would cast a fatal damp upon their attempts and endeavours after righteousness but being fully convinced as well of the Existence as that God will take care of their souls when they depart this obscure and evanid life and recompence their labour and trouble here with such great degrees of Happiness as shall farr surpass the highest calamity they can suffer in this World it cannot but inspirit their minds with life and resolution to break through all difficulties and discouragements and with a manly valour fight the good fight of Faith and never give over till they lay hold on Immortality and God Crown them as Victorious Conquerors with wreaths of immarcescible Glory It is but a groundless fancy in some to think that the intuition of the reward proposed to us in order to our further progress in Holiness and Virtue is acting upon Mercenary principles since that Christ himself in his greatest Agonies and conflicts supported the weakness of his Nature with the consideration of the reward he should receive as the compensation of his humiliation and sorrows for so we read That he endured the Cross Heb. xii 2. and despised the shame 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the joy that was set before him Besides they understand not the nature of the Reward promised to us in the Gospel for Glory Blessedness and Felicity are not Other things from Piety and Holiness but the consummation and perfection of that Divine Nature whose efformation is begun in this life Grace and Holiness is but Happiness wrapped up and closed and Glory is nothing but Holiness explicated and unfolded to it's due latitude and dimensions Piety is Heaven masked with a cloud of flesh and begirt with sorrow and Heaven is Virtue shining in it's native brightness and clothed with a Celestial splendour And that Ethereal and Paradisiacal body with which all believers shall be arrayed through the gracious bounty of the Lord Jesus at the Resurrection of the Just is the necessary appendage of our felicity and by it's easie and obsequious motions will raise in the exalted powers of the soul the highest sense of love and joy and delightful enravishments of spirit He then that loves Virtue for it's appendant reward does in effect love it for it self and is no whit behind him that is attracted by the naked pleasure resulting from it and thinks it eligible amidst the hoarse bellowings of Phalaris his Bull because the Reward hath a very great affinity and cognation with Virtue and is no otherwise attainable then by a full and perfect exercise of it This great happiness therefore accruing to the soul of Man when refined and purified from the dregs of Earth and Mortality is very rationally set forth in the Gospel to invigorate the minds of men and raise them to the free exertions of the Divine life and to animate their dying resolutions when they walk through a troublesome wilderness and are called to resist even unto blood And if it were not for the expectation of future Blessedness all Religion would fall to the ground the inward sense and feeling of the soul being so much weakned and debilitated by her continual imbibition and attraction of the dregs of the Earthly and mortal Nature whereby she is become sluggish and inactive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 her passions and apprehensions being in a manner wholly corporeal and Truth and Virtue be but idle names or dreams of a shadow existing only in the tongues and fancies of Men but never descending into the depth of the soul and impregnating it with their living Image These are the grand Instruments which the Spirit of God makes use of in the Gospel to induce and perswade the World to act under the Government of the Divine life which if skilfully applyed and managed will undoubtedly compleat and perfect that blessed work which Providence intended them for For we cannot think that Heaven would alarm the World with a false report or raise the expectations of Men by a great sound and noise of something extraordinary when in the conclusion it amounts but to some inconsiderable and trifling design The Eternal Son of God who was that Wisdom which is the delight of Heaven and rejoyced in the habitable parts of the Earth brought down with him from the seat of Majesty that Sacred and recondit method of recovering lapsed mankind which was carryed in the pregnant womb of Goodness from the dayes of Eternity and he became our Redeemer and pervades the very Centre of our Being and shapes and frams his Image of Wisdome and Righteousnes there strengthning our decayes and supporting our weakness and consuming and expelling all our dross and corruption by a subtle and powerful Energy which in Scripture phrase is to be Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire We are fallen into a narrow and contracted state and those Divine forms in our union and fruition of which consisted our blessedness are quite defaced by our fond longing after and adhesion to corporeal features Now God manifesting himself in our flesh renews and perfects those glorious Images again and stamps his impress upon us and as the great conciliating Principle of the corporeal World figures and shapes out of prepared matter the body of a plant so the Holy Spirit frames and shapes out the Divine Nature in the lapsed World of Mankind But this great purpose of the Gospel this great design and plot which God hath laid to reduce Mankind to that blessed state from whence they fell is wholly frustrated and evacuated by the Doctrine of Irrespective Decrees And that I may not charge it with what it stands not guilty of I shall make it good by these two Instances 1. It renders ineffectual the purpose of God in the Gospel by lulling Men asleep in the lap of Security and Presumption of their good estate upon the groundless fancy of their Absolute Election from all Eternity For Men being once initiated and instructed in the Mysterie of this profound Doctrine will with much anxiety and vehemency of mind contend for the truth of that which they so passionately desire to be so and having withal so amorously courted and espoused their lusts and unruly passions and yet being terrified and affrighted with the lashes of their own Consciences they will with great easiness and zeal take sanctuary in so pleasing an opinion which both gives them a fair countenance to enjoy and reap the pleasure of their sensual passions and secures them from those domestick furies which perpetually hurried and tormented them and over and above sooths them up with a confidence of eternal bliss and felicity And he that can attain to this Plerophory or full perswasion of his Election from before the foundation of the World hath the White Stone given to him though he be so farr from eating of the hidden Manna that he feeds upon nothing but husks and vanities and his name is enrolled among the Stars and he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out
descendeth from the Father of Lights exert it self in pure peaceable gentle merciful and impartial actions But we finding all things go contrary and Autaesthesie the Grand principle of our deviation from God so mischievously powerful leading men to a life of self-seeking and inamouring them with the fading beauties of this inferior World making Intellect and Reason drudge in unjust policy and subtlety for the promoting self-interest and carrying on little and private designs for the treasuring up Riches though by the greatest Extortion and Rapine and consuming and overrunning the poor and innocent like a sweeping Torrent that leaves nothing behind it but the miserable tokens of ruine and desolation This being the state of men and farr worse then I have here represented it under the brutish life and law of sin what signs can they shew that they are arrived to any considerable measure of liberty For it is not some one particular lust but the whole unrighteous and Diabolical Nature which mingles and insinuates it self with the whole frame of the soul and enthrals it to it 's imperious dictates But yet there is some freedome left still and men are not destitute of a light though languid and glimmering to lead them to greater degrees of Vertue if they would suffer themselves to be guided by it There is yet in every man in his greatest Apostacy and lapse from the Divine life a Principle of Conscience accusing and condemning him for the perpetration of evil and that regret and shame a man finds in himself after the commission of impiety is a manifest evidence that he had Power to avoid it 2. Again there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the law of the mind or conscience ver 23. Another law warring against the law of my mind And this is the second state and condition of mankind For as while they were under the Law of sin they were wholly alive unto themselves and disjoyned from the Universal Spirit of life and true freedome they became at last strangers to their own Beings and ignorant of their high and noble extraction so under this Dispensation of the mind or conscience there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or double-livedness within them being partly alive unto themselves and partly unto God sometimes lending a patient ear to the soft whispers of Divine wisdom and at other times carryed away with the loud murmurs and noises of that worser Principle as Medea in Euripides complains 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My Conscience tells me that I act amiss But fury stronger than my Reason is And now they begin to awake out of their lethargick drowziness and sleep and open the windows of their souls and receive in some beams of the Sun of Righteousness that hath long circled about them and by his light they see themselves in a broken and unhappy plight and fain would come out of it but dare not put themselves to any trouble or pain so they lay themselves down again to slumber But conscience being once forcibly rouz'd up is not so easily lulled asleep but alarms them with fatal cryes and shews them the guiltiness that lies upon them and the mortiferous and dangerous state they are in by reason of the certain punishment all sin draws along with it thus being affrighted they become Religious out of fear and account Christianity as a task and burdensome service imposed upon them only to deprive them of their liberty and abridge them of that freedom they before possessed and still they bear a love and liking to their lusts and often visit them with dear embraces And while they are here they carry a perpetual warr within them between the Law of sin and the Law of the mind sometime the one and sometime the other prevailing the life of the body strugling against the mind or reason and the light endeavouring to chase away the darkness and night And of this state are to be understood these and such like places of Scripture For that which I do I allow not for what I would that do I not Rom. vii but what I hate that do I. So then with the mind I my self serve the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh Gal. v. 17. and these are contrary one to the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that ye cannot do or that ye do not the things that that ye would Now the liberty of Mans will begins to spread and enlarge it self under this Oeconomy for though mens strength be but small yet God whose Goodness both Earth and Sea and the whole community of life partake of cannot behold his own dear life contending with the Powers of darkness and never countenance nor abet it but will lead it victoriously through the midst of hell and secure it from all the Magical spels and enchantments of the inferior World and as this Divine life grows more potent in the soul so the liberty and freedom of the will arises to a greater latitude and perfection But if we prove false to the Divine light and notwithstanding the great helps and means vouchsafed us pretend still our disability and infirmity we may easily lapse again into the brutish life and lie under the Power of the law of sin out of which we began to be delivered and the freedom of our will which was in some measure enlarged will be again contracted into narrowness and exility and our last state will be worse then the first 3. But he that makes good use of Gods gifts and behaves himself as a good Souldier of the Lord Christ and conquers and subdues his rebellious lusts by the power of his Spirit descendihg into the grave with the holy Jesus by a profound humility and mortification and becoming perfectly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dead to all the self-feeling and the luscious relishes of the corporeal life he is arrived to the highest dispensation of Christianity which is to be under the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. viii 2. Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus Such a man is wholly alive unto God and though he be encumbred with many hardships afflictions and outward calamities which threaten approaching ruine to his body of earth yet his life is holy harmless and innocent like the life of Christ upon Earth and his soul is so affected as his was having but one only will in the World which is to annihilate himself that God may be all in him And whoever is arrived to this high pitch of Divine perfection hath attained an enlarged and boundless freedom his life being melted into the Divine life and his will fitted and adapted to the comprehension of the Divine Will For the true liberty of our wills consists not in an uncertain indifferency and dubious fluctuation between two different objects presented to our choice For this arises out of the darkness and imperfection of our
way and live He would have all his Creatures know that he is no way accessary to their destruction Hos xiii 9. O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help And when he sees what froward and untoward Creatures we are that readily forsake what he loves and run after that which his soul delighteth not in making such unhappy choices for our selves as if we studied how to be our own Executioners then he begins to reason with us O my people what have I done unto thee Mich. vi 3. or wherein have I wearied thee Testifie against me Jer. ii 5 31. What evil have ye found in me Have I been a barren Wilderness unto you or a Land of darkness and if any shall yet be so presumptuous as to cast the blame of their wretchedness and misery upon so benign a Father he stands ready to acquit himself and calls heaven and earth to record against them that he hath set before them Life and Death Deut. xiii 19. Blessing and Cursing and requested them to chuse that which may make them for ever happy Joh. v. 40. But they will not come unto him that they may have life Nay further that God might take away all manner of excuse from the Sons of men and mannage his cause in a way of Reason and Equity he hath not onely shewed his Righteousness to the Heathen and declared his Salvation to the Ends of the Earth but asserted it possible for men to perform his Will so that his yoke is in it self easie and his burthen is really light and his service is reasonable * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is agreeable to the dictates and sentiments of our rational Nature Rom. xii 1. For the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise the Word is very nigh thee Rom. x. 6 8. in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou mayest do it No man can complain of any hard usage that God commands impossibilities and injoyns things that are above his reach For the Spirit of God that mighty principle of Life and Vigour which pervades the whole World of intellectual agents is ready to assist the generous and hearty attempts of all sincere persons after the Divine Life and Nature for so he who gave that gift to his Apostles and assured mankind of the continuance of it till the end of the World hath long since made known to us that if Earthly Parents know how to give good gifts to their Children Luk. xi 13. God our heavenly Father should much more give his Holy Spirit to all that ask it of him He would have all the Creation take notice that it is not for any ends of his own that he is at such pains with us My people sayes God have forsaken me the fountain of living waters Jer. ii 13. and have hewn out to themselves broken Cisterns which can hold no water Methinks the words signifie thus much as if God should thus bespeak us O my people if you could mend your selves by forsaking me the fountain of living Waters then I could be content and reason would that I should bear with you but that you should betake your selves to broken Cisterns which can hold no water and are then dryed up when ye most stand in need of them this argues your lightness and folly Isai xxx 18. God waits to be gracious and with infinite patience and long-sufferance expects our Repentance and suffers that tempestuous whirlwind of enraged Vengeance which Sin and Vice have fed and congested to roll long within the Orbe of Mercy before it burst forth and bear down the sinner into the horrors and agonies of Eternal ages And this is sufficiently evidenced by those Pathetical expressions of his unwillingness to punish his Creatures till at last being compelled to it he sets about it with a kind of reluctancy of spirit and is as it were grieved to the heart that he must use such rigorous means to reduce them to himself Hos xi 8 9. How shall I give thee up Ephraim how shall I deliver thee Israel How shall I make thee as Admah how shall I set thee as Zeboim Mine heart is turned within me my repentings are kindled together This is Gods gracious Expostulation with himself as if he should have thus said What shall I do unto thee O my people or how should I behave my self toward thee Should I make thee an example of my judgment as Admah Or should I consume thee in a moment like Zeboim No surely my heart is quite averse from such harsh proceedings they are even extorted from me therefore my heart yerns after thee O Ephraim my bowels are turned and melted within me an expression of the dearest love and affection that possibly can be Jer. xxxi 20. I am even overcome with those deep-fetcht breathings of affectionate Love which I bear unto thee therefore I will not execute the fierceness of my anger for I am God and not Man I bear no malice against any of the Creation but had rather my kindness then my displeasure should endear men to the consideration of their own happiness And at last he appeals to our own Reasons and Consciences and is content to submit himself and his Dispensations to our own thoughts whether we can imagine any better course then that he hath taken to reform us Isai v. 4. Judge I pray you between me and my Vineyard what could I have done more to my Vineyard then I have not done So that it is only when all means prove ineffectual that the God of Love turns to a consuming fire and makes us the proper objects of his direful Vengeance To take yet a more direct view of that fair Perfection the very root and centre of the Deity I mean Goodness or Love let us behold God manifest in the flesh and look upon him who being the brightness of his Fathers Glory the express Image and Character of his Person encircled with the loving armes of Heaven and folded up in the bosome of Blessedness yet left those sacred Mansions of Happiness out of pure good will to the race of Mankind and put off the robes of Glory that he might be capacitated to dwell in a body of flesh to the intent that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life That pure soul which shone with an Ethereal brightness farr surpassing the glory of the Sun being vitally united with the Eternal Logos and full of the Divine Life did inwardly pity and commiserate the lapsed posterity of Adam wherefore that he might more abundantly demonstrate the riches of his grace he declared himself the Saviour not of some few only but of the whole World that the design of his appearing was to scatter an healing influence upon the broken and distracted Sons of men and that the effects of it should be good tidings of great joy to all people assuring guilty
the World because it is possest of nothing but an unlimited desire of doing mischief and for this reason alone Wisdom and Power are no further good or speak perfection then they are in conjunction with Absolute Goodness and consequently must depend upon it as the beams of light disperst through the air upon the Sun or faculties and actions upon the principles from whence they flow That Wisdom which is devoid of Goodness is nothing but a higher degree of craft something of the Nature of that cunning and wilyness we may discover in voracious Beasts and Birds when they deceive and prey upon the more innocent and harmless sort of Animals so that we plainly perceive that Wisdom and Power separated from Goodness offer no notion of perfection at all to our minds and therefore there is something in the Deity more amiable and lovely and which as it speaks perfection it self and is the most desirable and excellent thing upon earth so it is the spring of all other Attributes in the Deity which are no further morally good than they are united with this prime and noble quality Hence Tully introducing C. Cotta disputing against Velleius the Epicurean tels him that Epicurus by taking away Love from the Deity Tollit id quod maximè proprium est optimae Lib. â—… de Nat. Deorum Seneca Epist 95. Primus est Deorum cultus Deos credere deinde reddere illis Majestatem suam reddere bonitatem sine quae nullae Majestas est praestantissimaeque naturae Nihil enim melius aut praestantius bonitate beneficentiâ Let us now reflect upon that Archetypal Image according to which man was made and if we do not wilfully blind our eyes we cannot but see that it was neither Wisdom nor Power though we partake in some measure of both but Goodness and Love whose glorious forms and Idea's are disseminated through the intellectual World and impressed upon every rational Being The Angels themselves who far exceed us in Power and Wisdom yet should they exercise them without the ballast of Goodness would prove more exorbitant and ungovernable then the Apostate Devils For wherein consists the height of that degeneracy and revolt of Men and Angels from God but only in this that they are departed from the eternal laws and rules of Goodness and strive to sustain and prop up themselves by their unlimited self-will and hence it comes to pass that having no sure and steady foundation to bottom themselves upon they fluctuate and are tossed to and fro by every unruly passion and desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all good is governable and uniform and it is immutable Goodness above that to speak with reverence makes the Divinity a Uniform Being for Wisdom and Power are in themselves so arbitrarious multiform and uncertain that without the poize of Goodness they cannot settle and radicate themselves upon any permanent Centre This great Truth the ever-blessed Son of God verified when he left the glory and beatitude of Heaven and pitched his Tabernacle amongst men For wherein consisted the flower and excellency of his Divine Perfections Was it not in that Universal Love and Benignity he expressed to the whole World and in that tenderness and compassion he shewed by going about doing good and casting an healing influence upon the bodies and souls of Men This surely was the brightest ray of Divinity that ever shone from God manifested in the flesh and to this every holy mans experience bears witness who then finds himself most peaceable and calm and most conformable to the Divine Image and Pourtraicture when he is doing the most good and his love most enlarged and comprehensive which Love never ascends more acceptably to Heaven than when it overflowes all capable subjects here below and strives to unite and draw them up to God their great Source and Parent Wherefore by what hath been said for the explication of this Proposition it sufficiently appears that Goodness is the inmost Centre of the Deity and Wisdom and Power ray forth from thence like the beams of light from their lucid Centre 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. That that which is most pretious and best as I may so speak in the Divine Nature will be sure to work first and extend it self to all the capacities and possibilities of things We have already proved That the Deity is no Arbitrary Being but that all his Actions and Determinations relating to us have their Original in Infinitely full Goodness which being the most precious thing in the Nature of God and the measure and rule of all his other Attributes and Perfections it cannot but seem most easie and natural to conceive that this Soveraign property as it is the best so it should likewise obtain the first place in working For infinite Power never acting but in subordination to directive Wisdom nor Wisdom and Power exerting themselves but in the way of and according to the laws of Goodness which being in it's own Nature so fruitful and communicative that all other Modes and Attributes are tinctured with it and lie in a laxe and diffuse manner within the sphear and comprehension of it's Energy it must also obtain the first place of acting as of right belonging to it And if we look out and take a view of the several rancks and orders of intellectual Beings we shall find in every of them something of greatest value and excellency which as it exceeds in worth all other perfections of their Natures so it will be most energetical and of the largest extent in acting and contrarily that what is of less excellency is more contracted and circumscribed and of less efficacy and virtue The soul of man though one entire Orbe in the whole latitude and comprehension of her Essence yet is made up of distinct powers and faculties which are not all of equal value and excellency nor do they all operate in the same order and manner The lowest power which we take notice of in humane souls is that Plastick or Formative virtue wherein consists the Vital Union between soul and body and whose peculiar office it is to conserve the motions and keep in play all the Engines of the whole corporeal Machine and this being so stupid languid and inert is perpetually transfixt by the inevitable motions and variegations of matter and fatally bound up to those operations which are common to us with brute Animals But as we ascend higher the Powers of the soul are more explicate and large and according to their worth and excellency obtain a more or less ample sphear of Energy and Life Thus they gradually arise till they come to that which is the Quintessence and choicest perfection of humane souls Reason or Intellect which being sanctified by the Divine Life blossomes and rayes forth on every side to the circumference of it's Essence and hallows all the Corporeal and Animal powers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Platonist speaks with an Intellectual touch and Divine
defluxe and moulting of our plumes whereby we soared aloft caused our descent into the region of Mortality and Wretchedness so it is the rejection of our bodily passions and the growth and springing of virtue as of new wings which will carry us to the pure habitations of Holiness and Divine felicity But whether our lapse were thus or not it makes little however it was this is certain that our Reascent to God must be in all points contrary to our Apostacy from him As we have polluted our Natures by a boundless regard and Adhesion to corporeal pleasures and sunk our selves deep into the material World so on the other side our reversion to our lost happiness must be effected by refining our souls from terrene dregs and conversing with our mind and intellect and subjugating our Animal powers to the dictates and Imperium of Reason As our descent came by listning to the impure whispers and titillations of the bodily life so our ascent and Resurrection must come by hearkning to the suggestions of the Intellectual Man And what more effectual and powerful means can be excogitated to recover mankind from the thraldom and bondage of sin then that sacred method divulged to the World in the manifestation of the Gospel whose great tendency and scope is to enforce the necessity of a good and vertuous life and mortifie all irregular and inordinate desires and reinthrone Divine Righteousness to it's just rights and possession in the hearts and minds of men To what other purpose are we commanded in the Gospel to extirpate every extravagant lust and passion and crucifie the spurious productions of Vice and prosecute with all diligence and affection their lovely contraries but because the one depresses our minds from their true state by subjecting them to a base and ignoble drudgery and the other recovers them to their first and genuine freedom and puts them into a capacity of immortality For all passions the more corporeal they are and participate of the body the more they draw and wind the soul to the center of the Animal life which by a copious emission of fuliginous rayes obnubilates the intellectual and perceptive powers and whoever purges himself from these shall be a vessel unto honour This purgation of Soul and Spirit was judged indispensably necessary for the recuperation of the Divine Image by the Pythagorean Philosophers and is called by Porphyry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ablation of every thing extraneous leaving only such forms in the soul as are congenit with it's own Nature It 's true as we come into the World we relish little else but the fond gratifications of the body and are taken up and inamour'd with the inescations and allurements of the plastick life whereby our better parts are dulled and stupified and in this degenerate state the soul is truly said in the Pythagorick sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pass into brutes not by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 transfusion of the humane soul into Beasts but by it's descent into the brutish life and assimilating it self to ferine passions and inclinations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Arrian expresses it The great work therefore of the Gospel is to beat down and conquer the brutish and irrational part in us to eradicate our vile and depraved affections and to place the Divine life in a full and entire command over all our inferior faculties To the bringing about which blessed design and to compleat and perfect a through Purgation of our minds we are injoyned in the Gospel great Temperance Sobriety and Moderation of all terrestrial desires as the most conducive means to spiritualize and attenuate our minds whereas the contrary drowns * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Porphyr l 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 them in corporeal effluxes and exsudations And moreover we are commanded an Universal abstinence from all wrong and injustice and a hearty love and good will to all mankind to hold fast that which is good and abstain from all appearance of evil to abstract our hearts from Mundane and Temporal felicities and make treasures for our selves in heaven and to be no more sollicitous for terrene concernments then the Lillies of the field or the fowls of the air to seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and to depend upon his Fatherly Care and Providence for the necessities of our lives to keep our selves pure and undefiled not only from outward and grosser but internal and more refined pollutions to be ready to do good and distribute to the necessities of our Brethren to live peaceably if it be possible with all men In a word Whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever are pure whatsoever are lovely whatsoever are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise to think on those things These are the proper food and nourishment of our intellectual man and bring a present pleasure in the exercise of them far surpassing the choicest entertainments of sense For what truer and nobler delight can accrew to our spirits then to have done an act of Charity to have bound up an aking head dryed up a watry eye and relieved a naked and hungry body How sordid and base is the narrow and contracted mind that never looks beyond it self but moves in a sphear distinct from all the World beside as if it were some particular Being and not a part and member of the Universe What is there more noble and Divine than Love which neither envies nor seeks it's own but fills the mind of man with a solid peace and contentment and How broken and troublesom is the state of that man whose heart is continually corroded with Envie and Malice and cannot look upon his Neighbour without an evil eye What serenity and quietness of life is he possessed of who following the Precepts of the Gospel makes himself master of his passions and never suffers any impure and brutish lust to creep up into the bed of Reason and defile it but lives in a clear exercise of his discriminative faculties and subdues all his lower powers to the obedience of his mind and Intellect while he that renders himself captive to the passions and various motions and inclinations of sense which God gave to be his servants never possesses any true and real tranquillity but carries a Tempest within his breast which perpetually tosses him to and fro like those disconsolate spirits our Saviour mentions Matth. xii who walk through dry places seeking rest but finding none He that sincerely conforms himself to the Evangelical method of Truth and Righteousness forsakes the muddy and grosser World and ascends above the clouds in Divine and peaceful Contemplations and finds himself out of the reach of the storms and thunders of the troubled air he hath left behind him He apprehends God as the most lovely and desirable object in the whole World and then feels himself most at ease when he
that it must determine of whatever dictates shall be propounded to him He therefore that considers we were made by an Eternal mind that the original of our beings is from an All-prefect Author who at our first Creation stamped the impresses of his Nature upon us and every thing that derives from him being in some measure and degree like himself will without any hesitancy assent to this Truth viz. That whatever offers it self to our rational Nature by a clear and distinct perception is infallible so and we are no longer to doubt of the truth of it And unless we grant this it is impossible we should ever come to any certain knowledge of any thing in the World Now that those Idea's which thus offer themselves to us that is by a clear and distinct perception are certainly so in the nature of the things themselves we are no longer to doubt of because Veracity is an Essential mode and Attribute of the Author of our beings and therefore 't is impossible he should deceive us in those things which we have an evident and distinct apprehension and cognizance of and further we may take notice that that Power in us which discriminates between the Beings and Modes of things is the same that is in | This made the bold Stoick affirm that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arrian God and participates of his Nature and is nothing but a ray and beam let down from Heaven by whose light we discover and apprehend the various kinds of objects whether Moral Physical or Metaphysical according to that of Epicharmus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and being so the cause of all our Errors and Mistakes must be attributed to our selves not that we want those faculties which should give us a faithful and true representation of things but because we abuse them whether by an inadvertency and anticipation in judgment or by an inveterate prejudice contracted from an evil Education or by what other means soever it comes to pass Reason therefore is the Vicarious Power of God in the Soul and to refuse it's Authority in such things as of right belong unto it to judge of is to reject the light of God shining within us as Hierocles excellently discourses In Carm. Pythag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is To act according to the dictates of Right Reason is the same as to obey God for the rational Nature being once raised to the possession of it's native brightness wills and acts according to the determinations of the Divine Law and pleasure and the holy Soul that thus participates of the Deity becomes in every thing conformable to the mind of God and frames the whole System and comprehension of it's actions by the conduct and guidance of that Eternal Splendor All our knowledge in this our state of degeneracy and imperfction may not unfitly be called according to the Platonists a Reminiscency or an awakening those multifarious Idea's either by her own internal Energy or by the occursions of sensible Phantasms which are treasured up in the essence of the soul her self for now that the soul is sent into this World and rouz'd out of her long sleep and state of Inactivity she acts over again her former life and recals those Idea's and Notions of things which upon occasion she exerted somewhere else But whether we give heed to this Hypothesis or no it is certain that our souls as they come out of the hands of God are not like transparent Globes of pellucid Chrystal or fair and white sheets wherein nothing is written but essentially stored and filled with the indelible Characters and Idea's of Truth to whose light so long as we faithfully attend though we wander in abstruse rugged and dark pathes we need not question but that at last by their safe conduct we shall arrive to the regions of light where all the mists and difficulties which before enveloped us shall vanish into perfect day and all things appear in their own proper dress and essential Characters but when we neglect to give heed to these sure and infallible guides we are distracted and miserably confounded in the contemplation of things and are at a loss where to bottom or settle our selves which the fore-mentioned Author took notice of in these words Hierocles in Carm. Pythag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That the Essential formes and Idea's of things are centrally co-united to the soul and not then first begotten when brought into actual Existence upon the several emergences of life but the effects of that innate and pregnant Fecundity the kind and liberal hand of God bestowed upon her is a Noematical truth and cannot but appear so to those who attentively consider and weigh the various animadversive acts and discriminative judgments the soul makes of things Not to instance in those relative notions of similitude and proportion and the consideration of Universals which have no foundation in any thing beside the mind it self what is it that can conclude the true magnitude of objects For though we grant that there is some picture or representation of the object drawn in the bottom of the eye yet that being farr less then the real proportion and magnitude of the external object it will be necessary that the soul exert some innate Idola whereby to give an exact and perfect judgment of it These 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or first notions and apprehensions are the foundations of all Arts and Sciences and of all Knowledge in the World and whatever affects us from without doth but administer several instances and due occasions to the soul of working and unravelling her own Uniform essence for the bringing into actual existence this or the other Phantasm Wherefore in this the soul of man resembles that ancient fountain of Blessedness which brought her into being and as he by his Almighty Fiat gave actual being to the multifarious forms and Idea's eternally comprehended in his Infinite Wisdome so the humane soul by the energy of her will commands from her central pregnancy and fecundity such Images and Idea's as by their gentle light fairly lead her to the knowledge of her self and the whole Creation These are the glass which represents the lively Images of things and from their convenience or disconvenience to these common notions arise their several differences and reasons As for example the denominations of good and evil pulchritude and deformity and all those moral Entities spring not from any arbitrarious power which upon the impulses of humour and will can make them cease to be what they are nor do their Natures change and correspond to the different modes of our conceptions but remain Eternally and Immutably what we find them to be for if they were so only to appearance and not really and substantially as some Philosophers of old affirmed all Moral Goodness and Righteousness would vanish into empty names and words and Wickedness and Evil would have nothing but a
emanation that in a sense pervades the very lowest of them For as Intellect becomes more refined and sublime and the Divine light by it's silver cords takes greater hold upon it so the exorbitancy of the lower powers decreases and they are made more castigate and obedient to the dictates of the Superior Faculties When therefore Reason is perfectly released from the burden and encumbrance of this sluggish and earthly body and freed from the noxious fumes ascending from that cadaverous Dungeon and shines in it 's own native and irreprehensible beauty it cannot be doubted but that as it is the most pretious part the eye and glory of the soul so it will have a full and absolute Soveraignty and command and be the first mover and productive cause of all those operations it self is conscious of And though now we have almost lost the genuine sense and relish of Truth and Righteousness and Interest or Passion and the satisfaction of a baser appetite dethron our despotick and Lordly powers and usurpe the Government of our minds yet who so manfully resists this tyrannical Dominion and strives to reinstate himself in his former liberty shall find that those moral Idea's of Goodness Beauty Truth and Righteousness do more frequently constantly and evenly display themselves than any other whatever and these being likewise more excellent then the Universal notions of any other Science or Knowledge they are also impressed deeper and more indelibly sealed upon our minds and spirits But here I find it will be objected That although according to this way of raticionation Goodness seems to be the highest perfection of the Moral Essence of God and consequently to have the first place in operation yet God being Essentially all these perfections that is Infinite Goodness Wisdom and Power he might impress upon us what notion and Idea's he pleased and though he have so signally engraved that universal Idea of Goodness upon us yet notwithstanding he himself is free from all Law and Rule of acting being in himself an Infinite Will and Authority and hath bestowed on us those perfections we find in our selves by his own arbitrary pleasure and therefore we cannot give any satisfactory account of his Nature by what we find in our selves In answer to this I affirm 1. That those Universal Characters or Notions wrought into the Essential composition of our Natures and which render us Intellectual Creatures are a sufficient guide to lead us to the true and certain knowledge of the Nature of God For those common and rudimental principles of Knowledge being placed in us by something farr more excellent than our selves and not then first begotten when some apt and fit instances and occasions from without lead us to particular considerations and applications of them to this or that singular Mode or Being and since we our selves cannot without a manifest repugnance to our Natural Powers and Faculties contradict and oppose any of those general Sentiments it must needs follow that we must survey all things falling under our cognisance by those easie and natural rules and measures and if now we remind our selves that the Notion of a God that is of a Being infinitely perfect is one of those indelible Characters impressed upon our minds and that we can no otherwise signifie our conception of so illustrious an object than by removing whatever speaks an imbecillity and imperfection and adorning it with all those glorious attributes which in the nature of the thing it self and in the judgment of all rational men design the highest accomplishment and perfection it will unavoidably follow that either we in this our state of weakness and degeneracy can never attain to any setled and firm notion of the Deity which I look upon as a wide inlet to Atheism and Irreligion or we must necessarily frame his Idea according to those immutable notices and Images of perfection we find in the survey of the innate Treasure and intellectual Furniture of our minds Now what is there the mind of man can possibly excogitate more expressive of a Being of infinite Perfection than Infinite Goodness Wisdom and Power which Perfections appearing not to us of equal worth and excellency we are led by the plain laws and dictates off reason to ascribe to that the first place of working which includes the highest and largest Energy and Virtue God therefore acting according to the essential measures of an Universal and Almighty Goodness cannot be looked upon as such an Arbitrary Being as the Objection presupposes Beside that it is highly improbable in the nature of the thing it self that there is any such thing as infinite Will and Authority that is as I understand it such a Being whose operations are steered and conducted by no other principle but Will and Power it is certain that we judging of things according to those innate Notions we have of them cannot frame any such conception of the Deity for although it be true that God might have placed other Idea's in us and had his Nature been as Arbitrary as some conceit no question but he would have done so yet it being likewise evident that he hath not stamped any such Characteristical Notes of his Essence upon us it is impossible we should entertain any other Notion of him then what plainly and apparently arises from that natural Idea of himself he hath signed upon every individual person of Mankind Thus although we should affirm that God might so have ordered things at the first Creation of Men and so attempered and disposed our Faculties in reference to the objects both of the Corporeal and Intellectual World that our Idea's of them should be quite contrary to what we now find and feel in our selves e.g. That the Idea of Matter should agree to Spirit and that of Spirit to Matter yet they being de facto otherwise we can assign no other difference then what is now in the things themselves 2. It is altogether inconsistent with the Eternal and immutable Veracity of God to invest our souls with such Notions and Apprehensions as were not truly significative and expressive of his Nature For this Eternal Mind intending the good and happiness of all created Beings endued them with Powers and Faculties agreable to their respective Idea's and so contrived all things by an unerring Wisdom that nothing should want it's part of that pleasure and happiness for which it was at first made Wherefore the noblest satisfaction and felicity of humane souls lying in the exercise of their intellectual powers and the delight accruing thence being more or less intense according to the nature of the object they conversed with as it could not stand with the Goodness of God to deprive them of any innocent gratification of their minds in the contemplation of the outward World so neither could it fairly accord with his Veracity to prepossess them with such conceptions of things as are no where to be found in the natures of the things themselves Since then we
of an unlimited Will and Power how and when he pleaseth and declaring their effluxes and emanations to be the rule of reason and measure of all Moral Actions and the grand Law of the whole Creation or else in those Hymns and Hallelujahs which are offered up to him by intellectual Beings from all quarters of the Universe Whereas in truth his Glory is nothing without himself nor any acquisition and purchase to augment his happiness for he being an Infinite Plenitude of all Perfection is incapable of receiving any complement of Glory or Blessedness but then he most of all elevates and raises his glory and lustre when he most of all communicates his Nature and shines in with a full and uninterrupted light of Truth and Goodness upon all the intellectual Creation He never seeks his Glory in respect of us in any other way than by dispreading and imparting those Soveraign Attributes of Love Mercy Patience Wisdom and Justice And we in the most proper sense do then advance the Glory of God highest and discover it to the World in the most ample and transcendent manner when the life of God becomes a Vital Principle in us carrying us beyond the reach of corporeal exsudations and defilements which render the soul inept for a conformity to his blessed Image and when Truth Holiness and Righteousness in which the Divine Nature is copyed out become not empty and insignificant Names and sounds of words but actuating and quickning Principles and we studiously endeavour to engrave those beautiful Forms in our minds and spirits In a word then do we glorifie God when we converse with him in the Temple of an unspotted heart and derive from him in whom there is no blemish of iniquity such an Universal Holiness as lives within us and pervades and sanctifies all our actions And this the Lord Christ who best knew how to glorifie God hath intimated to us Joh. xv 8. Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit I have now finished this Argument from the consideration of the Divine Nature and have deduced such genuine and legitimate Conclusions that if rightly estimated and weighed cannot but implant for the future in every unprejudic'd mind more generous and serene Apprehensions of the Deity then are offered in any Scheme of the Supralapsarian or Sublapsarian Doctrins both which concurr in that which appears most deformed to every pure and defecate eye viz. The Eternal Reprobation and Confusion of the greatest part of Mankind the one upon pretence of Gods sole Will and Pleasure and the other under the mantle and cover of Adam's transgression in whose loins the whole race of Mankind was included when he fell and lost his Paradise Both which opinions though never so fairly guilded over do really make God put on the mask of cruelty and rigour that he might appear just in his Oeconomy and Administration of the affairs of the World and that which is most barbarous and infamous in the eye of reason is made to speak the glory of the Deity And that God might bring about this dismal and black design of Damning his Creatures he must compass it by injurious artifices and tyrannical contrivances rot unlike that inhumane fraud Tiberius used to Brutus and Nero the sons of Germanicus Suet. in Vit. Tâ—…b c. 54. Variâ fraude induxit ut concitarentur ad convitia concitati perderentur How deep a stain doth this cast upon the lovely rayes and efflorences of the Divine Goodness and Mercy making him to become the Executioner to his own off-spring and rend that dear life in pieces which his own hands gave Being to And although the Sublapsarian Dogma be entertained of some on purpose to mollifie that harsh decree of the Supralapsarian Reprobation yet if we divest it of those terms and artifices of words wherewith it is mantled over to appear more specious to the World we shall find it cast as great a blot upon the Divine Nature as the other For whether is it better to say That God by his Eternal Prerogative of Absolute Dominion over all his Creatures has adjudged the greatest part of Mankind to inevitable misery for no other reason but upon the impulse of his own Will and to shew the glory of his Power Or to say That God for the sin of one Man whom he made the Representative of the succeeding Generations of Men to the end of the World committed some thousands of years ago and imputed only to his Posterity who were no more able to help it than to hinder their being born into the World should take the advantage of his lapse and decree the greatest number of Mankind to Everlasting destruction And if we impartially view this latter it will appear no less precarious and absurd than the former For though it be true that we are really and formally guilty of Original Sin yet to say that God did physically predetermine Adam's fall or in the mildest sense That he looked upon man as fallen for the Reprobationists are not consistent with themselves and so took the opportunity which he foresaw would offer it self by his lapse to bring about his design of ruining the greatest number of Mankind is to bring Almighty God the Father of compassions upon the stage of the World speaking unto the calamitous Off-spring of Adam like the Wolfe when he intended to devour a Lamb Ante hos sex menses ait maledixisti mihi Respondit agnus Equidem natus non eram Pater hercule tuus inquit maledixit mihi Atque ita correptum lacerat injustâ nece Should God take the souls of men being yet innocent so soon as he set them upon acting in the World according to those Principles and Powers he bestowed upon them at their first production and cast them into everlasting burnings they would have this comfort left to them that they suffered innocently and never in the least measure violated any of the sacred Laws of Heaven But when they shall hear that their Creator and Father who upon that very account could not inflict a greater evil than the good he bestowed on them hath contrived their death and drawn them into sin that he might with the fairer shew of equity punish them with infinite tortures both in body and soul this injustice must needs appear unspeakably grievous For although some would seem to excuse this Oeconomy from all harshness iniquity and rigor by substituting the softer termes of Preterition or negative Reprobation yet if they will unmask their apprehensions and speak plain sense the difference will appear only in words not in the thing it self and is all one as if a man should seek to alleviate the calamity of a condemned Malefactor by telling him he should not die by Common but Noble hands For the event declares Gods intention and the denial of his help to extricate them from misery is equivalent to a positive Reprobation Let us consult a little our own faculties and reason
himself or how the Grace of God which came by Christ did abound and was made more efficacious then sin For if the sin of Adam destroyed and slew more than the Death and Passion of the Lord Christ made alive then were Sin of a larger extent and more potent than Grace 〈◊〉 v. and the Apostle could not truly affirm That where Sin abounded Grace did much more abound CHAP. IV. A fourth Argument against the Doctrine of Inconditionate Reprobation taken from the Evangelical Dispensation wherein is shown the purport and design of the Gospel which is to reinstate all men into the Participation of the Divine Nature and that that Rigid Doctrine is destructive of so high and glorious an end THere is no Man that knows himself and discerns the true frame of his own Being what sublime and noble perfections the soul is capable of and withal reflects upon the weak and imperfect state of the Sons of men how uncertain and fluctuating their judgments are at the best and how frequently obscured with prejudice how impotently stubborn their wills to the election of substantial good and how broken and disordered the faculties of their whole man but will assuredly conclude that all Mankind however it comes to pass are extremely alienated and apostatiz'd from that innate purity and excellent state in which they were created for no Man that believes himself made by an Alwise and infinitely perfect Author can imagine that he came thus lame and maimed out of his hands and sunk as low as the capacities of their Nature will permit being only vivacious and active to trifling low and bodily interests and concernments carrying on such poor and momentary designs as are unworthy the native generosity of their minds in a word so devoid of that life in the possession of which consists their true felicity that they are past hopes of recovering by their own solitary endeavours their pristine and ancient glory But although Man by that venturous and bold revolt from the blessed Kingdom of Light dispossessed himself of Gods favour and forfeited all right and title to his ordinary care and Providence yet that ever-to-be-magnified Goodness which made him at first Lapsable beheld him as a calamitous object of compassion and designed the erecting and reedifying that glorious Temple which sin and unrighteousness had miserably defaced and ruined and the repossessing his own life of it's rightful Government and Dominion in the Souls of Men which however they come into the World the subjects of bruitish lusts and passions are yet capable of Angelical accomplishments and a Vital Union with the Creator of all things God therefore being the highest and most perfect life and feeling and knowing his Nature to be the most pretious thing in all the World and the utmost perfection of every Rational Being could not but intend graciously to his lapsed Creatures and seek the extension and dispreading of his goodly Attributes over all capable subjects of the World of life For he that shall look upon the diligence and activity of the dark Powers in enlarging the bounds of their usurped Kingdom and consider the contagious and disseminating Nature of every pitiful and degenerate lust how every crazie and sickly vice attempts and offers at a further explication of it self and every small Exarchat of that Hellish Principality endeavours dayly to make new additions and take in fresh supplies to maintain the general cause of unrighteousness and augment their petty Royalties can never think that God will sit as a disinteressed spectator but promote and advance his own good life to the command of the whole Creation and brake down the power of that great Arimanus who captivates the sons of Men in the fetters and shackles of Mortality and Death The life of God is a strong and powerful principle and hath alwayes the arme of Heaven to aid and assist it but all sin and unrighteousness is a meer poverty and deficiency not able to exist in the World did not the self-wills of men uphold it and can never stand against the potent assaults of the Heavenly Nature Which holy life that God might reestablish in the World he hath delivered the Gospel the last and most perfect dispensation that ever was or shall be communicated to Men which consists not in an external and dead form of words nor is it a meer systeme and compendium of such precepts that like the Mosaical Law sanctifie only to the purifying of the flesh but cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perfect him that doth the service as pertaining to the Conscience that is Purge and cleanse his mind from dead Works and make way for the consummation of the life of God within him whereby he shall no longer be in bondage and servility to every caitive lust but act spontaneously under a free and generous principle and become a law to himself but such a Method of perfect Righteousness and Virtue as shall purifie refine and exalt the spirits of Men from all feculent concretions and subdue every irregular motion and unruly desire that would tempt and sollicit their choice of corporeal joyes and beget in them so true a relish of unblameable Goodness and Holiness as should at the end of their mortal life instal them in the full possession of everlasting Tranquility and Peace Of which glorious contrivance though we have a Scheme and Model drawn out in the Holy Gospels yet there is a life and spirit in Christianity that cannot be blotted on paper but lives and acts in such hearts as are framed and squared according to those Rules contained in the Sacred Writings And this he who is the Author of our Faith and Blessedness testified when he said that his Words were Spirit and Life such as were able and designed to revive the dead and sensless minds of Men and propagate a vital heat and motion through the torpid and benummed World and accordingly the Apostle St. Paul tels us that Christianity is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law of the Spirit of life Rom. viii 2. 2 Cor. 3. and in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The ministration of the Spirit and the ministration of Righteousness in opposition to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The dispensation of Death and Condemnation intimating that under the Gospel men shall not have a Mechanical and Artificial Religion but such as frames the life and spirit of God in their hearts and becomes a Vital forme tuning their souls into an Universal consent with Gods own Will whereby they send forth most harmonious and Divine accents not only when they are stricken and beaten upon by an external hand like Memnon's statue whose Musical notes ceased so soon as the Sun-beams were withdrawn from it but from an internal Power incorporated and made one with their own spirits It is true when God at first made Man and sent him into this lower World he left him to be governed by those innate prescriptions and rules of Righteousness
endeavours to unite and become one with that ever-blessed Being subtracting his affections from all earthly vanities as finding something more noble and worthy to bestow them upon Lib. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus as Porphyry speaks of the Egyptian Priests 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He hath given up his whole life to Divine Contemplation and search after the Deity Such Power have Evangelical Truths over the minds of men that they transform them into their own native image and similitude and the more they are looked into the more they enravish them with their heavenly beauty and pulchritude And because afflicted and persecuted Vertue could not be thought eligible meerly for it self nor be a sufficient argument to induce us to the love and practice of it who were so fatally addicted to the concerns of sense therefore God who knew our frame and how far and to what degrees we had apostatiz'd from his holy Nature did not only propound good things to our choice but solicit our wills to the embracing of them by the strongest evidences and most attractive motives that our Natures were capable of receiving The life of sense being more powerful and laying a greater though not a juster claim to our minds as we are born into this World God was pleased to deal with us after a sensible manner and in a way of condescending Wisdom proportioning the Truths he delivered to us to our capacity of reception And this was that the Apostle called the Foolishness of Preaching wherein God stoops down and puts on the garb and frailties of humanity and suits the results of his will with our mean and shallow apprehensions Great is the Mysterie of Godliness God was manifested in the flesh and cradled in the circle of a Virgins arms which clearly demonstrates even to outward sense the exceeding Goodness and Wisdom of Almighty God that he hath not cast off the care of Mankind but is at peace with the World and hath put on the bright robes of Loving-kindness and Mercy which he hath given a large Specimen and full proof of in the Mission of the Lord Christ from heaven God would have all men lay aside their hard thoughts and causless-jealousies and suspicions of his Nature as if he did not from his heart intend them good but only suspended his anger for a time which might again break out upon them in prodigious floods of vengeance and fury For this is the most certain sign that God wills and desires our happiness and welfare in that he hath united himself to our Nature and sent down his only begotten Son for no other purpose but to seek and to save that which was lost And if he spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things What is there now can lay a greater tie upon ingenuous spirits then the discovery of so much undeserved kindness and love What heart is there so obdurate and rocky that this will not dissolve into the tears of love and joy to behold the blessed Jesus hanging between heaven and earth upon the Cross that he might reconcile all things that are in heaven and earth and become a propitiatory Sacrifice for all mens sins in the World It is said of Socrates that he was so inamour'd with this Divine passion of Love that he styled himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A servant of Love Let therefore Love which is the Proxenet of Nature the great instrument of conciliating hearts beget in thee a return and retribution of Love and never think of those streams of blood which so copiously flowed from the wounded body of thy dying Lord without a passive and melting spirit but be likewise a servant of Love and act under that generous principle for Love is of God And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God And that we may not think we are set to remove mountains or perform impossibilities when we are exhorted by the Gospel to the participation of Gods holy life we shall never be left alone to sink under our load and die but shall have the assistance of that Almighty and Demiurgical spirit of Love who hovered over the dark Chaos and brought into Being the goodly frame of heaven and earth and replenished all the immense tracts of space with sutable inhabitants Wisd ch vii This is that Wisdom which is the brightness of the Everlasting the unspotted mirrour of the power of God and the Image of his Goodness which remaining in her self makes all things new and in all ages entring into holy souls makes them friends of God and Prophets She will not lodge in a sinful body nor abide when unrighteousness cometh in For she is more beautiful then the Sun and above all the order of stars being compared with the light she is found before it This kind and loving spirit will God bestow upon every one that asks it of him to repair his broken and decayed Nature to raise up the Divine Image to joynt and confirm every perverse dislocation in the frame of his soul and to perfect and compleat the living efformation of Christ within him Let no man then despair of attaining to a state of Blessedness under the Gospel for this Benign Spirit whose delights are with the Sons of Men pervades the whole World and touches and overshadows every man with out-stretched wings who is willing to have the Divine Image and Pourtraiture formed in him and doth not by impurity and uncleanness chase it away Though our enemies are mighty and our souls weak yet let none despair of Victory for through the assistance and conduct of that Almighty we shall be able to overcome them He is ever cherishing and fostring the life of God wherever it 's born into any soul and sweetly insinuates into our minds and hallows and sanctifies all our powers and excites us to a serious and hearty pursuit after the indispensable laws of Truth Righteousness and Goodness We are not fallen and degenerated beyond the power of God but his Spirit is able to raise and bring up our souls from the lowest Hell and to renew and reform our debased and wretched Natures For what cannot he do who at first made us faultless and happy till we ruined and defaced his blessed Image and rendred our selves the miserable objects of his compassions What is there in our frame so stubborn and insequacious that he cannot rectifie and redress who at first created all things and brought into Being all the Beauty and Harmony of Heaven and Earth He will never leave us destitute and forlorn but will take hold of every fitness and capacity till he have perfected in us the Divine life and brought us unto Glory But because Examples are more prevalent with mankind then Precepts and Instructions that God might not leave any thing undone which would in any kind conduce to our Interest he hath recommended to us the Example
in them If it be otherwise can it consist with the Goodness Justice and Veracity of Almighty God thus to tantalize and deceive his helpless Creatures in things of so great weight and moment Wherefore to avoid the dint and stroke of this Dilemma the Reprobationists have still a reserve a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to creep out at and it is this That the Gospel is offered to Reprobates to leave them inexcusable But they are deceived if they imagine this will serve their turn and stand when assailed by the shocks of severer Reason I must confess it is a very impertinent piece of work to go about to confute every petty Nicety and Evasion which scant and straitned spirits invent to patch up their ruined and decayed opinions yet because it comes in my way I shall take the pains to examine it that men may extricate themselves from prejudice and error and see where their unwary credulity and innocent simplicity hath been betrayed into the Sacrilegious hands of unfaithful persons who have as much as in them lies hindred the Progress of the Gospel stifled the life of God and bedwarfed Men in their spiritual growth and stature by making them stand at a stay or rather go backward in Christianity through their administring to them such vitious and unwholesome nutriment But to reply to this frivolous Answer I say then the Gospel which is confessedly offered to Reprobates cannot be said to leave them inexcusable and that upon these accounts 1. That Reprobates may be left inexcusable for not embracing the Gospel 't is necessary that God should put them into a capacity of yielding and condescending to those terms and proposals he shall make to them But God hath not dealt thus with the greatest part of the World according to the Doctrine of Absolute Reprobation and therefore is so farr from taking from them all excuse that he hath left sufficient arguments whereby according to the strictest rules of Reason and Equity they may plead an exemption from punishment though they do not perform that which he commands them For can it enter into the heart of any good and rational Man to think that God does not only command and exact such things of his Creatures which he never endued them with power to do but also punishes them for not performing of them when yet by his secret will he determined they should disobey him It was once said of the proud Pharisees that they rejected the counsel of God against themselves and all impenitent sinners do the same but Mr. Calvin will have their refusal of the Gospel to proceed primarily from the unsearchable Decree of God who first determined their Destruction and then to accomplish this designed their contempt of the means of their Salvation Iâ—…sâ—…t lib. 3. c. 24. §. 4. His words are these Quod igitur sibi patâ—facto Dei verbo non ebieâ— perant Reprobi probè id in malitiam pravitémque cordis eorum rejicietur modò simul adjiciatur ideò in hanc pravitatem addictos quia justo sed inscrutabili Dei judicio suscitati sunt ad gloriam ejus suâ damnatione illustrandam But moreover should God declare a Peace and Agreement with the Rebellious Sons of Adam and not only offer to the World a Treaty of Grace and Salvation as 't is granted he doth to multitudes who die in impenitency and never embrace those blessed terms of life but press upon them with the strongest motives and incentives of Love and Tender-heartedness that infinite Wisdom can contrive in order to their felicity having deprived them though justly of that power whereby they might have rendred themselves capable of Heaven by accepting those gracious overtures of Peace if it had not been taken from them and should conferr none other upon them in the stead This would be such a strange Oeconomy and dispensation towards objects of misery as can in no wise be deemed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy and becoming the Majesty of heaven to interess it self in I cannot think that God will allow that in himself which he condemns in his Creatures And if he judge it an unprofitable and ineffectual piece of Charity Jam. â— 15 16. and which in it self is no better then a mockery supposing our selves able to do otherwise to bid an indigent Person be warmed and filled and yet give him not wherewithal he may be so he will certainly esteem it below the Dignity of his everblessed Nature to invite the Sons of Men to be happy and inherit the treasures of a never-fading Glory when notwithstanding he never affords them the least help or assistance in their attempts and offers towards it 2. The external application of the Gospel to Reprobates cannot leave them without excuse unless it be rejected which in them cannot be denominated a crime because 't is inevitable and no more in their power to help then to alter whatever Decree God will pass upon them Heaven had before irrevocably determin'd and so implicated and entangled them in such a train of causes as should necessarily make them rebel against and resist the offers of the Gospel and therefore they did but act under the more forcible impulse of Gods will Now those actions of Reprobates are so farr from deserving the name of Crimes that they rather merit the title of Obedience forasmuch as their wills are fatally determin'd by an external Power inacting them and irresistibly exerting such and such motions A Doctrine long ago maintained by the Stoicks who ascribed every thing to the dispensation of a sure and inevitable Destiny Fatis agimur cedite fatis Non sollicitae pâ—ssunt curae Mutare rati stamina fusi Quicquid patimur mortale genus Quicquid facimus venit ab alto Omnia certo tramite vadunt Primúsque dies dedit extermum Senec. in Oedip. Fates guide us unto Fates yield we Care cannot alter their Decree For what we suffer what we do Celestial Orbs proceeds from you All go in a prefixed way The first prescribeth the last day And for this Reason Fools and Mad men are not found guilty nor made obnoxious to punishment either in foro externo or in foro conscientiae though they commit such things as otherwise were punishable because their faculties are overacted by the inordinate motions and rude agitations arising from the body and the souls instruments whereby she spontaneously moves the corporeal Fabrick being vitiated and rendred inept she hath no power to countermand them To this purpose Lucian brings in Sostratus reasoning with Minos the Judge of Hell concerning the Justice and Equity of his proceedings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that the external oblation of the Gospel to Reprobates is so far from rendring them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that if we consult those faculties God hath given us to be the Judges of right and wrong good and evill we shall find their Apologie to be as reasonable as if God should expostulate
36. to judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life Acts xiii 46. To reject or render ineffectual the Counsel of God against themselves Luke vii 30. Not that they do directly and principally intend any such thing but because they commit and act those things which do either naturally or by virtue of the Divine command produce such an event and consequence In like manner on the contrary Men are said to work out their Salvation Phil. ii 12. To save themselves 1 Tim. iv 16. To save their own souls Luke ix 24. because they act and prosecute those things which have an indisputable tendency to such a desired end For a Conclusion of this whole Discourse I shall briefly examine these two following Illations and Deductions of the Contra-Remonstrants from the Doctrine of Absolute and Irrespective Decrees 1. That none can be a true believer or sincere Christian who knows not when nor how he was regenerated and born again by the Spirit that is to speak in their language who cannot tell when he felt the mighty and efficacious power of the Divine Spirit dashing asunder his strong heart and gathering up the broken shivers and uniting them together and changing them into a heart of flesh and infusing new qualities into the will and raising the whole man from death to life See XI and XII Canons of the Dort Synod De homonis corrupt convers◠ad Deau 2. That every man who by those evidences signs and marks of True Believers prescribed to him can collect himself to be such that is to be in a state of Grace and Salvation may assuredly believe that he shall to the last Period of his life remain and 〈◊〉 a living member of the Catholick Church and undoubtedly partake of everlasting bliss and glory Attic. IX and X. of the Dort Synod De Perseverantia Sanctorum Against the first of these I shall lay down these Conclusions 1. That he is a true and sincere Believer who hath to his utmost endeavours so mortified and subdued the body of sin that he willingly harbours no vice nor takes any complacency in the impure motions of the brutish life but through a fixed belief in the Goodness of God displayed unto mankind through the Lord Christ resolutely presses forward to higher measures and degrees of Christian perfection and incessantly breaths after a fuller participation of the Divine Nature Such a man I look upon to be truly regenerate and born anew of the Spirit of God and to be affected according to his proportion as Christ himself was affected when he dwelt on earth and conversed with men And though this Divine life dispread and manifest it self by successive acts and shine not so full and bright as when it is near it's Center yet it is as truly a God-like Nature as an Infant is a Man though he be not so in growth and stature It is nothing but our self will which stands out against heaven and keeps such an impregnable fort against the grace of God and whoever is truly dead to it and receives the gentle impressions of the Divine Spirit into his soul and acts correspondently to so holy a principle he is certainly in the Land of Life and Truth and partakes of that blessed Nature which cannot rest among the dust and rubbish of this lower World but separates whatever is heterogeneous in the soul of man and by perpetual and successful attempts restores again those Divine forms which shone gloriously in humane minds before their unfortunate recession and retrogradation from the lucid fountain of their everlasting joy and happiness 2. The first actings of Grace in such a Man as I have above described are altogether undiscernible and imperceptible being nothing else but the preparatory Exertions of that Almighty Goodness the Source and Father of all things for the fitting and adapting Men to receive the Divine Image and Form of the Holy Jesus according to the words of the Lord Christ John vi 44. No man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and in this the Nature of Man is wholly passive and the only thing pertaining to him is to see that he do not obstruct and hinder the progress of that efficacious Love by a cowardly submission to the importunate motions of iniquity and unhallowed actions Now the effluxes and operations of this Vital Principle are coeval with the first actings of Reason and discriminative Perception and extend themselves according to the dimensions of the intellectual Powers but no man is any more conscious of it's energy then of the growth of his bones for so he that made the Nature of man and knows his frame hath told us Luke xvii 20. The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation And Mark iv 26 27. So is the Kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed into the ground and should sleep and rise night and day and the seed should spring and grow up he knoweth not how And when men are born again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of that incorrupible seed 1 Pet. i. 23. sown in their hearts by the Eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Christ calls his Father John xv 1. it breaks through the clods and springs up being cherished by the dew of heaven and the warmth of that immortal fire which passeth through the intellectual world and melts and refines every lapsed Being from the contracted filth of material concretions and no man can say Lo here I was caught by the breath of God or lo there was my resurrection from the comfortless grave of sin and death John iii. 8. For as the wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the Spirit But this I would have understood of the ordinary way of Gods dispensing his Grace and not of that supernatural manner whereby he converted Saul casting him down to the Earth by a voice from heaven nor of the diffusion of the Spirit to the Heathens when first converted to the faith For such as also notorious and gross sinners may have some sensibility of Divine Vegetation and apprehension of some external circumstances attending the New-birth unto righteousness But for those who are born and educated under Christian Parents our Church hath excellently well determined in the service and office of Baptisme That they are Regenerated and born again not only of Water but of the Spirit by which their Natures are Sanctified as we read of the Prophet Jeremy and John the Baptist who received the spirit of holiness and were hallowed from their Mothers wombs and for any man to enquire of such or for them curiously to search after some preternatural stirrings and motions of the Divine Spirit in their souls by which to discern the first dawnings of the grace of God upon them is as impertinent as it would be to demand of them when first they heard or perceived
had an eye to when in Artic. xvi they express themselves thus After we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from the grace given to us and fall into sin and this is the dictate of Reason for Habits as they are acquired by assiduous and repeated acts so they may likewise be lost by inobservance and negligence according to that of the Poet Neglectis urenda filex innascitur agris For the soul of man being a perpetual motion and activity will be alwayes catching at something and if once it cool and flag in the wayes of Righteousness will undoubtedly be wrought off and spend it's strength and powers in the service of that other principle which being not wholly mortified will certainly revive and confirm it's hold when the Counsels and Inspirations of the Divine life are in any measure rejected and it left free to regain the Dominion from whence it was most justly by the powerful and efficacious influence of Gods grace detruded And he that shall further consider that long and confirmed degeneracy the soul lay under before a new and Divine principle began to act in it and how agreeable the objects and impressions of sense are to be our present state and how eligible by us will perceive that the Nature of Man may oft be overcome and the Divine life driven from it's rightful throne till by a sharp and persevering contention it be throughly settled and radicated in a quiet peace and tranquillity by putting all it's enemies under it's feet But for a more clear inspection into this Doctrine of Perseverance we must recurr to what was said above Chap. V. concerning the Liberty of Mans Will and consider all true and sincere Believers under a threefold state for the Divine life arises gradually and increases in due measures and proportions till it arrive to a full and compleat perfection and invest the soul of man with immortality and glory 1. The Scripture speaks of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Infants and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 New-born babes who are fed with the Milk of the Word with the plain Doctrines and Principles of Christianity their Criterion being not yet purged enough to have a true sense and rellish of stronger meat and the more sublime and Mysterious part of Christianity And these are those Lambs which the Lord Christ the great Shepherd when he was leaving the World so affectionately bequeathed to the care and conduct of St. Peter redoubling his request in those passionate terms Feed my Lambs And this is the sense of that Mystical Prophecy denoting the compassionate care of Christ Gathering the Lambs with his arme and carrying them in his bosom and gently leading those that are with young who are pregnant with the Divine form and Image of the Holy Jesus From this infant-state of Grace the descent is easie by reason of the strength and powerfulness of the adverse principle which hath taken so firm and deep a radication and watches all opportunities to propagate and dispread it's infectious Nature that the man is perpetually within the confines of danger till by strong and continued habits of Virtue he have totally mortified and extirpated every lust passion and inordinate desire which hinders and obstructs his passage to that quiet and serene state where all things are plain easie and delightsome Hence is that admonition of St. Paul to Timothy 1 Epist c. iii. v. 6. that he suffer not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Novice one newly converted and brought into the faith of Christ to take upon him the office of a Bishop because that state of Grace is subject to infinite hazards and dangers by reason of the potenr opposition of the contrary life and the prevalency of the Corporeal Nature which till it be perfectly subdued will alwayes breath a fuliginous steam and more or less obnubilate Reason the eye and guide of the soul 2. There are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 young men which have overcome the wicked one and which have in a great measure brought low and weakned the power of the unrighteous Nature such who are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfect men and through a faithful and constant exercise and uninterrupted habit of Holiness have a true discriminating sense of good and evil and have purified and sublimated their intellectual powers by an assiduous mortification and eradication of every perverse desire and motion of the inferior life To these well-grown Christians true Religion displayes it self and appears in it's native beauty and excellency and they embrace it with delight and joy and looking beyond the Horizon of time and change behold nothing but a bright and never-ceasing day and this fills them with a peaceful consolation that the just Judge of Heaven and Earth will not fail to crown his own life witn that glory and felicity which he himself partakes of in the highest heavens But though this state be so glorious and lovely yet it is not wholly out of the reach of danger but needs often admonitions and great diligence accompanied with frequent acts of Devotion which may fan and kindle the heavenly fire lest the dying and perishing principle of the contrary life revive and get the upper hand This degree of grace although it be able to overcome many and great difficulties and defeat the latent stratagems of powerful enemies yet it is sometimes though not so easily or frequently as the former captivated by the undiscerned force of Pride or Hypocrisie or some other refined sin For it may so happen that a good man who cannot be drawn to the commission or acting of a gross impiety by any temptations in the world yet may fall through the prevalency of an intellectual Vice and court the shadow and fantastick image of sin and yet never descend into the brutish and ferine life of action 3. There are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fathers who are arrived to the highest perfection the nature of Man is capable of in this life and these a Plantonist would call Heroically Good although this Divine frame and God-like temper be infinitely more precious and transcendent then the highest reach and comprehension of pure Platonisme and not attainable by the exercise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Paradigmatical Virtues which wholly extirpated the first motions of sin and did in their sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deifie a man and transform them into Intellect and place him out of the noise and perturbations of the inferior life in a quiet and serene contemplation of the first and ever-blessed Author of all things Here the whole will and desires are so farr conformable and resigned to the Will of God as the ordinary course of things and the earthly state will permit and the Man is perfectly dead to himself and to every rellish of bodily motions and the life of God triumphantly seated in the mind from whence it rules and governs every thought word and action with unspeakable ease and pleasure and replenishes the soul with a
those beautiful Daughters of Heaven the souls of men can be thus murder'd by those Benign Hands that first gave them life Had he considered that glorious beauty wherewith the soul of Man was once possessed and of which now that she is born into the World she retains but a very slender memory conversing with it as it were in a Dream and beholding a glimpse of it through the cranies of Mortality and had he beheld this Eternal Pulchritude thrown from it's Celestial Mansion and all those living rayes of Virtue and efflorescences of Divinity plunged into an obscure and dull piece of Earth and that by the Blessed Author of all things he could not but infinitely resent such an harsh Act. 2. Are not all our faculties very much depraved and vitiated insomuch that there is in us a natural proclivity to Vice and we dayly make choice of forbidden instances Are not our Understandings very dark and blind our Wills refractory and stubborn and our Affections violent and head-strong for the most part in the prosecution of base and unworthy objects And if this be our Case as we come into the World as certainly it is and much worse Original sin must be a real depravity of our souls and not an ill temperament of our bodies The Author having determined the Measure and Extent of Gods Sovereignty and Dominion according to his own fancy and humour he endeavours page 25. to frame such an Idea of Divine Goodness as may correspond with the Notion he hath pitched upon of Gods Dominion and therefore he tells us That the Idea of God consists mainly in his Dominion and Sovereignty and that the Notion of him in Scripture never refers to his Essence but alwayes to his Power and Empire But he must give me leave to take the same liberty in rejecting so bold an Assertion that he does in obtruding it upon the World however I shall be so fair and candid to him as not to contradict what he sayes without shewing him a Reason for it The most consistent Idea that we can frame of God is That he is a Being endued with Absolute Perfection now there are no Perfections in the Deity but what may be referred to these three Infinite Goodness Wisdom and Power which being not of equal worth and excellency by Axiome II. it will follow That what is most pretious is likewise most active and energetical and therefore must be the standard and measure of all the rest by Axiome III. and IV. Wherefore when we frame any Notion or make any Representation of God Reason it self will tell us That we ought to express him by that which is most pretious and Sovereign in him which is not Will and Power but Perfect Goodness And methinks the Scripture mightily favours this 1 John iv 16. God is Love sayes the Apostle which Notion if it refer not to Gods Moral Essence I am sure it hath no relation to his Power and Empire It is true when the Jews dwelt under a Theocracy and God went forth as their Captain against their Enemies he owned the Title of the Lord of Hosts and the Expressions of his Sovereign Power Majesty and Dominion were more frequent but when the Evangelical Oeconomy was set on foor God laid aside these Titles and now he expresses himself by no other Attributes but what carry abundance of sweetness along with them and wholly refer and lead us to the consideration of that which is the Flower and Summity of his Being that is Love Therefore I may subjoyn Mr. P's own words with a little Transposition Pag. 26. That no Property which complies not with Goodness can be attributed to God and consequently that that 's a false Notion of his Dominion that interferes with his Goodness Let us see now how he confutes the Platonists with whom he is very angry for asserting That God being Infnite Goodness will necessarily do that which is best page 27. His first Argument to prove the falsity of this Position he sets down page 29 30. c. the sum of which in brief is this That the necessity of Infinite Wisdom doing that which is best takes away the liberty and freedom of the Divine Will To which I answer That the liberty of the Divine Will consists not in an Arbitrary Indifferency of acting or not acting but in acting alwayes sutably and conformablely to his own Infinite Rectitude and Perfection As the true Excellency and Freedom of our wills consists not in an indifferency or dubious suspension between Good and Evil for this is a debility and imperfection in us but in a constant Election of that which Right Reason and Intellect propound to them as Best So that when once that Eternal Providence which sent us down upon Earth shall reinstate us in the Possession of our Native Glory our Wills which shall then obtain their freedom in it's greatest latitude and dimensions yet shall not be left to a bare Indifferency but will as certainly adhere to that which is Good as a wise and prudent man will alwayes give the same judgment of the same thing in the same circumstances Wherefore to answer in short I say that Gods actions are not so fatal and necessary as the motions of an Automaton or Engine because he is endued with an Energetical Power of Reason and Intellect but are free and unconstrained by any external Principle but because his Nature is infinitely Good it will alwayes do that which is Best because Goodness is the chief and first active Principle in it The proof of this lies in Axiome II. III. IV. His second Argument is this That if the Divine Goodness or Beneficence be necessary it would then destroy it 's own Nature because 't is absolutely necessary to the Nature of Beneficence that it proceed from a free and elective Principle page 33. I suppose this Argument is only cast in as a surplusage and not with any intent to convince any of his Readers unless Mr. P. imagine them so unwary and credulous as to be imposed upon by fallacies and sophisms For if by Gods Bounty and Beneficence he mean his gracious Donations and Benefits above what may render his Creatures happy in their several states and capacities then I say it is most free because when any Beings have forfeited their Felicity God is not obliged to re-instate them in all the circumstances of it again But if we take Bounty or Goodness for the Eternal Perfection of Gods Blessed Nature whereby he communicates himself to all capable receptacles this is as necessary as his Being and against this Mr. P. ought properly to have levell'd his Argument Nor does this make the Divine Goodness ever a whit the less Moral because then none of Gods actions would be capable of Being Morally Good for this impossible and blasphemous to assert That the Divine Will is indifferent either to Good or Evill God doth necessarily Love himself as the highest and most Absolute Good and cannot but
16 17. That those after-judgments were also intended of God for the emendation of this obstinate King is I think as clear from the expostulation of Moses and Aaron with him Exod. x. 3. 4. How long wilt thou refuse to humble thy self Let my people go which plainly supposes both that the designation of the Judgment was to humble him and that there was a possibility still of reducing him to that pliable and sequacious temper And if it were otherwise these and the like menaces and threatnings If thou refuse to let my people go I will do thus and thus unto thee would be wholly supervacaneous and ineffectual Nay they would argue an unworthy exprobration in God of his obstinate detention of the people and refusal to submit to his will when he had not strength and power sufficient to attempt the contrary 2. It may well be doubted Whether that Divine Goodness which is alwayes ready to breath upon the least spark of the life of God in every rational Being and assists every good motion and forwardness towards the formation of Gods holy image in every man would not likewise have been as urgent and efficacious in Pharaoh for the mollifying his obdurate spirit before he was taken out of the world had he rightly and duly managed those heavy punishments in order to his melioration i. e. if he would have complyed with the will of God The sum of all therefore seems to be this That Almighty God the ever-wise and benign Creator of all things being conscious to all the affections intrigues and hidden recesses of the spirit of Man only knows how and when to apply a soveraign remedy and like a skilful Chirurgion proportions his medicaments to the nature and quality of the wound and seldom makes use of those more ungentle wayes of cauterizing and excision till necessity and the preservation of the whole urge him to it And even in this singular instance of Pharaoh we may trace the footsteps of Gods benignity and love as that Holy and Pious Father excellently well observes Origen Philocal cap. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore we may well interpret this hardning which is attributed to God to consist not in any positive act nor yet in the total subtraction of his grace but to be an accidental effect of his kindness and mercy toward Pharaoh in removing that sharp and uneasie though salutary discipline which being not carefully and rightly made use of became an occasion of a greater hardness and obduracy As saith the Father in the same Chapter when a Master forbears to punish a wicked servant he sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have spoiled you and I have made you wicked 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. In like manner those things which proceed from Gods benignity and goodness as if they had been the cause of Pharaoh 's obduracy are said to harden his heart And the Philosopher spake true when he said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That it is the greatest evil that possibly can befal a Criminal to be suffered to continue unpunished in wickedness Verse 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To shew his displeasure i. e. The effect of his displeasure to punish by a notable and exemplary way as he did Pharaoh so the word is used Luke xxi 23. For there shall be great distress in the land 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Punishment and Judgment the effect of Wrath upon this people So likewise Rom. iii. 5. Is God unrighteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who punisheth or taketh vengeance So that this is far from what Beza and other Supralapsarians would inferr as if this Demonstration of his anger were the prime and ultimate end which God proposed in the eternal Reprobation of Men. For what can we imagine more inconsistent and unsutable with the Divine Nature then to be eternally angry with the innocent and undeserving And what more contradicts the gracious Revelation of God whereby he declares himself propense to Mercy and slow to Anger against impenitent sinners then this which makes him equally displeased with the guiltless and criminal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Suffered with much patience and longanimity punishing them not so oft nor when he might justly do it but letting them take as it were the reins into their own hands and break through all the fences and hedges whereby the Divine Goodness sought to restrain them into exorbitancy and impiety and so render themselves more uncapable of a mild and gentle Oeconomy This being the genuine sense we can in no wise approve of their extravagant conjecture who take to themselves the liberty which they thanklessly give to God of making their wills and fancies the rule of their interpretations and actions that this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is only a bare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forbearance of punishment complicated and conjoyned with a peremptory purpose of eternally excruciating and damning those who were designed to destruction For doubtless this longanimity of God contains and runs upon the supposal of antecedent Exhortations Threatnings and Promises as so many gracious methods to reduce men to Repentance which cannot without clear hypocrisie and dissimulation be affirmed of Reprobates in the Supralapsarian sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vessels of wrath fitted for destruction Here the Supralapsarians endeavour to render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Creari * Vide Beza in hunc locum whereby they would obtrude that God creates men vessels of wrath on purpose to destroy them without any consideration had to any qualifications whatever which being a Doctrine so absurd and unbecoming the Majesty of an Al-wise and good God it will be confutation enough to any rational person to rehearse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore is an Hebraisme for there being but few verbals in the Hebrew tongue a Particle is used for a Verbal and signifies no more then fit or ready as Luke vi 40. The Disciple is not above his Master 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but every one that is perfect shall be as his Master For the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies fit and is usually rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which sometimes is rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and sometimes by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal lxviii 10. lxxiv. 16. lxxxix 38. By vessels of wrath then are meant men who by their own voluntary and heynous transgressions become so far liable to Gods judgment that his wrath may without any appearance of injustice be poured on them as vessels fit for no other use and the adaptation or fitting of them for a severe destruction must be attributed to themselves and to the inflexibleness of their irreclaimable dispositions Thus men are said in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fit themselves to destruction in the same sense as they are said to wrong their own souls and to love death Prov. viii