him Author onely of grace and favour towards men And I could wish their heresies had beene better refuted than they are or at least that men would bee better perswaded of such refutation as Lactantius hath bestowed upon them albeit I will not bind my selfe to stand to his decision of this point but rather illustrate by instance or experiment how extreame severity may stand with the fervency of fatherly unfaigned love 2 Few mens hearts would have served them to have dealt with their owne bowels as Torquatus did with his Howbeit in all that mighty people amongst whom he lived I am perswaded but a few had taken the like care and paines to traine up their children in the most commendable qualities of that age Not one would have adventured his owne person further to have rescued his sonne from the enemy or justified him in any honourable quarrell In these and the like points he had and upon just occasion would further have manifested as much unfained love as any father could unto his sonne more than the imbecility of sex would suffer a tender hearted mother to make proofe of Doth then the adjudging of this his owne son to death rightly argue he loved him lesse than other parents did their children whose worse deserts they would not have sentenced so severely No it rather proves love and care of martiall discipline and hate to partiality in administration of civill Iustice to have beene much greater in him than in other parents of his time The more just and equall the law hee transgressed was or might have beene as for illustration sake we will suppose it to have been a law most equall and just the more it commends his impartiall severity that would not suffer the violation of it goe unpunished in his dearest sonne whom the more desirous hee was to make like himselfe in religious observance of Martiall Discipline and practice of Iustice towards the enemy the readier he was to doe justice upon him for doing the contrary That excessive love which he bare unto his person whilest his hopefull beginnings did seeme to promise an accomplishment of those martiall vertues whose first draught hee himselfe had well expressed turnes into extreame severity and indignation after he proves transgressor of those fundamentall rules by which he had taken his direction and unto whose observance his desire of posterity was destinated So it falls out by the unalterable course of nature or rather by a Law more transcendent and immutable than nature it selfe that a lesse love being chained by references of subordination betweene the objects loved with a greater cannot dislinke it selfe without some deeper touch of displeasure than if the bond or reference had beene none The neerer the reference or the stricter the bond the more violent will the rupture be and the dissociation more unpleasant As there is no enmity to the enmity of brethren if the knot of brotherly kindnesse once fully untie The reason is because our love to our brethren is neerest united with the love of our selves unto which all other love is in some sort subordinate True affection is alwayes most displeased where it is most defeated where most is deservedly expected and least performed Now as partiality towards our selves and indulgence to our inordinate desires oft-times begets desire of revenge upon unnaturall or unkinde brethren so doth the constant and unpartiall love of equity and wholesome Lawes naturally bring forth just severity towards presumptuous neglecters of them whose persons wee love no lesse than they do that would plead with teares for their impunity Towards them unto whom wee would give reall proofe of more tender and true affection than their partiall abetters doe could wee winne them by these or other warrantable means to link their love with ours or to love that best which most deserveth loue As Seleucus loved his son for saving the one of whose eyes both being forfait by the law he was cōtented to lose one of his own more dearely than most princely mothers do their children for he loved him as himselfe yet could not dispence either with himselfe or his sonne because he loved the publike law and common good that might accrue by this singular example of Iustice better than either better than both 3 For every man to love himselfe best is in our judgement no breach but rather a foundation of charitie Alaw to whose performance every man is bound in matters of necessity concerning this life or in whatsoever may concerne the life to come though not in cases of secular honour or preferment wherein Proximus quisque sibi must by the law of conscience and fundamentall rule of Christianitie give place to Detur digniori But nothing can be so worthy of love or honour as God who will we nill we doth and must enjoy this liberty or priviledge of loving himselfe best And if he love himselfe better than he doth any creature he must love equity and justice better than he doth any man for he himselfe is equity it selfe the eternall patterne as well of Iustice as of Mercy he cannot be unjustly mercifull towards those men whom he loves more dearely than any man doth himselfe And in as much as goodnesse it selfe is the essentiall object of his will he loves nothing absolutely and irrevocably but that which is absolutely immutably good So was not man in his first creation much less is he such in his collapsed estate and yet Gods love so super infinite is it extends it selfe unto our nature so collapsed and polluted with corruption which he infinitely hates This his love which knowes no limit in it selfe is limited in its effects towards men by the correspondency which they hold or lose with that absolute goodnesse or with those eternall rules of equity justice or mercy in which his will is to haue man made like him Such as have beene either in re or spe though not as they should bee yet such as either infinite loving kindnesse can vouchsafe to accept to cherish or encourage to goe forward as they haue begunne or infinite mercy to tollerate in expectation of their repentance or aversion from their wonted courses these if once they finally dissolve the correspondency which they held with Mercie or burst the linke which they had in Gods love with reference to that goodnesse wherto the riches of his bounty daily inviteth them his displeasure towards them kindles according to the measure of his former mercies or loving kindnesse If being illuminated by his Spirit they finally associate themselves to the sonnes of darknesse or having put on Christ in baptisme they resume their swinish habit and make a sport of wallowing in the mire the sweet fountaines of joy and comfort which were opened to them as they were Gods creatures not uncapable of his infinite mercy prove floods of wo misery to them as they are sworne servants of sinne and corruption For hate to filthinesse and uncleanness is essentially
another that is drawne from one part of the circumference to another through the same center It is then in this respect more capacious then any other figure because it is most uniforme The sides of other figures may be exactly equall but the distance of every part of their circumference from the center cannot admit such equality as every part of the circles circumference doth The circle againe is more capacious then any other figure because more full of angles for the angles which it no where hath univocally formally or conspicuous to sense reason apprehends it to have every where eminently For as the Philosopher tells us it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a totangle and so hath the prerogative or royalty though not the propriety of the second Rule It is more capacious than any other figure not onely because it is more ordinate or uniforme but withall because it hath more angles than any other figures can have even as many as can be imagined it being a totangle 3 This analogy betweene sides and angles as they are found in the circle and in other figures mee thinkes well expresseth that analogy which Schoole Divines assigne betweene wisedome science love hatred goodnesse desire c. as they are found in God and in man For no one name or title of any affection can be univocally attributed to the Creator and to the creature and yet the rules of equity of mercy of Iustice of patience of anger of love which we are commanded to follow though not without passion or affection are most truly observed by him yea their truth in him is infinitely eminent so farre must we be from conceiting him to bee without ardent love without true and unfaigned good will to us without wrath burning like fire to consume his adversaries because he is without all passion He is most loving yet never moved with love because he is eternally wholly love He is most compassionate yet never moved with compassion because he is eternally wholly compassion He is most jealous of his glory and a revenger of iniquity most severe yet never moved with jealousie yet never passionate in revenge because to such as provoke his punitive justice hee is eternally severity and revenge it selfe Againe how the indivisible Essence should bee wholly love and wholly displeasure wholly mercy and wholly severity I cannot better illustrate then by the circle the true embleme of his eternitie which is as truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well all sides as all angles And being such the sides and angles cannot be distinguished in it but the sides are angles and the angles sides at least they are if not essentially yet penetratively the same The circle likewise is as truely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of equall sides and equall angles as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a totangle or totilater and did it not contiaine multiplicitie of sides as well as of angles in most exact and eminent uniformity it could not have the full prerogative of the former rules Nor could the indivisible essence either be so great or excellent in himselfe or a moderator of all things so powerfull and just as wee beleeve hee is unlesse he did eminently containe the perfections of all things possible as well as of any one 4 Some Philosophers have placed the humane nature as a line diameter or aequilibrium in this visible sphere making man the measure of all things as participating all other natures much what after the same manner that mixt bodies containe the force and vertues of the elements And mans nature til it was corrupt did without doubt include such an eminent uniformity to all things created as the eye doth unto colours As hee was then the true image of God for his essence so did he in this property beare a true shadow of the divine prerogative whose essence though for number or greatnesse of perfections contained in it altogether measurelesse is the most true and exquisite measure of all things that are or possibly can be All the conditions or properties of measure assigned by the Philosopher are as truly contained in the incomprehensible essence as sides or angles in the circle but farre more eminently A measure it is not appliable to measurables for kind or quantity much different according to diversitie of parts which it hath none for it is immutably eternally and indivisibly the same and unto it the nature essence quality and quantity of all things are actually applyed in that they have actuall being It is impossible the immutable Creator should be fitted to any thing created but in that he is immutable and yet eminently containeth all things in his indivisible essence he eternally and immutably fits all the possible varieties whereof contingency it selfe is capable Being all things else hee is fitnesse it selfe in a most eminent and excellent manner the present disposition of every thing either whiles it first begins to be or continues the same or whiles it is in the change or motion whether from good to evill or from evill to good from evill to worse or from good to better is more exquisitely fitted in it owne kind by eternall immutable and incomparable fitnesse then it could be by any other measure which the Creator himselfe could create with it or devise for it after the alteration or change were accomplished In that he is indivisibly One and yet eminently All he is immutable contrariety it selfe unto contraries Arithmeticall equality it selfe to things equall Geometrically equall to things unequall according to every degree of their unequall capacities in what sort soever And as of his other attributes one truly and really is another so in respect of man his measure is his judgement or retribution whether of rewards or punishments not the rule onely by which he rewards or punisheth Vnto man in his first creation and whiles he continued as he created him he was and would have continued bountie it selfe unto man yet as he is his creature he is love it selfe and unto man made by his own folly an impotent wretched and miserable creature hee is so entyrely mercy and compassion if selfe that were there a distinct god of love or a goddesse of mercy or two infinite living abstracts of meere love and meere mercie they could not be so loving and mercifull unto man touched with the sense of his owne miseries nor solicite him so seriously and perpetually unto repentance as he doth who is entirely infinite mercy but not mercy only Vnto the truly penitent he is so truly and entirely gratiousnesse it selfe that if there were a Trinity of such abstract Graces as the Poets have faigned they could be but a figure or picture of his solid and infinite gratiousnesse Vnto the elect and throughly sanctified he is so truely and entirely felicity and salvation it selfe that if the Heathen goddesses Felicitas and Salus or Platoes Idea of
charity which hee hath injoyned every man towards all his greatest enemies not excepted though we consider it in the most charitably minded Martyrs in whose death it seemed to shine were but as weake sparkles or vanishing smoak of those infinite and eternall flames of love which burst out in him toward such as have deserved worse at his hands than any Tyrant of his tormented servants That truth and fidelity which he exacts of us the faithfulnesse of Abraham himselfe is but a little mappe or narrow surface of that infinite soliditie of truth whereon his promises are founded Betweene the chastity and temperance of purest virgins and his eternall purity there is the like true correspondency but not so great as there is betwixt the dross and corpulency and the refined or sublimated spirits of the same bodies Or could that rule which is the fulfilling of the whole Law the Prophets Doe unto every man as we would be done unto be exactly fulfilled by us it would be but a slender though a true modell or representation of his eternall equity He that honoureth me him will I honor For in this and the like he expects no more than the inward affection of mortall hearts or prayses of man whose breath is in his nostrils being ready out of his goodnesse to recompence these silly services with glory love and happiness everlasting But doth he intend thus well to all or destruction unto some as it is a meanes of blisse to those whom he loves If so he did we might be exempt from that negative precept of not doing evill that good might ensue For the only reason why we are bouÌ„d not to doe so is because in so doing we should become unlike our heavenly Father and not be perfect as he is perfect But as he turnes the voluntary evils of some to the good of others so may wee and ought to consecrate such forfeitures as legally fall into our hands to pious uses or better the states of such as tender publike welfare by others deserved harmes 6 Be it then granted which is the root of all objections against these resolutions that Gods glory must as well appeare in the punishment of the Reprobate as in the beatifying of the Elect the consequence will bee quite contrary to that which their objections would hence inferre For if the foundation of Gods glory bee as sure in the one case as in the other the manner of his dealing with both must be alike perfect and alike behovefull for us to follow Sine bonitate saith Seneca nulla majestas Goodnesse is the foundation of glory Now were it true that he did intend evill to some before they had committed any though not as evill to them but as a meanes of others good or absolutely ordained them to eternall inevitable misery for the advancement of his owne glory wee should not sinne but rather imitate the perfection of our heavenly Father in robbing Iudas to pay Peter or in feeding the hungry such especially as be of the houshold of Faith with the spoiles of ungodly rich men or unbeleevers More warrantable it were to guesse at the perfection of his Iustice towards the wicked and of his bounty towards the godly by the commendable shadow or imitatioÌ„ of it in earthly gods To procure the common good without intention of harme to any and with admission of as few private mischiefes as may be is the chiefe praise of great States-men And it is the glory of Princes to encourage all men unto vertuous courses by good example gratious exhortations and unpartiall distribution of publike honors or commodities and yet withall to inflict disgrace upon haughty contemners of those gracious allurements and to bee sterne in execution of Iustice without fauour upon notorious transgressors of wholesome Lawes Yet not to use severity without sorrow nor draw blood but by way of medicine for preserving of their Crownes and dignities for maintenance of publike peace or for preventing the like diseases in other particular members of the same body Magistrates that would mind these matters more than raysing themselves their friends or posterity more than life it selfe which they owe unto their Countrey should exhibite us a true model though God wot but a slender one of our heavenly Fathers wisdome and loving kindnesse first in drawing men to repentance by gratious promises and unfaigned proposalls of inestimable rewards for their service Secondly in making the wicked and obstinate despisers of his infinite goodnesse serve to the manifestation of his endlesse glory and confirmation of those that love him in the immortal state of happinesse These prints of his Fatherly care and Iustice are yet fresh to bee seene in his proceedings with ungratious Cain And the Lord said unto Cain why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance fallen if thou doe well shalt thou not be accepted and if thou dost not well sinne lyeth at the doore And unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him Gen. 4. ver 6 7. Severe punishment for doing evill without precedent loving instructions or good encouragement to doe well is the naturall off-spring of unnaturalnesse It beares no shadow of that justice or equity whose glorious patterne shines most brightly in our heavenly Father CHAP. 14. Of God infinite love to mankinde 1 IF the Apostles authority could not perswade us to beleeve his reasons would inforce us to grant that the issues of blessing and cursing from one and the same mouth are contrary to the course of nature and argue the nature of man in whom alone this discord is found to be much out of tune Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing my brethren these things ought not so to be Iam. 3. 10. For nature in other things gives you a better example Doth a fountaine send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter Can the Figtree my brethren beare Olive berries either a Vine figs c. These and the like fountaines of naturall truth are as open to us as they were to him and wee should much wrong both this Ambassador of Christ and Gods image in our selves if we did beleeve them only for his authority and not for their owne native perspicuity The best use of Apostoliqueâ—authority in these allegations is to warrant our use of the like though in matters divine not one of his instances but holds as truly in God as in man not one but receiveth a necessary increase of strength from the indivisible unity of the divine Essence For a Fig-tree to beare Olive berries is lesse impossible than for the tree of life to bring forth death To cause the Vine bring forth Figs were not so hard a point of husbandry as to derive cursednesse or misery from the fountaine of blisse For a Spring to send forth water sweet and bitter fresh and salt at one and the same place is more compatible with any reasonable conceipt than for hate or harmefull intentions to have
hell The reason why God thus plagued Pharaoh for not doing that which now he could not doe all possibility of amendment being taken from him was to teach all generations following by his fearefull end to beware of his desperate beginnings of struggling with God or of persecuting them whose patronage hee had in peculiar manner undertaken And here again there is no contradiction betweene these two proposition God from all eternity did will the death of Pharaoh God from all eternity did not will the death but rather the life of Pharaoh For albeit Pharaoh continued one and the same man from his birth unto his death yet did he not all this time continue one and the same object of Gods immutable will and eternall decree This object did alter as Pharaohs dispositions or affections towards God or his neighbours altered There is no contrariety much lesse any contradiction betweene these God unfaignedly loveth all men God doth not love but hate the Reprobate although they be men yea the greatest part of men For here the object of his love and hate is not the same he loves all men unfaignedly as they are men or as men which have not made up the full measure of iniquity but having made up that or having their soules betroathed unto wickednesse he hates them His hate of them as Reprobates is no lesse necessary or usuall than his love of them as men But though he necessarily bates them being once become Reprobates or having made up the full measure of iniquity yet was there no necessity layd upon them by his eternall decree to make up such a measure of iniquity 8 How these deductions will consort with some moderne Catechismes I doe not know sure I am they are consonant to the opinion of that learned Bishop and blessed Martyr in his Preface to his expositions of the ten Commandements a fit Catechisme for a Bishop to make Every man is called in the Scripture wicked and the enemy of God for the privation and lacke of faith and love that he oweth to God Et impii vocantur qui non omnino sunt pii that is They are called wicked that in all things honour not God beleeve not in God and observe not his Commandements as they should doe which we cannot do by reason of this naturall infirmity or hatred of the flesh as Paul calleth it against God In this sense taketh Paul this word wicked So must we interpret St. Paul and take his words or else no man should be damned Now we know that Paul himselfe St. Iohn and Christ damneth the contemners of God or such as willingly continue in sinne and will not repent Those the Scripture excludeth from the generall promise of grace Thou seest by the places afore rehearsed that though wee cannot beleeve in God as undoubtedly as is required by reason of this our naturall sicknesse and disease yet for Christs sake in the judgement of God wee are accounted as faithfull beleevers for whose sake this naturall disease and sicknesse is pardoned by what name soever S. Paul calleth the naturall infirmity or originall sinne in man And this imperfection or naturall sicknesse taken of Adam excludeth not the person from the promise of God in Christ except wee transgresse the limits and bounds of this originall sinne by our owne folly and malice and either of a contempt or hate of Gods word we fall into sinne and transforme our selves into the image of the devill Then wee exclude by this meanes our selves from the promises and merits of Christ who only received our infirmities and originall disease and not the contempt of him and his Law SECTION III. That Gods good will and pleasure is never frustrated albeit his unspeakeable love take no effect in many to whom it is unfeignedly tendered CHAP. 16. In what sense God may be said to have done all that he could for his Vineyard or for such as perish 1 TO found both parts of a contradiction in truth fals not within the Sphere of omnipotency and we may with consent of al Divines maintaine it to be impossible The true originall aswell of our aptnesse to conceive difficulties in the points proposed as our ignorance in assoyling them is because we extend not this Maxime so far as it naturally would reach and the reason why we extend it not so farre is our pronenesse to extend our owne power to the utmost and for the most part farther then justice or true goodnesse can accompany it It is our nature to be humorous and the nature of humor to be unconstant Fortunes character may be every sonne of Adams Motto Tantum constans in levitate Onely constant in unconstancy And being such nothing can imply any constant contradiction to our nature nothing that is truly and constantly the same but will one time or other contradict our changeable and inconstant humors And these enraged with contradiction doe Tyrant-like arme power without just tryall or examination without either respect or reverence against whatsoever contradicts them The right use of power in creatures meerely sensitive is to satiate their appetites of sense for nothing hath power to move it selfe but what is sensitive and all power whether of body or minde was bestowed on man for the execution of his will or accomplishing his desire of good but since his will by his fall became irregular and his desires corrupt his power is become like a common officer or undercommander to all his unruly appetites domineering by turne or succession all other inclinations being under the command of it So the wise man hath charactered the resolution of voluptuous men cap. 1. 6. Come on therefore let us enjoy the good things that are present and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth And ver 11. Let our strength be the Law of justice for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth Even in such as are by most esteemed good men and sober those notions of truth and equity which are naturall and implanted are so weake and ill taken that rather than upstart carnall appetites or desires which custome countenanceth should be enraged through their reluctance they presently yeeld their consents to such proposalls as were they resolute firme and constant would as offensively contradict them as punishment or paine doth our sense of pleasure Vnto such proposalls we often yeeld as are impossible to be approved by Equity to whom we usually professe our dearest love and allegiance with promises to frame our lives by her rules But love in us whether one simple and indivisible quality or an aggregation or cluster of divers inclinations all rooted in one Center is not alike set on divers objects Hence when it comes to opposition betweene sense and reason betweene our selves our private friends and common equity it divides it selfe unequally The particular inconveniences whereto we are daily exposed by the inordinate love of the world and the flesh are infinite all may be reduced to these
unquestionable earnests of thy everlasting love since more fully manifested For thou so lovedst the world not Israel onely that thou gavest thine onely begotten son to the end that who so beleeved in him should not perish but have everlasting life What further argumeÌ„t of Gods infinite love could flesh blood desire thaÌ„ the Son of Gods voluntary suffring that in our flesh by his Fathers appointment which unto flesh and blood seemes most distastfull That this love was unfaignedly tendered to all at least that have heard or hereafter may heare of it without exception what demonstration from the effect can be more certaine what consequence more infallible thaÌ„ the inference of this truth is froÌ„ a sacred truth received by all good Christians viz. Al such as have heard Gods love in Christ proclaimed and not beleeved in it shall in the day of Iudgement appeare guilty of greater sinnes than their forefathers could be endited of and undergoe more bitter death than any corruption drawne from Adam if Christ had never suffered could have bred I shall no way wrong the Apostle in unfolding his exhortations to the Athenians thus farre but they rather offer the spirit by which hee spake some kinde of violence that would contract his meaning shorter The times of this ignorance before Christs death God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent Because hee hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousnesse by that man whom hee hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that hee hath raised him from the dead Acts 17. 30 31. 3 Why all men in the world have not heard of Gods infinite love thus manifested many causes may hereafter bee assigned all grounded upon Gods infinite Iustice or Mercy Of Christs death many which heard not might have heard many which are not might have bin partakers save only for their free and voluntary progresse from evill to worse or wilfull refusall of Gods loving kindnesse daily profered to them in such pledges as they were well content to swallow foolishly esteeming these good in themselves being good onely as they plight the truth of Gods love to them which he manifested in the death of his Sonne With this manifestation of his love many againe out of meere mercy have not beene acquainted lest the sight of the medicine might have caused their discase to rage and make their case more lamentably desperate CHAP. 18. Want of consideration or ignorance of Gods unfeigned love to such as perish a principall meanes or occasion why so many perish 1 BVt if the most part of men as we cannot deny doe finally perish what shall it availe to revive this doctrine of Gods infinite love to all by whose fruitlesse issue he rather is made an infinit looser than men any gainers As for God he hath froÌ„ eternity infallibly forecast the entire redemption of his infinite love which unto us may seeme utterly cast away And of men if many dye whom he would have live for his will is that all should bee saved and come to the knowledge of the truth the fault is their owne or their instructers that seeke not the prevention of their miscariage by acquainting them with this coelestiall fountaine of saving truth whose taste we labor to exhibite unto all because the want of it in observation of the heathen is the first spring of humane misery Or in language more plaine or pertinent to the argument proposed most men reape no benefit from Gods unspeakeable love because not considering it to be his nature they doe not beleeve it to be as he is truly infinite unfeignedly extended to all that call him Maker But had the doctrines which those divine Oracles God is love and would have all men to bee saued naturally afford beene for these forty yeeres last past as generally taught and their right use continually prest with as great zeale and fervency as the doctrine and uses of Gods absolute decree for electing some and reprobating most in that space have beene the plentifull increase of Gods glory and his peoples comfort throughout this land might have wrought such astonishment to our adversaries as would have put their malicious mouths to silence Who would not be willing to be saved if hee were fully perswaded that God did will his salvation in particular because hee protests hee wills not the death of any but the repentance of all that all might live Or were the particulars of this doctrine unto whose generality every loyall member of the Church of England hath subscribed generally taught beleeved all would unfeignedly endeavour with fervent alacrity to be truely happy because none could suspect himselfe to bee excluded from his unfeigned and fervent love who is true happinesse Whose love and goodnesse is so great that hee cannot passe any act whereby any of his creatures should bee debarred either from being like him in love and goodnesse or being such from being like him in true happinesse But alas while the world is borne in hand that the Creator oft-times dispenseth the blessings of this life not as undoubted pledges of a better but deales with most men as man doth with beasts feeding them fattest which are appointed first to bee slaine the magnificent praises of his bounty secretly nurseth such a misperswasion in most men of his goodnesse at least towards them as the Epigrammâ—tist had of a professed Benefactor that shewed him as he thought little kindnesse in great Benevolence Munera magna quidem misit sed misit in hamo Et Piscatorem piscis amare potest Great gifts he sent but under his gifts there covered lay an hooke And by the fish to be belov'd can th'cunning Fisher looke 2 The frequency of sinister respects in dispensing of secular dignities or benevolences makes such as are truly kind to be either unregarded or mistrusted by such as stand in neede of their kindnesse And as fishes in beaten waters will nibble at the bait although they suspect the hooke so the world hath learned the wit to take good turnes and not to be taken by them as suspecting them to bee profered in cunning rather than in true kindnesse and cunning where it is discovered or suspected is usually requited with craft love onely hath just title unto love The most part indeed are so worldly wise that none but fooles will easily trust them howbeit our naturall mistrust of others makes all of us a great deale worse than we would be And as if we thought it a sinne or point of uncharitablenesse to prove other mens conjectures that measure our dispositions by their owne altogether false wee fit our demeanours to their misdeemings of us and resolve rather to do amisse than they should thinke amisse Howbeit even in this perfidious and faithlesse age the old saying is not quite out of date Ipsa fides habita obligat fideÌ„ Many would be more trusty than they are and do much
any issue from pure love But God is love yea love is his Essence as Creator In that he is the Author of being hee is the Author of goodnesse to all things that are Being unto every thing in its owne proper being is good and goodnesse in an intelligent Donâ—r is alwayes the fruit of Love Hence saith the Wiseman of him that is wisest of all of him that can neither deceive nor be deceived He hateth nothing that he hath made For even their being and that goodnesse which accompanies it is an undoubted pledge of his love If to blesse God the maker and to curse men which are made after his similitude argue in the Apostles supposall a dissolution of that internall harmony which should be in the humane nature to hate some and love others of his best creatures all being made after his owne image would necessarily infer a greater distraction in the indivisible Essence besides the contradiction which it implyes to infinite goodnes To love the workes of his owne hands is more essentiall to him that made all things out of meere love than it is unto the fire to burn matter combustible and if his love be as he is truly infinite it must extend to all seeing all are lesse than infinite 2 Love were it perfect in us would perfectly fulfill Gods Law and make up a compleate body or System of morall goodnes Now the most absolute perfection of that love whereof the humane nature though uncorrupted could bee capable would be but an imperfect shadow of our heavenly Fathers most perfect love which hath the same proportion to his goodnesse that love in us were it as perfect as it possibly might bee should have to our morall goodnesse That is it is his compleat communicative goodnes And though these two in him bee rather different names than divers attributes yet wee love his goodnes better whiles it is attired with the name of Love For of men that doe us equall good turnes we love them best whom we conceive to love us most and loving kindnesse seemes good and lovely even in the eyes of such as reape no profit from it besides the sight of it The very exercise of it in others excites our weake inclinations to the like and our inclinations moved stir up a speculative assent or secret verdict of conscience to approve that truth which wee cannot follow in the practice Beatius est dare quam accipere It is a more blessed thing to give than to receive No man measureth that which wee call a good nature as of men some are better natured than others either by the means it hath to benefit or by the benefits bestowed but by the fervency of unfaigned good will and hearty desires of doing good to all This is that wherein especially when it is holpen by grace we most resemble the divine nature which is infinitely better than the humane nature though takeÌ„ at the best not only in respect of his ability to do good but of his good wil to do the best that may be And this his good will exceeds ours not intensively only but extensively For we are bound to imitate him as well in the extension of our unfaigned good will towards all as in the fervency of our desires to do the best good we can to some because his loving kindnes to man is both waies infinitly perfect Thus saith the Lord Let not the wise man glory in his wisedome nor the strong man glory in his strength neither the rich man glory in his riches But let him that glorieth glory in this that he understandeth and knoweth me that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindnes judgement and righteousnesse in the earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. Ier. 9. 23 24. The first then most native issue of infinite goodnesse is the exercise of bounty or loving kindnesse which floweth from it without matter or motive to incite it This is that which gave being and with being some portion of goodnesse unto all things that are it alters the name but not the nature in the current To prevent others with good turnes before they can expect or deserve them is the highest point of bounty whereto the ability of man can reach But God gave vs that we most desire proper being with the appurtenances before we could desire it for it is the foundation of all desire From Bounty or loving kindnesse or from that Goodnesse whence they spring Mercy and Compassion differ only in the extrinsecall denomination taken from different objects Compassion is good will towards others provoked from notice of their miserie and Mercy is but an excesse of Bounty not estranged from ill deservers in distresse so long as the exercise of it breedes no harme to such as are more capable of bountifull love and favour This incompossibility betweene the exercise of Mercy and bounty towards particulars ill deserving and the preservation of common good occasioneth the interposition of Iustice punitive whose exercise is in a sort unnaturall to the Father of mercy For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Lamen 3. 33. Nothing in good men can provoke it towards offenders but the good of others deserving either better or not so ill which might grow worse by evill doers impunity To take pleasure in the paine or torture of notorious malefactors is a note of inhumanity their just punishment is onely so farre justly pleasant as it procures either our owne or others welfare or avoydance of those grievances which they more justly suffer than wee or others of the same societie should doe The more kind and loving men by nature are the more unwilling they are to punish unlesse it be for these respects How greatly then doth it goe against his nature who is loving kindnesse it selfe to punish the workes of his owne hands Man especially who is more deare unto him than any child can be unto his Father for hee is the Father of all mankind For it is he that made us and not we our selves not those whom we call Fathers of our flesh for even they likewise were made by Him Hence he saith Call no maÌ„ Father on earth for one is your Father which is in Heaven Mat. 23. ver 9. Is the title his peculiar more than the realty answering to it Is he more willing to bee called the onely Father of all the sonnes of men than to doe the kinde office of a Father to them No like as a Father pittieth his owne children so the Lord pitieth them that feare him For he knoweth our frame he remembreth we are but dust Psal 103. 13 14. It seemes this Psalmist either was or had a most kinde and loving Father and hence illustrates the kindnesse of his Heauenly Father by the best modell of kindnesse which hee knew But if God truly be a father of all mankind he certainly exceeds all other fathers as farre in fatherly kindnesse as hee doth men in
any branch of goodnesse or perfection This is the first foundation of our Faith layd by his onely Sonne Aske and it shall be given unto you seeke and ye shall finde knocke and it shall be opened unto you For every one that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened Or what man is there of you whom if his sonne aske bread will he give him a stone Or if he aske a fish will hee give him a serpent Math. 7◠vers 7 8 9 10. Every Father that heard Him would have beene ready to have answered no yet none so ready or carefull as they should be to give or provide best things for their children because all besides him are evill Fathers If ye then being evill know how to give good gifts to your children how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that aske him ver 11. Hee is then so much more willing to give good things to his children as he is better or greater than other Parents His love to all men seeing all are his sonnes by a more peculiar reference than Abraham was Adams or Isaac Abrahams is infinitely greater than any Parents beare to the fruits of their bodies Mortall fathers love children when they have them but love to themselves or want of means to immortalize their owne persons makes them desire to have children The onely wise immortall God who is all-sufficient to all most to himselfe unacquainted with want of whatsoever can bee desired out of the abundance of his free bounty and meere loving kindnesse did first desire our being and having given it us doth much more love us after we are instamped with his Image For he sowes not wheate to reape tares nor did he inspire man with the breath of life that he might bring forth death 3 The Heathens conceived this title of Father as too narrow for fully comprehending all references of loving kindnesse betwixt their great Iupiter and other Demigods or men Iupiter omnipotens regum rex ipse Deusque Progenitor genitrixque Deum Deus unus omnis And another Poet Iupiter mas est nescia faemina mortis And because the affection of mothers especially to their young and tender Ones is most tender the true Almighty hath deigned to exemplifie his tender mercy and compassion towards Israel as David did Ionathans love towards him far surpassing the love of women yea of mothers to their children Sion had said the Lord hath forsaken me and my God hath forgotten mee But her Lord replyes Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the sonne of her wombe yea they may forget yet will I not forget thee Esay 49. ver 15. And if his love could sufficiently bee expressed by these dearest references amongst men whose naturall affection towards their tender brood in respect of meaner creatures is much abated by wrong use of reason as many mothers by greatnesse of place or curiosity of education are lesse compassionate towards their children then other silly women are he hath chosen the most affectionate female amongst reasonlesse creatures to blazon his tender care and loving protection over ill-deserving children How often would I have gathered thy children together even as a Hen gathereth her chickens under her wings Math. 23. ver 37. Finally as he gives much more to our being than our earthly Parents whom we suppose to give us being so all the sweet fruits or comforts of love whether of fathers and mothers towards their children of husbands towards their wives or of brethren to brethren sisters to sisters or one friend to another their sinfulnesse onely excepted are but distillations or infusions of his infinite love to our nature To witnesse this truth unto us the son of God was made both father and brother and husband to our nature c. Every reference or kinde office whereof reasonable creatures are mutually capable every other creature though voyd of reason so not voyd of love and naturall affection may expresse some part of our heavenly Fathers loving kindnesse but the love of all though infinitely increased in every particular and afterwards made up in one could no way equalize his love towards every particular soule created by him Feare of death or other danger hath such joynt interest with love as well in the heart of man as in other creatures that albeit they would doe more for their yong ones than they doe if they could yet they doe not usually so much as they might not so much for their model of wit or strength as God for his part though infinite in wisedome power doth for the sonnes of men He that feareth none but is feared of al he that needs no Counsellor but hath the heart of Prince and Counsellor in his hand makes protestation in his serious griefe that he hath done all for his unfruitfull vineyard that he could as much as possibly could be done for it Or if his serious protestations cannot deserve credit with deceitfull man his solemne oath is witnesse of greater love than hath beene mentioned of greater than the heart of man is able to conceive even towards such as all their life time have hated Him As I live saith the Lord I will not the death of him that dyes If besides the authority of these and infinite more sacred texts most perspicuous in themselves the interpretation of the Church be required for establishing of the doctrine delivered the whole ancient Church some peeces of Saint Austine onely excepted which may bee counterpoyzed with other parts of the same Fathers writings is ready to give joynt verdict for us And whether the restrictions which some reformed Churches have endeavoured to lay upon Gods promises be compatible with the doctrine of the English Church comes in the next place to be examined CHAP. 15. What the Church of England doth teach concerning the extent of Gods love of the distinction of singula generum and genera singulorum of the distinction of voluntas signi and voluntas beneplaciti 1_WHat middle course soever the Church of England doth hold or may take for compromising contentions betweene some other reformed Churches in points of Election and Reprobation of free wil or mans ability before the state of regeneratiō She doth not in her publike and authorized doctrine come short of any Church this day extant in the extent of Gods unspeakable love to mankind No nationall Councell though assembled for that purpose could fit their doctrine more expresly to meet with all the late restrictions of Gods love than the Church our mother even from the beginning of reformation hath done as if she had then foreseene a necessity of declaring her judgement in this point for preventing schismes or distraction in opinions amongst her sonnes First she injoynes us to beseech God to have mercy upon all men This was the practice of the Ancient Church which in
her opinion needed no reformation A practice injoyned by S. Paul I exhort or desire first of all that supplications prayers intercessions and giving thankes be made for all men If any man shall seeke to lay that restraint upon this place which S. Austine somewhere doth as if the word all men did import only genera singulorum all sorts of men not singula generum every particular man the scanning of the words following the sifting of the matter contained in both with the reason of the exhortation and other reall circumstances will shake off this or other like restriction with greater ease than it can be laid upon it Wee are commanded to pray for no more than them whose salvation we are unfainedly to desire otherwise our prayers were hypocriticall Are we then to desire the salvation of some men onely as they are dispersed here and there throughout all nations sorts or conditions of men or for every man of what condition soever of what sort or nation soever he be The Apostle exhorts us to pray for Kings not excepting the most malignant enemies which the Christians then had and for all that be in authority And if we must pray for all that are in authority with fervency of desire that they may come unto the knowledge of the truth then questionlesse wee are to desire wee are to pray for the salvation of all and every one which are under authority God is no accepter of persons nor will the Omnipotent permit us so to respect the persons of the mighty in our prayers as that we should pray that all and every one of them might become Peeres of the heavenly Ierusalem and but some choice or selected ones of the meaner sort might bee admitted into the same society Wee must pray then for high and low rich and poore without excepting any either in particular or indefinitely The reason why our prayers for all men must be universall is because wee are bound to desire the spirituall good of all men not as they fall under our indefinite but under our uniuersall consideration The reason againe why wee are bound to desire the spirituall good of all men universally considered is because wee must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect Vnto this universall desire wee must adde our best endeavours that saving truth may be imparted unto all because it is our heavenly Fathers will his unfaigned will that all should come to the knowledge of truth 2 Both parts of this inference as first that it is our duty to pray for all sorts of men and for every man of what sort soever And secondly that we are therefore to pray thus universally because it is Gods will not onely that we should thus pray but that all without exception shold come unto the truth and be saved are expressely included in the prayers appointed by the Church of England to bee used upon the most solemne day of devotions The Collects or Praiers are in number three The first Almighty God we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family for the which our Lord Iesus Christ was contented to be betrayed and given up into the hands of wicked men and to suffer death upon the Crosse c. The tenour of this petition if we respect onely the forme is indefinite not universall but every Logician knows and every Divine should consider that the necessity of the matter whether in prayers or propositions will stretch the indefinite forme wherewith it is instamped as farre as an absolute universall That the forme of this petition is in the intention of the Church of England to be as farre extended as we have said that is to all and every one of the congregation present the prayer following puts out of question For in that wee are taught to pray for the whole Church and for every member of it Almighty and everlasting God by whose spirit the whole body of the Church is governed and sanctified receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before thee for all estates of men in thy holy Congregation that every member of the same in his vocation and ministery may truly and godly serve thee c. If here it be excepted that albeit this prayer be conceived in termes formally universall yet is the universall forme of it to be no further extended than its proper matter or subject and that as will be alleaged is the mysticall live-body of Christ whose extent or the number of whose members is to us unknowne the third and last prayer will clearely quit this exception and free both the former petitions from these or the like restrictions For in the last prayer wee are taught to pray for all and every one which are out of the Church that they may bee brought into the Church and bee made partakers with us of Gods mercy and the common salvation Mercifull God who hast made all men and hatest nothing that thou hast made nor wouldest the death of a sinner but rather that he should be converted and live have mercy upon all Iewes Turkes Infidells and heretiques and take from them all ignorance hardnesse of heart and contempt of thy Word And so fetch them home blessed Lord to thy flocke that they may bee saved among the remnant of the true Israelites and be made one fold under one shepheard Iesus Christ our Lord. If God therefore will not the death of any Iew Turke or Infidell because of nothing hee made them men wee may safely conclude that he willeth not the death of any but the life of all whom of men or infidells hee hath made Christians to whom he hath vouchsafed the ordinary meanes of salvation and daily invites by his messengers to imbrace them Hee which made all things without invitation out of meere love made nothing hatefull nor is it possible that the unerring fountaine of truth and love should cast his dislike much lesse fix his hatred upon any thing that was not first in it nature odious Nothing can make the creature hatefull or odious to the Creator besides its hatred or enmity of that love by which it was created and by which he sought the restauration of it when it was lost Nor is it every degree of mans hatred or enmity unto God but a full measure of it which utterly exempts man from his love as that reverend Bishop and glorious Martyr one of the first Reformers of the Religion profest in this Land observes 3 If with these authorized devotions we compare the doctrine of our Church in the publike catechisme what can bee more cleare then that as God the Father doth love all mankind without exception so the Sonne of God did redeeme not some onely of all sorts but all mankind universally taken First wee are taught to beleve in God the Father who made us and all the world Now if the Church our mother have in the former prayers truly taught us that God hateth nothing which he hath made this will
weale If God either by his omnipotent power or infinite wisedome had necessarily though without any violence restrained this possibility in man of declining from good to evill man had forthwith ceased to have beene truly and inherently good and ceasing to be such had utterly lost all possibilities of that estate whose pledge or earnest he received in his creation Gods goodnesse is his happinesse And his participative goodnesse is the foundation of mans happinesse So that not Gods justice onely but that loving kindnesse whereby hee created man and appointed him as heyre apparent of life eternall did remove all necessity from his will because the imposition of necessity whether laid upon him by power or wisdome infinite had utterly extinguished that goodnesse wherein it was onely possible for the creature to expresse the Creators goodnesse manifested in his creation Now that was not Gods essentiall or immutable goodnesse for that is incommunicable All the goodnesse man is capable of doth but expresse Gods goodnesse communicative It is the stampe of it communicated As God then did communicate his goodnesse to his creatures not by necessity but freely so could not the creature be truly good that is like his God by necessity but freely Nor was it possible for him to have beene either confirmed in such goodnesse as he had or translated to everlasting happinesse but by continuing freely good for some space or lesse evill than by the liberty which God by his immutable law had given him in his creation hee possibly might have beene Continuing good though but for a while without necessity the riches of Gods free bounty had beene continually increased towards him and had finally established him in everlasting blisse by confirmation of him in true goodnesse or by investing him with immortality Since his fall wee are not usually capable of mercy or of the increase of his bounty much lesse of these everlasting fruits whereof blessings temporall are the pledges but by free abstinence from some evills unto whose practices the possibility of our corrupted nature might be improved And albeit we doe not alway that which is in its nature evill yet we can doe nothing well but even the good which we do we doe it naughtily yet unlesse we doe both lesse evill and the good which we do lesse naughtily than we possibly might doe God still diminisheth the riches of his bounty towards us and by inhibiting the sweet influence of his gracious providence suffers us to fall from one wickednesse to another being prone to runne headlong into all if once the reines of our unruly appetites bee given into our unweildie hands Farre bee it from any sonne of Adam to thinke hee is able without Gods love and favour to withdraw himselfe from the extremities of mischiefe much lesse to doe such good as may make him capable of well-doing So strong is our love to sinfull pleasures since our first parents gave the reines unto our appetite that none can recall themselves or repent without the attractions of infinite love And yet many whom this infinite love doth daily imbrace because they apprehend not it are never brought by the attractions of it to true repentance Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse saith the Apostle Rom. 2. 4. his forbearance and long suffering not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance Of whom speakes he thus of such onely as truly repent and by patient continuance in wel-doing seeke for glory honour and immortality nay but of them who for hardnesse of heart cannot repent but treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God 4 Were the riches of his bounty therefore fained or did hee onely profer but not purpose to draw them unto repentance which repented not this is no part of our heavenly Fathers perfection no fruit of that wisedome which is from above but a point of earthly policy devoid of honesty a meere tricke of wordly wit to whose practice nothing but weaknesse and impotence to accomplish great desires can mis-incline mans corrupted nature But doth it not argue the like impotency though no such want of integrity in God not to effect what he wils more ardently and more unfainedly than man can doe the increase or continuance of his welfare or avoidance of endlesse misery No it being supposed as we have said that man is not capable of endlesse joyes unlesse he will be wrought by meere love without the impulsions of unresistible power unfaignedly to love him that hath prepared them for him the same infinite love which continually drawes him unto repentance was in congruity to leave him a possibility not to be drawne by it For coactive penitency would have frustrated the end to which repentance is but a meane subordinate The imployment or exercise of Gods almighty power to make men repent against their wils or before they were wrought to a willingnesse by the sweet attractions of his infinite love or by threatnings of judgements not infinite or irresistible would be like the indeavors of a loving Father more strong than circumspect who out of pity to his sonne whom he sees ready to be choked with water should strangle him by violent haling him to the shore Most men by ascribing that unto Gods power which is the peculiar and essentiall effect of his love doe finally misse of that good which both infallibly conspire to poure without measure upon all such as take right and orderly hold of them How shall wee then fasten our faith to them aright we are to beleeve that Gods infinite power shall effect without controule or checke of any thing in heaven or earth all things possible for their endlesse good that truly love him but constraines no mans will to love him being alwaies armed against wilfull neglectors of his unfaigned love No man would argue his love to be lesse than infinite because not able to produce the effects of infinite power and as little reason wee have to thinke that power though infinite should bee the true immediate parent of love which never springs in any reasonable creature but from the seedes of love or lovelines sown in the humane soule though they doe not alwayes prosper Constraint because it is the proper and immediate effect of power is a companion fit for lust whose satisfaction breedes rather a loathing of the parties constrained than any good wil or purpose to reward them for being unwilling unloving or impatient passives nothing but true unforced love can yeeld contentment unto love Needy man to whom benevolences though wrested are ever gratefull cannot bee induced to love the parties from whom they are wrested For Non tantum ingratum sed invisum est beneficium superbè datum Good offices whilest they are presented by pride are not onely ungratefull but odious But God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth no man as he esteemes no gifts howsoever given so he alwayes detests the niggardly
backwardnesse and loves the cheerfulnesse of the giver 5 From these discussions the truth of the former rule with the right solution of the maine probleme proposed may bee illustrated by examples of divers kinds in subjects knowne and familiar Be the charge never so great so the exonerations be well nigh equal the incoms are lesse than if their charge were little and their exonerations none Or be a mans revenues never so large so his necessary expences be no lesse hee shall not bee able to doe as much for his friend in some reall kindnesse as hee whose estate is not halfe so great if so his annuall expences be tenne times lesse In like case though mans love to his dearest friend be in respect of Gods love to us but faint and his power but small yet because his love to justice is much lesse or rather his partiality greater hee oft-times effects that for his temporall good which God though infinite in power doth not effect for those whom hee infinitely loves For the bequests or grants made unto man by his infinite love must undergoe the examination of justice and equitie What are alike infinite before they passe the irrevocable seale of infinite power one of these cannot attempt much lesse absolutely bring ought to passe without the others consent Infinite love cannot oversway either Gods incomprehensible wisedome to devise or his omnipotency to practise meanes for mans salvation which contradict the unchangeable rules of infinite equity His love is as truly indivisible as infinite and is for this reason more indissolubly linkt unto the unchangeable rules of his owne justice or equity than unto mankinde whose goodnesse in his best estate was but mutable nor are any of Adams posterity so capable of that infinite mercie wherewith God embraceth them as Gods Iustice and Majestie are of his infinite Love These being as He is absolutely immutable are throughout eternity immutably loved of him who indivisibly is Majestie Iustice Love immutable CHAP. 17. The truth and ardency of Gods love unto such as perish testified by our Saviour and by S. Paul 1 THese are no Paradoxes but plaine truth without whose acknowledgement wee shall hardly finde any true sense or good meaning in Gods protestations of sorrow for his peoples plagues or in his expostulations of their unthankfulnesse or in his kind invitations of them to repentance which never repent or in his tender profers of salvation to those which perish I have spred out my hands all the day long unto a rebellious people which walketh in a way that was not good after their owne thoughts c. Isay 65. 2. His infinite power expects their conversion as the Mariner doth the turning of the Tyde but may not transport them into the land of Promise untill his Loving-kindnesse have converted them The unremovable rules of eternall equity will not suffer him to stretch out his hands any farther than he doth towards the sonnes of men and when the measure of their iniquity is accomplished his infinite Iustice will not suffer him to stretch them out so farre any longer Albeit hee cannot then without unfaigned sorrow withdraw them from those to whom in love unfaigned hee hath stretcht them out Thus Ierusalems iniquity come to the full did fill our Redeemers heart with woe and his eyes with teares If thou hadst knowne even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes Luke 19. 42. Did he speake this as man or doth not the Spirit say the same Hee that spake this spake nothing but words of spirit and life nothing but the words of God if we may beleeve that he meant as he hath spoken I have not spoken saith Hee of my selfe but the Father which sent me hee gave me a commandement what I should say and what I should speake whatsoever I speake therefore even as the Father said unto me so I speake His bowels of compassion were freely extended towards thē from that exact conformity which his spotlesse and blessed soule held with Gods infinite love and yet restrained againe by that conformity which it as exactly held with the eternall rules of Gods infinite justice or equity and from these different motions or distractions thus occasioned from that indissoluble uniō of his divisible soule with these two different attributes of the indivisible nature were his teares squeezed out He wept then as man not as God and yet in this humane passion did visibly act that part which God before his incarnation had penned as a sensible memoriall of his unconceivable love O that my people had hearkned unto me and Israel had walked in my wayes I should soone have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him but their time should have endured for ever He should have fed them also with the finest wheat and with honey out of the Rocke should I have satisfied thee Psalm 81. vers 13 14 15 16. Wheat and Honey here promised were Emblemes of better blessings purposed towards them And thus avouching this his purpose under no character of courtly complement but in the forme of legall assurance his words are undoubted tokens of unfeigned love and desire unquenchable of their welfare that did not prosper Israel might have said as Ierusalem afterwards did of her sorrow Was there ever any love like unto this love wherewith the Lord imbraced mee in the dayes of my youth Notwithstanding this excessive fervency of His loving kindnesse whose will is infinite laid no necessity upon their wils to whom hee wished all this good They had a liberty left them by eternall equity to refuse it Hee out of the wishes of his bounty as he protesteth was ready to poure out his best blessings according to the immensity of his loving kindnesse so Israel would open his mouth wide to receive them But my people saith he would not hearken unto my voice and Israel would none of mee so I gave them up unto their owne hearts lust and they walked in their owne counsells Psal 81. vers 11 12. 2 Lord who had sinned the heathen people or their forefathers in like manner as Israel did that in times past thou sufferedst them all to walke in their owne wayes Acts 14. 16. They that observe lying vanities forsake their owne mercy saith the Prophet Ionah 2. 8. Never hadst thou given them up to their owne hearts lust to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath had they not despised the riches of thy bounty whose current neverthelesse was not altogether diverted from their posterity To them thou leftest not thy selfe without a witnesse in that thou didst good and gavest them raine from heaven in fruitfull seasons filling their hearts with food and gladnesse To all nations even in the time of darknesse when they were strangers from thee these and the like temporall and sensible blessings were
better by us than they doe would we wholly commit our selves to their trust and kindnesse Now though by mans goodnesse or badness God can neither become worse nor better in himselfe yet the riches of his bounty or communication of his goodnesse are still multiplyed towards those that stedfastly beleeve him to bee such as hee is One whom all are bound to love because hee is so kind and loving one whom all may safely trust because his loving kindnesse is so utterly void of partiality being armed with power and justice infinite Thy righteousnesse is like the great mountaines thy judgements are like the great deepe O Lord thou preservest man and beast How excellent is thy louing kindnesse O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings Psal 36. ver 6 7. This especially should move all to admire his loving kindnesse that he loved all without any other motive than his owne meere goodnesse or loving kindnesse either to incline his will or stirre up his power to give them a being like his owne We love him saith Saint Iohn because he loved us first Doe all then whom hee unfeignedly loves love him vnfeignedly Would God they did for so as his will is all should bee saved Did then the Apostle meane that his love to us is no true cause of our love to him yes yet not simply as it is in him but as being unfeignedly in him it is truly apprehended by us Ingenuous love is never lawfully begotten or fully conceived but from an apprehension of true lovelinesse in the object and nothing can bee more lovely then love it selfe when it is firmely apprehended or undoubtedly knowne 3 Though secret consciousnesse of our owne unlovelinesse in the state of nature makes us oft-times too mistrustfull of others love Yet unto our nature unregenerate and overgrowne with corruption it is almost impossible not to love them whose love to us we assuredly know to be unfaigned unlesse their behaviour be very loathsome Howbeit even so we love their persons though not their presence wherewith againe we willingly dispense if it may gratifie us in other things which we much desire That which makes the worlds condemnation so just that infinite mercy may not dispence with it is mens dull backwardnesse to love him of whose glorious beauty the most glorious most admired creatures are but fleeting shadowes no true pictures Him of whose infinite love and unfeigned preventions in unrecompensable benefits all the pleasures wee take in health the joy of strength the sweetnesse of life it selfe and whatsoever in it is good and lovely are infallible pledges and yet his intention in free bestowing them is to bind himselfe more strictly than man is bound by receiving the just price of what he bargaines for to instate us in the incomprehensible joyes of endlesse life Hee requires nothing at our hand but that wee may be more capable of his loving kindnesse by drawing still nearer and nearer to him with all our hearts with all our soules and with all our strength of whose least portion he is sole maker and preserver of all whose motions hee is sole author and guide From participation of his favour or presence whatsoever is good in them is undoubtedly capable of increase The services wherein the eternall King requires demonstration of this our love are not so hard as those which wee willingly performe to corruptible men not invested with any shadow of his lovelinesse nor seasoned with any tincture of his loving kindnesse to men that cannot be so beneficiall as loving to their friends nor halfe so loving as they are lovely though their lovelinesse come farre short of their greatnesse Far otherwise it is with him whose Greatnesse and Majesty are truly infinite hee is as glorious and lovely as great as loving as lovely and yet withall no lesse beneficiall than loving to those which love him and doe his will 4 This unfaigned love of him raised from beleefe of his loving kindnes toward us is as the first conception or plantation of true happines to which once truly planted whatsoever in this life can befal us serves as nutriment Diligentibus Deum omnia operantur in bonum Wee know that all things worke together for good to them that love God to them who are called according to his purpose As this Article of his goodnesse and love is to be prest before any other so the first and most naturall deduction that can be made from this or any other sacred principle and that which every one when hee first comes to enjoy the use of reason should be taught to make by heart is this He that gave mee life indued with sense and beautified my sense with reason before I could desire one or other of them or know what being meant hath doubtlesse a purpose to give me with them whatsoever good things my heart my sense or reason can desire even life or being as farre surpassing all goodnesse flesh and blood can conceive or desire as this present life I now enjoy doth my former not being or my desirelesse want of being what now I am These are principles which elsewhere by Gods assistance shall bee more at large extended yet would I have the Reader ever to remēber that the infinite love wherewith God sought us when we were not by which he found out a beginning for mankind fitted as a foundation for endlesse life can never be indissolubly betrothed unto the bare beeing which hee bestowed upon us The finall contract betwixt him and us necessarily presupposeth a bond or linke of mutuall love There is no meanes possible for us to be made better or happier than we are but by unfaigned loving him which out of love hath made us what we are Nor are we what we are because he is or from his Essence onely but because he was loving to us And after our love to him enclasped with his unspeakable and unchangeable love to us whose apprehension must beget it the faith by which it is begotten in us assures our soules of all the good meanes the infinitie of goodnesse may vouchsafe to grant the infinity of wisedome can contrive or power omnipotent is able to practise for attaining the end whereto his infinite love from all Eternities doth ordaine us And who could desire better encouragement or assurance more strong then this for the recompence of all his labours or if all this cannot suffice to allure us hee hath set feare behind us to impell us unto goodnesse or rather before us to turne us backe from evill CHAP. 19. How God of a most loving Father becomes a severe inexorable Iudge 1 BVt if God as wee have said bee love shall not his love be like his nature altogether unchangeable How then shall hee punish his beloved Creatures or have anger hate or jealousie any place or seat in the Omnipotent Majestie Can these consort with infinite mercie Many Philosophers have freed God from anger making
and formally included in Gods love of absolute goodnesse righteousnesse and true holinesse And the displeasure or indignation which he beares to these must needes seize on their persons that have covered thēselves with them as with a garment and to whose soules they sticke more closely than their skinnes doe to their bodies or their flesh unto their bones CHAP. 20. Whilest God of a loving Father becomes a severe Iudge their is no change or alteration at all in God but onely in men and in their actions Gods will is alwayes exactly fulfilled even in such as goe most against it How it may stand with the Iustice of God to punish transgressions temporall with tormens everlasting 1_THe summe of all is this love was the Mother of all his workes and if I may so speake the fertility of his power and Essence And seeing it is his nature as Creator and cannot change no part of our nature seeing every part was created by him can bee utterly excluded from all fruits of his love untill the sinister use of that contingencie wherewith hee indued it or the improvement of inclinations naturally bent unto evill come to that height as to imply a contradiction for infinite justice or equity to vouchsafe them any favour Whether naturall inclinations unto evill may bee thus farre improved in the children by their forefathers or no is disputable but in another place Concerning Infants save onely so farre as neglect of duties to be performed to them may concerne their Elders seeing the Scripture in this point is silent I have no minde here or elsewhere to dispute If faith they have or such holinesse as becommeth Saints neither are begotten by our writing or preaching nor is the written word the rule of theirs as of all others faith that are of yeares And unto them onely that can heare or reade or have the use of reason I write and speake this as well for their comfort and encouragement to follow goodnes or for their terror lest they follow evill Love much greater than any creature owes or performes or is capable of either in respect of himselfe or in others is the essentiall and sole fruit of Gods antecedent will whether concerning our nature as it was in the first man or now is in the severall persons derived from him And of this love every particular faculty of soule or body is a pledge undoubted all are as so many ties or handles to draw us unto him from whom we are separated onely by dissimilitude our very natures being otherwise linkt to his being with bonds of strictest reference or dependency On the contrary Wrath and Severity are the proper effects of his consequent will that is they are the infallible consequents of our neglecting and despising his will revealed for our good or sweet promises of saving health The full explication and necessary use of this distinction hath taken up its place in the Articles of Creation or Divine Providence Thus much of it may serve our present turn That Gods absolute wil was to have man capable of Heaven Hel of joyes and miseries immortall That this absolute will whose possible objects are two is in the first place set on mans eternall and everlasting joy more fervently than man can conceive yet not so as to contradict it selfe by frustrating the contrary possibility which unto man it had appointed That Gods anger never kindles but out of the ashes of his flaming love despised Nor doth the turning of tender love and compassion into severity wrath presuppose or argue any change or turning in the Father of lights and everlasting mercy it is wholly seated in mens irregular deviation from that course which by the appointment of his antecedent will they should and might have taken whereto his fatherly kindnesse did still invite them unto whose crooked wayes which they doe but should not follow from which the same infinite goodnesse doth still allure them by every temporall blessing and deterre them by every crosse and plague that doth befall them 2 This bodily Sunne which wee see never changeth with the Moone his light his heat are still the same yet one and the same heat in the spring time refresheth our bodies here in this Land but scortcheth such as brought up in this clime journey in the sands of Affricke His beames reflected on bodies solid but of corruptible and changeable nature often inflame matter capable of combustion But as some Philosophers thinke wold not annoy us unless by too much light were we in that aethereall or coelestiall region wherein it moves At least were our bodies of the like substance with the heavens the vicinity of it would rather comfort than torment us Thus is the Father of lights a refreshing flame of unquenchable love to such as are drawne by love to be like him in purity of life but a consuming fire to such as he beholdeth a farre off to such as run from him by making themselves most unlike unto him No sonnes of Adam there be which in some measure or other had not some taste or participation of his bountie And the measure of his wrath is but equall to the riches of his bounty despised To whom this infinite treasure of his bounty hath beene most liberally opened it proves in the end a storehouse of wrath and torments unlesse it finally draw them to repentance According to the height of that exaltation whereunto his antecedent will had designed them shall the degrees of their depression be in hell for not being exalted by it Nor doth any man in that lake of torments suffer paines more against his will than he had done many things against the will of his righteous Iudge daily leading him to repenttnce The flames of hell take their scantling from the flames of Gods love neglected they may not they cannot exceede the measure of this neglect Or to knit up this point with evidence of sacred truth God alwaies proportioneth his plagues or punishments in just equality to mens sinnes And the onely rule for measuring sinne or transgression right must bee taken from the degrees of mans opposition to Gods delight or pleasure in his salvation Not so much as a dramme of his delight or pleasure can be abated not a scruple of his will but must finally be accomplished The measure of his delight in mans repentance or salvation shall beee exactly satisfied and fulfilled Mans repentance he loves as hee is infinite in mercy and in bounty mans punishment he doth not love at all in it selfe yet doth hee punish as hee is infinitely just or as hee infinitely loveth justice This is but the extract of Wisedomes speech Prov. 1. vers 24. Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded But yee have set at nought all my counsell and would none of my reproofe I also will laugh at your calamity I will mocke when your feare commeth When your feare commeth as desolation and your
destruction commeth as a whirlewind when distresse and anguish commeth upon you Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer they shall seeke me earely but they shall not finde mee For that they hated knowledge and did not choose the feare of the Lord. They would none of my counsel they despised all my reproofe Therefore shall they eate of the fruit of their owne way and be filled with their owne devices For the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fooles shall destroy them But who so harkeneth unto me shall dwell safely and be quiet from feare of evill And it were to be wished that some moderne Divines would better explicate than they doe a schoole tenet held by many concerning Gods punishing sinners in the life to come citra condignum that is lesse than they deserve For by how much their punishment is lesse than the rule of divine Iustice exacts so much of that delight or good pleasure which God should have reaped from their salvation may seeme by this remission to be diminished But this point I leave to the judicious Readers consideration who may inform himselfe from the Expositors of that sacred Maxime His mercy is above all his works Psal 145. 9. 3 To thinke God should punish sinne unlesse it were truly against his will or any sinne more deeply than it is against his will and pleasure is one of those three grosse transformations of the divine nature which Saint Augustine refutes For thus to doe is neither incident to the divine nature nor to any other imaginable Most of us are by nature cholericke and often take offence where none is given and almost alwayes greater than is justly given But to be offended with any thing that goes not against their present wills is a way wardnesse of men whereof the humane nature is uncapable To punish any which doe not contradict their wills is an injustice scarce incident to the inhabitants of Hell It is the mutability of our wills or multiplicity of humors which makes us so hard to be pleased Our minds at lest our affections are set upon one thing fasting upon another full on this to day on that to morrow on sweet meates in health on sowre in sicknesse on kindnesse in mirth on cruelty in anger and because each hath his severall inconstant motions wee cannot hold consort long together without crossing or thwarring But no man ever offended by merrily consorting with his brother disposed to mirth nor by consenting to wreake his will whilest hee was in rage No man ever punished his servant for doing that which for the present he would have him doe nor doe the Devills themselves vex the wicked till Gods justice overtake them but the godly because the one doth what they would the other what they would not have him doe neither could displease them were it not their wicked will to have all as bad and miserable as themselves Could the damned by their suffering either ease these tormentors of paine or abate their malice they would be lesse displeased at them and lesse displeased torment them lesse And whom then have they made the subject of their thoughts or did they rather dreame than thinke on God that sometimes write as if it were not as much against Gods will to have men dye as it is against mans will to suffer death For they suffer death not because God delighteth in it but that Gods will may be fulfilled in their suffering or passion according to the measure it hath beene neglected or opposed by their actions 4 But though the rule of justice bee exactly observed in proportioning their paines to the degrees or fervency of his love neglected yet seeing the continuance of their neglect was but temporall how stands it with his justice to make their paines eternall The doubt were pertinent if the immortall happinesse wherunto the riches of Gods bountie did daily lead them during their pilgrimage on earth whereof they had sweet promises and full assurance had not farther exceeded all the pleasures of this mortall life for whose purchase they morgaged their hopes of immortality than the paines of hell doe these grievances or corrections which caused them murmure against their heavenly Father In this sense we may maintaine what Mirandula in another doth that no man is everlastingly punished for temporall offences as committed against God How then Man wilfully exchanging his everlasting inheritance for momentany and transient pleasures becomes the Author of his owne woe and reapes the fruit of his rash bargaines and so makes up that measure of Gods glory and pleasure by his eternall sufferings which he might and would not doe by eternall participation of his joyfull presence And it is more than just for it is justice tempered with abundant mercy that they should suffer everlasting paines who not twice or thrice or seven times onely but more than seventy times seven times have wilfully refused to accomplish Gods eternall pleasure by accepting the sweet profers of their eternall joy In every moment of this life we have a pledge of his bounty to assure us of a better inheritance the very first neglect whereof might in justice condemne us to everlasting bondage The often and perpetuall neglect turnes flames of eternall love into an eternall consuming fire For if love and mercy bee his property as hee is Creator and preserver of all mankinde his love as was said before must needs be more indissolubly set on those attributes than on man The end of his love to man is to make him happy by being like him in the love of goodnesse Now the more he loves him with reference to this end or the oftner hee pardons him for neglecting or refusing the meanes that draw unto it the greater is his wrath against impenitency or finall contempt of his loving mercy This is his most deare and tender attribute which being foully wronged will not suffer justice to sleepe Patientia laesa sit furor Long restraint of anger upon just and frequent provocations makes the out-bursting of it though unseemely and violent seeme not altogether unjust nor immoderate Albeit the forme and manner of proceeding which humane patience much abused usually observes in taking revenge cannot in exact justice bee warranted or approved yet this excesse of anger or delinquency in the forme is so tempered with matter of equity that it makes those actions of patient men much abused seeme excusable which in others would be intollerable The ideall perfection of this rule of equity thus often corrupted by humane passions is in the Divine Nature without mixture of such passion or perturbation as is pictured out to the terror of the ungodly in the propheticall characters or descriptions of his anger Et excitatus est tanquam dormiens Dominus c. Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleepe and like a mightie man that shouteth by reason of wine Psal 78. 65. Although he