by God and unalterable by Man but in other things their Pactions are effectual as in other Cases So also in Civil Government the Form of Government the Persons governing the Extensions of their Power more than what is requsite for Order and Determination of Controversies are by the express and tacit Pactions of the Parties except what God did immediately determine in the Government of Israel God did also institute a distinct Government for his own Worship and separated it from the Paternal and Civil Authority both among the Jews in the Levitical Priesthood which was propagated by imitation to most other Nations and among Christians a Church became a distinct Society from a State and hath its proper Ecclesiastick Government tho both Societies may concur in the same Persons The Civil Government is for the outward State of their Society and the Means of their Government is outward by extrinsick Rewards and forcible Punishments The Ecclesiastick Government is about the inward State of those of their Society in so far as Man's Knowledg can reach to promote Holiness and internal and eternal Happiness and about their outward Acts only as they signify their inward Condition and their Rewards and Punishments are only by application of the Divine Ordinances in exciting Joy or Grief Fear or Hope as is conducible for the inward State but without temporal Rewards and forcible Punishments But there is yet a more inward and secret Dominion of God exercised by the Conscience which is his Deputy by which he distributes the most powerful and important Rewards and Punishments not only in this Life but chiefly after Death The most eminent and important Dispensations of God's Dominion is by the Covenants he made with Men which therefore require a particular Consideration especially the general Covenants relating to all Mankind It was a high Honour put upon Men that God was pleased to enter into mutual Ingagements with them by way of Covenant whereby God promised some Favours to them besides those which arose from their Creation which Favours they could not warrantably believe nor expect by his Justice Bounty Mercy or even by his Faithfulness but only by his Promise in these Covenants And on the other part there was not ground to expect them even from the Promises unless there were a voluntary Engagement on Man's part by entring into these Covenants God's Dispensations might have been without any Covenant either by commanding Men to do that which he proposed to them to do whereby the not Performance became a Transgression of his Command and Sin or he might have made Promises conditional without requiring Mens Engagements I see very many Covenants between God and Man in Scripture but the purely Celestial and Eternal Covenants are only two the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace The Covenant of Grace is the chief Concern of Mankind and it runs through the whole Current of Scripture It was published to our first Parents immediately after their Fall and tho the Record of it in Scripture at first be no more but that the Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Head of the Serpent I doubt not but it was more fully manifested to and understood by the first Parents It was more fully manifested to Abraham to whom it was said That in thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed It was continued in the Church in the Revelation and Expectation of the Messiah who was to deliver his People from their Sins and was represented by the Sacrifices instituted by God from the beginning and by the Sacraments and Ceremonies instituted thereafter tho the Jews in their latter times were wholly perverted believing their Messiah to be a Temporal Monarch to raise their Nation to great Glory wherein Christ the Messiah himself did fully confute them from the Old Testament and brought Life and Immortality to light in a clear Discovery of the Covenant of Grace as it remains recorded in the Gospel The Covenant of Works being broken and become void there is but little of it expressed in Scripture in which that Name of the Covenant is no where mentioned and tho it may seem a needless Curiosity to enquire into the Terms of it I conceive it is not unprofitable but very useful to manifest the Glory and Goodness of God in all his Dispensations with Mankind and for the understanding the Covenant of Grace that came in its place which will appear by that excellent Parallel of the Apostle Paul betwixt the first and second Adam It hath been the common Opinion of Christians that there was a Covenant between God and Adam upon solid Grounds It is certainly a great Condescension and Kindness in God to enter into Covenant with Creatures but seeing it is certain that he hath so often admitted sinful Creatures to covenant with him there is no ground to doubt that he enter'd into Covenant with innocent Adam which is yet more clear from the Parallel of the first and second Adam whereby both are acknowledged to represent and undertake for the whole or a great part of the Race of Mankind that through Adam's Failure Sin entered in the World and that Christ had obtained a better Covenant It is therefore inferred that there was a prior Covenant As to the Terms of the first Covenant it is clear that God promised Adam Immortality seeing the Penalty expressed by Moses for the Breach in eating the forbidden Fruit is Death not only Temporal by the Separation of the Soul and Body and the Corruption of the Body but Eternal by the Separation from the Favour of God therefore Life and Immortality is implied which tho it was possible to have been preserved in Adam and his Posterity by the continuance of Adam and his Posterity upon Earth living an Animal Life but this Earth could not have sufficed for all the Posterity of Adam if none had died or been removed yea Immortality could not have been continued in that State wherein the Body was perpetually wearing with its Food and Exercise if there had not been extraordinary Means to have preserved or restored it Therefore I do not conceive that Immortality was competent to innocent Man by his Nature and was taken from him as his Punishment against his Nature but that it was only promised to be given as a part of that Covenant the loss of which was a great Penalty It is true the Soul was naturally immortal and could not cease to exist but by taking away that which was given in its Nature but it will not follow that Man the Complex of Soul and Body was so immortal The Parallel doth also give ground to infer that it was a part of God's Promise in the first Covenant that Adam and his Posterity should be exalted from an Animal Life on Earth to an Angelical Life in Heaven which is evidently a part of the Covenant of Grace and is frequently expressed by Restitution and Redemption importing that it belonged to Mankind before but
many not the meanest and ignoblest of Men have wilfully made their Bodies uncapable to serve their Souls that they might escape it and how many more would if without that Pain they could flee out of their Bodies few would suffer Misery in them but those who knew and did acknowledg the Trust and Command to preserve them given by God under an higher Pain than they could suffer by abiding in them A farther degree of the Goodness of God is manifested in the other inbred Inclinations which God hath freely given to the Soul beside that of cleaving to the Body which is not by fatal Necessity seeing the Soul is a separable Substance and might easily escape from the Body if it could please so to do Such Principles are the Love to God above all as being the Soveraign Good and incomparably most amiable Object the Love to Mankind preferring the Interest of Manking to the Interest of any part of Men and in most things to Self-interest Self-love also is a Gift of God and good in it self when kept within its Bounds tho by the Corruption of Sin it is become the Cause of most Evils Men do either wholly exclude the Love of God and of Mankind or do exceedingly abate them and subordinate them to Self-love For these Affections cannot arise before or without the Perception of their proper Objects Therefore it is that because it is long before the Perception of the Deity or of the common Interest arise in the Soul during which time Self-love doth wholly and solely possess the Soul and all its Affections are exercised without Restraint except what ariseth by the Fear of Chastisement or the natural or industrious Perception of the Uncomeliness of some extravagant Acts that Self-love becomes habitual and so strong that when the Perception of God or the common Interest of Mankind by the natural Conscience or Instruction is excited Self-love makes the Soul have a powerful Aversion from these Objects which would low or restrain it so that it can never be kept within Bounds especially in Subordination to God without supernatural Grace given by him It will sooner yield to the Love of a Family of a Society of a Country than to the Love of the common Interest of Mankind yet even Heathens have come a great length as to that but came never to any sutable Proportion of the Love to God as all their Writings and Actings do manifestly show There is another general inbred Principle and Inclination in Man to do that which is congruous to and becoming his Nature not only to what is essential to him but to what is superadded by the Divine Benignity which is more sensibly felt in the Aversion of things which are unbecoming Man and which all judg to be vicious and vile except in so far as they have eradicated their inbred Principles and debauched their Natural Inclinations so even natural Men love Temperance Sobriety Modesty Meekness Sincerity Constancy Courage and Comeliness and those whose Depravation make them love and practise the contrary in themselves do frequently hate them in others and never cherish them but when it is to lessen or abolish their own Shame by making their Vice more common or that they require the Concourse of others to practise them Beside these general Principles which require Attention and Ratiocination God by his Bounty hath imprinted on the Soul of Man special Principles for eminent Cases which operate like Instincts without necessity of reasoning as the desire of Happiness the care to preserve Life the abhorrence of Cruelty the desire to relieve the Innocent opprest Gratitude to Benefactors Faithfulness to those that do rationally rely and trust Love to those in Society and Friendship that especially which is most entire and absolute by Marriage and the mutual natural Affection of Parents and Children and of those which are of one Kindred and Blood The Institution of Marriage was a farther degree of the Bounty of God appointed in Innocency that betwixt one Man and one Woman by the free Choice of both there should be so intimate a Society and Friendship as could be no greater having all their Interests common perpetual and most part incommunicable that each of them had more Right to and Enjoyment of all than when they had them alone excluding the other tho the unsutable Choice of some hath marred this Blessing it diminisheth not the Bounty of God being by the fault of the Parties at least is a Judgment for their other Faults and it was their Interest that this Society was indissolvable even by the Consent of both but only by Adultery or Desertion which gave a strong Inducement to compose their Humours tho naturally discrepant rather than to be in a continual Disquiet It was a great Addition to the Happiness of this Conjugal Estate that there was given them so strong an Inclination of these Imbraces necessary for Posterity which otherwise have nothing of Comeliness in them and Women would never have endured the Trouble and Pain of Child-bearing if this Affection and the natural desire of having Children did not over-master them How great Addition to Adam's Pleasure behoved it to be when awakening from his Sleep God presented him Eve the only Creature like to himself which was the first Glass in which he did behold the Beauty of his own Body as well as hers who was fitted for him in all things that he could desire not only passionately loved but even more passionately loving both being endued with the same Principles and Inclinations and requiring no need of farther Acquaintance than the first View both being innocent and void of all Vice and able to communicate their Thoughts by that Language with which God did endue them without their own Industry by which they might communicate their Knowledg of God their Admiration Confidence and Delight in him their Love and Reverence to him and Obsequiousness to his Pleasure in all things which they knew by the Moral Law written in their Hearts and which it is like he did explain and declare unto them as he did his positive Command of the forbidden Fruit to be a Test of their Obedience by restraining their Appetite from so pleasant a Fruit for which Restraint they had no inbred Inclination as they had to the Moral Duties but rather contrary except his Pleasure and Prohibition for if he had willed that they should not eat of it it would certainly have been effectual but he did only declare what they might eat and what they might not eat and denounced the Punishment if they did eat what was forbidden which sufficiently shews that their forbearing would have been acceptable to him which was sufficient to lay the strongest Obligation upon them and yet he expressed the heaviest Penalty if they trangressed which was implied by their knowledg of his Justice tho it had not been expressed which could not consist with his moving exciting or necessitating them to it Adam whose Knowledg was so great
yet at his right Hand there is Fulness of Joy and Pleasures for evermore that is in the State of Glory But there may be even here so much Joy from meditating upon God which all other Objects cannot parallel much less exceed or extinguish 9. The Scripture doth frequently inculcate the Benefit of knowing God of remembring him of meditating upon his Perfections his Laws and Dispensations and gives it as the Character of the Wicked that they know not God that they remember not God that they have him not before their Eyes whom to know is Life everlasting This is Life eternal to know God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent The Knowledg of God cannot formally be Life eternal but it is the Mean necessary to attain it because it doth excite that Joy in which it doth chiefly consist It is said of the Wicked that God is not in all their Thoughts that is so far as they can shun and that they will have no Thoughts of the most High the Thoughts of God crush their sinful Inclinations and Pleasures which fall before them as Dagon did before the Ark of God Job gives it as a discriminating Test between the Godly and the Hypocrite only knowable by every Man of himself when he says of the Hypocrite Will he delight himself in the Almighty Will he always call upon God 10. There is a Knowledg of God by the Light of Nature by Acquisition in Improvement of the Light of Nature and Experience by Revelation of that which hath no Principle in the Light of Nature by spiritual Illumination whereby spiritual things are discernable which the natural Man cannot know because they are spiritually discerned and his Notions of them are but as those of a Country from a Map and according to these several kinds of Knowledg must the different kinds of Meditation and the different Degrees of Joy Love Reverence Obsequiousness and Confidence in God arise and the true Humility of the Soul of Man not so much by debasing it below its true Value but by exalting God and perceiving the Infinite Distance of Perfection betwixt the two which may equally be between two Objects by heightning the one or by depressing the other The Monkish Humility is much in disgracing humane Nature which is not without reflecting upon its Author and doth not only loath humane Nature in so far as sinful The Stoicks fall into the like Fault by looking upon all Affections as vitious Perturbations not endeavouring to rule and use them but to root them out as if a Horse should not be made use of because some ill-managed Horse will kick off his Master or break his Bridle and run away or as if a Sail should not be used because sometimes it oversets a Ship Indeed weak or vitiated Minds were better if they wanted all Affections to be their Servants than having them to be their Masters 11. The natural Knowledg of God improved by Industry and Experience goeth a great way even in Religion for the Light of the natural Conscience convinceth a Man that there is one and only one God who is the just Judg of all rational Creatures and knoweth their most secret Thoughts and that he rules them and the whole World and that they find in their Souls a Rule of their Life a Quiet and Pleasure in their Conscience when they keep it and a Terror when they break it yea they have the natural Notion of the Mercy and Forgiveness of God to penitent Sinners and they think that every Man can repent if he please but they are utterly confounded and at a loss when they consider the Consistency of the Justice and Mercy of God how all might repent and all be forgiven and yet that God is entirely just and fully abhors Sin The Entry of Reveal'd Religion discovering a Messias or Mediator delivering his People from their Sins by his Sufferings is no small Confirmation of the Truth of that Religion inducing a strong Probability of it though nothing but the Divine Illumination can breed a full Perswasion of it nor give Warrant to force the imbracing and professing it as may be done for the Light and Law of Nature as well for Religion as far as it goes as for other Ends. Something of Religion will arise from the Notion of a Deity convincing that God is to be adored by Acknowledgment of his Power Bounty Justice and Mercy by Supplication for his Favour and the Requisites of Life by Deprecations of his Displeasure Justice and Wrath Praise and Thanksgiving for Benefits received or hoped Much more will result from the improved Knowledg of God by the Light of Nature and yet more by the Probability of his revealed Will. Whereby it cannot but be acknowledged that if these things be true which are contained in Scripture God's Bounty and Mercy to Mankind is far greater than what could be dreamed of from the Light of Nature But all this is far short of the Knowledg arising from the Illumination of the Holy Spirit in the Souls of the Regenerate by which they are capable of a far more glorious and firm Apprehension of the Divine Perfections and Dispensations and a quite other and far greater Joy therein and in the Perswasion of Peace and Reconciliation with God and in the Hope of that Glory which is greater than Ear hath heard or Eye hath seen or hath entred into the Heart of Man to consider 12. The Knowledg of God even in the Renewed hath great Variety of Degrees and it is both the Interest and Duty of all of them to extend it so far as their Capacity and Opportunities do enable them that they may increase their Comfort and strengthen their Faith against the Suggestions of Satan and the Seductions of weak or wicked Men misrepresenting God not so much in his Power and Wisdom as in his Goodness and Purity whereby they do exceedingly incroach upon that Infinite Loveliness whereby he draws and ravishes the Souls of Men and doth not only drive them by the Power of his Soveraignty Some represent God as if his Soveraignty were his highest Perfection and his greatest Interest as despotick Soveraigns represent themselves to be above all Law and to be indifferent whom to save or whom to destroy without any consideration of their Actings but to shew their absolute and arbitrary Power and that they neither love their Subjects nor care for the Love of their Subjects but for their Fear that may make them obey without Reserve How strange is it that so many eminent Divines should represent God as if the Order of his Decrees were not only to glorify some and not for their foreseen Performances by their own Power but to eternally torment the greatest part of his rational Creatures without the consideration of their Sin as coming in not as a Motive from the Foresight thereof but as a Mean to that End Others are amaz'd when they consider the Goodness of God why infinite Duration pass'd before he
laboured but one Hour as to those that laboured a whole Day saying Why are you evil because I am good Is it not free for me to do with my own what I please But the Folly of this Pretence I see further cleared that it was not possible to evade it for though he should have made a Million of Worlds and far more perfect than this yet still he could have made more and more perfect otherwise his Omnipotence had been exhausted and his Power as well as his Freedom behov'd to cease Besides that Revelation shows the Design of glorifying Man by the Mediator Christ. It had been exceedingly unsutable to his Merit that a Part of glorified Men should have owed nothing to him and so he ought either to have suffered in every Habitation of Mankind or they ought all to be in one Habitation and of one Nature and Blood of both which he was Partaker My Design is to clear up to my self the Divine Perfections and thence to exalt the Loveliness of God and to vindicate the same against these and other Errors and Mistakes by methodical Meditations thereupon according to the natural Order of the Divine Perfections which Order doth very much contribute to distinct Conceptions of them all The Divine Perfections are either natural and absolutely necessary or voluntary free and moral And though they be without all Composition in the fullest Simplicity yet they must necessarily be conceived by Creatures as some being prior and others being posterior in order of Nature the Divine Dispensations must be posterior even in time to his Purposes or Decrees his Decrees being free must presuppose his Freedom and his Will and these must presuppose his Understanding and Wisdom and all must be conceived as into or from a Subject to which they are relative His moral Perfections must relate to his natural Perfections as being prior in order of Nature that he intends and acts all things sutable to worthy of and becoming such natural Perfections and therefore the best Method in meditating upon them is by following their natural Order MEDITATION II. Upon God's being a Spirit 1. GOD's being a Spirit is the only Attribute of God that presupposeth nothing anterior Being a Spirit is the Subject of all the Divine Attributes for the being God doth essentially comprehend all God's Self-existence importeth something that is Self-existent which is his being a Spirit so doth his Independance his Knowledg his Will his Freedom All run up to bring us to consider him as a Spirit We must not consider the Divine Attributes as different Parts of the Divine Nature which were inconsistent with a Spirit which is without all Parts Extension or Composition so that God is altogether Immaterial hath none of the Properties of a Body in whom there is neither Matter nor Form Parts essential or integral which is an incommunicable Property of God It is also incommunicable that there are no Accidents in him he acteth all Things immediately without a superadded Power or Capacity of which no Creature is capable For it 's inconceivable that one Creature should act one way and another another way without superadded Powers freely given of God for if any Creature acted in that it is a Creature or as a Creature then all Creatures behoved so to act or if it act as a Substance a Spirit or a Body then all Spirits all Bodies behoved so to act 2. God's acting without a superadded Power without any accession to his Substance is his incommunicable Perfection implied in all his Divine Perfections neither doth it follow that other Spirits must so act as Angels or the Souls of Men for they are only analogous Spirits by resemblance there is no synonymous degree of Nature common to Finite and Infinite God and Creatures othertherwise that Inference were inevitable Substance and Ens are but abstracted metaphysical Notions and there are no Individuals immediate to these as there are in Man and to the several Species of Brutes Some to avoid this difficulty have supposed the Angels not to be pure Spirits but to have aerial or aetherial Bodies so thin as to be insensible and that pass through the Pores of all solid Bodies which the Air cannot do but then the separate Souls of Men should be pure Spirits yet some have thought that even then they have aerial or aetherial Bodies but certainly the Angels and Souls of Men by the Power of God were separable from such Bodies and yet active and so the immediate actings of God as a Spirit should be competent to these Spirits I know no other way to extricate that Difficulty but that there is nothing purely Spirit but God and therefore Angels and Souls tho they have not Extension and Bulk as Bodies yet they have not that Property that they can co-exist with any other created Substance in the same space so that the Essence of a Body consisteth not in Impenetrability but in Extension and God alone can co-exist with all created Substances This is much confirmed by the chief and most express place in Seripture where God is said to be a Spirit John 4. 24. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which tho it be rendered God is a Spirit the Words are a Spirit the God And in Scripture Indefinits are equivalent to Universals This way of expression is not to be supposed an accidental Conversion without a very convincing Reason neither is there in it a Copulative but the words are placed as two Synonyma a Spirit and God being one thing The Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not import that God is the Subject and a Spirit is the Attribute but a true Spirit is the God excluding all false Gods and others that are by participation called Gods as in the demonstration of the true God by Elijah the People being fully convinced cry out Jehovah is the God that is the only God The Name of God is comprehensive of all his Perfections from which that conception or Idea doth arise so that it would not be eminently significant to say that Being that hath all possible Perfection is a Spirit but rather a true Spirit must have in it all Perfections and there is nothing in the Attributes of God presupposed to being a Spirit of which a Spirit should be an Attribute but a Spirit is that which in our Conception doth only represent a Substance and therefore the natural Order of this highest Expression is as in the Original a Spirit the God The same is confirmed 2 Cor. 3. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord is the Spirit importing not only that God is a Spirit but that he is the Spirit that is the only Spirit In this I am further confirmed considering that all Philosophers are at a loss to give any rational Account how a Spirit moveth Matter or how Matter acteth upon a Spirit seeing all agree that the efficacious Fiat is proper to God alone and therefore a Spirit cannot move Matter by willing it to
move So that they are forced to say that God hath made such a Connection between certain Thoughts of Spirits and certain Motions of Matter Whence all that are ingenuous come also to confess that Creatures have no Activity at all but that God alone moves Matter as the Spirit willeth it to be moved and yet that Will is universally effectual so that the Motion was never hindred but by extrinsick Force There can nothing more evidently make God pedissequous and dependent not only upon Angels and Men but also upon Devils and even in the worst of all their Actions But if created Spirits be but so called in resemblance to God as well as the Air or the animal Spirits yet cannot coexist with another Spirit or Body then they can thrust upon Matter or Matter upon them and so a Spirit in the Juncture of the Nerves can act the Body in all the ways that we perceive it to move though it had no innate Inclination never to part with that Station of the Body while it could serve it which is the only intelligible Account of the Union of the Soul and Body So that an assistent Spirit possessing the same Place can act an intire Body as an informing Spirit doth these who are possessed speak and move not only without their Will but against their Will 4. I consider then what a truly immaterial Spirit doth imply And 1 A Spirit must necessarily have Cogitation not that it is Cogitation which no Man can conceive without presupposing something that thinketh but it needs not be said that a Spirit presupposeth any thing but that it is absolute Modern Philosophers glory much in sinding a clear Distinction betwixt a Body and a Spirit that a Spirit thinketh and a Body is extended and there is nothing common to these two which indeed is very clear and not improbable But they throw all down by making a Spirit only a Thought for then pure Matter may think inasmuch as there is nothing within the whole Universe of Beings that can be supposed capable of thinking but either Spirit or Matter not Spirit if Spirit be but a Thought for a Thought doth not think therefore it would be consequent that either Matter doth think or nothing doth and yet the Idea of a Thought is as distinct from the Idea of Matter as can be and so an Act shall serve for a separable Substance and it shall be an Act without an Agent and shall act it self But it is a bolder Attempt to hold God to be but a Thought and yet it agreeth well with their Opinion that say God is the Cause of himself and by his Will preserves his Being And one hath lately too consequently said that God by his Will could annihilate himself which is blasphemous enough But I wish the Train of these Consequences would open Mens Eyes to speak more becomingly of God 5. 2. If a Spirit by its Essence must think then it must necessarily be without Parts and indivisible for if it hath Parts the Cogitation must either be in the whole or in more Parts or in one Part only If in the whole then the Separation of any Part loseth the Cogitation and so the Spirit is annihilated Nor is it conceivable how a Thought can be in many Subjects Parts are many though they cohere in one Body If in more Parts severally then there are as many Spirits as Parts in which the Cogitation is If Cogitation be but in one the rest were superfluous Matter 6. 3. A pure self-existent Spirit must be Omniscient for there can be no imaginable Reason why it knows one thing more than another 4. A self-existent thinking Spirit cannot want Capacity to determine it self and to choose 7. 5. A self-existent thinking Spirit determining it self cannot otherwise act upon Matter but by the Determination of the Will and therefore it must either be able to act nothing upon Matter or any thing and so all extrinsick Action must cease for a dependent Spirit must have far less Activity than a self-existent and independent Spirit If then it must have Capacity to act and act of it self there can be no Reason rendred why the Action should be more of one kind than of another and therefore such a Spirit must be Omnipotent but created Spirits act nothing but by Activities freely given of God and no further 8. They are not excusable though far more subtile who apprehend a Substance without Proportion far more pure than the purest Air which is beyond this sensible World so far that it is impossible to conceive how far and therefore is truly infinite in Extension which they do erroneously apprehend to be a true Body or Substance and that it is not possible but that without this sensible World there should be a real Substance seeing it is capable of real Attributes because there is found all the Dimensions of a Body when yet these also are found in a Centaur made up of a Man and a Beast which they acknowledg to have no true Existence but to be impossible and of a Shadow which we conceive to have Dimensions beside the Dimensions of that Body in which the dark Shadow is imagined to be subjected yea it hath clear Figure like unto the Body which intercepts the Light of which there may be true and certain Propositions as that the Shadow of the Head is distant from the Shadow of the Feet and that the Shadow of the Bulk is larger than either where there is a true Connection or Consequence that as the one is so is the other true supposed or imagined There is no more Reality in these imagined Spaces or of their Dimensions yet the Deception they are in doth more easily seduce their Thoughts to apprehend God under the Notion of this immense Substance which is but the Birth of the Brain They are more foolish and hateful that apprehend God under the determined bounded Figure of a Man or of any other Creature as there were a Sect of Men that not by Resemblance but in Reality did believe that God had a Body like to the Body of a Man and were therefore called Anthropomorphitae They are next unto those who though they believe not that God is corporeal or hath a Body yet will make bodily Figures to represent him as the Rays of Light in a round or triangular Figure or in such Shape of a Man as he was represented to the Apostle John in the Revelation but it is clear it was not a Representation of God simply but of the Mediator Christ who lived then and was dead and his being call'd the first and the last is an evident Demonstration of his Deity But all Mens quibbling may cease when they have had so antient an Advertisement to beware to conceive or represent God under the Shape of any thing who saith Take ye therefore good heed unto your selves for ye saw no manner of Similitude on the Day that the Lord spake to you in Horeb out of
done The Goodness of God is also taken as comprehending all his Moral Perfections by which it is said that he is good and doth Good and that there is none good but one that is God who only is absolutely and infinitely good but the Goodness of God here proposed is distinct from his Justice Mercy and Truth and is more exactly expressed by his Bountifulness or Benignity The Goodness of God is likewise taken as it comprehends his Faithfulness and Mercy which are his most eminent Goodness and Benignity but here it is understood for that Goodness of God to his Rational Creatures which is without Consideration or Connotation of any thing in these Creatures and is so distinguished from Faithfulness which presupposeth Trust or Expectation in the Creature of some Good which is sutable to his excellent Nature to give to those that do depend trust or wait on him for it and yet is not as an Act of Reward in Justice Mercy imports Compassion to a Miserable Creature chiefly in and for Sin and Forgiveness of the Sin and Restitution from the Misery But the Goodness which I now consider is that which is freely bestowed upon the Creature presupposing nothing in it of which there are exceeding many degrees whereof some are anterior to Sin and Misery and some are posterior and yet are not the Acts of Mercy For when Adam had fallen from his Innocency and from the Favour of God it was an Act of Mercy by the Mediator to pardon him and to restore him unto the Favour of God but it was not an Act of Mercy to raise him to an higher degree of Happiness than he had when he fell by which he could never fall again from the Favour of God The first Act of God's Goodness and Bounty was in the creating of Rational Creatures which in their Essence did necessarily imply Understanding by which they could perceive their Creator themselves and other Objects and could judg of the Attributes of these Objects and deduce Consequences from these Judgments and determine their own Choice of what they thought best with a Power to act the same all which is implied in the Essence and Being of a Rational Creature and there can nothing be imagined more free and abstract than God's Goodness in giving this Existence to Rational Creatures which were of two kinds Angels and Men Angels exerting all their Faculties with outward Objects having Communication with them either immediately or by Impressions upon them by a Medium For unless Angels knew the Thoughts of God Angels and Men and the distant Actings of extrinsick Objects without intervention of a Medium which I am far from believing and which is an incommunicable Perfection of God who can be passive in nothing but knows all things actually in his own Decrees I must believe that Angels communicate their Thoughts by some Signs in a Medium and do so perceive the Thoughts and Actings of other Objects tho it was not necessary the manner of the Knowledg of Angels should be revealed yet I may safely remove from them what God appropriates to himself to know Thoughts without any outward Sign yet God communicates to Angels by a Medium or immediately I do sufficiently know by Revelation that some Angels were created with far greater Perfection of Knowledg and Strength than Man one Angel did in one Night kill fourscore and five thousand Men. I doubt nothing that by the Goodness of God there were inbred Principles of Knowledg and Inclination in Angels as well as in Men by which they were innocent and holy while they did follow them but changeable when so great a Multitude of them fell from their Innocency and the Favour of God And tho the elect Angels who persevered have the same changeable Nature they could not be justly called happy if God had not added a farther degree of Goodness confirming them against all danger of falling whence he calls them in his Word Elect Angels which I do not think to be an Act of God's Primitive Justice being so high a Perfection that they could never merit it by being innocent during the time of their Trial but that it was by the free and undeserved Goodness and Bounty of God The Angels by their Nature had no Power of Propagation of their Kind but for any thing appears they were created all together and none of them depended upon another but in so far as some might have greater Knowledg and Strength than others and so Beelzebub is called the Prince of Devils and it is like he hath been the Author of the Fall of the rest as it is certain he was the Seducer of Man The Nature of Man as the Scripture tells us was lower than the Angels and his Soul was incorporate with a Body fitted with Instruments apt for exerting all his Capacities by the receiving the Impression of outward Objects through the Senses all having Communication to the Brain by the Nerves and Spirits by which the Soul is passive and by the same Nerves Spirits and other Instruments are fitted to exercise Motion and act upon outward Objects and upon the Parts of their own Bodies These Specialities are in the specifick Nature of Angels and Men and therefore I reckon each of them but as Gifts of the Bounty of God All other Creatures were created in farther Manifestation of the Perfections of God which is his Glory and for the use of Angels and Men. I think it too great Partiality in those who make all the inferior Creatures to be design'd for Man's use only and not for Angels who have greater Pleasure in the knowledg of them and of the Glory of the Divine Perfections shining in them than Man and tho Man hath more need of them and Benefit by them yet the Angels are not without both in making use of them as Instruments in Communication outwardly by them and inwardly in them The free Bounty of God did imprint upon the Soul of Man the first Principles of his Knowledg of Things that fall not under Sense without which he could never have had firm and clear Knowledg albeit he had the Capacity to discern Implications and Consequences downward from Causes to Effects and upwards from Effects to Causes for if there were not some Principles self-evident the Chain of Consequences might run without end The Bounty of God did also give to Man the Capacity to know Consequences which makes a great addition to his Perfection God did likewise in his Bounty give Man the distinguishing Acts of Joy and Sorrow the one arising from Objects congruous to his Nature and useful for him the other from Objects unsutable and hurtful to him that he might approach the one and fly from the other So that Joy and Grief are not at Man's Discretion but have their peculiar Objects by the Impression whereof on the Sense Imagination or Memory they are excited and not otherwise I know no sufficient Reason why such Sounds should be harmonious and
sweet to the Ear and others harsh than this free Gift of God For tho some Difference might arise from the grating of the Ear or the easy insinuating in it I see not how that could go the length of the Pleasure of Harmony or Displeasure of Discord nor can there another sufficient Reason be given of the Pleasure arising from certain Figures and Colours and of the Displeasure from others nor of that great variety of Smells and Tastes or of the Pleasure that arises from the Touch beside that Smoothness or Ruggedness of any pungent Impression It is a farther degree of God's Bounty that he gave Man so many Senses by which he might perceive the Impression of all bodily Objects and receive Pleasure and Profit by them and shun Displeasure and Hurt Food being necessary for the Subsistence of Man God hath placed three Senses as Sentinels at different distances warning what Food is convenient or inconvenient for him The Eye sees ordinarily at the farthest distance by which at the view his Appetite is moved the very Brutes at view discern their Food and Physick more exactly than Man because he hath the use of Reason and Experience but many things which cannot be discerned by the Sight being brought near the Nose will be discerned by the Smell and what cannot be so distinguished will be discerned by the Taste The Bounty of God hath yet further gratified Man by variety of Creatures affecting all his Senses not only for his Necessity but for an innumerable variety of Pleasures There is a several kind of Perfection by the Goodness of God given to Man in the wonderful Structure of his Body wherein there is such variety and multitude of Instruments serving for the use of the Soul that there is nothing in it or of it but what is befitted to be an Instrument of the Soul that all the Industry of Physicians till of late made a very small Progress by Inference from the sensible Effects of the Body of Man or by Anatomical Inspection and every day there are new Discoveries made wherein the late Invention of Microscopes helpeth much discovering these minute Vessels which are impossible otherwise to be seen so that the Psalmist cries out with Admiration I am fearfully and wonderfully made No Man hath yet given any probable account of the Formation of the Body of Man or other Animals nor how the Bones do grow in the Womb of her that is with Child Whence there is a great Check to Man's Presumption who is so slow in acknowledging a Being superior to himself and so apt to admire his own Knowledg as if there were nothing he could not reach when yet he knows so very little of his own Body The Comeliness and Beauty of Man's Body is a farther degree of the Bounty of God which tho it be much marred hath in some so much remaining whence it may be considered how great the Beauty of Man was before the Fall and shall be yet much more after the Resurrection of the Elect for they shall be like unto Christ's glorious Body It were but a vain Curiosity to inquire what Alteration in Man's Body would be congruous unto that State The Bounty of God is signally seen in the admirable Union of the Soul and Body which are two diverse Substances which can and do subsist apart and are of the most different Natures and yet are so firmly united that the Soul will never desert the Body were it never so unfirm and crazy while it can exercise its Faculties by it and doth so love it that it feels all things that make Impression upon it it hath Pleasure in all that befits the Body to be its Instrument and Grief or Pain on the perception of all that is hurtful to the Body Yea it apprehends not only that the Grief and Pain but that the Hurt that causeth it is subjected in the Soul it self the Excess and Abuse of which makes Men reflecting upon themselves to apprehend themselves much more as a Body than as a Spirit as if the Soul were subordinate to the Rody and its chief Use were only to enliven and preserve it And therefore in the sharp Pains confounding Terrors or excessive Joys arising from Sense or Imagination the Soul can hardly admit of another Thought by still reflecting upon these and therefore sensible Pleasures do divert and seduce the Soul from Objects and Delights which are more spiritual and sutable to it self more noble and sublime the increase or continuance whereof will never breed loathing or lessening of their Pleasure thence arising as sensible Pleasures do yet this is not to be imputed to nor doth it blemish the Goodness of God in giving sensible Pleasures which cherish and befit the Mind when rightly used The Stoical Severity doth not a little reflect upon the Wisdom and Goodness of God There is no small Debate among the Learned about the Cause of the Union of the Soul and Body which I am not now to prosecute but I cannot so well satisfy my self as by apprehending that this Union is by an Instinct freely given of God to the Soul by which it doth so cleave to the Body and delight in it that it can never leave it while it is able to serve it which is not in the Essence of the Soul tho it be comprehended in the Essence of Man implying more than a Soul and an organized Body by which it can receive Impressions and act accordingly which an Angelical Spirit can do and Experience hath shown that they oft-times have done acting by a fresh and incorrupted Body whence the Soul was departed that it was not discernable from a Man Yea evil Spirits have frequently possessed living Bodies and have overacted the Soul contrary to its Inclinations and Attempts as being a stronger Spirit When I consider the Strength of Self-love that is another inavoidable Instinct or even the fresh and tender Affection of Parents to their Children having nothing in them to breed Aversion which no reasoning can overpower I have no Hesitation that the Soul is capable of this Instinct and that it ceaseth not to have a desire to be reunited to the Body even in its glorious State of Separation else the Resurrection should not be a farther Perfection of Glory Neither do I like the excessive Expressions of the Soul 's being in the Body as in a Prison for tho the Soul be more happy when out of the Body when it is in a sinful State because a great part of Mens Sins arise from their bodily Affections whereof Angelical Spirits are not capable yet that is from Man's Corruption through Sin and doth nothing derogate the Goodness of God I do not believe that these Spirits acting a Body have Pleasure or Pain as Souls have by the Impressions or Actings through that Body If it were not for this inavoidable Instinct would not the Soul prevent the Pains of Torture and Death Oft-times with Ignominy and Cruelty to prevent which
having promised he is not indifferent as to Performance The Performance of God's Promise is attributed oft-times to his Faithfulness or to his Bounty but to speak accurately it is only to be referred to his Justice For after the manner of Men it is said That God is faithful who hath promised where both Faithfulness and a Promise are joined So God may promise that which his Justice would require without a Promise as he does also to confirm Men not only promise but sometimes swear to perform Commutative Justice is not competent to God For who hath given to him that he should repay Yet such is his gracious Condescension to Men that he hath frequently entered with them in Covenant the most excellent of which is the Covenant of Grace which yet cannot be called commutative as if God's part and Man's part were the mutual Causes every converted Man enters in the Covenant of Grace by his Consent to God's offer of Grace But the freest Grant requires Acceptance when by way of Offer in which it differs from an absolute Gift which is effectual if it be not rejected but Man's Acceptance or Consent is also by the Gift and Grace of God The Distributive Justice of God consists in the distribution of Rewards and Punishments and hence it is divided into Premiative and Punitive Justice both are exactly proportioned to the occasion to which God's Holiness directs it self which is called the deserving or meritorious Cause no other way than as an occasion comes in among Causes when a merciful Man sees a miserable lie hath Compassion and helps him Could this Miser boast that his Misery is the cause of the Mercy No it was indeed the occasion of it but the Man's Mercifulness was the Cause So it is in God's Justice tho Mankind were like the Beasts of the Field and the Fish of the Sea devouring each other it could not reach God but it is the Congruity of his glorious Nature which is the cause why he rewards the Good and punisheth the Evil. All Christians agree that God's Punitive Justice is adjusted to desert or merit but some have been so impudent as to claim eternal Happiness by their own Merit and that God could not be just if he did not give it not by his Promise nor for Christ's Merit alone as only taking away Punishment but they think the Reward is from their own Merit Others have so much abhorred this that they have run to the other Extream holding that all Rewards are absolutely free without any thing of Justice so that God should only have Punitive and not Premiative Justice as Man's Condition now standeth after the Fall And that if Man had not fallen he had by his Merit been translated into the Heavenly Estate not by God's Promise or by his Bounty but by his Premiative Justice but that now Man having fallen nothing belongs to him by the Premiative Justice of God There are many and great Authorities of Learned Men on all hands in this matter but when I look up to God and make use of the Light of Scripture and Reason he hath given me I cannot assent to either of these Extreams when I consider that God hath with so strong an Asseveration declared Verily there is a Reward for the Righteous to whom he faith also That it is just with God to give Tribulation to them that trouble you and to give to you that are troubled Peace with us and that God is not unrighteous to forget their Labour of Love yet these Righteous were not Innocents I am not moved with that Argument That all sinful Men even when regenerated do deserve eternal Damnation tho for Christ's sake it be forgiven and therefore if any thing they could do could deserve Good from God they forfeit that by their deserving Death for one may as well withhold from an Enemy that which was due as take from him that which was his own But when I consider that Christ hath by his Merit through the Covenant of Grace procured a full Pardon of all the Sins of the Regenerate through Repentance and Faith both the Similitude and the Reason of it fail for he hath taken away the Enmity and hath made Reconciliation whereby the Justified become not only Servants but Sons Heirs and Coheirs with Christ of Glory I am far from fancying that any meer Creature doth or could deserve the Glory of Heaven no not Adam tho he had continued innocent nor the most glorious Seraphim The Angels were created in the state of Celestial Glory which was by God's free Bounty they could pretend no Merit for deserving that Glory that they had at the first instant of their Being nor do I believe that their Consirmation and Assurance is an Act granted by God of rewarding Justice but of free Bounty it being so high an Advancement from a fallible to an infallible State which the best of their Service could not deserve It was congruous to the Freedom of God and the Dependance of his Creatures and his Dominion and Government of them that they should all be capable of Rewards and Punishments and be ruled by the righteous Laws of God and that therefore they should be in a labile Estate and even in that Estate God did reward the Improvement of their Natural Capacities by adding farther degrees to them of their Love to him and Joy in him which crowns their Happiness but his Promise or the Manifestation of his Purpose that if during their Trial they were faithful in that fallible Estate he would never suffer them to fall I do not doubt that they acknowledg it as his free Bounty and even in that confirmed Estate their Perfections can never be so great but they can be increased and therefore there is still place for God's Premiative Justice If then the Angels have the Celestial Glory without Merit by meer Bounty and yet God by his Premiative Justice is still adding to their Perfections which is clearly revealed by the Fall of the evil Angels and that these that stood are declared to be the elect Angels whence all I have said will follow could Man tho innocent pretend by Merit and Justice to arrogate more to himself than the Angels He was created innocent able to have so continued but in all Perfections far inferiour to the Angels In his fallible Estate he was capable of God's rewarding Justice as were the Angels in the like Estate before Confirmation But could he have deserved Confirmation and Exaltation from an Animal to an Angelical from an Earthly to an Heavenly State At Man's Creation God had promised him Immortality not by his Nature for his Body was fragile and might by second Causes have been rendered unserviceable to his Soul but only by God's Providence he behoved to eat drink sleep rost We have no ground to believe that his Children so soon as they were born needed not his Care and Trouble tho they had been as perfect as Christ in the State of his
pardoning Mercy reaches so far that he hath even had Mercy upon frequent and long Rejecters pulling them as Firebrands out of the Fire whose Souls did cleave to their Abominations and he continueth many such Sinners in Life without kindling Hell in their Consciences with design to magnify his Mercy upon them wherein Consideration may be had of the Kindness he had to their Ancestors or of their extraordinary Temptations or simply by his absolutely free and unbounded Grace but these Firebrands are but some and few and ought not to encourage Sinners to cleave to their Sins and reject the Offer of Mercy and Reconciliation We have one clear Example of Pardon to the Thief on the Cross at the point of Death that none might despair and but one that none might presume God's long-suffering Patience and Forbearance of Sinners are Acts of his Mercy whereby the Effect of his Justice is delayed which are never in vain for either forgiving Mercy doth at last take place or at least the Glory of God's Goodness is manifested upon obstinate inexcusable and self-condemned Sinners not that he delights or designs to make them such but to manifest the superabundance of his Grace in giving them a sincere and true Offer of Reconciliation and not by causing them to reject it but by not causing them to entertain it when his Glory did not require it The Mercy of God is a most eminent and most amiable Moral Perfection his other Goodness doth either presuppose something in the Object not as a Merit but as a Mean His Faithfulness supposeth the Faith of his Creatures trusting or hoping for that Good which he hath not promised nor shown that he hath purposed it His Goodness in Creation supposeth nothing in the Object for it yet nothing against it but his forgiving Mercy and Reconciliation presuppose those things which are extreamly opposite sometimes the most irrational Injury and Enmity actually in some and habitually in all by natural or acquired Inclinations Mercy is the most amiable Divine Perfection that provoketh the most fervent Love to God as Christ said to the Woman who washed his Feet with her Tears and wiped them with her Hair Her Sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much but to whom little is forgiven the same love little There is more of Mercy expressed in the whole course of Scripture than of all the other Divine Perfections the main Scope thereof being to shew the Mercy of God towards Mankind which he foresaw lapsed in a miserable Condition and of his inconceivable Mercy he designed the way of their escape from Misery and their becoming Heirs of Glory through the Satisfaction of his Son Christ Jesus whereby he might give Mercy and Forgiveness without incroaching upon his Justice and so made both Mercy and Justice to meet together and attain both their Effects When God manifested himself to his beloved Moses and proclaimed his Name before him by which he would be designed as his most proper Character he said The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth keeping Mercy for thousands forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin and that will in no way clear the Gulilty Mercy is the leading and inculcate Attribute thrice repeated Justice is last The Paths of the Lord are not only said to be merciful but Mercy in abstracto and his Mercy is plenteous he is full of Mercy his Mercy is multiplied Mercy belongeth to him he desireth Mercy rather than Sacrifice his Mercy is tender he is rich in Mercy his Mercy is everlasting it is his Saints Joy who sing of his Mercy MEDITATION XVI Upon the Faithfulness of God FAithfulness is that Perfection whereof Faith or Trust doth immediately lay hold and rest The Term is diversly taken there is not another proper Word but it to signify both the being worthy of Trust and Faith and the having Faith But when it is applied to God it imports not the Subject but the fitted Object of the Faith which doth import an Inclination to do that Good which is believed or hoped for sutably to the Giver and Receiver freely without Right to claim it where-ever there is a Right to claim there is an Obligement or Tie to perform and the Performance is an Act of Justice not of Benignity or meer Decency The moral Perfections of Men are of three sorts Justice Benignity and Decency Justice implies an Obligement or Tie to perform and a Right or Power to claim and exact Benignity is an Inclination to do good to another freely without Necessity or Obligement to do it or Right to claim it which sometimes respects its Object under no other Consideration than that it 's capable of that Good and this is specially called Goodness Such is God's Goodness in Creation Preservation and giving those good things which are not believed or expected such as Acts of meer Liberality but other Acts of Benignity are upon special Considerations beside the Capacity to receive as Mercy to the Miserable tho they do not trust or expect it but Faithfulness considers the Object as trusting or hoping not simply for one may trust or hope for that that is not sutable for him to receive or for the Person trusted to give and so it is an unwarrantable Expectation and not Faith but Presumption Such was the desire of the Mother of Zebedee's Children to Christ That the one might sit on his Right-hand and the other on his Left-hand in his Kingdom and such is commonly the Hope of the Hypocrite who trusts to obtain Happiness without Holiness But Faith must be a well-grounded Faith hoping or trusting for such things as are becoming the Person trusted to give and the Truster to receive and that upon Consideration that trusteth for tho the Good done were both sutable to the Giver and Receiver yet were not given to the Receiver as trusting and hoping to receive it were an Act of Goodness but not an Act of Faithfulness The third sort of Moral Perfections is Decency which respects the Actor only and not any other and is done alone because it is sutable and becoming that Person so to behave Every Vertue or Moral Perfection consisteth in a Congruity to the Actor and so is Decency whether the Act be terminate on the Actor or on another But there is no special Name to signify that Decency that terminates on the Actor but it retains the common Name and so is Decency strictly taken As Man beareth the Image of God the Light of Nature shews that all those Perfections which he gave Man are originally and eminently in God He is just and acknowledges himself Debtor so to be in the distribution of Rewards and Punishments in the performance of his Promises whence there is a Right to claim them tho there be no Power to exact them He is good and doth good in some kind to all he makes his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall upon the Just and
truly he so intended his Faithfulness also in so far only as that it is expected he will punctually and readily perform without Compulsion and he were unfaithful if he did not so perform untrue if he did not intend to perform when he engaged as well as unjust by not performing These may all concur in God but his Justice in performing his Promise and his Truth in intending to perform it can never be separated yet his Faithfulness may be without them in particular Acts so may his Justice in Rewards and Punishments be without any Word and consequently without Truth in that Word and both may be without exerting Faithfulness The Ground and Warrant of Faith is the excellent Disposition of the Person trusted whereby it were incongruous to him to disappoint the Expectation and Confidence which he knew were placed in him and were not rejected by him The Psalmist saith They that know thy Name will put their Trust in thee for thou Lord hast not forsaken them that seek thee Here the Knowledg of God's Name which signifies his excellent Nature is the ground of Trust and specially that Divine Perfection that he will not forsake them that seek him Here is no relation to a Promise the Psalmist founds his Prayer both on God's Faithfulness and on his Justice in performing his Promise and not on this alone when he saith Hear my Prayer O Lord give Ear to my Supplications in thy Faithfulness answer me and in thy Righteousness where these are clearly distinguished The same Psalmist saith in another place Thy Mercy O Lord is in the Heavens and thy Faithfulness reaches unto the Clouds Thy Righteousness is like the great Mountains where God's Faithfulness and his Righteousness are clearly diversified If one should trust in a powerful vertuous Person if he did not make his Trust known to that Person he could not be said to disappoint him or to fail in Faithfulness yet the Manifestation of Confidence may be without Words and sometimes it is unfit to be by Words and it may be abstract from Particulars and be left to the Discretion of the Person trusted So the Attendance the Dependance the humble and kindly Countenance may better express Confidence than Words which are more frequently false Courtiers do manifest their Confidence in Princes Souldiers in their Generals and Creatures may so express their Considence in God but it is more proper to pray to God in Faith for particular Favours as being more the Homage and Dependance of his Creature than the urging his Justice on general Promises It is not Faith but Folly to trust in any but those that are indued with Vertue and moral Perfections or in these for things that the Person trusted hath not or which were unbecoming for him to bestow therefore there is no Creature on which there can be laid entire and absolute Faith because the Inconveniency may occur that they cannot satisfy In this Sense God may be said to be only Faithful as well as only Wise and Good one may trust when he is not wise in trusting yet he may become unfaithful that admitted the Trust they were very unwise that would trust a Secret to a Liar or the managing of an Affair to an imprudent Person or Money to a Prodigal yet if they did admit of the Trust they were unfaithful if they failed It is very evident that it is highly congruous and worthy of the Divine Perfections to be faithful and it were inconsistent with these to disappoint the Faith of his Creatures trusting in him for things fit for him to give and them to receive without consideration of any Promise or Declaration of his purpose so to do It is fully evident that it were unsutable to him to give Happiness to them that love not Holiness or to pardon Sin to those whose Souls cleave to it or to give the highest Favour to such or Glory to any in the next Life to whom he never gave Grace in this in Act or Inclination which by the very Light of Nature do appear but by Revelation God hath clearly declared in what Things he will not allow of Trust or Faith in him or Hope from him especially for obtaining Reconciliation Forgiveness and Happiness and hath expresly declared when Faith is saving God bestows many good Things out of Commiseration or meer Goodness upon those that have not saving Faith nor can I say that he doth not bestow some good Things upon such even upon consideration of their trusting in him for them as by the Faith of Miracles upon whose Confidence he exerted his supernatural Power though at the great Day he rejects them who had that Faith Those who do not by Word or Sign signify that they allow not the Confidence or Hope of these who pertinently signify it do fail in their Faithfulness if they disappoint them My Thoughts upon God's Faithfulness do exceedingly clear me in that eminent Point that Faith is the only Consideration on which God gives Pardon Reconciliation and Happiness and not upon Love or any other good Work as never to be claimed upon rewarding Justice or Merit but of free Favour and Grace alone Albeit Love to God or Reverence and Obsequiousness to him be more excellent Perfections than Faith for in Faith the Creature hath Consideration of the return to it self and much more in Fear but Love is terminated alone upon God himself and upon no return from God which would make it defective The Love of Gratitude is for what is already received but the Love of God purely on consideration of his infinite Perfections is the highest moral Perfection of Creatures If Happiness had been by the Creatures Love Reverence or Obedience it would have been by Justice and Debt not by Grace as the Apostle says to him that worketh the Reward is not reckoned of Grace but of Debt but being by Faith there can be no pretence of Debt or Justice There is no more ground for him that hopes or trusts to attribute the Effect to himself as deserving it by his Faith than if the Miserable should imagine his Misery were the Cause of Mercy shown him I never find a Reward attributed to Faith for tho it be said cast not away your Confidence which hath great Recompence of Reward Confidence there is not Faith but Forwardness and Boldness for in the Original it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though Faith were in the Power of fallen Man he could have little more ground to boast of Happiness on occasion of it than the Beggar of his Poverty which is the occasion of Alms or the Oppressed of Oppression as the Cause of his Relief or than the Infant or Idiot of his Salvation God could have given all good Things without either Prayer or Faith as he doth to Infants but it is a far greater Measure of Benignity to give that which is longed for and desired by Prayer and which is hoped and trusted by
Principle to Mankind to prefer the common Interest of the whole to that of any part On the fifth Day God perfected the Creation of inanimate Creatures by an orderly Procedure according to the degrees of their Perfections 1. The Chaos which before it had Figure or Motion was the most imperfect Substance 2. Adding Perfections to that part of the Chaos he made Fire to give Light and Heat by its Motion 3. Giving an uniform circular Motion to those Particles of the Chaos that made up the Spheres of AEther by whose Revolution the Vicissitudes of Day and Night began 4. Adding Cohesion of Parts of the Chaos about the Earth whence arose the Figures of the Particles of Water which at first covered the whole Face of the Earth being then exactly round 5. Separating the Earth and the Water by making the Mountains and Vallies the Earth having been also made of the Chaos by Cohesion of its Parts whereby a far more variable Figure of its Particles arose in which were comprehended Metals Minerals Stones saline and sulphurous Bodies the Seeds of Plants and the Terrestrial Fire 6. The Plants are formed whether they sprung of these Seeds by the immediate creative Power of God or whether beside the Seeds the Plants were formed fit to receive them it is uncertain it might appear rather that they sprung of the Seeds because it is said Let the Earth bring forth c. yet that may be understood of the subsequent Growth of Plants And last the Stars were created being the most perfect and glorious of all inanimate Creatures Then followed the Creation of living Creatures in the same order proceeding from the least perfect Kinds to the more perfect until the last Termination in the Creation of Man The other living Creatures are stated in three Orders the Fish in the Waters the Fowl to fly in the Air and the Beasts on the Earth all which have their variable Motions which some imagine to be without Perception or Sense and that they be only passive in their Motions from the Impression of outward Objects for which I see no solid Reason for they having Senses so like unto Men if all their Motions were by Impressions on their Senses it could not be doubted but such Motions would be also in Men seeing their Senses are operative without their Will or any intrinsick active Power which is contrary to the common Sense and Experience of all Mankind However it be there is great Evidence of the wonderful Contrivance of the Wisdom of God in brute Creatures especially in the peculiar Instincts of the several Species which do all act necessarily upon their proper Objects without Hesitation or Deliberation They have their Pleasures and Griefs their Appetites and Aversions in which they cannot divert from one Object to another nor can they compare Objects Means or Ends and yet by the wonderful Wisdom of God they do most things necessary for their Preservation their Promotion and Propagation by meer Instincts more exactly than Men can in the same things that are common to both Besides the wonderful and various Structure of their Bodies there are Depths concerning them that the most knowing Men have never been able to reach as what their Souls are how they are produced how their Bodies are framed by Generation wherein certainly there is a difference from the Generation of Men. God doth not command the Earth to bring forth Man as he doth to bring forth the brute Creatures therefore it seems their Seeds were created in the Beginning as well as the Seeds of the Plants Some late Experiments by Microscopes have shown an infinite number of Animalcula in the Sperme of the Brutes but their Souls are not endued with that Perfection to have any Perception but by the Impression of Objects so their Bodies being marred their Souls can never more have any Animal Operation as the separate Souls of Men have The first and lowest Degree of Animals is of Fish which live in the Water whereof there are innumerable kinds and degrees of Perfection from the Oister that hath no other Motion but the opening its Shell to receive its Aliment to the Whale This also is strange in Fishes that Concourse of the Seeds of Male and Female do but in few of them appear nor have they that Pairing which the Fowls and other Brutes have when left to their natural Course nor any Knowledg of or Affection to their Birth The more perfect Fish are furnished with Instruments for their Progress especially with Fins The next Degree in Perfection of Brutes are the Fowls who are adorned with their beautiful Feathers and instructed with their Wings by which they fly Their several Kinds have their distinct Voices by which they express their Affections the variety of which and of their Shapes and Colours and their Instincts by which they know their Food and Physick and what is hurtful to them and the melodious Songs of many of them do all manifest the wonderful Wisdom of their Creator The Water is impowered and commanded to bring forth both Fish and Fowl which doth import that their Seeds are lubrick and not firm as that of Plants and therefore are dispersed in that soluble Element On the sixth Day were created the Terrestrial Beasts for God said Let the Earth bring forth the living Creatures after his kind which are three beside the various Species of every Kind to wit Cattel creeping Things on the Earth and the Beasts these seem to be the wild and ravenous Beasts that live not in Herds or Flocks which are the Cattel but both walk with Legs and so are different from the creeping Things as Worms and Serpents I shall not need to speak any thing of the Variety of these and of the Wisdom of God shining in them seeing they differ not much from what has been said of the Fish and the Fowls but that they come nearer to the Perfection of Man than they God hath given eminent Instances of his Wisdom in the Perfections of the Horse and the Leviathan whose Scales do clearly distinguish it from the Whale so that it is a Terrestrial Animal and in the Unicorn All the Creation tho it be very wonderful holds a small Proportion with the Wisdom of God in the creating and governing of Man which is incomprehensible Some part of it will appear in the Dominion of God which I shall leave to the next Meditation and only remark upon the whole Creation that wonderful Beauty of all its Parts their Correspondence and mutual Usefulness and the Termination of all their Perfections on Mankind MEDITAT XVIII Upon the Dominion of God and his Dispensations thereupon towards his Rational Creatures especially by the Covenant of Works and Covenant of Grace I Have as distinctly and orderly as I could cleared and quieted my Thoughts concerning the Divine Perfections Natural and Moral severally I come now to consider them jointly in the glorious and gracious Dominion of God over the World in
of Children from the Covenant of Grace yet the Covenant of Grace is one for all the Son having covenanted from Eternity for all the Elect to bring them into the Covenant of Grace by Regeneration exerted according to their Capacity by actual believing of those who are capable so to act which also is an Evidence that the Act of Faith is not saving by any thing absolutely necessary in it self but by the free Choice and Institution of God The third Point proposed is what Act of Faith that is by which Men enter into the Covenant of Grace and which is their Part of the Covenant Many hold it to be a Perswasion of the covenanting Person that Christ died for him whereby it must be an Act of the Understanding but I see not how that can hold for covenanting must be by an Act of the Will promising or otherwise performing the Covenanter's Part which is oftentimes in the one Party no more than an Acceptance as in a Trust or Commission the one Party gives the Trust or Commission which doth make no Covenant but an Offer but when the other Party accepts then the Contract is compleat and the Accepter is thereby bound to follow the Trust and Commission and make an Account and the Giver is obliged to refund the Expences Albeit Contracts be by mutual Consent and that Consent signifies to have the same Thought yet Agreement in one Mind makes no more a Covenant than when two are of one Opinion in Contemplation but a Covenant is ever somewhat practicable and therefore tho Acts of Understanding precede the Covenant it self is by Acts of the Will The Description of saving Faith by Perswasion is but by a Consequent which ought to be endeavoured by all yet is not attained by all for many are in the Covenant of Grace that come not the Length of Perswasion that Christ died effectually for them and that thereby they are reconciled to God and shall be saved for tho they were perswaded that Christ died for all and every Man that would import nothing to saving Faith for it were much more evident that the Effect of Christ's Death for all Men were not the same seeing so many trample under Foot the Blood of the Covenant and so few are saved Therefore no Man hath just Ground to be perswaded that Christ died effectually for him or with Intention to make him holy and happy or any further than to put him in a Condition to be holy and happy if he himself did not hinder it Therefore tho believing in Christ were not only proposed to all but imposed on all as a Duty yet it is only a Duty in the Order God hath imposed it to wit that all Men should consider their sinful natural Estate and that the just Reward of Sin would be eternal Death without Repentance which none could escape who cleaved to any kind of Sin and hated to be reformed and that therefore they should be willing and endeavour to be reformed and use the Means appointed by God for that End and should throw themselves upon God's Mercy through Christ's Merit if thereby they found that the delighting in Sin in those Kinds especially which did most easily beset them did cease and that the Love to and Delight in God did in some measure take Place But to think to reach the highest Step of the Scale per Saltum were altogether without warrant unless it were extraordinary as in Paul's Conversion Paul to the Romans gives the true Warrants of that Perswasion As many as are led by the Spirit are the Sons of God The Spirit it self beareth Witness with our Spirit that we are the Children of God and if children then Heirs Heirs of God and Joint-Heirs with Christ. Hence it is evident how little Moment is in that Arminian Quibble so much magnified by them that Christ must have died for all Men because all Men are bound to believe he died for them We must therefore yet enquire the particular Convenanting Act of Faith which being so necessary is many Ways expressed and set forth in Scripture that it may be reached by several Capacities it is called a Looking to Christ for Salvation Look unto me all ye Ends of the Earth and be saved A turning to God Turn ye turn ye for why will you die O House of Israel A coming to Christ Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy ladened and I will give you rest to your Souls And to the Refractory it is said Ye will not come to me that ye may have Life A drawing near to God Draw near unto God and he will draw near unto you An answering of God's Call Thou saidst Seek ye my Face my Heart answered Thy Face Lord will I seek hide not thy Face from me A receiving of Christ He came to his own but his own received him not but to all that did receive him he gave Power to become the Sons of God So then the saving Act of Faith must imply all these not that he who entereth in the Covenant must have expresly all these Acts but that the Act he must have must imply and import them all and be virtually as much as they all The Spirit of God in this Branch of the Covenant of Grace does not proceed in one way with all the Elect As the Wind moveth whither it listeth and no Man knoweth whence it cometh or whither it goeth so is the Spirit of God Some are chased in by the Thundrings and Terrors of the Law running as a pursued Man to a Rock a Fortress a Tower or a Strength or as in the hazard of Shipwrack running into an Harbour As those who by Peter's Sermon convincing the Jews that they had denied the Holy One and the Just and had killed the Prince of Life Let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this they were pricked in their Hearts and said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles Men and Brethren what shall we do And God opened their Ears and their Hearts to receive Instruction But God gaineth others by the sweet and still Voice of the Gospel alluring their Hearts to trust in his Mercy and Faithfulness as being so gracious that he delights not in the Death of a Sinner but rather that they should repent and live that he will not disappoint those who becomingly trust in him He sometimes begins with the Light of Nature to lead in the revealed Light of the Gospel as Paul dealt with the Athenians and saith to Timothy God hath not given us the Spirit of Fear but of Power and of Love and of a sound Mind With some the Spirit proceeds by degrees giving a Spirit of Bondage to fear before the Spirit of Adoption as Paul saith We have not received the Spirit of Bondage again to fear but we received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba