and afflictions to cry out O God help me c. I remember the saying of our Divine English Poet. My heart did heave and there came forth My God By which I knew that thou wert in the rod. The word of God directeth it Is any man afflicted let him pray saith the Apostle Call upon me saith God in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee and thou shalt praise me This was the practice of the Saints in all times It was Asa's fault in his Affliction that he sought unto Physitians more than unto God it is the condition upon which help and deliverance is promised be the species of the trial and affliction what it will Vse 3. In the last place let us learn from hence instead of quarrelling at Divine Providence and Justice in afflicting so to behave our selves under our troubles as we may see cause to bless God for them and to admire Divine goodness in them Nazianzene telleth us a story of one Philagrius who in his affliction brake out into this expression Gratias ago tibi Pater tuorumque hominum conditor qui nos invitos reluctantes beneficiis afficis per externum hominem purgas internum that is I thank thee O Father and maker of man thy servant for that thou dost us good against our wills and while we reluct to it and by the outward purgest the inward man And I have read a remarkable passage of Plinius Secundus an Heathen too in an Epistle of his to Maximus The sickness of a friend saith he hath lately informed me that we are best when we are weak for who is there who while he is sick is covetous or proud or wanton who then serveth his amours who is ambitious Then saith he a man remembreth that there is a God and that he is but a man then he admireth none envieth none despiseth none then he neither heareth nor carrieth false tales O saith he that we could be as well when we are well as when we are sick This is that I could wish too But the worst is we are very religious and innocent when we are in affliction but when we are got out of the net we are as foolish and wanton as before God by trouble and affliction for the time doth us good Subtilissima ejus beneficia saith an ingenious Author Sponte dantur sed non sponte recipiuntur But for the most part that goodness proveth like a morning-dew But in order to the improving trouble and affliction let me only commend to you four things with which I shall shut up my discourse on this argument 1. The first is Meditation Affliction is a seasonable time for much Meditation It is a fit time for thee to meditate wherefore it is that God contendeth with thee Job 10.2 I will say unto God do not condemn me shew me wherefore thou contendest with me The time of affliction is a fit time when man sits alone and keepeth silence and the noises and hurries of the World do not disturb him to be thinking what he hath done communing with his own heart upon his bed and certainly this will have a good influence upon thee if thy sickness will make thee avoid eating a dish of meat for the time to come which appeareth to thee the proximate cause of thy disease surely it will lay some Law upon thee as to the favouring of such lusts which appear to have been the more remote cause provoking God in that dispensation against thee It is also a fit time for thee to meditate of the vanity of all the contentments of the world Non domus fundus non aeris acervus auri Aegroto domini deduxit corpore febrim Experience then teacheth a man That Riches profit not in the day of wrath all a mans house and Land and Gold and Silver will not relieve him in a Fever what a pitiful thing is beauty or strength which one fit of sickness depriveth us of what a lamentable excrement is well set hair which a cough turns into baldness what vain things are fine clothes which in sickness are exchanged for rags It is a seasonable time also for thee to meditate of Divine goodness what a mercy it is that the Rattle snake hath a rattle The Tyger another beast to give warning of 't is being near that thou hast diseases to put thee in remembrance of thy latter end It is a fit time also for thee to meditate of the power of Divine wrath 2. Vow unto God in the day of thy trouble Jacob did so Gen. 28.20 So did David Psal 132.2 Lord saith the Psamist remember David and all his afflictions how he sware unto the Lord and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob. Jonah did so Jonah 2.9 3. But then remember to pay thy vows Vow and pay unto the Lord your God Psal 76.11 Better you should not vow than that you should forget to pay what you have vowed This were to snare thy self in the words of thy own lips 4. To this end lastly Pray that you may keep your sick bed impressions upon your hearts In your troubles you had thoughts of your eternal state upon your hearts then you were thinking what you should do if you should be called to Gods judgment-seat Then you were saying If I live I will be another man I will keep Sabbaths better be more in Prayer more in reading and hearing the word more watchful over my heart more careful of my ways more conscientious in my dealings more strict in my Family If ever I recover I will by the grace of God never be so worldly so carnal as I have been well thou art recovered now pray that thou mayest fulfil thy vows and that these impressions may not be off thy heart for ever SERMON XXXIX Job 5.6 7. Although Affliction cometh not forth of the dust neither doth trouble spring out of the ground IS there any evil in the City and I have not done it saith God by his prophet Amos. The interrogation is an undoubted Negation Vain man would be wise though saith Job ch 11.12 he be born like a wild Asses colt Hence it employeth it self in traducing the equal ways of God as if they were unequal Hence he saith how can that God who is infinite in goodness be the Author of evil Is it good for him to oppress to despise the work of his hands Job 10.2 In my last discourse I shewed you that it was consistent enough with the goodness of God to be the Author of the evil of punishment We look upon a staff in the water and it appeareth to us crooked when the fault is not in our staff but only in the weakness and imperfection of our sight and the unquietness of the water pull the staff out of the water and look upon it by a due medium and that is straight We look upon things with blood shotten Eyes and they appear of strange colours but when our Eyes are rectified
shall not fall Mat. 16.18 The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Psal 94.14 For the Lord will not cast off his people neither will he forsake his inheritance Mica 4.4 11 12. So quite through this Psalm there are many promises of the same import Now the work of faith is to perswade the soul of the certainty and undoubted verity of these words of God to settle the soul in this perswasion That sooner shall Heaven and earth pass away than any of these things shall fail which God hath spoken Then the work of faith is further to carry out the soul without any carping trouble or disputing to rest wholly upon these words A Christian seeth the word of God what he hath said for its relief now faith teacheth the soul to agree this as the word of him who cannot lye or repent and calleth upon the soul to trust in God for the fulfilling of it to roll it self upon the promise and to commit it self its cause its way unto the Lord the soul of a Christian is very solicitous and careful for the concern and interest of God in the world faith teacheth the soul to cast its care the burthen of its spirit upon the Lord assuring it that God careth for it Faith speaketh to the soul in the language of Solomon Eccles 5.8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent perverting of Justice and Judgment in a Province marvel not at the matter for he that is higher than the highest regardeth and there be higher than they I say this is a great piece of the Child of Gods duty in such a time when the vilest men are exalted and the wicked walk on every side and the people of God are troden under foot as the mire in the streets It is the Will of God concerning them The just shall live by faith This is the proper time for the exercise of Faith when the eye of sense faileth Faith is the evidence of things not seen the substance of things hoped for The proper operation of Faith is where sense faileth where God is trusted and not seen Blessed are they saith our Saviour who have not seen and yet believe This is Opus diei in die suo Though the people of God ought to be careful of all duty at all times yet they ought to have a special regard to the duty of their day the seasonableness of a duty addeth much to the weight and importance of it The foundations are shaken saith the Psalmist Psal 11.3 4 What shall what can the righteous do Mark what follows The Lords Throne is in Heaven his eyes see his eye-lids try the children of men This is that life which the Saints have lived yea and they have lived well upon it When David had lost all the Amalekites had taken Ziglag and in it all that he had 1 Sam. 30.6 the Text saith David encouraged himself in God the Truth Power and Goodness of God nor did he hope in God in vain as you shall read in that story What had Hezekiah to live upon but Faith when Sennacherib had besieged him with his mighty Army and ranted against him and the God of Heaven too after that rate you read What had all the Patriarchs all the Saints and Servants of God to live upon but Faith of whom you read Heb. 11. Nor is there any life which so glorifieth God as this it eminently glorifieth three Attributes of his his Power Goodness and Truth No man will trust in a bruised Reed or lean upon a broken Staff therefore the Apostle speaking of Abrahams faith Heb. 11. saith He believed that God was able to raise him from the dead and again Rom. 3 He believed that he who promised was able to perform It giveth God the glory of his goodness for the expectation of his soul is the Mercy and Goodness of God and it also giveth God the glory of his truth for the proximate object of Faith is the Word and Promise of God O therefore let this be your care when you cannot live by sense live by Faith It is the happiness of a Child of God he hath something to live on in the worst of times Psal 34.10 The young Lions shall be hunger-bit but there is no want to them that fear the Lord. One would think that of all creatures the Lion should be most out of danger of being hunger bit The Lion the King of the Forest all other Beasts are subject to this Beast yet if an old Lion that cannot run for its prey that hath lost much of its strength may be hunger-bitten one would think a young-Lion that is in its full strength should not Yes saith the Psalmist a young Lion may be hunger-bitten those that have most of the world wicked men that have greatest honours greatest power great advantages to provide for themselves they may be hunger bitten they may come to want but there shall be no want to them who fear the Lord there shall be no time so ill but they shall live if they cannot live upon bread they shall feed upon truth How much better is the estate of a godly man than that of his neighbour It is a great point this a great piece of duty Let me therefore a little further enlarge upon it three ways 1. Shewing you how a Christian may know if he liveth this life 2. Directing you in order to it 3. Perswading it by Arguments 1. Will some Christian say how shall I know if I live this life Suffer me to give you five or Six Characters of it 1. It is a Spiritual life Our life saith the Apostle is hid with Christ in God What Christ sometimes said to his Disciples when they would have had him to have eaten something that a Child of God may say to all the world I have meat to eat you know not of His life is a spiritual life such is the life of Faith both with respect to the subject and to the object of it As to the subject of it it is the soul that lives the body lives by bread the soul lives by truth by the promise There are many that in evil days their bodies have enough to feed upon but their souls have nothing hence their hearts become like Nabals dead as a stone yea and as to the object it is spiritual too he that feedeth upon truth feedeth upon Jehovah It is the truth of God in the word which the soul liveth upon the soul of a Believer can no more live upon Words and Syllables than another soul No but it is the truth of God in these words his power and ability to perform what he hath said his inclination and good-will to the performance and his truth and faithfulness Every life in an evil day is not a life of faith some may live upon fancy and foolish hope some may live upon means with which their eye feedeth them another may live upon a Roman spirit of his own Tu
The Egyptians the Philistines the vilest Enemies cry out God fighteth against them or This is the Lords work Secondly As the Power so the Wisdom of God is seen in these methods and operations of Providence Indeed sometimes God so worketh that the Power of God appeareth uppermost and is most conspicuous in the destruction of the Enemies and in the salvation of the Lords people as in the case of Sennacherib's Army destroyed by an Angel of Pharaoh destroyed by the return of the waters c. But oft-times there 's a wonderful wisdom of God in ordering contingencies and seeming casual things to his own ends in these cases as in the case of Joseph and Haman the reflexion of the Sun upon the waters which caused the Moabites mistake and confusion But the wisdom of God is further seen in this That a mercy seldom comes but though we could see nothing of Wisdom relating to it before it came yet when it is come to pass there 's no understanding Christian but is forced to say It could never have come in a more seasonable time the wisdom of which we could see nothing of in the prospect is evident upon the event It would have been a great question whether the Israelites would have been so willing to have come out of Egypt under the conduct of Joseph when they were pinch'd with no oppressions as they were under Moses and Aaron when they had been serving in the Brick-kilns and their lives so many years together had been made bitter to them through the hard bondage which they had so long endured Thirdly The Lord doth thus more eminently magnifie his justice and righteousness Justice lieth in the distribution of rewards and punishments the first we call Remunerative the second Vindicative Justice Both are much magnified by this method of Providence Persons in the greatest heighths of prosperity or depths of 〈◊〉 are ordinarily the most remarkable objects of the worlds eyes and more regarded than those that are in a more middle-state When God lifts up a Joseph out of the dungeon and a Daniel out of the Lions den and advanceth a Mordecai for whom a gallows was set up and the three Children are taken out of a fiery Furnace He proclaimeth to all the World and they are forced to confess it that verily there is a reward for the righteous and so on the other side when a Pharaoh a Sennecharib an Haman a Nebuchadnezzar are pull'd down in the midst of all their pride and jollity from their very pinacles of honour the Justice and Righteousness of God in punishing proud and imperious Sinners is proclaimed and made more evident to all the World Lastly 4. The Lords goodness is thus more magnified and taken notice of Common and ordinary Dispensations of gracious Providence are little remarked by us what mercy do we receive every night every day from God yet how little notice do we take of it how little is our heart affected with it but now when we are brought to the pits-brink to a very low estate and then are pluck'd from it when we are in a very low estate and then delivered Gods goodness is both more proclaimed to the World and more conspicuous unto us But this will in part fall in under the second head for I told you that God is glorified by this method of his Providence not only as his glorious Attributes divers of them are by it more exalted but also as the pious and religious Acts of his people are more by this method of Providence elicited I have often hinted to you that God hath a twofold glory from his Creatures and the works of his hands The first is a meer passive glory Thus the heavens declare the glory of God the Heavens shew forth the greatness glory and power of God The second is Active wherein the creature doth some actions from which a glory doth result unto God Now by this Method of Providence God is not only glorified in the first sense as this kind of working speaketh more of his Power Wisdom Justice Goodness c. but in the second also ◠Thus God sometimes forceth an acknowledgment of his Power even from the worst of men Julian himself shall confess that Christ is too hard for him throwing up his Dagger to Heaven and crying Vicisti Galilaee The Egyptians shall cry out Exod. 14.25 Let us flee from the face of Israel for the Lord fighteth for the Israelites against the Egyptians Nebuchadnezzar shall make a Decree Dan. 3.29 That every Nation People and Language which speak any thing against the God of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego shall be cut in pieces and their houses shall be made a dunghil because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort Dan. 6.25 Darius shall write to all people Nations and Languages that dwell upon the Earth and make a Decree That in every Dominion of his Kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel for he is the living God and stedfast for ever and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed and his Dominion shall be even to the end he delivereth and he rescueth and he worketh signs and wonders in the Heavens and in the Earth who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the Lions The King of Babylon that set up the Golden-image and so rigorously commanded all should bow down to it or be thrown into the fiery Furnace heated seven times hotter than ordinary Dan. 3.26 shall bless the God of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego who hath sent his Angel and delivered his servants that trusted in him and have changed the Kings word and yielded their bodies that they might not serve or worship any god but their own God What a wonderful glory here had God given him from a wicked Pagan Prince he confesseth his Command wicked he blesseth God that put into these three hearts 〈◊〉 to disobey it and make him change his word he acknowledgeth God the true God and that he delivereth them that trust in him All this accreweth from Gods delivering these three men when they were at the lowest when all gave them over for dead men But secondly How much more glory hath God from his own people upon any such deliverance Surprizals affect us most An unthought-of evil most startleth and dejecteth us An unthought-of good most elevates and affects us Good things lessen in our opinion and estimate by a long expectation They are greatest and most affect us when we are past hopes of them Sudden and unlook'd for good raiseth our hearts to great admiration great praise and thanksgiving Now he that offereth praise saith God glorifieth me The more God is admired the more his goodness is predicated and proclaimed the more men upon any occasion speak of his honour and power and greatness the more glory God hath from them Thirdly God is more honoured by this method of Providence not only as the suddenness of it doth more affect and elevate his peoples
he that sheweth no mercy when he comes to need it shall have judgment without mercy for his portion Take heed of persecuting good people for their conscience-sake towards God it may be you may take the advantage of a furious time and plunder them a little or get them imprisoned or oppressed directly contrary to what is law and justice or directly contrary to the highest law which is the Law of God but if you do it is ten to one but as your hands sent many to bed without bread for themselves and their children to eat to sleep without a bed to lye upon to work without a tool to work with so God will find hands shall requite it into your bosom Or if you should contribute to make the wives of your brethren widows and their children fatherless and vagabonds in a good sense to seek bread out of desolate places God ere long will stand over your houses and say Let these mens children be fatherless and their wives widows let their children be continual vagabonds in the earth and beg and let them seek their bread out of their desolate places Let the extortioners catch all they have and let the strangers spoil their labour let there be none to extend mercy unto them neither let there be any to favour their fatherless children Let the iniquity of their fathers be remembred with the Lord. It was the curse Psal 109.9 And for what cause they were adversaries without a cause to David while he gave himself unto prayer ver 4. They rewarded him evil for good and hatred for his love Oh! my heart akes to think what judgments many in these days have laid up for themselves and their wives and children they have shewed no mercy they or some of theirs will find judgment without mercy God hateth cruelty and the sons of violence his foul abhorreth Vse 2. This observation calleth aloud to you for the exercises of charity and mercy They are virtues or graces the exercises of which God will not only certainly reward but he maketh haste to their reward he ordinarily lets not their reward sleep As it is said of some sinners Their damnation sleepeth not so as to some exercise of grace and vertue it is such a sweet savour in the nostrils of God that their recompence shall not sleep till the resurrection Let me not hear a mouth opened amongst my brethren nor see a purse-string tyed against an act of charity and mercy it grateth upon my ears Sirs give me leave to tell you that God never came more on borrowing than he doth in this age Troops of Robbers have robbed God they have robbed his Servants and God accounteth what is done to them as done to himself Anon it may be before these are gone another comes and tells you that such a Town is burnt down to the ground many hundred Families undone God sends to you for some help for them Anon another comes to tell you God hath sent to borrow a little of you for such a poor servant of his who hath not spent his estate in Luxury but God hath blasted him Possibly God sends another to you to lend him a little for another that is under the Physitians hand or under the Surgeons hand and hath spent all his or her estate O lend it He that gives to the poor lends to the Lord and he will repay Say not as many of you do when such come to borrow of you as you have no mind to lend any too Truly I have no money I can spare from my necessary occasions When the truth is thou hast no money thou art willing to lend such a person God sends on borrowing to thee He that hath given thee all that thou hast hath sent to thee to lend him a few shillings a few pence he hath sent us his Ministers upon his errand or some poor servant of his but he hath sent us with a ticket under his hand which thou knowest thou ownest his written word his holy Scriptures Say not thou hast no money if it be true indeed it is a good excuse or none that thou canst spare from thy necessary occasions if that be true too it is a good excuse but take heed it be true remember the case of Ananias and Saphira What mean the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the oxen What mean thy garments of silk thy costly laces thy feasting thy faring deliciously every day I do not blame these things where there are estates to bear them out soft rayment may be worn in Princes houses but then say not thou hast no money no money for to buy a cap to keep thy brother from the cold and yet money to buy a costly periwig no money to help thy brother to buy so much bread as to keep him from starving and yet hast thou money to furnish thy table with varieties and dainties hast thou no money to help a poor Christian to buy cloathes to cover his nakedness and yet hast thou money to lavish out to cloath thy self and family with silks and fine linnen hast thou no money to lend to thy Lord to relieve one of his prisoners to buy them a bed to lye on to recover them a seat to sit down upon and yet canst thou find enough to buy thy self a cupboard of plate or the most costly houshold-stuff O take heed that God judgeth not that thou hast no heart thou canst not trust that God thou so much talkest of and art no more than a prating Christian But my brethren remember that acts of mercy and charity are such as God ordinarily retaliateth in this life it is seldom that God putteth men to trust him to another world for rewards in these things It is a time to speak and I must speak in this case It is reported of holy Mr. Bradford that in an hard time he sold his Chains Rings and Jewels to relieve those in want It is reported of Basil that in a famine once he sold all the lands and goods he had to relieve the poor I shall add no more but conclude my discourse as that of our Saviour He that hath ears to hear let him hear He that believeth what he hath heard this day and searching the Scripture finds it true let him be up and doing accordingly But if any man believeth not the word of God nor us his servants but hath a mind to make an experiment whether Solomon had any warrant from God to tell the world That he that stoppeth his ear to the cry of the poor he also shall cry and not be heard Let him at his peril try whether Solomon or he was the wiser man I know I have spoke to many obedient ears if there be any other I so far my self am assured of what I have said That in these things Let them do what they please I and my house shall desire both to obey and fear the Lord. SERMON XXIV Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and
grace which bring glory to God if God should not sometimes suffer his own people to fall all the revenue of his glory from these exercises would be lost 5. Again hath God any glory from any more external Acts of Worship and Homage which we perform unto him from our Prayers Praises from our hearing his word receiving the Sacrament Prayer is made up of Confession of Sin and Supplications for pardon of Sin and strength against Sin Confession of Sin gives glory to God my Son saith Joshuah to Achan confess and give glory to God Supplication for good things gives God glory as it owns him to be the Fountain of all good and our whole dependance to be upon him It is true had Sin never entred into the World our daily dependence upon God would have evinced Prayer to have been our daily and a natural homage which derived inferiour beings do owe unto the first being But there would have been no need of Prayer either for the pardon of Sin or for strength against Sin For Praise that also is a piece of Homage which Adam would have owed unto God if he had stood in his first integrity and state of Innocency and the Angels of God who never fell are continually occupied in singing the praises of God But the praises of God both by his Saints upon the Earth and by his glorified Saints are highly advantaged by the forgiveness of their Sins and their having their garments washed in the blood of the Lamb. Now if no sin were committed in the World none would be remitted and forgiven and all the glory which the God of Heaven hath from his Saints on Earth or in Heaven for the free forgiveness of their Sins would have been lost Certainly the fall of the evil Angels advantages the praises of the elect Angel it being doubtless a piece of their song to bless God who suffered not them to fall as the infernal Spirits did and indeed this needeth no further evidence than what it hath from every gracious Soul that hath tasted any thing of the love of God in pardoning mercies I appeal to any such Soul to what a pitch it raiseth his Soul in the thoughts of God and the admirings of his Divine love and grace Psal 103.1 2 3. Bless the Lord O my Soul saith David and all that is within me bless his holy name Bless the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits who forgiveth all thine iniquities and healeth all thy diseases Thus I have shewed you a second way by which God gets himself glory from Sin the permission of Sin in the World 3. Holiness and Piety are advantaged by Sin Sin is a foil to holiness Pulchriora apparent bona ex malorum deformitate As the dark shadows are advantages to the Picture and the wanton thinks at least that her black Patches are advantages to her beauty so are the Sins and Debaucheries which God permitteth in the world advantages to holiness The beautiful and well-proportioned works of Nature are the more beautiful for the Monsters that it erreth in Sin is but monstrum morum a monster in mens manners I am perswaded that in the very times wherein we live God hath made use of the prodigious intemperance lust and luxury Atheisme and foolish superstitious vanities of some to make true Religion Godliness and Vertue appear more lovely unto thousands than before they did Lastly From what is said abundantly appears that it is not without infinite wisdom that the Lord though he be pleased to manifest the riches of grace upon some to change their hearts and to turn them from the wickedness of their ways plucking them as brands out of the fire yet suffers multitudes to walk in their own ways till they drop into that Pit from which there is no Redemption for ever We may all of us be assured that the wise God consulteth his own glory in this In the same Text Pro. 16.4 Where he tells us that he hath made the wicked for the day of evil he saith in the former part that he hath made all things for himself Though we be not able to see the particular reason of many dispensations of God yet we ought to presume they are not done without excellent Counsel admirable reason incomprehensible wisdom yea and infinite love toward those that shall be saved I shall close this discourse with an excellent saying of one of the Ancients If saith he an ignorant person goeth into a Smiths shop what matters it if he doth not knowof what particular use the Sleth the Anvil and other utensils are yet it is enough if the workman knoweth and can make use of every utensil in it's season what if we do not know if we cannot comprehend of what use some particular sinful actions of men should be for the glory of God it is enough for us that God knoweth the vilest action that was ever done in the World the crucifying of the Lord Jesus Christ was of the greatest use for the manifestation of the glory of God Now after this discourse of the reasonableness of Divine Providence in permitting Sin for the further manifestation of the glory of God and the acquisition of glory to his sacred name c. It may seem an idle question why the Lord suffereth so many sinners so as his own number is but a little flock in comparison of those Herds for sin being a quality must inhere in some Subject and if there were no sinners tolerated there could be no sin but yet let me a little further enlarge upon this Argument 1. God suffereth so many sinners that some of them might be made Saints by Nature there is none righteous no not one all are Children of wrath one as well as another all that are implanted into Christ were natural branches of the wild Olive they are made otherwise by an engraffing and implantation into the Lord Jesus Christ It is the Metaphor which the Apostle useth Rom. 11. v. 17 19. Those all those whom the Lord quickeneth were at first dead in trespasses and sins It is the saying of a very ingenious Author Non est sterilis Deo patientia sua ut saltem fatigatione taedeat peccatores voluptatum Gods patience saith he with sinners is not barren if it were only for this that God by suffering sinners many sinners doth at last tire and weary some out of their delight and pleasure in their lusts thou that sayest why doth a pure and holy God endure so many vessels of wrath fitted for destruction do but remember that thou thy self wert once a Child of wrath thou wert once a person fitted both by Original sin and by many actual sins for destruction God suffered thee to go on a long time in thy own ways that he might weary thee of thine own ways and bring thee home unto himself why may not God do so by many others They are yet as wild Asses but why may not they also have a
acquittance in the actual justification of a sinner and the forgiveness of his sins but I have spoken to that before when I spake to that Observation That God with the afflictions of this life doth often punish past and pardoned sins I shall therefore pass on to the application of this discourse which I shall dispatch in two words of exhortation 1. To own God in all your troubles and afflictions The second shall be to study such an improvement of your afflictions as instead of quarrelling at Divine Providence in these dispensations you may see reason to bless God for them Vse 1. In the first place Doth not affliction spring out of the ground nor trouble out of the dust O then in the day of your troubles look not only upon the ground let not your eyes be meerly upon the dust It is the silly Dog that runs after the stone that is thrown at him and biteth that wiser creatures such as man is overlook that and consider the hand that hurled it Afflictions of all sorts are but stones out of the sling of Divine Providence they are Gods messengers he saith to the Disease go and it goeth come and it cometh Art thou sick see the Lord calling for the disease that disordereth thee Art thou reproached see also this affliction not rising out of the dust Shimei cursed David Perhaps saith David God hath bidden him curse It is strange how much light to this purpose shone upon the Heathen I remember Virgil an heathen Poet in the story of the taking of Troy bringeth in Aeneas telling great stories of his valour in that night Troy was taken he tells us that he at last saw Helena the strumpet for whom as that fable goes all that misery came upon that place and was about in his heart to kill her two things the Poet representeth as hindring him 1. That he should get no reputation by killing a woman But a second was his Mother Venus appeared to him and tells him Non tibi Tyndaridis facies invisa Lacenae Culpatusve Pani verum inclementia Divum Has evertit opes sternitque a culmine Trojam That he was not so much to blame Helena the Grecian strumpet nor Paris the Trojan adulterer that by his fetching her from her Husband a Nobleman of Greece had given occasion to that war but the anger of the gods they were Heathens that was their dialect and then the Poet goes on describing how Venus shewed her son Aeneas Neptune o'returning the foundations of the walls with his Trident. Juno keeping the gates open and calling in the enemies her favourites from the Ships to invade the City and Minerva in another place battering down the Towers and Jupiter himself putting valor into the Grecians Even the Heathens by the light of nature understood their afflictions coming from a Divine hand Certainly Christians that have the Scriptures should understand more Art thou or are thy relations sick See God standing at thy beds head and giving strength to thy disease art thou in Prison see the hand of God locking the prison door upon thee and keeping thee in bonds could we do this let me but instance in two or three excellent effects which would follow our recognizing God as the Author of our afflictions 1. It would restrain both our hands and tongues from all thoughts of private revenge upon instruments of evil to us O how ready if any hath done us evil are we to say I will do unto him as he hath done unto me How natural is a Lextalionis An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and an ill word for an ill word and an ill turn for an ill turn Indeed the Magistrate ought sometimes to give it he is the Minister of God to revenge evil but could we but say with David perhaps God hath bid him curse God hath bidden him to smite me with his tongue or with his fist of wickedness We should leave vengeance to him who hath said Vengeance is mine and I will repay it I speak not this exclusively to any thing but thoughts of private revenge It is lawful enough to seek for satisfaction for injuries done us in our names or estates by the Magistrate and according to the laws of the Nation in which we live But I say the consideration of the hand of God in all the evils that come upon us should bridle our thoughts as to private revenge 2. A due consideration of this would also stop our mouths as to all effluxes of impatience could we but say concerning every evil that befalls us this evil is of the Lord we should presently think Who shall say unto him what dost thou It is the Lord said that good man let him do what seemeth him good I held my peace saith David when I understood it was thy doing Indeed our rational nature is so far convinced of Gods soveraignty and justice and right to do with his creatures especially sinful creatures what seemeth him good that it is in some measure disposed to be silent before the Lord but especially every renewed and sanctified nature readily puts its mouth in the dust and cries out Why doth the living man complain a man for the punishment of his sin The justice of God the wisdom goodness and mercy of God stopeth his mouth 'T is true we are but flesh and the best of Gods people have their fits of impatience Job you know had so but Godly men will quickly come out of them as Job did Job 40.4 Behold saith he I am vile what shall I answer I will lay my hand upon my mouth once have I spoken but I will not answer twice but I will proceed no further 3. This would turn our eye in the days of our afflictions upon our hearts and make men think of searching and trying their hearts and turning again unto the Lord. While men think of their afflictions as springing out of the ground and arising meerly from the dust the natural accident of their frail bodys which being dust must be crumbled again to dust by such means they only look to the Physician for a repair of their lapsed health while they only eye their troubles as arising from men they look for nothing but a Buckler to defend themselves or some cudgel to thresh their adversaries with requiting them for the evil they have done them But when they come once to see God in their afflictions and to look upon them as coming from a Divine hand from the great God of Heaven and Earth then they begin to smite upon their thighs and to say What have we done Let this be therefore our business of what kind soever our Affliction be Vse 2. In the second place let not this only engage us to own God as the author of our evils of punishment but also to apply our selves unto God as to him who alone can help us in our times of trouble Nature directs it how ready are we in our bodily pains
1. A silence from passion mourning within our selves fretting vexing c. a man breaketh this silence when he is overborn with fear or grief or anger These three ways the Soul is disturb'd and maketh a noise under the dispensations of God which breaketh this Religious silence 1. By Anger fretting fuming and vexing himself at Gods dispensations This was Moses and Aarons failing at the waters of Meribah and Jonas his error when the Gourd failed him as to its shelter But of this I have spoken fully already when I handled the Negative part of a Christians duty under Gods dispensations of nature 2. Fear Immoderate fear is another passion that spoileth this silence of the Soul fear maketh an Earthquake within us and causeth great unquietness in our Spirits The Soul that is overborn with fears never keepeth silence 3. A third passion is immoderate grief this also breaketh the Souls silence and quiet Psal 42. Why art thou cast down O my soul why art thou disquieted within me So as that Soul that under Gods dispensations of this nature either fumeth vexeth or fretteth at God because of them or is overwhelmed with immoderate or unreasonable fears or is overwhelmed or drowned in immoderate grief that Soul doth not keep silence but that Soul only keepeth a due silence to God which under such Providences abideth in a calm and quiet temper neither shaken with fear nor overcome with immoderate grief or sorrow This is now silentium animae the silence of the Soul before and unto God 2. But there is also a silence of the Tongue this is a piece of this Religious silence this is opposed to murmuring cursing and blaspheming of God to speaking hardly of God as if he were an hard Master and did not deal justly or equally with us to any speaking which is derogatory to the honour and glory of God all this now falleth under the first general duty by which I open a silent waiting for God which I call a free and voluntary submission to the good will and pleasure of God without any disturbance of passion or any sinful expressions of our Tongues 2. A Second thing wherein this duty lyeth is A steady dependance upon God for the fulfilling of his Promises made to his people in such a condition he that hath nothing to depend upon or trust to will not wait so as there can be no patient waiting where there is no secret trust and dependance This is indeed the proper exercise of Faith I have spoken fully to it when I opened the life of Faith in such a time 3. A Third thing in which this duty lies is in the Souls expectation and looking out for God Early in the morning saith David Psal 5.3 I will direct my prayer unto thee and will look up Thus when Habakkuk in the first Chapter of his Prophecy had put up his Prayer to God he saith Chap. 2. that he would go up to his watch-Tower A man goeth up to a Tower or to some high place to see whether a friend or an enemy be coming yea or no It is a piece of our duty in our waiting upon God under his dark dispensations of Providence while we are waiting to be also looking up and living in the expectation of the fulfilling of those promises which we have discerned and fixed our souls by Faith upon and which we have been praying for Our hearts should not be dead we must take heed of saying I look for no good the heart is dead when it comes to that The Soul that waits upon God under dark Providences must be looking for good and confident in its expectations of it from God 4. Lastly This waiting must be in the use of such means as God hath appointed us for the obtaining of the mercy design'd and promised and therefore Psal 37. v. 34. they are put together wait upon the Lord and keep his way Now you have this duty of silent waiting upon God opened to you The Sum of it is this It is the duty of a child of God under these Providences to keep his Soul from being overmuch shaken and overcome with fears or drowned in grief from fretting fuming and vexing at Gods dealings to keep his tongue from all murmuring all foolish and unadvised speaking with his lips to keep his Soul in a quiet dependance upon God for the fulfilling of his word daily looking up for him after the use of such means as he by the Law of Nature or in his revealed will hath appointed for the obtaining of the mercy or good thing which is the matter of our desires and he hath made the Subject of his Promise and consequently the Object of our Faith You have heard your duty Now give me leave to plead with all you that hear me this day for the Practice of it I have in this Discourse been exhorting to several duties of a child of God under dark dispensations of Providence when wicked men have been set up high increased in riches honour every way prospered and the people of God are kept in low despised afflicted states and conditions I remember the Apostle calls to us to add to our faith knowledg to both vertue to vertue temperance c. Do you also add to your not fretting not being angry and envious a steady exercise of Faith and dependance on God to your dependance on God and trusting in him an universal departing from evil and doing that which is good and to that a patient quiet waiting for God I shall in order to your better performance of this offer some counsel and then press it with some arguments and so shut up this Discourse 1. In the first place There are three things which in order to your fulfilling this point of duty I shall commend to you to get a through acquaintance with 1. Be acquainted with Gods name It is David's expression Psal 52.9 I will wait upon thy name for it is good before thy Saints It is the Name of God which we wait upon now it is reasonable in order to our waiting upon his name that we should know his name for as the Psalmist saith They that know thy name will put their trust in thee and truly they that do not know the Lords name will never wait upon him Well you will say What is his name I answer whatsoever he hath revealed and made himself known by or to be that is his name I might instance in many particulars His name is God allsufficient Gen. 17.1 I am the Almighty God His name is I am the unchangeable God His name is Jehovah the soveraign Lord God and therefore we ought to wait upon him His name is The Lord the Lord Gracious Merciful c. they that know the Lords name that are throughly acquainted with the nature of God as he hath in his word made himself known to us they will wait upon God they will see it a reasonable thing that they should wait upon God 2. In the
Election and the fall of Man 2. The permission of sin and so much sin sinners and so many sinners in the world 3. To such as related to the Remunerative and punitive Providence of God 4. Lastly To such as concern the dispensation both of the more external and the more internal and effectual means of grace I have spoken to divers Questions that have fallen under the Three first of these heads such as fall under the last remain yet to be spoken to but before I come to speak directly to such Questions I shall lay down Two preliminary Propositions to which I shall speak something 1. Prop. That God in his Providential dispensations of grace and the means of application of it whether more external or more internal acteth freely and unaccountably yet is in it both holy and just and good 2. Prop. That God in the dispensations of his paenal Providence in the withholding or withdrawing of the means of grace whether more external or more internal never acteth upon meer Prerogative but upon the demerit of the sins of people and in this he acteth justly and holily I will begin with the first of these and for that purpose I have made choice of this Text which is a Quotation which our Apostle bringeth out of the Books of Moses you shall find it Exod. 33.19 Moses said unto God vers 18. I beseech thee shew me thy glory And he said I will make all my goodness to pass before thee and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy This is the Text which the Apostle quoteth here The Argument which the Apostle is upon in this Chapter is the rejection of the Jews as to which he vindicateth God in Two things 1. As to the promise made to Abraham a thing which the Jews bare up themselves much upon that they were the seed of Abraham and so in Covenant with God and if God should cast them off what could be said to justifie the truth and faithfulness of God What should become of the promise the Covenant made with Abraham and his seed for ever The word of God would have no effect This the Apostle answereth vers 6. and so to vers 13. He telleth them in the first place They were not all Israel which were of Israel And vers 7. That all who were the seed of Abraham were not all children and this he proveth vers 7. Because God said In Isaac shall thy seed be called and that the promise was given to Sarah that is saith the Apostle they which are the children of the flesh these are not the children of God but the children of the promise are counted for the seed And he tells them that it was the same case as to Rebecca Esau and Jacob were both the children of Rebecca but yet God loved Jacob and hated Esau vers 13. But some may possibly think this did not answer the Objection of the Jews for admitting that the promise was made to the children of Isaac the Jews were such Abraham indeed had a child by Hagar that was Esau and he had Sons by Keturah but all the Nation of the Jews were descended from Isaac who was the Son of Sarah to whom the promise confessedly was made To which I answer The Apostle had yet gained One main point viz. That the Jews could lay claim to nothing upon this account that they were the seed of Abraham for the promise was not made to the whole seed of Abraham but to a peculiar seed Now this peculiar seed was not all the children of Isaac this he proveth by the instance of Jacob and Esau who were both the children of Isaac for saith he vers 11. The children being not yet born neither having done good or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works but of him that calleth It was said unto her The elder shall serve the younger as it is written Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated This now proveth that God was not by his promise tied to all the children of Abraham by Isaac but was yet at liberty to what part of his seed he would fulfil his promise Well but might some say being they were both the children of Abraham how could God in righteousness shew mercy and compassion to one of them and not to another vers 14. What shall we say then Is there unrighteousness with God This the Apostle denieth and that with his ordinary aversation and detestation God forbid Now he proveth that there is no unrighteousness in this dispensation of God Because God had said to Moses I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion So then saith the Apostle It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy If there could be unrighteousness with God it must be because God hath somewhere by promise obliged himself to shew mercy to all the Jewish Nation but saith he the promise made to Abraham and to his seed will not reach so far that was not made to the whole seed of Abraham no not to all that descended from Abraham through the loins of his Son Isaac as appears by Gods hating Esau who was the Son of Isaac and his eldest Son too But more than this saith the Apostle God when he declared his glory to Moses Exod. 33. sufficiently expounded himself That his promise to Abraham's seed did not determine his grace to any parts or Nation but that he had a liberty left to him to shew or not to shew mercy to whom he pleased for he saith to Moses I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy So that the Proposition from this Text is of easie deduction Proposi That God in his Providential dispensations of grace and the means of its application acteth freely and unaccountably and in doing so there is no unrighteousness with God In this Proposition there are Two branches 1. That God in the dispensations of his grace acteth freely and unaccountably 2. That in his doing so there is no unrighteousness with him I say first God in these dispensations acteth freely and unaccountably the one of these necessarily followeth upon the other if he acteth freely he must needs act unaccountably for who can give an account of what man doth ex mero motu out of his own free inclination without any motive out of himself for that is meant by freely nothing compelling nothing moving or alluring him meerly from the good pleasure of his own will The reason of his having and shewing mercy is because he will thew mercy The Scripture giveth so plentiful a testimony to this as one would wonder that any owning the Scripture should deny it for whereas all grace or mercy is to be considered either in the first willing and purpose or
and in the same Nation where the Gospel is preached some have a sound and little more Preachers in some places in stead of preaching the Gospel Preach human Philosophy or the lusts of their own hearts In other places the Word of God is preached faithfully and powerfully so that the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force Men are compelled to come in This difference in the external ministration which let me tell you hath no small influence upon the eternal concern and interest of men for God doth not ordinarily work by way of miracle and heal the eyes of the blind with Clay and Spittle is fountain'd only in the free-will and Grace of God Vse 2. But I trust I speak to some who have tasted further of the mercy and Grace of God than receiving the general Dispensation of the Gospel with their outward ears God hath by his holy Spirit upon the preaching of the Gospel effectually moved their hearts and conquered their Souls into a subjection to Christ They have embraced the Lord Jesus Christ by a Gospel-faith they are brought by a mighty hand out of darkness into marvelous Light and translated out of this Kingdom of Sin and Satan into the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus I have this day been discovering to you the Fountain of this Grace of which God hath made you partakers you have heard that it is the will of God only which hath distinguished betwixt you and others It is not because you were more nobly born than others nor because you were more rich more honourable or by nature better complexioned than others God saw no more goodness in your natures than in the natures of others you were all the same flesh he infused into all Souls of the same nature and species only he hath willed rather to shew mercy unto your Souls than to the Souls of others because he hath set his love upon you There are three duties that hence lie very obvious 1. The First is Praise Thankfulness and Admiration Certainly every such Soul stands highly obliged with the Psalmist to cry out Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me bless his Holy Name Bless the Lord O my Soul and forget not all his benefits If free Grace will not affect our hearts and fill our mouths with a new Song nothing will It must certainly be an amazing consideration for a Soul to sit down and think I was in the same mass and lump of lost man-kind that others are I was by Nature a Child of wrath as much as any my Childhood and Youth were Vanity as much as any others I was grinding at the same Mill it may be in actual sins I outstripped many others Now that the Lord should look upon me and pluck me as a brand out of the Fire that God should open my eyes and change my heart What did God see in me Possibly my more external circumstances were far less and more unvaluable than those of thousands of others my House was of small account and little esteem there are many more great and noble more wise and prudent than I am many who in all appearance so far as man can judg might have been more serviceable to God than I am or am ever like to be now that the Lord should pass them over and shew mercy to me certainly no Soul can seriously think of these things but must be ravished with the apprehensions of the inaccountable love of God in these things and say What shall I render unto thee O Lard what shall I render unto thee 2. This notion of Gods Soveraignty freedom and inaccountbleness in the dispensations of his Grace should teach every Soul that hath been or shall be made a partaker of it the great lesson of humility The Apostle Rom. 3.27 giveth this as the reason why God hath setled the justification of a Sinner upon a bottom of free Grace and hath excluded works that he might also exclude boasting and teach those who glory to glory in the Lord upon this Argument the Apostle exhorteth the Gentiles not to boast against the Jews Rom. 11.22 Behold the goodness and the severity of God saith he to those who abide in their unbelief severity to thee goodness Pride is a sinful habit disposing the Soul to swell in the opinion of some excellency in it self and a little thing will swell our corrupt hearts The Apostle propoundeth this very consideration as a cure for that tumour in the Souls of Christians 1 Cor. 4.7 For who maketh thee to differ from another And what hast thou which thou didst not receive Now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it It is nothing but the will of God that hath made a difference betwixt thee and the vilest Sinner breathing betwixt thee and the most filthy Drunkard the most furious Persecutor c. It was not for any worth any goodness or holiness which the Lord saw in thee but of his meer free will and Grace God hath shewed mercy to thy Soul what hast thou now of thy own to boast or glory in Thou hast indeed reason to glory and to make thy boast in the Lord and to bless God for what he hath done for thy Soul more than for a thousand others but there is no thanks to thee his will his own will was the fountain of his Grace extended to thee God hath had mercy upon thy Soul only because he would have mercy O therefore be not high-minded but fear and walk humbly before God 3. Lastly this calleth upon all of you who have tasted of this free and unaccountable Grace to live a distinguishing life and conversation There is a Generation that fancyeth that the Doctrine of Free-Grace opens a door to Liberty It is but the old Cavil in Saint Pauls time there were those that thus accused the Doctrine of Free-Grace as if it gave men a liberty to go on in sin as appeareth by the Apostles anticipation of that Cavil Rom. 6.1 What saith he shall we then continue in sin that Grace may abound God forbid and so he goeth on shewing that any such conclusion from his principles was unreasonable How shall we saith the Apostle who are dead unto sin live any longer therein Special distinguishing Free-Grace both deadneth the Soul to Sin and inflameth the Soul with a love to God who hath made the Soul to differ so as that Soul cannot live as other men the love of God constraineth him he must apprehend himself obliged to do more for God than others because God hath shewen more mercy to him than unto others and that meerly because he would shew mercy What can possibly be imagined to have a greater and lay an higher obligation upon the Soul to all manner of holiness in conversation to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord as the Apostle speaketh SERMON L. Hosea XIII 9. O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but
Lastly Reason creates in the soul at best but a faint assent to this Proposition That the worlds are made by God and still leaveth the mind under incertain fluctuations and doubts about it By faith we understand saith the Text we are not properly said to understand those things of which we have only a general confused indistinct knowledg and to which we only give an incertain languid assent The great Philosopher in the world as you have heard hath doubted whether the world were made at all or had an eternal existence Others whether it had not its Original from a casual concourse of Atoms infinitely vain have been unsanctified mens imaginations as in other things so concerning the Original of the world and optimus Philosophus we say non nascitur We are disputing still the most confessed conclusions which are no more than the structures of Reason So that indeed we are beholden to Faith to the Revelation of the word which is the object of Faith and to the habits of Grace habits of faith for the settlement of our minds in Propositions of truth It is but an auxiliary advantage as to Divine Propositions which Reason gives us our mind is not set at rest and settled by them A luxuriant wit and fancy maketh all the perswasion and confirmation of them from Reason very incertain Faith only brings the Soul to a rest about them and gives the soul a clear distinct certain notion and understanding of them By Reason we rather think and opine than understand and certainly know that the worlds were made by God But this is enough for the Explication I come to the Application of the Doctrine This in the first place may help to confirm our Faith concerning the Divine Being the Vnity of it Vse 1 and the Trinity of persons in it the worlds were made by God Then there must be a God whose being was pre-existent to the world and this God must be infinite in Power and in Wisdom The producing of things out of a not-being into a being required an infinite power the producing of such a variety of Beings many of which were furnished and adorned with such excellent perfections and qualities the kniting and joynting of all together and putting them in such an excellent subjection and subordination each to other required an infinite wisdom a wisdom paramount to any created wisdom yea above all the wisdom of the Creatures had all their wisdoms been united This being infinite in Power and Wisdom must be God In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth Gen. 1.1 God alone spread out the heavens Job 9.8 He made the heavens and the earth the sea and all that therein is Yea thus the Lord proveth himself to be God I am the Lord and there is none other forming the light and making the darkness vers 7. And thus the true and living God standeth distinguished from Idols Jer. 10.11 The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth even they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens He hath made the earth by his power he hath established the world by his wisdom and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion Thus the Apostle argues Heb. 3.4 Every house is builded by some but he that made all things is God yea and this God is one The uniformity of this great structure the beauty and order and subordination of all things in it do abundantly prove this by Reason But Faith yet more confirmeth it Mal. 2.10 Have we not all one father hath not one God created us Indeed as I before said the structure and fabrick of it sheweth that one will willed it one wisdom contrived and directed it and that one hand framed it And this one God is three persons the Father of whom are all things 1 Cor. 8.6 The Son by whom are all things for without him was nothing made that is made Joh. 1.3 By him he made the worlds Heb. 1.3 The Holy Spirit that moved at the first upon the face of the waters Gen. 1.1 Thou sendest forth thy spirit and they were created Psal 104.30 Job 33.4 The Spirit of God hath made me and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Hebrew Gods created I think it is well said of a grave Author Constans aliqua certa ratio pluralis numeri de Deo usurpati reddi alia nequit quam personarum pluralitas There can be no other steady certain reason given why the Hebrew word so ordinarily translated God should be in the plural number but to notifie to us the plurality of persons in the Divine Being all three are but that one God who made heaven and the earth The School-men determine right that there is an infinite space from nothing to something and therefore nothing but the infinite power of an infinite God could bring any thing out of a not-being into a being From hence we may easily conclude what a God we serve Vse 2 we serve him that made heaven and earth and consequently one who is 1. Infinite in power 2. Excellent in wisdom 3. Admirable in goodness and mercy 1. Infinite in Power and Greatness To produce the least thing and bring it out of a not-being into being as I argued before speaketh an unmeasurable infinite power What power doth it then require to produce all the various kinds and species of Creatures the great bodies of the Heavens and the Earth and all those great bodies in them both out of a meer nothing and not-being into an existence and being Ex magnitudine creaturarum Deus magnus intelligitur c. From the greatness of the Creatures saith Augustine we may understand the greatness of God What an infinite and immense God do we serve What nothings of being and of power must we be compared with him All the nations of the earth are to him as the drop of a bucket as the small dust of the ballance 2. Excellent in wisdom The contrivance of the fabrick and structure of the world speaketh this But what an abundance of wisdom hath the great Creator scattered up and down the Creation What a natural sagacity is not in man only but in many brute Creatures What abundance of moral prudence and discretion is observed and to be found in many earthly Princes Their Ministers of State and Counsellers and in others of an inferior order What infinite wisdom appears in joynting the world and making the several parts of it to fit and to serve one another and to compound the different qualities of creatures to the service each of other and of the Universe Oh the infinite wisdom of the only wise God! yet how little do we see of it 3. Yea and his infinite goodness also is apparent in the Creation of all things Whoso looketh upon the usefulness of the Creatures to each other their joynt subserviency to their end and particularly their usefulness and subserviency to
a credit to his word if his faith be weak and languid the exemplifying of the thing revealed in the Word of God by the issues of Providence tendeth much to the confirmation of the souls faith and assent and therefore it is laid to the charge of the Israelites as a great aggravation of their sins That they believed not for all his wondrous works And this was the great aggravation of the sin of the Pharisees and the Jews that lived in the time when our Saviour was upon the Earth that although the Providence of God had declared Christ to be the Son of God by his doing such works as no man ever did and by such evident signs and tokens as never before were declared as to any man yet they believed him not to be the Son of God 2. As Faith is one great principle of all our spiritual actions so Fear is another Now the observing of Divine Providences much conduceth to this It is particularly remark't by the Holy Ghost upon the sudden death of Ananias and Saphira That a great fear came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard of those things And in the Law of Moses you shall find God commanding exemplary Justice to be done upon some remarkable offenders for this very end That all Israel might hear and fear It is particularly said Jonah 1.16 When Jonah had told them the cause of the storm and they had thrown him over-board Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly and offered sacrifices and made vows Severe Providences without the word make men startle and put them into a passion of fear but when they follow a word of threatning and they do but see God doing what in his word he hath said he will do this must needs have a great power and influence upon the heart especially upon the hearts of such as before had an habit of Divine Fear wrought in them though it were smothered with the ashes of too much carnal security 3. Love to God is a third principle of spiritual action an habit wrought in the soul of every Child of God but not at all times so lively and quick and working as it ought to be Now the observation of Gods good and gracious Providences serves hugely to excite it and to blow up the Coals of it in the soul Psal 37.23 O love you the Lord all his Saints for the Lord preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer But this will be further enlarged upon in my discourse upon the second branch of the Proposition which I now come to discourse upon Mem. 2. Whoso observeth the Providences of God he shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I take the word understand here to signifie three things 1. Knowledg 2. A more clear and distinct knowledg 3. A more demonstrative and experimental knowledg 1. He shall know the loving-kindness of the Lord understand it with reference to the Church and People of God for Gods Providence is like the Cloud which conducted the Israelites out of Egypt and through the Red-sea it hath a light-side which hath an aspect upon Gods Israel and it hath a black and dark-side towards his enemies Now he who observeth Divine Providence will know this That all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth to those that fear God Psal 25.10 A slight and transient view of Divine Providence will not bring a man to the knowledg of this but a wist view and observation of Divine Providence in the course and series of it will do it The word of God speaketh much of the Love and Favour of God to his People Providence to the strict and constant observer of it will confirm all these words God himself speaking after the manner of men to Abraham speaks as if he had not known his love and obedience to him till he had made an experiment of it and saw that he would not have withheld from him his Son even his only Son We know nothing of the loving-kindness of God before we see it experimented and brought into demonstration in comparison with what we know upon such an evidence and this we gain by our considerate observation of the motions of Divine Providence 2. He who observeth the motions of Providence shall have a more distinct knowledg of the loving-kindness of God He shall not only know that God is good to Israel and to all that are of a clean heart but he shall also see something of the Methods of God in the exercise of his loving-kindness When we speak of the Love and Favour of God to his People we are prone to understand by it nothing but pleasing Providences grateful to our senses now the loving-kindness of God is not only seen in pleasing dispensations but in adverse Providences also Whom he loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth All things are yours saith the Apostle This knowledg must be gained by observation Sense looks upon cross dispensations of Providence and it may be Reason judging of them from present appearances and effects cryeth out All these things are against me Here is nothing of promised loving-kindness in all this Is his mercy clean gone doth his promise fail for evermore But whoso observeth Divine Providence will in these things also understand the loving-kindness of the Lord and know that it is the method of Divine Providence to deal out the loving-kindness of God to the Souls of his People through crosses and tryals and afflictions in a way which at present they do not understand and know but shall know hereafter No affliction saith the Apostle is joyous at present but grievous but it bringeth forth afterward the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby Heb. 12.11 3. Vnderstanding thirdly may signifie experience and indeed there is no such understanding as experience gives Every Child of God that observeth Divine Providence shall find it let the wind of it blow which way it will giving him an experiment and demonstration of the Love of God to his Soul But thus much shall serve to have spoken to the Explication of this Proposition in both branches I come to the proof of it to shew you how it appeareth That he who observeth the motions of Divine Providence and he alone shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. It will appear to you if you but consider 1. That however things go in the course of Providence yet it is most certain that they are mercy and truth to them who fear God For this we have a certain word Psalm 25.10 All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his Covenant and his Testimonies And again Psalm 73.1 Truly God is good to Israel In my former Discourse I shewed you three Objects of special Providence 1. Rational creatures are a more special object of Providence than either inanimate or brute creatures 2. Amongst rational Creatures those men and women in the World which make
to him for his possession and to his seed after him when as yet he had no children Fourthly What if we should say That God doth this that he might be the more admired in the works of his Providence when they came to an issue and have the more of the praises and thanksgivings of his people We are never so deeply affected either with with the good or evil that be tideth us as when we are surprised with it and it comes upon us fearing or looking for the contrary Evils unthought-of are more heavy and more dejecting and afflictive Good things not look'd for are more affecting and raise up holy affections more to the high praises of God Now when the Providence of God hath moved obliquely and to our appearance quite contrary as we judged unto the Promise when it cometh home unto it to give it a being and issue it cometh upon us as it were upon the sudden and contrary to the expectation of our sense and reason and so wonderfully affects our hearts and enforceth from us great and high acknowledgments of the Omnipotency and power of God of his mercy and goodness of his truth and veracity It is the common infirmity of our Natures that we more know our mercies by wanting them than by enjoying them If the Providence of God moved in a right line to bring promised good to them who love and fear God he would neither have so much of the prayers and cryes of his people during the want of their desired good nor yet so much praise upon the bestowing of it You shall observe That God is not so much praised for mercies of common Providence which we receive every day how valuable soever as our sleep in the night our appetite to our meat c. As for such Dispensations as are more rare and extraordinary the reason is because we look for the former they are common with us and we expect them Providence more keâ—peth a road as to them than as to others But it is time I should come to the Application of this Observation In the first place Vse 1 This Observation should bespeak us aforehand that no such oblique and seemingly contrary motions of Providence may be any prejudice to our faith in the Promise Wâ—nder not if you still see the Providence of God keeping the same Methods that it hath alway in all the great things which it hath brought to pass in the World Particularly as to Gods great works relating to his Church God hath used to begin a work in one age which it may be he hath not finished or will not finish till that age be out Thus you have heard that it was in the first plantation of the Gospel begun in the Apostles time Thus it hath been in the Reformation of the Church when corrupted there is nothing more ordinary than this If therefore you see any-where foundations of Reformation laid and then the Providence of God seems to desert its work and the foundations laid seem to be plucking up again and all things to run in the old Channels trouble not your selves at it this is but an ordinary Method of Divine Providence But let us secondly from hence collect what is our duty with reference to such times Vse 2 when to our appearance the Providence of God seemeth to move obliquely or contrary to the Promise This I shall attempt to open to you 1. With reference unto God 2. With reference to the Promise 3. With reference unto Providence 1. Quest What is our duty relating more immediately unto God under the posing and astonishing Dispensations of his Providence In the first place we doubtless ought to take heed of charging God foolishly I borrow the expression from Job Chap. 1 In all this Job sinned not nor charged God foolishly To charge God foolishly upon the account of his Providences is by occasion of them to utter vain and foolish things that are not fit to be spoken of the Majesty of God as if he failed either in his truth or mercy or goodness to his people It is an exellent precept of the Apostle in this case though given in another 1 Cor. 4.5 Judg nothing before the time There is a time when God will give us leave to judg of his ways whether they be not both mercy and truth to them that fear him Only Judg not before the time before God hath finished his work and brought off what he hath upon the wheel Now it is this hasty Judgment which is the cause of all our murmuring and repining of all our hasty sayings like the Psalmist in his passion Will the Lord cast off for ever and will he be favourable no more Is his mercy clean gone for ever Doth his promise fail for evermore Hath God forgotten to be gracious hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies Selah Psalm 77.7 8 9. If this be the usual method of Providence in the accomplishment of Promises to move obliquely and contrary as to humane appearance and yet at last most certainly to bring the Promise to effect we have no reason under the oblique or seemingly contrary motions of Providence to charge God as if he failed in his truth or failed in his mercy he is only fetching a compass in order to the verifying and justification of both For us so much as to suspect or to think the contrary is to charge God foolishly not observing nor understanding the ordinary methods and courses of Divine Providence in accomplishing of his greatest Promises 2. It is our duty to admire God in those providential Dispensations which we do not understand Man vainly studieth to find out God in his unsearchable Counsels and motions of Providence Vain man would be wise Now the ways of God as I have shewed you are in many things past finding out Where we can fee God in his ways of mercy there is an opportunity for our love and thankfulness where we cannot see him there is an opportutunity for our fear and admiration stand upon this bottom That all the ways of God are mercy and truth to them that fear him Let nothing shake you from this foundation nor move you from this Rock where this is not matter of demonstration to your sense and reason let it yet be matter of admiration to you Be admiring at the wisdom of God that can out of a Chaos bring order out of darkness bring light But secondly 2d Quest What at such a time is our duty with reference to the Promise 1. I answer to stand fast by it I would have every good Christian think at such a time as Providence to his appearance moveth obliquely and contrary to the Promise to think that he heareth it speak unto him as Christ sometimes spake to his Disciples Matth 5 Think you that I am come to destroy the law and the Prophets I am not come to destroy them but to fulfil them I say I would have you think you hear the Providence of
as low as could be After that time when the men of Jabish Gilead were ready to take the basest terms then God sends Saul to their rescue when there was not a sword nor a spear found in all Israel but in the hand of Saul and Jonathan then will God deliver them from the Philistines They shall be delivered out of the captivity of Babylon but not till they had been worn out there seventy years when one would have thought scarce any should have been left to have returned and those that were so linked with alliances to the Babilonians so fixed in another Country as few of them should ever have been perswaded to have come out and have gone to build a new a desolate City The promise of Christ their great King shall be made good to them but when when the Scepter is departed from Judah and the Law-giver from his feet When the Jews are made tributaries to the Romans for particular persons the cases are very many Abraham shall have the Child of the promise when he is an hundred years old Joseph shall be exalted out of a dungeon Isaac shall be rescued when the knife is at his throat David shall have the Kingdom when he is brought to the lowest Ebb and that is the time when Job shall be restored to a prosperous state and his latter end shall be greater than his beginning The three Children and Daniel shall be delivered and exalted but not till the former be actually thrown into the fiery Furnace and Daniel into the Lions Den. Peter shall be delivered out of prison but not till the very night before his execution was designed Paul shall be delivered when he despaired of life and had the sentence of death in himself 2 Cor. 1.9 In short you shall observe this the constant course and method of Divine Providence Secondly The observation is as true on the other hand when Pharaoh with his Host was in their highest ruff and he says I will pursue I will overtake them I will satisfie my lust on them then shall he be drowned in the Red-sea when the sins of the Amorites are at the full then and not before will Providence destroy and root them out When Sisera is in his greatest heighth then will God by Woman bring him down When Sennacherib is at his heighth then shall he perish The like instances might be given of Belshazzar Haman in short of all the Enemies of God and his people of whom we have any Scriptural record I remember when Gideon had his great Army God said they were too many for him to conquer by and reduceth them to three hundred then maketh them victorious The people of God though under some misery and oppressions may be too many or in too good a condition for him to deliver them and the Enemies may be too low or in too pitiful a condition for the Lord of Hosts to encounter them He will then deal with Pharaoh Sennacherib Haman Belshazzar Herod when they are at the highest and think themselves out of the reach of divine Power and Justice When all the World almost is turned Arian he will begin to root out Arianism When all are made slaves to the Pope and he can with his Bulls fright the greatest Prince that is the time Providence will chuse to begin Reformation Let us a little enquire into the Wisdom of God in this method of working God in all his great workings both of Judgment and Mercy in all his great motions of Providence is pursuing one and the same great end viz. the glory of his great and holy Name he can work for no higher he will work for no lower or lesser end The deliverance and good of his people is subordinate to this so is the ruin and destruction of their Enemies so that this must be the reason of this method of Providence Because thus God is most glorified by delivering his people when they are at the lowest by destroying his Enemies when they are at the highest God is most glorified My further Work must be to demonstrate this God is thus most glorified 1. By a Declaration of himself in his glorious Attributes 2. By Eliciting pious actions from his Creatures 1. By a Declaration of himself that men may know that he is God and he alone and the work is his and his alone There is as I have told you a mute Glory which ariseth unto God from his own works as the Psalmist saith The heavens declare the glory of God As all Gods works of Creation so all his works of Providence declare the glory of God and he doth them to be had in remembrance that he might by them be glorified and get himself a great Name in the Earth God is divers ways eminently magnified and made known to the World by this method of Providence in its workings divers Attributes of his are remarkably by it published to the World I will instance in some His power his wisdom his justice and righteousness and his goodness and mercy 1. The power of God is thus more magnified Power is a great Attribute of God Once have I spoken saith the Psalmist yea twice have I heard it that power belongeth unto God Hence he is so often call'd The great God Now the power of God is never so eminent in the view of the World as when he raiseth up his people out of the dunghil and pulleth down the Sinners in the heighth and pride of their glory When God falleth upon a Nebuchadnezzar crying out Who is that God who shall deliver you out of my hands Dan. 3.15 Upon a Sennacharib saying Who are they amongst the gods of the Nations that have delivered their people out of my hand that the Lord should deliver you out of my hand Isa 36.20 Upon a Pharaoh saying Who is the Lord that I should obey him Exod. 5.2 Then doth the Lord make the greatness of his might and power known God lets them then see that wherein they thought spake and acted proudly he can be above them Power is never so magnified as when an opposite power is greatest when men most think they are out of Gunshot I remember the story of Gideon which I hinted before you have it Judg. 7.2 The people saith God are too many for me lest Israel vaunt himself against me and say my own hand hath saved me Ver. 3 They were reduced to twenty two thousand Ver. 4 God saith They are yet too many for me In short they must be brought to three hundred and by them God will work here now Gods Arm was made bare when there is a plenty of means and probabilities and God worketh by and in the use of them it is still God's arm that brings Salvation but it is as it were a cloathed-arm and the arm the power and strength of God is hidden and concealed but when God works contrary to humane probabilities and without such means there the arm of the Lord is made bare
hearts but also as by it his people are more prepared for the receiving of mercy The Psalmist saith He prepareth the heart and then causeth his ear to hear their heart is prepared by their exercise of grace as of other grace so especially faith and patience they become more low in their own eyes they learn more to trust and depend upon God and to wait upon him in the way of his Judgments as the Prophet speaks Now all exercise of grace bringeth glory to God all of it is the fruit of his Spirit it is obedience to his Will it carrieth with it a recognition of the power wisdom goodness and Soveraignty of God The longer God deferreth a mercy the more time his people have to search and try their ways to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God to exercise their faith their patience c. the more he hath of his peoples prayers c. Fourthly I may yet add one thing more he hath by this means the glory of his Justice both from his own people and from wicked men By suffering his own people to be brought very low he proclaimeth to the World that he will not suffer the best of them to go unpunished but as to them he will approve himself a God of purer eyes than to behold any iniquity and by letting Sinners run on to the heighth before he pulleth them down their wickedness also becomes so exorbitant and conspicuous to the World that the neutral part of the World shall both acknowledg the righteousness of God in bringing them down to an utter destruction and delivering of his oppressed people out of their hands But this is enough to have spoken in justification of the Observation and giving you some reasonable account of it This in the first place may let us see Vse 1 how little means is considerable in the great effects of Divine Providence Humane means are by us to be used when Providence affords them but God ordinarily doth his works either without them or when there is but little of them to use Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord. The stone was cut out of the mountain without hands which smote the image on his feet which were part of iron and clay and brake them in pieces Dan. 2.34 and indeed if this Observation is true if God ordinarily delivers his people when they are at the lowest and brings down his Enemies when they are at the highest humane means must have but a little share in Gods works when men are at lowest there is least visible means to lift them up and when God's Enemies are at highest there is least appearance of humane visible means to pull them down Now this as you have heard is the time when God ordinarily works and therefore our eyes should be off the arm of flesh What is a Mountain before Gods Zorobabel How little of humane means did God use in bringing his people out of Egypt and Babylon There is never greater improbability of any great work of Providence than in the greatest probability of humane means Gideon's twenty two thousand were too many for God Let us then learn how to look upon how to use means Look upon them as signifying nothing without Gods efficacy use them as not trusting in them or to them Raise up no great hopes upon great probabilities in respect of them The people of God are never more deceived than in their judgments upon such appearances Many times the thing appears too probable to humane eyes for God to suffer it at that time to come to issue he should have little honour little glory from the effect if he should give it men would say that God had saved them by their own bow and sword and staff God will have it otherwise When he turneth again the captivity of Sion his people shall be like them that dream Psalm 126.1 He will so destroy his Enemies that they shall cry out Let us flee for God fighteth for the Israelites against the Egyptians Exod. 14.25 He will so bring to pass all his great works both of Judgment and mercy that they shall sing that Song Psalm 115. v. 1 Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name be given the glory Hence learn in the second place Vse 2 That the Sinner can never be secure nay is then least secure when he judgeth himself most secure Gods people value themselves upon the Promises but wicked men value themselves upon Providences and judg of their security from their prosperity successes and interests They never crow but when they have made their nests in the Cedars and fixed their habitations on some strong Mountain which they think shall never be moved They are never less secure they are never nearer to ruin than now For when they shall say peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as upon a woman in travel and they shall not escape 1 Thes 5.3 When Babylon was given to pleasures and dwelled carelesly and said she should be as a Lady for ever she was and there was none besides her she should never sit as a widow nor know the loss of children then it was that God tells her that both these things should come upon her in one day both the loss of children and widowhood Isa 47.7 Dan. 4.30 When Nebuchadnezzar was in his Ruff walking in the Palace of the Kingdom of Babylon and saying Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of my Kingdom by the might of my power and for the honour of my Majesty Even then while the word was in the Kings mouth saith the Text ver 31 there fell a voyce from heaven saying O King Nebuchadnezzar to thee be it spoken the Kingdom is departed from thee A Sinner can be secure in no estate at no time If God hath lifted him up he hath reason to fear his ruin is near If God be pulling him down he hath reason to fear that he is sinking into Hell God delights to grapple with a prospering fortified interested Sinner and to let him then when he speaketh most proudly know that wherein he speaketh proudly he will be above him Let not therefore any Sinner trust to his prosperity Thirdly Vse 3 From hence we may learn much of our duty both with reference to the high and prosperous estate of Gods Enemies and with reference to God in the low and mean estate of his Church and people It is one of the great temptations which attend us in this life to see the wicked prospering and flourishing like a green bay-tree It troubled the most eminent Servants of God we read of in Scripture Job David Jeremiah Habbakuk We had need therefore learn our duty in such an hour You will say What is it I answer 1. Not to envy them 2. Not to fret and repine against God 3. Not to take part with them 1. Not to envy them It is what the Psalmist
to keep them there He thus endeared the Jews to him and thus transplanted a Colony yea and secured Hierusalem to his obedience which was before under the Command of the Babylonians who were his Enemies 3. The sending of the Messias was a great product of Divine Providence he was to introduce a new way of worship to preach what to them in their corrupted state was a new Doctrine had the Jews been in their heighth this would by no means have been endured by them See how God fitteth the worlds circumstances to this great product of Providence The scepter is departed from Judah and the lawgiver from his feet the Jews are become Tributaries to the Romans and under their power so they were not so brisk as they would have been There is a general peace over all the world so as the Romans were not so jealous of making parties and factions people were more at leisure to listen to the Gospel and Prince of peace Now comes the Lord Jesus Christ If we should carry the business a little further What great work hath God ever done since in which we may not see a remarkable fitting of the worlds circumstances to the production of it I will instance but in one or two things referring to the Protestant-Reformation Our reformation you know was began in the time of Henry the Eight How did God fit our circumstances to it King Henry shall fall out with the Pope because he will not allow his divorce and so shall break with him and set up a purer course of Religion it was hardly to have been imagined how England should have been freed from Popery at another time by the advantage of the chief Magistrates assistance There was a strange concurrence of Divine Providences in the reformation which was begun in Germany Luther was raised up a man of a most invincible spirit and courage Printing was found out a-few years before in that very Countrey in 1440 by which means Luther's and others books were presently diffused throughout all Europe V. Sculteti annales l. 1. c. 1. The knowledg of Arts and Learning were just restored to the world after the long darkness and ignorance in which Popery had muffled the world Many secret favourers of Religion were admitted to great places in the Popish-Church who either out of favour to the reformed Religion or out of love to their learning shewed great kindness to the first Reformers several great Princes of Germany were also prepared some possibly out of conscience others out of principles of honour favouring and protecting Luther In short the Providence of God hath hardly at any time produced any great work in the change of the State of the Church or of any Kingdom but his fitting of the circumstances of the world to it have been strangely obvious and remarkable to every observing eye 2. Let us secondly take a view of the Providence of God working as to particular persons with reference to things of a more outward concern take it in the instances of Joseph of David of Haman of the three Children and Daniel David was to be brought to be King over Israel and Judah from a Shepherds boy to be a great Prince he shall first kill Goliah he shall be sent for to Court to drive away Sauls evil spirit with his Harp he shall marry the Kings Daughter and grow great with Jonathan Joseph is to become a great man in Egypt he shall first be recommended to Pharaoh grow great with him a famine shall come he shall save much people alive and thus be in great honour and in a capacity to serve his Fathers family The Providence of God designs to preserve the Jews to advance Mordecai to ruin Haman An Hebrew Lady by a strange Providence shall come to be Queen and one that shall be Mordecai's Neece Haman shall be found upon the bed with Esther and mistaken in his Complement to her as if he had a design to force her c. Infinite are the instances which might be brought 3. Let us consider the motions of Providence with reference to the souls of people as to their best and most spiritual concerns If God hath much people in Macedonia St. Paul shall be called thither he ordereth Ministers to places or particular persons to a Ministry proper for the work in a strange way many a time when he hath a design to do good to particular souls But here let me recommend one observation to you When he designeth the tryal of a Child of his with inward troubles and temptations he usually fits it with an unhealthy body suted to such impressions and when he designeth the restoring of quiet and peace to the spirit he ordinarily fits it with an healthy body Not that all the trouble and disquietudes of the spirit floweth from the indisposition of the body the contrary is evident enough to any who diligently observe Christians at such times and may know many others under the same kinds and possibly greater degrees of bodily distempers whose minds are not so disturbed who have no such temptations c. But seldom it is but such inward troubles are circumstanced with bodily disturbances and so on the contrary it is rare to find a peaceful quiet rejoycing spirit but it is suited also with a freedom from bodily distempers especially such as have an influence upon the head and affect that But I shall enlarge no further upon what is so evident to any who observeth any thing of the motions of Divine Providence Reas Now the Reason of this is evident Because though the Providence of God sometimes produceth things miraculously yet it ordinarily produceth them by the way of means some means although possibly not adequate and fully proportioned to the production The Providence of God is a servant to his Glory that is the end for which it works for which it always worketh and can work for no other end but it doth not always work for the glorifying of God in the same Attribute sometimes it glorifieth his Power sometimes his Wisdom sometimes his Goodness and Mercy c. It glorified Gods Power in the destruction of Pharaoh he was ruined by the immediate supernatural hand of God but ordinarily the Providence of God worketh by means and the Wisdom of God is most eminently seen in contriving and ordering and disposing means unthought-of and yet ordinarily the Power of God is also glorified the means being such as are very unlikely or improbable to produce such an effect Now this being granted that the most ordinary way of Gods working is by means little or much there must be an ordering and preparation of them and this is the reason of Gods fitting adjacent circumstances to his work which he produceth those circumstances being the ordinary means which God thinks fit to make use of to work in with and by And here the great Power and Wisdom of God is seen in ordering the affairs of the world so as they shall sute his great
the ignorance and sottishness of the Popish-Clergy together with their covetousness ambition and debauchery to grow to that heighth that they grew an abomination to all men And as it is in the Political and Ecclesiastical body so it is as to the particular persons of Christians the Providence of God ordinarily disposeth the body according to the work which he hath to do upon the soul But that is more forreign to my observation therefore I shall not inlarge upon it Besides that I spake something to it under the former observation which hath some cognation with this this only differing from it in this shewing you that the Providence of God doth not make the Church lacquey to the world but he makes the world lacquey to the Church and subordinateth the business of the world to his own great designs relating to the Church Now if you ask me the reason of this it doubtless lyeth Reas In the peculiar favour of God to that people in the world which bear the name of his Church You have an expression Psal 87.2 The Lord loveth the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Sion was the place at the foot of which the Temple was built where all the worship which God had in the world performed according to his will was performed The tabernacle in Shiloh was forsaken Psal 78.60 God hath a particular kindness for any place for any persons amongst whom his true worship is and where he hath placed to himself a Tabernacle though God had a kindness for the whole seed of Jacob yet he loved the gates of Sion above all the dwellings of Jacob because that was the place where his worship was regularly performed It holds still under the New Testament and will hold to the end of the world wheresoever God hath a Church or people he hath a particular kindness for that people they are in Scripture called the house of God God is said to dwell and walk amongst them and God hath yet a more particular favour to those that are the invisible part of the visible Church I mean such as truly belong unto God that worship him in spirit and in truth that fear the Lord and hope in his mercies as the Psalmist expresseth it Psal 33.18 All the world is nothing to God in comparison of this little flock to whom it is his will to give a Kingdom He hath given them his Christ and shall he not with him give them all things This were easily to be proved to you from a variety of Scripture and arguments drawn from thence Now supposing this it is no wonder if he subordinateth his works in the world to his designs here This is that Canaan which the Lord careth for and upon which his eyes are from one end of the year to another Deut. 11. His heritage the dearly beloved of his soul Jer. 12.7 His peculiar treasure his sister his spouse the redeemed and ransomed of the Lord his portion in short there is a multitude of expressions by which God hath shewen that his Church the whole body of people owning and professing him and especially those of them that worship him in spirit and truth and walk up to the rule of his word are dearer to him than all the world besides He calls them his bride Rev. 21.9 His beloved Psal 108.6 His building 1 Cor. 3.9 His City Heb. 12.22 His chosen generation 1 Pet. 2.9 His family Eph. 3.15 His husbandry 1 Cor. 3.9 His Kingdom the lot of his inheritance Now considering this it is no wonder at all that the Providence of God should manage all the affairs of the world in subordination to his designs for the good of this body All the relation of God to others is but that of a Creator and they are no better than the synagogues of Satan as to the Divine Worship that is in them and the throne of Satan with respect to the homage of their Conversation They are called children of wrath of disobedience of the curse strangers and forreiners If God sometimes gives up his people into the hands of wicked men it is either 1. For his peoples good to purge away their dross and take away their tinn as the Prophet expresseth it or for to ripen sinners for their destruction that they may by it fill up the measure of their iniquities Methinks you have a full proof of this Observation in the 105 Psalm the Psalmist in that Psalm is calling the Church of the Jews to give thanks unto the Lord to sing unto him to talk of all his wondrous works Then followeth a recapitulation of those great things which God had done for them amongst which this is reckoned that he subordinated his motions of Providence amongst the men and the nations of the world to his gracious designs for them Vers 14. He suffered no man to do them wrong yea he reproved Kings for their sake saying Touch not mine anointed do my prophets no harm and so he goes on almost quite through that Psalm Now I say the reason of all this was his love set upon this people As most of us have some particular persons that our heart is most set upon some particular interest and design that we drive on now whoever those persons be or whatever that design be we make all the rest of our actions to be subordinate to that So the great God having set up his glory as his great interest and design and set apart him and them that are godly for himself it is no wonder at all if he ruleth all the world and governeth all the affairs of it in subordination to this great interest and the good of this people I now come to the Application of this Observation Vse 1. In the first place as I said before upon the other Observation so I say here From hence a wise and observing Christian may in a great measure know what weather it is like to be in the Climate of the Church How it is like to fare with them that are the People of God They are and always were the far lesser part of the world and their quiet and tranquillity to look with a rational eye doth much depend upon the complexion of the men of the world and their inclinations if God intends a calm and tranquillity to the Church he usually so ordereth the world that the earth helps the woman the men of the world either out of good nature or which indeed mostly is the business out of interest shew them kindness Hence you shall observe that when God intendeth the tranquillity and prosperity of the Church his Providence ordinarily bringeth one of these things to pass 1. He sometimes raiseth up some eminent servant of his to do great services for the men of the world this you see in the case of Joseph God had designed the Jews a prospering multiplying time in the land of Egypt he raiseth up Joseph makes him a Privy-Counsellor to Pharaoh yea the second man
little good to be hoped for unless God by his Providence makes some particular persons amongst them highly serviceable or instrumental in the state where they live either discovering some plots or treasons which was the case in Mordecai's time or brings some of them to some great favour which was the cause of the Israelites first in Egypt then in Babylon and Esther afterwards upon their return from Babylon or else God by his Providence secureth his little flock by suffering some intestine factions to rise amongst the men of the world or stirring up other enemies against that part of the world that they have something else to do and cannot attend the execution of their malice upon the servants of God or blesseth a particular state with a good-natured Prince that is not enclined to rigour and severity but naturally abhorreth the blood and ruin of people though usually if the latter be the case it is but an incertain time with the Church for good natures are ordinarily with ease enclined this way or that according to the mutability of prevailing Counsels But now if the People of God in any nation be a considerable number and you see the Providence of God hath raised them up to be men of interest many of them either with respect to their Wisdom or Estates or Imployments though their Enemies be many and boisterous yet there is no great fear unless of particular persons suffering God seems to have subordinated the world to their peace For though some few imprudent men that are rash and malicious and some hot-spur'd Church-men who understand little of politicks may in such a juncture be for nothing but fire and faggot yet God who in his Providence hath ordered civil affairs so that it should be the interest of the men of the world to give them liberty and peace will seldom suffer those whom he hath betrusted with the government of the affairs of the world unless he designeth to bring a period to the state so far to overlook their interests as to gratifie the lusts of malicious and rash men Again If you see in any place God suffering men calling themselves Ministers to degenerate into such sots in their Conversation or to run into such heighths of superstitious vanities and fooleries as all men condemn and see the vanity of or to be so insufficient for any part of their work that they can do nothing of it but are contemptible unto all and make the offering of God to be abhorred This is another juncture of affairs when you may either fear the ruin of the place or hope for a reformation or more quiet abode for Gods People in it And by the way my enlargement upon this Observation may mind the People of God of the Policy as well as Piety of a threefold duty 1. The first is All just homage and serviceableness unto such rulers as God hath set over the places wherein their lot is cast I say just homage for it is better to obey God than Man and we cannot obey Man where Obedience to him is disobedience to God But the more any of our consciences towards God straitens us as to some points of Obedience the more we should be serviceable in what we may If it at any time falls in our way to secure their lives by discovering dangerous plots and conspiracies Mordecay by such a service made himself the Protector of all the people of the Jews If we be called to it and can assist them with our arms with our wisdom counsel with our service and industry remember what great instruments for the good of Gods People Joseph Daniel the three Children Nehemiah c. were made 2. Observe here also the Policy as well as Piety of the practice of all moral virtue Justice to all charity and liberality to the poor temperance sobriety all manner of loveliness in Conversation there must be something more than these things to commend you to God but these are the things that must commend you to the world Moral vertue hath a great cognation with humane Nature though mens lusts and passions sometimes run them out to acts of injustice and oppression and debauchery yet no body would willingly himself be oppressed or dealt unjustly with or have his own wife and daughters debauched It is very rare but the highest and maddest Enemies of the People of God are malicious and debauched persons few of them persons of moral vertue and honesty make but your selves great Examples of these things and you will certainly at one time or other be too hard for your adversaries the world so loatheth their injustice cruelty oppression hard-heartedness their drunkenness and uncleanness their lying cheating and defrauding that it will vomit them out 3. It lets you also see the Policy as well as Piety of keeping close to God in the matters of his worship The sottishness and superstition of Priests signifieth good not hurt to you unless you approve of their savings and doings But when the prophets prophecy falsly and the priests bear rule by their means and the people love to have it so what will you do in the end thereof Jer. 5.32 If the ministry in any nation be sottish in their lives corrupt in their Doctrines superstitious in their Worship dumb dogs that can neither pray nor preach let not the people love to have it so and comply with them and own them God will not long suffer his flock to be rent in pieces with such wolves nor be at the will of such idol-shepherds But I have enlarged far enough upon this first branch of Application I shall be shorter in the other 2. Observe from hence both the felicity and duty of the people of God 1. Their felicity and dignity Their dignity I remember the Psalmist admiring the mercy of God towards man and expressing his Dignity Psal 8.6 7. Thou madest him to have dominion over the work of thy hands thou hast put all things under his feet all sheep and oxen yea and the beasts of the field the fouls of the air and the fish of the sea and whatsoever passeth through the seas This is a great dignity of man that God hath subordinated all the works of Creation all the orders of Creatures beneath him unto him But what a dignity is this to which God hath advanced his Church that all the affairs of the world should be as it were put under their feet that they should not only have a dominion over the works of the Lords hands in Creation as sheep and neat cattel and fouls and fishes but also all the Lords works of Providence that the Kingdoms of the Earth and the great affairs of states should be ruled with reference to the good of this little flock What a felicity it is to be within this hedg to be a member of this body of people I mean a true member of the Church of God I know the whole visible Church as I have before shewed you is under
youth and David saw reason to pray that the Lord would not remember the sins of his youth against him We stand therefore deeply concerned with bitterness to remember what God hath not so forgotten but he may deeply chastise us for O then my Brethren let us all look back upon our youth and mourn over that first and wanton time And 2. When the hand of God is upon us and it may be we cannot find wherefore he contendeth us then let us remember former sins and humble our souls before the Lord for them and glorifie God in the fires by acknowledging the righteousness of God in the punishment of the sins of our former years But possibly some will say to me What is to be done in this case is there no way to prevent this after-reckoning with us Truly I cannot promise you there is for as a people may be grown in sin to such an height that there is no speaking to God for them so it is possible that our former sins may have so provoked God as notwithstanding our repentance and conversion God may be resolved that we shall smart in the flesh though our souls be saved in the day of Christ but if there be any hope for such a mercy it is certainly to be obtained 1. By frequent humiliations for past sins much fasting and prayer thus Josiah obtained mercy as to his person when the sins of his predecessors were coming like a storm upon him David knew that if any thing would do this was the way and therefore while the child was sick he humbled himself and would eat no bread 2. By shewing your selves eminent in the exercise of those vertues and graces which are most opposed to your former sins This was Daniels counsel to the King he had sinned by unrighteousness cruelty and injustice oppressing his subjects griping the poor c. Daniel adviseth him to break off his sins by righteousness and his iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor if it might be a lengthning out of his tranquillity Dan. 4.27 He could not assure him this would be a lengthning out of his tranquillity but if it were a thing to be done this was the way to obtain it Paul had eminently sinned by blaspheming persecuting the Lord Christ in his members he preacheth up Christ and laboureth in the work of the Gospel more than all the rest of the Apostles 3. Walk humbly in the third place with thy God do not be too censorious too rash in thy judgement God resisteth the proud thou wert once as others are it is by Grace thou art otherwise Now it cannot be pleasing but highly provocative to God to see a great sinner whom he hath pardoned and received to mercy triumphing over judging censuring them and doubtless doth often provoke God to call their former sins to remembrance that they may learn to pity others It is seldom that God by smart judgements makes them sensible of their errors who have a daily sense of them and in the sense of them walk softly all the days of their lives If we would judg our selves saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 11.31 we should not be judged 4. Be much in secret prayer to God begging of him That if it be possible those bitter cups might pass from thee but remember to add what our Saviour addeth yet not my will but thy will be done For these punishments are not in themselves evil and therefore not absolutely to be deprecated but with submission to the will and wisdom of God SERMON XXXII Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am still detained in a Discourse concerning the observable things of Divine Providence Actual Providence and more particularly I am recommending to your observation some things relating to its motions in the distributions of Rewards and Punishments I shall offer one thing more of this nature Observat 19. That it is a very ordinary motion of Divine Providence both to reward and punish Relations in their Correlations To visit the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children of the Magistrates upon the people c. And so on the contrary to reward the good and righteous actions of Parents unto their posterity c. In the prosecution of this keeping my method 1. I shall justifie the observation by several instances 2. I shall shew you the Reasonableness of this motion of Providence and clear it from all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or appearances of injustice or contrariety to what God hath spoken in his word with reference to the distribution of punishments 3. Lastly I shall make some practical Application That the thing is true appeareth from so plentiful a testimony of Scripture-instances as hardly any thing is more clear and that both as to Rewards and Punishments I will begin with the first but shall be shorter in that Discourse because the difficulty lieth more as to the second thing viz. the distribution of punishments Now for Rewards besides many particular instances we have two that are more general those of Abraham the Father of the faithful and David the man according to Gods own heart They were both great and common Fathers Abraham was the Father of the Jewish Nation The father of many Nations and the father of the faithful I shall only consider him in the first capacity David was the father of the Kings of Judah Sauls family you know was extinguished presently Now how frequently in Scripture do you find God declaring his goodness and mercy to the Jewish Nation for his servant Abrahams sake or for the sake of Abraham Isaac and Jacob or for his servant Davids sake And God heard their groaning and God remembred his Covenant with Abraham and with Isaac and with Jacob Exod. 2.24 Lev. 26.42 Then will I remember my Covenant with Jacob and also my Covenant with Isaac and also my Covenant with Abraham will I remember and I will remember the Land Hence it was that the Jews gloried so much that They had Abraham to their Father and the faithful amongst them ordinarily used it as an argument to plead in prayer with God for them It is plain concerning David from a multitude of Scriptures 1 Kings 11.11 God threatning to rend away the Kingdom of Solomon tells him that for David his servants sake he will not do it in his days and v. 12. For David his servants sake he would give one tribe to his Son So again v. 32 34. and 2 Kings 8.19 Yet the Lord would not destroy Judah for Davids sake 2 Kings 19.34 I will defend this City save it for my own sake and for my servant Davids sake hence the Psalmist prayeth Psal 132.10 For thy servant Davids sake turn not away the face of thine Anointed and so in many other texts of Scripture The case as to punishments hath yet a far more plentiful evidence from holy Writ Exod. 17.8 9. Amalek smote Israel when they came out
sin in the world hath infinitely magnified his own goodness It is the saying of a very ingenious Author Satis usui sunt scelera si artem peritiam divinae beneficentiae provocant Sin is of use enough to God in the business of his glory if by it the act and skill of the Divine Goodness and Bounty be made appear to the world the goodness and mercy of God is that Attribute of his which above all others he hath made choice of to glorify himself in and by it is that in which he delighteth which is above all his works Now without the permission of sin yea of the aboundings of sin it had been impossible that Divine Goodness and Bounty should have been so commended to the world Let me open this a little 1. Christs coming and dying for sinners was the greatest act of love that was ever shewed to the children of men What greater love could the eternal Father shew than to give his Son out of his own bosom to be a sacrifice for sins God so loved the world saith John 3 Chap. 16. that he gave his only begotten son Moralists make a question about taking the true measures of the magis and minus of love whether the greatness of love be to be measured from the affliction intention and self-denial of the party loving or the benefit redounding to the person beloved but measure which way you will it was the greatest love on the Fathers side and the greatest that Christ could shew for greater love than this hath no man shewed John 15. and herein God commends his love towards us Rom. 5.8 Besides the inhabitation of the spirit was a benefit of Christs death an effect of his purchase And what greater love could be shewed on the part of the Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of Christ than for it to come down and to dwell in the heart of a poor creature for the person of a believer to be made the temple of the Holy Ghost the receptacle of the Spirit of Grace Now if there had been no sin no sinners in the world what room had there been for a Saviour what needed one to have turned away iniquity from Jacob to have been wounded for our iniquities bruised for our transgressions He dyed for our sins saith the Apostle How could the love of the eternal Father in sending his Son or the love of the Son in taking upon him our nature and dying for us or the love of the Holy Spirit in sanctifying us and renewing us and dwelling in us been manifested to the world If a strong man had not kept the house what need had there been of a stronger than he to have come and dispossessed him All the love of the Father Son and Holy Ghost magnified in the business of mans Redemption and the whole Oeconomy of a Gospel-salvation had been conceal'd and not known to the world 2. Again How could the love of God in the conversion of sinners in the pardon of their sins in their justification the sense they oft have of his love have been manifested to the world What need were there of any pardon if no sins were permitted where were the aboundings of grace in pardoning if there were no aboundings of sin What love of God could be seen in the conversion of sinners if no sinners were permitted in the world How should God magnify his grace by saying to any soul Be of good cheer thy sins are forgiven thee if he did not suffer sins to be committed Thus you see the greatness of Divine Goodness and Mercy could never have been declared to the world but for the motions of Providence in the permission of sins and sinners yea and of the aboundings of them 3. Did not the Actual Providence of God thus permit sin and much sin in the world How should the long-suffering and patience of God be magnified in the world This also is a piece of Gods Name and such a one by which he designeth to make himself glorious he stileth himself Exod. 34.6 Gracious merciful long-suffering slow to anger and Numb 14.18 The Lord is long-suffering and full of tender compassion Now sin and sinners are the objects about which the long-sufferance of God is exercised He endured with much long-suffering saith the Apostle Rom. 9.22 vessels of wrath fitted for destruction How often do we find this in our own experience when we hear wretches blaspheming God and daring Divine Justice how often are we ready to say and it is a good reflexion O what a patient God do we serve which of us would endure such affronts and defiances as God endureth every day The aboundings of sin in the world make the considerate part of the inhabitants of it admire and adore the long-suffering and patience of God 3. The wisdom of God is also wonderfully magnified by Gods permission of sin The Apostle calleth God the only wise God None so wise as God is and the wisdom of God is eminently magnified by his permission of sin One great business of wisdom is to make an Election of the best end but this is not that which I am here speaking to God hath fixed his end it is his own glory and as I have often told you he can aim at no other end than himself and his own glory But next to a good Election of an end wisdom is eminently seen in the choice and conduct of means in order to a proposed end but herein is the heighth of wisdom to be able to make use of the most unlikely means and make them to serve our purpose It is a point I have touched something largely upon in my former discourses upon this Argument and therefore I shall not here enlarge upon it To bring a not-being into a being to make a thing out of nothing argueth an infinite power though there be aliquid materiae something of a matter yet if there be nihilum subjecti no aptitude in the matter to produce an effect of that nature as when God took the rib of a man and made of it a woman this argued also an omnipotent infinite power But yet methinks for God to produce his glory out of the aboundings of sin argueth yet something more if not of power yet of wisdom to make the wrath of men to praise him and the lyes of men to glorify him O how doth this commend the infinite wisdom of an only wise God! Sin all sin is quite opposite and repugnant to the glory of God it speaks the great Wisdom of God to bring out his glory from it Thus God hath glory by accident from the permission and sufferance of sin in the world 4. But let me further shew how God is further glorified by reason of the aboundings of sin in the manifestation of his Justice his Punitive and Vindicative Justice Rom. 9.22 What if God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known endured with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted
more in prayer in praise in hearing c. Thus it was with St. Paul he reflected upon himself as not meet to be called an Apostle because he had persecuted the Church of Christ But saith he by the grace of God I am that I am and his grace bestowed on me was not in vain but I laboured more abundantly 1 Cor. 15.9 10. SERMON XXXVIII Job V. 6 7. Although affliction cometh not out of the dust neither doth trouble spring out of the ground yet man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward THe words which I have read to you are the words of Eliphaz the Temanite unto his friend Job who Chap. 3. had made so bitter a complaint of his afflictions whether he had this title from his Ancestors as some think Gen. 36.11 where we read of one Eliphaz a descendent from Esau who begat Teman or from his Countrey which I take to be most probable for we read Jer. 49.7 concerning Edom thus saith the Lord of Hosts Is wisdom no more in Teman Teman was certainly a City in the dominion of Edom famous both for wise and valiant men as you may learn from vers 8. of the Prophecy of Obadiah Shall I not in that day saith the Lord even destroy the wise-men out of Edom and understanding out of the Mount of Esau and thy mighty men O Teman shall be dismayed It is not much material This Eliphaz in probability was an Edomite an inhabitant of Teman a friend of Job who by appointment was come with the two others to visit Job upon the report of his great affliction he began his discourse in the former Chapter and continueth it in this I shall not concern my self in the other part of Eliphaz his discourse in the Verses which I have read to you he seemeth to comfort Job from a twofold Consideration 1. That the hand of God was in his affliction for that is implied when he saith Affliction cometh not out of the dust neither doth trouble spring out of the ground 2. From the consideration of the fate of man Man saith he is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward The Proposition of these two Verses is plainly this Prop. That God hath a great hand in all the evils that come upon us Man is born unto trouble and it is as natural to him as for the sparks to move upward and his afflictions come not out of the dust It is the observation of an Eminent Divine of our own in his excellent commentary upon this Verse that this is a Proverbial speech and the sense of it That affliction cometh not by chance or fortune and so the dust and the ground in my Text stands opposed 1. To God and 2. To our selves What if I should offer my thoughts that it is an Eliptical speech and much parallel to that Psal 75.6 7. For promotion cometh neither from the East nor from the West nor from the South But God is the Judg he putteth down one and setteth up another So here affliction springeth not out of the dust nor trouble out of the ground but God hath an hand in all only this latter part is left to us to be understood My present design will not lead me to consider how far man is felo de se and the author of his own evils having the meritorious cause in his own soul but I shall only discourse of God as the efficient cause the other will fall in as that which moveth God to such an execution of Providence Here are two branches in the Proposition 1. That man is born unto affliction and trouble as the sparks fly upward it may be understood that he hath a right to it as the sparks have by the Law of Creation disposing and ordaining them to such a motion so man hath a legal right to trouble by vertue of the first Covenant In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye Now this man hath as a sinner depraved and fallen from that Original rectitude in which God created him 2. He hath a natural fitness and disposition to it and is by his nature subjected to a variety of afflictions and troubles As the sparks by reason of their levity have an aptness to move upward so hath man through his natural constitution ever since the crasis of his humours was impaired and spoiled upon the fall a native fitness and disposition to receive impressions of affliction and trouble 2. That this trouble these afflictions come not upon us by chance but by the hand of God It was the saying of a good Prophet 2 Kings 6.33 This evil is of the Lord. The Prophet speaks of evils more generally Amos 3.6 Shall there be any evil in the City and the Lord hath not done it and vers 5. Can a bird fall in a snare on the earth where no gin is for him And this is true of all species of penal evils which we call troubles and afflictions whether they fall upon our bodies or spirits or in our estates or from our relations c. The Question is Quest How this is consistent with the goodness and mercy of God Can God be the Author of evil Lam. 3.33 34. He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men to crush under his feet all the prisoners of the Earth Sol. The answer is very easie there is an evil of sin of this God cannot be the Author he can neither be tempted with evil nor tempt any man but there is an evil of punishment indeed in it self not evil as I shall shew more by and by Of this none doubteth but God may be the Author yea there is no evil of this nature in the City which he hath not done 2. Nor is this at all inconsistent either with the purity and holiness or the mercy and goodness of God for as I said before these kind of evils are only nuncupatively so and have no more evil in them than as they are ingrateful to our pallats and but nick-named evils by us following the fallible judgment of our senses Quae vulgus infamat malorum titulo arcanis suae benignitatis decrevit God in his eternal thoughts of love hath decreed the effecting those things which we scandalize with the name of Evils Evils of punishment are good under a disguise and we should not call them Evils if sense did not cast a mist before our eyes 'T is sense deceivable sense that both makes us call the real evils of sin good and the real good things of afflictions and troubles evil When God once dispelleth this mist and opens the eyes of the spiritual understanding it sees after another manner and it then crys out with David Psal 119.67 Before I was afflicted I went astray but now I have kept thy word Vers 71. It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes Thus the child when it comes to understanding blesseth the rods and ferula's with which he
would pose the thoughts of any intelligent person I think I do indeed know that some tell us that Christ as to all men expiated the guilt of Adams sin some add also original sin others tell us that is all washed off in Baptism I want one clear Scripture for any thing of this but yet Arminius never denied so far as I have read him that infants have not upon them the guilt of original sin which God may punish certainly if not with eternal yet with temporal punishments for even past and pardoned sins may be thus punished as I have before shewed you in my Observations upon the motions of Actual Providence Every infant cometh into the world under the guilt of the first mans transgression reckoned to him as he was in the loyns of Adam and under the want of original righteousness with an innate pravity and corruption of nature averse naturally to all that is good prone and inclined unto that which is evil Supposing now what Arminius would have and can never be proved that God will eternally condemn none meerly for this sin yet surely he may justly scourge and correct with the utmost punishments short of eternal punishment even this guilt in children which have not actually finned It was Gods threatning annexed to his Covenant with Adam In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye Some question how God justified it when Adam lived to nine hundred and thirty years before he dyed Divines therefore expound it by eris mortalis thou shalt be subject and liable unto death in the day in which he did eat he became mortal from that day he began to dye and was made liable to that change Every child assoon it cometh into the world eateth of this forbidden fruit I mean becomes liable to the guilt of its proparents eating and so is liable unto death It is true the Lord doth not cut off all children how then should the world be replenished and stand but yet he cutteth off some for the declaration of his justice as a Prince when a whole City or Province is in a rebellion he will not cut them off all because he will not waste and depopulate a Country but he will cut off some for the declaration of his justice Thus you see this motion of Providence is easily reconcileable to the justice of God upon this hypothesis that children are sinners and under an original guilt and if we could be so confident as some are that none shall be damned for that sin only or that it is expiated on the behalf of all or washed away in Baptism as to all born within the pale of the Church Yet nothing hinders but by the same justice by which God punisheth past and pardoned sins which I have formerly at large opened to you God might yet justly trouble and afflict little ones they might be sick and they might dye as Jeroboams child mentioned in the Text did though vers 13. saith of him expresly That there was some good thing found in him towards the Lord God of Israel Let this be a second consideration to satisfie you as to the righteousness of God in these dispensations But I proceed yet further 3. This motion of Providence seemeth very reasonable and competent to the wisdom of God That he might declare to the world that he is that God in whom all breath he in whom they live they move and have their being If we should see none dye but in an old age we should be ready to think that our candle never went out but for want of oyl and should not understand how much we were beholden to God for every hour of life how much we depended upon him for our daily breath as well as for daily bread Now it is but reasonable that the world should understand God to be the fountain of life that sickness and death do not meerly depend upon second causes but there is a first cause that is the efficient the principal efficient cause of these changes though he useth a variety of second causes he will therefore suffer irregular motions of humours in children which shall in them cause sicknesses and death though they never were surfeited with meats nor Inflamed with drinks He bloweth out Candles newly lighted to let us know that the issues of life and death are in his hand and that the breath of man is not meerly in his own nostrils and it is but reasonable that God should make himself thus known to us as the God of our lives 4. Again this dispensation of Providence is reconcileable to the goodness of God God by this means doth deliver little ones from the evil to come This is the very case in the Text God was bringing evil upon the house of Jeroboam as he threatneth vers 10 11 12. he intended to take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam as a man taketh away dung from the earth Abijah falls sick and dies and this out of mercy to him that his eyes might not see nor he have any share in the evil which God was about to bring upon his Fathers house God gathereth up the Lambs before the storm cometh It is said of Babilon Psal 137. That he should be happy that should take their little ones and dash them against the stones and we read in Scripture of such famines as inforced women to eat their own children Now God often cuts off little ones in his mercy to them I might here further add that God by this dispensation preventeth much sin in those that are thus taken away But I pass on yet to some further considerations clearing Gods justice 5. It is but reasonable that God should do this to punish the sins of the Parents and to do them good It was one of my observations concerning the motions of Actual Providence That God doth very ordinarily punish Relations in their Correlates Parents in their Children and I shewed you the reasonableness of Divine Providence in this motion It was for the punishment of Davids sin that his child by Bathsheba died and the death of it was threatned by Nathan as a part of Davids punishment 2 Sam. 12.14 Possibly God may sometimes do it to abate our affections to our children and that he might have more of our heart and affections as the Gardiner cutteth off the suckers which draw too much from the root and the country Housewife takes away the Calf when it sucketh so much as it leaveth no milk for the pail 6. Finally Why may not this motion of Providence seem reasonable That room might be left in the world The world is a great Theatre in which he hath many to act their parts God at first lengthned out the lives of the Patriarchs to seven eight nine hundred years that the world might be replenished with Inhabitants He now shortneth the lives of those that are born into the world that the world might not be overburdened with Inhabitants More might be added By the death
from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking Vengeance on them who know not God and obey not the Gospel of Christ who saith he in my Text shall be punished with everlasting destruction The Text will afford us two Propositions 1. Prop. That those persons who in this life have not known God or have not obeyed the Gospel of Christ when Christ shall come to judgment shall be punished with everlasting Destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2. Prop. That amongst sinners the persecutors of others unjustly for their conscience toward God and for the Gospel of Christ shall least escape this righteous Judgment These above others shall be punished with everlasting destruction The Emphasis of the proposition so far as I desire to handle it lies in the word everlasting they shall saith the Text be punished with everlasting destruction which is no more than our Saviour had said Math. 25.46 And those shall go into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal and Math. 9.44 46 48. Where you read of a worm that never dieth and a fire that is not quenched The Revelation of Scripture in the case is plain enough only here is the Question Quest How it can stand with the Justice or goodness of God to punish momentary Sins with everlasting destruction The grounds of this Question or doubt are 1. The proportion which Justice seemeth to require betwixt the offence and the punishment Justice amongst men requireth a proportion as well as punishment it self and it is with us accounted injustice not to keep a measure in punishment Every one condemneth the Roman taking away the life of his Servant in compensation of a cup-board of glasses he had broken and we count it hardly just to do the like for little things stollen from us now there seemeth to be no proportion betwixt momentany singings and eternal punishments Tertullian rightly calls sins vaporata libidinum momenta And the holy ghost calls them the pleasures of sin for a season It is the same case as to the profits of sin man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and no longer time to sin in then he hath to live 2. Eternal torments seem to bear no proportion to that infinite goodness and mercy of God which we have read of to be in God They say indeed of Nero that having condemned a malefactor to long torments and pleasing himself to see him so tormented when the poor wretch called to him for mercy he gave him no other answer then Nondum tecum in gratiam redii stay Sir you and I are not friends yet but is it possible without blasphemy to imagin any such thing of God of whose nature it is to forgive and to shew mercy Can he please himself with the eternal torments of a creature which he hath made No no saith the Atheist Hell is but a bugbear there can be no such thing consistent with the Justice and goodness of God as Eternal Destruction But the Scripture affirms it suffer me therefore in general to cry out O you Sons of men are not the Lords ways equal Are not your ways inequal who art thou O man who reasonest with God Shall the clay say to the Potter why hast thou made me thus Is not our Reason debauched think we when it can agree no better with the Reason and wisdom of God whence it deriveth and that in a lefs proportion than a drop of water beareth to the Ocean or the Fountain from which it deriveth Know therefore that all these vain and Atheistical reasonings of our hearts proceed upon one or more of these mistaken principles 1. That Gods compassion goodness or mercy must be Eternally extended to and exercised upon the most notorious desperate despisers and contemners of it Now this is indeed to fancy an idol to our selves instead of God we have no reason so to conceive of God partly because we find no humane nature so tame though we be under a Law of shewing pity and compassion partly because the Scripture no-where teacheth us such a notion of God Besides that such a notion of God as this is would disarm the most excellent and perfect being of all power to protect it self from the greatest injuries which the most debauched persons should offer to it I would gladly know what reason or what part of Scripture can induce any to dream of a goodness and mercy of God towards finners beyond this life 2. That the goodness and mercy of God must be estimated and measured by his dispensations to individuals Amongst men mercy to some particular persons that are eminent disturbers of humane Society is cruelty to thousands possibly Gods mercy may be exercised and he may be a God in whom all that the Scripture saith of that goodness that is in the Divine being may be verified and yet hundreds yea thousands of impenitent sinners may eternally perish 3. That the proportion which the Divine Justice observeth in punishing sinners must be measured by the proportion of time which the sinner hath to sin in Than which there nothing more false nor as I shall anon shew you is there any such rule kept to in the justice of men 4. That the Justice of God is to be measured by the same measures as the Justice of men and nothing which amongst men is injust can be just with God where-as among men we see the same rewards and punishments are not judged just as to all men all Nations though the fact be the same otherwise punish injuries done to superiours than to inferiours and it is thought but just to proportion the punishment to the quality and greatness of the person to whom the injury is done 5. That the condemned sinner satisfies by his suffering than which there is nothing more false No creditor takes his debtors lying in prison whatever misery he feeleth there to be any part of payment of his debt These are some of the mistaken Principles from which vain man quarrelleth at the Divine Justice in the eternal destruction of sinners Now these things premised I shall easily shew you that eternal punishment is not inconsistent with the Justice of God nor doth any way derogate from that infinite goodness and mercy which is inseparable from the Divine Being 1. Why should we not in the first place allow that to be just with God which we allow to be just and righteous in man What doth man less than this according to the extent of his power Doth not the Magistrate for his offence deprive the Traytor the Murtherer or other Malefactor of his life and all the comforts of it for ever Divines say that in Hell there is a pain of loss and a pain of sense and the Schoolmen argue the former to be greater than the latter you see man inflicteth an eternal pain of loss and counts it just he taketh away the malefactors life and all the sweet
concomitants of it from him for ever he imprisoneth him during life banisheth him from his Country never to return confiscates his estate for ever Yet who quarrels with him as if he did unjustly Object But will some say God doth not only adjudge a sinner to an eternal loss of his life estate liberty this indeed man doth but God adjudgeth him also to eternal torments to a never-dying worm a fire that never shall be quenched Sol. I answer Had man the same power he would also do the same thing and yet hope to be acounted guiltless where eminent injuries are done to persons of great place and power How many are angry and will not be reconciled though they be under a Divine Law obliging them to the contrary How doth man sometimes divide a Malefactors last punishment and suffers him not to dye at once but by piece-meal to make his punishment as long-lived as he can What will you say of those condemned to be starved to death Yet in some great crimes who calleth this cruelty or injustice The greatness of the offence is in this case judged to justifie the extraordinariness of the punishment 2. What injustice can it be in God to be ever exacting satisfaction to a debt which is never paid especially when the debtor hath also refused his pardon for it Suppose one of us hath a debtor who oweth us a great sum of Money we offer him that if he will come to us and upon his knees but ask pardon we will forgive him the debt he refuseth we lay him up in Prison still he payeth us nothing Which of us counteth it unjust to keep this wretch in Prison as long as we can The reason why we do not for ever keep him in Prison is because that neither we nor he are of eternal duration If indeed the suffering of the sinner a Thousand Ten thousand years did give any satisfaction to God this were unjust But who counteth a debtors lying in a Gaol any payment of or satisfaction for his debt There are two things may be said of every sin which should make the thoughts of sin very dreadful to every understanding Christian 1. That all the holy actions of all the men in the world cannot make God amends for one sin It is a true saying of Drexellius Omnium bonorum sanctae actiones unius lethalis noxae pondere superantur 2. That the severest punishment which any poor wretch can suffer for sin cannot give God satisfaction for the least sin 3. What pretence can there be of charging God with unjustice for continuing a punishment upon that sinner that continueth his impenitency If a sinner in everlasting torments indeed either ever could or did repent there might possibly be some pretence for this imputation of injustice to God or at least something might be colourably said to derogate from the goodness and mercy of God in not delivering him from those torments Though that Text Rev. 16.9 11 possibly be not to be understood of Hell yet you have in it a true picture of such as are under the condemnation of it When the fourth and fifth Angels poured out their vials and had power to scorch men with fire it is said vers 9 That they were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the name of God which had power over those plagues and repented not to give him glory And again vers 11 They blasphemed the God of Heaven because of their pains and their sores and repented not of their deeds I say these two verses give you as to this thing a true picture of Hell Sinners are there plagued and scorched with heat but they repent not to give glory to God Had they in this life repented they had never come into those flames In that state indeed there is no place no means for repentance nor hath any sufferer there any heart for it Non decebat justitiam dei poenitere non poenitentium injustitiae humanae It did not become the justice of God to repent as to their punishment who never repent of their own injustice and unrighteousness What man pitieth a person laid in Gaol for contriving Treason against his Prince or Country Because he continueth there whiles even in Prison he goes on to revile and threaten and act what mischief is in his power under his circumstances And will not so much as say that he hath done amiss nor beg his Princes pardon This is the case of the damned soul in this life he sinned but refused to repent though he was often called to and admonished to repent God throws him for his sin continued in impenitently into Hell there he repenteth not he saith not so much as I have sinned Lord have mercy upon me Is God think you unjust in keeping this hardened stubborn and impenitent sinner in an eternal Prison In this the sinner is like to the Devil and to his evil Angels as the Saints in the resurection are made like to the good Angels so sinners are like to the evil Angels The Devils never repent they never say what have we done they never ask God pardon no more do sinners that are once condemned to a fellowship and society with them for ever 4. What injustice can there be in God never to cease from punishing that sinner who never ceaseth from his acts of sin I shall not here concern my self in that question whether the blasphemies of the damned be sins yea or no For my own part I see no reason why they should not be called sins they are the acts of rational creatures contrary to the Law of God If the sinner had in this life ceased to do evil he had never come in those torments if he ceased not to sin in this life I ask when he ceased or by what other name we can call the blasphemies of damned souls because of their torments than that of sins against God If they be sins I say damned souls never cease to sin Are not the blasphemies of the Devils sins And are not the blasphemies of damned souls of the same nature But I will not enlarge upon this for it hath a great cognation to the former 5. If it were not unjust with God to annex the penalty of eternal destruction to his threatning against sin it cannot be unjust with him having enacted a Law under such a penalty to execute it The truth of this dependeth upon this principle That it can be no injustice to put a just Law in execution which is so plain as that it demonstrateth it self to every mans reason For what is Justice in the execution or practice of it but the putting of just laws in execution Besides what is necessary cannot be unjust Hath the Lord spoken it and shall he not do it saith the Prophet God having enacted such a Law and affixed such a threatning to it is concerned in truth to give being to the execution of it So that all I have to do is to evince
infinite wrong to God it cannot be expressed how he dishonoureth God there is no measuring the depth of the guilt in sin Sin is indeed a finite thing but it is punished with an infinite punishment proportioned well enough to the infinite wrong done to the Divine being by it Let this be a sixth Demonstration of the justice of God 7. The justice of God in the eternal punishment of finite temporary sins is cleared in this That the sinner hath sinned in suo aeterno in his eternity There is in every sinner infinita voluntas peccandi a will to sin infinitely and without end This I remember a learned Author calleth pessimam adhaesionem peccati one of the worst circumstances of sin That the sinner doth not sin eternally is from Gods quicker cutting asunder the thred of his life had the thred of a sinners life run out to eternity he would have sinned to eternity Suppose one amongst the damned who had not spent above twenty or thirty years in the world in sinning I would appeal to the judgement of any deliberate man whether this man would not willingly have lived fifty sixty or an hundred years and if he therefore did not desire to live so long that he might take his fill of sin satiate himself with his lusts he who saith otherwise must charge God with damning a soul who he knew would have repented if God would have suffered him to have lived long enough and can any entertain such a thought of God If the sinner had lived for ever he would have gone on in his sins for ever then there was in him a kind of infiniteness in willing sin This account of the justice of God in the eternal destruction of sinners is given us by Greg. Mag. I will give you his words in English They who cavil saith he at the justice of God in this speak right if the just Judge of the whole earth did not proceed against men as well for their thoughts as their actions wicked mens sins are therefore finite because their lives are so They would have lived eternally that they might have sinned eternally for they more desire to sin than to live and therefore they desire to live always that they might never cease to sin Gr. Mag. mor. l. 4. c. 18. It is therefore righteous with God that their punishment should never end whose sinful hearts knew no end in their willingness and lustings to sin The sinner hath no end as to Divine Vengeance because as long as he could he would know no term in sinning It is not just with man to punish the intentions and motions of the heart because he can but guess at them he cannot certainly know them till they appear by some overt actions Our Law makes it treason to imagine the death of the King indeed the Traytor is not punished till his imagination be discovered by some overt words or actions by which alone man can judge of intentions and imaginations but to shew us how just even man sometimes judgeth it especially in some great crimes to punish intentions very small overt actions will sometimes serve to judge of the counsels designes and intentions of a malefactors heart 8. The justice of God in punishing sinners with everlasting destruction is apparent by his proposal of an eternal reward to the greatest sinners if they will repent and turn unto him God setteth before every sinner an eternal life as well as an eternal death the sinner maketh his choice he chooseth death rather than life so as the proportion of Justice in the punishment is justified by the proportion of the reward offered in case the sinner would leave his sins and turn unto God This account Aquinas gives of the justice of God in this particular The sinner saith he refuseth and putteth from him an infinite good and despiseth an unchangeable good for things that are mutable Gods punishments are no greater nor of longer duration than his rewards are which are proposed to the same persons if they would have turned from their sins that they might have lived 9. Who can so much as in a secret thought charge God with injustice in the eternal punishment of a sinner who remembreth that God for the sin of man laid a punishment upon an infinite person who was the Son of his eternal love and this the Apostle saith Rom. 3.26 Was to declare his righteousness To declare I say at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the Justifier of him who believeth in Jesus Now in this we are so far from quarrelling at the justice of God that there is no Christian that doth not adore and admire it what is the difference There God punished an infinite person for a time here he punisheth finite persons in an infinity of time that what they cannot suffer in the intension of their suffering they might be ever doing in the extension of time yea and this difference more is observable God in punishing his Son laid our iniquities upon another here the sinner beareth none but his own burthen and doth but suffer the punishment due to his own iniquity Now if we will quarrel at Gods righteousness in this loading of his own Son with the burthen of his wrath we quarrel at the highest contrivement of Divine and Infinite Wisdom for the salvation of men yet it is much more reasonable to dispute that than the justice of God in the eternal personal punishment of a sinner It is the saying of Nierembergius Illud mihi videtur ridiculum mirari Divinam severitatem in aeterna scelestorum punitione nec intendere infinitam illam justitiam in innocentia unigeniti dilecti sui Quid mirum torqueri in aeternum scelestos pro peccatis suis si passus est pro alienis justissimus Dei filius Qui potuit sustinere sine contumelia suae bonitatis charissimum natum una hora pati injuste multo melius tolerabit aeternis injustos suppliciis affligi justissime Nieremb It to me saith he seemeth ridiculous to admire at Divine severity in the eternal punishment of wicked men and not to attend to that infinite justice in the innocency of his only beloved Son What wonder is it that wicked men should be for ever tormented for their own sins if the most righteous son of God suffered for the sins of others He that without a reproach to his goodness could endure his most dear Son to suffer so long as one hour will much better endure unjust sinners to be tormented with eternal punishment 10. Lastly It is the greatest error and madness imaginable for any soul to dream of mercy in God after the contempt and despising of his goodness and mercy to a final impenitency What is Divine goodness and mercy but the will of God inclining him to do good to miserable creatures This we say is to be found in God and that to an infinite degree and is abundantly seen in his long-suffering and forbearance of them
and patience to them in his waiting upon them all the days of their life giving them his Gospel sending them his Ministers beseeching them to be reconciled unto God knocking by his Spirit at the doors of their hearts Thus the merciful God extendeth his goodness unto all sinners a long time he declareth that he desireth not the death of any sinner but is willing that all should be saved by coming to the acknowledgment of the truth The vile sinner through the pride of his heart will not seek after God but vexeth grieveth resisteth his holy Spirit from time to time refuseth to repent and to turn unto God defieth him mocketh at the tenders of Divine grace thus he liveth thus he dieth yet hath heard of and knoweth the threatnings of eternal destruction he looketh upon them as bug-bear things not to fright such men as he is but children only he drinks he swears he curseth and blasphemeth God lyes breaketh Sabbaths he will venture it Who is that God that shall restrain the lusts of his heart He will try whether there be such an Hell such an eternal destruction yea or no. What do we talk of mercy after this to such a bold defier of the Divine Majesty What kind of being must we fancy the eternal God if we should imagine him to have one drop of mercy for such a contemner and defier of Divine goodness Surely he that made this man will have no mercy on him he that formed him can shew him no favour without a dethroning himself and making himself the contempt of his creature This every sinner doth one more openly and boldly another more secretly and tacitly Every fool if he doth not speak it with his tongue yet saith in his heart there is no God Whiles vain man talks of mercy in God in this case I am afraid he fancieth mercy in God to be a passion as it is in us which necessarily stirs to compassionate every object of misery Alas it is no such thing it is nothing else but the good will of God to do good to sinners if they will be made partakers of his goodness The same will moveth and that justly too otherwise after this life the red flag is then held out The last grains of sand in the glass of mercy are dropt out when this life is determined There is no more sacrifice for sin remaining but a dreadful looking for of Judgement and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries He that despised Moses law died without mercy of how much sorer punishment shall they be thought worthy who have trodden under foot the blood of the Son of God and have counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified as an unholy thing Heb. 10.26 27. These men have done despight to the Spirit of Grace and we know who hath said vengeance is mine and I will repay it I will recompense saith the Lord and again the Lord shall judge his people I conclude then with the Apostle in that place It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God There is a time for all things and as it is so with men so it is with God There is a time for mercy that is the time of this life and there must be a time for the execution of Justice when God shall declare his righteousness upon sinners who have despised his goodness and patience that is the time after this life The inch of Candle is out when the sinners life is expired no more coming to the waters and buying then what before was offered without money and without price Mercy hath done its utmost as to such sinners no more mercy is to be found in God for them no more compassion in that God who is full of mercy and tender compassion Nor shall we need at all to stumble at this for to oblige Magistrates to be always pitiful to them that are in misery though they have been the causes of it to themselves and have brought themselves into misery by the highest contempts of Authority and Government yea and of the clemency and patience of the Magistrate were quickly to prostitute all Government and to expose those that manage it to the basest contempt and scorn imaginable and if the Princes and Judges of the earth and Generals of Armies upon the prospect of this see a necessity of setting limits to their bowels of compassion and no one judgeth them either unjust or cruel in so doing why may not the same be allowed to the holy and righteous God But I have spoken enough to convince those who observe the principles of justice allowed in the practice of all States and Governments with the general observation of the wiser sort in the world That God is neither cruel nor unrighteous in punishing with an eternal destruction those that know not God and obey not his Gospel although their time and pleasure of sinning hath born no proportion either to the time or degree of their torments I shall apply it but in a word or two 1. The first To sinners who are yet impenitent who have not yet by repentance and faith saved themselves from this wrath to come 2. The second to those who through grace have saved themselves from this wrath Vse 1. To the first I shall only speak after the great Apostle of the Gentiles We knowing the terrors of the Lord perswade you 1. Not to stand disputing with God about the justice and equity of his ways 2. While your time lasteth to save your selves from these eternal burnings from this worm which never dieth this fire which never goeth out 1. Dispute not then Divine Justice as to the eternal Destruction of sinners You see if you do you will fall in judgement though you should be tried by the common laws of men by the customs and practices of all Nations Flatter not your selves that whatever your Ministers tell you the goodness and mercy of God will not allow him to see his creatures eternally tormented or that the justice of God cannot allow him to punish the sinnings of a few hours or years with an eternity of torments What have they to do with mercy who have out-sinned their days and years of mercy and despised the long-suffering patience and forbearance of God that for twenty thirty forty years together was leading them to repentance and waiting for their conversion and turning to him who had a day and time of repentance but repented not an eternal life and happiness offered them but refused it and have judged themselves unworthy of eternal life O let all sinners cease disputing Divine Justice and presuming upon I know not what mercy in God and let them to day while it is called to day not harden their hearts but study to save themselves from this wrath that is to come Let me but offer you one or two Meditations 1. Consider with your selves how often you have deserved this eternal destruction from the presence of
the Lord and from the glory of his power and how many are dropped into it who never lived so long nor sinned so much as you have done Do not you think that an High-way-man or some other notorious villain as he passeth by a pair of Gallows upon the road hath many such a cold thought as this How many have perished upon this tree for stealing but a few shillings or some things of little value how often have I deserved the same punishment though I as yet escape Oh that you who are yet in a state of guilt and impenitency would reflect upon your selves and say Lord how many are dropt into the pit of eternal destruction who never lived so long as I have lived nor sinned to that degree that I have sinned yet they are perished and for ever perished yet I live and am out of that pit 2. Consider what an hairs-breadth there is betwixt you and this eternal destruction You see some in a moment going down into the pit some in an hours time some in a weeks time you sleep over it every night you tread over it every day you need not be told how little there is betwixt us and death every day How suddenly do you see some snatched away on your right hand others snatched away on your left hand Ananias and Saphira drop into the pit with a lye in their mouths What know you what this day what the next night may bring forth upon our souls Let me conclude this with an Exhortation much of that nature which Daniel used to that great King Wherefore O Sinners let my counsel be acceptable unto you break off your sins by a true repentance and your iniquities by a coming unto Christ if so be you may save your selves from this wrath to come Vse 2. In the second place Let the People of God who are delivered from this wrath and by grace translated into the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ look back with thankful hearts upon this danger which they have escaped They tell a story of a person who being disordered with drink and riding over a bridg where he very narrowly but insensibly escaped the danger of his life coming back the next day and viewing his danger he was so astonished as that he dropt down dead your reflexion upon this eternal destruction which through grace you have escaped ought to have no such influence upon you But from the sight of this dreadful wrath to come which you have escaped reflect these two more profitable Meditations upon your souls 1. What hath God done for me delivering me from such a death Oh how patient was God with me how many nights did I sleep over hell how many days how many years did I tread over these endless torments Oh! what hath God done for me in plucking my foot out of this snare as a brand out of this fire 2. What shall I do what can I do enough for that God who hath saved me from such a death how often might he have thrown me into Hell O Lord I am thy servant I am thy servant thou hast saved me from that wrath which is to come What an engagement should this lay upon us in nostro aeterno to serve the Lord while we have any being Let us therefore go away singing with David We will extol thee our God our King we will praise thee for ever and ever every day we will bless thee and we will praise thee for evermore Psal 145.1 Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits Who forgiveth all thine iniquity who healeth all thy diseases who redeemeth thy life from destruction yea from eternal destruction who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies Psal 103.1 2 3 4. SERMON XLIII Psal LXXIII 12 13 14. Behold these are the ungodly who prosper in the world they increase in riches Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocency For all the day long have I been plagued and chastned every morning I Am indeavouring as I have before told you to make the seemingly rough ways of Actual Providence plain expounding to you the hard Chapters of Divine Providence I am still speaking to such questions as relate to distributive justice considered as in the hand of Actual Providence and here also I have already spoken to several things I am now come to the last which I intend to speak to It is the great question which hath posed the great Philosophers of the world and hath made some of them deny the being of God others deny the care and Providence of God or at least restrain it to some particular objects How it standeth with the justice of God to punish and chasten his own people whiles in the mean time he suffereth the way of the wicked to prosper To handle this I have made choice of this Text it is no wonder that the greatest Philosophers have been posed here when we find the most eminent servants of God whose names stand upon Sacred Record at a loss to find out this riddle and finding it a sad temptation to them You shall find that Job stumbled at it Job 21.7 and Jeremy though he humbly prefaceth his complaint Jer. 12.1 with Righteous art thou O Lord in thy judgements yet he must he must talk with God about his judgements in this thing Habbakuk was also something disturbed at it Hab. 1.13 Thou art of purer eyes than to endure any iniquity wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is better than himself In my Text you find the man according to Gods own heart stumbling also at this stone you have an account of his fall by this temptation from the first ver to the 16. 2. His recovery of himself vers 17 18 19 20. The Propositions which may be observed from this verse are two Prop. 1. That in this life ungodly men often prosper and increase in riches when in the mean time holy men are plagued and chastened 2. Prop. That this is often a temptation to the best of men to think that they have cleansed their hearts in vain I say first God in this life doth often measure out prosperity to the worst and afflictions to the best of men The truth of the Proposition as to matter of fact is evident both from the Records of Scripture and the whole course of Divine Providence in the dispensations of it as through all ages so in our present age so as I shall not need spend any time in the proof of it The Question is Quest How this is consistent with the Justice Wisdom or Goodness of God that the ungodly should prosper in the world and increase in riches when his people are visited with afflictions every night and chastned every morning I shall add further to make use of the
in the actual exercise of it whether we consider the one way or the other we shall find that both flow from the free-will and goodness of God and have no other cause but because God will shew mercy to whom he will shew it 1. Let us consider it first in the purpose Gods purpose of grace was nothing else but his Eternal willing of some persons to obtain everlasting life and salvation in and through Christ and in the use of that means which he appointed thereunto for the counsels of God ordered the means as well as the end we do therefore suppose that God from all eternity knew who should be saved and that he therefore must needs know it because he will'd it for whereas all mankind from eternity are to be considered alike nothing but the Will of God could bring any part of them more than another into a salvable estate especially into a certain state of Salvation God therefore decreed or willed some persons to so glorious an end Now the question is what made God to will these not others what can be imagined but his will of which we are able to give no account Eph. 1.5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will hence it is called the election of grace Rom. 11.5 and 2 Tim. 1.8 Who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but according to his purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the world began Arminians and Papists tell us of Gods electing men out of a foresight that they would believe and obey If indeed men were to have risen out of the Earth like Mushromes and to have given a being to themselves and to have created their own Souls they might have quarrelled the Scripture a little upon this point but when the bodies of all men were to be of the same clay and all souls were Gods which were to inform those bodies how they should any of them have a disposition to believe or obey more than others unless God had created it in them or willed that in time they should have it I cannot understand and if they say that they had it from the will of God the matter as to our point cometh much to the same issue God purposed them grace from his own meer good-will and pleasure he willed them in time to have a disposition to believe and obey and upon their Faith and Obedience to have everlasting life 2. If we consider Gods acts of grace in time they are distinguished either into the more external means Or secondly those gracious habits which accompany salvation and make a soul meet for the inheritance of the Saints in Light The means of Salvation are either the means of Purchase and Redemption such was the giving of Christ of which Saint John Joh. 3.16 could give us no other account but God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son For the means of application they are either more external or internal The more external is the promulgation or publication of the Gospel See what our Saviour saith as to this Mat. 11.25 26. I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth who hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to babes Even so O Father because it pleased thee 2. For these acts of grace by which the Soul is prepared and made fit for the inheritance of the Saints in Light they are Effectual Calling Justification and Sanctification or Regeneration 1. For Effectual Calling we are said to be called with an holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace Not according to our works so that any thing in our selves is denied but according to his purpose Now what is the purpose of God but the will of God determining this or that and it is further added And grace which speaketh the free love and good-will of God in the case for grace is nothing else but free love So 1 Pet. 5.10 The God of all grace who hath called you so that God in the calling of Souls acteth as a God of grace yea of all Grace Who can give a reason why God by the Preaching of the Gospel effectually calleth one and not another out of darkness into marvellous light but meerly because he willeth The Evangelist 1 John 13. telleth us that we are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God 2. Justification is another act of grace whereby God pardoneth our sin looketh upon us and accepteth us as righteous only for the righteousness of Christ reckoned unto us for righteousness Herein also God acteth freely being justified freely by his grace he giveth of the fountain of life freely To this purpose is that I will heal your backsliding and love you freely 3. For Regeneration or Sanctification which is that act of grace by which we are renewed in the inward-man and made conformable to the image of God This is our being born of the Spirit and our Saviour compareth the motion of the Spirit to the wind which bloweth where it listeth 2. But further yet the dispensations of grace by the hand of Providence must necessarily bear proportion to the purpose of grace We are blessed in Christ with all spiritual blessings according as he hath chosen us in him saith the Apostle Eph. 1.4 5. Nothing cometh to pass in the world either as an act of grace or a paenal dispensation but it is in pursuance of some purpose of God Now it was impossible that the purpose of God should have any other foundation than his Will for the eternal purpose must be antecedent to any good or evil done by us we are but of yesterday That man or woman knoweth nothing of God and hath very false conceptions and apprehensions of the Divine Being that doth not conceive of him as a God from all eternity knowing whatsoever should come to pass in the world nor is it possible for us to apprehend how God should know any future thing but because he willed it for what but the will of God should bring it out of a not being into a being out of the order of a contingency into a certainty which it must have or God could have no certain knowledg of it Now it was not possible that any thing in the creature should move God from eternity to will any one grace because there was no creature pre-existent to this eternal act of God nor yet co-existent with it It is true say some but yet God did foresee that such or such would believe repent obey c. using the liberty of their wills better than others and to such God willed eternal life But I cannot understand any thing in this more than trifling For I demand from whence is that better inclination and disposition of one mans will than
another Where was the principle of this good was it to proceed from God then it little differeth from what we say at least in this case it doth not for still in the dispensations of his grace he moveth freely and from his own meer will only he willeth first to give grace then glory Will they say this foreseen good disposition as is pretended is from a mans self then there must be another fountain of good besides God all good acts proceed from some habits and powers as their principles I demand whence is that principle that power and habit in us which God should foresee and therefore will a Soul to life Will they say it is from man then say I every good gift cometh not from God man is thus made a fountain of good indeed of all good for he is thus made the fountain of that good upon the foresight of which it is according to this Doctrine that God willeth all his providential dispensations of grace and mercy and if this be not to set up man in the Throne of God and to take away from God the glory of that Attribute in which above all he delighteth I understand nothing 3. Again If acts of grace and mercy were not free and unaccountable only fountain'd in the good-will and pleasure of God grace could not be grace for what is grace but free love To him that worketh the reward saith the Apostle is reckoned not of grace but of debt Rom. 4.4 If by grace then it is no more of works otherwise works would be no more works Rom. 11.6 The very notion of grace importeth freeness grace not free is no grace if you take away liberty you take away grace I mean Original liberty I know when God hath promised he is just and righteous to forgive as the Apostle saith But God had an Original liberty to promise or not to promise In short they are no better than enemies to the grace of God who go about to found the reason of its acts any-where else than in the Divine Will God will have mercy because he will have mercy that 's all the account which we can give either of Gods purpose of grace or of any acts of grace pursuant to that purpose And so I pass to the Second part of the Proposition 2. Memb. That supposing this There is no unrighteousness with God This is consistent with the holiness justice and goodness of God and consonant to the Divine being and Nature It is exceedingly agreeing to the Nature of the Divine being to be the first cause of all that is upon any account good and in this sence it is true eminently true which our Lord telleth the Pharisee There is none good but one and that is God other things are derivatively good he is Originally good now I say it is but reasonable that he who is the first being should be owned the first cause of any good that is in the World all dispensations of Grace being effluxes of goodness he also must be the first cause of them and they could be originated in nothing but the Divine Will 2. Besides there is nothing more consonant to the Divine being than to be the Soveraign Lord and the sole cause of his own actions God every where in holy writ makes himself known to us under the notion of the Lord it is an impeachment of the Divine Soveraignty to assert God originally not at perfect liberty as to his own Acts to have mercy upon whom he will have mercy and extend compassion to whom he will extend compassion God in Scripture is set out under the notion of a Potter the Creature under the notion of Clay God shewed Jeremiah this when he carried him down to the Potters house Jer. 18. and shewed him the Potter at work making a Vessel of Clay and when it was marred in his hand making another Vessel as it seemed good unto him then telling him Ver. 6. O house of Israel Cannot I do with you as this Potter Behold as the Clay is in the Potters hand so are you in my hand O you house of Israel which also alluding to that Text confirmeth Rom. 9.21 Hath not the Potter power over the Clay of the same lump to make one Vessel of honour another of dishonour 2. Nor can this possibly be judged unrighteousness with God for for then would God be in a lower capacity than his Creature what man of us is there who doth not think he hath a free and absolute power over his own acts of goodness and mercy To shew them to whom he pleaseth and to withhold them from whom he pleaseth yet is there a vast difference betwixt the Creature and the Creator in this point for all Creatures are under the Law of their Creator they are things and persons under authority and are not soveraign Lords of their own actions yet which of us doth judg our selves accountable to our Neighbour for an act of mercy now if there be no unrighteousness with man in this case if a man doth not think himself bound to give any account to his Neighbour why he is more kind to one than to another Why gives he a gift to one which he giveth not to another How is God unrighteous in such a discrimination What if God willeth to shew mercy and the riches of Divine Grace to one not to another Though God in these motions be free and unaccountable yet he is also just and righteous and the reason is because he is neither bound nor a debtor unto any But this is enough to have spoken to the Explication and Confirmation of this Proposition For Application Vse 1. In the first place We may learn from hence what vain dreamers those are that go about to find out another Fountain for acts of Divine Grace and seek a cause in man for the Grace bestowed upon him They say the head of the great River Nilus could never yet be found It hath been sought for and many have travelled possibly some thousands of miles but yet it cannot be found But the head of Nilus will be found before men will find any cause of Divine Love out of the Divine Will It speaketh a wonderful arrogance in men to make God accountable for his acts of Divine Grace what greater arrogance and vanity can be imagined than this When a poor Creature will not himself be brought to an account why he gives one Begger mony and not another or why he giveth to one Child a greater Portion than another though they both be the acknowledged fruit of his Body that yet this Worm should dream that God must be accountable to his reason why he sheweth mercy to this man and not to another when they are both the work of his hands It is certainly enough to say He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy and extend compassion to whom he will extend compassion What Pride what Arrogance is this not to allow to God whom we