible by us and it is the Glory of the Divine Providence to be Unsearchable and therefore many of the Ancient Philosophers and Poets forbid too curious an Enquiry into the Nature or Providence of God and Sophronius gives a wise Reason for it Because we are all born of Mortal Parents and therefore the perfect knowledge of an Infinite Immortal Being must be above us Which is much the same Reason that Zophar gives Vain man would be wise tho man be born like a wild asses colt 11. Job 12. This is a knowledge too great for our birth if our Natural Capacities bear proportion to it for God must be a very little Being himself could he be comprehended by such mean Creatures But that which I at present intend is only to shew you That the Wise Government of the World requires that the Divine Counses that the Events and Reasons of Providence should in a great measure be concealed from us and I hope that is a satisfactory reason why God should conceal them if he can't so wisely govern the world without it I would desire those persons who are so apt to quarrel at Providence and to take it so very ill that God does any thing which they don 't presently understand to sit down and agree among themselves How they would have God govern the world What it is that they would be pleased with But let them consider well of it before-hand that upon second thoughts they don 't find more reason to quarrel at their own ways and methods of governing the world than they now have to quarrel with Providence or that the rest of mankind do not find more reason to quarrel with them than they have now to quarrel with God As to give an Instance or two of this by way of Essay Some seem to be very much discontented at the Uneveness and Uncertainty of all Events that all things are in a perpetual Flux and Motion that no man knoweth what a day or an hour will bring forth The instability of Fortune which gives and takes away and every day shews a new face and opens new and surprizing Scenes has been an old Complaint Well then Would they have this rectified Would they have all the Events of Providence as constant and regular and unchangeable as the Motions of the Heavens as the Returns of Day and Night of Winter and Summer And when they see all things happen thus evenly and regularly will they then promise to believe a Providence I mightily suspect that they will be farther from believing a Providence then than they are now We see that the Regular Motions of the Heavens and the Uniform Productions of Nature which so seldom vary that it is thought Portentous and Ominous if they do cannot convince them That God governs the Heavens and the Earth and all the Works of Nature as far as all their Vertues and Powers move and act uniformly by constant and unerring Laws and if the regular uniformity of Nature is not thought by these men a sufficient Proof of a Providence I doubt a constant and uniform round of all Events would be thought much less so Those who now resolve all the uncertain Changes and Revolutions that happen into Necessity and Fate would have more reason to do so did Providence always shew the same face and appearances as the Heavens do But can they tell what kind of Uniformity and Stability of Providence it is would please them Would they have all mens Fortunes equal That there should be no distinction between Rich and Poor High and Low Princes and Subjects the Honourable and the Vile I believe few of them would like such a Levelling Providence which as the state of
Prerogative Acts and signifies to us That we must seek no farther for the Reasons of such things than the Sovereign Will of God as a Sovereign Prince while he keeps within the Legal Exercise of his Prerogative needs give no other account of it but that it is his Will and Pleasure But there are some men who will not be so civil to God as they are to a Sovereign Prince to take his sole Will and good Pleasure for a satisfactory reason of any thing but quarrel about these Prerogative Acts and ask a great many foolish Questions and make a great many impertinent Objections even against the exercise of a Free and Sovereign Goodness Now in truth this is to deny God the Rights of a Sovereign to demand a Reason of him beyond his own Will for the Acts of pure Sovereignty but yet I will grant these men That tho in all such Cases we must ask no other reason but the mere Will of God yet God never does any thing for mere Will and Pleasure in the sense that some men do but has always wise and hidden Reasons which we cannot comprehend And tho they will not allow the unsearchable Wisdom of God a just satisfaction to other Objections yet methinks where they ought to demand no other reason but the Will of God it should abundantly satisfy them to know That tho this Will of God is Sovereign and Unaccountable it is always guided by Infinite and Infallible Wisdom That you may the better understand this I shall give you some Instances of it in the Prerogative Acts of Goodness and Justice Goodness indeed is essential to the Notion of a God but yet there are some Sovereign Acts of Goodness which no creature could challenge from God which God might not have done and yet have been very good and why God exercises such Free and Prerogative Acts of Goodness must be resolved wholly into the good Pleasure of his own Will This is the account the Scripture gives us of that Mysterious Goodness in the Redemption of the World by our Lord Jesus Christ which is therefore every where in Scripture called Grace and Free Grace and the Love of God and the Will of God as Christ tells us That he came not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him And the whole Oeconomy of our Redemption is called the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will And thus is every part of our Redemption as our New-Birth Of his own will he hath begotten us The Gifts of the Holy Ghost were bestowed upon the Apostles according to his own will God worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure All which signifies no more but this That these are such Prerogative Acts of Goodness as we must seek for no other reason of but the Sovereign Will and good Pleasure of God Now in such Sovereign Acts of Goodness as these the time and manner and other circumstances and the rules and methods of administration are all perfectly free and voluntary where God has not bound up himself by Covenant and Promise and therefore we must satisfy our selves that God has very wise Reasons for what he does but must not critically examine whether every thing be done in the best manner that we can think on which would put an end to a great many foolish Enquiries with which men perplex themselves and disparage the Mysteries of our Salvation As Why God sent Christ into the world for the Salvation of Mankind Whether there was no other possible way to save sinners or whether this were absolutely the best Why God sent Christ so late into the world in the last days when it grew near its end and so many Generations of men had perished in ignorance and wickedness before his Appearance Why so great a part of the world to this day have never heard of Christ And a great many other such like Questions as these To all which it is sufficient to reply That our Redemption by Christ is an act of Sovereign Grace and therefore we must enquire no farther than the Will of God Had God never sent Christ into the world nor preached the Gospel to any one Nation we should have had no reason to complain for he did not owe such a Saviour to sinners and therefore we have less reason to complain of the time of his coming into the world and that his Gospel is not universally received by mankind Sovereign Grace is free and unaccountable and we need not doubt but that such stupendious Goodness is administred by as unsearchable Wisdom and it is reasonable for us to acquiesce in the belief of God's unerring Wisdom especially in such cases where we have no right to enquire beyond his Will When we receive all from God without his owing us any thing it is a good answer St. Paul gives Who hath first given unto him and it shall be recompensed to him again for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory for ever Amen Thus the Divine Justice requires that God should punish obstinate and incorrigible sinners but then he executes Justice with a Free and Sovereign Authority that is he is not confined to time and place and manner of punishing sinners as the Inferior Ministers of Justice are but when men have made themselves vessels of wrath fitted for destruction then God may punish sooner or later publickly or privately and in what manner he pleases without giving any other reason for it but his own Will God has more reasons of punishing Sinners in this world than merely to take Vengeance of their sins and therefore he punishes them in such a manner as may best serve the ends of his Providence as may most advance his own Name and Glory and do most good in the world Thus God tells Pharaoh For this cause have I raised thee up that is either advanced thee to the Throne or preserved thy Life thus long in the midst of all the Plagues I have brought upon thy Land for to shew in thee my power and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth that is to take such a remarkable Vengeance on thee as may make all the earth confess my Glory Would men but allow God the Authority of a Sovereign who can Spare and Reprieve nay Pardon in this world without the imputation of Injustice it would answer all the Cavilling Objections against Providence which relate to the Punishments of bad men God might then be allowed to execute speedy Vengeance upon some sinners and to delay the Punishment of others and to suffer them to be prosperous for a great while without giving any other reason for it than his own Will and Pleasure God hath always wise Reasons for these things tho we do not always know them but if the Sovereignty of God will justify all this without any other
Power in transferring Estates and Properties and all men would allow it to be very just and righteous Now this is the Case with respect to God as I observed before for he is the sole Lord and Proprietor of the world and therefore no other bounds can be set to the just exercise of his Authority but to do what is wise and good He may give or take away any man's Estate or Honour or Power whenever he can serve any wise or just or good ends by it for they are all but several Trusts we are but God's Stewards and must give an Account of our Stewardship and if we do not use our Riches and Honours well or when he has no longer any use of us he has as Absolute Authority to lay us aside as a Lord has to change his Steward when he pleases Thus God is the Absolute Lord of all men we are all his Creatures and are in his hands as Clay in the hands of a Potter and therefore he may deal with us as he pleases and may serve the ends of his own Glory and Providence of us as far as his own Wisdom and Goodness will direct Thus for instance we think it very unjust in Human Governments to punish a vertuous and innocent man to strip him of his Estate or Honours to afflict his body to expose him to publick scorn and confine him to a noisom Prison and at last to take away his life with exquisite Pains and Torments But the Sovereign Authority of God extends to all this when he can serve his own Glory and the wise ends of his Grace and Providence by it without doing any real injury to his Creatures The Wisdom of God requires that there should be very great and excellent Reasons for doing this and the Goodness of God requires that such good men should be greatly supported under their sufferings and greatly rewarded for them but then the Sovereignty of God gives him Authority to use the Services of his Creatures in doing or suffering his Will This was the Case of Iob whom God exercised with great sufferings to make him an eminent Example of Faith and Patience but we know what was the end of Iob and how greatly God rewarded his Sufferings tho Iob himself while he was under these sufferings knew not what other account to give of them but to resolve all into the Sovereign Will and Pleasure of God The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away and blessed be the name of the Lord. And Shall we receive good at the hands of God and shall we not receive evil Which indeed is Answer enough to all such Cases while we have an implicate Faith in the Wisdom and Goodness of Providence Thus God dealt with Ioseph made him the Instrument of transplanting his Father and all his Family into Egypt and rewarded his sufferings by advancing him to Pharaoh's Throne Nay thus God dealt with Christ himself who as man was Perfect and Innocent who did no evil neither was any guile found in his mouth who went about doing good and was obedient to his Father's Will in all things and yet him God delivered into the hands of sinners to suffer an ignominious and painful Death for the Redemption of the world And the Sovereignty of God will justify the greatest Sufferings of the most innocent men when they serve such admirable Ends and are so greatly rewarded And thus God has dealt with some of the best men that ever lived in the world Witness the Sufferings of Prophets and of other good men under the Old Testament and of the Apostles and Martyrs of Christ who have trod in the steps of their Lord who have suffered with him that they might be glorified together I know not what the Sovereignty of God signifies if he may not serve the wise ends of his Grace and Providence even by the Sufferings of his Creatures when such Sufferings how uneasy and grievous soever they are at present shall turn to their much greater good when they shall be so greatly rewarded that good men themselves shall think the reward an abundant recompence for their sufferings and glory in those very sufferings which will have so great a reward Thus let us consider God as the Supreme and Absolute Judge of the World Now a Sovereign and Absolute Judge must do that which is just but he is tied up by no Rules or Formalities of Law as Inferior Ministers of Justice are if he reward the good and punish the wicked he may do it at what time and in what manner he pleases He is under no rule but his own Sovereign Will and Wisdom When men have deserved Punishment he may spare them as long or execute Vengeance on them as soon as he sees fit for he is the Absolute Judge of time and place and other circumstances of executing Judgment This Prerogative all Sovereign Princes challenge and it is indeed an inseparable Right of Sovereignty So that it is no reasonable Objection against the Justice of Providence That God does not immediately reward all great and vertuous actions nor immediately punish wickedness for a Sovereign Justice is under no obligation to do this All that we can expect from the Divine Justice is That good men shall be rewarded and the wicked punished and that whenever God does reward or punish good men shall have no reason to complain that their reward was delayed nor bad men to glory in the long delays of punishment but the greatness of the Rewards or Punishments shall recompence for all delays for then God is just in rewarding good men and punishing the wicked how long soever he delay either Sovereign Justice is not confined to time and when the Sufferings of good men who deserve a Reward and the Prosperity of bad men who deserve Punishment and the delays of both are taken into the account God is very Just and Righteous how long soever he delay to reward or punish From what I have now discoursed concerning the Sovereignty of the Divine Justice you may easily observe That all the Objections against the Justice of Providence have no other Foundation but our Ignorance of the Nature of God's Justice we measure the Justice of Providence by the Rules of Justice among men without considering that God is the Sovereign Lord of the world and therefore has a Right and Authority superior to men and therefore a superior Justice too It is unjust for men to deprive one another of their Just and Legal Lights and therefore they think this a Reflection on the Justice of Providence too when men suffer wrongfully but no man has any Right against God who is the sole Proprietor of the world and therefore he may give and he may take away he may set up and pull down and do whatsoever pleaseth him both in Heaven and in Earth It is unjust for men to afflict and oppress the innocent and vertuous or to encourage and prosper the wicked and therefore they
complain against Providence too when good men suffer and the wicked are prosperous but God has an Absolute Right to the services of all his Creatures both of good and bad men and if he can serve the Wise Ends of his Grace and Providence by the Sufferings of good men or by the Prosperity of the wicked and when he has no farther use of their services rewards or punishes them according as they deserve the Sovereignty of God will justify the present Sufferings of good men and Prosperity of the wicked and their final Rewards and Punishments will vindicate his Justice 2dly But for a fuller Vindication of the Justice of Providence we must consider the Nature of God's Government of this lower world and what Acts of Justice the present Government of the world requires The Justice of Government must be proportioned to the Nature and Ends of Government for all acts of Justice are not proper at all times and it is no Reproach to the Justice of Providence if God do not exercise such acts of Justice as are not proper for the present state of the world for Justice is Rectitude and what is not right and fit in such a state of things is not just The great Objection against the Justice of Providence is That all good men are not rewarded nor all bad men punished according to their deserts in this world But this is no Objection against the Divine Justice to those who believe that there is another world where all good men shall be rewarded and all wicked men punished for if all good and bad men shall be finally rewarded and punished according to their works this is a sufficient Vindication of the Justice of God And as for the Justice of Providence tho every good man is not rewarded nor every bad man punished in this world this is no reasonable Objection if the state of this world will not admit of such a strict and exact Justice Now not to take notice at present of what is commonly said upon this occasion and what I have formerly discoursed more largely That this world is not the place of Judgment but a state of Trial Probation and Discipline where good men many times suffer not so much in Punishment of their sins as to exercise their Faith and Patience and to brighten their Vertues and to prepare them for greater Rewards and bad men are prosperons to lead them to Repentance or to make them Instruments of the Divine Providence in chastising the Wickedness of other men or the more remarkable Examples of the Divine Justice and Vengeance in their final ruin I say not to take notice of these things now I shall only observe That the Justice of Providence is nothing else but the Justice of Government which in the nature of the thing must be distinguished from the Justice of the final Judgment Now to govern the world does not signify to destroy it but to uphold and preserve it and to continue a succession of men in it and to keep it in as good order as the present state of things will admit The Providence of God is that Provident Care which he takes of all his Creatures while he thinks fit to preserve this present Frame of the World but to destroy the World is not properly an Act of Providence but of Judgment and yet if we consider the corrupt and degenerate state of the world did the Justice of Providence require God to punish all bad men according to their deserts he must destroy far the greatest part of mankind in every Age. This earth would soon be little better than a desolate Wilderness if none but good men were suffered to live in it But this kind of Justice God has renounced ever since the Universal Deluge He then indeed exercised such a terrible Justice and Vengeance as some men think can be the only proof of a Providence he destroyed the whole World by Water excepting Noah and his Sons whom he preserved in the Ark but he promised that he would never do so again notwithstanding the great Wickedness of mankind The Lord said in his heart I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth neither will I again smite any more every living thing as I have done While the earth remaineth seed-time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease 8. Gen. 21 22. So that God will no more destroy the world nor all the wicked Inhabitants of it till the day of Judgment and then it is certain all wicked men cannot be punished according to their deserts in this world The Justice of Providence then does not consist in rooting all bad men out of the world or in making them all miserable in it or in rewarding all good men with Temporal Felicity which considering the present state of the world cannot be done without constant Miracles and the visible interposition of a Divine Power for when bad men are so much the greater numbers they will have the greatest share and interest in this world But the Care of Providence is to govern bad men and to protect the good to restrain and govern the Lusts and Passions of bad men to make them the Instruments and Executioners of his just Vengeance on one another and to make some of them in every Age notorious Examples of his Justice to keep the world in awe and to awaken in them a due sense and reverence of the Divine Power and to correct and chastise the Miscarriages of good men and to exercise their Graces and Vertues The Justice of Providence consists in this Not that all good men shall be prosperous in this world and all bad men miserable but that notwithstanding all the Wickedness that is in the world the world is kept in tolerable order and is a tolerable place to live in and that bad men are as often punished and good men as often rewarded as the government of this world requires that no man suffers any thing but what he deserves and what God sees good for him if he will make a wise use of it and that how prosperous soever bad men are there are few of them go out of the world without some Marks and Tokens of a Divine Vengeance tho not always so remarkable as to be observed by the world The Sum is this God is very Just in his Government of the World but the Government of the World does not require the same Acts of Justice that the final Judgment of Mankind does And if we do but consider the Nature of the Divine Justice which is the Justice of a Sovereign and Absolute Lord and the difference between the Justice of Providence and of the final Judgment that is between God's Governing and Judging the World we shall easily answer all the Objections against the Justice of Providence This I take to be a full and true Account of the
good may come This St. Paul rejects with the greatest abhorrence and tells us that such mens Damnation is just 3. Rom. 8. for it is the greatest contradiction in the World to do evil in order to do good for how can a Man who can for any reason be persuaded to do evil be a hearty and zealous lover of Goodness It is certain that he who does any evil does not heartily love that goodness to which the evil he does is opposed and he who does not heartily love all goodness is a hearty lover of none There is no reconciling good and evil no more than you can reconcile contradictions a good man will love and do that which is good and an evil man will do that which is evil and though the Divine Wisdom can bring good out of evil yet evil is not and cannot be the natural cause of good no more than Darkness can be the cause of Light and therefore a Good Design can never justify a Bad Action For that Bad Actions should do good is contrary to the nature of Bad Actions and whatever men may intend I 'm sure no man can alter the nature of things and therefore can never justify himself in doing evil that good may come It is certain a Wise and Holy God requires no such thing of us and though he very often brings about great and admirable Designs by mens Sins yet no man knows how to do it nor knows when God will do it nor did ever any man who ventured upon sin in order to do some greater good ever do the good he intended though many times he runs himself into more and greater sins than ever he intended Nay I dare boldly say That no man ever deliberately ventured upon a known sin to do some greater good by it but there was always some base worldly Interest at the bottom coloured over with a pretence of doing good either to deceive the world or sometimes to deceive their own Consciences The Church of Rome among whom there are those who teach and practise this Doctrine are an undeniable Example of it and we have had too many sad Examples of it nearer home This seems to me one reason why those Prophesies which concern future Ages are generally so obscure that no man knows when nor how they shall be fulfilled that no man may be tempted to any sin to serve Providence and to fulfil Prophesies As obscure as these Prophesies are yet we see some heated Enthusiasts very forward to venture on any thing to fulfil Prophesies to pull down Antichrist to set up the Kingdom of Christ especially when they hope to set up themselves with him But God conceals Times and Seasons from us and though he many times fulfils Prophesies by the Sins of men yet he allows no man to sin to fulfil Prophesies And therefore never lets us know when nor by what means Prohesies shall be fulfilled Let us lay down this as a certain Principle That God needs not our Sins and that we can never please him by doing evil whatever the Event be He makes use of the Sins of men to serve his Providence but he will punish them for their Sins CHAP. VII The Goodness of Providence 3. THE next Inquiry is concerning the Goodness of Providence Though methinks it is a more proper Subject for our devout Meditations than for our Inquiries for we need not look far to seek for proofs and demonstrations of the Divine Goodness The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord We see and feel and taste it every day we owe our being our preservation and all the comforts of our lives to it There is not so mean nor so miserable a Creature in this world but can bear its testimony to the Divine Goodness Nay if you would pardon the harshness of the expression I would venture to say That the Goodness of God is one of the greatest Plagues and Torments of Hell I mean the remembrance of God's Goodness and their wicked and ungrateful abuse of it This is that Worm that never dieth those sharp Reflections men make on their Ingratitude and Folly in making themselves miserable by affronting that Goodness which would have made them happy Whatever other Objections fome wanton and sporting Wits make against Providence one would think it impossible that any man who lives in this world and feels what he enjoys himself and sees what a bountiful provision is made for all Creatures should question the Goodness of Providence by which he lives moves and has his being We should think him an extraordinary Benefactor who did the thousandth part for us of what God does and should not challenge his goodness though he did some things which we did not like or did not understand but Atheism is founded in Ingratitude and unless God humour them as well as do them good he is no God for them Nay I cannot but observe here the perverse as well as the ungrateful Temper of Atheists when they dispute against the Justice of Providence then God is much too good for them though he give us Examples enow of his Severity against Sin yet his Patience and Long-suffering to some few Prosperous Sinners is thought a sufficient Argument that God is not just or that he does not govern the world When they dispute against the Goodness of Providence then God is not good enough for them Though they see innumerable Instances of Goodness in the government of the world yet this is not owing to a Good God but to Good Fortune because they think they see some of the careless and irregular Strokes of Chance and Fortune intermixt with it in the many Evils and Calamities of life Now it is impossible for God himself to answer these two Objections to the satisfaction of these men and that I think is a sufficient answer to them both For should God vindicate his Justice to the satisfaction of these men by punishing in this world every sin that is committed according to its desert there would be very little room for the exercise of Goodness If every man must suffer as much as he sins the very best men will be great Sufferers much greater Sufferers than any of them now are tho their Sufferings are made another Objection against Providence and there will be as many formidable Examples of Misery as there are Atheists and Profligate Sinners and this would be an unanswerable Objection against the Goodness of Providence for how good soever God might be if he must punish every sin he has no opportunity to shew his Goodness And on the other hand should God be as good as these men would have him that is that to prove himself good he should not inflict any Evils or Calamities on men whatever their Sins or Provocations are that whereas God planted Paradise only for man in innocence the whole world should be now a Paradise though there is not an innocent man in it this would be as unanswerable an Objection
reform Sinners by the various methods of Grace and Providence and this changes both the very Notion and Exercise of God's Goodness and Justice in this world for we must expect no more of either than what a state of Trial and Discipline will allow The not considering this distinction between Absolute Goodness and Justice and the goodness and justice of Discipline has been the occasion of all those Objections which have been made both against the Goodness and Justice of Providence We must confess that the World is not so happy as Perfect and Absolute and Unconfined Goodness could make it nor are all Sinners so miserable as Strict and Absolute Justice could make them but this signifies no more than that Heaven and Hell are not in this world as no man ever pretended they were and yet Strict and Rigorous Justice and Perfect and Absolute Goodness where-ever they are exercised must make Hell and Heaven But this Life is a Middle-state between both and as men behave themselves here so they shall have their Portions either in Heaven or Hell and therefore the Goodness and Justice of God in this world is of a different nature from that Goodness or Justice which is exercised in Heaven or Hell proportioned to the state of Discipline and Trial in this Life Goodness indeed has the predominant government and Justice is only the Minister of Goodness in this World as it must be in a state of Discipline when Corrections as well as Favours are intended for good To put Man into a state of Probation and Trial to recover that Immortality he had lost was an Act of great Goodness and whatever severe Methods are used to reform Sinners is as great an expression of Goodness as it is to force and to compel them to be happy as it is to cut off a Hand or a Leg to preserve Life And if we will but allow this World to be a state of Trial and Discipline for another World and wisely consider not what pure simple and absolute Goodness but what the goodness of Discipline requires it will give us an easy answer to all the Objections against the Goodness of Providence 1. As first The Goodness of God in a state of Discipline will not admit of a compleat and perfect Happiness in this World for that is no state of Discipline Good men themselves were they as happy in this World as they could wish would not be very fond of another World nor learn those mortifying and self-denying Vertues which are necessary to prepare them for a Spiritual Life And Bad men would grow more in love with this World and sin on without check and controul The Miseries and Afflictions of this Life wean Good men from this World and lay great restraints upon Bad men which justifies both the Wisdom and Goodness of God in those many Miseries which Mankind suffer 2. But yet the goodness of God in a state of Discipline requires That this World should be so tolerable a place as to make Life desirable his own glory is concerned in this for no man would believe that the World was made or is governed by a good God were there no visible and sensible Testimonies of a kind and good Providence But though God cursed the Earth for the Sin of man yet he has not defaced the Characters of his own Wisdom and Goodness but still the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead 1. Rom. 20. and in the most Degenerate state of Mankind God left not himself without a witness giving them rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling their hearts with food and gladness What dreadful Apprehensions would this give Mankind of God were this World nothing else but a Scene of Trouble and Misery What encouragement would this be to Sinners to repent and reform What hopes could they reasonably conceive of Pardon and Forgiveness had they no experience of God's goodness and patience towards Sinners What place would there be for the exercise of Moral or Christian Vertues of Faith and Hope and Trust in God of Self-denial and a Contempt of this World were not this World a very tolerably happy place though a changeable Scene A state of Discipline must neither be a state of perfect Happiness nor Misery but an interchangeable Scene of very agreeable Pleasures and tolerable Evils sufficient to exercise the Vertues and to correct the Vices of Mankind And this I take the State of this Life to be so happy that few men are so miserable as to be weary of it and yet so intermixt with Troubles as to exercise the Vertues of Good men and to correct the wicked And this is what becomes the Goodness of God to do for us in a state of Discipline 3. The Goodness of God seems to require That in such a mixt and changeable Scene there should be some remarkable difference made between the Good and the Bad for the design of Providence in a state of trial is to encourage Vertue and to deter men from Sin and therefore there ought to be such a visible difference made as may be sufficient if men will wisely consider things to encourage good men and to restrain the wicked I do not mean that all Good men should be Happy and Prosperous and all Bad men Miserable as to their external Fortune for a state of Discipline will not allow this All good men cannot bear a prosperous Fortune and some bad men may grow better by it or may be fit instruments of Providence and such a visible distinction between all good and bad men belongs to the Day of Judgment not to a state of trial and therefore we see this is not done and bad men who have the least reason to complain of it make it an objection against Providence But though Providence many times seems to make little difference between good and bad men as to external Events yet God very often takes care to expound his Providences which makes a very visible difference between them Natural Conscience is one of God's Interpreters of Providence which terrifies bad men with a sense of Guilt when they suffer and threatens them with a more terrible Vengeance but supports good men under their Sufferings with better hopes that bad men suffer like Malefactors with Rage and Fear and Despair good men with Patience and Submission and joyful Expectations of a reward All the promises of Scripture are made to Good men and all the threatnings of it denounced against Bad men and this expounds Providence for this assures good men that all the good they receive is the Effect of God's care and goodness to them and that the Evils they suffer are either his fatherly Correction or the trial and exercise of their Vertues but that the Prosperity of Bad men is only the effect of God's Patience or to make them Instruments of his Providence and that
their Sufferings are the punishment of their Sins and the Fore-runners of Future Vengeance except they repent And when we know this it makes a vast difference between the Prosperity and the Sufferings of Good and Bad men and because this is not always visible in external Events God has taken care to reveal it to us But God has made this very visible in most of the ordinary Calamities of life which are the natural effects of Sin of Intemperance Luxury Lust Pride Passion Covetousness Idleness and Prodigality most of those Evils which Bad men suffer are owing to such Vices and all these Good men escape and sometimes their Vertues advance them to Riches and Honours and when they don't yet they make them contented and pleased But when Wickedness makes men great it commonly makes them a mark for Envy and advances them to tumble them down Nay though the Divine Providence does not always make a difference between Good and Bad men as to their external Fortunes yet sometimes God makes a very remarkable difference between them Gives such signal Demonstrations of his Anger against Bad men and of his Care and Protection of the Good that it forces men to acknowledge Verily there is a reward for the righteous verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth 58. Psal. 11. And a few such Examples as these though both Sacred and Prophane Story furnish us with very many are sufficient to make as visible a distinction between the Good and the Bad as the Providence of God in this World requires 4. But yet the Goodness of Providence in a state of Discipline will not allow of greater Evils and Calamities than are necessary to the good government of the World For this is a state of Discipline and Government not of Judgment Good men must suffer no more than what will encrease their Vertue not prove a temptation to sin The rod of the wicked must not always rest on the lot of the righteous lest he also put forth his hand unto iniquity The Sufferings of Bad men who are in a curable state must be only proportioned to their cure unless the evil of the Example requires a severer punishment to warn other Sinners As for hardened and incorrigible Sinners the Goodness of God is not concerned for them but he may serve his Providence on them as he pleases either by making them the Ministers of his Justice to execute such a terrible Vengeance on the World as none but such hardened Sinners would execute or by making them the lasting Monuments of his own Vengeance as he did a hardened and incorrigible Pharaoh for this is for the great good of the World and a state of Discipline requires such Examples And such Sinners are fit to be made Examples of And all such Severities as these are very reconcilable with the Goodness of God in a state of Discipline 5. The Goodness of God in a state of Discipline not only allows but requires great patience long-suffering and goodness to Sinners For this is necessary to reclaim Sinners to give them time for repentance and to invite and encourage them to repent by all the arts and methods of Goodness as well as to overawe them by Judgments and Severities Promises are as necessary to reform Sinners as Threatnings for Hope is as powerful a Principle as Fear and Love and Goodness work more kindly upon Ingenuous minds and melt those whom Judgments cannot bow nor break Thus a kind Parent deals with a Prodigal Son tries him with kindness as well as severity and thus God deals with Sinners He is good to the Evil and to the Good and maketh his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall upon the Just and upon the Unjust And this is such goodness as is proper only for a state of Discipline 6. The Goodness of God even in a state of Discipline requires that there should be a great deal more good than evil in the world For since Goodness governs the World even in this state the Good must be predominant that notwithstanding all the Evils and Calamities there are it may still be very visible that the World is governed by a Good God That this is so I think I need not prove for we all see and feel it The Evils that are in the World bear no proportion at all to the Good There are some few Examples of miserable people but the generality of Mankind are very happy and even these miserable people have great allays of their Miseries and if we take an estimate of their whole Lives have a much greater share of Good than Evil. The Judgments of God are sometimes very terrible but they come but seldom For a years Plague or Famine we enjoy some Ages of Health and Plenty And the Ruins and Desolations of War are recompenced and forgot by a more Lasting and Flourishing Peace But the Goodness of God moves in a constant and uniform round visits all Parts and Corners of the Earth as the Sun does with its Light and Heat That considering how little Mankind deserves of God in this Corrupt and Degenerate State how highly they provoke him every day and how constantly and universally he does good to them instead of complaining of the many Evils that are in the World we have reason to admire the Patience and Goodness of God to Sinners This I take to be a true Account of the Nature and Exercise of God's Goodness as it respects a State of Discipline and so it must be considered in the government of this World and then all the Objections against the Goodness of Providence vanish of themselves Though this World be not so happy as Perfect and Absolute Goodness can make it yet God abounds in all the Expressions of Goodness which a State of Trial and Discipline will allow which is all that we can reasonably expect and all that God can wisely do for us in this State 2dly Especially if we consider in the next place what the true notion of Good and Evil is in a State of Discipline for this is another occasion of most Objections against the Goodness of Providence That men consider Human Nature absolutely and appeal to their Senses for the Notions and Differences of Good and Evil without any regard to the present State of Human Nature that is by Good and Evil they mean only Natural Good and Evil such as Pleasure or Pain a State of Ease and Rest or of Trouble and Labour and Difficulty Riches or Poverty Honour or Disgrace and measure the Goodness of Providence by the Natural Good or Evil that is in the World if Mankind and particular men be happy and prosperous then God does good and they will acknowledge that Providence is good if they be afflicted this is very evil and therefore an Objection against the Goodness of Providence But does not every man know the difference between the good of the End and the good of the Means The End is Happiness which is the
the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken For dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return 3. Gen. 17 18 19. This was a very severe Sentence which deprived man of Immortality and of the easy and happy life of Paradise condemned him to labour and sorrow while he lived and then to return unto dust and yet the Wisdom as well as Justice of Providence is very visible in it it was not fit that when man had sinned he should be immortal in this World and an industrious and laborious life is the best and happiest state for fallen man as I have elsewhere shown at large We know little more than this of the Antediluvian World till we hear of the general corruption of Mankind That the earth was filled with violence for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth insomuch that it repented the Lord that he had made man upon the earth and it grieved him at his heart 6. Gen. This was so universal a Corruption that there was but one righteous Family left only Noah and his three Sons and therefore God resolved to sweep them all away with an universal Deluge excepting that one righteous Family whom he preserved in the Ark which he appointed Noah to prepare for that purpose The justice of this no man can dispute for if all Flesh corrupt its ways God may as justly destroy a whole world of Sinners as he can punish or cut off any one single Sinner But that which I am now concerned for is to shew the wonderful Wisdom of Providence in the destruction of the Old World by a deluge of Water and rightly to understand this we must consider the several Circumstances of the Story and what God intended by it Now though that wicked Generation of men deserved to be destroyed yet God did not intend to put a final end to this World nor to cut off the whole Race of all Mankind but to raise a new Generation of men from a Righteous Seed and to make the destruction of the Old World a standing Warning and a visible Lesson of Righteousness to the New And a few Observations will satisfy us that nothing could be more wisely designed for this purpose 1. Let us consider the Wisdom of Providence in destroying the Old World without the utter destruction of Mankind It was too soon to put a final end to the World which he had so lately made without reproaching his own Wisdom in making it There had been very little of the Wisdom of Government yet seen but one Act and that concluding in all disorder and confusion and had God left off here and put a final end to the Race of Mankind it had been but a very ill spectacle to the Angelical World to see a whole Species of Reasonable Beings so soon destroyed The Old Serpent who deceived our first Parents would have gloried in his Voctory that he had utterly spoiled and ruined the best part of this visible Creation and even forced God to destroy the most excellent Creature he had made on Earth But God had threatned the Serpent that the Seed of the Woman should break his head and therefore the whole Posterity of Eve must not be destroyed but a Righteous Seed must be preserved to new-people the World But besides this The destruction of the Old World being intended as a warning to the New it was necessary there should be some living Witnesses both of the destruction and the resurrection of the World to assure their Posterity of what they had seen and to preserve the memory of it to all Generations Of which more presently 2dly The Wisdom of God was very visible in delaying so terrible an Execution till there was no remedy To destroy a World carries great horror with it and makes a frightful representation of God if it be not qualified with all the most tender and softning Circumstances And I cannot think of any thing that can justify Providence in it excepting the last Judgment when the Divine Wisdom thinks fit to put a final end to this World but the irrecoverable state of Mankind and the absolute necessity of some new methods of reforming the World And therefore God delayed the destruction of the Old World till all Flesh had corrupted his ways and there was but one Righteous Family left which must be in danger of being corrupted too by the universal wickedness of the Age. However it is certain That though Noah might have preserved his own Integrity and have taught his own Family that Fear and Worship of God yet he could do no good upon the rest of the World he was a Preacher of Righteousness but his Sermons had no effect It is generally concluded by the Ancients that he was an hundred years in building the Ark and all this while he gave visible warning to them of the approaching Deluge Now when it was impossible by any ordinary means to put a stop to the wickedness of Mankind what remained but to destroy that corrupt and incurable Generation and to preserve righteous Noah and his Sons to propagate a new Generation of men and to train them up in the fear and worship of God Had he delayed a little longer the whole World might have been corrupt without one righteous man in it and then he must either have maintained or preserved a World of Atheists and profligate Sinners or must have destroyed them all But it more became the Divine Wisdom when Religion was reduced to one Family to defer Vengeance no longer while he had one righteous Family to save to preserve the Race of Mankind and to restore lost Piety and Vertue to the World 3dly The Wisdom of Providence in destroying the Old World is very visible in the manner of doing it 1st For first it was a Miraculous and Supernatural Destruction and therefore an undeniable evidence of the Power and Providence of God There are no visible Causes in Nature to do this and therefore it must be done by a Power Superior to Nature Some men think it sufficient to disparage the Mosaical Account of the Deluge if they can prove the natural impossibility of it and others who profess to believe the Story think themselves much concerned to give a Philosophical Account of it without having recourse to Miracles and a Supernatural Power which they say unbecomes Philosophers But if it unbecomes Philosophers to believe Miracles I doubt they will think it very much below them to be Christians which no man can be who does not believe Miracles and if they will allow of Miracles in any case methinks they should make no scruple to attribute the destruction of the World to a Miraculous and Supernatural Power The comfort is the truth of the Story does not depend upon any Philosophical Hypothesis we do not believe that the whole World was drowned because we can tell by what Natural Causes it might be drowned but
than the Creation of a New World would be But had God destroyed the whole Race of men and created a new Man to inhabit the New World this would have argued some defect in the first Creation for there can be no pretence for destroying Man to make him again but a design to make him better to correct that in a second trial which Experience had discovered to be faulty in the first But though the wisdom of Government will admit of various Trials and Experiments the Wisdom of Creation wont The Government of free Agents must be accommodated to their Natures and Dispositions not only to what God made them but to what they make themselves and therefore the Methods of Government must change as men change themselves but the Natures of all things are made only by God and if there be any fault in them it is chargeable upon the Divine Wisdom and to make Man and destroy him and make him again would argue a great fault somewhere 2dly I observed also before That to make the destruction of the Old World of any use to propagate Religion and Piety in the New it was necessary that some Inhabitants of the Old World should survive the Deluge to be Witnesses of that Terrible Destruction Had no man survived though God should have created man a-new that new Generation of men could have known nothing of the Deluge but by Revelation whereas God intended a sensible proof of his Power and Providence which Mankind wanted Besides that Revelation which we may suppose God made to Adam of the Creation of the World and his own sense that he himself was but just then made and was the first and the only man upon Earth there are such visible Marks of a Divine Wisdom and Power in the frame of the World as one would think should be sufficient to convince men that the World was made and is preserved and governed by God and yet because no man saw the World made neither Reason nor Revelation can persuade some men that God made the World And is it reasonable then to think that when there are no remaining signs of a Deluge left the belief of a Deluge should for any long time have prevailed in the world without any living Witnesses who saw the Deluge though we should suppose God to have revealed it to new-created man No man could see the Creation of the world because the world must be made before man was made to live in it but though no man saw the world made there were some who saw the destruction which the Deluge made which was as visible a proof of the Divine Power and a much greater proof of a Just and Righteous Providence No man who believes that God destroyed the Old World with a Deluge of Water can doubt whether God made the world and governs it and for this the New World had the testimony of Eye-witnesses which is as sensible a proof of a God and a Providence as we can possibly have 3dly The preservation of Noah and his Sons in the Ark was an evident proof that this Deluge was sent by God God fore-warned Noah of it an hundred years before it came and commanded him to prepare an Ark and gave him directions how to make it Thus much is certain That Noah did know of it before-hand and prepared an Ark which remained as a visible Testimony of the Flood to future Generations Now there being no Natural Causes of the Flood there could be no Natural Prognosticks of it Our Saviour himself observes That there were not the least Symptoms of any such thing till Noah entred into the Ark and therefore Noah had no other way of knowing this but by Revelation and it was so incredible a thing in it self that the rest of Mankind would not believe him though he warned them of it and they saw that he believed it himself by his preparing an Ark for his own safety And if we believe the Account that Moses gives of it that some of all sorts of Living Creatures both the Beasts of the Field and the Fowls of the Air were preserved with Noah in the Ark as we must believe if we believe the Universal Deluge unless we will say that God new-made all Living Creatures after the Flood what account can be given of this that some of all sorts in such numbers as God had appointed and had prepared reception for should come of their own accord to Noah when he was ready to enter into the Ark had they not been led thither by a Divine Hand 4thly The preservation of Noah and his Sons in the Ark did not only prove that the Deluge was sent by God but was a plain Evidence for what reason God sent such a Terrible Judgment viz. To put an end to that wicked Generation of men and to new-people the world with a Righteous Seed This Reason God gave to Noah and the nature of the thing speaks it For when all the wicked Inhabitants of the world were destroyed and not one escaped the Deluge but only that one Righteous Family which had escaped the Corruptions of the Age too and that preserved by the peculiar Order and Direction of God this is a visible Judgment upon all the wicked of the Earth and makes a visible distinction between Good and Bad men When such Evils and Calamities befall the world as may be resolved into Natural or Moral Causes as Plagues and Famines and Wars Fires and Earthquakes and it may be Good and Bad men share pretty equally in the publick Misfortunes Atheists and Infidels will not allow these Evils to be inflicted by God much less to be the punishment of Sin when they make no visible distinction between the good and the bad but the Universal Deluge was both a Supernatural and a distinguishing Judgment none but God could thus destroy the Earth and none but the wicked were destroyed and therefore this is an undiable demonstration of the Justice and Righteousness of God that he hates wickedness and will punish wicked men There are some other Marks of Excellent Wisdom in the Universal Deluge which I shall only name because tho they are worth observing yet they are of less moment as to my present Design As the Deluge was to be a lasting proof of a Just Providence to the New World and as you have heard was upon all accounts admirably fitted to that purpose so we may reasonably suppose that when it came it convinced that wicked Generation of men and brought them to repentance which it gave them some time for and though it could not save them in this world who knows but that a sudden repentance upon such a sudden conviction might obtain mercy for them in the next Noah was a Preacher of Righteousness he had often reproved them for their sins and threatned them with a Deluge but they would not believe him though they saw him preparing the Ark but when they saw the Flood come they knew then the
Ham which would quickly have endangered as general a corruption of Mankind as there was before the Flood Let us then consider what Course God took to prevent this and the excellent wisdom of it which we have an account of 11. Genes 7 8. That God confounded their language so that they could not understand one another's speech and by this means scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth and they left off to build the city Now not to take notice that this was the most ready way to people the whole Earth even the remotest Corners of it which was for the great good of Mankind found them work to do forced them upon the invention of Ingenious Arts and by the benefit of Trade and Commerce made every Country which was not wanting to it self a little World and every part to enjoy all the pleasures and advantages of the whole I say besides this it was the most likely way that could be used at that time to prevent the Universal Corruption of Mankind For 1. This separated the Families of Sem and Iaphet from the Family of Ham where the Infection was already begun and would have spread apace by the advantage of Power and Empire When Cain had slain his Brother Abel God sent him away out of Adam's Family that his presence and Example might do no hurt and if by the daughters of men in 6. Genes we understand as some good Expositors do those who descended of Cain and by the sons of God the Posterity of Seth in whose Family the Worship of the True God was preserved we may observe that Moses dates the general Corruption of Mankind from the union of these two Families When the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took them wives of all which they chose And had the Universal Empire been established in the Family of Ham and the Posterity of Sem and Iaphet been brought into subjection to them as they must in a short time have been what less could have been expected from such a Union and Government but another Antediluvian corruption of all Flesh This dispersion then was necessary to prevent a general Corruption but we see in the Example of Cain that a meer local separation is no security for they may come together again as the Sons of God and the Daughters of men in process of time did And therefore 2dly The most lasting dispersion and separation is by a confusion of Languages which hinders all intercourse and communication at least till there be a remedy found against it by learning each other's Language which was a work of time and was never likely to be so general as to be the means of a common intercourse This effectually divided them at first and would always keep Nations divided till Foreign Arms should give new Laws and a new Language to a Conquered People 3dly I observe farther That the more divisions of Languages were made and the greater the dispersion was the greater security was it against a general Corruption which is a reason not only for separating the Family of Ham from the Families of Sem and Iaphet but for separating them from each other and dividing them into smaller Bodies For the more Divisions there are whatever part were infected the less could the Corruption spread when there was no communication between them 4thly This also divided Mankind into several little Independent Monarchies under the government of the Heads of their several Families which kept all Mankind under a stricter government than if the whole world had been one great Empire which would have proved a Tyrannical Domination but could have taken little care of the Manners of Subjects especially if the Government it self was corrupt the whole world must be corrupt with it But when so many distinct Societies were formed this gave them distinct Interests and made their Laws and Customs the very humour and genius of the People so different from each other as would keep them distinct And this would necessarily occasion mutual Emulations and Jealousies to rival their Neighbours in Riches and Power and this cannot be done without wise Laws and a strict Discipline and the encouragement of Labour and Industry of liberal Arts and all social Vertues and the suppression of such Vices as weaken Government and emasculate mens Spirits This effect we know in a great measure it had as we learn from the most early Accounts of the Graecian Commonwealths where we meet with so many excellent Laws and such great Examples of Frugality Temperance Fortitude and a generous love of their Country which may in a great measure be attributed to their mutual Emulations which taught them prudence and justice at home and abroad and forced on them the exercise of many Civil and Military Vertues It had indeed been more for the peace and quiet of the world that all Mankind had been but one People and one Kingdom without divided Interests and Governments but such a profound state of ease is apt to loosen the Rains of Government and to corrupt mens minds with sloth and luxury and therefore is no more fit for a corrupt and degenerate State than it would have been that the Earth should have brought forth Fruit of it self without Humane Labour and Industry But Jealousies and Emulations the necessity of defending themselves against Potent Neighbours or the ambition to equal or to outdo them restrains publick Vices and is a spur to Verture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is true this is the occasion of many Miseries to Mankind of all the Calamities and Desolations of War and therefore we must consider 5thly That this is so far from being an Objection against Providence while God keeps the Sword in his own hand that it is an admirable Instrument of Government and a signal demonstration of the Divine Wisdom God had promised that he would not again any more smite every living thing as he had done 8. Genes 21. And yet Mankind could not be governed without some restraints and punishments and it did not become God to punish Men and Nations as often as they deserved it by an immediate hand and what then could be more wisely designed than so to order it that if Men and Nations were wicked they should scourge and punish one another By this means God can chastise two wicked Nations by each other's Swords without destroying either He can so lessen their Numbers and exhaust their Treasures and impoverish their Countries as to force them to peace and to reduce them to a laborious and frugal life which will cure the wantonness and luxury of Plenty and Ease If a Nation be grown incurably wicked he can by this means destroy them without embroiling the rest of the world he can carry them captive into Foreign Countries or make them Slaves at home and subject them to the Yoke of a Conqueror who shall correct them and teach them better In a word The dispersion of
Supream God and of a Sovereign Providence than to see a whole Nation worshipping this one Supream God which at least would not suffer them to be wholly ignorant of such a Being but was a just reason to examine their natural Notions of a Deity and the Pretences of their several Gods Especially when they see this Nation planted in a particular Countrey allotted them by their God and the old wicked Inhabitants destroyed and driven out from before them by such a series of Miracles as were an undeniable Evidence of such a Divine Power as all the Gods of these Countries were not able to oppose And that this Nation received their Laws both for Worship and Polity and Conversation immediately from God were govern'd by men appointed by God and directed in all great Affairs by Divine Oracles and Prophets with such a certainty of event as never failed That while they adhered to the Worship of this One Supream God they were always prosperous as he promised they should be but when they declined to Idolatry and worshipped the Gods of the Countries round about them then they were either oppressed by their Enemies at home or carried captive into Foreign Countries This was a visible proof that there was a God in Israel and such a God as would admit of no other Gods nor allow them to worship any other but punished them severely whenever they did and all their other Gods could not help them nor deliver them out of his hands This gave sufficient notice to the World of the Glory and Power of the God Israel but some will still be apt to ask Why God did not as sensibly manifest himself to all the rest of the World as he did to Israel why he had not his Oracles and Prophets in other Nations and they may if they please as reasonably ask why he does not immediately inspire every particular man with a Supernatural Knowledge and force the Belief of his Being and Providence upon their Minds Or why he did not by a Miraculous Power convert the old wicked World but destroyed them all and preserved only that one Righteous Family which had escaped the general Corruption For much like this was the state of mankind with respect to Idolatry when God called Abraham out of Vr of the Chaldees there was not one Nation left that worshipped the One Supreme God and him only nay not one Family for Terah Abraham's Father was an Idolater and probably all the rest of the Family excepting Abraham for tho he be not expresly excepted in the Text yet neither is he necessarily included and God's commanding him to leave his Countrey and his Kindred and his Father's House and his ready Compliance with this Command is reason to believe that he was the only person in the Family who had preserved himself from all Idolatrous Worship However it appears that he was a man of that extraordinary Piety and Virtue and so easily curable if he had been an Idolater that God thought him the fittest Person to reveal himself to and to begin a new Reformation of the World And therefore as in the days of Noah God destroyed all that wicked Generation of men by the Flood and only preserved Noah and his Sons to new people the earth and to instil the Seeds and Principles of Piety and Virtue into their Posterity so the New world being now universally corrupted by Idolatry and God having promised Noah never again to destroy every living thing as he had done he takes another course and in a manner creates a new People to be the Worshippers of the One Supreme God and in them to make his own Glory and Power known to the World and chose Abraham a man of admirable Faith and Piety to be the Father of this new people which should descend from his loins in his Old Age not by the mere Powers of Nature but by Faith in God's Promise 11. Heb. 11 12. The plain state then of the Case is this When that new Generation of men had universally corrupted themselves with Idolatry notwithstanding all the means God had used to possess them with a lasting sense of his Being and Providence God gives them up to their wilful Blindness and leaves them to the Cheats and Impostures of those wicked Spirits whom they had made their Gods till he could recover them from this Apostacy by such Methods as were agreeable to Human Nature and became the Divine Wisdom The most effectual way to do this was to establish his Worship in some one Nation which should be a visible Proof both of the Unity of the Godhead and of a Divine Providence and because there was no such Nation then in the World he made a Nation on purpose and allotted them a Countrey to dwell in and signalized them by extraordinary Providences as the Worshippers of the One Supreme God This was a kind of a new beginning of the world which did not put an end to the Idolatrous World as Noah's Flood put an end to that wicked Generation but yet did propagate a new Generation of men in it who should in time put an end to that Universal Idolatry and make a new World of it And this is a new Advance the Divine Wisdom made towards the Recovery of Mankind When Adam had sinned he and his whole Posterity became mortal and were condemned to a laborious life that in the sweat of their brows they should eat their bread which was the best Preservative against the Temptations of Ease and Sloth and Luxury When notwithstanding this all flesh had corrupted his ways God destroyed that wicked Generation with an Universal Deluge and thereby gave a signal demonstration of his Power and Justice to the New World When this new Generation of men grew corrupt God confounded their Language and dispersed them over the face of the whole earth and formed them into distinct Bodies and Societies which prevented a general corruption of Manners taught them Civil Justice and many Moral Virtues which were necessary to the Support and Defence of Human Societies but when they all declined to Idolatry which would endanger a new and universal Corruption of Manners by those impure Ceremonies with which wicked Spirits would chuse to be worshipped some new and more effectual means were to be used to cure this evil The Universal Deluge and the Confusion of Languages had so abundantly convinced them of a Divine Power and Providence that there was no such Creature as an Atheist known among them till their ridiculous Idolatries in worshipping the meanest Creatures and Viler men with ludicrous or abominable Rites tempted some men of Wit and Thought rather to own no God than such Gods as the Heathens worshipped but tho these extraordinary Events were a manifest Proof of a Divine Power and Providence yet it seems they were not thought so express and direct a Proof of the Unity of the Godhead at least not a sufficient Argument against the Worship of Inferior Deities
there was a Power and therefore a God above them all whom all Mankind ought to fear and worship This convinc'd Nebuchadnezzar of the Power of the God of Israel when he had delivered Shadrach Meshach and Abed-nego from the fiery Furnace he made a Decree That every people nation and langage which spake amiss against the God of Shadrach Meshach and Abed-nego shall be cut in pieces and their houses shall be made a dunghill because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort Thus when God had delivered Daniel from the Lion's Den Darius made a Decree That in every dominion of his kingdom men should tremble and fear before the God of Daniel For he is the living God and stedfast for ever and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed and his dominion shall be even unto the end He delivereth and rescueth and worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth who hath delivered Daniel from ihe power of the lions Both these Kings were convinced by these great and wonderful Works that the God of Israel was the Supream God but Nebuchadnezzar's Decree only forbids men to blaspheme God Darius seems to command all People to worship him for to tremble and fear before him signifies a religious veneration but neither of them appointed any solemn Worship to be paid him much less did they forbid the Worship of any other Gods But a little consideration would have carried them farther for those mighty Works which proved a Power superior to all Gods proved a Sovereign Providence too that this Supream God had not so committed the Government of the world to any Ministers or inferior Deities but that he reserved the supream disposal of all things in his own hands as Nebuchadnezzar was convinced that His dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom is from generation to generation and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing and he doth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him What dost thou This cut off all reasonable Pretences of paying Divine Worship to their Country-goods for if there be a Superior Power and Providence over them at most they could be only Ministers of the Divine Will and therefore could have no title to Divine Honours no more than Ministers of State have to the Royal Dignity And it was very reasonable to conclude this when they saw that this Supream God would not suffer Israel whom he had chosen for his peculiar People to worship any other God besides himself This was not unknown to the Egyptians but was more manifest in After-ages when God so severely punished them for their Idolatry and was made evident to Nebuchadnezzar and Darius when God delivered Shadrach Meshach and Abednego out of the fiery Furnace who refused to worship the Golden Image which he had set up and delivered Daniel from the power of the Lions when he was cast into the Lions Den for praying to his God This shews the strange power of Prejudice and Custom but yet we must confess that this was wisely designed by God for the cure of Polytheism and Idolatry Having thus vindicated and explained the Wisdom of Providence both with respect to the removal of Israel out of the Land of Canaan into Egypt and the hard bondage they suffered there and their deliverance out of Egypt with a mighty hand and out-stretched arm with Signs and Wonders and Miracles let us now follow them into the Wilderness God having chose Israel for his peculiar People and delivered them out of Egypt before he shewed them openly to the world under such a peculiar Character it was necessary first to form their Manners to take care that they should own him for their God and behave themselves as it became so glorious a Relation this could not be done in Egypt where they were oppressed by hard bondage and therefore God first leads them into the Wilderness remote from the conversation of all other People and upon all accounts a fit place both to instruct and try them I do not intend as I said before to inquire into the Mystical Reasons of those various Providences with which God exercised them in the Wilderness to which our Saviour and his Apostles so often refer and which they apply to the Gospel-state but shall only consider the Wisdom of Providence as to the external and visible conduct of that People to make them fit to be owned before all the World for his peculiar People They had lived two hundred years in Egypt and were tinctur'd with the Idolatries and had learnt the corrupt Manners of that People and had all that meanness and stupidity and perverseness of humour that a state of Servitude and Bondage is apt to create of which we have too many visible Instances in their behaviour towards Moses All this was to be corrected before their entrance into Canaan which will give us the reasons of some very wonderful Providences The first remarkable thing to this purpose to be observed is God's delivering the Law to them with all the most formidable Solemnities in an audible Voice from Mount Sinai Which Moses tells them was such a thing as was never known before since the day that God created man upon the earth Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire as thou hast heard and live And the use Moses makes of it is very natural to confirm them in the Belief and Worship of the One Supream God Vnto thee it was shewed that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God there is none else besides him Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice that he might instruct thee and upon earth he shewed thee his great fire and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire Know therefore this day and consider it in thine heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath there is none else For what can convince men that there is One Supream God if such a terrible Appearance as that on Mount Sinai and the Law delivered in an audible Voice from Heaven will not convince them Numa pretended to receive his Laws from the Goddess Aegeria as some other Lawgivers pretended to do the like but no man knew any thing of it but themselves but here a whole Nation heard God speak to them and saw such an Awful Appearance upon the Mount as made Moses himself fear and tremble I desire any man to tell me how God who is a Pure Invisible Mind could possibly give a more visible Demonstration of his Presence and Power I desire the Wittiest and most Philosophical Atheists only for Experiment sake to suppose the Truth of that Relation which Moses gives us of this matter and that they themselves had been present at Mount Sinai had seen the Smoke and Fire
cover the Mountain had heard the Thunder and the Trumpet and at last a Voice delivering the Law with an unimitable Terror and Majesty what would they then have thought of this Or what farther evidence would they have desired that it was God who spoke to them This could be no Dream nor melancholy Apparition or disturbed Fancy for they had timely notice of it three days before and were commanded to sanctify themselves to meet their God and if a whole Nation had been imposed on after such fair Warning it had been as great a Prodigy and Miracle as the Appearance on Mount Sinai and would have argued some Divine and Supernatural Infatuation and that would have proved a God This then was as visible a Demonstration as could be given of the Presence and Power and Majesty of God who rejected all other gods from any share in his Worship and declares himself to be the Maker of Heaven and Earth for I 'm sure the Wit of man cannot invent a more effectual Conviction than this Let us then consider the Wisdom of Providence in this both with respect to the Israelites and to the rest of Mankind He that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him And therefore when God intended to restore his own Worship again in the world and to make Israel a Pattern and Example of it to the rest of Mankind it was necessary to give them as visible and ocular a demonstration of the Power and Glory of God as it was possible for Creatures to have When the whole World was over-run with Idolatry and the Israelites themselves so strongly inclined to it nothing less than such an Appearance from Mount Sinai was likely to establish the Faith and Worship of the One Supreme God and we see that this it self could very hardly do it for immediately after they had heard God speak to them while Moses was in the Mount they made them a Golden Calf and worshipped it and as soon as they mingled with any other people they joined in their Idolatrous Worship a sad Example of which we have in their worship of Baal Peor 25. Numb But this was the highest evidence God could then give them of his Power and Glory and it did in time prevail and in them all Mankind who know their Story have a visible demonstration of One Supreme God But not to insist on every Particular which would be endless it may seem strange that when God brought Israel out of Egypt to give them Possession of the Promised Land he should make them wander in the Wilderness forty years till all that generation of men which came out of Egypt were dead excepting Ioshua and Caleb The Apostle to the Hebrews gives us the general Account of this matter 3. Heb. 7. to the end which resolves it into their Idolatry and Infidelity Wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith To day if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness when your fathers tempted me proved me and saw my works forty years Wherefore I was grieved with that generation and said They do alway err in their heart and they have not known my ways so I sware in my wrath They shall not enter into my rest Which he makes an admonition to Christians Take heed brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God that is in forsaking the True God and declining to Idolatry as the Israelites in the Wilderness did And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest but to them that believed not So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief The plain state of the Case is this That Generation of men which came out of Egypt and remembred the Customs and Practices of that People were so strangely addicted to Idolatry that all the Signs and Wonders they saw in Egypt in the Red-Sea and in the Wilderness could not perfectly cure them but whenever they had opportunity they joined themselves to the Heathen gods ate of their Sacrifices and bowed themselves before them that had these men gone into Canaan which was then a Land of Idolaters they would certainly have worshipped their gods instead of destroying them and have mingled themselves with the People of the Land and have learnt their Manners for they who so often tempted God and disobeyed Moses while they were in the Wilderness in expectation of the Promised Land what would they have done had they been once possessed of it So that to have given that Generation of men Possession of Canaan would not have answered God's orginal Design in chusing Israel for his peculiar People for in all likelihood they would have proved a Nation of Idolaters like the other Nations round about them And therefore God deferred the final Accomplishment of his Promise till that Generation was all dead and a new Generation sprung up which knew not Egypt nor had conversed with Idolatrous Nations but had seen the Wonders of God in the Wilderness and had learnt his Statutes and Judgments and were sufficiently warned by the Example of their Fathers whose Carcasses fell in the Wilderness to fear and reverence the Lord Iehovah and to make him their Trust. This is the very Account the Scripture gives of it and thus accordingly it proved for that new Generation of men were never charged with Idolatry but we are expresly told That Israel served the Lord all the days of Ioshua and all the days of the Elders that overlived Ioshua and which had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel 24. Josh. 31. All this we see was designed by God with admirable Wisdom to make his own Glory and Power known and to publish his Choice of Israel for his peculiar People and to prepare them for himself and to establish his Name and Worship among them And now God had made them fit Inhabitants of the Land of Promise without any longer delay he gives them the actual Possession of it and therefore let us now follow them into the Land of Canaan The History of the Wars of Canaan is sufficiently known which presents us with new Wonders and Miracles not inferior to those which God wrought in Egypt and in the Red Sea for God so visibly fought the Battels of Israel that they and all the world might know that it was he that gave them possession of that good Land and drove out those wicked Inhabitants before them which declared his Glory and made his Power known And what I have already discoursed concerning the Wonders and Miracles in Egypt is equally applicable to this and I need add no more Let us then consider Israel in possession of the Land of Promise And there are but two things more I shall observe in the Iewish History till the coming of our Saviour 1. Their frequent
them the Types and Prophecies of the Messias and punished them very severely when they worshipped any other Gods sent them into captivity and by various Providences scattered them almost over the face of the whole Earth and thereby propagated the knowledge of himself and of his Laws and the Prophecies of the Messias made numerous Proselites to the Worship of the One Supream God and made ready a people prepared for the Lord and then Christ came And what sooner time you fix on for the appearance of Christ you will find it either before God had tried all other Methods for the reforming the world or before the world was prepared for the receiving of Christ. And having thus in the best manner I could represented to you the wonderful Wisdom of Providence from the beginning of the World to the appearance of Christ in the Flesh in some of the most remarkable Events which have happened I shall here break off for though the Wisdom of Providence is not less wonderful in those various Events which have happened to the Christian Church yet that is so large a Subject and the Accounts of many things so imperfect or doubtful that I shall leave it to men of greater leisure and better skill and judgment in Secular and Ecclesiastical Story But I hope that imperfect Account I have now given will teach you to reverence not to censure the Wisdom of Providence for if we who understand so little of God's ways can see such Excellent Wisdom in them what unsearchable depths and mysteries of Wisdom are there which we can't discover But yet to compleat the Iewish History as far as the Scripture-account goes it will be necessary to take notice of the final Destruction of Ierusalem by the Romans which put an end to their State and Government and dispersed them into so many different Countries for it seems very surprizing that God should cast off his People who were in Covenant with him and to whom the Promises of the Messias were peculiarly made so soon after the appearance of the Messias in the world And therefore to vindicate both the truth and faithfulness of God's Promise to Abraham and the Wisdom of his Providence in the final overthrow and dispersion of the Iewish Nation we must distinguish as St. Paul frequently does especially in Rom. 9. between the Carnal and the Spiritual Seed of Abraham the Children of the Flesh and the Children of the Promise Those who descended from Abraham by Carnal Generation and those who were the Children of Abraham by faith in Christ Jesus 3. Galat. 26 29. The Carnal Posterity of Abraham were chosen by God for his peculiar People to preserve his own Name and Worship among them and for this purpose they were to be a distinct Nation separated from the rest of the world and had the Land of Canaan given them to live in and they were to continue so till the coming of the Messias according to Iacob's Prophesy The scepter shall not depart from Iudah nor a Law-giver from between his feet until Shiloh come and to him shall the gathering of the people be 49. Genes 10. But the Blessings of the Messias were promised only to the Spiritual Seed of Abraham as St. Paul proves 9. Rom. 3. Gal. That is to all those whether Iews or Gentiles who believe in Christ Jesus for Christ was the true promised Seed and in Christ are all the Promises of God Yea and Amen and therefore nothing but faith in Christ can entitle us to the Promise of Abraham as the Apostle in these places confirms by several Arguments which I cannot now insist on Now if we thus distinguish between Abraham's Carnal and Spiritual Seed and those Promises which belong to Abraham's Carnal Posterity and those which peculiarly belong to his Spiritual Seed there will appear no great difficulty in God's destroying the City and Temple of Ierusalem and dispersing the Iews into all parts of the Earth God had accomplished what he intended by the Carnal Posterity of Abraham that is he had preserved and propagated the knowledge of the One True God in the world and prepared men to receive Christ when he should be preached to them and now Christ was come the Spiritual Covenant took place which was not confined to Abraham's Carnal Posterity but extended to all that believed in Christ all the world over So that God had no longer any one Nation for his peculiar People but those only were his peculiar People whatever Nation they were of who believe in Jesus The Iews then considered as Abraham's Carnal Posterity were God's peculiar People no longer nor did God's Promise oblige him to preserve them a distinct Nation any longer and therefore the Divine Providence might now as justly destroy them as any other Nation if they deserved it and certainly the Crucifixion of their Messias and their obstinate Infidelity did deserve it And when they had thus justly deserved a final Excision the Divine Wisdom had admirable Ends to serve by it This gave a glorious Testimony to Christ and his Religion in that terrible Vengeance which befel his Murtherers which Christ himself had so expresly and punctually foretold That no man who knew what he had foretold with so many particular circumstances could be ignorant why Ierusalem was destroyed The obstinate Infidelity of the Iews who blasphemed the Name and persecuted the Disciples of Christ did in some degree hinder the progress of the Gospel among the Gentiles but the Destruction of Ierusalem and the miraculous Preservation of the Christians was so visible a Testimony to Christianity and delivered the Christian Church from such bitter and implacable Enemies that the Gospel had a freer passage and prevailed mightily in the world And the Dispersion of the Iews into all Countries as before it spread the Knowledge of the One True God so now it made them unwilling Witnesses to Christianity as being the visible triumph of the Crucified Jesus In a word When all Mankind were Idolaters God chose the Posterity of Abraham and multiplied them into a great Nation to preserve and propagate the Knowledge and Worship of the One Supreme God and to prepare men to receive the Gospel which would in time extirpate all Pagan Idolatries Wen Christ was come and the Gospel preached to the world God rejected that Nation for their Infidelity and by that means gave a freer passage to the Gospel among the Gentiles and St. Paul intimates That the time will come when the Sincere Faith and Exemplary Piety of the Christian Church shall contribute as much to the Conversion of the Iews as they formerly did to the Conversion of the Gentiles for this seems to be the sum of the Apostle's reasoning with which I shall conclude this Argument 11. Rom. 30 c. For as ye in times past have not believed God yet now have obtained mercy through their unbelief Even so have these also now not believed that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy
36. Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites because ye build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous and say if we had been in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets Wherefore ye be witnesses unto your selves that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets fill ye up then the measure of your fathers sins Wherefore behold I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes and some of them shall ye kill and crucifie and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias Son of Barachias whom ye slew between the temple and the altar God may wait with patience upon a wicked Nation or a wicked Family but when they sin on from one Generation to another it all aggravates the account and when God sees it time to punish makes the punishment very severe or final 2dly The Righteous Posterity of good men are rewarded also for their Fathers sake for he sheweth mercy to thousands of them that love him and keep his commandments A Wicked Son may receive a great many Temporal Blessings from God for the sake of a Righteous Father for it is evident from Scripture that God shews great Favour and exercises great Patience to bad men for the sake of the good but the Promise is made only to the Righteous Seed of Good men for tho it does not unbecome the Divine Goodness to shew favour to bad men especially when it is for the sake of the righteous which makes it the reward and encouragement of Vertue yet it does not seem fitting to make any general Promise of favour to them which would be an Encouragement of Vice The Righteous Seed then of Good men shall be blessed but so shall the Righteous Seed of Wicked men be and what peculiar Priviledge is this to the Good I answer When God promises to bless the Righteous Posterity of Good men if it contain any thing peculiar which God has not so expresly promised to other good men it must signify a more certain and a more lasting Prosperity in this world All good men are not prosperous in this world nor has God any where promised that they shall be so no more than all wicked men are visibly punished here but as God visits the Iniquities of the Fathers upon their Children by executing a more speedy Vengeance on the Wicked Children of Wicked Parents so the Righteous Children of Righteous Parents shall be more certainly prosperous than other good men and the more uninterrupted successions there are of such Righteous Parents and Righteous Children the deeper root they shall take and be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters that bringeth forth his fruit in his season his leaf also shall not wither and what soever he doth shall prosper 1. Psal. 3. This may suffice for a short Representation of this case and as it is thus stated it is manifest That there is no Injustice in it let us then consider what Wise Ends it serves both with respect to Parents and to Children and to the Justification of Providence 1. As to Parents If they have any Natural Affection to their Children this is a very powerful Argument to restrain them from Vice and to excite them to Virtue Most of the Labour and Toil which men undergo is for the sake of their Children to provide for them while they live and to leave them in easy and happy Circumstances when they dye to raise and perpetuate a Family and to secure them as far as it is possible from all adverse events But how successful soever Bad men may be in raising an Estate they build upon a Sandy Foundation and leave a very perishing Inheritance to their Children especially if they raise an Estate by Injustice and Oppression by defrauding God and the Poor of their Portion which many times makes it moulder away in the hands even of a Righteous Heir The more prosperous a wicked man is the more likely is his Posterity to be miserable if he propagate his Vices to them for God will at one time or other reckon with wicked Families as well as men and that will be a Terrible Account when the wickedness of his father shall be remembred before the Lord and the sin of his mother shall not be blotted out 109. Psal. 14. And what an Encouragement is this to Good men tho they themselves should be unfortunate in the world to know That their Posterity shall reap the Rewards of their Virtue that if their Children should be wicked there is some reason to hope that they may be more gently used and it may be receive many Temporal Blessings for their sakes but if they be Righteous they shall then take root and flourish in the earth that the little which the Righteous man hath righteously got shall prove a better a more lasting and increasing Inheritance than the Riches of many wicked and that a Liberal Charity which some men think is to defraud their Children shall prove like Seed sown in the earth which repays all with a plentiful Harvest It is certain were this firmly believed and well considered it would lay the greatest obligation in the world both on Bad and Good men to take care of the Religious and Vertuous Education of their Children The only way wicked men have to cut off the intail of Misery from their Families and to secure their Children from that Vengeance which their own sins have deserved is to train them up in Piety and Vertue and the only way Good men have to intitle their Children to those Temporal Blessings wherewith God thinks fit to reward their Vertues upon their Posterity which is the best Inheritance they can leave them is to make them Good The wicked Children of wicked Parents have their own and their Fathers sins to hasten and increase their punishments and the Righteous Children of Righteous Parents have their own and their Fathers Vertues to secure and to augment their rewards 2. As for Children What greater obligation than this could be laid on them to avoid the evil Examples and to imitate the Vertues of their Parents The Wickedness of their Fathers makes it more dangerous for them to be wicked for when wickedness is intail'd the punishment of wickedness is intail'd too and the longer Judgment has been delayed the nearer it is and the more severe it is like to be The wicked Son of a wicked Father cannot promise himself to escape so well as his Father did because his Father's sins which he imitates calls for a more speedy Vengeance on him either to put a stop to wickedness or to root out a wicked Family and to pull down the Leprous house But what an encouragement is it to the Children of Righteous
he shall deliver them from the ungodly and shall save them because they put their trust in him The whole 91 st Psalm is so plain and full a proof of this that I need name no more To trust in God is called dwelling in the secret place of the most high or under the defence and protection of the most high that is such a man puts himself under God's protection and he that does so shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty that is he shall defend thee under his wings and thou shalt be safe under his feathers his faithfulness and truth shall be thy shield and buckler And the Psalmist particularly reckons up most of the evils which are incident to human life and promises security against them all Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge even the most high thy habitation there shall no evil befall thee neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling This Psalm indeed is a Prophecy of our Saviour and in the height and latitude of the expressions is applicable only to him but yet it gives a general security to all who trust in God of Protection from all evil This no man can promise himself who does not trust in God for how is Providence concerned for them who expect nothing from it Nay this is a reason why such men should be disappointed and fall into misery to convince them that God does govern the world and that no human Strength or Policy can save them But Trust in God makes us the Subjects and the Care of Providence for if God does govern the world none so much deserve his Protection as those who commit themselves to his Care A Good Man will not deceive or forsake those who depend on him much less will a Good God Thirdly Another Duty we own to Providence is Prayer to ask of God all those Blessings and Mercies which we need The universal practice of all Nations who owned a God and that Natural Impulse all men find to seek to God in their distress shews what the sense of Nature is but yet some of the Ancient Philosophers were much puzzled how to reconcile Prayer with their Notions of Necessity and Fate and indeed were Providence nothing else but a Necessary Chain of Causes or Fixt and Immutable Decrees there would be no great Encouragement to Pray to God who upon this supposition cannot help us no more than he can alter Destiny and Fate but if God governs the world with as great Liberty and Freedom as a wise and good man governs his Family or a Prince governs his Kingdoms there is as much reason to pray to God as to offer up our Petitions to our Parents or to our Prince for if we must receive all from God what imaginable reason is there that we should not ask every thing of him But it will be necessary to discourse this matter more particularly for we live in an Age wherein men are very apt to reason themselves out of all Religion and to form such Notions of God and his Providence as make it needless nay absurd to worship him The Apostle tells us That he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him 11. Heb. 6. No man can be a devout Worshipper of God who does not believe that there is a God to worship and that this God does take care of mankind and that he has a peculiar Favour for those who worship him that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him For if God neither take any care of us or take no more care of those who worship him than of those who do not there is no just reason can be given why any man should worship him But the Apostle in this supposes That to believe there is a God and that he governs the world and that we shall be the better for worshipping is a reasonable Foundation for Religious Worship and therefore such Notions of God and his Providence as allow no peculiar Rewards and Benefits to Worshippers are certainly False how Philosophical soever they may appear and Impious too because they shut all Religious Worship out of the world And yet some men can by no means understand for what reason they should pray to God they comply with the Superstitious Customs of the Countrey to avoid Scandal and Publick Censure but think they might as well let it alone as for any advantage they hope for by their Prayers And I am very much of their mind that they had as good not be present at Prayers as not to pray for no man can pray to any advantage who despises Prayer It will therefore be highly necessary plainly to state this matter and to shew you That the belief of the Divine Providence lays the strongest Obligation on us to pray to God The Scripture-Proofs of this are so plain that they cannot be avoided and so well known that I need not at large repeat them There is no Duty we are more frequently commanded none we are more earnestly exhorted to than to pray to God we have the Examples of all good men for it and of Christ himself who spent whole nights in Prayer and we have the encouragement of as express Promises as any in Scripture That if we pray to God he will hear and answer us which is all the Encouragement we can desire for our Prayers As the Psalmist speaks O thou that hearest prayers unto thee shall all flesh come 65. Psal. 2. To thee they shall pray because thou hearest Prayers For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee In the day of my trouble will I call upon thee for thou wilt answer me 86. Psal. 5 7. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him to all that call upon him in truth He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him he also will hear their cry and will save them 145. Psal. 18 19. But nothing can be more express than our Saviour's Promise Ask and it shall be given unto you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you For every one that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened 7. Matt. 7 8. And what great things are attributed in Scripture to the Power of Prayer St. Iames assures us That the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much and proves it from the Example of Elias who was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months and he prayed again and the heavens gave rain and the earth brought forth fruit 5. James 17 18. And all those Wonders which the Apostle to the Hebrews attributes to Faith belong to this Prayer of Faith 11. Heb. 32 33 34. For this