the World because it is possest of nothing but an unlimited desire of doing mischief and for this reason alone Wisdom and Power are no further good or speak perfection then they are in conjunction with Absolute Goodness and consequently must depend upon it as the beams of light disperst through the air upon the Sun or faculties and actions upon the principles from whence they flow That Wisdom which is devoid of Goodness is nothing but a higher degree of craft something of the Nature of that cunning and wilyness we may discover in voracious Beasts and Birds when they deceive and prey upon the more innocent and harmless sort of Animals so that we plainly perceive that Wisdom and Power separated from Goodness offer no notion of perfection at all to our minds and therefore there is something in the Deity more amiable and lovely and which as it speaks perfection it self and is the most desirable and excellent thing upon earth so it is the spring of all other Attributes in the Deity which are no further morally good than they are united with this prime and noble quality Hence Tully introducing C. Cotta disputing against Velleius the Epicurean tels him that Epicurus by taking away Love from the Deity Tollit id quod maximè proprium est optimae Lib. â—… de Nat. Deorum Seneca Epist 95. Primus est Deorum cultus Deos credere deinde reddere illis Majestatem suam reddere bonitatem sine quae nullae Majestas est praestantissimaeque naturae Nihil enim melius aut praestantius bonitate beneficentiâ Let us now reflect upon that Archetypal Image according to which man was made and if we do not wilfully blind our eyes we cannot but see that it was neither Wisdom nor Power though we partake in some measure of both but Goodness and Love whose glorious forms and Idea's are disseminated through the intellectual World and impressed upon every rational Being The Angels themselves who far exceed us in Power and Wisdom yet should they exercise them without the ballast of Goodness would prove more exorbitant and ungovernable then the Apostate Devils For wherein consists the height of that degeneracy and revolt of Men and Angels from God but only in this that they are departed from the eternal laws and rules of Goodness and strive to sustain and prop up themselves by their unlimited self-will and hence it comes to pass that having no sure and steady foundation to bottom themselves upon they fluctuate and are tossed to and fro by every unruly passion and desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all good is governable and uniform and it is immutable Goodness above that to speak with reverence makes the Divinity a Uniform Being for Wisdom and Power are in themselves so arbitrarious multiform and uncertain that without the poize of Goodness they cannot settle and radicate themselves upon any permanent Centre This great Truth the ever-blessed Son of God verified when he left the glory and beatitude of Heaven and pitched his Tabernacle amongst men For wherein consisted the flower and excellency of his Divine Perfections Was it not in that Universal Love and Benignity he expressed to the whole World and in that tenderness and compassion he shewed by going about doing good and casting an healing influence upon the bodies and souls of Men This surely was the brightest ray of Divinity that ever shone from God manifested in the flesh and to this every holy mans experience bears witness who then finds himself most peaceable and calm and most conformable to the Divine Image and Pourtraicture when he is doing the most good and his love most enlarged and comprehensive which Love never ascends more acceptably to Heaven than when it overflowes all capable subjects here below and strives to unite and draw them up to God their great Source and Parent Wherefore by what hath been said for the explication of this Proposition it sufficiently appears that Goodness is the inmost Centre of the Deity and Wisdom and Power ray forth from thence like the beams of light from their lucid Centre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. That that which is most pretious and best as I may so speak in the Divine Nature will be sure to work first and extend it self to all the capacities and possibilities of things We have already proved That the Deity is no Arbitrary Being but that all his Actions and Determinations relating to us have their Original in Infinitely full Goodness which being the most precious thing in the Nature of God and the measure and rule of all his other Attributes and Perfections it cannot but seem most easie and natural to conceive that this Soveraign property as it is the best so it should likewise obtain the first place in working For infinite Power never acting but in subordination to directive Wisdom nor Wisdom and Power exerting themselves but in the way of and according to the laws of Goodness which being in it's own Nature so fruitful and communicative that all other Modes and Attributes are tinctured with it and lie in a laxe and diffuse manner within the sphear and comprehension of it's Energy it must also obtain the first place of acting as of right belonging to it And if we look out and take a view of the several rancks and orders of intellectual Beings we shall find in every of them something of greatest value and excellency which as it exceeds in worth all other perfections of their Natures so it will be most energetical and of the largest extent in acting and contrarily that what is of less excellency is more contracted and circumscribed and of less efficacy and virtue The soul of man though one entire Orbe in the whole latitude and comprehension of her Essence yet is made up of distinct powers and faculties which are not all of equal value and excellency nor do they all operate in the same order and manner The lowest power which we take notice of in humane souls is that Plastick or Formative virtue wherein consists the Vital Union between soul and body and whose peculiar office it is to conserve the motions and keep in play all the Engines of the whole corporeal Machine and this being so stupid languid and inert is perpetually transfixt by the inevitable motions and variegations of matter and fatally bound up to those operations which are common to us with brute Animals But as we ascend higher the Powers of the soul are more explicate and large and according to their worth and excellency obtain a more or less ample sphear of Energy and Life Thus they gradually arise till they come to that which is the Quintessence and choicest perfection of humane souls Reason or Intellect which being sanctified by the Divine Life blossomes and rayes forth on every side to the circumference of it's Essence and hallows all the Corporeal and Animal powers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Platonist speaks with an Intellectual touch and Divine emanation that in a sense pervades
defluxe and moulting of our plumes whereby we soared aloft caused our descent into the region of Mortality and Wretchedness so it is the rejection of our bodily passions and the growth and springing of virtue as of new wings which will carry us to the pure habitations of Holiness and Divine felicity But whether our lapse were thus or not it makes little however it was this is certain that our Reascent to God must be in all points contrary to our Apostacy from him As we have polluted our Natures by a boundless regard and Adhesion to corporeal pleasures and sunk our selves deep into the material World so on the other side our reversion to our lost happiness must be effected by refining our souls from terrene dregs and conversing with our mind and intellect and subjugating our Animal powers to the dictates and Imperium of Reason As our descent came by listning to the impure whispers and titillations of the bodily life so our ascent and Resurrection must come by hearkning to the suggestions of the Intellectual Man And what more effectual and powerful means can be excogitated to recover mankind from the thraldom and bondage of sin then that sacred method divulged to the World in the manifestation of the Gospel whose great tendency and scope is to enforce the necessity of a good and vertuous life and mortifie all irregular and inordinate desires and reinthrone Divine Righteousness to it's just rights and possession in the hearts and minds of men To what other purpose are we commanded in the Gospel to extirpate every extravagant lust and passion and crucifie the spurious productions of Vice and prosecute with all diligence and affection their lovely contraries but because the one depresses our minds from their true state by subjecting them to a base and ignoble drudgery and the other recovers them to their first and genuine freedom and puts them into a capacity of immortality For all passions the more corporeal they are and participate of the body the more they draw and wind the soul to the center of the Animal life which by a copious emission of fuliginous rayes obnubilates the intellectual and perceptive powers and whoever purges himself from these shall be a vessel unto honour This purgation of Soul and Spirit was judged indispensably necessary for the recuperation of the Divine Image by the Pythagorean Philosophers and is called by Porphyry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ablation of every thing extraneous leaving only such forms in the soul as are congenit with it's own Nature It 's true as we come into the World we relish little else but the fond gratifications of the body and are taken up and inamour'd with the inescations and allurements of the plastick life whereby our better parts are dulled and stupified and in this degenerate state the soul is truly said in the Pythagorick sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pass into brutes not by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 transfusion of the humane soul into Beasts but by it's descent into the brutish life and assimilating it self to ferine passions and inclinations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Arrian expresses it The great work therefore of the Gospel is to beat down and conquer the brutish and irrational part in us to eradicate our vile and depraved affections and to place the Divine life in a full and entire command over all our inferior faculties To the bringing about which blessed design and to compleat and perfect a through Purgation of our minds we are injoyned in the Gospel great Temperance Sobriety and Moderation of all terrestrial desires as the most conducive means to spiritualize and attenuate our minds whereas the contrary drowns * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Porphyr l 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them in corporeal effluxes and exsudations And moreover we are commanded an Universal abstinence from all wrong and injustice and a hearty love and good will to all mankind to hold fast that which is good and abstain from all appearance of evil to abstract our hearts from Mundane and Temporal felicities and make treasures for our selves in heaven and to be no more sollicitous for terrene concernments then the Lillies of the field or the fowls of the air to seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and to depend upon his Fatherly Care and Providence for the necessities of our lives to keep our selves pure and undefiled not only from outward and grosser but internal and more refined pollutions to be ready to do good and distribute to the necessities of our Brethren to live peaceably if it be possible with all men In a word Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever are pure whatsoever are lovely whatsoever are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise to think on those things These are the proper food and nourishment of our intellectual man and bring a present pleasure in the exercise of them far surpassing the choicest entertainments of sense For what truer and nobler delight can accrew to our spirits then to have done an act of Charity to have bound up an aking head dryed up a watry eye and relieved a naked and hungry body How sordid and base is the narrow and contracted mind that never looks beyond it self but moves in a sphear distinct from all the World beside as if it were some particular Being and not a part and member of the Universe What is there more noble and Divine than Love which neither envies nor seeks it's own but fills the mind of man with a solid peace and contentment and How broken and troublesom is the state of that man whose heart is continually corroded with Envie and Malice and cannot look upon his Neighbour without an evil eye What serenity and quietness of life is he possessed of who following the Precepts of the Gospel makes himself master of his passions and never suffers any impure and brutish lust to creep up into the bed of Reason and defile it but lives in a clear exercise of his discriminative faculties and subdues all his lower powers to the obedience of his mind and Intellect while he that renders himself captive to the passions and various motions and inclinations of sense which God gave to be his servants never possesses any true and real tranquillity but carries a Tempest within his breast which perpetually tosses him to and fro like those disconsolate spirits our Saviour mentions Matth. xii who walk through dry places seeking rest but finding none He that sincerely conforms himself to the Evangelical method of Truth and Righteousness forsakes the muddy and grosser World and ascends above the clouds in Divine and peaceful Contemplations and finds himself out of the reach of the storms and thunders of the troubled air he hath left behind him He apprehends God as the most lovely and desirable object in the whole World and then feels himself most at ease when he
Platonists Now the Ruling part being more Noble and better then that part which was made to be subject and to obey hence it comes to pass that in the true and natural state of the Soul the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 obtains the chief place in operation although possibly there may be something in mans soul more pretious then Reason and is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the flower and summity of the mind which we may term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that faculty of the soul which perceives the rellish savour and goodness of Virtue and naturally embraces and joyes in that which Right Reason approves as Good For as there is a kind of sense in the lower or Plastick Powers of the Soul whereby they dislike ungrateful and unsutable objects even when our will and perception has nothing to do in it so there is something in us that exults and triumphs and naturally joyns it self with infinite satisfaction and delight when our Intellect and Reason only give a judgement of the Essence and Truth of moral objects Axiome IV. That what is best in any Being is the Rule and measure of all other qualities HEnce Man having a double life within him Intellectual and Animal which the Sacred Writings call Flesh and Spirit and both these having different inclinations and objects the higher life ought to controul the lower and reduce all it's appetites and motions to a conformity to it's severer Dictates and Prescriptions which in a moral sense is the meaning of Mans having Dominion over the Fowls of the Air and Fish of the Sea In like manner Will and Power and Soveraignty are all resolved into Goodness and if at any time they are exercised without it they loose their Natures and degenerate into selfishness and Tyranny And it is absolutely necessary that the Best should be the measure of all other faculties and modes in us because our chief happiness consisting in our conjunction with the most Absolute and Perfect Good and that which is Best in us uniting with it it will infallibly follow that that which is the most Divine in us should command and rule all other Faculties whatever And this holds good in the Moral Essence of God for Goodness being more pretious and soveraign then any other Attribute it must needs be by the foregoing Axiome the measure of all the rest Axiome V. That Being is no longer Eligible then it is tolerably happy THat a Misery or Calamity exceeding the happiness of our Beings is worse then not Being is plain at first sight for bare Existence though it be a term of Perfection yet when it is charged with a surplusage of misery above the benefit that accrues by it it destroyes the Reasons of Being which are chiefly the conveniences and opportunities of acting according to the proper faculties of any Being And common experience shews us how unable and unfit we are for the exercise of any functions of life when a sharp and acute pain seazes on us and if this dolorous sense be fierce vehement and durable it is a question Whether it will not perfectly extinguish all Vital congruity and reduce us to a condition altogether the same with Non-Entity For to be and not to be conscious of and perceive our own Beings are one and the same thing And he that well considers this will not be apt to pain and excruciate any Being howsoever vile and contemptible unless upon good Reasons and Causes For certainly though in a moral sense we may piously say That all things were made for man yet to say There is no other Physical Reason of their Beings is too bold and presumptuous an Assertion they being so many I mean as are capable of sense endued with faculties in whose use they enjoy and solace themselves Axiome VI. A present Evil that brings with it a Good greater then what that Evil deprived us of is to be looked upon as Good THus an untimely death is to be accounted an Evil in it self but yet ought to be looked upon as Good by him who is thereby raised to the participation of a higher and more exalted life This Consideration made Socrates say That Death would indeed be hard and sharp to him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such are all the Afflictions that befal a man in this World Evil for the present forasmuch as they are accompanied with trouble and pain but yet are to be esteemed Good because they teach us the lubricity of all mundane joyes and inflame our Love of Virtue and fix our desires upon an immortal Good which amidst all the uncertain revolutions of this Region of death and misery will never leave us but conduct us to the blessed mansions of life and peace The constant belief of this drew that Generous and Noble speech from Socrates Epict. Enchirid c. 79. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Having laid down these Moral Principles which are nothing but the plain and genuine productions of Right Reason I shall now examine the Authors Discourse by them and shew wherein his Arguments are weak and inconclusive in reference to bis main design The first thing therefore that I shall take notice of is his stating the true ground and foundation of Gods Sovereignty and Dominion over man page 20 21 c. which he does by Arbitrating the Dispute between the Arminians and Calvinists the one assert That it bottoms upon the Benefit of Creation and the other groud it upon the unlimitedness of Gods Power The first of these he sayes are evidently mistaken because God was from all eternity invested with a Power of doing any thing that was not misbecoming his Divine Perfections but God being alwayes Infnitely Perfect could not acquire any new Excellence from the Worlds Creation and therefore the Collation of Benefits cannot beget any new Power in him because the Power which he had antecedently to all his benefits was not capable of being made greater To which I Reply 1. That Dominion and Power as it signifies Sovereignty are Relative terms and therefore if we could suppose or imagine any time wherein there were no Creatures in Being Dominion would then be improperly attributed to God because if he had Dominion there must be some Subjects existent of his Dominion and therefore though God by creating the World acquired no new Excellence or Perfection yet he had some new Mode or Qualification which he had not before as that he was the Father of the Intellectual and Maker of the Corporeal World which would be improper terms before he had brought any thing into Being Thus although God know and have as it were a perfect Scheme of all future things possible to be known yet his conception or knowledge of the same thing when future and possible and actually existent is not the same for when it is actually brought into Being he acquires a new manner of knowledge of it for it is impossible that the conception of futurity and actual Existence should be the same
would cast a fatal damp upon their attempts and endeavours after righteousness but being fully convinced as well of the Existence as that God will take care of their souls when they depart this obscure and evanid life and recompence their labour and trouble here with such great degrees of Happiness as shall farr surpass the highest calamity they can suffer in this World it cannot but inspirit their minds with life and resolution to break through all difficulties and discouragements and with a manly valour fight the good fight of Faith and never give over till they lay hold on Immortality and God Crown them as Victorious Conquerors with wreaths of immarcescible Glory It is but a groundless fancy in some to think that the intuition of the reward proposed to us in order to our further progress in Holiness and Virtue is acting upon Mercenary principles since that Christ himself in his greatest Agonies and conflicts supported the weakness of his Nature with the consideration of the reward he should receive as the compensation of his humiliation and sorrows for so we read That he endured the Cross Heb. xii 2. and despised the shame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the joy that was set before him Besides they understand not the nature of the Reward promised to us in the Gospel for Glory Blessedness and Felicity are not Other things from Piety and Holiness but the consummation and perfection of that Divine Nature whose efformation is begun in this life Grace and Holiness is but Happiness wrapped up and closed and Glory is nothing but Holiness explicated and unfolded to it's due latitude and dimensions Piety is Heaven masked with a cloud of flesh and begirt with sorrow and Heaven is Virtue shining in it's native brightness and clothed with a Celestial splendour And that Ethereal and Paradisiacal body with which all believers shall be arrayed through the gracious bounty of the Lord Jesus at the Resurrection of the Just is the necessary appendage of our felicity and by it's easie and obsequious motions will raise in the exalted powers of the soul the highest sense of love and joy and delightful enravishments of spirit He then that loves Virtue for it's appendant reward does in effect love it for it self and is no whit behind him that is attracted by the naked pleasure resulting from it and thinks it eligible amidst the hoarse bellowings of Phalaris his Bull because the Reward hath a very great affinity and cognation with Virtue and is no otherwise attainable then by a full and perfect exercise of it This great happiness therefore accruing to the soul of Man when refined and purified from the dregs of Earth and Mortality is very rationally set forth in the Gospel to invigorate the minds of men and raise them to the free exertions of the Divine life and to animate their dying resolutions when they walk through a troublesome wilderness and are called to resist even unto blood And if it were not for the expectation of future Blessedness all Religion would fall to the ground the inward sense and feeling of the soul being so much weakned and debilitated by her continual imbibition and attraction of the dregs of the Earthly and mortal Nature whereby she is become sluggish and inactive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 her passions and apprehensions being in a manner wholly corporeal and Truth and Virtue be but idle names or dreams of a shadow existing only in the tongues and fancies of Men but never descending into the depth of the soul and impregnating it with their living Image These are the grand Instruments which the Spirit of God makes use of in the Gospel to induce and perswade the World to act under the Government of the Divine life which if skilfully applyed and managed will undoubtedly compleat and perfect that blessed work which Providence intended them for For we cannot think that Heaven would alarm the World with a false report or raise the expectations of Men by a great sound and noise of something extraordinary when in the conclusion it amounts but to some inconsiderable and trifling design The Eternal Son of God who was that Wisdom which is the delight of Heaven and rejoyced in the habitable parts of the Earth brought down with him from the seat of Majesty that Sacred and recondit method of recovering lapsed mankind which was carryed in the pregnant womb of Goodness from the dayes of Eternity and he became our Redeemer and pervades the very Centre of our Being and shapes and frams his Image of Wisdome and Righteousnes there strengthning our decayes and supporting our weakness and consuming and expelling all our dross and corruption by a subtle and powerful Energy which in Scripture phrase is to be Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire We are fallen into a narrow and contracted state and those Divine forms in our union and fruition of which consisted our blessedness are quite defaced by our fond longing after and adhesion to corporeal features Now God manifesting himself in our flesh renews and perfects those glorious Images again and stamps his impress upon us and as the great conciliating Principle of the corporeal World figures and shapes out of prepared matter the body of a plant so the Holy Spirit frames and shapes out the Divine Nature in the lapsed World of Mankind But this great purpose of the Gospel this great design and plot which God hath laid to reduce Mankind to that blessed state from whence they fell is wholly frustrated and evacuated by the Doctrine of Irrespective Decrees And that I may not charge it with what it stands not guilty of I shall make it good by these two Instances 1. It renders ineffectual the purpose of God in the Gospel by lulling Men asleep in the lap of Security and Presumption of their good estate upon the groundless fancy of their Absolute Election from all Eternity For Men being once initiated and instructed in the Mysterie of this profound Doctrine will with much anxiety and vehemency of mind contend for the truth of that which they so passionately desire to be so and having withal so amorously courted and espoused their lusts and unruly passions and yet being terrified and affrighted with the lashes of their own Consciences they will with great easiness and zeal take sanctuary in so pleasing an opinion which both gives them a fair countenance to enjoy and reap the pleasure of their sensual passions and secures them from those domestick furies which perpetually hurried and tormented them and over and above sooths them up with a confidence of eternal bliss and felicity And he that can attain to this Plerophory or full perswasion of his Election from before the foundation of the World hath the White Stone given to him though he be so farr from eating of the hidden Manna that he feeds upon nothing but husks and vanities and his name is enrolled among the Stars and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out
Imprimatur Tho. Tomkyns R. R mo in Christo Patri ac Domino D no. GILBERTO Divinâ Providentiâ Archi-Episcopo Cantuariensi à Sacris Domesticis Ex Aed Lamb. Festo S ti Andreae 1667. DEUS JUSTIFICATUS OR The Divine Goodness Vindicated and Cleared against the Assertors of Absolute and Inconditionate REPROBATION TOGETHER WITH Some Reflections on a late Discourse of Mr. Parkers concerning the Divine Dominion and Goodness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato WISD xi 23. For thou lovest all the things that are and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made for never wouldest thou have made any thing if thou hadst hated it LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-head in Duck-lane 1668. THE PREFACE TO THE READER IT cannot be unknown to any man who hath either carefully observed the manners of Mankind or perufed the Writings of those of this present Age who have made many sad Declarations against the general Corruption of the World that either men are stupidly and blockishly Ignorant even in these dayes wherein Knowledge so much abounds or their Leaders have caused them to Err by instilling into them such Principles as may fairly consist with the practice of Vice and Immorality which easing them of that tedious burden of severe Mortification and sharpe Conflicts with the irregular and inordinate motions of sense and the bodily life soon captivated them to the embracing of them and made a speedy conquest of their unwary Judgments and so infinitely prejudiced their minds against the reception of better Sentiments and Notions that they cannot believe either the sense of the most pious and venerable Antiquity or of our own present Church to be Orthodox And I wish I could say that this latter hath not been the greater cause of those monstrous Impieties which in these late times so much prevailed amongst us For certainly mens natural Faculties and Capacities are no whit worse for the entertaining of Truth if it were rightly and duely propounded to them than former ages but might be much better if every Preacher of the Gospel and Steward of the Mysteries of God had faithfully discharged the trust committed to him But when those that took upon them the title of Evangelical Shepherds came not in at the right door but impudently challenged and usurped that Sacred Office and Dignity of being Co-workers with Christ the chief Shepherd in that great work of implanting his own life and lovely Nature in the lapsed and degenerate souls of men it is no wonder if the Flock went astray and became faint and weak through the unwholesomeness or undue order and proportion of their food And doubtless the blessed Jesus who came into the World to heal and cement the broken ruins and decayes of our Natures did not intend to bring this Heroick undertaking to perfection by perpetual Miracles but by a natural and orderly Method and therefore as he himself before he left the World breathed on his Apostles and gave them Commission both to Teach and Govern his Church So did they having received Authority from the Prince and Head of the Catholick Church the Lord Christ Ordain and Constitute fit persons to succeed them in that Function by which we are sufficiently instructed that it is not for every man to take upon him the Office of a Minister of the Gospel lest God take as little delight in him as he did in those Prophets of old who run before they were sent which too many did in the late times upon the pretence of some inspired Excellency and Perfection above their Brethren but only for those that come into their Office by a regular and due manner and according to the Fundamental Laws and Apostolick Constitutions of the Church wherein they live I may therefore refer the Miscarriages observed amongst us to these two General Heads 1. The great Pride and Self-conceitedness which reigns in vulgar spirits whereby they make their vainglorious Minds the estimate of their Perfections and by puffie conceits of themselves crumble into infinite Sects and Divisions and he that can best act the part of an inspired person and cant most fluently in Scripture expressions becomes the Ring leader of the Sect. And what gives greater occasion to this then that pleasant Doctrin to carnal minds which teaches them that when they can but collect themselves to be heirs of heaven and fancy their names enrolled among the Stars they are then safe enough They shall tread upon the young Lyon and the Dragon and the enemy shall never be able to move or disturbe their rest And all this shall be conferr'd upon them without any attempts or endeavours of their own toward the attainment of it This cannot but fill their sailes and blow up their light heads when they consider how easily they have obtained heaven and how God himself by a peculiar and discriminating love hath separated them from the rest of the polluted rabble of mankinde and dignified them with the title of his Beloved Ones And as the Nature of every Heresie is to diffuse and spread it self and by a contagious affriction savour all capable Subjects round about it no sooner is this Doctrine propounded but it findes good entertainment by the unstable and injudicious because it complies with and patronizes their darling Vices and renders it self very grateful to the Animal Life and withal requires no great pains or labour to be fully instructed in it nothing that shall rouze them up from their deadly slumber or molest their desired security the whole business is nothing but an inactive and easie belief of certain propositions and a delight some application of them to themselves and then Heaven cannot fail of being their portion and reward Thus while they soar aloft and fly in their vain dreams and imaginations they are really suckt into a living Hell of woe and misery and the unrighteous nature whose counsels are the very inspirations of that bottomless-pit takes greater hold upon them and having no substantial foundation to bottom themselves upon they perish in a storm and the windes of adverse fortune sink them even when they think themselves in the haven of Felicity True goodness and righteousness cannot consist with a proud and haughty spirit and is neuer found but in that humble Temper which the Blessed Jesus recommended to all his followers when he said Learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart And certainly 't is the greatest Obex and impediment to real and solid wisdom that possibly can be imagined when we are impatient of instruction and refuse such wholesome precepts and counsels as tend to the building of us up in our most holy Faith and by high-flown imaginations climb to the highest boughs of the tree of knowledge when we are yet unacquainted with the Rudiments of Christianity The way to life and blessedness lies not in the self-chosen tracts of opinions nor in sequestring our selves from the rest of the world by an impertinent contention about words
theirs by an unchangeable Decree before the World began How deeply will the whole Creation of Rational beings resent such an act as this and what small reason can any man have to cast his care and erect a foundation of his hope upon that God who notwithstanding the greatest expressions of love and kindness to them the most pathetical invitations of them to accept the gracious overtures of his Goodness the highest sense of aversion to their misery accompanied with Oaths and Protestations against it and the fairest promises of Rewards and Blessings to them if they will obey shall yet underhand lay an inevitable train of causes to entrap and foil them I find that my dear spirit affectionately breathes after a freer participation of the Divine Life and Nature and makes many little sallies and attempts to arise beyond the strait and narrow laws of corporeal life into a state of true freedome and liberty and I cannot but heartily complain of the charming and alluring Magick of the Earthly and Brutish life in me that I am too much awake and alive to the effluxes and emissions of the material World whereby the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Divinity that is enwrapped and as it were incarnate within me becomes weak and unactive but my hope is that through the mighty Power of that Divine Love which upholds the Creation with extended armes the heavenly part within me shall prevail and gain a compleat Conquest and Victory and that when this mortal life shall perish I shall become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 An immortal God no more depressed with the weight of Terrestrial encumbrance But alass according to your Doctrine if this be all it is but like the Prelude to a fatal Tragedy or the sudden blaze of a dying Lamp and I may for all this fall short and be deceived for if you attribute a Power to your God of Simulation and Fraud he may evacuate all my expectations notwithstanding the pretended Declarations of his Will and Veracity to the contrary To say no more then this Can he punish those effects or operations in me which his own immediate and energetical concourse was the cause of Am I become guilty because I acted under the irresistible impulses and motions of his will If this therefore be a true description of the Nature of God there is no reasonable man but would judge him to be rather some flaming Erynnis with curled Snakes and knotted whips to chastise the World then an Almighty Good and Wise Numen We see then what little hope there is of ingratiating and recommending Christianity to those that are without while we either positively maintain or consequentially introduce such Doctrines as Christian which in their very frame and complexion are repugnant to Right Reason and inconsistent with the Oeconomy of Providence in the World And while the Preachers of the Gospel impose upon men such crude notions they not only do them the most uncharitable piece of service that lightly can be imagined but likewise block up the way and passage of truth to others who may be in very forward degrees of preparation to receive it 2. They were very much mistaken in the Order and Method of propounding the Articles and Doctrines of Christianity to their Auditors and by that means supposing the truth of those Notions they desired to implant in them rendred them farr less acceptable then otherwise they might have been The ever-blessed Son of God the eternal mind and wisdome of his Father when he descended from his glory and became a Man that he might teach the World that salutary Knowledge which should instate them in their pristine Blessedness did not communicate to them that recondite Mystery all at once but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were able to hear it that is according to their Measure and Proportion Every mans Criterion and discriminative faculty is not in a due and fit disposition for the reception of high and raised Speculations no more then every ear is fitly qualified for the judging of Harmony As in all Arts and Sciences there are some Rudiments and Principles to be learned before we can arrive to a considerable measure of perfection in them so in Religion there are some Catechetical Instructions and Cognate Preparations to be used before we enter upon the Sublime and Theoretical Doctrines contained in it For considering the great degeneracy and Apostacy of mankind from their true Happiness and with what exorbitant and unlimited desires and passions they come into the World toward the things of this present life and how hardly they are wrought of to the entertainment of what is truly good and holy the propounding of intricate Mysteries to them while their distinguishing sense of good and evil is so monstrously depraved and out of order is but to use our Saviours similitude to put new Wine into old Bottles offensive to the hearers and corruptive of the Truth it self and we may with as great reason expect a Substantial and stately Edifice without any foundation or full eared-Corn so soon as the bare Grain is cast into the ground as look for the perfect and compleat Image of Christ in him who does not yet understand the Principles and Rudiments of Religion For what specimen doth that man give of the pure and undefiled Nature of God living in him who can knowingly injure his Brother or pass by with an unconcerned look the calamitous objects of Pity and Compassion Or what proof can he bring that he is acted by that Almighty Spirit of Holiness and Righteousness and renewed into the blameless Image of the blessed Jesus who omits no opportunities of Injustice and Oppression These things therefore which are the very ground-work and foundation of that Evangelical Building which Christ came to erect in the souls of men ought with all dure care and diligence and with great earnestness and seriousnese to be pressed upon men by the Preachers of the Gospel that the People may be convinced their Teachers are real and sincere in the business and that what they so inculcate upon them is for the future and unspeakable benefit of their immortal souls And by the frequent use of these Monitory Cautions and Exhortations it is to be hoped that men will grow more holy and practice with greater circumspection the plain duties of Morality by which means they will be more apt to conceive and judge of the other more Speculative Doctrines and Articles of Christianity which ought to be let alone till their proper-time come wherein they may with some advantage be propounded to the hearers they being by the constant exercise of the Precepts of Justice Equity and Goodness prepared and competently well fitted for the reception of the Mysterious and Recondite part of Religion It cannot therefore but be acknowledged a piece of great inadvertency and opinionative Curiosity in the generality of Preachers in these late times to make it their business in the first place to instruct their
't is requisite that it be so framed that every man who hears of it may know by some general or particular notices whether he be concerned and interessed in it or no. Our blessed Lord having finished all things committed to him on Earth and being now to enter into his glory gave command to his Disciples and Apostles to Preach the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the whole Creation of mankind by which he sufficiently evidenced that it was his mind and will that all the World to whom it should come should yield obedience to this his Evangelical Institution for he addes Whoever believes and is Baptized shall be saved but he that believes not shall be damned wherefore every man must look upon himself concern'd in this holy Dispensation But according to the Calvinistical Doctrine Reprobates cannot in reason be punished for their non-submission or violation of the Evangelical Law because they are no way included under it not in their personal capacities as being not by name specified in it nor under any general terms for the Gospel say they was not given to Reprobates to the intent that they should be saved by their obedience of it but the ministra on of it is continued meerly upon the account and interest of those few Elect whom the Divine Pleasure intended by a fair and irresistable gale to carry into the Port of Eternal Bliss and Felicity Wherefore this new and perfect Law seems not at all obligatory to Reprobates for how can they be said to be damned for not obeying the Gospel when they were from all Eternity destin'd to destruction by an irrespective and irrevocable Decree 3. That a Law may be Obligatory 't is necessary that it injoyn nothing but what is possible to be performed * Solon apud Plutarchum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both in reference to the present capacities of the interessed persons and in respect of the matter or things themselves commanded in it That no man is bound to impossibilities is as indubitable in Morals as the circulation of the blood in Medicks or the regular motion of the Planets around their centre in Natural Philosophy God cannot therefore in Equity command nor in Reason expect that an impure and unholy person who is alive only to the brutish life should of a sudden leap from this frail and perishing state of Mortality into that exalted and Deiform condition of the Spirits of just men made perfect because there is an impossibility contained in the command considering the incapacity of the Person for such a sudden undertaking his faculties being broken and disjoynted which require time to be set in order and recover their strength again and withall bearing in mind the power and vigour of the life of sense and corporeity which is so great that it 's lovely contrary like an oppressed Prince can only continue it 's just and rightful claim to the Empire and Soveraignty of the mans mind but cannot attain to the full and compleat possession of it's dominions till after a long and tedious dispute with the unrighteous Nature and it 's treacherous Adherents Should the All-wise Governor of the World command men to gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles Reason it self would admit of their Apology in that the matter would not admit it there was an impossibility in the case considering the Natures and Proprieties of things In like manner to apply this to the Decree of Absolute Reprobation Can God in justice expect the fruit of Righteousness from those forlorn creatures whom he hath made a prey to a certain ruine when his blessed hands never vouchsafed to sow the seed of his preventing and exciting Grace toward the completion of any living formation Can he expostulate with them that they did not walk in the ancient paths of Truth and Vertue when he himself turned them out of that good way by a fatal Decree into the dark and miry tracts of sin where yet his benigne eyes saw them lie groveling and refused to put under his compassionate arme to raise them up Can he without Hipocrisie invite them to drink of the waters of life freely and punish them for not coming to those salutary streams when he has deprived them of their leggs the principles of spiritual motion which should convey them thither The good Samaritan in the Gospel was commended for lending a Charitable heart and hand to the calamitous person that fell among Thieves But these make God to be less pitiful to his Creatures nay to have less Justice than an ordinary man by representing him coming to the Wounded souls of Reprobates and commanding them to perform his will and act their parts in the Family of the New Creation when he himself had afore contrived to send them as a prey to Thieves who stript them of their raiment and so deeply wounded them as that they quickly became destitute of all sense and motion and almost life it self How unreasonable a thing is it if any thing in the World deserve that Name for God to punish men for not lifting up themselves upon the wings of faith and love and taking their flight towards the New Jerusalem when he himself has made them Apterites and dispoyled them of their plumes and yet will not scatter the dewy influences of heaven nor suffer his clearing life to fall on them that they may spring again Can it be suitable to that blessed Being all whose actions are just and righteous and whose Nature is that living law of Equity according to which the whole World is governed to command Impossibilities and call men to an account for what was not in their Power to perform The Stoick judged this unworthy the Deity in that interrogation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arrian Epict. l. 1. c. 12. and if it may pass for a piece of warrantable Justice in the Righteous Governor of the World to require that at our hands which we never were inabled to do there will be no security left of our future subsistence much less that we shall be happy in the other life Yet in such an Aspect as this we may behold the Doctrine of Absolute Reprobation and being such in the main parts and lineaments of it there is no man but may easily judge of the whole And if you will have a cast of something to this purpose Mr. Calvin himself will furnish you Instit lib. 3. cap. 24. Sect. 13. Ecce vocem ad eos dirigit sed ut magis obsurdescant lucem accendit sed ut reddantur caeciores doctrinam profert sed quâ magis obstupescant remedium adhibet sed nè sanentur that is He calls to them viz. God to Reprobates but 't is on purpose that they may be more deaf he sets a light before them that by that luster they may be more blind he layes down a Doctrine that he may more confound and amaze them lastly he applies a remedy but with this intent that it may not heal
them And will you think this worthy and becoming the Majesty of that Good and Just God who hath taken such strange and unimaginable wayes to make his Creatures happy and who dayly woes the Sons of Men with arguments of the greatest weight and seriousness to accept his offered Salvation I cannot but speak and it were a crime to be silent when the glory of heaven thus lies at stake the honour of my Creator trampled in the dust and the spotless purity and holiness of his Nature sullyed and defiled by the impure conceptions of unhallowed judgments Hear O Heavens and give ear O Earth while I plead the cause of the holy One who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity against the ignorant zeal of inconsiderate persons who under pretence of doing honor to his Name do really render that admirable contrivance of God in the Gospel than which nothing was ever communicated to the World more full of incomprehensible Wisdom the most unreasonable project in the choicest parts of it that ever was set on foot among the Sons of men Do you think the Eternal Logos or Reason of God would declare a Doctrine to the World that should be in all points of all his numerous issue only unlike the Father that is that the Gospel alone among all the projections and contrivances of that All-comprehensive Wisdom should be found unreasonable Reflect a while upon the Heroick Generosity and Innate Nobility of your own Spirits and let not your conceptions of God and his Works dwindle away into childish Words and Names nor stifle and suppress any noble sentiments by perverse altercations about terms but let a manly spirit possesse your breasts and look upon men as rational Creatures the composure of whose souls I mean their Intellectual frame is such that every thing is not a congruous and proportionate object of their inward sense and it is not in their power to receive Truth and Falshood alike but as the eye cannot behold the sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless it have some resemblance of the Sun it self so neither can the soul without a great deal of molestation and regreat embrace what is not congenerous to it 's rational Nature And as it is in Nature every Plant is not adapted to entertain every particle that comes to nourish it but admits only such as are consimilar to it 's own pores so the spirit of man being rational in all the ducts and lineaments of it's moral structure cannot acquiesce in any thing that is irrational nor receive any Doctrine but what is homogeneal to it's inward temper Consider this I say and judge of the Doctrins you so earnestly contend for by this Index and Rule and remember that so often as you propound any of the Dogmata of Christianity either as unreasonable in themselves or make them appear so to others by your unwary and irrational Explication of them you become treacherous to your Saviour by hindring as much as in you lies those good effects he intended by the Propogation of the Gospel throughout the World and you likewise do violence to the Nature of Mankind by imposing upon them what is plainly repugnant thereto But I fear I have been too luxuriant in this sudden though not wholly impertinent Excursion I shall therefore immediately fall upon the last Proposition which is 4. Prop. 4. That to Create and bring into Being on purpose to destroy and make miserable is most irrational There is no Being whether meerly Sensitive or Rational too but by a natural sympathy and propension loves and takes care for it's own off-spring The Beasts of the field and the Fowls of the air bear a tenderness and affection towards their young and never cast of the care and protection of them till time have enabled them to shift for themselves The Hircanian Tygers never discover the fierceness of their cruel natures more vehemently and passionately than when they are in danger of being bereaved of their whelps Thus have I seen a Serpent pull down the nest and devoure the young ones of a little Bird before her eyes while the innocent damme not daring to come nigh and yet unwilling to flie away suffers a pretty controversie between love and fear within her breast continually environing her more powerful adversary by many circular flights and powring out in vain her pitiful complaints into those insensible ears till the cruel beast hath eaten up her loving care and charge and then she mourns and makes the trees participate of her grief and often with sad notes visits the place where lay the tragick Scene of her latest sorrows Should we ascend to men who bear the similitude of heaven even the most barbarous not excepted they all have a more regular care and love to their off-spring than brute Animals inasmuch as they partake of a higher degree of life and have the principles of Reason seated in them And can any tender and compassionate Father behold without a relenting and bleeding heart his only Son racked or massacred before his eyes to satisfie the brutish passion of some blood-thirsty Tyrant Shall frail men then be a precedent of love and tenderness to his Maker Shall God whose love is alwayes amiable and serene without the least disturbance or cloud of passion be less pitiful to what he hath brought into being then frail and imperfect mortals It was a prevalent argument which Moses used in the behalf of the murmuring and discontented Israelites That if God proceeded against them in fury to their utter undoing Numb 14.15 16. the Nations which had heard his fame would say Because the Lord was not able to bring his people into the land which he sware unto them therefore he hath slain them in the Wilderness and may not the same infamous obloquie with a farr more specious pretext be cast upon the righteous Providence of God while in displeasure he persecutes to the death his innocent Progeny That because he was not able to maintain them in that happiness he designed them for he hath by an unalterable law fixed their eternal misery and destruction The ancient Philosopher Pherecides taught that God transformed himself into Love when he brought into being the whole Creation and surely that Love which moved him first to act cannot be thought to degenerate so far from it's Nature as to be busied in contriving the ruin of what is so newly brought forth And though the Ancients did veil and obscure their choicest Mysteries in Fables and Aenigmatical Symbols yet the intelligent inquirer may gather many substantial truths from them which being in themselves so coherent with the Divine Oracles seem to be a firm indication of Gods love and affection to the Sons of Men and that Providence being never excluded from any time or place did in all ages and parts of the World raise up such considerable persons and every way furnish them with gifts and abilities as might serve as instruments in her hand to
follows their conduct shall be led to the knowledg of their inexhausted source and origine Having therefore such a determinate notion of God before us we shall descend to some particular Deductions from the consideration of his Nature As 1. That there is something Soveraign in the Deity which is the root and spring of all his other perfections and that this is Absolutely full Goodness That the Attributes of God are arbitrarious and like loose-hanging adjuncts to be put off and on at pleasure I think there is no man who knows what he sayes so blasphemous as to affirm but God is what he is by the necessity of his Nature for he cannot be God except he be immutable in all his essential proprieties which immutability of his is such that he can neither cease to be nor act any otherwise then may be consonant to the fundamental laws of his own Being Wherefore God being the highest and most incomprehensible life and activity cannot fail through the Essential fecundity and plenitude of his blessed Nature of communicating himself to all possible and capable subjects for the more perfect and compleat any life is the more diffusive it is of it self and the reason why Creation is not competible to any Being below the Deity arises not from any positive will of God to the contrary but from the impotency and imperfection of it's Essence But God being no steril and barren principle but every way full and absolute is not only carried forth to the production of things but to the order and management of them in such a way as may most correspond and suit with their intrinsical natures Whether therefore these operations of God ad extra as the Schoolmen phrase it be guided and steered by an explicite and arbitrary Will or whether they have not some other primary foundation from which it is impossible they should at any time swerve and in which they are all terminated comes now to be demonstrated For to say that they are all bounded in the Divine Essence and swallowed up in that immense Abyss introduces such a confusion in the Divine Attributes that our minds can have no particular or distinct apprehension of this or the other mode and beside gives no satisfaction to a rational inquirer who would be apt to question Whether there were not a subordination in the Divine Idiomata and Whether they be all equally active and operative and lastly Whether the Holy Scriptures do not universally magnifie and extol some one Attribute above the rest For the Solution of these Difficulties we must examine our own faculties and consider what we mean by that Idea and representation we have of the Divine Nature and what it is that principally confers to the formation of that notion and conception we entertain in our minds of God That there is in us naturally an Idea of a Being absolutely perfect which we neither derived from sense nor framed by the power of Fancy and Imagination but is indelibly wrought and engraven in our souls by a Divine principle and of the sense of which we can never totally rid our minds however impiously diligent we may be in debauching our Spirits and Sacrilegiously racing the venerable Name of the Deity out of his Temple I shall take for granted But there are some perfections which do more signally appear in the Deity and which peculiarly constitute the Nature of a God such as absolute and compleat Goodness which being so boundlessly diffusive and communicative of it self is necessarily attended with an infinite Wisdom to govern and direct and Power to execute and bring into being whatever this fertile wombe of Love shall travail withall These are the constitutive Principles of a Deity and all other proprieties are but those three grand Attributes severally varied and modified Now that they are not all of equal worth and excellency will appear if we look upon them as so many distinct qualities in created Beings wherein there appears such pain dissimilitude that a man can scarce withhold himself from concluding that they will likewise retain their differences when exalted into the Nature of God himself Goodness is of an universal latitude and extent and all other excellencies and perfections of humane Nature are indiscriminately complicated in it For a good man is not only excited by the innate generosity and goodness of his mind to do that which is best but summons his Wisdom and Knowledg to project and contrive and then uses his utmost Power to bring it into act Goodness is the rule and measure of his actions and Wisdom and Power receive their worth and excellency from the degree of Goodness they partake of Knowledg and Power are more particular and strait and more in a lower sphear and our actions receive no moral denomination from them but as they participate more or less of Goodness For a clearer illustration of the present Theme we will suppose Power to have actual Existence and carryed out to the effecting of whatever lies within it's sphear and comprehension and being infinite and unlimited to be utterly incapable of any hindrance or impediment in it's operations and it will amount to no more than a furious and Gygantick self-will wholly indeterminate to good or evil and as indifferent to destroy and remand back again into non-entity what it hath made if we can without a contradiction attribute to it the Power of Creation as at first to make it whose blind and impetuous self-will is the sole rule of all it 's exorbitant actions which being no knowing principle they may oft prove as ridiculous as the vain attempt of those mighty Gyants to scale heaven by throwing mountain upon mountain We see then that Power alone though we imagine it to have actual Existence speaks no more perfection than that great and mighty wind which rent the Mountains and brake in pieces the Rocks when God passed by before the Prophet Elijah And as the Lord was not in the wind so neither is he to be found in such boisterous effects whose productive cause is meer selfishness and inconsiderate Will God works not after any such unaccountable impulses nor are we to look for meer Will and Power in the Creation of things but for Wisdom and Counsel deriving from immense benignity and love which never acts but for worthy and decorous ends and for the behoof of things themselves This being therefore the Nature of Power considered in it's distinct capacity let us add to it the principles of Wisdom and then it will suggest to us the Idea of the Manichean God whom they make the Author of all the evill in the World For Wisdom and Power disjoyn'd from the blessed fountain of Goodness is nothing else but armed wickedness There is no Being can communicate any thing to another which it self is not invested withal and if we suppose the Existence of a Being of infinite Subtlety and Power it is impossible it should be the Author of any Good in
things which are of an immutable and indispensable necessity and are eternally unalterable even by God himself such are the notions of God and Evil Justice and Injustice and all Moral Rectitude and Deformity and according to the importance of these so is Gods Estimate of all rational Agents without respect to any external qualifications or natural endowments And where-ever he finds the least measure of his own good life springing up he is so far from destroying it that he upholds and nourishes it by the vital streams of his Immense Plenitude and quickens and causes it to distend it self through the powers of the soul by a gentle and divine heat and knowing it to be his own genuine off-spring by those Sacred Hieroglyphicks and impressions it bears upon it he can never forsake or cast it of as a contemptible and worthless thing but embrace it as that which hath the truest and most undoubted right to the Government of the whole World and take the greatest pleasure in dispreading it throughout all the lapsed Creation as being nothing but his own blameless Nature displayed and taking hold of so many several subjects to unite them to it self as to the most absolute and self-originated Good And this is no more then what the sacred Writ gives it's suffrage for Act. 10.34 35. God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh Righteousness is accepted of him As our growth and increase is in the Life and Nature of God so do we proportionably come under his favour and acceptance For we must not think that so soon as ever this Potent and Divine principle begins to set us free from that heavy slavery and captivity we were detained under by our Tyrannous self-wils that we are immediately so far advanced into the Divine Favour as will admit us into the sacred Adytum or Holy of Holies in the highest Heavens to see and enjoy the glory and presence of the Divine Schehinah and recreate and refresh our selves with that adorable splendor but we are to reckon our selves so far under the benign aspect of heaven as the Holy Life of God rules and bears sway within the Empire of our minds Heaven is not taken with the Grandeur and Blandishments of the world nor is a man so accounted in the ballance of the Divine judgment and approbation as he is valued in the fallacious estimate of frail mortals for God sees not as we see nor are his thoughts as our thoughts but such is the man as is the inward frame and temper of his spirit unbared from that swelling pride and ostentation and the painted gloss and varnish of Hypocrisie which set him off in the eyes of men There is nothing God takes greater joy and contentment in than the expansion and dilatation of his own Nature and Attributes and he never suffers his blessed Life solitarily to contest with the Rebellious and Gygantick lusts in mens souls and then to be vanquisht and die in the midst of enemies for want of his powerful assistance but perpetually aides and succours it making it victorious to the casting down Principalities and Powers and everting and conquering the whole Kingdom of Darkness and every thing that opposes it's Crown and Dignity leading the soul as a glorious spoil taken out of the hands of the airy-Apostate Legions who are but Usurpers and Intruders upon the Rights and Proprieties of the Kingdom of light into it's native Country that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the land of Truth and Righteousness All sin and unrighteousness is directly contrary and opposite to the eternal Rectitude of Gods blessed Nature and being so it is impossible he should ever be reconciled to it or cast a favourable aspect upon it He will ever be chasing pursuing and beating it out of the World and never suffer it to rest any where in peace but will alwayes lay siege against it and will at length prevail and settle his own life upon it's rightful Throne and put all the Powers of Hell and Darkness under his feet These are the two mighty Empires which have been ever since the revolt of Men and Angels from God and are still contending for the Government of the World and industriously promoting the amplitude and enlargement of their respective Dominions and to one of these every man associates and adjoynes himself in this life either by a manly courage and resolution in the wayes and practice of virtue or a pusillanimous declension to iniquity and vice And therefore the Philosopher spake well and agreeable to the sense of Christianity Porphyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The more we neglect the extirpation of our passions and exorbitances the stronger hold has the unrighteous nature upon us and the nearer are we conjoyned with it The sum of all is this God looking upon and judging men according to their moral habitudes and capacities and beholding them all upright and perfect as the workmanship of his own hands before our great Protoplast Adam transgressed in Paradise could not but intend graciously to them and treat them according to the innocent purity of their Natures and therefore never conceived any such dismal purpose of damnation against them because they were not then in the nature and reason of the thing objects of his hatred and displeasure nor could they become obnoxious to punishment till they had actually violated some Law and Command 4. Conclusion That all the results operations and designs of the Deity relating to and terminated upon something without him are the emanations and effects of Absolute and Compleat Goodness It was not any benefit or addition to his stable glory and felicity which Men or Angels might contribute that first moved and incited the great Creator or the Universe to bring all things into Being but it was to communicate his Nature and display his Goodness in the production of all things capable of existing The whole frame of Nature depends upon him and he upholds it in the circle of his benigne Armes and his exuberant Love like an eternal spring is perpetually sending abroad it's streams and watering all the parts of the Creation with a Divine influx God is not like ambitious Man who acts that he may make himself great and purchase a few swelling titles by sucking in the aiery breath of Popular Applause and like proud Haman contrive and design the ruine of every one that will not bend the knee and adore with humble prostrations the vainer Image of a more conceited Majesty or like those self-will'd aspiring Spirits of whom it 's affirmed Porphyr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 2. Sect. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they will do mischief if once they are incensed by neglect of their due worship and service but will presently become beneficial if flattered and collogued by Prayers Supplications Sacrifices and other accustomed Rites and Ceremonies He never acts out of such scant and
of an unlimited Will and Power how and when he pleaseth and declaring their effluxes and emanations to be the rule of reason and measure of all Moral Actions and the grand Law of the whole Creation or else in those Hymns and Hallelujahs which are offered up to him by intellectual Beings from all quarters of the Universe Whereas in truth his Glory is nothing without himself nor any acquisition and purchase to augment his happiness for he being an Infinite Plenitude of all Perfection is incapable of receiving any complement of Glory or Blessedness but then he most of all elevates and raises his glory and lustre when he most of all communicates his Nature and shines in with a full and uninterrupted light of Truth and Goodness upon all the intellectual Creation He never seeks his Glory in respect of us in any other way than by dispreading and imparting those Soveraign Attributes of Love Mercy Patience Wisdom and Justice And we in the most proper sense do then advance the Glory of God highest and discover it to the World in the most ample and transcendent manner when the life of God becomes a Vital Principle in us carrying us beyond the reach of corporeal exsudations and defilements which render the soul inept for a conformity to his blessed Image and when Truth Holiness and Righteousness in which the Divine Nature is copyed out become not empty and insignificant Names and sounds of words but actuating and quickning Principles and we studiously endeavour to engrave those beautiful Forms in our minds and spirits In a word then do we glorifie God when we converse with him in the Temple of an unspotted heart and derive from him in whom there is no blemish of iniquity such an Universal Holiness as lives within us and pervades and sanctifies all our actions And this the Lord Christ who best knew how to glorifie God hath intimated to us Joh. xv 8. Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit I have now finished this Argument from the consideration of the Divine Nature and have deduced such genuine and legitimate Conclusions that if rightly estimated and weighed cannot but implant for the future in every unprejudic'd mind more generous and serene Apprehensions of the Deity then are offered in any Scheme of the Supralapsarian or Sublapsarian Doctrins both which concurr in that which appears most deformed to every pure and defecate eye viz. The Eternal Reprobation and Confusion of the greatest part of Mankind the one upon pretence of Gods sole Will and Pleasure and the other under the mantle and cover of Adam's transgression in whose loins the whole race of Mankind was included when he fell and lost his Paradise Both which opinions though never so fairly guilded over do really make God put on the mask of cruelty and rigour that he might appear just in his Oeconomy and Administration of the affairs of the World and that which is most barbarous and infamous in the eye of reason is made to speak the glory of the Deity And that God might bring about this dismal and black design of Damning his Creatures he must compass it by injurious artifices and tyrannical contrivances rot unlike that inhumane fraud Tiberius used to Brutus and Nero the sons of Germanicus Suet. in Vit. Tâ—…b c. 54. Variâ fraude induxit ut concitarentur ad convitia concitati perderentur How deep a stain doth this cast upon the lovely rayes and efflorences of the Divine Goodness and Mercy making him to become the Executioner to his own off-spring and rend that dear life in pieces which his own hands gave Being to And although the Sublapsarian Dogma be entertained of some on purpose to mollifie that harsh decree of the Supralapsarian Reprobation yet if we divest it of those terms and artifices of words wherewith it is mantled over to appear more specious to the World we shall find it cast as great a blot upon the Divine Nature as the other For whether is it better to say That God by his Eternal Prerogative of Absolute Dominion over all his Creatures has adjudged the greatest part of Mankind to inevitable misery for no other reason but upon the impulse of his own Will and to shew the glory of his Power Or to say That God for the sin of one Man whom he made the Representative of the succeeding Generations of Men to the end of the World committed some thousands of years ago and imputed only to his Posterity who were no more able to help it than to hinder their being born into the World should take the advantage of his lapse and decree the greatest number of Mankind to Everlasting destruction And if we impartially view this latter it will appear no less precarious and absurd than the former For though it be true that we are really and formally guilty of Original Sin yet to say that God did physically predetermine Adam's fall or in the mildest sense That he looked upon man as fallen for the Reprobationists are not consistent with themselves and so took the opportunity which he foresaw would offer it self by his lapse to bring about his design of ruining the greatest number of Mankind is to bring Almighty God the Father of compassions upon the stage of the World speaking unto the calamitous Off-spring of Adam like the Wolfe when he intended to devour a Lamb Ante hos sex menses ait maledixisti mihi Respondit agnus Equidem natus non eram Pater hercule tuus inquit maledixit mihi Atque ita correptum lacerat injustâ nece Should God take the souls of men being yet innocent so soon as he set them upon acting in the World according to those Principles and Powers he bestowed upon them at their first production and cast them into everlasting burnings they would have this comfort left to them that they suffered innocently and never in the least measure violated any of the sacred Laws of Heaven But when they shall hear that their Creator and Father who upon that very account could not inflict a greater evil than the good he bestowed on them hath contrived their death and drawn them into sin that he might with the fairer shew of equity punish them with infinite tortures both in body and soul this injustice must needs appear unspeakably grievous For although some would seem to excuse this Oeconomy from all harshness iniquity and rigor by substituting the softer termes of Preterition or negative Reprobation yet if they will unmask their apprehensions and speak plain sense the difference will appear only in words not in the thing it self and is all one as if a man should seek to alleviate the calamity of a condemned Malefactor by telling him he should not die by Common but Noble hands For the event declares Gods intention and the denial of his help to extricate them from misery is equivalent to a positive Reprobation Let us consult a little our own faculties and reason
he interwove in the constitution of his Nature at his first production and while he followed this light and turned not aside to the false fires of his depraved will he walked in safe and secure paths But when Men began to multiply upon earth Sin and Vice increased and the infectious steams of Iniquity soon grew into a cloud and obscured the light of the day and men forsook their ancient Guide and wandred about in Darkness and Error and the voice of Reason was not heard when Self-interest and Passion became the sole principles of action Hence it came to pass that in succession of time Mens discriminative faculties growing insensate and dull through the life and vigour of their Animal powers and their Criteria abating and loosing their quick and nimble tast and rellish of true good and happiness they choose only the present satisfaction and pleasure of their corrupt Appetites and embraced blindfold every inordinate motion and passion and it was too late now to curb and restrain their lawless and rampant Desires For although Divine Goodness which was never absent nor withdrawn from the World did in all Ages and Places raise up considerable and holy Persons to instruct the perverse Sons of Men in the wayes of Righteousness yet their Precepts and Admonitions were entertained by very few the rest of the World still slumbring in their old wickedness and stupidity and chusing such faint and glimmering flames to guide themselves by such weak and sickly Principles as might least distrub their fancied Peace and molest their desired Security Wherefore when this way proved unserviceable and unfit for Mans Restauration God entred upon a new Dispensation and revealed himself more plainly to the Jews selecting Jacob for his Portion and Israel for the lot of his Inheritance conducting them by an infant Religion which should make way and prepare their minds for the reception of that glorious Mysterie which in due time should be communicated to the World and delivering to them Laws Statutes and Judgments fencing and hedging in the impure eruptions of their debased Natures by Judicial Decrees and besiedging Vice and Iniquity by the actual promulgation of a Law But the main of this Oeconomy was only Thetical and Positive deriving it's obligation meerly from the Divine Command and adapted for the most part to the Plastick Powers of the soul for it consisting chiefly in external Performances which had no intrinsick Goodness contained in them nor any other Reason of their injunction but the will and pleasure of the Imposer it could not ascend higher then the Fancy or Imagination nor contribute any thing to the sublimating Reason and Intellect while all it's motions were determined in so low a spear And hence arose the great imperfection of the Mosaical Law in that it had only an Adumbration and presented a Landtschap of good things and not the very image and substance Heb. x. 1. and consequently was altogether destitute of a Vital and Energetical Power to promote true and substantial Holiness or extirpate and mortifie the exorbitant passions of corporeal life For indeed the whole body of the Judaical Service was only a Prefiguration of something more perfect and illustrious to be discovered to the World the most mysterious part of it being Typical and Emblematical carrying an abscondit signification under an External Symbol which the Author to the Hebrews seems to allude to when he sayes it was necessary that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. ix 23 24. The patterns of things in the Heavens should be purified with these And again Christ is not entred into the holy places made with hands 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The figures of the true But when notwithstanding this careful Discipline men were still corrupt and satisfied themselves with the bare observance of the letter of the Law neglecting the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the weightier and more principal matters such as Justice Righteousness Truth and Goodness God grew weary of this Oeconomy and called more for the performance of the Moral then Ceremonial part of the Law and when the fulness of time was come resolved to bring about his last and most perfect determination which was to send down his well-beloved Son with full Power and Authority to communicate an Everlasting Righteousness and deliver to the World the Gospel which is the sum and substance the flower and quintessence of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exterior modes and schemes wherewith he instructed the Jewish Church of old and which retains only such Ceremonies as are necessary in regard of our frail and mortal state in which we are more affected with the propulsions and motions of sense then with Truths of a refined and intellectual constitution and is compounded and made up of such things as are naturally and immutably good such as have an eternal and indispensable obligation being nothing but the Idea's of our own souls which we had buried and obscured by our fall raised and brought to light again the results of Gods own Nature imprinted upon our minds and his moral Being explicated and dispread throughout our spirits The Gospel is nothing but God manifested in the flesh his Goodness Wisdom Justice and Mercy veiled under the Cortex of words and expressions adapted and fitted to our mean capacities and it 's highest aime and design is to make us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Partakers of the Divine Nature and perfect us according to his own Image of Righteousness and Truth and in our due time invest us with the immortal robes of life and glory This was the Noble end of the Pythagorean Philosophy Hierocles in Carm. Pythag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And questionless a Divine and Heroick spirit moved in those Philosophers veins and they knew and felt the irradiations of that Heavenly life which quickens and informs every Rational Being that puts no wilful stop and impediment to it's kindly operations But whether ever they obtained that high and excellent atchievement they aimed at by living up to the Precepts and Principles of their Philosophy I shall not now enquire Sure I am there was never any Oeconomy yet divulged to the World which more illustriously propagated the Divine Life and Nature or more effectually conduced to the drawing Men from Sin and Wickedness and weakning the Diabolical Kingdom then that Evangelical Mysterie which hath been hid from Ages and Generations but is now made manifest to Mankind by the appearing of Jesus Christ That we are deeply lapsed and degenerated from God is the universal consent of all Men although they differ in the manner of it's explication Plato taught that the Fall of Man consisted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the defluxion of the souls pinions whereby not being able any longer to bear her self up in the higher Regions she fell to the Earth and inhabited a Mortal body which the above named Author thus Paraphrases upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is As our departure from God and the
endeavours to unite and become one with that ever-blessed Being subtracting his affections from all earthly vanities as finding something more noble and worthy to bestow them upon Lib. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus as Porphyry speaks of the Egyptian Priests 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He hath given up his whole life to Divine Contemplation and search after the Deity Such Power have Evangelical Truths over the minds of men that they transform them into their own native image and similitude and the more they are looked into the more they enravish them with their heavenly beauty and pulchritude And because afflicted and persecuted Vertue could not be thought eligible meerly for it self nor be a sufficient argument to induce us to the love and practice of it who were so fatally addicted to the concerns of sense therefore God who knew our frame and how far and to what degrees we had apostatiz'd from his holy Nature did not only propound good things to our choice but solicit our wills to the embracing of them by the strongest evidences and most attractive motives that our Natures were capable of receiving The life of sense being more powerful and laying a greater though not a juster claim to our minds as we are born into this World God was pleased to deal with us after a sensible manner and in a way of condescending Wisdom proportioning the Truths he delivered to us to our capacity of reception And this was that the Apostle called the Foolishness of Preaching wherein God stoops down and puts on the garb and frailties of humanity and suits the results of his will with our mean and shallow apprehensions Great is the Mysterie of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh and cradled in the circle of a Virgins arms which clearly demonstrates even to outward sense the exceeding Goodness and Wisdom of Almighty God that he hath not cast off the care of Mankind but is at peace with the World and hath put on the bright robes of Loving-kindness and Mercy which he hath given a large Specimen and full proof of in the Mission of the Lord Christ from heaven God would have all men lay aside their hard thoughts and causless-jealousies and suspicions of his Nature as if he did not from his heart intend them good but only suspended his anger for a time which might again break out upon them in prodigious floods of vengeance and fury For this is the most certain sign that God wills and desires our happiness and welfare in that he hath united himself to our Nature and sent down his only begotten Son for no other purpose but to seek and to save that which was lost And if he spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things What is there now can lay a greater tie upon ingenuous spirits then the discovery of so much undeserved kindness and love What heart is there so obdurate and rocky that this will not dissolve into the tears of love and joy to behold the blessed Jesus hanging between heaven and earth upon the Cross that he might reconcile all things that are in heaven and earth and become a propitiatory Sacrifice for all mens sins in the World It is said of Socrates that he was so inamour'd with this Divine passion of Love that he styled himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A servant of Love Let therefore Love which is the Proxenet of Nature the great instrument of conciliating hearts beget in thee a return and retribution of Love and never think of those streams of blood which so copiously flowed from the wounded body of thy dying Lord without a passive and melting spirit but be likewise a servant of Love and act under that generous principle for Love is of God And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God And that we may not think we are set to remove mountains or perform impossibilities when we are exhorted by the Gospel to the participation of Gods holy life we shall never be left alone to sink under our load and die but shall have the assistance of that Almighty and Demiurgical spirit of Love who hovered over the dark Chaos and brought into Being the goodly frame of heaven and earth and replenished all the immense tracts of space with sutable inhabitants Wisd ch vii This is that Wisdom which is the brightness of the Everlasting the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his Goodness which remaining in her self makes all things new and in all ages entring into holy souls makes them friends of God and Prophets She will not lodge in a sinful body nor abide when unrighteousness cometh in For she is more beautiful then the Sun and above all the order of stars being compared with the light she is found before it This kind and loving spirit will God bestow upon every one that asks it of him to repair his broken and decayed Nature to raise up the Divine Image to joynt and confirm every perverse dislocation in the frame of his soul and to perfect and compleat the living efformation of Christ within him Let no man then despair of attaining to a state of Blessedness under the Gospel for this Benign Spirit whose delights are with the Sons of Men pervades the whole World and touches and overshadows every man with out-stretched wings who is willing to have the Divine Image and Pourtraiture formed in him and doth not by impurity and uncleanness chase it away Though our enemies are mighty and our souls weak yet let none despair of Victory for through the assistance and conduct of that Almighty we shall be able to overcome them He is ever cherishing and fostring the life of God wherever it 's born into any soul and sweetly insinuates into our minds and hallows and sanctifies all our powers and excites us to a serious and hearty pursuit after the indispensable laws of Truth Righteousness and Goodness We are not fallen and degenerated beyond the power of God but his Spirit is able to raise and bring up our souls from the lowest Hell and to renew and reform our debased and wretched Natures For what cannot he do who at first made us faultless and happy till we ruined and defaced his blessed Image and rendred our selves the miserable objects of his compassions What is there in our frame so stubborn and insequacious that he cannot rectifie and redress who at first created all things and brought into Being all the Beauty and Harmony of Heaven and Earth He will never leave us destitute and forlorn but will take hold of every fitness and capacity till he have perfected in us the Divine life and brought us unto Glory But because Examples are more prevalent with mankind then Precepts and Instructions that God might not leave any thing undone which would in any kind conduce to our Interest he hath recommended to us the Example
not closely and Syllogistically connected but loosly propounded and discoursed of as well for the delight and pleasure of the Reader as that he who is in a good measure prepared for the entertainment of them may light upon something agreeable to his own mind which will appear to his inward sense as Apodictical as a Mathematical Notion or the evidence of his external sense For there is something in us which will not fail to embrace whatever it finds suitable and congruous to it 's own nature and ofttimes an accidental hint proves more advantagious for the establishing and confirming a Truth before but weakly impressed upon the mind then a sapless argumentation formed after the rules of mood and figure But that I may yet give more light to the precedent discourse I shall bring into view the chief places and Texts of holy Scripture which have been by some distorted and wrested to the upholding a Doctrine they are not at all acquainted with that this Obex being removed by rendring the plain and genuine sense of them there may be nothing remaining to hinder mens free and full assent unto it John vi 37. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me From hence some draw such an unexpected conclusion as this Solent praeparationes ad fidem patri tribui Mat. xvi 17. ut fidei operatio filio obsignatio spiritui Gâ—ot viz. That there are some particular persons known to God by name whom he hath from all eternity given to Christ and that all others are devoted to destruction For the explication therefore of this we must know that God once promised the Lord Christ Psal 2. that he would give him the Heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession by which we may discern what kind of giving this is which is mentioned here viz. the giving for an inheritance or possession That Christ may reign over them which God doth by his Vital presence pervading their souls and laying hold of every disposition and capacity and preparing their hearts by his softning and preventing grace for a benign reception of the Divine Image of the Lord Jesus And this Act of God in fitting and qualifying them is called His drawing Vers 44. No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him which attraction is no wayes involuntary and irresistible as if he who knows all the secret recesses and intrigues of our Natures were put to his shifts and had no other means to reduce men to righteousness but by the destruction of their powers and faculties but his drawing is with the Cords of a Man Hos xi 4. and the Bands of Love with gentle and perswasive arguments farr different from those unaccountable impulses and violent motions attributed to Gods Spirit by the Calvinists as Jer. xxxi 3. and Cant. i. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Strom. 4. Now the persons given unto Christ must needs be such who are fitly disposed qualified and prepared to receive Christ being offered such who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set in order and rankt to life Act. xiii 48. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fitted and capacitated for the Kingdom of God Such as are like that subactum solum Luk. ix 62. good and mellow ground in the Parable which is fitted for the receiving the seed of Gods Words For if by Gods donation of men to Christ were signified his Electing a certain number to eternal life without any consideration of their future obedience it would follow 1. That that number could never be diminished but we read that one of those who was given to Christ was lost Joh. xvii 12. Those that thou gavest me I have kept and none of them is lost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but the Son of Perdition 2. It would follow that those who are already elected to Eternal life and in the favour and love of God are yet given to Christ which is very crude and improper for to what purpose should they be given to Christ when they are already reconciled to God 3. Christ here speaking to the incredulous Jews if by this exclusive form of Locution he had meant that only some few particular persons preordained from eternity should come to him that is Believe on him Heb. xi 6. he would not only have extenuated the sin of the Jews in not believing on him but wholly taken it away by rendring them an account and reason of this their incredulity viz. That they were destitute of that vital influence and grace which streams from a particular Election and is given only to some certain persons known to God by Name from all eternity Acts xiii 48. And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed Here the Contra-Remonstrants as their manner is whenever they meet with any such word as Ordained Elected or Predestinated presently fancy that it concludes their absolute Decrees and so obstinately and wilfully blind are they that they cannot see any other sense but their own and obtrude it upon Men as Infallible and Authentick Such is the Text here in hand which they they imagine makes much for their cause but the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath no such signification or import that they should put upon it but is a Military term and signifies to Marshal to stand ready in rank and file and accordingly denotes here those who are fitted and aptly disposed to eternal life so it is used 1 Cor. xvi 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disposed or devoted themselves to the function of ministring to the Saints So the Greeks express a well-governed and disposed life by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and those that live not so the Apostle calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disorderly persons 1 Thess v. 14. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore here hold proportion with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the forementioned place Luke ix 62. and denotes such who are fitted by due preparations for the reception of the Gospel And if the Text were to be expounded of such an absolute Predestination of certain particular persons undoubtedly the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would have been used which had made more for that purpose and not such a Phrase which is no where in the whole Scripture found to signifie Gods eternal Decrce For a further confirmation of this I will annex Grotius his Observations upon the place against the Calvinistical Exposition 1. Praedestinati omnes unius loci non eredunt eodem tempore 2. Neque omnes qui credunt sunt eâ— sensu praedestinati 3. Neque id arcanum de singulis qui ad salutem perventuri essent qui non Lucae erat revelatum 1 Pet. ii 8. And a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence even to them which stumble at the Word being disobedient whereunto also they were appointed That which our Adversaries collect from hence is That there are some ordained and
16 17. That those after-judgments were also intended of God for the emendation of this obstinate King is I think as clear from the expostulation of Moses and Aaron with him Exod. x. 3. 4. How long wilt thou refuse to humble thy self Let my people go which plainly supposes both that the designation of the Judgment was to humble him and that there was a possibility still of reducing him to that pliable and sequacious temper And if it were otherwise these and the like menaces and threatnings If thou refuse to let my people go I will do thus and thus unto thee would be wholly supervacaneous and ineffectual Nay they would argue an unworthy exprobration in God of his obstinate detention of the people and refusal to submit to his will when he had not strength and power sufficient to attempt the contrary 2. It may well be doubted Whether that Divine Goodness which is alwayes ready to breath upon the least spark of the life of God in every rational Being and assists every good motion and forwardness towards the formation of Gods holy image in every man would not likewise have been as urgent and efficacious in Pharaoh for the mollifying his obdurate spirit before he was taken out of the world had he rightly and duly managed those heavy punishments in order to his melioration i. e. if he would have complyed with the will of God The sum of all therefore seems to be this That Almighty God the ever-wise and benign Creator of all things being conscious to all the affections intrigues and hidden recesses of the spirit of Man only knows how and when to apply a soveraign remedy and like a skilful Chirurgion proportions his medicaments to the nature and quality of the wound and seldom makes use of those more ungentle wayes of cauterizing and excision till necessity and the preservation of the whole urge him to it And even in this singular instance of Pharaoh we may trace the footsteps of Gods benignity and love as that Holy and Pious Father excellently well observes Origen Philocal cap. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore we may well interpret this hardning which is attributed to God to consist not in any positive act nor yet in the total subtraction of his grace but to be an accidental effect of his kindness and mercy toward Pharaoh in removing that sharp and uneasie though salutary discipline which being not carefully and rightly made use of became an occasion of a greater hardness and obduracy As saith the Father in the same Chapter when a Master forbears to punish a wicked servant he sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have spoiled you and I have made you wicked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. In like manner those things which proceed from Gods benignity and goodness as if they had been the cause of Pharaoh 's obduracy are said to harden his heart And the Philosopher spake true when he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it is the greatest evil that possibly can befal a Criminal to be suffered to continue unpunished in wickedness Verse 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To shew his displeasure i. e. The effect of his displeasure to punish by a notable and exemplary way as he did Pharaoh so the word is used Luke xxi 23. For there shall be great distress in the land 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Punishment and Judgment the effect of Wrath upon this people So likewise Rom. iii. 5. Is God unrighteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who punisheth or taketh vengeance So that this is far from what Beza and other Supralapsarians would inferr as if this Demonstration of his anger were the prime and ultimate end which God proposed in the eternal Reprobation of Men. For what can we imagine more inconsistent and unsutable with the Divine Nature then to be eternally angry with the innocent and undeserving And what more contradicts the gracious Revelation of God whereby he declares himself propense to Mercy and slow to Anger against impenitent sinners then this which makes him equally displeased with the guiltless and criminal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Suffered with much patience and longanimity punishing them not so oft nor when he might justly do it but letting them take as it were the reins into their own hands and break through all the fences and hedges whereby the Divine Goodness sought to restrain them into exorbitancy and impiety and so render themselves more uncapable of a mild and gentle Oeconomy This being the genuine sense we can in no wise approve of their extravagant conjecture who take to themselves the liberty which they thanklessly give to God of making their wills and fancies the rule of their interpretations and actions that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is only a bare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forbearance of punishment complicated and conjoyned with a peremptory purpose of eternally excruciating and damning those who were designed to destruction For doubtless this longanimity of God contains and runs upon the supposal of antecedent Exhortations Threatnings and Promises as so many gracious methods to reduce men to Repentance which cannot without clear hypocrisie and dissimulation be affirmed of Reprobates in the Supralapsarian sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vessels of wrath fitted for destruction Here the Supralapsarians endeavour to render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Creari * Vide Beza in hunc locum whereby they would obtrude that God creates men vessels of wrath on purpose to destroy them without any consideration had to any qualifications whatever which being a Doctrine so absurd and unbecoming the Majesty of an Al-wise and good God it will be confutation enough to any rational person to rehearse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore is an Hebraisme for there being but few verbals in the Hebrew tongue a Particle is used for a Verbal and signifies no more then fit or ready as Luke vi 40. The Disciple is not above his Master 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but every one that is perfect shall be as his Master For the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies fit and is usually rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which sometimes is rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal lxviii 10. lxxiv. 16. lxxxix 38. By vessels of wrath then are meant men who by their own voluntary and heynous transgressions become so far liable to Gods judgment that his wrath may without any appearance of injustice be poured on them as vessels fit for no other use and the adaptation or fitting of them for a severe destruction must be attributed to themselves and to the inflexibleness of their irreclaimable dispositions Thus men are said in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fit themselves to destruction in the same sense as they are said to wrong their own souls and to love death Prov. viii
not deliver him in the day of his transgression as for the wickedness of the wicked he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness Ezek. xxxiii 12 13 14 15. The result of these places is this That particular men or the persons of men from time to time come under the Eternal Decrees of Love or Hatred according to their actual and present state of righteousness or unrighteousness For if God decreed life and death upon the consideration of future sin and holiness he may as well decree a reward and punishment respectively for that which men would have been engaged in had they lived in this World to all eternity which directly contradicts that Scripture wherein we are said to give an account for the things which we have already done not which we should have done had we continued longer in the body And hence it is that the righteous man who is now in the love and favour of God being hardned again through his own negligence and the deceitfulness of sin may relapse into that state which the Decree of death takes hold of and of such a man is that of St. Peter to be understood 2 Peter ii 21. It had been better for such a man not to have known the way of righteousness then after he hath known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered to him And when the righteous man degenerates from his former faith and the enemy takes advantage and oppresses the Divine life through his carelessness and folly God charges all his past sins upon him and recals his justification whereby he was before esteemed as righteous in his sight which is intimated in the Parable Matth. xviii where he that had the debt forgiven him because he dealt so harshly and ungently with his Fellow-servant was again called in question and the whole summe charged upon him and Christ applies it to our present purpose verse 35. So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his Brother their trespasses For we must know that God pardons our iniquities by parts and as we grow in Virtue and Holiness so his displeasure decreases and is taken off and he that is justified becomes yet more justified and walks in the light and the breath of God enkindles the heavenly fire and fans it into flames and ardors and so long the man is safe but if he return to folly the anger of God is renewed as at the beginning and the last state of that man is worse then the first 2. That true and real Believers may relapse and be confined and brought in bondage to the strait and narrow laws of their own self-wills and fall from the life of God and become settled and radicated in a life of self-seeking and guided by the parsimonious principles of Pleasure and Interest is the voice of Scripture and Reason the former of which palpably and undeniably concludes and determines the case Heb. x. 38 39. Now the just shall live by faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but if he not any man as our Translation improperly supplies it i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the just man who before is said to live by his faith if he draw back Gods soul shall have no pleasure in him and what this drawing back is we may collect from the subsequent words But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition So again Heb. vi 4 5 6. For it is impossible i. e. very difficult and hard for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those who were once enlightned i.e. Baptized for Baptism was called by the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 illumination and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the Powers of the world to come if if they shall fall away to renew them again to repentance seeing they crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame And if this were to be understood of Hypocrites what need the expression of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For unto what should they be renewed and reinstated their former condition being in it self so deep an unregeneracy and from what is it they do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fall away when their distempered natures were never recovered by the practice of any real and substantial holiness Wherefore this must necessarily be meant of those who had in a good measure subdued the motions of the inferior life and left 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the principles and rudiments of Christianity and were arising 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to perfection For the tasting the heavenly gift and the good word of God and the powers of the world to come are no more to be understood of a slight touch and transient perception then the same phrase when it is used of the Lord Christ that he tasted death for every man Chap. ii 9. But that as he did really feel and experience the effects of death conquering his mortal life so these here spoken of did truly rellish and apprehend the sweetness of Christianity from a clear discriminating sense of it's native excellency and felt the Divine Spirit destroying the irregular appetites of the inferior life and sanctifying their Natures by a blessed inhabitation To these we may add Ezek. xviii 24. But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and committeth Iniquity and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doth shall he live All his Righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned What can be more manifest than this if men would clear up their apprehensions and look upon things as things and not content themselves with bare names and shadows For that the righteous man in the Text should signifie an Hypocrite and one seemingly righteous is the most distorted gloss that can be put upon it 1. Because the righteous is here opposed to the wicked person but if it were to be expounded of one seemingly righteous who is so much worse then an open profane person in that he acts impiety under the cover of Religion the words must run thus When the righteous man i. e. the Hypocrite turns away from his Hypocrisie and acts according to the abominations of the wicked man and if by the righteous be meant an Hypocrite what is to be understood by the wicked to which 't is opposed 2. This righteous man is said to live by his righteousness but the Scripture no where sayes That the Hypocrite shall live by his counterfeit holiness but directly the contrary The hope of the Hypocrite shall perish And I must confess I do not at all understand the intent and purpose of God in inserting so many Cautions and Exhortations to Watchfulness and Diligence in the Gospel if there be no possibility of a true Believer's desertion of the Faith which questionless the Illustrious Compilers of the Church of England's Confession of Faith
confident and stedfast belief of her future happiness and immortality and though for the present she be cloth'd and entomb'd in an earthly body yet is she wholly and perfectly Divine bearing about with her the regenerated characters and impresses of the blessed Image of the Son of God an indissoluble union with whom she incessantly breaths after and being thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mortal God she is no sooner disengag'd and set free by the Divine Providence from the weight and burden of terrestrial encumbrance but she passes secure through the caliginous fumes of this lower world into the flowry tracts of bliss and glory And from this state there is only left a possibility of lapsing the Divine Life being so fully and compleatly settled and repossessed of it's ancient throne that it will maugre all the opposition of the Powers of darkness undoubtedly instate the soul in all that happiness God made her for Some REFLECTIONS On a late Discourse of Mr. PARKERS Concerning The Divine Dominion and Goodness I Should now have concluded this Discourse but that I thought my self obliged to take notice of some Positions of this Ingenious Author which seem to interfere and clash with what I have written In pursuance of which I shall lay down these subsequent Axiomes or Moral Truths which will need no Probation but appear full of their own natural Light and Evidence to any sober and unprejudic'd mind and by them I shal examine the main things contained in his Discourse Axiome I. That there is something immutably and Eternally Good WHat I mean by Moral Good and Evil I have declared elsewhere and therefore shall only in brief add That Moral Goodness is nothing but an agreeableness harmony or convenience so that things are then Morally Good when they correspond and unite with the inward sense of our souls that is with our Intellectual or Rational Natures which congruity when we feel in our selves we call those things good And whatever is really and truly Good is immutably and eternally so not made so by any positive sanction of command but the result of Gods own Moral Being which he can no more swarve from then destroy himself This is called an Eternal Law and is nothing but Right Reason whence God being the highest Reason he is called by Aristotle de Mundo Cap. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Tully Phil. 1. sayes Lex nihil aliud est quam recta à numine Deorum ratio imperans honesta prohibensque contrari And by this there is an affinity between God and all his Intellectual productions forasmuch as Right Reason is the same in us as in him and Tully intimates Lib. 1. de legibus it is that Eternal Law which is common to Gods and Men and begets the similitude between God and them Quid est enim non dicam in homine sed in omni coelo atque terra Ratione divinius quae cùm adolevit atque perfecta est nominatur ritè Sapientia Est igitur quoniam nihil est ratione melius eáque est in homine in Deo prima homini cum Deo Rationis societas Quae cùm sit lex lege quoque consociati homines cum Diis putandi sumus This harmony therefore and agreeableness of Moral Objects to our Intellectual parts is antecedent to the things themselves so that they are not good because God for example commands them but therefore they are injoyned because there is an innate Goodness in them As that a Triangle hath three Angles I learn indeed from sense but more perfectly from that innate Idea which I have in my own mind which would certainly have concluded so though it had never been the object of my senses Axiome II. That of that which is good one is better then another THis is evident from the difference and gradual declension of lives from the first root and center of all Beings There is no life so languid and unactive but ought to be reckoned among those things that are good because Being simply considered is better and more desirable then not Being although the more noble any Being is so much the better it is accounted And as there is this difference in respect of Beings themselves so likewise in reference to their felicity both in regard of it's magnitude and duration Thus the felicity of men is better then that of Brute Animals for the Happiness of any creature consists in the free enjoyment and exercise of it's natural faculties and endowments and the larger and more comprehensive the the faculties and capacities of any Being are the greater is it's felicity As to duration that a longer is better than a shorter Duration it is so palpable that it needs no further mentioning And this rule holds good in Moral qualities and affections Power it self is a Perfection though as to it's exercise it be indifferent either to Good or Evill but Wisedome is more excellent then Power forasmuch as it is able to direct guide and steer the results of Power otherwise Wisdom and Knowledge would include no more perfection then the force of a Thunderbolt or the furious agitation of a whirlwind And Goodness is more excellent and pretious then Wisdom for Wisdom without Goodness degenerates into Craft and Subtlety Moreover the properties and effects of Goodness are more diffusive and desirable then Knowledge and more perfective of the subject they reside in Axiome III. That the best or highest Quality Mode or Attribute in any Being will obtain the first place in operation FRom hence it came to pass that the Platonists considering Goodness Wisdom and Power as distinct qualities in created Beings and discerning so great an inequality between them they grew confident they would likewise retain their Essential differences when exalted into Substantial life and therefore the Supreme Deity the first root and fountain of all things Cyril lib. 8. advers Julian they call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 each one abating something of the perfection of the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But we need not ascend so high for the Explication of this Axiome for if we do but look into our selves we may plainly discern the Truth of it All the Powers of any Being are not alike some are more capacious and lively others steril narrow and contracted but that faculty which is the most pretious and Soveraign hath alwayes the first and chiefest place in acting Man as Aristotle observes consists of a double Nature Moral Eudem l. 7. c. 15. according to which his whole life is governed and framed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he calls that which the Stoicks express by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Soveraign and Imperatorial Powers of the Soul and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ferine and brutish part with the
be excogitated more infallible for the Exploration of whatever falls under humane cognizance which is in some measure made good in the following Discourse they likewise put a certain stop to the progress of Christianity throughout the World and are the greatest impediment to the dissemination of the Gospel to them that are without it being given to be the Religion of all mankind to run and be glorious and to conquer and subdue the Nations to the entertainment of it For unless we will imagine men so stupid and ignorantly devotional that they will embrace any thing though never so disagreeing with the native sentiments of their own minds it is impossible they should ever give any real and unfaigned assent to such Dogmata of Christianity as pretend to no other Author but the Eternal Logos and Wisdom of God and are propounded to rational and intellectual creatures endued with a discriminative sense and perception between truth and falshood and yet by all the reason that is in them cannot make them to appear so And though the Doctrins themselves should not be in their whole frame and contexture irrational yet if we give absurd and inconcinnous explications of them there will be as small hope and expectation that any man should be convinced and perswaded by them as if they were altogether false Such is the intellectual Fabrick of mens minds that they cannot believe or disbelieve what they will but there are certain laws and principles interwoven in the essential frame of their Natures by the great Architect of all things by which they are bound up and limited and which are the foundations of all Knowledge whether Natural Moral or Metaphysical And 't is very strange to think that infinite Wisdom which alone works constantly and evenly and according to the capacities and measures of creatures should now in this grand Mystery of the recovery of the World which of all things is the most like that high and incomprehensible intellect which gave birth unto it so deviate from the unchangeable laws of it 's own being as to propound such Articles and Propositions to the World which without the greatest reluctancy and violation of their Natural Powers and Faculties they can never fully credit or believe And questionless such a way and method of proceeding would so miserably confound the beautiful Order and Symmetry of things that beside it must necessarily engage the Divine Power to the production of a perpetual Miracle for the begetting Faith and Assent in men it likewise layes them open and obnoxious to inevitable Errors Falsities and Delusions and there will be no means left for the attaining to the truth of any thing And now let any man consider what little probability or plausibility of reason there is that such a Doctrine as this whether positively declared so in it self or made so by the perverse Glosses and Paraphrastical Expositions of others should win and gain ground upon the World and effect that purpose for which it was at first intended It was the advice and counsel of the Apostle 1 Cor. x. 32. that we give no offence either to the Jew or to the Greek whereby to alienate their minds from so excellent a Religion for there is nothing so much obstructs the diffusion of any Principles or Dogmata be they of what sort they will as when they contain something which may administer just cause of scruple and beget an aversion to it in the mind of a rational and unprejudic'd person He therefore that would bring over a free and ingenuous Spirit whether Jew or Heathen to Christianity must be sure that he assert nothing Dogmatically or positively lay it down as an indispensable Article of the Christian Faith which the other can reject upon clear and solid grounds of Reason for assuredly no part of Christianity can be repugnant to Right Reason Therefore to begin with the Jew who taking just exceptions against many Dogmata of Christianity as they are in common vogue amongst us but particularly disgusting that harsh and rigid Doctrine of Inconditionate Reprobation expresses his dislike and dissatisfaction in such like terms as these That God gave Statutes and Judgments and delivered a Law to Moses on Mount Sinai I am sufficiently convinced of from the constant and uninterrupted Tradition of our Fathers and that I am equally obliged to perform due obedience to it is in my apprehension a truth as indubitable as the other But that I should desert the Religion of my Ancestors and embrace a Novel Doctrine wholly repugnant to and inconsistent not only with the common principles of Reason but the Law of Moses and Prophetick Writings and manifestly tending to the eversion and extirpation of all Religion in the World for who will put his trust in that God who takes greater pleasure in Destroying than in Saving of his Creatures will argue as great Impiety as it will appear Fantastickness and Imprudence in the eyes of all that believe a God and Providence in the World For under the Mosaical Oeconomy God like a just and prudent Legislator makes the ground and foundation of all his Promises and Menaces to be the Obedience or Disobedience of his Subjects and Benefits are not conferred but hypothetically and with respect to the condition annexed to them nor Punishments executed but upon the actual breach and violation of a Law And beside this you tell us that when the Messias comes he will bring into the World such a Religion and Service as will most suit with our rational and intellectual Natures such as may approve it self to our inward and divine sense as truly excellent and lovely comprehending the flower and summe of whatever is Worthy Noble and Generous which you say is most lively depainted and set out to us in that which you call the Christian Religion the great Arcanum and Mystery of which according to the principles of your Doctrine seems to be this That God hath eternally Elected a certain number of persons to inherit Blessedness with him and sent his son to signifie the same to them and to publish this his decree but to cast away the rest upon the pretence of his Soveraignty and Dominion over them either therefore the coming of Christ is upon rational grounds yet expected or if he have been already manifested to the World your Religion is none of his nor was he ever the Author of it but the spurious results and effuxes of fanciful persons obtruded as necessary Articles of faith upon the World It is impossible I should ever believe that the great Creator of the Vniverse who in our Law declared himself to be The Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and who so often forgat the Crimes and Apostacies of our Forefathers when they returned and sought him with their whole heart should now so change his Nature and suspend the rayes and benign emanations of his communicative life in this which you affirm to be the last and
most perfect manifestation of himself as not only without any regard had of their just provocations but even before they became sons of sense and were born into the World to Reprobate the farr greatest part of Mankind and make them the unhappy objects of his endless displeasure And surely if he himself once judged it a less merciful and benign Oeconomy to use his Prerogative of Absolute Dominion in visiting the sins of the Fathers upon the Children though otherwise culpable and therefore confirmed it with an Oath that As he lived there should be no more cause of using that Proverb in Israel The Fathers have eaten sower Grapes and the Childrens teeth are set on edge he will not in these last dayes wherein you tell us he hath clearly explicated and unfolded his Everblessed Nature so farr derogate from his illustrious Goodness as to become more harsh and severe in making Innocency it self feel the heavy weight of an implacable vengeance Was he once so gracious as to accept of an atonement for sin and pardon iniquities upon the Oblation of an Expiatory Sacrifice and will he now have no mercy and compassion upon the blameless works of his own hands who never offended unless it were in acting according to those principles his own good hands placed in them The first man was not turned out of Paradise and condemned to manure the Earth till he rebelled against his Maker and tasted of the tree of Knowledge but according to your Doctrine the souls of men are no sooner created but immediately thrown out of those armes which then embraced them into a state of bitterness and sorrow a region of malediction which both God and man abhorr In a word therefore if the long-expected Messias have propagated this Doctrine in the World I dare not be so treacherous to God and Reason as to entertain what in my apprehension they both plainly deny Having seen the just exceptions of the Jew against Christianity occasioned by that precarious Assertion of Irrespective Decrees which to every discerning eye appears a mighty impediment and hinderance to the planting in them a true value and esteem of the Doctrine of the Holy Jesus We may in the next place attend a while to the Heathen who though he be deprived of those clear Declarations of the Nature and Mind of God which Christians do plentifully enjoy yet having the principles of good and evil just and unjust displayed upon his Nature by the bountiful maker of all things and Truth being alwayes like it self in however various subjects it may reside thus bespeaks those vain Theologasters who out of an imprudent zeal think no man well till he entertain their nice and impertinent Doctrines When I look into the outward Fabrick of the corporeal world and revolve the exact Order Symmetry and Beauty of the external Creation how every thing acts regularly within it's own Sphear and all conspire to the mutual good and perfection of the whole I cannot but acknowledg the existence of an Eternal mind from whose pregnant fecundity this great ball of the Earth the blew Ethereal skie and whatever lies hid and undecerned within the vast capacities of immense space received their being and subsistence From this exuberant source of Goodness did mine and the souls of all mankind flow and those various orders and degrees of rational beings which tast the bounty of their Creator in their several stations and capacities and all these though in different measures and proportions he loves and cares for and takes an infinite delight and complacency to see them all exert those â—ital powers he was pleased to bestow upon them For I cannot think that God made any of his creatures to be miserable or that he should so much darken the early rayes of his Paternal benignity in bringing them into being by making their Existence a burden to them and serve for no other end then for a protraction of their miseries least of all can I without a manifest violation of my faculties yield my assent to that horrid Doctrine which you maintain and propound as necessary to be believed by every one who expects a blessed immortality with the Gods above viz. That the Benigne and All-wise Maker of the World did resolve from the outgoings of Eternity to destroy the greatest part of his noblest Creation and therefore decreed that out all mankind whom he intended to send down upon Earth he would oull out a small number known to him by name whom he would irresistibly without respect to their future Faith or Obedience make happy in the fruition of himself but determined without consideration or prevision of their sin and disobedience to damne and excruciate with interminable torments meeâ—ly upon his own will and pleasure all the rest of the World so soon as Death should deliver them from the infelicities and burdensome circumstances of a painful â—ife here upon Earth This I say which you exact of your Converts I have not fith enough to receive For can any ratinal person imagine That God should become a Tyrant to his creatures That he should have no compassion toward the works of his own hands Nay further That he should introduce them upon the stage of being on purpose to reproach and make them miserable that let them do what they can in order to their future Blessedness they should be befriended of none nor ever pitied by the tender bowels of that Almighty Goodness which first brought them forth but lie as unfortunate marks against which the arrows of Divine vengeance are perpetually levell'd and their cries no more regarded by the Father of Spirits then the groans of dying Victims by those insolent and unpitiful Deities to whom they are offer'd and which yet casts a greater stain and blot upon the Oeconomy of your God that he might not seem to condemn the innocent but to act under the specious pretext of Justice you make him first design then plot and contrive their ruine which to effect that he might set the better face upon it he enacts a Law entailing a sure and severe punishment upon the breach of it and in the mean time not only not affords those whom he intends to destroy the least strength imaginable to perform it but on the contrary by an overruling and uncontroulable power which some of your Authors magnifie as the fairest gemme in his beautiful Crown of Glory necessitates them to have a vile commerce and correspondence with Sin and Hell that the beams and rayes of his Justice may shine with the more dazeling Lustre in their perdition and destruction but as for those whom his discriminative love selected to the participation of his own pacate felicity and beatitude the same unlimited power most effectually carries them on through all states and conditions winking at their most enormous and hainous lapses perhaps into Adultery and Murder or other course Impieties and never forsakes them till they they are brought to the quiet possession of what was