subjection and obedience unto God This is that which we call holiness There are two Arguments arising out of the former discourse which ought to have a force here 1. Let us do what we will God will be our Governour Let Assyria mean or not mean so he shall be the Lords Servant and execute his pleasure and no more Pharaoh may huff a little and ask Who is the Lord that he should serve or obey him but God will at last be glorified on Pharaoh and make him know his Kingdom is over all God will disappoint the devices of the crafty so as their hands shall not find their enterprises God will at last be glorified and make all the wrath of man at last to praise him 2. None shall be rewarded by God or be his favourites but only such as yield him free willing and chearful obedience Let us do what we can we cannot resist his will but unless our obedience be free voluntary and chearful it shall never be rewarded by a just and righteous God There is nothing more ordinary in the Prophets than to read the denunciation of Gods judgments against Assyria and Babylon which were yet Gods servants in executing vengeance upon the hypocritical and rebellious Jews Let this therefore mind us to be obedient to to the will of God freely and willingly and sincerely that so we may hear that joyful voice Well done thou good and faithful Servant Enter thou into thy masters joy A DISCOURSE Concerning ACTUAL PROVIDENCE PART II. Concerning the Specialties of Providence 1 Cor. IX 9. Doth God take care for Oxen I Have been for some time discoursing concerning Providence that is Actual Providence which is nothing else but Gods taking care for his creatures made as you heard by the word of his power I have discoursed this care of God more generally opening to you those two more general Acts of God by which this care is expressed 1. In preserving of them 2. In the rule and governance of them I have shewed you the workings of Divine Providence in the preserving of his creatures in general in their Beings and use of their several faculties with which he created them of man in particular considered singly as an individual or in his Political capacity or 3. In his Spiritual capacity as the subject of Divine Grace I have also discoursed generally concerning the Government of Divine Providence and by what particular acts God exerciseth this Government and declareth his Dominion over all the Creatures which he hath made but besides the general care of God concerning all his Creatures there is also a special Providence For the beginning of a discourse concerning that I have made choice of this Text Doth God take care for Oxen saith the Apostle Non est vox dubitantis saith Pareus It is not the language of one that doubteth The Apostle knew well enough that our Saviour had said That God cloatheth the Lillies the grass of the field and that a sparrow though two of them are sold for a farthing falleth not to the ground without the will of our heavenly father The words therefore only signifie an inequal care viz. That God taketh a greater and more special care for some of his Creatures than he doth for others and so it layeth a foundation for this Proposition Prop. That God exerciseth a special Providence for and concerning some of his creatures He taketh a general care concerning them all but a more special care concerning some of them That is the Proposition which I shall handle in this method 1. I shall shew you that there is such a special Providence i.e. though the Lord taketh a general care of all his Creatures according to their natures yet he taketh a more particular and special care concerning some more than others 2. I will enquire Which of his Creatures they are as to which he exerciseth a special Providence and concerning which he taketh such a more especial care 3. We will enquire by what acts God exerteth putteth forth and declareth this his especial care 4. Lastly I will make some Application of the whole 1. That God doth exercise a more particular care in the Preservation and Government of some of his Creatures than he doth of others will appear 1. By express Scriptures which assert it 2. By promises made to some in which others are not concerned 3. By experience and matter of fact 1. By express Scriptures thus Deut. 11.12 Canaan is called a Land which the Lord careth for so Matth. 6.30 If God so cloath the grass of the field which to day is and to morrow is cast into the Oven Shall he not much more cloath you O you of little faith Matt. 10.31 Fear you not therefore you are of more value than many sparrows ver 29. Christ had let them know that the Providence of God extended to the sparrows two of them were sold for a farthing but not one of them fell to the ground without God but saith he you are better than many sparrows God will more regard you and take more care of you 1 Tim. 4.10 He is the Saviour of all men but especially of them who believe Psal 33. v. 13 He beholdeth all the sons of men but Verse 18 The eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him upon them that hope in his mercy to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive from famine so this Text Doth God saith the Apostle take care for Oxen or doth he say it altogether for our sakes for our sakes no doubt It is true there are degrees and differences as to this special Providence as I shall shew you hereafter I am only as yet evincing the thing in general 2. All the promises of God made to some men not to others are a proof of this for what is a promise but the Revelation of Gods Will to bestow some good things in the way of his Providence so as if there be any special promises there must be a special Providence Now there is none so meanly versed in the holy Scripture that he is not aware of a multitude of promises in them made to the people of God promises that concern this life and that also which is to come the 91 Psalm is made up of such promises 3. Lastly The experience of all times proves it that some have been preserved upheld directed and governed by a Providence in a more special manner than others have been So that none can modestly deny or doubt a special Providence The next Question is Quest 2. Who are the objects of it It is generally answered by Divines that reasonable creatures are the objects only of special Providence These are only Angels and Men for the Specialty of Divine Providence so far as they relate to Angels as we know little of it so neither doth the knowledg of it much concern us of that therefore I shall say nothing being not desirous to intrude into those things which man hath
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
confess to be the supream and most free agent the liberty which we will yet claim and challenge for our selves Nor is this more unreasonable pride and arrogance than it is folly and Vanity It is searching for a bottom in an Abyss searching for a cause Antecedent to the first cause God they say from all Eternity foresaw that such and such would believe would obey would incline their hearts to his Testimonies it must be then certain that that they would do so God could have no certain knowledg of that of which there was no certainty Now I would fain understand whence this certainty should be otherwise than from the will of God determining their wills to these certain good inclinations more than the wills of others all others have Souls reasonable Souls as well as they whence is it that their Souls incline to that which is good and the wills of others to that which is evil Surely to will and to do are both from God Thus vain Man would be wise when as he indeed is but like a wild Asses Colt Proud men torture themselves in vain to find out a principle of good and of life in themselves And how unreasonable a thing is it to charge God with unrighteousness upon this hypothesis Shall a man be master of his own favours who is yet a debtor to the Law of God and under an obligation to do good to all because God hath so commanded him and shall not God who cannot in any wise become a debtor to his Creature farther than he is so made by his own Covenant and promise Shall it be a reasonable thing for a Man to say I will be kind to such a one because I will and doth he think he is not further to be accountable to his fellow Creature And shall not the Soveraign Lord of Heaven and Earth say I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy and because I will have mercy but Man shall for it call him before the Tribunal of his own Reason Vse 2. In the second place what reason have we who are made partakers of this mercy of God which bringeth salvation to adore admire and be thankful to him for it Now this concerneth either all of us in general or else some particular Souls 1. Let us first consider this so far as it respecteth all of us whosoever liveth within the pale of the Church under the preaching of the Gospel may see reason 1. To adore and admire the goodness of God towards them 2. To tremble and fear lest we be found unprofitable under the means of grace The Apostle propoundeth the question concerning the Jews Rom. 3.1 2. What advantage then hath the Jew above the Gentiles Or what profit is there of Circumcision He answereth Much every way because unto them are commited the Oracles of God Whether the Gospel in the preaching of it be a sufficient means of Salvation having such a constant operation of the Spirit attending it that if men will they may believe and be saved and the ministration of the Spirit be little differing from the ministration of the Gospel and inseparable or at least never separated from it though affirmed by some may be justly doubted But that it is a great and high means of Salvation and there is no man living under the faithful and powerful preaching of it but if he misseth of Life and eternal happiness it will be his own fault and the proximate cause of damnation will be in himself I do not doubt Now God hath not dealt thus with every Nation O consider how many Nations and People there are in the World who never heard of Christ amongst whom the joyful sound of the Gospel did never come People that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death whom the day-star from on high did never yet rise upon Doth any say But what good doth the Gospel or how is the preaching of the Gospel such a mercy if God doth not give unto them that are under the sound of it effectual Grace so as their hearts are changed upon the preaching of it and they converted and eternally saved I answer The Apostle thought it a mercy and no small mercy that the Jews had the Oraeles of God committed to them to them and not to other People yet for all this it is most certain That there were many amongst the Jews who kept not the Laws Statutes and Ordinances of God the Jews might have said the same thing yet Moses crieth out Deut. 4.8 What Nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord your God is to you in all things That hath Statutes and Judgments so righteous Again as I have oft told you though I dare not say with some That all men sitting under the sound of the Gospel have a sufficiency of grace given them that if they will they may turn unto God and live yet I do think that there is such a sufficiency of Light and means that if men will do what in them lies God will not be wanting to them in his effectual Grace Men shall never have this to say Lord I did what was in my power to do I would have repented believed but thou deniedst me that Grace which was necessary to it Now herein appeareth the greatness of the Grace of the Gospel The Heathen walk in darkness and in the shadow of Death they have not a sufficient Light to guide their feet into the way of Peace But where the Gospel is Preached there a great Light shineth a Light sufficient to direct men into the way of Life But 2. This looketh dreadfully upon all those who wilfully shut their eyes against Gospel-light and stop their Ears against this joyful sound This saith our Saviour is the condemnation that when Light is come into the World men love Darkness more than Light because their deeds are evil Matth. 11. Our Saviour upbraideth the Cities where his mighty works had been done and his Gospel preached Capernaum and Bethsaida he saith they had been lifted up to Heaven but they should be thrown down into Hell that it should be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah yea for Tyre and Sydon in the day of judgment than for them when the Gospel hath been long in a place faithfully preached it is much to be feared that God hath had mercy in that place upon as many Souls of that Age as he will have mercy But this is but a Digression we have reason to adore God for his free mercy to us in giving us the Gospel the faithful and powerful preaching under the Gospel many may and do perish but where the Gospel comes not there is no hope Now whence is it that the rain of the Gospel falleth upon one City not upon another Upon one Country not upon another That some Nations have not so much as the sound of it the feet of them which bring the glad tidings of Peace come not amongst them
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
some means The very Heathens have something of God manifested to them and manifested in them For the invisible things of God saith the Apostle are manifested by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead they have natural light and a natural reason and something of a natural conscience too The works of Creation they have and the works of Providence shewing them a great deal of the eternal power and God-head of God sufficient to convince them that there is a God a Great Infinite Powerful God for he leaveth not men without witness giving the very Heathens fruitful times and seasons But I am not speaking unto Heathens you that are Christians have yet further means though in different degrees too All have the Scriptures Protestants have them in their own Language so as they may read and in a great measure understand what they read all have the Ministry of the Word they have the Gospel preached to them though it is true that also is in very different degrees yet all have something of what they call a moral Season and are perswaded and intreated to turn unto God This we say is not a sufficient means to bring a Soul unto Heaven if God doth not more for Souls than let them have the benefit of the works of Creation shewing them his glory and the benefit of the light of Nature and Reason and the works of his common Providence yea and of the Scriptures and the preaching of them and that not only in a cold flat and dead and dull manner but in the most lively powerful manner they will never repent never believe and turn unto God Paul may plant and Apollo may water long enough if God doth not give the increase It is not in him that Preacheth and perswadeth nor in him that Prayeth and heareth but in God that sheweth mercy he must give both to will and to do he must give repentance unto life and be both the Author and the finisher of our Faith But yet I say all these are means some of them very great and excellent means and the highest in the order of external means And though they be not sufficient though used with the best natural improvements of our own will and power to bring us to Heaven yet sufficient to render us without excuse unto God if we do not make a due and just improvement of them Let me therefore plead with you that you would live up to the means of grace which God giveth you That sort of people amongst us whom we call Quakers call to men to Hearken to the light within them I do not well understand what they mean by the light within us but thus much is certain that all men have a light within them and they have a light without them The light without them is the light of the works of God in Nature and of his works of Providence The Scriptures and the Ministry of the Word all men have some or other or all of these All men have also a light within them the light of Nature and of Reason This light as I have shewed you is not sufficient to shew a man the way to Heaven but it is enough to shew a man much of God and much of his duty and the way to obtain a full and sufficient light to bring him to glory is for him to walk up to the light which he hath This will be the condemnation that when light is come into the world men love darkness more than light because their hearts because their deeds are evil But to shut up this Discourse 3. Vse In the last place What an obligation doth this lay upon the children of God to cry out with holy David Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name Bless the Lord O my soul and sing of all his benefits who forgiveth all thine iniquity and healeth all thy diseases Who redeemeth thy life from destruction and crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercy To heighten your souls apprehensions of the Divine goodness extended to you and raise up your hearts in the high praises of God I shall but offer Two things to your Meditation with which I shall shut up this Discourse 1. Consider What is done unto you God hath undoubtedly given unto you a sufficient grace The sufficiency lost in Adam is restored to you by the Lords giving Christ to you I can do all things saith the Apostle through Christ that strengtheneth me So that God may say to you as to his Vineyard Isa 5. What could I have done more for my Vineyard than I have done What could I have done more for such a soul than I have done God hath display'd the riches of his grace upon your souls God could do no more for you than he hath done God hath nothing more to give than grace and glory he hath given you grace special distinguishing grace Glory is hereafter to be revealed in the mean time special effectual grace is glory begun 2. Consider Secondly Why to you to you rather than unto others others may easily understand Why not to them because they despised the riches of his Grace they sinned against their natural light they lived not up to their light of Revelation But Why to you Did not you also sin against your light Did you make that improvement of the works of God the light of your natural Reason or Conscience that you ought to have done If not Why hath God done more for you than for them discovered more of Christ unto you than unto them Here you will be lost and at last be forced to resolve it into this God hath shewed me mercy because he would shew me mercy and hath extended compassion to me only because he would extend compassion Oh sit down alone sometimes and say My soul Why should the God of grace shew mercy unto thee Hast thou not sinned often against the very light of Nature and Reason Hast thou not despised the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and trampled under foot the blood of the Son of God What high praises of God are high enough for every true believers heart How precious should Christ be unto his soul How can he ever have thoughts of God high enough or with his tongue sing the praises of God loud enough How doth he stand concerned to cry out with David Awake my glory Oh! What manner of person should a believer be in all boliness of conversation He can certainly never do enough for that God who hath done so much for him and hath made such a difference betwixt him and others This is praising of God not in word and in tongue only but indeed and in truth Oh this is to perfect holiness It is for that God who hath from eternity chosen you to obtain everlasting life and hath left others to perish in their iniquity for that God who in the dispensations of his gracious Providence in the
a man is using his tongue to lye to his neighbour to curse him to swear profanely and to blaspheme God methinks he should thus think with himself How easily can God stop my breath withdraw that hand from my tongue which upholds my faculty to speak Methinks he should remember the instance of Ananias and Saphira and Zechariah the father of John the Baptist but for a few words of unbelief When a man is stretching out his hand to work any iniquity methinks he should remember how easily God could do by him as by Jeroboam When he stretched out his hand to lay hold of the Prophet and his hand presently withered If any of you lent your hand to one that were blind or lame and he should spit in your face revile you c. would not you think it a strange daring of you Oh! what a daring of an holy just and powerful God it is for a man wilfully and presumptuously to use a member of his body or a power or faculty of his Soul knowingly and presumptuously to sin against God Thus this Doctrine may serve to defame sin to every ingenuous soul as it necessarily must be an impudent daring of a just and holy God 2. But it defameth it further As it speaketh it an act of the highest ingratitude imaginable Ingratitude soundeth ill very ill in the ears of humane nature so ill that an Heathen could say of it Call a man an ingrateful man and you call him all that is naught it is a very great vice Every sinner must say If God had not been so good to me I had not been so evil against him The Drunkard must say If God had not assisted me to my natural action in drinking I could not have dishonoured him by that excess The like must every sinner say the lyar the swearer the adulterer God hath nothing to do with the obliquity of their action but to the action so far forth as natural his Providence assisteth upholding the natural faculties to their natural Operations And do you thus requite the Lord O foolish people Is this your thankfulness to God for Gods assistance of you in the use of your faculties for the necessary uses of your life I gave thee cloth saith God to cover thy nakedness thou makest it to serve thy pride my creatures to silence thy natural passions of hunger and thirst and thou usest it to serve thy Luxury I gave thee a tongue to interpret thy mind to thy neighbour and to praise me and I assist thee in the natural use of it thou usest it to swear curse to blaspheme my great and sacred name I gave thee an hand and assist thee in the use of it that thou mayest get bread and do the works of thy calling in order thereunto thou usest it to smite with the fist of wickedness to persecute and oppress my people Thus the sinner turneth the gifts of God into weapons with which he fighteth against him I remember a quite contrary resolution in holy David Psal 116 I will saith he take the cup of salvation and praise the Lord. I know that Poculum salutis is capable of other interpretations which are also given according to the various fancies of Interpreters But why may not we interpret it thus I will take that very mercy which thou hast shewed me and use it and improve it for thy honour and glory Certainly thus we ought to do as Hannah 1 Sam. 1. did by her child Samuel which she had begged and received of God She takes her child and at the return of the year carrieth him up to Hierusalem and saith For this child I prayed and the Lord heard me hath given me my Petition which I asked of him Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord as long as he liveth he shall be lent unto the Lord. But of this more under the next head to which I now come to shew you how far what you have heard may be useful 2. To promove piety and that both in the internal and external acts of it in the more immediate acts of homage which we are to pay to God and in all the duties of an holy and pious conversation before men in obedience to the will of God It is not hard to understand upon this hypothesis that God doth thus concur in the assistance of all our natural faculties in order to the preserving of us how reasonable it is that we should be in the fear of the Lord all the day long That we should live in an exercise of faith trust and dependency upon him That we should love the Lord at all times And for acts of more external immediate homage prayer and praise c. How reasonable a thing is prayer morning and evening doest thou not remember it is God that must concur to give thee sleep in the night a power to breath to move to work to eat to drink c. and give me leave to tell you if you do not think the sleep of the night or a strength to labour in the day an appetite to thy meat a power to digest it a liberty and power to breath mercies worth the asking it is because thou hast not wanted them much will you not every day have need of the use of your senses your hands your tongue your feet your ears c do not you think them mercies worth the asking Go to the lame and the blind and the deaf and those that lye on sick-beds and enquire of them they will better instruct you in the value of these things Do not you know what to pray for so often this Doctrine will shew you in part pray that God would preserve your life and being uphold your powers and faculties c. And Praise is as reasonable as Prayer you are every day fearfully and wonderfully preserved By whose power is it as Peter and James said to the people when they had cured the lame man Not by our power but by the power of Jesus of Nazareth doth this man walk So give me leave to tell you it is not by your own power nor by the meer vertue of your own faculties with which you are born that you sleep walk discourse work but by the mighty power of God concurring and assisting those faculties Particularly you may hence conclude the reasonableness of that Religious custom which some have bruitishly cast off begging a blessing upon your meat at meals and giving thanks after receit of it Lastly Certainly this Meditation well digested cannot but highly promove all manner of practical holiness For what is holiness but the obedience of the members of our bodies and powers and faculties of our Souls to the Will of God the exercise of them all according to the Divine Rule and the end for which he gave them to us and what can be more perswasive to this than for us to hear that as God hath given these powers so God upholdeth them in exercise in him we live
men are subdued under them by him that they have wisdom to make Laws and liberty to execute them that men in their dominions are disposed into their several orders ranks and stations so as mutually to serve one another and to uphold the whole Oh that Subjects would praise the Lord for his goodness that they have wise Magistrates good Laws that their lives are not Sacrificed to murtherers that their houses are not fired that their Wives and Virgins are not ravished that they are disposed to Trades and Occupations that they have wisdom for them a spirit to them Let every Citizen every Subject see and acknowledg the hand of the Lord in these things and bless his holy name But lastly Let the Redeemed of the Lord particularly Vse 3 see and acknowledg the Providence of God in the preserving of them in their spiritual capacities Were it not for the preserving Providence of God our spiritual life would be extinguished every moment God preserveth it by repeating his Gracious Acts in the remission of our sins in the imputation of Christs righteousness Our habits of grace would weaken we aâ—â— preserved and kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation It is a great mercy and deserves a great acknowledgment that we have our lives preserved our estates preserved our wives and daughters preserved But oh how much greater is it that we have our state of Justification maintained Our principles of Spiritual Operations our habits of Grace our power to repent believe love God preserved that the influences of Grace are continued that we have the Word and Ordinances preserved Let the redeemed of the Lord say his mercy endureth for ever let them adore preserving-Providence let them consider what a subtil adversary they have Who goeth about like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour What abundance of lusts and corruptions they have in their own hearts what a law in their members warring against the law of their minds and they will say that the seed of God which is in them is wonderfully preserved But thus much may serve to have spoken of the first great act of Providence which I called Preservation My next work is to speak concerning Government SERMON VIII Psal CIII 19. The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens and his Kingdom ruleth over all I AM as you know discoursing concerning the Principal Acts of Actual Providence which I told you were two 1. Preservation 2. Government All things were at first created by a Divine word of Power all things are preserved by a Divine Power He upholdeth all things by the word of his Power saith the Apostle This I have done with but Gods actual Providence doth not extend only to the upholding and the preserving of all his creatures but he governeth them also Preservation respecteth their several beings and capacities Government respecteth their motions and actions For a Discourse upon this I have made choice of this Text and chusing it with that design only I do not take my self so much concerned to enquire into its relation to what went before or followeth I shall only consider it in it self and so it giveth you an account 1. Of the Royal Seat of the Divine residence or place where God more gloriously manifests that Presence which yet filleth Heaven and Earth He hath saith the Psalmist his throne prepared in the heavens 2. The vastness of his Imperial royal influence and dominion His Kingdom saith the Text ruleth over all I shall not meddle with the first part it is the second only which I have to do with The Proposition shortly is this Prop. That he whose Throne is in Heaven governeth the whole Creation The Scripture speaketh plentifully to this point of Gods Universal dominion 1 Chron. 16.31 Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoyce and let men say amongst the Heathen The Lord reigneth Psalm 96.10 Say amongst the heathen the Lord reigneth Psalm 93.1 The Lord reigneth he is clothed with Majesty c. Psalm 97.1 The Lord reigneth let the earth rejoyce Psalm 99.1 The Lord reigneth let the people tremble An Heathen Prince acknowledgeth it Dan. 4.3 34. But not to multiply Texts Reason will evince it every Superiour being hath a kind of natural right to rule over those that are inferiour to it and God being the Supreme Being and the Creator of all other beings too hath a natural right to extend a Kingdom and Dominion over all and that not only as he is Superior to them and greater than they are but also as he is the efficient cause of all the Creator of all things But to speak more particularly we will enquire 1. What Government is 2. What are the Objects of this vniversal Government and Dominion which the Proposition ascribeth unto God 3. What are those special acts by which God exerciseth this Dominion and Government Government implieth three things 1. The fixing of some ends 2. A power invested in some one or more persons upon others ordering and directing them in order to that end 3. The exercise of this Power The end of Government amongst men is usually the peace quiet and settlement of a place Gods End is his own glory He hath made all things for himself and he doth all things for himself for the fulfilling of his own Counsels and Will in order to the glorifying of his holy Name The Apostle saith Of him and for him are all things 2. Secondly Government implieth a power invested in one or more persons in order to an end Now that God hath such a power none can deny and acknowledg him to be God Once have I spoken yea twice have I heard it saith the Psalmist that power belongeth unto God He who confesseth God to be almighty and able to do whatsoever he pleaseth must own him to have a power sufficient for an Universal Government If we take Power for Authority i. e. a Right to exercise a power over such and such objects that also God hath by the very law of Nature Hath not the potter a power over the clay and is not the creature the clay and God the potter 3. But thirdly Government implieth yet something more viz. an actual exercise of this power and indeed this is the main Actual Government is the exercise of a power wherewith a person or persons are invested over some persons or things in order to some wise ends But let me come to the second Question viz. Quest What are the particular Objects of this Divine providential Government The Text saith His Kingdom ruleth over all I think that term all is to be expounded by three general heads 1. The beings and existences of his creatures 2. The motions and actions of his creatures 3. The omissions and obliquities of his creatures all these as I shall shew you fall under the government of Providence 1. The Beings and existences of his creatures the production and cessation of them the giving of them Being belongs to Creation
up the Church are more peculiar and special objects of Providence than all others in the World 3. Amongst them such as fear and love God in sincerity are yet the more peculiar objects of Divine Providence and which God hath a most peculiar regard unto which maketh a cogent argument to prove That supposing the glory of God to be the great end of all his providential Dispensations that the Providence of God must most eminently work for the good of these as being such who most eminently serve the great end of his Glory So as he who observeth the motions of it must needs by them understand the loving-kindness of the Lord towards them Secondly The mercy and truth of Gods ways towards them that fear him are not to be read in the surface of present Providences The dark side of the cloud is sometimes towards the Israel of God and at such a time it must be by Faith that we understand that the ways all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth toward his own people Who could read the loving-kindness of the Lord towards Israel while they were in Egypt serving at the Brick-kilns and under their great oppression there but he who observed the Providence of God thus working to make them willing to go out and take possession of the promised Land he might understand this It is not every motion of Providence but the issues of it that demonstrate all the ways of the Lord to be mercy and truth and this evinceth to us that an observation of the motions of Divine Providence yea and a wist and diligent and continuing observation of them also is necessary to make us understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I come now to the Application of what you have heard upon this Argument This in the first place sheweth us one great reason of that ignorance which is in men both concerning God and concernng their own duty Men know little of God and little how to govern their actions according to any degree of Christian prudence As ignorance of and unbelief in the Word of God is one great cause so their not observing the motions of Divine Providence which have been in the World is another no small cause of it Men are much ignorant of God indeed there is but little of the knowledg of God in the World especially that knowledg which floateth not only in the brain but influenceth the heart and affections and men know little how to govern their actions by any spiritual wisdom but live directly contrary to what they own and pretend to as their highest end And we understand as little of the loving-kindness of the Lord I say one great cause of this is mens not observing the workings and motions of Providence They pass before their eyes every day but they observe them not Non tantum oculis intueri sed animum ad hanc considerationem ita exuscitare ut meliores inde evadamus To observe signifieth not only with our eyes to behold it but so to stir up our minds to the consideration of a thing that we may grow the better by it saith a grave Author Now in this Notion of it how few are they that observe these things they see stupendious Providences sometimes in the destruction of the Churches Enemies for the salvation of his people it may be at first they as all new things do affect men with a little passion according to the nature of them but they are like a flash of lightning which though at present it startles us yet the impression is presently off our spirits and I say this is one great reason why we are so ignorant of God so unskilful in the government of our lives to his ends and that we understand so little of his loving-kindness Hence it is that we cannot understand how much good God doth his Church and people by afflictions and trials They are the sensible frowns of Providence which blind our eyes that we cannot see the loving-kindness of God in all his ways We think sometimes we see God driving his Chariot in a direct road to his great ends the glory of his holy Name and the good and protection of such as fear him here we think we can easily discern Gods Wisdom and as easily understand his loving-kindness But now when the Lord drives his Chariot out of our sight and exerciseth his Church or the particular souls of his people with long and tedious Afflictions here we are at a loss and can neither read the wisdom nor loving-kindness of God But what is the reason of this but only our superficial view of Gods Providences without a wist and diligent observation of them If we would but bend our minds to observe what a wholsom influence Afflictions and adverse Providences have ordinarily both upon vvhole Churches and upon particular Christians we should even in them easily understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. The Husbandman can easily understand that he could as ill want the frosts and snows of Winter as the warmth heat and sun-shine of the Summer Gideon taught the men of Succoth with briars and thorns and God ordinarily doth so teach his people Blessed is he saith the Psalmist whom thou chastenest and teachest out of thy Law David tells us Psalm 119.61 that before he was afflicted he went astray but since that he had learned to keep the statutes of the Lord. It was an old saying The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church The Church is bettered and the Soul is bettered by adverse Providences That Text Isa 27.9 is very remarkable By this that is by this severe affliction by this captivity shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged and all the fruit shall be to take away sin when the Lord shall make the stones of the altar as chalk stones that crumble in pieces the groves and the images shall not stand up As an hard Winter keepeth under and killeth the weeds so the winter of Affliction much helps to the purging out of corruptions both out of the Church and also out of the particular Soul Augustine as I remember somewhere lamenteth That a Fever had done more with him to subdue and mortifie a lust than before the love of God could do with him Now I say our not observing this which is matter of no difficult observation to him that wistly eyeth Divine Providence is one great reason that men do not understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. Another reason of mens not understanding it is their making of a judgment of Gods works before they are perfect If any of us should go into a Limners shop and see his first draught of a lovely picture we should discern little loveliness in it which yet we should easily discern if we would but stay until he had finished his work and laid on his life-colours It is the same case with us as to works of Divine Providence we look on them while the Lords work is yet upon the
wheel we see nothing in it that resembleth God the great workman we see in it nothing of the Divine Wisdom possibly nothing of the divine goodness and loving-kindness but could we have patience till the Lords work came off the wheel we should easily see it in quite another representation we often see in Gods works of Providence nothing but confusion and blood and trouble and multiplied troubles and disturbances to those who most fear him and desire to walk most closely with him But in the evening of that day saith the Prophet Zech. 14.6 it shall be light The day neither light nor dark but in the Evening it shall be light Gods peoples days sometimes are plainly darkness thick darkness but would we have patience to the evening of them we should see light The Evening is the close and making up of the day When God cometh to close up his days work did we but observe Divine Providence we should easily understand that it would be light Sorrow may be for a night but joy shall be in the morning So as I say again This is one great reason why at all times we cannot understand the loving-kindness of the Lord to his Church and his people because we do not observe the motions of Divine Providence but take only a slight and superficial view of them I shall conclude this Discourse with an Exhortation to the duty of the Text The observation of the motions of Divine Providence Vse 2 In my last discourse I discovered to you some unsearchable things in Divine Providence and cautioned you against too curious an Enquiry into them My business now is to call upon you non caecutire in revelatis not to be blind as to those things which God hath revealed This also is your duty as well as the other by the former you acquit your selves from an unwarrantable curiosity by this from a wretched unthankfulness The Providence of God is daily working in order to the fulfilling of Gods great end the glorifying of his great and holy Name the establishing of his people c. 1. Do not rest in a meer view of what is done in the World but fix your eyes upon it Lay up the things in your heart let your thoughts dwell upon them the remarkable passages of them especially You see and hear of Wars and rumours of Wars inundations fires changes and over-turning in Nations of powers and Dominions you at present understand not the tendencies and indications of them you cannot make up a judgment of them and prophecy what will and shall be from them but yet observe them lay up these things in your minds yea and let them not pass out of your minds as we are to hear for the time to come so we are to behold and observe the motions of Providence with a respect unto a time to come too Do not think you can expound every Providence presently the vision oft-times is for an appointed time and is to be expounded by time in the mean time only to be diligently marked and observed taken notice of as a great work of God the meaning of which we shall understand hereafter Divines say That the meaning of many Providences and our clear understanding of them is one of those things wherein our knowledg shall be bettered and perfected in the day of Judgment and till that time when the hidden things of God as well as of men shall be made manifest we must be content to know but in part 2. Do not secondly observe meer single acts of Divine Providence but let your Eye follow it in its motions God sometimes hath his works a long time upon the wheel especially those relating to his Church I will give you two famous instances 1. The establishing of his ancient Church of the Jews in Canaan The promise was out for it Gen. 12 to Abraham it was more than five hundred years before this work was off the wheel of Providence four hundred years before they went out of Egypt where they were in bondage forty years they travelled in the wilderness then during all the time of the Judges yea and in Sauls time too they were but in a very unquiet condition In David and Solomon's time they came to a setled estate in the promised Land There was a Promise given out unto Christ for having the ends of the earth for his possession David mentioneth it Isaiah prophesieth much of it After this Christ comes was crucified c. And it was three hundred years after this before these Promises had any considerable accomplishment Indeed as to particular persons their beings are of shorter duration and the Providence of God brings about the promises to them in much shorter periods or they could see nothing of Gods loving-kindnesses in the issues or contextures of them but take heed there of resting your Eye upon the observations of some single acts of providence relating to them those who should thus have observed the motions of Providence with reference to Abraham Jacob Joseph David Daniel Job would have seen little of that loving-kindness of the Lord to them which yet is evident enough to all that keep their Eye upon their story to the winding up of their bottoms Now to this observation of Providence you have two great Arguments in the Text 1. It is an Indication of spiritual Wisdom A wise man looketh not only at present things but at things past and yet to come Now Wisdom is a lovely thing It is justified of her children saith our Saviour Every man desireth the reputation of a wise man and studiously avoideth the reproach of a fool Two things speak a fool 1. To observe and mind nothing Or 2dly Meerly to take notice of things present and gather conclusions from them 2. Thus you shall understand the loving-kindness of God Then you will see that all the paths of God towards his Church are mercy and truth Truth not a word failing of the promise and mercy working for the good of them that love God yea thus you that fear the Lord shall understand the loving-kindness and truth of God to your particular souls A thing the evidence of which is and ought to be of more value to you than the whole World I will conclude my Discourse by giving you three Cautions to direct your observation 1. Observe the Providence of God when it seemeth to move contrary to his Word but never determine the Indication of it without the Word Indeed the Providence of God never moveth contrary to the Word it is always a servant to some Declaration of the will of God in some promise or threatning but it often seemeth to us to move contrary which made the Psalmist cry out Doth the promise fail for evermore The reason of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that deceiveth us is our imperfect knowledg or understanding of the Word of God and non-acquaintance with the Counsels of God and contrivances of his Wisdom and the variety of those
designs which he carrieth on at the same time God designs to bring the Jews into Canaan but a-long with this to carry on the destruction of the Egyptians the Amorites whose sins in Abrahams time were not come to the full the destruction of the rebellious and disobedient amongst the Israelites Now in order to this the Egyptians must ripen themselves for their ruin by their oppression of Israel The Amalekites and Amorites and the other Nations by their falling upon them at their coming out of Egypt and in their journey Now upon these accounts the Providence of God often seemed to move quite contrary to the word of Promise The people of Israel at the Red-sea and in the Wilderness looked very unlike a people that should have a quiet possession of Canaan Therefore I say Providence is to be observed in its Motions which seem contrary to the Word but the Indications of it are only to be determined from the Word God hath appointed wicked men to slaughter notwithstanding this we see most vile and wicked men thriving prospering growing great in the World and trampling the righteous servants of God under their foot Observe this but take heed of determining the Indication of this but from the Word which saith There is no peace to them keep therefore thine Eye upon their Tabernacles and thou shalt see the Lords Sun go off it and the Threatning verified 2. Compare present Providences with those that are past As those who will understand the letter of Scripture must compare Text with Text so those who will be wise by understanding the motions of Providence must compare Providences of a present age with Providences of former ages Thou art offended possibly at the Providences of God towards wicked men they thrive and prosper they grow mighty and encrease and do what they list Or at the Providences of God towards those who if thou canst judg are such as walk closest with God and are most severe worshippers and servants of him they are hated maligned exposed to all manner of injuries which may make their lives bitter to them Thou cryest out here O the depth I cannot understand the ways of God I cannot see his loving-kindness towards his people Compare now Christian Gods dealing in thy age with his dealings both with wicked men and with his sincere servants in former ages and see if they be not much alike with what they were In Jobs time and Davids time and Jeremiah's time Yet it is not hard for thee to understand how the servants of God in those times found the loving-kindness of God and experienced that all the ways of the Lord were mercy and truth believe that the Hand of the Lord is not weakned nor his Arm shortened nor his Truth failed 3. Lastly If you would by observing the Providence of God understand his loving-kindness and gain a spiritual wisdom Let your eye affect your heart I hinted to you before that Mollerus telleth us such an observation of Providence is here intended unde ad pietatem exuscitemur ut inde meliores evadamus as will quicken us unto piety and help to make us better There are many careless observers of Providence that indeed see Events rather than Providences they see much that comes to pass in the World but consider nothing of God in them they see great fires laying populous Cities wast and possibly see a villain putting the first coal to them or a careless person accidentally occasioning them but they do not see God throwing such a wretch off his hand of restraint nor blowing the coals that turn the Cities into ashes by his winds which men could not cause Others are curious observers of Providences these are wonderfully busily employed in searching out the natural causes of such thunders lightnings inundations devouring pestilences c. They do by the book of Providence as Augustine complain'd of himself that in his unregenerate state he did by the book of Scripture he rather brought to it discutiendi acumen than discendi pietatem So men bring to the great Works of God rather an acute Eye and wit to find out the immediate causes and reasons natural or political than a trembling humble heart that they might learn by them more to acknowledg love fear adore and revere the great and mighty God whose works these are let not yours be such an observation but let your Eye beholding God in his providential Dispensations affect your hearts with that adoration and veneration that love and fear of the great and mighty God which such works of God do call to you for But for the further hopes and consolation of the people of God in their states of affliction I intend to commend to you some principal Observations upon the motions of Divine Providence which shall be the work if God pleaseth of some succeeding Exercises SERMON XV. Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am discoursing concerning Divine Actual Providence as the Object of good mens observation I shewed you in my last Discourse That the observation of the motions of it is both an Indication of spiritual Wisdom and an excellent step towards it and that by it duly made men and women shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. Now to advantage you a little in this Observation I shall give you an account of some observable things in the motions of Providence which possibly you may parallel in the present or future dealings of God both with his Church and with particular Souls I shall lay down my first Observation thus 1. Observ The Actual Providence of God in bringing about that word to which it is a certain servant doth rarely move in a direct line but sometimes obliquely sometimes to our appearance quite contrary but at last it fulfilleth the word and is all the while faithfully executing the Eternal Counsel There are three things in this Observation each of which I will open in a few words and then endeavour to justifie the observation by particular instances after which I shall give you some reasonable account of it and then make some short Application First I say The Providence of God is a certain servant to the word the word either of Promise or of Threatning for Providence serveth to the execution of them both As we have heard so have we seen in the City of our God saith the Psalmist Psal 48.8 the Promise is but providentia occultata and Providence is but promissio explicata the Promise fully explained and opened and this is no more than you shall find recognized by the holy Servants of God both in all their thanksgivings for mercies they had received and in all their humiliations upon any judgments which the Lord had brought on them as also in all the Narrative parts of Scripture declaring any great motions of Providence how often do you meet with it in the Gospel such or such a thing was
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
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
abideth for ever If two be walking together they had never more need to take heed that they lose not one anothers company than in a dark and blustring night when the darkness keeps them that they cannot see one another and the wind hindereth that they cannot hear the sound each of others feet The Believer and the Promise are Relates companions each to other there is never more danger of their being parted each from other than in a night of dark and blustring Providence Now a Christian stands concerned to be often applying his Soul to the Promise often calling upon his Soul as David in Psalm 42 Trust thou in God for I shall yet praise him Nor is there any thing more conducive to make a Christian at such a time hang upon the Promise than to hear that it is the usual method of Divine Providence then to remember Gods people when they are in the lowest condition Fourthly As this calleth to the people of God for faith in the Promise so it calls to them for hope Faith and Hope are so near of kin that they are oft put one for another Indeed Hope is nothing else but Faith looking out at the windows of the soul in expectation of the coming of the thing believed There is an hope that worketh upon the encouragements of sense when the mercy hoped for is seen coming in a way of probable means but there is an Hope that proceedeth meerly upon the Evidence of Faith when the Soul hopeth for some good thing but seeth no encouragement from any sensible thing the former is but a natural affection working upon an absent probable good This latter is a supernatural habit and an exercise of grace The Apostle calls it an hoping against hope or a believing in hope against hope This is that which I am calling to you for This is that which keepeth the heart alive in the deadest time We use to say If it were not for hope under evils the heart would break Faith is the acquiescence of the Soul in the World Hope is the motion of the Soul consequent to this acquiescence Faith saith the thing is sure Hope seeth it coming and relieveth the Soul with that Hope is the Souls watchman The Soul cryes out Watchman what of the night Watchman what of the night Hope saith The morning is coming Now this Observation advantageth Hope It assures you that God is coming at Midnight When you see these things come to pass saith our Saviour Luke 21.28 lift up your heads for the day of your redemption draweth nigh It hath reference to all that went before where our Saviour had been telling them of the great Evils that were to precede his coming Now saith our Saviour when you see things at this miserable despicable pass then lift up your heads Fifthly This Notion calleth to the people of God for fervent and constant prayer for the Church and people of God when they are at the lowest ebb Never give over the case of the Church and people of God for desperate it is never less so than when it most appeareth to you to be so I remember it is particularly remarked concerning Daniel in the 9th Chapter of his Prophesie That when he understood by books that the time was come for the fulfilling of the Jewish captivity then he made that excellent Prayer which you have upon record in that Chapter with a great deal of fervor and zeal for the people of which you will find it full Daniels certain knowledg that that was the time for their deliverance did not supersede his duty of Prayer but more abundantly quicken him to it In such a state of the Church and people of God as I have been describing to you a Christian hath two great arguments to perswade him to a more constant diligent and fervent application of himself to the throne of Grace 1. The Churches misery and low condition calling to him for pity and what help he can give it 2. The knowledg he hath or may have that it is now about the time when God useth to arise and help Lastly This Observation calleth upon all that fear the Lord especially at such a time when they or the Church of God is lowest to watch unto holiness to wait upon the Lord and keep his way and to be wary of sin To deter all that fear God from sinning especially at such a time I might mind you of that precept of God to the Jews When the Host goeth forth to battel then take heed of every wicked thing But I shall conclude with that known story of the Israelites You know they had an old Promise made four hundred years before that they should inherit the land of Canaan they had served in Egypt many years they were now come over the Red-sea and had encountred and overcome the long and many difficulties of the Wilderness they were brought within a prospect of the promised Land nothing wanted but a taking possession they murmur against God retard their entrance forty years until all that generation was destroyed except Caleb and Joshuah I shall conclude Hath the Church been a long time under great pressures things still as to its interest growing worse and worse that they seem to be brought to as low a pass as they can be Now begins her hope to dawn according to that Method of Providence which I have observed to you Only now let the people of God look to themselves that by some defection they do not set back their own mercies You may take the Exhortation in the words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 10.6 Now these things happened unto them for our ensamples to the end that we should not lust after evil things as they lusted neither be ye Idolaters as were some of them c. But I shall add no more to this Second Observation SERMON XVII Psal CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Have both shewed you the duty of the people of God to make Observations upon the motions of Divine Providence and the advantage accrewing to them that perform it 1. It is an indication of spiritual Wisdom 2. Those that do it shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. My work at present is to give you some observations upon the motions of Actual Providence which is the work of God in the World fulfilling his purpose and fulfilling his Word both of Promise and of Threatning Two of those Observations I have given you discoursed upon them and made some futable Applications I proceed to a third 3d Observ Providence ordinarily doth its greatest works in the day of mans smallest things It is truly observed that the greatness of Divine Power and Wisdom is most seen in the Creation and Preservation of the least creatures As a Workman is most magnified that can bring most art into the least room and it is as true that the greatness of Divine Providence
same as of my former observation Because thus he gets himself most glory The Glory of God is the great end of all his actions he worketh for himself for the Honour and Glory of his own great Name Now God hath more Honour and Glory by these accomplishments than if he should bring them to pass by greater and more probable means The Apostle gives this very reason 1 Cor. 1.29 Why God chose weak things to confound those that are mighty c. That no flesh should glory in his presence 1. His power is thus more magnified He thus appears to be a great God a mighty God though it be true that the Power of God is equally exerted when he worketh by great means as by small had we spiritual eyes or did we look upon means as we ought to do as deriving all their efficacy from God yet de facto it is not so to us and therefore you shall in Scripture observe God often declaring that he would work this or that in this or that manner that his People might not say that they had done this by their own might or power The lesser appearance there is of second Causes the more the efficiency of the first Cause is evident so God getteth himself a great deal of Glory by working in the day of mans smallest things 2. As I also told you under the former head God getteth himself more Glory by the praises of his people he is more admired in his workings more praised and adored for his workings The Enemies are also hereby enforced to confess the works of the Lord and to acknowledg the greatness of his Power But having enlarged upon these things under the former observation I shall add no more here but come to the Application Vse 1. The first Use I shall make of this point shall be what the Prophet Zechariah hath made before me Zech. 4.10 Who hath despised the day of small things The Prophet propoundeth it by way of Interrogation but it contains a Precept in the bowels of it Learn not to despise the day of small things it is usually Gods day It may be a day of small things as to the Church the state of it may be very sad the case of it very low little humane means or probabilities may appear of the amendment of its state all things may seem to make against the interest of God and Religion Now I say let no man despise this day of small things It may be a day of small things with the particular soul the case of it may be very sad it may be full of dejections full of despondencies hurried with temptations it may have hope and but a little hope light shining in upon it at a poor crevice let none now despise this day of small things Two things I would press upon you 1. Not to despise this day 2. To perform what is your positive duty with reference to such a day 1. I say first Despise not such a day Persons or things may be despised two ways 1. Directly 2. Interpretatively Take heed of despising it directly Take heed of despising it interpretatively We despise a person or thing directly when in our hearts we contemn him or it and have a low and poor estimate of him or it and express it by any outward sign as words gestures c. Thus the Enemies of the Jews scorned the Jews employed in re-building the City and Temple when they said What will these feeble Jews do if a fox go up he will break down what they have builded It was it seems a day of small things with the Jews their Enemies despised them and mocked at them Thus Sennacherib despised Hezekiah when he offered his Commissioners two hundred horses if his master could set riders on them Take heed of this despising Thus the Popish party in Germany despised the day of small things in the beginning of the Reformation by Luther when they bid him go into his Cell and pray Lord have mercy upon me The issue in all three cases shewed that they had no reason as to any of them to have despised the day of small things Providence usually brings forth its greatest works in such a day But besides this despising 2. There is an interpretative despising of such a day Take heed of this also thus we may despise things 1. When we do not give that due regard to them which we ought Thus our Saviour telleth you A man cannot serve two masters but he will cleave to the one and despise the other that is not give that due regard which he ought to give to the other He that neglecteth what ought not to be neglected doth interpretatively despise when we have not that due value for a thing we ought to have we despise it Thus Esau despised his birth-right saith the Apostle we no where read that he spake contemptuously of it but he did not duly value it he sold it for a contemptible price a mess of pottage 2. When because of the smallness of means our hearts fail in the use of the means we have or as to the promise this is a despising of the day of small things Now I say take heed of despising such a day any of these ways it is usually Gods day Let your rule be this If a work or issue of a work be for Gods Glory if it be the matter of a Divine Promise though there may be but a small appearance of means for the accomplishment of it take heed of despising it either directly or interpretatively Who hath despised such a day saith the Prophet intimating that none ought to despise it none hath any just reason to despise it 2. But secondly Do what is your duty in such a day you will say What is that I will open it in three things 1. Vse the means you have 2. Exercise a faith in God beyond the probable effect of those means 3. Make up in prayer what you will want in action through a want of means Of each of these a word or two 1. Vse those means and grounds of hope which you have If David hath but a sling and a stone to go out against Goliah with yet he will use them Means that have a natural vertue in them or a divine institution have Gods stamp upon them and must be used leaving the event and success unto God we must neither idolize means by attributing the divine Efficiency to them nor yet tempt God by a neglect of them when God affords us them You shall observe God sometimes commanding the use of means which had no rational tendency to the production of the effect as what influence could the Israelites blowing with Rams-horns and the Army encompassing the City seven days have upon the walls of Jericho yet the Israelites were bound to use them because they had the stamp of a divine Institution upon them It is much the same case when they have a natural vertue or a rational tendency there
which then hindered his being revealed and would let until he should be taken away The Roman Empire hindered nor is that hinderance yet taken away 'T is true there is but a stump of that Empire remaining in Germany Spain France England many other great boughs are lop'd off it but most of them kept their Antichristian favour though they changed their temporal Lords and set up for and by themselves as to temporal subjection and dominion You see and hear how fierce the French the Spaniards the Portugals c. the house of Austria are for the Romish Religion 'T is true England hath broke that yoke off its neck so hath Holland the Gospel hath got a great foot in Germany France Denmark Poland Sweden Hungary but yet the Devil hath a large Chappel in most of those places It is the National Religion of France Spain Portugal Italy the Imperial Proper-territories God is fitting the circumstances of the World much to his promised Work of destroying this Antichrist with the spirit of his mouth with the brightness of his coming England is fallen off Holland is fallen off a great part of Switzerland many Cities and Territories in Germany Sweden and Denmark great numbers in France God is by degrees doing his work and a great deal is done within the space of a hundred and fifty years last past for it is no longer since Luther began to shake his Throne but yet the circumstances of the World do not look as if it were like to be a work we should see in our age nor it may be our childrens children Methinks the Scripture looks as if that man of sin should die a natural death not a violent one I mean that that Religion should be loathed out of the World not fought out of it God will consume it with the Spirit of his mouth and with the brightness of his coming Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord I tell you but my judgment that before the fall of Antichrist you must yet see a greater falling off from Popery by the Princes of other Nations and their people The Worlds circumstances do not yet seem fitted to that great Work God may work Miracles in the case but I know no ground we have to expect them I am very confident that Antichrist is in his wane much past his full declining every day and therefore the fears of some that that ridiculous Religion should again over-spread England or Holland or any other reformed Church do not much afflict me I take that for granted that Babylon is falling but when we shall hear that joyful sound Babylon is fallen Babylon is fallen that I cannot tell you but in the general I think we must first see the World otherwise circumstanced than it is 2. By this observation of the motions of Providence you shall also understand much of Gods set time as to shewing mercy to your own particular soul viz. when your bodily or spiritual circumstances are fitted for the desired mercy 1. I say first when your bodily circumstances are fitted to it There is nothing more evident than the dependance of our minds upon our bodies and the influence that some bodily distempers especially have upon our souls and minds now although it be true that God can work miraculously and by light can break through a darkness be it never so thick and ravish a Soul with unspeakable joy and peace though at that time it be yoked to a dark cloudy melancholick disturbed body yet God useth not to work Miracles ordinarily but to move in a more ordinary course of Providence by the use and application of means that are proper so that as it is seldom but God useth the disorders and disturbances of the body to influence and afflict the mind and to be at least an adjuvant cause when he will trouble a Soul so he usually restoreth health and a better constitution of body when he intends to restore peace and quiet and a composure of spirit I say ordinarily he doth so And hence again in the next place 3. We by giving attendance to this Observation may learn our duty in reference to the use of Means so as to use what is proper to its season for there is great wisdom to be used in apportioning means For Example as to the bringing down of Antichrist if Gods time be not come the means are not girding our swords upon our thighs c. I question whether that will ever be a Mean proper to be used in that case but endeavouring by all means possible to loath the World of Popish superstitions and ceremonies and all the idolatry of that Synagogue and of all the cheats they put upon the World and alienate the hearts of people from them So for calling the Jews the means to be used is not inciting them to get into a body and heading them c. but to convince them of their errours to endeavour the sweetning of their spirits the enlightning their minds with the knowledg of the truth of the Gospel and reconciling them to the Christian Religion and shewing them the Examples of an holy life and conversation So in case of particular Souls where the discomposure of the mind is originated in or further advantaged by bodily distempers which is a thing very frequently happening I do not take it to be the duty of a Christian meerly to pray and hear but also to use natural means proper for the abating of these distempers yet not this without Prayer and use of Ordinances both for the blessing of God upon such means and for the further influences of his supernatural grace for God fitteth the circumstances of the person that is to receive the mercy to the desired mercy when he intendeth the bestowing of it as well as the circumstances of the World to the mercy which in his set-time he intendeth for his Church so as I say this observing of this method of Providence duly attended to addeth spiritual Wisdom to a Christian as in discerning of Gods time for mercy so also in directing him to his duty as to proper means to be used by him in the way of his duty in order to the obtaining of the mercy teaching him to know what Israel ought to do what a good Christian ought to do under the circumstances under which God hath brought him 2. By an attendance to this working of Providence you shall understand much of the loving-kindness of the Lord very much of the goodness and love of God to Nations and Churches is seen in this his fitting of the worlds circumstances to his designs before he produceth them as his designs are effected without tumult and bloodshed which otherwise through mens opposition to it would not be avoided With how much bloodshed in all humane probability must the Children of Israel have first came out of Egypt then out of Babylon had not God fitted the circumstances of the world to those designs of his Providence
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
maketh the wrath and rage of bloody men to praise him I might go on and shew you how God makes use of the wars and fightings the envy emulation and strife which often arise amongst the men of the world and James 3.1 Whence come all these but from the lusts that war in our members to gain his people liberty and protection But I have spoken enough to justifie this Observation but it may be some will say to me Why doth God do this Could not God do his work by other instruments And were it not more suitable to the Holiness of God to bring about his designs by better instruments To which the answer were good enough to say Who art thou that disputest with God It is enough for us that thus it pleaseth him and that this is consistent enough both with his Holiness and Wisdom It is not inconsistent with his holiness to mean and to turn that for good which men mean and intend for evil as in Joseph's case Gen. 50.20 for God doth not put this malice into their hearts he only suffereth them to walk in their own ways and then governeth their lusts to his own praise and glory But I shall shew you that this is a very reasonable motion and working of Divine Providence which will appear to you by the following Considerations 1. That God by this sheweth his infinite wisdom and power by how much there is the less aptitude and disposition in a cause to bring forth an effect by so much must the power and wisdom of the efficient cause be made more glorious Now there is nothing in nature less disposed to the Glory of God nor that hath so much antipathy to the Glory of God as sin and lust What cannot that God do that can make mens lusts to praise him Lust of its own nature opposeth God nothing is so contrary to his designs for God to make this now to serve his designs and to bring about his Counsels this must glorifie God as an Almighty God that can do whatsoever he pleaseth and by what means soever he pleaseth yea and by this means God maketh his Wisdom admirable When he taketh the wise in their own craftiness Come saith Pharaoh let us deal wisely with them God makes Pharaoh's wisdom to destroy his people a great means to deliver his people What an infinitely-wise God did he by this declare himself Turning Pharaoh's wisdom into folly and making it to operate directly contrary to his deliberations 2. A second Consideration is this That it is but reasonable that God should make some use of the worst of men The worst of men are the Lords creatures he hath made them he doth much for them they live upon his hand of Providence 't is reasonable they should do him some service now intentionally and designedly a wicked man will do God no service at all his heart is quite another way his life is a pursuit of one lust or other if God did not get glory on him besides his intention he could have no service at all from him There is no reason that leud and wicked men covetous ambitious men bloody and cruel men should live in the world for nothing and be maintained from Gods basket for nothing without doing him any service they will not serve God as reasonable creatures should do offering up their bodies as a living acceptable sacrifice to God which the Apostle Rom. 12.1 determines our reasonable service The Apostle therefore to the Thessalonians calls wicked men unreasonable They shall therefore serve God as brute creatures as the beasts of the field serve him not knowing what they do as a meer machine and engine serveth us by the force of our hand nay in a worse degree quite contrary to their own counsels intentions and designs God could have no service from wicked men if he did not get himself a glory from their lusts as he got himself glory upon Pharaoh 3. There is something in Gods Counsels to be produced in the world that is fit for no other hands than the hands of sinners and is hard to be effected any way but from their lusts These are the acts of his Punitive Justice upon his People God is compelled by his Justice sometimes to kindle a fire in Sion and to set up a furnace in Hierusalem to melt and to try his people in order to the purging out of their dross and taking away their tin Now as it is lust which kindleth all fires so ordinarily it is the lust of Gods Enemies of wicked men which bloweth up this fire Sometimes indeed Ephraim is against Mamasses and Manasses against Ephraim but ordinarily it is the Assyrian or Egyptian or Babylonian that must destroy Israel Men do not use to set sheep to hunt and tear sheep but to make use of dogs for that work 4. This is a reasonable motion of Providence to incourage the people of God never to despair but continually to hope in the Lords mercy That which usually discourageth our hope in God for any good as to his Church is the heighth of the rage of Enemies the sad and forlorn state of things the appearance of never an instrument like to do any service for God or for his People But none of all this is a sufficient ground for discouragement if God can make use of the worst of men and make the lusts of people serviceable to his own wise counsels and bringing about his purposes I might also have added that these motions of Providence are reasonable to shew wicked men their folly and how vainly they set themselves against the counsels and purposes of God who ordinarily taketh them by guile and overthroweth them in their own craftiness But I have enlarged enough upon the doctrinal part of this Observation I now come to the Application of it Vse 1. In the first place let us here admire the infinite power and the wisdom of God and learn at all times to trust in his word What cannot that God do What will not the wisdom of that God extend to who can make the highest and proudest Enemies which his glory hath to serve the designs and counsels of his glory The work of Creation is not so much a work of infinite power and wisdom as this work of Providence In Creation God only produceth being out of not being here God brings out his glory from that which hath an unmeasurable contrariety to his glory nothing is so desperately opposite to the glory of God as the sordid lusts of mans heart no creature is so opposite to the honour and glory of God as a resolved malitious sinner is Now for God to make such a wretch to serve him nay to make such a wretch in the hottest pursuit of his lusts to serve him and by the satisfaction of his lusts to serve the great design of his glory O what an Almighty Power what an infinite wisdom must this speak in God! And this I say should recommend God
1. Sometimes some of his people shall be blessed with outward blessings Abraham shall be a rich man and have many flocks and herds Joseph shall be the second man in Egypt David and Solomon shall be great Princes Mordecay shall be the man whom the King of Persia shall delight to honour Daniel shall be the first president This is necessary that God may justifie his Promises of this nature you have such Psal 128.1 2 3. and in many other Texts of holy Writ They may be necessary to uphold the interest of God in the world The world must sometimes say Verily there is a reward for the righteous Gods own people shall sometimes have healthy bodies numerous families plentiful comfort in their relations many left hand-hand-mercies added to those spiritual blessings with which God hath blessed them all in Jesus Christ 2. Others now God doth not reward this way but he rewardeth them in their souls and inward man and indeed this is the constant reward of them that fear the Lord and there is a variety in these too God doth not measure out the same kinds nor the same proportions unto all Some are blessed with a quiet conscience possibly they have not extasies of joy as others but their hearts do not condemn them and this is indeed the usual reward of the man that worketh righteousness The work of righteousness shall be peace saith the Prophet Isa 32.17 If God brings them to a sick-bed or into any other strait they can say with Hezekiah 2 King 20.3 I beseech thee O Lord remember me now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart that is an upright sincere heart or with Nehemiah 13 14. Remember me O Lord concerning this and wipe not out my good deeds which I have done for the house of my God And give me leave to tell you this is a great reward but to be delivered from the sowre reflexions of a condemning conscience for as there is nothing more nauseous and troublesom to us than the sower recoilings of our stomack so there is no greater torment to a mans life than the recoilings of a guilty conscience Nothing is oft-times so great a torture to a sinner as this when he saith unto his conscience Is it peace and his conscience tells him What peace so long as thy drunkenness thy whoredoms thy lyes and oaths and blasphemies thy cheating and cozening thy oppression and violence remain There is no peace to the wicked saith my God On the other side there is nothing so refreshing unto a spirit tired with the crosness of the world than to find a peace within himself Now this is the general reward of the righteous man if he misseth raptures and extasies of joy yet he cometh not short ordinarily of a quiet and serenity of a waky and awakened conscience I know there are hours of melancholy and darkness and desertion to which the best of Gods People are exposed but these are but rare examples in comparison of those multitudes of godly ones that walk in some blessed view of their own sincerity and uprightness Some he rewardeth in their inward man with raptures and extasies of God They know and are perswaded that nothing shall separate them from the love of God in Jesus Christ they defie death and hell and challenge the fatal strokes which others tremble at the thoughts of They complain of time and were it not for the Law of God in the case would dismiss their souls of their prison and lye like men waiting for a wind longing for that happy gale that should carry their souls into the wide Sea of Eternity But this is but the portion of a few and scarce the abiding temper of them neither but such hours the People of God have had Some again he rewardeth inwardly with strength confirmed habits of grace and contentment with their portion c. Their outward man decreaseth but their inward man increaseth day by day they are poor in purse but rich in grace they have but little but they are content with what they have and tell all the world they have enough And let me tell you that as punishments in the inward man are the greatest punishments so these spiritual rewards are of all other the greatest rewards which is matter of easie demonstration if we will but allow our souls to be our nobler parts and the Jewel to be better than the Cabinet Whatsoever tends to the debasing and ruining the soul must be the greatest evil and whatsoever conduceth to its ennobling or felicity must be the greatest reward and good Besides this spiritual judgments are the continual forerunners of such as are temporal and spiritual mercies draw after them at least a proportion and sufficiency of the good things of this life All these things shall be added unto you saith our Saviour 2 Chron. 25.16 God sent a Prophet unto Amaziah the King would not hear him see what the Prophet saith I know saith the Prophet that God hath determined to destroy thee why because thou hast done this and hast not hearkned unto my counsel Spiritual judgments forerun temporal you have it Isa 6.10 When the Prophet asked how long how long in seeing they should see and not perceive and hearing they should hear and not understand God answereth Vntil the cities be wasted without an inhabitant and the houses should be left without men and the land should be utterly desolate In like manner spiritual rewards and mercies never go without something of this life if not a plenty yet a sufficiency food convenient for Gods People Finally as spiritual judgments are the forerunners of eternal ruin so spiritual rewards are the more certain forerunners of eternal salvation they are the things which as the Apostle speaks accompany salvation and make men meet for the Kingdom of God 3. But God sometimes rewards his people with sufferings This you may think a strange reward But yet a reward it is Christ promiseth to the losers for him that they should receive children houses lands with persecutions and the Apostles Act. 5.41 rejoyced they were thought worthy to suffer shame for his name-sake God honoureth that man whom he calleth out to be a witness for him and to carry his cross after him Job speaketh of other afflictions and cryeth out Job 7.17 Lord what is man that thou shouldst magnifie him that thou shouldst set thine heart upon him that thou shouldst visit him every morning and try him every moment What need we more than what the Apostle assureth us Heb. 12. That whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth Our light and momentany afflictions saith the Apostle shall work for us a far more eternal and exceeding weight of glory and if we suffer with him we shall also be glorified together with him Rom. 1.17 This variety of rewards our heavenly Father hath The rewards of the righteous from God are not uniform but always certain
sensible rewards and punishments for otherwise it is true which I before told you God is punishing sinners and rewarding righteous men every day But as to sensible rewards and punishments God is very often slow in the distributions of them The Heathens were wont to say tardè molunt Deorum molae the Gods Mills grind slowly and that their Gods had laneos pedes feet shod with wooll It is most certaintly true of the true and living God His Mill with which he grindeth sinners to powder is alwayes going He is angry with the wicked every day but it grindeth slowly he is moving always in order to this end but he hath woollen feet we cannot hear nor discern his motions But to speak distinctly here are two things in this observation 1. That the Providence of God doth ordinarily move slowly in the distribution of sensible punishments to wicked men or sensible rewards to righteous men 2. That the more slow it is in the distribution of the one or of the other the greater the punishment or reward is ordinarily when it cometh I will begin with shewing you the reasonableness of the first 1. How else should God justifie his attribute of long-suffering and patience The attribute of clemency patience long-suffering slowness to conceive a wrath is an attribute which God maketh himself known by and doth much glory in Psal 103.8 The Lord is merciful and gracious slow to anger and plenteous in mercy Nehemiah in his prayer Neh. 9.17 impleadeth God thus Thou art a God ready to pardon gracious and merciful slow to anger and of great kindness Joel maketh use of it as an argument to perswade people to repentance Joel 2.13 And Jonah telleth God that he knew him to be such a God Jonah 4.2 Now how should God justifie this name of his but in his bearing with sinners a long time though they be as the Apostle saith Vessels of wrath fitted for destruction 2. How else should God lead men by patience to repentance and render sinners that continue impenitent inexcusable This is that account which the Apostle Peter giveth us of this dispensation of providence 2 Pet. 3.9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men do count slackness but is long-suffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and St. Paul Rom. 2.1 saith Therefore thou art inexcusable O man v. 4. despising the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance When God giveth men and women space to repent and they repent not they become inexcusable and God is justified in the vials of his wrath which he poureth out upon them at last 3. How else should God exercise the faith and patience of his people The exercise of faith is upon an unseen reward believing what we have no sensible evidence of the exercise of hope lies in a looking out for it for what we see why do we yet hope for saith the Apostle the exercise of patience is in waiting for it and a quiet submission to the will of God in bearing what the Lord will please to lay upon us while we are in our way to our promised reward If Gods providence were not slow in executing his justice he could not magnifie his own patience and long-suffering and if he were not slow in the distributions of sensible rewards he could not exercise our faith or patience this is the Reason why the Providence of God doth often move slowly in the distribution both of rewards and punishments 2. But secondly observe by how much the slowlier God proceedeth to judgement against sinners by so much the more smart the vengeance is when it comes and by how much God appeareth more slow in the rewards of the righteous by so much the greater the reward is It is observed that those men who pass their lives with the least sickness are usually cut off by or escape very narrowly from the first sickness they meet with either because the constitution of their bodies is so strong that a light sickness will not shake them but some very acute and malignant distemper or because in their long time of health they have by degrees contracted a very ill habit of body so that when they fall down it is a very hard matter to restore them again The same may be observed as to Gods providential dispensations to wicked men there are some against whom God proceedeth a long time very slowly though he be angry with them every day yet he spareth them and doth not fall upon them by any severe dispensations but when he doth strike he strikes not twice he maketh a full end God bore with the Amorites a a great while they were a wicked people in Abrahams time but their iniquitie was not full Gen. 15.16 God bare with them four hundred years after that but when he brought judgement upon them it was a dreadful judgement as you may both learn by the several commissions given out by God to the Israelites against them and the dreadful destruction of them of which you read in the book of Joshua Before them God bare with the world a long time after he had taken up a purpose to destroy them and revealed it to Noah Gen. 6.1 2 3. he gives them yet the space of an hundred and twenty years but they abusing his patience in that time also he brought the flood upon them and consumed them all but Noahs family With that generation of the Israelites which came out of the land of Egypt the Lord shewed himself slow to wrath forty years long the Lord was grieved with that generation forty years is a great while for one generation the life of man being but seventy years but at length he destroyed them all so as only Caleb and Joshua entred into Canaan God bare two hundred and forty years with the Kingdom of Israel for so many years there were from their Apostacy in the time of Jeroboam until they were carried away captive by the King of Assyria but then they were so destroyed as to this day none knoweth where they are or any of their posterity With the two tribes and an half God yet bare much longer but at last they were carried into the captivity of Babylon for seventy years After their restoration God bare long with them though they were exercised under a variety of afflictive providences till at last they were utterly destroyed by the Romans from being a Nation The like observation might be made of particular persons It is observed concerning the Kingdom of Israel after the defection from the house of David that they never had one good King Most of them had very short reigns except Jeroboam the son of Joash who reigned forty two years and Jehu who had done such service against the house of Ahab who reigned twenty eight years There were two that reigned twenty two years both wicked
man whose sins are covered by God! O let no man despise the riches of Gods goodness forbearance and long-suffering but let him know that the goodness of God leadeth him to repentance Rom. 2.4 5. If he continueth in the hardness and impenitency of his heart he doth but treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgement of God Wrath against thee for thy sins lyeth hid at present possibly thy Conscience keepeth silence and doth not arrest and disturb thee the providence of God as to thee keepeth silence judgement is not executed speedily but there will be a revelation of divine wrath either in this life or that which is to come oh therefore break off your sins by a true repentance He that hideth his sins shall not prosper Prov. 28.13 Our sins cannot be hidden from God they are all in the light of his Countenance a man then covereth and hideth his sins from God when he doth not confess and bewail them So long as a man covereth his sins God will not cover them See that experience of David which you have recorded Psal 32.2 3 4. When I kept silence my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day-long for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moisture was turned into the drought of summer Selah vers 3. I acknowledge my sin unto thee and mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confess my transgression unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin Selah Vse 3. In the last place this observation calleth upon all such as fear the Lord and walk before him for a progress in the wayes of God and a patient waiting for the promise The Apostle tells us Heb. 10.36 That we have need of patience that after we have done the will of God we might receive the promise It is our duty as to do well so not to be weary of well doing it is pressed upon us Gal. 6.9 And let us not be weary in well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not And again 2 Thess 3.13 but you brethren be not weary in well-doing There is nothing so far conduceth to make us faint and weary in our duty as when we see nothing comes of it we have hopes and promises but no issue no performance you know Solomon tells you hope deferred makes the heart sick Now this is a great cordial in such a case for us to hear that when providence moveth slowly in bringing rewards to the righteous it recompenceth our patience at last with the riches and liberality of the reward Indeed here are three or four arguments which together with this observation the Apostle hinteth me in the afore-mentioned Text out of the Epistle to the Galathians we shall reap we shall reap in due season Our fainting will spoil our reaping The longer it is before we reap the greater the crop of mercy and blessing shall be which we shall reap 1. We shall reap He that ploweth up the fallow-ground of his heart and soweth to the glory of God and to the good of his own soul in righteousness he shall reap The Husbandman that sowes his Wheat and Barly cannot promise himself that he shall reap the souldier the plunderer may reap what he hath sown a tempest an east-wind lightning many other things may hinder his reaping but he who sowes righteousness he shall reap nothing shall hinder his reaping 2. He shall reap in due season It may be he shall not reap in his season the season which he expected but he shall reap in due season in such a time as the wise God judgeth most seasonable and when he cometh to reap he shall also acknowledge the seasonableness of it that it is in due season we do not know the fittest time for our own mercies God knowes the fittest season we shall reap in due season 3. Consider that our reaping dependeth upon our not fainting we shall reap saith the Apostle if we faint not If any soul draweth back Gods soul will have no pleasure in him he who draweth back draweth back to his own perdition 4. and Lastly our reward will be so much the greater by how much it is slower the rewards of Gods people are ordinarily proportioned to their patient waiting The Apostle Rom. 2.6 having spoken of Christs coming to render to every man according to his work addeth v. 7. To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life Yea and certainly degrees of glory will be proportioned to our patience those that have had least sensible rewards in this life if there be such a thing as degrees of glory may expect some of the highest seats and mansions of glory in that life which is to come But I shall add no more to this Observation SERMON XXX Psal CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Go on yet in my observations concerning the Actual Providence of God and that more especially in dealing out distributive justice recompensing the righteous and the unrighteous I observed the last time that it is a thing very ordinary with Divine Providence to proceed slowly in these distributions But by how much slower the punishment of a sinner or the reward of a good man cometh from the Lord by so much the greater both the one and the other is I now proceed to another Observation Observat 17. That the Providence of God is very quick in the distribution both of punishments and rewards unto some I shall discourse it first with relation to punishments and then with reference to the rewards of Providence First As to punishments The Apostle Paul to Timothy 1 Tim. 5.24 hath this expression Some mens sins are open before-hand unto judgement and some mens they follow after likewise also the good works of some are manifest before-hand and they that are otherwise cannot be hid I know it is a Text of which Interpreters give various senses as they understand it of the judgment of God some of them others of the judgement of men and amongst those who understand it of the later some understand it of the judgment of the Magistrate others of the judgment of the Church some of both these some of the judgment of God and the Ecclesiastical judgment also I shall not pretend to give the just sense of it I shall only allude to it in my discourse As there are some sins that are open and manifest with respect to the filth and guilt of them they do not hide their sin but proclaim it as Sodom they go to the Devil with a trumpet before them all the world takes notice of them others sin more secretly and slily and in corners So God as to some sinners sits in judgement presently Some indeed he is more slow with they are kept to the great Assize or for many years but he is
in gold and in silver and in brass and in the cutting of stones to set them and in cutting of wood to make any manner of cunning-work and God put into his heart to teach others Hence it is we see such a strange improvement as we call it in gifts and parts in persons called of God to offices of the magistracy or ministry That once fixed in those relations there is as is said of Saul another spirit given them they are quite other men than they appeared to the world before The Actual Providence of God attending persons in new works and new relations with new spirits new gifts and abilities And indeed this working of Providence seemeth so reasonable that the contrary cannot be supposed without a blasphemous impeachment of the wisdom of God Which of us unless surprized by our own ignorance or over-born with some foolish lust or passion of our own would set any person about our work that is in nothing fit for it Indeed our reasonable nature will not allow us wilfully to commit such a mistake to suppose ignorance or any bias of passion in God were but to blaspheme Who can without blasphemy say God hath called a fool to be a magistrate or a coward to be a soldier or an ignorant person that cannot speak or not speak sense to be a Minister It is true Gods gifts are inequally distributed according to the good pleasure of his own will some have greater abilities for magistracy and ministry than others have and so are more eminently qualified for their work but there are none called of God to any employment but are in such a competent measure qualified for it and the principal acts of it that they are able to do that work and I say but to suppose the contrary concerning God were either to suppose that God was surprized with some ignorance or biassed with some passion or did that which no reasonable creature would do But here ariseth a question Quest How then comes it to pass that we see in the experience of all ages persons employed in works and relations by no means nor in any degree qualified for the work of their relations cometh this without God Is there any thing which escapeth his Providence I answer We are now speaking not of the permissions of Providence but the efficiencies of it Persons at works and in relations which they are in no measure fit or qualified for are great evils to the world and these evils are not in Nations and Cities without Gods permission and sufferance The short of it is this That sometimes it is in the heart of God to bless and prosper a people and to vouchsafe his presence amongst them when he doth so he doth accordingly adequate and proportion means in order to that end For Magistrates if he doth not give them men according to Gods own heart such as David and Solomon yet he gives them such men whom he hath fitted with a sutable spirit to their work that whatever they be as men are good governours men of valour and courage men of prudence and conduct that know how to manage affairs of state When God hath a contrary design to chastise and afflict a people and to punish men for their sins he suffers such to come in either by election or succession as are no ways fitted for the duties of those great relations So for Ministers when God designeth to grant and to continue to a people his presence and blessing he gives them faithful Ministers and such as are able to teach others to reveal the whole Counsel of God to them to speak a word in season to the souls that are weary to bind up the broken in heart c. But when he hath designs to chasten and scourge any people he suffereth such to get into the Ministry as are described Isa 56.10 Blind and ignorant watchmen dumb dogs that cannot bark sleeping lying down to slumber greedy dogs which can never have enough shepheards that cannot understand c. you have this Isa 1.25 26. And I will turn my hand upon thee and purely purge away thy dross and take away thy tin that is I will return in mercy to thee and what followeth And I will restore thy Judges as at the first and thy Counsellors as at the beginning afterward thou shalt be called the City of righteousness and so for the Ministry Jer. 3.14 15. God ver 14. saith Turn O back-sliding children saith the Lord for I am married unto you and I will take you one of a City and two of a tribe and will bring you to Zion and I will give you pastors according to my heart which shall feed you with wisdom and with understanding So again Jer. 23.3 4. vers 3. And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countreys whither I have driven them and will bring them again to their folds and they shall be fruitful and increase and I will set up shepheards over them which shall feed them and they shall fear no more nor be dismayed neither shall they be lacking saith the Lord On the contrary when God is in a course of vengeance and judgment against a people when God hath forsaken a people he suffereth a ministry that prophecy lyes but sends them not Jer. 27.14 15. For they prophecy a lye unto you for I have not sent them saith the Lord yet they prophecy a lye in my name see the same Jer. 14.14 15. Jer. 23.21 22. vers 38. The sum of this discourse is this That when the Providence of God is moving in a way of mercy towards any Nation Church or Family he sets persons in relations to them and calleth them to work in them whom he hath fitted and doth fit for the several parts of their work with such gifts and graces of his spirit as qualifie and capacitate them for the work and relation to which God calleth them and this he doth by way of efficiency pouring out his spirit upon such persons but when he is proceeding in a way of wrath and judgment against a people either finally to destroy them or severely to chasten them for their iniquities then he suffereth such Rulers and such Ministers to be over them or such governours in any societies as are no way fit for their work Rulers that have no wisdom nor understanding proportioned to their relation no courage nor valour no principles of justice and righteousness but such as will as the Prophet Amos expresseth it sell the needy for a pair of shooes and the poor for a piece of silver and suffereth Ministers to rise up and be allowed that are blind dumb ignorant greedy indeed not fitted at all for their work or the several parts of it but only fitted for Gods design to be a scourge and a plague to the people amongst whom they go to seduce them to tear to rend and to devour them and this you shall observe to be the constant motion of the Actual
Providence of God And thus I have opened the Observation to you I come now to the Application Vse 1. In the first place This observation affordeth us another sign of the times I observed to you before that we have generally a curiosity to know what shall come to pass in future times how it shall go to know both what God is doing with his Church in the age wherein we live and what he will do with it in the ages following He that maketh this observation will in this point be spiritually wise and will also understand the loving-kindness of the Lord yea and by this we may understand what the Counsels of God are in a great measure as to families and persons Observe but what those are whom God sets over them or suffers to stand in relation to them and you will understand much of this If God intendeth mercy and goodness to any Nation or any Church he giveth them Judges and Counsellors as at the beginning Eccl. 10.16 17. Wo to thee O Land when thy King is a Child and Princes eat in the morning Blessed art thou O Land when thy King is the son of Nobles and thy Princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness Observe but in the state who are in the places of Magistrates whether they be men of wisdom and knowledge of justice and righteousness or men of little wisdom rash and inconsiderate men men of little knowledge men that will take bribes and oppress the poor and needy in judgment not suffering the causes of the poor to stand in judgment and you may easily judge what God is about with that Nation Look into the Church of God and observe what persons they are that are in the Ministry Whether they be men that are able and faithful to teach skilled in the words of righteousness able to open and apply the holy Scriptures to the hearts and Consciences of people to pray and to pour out their souls unto God in supplications Or men that were Aptiores ad stivam as Beza sometimes said I may add ad cauponam vel tabernam fitter for a Plow-tail for an Ale-house a Tavern or a Victualling-house and it needeth no interpreter to you what God is about to do with such a Church In like manner look into families look upon particular persons observe what manner of persons are in the relations of Husbands Wives Parents Children and you may easily know Gods present design or what he is after like to do in such families or as to such persons Where God intendeth mercy he fitteth persons for their respective relations in all humane societies Vse 2. Hence again in the second place each one may make a judgement of himself whether God hath called him to this or that work this or that Relation A man can have little comfort in any relation to which he cannot see himself called of God be it Magistracy or Ministry or any other Relation when we see God calling us to it we may look for Gods blessing upon us in it ay and we may in that case also expect Gods protection his standing by us and standing up for us against Opposition now neither of these can in other causes be expected I say 1. A person called of God to any work any relation may reasonably expect the blessing of God upon him in it If he be a Magistrate that God should make his government peaceable and prosperous subduing the people under him and subjecting their spirits to his Government If he be a Minister that God should direct his meditations assist his heart in enditing new matter and his tongue that it should be the tongue of a ready writer blessing his labours and giving in to his ministry the souls of the people committed to his charge He may expect Gods protection and defence of him against the opposition that he meets with It is a promise you ordinarily meet with annexed to precepts by which God hath commissioned men to be Ministers I will be with you it is what God said to Jeremiah to Ezechiel What Christ said to his Apostles I will saith he be with you to the end of the world now that promise reacheth to both these both assistance and protection and therefore it is of mighty concern to such as ingage in great work or are put into any great relation to see Gods call of them to that work or relation without a view of that I again tell you they can expect the presence of God no way neither blessing nor protecting them Now from this observation upon the motions of Actual Providence you may make up a judgement of that Actual Providence fits them for that work and Relation whom God calleth to it it doth not fit every one for it whom it suffereth to creep into it but it fits all for their work whom God directs into it and who are like to be a blessing to their Correlates and those who cannot find themselves fitted of God for the work and acts of that Relation wherein they are may conclude that though they be not in that station without God yet God hath nothing further to do with them in their station but to permit them to get into it for a plague and scourge to the people to whom they are in relation and for their own damnation and confusion at the last Is any one a Minister to instance only in that Relation he stands most highly concerned of all men living to see his call the charge of souls men will at last find a great and burthensom charge If he be faithful he is like to meet with the greatest opposition imaginable in that work he stands in need of the greatest assistance of God for the due performance of it he can look for neither unless he can find that God hath called him to his work The great acts of the ministerial office are praying and preaching praying for the people Preaching that is opening the Scriptures the will and counsel of God unto people and applying it to their Consciences Wouldst thou know now whether thou beest called of God as Aaron was Examine then whether God hath fitted thee for the work of the ministry Hath God given thee the Spirit of prayer and supplication hath God given thee a knowledge and understanding in the Scriptures that thou art as it was said of Apollos mighty in the Scriptures such a one a Minister should be If Gods providence hath given thee a willingness and a desire to it and an opportunity for the exercise of it and hath also thus qualified thee for the several parts of it then thou mayest conclude that God hath called thee to it It is not a Patrons presentation that will make up the call of God no nor yet the boldness and confidence of the person that will venture upon the greatest employment the world affords I say none of these things will do it a mans own needs and not knowing how to live
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
Application recapitulate a little 1. For the sins of others which we see permitted in the World 1. Let us be quickened upon the view of them to adore the patience and long-suffering of God Dost thou hear a wretch curse and blaspheme and profane the great and dreadful name of God and defie the God of Heaven challenging his own damnation and doest thou see God suffering him to live from year to year and to go on in this course Doest thou see another in the heighth of rage against the people of God endeavouring if it were possible to root out all Religion and dayly devouring those that are more righteous than himself Let it help thee to recognize the patience of God do thou upon occasion of others profaneness and blasphemy give God the glory of his patience Let it make thee many a time reflect and say O what a patient God is the God in whom I trust he seeth these vile wretches he could as easily crush them as I with my foot can crush a worm yet he spareth them and with much long suffering endures the vessels of wrath fitted for Hell 2. Let the view of the sins of others which thou seest God permitting for his own wise ends make thee adore the wisdom of God Thou art posed to think what glory God can procure to himself from the profaneness and blasphemy of wicked men but God will certainly do it and would never suffer their profaneness if he did not know how to do it O! the infinite wisdom of God that can make the wrath of man to praise him Let thy heart be affected with that meditation 3. Again Doest thou see the world of sin that abounds doest thou hear of prodigious lusts blasphemies cruelties c. which make thy soul tremble Let God upon this occasion have the glory of his free-free-mercy and grace towards thy soul Bless God that he hath given thee another spirit Say Lord why was not I as one of these I had the same seed of sin in me my heart was as full of original lust and corruption as theirs Oh! what reason have I to adore the free grace of God that I am not as this beastly drunkard as this unclean wretch as this monstrous blasphemer If it had not been for free and rich grace I had been as bad as they It is that which made me to differ 2. But let God have glory from us upon the occasion of his so long suffering us to walk in our own ways Now that may be many ways let me a little particularly direct here also 1. Let it make thee live in a dayly admiration of free-grace both in pardoning thy former guilt and in renewing and changing thy heart This this is a work not for a rapture not for an hour or a day but for eternity It will doubtless be a great piece of our work when we come to Heaven to cry salvation to our God and to the Lamb. Blessing and glory and honour and wisdom and thanksgiving be to the Lord for ever and ever It should be much of our work upon the earth if we have either obtained the sense of the pardon of our sins or a good hope through grace you shall find St. Paul beginning most of his Epistles with such a blessing of God O you redeemed of the Lord you that are come out of a state of deep guilt you can never think nor speak enough what God hath done for your souls It is a great work of God and he doth his great works that they may be had in remembrance Let God have some glory from thee for pardoning those sins by which he hath been much dishonoured by thee and as for his pardoning so for his sanctifying grace Admire God bless God upon the view of thy former hard heart profane and unclean spirit say Ah Lord that ever such an Ethiopian as I was should through grace change my skin that ever such a rebellious spirit should be made obedient such a profane wretch should ever have an heart toward Heaven that ever one that loved his lusts so well as I have done should be taught of God to love him and fear him and delight in him that a Saul should be amongst the Prophets a Paul a persecutor a blasphemer should be amongst the Apostles a Mary Magdalen should wash her Lords feet and be so humbled as to wipe them with the hairs of her head the offering up of these praises glorifieth God 2. Let thy former sins make thee more abundant in penitential tears and in confessions of thy sin unto God God delighteth to hear a soul acknowledg its iniquities and take shame to it self Let thy reflection upon thy former ways make thee with Peter to weep bitterly make thee go alone and confess thy sins unto him that hath forgiven them the more vile thou makest and ownest thy self the more thou glorifiest God as a God of free grace and infinite mercy 3. Let thy former sins ingage thee to love God more Hath much been forgiven thee O love much Say with thy self O I can never love God enough I can never do enough for him I that have done so much against him I that have been so profane so vile that have spent my youth and strength in the service of my base lusts and pleasures and am yet received to mercy at last What shall I render unto the Lord Let my burning love to God and whatsoever beareth his image and superscription make some amends for my burning lusts which had consumed my poor soul if God had not mercifully quenched them 4. Let thy former sins and thy reflections upon them make thee to walk softly and humbly with God all the days of thy life Doest thou find thy heart at any time begin to swell in an high opinion of thy self Say my soul What hath a sinner to be proud on what hast thou that hast been so filthy so polluted to glory in High thoughts become not one that hath been so dirty so polluted and unclean as thou hast been 5. Let your reflections upon your sins bring forth that brood of graces which the Apostle mentioneth 2 Cor. 7.11 Indignation carefulness fear vehement desires revenge Indignation at your selves for your former errors Anger never hath a truer object than when it is exercised upon our selves for our miscarriages Revenge a revenge upon our selves this doubtless lieth much in acts of mortification and self denial mens denying themselves in the lawful use of the liberty of those things which they had before smfully abused Fear a fear of again salling into such remptations as they had before been overcome with A Care in looking to your ways and vehement desires in all things to please God and to walk more perfectly before him 6. Finally You shall make an improvement of your sins if your reflexions upon your former sins both of omission and commission shall engage you to more frequent acts of homage to him to be
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
God to punish wicked men though he knoweth afflictions will do them no good but make them worse hardening their hearts and giving them occasion to blaspheme because of their plagues But we do not only see adult and grown persons smitten of God and afflicted and those as well such as fear God as those who have no fear of God before their eyes but we also see children smitten of God such of whom we say They have neither done good nor evil The Question is Quest How this dispensation of Actual Providence is reconcileable to the justice and goodness of God That which blindeth our eyes and maketh this motion of Providence appear more hard and difficult to be understood by us is the supposed innocency of children they perish oft-times before they come to exercise any acts of reason Concerning the eternal state of children dying in their infancy I shall determine nothing because indeed the Scripture that I know of no-where determines all so dying within the election of grace nor that Christ as to all such hath expiated the guilt of Adams sin or original corruption nor that effectual saving grace doth always attend the Ordinance of Baptism though they be brought under it which yet many are not This is a great secret what God doth with the souls of children dying in infancy But this is not what I have to do with what God doth with the souls of such we see not we have no sufficient means to understand and therefore freely leave them to the good pleasure of God But we see they are afflicted as well as others they dye as much as others if not in greater numbers Shall we say the hand of God is not in this thing Or that their sicknesses and deaths are no effects of punitive Providence or vindicative justice but the meer product of a disordered nature and temper this were certainly to contradict the holy Scriptures where we find the afflictions of children made the matter of threatnings the executions of punishments upon them ascribed to God God by his Prophet threatned the death of Davids child by Bathsheba and of Jeroboams child in this Text see vers 12. The afflictions and troubles of children rise no more out of the dust nor more spring out of the ground than others their afflictions come at his command work at his command bring forth the issues which he willeth them and are punishments as well as the afflictions of more adult and grown persons My business must be to reconcile this motion of Divine Providence to Divine justice and goodness In order to which I shall offer you several considerations 1. Could I assure you that all children dying in their infancy are undoubtedly saved either as being within the decree of election and all of them chosen in Christ to eternal life before the foundation of the world or as having their share in the guilt of Adams sin expiated by Christ and their original pollution washed away in his blood this question were determined and the objection of no value It is a priviledged soul that first gets out of the prison of the flesh into the liberty the glorious liberty of the sons of God Supposing this it would be no act of justice and severity but mercy and goodness of God to cut off our children from the womb and from the breasts to deliver them from the bodily pains and aches from all other vexations crosses and disturbances which they shall be sure to meet with in the world happy thrice happy is that soul certainly that makes but one leap from the womb into Abrahams bosom that takes but one step into the world and the next into Paradise and certainly this is the case of very many Christ hath told us that of such is the kingdom of God if all such be not there as to which the Scripture is silent yet many such are there all chosen in Christ are there There is good hopes of the seed of those that fear God the Covenant of God is with his people and with their seed and how happy are they that can get to Heaven with a groan or two with such a degree of pain and aches as those little bodies can only bear and that before their reason is improved by its reflections to make their pains and miseries more bitter So that as to all such as are ordained unto life the case is plain Divine goodness is eminently seen in giving them so short a passage through the vale of misery and shewing them a far shorter and nearer way to Heaven than what more grown persons must go through much tribulation Now though I cannot assure you this concerning all yet I can concerning many which makes the day of their afflictions and death to be much better than the day wherein it was said of them There is a child born into the world and surely if the Thracians who were heathens upon the prospect of no more than the miseries to which humane life is subjected could alter the common custom of rejoycing at Nativities and mourning at Burials into a mourning at the birth of their children and a rejoycing and triumphing at the death of their friends we to whom a life and immortality is brought to light by the Gospel and to whom the immediate transition of elect souls out of a state of mortality and misery into a state of happiness and eternal blessedness is matter of faith have much more reason to adore the goodness of God in the present determination of our childrens lives than to quarrel at Divine Providence for bringing such things to pass while it doth us nor ours any further harm than depriving us of the little pleasure we take in beholding those pictures of our selves dandling them in our laps hugging them in our bosoms while also this pleasure is embittered to us by a thousand fears and cares and sollicitudes and troubles for with and concerning them But because I cannot assure you this concerning all something further must yet be said to vindicate the justice of God in this dispensation 2. Therefore I say the original sin of children is enough to justifie God in all his afflictions of Children nor is this that I know denied by any valuable or considerable party It was indeed the opinion of Arminius That no person was damned meerly for original sin but upon what grounds none of his disciples have been able ever to tell the world to any satisfaction and it were strange if they should when the Scripture saith expresly Ephes 2.3 That we are by nature the children of wrath that is certainly heirs of wrath and exposed to the wrath of God and the Apostle tells us Rom. 5.18 That by the offence of one man judgement came upon all to condemnation Now when-as all men were by Adams sin subjected to wrath and condemnation and by their original sin children of wrath what ground hath any to assert that none shall be eternally condemned meerly for original sin
more than its own iniquity Arminius I remember telleth us that he can see no reason but that Children may be equally punished eternally for the sins of their Parents as well as the whole posterity of Adam for his sin but certainly there is a vast difference the first Adam was a publick person with whom God made a Covenant for life or death for himself and for his posterity and he had a power as well to have conveyed life as death to all his posterity but surely none will assert this as to any Parent since his time 5. Consider how much comfort there is laid for parents mourning in that speech of our Saviour for of such is the kingdom of God Men that have large Gardens and Orchards have places for slips and Inlays as well as for old Stocks Nurseries for Plants as well as places for full-grown fruit-trees God hath his garden of Grace that is his Church and he hath his garden of Glory to both belong Nurseries The Children of believers are though imperfect members yet members of his Church and they may be heirs of Glory though they go out of this world under age as to any earthly inheritance Yet they may be of full age for the inheritance that is immortal incorruptible and which fadeth not away they will be of age in that Country where is no infant of days nor old man of years The possibility of little Childrens entering into the Kingdom of God yea the probability that the seed of such as fear God dying in infancy are so entred ought to be a wonderful relief to Godly parents mourning upon this account Some Mothers only people the earth with sinners God puts an honour upon thee if thou stockest Heaven with Saints and bringest forth to the kingdom of Glory 6. Consider Thou canst never lose a Child with more hope than in its infancy Some have thought that the death of Christ hath as to all expiated the guilt of Adams sin both the Socinians and Arminians seem so to judge Others think that by vertue of the New Covenant the water of Baptism washeth away original sin Augustine was called Durus pater infantum an hard Father to Infants because he thought all unbaptized Infants were damned by which it seems he deferred much to Baptism but I do not remember that I ever read in him or heard from him that he held that all baptized Infants should be saved if dying in infancy I durst not fix the comfort of mourning Parents upon these foundations But yet this is certain the Infant within the pale of the Church the Child of the believing the true believing Parent especially is in Covenant with God It hath not yet been defiled with wilfull presumptuous sinning we cannot say so of our Children when they are grown up to years A godly Parent can never lose a Child with more hopes of its eternal Salvation than in its infancy 7. Again Possibly what God hath done he hath done in mercy to thee to thy soul that thy affections may be more entirely upon him God knew thy heart better than thy self it may be by such a stroke he hath secured thy heart more unto himself it may be in mercy as to the comforts of thy life Zedekiah could better have followed his Children in their infancy to their grave than have seen them slain by a barbarous enemy before his face Thou knowest not what evil is coming upon the world 8. Lastly consider That for those that keep the Lords Sabbaths and chuse the things that please him and take hold of the Lords Covenant God hath Isa 56.45 promised a better name than that of sons and daughters even an everlasting name which shall never be cut off But I shall digress no further on this Argument 4. Lastly Having stilled thy impatience what hast thou to do but to fulfil the Lords will and ends under such a dispensation Let those do it that are patients under such providences Let us all do it who are spectators of them Are any of us patients under such Providences let us fulfil the Lords ends in them You will say what are they I Answer 1. Submission to his good will is doubtless one thing God by all afflictions of his people designeth to humble and to prove his people that he may do them good in the latter end Such dispensations are the rod of God upon us and his rod hath a voice and we are bound to hear his rod. God is now trying thy obedience Abraham's trial was a greater trial he had but one Child him a Son the Child of the promise God required him to kill him with his own hand he submitted and the Lord accepted his will for the deed Thy hearing the voice of one rod may prevent the Lords taking of another to scourge thee with 2. Humiliation for those sins which thou suspectest to have been the provoking cause of such a dispensation that 's another end which thou maist probably think that God aimeth at Afflictions are to humble us and to prove us 3. God calleth aloud to thee to take thy heart off thy creature-comforts Thou seest what gourds what blossoms they are what shadows they are which thou huggest what lyes thou hast in thy right hand he calls now to thee to fix thy heart and thine eyes upon him alone and to make him alone thy portion to fix all thy delight upon him For us that are spectators of such Providences let us also by them learn wisdom 1. By taking heed of such sins as may provoke God to such dispensations we stand concerned if we love our children to love God and to fear him to walk closely with him the wicked life of a Parent may shorten the life of a Child for that God in judgment may write him childless a man who shall not prosper nor his name out-live a present generation Take heed of those particular sins which may provoke God to such a stroke Take heed of murmuring at the blessing of a numerous off spring and distrusting the Providence of God as to a providing for them Take heed if Children be given you that you do not set your heart upon them Look upon them as fading flowers and such flowers as never fade sooner than while they are worn too near your heart Take heed of sins by which the enemies of God shall be made to blaspheme David for such sins lost his new born Child from his beloved Bathsheba 2. More especially take heed of neglecting your children Neglect not the ordinance of Baptism as to them I do not think that is damnable but I do think it is provocative of God I remember God met Moses in the Inn and was about to kill him for his omission of Circumcision Circumcision was in it self a pitiful thing but it was Gods ordinance it was his Covenant in the flesh with the seed of Abraham We are not upon a Divine institution to say To what purpose is it or what good
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
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
ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito These men may live at Sea in the midst of troubles and never think of God and Christ nor upon the power goodness and truth of God but upon an O socii neque enim ignâ—ri sumus ante malorum O passi graviora c. or some such thing but this is not to live upon faith if thy soul liveth the life of faith thy heart is alive in an evil time and the life and courage of it is maintained from God thy heart is maintained from the Truth Power and Goodness of God 2. This life of Faith is a quiet life It is a quiet life as to passions Faith hath a wonderful power to keep the mind in a calm serene temper It is the unbelieving soul that fretteth and sumeth and vexeth all turbulent passions upon Gods providence are the products of unbelief The Prophet telleth us He that believeth maketh not haste Faith dryeth up immoderate tears scatters the storms of fears maketh the soul to cease from anger and forsake wrath It quieteth the tongue so as it doth not charge God foolishly it keeps a man from all murmuring and flyings out against God from all indecent and extravagant flying out against men who are Gods instruments I held my peace because I knew it was thy doing David believed that God had done what was done he dust not mutter or repine because the Lord had done it And so as to action I mean irregular actions Take an unbeliever and let him be in any streight or distress he is unquiet and turbulent and makes no conscience what means he useth to set himself at liberty but he that believeth maketh not haste he who by faith eveth the promise gives credit to it and hath committed himself to the Power Goodness and Truth of God for the accomplishment of it as he is not hasty with his spirit to murmur fret and vex because it is not presently made good to him so he is not hasty with his tongue to charge God foolishly nor in his action He dareth not use any sinister or unlawful means to quit himself of any difficulty in which he is entangled he believeth that God will preserve uphold deliver him and in his own time find out some lawful way and means and the belief of this restraineth him from impatience or any thing which should be a fruit and indication of it 3. Again The life of Faith is an expectant life The Apostle telleth us that Faith is the evidence of things not seen Hence Faith hath always two daughters which are its genuine off spring 1. Hope which is the souls looking up or looking out for those things of which Faith giveth an evidence or assurance Faith assureth hope expecteth and this is so inseparable from Faith that it is often in Scripture put for Faith and only differeth in this that Hope is an expectancy upon faith's evidence and the certainty which it giveth the soul of the thing promised in the word Every hope indeed doth not speak faith but every grounded hope doth there is an hope of an hypocrite which groweth up like the rush without mire and the flag without water Patience is another daughter of Faith I shall have occasion to speak to that more fully hereafter Faith assureth the thing to the soul Hope looketh out for it and expects it Patience keeps the soul still and waiting for it If you ask me what the soul expecteth what it waiteth for it must needs be that of which Faith hath given the soul an evidence that is the Promise The Promises are of various natures for outward mercies such as Protection Deliverance c. Spiritual mercies such as inward Support Strength Consolations Eternal happiness 4 Again The life of Faith is an active life The operation of Faith doth not terminate in a meer speculation The activity of Faith lieth 1. In the diligent use of all natural and rational means which God hath appointed in order to the obtaining of the mercy of which faith hath given the soul an evidence and assurance As Faith doth quiet the soul and restrain it from the use of all unlawful means so it doth quicken and engage the soul in the use of all lawful and proper means The reason of which is because Faith can assure the soul of no mercy but in that manner and order and under those circumstances in and under which God hath promised to bestow it Now God hath promised mercies in the use of means so it quickeneth and engageth the soul to the use of means as a piece of the Will of God in order to the obtaining of our desired mercy 2. It lyeth in the use of all spiritual means and here Prayer in a special manner Prayer being the general spiritual means to be used for the obtaining of any mercy Daniel chap. 9 understood by Books that the time was come for the fulfilling of the 70 years captivity and this faith of his as to what he read in the Books quickned him up to pour out that fervent prayer unto God Dan. 9. 5. The life of Faith is a cheerful and joyous life you read in Scripture of a joy and peace which attendeth believing Rom. 15. Believing the glory of God is a great means to make the soul to rejoyce in the hopes of it Now the reason of this joy is the strength of that evidence which faith doth give the soul for joy is nothing else but the complacency of the soul or rather the expression of this complacency upon the souls union to its desired object Now according to the nearness and fulness of this union so is the joy Faith giving the soul a great and unquestionable evidence of the thing doth also give unto the soul a proportionable joy 6. The life of Faith is a crucifying dying life to the world This is the victory saith the Apostle by which we overcome the world even our faith Faith looketh up to the Cross of Christ and by it the heart of a Christian is crucified to the world and the world is crucified to his heart The proper operation of Faith is to work against hope for indeed if once the mercy cometh in sight so as sense cometh in play faith ceaseth as well as hope Hence the operation and exercise of Faith must needs crucifie the heart of a Christian to the world to sense and to all sensible objects Faith made Abraham overlook his own body which was now dead and Sarahs dead womb it made him to overlook the Knife and the Altar and the loss of Isaac's natural life and only to consider that God was able to raise him up from the dead it maketh a Christian overlook all seeming difficulties in regard of sense and all contrarieties whatsoever indeed seemeth to be in his way Now by these things you may try your selves whether you live the life of Faith under sad and dark Providences yea or no. By this time methinks
second place get an acquaintance with the promises of God Two Sorts of promises you must be acquainted with if you would bring your hearts into this frame of silent waiting for God 1. All those promises that are made to the Church and people of God for support and comfort in and under troubles and deliverance out of them of which the Scripture is full such as these Psal 94.14 The Lord will not cast off his people nor forsake his inheritance Read at your leisure Psal 128.6 Jer. 29.10 Mic. 4.4 11 12. Isa 27.5 7 8. Isa 33.20 Jer. 33.6 A second sort of promises are those that are specially made to this waiting upon God Psal 37.9 Psal 27.14 Isa 40.13 Wait upon the Lord and he shall strengthen your heart They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength like the Eagle they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint The promises in Scripture of this nature are very many These are but a specimen of them 3. Lastly Labour to be acquainted with the ways and methods of Divine Providence which is to deal out dispensations of mercy to his people not presently but after their waiting upon him some time Habakkuk 2.3 The vision is yet for an appointed time but at the end it shall speak it shall not lie though it tarry wait for it because it will surely come it will not tarry The Church in her Song saith Lo this is our God we have waited for him to this is our God we have waited for him we will rejoyce and be glad in his Salvation 2. Secondly Beg of God a waiting frame of Spirit As there is nothing more sinful in it self nor more tormenting to our selves in an evil day than an impatient hasty Spirit so there is nothing more conducive to our glorifying of God nor to the quiet of our own Spirits than a silent waiting Spirit This the God of Heaven must give and he giveth it to them that ask him beg of God those graces which may dispose thee to this patient waiting I might instance in many habits of grace necessary to bring the soul into this waiting temper I will touch only upon 4 or 5. 1. Beg Faith of God Faith in his Word and Promise He that believeth maketh not haste The hastiness and impatience of the Soul floweth from its distrust in God for the fulfilling of his Word 2. Hope is another gracious habit which disposeth the Soul to waiting we hope for what we see not for what we see why do we any longer wait for 3. Humility is a third the proud soul thinks much to wait he looketh upon mercy as his due and thinketh that God wrongeth him whiles he withholds it from him the humble soul believeth that it deserveth nothing and is therefore willing upon the least crevis of hope to wait upon God 4. Pray for patience a passive patience this is necessary in order to the bearing of evils Lastly Pray for meekness a froward Spirit is always an hasty Spirit and knows not how to wait Now to press this duty upon you I shall but name to you several Considerations leaving them to be digested and inlarged upon in your private thoughts 1. Consider first It is the work of thy day The question is what God would have a child of his do when the enemies of Religion and godliness are very high and rampant and the people of God are low poor and afflicted and God suffereth wicked men to devour those who are more righteous than themselves as if men were under the same providence as the Fish of the Sea and the Beasts of the Earth where without any regard to right or wrong the greater devoureth the less at such a time as this what should a good and righteous man do Let Solomon answer Prov. 20.22 Say not I will recompence evil but wait on the Lord and he shall save you Hence you shall every-where in Scripture find the Church and people of God resolving upon it and the Lord when he instructs his people what to do in an evil day this is that which he directeth Isa 60.9 Zech. 3.8 Hab. 4.5 Isa 8.17 2. It is that which God hath alone left for you to do in such a day Our Eyes of sense in such a time are quite put out we have nothing to do at such a time but to stand still and see the Salvation of God Jer. 14.22 Are there any amongst the Gentiles that can give rain therefore we will wait upon thee we have nothing else to do we have none else we can wait upon therefore we will wait upon thee 3. It is that which hath been the practice of all the people of God and what they have called their souls to in evil times Psal 52.9 Psal 62.5 Indeed it is the whole business and life of a child of God It was the practice of the Church Mic. 7.7 And of Job The Saint hath the promise of heaven but he must wait for it 4. Thou hast ground enough to do it the Power of God the Goodness and Truth of God are certainly a sufficient ground of encouragement to any soul to wait upon God who hath promised help and is so true that he cannot lie who is able to help and to do more abundantly than we stand in need of and who is Infinite in Goodness and wanteth no love to prompt him to come in to the relief and succour of his people 5. Waiting upon God gives God the honour of many Attributes It giveth Him the glory of his Soveraignty His Wisdom His Power His Truth and His Goodness 6. It is a great evidence of your Faith He that believeth maketh not hast 7. It is that which in a day of evil will distinguish you from wicked and ungodly men they cannot wait upon God but break out into fits of impatience c. 8. There is nothing so effectual in an evil day to help thee to keep down thy corruptions to silence thy temptations You have heard it in that to which many promises are made That your waiting upon God is pleadable as an argument for the mercy which you desire In short there are very many Arguments might be used to perswade this silent waiting upon God but I have before spake to many of them and shall therefore add no more to this Discourse SERMON XLIX Rom. IX 15. For he saith unto Moses I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion I Am as you know attempting to expound the hard Chapters of Divine providence giving you some account of those Motions of it which to us appear most difficult I have brought these under some heads propounding to speak 1. First To such as concerned the exhibition of the Covenant of works after the establishment of the Eternal Covenant of Redemption and Grace And 2. The Exhibition or tender of grace to all indefinitely after the Decree of
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
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
in me is thy help I Am now come to the second general Proposition which I promised you to discourse upon a little In my last exercise I discoursed to you of the Fountain of Life and Grace which we found to be the free-will of God There is no other account to be given of Gods shewing mercy but because he will shew mercy which is most certainly true as of Gods eternal acts of Grace so of his Acts of Providence as to the dispensation of his first Grace The next Proposition I mentioned was this 2. Prop. That God in his providential Dispensations of punishment never acteth by meer Prerogative but according to the demerit of his Creatures In his Dispensations of Grace and the means of it he acteth meerly from his own Will he will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy and there is no other account to be given of those Dispensations he sendeth the Gospel to this place rather than another because he will send it he changeth this Man or Womans heart and turneth it to himself because he will shew mercy But the case is otherwise in his penal Dispensations there God acteth not upon Prerogative God there hath a Prerogative for may not the Potter do what he will with his Clay But it is one thing to have Jus absolutum an absolute right and power which we must claim for God so long as we know him to have an absolute right and Soveraignty over the works of his hands 't is another thing for God agere secundum jus absolutum to act according to his Soveraignty and absolute power this we say God doth not I pray observe I restrain my Discourse to Gods Dispensations of actual Providence I shall not meddle with the eternal Councils of God in this case that is quite beyond my Subject propounded It is unquestionable that the punishments of Sinners both in this Life and that which is to come as well as the other great issues of his Providence concerning the rewards of righteous men were set in order by an Eternal deliberation but whether by a meer negative or positive Decree whether upon consideration of sin or no are points I am not at all concerned to interest my self in having all along restrained my discourse to the motions of Actual Providence and certain it is that God in those Dispensations doth punish none either here or hereafter meerly because he will but upon consideration of Sinners demerits Shewing mercy is an Act of Grace punishments are Acts of Justice The gift of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Eternal Life that is a guift and what is freer than gift But the Wages of Sin is Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Man must earn Death before he hath it from the hand of a merciful God but Eternal Life must be given him if ever it be his Portion so saith my Text. O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self I will open this in two or three conclusions 1. I understand it of all kind of destructions possibly the Text may chiefly relate to temporal destructions 't is Ephraim to whom the Prophet is speaking and it is about a bodily destruction but the Conclusion is general and the Text is well enough applyed by Divines to Eternal destruction all destructions whether of Body or Soul are of our selves yea I take the Aphonimy of the Text to be more eminently true of the destruction of the Soul than of the destruction of the Body A Child may dye for the sins of the Parents Subjects may dye for the sin of their Prince as in the case of Saul's Children that were hanged in David's time and in the case of those many thousands which in David's time were cut off for his sin in numbring of the People The Children of God may be involved in a common destruction and suffer as they are a part of a sinful Nation God may take them off to deliver them from an evil to come as in the case of Abijam the Son of Jeroboam God may punish his people with afflictions of this Life for the trial and exercise of their graces but in Eternal destructions God can have no other end than the punishment of the person and all such destruction is for a mans sin his personal sin 3. When we say that Mens destruction is of themselves you must understand of themselves as the meritorious cause not of themselves as the principal efficient cause God is rightly enough entituled to all the Evil of punishment in the City It is no dishonour to his Majesty to be the Author of his own Judgments which is all that Mr. Calvin or any of the same mind with him have said which hath made some so clamour against them as having asserted God to be the Author of Sin For God to be the Author of punishments is no stain to his Glory but a Declaration of his Justice and of his Righteousness Christ himself shall come as the Apostle telleth us in flaming fire to take Vengeance upon them who know not God and obey not his glorious Gospel God shall say to those on his left hand depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels But our destruction is from our selves as the proximate and meritorious cause though from God as the efficient cause It is not from the Soveraign will of God meerly but from the stubborn and rebellious will of Man that any Soul perisheth Divines do say that though God cannot will the doing of any Sin yet he may will that it should be done The Holy Ghost telleth us that Herod and Pilate and the Jews employed in accusing condemning crucifying of Christ did no more than what the Council of God had determined should be done But I say notwithstanding this the proximate cause of mans Damnation is not because God hath willed their Damnation it is the guilt of their own Sins the demerit of their own Transgressions which bringeth them to the Pit of Destruction The Gracious God sheweth mercy and saveth all who are saved by Prerogative by Grace you are saved saith the Apostle he hath the same Prerogative in matters of Death that he hath in matters of Life but he useth it not but there acteth according to his Statute-Law The Soul that sinneth shall dye He who saveth men without themselves damneth none without themselves Men are saved by Grace but they are damned by Sin The wages of Sin is Death Omne peccatum est voluntarium all Sin is of ourselves it must have something of our own will and consent to and in it 3. Thirdly Although this be certain that all destruction all punishment is for Sin yet the particular proximate cause of some punishments is unknown to us I will instance in one particular a punishment undoubtedly a most severe punishment The withholding the Gospel and so the ordinary means of Grace and Salvation from the far greatest part of the world They hear nothing of the Lord Jesus
they have not the Oracles of God the ordinary means of Grace are hidden from them There is no doubt but their own wilful sinning is the cause of it But whether the Sin of their Progenitors who had the Gospel and sinned it away which to me seemeth a little hard for I can hardly be brought to agree that God for the sins of Relations punisheth their Correlates in Spiritual things Or that prodigious sinning which they are guilty of not living up to what may by them by their natural Light be seen of God for the Apostle Rom. 1. gives you a true Copy of the lives of all Heathens is not so easie to determine I should incline much to fix the cause here they have though not the Book of Scripture yet the Book of Gods Works and Nature though not Men Ministers of the Gospel to them yet the Heavens declaring the Glory of God and the Earth shewing his handy-work those standing Preachers of the Power Glory and Greatness of God whose sound is gone out and going dayly out over all the world they have the Sun and Moon they see much of God in and by them and may learn much of God from them but knowing God and not glorifying him as God but becoming vain in their imaginations they worship Devils and Stocks and Stones the work of their own hands and shutting their eyes against the Light of those common notions which are engraven in all reasonable Natures they give up themselves to commit all filthiness and unrighteousness So not using the Light of Nature and Reason which God hath given them God justly with-holdeth from them the Talent of the Gospel If God doth grant it to others which yet it may be are guilty of the same sottish abuse of their natural Light and Reason therein he is good and gracious but if he denieth it unto them therein he is not unjust or unrighteous But I say there may be some particular instances as to which it may be hard for us to assign what particular sins God so securely proceedeth against the Nations Families or Persons for but this is certain Sin is certainly the next cause of all severe dispensations of punishment Now this will appear to us 1. From the evidence of Scripture 2. From the evidence of Reason concluding from Scripture-Principles 1. First from the plain evidence of Scripture In the case of the Heathen amongst whom the Devil hath the greatest harvest of perishing Souls of these the Apostle speaketh Rom. 1.18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Observe the words God doth not reveal his wrath against the Heathen meerly upon the account of his Soveraign Power because he will do it but against the ungodliness and unrighterusness of men he goeth on declaring their ungodliness and their unrighteousness Vers 21. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God They had light enough from the Works of God in Nature to shew them other kind of Ideas of the Divine Being than it was possible for them to find amongst created beings but they turned the Incorruptible God into the image of a corruptible man yea of creeping things and four-footed beasts The Apostle telleth them also of their unrighteousness Vers 29. Fornication wickedness covetousness malitiousness they were full of envy murders debates deceits c. Now for these things the wrath of God was revealed against them The Apostle telleth us Rom. 2.14 That when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things which are contained in the Law they are a Law to themselves And Vers 26. If the uncircumcision keep the Law their uncircumcision shall be accounted to them for circumcision I am not of their mind who think that the Heathen have light enough to shew them the way to Heaven I know not Isa 9.2 Mat. 4.16 Luk. 1.7 9. if that were true why the Scripture should set them out under the notion of persons or people that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death until Christ as the day-spring from on high hath visited them But I am sure they have sin enough to justifie God in damning them and permitting them to walk in their own ways until they have filled up the measure of their iniquities and brought judgment upon themselves I also believe that if there be found a Job in the Land of Vz If there be one found amongst the Heathen who feareth God and escheweth evil who walketh up to his natural light God hath his secret way to reveal and apply Christ to them so as he shall not perish But yet I cannot believe that his natural light shall save him because the Scripture telleth us That there is no other name under heaven than the name of Jesus Christ by which any can be saved neither is there Salvation in any other There are several things in nature that we know are so but we do not know the way of them In the matters of grace there are several things also which we understand not the way of God in Three come into my mind at present The way of God with an infant we are not sure that all infants no not that all Baptized infants shall be saved but we doubt not but of many such is the Kingdom of God but for the way of God with the Soul of one that liveth not up to the exercises of reason and the intelligentness of the ordinary means of Faith and Regeneration this we do not understand 2. The way of God with a thief upon the Cross I mean with a sinner forgetting or neglecting to turn unto God until his last hour we do believe that God hath mercy upon some such Souls but how God worketh in them these habits of grace which are necessary according to the ordinary rule how they are born again of the Spirit and Baptized not with water only but with the Holy Ghost and with fire this we do not understand And so Thirdly The way of God with an Heathen that never cometh to the light of the Gospel nor hath any external Revelation of Christ I say how the Spirit of God moveth and which way it cometh into such a Soul this we do not understand but leave it amongst the unsearchable things of Divine Providence which we believe and revere If there be as I said before a Job in the Land of Vz he shall know that his Redeemer lives and that he shall stand at the last day upon the earth and he shall see him with his eyes But which way God revealeth this to him we understand not In the mean time these hidden things being left to God revealed things belong to us and to our children and this is revealed That the wrath of God as to the Heathen is revealed against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men 2. But this is much more evident concerning such as live under the means of grace and offers of salvation Oh
be such a sufficient grace granted to all It must be sufficient either as a Physical or Natural cause or as a Moral cause Physical causes we know act necessarily All that can be pretended is a sufficiency as a Moral cause Now certainly in the Gospel and the preaching of it there is only a proposition of things to be believed and done and arguments used to perswade the belief or doing of them the Question still is by what power it is that a man doth believe and do What is in the word written propounded in the word preached so persuaded and argued We say it is not of our selves it is the gift of God and it is given to them who believe on the behalf of Christ to believe Phil. 1.29 Now this means is not given unto all the Habits are not infused from whence as from their Roots and Principles these actions must proceed To this they have nothing to say but that these actings flow from a Principle in mans will yet all men have the same reasonable Souls thus God giveth Faith and Holiness no more to Paul than to Judas The upshot is therefore That there is in man a self sufficiency to his own Salvation and need not to be beholden to Father Son or Holy Ghost for it being once brought forth into the World and possessed of a reasonable Soul he hath a sufficiency to his own Slavation and may be a God unto himself but it is not proper to call this means we are otherwise taught from the Holy Scriptures and therefore cannot agree it That all men have an auxilium sufficiens a sufficiency of grace and gracious assistances in order to their obtaining Eternal life and Salvation 2. Quest But the Second Question still remains viz. How can God be just in the condemnation of any Sinner to whom he hath not given a sufficient aid and assistance of grace in order to his Salvation To this in my former discourses I have spoken sufficiently But yet I will speak something to it here falling so fully in my way Answ 1. I answer first God did give unto Adam sufficient aids and assistances of Divine grace to have carried him and all his posterity to Heaven What was given unto him was given to him and his to him as a publick Person in whom we all were Arnoldus contra Mol. c. 6. Sect. 2. Episcopius disp 5. thes 6. and fell Arminians stifly deny That Adam in his state of innocency had a power to believe in Christ because say they there was need of any Faith in Christ in that estate no Episcopius saith it is a silly Question considering we make Faith a Supernatural habit and such a one as in that state there was no need of This is no better then trifling and equivocating surely all habits of grace since the fall are Supernatural habits we must be taught of God to love God and to love one another to fear God to delight or to hope in him had Adam therefore no such powers in his state of innocency think we Further I would gladly know whether Adam had not a power in innocency to do whatsoever was necessary in order to the obtaining of everlasting Salvation If God doth not give now to every man such a sufficiency of power and Spiritual assistance yet he is just in the condemnation of Sinners Man had such a sufficiency of power and lost it but God hath not lost his right to require the exercise of it and to condemn Sinners for sin though they now want it 2. Especially considering that God hath given unto all such a sufficiency of external means as is sufficient to render them without excuse This the Apostle expresly saith Rom. 2.1 But you will say If God hath not given to all a sufficiency of means how shall man be without excuse shall not one say Lord I never heard of Christ I never saw thy Law how should I believe on him of whom I never heard how should I obey that Law which I never saw nor heard of Again shall not another say Lord I did indeed hear of a Saviour the Scripture I read I beard but I had no power to believe I could not chonge my own heart thou wouldst not change it thou indeed Lord didst stand at the door of my heart and knock but thou didst never put in thy hand at the hole of the door I answer these Sinners yet shall be inexcusable because they walked not up to that light and mercy which God gave them This is what the Apostle giveth in plea for God concerning the Heathen Rom. 1.18 21. The wrath of God saith he is revealed against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men for saith he That which may be known of God is manifested in them for God hath shewed it to them v. 21. Because when they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkned It is true we say the Heathens have not a light shining amongst them they have nothing but the light of Nature to guide them and this light maketh no discovery of Christ but yet the light shineth with them a light which will shew them there is a God and discover to them that this God is Eternal and powerful So that saith the Apostle they are without excuse because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful but became vain in their imaginations they improved not what light they had nor became thankful for it nor obedient to it Christians are much more inexcusable for besides that they have an equal share in Natural light and have the same dictates of Natural conscience with others there is much more of Christ and his Gospel manifested to them Christ telleth the Jews Mat. 21.32 That John came unto them in a way of righteousness and they believed not but Publicans and Harlots believed in him and you saith he when you had seen it repented not afterwards that you might believe Christians have the preaching of the Gospel the preaching of Faith and of repentance and they repent not that they might believe you will say but it is God that must give a power to repent he gave unto Gentiles repentance unto life I answer repentance is taken either more largely or more strictly More stricty it signifieth the turning of the heart from all Sin unto God this indeed is the work of God he alone hath an hand upon the heart of man but more largely it is taken for the turning from some sin and the performance of external discipline now as to this the Lord denieth unto none a sufficiency of grace and if men do not what in them lyeth they are without excuse 3. Finally It is most certain that God whether he giveth sufficient grace to all or no condemneth none but for sin I have shewed you at large that a sinners destruction is of and from himself as
execution of that purpose hath given his Son for you to purchase a certainty of Salvation for your Souls who hath sent the Ministers of his Gospel to you publishing this Salvation by Christ when others never heard of the Gospel nay who hath done much more than this when others sate under the Gospel and their hearts were never wrought upon by the preaching of it God hath especially changed and wrought upon your hearts and conquered your souls into the obedience of his Gospel I shall conclude with that of the Psalmist Psal 107.1 2. O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy SERMON LII Rom. 11.33 His ways past finding out I Have as you know in this Discourse formerly made use of this Text to found a Proposition upon concerning the unsearchableness of the ways of Divine Providence for of those ways it is that this Text speaketh I beheld saith Solomon Eccl. 8.17 all the words of God that a man cannot find out the ways of God which are done under the Sun yea though a man labour to find it out yet be shall not find it yea though a wise man think to know it yet he shall not find it I have shewed you that the ways of Divine Providence cannot be found out 1. As to the Compass and Latitude of them 2. As to the Tendencies of them 3. As to the Method and Tract of them 4. As to the Indication of them 5. Lastly As to the Reason of them This is as true with reference to the motions of special and effectual grace as to the workings of Providence in its more ordinary and common motions relating to the affairs of the World Now one of the Reasons why the ways of the Lord cannot be found out is because he doth not always tread the same steps God doth not always do the same work in the same method and this is true as to the motions of Providence in the distribution of special grace as well as with reference to its motions respecting the affairs of this life I shall not pretend to find out these depths I shall only Discourse some of these distributions so far as to shew you that they are reasonable motions I shall first Discourse shortly concerning the works of Divine Providence in the bringing home of Souls unto himself in the work of Conversion and Regeneration 2. Secondly In Gods carrying on of his work in the souls of his Saints thereby preparing and making them meet for the Inheritance of light That which I intend at this time to speak to is the variety of Gods ways in bringing home souls to himself Even there the way of God is like the way of an Eagle in the Air a Serpent on a Rock and a Ship on the Sea which can none of them be trackt nor found out in the methods of their motions God in the Converting of souls unto himself doth not keep an uniform motion nor tread certain steps but sometimes he worketh one way sometimes another sometimes by one means sometimes by another For some order in this Discourse I shall Discourse 1. Concerning the varieties of Divine Providence in the Conversion of souls 2. What reasonable account may be given of that variety of Gods motions in this thing 3. What practical conclusions may be drawn from hence or inferred upon this Discourse I begin with the first of these Quest 1. What varieties of Divine Providence are observable in this great work of changing hearts and the Conversion of souls unto God The truth is there are some that will understand none at all poor souls they will understand no other Conversion nor Regeneration but in Baptism every one that is Baptized is Regenerated There was indeed such a thing as Conversion when the world was all Jews and Heathens and to be brought to imbrace the Doctrine of the Gospel But for any such thing as the turning the heart from sin unto God this they understood not and indeed by their lives one would judg they did not But I am speaking to those whom I believe taught better things and who believe other things surely conversion or turning from Idols and erronious Opinions is not all that we read in Scripture of the change of the heart and turning unto God But in the Converting of sinners you shall observe a great variety chiefly remarkable in Three things 1. As to the time the particular time of mans life when God is pleased to call home souls unto himself some in their youth some in their age c. 2. As to the External means which God maketh use of in this work 3. As to the manner of Gods dealing with souls in the Converting Regenerating and bringing home souls unto himself 1. First As to the time This our blessed Lord excellently setteth out to us in that Parable Mat. 20. Where he telleth us That the Kingdom of heaven is like unto an housholder who went out early to find out labourers whom he might send into his Vineyard some he called early in the morning some about the sixth hour some about the ninth hour some at the eleventh hour he called them in at several hours The Kingdom of God is the Church of God which properly consisteth only of such as are Saints by effectual-calling though others that are visibly and professionally such have that denomination being mixed with others who are the true members of the Lord Jesus Christ Gods calling men into his Vineyard is his adding to the number of such as shall be saved Now God calleth some early in their youth some in their middle-age some but very few in their old age some even at their dying hour though of them there be of all the rarest examples As God had Nazarites from the womb so he sanctifieth some from the womb Samuel was from the very womb Dedicated to God and accepted of God God telleth Jeremiah Jer. 1.5 That before he came out of the womb he sanctified him I am a-ware that Sanctifying in that Text may be taken in another sense as it signifieth a Separation to the Office of a Prophet and so it may be understood to be interpreted by the following words and ordained thee to be a Prophet but why it should be limited to that sense I do not understand St. Paul saith He was separated from his Mothers womb and called by his grace but there separating must be understood of Gods design and purpose for we know Paul was a blasphemer a persecutor But certain it is that God calleth some very young Timothy from a child was acquainted with the Scriptures Josiah 2 Chron. 34.1 2. at eight years old began to reign and ver 2. did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and ver 3. at sixteen years of age he set upon his famous reformation It is said of Abijam the young Son of
that it may live and not dye God calleth into his Vineyard at several hours some he calleth at the Sixth some at the Nineth some at the Eleventh hour Happy thrice happy are they whom God findeth at the Sixth hour in their youth and persuadeth to go into his Vineyard they ordinarily find not so hard a labour of the new-birth they have the priviledg of a longer familiarity and acquaintance with God they have more opportunities of doing God service God often honoreth them to do him some more eminent service but if you have slipped that hour if it be the Ninth hour nay if it be in the wane of your life if it be towards Evening with you that you have nothing to do but to repent and dye singing the Song of old Simeon Now Lord let thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy Salvation yet thou hast no cause to discourage thy self God doth not work upon all Souls at one and the same period of time Great sinners have no reason to discourage themselves the gate to Heaven may appear something straiter to you than unto others you may have an harder work of it it is an hard thing for those that are accustomed to do evil to do well but yet if God will give you an heart to repent if the Lord shall change your hearts and incline you to turn unto him there is mercy with God even for you God can men make to bring forth fruit in their old age Vse 3. Lastly and with that I shall shut up this discourse This speaketh aloud unto all such as have the charge of others as Parents Masters Tutors and Governours to be daily labouring with them for the good of their Souls using all possible means to bring them unto God It is Solomons advice Ecc. 11.6 In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening let not thy hand be slack for thou knowest not which shall prosper this or that or whether both shall be alike good you that are Parents of Children Masters of Servants in any relation Governours of youth see what an ingagement lyeth upon you to bring up your Children to Reading the word Catechizing to bring them to hear faithful Preachers sow the seeds of Spiritual learning and instruction in them in the Morning of their lives hearken not to those who would perswade you that Catechizing in your families is useless and that a Notional knowledg signifieth nothing until God come to work in their hearts that is true but ill applyed when used as a discouragement to the use of the means of knowledg God doth his work by the use of means on our parts and Preaching is not the only means God sometimes in the conversion of sinners maketh his way to their hearts by their heads sanctifying notions of truth dropt into Souls of persons in their tender years and reflecting them many years after upon the conscience you know not which shall prosper this or that use them to read the Scriptures to be examined questioned and catechised out of the Scriptures to hear lively and powerful preaching you know not which shall prosper in order to the conversion of their Souls and turning them to God this or that whether reading or preaching or Family-instruction God that can work without means useth as you have heard a variety of means and doth not limit himself to this or that Or whether both may not prove alike good God may use one means to begin another to perfect one to plant another to water one for laying the foundation another for building thereon and laying the corner-stone and yet when the building is finished you shall see reason enough to cry Not unto us O Lord not unto us but to thy name be given the glory to cry Grace Grace unto it The Knowing person when converted hath usually if not guilty of notorious sins against his light the easiest new-birth and the most quiet and peaceable life Many more doubts and fears trouble those that are more imperfect in their knowledg of the things of God than trouble others O let it not be said of you as it was said of Herod upon occasion of the killing of his own Child amongst the rest of the Infants That it was better to be Herods Hog than his Child Let it not be said of any of you that it is better to be your Horse or Swine or other Beast than your Child or Servant or Scholar For your Beasts you provide all things sutable to their Natures and capacities O remember your Children have Spiritual beings and are born into the World with a capacity of Eternity nay under a certain ordination to a miserable or blessed Eternity SERMON LIII Isaiah 28.29 This also cometh from the Lord who is wonderful in Counsel and excellent in working THE Particle This in the front of my Text is relative to what went before where the Prophet had been speaking of some works of Divine Providence and those but of an inferiour Nature if compared with others the discretion by which men having divers sorts of Grain and Seeds are taught to get them out of their husks and ears by instruments not always the same but suted to the respective Grain or Seed they intend to get out Of this it is that the Text speaks This discretion and saith it cometh from the Lord who is wonderful in Counsel So that I desire you to observe that my following discourses which I shall bottom on this Text are not founded on the first words and the relative Particle This but upon the latter where Gods wonderfulness in Counsel and excellency in working are join'd together Gods excellency in the workings of Providence floweth from his wonderful Counsel and if such little instincts as the foregoing verses speak of be from the Lord the Lords workings and from a wonderful Counsel an easie argumentation will conclude that Gods dispensations of special grace by the hand of his Providence must needs be the effects of infinite wisdom and proceed from the Lord who is wonderful in Councel which is the point I have in hand and to vindicate Divine wisdom from our exceptions against it because of the variety which God useth in his dispensations of it and the inequal distributions of it to the Children of men I have spoken already to the varieties of Providence in the dispensations of the first grace by which a Soul is converted and turned from sin unto God in which work the Soul is meerly passive I come now to speak to those dispensations of Spiritual grace wherein the Soul is not meerly passive but active as to these also we shall observe a great variety in the motions of Divine Providence and a great inequality in the distributions of it of which I shall give you some account and then shut up the discourse To this inequality of distribution good Christians often find it an hard thing to reconcile their thoughts and although God must be allowed to have
day of believing Souls if we can make any Judgment of Believers do sufficiently evince this to our Souls my business is to inquire the Justice and the reasonableness of the motions of Divine Providence in the inequality of this distribution This will easily appear to you upon three hypotheses which I take to be all very true 1. That God doth ordinarily dispense out these influences of grace to souls which by his Providence he hath prepared for them This which I call Gods Providential preparation of souls for the reception of these influences I conceive lies chiefly in Two things 1. The freedom of it from those bodily incumbrances which in a natural working make the soul sad heavy and dejected such distempers we know there are as in a natural working sadden the spirit and fill it full of fear sorrow dejection and despondency which are all contrary to the comforts and serenity of a soul and as I have once and again told you it must be a miraculous operation contrary to the bias tendency and natural operations of a man for a soul to be filled with consolations while it is influenced with a body lying under these disadvantages God therefore when he intendeth any of these consolatory influences doth ordinarily prepare the soul for it by delivering it from those influences of an ill affected body which dispose it quite another way 2. A second way by which God prepareth the soul for it is by filling it with knowledg proportionable to it for the comforts of a gracious soul are not irrational and unaccountable things but the results of Scriptural conclusions which the soul is by the Comforter inabled to make God hath in his Word sown the seed of light and joy for them the Ministers of the Gospel who are the Interpreters of Scripture have an Office and Ministery in the Interpretation of this Word and working the souls of Gods people to understand the sense of them The soul it self hath an action in it using its reason and natural powers to conclude from the Scripture The Holy Spirit giveth unto the soul to see the things which are freely given it of God 1 Cor. 2. and further possibly setteth to its Seal and giveth it a further and more undoubted confirmation so as in an ordinary working the comforted soul must be a knowing and understanding soul It is true we sometimes find some honest souls full of joy and peace whose knowledg doth not appear proportionable God so relieving some particular souls after their lying under the discouragements of the spirit of bondage But commonly such comforts are not of long continuance rather present reliefs to the soul from an extraordinary working of the blessed Comforter than any settled consolation and the abidings of the Comforter with them Seldom any but knowing and judicious Christians have a settled and continued joy and peace upon their believing 2. Secondly That God doth ordinarily give out these dispensations more or less or nothing of them though not according to the merits of those souls that have them yet according to their behaviour and misbehaviour towards him That famous promise John 14.21 We will manifest our selves unto him is made to those that love Christ and who keep his Commandments And when Judas asks him Lord How is it that thou wilt manifest thy self to us and not unto the world Christ answereth him saying ver 23. If any man love me and keepeth my sayings my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings as much as to say The reason why I manifest my self more to you is because you love me and demonstrate that love to me by keeping my Commandments For the world they love me not and proclaim that they love me not by their disobedience to my Commandments and therefore it is that I do not manifest my self to the world as I do unto you In the receiving of the first grace man is meerly passive and the subject of preventing and operating grace but as to the receptions of further grace the child of God is active and the subject of cooperative adjuvant and assisting grace and God gives out his assistances according to their motions 3. Lastly The reasonableness of this different dispensation may appear in this That in the dispensations of this grace God acteth often by Prerogative shewing mercy where he will shew mercy Indeed he doth so as to the first grace as I have before at large shewed you But now he doth not so as to these influences of grace which are necessary to the upholding of the mystical union between Christ and the Soul and the upholding of a Christians spiritual life if he did it were possible that a child of God might fall away from his state of grace and there might be an intercision of the state of Justification But Christ hath told us That if any man drink of the water which he shall give him he shall never thirst but it shall be in him a well-spring of living water springing up in his soul to eternal life c. so that in the dispensation of that God acteth upon a Covenant and as a debtor to his promise If any one saith God hath also promised to manifest himself unto his people I answer those promises are made to those that love him and keep his Commandments but for the upholding of the spiritual life he hath made a Covenant with his people as that he will never depart from them to do them good so that he will put his fear into their hearts that they shall never depart from him which promise although it be not to be extended to a being kept from all sin yet it is to be extended to the preservation of souls from such degrees of sinning as shall extend to the alteration of the state of the soul and the extinguishing the spiritual life and killing the seed of God in the soul But for those manifestations of grace which are not necessary to a souls Salvation and the upholding of spiritual life in it God acteth more freely according to the counsel of his own Will derected by his own infinite Wisdom Now upon these Hypotheses supposing that all Christians are not of equal degrees of knowledg nor are equal as to their bodily circumstances that every soul that belongeth to God doth not walk up to an equal degree of duty but some may be and are guilty of more and more eminent failings than others Or that God may be by his infinite Wisdom directed to try one soul more than another to prove their patience or their faith which is most tryed when his people have least sensible consolations the motions of Divine Providence in distributing to several Christians nay to the same Christians several degrees of consolatory influences of grace cannot seem either unjust or unreasonable to any sober and intelligent Christians This is all I shall speak to this