Tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord For there were set Thrones of Judgment the Thrones of the House of David Psal. 122.4 5. He that was so great a lover of the Souls of men how grateful and dear to his Heart had the place been where through the succession of many by-past Ages the great God did use though more obscurely to unfold his kind Propensions towards Sinners to hold solemn Treaties with them to make himself known to draw and allure Souls into his own holy Worship and acquaintance And that now the dismal prospect presents it self of desolation and ruine ready to overwhelm all this glory and lay wast the dwellings of Divine Love His sorrow must be conceiv'd proportionable to the greatness of this desolating change Secondly And the opportunity of prevention was quite lost There was an opportunity He was sent to the lost Sheep of the House of Israel He came to them as his own Had they received him O how joyful a place had Jerusalem been How glorious had the Triumphs of the Love of God been there had they Repented Believed Obeyed These were the things that belonged to their Peace this was their opportunity their day of Visitation these were the things that might have been done within that day But it was now too late their day was over and the things of their Peace hid from their eyes And how fervent were his desires they had done otherwise taken the wise and safe course If thou hadst known the words admit the Optative form 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being put as 't is observed to be sometimes with other Authors for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utinam O that thou hadst known I wish thou hadst his Sorrow must be proportionable to his Love Or otherwise we may conceive the Sentence incompleat part cut off by a more emphatical Aposiopesis Tears interrupting Speech and imposing a more speaking silence which imports an affection beyond all words They that were anciently so over-officious as to rase those words and wept over it out of the Canon as thinking it unworthy so Divine a Person to shed Tears did greatly erre not knowing the Scriptures which elsewhere speak of our Lords Weeping nor the Power of Divine Love now become Incarnate nor indeed the true Perfections and Properties of Humane Nature Otherwise they had never taken upon them to reform the Gospel and reduce not only Christianity but Christ himself to the measures and square of their Stoical Philosophy But these have also met with a like-ancient Confutation One thing before we proceed needs some disquisition viz. Whether this Lamentation of our blessed Lord do refer only or ultimately to the temporal calamity he foresaw coming upon Jerusalem Or whether it had not a further and more principal reference to their spiritual and eternal miseries that were certain to be concomitant and consequent thereunto Where let it be considered 1. That very dreadful spiritual plagues and judgments did accompany their destruction very generally which every one knows who is acquainted with their after-Story i. e. that takes notice what Spirit reign'd among them and what their behaviour was towards our Lord himself and afterwards towards his Apostles and Disciples all along to their fearful Catastrophe as it may be collected from the sacred Records and other history what blindness of mind what hardness of heart what mighty prejudice what inflexible obstinacy against the clearest light the largest mercy the most perspicuous and most gracious Doctrine and the most glorious works wrought to confirm it against the brightest beams and evidences of the divine Truth Love and Power what persevering impenitency and infidelity against God and Christ proceeding from the bitterest enmity Ye have both seen and hated me and my Father Joh. 15.24 What mad rage and fury against one another even when death and destruction were at the very door Here were all the tokens imaginable of the most tremendous infatuation and of their being forsaken of God Here was a concurrence of all kinds of spiritual judgments in the highest degree 2. That the concomitancy of such spiritual evils with their temporal destruction our Lord foreknew as well as their temporal destruction it self It lay equally in view before him and was as much under his eye He that knew what was in man could as well tell what would be in him And by the same light by which he could immediately look into hearts he could as well see into futurities and as well the one futurity as the other The knowledge of the one he did not owe to his humane understanding to his divine understanding whereby he knew all things the other could not be hid 3. The connection between the impenitency and infidelity that prove to be final and eternal misery is known to us all Of his knowledge of it therefore whose Law hath made the connection besides what there is in the nature of the things themselves there can be no doubt 4. That the miseries of the Soul especially such as prove incurable and eternal are in themselves far the greatest we all acknowledge Nor can make a difficulty to believe that our Lord apprehended and considered things according as they were in themselves so as to allow every thing it s own proper weight and import in his estimating of them These things seem all very evident to any eye Now thô it be confessed not impossible that of things so distinct from one another as outward and temporal evils and those that are spiritual and eternal even befalling the same persons one may for the present consider the one without attending to the other or making distinct reflection thereon at the same time Yet how unlikely is it these things bordering so closely upon one another as they did in the present case that so comprehensive a mind as our Saviours was sufficiently able to inclose them both and so spiritual a mind apt no doubt to consider most what was in it self most considerable should in a solemn Lamentation of so sad a case wholly overlook the saddest part and stay his thoughts only upon the surface and outside of it That he mentions only the approaching outward calamity vers 43.44 was that he spake in the hearing of the multitude and upon the way but in passing when there was not opportunity for large discourse and therefore he spake what might soonest strike their minds was most liable to common apprehension and might most deeply affect ordinary and not-yet-enough-prepared hearers And he spake what he had no doubt a deep sense of himself Whatever of tender compassions might be expected from the most perfect Humanity and Benignity could not be wanting in him upon the foresight of such a calamity as was coming upon that place and people But yet what was the sacking of a City the destroying of pompous buildings that were all of a perishable material the mangling of humane flesh over which the
Gospel have a day or a present opportunity for the obtaining the knowledge of these things immediately belonging to their peace and of whatsoever is besides necessary thereunto I say nothing what opportunities they have who never liv'd under the Gospel who yet no doubt might generally know more than they do and know better what they do know It suffices us who enjoy the Gospel to understand our own advantages thereby Nor as to those who do enjoy it is every ones day of equal clearnes How few in comparison have ever seen such a day as Jerusalem at this time did made by the immediate beams of the Sun of righteousnes Our Lord himself vouchsafing to be their instructor so speaking as never man did and with such authority as far outdid their other Teachers and astonisht the hearers In what transports did he use to leave those that heard him wheresoever he came wondering at the gracious words that came out of his mouth And with what mighty and beneficial works was he wont to recommend his doctrine shining in the glorious power and savouring of the abundant mercy of Heaven so as every apprehensive mind might see the Deity was incarnate God was come down to treat with men and allure them into the knowledge and love of himself The word was made flesh What unprejudic't mind might not perceive it to be so He was there manifested and vailed at once both expressions are used concerning the same matter The divine beams were somewhat obscured but did yet ray through that vail so that his glory was beheld as the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father full of grace and truth This Sun shone with a mild and benign but with a powerful vivifying light In him was life and that life was the light of men Such a light created unto the Jewes this their day Happy Jewes if they had understood their own happines And the dayes that followed to them for a while and the Gentile world were not inferiour in some respects brighter and more glorious the more copious gift of the Holy Ghost being reserv'd unto the crowning and enthroning of the victorious Redeemer when the everlasting Gospel flew like lightning to the utmost ends of the earth and the word which began to be spoken by the Lord himself was confirm'd by them that heard him God also himself bearing them witnes with signs and wonders and gifs of the Holy Ghost No such day hath been seen this many an age Yet whithersoever the same Gospel for substance comes it also makes a day of the same kind and affords alwaies true thô diminisht light whereby however the things of our peace might be understood and known The written Gospel varies not and if it be but simply and plainly propos'd thô to some it be propos'd with more advantage to some with less yet still we have the same things immediately relating to our Peace extant before our eyes and divers things besides which it concerns us to be acquainted with that we may the more distinctly and to better purpose understand these things For instance 1. We have the true and distinct state of the quarrel between God and us Pagans have understood somewhat of the apostacy of man from God that he is not in the same state wherein he was at first But while they have understood that something was amiss they could scarce tell what The Gospel reveals the universal pravity of the degenerate nature even of all men and of every faculty in man That there is none that doth good no not one and that every one is altogether become filthy and impure that there is an entire old man to be put off wholly corrupt by deceivable lusts that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the noblest powers are vitiated the mind and conscience defiled that the Spirit of the mind needs renewing is sunk into carnality and that the carnal mind is enmity against God and is not subject to his law nor can be nor capable of savouring the things of God that the Sinner is in the flesh under the dominion and power and in the possession of the fleshly sensual nature and can therefore neither obey God nor enjoy him that it is become impossible to him either to please God or be pleased with him That the sinners quarrel therefore with God is about the most appropriate rights of the Godhead the controversy is who shall be God which is the Supream authority and which is the Supream good The former peculiarity of the Godhead the lapsed creature is become so insolent as to usurp and arrogate to himself When he is become so much less than a man a very beast he will be a God His sensual will shall be his only law He lives and walks after the flesh serves divers lusts and pleasures and saies who is Lord over me But being conscious that he is not self-sufficient that he must be beholden to somewhat foreign to himself for his satisfaction and finding nothing else sutable to his sensual inclination that other divine peculiarity to be the Supream good he places upon the sensible world and for this purpose that shall be his God So that between himself and the world he attempts to share the undivided Godhead This is a controversy of an high nature and about other matters than even the Jewish Rabbins thought of who when Jerusalem was destroy'd supposed God was angry with them for their neglect of the recitation of their Phylacteries morning and evening or that they were not respectful enough of one another or that distance enough was not observ'd between superiours and inferiours c. The Gospel impleads men as rebels against their rightful Lord but of this Treason against the Majesty of Heaven men little suspect themselves till they are told The Gospel tells them so plainly represents the matter in so clear light that they need only to contemplate themselves in that light and they may see that so it is Men may indeed by resolved stiff winking create to themselves a darknes amidst the clearest light But open thine eyes man thou that livest under the Gospel set thy self to view thine own soul thou wilt find it is day with thee thou hast a day by being under the Gospel and light enough to see that this is the posture of thy Soul and the state of thy case Godward And it is a great matter towards the understanding the things of thy peace to know aright what is the true state of the quarrel between God and thee 2. The Gospel affords light to know what the issue of this quarrel is sure to be if it go on and there be no reconciliation It gives us other and plainer accounts of the punishments of the other world more fully represents the extremity and perpetuity of the future miseries and state of perdition appointed for the ungodly world Speaks out concerning the Tophet prepared of old the lake of fire and brimstone
all that is delectable to his present sense he must here leave behind him and he cannot divest himself of all apprehensions of a future state wherein if God should make him suffer nothing yet if he have nothing to enjoy he must be alwaies miserable 4. The Gospel therefore further represents to him the final eternal blessednes and glorious state which they that are reconcil'd shall be brought into They that live under the Gospel are not mock't with shadowes and empty clouds or with fabulous Elysiums Nor are they put off with some unintelligible notion of only being happy in the general But are told expresly wherein their happiness is to consist Life and immortality are brought to light in the Gospel 'T is given them to understand how great a good is laid up in store The things which eye hath not seen and ear not heard and which otherwise could not have entered into the heart of man the things of Gods present and eternal Kingdome are set in view It shewes the future state of the reconcil'd shall consist not only in freedom from what is evil but in the enjoyment of the best and most delectable good That God himself in all his glorious fulnes will be their eternal and most satisfying portion That their blessednes is to ly in the perpetual fruitive vision of his blessed face and in the fulnes of joy and the everlasting pleasures which the divine presence it self doth perpetually afford And whereas their glorious Redeemer is so nearly ally'd to them flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone who inasmuch as the children were made partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same Heb. 2.14 and is become by special title their authoriz'd Lord they are assured of that than which nothing should be more grateful to them they shall be for ever with the Lord that they are to be where he is to behold his glory and shall be joynt-heires with Christ and be glorify'd together with him shall partake according to their measure and capacity in the same blessednes which he enjoyes Thou canst not pretend sinner who livest under the Gospel that thou hast not the light of a day to shew thee what blessednes is Heaven is opened to thee Glory beams down from thence upon thee to create thee a day by the light whereof thou may'st see with sufficient clearnes what is the inheritance of the Saints in light And thô all is not told thee and it do not in every respect appear what we shall be so much may be foreknown that when he shall appear we shall be like him and shall see him as he is 1 Joh. 3.1 2. And because the heart as yet carnal can savour little of all this and finding it self strange and disaffected to God affecting now to be without Christ and without God in the world may easily apprehend it impossible to it to be happy in an undesired good or that it can enjoy what it dislikes or in the mean time walk in a way to which it finds in it self nothing but utter aversenes and disinclination 5. The Gospel further shewes us what is to be wrought and done in us to attemper and frame our spirits to our future state and present way to it It lets us know we are to be born again born from above born of God made partakers of a divine nature that will make the temper of our spirits connatural to the divine presence That whereas God is light and with him is no darknes at all we who were darknes shall be made light in the Lord. That we are to be begotten again to a lively hope to the eternal and undefiled inheritance that is reserved in the heavens for us That we are thus to be made meet to be partakers of that inheritance of the Saints in light And as we are to be eternally conversant with Christ we are here to put on Christ to have Christ in us the hope of glory And whereas only the way of holiness and obedience leads to blessednes that we are to be created in Christ Jesus to good workes to walk in them And shall thereupon find the wayes prescribed to us by him who is the Wisdom of God to be all waies of pleasantnes and paths of peace That he will put his Spirit into us and cause us to walk in his statutes and to account that in keeping them there is great reward And thus all that is contained in that mentioned summary of the things belonging to our peace Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ will all become easy to us and as the acts of nature proceeding from that new and holy nature imparted to us And whosoever thou art that livest under the Gospel canst thou deny that it is day with thee as to all this wa st thou never told of this great necessary heart-change Didst thou never hear that the tree must be made good that the fruit might be good that thou must become a new creature have old things done away and all things made new Didst thou never hear of the necessity of having a new heart and a right spirit created and renewed in thee that except thou wert born again or from above as that expression may be read thou could'st never enter into the Kingdom of God wa st thou kept in ignorance that a form of Godlines without the power of it would never do thee good that a name to live without the principle of the holy divine life would never save thee that a specious outside that all thy external performances while thou went'st with an unrenewed earthly carnal heart would never advantage thee as to thy eternal salvation and blessednes And this might help thine understanding concerning the nature of thy future blessednes and will be found most agreeable to it being aright understood for as thou art not to be blessed by a blessednes without thee and distant from thee but inwrought into thy temper and intimately united with thee nor glorified by an external glory but by a glory revealed within thee So nor canst thou be qualify'd for that blessed glorious state otherwise than by having the temper of thy Soul made habitually holy and good As what a good man partakes of happines here is such that he is satisfy'd from himself so it must be hereafter not originally from himself but by divine communication made most intimate to him Didst thou not know that it belonged to thy peace to have a peace-maker and that the Son of God was he and that he makes not the peace of those that despise and refuse him or that receive him not that come not to him and are not willing to come to God by him Could'st thou think living under the Gospel that the reconciliation between God and thee was not to be mutual that he would be reconcil'd to thee while thou wouldst not be reconcil'd to him or shouldst still bear towards him a
intend to punish it according to its desert when it cannot be thought unjust actually to render to men what they deserve We are indeed to account the primary intention of continuing the Gospel to such a people among whom these live is kindnes towards others not this higher revenge upon them Yet nothing hinders but that this revenge upon them may also be the fit matter of his secondary intention For should he intend nothing concerning them Is he to be so unconcern'd about his own creatures that are under his Government While things cannot fall out to him unawares but that he hath this dismal event in prospect before him he must at least intend to let it be or not to hinder it And who can expect he should for that his gracious influence towards them should at length cease is above all exception that it ceasing while they live still under the Gospel they contract deeper guilt and incur heavier punishment followes of course And who can say he should not intend to let it follow For should he take away the Gospel from the rest that these might be less punished that others might not be saved because they will not Nor can he be obliged to interpose extraordinarily and alter for their sakes the course of nature and providence so as either to hasten them the sooner out of the world or cast them into any other part of it where the Gospel is not lest they should by living still under it be obnoxious to the severer punishment For whither would this lead he should by equal reason have been obliged to prevent mens sinning at all that they might not be liable to any punishment And so not to have made the world or have otherwise framed the methods of his Government and less sutably to an whole community of reasonable creatures or to have made an end of the world long ago and have quitted all his great designs in it lest some should sin on and incur proportionable punishment or to have provided extraordinarily that all should do and fare alike and that it might never have come to pass that it should be less tolerable fo◠Capernaum and Chorazin and Bethsaida than for Tyre and Sidon and Sodom and Gomorrah But is there unrigteousnes with God or is he unrighteous in taking vengeance or is he therefore unjust because he will render to every one according to his works to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek glory honour and immortality eternal life but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousnes indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile Rom. 2.6 7 8 9. Doth righteousnes it self make him unrighteous O Sinner understand how much better it is to avoid the stroke of divine justice than accuse it God will be found true and every man a liar that he may be justified when he speaks and be clear when he judges Psal. 51.4 6. Yet are we not to imagine any certain fixed rule according whereto except in the case of the unpardonable sin the divine dispensation is measured in cases of this nature viz. That when a sinner hath contended just so long or to such a degree against his Grace and Spirit in his Gospel he shall be finally rejected or if but so long or not to such a degree he is yet certainly to be further try'd or treated with It is little to be doubted but he puts forth the power of victorious grace at length upon some more obstinate and obdurate sinners and that have longer persisted in their rebellions not having sin'd the unpardonable sin and gives over some sooner as it seems good unto him Nor doth he herein owe an account to any man of his matters Here Sovereign good pleasure rules and arbitrates that is ty'd to no certain rule Neither in these variations is there any shew of that blameable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or accepting of persons which in his own word he so expresly disclaims We must distinguish matters of right even such as are so by promise only as well as others and matters of meer unpromised favour In matters of right to be an accepter of persons is a thing most highly culpable with men and which can have no place with the holy God i. e. When an humane judge hath his rule before him according whereto he is to estimate mens rights in judgment there to regard the person of the rich or of the poor to the prejudice of the justice of the cause were an insufferable iniquity as it were also in a private person to withhold anothers right because he hath no kindnes for him So even the great God himself thô of meer grace he first fix't and establish't the rule fitly therefore called the Covenant or law of grace by which he will proceed in pardoning and justifying men or in condemning and holding them guilty both here and in the final judgment Yet having fix't it he will never recede from it so as either to acquit an impenitent unbeliever or condemn a beleiving penitent If we confes our sins he is faithful and just to forgive None shall be ever able to accuse him of breach of faith or of transgressing his own rules of justice We find it therefore said in reference to the judgment of the last day when God shall render to every man according to his works whether they be Jewes or Gentiles that there is no respect of persons with God Rom. 2.6 7 8 9 10 11. yet qui promisit paenitenti veniam non promisit peccanti paenitentiam whereas he hath by his Evangelical law ascertain'd pardon to one that sincerely obeys it but hath not promised grace to enable them to do so to them that have long continued wilfully disobedient and rebellious this communication of grace is therefore left arbitrary and to be dispensed as the matter of free and unassured favour as it seems him good And indeed if in matters of arbitrary favour respect of persons ought to have no place friendship were quite excluded the world and would be swallowed up of strict and rigid justice I ought to take all men for my friends alike otherwise than as justice should oblige me to be more respectful to men of more merit 7. Wherefore no man can certainly know or ought to conclude concerning himself or others as long as they live that the season of grace is quite over with them As we can conceive no rule God hath set to himself to proceed by in ordinary cases of this nature so nor is there any he hath set unto us to judge by in this case It were to no purpose and could be of no use to men to know so much therefore it were unreasonable to expect God should have setled and declared any rule by which they might come by the knowledge of it As the case is then viz. there being no such rule
no such thing can be concluded for who can tell what an arbitrary Sovereign free Agent will do if he declare not his own purpose himself How should it be known when the Spirit of God hath been often working upon the soul of a man that this or that shall be the last act and that he will never put forth another And why should God make it known To the person himself whose case it is 't is manifest it could be no benefit Nor is it to be thought the holy God will ever so alter the course of his own proceedings but that it shall finally be seen to all the world that every mans destruction was entirely and to the last of himself If God had made it evident to a man that he were finally rejected he were obliged to believe it But shall it ever be said God hath made any thing a mans duty which were inconsistent with his felicity The having sinned himself into such a condition wherein he is forsaken of God is indeed inconsistent with it And so the case is to stand i. e. that his perdition be in immediate connection with his sin not with his duty As it would be in immediate necessary connection with his duty if he were bound to believe himself finally forsaken and a lost creature For that belief makes him hopeles and a very devil justifies his unbelief of the Gospel towards himself by removing and shutting up towards him the object of such a faith and consequently brings the matter to this state that he perishes not because he doth not believe God reconcileable to man but because with particular application to himself he ought not so to believe And it were most unfit and of very pernicious consequence that such a thing should be generally known concerning others It were to anticipate the final Judgment to create an Hell upon Earth to tempt them whose doom were already known to do all the mischief in the world which malice and despair can suggest and prompt them unto it were to mingle devils with men and fill the world with confusion How should Parents know how to behave themselves towards Children an Husband towards the Wife of his bosom in such a case if it were known they were no more to counsel exhort admonish them pray with or for them than if they were devils And if there were such a rule how frequent misapplications would the fallible and distempered minds of men make of it so that they would be apt to fancy themselves warranted to judge severely or uncharitably and as the truth of the case perhaps is unjustly concerning others from which they are so hardly withheld when they have no such pretence to embolden them to it but are so strictly forbidden it And the judgment-seat so fenced as it is by the most awful interdicts against their usurpation and encroachments We are therefore to reverence the wisdom of the divine Government that things of this nature are among the arcana of it Some of those secrets which belong not to us He hath revealed what was fit and necessary for us and our children and envies to man no useful knowledge But it may be said when the Apostle 1 Joh. 5.16 directs to pray for a brother whom we see sinning a sin that is not unto death and addes there is a sin unto death I do not say he shall pray for it Is it not imply'd that it may be known when one sins that sin unto death not only to himself but even to others too I answer it is imply'd there may be too probable appearances of it and much ground to suspect and fear it concerning some in some cases As when any against the highest evidence of the truth of the Christian Religion and that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah the proper and most sufficiently credible testimony whereof he had mentioned in the foregoing verses under heads to which the whole evidence of the truth of Christianity may be fitly enough reduced do notwithstanding from that malice which blinds their understanding persist in infidelity or apostatize and relapse into it from a former profession there is great cause of suspicion lest such have sinned that sin unto death Whereupon yet it is to be observed he doth not expresly forbid praying for the persons whose case we may doubt only he doth not enjoyn it as he doth for others but only saies I do not say ye shall pray for it i. e. that in his present direction to pray for others he did not intend such but another sort for whom they might pray remotely from any such suspicion viz. that he meant now such praying as ought to be interchanged between Christian friends that have reason in the main to be well perswaded concerning one another In the mean time intending no opposition to what is elsewhere enjoyned the praying for all men 1 Tim. 2.1 Without the personal exclusion of any as also our Lord himself prayed indefinitely for his most malicious enemies Father forgive them they know not what they do thô he had formerly said there was such a sin as should never be forgiven Whereof 't is highly probable some of them were guilty yet such he doth not expresly except but his prayer being in the indefinite not the universal form 't is to be supposed it must mean such as were within the compas and reach of prayer and capable of benefit by it Nor doth the Apostle here direct personally to exclude any only that indefinitely and in the general such must be supposed not meant as had sinn'd the sin unto death or must be conditionally excluded if they had without determining who had or had not To which purpose it is very observable that a more abstract form of expression is used in this latter clause of this verse For whereas in the former positive part of the direction he enjoyns praying for him or them that had not sinn'd unto death viz. concerning whom there was no ground for any such imagination or suspicion that they had In the negative part concerning such as might have sinn'd it he doth not say for him or them but for it i. e. concerning or in reference to it as if he had said the case in general only is to be excepted and if persons are to be distinguisht since every sin is some ones Sin the sin of some person or other let God distinguish but do not you 't is enough for you to except the sin committed by whomsoever And thô the former part of the verse speaks of a particular person If a man see his brother sin a sin that is not unto death which is as determinate to a person as the sight of our eye can be it doth not follow the latter part must suppose a like particular determination of any persons case that he hath sin'd it I may have great reason to be confident such and such have not when I can only suspect that such a one hath And
of sadnes or lamentation and must take heed of conceiving any thing there especially on the throne of glory unsutable to the most perfect nature and the most glorious state We are not to imagine tears there which in that happy region are wip'd away from inferiour eyes no grief sorrow or sighing which are all fled away and shall be no more As there can be no other turbid passion of any kind But when expressions that import anger or grief are used even concerning God himself we must sever in our conception every thing of imperfection and ascribe every thing of real perfection We are not to think such expressions signifie nothing that they have no meaning or that nothing at all is to be attributed to him under them Nor are we again to think they signifie the same thing with what we find in our selves and are wont to expresse by those names In the divine nature there may be real and yet most serene complacency and displicency viz. that are unaccompany'd with the least commotion and that import nothing of imperfection but perfection rather as it is a perfection to apprehend things sutably to what in themselves they are The holy Scriptures frequently speak of God as angry and griev'd for the sins of men and their miseries which ensue therefrom And a real aversion and dislike is signify'd thereby and by many other expressions which in us would signify vehement agitations of affection that we are sure can have no place in him We ought therefore in our own thoughts to ascribe to him that calm aversion of will in reference to the sins and miseries of men in general and in our own apprehensions to remove to the utmost distance from him all such agitations of passion or affection even thô some expressions that occur carry a great appearance thereof should they be understood according to humane measures as they are humane forms of speech As to instance in what is said by the glorious God himself and very near in sense to what we have in the Text what can be more pathetick than that lamenting wish Psal. 81.13 O that my people had hearkened unto me and Israel had walked in my wayes But we must take heed lest under the pretence that we cannot ascribe every thing to God that such expressions seem to import we therefore ascribe nothing We ascribe nothing if we do not ascribe to him a real unwillingnes that men should sin on and perish and consequently a real willingnes that they should turn to him and live which so many plain Texts assert And therefore it is unavoidably impos'd upon us to believe that God is truly unwilling of some things which he doth not think fit to interpose his omnipotency to hinder and is truly willing of some things which he doth not put forth his omnipotency to effect That he most fitly makes this the ordinary course of his dispensations towards men to govern them by lawes and promises and threatnings made most express to them that live under the Gospel to work upon their minds their hope and their fear affording them the ordinary assistences of Supernatural light and influence with which he requires them to comply and which upon their refusing to do so he may most righteously withhold and give them the victory to their own ruine thô oftentimes he doth from a sovereignty of grace put forth that greater power upon others equally negligent and obstinate not to enforce put effectually to incline their wills and gain a victory over them to their salvation Nor is his will towards the rest altogether ineffectual thô it have not this effect For whosoever thou art that livest under the Gospel thô thou dost not know that God so wills thy conversion and salvation as to effect it whatsoever resistence thou now makest though thou art not sure he will finally overcome all thy resistence and pluck thee as a firebrand out of the mouth of hell yet thou canst not say his good will towards thee hath been without any effect at all tending thereto He hath often call'd upon thee in his Gospel tâ— repent and turn to him through Christ he hath waited on thee with long patience and given thee time and space of repentance he hath within that time been often at work with thy soul. Hath he not many times let in beams of light upon thee shewn thee the evil of thy wayes convinc't thee awakened thee half-perswaded thee and thou never had'st reason to doubt but that if thou hadst set thy self with serious diligence to work out thy own salvation he would have wrought on so as to have brought things to a blessed issue for thy soul. Thou mightest discern his mind towards thee to be agreeable to his word wherein he hath testified to thee he desired not the death of sinners that he hath no pleasure in the death of him that dieth or in the death of the wicked but that he should turn and live exhorted thee expostulated with thee and others in thy condition turn ye turn ye why will ye dy he hath told thee expresly thy stubbornnes and contending against him did grieve him and vex his spirit that thy sin wherein tâ—â—u hast indulg'd thy self hath been an abomination to him that it was the abominable thing which his soul hated that he was broken with the whorish heart of such as thou and prest therewith as a cart that was full of sheaves Now such expressions as these thô they are borrowed from man and must be understood sutably to God thô they do not signifie the same thing with him as they do in us yet they do not signifie nothing As when hands and eyes are attributed to God they do not signifie as they do with us yet they signifie somewhat correspondent as active and visive power So these expressions thô they signifie not in God such unquiet motions and passions as they would in us they do signifie a mind and will really thô with the most perfect calmnes and tranquility set against sin and the horrid consequences of it which yet for greater reasons than we can understand he may not see fit to do all he can to prevent And if we know not how to reconcile such a will in God with some of our notions concerning the divine nature shall we for what we have thought of him deny what he hath so expresly said of himself or pretend to understand his nature better than he himself doth And when we see from such expresse sayings in Scripture reduced to a sense becoming God how God's mind stands in reference to sinners and their self-destroying wayes we may thence apprehend what temper of mind our Lord Jesus also bears towards them in the like case even in his glorify'd state For can you think there is a disagreement between him and the Father about these things And whereas we find our blessed Lord in the dayes of his flesh one while complaining men would not come to
duty It were therefore inconsistent with his felicity inasmuch as it would make that duty impossible to be performed which before was by the constitution of the Evangelical law made necessary to it viz. Repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The hope of acceptance is so necessary to both these that the belief of a mans being finally rejected or that he shall never be accepted cannot but make them both impossible equally impossible as if he were actually in hell as much impossible to him as to the devils themselves Nor is this impossibility meerly from a moral impotency or that obduration of heart which were confessedly vicious and his great sin but from the natural influence of that belief of his being for ever rejected which upon the mentioned supposition were his duty Besides inasmuch as it is the known duty of a sinner under the Gospel to turn to God thorough Christ and it is also declared in the same Gospel sufficiently to make it the common matter of faith to Christians that none can of themselves turn to God and believe in his Son without the hlep of special efficious grace It must hereupon be a mans duty also to pray for that grace which may enable him hereto How deep in wickedness was Simon Magus even in the gall of bitternes and bond of iniquity when yet Peter calls him to repentance and puts him upon praying for forgivenes which must imply also his praying for the grace to repent but how can a man pray for that which at the same time he believes shall not be given him yea and which is harder and more unaccountable how can he stand obliged in duty to pray for that which at the same time he stands obliged in duty to believe he shall not obtain How can these two contrary obligations ly upon a man at the same time or is he to look upon the former as ceased should he reckon the Gospel as to him repealed or his impenitency and infidelity even when they are at the highest no sins I know 't is obvious to object as to all this the case of the unpardonable blasphemy against the holy Ghost which will be supposed to be stated and determined in the sacred Scriptures and being so the person that hath committed it may equally be thought obliged by a mixt assent partly of faith to what is written partly of self-knowledge which he ought to have of his own acts and state to conclude himself guilty of it whereupon all the former inconvenience and difficulty will be liable to be urged as above But even as to this also I see not but it may fitly enough be said that though the general nature of that sin be stated and sufficiently determined in thesi yet that God hath not left it determinable in hypothesi by any particular person that he hath committed it For admit that it generally lies in imputing to the devil those works of the Holy Ghost by which the truth of Christianity was to be demonstrated I yet see not how any man can apply this to his own particular case so as justly and certainly to conclude himself guilty of it I take it for granted none will ever take the notion of blasphemy in that strictness but that a man may possibly be guilty of this sin as well in thought as by speech I also doubt not but it will be acknowledged on all hands that prejudice and malice against Christianity must have a great ingrediency into this sin not such malice as whereby knowing it to be the true Religion a man hates and detests it as such which would suppose these Pharisees whom our Saviour charges with it or cautions against it to have been at that time in their judgments and consciences Christians but such malignity and strong prejudice as darkens and obstructs his mind that he judges it not to be true against the highest evidence of its being so It will also be acknowledged that some enmity and disaffection to true Religion is common to all men more especially in their unregeneracy and unconverted state Now let it be supposed that some person or other of a very unwarrantably sceptical Genius had opportunity to know certainly the matter of fact touching the miraculous works wrought by our Saviour and understood withall somewhat generally of the doctrine which he taught and that he sets himself as a Philosopher to consider the case Suppose that partly thorough prejudice against the holy design of Christianity whereof there is some degree in all and partly thorough shortnes of discourse not having thoroughly considered the matter he thinks it possible that some Daemon or other with design under a specious pretence to impose upon or amuse the credulous vulgar may have done all those strange things Suppose his judgment should for the present more incline this way What if thinking this to be the case in the instance of Apollonius Tyanaeus he hath not yet upon a slighter view discerned enough to distinguish them but thinks alike of both cases yea and suppose he have spoken his sentiments to some or other Perhaps upon further enquiry and search he might see cause to alter his judgment And now setting himself to enquire more narrowly he perceives the unexceptionable excellent scope and tendency of our Saviours doctrine and precepts considers the simplicity and purity of his life contemplates further the awful greatness of his mighty works but amidst these his deliberations he finds among the rest of christian constitutions this severe one Mat. 12.31 32. and begins to fear lest supposing the truth of this excellent Religion he have precluded himself of all the advantages of it by that former judgment of his what is he to do in this case what were he to be advised unto what to pass judgment upon himself and his case as desperate or not rather to humble himself before the God of heaven ask pardon for his injurious rash judgment and supplicate for mercy and for further illumination in the mystery of God of the Father and of Christ Which course that it may have a blessed issue with him who dare venture to deny or doubt And what have we to say hereupon but that in great wisdom and mercy our Saviour hath only told us there is such a sin and what the general nature of it is or whereabouts it lies but the judgment of particular cases wherein or of the very pitch and degree of malignity wherewith it is committed he hath reserved to himself intending further to strive with persons by his Spirit while he judges them yet within the reach of mercy or withhold it when he sees any to have arrived to that culminating pitch of malignity and obstinacy wherein he shall judge this sin specially to consist And what inconvenience is it to suppose he hath left this matter touching the degree humanely undeterminable The knowledge of it can do them who have committed it no good And probably they have by
different objects Against this will falls out all the sin and misery in the world All this seems plain and clear but is not enough For it may be further said when God wills this or that to be my duty doth he not will this event viz. my doing it otherwise wherein is his will withstood or not fulfilled in my not doing it He will'd this to be my duty and it is so I do not nor can hinder it from being so yet I do it not and that he will'd not If all that his will meant was that this should be my duty but my doing it was not intended his will is entirely accomplished it hath its full effect in that such things are constituted and do remain my duty upon his signification of this his will my not doing it not being within the compas of the object or the thing willed If it be said he will'd my doing it i. e. that I should do it not that I shall the same answer will recur viz. that his will hath still its full effect this effect still remaining that I should do it but that I shall he will'd not It may be said I do plainly go against his will however for his will was that I should do so or so and I do not what he will'd I should 'T is true I go herein against his will if he will'd not only my obligation but my action according to it And indeed it seems altogether unreasonable and unintelligible that he should will to oblige me to that which he doth not will me to do Therefore it seems out of question that the holy God doth constantly and perpetually in a true sense will the universal obedience and the consequent felicity of all his creatures capable thereof i. e. He doth will it with simple complacency as what were highly grateful to him simply considered by it self Who can doubt but that purity holines blessednes wheresoever they were to be beheld among his creatures would be a pleasing and delightful spectacle to him being most agreable to the perfect excellency purity and benignity of his own nature and that their deformity and misery must be consequently unpleasing But he doth not efficaciously will every thing that he truly wills He never will'd the obedience of all his intelligent creatures so as effectually to make them all obey nor their happines so as to make them all be happy as the event shews Nothing can be more certain than that he did not so will these things for then nothing could have fal'n out to the contrary as we see much hath Nor is it at all unworthy the love and goodnes of his nature not so to have will'd with that effective will the universal sinlesnes and felicity of all his intelligent creatures The divine nature must comprehend all excellencies in it self and not be limited to that one onely of benignity or an aptnes to acts of beneficence For then it were not infinite not absolutely perfect and so not divine All the acts of his will must be consequently conform and agreeable to the most perfect wisdome He doth all things according to the counsel of his will He wills 't is true the rectitude of our actions and what would be consequent thereto but he first and more principally wills the rectitude of his own And not only not to do an unrighteous but not an inept or unfit thing We find he did not think it fit efficaciously to provide concerning all men that they should be made obedient and happy as he hath concerning some That in the general he makes a difference is to be attributed to his wisdom i. e. his wisdom hath in the general made this determination not to deal with all alike and so we find it ascribed to his wisdom that he doth make a difference and in what a transport is the holy Apostle in the contemplation and celebration of it upon this account Rom. 11.33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdome and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and his wayes past finding out But now when in particular he comes to make this difference between one person and another there being no reason in the object to determine him this way more than that his designing some for the objects of special favour and waving others as to such special favour when all were in themselves alike in that case wisdom hath not so proper an exercise but it is the work of free unobliged sovereignty here to make the choice Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will Ephes. 1.5 Yet in the mean time while God doth not efficaciously will all mens obedience introductive of their happines doth it follow he wills it not really at all to say he wills it efficaciously were to contradict experience and his Word to say he wills it not really were equally to contradict his Word He doth will it but not primarily and as the more principal object of his will so as to effect it notwithstanding whatsoever unfitnes hâ— appreheâ—ds in â—t viz. that he so overpower â—ll as to make them obedient and happy He really wills it but hath greater reasons than this or that mans salvation why he effects it not And this argues no imperfection in the divine will but the perfection of it that he wills things agreeably to the reasonablenes and fitnes of them THE END Acts 9 3â— Joh. 1. Heb. 2.4 Rom. 3. Eph. 4. Rom. 8. Isa. 30. Rev. 21. Rom. 2. Heb. 10. 2 Cor. 5. Gal. 6. 2 Cor. 5.17 1 Cor. 1.30 1 Cor. 1.30 31. Isa. 55. Isa. 49. 2 Cor. 6. See more to this purpose in the Appendix †See the Appendix Vse