Why did he give Grace to Abel and not to Cain since they both lay in the same womb and equally deriv'd from their Parents a taint in their Nature But that he would show a standing example of his Soveraignty to the future ages of the World in the first posterity of man Why did he give Grace to Abraham and separate him from his Idolatrous Kindred to dignifie him to be the root of the Messiah Why did he confine his promise to Isaac and not extend it to Ishmael the Seed of the same Abraham by Hagar or to the Children he had by Keturah after Sarahs death What reason can be alledged for this but his Soveraign Will Why did he not give the fallen Angels a moment of Repentance after their sin but condemned them to irrevocable pains Is it not as free for him to give Grace to whom he please as Create what Worlds he please to form this corrupted clay into his own Image as to take such a parcel of dust from all the rest of the Creation whereof to compact Adam's body Hath he not as much jurisdiction over the sinful mass of his Creatures in a new Creation as he had over the Chaos in the old And what reason can be rendered of his advancing this part of matter to the nobler dignity of a Star and leaving that other part to make up the dark body of the Earth To compact one part into a glorious Sun and another part into a hard Rock but his Royal Prerogative What is the reason a Prince subjects one Malefactor to punishment and lifts up another to a place of truth and profit That Pharoah honoured the Butler with an attendance on his Person and remitted the Baker to the hands of the Executioner It was his pleasure And is not as great a right due to God as is allow'd to the worms of the Earth What is the reason he hardens a Pharoah by a denying him that Grace which should mollifie him and allows it to another 'T is because he will Rom. 9.18 Whom he will he hardens Hath not man the liberty to pull up the sluce and let the water run into what part of the ground he pleases What is the reason some have not a heart to understand the beauty of his ways Because the Lord doth not give it them Deut. 29.4 Why doth he not give all his converts an equal measure of his sanctifying Grace some have Mites and some have Treasures Why doth he give his Grace to some sooner to some later some are inspir'd in their infancy others not till a full age and after some not till they have fallen into some gross sin as Paul some betimes that they may do him service others later as the Thief upon the Cross and presently snatcheth them out of the World Some are weaker some stronger in nature some more beautiful and lovely others more uncomely and sluggish 'T is so in supernaturals What reason is there for this but his own will This is instead of all that can be assigned on the part of God He is the free disposer of his own Goods and as a Father may give a greater portion to one Child than to another And what reason of complaint is there against God may not a Toad complain that God did not make it a man and give it a portion of reason Or a Fly complain that God did not make it an Angel and give it a Garment of Light had they but any spark of understanding as well as man complain that God did not give him Grace as well as another Unless he sincerely desir'd it and then was denyed it he might complain of God though not as Soveraign yet as a promiser of Grace to them that ask it God doth not render his Soveraignty formidable he shuts not up his Throne of Grace from any that seek him he invites man his Arms are open and the Scepter stretched out and no man continues under the arrest of his Lusts but he that is unwilling to be otherwise and such a one hath no reason to complain of God 3. His Soveraignty is manifest in disposing the means of Grace to some not to all He hath caus'd the Sun to shine bright in one place while he hath left others benighted and deluded by the Devils Oracles Why do the Evangelical dews fall in this or that place and not in another Why was the Gospel publisht in Rome so soon and not in Tartary Why hath it been extinguisht in some places as soon almost as it had been kindled in them Why hath one place been honoured with the beams of it in one age and been covered with darkness the next One Country hath been made a sphear for this Star that directs to Christ to move in and afterwards it hath been taken away and placed in another Sometimes more clearly it hath shone sometimes more darkly in the same place what is the reason of this 'T is true something of it may be referred to the Justice of God but much more to the Soveraignty of God That the Gospel is publisht latter and not sooner the Apostle tell us is according to the Commandement of the Everlasting God Rom. 16.26 1. The means of Grace after the Families from Adam became distinct were never granted to all the World After that fatal breach in Adam's Family by the death of Abel and Cain's separation we read not of the means of Grace continued among Cain's Posterity it seems to be continued in Adam's sole Family and not publisht in Societies till the time of Seth. Gen. 4.26 Then began men to call upon the Name of the Lord. It was continued in that Family till the Deluge which was 1523 years after the Creation according to some or 1656 years according to others After that when the World degenerated it was communicated to Abraham and setled in the posterity that descended from Jacob Though he left not the World without a witness of himself and some sprinklings of revelations in other parts as appears by the book of Job and the discourses of his Friends 2. The Jews had this priviledge granted them above other Nations to have a clearer Revelation of God God separated them from all the World to honour them with the depositum of his Oracles Rom. 3.2 To them were committed the Oracles of God In which regard all other Nations are said to be without God as being destitute of so great a priviledge Eph. 2.12 The Spirit blew in Canaan when the Lands about it felt not the saving breath of it He hath not dealt so with any Nation and as for his Judgments they have not known them Psal 147.20 The rest had no warnings from the Prophets no dictates from Heaven but what they had by the light of Nature the view of the works of Creation and the Administration of Providence and what remain'd among them of some ancient Traditions deriv'd from Noah which in tract of time were much defaced We read but
the battle when they will rebell against the light God doth often leave them to their own course sentence him that is filthy to be filthy still ‖ Reve. 22.11 which is a righteous act of God as he is Rector and Governor of the World Man's not receiving or not improving what God gives is the cause of Gods not giving further or taking away his own which before he had bestowed This is so far from being repugnant to the Holiness and Righteousness of God that it is rather a commendable act of his Holiness and Righteousness as the Rector of the World not to let those gifts continue in the hand of a man who abuses them contrary to his glory Who will blame a Father that after all the good Counsels he hath given his Son to reclaim him all the Corrections he hath inflicted on him for his irregular practice leaves him to his own courses and withdraws those assistances which he scoft at and turned the deaf Ear unto Or who will blame the Physician for deserting the Patient who rejects his Counsel will not follow his Prescriptions but dasheth his Physick against the Wall No man will blame him no man will say that he is the cause of the Patients death but the true cause is the fury of the Distemper and the obstinacy of the diseased Person to which the Physician left him And who can justly blame God in this case who yet never denied supplies of Grace to any that sincerely sought it at his hands and what man is there that lies under a hardness but first was guilty of very provoking sins What unholiness is it to deprive men of those assistances because of their sin and afterwards to direct those counsels and practices of theirs which he hath justly given them up unto to serve the ends of his own glory in his own methods 4. Which will appear further by considering that God is not oblig'd to continue his Grace to them It was at his liberty whither he could give any renewing Grace to Adam after his fall or to any of his Posterity He was at his own liberty to withold it or communicate it But if he were under any Obligation then surely he must be under less now since the multiplication of Sin by his Creatures But if the Obligation were none just after the fall there is no pretence now to fasten any such Obligation on God That God had no Obligation at first hath been spoken to before He is less obliged to continue his Grace after a repeated refusal and a peremptory abuse than he was bound to proffer it after the first Apostacy God cannot be charg'd with unholiness in withdrawing his Grace after we have received it unless we can make it appear that his Grace was a thing due to us as we are his Creatures and as he is Governor of the World What Prince looks upon himself as oblig'd to reside in any particular place of his Kingdom But suppose he be bound to inhabit in one particular City yet after the City rebells against him is he bound to continue his Court there spend his Revenue among Rebels endanger his own Honour and Security inlarge their Charter or maintain their Ancient Priviledges Is it not most just and righteous for him to withdraw himself and leave them to their own Tumultuousness and Sedition whereby they should eat the fruit of their own doings If there be an Obligation on God as a Governor it would rather lie on the side of Justice to leave Man to the Power of the Devil whom he courted and the prevalency of those Lusts he hath so often caressed and wrap up in a Cloud all his common Illuminations and leave him destitute of all common workings of his Spirit 8. Proposition Gods Holiness is not blemisht by his commanding those things sometimes which seem to be against Nature or thwart some other of his Precepts As when God commanded Abraham with his own hand to Sacrifice his Son * Gen. 22.2 there was nothing of Unrighteousness in it God hath a Soveraign Dominion over the lives and beings of his creatures whereby as he creates one day he might annihilate the next and by the same right that he might demand the life of Isaac as being his Creature he might demand the Obedience of Abraham in a ready return of that to him which he had so long enjoy'd by his grant 'T is true killing is unjust when it is done without cause and by a private Authority But the Authority of God surmounts all private and Publick Authority whatsoever Our lives are due to him when he calls for them and they are more than once forfeit to him by reason of Transgression But howsoever the case is God commanded him to do it for the trial of his Grace but suffered him not to do it in favour to his ready Obedience But had Isaac been actually slain and offer'd how had it been unrighteous in God who enacts Laws for the Regulation of his Creature but never intended them to the prejudice of the Rights of his Soveraignty Another Case is that of the Israelites borrowing Jewels of the Egyptians by the order of God †Exod. 11.2.3 Exod. 12.36 Is not God Lord of mans goods as well as their lives What have any they have not received that not as Proprietors independent on God but his Stewards and may not he demand a portion of his Steward to bestow upon his Favourite He that had power to dispose of the Egyptians Goods had power to order the Israelites to ask them Besides God acted the part of a just Judge in ordering them their wages for their Service in this method and making their Task-masters give them some recompence for their unjust oppression so many years It was a Command from God therefore rather for the preservation of Justice the Basis of all those Laws which link human Society than any infringement of it It was a material recompence in part though not a formal one in the intention of the Egyptians It was but in part a recompence It must needs come short of the dammage the poor Captives had sustained by the tyranny of their Masters who had inslav'd them contrary to the rules of hospitality and could not make amends for the lives of the poor Infants of Israel whom they had drowned in the River He that might for the unjust oppression of his People have taken away all their Lives destroy'd the whole Nation and put the Israelites into the possession of their Lands could without any unrighteousness dispose of part of their Goods And it was rather an act of Clemency to leave them some part who had doubly forfeited all Again the Egyptians were as ready to lend by Gods influence as the Israelites were to ask by Gods order And though it was a loan God as Soveraign of the World and Lord of the Earth and the fulness thereof alienated the property by assuming them to the use of the
34.12 How despicable is a Judge that wants Innocence As Omniscience fits God to be a Judge so Holiness fits him to be a Righteous Judge Psal 1.6 The Lord knows that is loves the way of the Righteous but the way of the ungodly shall perish 9. Information If Holiness be an eminent Perfection of the Divine Nature The Christian Religion is of a Divine Extraction It discovers the Holiness of God and forms the Creature to a conformity to him It gives us a prospect of his Nature represents him in the Beauty of Holiness Psal 110.3 more than the whole Glass of the Creation 'T is in this Evangelical Glass the Glory of the Lord is beheld and rendred amiable and imitable †2 Cor. 3.18 'T is a Doctrine according to Godliness 1 Tim. 6.3 directing us to live the Life of God a life worthy of God and worthy of our first Creation by his hand It takes us off from our selves fixeth us upon a Noble End points our Actions and the scope of our lives to God It quells the Monsters of Sin discountenanceth the Motes of Wickedness and it is no mean Argument for the Divinity of it that it sets us no lower a Pattern for our Imitation than the Holiness of the Divine Majesty God is exalted upon the Throne of his Holiness in it and the Creature advanc'd to an Image and resemblance of it 1 Pet. 1.16 Be ye holy for I am holy Vse 2. The Second use is for Comfort This Attribute frowns upon Lapsed Nature but smiles in the Restorations made by the Gospel Gods Holiness in conjunction with his Justice is Terrible to a guilty Sinner but now in conjunction with his Mercy by the Satisfaction of Christ 't is sweet to a Believing Penitent In the first Covenant the Purity of his Nature was joyned with the Rigours of his Justice In the second Covenant the Purity of his Nature is joyned with the Sweetness and Tenderness of his Mercy In the one Justice flames against the Sinner in the right of Injur'd Holiness In the other Mercy yearns towards a Believer with the consent of Righted Holiness To rejoyce in the Holiness of God is the true and genuine Spirit of a Renewed Man My heart rejoyceth in the Lord what follows There is none holy as the Lord 1 Sam. 2.1 2. Some Perfections of the Divine Nature are Astonishing some Affrighting but this may may fill us both with Astonishment at it and a Joy in it 1. By Covenant we have an Interest in this Attribute as well as any other In that Clause of Gods being our God entire God with all his Glory all his Perfections are past over as a portion and a gracious Soul is brought into Union with God as his God Not with a part of God but with God in the Simplicity Extent Integrity of his Nature and therefore in this Attribute And upon some account it may seem more in this Attribute than in any other for if he be our God he is our God in his Life and Glory and therefore in his Purity especially without which he could not live he could not be happy and blessed Little comfort will it be to have a dead God or a vile God made over to us And as by this Covenant he is our Father so he gives us his Nature and communicates his Holiness in all his Dispensations and in those that are severest as well as those that are sweetest Heb. 12.10 But he corrects us for our profit that we might be partakers of his Holiness Not simply partakers of Holiness but of his Holiness to have a Portrayture of it in our Nature a Meddal of it in our hearts a spark of the same Nature with that Immense splendor and flame in himself The Holiness of a Covenant Soul is a resemblance of the Holiness of God and formed by it As the Picture of the Sun in a Cloud is a fruit of his Beams and an Image of its Author The fulness of the Perfection of Holiness remains in the Nature of God as the fulness of the Light doth in the Sun yet there are transmissions of Light from the Sun to the Moon and it is a Light of the same Nature both in the one and in the other The Holiness of a Creature is nothing else but a reflection of the Divine Holiness upon it and to make the Creature capable of it God takes various methods according to his Covenant Grace 2. This Attribute renders God a fit Object for Trust and Dependance The Notion of an Unholy and Unrighteous God is an uncomfortable Idea of him and beats off our hands from laying any hold of him 'T is upon this Attribute the Reputation and Honour of God in the World is built What encouragement can we have to believe him or what Incentives could we have to serve him without the lustre of this in his Nature The very thought of an Unrighteous God is enough to drive Men at the greatest distance from him As the Honesty of a Man gives a reputation to his Word so doth the Holiness of God give credit to his Promise 'T is by this he would have us stifle our Fears and fortifie our Trust Isai 41.14 Fear not thou worm Jacob and ye men of Israel I will help thee saith the Lord and thy Redeemer the holy one of Israel He will be in his Actions what he is in his Nature Nothing shall make him defile his own Excellency Unrighteousness is the ground of Mutability but the Promise of God doth never fail because the rectitude of his Nature doth never languish Were his Attributes without the conduct of this they would be altogether formidable As this is the glory of all his other Perfections so this only renders him comfortable to a Believing Soul Might we not fear his Power to crush us his Mercy to overlook us his Wisdom to design against us if this did not influence them What an oppression is Power without Righteousness in the hand of a Creature destructive instead of protecting The Devil is a mighty Spirit but not fit to be trusted because he is an Impure Spirit When God would give us the highest Security of the sincerity of his Intentions he swears by this Attribute †Psal 8.35 His Holiness as well as his Truth is laid to pawn for the Security of his Promise As we make God the Judge between us and others when we swear by him so he makes his Holiness the Judge between himself and his People when he swears by it 1. 'T is this renders him fit to be confided in for the answer of our Prayers This is tâ—e ground of his readiness to give * Matth. 7.11 If you being evil know how to give good gifts how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good thâ—ngâ— to them that ask him Though the holiness of God be not mention'd yet it is to be understood the Emphasis lies in those words if you being evil