was so as that he never began Is to come so as that he never shall end By whom all things are what they are who hath both eternal knowledge to remember our service and eternal goodness to reward It. A DISCOURSE UPON THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. Psalm 102.26 27. They shall perish but thou shalt endure yea all of them shall wax old as a Garment as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy years shall have no end THIS Psalm contains a Complaint of a People pressed with a great Calamity some think of the Jewish Church in Babylon others think the Psalmist doth here personate Mankind lying under a state of corruption because he wishes for the coming of the Messiah to accomplish that Redemption promised by God and needed by them Indeed the title of the Psalm is a Prayer of the Afflicted when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before the Lord Whether afflicted with the sense of corruption or with the sense of oppression And the Redemption by the Messiah which the ancient Church looked upon as the fountain of their Deliverance from a sinful or a servile Bondage is in this Psalm spoken of A set time appointed for the discovery of his mercy to Sion v. 13. An appearance in glory to build up Sion v. 16. The loosing of the Prisoner by Redemption and them that are appointed to Death v. 20. The calling of the Gentiles v. 22. And the latter part of the Psalm wherein are the verse I have read are applied to Christ Heb. 1. Whatsoever the design of the Psalm might be many things are intermingled that concern the Kingdom of the Messiah and Redemption by Christ Some make three parts of the Psalm 1. A Petition plainly delivered v. 1.2 Hear my Prayer oh Lord and let my cry come unto thee c. 2. The Petition strongly and argumentatively enforced and pleaded v. 3. from the misery of the Petitioner in himself and his reproach from his Enemies 3. An acting of Faith in the expectation of an Answer in the general Redemption promised v. 12 13. But thou oh Lord shalt endure for ever thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion The Heathen shall fear thy Name The first part is the Petition pleaded the second part is the Petition answered in an assurance that there should in time be a full deliverance * Pareus The design of the Pen-man is to confirm the Church in the truth of the Divine Promises that though the foundations of the World should be ript up and the Heavens clatter together and the whole Fabrick of them be unpinn'd and fall to pieces the firmest parts of it dissolved yet the Church should continue in its stability because it stands not upon the changeableness of Creatures but is built upon the immutable Rock of the truth God which is as little subject to change as his Essence They shall perish thou shalt change them As he had before ascribed to God the foundation of Heaven and Earth * verse 25. so he ascribes to God here the destruction of them Both the beginning and end of the World are here ascertained There is nothing indeed from the present appearance of things that can demonstrate the cessation of the world The Heaven and Earth stand firm the motions of the heavenly Bodies are the same their beautie is not decayed Individuals corrupt but the Species and Kinds remain The Successions of the Year observe their due order but the Sin of Man renders the change of the present appearance of the world necessary to accomplish the design of God for the glory of his Elect. The Heavens do not naturally perish as some fancied an old age of the world wherein it must necessarily decay as the Bodies of Animals do or that the parts of the Heavens are broken off by their rubbing one against another in their motion and falling to the Earth are the Seeds of those things that grow among us * Plin. Hist lib. 2. cap. 3. The Earth and Heavens He names here the most stable parts of the world and the most beautiful parts of the Creation those that are freest from corruptibility and change to illustrate thereby the Immutability of God that though the Heavens and Earth have a Prerogative of fixedness above other parts of the world and the Creatures that reside below the Heavens remain the same as they were created and the Center of the Earth retains its fixedness and are as beautiful and fresh in their age as they were in their youth many years ago notwithstanding the change of the Elements Fire and Water being often turned into Air so that there may remain but little of that Air which was first created by reason of the continual transmutation yet this firmness of the Earth and Heavens is not to be regarded in comparison of the unmoveableness and fixedness of the Being of God As their beauty comes short of the glory of his Being so doth their firmness come short of his stability Some by Heavens and Earth understand the Creatures which reside in the Earth and those which are in the Air which is called Heaven often in Scripture but the ruin and fall of these being seen every day had been no fit illustration of the unchangeableness of God They shall perish they shall be changed 1. They may perish say some they have it not from themselves that they do not perish but from thee who didst endue them with an incorruptible nature They shall perish if thou speakest the word Thou canst with as much ease destroy them as thou didst create them But the Psalmist speaks not of their possibility but the certainty of their perishing 2. They shall perish in their qualities and motion not in their substance say others They shall cease from that motion which is designed properly for the generation and corruption of things in the Earth but in regard of their substance and beauty they shall remain As when the strings or Wheels of a Clock or Watch are taken off the material parts remain though the motion of it and the use for discovering the time of the day ceaseth * Coccei in loc To perish doth not signify alway a falling into nothing an annihilation by which both the matter and the form are destroyed but a ceasing of the present apearance of them a ceasing to be what they now are as a man is said to perish when he dies whereas the better part of man doth not cease to be The figure of the Body moulders away and the matter of it returns to Dust but the Soul being immortal ceaseth not to act when the Body by reason of the absence of the Soul is uncapable of acting So the Heavens shall perish the appearance they now have shall vanish and a more glorious and incorruptible frame be erected by the power and goodness of God The dissolution of Heaven and Earth is meant by the
reasonably doubt but that there is some first cause which makes the things appear so to them They cannot be the cause of their own appearance For as nothing can have a being from it self so nothing can appear by it self and its own force Nothing can be and not be at the same time But that which is not and yet seems to be if it be the cause why it seems to be what it is not it may be said to be and not to be But certainly such persons must think themselves to exist If they do not they cannot think and if they do exist they must have some cause of that Existence So that which way soever we turn our selves we must in reason own a first cause of the World Well then might the Psalmist term an Atheist a fool that disowns a God against his own reason Without owning a God as the first cause of the world no man can give any tolerable or satisfactory account of the world to his own reason And this first cause 1. Must necessarily exist * Petav. Theol. Dog Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 2. pa. 10. 11. T is necessary that he by whom all things are should be before all things and nothing before him And if nothing be before him he comes not from any other and then he always was and without beginning He is from himself not that he once was not but because he hath not his Existence from another and therefore of necessity he did exist from all Eternity Nothing can make it self or bring it self into being therefore there must be some being which hath no cause that depends upon no other never was produced by any other but was what he is from Eternity and cannot be otherwise and is not what he is by will but nature necessarily existing and always existing without any capacity or possibility ever not to be 2. Must be infinitely perfect Since man knows he is an imperfect being he must suppose the perfections he wants are seated in some other being which hath limited him and upon which he depends Whatsoever we conceive of excellency or perfection must be in God For we can conceive no perfection but what God hath given us a power to conceive And he that gave us a power to conceive a transcendent perfection above whatever we saw or heard of hath much more in himself else he could not give us such a conception Secondly II. As the production of the world so the harmony of all the parts of it declare the being and wisdom of a God Without the acknowledging God the Atheist can give no account of those things The multitude elegancy variety and beauty of all things are steps whereby to ascend to one fountain and orignal of them Is it not a folly to deny the being of a wise Agent who sparkles in the beauty and motions of the Heavens rides upon the wings of the wind and is writ upon the flowers and fruits of Plants As the cause is known by the effects so the wisdom of the cause is known by the elegancy of the work the proportion of the parts to one another Who can imagine the world could be rashly made and without consultation which in every part of it is so Artificially framed * Philo. Judae Petav. Theolog. Dogmat. Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 1. pag. 9. No work of Art springs up of its own accord The world is framed by an excellent Art and therefore made by some skilful Artist As we hear not a melodious instrument but we conclude there is a Musitian that touches it as well as some skilful hand that framed and disposed it for those Lessons And no man that hears the pleasant sound of a Lute but will fix his thoughts not upon the Instrument it self but upon the skill of the Artist that made it and the art of the Musitian that strikes it though he should not see the first when he saw the Lute nor see the other when he hears the harmony So a rational Creature confines not his thoughts to his sense when he sees the Sun in its Glory and the Moon walking in its brightness but riseth up in a contemplation and admiration of that infinite Spirit that composed and filled them with such sweetness This appears 1. In the linking contrary qualities together All things are compounded of the Elements Those are endued with contrary qualities driness and moisture heat and cold These would always be contending with and infesting one anothers rights till the contest ended in the destruction of one or both Where fire is predominant it would suck up the water where water is prevalent it would quench the fire The heat would wholly expel the cold or the cold over-power the heat Yet we see them chained and linkt one within another in every body upon the Earth and rendring mutual offices for the benefit of that body wherein they are seated and all conspiring together in their particular quarrels for the publick interest of the body How could those contraries that of themselves observe no order that are always preying upon one another joyntly accord together of themselves for one common end if they were not linkt in a common band and reduced to that order by some incomprehensible wisdom and power which keeps a hand upon them orders their motions and directs their events and makes them friendly pass into one anothers Natures Confusion had been the result of the discord and diversity of their Natures No composition could have been of those conflicting qualities for the frame of any body nor any harmony arose from so many jarring strings if they had not been reduced into concord by one that is supream Lord over them and knows how to dispose their varieties and enmities for the publick good * Athanasius Petav. Theol. Dog Tom. 1. lib. 1. cap. 1. pag. 4. 5. If a man should see a large City or Country consisting of great multitudes of men of different tempers full of Frauds and Factions and Animosities in their natures against one another yet living together in good order and peace without oppressing and invading one another and joyning together for the publick good he would presently conclude there were some excellent Governor who tempered them by his Wisdom and preserved the publick Peace though he had never yet beheld him with his eye T is as necessary to conclude a God who moderates the contrarieties in the world as to conclude a wise Prince who overrules the contrary dispositions in a state making every one to keep his own bounds and confines Things that are contrary to one another subsist in an admirable order 2. In the subserviency of one thing to another * Gassend Physic sect 1. lib. 4. cap. 2. pag. 315. All the Members of living Creatures are curiously fitted for the service of one another destin'd to a particular end and endued with a vertue to attain that end and so distinctly placed that one is no hinderance to the
from it The meeting of a Divine Truth and the Heart of Man is like the meeting of two Tides the weaker swells and foams We have a natural Antipathy against a Divine Rule and therefore when it is clapt close to our Consciences there is a snuffing at it high reasonings against it corruption breaks out more strongly As Water poured on Lime sets it on Fire by an Antiperistasis and the more Water is cast upon it the more furiously it burns Or as the Sun Beams shining upon a Dung-hill makes the steams the thicker and the stench the noysomer neither being the positive cause of the smoke in the Lime or the stench in the Dung-hill but by accident the causes of the eruption Rom. 7.8 But Sin taking occasion by the Commandment wrought in me all manner of Concupiscence for without the Law Sin was dead Sin was in a languishing posture as if it were dead like a lazy Garrison in a City till upon an Alarm from the Adversary it takes Arms and revives its courage all the sin in the heart gathers together its force to maintain its standing like the vapours of the Night which unite themselves more closely to resist the Beams of the rising Sun Deep Conviction often provokes fierce Opposition sometimes Disputes against a Divine Rule end in Blasphemies Acts 13.45 Contradicting and Blaspheming are coupled together Men naturally desire things that are forbidden and reject things commanded from the corruption of Nature which affects an unbounded Liberty and is impatient of returning under that Yoke it hath shaken off and therefore rageth against the bars of the Law as the Waves roar against the restraint of a bank When the Understanding is dark and the Mind Ignorant Sin lies as dead * Thes Salmur De Spiritu Servitutis Thes 19. a man scarce knows he hath such Motions of Concupiscence in him he finds not the least breath of Wind but a full calm in his Soul but when he is awakened by the Law then the vitiousness of nature being sensible of an Invasion of its Empire arms it self against the Divine Law and the more the Command is urged the more vigorously it bends its strength and more insolently lifts up it self against it he perceives more and more Atheistical Lusts than before all manner of Concupiscence more leprous and contagious than before When there are any motions to turn to God a reluctancy is presently perceived Atheistical thoughts bluster in the mind like the wind they know not whence they come nor whether they go So unapt is the heart to any acknowledgement of God as his Ruler and any re-union with him Hence men are said to resist the Holy Ghost Acts 7.51 to fall against it as the word signifies as a stone or any ponderous body falls against that which lies in its way They would dash to pieces or grind to powder that very motion which is made for their instruction and the Spirit too which makes it and that not from a fit of passion but an habitual repugnance Ye always resist c. 2. External 't is a fruit of Atheism in the fourth verse of this Psalm Who eat up my people as they eat bread How do the revelations of the Mind of God meet with opposition And the Carnal World like dogs bark against the shining of the Moon So much men hate the Light that they spurn at the Lanthorns that bear it And because they cannot endure the Treasure often fling the earthen vessels against the ground wherein it is held If the entrance of Truth render the Market worse for Diana's Shrines the whole City will be in an uproar * Act. 19.24.28.29 When Socrates upon natural Principles confuted the Heathen Idolatry and asserted the unity of God the whole cry of Athens a learned University is against him and because he opposed the publick received Religion though with an undoubted Truth he must end his Life by Violence How hath every Corner of the World steam'd with the blood of those that would maintain the Authority of God in the World The Devils Children will follow the steps of their Father and endeavour to bruise the Heel of Divine Truth that would endeavour to break the Head of corrupt Lust 5. Men often seem desirous to be acquainted with the Will of God not out of any respect to his Will and to make it their Rule but upon some other Consideration Truth is scarce received as truth There is more of Hypocrisie than Sincerity in the pale of the Church and attendance on the Mind of God The outward dowry of a religious Profession makes it often more desirable than the Beauty Judas was a follower of Christ for the Bag not out of any affection to the Divine Revelation Men sometime pretend a desire to be acquainted with the Will of God to satisfie their own passions rather than to conform to Gods Will The Religion of such is not the judgment of the Man but the passion of the Brute Many entertain a Doctrine's for the persons sake rather than a person for the Doctrine sake and believe a thing because it comes from a Man they esteem as if his lips were more Canonical than Scripture The Apostle implies in the Commendation he gives the Thessalonians * 1 Thes 2.13 that some receive the Word for human interest not as it is in truth the Word and Will of God to command and govern their Consciences by its Soveraign Authority Or else they have the Truth of God as St. James speaks of the Faith of Christ with respect of persons * Jam. 2.2 and receive it not for the sake of the Fountain but of the Channel So that many times the same Truth delivered by another is disregarded which when dropping from the fancy and mouth of a Man 's own Idol is cryed up as an Oracle This is to make not God but Man the Rule For though we entertain that which materially is the Truth of God yet not formally as his Truth but as conveyed by one we affect And that we receive a Truth and not an Error we ow the obligation to the honesty of the Instrument and not to the strength and clearness of our own Judgment Wrong considerations may give admittance to an unclean as well as a clean beast into the Ark of the Soul That which is contrary to the Mind of God may be entertained as well as that which is agreeable 'T is all one to such that have no respect to God what they have As it is all one to a Spunge to suck up the foulest water or the sweetest wine when either is applyed to it 6. Many that entertain the Notions of the Will and Mind of God admit them with unsettled and wavering Affections There is a great Levity in the heart of Man The Jews that one day applaud our Saviour with Hosannahs as their King vote his Crucifixion the next and use him as a Murderer We begin in the Spirit and
Zech. 4.1 The Angel that talked with me came again and awaked me as a man is awaked out of sleep He had been rouzed up before but he was ready to drop down again his heart was gone till the Angel jogged him We may complain of such imaginations as Jerem. doth of the Enemies of the Jews * Lam. 4.19 Our Persecutors are swifter than Eagles they light upon us with as much speed as Eagles upon a Carcass they pursue us upon the Mountain of Divine institutions and they lay wait for us in the Wilderness in our retired addresses to God And this will be so while 1. There is natural corruption in us There are in a Godly man two contrary principles Flesh and Spirit which endeavour to hinder one anothers acts and are alway stirring upon the offensive or defensive part * Gal. 5.17 There is a body of death continually exhaling its noysom vapours 'T is a body of death in our worship as well as in our natures it snaps our resolutions asunder * Rom. 7.19 it hinders us in the doing good and contradicts our wills in the stirring up evil This corruption being seated in all the faculties and a constant Domestick in them has the greater opportunity to trouble us since it is by those faculties that we spiritually transact with God and it stirs more in the time of religious exercises though it be in part mortified As a wounded Beast though tired will rage and strive to its utmost when the Enemy is about to fetch a blow at it All duties of worship tend to the wounding of corruption and it is no wonder to feel the striving of sin to defend it self and offend us when we have our Arms in our hands to mortifie it that the blow may be diverted which is directed against it The Apostles had aspiring thoughts and being perswaded of an earthly Kingdom expected a Grandeur in it And though we find some appearance of it at other times as when they were casting out Devils and gave an account of it to their Master he gives them a kind of a check * Luke 10.20 intimating that there was some kind of evil in their rejoycing upon that account Yet this never swelled so high as to break out into a quarrel who should be greatest * Luke 22.24 until they had the most solemn Ordinance the Lords Supper to quell it* Our corruption is like Lime which discovers not its fire by any smoke or heat till you cast water the Enemy of fire upon it Neither doth our natural corruption rage so much as when we are using means to quench and destroy it 2. While there is a Devil and we in his Precinct As he accuseth us to God so he disturbs us in our selves He is a bold Spirit and loves to intrude himself when we are conversing with God We read that when the Angels presented themselves before God Satan comes among them * Job 1.6 Motions from Satan will thrust themselves in with our most raised and Angelical frames He loves to take off the edge of our Spirits from God He acts but after the old rate He from the first envied God an obedience from man and envied man the felicity of communion with God He is unwilling God should have the honour of worship and that we should have the fruit of it He hath himself lost it and therefore is unwilling we should enjoy it and being subtil he knows how to make impressions upon us sutable to our inbred corruptions and assault us in the weakest part He knows all the avenues to get within us as he did in the temptation of Eve and being a Spirit he wants not a power to dart them immediatly upon our fancy And being a Spirit and therefore active and nimble he can shoot those darts faster than our weakness can beat them off He is diligent also and watcheth for his Prey and seeks to devour our services as well as our Souls and snatch our best morsels from us We know he mixed himself with our Saviours retirements in the Wilderness and endeavoured to Fly-blow his holy converse with his Father in the preparation to his mediatory work Satan is Gods Ape and imitates the Spirit in the Office of a Remembrancer As the Spirit brings good thoughts and divine promises to mind to quicken our worship so the Devil brings evil things to mind and endeavours to fasten them in our Souls to disturb us And though all the foolish starts we have in worship are not purely his issue yet being of kin to him he claps his hands and sets them on like so many Mastives to tear the service in pieces And both those distractions which arise from our own corruption and from Satan are most rise in worship when we are under some pressing affliction This seems to be David's Case Psal 86. when in v. 11. He prays God to unite his heart to fear and worship his Name he seems to be under some affliction or fear of his Enemies Oh free me from those distractions of Spirit and those passions which arise in my Soul upon considering the designs of my enemies against me and press upon me in my addresses to thee and attendances on thee Job also in his affliction complains Job 17.11 That his purposes were broken off He could not make an even thread of thoughts and resolutions they were frequently snapt saunder like rotten Yarn when one is winding it up Good Men and spiritual Worshippers have lain under this trouble Though they are a sign of weakness of grace or some obstructions in the acting of strong grace yet they are not alway evidences of a want of grace What ariseth from our own corruption is to be matter of humiliation and resistance what ariseth from Satan should edge our minds to a noble conquest of them If the Apostle did comfort himself with his disapproving of what rose from the natural spring of sin within him with his consent to the Law and dissent from his Lust and charges it not upon himself but upon the sin that dwelt in him with which he had broken off the former League and was resolved never to enter into Amity with it By the same reason we may comfort our selves if such thoughts are undelighted in and alienate not our hearts from the worship of God by all their busie intrusions to interrupt us 2. These distractions not allowed may be occasions by an holy improvement to make our hearts more spiritual after worship though they disturb us in it By answering those ends for which we may suppose God permits them to invade us And that is 1. When they are occasions to humble us 1. For our carriage in the particular worship There is nothing so dangerous as spiritual pride It deprived Devils and Men of the presence of God and will hinder us of the influence of God If we had had raised and uninterrupted motions in worship we should be apt to be lifted
him So it is impossible but that the seed of God by his Eternal purpose should be brought to a Spiritual life and that calling cannot be retracted for that gift and calling is without repentance * Rom. 11.29 And when repentance is removed from God in regard of some works the immutability of those works is declared And the reason of that immutability is their pure dependance on the Eternal favour and unchangeable grace of God * Eph. 1.9 11. purpos'd in himself and not upon the mutability of the Creature Hence their happiness is not as Patents among men quam diu bene se gesserint so long as they behave themselves well but they have a promise that they shall behave themselves so as never wholly to depart from God Jer. 32.40 I will make an everlasting Covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me God will not turn from them to do them good and promiseth that they shall not turn from him for ever or forsake him And the bottom of it is the everlasting Covenant and therefore believing and sealing for security are linkt together Eph. 1.13 And When God doth inwardly teach us his Law he puts in a Will not depart from it Psalm 119.102 I have not departed from thy Judgments what is the reason For thou hast taught me 3. By this Eternal Happiness is ensured This is the Inference made from the Eternity and Unchangeableness of God in the verse following the Text verse 28. The Children of thy Servants shall continue and their Seed shall be established before thee This is the sole conclusion drawn from those Perfections of God solemnly asserted before The Children which the Prophets and Apostles have begotten to thee shall be totally delivered from the reliques of their Apostacy and the punishment due to them and rendred partakers of Immortality with thee as Sons to dwell in their Fathers house for ever The Spirit begins a spiritual Life here to fit for an immutable Life in Glory hereafter where Believers shall be placed upon a Throne that cannot be shaken and possess a Crown that shall not be taken off their heads for ever 3. Use Of Exhortation 1. Let a sense of the changeableness and uncertainty of all other things beside God be upon us There are as many changes as there are figures in the world The whole fashion of the world is a transient thing every man may say as Job * Job 10.17 Changes and War are against me Lot chose the Plain of Sodom because it was the richer Soyl He was but a little time there before he was taken Prisoner and his substance made the Spoyl of his Enemie That is again restored but a while after Fire from Heaven devours his Wealth though his Person was secur'd from the Judgment by a special Providence We burn with a desire to settle our selves but mistake the way and build Castles in the Air which vanish like bubbles of Sope in water And therefore 1. Let not our thoughts dwell much upon them Do but consider those Souls that are in the possession of an unchangeable God that behold his never fading Glory Would it not be a kind of Hell to them to have their thoughts starting out to these things or find any desire in themselves to the changeable trifles of the Earth Nay have we not reason to think that they cover their faces with shame that ever they should have such a weakness of Spirit when they were here below as to spend more thoughts upon them than were necessary for this present Life much more that they should at any time value and court them above an unchangeable Good Do they not disdain themselves that they should ever debase the immutable perfections of God as to have neglecting thoughts of him at any time for the entertainment of such a mean and inconstant Rival 2. Much less should we trust in them or rejoyce in them The best things are mutable and things of such a Nature are not fit Objects of confidence Trust not in Riches they have their wanes as well as increases they rise sometimes like a Torrent and flow in upon men but resemble also a Torrent in as suddain a fall and departure and leave nothing but slime behind them Trust not in Honour all the Honour and Applause in the World is no better than an Inheritance of Wind which the Pilot is not sure of but shifts from one corner to another and stands not perpetually in the same point of the Heavens How in a few Ages did the house of David a great Monarch and a man after Gods own heart descend to a mean condition and all the glory of that house shut up in the stock of a Carpenter David's Sheep-hook was turned into a Scepter and the Scepter by the same hand of Providence turned into a Hatchet in Joseph his Descendent Rejoyce not immoderately in wisdom That and Learning languish with Age. A wound in the head may impair that which is the Glory of a Man If an Organ be out of frame Folly may succeed and all a mans Prudence be wound up in an irrecoverable Dotage Nebuchadnezzar was no Fool yet by a suddain hand of God he became not only a Fool or a mad Man but a kind of Brute Rejoyce not in strength that decays and a mighty Man may live to see his strong Arm withered and a Grass-hopper to become a Burthen * Eccles 12.5 The strong men shall bow themselves and the Grinders shall cease because they are few * V. 3. Nor rejoyce in Children they are like Birds upon a Tree that make a little chirping musick and presently fall into the Fowlers Net Little did Job expect such sad news as the loss of all his Progeny at a blow when the Messenger knocked at his Gate And such changes happen oftentimes when our expectations of comfort and a contentment in them are at the highest How often doth a string crack when the Musitian hath wound it up to a just height for a Tune and all his pains and delight marr'd in a Moment Nay all these things change while we are using them like Ice that melts between our fingers and Flowers that wither while we are smelling to them The Apostle gave them a good title when he called them uncertain riches and thought it a strong argument to disswade them from trusting in them * 1 Tim 6.17 The wealth of the Merchant depends upon the Winds and Waves and the revenue of the Husbandman upon the Clouds and since they depend upon those things which are used to express the most changeableness they can be no fit Object for trust Besides God sometimes kindles a Fire under all a mans Glory which doth insensibly consume it * Isa 10.16 and while we have them the fear of losing them renders us not very happy in the
righteous person to keep the truth Isa 26.2 And it is as positively said that he that abides not in the Doctrine of Christ hath not God 2 Epist John 9. but he that doth hath both the Father and the Son So much of uncertainty so much of nature so much of firmness in duty so much of Grace We can never honour God unless we finish his work as Christ did not glorifie God but in finishing the work God gave him to do * John 17.4 The nearer the world comes to an end the more is Gods immutability seen in his promises and predictions and the more must our unchangeableness be seen in our obedience Heb. 10.23 25. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering and so much the more as you see the day approaching The Christian Jews were to be the more tenacious of their faith the nearer they saw the day approaching the day of Jerusalems destruction prophesied of by Daniel * Dan. 9.26 which accomplishment must be a great argument to establish the Christian Jews in the profession of Christ to be the Messiah because the destruction of the City was not to be before the cutting off the Messiah Let us be therefore constant in our profession and service of God and not suffer our selves to be driven from him by the ill usage or flatter'd from him by the Caresses of the world 1. T is reasonable If God be unchangeable in doing us good it is reason we should be unchangeable in doing him service If he assure us that he is our God our I am he would also that we should be his people His we are If he declare himself constant in his promises he expects we should be so in our obedience As a spouse we should be unchangeably faithful to him as a Husband As subjects have an unchangeable allegiance to him as our Prince He would not have us faithful to him for an hour or a day but to the death * Rev. 2.10 And it is reason we should be his and if we be his Children imitate him in his constancy of his holy purposes 2. T is our glory and interest To be a reed shaken with every wind is no commendation among men and t is less a ground of praise with God It was Jobs glory that he held fast his integrity * Job 1.22 In all this Job sinned not In all this which whole Cities and Kingdoms would have thought ground enough of high exclamations against God And also against the temptation of his Wife he retained his integrity Job 2.9 Dost thou still retain thy integrity The Devil who by Gods permission stript him of his goods and health yet could not strip him of his grace As a Traveller when the wind and snow beats in his face wraps his cloak more closely about him to preserve that and himself Better we had never made profession than afterwards to abandon it such a withering profession serves for no other use than to aggravate the crime if any of us fly like a coward or revolt like a Traytor What profit will it be to a Souldier if he hath withstood many assaults and turn his back at last If we would have God Crown us with an immutable glory we must Crown our beginnings with a happy perseverance Rev. 2.10 Be faithful to the Death and I will give thee a Crown of life Not as tho this were the cause to merit it but a necessary condition to possess it Constancy in good is accompanied with an immutability of Glory 3. By an unchangeable disposition to good we should begin the happiness of Heaven upon Earth This is the perfection of blessed Spirits those that are nearest to God as Angels and glorified Souls they are immutable Not indeed by nature but by grace yet not only by a necessity of grace but a liberty of Will Grace will not let them change and that grace doth animate their Wills that they would not change an immutable God fills their understandings and affections and gives satisfaction to their desires The Saints when they were below tried other things and found them deficient But now they are so fully satisfied with the beatifick vision that if Satan should have entrance among the Angels and Sons of God 't is not likely he should have any influence upon them he could not present to their understandings any thing that could either at the first glance or upon a deliberate view be preferrable to what they enjoy and are fixed in Well then let us be immoveable in the Knowledge and Love of God 'T is the delight of God to see his Creatures resemble him in what they are able Let not our Affections to him be as Jonah's Goard growing up in one Night and withering the next Let us not only fight a good Fight but do so till we have finished our course and imitate God in an unchangeableness of holy purposes and to that purpose examin our selves daily what fixedness we have arrived unto And to prevent any temptation to a revolt let us often possess our minds with thoughts of the immutability of Gods Nature and Will which like Fire under Water will keep a good matter boiling up in us and make it both retain and increase its heat 4. Let this Doctrin teach us to have recourse to God and aim at a near conjunction with him When our Spirits begin to flag and a cold aguish temper is drawing upon us let us go to him who can only fix our hearts and furnish us with a Ballast to render them stedfast As he is only immutable in his Nature so he is the only Principle of Immutability as well as Being in the Creature Without his Grace we shall be as changeable in our appearances as a Chamelion and in our turnings as the Wind. When Peter trusted in himself he changed to the worse It was his Masters recourse to God for him that preserved in him a reducing Principle which changed him again for the better and fixed him in it * Luke 22.32 It will be our Interest to be in conjunction with him that moves not about with the Heavens nor is turned by the force of Nature nor changed by the accidents in the world but sits in the Heavens moving all things by his powerful Arm according to his infinite Skill While we have him for our God we have his Immutability as well as any other Perfection of his Nature for our advantage The nearer we come to him the more stability we shall have in our selves the further from him the more lyable to change The Line that is nearest to the place where it is first fixed is least subject to motion the further it is stretched from it the weaker it is and more liable to be shaken Let us also affect those things which are nearest to him in this perfection the righteousness of Christ that shall never wear out and the graces of the Spirit that shall never burn
venture 1 Kings 22.39 this some call a mixt contingent made up partly of necessity and partly of accident 't is necessary the Bullet when sent out of the Gun or Arrow out of the Bow should fly and light somewhere but it is an accident that it hits this or that man that was never intended by the Archer Other things as voluntary actions are purely contingents and have nothing of necessity in them all free actions that depend upon the Will of man whether to do or not to do are of this nature because they depend not upon a necessary cause as burning doth upon the Fire moistning upon Water or as descent or falling down is necessary to a heavy Body for those cannot in their own nature do otherwise but the other actions depend upon a free Agent able to turn to this or that point and determine himself as he pleases Now we must know that what is accidental in regard of the Creature is not so in regard of God the manner of Ahab's Death was accidental in regard of the hand by which he was slain but not in regard of God who foretold his Death and foreknew the Shot and directed the Arrow God was not uncertain before of the manner of his fall nor hovered over the Battel to watch for an opportunity to accomplish his own Prediction what may be or not be in regard of us is certain in regard of God to imagine that what is accidental to us is so to God is to measure God by our short line How many events following upon the results of Princes in their Counsels seem to persons ignorant of those Counsels to be a hap-hazard yet were not contingencies to the Prince and his assistants but foreseen by him as certainly to issue so as they do which they knew before would be the fruit of such causes and instruments they would knit together That may be necessary in regard of Gods foreknowledg which is meerly accidental in regard of the natural disposition of the immediate causes which do actually produce it Contingent in its own nature and in regard of us but fixed in the Knowledg of God * Zanch. One illustrates it by this similitude A Master sends two Servants to one and the same place two several ways unknown to one another they meet at the place which their Master had appointed them their meeting is accidental to them one knows not of the other but it was foreseen by the Master that they should so meet and that in regard of them it would seem a meer accident till they came to explain the business to one another Both the necessity of their meeting in regard of their Masters Order and the accidentalness of it in regard of themselves vvere in both their circumstances foreknovvn by the Master that employ'd them For the clearing of this take it in this method 1. 'T is an unworthy conceit of God in any to exclude him from the knowledg of these things 1. It will be a strange contracting of him to allow him no greater a Knowledg than we have our selves Contingencies are knovvn to us vvhen they come into act and pass from futurity to reality and vvhen they are present to us vve can order our affairs accordingly shall vve allovv God no greater a measure of Knovvledg than vve have and make him as blind as ourselves not to see things of that nature before they come to pass shall God know them no more Shall we imagine God knows no otherwise than we know and that he doth like us stand gazing with admiration at events man can conjecture many things is it fit to ascribe the same uncertainty to God as tho' he as well as we could have no assurance till the issue appear in the view of all If God doth not certainly foreknow them he doth but conjecture them but a conjectural knowledg is by no means to be fastned on God for that is not knowledg but guess and destroys a Deity by making him subject to mistake for he that only guesseth may guess wrong so that this is to make God like our selves and strip him of an universally acknowledged Perfection of Omniscience A conjectural Knowledg saith one Scriveneâ— is as unworthy of God as the Creature is unworthy of Omniscience 'T is certain man hath a liberty to act many things this or that way as he pleases to walk to this or that quarter to speak or not to speak to do this or that thing or not to do it which way a man will certainly determine himself is unknown before to any Creature yea often at the present to himself for he may be in suspense but shall we imagine this future determination of himself is conceal'd from God Those that deny Gods foreknowledg in such cases must either say that God hath an opinion that a man will resolve rather this way than that but then if a man by his liberty determine himself contrary to the opinion of God is not God then deceived and what rational Creature can own him for a God that can be deceived in any thing or else they must say that God is at uncertainty and suspends his Opinion without determining it any way then he cannot know free acts till they are done he would then depend upon the Creature for his information his knowledg would be every instant increased as things he knew not before came into act and since there are every minute an innumerable multitude of various imaginations in the minds of men there would be every minute an accession of new Knowledg to God which he had not before besides this knowledg vvould be mutable according to the Wavering and Weathercock resolutions of men one vvhile standing to this point another vvhile to that if he depended upon the Creatures determination for his knovvledg 2. If the free acts of men were unknown before to God no man can see how there can be any Government of the World by him Such contingencies may happen and such resolves of mens Free-Wills unknovvn to God as may perplex his affairs and put him upon nevv Councels and methods for attaining those ends vvhich he setled at the first Creation of things if things happen vvhich God knovvs not of before this must be the consequence vvhere there is no Fore-sight there is no Providence things may happen so sudden if God be ignorant of them that they may give a check to his intentions and Scheme of Government and put him upon changing the whole model of it How often doth a small intervening circumstance unforeseen by man dash in pieces a long meditated and well-formed Design To govern necessary causes as Sun and Stars whose effects are natural and constant in themselves is easy to be imagin'd but how to govern the World that consists of so many men of Free-Will able to determine themselves to this or that and which have no constancy in themselves as the Sun and Stars have cannot be imagin'd unless we
us and how ignorant they are of what they possess It will cause us to reflect upon the deeper Impressions of Wisdom in the frame of our own Bodies and Souls an excellency far superiour to theirs this would make us admire the magnificence of his Wisdom and Goodness and sound forth his Praise for advancing us in dignity above other Works of his hands and stamping on us by Infinite Art a Nobler Image of himself And by such a Comparison of our selves with the Creatures below us we should be induced to act excellently according to the nature of our Souls not brutishly according to the nature of the Creatures God hath put under our feet 5. By the Contemplation of the Creatures we may receive some assistance in clearing our knowledge in the Wisdom of Redemption Though they cannot of themselves inform us of it yet since God hath revealed his Redeeming Grace they can illustrate some particulars of it to us Hence the Scripture makes use of the Creatures to set forth things of a higher orb to us Our Saviour is called a Sun a Vine and a Lion the Spirit likened to a Dove Fire and Water The Union of Christ and his Church is set forth by the Marriage Union of Adam and Eve God hath placed in Corporeal things the Images of Spiritual and wrapped up in his Creating Wisdom the representations of his Redeeming Grace Whence some call the Creatures Natural Types of what was to be transacted in a new formation of the World and Allusions to what God intended in and by Christ 6. The Meditation of Gods Wisdom in the Creatures is in part a beginning of Heaven upon Earth No doubt but there will be a perfect opening of the Model of Divine Wisdom Heaven is for clearing what is now obscure and a full discovering of what seems at present intricate Psal 36.9 In his light shall we see light All the Light in Creation Government and Redemption The Wisdom of God in the New Heavens and the New Earth would be to little purpose if that also were not to be regarded by the Inhabitants of them As the Saints are to be restored to the state of Adam and higher so they are to be restored to the employment of Adam and higher But his employment was to behold God in the Creatures The World was so soon depraved that God had but little joy in and Man but little knowledge of his Works And since the Wisdom of God in Creation is so little seen by our Ignorance here would not God lose much of the glory of it if the glorified Souls should lose the understanding of it above When their Darkness shall be expelled and their Advantages improved when the Eye that Adam lost shall be fully restored and with a greater clearness when the Creature shall be restored to its true End and Reason to its true Perfection * Rom. 8.21 22. when the Fountains of the depths of Nature and Government shall be opened Knowledge shall increase and according to the increase of our Knowledge shall the admiration of Divine Wisdom increase also The Wisdom of God in Creation was not surely intended to lie wholly unobserved in the greatest part of it but since there was so little time for the full observation of it there will be a time wherein the Wisdom of God shall enjoy a resurrection and be fully contemplated by his understanding and glorified Creature II. Exhortation Study and admire the Wisdom of God in Redemption This is the Duty of all Christians We are not called to understand the great depth of Philosophy we are not called to a skill in the Intricacies of Civil Government or understand all the methods of Physick but we are called to be Christians that is Studiers of Divine Evangelical Wisdom There are first Principles to be learned but not those Principles to be rested in without a further progress Heb. 6.1 Therefore leaving the principles of the Doctrine of Christ let us go on to perfection Duties must be practised but knowledge is not to be neglected The study of Gospel Mysteries the harmony of Divine Truths the sparkling of Divine Wisdom in their mutual combination to the great ends of Gods Glory and Mans Salvation is an Incentive to Duty a Spur to Worship and particularly to the greatest and highest part of Worship that part which shall remain in Heaven the Admiration and Praise of God and Delight in him If we acquaint not our selves with the Impressions of the glory of Divine Wisdom in it we shall not much regard it as worthy our observance in regard of that Duty The Gospel is a Mystery and as a Mystery hath something Great and Magnificent in it worthy of our daily inspection we shall find fresh Springs of New wonders which we shall be invited to adore with a Religious Astonishment It will both raise and satisfie our Longings Who can come to the depths of God manifested in the flesh How amazing is it and unworthy of a slight thought that the Death of the Son of God should purchase the happy Immortality of a Sinful Creature and the glory of a Rebel be wrought by the Ignominy of so great a Person That our Mediator should have a Nature whereby to Covenant with his Father and a Nature whereby to be a Surety for the Creature How admirable is it that the Fallen Creature should receive an advantage by the Forfeiture of his Happiness How Mysterious is it that the Son of God should bow down to Death upon a Cross for the satisfaction of Justice and rise Triumphantly out of the Grave as a declaration that Justice was contented and satisfied That he should be exalted to Heaven to Intercede for us and at last return into the World to receive us and invest us with a Glory for ever with himself Are these things worthy of a Careless regard or a Blockish amazement What Understanding can pâ—erce into the depths of the Divine Doctrine of the Incarnation and Birth of Christ the indissoluble Union of the two Natures What Capacity is able to measure the miracles of that Wisdom found in the whole Draught and Scheme of the Gospel Doth it not merit then to be the Object of our daily Meditation How comes it to pass then that we are so little curious to concern our Thoughts in those Wonders that we scarce taste or sip of these Delicacies That we busie our selves in Trifles and consider what we shall eat and in what fashion we shall be drest please our selves with the ingeniousness of a Lace or Feather admire a Moth-eaten Manuscript or some Half-worn piece of Antiquity and think our time Ill-spent in the contemplating and celebrating that wherein God hath busied himself and Eternity is design'd for the perpetual expressions of How Inquisitve are the Blessed Angels with what vigour do they renew their daily Contemplations of it and receive a fresh Contentment from it still learning and still enquiring 1 Pet. 1.12 their Eye is
that is none can The Text is a lofty declaration of the Divine Power with a particular note of Attention Loe. 1. In the expressions of it in the works of Creation and Providence Loe these are his ways Ways and Works excelling any created strength referring to the little summary of them he had made before 2. In the Insufficiency of these ways to measure his Power but how little a portion is heard of him 3. In the Incomprehensibleness of it The thunder of his Power who can understand Doct. Infinite and Incomprehensible Power pertains to the Nature of God and is exprest in part in his Works or Though there be a mighty expression of Divine Power in his Works yet an Incomprehensible Power pertains to his Nature The thunder of his Power who can understand His Power glitters in all his Works as well as his Wisdom Psal 62.11 Twice have I heard this that Power belongs unto God In the Law and in the Prophets say some But why Power twice and not Mercy which he speaks of in the following Verse He had heard of Power twice from the voice of Creation and from the voice of Government Mercy was heard in Government after Man's Fall not in Creation Innocent man was an object of Gods goodness not of his Mercy till he made himself miserable Power was exprest in both or Twice have I heard that Power belongs to God that is it is a certain and undoubted Truth that Power is essential to the Divine Nature 'T is true Mercy is essential Justice is essential but Power more apparently essential because no acts of Mercy or Justice or Wisdom can be exercised by him without Power The repetition of a thing confirms the certainty of it Some observe that God is called Almighty Seventy times in Scripture * Lessius de perfect Divin lib. 5. cap. 1. Though his Power be evident in all his Works yet he hath a Power beyond the expression of it in his Works which as it is the glory of his Nature so it is the comfort of a Believer To which purpose the Apostle expresseth it by an excellent Periphrasis for the honour of the Divine Nature Eph. 3.20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think unto him be glory in the Churches We have reason to acknowledge him Almighty who hath a Power of acting above our power of understanding Who could have imagin'd such a powerful operation in the propagation of the Gospel and the Conversion of the Gentiles which the Apostle seems to hint at in that place His Power is exprest by Horns in his hands Hab. 3.4 because all the Works of his hands are wrought with Almighty strength Power is also used as a Name of God Mark 14.62 The Son of Man sitting on the right hand of Power that is at the right hand of God God and Power are so inseparable that they are reciprocated As his Essence is Immense not to be confin'd in Place as it is Eternal not to be measur'd by Time so it is Almighty not to be limited in regard of Action 1. 'T is Ingeniously illustrated by some by a Vnit †Fotherby Atheomastic p. 306 307. all Numbers depend upon it it makes Numbers by Addition Multiplies them unexpressibly when one Unit is removed from a Number how vastly doth it diminish it It gives perfection to all other Numbers it receives perfection from none If you add a Unit before 100 how doth it multiply it to 1100 If you set a Unit before twenty Millions it presently makes the Number swell up to an hundred and twenty Millions and so powerful is a Unit by adding it to Numbers that it will infinitely inlarge them to such a vastness that shall transcend the capacity of the best Arithmetician to count them By such a Meditation as this you may have some prospect of the Power of that God who is only Unity the Beginning of all things as a Unit is the beginning of all Numbers and can perform as many things really as a Unit can numerically that is can do as much in the making of Creatutes as a Unit can do in the multiplying of Numbers The Omnipotence of God was scarce denied by any Heathen that did not deny the Being of a God and that was Pliny and that upon weak Arguments 2. Indeed we cannot have a conception of God if we conceive him not most Powerful as well as most Wise He is not a God that cannot do what he will and perform all his pleasure If we imagine him restrain'd in his Power we imagine him limited in his Essence As he hath an infinite Knowledge to know what is possible he cannot be without an infinite Power to do what is possible As he hath a Will to resolve what he sees good so he cannot want a Power to effect what he sees good to decree As the Essence of a Creature cannot be conceiv'd without that activity that belongs to his nature as when you conceive Fire you cannot conceive it without a power of burning and warming and when you conceive Water you cannot conceive it without a power of moistning and cleansing So you cannot conceive an Infinite Essence without an Infinite Power of activity And therefore a Heathen could say If you know God you know he can do all things and therefore saith Austin Give me not only a Christian but a Jew not only a Jew but a Heathen that will deny God to be Almighty A Jew a Heathen may deny Christ to be Omnipotent but no Heathen will deny God to be Omnipotent and no Devil will deny either to be so God cannot be conceiv'd without some Power for then he must be conceiv'd without Action Whos 's then are those products and effects of Power which are visible to us in the World to whom do they belong who is the Father of them God cannot be conceiv'd without a Power suitable to his Nature and Essence if we imagine him to be of an Infinite Essence we must imagine him to be of an Infinite Power and Strength In particular I shall shew 1. The Nature of God's Power 2. Reasons to prove that God must needs be Powerful 3. How his Power appears in Creation in Government in Redemption 4. The Vse I. What this Power is or the Nature of it 1. Power sometimes signifies Authority And a Man is said to be Mighty and Powerful in regard of his Dominion and the right he hath to Command multitudes of other persons to take his part but Power taken for Strength and Power taken for Authority are distinct things and may be separated from one another Power may be without Authority as in successful Invasions that have no just foundation Authority may be without Power as in a Just Prince expell'd by an unjust Rebellion the Authority resides in him though he be over-power'd and is destitute of Strength to support and exercise that Authority The Power
beaten down and like Lazarus hath seemed to lie in the Grave for some days that the Power of God might be more visible in her sudden resurrection and lifting up her head above the Throne of her Persecutors 2. In his Judicial proceedings The Deluge was no small testimony of his Power in opening the Cisterns of Heaven and pulling up the Sluces of the Sea He doth but call for the waters of the Sea and they pour themselves upon the face of the Earth Amos 9.6 In Forty days time the Waters overtopt the highest Mountains fifteen Cubits Gen. 7.17 19 20. and by the same Power he afterwards reduc'd the Sea to its proper Channel as a roaring Lion into his Den. A shower of Fire from Heaven upon Sodom and the Cities of the Plain was a signal display of his Power either in creating it on the sudden for the execution of his Righteous sentence or sending down the Element of Fire contrary to its nature which affects ascent for the punishment of Rebels against the light of Nature How often hath he ruin'd the most flourishing Monarchies led Princes away spoil'd and overthrown the Mighty Which Job makes an Argument of his Strength Job 12.13 14. Troops of unknown People the Goths and Vandals broke the Romans a Warlike People and hurl'd down all before them They could not have had the thought to succeed in such an Attempt unless God had given them strength and motion for the executing his Judicial Vengeance upon the People of his Wrath. How did he evidence his Power by dawbing the Throne of Pharaoh and his Chamber of Presence Exod. 8.3 as well as the Houses of his Subjects with the slime of Frogs turning their Waters into Blood Exod. 7.20 and their Dust into biting Lice raising his Militia of Locusts against them causing a Three days Darkness without stopping the motion of the Sun Taking off their First-born the excellency of their strength in a Night by the stroke of the Angels Sword He takes off the Chariot Wheels of Pharoah and presents him with a Destruction where he expected a Victory brings those Waves over the heads of him and his Host which stood firm as Marble Walls for the safety of his People The Sea is made to swallow them up that durst not by the order of their Governour touch the Israelites It only sprinkled the one as a type of Baptism and drowned the other as an image of Hell Thus he made it both a Deliverer and a Revenger the Instrument of an offensive and defensive War Isai 40.23 24. He brings Princes to nothing and makes the Judges of the Earth as vanity Great Monarchs have by his Power been hurl'd from their Thrones and their Scepters like Venice-Glasses broken before their faces and They been advanced that have had the least hopes of Grandure He hath pluckt up Cedars by the Roots lopt off the Branches and set a Shrub to grow up in the place dissolv'd Rocks and establisht Bubbles Luke 1.52 He hath shewed strength with his arm he hath scattered the proud in the imaginâ—tion of their hearts he hath put down the mighty from their seat and exalted them of low degree And these things he doth magnifie his Power in 1. By ordering the nature of Creatures as he pleases By restraining their force or guiding their motions The restraint of the destructive qualities of the Creatures argues as great a Power as the change of their Natures yea and a greater The qualities of Creatures may be chang'd by Art and Composition as in the preparing of Medicines but what but a Divine Power could restrain the operation of the Fire from the Three Children while it retain'd its heat and burning quality in Nebuchadnezzars Furnace The operation was curb'd while its nature was preserved All Creatures are called his Host because he Marshals and ranks them as an Army to serve his purposes The whole Scheme of Nature is ready to favour Men when God orders it and ready to punish Men when God commâ—ssions it He gave the Red Sea but a check and it obeyed his Voice Psal 106.9 He rebuked the Red Sea also and it was dried up the motion of it ceased and the Waters of it were rang'd as defensive Walls to secure the march of his People And at the motion of the Hand of Moses the Servant of the Lord the Sea recovered its violence and the Walls that were framed came tumbling down upon the Egyptians heads * Exod. 14.27 The Creator of Nature is not led by the necessity of Nature He that setled the order of Nature can change or restrain the order of Nature according to his Soveraign pleasure The most necessary and useful Creatures he can use as Instruments of his Vengeance Water is necessary to cleanse and by that he can deface a World Fire is necessary to warm and by that he can burn a Sodom From the Water he form'd the Fowl †Gen. 1.21 and by that he dissolves them in the Deluge Fire or Heat is necessary to the Generation of Creatures and by that he ruines the Cities of the Plain He orders all as he pleases to perform every tittle and punctilio of his purpose The Sea observ'd him so exactly that it drowned not one Israelite nor saved one Egyptian Psal 106.11 There was not One of them left And to perfect the Israelites Deliverance he followed them with Testimonies of his Power above the strength of Nature When they wanted Drink he orders Moses to strike a Rock and the Rock spouts a River and a Channel is formed for it to attend them in their Journey When they wanted Bread he drest Manna for them in the Heavens and sent it to their Tables in the Desart When he would declare his Strength he calls to the Heavens to pour down Righteousness and to the Earth to bring forth Salvation Isai 45.8 Though God had created Righteousness or Deliverance for the Jews in Babylon yet he calls to the Heavens and the Earth to be assistant to the design of Cyrus whom he had raised for that purpose as he speaks in the beginning of the Chapter vers 1 2 3 4. As God created Man for a supernatural end and all Creatures for Man as their immediate end so he makes them according to opportunities subservient to that supernatural end of Man for which he created him He that spans the Heavens with his fist can shoot all Creatures like an Arrow to hit what mark he pleases He that spread the Heavens and the Earth by a Word and can by a Word fold them up more easily than a Man can a garment ‖ Heb. 1.12 can order the streams of Nature Cannot he work without Nature as well as with it beyond Nature contrary to Nature that can as it were fillip Nature with his finger into that Nothing whence he drew it Who can cast down the Sun from his Throne clap the distinguisht parts of the World together and
when that Fire is removed they return to their natural quality of hardness and brittleness the positive act of the Fire is to melt and soften and the softness of the Rosin is to be ascribed to that but the hardness is from the Rosin it self wherein the Fire hath no influence but only a negative act by a removal of it So when God hardens a man he only leaves him to that stony heart which he derived from Adam and brought with him into the world All mens understandings being blinded and their wills perverted in Adam God's withdrawing his Grace is but a leaving them to their natural pravity which is the cause of their further sinning and not God's removal of that special light he before afforded them or restraint he held over them As when God withdraws his preserving Power from the Creature he is not the efficient but deficient cause of the Creatures destruction so in this case God only ceaseth to bind and damm up that sin which else would break out 2. The whole positive cause of this hardness is from mans corruption God infuseth not any sin into his Creatures but forbears to infuse his Grace restrain their Lusts which upon the removal of his Grace work impetuously God only gives them up to that which he knows will work strongly in their hearts And therefore the Apostle wipes off from God any positive act in that uncleaness the Heathens were given up to Rom. 1.24 Wherefore God gave them up to uncleaness through the lusts of their own hearts And verse 26. God gave them up to vile affections but they were their own affections none of Gods inspiring by adding through the lusts of their own Hearts Gods giving them up was the Logical cause or a cause by way of Argument their own Lusts were the true and natural cause their own they were before they were given up to them and belonging to none as the Author but themselves after they were given up to them The Lust in the Heart and the temptation without easily close and mix interests with one another As the Fire in a Coal pit will with the fuell if the streams derived into it for the quenching it be dam'd up The naturall Passions will run to a temptation as the Waters of a River tumble towards the Sea When a man that hath bridled in a high mettled-Horse from running out gives him the Rains or a Huntsman takes off the string that held the Dog and lets him run after the Hare are they the immediate cause of the motion of the one or the other no but the mettle and strength of the Horse and the natural inclination of the Hound both which are left to their own motions to pursue their own natural instincts Man doth as naturally tend to sin as a stone to the Center or as a weighty thing inclines to a motion to the Earth Tâ—s from the propension of mans nature that he drinks up iniquity like water and God doth no more when he leaves a man to sin by taking away the Hedge which stopt him but leave him to his natural Inclination As a man that breaks up a damm he hath placed leaves the Streams to run in their natural Chanel or one that takes away a prop from a Stone to let it fall leaves it only to that nature which inclines it to a descent both have their motion from their own Nature and man his Sin from his own Corruption * Amyrald de predest p. 107. The withdrawing the Sun-beams is not the cause of Darkness but the Shadiness of the Earth nor is the departure of the Sun the cause of Winter but the coldness of the Air and Earth which was temper'd and beaten back into the bowels of the Earth by the vigor of the Sun upon whose departure they return to their natural state The Sun only leaves the Earth and Air as it found them at the beginning of the Spring or the beginning of the Day If God do not give a man Grace to melt him yet he cannot be said to communicate to him that nature which hardens him which man hath from himself As God was not the cause of the first sin of Adam which was the root of all other so he is not the cause of the following sins which as branches spring from that root mans free-will was the cause of the first sin and the corruption of his nature by it the cause of all succeeding sins God doth not immediately harden any man but doth propose those things from whence the natural Vice of man takes an occasion to strengthen and nourish itself Hence God is said to harden Pharao'hs Heart ‖ Exod. 7.13 by concurring with the Magicians in turning their rods into Serpents which stiffened his Heart against Moses conceiving him by reason of that to have no more power than other men and was an occasion of his further hardning And Pharaoh is said to harden himself * Exod. 8.32 that is in regard of his own natural passion 3. God is holy and righteous because he doth not withdraw from man till man deserts him To say that God withdrew that Grace from Adam which he had afforded him in Creation or any thing that was due to him till he had abused the Gifts of God and turned them to an end contrary to that of Creation would be a reflection upon the Divine Holiness God was first deserted by man before man was deserted by God and man doth first contemn and abuse the common Grace of God and those reliques of natural light that enlighten every man that comes into the World †John 1 9. before God leaves him to the hurry of his own Passions Ephraim was first joyned to Idols before God pronounced the fatal sentence Let him alone ‖ Hos 4.17 And the Heathens first changed the glory of the incorruptible God before God withdrew his common Grace from the corrupted creature * Rom. 1.23 24. and they first served the Creature more then the Creator before the Creator gave them up to the slavish Chains of their vile affections †Ver. 25 26. Israel first cast off God before God cast off them but then he gave them up to their own Hearts Lusts and they walked in their own Counsels Psa 81.11 12. Since sin entred into the World by the fall of Adam and the blood of all his posterity was tainted Man cannot do any thing that is formally good not for want of faculties but for the want of a righteous habit in those faculties especially in the Will yet God discovers himself to man in the works of his hands he hath left in him footsteps of natural reason he doth attend him with common motions of his Spirit corrects him for his faults with gentle Chastisements He is neer unto all in some kind of Instructions He puts many times providential bars in their way of sinning but when they will rush into it as the Horse into
for the neglect of its Honour 6. Information Hence it will follow There is no justification of a Sinner by any thing in himself After Sin had set foot in the World Man could present nothing to God acceptable to him or bearing any proportion to the Holiness of his Law till God set forth a Person upon whose account the Acceptation of our Persons and Services is founded Ephes 1.6 Who hath made us accepted in the Beloved The Infinite Purity of God is so glorious that it shames the Holiness of Angels as the light of the Sun dims the light of the Fire Much more will the Righteousness of Fallen Man who is Vile and drinks up Iniquity like water vanish into Nothing in his Presence With what Self-abasement and Abhorrence ought he to be possessed that comes as short of the Angels in Purity as a Dunghill doth of a Star The highest Obedience that ever was perform'd by any meer Man since Lapsed Nature cannot challenge any acceptance with God or stand before so exact an Inquisition What Person hath such a clear Innocence and unspotted Obedience in such a Perfection as in any degree to sute the Holiness of the Divine Nature Psal 143.2 Enter not into judgment with thy Servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified If God should debate the case simply with Man in his own Person without respecting the Mediator he were not able to answer one of a thousand Though we are his Servants as David was and perform a sincere Service yet there are many little Motes and Dust of Sin in the best Works that cannot lie undiscover'd from the Eye of his Holiness And if we come short in the least of what the Law requires we are guilty of all * James 2.10 So that in thy sight shall no man living be justified In the sight of thy Infinite Holiness which hates the least spot in the sight of thy Infinite Justice which punishes the least Transgression God would descend below his own Nature and vilifie both his Knowledge and Purity should he accept that for a Righteousness and Holiness which is not so in it self and nothing is so which hath the least stain upon it contrary to the Nature of God The most holy Saints in Scripture upon a prospect of his Purity have cast away all confidence in themselves every flash of the Divine Purity has struck them into a deep sense of their own Impurity and shame for it Job 42.6 Wherefore I abhor my self in dust and ashes What can the language of any Man be that lies under a sense of Infinite Holiness and his own Defilement in the least but that of the Prophet Isai 6.5 Wo is me I am undone And what is there in the World can administer any other thought than this unless God be considered in Christ reconciling the World to himself As a Holy God so righted as that he can dispense with the Condemnation of a Sinner without dispensing with his Hatred of Sin pardoning the Sin in the Criminal because it hath been punished in the Surety That Righteousness which God hath set forth for Justification is not our own but a Righteousness which is of God Phil. 3.9 10. of Gods appointing and of Gods performing appointed by the Father who is God and performed by the Son who is one with the Father A Righteousness surmounting that of all the glorious Angels since it is an Immutable one which can never fail an Everlasting Righteousness Dan. 9.24 A Righteousness wherein the Holiness of God can acquiesce as considered in it self because it is a Righteousness of one equal with God As we therefore dishonour the Divine Majesty when we insist upon our own bemir'd Righteousness for our Justification as if a Mortal Man were as just as God and a Man as pure as his Maker Job 4.17 So we highly honour the Purity of his Nature when we charge our Selves with Folly acknowledge our selves Unclean and accept of that Righteousness which gives a full content to his Infinite Purity There can be no Justification of a Sinner by any thing in himself 7. It Inâ—orms us If Holiness be a glorious Perfection of the Divine Nature then the Deity of Christ might be argued from hence He is indeed dignified with the Title of the Holy One Acts 3.14 16. a Title often given to God in the Old Testament and he is called the Holy of Holies Dan. 9.24 but because the Angels seemed to be termed holy Ones Dan. 4.13 17. and the most Sacred place in the Temple was also called the Holy of Holies I shall not insist upon that But you find our Saviour particularly applauded by the Angels as Holy when this Perfection of the Divine Nature together with the Incommunicable Name of God are link'd together and ascrib'd to him Isai 6.3 Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts and the whole Earth is full of his glory which the Apostle interprets of Christ John 12.39 41. Isaiah again He hath blinded their Eyes and hardned their Hearts that they should not see with their Eyes nor understand with their Hearts and be converted and I should heal them These things said Isaiah when he saw his glory and spake of him He that Isaiah saw environ'd with the Seraphims in a Reverential posture before his face and praised as most Holy by them was the True and Eternal God such Acclamations belong to none but the great Jehovah God Blessed for ever But saith John It was the glory of Christ that Isaiah saw in this Vision Christ therefore is God blessed for ever of whom it was said Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Hosts * Placeus de Deitat Chriâ—ti in locum The Evangelist had been speaking of Christ the Miracles which he wrought the obstinacy of the Jews against believing on him his Glory therefore is to be referred to the Subject he had been speaking of The Evangelist was not speaking of the Father but of the Son and cites those words out of Isaiah not to teach any thing of the Father but to shew that the Jews could not believe in Christ He speaks of Him that had wrought so many Miracles but Christ wrought those Miracles He speaks of him whom the Jews refused to believe on but Christ was the Person they would not believe on while they acknowledged God It was the Glory of this Person Isaiah saw and this Person Isaiah spake of if the Words of the Evangelist be of any credit The Angels are too holy to give Acclamations belonging to God to any but Him that is God 8. It Informs us that God is fully fit for the Government of the World The Righteousness of Gods Nature qualifies Him to be Judge of the World If he were not perfectly Righteous and Holy he were uncapable to govern and Judge the World Rom. 3.5 If there be unrighteousness with God how shall he judge the World God will not do wickedly neither will the Almighty pervert judgment Job
p. 1326. 'T is Gods Excellency and Goodness which like a Beam pierceth all things He decks Spirits with Reason endues Matter with Form furnisheth every thing with useful Qualities As one Beam of the Sun illustrates Fire Water Earth so one Beam of God enlightens and endows Minds Souls and Universal Nature Nothing in the World had its goodness from it self any more than it had its being from it self The Cause must be riches than the Effect But that which I intend is the Defence of this Goodness 1. The goodness of God is not impair'd by suffering Sin to enter into the World and Man to fall thereby 'T is rather a Testimony of Gods Goodness that he gave Man an ability to be Happy than any Charge against his Goodness that he setled Man in a capacity to be Evil. God was first a Benefactor to Man before Man could be a Rebel against God May it not be enquired whether it had not been against the Wisdom of God to have made a Rational Creature with Liberty and not suffer him to act according to the Nature he was endowed with and to follow his own choice for some time Had it been Wisdom to frame a Free Creature and totally to restrain that Creature from following its Liberty Had it been Goodness as it were to force the Creature to be happy against its will Gods Goodness furnisht Adam with a power to stand was it contrary to his Goodness to leave Adam to a free use of that Power To make a Creature and not let that Creature act according to the freedom of his Nature might have been thought to have been a blot upon his VVisdom and a constraint upon the Creature not to make use of that freedom of his Nature which the Divine Goodness had bestowed upon him To what purpose did God make a Law to govern his Rational Creature and yet resolve that Creature should not have his choice whether he would obey it or no Had he been really constrained to observe it his Observation of it could no more have been call'd Obedience than the acts of Bruits that have a kind of Natural constraint upon them by the instinct of their Nature can be called Obedience In vain had God endow'd a Creature with so great and noble a Principle as Liberty Had it been Goodness in God after he had made a Reasonable Creature to govern him in the same manner as he did Bruits by a necessary Instinct It was the Goodness of God to the Nature of Men and Angels to leave them in such a condition to be able to give him a voluntary Obedience a nobler Offering than the whole Creation could present him with And shall this Goodness be undervalued and accounted mean because Man made an ill use of it and turn'd it into wantonness As the unbelief of Man doth not diminish the Redeeming Grace of God †Rom. 3.3 so neither doth the fall of Man lessen the Creating Goodness of God Besides why should the permission of Sin be thought more a blemish to his Goodness than the providing a way of Redemption for the destroying the works of Sin and the Devil be judged the Glory of it whereby he discover'd a goodness of Grace that surpast the bounds of Nature If this were a thing that might seem to obscure or deface the Goodness of God in the permission of the fall of Angels and Adam it was in order to bring forth a greater Goodness in a more illustrious pomp to the view of the World * Rom. 11.32 God hath concluded them all in Vnbelief that he might have Mercy upon all But if nothing could be alledged for the defence of his Goodness in this it were most comely for an ignorant Creature not to Impeach his Goodness but adore him in his proceedings in the same language the Apostle doth vers 33. Oh the depth of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his Judgments and his ways past finding out 2. Nor is his Goodness prejudic'd by not making all things the equal Subjects of it 1. 'T is true all things are not Subjects of an equal Goodness The Goodness of God is not so illustriously manifested in one thing as another In the Creaâ—â—on he hath dropt Goodness upon some in giving them Beings and Sense and powr'd it upon others in endowing them with Understanding and Reason The Sun is full of Light but it hath a want of Sense Brutes excel in in the vigor of Sense but they are destitute of the Light of Reason Man hath a Mind and Reason conferr'd on him but he hath neither the acuteness of Mind nor the quickness of Motion equal with an Angel In Providence also he doth give abundance and opens his hand to some to others he is more sparing He gives greater gifts of knowledge to some while he lets others remain in ignorance He strikes down some and raiseth others He afflicts some with a continual Pain while he blesseth others with an uninterrupted Health He hath chosen one Nation wherein to set up his Gospel Sun and leaves another benighted in their own Ignorance Known was God in Judaea they were a peculiar People alone of all the Nations of the Earth * Deut. 14.2 He was not equally good to the Angels He held forth his hand to support some in their happy Habitation while he suffered others to sink in irreparable Ruine and he is not so diffusive here of his Goodness to his own as he will be in Heaven Here their Sun is sometimes Clouded but there all Clouds and Shades will be blown away and melted into nothing Instead of Drops here there will be above Rivers of Life Is any Creature destitute of the open Marks of his Goodness though all are not enricht with those signal Characters which he vouchsafes to others He that is unerring pronounced every thing good distinctly in its Production and the whole good in its Universal Perfection †Gen. 1.4 10 12 18 21 25 31. Though he made not all things equally good yet he made nothing evil And though one Creature in regard of its Nature may be better than another yet an Inferior Creature in regard of its usefulness in the order of the Creation may be better than a Superior The Earth hath a goodness in bringing forth Fruits and the Waters in the Sea a goodness in multiplying Food That any of us have a Being is goodness that we have not so healthful a Being as others is unequal but not unjust goodness He is good to all though not in the same degree The whole Earth is full of his Mercy * Psal 119.64 A good Man is good to his Cattle to his Servants he makes a Provision for all but he bestows not those Flouds of Bounty upon them that he doth upon his Children As there are various Gifts but one Spirit ‖ 1 Cor. 12.4 so there are various Distributions but from one Goodness The
upon it and perhaps never think of it more after he is satisfied 4. And Lastly Imitate this Goodness of God If his Goodness hath such an influence upon us as to make us love him it will also move us with an ardent Zeal to imitate him in it Christ makes this use from the Doctrine of Divine Goodness * Matth. 5.44 45. Do good to them that hate you that you may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven for he makes his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good As Holiness is a Resemblance of Gods Purity so Charity is a Resemblance of Gods Goodness And this our Saviour calls Perfection Verse 48. Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect As God would not be a perfect God without Goodness so neither can any be a perfect Christian without Kindness Charity and Love being the splendour and loveliness of all Christian Graces as Goodness is the splendour and loveliness of all Divine Attributes This and Holiness are order'd in the Scripture to be the grand Patterns of our imitation Imitate the Goodness of God in two things 1. In relieving and assisting others in distress Let our heart be as large in the capacity of Creatures as God's is in the capacity of a Creator A large heart from him to us and a strait heart from us to others will not suit Let us not think any so far below us as to be unworthy of our Care since God thinks none that are infinitely distant from him too mean for his His infinite Glory mounts him above the Creature but his infinite Goodness stoops him to the meanest Works of his hands As he lets not the Transgressions of Prosperity pass without punishment so he lets not the distress of his Afflicted People pass him without support Shall God provide for the ease of Beasts and shall not we have some tenderness towards those that are of the same Blood with our selves and have as good Blood to boast of as runs in the Veins of the mightiest Monarch on Earth and as mean and as little as they are can lay claim to as ancient a Pedigree as the stateliest Prince in the World who cannot ascend to Ancestors beyond Adam Shall we glut our selves with Divine Beneficence to us and wear his Livery only on our own backs forgeting the Afflictions of some dear Joseph when God who hath an unblemisht felicity in his own Nature looks out of himself to view and relieve the miseries of poor Creatures Why hath God increased the Doles of his Treasures to some more than others Was it meerly for themselves or rather that they might have a bottom to attain the honour of imitating him Shall we embezzel his Goods to our own use as if we were absolute Proprietors and not Stewards entrusted for others Shall we make a difficulty to part with something to others out of that abundance he hath bestow'd upon any of us Did not his Goodness strip his Son of the Glory of Heaven for a time to enrich us and shall we shrug when we are to part with a little to pleasure him 'T is not very becoming for any to be backward in supplying the necessities of others with a few morsels who have had the happiness to have had their greatest necessities supplied with his Sons Blood He demands not that we should strip our selves of all for others but of a pittance something of superfluity which will turn more to our account than what is vainly and unprofitably consumed on our Backs and Bellies If he hath given much to any of us 't is rather to lay aside part of the Income for his Service Else we would Monopolize Divine Goodness to our selves and seem to distrust under our present Experiments his future Kindness as though the last thing he gave us was attended with this language Hoard up this and expect no more from me Use it only to the glutting your Avarice and feeding your Ambition which would be against the whose scope of Divine Goodness If we do not endeavour to write after the Comely Copy he hath set us we may provoke him to harden himself against us and in wrath bestow that on the Fire or on our Enemies which his Goodness hath imparted to us for his Glory and the supplying the necessities of poor Creatures And on the contrary he is so delighted with this kind of imitation of him that a Cup of cold Water when there is no more to be done shall not be unrewarded 2. Imitate God in his Goodness in a kindness to our worst Enemies The best Man is more unworthy to receive any thing from God than the worst can be to receive from us How kind is God to those that blaspheme him and gives them the same Sun and the same Showers that he doth to the best Men in the World Is it not more our glory to imitate God in doing good to thâ—se that hate us than to imitate the Men of the World in requiting evil by a return of a sevenfold mischief This would be a goodness which would vanquish the hearts of Men and render us greater than Alexanders and Caesars who did only triumph over miserable Carcases Yea it is to triumph over our selves in being good against the sentiments of Corrupt Nature Revenge makes us Slaves to our Passions as much as the Offenders and good Returns render us Victorious over our Adversaries * Rom. 12.21 Be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good When we took up our Arms against God his Goodness contrived not our Ruine but our Recovery This is such a Goodness of God as could not be discover'd in an Innocent State While Man had continued in his Duty he could not have been guilty of an Enmity And God could not but affect him unless he had denied himself So this of being good to our Enemies could never have been practised in a State of Rectitude since where was a perfect Innocence there could be no spark of Enmity to one another It can be no disparagement to any Mans Dignity to cast his influences on his greatest Opposers since God who acts for his own Glory thinks not himself disparag'd by sending forth the Streams of his Bounty on the wickedest Persons who are far meaner to him than those of the same Blood can be to us Who hath the worse thoughts of the Sun for shining upon the Earth that sends up Vapours to Cloud it It can be no disgrace to resemble God if his Hand and Bowels be open to us let not ours be shut to any A DISCOURSE UPON GODS Dominion PSALM CIII Verse 19. The Lord hath prepared his Throne in the Heavens And his Kingdom Ruleth over all THE Psalm begins with the praise of God wherein the Penman excites his soul to a right and elevated management of so great a duty Ver. 1. Bless the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me bless his
Coming of Christ and his Passion the other to last till the second Coming of Christ and his Triumph Thus he made natural and unavoidable uncleannesses to be sins and the touching a dead Body to be pollution which in their own nature were not so 4. The Dominion of God appears in the Moral Law and his Majesty in publishing it As the Law of Nature was writ by his own Fingers in the Nature of man so it was Engraven by his own finger in the Tables of Stone Exod. 31.18 Which is very emphatically exprest to be a mark of God's Dominion Exodus 32.16 And the Tables were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God Engraven upon the Tables and when the first Tables were broken though he orders Moses to frame the Tables yet the writing of the Law he reserves to himself Exod. 34.1 'T is not said of any part of the Scripture that it was writ by the finger of God but only of the Decalogue herein he would have his Soveraignty eminently appear it was publish't by God in state with a numerous attendance of his heavenly Militia Deut. 32.2 And the Artillery of Heaven was shot off at the solemnity And therefore it is call'd a fiery Law coming from his right hand i. e. His Soveraign power It was publisht with all the marks of supream Majesty 5. The Dominion of God appears in the Obligation of the Law which reacheth the Conscience The Laws of every Prince are fram'd for the outward conditions of Men they do not by their Authority bind the Conscience and what obligations do result from them upon the Conscience is either from their being the same immediately with divine Laws or as they are according to the just power of the Magistrate founded on the Law of God Conscience hath a protection from the King of Kings and cannot be arrested by any humane power God hath given man but an Authority over half the man and the worst half too that which is of an Earthly original but reserved the Authority over the better and more heavenly half to himself The Dominion of earthly Princes extends only to the bodies of men they have no Authority over the Soul their punishment and rewards cannot reach it And therefore their Laws by their single Authority cannot bind it but as they are co-incident with the Law of God or as the equity of them is subservient to the preservation of humane Society a regular and Righteous thing which is the Divine end in Government and so they bind as they have a relation to God as the supream Magistrate The Conscience is only intelligible to God in its secret motions and therefore only guidable by God God only pierceth into the Conscience by his Eye And therefore only can conduct it by his Rule Man cannot tell whither we embrace this Law in our Heart and Consciences or only in appearance He only can Judge it Luke 12.3 4. And therefore he only can impose Laws upon it 't is out of the reach of humane penal Authority if their Laws be transgress'd inwardly by it Conscience is a Book in some sort as Sacred as the Scripture no addition can be lawfully made to it no substraction from it Men cannot diminish the duty of Conscience or raze out the Law God hath stampt upon it They cannot put a supersedeas to the Writ of Conscience or stop its mouth with a Noli Prosequi They can make no addition by their Authority to bind it 't is a flower in the Crown of Divine Soveraignty only 2. His Soveraignty appears in a power of dispensing with his own Laws 'T is as much a part of his Dominion to dispense with his Laws as to enjoyn them he only hath the power of relaxing his own right no Creature hath power to do it that would be to usurp a superiority over him and order above God himself Repealing or dispensing with the Law is a branch of Royal Authority 'T is true God will never dispense with those Moral Laws which have an eternal reason in themselves and their own nature as for a Creature to Fear Love and Honour God this would be to dispense with his own Holiness and the Righteousness of his Nature to fully the purity of his own Dominion it would write folly upon the first Creation of man after the Image of God by writing mutability upon himself in framing himself after the corrupted Image of man It would null and frustrate the excellency of the Creature wherein the Image of God mostly shines nay it would be to dispense with a Creatures being a Creator and make him independent upon the Soveraign of the World in Moral Obedience But God hath a right to dispense with the ordinary Laws of Nature in the inferior Creatures he hath a power to alter their course by an arrest of Miracles and make them come short or go beyond his Ordinances established for them He hath a right to make the Sun stand still or move backward to bind up the Womb of the Earth and barr the influences of the Clouds bridle in the rage of the fire and the fury of Lions make the liquid waters stand like a Wall or pull up the dam which he hath set to the Sea and command it to overflow the neighbouring Countries He can dispense with the natural Laws of the whole Creation and strain every string beyond its ordinary pitch Positive Laws he hath revers'd as the Ceremonial Law given to the Jews The very nature indeed of that Law requir'd a repeal and fell of Course when that which was intended by it was come it was of no longer significancy as before it was a useful shadow it would afterwards have been an empty one Had not God took away this Christianity had not in all likelyhood been propagated among the Gentiles This was the partition wall beetween Jews and Gentiles Eph. 2.14 Which made them a distinct Family from all the World and was the occasion of the enmity of the Gentiles against the Jews When God had by bringing in what was signified by those Rites declar'd his decree for the ceasing of them and when the Jews fond of those Divine Institutions would not allow him the right of repealing what he had the Authority of enacting he resolved for the asserting his Dominion to bury them in the ruines of the Temple and City and make them for ever uncapable of practising the main and Essential parts of them For the Temple being the pillar of the legal Service by demolishing that God hath taken away their right of sacrificing it being peculiarly annext to that place they have no Altar dignifyed with a fire from Heaven to consume their sacrifices no legal High Priest to offer them God hath by his Providence chang'd his own Law as well as by his precept Yea he hath gone higher by vertue of his Soveraignty and chang'd the whole scene and methods of his Government after the fall from King Creator
must be resolved into his own will Yet not into a Will without Wisdom God did not choose hand over head and act by meer Will without Reason and Understanding an infinite Wisdom is far from such a kind of procedure but the reason of God is inscrutable to us unless we could understand God as well as he understands himself the whole ground lies in God himself no part of it in the Creature Rom. 9.15 16. Not in him that Wills nor in him that Runs but in God that shews Mercy Since God hath revealed no other cause than his will we can resolve it into no other than his Soveraign Empire over all Creatures 'T is not without a stop to our curiosity that in the same place where God asserts the absolute Soveraignty of his mercy to Moses he tells him he could not see his face Exod. 33.19 20. I will be Gracious to whom I will be Gracious and he said Thou canst not see my face The rayes of his infinite Wisdom are too bright and dazling for our weakness The Apostle acknowledged not only a Wisdom in this proceeding but a riches and treasure of Wisdom not only that but a depth and vastness of those riches of Wisdom but was unable to give us an Inventory and Scheme of it Rom. 11.33 The secrets of his Counsels are too deep for us to wade into in attempting to know the reason of those acts we should find our selves swallowed up into a bottomless Gulf. Though the understanding be above our capacity yet the admiration of his Authority and Submission to it are not We should cast our selves down at his feet with a full resignation of our selves to his Soveraign pleasure * This was Dr. Goodwins Speech when he was in trouble This is a more comely carriage in a Christian than all the contentious endeavours to measure God by our line 2. In bestowing Grace where he pleases God in Conversion and Pardon works not as a natural Agent putting forth strength to the utmost which God must do if he did renew man naturally as the Sun shines and the fire burns which always act ad extremum virium unless a Cloud interpose to eclipse the one and water to extinguish the other But God acts as a voluntary Agent which can freely exert his power when he please and suspend it when he please Though God be necessarily good yet he is not necessitated to manifest all the Treasures of his Goodness to every Subject he hath power to distill his dews upon one part and not upon another If he were necessitated to express his Goodness without a liberty no thanks were due to him Who thanks the Sun for shining on him or the fire for warming him None Because they are necessary Agents and can do no other What is the reason he did not reach out his hand to keep all the Angels from sinking as well as some or recover them when they were sunk What is the reason he engrafts one man into the true Vine and lets another remain a wild Olive Why is not the efficacy of the Spirit always linkt with the motions of the Spirit Why doth he not mould the Heart into a Gospel frame when he fills the Ear with a Gospel sound Why doth he strike off the chains from some and tear the vail from the Heart while he leaves others under their natural slavery and Aegyptian darkness Why do some lie under the bands of death while another is rais'd to a spiritual life What reason is there for all this but his absolute Will The Apostle resolves the question if the question be askt why he begets one and not another Not from the Will of the Creature but his own Will is the determination of one James 1.18 Why doth he work in one to will and to do and not in another Because of his good pleasure is the answer of another Phil. 2.13 He could as well new create every one as he at first created them and make Grace as universal as Nature and Reason but it is not his pleasure so to do 1. 'T is not from want of strength in himself The power of God is unquestionably able to strike off the chains of unbeleief from all he could surmount the obstinacy of every child of wrath and inspire every Son of Adam with Faith as well as Adam himself He wants not a vertue superior to the greatest resistance of his Creature a victorious beam of light might be shot into their understandings and a flood of Grace might overspread their Wills with one word of his mouth without putting forth the utmost of his power What hinderance could there be in any created spirit which cannot be easily peirced into and new moulded by the Father of Spirits Yet he only breaths this efficacious vertue into some and leaves others under that insensibility and hardness which they love and suffers them to continue in their benighting ignorance and consume themselves in the embraces of their dear though deceitful Dalilahs He could have conquered the resistance of the Jews as well as chased away the darkness and ignorance of the Gentiles No doubt but he could over power the Heart of the most malicious Devil as well as that of the simplest and weakest man But the breath of the Almighty Spirit is in his own power to breath where he lists John 3.8 'T is at his liberty whither he will give to any the feeling of the invincible efficacy of his Grace He did not want strength to have kept man as firm as a Rock against the temptation of Satan and pour'd in such fortifying Grace as to have made him impregnable against the powers of Hell as well as he did secure the standing of the Angels against the Sedition of their fellows But it was his will to permit it to be otherwise 2. Nor is it from any prerogative in the Creature He converts not any for their natural perfection Because he seizeth upon the most ignorant Nor for their moral perfection Because he converts the most sinful Nor for their Civil perfection Because he turns the most despicable 1. Not for their natural perfection of knowledge He opened the minds and hearts of the more ignorant Were the nature of the Gentiles better manur'd than that of the Jews or did the Tapers of their understandings burn clearer No the one were skil'd in the Prophesies of the Messiah and might have compared the Predictions they own'd with the Actions and Sufferings of Christ which they were spectators of He let alone those that had expectations of the Messiah and expectations about the time of Christ's appearance both grounded upon the Oracles wherewith he had intrusted them The Gentiles were unacquainted with the Prophets and therefore destitute of the expectations of the Messiah Eph. 2.12 They were without Christ Without any Revelation of Christ because aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the Covenant of Promise having no hope and without God in