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
variety of diseases in all parts of his body from the predominance of humours the ill affections of the air of his food c. The Heathens had some notion of this Their Elegant Poet cries out Audax Japete Genus Ignem fraude malâ Gentibus intulit Post ignem aetheriâ domo Subductum macies nova febrium Terris in cubuit cohors c. That was their Fiction That one Prometheus stole fire from Heaven which Jupiter had hid up and distributed it amongst men whence he saith came sickness and a whole troop of agues and fevers and death Faith makes a better discovery it tells us man fell from the state wherein he was created lost the Image of God brake Covenant with him and so became subject to sicknesses unto death c. Yea so subject are we that if every one that falls sick should die men especially would fail from the Earth but to prevent this as God in the day when he made Heaven and Earth created divers qualities in his creatures by which they have a sanative or healing vertue for various Diseases so his Providence is daily working and daily seen in this thing in two particulars 1. In discovering to some of his creatures these hidden vertues The Physitian indeed studies and makes experiments and upon the exercise of his reason and the demonstrations he makes directs the Apothecary to compound Medicines but his God instructeth him to this discretion and we may reasonably so conclude when we find the Prophet Isaiah ch 27. v. 29 affirming it concerning the discretion of the Thresher not threshing the fitches nor turning the Cart-wheel upon the Cummin and this is a work of daily Providence as every day produceth new Methods of the Physisitians practice new Medicines and Compositions c. 2. Secondly In upholding the Vertues of those herbs roots c. that are made use of in order to our healing so as they have their effects in removing our distempers and healing us The strength of the body must be upheld and the faculties by which it is enabled to take in and apply and retain the Medicine and the vertues faculties and powers also of the drugs herbs plants seeds c. must be upheld also both of them are by the mighty powerful concourse and power of God hence the Scripture attributeth our healing unto God I am the Lord that healeth you Exod. 15.26 And the Psalmist saith He healeth all our diseases I wound and I heal Deut. 32.39 Hence Asa is rightly blamed for trusting in Physitians more than in God Physicians are Gods Ordinance they are to be used but not to be trusted in God must discover the healing-Medicine to them God must uphold the healing-vertue in the Medicine when used by them and the faculties also in their Patients by which they must be inabled to take use and apply the Medicines they administer And thus now have I shewed you how God by the ordinary workings of his Providenee every day worketh in the preserving man and beast consider'd as Individuals 5. But as in the production of things into being notwithstanding the ordinary rule and law of Nature generally observed there are some Anomalies or deviations so in the preservings of the creature in the workings of Divine Providence God who will not be tracked in any of his ways maketh some Anomalies turns out of his ordinary road in some special cases Ordinarily he worketh by means natural and to the Eye of Reason probable means sometimes he will do his work without means or without such apparent probable means or by what our Reason shall judg quite contrary to the end He will walk sometimes in a natural course sometimes contrary to it These we call Miraculous Acts of Divine Providence The Bodies of some of his people shall be sometimes upheld a long time without nourishment without natural Rest without sensible breathing healed without proper applications of Physick Many instances of which we have in the story of the Evangelists and of the Acts of the Apostles but these are ertraordinary and special and my business is not to discourse those workings of Providence which are unaccountable to us 6. Lastly There is a special providence of God in preserving man that is yet further considerable by us We have hitherto only considered the preservation of men as Individuals man considered as a single person by himself I must further consider him as a political creature involved in Society and shew you the workings of Divine Providence in preserving Bodies-Politick and the Societies of men and then 3dly as a spiritual creature capable of the Grace of God and being made partaker of it Nisi vegitaret Deus cum ego dormio nisi me defenderet custodiret cum ego sim securus fieret ut omni momento more c. Luther I shall conclude this Discourse so far as I have already carried it on with that saying of Luther If God watched not when I sleep if God did not defend and keep me when I am void of care I should die every moment and every moment be losing either an hand or an Eye or an Ear or a Foot I shall further at this time only apply what part of this Discourse concerning preserving-Providence you have already heard Vse 1 This in the first place may serve to give you a view of the immense and glorious Nature of God Oh! that men would fear this great and dreadful Name of the Lord our God The Lord who preserveth both man and beast How great how glorious must the God whom we serve be if what you have heard be true But to open this a little in a few Particulars 1. It may satisfie you in that great truth of Gods Immensity The Schoolmen say God filleth the Heavens and the Earth infinitum ultra Spatium an infinite space beyond The Scripture Jer. 23.24 saith Do not I the Lord fill Heaven and Earth It must needs be so The Heavens and the Earth are creatures and they are all full of living creatures So are the great and wide Seas all these creatures must breathe be nourished rest grow and increase multiply their species be renewed daily they have all their several and various motions and operations for these they have powers and faculties all these as you have heard are upheld by God by the daily concourse and influence of his Divine Providence he must heal their diseases restore their lapses and decays How could all this be if he were not every where filling it with his Essence Presence and Power 2. Secondly From hence you may conclude The Activity of the Divine Essence You must not think that the great God is in any place as a stone which indeed filleth the place but moveth not acteth nothing He is in the World say the Heathen Philosophers as a Master of a ship is in a ship as a Moderator as the Soul is in the Body which is in every part of the Body
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
by him every member we have moves and we are all kept in being may I not therefore with the Apostle conclude Rom. 12.1 I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service It is reasonable that he who hath given you the Sacrifice should smell the sweet savour of it He hath provided the sacrifice for you He hath provided it for that end to be a sacrifice for him it is therefore but a reasonable Service It is reasonable that he who planteth a Vineyard who dresseth keepeth and preserveth it every day should have some of the fruit thereof Which of you planteth a Vineyard and Orchard c. and eateth not of the fruit thereof But I shall add no more to this first part of my Discourse concerning Gods preserving Providence SERMON VII Psal XXXVI 6. O Lord thou preservest man and beast I AM discoursing concerning the first mentioned great Act of Providence in the Preservation both of man and beast Vpholding all things by the word of his power I shewed you in my last Discourse by what particular acts God preserveth individuals of all kinds But Man is to be considered yet in two notions further Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sociable a political creature and so as one of a multitude formed into political bodies called by the names of Kingdoms Common-wealths c. He is further to be considered as a spiritual creature capable of Divine Grace and divers spiritual Habits things which accompany salvation and make him fit for the Kingdom of God and preparing him for that blessed Eternity which is the end of our hopes These also must be upheld and maintained by the power of Providence We are saith the Apostle kept by the power of God through faith to salvation 1 Pet. 1.5 My last Discourse shewed you no more than the particular workings of Divine Providence in preserving and upholding the natural world Let me now shew you the workings of it in preserving and upholding the Political and Spiritual World I begin with the former and so the preserving Providence of God worketh several ways 1. In disposing the minds of all people unto Government There are indeed some Anomalies here some sons of Belial in all places that will endure no yoke but generally it is not so And the minds of men are disposed to order and Government without Government Polities could not stand the World would quickly be in confusion there can be no order without Governours and governed Governours must be spirited for the exercise of Government and the Governed must be spirited for obedience Both these are from the Lord who is wonderful in working Every one is not fit to govern he hath not parts for it he hath not a spirit for it Some are like Issachar fit for nothing but to couch under the burthen Others like Judah who have hands fit to be upon the necks of their Enemies and their fathers children shall bow down before them 1. God by his Providence influenceth some for the exercise of Government either from the womb or from the time they are called to that exercise as it is said of Saul 1 Sam. 10.9 when Samuel had anointed him to be King over Israel God gave him another heart Every man hath not a spirit of Government there is much goeth to the making up of that spirit It was prophecied of Christ Isa 9.6 That the Government should be uppon his shoulders And Isa 11.2 The Spirit shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledg and fear of the Lord. A spirit of knowledg and of the fear of the Lord is necessary to a religious Government A spirit of understanding and wisdom a spirit of counsel and might is necessary for a good civil Government Joshua the Son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom Deut. 34 9. Every man in a Kingdom or a City or Common-wealth hath not knowledg and understanding nor wisdom and counsel nor might and courage fit for Government God giveth it only to some persons whom he designeth to rule over men And herein is the Providence of God mightily seen and that both in Hereditary Kingdoms and States and in those also which are Elective 1. In such as are hereditary ordinarily the sons of Princes are not like other men though under equal circumstances of Education When Gideon asked Zeba and Zalmunna Judg. 8.18 What manner of men they were that they killed They answered him thus As thou art so were they each one resembled the children of a King There is something that ordinarily appears in the faces of Princes more of Majesty than in other men which shews another spirit I know that this is not universal there have been Princes in the World of mean parts courage c. which ordinarily happens when God hath a quarrel with a people Eccl. 10.16 17 Wo to thee O Land when thy King is a child and thy 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 2. It is much seen in Elective governments God by his Providence directeth and disposeth the Electors to the choice of such persons as he hath prepared with such a spirit or except in cases where God hath a design by unworthy Governours to chastise a sinful people when they are chosen he giveth unto them such a spirit and by his extraordinary Providence correcteth the errours of those that choose them to that employment This is a wonderful working of Divine Providence We often see persons in Government shewing quite another spirit and temper than they before appear'd to us to have Nor is the Providence of God less seen in disposing the spirits of the Governed That thousands yea millions of people should consent to a subjection to one chief Ruler as in a Monarchy or to the Government of a few as in Commonwealths and be willing to be ruled and governed by him or them yet this we ordinarily see It is the Lords doing and it should be marvellous in our eyes and it would be so if we would but be so considerate as to think of the variety of mens humours fancies and passions Sometimes indeed God in judgment against a people suffers a perverse spirit to mingle it self with the governed there are rebellions and mutinies yet those for the most part are originated in oppression and violence But supposing no errours in Governours that yet multitudes of people should be so willingly subject and yet few of them for conscience sake must needs come from the Lords influence who is wonderful in the working for the preserving of the Politick Societies of men which without a Political order or Government could not stand 2. Secondly God preserveth men in their Political Societies by directing
and law of Nature the fire burneth the hungry Lions devour men God suspendeth both these Laws in the case of the three Children and of Daniel by an Ordinance of Nature the Sun keepeth its course and is in a continual progressive motion God suspendeth its motion in Joshuah's case altereth it and maketh it to come back in the case of Hezekiah 2 Kings 20.10 by the Ordinance of Nature the Earth brings forth her fruit so doth the womb ordinarily God suspends this Law in Judgment the Earth is made as Iron the Heaven as Brass men commit whoredom yet do not encrease they eat and have not enough Hos 4.10 This both demonstrates the governance of Divine Providence and also sheweth how God exerciseth it This is a third Particular 4. A fourth Particular wherein God sheweth his Dominion over all and exerciseth his Government over the whole Creation is his influencing all creatures to their natural actions either in a more ordinary or extraordinary manner Every living creature hath its natural motions and actions and powers and faculties in order to them which are the principles of those operations and in the upholding of those powers to those natural motions and actions God exerteth and putteth forth his preserving power of Providence but his extraordinary influencing of them to some motions and actions which are not in a natural course and order doth more eminently shew the Governing power of Divine Providence That Locusts and Caterpillers should feed upon grass and green herbs this is but their natural motion and action according to their nature and the kind of their being but that they should come in troops and rather feed upon one place than upon another till they had devoured all the grass and green herbs in Egypt this was extraordinary Psalm 105.24 He spake and the Caterpillers came and did eat up all the herbs in their land and devoured all the fruit of their ground And again Psalm 74.46 He gave their increase to the Caterpiller The same may be said for the Flies Lice Frogs and other creatures used as a plague upon Pharaoh but indeed this is rather a specialty of Providence than belonging to the ordinary Government of it though very demonstrative of the governing power of Providence 5. A fifth act by which the Providence of God exerciseth its governing power and influence is His daily raising up and influencing Governours for the Housholds and Societies of men and giving checks to them upon their miscarriages and mal-administrations The governing Providence of God exerteth it self either more immediately or mediately Other creatures God ordinarily governeth by men many of them I mean influencing man with Reason and Discretion by which he ruleth ordereth and governeth them though many of them be much more mighty and powerful than he the mouth of the horse and mule which have no understanding by the Providence of God so influencing man are held with the bit and bridle lest they come near unto us Psalm 32.9 The Whale is smitten with a spear wild bulls and boars are hunted down c. The Ox is tamed and brought to serve our uses who are much less in strength than he is Men also are governed by men the weaker by those that are more wise and powerful but whence have the Governours their wit and power their wisdom and understanding prompting them to make Laws acceptable to the greater part of Subjects so as conspiracies are of the lesser number and subdueâ—â—o the greater and keeps them in order Is it not from the Lord great in wisdom and wonderful in counsel Psalm 75.7 God is the Judg he pulleth down one and setteth up another and by him Kings reign God ruleth the World by Magistrates which if well considered would aw men to that duty of honour and obedience which they owe to those that are their Superiours and may make us to understand how we ought to be subject for conscience-sake and for Gods sake in things commanded which we cannot say are contrary to the Divine Law nor so appear to us and have any manifest appearance of good for the government and peace of the whole As on the other side it calls to Kings to be wise and the Judges of the Earth to be instructed to serve the Lord with fear and to rejoyce before him in their great capacities with trembling Psal 2.10 11 they are but the Lords Vice-Roys and as Jehosaphat told his Judges they judg not for themselves but for the Lord for him whose Throne is prepared in the Heavens and whose Kingdom is over all They ought therefore according to the command to the Kings of Israel to have the book of the law before them and to be reading therein all the days of their life and where that doth not give them particular direction to have the honour and glory of God yet in their Eye to measure all their laws and actions according to that Rule to remember God is the Judg and hath only exalted and dignified them to rule the World or this or that part of the World by them still the Government is the Lords 6. A sixth particular act by which God providentially governeth the World is By influencing the souls of some in it to such actions as more immediately tend to his honour and glory God hath an honour and glory from the natural complexion and constitution and motions of inanimate Beings Psal 148.6 8. Thus the Heavens and in them the Sun Moon Stars from them the snow rain hail meteors the lightning and thunder the cold and heat the vapours and stormy winds bring glory to God stormy winds fulfilling his word saith the Psalmist The heavens declare the glory of God the Earth sheweth his handy-work Psalm 19.1 God hath made in the Heavens a tabernacle for the Sun a course for the Moon and Stars the very complexions of them their natural and necessary motions bring God abundance of glory Now this ariseth from a necessary causation they cannot but do it The same may be said of brute creatures though animate not acting upon Election The Whale in the Sea the Lion and Tiger amongst the beasts the Eagle and others amongst the birds the Bee the Silk-worm and others amongst Insects several sorts of creeping things glorify God but it is necessarily Man only amongst earthly creatures glorifieth God voluntarily from a principle within himself and upon choice Take mankind in the general it is a noble piece of Gods Creation and necessarily glorifieth God Man is fearfully and wonderfully made his body is an admirable structure but the great glory which God hath is from his spiritual actions Man is not a mute Preacher of Gods glory as the Heavens and the Earth the Sun Moon and Stars are or brute creatures are He hath a Soul and understanding will affections from these God expects a great homage and glory But now take man in his depraved estate and he doth nothing less No creatures but the evil Angels so much
done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet c. Dan. 2.12 He hath confirmed his word which he hath spoken against our Judges c. which way soever Providence worketh whether in a way of sensible good or sensible evil against any persons people or places it is pursuant to and in fulfilling of some word of God But secondly I say it moveth not always yea it moveth seldom in a direct line in order to the fulfilling of that word to which it is a Servant and here I shall take notice of three things observable 1. Ordinarily at first it seemeth to move directly towards the end which we have in our eye this you will better understand by and by when I come to give you instances in the proof of it 2. Sometimes it moveth obliquely seeming to be driving another design 3. Sometimes to our appearance directly contrary But thirdly I say at last it comes home to the Promise and so lets us see that all the while it hath been but a faithful servant to the Counsel of God But I shall make you understand this better by the instances by which I shall in the next place endeavour to justify and establish the Observation to which I now come and shall particularize in four or five instances The first instance I shall give of it shall be that great work of Divine Providence in bringing the posterity of Abraham into a quiet possession of the Land of Canaan The Promise went out from God Gen. 12.2 I will make of thee a great Nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and unto thy seed will I give this Land This Promise was given out to Abraham when the World was little more than two thousand years old It was above two hundred years after this that Jacob with his Family not exceeding seventy persons went down into Egypt How slowly did the Providence of God move as to that part of the promise which concerned the multiplication of Abrahams seed After the giving out of the Promise Abraham first fleeth into Egypt for the Famine Gen. 13.12 You have him again returned into Canaan Gen. 13.18 He is told that notwithstanding this Promise his seed should be servants in a Land that was not theirs Ver. 16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again Abraham dieth seized of this good Land Isaac succeeds him and dies there too Jacob first is forced to flee to Padan-aram returning from thence he is compel'd by the Famine to go down into Egypt where after his and Josephs death the posterity of Abraham for the multiplication of which the promise was out so many years before was attempted to be diminished and destroyed by all acts imaginable The Midwives are practised with to stifle their Infants in the birth when that will not do others must be employed to throw the Males into the River the Parents are afflicted with the highest degree of oppression At length the Providence of God begins to turn toward the Promise The Israelites are allowed to come away but they had gone but a little way but they see the Red-sea before them the Philistines behind them one would have thought that now they had been far enough from any prospect of Canaan Providence by a miraculous operation brings them over this Mountain of difficulty but whither do they come into a long and howling Wilderness one while they are assaulted with Famine vvant of Bread then of Meat another time with drought then again assaulted with Enemies set upon with fiery flying Serpents at last they come within prospect of the desired Land But on the sudden for their murmuring are turned back to forty years wandering When they get over Jordan they meet with seven Nations more strong and mighty than they who must all be subdued before they could have possession of Canaan at last the Providence of God comes home to the Promise Joshuah their Captain having first conquered the Land divides it amongst them yet after this they were far from a quiet possession of it all the time of the Judges or indeed till Saul or Davids time What staange circulations and windings of Divine Providence were here in the accomplishment of the Promises how little to an humane Eye the Providence of God seem'd to mind the promise of multiplying Abrahams seed for above two hundred years Abraham had but one Son of the promise and that when he was very old and past hopes of children Isaac had but one neither that was an heir of the Promise that was Jacob Jacob had indeed twelve and these in the remaining space of that time were multiplied but to seventy besides Joseph in Egypt how quite contrary to the Promise did Providence seem to move all the while that the Israelites were in Egypt yea and after too how often would one have judged that the people guessed right when in their impatience they complained that God had brought them out of Egypt to destroy them in the Wilderness yet at last Gods work was done Providence faithfully served the Promise and gave a Being to the Word of the Lord given out Gen. 12. 2. Let the second instance be that of Joseph Joseph had a promise Gen. 37 I know it was a dream but it was the revelation of Gods will to him in that dream That there should come a time when all his Fathers house should bow to him all their sheaves should bow down to his Now observe how Providence moveth in bringing this Word of the Lord to pass Joseph is hated of his brethren hardly escapeth with his life at length is sold into Egypt and into Potiphars house here now he was brought to Court but no sooner doth he grow into Reputation that there was any appearance of his rising to any degree of Dignity that might look towards a fulfilling of the promise but he is accused by his Mistris thrown into prison like enough to lose his life but after this Providence turneth again raiseth him to a great degree of Dignity makes him the second man in Egypt and what God had told him in his dream was all fulfilled his Father and his Brethren all come and bow down to him 3. A third instance shall be that of David the promise of the Kingdom was given out to David in the day when Samuel by order from God anointed him 1 Sam. 16. In the 17th Chap. The Providence of God so ordereth it that Saul having made a Proclamation That if any man would encounter Goliah the Champion of the Philistines who defied the Armies of Israel he should have his Daughter to Wife David coming to the Army accepts his Challenge fighteth and slayeth him and obtaineth Sauls daughter Jonathan Sauls Son taketh a great kindness to him the people admire him Here now the Providence of God at first setting out moves as if David should presently have come to the Kingdom but after this Saul falls out with David useth all arts to
delighteth to shew it self in the day of mans smallest things This Observation hath some cognation with the former but there is more in it as you will see by the Sequel of my Discourse Mans smallest things may be understood to signifie 1. Smallest means 2. Smallest hopes 3. Smallest works or actions 1. Smallest means Though God be not tied to humane means but sometimes he worketh without them Though they have no efficacy but what they derive from him and he commandeth them to exert and put forth yet he often maketh use of means But this you shall observe and it shall be justified to you by and by that God seldom doth great things by great means but when God doth great work though he make use of means yet it is but little small means and the day of smallest means is usually the day of Gods work 2. In the day of smallest hopes and indeed this almost naturally followeth upon the other for humane hopes do usually ebb or flow according to the proportion of humane means that are in our Eye so that if God doth his greatest works in the day of smallest means he doth them likewise in the day of our smallest hopes which rise higher or fall lower usually according to the prospect which we have of probable means 3. Lastly In the day of smallest works or actions when man is most busie God seems to be most idle most asleep when we seem to be most awake When God turns again the captivity of Sion they are as those that dream they never see so much the Salvation of God as when they stand still I do not say when men will do least but when they do when they can do least then usually God doth his greatest works of Providence I shall justifie this Observation by a great variety of instances Let the first be that great work of Providence in bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt It is true they were no inconsiderable body or number of people they were at their coming out six hundred thousand souls but scattered over all the Land of Egypt a small number in comparison of the Egyptians diminished by all arts by many years hard labour in no Military order nothing of the power of the Lord was in their hand they were so very slaves that they murmured against Moses and Aaron for but going in to Pharaoh to ask for a deliverance for them means of deliverance for them there appeared none to an humane Eye Indeed being so great a body of people God might have made use of their Swords to have fought their way out of Egypt he could easily have commanded them into a Military rank and file but he useth none of them only sendeth Moses and Aaron upon his Errand to command Pharaoh to let his people go that they might serve him The same might be said of their deliverance out of the captivity of Babylon there was no means they had no hopes from any appearance of humane probabilities those that believed amongst them doubtless had an hope from the Promise there was none of them stirred that we read of Cyrus proclaims their liberty The walls of the strong City of Jericho fall down before the Israelites upon the blowing of Rams-horns and the peoples compassing it at a distance about seven days Josh 6. Canaan is given into the hands of the Israelites they were indeed a considerable Army but the seven Nations through which they made their way into that possession were more strong and mighty than they as Moses tells them Deut. 7. Gideon delivereth them oppressed by the Midianites with a party rather than an Army of three hundred men Sampson with the jaw-bone of an ass stayeth a thousand Philistines David with a sling and a stone shall kill Goliah when none durst encounter him and the hearts of the people were killed with his daily defiance of them Indeed God hath seldom done any great things in the World by great means when the Philistines came out in an Army of thirty thousand of which we read in 1 Sam. 13 and but of three thousand Israelites that could be got together and they also frighted so as ver 6 They hid themselves in caves thickets rocks and in high-places and in pits those that kept together except Saul and Jonathan had neither sword nor spear amongst them ver 19 20. Jonathan and his Armour-bearer go up alone and smite them set all the Host on trembling and the multitude melteth away chap. 14. v. 16. The colour of the Water deceives the Moabites to their ruin when Jehoram Jehosaphat and the King of Edom were almost all famined for want of water 2 Kings 3.20 21. When Jehosaphat knows not what to do 2 Chron. 26.22 God tells them ver 17 They need not fight only stand still and see the salvation of God they did but stand still and sing and praise their Enemies destroy one another Look upon Gods great work of Providence in the conversion of the World to the obedience of the Gospel How doth God do this Not by might nor by power but by his Spirit Christ sends out a few poor Fishermen these shall go and perswade the world to throw out their Idols and to receive the new Doctrine of the Gospel which to their wisdom appeared foolishness The World was full of very learned Philosophers God could have converted instructed and sent out them but he chuseth to do this great work by small things Chusing as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 1.27 28. the foolish things of the world to confound the wise the weak things of the world to confound those that were mighty the base things of the world and things which are despised to bring to nought the things that are Next to this was the great Work of God in the Reformation begun in Germany by Luther it was a day of very small things the whole world was Popish and had given their power to the Roman beast the remainders of the Church were in the valleys of Piedmont and Lucerne and in Bohemia a small despised remnant Now God begins to work and by what means Luther a poor despised Fryer he begins and preacheth against indulgences the whole world almost were against him he hath to do with the Emperour the Pope all the Popish Doctors yet by these small things the Providence of God brings to pass this his great work It was a day of small things with us when we were delivered from the Spanish-Armado in the year 1588 from the intended Powder-Treason In short I say we shall find that the Providence of God hath done the greatest works that it hath brought to pass in the world in the day of mans smallest things when there have been the smallest appearances of humane means when the People of God have had the smallest hopes and when they have been least in action God hath in his Providence seldom done any great things by great humane means Now the reason of this is the
he was able to perform Abraham that he might keep up his heart fixed on the promise he considered not the nothingness or improbability of the means he considered nothing but the power and faithfulness of God God had said it there was a promise for it a promise from him who could not lye then he considereth that he who had promised was able also to perform an honest faithful man may sail in his promise because he may not be able to perform but as God was faithful so he was also able he keeps his Eye off means fixed upon God So again Heb. 11.17 18 19 By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac and he that had received the promise offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead Abraham had a promise that in Isaac his seed should be called God calls Abraham with his own hand to slay Isaac he could not but have such thoughts as these Lord if Isaac be gone where is thy promise what becomes of thy word how shall my seed be called in him how shall I be the father of the Jewish Nation if Isaac be he in whom my seed must be called and he be dead before he hath a child He had nothing to relieve him under these thoughts but this That God was able to raise him from the dead hither he flies and keeps up his faith in the Promise by turning his eye off from the means and meerly considering the power and faithfulness of God You shall find Asa doing thus 2 Chron. 14.9 10 11 Asa had but an Army of five hundred thousand Zerah the Ethiopian cometh out against him with an Army of a million and three hundred Chariots there was double the number he had If he had look'd upon the means he must have desponded how should five hundred thousand deal with ten hundred thousand but he looks off the means and fixeth his Eye upon God Ver. 11 He cryeth unto the Lord and saith Lord it is nothing with thee to help whether with many or with them that have no power help us O Lord our God for we rest on thee and in thy Name we go against this multitude O Lord thou art our God let not man prevail against thee Secondly In such a day consider the experiences of Gods people consider what they did and how they sped What they did that you heard in the instance both of Abraham and Asa They shut the Eyes of their sense and natural reason they took off their Eyes from all consideration of means and eyed only the certainty of the Promise the faithfulness of God and the power of God So did Abraham so did Asa Then 2. Consider how they sped Abraham had a Son at the set-time Abraham had his Son reprieved when the knife was at his throat and his seed was called in Isaac The Lord smote the Ethiopians before Asa and before Juda c. saith the Text 2 Chron. 14.12 13 14. Now it is a great encouragement to us in the exercises of our faith to consider the experiences of other of the Servants of God in their exercises of Faith Our father 's trusted in thee saith David Psalm 22 they trusted and were delivered The strength of this lieth in the stedfastness and unchangeableness of God he is the same his name is I am David as to Goliah raised up his faith upon his former experiences in slaying the Lion and the Bear 1 Sam. 17 and upon the experience of others Psalm 22 nothing is more conducive to help and relieve a Christian weak as to his faith in the day either of small things as to the Church of God in which he is considered as a member or in the day of small things as to his own personal concerns God chuseth the day of small things to be seen in it is the day which Providence chuseth to shew it self great in And you may thus advantage your faith in God in such a day Now for your further encouragement in this exercise of faith in God beyond the visibility or apparent probability of means I shall offer these things to your consideration 1. That it is Gods ordinary time and method of working This is that which I discoursed to you in justification of the Observation and proved it to you from a plenty of instances and therefore shall not enlarge here 2. That God never worketh with so much advantage to his own glory as in such a time when he fulfilleth his Word in the day of mans small things We never need doubt Gods pursuing of the great ends of his glory He doth all things for himself his glory is the end of all his great works Now I say God never worketh more for the advantage of his glory than in such exigents then is his power and the greatness thereof most eminently made known Then shall his people more see and confess the Arm of the Lord. 3. Consider thirdly this is the proper work of faith It is true we ought to exercise Faith in the use of means let them be never so great never so probable for the accomplishment of the the End but the proper place for faith is where means are weak or wanting to put the Soul in hope against hope It is the evidence of things not seen as patience is an habit of grace given the Soul for a day of adversity so faith is made for an hour of sensible darkness 4. Lastly Nothing so pleaseth and engageth God as such an exercise of faith Asa 2 Chron. 14.11 useth it as an argument with God Help us O Lord for we rest on thee and in thy Name we go against this great multitude The next Verse saith God smote the Ethiopians 2 Chron. 13.18 You will find that Jeroboam's Army was full double to the number of Abijah's and could not have been conquered without some extraordinary influence of God upon Abijah's side Now would you know what engaged the Lord of Hosts ver 18 Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time and the men of Judah prevailed because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers See the contrary 2 Chron. 16.7 Hanani the Seer cometh to Asa and telleth him Because thou hast relied on the King of Syria and not relied on the Lord thy God therefore the Host of the King of Syria is escaped out of thy hands Thus I have shewed you a second thing in which I conceive the duty of a Christian lies in the day of small things viz. The exercise of a faith in God beyond the vertue and probability of the means 3. A third piece of his duty is To beware of the use of sinful means in order to the accomplishment of what he desireth It is a great vanity to which through our misapprehension of means we are very subject if we want lawful means to make use of
severe manner as he did to those Rusticks that so much disturbed the Civil peace in Germany but generally punisheth by disappointments to bring us to a regular trust and confidence in him where we have a plain and sure word to fix our foot upon Thus I have shewed you the reasonableness of these cross motions of Divine Providence in point of Divine Justice that God might punish peoples sinnings in them and caution others against the like guilt 2. Let me in the second place shew you the reasonableness of it in order to the glory of God which I have often told you is the great end which God aims at in all his great Works whether of Creation or of Providence 1. The work is more eminently seen to be the Lords although he in effecting it maketh use of instruments and humane means God doth not always yea he doth not ordinarily work miraculously but maketh use of rational means and worketh in with and by them Now if God in these workings should make use of means and instruments and circumstances which our fancies prescribe unto him we should be apt to overlook the mighty Power and Efficiency of God in the means for the more we have a prospect of an event in the second Causes before it comes the less we see of the first Cause in it But when we see our selves disappointed in all our expectations as to time persons means circumstances and the thing brought about by persons we thought not of at a time we looked not for it by means not at all in our eyes as probable to effect it the more is the hand and power of God seen in the effect while we cry out This is the Lords doing and it is marvelous in our eyes 2. Again God hath more Glory from the Prayers Humiliations and Praises of his people By these things God is glorified as his Will is done as his Power is recognized Disappointments produce more extraordinary Prayers and Humiliations when we meet with them we see the folly of our rashness ungrounded confidences and see reason to lye low before the Lord with more fervent Prayers to God to take his work into his own hand and having manifested to us our follies now to declare his own wisdom that having broken our arms of flesh he would now make bare his own holy arm and the fulfilling of his word at last by means and circumstances not known to us produce praises adorings and admirings of his infinite wisdom and further confidences in God for the time to come when we see arms of flesh broken and find our bruised reeds and broken staffs but running into our hands and wounding us instead of helping us I have done with the Doctrinal part of this Observation I come now to the Application of it Vse 1. The first Use may be Not to wonder at disappointments of this nature and to take heed they be no temptations to us Here are you see two branches 1. Not to wonder at them There is nothing more ordinary it is not often that a Church or body of people or a particular soul or person obtaineth any great mercy or deliverance in the way they looked for it or at that moment of time they expected it in God delights to surprize his peoples hearts with joy and gladness we are sick and we are ready to think such a person and by such a means must heal us the cure comes quite another way Naaman thought the Prophet would have come and laid his hand upon his leprous body the Prophet bids him go and wash in the waters of Jordan We are in terrors in troubles of mind c. and we are ready to think such or such a Minister must speak to us and then we shall be relieved he cometh and applieth what help he can we are yet disquieted and find no relief at all the mercy comes at last quite another way Mercy comes to Gods People as Judgment ordinarily comes upon sinners in a way and upon a day they looked not for it when with Agag they say Surely the bitterness of death is past I say so mercies ordinarily come to Gods People in an unlooked-for time in a way and by persons they looked not for it by 2. Let not such disappointments be temptations to you Let them not be temptations to make you distrust the promises or to use any unlawful and indirect means to obtain your desires It is not God that hath deceived you you have but deceived your selves God hath made you certain promises of the things you will limit him to do it by such a time by such means by such persons and instruments The promises express no such things but have left God to his liberty You have no reason to distrust Gods word because you have disappointed your selves Vse 2. Let us make this use of the Observation To embrace the promises and to depend upon God for the fulfilling of them without limiting him as to circumstances Let us do this as to those great promises which are behind to be fulfilled as to the destruction of Antichrist the calling of the Jews the second coming of Christ the more happy and calm state of the Church c. The Scripture seems clear as to the things that they shall be but it is far from being clear that it shall be in such a year or by such a mean or instrument there is nothing particular of this nature for a good Christian to set the foot of his faith upon I have shewed you there is a great vanity of Christians in these things I know Christians have a very great curiosity to search dark Prophecies to find out the particular circumstances for these things I cannot commend their diligence it is much like the hard labour and study of those that have been studying the Philosophers stone a great deal of money and much more precious time hath been spent about it nothing yet effected no more hath there been in these things men have wearied themselves in vain and their study hath been but labour and travel 2. Again As to promises that concern our particular souls for comfort for a victory over temptations c. they are many they are exceeding sweet but they are general not to this or that individual person but to such as love and fear the Lord to persons under such or such qualifications they are exceeding sweet but they are not made with circumstances God will have his people trust him he will have them wait for him Take heed either of saying These things shall never be this is to give the lye to the God of Truth God says thou shalt live thou sayest I shall dye I shall fall by the hand of this temptation and take heed of saying If it ever be it must be by such a time by such a Minister it would have been by such a Minister c. This is to limit the Holy One of Israel thou knowest not the ways of God it is
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
little good to be hoped for unless God by his Providence makes some particular persons amongst them highly serviceable or instrumental in the state where they live either discovering some plots or treasons which was the case in Mordecai's time or brings some of them to some great favour which was the cause of the Israelites first in Egypt then in Babylon and Esther afterwards upon their return from Babylon or else God by his Providence secureth his little flock by suffering some intestine factions to rise amongst the men of the world or stirring up other enemies against that part of the world that they have something else to do and cannot attend the execution of their malice upon the servants of God or blesseth a particular state with a good-natured Prince that is not enclined to rigour and severity but naturally abhorreth the blood and ruin of people though usually if the latter be the case it is but an incertain time with the Church for good natures are ordinarily with ease enclined this way or that according to the mutability of prevailing Counsels But now if the People of God in any nation be a considerable number and you see the Providence of God hath raised them up to be men of interest many of them either with respect to their Wisdom or Estates or Imployments though their Enemies be many and boisterous yet there is no great fear unless of particular persons suffering God seems to have subordinated the world to their peace For though some few imprudent men that are rash and malicious and some hot-spur'd Church-men who understand little of politicks may in such a juncture be for nothing but fire and faggot yet God who in his Providence hath ordered civil affairs so that it should be the interest of the men of the world to give them liberty and peace will seldom suffer those whom he hath betrusted with the government of the affairs of the world unless he designeth to bring a period to the state so far to overlook their interests as to gratifie the lusts of malicious and rash men Again If you see in any place God suffering men calling themselves Ministers to degenerate into such sots in their Conversation or to run into such heighths of superstitious vanities and fooleries as all men condemn and see the vanity of or to be so insufficient for any part of their work that they can do nothing of it but are contemptible unto all and make the offering of God to be abhorred This is another juncture of affairs when you may either fear the ruin of the place or hope for a reformation or more quiet abode for Gods People in it And by the way my enlargement upon this Observation may mind the People of God of the Policy as well as Piety of a threefold duty 1. The first is All just homage and serviceableness unto such rulers as God hath set over the places wherein their lot is cast I say just homage for it is better to obey God than Man and we cannot obey Man where Obedience to him is disobedience to God But the more any of our consciences towards God straitens us as to some points of Obedience the more we should be serviceable in what we may If it at any time falls in our way to secure their lives by discovering dangerous plots and conspiracies Mordecay by such a service made himself the Protector of all the people of the Jews If we be called to it and can assist them with our arms with our wisdom counsel with our service and industry remember what great instruments for the good of Gods People Joseph Daniel the three Children Nehemiah c. were made 2. Observe here also the Policy as well as Piety of the practice of all moral virtue Justice to all charity and liberality to the poor temperance sobriety all manner of loveliness in Conversation there must be something more than these things to commend you to God but these are the things that must commend you to the world Moral vertue hath a great cognation with humane Nature though mens lusts and passions sometimes run them out to acts of injustice and oppression and debauchery yet no body would willingly himself be oppressed or dealt unjustly with or have his own wife and daughters debauched It is very rare but the highest and maddest Enemies of the People of God are malicious and debauched persons few of them persons of moral vertue and honesty make but your selves great Examples of these things and you will certainly at one time or other be too hard for your adversaries the world so loatheth their injustice cruelty oppression hard-heartedness their drunkenness and uncleanness their lying cheating and defrauding that it will vomit them out 3. It lets you also see the Policy as well as Piety of keeping close to God in the matters of his worship The sottishness and superstition of Priests signifieth good not hurt to you unless you approve of their savings and doings But when the prophets prophecy falsly and the priests bear rule by their means and the people love to have it so what will you do in the end thereof Jer. 5.32 If the ministry in any nation be sottish in their lives corrupt in their Doctrines superstitious in their Worship dumb dogs that can neither pray nor preach let not the people love to have it so and comply with them and own them God will not long suffer his flock to be rent in pieces with such wolves nor be at the will of such idol-shepherds But I have enlarged far enough upon this first branch of Application I shall be shorter in the other 2. Observe from hence both the felicity and duty of the people of God 1. Their felicity and dignity Their dignity I remember the Psalmist admiring the mercy of God towards man and expressing his Dignity Psal 8.6 7. Thou madest him to have dominion over the work of thy hands thou hast put all things under his feet all sheep and oxen yea and the beasts of the field the fouls of the air and the fish of the sea and whatsoever passeth through the seas This is a great dignity of man that God hath subordinated all the works of Creation all the orders of Creatures beneath him unto him But what a dignity is this to which God hath advanced his Church that all the affairs of the world should be as it were put under their feet that they should not only have a dominion over the works of the Lords hands in Creation as sheep and neat cattel and fouls and fishes but also all the Lords works of Providence that the Kingdoms of the Earth and the great affairs of states should be ruled with reference to the good of this little flock What a felicity it is to be within this hedg to be a member of this body of people I mean a true member of the Church of God I know the whole visible Church as I have before shewed you is under
Vse 1. In the first place let then all men that live upon the Earth praise the Lord but especially such as are superiors and rulers over others and more especially such as are his Church The Psalmist Psal 135.1 calls to all saying Praise the Lord praise ye the name of the Lord and ver 19 20 21. He calleth in particular Bless the Lord O house of Israel Bless the Lord O house of Aaron Bless the Lord O house of Levi you that fear the Lord bless the Lord Blessed be the Lord out of Zion which dwelleth at Hierusalem 1. This observation calleth to all the sons and daughters of men to bless the Lord. We are all sociable creatures and much of the comfort of our lives lyeth in our societies and fellowships one with another either in our family-societies or in our civil-societies or in our Church-societies We should think it a life worse than death to be condemned to live like a wild Ass alone in the wilderness Now there are some lusts of men that would spoil us of all this comfort God peculiarly sets himself against them and makes these the marks for his arrows of vengeance The Jews said of the Centurion He hath loved our nation and hath built us a synagogue We may say of our good God he hath loved mankind for he hath taken care to preserve order in humane societies and severely to chasten the invaders upon the rights of others What an ingagement doth this lay upon all men to praise the Lord Certainly sirs there is a great deal of praise and glory and homage due to God from all men as they are concerned in their several societies There is a great deal of glory due to God from families for his testimony against those lusts of men such as are murtherers and adulterers which in a short time would spoil all the comfort of those societies Certainly every family is bound to worship God and to walk with God But particularly 1. Let Rulers praise the Lord. Let all the Princes of the Earth give homage to him that ought to be served they are more especial marks for furious and ambitious mens lusts Gods Providence as you have heard is eminently seen in preventing their dangers in revenging their harms 2 Sam. 23.3 4 5. Surely then as David saith those that rule over men should be just ruling them in the fear of the Lord their light should be like the light of the morning without clouds God hath not only set them up as lights upon an hill but he hath made his special Providence to be a lanthorn about them that 't is rarely that the wind of sedition and treason prevails to blow them out and then 't is ordinarily for some eminent Provocation of God But I am not speaking to persons in that capacity You that are parents praise the Lord Gods special Providence you see reacheth you and in a great measure secureth you from that great heart-ach of rebellious and disobedient children I know you will say How then cometh this to be the great affliction of many good parents To which I answer 1. There is many a good parent may have been but like good old Ely too indulgent and cockering to their children ordinarily God keepeth up the authority of parents over their children until themselves have prostituted it and in the rebellion and disobedience of their children they may read their own sin and see as much cause to be humbled for that as any thing else as David in the case of Adonijah 1 King 1.5 6. And herein the goodness of God towards parents will be seen that if he doth not upon their endeavours secure to them the duty of their children yet he will not fail to revenge their quarrels against them 2. Let the poor and weak of the earth praise the Lord he hath declared himself the father of the fatherless and the judg of the widows a refuge for the oppressed Psal 68.5 Exod. 22.5 Psal 10.11 How are all the widows and fatherless children all the poor and oppressed people of the world bound to praise and to serve this God who hath taken upon himself the special patronage and protection of them This indeed would be the best use we could possibly make of this Observation relating to the special Providence of God if it might lay a special obligation upon all those who are thus especially concerned to magnifie God as their great patron and defender And how can they praise God more effectually than in doing those particular duties which concern them all in their respective relations or with reference to those peculiar circumstances of Providence under which they are acted I shall add but one branch of Application more and indeed it is not a new Use for it is a part of our praise and homage which we owe unto God upon this Reflexion viz. Vse 2. To all to take heed of those sins which God in his word declares himself more eminently to abhor and in the execution of Providence doth most severely punish All sin is in it self a filthy and abominable thing and the just object of every good mans hatred for should not we hate what God hateth and what hath of all things the greatest opposition to God yes we ought to hate it with a perfect hatred But such is the naughtiness of our heart that we are not so led to an hatred and abhorrence of sin from the intrinsecal evil and obliquity of it as from the dangerous and pernicious consequence of it Death eternal death is the wages of every sin but this being only matter of faith to bold sinners none having ever come from the dead to give them an account of those flames the punishments of sin in this life are those things which most deter carnal sensual men But if men will look no further nor believe any more yet let this lay some law upon us and make us afraid of those sins which I have instanced in being such whose judgment the Providence of God seldom letteth sleep so long as to another life Let this mind us not to meddle with them that are given to change that curse Kings and Rulers in their bed-chambers and are of turbulent and unquiet spirits always plotting and contriving seditions and treasons and disturbances to civil governours it is very rarely that God suffereth their designs to come to issue or their persons to come to the grave in peace 2. What a law should it lay upon the rich and great men of the earth to take heed of violent perverting justice and judgment of turning away the causes of the widows and the fatherless in judgment To consider that he who is the highest doth consider the matter and there is one higher than the highest of them who abuse their power to trample the poor under foot If men be not turned Atheists and have banished all the fear of God from their eyes and hearts it must a little give them law and lay
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
not so slow with all but either immediately by his own hand as in the case of Ananias and Saphira Acts 5. or else by the sword of the Magistrate he cuts them off presently and giveth them a sudden recompence of their evil deeds Now it may possibly be asked by some what are those sins or in what case is God so quick with sinners nor may the inquiry be unprofitable for us for because judgement is not executed speedily the heart of man is set in him to do evil Gods deferring judgment and giving day for the execution of his wrath doth much embolden sinners Let us therefore see in what cases God seldom grants reprieves but is very quick with sinners and sendeth them down to Hell reeking with their lusts this I shall indeavour to shew you in several particulars 1. It is hard to name any species of sins as to which God hath not made or doth not make some present examples of his vengeance So as no sinner can promise himself the reprieve of an hour or day 1. In the case of Idolatry which is a grievous sin against the first and second commandment you will find that God proceeded very slowly to judgment for this sin both in the Canaanites and in the Israelites with the Canaanites though they were abominable idolaters God bare many hundreds of years With the ten tribes who were idolaters from the time of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin unto the time when they were finally destroyed and carried away captives God bare with them a long time but you shall find God quicker at another time Exod. 32. The people make themselves a golden Calf Moses comes down from the Mount and findeth them at their idolatrous worship Moses commandeth the sons of Levi to put every man his sword by his side and to go in and out from gate to gate throughout the Camp and to slay every man his Brother and every man his companion and every man his neighbour and v. 28. it is said that the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses And there fell of the people that day about three thousand men There God was very quick with idolaters Blaspheming Cursing and swearing is a sin against the third commandment God as to the punishment of these sins sometimes proceedeth very slowly but not alwaies Look into Levit. 24.10 There was the son of an Israelitish woman that blasphemed the name of the Lord and cursed he was put in prison God presently giveth order concerning him v. 14. That he should be brought forth without the Camp and stoned to death presently Sabbath-breaking it is a sin against the fourth precept of the Decalogue God is ordinarily very slow in the punishing of this sin many a Sabbath-breaker goeth on year after year and yet is not punished but God doth not do thus with all The man that did but gather sticks upon the sabbath-Sabbath-day was stoned to death by Gods express order and command Numb 30.35 Rebellion against Parents cursing them and dishonouring them is a very great sin yet God beareth with many wretches a long time that are guilty of it as we see in the experience of our own lives A wretched Child is a plague to his Parents many years but God doth not always bear with sinners in this case See what a Law God gave the Israelites in this case Deut. 21.18 19 20 21. God ordered That he should be presently stoned to death that would not obey the voice of his Father and Mother For Murther which is a sin against the sixth Commandment I shall not inlarge I shall shew you anon that it is a sin which God rarely suffereth to go long unpunished The Law of God determined present death for wilful murder and the laws of most nations are accordingly and we daily see the providence of God strangely working to make murtherers examples of his vengeance Adultery is a sin against the seventh Commandment God sometimes is very patient and proceedeth very slowly but yet not always sometimes he strikes a dart through his liver sooner God established a law in the Jewish polity That the Adulterer should be put to death Lev. 20.10 Deut. 22.22 and you know Phinehas presently took a Javelin and ran it through an Adulterer and an Adulteress and had an ample reward given him from God for it In the case of theft God may sometimes be very patient and doubtless there are many old Thieves in the world who yet will not escape the vengeance of God at last But God is not always patient with all these sinners Achan was an eminent Thief he laid his hands upon Gods goods God had first seized upon the goods of the Canaanites and set them a part for a sacrifice by fire to himself Achan steals a wedge of Gold and a Babilonish garment God presently revengeth it first upon all the Army of Israel of which he was a member then upon himself and his family who were stoned to death with stones For lying and bearing a false testimony witnessing against the life of another as a criminal who was not a criminal they are sins against the ninth Commandment God is often very patient with these sinners he doth not presently enter into judgement with every liar every Informer and accuser of the servants of God Some he reserveth in the chains of an hard and impenitent heart unto the judgement of the great day but yet with some of these sinners God is much quicker Ananias and Saphira as you know fell down dead with a lye in their mouths and the Accusers of the three children and Daniel were presently destroyed the first by the heat of that Furnace which they had made so hot for others the second by those Lions which they had procured Daniel to be thrown unto But this is enough to have said in justification of my first conclusion That it is hard to name any species of sinners but God hath been very quick with some individuals of their company 2. I find some Divines observing That God is ordinarily most severe upon the first violators of his laws and this is the reason that is given by some why the Sabbath-breaker was ordered to be stoned to death God had newly revealed his will upon Mount Sinai Exod. 31.14 and repeated it Exod. 35. Now God picks out one of the first open presumptuous violators of it to make him an example you know this is after the manner of men who are usually very severe upon the first execution of their laws Ananias and Saphira were not the first that had told a lye but they were the first that we read of who had told a lye in that business It was the Will of God that to supply the necessities of his Church at that time the Christians should have all things for a time common amongst them and it was not without a divine instinct at least that so many of them sold their goods and came
of it I think is that to David which we have Psal 89. from the 20 to the 35. v. Vers 28. he tells him That he will keep his mercy with him for evermore and his covenant should stand fast with him but yet he reserveth himself a liberty to punish him and his seed for sins vers 30. If his children for sake my law and walk not in my judgments if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments then will I visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes nevertheless my loving-kindness I will not utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail my Covenant will I not break nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips So that notwithstanding the Covenant of Grace for eternal life and pardon of sin and all grace in order to the obtaining of this life and notwithstanding the blood of Christ which was the blood of this Covenant God hath yet a liberty to visit the transgressions of his people even their past as well as renewing transgressions with rods and their iniquity with stripes yet he doth not break his Covenant nor alter any thing that is gone out of his lips 3. Nor is it reasonable that any should fancy that God by the establishment of the Covenant of Grace or by acceptance of the satisfaction of his Son as the blood of this Covenant to make an atonement and reconciliation for iniquity should have barred himself of his liberty to punish the sins of his people or that any who hath accepted this Covenant upon the exhibition of it in the Gospel should be excused from such chastisements if we consider 1. That some of these chastenings are made the matters of a promise Mark 10.30 Persecutions are reckoned amongst Christs rewards in this life Heb. 12.6 7 8. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth c. Thence the ancients were wont to call Martyrdom a Crown and Luther was wont to complain That God would not honour him to wear that Crown Saint Paul prayeth to be made conformable to the death of Christ if the Saints did not fight how could they triumph how should they conquer yea be more than conquerers 2. That afflictions are the path-way to death and death the door into eternal life Every affliction is a blow at the root of our tree preparing it for its fall and if we did not dye how should we live in Heaven We must all dye or be changed or our corruptible could never put on incorruption nor our mortal put on immortality It is reported of Zaleucus a lawgiver amongst the Indians that he should say If God had not appointed that all should dye it had been reasonable for men to have made a law in the case and we read of some Indians who being asked why they worshipped the Sun gave this reason Because it was the Author of death Give me leave to say That death is so necessary and afflictions are so wholesom for Christians that they deserve rather to be reckoned amongst those things which Christ hath purchased for them than such things as he hath purchased them a liberty from 1. All sorts of afflictions of this life are means of grace not so much means of begetting as reviving and increasing grace for as the fire softneth the wax and hardneth the clay so I have usually observed That afflictions make the wicked man worse but godly men better they revive repentance they are times when usually men call sin to remembrance they draw out the exercises of faith and both work and exercise patience Tribulation saith the Apostle worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope David before that he was afflicted went astray after he learned to keep Gods Statutes God while he punisheth his people for their sins doth not barely chasten them but he also teacheth them out of his Law 2. They secondly prepare the Saints for glory and this not only as they restrain sin and tend to perfect grace but as it pleaseth God of his grace to reward the sufferings of his people and the faith and patience of his people shewed in and under their sufferings with the greater glory Thus the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 4.17 That our light and momentany afflictions work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory And thus much may serve to have cleared this Objection that I may hasten to the practical Application of this Observation This motion of Divine Providence in punishing with temporal punishments past and pardoned sins even in the best of Gods People appears exceeding reasonable 1. In regard of the Justice of God The Justice of God having taken a satisfaction in the blood of his Son and been paid a price for the sins of his people will not allow him to punish them with an eternal punishment yet it is reasonable they should not go altogether unpunished that the world may see that he is a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity in any I remember what God said by the Prophet Jeremiah to the Jews Jer. 30.11 I will not make a full end of thee but I will correct thee in measure and will not leave thee altogether unpunished You have the same again Jer. 46.28 2. It is reasonable secondly in order to the eternal salvation of their souls 1 Cor. 11.32 When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world It is P. Martyrs note upon that Text that the Apostle in that passage particularly respecteth such as fear God for the case is otherwise with wicked men whose punishment but begun in this life shall be perfected in the world that is to come But I have spoken enough to the Doctrinal part of this Observation Let me now come to some practical Observation shewing you what use we may and ought to make of it Vse 1. This in the first place serves to justifie God in those sore afflictions which we often see him bringing upon his own people When we look upon the holiness of a Job and see him a man fearing God and eschewing evil and see such a person under sharp tryals of affliction we are ready to startle at it and cannot understand Divine Justice in it But God is many ways to be justified 1. Who liveth and sinneth not enough against God to justifie the severest dispensations under which God exerciseth him 2. If he did not yet it is an ordinary thing and very righteous for God to write bitter things against his people for the sins of their youth though past and pardoned Now who hath so passed his youth that he hath not been guilty of sin enough to justifie God in his punishments yea and to make him acknowledg that he hath been punished seven times less than he hath deserved And if neither of these could be seen as a meritorious cause yet God hath a liberty by afflictions to try the faith
the first place it will appear to be but a reasonable motion of Providence there to distribute sensible blessings where men either in their single capacities or in their political societies live in the exactest square and conformity to the Divine Rule in matters of distributive and commutative justice and brotherly love and amity if you but consider the natural tendency of these things to promove the felicity of any persons or societies together with the direct tendency of a contrary converse to the ruin and undoing of them Justice and Vnity or amicable living each with other are the two pillars of humane society as the Scripture saith of Rachel and Leah Ruth 4.11 They two did build up the house of Israel so it must be said of these two Justice and brotherly love they are the two things which build up humane society and the Nation which keepeth not up these two pillars and preserveth them not in those due repairs which the lusts and corruptions of men will make them to stand in a daily need of will quickly fall under the ruins of them it must necessarily be a Kingdom divided against it self which as our Saviour hath told us cannot stand Where the first viz. Justice faileth no man knoweth what to call his own every mans estate is exposed to the fraud violence and rapines of his wicked neighbour Where Amity and Vnity which is the other fails men are continually biting and devouring rending and tearing one another none are willing to trade or traffique or to have any commerce with any such people or if they have it is so sparingly and with so much caution as is no way consistent with that liberty and freedom and that mutual confidence each in another which such a state requireth as is capable of those kind of blessings or in a rational or probable way to receive them You cannot but observe how every one is willing to be acquainted and to deal with persons that have a reputation for moral honesty and matters of justice in bargains and barters in buyings and sellings and exchange Now the outward blessing of riches and prosperity as to business depending much upon society good understandings betwixt each of other and good opinions of persons engaged in the same societies which may dispose men to just and mutual confidences each in other it is not at all to be wondred at if those places and persons thrive best amongst whom these are found which are the rational means agreeing to such an end The like might be said of other moral vertues such as are temperance and sobriety being rational means tending to the preservation of mens lives and health which are other sensible blessings It is not at all to be wondred that these blessings which are the end do naturally follow the proper means even as the thred followeth the needle in the hands of the sempstress God hath so ordered it that ends shall be ordinarily obtained in the use of means always supposing the ordinary Providence of God which must give the blessing upon any means used in order to any end 2. But secondly There is more than this in it God in the pursuance of his many promises doth there command the blessing I am speaking of ordinary cases for Gods particular design to chasten any persons or to try them makes an exception to these however general rules God hath promised his sensible things Matth. 6.32 To those who first seek the Kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof he hath told them that these things shall be added to them Godliness hath the promise as of that life which is to come so of this life as the Apostle tells us the promise to brethren living together in unity Psal 133. you heard before there God commandeth the blessing saith the Psalmist and mark what blessing it is it is like the oyl poured upon the head of Aaron which ran down to the skirts of his garment like the dew upon the hill of Hermon which made the Earth fruitful the blessing of plenty and prosperity And for promises to the doing justice and judgmâ—nt they are so many in Scripture that it were almost infinite to repeat them I shall only commend this observation to you That you shall quite through the Scripture find the execution of justice and judgment made one term that God puts upon people in order to the receiving of any mercy from him and injustice violence and oppression constantly enumerated as those sins to which are annexed all the threatnings of taking away those temporal blessings which a Nation doth enjoy Indeed unless prophaneness and irreligion or idolatrous and undue worship of God almost all the sins for which you find threatnings of the deprival of temporal sensible blessings are reducible to one of these heads either being failers in matters of civil justice or of that brotherly love and amity which God hath required So that this is as a very ordinary so a most reasonable motion of Divine Providence and what we cannot but in reason expect from its hand But I come to the Application of this discourse Vse 1. As my other Observations so this also is of great use to us to increase in us spiritual wisdom and to make us understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. 1. To increase in us spiritual wisdom Wisdom is a practical habit disposing us to order our affairs in the best manner in order to our own good Good is that which every man desires who will shew us any good is the general language of the world There be many saith the Psalmist that say Who will shew us any good And though the hearts of Gods People be after spiritual good Lord saith David lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me yet this is not that good which the many look after but the increase of their corn and wine and oyl We will take men at that advantage and suppose the question to be what course a man should take to be blessed with corn wine and oyl with the good things of this life long life riches trade success in worldly affairs if this observation be true the best course is for Nations Cities Persons to govern themselves by the Divine Rule to set up and promove the profession and practice of Religion to execute justice and judgement to live in brotherly love unity and amity one with another Whoso therefore would be wise for himself according to the worlds measures of wisdom is obliged to this hence it is that in Scripture and especially in the book of Proverbs the sinner is called a fool the godly man is counted a wise man and the truth is whether persons consider themselves as beings ordained to an eternity or meerly as flesh and blood and bodily compositions who as is natural to all creatures have a natural desire to live as long as they can and as free from pain and misery as they can and with as many sweetnesses and advantage of
followeth in the fourth place the necessity of a law to be given unto man in his state of innocency For saith the Apostle where there is no law there is no transgression sin being the transgression of the law Now this Law with the promise annexed to it was the Covenant of Works on Gods part and the restipulation on mans part must be presumed or man had been a transgressor before the fall by a rebellion to the Divine Will and this formally maketh up the Covenant of Works God promising him life upon condition of his Obedience and man accepting the promise and agreeing to the terms or condition of life imposed on him Now God having given this Law and made this Covenant man by the violation of it became guilty a debtor to the Justice of God and so capable of a Redemption a Remission and Justification 5. I desire you to consider That the Covenant of Grace and promise by faith on Gods part could not possibly have been made good without the destruction of the first Covenant of Works and the promise of life made upon that this is that which the Apostle saith in my text That the promise by faith of Jesus might be given to them that believe I pray observe here are three things to be considered 1. The matter of the promise 2. The means by which the promise is to be obtained 3. The objects of it The promise intended is doubtless the promise of eternal life so often called in Scripture as being indeed the great and most valuable promise what is the means of obtaining it On Gods part it must be given out on mans part it must be received by faith for it is given to them that believe and it is therefore called the promise by faith in Jesus Christ Now the promise of life by works under the first Covenant was wholly inconsistent with this promise of being saved by faith in Christ Though the first Covenant comprehended a faith in God as being a piece of that internal homage which every soul oweth to God yet it could not comprehend a faith in Christ as our Mediator there being no need of a Saviour till we were in danger nor of a Mediator till we were become transgressors How therefore was it possible that the promise of faith in Christ to those who believe in him should be given out till first the Covenant of Works was both given out and also violated Though the law by the promise of saith in Christ was not destroyed so far forth as it was a directive and obligatory rule of life and conversation unto all yet so far as it was a Covenant of life it must be both given out and also destroyed that the promise of faith might be given out 6. In the last place I desire you to consider That as on Gods part the promise of life by faith in Christ was inconsistent with the promise of life upon the doing of the works of the law so on our part we should never have come to Christ that we might have life if we had not first been concluded under wrath And this will appear to every intelligent soul that will but consider That the going out of the soul unto Christ for life is a disclaimer of its own righteousness and a very great piece of self-denial to which the soul will never move naturally but must see it self constrained to it by necessity Isa 57.10 Thou hast found the life of thy hand therefore thou wert not grieved so long as a man seeth help in himself and thinks that he hath found life in his own hands so long he is not grieved not at all concerned as to his eternal state And this is the true reason why you see the greatest brokenness of heart and sense of sin yea and the greatest holiness of life too in those men that yet look to be saved by faith in Jesus Christ for our free-will men that maintain a power in man to believe and repent or to keep the Law of God perfectly they have said they have found life in their own hands and then I hope they have none but themselves to blame if they miss and come short of it if they do not repent and turn unto God to day they can do it to morrow It was necessary as on Gods part in order to his giving out of the promise of faith in Christ and exhibition of the Covenant of Grace to the world so also on our part in order to our acceptation and taking hold of any such Covenant and the application of our souls unto God upon the terms of that Covenant for the sure mercies of it that there should first be a Covenant of Works made with man and a law of works given unto him for had there been no such Covenant made no such Law given man could not have broken and violated it and if he had not violated and broken it he could not have been a transgressor he could not have been a lost sinner and consequentially had needed no Saviour nor would man have ever been perswaded to have gone out of himself and to have accepted of the righteousness of Christ for his righteousness had he not first been rendred in a forlorn desperate and hopeless condition without Application unto Christ Vse 1. For the practical Application of what you have heard now in this discourse This in the first place should mind us not to be hasty to deny nor too forward to stumble at some things in the dispensations of God which at first seem to us hard to be understood Who can find out God or search out the Almighty unto perfection I do not know any thing that looketh more inconsistently in appearance to us at our first view of it than this That God should from eternity six the salvation of man upon a Covenant of Grace and write it in his book That there should be salvation in no other than in Jesus Christ nor any other name given under heaven amongst men whereby they might be saved that he who believeth should be saved and he who believed not should be damned for all these things were decrees in the rolls of eternity or they could never have been Revelations of Gods Will in Scripture Heb. 10.5 6 7. and Psal 40.7 In the volume of Gods book it was written of Christ that he should come into the world and do the Will of God relating to the salvation of man I say that God should thus setle mans salvation in the order of its causes and upon the terms of free-grace the merit and satisfaction of Christ and Faith in him and yet when mankind was created God should treat him upon a Law of Works and make a Covenant with him for life and salvation upon condition of his perfect obedience both to the Law written at that time upon his heart and this positive precept of not eating of the tree of forbidden fruit yet there is nothing clearer in Scripture than that God
1. A silence from passion mourning within our selves fretting vexing c. a man breaketh this silence when he is overborn with fear or grief or anger These three ways the Soul is disturb'd and maketh a noise under the dispensations of God which breaketh this Religious silence 1. By Anger fretting fuming and vexing himself at Gods dispensations This was Moses and Aarons failing at the waters of Meribah and Jonas his error when the Gourd failed him as to its shelter But of this I have spoken fully already when I handled the Negative part of a Christians duty under Gods dispensations of nature 2. Fear Immoderate fear is another passion that spoileth this silence of the Soul fear maketh an Earthquake within us and causeth great unquietness in our Spirits The Soul that is overborn with fears never keepeth silence 3. A third passion is immoderate grief this also breaketh the Souls silence and quiet Psal 42. Why art thou cast down O my soul why art thou disquieted within me So as that Soul that under Gods dispensations of this nature either fumeth vexeth or fretteth at God because of them or is overwhelmed with immoderate or unreasonable fears or is overwhelmed or drowned in immoderate grief that Soul doth not keep silence but that Soul only keepeth a due silence to God which under such Providences abideth in a calm and quiet temper neither shaken with fear nor overcome with immoderate grief or sorrow This is now silentium animae the silence of the Soul before and unto God 2. But there is also a silence of the Tongue this is a piece of this Religious silence this is opposed to murmuring cursing and blaspheming of God to speaking hardly of God as if he were an hard Master and did not deal justly or equally with us to any speaking which is derogatory to the honour and glory of God all this now falleth under the first general duty by which I open a silent waiting for God which I call a free and voluntary submission to the good will and pleasure of God without any disturbance of passion or any sinful expressions of our Tongues 2. A Second thing wherein this duty lyeth is A steady dependance upon God for the fulfilling of his Promises made to his people in such a condition he that hath nothing to depend upon or trust to will not wait so as there can be no patient waiting where there is no secret trust and dependance This is indeed the proper exercise of Faith I have spoken fully to it when I opened the life of Faith in such a time 3. A Third thing in which this duty lies is in the Souls expectation and looking out for God Early in the morning saith David Psal 5.3 I will direct my prayer unto thee and will look up Thus when Habakkuk in the first Chapter of his Prophecy had put up his Prayer to God he saith Chap. 2. that he would go up to his watch-Tower A man goeth up to a Tower or to some high place to see whether a friend or an enemy be coming yea or no It is a piece of our duty in our waiting upon God under his dark dispensations of Providence while we are waiting to be also looking up and living in the expectation of the fulfilling of those promises which we have discerned and fixed our souls by Faith upon and which we have been praying for Our hearts should not be dead we must take heed of saying I look for no good the heart is dead when it comes to that The Soul that waits upon God under dark Providences must be looking for good and confident in its expectations of it from God 4. Lastly This waiting must be in the use of such means as God hath appointed us for the obtaining of the mercy design'd and promised and therefore Psal 37. v. 34. they are put together wait upon the Lord and keep his way Now you have this duty of silent waiting upon God opened to you The Sum of it is this It is the duty of a child of God under these Providences to keep his Soul from being overmuch shaken and overcome with fears or drowned in grief from fretting fuming and vexing at Gods dealings to keep his tongue from all murmuring all foolish and unadvised speaking with his lips to keep his Soul in a quiet dependance upon God for the fulfilling of his word daily looking up for him after the use of such means as he by the Law of Nature or in his revealed will hath appointed for the obtaining of the mercy or good thing which is the matter of our desires and he hath made the Subject of his Promise and consequently the Object of our Faith You have heard your duty Now give me leave to plead with all you that hear me this day for the Practice of it I have in this Discourse been exhorting to several duties of a child of God under dark dispensations of Providence when wicked men have been set up high increased in riches honour every way prospered and the people of God are kept in low despised afflicted states and conditions I remember the Apostle calls to us to add to our faith knowledg to both vertue to vertue temperance c. Do you also add to your not fretting not being angry and envious a steady exercise of Faith and dependance on God to your dependance on God and trusting in him an universal departing from evil and doing that which is good and to that a patient quiet waiting for God I shall in order to your better performance of this offer some counsel and then press it with some arguments and so shut up this Discourse 1. In the first place There are three things which in order to your fulfilling this point of duty I shall commend to you to get a through acquaintance with 1. Be acquainted with Gods name It is David's expression Psal 52.9 I will wait upon thy name for it is good before thy Saints It is the Name of God which we wait upon now it is reasonable in order to our waiting upon his name that we should know his name for as the Psalmist saith They that know thy name will put their trust in thee and truly they that do not know the Lords name will never wait upon him Well you will say What is his name I answer whatsoever he hath revealed and made himself known by or to be that is his name I might instance in many particulars His name is God allsufficient Gen. 17.1 I am the Almighty God His name is I am the unchangeable God His name is Jehovah the soveraign Lord God and therefore we ought to wait upon him His name is The Lord the Lord Gracious Merciful c. they that know the Lords name that are throughly acquainted with the nature of God as he hath in his word made himself known to us they will wait upon God they will see it a reasonable thing that they should wait upon God 2. In the
in Scripture I find three Answers to this Question The one is that of St. Peters Acts 2.31 Repent and be Baptized another is that of St. Paul Acts 16.31 Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved The other is that of our Saviour to the young Man asking him What good thing he should do that he might inherit Everlasting Life Saith our Saviour Keep the Commandments Those three Texts will give you compleat directions 1. Keep the Commandments You will reply but you tell us that no Man is able to keep the Commandments but because you cannot do all which God doth require can you do nothing Well but you will say Shall we be saved if we do all that we can to keep the Moral Law I Answer No What then 2. St. Peter tells you Acts 2.38 Repent and be Baptized you will reply but it is God who must give repentance unto life True we say God must change the heart the Blackamore cannot change his skin nor the Leopard his spots But cannot you consider your sins Cannot you turn from open sins Do what in you lieth in order to your Repentance Well but you will say If we do this Is this enough I Answer No What then 3. St. Paul telleth you Act. 16. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved Still you will say But is not Faith the gift of God Have we a power to believe We Answer No It must be given to men on the behalf of Christ to believe But cannot you read the Word of God Cannot you come and hear the Word preached When you have heard it Cannot you meditate therein Cannot you apply your souls to the Word though it be Gods work to apply the Word to your souls and make it to dwell in you Cannot you beg of God a power to believe God will not be wanting to that soul that is not first wanting to it self The difference betwixt us and the bold Patrons of free-will lies here They hold that a man hath a natural power and ability to actions formally and spiritually good This we deny but yet say That man hath a power to actions that are morally and materially good and if he would go about as far as his Natural power would help him though indeed he could merit nothing at the hand of God We do not believe that God would be wanting to him as to habits of spiritual and effectual grace Now this is that which I am pleading with you for that you might not destroy you selves 1. That you would not give your self a liberty and let your selves loose to do things contrary to the Law of God wherein you might restrain your selves 2. That you would not neglect to do those things which God requireth of you and which are in your power to do I shall conclude this but with Two very weighty considerations 1. No punishment is more justly and smartly inflicted than that which a man hath chosen and wilfully brought upon himself when a man hath chosen death rather than life and judged himself unworthy of everlasting life and despised his own mercy certainly every man must say he is justly punished and adjudged to that portion which he hath chosen to himself 2. Secondly As no punishment is so justly and smartly inflicted so none is more intolerable to be born There will be in Hell another fire which shall never go out but this will be the worm that shall never die I have done and shall shut up my Discourse with the words of Moses I have this day set before you life and death blessing and cursing I have told you which way you must go down into the pit of destruction if ever you come there you must of your selves go into it O let not your destruction be of your selves especially considering what God hath done and what he is daily doing to evidence that in him is your help if you will apply your selves unto him SERMON LI. Rom. 2.12 For as many as have sinned without the Law shall also perish without the Law and as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged by the Law THE business I am upon as you know is the expounding some hard Chapters in the Book of Divine Providence I am upon the last head upon which I propounded to speak to some appearing difficulties viz. Gods unequal dispensations of Grace whether such as are more common or such as are more special and saving as a basis to this Discourse I have premised and handled Two preliminary Propositions 1. Prop. That God in the dispensations of his grace acteth by Prerogative in a way of Soveraignty freely and unaccountably 2. Prop. That in his paenal dispensations of this nature he never proceedeth but justly upon the previous demerits of sinners I now come to speak to some Questions relating to these dispensations of Divine Providence The Two first of this nature which I shall speak to relate to Gods unequal distributions of common grace but such as are spiritual means in order to the obtaining of special and effectual grace and his unequal distributions of special and effectual grace without which none can be saved I shall put both these together and for a short Discourse upon these I have made choice of this Text. The business of the Apostle in this excellent Epistle is to establish the great Doctrine of the Gospel concerning the Justification of the soul before God by the righteousness of Christ on Gods part imputed and reckoned to sinners and on mans part apprehended and applied by Faith in opposition to the Doctrine of the Doctors of the Jews who held the Justification of the Soul by the works of the Law In opposition to whom he had laid down his grand Proposition Rom. 1.17 That the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith That is That righteousness wherein a Soul another day must stand just and righteous before God is not a righteousness of our own arising from our performance of the Law but the righteousness of Christ revealed in the Gospel which is apprehended and made ours by Faith His first Argument by which he proveth this is obvious to any considerate Reader If any be justified by works they must either be the Gentiles or the Jews but neither are the works of the Gentiles such as will justifie them Nor are the works of the Jews such as will justifie them As to the Gentiles he proveth at large Chap. 1. That their works were such as were so far from Justifying them That the wrath of God was revealed against them for the wrath of God is revealed against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men and as he at large sheweth the works of the Heathen were works of most notorious ungodliness and unrighteousness and therefore could not possibly justifie them So in this Chapter he proveth that the works of the Jews were not such as could justifie them before God for though they condemned
others for sins yet they did as bad themselves From Vers 11. He taketh away all pretence of Justification by works both from the Jews and from the Gentiles For the Gentiles he saith they had not the Law For the Jews they indeed had the Law but they broke it Now saith he There is no respect of persons with God those that sin shall perish let them sin with the Law or without the Law For saith he in my Text as many as have sinned without Law shall also perish without Law and as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged by the Law By the Law is here plainly understood the Word of God which God hath given us to be a light unto our feet and a lanthern to our paths a light to shew us the way to Heaven Here is plainly imply'd That as some sinners perish having the Word of God and the external means of Salvation so others perish having not the Law and Word of God nor the outward and ordinary means which God hath appointed in order to the obtaining of eternal life and salvation 2. In both these dispensations God is just for there is no respect of persons with God Now hence arise Two Questions 1. Quest Whether God granteth to all men sufficient aids and assistances or means of Grace in order to their Salvation 2. Quest If God doth not grant unto all men sufficient means aids and assistances of Grace in order to their Salvation how he can be just in the condemnation of any to whom he hath not given such a sufficiency of means 1. Quest Whether God granteth unto all men sufficient means of Grace in order to their Salvation We affirm that he hath not But here we have many Adversaries to encounter There are some that affirm that there is a sufficiency of the means aids and assistances of Grace afforded to all men in order to their Salvation Some of the Arminians will not go thus far but they affirm That to all those to whom the Gospel is preached and who are by the preaching of it called to Faith and Repentance there is a sufficient grace given Thus far we do agree as to this point of sufficient grace 1. That in our first Parent Adam all mankind had sufficient grace whether we respect external or internal means he had a sufficient Revelation of the Will of God and a sufficient power in himself in his own will in the rectitude of his own nature to have made use of and apply'd the Revelation he had of the Divine Will in order to his Salvation and so all mankind had in him For as in Adam all died so in Adam all men were at first a live or they could not in the fall have died in him The Question is not therefore of man as he at first came out of the hand of God but of mankind in their lapsed estate whether they have all such a sufficiency 2. Secondly Neither is the Question about the sufficiency of external means as to all those to whom the Gospel is preached and who have the Scriptures we grant a perfection in them and that they are able to make men wise unto Salvation the word of Faith is a sufficient external means this is again on all hands agreed betwixt us 3. Thirdly It is out of doubt that there is such a Revelation of the means of grace as is sufficient for the manifestation of the Glory and Justice of God which is the great end which God aimeth at in all his dispensations of Providence 4. Yea and Fourthly There is such a sufficiency of outward means as is enough to keep up external order and discipline in the world in humane Societies and as will render men inexcusable before God Rom. 2.1 5. Lastly We do grant that there is a sufficiency of grace given to many that live in the world even to as many as God hath fore-ordained to eternal life But still there are Two Questions behind 1. Whether those who never heard of Christ to whom the Gospel was never preached have a sufficient external means in order to their Salvation 2. Whether either those or any of those to whom the Gospel is preached have a sufficiency of means in order to their Salvation unless God be pleased to influence their souls by the powerful operation of his Spirit upon their hearts overpowering their wills and in the day of his power making them willing to receive the Lord Jesus Christ freely tendred in the Gospel We do judg that as the Heathens who have not heard of Christ nor had the Gospel preached unto them have not a sufficiency in respect of outward ordinary means so neither those who have the Scriptures and Ordinances of God have a sufficiency of grace while they want the internal effectual operation of the Spirit of God So that indeed no Reprobates only the Elect of God have a sufficient aid and assistance of grace given them for their Salvation though in the way of outward means those indeed who have the Gospel published to them may be said to have a sufficiency in respect of external means This we affirm upon these grounds 1. This pretended sufficiency must be either of External means or of Internal means or of both indeed it must be of both or it is not a sufficiency The External means is the holy Scriptures and the preaching of them they are those which are able to to make the man of God as Apostle tells us wise unto Salvation And how shall they believe saith the Apostle Rom. 10. on him of whom they have not heard And how shall they hear without a Preacher And how shall they Preach except they be sent The Apostle is there discoursing of the ordinary means of Salvation you see that is fixed in the word for that is that which is to be heard and the Preaching of the word So that what secret way soever God may have to reveal himself and the knowledg of Christ unto some particular persons in places where the Scriptures are not found nor the name of Christ heard of nor his Gospel Preached yet certain it is the outward and ordinary means of Salvation is the Preaching hearing and reading of the word and the Ministry of the Gospel Now we know that in the far greatest part of the World the Scriptures are not found read preached they have no Ministry and therefore it is very absurd to say That as to the External ordinary means of Salvation there is a sufficiency afforded all for if the word and the Ministry of it be the outward and ordinary means it is matter of demonstration that a very great part of the World hath nothing of it those therefore that will maintain a sufficiency of means must make the works of God and the view of them and conclusions which men may make by their Natural light and reason from them a sufficient means to give a man the knowledg of God and such a knowledg
God made us any promise that he will convert and Eternally save all our Children on whose behalf we labour and wrestle with God but as Hannah obtained her Child by Prayer upon which account it was that she named him Samuel Beg'd of God so I doubt not but that there are many good Parents that by Prayer have from God obtained the Conversion and Regeneration of their Children and that early that the Lord might as it were shew them that he gave in the Souls of their Children to their prayers and their godly instructions exhortations reproofs catechizing c. If we should never see grace appearing in tender years we should conclude it in vain during those years to use any means with them tending to such an end The Apostle telleth Timothy 2 Tim. 3.15 That from a Child he had known the Scriptures and 2 Tim. 1.5 He mentioneth an unfained faith that was both in his Grandmother Lois and in his Mother Eunice and he was perswaded in him also in him doubtless in great measure by their means God honouring their labours with the conversion of Timothy 2. Secondly Possibly God doth intend some elect vessels of his no long time in the World God intended Abijam the Son Jeroboam but a short time in the World and therefore there was early found in him some good thing I observed that amongst all the Patriarchs which are reckoned up Gen. 5. He of them who before Enos lived the shortest time lived 895 years the rest lived longer only Enoch lived but 365 about a third part of the time of the other It is said He walked with God and was not for God took-him and we see this of times in our experience God taketh away those in their youth whom he calleth in their Childhood and youth You have an observation that beautiful Children or Children of composed serious countenances when very young or such as being very young are very toward and fond of their Books seldome live long how true that is I cannot say but you shall I believe more certainly observe it of such who earlily have their hearts changed and are converted unto God God setteth those to work young to whom he hath not appointed long time to work of all whom God hath given unto Christ he must lose none and though Infants elect are saved upon the Covenant of grace before it appeareth to the World that they have laid hold upon it or are in a capacity in order to it to exercise their reason yet that is not Gods usual way where he alloweth to any a longer life till they come to exercise their reason he expecteth they should keep the ordinary road to Heaven by repentance and faith and in order to this he worketh upon their hearts betimes giving them repentance unto life and faith to lay hold upon the Lord Jesus Christ 3. Thirdly Possibly God doth intend some a longer time in the World but hath designed them for some great and eminent service in it such the Lord useth to call betimes I will shew it you in two or three eminent instances The first is that of Samuel Samuel was to be a great Prophet yea and a Judge in Israel God accordingly betimes took him unto his more special tutorage he was designed by his Mother and from the very time of his weaning by her dedicated unto the Lord and the Lord while he was yet a Child eminently communicated his mind to him as you read in the story 1 Sam. 2.3 chap. Josiah was a Second God had designed him for a great and eminent service he was Prophesied of many years before he was born and that by name as who should work a great and eminent Reformation and he did do that God earlily prepares him for it he was but 8 years old when he began to reign and he began to seek the Lord God of his Fathers and when was but 16 years of age he began a work of Reformation of a long and most grosly corrupted state Timothy is a third God had designed him for an Evangelist to have a great hand in settling the Gospel-Church God called him very young from a Child he knew the Holy Scriptures which are able to make the man of God wise unto Salvation To these I may add an instance of an eminent Prince in our own Nation King Edward the Sixth who laid the first Principles of our reformation King Henry the 8th did little and what he did seemed rather to be out of interest so biassing him than otherwise God was pleased in his very young and tender years to seize upon his heart He had intended him as the event proved but a short life and he had laid out for him a very great work to purge such an Augean Stable as the Popish rabble had left Two observations I have made upon reading the Scripture 1. That when God had long kept some women his servants barren they ordinarily proved the Mothers of very eminent Children Rachel Manoahs wife Hanna and Elizabeth are instances of that 2. That God very often when he designed Persons for some eminent work prepared them for it by an early seizing upon their hearts and sanctifying them from the Womb unto himself And this will appear to you very reasonable upon a double account 1. Those which do a great deal of work for God must have a great deal of time to do it in All humane actions you know require time and a proportion of time according to the work 2. Those who are to excel in work must not be much blotted in their previous conversation Jacob in his blessing of Reuben Gen. 49. v. 4. hath this expression Reuben shall not excel because he went up unto his Fathers bed he went up unto my Couch God seldome alloweth any one eminently to excel whose youth hath been stained with many eminent and notorious blots they may come to Heaven upon their conversion but they shall not excel in the world I can think but of one instance in Scripture to the contrary which is that of Saul he was a persecutor himself telleth us and a blasphemer yet received to mercy but he saith it was because he did it ignorantly St. Paul's persecution was not rooted in a malice against godliness and holiness but in an error of judgment he saith of himself that he verily thought that he ought to do many things against Jesus of Nazareth There is a great deal of difference betwixt scandalous sinners one man is prophane and a persecutor only by a mistake another man is so by principle St. Paul was of the former sort 't is true he was a prophane and mischievous persecutor a prophane blasphemer but it was by a mistake not that he had any prejudice or ill Opinion of the ways of holiness which Christs Doctrine led to for he was never that we read of scandalous in those things which the light of Nature Reason or the Law of Moses required or forbad but only as
it can hardly be expected that they should ordinarily be freed from that natural incumbrance by special and eminent assistances of Divine grace 2. In the second place Mens different sinnings may make this also appear but a reasonable motion of Providence It is true it is a dreadful punishment of sin for God to punish the sins of people by suffering them to be led into temptation It is a dreadful curse or imprecation of David upon the enemies of the Church Psal 109.6 Set thou a wicked man over him and let Satan stand at his right hand God doth thus often punish peoples sins by letting Satan loose upon them the effects of this are sad enough none need a greater evil than to have Satan always at his right hand assiduously and violently moving him unto evil and though it be not so ordinary yet God may thus punish his own people Satan was at David's right hand when he would number the people St. Paul had a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him what that messenger of Satan was is not so easie to determine it was certainly some great affliction in which Satan had a particular ministery 2 Cor. 12.7 Some Divines do think it was some great temptation indeed the Scripture doth not mention it as the punishment of Paul's sin but as preventive of sin lest saith he I should be exalted above measure Undoubtedly temptations may be punishments of sin and in those desperate temptations to self-murther c. which have prevailed against men the sin hath been often made evident and possibly as to St. Paul God might discern Paul's heart begin to swell upon occasion of his Revelations and might send him a messenger of Satan to buffet him as well for the beginnings of the workings of Pride which he had discerned in him as to prevent the further increases of it It is not so easie to determine what Davids sin was but in probability it was pride Davids heart was lifted up upon the view of the great number of people which God had put under his Government God letteth loose Satan upon him he moveth David to number the people by which he knew God would be sufficiently provoked to abate that wherein he glory'd The case was much the same with Hezekiah though we do not read of so eminent and immediate a ministry of Satan The Text saith God left him it was in the pride of Hezekiahs heart that he would shew his Treasure to the King of Babylon God leaves him the temptation prevails upon him This by the way doth not only let us see that God sometimes by temptations punisheth his own people for their sin but that pride and swelling of our hearts upon the account of our enjoyments is one of those sins for which God suffereth Satan to stand at our right hand Guriosity is another sin an itch after knowledg which God hath hidden from us It is a sad story how many have been thus catched in the snare of the Devil indeed our first Mother Eve was thus catched but this were too large a Theme to instance in all those particular sins which God hath thus punished or may thus punish Now in regard that the sins of all Gods people are not equal but they may fall some of them into more great and hainous sins than others It is but a reasonable motion of Divine Providence that such as do so should be more troubled with Satan at their right hand with messengers of Satan sent to buffet them than others 3. A third reasonable account of this may be Gods Prerogative God may do it for the trial of their graces I know not what other account we can give than this of Gods dispensations to Job God himself gives thus this account of him then he was a just and upright man Yet he giveth Satan leave to stand at his right hand he tells him all that he had was in his power but only his life It is said that God left Hezekiah to try what was in his heart to try that he might know all that was in his heart Divines dispute about that Pronoun He whether it referreth unto God or to Hezekiah 2 Chron. 32.31 The matter I do not conceive much whether it referreth to one or to the other That God might know what was in his heart Did not then you will say God know what was in the heart of Hezekiah Doubtless he to whom all contingencies were naked who knew all things past present and to come could not be ignorant what was in Hezekiah's heart and what he would do when he left him But the Scripture often speaketh of God after the manner of men they know not secret hidden things till they be brought to demonstration God left him that he might know that is that he might in matter of fact see what was in his heart This could be no matter of pleasure and delight to the Holy God but only a just medium in order to the punishment which he intended Israel in the posterity of that good man But God leaveth many of the Souls of his People that they may be tempted and in the hour of their temptation put forth exert and exercise their grace in the exercise of which the Lord hath a great deal of pleasure and delight This seemeth to be the case of Job the second time that you read Job 1. of Satans appearance before God God glorieth in Job Job 2.3 Hast thou saith he considered my servant Job that there is none like him in the Earth a perfect and upright man one that feareth God and escheweth evil and still he holdeth fast his integrity although thou movedst me against him to destroy him without cause Job 2.3 God delights in the combates of his People where they come off conquerors yea more than Conquerors I remember those two great Commanders Joab and Abner once said Let the young men arise and play before us that was a bloody game for they mutually kill'd each other so were the Romans Gladiators games and the combates with wild Beasts to which they exposed some miserable Creatures yet those men of blood took a pleasure in them God knoweth the good fight shall have no such issue Christ was not tempted for nothing the Apostle telleth us he was therefore tempted that he might be able to succour them that were tempted himself told Peter that although Satan had desired to winnow him like Wheat yet he had prayed that his faith might not fail This being secured God delighted to see Satan and a believing Soul play before him to see his People exercising their knowledg faith love patience courage and fortitude in resisting Satans temptations and making him to flee from them Now who can deny unto God the satisfaction and pleasure which he taketh in the exercise of those habits of grace which he hath given them The use of that Spiritual armour which he hath armed them with 4. Fourthly It is but a reasonable motion of
Grace but yet these are Holy Institutions upon which he hath recorded his name and we are bound in order to our receptions of his Grace to lie at these Pools 4. Be much fourthly in Prayer especially in secret Prayer there it is that the Soul can be freest with God both in the confession of its sins and in the spreading of its particular case before the Lord and wrestlings with him All that is to be obtained of God either with reference to the first Grace or the further manifestations of God unto the Soul is in one place or other of Holy Scripture promised unto Prayer 5. Lastly Let not Meditation and Holy Conference be neglected Meditation is the souls Soliloquy with God a piece of piety often commanded and practised with great success Holy converse and conference is our conversation with Saints who are to meet often together to consider and to provoke one another to love and to good works Converted souls Luke 22.32 have an obligation upon them to strengthen their brethren Men of knowledge do not only themselves increase in strength for their own use but they increase strength in others as Gods instruments for the principal efficiency of spiritual strength is from the Lord. Converse also with the people of God is of great use to increase spiritual life and vigor as one coal kindleth another and oft-times God maketh use of his more private servants to speak a word in season to the weary in short for all the purposes of special grace I shall add no more for the promise of divine manifestations and the abode of the spirit of God with the soul being limited to those who love Christ and evidence that love by a keeping of his commandements it must necessarily follow that the keeping the commandements of Christ in all things must be an adequate means and indeed all that lieth upon our hand to do in order to the obtaining of these manifestations Now what greater argument to press holiness can there be than this He that hath my commandements and keepeth them saith our blessed Lord John 14.21 he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and manifest my self unto him And again v. 23. If a man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him Who is there that understandeth not the difference betwixt a strong and a weak Christian weak in the resistance of sin and temptation weak in the performance of all holy and spiritual duties betwixt a Christian who feels himself in a free lively temper for the service of God ready to run the way of Gods Commandments and a dull heavy uncheerly temper for duty while in the mean time the conscience is pressed with a necessity of doing of it betwixt a sad dejected disquieted troubled spirit and a soul full of that joy and peace that is consequent to believing betwixt a soul flourishing and daily shooting forth in more perfect acts of grace and a soul that seems to stand still and not to thrive in the wayes of holiness If therefore there be any advantage from further degrees of spiritual strength if any goodness in a spiritual liveliness freedome and alacrity if any consolation in Christ or sweetness arising from those consolations if any comfort in the love the spiritual love of God O study Holiness some gradual neglects of it are the greatest causes of all that weakness dulness sadness unthriftiness under which your souls labour God sometimes acteth by Prerogative shewing these mercies where he will and because he will and with-holding them for the probation and tryal of his People but generally it is in justice to punish his Peoples omissions of their duty or commissions of something which is contrary to their duty And here now I shall put an end to my Discourses in which I have been exercised so long relating to the Providence of God I shall conclude with that of Job Chap. 26.14 Lo these are parts of his wayes but how little a portion is heard of him To which you may add that Job 11.7 Canst thou by searching find out God Canst thou find out the Almighty unto Perfection v. 8. It is as high as Heaven What canst thou do Deeper than Hell What canst thou know v. 9. The measure thereof is longer than the Earth and broader than the Sea SOLI DEO GLORIA FINIS An Alphabetical TABLE Containing the principal Matters contained in this Book Note In some places through the mistake of the Printer in figuring the pages thou art directed to the Contents by the Sermon Ser. 44. Ser. 55. c. A. ACtual Providence vide Providence Acts of Grace elicited by the motion of Divine Providence in its timings the destruction of Gods enemies and the salvation of his people 210 211 212. Actions good rewarded when the intention by God is disallowed 362 363. The reasonableness of it 364 365. It is only with limited and temporal rewards 366 367. Actions of piety how elicited by Providence 208 209 210 211. Adam why he first had salvation offered him upon a Covenant of works 453 454 455 456 457. Adoration of God in the unsearchable things of Providence our duty 171. Affairs in the world ordinarily subordinated to the designs God hath upon his Church 258 258 260 261. The reasonableness of it 263 What use to be made of it 265 266 267. Afflictions of this life may be punishments of past and pardoned sins 398 399. How this is just and reasonable 404. What use to be made of it 405. God the Author of them this consists with his holiness and goodness 404 405 406. The Portion of Gods people not of all 588 589. They are not truly Evils proved 589 590 591 592 593 594. Aids and Assistances of Grace whether given to all if not how God is just in condemning such as have them not 650 651 652 653 654 655 Anger what Serm. 45. How not to be used in the prosperity of sinners Serm. 45. Arguments to perswade the restraint of it Ibid. Application of God in what it lieth 103. necessary to render God the object of our delight 603 604. Application of the whole discourse about varieties of further Grace 692. The variety of Christians growth c. 727 728 729 730 731. Apprehensions of truth how different 721 722. Whence the difference is 723. The reason of it 724 725. What improvement is to be made of it 727 728 729 730 731 c. Attributes of God what how glorified by the timings of Providence 208 209 210. and by the permission of sin 480 481 482. B. Blessings sensible most upon those who live most exactly up to the Divine rule 438 439 440 441 442. C. Casual nothing to God p. 113 114. Calling to faith and repentance how universal 466. Why if all have not a power to believe and obey 467 468. How the
of it 494 495 496. How God is Just and Holy in punishing Sin with Sin what Sinnings so punished 547. to 561. Sins ordinarily but spotlesly used by Providence 329 330. Sinners not encouraged by it why 333 334. Sins What speedily punished 388 389 390 391 392. Silence how various what our duty what not 613 614. Slow motions of Providence to rewards and punishments most plentiful in the products 377. The reasonableness of such slowness 377 378 379 380 381. Small things of man what 221. Specialties of Providence v. Providence Special duty from whom due in consideration of Special Providence to them in what it lyes 128 129 130. to 156. Strengthening Grace against Temptations and sin 687 688. unto duty what how variously dispensed 689. How reasonably 690. The application of it 691 692 693 c. Sutableness to a work or Relation in what it lyes 424. Whence it is some are in relations not suted to them 425 426 427. Soul happiness in 3 things 591. Sufficient means of Grace in what sense all have it 650 651 652. In what sense they have it not 652 653. Proved that all have it not 653 654 655. Applyed 660. T Temptations of what sorts 684. Some more tempted than others 687. Whence it is 688. Why God suffers those to be tempted who he knows will fall in the hour of temptation 687. Means to be used in order to abating the force of the temptation 693 Arguments for Spiritual resistance 696 697 698. Thanksgiving Constant Solemn how evinced to be our duty from the Consideration of the influences of Providence 60. Threatnings ordinarily Justified when Gods Enemies are highest 205 206 207 208 209 210. Things good or evil what why good things are measured out by Providence to evil men and evil things to good men 582 583 584. to 595. V Varieties of Providence in the dispensation of the first Grace viz. Conversion 664. What varieties 665 666 667. a reasonable account of Variety in that as to time 668 669 670. As to means 673. As to manner 675 676. Vse of it 678 679 680. Varieties in dispensations of further Grace 681. What Grace 681. In what the Varieties lie or do not lie 682 683. Vertues upheld in creatures by which they serve others p. 72 73. Unsearchableness of Providence in its wayes 158 159 c. To Search and behold them our duty 160 161 162. How they are unsearchable 163. In the compass of them in the tendency track indications of them 164 165 166. Vse of that 167. W Waiting for God patiently what it implyeth 613 614 615 616. Several things recommended in order to it 616 617 618. Pressed by Arguments 618 619. How a duty resulting from a Consideration of Divine Providence 56 57. Wayes of God misjudged from what causes 517 518. Widows poor and fatherless obliged to praise the Lord 296 297. Wisdom Spiritual how to be learned from Gods Providential dispensations 175 176 177 178. Wisdom to sobriety cammended 167 168. Will of God the alone cause of Grace 620 621 622 623. Wicked men why suffered to devour such as are more righteous than they 596 597 c. It is just with God and reasonable 597 598 599. What use we are to make of it ibid. Et seque To the Reader WHat the Poet saith of men None lives without some errors He is best that hath fewest it 's true concerning Printed books Whoso considereth how much intension is required to the writing composure for the Press and correcting of so many Words and Letters as a Book of this bulk hath will easily conclude it a matter of no easie atchievement for any but tolerably to acquit themselves and must be very uncharitable if he will not give some allowances for the want of some letter in a word or the transposing of a letter or the mistake of a Point the want of a little particle or needless doubling of it being but common infirmities of a quick Pen or Press But there are some others of which I must give thee some account The Author who intended no more than the general Title to run through the leaves of the whole Book must not be charged if the Title of any leaf be not so properly set as he would have done who best knows the matter that business was done by another hand not knowing the Authors mind and finding the top of the pages without titles 2. Two Presses being imployed for expedition the Printer not casting the sheets punctually that he turned off to another thou wilt find a disorder in the figures of the pages from 594 to 601. The number of Sermons also miscounted next 45 follows 48 Sermon but that is supplied in the matter of the Sermons preceding 45. 2 of them making 4 but not distinguished by the Printer The Errataes troubling the sense are very few the greatest in p. 108. l. 21. These following the Author desires thee to be charitable to him and the Printer for ERRATA PAge 56. l. 9. r. suspicious 58. l. 7. r. but yet 75. l. 17. blot out he hath 66. l. 20. r. every tyde 68. l. 7. r. in it l. 16. r. not God 108. l. 21. r. Subdued so as the greater 120. l. 6. r. unà 121. l. 5. r. and cannot 126. l. 30. r. restraining 192 l. 5. r. Scrabling 200. l. 6. blot out think 211. l. 23. r. mens bearts 221. l. 31. r. of the land 222. l. 20. blot out of 226. l. 21. r. Asa 243. l. 5. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 252. l. 21. r. Adapting 328. l. 25. 26. r. rapacious 340. l. 18. r. Jotham was l. 29. r. tracked Grace is 341. l. 13. r Dives had a right 349. l. 3. r. despond 355. l. 23. r. as to find 373. l. 28. r. he hindred 416. l. 30. r. taking away 451. l. 32. r. evil thou maist not eat 488. l. 23. r. Stith 512. l. 9. r. Paris 530. l. 24. r. habits of Grace 530. l. 29. r. Gods Command 547. l. 22. blot out repeated 563. l. 14. r. Sinnings 568. l. 33. r. feigned such 583. l. 26. r. it is l. 31. blot out to good men l. 37. r. justifie God in 586. l. 48. r. infortunis 587. l. 11. r. Nierem 594. l. 11. r. is a temptation 597. l. 25. r. roil 604. l. 25. r. roiling l. 39. r. have 605. l. 18. r. high nature l. 13. r. heirs l. 21. r. add to this l. 37. r. roil his 606. l. 7 6. r. fourth terme 610. l. 28. r. 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Scripture was written since which time Prophecy and unwritten Revelations are much ceased not further to be expected God may yet reveal himself to some particular servants of his but we are not to expect such Revelations nor are they the object of faith Now herein hath the stupendous Providence of God been eminently seen that when so many thousand books wrote since the Scriptures were written are lost and there is no memorial almost of them and the Scriptures have had more enemies than any of them more that have endeavoured to corrupt them and to destroy them yet God hath preserved this store-house of spiritual food and kept it from corruption by the extraordinary care of the Jewish Church the multiplying of translations guiding and governing of those who have been employed in them Nor hath the Providence of God been less seen in maintaining Ministers and Teachers of his word In the Jewish Church when the ordinary officers failed and were corrupted God from time to time raised them up Prophets who were his extraordinary Embassadors to teach his people In Christs time he calls Fishermen to the Apostleship and in all succeeding Ages though there have been sometimes more sometimes fewer able and faithful Ministers yet God hath so ordered that there never have wanted some and a competent number to break the bread of life and to feed his people with wisdom and with spiritual understanding No sort of men have been more maligned hated persecuted yet God hath upheld the order and taken care for the souls of his people that they have continually had faithful stewards of the mysteries of God 4. The Providence of God is admirable in preserving man in his spiritual capacity in the daily influence of his spirit attending his word and sanctifying his institutions The word is in it self but a dead letter the Preaching of the word is far from a mean adequate to so great an effect as is the conversion and edification of souls God is therefore pleased to join his quickening spirit to the word where he pleaseth blessing and sanctifying it I am not of their judgment who think that there is such a constant concurrence and influence of the Spirit with the preaching of the Gospel that if men will do what in them lies they may repent believe c. I know no Scripture which will justifie that notion but certain it is that the holy Spirit doth ordinarily join it self with the preaching of the word like the wind blowing where it pleaseth and none knoweth the motion of it convincing men of sin of righteousness and of judgment 5. Lastly The Providence of God preserveth men in their spiritual capacities by supplying them with strength and succour against their spiritual enemies their own flesh the world the Devil all which with a variety of temptations strike at our spiritual welfare But this is much of kin to what I said before I shall add no more to this discourse concerning Gods Act of Providence as in the preservation of beasts so of men and that in their single natural capacities In their Social and Political capacities and finally in their Spiritual capacities I shall only add some few words of application This in the first place may inform us Vse 1 How great that God must necessarily be whom we serve he is the Creator of the ends of the Earth of the Heavens of the Seas of all things and it is he who preserveth both man and beast he preserveth all men in their single and natural capacities this I opened before He preserveth all men in their Political capacities all his people in their Spiritual capacities It is an ordinary observation in the Kingdoms and Empires of the world that when they have grown to a great bigness they have perished with their own bulk and weight No Monarch hath been found sufficient to preserve them by his wisdom and Counsels And I remember the Historian speaks of it to the great honour and as a wonderful thing in one of the first Roman Kings that he put the Roman Kingdom it was no more then into such an order that it was governed as if it had been but one Family But how much doth it speak the Glory and Majesty the Immensity and Omnipresence the Efficiency and Activity of God who at the same time is working over all the Earth in all the Empires and Kingdoms in all the Cities and Towns in it defeating Ahitophels discovering Plots and Conspiracies ruling the spirits of unruly men so as the whole Universe is kept in order and the thousands and ten thousands of men in it that know not the yoke of Reason and Religion are yet bridled by his Providence and kept in some just order and decorum and made in stead of running one upon another and destroying one another mutually to be subservient one to another I say how great how wise how infinite how glorious in power must this God be Secondly Observe how much mercy passeth over our heads Vse 2 which we do take little or no notice of We are fearfully and wonderfully preserved and that in every capacity I shewed you it before as to our natural capacity few think of that what a strange working of Providence there must be to keep our souls in life but one day It is as much remarkable in our Political capacity I remember when Christ sent out his Disciples to Preach he told them That he sent them out as lambs amongst wolves It is true indeed not only of Gospel-Preachers but of all sober and vertuous men that would live in the world but according to the Laws of Reason and Moral vertue They are in the world as lambs amongst wolves Let but any one consider how many lewd unrighteous debauched men are in all places such whose only rule is their lusts how full the world is of men that make no conscience of murthers rapes thefts oppression and other enormities and then stand and wonder at the Providence of God that in any part of the world there is any thing of order and decorum observed that men have any thing which they can call their own that the lives of Princes or sober people are secured What can it be attributed to but the mighty power of Divine Providence that we have no more murthers rapes thefts c. we see laws punishments will not restrain all nor the same men at all times how or whence is it that they restrain any or at any time I will conclude this with what the Psalmist so often maketh the foot in that his admirable song of Providence Psal 107 Oh! that men would praise the Lord for his goodness for his wonderful works to the children of men Oh that Princes would praise the Lord for his goodness It is by him that they reign that they have a days liberty to decree justice by him that the Counsels of Ahitophel are defeated the conspiracies of ungodly men are discovered that the spirits of unruly and unreasonable