the beginning with God but he is no-where call'd the word of God I chuse therefore rather to interpret it of that word of Power and Command which Moses Gen. 1. telleth us God used in the making of the world and the fitting and joynting of it together He said Let there be light and there was light c. Thus the Worlds were made by the Word of God so as the term is both exclusive of any other instrumental cause in the Creation of the world and expressive of the true instrumentally efficient cause which was the mighty powerful commanding virtue of the Word of God And this is enough for the explication of this term But Quest 3. What is the meaning of this that the things which are seen are not made of those things which do appear The Vulgar Latin Version reads Vt ex invisibilibus visibilia fierent that visible things should be made of those which are invisible by a transposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but our Copies are otherwise If by the invisible things be meant those invisible things of God the Apostle speaks of Rom. 1.20 His eternal power and godhead So it is true and the sense much the same with what went before but else it is as Beza saith Perperam immo false Some would make the sense of the words this That the world was not made of those things which now do appear to us and are the objects of our senses but of invisible principles and elements which are not now the objects of our senses Others thus That it was made according to an invisible Platform and Idea which was Plato's notion Others say That by invisible things or things which do not appear is to be meant nothing that must be an invisible thing and the world was not made of any pre-existent matter but it was created that is produced out of a meer and total not being into a being Which sense if we allow the Apostle by it as to the Creation of the world asserteth the Truth of God against the Heathen Philosophers who could not by reason comprehend how something especially such a something as the world is should come out of nothing and therefore grew very vain in their imaginations about the pre-existing matter of which the world should be made Estius and Calvin also take notice of a much differing sense as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and it were to be read thus We by faith understand that the worlds were made by the Word of God that they might be the looking-glasses of those things which do not appear The thing indeed is true for the Apostle telleth us Rom. 1.20 That the invisible things of God are known by the things that are made But I cannot agree it the sense of this Text not only for that which Beza noteth that it is a very harsh interpretation to interpret 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but because as Pareus observeth it seemeth not to be any thing of the Apostle's design to express the end here why the World 's were made by God I do therefore take the Text to be a Divine assertion of the Creation of the World against the vain imaginations of the Heathens who either dream't that it was eternal or made of a casual concourse of Atoms or from some Idea's It was saith the Apostle made of nothing by the Word of God of nothing that doth appear And so I have done with the first Member of the Proposition That the worlds were framed by the Word of God the things which are seen were not made of those things which do appear I proceed to the second Mem. 2. That we understand this by faith Here I shall speak to two things 1. What is here meant by faith 2. How do we by faith understand this Faith in Scripture sometimes signifieth the object of faith the Word of God Thus Gal. 1.23 He which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which he once destroyed Thus you read of the hearing of faith Gal. 3.2 Received you the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith that is of the Word of God particularly the Gospel sometimes it signifieth the act of faith which as it respecteth the Proposition of the word for its object is a firm and steady assent the agreement of the mind to the truth of the Proposition as it respecteth the person of the Mediator is a resting relying and recumbency upon him which is what we call the justifying act of faith you may understand the term Faith in either sense By the word of faith revealing it and by our souls acting faith in agreeing and assenting to the truth of that word we understand that the world heaven and earth was at first brought into being fitted and joynted together by the powerful Word of God commanding the production of all those Beings which are in the world and that beauty and order in which we see them placed But secondly How doth the Apostle say we understand it by faith May not this be understood by Reason if it may what need Faith in the case or why or how doth the Apostle say by faith we understand this Wherein doth Faith give us a further knowledg of this than Reason hath given the Philosopher To which I answer Undoubtedly reason hath gone a great way and may go a great way to make men understand that the world was made by God That the world was eternal was indeed the opinion of a great Pagan Philosopher but his master Plato was of another mind and he is said to have learned it from Hesiod and the most and wisest amongst the Heathens acknowledged that the world was at first by a Divine power produced out of a not-being into a being Nor indeed would their Reason allow them to judg otherwise the infinite motions the measures of things in the world their order and succession their alterations and corruptions duly considered forbiddeth reasonable souls with any consistency to themselves to affirm the world to have had an eternal existence All motions must be in time and have had a being all successions and corruptions of things plainly speak that they had a beginning if we had no assistance in the proof of it from the word of faith 2. The same Reason will agree that it gave not a first being to it self nothing is the efficient cause of it self experience tells us that it is not in the power of a man to make the least hair of his head white or black much less to make an hair Man is the noblest sublunary Creature but cannot make the meanest vegetable all that his art can do is but to counterfeit and dissemble nature if it be but as to a spire of grass or to the meanest flower of the field Now if it were not eternal if it did
his Book of the Trueness of Christian Religion Chap. 13. where he sheweth Providence a bundantly owned by Plato Plotinus Hierocles Aristotle Cicero Seneca and others I shall therefore only add one passage of Seneca not I think particularly by him mentioned it is in his Book of Natural Questions Chap. 45. where he calleth God The keeper and governour of the whole world Custodem rectoremque universi animum spiritum mundani hujus operis Dominum artificem cui nomen omne convenit Vis illum fatum vocare non errabis Hic est ex quo suspensa sunt omnia causa causarum Vis illum Providentiam dicere rectè dices Est enim cujus consilio huic mundo providetur ut inconcussus eat actus suos explicet Seneca Nat. Qu. l. 2. cap. 45. a Mind a Spirit the Lord and Artificer or Creator of all the world he to whom every name agreeth Will you call him Fate you will not be out For he it is on whom all things depend Will you call him Providence you will say right for by his Counsel the world is provided and taken care for that it remains steady and performeth its operations Salvian upon this Argument tells us that the Heathens acknowledged God to be in the world as the Master of a great Ship is in that abiding always in it and stirring up and down Whence he cryeth out Quid potuerunt de affectu diligentiâ Dei religiosius sentire Salvian l. 1. What could they more religiously judg and speak of God than to compare him to the Governour of a Ship who is never in the Ship idle but continually at work either in one kind or another The Pythagoreans compared God to the Soul in the body filling each part and actuating each part of the body The Platonists call him the moderator of all things The Heathen Poets speak as well and fully Virgil telleth us God is continually moving throughout all the Earth Tractusque maris coelumque profundum and the Waters and the Heavens In short none but some of the most sensual and brutish Epicureans ever so much as called this in question 5. But hitherto I have been arguing this point with you as men to convince you of it if you were Heathens and had no knowledg of the Holy Scripture When I consider you in that notion I must say to you as the Apostle speaks in another case We have a more sure word of prophecy As we by faith understand that the worlds were at first made by God so by faith also we plentifully understand that the created worlds are upheld preserved protected and governed by God I shall hereafter more distinctly prove this in my following discourse when I shall come to speak of the distinct and particular acts and objects of this Divine Providence I shall only here make use of a few instead of very many Scriptures which might be produced Heb. 1.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vpholding all things by the word of his power He at first made all things by the word of his Power and he upholdeth all things by the word of his Power My Text saith He preserveth both man and beast Our Lord telleth us that he cloatheth the grass of the field and feedeth the Ravens Matth. 6. The Psalmist tells us that his kingdom ruleth over all And again Matth. 10.29 30. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing yet not one of them falls to the ground without the will of your heavenly father Acts 17.28 In him we live move and have our being Prov. 15.13 The eyes of the Lord are in all places beholding the evil and the good John 5.17 My father worketh hitherto and I work In short the places of Scripture confirming this Doctrine of Divine Providence are very many and will most of them fall under some part or other of my ensuing discourse referring to the particular objects and acts of Divine Providence And I therefore shall not in this place further enlarge upon them but come next to consider the extent or particular objects of Divine Providence I proceed therefore to a second Question Quest 2. What are the objects of Divine Providence or how far doth the Divine care extend Though the Epicureans of old would acknowledg no Providence and many of the Stoicks asserting a Fate destroyed it yet the wiser Peripateticks would grant it though but a limited one extended to some particular Beings and things and too many amongst those who are called Christians seem to inherit something of their spirit I remember that when Pharaoh saw Egypt almost destroyed he calls for Moses and Aaron and bids them go and serve the Lord but adds Exod. 10.8 But who are they that shall go When Moses replyed We will go with our young and with our old with our sons and with our daughters with our flocks and with our herds will we go He replyeth vers 10. Let the Lord so deal with me as I let you go and your little ones Thus many deal with God When they consider the vast bodies of the Creatures the great varieties of their beings and qualities their motions c. they are forced to acknowledg a Divine Providence That the world could not stand nor the parts of it hold together unless a Superior hand ruled upheld and governed them They therefore will acknowledg a Providence as to the great bodies of the Heavens c. But say they How far will you extend it When they hear us assert it as to all things the sound of the little ones in nature troubles them yea and as to the wills of men they are wonderfully disturbed We must therefore enquire what the Scripture saith which certainly cannot err as to the bounds and extent of Gods Providential care The Scripture tells us Heb. 4.13 That all things are naked and open before him with whom we have to do That the eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good Prov. 15.3 My Text saith He preserveth both man and beast The Apostle to the Hebrews saith He upholdeth all things by the word of his power But to speak more distinctly we extend the Divine Providence 1. To all Beings 2. To all motions and actions of Beings 3. To all omissions suspensions or cessations of action 4. To all events of things 1. First I say to all Beings Beings are usually distinguished into such as have no life or such as have life Or if you please we may make use of that plain division of Beings into 1. Such as have no more than a meer Being neither life nor sense nor reason Such are the Heavens the Earth the Waters Or 2. Such as have Being and life but no sense Such are herbs and plants Or 3. Such as have Being and life and sense Such are Beasts Birds Fishes Insects c. Or Lastly Such as have not only Being life sense but Reason also Such are Angels and Men. I shall shew you that
And to shew to you the exceeding great latitude of its objects SERMON V VI. Heb. I. 3. Psal XXXVI 6. Vpholding all things by the word of his power O Lord thou preservest man and beast I Have hitherto shâ—wed you no more Than that there is a Divine Providence extensive to all things influencing all Beings all motions and actions of Beings c. I am now come to discourse concerning the acts of God by which he exerciseth this Providential care Divines do usually reduce all to two Heads 1. Preservation 2. Government Preservation respecteth the creatures Beings and that in esse tali in such a kind of Being as he at first created them Government properly respecteth the motions or actions of these Beings or the omissions suspensions or cessations of such actions or motions and the events of the things The Proposition I shall a little enlarge my self upon is this Prop. That as the worlds were at first made by the power and word of God so they are by the same power and word preserved and upheld The Heathens had some notion of this as appeareth by their fiction of Atlas bearing up the world upon his Shoulders God is the true and only Atlas the Apostle saith He upholdeth all things by the word of his Power The Psalmist saith That he preserveth both man and beast You have a recognition of this in that solemn prayer of the Levites Neh. 10.6 Thou even thou art Lord alone thou hast made the Heaven the Heaven of Heavens with all their host the earth and all things that are therein the sea and all that is therein and thou preservest them all Job gives God the glory of this Job 7.20 I have sinned and what shall I do unto thee O thou preserver of man But although the upholding and preservation of the world the influence of God upon the world in order to its standing and conservation be matter of clear and undoubted Revelation and demonstrable by reason and confessed even by the wiser amongst the Heathens themselves yet every one possibly doth not sufficiently understand the method and order of Gods sustentation and preservation of the world Nor dare I promise you fully to open it to you and make you to understand it for how little a portion of his ways do we know But something I will speak in particular I hope it may be of further use to you not only to expound Gods works but to make you understand how wonderfully we are preserved and what a necessity there is of the Divine hand to uphold our souls in life and us in any state of well-being Only let me first premise two or three things 1. That there is a more common and general preservation of all beings and a more special preservation of some 2. That there is a preservation common both to man and beast and a preservation more peculiar to man and yet more special to the people of God those amongst the sons of men whom God hath set apart for himself 3. That there is a preserving Providence respecting the body and outward man and a preserving Providence respecting the inward man 4. That as to man he is considerable in a threefold capacity 1. In his personal capacity as a reasonable creature endued with all the powers and faculties of vegetive and sensitive creatures and further with several powers and faculties suited to his reasonable nature 2. In his Political capacity as he makes up a member of a Kingdom or civil society 3. In his Ecclesiastical capacity as in society with others he makes up that body of people which is called the church of God God preserveth him in all these capacities of which when I come to it I shall speak more particularly and distinctly I shall lay down several conclusions The first of which shall be more general and extensive to such creatures as have meerly being and no life The other will concern living creatures and amongst them men as the nobler and more excellent of them 1. Concl. God by the word of his power upholdeth the Beings order and courses of all his creatures so as not only their natural inclinations and qualities and affections by which they are mutually serviceable to each other and to the upholding of the universe do not fail abate or decay but so that their power and opposite qualities work not to the ruin and destruction of the whole This now to him who will give his thoughts leave to stand upon it will appear a great and wonderful work of God and no less than a wonderful miracle of Divine Providence When God gave a being to the world and to all the things therein he indued them all with several qualities according to his infinite wisdom he set them in an excellent order so as they might be mutually subservient one to another and all of them to the whole he did not only make the world but he fitted and jointed it together so that one part of it corresponded with the other 2. He indued them with several qualities by which they are mutually serviceable each to other 3. He set the several creatures in their orders and stations so as they might be best serviceable Now I say the Providence of God worketh in the preserving of them 1. By upholding these qualities and keeping them in this order that they do not dislocate and fall out of joint but abide both in their station and in their full vigor and vertue 2. By keeping them that the qualities in them which are opposite one to another and would naturally encline them to a dislocation and falling out of order yet have no such operation nor produce any such effect but even inanimate Beings move and work orderly according to the Creators intention though they do nothing out of any counsel choice or deliberation Let me but illustrate this a little in the four great Inanimate Bodies of the World the Heavens the Air the Earth and the mighty Waters All exceeding great and vast bodies yet without life sense or reason so as their motions cannot be from reason and counsel of their own The order in which God set these things in the day of Creation was this The Heavens he placed uppermost the Air in the midst betwixt them and the Earth Then he placed the Earth and the Seas in the midst contiguous one to another In the Heavens he placed Waters the Sun the Moon the Stars all great bodies Now all these bodies have several qualities Gravity or weight levity heat cold moisture c. Who knoweth not that active qualities in creatures are subject to spend waste and decay To instance but in that one body of the Sun whose great qualities are light and heat We see candles and torches and fires give light and heat but they spend themselves their light goes out their heat wastes and spends it self in a short time How is it that it is not so with the Sun and the Stars but from the power
variety of diseases in all parts of his body from the predominance of humours the ill affections of the air of his food c. The Heathens had some notion of this Their Elegant Poet cries out Audax Japete Genus Ignem fraude malâ Gentibus intulit Post ignem aetheriâ domo Subductum macies nova febrium Terris in cubuit cohors c. That was their Fiction That one Prometheus stole fire from Heaven which Jupiter had hid up and distributed it amongst men whence he saith came sickness and a whole troop of agues and fevers and death Faith makes a better discovery it tells us man fell from the state wherein he was created lost the Image of God brake Covenant with him and so became subject to sicknesses unto death c. Yea so subject are we that if every one that falls sick should die men especially would fail from the Earth but to prevent this as God in the day when he made Heaven and Earth created divers qualities in his creatures by which they have a sanative or healing vertue for various Diseases so his Providence is daily working and daily seen in this thing in two particulars 1. In discovering to some of his creatures these hidden vertues The Physitian indeed studies and makes experiments and upon the exercise of his reason and the demonstrations he makes directs the Apothecary to compound Medicines but his God instructeth him to this discretion and we may reasonably so conclude when we find the Prophet Isaiah ch 27. v. 29 affirming it concerning the discretion of the Thresher not threshing the fitches nor turning the Cart-wheel upon the Cummin and this is a work of daily Providence as every day produceth new Methods of the Physisitians practice new Medicines and Compositions c. 2. Secondly In upholding the Vertues of those herbs roots c. that are made use of in order to our healing so as they have their effects in removing our distempers and healing us The strength of the body must be upheld and the faculties by which it is enabled to take in and apply and retain the Medicine and the vertues faculties and powers also of the drugs herbs plants seeds c. must be upheld also both of them are by the mighty powerful concourse and power of God hence the Scripture attributeth our healing unto God I am the Lord that healeth you Exod. 15.26 And the Psalmist saith He healeth all our diseases I wound and I heal Deut. 32.39 Hence Asa is rightly blamed for trusting in Physitians more than in God Physicians are Gods Ordinance they are to be used but not to be trusted in God must discover the healing-Medicine to them God must uphold the healing-vertue in the Medicine when used by them and the faculties also in their Patients by which they must be inabled to take use and apply the Medicines they administer And thus now have I shewed you how God by the ordinary workings of his Providenee every day worketh in the preserving man and beast consider'd as Individuals 5. But as in the production of things into being notwithstanding the ordinary rule and law of Nature generally observed there are some Anomalies or deviations so in the preservings of the creature in the workings of Divine Providence God who will not be tracked in any of his ways maketh some Anomalies turns out of his ordinary road in some special cases Ordinarily he worketh by means natural and to the Eye of Reason probable means sometimes he will do his work without means or without such apparent probable means or by what our Reason shall judg quite contrary to the end He will walk sometimes in a natural course sometimes contrary to it These we call Miraculous Acts of Divine Providence The Bodies of some of his people shall be sometimes upheld a long time without nourishment without natural Rest without sensible breathing healed without proper applications of Physick Many instances of which we have in the story of the Evangelists and of the Acts of the Apostles but these are ertraordinary and special and my business is not to discourse those workings of Providence which are unaccountable to us 6. Lastly There is a special providence of God in preserving man that is yet further considerable by us We have hitherto only considered the preservation of men as Individuals man considered as a single person by himself I must further consider him as a political creature involved in Society and shew you the workings of Divine Providence in preserving Bodies-Politick and the Societies of men and then 3dly as a spiritual creature capable of the Grace of God and being made partaker of it Nisi vegitaret Deus cum ego dormio nisi me defenderet custodiret cum ego sim securus fieret ut omni momento more c. Luther I shall conclude this Discourse so far as I have already carried it on with that saying of Luther If God watched not when I sleep if God did not defend and keep me when I am void of care I should die every moment and every moment be losing either an hand or an Eye or an Ear or a Foot I shall further at this time only apply what part of this Discourse concerning preserving-Providence you have already heard Vse 1 This in the first place may serve to give you a view of the immense and glorious Nature of God Oh! that men would fear this great and dreadful Name of the Lord our God The Lord who preserveth both man and beast How great how glorious must the God whom we serve be if what you have heard be true But to open this a little in a few Particulars 1. It may satisfie you in that great truth of Gods Immensity The Schoolmen say God filleth the Heavens and the Earth infinitum ultra Spatium an infinite space beyond The Scripture Jer. 23.24 saith Do not I the Lord fill Heaven and Earth It must needs be so The Heavens and the Earth are creatures and they are all full of living creatures So are the great and wide Seas all these creatures must breathe be nourished rest grow and increase multiply their species be renewed daily they have all their several and various motions and operations for these they have powers and faculties all these as you have heard are upheld by God by the daily concourse and influence of his Divine Providence he must heal their diseases restore their lapses and decays How could all this be if he were not every where filling it with his Essence Presence and Power 2. Secondly From hence you may conclude The Activity of the Divine Essence You must not think that the great God is in any place as a stone which indeed filleth the place but moveth not acteth nothing He is in the World say the Heathen Philosophers as a Master of a ship is in a ship as a Moderator as the Soul is in the Body which is in every part of the Body
judgment of probability we cannot pretend to an infallibility we are not of Gods counsel and his ways are great deeps 4. Lastly We ought so far to search into and to enquire into the workings of Divine Providence as may any way conduce to make us better by more adoring and revereing God more avoiding of sin more quickning up the habits and exercises of grace but to take heed of such an enquiry as will be of no use to us unless to make us Atheists or too curious searchers into the unsearchable things of God or uncharitable consurers of our brethren The reafon of this is because Duty is the End of all our beholding considering and observing the Lords works or any way enquiring and searching into them This is the main thing which God hath said to us Obey my voice Now so far as an enquiring into the Lords ways and works of Providence will help us to obey the Lords voice so far doubtless it is our Duty The voice of the Lord is in Scripture everywhere to us to fear before him to love him to trust in him to take heed of sinning against him Now so far as the searching into the causes of Divine Providence may conduce to quicken us up to these Exercises so far is it undoubtedly our duty and a very commendable practice but where it only tendeth to make us Atheists by seeing nothing of the hand of God in them but confirming a fancy in us that we have found out the reason of all in a necessary connexion or working of natural causes or only serveth us for an advantage or ground for us unwarrantably and uncharitably to judg and censure our brethren so far it is undoubtedly sinful Where the searching of the causes of Divine Providence to us or others may contribute and so far forth as it may conduce to quicken us up to repentance for them to a faith in and a dependence upon God to make us either more thankful or any way more holy so far forth it is our advantagious duty Thus Jona's reflection upon the storm he met with at Sea when he was fleeing from God Jonah 1.10 11 and Josephs brethrens reflection upon the imprisonment they met with in Egypt were both good and pious tending to bring them to a sense of their several sins against God Davids observation of Providence helped him in the exercise of his Faith 1 Sam. 17.34 35. Manoahs observation that God had accepted a sacrifice confirm'd his faith that he would not destroy them Oft-times the observing of and searching into the ways of Divine Providence hugely exciteth praise and thankfulness Psalm 107.8.15 21 31 c. Thus far now it is our duty to behold observe search into the ways of Divine Providence they are not called unsearchable to deter us from beholding seeing and considering them so far as it may help in the performance of any piece of that duty which we owe unto God God hangs out his great works of Providence to the world that men may behold them look upon them and that not superficially but wistly and considerately Well but how are they then unsearchable why doth the Apostle pronounce them past finding out That brings me to the last thing promised you in the Explication of the Proposition I shall open it to you in several particulars 1. They are unsearchable and past finding out as to the latitude and full compass of them Job ch 26 had been largely discoursing of the great works of Divine Providence his stretching out the North upon the empty places and hanging the Earth upon nothing Ver. 7 His binding up the waters in the thick clouds and the clouds not being rent under them ver 8 c. But then concludeth ver 14 Lo these are part of his ways but how little a portion is heard of him but the thunder of his power who can understand some read it These are but the borders some corners of Gods ways David telleth us Psalm 111.2 The works of the Lord are great sought out of all them that have pleasure therein It is our duty to seek out the works of the Lord and every good man hath a pleasure therein and will be modestly seeking out Gods works ay but though they will be seeking yet we shall be no more in this World than seekers Job 16.7 Who can find out the Almighty to perfection saith God Much of God is seen much of God may be found out but the perfection of Gods works as well as of his Divine Being is an unsearchable thing There are thousands of things in the workings of Divine Providence which we cannot find out infinite motions in the upholdings of it in the government of it of which we know nothing something we can by the helps of Scripture and Reason discourse how Providence upholds the great varieties of Beings in the World the Methods of God in governing the World but who can find out the Almighty to perfection Who can discourse the thunder of his power There is a terra incognita or rather a coelum incognitum in the Divine workings What Job said we may apply here A thing was brought unto me and my ear received a little thereof Many things concerning Gods workings are brought to our senses and our senses receive yea our reason receiveth a little and but a little thereof as to them we may say as the Apostle saith in another case Where is the Scribe where is the Wise man where is the disputer of this World We by study can dive a little into Gods ways but we must come out of our deepest studies crying out with our Apostle O the depth of the wisdom and knowledg of God! This knowledg is as Job saith ch 11.7 8 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 2. A second thing unsearchable and past finding out in these ways of God is the tendency of them while we see them come to an issue Had one of us been a companion with Joseph and seen him thrown into a pit then sold into Egypt after this thrown into a prison upon the accusation of his Mistriss we could never have judged this a Method in order to his riding in the second Chariot and being the second man in Egypt but we see at last it was so Had we been in the Court of Persia or Babylon and have seen Haman's Exaltation and his power with the King obtaining a Decree from him for the destruction of all the Jews we should never have seen the tendency of this to the ruin of Haman the exaltation of Mordecai c. Had we seen Daniel thrown into the Lion's Den we could never have read the tendency of this to his greater exaltation and fuller preferment and conquest over his Enemies and yet so it was The tendencies of Divine Providence are sometimes by us boldly determined sometimes guessed at but how
that it is such a creature as by his rebellions hath reproached the Sovereignty of his maker but this is but one good which God obtaineth by those punishments 2. Again God by the punishment of sinners though he obtaineth not their amendment and reformation obtaineth yet another more Vniversal good and that two ways 1. In the reformation and preventing at least the wickedness of others 2. In the upholding of the government and discipline of the world This is one end of punishment by mens Laws therefore are some malefactors hang'd up in chains by the way-side that all who pass by may take notice and be afraid of committing such wickedness God by punishing and troubling sinners strikes a terror into the hearts of others that if he pleaseth not to sanctifie their affliction to their salvation yet by it much sin is hindred in the world from whence his name had been dishonoured Yea and Lastly Government and discipline is in some measure kept in the world and Gods authority is upheld These ends now God obtaineth in the punishment of the vilest and worst of men though it may be they instead of being reformed and amended do but blaspheme because of their plagues yet others seeing them are afraid and take heed of such courses O! what a place of murthers and frauds and beastly lusts and all sorts of disorders would the sordid passions of men make the world were it not for the troubles and afflictions with which God followeth some sinners for though some are to be corrected and restrained by nothing yet doubtless multitudes of people are at least restrained by the exemplary vengeance which they see God taking upon some sinners either immediately by his own hand or by the hands of magistrates who do not bear the Sword in vain but are a terror unto evil doers Now let us but consider the great God as willing his own glory and that in every attribute that of justice as well as that of mercy or consider God as the great and mighty soveraign of the world whose interest it is to keep up his authority amongst men and an aw and reverence of those rules which he hath pleased to prescribe for the regulation of mens lives Or as he is a most pure and holy God offended and injured by the sins of men whose concern it is to restrain the exorbitancies of creatures or finally as an only wise and prudent governor to whom it belongeth so to carry himself observing rules of justice still towards individuals as may best conduce to the peace good and tranquillity of the whole I say which way soever an intelligent person doth consider God it appears but an exceeding reasonable motion of Providence that he should plague and chastise some sinners though he knows they will get no good but instead of being amended will be made worse like Ahaz Vse 1. Let us observe from hence in the first place how just and reasonable the ways of Divine Providence are O house of Israel saith God are not my ways equal are not your ways unequal The reason of our quarrellings at the motions of Divine Providence is our weighing them with false weights and a deceitful ballance or our superficial and perfunctory consideration of them The truth is we do ordinarily accuse God as inequal in those things wherein he acteth after the manner of men whose equity yet we never question we will allow the Potter to have power over the clay and to make this piece of clay a vessel of dishonour and that a vessel of honour yet we will not allow the Lord of the whole earth the Potter to the whole world of men who are but so many pieces of clay in his hand to do the like we will allow a soveraign Prince a power to kill and to save alive whom he pleaseth but we will not allow that Princes maker to have the same jus absolutum the same soveraign power though it be granted that he never executeth it but upon the demerits of his creature we can allow an earthly Prince a power to punish Wives for the errors of their Husbands and to disinherit Children for the treasons of their Parents but we think it much to allow a power to God justly to punish relations for the sins of their correlates We can understand the justice and reasonableness of men in punishing some malefactors with such punishments as leave no room for repentance and amendment but must call Gods justice holiness and goodness in question if he doth but the same thing we do every day But O you sons of men are not the Lords ways equal Let us learn under tremendous dispensations of vindicative justice to lay our hands upon our mouths to acknowledg and confess the Lords righteousness and instead of disputing the issues of Divine Justice to adore them and fulfil the Lords ends in them Vse 2. This in the second place may shew us one cause of rejoycing in the executions of Divine Justice upon mischievous and incorrigible sinners The truth is it speaketh both an ill temper and worse Christianity to rejoyce meerly in the evils that befall the worst of men Charity wisheth well unto all and obligeth men to mourn with those that mourn But upon other accounts the cutting off of sinners is matter of joy Psal 58.10 The righteous shall rejoyce when he seeth the vengeance and he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked Gods coming with vengeance is made the matter of a promise Psal 35.4 It hath been made the matter of Gods peoples prayer Jer. 11.20 But O Lord of hosts that judgest righteously that triest the reins and the heart let me see thy vengeance on them for unto thee have I revealed my cause so Jer. 20.12 And certainly it is also matter of praise and thanksgiving and that upon more accounts than one 1. As God by it gaineth the glory of his justice and gets himself honour Gods glorifying of himself and making his name great is what the people of God ought continually to rejoyce in We see sometimes persons and parties in the world opening their mouths against Heaven and bidding a bold defiance to the God that reigneth there and daring Divine Justice a long time we cannot but stand and tremble at it The patient God at last taketh these wretches so doing and cuts them off in the midst of their bold defiances They have it may be some years as complements of their discourse challenged God to damn them and the Devil to take them God at length falleth upon them teareth them in pieces makes them to know there is a God in Heaven that judgeth the earth Now when the righteous man seeth this vengeance he hath reason to rejoyce that God hath made known himself vindicated his glory c. It is matter of trouble to them to see any go down into the pit but it is matter of rejoycing that by this they are made to know that there is a God 2.
shall not fall Mat. 16.18 The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Psal 94.14 For the Lord will not cast off his people neither will he forsake his inheritance Mica 4.4 11 12. So quite through this Psalm there are many promises of the same import Now the work of faith is to perswade the soul of the certainty and undoubted verity of these words of God to settle the soul in this perswasion That sooner shall Heaven and earth pass away than any of these things shall fail which God hath spoken Then the work of faith is further to carry out the soul without any carping trouble or disputing to rest wholly upon these words A Christian seeth the word of God what he hath said for its relief now faith teacheth the soul to agree this as the word of him who cannot lye or repent and calleth upon the soul to trust in God for the fulfilling of it to roll it self upon the promise and to commit it self its cause its way unto the Lord the soul of a Christian is very solicitous and careful for the concern and interest of God in the world faith teacheth the soul to cast its care the burthen of its spirit upon the Lord assuring it that God careth for it Faith speaketh to the soul in the language of Solomon Eccles 5.8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent perverting of Justice and Judgment in a Province marvel not at the matter for he that is higher than the highest regardeth and there be higher than they I say this is a great piece of the Child of Gods duty in such a time when the vilest men are exalted and the wicked walk on every side and the people of God are troden under foot as the mire in the streets It is the Will of God concerning them The just shall live by faith This is the proper time for the exercise of Faith when the eye of sense faileth Faith is the evidence of things not seen the substance of things hoped for The proper operation of Faith is where sense faileth where God is trusted and not seen Blessed are they saith our Saviour who have not seen and yet believe This is Opus diei in die suo Though the people of God ought to be careful of all duty at all times yet they ought to have a special regard to the duty of their day the seasonableness of a duty addeth much to the weight and importance of it The foundations are shaken saith the Psalmist Psal 11.3 4 What shall what can the righteous do Mark what follows The Lords Throne is in Heaven his eyes see his eye-lids try the children of men This is that life which the Saints have lived yea and they have lived well upon it When David had lost all the Amalekites had taken Ziglag and in it all that he had 1 Sam. 30.6 the Text saith David encouraged himself in God the Truth Power and Goodness of God nor did he hope in God in vain as you shall read in that story What had Hezekiah to live upon but Faith when Sennacherib had besieged him with his mighty Army and ranted against him and the God of Heaven too after that rate you read What had all the Patriarchs all the Saints and Servants of God to live upon but Faith of whom you read Heb. 11. Nor is there any life which so glorifieth God as this it eminently glorifieth three Attributes of his his Power Goodness and Truth No man will trust in a bruised Reed or lean upon a broken Staff therefore the Apostle speaking of Abrahams faith Heb. 11. saith He believed that God was able to raise him from the dead and again Rom. 3 He believed that he who promised was able to perform It giveth God the glory of his goodness for the expectation of his soul is the Mercy and Goodness of God and it also giveth God the glory of his truth for the proximate object of Faith is the Word and Promise of God O therefore let this be your care when you cannot live by sense live by Faith It is the happiness of a Child of God he hath something to live on in the worst of times Psal 34.10 The young Lions shall be hunger-bit but there is no want to them that fear the Lord. One would think that of all creatures the Lion should be most out of danger of being hunger bit The Lion the King of the Forest all other Beasts are subject to this Beast yet if an old Lion that cannot run for its prey that hath lost much of its strength may be hunger-bitten one would think a young-Lion that is in its full strength should not Yes saith the Psalmist a young Lion may be hunger-bitten those that have most of the world wicked men that have greatest honours greatest power great advantages to provide for themselves they may be hunger bitten they may come to want but there shall be no want to them who fear the Lord there shall be no time so ill but they shall live if they cannot live upon bread they shall feed upon truth How much better is the estate of a godly man than that of his neighbour It is a great point this a great piece of duty Let me therefore a little further enlarge upon it three ways 1. Shewing you how a Christian may know if he liveth this life 2. Directing you in order to it 3. Perswading it by Arguments 1. Will some Christian say how shall I know if I live this life Suffer me to give you five or Six Characters of it 1. It is a Spiritual life Our life saith the Apostle is hid with Christ in God What Christ sometimes said to his Disciples when they would have had him to have eaten something that a Child of God may say to all the world I have meat to eat you know not of His life is a spiritual life such is the life of Faith both with respect to the subject and to the object of it As to the subject of it it is the soul that lives the body lives by bread the soul lives by truth by the promise There are many that in evil days their bodies have enough to feed upon but their souls have nothing hence their hearts become like Nabals dead as a stone yea and as to the object it is spiritual too he that feedeth upon truth feedeth upon Jehovah It is the truth of God in the word which the soul liveth upon the soul of a Believer can no more live upon Words and Syllables than another soul No but it is the truth of God in these words his power and ability to perform what he hath said his inclination and good-will to the performance and his truth and faithfulness Every life in an evil day is not a life of faith some may live upon fancy and foolish hope some may live upon means with which their eye feedeth them another may live upon a Roman spirit of his own Tu
they have not the Oracles of God the ordinary means of Grace are hidden from them There is no doubt but their own wilful sinning is the cause of it But whether the Sin of their Progenitors who had the Gospel and sinned it away which to me seemeth a little hard for I can hardly be brought to agree that God for the sins of Relations punisheth their Correlates in Spiritual things Or that prodigious sinning which they are guilty of not living up to what may by them by their natural Light be seen of God for the Apostle Rom. 1. gives you a true Copy of the lives of all Heathens is not so easie to determine I should incline much to fix the cause here they have though not the Book of Scripture yet the Book of Gods Works and Nature though not Men Ministers of the Gospel to them yet the Heavens declaring the Glory of God and the Earth shewing his handy-work those standing Preachers of the Power Glory and Greatness of God whose sound is gone out and going dayly out over all the world they have the Sun and Moon they see much of God in and by them and may learn much of God from them but knowing God and not glorifying him as God but becoming vain in their imaginations they worship Devils and Stocks and Stones the work of their own hands and shutting their eyes against the Light of those common notions which are engraven in all reasonable Natures they give up themselves to commit all filthiness and unrighteousness So not using the Light of Nature and Reason which God hath given them God justly with-holdeth from them the Talent of the Gospel If God doth grant it to others which yet it may be are guilty of the same sottish abuse of their natural Light and Reason therein he is good and gracious but if he denieth it unto them therein he is not unjust or unrighteous But I say there may be some particular instances as to which it may be hard for us to assign what particular sins God so securely proceedeth against the Nations Families or Persons for but this is certain Sin is certainly the next cause of all severe dispensations of punishment Now this will appear to us 1. From the evidence of Scripture 2. From the evidence of Reason concluding from Scripture-Principles 1. First from the plain evidence of Scripture In the case of the Heathen amongst whom the Devil hath the greatest harvest of perishing Souls of these the Apostle speaketh Rom. 1.18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Observe the words God doth not reveal his wrath against the Heathen meerly upon the account of his Soveraign Power because he will do it but against the ungodliness and unrighterusness of men he goeth on declaring their ungodliness and their unrighteousness Vers 21. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God They had light enough from the Works of God in Nature to shew them other kind of Ideas of the Divine Being than it was possible for them to find amongst created beings but they turned the Incorruptible God into the image of a corruptible man yea of creeping things and four-footed beasts The Apostle telleth them also of their unrighteousness Vers 29. Fornication wickedness covetousness malitiousness they were full of envy murders debates deceits c. Now for these things the wrath of God was revealed against them The Apostle telleth us Rom. 2.14 That when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things which are contained in the Law they are a Law to themselves And Vers 26. If the uncircumcision keep the Law their uncircumcision shall be accounted to them for circumcision I am not of their mind who think that the Heathen have light enough to shew them the way to Heaven I know not Isa 9.2 Mat. 4.16 Luk. 1.7 9. if that were true why the Scripture should set them out under the notion of persons or people that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death until Christ as the day-spring from on high hath visited them But I am sure they have sin enough to justifie God in damning them and permitting them to walk in their own ways until they have filled up the measure of their iniquities and brought judgment upon themselves I also believe that if there be found a Job in the Land of Vz If there be one found amongst the Heathen who feareth God and escheweth evil who walketh up to his natural light God hath his secret way to reveal and apply Christ to them so as he shall not perish But yet I cannot believe that his natural light shall save him because the Scripture telleth us That there is no other name under heaven than the name of Jesus Christ by which any can be saved neither is there Salvation in any other There are several things in nature that we know are so but we do not know the way of them In the matters of grace there are several things also which we understand not the way of God in Three come into my mind at present The way of God with an infant we are not sure that all infants no not that all Baptized infants shall be saved but we doubt not but of many such is the Kingdom of God but for the way of God with the Soul of one that liveth not up to the exercises of reason and the intelligentness of the ordinary means of Faith and Regeneration this we do not understand 2. The way of God with a thief upon the Cross I mean with a sinner forgetting or neglecting to turn unto God until his last hour we do believe that God hath mercy upon some such Souls but how God worketh in them these habits of grace which are necessary according to the ordinary rule how they are born again of the Spirit and Baptized not with water only but with the Holy Ghost and with fire this we do not understand And so Thirdly The way of God with an Heathen that never cometh to the light of the Gospel nor hath any external Revelation of Christ I say how the Spirit of God moveth and which way it cometh into such a Soul this we do not understand but leave it amongst the unsearchable things of Divine Providence which we believe and revere If there be as I said before a Job in the Land of Vz he shall know that his Redeemer lives and that he shall stand at the last day upon the earth and he shall see him with his eyes But which way God revealeth this to him we understand not In the mean time these hidden things being left to God revealed things belong to us and to our children and this is revealed That the wrath of God as to the Heathen is revealed against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men 2. But this is much more evident concerning such as live under the means of grace and offers of salvation Oh
Lastly Reason creates in the soul at best but a faint assent to this Proposition That the worlds are made by God and still leaveth the mind under incertain fluctuations and doubts about it By faith we understand saith the Text we are not properly said to understand those things of which we have only a general confused indistinct knowledg and to which we only give an incertain languid assent The great Philosopher in the world as you have heard hath doubted whether the world were made at all or had an eternal existence Others whether it had not its Original from a casual concourse of Atoms infinitely vain have been unsanctified mens imaginations as in other things so concerning the Original of the world and optimus Philosophus we say non nascitur We are disputing still the most confessed conclusions which are no more than the structures of Reason So that indeed we are beholden to Faith to the Revelation of the word which is the object of Faith and to the habits of Grace habits of faith for the settlement of our minds in Propositions of truth It is but an auxiliary advantage as to Divine Propositions which Reason gives us our mind is not set at rest and settled by them A luxuriant wit and fancy maketh all the perswasion and confirmation of them from Reason very incertain Faith only brings the Soul to a rest about them and gives the soul a clear distinct certain notion and understanding of them By Reason we rather think and opine than understand and certainly know that the worlds were made by God But this is enough for the Explication I come to the Application of the Doctrine This in the first place may help to confirm our Faith concerning the Divine Being the Vnity of it Vse 1 and the Trinity of persons in it the worlds were made by God Then there must be a God whose being was pre-existent to the world and this God must be infinite in Power and in Wisdom The producing of things out of a not-being into a being required an infinite power the producing of such a variety of Beings many of which were furnished and adorned with such excellent perfections and qualities the kniting and joynting of all together and putting them in such an excellent subjection and subordination each to other required an infinite wisdom a wisdom paramount to any created wisdom yea above all the wisdom of the Creatures had all their wisdoms been united This being infinite in Power and Wisdom must be God In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth Gen. 1.1 God alone spread out the heavens Job 9.8 He made the heavens and the earth the sea and all that therein is Yea thus the Lord proveth himself to be God I am the Lord and there is none other forming the light and making the darkness vers 7. And thus the true and living God standeth distinguished from Idols Jer. 10.11 The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth even they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens He hath made the earth by his power he hath established the world by his wisdom and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion Thus the Apostle argues Heb. 3.4 Every house is builded by some but he that made all things is God yea and this God is one The uniformity of this great structure the beauty and order and subordination of all things in it do abundantly prove this by Reason But Faith yet more confirmeth it Mal. 2.10 Have we not all one father hath not one God created us Indeed as I before said the structure and fabrick of it sheweth that one will willed it one wisdom contrived and directed it and that one hand framed it And this one God is three persons the Father of whom are all things 1 Cor. 8.6 The Son by whom are all things for without him was nothing made that is made Joh. 1.3 By him he made the worlds Heb. 1.3 The Holy Spirit that moved at the first upon the face of the waters Gen. 1.1 Thou sendest forth thy spirit and they were created Psal 104.30 Job 33.4 The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Hebrew Gods created I think it is well said of a grave Author Constans aliqua certa ratio pluralis numeri de Deo usurpati reddi alia nequit quam personarum pluralitas There can be no other steady certain reason given why the Hebrew word so ordinarily translated God should be in the plural number but to notifie to us the plurality of persons in the Divine Being all three are but that one God who made heaven and the earth The School-men determine right that there is an infinite space from nothing to something and therefore nothing but the infinite power of an infinite God could bring any thing out of a not-being into a being From hence we may easily conclude what a God we serve Vse 2 we serve him that made heaven and earth and consequently one who is 1. Infinite in power 2. Excellent in wisdom 3. Admirable in goodness and mercy 1. Infinite in Power and Greatness To produce the least thing and bring it out of a not-being into being as I argued before speaketh an unmeasurable infinite power What power doth it then require to produce all the various kinds and species of Creatures the great bodies of the Heavens and the Earth and all those great bodies in them both out of a meer nothing and not-being into an existence and being Ex magnitudine creaturarum Deus magnus intelligitur c. From the greatness of the Creatures saith Augustine we may understand the greatness of God What an infinite and immense God do we serve What nothings of being and of power must we be compared with him All the nations of the earth are to him as the drop of a bucket as the small dust of the ballance 2. Excellent in wisdom The contrivance of the fabrick and structure of the world speaketh this But what an abundance of wisdom hath the great Creator scattered up and down the Creation What a natural sagacity is not in man only but in many brute Creatures What abundance of moral prudence and discretion is observed and to be found in many earthly Princes Their Ministers of State and Counsellers and in others of an inferior order What infinite wisdom appears in joynting the world and making the several parts of it to fit and to serve one another and to compound the different qualities of creatures to the service each of other and of the Universe Oh the infinite wisdom of the only wise God! yet how little do we see of it 3. Yea and his infinite goodness also is apparent in the Creation of all things Whoso looketh upon the usefulness of the Creatures to each other their joynt subserviency to their end and particularly their usefulness and subserviency to
the work of the Son and the work of the Holy-Ghost So that when we assert a Divine Providence extensive to the whole Creation this is that which we mean That as the blessed Trinity did at first by an Almighty power bring the worlds both Heaven and Earth and all creatures therein out of a Not-being into a Being so he doth still wisely and powerfully influence the whole creation preserving their Beings and several faculties of all his creatures and so far directeth permitteth and governeth their actions that they shall answer the ends for which he created and so qualified them especially the great end of his glory For saith Solomon he made all things for himself and for him as well as of him are all things saith the Apostle The School-men say that Gods Being is esse fixum a fixt and unalterable Being in which there can be no variableness no shadow of change his name is I AM he is the same yesterday to day and for ever But the creatures Being is esse fluxum a mutable Being we see changes and varieties every day in their Beings in their Motions the whole creation is but one great Sea in a continual flux and reflux Now as God by his Decree of Providence from eternity determined these successions varieties and motions so like a great King mighty in Counsel and wonderful in working he upholdeth them to them and he governeth them in their effects So that as the former Doctrine of creation excluded the Pagan conceits either of the worlds eternity or casual composition of it and gave God the glory of that his first and great work of creation so this is opposed to the Atheistical conceits of those who would have the created world to be either a principle to it self of its standing or preservation in the order it is or as a great Machine or Engine moving from some great wheels that move all the rest which is said to be the Peripatetick Doctrine and much suits our Judicial Astrologers or moving from any other first principle than the will command or influence of God This is a great point giving God the glory of His and his Sons hitherto working We live in a generation when Atheism aboundeth otherwise it were needless to establish so great a principle Aristotle thought he deserved to be answered with a Gallows that denied it Suffer me a little to confirm your faith in it by arguing it 1. From the Creation 2. From the Nature of the Divine Being 3. From the effects which are our daily objects of sense in the World 4. From the more sure word of Prophesie 1. That the worlds were first made by God I before shewed you Our eyes are continually exercised in the view of a vast Theater and 't is but a little of it that we behold The Heavens that are visible to us are replenished with great and vast bodies the Sun Moon and Stars in the Heavens are great Clouds containing vast quantities of water The Earth is full of multitudes of species infinite individuals of all sorts all indued with a variety of contrary faculties and qualities so are the wide Seas The Earth hangs in the midst of the air These things have lasted some thousands of years The inanimate creatures still keep their Stations The Sun is not wearied nor worn out in its course though it runs it with a strange swiftness every day The Moon is where and as it was the fixed Stars keep their abodes and the wandring Stars yet go not out of their road The Earth drops not down under us nor doth the Sea invade the Earth not a species of creatures is lost from the first Creation Individuals indeed perish but as one generation goeth another comes the species in competent numbers is preserved The creatures move and work in a subordination to the good each of others the production and being of no creature antedates the being or production of another upon which it lives Those that renew their lives with the year have their table spread before they appear The silk-worms egg quickens not but in proportion to the budding of the Mulberry Each creature knows its season when to fly from colder Countreys in which it could not endure the winter into what is warmer Creatures have a care provided for them while they are not able to provide for themselves which then as naturally leaveth them as it before wrought for them The Bee and Ant provide for the winter in short a thousand such instincts and inclinations might be insisted on Countreys that have most poysons have most antidotes few Countreys have sufficiency for themselves but must be beholden to their neighbours Take any one body but especially that of Man who is a little world in himself study but your selves and consider how many Vessels how many limbs and instruments must daily be kept clean and entire How many humours joynts and members must be kept in order to keep you alive and in any degree of health and capacity to the operations of humane life I would now fain know whence all this is Will any ascribe all this to a fate or order at first set Suppose any would say so he must needs conceive an omnipotent Divine Being at first setting the joynts of the world in such an order and surely it were as easie for him to suppose the same being upholding and preserving them in order yea and in acknowledging the former he must be forced to acknowledg the latter We see a skilful workman making a Clock or Watch consisting of many wheels and little instruments that shall have and keep their several motions 24 48 hours suppose it were two or three months suppose it were so many years yet we see at last it must not only be wound up but by daily motion the wheels and other parts though made of hardest mettals decay How is it that in so many thousand years the Sun Moon and Stars are not worn nor abated in their light That by the daily motions of mans body his instruments of motion are not sooner worn out his bones are not of Brass nor his sinews of Iron if they were less than seventy years would wear them out Will any say things are not under a fate but are left to move at their pleasure We know there are multitudes of natural Agents that move not upon election or counsel but naturally and necessarily how come these influenced For those that do move from Counsel and have a Will to guide them Let but any consider what a confusion would presently be by the wayward actions of Children and Servants in his own house if they had nothing but their own wills to guide and govern them What an heap of confusions every City or Town would make if all inhabitants were left to their own wills and government and he will easily conceive what a place of ataxy mischief and disorder the world would be if God did not daily work and rule in the midst thereof
The infinite variety with the different qualities of created Beings yet all conspiring together for the good and order of the whole the order we see amongst them their subserviencies and subordinations each to other they all speak that there is a God that by his Providence ruleth the world Whoso lifteth up his eyes to the Heavens and considereth the constant unwearied motions of those great celestial bodies with the evenness of them so as they are reducible to a science of all other most certain liable to little more exceptions than an extraordinary command to the Sun to stand still in Gibeon and the Moon in the valley of Ajalon or to go backward some few degrees as in Hezekiah's time or considereth the vast bodies of water sometime in the Heavens coming upon us not as water from a pail but through a water-pot must needs conclude a Superiour hand directing and guiding the motions and holding the thin Cloud that it is not rent while the rain makes its orderly passage by drops through the thin and subtil parts of it Whoso standeth by the Sea-side and observeth that vast body of water driven by fierce winds sometimes and constantly by its natural motion invading the Earth as if it would presently swallow it up and observeth it after the ceasing of the wind or a six hours progressive motion gradually retreating and leaving it out of fear yea and further leaving a water-mark for the following flow unless at some certain times before and after the full of the Moon must needs acknowledg a Supreme Being setting bounds unto it which it hath no reason to prescribe to it self nor is it subject to the Command of the greatest Potentate on Earth Finally he that standeth upon the Earth and considers its annual productions the variety of Creatures of all orders in it their Sympathies and Antipathies their Successions the varieties of their Beings Motions and Qualities and yet their mutual subserviencies to one another and subjection to each other must be no less than a most absurd and bruitish Atheist if he will not acknowledg that no less than the daily and mighty influence of an Almighty God could compound their living together upon the same soil in any harmonious agreement each with other That every thing should know its seasons and keep its bounds and be in subjection to man weaker than many of them and not transgress its order or end but when armed by God as a part of his Host to revenge his quarrels upon sinners must be from a knowledg which God gives them and a Law he daily puts upon them but as the Psalmist saith Psal 107.23 They that go down to the Sea in Ships that do business in great waters these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy winds which lift up the waves thereof they mount up to the heavens they go down to the depths their soul is melted because of trouble the breaking of a wave would swallow them up Who is he that maintaineth the continuity of the parts of the water that the waves break not nor the water divideth under the mighty weight that is upon it who but the mighty God could do it In short he seemeth to have taken a very cursory slight and overly view of the Works of Creation that doth not see a plain necessity of a Divine Providence to uphold the various Beings within the compass of it and their various Qualities to compound the disagreements of their natures into an harmony proportioned to the preservation of the Universe Whoso is wise and hath observed these things he must understand both the Power and Wisdom of God in all these things and consequently the loving-kindness of the Lord. I shall shut up this with that Pious foot of the Psalmists Song of Providence Psal 107. O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness for his wonderful works to the children of men 2. If we consider the Nature of God we shall find that he who acknowledgeth a Divine Being and denieth a providential care of all created Beings hath but set up an idol in his heart and rather owneth a God with his tongue than in any truth and sincerity For what do we mean by that term God but an immense Being filling all places a first cause of all things Almighty in power of infinite activity wisdom and goodness We can hardly so much as fancy such a Being but by the same conception we must establish a Divine Providence 1. If we allow not God to be the first Cause we must grant a former cause of things and this were to deny God while we pretend to own him It is as much nonsense to assert one before the first as one higher than the highest But how is God the first cause if he hath no influence upon second causes nor they any dependance upon him If they say that second causes have a dependance on him and he an influence on them they establish what we contend for viz. a Divine Providence 2. If we allow God to be an immense and infinite being filling all places we must either allow him to fill all places as an oculate active being or as a sensless inanimate being A bulk of lead or stone filleth a place but takes no notice of any thing in it A man filleth a place which circumscribeth him but seeth and observeth all things It were an high blasphemy against God to affirm that he filleth all places only as a Log or a bulk of Lead filleth a particular place if he filleth all places as an animate being that hath eyes and ears he must needs see and hear and observe all things in all places which his Being filleth Whoso granteth this doth in a great measure own and acknowledg a Divine Providence 3. But this Doctrine is fully confirmed to us if we will but recognize God a being of infinite mercy and goodness God is not like the Ostrich of which Job saith 39.14 She leaves her eggs in the earth and warmeth them in the dust and forgetteth that the foot may crush them or the wild beast may break them she is hardned against her young ones It is our great vanity that labouring under a difficulty to conceive of any being above our own pitiful perfection and capacity we fancy to our selves strange Idea's of God We can hardly apprehend an immense being that should fill all places if we could we should easily conclude a Divine Omniscience If we can fancy any thing of that yet we are ready to conceive of him according to the lazy imperfections of our natures and think of God as of some great and mighty Prince that hath either through inactivity or for greater state mewed up himself in his Court and gives up himself instead of his business of Government to divertisements of pleasure leaving the care of Government upon his Counsellors or some principal Ministers of State Hence the mistake of
of God that upholds these qualities that they neither waste nor abate from their continual motion The candle is fed from the tallow and wax the torch and taper from pitch wax rozin and other combustible matter when that fails it expireth Whence is the Sun Moon and Stars fed but from the immediate upholding power and hand of God Again these great bodies are not indeed so gross and heavy as mere sublunary and terrene bodies are but yet they must not be denied something of weight especially the Waters in the Heavens We know weight and heaviness is of the nature of Water yea of that Water which falleth from Heaven how come the Clouds which are a thin body to contain and restrain it and keep it as in bottles how come those vast bodies of Water to be contained in the thin body of the Clouds and to diffuse themselves so gradually upon the Earth 2. Let us look upon the Air from the agitation of which proceed the great and boisterous stormy winds The Air is cold and moist only heated and warmed from the Sun how comes it to pass that it is not in that continual agitation which we see it in sometimes sometimes we hardly discern it moved at all sometimes more violently and that sometimes from one quarter sometimes from another is this a natural a meer natural motion then it is necessary and would be uniform so we see it is not Who can give a reason sufficient to satisfie an inquisitive Philosopher of the heat and cold in the Air in several Countrys nay in our own Country or a sufficient reason of drought and moisture in the Air whence is it think you that it is not always dry nor always moist not always stormy nor always calm none of which would suit the conservation of the world but from Gods upholding those qualities in those bodies which influence it and by which these things are caused so that unless when the ordinary Providence of God is not withheld from the creatures in some particular places for the chastisement of the wickedness of them that dwell therein The Air keeps its motion and courses the winds their courses for the preservation of our bodies and the advantage of humane affairs God I say by a daily providence upholds these Beings to those motions and measures of motion which he at first set for them in order to keeping the World in joint The Air putrifieth not nor groweth infectious the Winds sometimes blow sometimes are still c. The Psalmist giveth God the great glory of his Providence in this particular very plentifully He raiseth the stormy winds Psalm 107. v. 25. He walketh upon the wings of the wind Psalm 104.3 He bringeth the winds out of his treasures Psalm 133.7 He causeth his winds to blow Psalm 147.18 The stormy winds fulfil his word Psalm 148.8 The Heathens had such a sense of the Necessity of a Divine Providence to rule this Creature that they devised a God on purpose whom they called Aeolus whom they feigned to have a care and dominion over them and the Poet saith That if he did not they would confound Heaven and Earth 3. From the Air let us come to the Earth a great and vast body Job saith It hangeth upon nothing Job 26.7 upon nothing but the Almighty power of divine Providence It hangeth in the midst of the Air and that upon nothing God did hang it there in the day of Creation the Seas are contiguous to it both of them make but one Globe or round body of a great weight We see it is of the nature of weighty Bodies to incline and press downward Suppose God did at first hang it there What is it keeps it there We should conclude it a great Miracle not to be effected by other than a divine Power to see but a great stone or Canon-bullet hang in the air how would a whole City come out and be astonished at so great a sight especially if it should hang there a month or a year or any considerable proportion of time But who sufficiently contemplateth this great sight Who thinks on the immense weight of the Earth and the Seas hanging in the midst of the thin body of the air Let the Atheists of this generation come near and see this great sight If there be no God or if this God exerciseth no Providence in the upholding and governing created Beings How cometh the Earth to hang upon nothing or how doth it abide one day in that station Let any of them in an open field climb up and hang up a Cannon-bullet so if they can I know the Philosophers tell us it is in its Center and every thing naturally rests there The Poet tells us That Ponderibus librata suis But this is all but an idle and an impertinent muffling us with unintelligible terms for what do they mean by the center of things the center of the Heavens or the center of the Earth or of the Waters unless they understand the place which God ordained for them or wherein God fixed them in Creation in that they abide and we say there Providence keepeth them Let them try if the art of all the men in the World can so poise a great weight in the air that it shall not fall but abide hanging there any considerable time 4. Lastly let us view the great body of the Waters in continual flux and reflux whether they be placed higher than the Earth is a little question But suppose they be not certain it is that the winds oft raise them much higher than the Earth they are of a fluid Nature of a great weight in continual motion whence is it that they do not drown the World or at least a great part of it It is a matter of demonstration that in many places they rise higher every side than the Earth next adjacent to them How comes it that the Sands check them that in many places they bring their bridle in their mouth an huge quantity of small stones or sands which make a bank on every side to protect the adjacent Earth against their rage certainly no reason can be given but what the holy servants of God have long since given Job 26.10 He hath compassed the waters with bounds until the day and night come to an end And Jer. 5.22 He hath placed the sand for a bound to the sea by a perpetual decree that it cannot pass Now suppose such a Decree these inanimate Creatures obey it not out of election and choice but being natural Agents they work and move necessarily according to the affections and inclinations which God hath created them with So as the water being fluid and heavy would from a necessity of natural working overflow and drown the Earth did not God by his Providence continually work establishing his Decree and seeing to the execution of it and to that end governing these inanimate Creatures contrary to their natural inclinations that the World may be
and law of Nature the fire burneth the hungry Lions devour men God suspendeth both these Laws in the case of the three Children and of Daniel by an Ordinance of Nature the Sun keepeth its course and is in a continual progressive motion God suspendeth its motion in Joshuah's case altereth it and maketh it to come back in the case of Hezekiah 2 Kings 20.10 by the Ordinance of Nature the Earth brings forth her fruit so doth the womb ordinarily God suspends this Law in Judgment the Earth is made as Iron the Heaven as Brass men commit whoredom yet do not encrease they eat and have not enough Hos 4.10 This both demonstrates the governance of Divine Providence and also sheweth how God exerciseth it This is a third Particular 4. A fourth Particular wherein God sheweth his Dominion over all and exerciseth his Government over the whole Creation is his influencing all creatures to their natural actions either in a more ordinary or extraordinary manner Every living creature hath its natural motions and actions and powers and faculties in order to them which are the principles of those operations and in the upholding of those powers to those natural motions and actions God exerteth and putteth forth his preserving power of Providence but his extraordinary influencing of them to some motions and actions which are not in a natural course and order doth more eminently shew the Governing power of Divine Providence That Locusts and Caterpillers should feed upon grass and green herbs this is but their natural motion and action according to their nature and the kind of their being but that they should come in troops and rather feed upon one place than upon another till they had devoured all the grass and green herbs in Egypt this was extraordinary Psalm 105.24 He spake and the Caterpillers came and did eat up all the herbs in their land and devoured all the fruit of their ground And again Psalm 74.46 He gave their increase to the Caterpiller The same may be said for the Flies Lice Frogs and other creatures used as a plague upon Pharaoh but indeed this is rather a specialty of Providence than belonging to the ordinary Government of it though very demonstrative of the governing power of Providence 5. A fifth act by which the Providence of God exerciseth its governing power and influence is His daily raising up and influencing Governours for the Housholds and Societies of men and giving checks to them upon their miscarriages and mal-administrations The governing Providence of God exerteth it self either more immediately or mediately Other creatures God ordinarily governeth by men many of them I mean influencing man with Reason and Discretion by which he ruleth ordereth and governeth them though many of them be much more mighty and powerful than he the mouth of the horse and mule which have no understanding by the Providence of God so influencing man are held with the bit and bridle lest they come near unto us Psalm 32.9 The Whale is smitten with a spear wild bulls and boars are hunted down c. The Ox is tamed and brought to serve our uses who are much less in strength than he is Men also are governed by men the weaker by those that are more wise and powerful but whence have the Governours their wit and power their wisdom and understanding prompting them to make Laws acceptable to the greater part of Subjects so as conspiracies are of the lesser number and subdueâ—â—o the greater and keeps them in order Is it not from the Lord great in wisdom and wonderful in counsel Psalm 75.7 God is the Judg he pulleth down one and setteth up another and by him Kings reign God ruleth the World by Magistrates which if well considered would aw men to that duty of honour and obedience which they owe to those that are their Superiours and may make us to understand how we ought to be subject for conscience-sake and for Gods sake in things commanded which we cannot say are contrary to the Divine Law nor so appear to us and have any manifest appearance of good for the government and peace of the whole As on the other side it calls to Kings to be wise and the Judges of the Earth to be instructed to serve the Lord with fear and to rejoyce before him in their great capacities with trembling Psal 2.10 11 they are but the Lords Vice-Roys and as Jehosaphat told his Judges they judg not for themselves but for the Lord for him whose Throne is prepared in the Heavens and whose Kingdom is over all They ought therefore according to the command to the Kings of Israel to have the book of the law before them and to be reading therein all the days of their life and where that doth not give them particular direction to have the honour and glory of God yet in their Eye to measure all their laws and actions according to that Rule to remember God is the Judg and hath only exalted and dignified them to rule the World or this or that part of the World by them still the Government is the Lords 6. A sixth particular act by which God providentially governeth the World is By influencing the souls of some in it to such actions as more immediately tend to his honour and glory God hath an honour and glory from the natural complexion and constitution and motions of inanimate Beings Psal 148.6 8. Thus the Heavens and in them the Sun Moon Stars from them the snow rain hail meteors the lightning and thunder the cold and heat the vapours and stormy winds bring glory to God stormy winds fulfilling his word saith the Psalmist The heavens declare the glory of God the Earth sheweth his handy-work Psalm 19.1 God hath made in the Heavens a tabernacle for the Sun a course for the Moon and Stars the very complexions of them their natural and necessary motions bring God abundance of glory Now this ariseth from a necessary causation they cannot but do it The same may be said of brute creatures though animate not acting upon Election The Whale in the Sea the Lion and Tiger amongst the beasts the Eagle and others amongst the birds the Bee the Silk-worm and others amongst Insects several sorts of creeping things glorify God but it is necessarily Man only amongst earthly creatures glorifieth God voluntarily from a principle within himself and upon choice Take mankind in the general it is a noble piece of Gods Creation and necessarily glorifieth God Man is fearfully and wonderfully made his body is an admirable structure but the great glory which God hath is from his spiritual actions Man is not a mute Preacher of Gods glory as the Heavens and the Earth the Sun Moon and Stars are or brute creatures are He hath a Soul and understanding will affections from these God expects a great homage and glory But now take man in his depraved estate and he doth nothing less No creatures but the evil Angels so much
pieces upon Rocks to avoid the temptation caused himself to be tied to the Mast of his Ship I would have every Christians heart tied to the Promise as to his Mast that he might be out of the danger of all temptations from Providence Thirdly which indeed is a consequent of this Resolve to wait upon God under all the hidings of his face I call'd this a consequent of the other for he that believeth maketh not haste saith the Prophet This was the Churches resolution Isa 8.17 I will wait upon him that hideth his face from the house of Jacob. Temptations in an evil day can have no advantage but upon our Souls precipitancy The Soul that is resolved to wait upon God hath much defeated all Tempters and is out of all their Gunshot I remember the speech of the three Children to the King of Babylon We are not say they careful to answer thee in this matter The God whom we serve is able to deliver us out of thy hand however we will not fall down before the image which thou hast set up If he will not presently deliver us we are resolved to wait on him Fourthly To waiting must be added Prayer I will look unto him for he will hear me Prayer is the Catholick remedy both for the aversion of any Judgments and for the obtaining of any mercy Fifthly To all this add but that of the Psalmist Psalm 37.34 Wait upon the Lord and keep his way and thou shalt inherit the promise made to it He shall exalt thee to inherit the land and when the wicked are cut off thou shalt see it But I shall proceed no further in this Discourse SERMON XVI Psal CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. HAVING shewed you it to be the duty of Gods people to observe the motions of Divine Providence which are the things spoken of in this Text and shewed you what a great indication of spiritual Wisdom such an observation is and how great a mean to make us to understand the loving-kindness of the Lord I came in my last Exercise to commend unto you some remarkable Observations concerning them I finished my Discourse at that time upon my first Observation without any further preface I shall now proceed to a second which you may take thus Observ 2. The Providence of God in the fulfilling of the words both of promise and of threatning doth ordinarily fulfil the first when the people of God are at the lowest and the latter when his Enemies are at the highest I shall handle this in the same method as I did the other speaking to it shortly 1. By way of Explication 2. Confirming the Observation and giving you the reasons of it and lastly making some Application of it For Explication 1. I must desire you still to observe what I before told you and now repeat That the Providence of God in all its motions is but a Servant of the Word it fulfilleth the will of God That it is the spring from which all its motions do proceed both the secret and revealed will The will of God is but one but part of it is revealed part concealed So much of it as is necessary in order to our Salvation is revealed whether respecting our rule of life or respecting what shall happen to us or others to Nations and Kingdoms and Churches in this life or to particular Souls in or after this life Now what God hath thus revealed Providence brings to issue and here is the ground both of our prayers and praises 2. For the Promises I say you shall observe It is the ordinary method of Divine Providence to bring them to an accomplishment upon the Church and people of God when they are at the lowest in all humane appearance in the lowest state of dejection in the lowest degree of affliction when they are lowest as to their outward state lowest as to their hopes 3. I added thirdly That it ordinarily gives a being and fulfilling to the threatning when Gods Enemies are at the highest The people of God are those to whom the promises are made they are the heirs of them they are those to whom are given the great and precious promises wicked men are they to whom the threatnings belong they are the children of wrath the heirs of the Curses the work of Providence in reference to them those of them that will not be reformed is to bring all the Curses that are written in the book of God upon them But I say you shall observe That the time in which the Providence of God fulfilleth these words of Threatning upon them is when they are at the highest in the highest hopes of the contrary on the highest mountains of prosperity Let me endeavour to justifie this Observation by some instances and those concerning bodies of people or individuals You know the people of the Jews were the only people under Heaven until Christs ascension that God owned as his people Individuals there were that were not Jews as Job and others but I say for a body of people there were no other Gal. 3.16 To Abraham and his seed were the Promises made Rom. 9.4 Who are Israelites to whom appertained the adoption and the glory and the Covenants and the giving of the Law and the service of God and the Promises The Promises made to Abraham Isaac Jacob. David c. The Promises of inheriting Canaan coming out of Babylon destroying their Enemies c. Now these promises being given out it was the work of Divine Providence to give them a verification and to fulfil them Observe what times the Providence of God doth it in It bringeth the children of Israel out of Egypt and into Canaan not while Jacob or Joseph were alive Joseph was a great man and could have given a probable conduct to that great work The Israelites while he lived were in a very flourishing condition multiplying exceedingly and being in a very prosperous state every way But this is not a time when the Providence of God will accomplish the Promise Joseph must die and another King rise up that knew not Joseph The children of Israel are diminished their little ones slain their whole body oppressed with hard labour and brought to as low a pass as you can well imagine a people to be not wholly blotted out This is the time that Providence will accomplish the promise for their coming out of Egypt They pass the Red-sea in a very formidable body like enough to make their way through the Wilderness and a variety of Enemies into the promised Land But before the Providence of God brings them in they must be broken in a great measure destroyed all dead unless Caleb and Joshuah who came out of Egypt and their body wholly a new generation then they shall pass over Jordan Read over all the story of Judges and observe God seldom delivered them from their oppressors until they were brought
is a divine stamp too though of a different nature what means are proper must be used how mean soever they appear in our eyes What proportion was there betwixt Jonathan and his Armour-bearer and the whole Garrison of the Philistines between Jeroboams Army and Abijahs This but four hundred the other eight hundred thousand between the Army of Asia and that of the Ethiopians and Lubims 2 Chron. 14. God often works yea he ordinarily worketh by small means and Providence brings forth its great work in the day of mans small things If we be sure that we are in Gods way and about his work let the means be what they will if lawful and rational it is our duty to use them God must be honoured in his own Institutions and sought in his own way though the means be small and our humane hopes small yet if we expect Gods blessing this mercy must be sought in the use of those means which the Providence of God layeth before us 2. But secondly The duty of a Christian will lye much in the exercise of his Faith in God beyond the probability of the means This is the great duty of a Christian and the very end which God aimeth at in cutting us short of means many times I think we may say Vbi media deficiunt ibi fides incipit where means begin to fail there faith begins to work Where we are out of sight as to means there 's a room for faith For it is saith the Apostle the evidence of things not seen By faith here I mean a trusting and relying upon God as a God able and faithful But to open this a little more clearly to you I will shew you 1. In what cases we may warrantably exercise a faith in God beyond the vertue and probability of means 2. What means we may use for the help of our faith in this case 3. What encouragements we may take to our selves in such a case to set our faith on work 1 Quest In what cases may a Christian exercise faith in God for the accomplishment beyond the vertue efficacy and probability of humane means to be used in order to it 1. To this I answer The object of faith must be a Promise It is ridiculous to talk of an exercise of faith in God for an accomplishment for which we have no word to warrant us in the expectation of it But now a Promise may be either particular or General of old many had particular persons and the Nation of the Jews had particular promises made to them by God immediately or mediately by his Prophets we have no such God hath left us unto his written Word There are many general promises which shall be made good still to particular Churches and persons Hence is our difficulty to conclude what it is we may exercise a faith in God for bringing to pass To direct you a little 1. Where you have a particular promise the case is plain Some such there are as for the destruction of Antichrist c. 2. In the want of a special particular Promise a general promise is a sufficient object for our faith General promises made to the Church and people of God are applicable to particular Churches and particular Saints 3. Every Precept doth imply a Promise God hath certainly promised a blessing upon the doing of that which he hath commanded us to do no man serveth God for nothing 4 Whatsoever issue certainly conduceth to the glory of God is under a Promise God hath resolved to glorifie himself and he ordereth all his actions in order to that end The substance of all this amounts to thus much We may exercise a faith in God and trust in him for accomplishing by his Providence whatsoever in his Word he hath either more particularly or generally promised or whatsoever he hath commanded us to act in tendency unto or whatsoever doth certainly tend to the glorifying of his great and holy Name Now if any thing of this nature be upon the wheel although we see the present visible means in order to the accomplishment of it be small and in all appearance disproportioned to the greatness of the event yet a Christian using what lawful means the Providence of God lays before him may warrantably trust in God for the exerting a further power for the accomplishment of it than is in the means which at present are apportioned to it But this is now an hard thing to us Let me therefore secondly direct you what you should do in a day of small things for the advantaging of your faith in this noble Exercise I shall offer but two things in the Case 1. Keep your Eye as much off the means and as much upon God as you can We have so much of sense and reason in us that we are very prone from one or other of them to take all our measures about future events If we would keep our hearts steady in a time of such exigencies as these we must shut the Eyes both of our sense and reason Faith credits a Proposition neither upon the demonstrations of the one of these nor the conclusions of the other but the meer authority of God Men count it wisdom when they are upon precipices never to look downward but upward if they look downward their weak heads are apt to be giddy Christians in such stresses of Providence as these are have nothing else to do if they look downward their sense their reason saith how can these things be If God would make windows in heaven saith that Nobleman these things could not be Our poring upon means in the day of our small things hindereth the exercise of our faith in God If the foundations be destroyed saith the Psalmist Psal 11.3 what can the righteous do Means are the foundations of our natural hopes now if these be destroyed if there be little or nothing of these what can we do Wicked men are indeed at their wits-ends they despond and despair but saith the Psalmist v. 4 The Lord is in his holy temple the Lords throne is in heaven his eyes see his eye-lids try the children of men God is still where he was and hath the same power the same knowledg of things the same rule and dominion Twice in Scripture Abraham is propounded to us as a noble Example and a father of the faithful in this thing Rom. 4. God had promised him a Son a Son of his Wife Sarah he grew to be an hundred years old his Wife many years past child bearing here was no means yet Abraham believeth for a Child and he was not weak in the faith saith the Apostle Rom. 4.18 19 20. How doth he behave himself The Apostle telleth you That he considered not his own body now dead when he was about an hundred years old nor yet the deadness of Sarahs womb he staggered not at the Promise but was strong in faith giving glory to God being fully perswaded that what he had promised
devouring fires for number and greatness not to be parallel'd God make us to understand his Rod and how many ways he is as a moth unto England secretly and gradually and almost irreparably devouring and destroying us This maketh our days full of the cry of the poor God grant we be not also full of such as stop their ears at the cry of the poor either giving nothing or in no proportion to relieve them I wish we could consider and remember that Text and think what may be our portion and do as we would be done by and remember God often punisheth this uncharitableness in its kind Men of hard-hearts in prosperity ordinarily meet with hard-hearts in their adversity with what measure they mete to others it is meted unto them again The Apostle Gal. 6.1 perswadeth the restoring of a brother fallen in the spirit of meekness and useth this Topick Considering thy self lest thou also be tempted And to the Hebrews he speakes To remember them that are bound as bound with them and them which suffer adversity as being your selves in the body Heb. 13.2 There 's much in those words Lest thou also be tempted and those as being your selves in the body In cases of true charity Christians as they should consider other things so they should consider that they themselves are in the body they may lose their estates their health their limbs they are not in Heaven yet they are in the world and they are in the body they are not meerly spirits invulnerable impenetrable Men should think my house may be fired and all I have lost in an hour or two I may lose my eyes my limbs as this poor creature hath I am in the body So in those words there 's a great Emphasis Lest thou also be tempted Tempted sometimes signifies as much as afflicted though indeed in that Text it seems to signifie sollicited to sin and overcome God saith the Apostle for thy rigid dealing with thy brother over-born with a temptation to sin may suffer the Devil to give thee a foil would'st thou in such a case be roughly dealt with thy self With what measure men mete to others God measureth to them again Let me say to you take heed of omitting your duty in a charitable act lest thou also comest to be so afflicted as to need others charity and when thou art so God should repay thee in thy own kind so straiten mens hearts towards thee that from persons from whom thou mightest have expected pounds thou hast not so many pence think with thy self how such a thing would please you Let me here give you two rules which I think your Reasons will all concur with 1. It is a foolish thing for any person in circumstances of mortality so to govern himself in his conversation as if he were not subject to the common accidents of that state The Apostle saith of Elijah That he was a man subject to like passions with other men The Apostle speaks of humane weaknesses sinful infirmities and God considereth that and gives us allowances for it and therefore though Job had many ill fits of impatience when the hand of God was heavy upon him yet God saith Behold the patience of Job We are all of us also subject to the same sufferings and the Apostle from this Topick comforteth his Corinthians in those first and furious times of the Gospel 1 Cor. 10.13 There hath no temptation taken you but what is common to men Now I say there is nothing more foolish than for any of us in our conversation to govern our selves as if we were not so but out of the gun shot of the chastising Providence of God Our bodies are subject to death to sicknesses to old age and impotencies our estates are exposed to the fire to the thief to the merciless soldier to the oppressor Now for a man in his conversation to govern himself so as if he were never to dye as if he were never to be sick as if it were not possible that a fire should devour his pleasant things that he or his should not be brought to straits is no better than folly and madness 2. It is as foolish a thing for a man to promise himself that in case of such accidents others should be kinder to him than he hath been to others in the same circumstances We cannot so much as fancy such a thing without supposing them better-natured or more gracious either of which is at best a reproach to our selves And this is but reasonable for us to think although we consider not the influence of God in the case who hath told us That he who stoppeth his ear against the cry of the poor he also shall cry and not be heard and hath the hearts of all men in his hand and can easily shut them up in judgment against the cries of those who have sinfully stopped their ears against the cries of those who have cried to them in their distress Hence it follows that it is but reasonable for us in these cases thus to conclude I have now a fair estate but it is subject to decay a fire may consume it in a moment soldiers may devour it either in my or my childrens days I have now an healthy body sound and perfect limbs I may grow sickly lose my limbs my senses and be brought into the condition of a receiver who am now a giver Why should I think that any should consider me or mine in such circumstances more than I consider others Let me therefore do unto others as I would have others do unto me I have no reason to look that it should be meted to me again better measure then I measure unto others But I have dwelt too long upon this first shewing you how the Providence of God doth often retaliate hard heartedness by suffering the hearts of others to harden against men in straits who have stop't their ears against the cries of others to them in distress 2. But there are other kinds of uncharitableness which God doth ordinarily repay in their kind Those are acts bearing the highest opposition to charity tending to the utter ruin and destruction of their brethren such as murthers cruelties and barbarous and inhumane usage of others We shall find in the old Law that God in divers cases established a law of Retaliation If any mischief followed such a striking a woman with child as caused a miscarriage God ordained they should give eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot burning for burning wound for wound stripe for stripe Exod. 21.23 24 25. and in the case of a false witness there was such a law Deut. 19.16 17 18 19 20 21. which you may read at your leisure It was Gods will that a witness who had testified falsly against any man if he were once found a false witness should suffer the very same thing that the other should have suffered So that throughout all the Jewish period the
But for a good man one that disperseth abroad and gives to the poor Prov. 3.9 10. David never saw such a mans seed begging their bread and 't is no wonder thousands of men grow poor by lending but he that gives to the poor lends to the Lord saith Solomon never any man lost by that lending The great God never yet failed never yet was unfaithful I could fill your ears with stories I will only give you one or two It is reported in the life of that famous Junius Minister in France and Holland he died but in the year 1602 he met with the Lot of many godly Divines in all ages as well as ours and came to be pinched with want and resolved for the supply of his necessities every each day to dig in the Town-ditch But see the Providence of God there lived near a Taylor a young man whose Mother had in France lived near to this Junius's mothers house and being very poor Junius's mother had often relieved her Her son remembreth this kindness and though but a poor man inviteth Junius to his house and provideth meat and lodging for him for seven months I could tell you many and strange stories of Gods repaying Charity in its kind of little pieces of silver given in this kind repaid with an hundred fold even in this life But this is an observation which justifieth it self in the experience of every one of you I shall rather shew you the reasonableness of this motion of Divine Providence which will be evident to you I will open it to you in five particulars 1. God doth this to evidence his general love to mankind and special care of Providence for the needy the poor and the fatherless the stranger and the widow Justice and Charity are the two pillars of the world all humane society is dependent upon them Justice because as I told you before from Solomon oppression makes the wise-man mad mens spirits will never be calm under a course of oppression hence Tyrants must have constant standing-armies to secure their lusts The Turkish Empire is little but injustice and oppression it could not stand but for his Janizaries Charity is another pillar of the Earth the reason is because as our Saviour told us The poor we shall have always with us Now God sheweth his great love to societies of men in eminent upholding of both these And besides the Scripture speaketh God to have taken the special patronage of the poor and needy the stranger and widow and fatherless God doth this by raising them up friends and it is a great means to raise them friends to incourage them by sensible rewards and that of the same kind 2. It is necessary that as our Saviour oft saith all righteousness should be fulfilled The promises might have a being given them I told you before that the promises made to mercy and charitableness are very many now some of these promises are made for a term within this life He shall not lack saith Solomon that must be a promise respecting reward in this life and so for the threatnings against cruelty and hard-heartedness towards them in misery or that exercise any barbarous dealings towards their brother so that it is necessary God should in this life retaliate such wickedness 3. It is necessary for the terror of such sorts of sinners God himself gives this as one of his ends in establishing the law of Retaliation in the case of false witnesses Deut. 19.16 17 18 19 20. And those which remain shall hear and fear and from henceforth commit no such evil more amongst you The most of men hearing that Adonibezek who cut off so many Princes thumbs and great toes came to be served in the same kind himself are afraid of such kind of Inhumanity 4. Again It is necessary for the conviction of unbelievers There are many sins against which there are dreadful Revelations of Divine Wrath in holy Writ and the Providence of God gives them a being every day but yet sinners will not believe when they see the vengeance that comes upon them that God designs to punish them for their unmercifulness and cruelty to their brethren no all things fall alike to all men and those that judg otherwise are with them in no better repute than as bold priers into the secrets of God and judges of his Counsels God therefore will please sometimes to write their sin in their plague It shall be wrote over the Gallows fifty cubits high upon which Haman was hanged this was the Gallows which he prepared for Mordecay The accusers of the three Children shall be thrown into the same fiery furnace which they had caused to be heated for the three children and Daniel's accusers into the same den of Lyons in which they would have had him perished He that leadeth into captivity shall be led into captivity and he that killeth with the sword shall be killed with the sword When men see this if they will believe any thing they will believe this 5. Lastly It is also reasonable for the more perfect demonstration of Gods favour to these exercises of grace and vertue Our Saviour faith All men have not faith The most of men live either meerly by sense or by reason The promises of a reward of Heaven are matters of faith A true believer only from these understands Gods favour to merciful men his faith being the evidence of things not seen indeed evidenceth to him Gods love sufficiently Inward rewards of grace are like the new-name given unto the People of God only known to them that have them The most of men are acted by sense and convinced by that mostly for in this cafe Reason will do little God is therefore pleased to reward such persons to great degrees in this life and that in the same kind too that all the Earth may know what he will do for such persons But I come to the Application which I shall dispatch in two branches making it a foundation Vse 1. First for Admonition to all that hear me to take heed of these sins I would have you brethren take heed of all sin for the wages of every sin is without repentance eternal death but especially take heed of sins eminently against charity Take heed of stopping your ears against the cry of the poor God will be even with you you or yours shall cry and not be heard It is a woful folly for a man so to govern himself in his Conversation as if he were not subject to changes it speaketh the man that doth it to be void of understanding and it is a most unreasonable madness for a man to expect that from another which himself would not do to another Abraham checks Dives in the parable for thinking that Lazarus should go to fetch him a cup of cold water when as he in his life-time would not afford him a cup of drink take heed of cruelty of false-witnessing of any eminent act of uncharitableness Remember
Apostle tells us Rom. 11.11 12. They did not stumble that they might fall but through their fall salvation came unto the Gentiles for to provoke them to jealousie The Apostles upon their going out to preach to the Gentiles gives this account of it Forasmuch as you have judged your selves unworthy of eternal life that was by not receiving the Gospel we turn unto the Gentiles What shall I need say more there is no soul brought to Heaven but is an eminent instance of this If they had not sinned they would have no need of any pardon or justification from the guilt of sin no need of a Saviour or Mediator God suffereth the souls of his People to be concluded under the guilt of sin that he might have mercy upon them It is also an ordinary observation of Divines That God often suffereth people to fall into some gross and scandalous sins that he might take that advantage to awaken them to repentance and make use of their falls to a rising again to a new life and this is often seen in those that have lived civilly and might be prone to trust to their own Moral Righteousness But I shall inlarge no further in the Justification of so obvious an Observation It follows that I should shew you the reasonableness of this motion of Divine Providence 1. The truth is in the first place it is hard to conceive how otherwise some of Gods greatest works of Providence could have been produced What would the Revelation of a Covenant of Grace have signified to the world if the Covenant of Works had not first been violated by the first mans transgression How could else any man imagine that the salvation of the world should have been accomplished by the death of Christ if God had not made use of the wicked action of those who took him and by wicked hands crucified him The Apostle assureth us that in all they did against our Lord they did but execute what the counsel of the Lord had predetermined should be done If sin did not abound how should grace much more abound Rom. 5. In the pardon of sins the justification of a guilty soul the Scripture tells us That all are concluded under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe What should we say to the great work of Providence in trying his Saints by afflictions and persecutions from the hands of violent men God maketh use of the sins of Persecutors to perfect his Saints by the exercises of their faith and patience it could not be without the sins of those who persecute others for righteousness sake 2. Again God by this getteth himself a great deal of glory I have spoke something to this under the seventh Observation but let me here add a little 1. He gets himself the glory of his power There is a fancy hath possessed the Philosophers of the world That metals of a baser nature may by art be turned into nobler metals brass c. into gold and they will tell you that some such thing hath been done and aboundance of time and money hath been spent by the vain and covetous Philosophers of the world to little purpose to find out this Philosophers stone as they call it but supposing such a thing possible yet there must be some similar quality to help or they will not pretend to any such thing no Philosopher ever yet pretended by all his Chymistry to fetch gold out of a dunghil But now in sin there is nothing of a similar quality to the glory of God there is nothing so opposite to the glory of God as the sins of men and women For God to fetch water out of a rock argued great power to raise up Abraham children from the stones of the field it must speak great power but yet not so much as for God to fetch his own glory out of peoples sins There is in sin an infinite opposition to the glory of God nothing so diametrically opposite to God's honour and glory as sin is Sampson put forth a riddle Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness But what is this riddle to that which I am speaking of for the glory of God to come forth out of the dunghil the woful dunghil of the worst of mens actions for God to work out his own righteousness out of the vilest actions of men O it speaketh an infinite Power in God! it is a greater work to fetch light out of darkness I will saith God get me glory upon Pharaoh For God to get himself glory out of Pharaoh's hard heart was more than to get his people water out of an hard rock 2. God by it gets himself the glory of his infinite wisdom I told you in my former discourse that he is accounted the best Politician that can make the best use of all humours and serve his own designs even of his utter Enemies this is the top of a Politicians wisdom How great then must the Wisdom of God appear in this nothing hath such an enmity to God and his glory as sin hath Job speaketh it to the great glory and honour of God Job 5.13 He taketh the wise in their own craftiness and the counsels of the crafty are carried head long It speaketh the wisdom of a man that he can make use of the capacious quality of a bird or a beast to catch a prey for him thus the faulconer maketh use of the hawk the huntsman of the dog the fisher-man of a fowl to catch birds or beasts or fish for him This I say speaketh the wisdom of a man above other creatures O how it speaketh the admirable Wisdom of God that he can make use of the worst belchings of lusts in mens hearts the most vile and rebellious actions of men and out of them fetch his own glory 3. But in the last place God above all doth by this magnifie the riches and freeness of his grace This is that wherein the Lord delights to have glory he predestinated adopted us c. to the praise of the glory of his grace Eph. 1.6 If God had taken man out of a state of innocency into Heaven we should never have admired free-grace so much as now it marvellously affects the heart of a child of God to see God make use of his falls of his sin and corruption and manifold rebellions to make his free-grace exceeding glorious We should never so much admire free-grace and mercy if we were not so great transgressors This is it which maketh grace precious in our eyes when we cry out of the belly of hell and he heareth us Thus far I have shewed you that God maketh a very ordinary use and a very remarkable use of peoples sins But I also added that it was a spotless use and thus it must be if God maketh it For he that is of purer eyes than that he can behold iniquity must be of a purer will
to heaven ordinarily with broken bones and a bleeding heart So that you see that Gods getting himself glory from his peoples sin gives no man a ground of presumption to go on in a course of sin against God Vse 4. In the last place Let this observation mind us in this case to be workers together with God Have we sinned and come short of the glory of God Let us do our indeavour to make our sins to turn to the furtherance of the glory of God Let us indeavour to make the best of our own bad markets What is done we cannot re-call let us indeavour if possible to make an advantage of our former miscarriages You will say How should that be Answ 1. Let the sense of your sins hasten your pace to the Lord Jesus Christ God hath a great deal of glory from our believing in him whom he hath sent The soul that accepteth of the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour giveth unto God the glory of his Power Wisdom Justice Goodness Truth it gives him the glory of the exceeding riches of his free-grace 2. Make use of your sins to increase your Confession your Repentance and Humiliation Confession giveth glory to God my Son saith Joshua Confess and give glory to God Let your former sins give you the further advantage for sorrowing after a godly sort that will bring forth carefulness indignation fear vehement desires zeal revenge as it did in the Church of Corinth 2 Cor. 7.11 3. Let the remembrance of them cause you to walk softly all the days of your life This is that which God requireth of all to walk humbly with their God The remembrance of your sins may be of notable use to you for this to keep down that pride which is naturally in all our hearts that swelling in an opinion of our selves of our own duties and performances that uncharitable judging and censuring and triumphing over others when we see them fallen in the day of temptations 4. Lastly Let the consideration of how many sins God hath forgiven you make you love much Thus the woman Luk. 7.37 47 made an improvement even of her former sins her much that was forgiven ingaged her to love that God much who had forgiven her so much This improvement St. Paul made 1 Cor. 15.9 10. I am saith he the least of all the Apostles and not meet to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the Church of God But by the grace of God I am that I am and his grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain but I laboured more abundantly than they all O this will be an excellent improvement even of your sins if your former unholiness shall now help to make you more holy your former unrighteousness shall help to make you more righteous for the time to come your reflexions upon how much you have done against God and his Saints shall now engage you to do more for God and the cause and people of God A good husband and house-wife will lose nothing but make some advantage of every rag every bit of wood c. I would have you be like them you have been formerly great sinners and done much to the dishonour of God your consciences can shew you a great dunghil of sin which you made in your state of vanity God hath changed your state changed your hearts let not that dunghil be lost look upon it often to help to raise up your hearts in the praises and admiration of Gods free-grace and the engaging your hearts more for God in your contrary duties for the time to come But so â—uch shall serve for this Observation also SERMON XXVI Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am still going on instructing you to that spiritual Wisdom which the Text telleth you may be gained by and is declared in the Observation of the motions of Actual Providence I am now proceeding to a Twelfth Observation of this nature which I shall give you thus Observ 12. The Providence of God in the distribution of the good things of this life doth in a great measure move circularly though mostly to the seeming advantage of ungodly men In my enlargments upon this notion I shall keep much to the same method which I observed in the former 1. Opening it unto you 2. Justifying the observation by instances 3. Shewing you the reasonableness of this motion of Divine Providence And lastly Making some suitable Application 1. My observation as you see concerneth the motions of Actual Providence as to its distribution of the portions of this life The Pagan Philosophers distributed all the good things they had any knowledg of into three sorts The good things of the body amongst which they reckoned long-life health strength beauty c. The good things of the mind the rich endowments of it such as knowledg invention judgment wit memory and moral vertue c. and the good things of fortune such as birth ingenuous education honours riches All these have a goodness in them which lyeth in their suitableness to the use of humane life or society The blind Heathen not seeing the fountain-head of these beautiful streams ascribed them to fortune But they are all in the hand of Providence that giveth to one a longer to another a shorter life to one greater to another lesser measures of health and strength c. to one more judgment wit c. than to another But I chiefly understand my Observation of the good things which the Heathen called Bona fortunae the good things of fortune such as honours riches c. These also are the Lords he it is saith Moses That gives us power to get wealth And the Holy Ghost by another pen-man telleth us That promotion cometh neither from the east nor from the west but God pulleth down one and setteth up another Promotion doth mostly depend upon the favour of the great men of the Earth and you shall observe the Scripture everywhere maketh God the Author of the favour and grace which persons have found in the eyes of the Princes of the world 2. Now I observe in the first place That the wheel of Providence in making this distribution doth for the most part move circularly My meaning is that good and evil of this nature hath as all humane things its turns and vicissitudes sometimes to good men sometimes to bad men The Heathen had some prospect of this though what we call Providence they ascribed to fortune to whom they gave a wheel to signifie the rotation of all these sublunary contentments in which you know the same spokes are not always up nor down but sometimes these spokes are uppermost by and by they are at the ground and those that but now were below are up in their place And this is most perspicuous in bodies of people which are made up of those two sorts of men that divide the world godly
Application recapitulate a little 1. For the sins of others which we see permitted in the World 1. Let us be quickened upon the view of them to adore the patience and long-suffering of God Dost thou hear a wretch curse and blaspheme and profane the great and dreadful name of God and defie the God of Heaven challenging his own damnation and doest thou see God suffering him to live from year to year and to go on in this course Doest thou see another in the heighth of rage against the people of God endeavouring if it were possible to root out all Religion and dayly devouring those that are more righteous than himself Let it help thee to recognize the patience of God do thou upon occasion of others profaneness and blasphemy give God the glory of his patience Let it make thee many a time reflect and say O what a patient God is the God in whom I trust he seeth these vile wretches he could as easily crush them as I with my foot can crush a worm yet he spareth them and with much long suffering endures the vessels of wrath fitted for Hell 2. Let the view of the sins of others which thou seest God permitting for his own wise ends make thee adore the wisdom of God Thou art posed to think what glory God can procure to himself from the profaneness and blasphemy of wicked men but God will certainly do it and would never suffer their profaneness if he did not know how to do it O! the infinite wisdom of God that can make the wrath of man to praise him Let thy heart be affected with that meditation 3. Again Doest thou see the world of sin that abounds doest thou hear of prodigious lusts blasphemies cruelties c. which make thy soul tremble Let God upon this occasion have the glory of his free-mercy and grace towards thy soul Bless God that he hath given thee another spirit Say Lord why was not I as one of these I had the same seed of sin in me my heart was as full of original lust and corruption as theirs Oh! what reason have I to adore the free grace of God that I am not as this beastly drunkard as this unclean wretch as this monstrous blasphemer If it had not been for free and rich grace I had been as bad as they It is that which made me to differ 2. But let God have glory from us upon the occasion of his so long suffering us to walk in our own ways Now that may be many ways let me a little particularly direct here also 1. Let it make thee live in a dayly admiration of free-grace both in pardoning thy former guilt and in renewing and changing thy heart This this is a work not for a rapture not for an hour or a day but for eternity It will doubtless be a great piece of our work when we come to Heaven to cry salvation to our God and to the Lamb. Blessing and glory and honour and wisdom and thanksgiving be to the Lord for ever and ever It should be much of our work upon the earth if we have either obtained the sense of the pardon of our sins or a good hope through grace you shall find St. Paul beginning most of his Epistles with such a blessing of God O you redeemed of the Lord you that are come out of a state of deep guilt you can never think nor speak enough what God hath done for your souls It is a great work of God and he doth his great works that they may be had in remembrance Let God have some glory from thee for pardoning those sins by which he hath been much dishonoured by thee and as for his pardoning so for his sanctifying grace Admire God bless God upon the view of thy former hard heart profane and unclean spirit say Ah Lord that ever such an Ethiopian as I was should through grace change my skin that ever such a rebellious spirit should be made obedient such a profane wretch should ever have an heart toward Heaven that ever one that loved his lusts so well as I have done should be taught of God to love him and fear him and delight in him that a Saul should be amongst the Prophets a Paul a persecutor a blasphemer should be amongst the Apostles a Mary Magdalen should wash her Lords feet and be so humbled as to wipe them with the hairs of her head the offering up of these praises glorifieth God 2. Let thy former sins make thee more abundant in penitential tears and in confessions of thy sin unto God God delighteth to hear a soul acknowledg its iniquities and take shame to it self Let thy reflection upon thy former ways make thee with Peter to weep bitterly make thee go alone and confess thy sins unto him that hath forgiven them the more vile thou makest and ownest thy self the more thou glorifiest God as a God of free grace and infinite mercy 3. Let thy former sins ingage thee to love God more Hath much been forgiven thee O love much Say with thy self O I can never love God enough I can never do enough for him I that have done so much against him I that have been so profane so vile that have spent my youth and strength in the service of my base lusts and pleasures and am yet received to mercy at last What shall I render unto the Lord Let my burning love to God and whatsoever beareth his image and superscription make some amends for my burning lusts which had consumed my poor soul if God had not mercifully quenched them 4. Let thy former sins and thy reflections upon them make thee to walk softly and humbly with God all the days of thy life Doest thou find thy heart at any time begin to swell in an high opinion of thy self Say my soul What hath a sinner to be proud on what hast thou that hast been so filthy so polluted to glory in High thoughts become not one that hath been so dirty so polluted and unclean as thou hast been 5. Let your reflections upon your sins bring forth that brood of graces which the Apostle mentioneth 2 Cor. 7.11 Indignation carefulness fear vehement desires revenge Indignation at your selves for your former errors Anger never hath a truer object than when it is exercised upon our selves for our miscarriages Revenge a revenge upon our selves this doubtless lieth much in acts of mortification and self denial mens denying themselves in the lawful use of the liberty of those things which they had before smfully abused Fear a fear of again salling into such remptations as they had before been overcome with A Care in looking to your ways and vehement desires in all things to please God and to walk more perfectly before him 6. Finally You shall make an improvement of your sins if your reflexions upon your former sins both of omission and commission shall engage you to more frequent acts of homage to him to be
then we see them in their true and native colours We look upon a star at a distance and it appears to us as a spark or a very small body of light when indeed it is a great Globe we see a little man standing by a Dwarf or Pigmy he appeares of a great stature to us remove the little body from him and then you see his true dimensions 1. Gods ways of Providence as apprehended by our imperfect and weak reason are seen like a staff in the water The ways of God are right ways but we have a very imperfect faculty of arguing judging and concluding and can see them no otherwise than our lapsed reason represents this makes us call them crooked 2. Our hearts are also vitiated and blood-shotten with lust prejudice and passion and this makes the ways of God appear to us in strange colours when once a Christian hath cleared his Eye-sight with Gods Eye-salve then he seeth them as they are and having quitted himself of lust and prejudice he findeth no difficulty to conclude them holy just and good 3. The wisdom of God in the ways of his Providence is like the Sun or Moon in the firmament which are vastly great bodies but appear to us but small Globes and full of spots by reason of our distance from them Who can by searching find out God who can find out the Almighty to perfection it is as high as Heaven what canst thou do deeper then Hell what canst thou know the measure thereof is broader then the Earth and longer then the Sea Job 11.7 8. 4. We look upon the great God in his ways and motions of his Providence as standing by our reason and fancy and compare his wisdom with ours measuring the Divine reason and actions by our yard-wand and the wisdom of God seems to us a deformed crooked thing but let our natural reason be rectified and sublimated and once Sanctified by Divine grace let our minds be enlightened by the Spirit of God and we shall then see things clearly as they are These are the general causes of mens misjudgings and misapprehensions concerning the Equity of Gods ways But let God be true and every man a lyar let him be holy and let what will become of mans reason and judgment It is bad Logick but it may be good Divinity sometimes to hold the conclusion when we cannot deny the premises which seem to argue against it There goeth a story of Melancthon that being once pressed by Eccius the Papist with an argument to which he had not an answer ready he took time and said Cras Respondebo that he would the next day give answer to it It may be a Christian may sometimes be put hard to it in his thoughts to solve all the Phaenomena's Which a subtle Sophister will make appear upon the ways and motions of Divine Providence but in this case let him hold to the conclusion and say I am sure the Judg of the whole Earth cannot do unjustly however it be God is holy and just and good I will study an answer to this Objection Socinus some where saith that if he should meet with any thing in Scripture which were contrary to his reason he would not believe it to be the sense of Scripture Proud man Must he think to measure infinite wisdom with his bucket and to scoop out the Ocean of wisdom that is in God with his spoon How much better had it been said I believe what God hath said and I will study to reconcile it to my reason if I cannot do it I will rather deny my own reason than the Revelation of the Divine will and wisdom Luther I think was in the right when he would have the Christian say Tu Ratio stultaâ—es audi verbum Dei tace Thou reason art a fool hear the word of God and hold thy peace But to proceed yet further in my discourse You have heard it is not inconsistent with the purity and holiness of the Divine being to be the Author of evil of punishment Because evils of punishment are indeed no evils only so miscalled by us They are great goods to the people of God But once more vain man that would be wise the man of reason that thinks he can shew us a mote in the Sun or a crooked angle in the straight lines of Divine wisdom comes forth and saith Quest Supposing it consistent with the purity holiness and goodness of God to bring evils of punishment upon men who he knows will be made better by them and be helped by those little Hells to escape greater and by much tribulation be fitted for the Kingdom of God yet what is this to those whom God knows will never be made better never be made conformable to the image of his Son If these evils of punishment are true and perfect evils how can an holy God be the Author of them 1. I answer We must grant that there are some stones in the Earth that no hewing will fit to make pillars for the house of God God by his Providence may knock them in pieces and by afflictions break them but afflictions and troubles shall never mend them and indeed this is an ordinary observation as Fire softneth wax but hardneth clay so affliction which often makes the people of God better ordinarily make wicked men worse they come out of the fire worfe than they went in Pharaoh was such a one ten plagues one after another wrought no change in his heart but for the worse he was more hardned than he was before Ahaz was such another who when he was afflicted yet did more wickedly the Scripture sets a brand upon him for it This is that King Ahaz and we have too too many instances of such in the age and generation in which we live 2. Again what if some be afflicted who grow worse and get no good by their Afflictions yet may not God use means that have a rational tendency to their good Trouble and Affliction is the voice of God unto the worst of men crying to them for repentance and reformation they will not hear the rod must not therefore God use it Or doth it not speak when he useth it What if God knoweth that affliction will do them no good but give them occasion further to harden their hearts is God bound by his Providence to act according to his own Omnisciency or counsel God deals with men who are reasonable creatures in a reasonable way one while perswading and exhorting another while chastising and corecting shall not God by his Ministers perswade all men to repent and to believe because he knoweth from Eternity who will or will not obey those precepts Shall not God by his rod teach men to repent and believe because he hath determined not to give special grace to all certainly it is but reasonable that God should allow them reasonable means in order to what he requireth of them though he knoweth they will make no
Lord of life It is a dispensation that hath often put the servants of God into unseemly passions James and John would have had fire come down from Heaven as in Elijahs time to have destroyed the Samaritans Peter was out of patience to see the Informer come with a company with Swords and Staves to take his Master and in his passion draweth a Sword and with it cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest David himself when God offered him the choice of three Judgments desired rather to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men I say it is and hath often been a very sore temptation advantaged partly from Nature partly from some Religious reflections That which in humane nature advantageth this temptation is 1. The disdain every man naturally hath to suffer an injury from one beneath himself when Gideon would have had his Son Jether have fallen upon those two Eastern Princes Zeba and Zalmuna they said rise thou up and fall upon us men have a natural disdain and scorn to suffer from their inferiours we see it in every days experience Now although every child of God is low in his own eyes and in honour preferreth every Saint before himself yet as St. Paul sometimes magnified his office against the false Apostles and counterfeits of his age though he judged himself the least of the Apostles and unworthy of that great Name so they cannot but magnifie themselves in comparison of open profane miscreants that are the scum and off scouring of the place in which they live such as are common drunkards lyars swearers Sabbath-breakers and guilty of other debaucheries the very scabs of the body politick and spots of the Assemblies to which they are united 2. Every man naturally hath a regret at the receiving of injuries from those from whom he hath deserved no such thing Now the People of God are persons of innocence who have done no wrong to their worst Enemies they have loved their Enemies prayed for them been ready to do any offices of love to them and know not how to bear an injury from those to whom they have done no wrong This was that which troubled Davids Spirit Psal 35.12 13. They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my Soul but as for me when they were sick my cloathing was sackcloath I humbled my Soul with fasting and my prayer returned into my own bosom I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother I bowed down heavily as one that mourned for my mother But in mine adversity they rejoyced and gathered themselves together yea the abjects gathered themselves together against me and I knew it not yea they did tear me and ceased not with hypocritical mockers at feasts they gnashed upon me with their teeth Lord how long wilt thou look on Rescue my Soul from their destructions 2. This temptation is likewise advantaged from some Religious reflections 1. From a reflection upon the purity and holiness of God O Lord saith our Prophet in my Text thou art of purer Eyes then to behold iniquity How a just and pure and holy God should look on and hold his peace to see a company of vile wretches tearing and devouring his own people this is a knowledg at first view too wonderful for them 2. From a reflexion upon the promises and threatnings of God they look into the holy word of God and find that full of promises of good to Gods People of threatnings of wrath and vengeance to wicked men instead of this they see vile men building up Palaces to themselves upon their ruins and adorning themselves with their Ornaments the houses of the profane furnished and adorned with that which is not theirs instead of the wicked mans preparing garments and the just mans putting them on as Job speaketh they see good and righteous men preparing garments and leud and ungodly men put them on they see the spoil of such as fear the Lord in the tents of leud and ungodly men 3. From a reflexion upon the Decrees of God O Lord saith our Prophet thou hast ordained them for destruction O mighty God thou hast established them for correction they consider leud and wicked men as men whom God by a fixed act of his Will hath ordained to judgment as persons who by the established counsel of God are to be destroyed and they cannot expound the Providence of God into a consistency with his eternal purpose when they see them not only live prosper and grow old but also live by the death of such as fear God and build their nests on high with feathers which they have plucked from their wings From these and other causes ariseth this trouble and coil in the spirits of Gods people Fluctus est Tentatio est as Augustine saith it is a great wave a great temptation and trouble and even Gods own people here are ready to think they see a knot in the thred of providence a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence in the even ways of the Lords dealing Let me indeavour in a few words to unty this knot to remove this stone Four or five things I shall speak one or other of which or all together will make this way of the Lord plain to every sober and understanding Christian 1. How is God to his people more hard or unrighteous in such a dispensation than he was to the son of his dearest love Our blessed Lord hath taught us That the Disciple is not above his Master nor the servant above his Lord it is enough for the Disciple that he be as his Master and the Servant as his Lord Matt. 10.24 25. 'T is true the chief Informer against our Lord was one of his hoshold Judas but he was a son of perdition the only ill member of all the 12. Who were his witnesses but a company of perjured wretches who could not agree in their testimony Who mockt him and scourged him Herod a monster for all manner of wickedness Who were they that spit upon him that cried out crucifie him crucifie him that gave him Gall and Vinegar to drink were they not the abjects of the people Thou art not able to conceive of Gods righteousness in giving thee over and thy estate over to a Renegado an apostate from his former profession to wretches who make no conscience what they say what they swear what they do How was he righteous in giving over the Son of his love to such wretches We are never so like to our Lord and Master as when we are betrayed by a Judas informed against and testified against by false and perjured wretches mockt and abused by the abjects and off scouring of the people If God might be a just and righteous God in suffering these things to be done to the green tree surely he may suffer them to be done unto us who are dry trees Thou art troubled that God should suffer profane scoffers to call thee
are humbly and meekly managed there is nothing imaginable of greater advantage to settle and ground the Soul in truth For after them the Soul gives assent to Propositions not as Dictates of others and Traditions of men but because it seeth certain and unmoveable grounds upon which they are bottomed and hears those things made to appear of no value which are objected and can be said to the contrary and so becomes rooted and grounded in the faith as the Apostle speaketh Truth yet never lost in the end by any shaking but hath come out of every field a Conqueror Magna est veritas praevalebit It is great and it will prevail at last Different Apprehensions of Propositions especially when they have been amongst such as truly feared God have ordinarily caused great searchings of the Scripture ventilation of Arguments and tended much to the furtherance of the Faith although at present they have made but ill founds and noises in the Church of God 2. The Wisdom of God is much seen in permitting these Diversities To convince us that The Kingdom of God is not Meat and Drink but Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approveable to Men Rom. 14.17 18. It is a great vanity in men to entail Religion yea and the Kingdom of Heaven too to a particular opinion yet we are so vain as we should most certainly do it if God by his Providence did not so order it that we should see many of whom we cannot say but that they fear God and walk closely with him yea that they are more righteous than our selves of different opinions and judgments from us in some particular things you cannot but observe in the world how fond and zealous some persons are for a particular opinion more than for the great things of Righteousness and Holiness which are certainly the far more weighty things of the Divine Law and how warm and zealous and bitter men are more against their Brethren for their differences from them in some matters of opinion wherein if they sin yet their sins proceed from meer infirmity and the weakness of their understandings must be sins of the least magnitude for it is not in the power of man to believe what he will than against those that are open and notorious transgressors of the Law of God in things as to which every man is condemned by his own Conscience 3. Thirdly The Wisdom of God is much seen in the permission of these different apprehensions in the Souls of his own People In his thus directing us to the exercise of charity We use to say That Precepts lead us to Duty but Examples draw us There is no duty more pressed upon us in Scripture than the duty of Charity and Brotherly Love nor any to which our hearts prejudiced by Pride Envy and Lust are more awke the heart of man naturally seeks some higher ground on which he may stand and triumph over his Neighbour and be able to say in this or that thing I am better and God! I thank thee I am not as others are amongst other things it sometimes finds an Opinion which it Christens with the name of Orthodox Catholick Truth and this shall distinguish him all that dissents from him shall be Hereticks or Schismaticks or Ignorant Persons he and his party onely shall make up the Catholick Church others know not the Law if you will believe him and are accursed Now though this may prevail very far with men of Carnal Principles and Designs yet when Gods People see that those who differ in some particular opinions from them yet walk so as they dare not but say God hath loved and accepted them this overcometh their hearts into their duty Should not say they we love those whom our Heavenly Father loveth Who are Sprinkled with the Blood of Jesus Christ as well as we Justified by the Grace of God and Sanctified through the Holy Spirit even as we It were an easie thing to assign many other things wherein the Wisdom of God is apparent in this permission of different Apprehensions of Truth in the Souls of his own People as to shew us our weakness and the imperfection of our state and what need we have to be daily flying to him to teach us and to guide us c. But this is sufficient both to have given you a reasonable account of the thing it self and also of the motion of Divine Providence in the permission and allowance of it I shall now shut up this whole Discourse with a few words more for the practical Application of my whole Discourse upon these five last Questions which to shorten my Discourse I have handled together The sum of my whole Discourse is this That God according to his infinite Wisdom never did nor yet doth unto the Souls of his own People dispense out equal measures of Grace 1. Strengthening them to Spiritual Duty Nor 2. Quickening them in the performance of it 3. Nor Comforting and refreshing their Souls with the sensible consolations of his spirit 4. Nor causing them all alike to grow nor giving them equal degrees of light to discern the truth of Propositions of Truth and then that these motions of Divine Providence are exceeding reasonable and God in them is infinitely wise and just the evidencing of this hath been all my Work Which I have done from several Topicks My whole Application shall be reduced to two Heads shewing you how useful this Discourse may be for the promoting of 1. Charity towards men 2. Of Piety towards God The later is indeed first in excellency I have put it in the last place because I intend my largest Discourse upon it and with it to shut up this whole Discourse concerning Actual Providence ' This whole Discourse must certainly teach us Charity towards men and that particularly toward such as we discern Vse 1 1. Weak unto their spiritual duty 2. More dull and heavy in the performance of it 3. Sad and dejected 4. Not growing so fast in the wayes of God as others 5. That dissent from our selves in some matters opinions that are not fundamental Towards all these we had need of an Exhortation to Charity Censoriousness and Judging are things that are too natural to us and to which we are too prone We judge others and in the mean time forget to judge our selves All this is indeed rooted in a Natural Pride We would fain find something in which we excel others for that onely will be matter of boasting and glory to us but this Discourse may learn us Charity The general argument arising from this Discourse is the same which the Apostle maketh use of in Rom. 14. v. 3. v. 1. He commandeth us to receive those that are weak in the faith though with prudence and caution not to doubtful disputations His argument is in the latter part of the third verse For God hath received