iniquities prevailed against him Psal 65.3 When St. Paul cried out Who shall deliver me from this body of death And another time when he could say I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me 2. A second dispensation of Grace is that which I called quickening grace An influx of the spirit of grace upon the soul by which the soul in all its spiritual conversation is made more free and lively that it maketh haste and delayeth not to keep the Lord's Commandments It findeth an inlarged heart and runneth the way of the Lords Commandments that this proceedeth from an influx of grace is plain David prayeth unto the Lord that he would quicken him in the way of his Commandments Quicken me in thy way Psal 119.37 It is as manifest upon the experience of all Christians that God distributeth this influence of this grace unequally neither the like measures unto all Christians nor to the same Christians at all times Hence are the complaints of Christians of the dulness and deadness and straitness of their hearts they indeed through grace keep on in the Lords ways and are kept from Apostacy they return not with the Dog to the vomit but they move heavily the wheels of their Charots are taken off they almost force themselves to duties of Communion with God and do not find a freedom to them and a delight and sweetness in them but are secretly saying within themselves When will the Sabbath be done When will the duty be over it is no pleasure to them to serve the Lord when-as at other times their souls are full of spiritual life they are longing for Sabbaths and for times of prayer 3. Lastly There are also dispensations of consolatory grace these are the influences of the Spirit of God upon the soul by which the soul is refreshed and comforted in the apprehensions of the love of God These admit of a variety of degrees as they arise in the soul either 1. From the view of the souls own sincerity and its ability to apprehend its interest in the promises and to apply the Scripture unto it self Or 2. From some more extraordinary witnessings and sealings of the holy Spirit who you know is called the Comforter and who as the Apostle speaketh witnesseth together with our spirits that we are the children of God Now the sadness and dejections of some Christians spirits over others and of the same Christians Spirits at some times more than others is a sufficient evidence of the inequality of these distributions There was a time when David himself cried out When wilt thou comfort me Psal 119.82 as much as at other times he triumphed and made his boast in God and from hence now you may understand the nature of what we call Desertions God never leaves nor forsakes his people so as he doth not supply them with influences of Grace sufficient to uphold the Union betwixt Christ and their souls nor doth he deny such influences to any soul that believeth in Christ But God may and doth often withdraw himself as to the gradual manifestations of himself to them in such dispensations of grace whereby he strengtheneth them against sin or unto duty or whereby he quickneth them and maketh them free and lively in his Service or finally such whereby he comforteth them with the apprehensions or assurances of his love in Christ Now these varieties being observable in matter of fact in the dispensations of Divine grace even to Gods own children My next work must be to shew you the reasonableness of the motions of Divine Providence in this unequal distribution and to proportion some answer to these following Questions 1. Quest Why God suffereth some more than others to be tempted and to fall by temptation yea some of his own people 2. Quest Whence it is that some of the children of God find much more strength unto spiritual duty than others find and the same children of God at some time find more strength than they do at others times 3. Quest Whence it is that some godly persons find more freedom and liveliness in the service of God than others do and the same persons find more liveliness and freedom at one time than they do at another 4. Quest Whence it is that some Christians are more full of spiritual joy and consolations than others are To these which properly relate to the varieties before observed Two more may also be added 5. Quest Whence it is that godly persons who are all informed by the same spirit of truth have such different apprehensions of the things of God one from another and that some times in very momentous points 6. Quest Lastly Whence it is that some Christians grow faster in grace than others do 1. Quest Why God suffereth some yea some of his own dear servants to be more tempted than others yea and when he knoweth that they will fall That it is so is past all dispute Satan obtained leave of God to tempt Job and Christ told Peter that he had desired to winnow him like wheat he tempted David to number the people The Text saith that Satan stood up against Israel and we know that Satan prevailed against all these And it is expresly said concerning Hezekiah that God left him to his temptations 2 Chron. 32.31 And we see it in daily experience that some of the people of God are both much more buffetted by Satans temptations and overcome by them than others are wanting strength to say get thee behind me Satan 1. In the first place I do think much of this is founded or at least highly advantaged from nature Concerning temptations which are à carne from the flesh when a man is only drawn away by his own lust There is nothing more certain than that divers persons have more strong inclinations and dispositions to some sins than unto others and there needeth a more eminent assistance of Divine grace to restrain such lusts in such souls and although it be true concerning such temptations as are impressions or suggestions from Satan that they are not natural but preternatural yet one soul may have a more natural aptitude to receive them either from its complexion and constitution or from its disease and distemperature under which it may at some time labour more than another and this may by one and that a great cause For God is not always nor ordinarily pleased to work miraculously It is usually said of Melancholy that it is balneum diaboli a melancholick temper state or constitution of body is a temper very receptive of impressions and suggestions from the Devil Now I say where a man is naturally more complexionated to some sins or where any persons are from their complexion or from some bodily distemper more apt to receive such kind of impressions it cannot be expected but that they should fall oftner into such temptations and be troubled more with them and by them than other Christians who have not those natural disadvantages and
not with Observation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that 's the Original phrase we translate with Observation There are divers interpretations given of that Text Not with a superstitious observation of days months and years so some make the sense according to that of the Apostle to the Galatians You observe days and months and years I am afraid of you c. And Rom. 14 17 The kingdom of God is not in meat and drink but righteousness and peace Some understand it of external Observations of meat and drink such as God had commanded to the Jews but the most and most valuable Interpreters agree in one of these two senses which indeed well considered both make but one 1. So as it may or can be observed Thus Brugensis Piscator and Beza who indeed translates it Ita ut observari possit so as it can be observed Theophylact understands it of the time so as the time cannot be fixed nor the place neither It followeth Neither shall they say Lo here is Christ or lo there 2. Not with a worldly Pomp Splendor or Ceremony Thus Stella Chemnitius Erasmus Piscator c. This is the same indeed with the other and therefore they generally add ut observari possit we do not use to observe the coming of a Kingdom but by observing some Pomp Splendor c. preliminary to it Now saith Christ the Kingdom of God cometh not so as it can be observed it stealeth upon men and surprizeth them it cometh not by observation Christ indeed hath given us general signs of his second coming and of the end of the World c. But he hath also added Of that day and hour knoweth no man I suppose the same thing is to be said as to the Promises for calling the Jews for the expected peace and tranquillity of the Church of God when the usual years shall begin c. Believe the thing pray wait that is all which we have to do in the case SERMON XIX Psalm CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. I Am yet proceeding in recommending to you some further Observations I have made upon the motions of Actual Providence in the execution of the eternal Counsels and Purposes of God and fulfilling his Word whether of Promise or Threatning Four I have done with A Fifth I shall now offer and discourse a little upon it 5th Observ The Actual Providence of God in the production of its great works relating to his Church or the particular members of it doth ordinarily suit or fit the circumstances of the world or the circumstrances of particular persons to the work he intendeth to produce I say Ordinarily Every Rule must have some Exception especially such Rules as upon observation we fix concerning the methods of Divine Providence The infinitely wise God treadeth not always in the same steps I say in his great works relating either to the Church or to such particular persons as are members of it These two I before told you were the great Objects of Special Providence As Canaan of old was the Land which God cared for upon which his Eye was from the beginning of the year to the end of it so his Church still is and to the end of the World will be the object of his more special care and with reference to which Providence produceth its most remarkable works Hence you shall observe throughout all the Scripture though mention be made of such other Sons as the Patriarchs had and other Nations and Princes contemporary with those of the Jews are named yet very little of their story is recorded and that only subservient to the story that was to keep a Record of Gods dealings with his own people This makes me restrain the Observation to the Church and Members of it and that which I recommend to your remark is Gods ordinary fitting the circumstances of the adjacent world which lyes round about the Church as the mountains about Hierusalem or the Nations of old about Canaan to what he is producing in his Church and the particular circumstances of persons to the work God hath to produce more eminent with relation unto them 1. I will shew you this with reference to the productions of Providence relating to the collective body of his people which we call the Church 2. With reference to particular persons that have relation to this body in matters of an outward concern 3. With reference unto the souls of his people in matters of a more inward and spiritual concern 1. With reference to the great products of Providence relating to the body of his people called the Church 1. The Jews you know under the Old Testament were the only people that could lay claim to this great Name To whom God was nigh in the midst of whom he dwelt whom he so often delivered and for whom he so signally engaged Great works of Providence we read of relating to them their deliverance out of Egypt and conduct through the wilderness their bringing out of Babylon after their seventy years Captivity and re-building their Temple and City The sending of the Messiah When the Providence of God sets about these works let us observe how God fitted circumstances to these great products making every thing beautiful in his time as Solomon saith in Eccles 3.11 In the bringing of the Children of Israel out of Egypt God did two things 1. He brought out the Jews out of a Nation where they had been bred and lived some hundreds of years His Providence now fitteth circumstances to this it suffereth the King of Egypt most miserably to oppress them so as they were weary of their lives It is hardly else conceivable that they would willingly have quitted their possessions and their Native-Countrey to obtain a land promised 400 years before and that not without overcoming the difficulties of an houling wilderness and many years fighting The Providence of God also destroyeth Egypt by Ten successive plagues else the King and his Servants would never have let so many 100000 persons go out of their Dominions Circumstances were fitted by God to the design of his Providence they must be grievously oppressed that they may be made willing to go and Pharaohs People and Nation must be destroyed that he may suffer them to get into a body for a march and furnish them with a viaticum for their journey Pharaoh and his Army must be destroyed alas the Israelites are in no circumstances fit to fight them the Sea shall divide it self they shall see the Israelites go through safely as on dry ground this shall allure them to follow them then the waters shall return and swallow them up 2. God brings this people out of Babylon he had promised that after 70 years they should come out Cyrus he conquers Babylon just at that time and it was his interest to let them go as much as it was the interest of the Kings of Babylon
fear God are rich honourable mighty in power men of good estates prospering in the world there was a rich Abraham a rich Joseph a great man in Egypt and a rich Joseph of Arimathea David the man according to Gods own heart was a great Prince so was Solomon nay as I said before were we not deceived by the odds in the number of Sinners and Saints I doubt whether we should not find that God with the good things of this life doth not more universally bless his own servants than he doth others 2. Suppose that some yea that many of the People of God in this world are tossed with tempests and afflicted yet surely there is none of them but hath sin enough to justifie God in their punishments of this nature I have in my former discourses proved to you that notwithstanding the satisfaction which Christ hath paid to the Justice of his Father and the Covenant of Grace made betwixt Christ and his Father on the behalf of his Elect and the pardoning of their sins yet it is consistent enough with Divine Justice to punish the sins of Gods own People with the afflictions and punishments of this life they may be chastened of the Lord that they may not be condemned with the world 1 Cor. 11.32 Now the most righteous man sinneth seven times a day nor doth any know how often he offendeth and why should a living man complain a man for the punishment of his iniquity Lam. 3. 3. If you could imagine any person to have lived so innocently as that he had not by his personal sins deserved those temporal afflictions with which God visiteth him yet as you have heard God may visit the sins of Parents of proparents upon Children and afflictions of this nature may come upon good people although not for their personal sins yet for the sins of their Parents and this is but righteousness with God as I have heretofore shewed you in a set discourse upon that Subject 4. But there is yet a fourth thing which I would speak to a little more fully in answer to this Question and that indeed takes away the Subject of the question upon the point As I said of the good things of this life they are not truly good so I may say of the evil things of this life they are not truly evil as the other are but larvata bona such things as have but a Vizard of goodness so these are but larvata mala such things as have but a shew and appearance of evil in them they are only sensible evils and our senses do but cheat our Souls in judging them evil This I will spend a little time to evince to you 1. In the first place These are not those things which desile the Soul It was a saying of Augustines There is a great deal of difference betwixt a mans being evil and suffering evil Many a Soul is made better by affliction none is made worse by it unless it be by accident Nothing but sin defileth a Soul a man may be poor in this world yet rich in grace he may have a sickly body yet an healthy Soul he may be ignoble in the world yet have the honour to be called the Child of God those things alone are evil which make the Soul filthy and unclean in the sight of God Afflictions tend to make the Soul white to purge it and to cleanse it they are therefore compared to fire and help to make our faith to appear more precious than Gold that perisheth they do not prejudice a Soul as to its grace nor yet as to its glory none was ever condemned by God because he was sickly or low in the world Afflictions are only ingrateful to our sense grievous to our flesh but as to our Soul and inward man they touch it not they do only sully the surface of a man they do no injury to all to his better part This Argument is plain what doth the Soul of a Christian no hurt is no evil Why should I call that evil which neither ever did me any hurt nor ever will 2. The Afflictions of this life are such things as the best of Gods people have chosen and preferred before the contrary supposed good This is a piece of that answer which Salvian long since gave to this difficulty of Providence Humiles sunt Religiosi hoc volunt pauperes sunt pauperie delectantur sine ambitione ambitum respuunt in honore sunt honorem respuunt lugent lugere gestiunt infirmi sunt infirmitate delectantur Salvian de Prov. Are good people saith he in a low condition they desire to be so Are they poor they are pleased with poverty they without ambition refuse the objects of ambition hunt not after great things Are they without honour they refuse the honours of this world Do they mourn they rejoyce to mourn Are they weak they triumph in their weakness Heb. 11.24 By faith Moses refused to be called the Son of Pharaoh's daughter chusing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt The Apostle refused Simon Magus his mony and that with a more than ordinary detestation Agur indeed prayeth against extreme poverty as a condition exposing him to temptation but he also upon the same account prayeth against Riches Lord saith he give me neither poverty nor riches Most glady saith the blessed Apostle 2 Cor. 12.10 will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me therefore I take pleasure in my infirmities in reproaches in necessities in persecutions in distresses for Christs sake for when I am weak then am I strong The Apostles sing in Prison and rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ The primitive Christians suffered joyfully the spoiling of their goods No man chuseth what he apprehendeth evil but those things the world call evils have very ordinarily been the choice of the best and most judicious servants of God 3. How can those things be called evils which have a tendency to make the man better Afflictions both from Gods intention and their own nature have a tendency to the making of the Souls of Saints better God intends them for that purpose for they are his fatherly Providence for them all those twigs which make up the rods with which God lasheth his people grow out of the root and stock of Divine love The rods with which God scourgeth Sinners are gathered of a Tree that standeth upon the brink of the bottomless pit but those with which God chastiseth his people are gathered of a Tree that stands in the midst of the Paradise of God Nay afflictions have in themselves a tendency to better the Souls of Saints They are but like a warm wall to the fruit-Tree which makes the fruit fairer you observe that young Children shoot out in sickness you
in me is thy help I Am now come to the second general Proposition which I promised you to discourse upon a little In my last exercise I discoursed to you of the Fountain of Life and Grace which we found to be the free-will of God There is no other account to be given of Gods shewing mercy but because he will shew mercy which is most certainly true as of Gods eternal acts of Grace so of his Acts of Providence as to the dispensation of his first Grace The next Proposition I mentioned was this 2. Prop. That God in his providential Dispensations of punishment never acteth by meer Prerogative but according to the demerit of his Creatures In his Dispensations of Grace and the means of it he acteth meerly from his own Will he will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy and there is no other account to be given of those Dispensations he sendeth the Gospel to this place rather than another because he will send it he changeth this Man or Womans heart and turneth it to himself because he will shew mercy But the case is otherwise in his penal Dispensations there God acteth not upon Prerogative God there hath a Prerogative for may not the Potter do what he will with his Clay But it is one thing to have Jus absolutum an absolute right and power which we must claim for God so long as we know him to have an absolute right and Soveraignty over the works of his hands 't is another thing for God agere secundum jus absolutum to act according to his Soveraignty and absolute power this we say God doth not I pray observe I restrain my Discourse to Gods Dispensations of actual Providence I shall not meddle with the eternal Councils of God in this case that is quite beyond my Subject propounded It is unquestionable that the punishments of Sinners both in this Life and that which is to come as well as the other great issues of his Providence concerning the rewards of righteous men were set in order by an Eternal deliberation but whether by a meer negative or positive Decree whether upon consideration of sin or no are points I am not at all concerned to interest my self in having all along restrained my discourse to the motions of Actual Providence and certain it is that God in those Dispensations doth punish none either here or hereafter meerly because he will but upon consideration of Sinners demerits Shewing mercy is an Act of Grace punishments are Acts of Justice The gift of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Eternal Life that is a guift and what is freer than gift But the Wages of Sin is Death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Man must earn Death before he hath it from the hand of a merciful God but Eternal Life must be given him if ever it be his Portion so saith my Text. O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self I will open this in two or three conclusions 1. I understand it of all kind of destructions possibly the Text may chiefly relate to temporal destructions 't is Ephraim to whom the Prophet is speaking and it is about a bodily destruction but the Conclusion is general and the Text is well enough applyed by Divines to Eternal destruction all destructions whether of Body or Soul are of our selves yea I take the Aphonimy of the Text to be more eminently true of the destruction of the Soul than of the destruction of the Body A Child may dye for the sins of the Parents Subjects may dye for the sin of their Prince as in the case of Saul's Children that were hanged in David's time and in the case of those many thousands which in David's time were cut off for his sin in numbring of the People The Children of God may be involved in a common destruction and suffer as they are a part of a sinful Nation God may take them off to deliver them from an evil to come as in the case of Abijam the Son of Jeroboam God may punish his people with afflictions of this Life for the trial and exercise of their graces but in Eternal destructions God can have no other end than the punishment of the person and all such destruction is for a mans sin his personal sin 3. When we say that Mens destruction is of themselves you must understand of themselves as the meritorious cause not of themselves as the principal efficient cause God is rightly enough entituled to all the Evil of punishment in the City It is no dishonour to his Majesty to be the Author of his own Judgments which is all that Mr. Calvin or any of the same mind with him have said which hath made some so clamour against them as having asserted God to be the Author of Sin For God to be the Author of punishments is no stain to his Glory but a Declaration of his Justice and of his Righteousness Christ himself shall come as the Apostle telleth us in flaming fire to take Vengeance upon them who know not God and obey not his glorious Gospel God shall say to those on his left hand depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels But our destruction is from our selves as the proximate and meritorious cause though from God as the efficient cause It is not from the Soveraign will of God meerly but from the stubborn and rebellious will of Man that any Soul perisheth Divines do say that though God cannot will the doing of any Sin yet he may will that it should be done The Holy Ghost telleth us that Herod and Pilate and the Jews employed in accusing condemning crucifying of Christ did no more than what the Council of God had determined should be done But I say notwithstanding this the proximate cause of mans Damnation is not because God hath willed their Damnation it is the guilt of their own Sins the demerit of their own Transgressions which bringeth them to the Pit of Destruction The Gracious God sheweth mercy and saveth all who are saved by Prerogative by Grace you are saved saith the Apostle he hath the same Prerogative in matters of Death that he hath in matters of Life but he useth it not but there acteth according to his Statute-Law The Soul that sinneth shall dye He who saveth men without themselves damneth none without themselves Men are saved by Grace but they are damned by Sin The wages of Sin is Death Omne peccatum est voluntarium all Sin is of ourselves it must have something of our own will and consent to and in it 3. Thirdly Although this be certain that all destruction all punishment is for Sin yet the particular proximate cause of some punishments is unknown to us I will instance in one particular a punishment undoubtedly a most severe punishment The withholding the Gospel and so the ordinary means of Grace and Salvation from the far greatest part of the world They hear nothing of the Lord Jesus
life and peace A carnal mind doth not onely bring a Soul to eternal death in the last issue of it but it puts a great death upon his Life and Peace I mean his Spiritual Life and Peace It is impossible that the Soul that is intangled in the businesses of the World in a more than ordinary manner should find his Soul either so free for or so strong in the performances of spiritual duty as that Soul who hath less of the cares and business or concerns of the world upon it The Soul of a Man is not infinite in its powers and cannot be with equal degrees of intention employed upon two different much less contrary things While we are in the world we must be conversing with the men of the world and handling the things of the world we must else as the Apostle speaks in the case of converse with sinners Go out of the world but the less the Soul is ingaged in them the less the Heart is set upon them and its intention and affections taken up with them therefore it will be more free as to its spiritual business and stronger in the performance of it Let every one therefore learn that excellent lesson of the Apostle 1 Cor. 7.29 30. Let those that have Wives be as though they had none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not and they that buy as they that possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing it 3. Thirdly Be diligent in waiting upon God in the institutions of his publick worship and consciencious in such attendance The Preaching of the Word of God is the great Ordinance of God for perfecting the Saints both as to their number by the work of Conversion and as to their graces by giving out further measures and manifestations of himself to his peoples Souls he createth the fruit of the Lips peace Christians therefore who wait for these influences are concerned to wait upon the Lord in his own way It was Gods ancient promise That wheresoever he recorded his name to dwell there be would meet his people and bless them And considering that although the blessing of Grace doth not depend upon the Instrument let Paul plant and Apollos Water God must give the increase and he that planteth is nothing nor he that watereth any thing yet God dealing with reasonable Souls useth to deal with them in reasonable wayes I do not think it enough for Christians to go to Church and hear Discourses out of Pulpits but to wait upon God under such Preaching of his Word as may appear and approve it self to them as having a rational tendency to the improvements of their Soul in Grace There are kinds of Preaching under which a Christian may sit long enough before he find his Soul quickened or strengthened or improved by them You may remember I gave you that as one reason why some receive more gradual manifestations of Divine Love than others because they have better means than others have or make a better use of means than others do I take a consciencious use of the more external means to lie much in three things 1. In a good election of them 2. In a sincere and diligent attendance upon them 3. In an after repetition of them to our selves and a more private application of them to our own hearts 1. I say first in a good election of them Though Preaching of the Word be the general means yet the Preacher and way of Preaching makes a vast difference in this means and the concurrence of God to all the purposes of Grace is upon experience found to be evidently more where the means appear in the eye of reason more proper If the Preacher ordinarily preacheth not to the understanding and capacity of the hearer or not to the conscience and hearts of hearers but fills up his time with other things impertinent to the Souls Spiritual Duty or wraps up his Duty in such Parables and Mysteries of Phraise and Abstruseness of Notions that the hearer can make nothing of it he can have little hope to profit by it and he will shew little conscience in attendance upon them Our Saviour you know gives this account why he spake to the Scribes and Pharisees and ordinary Jews in Parables but to his Disciples opened those Parables and spake more plainly and intelligibly Mat. 13.13 14. Therefore speak I to them in Parables because they in seeing see not and in hearing bear not neither do they understand and in them is fulfilled the Prophecy of the Prophet Isaias c. but v. 16. Blessed are your Eyes for they see and your Ears for they hear 2. Secondly In a sincere and diligent attendance upon them That Soul which will meet God in his Ordinances must in hearing hear he must go out with a design to meet God and he must hoc agere while he is waiting upon God Our Saviour asks his Disciples when they had been hearing John the Baptist What they went out for to to see It is a question we should all propound to our selves when we go to wait upon God in his Ordinances Now what doth my Soul go out for to do what is its end in this motion God ordinarily meeteth his People according to the sincerity of their designs which indeed maketh their attendances upon God seekings or not seekings of Gods Face 3. It lies in a practical application and whetting the Word hard upon our hearts and consciences This is the digesting of the Word this now is a piece of Holiness of great import to those that seek after the further manifestations of God and higher measures of Grace any growing whether it be in Faith or Love Nor is the Reading andPreaching of the Word onely to be attended but the Holy Sacraments also Baptism which we have generally received in our Infancy to be improved And the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to be conscienciously attended There is a great improvement to be made of Baptism in order to our Spiritual Strength and Vigour I have handled that in a particular Discourse in some of your hearing and must not now enlarge upon it it is our great error that we make no more use of our Baptism than we do The Apostle Rom. 6. draweth great arguments from it to strengthen us unto Holiness The Sacrament of the Lords Supper is called by the Apostle The Communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ The meaning of that I do not understand if it doth not signifie That it is an Ordinance wherein if it be duly and conscienciously attended upon Christ doth communicate the vertue of his death Now I am sure all Christs manifestations to the Souls of his People are a part of that purchase It is true it doth not necessarily work these effects nor is God bound necessarily in this manner to concurre with it he is a free agent in all his effluxes of Divine
the people of God be good and for good and the products both of infinite wisdom and of infinite goodness It is our unhappiness that we judg of events to us in this world by sense and not according to faith This maketh us call many things evil indeed there is nothing can happen to a good man truly evil for the hand of his Father must be in it Providence must have the ordering of it and never did the hand of a good Father knowingly mix a potion of poison to his child and with his own hand give it him to drink We do not ask evil of God and he that heareth our prayers will not when we ask him bread give us a stone nor when we ask him a fish give us a Scorpion If we that are evil know how to give good things to those that ask them of us much more doth our heavenly Father know how to give good things to his children asking them of him In this we may be secure If the Providence of God influenceth all the events of the world he so regulates them that although they may prove sensible joyless and afflictive evils yet they shall never prove real evils to those that fear God but in the issue appear the products as of infinite wisdom so also of infinite goodness Thus far this Doctrine of Divine Providence is a great fountain of consolation to the people of God But lastly Let us enquire what duty we may conclude from hence and that is very much I shall instance in some few particulars 1. Is there a Divine Providence and doth this influence all beings motions actions events c Let us learn then the duty of faith to commit all our ways unto God to trust in him and depend upon him It is a duty we are often in Scripture called to and that with respect to our persons and with respect to our affairs and ways 1 Pet. 4.19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls unto him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator Our Saviour presseth it in opposition to two things 1. In opposition to the fear of man Matt. 10.28 29 30 And fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father But the very hairs of your head are numbred Fear you not therefore for you are of more value than many sparrows 2. Again He presseth it in opposition to too great sollicitude Matth. 6.25 Therefore I say unto you Take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink nor yet for your body what you shall put on This he presseth from Gods Providence for the Lillies the Birds c. vers 26 27 28 29 30 31. 2. With respect to our affairs and the events of things in the world so far as they concern us 1. Pet. 5.7 Casting all your care upon him for he careth for you Psal 55.22 Cast thy burden upon the Lord for he shall sustain you Psal 37.3 Trust in the Lord and do good Vers 5. Commit thy way unto the Lord trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass Prov. 16.3 Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established Man troubleth himself in vain both with care and fear the Child of God especially We cannot let God alone to rule and govern the world But surely if there be a God in the world an immense and infinite Being that filleth all places and infinitely active seeing and hearing all things and this God is not idle but influenceth all beings all motions and actions of beings all suspensions omissions and cessations of action in the creature all events and if he hath any Children people or servants in the world whom he loveth delighteth in careth for these people may trust him and commit themselves and their ways to him and it is their duty so to do Who may trust God who may commit their ways unto him if these should not Let me therefore say with the Psalmist Psal 115.9 10 11. O Israel trust thou in the Lord O house of Aaron trust in the Lord you that fear the Lord trust in the Lord. Be not over-solicitous be not sinfully afraid as to any events There is a God that ruleth in the earth that overseeth the world But this trusting in God must be 1. In doing good Trust in the Lord and do good Psal 37.3 Our souls must be committed to the Lord in well-doing 1 Pet. 4.19 There is no trusting in the Lord without walking in his way The unholy walking man hath no ground to trust God for any good he hath no promise to bottom his trust upon We must trust God in an holy walking 2. We must notwithstanding the Providence of God trust God in the use of proper means The reason for this is because the Precept commandeth the use of lawful means Trusting of God is indeed exclusive of the use of unlawful means but it always includeth the use of means that are proper and lawful To refuse proper and lawful means and talk of trusting God is to tempt him not to trust him 3. It includeth also the use of Religious means such as the waiting upon God in the use of his Ordinances The word Sacraments and Prayer For these things saith God I will be enquired of by the house of Israel Prayer is a general means instituted by God for the obtaining of any mercy But I say supposing these three things That a Child of God keepeth in the Lords way and hath used all proper means for an event which he hath desired and sought the Lord for by Prayer This Doctrine of Divine Providence sheweth him the highest reason imaginable for his committing both his person and his ways unto the Lord without any anxious sollicitude or distracting fears Because he is the Lord who careth for us therefore we should cast our care on him 2. A second thing which I shall press upon you as your duty and consequent to this Doctrine of Providence is a pious security in all conditions and with respect to all events There is a sinful security which all good men ought to avoid and to take heed of Security is the freedom of the mind from care as to this or that thing Now this is sinful two ways 1. When the ground of it is some carnal confidence a relying on some arm of flesh Cursed be he saith the Prophet that trusteth in man and makes flesh his arm Thus the Jews were often secure upon the view of their great allies and confederates Assyria and Egypt In like manner people may be secure upon the account of their relations and interests or the power and favour of men We are commanded to cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils and the Psalmist tells us It is better to trust in the
the face of the Earth God at first said Let the earth bring forth grass Gen. 1.11 He sendeth the grass of the field Deut. 11.15 He causeth it to grow for the cattel and herb for the service of man He multiplyeth the beasts of the field the birds and fowls of the air He leaveth us not without witness but giveth fruitful times and seasons filling the hearts of men with food and gladness 3. From whence is it but from the influence of God upon his Creatures that Creatures universally and ordinarily avoid the eating of such things as would be noxious to them and many creatures if they be distempered are directed to such things as will cure them But this is enough to have spoken to the second Conclusion 3 Concl. Thirdly God preserveth living Creatures by upholding those faculties in all living creatures upon the operations of which their lives are preserved their species are propagated and they are to propagate their species and to perform those actions which are proper to their several Beings and natures To uphold the Creation as to those things in it which have life there are divers faculties necessary which must be upheld here are four sorts mentioned in the Conclusion Let me speak a little to each of them It will be of excellent use to convince you of the necessity of a Divine influence or Providence upon you every moment 1. The first sort are those By which the Beings the lives and beings of Creatures are preserved and encreased to their due proportion These are those which belong to those principal faculties which the Philosophers calls Facultatem altricem auctricem I will put them together and instance in divers particulars We are craving changeable creatures subject to wasts and decays in our beings and we must have a Nutritive faculty or we could not live The action of this faculty is called Nutrition or Nourishing Now our nourishing depends upon our food the change of our food in our stomachs by the natural heat of our stomachs and this dependeth upon several powers which God hath created in all sensitive creatures in the upholding of which the daily Providence of God is wonderfully experienced although possibly not so wistly observed and considered by us as it ought to be Let me a little awaken you to a due consideration of it by instancing in several Particulars 1. In the first place We have a power a natural power to crave and desire food Without an appetite the creature desires no food can take none though it be set before him but instead of it the very sight of it maketh him sick he loatheth and abhorreth it and calleth to have it taken away out of his sight as we see in daily experience Now I would know by what this faculty is upheld but by the concourse and daily operation of Providence I do not intend to divert here into a Philosophical discourse concerning the causes of a decay of our appetite It is sufficient to tell you that the causes may be various and the variety of the causes which may produce such an effect is sufficient evidence that nothing but the upholding power of Divine Providence can hinder it It is God that must give us our daily food and it is God that must give us a stomach or appetite to it and the causes are so many which may abate and destroy our appetite that did not God daily watch over us and influence us as to this very thing it were an hard thing to conceive how it should keep preserved a few days much less as it is with many to very many years 2. But suppose us to have an appetite to say nothing of our power to take and chew and swallow our food We see by a daily experience if we have not a power to digest it if the natural heat of our stomachs be from any cause abated so as it will not change our food and this continueth upon us for any time and no remedy can be apportioned to it the creature dyeth whether it be man or beast If the nap of the stomach be but worn off our bodies soon appear thredbare we pine away and presently sink into our graves by which we learn that a natural faculty power or ability to digest our food is necessary to the preservation of our beings As I said before of the Appetite so I shall say again of this I intend no discourse of the variety of causes from which such a thing may proceed but the possibility of such a thing and that as an effect of various causes evinceth a necessity of a daily influence of God upon us to uphold this faculty in its vigour and efficacy which ministreth to our nutrition 3. But thirdly suppose our food taken into our bodies concocted and digested in our stomachs that it may nourish the whole body it must be by several vessels and channels distributed to the several parts of the body So as there must be supposed a freedom from obstructions in those passages and an attractive vertue and faculty in the several parts If these passages be any way stopped or the attractive vertue abated the parts are not nourished but decay and wither the creatures being destroyed Of such obstructions we have daily examples and indeed whoso considereth the various passages in our bodies through which that part of our food which proves for nourishment passeth and the variety of obstructions to which we are subject must needs again acknowledg that our Souls must be kept in life our bodies in health meerly by a Divine Power 4. Again What we take into our bodies for our proper food being in part found either not proper for us or in too great a proportion when the stomach hath done its office there is a separation made that not proper for us or in a superfluous proportion for that end must be voided and cast out and a natural faculty to do it must be supposed which if it ceaseth but for a while or the freedom of the passages by which it passeth be obstructed the life of the creature quickly determineth Now whoso considereth the variety of powers and faculties in a living body which must be all upheld and the variety of causes from which they may be incumbred yea and quite destroyed will be forced to acknowledg the incessant influence of Divine Providence in upholding and preserving both the being and well-being of every creature that hath a sensitive life 2. But yet here is not all For in order to our nourishing not only those faculties in the body nourished which I have mentioned must be upheld But also the faculties and vertues in the bodies nourishing by which they are made nourishing to us In all nourishing there must be a body giving the nourishment as well as a body receiving it each of these must have its faculties upheld or there will be no nutrition and consequently no preservation of life Philosophy telleth us that the nourishment
a man is using his tongue to lye to his neighbour to curse him to swear profanely and to blaspheme God methinks he should thus think with himself How easily can God stop my breath withdraw that hand from my tongue which upholds my faculty to speak Methinks he should remember the instance of Ananias and Saphira and Zechariah the father of John the Baptist but for a few words of unbelief When a man is stretching out his hand to work any iniquity methinks he should remember how easily God could do by him as by Jeroboam When he stretched out his hand to lay hold of the Prophet and his hand presently withered If any of you lent your hand to one that were blind or lame and he should spit in your face revile you c. would not you think it a strange daring of you Oh! what a daring of an holy just and powerful God it is for a man wilfully and presumptuously to use a member of his body or a power or faculty of his Soul knowingly and presumptuously to sin against God Thus this Doctrine may serve to defame sin to every ingenuous soul as it necessarily must be an impudent daring of a just and holy God 2. But it defameth it further As it speaketh it an act of the highest ingratitude imaginable Ingratitude soundeth ill very ill in the ears of humane nature so ill that an Heathen could say of it Call a man an ingrateful man and you call him all that is naught it is a very great vice Every sinner must say If God had not been so good to me I had not been so evil against him The Drunkard must say If God had not assisted me to my natural action in drinking I could not have dishonoured him by that excess The like must every sinner say the lyar the swearer the adulterer God hath nothing to do with the obliquity of their action but to the action so far forth as natural his Providence assisteth upholding the natural faculties to their natural Operations And do you thus requite the Lord O foolish people Is this your thankfulness to God for Gods assistance of you in the use of your faculties for the necessary uses of your life I gave thee cloth saith God to cover thy nakedness thou makest it to serve thy pride my creatures to silence thy natural passions of hunger and thirst and thou usest it to serve thy Luxury I gave thee a tongue to interpret thy mind to thy neighbour and to praise me and I assist thee in the natural use of it thou usest it to swear curse to blaspheme my great and sacred name I gave thee an hand and assist thee in the use of it that thou mayest get bread and do the works of thy calling in order thereunto thou usest it to smite with the fist of wickedness to persecute and oppress my people Thus the sinner turneth the gifts of God into weapons with which he fighteth against him I remember a quite contrary resolution in holy David Psal 116 I will saith he take the cup of salvation and praise the Lord. I know that Poculum salutis is capable of other interpretations which are also given according to the various fancies of Interpreters But why may not we interpret it thus I will take that very mercy which thou hast shewed me and use it and improve it for thy honour and glory Certainly thus we ought to do as Hannah 1 Sam. 1. did by her child Samuel which she had begged and received of God She takes her child and at the return of the year carrieth him up to Hierusalem and saith For this child I prayed and the Lord heard me hath given me my Petition which I asked of him Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord as long as he liveth he shall be lent unto the Lord. But of this more under the next head to which I now come to shew you how far what you have heard may be useful 2. To promove piety and that both in the internal and external acts of it in the more immediate acts of homage which we are to pay to God and in all the duties of an holy and pious conversation before men in obedience to the will of God It is not hard to understand upon this hypothesis that God doth thus concur in the assistance of all our natural faculties in order to the preserving of us how reasonable it is that we should be in the fear of the Lord all the day long That we should live in an exercise of faith trust and dependency upon him That we should love the Lord at all times And for acts of more external immediate homage prayer and praise c. How reasonable a thing is prayer morning and evening doest thou not remember it is God that must concur to give thee sleep in the night a power to breath to move to work to eat to drink c. and give me leave to tell you if you do not think the sleep of the night or a strength to labour in the day an appetite to thy meat a power to digest it a liberty and power to breath mercies worth the asking it is because thou hast not wanted them much will you not every day have need of the use of your senses your hands your tongue your feet your ears c do not you think them mercies worth the asking Go to the lame and the blind and the deaf and those that lye on sick-beds and enquire of them they will better instruct you in the value of these things Do not you know what to pray for so often this Doctrine will shew you in part pray that God would preserve your life and being uphold your powers and faculties c. And Praise is as reasonable as Prayer you are every day fearfully and wonderfully preserved By whose power is it as Peter and James said to the people when they had cured the lame man Not by our power but by the power of Jesus of Nazareth doth this man walk So give me leave to tell you it is not by your own power nor by the meer vertue of your own faculties with which you are born that you sleep walk discourse work but by the mighty power of God concurring and assisting those faculties Particularly you may hence conclude the reasonableness of that Religious custom which some have bruitishly cast off begging a blessing upon your meat at meals and giving thanks after receit of it Lastly Certainly this Meditation well digested cannot but highly promove all manner of practical holiness For what is holiness but the obedience of the members of our bodies and powers and faculties of our Souls to the Will of God the exercise of them all according to the Divine Rule and the end for which he gave them to us and what can be more perswasive to this than for us to hear that as God hath given these powers so God upholdeth them in exercise in him we live
in gold in silver and in brass And in cutting of stones to set them and in carving of wood to make any manner of cunning work Exod. 35.31 32 33 34. and it is said that God filled him and Aholiab with wisdom of heart to work all manner of work of the engraver and of the cunning workman and of the embroiderer in blue purple and in scarlet and in fine linnen and of the weaver even of them that do any work and devise any cunning work v. 35. 2. The Providence of God in this thing is eminently discerned in disposing men to these several employments So that as in the natural body there are several members and every member is inclined and naturally disposed to its particular office by which the several uses and necessities of the body-natural are supplied So in bodies politick as there is a great variety of members so the several members of it are by the wise Providence of God disposed and inclined to the learning and practice of several Arts and Sciences Trades and Occupations by which the uses of the whole are supplied as well as the several individuals in the Society enabled to get themselves a subsistence yet in the service of the publick This is a great piece of Divine Providence One man is disposed to husbandry unless some were so disposed however slavish and dirty the employment be the Nation could not be fed others to the making of Cloaths and Stuffs and Linnens if none were so disposed though the whole might be fed they could not be cloathed One works in iron and brass for more necessary uses another in gold and silver for Ornaments and more fine and delicate uses One man is disposed to study Physick Law Divinity and cannot endure hard labour another is of a more slavish and servile disposition no ways disposed to learning and studies All this is from the Lord and by this working of his Providence the uses of all are supplied and so Political Societies are by this means preserved We have now considered man 1. In his single and individual capacity And. 2. In his Social and Political capacity and shewn you several acts of Divine Providence by which God in either preserveth him But we have yet a third capacity to consider him in that is his spiritual capacity as a creature possessed of the grace of God the Grace of Justification and the Grace of Sanctification As to this he is in a peculiar sense Gods creature often by Saint John said to be born of God and as to this likewise he is preserved by God 1 Pet. 1.5 You are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation Indeed a discourse upon this properly belongs to the specialties of Providence of which I may possibly hereafter speak distinctly but not knowing whether I shall reach to that something though more shortly and generally I shall speak to it here Grace in the Soul of a man or woman is a noble creature and one of those things that are upheld by the mighty power of God Now that which I have to do is to consider How the Providence of God worketh in upholding this noble creature in those individual souls into which he hath breathed this breath of spiritual life Let me shew you this in a few particulars 1. God preserveth man in his spiritual life and capacity by a daily repeating to him his gracious acts in the pardon of sin and reckoning of Christs righteousness to him It hath been a Question betwixt Arminians Papists and Calvinists Whether there can be an intercision of the state of Justification Whether a soul once justified can again be not justified We say No. The gifts and callings of God are without repentance whom he loveth he loveth to the end Well but how can this be for who liveth and sinneth not The righteous falleth seven times in a day If Justification be not repeated how can a soul be justified We say Though the state abide yet Gods gracious acts are repeated Sin is not pardoned before it is committed but when commited it is pardoned by a repetition of an act of Grace Justification speaks a state this is not repeated but remission of sin is an act of Grace frequently repeated and the imputing of Christs righteousness is an act often repeated We are not daily created or born as to our natural life but we are daily preserved so God puts the believer once into a state of Justification that abides and faileth not but we should fall from it every day did not God continue us in it by the repetition of these gracious acts We need a continual pardoning a continual imputation of the righteousness of Christ to preserve our spiritual life as we need continual acts of Providence to preserve and to uphold our souls in their natural life Thus every day it is God that justifieth 2. God preserveth his Church and particular souls as to their spiritual life by a daily infusion of those habits of grace which are necessary in those souls that are ordained unto life as the principles of those operations by which they must attain this life and by increasing these habits in them In a word by perfecting 1. The number of his Saints 2. By perfecting their graces The first respecteth the collective body of his Church and is called in Scripture an adding to the Church such as shall be saved a working of faith in all them that are ordained unto eternal salvation without this the Church of God must perish and fail from the earth in a short time Gods people are mortal even as others Now God so ordereth it in his Providence that there is a succession One generation of believers passeth another cometh and thus God hath a seed kept alive in the Earth 2. God also doth it as to individuals by a daily infusion of gracious habits further strengthening and quickening them to their spiritual operations Phil. 4.13 I can do all things saith the Apostle through Christ that strengtheneth me believers Eph. 3.16 are strengthened with might by his Spirit God upholdeth his own seed in the soul and bloweth up the sparks which himself hath kindled 3. Gods Providence in the preservation of men in their spiritual capacity is seen in the upholding and maintaining his word and ordinances upon which the souls of his people live As the body liveth by bread as to its natural capacity so the soul liveth by the word of God as to its spiritual capacity By these things men live saith Hezekiah I know some interpret that passage concerning afflictions but others concerning the promises Now the Providence of God hath been and is eminently seen in maintaining of his word the written word the word preached in taking care that his people have had a succession of Ministers Before the Books of Moses were written God provided for the souls of his people by a word not written since by a written word and that most eminently since the whole
and law of Nature the fire burneth the hungry Lions devour men God suspendeth both these Laws in the case of the three Children and of Daniel by an Ordinance of Nature the Sun keepeth its course and is in a continual progressive motion God suspendeth its motion in Joshuah's case altereth it and maketh it to come back in the case of Hezekiah 2 Kings 20.10 by the Ordinance of Nature the Earth brings forth her fruit so doth the womb ordinarily God suspends this Law in Judgment the Earth is made as Iron the Heaven as Brass men commit whoredom yet do not encrease they eat and have not enough Hos 4.10 This both demonstrates the governance of Divine Providence and also sheweth how God exerciseth it This is a third Particular 4. A fourth Particular wherein God sheweth his Dominion over all and exerciseth his Government over the whole Creation is his influencing all creatures to their natural actions either in a more ordinary or extraordinary manner Every living creature hath its natural motions and actions and powers and faculties in order to them which are the principles of those operations and in the upholding of those powers to those natural motions and actions God exerteth and putteth forth his preserving power of Providence but his extraordinary influencing of them to some motions and actions which are not in a natural course and order doth more eminently shew the Governing power of Divine Providence That Locusts and Caterpillers should feed upon grass and green herbs this is but their natural motion and action according to their nature and the kind of their being but that they should come in troops and rather feed upon one place than upon another till they had devoured all the grass and green herbs in Egypt this was extraordinary Psalm 105.24 He spake and the Caterpillers came and did eat up all the herbs in their land and devoured all the fruit of their ground And again Psalm 74.46 He gave their increase to the Caterpiller The same may be said for the Flies Lice Frogs and other creatures used as a plague upon Pharaoh but indeed this is rather a specialty of Providence than belonging to the ordinary Government of it though very demonstrative of the governing power of Providence 5. A fifth act by which the Providence of God exerciseth its governing power and influence is His daily raising up and influencing Governours for the Housholds and Societies of men and giving checks to them upon their miscarriages and mal-administrations The governing Providence of God exerteth it self either more immediately or mediately Other creatures God ordinarily governeth by men many of them I mean influencing man with Reason and Discretion by which he ruleth ordereth and governeth them though many of them be much more mighty and powerful than he the mouth of the horse and mule which have no understanding by the Providence of God so influencing man are held with the bit and bridle lest they come near unto us Psalm 32.9 The Whale is smitten with a spear wild bulls and boars are hunted down c. The Ox is tamed and brought to serve our uses who are much less in strength than he is Men also are governed by men the weaker by those that are more wise and powerful but whence have the Governours their wit and power their wisdom and understanding prompting them to make Laws acceptable to the greater part of Subjects so as conspiracies are of the lesser number and subdueâ—â—o the greater and keeps them in order Is it not from the Lord great in wisdom and wonderful in counsel Psalm 75.7 God is the Judg he pulleth down one and setteth up another and by him Kings reign God ruleth the World by Magistrates which if well considered would aw men to that duty of honour and obedience which they owe to those that are their Superiours and may make us to understand how we ought to be subject for conscience-sake and for Gods sake in things commanded which we cannot say are contrary to the Divine Law nor so appear to us and have any manifest appearance of good for the government and peace of the whole As on the other side it calls to Kings to be wise and the Judges of the Earth to be instructed to serve the Lord with fear and to rejoyce before him in their great capacities with trembling Psal 2.10 11 they are but the Lords Vice-Roys and as Jehosaphat told his Judges they judg not for themselves but for the Lord for him whose Throne is prepared in the Heavens and whose Kingdom is over all They ought therefore according to the command to the Kings of Israel to have the book of the law before them and to be reading therein all the days of their life and where that doth not give them particular direction to have the honour and glory of God yet in their Eye to measure all their laws and actions according to that Rule to remember God is the Judg and hath only exalted and dignified them to rule the World or this or that part of the World by them still the Government is the Lords 6. A sixth particular act by which God providentially governeth the World is By influencing the souls of some in it to such actions as more immediately tend to his honour and glory God hath an honour and glory from the natural complexion and constitution and motions of inanimate Beings Psal 148.6 8. Thus the Heavens and in them the Sun Moon Stars from them the snow rain hail meteors the lightning and thunder the cold and heat the vapours and stormy winds bring glory to God stormy winds fulfilling his word saith the Psalmist The heavens declare the glory of God the Earth sheweth his handy-work Psalm 19.1 God hath made in the Heavens a tabernacle for the Sun a course for the Moon and Stars the very complexions of them their natural and necessary motions bring God abundance of glory Now this ariseth from a necessary causation they cannot but do it The same may be said of brute creatures though animate not acting upon Election The Whale in the Sea the Lion and Tiger amongst the beasts the Eagle and others amongst the birds the Bee the Silk-worm and others amongst Insects several sorts of creeping things glorify God but it is necessarily Man only amongst earthly creatures glorifieth God voluntarily from a principle within himself and upon choice Take mankind in the general it is a noble piece of Gods Creation and necessarily glorifieth God Man is fearfully and wonderfully made his body is an admirable structure but the great glory which God hath is from his spiritual actions Man is not a mute Preacher of Gods glory as the Heavens and the Earth the Sun Moon and Stars are or brute creatures are He hath a Soul and understanding will affections from these God expects a great homage and glory But now take man in his depraved estate and he doth nothing less No creatures but the evil Angels so much
Reign and the necessity of it Isa 52.7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings that publisheth peace that bringeth good tidings of good that publisheth salvation that saith unto Zion thy God reigneth It is good news to all the World that God reigneth but particularly to Sion to the Church and the people of God to the whole visible Church it is good tidings but particularly to the invisible part that is militant here on Earth and the individual members thereof 1. This Doctrine first is of great use to comfort them against and under all their disturbances for things which happen to the Church in general or themselves in particular A ship at Sea were but in an ill case if it were not for him that sate at the Helm a skilful Pilot there ordereth her well enough so as the winds serve his design so it is with the Church tossed with winds and waves she is only safe in the Lords government of all the affairs of the World Luther I remember saith thus of himself I saith he have often attempted to prescribe God ways and methods in the government of his Church and other affairs I have said Ah Domine hoc velim ita fieri hoc ordine hoc eventu I would have this thing thus done in this order with this event But saith he God did quite contrary to what I asked of him Then saith he I thought with my self what I would have had was not contrary to the glory of God but would have been of great use for the sanctifying of his Name In short it was a brave design well advised but undoubtedly God laught at at this wisdom of men and said Go to now I know you are a learned man and a wise man But it was never my manner to allow Saint Peter or Saint Martin or any other to instruct teach govern or lead me Non sum Deus passivus sed activus I am not a passive but an active God That great man and Melancthon were two famous Instruments in the Reformation of Germany but of different tempers Melancthon was a man of a more mild and gentle Spirit and melancholick timerous temper Luther was of a more fierce and bold temper Melancthon would often write very troubled Letters to Luther about the state of the Church affairs Luther would constantly make use of this argument from the Governing-Providence of God to support Melancthon Melancthon saith he Let God alone to govern the World The Lord reigneth It pleaseth God so to order it in his Providence that the face of affairs relating to the Church often looks very sadly and there is nothing which giveth the spirits of the people of God a greater disturbance Now all these disturbances are caused from our Not-attending to this Principle which yet every good Christian professeth to receive and to believe Were we but rooted and grounded in the faith of this one Principle That the Kingdom of God ruleth over all and that he exerciseth a special care and Government relating to his Church and ruleth the World with a special regard to the good of his little flock we could neither be immoderately disturbed for the concern of the glory of God nor yet for the Church of God 1 Chron. 16.31 Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoyce and let men say amongst the Nations the Lord reigneth let the Sea roar and the fulness thereof let the fields rejoyce and all that is therein Then shall the trees of the wood sing out at the presence of the Lord because he cometh to judg the Earth Say therefore unto Zion Thy God reigneth Let Papists rage and Atheists scoff and threaten and do what they can Let all their Favourites take counsel together and join hand in hand when they have done all they can they will find that the Lord reigneth And this is enough to say unto Sion or to any of her sons and daughters Two things are sufficient in the most troublesom and tumultuous times to still support and comfort the spirits of Gods people 1. That the Lord reigneth and hath an unquestionable superintendence upon all the Beings of his creatures all their motions and all their actions He is higher in power than the highest of them 2. That this God is our God The Psalmist hinteth both in that excellent 46 Psalm v. 10 Be still and know that I am God I will be exalted amongst the Heathen I will be exalted in the Earth The Lord of Hosts is with us The God of Jacob is our refuge Let not therefore those that fear the Lord trouble themselves about the motions of the World and commotions in it about the ragings of lewd men against the interest of Christ Let them not trouble themselves further than is their duty viz. to be sensible of the rebukes of Divine Providence The Lord reigneth He that sitteth in the heavens laugheth The Lord shall have them in derision and shall one day speak unto them in his wrath and vex them in his sore displeasure and let the World know that yet he hath set his King upon his holy hill of Sion I remember a passage of Luther Si nos ruamus ruet Christus unus Christus scilicet magnus ille regnator mundi c. If we perish saith he Christ must fall too Christ that great Governour of the World 2. If we did consider this as we might or ought we should also see as little reason to be disturb'd as to the concerns of our own Souls with the fear of two things as to their own Souls ordinarily the people of God are troubled 1. The prevailings of their own lusts and corruptions 2. The prevailings of Satans temptations This Doctrine of Divine Providence excellently serveth to still our unquiet spirits as to either of these troubles If the Lords Kingdom be over all both these fears must be vain and causeless for supposing the faithfulness of the Promises Sin shall not have dominion over your mortal bodies God shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly He will with the temptation give an happy issue If the Lords Kingdom be over all neither shall corruption prevail nor Satan by temptations prevail to destroy the work of God in our Soul or to prevent us or hinder us as to the Kingdom which God hath prepared for us for as he that hath promised is faithful or cannot repent or lye so he is powerful and hath a dominion over all beings persons things c. My father saith Christ is greater than all none can pluck you out of my fathers hand 3. Lastly It affords us a relief against the sad prospect we have almost continually before our eyes of the malicious actions of wicked and ungodly men There is and always was a generation in the World which sleep not unless they do mischief they are continually devising mischievous devices against the little flock of Christ Their counsels designs works have a plain and
subjection and obedience unto God This is that which we call holiness There are two Arguments arising out of the former discourse which ought to have a force here 1. Let us do what we will God will be our Governour Let Assyria mean or not mean so he shall be the Lords Servant and execute his pleasure and no more Pharaoh may huff a little and ask Who is the Lord that he should serve or obey him but God will at last be glorified on Pharaoh and make him know his Kingdom is over all God will disappoint the devices of the crafty so as their hands shall not find their enterprises God will at last be glorified and make all the wrath of man at last to praise him 2. None shall be rewarded by God or be his favourites but only such as yield him free willing and chearful obedience Let us do what we can we cannot resist his will but unless our obedience be free voluntary and chearful it shall never be rewarded by a just and righteous God There is nothing more ordinary in the Prophets than to read the denunciation of Gods judgments against Assyria and Babylon which were yet Gods servants in executing vengeance upon the hypocritical and rebellious Jews Let this therefore mind us to be obedient to to the will of God freely and willingly and sincerely that so we may hear that joyful voice Well done thou good and faithful Servant Enter thou into thy masters joy A DISCOURSE Concerning ACTUAL PROVIDENCE PART II. Concerning the Specialties of Providence 1 Cor. IX 9. Doth God take care for Oxen I Have been for some time discoursing concerning Providence that is Actual Providence which is nothing else but Gods taking care for his creatures made as you heard by the word of his power I have discoursed this care of God more generally opening to you those two more general Acts of God by which this care is expressed 1. In preserving of them 2. In the rule and governance of them I have shewed you the workings of Divine Providence in the preserving of his creatures in general in their Beings and use of their several faculties with which he created them of man in particular considered singly as an individual or in his Political capacity or 3. In his Spiritual capacity as the subject of Divine Grace I have also discoursed generally concerning the Government of Divine Providence and by what particular acts God exerciseth this Government and declareth his Dominion over all the Creatures which he hath made but besides the general care of God concerning all his Creatures there is also a special Providence For the beginning of a discourse concerning that I have made choice of this Text Doth God take care for Oxen saith the Apostle Non est vox dubitantis saith Pareus It is not the language of one that doubteth The Apostle knew well enough that our Saviour had said That God cloatheth the Lillies the grass of the field and that a sparrow though two of them are sold for a farthing falleth not to the ground without the will of our heavenly father The words therefore only signifie an inequal care viz. That God taketh a greater and more special care for some of his Creatures than he doth for others and so it layeth a foundation for this Proposition Prop. That God exerciseth a special Providence for and concerning some of his creatures He taketh a general care concerning them all but a more special care concerning some of them That is the Proposition which I shall handle in this method 1. I shall shew you that there is such a special Providence i.e. though the Lord taketh a general care of all his Creatures according to their natures yet he taketh a more particular and special care concerning some more than others 2. I will enquire Which of his Creatures they are as to which he exerciseth a special Providence and concerning which he taketh such a more especial care 3. We will enquire by what acts God exerteth putteth forth and declareth this his especial care 4. Lastly I will make some Application of the whole 1. That God doth exercise a more particular care in the Preservation and Government of some of his Creatures than he doth of others will appear 1. By express Scriptures which assert it 2. By promises made to some in which others are not concerned 3. By experience and matter of fact 1. By express Scriptures thus Deut. 11.12 Canaan is called a Land which the Lord careth for so Matth. 6.30 If God so cloath the grass of the field which to day is and to morrow is cast into the Oven Shall he not much more cloath you O you of little faith Matt. 10.31 Fear you not therefore you are of more value than many sparrows ver 29. Christ had let them know that the Providence of God extended to the sparrows two of them were sold for a farthing but not one of them fell to the ground without God but saith he you are better than many sparrows God will more regard you and take more care of you 1 Tim. 4.10 He is the Saviour of all men but especially of them who believe Psal 33. v. 13 He beholdeth all the sons of men but Verse 18 The eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him upon them that hope in his mercy to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive from famine so this Text Doth God saith the Apostle take care for Oxen or doth he say it altogether for our sakes for our sakes no doubt It is true there are degrees and differences as to this special Providence as I shall shew you hereafter I am only as yet evincing the thing in general 2. All the promises of God made to some men not to others are a proof of this for what is a promise but the Revelation of Gods Will to bestow some good things in the way of his Providence so as if there be any special promises there must be a special Providence Now there is none so meanly versed in the holy Scripture that he is not aware of a multitude of promises in them made to the people of God promises that concern this life and that also which is to come the 91 Psalm is made up of such promises 3. Lastly The experience of all times proves it that some have been preserved upheld directed and governed by a Providence in a more special manner than others have been So that none can modestly deny or doubt a special Providence The next Question is Quest 2. Who are the objects of it It is generally answered by Divines that reasonable creatures are the objects only of special Providence These are only Angels and Men for the Specialty of Divine Providence so far as they relate to Angels as we know little of it so neither doth the knowledg of it much concern us of that therefore I shall say nothing being not desirous to intrude into those things which man hath
delighteth to shew it self in the day of mans smallest things This Observation hath some cognation with the former but there is more in it as you will see by the Sequel of my Discourse Mans smallest things may be understood to signifie 1. Smallest means 2. Smallest hopes 3. Smallest works or actions 1. Smallest means Though God be not tied to humane means but sometimes he worketh without them Though they have no efficacy but what they derive from him and he commandeth them to exert and put forth yet he often maketh use of means But this you shall observe and it shall be justified to you by and by that God seldom doth great things by great means but when God doth great work though he make use of means yet it is but little small means and the day of smallest means is usually the day of Gods work 2. In the day of smallest hopes and indeed this almost naturally followeth upon the other for humane hopes do usually ebb or flow according to the proportion of humane means that are in our Eye so that if God doth his greatest works in the day of smallest means he doth them likewise in the day of our smallest hopes which rise higher or fall lower usually according to the prospect which we have of probable means 3. Lastly In the day of smallest works or actions when man is most busie God seems to be most idle most asleep when we seem to be most awake When God turns again the captivity of Sion they are as those that dream they never see so much the Salvation of God as when they stand still I do not say when men will do least but when they do when they can do least then usually God doth his greatest works of Providence I shall justifie this Observation by a great variety of instances Let the first be that great work of Providence in bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt It is true they were no inconsiderable body or number of people they were at their coming out six hundred thousand souls but scattered over all the Land of Egypt a small number in comparison of the Egyptians diminished by all arts by many years hard labour in no Military order nothing of the power of the Lord was in their hand they were so very slaves that they murmured against Moses and Aaron for but going in to Pharaoh to ask for a deliverance for them means of deliverance for them there appeared none to an humane Eye Indeed being so great a body of people God might have made use of their Swords to have fought their way out of Egypt he could easily have commanded them into a Military rank and file but he useth none of them only sendeth Moses and Aaron upon his Errand to command Pharaoh to let his people go that they might serve him The same might be said of their deliverance out of the captivity of Babylon there was no means they had no hopes from any appearance of humane probabilities those that believed amongst them doubtless had an hope from the Promise there was none of them stirred that we read of Cyrus proclaims their liberty The walls of the strong City of Jericho fall down before the Israelites upon the blowing of Rams-horns and the peoples compassing it at a distance about seven days Josh 6. Canaan is given into the hands of the Israelites they were indeed a considerable Army but the seven Nations through which they made their way into that possession were more strong and mighty than they as Moses tells them Deut. 7. Gideon delivereth them oppressed by the Midianites with a party rather than an Army of three hundred men Sampson with the jaw-bone of an ass stayeth a thousand Philistines David with a sling and a stone shall kill Goliah when none durst encounter him and the hearts of the people were killed with his daily defiance of them Indeed God hath seldom done any great things in the World by great means when the Philistines came out in an Army of thirty thousand of which we read in 1 Sam. 13 and but of three thousand Israelites that could be got together and they also frighted so as ver 6 They hid themselves in caves thickets rocks and in high-places and in pits those that kept together except Saul and Jonathan had neither sword nor spear amongst them ver 19 20. Jonathan and his Armour-bearer go up alone and smite them set all the Host on trembling and the multitude melteth away chap. 14. v. 16. The colour of the Water deceives the Moabites to their ruin when Jehoram Jehosaphat and the King of Edom were almost all famined for want of water 2 Kings 3.20 21. When Jehosaphat knows not what to do 2 Chron. 26.22 God tells them ver 17 They need not fight only stand still and see the salvation of God they did but stand still and sing and praise their Enemies destroy one another Look upon Gods great work of Providence in the conversion of the World to the obedience of the Gospel How doth God do this Not by might nor by power but by his Spirit Christ sends out a few poor Fishermen these shall go and perswade the world to throw out their Idols and to receive the new Doctrine of the Gospel which to their wisdom appeared foolishness The World was full of very learned Philosophers God could have converted instructed and sent out them but he chuseth to do this great work by small things Chusing as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 1.27 28. the foolish things of the world to confound the wise the weak things of the world to confound those that were mighty the base things of the world and things which are despised to bring to nought the things that are Next to this was the great Work of God in the Reformation begun in Germany by Luther it was a day of very small things the whole world was Popish and had given their power to the Roman beast the remainders of the Church were in the valleys of Piedmont and Lucerne and in Bohemia a small despised remnant Now God begins to work and by what means Luther a poor despised Fryer he begins and preacheth against indulgences the whole world almost were against him he hath to do with the Emperour the Pope all the Popish Doctors yet by these small things the Providence of God brings to pass this his great work It was a day of small things with us when we were delivered from the Spanish-Armado in the year 1588 from the intended Powder-Treason In short I say we shall find that the Providence of God hath done the greatest works that it hath brought to pass in the world in the day of mans smallest things when there have been the smallest appearances of humane means when the People of God have had the smallest hopes and when they have been least in action God hath in his Providence seldom done any great things by great humane means Now the reason of this is the
severe manner as he did to those Rusticks that so much disturbed the Civil peace in Germany but generally punisheth by disappointments to bring us to a regular trust and confidence in him where we have a plain and sure word to fix our foot upon Thus I have shewed you the reasonableness of these cross motions of Divine Providence in point of Divine Justice that God might punish peoples sinnings in them and caution others against the like guilt 2. Let me in the second place shew you the reasonableness of it in order to the glory of God which I have often told you is the great end which God aims at in all his great Works whether of Creation or of Providence 1. The work is more eminently seen to be the Lords although he in effecting it maketh use of instruments and humane means God doth not always yea he doth not ordinarily work miraculously but maketh use of rational means and worketh in with and by them Now if God in these workings should make use of means and instruments and circumstances which our fancies prescribe unto him we should be apt to overlook the mighty Power and Efficiency of God in the means for the more we have a prospect of an event in the second Causes before it comes the less we see of the first Cause in it But when we see our selves disappointed in all our expectations as to time persons means circumstances and the thing brought about by persons we thought not of at a time we looked not for it by means not at all in our eyes as probable to effect it the more is the hand and power of God seen in the effect while we cry out This is the Lords doing and it is marvelous in our eyes 2. Again God hath more Glory from the Prayers Humiliations and Praises of his people By these things God is glorified as his Will is done as his Power is recognized Disappointments produce more extraordinary Prayers and Humiliations when we meet with them we see the folly of our rashness ungrounded confidences and see reason to lye low before the Lord with more fervent Prayers to God to take his work into his own hand and having manifested to us our follies now to declare his own wisdom that having broken our arms of flesh he would now make bare his own holy arm and the fulfilling of his word at last by means and circumstances not known to us produce praises adorings and admirings of his infinite wisdom and further confidences in God for the time to come when we see arms of flesh broken and find our bruised reeds and broken staffs but running into our hands and wounding us instead of helping us I have done with the Doctrinal part of this Observation I come now to the Application of it Vse 1. The first Use may be Not to wonder at disappointments of this nature and to take heed they be no temptations to us Here are you see two branches 1. Not to wonder at them There is nothing more ordinary it is not often that a Church or body of people or a particular soul or person obtaineth any great mercy or deliverance in the way they looked for it or at that moment of time they expected it in God delights to surprize his peoples hearts with joy and gladness we are sick and we are ready to think such a person and by such a means must heal us the cure comes quite another way Naaman thought the Prophet would have come and laid his hand upon his leprous body the Prophet bids him go and wash in the waters of Jordan We are in terrors in troubles of mind c. and we are ready to think such or such a Minister must speak to us and then we shall be relieved he cometh and applieth what help he can we are yet disquieted and find no relief at all the mercy comes at last quite another way Mercy comes to Gods People as Judgment ordinarily comes upon sinners in a way and upon a day they looked not for it when with Agag they say Surely the bitterness of death is past I say so mercies ordinarily come to Gods People in an unlooked-for time in a way and by persons they looked not for it by 2. Let not such disappointments be temptations to you Let them not be temptations to make you distrust the promises or to use any unlawful and indirect means to obtain your desires It is not God that hath deceived you you have but deceived your selves God hath made you certain promises of the things you will limit him to do it by such a time by such means by such persons and instruments The promises express no such things but have left God to his liberty You have no reason to distrust Gods word because you have disappointed your selves Vse 2. Let us make this use of the Observation To embrace the promises and to depend upon God for the fulfilling of them without limiting him as to circumstances Let us do this as to those great promises which are behind to be fulfilled as to the destruction of Antichrist the calling of the Jews the second coming of Christ the more happy and calm state of the Church c. The Scripture seems clear as to the things that they shall be but it is far from being clear that it shall be in such a year or by such a mean or instrument there is nothing particular of this nature for a good Christian to set the foot of his faith upon I have shewed you there is a great vanity of Christians in these things I know Christians have a very great curiosity to search dark Prophecies to find out the particular circumstances for these things I cannot commend their diligence it is much like the hard labour and study of those that have been studying the Philosophers stone a great deal of money and much more precious time hath been spent about it nothing yet effected no more hath there been in these things men have wearied themselves in vain and their study hath been but labour and travel 2. Again As to promises that concern our particular souls for comfort for a victory over temptations c. they are many they are exceeding sweet but they are general not to this or that individual person but to such as love and fear the Lord to persons under such or such qualifications they are exceeding sweet but they are not made with circumstances God will have his people trust him he will have them wait for him Take heed either of saying These things shall never be this is to give the lye to the God of Truth God says thou shalt live thou sayest I shall dye I shall fall by the hand of this temptation and take heed of saying If it ever be it must be by such a time by such a Minister it would have been by such a Minister c. This is to limit the Holy One of Israel thou knowest not the ways of God it is
which then hindered his being revealed and would let until he should be taken away The Roman Empire hindered nor is that hinderance yet taken away 'T is true there is but a stump of that Empire remaining in Germany Spain France England many other great boughs are lop'd off it but most of them kept their Antichristian favour though they changed their temporal Lords and set up for and by themselves as to temporal subjection and dominion You see and hear how fierce the French the Spaniards the Portugals c. the house of Austria are for the Romish Religion 'T is true England hath broke that yoke off its neck so hath Holland the Gospel hath got a great foot in Germany France Denmark Poland Sweden Hungary but yet the Devil hath a large Chappel in most of those places It is the National Religion of France Spain Portugal Italy the Imperial Proper-territories God is fitting the circumstances of the World much to his promised Work of destroying this Antichrist with the spirit of his mouth with the brightness of his coming England is fallen off Holland is fallen off a great part of Switzerland many Cities and Territories in Germany Sweden and Denmark great numbers in France God is by degrees doing his work and a great deal is done within the space of a hundred and fifty years last past for it is no longer since Luther began to shake his Throne but yet the circumstances of the World do not look as if it were like to be a work we should see in our age nor it may be our childrens children Methinks the Scripture looks as if that man of sin should die a natural death not a violent one I mean that that Religion should be loathed out of the World not fought out of it God will consume it with the Spirit of his mouth and with the brightness of his coming Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord I tell you but my judgment that before the fall of Antichrist you must yet see a greater falling off from Popery by the Princes of other Nations and their people The Worlds circumstances do not yet seem fitted to that great Work God may work Miracles in the case but I know no ground we have to expect them I am very confident that Antichrist is in his wane much past his full declining every day and therefore the fears of some that that ridiculous Religion should again over-spread England or Holland or any other reformed Church do not much afflict me I take that for granted that Babylon is falling but when we shall hear that joyful sound Babylon is fallen Babylon is fallen that I cannot tell you but in the general I think we must first see the World otherwise circumstanced than it is 2. By this observation of the motions of Providence you shall also understand much of Gods set time as to shewing mercy to your own particular soul viz. when your bodily or spiritual circumstances are fitted for the desired mercy 1. I say first when your bodily circumstances are fitted to it There is nothing more evident than the dependance of our minds upon our bodies and the influence that some bodily distempers especially have upon our souls and minds now although it be true that God can work miraculously and by light can break through a darkness be it never so thick and ravish a Soul with unspeakable joy and peace though at that time it be yoked to a dark cloudy melancholick disturbed body yet God useth not to work Miracles ordinarily but to move in a more ordinary course of Providence by the use and application of means that are proper so that as it is seldom but God useth the disorders and disturbances of the body to influence and afflict the mind and to be at least an adjuvant cause when he will trouble a Soul so he usually restoreth health and a better constitution of body when he intends to restore peace and quiet and a composure of spirit I say ordinarily he doth so And hence again in the next place 3. We by giving attendance to this Observation may learn our duty in reference to the use of Means so as to use what is proper to its season for there is great wisdom to be used in apportioning means For Example as to the bringing down of Antichrist if Gods time be not come the means are not girding our swords upon our thighs c. I question whether that will ever be a Mean proper to be used in that case but endeavouring by all means possible to loath the World of Popish superstitions and ceremonies and all the idolatry of that Synagogue and of all the cheats they put upon the World and alienate the hearts of people from them So for calling the Jews the means to be used is not inciting them to get into a body and heading them c. but to convince them of their errours to endeavour the sweetning of their spirits the enlightning their minds with the knowledg of the truth of the Gospel and reconciling them to the Christian Religion and shewing them the Examples of an holy life and conversation So in case of particular Souls where the discomposure of the mind is originated in or further advantaged by bodily distempers which is a thing very frequently happening I do not take it to be the duty of a Christian meerly to pray and hear but also to use natural means proper for the abating of these distempers yet not this without Prayer and use of Ordinances both for the blessing of God upon such means and for the further influences of his supernatural grace for God fitteth the circumstances of the person that is to receive the mercy to the desired mercy when he intendeth the bestowing of it as well as the circumstances of the World to the mercy which in his set-time he intendeth for his Church so as I say this observing of this method of Providence duly attended to addeth spiritual Wisdom to a Christian as in discerning of Gods time for mercy so also in directing him to his duty as to proper means to be used by him in the way of his duty in order to the obtaining of the mercy teaching him to know what Israel ought to do what a good Christian ought to do under the circumstances under which God hath brought him 2. By an attendance to this working of Providence you shall understand much of the loving-kindness of the Lord very much of the goodness and love of God to Nations and Churches is seen in this his fitting of the worlds circumstances to his designs before he produceth them as his designs are effected without tumult and bloodshed which otherwise through mens opposition to it would not be avoided With how much bloodshed in all humane probability must the Children of Israel have first came out of Egypt then out of Babylon had not God fitted the circumstances of the world to those designs of his Providence
the ignorance and sottishness of the Popish-Clergy together with their covetousness ambition and debauchery to grow to that heighth that they grew an abomination to all men And as it is in the Political and Ecclesiastical body so it is as to the particular persons of Christians the Providence of God ordinarily disposeth the body according to the work which he hath to do upon the soul But that is more forreign to my observation therefore I shall not inlarge upon it Besides that I spake something to it under the former observation which hath some cognation with this this only differing from it in this shewing you that the Providence of God doth not make the Church lacquey to the world but he makes the world lacquey to the Church and subordinateth the business of the world to his own great designs relating to the Church Now if you ask me the reason of this it doubtless lyeth Reas In the peculiar favour of God to that people in the world which bear the name of his Church You have an expression Psal 87.2 The Lord loveth the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Sion was the place at the foot of which the Temple was built where all the worship which God had in the world performed according to his will was performed The tabernacle in Shiloh was forsaken Psal 78.60 God hath a particular kindness for any place for any persons amongst whom his true worship is and where he hath placed to himself a Tabernacle though God had a kindness for the whole seed of Jacob yet he loved the gates of Sion above all the dwellings of Jacob because that was the place where his worship was regularly performed It holds still under the New Testament and will hold to the end of the world wheresoever God hath a Church or people he hath a particular kindness for that people they are in Scripture called the house of God God is said to dwell and walk amongst them and God hath yet a more particular favour to those that are the invisible part of the visible Church I mean such as truly belong unto God that worship him in spirit and in truth that fear the Lord and hope in his mercies as the Psalmist expresseth it Psal 33.18 All the world is nothing to God in comparison of this little flock to whom it is his will to give a Kingdom He hath given them his Christ and shall he not with him give them all things This were easily to be proved to you from a variety of Scripture and arguments drawn from thence Now supposing this it is no wonder if he subordinateth his works in the world to his designs here This is that Canaan which the Lord careth for and upon which his eyes are from one end of the year to another Deut. 11. His heritage the dearly beloved of his soul Jer. 12.7 His peculiar treasure his sister his spouse the redeemed and ransomed of the Lord his portion in short there is a multitude of expressions by which God hath shewen that his Church the whole body of people owning and professing him and especially those of them that worship him in spirit and truth and walk up to the rule of his word are dearer to him than all the world besides He calls them his bride Rev. 21.9 His beloved Psal 108.6 His building 1 Cor. 3.9 His City Heb. 12.22 His chosen generation 1 Pet. 2.9 His family Eph. 3.15 His husbandry 1 Cor. 3.9 His Kingdom the lot of his inheritance Now considering this it is no wonder at all that the Providence of God should manage all the affairs of the world in subordination to his designs for the good of this body All the relation of God to others is but that of a Creator and they are no better than the synagogues of Satan as to the Divine Worship that is in them and the throne of Satan with respect to the homage of their Conversation They are called children of wrath of disobedience of the curse strangers and forreiners If God sometimes gives up his people into the hands of wicked men it is either 1. For his peoples good to purge away their dross and take away their tinn as the Prophet expresseth it or for to ripen sinners for their destruction that they may by it fill up the measure of their iniquities Methinks you have a full proof of this Observation in the 105 Psalm the Psalmist in that Psalm is calling the Church of the Jews to give thanks unto the Lord to sing unto him to talk of all his wondrous works Then followeth a recapitulation of those great things which God had done for them amongst which this is reckoned that he subordinated his motions of Providence amongst the men and the nations of the world to his gracious designs for them Vers 14. He suffered no man to do them wrong yea he reproved Kings for their sake saying Touch not mine anointed do my prophets no harm and so he goes on almost quite through that Psalm Now I say the reason of all this was his love set upon this people As most of us have some particular persons that our heart is most set upon some particular interest and design that we drive on now whoever those persons be or whatever that design be we make all the rest of our actions to be subordinate to that So the great God having set up his glory as his great interest and design and set apart him and them that are godly for himself it is no wonder at all if he ruleth all the world and governeth all the affairs of it in subordination to this great interest and the good of this people I now come to the Application of this Observation Vse 1. In the first place as I said before upon the other Observation so I say here From hence a wise and observing Christian may in a great measure know what weather it is like to be in the Climate of the Church How it is like to fare with them that are the People of God They are and always were the far lesser part of the world and their quiet and tranquillity to look with a rational eye doth much depend upon the complexion of the men of the world and their inclinations if God intends a calm and tranquillity to the Church he usually so ordereth the world that the earth helps the woman the men of the world either out of good nature or which indeed mostly is the business out of interest shew them kindness Hence you shall observe that when God intendeth the tranquillity and prosperity of the Church his Providence ordinarily bringeth one of these things to pass 1. He sometimes raiseth up some eminent servant of his to do great services for the men of the world this you see in the case of Joseph God had designed the Jews a prospering multiplying time in the land of Egypt he raiseth up Joseph makes him a Privy-Counsellor to Pharaoh yea the second man
to a daily communion with God all the grace all the glory of God is theirs Think this reward enough for the cleansing of thy heart and the washing of thy hands and seeing the swearers and blasphemers and even the worst men of the world are Gods Creatures and some of them though they mean not so yet do God service sometimes do not judg it unreasonable that God should give them a portion in this life But I forbear knowing that it will fall in my way hereafter when I shall come to open the hard Chapters of Divine Providence to speak more fully to the reasonableness of this motion of Divine Providence 2. This calleth unto the People of God if at any time they be in a prosperous state to look for an hour of adversity The Circulations of Divine Providence admonish Gods People of this no man reasonably saith in the morning that the Sun shall set no more in his Horizon nor in the Summer that he shall never feel the cold or see the storms of another Winter he considers the Ordinances of nature and the Circulation of these natural motions It is as unreasonable to promise our selves stated and uninterrupted felicity in this life to say as David In our prosperity I shall never be moved Be rather thinking what you shall do if God should bring you into such a condition 3. Nor do you despond in adversity Say to the Enemies of Church and Gospel as the Church in Micah Mic. 7.8 Rejoyce not against me O mine enemy when I fall I shall rise when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me It is as unreasonable for any to conclude at midnight that there shall never be a morning as in the morning to fancy there shall never be a midnight more you have not it may be in this life those full measures of the good things thereof which others have But saith David Psal 17. when I awake I shall be satisfied with thy likeness Some interpret it of an awaking at the resurrection that is sure enough Some of an awaking out of his afflicted state God in this life is not always smiting not always grieving the children of men The rod of the wicked shall not always lye upon the back of the righteous Do not build too much upon these hopes remember that God hath better things for his people than riches and honours and earthly power Heaven is their portion but yet even as to this life do not cast away your hope 4. But lastly Be patient under all the frowns of Divine Providence This is the method of Providence the sinner must have his hour and that hour to the People of God will be the very power of darkness The beasts that are nearest the slaughter usually have the fattest pastures God hath far better things reserved for them that love him and even in this life He will not leave you comfortless he will come unto you if not to the rescue of your bodies yet to the relief support and satisfaction of your souls Wherefore comfort your selves with these words SERMON XXVII Psal CVII 43. Whoso is wise and will observe these things even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. WE take notice in the world that Wisdom is not so much the daughter of study as of experience It is a practical habit directing the ordering of mens conversations to their best advantage which is not so well acquired from our poring on books and making conclusions from connate principles or maxims of others as from the observation of what we see in the world Hence we observe what Job said Job 12.12 with the Auncients is wisdom Elihu said Job 32.7 Days shall speak and multitude of years shall teach wisdom There must indeed be supposed a foundation in nature and that is a good faculty of judgment and a foundation in art for wisdom dwelleth with knowledg but neither nature nor art and study will make a morally wise man Observation contributes more than either and this is the reason that wisdom is with the Auncients and that multitude of years teacheth it The reason of this is the inequal distribution of reason to reasonable creatures and the prevalence of passion above it in the most of men from this it is that we can better conclude what is like to be done in the world from what hath been done than from any rational principles which will tell us what one would think reasonable men should do Spiritual Wisdom likewise is much gained by observation this is that which we call experience by which we understand not always what our selves have felt but what we have seen with our eyes what we have remarked in Gods dealings And the reason of this is our imperfect understanding of what God hath revealed in his word which lets us see that we stand in need both of the Spirit and of the Providence of God to be our interpreters and the oneness and immutability of God gives us a far better advantage to gain wisdom from the issues of his Providence then the variable passions of men will allow us to gain from what we see in their actings whose methods oft-times vastly differ one from another so as the policies of one age have no cognation with those of another The reason also of which is because there is a wheel within these wheels though the fools and blind men of the world see it not governing these sensible wheels to the designs of his eternal counsels Hence it is that he who is wise will observe and he who would be wise must observe the motions of Divine Providence which though it hath many secret and unsearchable motions yet also hath many certain and uniform motions which will fall under the science and understanding of the soul that giveth up it self to the study and observation of them I have already offered to you twelve Observations upon the motions of Providence I yet proceed and shall at present offer you some further things chiefly relating to the motions of Divine Providence in the executing of Divine Justice and Judgment and that as well in the rewarding of the righteous as in the punishment of the sinner Two great works of Divine Providence about which indeed it is mostly taken up it goeth to and fro the world doing this work every day let us see how far we can track it or make any judgment from the prints of its feet where or what we are like to meet with from it meet it we must at every turn of our lives our business is to make up a judgment what we are like to meet with from it whether it be like to say unto us Hast thou met me O my friend or as Ahab to Elijah Hast thou met me O mine enemy The next Observation I shall commend to you is this Observ 13. The reward of the righteous man and also of the sinner is always certain and constant though not always sensible and
1. Sometimes some of his people shall be blessed with outward blessings Abraham shall be a rich man and have many flocks and herds Joseph shall be the second man in Egypt David and Solomon shall be great Princes Mordecay shall be the man whom the King of Persia shall delight to honour Daniel shall be the first president This is necessary that God may justifie his Promises of this nature you have such Psal 128.1 2 3. and in many other Texts of holy Writ They may be necessary to uphold the interest of God in the world The world must sometimes say Verily there is a reward for the righteous Gods own people shall sometimes have healthy bodies numerous families plentiful comfort in their relations many left hand-mercies added to those spiritual blessings with which God hath blessed them all in Jesus Christ 2. Others now God doth not reward this way but he rewardeth them in their souls and inward man and indeed this is the constant reward of them that fear the Lord and there is a variety in these too God doth not measure out the same kinds nor the same proportions unto all Some are blessed with a quiet conscience possibly they have not extasies of joy as others but their hearts do not condemn them and this is indeed the usual reward of the man that worketh righteousness The work of righteousness shall be peace saith the Prophet Isa 32.17 If God brings them to a sick-bed or into any other strait they can say with Hezekiah 2 King 20.3 I beseech thee O Lord remember me now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart that is an upright sincere heart or with Nehemiah 13 14. Remember me O Lord concerning this and wipe not out my good deeds which I have done for the house of my God And give me leave to tell you this is a great reward but to be delivered from the sowre reflexions of a condemning conscience for as there is nothing more nauseous and troublesom to us than the sower recoilings of our stomack so there is no greater torment to a mans life than the recoilings of a guilty conscience Nothing is oft-times so great a torture to a sinner as this when he saith unto his conscience Is it peace and his conscience tells him What peace so long as thy drunkenness thy whoredoms thy lyes and oaths and blasphemies thy cheating and cozening thy oppression and violence remain There is no peace to the wicked saith my God On the other side there is nothing so refreshing unto a spirit tired with the crosness of the world than to find a peace within himself Now this is the general reward of the righteous man if he misseth raptures and extasies of joy yet he cometh not short ordinarily of a quiet and serenity of a waky and awakened conscience I know there are hours of melancholy and darkness and desertion to which the best of Gods People are exposed but these are but rare examples in comparison of those multitudes of godly ones that walk in some blessed view of their own sincerity and uprightness Some he rewardeth in their inward man with raptures and extasies of God They know and are perswaded that nothing shall separate them from the love of God in Jesus Christ they defie death and hell and challenge the fatal strokes which others tremble at the thoughts of They complain of time and were it not for the Law of God in the case would dismiss their souls of their prison and lye like men waiting for a wind longing for that happy gale that should carry their souls into the wide Sea of Eternity But this is but the portion of a few and scarce the abiding temper of them neither but such hours the People of God have had Some again he rewardeth inwardly with strength confirmed habits of grace and contentment with their portion c. Their outward man decreaseth but their inward man increaseth day by day they are poor in purse but rich in grace they have but little but they are content with what they have and tell all the world they have enough And let me tell you that as punishments in the inward man are the greatest punishments so these spiritual rewards are of all other the greatest rewards which is matter of easie demonstration if we will but allow our souls to be our nobler parts and the Jewel to be better than the Cabinet Whatsoever tends to the debasing and ruining the soul must be the greatest evil and whatsoever conduceth to its ennobling or felicity must be the greatest reward and good Besides this spiritual judgments are the continual forerunners of such as are temporal and spiritual mercies draw after them at least a proportion and sufficiency of the good things of this life All these things shall be added unto you saith our Saviour 2 Chron. 25.16 God sent a Prophet unto Amaziah the King would not hear him see what the Prophet saith I know saith the Prophet that God hath determined to destroy thee why because thou hast done this and hast not hearkned unto my counsel Spiritual judgments forerun temporal you have it Isa 6.10 When the Prophet asked how long how long in seeing they should see and not perceive and hearing they should hear and not understand God answereth Vntil the cities be wasted without an inhabitant and the houses should be left without men and the land should be utterly desolate In like manner spiritual rewards and mercies never go without something of this life if not a plenty yet a sufficiency food convenient for Gods People Finally as spiritual judgments are the forerunners of eternal ruin so spiritual rewards are the more certain forerunners of eternal salvation they are the things which as the Apostle speaks accompany salvation and make men meet for the Kingdom of God 3. But God sometimes rewards his people with sufferings This you may think a strange reward But yet a reward it is Christ promiseth to the losers for him that they should receive children houses lands with persecutions and the Apostles Act. 5.41 rejoyced they were thought worthy to suffer shame for his name-sake God honoureth that man whom he calleth out to be a witness for him and to carry his cross after him Job speaketh of other afflictions and cryeth out Job 7.17 Lord what is man that thou shouldst magnifie him that thou shouldst set thine heart upon him that thou shouldst visit him every morning and try him every moment What need we more than what the Apostle assureth us Heb. 12. That whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every child whom he receiveth Our light and momentany afflictions saith the Apostle shall work for us a far more eternal and exceeding weight of glory and if we suffer with him we shall also be glorified together with him Rom. 1.17 This variety of rewards our heavenly Father hath The rewards of the righteous from God are not uniform but always certain
the more eminent sins which you read of in Scripture thus punished are 1. Corruption in the worship of God and especially Idolatry which is the highest sin in that kind This is verified in the instance of the punishment for the Calf made by Aaron at the importunity of the people Exod. 32. and in all the cases of the Kings of Israel before mentioned Princes were punished for it not only personally but in their families and the people too for willingly walking after the commandment The worship of God is a very tender thing and God more severely punisheth no sin than he doth corruptions in that 2. Blood Cruelty and Oppression and especially the blood of righteous men God Numb 35. commands that no satisfaction should be taken for the life of the murderer he tells us there blood polluteth a land and so as that it cannot be cleansed but by the blood of him that shed it This was the case of Saul he had shed the blood of the Gibeonites for this vengeance came in a famine upon all Israel and particularly upon his family This was the case of Ahab also he had shed the blood of Naboth and of the Lords Prophets This was the case of the Jews That saith our Saviour upon you may come all the righteous blood shed from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah and the blood of Christ by them shed lieth upon that whole people unto this day But secondly How far may this Vengeance extend 1. I answer Not to the inward man The spiritual or eternal punishment of any man consisteth of two Essential parts the soul and the body both these are capable of punishment both in this life and that which is to come hence ariseth the distinction of punishment into that which is Corporal and that which is Spiritual that which is Temporal and that which is Eternal Now I do not think that God punisheth the souls of succeeding generations not going on in the same or equal sins for the sins of a preceeding generation or the souls of correlates for the sins of their Relations In this sense I take that Text Ezech. 18.4 The soul that sinneth shall dye the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father nor the father the iniquity of the child As also that Jer. 31.29 They shall not use this Proverb The Fathers have eaten sour grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge but every one shall dye for his own sin but whether that be the strict sense of those Texts or no I will not dispute this seemeth to me a sufficient reason for this determination Because the soul of the child is no part of the parent All souls are Gods and derive immediately from him One thing which is said by Divines in maintenance of the justice of God in this dispensation is this That children are the goods of their parents and parts of them flesh of their flesh but it cannot be said so of their souls Hence it followeth that none for the sins of their Parents or Correlates is given up to hardness of heart reprobacy of mind or vile-affections nor to any other spiritual wickedness nor shall any perish eternally for the sins of others 2. For punishments of this life they may extend to the third and fourth generation even upon those who do not tread in the steps of their fore fathers nor approve their sayings You know the words of the second Commandment visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of those that hate me There are that think that those later words are a limitation upon the former and that God only threatens vengeance to the third and fourth generations in case those two generations go on to hate God and thus the Caldee Paraphrast glosseth but this will not agree with the Hebrew I desire you to observe 1. Those that hate him in that Commandment are opposed to them that love him in the same Commandment so that if the threatning be to be limited only to those children who persist in the hatred of God the promise also must be expounded only of those thousands that love God and it would rather have been that he would shew mercy to the third and fourth generation of those that love God 2. Again What had there been extraordinary in the commination God will most certainly punish them that hate him for their personal hatred of him certainly God brings it as a further argument to deter men from sin that he would not only revenge their sins upon them but upon their posterity 3. This vengeance is not so necessary or certain but that by the repentance and humiliation of a present generation though it will at last most certainly come it may be deferred The threatning against Ahab and his posterity was 1 Kings 21.22 23. Ahab was a little smitten upon it God promiseth to defer it but tells him it should come in his sons days v. 29. Ahaziah succeedeth him and dyed by a fall Jehoram or Joram succeedeth him then it began to work Jehu slayeth him and also all the family of Ahab God threatned Jeroboam but because there was good found in his young son Abijam it fell not on him 1 Kings 14.7 8 9 16. but in his Grand-childs time it came Hezekiah was thus threatned for shewing the hid treasures to the King of Babylons servants 2 Kings 20.17 Josiah was his Grand-child the third generation from Hezekiah he humbled himself and God yet deferred it Thus we find vengeance of this nature coming on Jeroboam in the second generation upon Ahab in the third upon Hezekiah in the fifth or sixth generation We find this vengeance taken off from Abijam by some good thing found in him put off in Ahabs time by his though hypocritical humiliation by Josiahs real humiliation 4. Lastly When a generation goes on and continues in their Fathers sins we find vengeance following them to many generations In that case saith God I will not keep silence but will recompence your iniquities and the iniquities of your Fathers together who have burnt incense upon the mountains and blasphemed me upon the hills therefore will I measure their former work into their bosome Isaiah 65.6 7. This was the case of the Jews Matth. 23.35 They continued shedding the blood of Prophets and righteous men and added to it the blood of Christ and they continued still in their blasphemies against Christ They are not in a state indeed to execute their malice against Christ and his Gospel but their hatred and blasphemy continueth and the vengeance of God to this day continueth upon them and God is this day visiting upon them their iniquities and the iniquities of their Fathers together And thus much may serve to have spoken concerning the extent of this vengeance I have but one thing more to do before I come to the practical application of this observation that is to reconcile this motion of Divine Providence to
moneth in which God may take them The Children by adoption are picked out of the Children of wrath Reservat Deus injustos misericordiae per inducias justitiae God by the truce of his justice as Nierembergius phraseth it that is by forbearing the execution of his punitive and vindicative Justice reserveth unrighteous persons for mercy This is one end doubtless of Gods enduring so many sinners in the World that he might bring some of them even so many as he hath chosen unto life to obtain eternal Salvation But yet some will say why doth God permit such as he knows his long suffering and patience will never lead to repentance let me a little answer thy curiosity in this and shew thee that even in this the Lords ways are equal and his wisdom infinite 2. Whether they well repent and turn or no it is but reasonable that that God who hath sworn by his life that be desires not the death of a sinner but had rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live should give them a time to repent and how should this be if God should not bear with them and give them a space of life If they never were suffered to think a thought how should their own thoughts another day accuse them It is an aggravation of judgment against sinners That God gives them a space of repentance and they do not repent How should God condemn them for their filthy speeches their hard speeches their Oathes and Blasphemies if God should not suffer them to vent these things How should they repent if they had no time to repent If they will abuse the patience of God and after the hardness and impenitency of their hearts treasure up wrath against the day of wrath their blood is upon their own heads God is vindicated in his Justice 3. The permission of sinners in the world seemeth reasonable that if they will not be made better others may be made good by Gods patience toward them and forbearance of them If there were none of these Briars and Thorns in the world how could God teach his people by them Indeed this is one of Gods great ends in the permission of sinners But let me open this a little in two or three particulars 1. God by the exemplary punishment of them for their sins oft-times turns others from their sins It is true God doth not make all prodigious sinners examples of his judgment in this life but some he doth and by it makes others to fear and tremble and to avoid those Rocks upon which their Souls split If I remember right it is reported of Waldus the Father of the Waldenses that he was converted by the sudden death of one of his companions I know that examples of judgments are not Gods ordinary means of conversion nay they are rare instances of converts that are made that way especially where the word is ordinarily preached When Dives in the gospel fancied that if one were sent to his brethren from the dead they would believe and avoid those flames he was told by Abraham they had Moses and the Prophets and if upon the reading and hearing of them they would not believe if one should go from the dead they would not believe Those that harden their hearts under the word are ordinarily judicially hardned against judgments or other means that to the eye of reason seem probable means to change their hearts but are not under a Divine institution for that end as the word of God is But yet to some they are so far sanctified God sometimes goeth out of his ordinary road Besides though such examples of judgment seldom prove sole and principal causes or means yet they often prove partial causes and social means and together with the word conduce much to such a blessed end I have known one my self that hath owned the ringing of Bells giving notice of persons that he knew who probably died in their sins as a great means to awaken him to a consideration of his ways and a change of heart and life whiles his Soul reflected upon the sound and he said to himself what should become of me if this Bell now rang for me if my Soul as this poor wretched creatures Soul were now before the Judgment seat of Jesus Christ Princes the time they go to School use to have their Vmbraes some other person I forget it may be the name they use to give them that they may be corrected for them and their Prince by their correction might learn to take heed of errors The elect of God those whom he hath foreordained to eternal life they cannot die in their sins but God suffers some vile and wicked neighbours they have to perish in their reaking lusts and maketh this a means to awaken them to consider what sin will at last bring them to 2. God defameth sin by a plenty of sinners It is one of the idle pretences men in this age have for their filthy stage-plays that sin is there discredited by the representation of it and shewing the Spectators how ill it becomes men to be debaucht the truth is vertue and sobriety is discredited there for in the debauchery of them our age hath exceeded all Heathens But for those that will see the vileness and ugliness of sin they need not see it in a play in effigy they may see it more livelily in the converse of their neighbours and I doubt not but much sin is restrained in the world by the much sin that is committed in the world the reeling of the drunkard from one side of the street to another defameth drunkenness and the indecent immoralities of others both in their words and actions make sin more abominable to many considerate Souls as they say the fire is hotter in winter by the Antiperistasis of the cold so the heat of love to God and zeal for him is advantaged by the excess of hatred to God and his ways which they see in others 3. There is yet a third way by which the sinners of the world do good to the Saints and that is augendo fidem ampliando patientiam increasing their faith and patience every sinner is a grieving thorne and a pricking briar to the house of Israel and by these briars and thorns God teacheth them as it is said that Gideon taught the men of succoth It was the saying of an ancient writer Nullus bonorum habet inimicum nisi malum qui ideo esse permittitur ut vel ipse corrigatur vel per ipsum malus exerceatur that is no good man hath any enemy but a wicked man whom God doth therefore permit that either himself may be amended or the good man may by him be exercised Thou that wondrest why God permits so many sinners in the world wonder why there are so many rods and ferulars for Children why there are so many whipping-posts and racks so many bride wells c. Assyria is the rod of Gods anger Isa 10.
and night in his Temple Had they not been defiled with sin they needed not have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and having their robes so washed they are elevated in the praises of God 4. Finally We may as I said before be assured that God would not suffer so much sin in the world If much sin did not tend much to the glory of God at last Here may be applied all that I said before in the former part of my discourse on this Argument shewing you how the aboundings of sin conduce to the aboundings of grace 1. That grace wherein man is meerly passive and recipient aboundeth by the aboundings of sin The Apostle telleth us that love covereth a multitude of faults the more faults be covered the greater love is discovered God magnifieth grace in abundantly pardoning and there could not be abundant pardoning if there were not abounding sin a multitude of mercies could not be magnified but upon a multitude of Sin The bredth of the robes of Christs righteousness could never have been seen but for the extension of our nakedness it is the height and depth and length and breadth of Sin which maketh all Saints to comprehend what is the length and breadth and depth and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledg that we might be filled with all the fulness of God Eph. 3.17 18. 2. That grace in the exercise of which we are active is also advantaged by the much Sin which God permitteth Our Saviour telleth us Luke 7. those who have much forgiven will love much and those to whom little is forgiven will love but little It wonderfully aggravates pardoning mercy in the sense of a gracious heart to think how many are grinding at the same Mill of sin that he was formerly imployed in and that he should be taken and they left again we should never fight the good fight so well to the glory of God if we had not many enemies to fight with But I have inlarged far enough in the Doctrinal part of this discourse shewing you the reasonableness of this motion of Divine providence in the sufferance of sin and sinners so much sin and so many sinners notwithstanding the opposition that sin hath to the honour and glory of God and to the purity and holiness of the Divine being nothing remains as to this discourse but to consider how this may be useful to us Vse 1. In the first place Let me appeal now to the reason of every one that hears me whether God in the sufferance of Sin and sinners doth not act consonantly to the wisdom of the Divine being It is nothing but our ignorance and inconsiderateness that can be any temptation to us to have any derogatory thoughts of God for these motions of his providence God doth all his own works in infinite wisdom and it is in infinite wisdom that he suffereth sinful men to walk in their own ways What though he be an holy God This will indeed conclude that himself cannot be tempted and that he tempteth no man but it will not argue that he may not suffer any one to be tempted that is as the Apostle James expoundeth it drawn away by his own lusts and enticed What though he hath a power to put a period to sin every moment yet certainly God is not obliged to do all that he can do but his power as ours also is is governed as to the exercise of it by his will What though sin dishonoureth God and impeacheth his glory he knoweth how to vindicate himself and to recompense himself as to his glory and that many ways from the sins of men True it is that it is from the lusts and wickedness of sinners hearts that so much sin is committed in the world yet it is also from the sufferance and permission of Divine Providence God being directed by his own infinite wisdom to govern the world in this method and thus to make a difference betwixt Earth and Heaven so to order it that hereby the vessels of wrath may be fitted for destruction and his chosen ones by many tribulations occasioned generally from the sins and sinners suffered in the world may be prepared for the Kingdom of God O the height and depth of Divine wisdom How unsearchable are Divine judgments how are the ways of God past our finding out Vse 2. But in the second place let every one take heed of taking any occasion from this discourse to give himself a liberty to sin This is the Apostles reflexion upon this he foresaw the ill conclusion which corrupt hearts would draw from these premises therefore adds Rom. 6.1 What shall we say then Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid he makes it his business in that Chapter to shew that no gracious justified Soul can do so How saith he can they that are dead to sin live any longer therein So again Rom. 3. v. 7 He foresaw that some would say if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lye why then am I judged as a sinner Such thoughts are ready to rise up in our hearts why am I blamed for sinning if God hath glory from my Sns Or why should I be judged as a sinner if the aboundings of sin advantage and make way for the aboundings of grace Surely God â—hen cannot so severely revenge himself upon me for sin To restrain such wild thoughts as these from entring or prevailing in any of your Souls let me offer some few things to your consideration 1. Consider first if any good come by sin to the particular soul that sinneth it must be from the abounding of graâ—e Sin doth not of it self or from any particular affection or disposition in it do any soul good God indeed sometimes turns it for good so that a soul may say it is good for me that God suffered me to fall into such a sin Sin in its own nature tendeth to nothing but the ruine and eternal destruction of a Soul it must be from the aboundings of grace if any good come to the soul from sin the aboundings of Divine grace in the free pardon and forgiveness of sin or the aboundings of grace in the infusion of gracious habits by which the soul is made more broken-hearted more humble in the sense of sin more watchful against it for the time to come and careful to avoid all temptations to it The wages of sin is death and the work of sin tendeth to death to debauch and to debase a soul If a sinner getteth to eternal Life it is through the gift of God if by reason of his former sinfulness he now loves God more and be more zealous for God and more afraid to offend God all this is of grace and grace is free Now reason teacheth every man not wilfully to run upon his own ruine in hope that he shall experience the kindness of a friend in such a ruined estate Who will
the Lord and from the glory of his power and how many are dropped into it who never lived so long nor sinned so much as you have done Do not you think that an High-way-man or some other notorious villain as he passeth by a pair of Gallows upon the road hath many such a cold thought as this How many have perished upon this tree for stealing but a few shillings or some things of little value how often have I deserved the same punishment though I as yet escape Oh that you who are yet in a state of guilt and impenitency would reflect upon your selves and say Lord how many are dropt into the pit of eternal destruction who never lived so long as I have lived nor sinned to that degree that I have sinned yet they are perished and for ever perished yet I live and am out of that pit 2. Consider what an hairs-breadth there is betwixt you and this eternal destruction You see some in a moment going down into the pit some in an hours time some in a weeks time you sleep over it every night you tread over it every day you need not be told how little there is betwixt us and death every day How suddenly do you see some snatched away on your right hand others snatched away on your left hand Ananias and Saphira drop into the pit with a lye in their mouths What know you what this day what the next night may bring forth upon our souls Let me conclude this with an Exhortation much of that nature which Daniel used to that great King Wherefore O Sinners let my counsel be acceptable unto you break off your sins by a true repentance and your iniquities by a coming unto Christ if so be you may save your selves from this wrath to come Vse 2. In the second place Let the People of God who are delivered from this wrath and by grace translated into the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ look back with thankful hearts upon this danger which they have escaped They tell a story of a person who being disordered with drink and riding over a bridg where he very narrowly but insensibly escaped the danger of his life coming back the next day and viewing his danger he was so astonished as that he dropt down dead your reflexion upon this eternal destruction which through grace you have escaped ought to have no such influence upon you But from the sight of this dreadful wrath to come which you have escaped reflect these two more profitable Meditations upon your souls 1. What hath God done for me delivering me from such a death Oh how patient was God with me how many nights did I sleep over hell how many days how many years did I tread over these endless torments Oh! what hath God done for me in plucking my foot out of this snare as a brand out of this fire 2. What shall I do what can I do enough for that God who hath saved me from such a death how often might he have thrown me into Hell O Lord I am thy servant I am thy servant thou hast saved me from that wrath which is to come What an engagement should this lay upon us in nostro aeterno to serve the Lord while we have any being Let us therefore go away singing with David We will extol thee our God our King we will praise thee for ever and ever every day we will bless thee and we will praise thee for evermore Psal 145.1 Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits Who forgiveth all thine iniquity who healeth all thy diseases who redeemeth thy life from destruction yea from eternal destruction who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies Psal 103.1 2 3 4. SERMON XLIII Psal LXXIII 12 13 14. Behold these are the ungodly who prosper in the world they increase in riches Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocency For all the day long have I been plagued and chastned every morning I Am indeavouring as I have before told you to make the seemingly rough ways of Actual Providence plain expounding to you the hard Chapters of Divine Providence I am still speaking to such questions as relate to distributive justice considered as in the hand of Actual Providence and here also I have already spoken to several things I am now come to the last which I intend to speak to It is the great question which hath posed the great Philosophers of the world and hath made some of them deny the being of God others deny the care and Providence of God or at least restrain it to some particular objects How it standeth with the justice of God to punish and chasten his own people whiles in the mean time he suffereth the way of the wicked to prosper To handle this I have made choice of this Text it is no wonder that the greatest Philosophers have been posed here when we find the most eminent servants of God whose names stand upon Sacred Record at a loss to find out this riddle and finding it a sad temptation to them You shall find that Job stumbled at it Job 21.7 and Jeremy though he humbly prefaceth his complaint Jer. 12.1 with Righteous art thou O Lord in thy judgements yet he must he must talk with God about his judgements in this thing Habbakuk was also something disturbed at it Hab. 1.13 Thou art of purer eyes than to endure any iniquity wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is better than himself In my Text you find the man according to Gods own heart stumbling also at this stone you have an account of his fall by this temptation from the first ver to the 16. 2. His recovery of himself vers 17 18 19 20. The Propositions which may be observed from this verse are two Prop. 1. That in this life ungodly men often prosper and increase in riches when in the mean time holy men are plagued and chastened 2. Prop. That this is often a temptation to the best of men to think that they have cleansed their hearts in vain I say first God in this life doth often measure out prosperity to the worst and afflictions to the best of men The truth of the Proposition as to matter of fact is evident both from the Records of Scripture and the whole course of Divine Providence in the dispensations of it as through all ages so in our present age so as I shall not need spend any time in the proof of it The Question is Quest How this is consistent with the Justice Wisdom or Goodness of God that the ungodly should prosper in the world and increase in riches when his people are visited with afflictions every night and chastned every morning I shall add further to make use of the
most vile and wicked men in the world to chasten those that are more righteous than they are This was Davids case Saul and Absolom who you know were his great Enemies were both most vile and wicked persons and that which Habbakuk expresly complained of Hab. 1.13 And sufferest the wicked to devour the man that is more righteous than he The Caldeans a vile and wicked people to devour the Jews who were the only people God had upon the Earth at that time Here are three Questions to be spoken to 1. How it standeth with the Justice of God to measure out good things to the vilest and worst of men 2. How it standeth with the Justice and Goodness of God by his Actual Providence to dispense out evil things to the best of men 3. How it is consistent with the Justice of God to suffer the wicked to devour the man that is more righteous than himself I will begin with the first where we must enquire 1. What good things wicked men have 2. We must vindicate the Justice of God in the distribution of them to them The good things which a wicked man hath can be only the good things of this life for the good things of another life they have no part nor portion in that matter 2. They can be none of the good things of grace special grace they are without God without Christ without hope Hence must follow that the good things of which alone they are capable are either bona corporis the good things of the body such are life health strength c. or the good things of fortune as the Heathens call them such are riches honours pleasures or the good things of the mind such as are learning wit c. These good things wicked men are capable of the wicked may live become old be mighty in power Job 21.7 There may be no bands in their death their strength may be firm they may not be in trouble as other men as the Psalmist speaketh here in this Psalm Now this being first premised I come strictly to speak to the Question 1. In the first place I desire that may be remembred which in some of my former discourses I commended to your observation That as adversity is not the portion of every child of God so prosperity is not the portion of every sinner nay if you fix your eyes upon any certain number of good men that live up to the rule of Gods word and a like number of leud and wicked men who live without a God in the world you will find that as to outward prosperity is on the side of them that fear God Wisdom hath riches and honour in her hand as well as grace and glory that which cheats us is the odds that is in numbers betwixt men who fear God and such as fear him not but fix your eye upon any number of certain persons on either side and you will see that Gods fulfilling of his promises to good men for the things of this life such as health long-life riches honour c. to such as fear him are not made in vain and the justification of Gods truth in them doth not stand in need of those distinctions which we ordinarily make use of they are only some that God prospereth 2. As there is no godly man but hath sin enough to justify in his afflictions so there are many wicked men who may have done some service for God which will justify God in such rewardings of them It is but just with God as I have shewed you for God to reward men for the service which they have done for God he rewarded Jehu Assyria and Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon 3. I have shewed you that God with the rewards of this life doth often reward and with the punishments of this life doth often punish relations in their correlates so God may reward if not the person for some service he hath done for God yet he may reward a Father a Grandfather in the riches and honour and outward good things which the present sinner doth enjoy it was thus you know in the case of Jehu the prosperity of Joash and Jeroboam and another or two descended from Jehu was but the reward which Jehu had for his service against the house of Ahab But I have enlarged my discourse upon all these things before and do only hint them here 4. The good things of this life are not truly good they are only called by us good because of their gratefulness to our sense they are in themselves but things of a middle nature good or bad as we use them well or ill It is the saying of Nierembergius an acute Author though a Jesuite Fortunantur improbi larvatis hujus vitae bonis ad correctionem nostrae opinionis ne putemus illa bona posthumae nostrae foelicitati comparanda Wicked men saith he are inriched with the specious good things of this life to correct our judgments that we may not judg that those things are worthy to be compared with that felicity which we after this life shall enjoy The wiser Philosophers in their disputes about the happiness of man in this life which they rightly enough determined must lye in the enjoyments of the greatest good and their further quest what that summum bonum was determined it could not be the good things of the body nor the good things of fortune as they call them we speaking more like Christians call them the good things of Common Providence but at last determined the wiser of them I mean that it was the goods of the mind in conjunction with a competency or a moderate portion of the good things of the other natures But Religion teacheth us to consider man in another notion than they by the conduct of meer natural reason could consider him as a creature under an ordination to an eternal existence and capable of an union with and an enjoyment of God Now upon these two Hypotheses it is impossible that the good things of this life should be vere bona truly good things and that upon these two grounds 1. They reach not to another life What is our inch of time to Eternity Now all these things leave us in the very hour that our soul goes out into an eternal state Riches honours pleasures strength of body c. all leave us when the body dyeth 2. Again While we are in the possession of our breath all these things do signify just nothing to the felicity of the soul which is far the better and nobler part of man the interest of the soul lyeth in its union and communion with God to which none of these contribute any thing so that the objection proceedeth upon an hypothesis that is meerly false it supposeth that God distributeth things truly and properly good to wicked men he only distributeth such things to them as have a shew and appearance of good such things as to their palats and sense are good but
may observe the Saints too shooting out upon their afflictions O how many of them have we seen shot out in humility in faith in patience in heavenly-mindedness and contempt of the world c. It is a saying of Salvian upon this Argument Ideo Sancti viri sunt infirmiores quia si fortes fuerint vix Sancti esse poterint Saints saith he are therefore weak because it is an hard thing to be strong and Saints too we may say it is hard to be rich in Gold and Silver and rich in grace too to be great in the world and great with God too to have an healthy body and an healthy Soul too It is true there is not an absolute inconsistency betwixt worldly presperity and grace Job and Abraham were rich Joseph and Daniel were both honourable and had great places Our Saviour doth not say that it is simply impossible for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God but he saith It is easier for a Camel to go through the Eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God Let the word be understood of the beast called a Camel or for a Cable-rope and by the Eye of a Needle whether you understand what we call so or a gate a little gate in Hierusalem which some say had that name It is not simply impossible for a Camel or a Cable rope to pass through the Eye of a Needle it is a thing may be done if you cut the one into pieces small enough or sufficiently untwist the other but it asks a great deal of labour it must be done with a great deal of difficulty There are three things in which the felicity of the Soul lieth 1. In its favour with God 2. In its conformation to God 3. In its beatifical vision of God I shall shew you that some of those things which we call evils have an influence upon all these 1. They do indeed none of them merit the love and favour of God but they are testimonies and indications of this love and this is eminently true of such as are sufferings for the name of Christ the Apostle speaketh of Afflictions in general whom he loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every Child whom he receiveth Christ saith particularly of the sufferings of his people for him They shall turn unto you for a testimony Luk. 21.13 And the blessed Apostle 2 Thes 1.5 saith of them that they are manifest tokens of the righteous judgment of God that saith he you may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God for which you suffer It is a saying of Salvian Quis tam profundi Cordis c. He means who is so shallow as to think that the rewards of the Saints are carnes fortitudines abundance of the good things of this life the love of God saith he is seen in higher things than these and in things of a quite different nature from these It is a passage of Augustine Surgunt procellae hujus stagni vides malos florere bonos laborare tentatio est fluctus est dicit anima tua O Deus Deus Haeccine est justitiae tua ut mali floreant boni laborent Deus tibi respondet Haeccine est fides tua Haeccine tibi promisi aut ad hoc factus es Christanus ut in saculo floreres Aug. in Psal 25. The storms saith he of this Pit arise you see sinners flourish and Saints in adversity this is a temptation it is a wave and your Soul says O God! O God! Is this thy Justice That Sinners should prosper and thy Saints should be oppressed God answereth thee is this thy faith wert thou made a Christian for this that thou shouldest flourish in this life It was the rich glutton in the Gospel who had his good things in this life Gods Lazarus had evil things far be it from us saith Salvian to think that an Argument of Gods neglect of us which is an Argument of Gods further love to us 2. Doth the happiness of a Soul lie in its conformation to God to the image of his Son as the Apostle speaketh Afflictions highly conduce to this end 1. This is peculiarly true of such Afflictions as a Christian suffers for the gospel and for the name of the Lord Jesus and therefore the Apostle triumpheth in this 1 Phil. 20. That Christ should be magnified in his body whether by life or death and therefore speaks of his sufferings of this nature as the matter of his expectation his hope his boldness and what he was confident he should not be ashamed of and he prayeth for a fellowship with Christ in his sufferings Phil. 3.12 Ignatius is reported after all his sufferings to have said Now I begin to be a disciple Now saith Anthony Person a Martyr of our own Nation I am dressed like a Souldier of Christ when he had put some of the straw that was prepared to kindle the wood which was to burn him on the top of his Head 2. But All sorts of afflictions have an influence upon the Soul to make it more like to the Lord Jesus Christ Sufferings in the flesh for Christs sake make us conformable to Christs flesh to Christ in his state of humiliation to Christ upon the Cross but all the Afflictions of the Saints conduce to make them like unto the Lord Jesus Christ in his holiness and purity that now belongeth unto Christ and is inseparable from him in his estate of glory and exaltation in that he died he died once and but once and shall hang on the Cross no more wear a Crown of thorns no more but his purity and holiness that is essential to him now the Afflictions of Gods people make them like unto Christ in this This is an argument which I have had occasion before to touch upon and therefore I shall be the shorter in it now 1. They wonderfully conduce to take the hearts of the people of God off from the Earth and to six them upon Heaven Poverty takes off the heart from the love of riches and delivereth it from an evil covetousness sickness weaneth the Soul from the love of this life Now holiness lieth so much in the Sequestration of the heart from the world that in Greek an holy man signifies a man that is not earthly it is an hard thing for a man to be possessed of much of the Earth and not to have his heart buried in it it is true we should rejoyce as if we rejoyced not and possess as if we possessed not but this is an hard saying to flesh and blood Who is there almost who can hear who can learn it how rare is that Soul which liveth in the full fruition of the things of this life that can yet keep his heart loose from them and sequestred for God Prosperity plenty a great affluence of the good things of this life are as birdlime to a Souls wings and keep it from mounting up to God
have seen a great number of all nations kindred and people stonding before the Lamb and cloathed with white robes and with Palms in their hands and these were such as come out of great tribuâ—â—tion and had washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and were in triumph serving God day and night Vse 2. What you have heard upon this argument looketh very wistly upon every prosperous sinner which this day heareth me and boasteth in his large possessions of the good things of this life The sum of what you have heard is that the things which you glory in are not truly good that they are but temporary rewards or gifts of God that they are means to bring you to the acknowledgement of God that oft-times through mens corruptions they prove the means of their greater ruine 1. In the first place How should this take down a sinners plumes Let not the great man glory in his greatness nor the rich man in his riches Let not any say in his heart if God had not a favour to me he would never give me such an estate such a success in my trade such an healthy body c. The method of Providence is quite contrary I have somewhere met with a story that anciently according to the laws of Persia a malefactor had liberty for an hour before he died to ask what he would and it was not denied to him One they say condemned to dye and being according to their custom askt what he would desire answers Neither this nor that but only That I may see the Kings face which being granted he so plied the King in that hour as that he obtained his pardon whereupon they say that the Persians altered their custom and covered the Malefactors face as soon as he was condemned that he might see the King no more God to thousands of sinners gives what their hearts could wish riches honours pleasures they are poor condemned wretches by the law of God for all this vessels of wrath fitted for destruction when the hour-glass of their life in this world is run out they are to be turned into Hell to depart from God as accursed creatures into those everlasting burnings that are prepared for the Devil and his Angels Only God that all his creatures might tast something of his bounty for that hour giveth them all good things of this life had it not now been a silly and unreasonable thing suppose the Malefactor had asked for and had a House full of Gold or Silver or all the great titles the world could have dignified him with to have gloried and boasted of them as tokens of the Kings love when in the mean time he knew he was a poor condemned wretch and by and by to be cut off from the enjoyment of them all Is not this the very case thou knowest thy self to be a drunkard a swearer a liar an unclean person thou knowest that for these courses the righteous law of a righteous God hath condemned thee it saith such persons shall never see God shall never enter into the Kingdom of God but be thrown into the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone God out of his bounty gives thee for the few hours thou hast to live out of Hell health riches honours pleasures all thy heart can wish in the world hast thou any reason to boast thy self in these things or to be proud of them thy condition is infinitely worse than the Philosopher's that could eat no dainties at the Kings Table because he saw a naked sword hang over his head by a twine-thread Certainly poor wretch it were thy wisdom for this little time of thy life to do as it is said that Malefactor in Persia did despise all things and only desire thou mightest apply thy self for the little time of thy life with tears fasting and prayer to God that thou mightest see his face and obtain the pardon of thy sins through the blood of Christ Poor wretches what in the mean time have you to glory in what have you to be proud of What should make you walk with a stretched-out neck or a lofty eye thou art not master of one good thing thou callest them good because they are grateful to thy sense and please thy sensitive appetite and they are so far good as they serve thy outward necessities but of no significancy at all either to thy spiritual or eternal happiness Yet these are the things which make the wicked man proud swelling in an high opinion of himself despising others Oh! that God would make you understand that you have not only perishing fleshly bodies to be covered with soft and gay cloathing but immortal souls that you are creatures under an ordination to an eternal existence and that nothing can be worth naming as good but what will profit you as to your immortal capacity What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul Or what can a man give in exchange or ransome for it You have heard of a Prince that in his extremity of thirst cried out a Kingdom for a draught of water The time will come when every impenitent sinner shall wish that he had not had a foot of land in the world nor a rag to cover his nakedness so be it that he had had the pardon of his sins and the robes of Christs righteousness to cover the nakedness of his soul Let him therefore that glorieth glory in this that God is his Lord and Jesus Christ is his Saviour 2. This speaketh to the prosperous sinner as not to be high-minded because he hath nothing to be proud of so to fear and to keep and enjoy what he hath with fear and trembling James would have the Rich man rejoice when he is brought low Jam. 1.10 Because as the flower of the grass he passeth away and when he hath lost his riches his honour his outward felicity he hath lost all but here are greater reasons yet because by a prosperous condition oftentimes poenalis nutritur impunitas a penal impunity is nourished Prosperity slayeth the fools and sinners are ordinarily by it fatted and prepared for the day of slaughter David saw that God set the prosperous sinner in slippery places upon Pinacles and Towers but slippery places you observe that the bloughtiness as you call it of the body is but an ill sign of unhealthiness the sinners growing fat in outward enjoyments I am sure is no good sign Psal 73.17 18 19. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places thou castest them down to destruction how are they brought to destruction in a moment they are utterly consumed If a child of God hath reason to rejoice when he is brought low surely a sinner hath reason to tremble when he is up on high Godly men have used to be afraid of prosperity it is an hard thing for the most watchful Christian to keep his feet when he is set upon the slippery mountain of riches
shall not fall Mat. 16.18 The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Psal 94.14 For the Lord will not cast off his people neither will he forsake his inheritance Mica 4.4 11 12. So quite through this Psalm there are many promises of the same import Now the work of faith is to perswade the soul of the certainty and undoubted verity of these words of God to settle the soul in this perswasion That sooner shall Heaven and earth pass away than any of these things shall fail which God hath spoken Then the work of faith is further to carry out the soul without any carping trouble or disputing to rest wholly upon these words A Christian seeth the word of God what he hath said for its relief now faith teacheth the soul to agree this as the word of him who cannot lye or repent and calleth upon the soul to trust in God for the fulfilling of it to roll it self upon the promise and to commit it self its cause its way unto the Lord the soul of a Christian is very solicitous and careful for the concern and interest of God in the world faith teacheth the soul to cast its care the burthen of its spirit upon the Lord assuring it that God careth for it Faith speaketh to the soul in the language of Solomon Eccles 5.8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent perverting of Justice and Judgment in a Province marvel not at the matter for he that is higher than the highest regardeth and there be higher than they I say this is a great piece of the Child of Gods duty in such a time when the vilest men are exalted and the wicked walk on every side and the people of God are troden under foot as the mire in the streets It is the Will of God concerning them The just shall live by faith This is the proper time for the exercise of Faith when the eye of sense faileth Faith is the evidence of things not seen the substance of things hoped for The proper operation of Faith is where sense faileth where God is trusted and not seen Blessed are they saith our Saviour who have not seen and yet believe This is Opus diei in die suo Though the people of God ought to be careful of all duty at all times yet they ought to have a special regard to the duty of their day the seasonableness of a duty addeth much to the weight and importance of it The foundations are shaken saith the Psalmist Psal 11.3 4 What shall what can the righteous do Mark what follows The Lords Throne is in Heaven his eyes see his eye-lids try the children of men This is that life which the Saints have lived yea and they have lived well upon it When David had lost all the Amalekites had taken Ziglag and in it all that he had 1 Sam. 30.6 the Text saith David encouraged himself in God the Truth Power and Goodness of God nor did he hope in God in vain as you shall read in that story What had Hezekiah to live upon but Faith when Sennacherib had besieged him with his mighty Army and ranted against him and the God of Heaven too after that rate you read What had all the Patriarchs all the Saints and Servants of God to live upon but Faith of whom you read Heb. 11. Nor is there any life which so glorifieth God as this it eminently glorifieth three Attributes of his his Power Goodness and Truth No man will trust in a bruised Reed or lean upon a broken Staff therefore the Apostle speaking of Abrahams faith Heb. 11. saith He believed that God was able to raise him from the dead and again Rom. 3 He believed that he who promised was able to perform It giveth God the glory of his goodness for the expectation of his soul is the Mercy and Goodness of God and it also giveth God the glory of his truth for the proximate object of Faith is the Word and Promise of God O therefore let this be your care when you cannot live by sense live by Faith It is the happiness of a Child of God he hath something to live on in the worst of times Psal 34.10 The young Lions shall be hunger-bit but there is no want to them that fear the Lord. One would think that of all creatures the Lion should be most out of danger of being hunger bit The Lion the King of the Forest all other Beasts are subject to this Beast yet if an old Lion that cannot run for its prey that hath lost much of its strength may be hunger-bitten one would think a young-Lion that is in its full strength should not Yes saith the Psalmist a young Lion may be hunger-bitten those that have most of the world wicked men that have greatest honours greatest power great advantages to provide for themselves they may be hunger bitten they may come to want but there shall be no want to them who fear the Lord there shall be no time so ill but they shall live if they cannot live upon bread they shall feed upon truth How much better is the estate of a godly man than that of his neighbour It is a great point this a great piece of duty Let me therefore a little further enlarge upon it three ways 1. Shewing you how a Christian may know if he liveth this life 2. Directing you in order to it 3. Perswading it by Arguments 1. Will some Christian say how shall I know if I live this life Suffer me to give you five or Six Characters of it 1. It is a Spiritual life Our life saith the Apostle is hid with Christ in God What Christ sometimes said to his Disciples when they would have had him to have eaten something that a Child of God may say to all the world I have meat to eat you know not of His life is a spiritual life such is the life of Faith both with respect to the subject and to the object of it As to the subject of it it is the soul that lives the body lives by bread the soul lives by truth by the promise There are many that in evil days their bodies have enough to feed upon but their souls have nothing hence their hearts become like Nabals dead as a stone yea and as to the object it is spiritual too he that feedeth upon truth feedeth upon Jehovah It is the truth of God in the word which the soul liveth upon the soul of a Believer can no more live upon Words and Syllables than another soul No but it is the truth of God in these words his power and ability to perform what he hath said his inclination and good-will to the performance and his truth and faithfulness Every life in an evil day is not a life of faith some may live upon fancy and foolish hope some may live upon means with which their eye feedeth them another may live upon a Roman spirit of his own Tu
in the actual exercise of it whether we consider the one way or the other we shall find that both flow from the free-will and goodness of God and have no other cause but because God will shew mercy to whom he will shew it 1. Let us consider it first in the purpose Gods purpose of grace was nothing else but his Eternal willing of some persons to obtain everlasting life and salvation in and through Christ and in the use of that means which he appointed thereunto for the counsels of God ordered the means as well as the end we do therefore suppose that God from all eternity knew who should be saved and that he therefore must needs know it because he will'd it for whereas all mankind from eternity are to be considered alike nothing but the Will of God could bring any part of them more than another into a salvable estate especially into a certain state of Salvation God therefore decreed or willed some persons to so glorious an end Now the question is what made God to will these not others what can be imagined but his will of which we are able to give no account Eph. 1.5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will hence it is called the election of grace Rom. 11.5 and 2 Tim. 1.8 Who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but according to his purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the world began Arminians and Papists tell us of Gods electing men out of a foresight that they would believe and obey If indeed men were to have risen out of the Earth like Mushromes and to have given a being to themselves and to have created their own Souls they might have quarrelled the Scripture a little upon this point but when the bodies of all men were to be of the same clay and all souls were Gods which were to inform those bodies how they should any of them have a disposition to believe or obey more than others unless God had created it in them or willed that in time they should have it I cannot understand and if they say that they had it from the will of God the matter as to our point cometh much to the same issue God purposed them grace from his own meer good-will and pleasure he willed them in time to have a disposition to believe and obey and upon their Faith and Obedience to have everlasting life 2. If we consider Gods acts of grace in time they are distinguished either into the more external means Or secondly those gracious habits which accompany salvation and make a soul meet for the inheritance of the Saints in Light The means of Salvation are either the means of Purchase and Redemption such was the giving of Christ of which Saint John Joh. 3.16 could give us no other account but God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son For the means of application they are either more external or internal The more external is the promulgation or publication of the Gospel See what our Saviour saith as to this Mat. 11.25 26. I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth who hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to babes Even so O Father because it pleased thee 2. For these acts of grace by which the Soul is prepared and made fit for the inheritance of the Saints in Light they are Effectual Calling Justification and Sanctification or Regeneration 1. For Effectual Calling we are said to be called with an holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace Not according to our works so that any thing in our selves is denied but according to his purpose Now what is the purpose of God but the will of God determining this or that and it is further added And grace which speaketh the free love and good-will of God in the case for grace is nothing else but free love So 1 Pet. 5.10 The God of all grace who hath called you so that God in the calling of Souls acteth as a God of grace yea of all Grace Who can give a reason why God by the Preaching of the Gospel effectually calleth one and not another out of darkness into marvellous light but meerly because he willeth The Evangelist 1 John 13. telleth us that we are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God 2. Justification is another act of grace whereby God pardoneth our sin looketh upon us and accepteth us as righteous only for the righteousness of Christ reckoned unto us for righteousness Herein also God acteth freely being justified freely by his grace he giveth of the fountain of life freely To this purpose is that I will heal your backsliding and love you freely 3. For Regeneration or Sanctification which is that act of grace by which we are renewed in the inward-man and made conformable to the image of God This is our being born of the Spirit and our Saviour compareth the motion of the Spirit to the wind which bloweth where it listeth 2. But further yet the dispensations of grace by the hand of Providence must necessarily bear proportion to the purpose of grace We are blessed in Christ with all spiritual blessings according as he hath chosen us in him saith the Apostle Eph. 1.4 5. Nothing cometh to pass in the world either as an act of grace or a paenal dispensation but it is in pursuance of some purpose of God Now it was impossible that the purpose of God should have any other foundation than his Will for the eternal purpose must be antecedent to any good or evil done by us we are but of yesterday That man or woman knoweth nothing of God and hath very false conceptions and apprehensions of the Divine Being that doth not conceive of him as a God from all eternity knowing whatsoever should come to pass in the world nor is it possible for us to apprehend how God should know any future thing but because he willed it for what but the will of God should bring it out of a not being into a being out of the order of a contingency into a certainty which it must have or God could have no certain knowledg of it Now it was not possible that any thing in the creature should move God from eternity to will any one grace because there was no creature pre-existent to this eternal act of God nor yet co-existent with it It is true say some but yet God did foresee that such or such would believe repent obey c. using the liberty of their wills better than others and to such God willed eternal life But I cannot understand any thing in this more than trifling For I demand from whence is that better inclination and disposition of one mans will than
by the way of efficiency Therefore God must be the Author or these Divines make him the Author Or because God is the Author of his own judgments and paenal dispensations and God sometimes punisheth sin with sin therefore God must be the Author of sin taken properly as it is an oblique action contrary to his Law This is forsooth their proof of that crimination when-as there are no Divines in the world but think it not only blasphemy but non-sense to talk of God as the Author of sin which must be an action contrary to the will liking and approbation of God as the very nature of sin doth import 2. Their second Crimination is That God hath damn'd his creatures out of his meer Prerogative and Soveraignty We do indeed think and must so think till our Adversaries can possess us with other Idea's and notions of God than either Scripture or reason will help us with That there is nothing which either hath or shall come to pass in the world but God did know from all eternity neither can we conceive how God should know any thing but because he willed it either in a way of efficiency or to permit it We do say that God had a jus absolutum from eternity an absolute right over his creatures to determine how he pleased concerning them But we also say That in his paenal dispensations he acteth not according to his Soveraignty and absolute right and that every mans destruction is of himself and the proximate and meritorious cause of the punishment and eternal ruin of any Soul is his own sin God doth not condemn any Soul but for sin recompensing their own iniquities upon their heads and whatsoever is absolute and Soveraign right his Law from which he never varieth in the motions of his Providence is The soul that sinneth shall die Where is the difference then What maketh this great clamour and odious representation of eminent Divines as to the method of Gods proceedings in his actual Providence Papists Arminians Calvinists all are agreed That the wages of sin is death The soul that sinneth shall die God will condemn none but for sin Only it seems they are not agreed as to the Nature and Attributes and Prerogatives of God Those Divines whom they call Calvinists must assert God to have the same Power over his creatures which a Potter hath over the clay This the other will not understand though God expressly told it the Prophet Jeremy and the Apostle from him hath expressly told it us and this is all the difference that I can understand 3. Vse Thirdly you may from hence learn How the Righteousness of God shall be cleared in the last day in the condemnation of sinners although it hath not pleased him to give to all a power to that which is truly and Spiritually good This is a point which very many in this Generation also will not understand but the fault is in themselves If God say they hath not given to all men a power to repent and to believe how shall he be righteous in the condemning of Sinners There is no consequence at all in this but upon this Hypothesis That except men have a power to do that which is Spiritually good they are in no capacity to do that which is morally evil Whether they have a power to repent or to believe without the effectual Grace of God yea or no Certainly they have a power in a thousand things to break the Law of God yea and to do also many things which are contained in the Law of God and although the doing of these things would not save them yet certainly the omiting of them or doing contrary to them may give God a righteous cause to condemn them Suppose one of you who are Fathers to have two Sons both of them wild and fond of their play and eager at it you call them both to come to you and tell them that if they will come you will give them both mony to go and buy such things but if by such a time they have not those things and appear to you in and with them you will certainly whip them One of these Children hearkens to you leaves his play comes running to you and begs the money you promised him then procures the things and appeareth to you in the habit you desired and you are well pleased with him The other Child is mad of his play which if he would he might leave he could not have the things without mony out of his Fathers Purse but he will not leave his play nor stir a foot towards his Father nor so much as ask his Father for mony his Father indeed sends him no mony but shuts him out of his sight and ordereth him to be severely whipt because that he would not leave his idle game and come to him and ask the mony of him which he promised and because he had not bought the things and appeared before him in that habit and dress which he had commanded will not one say this foolish Child is right served shall his Father be judged unrighteous or severe because he gave the Child no mony as he did the other and the Child could come by the things without mony and if it had them not could not appear in or with them before his Father The case is much the same betwixt God and us God seeth two Men or Women both his Creatures alike in Adam both born in Trespasses and Sins wildly playing over the hole of the Asp and the den of the Cockatrice sporting themselves in Sin and in an hourly danger of Hell-fire God calleth them by his Ministers to leave their Sins and to turn unto him he saith let him that hath been drunk be drunk no more let him that hath been unclean be unclean no more let him that hath told a lye that hath broke my Sabbaths lye and break my Sabbaths no more let him read my Word and hear my Word and let him come and pray unto me and beg of me an heart to believe and to repent and I will give it him and he that believeth shall be saved but in the great day it shall be found That he who hath not repented and hath not believed shall be damned One of these sinners leaveth off his leud courses falls to an external Discipline readeth the Word heareth the Word of God applyeth himself to God by Prayer beggeth of God an heart to repent and to believe his Gospel God hears him gives him a power gives him repentance unto Life and a saving Faith in Christ and he obtaineth everlasting Salvation The other is mad of his Lusts and after them he will go let what will be the issue of it he will not read the Word not hear that his Soul may live nor so much as ask special Grace of God not to plead with God for Faith or Repentance God giveth them not to him he dieth in his impenitency and unbelief God throweth him into Hell
a power to do with his own what he pleaseth and if Grace were not for Gods own it would be no Grace yet we are too too much like Children who considering not their Fathers power and Prerogative nor it may be their own demerits and their own unworthiness to receive such a favour nor possibly their incapacity to receive injoy or use it Yet because they are Children as well as their Brethren and Sisters know not how to brook it that their Father should appear more kind to any of them than he is to them Let me therefore attempt the vindication of God in the inequality of these dispensations and that you may know in what order to follow me I shall lay down this method 1. First I will shew you wherein this inequality lieth 2. Secondly I will endeavour to shew you the reasonableness of the motions of Divine Providence in making this unequal distribution 3. Lastly I shall make some Application of it practically 1. Let us first enquire wherein this inequality lieth In the general It lieth not in any influxes and dispensations of grace necessary in order to the Salvation of their souls There is an union betwixt Christ and every believer in this union lieth the spiritual life of a Christian as the natural life lieth in the union which is betwixt the soul and the body so the spiritual life lieth in the union betwixt the soul and Christ and as the union betwixt the soul and body is preserved and maintained by bodily nourishment blessed be God in order to that end so the spiritual union betwixt the soul and Christ must also be maintained by a spiritual aliment this aliment or nourishment is the influx of the spirit of grace for though Ordinances be external means yet Ordinances signifie nothing without the influx of the spirit upon them and in them Now for such an influence of grace as is necessary to uphold the spiritual life of the believers to keep the soul and its beloved together God giveth it to every believer Whom he loveth he loveth to the end for if this were not so there were a possibility of a total Apostacy and of the intercision of a state of Justification This would infer a mutability in the counsels and purposes of God and subject the gifts and calling of God to repentance For let Jesuites and Arminians say what they will their fictitious purpose and councel of God to love those that are believers will not salve this sore for according to this Doctrine a man may be a believer and in favour with God this month and an unbeliever and out of favour with God the next month and so God may love and hate the same person a thousand times in his life-time and whether this be consistent with the unchangeableness of God let any one judg who understandeth any thing of common sense We therefore stand fixed in this that God neither is nor ever will be wanting to any soul as to those influxes of Divine grace which are necessary to maintain the union and spiritual life of the soul and by the way this well considered might much tend to satisfie a soul dissatisfied at Gods unequal distributions of special grace which although they are exceedingly sweet and of high advantage to gracious souls yet are such as are not of the necessaries of Salvation but only gradual manifestations and such as are spiritual accomodations and advantages to it in its way to Heaven but this is enough to have spoken to this question Negatively I come now to speak nore Positively In the general they are such only as respect the porro esse or the advantages of spiritual life Now what they are comes next into our enquiry They are I think reducible to Three heads the influences of 1. Strengthening 2. Quickning 3. Consolatory grace That there are such influences and that all have not a like measures of them no nor the same soul at all times is so obvious to the experience of all Christians that little need be said of it 1. For strengthening grace I can do all things saith the Apostle through Christ that strengtheneth me It is that which the Apostle prayeth for in the behalf of the Ephesians Eph. 3.16 That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inward-man And thus Christ telleth us John 15. Without me you can do nothing Now the Object of this influx of grace is duty or sin and temptation to it 1. Duty I can do all things saith Paul through Christ that strengtheneth me Christians duty is various and lieth in such motions of the inward and of the outward man both in doing and suffering as God hath any-where in his Word required of us Strengthening grace with respect unto duty is nothing else but the graeious influence of Christ Phil. 1.3.14 2 Tim. 4.7 and the Spirit of Christ upon the soul by which the Soul is made more able both to do and suffer the will of God Now that there is a great variety and unequal dispensation of this influence of Divine grace both to different souls and to the same soul at different times is so obvious as would be perfectly needless to spend any time in the proof of it neither do all souls find the same degrees of spiritual strength nor do the same souls find it at all times 2. Another Object about which strengthening grace is exercised is sin and motions and temptations to sin That which we call strengthening grace with reference to sin is a secret influx of the spirit of holiness by which the soul of a Christian findeth it self inabled to resist its inward motions to sin and to repel temptations from the World and the Devil St. James telleth us That every one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed This is that which Divines call tentationem à carne a temptation from the flesh besides we know that the evil spirit hath a power to make impressions and to offer suggessions to us and that either immediately or by wicked men and sinful instruments this is that which they call tentationem ab hoste a temptation from our grand Adversary and there is a temptation wherein both these concur this is that which they call a mixt temptation Now as to all It is our duty to resist and this is the fighting the good fight the maintaining that spiritual combate which the Scripture speaks of Now there is nothing more evident in matter of Fact amongst Christians than that some Christians are more strong and able to resist motions to sin of any nature than others they are more able to mortifie their members and the deeds of the body as the Apostle calls them Rom. 8. through the spirit Yea one and the same Christian doth not find the like degrees of this spiritual strength and ability at all times There was a time when David complained that
Divine Providence with reference to the different service which he hath for some to do It is said of Christ that he was therefore tempted that he might be able to succour them that are tempted We are not ignorant of his wiles saith the Apostle the Apostle not being himself ignorant of Satans wiles made him more fit to caution and instruct others with reference to them You know it is a great advantage to a Family with reference to the small Pox or other contagious Diseases to have some members of it to have laboured under and escaped those Diseases The Church of God which is his Family could not well be without some Souls that have been under temptations none knows so well how to speak to and apply themselves unto those that are tempted as those who themselves have gone through that fire they are best able to teach others in their own former circumstances what to do and what to avoid They know how to strengthen them with those words which themselves in their circumstances heard from God and to comfort them with those consolations with which they themselves were comforted by God It is therefore reasonable that some should be tempted because all are in subjection to temptations and may be tempted and therefore had need of some Nurses to be provided for them On the other side it is unreasonable that all should be tempted for who then should there be Ministerial to succour the tempted Nor let any say This were indeed something if none were tempted but such as conquered the tempters but how doth God suffer those to be tempted who he knoweth will fall 5. Fifthly therefore Neither is this unreasonable For there is a difference of fallings God suffereth none of his own People to be tempted who shall finally fall They may fall but let not their enemy rejoice over them though they fall they shall rise again Job fell but he rose again Peter fell in the hour of temptation he denied his Master and that with cursing and swearing but his Master looked upon him he went out and wept bitterly God indeed may suffer a reprobate to be tempted who he knoweth will fall and so fall as to rise no more but he never suffereth his Saints to fall finally Satan may stand at Joshua's right hand to resist him but God will say unto Satan The Lord rebuke thee O Satan even the Lord that hath chosen Hierusalem rebuke thee is not this a brand plucked out of the fire Believers may be tempted but God will bruise Satan under their feet shortly Now if the question be intended of mediate fallings not a final falling why suffereth God his People to be tempted who he knowes will get a fall under the temptation though they shall rise again I have answered it before when I shewed you why God permitteth his People to sin he would certainly not do it if he did not know how from their falls to extract his own glory An ancient Writer gives us a large account of this That saith he the wisdom of God might be manifested who can bring good out of evil for God is so good and infinitely wise that he would never suffer evil to be if he did not know how from it to elicit and draw out that which is good That the goodness of God might be made glorious in pardoning and raising up the elect and the Justice of God might be glorified in the righteous condemnation of others That men might be deprived of their natural freedom in acting nor saith he is it reasonable that the sinfulness of the Creature should hinder the exhibition of the Divine goodness That by his Saints repentance and victory at last they might have a more glorious Crown and that they might know and see what is in their own hearts and how much they live upon Divine grace and like burnt children they might more dread the fire and take heed afterward of having any confidence in themselves Finally which is all in short for enumeration of particulars in this case would be endless and incertain thus much we may be assured of God he would never suffer any elect Vessel to be bored through with a temptation if he did not know how to make it issue in his more abundant glory and their more abundant good Applic. Suffer me now before I proceed to the other Questions to make some short Application of this discourse the sum of which is no more but this That as to converted Souls God doth not equally distribute the influence of special grace Although he distributeth to all so much as is necessary to the upholding of the Union of their Souls with Christ and to maintain the Spiritual life so as the Oyl doth not fail from the Cruise nor the Meal shall not fail from the Barrel until they come into their glory yet for the manifestations of his love in such influences of grace as are only of further advantage unto Souls in their way to Heaven such as strengthening quickning and consolating influences God variously distributeth them according to his infinite wisdom he gives to some an Omer to others an Ephah particularly I have shewed it you in those influences of grace by which God strengtheneth the Soul in the resisting of temptations and I have shewed you the reasonableness and something of the wisdom God in these dispensations Now from this Discourse let us learn divers things 1. Inst First the differences betwixt the necessary influences of grace and such as are not absolutely necessary but of high advantage to a Soul in its way to Heaven Grace is necessary by grace ye are saved saith the Apostle but all grace is not necessary The grace of justification is necessary Except a man be born again saith our Saviour he can never enter into the Kingdom of God Every Believer hath this he is born again he is sanctified in body and mind and spirit But now there are further manifestations which make gradual differences in Christians and the receit of which also doth much depend upon our action For although in the first grace the Soul be purely passive yet as to the receiving of further grace it is active therefore the promise of Christs manifesting himself Joh. 14.21 is made to them who love Christ and keep his Commandments I pray observe this for it is a thing of no small concernment From hence 2. Inst Secondly you may easily conclude how unreasonable it is for any Soul to quarrel at God or murmur against his dispensations though it findeth not those gradual manifestations of Divine love unto it which others do experience from God If thou beest equally dealt with as to the necessaries of Salvation thou mightest sit down so far satisfied as not to murmur at God if as to the gradual manifestations of his love in some things he will give unto another more than unto thee Every thing of Divine grace is sweet you must not therefore mistake the tendency of my discourse
as if I were perswading you to such a satisfaction as not to thrist and breath after and labour for perfection in Spiritual strength life and comfort they are all things to be valued above Worlds but only not to murmur and repine against God as an inequal Father or an hard Master because he doth not every way make your Spiritual life is sweet and perfect as others And any complaint of this Nature is the more unreasonable because for the most part it is to be laid upon our selves and is like the Wifes quarrel with her Husband for want of Children when-as the Scripture generally layes the defect upon the Woman So it is here generally the reason why some Christians have more sadness less strength and Spiritual life or liveliness and vigour than others is because they have more sin and corruption and are more wanting in the use of that means whichly upon them to use in order to their obtaining of such degrees Vse 3. In the third place from this discourse it will not be hard for you to conclude the duty of tempted Souls in order to the abating of the force of a temptation or wholly driving the tempter from them Indeed the whole of a Christians duty in order to this end cannot be concluded from this discourse but much of it may 1. First The use of Natural means which may be proper for the correcting that bodily humour or removing that natural distemper of which Satan takes advantage that is in short whatsoever hindereth the free exercise of our reason and consequently keepeth us from passing a just judgment upon our selves which you know we must do by the use of reason I have often thought upon my experience of Souls under these circumstances that the Physitian is many times Gods Ordinance as well as the Minister for the succour of tempted Souls for Souls under these circumstances are not delivered miraculously but in an ordinary way of Providence generally which cannot be without some freedom of the exercise of their own reason and judgment to apply what they read in or hear from the word of God Hence it is that I have often seen poor Souls under these dark circumstances to whom all reading of Scripture all discourses of Ministers have signified little or nothing or at most nothing beyond a little present refreshment the reason is because their minds are darkned and they have not the free use of their reason to make a conclusion to themselves from premises and principles and propositions of the word brought unto them and opened unto them by the most able Ministers of the Gospel who in these stresses of Providence have Ministered to them not that I think there is nothing in what we call temptation but melancholy there is hardly any thing more demonstrable to me than that there is an hand a great hand of Joab of Satan I mean in the impressions we often find made upon and suggestions that are made to persons labouring under these bodily distempers The suggestions to such Souls to blaspheme God to destroy themselves c. which are very ordinary are certainly when they fall upon persons who are of knowledg and have lived in aw dread and high reverence of God more than the natural Products and results of a disordered Nature which we may the rather conclude from the strange violence and impetuousness of them so frequently returning as they oft do and so strangely resisting all arguments and means used against them besides melancholy meer melancholy of its own Nature renders the Soul fearful jealous and suspicious of any thing which may be hurtful to it and though indeed the Philosopher disputes self-Murder to be the effect not of a valorous and couragious but of a cowardly Spirit yet it argueth a more Natural valour than melancholy disposeth and inclineth one unto But this I think the Devil taketh advantage of this bodily distemper under the prevailing of which the Soul is weaker being hindered in the exercise of its reason that it is not able either it self to conclude as at other times from what it hath read in the word of God nor yet to apply what is offered unto it from Ministers of the Gospel So as in reason unless we should expect that God should work out of the road of common Providence the first thing to be done is the use of Natural means with earnest prayer to God for his blessing upon it for the correcting of that bodily humour which prevailing clouds the mind and hindereth it from concluding reasonably in making a judgment upon it self and I have often known that in these cases upon the use of due natural means the temptation hath also vanished and gone away with the disease I could give you one instance of a Person a young Woman known to many of you who of a sudden had fallen under a great temptation and was narrowly prevented in the destroying her self in the night-time in the Morning my self was sent for she having formerly often used to discourse freely with me about her Eternal condition when I came to her I found her in great sadness and heaviness of Spirit but could draw out little discourse from her only she was not Elected she was damned c. with some few other desperate conclusions I left her advising her friends to send for a learned experienced Physitian to her Upon the use of a little means she recovered her distempers and I never heard of her temptation more It is true it is not thus always the natural distemper is sometimes more stubborn and resisteth natural means and Satan working at the advantage of that doth many times much longer molest some but I have seldom or never known any but in these cases with the recovery of their health have likewise recovered themselves through Gods blessing out of that snare of the Devil which he hath laid for them in their disease and distempered condition of their body 2. A second thing which this Discourse prompteth tempted souls to as proper for them is a searching and examining their ways a repentance and turning again unto the Lord. I have shewed you in this Discourse that temptations oft-times are punishments of sin and that the reasonableness and wisdom of God in these motions of Divine Providence not equally strengthening all souls in the resistance of temptation appeareth as in other things so in this that God by keeping them longer under the buffetings of Satan than he keepeth others may make them more sensible wherein they have sinned more than others I know some Divines have thought and do think that God useth not to keep his people long in an hour of great temptation but in deep punishment for hidden sins I do doubt that especially where the temptation is advantaged from a continuing bodily melancholy but withal oftimes it is so that some past sins concealed and hidden give an advantage to the Adversary and that not only when we hide them from God by
one hath a large knowledge of God of the holy Scriptures and whatsoever they reveal of God to render him to the Soul a fit object to be believed and trusted in loved desired delighted in But this is certain that without knowledge there can be no such Exercises No man who is wholly ignorant of God and the Scriptures can breath after him delight in him hope in his mercy trust in his promises c. Some knowledge is necessary to the working of any of these habits and the motions of these habits will be proportionable to the degrees of Christian knowledge Hence you shall observe that Christians who are weak in knowledge are always weak in faith weak in an hour of Temptation indeed weak as to the Exercises of all Spiritual gracious habits Now that there is a vast difference in Christians knowledge and understanding of the holy Scriptures is a thing of evident demonstration 2. Secondly as there is a great Difference in Christians as to their intellectuals upon intelligence from which our wills and Affections move so there is yet a greater difference in their Experiences of God The Apostle telleth us Rom. 5. That tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope Experience is a mighty advantage to divers exercises of grace especially those of faith and hope 1 Sam. 17. David telleth Saul wondering that he being so young a stripling should dare to encounter Goliah That he had kept his Fathers sheep and there came out a Lion and a Bear and took a Lamb out of the flock v. 36. Thy Servant slew both the Lion and the Bear this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them his experience of Gods protecting him from the Lion and the Bear begot in him a confidence in God that he would also deliver him from the Philistine thus Paul with the same breath with which he said God had delivered saith also and shall deliver now that Christians of more experiences should have more strength and confidence is but the natural working of mans Soul 6. Sixthly God doth often by the withdrawings of the assistance of his Grace punish too great adventurousness and presumption of our own strength this falleth properly under the third head but being forgot there I shall add it here This I take to have been the Case of Peter when Christ told his Disciples they should all forsake him Peter tells him that if he died with him he would not deny him He adventureth into the High-Priests Hall after his Master and proves not strong enough to resist the temptation of a Silly Damosel Charging him to have been one of Christs Disciples God often punisheth thus mens leading themselves into Temptation adventuring upon precipices when he hath commanded them to abstain from all appearances of Evil and to give no advantage to the Adversary It is said that God will teach the humble and that he will give grace to the humble whiles he resisteth and sets himself in Opposition to the proud Much more might be said to justifie the wisdom and reasonableness of the motions of Divine Providence in not giving equal degrees of strengthening grace to those who are his own people Before I come to the Application of this discourse I shall speak to the two other Questions relating to Quickening and Consolatory grace because almost the same things will justifie the wisdome of God in them and the same Application will fit them all Quest 3. Whence is it that all have not the like measures of Quickening Grace There is a 3 fold Quickening of which you read in holy Scripture 1. The Quickening of a dead body That which thou sowest saith Christ is not Quickened except it die 2. There is the Quickening of Souls dead in trespasses and sins Eph. 2.1 Neither of these is that which I here intend 3. There is a Quickening which is but the adding of further life and vigour to a living Soul Thus David prays the Lord Quicken me in thy way that man or woman that is not dead in trespasses and sins may yet labour under a great dulness and deadness to the Operations of a Spiritual life nor is there any thing more evident than that as to this there is a great variety amongst Christians yea in the Spirit of the same Christian at different times the Souls of good people often find another kind of freedome and livelyness in Spiritual duties than they do at other times now whence this is is a question not unworthy to be answered the sweetness of a Christians life very much depending upon it 1. To which I must answer as to the other that this also is often caused from the temperature or from the distemper of the body and that more generally than either of the other before mentioned for though there be nothing more true than that a Christian of an healthy temper and constitution may yet complain of this spiritual distemper and find his heart dead and dull enough to spiritual things yet it is rare for a Christian under bodily distemperatures especially such as affect the head or any of the vital parts to find himself as at other times as to his duties especially some duties of communion with God There is such a close relation of our souls to our bodies that their distemperatures do mutually affect each other the distemperatures of the mind either through immoderate fear or sorrow do often very much affect the body and again the distemperatures of the body do often very much affect the mind and this dulness ineptitude to and heaviness in its Religious performances is one of the first evils with which the soul is so affected and indeed this makes one of the greatest difficulties which the spiritual Physician meeteth with to make up a true judgment whether the disorder and distemperature which he meeteth with oft-times in disturbed souls be originally in the mind or only there reflexively by a sympathy with a distempered body for accordingly applications must differ and where this dulness and heaviness is an effect of a bodily disease it very often removeth with the cure of that 2. But it is not so always The guilt of sin hath also a great causation here For it is neither reasonable to imagine nor indeed possible to be that a soul burdened in its Conscience with the load and guilt of sin should run the ways of Gods Commandments as chearfully and as fast as that soul who through grace hath been inabled to cast this burthen upon the Lord Jesus Christ and comfortably at least to hope that its iniquities are forgiven and its sins covered much less as that soul who walketh in the more clear Vision of God and under the full assurance of the pardon of its sins and its acceptation with God A soul continually pull'd back by Conscience and told that it is a guilty person whom God accepteth not cannot possibly make such haste without delayings as another soul to keep Gods Commandments The
guilty soul therefore is but an heavy moving Soul in Spiritual performances Nay thirdly The tempted the deserted Soul though its temptations or desertions be not the punishment of Sin but only probatory of grace cannot be so free and lively as another Soul and if it be but a just and reasonable motion of Providence to let Satan sometimes stand at a Christians right hand and be continually buffeting it for a season and to withdraw from some Soul the influences of strengthning and consolatory grace It cannot be unreasonable to leave it under some Spiritual deadness and dulness which are but the proper consequents and effects of the other how can any one imagine that a Soul continually moved to some sinful actions and possibly so violently moved as the Soul knoweth not how to deny the motion should find as much freedom and chearfulness in the service of God as a Soul under no such incumbrance or that a Soul under doubts and fears and jealousies of Gods favour to it and its acceptance with God should at the same time enjoy the like freedom in the service of God and unto Spiritual duty as that Soul which walketh as at Noon-day in the full and brightest light of Gods countenance and under the fullest confirmations of the love of God unto it 4. Fourthly The freedom and liveliness of a Soul to and in Spiritual duty doth also much depend upon its freedom from entanglements and businesses of an Heterogeneous Nature 1. The Soul of a man hath not an infiniteness in its powers if they be eagerly working and busily exercised this way they cannot be as eagerly and busily exercised another way which is quite of another nature Christ hath told us that no man can serve two Masters No man can serve God and Mammon That is eagerly and intensly serve both he will serve the one and neglect or despise the other you never knew one deeply ingaged and intangled in worldly concerns freely lively and active in the service of God businesses and cares of the World are like thick clay which clog the Chariot-Wheels of the Soul and keep it from moving nimbly The Soul then acteth most lively and freely when it is most sequestred from the World and the concerns of it Souls in separation serve God with the greatest freedom alacrity and chearfulness as well because in that state they are freed from the cares and businesses of the World as from the impediment of the Body by whose Organs they act while they continue in a state of conjunction with it These now are some of the chief causes of this difference in Souls as to this freedom and liveliness in the service of God now God giving these influences of grace also in the way and use of means and dispensing his grace according to the circumstances of the Soul receiving it I mean his dispensations of further grace and manifestations of himself unto the Souls of those who are his own People while there are in the World Souls under such different circumstances as according to an order of Nature and reason they cannot be so free and lively as others in their Spiritual operations Gods inequal distribution of these dispensations must needs appear exceeding just and reasonable and thus much may serve to have spoken as to these I proceed to a Fourth Question 4. Quest Whence is the variety of Gods dispensations of consolatory grace Consolatory grace is that dispensation of Grace by which the Souls of such as fear God are filled with joy and peace The Psalmist telleth us That light is sown for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart Every child of God hath a right to a joy and peace for joy and peace in the heart and conscience is but the Copy of a peace with God Now every Child of God hath peace with God For that is the immediate product of justification Rom. 5.1 Being justified by Faith we have peace with God But a jus ad rem a right to peace is one thing that every Believer hath a jus in re or an actual possession of this joy and peace is another thing The light that is sown for them doth not always shine the peace that is for them in the Fountain is not always in their Souls as a River making glad their hearts Christ hath left them Peace as a Legacy John 14.27 Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you but as Legacies are ordinarily left to be paid at different times and oft-times upon certain conditions which not being performed the payment of the Legacy is withheld or deferred So it is as to this Legacy There is nothing more certain than that consolations of the Soul are the influences of the Spirit of God for he is upon this account called the Comforter and they are the effluxes of special grace for there is no peace to the wicked saith my God it is but an ignis fatuus or a false fire which sometimes flasheth in the face of an Hypocrite For all peace of Conscience being as I said before but a Transcript in our Consciences of the peace our Souls have ratified with God and confirmed in the Heavens a Soul whose iniquities are not forgiven is not subjectum capax a subject capable of this inward joy and peace which is consequent to believing and although not inseparable from it yet never but subsequent to it It is our unhappiness to live in times when all the influxes of special grace are denied by some so that it is no wonder if some make a mock of these Divine consolations and will allow no other Operations to relieve sad and comfortless Souls than conclusions from Reason either working upon Natural or revealed Principles taking no notice of the Spirit of Gods influence 1. Either to inable the Soul to make such Applications and conclusions from true Premises Or 2. Further to elevate and raise up the Soul beyond the force of these Principles But be their Sentiments what they will and their Discourses sutable to their Principles as they will we know that the Holy Spirit is not for nothing called a Comforter That we Read of the Consolations of God Job 15.11 And that God is called The God of Consolation and he that hath given us everlasting Consolation That in the midst of Davids perplexing thoughts they were Gods comforts which refreshed his Soul Psalm 94. v. 19. That it is God who comforteth those that are cast down 2 Cor. 7.6 And who comforteth us in all tribulation 2 Cor. 1.4 But it is as certain that the consolations of all Souls even those who are true Believers are not equal nay the same believing Souls are not always under the same consolatory influences of Divine grace David himself crieth out why art thou cast down O my Soul Why art thou so disquieted within me the instances of Job Heman Asaph David stands upon a Scriptural Record but if we had not them the experiences which we have every
day of believing Souls if we can make any Judgment of Believers do sufficiently evince this to our Souls my business is to inquire the Justice and the reasonableness of the motions of Divine Providence in the inequality of this distribution This will easily appear to you upon three hypotheses which I take to be all very true 1. That God doth ordinarily dispense out these influences of grace to souls which by his Providence he hath prepared for them This which I call Gods Providential preparation of souls for the reception of these influences I conceive lies chiefly in Two things 1. The freedom of it from those bodily incumbrances which in a natural working make the soul sad heavy and dejected such distempers we know there are as in a natural working sadden the spirit and fill it full of fear sorrow dejection and despondency which are all contrary to the comforts and serenity of a soul and as I have once and again told you it must be a miraculous operation contrary to the bias tendency and natural operations of a man for a soul to be filled with consolations while it is influenced with a body lying under these disadvantages God therefore when he intendeth any of these consolatory influences doth ordinarily prepare the soul for it by delivering it from those influences of an ill affected body which dispose it quite another way 2. A second way by which God prepareth the soul for it is by filling it with knowledg proportionable to it for the comforts of a gracious soul are not irrational and unaccountable things but the results of Scriptural conclusions which the soul is by the Comforter inabled to make God hath in his Word sown the seed of light and joy for them the Ministers of the Gospel who are the Interpreters of Scripture have an Office and Ministery in the Interpretation of this Word and working the souls of Gods people to understand the sense of them The soul it self hath an action in it using its reason and natural powers to conclude from the Scripture The Holy Spirit giveth unto the soul to see the things which are freely given it of God 1 Cor. 2. and further possibly setteth to its Seal and giveth it a further and more undoubted confirmation so as in an ordinary working the comforted soul must be a knowing and understanding soul It is true we sometimes find some honest souls full of joy and peace whose knowledg doth not appear proportionable God so relieving some particular souls after their lying under the discouragements of the spirit of bondage But commonly such comforts are not of long continuance rather present reliefs to the soul from an extraordinary working of the blessed Comforter than any settled consolation and the abidings of the Comforter with them Seldom any but knowing and judicious Christians have a settled and continued joy and peace upon their believing 2. Secondly That God doth ordinarily give out these dispensations more or less or nothing of them though not according to the merits of those souls that have them yet according to their behaviour and misbehaviour towards him That famous promise John 14.21 We will manifest our selves unto him is made to those that love Christ and who keep his Commandments And when Judas asks him Lord How is it that thou wilt manifest thy self to us and not unto the world Christ answereth him saying ver 23. If any man love me and keepeth my sayings my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings as much as to say The reason why I manifest my self more to you is because you love me and demonstrate that love to me by keeping my Commandments For the world they love me not and proclaim that they love me not by their disobedience to my Commandments and therefore it is that I do not manifest my self to the world as I do unto you In the receiving of the first grace man is meerly passive and the subject of preventing and operating grace but as to the receptions of further grace the child of God is active and the subject of cooperative adjuvant and assisting grace and God gives out his assistances according to their motions 3. Lastly The reasonableness of this different dispensation may appear in this That in the dispensations of this grace God acteth often by Prerogative shewing mercy where he will shew mercy Indeed he doth so as to the first grace as I have before at large shewed you But now he doth not so as to these influences of grace which are necessary to the upholding of the mystical union between Christ and the Soul and the upholding of a Christians spiritual life if he did it were possible that a child of God might fall away from his state of grace and there might be an intercision of the state of Justification But Christ hath told us That if any man drink of the water which he shall give him he shall never thirst but it shall be in him a well-spring of living water springing up in his soul to eternal life c. so that in the dispensation of that God acteth upon a Covenant and as a debtor to his promise If any one saith God hath also promised to manifest himself unto his people I answer those promises are made to those that love him and keep his Commandments but for the upholding of the spiritual life he hath made a Covenant with his people as that he will never depart from them to do them good so that he will put his fear into their hearts that they shall never depart from him which promise although it be not to be extended to a being kept from all sin yet it is to be extended to the preservation of souls from such degrees of sinning as shall extend to the alteration of the state of the soul and the extinguishing the spiritual life and killing the seed of God in the soul But for those manifestations of grace which are not necessary to a souls Salvation and the upholding of spiritual life in it God acteth more freely according to the counsel of his own Will derected by his own infinite Wisdom Now upon these Hypotheses supposing that all Christians are not of equal degrees of knowledg nor are equal as to their bodily circumstances that every soul that belongeth to God doth not walk up to an equal degree of duty but some may be and are guilty of more and more eminent failings than others Or that God may be by his infinite Wisdom directed to try one soul more than another to prove their patience or their faith which is most tryed when his people have least sensible consolations the motions of Divine Providence in distributing to several Christians nay to the same Christians several degrees of consolatory influences of grace cannot seem either unjust or unreasonable to any sober and intelligent Christians This is all I shall speak to this
in spiritual nourishment Though it be true in Bodies that all who are fed with the same bread and drink the same drink do not thrive alike yet suppose a body to be fed with improper food or not to have half enough it is no great wonder if it doth not grow so fast as another body that hath a plenty of food and that food too which is good and proper for it It is the same case with the soul that also must have its food The souls food is the Scriptures Ordinances Influences For the first indeed we have them we have them in our own language so that we can understand them but yet every one cannot read an inexcusable fault in Parents and such as have the government of youth especially in the age wherein we live nor have all the like means of having them read to them and being made to understand them But the great difference lies in Ordinances St. Peter adviseth Christians to desire like New-born Babes the sincere milk of the Word that they might grow thereby He doubtless speaketh of the Word preached the Promise Psal 92.13 is Those that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God The House of the Lord is the Church of the Lord and there is a promise of growth to all those that are planted in it yet as in our Gardens and Fields there are different sorts oft-times so in the Church of God which is a large Field there are different soils for Christians There is a great deal of difference in that preaching under which Christians sit One man preacheth in the inticing words of mans wisdom another in the perswasive words of mans wisdom another in the evidence and demonstration of the spirit and with power Some Christians possibly live where they scarce ever hear a good Sermon but some Harangues of Oratory or some rational Philosophical Discourses of which they understand little or nothing Others live under plain lively powerful preaching where the Preacher makes it his business to study the souls of his people and proportioneth his preaching accordingly so as the Babes have their milk and others their stronger meat Teaching them as they are able to receive instruction It is no wonder if such Christians who are under the best means be found most thriving God working in the use of means where means can be had It is true Christ once and never but once that we read of made use of clay and spittle to cure the blind mans eyes And when our Lord was himself upon the Earth attending his own Garden and the Plants in it though he had a fulness of wisdom and power too and had many things to say unto them yet saith he John 16.12 you are not able to bear them now And it is said Mark 4.33 With many such parables spake he the Word unto them as they were able to hear it Now if Christians live under preachers who either make no conscience what they preach unto people but fill up their time either with idle Fables or Invectives against Parties or some florid or Philosophical Discourses as if their study were directly contrary to that of the Apostles whose great care as he tells us was so to order his preaching as the faith of his hearers might not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God Now their preaching seems to be so directed and ordered as that the faith of their hearers might not rest in the power of God but in the wisdom of men It is no wonder if such Christians do not grow in grace in proportion with others who live under more adequate and proper means God useth not ordinarily to work miracles and their ordinary spiritual food is not proportioned to any such thing as the spiritual proficiency of those that hear them 2. Secondly A great reason of this difference lieth also in the differing natural tempers of Christians Amongst other Metaphors by which the Holy Ghost expresseth the Conversion and Regeneration of souls by that of Engraffing is one Rom. 11.17.19.23 24. The soul is ingrafted into Christ Now those who are skilled in planting know that according to the different nature of the plant the growth is faster or slower more or less Some plants grow much more freely than others a Cion of one sort of fruit will shoot up as much in one year as a Cion of another species will shoot in two or three years Truly it is so in the Spiritual Plantation Christ is the Stock into which we are all ingrafted there is no fault there but now the Cions that are ingrafted into Christ are not all of the same nature and temper And although Grace makes a great change and alteration and doth much correct a natural temper yet it doth not root out Nature nor work the change in a moment nor in all the same proportion of time There are several tempers which much hinder the appearance of growth in grace Some are naturally of vain airy light spirits some of proud and high spirits some of froward teachy passionate stubborn spirits Others are naturally of more solid serious tempers of more low and humble of more meek and pliable spirits Now where it happens that there is a change wrought in some persons of airy and light spirits or such as are proud and high or froward and passionate and stubborn a progress and growth in habits and exercises of grace will not be so soon evident and apparent as in those souls that are of sweeter and more gentle and ductile spirits Much grace will make but a little show where there is an ill natural temper and humor 3. Thirdly An ill neighbourhood doth make a great deal of difference in the growth of grace We see in Plants an ill neighbourhood of Plants doth much hinder growth There is scarce any Plant will thrive much near an Ash the like might be observed of other Trees which experience tells us are ill neighbours to Plants Rake up Fire in Ashes if it keepeth alive it is all It is so with Christians that are ill-yoaked that live in ill Families or Neighbourhoods There is some Wood they call Quench-coal Rotten Wood is mostly so The truth is the company of all carnal worldly men is of that nature they are all Quench-coals to the life of Grace and discourage that holy fire which the Spirit of God hath kindled in the souls of his people If a Christian be engaged in such society whether necessarily as in Conjugal relations and indeed in most Domestick relations or voluntarily if such a Christian keeps his sincerity it will be well it can hardly be expected that the profiting of such Christians should appear unto all or indeed that they should grow in proportion unto other Christians who are engaged in a better converse and are under the daily Instructions Exhortations Reproofs and Admonitions of others who as Brethren take themselves concerned to consider them and to
provoke them unto love and good works Yet it is observable that such Christians do grow by a kind of spiritual Antiperistasis as they say the fire is hottest in the coldest weather so we often see that there is a great warmth and zeal against sin and for God nourished in those souls which have been most smothered and choaked with ill relations and company which discovereth it self as soon as those persons are freed from those intanglements and incumbrances but while they are troubled with them this growth is not so evident nor do we constantly find Grace thriving under such ill shadows so prone are our corrupt natures to receive contrary impressions and nothing so much as converse exposing us to the reception of them So that this is like an ill air to the Body which often hindreth the growth of it 4. Fourthly As the growth of the Body is hindred by some diseases the growth of a plant by some canker or some ill winds or by the check which it may have by the bitings of some beasts So may the growth of Grace in the Soul be much hindered 1. By the prevailings of some particular corruptions 2. Or by the wounds which the Soul receiveth from some temptations It is true There are some sicknesses in which persons shoot out and by which they are rather advantaged than hindered in their growth but there are other habituated distempers which hinder the growth of young persons There is no prevailing corruption but giveth a check to a growth in Grace though sometimes the prevailing of it doth by accident promote Grace in its exercise as it was with the Corinthians 2 Cor. 7.11 But prevailing Lusts do wonderfully hinder proficiency in Grace To instance but in that one lust of Earthly mindedness Let but an earthly covetous mind prevail upon any it is a wonderful thing to observe how it checks all spirtual progress it betrayeth a Christian to so many practical errors both of omission and commission that his neighbour standing by and observing him cannot but cry out in the words of the Apostle How dwelleth the love of God in this man Though they see much in him which disposeth them to charitable thoughts and makes them that they cannot but conclude he is one that feareth God yet they know not how to reconcile the actions of his life to what the Scripture speaketh of the nature of grace Yea and long and violent temptations do also much hinder the souls growth They are like cold winds or the bitings of beasts to the plants which discourage the growth of them though they be not internal causes yet they are external causes of the plants unthriftiness So it is with long and violent temptations they indeed do not work as internal causes I mean such temptations as are ab hoste from our grand adversary to hinder a Christians growth but they are great external causes discouraging the soul in almost all its exercises of Communion with God and applications of it self unto him 5. Lastly Any Desertions or with-drawings of divine influences are great causes There are few plants which grow much in the shade ordinarily the influences of heaven both of the Sun and the Rain are necessary to the growth of the plants I am sure the influences of the Sun of righteousness are necessary to the spiritual growth of a good Christian and if they be with-drawn though the soul may live yet during the with-holdings of them it will not much grow or thrive The soul will live during the with-drawing of them for I have once and again told you that the Lord never withdraweth what of his spiritual influence upon the soul is necessary to uphold and maintain the spiritual union and life but no soul flourisheth and increaseth much under such a dispensation it standeth in the shadow and wanteth those beams which are necessary to its bearing and bringing forth much fruit These now are the great causes of that variety which we discern in Christians Growth other causes might be assigned but this is sufficient supposing God to have appointed the use of means in order to a spiritual growth and ordinarily to concurre with the use of those means to justifie Divine Providence in not equally making every Soul to grow There is yet one Question more which indeed doth not properly concern this place in which I am to discourse concerning the Reasonableness of Divine Providence in the inequal distributions of special distinguishing Grace yet I shall speak something too viz. 6th Quest Whence it is that good People have such different Apprehensions of the Truth of God 1. That which makes the difficulty in the Apprehension of this is 1. Partly Because there is but one Truth one Faith as well as one God one Baptism c. Two contradictory Propositions cannot be true nor can both proceed from the God of Truth for the same Fountain doth not send forth bitter Water and sweet One and the same God cannot speak different things God is Truth and every Truth is from God no lie no falshood cannot possibly be from God 2. Partly Because all the People of God have the same Spirit of God which is called the Spirit of Truth dwelling in them and are under the same Promise of this Holy Spirit leading them into all truth and the Annointings teaching them all things 3. Again They have all the same word of truth to guide them and to examine and measure Propositions by they have the Law and the Testimony and that is the Standard in the Market of Truth the Touch-stone by which every Proposition is to be tryed the Scale in which every Proposition is to be weighed Yet notwithstanding this There is nothing more obvious than that even such who if we may judge any thing do truly fear God have strangely different apprehensions concerning Divine Truth concerning the Sacraments the use of the Law the extent of the Death of Christ the power of mans Will the true notion of Faith c. Now the question is Whence this variety is why God permitteth it and how the motions of Divine Providence in these things may appear just and reasonable I shut out of this Discourse the different Apprehensions of Carnal wicked and ungodly men whose Creed is commonly dictated by their lust and their whole art and study is because they cannot allow the conforming of their hearts to Divine Truth to endeavour to interpret the Word of God into a fense consistent with their lusts as also all such as the Apostle speaketh of whom because they received not the truth in the love of it God gives up to strong delusions to believe a lie that they may be damned because they have had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2.9 10 11 12. or because as the Astle speaketh Rom. 1. They have detained the truth of God in unrighteousness I say for all these I shall shut them out of my Discourse and onely inquire whence such as truly love and
was corrected and which when he was a child he deprecated and would gladly have cut in pieces Let me shew you a little that these things which we disgrace with the name of Evils and of which the holy and gracious God is not ashamed to be the Author are not Evils but such as deserve a better name and such good things as are some of the greatest goods the child of God meets with on this side of Heaven To this purpose we will consider them 1. As they contribute to the Predication of the Holiness and Justice of God and the making him to be feared and adored in the world 2. As they many ways contribute to the happiness of those that shall be saved 1. I say first as they predicate the glory of Gods Justice and Holiness Justice and Holiness are two eminent Attributes of the Divine Being so essential unto it as if he should not be just and holy he could not be God Now the Holiness and Justice of God could never be so known in the world but for the afflictions troubles and punishments which are abroad in it God is infinitely removed from our senses we can only read him in his word and in his works The word of God evidenceth these two Attributes to us by faith for the word is the object of faith and faith is the evidence of things not seen The word of God speaketh God a just and holy God and therefore we believe it but as in a State the Justice of the Magistrates would never be seen in making good Laws and discoursing just things if he never put them in execution so neither should we ever have any demonstration of the Justice and Holiness of God if it were not for those afflictions and punishments of sinners by which he declareth to the world his abhorrence of sin and the exactness of his Justice I remember the Apostle Rom. 3.25 telleth us That Christ was set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare Gods righteousness and God being about to destroy Pharaoh saith I will get me honour upon Pharaoh What honour the honour of his Justice and Righteousness It is the great interest of God to declare unto the world his Justice and Holiness How else should he have the revenue of his glory from these Attributes Now I say Evils of punishment are upon this account great goods and were necessary if they were causative of no other than this good If God obtained no more from them than the Proclamation of his Holiness and Predication of his Justice and Righteousness yet this were enough and thus much he gains from his punishment of the worst of men if they be not made better by them yet God is by them made more glorious and declareth his righteousness The argument is this Those things cannot be evil however we may miscall them which immediately tend to make God more glorious in the eyes of the world but this all Evils of punishment do they speak God a pure and holy God and a just and righteous God But there is much more to be said than this is 2. They very much contribute to the good of such as shall be saved 1. They contribute to make us better while we live here and 2. To make us eternally happy hereafter It is only the foolish child that as I said before quarrelleth at the rods and ferula's that correct the wildness and wantonness of its youth The grown man blesseth God and thanks his master for them He that spareth the rod saith Solomon hateth the child but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes Prov. 13.24 and advising Parents again saith Prov. 23.13 14. Withhold not correction from the child for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not dye thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell In short 1. By afflictions Souls ordained to life are kept from hell 2. By afflictions such souls are fitted for the Kingdom of Heaven 1. I say first By afflictions as by a divine sacred means the souls of such as are ordained unto life are saved from hell If mans rod may be a means to such a blessed end Gods rod will certainly do much more the rod and reproof give wisdom Prov. 29.15 Solomon tells us That foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him Prov. 22.15 It is as true as to the Children of God as it is with reference to the Children of men Have not you observed a tender Mother sometimes seeing a foolish child too busie with the fire or candle taking the childs hand or finger and holding it so near that it scalds or burns it self so learning the burnt child to dread the fire God hath never a child but is too too ready to be playing with hell-fire playing over the hole of the Asp and den of the Cockatrice God takes his childrens fingers and scalds them a little with the fire of Hell in their Consciences making them to be a continual terror instead of a continual feast or with the Candles of Afflictions and outward trials and thus they are delivered from Hell Adam had never seen death he had only heard of it in the threatning in case he did eat of the Tree that stood in the midst of the Garden he put out his hand and took of the fruit and did eat his posterity shall now see and feel death they shall be in deaths often and have leisure to think if the torments of the stone or the gout be so great what will the torments of Hell be If I am not able to stand under the terrors of an affrighted Conscience for a few months how shall I abide everlasting wrath That so he may be more wary and afraid Demonstrations of the truth of the word have a great force with our unbelieving hearts God hath therefore in infinite wisdom and goodness so ordered it that one while his people shall be in the fire of a Fever another while in the darkness of a divine desertion By the first they shall learn to conclude how hot the fire of Hell must be by the later how dreadful that utter darkness shall be which shall be the impenitent sinners portion what it is to be forsaken of God for ever upon the hearing that dreadful sentence Depart from me you cursed into everlasting burnings prepared for the Devil and his Angels They shall sometimes find Satan at their right hand to learn them what it is to be with the Devils to all eternity they shall sometimes want bread to eat and water to quench their thirst and left from thence to conclude what the condition of a Dives is that would in those flames be glad of a cup of cold water to cool his tongue they shall have extremities of pains for a little time in some particular joynts and limbs and thence gather what the torments of the whole body
and soul must be for ever and ever when all the Vials of Divine wrath shall be poured out upon them I do not doubt but many a soul in glory is this day blessing God for its life of trials pains and afflictions and could we hear them speak they would tell us they were beholden in a great measure to the thousands of little hells they suffered here for the Heaven to which they have crouded through much tribulation and waded through many waters of Marah which they found it difficult while they were in their delicate flesh to drink of because their tast was bitter 2. By afflictions and troubles the saints are fitted for the Kingdom of God They are such good things as accompany salvation and make the heirs of salvation fit for the Kingdom of God We must be made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light before we come to it Col. 1.12 and we are made so by afflictions in a great measure Do you sometimes see some beautiful stones in a famous structure shining with variety of Colours and adorning the places where they are How came they think you by this beauty were they only beholden to the Painter for an ingenious mixture and laying on of colours This would never have made them so without hewing and smoothing and polishing but both these together complete their beauty The Stone-cutter first hews off their roughness and polisheth them then the Painter layeth his colours upon them Amongst other expressions by which the Scripture expresseth the blessed state of the saints this is one promise Rev. 3.12 I will make him that overcometh a pillar in the house of my God To make a Soul a Pillar a beautiful glorious Pillar in the House of God it is not enough that the holy spirit comes and like a Painter adorneth the soul with its varieties of gracious habits but the Providence of God especially as to some of them who are of courser rougher constitutions must also come and hew and cut and polish them with varieties of trials and afflictions and thus they become at last beautiful Pillars beautiful for faith and patience for self denial and meekness strong to bear the cross and submissive to the burthen of it Thus by many tribulations they enter into the Kingdom of God by many tribulations not only as the road to Heaven the dark entry into that place of light but as means fitting them for Heaven Files filing off that rust with which they could never enter in there Even the man according to Gods own heart confessed that before he was afflicted he went astray and that his afflictions had contributed to his learning of the Lords Statutes We sillily call afflictions evils but consider thy self saith an acute Author how often hast thou been made better by those things those afflictions which thou defamest with the name of evils Augustine lamented that a Fever had corrected that lust in him which the love of God and the meditation of that could not extinguish Certainly the same reason which forbids us to call that good which maketh us worse will likewise restrain us from calling that evil which maketh us better God doth ex dispendio naturae parare compendium gratiae in the phrase of an ingenious Writer he maketh the outward man decrease that the inward man may by it increase so that troubles and afflictions seem but Divine inventions to make the saints both more holy and more happy How should we have lien grovelling on the earth if God had not prepared us there a bed of thorns and lien always sucking at the worlds breasts if God had not rubbed them with this wormwood How often would the pitifully wanton heart of a good Christian have been priding it self at a Looking-glass if God had not spoiled her smooth face with the Small Pox or some other deforming disease How often is the love and delight of a soul canton'd out to a Wife or an Husband to a Child or a Friend and how little a share hath God of it until he cuts off these suckers from the roots of our souls How little time can a man or woman oft times find for Meditation or Prayer for examining his heart and reflecting upon his ways till God shutteth him up in a Prison in a sick Chamber c. that he hath nothing else to do then he cries with the Church Let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. How little how seldom should we with any seriousness or in any solemn manner remember God if God sometimes did not forget us When should we be willing to entertain thoughts of a better life of a more enduring substance if we always had full measures of the contentments of this life The uncertainty we have of earthly riches makes us look for the more enduring substance A banishment from our Country or daily persecution and vexation in it makes us think of and prepare for a better Country By dying daily we become willing to dye and to be with Christ If we did not see the gourds that refresh us and keep the heats of the world from our heads come up in a night and go down by an East wind the next night we should cry it is good for us to be here let us build us Tabernacles We should be married to the world and unwilling ever to think of a divorce or a being married to Christ if God did not sometimes let us experience that we had a lye in our right hand were fond of a picture and embraced a shadow The Gaols and prisons of the earth make the earth more bitter and the liberty of the sons of God more sweet The pains of the earth and the labours of the world make the rest of Heaven and the joys thereof more desirable Besides that faith and patience are no Summer-graces if we should never have any Winters when should they have any exercise Tribulation worketh patience and the hour of trial is the time for its perfect work But this were almost an infinite Theme to discourse in its latitude the variety of good which floweth to the souls of Gods people from afflictions and troubles they are by them tried purged made white they are by them made more holy and humble all which good justly entituleth God to a being the Author of them they do not only flow from his justice as the just punishments of sin but they are the noble effluxes of his goodness and are so far from derogating from the glory of that that they exceedingly tend to the commendation of it and we are mistaken in the notion of them when we call them evils and make up the judgement meerly from sense which indeed so nick-nameth them I know indeed there is another Phaenomenon of difficulty here and that is how it can stand with the justice of God to punish his people for those sins for which he hath accepted a satisfaction from the Lord Jesus Christ and given an