only sufficient but inefficacious and that its Efficacy must be by the Creature I do conceive that the entring into the Covenant of Grace may be in the way of Adoration thus My God I do believe that thou delightest not in the Death of Sinners but rather that they should repent and live in thy Favour eternally who feel Sin to be a Burden and do not cleave to any known Sin but betake themselves to thee to be delivered from it and to become thy Servants trusting in thee for all things necessary for Holiness and Happiness I am sensible of the Bondage of my Sin and that I am not able to free my self from that Bondage yet I believe thou hast offered to enable me and do humbly accept thy Offer purchased through Christ the Mediator and do resign my self to be directed by thy holy Spirit in the way of Holiness to Happiness Here are all the Essentials of a Covenant God's Offer manifested to the Conscience believed and accepted wherewith the Believer as by the Offer he was called so the Call is made effectual by Justification Reconciliation Pardon Conversion Regeneration Adoption and by giving the Habits of Holiness never to be eradicated This Act of Faith is by the Apostle Paul to the Romans called the embracing the Atonement and to the Hebrews the embracing the Promises by the Apostle John the coming to Christ to be saved All the Terms of God's Offer and his enabling the Sinner to accept are at once and together and tho there be many Expressions thereof in Scripture they are not all different nor is there necessity of an express Thought of them in entering the Covenant of Grace neither is this exclusive of what other way God may take to glorify those who cannot expresly thus believe for it is not necessary for us to know it seeing the Scripture is all directed to Hearers and Believers and doth not specially reveal God's other ways of Salvation tho what was said of Children in Scripture is all to their Advantage yet nothing is specially express'd of the manner or measure of it I know not any Conception possible which could so much exalt the Justice the Mercy and the Faithfulness of God leaving nothing to the Creature to attribute any part of its Happiness to it self which could be consistent with a Covenant between God and the saved Soul which is confirmed by the whole stream of Scripture In this Act all the former Expressions in Scripture of Conversion and Regeneration are implied Yet this Objection ariseth that this Conception makes the saving Act of Faith to consist without the Habit of Faith and makes the Habit of Faith to be on God's part of the Covenant of Grace This will easily be cleared by considering that God works in and by Creatures by giving and preserving in them Inclinations which are the Principles of their Actings No considerate Man dare say that God cannot give an operative Inclination for one single Act as well as for one Species of Acts without which it were impossible to explicate his Dominion and therefore he may well give the effectual Inclination to imbrace the Offer of Conversion without giving the Habit for exerting all the Acts of Faith which is no less a Christian Vertue or Grace than Love or any other and there is nothing can more clearly difference the saving Act of Faith from being an Act of Holiness or a Work of the Law yea if any require the Accuracy of the Schools they will find there is a Disposition differenced from an Habit. This Objection doth also occur that Acceptance of an Offer is no Act of believing for which there is no ground For the Acceptance must imply the sense of a Motion to repent or return or to admit of Conversion which is an Act of the Understanding and is such an Act of Faith as is the believing the Scripture to be the Word of God but the Acceptance implies also a Trust or relying upon God that he will make good his Offer to the Person trusting This Difficulty did also offer it self to me that this way of Salvation and of the Covenant of Grace makes too much to depend upon the Creature If all that do not reject the Offer of Conversion and Holiness be elected Election is not so free as the Scripture holdeth it forth and one Creature makes it self to differ from another whereas the Scripture saith Who hath made thee to differ There is a necessity either to refuse or to choose and if there can be a middle Condition between refusing and choosing there is no Warrant to make such Difference between refusing and not refusing I thank God that hath fully cleared me in all these for as to God's Freedom in Election it is not incroached upon by his acting like himself he was under no Obligation or Necessity to have elected or recovered any of the Race of fallen Adam but to manifest the exceeding abundance of the Riches of his Grace he did freely elect all that with Congruity to his Nature were eligible rejecting none but those that would refuse his Offer and not all those but prevailing by the superabundance of his Grace against the Resistance of some of those especially upon his Kindness to their Fathers How often doth he shew Mercy to rebellious Israel remembring Abraham Isaac and Jacob his Servants tho by many Generations distant from them How much more the nearer Seed of his eminently faithful Servants and yet freely for these Fathers could not merit Happiness for themselves much less for their Children and the saying Who hath made thee to differ cannot be opposed to a Difference in a greater degree of Evil For certainly he that sinneth against the Holy Ghost makes himself so to differ from another obstinate Sinner so that it can only be meant of doing any good and holy Deed in order to Salvation That there is a middle State between accepting and rejecting any Offer is without question First Negatively by not noticing or considering it which requires no positive Act. 2. By a positive Act resolving to take it into Consideration presently or at a convenient time when there shall be most opportunity without Diversion to ponder it 3. By inventing collecting and comparing the Reasons and Motives on both parts which in the most weighty Cases may require long Time and much Deliberation 4. By Irresolution vacillating and doubting what is to be preferred And lastly by suspending the Resolution or Choice when yet there appears Reasons of Preference and therefore God saith to the Church of Thiatira of Jezebel That he gave her space to repent of her Fornications and she repented not There is nothing more clear and frequently inculcated in Scripture than the attributing of the Misery and perishing of the Wicked to their refusing the Offer of Grace or equivalent Expressions And 1. There can nothing signify more Aversion to a motioned Offer than not so much as to hear it for those who see
Covenanters by their Choice and Consent both as to the Matter and Manner There be Covenants where the Performances are of equivalent Value deserving each other but it were Arrogance enough for Adam to have thought the Covenant of Works were such and it were Insolence to imagine the Covenant of Grace to be such As in the Covenant of Works there were two Branches a Covenant between God and Adam for himself and his Posterity and if he had stood there behoved to have been a Covenant between God and each of his Elect Posterity particularly for himself The Word makes it appear to be so in the Covenant of Grace the Father did covenant with the Son foreknowing Adam's Fall to become the second Adam to restore and exceed that which was known the first would lose by assuming the Nature of the first Adam and with it not only performing that in which Adam failed by not continuing in Integrity performing the whole Will of God and thereby putting all Mankind in a nearer Capacity to Blessedness than Adam had done tho he had stood for there is no ground to think his Posterity would have been confirmed without their own Trial more than he but the second Adam put not only all Mankind out of the Necessity of Misery but it became effectual unto all so far as it was congruous to the Divine Perfections which could not admit of Reconciliation with Sinners cleaving to their Sin or of those who partaking of Divine Illumination and of the Tastes of the Powers of the World to come should despightfully hate the Spirit the Worker of these All the rest of Mankind as the Father foreknew them and predestinated them to be conformed to the Son so the Son undertook effectually to redeem them and glorify them and the Holy Ghost to call them sanctify and preserve them The second Adam did undertake yet much more than the First to satisfy the Justice and manifest the Purity of God more than if all Mankind had perished This Branch of the Covenant of Grace is compleat as to the Elect that could not through Incapacity covenant for themselves but those that could were to have the Offer of the Covenant of Grace made to them by their Vocation tho not to all in equal Fulness and Clearness It was not sutable to the Wisdom of God that those who rejected the first Operations of the Spirit intimating to them that they were Sinners deserving Exclusion from God's Favour and yet that God was merciful to Penitents and would make them Holy and Happy if they did not obstinately cleave to their Sins and reject that Motion but in the rest and even in some of these Rejecters God carrieth on the Work of Sanctification and Salvation in his own Way bringing such to the Light of the Gospel or the Light of the Gospel to them and opening their Eyes to see the Wonders of his Law and to discern spiritual Things and giving them the Inclination to accept of the Offer of the Covenant of Grace and to enter in it for themselves by that saving Act of Faith which is all their Part in the Covenant of Grace Of this we have two eminent Examples in Scripture the one Personal the other National by Miracles manifested to the two great Apostles Peter and Paul That of Peter was from Cornelius who neither was a Jew nor a Proselyte but was come the Length of natural Religion to worship only the one God to whom an Angel was sent from God to show him how he should worship the true God aright The other was by a Vision to the Apostle Paul of a Man of Macedonia beseeching him to go to that People to help them who for ought doth appear were then Heathens It doth not suffice to a distinct Knowledg of the Covenant of Grace to know that by Faith we are saved but those who have Capacity ought to enquire what that Faith is whether it be the Habit of Faith or an Act of Faith whether it be a special Act of Faith and what that is whether it be one single Act only or if to be renewed and whether it be saving by any thing in itself and if we may perceive any Consideration why God made that Act of Faith Man's Part of the Covenant rather than any other As to the first Point to have Faith and to believe are used as equivalent Terms both in common Use and in the Scripture but in a great Latitude for to believe doth oftentimes signify a Judgment of the Truth of any Proposition Men do believe that is they think likely or probable whatever the Ground of their Opinion be but more strictly Belief is taken for a Judgment which hath for its Motive the Perfections of some Person expressing it endued with such Perfections as may warrant an Assent without any other Reason That Person must be a vertuous Person from whose Actings it appears that he doth own the Principles of Morality and hath no Tentation to fail in the Application of them in that Point so not only a Liar but a vitious Person or one in Necessity or biassed by Favour or Hatred in Prudence is not a credible Person or if the Matter be that which is not the particular Object of that Sense which he hath in Vigour it is but a Matter of Opinion Faith upon account of credibility is to be attributed to God alone absolutely who can neither be ignorant err be biassed mistaken or deceived and is Infinite in moral Perfection Creatures may also be trusted in defferent Degrees according to the Moment of the Matter But no Man ought to trust any Creature as to the Necessaries of his Salvation but God alone immediately or by Mediation of those that have his evident Credentials This kind of Faith is a Prerequisite to the Covenant of Grace but no Part of it For the Devils do thus believe and tremble they know God to be certainly true and that all he expresseth is true whatever improbability might arise against it There is yet a stricter Sense of Believing or Faith whereby one expects good from another when it is sutable to him to give or do it and to the other to receive it In this Sense we do not say one believeth another but he believeth in him he trusteth to him he leans relies and rests upon him The Object of this Faith is Faithfulness It doth not arise alone upon the Veracity or Truth of the Person trusted but requires many other Perfections that he be Benign and Gracious that he be Powerful and Plentiful as to that wherein he is trusted It does not require his Promise which would make the thing expected an Act of Justice but the Excellency of his Nature so Creatures may and do trust to Creatures according to their Perfections A Secret may be trusted to a faithful Person tho neither Powerful nor Rich and if Experience hath shown him to be trusty it will be a Confidence without all doubt he is
The safe meaning can only be that that which may innocently be presumed to be the Will of God isnot always truly his Will As when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his Son Isaac Abraham did sincerely intend to do it as innocently conceiving it to be the Will of God consistent with his Promise That in Isaac should all Nations be blessed knowing that God could and believing that he would restore sacrificed Isaac to Life again in which Belief he did not sin tho he erred by an innocent Mistake supposing that to be sure which was not for when he lifted up his Hand with the Knife to give the deadly Blow he had little ground to doubt of the Effect and consequently of the Will of God yet by God's stopping him even in that Posture he knew he was mistaken of the Will of God But from such rare Cases it is not safe to conclude upon the Will of God as did Jonah upon the Command given him to preach to Nineveh that within forty days it would be destroyed which being a Threatning designed for Repentance and not for a meer Prediction had both by Reason and Revelation implied the Mercy of God upon Repentance though it was not Repentance unto Life nor universal and which if it had been expressed Jonah would have had no pretence for his Anger that the repenting Ninevites were not destroyed This Distinction of the Will of God is also extended by some to his commanding or forbidding Will because his Will is not always that that which he commands should take effect which is more incongruous to the Sincerity of God than the former as if it were not always pleasing and acceptable unto God that his Will should be obeyed even then when he permitteth it to be disobeyed because by his Wisdom he saw it congruous to his own Nature and for his Glory to create his Rational Creatures with Reason and free Choice that they should not act by meer Instinct as Brutes but be governed by Rewards and Punishments which necessarily importeth that sometimes they should be permitted to make wrong use of that Freedom being always over-ruled for his Glory Yet without doubt that in which they miscarry is unacceptable to God and justly punishable by him and so he cannot exert an Act of his Will to effect what he abhorreth and punisheth but he exerteth only a permissive Act which terminates in himself and hath no outward Operation but is immanent and not transient by which he willeth to forbear the exerting of his Will to hinder these Acts in so far as Evil doth necessarily thence result whether it be in the Essence of the Act or in the evil Intention of that which otherwise might be good so that his Command doth not import his Will to operate or effect these things presently or his Intention so to do for the future but his Pleasure in what he commands which is evident by what Paul saith For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour who will have all Men to be saved and to come to the knowledg of the Truth where his Will is exprest to be his Acceptance and his Pleasure but Pleasure is not properly an Act of the Will That Pleasure is no Act of the Will albeit it be very little adverted but on the contrary Pleasure is reckoned among the Appetites or Affections Upon accurate Consideration it will easily appear that Pleasure is neither an Act of the Understanding nor of the Will but of a Power distinct from both for it is a chief Object both of the Understanding and of the Will I do by my Understanding perceive Pleasure when I have it and I know when I have it not albeit I have no Grief or Pain for want of it but am in a middle indifferent State without either Pleasure Pain or Grief And tho this Act of the Understanding may in some sense be said to be a reflexive Act as when I advert and think that I have a Faculty of Understanding or an Act of that Faculty yet I do more reflect upon my Understanding by perceiving Pleasure than by thinking upon my Will or my Locomotive Power if then the Perception of Pleasure be not a reflex Act of the Understanding upon its own Act but by a direct Act perceiving another thing than its own Act it can only be the Object of Understanding and so cannot be the Act of it Pleasure can less be an Act of the Will because it is the chief Object of the Will for we have both Appetite and Desire to have Pleasure when we have it not and to have it continued when we have it and therefore being the Object of the Will it cannot be the Act thereof for the Will doth less reflect upon it self or its own Acts than the Understanding If Pleasure were an Act of the Will it behoved to be in our Power by a sole Act of the Will for Pleasure is no such Perfection as the Will of a natural Man cannot reach If then by willing Pleasure without other Assistance we could have Pleasure who would be so stupid as to want it at any time But I do evidently perceive that I can no more bring forth Pleasure by willing it than I can bring forth Light in Darkness by willing it to be but Pleasure results from the Perception of the pleasing Object by a kind of necessary Emanation which I cannot directly hinder but by diverting my Mind from that Object and applying it to another that can impede the Thoughts of the former I perceive my self to be in the like condition as to Grief or Pain which is a kind of Grief which I can neither make nor mar by willing it without applying my Mind to another Object diverting it from that Object that was the cause of Grief and applying it to another Object strong enough to exclude the former and which can excite an opposite Passion as Admiration which will sometimes wholly take away the most violent Grief or Pain or Pleasure in or desire of another Object And there are but few so Masculine Minds as can by this indirect way take away great Pain or Sorrow tho many may allay or lessen it Therefore Pleasure and Sorrow are not Acts of the Will or Affections nor are to be numbred among Affections but are common Results arising from them and from other Objects and are the Means of Reward and Punishment Happiness and Misery without which Creatures could be capable of neither I may thus safely reason by Inspection in my own Mind and from the specifick Equality of other Men conclude the like of them But I ought with much more tenderness and trembling to make Inferences of the Will of God and yet I know no other Mean to apprehend God's Will but by his own revealing it or by resemblance of Man's Will whom he hath declared to be made after his own Image removing all Imperfection in the Will of Man So then I conceive
first six days These Men had better quit their Grounds than keep them with such Consequences and yet it is from Consequences that they take them up which might be better misbelieved than these tho they had far more probability both from Sense and Reason but if there be Incomprehensibility in either case it ought least to be applied with so great Derogation to the Power of God This Power working immediately by the Act of the Will is an incommunicable Perfection of God and a part of that Glory which he will give to no other and therefore it is impossible that any Creature could create and no more consistent than that God should make more Gods Whatsoever is effectuate by sole Will is an Act of Creation whether it be the Production of a Substance of a Power yea or of a Mode or Accident or any thing above the Powers of Nature or Grace Therefore no Creature can be any more than the Instrument of working a Miracle and that only when God willeth the individual Act and no Creature can have a Power to work Miracles of any kind as the Creature willeth or that God should work a Miracle at the choice of the Creature which were a Dependance unbecoming his Majesty We must not think that the Faith of Miracles was an Arbitrary Habit as when Christ said to his Disciples If ye had Faith as a grain of Mustard-seed ye should say to this Mountain Be removed hence and cast into the Sea it imports no more than that God at that time for Confirmation of the Gospel would make them Instruments of some particular Acts of supernatural Power as he moved them yet not at their Desire but his own There is a groundless Imagination that hath much spread it self That God hath given a Power to all Men or to all Christians to produce Effects in Creatures by their firm and full Perswasion and Desire that these Effects should be and that they are not such Effects is because few or none attain to that Perswasion and so the very Power vanisheth and were frustraneous and inconsistent with the Wisdom of God that doth nothing in vain as well as with the incommunicable Power of God I pray God Men would advert and consider what ground there is to believe that God hath given a Power to a Priest or Minister that at his Desire so oft as he pleases to express the words of Consecration of Bread and Wine in the Eucharist the most stupendous Miracles should then arise of course or that by their Consecration the Elements should have a Power or Efficacy to confer Grace or otherwise to confirm it than that by the solemn Preparation of the Heart and the earnest Prayer of the Creature God would more readily grant their Desire than at other times or how by applying the Water in Baptism at Desire Original Sin should be forgiven or Grace should be given which incroacheth not only upon the incommunicable Power of God but upon his Wisdom that he should give Grace to all that were baptized which in the most part would prove frustraneous by being lost They do not a little derogate from the Omnipotence of God who imagine that the very Nature and Essence of a created Will doth inseparably imply that God cannot otherwise determine it but by perswading yet no Perswasion can be so strong but it can reject it and choose the contrary whereby they fancy that they can clear God from any Accession to Sin even by Permission as if his Purity could not be preserved but by the loss of his Omnipotence So that God has done all that is in his absolute Power to make every Rational Creature holy and happy Yet the Pretext is vain for it cannot be imagined that God should be so mean an Orator that he could not perswade Men to go to all Nations to preach and spread Books perswading them to embrace the true Religion which yet he hath not done and yet he hath done all that he could do not by his absolute Power but by his regulate Power by his most wise and holy Decrees They might with more Pretext have said that God in his Freedom and Wisdom had decreed that he would make no farther use of his Power but by Perswasion yet that would have incorached upon his Wisdom and Soveraignty that he hath made Creatures which he could not effectually govern so that it is without all ground in Reason or Revelation that he hath so decreed It is a very brutish Pretence that it were a brute Power and not rational to infuse Habits or Inclinations in Rational Creatures seeing these infused Powers act at the Judgment and Choice of Reason though in some cases without Hesitation or Deliberation are Creatures perswaded to desire their own Well-being or Parents perswaded to love their own Children or any to pity the injured miserable MEDITATION VII Upon the Oneness of God IT is impossible and inconsistent that there could be more Gods than one both for the Omniscience and the Omnipotence of God for God is capable of no Imperfection and therefore is impassible He knows not by any outward Impression or Manifestation but from Reflection upon his own Nature and Decrees by which he knows what will be the Effects of the Capacities he hath decreed to give to Creatures and by his own over-ruling them for his Glory Therefore there can be no more Decrees but those which are in that Omniscient view if there were any other they could only be known by extrinsick Manifestations wherein God behoved to be Passive So neither are such Decrees possible nor the Actings of them nor could they be known in a way consistent with the Divine Perfection It is as evidently inconsistent there could be more Omnipotents than one for if they were equal in Power none of them could be Omnipotent for they could resist one another and so have no effectual Power and if they were unequal in Power the weaker could not be Omnipotent The Omniscience and Omnipotence of God are his most evident Perfections even by the Light of Nature and his Oneness is fully and frequently asserted in Scripture Scripture hath also revealed the Trinity in the Divine Nature which is the Foundation of the Salvation of the Elect carried along through the whole Current and Oeconomy of the Divine Decrees and Dispensations relating to Mankind from the Beginning revealing that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Head of the Serpent and by all that is said of the Messiah in the Old Testament and of Christ in both Testaments But it is declared to be a Mystery and the greatest Mystery ushered in with an unparallel'd note of Attention 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great is the Mystery of Gidliness God manifested in the Flesh. Therefore the Trinity of Persons must be consistent with the Oneness of God and it must be a nearer Oneness than that of Individuals of one kind yet not such an Oneness as if there were but one Divine
Person Hypostasis or Subsistence of the Divine Nature It is too great Presumption for any in the State of Mortality to determine the manner of the Oneness of the Father Son and Eternal Spirit which is so clearly declared a Mystery near the close of the Canon of Scripture never unfolded after in it The Trinity hath been asserted and owned with the greatest Firmness and Forwardness in the purest State of the antient Christian Church and the least Derogation attempted against it by the Arians hath been condemned with Abhorrence by the most Eminent and Orthodox Fathers and by the Determination and Solemn Confession of Faith by the Council of Nice and it is amongst the most incontestably Catholick Doctrines of the Universal Church owned by all National Societies of Christians in the World above the course of a thousand Years Augustine and some others of the Fathers have attempted to give some Resemblances of the Trinity in Unity though he still acknowledgeth it to be a Mystery they could not fully comprehend So Augustine in his 15th Book of that Treatise he wrote upon the Trinity saith That we have a Representation of the Generation of the Son by the Father in that he is called the Word of God as all Idea's are conceived by Words of the Mind so God's Idea of himself and his Decrees is his Word essential and substantial For all that is in God is God The Son is also the Character of his Person his Image the Brightness of his Glory his Wisdom that was with him from Eternity He says also That the Procession of the Holy Ghost is his Love to Himself by his Idea of Himself with his whole Decrees and that all the Persons of the Trinity are Wise and Powerful by the same Power and Wisdom because they have but one Godhead The Generation of a Son doth not import an Imperfection or Inequality of the Nature of the Son more than of the Father much less doth the Generation of the Eternal Son imply an Inequality of the Son with the Father or a dependance of his Being from the Father as if he needed Preservation like Creatures Yea all the Persons are increated without any Cause and so Self-existent and Coeternal The Errors of Socinians are much more abominable than those of the Arians the Socinians acknowledg nothing of the Son before he was conceived in the Womb of the Virgin The Light of Nature was ever sufficient to confute the Multiplicity of Gods and to convince that there could only be one God Albeit the Multiplicity of Gods did far prevail in the World it was long before it did prevail and not until God had given Men up to their own Ways because of their Wickedness against the clear Light of Nature for they were given up to believe Lies because they did not receive the Truth which by the Light of Nature they knew in Love to live according to it The knowledg of one God was not alone among the Hebrew or Jewish Nation as the Scripture maketh evident in Job and his Friends among whom there was so much clear Knowledg of the Divine Perfections and even of a Saviour and of a Resurrection which are not deducible from any inbred Principle by the Light of Nature and therefore they could not want Revelation yet we have no ground to know any Communication between the Hebrews and them Neither were there a few Persons indued with that Light but a City and Common-wealth having Judges and Counsellors that sate at their Gates Balaam also knew and acknowledged the only true God not by Communication with the Israelites there being a vast distance and no Communication between Aram and Egypt The three Wise Men of the East that were led by a Star to come to Bethlehem when Christ was born could not possibly by Astrology have discovered the Birth of the Mediator and therefore did neither want Revelation nor a miraculous Sign Neither is there any ground to believe that they were Idolaters but that they knew and worshipped the true God and it is highly probable that they were not the only Persons of their Country that did so Yet they did not desire for ought I know to become Proselytes of the Jews Neither is there ground to doubt that Moab or Ammon the Sons of Lot or Ishmael and Abraham's other Sons by Keturah or Esau their nearest Posterity were convinced that there was but one God nor could their Posterity be soon brought to believe a Plurality of Gods So that we have no ground to doubt that the Knowledg of the one God did long and largely propagate it self in the World though through defect of History the Particulars be little known I do not hear of Idolatry before the Flood the cause of it in God's just Judgment is attributed to Mens corrupting of their Ways and the wickedness of their Works After the Flood the Notion of one God did long remain as appears by the common Name of Baal or Lord which was long almost universal and the several Nations that worshipped Baal gave him different Epithets according to their apprehension of his Attributes of which there is frequent mention in the Scripture So the Moabites God was Baal without addition the Sidonians also called their God Baal so did the Canaanites Some Nations called their God Baal Berith that is cursing Baal others Baal Gad Baal Hamon Baal Meon Baal Peor Baal Hanan Baal Hazor Baal Hermon Baal Perazin Baal Zebub the God of Ekron Places also were denominated from Baal as Baal Perazin Baal Shalisha Baal Zebub Baal Zephon and Bell of the Babylonians is but a different Dialect of Baal but that which was the Name of one God with different Epithets did easily come to be apprehended as so many Gods yet the several Nations did not worship many Gods but their own So after the Captivity of the ten Tribes those that were planted in their places being plagued conceived it was by the Anger of the God of that Place and therefore sent for the Jewish Priests to appease him The Greeks were the first that worshipped many Gods and after them the Romans for then the Souls of Men eminent upon Earth were supposed to be cooptated among the Gods in different Orders and as the Nations and Places had Interest in them they had Confidence in them and became forgetful of the true God After arose Images and the relative Honour and Worship attributed to them not only to the Images and Pictures of these Deified Men but also to those Bodies wherein the Gods were supposed to delight and to reside It is not imaginable that so many Men of Discretion and Spirit could with direct Worship adore inanimate Creatures or the meanest Brutes or Plants but that they thought they were delightful to and resided in by Deities and so the Sun the Moon Planets came to be worshipped even by those who did not believe that they had Life or Understanding or were Bodies informed by a Deity but that
Unjust he openeth his bountiful Hand and bestows what is necessary for every living thing while he allows it Life He is merciful and pitieth the very Ravens when they cry for want of Food and much more supplies the Necessities of Men even when they do not trust or expect it All these Perfections respect his Creatures and it is evident that they are without Obligation and in that differ from his Justice and so is also his Providence and Government of the World but his Truth and his Wisdom are Perfections terminated on himself as their peculiar End they are free for none can be obliged to himself yet they are more necessary than the Acts of Bounty which he might forbear but they are comprehended under the Decency proper to God on his own account tho there had never been a Creature he would ever have been true his Thoughts being ever conform to their Objects The Faithfulness of God then is comprehended in his Bounty or Benignity respecting his Creature as warrantably trusting in him As the Term Faithfulness is variously taken so the thing is commonly very indistinctly and sometimes erroniously understood confounding Faithfulness with Justice and Truth and supposing there is no Warrant for Faithfulness but upon Promise and upon the Truth of God in that Promise which is a great Mistake for the Performance of a Promise is an Act of Justice and Truth is not an Object of Trust but when Words or Signs to express it are emitted but Faith may warrantably be where God hath made no Promise nor expressed any Word When God created Angels and Men before he made any Promise to them they did know from his excellent Nature and firmly trust that if they did not offend him he would never make them miserable and they might have trusted for particular Favours not in the way of Reward I know no clear Evidence from Scripture that God promised to Adam that he should never be annihilated only I see that he threatneth Death if he transgressed his Command in eating the forbidden Fruit whence it is collected that God promised him Eternal Life and even Immortality and that he entered into Covenant with him wherein Adam willingly ingaged himself to the Obedience of God and God did promise Life and Immortality to him to his Wife and their Posterity and to raise them from an Animal Life on Earth to an Angelical Life in Heaven without the Dissolution of Soul and Body by Death and as it is commonly believed the good Angels after they had given proof of their Obedience were confirmed that they should never fall There is no less ground to believe that the like Favour would have been granted to Man not only for himself that he should not fall but that a greater measure of Perfection should be given to his Posterity that they might not be under the Necessity of falling and it is evident and certain that by his Transgression in eating the forbidden Fruit he lost these Benefits both to himself and his Posterity but by the infinite Mercy and Benignity of God Christ the second Adam perfected and performed what the first Adam had lost Can any Man pretend that the particular Favours that the Saints have always prayed for from God were all promised by God or did he express his Purpose to give them No certainly and yet they did warrantably trust and prayed in Faith for them and obtained that which they prayed for whereof there are innumerable Examples in Scripture and Experience And therefore it is said that the fervent Prayer of the Godly availeth much If the Import of Mens Prayers should only be that God should be just in the performance of his Promise and be as good his Word I see not how Prayer could be said to avail much for God would be true and just whether any Creature prayed or not But God granteth many things upon the earnest Prayer of his People which were neither promised nor necessary and had no other Conveniency but to satisfy their longing Desire which if it be not incongruous for God to do or them to receive as being hurtful to them if Faith be not wanting the Effect will not fail Was there either Necessity or Promise for the Prophet's stopping the Clouds of Heaven for three Years and six Months and for obtaining Rain when there was no second Cause for it Is it not warrantable to pray to be inclined or directed in the Choice of a Calling a Match or any lawful Undertaking or for the Success of the Choice Is there any Promise for these Particulars Yea tho it be said by Christ to the Apostles That whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will do it I take it rather to be a Declaration of God's Faithfulness and of the Effect of faithful Prayer not signifying an Engagement but a Resolution And I think it were a very unbecoming manner of praying to say Lord Thou hast promised that whatsoever I demand in Christ's Name thou wilt grant it this I demand and therefore I claim it as due by thy Justice and Truth which thou canst not refuse With God's Grace that never shall be my strain God hath declared that he will give Salvation and Glory to all that shall have saving Faith trusting to obtain these with Sutableness which cannot be towards those who resolve to cleave to and pursue their Sins Suppose this were not only a Declaration but a proper Promise and that the Performance were an Act of God's Justice and Truth yet where hath he promised that he will give Faith to this or that Man that believeth And should he that believeth claim Salvation as an Act of Truth and Justice and not as a free Act of God's Mercy and Benevolence and specially as an Act of God's Faithfulness that he will not disappoint the becoming Hope or Trust of his Creature Trust among Men is not accounted when they obtain a clear Obligation tho it had been granted freely because the Obliged can be compelled to perform but it is accounted a Trust when there is no Promise but that from the Nature of the Deed it is to be presumed not to be a Donation in favour of the Person trusted but with Intention and Expectation that he would restore to the Truster or those who derive Right from him upon demand God of his Benignity to further the Faith of his Creatures does not only promise where no Promise was necessary but gives Seals and Oaths not so much to secure the Effect as to produce Faith and therefore the Effect should ever be attributed to God's Faithfulness and to the Creature 's Faith resting on that Faithfulness I know that God's Justice Truth and Faithfulness have been oftentimes joined as Man 's also may When a Man obtains a written valid Obligation suppose it were for a valuable Consideration there concurs the Justice of that Person who may be compelled to perform his Truth that as he expressed his Purpose to perform so
by God and unalterable by Man but in other things their Pactions are effectual as in other Cases So also in Civil Government the Form of Government the Persons governing the Extensions of their Power more than what is requsite for Order and Determination of Controversies are by the express and tacit Pactions of the Parties except what God did immediately determine in the Government of Israel God did also institute a distinct Government for his own Worship and separated it from the Paternal and Civil Authority both among the Jews in the Levitical Priesthood which was propagated by imitation to most other Nations and among Christians a Church became a distinct Society from a State and hath its proper Ecclesiastick Government tho both Societies may concur in the same Persons The Civil Government is for the outward State of their Society and the Means of their Government is outward by extrinsick Rewards and forcible Punishments The Ecclesiastick Government is about the inward State of those of their Society in so far as Man's Knowledg can reach to promote Holiness and internal and eternal Happiness and about their outward Acts only as they signify their inward Condition and their Rewards and Punishments are only by application of the Divine Ordinances in exciting Joy or Grief Fear or Hope as is conducible for the inward State but without temporal Rewards and forcible Punishments But there is yet a more inward and secret Dominion of God exercised by the Conscience which is his Deputy by which he distributes the most powerful and important Rewards and Punishments not only in this Life but chiefly after Death The most eminent and important Dispensations of God's Dominion is by the Covenants he made with Men which therefore require a particular Consideration especially the general Covenants relating to all Mankind It was a high Honour put upon Men that God was pleased to enter into mutual Ingagements with them by way of Covenant whereby God promised some Favours to them besides those which arose from their Creation which Favours they could not warrantably believe nor expect by his Justice Bounty Mercy or even by his Faithfulness but only by his Promise in these Covenants And on the other part there was not ground to expect them even from the Promises unless there were a voluntary Engagement on Man's part by entring into these Covenants God's Dispensations might have been without any Covenant either by commanding Men to do that which he proposed to them to do whereby the not Performance became a Transgression of his Command and Sin or he might have made Promises conditional without requiring Mens Engagements I see very many Covenants between God and Man in Scripture but the purely Celestial and Eternal Covenants are only two the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace The Covenant of Grace is the chief Concern of Mankind and it runs through the whole Current of Scripture It was published to our first Parents immediately after their Fall and tho the Record of it in Scripture at first be no more but that the Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Head of the Serpent I doubt not but it was more fully manifested to and understood by the first Parents It was more fully manifested to Abraham to whom it was said That in thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed It was continued in the Church in the Revelation and Expectation of the Messiah who was to deliver his People from their Sins and was represented by the Sacrifices instituted by God from the beginning and by the Sacraments and Ceremonies instituted thereafter tho the Jews in their latter times were wholly perverted believing their Messiah to be a Temporal Monarch to raise their Nation to great Glory wherein Christ the Messiah himself did fully confute them from the Old Testament and brought Life and Immortality to light in a clear Discovery of the Covenant of Grace as it remains recorded in the Gospel The Covenant of Works being broken and become void there is but little of it expressed in Scripture in which that Name of the Covenant is no where mentioned and tho it may seem a needless Curiosity to enquire into the Terms of it I conceive it is not unprofitable but very useful to manifest the Glory and Goodness of God in all his Dispensations with Mankind and for the understanding the Covenant of Grace that came in its place which will appear by that excellent Parallel of the Apostle Paul betwixt the first and second Adam It hath been the common Opinion of Christians that there was a Covenant between God and Adam upon solid Grounds It is certainly a great Condescension and Kindness in God to enter into Covenant with Creatures but seeing it is certain that he hath so often admitted sinful Creatures to covenant with him there is no ground to doubt that he enter'd into Covenant with innocent Adam which is yet more clear from the Parallel of the first and second Adam whereby both are acknowledged to represent and undertake for the whole or a great part of the Race of Mankind that through Adam's Failure Sin entered in the World and that Christ had obtained a better Covenant It is therefore inferred that there was a prior Covenant As to the Terms of the first Covenant it is clear that God promised Adam Immortality seeing the Penalty expressed by Moses for the Breach in eating the forbidden Fruit is Death not only Temporal by the Separation of the Soul and Body and the Corruption of the Body but Eternal by the Separation from the Favour of God therefore Life and Immortality is implied which tho it was possible to have been preserved in Adam and his Posterity by the continuance of Adam and his Posterity upon Earth living an Animal Life but this Earth could not have sufficed for all the Posterity of Adam if none had died or been removed yea Immortality could not have been continued in that State wherein the Body was perpetually wearing with its Food and Exercise if there had not been extraordinary Means to have preserved or restored it Therefore I do not conceive that Immortality was competent to innocent Man by his Nature and was taken from him as his Punishment against his Nature but that it was only promised to be given as a part of that Covenant the loss of which was a great Penalty It is true the Soul was naturally immortal and could not cease to exist but by taking away that which was given in its Nature but it will not follow that Man the Complex of Soul and Body was so immortal The Parallel doth also give ground to infer that it was a part of God's Promise in the first Covenant that Adam and his Posterity should be exalted from an Animal Life on Earth to an Angelical Life in Heaven which is evidently a part of the Covenant of Grace and is frequently expressed by Restitution and Redemption importing that it belonged to Mankind before but
was lost and seeing the Preference of the Benefit by the second Adam is expressed in the Parallel if that Exaltation had been wholly new it would not have been omitted The Parallel also imports that the Promise of Immortality was not only to Adam but to his Posterity It could not consist with the Wisdom and Goodness of God that the first Covenant should have been impracticable and therefore it must have been a part of God's Promise that if Adam continued faithful for such time as God had appointed for his Trial that God would confirm him by more powerful and efficacious Grace as it is commonly believed that he hath confirmed the Elect Angels that they should never fall but be happy I see not how it could be called an happy State that were still under the fear of being lost There is no ground to think that by the first Covenant Adam's Posterity should have been in a better Condition than himself but that they also should have had a time of Trial as he had and such as should persevere should also be confirmed yet there was necessity that they should be endued with more Strength from the Womb thereby to be put in equal Capacity to stand as he was For seeing Adam was created in the Ripeness of Disscretion and in the clear Knowledg of God and yet so soon fell upon so small Temptation it had been impossible for any of his Posterity being to be born Infants without any Principle vigent in them but the Pleasure of Sense till they attained to Discretion and by long Exercise of these sensible Pleasures strong habitual Pleasures supervening that any one of them could have persevered unless God had promised that if Adam had stood out his Trial he would have given farther Perfection to his Posterity This first Covenant between God and Adam is commonly called the Covenant of Works to distinguish it from the Covenant of Grace and therefore there behoved to be something in it of Merit And that God's part of that Covenant was not only of Grace or free Favour but partly by Premiative Justice and Debt in Remuneration of the Holiness of the Creature as the Apostle saith To him that worketh the Reward is not reckoned of Grace but of Debt Yet it cannot be thence inferred that the Reward promised by God to Adam in his Perseverance was wholly and only a Reward of Debt by Justice but that it might be partly a Reward of Debt and partly a Reward of Grace freely given and not deserved Those who arrogate Salvation by the Merit of their Works fortify themselves in their Error by holding that Salvation by the Covenant of Works would have been wholly by Merit and therefore Christ having expiated the Sins of the Elect their good Works must merit Heaven which is clearly confuted seeing God's Dispensations are by Covenant importing Ingagements which did not arise from the Creatures Interest by Creation but only by God's Promise which was free by the Freedom of Indiffrency I am fully perswaded that a great part of God's Promises in the Govenant of Works was by his free Favour and could not have been claimed by Adam or his Posterity as due in Justice to their Perseverance For there was an exceeding great difference between the Value of Adam's part and God's part of that Covenant Adam's part was only Obedience to God There is nothing mentioned in Scripture or consequent from the Nature of that Covenant that God's Promises were for Adam's improving and increasing those Moral perfections God had given him by his Creation but on the contrary that which is expresly mentioned is only forbearance to eat of the forbidden Fruit which could not be the only Obedience but likewise the Obedience to all the Moral Law written in his Heart and also to the positive Law of Marriage instituted in Innocency yet Innocence in all was Man's part and Improvement tho it was no Work of Supererrogation even in him because he was obliged to love God with all his Might yet it did deserve and merit by God's Remunerative Justice but it cannot be pretended that it was a proportionable Remuneration to Adam's Innocency that he should not only become Immortal and be exalted to Celestial and Eternal Glory and that he should be confirmed and made free of the hazard of falling but that also all his Posterity should have additional Perfections created with their Souls enabling them against the Prepossessions of Youth to remain innocent and all as a just Proportion by Premiative Justice no certainly The Nature of a Covenant which is a mutual Contract implieth mutual Prestations to be performed by the Parties Contracters as the mutual Causes and Conditions of each to other and that the ingaging to these Performances be voluntary even tho the Matter engaged were necessary and have an anterior Obligation distinct from that Obligation which ariseth by the Contract For as it is well said by Lawyers the same thing may be due by several Obligations and may be exacted by any of them but the Property of a thing cannot be by more Rights for none can acquire that which is already his own Therefore before the Covenant of Works the Man was obliged to a full Observance of God's Commands without any Engagement of his own because God who gave him his Being might justly qualify his own Gift at his Pleasure so he had given Man his Being by Creation with sufficient Intimation of his Pleasure and Command by the Laws written in his Heart none of which did oblige him to enter into a Covenant with his Creator nor did God command him so to do but offered it to his free Choice inducing him thereto by the great Benefits he offered him by it which he had not Right to nor any ground of Confidence of it but through that Covenant The Covenant of Works had no Sanction by a Penalty added to it For the Dissolution of it upon Man's Failure in his part arose from the Nature of all Contracts whereby it the one Party fail the other may either urge Performance or declare himself free After Adam's Fall Performance became impossible and he was not punishable by that Covenant but by the antecedent Divine Law neither could Man's Consent or Engagement to be liable to the Punishment of Death have any Effect because his Life is not in his own Power Therefore he was only punishable by the antecedent Law of God which was before any Covenant and remained the same during the Covenant and after the Breach of it The Pain of Death expressed for eating the forbidden Fruit was no part of the Covenant and it doth appear to have been anterior to the Covenant intimated to Man immediately after his Creation before Eve was created otherwise Adam might have eaten of that Fruit which doubtless was most pleasant before the Prohibition but Eve's Creation is related after that Prohibition and there is no ground to doubt but the Covenant was made both with Adam and
to them did not reject the Offer and cleave to their Sins These Men ought to be satisfied that through Christ there is an universal Grace purchased given or offered and refused which sufficiently satisfieth the many Expressions in Scripture of Christ's dying for all Men yea for every Man and for the Sins of the World That pretended insoluble Argument of the Arminians That must be true which every Man is bound to believe but every Man is bound to believe that Christ died for him because God commands him to believe in Christ which therefore obligeth him to believe therefore it is true that Christ died for every Man This Argument hath been a great Bugbear which hath puzled many and there are several Answers made to it and I think there is yet a better Answer than I have hitherto met with that the Fallacy lies in this that there is not a Difference made between a Command and an Invitation or Exhortation to do that to which the Party exhorted is not obliged but whereby a great Benefit may arise upon the Performance Such is the Expression of Christ Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you Rest to your Souls which is only an Invitation to enter into the Covenant of Grace For the Nature of all Covenants is that the Engagements of either Party must be voluntary and free yea even in the Covenant of Works as hath been said before albeit Innocence by Obedience to all God's Commands was an indispensible Duty yet Adam's Engagement superadded thereto was voluntary and therefore God will not condemn Sinners because they have not imbraced the Offer of Grace by believing as the Penalty of not believing but will only exclude them from the Benefit of that Covenant because they did not assent unto it and will punish them for the Transgressions of his Laws and therefore it is not true that all Men are obliged to believe for then the Damned and those who have sinned against the Holy Ghost were obliged to believe which were altogether in vain neither being capable of Pardon So that not believing in God through Christ for Salvation is not the Cause efficient but deficient of Damnation It will further appear hereafter how Christ the second Adam hath restored what the first Adam lost in putting every Man in a Capacity to be saved and that no Man should be damned but for his own fault which is the Sentence of the Synod of Dort against the Rigor of which the Arminians do so much inveigh There is no necessity to recur to that Answer that by all Men is meant not singula generum but genera singulorum and by the World the World of the Elect which are not apt to convince these Men that the whole World should only be the World of the Elect or that every Man should be every kind of Men or that this Interpretation will quadrate with that place of Scripture Wilt thou by thy Meat destroy him for whom Christ died And the Wicked that hear and contemn the Gospel are said to trample under foot the Son of God When Christ saith I came not to the World to judg the World but to save the World by the World cannot be meant the World of the Elect for Christ's coming into the World was by conversing with all the World Elect or Reprobate and he came to judg all the World both Elect and Reprobate tho it was not his chief End in coming Therefore the World he came to save must be so also understood of all relating to the World he came into which is solidly and sharply prosecuted by the eminently learned Monsieur Claud in his Posthumous Works upon the Priestly Office of Christ. It cannot be thought that the strongest Asseveration of God As I live I delight not in the Death of a Sinner but rather that he should repent and be saved were only to be restrained to the Elect or genera singulorum or that it is the Will of God that all Men should be saved which is not meant properly of the Will of God which can never be ineffectual but of the Pleasure of God for it is not said actively it is the Will of God to save all Men but that it is the Will of God they should be saved that is it would be pleasing to him if they were all and every one saved by their accepting the Offer of Grace or not rejecting it But that way is only distinguishable from Pelagianism by a Notion not warranted by the Word of God For if the Pelagians have not said I am sure they might say that by the Powers of Nature they meant nothing else but that Power which every Man hath by his Creation and his Birth and might say that those Powers Adam had were by the free Gift of God so that there were no more ground to glory in the one way than in the other I do not doubt but many of these Men abhor Pelagianism which makes me always hope that there may be a Reconciliation between these and other Protestants which are commonly called Reformed If all Mankind had a Power to believe as much as they have a Power to reason or choose What ground is there to distinguish the one Power from the other But if Men cannot believe when they will but when the Spirit of God hath in their Conversion given them new Powers or Faculties or at least sincerely offered them and would put them in their Power if they will not reject them There is a clear and manifest Difference between natural and supernatural Acts or between Nature and Grace that Grace must have a new Power given freely at Conversion whereby the converted are enabled to repent and believe in respect of this Power Christ saith Without me ye can do notbing which is not spoken as to natural Powers and by this Power the Apostle saith I can do all things by him that strengtheneth me for of bim we have both to will and to do That way doth not only derogate from the Grace of God but from the Happiness of Creatures for thereby it is impossible that any Creature can be certain of their continuance in their Integrity or in the Favour of God not only in this Life but even in Heaven For if their free Will can bring them into God's Favour when they please or lose it when they please in this Life as they do acknowledge what have they to secure them against the like in the next Life Will they be more glorious than the Devils were before they fell Yet their free Will carried them from that Estate But if God do confirm the Elect Angels and Saints that they shall never fall certainly it is not only possible but sutable for him so to do towards those that in this Life he receives into his Favour by the Covenant of Grace What then can induce them to deny themselves and all others one of the most glorious Pearls of the