yet still they pursue 'em and ever and anon break in upon 'em and scare and terrifie 'em and because their minds are so haunted with these importunate terrours of the World to come they are affraid to look inwards but are fain to live abroad in their own defence as not daring to trust themselves alone with themselves all which are plain Presages of a future Judgment and Vengeance that awaits wicked Souls after this life For if this dread of future Punishment be natural to us as its sticking so closely and universally to humane Nature plainly argues it is it must be imprest on us by the great Author of Nature and for him to impress a Passion on us which hath no real Object would be to impose a Cheat upon our Natures and abuse our minds with a false Alarm So that either we must suppose that God hath implanted in our Natures a â—â—ead of that which is not which is a dishonourable reflection on his Truth and Veracity or that there is really a future Punishment answerable to that dread AND as the dread of future Punishment is natural to us when we do ill so the desire and expectance of future Reward is no less natural to us when we do well For I dare boldly say there never was any vertuous Man of whatsoever Nation or Religion or sect of Philosophers whose mind hath not been winged with earnest hopes and desires of a future happiness and there is none that ever yet either denied or despair'd of it but only such as have first debauched the very Principles of their Nature For such it 's evident were the Sadduces and Epicureans sects of Men that had drowned all that was humane in 'em in sensuality and voluptuousness and are branded upon Record for their shameful Indulgence to their own brutish Genius and such are no Standards of humane Nature but ought rather to be look'd upon as Monsters of Men. And therefore as we do not judg of the natural Figures and proportions of humane Bodies by monstrous and mishapen births so neither ought we to judg of what is natural or unnatural to Men by those brutes in humane shape who by submitting their Reason to their passions and Appetites have disfigur'd their Natures and distorted it into an unnatural Position But if we would know what is humane and natural to us we must take our measures from those who live most conformably to the Laws of a Rational Nature and these are they whom we call Pious and Virtuous who are therefore to be look'd upon as the true Standards of humane Nature by whom we may best judg of what is natural and unnatural to us and if we judg by these we shall most certainly find that Virtue and the hopes of Immortality are so nearly allied that like Hippocrates Twins they live and die together For though while Men live a brutish and sensual Life their future hopes are usually drowned in their present Enjoyments yet when once they recover out of this unnatural state and begin to live like reasonable beings immediately they feel great desires and expectations of a future happiness springing up in their minds and so arising higher and higher proportionably as they advance in virtue and goodness which is a plain evidence that these hopes and desires are natural to us and interwoven with the frame and constitution of our Souls But now how can it consist with the goodness of God to implant such desires and hopes in our Natures and then withhold from 'em that which is the only Object that can sute and satisfie ' em For as a great Divine of our own hath well observed Other Beings we see have no natural desire in vain the good God having so ordered things that there are Objects in Nature apportioned to all their natural Appetites but if there be no future state of happiness reserved for good Men We are by a natural Principle most strongly inclined to that which we can never attain to as if God had purposely framed us with such inclinations that so we might be perpetually tormented between those two Passions Desire and Despair an earnest propension after a future Happiness and an utter incapacity of enjoying it as if Nature it self whereby all other things are disposed to their perfection did serve only in Man to make him miserable and which is more considerable as if Virtue which is the perfection of Nature did only serve to contribute to our infelicity by raising in us such desires and expectations as without a future Happiness must be for ever disappointed But if this Desire and Expectation be natural to us as it evidently is it must be implanted there by the God of Nature with whose truth and goodness it can never consist to inspire us with such Desires and Hopes as he knows have no Object in the nature of things and so can never be fulfilled and accomplish'd V. FROM the excellent frame and constitution of humane Nature it 's also evident that there is a future state of Reward and Punishment For whoever shall impartially consider the frame of our Natures will easily discern that we are made for much greater purposes than to enjoy this World and that our faculties are as much too big for these sensitive fruitions as the Channel of the Ocean is for the streams of a little River For the highest happiness we can frame an Idea of is the enjoyment of God by contemplation and love and imitation of his Perfections as I have proved at large Part. 1. c. 3. which doth as far excel all Worldly happiness as the Enjoyments of a Prince do the pleasures of a Fly and yet it is evident that our minds are framed with a natural capacity of enjoying this supream Beatitude i. e. of contemplating and loving and imitating God For as for the Being and Existence of God all things round about us preach and proclaim it and which way soever we turn our Eyes we behold the footsteps of his Power and Wisdom and being endowed with a reasoning faculty we can easily ascend to the infinite Perfections of his Nature by those borrowed Perfections we behold in his Creatures which are so many lively Comments and Paraphrases upon him and so far forth as they are Perfefections must necessarily meet and concenter in him and then such is the frame of our natures that from the contemplation of the Beauty and Perfection of any Being we naturally proceed to admire and love it so that unless our wills be violently prejudiced against the Perfections of God our contemplation must necessarily kindle our love of 'em and then those Perfections which we love and admire in another we are naturally ambitious to transcribe into our selves so that being once inflamed with the love of God that will be continually prompting us to imitate him and that will by degrees mould us into a fair and glorious resemblance of him Thus God hath implanted in the very frame of our Nature
it of themselves and hath purposed never to enable 'em to do it Which Opinions do represent God in such a formidable dress circled with such a stern and gastly Majesty as is more apt to inspire us with horror than love For though by persuading our selves that we are of the small number of his elected Favourites we may work our minds into some degree of love to him yet when we consider how severely he hath treated the rest of our fellow Creatures without any other reason but his own Will this will intermingle such a grimness with his smiles such a terrour with those Charms for which we love him as must necessarily damp the fervours of our love and ever and anon freez it into horror and astonishment and so fear will be at least the predominant Principle of our Obedience and while it is so our Religion must needs languish under great imperfections and infirmities For while our fear and dread of God is the governing Principle of our Religion we shall but do penance in all our addresses to him and every act of our Obedience will be a kind of Martyrdom so that we shall never be able to entertain any chearful converse or friendly Society with him and yet serve him we must for fear our neglect of him should rouse his Vengeance against us and between this necessity of coming to him and this fearfulness of approaching him what can there be begotten but a forced and constrain'd Devotion which because we do not love we would willingly leave did not our dread and horror of him drag us to his Altars And as we shall serve him with a forc'd Obedience so we shall obey him with a sordid and nigardly affection and while we grudg him our Obedience we shall be most backward to obey him in those instances of Duty that are of greatest moment and most pleasing to him and most forward in those that are of least concern and most pleasing to our selves Thus while our minds are ridden with sour and rigid apprehensions of God they will inspire us with a slavish dread of him and that will restrain and contract our Obedience to him Thus Maximus Tyrius excellently represents the case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the truly religious Man is the friend of God but the superstitious is his flatterer and the former is happy but the latter miserable for the one being encouraged by his own Vertue approaches God without any slavish fear and dread but the other being debased with the sense of his own wickedness approaches him with trembling and despair dreading him as a cruel Tyrant Dissert 4. IF therefore we would render him a chearful free and universal Obedience we must endeavour to represent him fairly to our own minds and to think of him as he is and as he hath represented himself in the holy Scriptures i. e. as a bountiful benefactor to all his Creation and an universal lover of the Souls of men that would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth and doth heartily and readily contribute to our eternal welfare that leaves no art of love no method of kindness unattempted to rescue us from eternal perdition and when we have utterly baffled and defeated them all doth most unwillingly abandon us to the woful fate we have chosen and prepared for our selves that in punishing even the most incorrigible sinners doth not at all design to wreak and gratifie his own revenge but to do good to the World and warn others by their sufferings not to imitate their sins And in a word that importunately invites us back when we are gone astray and upon our return graciously receives us and when he hath received us is infinitely industrious to prepare us for happiness and when he hath prepared us abundantly rewards us and when he hath rewarded us everlastingly triumphs in our Glory and beatitude these and such like thoughts are truly worthy of God and befitting the infinite goodness of his Nature and as such do earnestly recommend him to our affections as the most amiable and indearing object in the World and when by such recommendation they have captivated our affections and kindled our hearts into an unfained love of him they have inspired us with such a vigorous Principle of action as will both animate and innoble our Religion and render it truly worthy of God and our selves For then we shall serve him with a free and dutiful will a liberal affection and a chearful heart and consequently render him a full and generous and willing obedience For so holy David tells us Psal. 119.32 I will run the ways of thy Commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart i. e. when thou shalt open and widen my heart with the love of thee for so St. Paul expounds the Phrase 2 Cor. 6.11 I shall most readily and chearfully obey thee III. A right apprehension of God is also necessary to direct us to the end for which we are to serve him without which it is impossible we should serve him acceptably For as a good intention doth not justifie a bad action so neither doth a good action a bad intention and unless both are good neither are acceptable If I do an action that is materially good with respect to a bad end I unhallow and vitiate it and render it formally evil If I fast for strife or give Alms for vain-glory or pray to give a colour to my Rapines and Oppressions my very Devotion is a cheat my Mortification a lie and my Charity an imposture So that in order to our serving of God acceptably it 's necessary we should direct those services we render him to their right and proper end and what that is we cannot well understand unless we have a right apprehension of his nature for to be sure God hath proposed that to us for the end of our Worship which is most agreeable to his own perfection and therefore unless we have a right Notion of his perfections how can we rightly apprehend what end is most agreeable to them As for instance the right end of our serving him is that we may glorifie him for ever in an everlasting participation of his perfection and happiness and this we can be no otherwise certain of than by a true survey and inspection of his nature which will instruct us that being infinitely perfect as he is he must be infinitely happy within himself and so can design no self-end without himself and consequently that the end for which he requires our service is not any advantage he expects to reap from it or further addition to his own happiness he being from all Eternity past as compleatly happy as he can be to all Eternity to come and therefore what other end can he be supposed to aim at than our good and happiness It is true indeed he designs to glorifie himself in our happiness but how Not to render himself himself more glorious by it
nothing in him but what his own Reason perfectly approves no Inclination in his Will or Nature but what is exactly agreeable to the fairest Ideas of his own Mind And since it is for his own Goodness-sake that he loves himself as he doth we may be sure that there is nothing without him can be so dear to him as that in us which is the Image of his Goodness Every like we say loves its like and the righteous Lord saith the Psalmist loveth Righteousness Psal. 11.7 i. e. being righteous himself he loves Righteousness in others by an invincible sympathy of Nature His greatest Heaven and Delight is in his own most righteous Nature and next to that in righteous Souls that imitate and resemble him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath not a more grateful Habitation upon Earth than in a pure and vertuous Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Apollo that Mimick of God by his Pythian Oracle i. e. I rejoyce as much in pious Souls as in my own Heaven Which is much what the same with that gracious Declaration that God himself makes by the Prophet Isaiah 57.15 thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity whose Name is Holy I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble Spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones Since therefore moral Duties are all but so many Copies and Exemplifications of Gods Nature this is a sufficient Reason why he should prefer them before all the Positives of Religion III. GOD principally requires moral Goodness because 't is by the Practice of this that we advance to our own natural Happiness For the natural Happiness of reasonable Creatures consists in being entirely governed by right Reason i. e. in having our Minds perfectly informed what it is that right Reason requires of us and our Wills and Affections reduced to an entire Conformity thereunto And this is the Perfection of moral Goodness which consists in behaving our selves towards God and our selves and all the World as right Reason advises or as it becomes rational Creatures placed in our Circumstances and Relations And when by practising all that true Piety and Vertue which moral Goodness implies we are perfectly accomplished in our Behaviour towards God our selves and all the World so as to render to each without any Reserve or Reluctancy what is fit and due in the Judgment of right Reason we are arrived to the most happy State that a reasonable Nature can aspire to 'T is true in this Life we cannot be perfectly happy and that not only because we live in wretched Bodies that are continually liable to Pain and Sickness but also because we are imperfect our selves and have none to converse with but imperfect Creatures But were we once stript of these natural and moral Imperfections wheresoever we lived we should necessarily be happy Were I to live all alone without this painful Body I should necessarily be in a great measure happy while I followed right Reason tho I lived in the darkest Nook of the Creation For there I should still contemplate God and while I did so my mind would be always ravish'd with his Beauty and Perfections there I should most ardently love him and while I did so I should sympathise and share with him in his Happiness there I should still adore and praise him and while I did so I should feel my self continually drawn up to him and wrapt into a real Injoyment of him there I should be imitating his Perfections and while I did so I should enjoy an unspeakable Self-satisfaction perceiving how every Moment I grew a more Divine and Godlike Creature there I should intirely resign up my self to his heavenly Will and Disposal and while I did so I should be perpetually exulting under a joyous Assurance of his Love and Favour in a word there I should firmly depend upon his Truth and Goodness and while I did so I should be always triumphing in a sure and certain Hope of a happy Being for ever Thus were I shut up all alone in an unbodied State and had none but God to converse with by behaving my self towards him as right Reason directs me I should always enjoy him and in that Injoyment should be always Happy And if while I thus behaved my self towards God I took care at the same time to demean my self towards my self with that exact Prudence and Temperance and Fortitude and Humility which right Reason requires I should hereby create another Heaven within me a Heaven of calm Thoughts quiet and uniform Desires serene and placid Affections which would be so many everflowing Springs of Pleasure Tranquillity and Contentment within me But if while I thus enjoyed God and my self by behaving my self as right Reason directs I might be admitted to live and converse among perfect Spirits and to demean my self towards them with that exact Charity and Justice and Peaceableness and Modesty which right Reason requires the Wit of man could not conceive a true Pleasure beyond what I should now enjoy For now I should be possest of every thing my utmost Wishes could propose of a good God a Godlike joyful and contented Soul a peaceable kind and righteous Neighbourhood and so all above within and without me would be a pure and perfect Heaven And indeed when I have thrown off this Body and am stript into a naked Ghost the only or at least the greatest goods my Nature will be capable of enjoying are God my self and blessed Spirits and these are no otherwise injoyable but only by Acts of Piety and Vertue without which there is no good thing beyond the Grave that a Soul can tast or relish So that if when I go to seek my Fortune in the World of Spirits God should thus bespeak me O man now thou art leaving all these Injoyments of Sence consult with thy self what will do thee good and thou shalt have whatsoever thou wilt ask to carry with thee into that spiritual State I am sure the utmost I should crave would be this Lord give me a heart inflamed with Love and winged with Duty to thee that thereby I may but enjoy thee give me a sober and a temperate mind that thereby I may but enjoy my self give me a kind a peaceable and a righteous Temper that thereby I may but enjoy the sweet Society of blessed Spirits O give me but these blessed things and thou hast crowned all my wishes and to Eternity I will never crave any other Favour for my self but only this that I may continue a pious and a vertuous Soul for ever for while I continue so I am sure I shall enjoy all spiritual Good and be as happy as Heaven can make me So that the main Happiness you see of Humane Nature consists in the Perfection of moral Goodness and it being so it is no wonder that the good God who above all things desires the
Happiness of his Creatures should above all things exact of us the Duties of Morality He knows that our supreme Beatitude is founded in our Piety and Vertue and that out of our free and constant sprightly and vivacious Exercise of these arises all our Heaven both here and hereafter and knowing this that tender Love which he bears us that mighty Concern which he hath for our Welfare makes him thus urgent and importunate with us For he regards our Duty no farther than it tends to our Good and values each Act of our Obedience by what it contributes to our Happiness and 't is therefore that he prefers moral Duties above positive because they are more essential to our eternal Welfare IV. and Lastly GOD principally requires of us moral Goodness because when all positive Duty is ceast this is to be the eternal Work and Exercise of our Natures For Moral Good is from everlasting to everlasting its Birth was elder than the World and its Life and Duration runs parallel with Eternity before ever the Mountains were brought forth 't was founded in the Nature of God and as an inseparable Beam of his all-comprehending Reason it shines from one end of the World to the other For as soon as ever there was a rational Creature in being the obligations of Morality laid hold on him before ever any positive Duty was imposed and as long as ever there remains a rational Creature the Obligations of Morality will abide on him when all positive Duty is expired For moral Obligations are not founded like positive ones upon mutable Circumstances but upon firm and everlasting Reasons upon Reasons that to all Eternity will carry with them the same force and necessity For as long as we are the Creatures of an infinitely perfect Creator 't will be as much our Duty as 't is now to love and adore him as long as we are reasonable Creatures 't will be as much our Duty as 't is now to submit our Will and Affections to our Reason and as long as we are related to other reasonable Creatures 't will be as much our Duty as 't is now to be kind and just and peaceable in all our Intercourses with them So that these are such Duties as no Will can dispense with no Reasons abrogate no Circumstances disanul or make void but as long as God is what he is and we are what we are they must and will oblige us So that what the Psalmist saith of God may be truly applied to moral Goodness the Heavens shall perish but thou shalt remain they all shall wax old as doth a garment and be folded up and Changed but thou art the same yesterday to day and for ever and thy years shall have no end But as long since the positive Parts of the Jewish Religion were cancell'd and repealed the Vail of the Temple rent in twain the Temple it self buried in Ruins and all its Altars thrown down and their Sacrifices abolished whilst the moral Parts of that Religion still stand firm as the everlasting Mountains about Jerusalem so the time will come whem the positive Parts of Christianity it self must cease when Faith must be swallowed up in Visâ—on and Sacraments be made void by Perfection and all the stated times and outward Solemnities of our Worship expire into an everlasting Sabbath but then when all this Scene of things is quite vanished away Piety and Virtue will still keep the Stage and be the everlasting Exercise of our glorified Natures For as I shewed before all positive Duty is instituted in subserviency to moral and like a Scaffold to a House is only erected for the Convenience of Building up this everlasting Structure of Morality and when this is once finished must be all taken down again as an unnecessary Incumbrance that now only hides and obscures the Beauty of that Heavenly Building that was raised on it and shall abide without it for ever to entertain our Faculties through all the future Ages of our Being and to be the everlasting Mansion of our Natures Wherefore since positive Duties must all cease and expire and only moral Goodness is to be our Business for ever 't is no wonder that God who is so good a Master takes so much Care in ths short Apprentiship of our Life to train us up in that which is to be our Trade for ever He knows it is upon Piety and Vertue that we must live to Eternity and maintain our selves in all our Glory and Happiness and that if when we come into the invisible World we have not this blessed Trade to subsist by we are undone for ever and therefore out of a tender Regard to our Welfare he makes it his principal Care to train us up in this everlasting Business of our Natures WHAT then remains but that above all things we take care to apply our selves to the Practice of moral Goodness to contemplate and love and adore and imitate God to depend upon him and resign up our selves to his Disposal and Government to be sober and temperate in our Affections and Appetites and just and Charitable and modest and peaceable towards one another These are the great things which God requires at our hands and without these all our Religion is a fulsome Cheat. 'T is true the positive Parts of Religion are our Duty as well as these and God by his Sovereign Authority exacts them at our hands and unless when Jesus Christ hath been sufficiently proposed to us we do sincerely believe in him unless we strike Covenant with him by Baptism and frequently renew that Covenant in the Lords Supper unless we diligently attend on the Publick Assemblies of his Worship and use an honest Care to avoid Schism and to persist in Vnity with his true Catholick Church there is no Pretence of Morality will bear us out when we appear before his dread Tribunal But then we are to consider that the proper Use of all these positive Duties is to improve and perfect us in moral Goodness and unless we use them to this Effect we shall render them altogether void and insignificant Wherefore as we would not lose all the Fruits of our positive Duties let us take care to extend them to their utmost Design to improve our Sacrifice to Obedience our Sacraments to Gratitude and Love our Hearing to Practice our Praying to Devotion and our Fasting to Humility and Repentance For if we rest in these Duties and go no farther thinking by such short Payments to Compound with God for all those Debts we owe to the eternal Laws of Morality we miserably cheat and befool our own Souls which notwithstanding all this Exactness about the Positives of Religion are by their own immoral Affections still enslaved to the Devil to whom it is much one what our outward Form of Religion is whether it be Christian or Heathen or Mahometan provided it doth not operate on our minds or give any Check to the Current of our depraved Natures
and the World by a blind and obstinate Will without any regard to the eternal reasons of things we shall worship him as the Indians do their arbitrary Devils i. e. follow him with houlings and lamentations with trembling hearts and frighted looks and dismal tones and by flattering him with praises and fauning upon him with slavish submissions and addresses endeavour to collogue with Heaven and ingratiate our selves with its dreadful Majesty for what can be more agreeable to such a tyrannical Divinity than such a forc'd and slavish Worship In a word if we apprehend him to be a fond and indulgent Being that is governed by a foolish pity and blind commiseration we shall not fail to render him a sutable Worship i. e. to retire and grow melancholly to whine and bemoan our selves to deject our looks and disfigure our countenances and teaze our Souls into fits of fruitless compunction that so by the soft Rhetorick of a well-acted sorrow we may pierce his bowels and melt him into pity and compassion towards us for what can be more prevalent with such a soft and indulgent Deity than such a mournful and passionate Religion Thus whilst we have wrongful apprehensions of God they must necessarily mislead us into false ways of Worship because we can no otherwise worship him than by rendering him such Services as are sutable to the apprehensions we have of his Nature and therefore while we think any otherwise of his Nature than it is we must necessarily think such Services sutable to it as are not BUT if we truly understand what God is we cannot but apprehend what Worship is sutable to him by that Eternal congruity and proportion that there is between things and things which is as obvious to mens minds as sounds and colours to their ears and eyes If God be a Being endowed with such and such Perfections every Mans mind will tell him that between such an Object and such actions and affections there is a natural congruity and therefore so and so he ought to be treated and address'd to with such and such actions and affections to be served and worship'd So that if we apprehend God truly as he is circled with all his natural glories and perfections our apprehensions will produce in us such affections and our affections such deportment and behaviour towards him as are sutable to the perfections of his Nature and we shall worship him with such Services as will both please and become him with admiring thoughts and dutiful wills and God-like affections with an ingenuous fear a humble confidence and an obedient love with chearful Praises and profound Adorations with sober wise and rational Devotions such as will wing and employ our best affections and most noble faculties For 't is such a Worship only that can sute such Perfections and please such a Nature as Gods II. A right apprehension of God is also necessary to inspire us with the best Principle of serving him For it 's certain that there is no Principle in humane Nature that will so effectually engage us to the service of God or render our service so acceptable to him as that of Love which will tune our wills into such an Harmony with Gods that we shall no longer chuse and refuse according to our particular likings and dislikings but what is most pleasing or displeasing to him will be so to us and our wills being thus united and subjected to his our obedience will extend to all his Commands and admit no other bounds but his Will and Pleasure Whereas if we do not obey him out of love we shall indeavour to contract our obedience into as narrow a compass as may be because we shall render it to him with a grudging mind and consequently with a narrow and stingy hand for we shall serve him no farther than we are driven by fear and the restless importunities of a clamorous conscience and so consequently fall infinitely short of our duty and take up in a partial and hypocritical obedience For while we do not love him it is impossible we should obey him with a ready will which is the proper seat of his Empire and while we obey him with a stubborn and rebellious will we are only his slaves but the Devils subjects 'Till therefore we do obey him at least in some measure from a Principle of love it is impossible our obedience should be either universal or sincere But to the inspiring our Souls with this Principle there is nothing more necessary than right apprehensions of God who in himself is doubtless the most amiable of beings as having all those Perfections in infinite degrees that can beget or deserve a rational affection So that we cannot think him to be any way otherwise than he is without thinking him less lovely and detracting more or less from the infinite beauty of his Nature For since he cannot be more lovely than he is in himself every false apprehension of him must needs represent him less lovely But since of all his Perfections that of his Goodness is the most powerful motive and ingagement of Love there is nothing more necessary to kindle our love to him than right apprehensions thereof For being infinitely good as he is in his own Nature it is impossible we should conceive him to be better than he is and therefore every false notion we entertain of his goodness must necessarily detract from it and so much as we detract from his goodness so much we detract from the principal reason and motive of our loving him And therefore in order to the ingaging of our love to him it concerns us above all things not to entertain any Opinion of him that reflects a disparagement on his goodness For too many such Opinions there are that have been imbibed among Christians as the fundamental Principles of their Orthodoxy namely such as these that Gods Sovereign Will is the sole rule of his actions and that he doth things not because they are just and reasonable but that they are just and reasonable because he doth 'em as if he were merely an Omnipotent blind Will that acts without Reason and did run through the World like an irresistible Whirlwind hurrying all things before him without any consideration of right or wrong That his Decrees of Governing and disposing his creatures are wholly founded in his absolute and irresistible Will that determins of the everlasting fate of Souls without any reason or foresight or condition that by this his unaccountable Will he hath impaled the far greater part of 'em within an absolute Decree of Reprobation for no other end but that Nimrod-like he might have game enough to sport and breath his vengeance for ever and that having nailed 'em to this woful cross by this his dire Decree he bids 'em save themselves and come down as those cruel Mockers did our Saviour and because they do not obey torments and cruciates 'em for ever though he knows they are not able to do