r-Mx -iJUt Mr rf%r iMr -ntffcr rffcr itbutk ^SnjSk. j/k.^^ "^"Cclentla Fotestas Iit.""^ k OLibrapy ^ —OF-- LiVo Cost ^ -jijjjr -nyf jpir i^ -Jpr JnQF ""IF ™llff"«lilF~«iK?i^^-''0"f '^^'^^ m-i^m^m^m ^. LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. Presented by Herbert ftcAc^m^ Q?i'\^or\'o . -B^-jun? r;477 v. 2 — Charnock, Stephen, 1628- 1680. Discourses upon the existence and attributes of D 1 S C 0 l K 8 E S OCT 1 m- ^%oeicjL st«S^ UPON THE EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD BY STEPHEN CHARNOCK, B.D^ FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD. WITH HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER, BY WILLIAM SYMINGTON, D.D. VOL. II. NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 122 Nassau Street. CONTENTS OF VOL. II. DISCOUESE X. o:5i _hj3; power of god. Job, xxri. 14. — Lo ! these are parts of his ways : but how Httle a portion is heard of bim ? but the thunder of his power who can understand ? fi DISCOURSE XL ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. ExoDi's, XV. 11. — Who is like unto thee, 0 Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders ? lOS DISCOURSE XII. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. Mark, x, 18. — And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? Therf; is none good but one, that i^ God 2C9 DISCOURSE XIII. ON god's dominion. PeAi.M, cm. 19. — The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens : and his kingdom ruleth over all 368 DISCOURSE XIV. ON GOD'S PATIENCE. Nahum, I. 3. — The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked : the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet 472 Index 62i OF Texts 54 DISCOURSE X. ON THE POWER OF GOD. Job xxvi. 14. — Lo 1 these are parts of his ways : but how little a portion is heard ot him ? but the thunder of his power who can understand ? BiLDAD had, in the foregoing chapter, entertained Job with a dis- course of the dominion and power of God, and the purity of hia righteousness, whence he argues an impossibihty of the justification of man in his presence, who is no better than a worm. Job, in this chapter, acknowledges the greatness of God's power, and descants more largely upon it than Bildad had done ; but doth preface it with a kind of ironical speech, as if he had not acted a friendly part, or spake little to the purpose, or the matter in hand: the subject of Job's discourse was the worldly happiness of the wicked, and the calamities of the godly : and Bildad reads him a lecture, of the ex- tent of God's dominion, the number of his armies, and the unspotted rectitude of his nature, in comparison of which the purest creatures are foul and crooked. Job, therefore, from ver. 1 — 4, taxeth him in a kind of scof&ng manner, that he had not touched the point, but rambled from the subject in hand, and had not applied a salve pro- per to this sore (ver. 2) : " How hast thou helped him that is without power ? how savest thou the arm of him that hath no strength ?" &c. ; your discourse is so impertinent, that it will neither strengthen a weak person, nor instruct a simple one.'" But since BUdad would take up the argument of God's power, and discourse so short of it. Job would show that he wanted not his instructions in that kind, and that he had more distinct conceptions of it than his antagonist bad uttered : and therefore from ver. 5 to the end of the chapter, he doth magnificently treat of the power of God in several branches. And (ver. 5) he begins with the lowest. " Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof:" You read me a lecture of the power of God in the heavenly host : indeed it is visi- ble there, yet of a larger extent ; and monuments of it are found in the lower parts. What do you think of those dead things under the earth and waters, of the corn that dies, and by the moistening influ- ences of the clouds, springs up again with a numerous progeny and increase for the nourishment of man ? What do you think of those varieties of metals and minerals conceived in the bowels of the earth ; those pearls and riches in the depths of the waters, midwifed by this power of God ? Add to these those more prodigious creatures in the •■ Muuster. 6 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. sea, tlie inliabitants of the waters, with their vastness and variety, ■which are all the births of God's power ; both in their first creation by his mighty voice, and their propagation by his cherishing provi- dence. Stop not here, but consider also that his power extends to hell ; either the graves the repositories of all the crumbled dust that hath vet been in the world (for so hell is sometimes taken in Scrip- ture Tver. 6, "Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.") The several lodgings of deceased men are known to him : no screen can obscure them from his sight, nor their dissolu- tion be any bar to his power, when the time is come to compact those mouldered bodies to entertain again their departed souls, either for weal or woe. The grave, or hell, the place of punishment, is naked before him ; as distinctly discerned by him, as a naked body in all its lineaments by us, or a dissected body is in all its parts by a skilful eye. Destruction hath no covering; none can free himself from the power of his hand. Every person in the bowels of hell ; every per- son punished there is known to him, and feels the power of his wrath. From the lower parts of the world he ascends to the con- sideration of the power of God in the creation of heaven and earth ; " He stretches out the north over the empty places" (ver. 7). The north, or the north pole, over the air, which, by the Greeks, was called void or empty, because of the tenuity and thinness of that element; and he mentions here the north, or north pole, for the whole heaven, because it is more known and apparent than the southern pole. " And hangs the earth upon nothing :" the massy and weighty earth hangs like a thick globe in the midst of a thin air, that there is as much air on the one side of it, as on the other. The heavens have no prop to sustain them in their height, and the earth hath no basis to support it in its place. The heavens are as if you saw a curtain stretched smooth in the air without any hand to noli it ; and the earth is as if you saw a ball hanging in the air with- out any solid body to under-prop it, or any line to hinder it from falling ; both standing monuments of the omnipotence of God. He then takes notice of his daily power in the clouds ; " He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them" (ver. 8). He compacts the waters together in clouds, and keeps them by his power in the air against the force of their natural gravity and llea^dness, till they are fit to flow down upon the earth, and perform his pleasure in the places for which he designs them. " The cloud is not rent under them ;" the thin air is not split asunder by the weight of the waters contained in the cloud above it. He causes them to distil by drops, and strains them, as it were, through a thin lawn, for the refreshment of the earth ; and suffers them not to fall in the whole lump, with a violent torrent, to waste the industry of man, and bring famine upon the world, by destroy- ing the fruits of the earth. What a wonder it would be to see but one entire drop of water hang itself but one inch above the ground, unless it be a bubble which is preserved by the air en- closed within it ! What a wonder would it be to see a gallon of water contained in a thin cobweb as strongly as in a vesse) O:^ THE POWER OF GOD. 7 of brass ! Greater is the wonder of Divine pc wer in tliose thin bottles of heaven, as they are called (Job xxxviii. 37); and therefore sailed his clouds here, as being daily instances of his omnipotence : that the air should sustain those rolUng vessels, as it should seem, weightier than itself ; that the force of this mass of waters should not break so thin a prison, and hasten to its proper place, which is below the air: that they should be daily confined against their natural inclination, and held by so slight a chain ; that there should be such a gradual and successive falling of them, as if the air were pierced with holes like a gardener's watering-pot, and not fall in one entire body to drown or drench some parts of the earth. These are hourly miracles of Divine power, as little regarded as clearly visible-. He proceeds (ver. 9), " He holds back the face of his throne, and spreads the clouds upon it." The clouds are designed as curtains ta cover the heavens, as well as vessels to water the earth (Ps. cxlviL 8). As a tapestry curtain between the heavens, the throne of God (Isa. Ixvi. 1), and the earth his footstool : the heavens are called his throne, because his power doth most shine forth there, and magnifi- cently declare the glory of God ; and the clouds are as a screen be- tween the scorching heat of the sun, and the tender plants of the earth, and the weak bodies of men. From hence he descends to the sea, and considers the Divine power apparent in the bounding of it (ver. 10) ; " He hath compassed the waters with bounds, till the day and night come to an end." This is several times mentioned in Scripture as a signal mark of Divine strength (Job xxxviii. 8"; Prov. viii. 27). He hath measured a place for the sea, and struck the lim- its of it as mth a compass, that it might not mount above the sur- face of the land, and rain the ends of the earth's creation ; and this, while day and night have their mutual turns, till he shall make an end of time by removing the measures of it. The bounds of the tumultuous sea are, in many places, as weak as the bottles of the upper waters ; the one is contained in thin air, and the other re- strained by weak sands, in many places, as well as by stubborn rocks in others ; that, though it swells, foams, roars, and the waves, en- couraged and egged on by strong winds, come like mountains against the shore ; they overflow it not, but humble themselves when they come near to those sands, which are set as their lists and limits, and retire back to the womb that brought them forth, as if they were ashamed and repented of their proud invasion : or else it may be meant of the tides of the sea, and the stated time God hath set it for its ebbing and flowing, till night and day come to an end ;s both that the fluid waters should contain themselves within due bounds, and keep their perpetually orderly motion, are amazing arguments of Divine power. He passes on to the consideration of the commo- tions in the air and earth, raised and stilled by the power of God ; " The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof." By pillars of heaven are not meant angels, as some think, but either the air, called the pillars of heaven in regard of place, as it continues and knits together the parts of the world, as pillars do the upper and nether parts of a building : as the lowest parts of the earth are • Coccei Mt loc 8 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. called tlie foundations of the earth, so the lowest parts of the heaven may be called the pillars of heaven :^ or else by that j^hrase may be meant mountains, which seem, at a distance, to touch the sky, as pillars do the top of a structure ; and so it may be spoken, according to vulgar capacity, which imagines the heavens to be sus- tained by the two extreme parts of the earth, as a convex body, or to be arched by pillars ; whence the Scripture, according to common apprehensions, mentions the ends of the earth, and the utmost parts of the heavens, though they have properly no end, as being round The power of God is seen in those commotions in the air and earth, by thunders, lightnings, storms, earthquakes, which rack the air, and make the mountains and hills tremble as servants before a frown- ing and rebuking master. And as he makes motions in the earth and air, so is his power seen in their influences upon the sea ; " He judges the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smites through the proud" (ver. 12). At the creation he put the waters into several channels, and caused the dry land to appear barefaced for a habitation for man and beasts ; or rather, he splits the sea by storms, as though he would make the bottom of the deep visible, and rakes up the sands to the surface of the waters, and marshals the waves into mountains and valleys. After that, "he smites through the proud," that is, humbles the proud waves, and, by allaying the storm, reduceth them to their former level : the power of God is visible, as well in rebuking, as in awakening the winds ; he makes them sensible of his voice, and, according to his pleasure, exasperates or calms them. The " striking through the proud" here, is not, probably, meant of the destruction of the Egyptian army, for some guess that Job died that year," or about the time of the Israelites coming out of Egypt ; so that this discourse here, being in the time of his affliction, could not point at that which was done after his restoration to his temporal prosperity. And now, at last, he sums np the power of God, in the chiefest of his works above, and the greatest wonder of his works below (ver. 13) ; " By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens ; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent," &c. The greater and lesser lights, sun, moon, and stars, the ornaments and furniture of heaven ; and the whale, a pro- digious monument of God's i30wer, often mentioned in Scripture to this purpose, and, in particular, in this book of Job (ch. xli.) ; and called by the same name of crooked serpent (Isa. xxvii. 1), where it is applied, by way of metaphor, to the king of Assyria or Egypt, oi all oppressors of the church. Various interpretations there are of this crooked serpent : some understanding that constellation in heaven which astronomers call the dragon ; some that combination of weaker stars, which they call the galaxia, which winds about the heavens : but it is most probable that Job, drawing near to a con- clusion of his discourse, joins the two greatest testimonies of God's power in the world, the highest heavens, and the lowest leviathan, which is here called a bar serpent,^ in regard of his strength and hardness, as mighty men are called bars in Scripture (Jer. li. 30) ; " Her bars are broken things." And in regard of this power of God * Coccei. " Driisius in loc. * As the word siguifies iu the Hebrew. ON THE POWER OF GOD. 8 in the creation of this creature, it is particularly mentioned in the catalogue of God's works (Gen. i. 21); "And God created great whales ;" all the other creatures being i3nt into one sum, and not particularly expressed. And now he makes use of this lecture in the text, " Lo, these are parts of his ways ; but how little a portion is heard of him ? but the thunder of his power who can understand?" This is but a small landscape of some of his works of power ; the outsides and extremities of it ; more glorious things are within his palaces : though those things argue a stupendous power of the Crea- tor, in his works of creation and providence, yet they are nothing to what may be declared of his power. And what may be declared, is nothing to what may be conceived ; and what may be conceived, is nothing to what is above the conceptions of any creature. These are but little crumbs and fragments of that Infinite Power, which is, in his nature, like a drop in comparison of the mighty ocean ; a hiss or whisper in comparison of a mighty voice of thunder.y This, which I have spoken, is but like a spark to the fiery region, a few lines, by the by, a drop of speech. The thunder of his power. Some understand it of thunder literally, for material thunder in the air: " The thunder of his power," that is, according to the Hebrew dialect, " his powerful thunder." This is not the sense ; the nature of thunder in the air doth not so much exceed the capacity of human understanding ; it is, therefore, rather to be understood metaphorically, "the thunder of his power," that is, the greatness and immensity of his power, manifested in the mag- nificent miracles of nature, in the consideration whereof men are as- tonished, as if they had heard an unusual clap of thunder. So thunder is used (Job xxxix. 25), " The thunder of the captains ;" that is, strength and force of the captains of an army : and (ver. 19), God, speaking to Job of a horse, saith, " Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder ?" that is, strength : and thunder being a mark of the power of God, some of the heathen have called God by the name of a Thunderer, z As thunder pierceth the lowest places, and alters the state of things, so doth the power of God penetrate into all things whatsoever ; the thunder of his power, that is, the greatness of hia power; as "the strength of salvation" (Ps. xx. 6), that is, a mighty salvation. Who can understand? Who is able to count all the monuments of his power ? How doth this little, which I have spoken of, exceed the capacity of our understanding, and is rather the matter of our astonishment, than the object of our comprehensive knowledge. The power of the greatest potentate, or the mightiest creature, is but of small extent : none but have their limits ; it may be understood how far they can act, in what sphere their activity is bounded : but when I have spoken all of Divine power that I can, when you have thought all that you can think of it, your souls will prompt you to y Oecolamp. ■ The ancient Gauls worshipped him under the name of Taranis. The Greeks called Jupiter Bpoi^raZof, and Thor ; whence our Thursday is derived, signifieth Thunderer, a title the Germans gave their God. And Toran, iu the British language, signifies thun der. Vcss. Idolo. lib. ii. cap. S3. Camb. Britan. p. 17. 10 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. conceive something more beyond what I have spoken, and what you have thought. His power shines in everything, and is beyond every- thing. Tliere is infinitely more power lodged in his nature, not ex- pressed to the world. The understanding of men and angels, cen- tred in one creature, would fall short of the perception of the inliniteness of it. All that can be comprehended of it, are but little fringes of it, a small portion. No man ever discoursed, or can, of God's power, according to the magnificence of it. No creature can conceive it ; God himself only comprehends it ; God himself is only able to express it. Man's power being limited, his line is too short to measure the incomprehensible omnipotence of God. " The thun- der of his power who can understand?" that is, none can. The text is a lofty cleclaraticn of the Divine power, with a particular note of attention, Lo I I. In the expressions of it, in the works of creation and providence, Zo, these are his ways ; ways and works excelling any created strength, referring to the little summary of them he had made before. II. In the insufficiency of these ways to measure his power, But how little a portion is heard of him. III. In the incom- prehensibleness of it. The thunder of his power, who can understand? Doctrine. Infinite and incomprehensible power pertains to the nature of God, and is expressed, in part, in his works ; or, though there be a mighty expression of Divine power in his works, yet an incompre- hensible 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 (Ps. Ixii. 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 creation ; innocent man was an object of Go.d's goodness, not of his mercy, till he made himself miserable ; power was expressed in both ; /or, twice have I heard that power belongs to God, that is, it is a cer- (tain and undoubted truth, that power is essential to the Divine nature. It is true, mercy is essential, justice is essential ; but power more ap- parently essential, because no acts of mercy, or justice, or wisdom, 1 can be exercised by him without power ; the repetition of a thing Confirms the certainty of it. Some observe, that God is called Al- mighty seventy times in Scripture. -"^ Though his power be evident in all his works, yet he hath a power beyond the expression of it in his works, whioh, 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 ex- cellent paraphrasis for the honor of the Divine nature (Eph. iii. 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 imag- ined 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 expressed by " horns in his hands" (Hab * Lessius. tie Perfect. Divin. lib. v. cap. 1. ON THE POWEK OF GOD. 11 ni. 4) ; because all the works of his hands are wrought with Almighty strength. Power is also used as a name of God (Mark. xiv. 62 ) ; I "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 confined ic", place ; as it is eternal, not to be measured by time ; so it is Almighty, \ not to be limited in regard of action. ''^ 1. It is ingenuously illustrated by some by a unit ;'' all nambers de- pend upon it ; it makes numbers by addition, multiplies them unexpres- sibly ; when one unit is removed from a number, how vastly doth it diminish it ! It gives perfection to all other numbers, it receives per- fection from none. If you add a unit before 100, how doth it mul- tiply it to 1,100! If you set a unit before 20,000,000, it presently makes the number swell up to 120,000,000 ; and so powerful is a unit, by adding it to numbers, that it will infinitely enlarge them to such a vastness, that shall transcend the capacity or the best arithme- tician 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 be-j ginning ol 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 creatures, 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 imag-/ ine him restrained in his power, we imagine him limited in his es- sence ; 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 aTwill 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 conceived without that activity that belongs to his nature ; as when you conceive fire, you cannot conceive it wdthout a power of burning and warming ; and when you conceive water, you cannot, conceive it without a power of moistening and cleansing: so you! cannot conceive an infinite essence without an infinite power of ac- 1 tivity ; and therefore a heathen could say, "K 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 1 will deny God to be Almighty." A Jew, a heathen, may deny \ Christ to be omnipotent, but no heathen will deny God to be omnip- ' otent, and no devil will deny either to be so : God cannot be con- ceived without some power, for then he must be conceived without action. Whose, Jhen, are those products and effects of power, which are visible to us in the world? to whom do they belong? who is the Father ortliem ? God cannot be conceived without a power suitable I 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. ^ Fotherby, Atheomastic, pp. 306, 307. 12 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. In particular, I shall sliow — I. The nature of God's power. II. Reasons to prove that God must needs be powerful. Ill, How his power appears in creation, in government, in redemption. IV. The Use. I, What this power is ; or the nature of it. 1. Power, sometimes signifies authority : and a man is said to be might^-lmd 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 foun- /dation. Authority may be without power; as in a just prince, ex- Eelled by an unjust rebellion, the authority resides in him, though e be overpowered, and is destitute of strength to support and exer- cise that authority. The power of God is not to be understood of his authority and dominion, but his strength to act ; and the word in the text properly signifies strength.^ 2. This power is divided ordinarily into absolute and ordinate. Absolute, is that power whereby God is able to do that which he will not do, but is possible to be done ; ordinate, is that power whereby God doth that which he hath decreed to do, that is, which he hath ordained or appointed to be exercised ;'^ which are not dis- tinct jjowers, but one and the same power. His ordinate power is a Eart of his absolute ; for if he had not a power to do every thing that e could will, he might not have the power to do everything that he doth will. The object of his absolute power is all things possi- ble ; such things that imply not a contradiction, such that are not repugnant in their own nature to be done, and such as are not con- trary to the nature and perfections of God to be done. Those things that are repugnant in their own nature to be done are several, as to make a thing which is jiast not to be past. As, for example, the world is created ; God could have chose whether he would create the world, and after it is created he hath power to dissolve it ; but after it was created, and when it is dissolved, it will be eternally true, that the world was created, and that it was dissolved ; for it is impossible, that that which was once true, should ever be false : if it be true that the world was created, it will forever be true that it was created, and cannot be otherwise. And also, if it be once true that God hath decreed, it is impossible in its own nature to be true that God hath not decreed. Some things are repugnant to the nature and perfections of God ; as it is impossible for his nature to die and perish; impossible for him, in regard of truth, to lie and deceive. But of this hereafter ; only at present to understand the object of God's absolute power to be things possible, that is, possible in nature ; not by any strength in themselves, or of themselves ; for nothing hath no strength, and everj'thing is nothing before it comes into being ;'-' so God, by his absolute power, might have ijrevented the sin of the fallen angels, and so have ]3 reserved them in their first habitation. He might, by his absolute power, have restrained the devil from tempting of Eve, or restrained her and Adam from swal- • imiSa Sept. aOa'og. i Scaliger, Publ. Exercit. 366, § 8. • Estiua in Sent. lib. i. dist, 43. § 2. ON THE POWER OF GOD. 13 lowing the bait, and joining hands with the temptation. By his ab- solute power, Grod might have given the reins to Peter to betray his Master, as well as to deny him ; and employed Judas in the same glorious and successful service, wherein he employed Paul. By his absolute power, he might have created the world millions of years before he did create it, and can reduce it into its empty notliing this moment. This the Baptist affirms, when he tells us, " That God is able of these stones (meaning the atones in the wilderness, and not the people which came out to him out of Judea, which were children of Abraham) to raise up children to Abraham" (Matt. iii. 9) ; that is, there is a possibility of such a thing there is no contradiction in it, but that Grod is able to do it if he please. But now the object of his ordinate power, is all things ordained by him to be done, all things decreed by him ; and because of the Divine ordination of things, this power is called ordinate ; and what is thus ordained by him he cannot but do, because of his unchangeableness. Both those powers are expressed (Matt. xxvi. 53, 54), " My Father can send twelve legions of angels," there is his absolute power ; " but how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ?" there is his ordi- nate power. As his power is free from any act of his will, it is called absolute ; as it is joined with an act of his will, it is called ordinate. His absolute power is necessary, and belongs to his nature ; his ordi- nate power is free, and belongs to his will ; — a power guided by his will, — not, as I said before, that they are two distinct powers, both belonging to his nature, but the latter is the same with the former, only it is guided by his will and wisdom. 3. It follows, then, that the power of God is that ability and strength, whereby he can bring to pass whatsoever he please ; what- soever his infinite wisdom can direct, and whatsoever the infinite purity of his will can resolve. Power, in the primary notion of it, doth not signify an act, but an ability to bring a thing into act ; it is power, as able to act before it doth actually produce a thing : as God had an ability to create before he did create, he had power be- fore he acted that power without. Power notes the principle of the action, and, therefore, is greater than the act itself Power exercised and diffused, in bringing forth and nursing in its particular objects without, is inconceivably less than that strength which is infinite in himself, the same with his essence, and is indeed himself: by his power exercised he doth whatsoever he actually wills ; but by the power in his nature, he is able to do whatsoever he is able to will. The will of creatures may be, and is more extensive than their power ; and their power more contracted and shortened than their will : but, as the projDliet saith, " His counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure" (Isa. xlvi. 10). His power is as great as his will, that is, whatsoever can fall within the verge of his will, falls within the compass of his power. Though he will never actually will this or that, yet supposing he should will it, he is able to per- form it : so that you must, in your notion of Divine power, enlarge it i'urther than to think God can only do what he hath resolved to do ; but that he hath as infinite a capacity of power to act, as he hath an infinite capacity of will to resolve. Besides, this oower is of that 14 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. nature, that he can do whatsoever he pleases without difficulty, vvith- out resistance ; it cannot be checked, restrained, frustrated/ As he can do all things possible in regard of the object, he can do all things easih' in regard of the manner of acting : what in human artificers is knowledge, labor, industr}^, that in God is his will ; his will works without labor ; his works stand forth as he wills them. Hands and arms are ascribed to him for our conceptions, because our power of acting is distinct from our will ; but God's power of acting is not really distinct from his will ; it is sufficient to the existence of a thing that God wills it to exist; he can act what he will only by his will, without any instruments. He needs no matter to work upon, because he can make something from nothing ; all matter owes itself to his creative power : he needs no time to work in, for he can make time when he pleases to begin to work : he needs no copy to work by ; himself is his own pattern and copy in his works. All created agents want matter to work upon, instruments to work with, copies to work by ; time to bring either the births of their minds, or the works of their hands, to perfection : but the power of God needs none of these things, but is of a vast and incomprehensible nature, beyond all these. As nothing can be done without the compass of it, so itself is without the compass of every created understanding. 4. This power is of a distinct conception from the wisdom and will of God. They are not really distinct, but according to our con- ceptions. We cannot discourse of Divine things, without observing some proportion of them with human, ascribing unto God the ])er- fections, sifted from the imperfections of our nature. In us there are three orders — of understanding, will, power ; and, accordingly-, three acts, counsel, resolution, execution ; which, though they are distinct in us, are not really distinct in God. In our conceptions, the apprehension of a thing belongs to the understanding of God ; de- termination, to the will of God ; direction, to the wisdom of God ; execution, to the power of God. The knowledge of God regards a thing as possible, and as it may be done ; the wisdom of God re- gards a thing as fit, and convenient to be done ; the will of God re- solves that it shall be done ; the power of God is the application of his Avill to effect what it hath resolved."^ Wisdom is a fixing the being of things, the measures and perfections of their several beings; power is a conferring those perfections and beings upon them. His power is his ability to act, and his wisdom is the director of his ac- tion : his will orders, his wisdom guides, and his power efl:ects. His will as the spring, and his power as the worker, are expressed (Ps. cxv. 3). " He hath done whatsoever he pleased. He commanded, and they were created" (Ps. cxl. 5) ; and all three expressed (Eph. i. 11), " Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will :" so that the power of God is a perfection, as it were, subor- dinate to his understanding and will, to execute the results of his wisdom, and the orders of his will ; to his wisdom as directing, be- cause he works sl-cilfully ; to his will as moving and applying, be- cau.se he works voluntarily and freely. The exercise of his power depends upon his will : his will is the supreme cause of everything ' Cr:i. Syiitag. lib. iii. Ciip. 17. p. 611. ON THE POWER OF GOD. 15 that stands up in time, and all things receive a being as he wills them. His power is but will perpetually working, and diffusing it- self in the season his will hath fixed from eternity ; it is his eternal will in perpetual and successive sjirings and streams iv the creatures; it is nothing else but the constant efficacy of his omnipotent will. This must be understood of his ordinate power ; but his absolute power is larger than his resolving will : for though the Scripture tells us, " He hath done whatsoever he will," yet it tells us not, thai he hath done whatsoever he could : he can do things that he will never do. Again, his power is distinguished from his will in regard of the exercise of it, which is after the act of his will : his will was conversant about objects, when his power was not exercised about them. Ci natures were the objects of his will from eternity, but they were not from eternity the effects of his power. His purpose to create was from eternity, but the execution of his purpose was in time. Now this execution of his will we call his ordinate power: his wisdom and his will are supposed antecedent to his power, as the counsel and resolve ; as the cause j)recedes the performance of the purpose as the effect. Some s distinguish his power from his under- standing and will, in regard that his understanding and will are larger than his absolute power ; for God understands sins, and wills to permit them, but he cannot himself do any evil or unjust action, nor have a power of doing it. But this is not to distinguish that Divine power, but impotence ; for to be unable to do evil is the per- fection of power ; and to be able to do things unjust and evil, is a weakness, imperfection, and inability. Man indeed wills many things that he is not able to perform, and understands many things that he '^ is not able to effect ; he understands much of the creatures, some- thing of sun, moon, and stars ; he can conceive many suns, many moons, yet is not able to create the least atom : but there is nothing that belongs to power but God understands, and is able to effect. To sum this up, the will of God is the root of all, the wisdom of God is the copy of all, and the power of God is the framer of all. 6. The power of God gives activity to all the other perfections of his nature, and is of a larger extent and efficacy, in regard of its objects, than some perfections of his nature. 1 put them both together. (1.) It contributes life and activity to all the other perfections of his nature. How vain would be his eternal counsels, if power did not step in to execute them ! His mercy would be a feeble pity, if he were destitute of power to relieve ; and his justice a slighted scarecrow, without power to punish ; his promises an empty sound, without power to accomplish them. As holiness is the beauty, so power is the life of all his attributes in their exercise ; and as holi- ness, so power, is an adjunct belonging to all, a term that may be given to all. God hath a powerful wisdom to attain his ends with- out interruption : he hath a powerful mercy to remove our misery ; a powerful justice to lay all misery upon offenders : he hath a pow- erful truth to perform his promises ; an infinite power to bestow re- wards, and inflict penalties. It is to this purpose power is first put e Gaiuacheus. 16 CHAENOCK OX THE ATTKIBUTES. in the two tilings wliicli the Psalmist had lieai'd (Ps. Ixii. 11, 12) " Twice have I heard," or two things have I heard ; lirst power, then mercy and justice, included in that expression, " Thou renderest to every man according to his work:" in every perfection of God he heard of power. This is the arm, the hand of the Deity, which all his other attributes lay hold on, when they would appear in their glory ; this hands them to the world : by this they act, in this they triumph. Power framed every stage for their appearance in crea- tion, providence, redemption. (2.) It is of a larger extent, in regard of its objects, than some other attributes. Power doth not alway suppose an object, but con- stitutes an object. It supposeth an object in the act of preservation, but it makes an object in the act of creation ; but mercy supposeth. an object miserable, yet doth not make it so. Justice supposeth an object criminal, but doth not constitute it so : mercy supposeth him miserable, to relieve him ; justice supposeth him criminal, to punish him : but power supposeth not a thing in real existence, but as pos- sible ; or rather, it is from power that any thing hath a possibility, if there be no repugnancy in the nature of the thing. Again, power extends further than either mercy or justice. Mercy hath particu- lar objects, which justice shall not at last be willing to punish ; and justice hath particular objects, which mercy at last shall not be will ing to refresh : but power doth, and alway will, extend to the ob- jects of both mercy and justice. A creature, as a creature, is neither the object of mercy nor justice, nor of rewarding goodness: a creature, as innocent, is the object of rewarding goodness; a crea- ture, as miserable, is the object of compassionate mercy ; a creature, as criminal, is the object of revenging justice : but all of them the objects of power, in conjunction with those attributes of goodness, mercy, and justice, to which they belong. All the objects that mercy, and justice, and truth, and wisdom, exercise themselves about, hath a possibility and an actual being from this perfection of Divine power. It is power first frames a creature in a capacity of nature for mercy or justice, though it doth not give an immediate qualification for the exercise of either. Power makes man a ra- tional creature, and so confers upon him a nature mutable, which may be miserable by its own fault, and punishable by God's justice; or pitiable by God's compassion, and relievable by God's mercy : but it doth not make him sinful, whereby he becomes miserable and punishable. Again, power runs through all the degrees of the states of a creature. As a thing is possible, or may be made, it is the object of absolute power ; as it is factibile, or ordered to be made, it is the object of ordinate power : as a thing is actuallj" made, and brought into being, it is the object of preserving power. So that power doth stretch out its arms to all the works of God, in all their circumstances, and at all times. When mercy ceaseth to relieve a creature, when justice ceaseth to punish a creature, power ceaseth not to preserve a creature. The blessed in heaven, that are out cf the reach of punishing justice, are forever maintained by power in that blessed condition : the damned in hell, that are cast out of the ON THE POWER OF GOD. 17 oosom of entreating mercy, are forever sustained in those remediless torments by the Arm of Power. 6. This power is originally and essentially in the nature of God, and not distinct from his essence. It is originally and essentially in God. The strength and power of great kings is originally in their people, and managed and ordered b}' the authority of the prince for the common good. Though a prince hath authority in his person to command, yet he hath not sufficient strength in his person, without the assistance of others, to make his commands to be obeyed. He hath not a single strength in his own person to conquer countries and kingdoms, and increase the number of his subjects : he must make use of the arms of his own subjects, to overrun other places, and yoke them under his dominion : but the power of all things that ever were, are, or shall be, is originally and essentially in God. It is not derived from any thing without him, as the power of the greatest potentates in the world is: therefore (Ps. Ixii. 11) it is said, " Power belongs unto God," that is, solely and to none else. He hath a power to make his subjects, and as many as he pleases ; to create worlds, to enjoin precepts, to execute penalties, without call- ing in the strength of his creatures to his aid. The strength that !;he subjects of a mortal prince have, is not derived to them from ihe prince, though the exercise of it for this or that end, is ordered and directed by the authority of the prince : but what strength so- ever any thing hath to act as a means, it hath from the power of God as Creator, as well as whatsoever authority it hath to act is from God, as a Rector and Governor of the world. God hath a strength to act without means, and no means can act any thing without his power and strength communicated to them. As the clouds, in ver. 8, before the text, are called God's clouds, " his clouds :" so all the strength of creatures may be called, and truly is, God's strength and power in them : a drop of power shot down from heaven, originally only in God. Creatures have but a little mite of power ; somewhat communicated to them, somewhat kept and reserved from them, of what they are capable to possess. They have limited natures, and therefore a limited sphere of activity. Clothes can warm us, but not feed us ; bread can nourish us, but not clothe us. One jDlant hath a medicinal quality against one disease, another against an- other ; but God is the possessor of universal power, the common exchequer of this mighty treasure. He acts by creatures, as not needing their power, but deriving power to them : what he acts by them, he could act himself without them: and what they act as from themselves, is derived to them from him through invisible chan- nels. And hence it will follow, that because power is essentially in God, more operations of God are possible than are exerted. And as power is essentially in God, so it is not distinct from his essence. It belongs to God in regard of the inconceivable excellency and activity of his essence.^ And omnipotent is nothing but the Divine essence efficacious ad extra. It is his essence as operative, and the immediate principle of operation : as the power of enlightening in the sun, and the power of heating in the fire, are not things distinct ^ Katioue suimiiie actualitatis essentiae. Suarez, Vol, I. pp. 150, 151. vol.. II. — -l 18 CIIAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. from the nature of tliem ; but tlie nature of tlie sun bringing forth light, and the nature of the fire bringeth forth heat. The power of acting is the same with the substance of God, though the action fi-om that power be terminated in the creature. If the power of God were distinct from his essence, he were then compounded of substance and power, and would not be the most simple being. As when the understanding is informed in several parts of knowledge, it is skilled in the government of cities and countries, it knows this or that art : it learns mathematics, johilosophy ; this, or that science. The understanding hath a power to do this ; but this power, where- by it learns those excellent things, and brings forth excellent births, is not a thing distinct from the understanding itself; we may rather call it the understanding powerful, than the power of the under- standing; and so we may rather say, God powerful, than say, the power of God ; because his power is not distinct from his essence. From both these, it will follow, that this omnipotence is incommuni- cable to any creature ; no creature can inherit it, because it is a con- tradiction for any creature to have the essence of God. This om- nipotence is a peculiar right of God, wherein no creature can share with him. To be omnipotent is to be essentially God. And for a creature to be omnipotent, is for a creature to be its own Creator. It being therefore the same with the essence of the Godhead, it can- not be communicated to the humanity of Christ, as the Lutherans say it is, without the communication of the essence of the God- head ; for then the humanity of Christ would not be humanity, but Deity. If omnipotence were communicated to the humanity of Christ, the essence of God were also communicated to his humanity, and then eternity would be communicated. His humanity then was not given him in time ; his humanity would be uncompounded, that is, his body would be no body, his soul no soul. Omnipotence is essentially in God ; it is not distinct from the essence of God, it is his essence, omnipotent, able to do all things. 7. Hence it follows, that this power is infinite (Eph. i, 19) ; "What is the exceeding greatness of his power," &c. "according to the working of his mighty power." God were not omnipotent, un- less his power were infinite ; for a finite power is a limited power, and a limited power cannot effect everything that is possible Nothing can be too difficult for the Divine power to effect ; he hath a fullness of power, an exceeding strength, above all human capa- cities ; it is a " mighty power" (Eph. i. 19), " able to do above all that we can ask or think" (Eph. iii. 20) : that which he acts, is above the power of an}^ creature to act. Infinite power consists in the bring- ing things forth fi'om nothing. No creature can imitate God in this prerogative of power. Man indeed can carve various forms, and erect various pieces of art, but from pre-existent matter. Every artificer hatli the matter brought to his hand, he only brings it forth in a new figure. Chemists separate one thing from another, but create nothing, but sever those things which were before compacted and crucUed together : but when God speaks a powerful word, nothing begins to be something : things stand forth from the womb of nothing, and obey his mighty command, and take what forms he ON THE POWER OF GOD. 19 L« pleased to give them. The creating one thing, though never so small and minute, as the least fly, cannot be bat by an infinite pr wer ; much less can the producing of such variety we see in the world. His power is infinite, in regard it cannot be resisted by anything that he hath made ; nor can it be confined by anything he can will to make. " His greatness is unsearchable" (Ps. cxlv. 8). Tt is a greatness, not of quantity, but quality. The greatness of nis 230 wer hath no end : it is a vanity to imagine any limits can be affixed to it, or that any creature can say, " Hitherto it can go, and no further." It is above all conception, all inquisition of any created understanding. No creature ever had, nor ever can have, that strength of wit and understanding, to conceive the extent of his power, and how magnificently he can work. First, His essence is infinite. As in a finite subject there is a finite virtue, so in an infinite subject there must be an infinite virtue. Where the essence is limited, the power is so :' where the essence is unlimited, the power knows no bounds.'^ Among creatures, the more excellency of being and form anything hath, the more activity, vigor, and power it hath, to work according to its nature. The sun hath a mighty power to warm, enlighten, and fructify, above what the stars have ; because it hath a vaster i3ody, more intense degrees of light, heat, and vigor. Now, if you conceive the sun made much greater than it is, it would proportionably have greater de^ grees of power to heat and enlighten than it hath now : and were it possible to have an infinite heat and light, it would infinitely heat and enlighten other things ; for everything is able to act according to the measures of its being : therefore, since the essence of God is unquestionably infinite, his power of acting must be so also. His power (as was said before) is one and the same with his essence : and though the knowledge of God extends to more objects than his power, because he knows all evils of sin, which because of his holiness he cannot commit, yet it is as infinite as his knowledge, because it is as much one with his essence, as his knowledge and wisdom is : for as the wisdom or knowledge of God is nothing but the essence of God, knowing^ so the power of God is nothing but the essence of God, able. The objects of Divine power are innumerable. The objects of Divine power are not essentially infinite ; and therefore we must not measure the infiniteness of Divine power by an ability to make an infinite being ; because there is an incapacity in any created thing to be infinite ; for to be a creature and to be infinite ; to be infinite and yet made, is a contradiction. To be infinite, and to be God, is one and the same thing. Nothing can be infinite but God nothing but God is infinite. But the power of God is infinite, be cause it can produce infinite effects, or innumerable things, such aj. j-atioues sequuntur essentiain. i^) Aquin. Part 1 Qu 25. Artioae 20 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. aud thoughts different from one another. Who can number the imaginations of his fancy, and thoughts of his mind, tiie space of one month or year ? much less of forty or an hundred years ; yet all these thoughts are about things that are in being, or have a founda- tion in things that are in being. But the infiniteness of God's power consists in an ability to produce infinite effects, formally distinct, and diverse from one another ; sucli as never had being, such as the mind of man cannot conceive : " Able to do above what we can think" (Eph. iii. 20). And whatsoever God hath made, or is able to make, he is able to make in an infinite manner, by calHng them to stand forth from nothing. To produce innumerable effects of dis- tinct natures, and from so distant a term as nothing, is an argument of infinite power. Now, that the objects of Divine power are in- numerable, appears, because God can do infinitely more than he hath done, or will do. Nothing that God hath done can enfeeble or dull his power; there still resides in him an ability beyond all the settled contrivances of his understanding and resolves of his will, which no effects which he hath wrought can drain and put to a stand. As he can raise stones to be children to Abraham (Matt. iii. 9) ; so with the same mighty word, whereby he made one world, he can make infinite numbers of worlds to be the mouTiments of his glory. After the prophet Jeremiah (ch. xxxii. 17), had spoke of God's power in creation, he adds, " And there is nothing too hard for thee." For one world that he hath made, he can create millions : for one star which he hath beautified the heavens with, he could have garnished it with a thousand, and multiplied, if he had pleased, every one of those into millions, "for he can call things that are not" (Rom. iv. 17) ; not some things, but all things possible. The barren womb of nothing can no more resist his power now to educe a world from it, than it could at first : no doubt, but for one angel which he hath made, lie could make many worlds of angels. He that made one with so much ease, as by a word, cannot want power to make many more, till he wants a word. The word that was not too weak to make one, cannot be too weak to make multitudes. If from one man he hath, in a way of nature, multiplied so many in all ages of the world, and covered with them the whole face of the earth ; he could, in a supernatural way, by one word, multiply as many more. " It is the breath of the Almighty that gives life'' (Job. xxxiii. 4). He can create infinite species and kinds of creatures more than he hath created, more variety of forms : for since there is no searching of his greatness, there is no conceiving the number- less possible effects of his power. The understanding of man can conceive numberless things possible to be, more than have been or shall be. And shall we imagine, that a finite understanding of a creature hath a greater omiii|)otency to conceive things possible, than God hath to produce things possible? When the understand- ing of man is tired in its conceptions, it must still be concluded, tkat the power of God extends, not only to what can be conceived, but infinitely beyond the measures of a finite faculty. "Touching ihe Almigiity, we cannot find" him out; he is excellent in power aud in judgment" (Job xxxvi. 23). For the understanding of man, ON THE POWER OF GOD. 2l m its conceptions of more kind of creatures, is limited to those creatures which are: it cannot, in its own imagination, conceive anything but what hath some foundation in and from something already in being. It may frame a new kind of creature, made up of a lion, a horse, an ox ; but all those parts whereof its conception is made, have distinct beings in the world, though not in that com- position as his mind mixes and joins them ; but no question but God can create creatures that have no resemblance with any kind of creatures yet in being. It is certain that if Grod only knowa those things which he hath done, and will do, and not all things possible to be done by him, his knowledge were finite ; so if he c'ould do no more than what he hath done, his power would be finite. (1.) Creatures have a power to act about more objects than they •do. The understanding of man can frame from one principle of truth, many conclusions and inferences more than it doth. Why ■cannot, then, the power of God frame from one first matter, an infi- nite number of creatures more than have been created? The Almightiness of God in producing real effects, is not inferior to the understanding of man in drawing out real truths. An artificer that makes a watch, supposing his life and health, can make many more of a different form and motion; and a limner can draw many draughts, and frame many pictures with a new variety of colors, ac- cording to the richness of his fancy. If these can do so, that require ii pre-existent matter framed to their hands, God can much more, who can raise beautiful structures from nothing. As long as men have matter, they can diversify the matter, and make new figures from it ; so long as there is nothing, God can produce out of that nothing whatsoever he pleases. We see the same in inanimate crea- tures. A spark of fire hath a vast power in it : it will kindle other things, increase and enlarge itself ; nothing can be exempt from the active force of it. It will alter, by consuming or refining, whatso- ever you offer to it. It will reach all, and refuse none ; and by the efl&cacious power of it, all those new figures which we see in metals, .are brought forth ; when you have exposed to it a multitude of things, still add more, it will exert the same strength ; yea, the vigor is increased rather than diminished. The more it catcheth, the more fiercely and irresistibly it will act ; you cannot suppose an end of its operation, or a decrease of its strength, as long as you can conceive its duration and continuance : this must be but a weak shadow of that infinite power which is in God. Take another instance, in the sun : it hath power every year to produce flowers and plants from the earth ; and is as able to produce them now, as it was at the first lighting it and rearing it in that sphere wherein it moves. And if there were no kind of flowers and plants now created, the sun hath a power residing in it, ever since its first creation, to afford the same warmth to them for the nourishing and bringing them forth. What- soever you can conceive the sun to be able to do in regard of plants, that can God do in regard of worlds ; produce more worlds than the ;sun doth plants every year, without weariness, without languishment. The sun is able to influence more things than it doth, and produce 22 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. numberless effects ; but it dotli not do so much as it is able to do, because it wants matter to work upon. God, therefore, who wants no matter, can do much more than he doth ; he can either act by second causes if there were more, or make more second causes if he pleased. (2.) God is the most free agent. Everj free agent can do more than he will do. Man being a free creature, can do more than ordi- narily he doth will to do. God is most free, as being the spring of liberty in other creatures ; he acts not by a necessity of nature, as the waves of the sea, or the motions of the wind ; and, therefore, is not determined to those things which he hath already called forth into the world. If God be infinitely wise in contrivance, he could contrive more than he hath, and therefore, can effect more than he hath effected. He doth not act to the extent of his power upon all occasions. It is according to his will that he works (Ej^h. i.). It ia not according to his work that he wills ; his work is an evidence of his will, but not the rule of his will. His power is not the rule of his will, but his will is the disposer of his power, according to the light of his infinite wisdom, and other attributes that direct his will ; and therefore his power is not to be measured by his actual will. No doubt, but he could in a moment have produced that world which he took six days' time to frame ; he could have drowned the old world at once, without prolonging the time till the revolution of forty days ; he was not limited to such a term of time by any weak- ness, but by the determination of his own will. God doth not do the hundred thousandth part of what he is able to do, but what ia convenient to do, according to the end which he hath proposed to himself Jesus Christ, as man, could have asked legions of angels ; and God, as a sovereign, could have sent them (Matt. xxvi. 53). God could raise the dead every day if he pleased, but he doth not : he could heal every diseased person in a moment, but he doth not. As God can will more than he doth actually will, so he can do more than he hath actually done ; he can do whatsoever he can will ; he can will more worlds, and therefore can cre&te more worlds. If God hath not ability to do more than he will do, he then can do no more than what he actually hath done ; and then it will follow, that he is not a free, but a natural and necessary agent, which cannot be sup- posed of God. Second, This power is infinite in regard of action. As he can produce numberless objects above what he hath produced, so he could produce them more magnificently than he hath made them. As he never works to the extent of his power in regard of things, so neither in regard of the manner of acting ; for he never acts so but he could act in a higher and perfectcr manner. (1.) His power is infinite in regard of the independency of action: he wants no instrument to act. When there was nothing but God, there was no cause of action but God ; when there was nothing in being but God, there could be no instrumental cause of the being of anything. God can perfect his action without dependence on any thing ;i and to be simply independent, is to be simply infinite. In • Sum x-z, Vol. 1. lie Deo. p. 161. ON THE POWER OF GOD. 23 this respect it is a power incommunicable to an_y critature, thougli you conceive a creature in higher degrees of perfection than it is. A creature cannot cease to be dependent, but it must cease to be a crea- ture ; to be a creature and independent, are terms repugnant to one another. (2.) But the infiniteness of Divine power consists in an ability to give higher degrees of perfection to everything which he hath made. As his power is infinite extensive, in regard of the multitude of ob- jects he can bring into being, so it is infinite intensive, in regard of the manner of operation, and the endowments he can bestow upon them,'" Some things, indeed, God doth so perfect, that higher de- grees of perfection cannot be imagined to be added to them." As the humanity of Christ cannot be united more gloriously than to the person of the Son of God, a greater degree of perfection cannot be conferred upon it. Nor can the souls of the blessed have a nobler object of vision and fruition than God himself, the infinite Being: no higher than the enjoyment of himself can be conferred upon a crea- ture, respectu termini. This is not want of power ; he cannot be greater, because he is greatest; not better, because he is best; nothing can be more than infinite. But as to the things which God hath made in the world, he could have given them other manner of being than they have, A human understanding may improve a thought or conclusion ; strengthen it with more and more force of reason ; and adorn it with richer and richer elegancy of language : why, then, may not the Divine providence produce a world more perfect and excellent than this ? He that makes a plain vessel, can embellish it more, engrave more figures upon it, according to the capacity of the subject : and cannot God do so much more with his works ? Could not God have made this world of a larger quantity, and the sun of a greater bulk and proportionable strength, to influ- ence a bigger world ? so that this world would have been to another that God might have made, as a ball or a mount, this sun as a star to another sun that he might have kindled. He could have made every star a sun, every spire of grass a star, every grain of dust a flower, every soul an angel. And though the angels be perfect creatures, and inexpressibly more glorious than a visible creature, yet who can imagine God so confined, that he cannot create a more excellent kind, and endow those which he hath made with excellen- cy of a higher rank than he invested them with at the first moment of their creation? Without question God might have given the meaner creatures more excellent endowments, put them into another order of nature for their own good and more diffusive usefulness in the world. What is made use of by the prophet (Mai. ii. 15) in an- other case, may be used in this : " Yet had he a residue of Spirit." The capacity of every creature might have been enlarged by God ; for no work of his in the world doth equal his power, as nothing that he hath framed doth equal his wisdom. The same matter which u the matter of the body of a beast, is the matter of a plant and flower ; is the matter of the body of a man ; and so was capable of a higlier form and higher perfections, than God hath been pleased " Beeau. Sura. Theol. p. 82. " I' id. p. 84. 24 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. to bestow upon it. And he had power to bestow that perfection on one part of matter which he denied to it, and bestowed on another part. If God cannot make tilings in a greater perfection, there must be some limitation of him : he cannot be limited by another, because nothing is superior to God. If limited by himself, that limi- tion is not from a want of power, but a want of will. He can, by liis own power, raise stones to be children to Abraham (Matt. iii. 9) : he could alter the nature of the stones, form them into human bodies, dignity them with rational souls, inspire those souls with such graces that may render them the children of Abraham. But for the more fully understanding the nature of this ]30wer, we may observe, [1.] That though God can make everything with a higher degree of perfection, yet still within the limits of a finite being. No crea- ture can be made infinite, because no creature can be made God. No creature can be so improved as to equal the goodness and per- fection of God;" yet there is no creature but we may conceive a possibility of its being made more perfect in that rank of a creature than it is : as we may imagine a flower or plant to have greater beauty and richer qualities imparted to it by Divine power, without rearing it so high as to the dignity of a rational or sensitive creature. Whatsoever perfections may be added by God to a creature, are still finite perfections ; and a multitude of finite excellences can never amount to the value and honor of infinite : as if you add one number to another as high as you can, as much as a large piece of paper can contain, you can never make the numbers really infinite, though they may be infinite in regard of the inability of any human under- standing to count them. The finite condition of the creature suffers it not to be capable of an infinite perfection. God is so great, so excellent, that it is his perfection not to have any equal ; the defect is in the creature, Avhich cannot be elevated to such a pitch ; as you can never make a gallon measure to hold the quantity of a butt, or a butt the quantity of a river, or a river the fulness of the sea. [2.] Though God hath a power to furnish every creature with greater and nobler perfections than he hath bestowed upon it, yet he hath framed all things in the perfectest manner,, and most con- venient to that end for which he intended them. Everything is endowed with the best nature and quality suitable to God's end in creation, though not in the best manner for itself P In regard of the universal end, there cannot be a better ; for God himself is the end of all things, who is the Supreme Goodness. Nothing can be better than God, who could not be God if he were not superlatively best, or opltirms ; and he hath ordered all things for the declaration of his goodness or justice, according to the behaviors of his creatures. Man doth not consider what strength or power he can put forth in the means he useth to attain such an end, but the suitableness of them to his main design, and so fits and marshals them to his grand pur- pose. Had God only created things that are most excellent, he had created only angels and men ; how, then, would his wisdom have • Gamach iu Aquiu. Tom. I. Qu. 26. f lit'. 103, 104 Aiiivralil. Ireiiie. p. 284. ^ Amyrald. Ireuic. p. 282. ON THE POWER OF GOD. 65 ed in tlie revenge of every injury, signifies a greater infirmity m the soul, than there can be ability in the body. Fourthly, Divine power was apparent in his resurrection. The unlocking the belly of the whale for the deliverance of Jonas ; the rescue of Daniel from the den of lions ; and the restraining the fire from burning the three children, were signal declarations of his power, and types of the resurrection of our Saviour. But what are those to that which was represented by them ? That was a power over natural causes, a curbing of beasts, and restraining of elements ; but in the resurrection of Christ, God exercised a power over him- self, and quenched the flames of his own wrath, hotter than millions of Nebuchadnezzar's furnaces ; unlocked the prison doors, wherein the curses of the law had lodged our Saviour, stronger than the belly and ribs of a leviathan. In the rescue of Daniel and Jonas, God overpowered beasts ; and in this tore up the strength of the old ser- pent, and plucked the sceptre from the hand of the enemy of man- kind. The work of resurrection, indeed, considered in itself, re- quires the efficacy of an Almighty power ; neither man nor angel can create new dispositions in a dead body, to render it capable of lodging a spiritual soul ; nor can they restore a dislodged soul, by their own power, to such a body. The restoring a dead body to life requires an infinite power, as well as the creation of the world ; but there was in the resurrection of Christ, something more difiicult than this ; while he lay in the grave he was under the curse of the law, under the execution of that dreadful sentence, " Thou shalt die the death." His resurrection was not only the re-tying the marriage knot between his soul and body, or the rolling the stone from the grave ; but a taking off an infinite weight, the sin of mankind, which lay upon him. So vast a weight could not be removed without the strength of an Almighty arm. It is, therefore, not to an ordinary operation, but an operation with power (Rom. i. 4), and such a power wherein the glory of the Father did appear (Rom. vi. 4) ; " Raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father," that is, the glorious power of God. As the Eternal generation is stupendous, so is his resurrection, which is called, a new begetting of him (Acts xiii. 33). It is a wonder of power, that the Divine and human nature should be joined; and no less wonder that his person should surmount and rise up from the curse of God, under which he lay. The apostle, therefore, adds one expression to another, and heaps up a variety, signifying thereby that one was not enough to represent it (Eph. i 19); "Exceeding greatness of power, ar.d working of mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead." It was an hyperbole of power, the excellency of the mightiness of his strength : the loftiness of the expressions seems to come short of the apprehension he had of it in his soul. II. This power appears in the publication and propagation of the doctrine of redemption. The Divine power will appear, if you con- sider, 1. Tlie nature of the doctrine. 2. The instruments employed in it. 3. The means they used to propagate it. 4. The success they had. 1. Tlie nature of the doctrine. (1.) It was contary to the common 66 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTKIBUTES. received reason of the world. The pliilosphers, tlie masters of knowledge among the Gentiles, bad maxims of a different stamp from it. Though they agreed in the being of a God, yet their no- tions of his nature were confused and embroiled with many errors -, the unity of God was not commonl)- assented unto ; they had mul- tiplied deities according to the fancies they had received from some of a more elevated wit and refined brain than others. Though they had some notion of mediators, yet they placed in those seats their public benefactors, men that had been useful to the world, or their particular countries, in imparting to them some profitable invention. To discard those, was to charge themselves with ingratitude to them, from whom they had received signal benefits, and to whose media- tion, conduct, or protection, they ascribed all the success they had been blessed with in their several provinces, and to charge them- selves with folly for rendering an honor and worship to them so long. Could the doctrine of a crucified Mediator, whom they had never seen, that had conquered no country for them, never enlarged their territories, brought to light no new profitable invention for the increase of their earthly welfare, as the rest had done, be thought fiufl&cient to balance so many of their reputed heroes ? How igno- rant were they in the foundations of the true religion ! The belief of a Providence was staggering ; nor had they a true prospect of the nature of virtue and vice ; yet they had a fond opinion of the strength of their own reason, and the maxims that had been handed down to them by their predecessors, which Paul (1 Tim. vi. 20) en- titles, a " science falsely so called," either meant of the philosophers or the Gnostics. They presumed that they were able to measure all things by their own reason ; whence, when the apostle came tc preach the doctrine of the Gospel at Athens, the great school of reason in that age, they gave him no better a title than that of a babbler (Acts xvii. 18), and openly mocked him (ver. 32) ; a seed gatherer,! one that hath no more brain or sense than a fellow that gathers up seeds that are spilled in a market, or one that hath a vain and empty sound, without sense or reason, like a foolish mounte- bank ; so slightly did those rationalists of the world think of the wisdom of heaven. That the Son of God should veil himself in a mortal body, and suffer a disgraceful death in it, were things above the ken of reason. Besides, the world had a general disesteem of the religion of the Jews, and were prejudiced against anything that came from them ; whence the Romans, that used to incorporate the gods of other conquered nations in their capital, never moved to have the God of Israel worshipped among them. Again, the}^ might argue against it with much fleshly reason : here is a crucified God, preached by a company of mean and ignorant persons, what reason can we have to entertain this doctrine, since the Jews, who, as they tell us, had the prophecies of him, did not acknowledge him ? Sure- ly, had there been such predictions, they would not have crucified, but crowned their King, and expected from him the conquest of the earth under their power. What reasou have we to entertain him, whom hLs own nation, among whom he lived, with whom he con ' Srrep/iOAoyoc. ON THE POWER OF GOD. 67 versed so unanimously, by the vote of the rulers as well as the rout, rejected? It was impossible to conquer minds possessed with so many errors, and applauding themselves in their own reason, and to render them capable of receiving revealed truths without the influ* ence of a Divine power, (2.) It was contrary to the customs of the world. The strength of custom in most men, surmounts the strength of reason, and men (commonly are so wedded to it, that they will be sooner divorced from anjrthing than the modes and patterns received from their an- cestors. The endeavoring to change customs of an ancient stand- ing, hath begotten tumults and furious mutinies among nations, though the change would have been much for their advantage. This doctrine struck at the root of the religion of the world, and the cere- monies, wherein they had been educated from their infancy, de- livered to them from their ancestors, confirmed by the customary observance of many ages, rooted in their minds and established by their laws (Acts xviii. 13) ; " This fellow persuadeth us to worship God contrary to the law ;" against customs, to which they ascribed the happiness of their states, and the prosperity of their people, and would put, in the place of this religion they would abolish, a new one instituted by a man, whom the Jews had condemned, and put to death upon a cross, as an impostor, blasphemer, and seditious person. It was a doctrine that would change the customs of the Jews, who were intrusted with the oracles of God. It would bury forever their ceremonial rites, delivered to them by Moses, from that God, who had, with, a mighty hand, brought them out of Egypt, consecrated their law with thunders and lightnings from Mount Sinai, at the time of its publication, backed it with severe sanctions, confirmed it by many miracles, both in the wilderness and their Canaan, and had continued it for so many hundred years. They could not but remember how they had been ravaged by other na- tions, and judgments sent upon them when they neglected and slighted it ; and with what great success they were followed when they valued and observed it ; and how they had abhorred the Author of this new religion, who had spoken slightly of their traditions, till they put him to death with infamy. "Was it an easy matter to divorce them from that worship, upon which were entailed, as they imagined, their peace, plenty, and glory, things of the dearest re gard with mankind ? The Jews were no less devoted to their cert monial traditions than the heathen were to their vain superstitions. This doctrine of the gospel was of that nature, that the state of re- Hgion, all over the earth, must be overturned by it ; the wisdom of the Greeks must vail to it, the idolatry of the people must stoop to it, and the profane customs of men must moulder under the weight of it. Was it an easy matter for the pride of nature to deny a cus- tomary wisdom, to entertain a new doctrine against the authority of their ancestors, to inscribe folly upon that v/hich hath made them admired by the rest of the world? Nothing can be of greater esteem with men, than the credit of their lawgivers and founders, the religioD of their fathers, and prosperity of themselves : hence the minds ")f men were sharpened against it. The Greeks, the 68 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. wisest nation, slighted it as foolish ; the Jews, the religious nation, stumbled at it, as contrary to the received interpretations of ancient prophecies and carnal conceits of an earthly glory. The dimmest eye may behold the difficulty to change custom, a second nature : it is as hard as to change a wolf into a lamb, to level a mov.ntain, stop the course of the sun, or change the inhabitants of Africa into the color of Europe. Custom dips men in as durable a dye as na- ture. The difficulties of carrying it on against the Divine religion of the Jew, and rooted custom of the Gentiles, were unconquerable by any but an Almighty power. And in this the power of God hath appeared wonderfully. (3.) It was contrary to the sensuality of the world, and the lusts of the flesh. How much the Gentiles were overgrown with base and tmworthy lusts at the time of the publication of the gospel, needs no other memento than the apostle's discourse (Eom. i). As there was no error but prevailed upon their minds, so there was no brutish affection but was wedded to their hearts. The doctrine pro- posed to them was not easy ; it flattered not the sense, but checked the stream of nature. It thundered down those three great engines whereby the devil had subdued the world to himself: " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life :" not only the most sordid affections of the flesh, but the more refined gratifications of the mind : it stripped nature both of devil and man ; of what was commonly esteemed great and virtuous. That which was the root of their fame, and the satisfaction of their ambition, was struck at by this axe of the gospel. The first article of it ordered them to deny themselves, not to presume upon their own worth ; to lay their understandings and wills at the foot of the cross, and resign them up to one newly crucified at Jerusalem : honors and wealth were to be despised, flesh to be tamed, the cross to be borne, enemies to be loved, revenge not to be satisfied, blood to be spilled, and torments to be endured for the honor of One they never saw, nor ever be- fore heard of; who was preached with the circumstances of a shame- ful death, enough to affiight them from the entertainment : and the report of a resurrection and glorious ascension were things never heard of by them before, and unknown in the world, that would not easily enter into the belief of men : the cross, disgrace, self-denial, were only discoursed of in order to the attainment of an invisible world, and an unseen reward, which none of their predecessors ever returned to acquaint them with ; a patient death, contrary to the oride of nature, was published as the way to happiness and a blessed immortality : the dearest lusts were to be pierced to death for the honor of this new Lord. Other religions brought wealth and honor : this struck them off" from such expectations, and presented them with no promise of anything in this life, but a prospect of misery ; except those inward consolations to which before they had been utter strangers, and had never experimented. It made them to depend not upon themselves, but upon the sole grace of God. It decried all natural, all moral idolatry, things as dear to men as the apple of their eyes. It despoiled them of whatsoever the mind, will, and affections of men, naturally lay claim to, and glory in. It pulled ON THE POWER OF GOD. 69 self up by tlie roots, unmanned carnal man, and debased the prin- ciple oj' honor and self-satisfaction, which the world counted at thai time noble and brave. In a word, it took them off from themselves, to act like creatures of God's framing ; to know no more than he would admit them, and do no more than he did command them. How difficult must it needs be to reduce men, that placed all their happiness in the pleasures of this life, from their pompous idolatry and brutish affections, to this mortifying religion ! What might the world say ? Here is a doctrine will render us a company of puling animals : farewell generosity, bravery, sense of honor, courage in enlarging the bounds of our country, for an ardent charity to the bitterest of our enemies. Here is a religion will rust our swords, canker our arms, dispirit what we have hitherto called virtue, and annihilate what hath been esteemed worthy and comely among man- kind. Must we change conquest for suffering, the increase of our reputation for self-denial, the natural sentiment of self-preservation for affecting a dreadful death ? How impossible was it that a cru- ■cified Lord, and a crucifying doctrine should be received in the world without the mighty operation of a divine power upon the hearts of men ! And in this also the almighty power of Grod did notably shine forth. 2. Divine power appeared in the instruments employed for the publishing and projDagating the gospel ; who were (1.) Mean and worthless in themselves: not noble and dignified with an earthly grandeur, but of a low condition, meanly bred: so far from any splendid estates, that they possessed nothing but their nets ; without any credit and reputation in the world; without comeliness and strength ; as imfit to subdue the world by preaching, as an army of hares were to conquer it by war : not learned doctors, bred up at the feet of the famous Rabbins at Jerusalem, whom Paul calls "the princes of the world" (1 Cor. ii. 8) ; nor nursed up in the school of Athens, under the philosophers and orators of the time : not the wise men of Greece, but the fishermen of Galilee ; naturally skilled in no language but their own, and no more exact in that than those of the same condition in any other nation : ignorant of everything but the language of their lakes, and their fishing trade ; except Paul, called some time after the rest to that employment : and after the descent of the Spirit, they were ignorant and unlearned in every- thing but the doctrine they were commanded to publish ; for the council, before whom they were summoned, proved them to be so, which increased their wonder at them (Acts iv. 18). Had it been published by a voice from heaven, that twelve poor men, taken out of boats and creeks, without any help of learning, should conquer the world to the cross, it might have been thought an illusion against all the reason of men ; yet we know it was undertaken and accom* plished by them. They published this doctrine in Jerusalem, and quickly spread it over the greatest |)art of the world. Folly out- witted wisdom, and weakness overpowered strength. The conquest of the east by Alexander was not so admirable as the enterprise of these poor men. He attempted his conquest with the hands of a warlike nation, though, indeed, but a small number of thirty thctu- 70 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. sand against multitudes, many hundred thousands of the enemies; yet an effeminate enem}" ; a people inured to slaughter and victory attacked great numbers, but enfeebled b}^ luxury and voluptuousness. Besides, he was bred up to such enterprises, had a learned education under the best philosopher, and a military education under the best commander, and a natural courage to animate him. These instru- ments had no such advantage from nature ; the heavenly treasure was placed in those earthen vessels, as Gideon's lamps in empty pitchers (Judges vii. 16), that the excellency, or hyperbole, of the power, might be of God (2 Cor. iv. 7), and the strength of his arm be displayed in the infirmity of the instruments. They were desti- tute of earthly wisdom, and therefore despised by the Jews, and de- rided by the Gentiles; the publishers were accounted madmen, and the embracers fools. Had they been men of known natural endow- ments, the power of God had been veiled under the gifts of the creature. (2.) Therefore a Divine power suddenly spirited them, and fitted them for so great a work. Instead of ignorance, they had the knowledge of the tongues ; and they that were scarce well skilled in their own dialect, were instructed on the sudden to speak the most flourishing languages in the world, and discourse- to the people of several nations the great things of God (Acts ii. 11). Though they were not enriched with any worldly wealth, and possessed nothing, yet they were so sustained that they wanted nothing in any place where they came ; a table was spread for them in the midst of their bitterest enemies. Their fearfulness was changed into courage, and they that a few days before skulked in corners for fear of the Jews (John xx. 19), speak boldly in the name of that Jesus, whom they had seen put to death by the power of the rulers and the fury of the people : they reproach them with the murder of their Master^ and outbrave that great people in the midst of their temple, with the glory of that person they had so lately crucified (Acts ii 23 ; iii. 13). Peter, that was not long before qualmed at the presence of a maid, was not daunted at the presence of the council, that had their hands yet reeking with the blood of his Master ; but being filled with the Holy Ghost, seems to dare the power of the priests and Jewish governors, and is as confident in the council chamber, as he had been cowardly in the high-priest's hall (Acts iv. 9), &c., the efficacy of grace triumphing over the fearfulness of nature. Whence should this ardor and zeal, to propagate a doctrine that had already borne the scars of the peoples' fury be, but from a mighty Power, which changed those hares into lions, and stri^jped them of their natural cowardice to clothe them with a Divine courage ; making them in a moment both wise and magnanimous, alienating them from any con- sultations with flesh and blood ? As soon as ever the Holy Ghost came upon them as a mighty rushing wind, they move up and down for the interest of God ; as fish, after a great clap of tiiunder, are roused, and move more nimbly on the top of the water ; thereforCj that which did so fit them for this undertaking, is called by the title of " power from on high" (Luke xxiv. 49). 3. The Divine power appears in the means whereby it was prop agated. ON THE POWER OF GOD. 73 (1.) Bj means different from the methods of the world. Not by force of arms, as some religions have taken root in the world. Ma- homet's horse hath trampled upon the heads of men, to imprint an Alcoran in their brains, and robbed men of their goods to plant their religion. But the apostles bore not this doctrine through the world upon the points of their swords ; they presented a bodily death where they would bestow an immortal life. They employed not troops of men in a warlike posture, which had been possible for them after the gospel was once spread ; they had no ambition to subdue men unto themselve, but to God ; they coveted not the possessions of oth- ers ; designed not to enrich themselves ; invaded not the rights of princes, nor the liberties and properties of the people : they rifled them not of their estates, nor scared them into this religion by a fear of losing their worldly happiness. The arguments they used would naturally drive them from an entertainment of this doctrine, rather than allure them to be proselytes to it : their design was to change their hearts, not their government ; to wean them from the love of the world, to a love of a Eedeemer ; to remove that which would ruin their souls. It was not to enslave them, but ransom them ; they had a warfare, but not with carnal weapons, but such as were' " mighty through God for the pulling down strongholds" (2 Cor. x. 4) ;. they used no weapons but the doctrine they preached. Others that have not gained conquests by the edge of the sword and the strata- gems of war, have extended their opinions to others by the strength of human reason, and the insinuations of eloquence. But the apos- tles had as little flourish in their tongues, as edge upon their swords : their preaching was "not with the enticing words of man's wisdom" (1 Cor. ii. 4) ; their presence was mean, and their discourses without varnish; their doctrine was plain, a "crucified Christ;" a doctrine unlaced, ungarnished, untoothsome to the world ; but they had the demonstration of the Spirit, and a mighty power for their companion in the work. The doctrine they preached, viz. the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, are called the powers, not of this world, but " of the world to come" (Heb. vi. 5). No less than a supernatural power could conduct them in this attempt, with such weak methods in human appearance. (2.) Against all the force, power, and wit of the world. The di- vision in the eastern empire, and the feeble and consuming state of the western, contributed to Mahomet's success."^ But never was Rome in a more flourishing condition : learning, eloquence, wisdom, strength, were at the highest pitch. Never was there a more dili- gent watch against any innovations ; never was that state governed by more severe and suspicious princes, than at the time when Tibe- rius and Nero held the reins. No time seemed to be more unfit for the entrance of a new doctrine than that age, wherein it begun to be first published ; never did any religion meet with that opposition from men. Idolatry hath been often settled without any contest ; but this hath suffered the same fate with the institutor of it, and en- dured the contradictions of sinners against itself: and those that published it, were not only without any worldly prop, but exposed "■ Daille. Sena. XV. p. 67- 72 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. themselves to the hatred and fury, to the racks and tortures, of the strongest powers on earth. It never set foot in any place, but the country was in an uproar (Acts xix. 28) ; swords were drawn to destroy it ; laws made to suppress it ; prisons provided for the pro- fessors of it ; fires kindled to consume them, and executioners had a perpetual employment to stifle the progress of it. Eome, in its con- quest of countries, changed not the religion, rites, and modes of their worship : they altered their civil government, but left them to the liberty of their religion, and many times joined with them in the worship of their peculiar gods ; and sometime imitated them at Rome, instead of abolishing them in the cities they had subdued. But all their councils were assembled, and their force was bandied " against the Lord, and against his Christ ;" and that city that kindly received all manner of superstitions, hated this doctrine with an ir- reconcileable hatred. It met with reproaches from the wise, and fury from the potentates ; it was derided by the one as the greatest folly, and persecuted by the other as contrary to God and mankind; the one were afraid to lose their esteems by the doctrine, and the other to lose their authority by a sedition they thought a change of religion would introduce. The Romans, that had been conquerors of the earth, feared intestine commotions, and the falling asunder the links of their empire : scarce any of their first emperors, but had their swords dyed red in the blood of the Christians. The flesh with all its lusts, the world with all its flatteries the statesmen with all their craft, and the mighty with all their strength, joined to- gether to extirpate it : though many members were taken off by the fires, yet the church not only lived, but flourished, in the furnace. Converts were made by the death of martyrs ; and the flames which consumed their bodies, were the occasion of firing men's hearts with a zeal for the profession of it. Instead of being extinguished, the doctrine shone more bright, and muitipHed under the sickles that were employed to cut it down. God ordered every circumstance so, both in the persons that published it, the means whereby, and the time when, that nothing out his power might appear in it, without anything to dim and darken it. 4. The Divine power was conspicuous in the great success it had under all these difiiculties. Multitudes were prophesied of to em- brace it; whence the prophet Isaiah, after the prophecy of the death of Christ (Isa. liii.), calls upon the church to enlarge her tents, and " lengthen out her cords" to receive those multitudes of chil- dren that should call her mother (Isa. liv. 2, 3) ; for she should " break forth on the right hand and on the left, and her seed should inherit the Gentiles !" the idolaters and persecutors should list their names in the muster-roll of the church. Presently, after the descent of the Holy Ghost from heavten upon the apostles, you find the hearts of three thousand melted by a plain declaration of this doc- trine; who were a little before so far from having a favorable thought of it, that some of them at least, if not all, had expressed their rage against it, in voting for the condemning and crucifying the Author of it (Acts ii. 41, 42) : but in a moment they were so altered, thai the_^ breathe out aft'ections instead of fury ; neither tht ON THE POWER OF GOD, 73 respect they had to their rulers, nor the honor they bore to theii priests ; not the derisions of the people, nor the threatening of pun- ishment, could stop them from owning it in the face of multitude? of discouragements. How wonderful is it that they should so soon, and by such small means, pay a reverence to the servants, who had none for the Master ! that they should hear them with patience, without the same clamor against them as against Christ, " Crucify them, crucify them !" but, that their hearts should so suddenly be in- flamed with devotion to him dead, whom they so much abhorred when living. It had gained footing not in a corner of the world, but in the most famous cities ; in Jerusalem, where Christ had beeo crucified ; in Antioch, where the name of Christians first began ; in Corinth, a place of ingenious arts ; and Ephesus, the seat of a noted idol. In less than twenty years, there was never a province of ihe Roman empire, and scarce any part of the known world, but was stored with the professors of it. Rome, that was the metropolis of the idolatrous world, had multitudes of them sprinkled in every corner, whose " faith was spoken of throughout the world" (Rom. i. 8). The court of Nero, that monster of mankind, and the cruelesi and sordidest tyrant that ever breathed, was not empty of sincere votaries to it ; there were " saints in Caesar's house" while Paid was under Nero's chain (Phil, iv.) : and it maintained its standing, and and flourished in spite of all the force of hell, two hundred and fifty years before any sovereign prince espoused it. The potentates of the earth had conquered the lands of men, and subdued their bo- dies ; these vanquished hearts and wills, and brought the most be- loved thoughts under the yoke of Christ : so much did this doctrine •overmaster the consciences of its followers, that they rejoiced more at their yoke, than others at their liberty ; and counted it more a glory to die for the honor of it, than to live in the profession of it. Thus did our Saviour reign and gather subjects in the midst of his enemies ; in which respect, in the first discovery of the gospel, he is described as " a mighty Conqueror" (Rev. vi. 2), and still conquering in the greatness of his strength. How great a testimony of his power is it, that from so small a cloud should rise so glorious a sun, that should chase before it the darkness and power of hell ; triumph over the idolatry, superstition, and profaneness of the world ! This plain doctrine vanquished the obstinacy of the Jews, bafiled the un- derstanding of the Greeks, humbled the pride of the grandees, threw the devil not only out of bodies, but hearts ; tore up the foun- dation of his empire, and planted the cross, where the devil had for many ages before established his standard. How much more than a human force is illustrious in this whole conduct ! Nothing in any age of the world can parallel it : it being so much against the me- thods of nature, the disposition of the world, and (considering the resistance against it) seems to surmount even the works of creation. Never were there, in any profession, such multitudes, not of bed lams, but men of sobriety, acuteness, and wisdom, tliat exposed themselves to the fury of the flames, and challenged death in the most terrifying shapes for tt e honor of this doctrine. To conclude, this sho dd be often meditated upon to form our understandings to a 74 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. fall assent to the gospel, and the truth of it ; the want of whicli con- sideration of power, and the customariness of an education in the outward profession of it, is tlie ground of all the profaneness under it, a ad apostasy from it ; the disesteern of the truth it declares, and the neglect oF the duties it enjoins. The more we have a prospect and sense of the impressions of Divine power in it, the more we shall have a reverence of the Divine precepts. Ill, The third thing is, the power of God appears in the applica- tion of redemption, as well as in the Person redeeming, and the publication and propagation of the doctrine of redemption : 1. In the planting grace. 2. In the pardon of sin. 3. In the preserving grace. First, In the planting grace. There is no expression which the Spirit of God hath thought fit in Scripture to resemble this work to, but argues the exerting of a Divine power for the effecting of it. When it is expressed by light, it is as much as the power of God in the creating the sun ; when by regeneration, it ife as much as the power of God in forming an infant, and fashioning all the parts of a man ; when it is called resurrection, it is as much as the rearing of a body again out of putrified matter ; when it is called creation, it is as much as erecting a comely world out of mere nothing, or an inform and uncomely mass. As we could not contrive the death ol Christ for our redemption, so we cannot form our souls to the ac- ceptation of it ; the infinite efficacy of grace is as necessary for the one, as the infinite wisdom of God was for laying the platform of the other. It is by his power we have whatsoever pertains to god- liness as well as life (2 Pet. i. 3) ; he puts his fingers upon the han- dle of the lock, and turns the heart to what point he pleases ; the action whereby he performs this, is expressed by a word of force ; " He hath snatched us from the power of darkness :"" the action whereby it is performed manifests it. In reference to this power, it is called creation, which is a production from nothing ; and conversion is a production from something more incapable of that state, than mere nothing is of being. There is greater distance between the terms of sin and righteousness, corruption and grace, than between the terms of nothing and being ; the greater the distance is, the more power is re- quired to the producing any thing. As in miracles, the miracle is the greater, where the change is the greater ; and the change is the greater, where the distance is the greater. As it was a more signal mark of power to change a dead man to life, than to change a sick man to health ; so that the change here being from a term of a greater distance, is more powerful than the creation of heaven and earth. Therefore, whereas creation is said to be wrought by his hands, and the heavens by his fingers, or his word ; conversion is said to be wrought by his arm (Isa. liii, 1). In creation, we had an earthly ; by conversion, a heavenly state : in creation, nothing is changed into something; in conversion, hell is transformed into heaven, which is more than the turning nothing into a glorious ingel. In that thanksgiving of our Saviour, for the revelation of the knowledge of himself to babes, the simple of the world, he gives " Culos. i. 19. eppvdaro. ON THE POWER OF GOD. 75 the title to his Father, of " Lord of heaven and earth" (Mat. xi. 5) ; intimating it to be an act of his creative and preserving power ; that power whereby he formed heaven and earth, hath preserved the standing, and governed the motions of all creatures from the begin- ning of the world. It is resembled to the most magnificei.t act of divine power that God ever put forth, viz. that " in the resurrection of our Saviour" (Eph. i. 19) ; wherein there was more than an or- dinary impression of might. It is not so small a power as that whereby we speak with tongues, or whereby Christ opened the mouths of the dumb, and the ears of the deaf, or unloosed the cords of death from a person. It is not that power whereby our Saviour wrought those stupendous miracles when he was in the world : but that power which wrought a miracle that amazed the most knowing angels, as well as ignorant man ; the taking off the weight of the sin of the world from our Saviour, and advancing him in his human nature to rule over the angelic host, making him head of principalities and powers ; as much as to say, as great as all that power which is dis- played in our redemption, from the first foundation to the last line in the superstructure. It is, therefore, often set forth with an em- phasis, as " Excellency of power" (2 Cor. iv. 7), and " Glorious power" (2 Pet. i. 3) : " to glory and virtue," we translate it, but it is Suit do^ijc^ through glory and virtue, that is, by a glorious virtue or strength. The instrument whereby it is wrought, is dignified with the title of power. The gospel which God useth in this great affair is called " The power of God to salvation" (Rom. i. 16), and the " Rod of his strength" (Ps. ex. 2) ; and the day of the gospel's appearance in the heart is emphatically called, " The day of power" (ver. 8) ; wherein he brings down strong-holds and towering imaginations. And, therefore, the angel Gabriel, which name signifies the power of God, was always sent upon those messages which concerned the gospel, as to Daniel, Zacharias, Mary.o The gospel is the power of God in a way of instrumentality, but the almightiness of God is the principal in a way of efficiency. The gospel is the sceptre of Christ ; but the power of Christ is the mover of that sceptre. The gospel is not as a bare word spoken, and proposing the thing ; but as backed with a higher efficacy of grace ; as the sword doth instru- mentally cut, but the arm that wields it gives the blow, and makes it successful in the stroke. But this gospel is the power of God, because he edgeth this by his own power, to surmount all resist- ance, and vanquish the greatest malice of that man he designs to work upon. The power of God is conspicuous, 1, In turning the heart of man against the strength of the inclina- tions of nature. In the forming of man of the dust of the ground ; as the matter contributed nothing to the action whereby God formed it, so it had no principle of resistance contrary to the design of God ; but in converting the heart, there is not only wanting a principle of assistance from him in this work, but the whi)le strength of corrupt nature is alarmed to combat against the power of his grace. When the gospel is presented, the understanding is not only ignorant of it, but the will perverse against it ; the one doth not relish, and the • Grotius in Luke i. 19. 76 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. Other doth not esteem, the excellency of the object. The carnal wisdom in the mind contrives against it, and the rebellious will puts the orders in execution against the counsel of God, whicli requires the invincible power of Grod to enlighten the dark mind, to know what it shghts ; and the fierce will, to embrace what it loathes. The stream of nature cannot be turned, but by a power above na- ture ; it is not all the created power in heaven and earth can change a swine into a man, or a venemous toad into an holy and illustrious angel. Yet this work is not so great, in some respect, as the stilling the fierceness of nature, the silencing the swelling waves in the heart, and the casting out those brutish affections which are born and grow up with us. There w^ould be no, or far less, resistance in a mere animal, to be changed into a creature of a higher rank, than there is in a natural man to be turned into a serious Christian. There is in every natural man a stoutness of heart, a stiff neck, un- willingness to good, forwardness to evil ; Infinite Power quells this stoutness, demolisheth these strongholds, turns this wild ass in her course, and routs those armies of turbulent nature against the grace of God. To stop the floods of the sea is not such an act of power, as to turn the tide of the heart. This power hath been employed upon every convert in the world ; what would you say, then, if you knew all the channels in which it hath run since the days of Adam ? If the alteration of one rocky heart into a pool of water be a wonder of power, what then is the calming and sweetening by his word those 144,000 of the tribes of Israel, and that numberless multitude of all nations and j^eople that shall stand "before the throne" (Rev. vii. 9), which were all naturally so many raging seas ? Not one converted soul from Adam to the last that shall be in the end of the world, but is a trophy of the Divine conquest. None were pure volunteers, nor listed themselves in his service, till he put forth his strong arm to draw them to him. No man's understand- ing, but was chained with darkness, and fond of it ; no man but had corruption in his will, which was dearer to him than anything else which could be proposed for his true happiness. These things are most evident in Scripture and experience. 2. As it is wrought against the inclinations of nature, so against a multitude of corrupt habits rooted in the souls of men. A dis- temper in its first invasion may more easily be cured, than when it becomes chronical and inveterate. The strength of a disease, or the complication of many, magnifies the power of the physician, and eflicacy of the medicine that tames and expels it. What power is that which hath made men stoop, when natural habits have been ffrown giants by custom ; when the putrefaction of nature hath en- gendered a multitude of worms ; when the ulcers are many and de- plorable ; when many cords, wherewith God would have bound the sinner, have been broken, and (like Sampson) the Avicked heart hath gloried in its strength, and grown more proud, that it hath stood like a string fort against tliose batteries, under which others have fallen flat ; every proud thought, every evil habit captivated, serves for matter of triumph to the "power of God" (2 Cor. x. 5). What re- sistance will a multitude of them make, when one of them is enough ON THE POWER OF GOD. 77 to hold the faculty under its dominion, and intercept its operations 'r So many customary habits, so many old natures, so many different strengths added to nature, every one of them standing as a barricado against the way of grace ; all the errors the understanding is pos- sessed with, think the gospel folly ; all the vices the will is filled with, count it the fetter and band. Nothing so contrary to man, as to be thought a fool ; nothing so contrary to man, as to enter into slavery. It is no easy matter to plant the cross of Christ upon a heart guided by many principles against the truth of it, and biased by a world of wickedness against the holiness of it. Nature renders a man too feeble and indisposed, and custom renders a man more weak and unwilling to change his hue (Jer. xiii. 23). To dispossess man then of his self-esteem and self-excellency ; to make room for God in the heart, where there was none but for sin, as dear to him as himself; to hurl down the pride of nature ; to make stout ima- ginations stoop to the cross ; to makes desires of self-advancement sink into a zeal for the glorifying of God, and an overruling de- sign for his honor, is not to be ascribed to any but an outstretched arm wielding the sword of the Spirit. To have a heart full of the fear of God, that was just before fiilled with a contempt of him ; to have a sense of his power, an eye to his glory, admiring thoughts of his wisdom, a faith in his truth, that had lower thoughts of him and all his perfections, than he had of a creature ; to have a hatred of his habitual lusts, that had brought him in much sensitive plea- sure ; to loath them as much as he loved them ; to cherish the du- ties he hated ; to live by faith in, and obedience to, the Kedeemer, who was before so heartily under the conduct of Satan and self; to chase the acts of sin from his members, and the pleasing thoughts of sin from his mind ; to make a stout wretch willingly fall down, crawl upon the ground, and adore that Saviour whom before he out-dared, is a triumphant act of Infinite Power that can subdue all things to itself, and break those multitudes of locks and bolts that were upon us. 3. Against a multitude of temptations and interests. The tempta- tions rich men have in this world are so numerous and strong, that the entrance of one of them into the kingdom of heaven, that is, the entertainment of the gospel, is made by our Saviour an impossible thing with men, and procurable only by the power of God (Luke xviii. 24 — 26). The Divine strength only can separate the world from the heart, and the heart from the world. There must be an in- comprehensible power to chase away the devil, that had so long, so strong a footing in the affections ; to render the soil he had sown with so many tares and weeds, capable of good grain ; to make spirits, that had found the sweetness of worldly prosperity, wrapt up all their happiness in it, and not only bent down, but — as it were — buried in earth and mud, to be loosened from those beloved cords, to disrelish the earth for a crucified Christ ; I say, this must be the effect of an almighty power. 4. The manner of conversion shews no less the power of God. There is not only an irresistible force used in it, but an agreeable sweetness. The power is so efiicacious, that nothing can vanquish it ; and so sweet, that none did ever complain of it. The Almighty 78 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. virtue displays itself invincibly, yet without constraint ; compelling the will without offering violence to it, and making it cease to be will, not forcing it, but changing it: not dragging it, but drawing it ; making it will where before it nilled ; removing the corrupt na- ture of the will, without invading the created nature and rights of the faculty ; not working in us against the physical nature of the will, but working it " to will" (Phil, ii, 13). This work is therefore called creation, resurrection, to shew its irresistible powei , it is called illumination, persuasion, drawing, to shew the suitableness of its effi- cacy to the nature of the human faculties : it is a drawing with cords, which testifies an invincible strength ; but, with cords of love, which testifies a delightful conquest. It is hard to determine whether it be more powerful than sweet, or more sweet than power- ful. It is no mean part of the power of God to twist together vic- tory and pleasure ; to give a blow as delightful as strong, as pleasing to the sufferer, as it is sharp to the sinner. Secondly, The power of God, in the application of redemption, if evident in the pardoning a sinner. 1. In the pardon itself. The power of God is made the ground of his patience ; or the reason why he is patient, is, because he would " shew his power" (Rom. ix. 22). It is apart of magnanimity to pass by injuries : as weaker stomachs cannot concoct the tougher food, so weak minds cannot digest the harder injuries: he that passes over a wrong is superior to his adversary that does it. When God speaks of his own name as merciful^ he speaks first of himself as powerful (Exod. xxxiv. 6), '' The Lord, The Lord God," that is, The Lord, the strong Lord, Jehovah, the strong Jehovah. Let the power of my Lord be great, saith Moses, when he prays for the forgiveness of the people:? the word jigdal is written with a great jod^ or a jod above the other letters. The power of God in pardoning is advanced beyond an ordinary strain, beyond the creative strength. In the creation, he had power over the creatures ; in this, power over him- self: in creation, not himself, but the creatures were the object of his power ; in that, no attribute of his nature could article against his design. In the pardon of a sinner, after many overtures made to him and refused by him^ God exerciseth a power over himself; for the sinner hath dishonored God, provoked his justice, abused his goodness, done injury to all those attributes which are necessary to his relief : it was not so in creation, nothing was incapable of dis- obliging God from bringing it into being. The dust, which was the matter of Adam's body, needed only the extrinsic power of God to form it into a man, and inspire it with a living soul : it had not ren- dered itself obnoxious to Divine justice, nor was capable to excite any disputes between his perfections. But after the entrance of sin, and the merit of death, thereby there was a resistance in justice to the free remission of man : God was to exercise a power over him- self, to answer his justice, and pardon the sinner ; as well as a power over the creature, to reduce the run away and rebel. Unless we have recourse to the infiniteness of God's power, the infiniteness of our guilt will weigh us down : we must consider not only that we » Numb. xiv. 17. ^'nlKjdrjru, be exalted. Sept. Streugtb, ])erty, and the same with the essence of God : he, therefore, to whoii5 rlii.s nttribuie is ascribed, is essentially God. This is challenged by Christ, in conjiuicrion with eternity (Rev. i. 8); "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saiththe Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." This the Lord Christ speaks of himself He who was equal with God, proclaims i.imself by the essential title of the Godhead, part of which he repeats again (ver. 11), and this is the person which " walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks," the person that " was dead and now lives" (ver. 17, 18), which cannot possibly be meant of the Father, the First Person, who can never come under the de- nomination of having been dead. Being, therefore, adorned with the. same title, .i<» hath the same Deity ; and though his omnipotence be only positively asserted ^•:■r. 8), yet, his eternity being asserted (ver. 11, 17), it inferreth his immense power; for he that is eternal, without limits of time, must needs be conceived powerful, without any dash of infirmity. Again, when he is said to be a child born, and a son given in the same breath he is called the Mighty God (Isa. ix. 6). It is introduced as a ground of comfort to the church, to preserve their hopes U' che accomplishment of the promises made to them before. They should not imagine him to have only the infirmity of a man, though he was veiled in the appearance of a man No, they should look through the disguise of his flesh, to the might of his Godhead. 'I'li"; attribute of mighty is added to the title of God, because the conBideration of power is most capable to sustain the drooping church in such a condition, and to prop up her hopes. It is upon this account he saith of himself, " Whatsoever things the ON THE POWER OF GOD. 81 Father doth, those also doth the Son hkewise" (John v. 19). In the creation of heaven, earth, sea, and the preservation of all creatures^ the Son works with the same will, wisdom, virtue, power, as the Father works : not as two may concur in an action in a different manner, as an agent and an instrument, a carpenter and his tools, but in the same manner of operation, uuoiuig, which we translate like- ness, which doth not express so well the emphasis of the word. There is no diversity of action between us ; what the Father doth, that I do by the same power, with the same easiness in every re- spect ; there is the same creative, productive, conservative power in both of us ; and that not in one work that is done, ad extra, but in all, in whatsoever the Father doth. In the same manner, not by a delegated, but natural and essential power, by one undivided opera- tion and manner of working. 1st. The creation, which is a work of Omnipotence, is more than once ascribed to him. This he doth own himself; the creation of the earth, and of man upon it ; the stretching out the heavens by hia hands, and the forming of " all the hosts of them by his command" (Isa. xlv. 12). He is not only the Creator of Israel, the church (ver. 12), but of the whole world, and every creature on the face of the earth, and in the glories of the heavens ; which is repeated also ver. 18, where, in this act of creation, he is called God himself, and speaks of himself in the term Jehovah ; and swears by himself (ver. 23). What doth he swear ? " That unto me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear." Is this Christ ? Yes, if the apostle may be believed, who applies it to him (Eom. xiv. 11) to prove the appearance of all men before the judgment-seat of Christ, whom the prophet calls (ver. 15) " a God that hides himself;" and so he was a hidden God when obscured in our fleshly infirmities. He was in conjunction with the Father when the sea received his decree, and the foundations of the earth were appointed ; not as a spectator, but as an artificer, for so the word in Prov. viii. 80, signifies, " as one brought up with him ;" it signifies also, " a cunning workman" (Cant, vii. 1). He was the east, or the sun, from whence sprang all the light of life and being to the creature ; so the word mp (ver. 22), which is translated, "before his works of old," is rendered by some,, and signifies the east as well as before : but if it notes only his ex- istence before, it is enough to prove his Deity. The Scripture doth not only allow him an existence before the world, but exalts him as the cause of the world : a thing may precede another that is not the cause of that which follows ; a precedency in age doth not entitle one brother, or thing, the cause of another : but our Saviour is not only ancienter than the world, but is the Creator of the world (Heb. i. 10, 11). " Who laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of his hands." So great an eulogy cannot be given to one destitute of omnipotence ; since the distance between being and not being is so vast a gulf that cannot be surmounded and stepped over, but by an Infinite Power: he is the first and the last, that called the " generations from the beginning" (Isa. xli. 4), and had an almighty voice to call them out of nothing. In which regard he Ls called the " everlasting Father" (Isa. ix. 6), as being the efficient 82 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. of creation ; as God is called the Father of the rain, or as father is taken for the inventor of an art; as Jubal, the first franier and in- ventor of music, is called " the father of such as handle the harp" (Gen. iv. 21). And that Person is said to " make the sea, and form the dry land by his hands" (Ps. xcv. 5, 6) against whom we are ex horted not to harden our hearts, which is applied to Christ by the apostle (Heb. iii. 8) ; in ver. 6, he is called '■ a great King." and a great God our Maker." The places wherein the creation is attributed to Christ, those that are the antagonists of his Deity, would evade by understanding them of the new, or evangelical, not of the first, old material creation : but what appearance is there for such a sense? Consider, (1.) That of Heb. i. 10, 11, it is spoken of that earth and heavens which were in the beginning of time ; it is that earth shall perish, that heaven that shall be folded up, that creation that shall grow old towards a decay ; that is, only the visible and material creation : the spiritual shall endure forever ; it grows not old to decay, but grows up to a perfection ; it sprouts up to its happiness, not to its detriment. The same Person creates that shall destroy, and the same world is created by him that shall be destroyed by him, as well as it subsisted by virtue of his omnipotency. (2.) Can that also (Heb. i. 2), " By whom also he made the worlds," sjjeaking of Christ, bear the same plea ? It was the same Person by whom "God spake to us in these last times," the same Person which he hath constituted " Heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds :" and the particle also, intimates it to be a distinct act from his speaking or prophetical oifice, whereby he restored and new created the world, as well as the rightful foundation God had to make him " Heir of all things." It refers likewise, not to the time of Christ's speaking upon earth, but to something past, and some- thing different from the publication of the gospel: it is not " doth make," which had been more likely if the apostle had meant only the new creation; but "hath made, "q referring to time long since past, something done before his appearance upon earth as a Prophet : " By whom also he made the worlds," or ages, all things subjected to, or measured by time ; which must be meant according to the Jewish phrase of this material visible world : so they entitle God in their Liturgy, the " Lord of Ages," that is, the Lord of the world, and all ages and revolutions of the world, from the creation to the last period of time. If anj'thing were in loemg before this frame of heaven and earth, and within the compass of time, it received being and duration from the Son of God. The apostle would give an ar- gument to prove the equity of making him Heii' of all things as Mediator, because he was the framer of all things as God. He may well be the Heir or Lord of angels as well as men, who created angels as well as men : all things were justly under his power aa Mediator, since they derived their existence from him as Creator. (3.) But what evasion can there be for that (Col. i. 16)? " By him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, '1 tTToiaev. ON THE POWER OF GOD. 88 all things were created by liim and for liim." He is said to be tbe Creator of material and visible things, as well as spiritual and invis- ible ; of things in heaven, which needed no restoration, as well as things on earth, which were polluted by sin, and stood in need of a new creation. How could the angels belong to the new creation, who had never put off the honor and purity of the first ? Since they never divested themselves of their original integrity, they could not be reinvested with that which they never lost. Besides, suppose the holy angels be one way or other reduced as parts of the new crea tion, as being under the mediatory government of our Saviour, as their Head, and in regard of their confirmation by him in that happy state. In what manner shall the devils be ranked among new crea- tures? They are called principalities and powers as well as the angels, and may come under the title of things invisible : that they are called principalities and powers is plain (Eph. vi. 12): "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world ; against spiritual wickedness in high places." Good angels are not there meant, for what war have believers with them, or they with believers ? They are the guardians of them, since Christ hath taken away the enmity between our Lord and theirs, in whose quarrel they were engaged against us : and since the apostle, speaking of " all things created by him," expresseth it so, that it cannot be conceived he should except anything ; how come the finally impenitent and unbelievers, which are things in earth, and visible, to be listed here in the roll of new creatures ? None of these can be called new creatures, because they are subjected to the government of Christ; no more than the earth and sea, and the animals in it, are made new creatures, because they are all under the dominion of Christ and his providential govern- ment. Again, the apostle manifestly makes the creation he here speaks of, to be the material, and not the new creation ; for that he speaks of afterwards as a distinct act of our Lord Jesus, under the title of Keconciliation (Col. i. 20, 21), which was the restoration of the world, and the satisfying for that curse that lay upon it. His intent is here to show that not an angel in heaven, nor a creature upon earth, but was placed in their several degrees of excellency by the power of the Son of God, who, after that act of creation, and the entrance of sin, was the " reconciler" of the world through the blood of his cross. (4.) There is another place as clear (John i. 3) : " All things were made by him, and without him was nothing made that was made." The creation is here ascribed to him; affirmatively, "All things were made by him ;" negatively, there was nothing made without him : and the words are emphatical, ovdt er^ not one thing ; except- ing nothing ; including invisible things, as well as things conspicu- ous to sense only, mentioned in the story of the creation (Gen. i.) ; not only the entire mass, but the distinct parcels, the smallest worm and the highest angel, owe their original to him. And if not 07ie thing, then the matter was not created to his hands ; and his work consisted not only in the forming things from that matter : if that one thing of matter were excepted, a chief thing were excepted ; if 84 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. not one tldng were excepted, tlien he created sometliing of noihing, be(!ause spirits, as angels and souls, are not made of any pre existing or fore-created matter. How could the evangelist pbrase it more extensively and comprehensively ? This is a character of Omnipo- tency ; to create the world, and everything in it, of nothing, requires an infinite virtue and power. If all things were created by Him, they were not created by him as man, because himself, as man, was not in being before the creation ; if all things were made by him, then himself was not made, himself was not created ; and to be ex- istent without being made, without being created, is to be unbound- edly omnipotent. And if we understand it of the new creation, as they do that will not allow him an existence in his Deity before his humanity, it cannot be true of that ; for how could he regenerate Abraham, make Simeon and Anna new creatures, who " waited for the salvation of Israel," and form John Baptist, and fill him with the Holy Ghost, even from the womb (Luke i. 15), who belonged to the new creation, and was to prepare the way, if Christ had not a being before him? The evangelist alludes to, and explains the historj^ of the creation, in the beginning, and acquaints us what was meant by God, said so often, viz. the eternal Word, and describes him in his creative power, manifested in the framing the world, before he de- scribes him in his incarnation, when he came to lay the foundation of the restoration of the world (John i. 14), " The Word was made flesh ;" this Word who was " with God, who was God, who made all things," and gave being to the most glorious angels and the meanest creature without exception ; this Word, in time, " was made flesh." (5.) The creation of things mentioned in these Scriptures cannot be attributed to him as an instrument. As if when it is said, " God created all things by him, and by him made the worlds," we were to understand the Father to be the agent, and the Son to be a tool in his Father's hand, as an axe in the hand of a carpenter, or a file in the hand of a smith, or a servant acting by command as the organ of his master. The preposition per, or '^'"i, doth not always signify an instrumental cause: when it is said, that the apostle gave the Thessalonians a command " by Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. iv. 2), was Christ the instrument, and not the Lord of that command the apostle gave ? The immediate operation of Christ dwelling in the apostles, was that whereby they gave the commands to their disciples. When we are called " by God" (1 Cor. i. 9), is he the instrumental, or prin- cipal cause of our effectual vocation ? And can the will of God be the instrument of putting Paul into the apostleship, or the sovereign cause of investing him with that dignity, when he calls himself an '^ Apostle by the will of God" (Eph. i. 3)? And when all things are said to be through God, as well as of him, must he be counted the instrumental cause of his own creation, counsels, and judgments (Rom. xi. 36) ? When we " mortify the deeds of the body through the Spirit (Rom. viii. 13), or keep the "treasure of the word by the Holy Ghost" (2 Tim. i. 14), is the Holy Ghost of no more dignity in such acts than an instrument? Nor doth the gaining a thing by a person make him a mere instrument or inferior ; as when a man gains his right in a way of justice against his adversary by the magis- ON THE POWER OF GOE 8t> trate, is the judge inferior to the suppliant ? [f the Word were an instrument in creation, it must be a created or uncreated instrument : if created, it could not be true what the Evangelist saith, that " all things were made by him,' since himself, the principal thing, coiild not be made by himself: if uncreated, he was God, and so acted by a Divine omnipotency, whica surmounts an instrumental cause. But, indeed, an instrument is impossible in creation, since it is wrought only by an act of the ^ ivine will. Do we need any organ to an act of volition? The efficacious will of the Creator is the cause of the original of the body of the world, with its particular members and exact harmony. It was formed "by a word, and es- tablished by a command" (Ps. xxxiii. 9) ; the beauty of the creation stood up at the precept of his will. Nor was the Son a partial cause ; as when many are said to build a house, one works one part, and an- other frames another part : God created all things by the immediate operation of the Son, in the unity of essence, goodness, power, wis- dom ; not an extrinsic, but a connatural instrument. As the sun doth illustrate all things by his light, and quickens all things by his heat, so God created the worlds by Christ, as he was the " brightness or splendor of his glory, the exact image of his person ;" which fol- lows the declaration of his making the worlds by him (Heb. i. 3, 4), to show, that he acted not as an instrument, but one in essential con- junction with him, as light and brightness with the sun. But sup- pose he did make the world as a kind of instrument, he was then before the world, not bounded by time ; and eternity cannot well be conceived belonging to a Being without omnipotency. He is the End, as well as the Author, of the creatures (Col. i. 16) ; not only the princijDle which gave them being, but the sea, into whose glory they run and dissolve themselves, which consists not with the mean- ness of an instrument. 2d. As creation, so preservation, is ascribed to Him (Col. i. 17). " By him all things consist." As he preceded all things in his eter- nity, so he establishes all things by his omnipotency, and fixes them in their several centres, that they sink not into that nothing from whence he fetched them. By him they flourish in their several be- ings, and observe the laws and orders he first appointed : that power of his which extracted them from insensible nothing, upholds them in their several beings with the same facility as he spake being into them, even " by the word of his power" (Heb. i. 3), and by one crea- tive continued voice, called all generations, from the beginning to the period of the world (Isa. xli. 4), and causes them to flourish in their several seasons. It is "by him kings reign, and princes decree justice," and all things are confined within the limits of government. All which are acts of an Infinite Power. 3d. Pesurrection is also ascribed to Him. The body crumbled to dust, and that dust blown to several quarters of the world, cannot be gathered in its distinct parts, and new formed for the entertainment of the «oul, without the strength of an infinite arm. This he will do, and more ; change the vileness of an earthly body into the glory of an heavenly one ; a dusty flesh into a spiritual body, whicli is an ar- gmnent of a power invincible, to which all things cannot but stoop ; 86 CHARXOCK OX THE ATTRIBUTES. for it is b}' such an operation, which testifies an ability " to subdue all things to himself" (Phil. iii. 21), especiallj when he works i^ with the same ease as he did the creation, bj the power of his voice. (John V. 28), " All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth :" speaking them into a restored life from insensible dust, as he did into being from an empty nothing. The greatest acu3 of power are owned to belong to creation, preservation, resurrection. Omnipotence, therefore, is his right ; and, therefore, a Deity cannot be denied to him that inherits a perfection essential to none but God, and impossible to be entrusted in, or managed by tlie hands of any creatures. And this is no mean comfort to those that believe in him : he is, in regard of his power, "the horn of salvation ;" so Zacharias sings of him (Luke i. 69). Nor could there be any more mighty found out upon whom God could have " laid our help" (Ps. Ixxsix. 19). No reason, therefore, to doubt his ability to save to the utmost, who hath the power of creation, preservation, and resuiTection in his hands. His promises must be accomplished, since nothing can resist him : he hath power to fulfil his word, and bring all things to a final issue, because he is Almighty : by his outstretched arm in the de- liverance of his Israel from Egypt, (for it was his arm, 1 Cor. x.) he showed that he was able to deliver us from spiritual Egypt. The charge of Mediator to expiate sin, vanquish hell, form a church, con- duct and perfect it, are not to be effected by a person of less ability than infinite. Let this almightiness of His be the bottom, wherein to cast and fix the anchor of our bopes. Instruct. 2. Hence may be inferred the Deity of the Holy Ghost. Works of omnipotency are ascribed to the Spirit of God : by the motion of the wings of this Spirit, as a bird over her eggs, was that rude and unshapen mass hatched into a comely world."" The stars, — or perhaps the angels, are meant by the "garnishing of the iieavens" in the verse before the text, — were brought foi'th in their 3omeliness and dignity, as the ornaments of the upper world, by this Spirit ; " By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens." To this Spirit Job ascribes the formation both of the body and soul, under the title of Almighty (Job xxxiii. 4), " The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." Resurrec- tion, anotber work of omnipotency, is attributed to him (Rom. viii. 11). The conception of our Saviour in the womb ; the miracles that he wrought, were by the power of the Spirit in him. Power is a title belonging to him, and sometimes both are put together (1 Thess. i. 5, and other places). And that great power of changing the heart, and sanctifying a polluted nature, a work greater than creation, is frequently acknowledged in the Scripture to be the pe- culiar act of the Holy Ghost. The Father, Son, Spirit, are one prin- ciple in creation, resurrection, and all the woi'ks of omnipotence. Instruct. 8. Inference from the doctrine. The blessedness of God is hence evidenced. If God be Almighty, he can Avant nothing ; all want speaks weakness. If he doth what he will, he cannot be miserable ; all misery consists in those things which happen contrary to our will. There is nothing can hinder his happiness, because no ' Gea. i. 2. So the word "moved' pi-operly signifies. ON THE P'-vVKR OF GOD, 87 tMtig can resist his power. Since lie is omnipotent, nothing cun hurt him, nothing can strip him of what he hath, of what he is.^ If he can do whatsoever he will, he cannot want anything that he wills. He is as happy, as great, as glorious, as he will ; for he hath a perfect liberty of ^Wll to will, and a perfect power to attain what he will ; his will cannot be restrained, nor his power meted. It would be a defect in blessedness, to will what he were not able to do : sorrow is the result of a want of power, with a presence of will. If he could will anything which he could not effect, he would be miserable, and no longer God : he can do whatsoever he pleases, and therefore can want nothing that pleases him.' He cannot be happy, the original of whose happiness is not in himself: nothing can be infinitely happy, that is limited and bounded. Instruct. 4. Hence is the ground for the immutability of God. .As he is incapable of changing his resolves, because of his infinite wis- dom, so he is incapable of being forced to any change, because of his infinite power. Being almighty, he can be no more changed from power to weakness ; than, being all- wise, he can be changed from wisdom to folly ; or, being omniscient, from knowledge to ignorance. He cannot be altered in his purposes, because of his wisdom ; nor in the manner and method of his actions, because of his infinite strength. Men, indeed, when their designs are laid deep- est, and their purposes stand firmest, yet are forced to stand still, or change the manner of the execution of their resolves, by reason of some outward accidents that obstruct them in their course ; for, hav- ing not wisdom to foresee future hindrances, they have not power to prevent them, or strength to remove them, when they unexpect- edly interpose themselves between their desire and performance ; but no created power has strength enough to be a bar against God. By the same act of his will that he resolves a thing, he can puff away any impediments that seem to rise up against him. He that wants no means to effect his purposes, cannot be checked by any- thing that riseth up to stand in his way ; heaven, earth, sea, the deepest places, are too weak to resist his will (Ps. cxxxv. 6). The purity of the angels will not, and the devil's malice cannot, frustrate his will ; the one voluntarily obeys the beck of his hand, and the other is vanquished by the power of it. What can make him change his purposes ; who (if he please) can dash the earth against the heavens in the twinkling of an eye, untying the world from its cen- tre, clap the stars and elements together into one mass, and blow the whole creation of men and devils into nothing ? Because he is al- mighty, therefore he is immutable. Instruct. 5. Hence is inferred the providence of God, and his gov ernment of the world. His power, as well as his wisdom, gives him a right to govern : nothing can equal him, therefore nothing can share the command with him ; since all things are his works, it is fi.ttest they should be under his order : he that fames a work, ia fittest to guide and govern it. God hath the most right to govern, because he hath knowledge to direct his power, and power to exe- cute the results of his wisdom : he knows what is convenient to or • Sahuade, Tit. 39. » Pont. Pai't VI. med. 16. p. 531. 88 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. der, and hatli strength to effect wliat he orders. As his power would be oppressive without goodness and wisdom, so his goodness and wisdom would be fruitless without power. An artificer that hath lost his hands may direct, but cannot make an engine : a pilot that hath lost his arms may advise the way of steerage, but cannot hold the helm ; something is wanting in him to be a complete governor : but since both counsel and power are infinite in God, hence results an infinite right to govern, and an infinite fitness, because his will cannot be resisted, his power cannot be enfeebled or diminished ; he can quicken and increase the strength of all means as he pleases. He can hold all things in the world together, and preserve them in those functions wherein he settled them, and conduct them to those ends for which he designed them. Every artificer, the more excel- lent he is, and the more excellency of power appears in his work, is the more careful to maintain and cherish it. Those that deny Provi- dence, do not only ravish from him the bowels of his goodness, but strip him of a main exercise of his power, and engender in men a suspicion of weariness and feebleness in him ; as though his strength had been spent in making them, that none is left to guide them. They would make him headless in regard of his wisdom, and bowel- less in regard of his goodness, and armless in regard of his strength If he did not, or were not able to preserve and provide for his crea- tures, his power in making them would be, in a gTcat part, an in- visible power ; if he did not preserve what he made, and govern what he preserves, it would be a kind of strange and rude power, to make, and suffer it to be dashed in pieces at the pleasure of others. If the power of God should relinquish the world, the life of things would be extinguished, the fabric would be confounded, and fall into a deplorable chaos. That which is composed of so many va- rious pieces, could not maintain its union, if there were not a secret virtue bindino; them t02:ether and maintainino; those varieties of links. Well, then, since God is not only so good, that he cannot will anything but what is good ; so wise, that he cannot err or mis- take ; but also so able, that he cannot be defeated or mated ; he hath every way a full ability to govern the world: where those three are infinite, the right and fitness resulting from thence is un- questionable : and, indeed, to deny God this active part of liis power, is to render him weak, foolish, cruel, or all. Instruct. 6. Here is a ground for the worship of God. Wisdom and power are the grounds of the respect we give to men ; they be- ing both infinite in God, are the foundation of a solemn honor to be returned to him by his creatures. If a man makes a curious en- gine, we honor him for his skill ; if another vanquish a vigorous enemy, we admire him for his strength : and shall not the efiicacy of God's power in creation, government, redemption, enflame ua with a sense of the honor of his name and perfections ? We admire those princes that have vast empires, numerous armies, that have a power to conquer their enemies, and preserve their own people in peace. How much moi*e ground have we to pay a mighty rever- ence to God, who, without trouble and weariness, made and managea this vast empire of the world by a word and beck ! What sensible ON THE POWER OF GOD, 89 thouglits have we of the noise of thunder, the power of the sun, the storms of the sea ! These things that have no understanding have struck men with such a reverence, that many have adored them as gods. What reverence and adoration doth this mighty power, join- ed with an infinite wisdom in God, demand at our hands ! All re- ligion and worship stands especially upon two pillars, goodness, and power in God ; if either of these were defective, all religion would faint away. We can expect no entertainment with him without goodness, nor any benefit from him without power. This God pre- faceth to the command to worship him, the benefit his goodness had conferred upon them, and the powerful manner of conveyance of it to them (2 Kings xvii, 36) : " The Lord brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power, and an out-stretched arm ; him shall you fear, and him shall you worship, and to him shall you do sacrifice. Because this attribute is a main foundation of prayer, the Lord's Prayer is concluded with a doxology of it, " For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory." As he is rich, possessing all blessings ; so he is powerful, to confer all blessings on us, and make them efiicacious to us. The Jews repeat many times in their prayers, some say an hundred times, nbijrn nb^, "The King of the world;" it is both an awe and an encouragement." We could not, without consideration of it, pray in faith of success ; nay, we could not pray at all, if his power were defective to help us, and his mercy too weak to relieve us. Who would solicit a lifeless, or lie a prostrate sup- Eliant, to a feeble arm ? Upon this ability of God, our Saviour uilt his petitions (Heb, v. 7) : " He offered up strong cries unto Him that was able to save him from death," Abraham's faith hung upon the same string (Rom, iv. 21), and the captived church sup- plicates God to act according to the greatness of his power (Ps. Ixxix. 11). In all our addresses this is to be eyed and considered ; God is able to help, to relieve, to ease me, let my misery be never so great, and my strength never so weak (Matt. viii. 2) : " If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean, was the consideration the leper had when he came to worship Christ ; he was clear in his power, and therefore Avorshipped him, though he was not equally clear in his will. All worship is shot wrong that is not directed to, and con- ducted by, the thoughts of this attribute, whose assistance we need , When we beg the pardon of our sins, we should eye mercy and power ; when we beg his righting us in any case where we are un- justly oppressed, we do not eye righteousness without power ; when we plead the performance of his promise, we do not regard his faithfulness only without the prop of his power. As power ushers in all the attributes of God in their exercise and manifestation in the world, so should it be the butt our eyes should be fixed upon in all our acts of worship: as without his power his other attributes would be useless, so without due apprehensions of his power our pra^-ers will be faithless and comfortless. The title in the Lord's prayer di- rects us to a pros|Dect both of his goodness and power ; his goodness in the word Father, his gi'eatness, excellency, and power, in the word Heaven, The heedless consideration of the infiniteness of this per- " CaDel. iu 1 Tim. i. 17. 90 OHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. fection roots up piety in the midst of us, and makes us so carelesft in worship. Did we more think of that Power that raised the world out of nothing, that orders all creatures bv an act of his will, that performed so great an exploit as that of our redein])tion, when mas- terless sin had triumphed over the world, we should give God tlie honor and adoration which so great an excellency challengeth and deserves at our hands, though we ourselves had not been the work of his hands, or the monuments of his strength; how could any creature engross to itself that reverence from us which is due to the powerful Creator, of whom it comes infinitely short in strength a- well as wisdom? Instruct 7. From this we have a ground for the belief of the re surrection. God aims at the glory of his power, as well as the glory of any other attribute. Moses else would not have culled out this as the main argument, in his pleading with God, for the sheathing the sword which he began to draw out against them in the v/ilder- ness (Numb. xiv. 16) : " The nations will say. Because the Lord was not able to bring these people into the land which he sware to them," &c. As the finding out the particulars of the dust of our bodies discovers the vastness of his knowledge, so to raise them will manifest the glory of his power as much as creation ; bodies that have mouldered away into multitudes of atoms, been resolved into the elements, passed through varieties of changes, been sometimes the matter to lodge the form of a plant, or been turned into the sub- stance of a fish or fowl, or vapored up into a cloud, and been part of that matter which hath compacted a thunder-bolt, disposed of in places far distant, scattered by the winds, swallowed and concocted by beasts ; for these to be called out from their diflerent places of abode, to meet in one body, and be restored to their former consist- ency, in a marriage union, in the " twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor. xv. 22), it is a consideration that may justly amaze us, and our shallow understandings are too feeble to comprehend it. But is it not credi- ble, since all the disputes against it may be silenced by reflections on Infinite Power, which nothing can oppose, for which nothing can be esteemed too diflicult to effect, which doth not imply a contradiction in itself? It was no less amazing to the blessed virgin to hear a message that she should conceive a Son without knowing a man ; but she is quickly answered, by the angel, with a " Nothing is im- possible to God" (Luke i. 34, 37). The distinct parts off our bodies can- not be hid from his all-seeing eye, wherever they are lodged, and in all the changes they pass through, as was discoursed when the Omniscience of God was handled ; shall, then, the collection of them together be too hard for his invincible power and strength, and the uniting all those parts into a body, with new dispositions to receive their several souls, be too big and bulky for that Power which never yet was acquainted with any bar ? Was not the miracle of our Saviour's multiplying the loaves, suppose it had not been by a ne\v creation, but a collection of grain from several parts, very near as stupendous as this ? Had any one of us been the only creatures made just before the matter of the world, and beheld that inform 3haos covered with a thick darkness, mentioned Gen. i. 2, would not ON THE POWER OF GOD. 91 the report, that from tliis dark deep, next to notHng, should be raised such a multitude of comely creatures, with such inaumerable varieties of members, voices, colors, motions, and such numbers of shining stars, a bright sun, one uniform body of light from this darkness, that should, like a giant, rejoice to run a race, for many thousands of years together, without stop or weariness ; would not all these have seemed as incredible as the collection of scattered dust ? What was it that erected the innumerable host of heaven, the glorious angels, and glittering stars, for aught we know more numerous than the bodies of men, but an act of the Divine will ? and shall the power that wrought this sink under the charge of gathering some dispersed atoms, and compacting them into a human body ? Can you tell how the dust of the ground was kneaded by God into the body of man, and changed into flesh, skin, hair, bones, sinews, veins, arteries, and blood, and fitted for so many several ac- tivities, when a human soul was breathed into it ?'^' Can you imagine how a rib, taken from Adam's side, a lifeless bone, was formed into head, hands, feet, eyes ? Why may not the matter of men, which have been, be restored, as well as that which was not, be first erect- ed ? Is it harder to repair those things which were, than to create those things which were not ? Is there not the same Artificer ? Hath any disease or sickliness abated his power ? Is the Ancient of Days growji feeble ? or shall the elements, and other creatures, that alway yet obeyed his command, ruffle against his raising voice, and refase to disgorge those remains of human bodies they have swallowed up in their several bowels ? Did the whole world, and all the parts of it, rise at his word ? and shall not some parts of the world, the dust of the dead, stand up out of the graves at a word of the same mighty efficacy ? Do we not annually see those marks o: power which may stun our incredulity in this concern ? Do 3'ou see in a small acorn, or little seed, any such sights, as a tree ^^■ith body, bark, branches, leaves, flowers, fruit — where can you find them ? Do you know the invisible corners where they lurk in that little body ? And yet these you afterwards view rising up from this little body, when sown in the ground, that you could not possibly have any prospect of when you rolled it in your hand, or opened its bowels. And why may not all the particulars of our bodies, however disposed as to their distinct natures invisibly to us, remain distinct, as well as if you mingle a thousand seeds together ? they will come up in their distinct kinds, and preserve their distinct vir- tues. Again, is not the making heaven and earth, the union of the Divine and human nature, eternity and infirmity, to make a virgin conceive a Son, bear the Creator, and bring forth the Eedeemer, to form the blood of God of the flesh of a virgin, a greater work than the calling together and uniting the scattered parts of our bodies, which are all of one nature and matter ? And since the power of God is manifested in pardoning innumerable sins, is not the scatter- ing our transgressions, as far as the east is from the west, as the ex- pression is, Ps. ciii. 12, and casting such numbers into the depths of the sea, which is God's power over himself, a greater argument of ' Liugeiid. Tom. III. pp. 779, 780. 92 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBLTES. raiglit tlian tlie recalling and repairing the atoms of oi.r bodies from their various receptacles ? It is not hard for them to believe this of the resurrection, that have been sensible of the weight and force of their sins, and the power of God in pardoning and vanquishing that mighty resistance which was made in their hearts against the power of his renewing and sanctifying grace. The consideration of the inlinite powei" of God is a good ground of the belief of the re- surrection. Instruct. 8. Since the power of God is so great and incomprehen- sible, how strange is it that it should be contemned and abused bj the creatures as it is ! The power' of God is beaten down by some, outraged by others, blasphemed by many, under their sufferings. The stripping God of the honor of his creation, and the glory of his preservation of the world, falls under this charge: thus do they that deny his framing the world alone, or thought the first matter was not of God's creation, and such as fancied an evil principle, the author of all evil, as God is the author of all good, and so exempt from the power of God, that it could not be vanquished by him. These things have formerly found defenders in the world ; but they are, in themselves, ridiculous and vain, and have no footing in com- mon reason, and are not worthy of debate in a christian auditory. In general, all idolatry in the world did arise from the want of a due notion of this Infinite Power. The heathen thought one God was not sufficient for the managing all things in the world, and therefore they feigned several gods, that had several charges ; as Ceres presided over the fruits of the earth; Esculapius over the cure of distempers ; Mercury for merchandise and trade ; Mars for war and battles ; Apollo and Minerva for learning and ingenious arts ; and Fortune for casual things. Whence doth the other sort of idolatry, the adoring our bags and gold, our dependencies on, and trusting in, creatures for help arise, but from ignorance of God's power, or mean and slender apprehensions of it ? First, there is a contempt of it. Secondly, An abuse of it. 1. It is contemned in every sin, especially in obstinacy in sin. All sin whatsoever is built upon some false notion or monstrous conception of one or other of God's perfections, and in particular of this. It includes a secret and lurking imagination, that we are able to grapple with Omnipotence, and enter the lists with Almightiness. what else can be judged of the apostle's expression (1 Cor. x. 22), " Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy ; are we stronger than he?" Do we think we have an arm too powerful for that justice we pro- voke, and can repel that vengeance we exasperate ? Do we ihink we are an even match for God, and are able to despoil him of his Divinity ? To despise his will, violate his order, jjractise what he forbids with a severe threatening, and pawns his power to ro.ake it good, is to pretend to have an arm like God, and be able to thunder with a voice equal or superior to him, as the expression is (Job xl. 9). All security in sin is of this strain ; when men are not concerned at Divine threatenings, nor staggered in their sinful race, they intimate, that the declarations of Divine Power are but vain-glorious boastings ; that God is not so strong and able as he ON THE POWER OF GOD. 98 reports himself to be ; and therefore they will venture it, and dare him to try, whether the strength of his arm be as forcible as the words of his mouth are terrible in his threats ; this is to believe themselves Creators, not creatures. We magnify God's power in our wants, and debase it in our rebellions ; as though Omnipotence were only able to supply our necessities, and unable to revenge the injuries we offer him. 2. This power is contemned in distrust of God, All distrust is' founded in a doubting of his truth, as if he would not be as good as his word ; or of his omniscience, as if he had not a memory to re- tain his word ; or of his power, as if he could not be as great as his word. We measure the infinite power of God by the short line of our understandings, as if infinite strength were bounded within the narrow compass of our finite reason ; as if he could do no more than we were able to do. How soon did those Israelites lose the remembrance of God's outstretched arm, when they uttered that atheistical speech (Ps. Ixxviii. 19), " Can God furnish a table in the wilderness ?" As if he that turned the dust of Egypt into lice, for the punishment of their oppressors, could not turn the dust of the wil- derness into corn, for the support of their bodies! As if he that had miraculously rebuked the Eed Sea, for their safety, could not provide bread, for their nourishment! Though they had seen the Egyptians with lost lives in the morning, in the same place where their lives had been miraculously preserved in the evening, yet they disgrace that experimental power, by opposing to it the stature of the Anakims, the strength of their cities, and the height of their walls (Numb. xiii. 32). And (Numb. xiv. 3). " Wherefore hath the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword ?" As though the giants of Canaan were too strong for Him, for whom they had seen the armies of Egypt too weak. How did they contract the almightiness of God into the littleness of a little man, as if he must needs sink under the sword of a Canaanite? This distrust must arise either from a flat atheism, a denial of the being of God, or his government of the world ; or unworthy conceits of a weakness in him, that he had made creatures too hard for himself; that he were not strong enough to grapple with those mighty Anakim^ and give them the possession of Canaan against so great a force. Dis- trust of him implies either that he was always destitute of power, or that his power is exhausted by his former works, or that it is limited, and near a period : it is to deny hun to be the Creator that moulded heaven and earth. Why should we, by distrust, put a slight upon that power which he hath so often expressed, and which, in the minutest works of his hands, surmount the force of the shaipest understanding ? 3. It is contemned in too great a fear of man, which arisetii from a distrust of Divine power. Fear of man is a crediting the might of man with a disrepute of the arm of God, it takes away the glory of his might, and renders the creature stronger than God ; and God more feeble than a mortal ; as if the arm of man were a rod of iron, and the arm of God a brittle reed. How often do men tremble at the threatenings and hectorings of ruffians, yet will stand as stakes 94 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. against the precepts and tlireatenings of God, as tliough he had has power to preserve us, than enemies had to destroy ? With what (dis- dain doth God speak to men infected with this humor (Isa. li. 12, ISy ? " Who art thou, that art afi-aid of a man that shall die, and tne Son of man that shall be made as grass ; and fbrgettest the Lord thy Maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foun- dation of the earth ; and hast feared continually every day, because of the fury of the oppressor?" To fear man that is as grass, that cannot think a thought without a Divine concourse, that cannot breathe, but by a Divine power, nor touch a hair without license first granted from heaven ; this is forgetfulness, and consequentl}^ a slight of that Infinite Power, which hath been manifested in found- ing the earth and garnishing the heavens. All fear of man, in the way of our duty, doth in some sort thrust out the remembrance, and discredit the great actions of the Creator. Would not a mighty prince think it a disparagement to him, if his servant should decline his command for fear of one of his subjects? and hath not the great God just cause to think himself disgraced by us, when we deny him obedience for fear of a creature : as though he had but an infant ability too feeble to bear us out in duty, and incapable to balance the strength of an arm of flesh ? 4. It is contemned by trusting in ourselves, in means, in man, more than in God. When in any distress we will try every creature refuge, before we have recourse to God ; and when we apply our* selves to him, we do it with such slight and perfunctory frames, and with so much despondency, as if we despaired either of his ability or will to help us ; and implore him with cooler affections than we solicit creatures : or, when in a disease we depend upon the virtue of the medicine, the ability of the physician, and reflect not upon that power that endued the medicine with that virtue, and supports the quality in it, and concurs to the operation of it. When we depend upon the activity of the means, as if they had power originally in themselves, and not derivatively ; and do . not eye the power of God animating and assisting them. We cannot expect re- lief from anything with a neglect of God, but we render it in our thoughts more powerful than God: we acknowledge a greater fulness in a shallow stream, than in an eternal spring ; we do, in eflfect, depose the true God, and create to ourselves a new one ; we assert, by such a kind of acting, the creature, if not superior, yet equal with God, and independent on him. When we trust in our own strength, without begging his assistance ; or boast of our own strength, without acknowledging his concurrence, as the Assyrian ; " By the strength of my hand have I done this ; I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man" (Isa. x. 13). It is, as if the axe should boast itself against him that hews therewith, and thinks itself more mighty than the arm that wields it (ver. 15), when we trust in others more than in God, Thus God upbraids those by the prophet, that sought help from Egypt, telling them (Isa. xxxi. 3), " The Egyptians Averc men, and not gods ; intimating, that by their dependence on them, they rendered them gods and not men, and advanced them from the state of creatures to that of almighty ON THE POWER OF GOD. 95 deities. It is to set a pile of dust, a heap of ashes, above Him thai created and preserves the world. To trust in a creature, is *-''^ "...^ke it as infinite as God ; to do that which is impossible in it'-"; to be done. God himself cannot make a creature infinite, :f': I'.iat were to make him God. It is also contemned when we ascrir.j what we receive to the power of instruments, and not to the power of God, Men, in whatsoever they do for us, are but the tools whereby th(; Creator works. Is it not a disgrace to the limnc to adxnire hi;' pencil, and not himself; to the artificer, to admire his file and en gines, and not his power? "It is not I," saith Paul, "that labor, but the grace, the efficacious grace of God, wliich is in me." What- soever good we do is from him, not from ourselves ; to ascribe it to ourselves, or to instruments, is to overlook and contemn his power. 5. Unbelief of the gospel is a contempt and disowning Divine power. This perfection hath been discovered in tlie conception of Christ, the union of the two natures, his resurrect' m from the grave^ the restoration of the world, and the conversion oi" men, more than in the creation of the world : then what a tlisgrace is unbelief to all that power that so severely punished the Jews tor the rejecting the gosj)el : turned so many nation.'- from their beloved superstitions ; humbled the power of prince..^ and the wisdom of philosophers ; chased devils firom their temples by the weakness of fisliermen; planted the standard of the gospel against the common notions and inveterate customs of the world ! Y^hat a disgrace is unbelief to this power which hath preserved Christianity from being e\.anguish- ed by the force of men and devils, and kept it flourishing in the midst of sword, fire, and executioners ; that hatli made the simplici- ty of the gospel overpo-/'^r the eloquence of orators, and multij)]ied it from the ashes of manyrs, when it was destitute of all human as- sistances ! Not beaniJ ^ to believe and embrace that doctrine, which hath been attended wich 9uch marks of power, is a high reflection upon this Divine per-fection. so highly manifested iti the first publi- cation, propagation, and preservation of it. Secondly, The power of God is abused, as well as contemned. 1. When we make use of it to justify contradictions. The doctrine of transubstantiation is an abase of this power. When the m.aintainers of it cannot answer the absurdities alleged against it, they have re- course to the pov/er of God. It implies a contradiction, that the same body should be on earth and in heaven at the same instant of time ; that it should be at the right hand of God, and in the mouth and stomach of a man ; that it should be a body of flesh, and yet bread to the eye and to the taste ; that it should be visible and in visible, a glorious body, and yet gnawn by the teeth of a creature ; that it should be multiplied in a thousand places, and yet an entire body in every one, where there is no member to be seen, no flesh to be tasted ; that it should be above us m the highest heavens, and yet within us in our lower bowels ; such concjadictions as these aie an abuse of the power of God. Again, we abuse thi^ power when we believe every idle story that is reported, because God is aide to make it so if he pleased. We may as well believe ^i- dp's Fables tc be true, that birds spake, and beasts reasoned, because the power oi 96 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. God can enable such creatures to such acts. God's powei is not the rulo of our belief of a thing Avithout the exercise of it in matter of fact, and the declaration of it upon sufficient evidence. 2. The power of God is abused by presuming on it, without using the means he hath appointed. When men sit with folded arms, and make a confidence in his power a glorious title to their idleness and disobedience, they would have his strength do all, and his precept should move them to do nothing ; this is a trust of his j)ower against his command, a pretended glorifying his power with a slight of his sovereignty. Though God be almighty, yet, for the most part, he exercise th liis might in giving life and success to second causes and lawful endeavors. When we stay in the mouth of danger, without any call ordering us to concfnue, and against a door of providence opened for our rescue, and sanctuary ourselves in the power of God without any promise, without any providence conducting us ; this is not to glorify the Divine might, but to neglect it, in neglecting the means which his power affords to us for our escape ; to condemn it to our humors, to work miracles for us according to our wills, and against his own.y God could have sent a worm to be Herod's exe- cutioner when he sought the life of our Saviour, or employed an angel from heaven to have tied his hands or stopped his breath, and not put Joseph upon a flight to Egypt with our Saviour ; yet had it not been an abuse of the power of God, for Joseph to have neglected th3 precept, and slighted the means God gave him for the preserving his own life and that of the child's ? Christ himself, when the Jews consulted to destroy him, presumed not ujDon the power of God to secure him, but used ordinary means for his preservation, by walking no more openly, but retiring himself into a city near the wilderness till the hour was come, and the call of his Father manifest" (John xi. 53, 54). A rash running upon danger, though for the truth it- self, is a presuming upon, and consequently an abuse of, this power ; a proud challenging it to serve our turns against the authority of his will, and the force of his precept ; a not resting in his ordinate power, but demanding his absolute power to pleasure our follies and presumptions ; concluding and expecting more from it than what is authorized by his will. Instruct. 9. If infinite power be a peculiar property of God, how miserable will all wicked rebels be under this power of God ! Men may break his laws, but not impair his arm ; they may slight his word, but cannot resist his power. If he swear that he will sweep a place with the besom of destruction, "as he hath thought, so shall it come to pass ; and as he hath purposed, so shall it stand," (Isa. xiv. 23, 24). Rebels against an earthly prince may exceed him in strength, and be more powerful than their sovereign ; none can equal God, much less exceed him. As none can exercise an act of hostility against him without his permissive will, so none can struggle from under his hand without his positive will. He hath an arm not to be moved, a hand not to be wrung aside. God is represented on his «hron-' like a "jasper stone" (Rev. iv. 3), as one of invincible power vrben he comes to judge ; the jasper is a stone which -withstands the y Harwood, p. 13. ON THE POWER OF GOP. 97 greatest force.^ Tbougli men resist the order of his laws, they can- not the sentence of their punishment, nor the execution of it. None can any more exempt themselves from the arm of his strength, than they can from the authority of his dominion. As they must bow to his sovereignt}^ so must they sink under his force. A prisoner in this world may make his escape, but a prisoner in the world to come cannot (Job x. 7). " There is none that can deliver out of thine hand." There is none to deliver when he tears in pieces" (Ps. 1. 22). His strength is uncontrollable ; hence his throne his repre- sented as a " iiery flame" (Dan. vii. 9). As a spark of fire hath power to kindle one thing after another, and increase till it consumes a forest, a city, swallow up all combustible matter till it consumes a world, and many worlds, if they were in being, what power hath the tree to resist the fire, though it seems mighty, when it outbraves the winds '/ "What man, to this day, hath been able to free himself from that cnain of death God clapped upon him for his revolt ? And if he be too feeble to rescue himself from a temporal, much less from an eternal death. The devils have, to this minute, groaned under the pile of wrath, without any success in delivering themselves by all their strength, which much surmounts all the strength of mankind, nor have they an}' hopes to work their rescue to eternity. How foolish is every sinner ! Can we poor worms strut it out against In- finite Power ? We cannot resist the meanest creatures when God commissions them, and puts a sword into their hands. They will not, no, not the worms, be startled at the glory of a king, when they have the Creator's warrant to be his executioners (Acts xii. 23). Who can withstand him, when he commands the waves and inun- dations of the sea to leap over the shore ; when he divides the ground in earthquakes, and makes it gape wide to swallow the in- habitants of it ; when the air is corrupted to breed pestilences ; when storms and showers, unseasonably falling, putrify the fruits of the earth ; what created power can mend the matter, and, with a prevailing voice, say to him. What dost thou? There are two attributes God will make glister in hell to the full ; his wrath and his power (Rom. ix. 22) : " What if God, willing to show tkia wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction ?" If it were mere wrath, and no power to second it, it were not so ter- rible ; but it is wrath and power : both are joined together. It is not only a sharp sword, but a powerful arm ; and not only that, for then it were well for the damned creature. To have many sharp blows, and from a strong arm, this may be without putting forth the highest strength a man hath ; but in this God makes it his design to make his power known and conspicuous ; he takes the sword, as it were, in both hands, that he may show the strength of his arm in striking the harder blow ; and therefore the apostles calls it (2 Thess. i. 9^ " the glory of his power," which puts a sting into his wrath ; and it is called (Rev. xix. 15) " the fierce- ness of the wrath of the Almighty." God will do it in such a man- ner as to make men sensible of his almightiness in every stroke. * Grot, in loc. vol.. II.— 7 98 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. Hovr great must that vengeance be, that is backed by all the strength of God ! When there will be a powerful wrath, without a powerful compassion; when all his power shall be exercised in punishing, and not the least mite of it exercised in pitying ; how irresistible will be the load of such a weighty hand ! How can the dust of the bal- ance break the mighty bars, or get out of the lists of a powerful \-engeance, or hope for any grain of comfort ? O, that every obsti- nate sinner would think of this, and consider his unmeasurable bold- ness in thinking himself able to grapple with Omnipotence I What force can any have to resist the presence of Ilim, before whom rocks melt, and the heavens, at length, shall be shrivelled up as a parch- ment by the last fire ! As the light of God's face is too dazzling to be beheld by us, so the arm of his power is too mighty to be opposed by us. His almightiness is above the reach of our potsherd strength, as his infiniteness is above the capacity of our purblind understand- ing. God were not omnipotent, if his power could be rendered in- eftectual by any. Use II. A second use of this point, from the consideration of the infinite power of God, is of comfort. As Omnipotence is an ocean that cannot be fathomed, so the comforts from it are streams that cannot be exhausted. What joy can be wanting to him that finds himself folded in the arms of Omnipotence? This perfection is made over to believers in the covenant, as well as any other attri- bute ; "I am the Lord, your God ;" therefore, that power, which is as essential to the Godhead as any other perfection of his nature, is, in the rights and extent of it, assured unlo you. Nay, may we not say, it is made over more than any other, because it is that which animates every other perfection ; and is the Spirit that gives them motion and appearance in the world. If God had expressed himself in particular, as, " I am a true God, a wise God, a loving God, a righteous God, I am yours;" what would all, or any of those, have signified, unless the other also had been implied, as, "I am an al- mighty God, I am your God ?" In God's making over himself in any particular attribute, this of his power is included in every one, without which, all his other grants would be insignificant. It is a comfort that power is in the hands of God ; it can never be better placed, for he can never use his power to injure his confiding crea- ture ; if it were in our own hands, we might use it to injure our- selves. It is a power in the hands of an indulgent Father, not a hard-hearted tyrant ; it is a just power; " His right hand is full of righteousness" (Ps. xlviii. 10) ; because of his righteousness he can never use it ill, and because of his wisdom he can never use it un- seasonably. Men that have strength, often misplace the actings of it, because of their folly ; and sometimes employ it to base ends, be- cause of their wickedness ; but this power in God is always awakened by goodness, and conducted by wisdom ; it is never exercised by self-will and passion, but according to fhe immutable rule of his own natui-e, which is righteousness. How comfortable is it to think, that you have a God that can do what he pleases ; nothing so difficult but he can effect, nothing so strong but he can overrule ! You need not dread men, since you have One to restrain them ; nor fear devils, ON THE POWER OF GOD. 99 since you have One to chain them ; no creature but is acted by tliis power ; no creature but must fall upon the withdrawing of this power. It was not all laid out in creation ; it is not weakened by his preservation of things ; he yet hath a fullness of power, and a residue of Spirit ; for whom should that eternal arm of the Lord be displayed, and that incomprehensible thunder of his power be shot out, but for those for whose sake and for whose comfort it is revealed in his word ? In particular, 1. Here is comfort in all afflictions and distresses. Our evils can never be so great to oppress us, as his power is great to deliver us. The same power that brought a world out of a chaos, and constitu- ted, and hath hitherto preserved, the regular motion of the stars, can bring order out of our confusions, and light out of our darkness. When our Saviour was in the greatest distress, and beheld the face of his Father frowning, while he was upon the cross, in his complaint to him, he exerciseth faith upon his power (Matt, xxvii. 46) : " Eli, Eli : My God, my God, why hast thou forsakcu me ?" that this. My strong, my strong ; El, is a name of power, belonging to God ; he comforts himself in his power, while he complains of his frowns. Follow his pattern, and forget not that power that can scatter the clouds, as well as gather them together. The Psalmist's support in his distress, was in the creative power of God (Ps. cxxi. 2) : " My help comes from the Lord, which made heaven and earth." 2. It is comfort in all strong and stirring corruptions and mighty temptations. It is by this we may arm ourselves, and "be strong in the power of his might" (Eph. vi. 10); by this we may concper prin- cipalities and powers, as dreadful as hell, but not so mighty as heaven ; by this we may triumph over lusts 'within, too strong for an arm of flesh ; by this the devils that have possessed us may be cast out ; the battered walls of our souls may be repaired ; and the sons of Anak laid flat. That power that brought light out of darkness, and over- mastered the deformity of the chaos, and set bounds to the ocean, and dried up the Red Sea by a rebuke, can quell the tumults in our spirits, and level spiritual Goliahs by his word. When the disciples heard that terrifying speech of our Saviour, concerning rich men, that it was " easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" (Matt. xix. 24), to entertain the gospel, which commanded self-denial ; and that, be- cause of the allurements of the world, and the strong habits in their soul ; Christ refers them to the power of God (ver. 26), who could expel those ill habits, and plant good ones : " With men this is im- possible, but with God all things are possible." There is no resist- ance, but he can surmount ; no strong-hold, but he can demolish ; no tower, but he can level. 3. It is comfort from hence, that all promises shall be performed. Goodness is sufficient to make a promise, but power is necessary to perform a promise. Men that are honest, cannot often make good their words, because something may intervene that may shorten their ability : but nothing can disable God, without diminishing his godhead. He hath an infiniteness of power to accomplish his word, as well as an inhniteness of goodness to make and utter bis word. 100 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. That might whereby he made lieaven and earth, and his keeping truth forever, are joined together (Ps. cxlvi. 5, 6); his Father's faith- fuhiess, and his creative power are linked together. It is upon this basis the covenant, and every part of it, is established, and stands as firm as the almightiness of God, whereby he sprung up the earth, and reared the heavens. "No power can resist his will" (Rom. ix. 19) ; " Who can disannul his purpose, and turn back his hand when it IS stretched out" (Isa. xiv. 27)? His word is unalterable, and his power is invincible. He could not deceive himself, for he knew his own strength when he promised : no unexpected event can change his resolution, because nothing can happen without the compass of his foresight. No created strength can stop him in his action, be- cause all creatures are ready to serve him at his command ; not the devils in hell, nor all the wicked men on earth, since he hath strength to restrain them, and an arm to punish them. AVhat can be too hard for Him that created heaven and earth ? Hence it was, that when God promised anything anciently to his people, he used often the name of the Almighty, the Lord that created heaven and earth, as that which was an undeniable answer to any objection, against any- thing that might be made against the greatness and stupendousness of any promise ; by that name, in all his works of grace, was he known to them (Exod. vi. 3). When we are sure of his will, we need not question his strength, since he never over-engaged himself above his ability. He that could not be resisted by anything in cre- ation, nor vanquished by devils in redemption, can never want power to glorify his faithfulness in his accomplishment of whatsoever he hath promised. 4. From this infiniteness of power in God, we have ground of as- surance for pe 1 severance. Since conversion is resembled to the works of creation and resurrection, two great marks of his strength, he doth not surely employ himself in the first of changing the heart, to let any created strength baffle that power which he began and intends to glorify. It was this might that struck off" the chain, and expelled that strong one that possessed you. What, if you are too weak to keep him out of his lost possession, will God lose the glor}' of his first strength, by suffering his foiled adversary to make a re-entry, and regain his former usurpation? His out-stretched arm will not do less by his spiritual, than it did by his national Israel: it guarded them all the way to Canaan, and left them not to shift for themselves after he had struck off the fetters of Egypt, and buried their enemies in the Bed Sea (Deut. i. 31). This greatness of the Father, above all, our Saviour makes the ground of believers' continuance forever, against the blasts of hell and engines of the world (John x. 29). " My Father is greater than all, and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's hands." Our keeping is not in our own weak hands, but in the hands of Him who is mighty to save. Tiiat power of God keeps us which intends our salvation. In all fears of falling away, shelter yourselves in the power of God : " He shall be holden up," saith the apostle, speaking concerning one weak in fixith ; and no other reason is rendered by him but this, " For God i? able to make him to stand" (Kom. xiv. 4). ON THE POWER OF GOD. 101 5. From this attribute of tlie infinite power of God, we have a ground of comfort in the lowest estate of the church. Let the state of the church be never so deplorable, the condition never so desper- ate, that Power that created the world, and shall raise the bodies of men, can create a happy state for the church, and raise her from an overwhelming grave ; though the enemies trample upon lier, they cannot upon the arm that holds her, which by the least motion of it, can lift her up above the heads of her adversaries, and make them feel the thunder of that Power that none can understand : by the " blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils they are consumed" (Job iv. 9); they "shall be scattered as chaff before the wind." If once he " draw his hand out of his bosom," all must fly before him, or sink under him (Ps. Ixxiv. 11) : and when there is *' none to help, his own arm sustains him, and brings salvation, and his fury doth uphold him" (Isa. Ixiii. 5). What if the church totter under the underminings of hell ? What if it hath a sad heart and wet eyes ? In what a little moment can he make the night turn into day, and make the Jews, that were preparing for death in Shushan, triumph over the necks of their enemies, and march in one hour with swords in their hands, that expected the last hour " ropes about their necks (Esth, ix, 1, 5) ? If Israel be pursued by Pharaoh, the sea shall open its arms to protect them : if they be thirsty, a rock shall spout out water to refresh them : if they be hungry, heaven shall be their granary for manna : if Jerusalem be besieged, and hath not force enough to encounter Sennacherib, an angel shall turn the camp into an Aceldema, a field of blood. His people shall not want deliver- ances, till God want a power of working miracles for their security : he is more jealous of his power, than the church can be of her safety. And if we should want other arguments to press him, we may im- plore him by virtue of his power : for when there is nothing in the church as a motive to him to save it, there is enough in his own name, and " the illustration of his power" (Ps. cvi. 8). Who can grapple with the omnipotency of that God, who is jealous of, and zealous for, the honor of it? And therefore God, for the most part, takes such opportunities to deliver, wherein his almightiness may be most conspicuous, and his counsels most admirable. He awakened not himself to deliver Israel, till they were upon the brink of the Red Sea ; nor to rescue the three children, till they were in the fiery furnace ; nor Daniel, till he was in the lion's den. It is in the weak- ness of his creature that his strength is perfected, not in a way of ad- dition of perfectness to it, but in a way of manifestation of the per- fection of it ; as it is the perfection of the sun to shine and enlighten the world, not that the sun receives an increase of light by the dart- ing of his beams, but discovers his glory to the admiration of men, and pleasure of the world. If it were not for such occasions, the world would not regard the mightiness of God, nor know what power were in him. It traverses the stage in its fulness and liveliness upon such occasions, when the enemies are strong, and their strength edged with an intense hatred, and but little time between the contrivance and execution. It is a great comfort that the lowest distresses of the church are a fit scene for the discovery of tliis attribute, and that the 102 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. glory of God's omnipotence, and the church's security, are so straitlj linked together. It is a promise that will never be forgotten by God, and ought never to be forgotten by' us, that " in this mountain the hand of the Lord shall rest" (Isa. xxv. 10) ; that is, the power of the Lord shall abide ; and Moab " shall be trodden under him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill." And the "plagues of Babylon shall come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine ; for strong is the Lord who judgeth her" (Rev. xviii. 8). Use III. The third use is for exhortation. 1. Meditate on this power of God, and press it often upon your minds. "We conclude many things of God that we do not practically suck the comfort of, for want of deep thoughts of it, and frequent in- spection into it. We believe God to be true, yet distrust him ; we acknowledge him powerful, yet fear the motion of every straw. Many truths, though assented to in our understandings, are kept under hatches by corrupt affections, and have not their due influ- ence, because they are not brought forth into the open air of our souls by meditation. If we will but search our hearts, we shall find it is the power of God we often doubt of. When the heart of Ahaz and his subjects trembled at the combination of the Syrian and Isra- ehtish kings against him, for want of a confidence in the power of God, God sends his prophet with commission to work a miraculous sign at his own choice, to rear up his fainting heart ; and when he refused to ask a sign out of difl&dence of that almighty Power, the prophet complains of it as an affront to his Master (Isa. vii. 12, 13). Moses, so great a friend of God, was overtaken with this kind of un- belief, after all the experiments of God's miraculous acts in Egypt ; the answer God gives him manifests this to be at the core : "Is the Lord's hand waxed short" (Numb. xi. 23) ? For want of actuated thoughts of this, we are many times turned from our known duty by the blast of a creature ; as though man had more power to dismay uSj than God hath to support us in his commanded way. The be- lief of God's power is one of the first steps to aU religion ; without settled thoughts of it, we cannot pray lively and believingly for the obtaining the mercies we want, or the averting the evils we fear ; we should not love him, unless we are persuaded he hath a power to bless us ; nor fear him, unless we were persuaded of his power to punish us. The frequent thoughts of this would render our faith more stable, and our hopes more stedfast ; it would make us more feeble to sin, and more careful to obey. When the virgin staggered at the message of the angel, that she should " bear a Son," he, in his answer, turns her to the creative power of God (Luke i. 35), " The power of the Highest shall overshadow thee ;" which seems to be in allusion to the Spirit's moving upon the face of the deep, and bring- ing a comely world out of a confused mass. Is it harder for God to make a virgin conceive a Son by the power of his Spirit, than to make a world ? Why doth he reveal himself so often under the title of Almighty, and press it upon us, but that we should press it upon ourselves ? And shall we be forgetful of that which every thing about us, everything within us, is a mark of? How come we by a power of seeing and hearing, a faculty, and act of understanding ON THE POWER OF G0'.>. 103 und will, but by this power framing us, thm power " assisting us ? What though the thunder of his power cannot be understood, no more can any other perfection of his nature ; shall we, therefore, seldom think of it ? The sea cannot be fathomed, yet the merchant excuseth not himself from sailing upon the surface of it. We can- not glorify God without due consideration of this attribute ; for his power is his glory as much as any other, and called both by the name of glory (Rom, vi. 4), speaking of Christ's resurrection by the glory of the Father ; and also "the riches of his glory" (Eph. iii. 16). Those that have strong temptations in their course and over-pressing corruptions in their hearts, have need to think of it out of interest, since nothing but this can relieve them. Those that have experi- mented the working of it in their new creation, are obliged to think of it out of gratitude. It was this mighty power over himself that gave rise to all that pardoning grace already conferred, or hereafter expected ; without it our souls had been consumed, the world over- turned ; we could not have expected a happy heaven, but have lain yelhng in an eternal hell, had not the power of his mercy exceeded that of his justice, and his infinite power executed what his infinite wisdom had contrived for our redemption. How much also should we be raised in our admirations of God, and ravish ourselves in con- templating that might that can raise innumerable worlds in those in- finite imaginary spaces without this globe of heaven and earth, and exceed inconceivably what he hath done in the creation of this ? 2. From the pressing the consideration of this upon ourselves, let us be induced to trust God upon the account of his power. The main end of the revelation of his power to the patriarchs, and of the miraculous operations of it in Egypt, was to induce them to an entire reposing themselves in God : and the Psalmist doth scarce speak of the Divine Omnipotence without making this inference from it ; and scarce exhorts to a trust in God, but backs it with a consideration of his power in creation, it being the chief support of the soul (Ps. cxlvi. 1) : " Happy is he whose hope is in the Lord his God, which made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that therein is." That Power is invincible that drew the world out of nothing : nothing can happen to us harder than the making the world without the concur- rence of instruments : no difficulty can nonplus that strength, that hath drawn all things out of nothing, or out of a confused matter next to nothing : no power can rifle what we commit to him (2 Tim. i. 12). He is all power, above the reach of all power ; all other powers in the world flowing from him, or depending on him, he is worthy to be trusted, since we know him true, without ever breaking his word ; and Omnipotent, never failing of his purpose ; and a con- fidence in it is the chief act whereby we can glorify this power, and credit his arm. A strong God, and a weak faith in omnipotence, do not suit well together. Indeed, we are more engaged to a trust in Divine power than the ancient patriarchs were ; they had the verbal declaration of hia power, and many of them little other evidence of it, than in the creation of the world ; and their faith in God being established in this first discovery of his omnipotence, drew out itsell further to believe, that whatsoever God promised by his word, he L04 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. was able to perform, as well as the creation of the world out of nothing; which seems to be the intendment of the apostle (Heb. xi. 3) ; not barely to speak of the creation of the world by God, which was a thing the Hebrews understood well enough from their ancient oracles ; but to show the foundation of the patriarch's faith, viz. God making the world by his Word, and what use they made of the discovery of his power in that, to lead them to believe the promise of God concerning the Seed of the woman to be brought into the world. But we have not only the same foundation, but superadded demonstrations of this attribute in the conception of our Saviour, the union of the two natures, the glorious redemption, the propagation of the gospel, and the new creation of the world. They relied upon the naked power of God, without those more illustrious appearances of it, which have been in the ages since, and arrived to their notice ; we have the wonderful effects of that which they had but obscure ex- pectations of (1.) Consider, trust in God can never be without taking in God's power as a concurrent foundation with his truth. It is the main ground of trust, and so set forth in ,the prophet (Isa. xxvi. 4) ; " Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlast- ing strength." And the faith of the ancients so recommended (Heb. xi), had this chiefly for its ground ; and the faith in gospel times is called a " trusting on his arm" (Isa. li. 5.) All the attributes of God are the objects of our veneration, but they do not equally contribute to the producing trust in our hearts ; his eternity, simplicity, infinite- ness, ravish and astonish our minds when we consider them ; but there is no immediate tendency in their nature to allure us to a con- fidence in him, no, not in an innocent state, much less in a lapsed and revolted condition : but the other perfections of his nature, as his holiness, righteousness, mercy, are amiable to us in regard of the immediate operations of them upon and about the creature, and so have something in their own nature to allure us to repose ourselves in him ; but yet those cannot engage to an entire trust in him with- out reflecting upon his ability, which can only render those useful and successful to the creature.'^ For whatsoever bars stand in the way of his holy, righteous, and merciful proceedings towards his creatures, are not overmastered by those perfections, but b}'' that strength of his which can only relieve us in concurrence with the other attributes. How could his mercy succor us without his arm, or his wisdom guide us without his hand, or his truth perform pro- mises to us without his strength ? As no attribute can act without it, so in our addresses to him upon the account of any particular perfection in the Godhead according to our indigency, our eye must be perpetually fixed upon this of his power, and our faith would be feeble and dispirited without eyeing this : without this, his holiness, which hates sin, would not be regarded ; and his mercy, pitying a grieving sinner, would not be valued. As this power is the ground of a wicked man's fear, so it is the ground of a good man's trust. This was that which was the principal support of Abraham, not barely his promise, but his ability to make it good (Rom. iv. 21) ' • Amy rant Moral. Tom. V. p 170. ON THE POWEE OF GOD. 105 ana wlieu he was commanded to sacrifice Isaac, the abihty of God to raise him up again (Heb. xi. 19). All faith would droop, and be in the mire, without leaning upon this ; all those attributes which we consider as moral in God, would have no influence upon us with- out this, which we consider physically in God. Though we value the kindness men may express to us in our distresses, yet we make them not the objects of our confidence, unless they have an ability to act what they express. There can be no trust in God without an eye to his power, (2.) Sometimes the power of God is the sole object of trust. As when we have no promise to assure us of his will, we have nothing else to pitch upon but his abilit}' ; and that not his absolute power, but his ordinate, in the way of his providence ; we must not trust in it so as to expect he should please our humor with fresh miracles, but rest upon his power, and leave the manner to his will. Asa, when ready to conflict with the vast Ethiopian army, pleaded noth- ing else but this power of God (2 Chron. xiv. 11). And the three children, who had no particular promise of deliverance (that we read of) stuck to God's ability to preserve them against the king's threatening, and owned it in the face of the king, yet with some kind of inward intimations in their own spirits, that he would also deliver them (Dan. iii. 17). " Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace." And accordingly the fire burnt the cords that tied them, without singeing any thing else about them. But when this power hath been exercised upon like occasions, it is a precedent he hath given us to rest upon. Prece- dents in law are good pleas, and strong encouragements to the client to expect success in his suit. " Our fathers trusted in thee, and thou didst deliver them," saith David (Ps. xxii. 4). And Jehoshaphat, in a case of distress (2 Chron. xx. 7), " Art not thou our God, that didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel ?" When we have not any statute law and promise to plead, we may plead his power, together with the former precedents and act of it. The centurion had nothing else to act his faith upon but the power of Christ, and some evidences of it in the miracles reported of him ; but he is silent in the latter, and casts himself only upon the former, acknowledging that Christ had the same command over diseases, as himself had over his soldiers (Matt. viii. 10). And our Saviour, when he receives the petition of the blind men, requires no more of them in order to a cure, but a belief of his ability to perform it (Matt. ix. 28). " Believe you that I am able to do this ?' His will is not known but by revelation, but his power is apprehended by reason, as essentially and eternally linked with the notion of a God. God also is jealous of the honor of this attribute ; and since it is so much virtually discredited, he is pleased when any do cordiall}- own it, and entirely resign themselves to the assistance of it. Well, then, in all duties where faith is particularly to be acted, forget not this as the main prop of it : do you pray for a flourishing and triumphing gi'ace? Consider him "as able to make all grace to abound in you" (2 Cor. ix. 8). Do you want comfort and reviving under 3 oui contritions and godly sorrow ? Consider him, as he declares hims(!lC 106 CHARNOCK ON ''-flE ATTRIBUTES. " the liigli and lofty One' (Isa. Ivii. 15). Are you under pressing distresses ? take Elipbaz's advice to Job, when he tells him what he himself would do if he were in his case (Job v. 8), "I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause:" but observe under what consideration (ver. 9) as to one 'Hhat doth great things, and unsearchable ; marvellous things without number." When you beg of him the melting your rocky hearts, the dashing in pieces youi strong corruptions, the drawing his beautiful image in your soul, the quickening your dead hearts, and reviving your drooping spirits, and supplying your spiritual wants, consider him as one " able to do abundantly," not only " above what you can ask," but " above what you can think" (Eph. iii. 20). Faith will be spiritless, and prayer will be liveless, if power be not eyed by us in those things which cannot be done without an arm of Omnipotence. 3. This doctrine teacheth us humility and submission. The vast disproportion between the mightiness of God, and the meanness of a creature, inculcates the lesson of humility in his presence. How becoming is humility under a mighty hand (1 Pet. v. 6) ! What is an infant in a giant's hand, or a lamb in a lion's paw ? Submission to irresistible power is the best policy, and the best security ; this gratifies and draws out goodness, whereas murmuring and resistance exasperates and sharpens power. We sanctify his name, and glorify his strength, by falling down before it ; it is an acknowledgment of ais invisible strength, and our inability to match it. How low should we therefore lie before him, against whose power our pride and murmuring can do no good, who can out-wrestle us in our con- tests, and alway overcome when he judges (Rom. iii. 4) ! 4. This doctrine teacheth us not to fear the pride and force of man. How unreasonable is it to fear a limited, above an unbounded power ! How unbecoming is the fear of man in him, Avho hath an interest in a strength able to curb the strongest devils ! Who would tremble at the threats of a dwarf, that hath a mighty and watchful giant for his guard ? If God doth but arise, his enemies are scattered (Ps. Ixviii. 1) : the least motion makes them fly before him : it is no dif&cult thing for Him, that made them by a word, to unmake their designs, and shiver them in pieces by the breath of his mouth : " He brings princes to nothing, and makes thd judges of the earth vanity ; they wither when he blows upon them, and their stock shall not take root in the earth. He can command a whirlwind to take them away as stubble" (Isa. xl. 23, 24) ; yea, with the " shaking of his hand he makes servants to become rulers of those that were their masters (Zech. ii, 9). Whole nations are no more in his hands than a "morning cloud,' or the "dew upon the ground," or "the chaff before the wind," or the smoke against the motion of the air, which, though it appear out of a chimney like a black invincible cloud, is quickly dispersed, and becomes invisible (Hos. xiii. 3), How incon- siderable are the most mighty to this strength, which can puff away a whole world of proud grasshoppers, and a whole sky of daring clouds ! He that by his word masters the rage of the sea, can over- mle the pride and power of men. Where is the fury of the oppres- sor ? It cannot overleap the bounds he hath set it, nor march an inch ON THE Jr-OWER OF GOD. 107 beyond tlie point lie hath prescribed it. Fear not the confederacies of man, but " sanctify the Lord of hosts ; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread" (Isa. viii. 13). To fear men is to dishonor the name of God, and regard him as a feeble Lord, and not as the Lord of hosts, who is mighty in strength, so that they that harden themselves against him shall not prosper. 5. Therefore this doctrine teacheth us the fear of God. The pro- phet Jeremiah counts it as an impossible thing for men to be desti- tute of the fear of God, when they seriously consider his name to be gi'eat and mighty (Jer. x. 6, 7) : " Thou art great, and thy name is great in might : who would not fear thee, O thou King of nations ?" Shall we not tremble at his presence, who hath placed the " sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree ;" that though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet they cannot prevail (Jer. v. 22). He can arm the weakest creature for our destruction, and disarm the strongest creatures which appear for our preservation. He can com- mand a hair, a crumb, a kernel, to go awry, and strangle us. He can make the heavens brass over our head, stop close the bottles of the clouds, and make the fruit of the fields droop, when there is a small distance to the harvest; he can arm men's wit, wealth, hands, against themselves ; he can turn our sweet morsels into bitter, and our own consciences into devouring lions ; he can root up cities by moles, and conquer the proudest by lice and worms. The omnipo- tence of God is not only the object of a believer's trust, but a be- liever s fear. It is from the consideration of this power only, that our Saviour presses his disciples, whom he entitles his friends, to fear God ; which lesson he presses by a double repetition, and with a kind of asseveration, without rendering any other reason than this of the ability of God to cast into hell (Luke xii. 5). We are to fear Him because he can ; but bless his goodness because he will not. In regard of his omnipotence, he is to be reverenced, not only by mor- tal men, but by the blessed angels, who are past the fear of any danger by his power, being confirmed in a happy state by his unal- terable grace : when they adore him for his holiness, they reverence him for his power with covered faces: the title of the "Lord of hosts" is joined in their reverential praise with that of his holiness- (Isa. vi. 3), " Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts." How should we adore that Power which can preserve us, when devils and men conspire to destroy us ! How should we stand in awe of that Power which can destroy us, though angels and men should combine to preserve us I The parts of his ways which are discovered, are sufii- cient motives to an humble and reverential adoration : but who can fear and adore him according to the vastness of his power, and his excellent greatnes;?, since " the thunder of his power who can under stand?" DISCOURSE XI. ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. iBlxoDns XV. 11. — Who is like unto thee, 0 Lord, among the gods? Who is like the* eflorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders ? This verse is one of the loftiest descriptions of the majesty and excellency of G-od in the whole Scripture.'' It is a part of Moses' 'ETjifixiot'j or " triumphant song," after a great and real, and a typical victory ; in the womb of which all the deliverances of the church were couched. It is the first song upon holy record, and it consists ■of gratulatory and prophetic matter ; it casts a look backward to what God did for them in their deliverance from Egypt ; and a look forward to what God shall do for the church in future ages. That deliverance was but a rough draught of something more excellent to he wrought towards the closing up of the world ; when his plagues fhall be poured out upon the anti-christian powers, which should re- vive the same song of Moses in the church, as fitted so many ages before for such a scene of affairs (Rev, xv. 2, 3). It is observed, therefore, that many words in this song are put in the future tense, noting a time to come ; and the very first word, ver. 1, " Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song ;" ■'■''^"', shall sing ; imply- ing, that it was composed and calculated for the celebrating some greater action of G-od's, which was to be wrought in the world.c Upon this account, some of the Jewish rabbins, from the considera tion of this remark, asserted the doctrine of the resurrection to be meant in this place ; that Moses and those Israelites should rise .again to sing the same song, for some greater miracles God should work, and greater triumphs he should bring forth, exceeding those wonders at their deliverance from Egypt. It consists of, 1. A preface (ver. 1); "I will sing unto the Lord.''^ 2. An historical narration of matter of fact (ver. 3, 4), " Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the Red Sea;" which he solely ascribes to God (ver. 6), " Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glori- ous in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy ;" which he doth prophetically, as respecting something to be ■done in after-times ; or further for the completing of that deliver- lance ; or, as others think, respecting their entering into Canaan ; for the words, in these two verses, are put in the future tense. The man- ■uer (>f the deliverance is described (ver. 8) ; " The floods stood up- '' Trap, in loc. " Manass. ben Israel, de Ilesurr. lib, 1, cap. 1, p. 7. ^ Pareus in Exod. xv. ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. lOO' Tight as an heap, and tlie depths were congealed in the heart of the sea." In the 9th verse, he magnifies the victory from the vain glory and se- curity of the enemy; "The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil," &c. And ver. 16, 17, He prophetically describes the fruit of this victory, in the influence it shall have upon those na- tions, by whose confines they were to travel to the promised land ; " Fear and dread shall fall upon them ; by the greatness of thy arm they shall be as still as a stone, till thy people pass over which thou hast purchased." The phrase of this and the 17th and 18th verses, seems to be more magnificent than to design only the bringing the- Israelites to the earthly Canaan ; but seems to respect the gathering his redeemed ones together, to place them in the spiritual sanctuary which he had established, wherein the Lord should reign forever and ever, without any enemies to disturb his royalty ; " The Lord shall reign forever and ever" (ver. 18). The prophet, in the midst of his historical narrative, seems to be in an ecstasy, and breaks out in a stately exaltation of God in the text. Who is like unto thee, 0 Lord, among the gods? &c. Interrogations are, in Scripture, the strongest afiirmations or negations ; it is here a strong aflHrmation of the incomparableness of God, and a strong denial of the worthiness of all creatures to be partners with him in the degrees of his excellency ; it is a preference of God before all creatures in holiness, to which the purity of creatures is but a shadow in desert of reverence and veneration, he being " fearful in praises." The angels cover their faces when they adore him in his particular perfections. Amongst the gods. Among the idols of the nations, say some • others say,«^ it is not to be found that the Heathen idols are ever dig- nified with the title of " strong or mighty," as the word translated gods, doth import ; and therefore understand it of the angels, or other potentates of the world ; or rather inclusively, of all that are noted for, or can lay claim to, the title of strength and might upon the earth or in heaven. God is so great and majestic, that no crea- ture can share with him in his praise. Fearful in praises. Yarious are the interpretations of this passage : to be " reverenced in praises ;" his praise ought to be celebrated with a religious fear. Fear is the product of his mercy as well as his justice ; "He hath forgiveness that he may be feared" (Ps. cxxx. 4). Or, "fearful in praises;" whom none can praise without amaze- ment at the considerations of his works. None can truly praise him without being affected with astonishment at his greatness. ^ Or, " fearful in praises ;" whom no mortal can sufficiently praise, since he is above all praise.s Whatsoever a human tongue can speak, or an angelical understanding think of the excellency of his nature and the greatness of his works, falls short of the vast- ness of the Divine perfection. A creature's praises of God are as much below the transcendent eminency of God, as the meanness of a creature's being is below the eternal fulness of the Creator. Or, rather, "fearful," or terrible, "in praises;" that is, in the matter of thy praise; and the learned Rivet concurs with me in • Ri-vet. "^ Calvia. « Munster. 110 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. this sense. The works of Grod, celebrated in this song, were ter rible ; it was the miraculous overthrow of the strength and flower of a mighty nation ; his judgments were severe, as well as hia mercy was seasonable. The word x-ii3 signifies glorious and illus- trious, as well as terrible and fearful. No mau can hear the praise of thy name, for those great judicial acts, without some astonish- ment at thy justice, the stream, and thy holiness, the spring of those mighty works. This seems to be the sense of the following words, " doing wonders :" fearful in the matter of thy praise ; they being wonders which thou hast done among us and for us. Doing wonders. Congealing the waters by a wind, to make them stand like walls for the rescue of the Israelites ; and melting them by a wind, for the overthrow of the Egyptians, are prodigies that chal- lenge the greatest adorations of that mercy which delivered the one, and that justice which punished the other; and of the arm of that power whereby he effected both his gracious and righteous purposes. Whence observe, that the judgments of God upon his enemies, aa well as his mercies to his people, are matters of praise. The perfec- tions of God appear in both. Justice and mercy are so linked to- gether in his acts of providence, that the one cannot be forgotten whilst the other is acknowledged. He is never so terrible as in the assemblies of his saints, and the deliverance of them (Ps. Ixxxix. 7). As the creation was erected by him for his glory ; so all the acts of his government are designed for the same end : and his creatures deny him his due, if they acknowledge not his excellency in what- soever dreadful, as well as pleasing garbs, it appears in the world. His terror as well as his righteousness appears, when he is a God of salvation (Ps. Ixv. 5). " By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation." But the expression I pitch upon in the text to handle, is glorious in holiness. He 'is magnified or honorable in holiness ; so the word iixJ is translated (Isa. xlii. 21). " He will magnify the law, and make it honorable." Thy holi- ness hath shone forth admirably in this last exploit, against the ene- mies and oppressors of thy people. The holiness of God is his glory, as his grace is his riches : holiness is his crown, and his mercy is hia treasure. This is the blessedness and nobleness of his nature ; it renders him glorious in himself, and glorious to his creatures, that understand any thing of this lovely perfection. Holiness is a glori- ous perfection belonging to the nature of God. Hence he is in Scrip- ture styled often the Holy One, the Holy One of Jacob, the Holy One of Israel ; and oftener entitled Holy, than Almighty, and set forth by this part of his dignity more than by any other. This is more affixed as an epithet to his name than any other : you never find it expressed. His mighty name, or his His wise name ; but His great name, and most of all. His holy name. This is his greatest title of honor; in this doth the majesty and venerableness of his name ap pear. When the sinfulness of Sennacherib is aggravated, the Holy Ghost takes the rise from this attribute (2 Kings xix. 22). " Thou hast lift up thine eyes on high, even against the Holy One of Israel ;" not against the wise, mighty, &c., but against the Holy One of Israel, as that wherein the majesty of God was most illustrious. It ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. IH is upon tliis account he is called light, as impurity is called dark- ness ; both in this sense are opposed to one another : he is a pure and unmixed light, free from all blemish in his essence, nature, and operations. 1. Heathens have owned it. Proclus calls him, the undefiled Gro- vernor of the world. ^ The poetical transformations of their false gods, and the extravagancies coDimitted by them, was — in the ac- count of the wisest of them — an unholy thing to report and hear.' And some vindicate Epicurus from the atheism wherewith he was commonly charged ; that he did not deny the being of God, but those adulterous and contentious deities the people worshipped, which were practices unworthy and unbecoming the nature of God.'' Hence they asserted, that virtue was an imitation of God, and a virtuous man bore a resemblance to God : if virtue were a copy from God, a greater holiness must be owned in the original. And -when some of them were at a loss how to free God from being the author of sin in the world, they ascribe the birth of sin to matter, and run into an absurd opinion, fancying it to be uncreated, that thereby they might exempt God from all mixture of evil ; so sacred with them was the conception of God, as a Holy God. 2. The absurdest heretics have owned it. The Maniches and Marchionites, that thought evil came by necessity, yet would salvo God's being the author of it, by asserting two distinct eternal prin- ciples, one the original of evil, as God was the fountain of good : so rooted was the notion of this Divine purity, that none would ever slander goodness itself with that which was so disparaging to it.i 3. The nature of God cannot rationally be conceived without it. Though the power of God be the first rational conclusion, drawn from the sight of his works, wisdom the next, from the order and connexion of his works, purity must result from the beauty of his works : that God cannot be deformed by evil, who hath made every thing so beautiful in its time. The notion of a God cannot be en- tertained without separating from him whatsoever is impure and be- spotting both in his essence and actions. Though we conceive him infinite in Majesty, infinite in essence, eternal in duration, mighty in power, and wise and imnmtable in his counsels; merciful in his proceedings with men, and whatsoever other perfections may dig- nify so sovereign a Being, yet if we conceive him destitute of this excellent perfection, and imagine him possessed with the least con- tagion of evil, we make him but an infinite monster, and sully all those perfections we ascribed to him before ; we rather own him a devil than a God. It is a contradiction to be God and to be dark ness, or to have one mote of darkness mixed with his light. It is a less injury to him to deny his being, than to deny the purity of it ; the one makes him no god, the other a deformed, unlovely, and a detestable god. Plutarch said not amiss, That he should count him- self less injured by that man, that should deny that there was sush a man as Plutarch, than by him that should affirm that there was such ^ "AxpavTo^ jjyefxuv. • ov6' ukoveiv oaiov. Ammoa. in Plut. de 'Et apud Delpbo^ p. 893. t Gasseud. Tom. I. Phys. § l.lib. 4, cap. 2, p. 289. ' Petav. Theol. Dogmat. Tom. I. lib. 6, cap. 5, p. 416. Il2 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. a one indeed, but he was a debauched fellow, a loose and vicaoua person. It is a less wrong to God to discard any ackno/vledgraents of his being, and to count luni nothing, than to believe him to exist, but imagine a base and unholy Deity : he that saith, God is not holy, speaks much worse than he that saith, There is no God at all. Let these two thLigs be considered. I. If any, this attribute hath an excellency above iiis other perfec- tions. There are some attributes of God we prefer, because of our interest in them, and the relation they bear to us : as we esteem his goodness before his power, and his mercy whereby he relieves us, before his justice whereby he punisheth us ; as there are some we more delight in, because of the goodness we receive by them ; so there are some that God delights to honor, because of their excellency, 1. None is sounded out so loftily, with such solemnity, and so frequently by angels that stand before his throne, as this. Where do you find any other attribute trebled in the praises of it, as this (Isa. vi. 3) ? " Solj) ^olj) ^oly is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of iiis glory ;" and (Rev. iv. 8), " The four beasts rest not day and night, saying. Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty," &c. His power or sovreignty, as Lord of hosts, is but once mentioned, but with a ternal repetition of his holiness. Do you hear, in an}^ angeli- cal song, any other perfection of the Divine Nature thrice repeated ? Where do we read of the crying out Eternal, eternal, eternal ; or, Faithful, faithful, faithful. Lord God of Hosts ? Whatsoever other attribute is left out, this God would have to fill the mouths of angels and blessed spirits for ever in heaven. 2. He singles it out to swear by (Ps. Ixxxix. 35) : " Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David:" and (Amos iv. 2), " The Lord will swear by his holiness :" he twice swears by his hohness ; once by his power (Isa. Ixii. 8) ; once by all, when he swears by his name (Jer. xliv. 26). He lays here his holiness to pledge for the assurance of his promise, as the attribute most dear to him, most valued by him, as though no other could give an assur- ance parallel to it in this concern of an everlasting redemption which is there spoken of: he that swears, swears by a greater than himself; God having no greater than himself, swears by himself: and swear- ing here by his hohness, seems to equal that single one to all his other attributes, as if he were more concerned in the honor of it, than of all the rest. It is as if he should have said. Since I have not a more excellent perfection to swear by, than that of my holiness, I lay this to pawn for your security, and bind myself by that which I will never part with, were it possible for me to be stripped of all the rest. It is a tacit imprecation of himself. If I lie unto David, let me never be counted holy, or thought righteous enough to be trusted by angels or men. This attribute he makes most of. 3. It is his glory and beauty. Holiness is the honor of the crea- ture; sanctification and honor are linked togetler (1 Thess. iv. 4); much more is it the honor of God ; it is the image of God in the creature (E})h. iv. 24). When we take the picture of a man, we draw the most beautiful part, the face, which is a member of the greatest excellency. When God would be drawn to the life, as much ox THE HOLINESS OF GOD, 113 as can be, m the spirit of his creatures, he is drawn in this attribute, as being the most beautiful perfection of God, and most valuable with him. Power is his hand and arm ; omniscience, his eye ; mercy, his bowels; eternity, his duration ; his holiness is his beauty (2 Chron. XX. 21); — " should praise the beauty of holiness." In Ps. xxvii. 4, David desires "to behold the beauty of the Lord, and inquire in his holy temple ;" that is, the holiness of God manifested in his hatred of sin in the daily sacrifices. Holiness was the beauty of the temple (Isa. xlvi. 11); holy and beautiful house are joined together; much more the beauty of God that dwelt in the sanctuary. This renders him lovely to all his innocent creatm-es, though formidable to the guilty ones. A heathen jjhilosopher could call it the beauty of the Divine essence, and say, that God was not so happy by an eternity of life, as by an excellency of virtue."' And the angels' song intimate it to be his glory (Isa. vi. 3); "The whole earth is full of thy glory;" that is, of his holiness in his laws, and in his judgments against sin, that being the attribute applauded by them before. 4. It is his very life. So it is called (Eph. iv. 18), " Alienated from the life of God," that is, from the holiness of God : speaking of the opposite to it, the uncleanness and profaneness of the Gentiles. "We are only alienated from that which we are bound to imitate ; but this is the perfection alway set out as the pattern of our actions, " Be ye holy, as I am holy;" no other is proposed as our copy; alien- ated from that purity of God, which is as much as his life, without which he could not live. If he were stripped of this, he would be a dead God, more than by the want of any other perfection. His swearing by it intimates as much ; he swears often by his own life ; " As I live, saith the Lord :" so he swears by his holiness, as if it were his life, and more his life than any other. Let me not live, or let me not be holy, are all one in his oath. His Deity could not outlive the life of his purity. II. As it seems to challenge an excellency above all his other per- fections, so it is the glory of all the rest. As it is the glory of the God- head, so it is the glory of every perfection in the Godhead. As his power is the strength of them, so his holiness is the beauty of them. As all would be weak, without almightiness to back them, so all would be uncomely without holiness to adorn them. Should this be sullied, all the rest would lose their honor and their comfortable efiicacy : as, at the same instant that the sun should lose its light, it would lose its heat, its strength, its generative and quickening virtue. As sincerity is the lustre of every grace in a Christian, so is purity the splendor of every attribute in the Godhead. His justice is a holy justice ; his wisdom a holy wisdom ; his arm of power a holy arm (Ps. xcviii. 1); his truth or promise a hol}^ promise (Ps. cv. 42). Holy and true go hand in hand (Rev. vi. 10). His name, which signifies all his attributes in conjunction, is holy (Ps. ciii. 1); yea, he is " righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works" (Ps. cxlv. 17): it is the rule of all his acts, the source of all his punishments. K every attribute of the Deity were a distinct member, purity would be the form, the soul, the spirit to animate them. Without it, hia "> Plutarch Eui£ubin. de Pereuni Phil. lib. 6, oatt. 6. 114 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES, patience -would be an indulgence to sin, his mercy a fondness, his wrath a madness, his power a tyranny, his wisdom an unworthy subtilty. It is this gives a decorum to all. His mercy is not ex- ercised without it, since he pardons none but those that have an interest, by union, in the obedience of a Mediator, which was so delightful to his infinite purity. His justice, which guilty man is apt to tax with cruelty and violence in the exercise of it, is not acted out of the compass of this rule. In acts of man's vindictive justice there is something of impurity, perturbation, passion, some mixture of cruelty; but none of these fall upon God in the severest acts of wrath. When God appears to Ezekiel, in the resemblance of fire, to signify his anger against the house of Judah for their idolatry, " from his loins downward" there was " the appearance of fire ;" but, from the loins upward, "the appearance of brightness, as the color of amber" (Ezek. viii. 2). His heart is clear in his most terrible acts of vengeance ; it is a pure flame, wherewith he scorcheth and burns his enemies : he is holy in the most fiery appearance. This attribute, therefore, is never so much applauded, as when his sword hath been drawn, and he hath manifested the gTcatest fierceness against his ene- mies. The magnificent and triumphant expression of it in the text, follows just upon God'f! miraculous defeat and niin of the Egjrptian army: "The sea covei-I them; they sank as lead in the mighty waters:" then it follows, " "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, glorious in holiness?" And when it was so celebrated by the seraphims (Isa. vi. 3), it was when the " posts moved, and the house was filled with smoke" (ver. 4), which are signs of anger (Ps. xviii. 7, 8). And when he was about to send Isaiah upon a message of spiritual and temporal judgments, that he would make the " heart of that people fat, and their ears heavy, and their eyes shut ; waste their cities with- out inhabitant, and their houses without man, and make the land desolate" (ver. 9-12): and the angels which here applaud him for his holiness, are the executioners of his justice, and here called sera- phims, from burning or fiery spirits, as being the ministers of his wrath. His justice is part of his holiness, whereby he doth reduce into order those things that are out of order. When he is consuming men by his fury, he doth not diminish, but manifest purity (Zeph. iii. 5) ; " The just Lord is in the midst of her ; he will do no iniquity," Every action of his is fi-ee from all tincture of e\'il. It is also cele- brated with praise, by the four beasts about his throne, when he ap- pears in a covenant garb with a rainbow about his throne, and yet with thunderings and lightnings shot against his enemies (Rev iv. 8, compared with ver. 3, 5), to show that all his acts of merc}^, as well as justice, are clear from any stain. This is the crown of all his attributes, the life of all his decrees, the brightness of all his actions : nothing is decreed by him, nothing is acted by him, but what is worthy of the dignity, and becoming the honor, of this attribute. For the better understanding this attribute, observe, T. The nature of this holiness. II. The demonstrati(-)n of it. III. The purity of his nature in all his acts about sin. IV. The use of all to ourselves. I. The nature of Divine holiness in general. The holiness of God negatively^ is a perfect and unpolluted freedom from all evil. As we ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 115 call gold pure, that is not embased by any dross, and that garment, clean tliat is free from any spot, so the nature of God is estranged from all shadow of evil, all nnaginaljle contagion. Positively, It is the rectitude or integrity of the Divine nature, or that conformity of it, in affection and action, to the Divine will, as to his eternal law, whereby he works with a becomingness to his own excellency, and whereby he hath a delight and complacency in everything agreeable to his will, and an abhorrency of everything contrary thereunto. As there is no darkness in his understanding, so there is no spot in his will : as his mind is possessed with all truth, so there is no devia- tion in his will from it. He loves all truth and goodness ; he hates all falsity and evil. In regard of his righteousness, he loves right- eousness (Ps. xi. 7); " The righteous Lord loveth righteousness," and " hath no pleasure in wickedness" (Ps. v. 4). He values purit}^ in his creatures, and detests all impurity, whether inward or outward. We may, indeed, distinguish the holiness of God from his righteous- ness in our conceptions : holiness is a perfection absolutely considered in the nature of God; righteousness, a perfection, as referred to others, in his actions towards them and upon them." In particular, this property of the Divine nature is, 1. An essential and necessary perfection : he is essentially and necessarily holy. It is the essential glory of his nature : his holiness is as necessary as his being ; as necessary as his omniscience : as he cannot but know what is right, so he cannot but do what is just. His understanding is not as created understanding, capable of ignorance as well as knowledge ; so his will is not as created wills, capable of unrighteousness, as well as righteousness. There can be no contradiction or contrariety in the Divine nature, to know what is right, and to do what is wrong ; if so, there would be a diminution of his blessedness, he would not be a God alway blessed, "blessed forever," as he is (Rom. ix. 5). He is as necessarily holy, as he is necessarily God ; as necessarily without sin, as without change. As he was God from eternity, so he was holy from eternity. He was gracious, merciful, just in his own nature, and also holy; though no creature had been framed by him to exercise his grace, mercy, justice, or holiness upon.o If God had not created a world, he had, in his own nature, been Almighty, and able to create a world. If there never had been anything but himself, yet he had been omniscient, knowing everything that was within the verge and compass of his infinite power ; so he was pure in his own nature, though he never had brought forth any rational creature whereby to manifest this purity. These perfections are so necessary, that the nature of God could not subsist without them. And the acts of those, ad intra, or within himself, are necessary ; for being omniscient in nature, there must be an act of knowledge of himself and his own nature. Being infinitely holy, an act of holiness in infinitely loving himself, must necessarily flow from this perfec- tion.? As the Divine will cannot but be perfect, so it cannot be wanting to render the highest love to itself, to its goodness, to the Divine nature, which is due to him. Indeed, the acts of those, ad ■ Martin, de Deo, p. 86. » Tun-etin. de Satisfact. p. 28, P Ochiuo, I'ledic. Part III. Bodie. 5L pp. 347, 348. 116 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. extra, are not necessar}^, but upon a condition. To love righteous- ness, without himself, or to detect sin, or inflict punishment for tlie committing of it, could not have been, had there been no righteous creature for him to love, no sinning creature for him to loathe, and to exercise his justice upon, as the object of punishment. Some attributes require a condition to make the acts of them necessary ; as it is at God's liberty, whether he will create a rational creature, or no ; but when he decrees to make either angel or man, it is neces- sary, from the perfection of his nature, to make them righteoi'^. It is at God's liberty whether he will speak to man, or no ; but if he doth, it is impossible for him to speak that which is false, because of his infinite perfection of veracity. It is at his liberty whether he will permit a creature to sin ; but if he sees good to suffer it, it is im- possible but that he should detest that creature that goes cross to his righteous nature. His holiness is not solely an act of his will, for then he might be unholy as well as holy; he might love iniquity and hate righteousness ; he might then command that which is good, and afterwards command that which is bad and unworthy ; for what is only an act of his will, and not belonging to his nature, is indiffer- ent to him. As the positive law he gave to Adam, of not eating the . forbidden fruit, was a pure act of his will, he might have given him liberty to eat of it, if he had pleased, as well as prohibited him. But what is moral and good in its own nature, is necessarily willed by God, and cannot be changed by him, because of the transcendent eminency of his nature, and righteousness of his will. As it is impossible for God to command his creature to hate him, or to dispense with a creature for not loving him, — for this would be to command a thing intrinsically evil, the highest ingratitude, the very spirit of all wick- edness, which consists in the hating God, — yet, though God be thus necessarily holy, he is not so by a bare and simple necessity, as the sun shines, or the fire burns ; but by a free necessity, not compelled thereunto, but inclined from the fulness of the perfection of his own nature and will ; so as by no means he can be unholy, because he will not be unholy ; it is against his nature to be so. 2. God is only absolutely holy ; " There is none holy as the Lord" (1 Sam. ii. 2) ; it is the pecuhar glory of his nature ; as there is none good but God, so none holy but God. No crea- ture can be essentially holy, because mutable ; holiness is the sub- stance of God, but a quality and accident in a creature. God is in- finitely holy, creatures finitely holy. He is holy from himself, crea- tures are holy by derivation from him. He is not only holy, but holiness ; holiness in the highest degree, is his sole prerogative. As the highest heaven is called the heaven of heavens, because it em- braceth in its circle all the heavens, and contains the rnagnitude oi them, and hath a greater vastness above all tliat it encloseth, so is God the Holy of holies ; he contains the holiness of all creatures put together, and infinitely more. As all the wisdom, excellency, and power of the creatures if compared with the wisdom, excellency, and power of God, is but iblly, vileness, and weakness ; so the highest created purity, if set in parallel with God, is but impurit}' and un- cleanner^s (Rev. xv. 4) : " Thou only art holy." It is like the light ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 117 of a glow-worm to that of the sun (Job xiii. 15) ; " The heavens are not pure in his sight, and his angels he charged with folly" (Job iv. 18). Though God hath crowned the angels with an unspotted sanctity, and placed them in a habitation of glory, yet, as illustrious as they are, they have an unworthiness in tlieir own nature to ap- pear before the throne of so holy a God ; their holiness grows dim and pale in his presence. It is but a weak shadow of that Divine purity, whose light is so glorious, that it makes them cover their faces out of weakness to behold it, and cover their feet out of shame in themselves. They are not pure in his sight, because, though they love God (which is a principle of holiness) as much as they can, yet, not so much as he deserves ; they love him with the intensest degree, according to their power ; but not with the intensest degree, according to his own amiableness ; for they cannot infinitely love God, unless tliey were as infinite as God, and had an understanding of his perfections equal with himself, and as immense as his own knowledge. God, having an infinite knowledge of himself, can only have an infinite love to himself, and, consequently, an infinite holi- ness without any defect ; because he loves himself according to the vastness of his own amiableness, which no finite being can. There- fore, though the angels be exempt from corruption and soil, they cannot enter into comparison with the purity of God, without ac- knoT;^ledgment of a dimness in themselves. Besides, he charges them with folly, and puts no trust in them ; because they have the power of sinning, though not the act of sinning ; they have a pos- sible folly in their own nature to be charged with. Holiness is a quality separable from them, but it is inseparable from God. Had they not at first a mutability in their nature, none of them could have sinned, there had been no devils ; but because some of them sinned, the rest might have sinned. And though the standing angels shall never be changed, yet they are still changeable in their own nature, and their standing is due to grace, not to nature ; and though they shall be for ever preserved, yet they are not, nor ever can be, immutable by nature, for then they should stand upon the same bottom with God himself; but they are supported by grace against that changeableness of nature which is essential to a crea- ture; the Creator only hath immortality, that is, immutabilitv (1 Tim. iii. 16). It is as certain a truth, that no creature can be naturally immutable and impeccable, as that God cannot create any anything actually polluted and imperfect. It is as possible that the highest creature may sin, as it is possible that it may be anni- hilated ; it may become not holy, as it may become not a crea- ture, but nothing. The holiness of a creature may be reduced into nothing, as well as his substance ; but the holiness of the Creator cannot be diminished, dimmed, or overshadowed (James i. 17) : " He is the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning." It is as impossible his holiness should be blotted, as that his Deity should be extinguished : for whatsoever creature hath essentially such or such qualities, cannot be stripped of them, without being turned out of its essence. As a man is es- sentially rational ; and if he ceaseth to be rational, he ceaseth to be 118 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. man. The sun is essentially luminous; if it sliould become dark in its own body, it would cease to be the sun. In regard to this abso- lute and only holiness of God, it is thrice repeated by the seraphima (Isa. vi. 3). The three-fold repetition of a word notes the certainty or absoluteness of the thing, or the irreversibleness of the resolve ; as (Ezek. xxi. 27), " I will overturn, overturn, overturn," notes the certainty of the judgment ; also, (Rev. viii. 8), " Woe, woe, woe ;" three times repeated, signifies the same. The holiness of Grod is so absolutely peculiar to him, that it can no more be expressed in creatures, than his omnipotence, whereby they may be able to create a world ; or his omniscience, whereby they may be capable of know- ing all things, and knowing Grod as he knows himself 3. God is so holy, that he cannot possibly approve of any evil done by another, but doth perfectly abhor it ; ii would not else be a glorious holiness (Ps. v. 3). " He hath no pleasure in wickedness." He doth not only love that which is just, but abhor, with a perfect hatred, all things contrary to the rule of righteousness. Holiness can no more approve of sin than it can commit it : to be delighted with the evil in another's act, contracts a guilt, as well as the com- mission of it ; for approbation of a thing is a consent to it. Some- times the approbation of an evil in another is a more grievous crime than the act itself, as appears in Rom. i. 32, who knowing the judgment of God, "not only" do the same, but have pleasure in them that do it ;" where the " not only" manifests it to be a greater guilt to take pleasure in them. Every sin is aggravated by the dehght in it ; to take pleasure in the evil of another's action, shows a more ardent affection and love to sin, than the committer himself may have. This, therefore, can as little fall upon God, as to do an evil act himself ; yet, as a man may be delighted with the consequences of another's sin, as it may occasion some public good, or private good to the guilty person, as sometimes it may be an occasion of his repentance, when the horridness of a fact stares him in the face, and occasions a self- reflection for that, and other crimes, which is attended with an in- dignation against them, and sincere remorse for them ; so God is pleased with those good things his goodness and wisdom bring forth upon the occasion of sin. But in regard of his holiness, he cannot approve of the evil, whence his infinite wisdom drew forth his own glory, and his creature's good. His pleasure is not in the sinful act of the creature, but in the act of his own goodness and skill, turn- ing it to another end than what the creature aimed at. (1.) He abhors it necessarily. Holiness is the glory of the Deity, therefore necessary. The nature of God is so holy, that he cannot but hate it (Hab. i. 13): "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity :" he is more opposite to it than light to darkness, and, therefore, it can expect no countenance from him. A love of holiness cannot be without a hatred of everything that is contrary to it. As God necessarily loves himself, so he must necessarily hate everything that is against himself: and as he loves himself for his own excellency and holiness, he must necessarily de- test whatsoever is repugnant to his holiness, because of the evil_ of it Since he is infinitely good, he cannot l)iit love goodness, as it is ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 119 a resemblance to himself, and cannot but abbor unrighteousness, as be- ing most distant from him, and contrary to him. If he have any esteem for his own perfections, he must needs have an implacable aversion to all that is so repugnant to him, that would, if it were possible, destroy him, and is a point directed, not only against his glory, but against his life. If he did not hate it, he would hate himself: for since righteousness is his image, and sin would deface his image ; if he did not love his image, and loathe what is against his image, he would loathe himself, he would >e an enemy to his own nature. Nay, if it were possible for him to love it, it were possible for him not to be holy, it were possible then for him to deny himself, and will that he were no God, which is a palpable contra - diction.q Yet this necessity in God of hating sin, is not a brutisli necessity, such as is in mere animals, that avoid, by a natural in- stinct, not of choice, what is prejudicial to them ; but most free, as well as necessary, arising from an infinite knowledge of his own na- ture, and of the evil nature of sin, and the contrariety of it to his own excellency, and the order of his Avorks. (2.) Therefore intensely. jSTothing do men act for more than their glory. As he doth infinitely, and therefore perfectly know himself, so he infinitely, and therefore perfectly knows what is contrary to himself, and, as according to the manner and measure .of his knowl- edge of himself, is his love to himself, as infinite as his knowledge, and therefore inexpressible and unconceivable by us : so, from the perfection of his knowledge of the evil of sin, which is infinitely above what any creature can have, doth arise a displeasure against it suitable to that knowledge. In creatures the degrees of affection to, or aversion from a thing, are suited to the strength of their ap- prehensions of the good or evil in them. God knows not only the workers of wickedness, but the wickedness of their works (Job xi. 11), for " he knows vain men, he sees wickedness also." The ve- hemency of this hatred is expressed variously in Scriptui'e ; he loathes it so, that he is impatient of beholding it ; the very sight of it affects him with detestation (Hab, i. 13) ; he hates the first spark of it in the imagination (Zech. viii. 17) ; with what variety of expres- sions doth he repeat his indignation at their polluted services (Amos V. 21, 22); "I hate, I detest, I despise, I will not smell, I will not regard ; take away from me the noise of thy songs, I mil not hear !" So, (Isa. i. 14), " My soul hates, they are a trouble to me, I am weary to bear them." It is the abominable thing that he hates (Jer. xliv. 4) ; he is vexed and fretted at it (Isa. Ixiii. 10 ; Ezek. xvi. 33). He abhors it so, that his hatred redounds upon the person that com- mits it. (Ps. V. 5), " He hates all workers of iniquity," Sin is the only primary object of his displeasure : he is not displeased with the nature of man as man, for that was derived from him ; but with the nature of man as sinful, which is from the sinner himself. When a man hath but one object for the exercise of all his anger, it is stronger than when diverted to many objects : a mighty torrent, when diverted into many streams, is weaker than when it comes in a fidl body upon one place only. The infinite anger and hatred of 'i Turretiu. de Satisfact. pp. 35, 36. 120 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. God, wLicli is as infinite as his love and mercy, lias no other object, against which he directs the mighty force of it, but only unright eousness. He hates no person for all the penal evils upon him, though they were more by ten thousand times than Job was struck with, but only for his sin. Again, sin being only evil, and an unmixed evil, there is nothing in it that can abate the detestation of God, or balance his hatred of it ; there is not the least grain of goodness in it, to incline him to the least affection to any part of it. This ha- tred cannot but be intense ; for as the more any creature is sancti- fied, the more is he advanced in the abhorrence of that which is contrary to holiness ; therefore, God being the highest, most absolute and infinite holiness, doth infinitely, and therefore intensely, hate unholiness ; being infinitely righteous, doth infinitely abhor un- righteousness ; being infinitely true, doth infinitely abhor falsity, as it is the greatest and most deformed evil. As it is from the right- eousness of his nature that he hath a content and satisfaction 11 righteousness (Ps. xi. 7), " The righteous Lord loveth righteous ness ;" so it is from the same righteousness of his nature, that he de tests whatsoever is morally evil : as his nature therefore is infinite so must his abhorrence be. (3.) Therefore universally, because necessarily and intensely. He doth not hate it in one, and indulge it in another, but loathes it wherever he finds it ; not one worker of iniquity is exempt from it (Ps. V. 5) : " Thou hatest all workers of iniquity." For it is not sin, as in this or that person, or as great or little ; but sin, as sin is the object of his hatred ; and, therefore, let the person be never so great, and have particular characters of his image upon him, it se- cures him not from God's hatred of any evil action he shall commit He is a jealous God, jealous of his glory (Exod. xx. 5) ; a metaphor, taken from jealous husbands, who will not endure the least adultery in their wives, nor God the least defection of man from his law. Every act of sin is a spiritual adultery, denying God to be the chief good, and giving that prerogative by that act to some vile thing. He loves it no more in his own people than he doth in his enemies ; he frees them not from his rod, the testimony of his loathing their crimes : whosoever sows iniquity, shall reap affliction. It might be thought that he affected their dross, if he did not refine them, and loved their filth, if he did not cleanse them ; because of his detesta- tion of their sin, he will not spare them from the furnace, though because of love to their persons in Christ, he will exempt them from Topliet. How did the sword ever and anon drop down upon David's family, after his unworthy dealing in Uriah's case, and cut off ever and anon some of the branches of it ? He doth sometimes punish it more severely in this life in his own people, than in others. Uj^on Jonah's disobedience a storm pursues him, and a whale devours him, while the profane world lived in their lusts without control. Moses, for one act of unbelief, is excluded from Canaan, when greater sin- ners attained that happiness. It is not a light punishment, but a vengeance he takes on their inventions (Ps. xcix, 8), to manifest that he hates sin as sin, and not because the worst persons commit it. Perhaps, had a ])rofane man touched the ark, the hand of God had ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 121 not so suddenly reached him ; but when Uzzah, a man zealoas for him, as may be supposed by his care for the support of the tottering ark, would step out of his place, he strikes him down for his dis- obedient action, by the side of the ark, which he would indirectly (as not being a Levite) sustain (2 Sam. vi. 7). Nor did our Saviour so sharply reprove the Pharisees, and turn so short from them as he did from Peter, when he gave a carnal advice, and contrary to that wherein was to be the greatest manifestation of God's holiness, viz. the death of Christ (Matt. xvi. 23). He calls him Satan, a name sharper than the title of the devil's children wherewith he marked the Pharisees, and given (besides him) to none but Judas, Avho made a profession of love to him, and was outwardly ranked in the num- ber of his disciples. A gardener hates a weed the more for being in the bed with the most precious flowers, God's hatred is univei° sally fixed against sin, and he hates it as much in those whose per- sons shall not fall under his eternal anger, as being secured in the arms of a Eedeemer, by whom the guilt is wiped off, and the filth shall be totally washed away : though he hates their sin, and cannot but hate it,_ yet he loves their persons, as being united as members to the Mediator and mystical Head. A man may love a gano-rened member, because it is a member of his own body, or a member of a dear relation, but he loathes the gangrene in it more than in those wherein he is not so much concerned. Though God's hatred of be- lievers' persons is removed by faith in the satisfactory death of Jesus Christ, yet his antipathy against sin was not taken away by that blood ; nay, it was impossible it should. It was never designed, nor had It any capacity to alter the unchangeable nature of God, but to manifest the unspottedness of his will, and his eternal aversion to anything that was contrary to the purity of his Being, and the righteousness of his laws. (4.) Perpetually: this must necessarily follow upon the others. He can no more cease to hate impurity than he can cease to love holiness :_ if he should in the least instant approve of anything that is filthy, in that moment he would disapprove of his own nature and being ; there would be an interruption in his love of himself, which is as eternal as it is infinite. How can he love any sin Avhich is con- trary to his nature, but for one moment, without hating his own na- ture, which is essentially contrary to sin ? Two contraries cannot be loved at the same time ; God must first begin to hate himself before he can approve of any evil which is directly opposite to himself We, indeed, are changed with a temptation, sometimes bear an affec ■ tion to it, and sometimes testify an indignation against it ; but God is always the same without any shadow of change, and "is angry with the wicked every day" (Ps. vii. 11), that is, uninterruptedly in the nature of his anger, though not in the effects of it. God indeed may be reconciled to the sinner, but never to the sin ; for then he should renounce himself, deny his own essence and his own divinitv, if his inclinations to the love of goodness, and his aversion from e^al,' could be changed, if he suffered the contempt of the one, and en- couraged the practice of the other. 4. God is so hjly, that he cannot but love holiness in others. 122 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. Not tliat lie owes anything to his creature, but from the unspeakable holiness of his nature, whence affections to all things that bear a re- eemblance of him do flow ; as light shoots out from the sun, or anj glittering body : it is essential to the infinite righteousness of his na- ture to love righteousness wherever he beholds it (Ps, xi. 7) : " The righteous Lord loveth righteousness." He cannot, l-ecause of his na- ture, but love that which bears some agreement witli his nature, that which is the curious draught of his own wisdom and jDurity : he can- not but be delighted with a copy of himself: he would not have a holy nature, if he did not love holiness in every nature : his own natui'e would be denied by him, if he did not affect everything that had a stamp of his own nature upon it. There was indeed nothing without God, that could invite him to manifest such goodness to man, as he did in creation : but after he had stamped that rational nature with a righteousness convenient for it, it was impossible but that he should ardently love that impression of himself, because he loves his own Deity, and consequently all things which are any sparks and images of it : and were the devils capable of an act of righteous- ness, the holiness of his nature would incline him to love it, even in those dark and revolted spirits. 0. God is so holy, that he cannot positively will or encourage sin in an}^. How can he give any encouragement to that which he can- not in the least approve of, or look upon without loathing, not only the crime, but the criminal ? Light may sooner be the cause of darkness than holiness itself be the cause of unholiness, absolutely contrary to it : it is a contradiction, that he that is the Fountain of good should be the source of evil ; as if the same fountain should bubble up both sweet and bitter streams, salt and fresh (James iii. 11) ; since whatsoever good is in man acknowledges God for its au- thor, it follows that men are evil by their own fault. There is no need for men to be incited to that to which the corruption of their own nature doth so powerfully bend them. Water hath a forcible principle in its own nature to carry it downward ; it needs no force to hasten the motion : " God tempts no man, but every man is drawn away by his own lust" (James i. 13, 14). All the preparations for glory are from God (Rom. ix. 23) ; but men are said to " be fitted to destruction" (ver. 22) ; but God is not said to fit them ; they, by their iniquities, fit themselves for ruin, and he, by his long-suffering, keeps the destruction from them for awhile. (1.) God cannot command any unrighteousness. As all virtue is summed up in a love to God, so all iniquity is summed up in an en- mity to God : every wicked work declares a man an enemy to God (Col. i. 21) : " enemies in your minds by wicked works." If he could command his creature anything which bears an enmity in its nature to himself, he would then implicitly command the hatred of himself, and he would be, in some measure, a hater of himself : he that com- mands another to deprive him of his life, cannot be said to bear any love to his own life. God can never hate himself, and therefore can- not command anything that is hateful to him and tends to a hating of him, and driving the creature further from him ; in that very mo- ment that God should command such a thino;, he would cease to be ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 123 good. What can be more absurd to imagine, than that Infinite Groodness should enjoin a thing contrary to itself, and contrary to the essential duty of a creature, and order him to do anything that bespeaks an enmity to the nature of the Creator, or a deflouring and disparaging his works ? God cannot but love himself, and his own goodness ; he were not otherwise good ; and, therefore, cannot order the creature to do anything opposite to this goodness, or anything hurtful to the creature itself, as unrighteousness is. (2.) Nor can God secretly inspire any evil into us. It is as much against his nature to incline the heart to sin as it is to command it : as it is impossible but that he should love himself, and therefore im- possible to enjoin anything that tends to a hatred of himself; by the same reason it is as impossible that he should infuse such a principle in the heart, that might carry a man out to any act of enmity against him. To enjoin one thing, and incline to another, would be an ar- gument of such insincerity, unfaithfulness, contradiction to itself, that it cannot be conceived to fall within the compass of the Divine nature (Deut, xxxii. 4), who is a " God without iniquity," because " a God of truth" and sincerity, "just and right is he." To bestow excellent faculties upon man in creation, and incline him, by a sud- den impulsion, to things contrary to the true end of him, and induce an inevitable ruin upon that work which he had composed with so much wisdom and goodness, and pronounced good with so much de- light and pleasure, is inconsistent with that love which God bears to the creature of his own framing : to incline his will to that which would render him the object of his hatred, the fuel for his justice, and sink him into deplorable misery, it is most absurd, and unchris- tian-like to imagine. (3.) Nor can God necessitate man to sin. Indeed sin cannot be committed by force ; there is no sin but is in some sort voluntary ; voluntary in the root, or voluntary in the branch ; voluntary by an immediate act of the will, or voluntary by a general or natural incli- nation of the will. That is not a crime to which a man is violenced, without any concurrence of the faculties of the soul to that act ; it is indeed not an act, but a passion ; a man that is forced is not an agent, but a patient under the force : but what necessity can there be upon man from God, since he hath implanted such a principle in him, that he cannot desire anj^thing but what is good, either really or apparently ; and if a man mistakes the object, it is his own fault ; for God hath endowed him with reason to discern, and liberty of will to choose upon that judgment. And though it is to be ac- knowledged that God hath an absolute sovereign dominion over his creature, without any limitation, and may do what he pleases, and dispose of it according to his own will, as a " potter doth with his vessel" (Rom. ix. 21) ; according as the church, speaks (Isa. Ixiv. 8), " We are the clay, and thou our potter ; and we all are the work of thy hand ;" yet he cannot pollute any undefiled creature by virtue of that sovereign power, which he hath to do what he will with it ; because such an act would be contrary to the foundation and right of his dominion, which consists in the excellency of his nature, hia immense wisdom, and unspotted purity : if God should therefore d^' 124 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. any sucli act, lie would expunge the right of his dominion by blot- ting out that nature which renders him fit for that dominion, and the exercise of itj Any dominion which is exercised witliout the rules of goodness, is not a true sovereignty, but an insupportable tyranny. God would cease to be a rightful Sovereign if he ceased to be good ; and he would cease to be good, if he did command, necessitate, or by any positive operation, incline inwardly the heart of a creature di- rectly to that which were morally evil, and contrary to the eminency of his own nature. But that we may the better conceive of this, let us trace man in his first fall, whereby he subjected himself and all his posterity to the curse of the law and hatred of God ; we shall find no footsteps, either of precept, outward force, or inward impul- sion,« The plain story of man's apostasy dischargeth God from any interest in the crime as an encouragement, and excuseth him from any appearance of suspicion, when he showed him the tree he had reserved, as a mark of his sovereignty, and forbad him to eat of the fruit of it ; he backed the prohibition with the threatening the great- est evil, viz. death ; which could be understood to imply nothing less than the loss of all his happiness ; and in that couched an assurance of the perpetuity of his felicity, if he did not, rebelliously, reach forth his hand to take and "eat of the fruit" (Gen. ii, 16, 17). It is true God had given that fruit an excellency, " a goodness for food, and a pleasantness to the eye" (Gen. iii. 6). He had given man an appe- tite, whereby he was capable of desiring so pleasant a fruit ; but God had, by creation, arranged it under the command of reason, if man would have kept it in its due obedience ; he had fixed a severe threatening to bar the unlawful excursions of it ; he had allowed him a multitude of other fruits in the garden, and given him liberty enough to satisfy his curiosity in all, except this only. Could there be anything more obliging to man, to let God have his reserve of that one tree, than the grant of all the rest ; and more deterring from any disobedient attempt than so strict a command, spirited with so dreadful a penalty ? God did not solicit him to rebel against him ; a solicitation to it, and a command against it, were inconsistent. The devil assaults him, and God permitted it, and stands, as it were, a spectator of the issue of the combat. There could be no necessity upon man to listen to, and entertain the suggestions of the serpent ; he had a power to resist him, and he had an answer ready for all the devil's arguments, had they been multiplied to more than they were ; the opposing the order of God had been a suificient confutation of all the devil's plausible reasonings ; that Creator, who hath given me my being, hath ordered me not to eat of it. Though the pleasure of the fruit might allure him, yet the force of his reason might have quelled the lic^uorishness of his sense ; the perpetual thinking of, and sounding out, the command of God, had silenced both Satan and his own appetite ; had disarmed tlie tempter, and preserved his sensitive part in its due subjection. "What inclination can we suppose there could be from the Creator, when, upon the very first offer of the temptation. Eve opposes to the tempter the prohibition and threat- ening of God, and strains it to a higher peg than we find God had » Aiiiyrald. Disi-it. j)]). lOS. 104. • Aiiiyrald. Defeus. de Calviu. pp. 161, 162. ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD, 125 delivered it in? For in Gen. ii. 17, it is, " You sliall not eat of it ;" but she adds (Gen. iii. 8), "Neither shall you touch it;" which was a remark that might have had more influence to restrain her. Had our first parents kept this fixed upon their understandings and thoughts, that God had forbidden any such act as the eating of the fruit, and that he was true to execute the threatening he had uttered, of which truth of God they could not but have a natural notion, with what ease might they have withstood the devil's attack, and defeated his design ! And it had been easy with them, to have kept their understandings by the force of such a thought, from entertaining any contrary imagination. There is no ground for any jealousy of any encouragements, inward impulsions, or necessity from God in this affair. A discharge of God from this first sin will easily induce a freedom of him from all other sins which follow upon it. God doth not then encourage, or excite, or incline to sin. How can he excite to that which, when it is done, he will be sure to condemn ? How can he be a righteous Judge to sentence a sinner to misery for a crime acted by a secret inspiration from himself? Iniquity would deserve no reproof from him, if he were any way positively the author of it. Were God the author of it in us, what is the reason our own consciences accuse us for it, and convince us of it ? that, being God's deputy, would not accuse us of it, if the sovereign power by which it acts, did incline us to it. How can he be thought to excite to that which he hath enacted such severe laws to restrain, or inchne man to that which he hath so dreadfully punished in his Son, and which it is impossible but the excellency of his nature must in- cline him eternally to hate ? We may sooner imagine, that a pure flame shall engender cold, and darkness be the offspring of a sun- beam, as imagine such a thing as this. " What shall we say, is there unrighteousness with God ? God forbid." The ajDostle execrates such a thought (Eom. ix. 14.) 6. God cannot act any evil, in or by himself. If he cannot ap- prove of sin in others, nor excite any to iniquity, which is less, he cannot commit evil himself, which is greater ; what he cannot pos- itively will in another, can never be willed in himself ; he cannot do evfl. through ignorance, because of his infinite knowledge; nor through weakness, because of his infinite power ; nor through malice, because of his infinite rectitude. He cannot will any unjust thing, because, having an infinitely perfect understanding, he cannot judge that to be true which is false ; or that to be good which is evil : his will is regulated by his wisdom. If he could will any unjust and irrational thing, his will would be repugnant to his understanding ; there would be a disagreement in God, will against mind, and will against wisdom ; he being the highest reason, the first truth, cannot do an unreasonable, false, defective action. It is not a defect in God that he cannot do evil, but a fulness and excellency of power ; as it is not a weakness in the light, but the perfection of it, that it is un- able to produce darkness ; " God is the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness" (James i. 17). Nothing pleases him, nothing is acted by him, but what is beseeming the infinite excellency of his own nature ; the voluntary necessity whereby God cannot be unjust. VIC) CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. renders him a God blessed forever ; lie would hate himself for the chief good, if, in any of his actions, he should disagree with his good- ness. He cannot do any unworthy thing, net because he wants an infinite power, but because he is possessed of an infinite wisdom, and adorned with an infinite purity ; and being infinitel}^ pure, cannot have the least mixture of impui'ity. As if you can suppose fire in- finitely hot, you cannot suppose it to have the least mixture of cold- ness ; the better anything is, the more unable it is to do evil ; God being the only goodness, can as little be changed in his goodness as in his essence. II. The next inquiry is. The proof that God is holy, or the mani- festation of it. Purity is as requisite to the blessedness of God, as to the being of God ; as he could not be God without being blessed^ so he could not be blessed without being holy. He is called by the title of Blessed, as well as by that of holy (Mark xiv. 61) ; " Art thou the Christ, the son of the Blessed ?" Unrighteousness is a misery and turbulency in any spirit wherein it is ; for it is a privation of an excellency which ought to be in every intellectual being, and what 3an follow upon the privation of an excellency but unquietness and grief, the moth of happiness ? An unrighteous man, as an unright- eous man, can never be blessed, though he were in a local heaven. Had God the least spot upon his purity, it would render him as mis- erable in the midst of his infinite sufficiency, as iniquity renders a man in the confluence of his earthly enjoyments. The holiness and felicity of God are inseparable in him. The apostle intimates that the heathen made an attempt to sully his blessedness, when they wo aid liken him to corruptible, mutable, impure man (Rom. i. 23, 25): "They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image, made like to corruptible man ;" and after, he entitles God a " God blessed forever." The gospel is therefore called, " The glorious gospel of the blessed God" (1 Tim. i. 11), in regard of the holiness of the gospel precepts, and in regard of the declaration of the holi- ness of God in all the streams and branches, wherein his purit}-, in which his blessedness consists, is as illustrious as any other perfection of the Divine Being. God hath highly manifested this attribute in the state of nature ; in the legal administration ; in the dispensation of the gospel. His wisdom, goodness, and power, are declared in creation ; his sovereign authority in his law ; his grace and mercy in the gospel, and his righteousness in all. Suitable to this threefold state, may be that eternal repetition of his holiness in the prophecy (Isa. vi. 3) ; holy, as Creator and Benefactor ; holj", as Lawgiver and Judge ; holy, as Restorer and Redeemer. First, His holiness appears, as he is Creator, in framing man in a perfect uprightness. Angels, as made by God, could not be evil ; for God beheld his own works with pleasure, and could not have pro- nounced them all good, had some been created pure, and others im- pure ; two moral contrarieties could not be good. Tlie angels had a first estate, wherein tliey were happy (Jude 6) ; and had they not left their own habitation and state, they could not have been miser- able. But, because the Scripture speaks only of the creation of man, we will consider, that the human nature was well strung and ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 12 tuned bj God, according to tlie note of his own holinebS (Bccles. vii. 29) ; " God liatli made man upright :" he had declared his power in other creatures, but would declare in his rational creature, what he most valued in himself; and, therefore, created him upright, wil^ a wisdom which is the rectitude of the mind, with a purity which is the rectitude of the will and affections. He had declared a purity in other creatures, as much as they were capable of, viz. in the exact tuning them to answer one another. And that God, who so well tuned and composed other creatures, would not make man a jarring instrument, and place a cracked creature to be Lord of the rest of his earthly fabric. God, being holy, could not set his seal upon any rational creature, but the impression would be like himself, pure and holy also ; he could not be created with an error in his understand- ing ; that had been inconsistent with the goodness of God to his rational creature ; if so, the erroneous motion of the will, which was to follow the dictates of the imderstanding, could not have been im- puted to him as his crime, because it would have been, not a volun- tary, but a necessary effect of his nature ; had there been an error in the first wheel, the error of the next could not have been imput -1 to the nature of that, but to the irregular motion of the first wheel in the engine. The sin of men and angels, proceeded not from any natural defect in their understandings, but from inconsideration ; ] j that was the author of harmony in his other creatures, could not b j the author of disorder in the chief of his works. Other creature 3 were his footsteps, but man was his image (Gen. i. 26, 27): "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness;" which, though it seems to imply no more in that place, than an image of his dominion over the creatures, yet the apostle raises it a peg higher, and gives us a larger interpretation of it (Col. iii. 10): "And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him th-.t created him ;" making it to consist in a resemblance to his right'" ous- ness. Image, say some, notes the form, as man was a spirit in re;; ird of his soul ; likeness, notes the quality implanted in his spiritual na- ture ; the image of God was drawn in him, both as he was a rational, and as he was a holy creature. The creatures manifested the beiag of a superior power, as their cause, but the righteousness of the first man evidenced, not only a sovereign power, as the donor of his being, but a holy power, as the pattern of his work. God appeared to to a holy God in the righteousness of his creature, as well as an undt r- standing God in the reason of his creature, while he formed him with all necessary knowledge in his mind and all necessary upright- ness in his will. The law of love to God, with his whole soul, ^ Is whole mind, his whole heart and strength, was originally written' upon his nature ; all the parts of his nature were framed in a moral conformity with God, to answer this law, and imitate God in his purity, which consists in a love of himself, and his own goodness and excellency. Thus doth the clearness of the stream point us to the purer fountain, and the brightness of the beam evidence a greater • splendor in the sun which shot it out. Secondly, His holiness appears in his laws, as he is a Lawgiver and a Judge. Since man was bound to be subject to God, as a crea 128 CIIARNOCK OX THE ATTRIBUTES, ture, ana had a capacity to be ruled by tlie law, as an understand- ing and willing creature ; God gave him a law, taken from the depths of his holy nature, and suited to the original faculties of man. The rules which God hath fixed in the world, arc not the resolves of bare will, but result particularly from tlie goodness of his nature ; they are nothing else but the transcripts of his infinite detestation of sin, as he is the unblemished governor of the world. This being the most adorable property of his nature, he hath impressed it upon that law which he would have inviolably observed as a perpetual rule for our actions, that we may every moment think of this beau- tiful perfection, God can command nothing but what hath some similitude with the rectitude of his own nature ; all his laws, every paragraph of them, therefore, scent of this, and glitter with it (Deut, iv. 8) : " What nation hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law I set before you this day ?" and, therefore, they are com- pared to fine gold, that hath no speck or dross (Ps. xix. 10). This purity is evident — 1. In the moral law, or law of nature. 2. In the ceremonial law. 3. In the allurements annexed to it, for keeping it, and the affrightments to restrain from the breaking of it, 4. In the judgments inflicted for the violation of it. 1. In the moral law : which is therefore dignified with the title of Holy, twice in one verse (Rom. vii. 12) : "Wherefore, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, just, and good ;" it being the express image of God's will, as our Saviour was of Iiis person, and bearing a re- semblance to the purity of his nature. The tables of this law were put into the ark, that, as the mercy seat was to rejDresent the grace of God, so the law was to represent the holiness of God (Ps. xix. 1). The Psalm- ist, after he had spolcen of the glory of God in the heavens, wherein the power of God is exposed to our view, introduceth the law, wherein the pur:ty of God is evidenced to our minds (ver. 7, 8, &c.) : " Perfect, pure, clc:;u, righteous," are the titles given to it. It is clearer in holiness than the sun is in brightness ; and more mighty in itself, to command the conscience, than the sun is to run its race. As the holiness of the Scripture demonstrates the divinity of its Author ; so the holi- ness of the law doth the purity of the Lawgiver, (1,) The purity of this law is seen in the matter of it. It prescribes all that becomes a creature towards God, and all that becomes one culture towards another of his own rank and kind. The image of God is complete in the holiness of the first table, and the righteous- ness of the second ; which is intimated by the apostle (Eph, iv, 24), the one being the rule of what we owe to God, the other being the mlo of what we owe to man : there is no good but it enjoins, and no evil but it disowns. It is not sickly and lame in any part of it ; not a good action, but it gives it its due praise ; and not an evil ac- tion, but it sets a condemning mark upon. The commands of it are frequently in Scripture called judgments, because they rightly judge of good and evil ; and are a clear light to inform the judgment of man in the knowledge of both. By this was the understanding of David enlightened to know every false way, and to " hate it" (Ps. cxix, 104). There is no case can happen, but may meet with a de- termination from it ; it teaches men the noblest manner of living a ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 129 life like God himself; honorably for the Lawgiver, and joyfully for the subject. It directs us to the highest end ; sets ns at a distance from all base and sordid practices ; it proposeth light to the nnder- standing, and goodness to the will. It would tune all the strings, set right all the orders of mankind : it censures the least mote, coun- tenanceth not any stain in the life. Not a wanton glance can meet with any justification from it (Matt. v. 28) ; not a rash anger but it frowns upon (ver. 22) As the Lawgiver wants nothing as an ad- dition to his blessedness, so his law wants nothing as a supplement to its perfection (Dent. iv. 2). "What our Saviour seems to add, Is not an addition to mend any defects, but a restoration of it from the corrupt glosses, wherewith the Scribes and Pharisees had eclipsed the brightness of it : they had curtailed it, and diminished part of its authority, cutting oif its empire over the least evil, and left its power only to check the grosser practices. But Christ restores it to the due extent of its sovereignty, and, shows it those dimensions in which the holy men of God considered it as " exceeding broad" (Ps. cxix. 96), reaching to all actions, all motions, all circumstances at- tending them ; full of inexhaustible treasures of righteousness. And though this law, since the fall, doth irritate sin, it is no disparage- ment, but a testimony to the righteousness of it; which the apostle manifests by his " Wherefore (Rom. vii. 8), sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence ;" and repeating the same sense (ver. 11), subjoins a " Wherefore" (ver. 12), " Wherefore the law is holy." The rising of men's sinful hearts against the law of God, when it strikes with its preceptive and minatory parts upon their consciences, evidenceth the holiness of the law and the Lawgiver. In its own nature it is a directing rule, but the malignant nature of sin is exasperated by it ; as an hostile quality in a creature will awaken itself at the appearance of its enemy. The purity of this beam, and transcript of God, bears witness to a greater clearness and beauty in the sun and original. Undefiled streams manifest an untainted fountain. (2.) It is seen in the manner of its precepts. As it prescribes all good, and forbids all evil, so it doth enjoin the one, and banish, the other as such. The laws of men command virtuous things ; not as virtuous in themselves, but as useful for human society ; which the magistrate is the conservator of, and the guardian of justice. t The laws of men contain not all the precepts of virtue, but only such as are accommodated to their customs, and are useful to preserve the ligaments of their government. The design of them is not so much to render the subjects good men, as good citizens : they order the practice of those virtues that may strengthen civil society, and dis- countenance those vices only which weaken the sinews of it : but God, being the guardian of universal righteousness, doth not only enact the obseivance of all righteousness, but the observance of it as righteousness. He commands that which is just in itself, enjoins virtues as virtues, and prohibits vices as vices : as they are profitable or injurious to ourselves, as well as to others. Men command tem- perance and justice ; not as virtues in themselves, but as they pre- * Ames de Conec. lib. v. cap. 1. quest. 7. VOL. II. 9 130 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. vent disorder and confusion in a commonwealth ; and forbid udulterv and theft, not as vices in themselves, but as they are intrenchmen^ upon property ; not as hurtful to the person that commits them, but as hm'tful to the person against whose right they are committed. Upon this account, perhaps, Paul applauds the holiness of the law of God in regard of its own nature, as considered in itself, more than he doth the justice of it in regard of man, and the goodness and conveniency of it to the world (Rom. vii. 12) ; the law is lioly tiwice, and just and good but once. (3.) In the spiritual extent of it. The most righteous powers of the world do not so much regard in their laws what the inward af- fections of their subjects are : the external acts are only the objects of their decrees, either to encourage them if they be useful, or dis- courage them if they be hurtful to the community. And, indeed, they can do no other, for they have no power proportioned to in- ward affections, since the inward disposition falls not under their censure ; and it would be foolish for any legislative power to make such laws, which it is impossible for it to put in execution. They can prohibit the outward acts of theft and murder, but they cannot command the love of Grod, the hatred of sin, the contempt of the world ; they cannot prohibit unclean thoughts, and the atheism of the heart. But the law of Grod surmounts in righteousness all the laws of the best-regulated commonwealths in the world : it restrains tlie licentious heart, as well as the violent hand ; it damps the very first bubblings of corrupt nature, orders a purity in the spring, com- mands a clean fountain, clean streams, clean vessels. It would frame the heart to an inward, as well as the life to an outward righteous- ness, and make the inside purer than the outside. It forbids the first belchings of a murderous or adulterous intention : it obligeth a man as a rational creature, and therefore exacts a conformity of everj' rational faculty, and of whatsoever is under the command of them . It commands the private closet to be free from the least cobweb, a/i well as the outward 23orch to be clean from mire and dirt. It frowns upon all stains and pollutions of the most retired thoughts : hence the apostle calls it a " spiritual law" (Rom. vii. 14), as not political, but extending its force further than the frontiers of the man; placing its ensigns in the metropolis of the heart and mind, and curbing with its sceptre the inward motions of the spirit, and commanding over the secrets of every man's breast. (4). In regard of the perpetuity of it. The purity and perpetuity of it are linked together by the Psalmist (Ps. xix. 9) : " The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever;" the fear of the Lord, that i.s, that law which commands the fear and worship of God, and is the rule of it. And, indeed, God values it at such a rate, that rather than part with a tittle, or let the honor of it lie in the dust, he would not only let " heaven and earth pass away," but expose his Son to death for the reparation of the wrong it had sustained. So holy it is, that the holiness and righteousness of God cannot dis- pense with it, cannot abrogate it, without despoiling himself of his own being: it is a copy of the eternal law. Can he ever abrogate the command of love to himself, without showing some contempt ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 131 of Ms own excellency and very being? Before lie can enjoin a creature not to love him, he must make himself unworthy of love, and worthy of hatred; this would be the highest unrighteoasness, to order us to hate that which is only worthy of our highest affec- tittns. So God cannot change the first command, and order us to worship many gods ; this would be against the excellenc}^ and unity of God: for God cannot constitute another God, or make anything worthy of an honor equal with himself." Those things that are good, only because they are commanded, are alterable by God: those things that are intrinsically and essentially good, and there- fore commanded, are unalterable as long as the holiness and right- eousness of God stand firm. The intrinsic goodness of the moral law, the concern God hath for it ; the perpetuity of the precepts of the first table, and the care he hath had to imprint the precepts of the second upon the minds and consciences of men, as the Author of nature for the preservation of the world, manifests the holiness of the Lawmaker and Governor. 2. His holiness appears in the ceremonial law : in the variety of sacrifices for sin, wherein he writ his detestation of unrighteousness in bloody characters. His holiness was more constantly expressed in the continual sacrifices, than in those rarer sprinklings of judg- ments now and then upon the world ; which often reached, not the worst, but the most moderate sinners, and were the occasions of the questioning of the righteousness of his providence both by Jews and Gentiles. In judgments his purity was only now and then manifest : by his long patience, he might be imagined by some reconciled to their crimes, or not much concerned in them ; but by the morning and evening sacrifice he witnessed a perpetual and unin- terrupted abhorrence of whatsoever was evil. Besides those, the occasional washings and sprinklings upon ceremonial defilements, which polluted only the body, gave an evidence, that everything that had a resemblance to evil, was loathsome to him. Add, also, the prohibitions of eating such and such creatures that were filthy ; as the swine that wallowed in the mire, a fit emblem for the pro- fane and brutish sinner ; which had a moral signification, both of the loathsomeness of sin to God, and the aversion themselves ought to have to everything that was filthy. 3. This holiness appears in the allurements annexed to the law for keeping it, and the affrightments to restrain from the breaking of it. Both promises and threatenings have their fundamental root in the holiness of God, and are both branches of this peculiar perfec- tion. As they respect the nature of God, they are declarations of his hatred of sin, and his love of righteousness ; the one belong to his threatenings, ilw other to his promises ; both join together to repre- sent this divine perfection to the creature, and to excite to an imi- tation in the creature. In the one, God would render sin odious, because dangerous, and curb the practice of evil, which would otherwise be licentious ; in the other, he would commend righteous- ness, and excite a love of it, which would otherwise be cold. By there God suits the two great affections of men, fear and hope ; " Suarez. 132 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. botli the brandies of self-love in man : the promises and threaten ings are both the branches of holiness in God. The end of the promises is the same with the exhortation the apostle concludes from them (2 Cor. vii. 1) ; " Having these promises, let us cleanse our- selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." As the end of precept is to direct, the end of threatenings is to deter from iniquity, so that the promises is to allure to obedience. Thus God breathes out his love to righteous- ness in every promise ; his hatred of sin in every threatening. The rewards offered in the one, are the smiles of pleased holiness; and the curses thundered in the other, are the sj)arklings of enraged righteousness. 4. His holiness appears in the judgment inflicted for the violation of this law. Divine holiness is the root of Divine justice, and Divine justice is the triumph of Divine holiness. Hence both are expressed in Scripture by one word of righteousness, which sometimes signi- fies the rectitude of the Divine nature, and sometimes the vindicative stroke of his arm (Ps. ciii. 6) ; " The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed." So (Dan. ix. 7) " Kigh- teousness (that is, justice) belongs to thee." The vials of his wrath are filled from his implacable aversion to iniquity. All penal evils shower down upon the heads of wicked men, spread their root in, and branch out from, this perfection. All the dreadful storms and tempests in the world are blown up by it. Why doth he " rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest !" Because " the righteous Lord loveth righteousness" (Ps. xi. 6, 7). And, as was observed before, when he was going about the dreadfulest work that ever was in the world, the overturning the JeAvish state, hardening the hearts of that unbelieving people, and cashiering a nation, once dear to him, from the honor of his protection ; his holiness, as the spring of all this, is applauded by the seraphims (Isa. vi. 3, com- pared with rer. 9 — 11), &c. Impunity argues the approbation of a crime, and punishment the abhorrency of it. The greatness of the crime, and the righteousness of the Judge, are the first natural sen- timents that arise in the minds of men upon the appearance of Di- vine judgments in the world, by those that are near them;^ as, when men see gibbets erected, scaffolds prepared, instruments of death and torture provided, and grievous punishments inflicted, the first reflection in the spectator is the malignity of the crime, and the de- testation the governors are possessed with. (1). How severely hath he punished his most noble creatures for it ! The once glorious angels, upon whom he had been at greater cost than upon any other creatures, and drawn more lively liuea ments of his own excellency, upon the transgression of his law, are thrown into the furnace of justice, without any mercy to pity them (Jude 6). And though there were but one sort of creatures upon the earth that bore his image, and were only fit to publish and keep up his honor below the heavens, yet, upon their apostasy, though upon a temptation from a subtle and insinuating spirit, the man, with all his posterity, is sentenced to misery in life, and death ai « Atnirunt. Moral. Tom. V. p. 388. ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 133 last ; and the woman, with all her sex, huve standing punishments inflicted on them, which, as they begun in their persons, were to reach as far as the last member of their successive generations. So holy ".s God, that he will not endure a spot in his choicest work. Men, indeed, when there is a crack in an excellent piece of work, or a strin upon a rich garment, do not cast it away ; they value it for the remaining excellency, more than hate it for the contracted spot ; but God saw no excellency in his creature worthy regarding, after the image of that which he most esteemed in himself was defliced. (2). How detestable to him are the very instruments of sin ! For the ill use the serpent, an irrational creature, was put to by the devil, as an instrument in the fall of man, the whole brood of those animals are cursed (Gen. iii. 14), " cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field." Not only the devil's head is threatened to be for ever bruised, and, as some think, rendered irrecoverable upon this further testimony of his malice in the seduction of man, who, perhaps, without this new act, might have been admitted into the arms of mercy, notwithstanding his first sin; "though the Scrip- ture gives us no account of this, only this is the only sentence we read of pronounced against the devil, which jouts him into an irre- coverable state by a mortal bruising of his head." But, I say, he is not only j^unished, but the organ, whereby he blew in his temp- tation, is put into a worse condition than it was before. Thus God bated the sponge, whereby the devil deformed his beautiful image : thus God, to manifest his detestation of sin, ordered the beast, whereby any man was slain, to be slain as well as the malefactor (Lev. XX. 15). The gold and silver that had been abused to idolatry, and were the ornaments of images, though good in themselves, and incapable of a criminal nature, were not to be brought into their houses, but detested and abhorred by them, because they were cursed, and an abomination to the Lord. See with what loathing expressions this law is enjoined to them (Deut. vii. 25, 26). So contrary is the holy nature of God to every sin, that it curseth everything that is instrumental in it. (3.) How detestable is everything to him that is in the sinner's possession ! The very earth, whicb God had made Adam the pro- prietor of, was cursed for his sake (Gen. iii. 17, 18). It lost its beautv, and lies languishing to this day ; and, notwithstanding the redemp- tion by Christ, hath not recovered its health, nor is it like to do, till the completing the fruits of it upon the children of God (Rom. viii. 20-22). The whole lower creation was made subject to vanity, and put into pangs, upon the sin of man, by the righteousness of God detesting his offence. How often hath his implacable aversion from sin been shown, not only in his judgments upon the offender's per- son, but by wrapping up, in the same judgment, those which stood in a near relation to them ! Achan, with his children and cattle, are overwhelmed with stones, and burned together (Josh. vii. 24, 25). In the destruction of Sodom, not only the grown malefactors, but the young spawn, the infants, at present incapable of the same wick- edness, and their cattle, were burned up by the same fire from heaven ; and the place where their habitations stood, is, at this day, 134 CHARNOCK OX THE ATTRIBUTES. partly a he? ,p of aslies, and partly an infectious lake, that chokes any fish that swims into it from Jordan, and stifles, as is related, by its vapor, any bird that attempts to fly over it. 0, how detestable is sin to (rod, that causes him to turn a pleasant land, as the " garden of the Lord" (as it is stjded Gen. xiii. 10), into a lake of sulphur ; to make it, both in his word and works, as a lasting monument of his abhorence of evil! (4.) What design hath Grod in all these acts of severity and vin- dictive justice, but to set off the lustre of his holiness ? He testifies himself concerned for those laws, which he hath set as hedges and limits to the lusts of men ; and, therefore, when he breathes forth his fiery indignation against a people, he is said to get himself hon- or : as when he intended the Red Sea should swallow up the Egyp- tian army (Exod. xiv. 17, 18), which Moses, in his triumphant song, echoes back again (Exod. xv. 1) : " Thou hast triumphed glorious- ly ;" gloriously in his holiness, which is the glory of his nature, as Moses himself interprets it in the text. When men will not own the holiness of Grod, in a way of duty, God will vindicate it in a way of justice and punishment. In the destruction of Aaron's sons, that were will-worshippers, and would take strange fire, " sanctified" and " glorified" are coupled (Lev. x. 3) : he glorified himself in that act, in vindicating his holiness before all the people, declaring that he will not endure' sin and disobedience. He doth therefore, in this life, more severely punish the sins of his people, when they presume upon any act of disobedience, for a testimony that the nearness and dearness of any person to him shall not make him unconcerned in his holiness, or be a plea for impurity. The end of all his judg« ments is to witness to the world his abominating of sin. To punish and witness against men, are one and the same thing (Micah i. 2) : " The Lord shall witness against you ;" and it is the witness of God's holiness (Hos. v. 5) : " And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face :" one renders it the excellency of Israel, and understands it of God : the word i^xs, which is here in our translation, " pride," is rendered " excellency" (Amos viii. 7) : " The Lord God hath sworn by his excellency ;" which is interpreted " holiness" (Amos iv. 2) : " The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness," Wliat is the issue or end of this swearing by " holiness," and of his " excellency" testify- ing against them? In all those places you will find them to be sweeping judgments: in one, Israel and Ephraim shall " fall in their iniquity ;" in another, he will " take them away with hooks," and " their posterity with fish-hooks ;" and in another, he would " never forget any of their works." He that puuisheth wickedness in those he before used with the greatest tenderness, furnisheth the world with an undeniable evidence of the detestableness of it to him. Were not judgments sometimes poured out upon the world, it would be believed that God were rather an approver than an enemy to sin. To conclude, since God hath made a stricter law to guide men, an- nexed promises above the merit of obedience to allure them, and threatenings dreadful enough to affright men from disobedience, he cannot be the cause of sin, nor a lover of it. How can he be the author of that which he so severely forbids ; or love that which he delights to punish ; or be fondly indulgent to any evil, when he ON THE HOLINESS OP GOD. 135 liates the ignorant instruments in tlie offences of his reasonable creatures ? Thirdly. The holiness of Grod appears in our restoration. It is in the glass of the gospel we behold the " glory of the Lord" (2 Cor. iii. 18) ; that is, the glory of the Lord, into whose image we are changed ; but we are changed into nothing, as the image of God, but into holiness : we bore not upon us by creation, nor by regene- ration, the image of any other perfection : we cannot be changed into his omnipotence, omniscience, &c., but into the image of his righteousness. This is the pleasing and glorious sight the gospel mirror darts in our eyes. The whole scene of redemption is nothing else but adiscovery of judgment and righteousness (Isa. i. 27) : " Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness." 1. This holiness of Grod appears in the manner of our restoration, viz. by the death of Christ. Not all the vials of judgments, that have, or shall be poured out upon the wicked world, nor the flaming furnace of a sinner's conscience, nor the irreversible sentence pronounced against the rebellious devils, nor the groans of the damned creatures, give such a demonstration of God's hatred of sin, as the wrath of God let loose upon his Son. Never did Divine holiness appear more beau- tiful and lovely, than at the time our Saviour's countenance was most marred in the midst of his dying groans. This himself acknowledges in that prophetical psalm (xxii. 1, 2), when God had turned his smiling face from him, and thrust his sharp knife into his heart, which forced that terrible cry from him, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" He adores tliis perfection of holiness (ver. 3), " But thou art holy ;" thy holiness is the spring of all this sharp agony, and for this thou inhabitest, and shalt forever inhabit, the praises of all thy Israel. Holiness drew the veil between God's countenance and our Saviour s soul. Justice indeed gave the stroke, but holiness ordered it. In this his purity did sparkle, and his irreversible justice manifested that all those that commit sin are worthy of death ; this was the perfect index of his " righteousness" (Rom. iii. 25), that is, of his holiness and truth ; then it was that God that is holy, was " sanctified in righteousness" (Isa. v. 16), It appears the more, if you consider, (1.) The dignity of the Redeemer's person. One that had been from eternity ; had laid the foundations of the world ; had been the object of the Divine delight : he that was God blessed forever, be- come a curse ; he who was blessed by angels, and by whom God blessed the world, must be seized with horror ; the Sou of eternity must bleed to death ! When did ever sin appear so irreconcileable to God ? Where did God ever break out so furiously in his detes- tation of iniquity ? The Father would have the most excellent per- son, one next in order to himself, and equal to him in all the glori- ous perfections of his nature (Phil. ii. 6), die on a disgraceful cross, and be exposed to the flames of Divine wrath, rather than sin should live, and his holiness remain forever disparaged by the violations of his law. (2.) The near relation he stood in to the Father. He was his "' own Son that he delivered up" (Rom. viii. 32) ; his essential image, cts dearly beloved by him as himself; yet he would abate nothing of his hatred of those sins imputed to one so dear to him, and whc 136 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. never bad done auytliing contrary to his will. The strong criea uttered by him could not cause him to cut off the least fringe of this royal garment, nor part with a thread the robe of his holiness was ^voven with. The torrent of wrath is opened upon him, and the Father's heart beats not in the least notice of tenderness to sin, in the midst of his Son's agonies. God seems to lay aside the bowels of a father, and put on the garb of an irreconcileable enemy,)' upon which account, probably, our Saviour in the midst of his passion gives him the title of God ; not of Father, the title he usually before addressed to him with, (Matt, xxvii. 46), " My God, my God ;" not. My Father, my Father ; " why hast thou forsaken me ?" He seems to hang upon the cross like a disinherited son, while he appeared in the garb and rank of a sinner. Then was his head loaded with curses, when he stood under that sentence of " Cursed is every one that hangs upon a tree" (Gal. iii. 13), and looked as one forlorn and rejected by the Divine purity and tenderness. God dealt not with him as if he had been one in so near a relation to him. He left him not to the will only of the instruments of his death ; he would have the chiefest blow himself of bruising of him (Isa. liii. 10) : "It pleased the Lord to bruise him :" the Lord, because the power of creatures could not strike a blow strong enough to satisfy and secure the rights of infi- nite holiness. It was therefore a cup tempered and put into his hands by his Father ; a cup given him to drink. In other judg- ments he lets out his wrath against his creatures ; in this he lets out his wrath, as it were, against himself, against his Son, one as dear to him as himself. As in his making creatures, his power over nothing to bring it into being appeared ; but in pardoning sin he hath power over himself; so in punishing creatures, his holiness appears in his wrath against creatures, against sinners by inherency ; but bj' pun- ishing sin in his Son, his holiness sharpens his wrath against him who was his equal, and only a reputed sinner ; as if his affection to his own holiness surmounted his affection to his Sou : for he chose to suspend the breakings out of his affections to his Son, and see him plunged in a sharp and ignominious misery, without giving him any visible token of his love, rather than see his holiness lie groaning under the injuries of a transgressing world. (3.) The value he puts upon his holiness appears further, in the advancement of this redeeming person, after his death. Our Saviour was advanced, not barely for his dying, but for the respect he had in his death to this attribute of God (Heb. i. 9) : " Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness," &c. By righteousness is meant this perfection, because of the opposition of it to iniquity. Some think " therefore" to be the final cause ; as if this were the sense, "Thou art anointed with the oil of gladness, that thou mightcst love righteousness and hate iniquity." But the Holy Ghost seeming to speak in this chapter not only of the Godhead of Christ but of his exaltation ; the doctrine whereof he had begun in ver. 3, and pro- Becutes in the following verses, I would rather understand " there- fore," for " this cause, or reason, hath God anointed thee ;" not " to y Liii;roii(l. Tom. III. pp. (V.ta, 700. ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 137 this end." Christ indeed had an unction of grace, whereby he was fitted for his mediatory work; he had also an unction of glory, whereby he was rewarded for it. In the first regard, it was a qualifying him lur his office ; in the second regard, it was a solemn inaugurating him in his royal authority. And the reason of his being settled upon a "throne for ever and ever," is, "because he loved righteousness." He suffered himself to be pierced to death, that sin, the enemy of God's purity, might be destroyed, and the honor of the law, the image of God's holiness, might be repaired and fulfilled in the fallen creature. He restored the credit of Divine holiness in the world, in manifesting, by his death, God an irrecon- cileable enemy to all sin ; in abolishing the empire of sin, so hateful to God, and restoring the rectitude of nature, and new framing the image of God in his chosen ones. And God so valued this vindica- tion of his holiness, that he confers upon him, in his human nature, an eternal royalty and empire over angels and men. Holiness was the great attribute respected by Christ in his dying, and manifested in his death ; and for his love to this, God would iDcstow an honor upon his person, in that nature wherein he did vindicate the honoi of so dear a perfection. In the death of Christ, he showed hia resolution to preserve its rights ; in the exaltation of Christ, he evinced his mighty pleasure for the vindication of it ; in both, the infinite value he had for it, as dear to him as his life and glory, (4.) It may be further considered, that in this way of redemption, his holiness in the hatred of sin seems to be valued above any other attribute. He proclaims the value of it above the person of his Son ; since the Divine nature of the Redeemer is disguised, obscured, and vailed, in order to the restoring the honor of it. And Christ seems to value it above his own person, since he submitted himself to the reproaches of men, to clear this perfection of the Divine nature, and make it illustrious in the eyes of the world. You heard before, at the beginning of the handling this argument,- it was the beauty of the Deity, the lustre of his nature, the link of all his attributes, his very life ; he values it equal with himself, since he swears by it, as well as by his life ; and none of his attributes would have a due decorum without it; it is the glory of power, mercy justice, and wisdom, that they are all holy ; so that though God had an infinite tenderness and compassion to the fallen creature, yet it should not extend itself in his relief to the prejudice of the rights of his purity : he would have this triumph in the tenderness of his mercy, as well as the severities of his justice. His mercy had not appeared in its true colors, nor attained a regular end, without vengeance on sin. It would have been a compassion that would, in sparing the sinner, have encouraged the sin, and affronted holi- ness in the issues of it : had he dispersed his compassions about the world, without the regard to his hatred of sin, his mercy had been too cheap, and his holiness had been contemned ; his mercy would not have triumphed in his own nature, whilst his holiness had suffered ; he had exercised a mercy with the impairing his own glory ; but now, in this way of redemption, the rights of both are secured, both have their due lustre : the odiousness of sin is equally 138 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. discovered with the greatest of his 'jompassions ; an infinite abhor- rence of sin, and an infinite love to the world, march hand in hand together. Never was so much of the irreconcileableness of sin to him set forth, as in the moment he was opening his bowels in the reconciliation of the sinner. Sin is made the chiefest mark of his displeasure, while the poor creature is made the highest object of Divine pity. There could have been no motion of mercy, with the least injury to purity and holiness. In this ^Y!xy mercy and truth, mercy to the misery of the creature, and truth to the purity of the law, "have met together ;" the righteousness of God, and the peace of the sinner, " have kissed each other" (Ps. Ixxxv. 10). 2. The holiness of God in his hatred of sin appears in our justifi- cation, and the conditions he requires of all that would enjoy the benefit of redemption. His wisdom hath so tempered all the condi- tions of it, that the honor of his holiness is as much preserved, as the sweetness of his mercy is experimented by us ; all the conditions are records of his exact purity, as well as of his condescending grace. Our justification is not by the imperfect works of creatures, but by an exact and infinite righteousness, as great as that of the Deity which had been offended : it being the righteousness of a Divine per- son, upon which account it is called the righteousness of God ; not only in regard of God's appointing it, and God's accepting it, but as it is a righteousness of that person that was God, and is God. Faith is the condition God requires to justification ; but not a dead, but an active faith, such a "faith as purifies the heart" (James ii. 20 ; Acts XV. 9). He calls for repentance, which is a moral retracting our of- fences, and an approbation of contemned righteousness and a vio- lated law ; an endeavor to gain what is lost, and to pluck out the heart of that sin we have committed. He requires iriortification, which is called crucifying ; whereby a man Avould strike as full and deadly a blow at his lusts, as was struck at Christ upon the cross, and make them as certainly die, as the Redeemer did. Our own righteousness must be condemned by us, as impure and imperfect : we must dis- own everything that is our own, as to righteousness, in reverence to the holiness of God, and the valuation of the righteousness of Christ. He hath resolved not to bestow the inheritance of glory without the root of grace. None are partakers of the Divine blessedness that are not partakers of the Divine nature : there must be a renewing of his image before there be a vision of his face (Heb. xii. 14). He will not have men brought only into a relative state of happiness by justification, without a real state of grace by sanctification ; and so resolved he is in it, that there is no admittance into heaven of a start- ing, but a persevering holiness (Rom. ii. 7), " a patient continuance in well-doing:" patient, under the sharpness of affliction, and contin- uing, under the pleasures of prosperity. Hence it is that the gospel, the restoring doctrine, hath not only the motives of rewards to allure to good, and the danger of punishments to scare us from evil, as the law had ; but they are set forth in a higher strain, in a way of stronger engagement ; the rewards are heavenly, and the punishments eter- nal : and more powerful motives besides, from the choicer expres- sions of God's love in the de(ith of his Son. The whole design of ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 139 it is to reinstate us in a resemblance to this Divine perfection ; where- by he shows what an affection he hath to this excellency of hia nature, and what a detestation he hath of evil, which is contrary to it. 3. It appears in the actual regeneration of the redeemed souls, and a carrying it on to a full perfection. As election is the effect of God's sovereignty, our pardon the fruit of his mercy, our knowl- edge a stream from his wisdom, our strength an impression of his power ; so our purity is a beam from his holiness. The whole work of sanctilication, and the preservation of it, our Saviour begs for his disciples of his Father, under this title (John xvii. 11, 17) : " Holy Father, keep them through thy own name," and "sanctify them through thy truth ;" as the proper source whence holiness was to flow to the creature : as the sun is the proper fountain whence light is derived, both to the stars above, and the bodies here below. Whence He is not only called Holy, but the Holy One of Israel (Isa. xliii. 15), " I am the Lord your Holy One, the Creator of Is- rael :" displaying his holiness in them, by a new creation of them as his Israel. As the rectitude of the creature at the first creation was the effect of his holiness, so the purity of the creature, by a new creation, is a draught of the same perfection. He is called the Holy One of Israel more in Isaiah, that evangelical prophet, in erecting Zion, and forming a people for himself, than in the whole Scripture besides. As he sent Jesus Christ to satisfy his justice for the expia- tion of the guilt of sin, so he sends the Holy Grhost for the cleans- ing of the filth of sin, and overmastering the power of it : Himself is the fountain, the Son is the pattern, and the Holy Ghost the im- mediate imprinter of this stamp of holiness upon the creature. God hath such a value for this attribute, that he designs the glory of this in the renewing the creature, more than the happiness of the crea- ture ; though the one doth necessarily follow upon the other, yet the one is the principal design, and the other the consequent of the former : whence our salvation is more frequently set forth, in Scrip- ture, by a redemption from sin, and sanctification of the soul, than by a possession of heaven.^ Indeed, as God could not create a ra- tional creature, without interesting this attribute in a special manner, so he cannot restore the fallen creature without it. As in creating a rational creature, there must be holiness to adorn it, as well as wis- dom to form the design, and power to efiect it ; so in the restoration of the creature, as he could not make a reasonable creature unholy, so he cannot restore a fallen creature, and put him in a meet posture to take pleasure in him, without communicating to him a resem- blance of himself As God cannot be blessed in himself without this perfection of purity, so neither can a creature be blessed without it. As God would be unlovely to himself "^dthout this attribute, so would the creature be unlovely to God, without a stamp and mark of it upon his nature. So much is this perfection one with God, valued by him, and interested in all his works and ways ! HI. The third thing I am to do, is to lay down some proposition in the defence of God's holiness in all his acts, about, or concerning » Tit. ii. 11 — 14, and maay other places.- 140 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. sin. It was a prudent and pious advice of Camero, not to "be too busy and rash in inquiries and conclusions about the reason of God's providence in the matter of sin. The Scripture liath put a bar in the way of such curiosity, by telhng us, that the ways of God's wis- dom and righteousness in his judgments are "unsearchable" (Rom. xi. 33) : much more the ways of God's holiness, as he stands in re- lation to sin, as a Governor of the world ; we cannot consider those things without danger of slippmg : our eyes are too weak to look xpon the sun without being dazzled : too much curiosity met with a just check in our first parent. To be desirous to know the reason of all God's proceedings in the matter of sin, is to second the am- bition of Adam, to be as wise as God, and know the reason of his actings equally with himself It is more easy, as the same author saith, to give an account of God's providence since the revolt of man, and the poison that hath universally seized upon human na- ture, than to make guesses at the manner of the fall of the first man. The Scripture hath given us but a short account of the manner of it, to discourage too curious inquiries into it. It is certain that God made man upright ; and when man sinned in paradise, God was ac- tive in sustainins; the substantial nature and act of the sinner while he was sinning, though not in supporting the sinfulness of the act : he was permissive in suffering it : he was negative in witholding that grace which might certainly have prevented his crime, and con- sequently his ruin ; though he withheld nothing that was sufficient for his resistance of that temptation wherewith he was assaulted. And since the foil of man, God, as a wise governor, is directive of the events of the transgression, and draws the choicest good out of the blackest evil, and limits the sins of men, that they creep not so far as the evil nature of men would urge them to ; and as a right- eous Judge, he takes away the talent from idle servants, and the light from wicked ones, whereby the}^ stumble and fall into crimes, by the inclinations and proneness of their own corrupt natures, leaves them to the bias of their own vicious habits, denies that grace which the}^ have forfeited, and have no right to challenge, and turns their sin- ful actions into punishments, both to the committers of them and others. Prop. I. God's holines? is not chargeable with any blemish for his creating man in a mutable state. It is true, angels and men were created with a changeable nature ; as though there was a rich and glorious stamp upon them by the hand of God, yet their natures were not incapable of a base and vile stamp from some other prin- ciple : as the silver which bears uj^on it the image of a great prince, is capable of being melted down, and imprinted with no better an image than that of some vile and monstrous beast. Though God made man upright, yet he was capable of seeking " many inven- tions" (Eccl. vii. 29) ; yet the hand of God was not defiled by form- ing man with such a nature. It was suitable to the wisdom of God to give the rational creature, whom he had furnished with a power of acting righteously, the liberty of choice, and not fix him in an unchangeable state without a trial of him in his natural ; that if he did obey, his obedience might be the more valuable ; and if he did freely offend, his offence might be more inexcusable. ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. Ill 1. No creature can be capable of immutability by nature. Mu tability is so essential to a creature, tliat a creature cannot be su]i- posed without it ; you must suppose it a Creator, not a creature, if you allow it to be of an immutable nature. Immutability is the pro- perty of the Supreme Being. Grod " only hath immortality" (1 Tim. vi. 16); immortality, as opposed not only to a natural, but to a sin- fill death ; the word only appropriates every sort of unmortality to God, and excludes every creature, whether angel or man, from a partnership with God in this by nature. Every creature, therefore, is capable of a death in sin. " None is good but God," and none is naturally free from change but God, which excludes every creature from the same prerogative ; and certainly, if one angel sinned, all might have sinned, because there was the same root of mutability in one as well as another. It is as possible for a creature to be a Creator, as for a creature to have naturally an incommunicable pro- perty of the Creator. All things, whether angels or men, are made of nothing, and therefore, capable of defection ; '■^ because a creature being made of nothing, cannot be good, per essentiam, or essentially good, but by participation from another. Again, every rational creature, being made of nothing, hath a superior which created him and governs him, and is capable of a precept ; and, consequently, capable of disobedience as well as obedience to the precept, to transgress it, as well as obey it. God cannot sin, because he can have no superior to impose a precept on him. A rational creature, with a liberty of will and power of choice, cannot be made by na- ture of such a mould and temper, but he must be as well capable of choosing wrong, as of choosing right ; and, therefore, the standing angels, and glorified saints, though they are immutable, it is not by nature that they are so, but by grace, and the good pleasure of God ; for though they are in heaven, they have still in their nature a re- mote power of sinning, but it shall never be brought into act, be- cause God will always incline their wills to love him, and never concur with their wills to any evil act. Since, therefore, mutability is essential to a creature as a creature, this changeableness cannot properly be charged upon God as the author of it ; for it was not the term of God's creating act, but did necessarily result from the nature of the creature, as unchangeableness doth result from the es- sence of God. The brittleness of a glass is no blame to the art of him that blew up the glass into such a fashion ; that imperfection of brittleness is not from the workman, but the matter ; so, though unchangeableness be an imperfection, yet it is so necessary a one, that no creature can be naturally without it ; besides, though angels and men were mutable by creation, and capable to exercise their wills, yet they were not necessitated to evil, and this mutability did not infer a necessity that they should fall, because some angels, which had the same root of changeableness in their natures with, those that fell, did not fall, which they would have done, if capableness of changing, and necessity of changing, were one and the same thing. 2. Though God made the creature mutable, yet he made Mm not » Suarez, Vol. II. p. 548. 142 CHARNOCK ON TUE ATTRIBUTES. evil. There could be nothing of evil in him that God created a/'tei his own image, and pronounced "good" (Gen. i. 27, 31). Man had an ability to stand, as well as a capacity to I'all : he was created with a principal of acting freely, whereby he was capable of loving God as his chief good, and moving to him as his last end ; there was a beam of light in man's understanding to know the rule he was to conform to, a harmony between his reason and his affections, an original righteousness : so that it seemed more easy for him to de- termine his will to continue in obedience to the precept, than to swerve from it; to adhere to God as his chief good, than to lis- ten to the charms of Satan. God created him with those advan- tages, that he might with more facility have kept his eyes fixed upon the Divine beauty, than turn his back upon it, and with greater ease have kept the precept God gave him, than have broken it. The very first thought darted, or impression made, by God, upon the angelical or human nature, was the knowledge of himself as their Author, and could be no more than such whereby both angels and men might be excited to a love of that adorable Being, that had framed them so gloriously out of nothing ; and if thej^ turned their wills and affections to another object it was not by the direction of God, but contrary to the impression God had made upon them, or the first thought he flashed into them. They turned themselves to the admiring their own excellency, or affecting an advantage dis- tinct from that which they were to look for only from God (1 Tim. iii. 6). Pride was the cause of the condemnation of the devil. Though the wills of angels and men were created mutable, and so were imperfect, yet they were not created evil. Though they might sin, yet they might not sin, and, therefore, were not evil in their own nature. What reflection, then, could this mutability of their nature be upon God ? So far is it from any, that he is fully cleared, by storing up in the nature of man sufficient provision against his de- parture from him. God was so far from creating him evil, that he fortified him with a knowledge in his understanding, and a strength in his nature to withstand any invasion. The knowledge was ex- ercised by Eve, in the very moment of the serpent's assaulting her (Gen. iii. 3) ; Eve said to the serpent, " God hatli said, ye shall not eat of it:" and had her thoughts been intent upon this, " God hath said," and not diverted to the motions of the sensitive appetite and liquorish palate, it had been sufficient to put by all the passes the devil did, or could have made at her. So that you see, though God made the creature mutable, yet he made him not evil. This clears the holiness of God. 3. Therefore it follows. That though God created man changeable, yet he was not the cause of his change by his fall. Though man was created defectible, yet he was not determined by God influencing his mil by any positive act to that change and apostasy. God T)laced him in a free posture, set life and happiness before him on the one hand, misery and death on the other; as he did not draw him into the arms of perpetual blessedness, so he did not drive him into the gulf of his mis(!ry.'^ lie did not incline him to eviL It was repugnant ^' Amyr. Moral. Tom. I. pp. 616, 016 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. liB to the goodness of God to civrrnpt the righteousness of those faculties he had so lately beautified him with. It was not likely he should deface the beauty of that work he had ccjuposed with so much wis- dom and skill. Would he, by any act o iiis own, mnke that bad, which, but a little before, he had acquiesced in as good ? Ange^^ and men were left to their liberty and conduct of their natural facul- ties; and if God inspired them with any motions, they could not but be motions to good, and suited to tliat righteous natiire he had endued them with. But it is most probable that God did not, in a supernatural way, act inwardly upon the mind of man, but left him wholly to that power, which he had, in creation, furnished him with. The Scrip- ture frees God fully from any blame in this, and lays it wholly upon Satan, as the tempter, and upon man, as the determiner of his own will (Gen. iii. 6); Eve "took of the fruit, and did eat;" and Adam took fi'om her of the fruit, "and did eat." And Solomon (Eccles. vii. 29) distinguisheth God's work in the creation of man "upright," from man's work in seeking out those ruining inventions. God created man in a righteous state, and man cast himself into a forlorn state. As he was a nmtable creature, he was from God; as he was a changed and corrupted creature, it was fi'om the devil seducing, and his own ])liableness in admitting. As silver, and gold, and other metals, Avei-e created by God in such a form and figure, yet capable of receiving other forms by the industrious art of man; when the image of a man is put upon a piece of metal, God is not said to create that image, tliougli he created the substance with such a property, that it was capable of receiving it ; this capacity is from the nature of the metal by God's creation of it, but the carving the figure of this or that man i;3 ijol tiie act of God, but the act of man. As images, in Scriptui\;, arc called the work of men's hands, in regard of the imagery, though the matter, wood or stone, upon which the image was carved, was a work of God's creative power. When an artificer frames an ': vcellent instrument, and a musician exactly tunes it, and it comes out cf their hands without a blemish, but capable to be un- tuned by some rude hand, or receive a crack by a sudd , . fall, if it meet with a disaster, is either the workman or musician to be blamed ? The ruin of a house, caused by the wastefulness or carelessness of the tenant, is not to be imputed to the workman that built it strong, and left it in a good posture. Prop. II. God's holiness is not blemished by enjoining man a law, which he knew he would not observe. 1. The law was not above his strength. Had the law been impos sible to be observed, no crime could have been imputed to the sub- ject, the fault had lain wholly upon the Governor; the nori -observ- ance of it had been from a want of strength, and not from a want of will. Had God comnumded Adam to fly up to the sun, when he had not given him win vs. Adam might have a will to obey it, but his power would be too short to perform it. But the law set him for a rule, had nothing of impossibility in it; it was easy t be observed; the command was rather below, than above his strength ; and the sanction of it was more apt to restrain and scare him from the breach of it, than encourage any daring attempts against it ; he had as much 144 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. power, or ratlier more, to conform to it. than to warp from it ; and greater arguments and interest to be observant of it, than to violate it; his all was secured by the one, and his ruin as -ertained by the other. The commands of God are not grievous (1 Jolm v. 8); from the first to the last command, there is nothing impossible, nothing hard to the original and created nature of man, which were all sum- med up in a love to God, which was the pleasure and delight of man, as well as his duty, if he bad not, by inconsiderateness, neglected tne dictates and resolves of his own understanding. The law was suited to the strength of man, and fitted for the improvement and perfection of his nature ; in which respect, the apostle calls it " good," as it refers to man, as well as " holy," as it refers to God (Rom. vii. 12). Now, since God created man a creature capable to be governed by a law, and as a rational creature endued with understanding and will, not to be governed, according to his nature, without a law ; was it con- gruous to the wisdom of God to respect only the future state of man, which, from the depth of his infinite knowledge, he did infallibly foresee would be miserable, by the wilfid defection of man from the rule ? Had it been agreeable to the wisdom of God, to respect only this future state, and not the present state of tlie creature; and there- fore leave him lawless, because he knew he would violate the law ? Should God forbear to act like a wise governor, because he saw that man would cease to act like an obedient subject ? Shall a righteous magistrate forbear to make just and good laws, because he foresees, either from the dispositions of his subjects, their ill-hurnor, or some circumstances which will intervene, that multitudes of them will incline to break those laws, and fall under the penalty of them? No blame can be upon that magistrate who minds the rule of righteous- ness, and the necessary duty of his government, since he is not the cause of those turbulent aficctions of men, which he wisely foresees will rise up against his just e /".icts, 2. Though the law now be above the strength of ma , yet is not the holiness of God blemished by keeping it up. It is true, God hath been gra,ciously pleased to mitigate the severity and rigor of the law, by the entrance of the gospel ; yet Avhere men refuse the terms of the gospel, they continue themselves under the condemnation of the law, and are justly guilty of the breach of it, though they have no strength to observe it. The law, as I said before, was not above man's strength, when he was possessed of original righteousness, though it be above nan's strength, since he was stripped of original righteousness. The command was dated before man had contracted his impotency, when he had a power to keep it as well as to break it. Had it been enjoined to man only after the fall, and noc before, he might have had a better pretence to excuse himself, because of the impossibility of it ; yet he would not have had sufficient excuse, since the impossibility did not result from the nature of the law, but from tdie corrupted nature of the creature. It was "weak through the flesh" (Rom. viii. 3), but it was promulgcd when man had a strength ])ro} )ortioned to the com- mands of it. And now, since man hath unhappily made himself incapable of obeying it, must God's holiness in his law be blemished for enjuiuing it? Must he abrogate those commands, and prohibit ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 145 what before lie enjoined, for tlie satisfaction of the corrupted creature? Would not this be his "ceasing to be holj," that his creature might be unblameabl}^ unrighteous ? Must God strip himself of his holi- ness, because man will not discharge his iniquity ? He cannot be the cause of sin, by keeping up the law, who would be the cause of all the unrighteousness of men, by removing the authority of it. Some things in the law that are intiinsically good in their own nature, are indispensable, and it is repugnant to the nature of God not to command them. If he were not the guardian of his indispen- sable law, he would be the cause and countenancer of the creatures' iniquity. So little reason have men to charge God with being the cause of their sin, by not repealing his law to gratify their impotence, that he would be unholy if he did. God must not lose his purity, because man hath lost his, and cast away the right of his sovereignty, because man hath cast away his power of obedience. 3. God's foreknowledge that his law would not be observed, lays no blame upon him. Though the foreknowledge of God be infallible, yet it doth not necessitate the creature in acting. It was certain from eternity, that Adam would fall, that men would do such and such actions, that Judas would betray our Saviour ; God foreknew all those things from eternity ; but, it is as certain that this fore- knowledge did not necessitate the will of Adam, or any other branch of his posterity, in the doing those actions that were so foreseen by God ; they voluntarily run into such courses, not by any impulsion. God's knowledge was not suspended between certainty and uncer- tainty ; he certainly foreknew that his law would be broken by Adam ; he foreknew it in his own decree of not hindering him, by giving Adam the efficacious grace which would infallibly have pre- vented it ; yet Adam did freely break this law, and never imagined that the foreknowledge of God did necessitate him to it ; he could find no cause of his own sin, but the liberty of his own will ; he charges the occasion of his sin upon the woman, and consequently upon God in giving the woman to him (Gen. iii. 12). He could not be so ignorant of the nature of God, as to imagine him without a foresight of future things : since his knowledge of what was to be known of God by creation, was greater than any man's since, in all probability. But, however, if he were not acquainted with the no- jon of God's foreknowledge, he could not be ignorant of his own act ; there could not have been any necessity upon him, any kind of con- straint of him in his action, that could have been unknown to him and he would not have omitted a plea of so strong a nature, when he was upon his trial for life or death ; especially when he urgeth so weak an argument, to impute his crime to God, as the gift of the woman ; as if that which was designed him for a help, were intend • ed for his ruin. If God's prescience takes away the liberty of the creature, there is no such thing as a free action in the world (for there is nothing done but is foreknown by God, else we render God of a limited understanding), nor ever was, no, not by God himself, ad ex- tra ; for whatsoever he hath done in creation, whatsoever he hath done since the creation, was foreknown by him : he resolved to do it, and, therefore, foreknew that he would do it. Did God do it, VOL II. 10 146 CHARXOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES, therefore, necessarily, as necessity is opposed to liberty ? As he freely decrees what he will do, so he effects what he freely decreed Foi-eknowledge is so far from intrenching upon the liberty of the will, that predetermination, which in the notion of it speaks something more, doth not dissolve it ; God did not only foreknow, but deter- mine the suffering of Christ (Acts iv. 27, 28). It was necessary, therefore, that Clirist should suffer, that God might not be mistaken in his foreknowledge, or come short of his determinate decree ; but did this take away the liberty of Christ in suffering ? (Eph. v. 2) ; " Who offered himself up to God ;" that is, by a voluntary act, as well as designed to do it by a determinate counsel. It did infallibly secure the event, but did not annihilate the liberty of the action, either in Christ'^s willingness to suffer, or the crime of the Jews that made him suffer. God's prescience is God's provision of things arising from their proper causes ; as a gardener foresees in his plants the leaves and the flowers that will arise from them in the spring, because he knows the strength and nature of their several roots which lie under ground ; but his foresight of these things is not the cause of the rise and appearance of those flowers. If any of us see a ship moving towards such a rock or quicksand, and know it to be governed by a negligent pilot, we shall certainly foresee that the ship will be torn in pieces by the rock, or swallowed up by the sands ; but is this foresight of ours from the causes, any cause of the effect ; or can we from hence be said to be the authors of the miscarriage of the sbip, and the loss of the passengers and goods ? The fall of Adam was foreseen by God to come to pass by the consent of his free will, in the choice of the proposed temptation. God foreknew Adam would sin, and if Adam would not have sinned, God would have foreknown that he would not sin. Adam might easily have detected the serpents fraud, and made a better election ; God foresaw that he would not do it ; God's foreknowledge did not make Adam guilty or innocent : whether God had foreknown it or no, he was guilty by a free choice, and a willing neglect of his own duty. Adam knew that God foreknew that he might eat of the fruit, and fall and die, because God had forbidden him ; the foreknowledge fhat he would do it, was no more a cause of his action, than the foreknowledge that he might do it. Judas certainly knew that his Master foreknew that he would betray him, for Christ had acquaint- ed him with it (John xiii. 21, 26) ; yet he never charged this fore- knowledge of Christ with any guilt of his treachery. Prop. III. The holiness of God is not blemished by decreeing the eternal rejection of some men. Reprobation, in its first notion, is an act of pretention, or passing by. A man is not made wicked by the the act of God ; but it supposeth him wicked ; and so it is nothing else but God's leaving a man in that guilt and filth wherein he be- holds him. In its second notion, it is an ordination, not to a crime, but to a punishment (Jude 4) : " an ordaining to condemnation." And though it be an eternal act of God, yet, in order of nature, it follows upon the foresight of the transgression of man, and supposeth the crime. God considers Adam's revolt, and views the whole mass cf his corrupted posterity, and chooses some to reduce to himself hy ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 147 his grace, and leaves others to lie sinking in their ruins. Since all mankind fell by the fall of Adam, and have corruption conveyed to them successively by that root, whereof they are branches ; all men might justly be left wallowing in that miserable condition to which they are reduced by the apostasy of their common head ; and God might have passed by the whole race of man, as well as he did the fallen angels, without any hope of redemption. He was no more bound to restore man, than to restore devils, nor bound to repair the nature of any one son of Adam ; and had he dealt with men as he dealt with the devilg, they had had, all of them, as little just ground to complain of God ; for all men deserved to be left to themselves, for all were concluded under sin ; but God calls out some to make monuments of his grace, which is an act of the sovereign mercy of that dominion, whereby " he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy" (Rom. ix. 18) ; others he passes by, and leaves them remain- ing in that corruption of nature wherein they were born. If men have a power to dispose of their own goods, without any unright- eousness, why should not God dispose of his own grace, and bestow it upon whom he pleases ; since it is a debt to none, but a free gift to any that enjoy it ? God is not the cause of sin in this, because his operation about this is negative ; it is not an action, but a denial of action, and therefore cannot be the cause of the evil actions of men.c God acts nothing, but withholds his power ; he doth not en- lighten their minds, nor incline their wills so powerfully, as to expel their darkness, and root out those evil habits which possess them by nature. God could, if he would, savingly enlighten the minds of all men in the world, and quicken their hearts with a new life by an in- vincible grace ; but in not doing it, there is no positive act of God, but a cessation of action. We may with as much reason say, that God is the cause of all the sinful actions that are committed by the corporation of devils, since their first rebellion, because he leaves them to themselves, and bestows not a new grace upon them, — as say, God is the cause of the sins of those that he overlooks and leaves in that state of guilt wherein he found them. God did not pass by any without the consideration of sin ; so that this act of God is not repugnant to his holiness, but conformable to his justice. Pwp. IV. The holiness of God is not blemished by his secret «dl] to suffer sin to enter into the world, God never willed sin by his preceptive will. It was never founded upon, or produced by any word of his, as the creation was. He never said. Let there be sin under the heaven, as he said, " Let there be water under the hea- ven." Nor doth he will it by infusing any habit of it, or stirring up inclinations to it ; no, " God tempts no man" (James i. 13). Nor doth he will it by his approving will ; it is detestable to him, nor ever can he be otherwise ; he cannot approve it either before com- mission or after. 1. The will of God is in some sort concurrent with sin. He doth not properly will it, but he wills not to hinder it, to which, by his omnipotence, he could put a bar. If he did positively will it, it might be wrought by himself, and so could not be evil. If he did » Amytal. Defence dc Calv. p. 145. 148 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES in no sort will it, it would not be committed by his creature ; sin entered into the world, either God willing the permission of it, or not willing the permission of it. The latter cannot be said ; for tlien the creature is more powerful than God, and can do that which God will not permit. God can, if he be pleased, banish all sin in a mo- ment out of the world : he could have prevented the revolt of angels, and the fall of man ; they did not sin whether he would or no : he might, by his grace, have stepped in the first moment, and made a special impression upon them of the happiness they already possessed, and the misery they would incur by any wicked attempt. He could as well have prevented the sin of the fallen angels, and confirmed them in grace, as of those that continued in their happy state : he might have appeared to man, informed him of the issue of his de- sign, and made secret impressions upon his heart, since he was ac- quainted with every avenue to his will. God could have kept all sin out of the world, as well as all creatures from breathing in it ; he was as well able to bar sin forever out of the world, as to let crea- tures lie in the womb of nothing, wherein they were first wrapped. To say God doth will sin as he doth other things, is to deny his ho- liness ; to say it entered without anything of his will, is to deny his omnipotence. If he did necessitate Adam to fall, what shall we think of his purity ? If Adam did fall without any concern of God's will in it, what shall we say of his sovereignty ? The one taints his holiness, and the other clips his power. If it came without anything of his will in it, and he did not foresee it, where is his omniscience? If it entered whether he would or no, where is his omnipotence (Rom. ix. 19) ? " Who hath resisted his will ?" There cannot be a lustful act in Abimelech, if God will withhold his power (Gen, xx. 6) ; "I withheld thee :" nor a cursing word in Balaam's mouth, un- less God give power to speak it (Numb. xxii. 38) : " Have I now any power at all to say anything? The word that God puts in my mouth, that shall I speak." As no action could be sinful, if God had not forbidden it ; so no sin could be committed, if God did not will to give way to it. 2. God doth not will directly, and by an efl&cacious will. He doth not directly will it, because he hath prohibited it by his law, which is a discovery of his will : so that if he should directly will sin, and directly prohibit it, he would will good and evil in the same manner, and there would be contradictions in God's will : to will sin abso- lutely, is to work it (Ps. cxv. 3): "God hath, done whatsoever he pleased." God cannot absolutely will it, because he cannot work it. God wills good by a positive decree, because he hath decreed to effect it.^i He wills evil by a private decree, because he hath decreed not to give that grace which would certainly prevent it. God doth not will sin simply, for that were to approve it, but he wills it, in order to that good his wisdom will bring forth from it.^ He wills not sin for itself, but for the event. To will sin as sin, or as purely evil, is not in the capacity of a creature, neither of man nor devil. The will of a rational creature cannot will anything but under the appearance of good, of some good in the sin itself, or some good in the issue of it ^ Uispolis. ® Bradward lib. i. cap. 3-4. "God will;: it secundum quidS ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 149 Much more is tliis far from God, who, being infinitely good, cannot will evil aa evil ; and being infinitely knowing, cannot will that for good which is evilj" Infinite wisdom can be under no error or mis- take : to will sin as sin, would be an unanswerable blemish on God ; but to will to suffer it in order to good, is the glory of his wisdom ; it could never have peeped up its head, unless there had been some decree of God concerning it. And there had been no decree of God concerning it, had he not intended to bring good and glory out of it. If God did directly will the discovery of his grace and mercy to the world, he did in some sort will sin, as that without which there could not have been any appearance of mercy in the world ; for an inno cent creature is not the object of mercy, but a miserable creature : and no rational creature but must be sinful before it be miserable. 3. God wills the permission of sin. He doth not positively will sin, but he positively wills to permit it. And though he doth not approve of sin, yet he approves of that act of his will, whereby he permits it. For since that sin could not enter into the world without some concern of God's will about it, that act of his will that gave way to it, could not be displeasing to him : God could never be dis- pleased with his own act : " He is not as man, that he should repent'* (1 Sam. XV. 29). What God cannot repent of, he cannot but approve of: it is contrary to the blessedness of God to disapprove of, and be displeased with any act of his own will. If he hated any act of his own will, he would hate himself, he would be under a torture : •every one that hates his own acts, is under some disturbance and torment for them. That which is permitted by him, is in itself, and in regard of the evil of it, hateful to him : but as the prospect of that good which he aims at in the permission of it is pleasing to him, so that act of his will, whereby he permits it, is ushered in by an ap- proving act of his understanding. Either God approved of the per- mission, or not ; if he did not approve his own act of permission, he could not have decreed an act of permission. It is inconceivable that God should decree such an act which he detested, and positively will that which he hated. Though God hated sin, as being against his holiness, yet he did not hate the permission of sin, as being sub servient by the immensity of his wisdom to his own glory. He could never be displeased with that which was the result of his eternal counsel, as this decree of permitting sin was, as well as any other decree, resolved upon in his own breast. For as God acts nothing in time, but what he decreed from eternity, so he permits nothing in time but what he decreed from eternity to permit. To speak prop- erly, therefore, God doth not will sin, but he wills the permission of it, and this will to permit is active and positive in God. 4. This act of permission is not a mere and naked permission, but such an one as is attended with a certainty of the event. The decrees of God to make use of the sin of man for the glory of his grace Id the mission and passion of his Son, hung upon this entrance of sin Would it consist with the wisdom of God to decree such great and ■stupendous things, the event whereof should depend upon an un- 'Certain foundation which he might be mistaken in ? God would have ' Aquiu. eoiit. Gent. lib. i. cap. 95. l60 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. Bat iu counsex from eternity to no purpose, if he had only permitted those things to be done, without any knowledge of the event of this permission. God would not have made such provision for redemp- tion to no purpose, or an uncertain purpose, which would have been, if man had not fallen ; or if it had been an uncertainty with God whether he would fall or no. Though the will of God about sin was permissive, yet the will of God about that glory he would promote by the defect of the creature, was positive ; and, therefore, he would not suffer so many positive acts of his will to hang upon an uncei'- tain event ; and, therefore, he did wisely and righteously order all things to the accomplishment of his great and gracious purposes. 5. This act of permission doth not taint the holiness of God. That there is such an act as j)ermission, is clear in Scripture (Acts xiv. 16): " Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways." But that it doth not blemish the holiness of God, will appear, 1st. From the nature of this permission. 1. It is not a moral permission, a giving liberty of toleration by any law to commit sin with impunity ; when, what one law did for- bid, another law doth leave indifferent to be done or not, as a man sees good in himself. As when there is a law made among mer^ that no man shall go out of such a city or country without license ;, to go out without license is a crime by the law ; but when that law is repealed by another, that gives liberty for men to go and come at their pleasure, it doth not make their going or coming necessary, but leaves those which were before bound, to do as they see good in themselves. Such a permission makes a fact lawful, though not nec- essary ; a man is not obliged to do it, but he is left to his own discre- tion to do as he pleases, without being chargeable with a crime for doing it. Such a permission there was granted by God to Adam of eating of the fruits of the garden, to choose any of them for food, except the tree of " knowledge of good and evil." It was a precept to him, not to " eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil ;" but the other was a permission, whereby it was lawful for him to feed upon any other that was most agreeable to his appetite : but there is not such a permission in the case of sin ; this had been an indulgence of it, which had freed man from any crime, and, con- sequently, from punishment ; because, by such a permission by law, he would have had authority to sin if he pleased. God did not re- move the law, which he had before placed as a bar against evil, nor ceased that moral impediment of his threatening : such a permission as this, to make sin lawful or indifferent, had been a blot upon God's holiness. 2. But this permission of God, in the case of sin, is no more than the not hindering a sinful action, which he could have prevented. ' It is not so much an action of God, as a suspension of his influence, which might have hindered an evil act, and a forbearing to restrain the faculties of man from sin ; it is, properly, the not exerting that ef&cacy which might change the counsels that are taken, and prevent the action intended ; as when one man sees another ready to fall,, and can preserve him from falling by reaching out his hand, he per- I ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. ibl mits liim to fall, that is, lie hinders him not from falling. So God describes his act about Abimelech (Gen. xx. 6) ; "I withheld thee from sinning against me, therefore suffered I thee not to touch her." If Abimelech had sinned, he had sinned by God's permission ; that is, by God's not hindering, or not restraining him by making any im- pressions upon him. So that permission is only a withholding that help and grace, which, if bestowed, would have been an effectual remedy to prevent a crime ; and it is rather a suspension, or cessa- tion, than properly a permission, and sin may be said to be commit- ted, not without God's permission, rather than by his permission. Thus, in the fall of man, God did not hold the reins strict upon Satan, to restrain him from laying the bait, nor restrain Adam from swallowing the bait : he kept to himself that efficacious gTace which he might have darted out upon man to prevent his fall. God left Satan to his malice of tempting, and Adam to his liberty of resisting, and his own strength, to use that sufficient grace he had furnished him with, whereby he might have resisted and overcome the temp- tation. As he did not drive man to it, so he did not secretly restrain him from it. So, in the Jews crucifying our Saviour, God did not imprint upon their minds, by his Spirit, a consideration of the great- ness of the crime, and the horror of his justice due to it ; and, being without those impediments, they run furiously, of their own accord, to the commission of that evil ; as, when a man lets a wolf or dog out upon his prey, he takes off the chain which held them, and they presently act according to their natures, g In the fall of angels and men, God's act was leaving them to their own strength ; in sins after the fall, it is God's giving them up to their own corruption ; the first is a pure suspension of grace ; the other hath the nature of a punish- ment (Ps. Ixxxi. 12): " So I gave them up to their own hearts' Lusts."' The first object of this permissive will of God was to leave angels and men to their liberty, and the use of their free will, which was natural to them,^ not adding that supernatural grace which was necessary, not that they should not at all sin, but that they should infallibly not sin : they had a strength sufficient to avoid sin, but not sufficient infallibly to avoid sin ; a grace sufficient to preserve them, but not sufficient to confirm them. 3. Now this permission is not the cause of sin, nor doth blemish the holiness of God. It doth not intrench upon the freedom of men, but supposeth it, establisheth it, and leaves man to it. God acted nothing, but only ceased to act ; and therefore could not be the effi- cient cause of man's sin. As God is not the author of good, but by willing and effecting it, so he is not the author of evil, but by willing and effecting it, : but he doth not positively will evil, nor effect it by any efficacy of his own. Permission is no action, nor the cause of that action which is permitted ; but the will of that person who is permitted to do such an action is the cause.' God can no more be said to be the cause of sin, by suffering a creature to act as it will, than he can be said to be the cause of the not being of any creature, by denying it being, and letting it remain nothing ; it is not from God that it is nothing, it is nothing .in itself Though God be said » Lawson, p. 64. •• Suavez, Vol. IV. p. 414. Suarta. d*- Legib. p. 4a 152 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. to be the cause of creation, yet he is never by any said to be the cause of that nothing which was before creation. This permission of God is not the cause of sin, but the cause of not hindering sin. Man and angels had a physical power of sinning from God, as they were created with freewill, and supported in their natural strength ; but the moral power to sin was not from God ; he counselled them not to it, laid no obligation upon them to use their natural power for such an end ; he only left them to their freedom, and not hindered them in their acting what he was resolved to permit. 2d. The holiness of God is not tainted by this, because he was under no obligation to hinder their commission of sin. Ceasing to act, whereby to prevent a crime or mischief, brings not a person permitting it under guilt, unless where he is under an obligation to prevent it ; but God, in regard of his absolute dominion, cannot be charged with any such obligation. One man, that doth not hinder the murder of another, when it is in his power, is guilty of the mur- der in part ; but, it is to be considered, that he is under a tie by nature, as being of the same kind, and being the other's brother, by a communion of blood, also under an obligation of the law of cha- rity, enacted by the common Sovereign of the world : but what tie was there upon God, since the infinite transcendancy of his nature, and his sovereign dominion, frees him from any such obligation (Job ix. 12)? " If he takes away, who shall say, What dost thou ?" God might have prevented the fall of men and angels ; he might have confirmed them all in a state of perpetual innocency ; but where is the obligation ? He had made the creature a debtor to himself but he owed nothing to the creature. Before God can be charged with any guilt in this case, it must be proved, not only that he could, but that he was bound to hinder it. No person can be justly charged with another's fault, merely for not preventing it, unless he be bound to prevent it ; else, not only the first sin of angels and man would be imputed to God, as the Author, but all the sins of men. He could not be obliged by any law, because he had no superior to im- pose any law upon him ; and it will be hard to prove that he was oblig >d, from his own nature, to prevent the entrance of sin, which he would use as an occasion to declare his own holiness, so trans- cendent a perfection of his nature, more than ever it could have been manifested by a total exclusion of it, viz. in the death of Christ. He is no more bound, in his own nature, to preserve, by supernatural grace, his creature from falling, after he had framed him with a suffi- cient strength to stand, than he was obliged, in his own nature to bring his creature into being when it was nothing. He is not bo and to create a rational creature, much less bound to create him with supernatural gifts ; though, since God would make a rational crea ture, ho could not but make him with a natural uprightness and rectitude. God did as much for angels and men as became a wise governor: he had published his law, backed it with severe penalties, and the creature wanted not a natural strength to observe and obey it. Had not man power to obey all the precepts of the law, as well as one ? How was God bound to give him more grace, since what he had already was enough to shield him, and keep up his resistance ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 153 against all the power of hell? It had been enough to ha\e pointed his will against the temptation, and he had kept oif the force of it. Was there any promise past to Adam of any further grace which he could plead as a tie upon God? No such voluntary limit upon God's supreme dominion appears ujDon record. Was anything due to man which he had not? anything promised him whicli was not performed? What action of debt, then, can the creature bring against God ? Indeed, when man began to neglect the light of his own reason, and became inconsiderate of the precept, God might have enlightened his understanding by a special flash, a supernatural beam, and imprinted upon him a particular consideration of the necessity of his obedience, the misery he was approacliing to by his sin, the folly of any apprehension of an equality in knowledge ; he might have convinced him of the falsity of the serpent's arguments, and uncased to him the venom that lay under those baits. But how doth it appear that God was bound to those additional acts when he had already lighted up in him a " spirit, which was the candle of tlie Lord" (Prov. xx. 27), whereby he was able to discern all, if he had attended to it. It was enough that God did not necessitate man to sin, did not counsel him to it ; that he had given him sufficient warn- ing in the threatening, and sufficient strength in his faculties, to for- tify him against temptation. He gave him what was due to him as a creature of his own framing ; he withdrew no help from him, that was due to him as a creature, and what was not due he was not bound to impart. Man did not beg preserving grace of God, and God was not bound to offer it, when he was not petitioned for it especially: yet if he had begged it, God having before furnished him sufficiently, might, by the right of his sovereign dominion, have denied it with- out any impeachment of his holiness and righteousness. Though he would not in such a case have dealt so bountifully with his creature as he might have done, yet he could not have been impleaded, as dealing unrighteously with his creature. The single word that God had already uttered, when he gave him his precept, was enough to oppose against all the devil's wiles, which tended to invalidate that word : the understanding of man could not imagine that the word of God was vainly spoken ; and the very suggestion of the devil, as if the Creator should envy his creature, would have appeared ridic- ulous, if he had attended to the voice of his own reason. God had done enough for him, and was obliged to do no more, and dealt not unrighteously in leaving him to act according to the principles of his nature. To conclude, if God's permission of sin were enough to charge it upon God, or if God had been obliged to give Adam super- natural grace, Adam, that had so capacious a brain, could not be without that plea in his mouth, "Lord thoumightest have prevented it ; the commission of it by me could not have been without thy per- mission of it:" or, " Thou hast been wanting to me, as the author of my nature." No such plea is brought by Adam into the court, when God tried and cast him ; no such pleas can have any strength in them. Adam had reason enough to know, that there was soffi- cient reason to overrule such a 23lea. Since the permission of sin casts no dirt upon the holiness of God, 154 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. Bs I think hath been cleared, we may under this head consider two things more. 1. That God's permission of sin is not so much as his restraint or limitation of it. Since the entrance of the first sin into the world bj Adam, God is more a hinderer than a permitter of it. If he hath permitted that which he could have prevented, he prevents a world more, that he might, if he pleased, permit : the hedges about sin are larger than the outlets ; they are but a few streams that glide about the world, in comparison of that mighty torrent he dams up both in men and devils. He that understands what a lake of Sodom is in every man's nature, since the universal infection of human nature^ as the apostle describes it (Rom. iii. 9, 10, &c.), must acknowledge, that if God should cast the reins upon the necks of sinful men, they would run into thousands of abominable crimes, more than they do : the impression of all natural laws would be rased out, the world would be a public stew, and a more bloody slaughter house ; human society would sink into a chaos ; no starlight of commendable mo- rality would be seen in it ; the world would be no longer an earth,, but an hell, and have lain deeper in wickedness than it doth. If God did not limit sin, as he doth the sea, and put bars to the waves of the heart, as well as those of the waters, and say of them, "Hither- to you shall go, and no further ;" man hath such a furious ocean in him, as would overflow the banks ; and where it makes a breacli in one place, it would in a thousand, if God should suffer it to act ac- cording to its impetuous current. As the devil hath lust enough to destroy all mankind, if God did not bridle him ; deal with every man as he did with Job, ruin their comforts, and deform their bodies with scabs ; infect religion with a thousand more errors ; fling dis- orders into commonwealths, and make them as a fiery furnace, full- of nothing but flame ; if he were not chained by that powerful arm, that might let him loose to fulfil his malicious fury ; what rapines, murders, thefts, would be committed, if he did not stint him ! Abi melech would not only lust after Sarah, but deflour her ; Laban not only pursue Jacob, but rifle him ; Saul not only hate David, but murder him ; David not only threaten Nabal, but root him up, and his family, did not God girdle in the wrath of man:^ a greater re- mainder of wrath is pent in, than flames out, which yet swells for an outlet. God may be concluded more holy in preventing men's sins, than the author of sin in permitting some ; since, were it not for his restraints by the pull-back of conscience, and infused motions and outward impediments, the world would swarm more with this cursed brood. 2. His permission of sin is in order to his own glory, and a greater good. It is no reflection upon the Divine goodness to leave man to his own conduct, whereby such a deformity as sin sets foot in the world ; since he makes his wisdom illustrious in bringing good out of evil, and a good greater than that evil he suffered to spring up.^ God did not permit sin, as sin, or permit it barely for itself. As sin is not lovely in its own nature, so neither is the permission of sin intrinsically good or amiable for itself, but for those ends aimed at in * Ts. Ixxvi. 10. as the word " restraiu' sij^aitios. ' JLyus bonuin, saitli Bradward- ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 155 the permission of it. God permitted sin, but approved not of tlie object of that permission, sin; because that, considered in its own nature, is solely evil : nor can we think that God could approve of the act of permission, considered only in itself as an act ; but as it respected that event which his wisdom would order by it. We can- not suppose that God should permit sin, but for some great and glo- rious end : for it is the manifestation of his own glorious perfections he intends in all the acts of his will (Prov. xvi. 4), " The Lord hath made all things for himself " — l=3-'s hath wrought all things; which is not only his act of creation, but ordination : "for himself," that is, for the discovery of the excellency of his nature, and the communi- cation of himself to his creature. Sin indeed, in its own nature, hath no tendency to a good end ; the womb of it teems with nothing but monsters ; it is a spurn at God's sovereignty, and a slight of his good- ness : it both deforms and torments the person that acts it ; it is black and abominable, and hath not a mite of goodness in the nature of it. If it ends in any good, it is only from that Infinite transcen- dency of skill, that can bring good out of evil, as well as light out of darkness. Therefore God did not permit it as sin, but as it was an occasion for the manifestation of his own glory. Though the goodness of God would have appeared in the preservation of the world, as well as it did in the creation of it, yet his mercy could not have appeared without the entrance of sin, because the object of mercy is a miserable creature ; but man could not be miserable as long as he remained innocent. The reign of sin opened a door for the reign and triumph of grace (Eom. v. 21), " As sin hath reigned unto death, so might grace reign through righteousness to eternal life ;" without it, the bowels of mercy had never sounded, and the ravishing music of Divine grace could never have been heard by the creature. Mercy, which renders God so amiable, could never else have beamed out to the world. Angels and men upon this occasion beheld the stirrings of Divine grace, and the tenderness of Divine na- ture, and the glory of the Divine persons in their several functions about the redemption of man, which had else been a spring shut up, and a fountain sealed ; the song of glory to God, and good will to men in a way of redemption had never been sung by them. It ap- pears in his dealing with Adam, that he permitted his fall, not only to show his justice in punishing, but principally his mercy in rescu- ing ; since he proclaims to him first the promise of a Eedeemer tc " bruise the serpent's head," before he settled the punishment he should smart under in the world (Gen. iii. 15 — 17). And what fairei prospect could the creature have of the holiness of God, and his ha- tred of sin, than in the edge of that sword of justice, which punished It m the sinner ; but glittered more in the punishment of a Surety so near alUed to him ? Had not man been criminal, he could not hav^ been punishable, nor any been punishable for him : and the pulse of Divine holiness could not have beaten so quick, and been so visible, without an exercise of his vindicative justice. He left man's mutable nature, to fall under righteousness, that thereby he might commend the righteousness of his own nature (Rom. iii. 7). Adam's sin in its nature tended to the ruin of the world, and God takes an occasion 156 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. from it for tlie glory of liis grace in tlie redemption of tlie world ; lie brings forth thereby a new scene of wonders from heaven, and a sur- prising knowledge on earth ; as the sun breaks out more strongly after a night of darkness and tempest. As God in creation framed a chaos by his power, to manifest his wisdom in bringing order out of disorder, light out of darkness, beauty out of confusion and de- formity, when he was able by a word to have made all creatures stand up in their beauty, witliout the precedency of a chaos ; so God permitted a moral chaos to manifest a greater wisdom in the repair- ing a broken image, and restoring a deplorable creature, and bring- ing out those perfections of his nature, which had else been wrapt up in a perpetual silence in his own bosom. It was therefore very con • gruous to the holiness of God to permit that which he could make subservient for his own glory, and particularly for the manifestation of this attribute of holiness, which seems to be in opposition to such a permission.'" Pi^op. V. The hohness of God is not blemished by his concurrence with the creature in the material part of a sinful act. Some to free God from having any hand in sin, deny his concurrence to the ac- tions of the creature ; because, if he concurs to a sinful action, he concurs to the sin also : not understanding how there can be a dis- tinction between the act, and the sinfulness or viciousness of it ; and how God can concur to a natural action, without being stained by that moral evil which cleaves to it. For the understanding of thjs, observe, 1. There is a concurrence of God to all the acts of the creature (Acts xvii. 28) ; " in him we live, and move, and have our being." We depend upon God in our acting as well as in our being : there is as much an efficacy of God in our motion as in our production ; as none have life without his power in producing it, so none have any operation without his providence concurring with it. In him, or by him, that is, by his virtue preserving and governing our motions, as well as by his power bringing us into being. Hence man is com- pared to an axe (Isa. x. 15), an instrument that hath no action, with- out the co-operation of a superior agent handling it : and the actions of the second causes are ascribed to God ; the grass, that is, the pro- duct of the sun, rain, and earth, he is said to make to grow upon the mountains (Ps. cxlvii. 8) ; and the skin and flesh, which is by natural generation, he is said to clothe us with (Job x. 5), in regard of his co-working with second causes, according to their natures. As nothing can exist, so nothing can operate without him ; let his con- currence be removed, and the being and action of the creature cease ; remove the sun from the horizon, or a candle from a room, and the light which flowed from either of them ceaseth. Without God's preserving and concurring power, the course of nature would sink, and the creation be in vain. All created things depend upon God as agents, as well as beings, and are subordinate to him in a way of action, as well as in a way of existing." If God suspend his influ- ence from their action, they would cease to act, as the fire did from ■ But of the wiadom of God in the permittiug siu iu order to redeinptiou, I have liaa died ia Ihe attribute of " Wisdom." ■ Suaiez, Metaph. Part I. p. 552. ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 157 burning tlic tliree children, as -well as if God suspend his influence from their being, they would cease to be. God supports the nature whereby actions are wrought, the mind where actions are consulted, and the will where actions are determined, and the motive-power whereby actions are produced. The mind could not contrive, nor the hand act, a wickedness, if God did not support the power of the one in designing, and the strength of the other in executing a wicked intention. Every faculty in its being, and every faculty in its mo- tion, hath a dependence upon the influence of God. To make the creature independent upon God in anything which speaks perfection, as action considered as action is, is to make the creature a sovereign being. Indeed, we cannot imagine the concurrence of God to the good actions of men since the fall, without granting a concurrence of God to evil actions ; because there is no action so purely good but hath a mixture of evil in it, though it takes its denomination of good from the better part (Eccles. vii. 20), " There is no man that doth good, and sins not." 2. Though the natural virtue of doing a sinful action be from God, and supported by him, yet this doth not blemish the holiness of God ; while God concurs with them in the act, he instils no evil into men. (1.) No act, in regard of the substance of it, is evil. Most of the actions of our faculties, as they are actions, might have been in the state of innocency. Eating is an act Adam would have used if he had stood firm, but not eating to excess. Worship was an act that should have been performed to God in innocence, but not hypocriti- cally. Every action is good by a phj-sical goodness, as it is an act of the mind or hand, which have a natural goodness by creation ; but every action is not morally good : the physical goodness of the ac- tion depends on God, the moral evil on the creature. There is no action, as a corporeal action, is prohibited by the law of God ; but as it springs from an evil disposition, and is tainted by a venomous temper of mind.o There is no action so bad, as attended with such objects and circumstances ; but if the objects and circumstances were changed, might be a brave and commendable action : so that the moral goodness or badness of an act is not to be esteemed from the substance of the act, which hath always a physical goodness ; but from the objects, circumstances, and constitution of the mind in the doing of it. Worship is an act good in itself; but the worship of an image is bad in regard of the object. Were that act of wor- ship directed to God that is paid to a statue, and offered up to him with a sincere frame of mind, it would be morally good. The act, in regard of its substance, is the same in both, and considered as separated from the object to which the worship is directed, hath the same real goodness in regard of the substance ; but when you con- sider this action in relation to the different objects, the one hath a moral goodness, and the other a moral evil. So in speaking : speak- ing being a motion of the tongue in the forming of words, is an ex- cellency belonging to a reasonable creature ; an endowment bestow- ed, continued, and supported by God. Now, if the same tongue • Amyrald. de Libero arbit. pp. 98, 99. 158 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTEy. forms \rords whereb}'- it cursetli God this minute, and forms words whereby it blesses and praises God the next minute, the faculty of speaking is the same, the motion of the tongue is the same in pro- nouncing the name of God either in a way of cursing or blessing (James iii. 9, 10) ; it is the " same mouth that blesseth and curseth ; ' and the motion of it is naturally good in regard of the substance of the act in both ; it is the uise of an excellent power God hath given, and which God preserves, in the use of it. But the estimation of the moral goodness or evil is not from the act itself, but from the disposition of the mind. Once more : killing, as an act is good ; nor is it unlawful as an act ; for if so, God would never have com- manded his people Israel to wage any war, and justice could not be done upon malefactors by the magistrate. A man were bound to sacrifice his life to the fury of an invader, rather than secure it by dispatching that of an enemy ; but killing an innocent, or killing without authority, or out of revenge, is bad. It is not the material part of the act, but the object, manner, and circumstance, that makes it good or evil. It is no blemish to God's holiness to concur to the substance of an action, without having any hand in the immorality of it ; because, whatsoever is real in the substance of the action might be done without evil. It is not evil as it is an act, as it is a motion of the tongue or hand, for then every motion of the tongue or hand would be evil. (2.) Hence it follows, that an act, as an act, is one thing, and the viciousness another. The action is the efficacy of the faculty, ex- tending itself to some outward object ; but the sinfulness of an act consists in a privation of that comeliness and righteousness which ought to be in an action ; in a want of conformity of the act with the law of God, either written in nature, or revealed in the Word.P Now, the sinfulness of an action is not the act itself, but is considered in it as it is related to the law, and is a deviation from it ; and so it is something cleaving to the action, and therefore to be distinguished from the act itself, which is the subject of the sinfulness, Wlien we say such an action is sinfal, the action is the subject, and the sinful- ness of the action is that which adheres to it. The action is not the sinfulness, nor the sinfulness the action ; they are distinguished as the member, and a disease in the member, the arm and the palsy in it : the arm is not the palsy, nor is the palsy the arm ; but the palsy is a disease that cleaves to the arm : so sinfulness is a deformity that cleaves to an action. The evil of an action is not the effect of an action, nor attends it as it is an action, but as it is an action so circum- stantiated, and conversant about this or that object ; for the same action done by two several persons, may be good in one, and bad in the other ; as when two judges are in joint commission for the trial of a malefactor, both upon the appearance of his guilt condemn him. This action in both, considered as an action, is good ; for it is an adjudging a man to death, whose crime deserves such a punish- ment. But this same act, which is but one joint act of both, may be morally good in one judge, and morally evil in the other: morally good in him that condemns him out of an unbiassed consideration P AinyraUl, pp. 321. 332 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 159 of the demerit of his fact, obedience to the law, and conscious of the duty of his place ; and morally evil in the other, who hath no respect to those considerations, but joins in the act of condemnation, principally moved by some private animosity against the prisoner, and desire of revenge for some injury he hath really received, or imagines that he hath received from him. The act in itself is the same materially in both ; but in one it is an act of justice, and in the other an act of murder, as it respects the principles and motives of it in the two judges ; take away thg respect of private revenge, and the action in the ill judge had been as laudable i s the action of the other. The substance of an act, and the sinfulness of an act, are separable and distinguishable ; and God may concur with the sub- stance of an act, without concurring with the sinfulness of the act : as the good judge, that condemned the prisoner out of conscience, concurred with the evil judge, who condemned the prisoner out of pri- vate revenge ; not in the principle and motive of condemnation, but in the material part of condemnation. So God assists in that action of a man wherein sin is placed, but not in that which is the formal reason of sin, which is a privation of some perfection the action ought morally to have. (3.) It will appear further in this, that hence it follows that the action, and the viciousness of the action, may have two distinct causes. That may be a cause of the one that is not the cause of the other, and hath no hand in the producing of it. God concurs to the act of the mind as it counsels, and to the external action upon that counsel, as he preserves the faculty, and gives strength to the mind to consult, and the other parts to execute ; yet he is not in the least tainted with the viciousness of the action. Though the action be from God as a concurrent cause, yet the ill quality of the action is solely from the creature with whom God concurs. The sun and the earth concur to the production of all the plants that are formed in the womb of the one, and midwifed by the other. The sun dis- tributes heat, and the earth communicates sap ; it is the same heat dispersed by the one, and the same juice bestowed by the other : it hath not a sweet juice for one, and a sour juice for another. This gen- eral influx of the sun and earth is not the immediate cause that one plant is poisonous, and another wholesome ; but the sap of the earth is turned by the nature and quality of each plant : if there were not such an influx of the sun and earth, no plant could exert that poison which is in its nature ; but yet the sun and earth are not the cause of that poison which is in the nature of the plant. If God did not concur to the motions of men, there could be no sinful ac- tion, because there could be no action at all ; yet this concurrence is not the cause of that venom that is in the action, which arise th from the corrupt nature of the creature, no more than the sun and earth are the cause of the poison of the plant, which is purely the effect of its own nature upon that general influx of the sun and earth. The influence of God pierceth through all subjects ; but the action of man done by that influence is vitiated according to the nature of its own corruption. As the sun equally shines through all the quarrels in tb e window ; if the glass be bright and clear, there is a 16(1 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. purs splendor* Tf it be red or green, the splendor is from tlie sun ; but the discoloring of that light upon the wall, is from the quality of the glass. But to be yet plainer : the soul is the image of God, and by the acts of the soul, we may come to the knowledge of the acts of God ; the soul gives motion to the body and every member of it, and no member could move without a concurrent virtue of the soul ; if a member be paralytic or gouty, whatsoever motion that gouty member hath, is derived to it from the soul ; but the goutiness of the member was not the act of the soul, but the fruit of ill hu- mors in the body ; the lameness of the member, and the motion of the member, have two distinct causes ; the motion is from one cause, and ill motion from another, q As the member could not move irregularly without some ill humor or cause of that distemper, so it could not move at all without the activity of the soul : so, though God concur to the act of understanding, willing, and execution, why can he not be as free from the irregularity in all those, as the soul is free from the irregularity of the motion of the body, while it is the cause of the motion itself? There are two illustrations generally used in this case, that are not unfit ; the motion of the pen in writ- ing is from the hand that holds it, but the blurs by the pen are from some fault in the pen itself: and the music of the instrument is from the hand that touches it, but the jarring from the faultiness of the strings ; both are the causes of the motion of the pen and strings, but not the blurs or jarrings. (4). It is very congruous to the wisdom of God, to move his crea- tures according to their particular natures ; but this motion makes him not the cause of sin. Had our innocent nature continued, God had moved us according to that innocent nature ; but when the state was changed for a corrupt one, God must either forbear all concourse, and so annihilate the world, or move us according to that nature he finds in us. If he had overthrown the world upon the entrance of sin, and created another upon the same terms, sin might have as soon defaced his second work, as it did the first ; and then it would follow, that God would have been alway building and demolishing. It was not fit for God to cease from acting as a wise governor of his creature, because man did cease from his loyalty as a subject. Is it not more agreeable to God's wisdom as a governor, to concur with his creature according to his nature, than to deny his concurrence upon every evil determination of the creature ? God concurred with Adam's mutable nature in his first act of sin ; he concurred to the act, and left him to his mutability. If Adam had put out his hand to eat of any other unforbidden fruit, God would have supported his natural faculty then, and concurred with him in his motion. When Adam would put out his hand to take the forbidden fruit, God concurred to that natural action, but left him to the choice of the object, and to the use of his mutable nature : and when man became apostate, God concurs with him according to that condition wherein he found him, and cannot move him otherwise, unless he should alter that nature man had contracted. God moving the creature as he found him, is no cause of the ill ■> Zanch. Tom. II. lib. iii, cap. 4, quest, iv. p. 226. ox THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 161 motiou of tlie creature : as wlien a wheel is broken tlie space of g foot, it cannot but move ill in that part till it be mended. He that moves it, uses the same motion (as it is his act) which he would have done had the wheel been sound ; the motion is good in the mover, but bad in the subject : it is not the fault of him that moves it, but the fault of that wheel that is moved, whose breaches came by some other cause. A man doth not use to lay aside his watch for some irregularity, as long as it is capable of motion, but winds it up : wh}^ should God cease from concurring with his creature in its vital operations and other actions of his will, because there was a flaw contracted in that nature, that came right and true out of his hand ? And as he that winds up his disordered watch, is in the same manner the cause of its motion then, as he was when it w3l& regular, yet, by that, act of his, he is not the cause of the false motion of it. but that is from the deficiency of some part of the watch itself: so, though God concurs to that action of the creature, whereby the wickedness of the heart is drawn out, yet is not God therefore as unholy as the heart. (5.) God hath one end in his concurrence, and man another in his action : so that there is a righteous, and often a gracious end in God, when there is a base and unworthy end in man. God concurs to the substance of the act ; man produceth the circumstance of the act, whereby it is evil. God orders both the action wherein he con- curs, and the sinfulness over which he presides, as a governor, to his own ends. In Joseph's case, man was sinful, and God merciful ; his brethren acted "envy," and God designed "mercy" (Gen. xlv. 4, 5). They would be rid of him as an eye-sore, and God concurred with their action to make him their preserver (Gen. 1. 20), "Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good." God con- ciUTcd to Judas his action of betraying our Saviour ; he supported his nature while he contracted with the priests, and supported his members while he was their guide to apprehend him ; God's end was the manifestation of his choicest love to man, and Judas' end was the gratification of his own covetousness. The Assyrian did a divine work against Jerusalem, but not with a Divine end (Isa. x. 5 — 7). He had a mind to enlarge his empire, enrich his coffers with the spoil, and gain the title of a conqueror ; he is desirous ta ii. vade his neighbors, and God employs him to punish his rebels ; but he means not so, nor doth his heart think so ; he intended not as God intended. The axe doth not think what the carpenter in- tends to do with it. But God used the rapine of ambitious nature as an instrument of his justice ; as the exposing malefactors to wild beasts was an ancient punishment, whereby the magistrates intended the execution of justice, and to that purpose used the natural fierceness of the beasts to an end different from what those ravaging creatures aimed at. God concurred with Satan in spoiling Job of nis goods, and scarifying his body ; God gave Satan licence to do it, and Job acknowledges it to be God's act (Job i. 12 — 21) ; but their ends were different ; God concurred with Satan for the clearing the integrity of his servant, when Satan aimed at nothing but the prov^oking him to curse his Creator. The physician applies leechea VDL. 11 1 1 162 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRII JTES to suck the superfluous blood, but the leeclics suck to ghit them- selves, without any regard to the intention of the physician, and the welfare of the patient. In the same act where men intend to hurt, God intends to correct ; so that his concurrence is in a holy manner, while men commit unrighteous actions. A judge commands the ■executioner to execute the sentence of death, which he hath justly pronounced against a malefactor, and admonisheth him to do it out of love to justice ; the executioner hath the authority of the judge for his commission, and the protection of the judge for his security; the judge stands by to countenance and secure him in the doing of it ; but if the executioner hath not the same intention as the judge, viz. a love to justice in the performance of his office, but a private hatred to the offender, the judge, though he commanded the fact of the executioner, yet did not connnand this error of his in it ; and though he protects him in the fact, yet he owns' not this corrupt dis- position in him in the doing what was enjoined him, as any act of nis own. To conclude this. Since the creature cannot act without God, cannot lift up a hand, or move his tongue, without God's preserving and upholding the faculty, and preserving the power of action, and preserving every member of the body in its actual motion, and in every circumstance of its motion, we must necessarily suppose God to have such a way of concurrence as doth not intrench upon his lioliness. We must not equal the creature to God, by denying his dependence on him ; nor must we imagine such a concurrence to the sinfulness of an act, as stains the Divine purity, which is, I think, sufficiently salved by distinguishing the matter of the act from the evil adhering to it ; for since all evil is founded in some good, the evil is distinguishable from the good, and the deformity of the action from the action itself; which, as it is a created act, hath a dependence on the will and influence of God ; and as it is a sinful act, is the product of the will of the creature. Prop. VI. The holiness of God is not blemished by proposing objects to a man, which he makes use of to sin. There is no object proposed to man, but is directed by the providence of God, which influenceth all the motions in the world; and there is no object pro- posed to man, but his active nature may, according to the goodness or badness of his disposition, make a good or an ill use of That two men, one of a charitable, the other of a hard-hearted disposition, meet with an indigent and necessitous object, is from the providence of God ; yet this indigent person is relieved by the one, and neglected by the other. There could be no action in the world, but about some object ; there could be no object offered to us but by Divine Provi- dence ; the active nature of man would be in vain, if there were not objects about which it might be exercised. Nothing could present itself to man as an object, either lo excite his grace, or awaken his corruption, but by the conduct of the Governor of the world. That David should walk upon the battlements of his palace, and Bath- sheba be in the bath at the same time, was from the Divine Provi- dence which orders all the affairs of the world (2 Sam. xi. 7) ; and so some understand (Jer. vi. 21): "Thus saith the Lord, I will laj ^N THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 163 stumbling-blocks before tliis people, and the fathers and sons together shall fall upon them." Since they have offered sacrifices without those due qualifications in their hearts, which were necessary to ren- der them acceptable to me, I will lay in their way such objects, which their corruption will use ill to their farther sin and ruin ; so (Ps. cv. 25), "He turned their heart to hate his people;" that is, by the multi- plying his peoj^le, he gave occasion to the Egyptians of hating them, instead of caressing them, as they had formerly done. But God's holiness is not blemished by this ; for, 1. This proposing or presenting of objects invades not the liberty of any man. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, set in the midst of the garden of Eden, had no violent influence on man to force him to eat of it ; his liberty to eat of it, or not, was reserved entire to himself; no such charge can be brought against any object whatsoever. If a man meet accidentally at a table with meat that is grateful to his palate, but hurtful to the present temper of his body, doth the presenting this sort of food to him strip him of his liberty to dechne it, as well as to feed of it? Can the food have any internal influence upon his will, and lay the freedom of it asleep whether he will or no? Is there any charm in that, more than in other sorts of diet ? No ; but it is the habit of love Avhich he hath to that particu- lar dish, the curiosity of his fancy, and the strength of his own appe- tite, whereby he is brought into a kind of slavery to that particular meat, and not anything in the food itself. When the word is pro- posed to two persons, it is embraced by the one, rejected by the other ; is it from the word itself, which is the object, that these two persons perform different acts? The object is the same to both, but the manner of acting about the object is not the same ; is there any invasion of their liberty by it ? Is the one forced by the word to receive it, and the other forced by the word to reject it? Two such contrary effects cannot proceed from one and the same cause ; out- ward things have only an objective influence, not an inward ; if the mere proposal of things did suspend or strike down the liberty • )f man, no angels in heaven, no man upon earth, no, not our Savio sir himself, could do anything freely, but by force ; objects that are Jl UvSed are of God's creation, and though they have allurements in them, yet they have no compulsive power over the will.'' The fruit o^the tree of knowledge of good and evil was pleasing to the sight; it had a quality to allure ; there had not else needed a prohibition to bar the eating of it ; but it could not have so much power to allure, as the Divine threatening to deter. 2. The objects are good in themselves, but the ill use of them is from man's corruption. Bathsheba was, by God's providence, pre- sented to David's sight, but it was David's disposition moved him to so evil an act; what if God knew that he would use that object ill? yet he knew he had given him a power to refrain from any ill use of it; the objects are innocent, but our corruption poisons them. The same object hath been used by one to holy purposes and holy improvements, that hath been used by another to sinful ends ; when a cliaritable object is presented to a good man, and a cruel man, one ■■ Amyral. de Libero arbit. p. 224. 16-1 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. relieves him, tlic other reviles him ; the object, was rather an occasion to draw out the charity of one, as well as the other ; but the refusing to I'each out a helping hand, was not from the person in calamity, but the disposition of the refaser to whom he was presented ; it is not from the nature of the object that men do good or evil, but from the disposition of the person ; what is good in itself, is made bad by our corruption. As the same meat which nourishes and strengthens a sound constitution, cherisheth the disease of another that eats at the same table, not from any unwholesome quality in the food, but ti e vicious quality of the humors lodging in the stomach, which turn the diet into fuel for themselves, which in its own nature was apt to engender a wholesome juice. Some are perfected by the same things wnereby others are ruined. Riches are used by some, not only for theii' own, but the advantage of others in the world ; b}^ others only fc r themselves, and scarcely so much as their necessities require. Is tl is the fault of the wealth, or the dispositions of the persons, who a. e covetous instead of being generous ? It is a calumny, therefore, upon God to charge him with the sin of man upon this account. The rain that drops from the clouds upon the plants is sweet in itself, but when it moistens the root of any venomous plant, it is turned into the juice of the plant, and becomes venomous with it. The miracles that our Saviour wrought, were applauded b}^ some, and envied by the Pharisees ; the sin arose not from the nature of the miracles, but the malice of their spirits. The miracles were fitter in their own nature to have induced them to an adoration of our Saviour, than to excite so vile a passion against one that had sc many marks from heaven to dignify him, and proclaim him worth} of their respect. The person of Christ was an object proposed to the Jews; some worship him, others condemn and crucify him, and according to their several vices and base ends they use this object. Judas to content his covetousness, the Pharisees to glut their revenge, Pilate for his ambition, to preserve himself in his government, and avoid the articles the people might charge him with of countenancing an enemy to Cresar. God at that time put into their minds a rational and true proposition which they apply to ill purposes.^ Caiaphas said, that "it was expedient for one man to die for the people," which "he spake not of himself" (John xi. 50, 51). God put it into his mind ; but he might have applied it better than he did, and consid- ered, though the maxim was commendable, whether it might justly be applied to Christ, or whether there was such a necessity that he must die, or the nation be destroyed by the Romans. The maxim v/as sound and holy, decreed by God ; but what an ill use did the high-priest make of it to put Christ to death as a seditious person, to save the nation from the Roman fury ! 3. Since the natural corruption of men will use such objects ill, may not God, without tainting himself, present such objects to them in subserviency to his gracious decrees? Whatsoever God should present to men in that state, they would make an ill use of; hath not God, then, the sovereign prerogative to present what he pleases, and suppress others ? To offer that to them which may serve his • Amyrjikl, Ironic, p. 337. ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 165 holy purpose, and liide otlier things from tliem which are not so con- ducing to his gracious ends, which would be as much the occasions of exciting their sin, as the others which he doth bring forth to their view ? Tlie Jews, at the time of Christ, were of a turbulent and seditious humor; they expected a Messiah, a temporal king, and would readily have embraced any occasion to have been up in arms to have delivered themselves from the Eoman yoke ; to this purpose the people attempted once to make him king: and probably the expectation they had that he had such a design to head them, might be one reason of their "hosannas;" because without some such con- ceit it was not probable they should so soon change their note, and vote him to the cross in so short a time, after they had applauded him as if he had been upon a throne ; but their being defeated of strong expectations, usuallj^ ended in a more ardent fury. This tur- bulent and seditious humor God directs in another channel, suppres- seth all occurrences that might excite them to a rebellion against the Romans, which, if he had given way to, the crucifying Christ, which was God's design to bring about at that time, had not probably been effected, and the salvation of mankind been hindered or stood at a stay for a time. God, therefore, orders such objects and occasions, that might direct this seditious humor to another channel, which would else have run out in other actions, which had not been conduc- ing to the great design he had then in the world. Is it not the right of God, and without any blemish to his holiness, to use those corrup- tions which he finds sown in the nature of his creature by the hand of Satan, and to propose such objects as may excite the exercise of them for his own service? Sure God hath as much right to serve himself of the creature of his own framing, and what natures soever they are possessed with, and to present objects to that purpose, as a falconer hath to offer this or that bird to his hawk to exercise his courage, and excite his ravenousness, without being termed the author of that ravenousness in the creature. God planted not those corrup- tions in the Jews, but finds them in those persons over whom he hath an absolute sovereignty in the right of a Creator, and that of a Judge for their sins : and by the right of that sovereignty may offer such objects and occasions, which, though innocent in themselves, he knows they will make use of to ill purposes, but which by the same decree that he resolves to present such occasions to them, he also resolves to make use of them for his own glory. It is not con- ceivable by us what way that death of Christ, which was necessary for the satisfaction of Divine justice, could be brought about without ordering the evil of some men's hearts by special occasions to effect his purpose ; we cannot suppose that Christ can be guilty of any crime that deserved death by the Jewish law ; had he been so a criminal, he could not have been a Redeemer : a perfect innocence was necessary to the design of his coming.* Had God himself put him to that death, without using instruments of wickedness in it, by some remarkable hand from heaven, the innocence of his nature had been forever eclipsed, and the voluntariness of his sacrifice had been obscured : the strangeness of such a judgment would have made his ' This I lia\e spoken of hefore, but it is necessary now. 166 CHARNOCK OX THE ATTRIBUTES. * innoceice incredible; he could not reasonably have been proposed as an object of faith. What, to believe in one that was struck dead by a hand from heaven ? The propagation of the doctrine of redemp- tion had wanted a foundation ; and though God miglit have raised him again, the certainty of his death had been as questionable as liis innocence in dying, had he not been raised. But God orders every- thing so as to answer his own most wise and holy ends, and maintain his truth, and the fulfilling the predictions of the minutest concerns about them, and all this by presenting occasions innocent in them- selves, which the corruptions of the Jews took hold of, and whereby God, unknown to them, brought about his own decrees : and may not this be conceived without any taint upon God's holiness? for when there are seeds of all sin in man's nature, why may not God hinder the sprouting up of this or that kind of seed, and leave liberty to the growth of the other, and shut up other ways of sinning, and restrain men from them, and let them loose to that temptation which he intends to serve himself of, hiding from them those objects which were not so serviceable to his purpose, wherein they would have sinned, and offer others, which he knew their corruption would use ill, and were serviceable to his ends ; since the depravation of their natures would necessarily hurry them to evil without restraining grace, as a scale will necessarily rise up when the weight in it, which kept it down, is taken away ? Prop. VII. The holiness of God is not blemished by withdrawing his grace from a sinful creature, whereby he falls into more sin. That God withdraws his grace fi'om men, and gives them up some- times to the fury of their lusts, is as clear in Scripture as anything (Deut. xxix. 4) : " Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to per- ceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear," &c. Judas was delivered to Satan after the sop, and put into his power, for despising former admonitions. He often leaves the reins to the devil, that he may use what efficacy he can in those that have offended the Majesty of God ; he withholds further influences of grace, or withdraws what before he had granted them. Thus he withheld that grace from the sons of Eli, that might have made their father's pious admonitions effectual to them (I Sam. ii. 25) : " They hearkened, not to the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them." He gave grace to EU to reprove them, and withheld that grace from them, which might have enabled them against their natural corruption and ob- stinacy to receive that reproof. But the holiness of God is not blem- ished by this. 1. Because the act of God in this is only negative." Thus God is said to "harden" men: not by positive hardening, or working any- thing in the creature, but by not working, not softening, leaving a man to the hardness of his own heart, whereby it is unavoidable by the depravation of man's nature, and the fury of his passions, but that he should be further hardened, and "increase unto more un- godliness," as the expression is (2 Tim. ii. 19). As a man is said to give another his life, when he doth not take it away when it lay at his mercy ; so God is said to "harden" a man, when he doth f >i » Testard, de Natur, et Grat. Thes. 150, 151. Amy ou Divers Texts, p. 311 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 167 mollify liim wlien it was in his power, and inwardly quicken him with that grace whereby he might infallibly avoid any farther pro- voking of him. God is said to harden men when he removes not from them the incentives to sin, curbs not those principles which are ready to comply with those incentives, withdraws the common as/jistances of his grace, concurs not with counsels and admonitions to make them effectual ; flasheth not in the convincing light which he darted upon them before. K hardness follows upon God's with- holding his softening grace, it is not by any positive act of God, but from the natural hardness of man. If you- put fire near to wax or r<^sin, both will melt ; but 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 itself, wherein the lire hath no intluence, 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 men's 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 sin- ning, and not God's removal of that special light he before afforded them, or restraint he held over them. As when God withdraws hia preserving power from the creature, he is not the efficient, but de- iicieut cause of the creature's destruction ; so, in this case, God only ceaseth to bind and dam up that sin which else would break out. 2. The whole positive cause of his hardness is from man's corrup- tion. God infuseth not any sin into his creatures, but forbears to infuse his grace, and 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 uncleanness the heathens were given up to (Rom. i. 24, " Wherefore God gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts." And, ver. 2t), God gave them up to " vile affections ;" but they were their own affections, none of God's inspiring,) by adding, " through the lusts of their own hearts." God's 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 temp- tation without, easily close and mix interests with one another : as the fire in a coal pit will with the fuel, if the streams derived into it for the quenching it be dammed up : the natural 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 reins ; or a huntsman takes off the string that held the dog, and lets him run after the hare, — are they the imme- diate cause of the motion of the one, or the other ? — 'iio, but the mettle and strena-th of the horse, and the natural inclination of the hound, both which are left to their own motions to pursue their owd natural instincts. Man doth as naturall j tend to sin as a stone to 168 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. the (centre, or as a weighty thing inclines to a motion to the earth , it is from the propension of man's nature that lie " drinks up iniquity like water :" and God doth no more Avhen he leaves a man to sin, by taking away the hedge which stopped him, but leave him to his na- tural inclination. As a man that breaks uj) a dam he hath placed, leaves the stream to run in their natural channel ; 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 is sin from his own corruption. The with- drawing the sunbeams is not the cause of darkness, but the shadi- ness of the earth; nor is the departure of the sun the cause of winter, but the coldness of the air and earth, which was tempered 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.'' K 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 ; man's 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 Pharaoh's heart" (Exod. vii. 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 father harden- ing: and Pharaoh is said to "harden himself" (Exod. viii. 32); that is, in regard of his own natural passion. 3. God is lioly and righteous, because he doth not withdraAV from man, tiP man deserts him. To say, that God withdrew that grace from Adam, which he had afforded him in creation, or anything 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 relics of natural light, that " en- lighten every man that comes into the world" (John i. 9) ; before God leaves him to the hurry of his own paspions. Ephraim was first joined to idols, before God pronounced the fatal sentence, " Let him alone" (Hos. iv. 17) : and the heathens first changed the glory of the incorruptible God, before God withdrew his common grace from the corrupted creature (Rom. i. 23, 24) ; and they first "served the creature more than the Creator," before the Creator gave them up to the slavish chains. of their vile affections (vcr. 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 thevr own couosela" * Aniyi-:il(l, tie Prodest. p. 107. ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 169 (Ps. Ixxxi. 11, 12). Since siu entered into the world hj the fall of Adam, and the blood of all his posterity was tainted, man cannot do anything 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 near unto all in some kind of instruc- tions : he puts many times providential bars in their way of sinning ; but when they will rush into it as the horse into the battle, when they will rebel against the light, Grod doth often leave them to their own course, sentence him that is " filthy to be filthy still" (Rev. xxii. 11), which is a righteous act of God, as he is rector and governor of the world. Man's not receiving, or not improving what God gives, is the cause of God's not giving further, or taking away his own, which before he had bestowed ; this is so far from being repugnant to the holiness and righteousness of God, that it is rather a commen- dable act of his holiness and righteousness, as the rector of the world, not to let those gifts continue in the hand of a man who abuses them contrary to his glory. Who will blame a father, that, after all the good counsels he hath given to his son to reclaim him, all the correc- tions he hath inflicted on him for his irregular practice, leaves him to his own courses, and withdraws those assistances which he scoffed at, and turned the deaf ear unto ? Or, who will blame the physician for deserting the patient, who rejects his counsel, will not tbllow his prescriptions, but dasheth his physic against the wall ? No man will blame him, no man will say that he is the cause of the patient's death, but the true cause is the fury of the distemper, and the obsti- nacy of the diseased person, to which the physician left him. And who can justly blame God in this case, who jet never denied sup- plies of grace to any that sincerely sought it at his hands ; and what man is there that lies under a hardness, but first was guilty of very provoking sins ? What unholiness is it to deprive men of those : ^- sistances, because of their sin, and afterwards to direct those couns<-ls and practices of theirs, which he hath justly given them up unto, to serve the ends of his own glory in his own methods ? 4. Which will appear further by considering, that God is not obliged to continue his grace to them. It was at his liberty whether he could give any renewing grace to Adam after his fall, or to any of his posterity : he was at his own liberty to withhold it or com- municate it : but, if he were under any obligation then, surely he must be under less now, since the multiplication of sin by his crea- tures : but, if the obligation were none just after the Ml, there is no pretence now to fasten any such obligation on God. That God had no obligation at first, hath been spoken to before ; he is less obhged to continue his grace after a repeated refusal, and a peremptory abuse, than he was bound to proffer it after the first apostasy. God caunot be charged with unholiness in withdrawing his grace after we have received it, unless v.^e can make it appear that his grace was a thing due to us, as we are his creatures, and as he is governor of the world, What prince looks upon himself as obliged to reside in any particu l70 oharnock on the attributes. lar place of liis kingdom ? But suppose he be bound to mhabxt in one particular city, yet after the city rebels against him, is he bound to continue his court there, spend his revenue among rebels, endanger his own honor and security, enhirge their cliarter, or maintain their ancient privileges ? Is it not most just and righteous for liim to withdraw himself, and leave them to tlieir own tumultuousness and sedition, whereby they should eat the I'ruit of their own doings ? If there be an obligation on God as a governor, it would rather lie on the side of justice to leave man to the power of the devil whom he coui'ted, and the prevalency of those lusts he hath so often caressed ; and w^'ap up in a cloud all his common illuminations, and leave him destitute of all common workings of his Spirit. Prop. VIII. God's holiness is not blemished by his commanding those things sometimes which seem to be against nature, or thwart seme other of his precepts ; as when God commanded Abraham with hi s own hand to sacrifice his son (Gen. xxii. 2), there was nothing ol unrighteousness in it. God hath a sovereign dominion over the hves and beings of his creatures, whereby as he creates one day, he might annihilate the next ; and by the same, right that he might de- mand the life of Isaac, as being his creature, he might demand the obedience of Abraham, in a ready return of that to him, which he had so long enjoyed by his grant. It is true, killing is unjust when it is done without cause, and by a private authority ; but the author- ity of God surmounts all private and public authority whatsoever. Our lives are due to him when he calls for them ; and they are more than once forfeit to him by reason of transgression. But, howsoever the case is, God commanded him to do it for the trial of his grace, but suffered him not to do it in favor to his ready obedience ; but had Isaac been actually slain and offered, how had it been unright- eous in God, who enacts laws for the regulation of his creatui'e, ^ut never intended them to the prejudice of the rights of his sovereignty ? Another case is that of the Israelities borrowing jewels of the Egyp- tians, by the order of God (Exod. xi. 2, 3 ; xii. 86). Is not God Lord of men's goods, as well as their lives ? What have any, they have not received ? and that not as proprietors independent on God, Diit his stewards ; and may not he demand a portion of his steward t: bestow upon his favorite ? He that had power to dispose of the Egyptians' goods, had power to order the Israelites to ask them. Besides, God acted the part of a just judge in ordering them their wages for their service in this method, and making their task-masters give them some recompense for their unjust oppression so many years ; it was a command from God, therefore, rather for the preser- vation of justice (the basis of all those laws which link human society), than any infringement of it. It was a material recompense in part, though not a formal one in the intention of the Egyptians ; it was but in part a recompense ; it must needs come short of the damage the poc.r captives had sustained by the tyranny of their masters, who had enslaved them contrary to the rules of liospitality ; and could not make amends for the lives of the poor infants of Israel, whom they had drowned in the river. He that might for the unjust oppression of his people have taken away all their lives, destroyed ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 171 the whole nation, and put tlie Israelites into tlie possession of their lands, could, without any unrighteousness, dispose of part of their goods ; and it was rather an act of clemency to leave them some pa,rt, who had doubly forfeited all. Again, the Egj-ptians were as ready to lend by Grod's influence, as the Israelites were to ask by God's order: and though it was a loan, God, as Sovereign of the world, and Lord of the earth, and the fulness thereof, alienated the property by assuming them to the use of the tabernacle, to which service, most, if not all of them, were afterwards dedicated. God, who is lawgiver, hath power to dispense with his own law, and make use of his own goods, and dispose of them as he pleases ; it is no un- holiness in God to dispose of that which he hath a right unto. In- deed, God cannot command that which is in its own nature intrinsi- sically evil ; as to command a rational creature not to love him. not to worship him, to call God to witness to a lie ; these are intrinsi- cally evil ; but for the disposing of the lives and goods of his crea- tures, which they have from him in right, and not in absolute pro- priety, is not evil in him, because there is no repugnancy in his own nature to such acts, nor is it anything inconsistent with the natural duty of a creature, and in such cases he may use what instruments he please. The point was, that holiness is a glorious perfection of the nature of God. "We have showed the nature of this hohness in God ; what it is ; and we have demonstrated it, and proved that God is holy, and must needs be so ; and also the purity of his nature in all his acts about sin : let us now improve it by way of use. TV. Is holiness a transcendent perfection belonging to the nature of God? The first use shall be of instruction aud information. Inform. 1. How great and how frequent is the contem^Dt of this eminent perfection in the Deity ! Since the fall, this attribute, which renders God most amiable in himself, renders him most hateful to his apostate creature. It is impossible that he that loves iniquity, can affect that which is irreconcileably contrary to the iniquity he loves. Nothing so contrary to the sinfulness of man as the holiness of God, and nothing is thought of by the sinner with so much detes- tavion. How do men account that which is the most glorious perfec- lic'U of the Divinity, unworthy to be regarded as an accomplishment of their own souls ! and when they are pressed to an imitation of it, ai d a detestation of what is contrary to it, have the same sentiment in their heart which the devil had in his language to Christ, Why art thou come to torment us before our time ? What an enmity the world naturally hath to this perfection, I think is visible in the prac- tice of the heathen, who among all their heroes which they deified, elevated none to that dignity among them for this or that moral vir- tue that came nearest to it, but for their valor or some usefulness in the concerns of this life, ^sculapius was deified for his skill in the cure of diseases ; Bacchus, for the use of the grape ; Yulcan, for his operations by fire ; Hercules, for his destroying of tyrants and mon- sters ; but none for their mere virtue ; as if anything of purity were unworthy their consideration in the frame of a Deity, when it is the glory of all other perfections ; so essential it is, that when men reject the imitation of this, God regards it as a total rejection of liimselij 172 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBTTtES. though they own all the other attributes of liis nature (Ps. IxxxL 11)*. " Israel would none of me :" why ? because " they wall witli tliis languntre; Sir. f desire a boon of sucL ianoner heard the voice of a holy God in the garden, but he c^uididt-rw*' Hi? own nakedness with shame and fear (Gen. iii. 10) ; much iesr- ••;i., v,e fix our minds upon it, but we must be touched with a seiiM- ».. our own uncleanness. The clear beams of the sun discover tii.-it . Jfhiness in our garments and members, which was not visible iu th<' tiarkness of the night. Impure metals are discerned by compare; vg them with that which is pure and perfect in its kind The "CM-t; o'^ guilt is the first natural result upon a sense of this ex- <5ell<^ t perfection; and the sense of the imperfection of our own righT<30Urinoss is the next. Who can think of it, and reflect upon l92 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. himself as an object fit for Divine love? Who can have a due thought of it, without regarding himself as stubble before a consimi- ing fire ? Who can, without a confusion of heart and face, glance upon that pure eye which beholds with detestation the foul motes, as well as the filthier and bigger spots ? When Isaiah saw his glory, and heard how highly the angels exalted God for this perfection, he was in a cold sweat, ready to swoon, till a seraphim, with a coal from the altar, both purged and revived him (Isa. vi. 5, 7). They are sound and genuine convictions, which have the prospect of Divine purity for their immediate spring, and not a foresight of our own misery ; when it is not the punishment we have deserved, but the holiness we have offended, most grates our hearts. Such convic- tions are the first rude draughts of the Divine image in oar spirits, and gratefal to God, because they are an acknowledgment ol the glory of this attribute, and the first mark of honor given to -jt by the creature. Those that never had a sense of their own vileness, were always destitute of a sense of God's holiness. And, by the way, we may observe, that those that scoff" at any for hanging down the head under the consideration and conviction of sin (a'' is too usual with the world), scoff at them for having deeper appre- hensions of the purity of God than themselves, and consc-^uently make a mock of the holiness of God which is the gron"'*' of those convictions ; a sense of this would prevent such a damnable re- proaching. 2. A sense of this wUl render us humble in the possession of the greatest holiness a creature were capable of. We are apt to be proud, with the Pharisee, when we look upon others wallowing in the mire of base and unnatural lusts : but let any clap their wings, if they can, in a vain boasting and exaltation, when they view the holiness of God. What torch, if it had reason, would be proud, and swagger in its own light, if it compared itself with the sun ? " Who can stand before this holy Lord God ?" is the just reflection of the holiest person, as it was of those (1 Sam. vi. 20) that had felt the marks of his jealousy after their looking into the ark, though likely out of affection to it, and triumphant joy at its return. When did the angels testify, by the covering of their faces, thtlr weakness to bear the lustre of his majesty, but when they beheld his glory ? When did they signify, by their covering their feet, the shame of their own vileness, but when their hearts were fullest of the applaud- ings of this perfection (Isa. vi. 2, 3) ? Though they found them- selves without spot, yet not with such a holiness that they (iOuM ap- pear either with their faces or feet unvailed and unmask :;d io the presence of God. Doth the immense splendor of thi*' attribute en- gender shaming reflections in those pure spirits ? Whjt will it, -what should it, do in us, that dwell in houses of clay, and .jruop up and down with that clay upon our backs, and too much jf it in our hearts ? The stars themselves, which appear beautituJ iii ihe night, are masked at the awaking of the sun. What a dim ligLt y that of a glow-worm to that of the sun ! The apprehensions of tliia made the elders humble themselves in the midst of their glory., by " cost- ing down their crowns before his throne" CRev. iv. 8, 10;, a. meta- ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD, 193' phor taken from the triumphing generals among the Romans, who hung up their victorious laurels in the Capitol, dedicating them to their gods, acknowledging them their superiors in strength, and au- thors of their victor;y. This self-emptiness at the consideration of Divine purity, is the note of the true church, represented by the twenty-four elders, and a note of a true member of the church ; whereas boasting of perfection and merit is the property of the anti- christian tribe, that have mean thoughts of this adorable perfection, and think themselves more righteous than the unspotted angels. What a self-annihilation is there in a good man, when the sense of Divine purity is most lively in him I yea, how detestable is he to himself! There is as little proportion between the holiness of the Divine Majesty, and that of the most righteous creature, as there is between a nearness of a person that stands upon a mountain, to the sun, and of him that beholds him in a vale ; one is nearer than the other, but it is an advantage not to be boasted of, in regard of the vast distance that is between the sun and the elevated spectator, 3. This would make us full of an affectionate reverence in all our approaches to God. By this perfection God is rendered venerable, and fit to be reverenced by his creature ; and magnificent thoughts of it in the creature would awaken him to an actual reverence of the Divine majesty (Ps. iii. 9) : " Holy and reverend is his name ;" a good opinion of this would engender in us a sincere respect towards him ; we should then " serve the Lord with fear," as the expression is (Ps. ii, 11), that is, be afraid to cast anything before hhn that may offend the eyes of his purity. Who would venture rashly and garishly into the presence of an eminent moralist, or of a righteous king upon his throne ? The fixedness of the angels arose from the continual prospect of this. What if we had been with Isaiah when he saw the vision, and beheld him in the same glory, and the heavenly choir in their reverential posture in the service of God ; would it not have barred our wanderings, and staked us down to our duty ? Would not the fortifying an idea of it in our minds produce the same effect ? It is for want of this we carry ourselves so loosely and unbecoming- ly in the Divine presence, with the same, or meaner, affections than those wherewith we stand before some vile creature that is our supe- rior in the world ; as though a piece of filthy flesh were more valua- ble than this perfection of the Divinity, How doth the Psalmist double his exhortation to men to sing praise to God (Ps. xlvii. 6) : " Sing praises to God, sing praises ; sing praises unto our King, sing praises ;" because of his majesty, and the purity of his dominion ! and (ver. 8), " God reigneth over the heathen, God sitteth upon the throne of his holiness," How would this elevate us in praise, and prostrate us in prayer, when we praise and pray with an understanding and insight of that nature we bless or implore ; as he speaks (ver. 7), " Sing ye praises with imderstanding." The holiness of God in hi3 government and dominion, the holiness of his nature, and the holi- ness of his precepts, should beget in us an humble respect in our approaches. The more we grow in a sense of this, the more shall we advance in the true performance of all our duties. Those nations which ad^ved the sun. had they at first seen his brightness wrapped VOL n 13 194 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. and masked in a cloud, and paid a veneration to it, liow would their adorations have mounted to a greater point, after they had seen it in its full brightness, shaking off those vails, and chasing away the mists before it ! what a profound reverence would they have paid it, when they beheld it in its glory and meridian brightness ! •> Our reverence to God in all our addresses to him will arrive to greater degrees, if every act of duty be ushered in, and seasoned with the thoughts of God as sitting upon a throne of holiness ; we shall have a more becoming sense of our own vileness, a greater ardor to his service, a deeper respect in his presence, if our understanding be more cleared, and possessed with notions of this perfection. Thus take a view of God in this part of his glory, before you fall dowo before his throne, and assure yourselves you will find your heari3 and services quickened with a new and lively spirit. 4. A due sense of this perfection in God would produce in us a fear of God, and arm us against temptation and sin. What made the heathen so wanton and loose, but the representations of their gods as vicious ? Who would stick at adulteries, and more pro- digious lusts, that can take a pattern for them from the person he adores for a deity ? Upon which account Plato would have poets banished from his commonwealth., because, by dressing up their gods in wanton garbs in their poems, they encouraged wickedness in the people. But if the thoughts of God's holiness were impressed upon us, we should regard sin with the same eye, mark it with the same detestation in our measures, as God himself doth. So far as we are sensible of the Divine purity, we should account sin vile as it de- serves ; we should hate it entirely, without a grain of love to it, and hate it perpetually (Ps. cxix. 104) : " Through thy precepts t get understanding, therefore I hate every false way." He looks into God's statute-book, and thereby arrives to an understanding of the purity of his nature, whence his hatred of iniquity commenced. This woidd govern our motion, check our vices ; it would make us tremble at the hissing of a temptation : when a corruption did but peep out, and put forth its head, a look to the Divine Purity would be attended with a fresh convoy of strength to resist it. There is lio such fortification, as to be wrapped up in the sense of this : this would fill us with an awe of God ; we should be ashamed to admit any filthy thing into us, which we know is detestable to his pure eye. As the ap- proach of a grave and serious man makes children hasten their trifles out of the way ; so would a consideration of this attribute make us cast away our idols, and fling away our ridiculous thoughts and designs. 5. A due sense of this perfection would inflame us with a vehe- ment desire to be conformed to Him. All our desires would be ar- dent to regulate ourselves according to this pattern of holiness and goodness, which is not to be equalled; the contemplating it as it shines forth in the face of Christ, will " transform us into the same image" (2 Cor. iii. 19). Since our lai)scd state, we cannot behold the holiness of God in itself without affriglitment ; nor is it an object of imitation, but as tempered in Christ to our view. When we cannot, \fithout blinding ourselves, look upon the sun in its brightness, we •> Ainyrald. Moral. Tom. V. p. 462. ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 195 may behold it througli a colored glass, whereby the lustre of it is moderated, without dazzling our eyes. The sense of it will furnish us with a greatness of mind, that little things will be contemned by us ; motives of a greater alloy would have little influence upon us ; we should have the highest motives to every duty, and motives of the same strain which influence the angels above. It would change us, not only into an angelical nature, but a divine nature : we should act like men of another sphere ; as if we had received our original in another world, and seen with angels the ravishing beauties of heaven. How little would the mean employments of the world sink us into dirt and mud ! How often hath the meditation of the courage of a valiant man, or acuteness and industry of a learned person, spurred on some men to an imitation of them, and transformed them into the same nature ! as the looking upon the sun imprints an image of the sun upon our eye, that we seem to behold nothing but the sun a while after. The view of the Divine purity would fill us with a holy generosity to imitate him, more than the examples of the best men upon earth. It was a saying of a heathen, that " if virtue were visible, it would kindle a noble flame of love to it in the heart, by its ravishing beauty." Shall the infinite purity of the Author of all virtue come short of the strength of a creature ? Can we not render that visible to us by frequent meditation, which, though it be invisi- ble in his nature, is made visible in his law, in his ways, in his Son ? It would make us ready to obey him, since we know he cannot com- mand anything that is sinful, but what is holy, just, and good : it would put all our affections in their due place, elevate them above the creature, and subject them to the Creator. 6. It would make us patient and contented under all God's dispen- sations. All penal evils are the fruits of his holiness, as he is Judge and Governor of the world : he is not an arbitrary Judge, nor doth any sentence pronounced, nor warrant for execution issue from hhn, but what bears upon it a stamp of the righteousness of his nature ; he doth nothing by passion or unrighteousness, but according to the eternal law of his own unstained nature, which is the rule to him in his works, the basis and foundation of his throne and sovereign do- minion (Ps. Ixxxix. 14) : " Justice," or righteousness, " and judg- ment are the habitation of thy throne ;" upon these his sovereign power is established : so that there can be no just complaint or in- dictment brought against any of his proceedings with men. How doth our Saviour, who had the highest apprehensions of God's holi- ness, justify God in his deepest distresses, when he cried, and was not answered in the particular he desired, in that jDrophetic Psalm of him (Ps. xxii. 2, 3), "I cry day and night, but thou hearest not !" Thou seemest to be deaf to all my petitions, afar off " from the words of my roaring ; but thou art holy ;" I cast no blame upon thee : all thy dealings are squared by thy holiness: this is the only law to thee ; in this I acquiesce. It is part of thy holiness to hide thy face from me, to show thereby thy detestation of sin. Our Saviour adores the Divine purity in h is sharpest agony, and a like sense of it would guide us in the same steps to acknowledge and glorify it, in oui greatest desertions and afflictions ; especially since as they are the 196 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. fruit of the holiness of his nature, so the}' are the means to nnpartto ns clearer stamps of holiness, according to that in himself, which is the original copy (Heb. xii. 10). He melts us down as gold, to fit us for the receiving a new impression, to mortify the affections of the flesh, and clothe us with the graces of his Spirit. The due sense of this would make us to submit to his stroke, and to wait uj^on him for a good issue of his dealings. Exhort. 2. Is holiness a perfection of the Divine nature ? Is it the glory of the Deity ? Then let us glorify this holiness of God. Mo- Hes glorifies it in the text, and glorifies it in a song, which was a (jopy for all ages. The whole corporation of seraphims have their mouths filled with the praises of it. The saints, whether militant on (jarth, or triumphant in heaven, are to continue the same acclama- lion, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts" (Rev. iv. 8). Neither angels nor glorified spirits exalt at the same rate the power which Jormed them creatures, nor goodness which preserves them in a J Jessed immortality, as they do holiness, which they bear some beams of in their own nature, and whereby they are capacitated to stand before His throne. Upon the account of this, a debt of praise is de- manded of all rational creatures by the Psalmist (Ps. xcix. 3), " Let them praise thy great and terrible name, for it is holy." Not so much for the greatness of his Majesty, or the treasures of his justice ; but as they are considered in conjunction with his holiness, which renders them beautiful ; " for it is holy." Grandeur and majesty ^ simply in themselves, are not objects of praise, nor do they merit the acclamations of men, when destitute of righteousness : this only ren- ders everyf^iiug else adorable ; and this adorns the Divine greatness with an amiableness (Isa. xii. 6) : " Great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee ;" and makes his might worthy of praise (Luke i. 49). In honoring this, which is the soul and spirit of all the rest, we give a glory to all the perfections which constitute and beautify his nature : and without the glorifying this we glorify nothing of them, tiiough we should extol every other single attribute a thousand times. He values no other adoration of his creatures, unless this be incerested, nor accepts anything as a glory from them (Lev. x. 8) "I will be sanctified in them that come near me, and I will be glori- fied :" as if he had said. In manifesting my name to be holy, you truly, you only honor me. And as the Scripture seldom speaks of this perfection without a particular emphasis, it teaches us not to . think of it without a special elevation of heart : by this act only, while we are on earth, can we join consort with the angels in heaven ; he that doth not honor it, delight in it, and in the meditation of it, hatli no resemblance of it ; he hath none of the image, that delights not in the original. Everything of God is glorious, but this most of all. If he built the world principally for anything, it was for the communication of his goodness, and display of his holiness. He formed the rational creature to manifest his holiness in tnat law whereby he was to be governed : then deprive not God of the design of his own glory. We honor this attribute, 1. When we make it the ground of our love to God. Not be- cause he is gracious to us, but holy in himself As God honors it, ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 197 in loviug himself for it, we sliould honor it, by pitching our affections upon him chiefly for it. What renders God amiable to himself, should render him lovely to all his creatures (Isa. xlii. 21) : *' The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake." If the hatred of evil be the immediate result of a love to God, then the peculiar ob- ject or term of our love to God, must be that perfection which stands in direct opposition to the hati^ed of evil (Ps. xcvii. 10) : " Ye that love the Lord, hate evil." When we honor his holiness in every -Stamp and impression of it : his law, not principally because of its usefulness to us, its accommodateness to the order of the world, but for its innate purity ; and his people, not for our interest in them, svi much as for bearing ujjon them this glittering mark of the Deity, we honor then the ^^urity of the Lawgiver, and the excellency of the Sanctifier. 2. We honor it, when we regard chiefly the illustrious appearance of this in his judgments in the world. In a case of temporal judg- ment, Moses celebrates it in the text ; in a case of spiritual judg- ments, the angels applaud it in Isaiah. All his severe proceedings are nothing but the strong breathings of this attribute. Purity is the flash of his revenging sword. K he did not hate evil, his ven- geance would not reach the committers of it. He is a " refiner's fire" in the day of his anger (Mai. iii. 2). By his separating judgments. " he takes away the wicked of the earth like dross" (Ps. cxix. 119) How is his holiness honored, when we take notice of his sweeping out the rubbish of the world ; how he suits punishment to sin, and discovers his hatred of the matter and circumstances of the evil, in the matter and circumstances of the judgment. This perfection is legible in every stroke of his sword ; we honor it when we read the syllables of it, and not by standing amazed only at the greatness and severity of the blow, when we read how holy he is in his most terri- ble dispensations : for as in them God magnifies the greatness of his power, so he sanctifies himself; that is, declares the purity of his na- ture as a revenger of all impiety (Ezek. xxxviii. 22, 23) ; " And I will plead against him with pestilence, and with blood : and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the people that are with him, an overflowing rain and great hailstones ; fire, and brim- stone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself." 3. We honor this attribute, when we take notice of it in every .accomplishment of his promise, and ever}^ grant of a mercy. His truth is but a branch of his righteousness, a slip from this root. He is glorious in holiness in the account of Moses, because he "led forth his people whom he had redeemed" (Exod. xv. 13); his people by a covenant with their fathers, being the God of Moses, the God of Israel, and the God of their fathers (ver. 2). " My God, and my father's God, I will exalt thee." For what ? for his faithfulness to his promise. The holiness of God, which Mary (Luke i. 49) magni- fies, is summed up in this, the help he afforded his servant Israel in the "remembrance of his mercy, as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed forever" (ver. 54, 55). The certainty of his covenant mercy depends upon an unchangeableness of his holiness. What are "sure mercies," (Isa. Iv. 3), are holy mercies in the Septua* 198 CHAHNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. gint, and in Acts xiii. 34, wLicli makes that translation canonical His nearness to answer us, when we call upon him for such mercies, is a fruit of the holiness of his name and nature (Ps. clxv. 17). "Tho Lord is holy in all his works ; the Lord is nigh to all them that call upon him," Hannah, after a return of prayer, sets a particular mark upon this, in her song (1 Sam. ii. 2) ; " There is none holy as the Lord ;" separated from all dross, firm to his covenant, and righteous in it to his suppliants, that confide in him, and plead his word. When we observe the workings of this in every return of prayer, we honor it ; it is a sign the mercy is really a return of prayer, and not a mercy of course, bearing upon it only the characters of a com- mon providence. This was the perfection David would bless, for the catalogue of mercies in Ps. ciii. 1, &c. ; " Bless his holy name." Cer- tainly, one reason why sincere prayer is so delightful to him, is because it puts him upon the exercise of this his beloved perfection, which he so much delighteth to honor. Since God acts in all those as the governor of the world, we honor him not, unless we take notice of that righteousness which fits him for a governor, and is the inward spring of all his motions (Gen. xviii. 25). " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" It was his design in his pity to Israel, as well as the calamities he intended against the heathens, to be " sanctified in them ; that is, declared holy in his merciful as well as his judicial procedure (Ezra xxxvi. 21, 23), Hereby God credits his righteousness, which seemed to be forgotten by the one, and con- temned by the other j*^ he removes, by this, all suspicion of unfaith- fulness in him. 4. We honor this attribute, when we trust his covenant, and promise against outward appearances. Thus our Saviour, in the prophecy of him (Ps. xxii. 2-4), when God seemed to bar up the gates of his palace against the entry of any more petitions, this attri- bute proves the support of the Kedeemer's soul; "But thou art holy, 0 thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel :" as it refers to what goes before, it has been twice explained ; as it refers to what follows, it is a ground of trust; " Thou inhabitest the praises of Israel :" thou hast had the praises of Israel for many ages, for thy holiness. How? "Our fathers trusted in thee, and thou didst deliver them;" they honored thy holiness by their trust, and thou didst honor their faith by a deliverance ; thou always hadst a purity that would not shame nor confound them. I will trust in thee as thou art holy, and expect the breaking out of this attribute for my good as well as my prede- cessors ; " Our fathers trusted in thee," &c. 5. We honor this attribute, when we show a greater affection to the marks of his holiness in times of the greatest contempt of it. As the Psalmist (Ps. cxix, 126, 127); "They have made void thy law, therefore I love thy commandments above gold ;" while they spuru at the purity of thy law, I will value it above the gold they possess; 1 will esteem it as gold, because others count it as dross ; by their Bcorn of it, my love to it shall be the warmer ; and my hatred of ini- quity shall be the sharper : the disdain of others should inflame ua with a zeal and fortitude to appear in behalf of his despised honor. « Sanct. in loc. ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 199 We honor tliis holiness many other ways; by prepaiation for ouii addresses to him, out of a sense of his purity ; when we imitate it : as He honors us by "teaching us his statutes" (Ps. cxix. 135), so we honor him by learning and observing them. When we beg of him to show himself a refiner of us, to make us more conformable to him in holiness, and bless him for any communication of it to us, it ren- ders us beautiful and lovely in his sight. To conclude : to honor it, is the way to engage it for us ; to give it the glory of what it hath done, by the arm of power for our rescue from sin, and beating down our corruptions at his feet, is the way to see more of its marvellous works, and behold a clearer brightness. As unthankfulness makes him withdraw his grace (Rom, i. 21, 24), so glorifying him causes him to impart it. God honors men in the same way they honor him; when we honor him by acknowledging his purity, he will honor us by communicating of it to us. This is the way to derive a greater excellency to our souls. Exhort. 3. Since holiness is an eminent perfection of the Divine nature, let us labor after a conformity to God in this perfection. The nature of God is presented to us in the Scripture, both as a pattern to imitate, and a motive to persuade the creature to holiness (1 John iii. 3 ; Matt. v. 48 ; Lev. xi. 44 ; 1 Pet. i. 15, 16). Since it is, there- fore, the nature of God, the more our natures are beautified with it, the more like we are to the Divine nature. It is not the pattern of angels, or archangels, that our Saviour, or his apostle, proposeth for our imitation; but the original of all purity, God himself; the same that created us, to be imitated by us. Nor is an equal degree of purity enjoined us ; though we are to be pure, and perfect, and mer- ciful as God is, yet not essentially so ; for that would be to command us an impossibility in itself; as much as to order us to cease to be creatures, and commence gods. No creature can be essentially holy but by participation from the chief Fountain of Holiness ; but we must have the same kind of holiness, the same truth of holiness. As a short line may be as straight as another, though it parallel it not in the immense length of it ; a copy may have the likeness of the original, though not the same perfection ; we cannot be good, with- out eyeing some exemplar of goodness as the pattern. No pattern is so suitable as that which is the highest goodness and purity. That hmner that would draw the most excellent piece, fixes his eyes upon the most perfect pattern. He that would be a good orator, or poet, or artificer, considers some person most excellent in each kind, aa the object of his imitation. "Who so fit as God to be viewed as the pattern of holiness, in our intendment of, and endeavor after holi- ness? The Stoics, one of the best sects of philosophers, advised their disciples to pitch upon some eminent example of virtue, according to which to form their lives ; as Socrates, &c. But true holiness doth not only endeavor to live the life of a good man, but chooses to live a divine life ; as before the man was " alienated from the life of God" (Eph. iv. 19), so, upon his return, he aspires after the life of God. To endeavor to be like a good man is to make one image like another ; to set our clocks by other clocks, without regarding the sun : but true holiness consists in a likeness to the most exact sampler. God 200 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. being tlie first purity, is tlie rule as well as tlie spring of all punty in the creature, the chief and first object of imitation. We disowTi ourselves to be his creatures, if we breathe not after a resemblance to Lim in what he is imitable. There was in man, as created according to God's image, a natural appetite to resemble God : it was at first planted in him by the Author of his nature. The devil's temptation of him by that motive to transgress the law, had been as an arrow shot against a brazen wall, had there not been a desire of some like- ness to his Creator engraven upon him (Gen. iii. 5) : it would have had no more influence upon him, than it could have had upon a mere animal. But man mistook the term ; he would have been like God in knowledge, whereas, he should have affected a greater resem- blance of him in purity. 0 that we could exemplify God in our nature ! Precepts may instruct us more, but examples affect us more; one dii'ects us, but the other attracts us. What can be more attrac- tive of our imitation, than that which is the original of all purity, both in men and angels? This conformity to him consists in an imitation of him, 1. In his law. The purity of his nature was first visible in this glass; hence, it is called a "holy" law (Kom. vii. 12); a "pure" law (Ps. xix. 8). Holy and pure, as it is a ray of the pure nature of the Lawgiver, When our lives are a comment upon his law, they are expressive of his holiness : we conform to his holiness when Ave regu- late ourselves by his law, as it is a transcript of his holiness : we do not imitate it, when we do a thing in the matter of it agreeable to that holy rule, but when we do it with respect to the purity of the Lawgiver beaming in it. K it be agreeable to God's will, and con- venient for some design of our own, and we do anything only with a respect to that design, we make not God's holiness discovered in the law our rule, but our own conveniency : it is not a conformity to God, but a conformity of our actions to self. As in abstinence from intemperate courses, not because the holiness of God in his law hath prescribed it, but because the health of our bodies, or some noble contentments of life, require it ; then it is not God's holiness that is our rule, but our own security, conveniency, or something else which we make a God to ourselves. It must be a real conformity to the law : our holiness should shine as really in the practice, as God's purity doth in the precept, God hath not a pretence of purity in his nature, but a reality : it is not only a sudden boiling up of an admi- ration of him, or a starting wish to be like him, from some sudden impression upon the fancy, which is a mere temporar}^ blaze, but a settled temper of soul, loving everything that is like him, doing things out of a firm desire to resemble his purity in the copy he hath set ; not a resting in negatives, but aspiring to positives ; holy and harmless are distinct things : they were distinct qualifications in our High Priest in his obedience to the law (Heb, vii. 26), so they must be in us. 2. In his Christ. As the law is the transcript, so Christ is the image of his holiness : the glory of God is too dazzling to be beheld b)^ us : the acute eye of an angel is too weak to look upon that bright sun without covering his face : we are much too weak to take ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 201 our measures from that purity which is infinite in his nature. But he hath made his Son like us, that by the imitation of him in that temper, and shadow of human flesh, we may arrive to a resemblance of him (2 Cor. ill. 18). Then there is a conformity to him, when that which Christ did is drawn in lively colors in the soul of a Chris- tian ; when, as he died upon the cross, we die to our sins ; as he rose from the grave, we rise from our lusts ; as he ascended on high, we mount our souls thither ; when we express in our lives what shined in his, and exemplify in our hearts what he acted in the world, and become one with him, as he was separate from sinners. The holiness of God in Christ is our ultimate pattern : as we are not only to be- lieve in Christ, but " by Christ in God" (John xiv. 1), so we are not only to imitate Christ, but the holiness of God as discovered in Christ. And, to enforce this upon us, let us consider, (1.) It is this only wherein he commands our imitation of him. We are not commanded to be mighty and wise, as God is mighty and wise : but " be holy, as I am holy." The declarations of his power are to enforce our subjection ; those of his wisdom, to encourage our direc- tion by him ; but this only to attract our imitation. When he saith, " I am holy," the immediate inference he makes, is, " Be ye so too," which is not the proper instruction from any other perfection-^^ Man was created by Divine power, and harmonized by Divine wisdom, but not after them, or according to them, as the true image ; this was the prerogative of Divine holiness, to be the pattern of his rational crea- ture :« wisdom and power were subservient to this, the one as the pencil, the other as the hand that moved it. The condition of a creature is too mean to have the communications of the Divine essence ; the true impressions of his righteousness and goodness we are only capable of. It is only in those moral perfections we are said to resemble God. The devils, those impure and ruined spirits, are nearer to him in strength and knowledge than we are ; yet in regard of that natural and intel- lectual perfection, never counted like him, but at the greatest dis- tance from him, because at the greatest distance from his purity. God values not a natural might, nor an acute understanding, nor vouchsafes such perfections the glorious title of that of his image. Plutarch saith, God is angry with those that imitate his thunder or lightning, his works of majesty, but delighted with those that imitate his virtue.^ In this only we can never incur any reproof from him, but for falling short of him and his glory. Had Adam endeavored after an imitation of this, instead of that of Divine knowledge, he had escaped his fall, and preserved his standing ; and had Lucifer wished hhnself like God in this, as well as his dominion, he had still been a glorious angel, instead of being now a ghastly devil : to reach after a union with the Supreme Being, in regard of holiness, is the only generous and commendable ambition. (2.) This is the prime way of honoring God. We do not so glorify God by elevated admirations, or eloquent expressions, or pompous services of him, as when we aspire to a conversing with him with unstained spirits, and Uve to him in living like him. The angels are ^ '• la tliis," saith Plato, " God is h /neau Kapu6eiy/ua. " Eph. iv. 24. Col. iii. 10 ' Eugub. inde Pereuni Philoso. lib. vi. cap. 6. 202 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. not called lioly for applauding his purity, but conforming to it. The more perfect any creature is in the rank of beings, the more is the Creator honored ; as it is more for the honor of God to create an angel or man, than a m.ere animal ; because there are in such clearer characters of Divine power and goodness, than in those that are in ferior. The more perfect any creature is morall)^, tlie more is God glorified by that creature ; it is a real declaration, that God is the best and most amiable Being ; that nothing besides him is valuable, and worthy to be object of our imitation. It is a greater honoring of him, than the highest acts of devotion, and the most religious bodily exercise, or the singing this song of Moses in the text, with a trium- phant spirit ; as it is more the honor of a father to be imitated in hi3 virtues by his son, than to have all the glavering commendations by the tongue or pen of a vicious and debauched child. By this we honor him in that perfection which is dearest to .him, and counted by him as the chief est glory of his nature. God seems to accept the glorifying this attribute, as if it were a real addition to that holiness which is infinite in his nature, and because infinite, cannot admit of any increase: and, therefore, the word sanctified is used instead of glorified. (Isa. viii. 13), " Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread." And (Isa. xxix. 23), " They shall sanctify the holy One of Jacob, and fear the God of Israel." This sanctification of God is by the fear of him, which signifies in the language of the Old Testament, a reverence of him, and a righteousness before him. He doth not say, when he would have his power or wisdom glorified, Empower me or make me wise ; but when he would have his holiness glorified by the creature, it is. Sanctify me ; that is, manifest the purity of my nature by the holi- ness of your lives : but he expresseth it in such a term, as if it were an addition to this infinite perfection ; so acceptable it is to him, as if it were a contribution from his creature for the enlarging an attri- bute so pleasing to him, and so glorious in his eye. It is, as much as in the creature lies, a preserving the life of God, since this perfec- tion is his life ; and that he would as soon part with his life as part with his purity. It keeps up the reputation of God in the world, and attracts others to a love of him ; whereas, unworthy carriages defame God in the eyes of men, and bring up an ill report of him, as if he were such an one as those that profess him, and walk unsuitably to their profession, appear to be. (3.) This is the excellency and beauty of a creature. The title of " beauty" is given to it in Ps. ex. 3 ; " beauties," in the plural number, as comprehending it in all other beauties whatsoever. What is a Divine excellency cannot be a creature's deformity : the natural beauty of it is a representation of the Divinity ; and a holy man ought to es- teem himself excellent in being such in his measure as his God is, and puts his principal felicity in the possession of the same purity in truth. This is the refined complexion of the angels that stand before his throne. The devils lost their comeliness when they fell from it. It was the honor of the human nature of our Saviour, not only to be united to the Deity, but to be sanctified by it. He was " fairer than all the children of men," because he had a holiness above the children ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 203 of men : " grace was poured into his lips" (Ps. xlv. 2). It was the jewel of the reasonable nature in paradise : conformity to God was man's original happiness in his created state; and what was naturally so, cannot but be immutably so in its own nature. The beauty of Qvery copied thing consists in its likeness to the original; everything hath more of loveliness, as it hath greater impressions of its first pattern ; in this regard holiness hath more of beauty on it than the whole creation, because it partakes of a greater excellency of God than the sun, moon, and stars. No greater glory can be, than to be a con- spicuous and visible image of the invisible, and holy, and blessed God. As this is the splendor of all the Divine attributes, so it is the flower of all a christian's graces, the crown of all religion : it is the glory of the Spirit. In this regard the king's daughter is said to be " all glorious within" (Ps. xlv. 13). It is more excellent than the soul itself, since the greatest soul is but a deformed piece without it : a " diamond without lustre."!? What are the noble faculties of the soul without it, but as a curious rusty watch, a delicate heap of dis- order and confusion ? It is impossible there can be beauty where. there are a multitude of "spots and wrinkles" that blemish a countenance (Eph. V. 27). It can never be in its true brightness but when it is perfect in purity ; when it regains what it was possessed of by crea- tion, and dispossessed of by the fall, and recovers its primitive temper. We are not so beautiful by being the work of God, as by having a stamp of God upon us. Worldly greatness may make men honor- able in the sight of creeping worms. Soft lives, ambitious reaches, luxurious pleasures, and a pompous religion, render no man excel- lent and noble in the sight of God : this is not the excellency and nobility of the Deity which we are bound to resemble ; other lines of a Divine image must be drawn in us to render us truly excel- lent. (4.) It is our life. What is the life of God is truly the life of a rational creature.^ The life of the body consists not in the perfection of its members, and the integrity of its organs ; these remain when the body becomes a carcass ; but in the presence of the soul, and its vigorous animation of every part to perform the distinct offices be- longing to each of them. The life of the soul consists not in its being, or spiritual substance, or the excellency of its faculties of un- derstanding and will, but in the moral and becoming operations of them. The spirit is only " life because of righteousness" (Rom. viii. 10). The faculties are turned by it, to acquit themselves in their functions, according to the will of God ; the absence of this doth not only deform the soul, but, in a sort, annihilate it, in regard of its true essence and end. Grace gives a Christian being, and a want of it is the want of a true being (1 Cor. xv. 10). When Adam divested himself of his original righteousness, he came under the force of the threatening, in regard of a spiritual death ; every person is " morally dead while he lives" an unholy life (1 Tim. v. 6). What life is to the body, that is righteousness to the spirit ; and the greater measure of holiness it hath, the more of life it hath, because it is in a • Vaughan pp. 4, 6. '' Arairald. in Heb. pp. 1 01, 102. Ii04 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. greater nearness, and partakes more fully of the fountain of life. Is not that the most worthy life, which God makes most account of, without which his life could not be a pleasant and blessed life, but a life worse than death ? What a miserable life is that of the men of the world, that are carried, with greedy inclinations, to all manner of unrighteousness, whither their interests or their lusts invite them ' The most beautiful body is a carcass, and the most honorable person hath but a brutish life (Ps. xlix, 20) ; miserable creatures when their life shall be extinct without a Divine rectitude, when all other things will vanish as the shadows of the night at the appearance of the sun 1 Holiness is our life. (5.) It is this only fits us for communion with God. Since it is our beauty and our life, without it what communion can an excellent God have with deformed creatures ; a living God with dead creatures ? " Without holiness none shall see God" (Heb. xii. 14). The creature must be stripped of his unrighteousness, or God of his purity, before they can come together. Likeness is the ground of communion, and •of delight in it : the opposition between God and unholy souls is as great as that between "light and darkness" (1 John i. 6). Divine fruition is not so much by a union of presence as a union of nature. Heaven is not so much an outward as an inward life ; the foundation of glory is laid in grace ; a resemblance to God is our vital happiness, without which the vision of God would not be so much as a cloudy and shadowy happiness, but rather a torment than a felicity ; unless we be of a like nature to God, we cannot have a pleasing fruition of him. Some philosophers think that if our bodies were of the same nature with the heavens, of an ethereal substance, the nearness to the sun would cherish, not scorch us. Were we partakers of a Divine nature, we might enjoy God with delight ; whereas, remaining in our unlikeness to him, we cannot think of him, and approach to him without terror. As soon as sin had stripped man of the image of God, he was an exile from the comfortable presence of God, un- worthy for God to hold any correspondence with : he can no more delight in a defiled person that a man can take a toad into intimate converse with him ; he would hereby discredit his own nature, and justify our impurity. The holiness of a creature only prepares him for an eternal conjunction with God in glory. Enoch's walking with God was the cause of his being so soon wafted to the place of a full fruition of him ; he hath as much delight in such as in heaven itself ; one is his habitation as well as the other ; the one is his habitation of glory, and the other is the house of his pleasure : if he dwell in Ziou, it must be a " holy mountain" (Joel iii. 17), and the members of Zion must be upheld in their rectitude and integrity before they be " set before the face of God forever" (Ps. xli. 12.) Such are styled his jewels, his portion, as if he lived upon them, as a man upon his inheritance. As God cannot delight in us, so neither can we delight in God without it. We must purify ourselves "a« he LS pure," if we expect to "see him as he is," in the comfortable glory and beauty of his nature (1 John iii. 2, 3), else the sight of Crod would be terrible and troublesome : we cannot be satisfied with the likeness ol' God at the resurrection, unless we have a righteous ON THE HOLINESS O^ GOD, 205^ ness wherewitli to " behold liis face" (Ps. xvii. 15). It is a vain imagination in any to think that heaven can be a place of happiness to him, in whose eye the beauty of holiness which fills and adorns it, is an unlovely thing ; or that any can have a satisfaction in that Divine purity which is loathsome to him in the imitations of it. We cannot enjoy him, unless we resemble him ; nor take any pleasure in him, if we were with him, without something of likeness to him. Holiness fits us for communion with God. (6.) We can have no evidence of our election and adoption with- out it. Conformity to God, in purity, is the fruit of electing love (Eph. i. 4) ; " He hath chosen us that we should be holy." The goodness of the fruit evidenceth the nature of the root : this is the seal that assures us the patent is the authentic grant of the Prince. Whatsoever is holy, speaks itself to be from God ; and whosoever is holy, speaks himself to belong to God. This is the only evidence that " we are born of God" (1 John ii. 29). The subduing our souls to him, the forming us into a resemblance to himself, is a more cer- tain sign we belong to him, than if we had, with Isaiah, seen his glory in the vision, with all his train of angels about him. This justifies us to be the seed of God, when he hath, as it were, taken a slip from his own purity, and engrafted it in our spirits : he can never own us for his children without his mark, the stamp of holi- ness. The devil's stamp is none of God's badge. Our spiritual ex- traction from him is but pretended, unless v^e do things worthy of so illustrious a birth, and becoming the honor of so great a Father : what evidence can we else have of any child-like love to God, since the proper act of love is to imitate the object of our affections ? And that we may be in some measure like to God in this excellent perfection- ist. Let us be often viewing and ruminating on the holiness of God, especially as discovered in Christ. It is by a believing medi- tation on him, that we are " changed into the same image" (2 Cor, iii. 18). We can think often of nothing that is excellent in the world, but it draws our faculties to some kind of suitable operation ; and why should not such an excellent idea of the holiness of God in Christ perfect our understandings, and awaken all the powers of our souls to be formed to actions worthy of him ? A painter employed in the limning some excellent piece, has not only his pattern before his eyes, but his eye frequently upon the pattern, to possess his fancy to draw forth an exact resemblance. He that would express the image of God, must imprint upon his mind the purity of his nature ; cherish it in his thoughts, that the excellent beauty of it may pass from his understanding to his affections, and from his affec- tions to his practice. How can we arise to a conformity to God in Christ, whose most holy nature we seldom glance upon, and more rarely sink our souls into the depths of it by meditation! Be fre- quent in the meditation of the holiness of God. 2d. Let us often exericse ourselves in acts of love to God, because of this perfection. The more adoring thoughts we have oi" God, the more delightfully we shall aspire to, and more ravishingly catch after, anything that may promote the more full draught of his Divine image in our hearts. What we intensely affect, we desire to 206 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. be as near to as we can, and to be that verj thing, rather than our selves. All imitations of others arise from an intense love to theii persons or excellency. When the soul is ravished with this perfec- tion of God, it will desire to be united with it ; to have it drawn in it, more than to have its own being continued to it : it will desire and delight in its own being, in order to this heavenly and spiritual work. The impressions of the nature of God upon it, and the imi- tations of the nature of God by it, will be more desirable than any natural perfection whatsoever. The will in loving is rendered like the object beloved; is turned into its nature,' and imbibes its qual- ities. The soul, by loving God, will find itself more and more trans- formed,into the Divine image ; whereas, slighted ensamples are never thought worthy of imitation. 3d. Let us make God our end. Every man's mind forms itself to a likeness to that which it makes its chief end. An earthly soul is as drossy as the earth he gapes for ; an ambitious soul is as elevated as the honor he reaches at ; the same characters that are upon the thing aimed at, will be imprinted upon the spirit of him that aims at it. When God and his glory are made our end, we shall find a silent likeness pass in upon us ; the beauty of God will by degrees enter upon our souls. 4th. In every deliberate action, let us reflect upon the Divine purity as a pattern. Let us examine whether anything we are prompted unto bear an impression of God upon it ; whether it looks like a thing that God himself would do in that case, were he in our natures and in our circumstances. See whether it hath the livery of God upon it, how congruous it is to his nature ; whether, and in what manner, the holiness of God can be glorified thereby ; and let us be industrious in all this ; for can such an imitation be easy which is resisted by the constant assaults of the flesh, which is discouraged by our own ignorance, and depressed by our faint and languishing desires after it ? 0 ! happy we, if there were such a heart in us ! Exhort. 4. If holiness be a perfection belonging to the nature of God ; then, where there is some weak conformity to the holiness ol God, let us labor to grow up in it, and breathe after fuller measures of it. The more likeness we have to him, the more love we shall have from him. Communion will be suitable to our imitation ; his love to himself in his essence, will cast out beams of love to himself in his image. If God loves holiness in a lower measure, much more will he love it in a higher degree, because then his image is more illustrious and beautiful, and comes nearer to the lively lineaments of his own infinite purity. Perfection in anj'-thing is more lovely and amiable than in^perfection in any state ; and the nearer anj^thing arrives to perfection, the further are those things separated from it which might cool an affection to it. An increase in holiness is attended with a manifestation of his love (John xiv 21) : " He that hath my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me, and he shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and I will manifest myself to him." It is a testimony of love t<") God, and God will not be behind-hand with the creature in kind ' Aiuoi' natuiani induit, et mores imbibit rei amatae ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. Wl ness ; lie loves a holy man for some resemblance to h im in hig nature ; but when there is an abounding in sanctified dispositions suitable to it, there is an increase of favor ; the more we resemble the original, the more shall we enjoy the blessedness of that original : as any partake more of the Divine likeness, they partake more of the Divine happiness. Exhort. 5. Let us carry ourselves holily, in a spiritual manner, in all our religious approaches to God (Ps. xciii. 5) ; " Holiness becomes thy house, O Lord, for ever," This attribute should work in us a deep and reverential respect to God. This is the reason rendered why we should " worship at his footstool," in the lowest posture of humility prostrate before him, because " he is holy" (Ps. xcix. 5). Shoes must be put off from our feet (Exod. iii. 5), that is, lusts from our affections, everything that our souls are clogged and bemired with, as the shoe is with dirt. He is not willing we should offer to him an impure soul, mired hearts, rotten carcasses, putrefied in vice, rotten in iniquity ; our services are to be as free from pro- faneness, as the sacrifices of the law were to be free from sickliness or any blemish. Whatsoever is contrary to his purity, is abhorred by him, and unlovely in his sight ; and can meet with no other success at his hands, but a disdainful turning away both of his eye and ear (Isa, i, 15), Since he is an immense purity, he will reject from his presence, and from having any communion with him, all that which is not conformable to him ; as light chases away the darkness of the night, and will not mix with it. If we " stretch out" our " hands towards him," we must " put iniquity far away from us" (Job xi, 13, 14) ; the fruits of all service will else drop oft to nothing. " Then shall the offering of Judah and Jen^iialem be pleasant to the Lord" : when ? when the heart is purged by Christ sitting as a "purifier of silver" (Mai. iii. 3, 4). Not all tlit incense of the Indies yield him so sweet a savor, as one spiritual net oT wor- ship from a heart estranged from the vileness of the vorld, and ravished with an affection to, and a desire of imitating, the purity of his nature. Exhort. 6. Let us address for holiness to God, the fouota'io of it. As he is the author of bodily life in the creature, so he is ibe author of his own life, the life of God in the soul. By his holiness be makes men holy, as the sun by his light enlightens the air. He is not only the Holy One, but our Holy One (Isa, xliii. 15) ; " The Lord that sanctifies us" (Levit. xx, 8), As he hath mercy to pardon us, so he hath holiness to purify us, the excellency of being a sun to comfort us, and a shield to protect us, giving " grace and glory" (Ps. Ixxiv. 11). Grace whereby we may have communion with him to our comfort, and strength against our spiritual enemies for our defence ; grace as our preparatory to glory, and grace growing up till it ripen in glory. He only can mould us into a Divine frame ; the great original can only derive the excellency of his own nature to us. We are too low, too lame, to lift up ourselves to it ; too much in love with our own deformity, to admit of this beauty without a heavenly power inclining our desires for it, our affections to it, our willingness fco be partakers of it. He can as soon set the beauty of hoHness in 208 CHARNOCK OK THE ATTRIBUTES. a deformed heart, as the beauty of harmony in a confused mass, when he made the workl. He can as soon cause tlie hght of purity to rise out of the darkness of corruption, as frame gloriou,s spirits out of the insufficiency of nothing. His beauty doth not decay ; he hath as much in himself now as he had in his eternity ; he is as ready to impart it, as he was at the creation ; only we must wait upon him for it, and be content to have it by small measures and degrees. There is no fear of our sanctification, if we come to him as a God of holiness, since he is a God of peace, and the breach made by Adam is repaired by Christ (1 Thess. v. 23) : " And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly," &c. He restores the sanc- tifying Spirit which was withdrawn by the fall, as he is a God paci- fied, and his holiness righted by the Eedeemer. The beauty of it appears in its smiles upon a man in Christ, and is as ready to im- part itself to the reconciled creature, as before justice was to punish the rebellious one. He loves to send forth the streams of this per- fection into created channels, more than any else. He did not de- sign the making the creature so powerful as he might, because power is not such an excellency in his own nature, but as it is con ducted and managed by some other excellency. Power is in different, and may be used well or ill, according as the possessor of it is righteous or unrighteous. God makes not the creature so powerful as he might, but he delights to make the creature that waits upon him as holy as it can be ; beginning it in this world, and ripening it in the other. It is from him we must expect it, and from him that we must beg it, and draw arguments from the holi- ness of his nature, to move him to work holiness in our spirits ; we cannot have a stronger plea. Purity is the favorite of his own na- ture, and delights itself in the resemblances of it in the creature. Let us also go to God, to preserve what he hath already wrought and imparted. As we cannot attain it, so we cannot maintain it without him. God gave it Adam, and he lost it ; when God gives it us, we shall lose it \^dthout his influencing and preserving grace ; the channel will be without a stream, if the fountain do not bubble it forth ; and the streams will vanish, if the fountain doth not con- stantly supply them. Let us apply ourselves to him for holiness, as he is a God glorious in holiness ; by this we honor God, and ad- vantage ourselves. DISCOURSE III. ON THE GOODNESS OF GCD. Mark X. 18. — And Jesus said unto him, Why callesfc thou rae good'/ There is noas good but one, that is, God. The words are part of a reply of our Saviour to t!ie yonng man's petition to him : a certain person came in haste, " running'" as being eager for satisfaction, to entreat his directions, what he should do to inherit everlasting life ; the person is described only in general (ver. 17), "There came one," a certain man: but Luke describes him by his dignity (Luke xviii. 18), "A certain ruler ;" one of au- thority among the Jews. He desires of him an answer to a legal question, " What he should do ?" or, as Matthew hath it, " What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life" (Matt. xix. 16) ? He imagined everlasting felicity was to be purchased by the works of the law ; he had not the least sentiments of faith : Christ's answer implies, there was no hopes of the happiness of another world by the works of the law, unless they were perfect, and answerable to every divine precept. He doth not seem to have any ill, or hypo- critical intent in his address to Christ; not to tempt him, but to be instructed by him. He seems to come with an ardent desire^ to be sadsfied in his demand ; he performed a solemn act of respect to him, he kneeled to him, yorv /fTjjfrac, prostrated himself upon the ground ; besides, Christ is said (ver. 21) to love him, which had been inconsistent with the knowledge Christ had of the hearts and thoughts of men, and the abhorrence he had of hypocrites, had he been only a counterfeit in this question. But the first reply Christ makes to him, respects the title of " Good Master," which this ruler gave him in his salutation. 1st, Some think, that Christ hereby would draw him to an ac- knowledgment of him as God ; you acknowledge me " good ;" how come you to salute me with so great a title, since you do not afford it to your greatest doctors ? Lightfoot, in loc. observes, that the title of Rahhi hone is not in all the Talmud. You must own me to be God, since you own me to be "good:" goodness being a title only due, and properly belonging, to the Supreme Being. K you take me for a common man, with what conscience can you salute me in a manner proper to God ? since no man is " good," no, not one, but the heart of man is evil continually. The Arians used this place, to back their denying the Deity of Christ : because, say they, he did not acknowledge himself "good," therefore he did not acknow- ledge himself God. But he doth not here deny his Deity, but re- VOL. II. — 14 210 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. proves him for calling him good, when he had not yet confessed him to be more than a man> You behold my flesh, but you con- sider not the fulness of my Deity; if you account me "good," ac- count me God, and imagine me not to be a simple and a mere manJ He disowns not his own Deity, but allures the young man to a confession of it. Why callest thou me good, since thou dost not discover any apprehensions of my being more than a man ? Though thou comest with a greater esteem to me than is commonly en- tertained of the doctors of the chair, why dost thou own me to be "good," unless thou own me to be God? If Christ had denied himself in this speech to be "good," he had rather entertained this person with a frown and a sharp reproof for giving him a title due to God alone, than have received him with that courtesy and complaisance as he did.*" Had he said, there is none " good" but the Father, he had excluded himself; but in saying, there is none " good" but God, he comprehends himself. 2d. Others say, that Christ had no intention to draw him to an acknowledgment of his Deity, but only asserts his divine authority or mission from God. For which interpretation Maldonat calls Cal- vin an Arianizer.n He doth not here assert the essence of his Deity, but the authority of his doctrine ; as if he should have said, You do without ground give me the title of " good," unless you beheve I have a Divine commission for what I declare and act. Many do think me an impostor, an enemy of God, and a friend to devils ; you must firmly believe that I am not so, as your rulers report me, but that I am sent of God, and authorized by him ; you cannot else give me the title of good, but of wicked. And the reason they give for this in- terpretation, is, because it is a question, whether any of the apostles understood him, at this time, to be God, which seems to have no great strength in it ; since not only the devil had publicly owned him to be the " Holy One of God" (Luke iv. 34"), but John the Bap- tist had borne record, that he was the " Son of God" (John i. 32, 34) ; and before this time Peter had confessed him openly, in the hearing of the rest of the disciples, that he was " the Christ, the Son of the, living God" (Matt. xvi. 16). But I think Pareeus' interpretation h best, which takes in both those ; either you are serious or deceitful in this address ; if you are serious, why do you call me " good," and make bold to fix so great a title upon one you have no higher thoughts of than a mere man? Christ takes occasion from hence, to assert God to be only and sovereignly " good :" " There is none good but God."** God only hath the honor of absolute goodness, and none but God merits the name of " good." A heathen could say much after the same manner ; All other things are far from the nature of good ; call none else good but God, for this would be a profane error : other things are only good in opinion, but have not the true substance of goodness: he is "good" in a more excellent way than any creature lan be denominated "good"? 1. God is only originally good, good of himself. All created goodness is a rivulet from this fountain, but Divine goodness hath k Erasm. in loc. • Augustia. " Hensius in Matt. ■ Calvia in loc. • Trismegist. Poemoead. cap. 2. f Eugubia. de Peron. Philos. lib. v. cap. y. UN THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 211 no spring ; God depends uj)on no other for his goodness ; he hath it in, and of, himself: man hath no goodness from liimself, God hath no goodness from without himself: his goodness is no more derived from another than his being : if we were good bj any external thing, that thing must be in being before him, or after him ; if before him, he was not then himself from eternity ; if after him, he was not good in himself from eternity. The end of his creating things, then, was not to confer a goodness upon his creatures, but to j)artake of a good« ness from his creatures. God is good by and in himself, since all things are oaly good by him; and all that goodness which is in creatures, is but the breathing of his own goodness upon them : they have all their loveliness from the same hand they have their being from. Though by creation God was declared good, yet he was not made good by any, or by all the creatures. He partakes of none, but all things partake of him. He is so good, that he gives all, and receives nothing ; only good, because nothing is good but by him : nothing hath a goodness but from him. 2. God only is infinitely good. A boundless goodness that knows no limits, a goodness as infinite as his essence, not only good, but best ; not only good, but goodness itself, the supreme inconceivable goodness. All things else are but little particles of God, small sparks from this immense flame, sips of goodness to this fountain. Nothing that is good by his influence can equal him who is good by himself: derived goodness can never equal primitive goodness. Divine good- ness communicates itself to a vast number of creatures in various degrees ; to angels, glorified spirits, men on earth, to every creature ; dnd when it hath communicated all that the present world is capable of, there is still less displayed, than left to enrich another world. All possible creatures are not capable of exhausting the wealth, the treasures, that Divine bounty is filled with. 3. God is only perfectly good, because only infinitely good. H is good without indigence, because he hath the whole nature of gooC aess, not only some beams that may admit of increase of degrc , As in him is the whole nature of entity, so in him is the whole na- ture of excellency. As nothing hath an absolute perfect being but God, so nothing hath an absolutely perfect goodness but God ; as the sun hath a perfection of heat in it, but what is warmed by the sun is but imperfectly hot, and equals not the sun in that perfection of heat wherewith it is naturally endued. The goodness of God is the measure and rule of goodness in everything else. 4. God only is immutably good. Other things may be perpetually good by supernatural power, but not immutably good in their own nature. Other things are not so good, but they may be bad ; God is so good, that he cannot be bad. It was the speech of a philoso- pher, that it was a hard thing to find a good man, yea, impossible ; but though it were possible to find a good man, he would be good but for some moment, or a short time : for though he should be good at this instant, it was above the nature of man to continue in a habit of goodness, without going awry and warping.q But " the goodness of God endureth forever" (Ps. lii. 1). God always glitters in good- 1 Eugubin. de PeroD. Philos. lib. v. cap. 9. p. n loc. " Ficiii. in Dionys. de Divin. N'un. cap. 611. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 215 sufficiently spoken of, or thought of, as it merits. It is discovered in all his works, as the goodness of a tree in all its fruits ; it is easy to be seen, and more pleasant to be contemplated. In general, 1. All nations in the world have acknowledged God good ; Ti \4yadoi' was one of the names the Platonists expressed him by ; and good and Grod, are almost the same words in our language. All as readily consented in the notion of his goodness, as in that of his Deity. Whatsoever divisions or disputes there were among them in the other perfections of God, they all agreed in this without dispute, saith Synesius. One calls him Venus, in regard of his loveliness.^' Another calls him "Eounu love, as being the band which ties all things together.y No perfection of the Divine nature is more eminently, nor more speedily visible in the whole book of the creation, than this. His greatness shines not in any part of it, where his goodness doth not as gloriously glister : whatsoever is the instrument of his work, as his power ; whatsoever is the orderer of his work, as his wisdom ; yet nothing can be adored as the motive of his work, but the good- ness of his nature. This only could induce him to resolve to create : his -wisdom then steps in, to dispose the methods of what he resolved ;. and his power follows to execute, what his wisdom hath disposed, and his goodness designed. His power in making, and his wis- dom in ordering, are subservient to his goodness ; and this good- ness, which is the end of the creation, is as visible to the eyes of men, as legible to the understanding of men, as his power in forming them, and his wisdom in tuning them. And as the book of creation, so the records of his government must needs acquaint them with a great part of it, when they have often beheld him, stretching out his hand, to supply the indigent, relieve the oppressed, and punish the oppressors, '^nd give them, in their distresses, what might " fill their hearts with food and gladness." It is this the apostle (Rom. i. 20, 21,) means by his Godhead, which he links with his eternity and power, as clearly seen in the things that are made, as in a pure glass, " For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." The Godhead Avhich comprehends the whole nature of God as discoverable to his creatures, was not known, yea, was impossible to be known, by the works of creation. There had been nothing then reserved to be manifested in Christ : but his good- ness, which is properly meant there by his Godhead, was as clearly visible as his power. The apostle upbraids them with their unthank- fulness, and argues their inexcusableness, because the arm of his power in creation made no due impression of fear upon their spirits, nor the beams of his goodness wrought in them sufficient sentiments of gratitude. Their not glorifying God, was a contempt of the for- mer ; and their not being thankful, was a slight of the latter. God is the object of honor, as he is powerful, and the object of thankful- ness properly as he is bountiful. All the idolary of the heathens, is a clear testimony of their common sentiment of the goodness of God: since the more eminently useful any person was in some ad- vantageous invention for the benefit of mankind, thej'- thought he * Fiinpedocles. T Hesiod 216 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. merited a rank in the number of their deities. The Italians esteemed Pithagoras a god, because he was 'inhttd(iutn6iujog'^ to be good and useful, was an approximation to the Divine nature. Hence it was, that when the Lystrians saw a resemblance of the Divine goodness in the charitable and miraculous cure of one of their crippled citi '-'-ens, presently they mistook Paul and Barnabas for gods, and in- ferred from thence their right to divine worship, inquiring into noth- ing else but the visible character of their goodness and usefulness, to capacitate them for the honor of a sacrifice (Acts xiv. 8-11). Hence it was, that they adored those creatures that were a common benefit, as the sun and moou, which must be founded upon a pre- existent notion, not only of a Being, but of the bounty and good- ness of God, which was naturally implanted in them, and legible in all God's works. And the more beneficial anjrthing was to them, and the more sensible advantages they received from it, the higher station they gave it in the rank of their idols, and bestowed upon it a more solemn worship : an absurd mistake to think everything that was sensibly good to them, to be God, clothing himself in such a form to be adored by them. And upon this account the Egyptians worshipped God under the figure of an ox ; and the East Indians, in some parts of their country, deify a heifer, intimating the good- ness of God, as their nourisher and preserver, in giving them corn, whereof the ox is an instrument in serving for ploughing, and pre- paring the ground. 2. The notion of goodness is inseparable from the notion of a God. We cannot own the existence of God, but we must confess also the goodness of his nature. Hence, the apostle gives to his goodness the title of his Godhead, as if goodness and godhead were convertible terms (Rom, i. 20). As it is indissolubly linked with the being of a Deity, so it cannot be severed from the notion of it : we as soon undeify him by denying him good, as by denying him great : Optimus, 3Iaximus, the best, greatest, was the name whereby the Ro mans entitled Him. His nature is as good, as it is majestic ; so doth the Psalmist join them (Ps. cxlv. 6, 7), " I will declare my great- ness ; they shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great good- ness." They considered his goodness before his greatness, in putting Optimus before Ifaximus ; greatness without sweetness, is an unruly and afirighting monster in the world ; like a vast turbulent sea, al- ways casting out mire and dirt. Goodness is the brightness and love- liness of our majestical Creator. To fancy a God without it, is to fancy a miserable, scanty, narrow-hearted, savage God, and so an unlovely, and horrible being : for he is not a God that is not good ; he is not a God that is not the highest good : infinite goodness ia more necessary to, and more straitly joined with an infinite Deity, than infinite power and infinite wisdom: we cannot conceive him God, unless we conceive him the highest good, having nothing supe rior to himself in goodness, as he hath nothing superior to himself in excellency and perfection. No man can possibly form a notion of God in his mmd, and yet form a notion of something better than God ; for whoever thinks anything better than God, fancieth a God » Iiiiublych. Vit. Pythag. lib. i. col. 6. p. 43. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 217 with some defect : by how mucli the better he thinks that thing tc be, by so much the more imperfect he makes God in his thoughts This notion of the goodness of God was so natural, that some philo- sophers and others, being startled at the evil they saw in the world, fancied, besides a good God, an evil principle, the author of all pun ishments in the world. This was ridiculous ; for those two must be of equal power, or one inferior to the other ; if equal, the good could do nothing, but the evil one would restrain him ; and the evil one could do nothing, but the good one would contradict him ; bo they would be always contending, and never conquering : if one were in- ferior to the other, then there would be nothing but what that superior ordered. Good, if the good one were superior ; and nothing but evil, if the bad one were superior. In the prosecution of this, let us see. I What this goodness is. II. Some propositions concerning the nature of it. III. That God is good. IV. The manifestation of it in creation, providence, and redemption. V. The use. I. What this goodness is. There is a goodness of being, which is the natural perfection of a thing ; there is the goodness of will, which is the holiness, and righteousness of a person, ; there is the good- ness of the hand, which we call liberality, or beneficence, a doing good to others. 1. We mean not by this, the goodness of his essence, or the per- fection of his nature. God is thus good, because his nature is in- finitely perfect ; he hath all things requisite to the completing of a most perfect and sovereign Being. All good meets in his essence, as all water meets in the ocean. Under this notion all the attributes of God, which are requisite to so illustrious a Being, are compre- hended. All things that are, have a goodness of being in them, de- rived to them by the power of God, as they are creatures ; so the devil is good, as he is a creature of God's making : he hath a natu- ral goodness, but not a moral goodness : when he fell from God, he retained his natural goodness as a creature ; because he did not cease to be, he was not reduced to that nothing, from whence he was drawn; but he ceased to be morally good, being stripped of his righteousness by his apostasy ; as a creature, he was God's work ; as a creature, he remains still God's work ; and, therefore, as a creature, remains still good, in regard of his created being. The more of be ing anything hath, the more of this sort of natural goodness it hath and so the devil hath more of this natural goodness than men have *, because he hath more marks of the excellency of God upon him, in regard of the greatness of his knowledge, and the extent of his power, the largeness of his capacity, and the acuteness of his under- standing, which are natural perfections belonging to the nature of an angel, though he hath lost his moral perfections. God is sove- reignly and I nfinitely good in this sort of goodness. He is unsearch ably perfect (Job xi. 7) ; nothing is wanting to his essence, that iss necessary to the perfection of it ; yet this is not that which the Scrip- ture expresseth under the term of goodness, but a perfection of God's nature as related to us, and which he poureth forth upon all his creatures, as goodness which flows from this natural per- fection of the Deity, 218 CHARNOCK UN THE ATTRIBUTES. 2. Nor is it the same with the blessedness of God, but something flowing froni his blessedness. Were he not first infinitely blessed, and full in himself, he could not be infinitely good and diffusive to js ; had he not an infinite abundance in his own nature, he could not be overflowing to his creatures ; had not the sun a fulness of light in itseif, and the sea a vastness of water, the one could not enrich the world with its beams, nor the other fill every creek with its waters. 3. Nor is it the same with the holiness of God. The holiness of God is the rectitude of his nature, whereby he is pure, and without spot in himself; the goodness of God is the efflux of his will, where- by he is beneficial to his creatures : the holiness of God is manifest in his rational creatures; but the goodness of God extends to all the works of his hands. His holiness beams most in his law ; his good- ness reacheth to everything that had a being from him (Ps. cxlv. 9) : " The Lord is good to all." And though he be said in the same Psalm (ver. 17) to be "holy in all his works," it is to be understood of his bounty, bountiful in all his works ; the Hebrew word signify- ing both holy and liberal, and the margin of the Bible reads it " merciful ' or " bountiful." 4. Nor is this goodness of God the same with the mercy of God. Goodness extends to more objects than mercy ; goodness stretcheth itself out to all the works of his hands ; mercy extends only to a miserable object; for it is joined with a sentiment of pity, occa- sioned by the calamity of another. The mercy of God is exer- cised about those that merit punishment; the goodness of God is exercised upon objects that have not merited anything contrary to the acts of his bounty. Creation is an act of goodness, not of mercy ; providence in governing some part of the world, is an act of goodness, not of mercy. ^ The heavens, saith Austin, need the goodness of God to govern them, but not the mercy of God to re- lieve them ; the earth is full of the misery of man, and the com- passions of God ; but the heavens need not the mercy of God to pity them, because they are not miserable ; though they need the goodness and power of God to sustain them ; because, as creatures, they are impotent without him. God's goodness extends to the angels, that kept their standing, and to man in innocence, who in that state stood not in need of mercy. Goodness and mercy are dis- tinct, though mercy be a branch of goodness ; there may be a mani- festation of goodness, though none of mercy. Some think Christ had been incarnate, had not man fallen : had it been so, there had been a manifestation of goodness to our nature, but not of mercy, because sin had not made our natures miserable. The devils are monuments of God's creating goodness, but not of his pardoning compassions. The grace of God respects the rational creature; mercy the miserable creature ; goodness all his creatures, brutes, and the senseless plants, as well as reasonable man. 6. By goodness, is meant the bounty of God. This is the notion of goodness in the world ; when we say a good man, we mean either i holy man in his life, or a charitable and liberal man in the man- • Lombard lib. iv. distiin't. 4G. p. 286. OK THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 219 (tgement of liis goods. A rigliteous man, and a good man, are dis tinguislied (Kom. v. 7). " For scarcely for a righteous man will one die ; yet for a good man one would even dare to die ;"' for an inno "ient man, one as innocent of the crime as himself would scarce ven- ture his life ; but for a good man, a liberal, tender-hearted man, that had been a common good in the place where he lived, or had done another as great a benefit as life itself amounts to, a man out of grati- *;ude might dare to die. " The goodness of Grod is his inclination to deal well and bountifully with his creatures."^ It is that whereby he wills there should be something besides himself for his own glory. God is good himself, and to himself, i. e. highly amiable to himself ; and, therefore, some define it a perfection of God, whereby he loves himself and his own excellency ; but as it stands in relation to his creatures, it is that perfection of God whereby he delights in his works, and is beneficial to them. God is the highest goodness, be- cause he doth not act for his own profit, but for his creatures' wel- fare, and the manifestation of his own goodness. He sends out his beams, without receiving any addition to himself, or substantial ad- vantage from his creatures. It is from this perfection that he loves whatsoever is good, and that is whatsoever he hath made, "for every creature of God is good" (1 Tim. iv. 4) ; every creature hath some communications from him, which cannot be without some affection to them ; every creature hath a footstep of Divine goodness upon it ; God, therefore, loves that goodness in the creature, else he would not love himself. God hates no creature, no, not the devils and damned, as creatures ; he is not an enemy to them, as they are the works of his hands ; he is properly an enemy, that cloth simply and absolutely wish evil to another ; but God doth not absolutely wish evil to the damned ; that justice that he inflicts upon them, the deserved pun- ishment of their sin, is part of his goodness, as shall afterwards be shown, c This is the most pleasant perfection of the Divine nature ; his creating power amazes us ; his conducting wisdom astonisiieth us ; his goodness, as furnishing us with all conveniences, delights us ; and renders both his amazing power, and astonishing wisdom, de- lightful to us. As the sun, by effecting things, is an emblem of God's power ; by discovering things to us, is an emblem of his wis- dom ; but by refreshing and comforting us, is an emblem of his goodness ; and without this refreshing virtue it communicates to us, we should take no pleasure in the creatures it produceth, nor in the beauties it discovers. As God is great and powerful, he is the ob- ject of our understanding ; but as good and bountiful, he is the ob- ject of our love and desire. 6. The goodness of God comprehends all his attributes. All the acts of God are nothing else but the eflQuxes of his goodness, distin- guished by several names, according to the objects it is exercised about. As the sea, though it be one mass of water, yet we distin- guish it by several names, according to the shores it washeth, and beats upon ; as the British and German Ocean, though all be one sea. When Moses longed to see his glory, God tells him, he would give him a prospect of his goodness (Ex. xxxiii. 19) : " I will make •> Coccei. sum. p. 60. " Cajetan in secund. secunda. Qu. 34. Ar. 3. 220 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. all n .y goodness to pass before tliee." His goodnesrf is his glorj and Godhead, as much as is delightfully visible to his creatui .s, and whereby he doth benefit man : *'I will cause my goodness," or 'come- liness," as Calvin renders it, "to pass before thee ;" what is this, but the train of all his lovely perfections springing from his goodness ? the whole catalogue of mercy, grace, long-suffering, abundance of truth, summed up in this one word (Ex. xxxiv. 6). All are streams from this fountain ; he could be none of this, were he not first good. When it confers happiness without merit, it is grace ; when it be- stows happiness against merit, it is mercy ; when he bears with pro- voking rebels, it is long-suffering ; when he performs his promise, it is truth ; when it meets with a person to vhom it is not obliged, it is grace ; when he meets with a person in the world, to which he hath obliged himself by promise, it is truth ;d when it commiserates a distressed person, it is pity ; when it supplies an indigent person, it is bounty ; when it succors an innocent person, it is righteousness ; and when it pardons a penitent person, it is mercy ; all summed up in this one name of goodness; and the Psalmist expresseth the same sentiment in the same words (Ps. cxlv. 7, 8) : "They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy right- eousness. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy ; the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over his works," He is first good, and then compasssionate. Eighteousness is often in Scripture taken, not for justice, but charita- bleness ; this attribute, saith one,^ is so full of God, that it doth deify all the rest, and verify the adorableness of him. His wisdom might contrive against us, his power bear too hard upon us ; one might be too hard for an ignorant, and the other too mighty for an impotent creature ; his holiness would scare an impure and guilty creature, but his goodness conducts them all for us, and makes them all amia- ble to us ; whatever comeliness they have in the eye of a creature, whatever comfort they afford to the heart of a creature, we are ob- liged for all to his goodness. This puts all the rest upon a delight- ful exercise ; this makes his wisdom design for us, and this makes his power to act for us ; this veils his holiness from affrighting us, and this spirits his mercy to relieve us : all his acts towards man, a.re but the workmanship of this.f What moved him at first to cre- ate the world out of nothing, and erect so noble a creature as man, endowed with such excellent gifts ; was it not his goodness ? what made him separate his Son to be a sacrifice for us, after we had en- deavored to rase out the first marks of his favor ; was it not a strong bubbling of goodness ? What moves him to reduce a fallen crea- ture to the due sense of his duty, and at last bring him to an eter- nal felicity ; is it not, only his goodness ? This is the captain attri- bute that leads the rest to act. This attends them, and spirits them in all his ways of acting. This is the complement and perfection of all his works ; had it not been for this, which set all the rest on work, nothing of his wonders had been seen in creation, nothing of hia compassions had been seen in redemption. * Herle upon Wistlom, cap. 5. pp. 41, 42. • Ingelo Bentivolio, and Uran. Bo)k IV. pp. 260, 261. f DailJe, Melang. Part II. pp. 704, 705. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 221 II. The second thing is, some propositions to explain the naturfi of this goodness. 1. He is good by his own essence. God is not only good in his essence, but good by his essence ; the essence of " every created being is good ;" so the ud erring God pronounced everything which he had made (Gen. i. 31). The essence of the worst creatures, yea, of the impure and savage devils, is good ; but they are not 2;ood per essentiam, for then they could not be bad, malicious, and oj. pres- sive. God is good, as he is God ; and therefore good by himseK, and from himself, not by participation from another ; he made everything good, but none made him good ; since his goodness was not received from another, he is good by his own nature. He could not receive it from the things he created, they are later than he ; since they re- ceived all from him, they could bestow nothing on him ; and no God preceded him, in whose inheritance and treasures of goodness, he could be a successor ; he is absolutely his own goodness, he needed none to make him good ; but all things needed him, to be good by him. Creatures are good by being made so by him, and cleav- ing to him ; he is good without cleaving to any goodness mthout him. Goodness is not a quality in him, but a nature ; not a habit added to his essence, but his essence itself; he is not first God, and then afterwards good ; but he is good as he is God ; his essence, being one and the same, is formally and equally God and good.ff 'Jviayudoi'^ "good of himself," was one of the names the Plato- nists gave him. He is essentially good in his own nature, and not by any outward action which follows his essence. He is an inde- pendent Being, and hath nothing of goodness or happiness from any- thing without him, or anything he doth act about. If he were not good by his essence, he could not be eternally good, he could not be the first good ; he would have something before him, from whence he derived that goodness wherewith he is possessed ; nor could he be perfectly good, for he could not be equally good to that from whom he derived his goodness ; no star, no splendid body, that de- rives light from the sun, doth equal that sun by which it is enlight- ened. Hence his goodness must be infinite, and circumscribed by no limits ; the exercise of his goodness may be limited by himself ; but his goodness, the principle, cannot ; for since his essence is infi- nite, and his goodness is not distinguished from his essence, it is in- finite also ; if it were limited, it were finite ; he cannot be bounded by anything without him ; if so, then he were not God, because he would have something superior to him, to put bars in his way ; if there were anything to fix him, it must be a good or evil being ; good it cannot be, for it is the property of goodness to encourage goodness, not to bound it ; evil it cannot be, for then it would ex- tinguish goodness, as well as limit it ; it would not be content with the circumscribing it, without destroying it ; for it is the nature of every contrary, to endeavor the destruction of its opposite. He is essentially good by his own essence ; therefore, good of himself ; therefore, eternally good ; and therefore, abundantly good. 2. God is the prime and chief goodness. Being good per se, and ' Ficiui. Epist. lib. xi. epist. 30. 222 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. bj hia own esseuce, lie must needs be the cliief goodness, in whom there t.an be nothing but good, from whom there can proceed nothing but good, to whom all good whatsoever must be referred, as the final cause of all good. As he is the chief Being, so he is the chief good; and as we rise by steps from the existence of created things, to ac- kno wledge one Supreme Being, which is God, so we mount by steps from the consideration of the goodness of created things, to acknowl- edge one Infinite Ocean of sovereign goodness, whence the streams of created goodness are derived. When we behold things that par- take of goodness from another, we must acquiesce m one that hath goodness by participation from no other, but originally from himself, and therefore supremely in himself above all other things : so that, as nothing greater and more majestic can be imagined, so also nothing better and more excellent can be conceived than God. Nothing can add to him, or make him better than he is ; nothing can detract from him, to make him worse ; nothing can be added to him, nothing can be severed from him ; no created good can render liim more excellent ; no evil, from any creature, can render him less excellent ; " our goodness extends not to him" (Ps. xvi 2) ; 'SiPv^ickedness may hurt a man, as we are, and our righteousness may profit the son of man ; but, if we be righteous, what give we to Him, or what receives he at our hands" (Job xxxv. 7, 8) ? as he hath no superior in place above him, so, being chief of all, he cannot be made Detter by any inferior to him. How can he be made better by any that hath from himself all that he hath ? The goodness of a creature may be changed, but the goodness of the Creator is immutable ; he is always like himself, so good that he cannot be evil, as "he is so blessed that he cannot be miserable. Nothing is good but God, be- cause nothing is of itself but God ; as all things, being from nothing, are nothing in comparison of God, so all things, being from nothing, are scanty and evil in comparison of God. If anything had been, €x Deo^ God being the matter of it, it had been as good as God is ; but since the principle, whence all things were drawn, was nothing, though the efiicient cause by which they were extracted from nothing was God, they are as nothing in goodness, and not estimable in com- parison of God (Ps. Ixxiii. 25) : '' Whom have I in heaven but thee?" ho,. God is all good ; every creature hath a distinct variety of good- ness : God distinctly pronounced every day's work in the creation " good." Food communicates the goodness of its nourishing virtue to our bodies ; flowers the goodness of their odors to our smell ; every creature a goodness of comeliness to our sight; plants the goodness of healing qualities for our cure ; and all derive from them- selves a goodness of knowledge, objectively to our understandings. The sun, by one sort of goodness, warms us ; metals enrich us , liv- ing creatures sustain us, and delight us by another ; all those have distinct kinds of goodness, which are eminently summed up in God, and are all but parts of his immense goodness. It is he that en- lightens us by his sun, nourisheth us by bread (Matt. iv. 4): "It is not by bread alone that we live, but by the word of God." It is all but his own supreme goodness, conveyed to us through those varie- ties of conduit-pipes. *' God is all good ;" other things are good in ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD 223 their kind ; as, a guod man, a good angel, a good tree, a good plant, but God hath a good of all kinds eminently in his nature. He is no less all-good, than he is almighty, and all-knowing ; as the sun cci- tains in it all the light, and more light than is in all the clearest bodies in the world, so doth God contain in himself all the good, and more good than is in the richest creatures. Nothing is good, but as it resembles him ; as nothing is hot, but as it resembles fiie, the prime subject of heat. God is omnipotent, therefore no good can be wanting to him. K he were destitute of any which he could not have, he were not almighty : he is so good, that there is no mix- ture of anything which can be called not good in him ; everything besides him wants some good, which others have. Nothing can be so evil as God is good. There can be no evil but there is some mix- ture of good with it ; no nature so evil but there is some spark of good- ness in it : but God is a good which hath no taint of evil ; nothing can be so supreme an evil as God is supreme goodness. He is only good, without capacity of increase ; he is all good, and unmixedly good ; none good but God : a goodness, like the sun, that hath all light, and no darkness. That is the second thing ; he is the su- preme and chief goodness. 3. This goodness is communicative. None so communicatively good as God. As the notion of God includes goodness, so the no- tion of goodness includes diffusiveness ; without goodness he would cease to be a Deity, and without diffusiveness he would cease to be good. The being good is necessary to the being God ; for goodness is nothing else, in the notion of it, but a strong inclination to do good ; either to find or make an object, wherein to exercise itself, according to the propension of its own nature ; and it is an inchna- tion of communicating itself, not for its own interest, but the good of the object it pitcheth upon. Thus God is good by nature ; and his nature is not without activity ; he acts conveniently to his own nature (Ps. cxix. 68) : " Thou art good, and dost good." And nothing accrues to him, by the communications of himself to others, since his blessedness was as great before the frame of any creature as ever it was since the erecting of the world ; so that the goodness of Christ himself increaseth not the lustre of his happiness (Ps. xvi. 2) : " My goodness extends not to thee." He is not of a niggardly and envious nature ; he is too rich to have any cause to envy, and too good to have any will to envy ; he is as liberal as he is rich, ac- cording to the capacity of the object about which his goodness is exercised. The Divine goodness, being the supreme goodness, is goodness in the highest degree of activity ; not an idle, enclosed, pent up goodness, as a spring shut up, or a fountain sealed, bubbling up within itself, but bubbling out of itself : a fountain of gardens to water every part of his creation ; " He is an ointment poured forth" (Cant. i. 3) : nothing spreads itself more than oil, and takes up a larger space wheresoever it drops. It may be no less said of the goodness of God, as it is of the fulness of Christ (Eph. i. 23) ; '* He fills all in all :" he fills rational creatures with understanding, sensi- tive nature with \'igor and motion, the whole world with beauty and sweetness Every taste, every touch of a creature, is a taste and 224 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. toucli of Divine goodness. Divine goodness oifers itself in one spari in this creature, in another spark in the other creature, and alto gether make up a goodness inconceivable by any creature, Tho whole mass, and extracted spirit of it, is infinitely short of the good ness of the Divine nature, imperfect shadows of that g'. »odness which is in himself. Indeed, the more excellent an}i;hing is, the more nobly it acts ; how remotely doth light, that excellent brightness of the creation, disperse itself 1 How doth that glorious creature, which God hath set in the heavens, spread its wings over heaven and earth, roll itself about the world, cast its beams upward and downward, insinuate into all corners, pierce the depths, and shoot up its rays into the heights, encircle the higher and lower creatures in its arms, reach out its communications to influence everything under the earth, as well as dart its beams of light and heat on things above, or upon the earth ! " Nothing is hid from it" (Ps. xix. 6) ; not from its power, nor from its sweetness. How communicative also is water, a necessary and excellent creature ! How active is it in a river, to nourish the living creatures engendered in its womb I re- fresheth every shore it runs by ; promotes the propagation of fruits for the nourishment, and bestows a verdure upon the ground, for the delight of man ; and where it cannot reach the higher ground in its substance, it doth by its vapors, mounted up and concocted by the sun, and gently distilled upon the earth, for the opening its womb to bring forth its fruits. God is more prone to communicate himself, than the sun to spread its wings, or the earth to mount up its fruits, or the water to multiply living creatures.'' Goodness is his nature. Hence were there internal communications of himself from eternity ; diffusions of himself, without himself, in time, in the creation of the world, like a full vessel running over. He created the world that he might impart his goodness to something without him, and difiiise larger measures of his goodness, after he had laid the first founda- tion of it in his being ; and therefore he created several sorts of creatures, that they might be capable of various and distinct measures of his liberality, according to the distinct capacities of their nature, but imparted most to the rational creature, because that is only capable of an understanding to know him, and will to em- brace him. He is the highest goodness, and therefore a communica- tive goodness, and acts excellently according to his nature. 4. God is necessarily good. None is necessarily good but God ; he is as necessarily good, as he is necessarily God. His goodness is as inseparable from his nature as his holiness. He is good by nature, not only by will ; as he is holy by nature, not only by will, he is good in his nature, and good in his actions ; and as he cannot be bad in his nature, so he cannot be bad in his communications ; he can no more act contrary to this goodness in any of his actions, than he can un-God himself It is not necessary that God should create a world ; he was at his own choice whether he would create or no ; but when he resolves to make a world, it is necessary that he should make it good, because he is goodness itself, and cannot act against his own nature. He could not create anything without goodness in the very k Tom. II. p. 926. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 226 act ; tlie very act of creation, or communicating being to anything without himself, is in itself an act of goodness, as well as an act of power ; had he not been good in himself, nothing could have been endued with any goodness by him. In the act of giving being, he is liberal ; the being he bestows is a displa^^ng his own liberality ; he could not confer what he needs not, and which could not be de- served, without being bountiful ; since what was nothing, could not merit to be brought into being, the very act of giving to nothing a being, was an act of choice goodness. He could not create anything without goodness as the motive, and the necessary motive ; his good- ness could not necessitate him to make the world, but his goodness could only move him to resolve to make a Avorld ; he was not bound to erect and fashion it because of his goodness, but he could not frame it without his goodness as the moving cause. He could not create anything, but he must create it good. It had been inconsistent with the supreme goodness of his nature, to have created only murderous, ravenous, injurious creatures ; to have created a bedlam rather than a world : a mere heap of confusion would have been as inconsistent with his Divine goodness, as with his Divine wisdom. Again, when bis goodness had moved him to make a creature, his goodness would necessarily move him to be beneiicial to his creature ; not that this necessity results from any merit in the creature, which he had framed ; but from the excellency and difPasiveness of his own nature, and his own glory ; the end for which he formed it, which would have been obscure, yea, nothing, without some degrees of his bounty. What occasion of acknowledgments and praise could the creature have for its being, if Grod had given him only a miserable being, while it was innocent in action ? The goodness of God would not suffer him to make a creature, without providing conveniences for it, so long as he thought good to maintain its being, and furnishing it with that which was necessary to answer that end for which he created it ; and his own nature would not suffer him to be unkind to his rational creature, while it was innocent. It had been injustice to inflict evil upon the creature, that had not offended, and had no relation to an offending creature ; the nature of God could not have brought forth such an act : and, therefore, some say, that God, after he had created man, could not presently annihilate him, and take away his life and being.' As a sovereign, he might do it ; as Al- mighty, he was able to do it, as well as create him ; but in regard of his goodness, he could not moralh" do it : for had he annihilated man as soon as ever he had made him, he had not made man for himself, and for his own glory ; to be loved, worshipped, sought, and ac- knowledged by him. He would not then have been the end of man ; he had created him in vain, and the world in vain, which ho assures us he did not (Isa. xlv. 18, 19). And, certainly, if the gifta of God be without repentance, man could not have been annihilated after his creation, without repentance in God, without any cause, had not sin entered into the world. If God did not say to man, after sin had made its entrance into the world, " Seek ye me in vain," he could not, because of his goodness, have said so to man in his inno ' Cocceii sum Theolog. p. 91. VOL. II. — 15 226 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES, cence. As God is necessarily mind, so be is necessarily will ; as he is necessarily knowing, so lie is necessaril}^ loving. He could not be blessed, if he did not know himself, and his own perfection ; nor good, if he did not delight in himself, and his own perfections. And this goodness whereby he delights in himself, is the source of bii? delight in his creatures, wherein he sees the footsteps of himself. If he loves himself, he cannot but love the resemblance of himself, and the image of his own goodness. He loves himself, because.he is the highest goodness and excellency ; and loves everything as it re- eembles himself, because it is an efflux of his own goodness ; and as he doth necessarily love himself, and his own excellency, so he doth necessarily love anything that resembles that excellency, which is the primary object of his esteem. But, 5. Though he be necessarily good, yet he is also freely good. The necessity of the goodness of his nature hinders not the liberty of his actions ; the matter of his acting is not at all necessary, but the man- ner of his acting in a good and bountiful way, is necessary, as well as fi-ee.'^ He created the world and man freely, because he might choose whether he would create it, but he created them good neces- sarily, because he was first necessarily good in his nature, before he was freely a Creator, When he created man, he freely gave him a positive law, but necessarily a wise and righteous law ; because he was necessarily wise, and righteous, before he was freely a Lawgiver. When he makes a promise, he freely lets the word go out of his lips, but when he hath made it, he is necessarily a faithful performer; be- cause he was necessarily true and righteous in his nature, before he was freely a promiser. God is necessarily good in his nature, but free in his communications of it ; to make him necessarily to communi- cate his goodness in the first creation of the creature, would render him but impotent, good without liberty and without will ; if the communications of it be not free, the eternity of the world must necessarily be concluded, which some anciently asserted from the naturalness of God's goodness, making the world flow from God as light from the sun. God, indeed, is necessarily good, affective in re- gard of his nature, but freely good, affective^ in regard of the effluxes of it to this or that particular subject he pitcheth on. He is not so necessarily communicative of his goodness as the sun of his light, or a tree of its cooling shade, that chooseth not its objects, but enlight- ens all indifferently, without any variation or distinction ; this Avere to make God of no more understanding than the sun, to shine not where it pleaseth, but where it must. He is an understanding agent, and hath a sovereign right to choose his own subjects ; it would not be a supreme goodness, if it were not a voluntary goodness. It is agreeable to the nature of the highest good, to be absolutely free, to dispense his goodness in what methods and measures he pleaseth, according to the free determinations of his own will, guided by the wisdom of his mind, and regulated by the holiness of his nature. He is not to " give an account of any of his matters" (Job xxxiii. 13); "He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he wil] have compassion on whom he will have compassion" (Rom. ix. * OUbert de Dei Domiaio, p. 6. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 227 15) and he will be good, to whom he will be good ; when he doth act, Ae cannot but act well, so it is necessary ] yet he may act this good or that good, to this or that degree, so it is free. As it is the perfection of his nature, it is necessary ; as it is the communication of his bounty, it is voluntary. The eye cannot but see if it be open, yet it may glance upon this or that color, fix upon this or that ob- ject, as it is conducted by the will. Grod necessarily loves himself, because he is good, yet not by constraint, but freedom ; because his affection to himself is from a knowledge of himself He necessarily loves his own image, because it is his image ; yet freely, because not blindly, but from motions of understanding and will. What neces- sity could there be upon him, to resolve to communicate his good- ness ? It could not be to make himself better by it, for he had a g()odness incapable of any addition ; he confers a goodness on his creatures, but reaps not a harvest of goodness to his own essence from his creatures. What obligation could there be from the crea- ture, to confer a goodness on him to this or that degree, for this or that duration ? If he had not created a man, nor angel, he had done them no wrong ; if he had given them only a simple being, he had manifested a part of his goodness, without giving them a right to challenge any more of him ; if he had taken away their beings after a time when he had answered his end, he had done them no injury : for what law obliged him to enrich them, and leave them in that be- ing wherein he had invested them, but his sole goodness ? What- ever sparks of goodness any creature hath, are the free effusions of God's bounty, the offspring of his own inclination to do well, the simple favor of the donor ; not purchased, not merited by the crea- ture. God is as unconstrained in his liberty, in all his communica- tions, as infinite in his goodness, the fountain of them. 6. This goodness is communicative with the greatest pleasure. Moses desired to see his glory, God assures him he should see his goodness (Exod. xxxiii. 18, 19) ; intimating that his goodness is his glory, and his glory his delight also. He sends not forth his bless- ings with an ill will ; he doth not stay till they are squeezed from him ; he prevents men with his blessings of goodness (Ps. xxi. 3) ; he is most delighted when he is most diffusive ; and his pleasure in bestowing, is larger than his creature's in possessing. He is not cove- tous of his own treasures. He lays up his goodness in order to lay- ing it out with a complacency wholly divine. The jealousy princes have of their subjects makes them sparing of their gifts, for fear of giving them materials for rebellion : God's foresight of the ill use men would make of his benefits damped him not in bestowing his largesses. He is incapable of envy ; his own happiness can no more be diminished, than it can be increased. None can over-top him in goodness, because nothing hath any good but what is derived from him ; his gifts are without repentance : sorrow hath no footing in him, who is infinitely happy, as well as infinitely good. Goodness and envy are inconsistent. How unjustly, then, did the devil accuse God! What God gives out of goodness, he gives ^dth joy and gladness. He did not only will that we should be, but rejoice that h(, had brought us into being ; he rejoiced in his works (Ps. civ. 31), 228 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. and his wisdom stood by him, " delighting in the habitable parts ol the earth" (Pro v. viii. 31). He beheld the world after its creation with a complacency, and still governs it with the same pleasure whercAvith he reviewed it. Intinite cheerfulness attends infinite goodness. He would not give, if he had not a pleasure that otl ers should enjoy his goodness ; since he is better than anything, and more communicative than anything ; he is jnore joyful in giving out, than the sun can be to run its race, in pouring forth light. He is said only to repent, and grieve, when men answer not the obliga- tions and ends of his goodness ; which would be their own felicity, as well as his glory. Though he doth not force greater degrees of his goodness upon those that neglect it, yet he denies them not to those that solicit him for it : it is always greater pleasure to him to impart upon the importunities of the creatures, than it is to a mo- ther to reach out her breast to her crying and longing infant. He is not wearied by the solicitations of men ; he is pleased with their prayers, because he is pleased with the imparting of his own good- ness : he seems to be in travail with it, longing to be delivered of it into the lap of his creature. He is as much delighted with petitions for his liberality in bestowing his best goodness, as princes are weary of the craving of their subjects. None can be so desirous to squeeze those that are under them, as God is delighted to enlarge his hand towards them. It is the nature of his goodness to be glad of men's solicitations for it, because they are significant valuations of it, and therefore fit occasions for him to bestow it. Since he doth not de- light in the unhappiness of any of his creatures, he certainly de- lights in what may conduce unto their felicity. He doth with the same delight multiply the effects of his goodness where his wisdom sees it convenient, as he beheld the first-fruits of his goodness with a complacency upon la_ying the top -stone of the creation. 7. The displaying of this goodness was the motive and end of all his works of creation and providence.^ God being infinitely wise, would not act without the highest reason, and for the highest end. The reason that induced him to create, must be of as great an emi- nency as himself: the motive could not be taken without him, be- cause there was nothing but himself in being ; it must be taken, therefore, from within himself, and from some one of those most ex- cellent perfections whereby avc conceive him. But, upon the exact consideration of all of them, none can seem to challenge that honor of being the motive of them, to resolve the setting forth any work, but his own goodness ; this being the first thing manifest in his crea- tion, seems to be the first thing moving him to a resolution to create. Wisdom may be considered as directing, power considered as act- ing, but it is natural to reflect upon goodness as moving the one to direct, and the other to act. Power was the principle of his action, wisdom the rule of his action, goodness the motive of his action ; principle and rule are awakened by the motive, and subservient to the end. That which is the most amiable perfection in the Divine nature, and that which he first took notice of, as the footsteps of them, in the distinct view of every day's work, and the general view > Amyr. Moral. Tom. I. p. 260. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 229 Df the wlioTe frame, seems to claim tlie best right to be entitled the motive and end of his creation of things. God could have no end but himself, because there was nothing besides himself Again, the end of ever J agent is that which he esteems good, and the best good for that kind of action : since nothing is to be esteemed good but God, nothing can be the ultimate end of God but himself, and his own goodness. What a man wills chiefly is his end ; but God cannot will any other thing but himself as his end, because there is nothing superior to himself in goodness. He cannot will anything that su- premely serves himself and his own goodness as his end ; for, if he did, that which he wills must be superior to himself in goodness, and then he is not God ; or inferior to him in goodness, and then he would not be righteous, in willing that which is a lower good before a higher. God cannot will anything as his end of acting, but him self, without undeifying himself God's will being infinitely good, cannot move for anything but what is infinitely good ; and, there- fore, whatsoever God made, he made for himself (Prov. xvi. 4), that whatsoever he made might bear a badge of this perfection upon it, and be a discovery of his wonderful goodness: for the making things for himself doth not signify any indigence in God, that he made anything to increase his excellency (for that is capable of no addition), but to manifest his excellency. God possessing everything eminently in himself, did not create the world for any need he had of it ; finite things were unable to make any accession to that which is infinite. Man, indeed, builds a house to be a shelter to him against wind and weather, and makes clothes to secure him from cold, and plants gardens for his recreation and health. God is above all those little helps ; he did not make the world for himself in such a kind, but for himself, i. e. the manifestation of himself and the riches of his nature ; not to make himself blessed, but to discover his own blessedness to his creatures, and to communicate something of it to them. He did not garnish the world with so much bounty, that he might live more happily than he did before, but that his rational creatures might have fit conveniences. As the end for which God demands the performance of our duty is not for his own advantage, but for our good (Deut. x. 13), so the end why he conferred upon us the excellency of such a being was for our good, and the discovery of his goodness to us ; for had not God created the world, he had been wholly unknown to any but himself; he produced creatures, that he might be known : as the sun shines not ou^y to dis- cover other things, but to be seen itself in its beauty and bright- ness. God would create things, because he would be known in his glory and liberality ; hence is it that he created intellectual crea- tures, because without them the rest of the creation could not be? taken notice of: it had been in some sort in vain ; for no nature lower than an understanding nature, was able to know the marks ol God in the creation, and acknowledge him as God. In this regard; God is good above all creatures, because he intends only to commu- nicate his goodness in creation, not to acquire any goodness, or ex- cellency from them, as men do in their framing of things. God m all, and is destitute of nothing, and, therefore, nothing accrues tc 230 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES him bj tlie creation, but the acknowledgment of hia goodness This goodness, therefore, must be the motive and end of all his works. m. The third thing, that Grod is good. 1. The more excellent anything is in nature, the more of good- ness and kindness it hath. For we see more of love and kindness in creatui'es that are endued with sense, to their descendants, than in plants, tliat have only a principle of growth. Plants preserve their seeds whole that are enclosed in them ; animals look to their young only after they are dropped from them ; yet, after some time, take no more notice of them than of a stranger that never had any birth from them. But man, that hath a higher principle of reason, cherisheth his offspring, and gives them marks of his goodness while he lives, and leaves not the world at the time of his death without some testimonies of it : much more must Grod, who is a higher prin ciple than sense or reason, be " good" and bountiful to all his off- spring. The more perfect anything is, the more it doth communi- cate itself. The sun is more excellent than the stars, and, therefore, doth more sensibly, more extensively, disperse its liberal beams than the stars do. And the better any man is, the more charitable he is ; God being the most excellent nature, having nothing more excellent than himself, because nothing more ancient than himself, who is the Ancient of Days : there is nothing, therefore, better and more boun- tiful than himself. 2. He is the cause of all created goodness ; he must therefore him- self be the Supreme Good. What good is in the heavens, is the pro- duct of some Being above the earth ; and those varieties of goodnesa in the earth, and several creatures, are somewhere in their fulness and union : that, therefore, which possesses all those scattered good- nesses in their fulness, must be all good, all that good which is dis- played in creatures ; therefore sovereignly best. Whatsoever natural or moral goodness there is in the world, in angels, or men, or inferior creatures, is a line drawn from that centre, the bubbhngs of that fountain. God cannot but be better than all, since the goodness that is in creatures is the fruit of his own. K he were not good, he could produce no good: he coidd not bestow what he had not. If the creature be " good," as the apostle says " every creature is" (1 Tim. iv. 4), he must needs be better than all, because they have nothing but what is derived to them from him ; and much more goodness than all, because finite beings are not capable of receiving into them, and containing in themselves, all that goodness which is in an Infi- nite Being ; when we search for good in creatures, they come short of that satisfaction which is in God (Ps. iv. 6). As the certainty of a first principle of all things, is necessarily concluded from the being of creatures, and the upholding and sustaining power and virtue of God is concluded from the mutability of those things in the world ; whence we infer, that there must be some stable foundation of those tottering things, some firm hinge upon which those changeable things do move, without which there would be no stability in the kinds of things, no order, no agreement, or union among them : so from the goodness of everything, and their usefulness to us, we must conclude ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 283 him good, wko made all those things. And since we find distinct goodnesses in the creature, we must conclude that one principle whence thej did flow, excels in the glory of goodness : all those lit- tle glimmerings of goodness which are scattered in the creatures, as the image in the glass, represent the face, posture, motion of him whose image it is, but not in the fulness of life and spirit, as in the original ; it is but a shadow at the best, and speaks something more excellent in the copy. As God hath an infiniteness of being above them, so he hath a supremacy of goodness beyond them : what they have, is but a participation from him ; what he hath, must be infi- nitely supereminent above them. If anything be good by itself, it must be infinitely good, it would set itself no bounds ; we must make as many gods, as particulars of goodness in the world : but being good by the bounty of another, that from whence they flow must be the chief goodness. It is God's excellency and goodness, which, like a beam, j)ierceth all things: he decks spirits with reason, endues matter with form, furnisheth everything 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 itself, any more than it had its being from itself. The cause must be richer than the effect. But that which I intend is the defence of this goodness. First, The goodness of God is not impaired by suffering sin to enter into the world, and man to fall thereby. It is rather a testi- mony of God's goodness, that he gave man an ability to be happy, than any charge against his goodness, that he settled man in a capa- city to be evil. God was first a benefactor to man, before man could be a rebel against God. May it not be inquired, 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? God's goodness furnished 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 wisdom, 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 con- strained to observe it, his observation of it could no more have been called obedience, than the acts of brutes that have a kind of natural constraint upon them by the instinct of their nature, can be called obedience : in vain had God endowed a creature with so great and Doble a principle as liberty. Had it been goodness in God, after he had " ricinus in Con. Amor. Orat. 2. cap. p. 1326. 2d2 CHARNOCK OiV THE ATTRIBUTES. made a reasonable creature, to govern him in the same manner as he does brutes by a necessary instinct ? It was the goodness of God tc 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 turned it into wantonness ? As the unbelief of man doth not diminish the ledeeming grace of God (Rom. iii. 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 discovered a goodness of grace that surpassed the bounds of na- ture? 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. xi. 82): "God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." But if nothing could be alleged 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 liis proceedings, in the same language the apostle doth (ver. 33) : " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable are his judg- ments, and his ways past finding out!" Secondly, Nor is his goodness prejudiced, by not making all things the equal subjects of it. 1. It is true all things are not subjects of an equal goodness. The goodness of God is not so illustriously manifested in one thing as an- other. In the creation he hath dropped goodness upon some, in giv- ing them beings and sense, and poured 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 the vigor of sense, but they are destitute of the light of reason ; man hath a mind and reason conferred 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 spar- ing: he gives gi-eater gifts of knowledge to some, while he lets oth- ers 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 Hp his gospel sun, and leaves another benighted in their own igno ranee. " Known was God in Judea ; they were a peculiar people alone of all the nations of the earth" (Deut. xiv. 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 irrep- arable ruin ; 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 al) are not. enriched with those siunal characters which he vouchsafes to ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 233 ottiers ? He that is unerring, pronounced everything good distinctly in its production, and the whole good in its universal perfection (Gen. i. 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 81). 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 crea ture, 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" (Ps. cxix. 64). A good man is good to his cattle, to his ser- vants ; he makes a provision for all, but he bestows not those floods of bounty upon them that he doth upon his children. As there are various gifts, but one Spirit (1 Cor. xii. 4), so there are various distri- butions, but from one goodness ; the drops, as well as the fuller streams, are of the same fountain, and relish of the nature of it ; and though he do not make all men partake of the riches of his grace after the corruption of their nature, is his goodness disgraced hereby? or doth he merit the title of cruelty ? Will any diminish the good- ness of a father for his not setting up his son after he hath foolishly and wilfully proved bankrupt ; or not rather admire his liberality in giving him so large a stock to trade with when he first set him up in the world ? 2. The goodness of God to creatures, is to be measured by their distinct usefulness to the common end. It were better for a toad or serpent to be a man, ^. e, better for the creature itself, as it were ad- vanced to a higher degree of being, but not better for the universe : he could have made every pebble a living creature, and every liv- ing creature a rational one ; but that he made everything as we see, it was a goodness to the creature itself; but that he did not make it of a higher elevation in nature, was a part of his goodness to the rational creature. If all were rational creatures, there would have been wanting creatures of an inferior nature for their con- veniency ; there would have wanted the manifestation of the variety and " fulness of his goodness." Had all things in the world been rational creatures, much of that goodness which he hath communi- cated to rational creatures would not have appeared : how could man have showed his skill in taming and managing creatures more mighty than himself? What materials would there have been to manifest the goodness of God, bestowed upon the reasonable crea- tures for framing excellent works and inventions ? Much of the goodness of God had lain wrapt up from sense and understanding. All other things partake not of so great a goodness as man ; yet they are so subservient to that goodness poured forth on man, that little of it could have been seen without them. Consider man, every member in his body hath a goodness in itself; but a greater goodness as referred to the whole, without which the goodness of the more noble part would not be manifested. The head is the most excellent member, and hath greater impressions of Divine goodness upon it, in regard that it is the organ of understanding : 234 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. were every member of tlie body a head, what a deformed monster would man be !. If he were all head, where would be feet for motion, and arms for action ? Man would be fit only for thought, and not for exercise. The goodness of God in giving man so noble a part as the head, could not be known without a tongue, whereby to express the conception of his mind ; and without feet and hands vvhereby to act much of what he conceives, and determines, and execute the resolves of his will; all those have a goodness in them- selves, an honor, a comeliness from the goodness of God (1 Cor. xii. 22, 23), but not so great a goodness as the nobler part : yet, if you consider them in their functions, and refer them to that excel- lent member which they serve, their inferior goodness is absolutely necessary to the goodness of the other ; without which, the good- ness of the head and understanding would lie in obscurity, be in- significant to the whole world, and, in a great measure, to the per- son himself that wants such members. 3. " The goodness of God is more seen in this inequality." If God were equally good to all, it would destroy commerce, unity, the links of human society, damp charity, and render that useless which is one of the noblest and delightfulest duties to be exercised here ; it would cool prayer, which is excited by wants, and is a necessary demonstration of the creature's dependence on God. But in this inequality every man hath enough in his enjoyments for praise, q,nd in his wants, matter for his prayer. Besides the inequality oi the creature is the ornament of the world ; what pleasure could a garden afford if there were but one sort of flowers, or one sort ot plants ? far less than when there is variety to please the sight, and every other sense. Again, the freedom of Divine goodness, which is the glory of it, is evident hereby; had he been alike good tO' all, it would have looked like a necessarj^, not a free act ; but by the inequality, it is manifest that he doth not do it by a natural ne- cessity as the sun shines, but by a voluntary liberty, as being the entire Lord, and free disposer of his own goods; and that is the gift of the pleasure of his will, as well as the efflux of his nature, that he hath not a goodness without wisdom, but a wisdom as rich as his bounty. 4. The goodness of God could not be equally communicated to all, after their settlement in their several beings,' — because they have not a capacity in their natures for it : he doth bestow the marks of his goodness according to that natural capacity of fitness he per- ceives in his creatures ; as the water of the sea fills every creek and gulf with different measures, according to the compass each have to contain it ; and as the sun doth disperse light to the stars above, and the places below, to some more, to some less, according to the measures of their reception. God doth not do good to all creatures according to the greatness of his own power, and the extent of his own wealth, but according to the capacity of the subject; not so much good as he can do, but so much good as the creature can re- ceive. The creatui'e would sink, if God would pour out all his goodness upon it; as Moses would have perished, if God should nave shown him all his glory (Exod. xxxiii. 18, 20). He dotb ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 235 manifest more good to his reasonable creatures, because tltey are more capable of acknowledging, and setting fortli his goodness. 5. God ought to be allowed the free disposal of his own good pess. Is not God the Lord of his own gifts; and will you not allow him the privilege of having some more peculiar objects of his love and pleasure, which you allow without blame to man, and use your- self without any sense of a crime ? Is a prince esteemed good, though he be not equally bountiful to all his servants, nor equally gracious in pardoning all his rebels; and shall the goodness of the great Sovereign of the world be impeached, notwithstanding those nii;y"hty distributions of it, because he will act according to his own wpdom and pleasure, and not according to men's fancies and hu- mors? Must purblind reason be the judge and director how God shall dispose of his own, rather than his own infinite wisdom and soTcreign will ? Is God less good, because there are numberless no- things, which he is able to bring into being ? He could create a world of more creatures than he hath done : doth he, therefore, wish evil to them, by letting them remain in that nothing from whence he could draw them ? No ; but he denies that good to them, which he is able, if he pleased, to confer upon them. If God doth not give that good to a creature which it wants by its own demerit, can he be said to wish evil to it ; or, only to deny that goodness which the creature hath forfeited, and which is at God's liberty to retain or disperse ?" Though God cannot but love his own image where he finds it, yet when this image is lost, and the devil's image voluntary received, he may choose whether he will manifest his goodness to such a one or no. Will you not account that man liberal, that distributes his alms to a great company, though he rejects some ? Much more will you account him good, if he rejeKs none that implore him, but dispenseth his doles to every one upon their petition : and is he not good, because he will not hf'stow a farthing upon those that address not themselves to him ? God is so good, that he denies not the best good to those that seek him : he hath promised life and happiness to them that do so. Is he less good, because he will not distribute his goodness to those that despise him ? Though he be good, yet his wisdom is the rule of dispensing his goodness. 6. The severe punishment of offenders, and the afflictions he in- flicts upon his servants, are no violations of his goodness. The notion of God's vindictive justice is as naturally inbred, and im- planted in the mind of man, as that of his goodness, and those two sentiments never shocked one another. The heathen never thought him bad, because he was just; nor unrighteous, because he was good. God being infinitely good, cannot possibly intend or act anything but what is good : " Thou art good, and thou doest good ;" i. e. whatsoever thou dost is good, whatsoever it be, pleasant or painful to the creature (Ps. cxix. 68) : punishments themselves are not a moral evil in the person that inflicts, though they are a natural evil in the person that suffers them.o In ordering pun- ishment to the wicked, good is added to evil ; in ordering im " Cainero, p. 30. • Boetius. 236 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. punitj to tlie wicked, evil is added to evil. To punish wicked- ness is right, therefore good : to leave men uncontrolled in theii wickedness, is unrighteous, and therefore bad. But, again, shall his justice in some few judgments in the world, impeach his good* ness, more than his wonderful patience to sinners is able to silence the calumnies against him? Is not his hand fuller of gracious doles, than of dreadful thunderbolts ? Doth he not oftener seem forgetful of his justice, when he pours out upon the guilty the streams of his mercy, than to be forgetful of his goodness, when he sprinkles in the world some drops of his wrath ? First, God's judgments in the world, do not infringe his goodness; for, 1, The justice of God is a part of the goodness of his nature. God himself thought so, when he told Moses he would make all his goodness pass before him (Exod. xxxiii. 19) : he leaves not out in that enumeration of the parts of it, his resolution, by no means to clear the guilty, but to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children (Exod. xxxiv. 7). It is a property of goodness to hate evil, and, therefore, a property of goodness to punish it : it is no less righteousness to give according to the deserts of a person in a way of punishment, than to reward a person that obeys his precepts in a way of recompense. Whatsoever is righteous is good ; sin is evil ; and, therefore, whatsoever doth witness against it, is good ; his good- ness, therefore, shines in his justice, for without being just he could not be good. Sin is a moral disorder in the world : every sin is in- justice : injustice breaks God's order in the world ; there is a neceS" sity tlierefore of justice to put the world in order. Punishment orders the person committing the injury, who, when he will not be in the order of obedience, must be in the order of suffering for God's honor. The goodness of all things which God pronounced so, con- sisted in their order and beneficial helpfulness to one another : when this order is inverted, the goodness of the creature ceaseth : if it be a bad thing to spoil this order, is it not a part of Divine goodness to reduce them into order, that they may be reduced in some measure to their goodness? Do we ever account a governor less in goodness, because he is exact in justice, and punisheth that which makes a disorder in his government ? and is it a diminution of the Divine goodness, to punish that which makes a disorder in the world ? As wisdom without goodness would be a serpentine craft, and issue in destruction ; so goodness without justice would be impotent indul- gence, and cast things into confusion. When Abel's blood cried out for engeance against Cain, it spake a good thing; Christ's blood speaking better things than the blood of Abel, implies thai Abel's blood spake a good thing ; the comparative implies a positive (Heb. xii. 24). If it were the goodness of that innocent blood to de- mand justice, it could not be a badness in the Sovereign of the world to execute it. How can God sustain the part of a good and right- eous judge, if he did not preserve human society? and how would it be preserved, without manifesting himself by public judgments against public wrongs ? Is there not as great a necessity that good- ness should have Instruments of judgment, as that there should be ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 237 prisons, bridewells, and gibbets, in a good commonwealth ? Did not the thunderbolts of God sometimes roar in the ears of men, thej would sin with a higher hand than thej do, fij more in the face of God- make the world as much a moral, as it was at first a natural chaos: the ingenuity of men would be damped, if there were not something to work upon their fears, to keep them in their due order. Impunity of the innocent person is worse than any punishment. It is a misery to want medicines for the cure of a sharp disease ; and a mark of goodness in a prince to consult for the security of the politi- cal body, by cutting off a gangrened and corrupting member : and what prince would deserve the noble title of good, if he did not re- strain, by punishment, those evils which impair the public welfare ? Is it not necessary that the examples of sin, whereby others have been encouraged to wickedness, should be made examples of justice, whereby the same persons and others may be discom-aged from what before they were greedily inclined unto ? Is not a hatred of what is bad and unworthy, as much a part of Divine goodness, as a love to what is excellent, and bears a resemblance to himself? Could he possibly be accounted good, that should bear the same degree of affection to a prodigious vice, as to a sublime virtue ? and should behave himself in the same manner of carriage to the innocent and culpable ? could you account him good, if he did always with plea- sure behold evil, and perpetually suffer the oppressions of the inno- cent under unpunished wickedness? How should we know the goodness of the Divine nature, and his affection to the goodness of his creature, if he did not by some acts of severity witness his impla- cable aversion against sin, and his care to preserve the good govern- ment of the world ? If corrupted creatures should always be ex- empt from the effects of his indignation, he would declare himself not to be infinitely good, because he would not be really righteous. No man thinks it a natural vice in the sun, by the power of its scorching heat, to dry up and consume the unwholesome vapors of the air ; nor are the demonstrations of Divine justice any blots upon his goodness, since they are both for the defence and glory of his holiness, and for the preservation of the beauty and order of the world. 2. Is it not part of the goodness of God to make laws, and annex threatenings ; and shall it be an impeachment of his goodness to support them ? The more severe laws are made for deterring evil, the better is that prince accounted in making such provision for the welfare of the community. The design of laws, and the design of upholding the honor of those laws by the punishment of offenders, is to promote goodness and restrain evil ; the execution of those laws must be therefore pursuant to the same design of goodness which first settled them. Would it not be contrary to goodness, to suffer that which was designed for the support of goodness, to be scorned and slighted ? It would neither be prudence nor goodness, but folly and vice, to let laws, which were made to promote virtue, be broken with impunity. Would not this be to weaken virtue, and give a new life and vigor to vice ? Not only the righteousness of the law itself, but the wisdom of the Lawgiver would be exposed 288 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. to coutcmpt, if the violations of it remained uncontrolled, and the violence offered by men passed unpunished. None but will ac- knowledge the Divine precepts to be the image of the righteousne^g of God, and beneficial for the common good of the world (Kom. vii. 12): " The law is holy, just, aud good," and so is every precept of it ; the law is for no other end, but to keep the creature in subjection to, and dependence on God ; this dependence could not be preserved without a law, nor that law be kept in reputation, without a penaltj ; nor would that penalty be significant without an execution. Every law loseth the nature of a law, without a penalty ; and the penalty loseth its vigor, without the infliction of it : how can those laws at- tain their end, if the transgressions of them be not punished ? Would not the wickedness of the men's hearts be encouraged by such a kind of uncomely goodness ? and all the threatenings be to no other end, than to engender vain and fruitless fears in the minds of men ? Is it good for the majesty of God to suffer itself to be trampled on by his vassals ? to suffer men, by their rebellion, to level his law with the wickedness of their own hearts ; and by impunity slight his own glory, and encourage their disobedience ? Who would give any man, any prince, any father, that should do so, the name of a good governor ? If it were a fruit of Divine goodness to make laws, is it contrary to goodness to support the honor of them ? It is every whit as rational and as good to vindicate the honor of his laws by justice, as at first to settle them by authority ; as much goodness to vindicate it from contempt, as at first to enact it ; as it is as much wisdom to preserve a law, as at first to frame it : shall his precepts be thought by him unworthy of a support, that were not thought by him unworthy to be made ? The same reason of goodness that led him to enjoin them, will lead him to revenge them. Did evil appear odious to him, while he enacted this law ; and would not his good- ness, as well as his wisdom, appear odious to him, if he did never execute it ? Would it not be a denial of his own goodness, to be led by the foolish and corrupt judgment of his creatures, and slight his own law, because his rebels spurn at it ? Since he valued it be- fore they could actually contemn it, would he not misjudge his own law and his own wisdom, discount from the true value of them, con- demn his own acts, censure his precepts as unrigliteous, and there- fore evil and injurious? remove the differences between good and evil, look upon vice as virtue, and wickedness as righteousness, if he thought his commands unworthy a vindication ? How can there be any support to the honor of his precepts, without sometimes exe- cuting the severity of his threatenings ? And as to his threatenings of punishment for the breach of his laws, are they not designed to discourage wickedness, as the promises of reward were designed to encourage goodness ? Hath he not multiplied the one, to scare men from sin, as well as the other, to allure men to obedience ? Is not the same truth engaged to support the one, as well as the other ; and how could he be abundant in goodness, if he were not abundant in truth (Exod. xxxiv. 6) ? both are linked together ; if he neglected his truth, he would be out of love with his own goodness ; since it cannot be manifested in performing the promises to the obedient, if" ON THE GOODXESS OF GOD. 23i it be not also manifested in executing his threatenings upon the re- bellious. Had not God annexed threatenings to his laws, he would have had no care of his own goodness. The order between God and the creature, wherein the declaration of his goodness consisted, might have been easily broken by his creature; man would have freed himself from subjection to God; been unaccountable to him, had this consisted with that infinite goodness whereby he loves himself, and loves his creatures. As therefore the annexing threatenings to his law, was a part of his goodness ; the execution of them is so fax from being a blemish, that it is the honor of his goodness. The re- wards of obedience, and the punishment of disobedience, refer to the same end, viz. the due manifestation of the valuation of his own law, the glorifying his own goodness, which enjoined so beneficial a law for man, and the support of that goodness in the creatures, which by that law he demands righteously and kindly of them. 3. Hence it follows, That not to punish evil, would be a want of goodness to himself. The goodness of God is an indulgent good- ness, in a way of wisdom and reason; not a fond goodness, in a way of weakness and folly : would it not be a weakness, always to bear with the impenitent ? a want of expressing a goodness to good- ness itself? Would not goodness have more reason to complain, for a want of justice to rescue it, than men have reason to complain, for the exercise of justice in the vindication of it ? If God established all things in order, with infinite wisdom and goodness, and God silently beheld, forever, this order broken, would he not either charge himself with a want of power, or a want of will, to preserve the marks of his own goodness ? Would it be a kindness to himself to be careless of the breaches of his own orders ? His throne would shake, yea, sink from under him, if justice, whereby he sentenceth, and judgment, whereby he executes his sentence, were not the sup- ports of it (Ps. Ixxxix. 14). "Justice and judgment are the habita- tion of thy throne, P"n, the stability or foundation of thy throne. So, Ps. xcii. 2. Man would forget his relation to God ; God would be unknown to be sovereign of the world, were he careless of the breaches of his own order (Ps. ix. 16). " The Lord is known by the judgments which he executes;" is it not a part of his goodness, to preserve the indispensable order between himself and his creatures ? His own sovereignty, which is good, and the subjection of the crea- ture to him as sovereign, which is also good ; the one would not be maintained in its due place, nor the other restrained in due limits, without punishment. Would it be a goodness in him to see good- ness itself trampled upon constantly, without some time or other appearing for the relief of it ? Is it not a goodness to secure his OAvn honor, to prevent further evil ? Is it not a goodness to discourage men by judgments, sometimes, from a contem[>t and ill use of his bounty; as well as sometimes patiently to bear with them, and wait upon them for a reformation ? Must God be bad to himself, to be kind to his enemies ? And shall it be acounted an unkinduess, and a mark of evil in him, not to suffer himself to be always outraged and defied? The world is wronged by sin, as welJ as God is injured by it. How could God be good to himself, if he righted not hi? 240 CHARLOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. own lienor? or be a good govej-nor of the world, if he did not some- times witness against the lojuries it receives sometimes from the works of his hands? Would he be good to hiniself, as a God, to be careless of his own honor ? or good, as the Rector of the world, and ■>e regardless of the world's confusion ? That God should give an eternal good to that creature that declines its duty, and despiseth his sovereignty, is not agreeable to the goodness of his wisdom, or that of his righteousness. It is a part of God's goodness to love him- self. Would he love his sovereignty, if he saw it daily slighted, "without sometimes discovering how much he values the honor of it? Would he have any esteem for his own goodness, if he beheld it trampled upon, without any will to vindicate it ? Doth mercy de- serve the name of cruelty, because it pleads against a creature that hath so oflen abused it, and hath refused to have any pity exercised towards it in a righteous and regular way? Is sovereignty destitute of goodness, because it preserves its honor against one that would not have it reign over him ? Would he not seem, by such a regard- lessness, to renounce his own essence, undervalue and undermine his own goodness, if he had not an implacable aversion to whatso- ever is contrary to it? If men turn grace into wantonness, is it not more reasonable he should turn his grace into justice ? All his attri- butes, which are parts of his goodness, engage him to punish sin ; without it, his authority would be vilified, his purity stained, his power derided, his truth disgraced, his justice scorned, his wisdom slighted ; he would be thought to have dissembled in his laws ; and be judged, according to the rules of reason, to be void of true goodness. 4. Punishment is not the primary intention of God. It is his goodness that he hath no mind to punish ; and therefore he hath put a bar to evil, by his prohibitions and threatenings, that he might Erevent sin, and, consequently, any occasions of severity against is creature.? The principal intention of God, in his law, was to encourage goodness, that he might reward it; and when, by the commission of evil, God is provoked to punish, and takes the sword into his hand, he doth not act against the nature of his goodness;, but against the first intention <>f his goodness in his pre- cepts, which was to reward; as a good judge principally intends, in the exercise of his ofiice, to protect good men from violence, and maintam the honor of the laws, yet, consequently, to punish bad men, witho J.t which the protection of the good would not be secured, nor the honor of the law be supported ; and a good judge, in the ex- ercise of his of&ce, doth principally intend the encouragement of the good, and wisheth there Vv'ere no wickedness that might occasion punishment ; and, when he doth sentence a malefactor, in order to the execution of him, he doth not act against the goodness of his nature, but pursuant to the duty of his place, but wisheth he had no occasion for such severity. Thus God seems to speak of himself (Isa. xxviii. 21); he calls the act of his wrath his " strange work, his strange act ;" a work, not against his nature, as the Governor of the world, but against his first intention, as Creator, which was to mani- feat his goo-iness ; therefore he moves with a slow pace in thone acts. f Ziu'iiDvecius, de Sat,isf;ift. Part T. cap. i. pp 3, 4. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 241 bnngs out his judgments witli relentings of heart, and seems to cast out his thunderbolts with a trembling hand : " He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men" (Lam. iii. 33) ; and there- fore he " delights not in the death of a sinner" (Ezek. xxxiii. 11) ; not in death, as death ; in punishment, as punishment ; but as it re- duceth the suffering creature to the order of his precept, or reduceth him into order under his power, or reforms others who are specta- tors of the punishment upon a criminal of their own nature ; God only hates the sin, not the sinner ; he desires only the destruction of the one, not the misery of the other ; the nature of a man doth not displease him, because it is a work of his own goodness, but the na- ture of the sinner displeaseth him, because it is a work of the sinner's own extravagance. T Divine goodness pitcheth not its hatred prima- rily upon the sinner, but upon the sin : but since he cannot punish the sin without punishing the subject to which it cleaves, the sinner falls under his lash. Whoever regards a good judge as an enemy to the malefactor, but as an enemy to his crime, when he doth sentence and execute him ? 5. Judgments in the world have a goodness in them, therefore they are no impeachments of the goodness of God. (1.) A goodness in their preparations. He sends not judgments without giving warnings ; his justice is so far from extinguishing his goodness, that his goodness rather shines out in the preparations of his justice; he gives men time, and sends them messengers, to per- suade them to another temper of mind, that he may change his hand, and exercise his liberality where he threatened his severity. When the heathen had presages of some evil upon their persons or countries, they took them for invitations to repentance, excited themselves to many acts of devotion, implored his favor, and often experimented it. The Ninevites, upon the proclamation of the destruction of their city by Jonah, fell to petitioning him, whereby they signified, that they thought him good, though he were just, and more prone to pit}^ than severity ; and their humble carriage caused the arrows he had ready against them to drop out of his hands (Jonah iii. 9, 10). When he brandislieth his sword, he wishes for some to stand in that gap, to mol- ■ lify his anger, that he might not strike the fatal blow (Ezek. xxxii. 30) ; " I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me in the land, that I should not destroy it." He was desirous that his creatures might be in a capacity to receive the marks of his bounty.'" This he signified, not obscurely, to Moses (Exod. xxxii. 10), when he spoke to him to let him alone, that his anger might wax hot against the people, after they had made a golden calf and worshipped it. " Let me alone," said God : not that Moses restrained him, saith Chrysostom, who spake nothing to him, but stood silent before him, and knew nothing of the people's idola- try; but God w(»uld give him an occasion of praying for them, that he might exercise his mercy towards them ; yet in such a manner, that the people, being struck with a sense of their crime, and the horror of Divine justice, they might be amended for the future, when they should understand that their death was not averted by their ■I Suarfz, Vol. I. de Deo, lib. iii. cap. 7. p. 146. ' Cressel. Anthol Decad. II. p. 162. VOL. II. — 1«; 242 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. own merit or intercession, but by Moses, his patronage of them, and pleading for them ; as we see sometimes masters and fathers angry with their servants and children, and preparing themselves to punish them, but secretly wish some friend to intercede for them, and take them out of their hands: there is a goodness shining in the prepara- tions of his judgments. 2. A goodness in the execution of them. They are good, as they shew God disaffected to evil, and conduce to the glory of his holi- ness, and deter others from presumptuous sins (Deut. x. 3) : "I will be gloriiied in all that draw near unto me ; — in his judgment upon Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, for ofieriug strange fire. By them God preserves the excellent footsteps of his own goodness iii his creation and his law, and curbs the licentiousness of men, and contains them within the bounds of their duty. " Thy judgments are good," saith the Psalmist (Ps. cxix ; xxxix); z.e. thy judicial pro- ceedings upon the wicked ; for he desires God there to turn away, by some signal act, the reproach the wicked cast upon him. Can there be any thing more miserable than to live in a world full of wickedness, and void of the marks of Divine goodness and justice to repress it ? Were there not judgments in the world, men would for- get God, be insensible of his government of the world, neglect the exercises of natural and christian duties ; religion woiild be at its last gasp, and expire among them, and men would pretend to break God's precepts by God's authority. Are they not good, then, as they restrain the creature from further evils ; affright others from the same crimes which they were inclinable to commit ? He strikes some, to reform others that are spectators ; as Apollonius tamed pigeons by beating dogs before them. Punishments are God's gracious warnings to others, not to venture upon the crimes which they see attended with such judgments. The censers of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, were to be wrought into plates for a covering of the altar, to abide there as a memento to others, not to approach to the exercise of the priestly ofl&ce without an authoritative call from God (Numb. xvi. 88, 40) ; and those judgments exercised in the former ages of the world, were intended by Divine goodness for warnings, even in evangelical times. Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt, to prevent men from apostasy ; that use Christ himself makes of it, in the exhortation against "turning back" (Luke xvii. 32, 33). And (Ps. Ivui. 10) : " The righteous shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." When God shall drench his sword in the blood of the wicked, the righteous shall take occasion from thence, to purify themselves, and reform their ways, and look to the paths of their feet. Would not impunity be hurtful to the world, and men receive encouragement to sin, if severities sometimes did not bridle them from the practice of their inclinations ? Sometimes the einner himself is reformed, and sometimes removed from being an example to others. Though thunder be an affrightening noise, and lightning a scaring flash, yet they have a liberal goodness in tiiem, in shattering and consuming those contagious vapors which burden and infect the air, and thereby render it more clear and healthful. Again, there are few acts of Divine justice upon a people, but are in ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 243 tte very execution of tliem attended Avitli demonstrations of liis goodness to others ; he is a protector of his own, while he is a re- venger on his enemies ; when he rides upon liis horses in anger against some, his chariots are "chariots of salvation" to others (Hab. iii. 8). Terror makes way for salvation; the overthrow of Pharaoh and the strength of his nation, completed the deliverance of the Is- raeli tes. Had not the Egyptians met with their destruction, the Is- raelites had unavoidably met with their ruin, against all the promises God had made to them, and to the defamation of his former justice, in the former plagues upon their oppressors. The death of Herod was the security of Peter^ and the rest of the maliced christians. The gracious deliverance of good men is often occasioned by some severe stroke upon some eminent persecutor ; the destruction of the oppressor is the rescue of the innocent. Again, where is there a judgment but leaves more criminals behind than it sweeps away, that deserved to be involved in the same fate with the rest ? More Egyptians were left behind to possess and enjoy the goodness of their fruitful land, than they were that were hurried into another world by the overflowing waves ; is not this a mark of goodness as well as severity ? Again, is it not a goodness in Him not to pour ■out judgments according to the greatness of his power ? to go gradii ally to work with those whom he might in a moment blow to des truction with one breath of his mouth ? Again, he sometimes exei ciseth judgments upon some, to form a new generation for himself _ he destroyed an old world, to raise a new one more righteous, as a man pulls down his old buildings to erect a sounder and more statelj fabric. To sum up what hath been said in this particular ; how could God be a friend to goodness, if he were not an enemy to evil ? how couM he shew his enmity to evil, without revenging the abuse and contempt of his goodness ? God would rather have the repen- tance of a sinner than his punishment ; but the sinner would rather expose himself to the severest frowns of God, than pursue those methods wherein he hath settled the conveyances of his kind- ness; "You will not come to me that you might have life," saitb Christ. How is eternity of punishment inconsistent with the good- ness of God ? nay, how can God be good without it ? If wickedness always remain in the nature of man, is it not fit the rod should al- ways remain on the back of men ? Is it a want of goodness that keeps an incorrigible offender in chains in a bridewell ? While sin re- mains, it is fit it should be punished ; would not God else be an enemy to his own goodness, and shew favor to that which doth abuse it, and is contrary to it? He hath threatened eternal flames to sinners, that he might the more strongly excite them to a refor- mation of their ways, and a practice of his precepts. In those threat- euings he hath manifested his goodness ; and can it be bad in him to defend what his goodness hath commanded, and execute what his goodness hath threatened ? His truth is also a part of his good- ness ; for it is nothing but his goodness performing that which it ob- liged him to do. That is the first thing; severe judgments in the world are no impeachments of his goodness. Secondly, The afflictions God inflicts upon his servants, are no 24-i CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. viol.itions of his goodness. Sometimes God afflicts men for their temporal and eternal good ; for the good of their grace, in order to the good of their glory ; which is a more excellent good, than afflic- tions can be an evil. The heathens reflected upon Ulysses' hard- ship, as a mark of Jupiter's goodness and love to him, that his virtue might be more conspicuous. By strong persecutions brought upon the church, her lethargy is cured, her chaff purged, the glorious fruit of the gospel brought forth in the lives of her children ; the number of her proselytes multiply, and the strength of her weak ones is increased, by the testimonies of courage and constancy which the stronger present to them in their sufferings. Do these good ef- fects speak a want of goodness in God, who brings them into this condition ? By those he cures his people of their corruptions, and promotes their glory, by giving them the honor of suffering for the truth, and raiseth their spirits to a divine pitch. The epistles of Paul to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, wrote by him while he was in Nero's chains, seem to have a higher strain than some of those he wrote when he was at liberty. As for afflictions,, they are marks of a greater measure of fatherly goodness than he discovers to those that live in an uninterrupted prosperity, who are not dignified with that glorious title of sons, as those are that " he chasteneth" (Heb. xii. 6, 7). Can any question the goodness of the father that corrects his child to prevent his vice and ruin, and breed him up to virtue and honor ? It would be a cruelty in a father leav- ing his child without chastisement, to leave him to that misery an ill education would reduce him to : " God judges us that we might not be condemned with the world" (1 Cor. xi. 82). Is it not a greater goodness to separate us from the world to happiness by his scourge, than to leave us to the condemnation of the world for our sins? Is it not a greater goodness to make us smart here, than to see us scorched hereafter ? As he is our Shepherd, it is no part of his en- mity or ill-will to us, to make us feel sometimes the weight of his shepherd's crook, to reduce us from our struggling. The visiting our transgressions witli rods, and our iniquities with stripes, is one of the articles of the covenant of grace, wherein the greatest lustre of his goodness appears (Ps. Ixxxix. 33). The advantage and gain of our afflictions is a greater testimony of his goodness to us, than the pain can be of his unkindness ; the smart is well recompensed by the accession of clearer graces. It is rather a high mark of good- ness, than an argument for the want of it, that he treats us as his children, and wiU not suffer us to run into that destruction we are more ambitious of, than the happiness he hath prepared for us, and by afflictions he fits us for the partaking of, by " imparting his holi- ness," together witii the inflicting his rod (Heb. xii. 10). That is the third thing, God is good. IV. The fourth thing is the manifestation of this goodness in Crea- tion^ Redemption, and Providence. First, In Creation. This is apparent from what hath been said before, that no other attribute could be the motive of his creating, but his goodness ; his goodness was the cause that he made any tliins:, and his wisdom was the cause that he made every thing in ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 245 order and harmony. He pronounced " every thing good," i. e. such as became his goodness to bring forth into being, and rested in them more, as they were stamps of his goodness, than as they were marks of his power, or beams of his wisdom. And if all ciea- tures were able to answer to this question, "What that was which created them ? the answer would be, Almighty power, but employed by the motion of infinite goodness. « All the varieties of creatures are so many apparitions of this goodness. Though God be one, yet he cannot appear as a God but in variety. As the greatness of power is not manifest but in variety of works, and an acute under- standing not discovered but in variety of reasonings, so an infinite goodness is not so apparent as in variety of communications. 1. The creation proceeds from goodness. It is the goodness of God to extract such multitutes of things from the depths of nothing. Because God is good, things have a being ; if he had not been good, nothing could have been good ; nothing could have imparted that which it possessed not ; nothing but goodness could have communi- cated to things an excellency, which before they wanted: Being is much more excellent than nothing. By this goodness, therefore, the whole creation was brought out of the dark womb of nothing ; this formed their natures, this beautified them with their several orna- ments and perfections, whereby everything was enabled to act for the good of the common world. God did not create things because he was a living Being, but because he was a good Being. No crea- ture brought forth anything in the world merely because it is, but because it is good, and by a communicated goodness fitted for such a production. If God had been the creating principle of things only as he was a living Being, or as he was an understanding Being, then all things should have partaken of life and understanding, because all things were to bear some characters of the Deity upon them. If by understanding, solely, God were the Creator of all things, all things should have borne the mark of the Deity upon them, and should have been more or less understanding ; but he created things as he was good, and by goodness he renders all things more or less like himself: hence everything is accounted more noble, not in regard of its being, but in regard of the beneficialness of its nature. The being of things was not the end of God in creating, but the goodness •of their being. God did hot rest from his works because they were his works, i. e. because they had a being ; but because they had a good being (Gen. i.) ; because they were naturally useful to the uni- verse : nothing was more pleasing to him, than to behold those shad- ows and copies of his own goodness in his works. 2. Creation was the first act of goodness without himself. "When he was alone from eternity, he contented himself with himself, abounding in his own blessedness, delighting in that abundance ; he was incomprehensively rich in the possession of an unstained felicity.' This creation was the first efflux of his goodness without himself: for the work of creation cannot be called a work of mercy." Mercy ■supposeth a creature miserable, but that which hath no being is sul> • Gusan, p. 228. * Petav. Theolog. Dogiuat. Tom. I d. 402. ■ Lessius, de Perfect. Div, p. 100. 246 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. ject to no misery ; for to be miserable supposetb a nature in being, and deprived of that good which belongs to the pleasure and felicity of nature ; but since there was no being, there could be no misery. The creation, therefore, was not an act of mercy, but an act of sole goodness ; and, therefore, it was the speech of an heathen, that when God first set upon the creation of the world, he transformed himself into love and goodness, Elg foonu fieTuSlrfiui lUf Bbov LiiXXoim dt/umvoyftt',^ This led forth, and animated his power, the first moment it drew the universe out of the womb of nothing. And, 3, There is not one creature but hath a character of his goodness. The whole world is a map to represent, and a herald to proclaim this perfection. It is as difficult not to see something of it in every creature with the eye of our minds, as it is not to see the beams of the shining sun with those off our bodies. " He is good to all" (Ps. cxlv. 9) ; he is, therefore, good in all ; not a drop of the creation, but is a drop of his goodness. These are the colors worn upon the heads of every creature. As in every spark the light of the fire is mani- fested, so doth every grain of the creation wear the visible badges of this perfection. In all the lights, the Father of Lights hath made the riches of goodness apparent; no creature is silent in it; it is legi- ble to all nations in every work of his hands. That, as it is said of Christ (Ps. xl. 7), " In the volume of thy book it is written of me :" In the volume of the book of the Scripture it is written of me, and my goodness in redemption : so it may be said of God, In the vol- ume of the book of the creature it is written of me, and my good- ness in creation. Every creature is a page in this book, whose "line is gone through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world" (Ps. xix. 4) ; though, indeed, the less goodness in some is obscured by the more resplendent goodness he hath unparted unto others. What an admirable piece of goodness is it to communicate life to a fly ! How should we stand gazing upon it,, till we turn our eye in- wards, and view our own frame, which is much more ravishing ! But let us see the goodness of God in the creation of man, — in the being and nature of man. God hath, with a liberal hand, conferred upon every creature the best being it was capable of in that station and order, and conducing to that end and use in the world he in- tended it for. But when you have run over all the measures of goodness God hath poured "forth upon other creatures, you will find a greater fulness of it in the nature of man, whom he hath placed in a more sublime condition, and endued with choicer prerogatives, than other creatures : he was made but little lower than the angels, and much more loftily crowned with glory and honor than other creatures (Ps. viii. 5). Had it not been for Divine goodness, that ex- cellent creature had lain wrapt up in the abyss of nothing ; or if he had called it out of nothing, there might have been less of skill and less of goodness displayed in the forming of it, and a lesser kind of being imparted to it, than what he hath conferred. 1. How much of goodness is visible in his body! God drew out some part of the dust of the ground, and copied out this perfection, as well as that of his power, on that mean matter, by erecting it into * Plu'i-cevdes. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 2-47 the form of a man, quickening tliat earth by the inspiration of a " living soul" (Gen. ii. 7) : of this matter he composed an excellent body, in regard of the majesty of the face, erectness of its stature, and grace of every part. How neatly hath he wrought this "taber- aacle of clay, this earthly house," as the apostle calls it (2 Oor. v. 1) 1 a curious wrought piece of needle-work, a comely artiiice (Ps. cxxxix. 15), an embroidered case for an harmonious lute. What variety of members, with a due proportion, without confusion, beautiful to sight, excellent for use, powerful for strength! It hath eyes to conduct its motion, to serve in matter for the food, and delight of the understanding ; ears to let in the pleasure of sound, to convey intelligence of the affairs of the world, and the counsels of heaven, to a more noble mind. It hath a tongue to express and sound forth what the learned inhabitant in it thinks ; and hands to act what the inward counseller directs ; and feet to support the fabric. It is tem- pered with a kindly heat, and an oily moisture for motion, and en- dued with conveyances for air, to qualify the fury of the heat, and nourishment to supply the decays of moisture. It is a cabinet fitted by Divine goodness for the enclosing a rich jewel; a palace mada of dust, to lodge in it the viceroy of the world ; an instrument dis- posed for the operations of the nobler soul which he intended to* unite to that refined matter. What is there in the situation of every part, in the proportion of every member, in the usefulness of every limb and string to the offices of the body, and service of the soul ;. what is there in the whole structure that doth not inform us of the- goodness of God ? 2. But what is this to that goodness which shines m the nature of the soul ? Who can express the wonders of that comeliness that is wrapped up in this mask of clay ? A soul endued with a clearness of understanding and freedom of will : faculties no sooner fram^ed, but they were able to produce the operation they were intended for ; a soul that excelled the whole world, that comprehended the whole creation ; a soul that evidenced the extent of its skill in giving names to all that variety of creatures which had issued out of the hand of Divine Power (Gen. ii. 19) ; a soul able to discover the na- ture of other creatures, and manage and conduct their motions. In the ruins of a palace we may see the curiosity displayed, and the cost expended in the building of it ; in the ruins of this fallen structure, we still find it capable of a mighty knowledge ; a reason able to reg- ulate affairs, govern states, order more mighty and massy creatures, find out witty inventions ; there is still an understanding to irradiate the other faculties, a mind to contemplate its own Creator, a judg- ment to discern the differences between good and evil, vice and. vir- tue, which the goodness of God hath not granted to any lower crea- ture. These excellent faculties, together with the power of self-re- flection, and the swiftness of the mind in running over the things of the creation, are astonishing gleams of the vast goodness of that Di- vine Hand which ennobled this frame. To the other creatures of this world, God had given out some small mites from liis treasury ; but in the perfections of man, he hath opened the more secret parts 248 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. of his excliequer, and liberally bestowed those doles, which he hath not expended upon the other creatures on earth. 3. Besides this, he did not only make man so noble a creature in his frame, but " he made him after his own image in holiness." He imparted to him a spark of his own comeliness, in order to a com- munion with himself in happiness, had man stood his ground in his trial, and used those faculties well, which had been the gift of his Bountiful Creator: he "made man after his image," after his own image (Gen. i. 26, 27) ; that as a coin bears the image of the prince, so did the soul of man the " image of God :" not the image of angels, though the speech be in the plural number : " Let us make man." It is not to a creature, but to a Creator ; let " us," that are his makers, make him in the image of his makers. God created man, angels did not create him ; God created man in his " own" image, not, there- fore, in the image of angels : the nature of God, and the nature of angels, are not the same. Where, in the whole Scripture, is man said to be made after the image of angels ? God made man not in the image of angels, to be conformed to them as his prototype, but in the image of the blessed God, to be conformed to the Divine na- ture : that as he was conformed to the image of his holiness, he might also partake of the image of his blessedness, which, without it, could not be attained : for as the felicity of God could not be clear without an unspotted holiness, so neither can there be a glorious happiness without purity in the creature ; this God provided for in his creation of man, giving him such accomplishments in those two excellent pieces of soul and body, that nothing was wanting to him but his own will, to instate him in an invariable felicity. He was possessed with such a nature by the hand of Divine Goodness, such a loftiness of understanding, and purity of faculties, that he might have been for ever happy as well as the standing angels : and he was placed in such a condition, that moved the envy of fallen spirits ; he had as much grace bestowed upon him, as was proportionable to that covenant God then made with him : the tenor of which was, that his life should continue so long as his obedience, and his happi- ness endure so long as his integrity : and as God, by creation, had given him an integrity of nature, so he had given him a power to persist in it, if he would. Herein is the goodness of God displayed, that he made man after his own image. 4. As to the life of man in this world, God, by an immense good- ness, copied out in him the whole creation, and made him an abridg- ment of the higher and lower world, — a little world in a greater one. The link of the two worlds, of heaven and earth, as the spiritual and corporeal natures are united in him, the earth in the dust of his body, and the heavens in the crystal of his soul : he hath the upper springs of the life of angels in his reason, and the nether springs of the life of animals in his sense. God displayed those virtues in man, which he had disco veved in the rest of the lower creation ; but, besides the> communication which he had with earth in his nature, God gave him a participation with heaven in his spirit. A mere bodily being he hath given to the heavens, earth, elements ; a vegetative life, or a life of growth, he hath vouchsafed to the plants of the ground : he ox THE GOODXESS OF UOD. 249 hath stretched out his liberality more to animals and beasts, by giv- ing them sense. All these hath his goodness linked in man, being, life, sense, with a richer dole than any of those creatures have re- ceived in a rational, intellectual life, whereby he approacheth to the nature of angels. This some of the Jews understood (Gen. ii. 7) : " God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul," min, breath of lives, in the Hebrew ; not one sort of life, but that variety of lives which he had imparted to other crea- tures: all the perfections scattered in other creatures do unitedly meet in man : so that Philo might well call him "every creature, the model of the whole creation :" his soul is heaven, and his body is earth. y So that the immensity of his goodness to man, is as great as all that goodness you behold in sensitive and intelligible things. 5. All this was free goodness. God eternally possessed his own felicity in himself, and had no need of the existence of anything without himself for his satisfaction. Man, before his being, could liave no good qualities to invite God to make him so excellent a fabric : for, being nothing, he was as unable to allure and merit, as to bring himself into being ; nay, he created a multitude of men, who, he foresaw would behave themselves in as ungrateful a manner, as if they had not been his creatures, but had bestowed that rich variety upon themselves without the hand of a superior Benefactor. How great is this goodness, that hath made us models of the whole creation, tied together heaven and earth in our nature, when he might have ranked us among the lower creatures of the earth, made us mere bodies as the stones, or mere animals as the brutes, and de- nied us those capacious souls, whereby we might both know him and enjoy him ! What could man have been more, unless he had been the original, which was impossible? He could not be greater than to be an image of the Deity, an epitome of the whole. "Well may we cry out with the Psalmist (Ps. viii. 1, 4), " O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name," the name of thy goodness, " in all the earth !" How, more particularly in man ! " What is man that thou art mindful of him ?" What is a little clod of earth and dust, that thou shouldst ennoble him with so rich a nature, and en- grave upon him such characters of thy immense Being ? 6. The goodness of God appears in the conveniences he provided for, and gave to man. As God gave him a being morally perfect in regard of righteousness, so he gave him a being naturally perfect in regard of delightful conveniences, which was the fruit of excellent goodness ; since there was no quality in man, to invite God to pro vide him so rich a world, nor to bestow upon him so comely a being (1). The world was made for man, Smce angels have not need of anything in this world, and are above the conveniences of earth and air, it will follow, that man, being the noblest creature on the earth, was the more immediate end of the visible creation. All in- ferior things are made to be subservient to those that have a more 3xcellent prerogative of nature ; and, therefore, all things for man, who exceeds all the rest in dignity : as man was made for the honor af God, so the world was made for the support and dehght of man, y Eugubin, lib. v. cap. 9. 260 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. in order to liis performing the service due from liim to God. The empire God settled man in as his lieutenant over the works of his- hands, when he gave him possession of paradise, is a clear manifesta- tion of it : God put all things under his feet, and gave him a de- puted dominion over the rest of the creatures under himself, as the absolute sovereign (Ps. viii. 6 — 8) ; " Thou madest him to have do- minion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things under nis feet, all sheep and oxen ; yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea ; yea, and whatsoever passeth over the paths of the sea." What less is witnessed to by the calamity all creatures were subjected to by the corruption of man's nature ? Then was the earth cursed, and a black cloud flung upon the beauty of the creation, and the strength and vigor of it languisheth to this day under the curse of God (Gen. ii. 17, 18), and groans under that vanity the sin of man subjected it to (Rom. viii. 20, 22). The trea- sons of man against God brouglit misery upon that which was framed for the use of man : as when the majesty of a prince is violated by the treason and rebellion of his subjects, all that which belongs to them, and was, before the free gift of the prince to them, is forfeit ; their habitations, palaces, cattle, all that belongs to them bear the marks of his sovereign fury : had not the delicacies of the earth been made for the use of man, they had not fallen under the indignation, of God upon the sin of man. God crowned the earth with his good- ness to gratify man ; gave man a right to serve himself of the de- lightful creatures he had provided (Gen. i. 28 — 30) ; yea, and after man had forfeited all by sin, and God had washed again the creature in a deluge, he renews the creation, and delivers it again into the hand of man, binding all creatures to pay a respect to him, and re- cognise him as their Lord, either spontaneously, or by force ; and commissions them all to fill the heart of man with " food and glad- ness" (Gen. ix. 2, 3) : and he loves all creatures as they conduce ta the good of, and are serviceable to, his prime creature, which he set up for his own glory : and therefore, when he loves a person, he loves what belongs to him : he takes care of Jacob and his cattle : of penitent Nineveh and their cattle (Jonah iv. 11) : as whei? he sends judgments upon men he destroys their goods. 2. God richly furnished the world for man. He did not only erect a stately palace for his habitation, but provided all kind of furniture as a mark of his goodness, for the entertainment of his creature, man : he arched over his habitation with a bespangled heaven, and floored it mth a solid earth, and spread a curious wrought tapestry upon the ground where he was to tread, and seemed to sweep all the rubbish of the chaos to the two uninhabitable poles. When at the first crea- tion of the matter the waters covered the earth, and rendered it un- inhabitable for man, God drained them into the proper channels he had founded for them, and set a bound that they might not pass over, that they turn not again to " cover the earth" (Gen i. 9.) They fled and hasted away to their proper stations (Ps. civ. 7 — 9), as if they were ambitious to deny their own nature, and content them- selves with an imprisonment for the convenient habitation of Him who was to be appointed Lord of the world. He hath set up stand ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 251 ing lights in the heaven, to direct our motion, and to regulate the seasons : the sun was created, that man might see to "go forth to his labor" (Ps. civ, 22, 23) : both sun and moon, though set in the heaven, were formed to " give liglit" on the earth (Gen. i, 15, 17). The air is his aviary, the sea and rivers his fish-ponds, the valleys his granary, the mountains his magazine ; the fiist afford man crea- tures for nourishment, the other metals for perfection : the animals were created for the support of the life of man ; the herbs of the ground were provided for the maintenance of their lives ; and gen- tle dews, and moistening showers, and, in some places, slimy floods appointed to render the earth fruitful, and capable to offer man and beast what was fit for their nourishment. He hath peopled every element with a variety of creatures both for necessity and delight ; all furnished with useful qualities for the service of man. There is not the most despicable thing in the whole creation but it is endued with a nature to contribute something for our welfare : either as food to nourish us when we are healthful ; or as medicine to cure us when we are distempered ; or as a garment to clothe us when we are naked, and arm us against the cold of the season ; or as a refreshment when we are weary ; or as a delight when we are sad : all serve for neces- sity or ornament, either to spread our table, beautify our dwellings^ furnish our closets, or store our wardrobes (Ps. civ. 24) : " The whole earth is full of his riches." Nothing but by the rich goodness of God is exquisitely accommodated, in the numerous brood of things, immediately or mediately for the use of man ; all, in the issue, con- spire together to render the world a delightful residence for man ; and, therefore, all the living creatures were brought by God to at- tend upon man after his creation, to receive a mark of his dominion over them, by the "imposition of their names" (Gen. ii. 19, 20). He did not only give variety of senses to man, but provided variety of delightful objects in the world for every sense ; the beauties of light and colors for our eye, the harmony of sounds for our ear, the fra- grancy of odors for our nostrils, and a dehcious sweetness for our palates : some have qualities to pleasure ; all, everything, a quality to pleasure, one or other: he doth not only present those things to our view, as rich men do in ostentation their goods, he makes us the enjoy ers as well as the spectators, and gives us the use as well as the sight ; and, therefore, he hath not only given us the sight, but the knowledge of them : he hath set up a sun in the heavens, to expose their outward beauty and conveniences to our sight ; and the candle of the Lord is in us, to expose their inward qualities and conve- niences to our knowledge, that we might serve ourselves of, and re- joice in, all this furniture wherewith he hath garnished the world, and have wherewithal to employ the inquisitiveness of our reason, as well as gratify the pleasures of our sense ; and, particularly, God provided for innocent man a delightful mansion-house, a place of more special beauty and curiosity, the garden of Eden, a delightful paradise, a model of the beauties and pleasures of another world, wherein he had placed whatsoever might contribute to the felicity of a rational and animal life, the life of a creature composed of mire and dust, of sense and reason (Gen. ii. 9). Besides the other delica- 252 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. cies consigned, in that place, to the use of man, there was a tiee of life provided to maintain his being, and nothing denied, in the whole compass of that territory, but one tree, that of the knowledge of good and evil, which was no mark of an ill-will in his Creator to him, but a reserve of God's absolute sovereignty, and a trial of man's voluntary obedience. What blur was it to the goodness of God, to reserve one tree for his own propriety, when he had given to man, m all the rest, such numerous marks of his rich bounty and good- ness? What Israel, after man's fall, enjoyed sensibly, Nehemiah calls " great goodness" (Neh. ix. 25). How inexpressible, then, was that goodness manifested to innocent man, when so small a part of it, indulged to the Israelites after the curse upon the ground, is call- ed, as truly it merits, such great goodness ! How can we pass through any part of this great city, and cast our eyes upon the well-furnished shops, stored with all kinds of commodities, without reflections upon this goodness of God starting up before our eyes in such varieties, and plainly telling us that he hath accommodated all things for our use, suited things, both to supply our need, content a reasonable curiosity, and delight us in our aims at, and passage to, our supreme end! (3.) The goodness of God appears in the laws he hath given to man, the covenant he hath made with him. It had not been agree- able to the goodness of God to let a creature, governable by a law, be without a law to regulate him ; his goodness then which had broke forth in the creation, had suffered an eclipse and obscurity in his government. As infinite goodness was the motive to create, so infinite goodness was the motive of his government. And this appears, [1.] In the fitting the law to the nature of man. It was rather below than above his strength ; he had an integrity in his nature to answer the righteousness of the precept. God created " man upright" (Eccles. vii. 29) ; his nature was suited to the law, and the law to his nature ; it was not above his understanding to know it, nor his will to embrace it, nor his passions to be regulated by it. The law and his nature were like to exact straight lines, touching one another in every part when joined together. God exacted no more by his law than what was written by nature in his heart : hf had a knowledge by creation to observe the law of his creation, and he fell not for want of a righteousness in his nature : he was enabled for more than was commanded him, but wilfully indisposed to less than he was able to perform. The precepts were easy, not only be- coming the authority of a sovereign to exact, but the goodness of a father to demand, and the ingenuity of a creature and a son to pay. " His commands are not grievous" (1 John v. 3) ; the observance of them had filled the spirit of man with an extraordinary contentment. It had been no less a pleasure and a delightful satisfaction to have kept the law in a created state, than it is to keep it in some measure in a renewed state. The renewed nature finds a suitableness in the law to kindle a " delight" (Ps. i. 2) : it could not then have anywise shook the nature of an upright creature, nor have been a burden too heavy for his shoulders to bear. Though he had not a grace ( ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 25b given him above nature, yet he liad not a law given liim tliat sur- mounted his nature : it did not exceed his created strength, and waa suited to the dignity and nobility of a rational nature. It was a "just law" (Rom. vii. 12), and, therefore, not above the nature of the subject that was bound to obey it. And had it been impossible to be observed, it had been unrighteous to be enacted : it had not been a matter of Divine praise, and that seven times a day ; as it is, " Seven times a day do I praise thee, because of thy righteous judg- ments" (Ps. cxix. 164). The law was so righteous, that Adam had every whit as much reason to bless God in his innocence for the righteousness of it, as David had with the relics of enmity against it : his goodness shines so much in his law, as merits our praise of him, as he is a sovereign Lawgiver, as well as a gracious Benefactor, in the imparting to us a being. [2.] In fitting it for the happiness of man. For the satisfaction of his soul, which finds a reward in the very act of keeping it, (Ps. cxix. 165), " Great peace in the loving it ;" for the preservation of human society, wherein consists the external felicity of man. It had been inconsistent with the Divine goodness to enjoin man any- thing that should be oppressive aud uncomfortable. Bitterness can- not come from that which is altogether sweet : goodness would not have obliged the creature to anything, but what is not only free from damaging him, but wholly conducing to his welfare, and perfective of his nature. Infinite wisdom could not order anything but what was agreeable to infinite goodness. As his laws are the most ration- al, as being the contrivance of infinite wisdom ; so they are the best, as being the fruit of infinite goodness. His laws are not only the acts of his sovereign authority, but the effluxes of his loving-kind- ness, and the conductors of man to an enjoyment of a greater bounty : he minds as well the promotion of his creatures' felicity, as the as- serting his own authority ; as good princes make laws for their sub- jects' benefit as well as their own honor. What was said of a more difl&cult and burdensome law long after man's fall, may much more be said (jf the easy law of nature in the state of man's innocence, that it was " for our good" (Deut. x. 12, 13). He never pleaded with the Israelites for the observation of his commands upon the account of his authority, so much as upon the score of their benefit by them (Deut. iv. 40 ; xii. 28). And when his precepts were broken, he seems sometimes to be more grieved for men's impairing their own felicity by it, than for their violating his authority : " O, that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments, then had thy peace been as a river !" (Isa. xlviii. 18). Goodness cannot prescribe a thing prejudicial : whatsoever it enjoins, is beneficial to the spiritual and eternal happiness of the rational creature : this was both the design of the law given, and the end of the law. Christ, in his an- swer to the young man's question, refers him to the moral law, which was the law of nature in Adam, as that whereby eternal life was to be gained : which evidenceth, that when the law was first given as the covenant of works, it was for the happiness of man ; and the end of giving it was, that man might have eternal life by "t : there would else be no strenoth or truth in that answer of Christ 25-1 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. to tliat Ruler. And, therefore, Stephen calls the law given hy Moses, which was the same with the law of nature in Adam, " the living oracles" (Acts vii. 38). He enjoined men's services to them not simply for his own glorj^, but his glory in men's welfare : as if there were any being better than himself, his goodness and righteous- ness would guide him to love that better than himself; because it is good and righteous to love that best which is most amiable : so, if there were an}'' that could do us more good, and shower down more happiness upon us than himself, he would be content we should obey that as sovereign, and steer our course according to his laws : " If God be God, follow him ; but if Baal, then follow him" (1 Kings xviii. 21). If the observance of the precepts of Baal be more beneficial to you ; if you can advance your nature by his ser- vice, and gain a more mighty crown of happiness than by mine, fol- low him with all my heart : I never intended to enjoin you anything to impair, but increase your happiness. The chief design of God in his law is the happiness of the subject; and obedience is intended by him as a means for the attaining of happiness, as well as preserv- ing his own sovereignty : this is the reason why he wished that Israel had walked in his ways, " that their time might have endured forever" (Ps. Ixxxi. 13, 15, 16). And by the same reason, this was his intendment in his law given to man, and his covenant made with man at the creation, that he might be fed with the finest part of his bounty, and be satisfied with honey out of the eternal Rock of Ages. To paraphrase his expression there : — The goodness of God appears further, [3]. In engaging man to obedience by promises and threatenings. A threatening is only mentioned (Gen. ii. 17), but a promise is im- plied : if eternal death were fixed for transgression, eternal life was thereby designed for obedience : and that it was so, the answer of Ohrist to the Ruler evidenceth, that the first intendment of the pre- cept was the eternal life of the subject, ordered to obey it. 1st. God might have acted, in settling his law, only as a sover- eign. Though he might have dealt with man upon the score oi his absolute dominion over him as his creature, and signified his pleasure upon the right of his sovereignty, threatening only a pen- alty if man transgressed, without the promising a bountiful acknow- ledgment of his obedience by a reward as a benefactor : yet he would treat with man in gentle methods, and rule him in a track of sweetness as well as sovereignty: he would preserve the rights of his dominion in the authority of his commands, and honor the condescensions of his goodness in the allurements of a promise. He that might have solely demanded a compliance with his will, would kindly article with him, to oblige him to observe him out of love to himself as well as duty to his Creator ; that he might have both the interest of avoiding the threatened evil to affright him, and the interest of attaining the promised good to allure him to obedience. How doth he value the title of Benefactor above that of a Lord, when he so kindly solicits, as well as commands ; and engageth to reward that obedience which he might have abso- lutely claimed as his due, by enforcing fears of the severest penalty I ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 255 His sovereignty seems to stoop below itself for the elevation of his goodness ; and he is pleased to have his kindness more taken notice of than his authority. Nothing imported more condescension than his bringing forth his law in the nature of a covenant, whereby he seems to humble himself, and veil his superiority to treat with man as his equal, that the very manner of his treatment might oblige him in the richest promises he made to draw him, and the startling threatenings he pronounced to link him to his obedience : and, therefore, is it observable, that when after the transgression of Adam God comes to deal with him, he doth not do it in that thun- dering rigor, which might have been expected from an enraged sovereign, but in a gentle examination (Gren. iii. 11, 13) : " Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat ?" To the woman, he said no more than, " What is this that thou hast done ?" And in the Scripture we find, when he cites the Israelites before him for their sin, he expostulates with them not so much upon the absolute right he had to challenge their obedience, as upon the equity and reasonableness of his law which they had transgressed ; that by the same argument of sweet- ness, wherewith he would attract them to their duty, he might shame them after their ofience (Isa. i. 2 ; Ezek. xviii. 25). 2d. By the threatenings he manifests his goodness as well as by his promises. He promises that he might be a rewarder, and threatens that he might not be a punisher ; the one is to elevate our hope, and the other to excite our fear, the two passions whereby the nature of man is managed in the world. He imprints upon man sentiments of a misery by sin, in his thundering commination, that he might engage him the more to embrace and be guided by the motives of sweetness in his gracious promises. The design of them was to preserve man in his due bounds, that God might not have occasion to blow upon him the flames of his justice ; to sup- press those irregular passions, which the nature of man (though creaied without any disorder) was capable of entertaining upon the appearance of suitable objects ; and to keep the waves from swell ing upon any turning wind, that so man, being modest in the use of the goodness God had allowed him, might still be capable of fresh streams of Divine bounty, without ever falling under his righteous wrath for any transgression. What a prospect of good- ness is in this proceeding, to disclose man's happiness to be as du- rable as his innocence ; and set before a rational creature the ex- tremest misery due to his crime, to affright him from neglecting his Creator, and making unworthy returns to his goodness! What could be done more by goodness to suit that passion of fear which was implanted in the nature of man, than to assure him he should not degenerate from the righteousness of his nature, and violate the authority of his Creator, without falling from his own happiness, and sinking into the most deplorable calamity ! 8d. The reward he promised manifests yet further his goodness to man. It was his goodness to intend a reward to man; no necessity oould oblige God to reward man, had he continued obedient in hia sreated state : for in all rewards which are truly merited, beside 256 CHAHNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. some kind of equality to be considered between the person doing service and tlie person rewarding, and also between the act per- formed and the reward bestowed, there must also be considered the condition of the person doing the service, that he is not obliged to do it as a duty, but is at his own choice whether to offer it or no. But man, being wholly dependent on God in his being and preser- vation, having nothing of his own, but what he had received from the hands of Divine bounty, his service was due by the strongest obligation to God (1 Cor. iv. 7). But there was no natural engage- ment on God to return a reward to him ; for man could return no- thing of his own but that only which he had received from his Creator. It must be pure goodness that gives a gracious reward for a due debt, to receive his own from man, and return more than he had received. A Divine reward doth far surmount the value of a rational service. It was, therefore, a mighty goodness to stipulate with man, that upon his obedience he should enjoy an immortality in that nature. The article on man's part was obedience, which was necessarily just, and founded in the nature of man ; he had been unjust, ungrateful, and violated all laws of righteousness, had he committed any act unworthy of one that had been so great a subject of Divine liberality.^ But the article on God's part, of giv- ing a perpetual blessedness to innocent man, was not founded upon rules of strict justice and righteousness, for that would have argued God to be a debtor to man ; but that God cannot be to the work of his hands, that had received the materials of his being and acting from him, as the vessel doth from the potter. But this was founded only on the goodness of the Divine nature, whereby he cannot but be kind to an innocent and holy creature. The nature of God in- clined him to it by the rules of goodness, but the service of man could not claim it by the rules of justice, without a stipulation ; so that the covenant whereby God obliged himself to continue the happiness of man upon the continuance of his obedience, in the original of it, springs from pure goodness ; though the performance of it, upon the fulfilling condition required in the creature, was founded upon the rules of righteousness and truth, after Divine goodness had brought it forth. God did create man for a reward and happiness ; now God's implanting in the nature of man a desire after happiness, and some higher happiness than he had in creation invested him in, doth evidence that God did not create man only for his own service, but for his attaining a greater happiness. All rational creatures are possessed with a principle of seeking after good, the highest good, and God did not plant in man this principle in vain ; it had not been goodness to put this principle in man, if he had designed never to bestow a happiness on man for his obe- dience : this had been repugnant to the goodness and wisdom of God ; and the Scripture doth very emphatically express the felicity of man to be the design of God in the first forming him and mould- ing him a creature, as well as working him a new creature ; " He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God" (2 Cor. v. 1, 5) • be framed this earthly tabernacle for a residence in an eternal habi ' Amyral. Dissertat. pp. 637, 638. i ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 257 tation, and a better habitation than an earthly paradise. What wa expect in the resurrection, that very same thing God did in crea- tion intend us for ; but since the corruption of our natures, we must undergo a dissolution of our bodies, and may have just reason of a despondency, since sin hath seemed to change the course of God's bounty, and brought us under a curse. He hath given us the ear nest of his Spirit, as an assurance that he will perform that very self-same thing, the conferring that happiness upon renewed crea- tures for which he first formed man in creation, when he compacted his earthly tabernacle of the dust of the ground, and reared it up before him. 4th. It was a mighty goodness that God should give man an eternal reward. That an eternity of reward was promised, is implied in the death that was threatened upon transgression : whatsoever you con- ceive the threatened death to be, either for nature, or duration upon transgression ; of the same nature and duration you must suppose the iSe to be, which is implied upon his constancy in his integrity. As sin would render him an eternal object of God's hatred, so his obedience would render him an eternally amiable object to his Creator, as the standing angels are preserved and confirmed in an entire felicity and glory. Though the threatening be only expressed by God (Gen. ii. 17), yet the other is implied, and might easily be concluded from it by Adam. And one reason why God only ex- pressed the threatening, and not the promise, was, because man might collect some hopes and expectations of a perpetual happiness from that image of God which he beheld in himself, and from the large provision he had made for him in the world, and the com- mission given him to increase and multiply, and to rule as a lord over his other works ; whereas he could not so easily have imagined himself capable of being exposed to such an extraordinary calamity as an eternal death, without some signification of it from God. It is easily concludable, that eternal life was supposed to be promised, to be conferred upon him if he stood, as well as eternal death to be inflicted on him if he rebelled. ^ Now this eternal life was not due to his nature, but it was a joure beam, and gift of Divine goodness ; for there was no proportion between man's service in his innocent estate, and a reward so great both for nature and duration : it was a higher reward than can be imagined either due to the nature of man, or upon any natural right claimable by his obedience. All that could be expected by him was but a natural happiness, not a super- natural: as there was no necessity upon the account of natural righteousness, so there was no necessity upon the account of the goodness of God to elevate the nature of man to a sujDernatural happiness, merely because he created him : for though it be necessary for God, when he would create, in regard of his wisdom, to create for some end, yet it was not necessary that end should be a super- natural end and happiness, since a natural blessedness had been sufficient for man. And though God, in creating angels and men intellectual and rational creatures, did make them necessary for himself and his own glory, yet it was not necessarily for him to •^uarez. de Gratia, Vol. I. pp. 126, 127. ^OL. XI. — 1 7 258 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. order either angels or men to sucli a felicity as consists m a clear vision, and so high a fruition, of himself: for all other things are made by him for himself, and yet not for the vision of himself, God might have created man only for a natural happiness, according to the perfection of his natural faculties, and had dealt bountifully with him, if he had never intended him a supernatural blessedness .and an eternal recompense: but what a largeness of goodness is here, to design man, in his creation, for so rich a blessedness as an eternal life, with the fruition of himself I He hath not only given to man all things which are necessary, but designed for man that which the poor creature could not imagine : he garnished the earth for him, and garnished him for an eternal felicity, had he not, by slighting the goodness of God, stripped himself of the present, and forfeited his future blessedness. Secondly, The manifestation of this goodness in Redem'piion. The whole gospel is nothing but one entire mirror of Divine goodness : the whole of redemption is wrapj^ed up in that one expression of the angels' song (Luke ii. 14), " Good-will towards men." The angels sang but one song before, which is upon record, but the matter of it seems to be the wisdom of God chiefly in creation (Job xxxviii. 7 ; compare chap. ix. 5, 6, 8, 9). The angels are there meant by the " morning stars ;" the visible stars of heaven were not distinctly formed when the foundations of the earth were laid : and the title of the sons of God verifies it, since none but creatures of understanding are dignified in Scripture with that title. There they celebrate his wisdom in creation ; here his goodness in redemption, which is the entire matter of the song. i. Goodness was the spring of redemption. All and every part of it owes only to this perfection the appearance of it in the world. This only excited wisdom to bring forth from so great an evil as the apostacy of man, so great a good as the recover}'- of him. When man fell from his created goodness, God would evidence that he could not fall from his infinite goodness : that the greatest evil could not surmount the ability of his wisdom to contrive, nor the riches of his bounty to present us a remedy for it. Divine Goodness would not stand by a spectator, without being reliever of that misery man had plunged himself into ; but by astonishing methods it would recover him to happiness, who had wrested himself out of his hands, to fling himself into the most deplorable calamity : and it was the greater, since it surmounted those natural inclinations, and those strong provocations which he had to shower down the power of his wrath. What could be the source of such a procedure, but this excellency of Divine nature, since no violence could force him, nor was there any merit to persuade to such a restoration ? This, under the name of his "love," is rendered the sole cause of the redeeming death of the Son : it was to commend his love with the highest gloss, and in so singular a manner that had not its parallel in nature, nor in all his other works, and reaches in the brightness of it beyond the manifested extent of any other attribute (Rom. v. 8). It must be only a miraculous goodness that induced him to expose the Hfe of his Son to those difficulties in the world, and death upon the cross. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 259 for the freedom of sordid rebels : his great end was to give such a demonstration of the hberaUty of his nature, as might be attractive to his creature, remove its shakings and trembhngs, and encourage its approaches to him. It is in this he would not only manifest his love, but assume the name of "Love." By this name the Holy Ghost calls him, in relation to this good will manifested in his Son (1 John iv. 8, 9), " God is love." In this is manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might " live through him." He would take the name he never expressed himself in before. He was Jehovah, in regard of the truth of his promise ; so he would be known of old : he is Goodness, in regard of the grandeur of his affection in the mission of his Son : and, therefore, he would be known by the name of Love now, in the days of the gospel. ii. It was a pure goodness. He was under no obligation to pity our misery, and repair our ruins : he might have stood to the terms of the first covenant, and exacted our eternal death, since we had committed an infinite transgression : he was under no tie to put off the robes of a judge for the bowels of a father, and erect a mercy- seat above his tribunal of justice.'' The reparation of man had no necessary connexion with his creation ; it follows not, that because Goodness had extracted us from nothing by a mighty power, that it must lift us out of wilful misery by a mighty grace. Certainly that God who had no need of creating us, had far less need of redeeming lis: for, since he created one world, he could have as easily de- stroyed it, and reared another. It had not been unbecoming the Divine Goodness or Wisdom, to have let man perpetually wallow in that sink wherein he had plunged himself, since he was criminal by his own will, and, therefore, miserable by his own fault: nothing could necessitate this reparation. If Divine Goodness could not be obliged by the angelical dignity to repair that nature, he is further from any obligation by the meanness of man to repair human nature. There was less necessity to restore man than to restore the fallen angels. What could man do to oblige God to a reparation of him, since he could not render him a recompense for his goodness mani- fested in his creation ? He must be much more impotent to render him a debtor for the redemption of him from misery. Could it be a salary for anything we had done ? Alas ! we are so far from merit- ing it, that by our daily demerits, we seem ambitious to put a stop to any further effusions of it : we could not have complained of him, if he had left us in the misery we had courted, since he was bound by no law to bestow upon us the recovery we wanted. When the apostle speaks of the gospel of " redemption," he giveth it the title of the " gospel of the blessed God " (2 Tim. i. 11). It was the gospel of a God abounding in his own blessedness, which received no addition by man's redemption ; if he had been blessed by it, it had been a goodness to himself, as well as to the creature : it was not aa indigent goodness needing the. receiving anything from us ; but it was a pure goodness, streaming out of itself, without bringing any- thing into itself for the perfection of it : there was no goodness in '• Rada. Controvers. Part III. p. 363. 260 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. US to be the motive of his love, but his goodness wt\a the fountain of o^ir benefit. iii. It was a distinct goodness of tlie whole Trinity. In the crea* tion of man we find a general consultation (Gen. i. 26), without those distinct labors and ofiices of each person, and without those raised expressions and marks of joy and triumph as at man's restoration. In this there are distinct functions ; the grace of the Father, the merit of the Son, and the efficacy of the Spirit. The Father makes the promise of redemption, the Son seals it with his blood, and the Spirit applies it. The Father adopts us to be his children, the Son redeems us to be his members, and the Spirit renews us to be his temples. In this the Father testifies himself well-pleased in a voice ; the Son proclaims his own delight to do the will of God, and the Spirit hastens, with the wing of a dove, to fit him for his work, and afterwards, in his apparition in the likeness of fiery tongues, mani- fests his zeal for the propagation of the redeeming gospel. iv. The effects of it proclaim His great goodness. It is by this we are delivered from the corruption of our nature, the ruin of our happiness, the deformity of our sins, and the punishment of our transgressions ; he frees us from the ignorance wherewith we were darkened and from the slavery wherein we were fettered. When he came to make Adam's process after his crime, instead of pro- nouncing the sentence of death he had merited, he utters a promise that man could not have expected ; his kindness swells above his provoked justice, and, while he chaseth him out of paradise, he gives him hopes of regaining the same, or a better habitation ; and is, in the whole, more ready to prevent him with the blessings of his good- ness, than charge him with the horror of his crimes (Gen. iii. 16). It is a goodness that pardons us more transgressions than there are moments in our lives, and overlooks as many follies as there are thoughts in our heart : he doth not only relieve our wants, but re- stores us to our dignity. It is a greater testimony of goodness to instate a person in the highest honors, than barely to supply his pre- sent necessity : it is an admirable pity whereby he was inclined to redeem us, and an incomparable aifection whereby he was resolved to exalt us. What can be desired more of him than his goodness hath granted ? He hath sought us out when we were lost, and ran- somed us when we were captives ; he hath pardoned us when we were condemned, and raised us when we were dead. In creation he reared us from nothing, in redemption he delivers our understanding from ignorance and vanity, and our wills from impotence and ob- stinacy, and our whole man from a death worse than that nothing he drew us fi'om by creation, V. Hence we may consider the height of this goodness in redemp- tion to exceed that in creation. He gave man a being in creation, but did not draw him from inexpressible misery by that act. His liberality in the gospel doth infinitely surpass what we admire in the works of nature ; his goodness in the latter is more astonishing to our belief, than his goodness in creation is visible to our eye. There is more of his bounty expressed in that one verse, " So God loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" (John hi. 16), than ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 261 there is in the whole volume of the world : it is an incomprehensible 30 ; a, so that all the angels in heaven cannot analyse ; and few com- ment upon, or understand, the dimensions of this so. In creation he formed an innocent creature of the dust of the ground ; in redemp- tion he restores a rebellious creature by the blood of his Son : it is greater than that goodness manifested in creation. 1st. In regard of the difficulty in effecting it. In creation, mere nothing was vanquished to bring us into being ; in redemption, sul- len enmity was conquered for the enjoyment of our restoration ; in creation, he subdued a nullity to make as creatures; in redemption, his goodness overcomes his omnipotent justice to restore us to feli- city. A word from the mouth of Groodness inspired the dust of men's bodies with a living soul ; but the blood of his Son must be shed, and the laws of natural affection seems to be overturned, to lay the foundation of our renewed happiness. In the first, heaven did but speak, and the earth was formed ; in the second, heaven it- self must sink to earth, and be clothed with dusty earth, to reduce man's dust to its original state. 2d. This goodness is greater than that manifested in creation, in regard of its cost. This was a more expensive goodness than what was laid out in creation. " The redemption of one soul is precious" (Ps. xlix. 8), much more costly than the whole fabric of the world, or as many worlds as the understandings of angels in their utmost extent can conceive to be created. For the effecting of this, God parts with his dearest treasure, and his Son eclipses his choicest glory. For this, God must be made man. Eternity must suffer death, the Lord of angels must weep in a cradle, and the Creator of the world must hang like a slave ; he must be in a manger in Bethlehem, and die upon a cross on Calvary ; unspotted righteousness must be made sin, and "unblemished blessedness be made a curse. He was at no other expense than the breath of his mouth to form man ; the fruits of the earth could have maintained innocent man without any other cost ; but his broken nature cannot be healed without the in- valuable medicine of the blood of God. View Christ in the womb and in the manger, in his weary steps and hungry bowels, in his prostrations in the garden, and in his clodded drops of bloody sweat ; view his head pierced with a crown of thorns, and his face besmeared with the soldiers' slabber ; view him in his march to Cal- vary, and his elevation on the painful cross, with his head hanged down, and his side streaming blood ; view him pelted with the scoflfe of the governors, and the derisions of the rabble ; and see, in all this, what cost Goodness was at for man's redemption ! In creation, his power made the sun to shine upon us, and, in redemption, his bowels sent a Son to die for us. 3d. This goodness of God in redemption is greater than that man- ifested in creation, in regard of man's desert of the contrary. In the creation, as there was nothing without him to allure him to the expressions of his bounty, so there was nothing that did damp the inclinations of his goodness : the nothing from whence the world was drawn, could never merit, nor demerit a being, because it was nothing; as there was nothing to engage him, so there was nothing 262 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. to disoblige Lim ; as liis favor could not be merited, so neither could his anger be deserved. But in this he finds ingratitude against the former marks of his goodness, ajid rebellion against the sweetness of his sovereignty, — crimes unworthy of the dews of goodness, and worthy of the sharpest strokes of vengeance ; and therefore the Scripture advanceth the honor of it above the title of mere good- ness, to that of " grace" (Rom. i. 2 ; Titus ii. 11) ; because men were not only unworthy of a blessing, but worthy of a curse. An innocent nothing more deserves creation, than a culpable creature deserves an exemption from destruction. When man fell, and gave occasion to God to repent of his created work, his ravishing goodness surmount- ed the occasions he had of repenting, and the provocations he had to the destruction of his frame. 4th. It was a greater goodness than was expressed towards the angels. 1. A greater goodness than was expressed towards the standing angels. The Son of God did no more expose his life for the con- firmation of those that stood, than for the restoration of those that fell ; the death of Christ was not for the holy angels, but for simple man ; they needed the grace of God to confirm them, but not the death of Christ to restore or preserve them ; they had a beloved ho- liness to be established by the powerful grace of God, but not any abominable sin to be blotted out by the blood of God ; they had no debt to pay but that of obedience ; but we had both a debt of obe- dience to the precepts, and a debt of suffering to the penalty, after the fall. Whether the holy angels were confirmed by Christ, or no, is a question : some think they were, from Colos. i. 20, where " things in heaven" are said to be " reconciled ;" but some think, that place signifies no more than the reconciliation of things in heaven, if meant of the angels, to things on earth, with whom they were at enmity in the cause of their Sovereign ; or the reconciliation of things in heaven to God, is meant the glorified saints, who ^\^ere once in a state of sin, and whom the death of Christ upon the cross reached, though dead long before. But if angels were confirmed by Christ, it was by him not as a slain sacrifice, but as a sovereign Head of the whole creation, appointed by God to gather all things into one ; which some think to be the intendment of Eph. i. 10, where all things, as well those in heaven, as those in earth, are said to be " gathered together in one, in Christ." Where is a syllable in Scrip- ture of his being crucified for angels, but only for sinners ? Not for the confirmation of the one, but the reconciliation of the other ; so that the goodness whereby God continued those blessed spirits in heaven, through the effasions of his grace, is a small thing to the restoring us to our forfeited happiness, through the streams of Divine blood. The preserving a man in life is a little thing, and a smaller benefit than the raising a man from death. The rescuing a man from an ignominious punishment, lays a greater obligation than barely to prevent him from committing a capital crime. The preserving a man standing upon the top of a steep hill, is more easy than to bring a crippled and phthisical man, from the bottom to the top. The continuance God gave to the angels, is not so signal a mark of ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 263 his gooduess as the deliverance lie gave to ns ; since they were not sunk into sin, nor by any crime fallen into misery, 2. His goodness in redemption is greater than any goodness ex pressed to the fallen angels. It is the wonder of his goodness to us, that he was mindful of fallen man, and careless of fallen angels ; that he should visit man, wallowing in death and blood, with the day- spring from on high, and never turn the Egyptian darkness of devils into cheerful day ; when they sinned. Divine thunder dashed them into hell ; when man sinned, Divine blood wafts the fallen creature from his misery : the angels wallow in their own blood forever, while Christ is made partaker of our blood, and wallows in his blood, that we might not forever corrupt in ours ; they tumbled down from heaven, and Divine goodness would not vouchsafe to catch them ; man tumbles down, and Divine goodness holds out a hand drenched in the blood of Him, that was from the foundations of the world, to lift us up (Heb. ii. 16). He spared not those digni- fied spirits, when they revolted ; and spared not punishing his Son for dusty man, when he offended ; when he might as well forever have let man lie in the chains wherein he had entangled himself, as them. We were as fit objects of justice as they, and they as fit ob- jects of goodness as we ; they were not more wretched by their fall than we ; and the poverty of our nature rendered us more unable to recover oui'selves, than the dignity of theirs did them ; they were his Reuben, his first-born ; they were his might, and the beginning of his strength; yet those elder sons he neglected, to prefer the younger; they were the prime and golden pieces of creation, not laden with gross matter, yet they lie under the ruins of their fall, while man, lead in comparison of them, is refined for another world. They seemed to be fitter objects of Divine goodness, in regard of the eminency of their nature above the human ; one angel excelled in endowments of mind and spirit, vastness of understanding, greatness of power, all the sous of men ; they were more capable to praise him, more capable to serve him ; and because of the acuteness of their comprehension, more able to have a due estimate of such a re- demption, had it been afforded them ; yet that goodness which had created them so comely, would not lay itself out in restoring the beauty they had defaced. The promise was of bruising the serpent's head for us, not of lifting up the serpent's head with ns ; their nature was not assumed, nor any command given them to believe or repent ; not one devil spared, not one apostate spirit recovered, not one of those eminent creatures restored ; every one of them hath only a prospect of misery, without any glimpse of recovery; they were ruined under one sin, and we repaired under many. All His re- deeming goodness was laid out upon man (Ps. cxliv. 3) ; " What is man that thou takest knowledge of him ; and the Son of man, that thou makest account of him?" Making account of him above angels ; as they fell without any tempting them, so God would leave them to rise, without any assisting them. I know the schools trouble themselves to find out the reasons of this peculiarity of grace to man, and not to them ; because the whole human nature fell, but only a part of the angelical ; the one sinned by a seduction, and the other 264 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. by a sullenness, witliotit any tempter ; every angel sinned by hia own proper will, wliereas Adam's posterity sinned by the will of the first man, the common root of all. God would deprive the devil of any glory in the satisfaction of his envious desire to hinder man from attainment and possession of that happiness which himself had lost. The weakness of man below the angelical nature might excite the Divine mercy ; and since all the things of the lower world were created for man, God would not lose the honor of his works, by losing the immediate end for which he framed them. And finally, because in the restoration of angels, there would have been only a restoration of one nature, that was not comprehensive of the nature of inferior things ; but after all such conjectures, man must sit down, and acknowledge Divine goodness to be the only spring, without any other motive. Since Infinite Wisdom could have contrived a way for redemption for fallen angels, as well as for fallen man, and restored both the one and the other; why might not Christ have as- sumed their nature as well as ours, into the unity of the Divine per- son, and suffered the wrath of God in their nature for them, as well as in his human soul for us ? It is as conceivable that two natures might have been assumed by the Son of God, as well as three souls be in man distinct, as some think there are. 3. To enhance this goodness yet higher ; it was a greater goodness to us, than was for a time manifested to Christ himself. To demon- strate his goodness to man, in preventing his eternal ruin, he would for a while withhold his goodness from his Son, by exposing his life as the price of our ransom ; not only subjecting him to the derisions of enemies, desertions of friends, and malice of devils, but to the in- expressible bitterness of his own wrath in his soul, as made an offer- ing for sin. The particle so (John lii. 16), seems to intimate this supremacy of goodness ; He " so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." He so loved the world, that he seemed for a time not to love his Son in comparison of it, or equal with it. The person to whom a gift is given is, in that regard, accounted more valuable than the gift or present made to him : thus God valued our redemption above the worldly happiness of the Redeemer, and sen- tenceth him to an humiliation on earth, in order to our exaltation in heaven ; he was desirous to hear him groaning, and see him bleed- ing, that we might not groan under his frowns, and bleed under his wrath ; he spared not him, that he might spare us ; refused not to strike him, that he might be well pleased with us ; drenched his sword in the blood of his Son, that it might not forever be wet with ours, but that his goodness might forever triumph in our salvation , he was willing to have his Son made man, and die, rather than man should perish, who had delighted to ruin himself ; he seemed to de- grade him for a time from what he was.<^ But since he could not be united to any but to an intellectual creature, he could not be united to any viler and more sordid creature than the earthly nature of man : and when this Son, in our nature, prayed that the cup might pass from him. Goodness would not suffer it, to show how it valued • Liugend de Eucharist, pp. 84, S6. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 265 the manifestation of itself, in the salvation of man, above the preser- vation of the life of so dear a person. In particular, wherein this goodness appears : — 1st. The first resolution to redeem, and the means appointed for redemption, could have no other inducement but Divine goodness. We cannot too highly value the merit of Christ ; but we must not so much extend the merit of Christ, as to draw a value to eclipse the goodness of God ; though we owe our redemption and the fruits of it to the death of Christ, yet we owe not the first resolutions of re- demption, and assumption of our nature, the means of redemption, to the merit of Christ. Divine goodness only, without the associa- tion of any merit, not only of man, but of the Redeemer himself, be- gat the first purpose of our recovery ; he was singled out, and pre- destinated to be our Redeemer, before he took our nature to merit our redemption. "God sent his Son," is a frequent expression in the Gospel of St. John (John iii. 34 ; v. 24 ; xvii. 3). To what end did God send Christ, but to redeem ? The purpose of redemption, therefore, preceded the pitching upon Christ as the means and pro- curing cause of it, ^. e. of our actual redemption, but not of the re- deeming purpose; the end is always in intention before the means.^ " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son ;" the love of God to the world was first in intention, and the order of nature, before the will of giving his Son to the world. His intention of saving was before the mission of a Saviour ; so that this affection rose, not from the merit of Christ, but the merit of Christ was direct- ed by this affection. It was the effect of it, not the cause. Nor was the union of our nature with his merited by him ; all his meritorious acts were performed in our nature ; the nature, therefore, wherein he performed it, was not merited ; that grace which was not, could not merit what it was ; he could not merit that humanity, which must be assumed before he could merit anything for us, because all merit for us must be offered in the nature which had offended. It is true " Christ gave himself," but by the order of Divine goodness ; he that begat him, pitched upon him, and called him to this great work (Heb. V. 5) ; he is therefore called "the Lamb of God," as being set apart by God to be a propitiating and appeasing sacrifice. He is the " Wisdom of God," since from the Father he reveals the counsel and order of redemption. In this regard he calls God " his God" in the prophet (Isa. xUx. 4), and in the evangelist (John xx, 17) ; though he was big with affection for the accomplishment, yet he came no1 to do his " (nvn will," but the will of Divine goodness ; his own will it was, too, but not principally, as being the first wheel in motion, but subordinate to the eternal will of Divine bounty. It was by the will of God that he came, and by his will he drank the dreggy cup of bitterness. Divine justice laid " upon him the iniquity of us all," but Divine goodness intended it for our rescue ; Divine goodness singled him out, and set him apart ; Divine goodness invited him to it ; Divine goodness commanded him to effect it, and put a law into his heart, to bias him in the performing of it ; Divine goodness sent him, and Divine goodness moved justice to bruise him ; and, after <* Lessius. 266 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. his sacrifice, Divine goodness accepted him, and caressed him for it So earnest was it for our redemption, as to give out special and irre- versible orders : death was commanded to be endured by him for us^ and life commanded to be imparted by him to us (John x. 16, 18). If God had not been the mover, but had received the proposal from another, he might have heard it, but was not bound to grant it ; his sovereign authority, was not under any obligation to receive another's sponsion for the miserable criminal. As Christ is the head of man, 80 "God is the head of Christ" (1 Cor. xi. 3); he did nothing but by nis directions, as he was not a Mediator, but by the constitution of Divine goodness. As a " liberal man deviseth liberal things" (Isa. ii. 8), so did a bountiful God devise a bountiful act, wherein his kind- ness and love as a Saviour appeared : he was possessed with the re- solutions to manifest his goodness in Christ, " in the beginning of his way" (Prov. viii. 22, 23), before he descended to the act of crea- tion. This intention of goodness preceded his making that creature naan, who, he foresaw, would fall, and, by his fall, disjoint and en- tangle the whole frame of the world, without such a provision. 2d. In God's giving Christ to be our Eedeemer, he gave the highest gift that it was possible for Divine goodness to bestow. As there is not a greater God than himself to be conceived, so there is not a greater gift for this great God to present to his creatures : never did God go farther, in any of his excellent perfections, than this. It is such a dole that cannot be transcended with a choicer ; he is, as it were, come to the last mite of his treasure ; and though he could create millions of w^orlds for us, he cannot give a greater Son to us. He could abound in the expressions of his power, in new creations of worlds, which have not yet been seen, and in the lustre of his wisdom in more stately structures ; but if he should frame as many worlds as there are mites of dust and matter in this, and make every one of them as bright and glorious as the sun, though his power and wisdom would be more signalized, yet his goodness could not, since he hath not a choicer gift to bless those brighter worlds withal, than he hath conferred upon this: nor can immense goodness contrive a richer means to conduct those worlds to happiness, than he hath both invented for this world, and presented it with. It cannot be imag- ined, that it can extend itself farther than to give a gift equal with himself ; a gift as dear to him as himself. His wisdom, had it stud- ied millions of eternities (excuse the expression, since eternity ad- mits of no millions, it being an interminable duration), it could have found out no more to give; this goodness could have bestowed no more, and our necessity could not have required a greater of- fering for our relief. When God intended, in redemption, the manifestation of his highest goodness, it could not be without the donation of the choicest gift ; as, when he would insure our comfort, he swears "by himself," because he cannot sw^ear "by a greater" (Heb. vi. 13) : so, when we would insure our happiness, he gives us his Son, because he cannot give a greater, being equal with himself. Had the Father given himself in person, he had given one first in order, but not greater in essence and glorious perfections : it could have been no more than the life of God, and should tlien have been ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 267 laid down for us ; and so it was now, since the Iranian nature did not subsist but in liis Divine person. 1. It is a greater gift than worlds, or all things purchased bj him. What was this gift but "the image of his person, and the brightness of his glory" (Heb. i. 3)? What was this gift but one as rich as eternal blessedness could make him ? What was this gift, but one that possessed the fulness of earth, and the more immense riches of heaven ? It is a more valuable present, than if he presented us with thousands of worlds of angels and inferior creatures, because liia person is incomparabl}^ greater, not only than all conceivable, but inconceivable, creations ; we are more oljliged to him for it, than if ne had made us angels of the highest rank in heaven, because it is a gift of more value than the whole angelical nature, because he is an infinite person, and therefore infinitely transcends whatsoever is finite, though of the highest dignity. The wounds of an Almighty God for us are a greater testimony of goodness, than if we had all the other riches of heaven and earth. This perfection had not ap- peared in such an astonishing grandeur, had it pardoned us without so rich a satisfaction ; that had been pardon to our sin, not a God of our nature. "God so loved the world" that he pardoned it, had not sounded so great and so good, as God so loved the world, that he " gave his only -begotten Son." Est aliquid in Christo formosivs Ser- vatore. There is something in Christ more excellent and comely than the office of a Saviour ; the greatness of his person is more excellent, than the salvation procured by his death : it was a greater gift than was bestowed ujoon innocent Adam, or the holy angels. In the cre- ation, his goodness gave us creatures for our use : in our redemp- tion, his goodness gives us what was dearest to him for our service, our Sovereign in office to benefit us, as well as in a royalty to gov- ern us. 2. It was a greater gift, because it was his own Son, not an angel. It had been a mighty goodness to have given one of the lofty sera- phims ; a greater goodness to have given the whole corporation of those glorious spirits f6r us, those children of the Most High : but he gave that Son, whom he commands " all the angels to worship" (Heb. i. 6), and all men to adore, and pay the "lowest homage to" (Ps. ii. 12) ; that Son that is to be honored by us, as we " honor the Father" (John v. 23) ; that Son which was his " delight" (Prov. viii. 30) ; his delights in the Hebrew, wherein all the delights of the Father were gathered in one, as well as of the whole creation ; and not simply a Son, but an only-begotten Son, upon which Christ lays the stress with an emphasis (1 John iii. 16). He had but one Son in heaven or earth, one Son from an unviewable eternity, and that one Son he gave for a degenerate world ; this son he consecrated for " ev- ermore a Priest" (Heb. vii. 28). " The word of the oath makes the Son ;" the peculiarity of his Sonship heightens the goodness of the Donor. It was no meaner a person that he gave to empty himself of his glory, to fulfil an obedience for us, that we might be rendered happy partakers of the Divine nature. Those that know the natural affection of a father to a son, must judge the affection of God the Father to the Son infinitely greater, than the affection of an earthly 268 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. j.tlier to tne son of liis bowels. It must be an unparalleled g(K)dness, to give up a Son that be loved with so ardent an affection, for the redemption of rebels : abandon a glorious Son to a dishonorable death, for the security of those that had violated the laws of right- eousness, and endeavored to pull the sovereign crown from his head. Besides, being an only Son, all those affections centered in him, which in parents would have been divided among a multitude of children : so, then, as it was a testimony of the highest faith and obedience in " Abraham to offer up his only-begotten son to God" (Heb. xi. 17) ; so it was the triumph of Divine goodness, to give so great, so dear a person, for so little a thing as man ; and for such a piece of nothing and vanity, as a sinful world. 3. And this Son given to rescue us by his death. It was a gift to us ; for our sakes he descended from his throne, and dwelt on earth ; for our sakes he was " made flesh," and infirm flesh ; for our sakes he was " made a curse," and scorched in the furnace of his Father's wrath ; for our sakes he went naked, armed only with his own strength, into the lists of that combat with the devils, that led us captive. Had he given him to be a leader for the conquest of some earthly enemies, it had been a great goodness to display his banners, and bring us under his conduct ; but he sent him to lay down his life in the bitterest and most inglorious manner, and exposed him to a cursed death for our redemption from that dreadful curse, which would have broken us to pieces, and irreparably have crushed us. He gave him to us, to suffer for us as a man, and redeem us as a God ; to be a sacrifice to expiate our sin by translating the punish- ment upon himself, which was merited by us. Thus was he made low to exalt us, and debased to advance us, " made poor to enrich as" (2 Cor. viii. 9) ; and eclipsed to brighten our sulhed natures, and Avounded, that he might be a physician for our languishments. He was ordered to taste the bitter cup of death, that we might drink of the rivers of immortal life and pleasures : to submit to the frailties of the human nature, that we might possess the glories of the divine : he was ordered to be a sufferer, that we might be no longer captives ; and to pass through the fire of Divine wrath, that he might purge our nature from the dross it had contracted. Thus was the righteous given for sin, the innocent for criminals, the glory of heaven for the dregs of earth, and the immense riches of a Deity expended to i^- stock man. 4. And a Son that was exalted for what he had done for us by the order of Divine goodness. The exaltation of Christ was no less a signal mark of his miraculous goodness to us, than of his affection to him : since he was obedient by Divine goodness to die for us, his ad- vancement was for his obedience to those orders. The name giveu to him " above every name" (Phil. ii. 8, 9), was a repeated triumph of this perfection; since his passion was not for himself, he was wholly innocent, but for us who were criminal. His advancement was not only for himself as Redeemer, but for us as redeemed: Divine goodness centered in him, both in his cross and in his crown; for it was for the " purging our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Hob. i. 3): and the whole blessed society ON" THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 269 of principalities and powers in heaven admire this goodness of God, and ascribe to him "honor, glorj, and power" for advancing the "Lamb slain" (Rev. v. 11-13). Divine goodness did not only give him to us, but gave him power, riches, strength, and honor, for man- ifesting this goodness to us, and opening the passages for its fuller conveyances to the sons of men. Had not God had thoughts of a perpetual goodness, he would not have settled him so near him, to manage our cause, and testified so much affection to him on our be- half. This goodness gave him to be debased for us, and ordered him to be enthroned for us : as it gave him to us bleeding, so it would give him to u^s triumphing ; that as we have a share by grace in the merits of his humiliation, we might partake also of the glories of his coronation ; that, from first to last, we may behold nothing but the triumphs of Divine goodness to fallen man. 5. In bestowing this gift on us, Divine goodness gives whole God to us. Whatsoever is great and excellent in the Godhead, the Father gives us, by giving us his Son : the Creator gives himself to us in his Son Christ. In giving creatures to us, he gives the riches of earth ; in giving himself to us, he gives the riches of heaven, which sur- mount all understanding : it is in this gift he becomes our God, and passeth over the title of all that he is for our use and benefit, that every attribute in the Divine nature may be claimed by us ; not to be imparted to us whereby we may be deified, but employed for our welfare, whereby we may be blessed. He gave himself in creation to us in the image of his holiness ; but, in redemption, he gave himself in the image of his person : he would not only communicate the goodness without him, but bestow upon us the infinite goodness of his own nature ; that that which was his own end and happiness might be our end and happiness, viz. himself. By giving his Son, he hath given himself; and in both gifts he hath given all things to us. The Creator of all things is eminently all things: "He hath given all things into the hands of his Son" (John iii. 35); and, by consequence, given all things into the hands of his redeemed crea- tures, by giving them Him to whom he gave all things ; whatsoever we were invested in by creation, whatsoever we were deprived of by corruption, and more, he hath deposited in safe hands for our enjoy- ment : and what can Divine goodness do more for us ? What further can it give unto us, than what it hath given, and in that gift designed for us ? 3d. This goodness is enhanced by considering the state of man in the first transgression, and since. 1. Man's first transgression. If we should rip up every vein of that first sin, should we find any want of wickedness to excite a just indignation ? What was there but ingratitude to Divine bounty, and rebellion against Divine sovereignty ? The royalty of God was attempted ; the supremacy of Divine knowledge above man's own knowledge envied ; the riches of goodness, whereby he lived and breathed, slighted. There is a discontent with God upon an un- reasonable sentiment, that God had denied a knowledge to him which was his right and due, when there should have been an hum- Die acknowledgment of that unmerited goodness, which had not only 270 CJARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. given liim a being above other creatures, but placed liim the gover- nor and lord of those that were inferior to him. What alienation of his understanding was there from knowing God, and of his will from loving him ! A debauch of all his faculties ; a spiritual adultery, in preferring, not only one of God's creatures, but one of his des- perate enemies, before him; thinking him a wiser counsellor than Infinite Wisdom, and imagining him possessed with kinder affections to him than that God who had newly created him. Thus he joins in league with hell against heaven, with a fallen spirit against his bountiful Benefactor, and enters into society with rebels that just before commenced a war against his and their common Sovereign : he did not only falter in, but cast off, the obedience due to his Crea- tor ; endeavored to purloin his glory, and actually murdered all those that were virtually in his loins. " Sin entered into the world" by him, " and death by sin, and passed upon all men" (Rom. v. 12), taking them off from their subjection to God, to be slaves to the damned spirits, and heirs of their misery : and, after all this, he adds a foul imputation on God, taxing him as the author of his sin, and thereby stains the beauty of his holiness. But, notwithstanding all this, God stops not up the flood-gates of his goodness, nor doth he entertain fiery resolutions against man, but brings forth a healing promise ; and sends not an angel upon commission to reveal it to him, but preaches it himself to this forlorn and rebellious creature (Gen. iii. 15). 2. Could there be anything in this fallen creature to allure God to the expression of his goodness ? Was there any good action in all his carriage that could plead for a re-admission of him to his former state ? Was there one good quality left, that could be an orator to persuade Divine goodness to such a gracious procedure ? Was there any moral goodness in man, after this debauch, that might be an object of Divine love ? What was there in him, that was not rather a provocation than an allurement ? Could you expect that any per- fection in God should find a motive in this ungTateful apostate to open a mouth for him, and be an advocate to support him, and bring him off from a just tribunal? or, after Divine goodness had begun to pity and plead for man, is it not wonderful that it should not discon- tinue the plea, after it found man's excuse to be as black as his crime (Gen. iii. 12), and his carriage, upon his examination, to be as dis- obliging as his first revolt? It might well be expected, that all the perfections in the Divine nature would have entered into an associa- tion eternally to treat this rebel according to his deserts. What at- tractives were there in a silly worm, much less in such complete wickedness, inexcusable enmity, infamous rebellion, to design a Re- deemer for him, and such a person as the Son of God to a fleshy body, an eclipse of glory, and an ignominious cross ? The meanness of man was further from alluring God to it, than the dignity of angels. 3. Was there not a world of demerit in man, to animate grace as well as wrath against him ? We were so far from deserving the opening any streams of goodness, that we had merited floods of de- vouring wrath. What were all men but enemies to God in a high ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 271 manaer ? Every offence was infinite, as being committed against a being of infinite dignity ; it was a stroke at the very being of God, a resistance of all his attributes; it would degrade him from the height and perfection of his nature ; it would not, by its good will, Bufler God to be God. If he that hates his brother is a murderer of his brother (1 John iii. 15), he that hates his Creator is a murderei of the Deity, and every "carnal mind is enmity to God" (Rom. viii. 7) : every sin envies him his authority, by breaking his precept ; and envies him his goodness, by defacing the marks of it : every sin com prehends in it more than men or angels can conceive : that God who only hath the clear apprehensions of his own dignity, hath the sole clear apprehensions of sin's malignity. All men were thus by na- ture : those that sinned before the coming of the Eedeemer had been in a state of sin ; those that were to come after him would be in a state of sin by their birth, and be criminals as soon as ever they were creatures. AH men, as well the glorified, as those in the flesh at the coming of the Redeemer, and those that were to be born after, were considered in a state of sin by God, when he bruised the Redeemer for them ; all were filthy and unworthy of the eye of God ; all had employed the faculties of their souls, and the members of their bodies, which the}^ enjoyed by his goodness, against the interest of his glory. Every rational creature had made himself a slave to those creatures over whom he had been appointed a lord, subjected himself as a servant to his inferior, and strutted as a superior against his liberal Sovereign, and by every sin rendered himself more a child of Satan, and enemy of God, and more worthy of the curses of the law, and the torments of hell. Was it not, now, a mighty goodness that would surmount those high mountains of demerit, and elevate such creatures by the depression of his Son ? Had we been possessed of the highest holiness, a reward had been the natural effect of goodness. It was not possible that God should be unkind to a righteous and innocent creature ; his grace would have crowned that which had been so agreeable to him. He had been a denier of himself, had he num- bered innocent creatures in the rank of the miserable ; but to be kind to an enemy, to run counter to the vastness of demerit in man, was a superlative goodness, a goodness triumphing above all the provo- cations of men, and pleas of justice : it was an abounding goodness of grace ; " where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Rom. V. 20), vJisqenBoiaatvatv ; it Swelled abovc the heights of sin, and tri- umphed more than all his other attributes. 4. Man was reduced to the lowest condition. Our crimes had brought us to the lowest calamity ; we were brought to the dust, and prepared for hell. Adam had not the boldness to request, and there fore we may judge he had not the least hopes of pardon ; he wa? 5unk under wratib, and could have expected no better an entertain- meu fc than the tempter, whose solicitations he submitted to. We had cast the diadem from our heads, and lost all our original excellency ; we were lost to our own happiness, and lost to our Creator's service, when he was so kind as to send his Son to seek us (Matt, xviii. 11), and so liberal as xo expend his blood for our cure and preservation How o-reat was that ^roodness that would not abandon us in our mis 272 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. ery, but remit our crimewS, and rescue our persons, and ransom om souls b}" so great a price from the rights of justice, and liorrors of liell, we were so fitted for ? 5, Every age multiplied provocations ; every age of the world proved more degenerate. The traditions, which were purer and more lively among Adam's immediate posterity, were more dark among his further descendants ; idolatry, whereof we have no marks in the old world before the deluge, was frequent afterwards in every nation : not only the knowledge of the true God was lost, but the natural reverential thoughts of a Deity were expelled. Hence gods were dubbed according to men's humors ; and not only human pas- sions, but brutish vices, ascribed to them : as by the fall we were become less than men, so we would fancy God no better than a beast, since beasts were worshipped as gods (Rom. i. 21) ; yea, fan- cied God no feetter than a devil, since that destroyer was worshipped instead of the Creator, and a homage paid to the powers of hell that had ruined them, which was due to the goodness of that Benefactor, who had made them and preserved them in the world. The vilest creatures were deified ; reason was debased below common sense ;. and men adored one end of a " log," while they " warmed them- selves with the other" (Isa. xliv. 14, 16, 17) ; as if that which was ordained for the kitchen were a fit representation for God in the tem- ple. Thus were the natural notions of a Deity depraved ; the whole world drenched in idolatry ; and though the Jews were free from that gross abuse of God, yet they were sunk also into loathsome su- perstitions, when the goodness of God brought in his designed Re- deemer and redemption into the world. 6. The impotence of man enhanceth this goodness. Our own eye did scarce pity us, and it was impossible for our own hands to re- lieve us ; we were insensible of our misery, in love with our death ; we courted our chains, and the noise of our fettering lusts were our music, " serving divers lusts and pleasures" (Tit. iii. 3). Our lusts were our pleasures ; Satan's yoke was as delightful to us to bear, as to him to impose : instead of being his opposers in his attempts against us, we were his voluntary seconds, and every whit as wil ling to embrace, as he was to propose, his ruining temptations. As no man can recover himself from death, so no man can recover him- self from wrath ; he is as unable to redeem, as to create himself ; he might as soon have stripped himself of his being, as put an end to his misery ; his captivity would have been endless, and his chains remediless, for anything he could do to knock them off, and deliver himself; he was too much in love with the sink of sin, to leave wallowing in it, and under too powerful a hand, to cease frying in the flames of wrath. As the law could not be obeyed by man, after a corrupt principle had entered into him, so neither could justice be satisfied by him after his transgression. The sinner was indebted, but bankrupt ; as he was unable to pay a mite of that obedience he owed to the precept, because of his enmity, so he was unable to sat- isfy what he owed to the penalty, because of his feebleness : he was as much without love to observe the one, as " without strength" to bear the other : he could not, because of his " enm'ty, be subject to OS THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 273 fhe law" (Rom. viii. 7), or compensate for his sin, because he was " without strength" (Rom. v. 6). His strength to offend was great ; but to deliver himself a mere nothing. Repentance was not a ihing Hinown by man after the fall, till he had hopes of redemption ; and if he had known and exercised it, what compensation are the tears of a malefactor for an injury done to the crown, and attempting the life of his prince ? How great was Divine goodness, not only to pity men in this state, but to provide a strong Redeemer for them ! " 6 Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer !" said the Psalmist (Ps. xix. 1-1) : when he found out a Redeemer for our misery, he found out a strength for our impotency. To conclude this : behold the " goodness of God," when we had thus unhandsomely dealt with him ; had nothing to allure his goodness, multitudes of provocations to incense him, were reduced to a condition as low as could be, fit to be the matter of his scoffs, and the sport of Divine justice, and so weak that we could not repair our own ruins ; then did he open a fountain of fresh goodness in the death of his Son, and sent forth such dehghtful streams, as in our original creation we could never have tasted ; not only overcame the resentments of a provoked jus- tice, but magnified itself by our lowness, and strengthened itself by our weakness. His goodness had before created an innocent, but here it saves a malefactor ; and sends his Son to die for us, as if the Holy of holies were the criminal, and the rebel the innocent. It had been a pompous goodness to have given him as a king ; but a good- ness of greater grandeur to expose him as a sacrifice for slaves and enemies. Had Adam remained innocent, and proved thankful for what he had received, it had been great goodness to have brought him to glory ; but to bring filthy and rebellious Adam to it, sur- mounts, by inexpressible degrees, that sort of goodness he had ex- perimented before ; since it was not from a light evil, a tolerable curse unawares brought upon us, but from the yoke we had willing- ly submitted to, from the power of darkness we had courted, and the furnace of wrath we had kindled for ourselves. What are we dead dogs, that he should behold us with so gracious an eye ? This good- ness is thus enhanced, if you consider the state of man in his first transgression, and after. 4th. This goodness farther appears in the high advancement of our nature, after it had so highly offended. By creation, we had an affinity with animals in our bodies, with angels in our spirits, with God in his image ; but not with God in our nature, till the incarna- tion of the Redeemer. Adam, by creation, was the son of God (Luke iii. 38), but his nature was not one with the person of God : he was his son, as created by him, but had no affinity to him by vir- tue of union with him : but now man doth not only see his nature in multitudes of men on earth, but, by an astonishing goodness, be- holds his nature united to the Deity in heaven : that as he was the son of God by creation, he is now the brother of God by redemp- tion ; for with such a title doth that Person, who was the Son of God as well as the Son of man, honor his disciples (John xx. 17) : and because he is of the same nature with them, he " is not ashamed to call them brethren" (Heb. ii. 11). Our nature, which was infinitely vol.. H. — 18 274 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTKIBUTES. distant from, and below the Deity, now makes one person with the Son of G-od. What man sinfully aspired to, God hath graciously granted, and more : man aspired to a likeness in knowledge, and God hath granted him an affinity in union. It had been astonishing good- ness to angelize our natures ; but in redemption .Divine goodness hath acted higher, in a sort to deify our natures. In creation, our nature was exalted above other creatures on earth ; in our redemp- tion, our nature is exalted above all the host of heaven : we were higher than the beasts, as creatures, but " lower than the angels" (Ps. viii. 5) ; but, by the incarnation of the Son of God, our na- ture is elevated many steps above them. After it had sunk itself by corruption below the bestial nature, and as low as the dia- bolical, the " fulness of the Godhead dwells in oui* nature bodily" (Col. ii. 9), but never in the angels, angelically. The Son of God descended to dignify our nature, by assuming it; and ascended with our nature to have it crowned above those standing monu- ments of Divine power and goodness (Eph. i. 20, 21). That Per- son that descended in our nature into the grave, and in the same nature was raised up again, is, in that same nature, set at the right hand of God in heaven, " far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named." Our refined clay, by an indissoluble union with this Divine Per- son, is honored to sit forever upon a throne above all the tribes of seraphims and cherubims ; and the Person that wears it, is the head of the good angels, and the conqueror of the bad ; the one are put under his feet, and the other commanded to adore him, " that purged our sins in our nature" (Heb. i. 3, 6) : that Divine Person in our nature receives adoration from the angels ; but the nature of man is not ordered to pay any homage and adorations to the angels. How could Divine goodness, to man, more mag- nify itself? As we could not have a lower descent than we had by sin, how could we have a higher ascent than by a substan- tial particij^ation of a divine life, in our nature, in the unity of a Divine Person ? Our earthly nature is joined to a heavenly Person ; our undone nature united to " one equal with God" (Phil. ii. 6). It may truly be said, that mnn is God, which is infinitely more glori- ous for us, than if it could be said, man is an angel. If it were goodness to advance our innocent nature above other creatures, the advancement of our degenerate nature above angels deserves a higher title than mere goodness. It is a more gracious act, than if all men had been transformed into the pure spiritual nature of the loftiest cherubims. 5th. This goodness is manifest in the covenant of grace made with us, whereby we are freed from the rigor of that of works. God might have insisted upon the terms of the old covenant, and required of man the improvement of his original stock ; but God hath condescended to lower terms, and offered man more gracious methods, and mitigated the rigor of the first, by the sweetness of the second. 1. It is goodness, that he should condescend to make another covenant with man. To stipulate with innocont and righteous ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 275 Adam for his obedience, was a stoop of his sovereignty ; though he gave the precept as a sovereign Lord, yet in his covenanting, he seems to descend to some kind of equahty with that dust and ashes with whom the treated. Absolute sovereigns do not usually cove- nant with their people, but exact obedience and duty, without binding themselves to bestow a reward ; and if they intend any, they reserve the purpose in their own breasts, without treating their subJ3cts with a solemn declaration of it. There was no obligation on God to enter into the first covenant, much less, after the viola- tion of the first, to the settlement of a new. If God seemed in some sort to equal himself to man in the first, he seemed to descend below himself in treating with a rebel upon more condescending terms in the second. If his covenant with innocent Adam was a stoop of his sovereignty, this with rebellious Adam seems to be a stripping himself of his majesty in favor of his goodness ; as if his happiness depended upon us, and not ours upon him. It is a humilia- tion of himself to behold the things in heaven, the glorious angels, as well as things on earth, mortal men (Ps. cxiii. 6) ; much more to bind himself in gracious bonds to the glorious angels ; and much more if to rebel man. In the first covenant there was much of sovereignty as well as goodness ; in the second there is less of sover- eignty, and more of grace : in the first there was a righteous man for a holy God ; in the second a polluted creature for a pure and provoked God : in the first he holds his sceptre in his hand, to rule his subjects ; in the second he seems to lay b}^ his sceptre, to court and espouse a beggar (Hosea ii. 18 — 20) : in the first he is a Lord ; in the second a husband ; and binds himself upon gracious condi- tions to become a debtor. How should this goodness fill us with an humble astonishment, as it did Abraham, when he "fell on his face," when he heard God speaking of making a covenant with him ! (Gen. xvii. 2, 8). And if God speaking to Israel out of the fire, and making them to hear his voice out of heaven, that he might instruct them, was a consideration whereby Moses would heighten their admiration of Divine goodness, and engage their affectionate obedience to him (Deut. iv. 32, 36, 40), how much more admirable is it for God to speak so kindly to us through the pacify- ing blood of the covenant, that silenced the terrors of the old, and settled the tenderness of the new ! 2. His goodness is seen in the nature and tenor of the new cove- nant. There are in this richer streams of love and pity. The lan- guage of one was. Die, if thou sin ; that of the other. Live, if thou believest i^the old covenant was founded upon the obedience of man ; the new one is not founded upon the inconstancy of man's will, but the firmness of Divine love, and the valuable merit of Christ. The head of the first covenant was human and mutable ; the Head of the second is divine and immutable. The curse due to us by the breach of the first, is taken off" by the indulgence of the second: we are by it snatched from the jaws of the law, to be wrapped up in the bosom of grace (Rom. viii. 1). " For you are not undei' the law, but under grace" (Rom. vi. 14) ; from the curse e Tuneti, Ser. p. 33. 276 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES^ and conrL'mnation of the law, to the sweetness and forgiveness of -^race. Christ bore the one, being "made a curse for us" (Gah iii, 13), that we miglit enjoy the sweetness of the other : by this we are orought from Mount Sinai, the mount of terror, to Mount Sion, the mount of sacrifice, the type of the great Sacrifice (Heb. xii. 18, 22). That covenant brought in death upon one offence, this cove- nant offers life after many offences (Rom. v. 16, 17): that involves us in a curse, and this enricheth us with a blessing ; the breaches of that expelled us out of Paradise, and the embracing of this ad- mits us into heaven. This covenant demands, and admits of that re^^entance whereof there was no mention in the first; that de manded obedience, not repentance upon a failure ; and though the exercise of it had been never so deep in the fallen creature, nothing of the law's severity had been remitted by any virtue of it. Again, the first covenant demanded exact righteousness, but conveyed no cleansing virtue, upon the contracting any filth. The first demands a continuance in the righteousness conferred in creation ; the sec- ond imprints a gracious heart in regeneration. " I will pour clean water upon you ; I will put a new spirit within you," was the voice of the second covenant, not of the first. Again, as to pardon : Adam's covenant was to punish him, not to pardon him, if he fell ; that threatened death upon transgression, this remits it ; that was an act of Divine sovereignty, declaring the will of God ; this is an act of Divine grace, passing an act of oblivion on the crimes of the creature : that, as it demanded no rejDcntance upon a failure, so it promised no mercy upon guilt ; that convened our sin, and con- demned us for it ; this clears our guilt, and comforts us under it. The first covenant related us to God as a Judge ; every transgres- sion against it forfeited his indulgence as a Father : the second delivers us from God as a condemning Judge, to bring us under his wing, as an affectionate Father ; in the one there was a dreadful frown to scare us ; in the other, a healing wing to cover and re- lieve us. Again, in regard of righteousness : that demanded our performance of a righteousness in and by ourselves, and our own strength ; this demands our acceptance of a righteousness higher than ever the standing angels had ; the righteousness of the first covenant was the righteousness of a man, the righteousness of the second is the righteousness of a God (2 Cor. v. 21), Again, in re- gard of that obedience it demands : it exacts not of us, as a ne- cessary condition, the perfection of obedience, but the sincerity of obedience ; an uprightness in our intention, not an unspottedness in our action ; an integrity in our aims, and an industry in our com- pliance with divine precepts : " Walk before me, and be thou perfect" (Gen. xvii. 1) ; i. e. sincere. What is hearty in our actions, is accepted ; and what is defective, is overlooked, and not charged upon us, because of the obedience and righteousness of our Surety. The first covenant rejected all our services after sin ; the services of a person under the sentence of death, are but dead services : this ac- cepts our imperfect services, after faith in it ; that administered nc strength to obey, but supposed it ; this supposeth our inability to obey, and confers some strength for it : "I will put my spirit ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 277 within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes" (Ezek. xxxvu 27). Again, in regard of tlie promises : the old covenant had good, but the new hath " better promises" (Heb. viii. 6), of justification after guilt and sanctification after filth, and glorification at last of the whole man. In the first, there was provision against guilt, but none for the removal of it : provision against filth, but none for the cleansing of it ; promise of happiness implied, but not so great a one as that "life and immortality" in heaven, "brought to light by the gospel" (2 Tim. i. 10). Why said to be " brought to light by the gospel ?" because it was not only buried, upon the fall of man under the curses of the law, but it was not so obvious to the con- ceptions of man in his innocent state. Life indeed was implied to be promised upon his standing, but not so glorious an immortality disclosed, to be reserved for him, if he stood : as it is a covenant of better promises, so a covenant of sweeter comforts ; comforts more choice, and comforts more durable; an "everlasting consolation, and a good hope" are the fruits of " grace," i. e. the covenant of grace (2 Thess. ii. 16). In the whole there is such a love disclosed, as cannot be expressed ; the apostle leaves it to every man's mind to conceive it, if he could, " What manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God" (1 John iii. 1). It instates us in such a manner of the love of God as he bears to his Son, the image of his person (John xvii. 23) : " That the world may know that thou hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." 3. This goodness appears in the choice gift of himself which he hath made over in this covenant (Gen. xvii. 7). You know how it runs in Scripture : "I will be their God, and they shall be my peo- ple" (Jer. xxxii. 38) : a propriety in the Deity is made over by it. As he gave the blood of his Son to seal the covenant, so he gave himself as the blessing of the covenant; " He is not ashamed to be '''.ailed their God" (Heb. xi. 16). Though he be environed with mil- lions of angels, and presides over them in an inexpressible glory, he ■is not ashamed of his condescensions to man, and to pass over him- self as the propriety of his people, as well as to take them to be his. It is a diminution of the sense of the place, to understand it of God, .as Creator; what reason was there for God to be ashamed of the ex- pressions of his power, wisdom, goodness, in the works of his hands ? But we might have reason to think there might be some ground in God to be ashamed of making himself over in a deed of gift to a mean worm and filth}^ rebel ; this might seem a disparagement to his majesty ; but God is not ashamed of a title so mean, as the God of his despised people ; a title below those others, of the " Lord of hosts, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders, riding on the wings of the wind, walking in the circuits of heaven." He is Qo more ashamed of this title of being our God, than he is of those other that sound more glorious ; he would rather have his greatness veil to his goodness, than his goodness be confined by his majesty; he is not only our God, but our God as he is the God of Christ : he is not ashamed to be our proj^riety, and Christ is not ashamed to own his people in a partnership with him in this propriety (John xx. 278 CHAENOCK ON THK ATTRIBUTES. 17): *' I ascend to my God, and your God." This of God's being our God, is the quintessence of the covenant, the soul of all the promises : in this he hath promised whatsoever is infinite in him, whatsoever is the glory and ornament of his nature, for our use ; not a part of him, or one single j^erfection, but the whole vigor and strength of all. As he is not a God without infinite wisdom, and in- finite power, and infinite goodness, and infinite blessedness, &c., so he passes over, in this covenant, all that which presents him as the most adorable Being to his creatures ; he will be to them as great, as wise, as powerful, as good as he is in himself; and the assuring us, in this covenant, to be our God, imports also that he will do as much for us, as we would do for ourselves, were we furnished with the same goodness, power, and wisdom : in being our God, he testi- fies it is all one, as if we had the same perfections in our own power to employ for our use ; for he being possessed with them, it is as much as if we ourselves were possessed with them, for our own ad vantage, according to the rules of wisdom, and the several conditions we pass through for his glory. But this must be taken with a rela- tion to that wisdom, which he observes in his proceedings with us as creatures, and according to the several conditions we pass through for his glory. Thus God's being ours is more than if all heaven and earth were ours besides ; it is more than if we were fully our own, and at our own dispose ; it makes " all things that God hath ours" (1 Cor. iii. 22) ; and therefore, not only all things he hath created, but all things that he can create ; not only all things that he hath contrived, but all things that he can contrive : for in being ours, his power is ours, his possible power as well as his active power ; his power, whereby he can effect more than he hath done, and his wis- dom, whereby he can contrive more than he hath done ; so that if there were need of employing his power to create many worlds for our good, he would not stick at it ; for if he did, he would not be our God, in the extent of his nature, as the promise intimates. What a rich goodness, and a fulness of bounty, is there in this short ex- pression, as full as the expression of a God can make it, to be intelli- gible, to such creatures as we are ! 4. This goodness is further manifest in the confirmation of the covenant. His goodness did not only condescend to make it for our happiness, after we had made ourselves miserable, but further conde- scended to ratify it in the solemnest manner for our assurance, to overrule all the despondencies unbelief could raise up in our souls. The reason why he confirmed it by an oath, was to show the immu- tability of his glorious counsel, not to tie himself to keep it, for his word and promise is in itself as immutable as his oath ; they were " two immutable things, his word and his oath," one as unchange able as the other ; but for the strength of our consolation, that it might have no reason to shake and totter (Heb. vi. 17, 18) : he would condescend as low as was possible for a God to do for the satisfaction of the dejected creature. When the first covenant was broken, and it was impossible for man to fulfil the terms of it, and mount to hap- piness thereby, he makes another; and, as if we had reason to dis- trust hira in the first, he solemnly ratifies it in a higher manner than ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 279 he had done tne other, and swears by himself that he will be true to it, not so much out of an election of himself, as the object of the oath (Heb. vi. 13) : " Because he could not swear by a greater, he swears by himseliY' whereby the apostle clearly intimates, that Di vine goodness was raised to such a height for us, that if there had been anything else more sacred than himself, or that could have punished him if he had broken it, that he would have sworn by, to silence any dif&dence in us, and confirm us in the reality of his in- tentions. Now if it were a mighty mark of goodness for God to stoop to a covenantmg with us, it was more for a sovereign to bind him- self so solemnly to be our debtor in a promise, as well as he was our sovereign in the precept, and stoop so low in it to satisfy the distrust of that creature, that deserved for ever to lie soaking in his own ruins, for not believing his bare word. What absolute prince would ever stoop so low as to article with rebellious subjects, whom he could in a moment set his foot upon and crush ; much less counten- ance a causeless distrust of his goodness by the addition of his oath, and thereby bind his own hands, which were unconfined before, and free to do what he pleased with them ? 5. This goodness of God is remarkable also in the condition of this covenant which is faith. This was the easiest condition, in its own nature, that could be imagined ; no difficulty in it but what proceeds from the pride of man's nature, and the obstinacy of his will. It was not impossible in itself ; it was not the old condition of perfect obedience. It had been mighty goodness to set us up again upon our old stock, and restore us to the tenor and condition of the covenant of works, or to have required the burdensome ceremonies of the law. Nor is it an exact knowledge he requires of us ; all men's under- standings being of a different size, they had not been capable of this. It was the most reasonable condition, in regard of the excellency of the things proposed, and the effects following upon it ; nay, it was necessary. It had been a want of goodness to himself and his own honor ; he had cast that off, had he not insisted on this condition of faith, it being the lowest he could condescend to with a salvo for his glory. And it was a goodness to us ; it is nothing else he requires, but a willingness to accept what he hath contrived and acted for us : and no man can be happy against his will ; without this belief, at least, man could never voluntarily have arrived to his happiness. The goodness of God is evidenced in that. [1st.] It is an easy condition, not impossible. 1. It was not the condition of the old covenant. The condition of that was an entire obedience to every precept with a man's whole strength, and with- out any flaw or crack. But the condition of the evangelical cove- nant is a sincere, though weak, faith ; He hath suited this covenant to the misery of man's fallen condition ; he considers our w^eakness, and that we are but dust, and therefore exacts not of us an entire, but a sincere, obedience. Had God sent Christ to expiate the crime of Adam, restore him to his paradise estate, and repair in man the ruined image of holiness, and after this to have renewed the coven- ant of works for the future, and settled the same condition in exact- ing a complete nT-.edience for the time to come ; Divine goodness had 280 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. been above any accusation, and had deserved our highest admiration in the pardon of former transgressions, and giving out to us oui first stock. But Divine goodness took larger strides : he had tried our first condition, and found his mutable creature quickly to vio- late it: had he demanded the same now, it is likely it had met with the same issue as before, in man's disobedience an d fall ; we should have been as men, as Adam (Hos. vi. 7), " transgressing the coven- ant ;" and then we must have lain groaning under our disease, and wallowing in our blood, unless Christ had come to die for the expi- ation of our new crimes ; for every transgression had been a viola- tion of that covenant, and a forfeiture of our right to the benefits of it. If we had broke it but in one tittle, we had rendered our- selves incapable to fulfil it for the future ; that one transgression had stood as a bar against the pleas of after-obedience. But God hath wholly laid that condition aside as to us, and settled that of faith, more easy to be performed, and to be renewed by us. It is infinite grace in him, that he will accept of faith in us, instead of that perfect obedience he required of us in the covenant of works. 2. It is easy, not like the burdensome ceremonies appointed under the law. He exacts not now the legal obedience, expensive sacri- fices, troublesome purifications, and abstinences, that "yoke of bon- dage" (Gal. V. 1) which they were " not able to bear" (Acts xv. 10). He treats us not as servants, or children, in their nonage, under the elements of the world, nor requires those innumerable bodily exer- cises that he exacted of them : he demands not " a thousand of lambs," and " rivers of oil ;" but he requires a sincere confession and repent- ance, in order to our absolution ; an " unfeigned faith," in order to our blessedness, and elevation to a glorious life. He requires only that we should believe what he saith, and have so good an opinion of his goodness and veracity, as to persuade ourselves of the reality of his intentions, confide in his word, and rely upon his promise, cordially embrace his crucified Son, whom he hath set forth as the means of our happiness, and have a sincere respect to all the dis- coveries of his will. What can be more easy than this? Though some in the days of the apostles, and others since have endeavored to introduce a multitude of legal burdens, as if they envied God the expressions of his goodness, or thought him guilty of too much re- missness, in taking off the yoke, and treating man too favorably. 3. Nor is it a clear knowledge of every revelation, that is the condition of this covenant. God in his kindness to man hath made revelations of himself, but his goodness is manifested in obliging us to believe him, not fully to understand him. He hath made them, by sufiEicient testimonies, as clear to our faith, as they are incomprehensible to our reason : he hath revealed a Trinity of Persons, in their distinct offices in the business of redemption, without which revelation of a Trinity we could not have a right notion and scheme of redeeming grace. But since the clearness of men's understanding is sullied by the fall, and hath lost its wings to fly up to a knowledge of such sublime things as that oi the Trinity, and other mysteries of the Christian religion, God hath manifested his goodness in not obliging us to un« derstanil them but to believe them ; and hath given us reason enough Ch!i THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 281 to believe it to be his revelation, (both from the nature of the reve- lation itself, and the way and manner of propagating it, which is wholly divine, exceeding all the methods of human art,) though he hath not extended our understandings to a capacity to know them, and render a reason of every mystery. He did not require of every Israelite, or of any of them that were stung by the fiery serpents, that the}" should understand, or be able to discourse of the nature and qualities of that brass of which the serpent upon the pole was made, or by what art that serpent was formed, or in what manner the sight of it did operate in them for their cure ; it was enough that they did believe the institution and precept of God, and that their own cure was assured by it : it was enough if they cast their eyes upon it according to the direction. The understandings of men are of several sizes and elevations, one higher than another : if the con- dition of this covenant had been a greatness of knowledge, the most acute men had only enjoyed the benefits of it. But it is " faith,' which is as easy to be performed by the ignorant and simple, as b}" the strongest and most towering mind : it is that which is within the compass of every man's understanding. God did not require that every one within the verge of the covenant should be able to dis- course of it to the reasons of men ; he required not that every man should be a philosopher, or an orator, but a believer. What could be more easy than to lift up the eye to the brazen serpent, to be imself hath committed; and so save a man altei I ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 283 & repeated unthankfulness to the most immense grace that ever was, 01 can be, discovered and oifered, without a detestation of his ingrat- itude, and a voluntary acceptance of his offers ? It is necessary, for the honor of God, that man should accept of his terms, and not give laws to him to whom he is obnoxious as a guilty person, as well as subject as a creature. Again, it was very equitable and necessary for the honor of Grod, that since man fell by an unbelief of his pre- cept and threatening, he should not rise again without a belief of his promise, and casting himself upon his truth in that : since he had vilified the honor of his truth m the threatening ; since man in his fall would lean to his own understanding against God, it is fit that^ m his recovery, the highest powers of his soul, his understanding and will, should be subjected to him in an entire resignation. Now, whereas knowledge seems to have a power over its object, faith is a full submission to that which is the object of it. Since man intended a glorying in himself, the evangelical covenant directs its whole bat tery against it, that men may " glory in nothing but Divine good- ness" (1 Cor. i. 29 — 31). Had man performed exact obedience by his own strength, he had had something in himself as the matter of his glory. And though, after the fall, grace had made itself illustrious in setting him up upon a new stock, yet had the same condition of exact obedience been settled in the same manner, man would have had something to glory in, which is struck off wholly by faith ; whereby man in every act must go out of himself for a supply, to that Medi- ator which Divine goodness and grace hath appointed. 2. It is ne- cessary for the happiness of man. That can be no contenting con dition wherein the will of man doth not concur. He that is forced to the most delicious diet, or to wear the bravest apparel, or to be stored with abundance of treasure, cannot be happy in those things without an esteem of them, and delight in them : if they be nau- seous to him, the indisposition of his mind is a dead fly in those boxes of precious ointment. Now, faith being a sincere willingness to accept of Christ, and to come to God by him, and repentance be- ing a detestation of that which made man's separation from God, it is impossible he could be voluntarily happy without it : man cannot attain and enjoy a true happiness without an operation of his under- standing about the object proposed, and the means appointed to en- joy it. There must be a knowledge of what is offered, and of the way of it, and such a knowledge as may determine the will to affect that end, and embrace those means ; which the will can never do, till the understanding be fully persuaded of the truth of the offerer, and the goodness of the proposal itself, and the conveniency of the means for the attaining of it. It is necessary, in the nature of the thing, that what is revealed should be believed to be a Divine reve- lation. God must be judged true in the promising justification and sanctification, the means of happiness ; and if any man desires to be partaker of those promises, he must desire to be sanctified ; and how can he desire that which is the matter of those promises, if he wal- low in his own lusts, and desire to do so, a thing repugnant to the promise itself ? Would you have God force man to be happy against his will ? Is it not very reasonable he should demand the consent 284 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTKIBUTES. of his reasonable creature to that blessedness lie offers him ? The new covenant is a " marriage covenant" (Hos. ii. 16, 19, 20), which implies a consent on our parts, as well as a corsent on God's part ; that is no marriage that hath not the consent of both parties. Now faith is our actual consent, and repentance and sincere obedience are the testimonies of the truth and reality of this consent. 6th. Divine goodness is eminent in his methods of treating with men to embrace this covenant. They are methods of gentleness and sweetness : it is a wooing goodness, and a bewailing goodness ; his expressions are with strong motions of affection : he carrieth not on the gospel by force of arms : he doth not solely menace men into it, as worldly conquerors have done ; he doth not, as Mahomet, plunder men's estates, and wound their bodies, to imprint a religion on their souls : he doth not erect gibbets-, and kindle faggots, to scare men to an entering into covenant with him. What multitudes might he have raised by his power, as well as others ! What legions of angels might he have rendezvoused from heaven, to have beaten men into a profession of the gospel ! Nor doth he only interpose his sove- reign authority in the precept of faith, but useth rational expostula tions, to move men voluntarily to comply with his proposals (Isa. i. 18), " Come now, and let us reason together," saith the Lord. He seems to call heaven and earth to be judge, whether he had been wanting in any reasonable ways of goodness, to overcome the perversity of the creature ; (Isa. i. 2), " Hear, 0 heavens, and give ear, 0 earth, I have nourished and brought up children." What various en- couragements doth he use agreeable to the nature of men, endeavor- ing to persuade them with all tenderness, not to despise their own mercies, and be enemies to their own happiness ! He would allure us by his beauty, and win us by his mercy. He uses the arms of his own excellency and our necessity to prevail upon us, and this after the highest provocations. When Adam had trampled upon his creating goodness, it was not crushed ; and when man had cast it from him, it took the higher rebound : when the rebel's provoca- tion was fresh in his mind, he sought him out with a promise in his hand, though Adam fled from him out of enmity as well as fear (Gen, iii). And when the Jews had outraged his Son, whom he loved from eternity, and made the Lord of heaven and earth bow down his head like a slave on the cross, yet in that place, where the most horrible wickedness had been committed, must the gospel be preached : the law must go forth out of that Sion, and the apostles must not stir from thence till they had received the promise of the Spirit, and published the word of grace in that ungrateful city, whose inhabitants yet swelled with indignation against the Lord of Life, and the doctrine he had preached among them (Luke xxiv. 47 ; Acts i, 4, 5). He would overlook their indignities out of ten derness to their souls, and expose the apostles to the peril of theii lives, rather than expose his enemies to the fury of the devil. 1. How affectionately doth he invite men ! What multitudes of alluring promises and pressing exhortations are there everywhere sprinkled in the Scripture, and in such a passionate manner, as if God were solely concerned in our good, without a glance on hiscwT) I ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 28o glory ! How tenderly dotli lie woo flinty hearts, and express more pity to them than they do to themselves ! With what affection do his bowels rise up to his lips in his speech in the prophet, Isa. li. 4, " Hearken to me, O my people, and give ear unto me, O my nation!'' "My people," "my nation !" — melting expressions of a tender God soliciting a rebellious people to make their retreat to him. He never emptied his hand of his bounty, nor divested his lips of those chari- table expressions. He sent Noah to move the wicked of the old world to an embracing of his goodness, and frequent prophets to the provoking Jews ; and as the world continued, and grew up to a taller stature in sin, he stoops more in the manner of his expres sions. Never was the world at a higher pitch of idolatry than at the first publishing the gospel ; yet, when we should have expected him to be a punishing, he is a beseeching God. The apostle fears not to use the expression for the glory of . ivine goodness ; " We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us" (2 Cor. V. 20). The beseeching voice of God is in the voice of the ministry , as the voice of the prince is in that of the herald : it is as if Divine goodness did kneel down to a sinner with ringed hands and blubbered cheeks, entreating him not to force him to re-assume a tribunal of justice in the nature of a Judge, since he would treat with man upon a throne of grace in the nature of a Father ; yea, he seems to put himself into the posture of the criminal, that the offend* ing creature might not feel the punishment due to a rebel. It is not the condescension, but the interest, of a traitor to creep upon his knees in sackcloth to his sovereign, to beg his life ; but it is a mirac- ulous goodness in the sovereign to creep in the lowest posture to the rebel, to importune him, not only for an amity to him, but a love for his own life and happiness : this He doth, not only in his general proclamations, but in his particular wooings, those inward courtings of his Spirits, soliciting them with more diligence (if they would ob- serve it) to their happiness, than the devil tempts them to the ways of their misery: as he was first in Christ, reconciling the world, when the world looked not after him, so he is first in his Spirit, wooing the world to accept of that reconciliation, when the world will not listen to him. How often doth he flash up the light of na- ture and the light of the word in men's hearts, to move them not to lie down in sparks of their own kindling, but to aspire to a better happiness, and prepare them to be subject to a higher mercy, if they would improve his present entreaties to such an end ! And what are his tnreatenings designed for, but to move the wheel of our fears, that the wheel of our desire and love might be set on motion for the embracing his promise ? They are not so much the thun- ders of his justice, as the loud rhetoric of his good will, to prevent men's misery under the vials of wrath : it is his kindness to scare men by threatenings, that justice might not strike them with the sword : it is not the destruction, but the preserving reformation, that he aims at : he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; this he •vionfirms by his oath. His threatenings are gracious expostulations with them : " Why will ye die, O house of Israel" (Ezek. xxxiii 11) ? They are like the noise a favorable officer makes in the street 286 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. to waru the criminal he comes to seize upon, to make his escape : he never used his justice to crush men, till he had used his kindness tc allure them. All the dreadful descriptions of a future wrath, as well as the lively descriptions of the happiness of another world, are de- signed to persuade men ; the honey of his goodness is in the bowels of those roaring lions : such pains doth Goodness take with men, tc make them candidates for heaven. 2. How readily doth he receive men when they do return ! "We have David's experience for it (Ps. xxxii. 5) ; "I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord ; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah." A sincere look from the creature draws out his arms, and opens his bosom ; he is ready with his physic to heal us, upon a resolution to acquaint him with our disease, and by his med- icines prevents the putting our resolution into a petition. The Psalmist adds a " Selah" to it, as a special note of thankfulness for Divine goodness. He doth not only stand ready to receive our pe- titions while we are speaking, but answers us before we call (Isa. Ixv. 24) ; listening to the motions of our heart, as well as to the sup- plications of our lips. He is the true Father, that hath a quicker pace in meeting, than the prodigal hath in returning ; who would not have his embraces and caresses interrupted by his confession (Luke XV. 20 — 22) ; the confession follows, doth not precede, the Father's compassion. How doth he rejoice in having an opportu- nity to express his grace, when he hath prevailed with a rebel to throw down his arms, and lie at his feet; and this because "he de- Ughts in mercy" (Micah. vii. 18) ! He delights in the expressions of it from himself, and the acceptance of it by his creature. 3. How meltingly doth he bewail man's wilful refusal of his good- ness I It is a mighty goodness to offer grace to a rebel ; a mighty goodness to give it him after he hath a while stood off from the terms ; an astonishing goodness to regret and lament his wilful per- dition. He seems to utter those words in a sigh, " O that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my way" (Ps. Ixxxi. 13) I It is true, God hath not human passions, but his affec- tions cannot be expressed otherwise in a way intelligible to us ; the excellency of his nature is above the passions of men ; but such ex- pressions of himself manifest to us the sincerity of his goodness : and that, were he capable of our passions, he would express himself in such a manner as we do : and we find incarnate Goodness bewailing with tears and sighs the ruin of Jerusalem (Luke xix. 42). By the same reason that when a sinner returns there is joy in heaven, upon his obstinacy there is sorrow in earth. The one is, as if a prince should clothe all his court in triumphant scarlet, upon a rebel's re- pentance ; and the other, as if a prince put himself and his court in mourning for a rebel's obstinate refusal of a pardon, when he lies at his mercy. Are not now these affectionate invitations, and deep be- wailings of their perversity, high testimonies of Divine goodness ? Do not the unwearied repetitions of gracious encouragements deserve a higher name than that of mere goodness? What can be a stronger evidence of the sincerity of it, than the sound of his saving voice ia JUT enjoyments, the motion of his Spirit in our hearts, and his grief ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 287 for llie neglect of all ? These are not testimonies of any want of goodness in his nature to answer us, or unwillingness to express it to his creature. Hath he any mind to deceive us, that thus intreats us ? The majesty of his nature is too great for such shifts ; or, if it were not, the despicableness of our condition would render liim above the using any. Who would charge that physician with want of kind- ness, that freely offers his sovereign medicine, importunes men, by the love they have to their health, to take it, and is dissolved into tears and sorrow when he finds it rejected by their peevish and con- ceited humor ? 7th. Divine goodness is eminent in the sacraments he hath afiixed to this covenant, especially the Lord's supper. As he gave himself in his Son, so he gives his Son in the sacrament ; ho doth not only give him as a sacrifice upon the cross for the expiation of our crimes, but as a feast upon the table for the nourishment of our souls : in the one he was given to be ofiered ; in this he gives him to be par- taken of, with all the fruits of his death ; under the image of the sacramental signs, every believer doth eat the flesh, and drink the blood of the great Mediator of the covenant. The words of Christ, " This is my body, and this is my blood," are true to the end of the world (Matt. xxvi. 26, 28). This is the most delicious viand of heaven, the most exquisite dainty food God can feed us with : the delight of the Deity, the admiration of angels ; a feast with God is great, but a feast on God is greater. Under those signs that body is presented ; that which was conceived by the Spirit, inhabited by the Godhead, bruised by the Father to be our food, as well as our pro- pitiation, is presented to us on the table. That blood which satisfied justice, washed away our guilt on the cross, and pleads for our per- sons at the throne of grace ; that blood which silenced the curse, pacified heaven, and purged earth, is given to us for our refreshment. This is the bread sent from heaven, the true manna ; the cup is "the cup of blessing," and, therefore, a cup of goodness (1 Cor. x. 15) It is true, bread doth not cease to be bread, nor the wine cease to be wine ; neither of them lose their substance, but both acquire a sanc- tification, by the relation they have to that which they represent, and give a nourishment to that faith that receives them. In those God offers us a remedy for the sting of sin, and troubles of con- science ; he gives us not the blood of a mere man, or the blood of an incarnate angel, but of God blessed forever ; a blood that can se- cure us against the wrath of heaven, and the tumults of our con- scien- cs ; a blood that can wash away our sins, and beautify our souls ; a blood that hath more strength than our filth, and more prev- alency than our accuser ; a blood that secures us against the terrors of death, and purifies us for the blessedness of heaven. The goodness of God complies with our senses, and condescends to our weakness ; he instructs us by the eye, as well as by the ear ; he lets us see, and taste, and feel him, as well as hear him ; he veils his glory under earthly elements, and informs our understanding in the mysteries c-f salvation by signs familiar to our senses ; and because we cannot with our bodily eyes behold him in his glory, he preser ts him to the eyes of our minds in elements, to affect our understandings in the 288 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. representati ns of Ms death. The body of Christ crucmeu !» more visible to our spiritual sense, than the invisible Deity could be visible in his flesh upon earth ; and the power of his body and blood is as well experimented in our souls, as the pov/er of his Divinity was seen by the Jews in his miraculous actions in his body in the world. It is the goodness of God, to mind us frequently of the great things Christ hath purchased ; that as himself would not let them be out of his mind, to communicate them to us, so he would give us means to preserve them in our minds, to adore him for them, and request them of him ; whereby he doth evidence his own solicitousness, that we should not be deprived by our own forgetfulness of that grace Christ hath purchased for us ; it was to remember the Redeemer, " and show his death till he came" (1 Cor, xi. 25, 26). 1. His goodness is seen in the end of it, which is a sealing the cov- enant of grace. The common nature and end of sacraments is to seal the covenant they belong to, and the truths of the 23romises of it.f The legal sacraments of circumcision and the passover sealed the legal promises and the covenant in the Judicial administration of it ; and the evangelical sacraments seal the evangelical promises, as a ring confirms a contract of marriage, and a seal the articles of a compact; by the same reason, circumcision is called a "seal of the righteousness of faith" (Rom. iv. 11) ; other sacraments may have the same title ; God doth attest, that he will remain firm in his prom- ise, and the receiver attests he will remain firm in his faith. In all reciprocal covenants, there are mutual engagements, and that which serves for a seal on the part of the one, serves for a seal also on the part of the other ; God obligeth himself to the performance of the promise, and man engageth himself to the performance of his duty. The thing confirmed by this sacrament is the perpetuity of this cov- enant in the blood of Christ, whence it is called " the New Testa- ment," or covenant " in the blood of Christ" (Luke xxii. 20). In every repetition of it, God, by presenting, confirms his resolution to- us, of sticking to this covenant for the merit of Christ's blood ; and the receiver, by eating the body and drinking the blood, engageth himself to keep close to the condition of faith, expecting a full sal- vation and a blessed immortality upon the merit of the same blood alone. This sacrament could not be called the " New Testament, or Covenant," if it had not some relation to the covenant ; and what it can be but this, I do not understand. The covenant itself was con- firmed " by the death of Christ" (Heb. ix. 15), and thereby made un- changeable both in the benefits to us, and the condition required of us ; but he seals it to our sense in a sacrament, to give us strong con- solation ; or, rather, the articles of the covenant of redemption be- tween the Father and the Son, agreed on from eternity, were accom- plished on Christ's part by his death, on the Father's part by his resurrection ; Christ performed what he promised in the one, and God acknowledgeth the validity of it, and performs what he had promised in the other. The covenant of grace, founded uj)on this covenant of redemption, is sealed in the sacrament ; God owns his standing to the terms of it, as sealed by the blood of the Mediator, by presenting f Aniyral. Irenicuin. pp. 16, 17. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 289 him to us uuder those signs, and gives us a right upon faith to the enjoyment of the fruits of it. As the riglit of a house is made over oy the dehvery of the key, and the right of land translated by the delivery of a turf ; whereby he gives us assurance of his reali ty, and a strong support to our confidence in him ; not that there is any virtue and power of sealing in the elements themselves, no more than there is in a turf to give an enfeoffment in a parcel of land ; but as the power of one is derived from the order of the law, so the con- firming power of the sacrament is derived from the institution of God ; as the oil wherewith kings were annointed, did not of itself confer upon them that royal dignity, but it was a sign of their inves- titure into ofl&ce, ordered by Divine institution. We can with no reason imagine, that God intended them as naked signs or pictures, to please our eyes with the image of them, to represent their own fig- ures to our eyes, but to confirm something to our understanding by the efficacy of the Spirit accompanying them:& they convey to the believing receiver what they represent, as the gi'eat seal of a prince, fixea to the parchment, doth the pardon of a rebel as well as its own figure. Christ's death, and the grace of the covenant is not only sig- nified, but the fruits and merit of that death communicated also. Thus doth Divine goodness evidence itself, not only in making a gracious covenant with us, but fixing seals to it ; not to strengthen his own obligation, which stood stronger than the foundations of heaven and earth, upon the credit of his word, but to strengthen our weakness, and support our security, by something which might ap- pear more formal and solemn than a bare word. By this, the Divine goodness provides against our spiritual faintings, and shows us by real signs as well as verbal declarations, that the covenant sealed by the blood of Christ, is unalterable ; and thereby would fortify and mount our hopes to degrees in some measure suitable to the kindness of the covenant, and the dignity of the Redeemer's blood. And it is yet a further degree of this goodness, that he hath appointed us so often to celebrate it, whereby he shows how careful he is to keep up our tottering faith, and preserve us constant in oui" obedience ; obliging himself to the performance of his promise, and obliging us to the pay- ment of our duty. 2. His goodness is seen in the sacrament in giving us in it an union and communion with Christ. There is not only a commemo- ration of Christ dying, but a communication of Christ living. The apostle strongly asserts it by way of interrogation (1 Cor. x. 16), " The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? the bread which we break, is it not the com- munion of the body of Christ ?" In the cup there is a communica- tion of the blood of Christ, a conveyance of a right to the merits of his death, and the blessedness of his life : we are not less by this made one body with Christ than we are by baptism (1 Cor. xii. 13) : And " put on Christ" living in this, as well as in baptism (Gal. iii. 27) ; that as his taking our infirm flesh was a real incarnation, so the giving us his flesh to eat is a mystical incarnation in believers, where- by they become one body with him as crucified, and one body with I Daille, Melaug. Fart I, p. 253. 5*90 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. him as risen ; for if Christ himself be received by faith in the word (Col. ii. 6), he is no less received bj faith in the sacrament. When the Holy Ghost is said to be received, the graces or gifts of the Holy Ghost are received ; so when Christ is received, the fruits of hia death are really partaken of. The Israelites that ate of the sacrifices, did " partake of the altar" (1 Cor. x. 18), i. e. had a communion with the God of Israel, to whom they had been sacrificed ; and those that " ate of the sacrifices" offered to idols, had a " fellowship with devils," to whom those sacrifices were offered (ver. 20). Those that partake of the sacraments in a due manner, have a communion with that God to whom it was sacrificed, and a communion with that body which was sacrificed to God ; not that the substance of that body and blood is wrapped up in the elements, or that the bread and wine are transfDrmed into the body and blood of Christ, but as they re- present him, and by virtue of the institution are, in estimation him- self, his own body and blood ; by the same reason as he is called *' Christ our passover," he may be called "Christ our supper" (1 Cor. V. 7) : for as they are so reekoned to an unworthy receiver, as if they were the real body and blood of Christ, because by his not dis- cerning the Lord's body in it, or making light of it as common bread, he is judged " guilty of the body and blood of Christ," guilty of treat- ing him in as base a manner as the Jews did when they crowned him with thorns (1 Cor. * xi. 27, 29) : by the same reason they must be reckoned to a worthy receiver, as the very body and blood of Christ : so that as the unworthy receiver " eats and drinks damnation," the worthy receiver " eats and drinks" salvation. It would be an empty mj-stery, and unworthy of an institution by Divine goodness, if there were not some communion with Christ in it : there would be some kind of deceit in the precept, " Take, eat, and drink, this is my body and blood," if there were not a conversance of spiritual vital influ- ences to our souls : for the natural end of eating and drinking is the nourishment and increase of the body, and preservation of life, by that which we eat and drink. The infinite wise, gracious, and true God, would never give us empty figures without accomplishing that which is signified by them, and suitable to them. How great is this goodness of God ! he would have his Son in us, one with us, straitly joined to us, as if we were his proper flesh and blood : in the incar- nation Divine goodness united him to our nature ; in the sacrament, it doth in a sort unite him wit-h his purchased privileges to our per- sons ; we have not a communion with a part or a member of his foody, or a drop of his blood, but with his whole body and blood, re- presented in every part of the elements. The angels in the heaven enjoy not so great a privilege ; they have the honor to be under him i\s their Head, but not that of having him for their food ; they be- hold him, but they do not taste him. And, certainly, that goodnesg that hath condescended so much to our weakness, would impart it to us in a very glorious manner, were we capable of it. But, because a r:\an cannot behold the light of the sun in its full splendor by rea- son of the infirmities of his eyes, he must behold it by the help of a glass, and such a communication through a colored and opaque glass, is as real fi-om the sun itself, though not so glorious, but more shrouded ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 291 and obscure ; it is the same light that shines through thai medium. as spreads itself gloriously in the open air, though the one be masked, and the other open-faced. To conclude this, by the way, we may take notice of the neglect of this ordinance : if it be a token of Divine goodness to appoint it, it is no sign of our estimation of Divine goodness to neglect it. He that values the kindness of his friend, will accept of his invitation, if there be not some strong im- pediments in the way, or so much familiarity with him that his re- fusal upon a light occasion would not be unkindly taken. But though God put on the disposition of a friend to us, yet he looseth not the authority of a sovereign ; and the humble familiarity he in- vites us to, doth not diminish the condition and duty of a subject. A sovereign prince would not take it well, if a favorite should refuse the offered houor of his table. The viands of God are not to be slighted. Can we live better upon our poor pittance than upon his dainties ? Did not Divine goodness condescend in it to the weak- ness of our faith, and shall we conceit our faith stronger than God thinks it ? If he thought fit by those seals to make a deed of gift to us, shall we be so unmannerly to him, and such enemies to the se- curity he offers us over and above his word, as not to accept it ? Are we unwilling to have our souls inflamed with love, our hearts filled with comfort, and armed against the attempts of our enemies ? It is true, there is a guilt of the body and blood of Christ contracted by a slightness in the manner of attending ; is it not also contracted by a refusal and neglect? What is the language of it ? If it speaks not the death of Christ in vain, it speaks the institution of this ordi- nance as a remembrance of his death, to be a vanity, and no mark of Divine goodness. Let us, therefore, put such a value upon Divine goodness in this affair, as to be willing to receive the conveyances of his love, and fresh engagements of our duty ; the one is due from us to the kindness of our friend, and the other belongs to our duty as his subjects. vi. By this redemption God restores us to a more excellent condi- tion than Adam had in innocence. Christ was sent by Divine good- ness, not only to restore the life Adam's sin had stripped us of, but to give it more abundantly than Adam's standing could have con- veyed it to us (John x. lO), " I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." More abundantly for strength, more abundantly for duration, a life abounding with greater felicity and glory : the substance of those better promises of the new covenant than what attended the old. There are fuller streams of grace by Christ than flowed to Adam, or could flow from Adam. As Christ never restored any to health and strength while he was in the world, but he gave them a greater measure of both than they had before ; so there is the same kindness, no question, manifested in our spiritual condition. Adam's life might have pre- served us, but Adam's death could not have rescued either himself or his posterity; but, in our redemption, we have a Redeemer, who hath " died to expiate our sins," and so crowned with life to save. and for(>ver preserve our persons (Rom. v. 10), " Because I live, ye shall live also :" so that by redeeming goodness the life of a believer 292 CHARNOCK ON" THE ATTRIBUTES. is as perpetual as the life of the Redeemer Christ (John xiv. 19y Adam, though innocent, was under the danger of perishing ; a be* liever, though culpable, is above the fears of mutability, Adam had a holiness in his nature, but capable of being lost ; by Christ be- lievers have a holiness bestowed, not capable of being rifled, but which will remain till it be at last fully perfected : though they have a power to change in their nature, yet they are above an actual final change by the indulgence of Divine grace. Adam stood by himself; believers stand in a root, impossible to be shaken or corrupted : by this means the "promise is sure to all the seed" (Rom. iv. 16). Christ is a stronger person than Adam, who can never break cove- nant with God, and the truth of God will never break covenant with him. We are united to a more excellent Head than Adam : instead of a root merely human, we have a root Divine as well as human. In him we had the righteousness of a creature merely human ; in this we have a righteousness divine, the righteousness of God-man ; the stock is no longer in our own hands, but in the hands of One that cannot embezzle it, or forfeit it : Divine goodness hath deposit- ed it strongly for our security. The stamp we receive, by the Divine goodness, from the second Adam, is more noble than that we should have received from the first, had he remained in his created state : Adam was formed of the dust of the earth, and the new man is form- ed by the incorruptible seed of the word ; and at the resurrection, the body of man shall be endued with better qualities than Adam had at creation : they shall be like that glorious Body which is in heaven, in union with the person of the "Son of God" (Phil. iii. 21). Adam, at the best, had but an earthly body, but the Lord from heaven hath a "heavenly body," the image of which shall be borne by the redeemed ones, as they have borne the image of the earthly (1 Cor. XV. 47 — 49). Adam had the society of beasts ; redeemed ones expect, by Divine goodness in redemption, a commerce with angels ; as they are reconciled to them by his death, they shall cer- tainly come to converse with them at the consummation of their hap- piness ; as they are made of one family, so they will have a peculiar intimacy : Adam had a paradise, and redeemed ones a heaven pro- vided for them ; a happier place with a richer furniture. It is much to give so complete a paradise to innocent Adam ; but more to give heaven to an ungrateful Adam, and his rebellious posterity : it had been abundant goodness to have restored us to the same condition in that paradise from whence we were ejected ; but a superabundant goodness to bestow upon us a better habitation in heaven, which we could never have expected. How great is that goodness, when by sin we were fallen to be worse than nothing, that He should raise us to be more than what we were ; that restored us, not to the first step of our creation, but to many degrees of elevation beyond it ! not only restores us, but prefers us ; not only striking off our chains, to set us free, but clothing us with a robe of righteousness, to render us honorable ; not only quenching our hell, but preparing a heaven ; not re-garnishing an earthly, but providing a richer palace : his good- aess was so great, tliat, after it had rescued us, it would not content itself with the old furniture, but makes all new for us in another ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 293 world; a new wine to drink; a new heaven to dwell in; a more magnificent structure for our habitation : thus x^ath Groodness pre- pared for us a straiter union, a stronger life, a purer righteousness, an unshaken standing, and a fuller glory ; all more excellent than was within the compass of innocent Adam's possession. vii. This goodness in redemption extends itself to the lower crea- tion. It takes in, not only man, but the whole creation, except the fallen angels, aud gives a participation of it to insensible creatures ; upon the account of this redemption the sun, and all kind of crea- tures, were preserved, which otherwise had sunk into destruction upon the sin of man, and ceased from their being, as man had utterly ceased from his happiness (Oolos. i. 17) : "By him all things con- sist." The fall of man brought, not only a misery upon himself but a vanity upon the creature ; the earth groaned under a curse for his sake. They were all created for the glory of God, and the sup port of man in the performance of his duty, who was obliged to use them for the honor of Him that created them both. Had man been true to his obligations, and used the creatures for that end to which they were dedicated by the Creator ; as God would have then re- joiced in his works, so his works would have rejoiced in the honor •of answering so excellent an end : but when man lost his integrity, the creatures lost their perfection ; the honor of them was stained when they were debased to serve the lusts of a traitor, instead of supporting the duty of a subject, and employed in the defence of the vices of men against the precepts and authority of their common Sovereign. This was a vilifying the creature, as it would be a vili- fying the sword of a prince, which is, for the maintenance of justice, to be used for the murder of an innocent ; and a dishonoring a royal mansion, to make it a storehouse for a dunghill. Had those things the benefit of sense, they would groan under this disgrace, and rise up in indignation against them that offered them this affront, and turned them from their proper end. "When sin entered, the heavens that were made to shine upon man, and the earth that was made to bear and nourish an innocent creature, were now subjected to serve a rebellious creature ; and as man turned against God, so he made those instruments against God, to serve his enmity, luxury, sensual- ity. Hence the creatures are said to groan (Rom. viii. 22) ; " The whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now." They would really groan, had they understanding to be sensible of the outrage done them. " The whole creation." — It is the pang of uni- versal nature, the agony of the whole creation, to be alienated from the original use for which they were intended, and be disjointed from their end to serve the disloyalty of a rebel. The drunkard's cup, and the glutton's table, the adulterer's bed, and the proud man's purple, v/ould groan against the abuser of them. But when all the fruits of redemption shall be completed, the goodness of God shall pour itself upon the creatures, deliver them from the " bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. viii. 21); they shall be reduced to their true end, and returned in their original harmony. As the creation doth passionately groan imder its vanity, so it doth " earnestly expect and wait for its de- 294 cnAENOCK on the attributes. liverance at the time of the manifestation of the sons of God" (vei. 19). The manifestation of the sons of God is t]ie attainment of the liberty of the creature. They shall be freed from the vanity under which they are enslaved ; as it entered by sin, it shall vanish upoD the total removal of sin. What use they were designed for in para- dise they will have afterwards, except that of the nourishment of men, who shall be as " angels, neither eating nor drinking :" the glory of God shall be seen and contemplated in them. It can hardly be thought that God made the world to be little a moment after he had reared it, sullied by the sin of man, and turned from its original end, without thoughts of a restoration of it to its true end, as well as man to his lost happiness. The world was made for man : man hath not yet enjoj^ed the creature in the first intention of them ; sin made an interruption in that fruition. As redemption restores man to his true end, so it restores the creatures to their true use. The restora- tion of the world to its beauty and order was the design of the Divine goodness in the coming of Christ, as it is intimated in Isa. xi. 6-9 ; as he " came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it," so he came not to destroy the creatures, but to repair them : to restore to God the honor and pleasure of the creation, and restore to the crea- tures their felicity in restoring their order : the fall corrupted it, and the full redemption of men restores it. The last time is called, not a time of destruction, but a " time of restitution," and that " of all things" (Acts iii. 21) of universal nature, the main part of the crea- tion at least. All those things which were the effects of sin will be abolished ; the removal of the cause beats down the effect. The dis- order and unruliness of the creature, arising from the venom of man's transgression, all the fierceness of one creature against another shall vanish. The world shall be nothing but an universal smile ; nature shall put on triumphant vestments : there shall be no affright- ing thunders, choking mists, venomous vapors, or poisonous plants. It would not else be a restitution of all things. They are now sub- ject to be wasted by judgments for the sin of their possessor, but the perfection of man's redemptions shall free them from every misery. They have an advancement at the present, for they are under a more glorious Head, as being the possession of Christ, the heavenly Adam, much superior to the first : as it is the glory of a person to be a ser- vant to a prince, rather than a peasant. And afterwards, they shall be elevated to a better state, sharing in man's happiness, as well as they did in his miser}^ : as servants are interested in the good fortune of their master, and bettered by his advance in his prince's favor. As man in his first creation was mutable and liable to sin, so the creatures were liable to vanity ; but as man by grace shall be freed from the mutability, so shall the creatures be fre^d from the fears of an invasion, by the vanity that sullied them before. The condition of the servants shall be suited to that of their Lord, for whom they were designed : hence, all creatures are called upon to rejoice upon the perfection of salvation, and the appearance of Christ's royal au- thority in the world. If they were to be destroyed, there would be no ground to invite them to triumph (Ps. xcvi. 11, 12 ; cxviii. 7, 8). Thus aoth Divine goodness spread its kind arms over the whole creation. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 295 Thirdly, Tlie third thing is the goodness of God in his Government, That goodness that despised not their creation, doth not despise their conduct. The same goodness that was the head that framed them, is the helm that guides them ; his goodness hovers over the whole frame, either to prevent any wild disorders unsuitable to his creating end, or to conduct them to those ends which might illustrate his wisdom and goodness to his creatures. His goodness doth no less incline him to provide for them, than to frame them. It is the natural inclination of man to love what is purely the birth of his own strength or skill. He is fond of preserving his own inventions, as well as laborious in inventing them. It is the glory of a man to preserve them, as well as to produce them. God loves everything which he hath made, which love could not be without a continued diffusiveness to them, suitable to the end for which he made them. It would be a vain goodness, if it did not interest itself in managing the world, as well as erecting it : without his government everything in the world would jostle against one another : the beauty of it would be more defaced, it would be an unruly mass, a confused chaos rather than a Kddfwc^ a comely world. If Divine goodness respected it when it was nothing, it would much more respect it when it was something, by the sole virtue of his power and good-will to it, without any mo- tive from anything else than himself, because there was nothing else but himself But since he sees his own stamp in things without him- self in the creature, which is a kind of motive or moving object tO' Divine goodness to preserve it, when there was nothing without him- self that could be any motive to Him to create it : as when God hath created a creature, and it falls into misery, that misery of the creature, though it doth not necessitate his mercy, yet meeting with such an affection as mercy in his nature, is amoving object to excite it ; as the repentance of Nineveh drew forth the exercise of his pity and preserving goodness. Certainly, since God is good, he is bounti- ful ; and if bountiful, he is provident. He would seem to envy and malign his creatures, if he did not provide for them, while he intends to use them : but infinite goodness cannot be effected with envy ; for all envy implies a want of that good in ourselves, which we re- gard with so evil an eye in another. But God, being infinitely blessed, hath not the want of any good that can be a rise to such an uncomely disposition. The Jews thought that Divine goodness ex- tended only to them in an immediate and particular care, and left all other nations and things to the guidance of angels. But the Psalmist (Ps. cvii. a psalm calculated for the celebration of this per- fection, in the continued course of his providence throughout all ages of the world) ascribes to Divine goodness immediately all the advantages men meet with. He helps them in their actions, presides over their motions, inspects their several conditions, labors day and night in a perpetual care of them. The whole life of the world is linked together by Divine goodness. Everything is ordered by him in the place where he hath set it, without which the world would be stripped of that excellency it hath by creation. 1st. This goodness is evident in tlie care he hath of all creatures. There is a peculiar goodness to his people ; but this takes not away 298 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. his general goodness to the world : tliongh a master of a family hath a choicer affection to those that have an affinity to him in nature, and stand in a nearer relation, as his wife, children, servants ; yet he hath a regard to his cattle, and other creatures he nourisheth in his house. All things are not only before his eyes, but in hia bosom ; he is the nurse of all creatures, supplying their wants, and sustaining them from that nothing they tend to. The " earth is full of his riches" (Ps. civ 24) ; not a creek or cranny but partakes of it. Abundant goodness daily hovers over it, as well as hatched it. The whole world swims in the rich bounty of the Creator, aa the fish do in the largeness of the sea, and birds in the spaciousness of the air.h The goodness of God is the river that waters the whole earth. As a lifeless picture casts its eye upon every one in the room, so doth a living God upon everything in the world. And as the sun illuminates all things which are capable of partaking of its light, and diffaseth its beams to all things which are capable of re- ceiving them, so doth God spread his wings over the whole crea- tion, and neglects nothing, wherein he sees a mark of his first creating goodness. 1. His goodness is seen, in preserving all things. " O Lord, thou preservest man and beast" (Ps. xxxvi. 6). Not only man, but beasts, and beasts as well as men ; man, as the most excellent creature, and beasts as being serviceable to man, and instruments of his worldly happiness. He continues the species of all things, concurs with them in their distinct offices, and quickens the womb of nature. He" visits man every day, and makes him feel the effects of his pro- vidence, in giving him "fruitful seasons, and filling his heart with food and gladness" (Acts xiv. 17), as witnesses of his liberality and kindness to man. " The earth is visited and watered by the river of God. He settles the furrows of the earth, and makes it soft with showers," that the corn may be nourished in its womb, and spring up to maturity, " He crowns the year with his goodness, and his paths drop fatness. The little hills rejoice on every side ; the pas- tures are clothed with flocks, and the valleys are covered over with corn," aa the Psalmist elegantly says (Ps. Ixv. 9, 10 ; cvii. 85, 36). He waters the ground by his showers, and preserves the little seed from the rapine of animals. " He draws not out the evil arrows of famine," as the expression is (Ezek. v. 16). Every day shines with new beams of his Divine goodness. The vastness of this city, and the multitudes of living souls in it, is an astonishing argument. What streams of nourishing necessaries are daily conveyed to it ! Every mouth hath bread to sustain it ; and among all the number of poor in the bowels and skirts of it, how rare is it to hear of any starved to death for want of it ! Every day he " spreads a table" for us, and that with varieties, and " fills our cups" (Ps. xxiii. 5). He shortens not his hand, nor withdraws his bounty : the increase of one year by his blessing, restores what was spent by the former. He is the " strength of our life" (Ps. xxvii. 1), continuing the vigor of our limbs, and the health of our bodies ; secures us from " terrors by night, and the arrows of diseases that fly by day" (Ps. xci. 6) ^ Gulicliuus Parasieu. p. 184. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 297 ^•sets a hedge about our estates" (Jobi. 10), and defends them against the attempts of violence; preserves our houses from flames that might consume them, and our persons from the dangers that lie in wait for them ; watcheth over us "in our goings out, and our com- ings in" (Ps. cxxi. 8), and way-lays a thousand dangers we know not of: and employs the most glorious creatures in heaven in the service of mean "men upon earth" (Ps. xci. 11) : not by a faint order, but a pressing charge over them, to " keep them in all his v.ays." Those that are his immediate servants before his throne, he sends to minister to them that were once his rebels. By an angel he conducted the affairs of Abraham (Gen. xxiv. 7) : and by an angel secured the life of Ishmael (Gren. xxi. 17) : glorious angels for mean man, holy angels for impure man, powerful angels for weak man. How in the midst of great dangers, doth his sudden light dissipate our great darkness, and create a deliverance out of nothing ! How often is he found a present help in time of trouble ! When all other assistance seems to stand at a distance, he flies to us beyond our expectations, and raises us up on the sudden from the pit of our dejectedness, as well as that of our danger, exceeding oui wishes, and shooting beyond our desires as well as our deserts. How often, in the time of confusion, doth he preserve an indefensible place from the attacks of enemies, like a bark in the midst of a tem- pestuous sea ! the rage falls upon other places round about them, and, by a secret efficacy of Divine goodness, is not able to touch them. He hath peculiar preservations for his Israel in Egypt, and his Lots in Sodom, his Daniels in the lions' dens, and his children in a fiery furnace. He hath a tenderness for all, but a peculiar affection to those that are in covenant with him. 2. The goodness of God is seen in taking care of the animals and and inanimate things. Divine goodness embraceth in its arms the lowest worm as well as the loftiest cherubim : he provides food for the "crying ravens" (Ps. cxlvii. 9), and a prey for the appetite of the " hungry hon" (Ps. civ. 21) : " He opens his hand, and fills with good those innumerable creeping things, both small and great beasts ; they are all waiters upon him, and all are satisfied by their bountiful Master" (Ps. civ. 25—28). They are better provided for by the hand of heaven, than the best favorite is by an earthly prince : for " they are filled with good." He hath made channels in the wildest deserts, for the watering of beasts, and trees for the nests and " habitation of birds" (Ps. civ. 10, 12, 17). As a Law- giver to the Jews, he took care that the poor beast should not be abused by the cruelty of man : he provided for the ease of the laboring beast in that command of the Sabbath, wherein he pro- vided for his own service : the cattle was to do " no work" on it (Exod. XX. 10). He ordered that the mouth of the ox should not be muzzled while it trod out the corn (Deut. xxv. 4, it being the man- ner of those countries to separate the corn from the stalk by that means, as we do in this by thrashing), regarding it as a, part of cruelty to deprive the poor beast of tasting, and satisfying itself with that which he was so officious by his labor to prepare for the use of man. And when any met with a nest of young birds, though 298 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. they might take the young to their use, they were forbidden to seize upon the dam, that she might not lose the objects of her aflfection and her own liberty in one day (Deut. xxii. 6). A nd see how God enforceth this precept with a threatening of a shortness of life, if they transgressed it (Deut. xxii. 7) ! " Thou shalt let the dam go, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days." He would revenge the cruelty to dumb crea- tures with the shortness of the oppressor's life : nor would he have cruelty used to creatures that were separated for his worship : he therefore provides that a cow, or an ewe, and their young ones, should " not be killed for sacrifice in one day" (Lev. xxii. 28). All which precepts, say the Jews, are to teach men mercifulness to their beasts ; so much doth Divine goodness bow down itself, to take notice of those mean creatures, which men have so little regard to, but for their own advantage ; yea, he is so good, that he would have worship declined for a time in favor of a distressed beast; the "helping a sheep, or an ox, or an ass, out of a pit," was indulged them even " on the Sabbath-day," a day God had peculiarly sanctified and or- dered for his service (Matt. xii. 11; Luke xiv. 5): in this case he «*eems to remit for a time the rights of the Deity for the rescue of a mere animal. His goodness extends not only to those kind of crea- tures that have life, but to the insensible ones ; he clothes the grass, and " arrays the lilies of the field" with a greater glory than Solomon had upon his throne (Matt. vi. 28, 29) ; and such care he had of those trees which bore fruit for the maintenance of man or beast, that he forbids any injury to be offered to them, and bars the rapine and violence, which by soldiers used to be practised (Deut. xx. 19), though it were to promote the conquest of their enemy. How much goodness is it, that he should think of so small a thing as man ! How much more that he should concern himself in things that seem so petty as beasts and trees ! Persons seated in a sovereign throne, think it a debasing of their dignity to regard little things : but God, who is infinitely greater in majesty above the mightiest potentate, and the highest angel, yet is so infinitely good, as to employ his divine thoughts about the meanest things. He who possesses the praises of angels, leaves not off the care of the meanest creatures : and that majesty that dwells in a pure heaven, and an inconceivable light, stoops to provide for the ease of those creatures that lie and lodge in the dirt and dung of the earth. How should we be careful not to use those unmercifully, which God takes such care of in his law, and not to distrust that goodness, that opens his hand so liber- ally to creatures of another rank ! 3. The goodness of God is seen in taking care of the meanest rational creatures ; as servants and criminals. He provided for the liberty of slaves, and would not have their chains continue longer than the seventh year, unless they would voluntarily continue under the power of their masters ; and that upon pain of his displeasure, and the withdrawing his blessing (Deut. xv. 18). And though, by tlie laws of many nations, masters had an absolute power of life and death over their servants, yet God provided that no member should be lamed, not an eye, no, nor a tooth, struck out, but the master waa ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 299 to pay for his fol.y and fury the price of the " liberty of his servant" (Exod. xxi. 26, 27): he would not suffer the abused servant to be any longer under the power of that man that had not humanity to use him as one of the same kindred and blood with himself. And though those servants might be never so wicked, yet, when unjustly afflicted, God would interest himself as their guardian in their pro- tection and delivery. And when a poor slave had been provoked, by the severity of his master's fury, to turn fugitive from him, he was, by Divine order, not to be delivered up again to his master's fury, but dwell in that city, and with that person, to whom he had " fled for refuge" (Deut. xxiii, 15, 16). And when public justice was to be admininistered upon the lesser sort of criminals, the good- ness of God ordered the " number of blows" not to exceed forty, and left not the fury of man to measure out the punishment to excess (Deut. XXV. 3). And in any just quarrel against a provoking and injuring enemy, he ordered them not to ravage with the sword till they had summoned a rendition of the place (Deut. xx. 10). And as great a care he took of the poor, that the}^ should have the glean- ings both of the vineyard and field (Lev. xix. 10 ; xxiii. 22), and not be forced to pay " usury for the money lent them (Exod. xxii. 25). 4. His goodness is seen in taking care of the wickedest persons. " The earth is full of his goodness" (Ps. xxxvii. 5). The wicked as well as the good enjoy it; they that dare lift up their hands against heaven in the posture of rebels, as well as those that lift up their eyes in the condition of suppliants. To do good to a criminal, far surmounts that goodness that flows down upon an innocent object : now God is not only good to those that have some degrees of good- ness, but to those that have the greatest degrees of wickedness, to men that turn his liberality into affronts of him, and have scarce an appetite to anything but the violation of his authority and goodness. Though, upon the fall of Adam, we have lost the pleasant habitation of paradise, and the creatures made for our use are fallen from their original excellency and sweetness ; yet he hath not left the world utterly incommodious for us, but yet stores it with things not only for the preservation, but delight of those that make their whole lives invectives against this good God. Manna fell from heaven for the rebellious as well as for the obedient Israelites. Cain as well as Abel, and Esau as well as Jacob, had the influences of his sun, and the benefits of his showers. The world is yet a kind of paradise to the veriest beasts among mankind ; the earth affords its riches, the heavens its showers, and the sun its light, to those that injure and blaspheme him : " He makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matt. v. 45). The wickedest breathe in his air, walk upon his earth, and drink of his water, as well as the best. The sun looks with as pleasant and bright an eye upon a rebellious Absalom, as a righteous David ; the earth yields its plants and medicines to one as well as to the other ; it is sel- dom that He deprives any of the faculties of their souls, or any mem- bers of their bodies. God distributes his blessings where he might shoot his thunders ; and darts hie light on those who deserve an sternal darkness ; and presents the good things of the earth to those 300 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. that merit the miseries of hell; for " the earth, and the fulness there- of, is the Lord's" (Ps. xxiv. 1) ; everything in it is his in propriety, ours in trust ; it is his corn, his wine (Hos. ii. 8) ; he never divested himself of the propriety, though he grants us the use ; and by those good things he supports multitudes of wicked men, not one or two, but the whole shoal of them in the world ; for he is " the Saviour of all men," ^, e. is the preserver of all men (1 Tim. iv. 10). And aa he created them, when he foresaw they would be wicked ; so he pro- vides for them, when he beholds them in their ungodliness. The ingratitude of men stops not the current of his bounty, nor tires his liberal hand ; howsoever unprofitable and injurious men are to him, he is liberal to them ; and his goodness is the more admirable, by how much the more the unthankfulness of men is provoking : he sometimes affords to the worst a greater portion of these earthly goods ; they often swim in wealth, when others pine away their lives in poverty. And the silk-worm yields its bowels to make purple for tyrants, while the oppressed scarce have from the sheep wool enough to cover their nakedness ; and though he furnish men with those good things, upon no other account than what princes do, when they nourish criminals in a prison tUl the time of their execu- tion, it is a mark of his goodness. Is it not the kindness of a prince to treat his rebels deliciously? to give them the liberty of the prison, and the enjoyments of the delights of the place, rather than to load their legs with fetters, and lodge them in a dark and loathsome dun- geon, till he orders them, for their crime, to be conducted to the scaffold or gibbet ? Since God is thus kind to the vilest men, whose mean- ness, by reason of sin, is beyond that of any other creature, as to shoot such rays of goodness upon them ; how inexpressible would be the expressions of his goodness, if the Divine image were as pure and bright upon them as it was upon innocent Adam ! 2d. His goodness is evident in the preservation of human society. It belongs to his power that he is able to do it, but to his goodness that he is willing to do it. 1. This goodness appears in prescribing rules for it. The moral law consists but of ten precepts, and there are more of them ordered for the support of human society, than for the adoration and honor of himself (Exod. xx. 1, 2); four for the rights of God, and six for the rights of man, and his security in his authority, relations, life, goods, and reputation ; superiors not to be dishonored, life not to be invaded, chastity not to be stained, goods not to be filched, good name not to be cracked by false witness, nor anything belonging to our neighbor to be coveted ; and in the whole Scripture, not only that which was calculated for the Jews, but compiled for the whole world ; he hath fixed rules for the ordering all relations, magistrates, and subjects; parents and children ; husbands and wives ; masters and servants ; rich and poor, find their distinct qualifications and duties. There would be a paradisiacal state, if men had a goodness to observe what God hath had a goodness to order for the strengthening the sinews of human society ; the world would not groan under oppressing tyrants, nor princes tremble under discontented subjects, or mighty rebels; children would not be provoked to anger by the unreasonableness ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 301 of their parents, nor parents sink under grief by the rebellion of their children ; masters would not tyrannize over the meanest of their ser- vants, nor servants invade the authority of their masters. 2. The goodness of God in the preserving human society, is seen in setting a magistracy to preserve it. Magistracy is from God in its original ; the charter was drawn up in paradise ; civil subordina- tion must have been had man remained in innocence ; but the charter was more explicitly renewed and enlarged at the restoration of the world after the deluge, and given out to man under the broad seal of heaven ; " Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed" (Gen. ix. 6). The command of shedding the blood of a mur- derer was a part of his goodness, to secure the lives of those that bore his image. Magistrates are "the shields of the earth," but they " belong to God" (Ps. xlvii. 9). They are fruits of his good- ness in their original, and authority ; were there no magistracy, there would be government, no security to any man under his own vine and fig tree ; the world would be a den of wild beasts preying upon one another ; every one would do what seems good in his eyes ; the loss of government is a judgment God brings upon a nation when men become " as the fishes of the sea," to devour one another, be- cause they " have no ruler over them" (Hab. i. 14). Private dissen- sions will break out into public disorders and combustions. 3. The goodness of God in the preservation of human society, is seen in the restraints of the passions of men. He sets bounds to the passions of men as well as to the rollings of the sea ; " He stilleth the noise of the waves, and the tumults of the people" (Ps. Ixv. 7). Though God hath erected a magistracy to stop the breaking out of those floods of licentiousness, which swell in the hearts of men ; yet, if God should not hold stiff reins on the necks of those tumultuous and foaming passions, the world would be a place of unruly confusion, and hell triumph upon earth ; a crazy state would be quickly broke in pieces by boisterous nature. The tumults of a people could no more be quelled by the force of man, than the rage of the sea by a puflp of breath ; without Divine goodness, neither the wisdom nor watch- fulness of the magistrates, nor the industry of of&cers, could preserve a state. The laws of men would be too slight to curb the lusts of men, if the goodness of God did not restrain them by a secret hand, and interweave their temporal security with observance of those laws. The sons of Belial did murmur when Saul was chosen king ; and that they did no more was the goodness of God, for the preser- vation of human society. If God did not restrain the impetuousness of men's lusts, they would be the entire ruin of human society ; their lusts would render them as bad as beasts, and change the world into a savage wilderness. 4. The goodness of God is seen in the preservation of human so- ciety, in giving various inclinations to men for public advantage. If all men had an inclination to one science or art, they would all stand idle spectators of one another ; but God hath bestowed various dis- positions and gifts upon men, for the promoting the common good, that they may not only be useful to themselves, but to society. Ha 302 CHAENOCK OX THE ATTBIBUTES. will have none idle, none unuseful, but every one acting in a due place, according to their measures, for the good of others. 5. The goodness of God is seen in the witness he bears against those sins that disturb human society. In those cases he is pleased to interest himself in a more signal manner, to cool those that make it their business to overturn the order he hath established for the good of the earth. He doth not so often in this world punish those faults committed immediately against his own honor, as those that put the world into a hurry and confusion : as a good governor is more merciful to crimes against himself, than those against his com- munity. It is observed that the most turbulent seditious persons in a state come to most violent ends, as Corah, Adonijah, Zimri : Ahithopel draws Absalom's sword against David and Israel, and the next is, he twists a halter for himself: Absalom heads a party against his father, and God, by a goodness to Israel, hangs him up, and pre- vents not its safety by David's indulgence, and a future rebellion, had life been spared by the fondness of his father. His providence is more evident in discovering disturbers, and the causes that move them, in defeating their enterprises, and digging the contrivers out of their caverns and lurking holes : in such cases, God doth so act, and use such methods, that he silence th any creature from challeng- ing any partnership with him in the discovery. He doth more se- verely in this world correct those actions that unlink the mutual as- sistance between man and man, and the charitable and kind corre- spondence he would have kept up. The sins for which the " wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience" (Col. iii. 5, 6) in this world are of this sort ; and when princes will be oppressing the people, God will be "pouring contempt on the princes, and set the poor on high from aflSiction" (Ps. cvii. 40, 41). An evidence of God's care and kindness in the preserving human society, is those strange discoveries of murders, though never so clandestine and subtilly committed, more than of any other crime among men : Divine care never appears more than in bringing those hidden and injurious works of darkness to light, and a due punishment. 6. His goodness is seen in ordering mutual offices to one another against the current of men's passions. Upon this account he ordered, in his laws for the government of the Israelites, that a man should reduce the wandering beast of his enemy to the hand of his right- ful proprietor, though he were a provoking enemy ; and also " help the poor beast that belonged to one that hated him, when he saw him sink under his burden" (Exod. xxiii. 4, 5). When mutual assistance was necessary, he would not have men considered as enemies, or considered as wicked, but as of the same blood with ourselves, that we might be serviceable to one another for the preservation of life and goods. 7. His goodness is seen in remitting something of his own right for the preserving a due dependence and subjection. He declines the right he had to the vows of a minor, or one under the power of another, waving what he might challenge by the voluntary obliga- tion of his creature, to keep up the due order between parents and shildren, husbands and wives, superiors and inferiors ; those that I ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 303 were under the power of another, as a child under his parents, or a wife under her husband, if they had " vowed a vow unto the Lord/' which concerned his honor and worship, it was void without the ap- probation of that person under whose charge they were (Num. xxx. 3, 4, &c.). Though God was the Lord of every man's goods, and men but his stewards ; and though he might have taken to himself what another had. offered by a vow, since whatsoever could be offered was God's own, though it was not the parties' own who offered it ; yet God would not have himself adored by his creature to the prejudice of the necessary ties of human society ; he lays aside what he might challenge by his sovereign dominion, that there might not be any breach of that regular order which was necessary for the preservation of the world. If Divine goodness did not thus order things, he would not do the part of a Rector of the world ; the beauty of the world would be much defaced, it would be a con- fused mass of men and women, or rather, beasts and bedlams. Order renders every city, every nation, yea, the whole earth, beautiful : this is an effect of Divine goodness. 3d. His goodness is evident in encouraging anything of moral good- ness in the world. Though moral goodness cannot claim an eternal reward, yet it hath been many times rewarded with a temporal hap- piness ; he hath often siganlly rewarded acts of honesty, justice, and fidelity, and punished the contrary by his judgments, to deter man from such an unworthy practice, and encourage others to what was comely, and of a general good report in the world. Ahab's humiliation put a demurrer to God's judgments intended against him ; and some ascribe the great victories and success of the Romans to that justice which was observed among themselves. Baruch was but an amanuensis to the Prophet Jeremy to write his prophecy, and very despondent of his own welfare (Jer. xlv. 13) ; God upon that account provides for his safety, and rewards the industry of his ser- vice with the security of his person ; he was not a statesman, to de- clare against the corrupt counsels of them that sat at the helm, nor a prophet, to declare against their profane practices, but the prophet's scribe ; and as he writes in God's service the prophecies revealed to the prophet, God writes his name in the roll of those that were de- signed for preservation in that deluge of judgments which were to come upon that nation. Epicurus complained of the administration of God, that the virtuous moralist had not sufficient smiles of Divine favor, nor the swinish sensualist frowns of Divine indignation. But what if they have not always that confluence of outward wealth and pleasures, but remain in the common level ? yet they have the hap- piness and satisfaction of a clear reputation, the esteem of men, and the secret applauses of their very enemies, besides the inward ravish- ments upon an exercise of virtue, and the commendatory subscrip- tion of their own hearts, a dainty the vicious man knows not of; they have an inward applause from God as a reward of Divine goodness, instead of those racks of conscience upon which the pro- fane are sometimes stretched. He will not let the worst men do him any service (though they never intended in the act of service him, but themselves) without giving them their wages : he will not let 304 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. them hit hun in the teeth as if he were beholden to them. If Nebu chadnezzar be the instrument of God's judgments against Tyrus and Israel, he will not only give him that rich city, but a richer country, Egypt, the granary for her neighbors, a wages above his work. In this is Divine goodness eminent, since, in the most moral actions, as there is something beautiful, so there is something mixed, hateful to the infinitely exact holiness of the Divine nature ; yet he will not let that which is pleasing to him go unrewarded, and defeat the ex- pectations of men, as men do with those they employ, when, for one flaw in an action, they deny them the reward due for the other part. God encouraged and kept up morality in the cities of the Gentiles for the entertainment of a further goodness in the doctrine of the gospel when it should be published among them. 4th. Divine goodness is eminent in providing a Scripture as a rule to guide us, and continuing it in the world. K man be a rational creature, governable by a law, can it be imagined there should be no revelation of that law to him ? Man, by the light of reason, must needs confess himself to be in another condition than he was by cre- ation, when he came first out of the hands of God ; and can it be thought, that God should keep up the world under so many sins against the light of nature, and bestow so many providential influ- ences, to invite men to return to him, and acquaint no men in the world with the means of that return ? Would he exact an obedi- ence of men, as their consciences witness he doth, and furnish them with no rules to guide them in the darkness they cannot but acknowl- edge that they have contracted ? No ; Divine goodness hath other- wise provided : this Bible we have is his word and rule. Had it been a falsity and imposture, would that goodness, that watches over the world, have continued it so long ? That goodness that overthrew the burdensome rites of Moses, and expelled the foolish idolatry of the Pagans, would have discovered the imposture of this, had it not been a transcript of his own will. Whatever mistakes he suffers to remain in the world, what goodness had there been to suffer this an- ciently amongst the Jews, and afterwards to open it to the wholo world, to abuse men in religion and worship, which so nearly con- cerned himself and his own honor, that the world should be deceived by the devil without a remedy in the morning of its appearance ? It hath been honored and admired by some heathens, when they have cast their eyes upon it, and their natural light made them be- hold some footsteps of a Divinity in it. If this, therefore, be not a Divine prescript, let any that deny it, bring as good arguments for any book else, as can be brought for this. Now, the publishing this is an argument of Divine goodness : it is designed to win the affec- tions of beggarly man, to be espoused to a God of eternal blessed- ness and immense riches. It speaks words in season : no doubts but it resolves ; no spiritual distemper but it cures ; no condition but it hath a comfort to suit it. It is a garden which the hand of Divine bounty hath planted for us ; in it he condescends to shadow himself in those expressions that render him in some manner intelligible to us. Had God wrote in a loftiness of style suitable to the greatness of his majesty, his writing had been as little understood by as, as the ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 305 briglitness of his glory can be belield by us. But lie draws phrases from our aifairs, to express his mind to us ; he incarnates himself in his word to our minds, before his Son was incarnate in the flesh to the eyes of men : he ascribes to himself eyes, ears, hands, that we might have, from the consideration of ourselves, and the whole hu- man nature, a conception of his perfections : he assumes to himself the members of our bodies, to direct our understandings in the knowl- edge of his Deity ; this is his goodness. Again, though the Scrip- ture was written upon several occasions, yet in the dictating of it, the goodness of God cast his eye upon the last ages of the world (1 Cor. X. 11) : " They are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." It was given to the Israelites, but Divine goodness intended it for the future Gentiles. The old writ- ings of the prophets were thus designed, much more the later writ- ings of the apostles. Thus did Divine goodness think of us, and prepare his records for us, before we were in the world : these he hath written plain for our instruction, and wrapped up in them what is necessary for our salvation : it is clear to inform our understand- ing, and rich to comfort us in our misery ; it is a light to guide us, and a cordial to refresh us ; it is a lamp to our feet, and a medicine for our diseases ; a purifier of our filth, and a restorer of us in our faintings. He hath by his goodness sealed the truth of it, by his efficacy on multitudes of men : he hath made it the " word of regen- eration" (James i. 18). Men, wilder and more monstrous than beasts, have been tamed and changed by the power of it : it hath raised multitudes of dead men from a grave fuller of horror than any earthly one. Again, Goodness was in all ages sending his letters of advice and counsel from heaven, till the canon of the Scripture was closed ; sometimes he wrote to chide a froward people, sometimes to cheer up an oppressed and disconsolate people, according to the state wherein they were ; as we may observe by the several seasons wherein parts of Scripture were written. It was His goodness that he first revealed anything of his will after the fall ; it was a further degree of goodness, that he would add more cubits to its stature ; be- fore he would lay aside his pencil, it grew up to that bulk wherein we have it. And his goodness is further seen in the preserving it ; he hath triumphed over the powers that opposed it, and showed him- self good to the instruments that propagated it : he hath maintained it against the blasts of hell, and spread it in all languages against the obstructions of men and devils. The sun of his word is by his kindness preserved in our horizon, as well as the sun in the heavens. How admirable is Divine goodness ! He hath sent his Son to die for us, and his written word to instruct us, and his Spirit to edge it for an entrance into our souls : he hath opened the womb of the earth to nourish us, and sent down the records of heaven to direct us in our pilgrimage : he hath provided the earth for our habitation, while we are travellers, and sent his word to acquaint us with a felicity at the end of oar journey, and the way to attain in another world what we want in this, viz. a happy immortality. 5th. His goodness in his government is evident, in conversions of men. Though this work be wrought by his power, yet his powei vol.. II. — 20 306 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. \ras first solicited by his goodness. It was his ricti goodness that he would employ his power to pierce the scales of a heart as hard as those of the " leviathan." It was this that opened the ears of men to hear him, and draws them from the hurry of worldly cares, and the charms of sensual pleasures, and, which is the top of all, the im- postures and cheats of their own hearts. It is this that sends a spark of his wrath into men's consciences, to put them to a stand in sin, that he might not send down a shower of brimstone eternally to con- sume tlieir persons. This it was that first showed you the excellency of tlie Redeemer, and brought you to taste the sweetness of his blood, and find your security in the agonies of his death. It is his good- ness to call one man and not another, to turn Paul in his course, and lay hold of no other of his companions. It is his goodness to call any, when he is not bound to call one. 1. It is his goodness to pitch upon mean and despicable men in the eye of the world ; to call this poor publican, and overlook that proud Pharisee, this man that sits upon a dunghill, and neglect him that glisters in his purple. His majesty is not enticed b}^ the loft}'' titles of men, nor, which is more worth, by the learning and knowl- edge of men. "Not many wise, not many mighty," not many doc- tors, not many lords, though some of them ; but his goodness con- descends to the "base things" of the world, and things which are "despised" (1 Cor. i. 26-28). " The poor receive the gospel" (Matt. xi. 5), when those that are more acute, and furnished with a more apprehensive reason, are not touched by it. 2. The worst men. He seizeth sometimes upon men most soiled, and neglects others that seem more clean and less polluted. He turns men in their course in sin, that, by their infernal practices, have seemed to have gone to school to hell, and to have sucked in the sole instructions of the devil. He lays hold upon some when they are most under actual demerit, and snatches them as fire-brands out of the fire, as upon Paul when fullest of rage against him ; and shoots a beam of grace, where nothing could be justly expected but a thun- derbolt of wrath. It is his goodness to visit any, when they lie pu- trefying in their loathsome lusts ; to draw near to them who have been guilty of the greatest contempt of God, and the light of nature ; the murdering Manassehs, the persecuting Sauls, the Christ-crucify- ing Jews, — ^persons in whom lusts had had a peaceable ]30Ssession and empire for many years. 3. His goodness appears in converting men possessed with the greatest enmity against him, while he was dealing with them. All were in such a state, and framing contrivances against him, when Divine goodness knocked at the door (Col. i. 21). He looked after us when our backs were turned upon him, and sought us when we slighted him, and were a " gainsaying people" (Rom. x. 21) ; when we had shaken off his convictions, and contended with our Maker, and mustered up the powers of nature against the alarms of conscience ; struggled like wild bulls in a net, and blunted those darts that stuck in our souls. Not a man that is turned to him, but had lifted up the heel against his gospel grace, as well as made light of his creating goodness. Yet it hath employed itself about such ungrateful ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 307 wretclies, to polish those knotty and rugged pieces for heaven ; and so invincibly, that he would not have his goodness defeated by the fierceness and rebellion of the flesh. Though the thing was more difficult in itself (if anything may be said to have a difficulty to omnipotency) than to make a stone live, or to turn a straw into a marble pillar. The malice of the flesh makes a man more unfit for the one, than the nature of the straw unfits it for the other. 4. His goodness appears in turning men, when they were pleased with their own misery, and unable to deliver themselves; when they preferred a hell before him, and were in love with their own vileness ; when his call was our torment, and his neglect of us had been ac- counted our felicity. Was it not a mighty goodness to keep the light close to our eyes, when we endeavored to blow it out ; and the corrosive near to our hearts, when we endeavored to tear it off, being more fond of our disease than the remedy ? We should have been scalded to death with the Sodomite, had not God laid his good hand upon us, and drawn us from the approaching ruin we affected, and were loath to be freed from. And had we been disj)leased with our state, yet we had been as unable spiritually to raise ourselves from sin to grace, as to raise ourselves naturally from nothing to be- ing. In this state we were when his goodness triumphed over us ; when he put a hook into our nostrils, to turn us in order to our sal- vation ; and drew us out of the pit which we had digged, when he might have left us to sink under the rigors of his justice we had merited. Now this goodness in conversion is greater than that in creation ; as in creation there is nothing to oppose him, so there was nothing to disoblige him ; creation was terminated to the good of a mutable nature, and conversion tends to a supernatural good. God pronounced all creatures good at first, and man among the rest, but did not pronounce any of them, or man himself, his "portion," his "inheritance," his ^^ seguUah,''^ his "house," his "diadem." He speaks slightly of all those things which he made, the noblest heavens, as well as the lowest earth, in comparison of a true con- vert : " All those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been : but to this man will I look, to him that is of a contrite spirit" (Isa. Ixvi. 1, 2). It is more goodness to give the espousing grace of the covenant, than the completing glory of heaven ; as it is more for a prince to marry a beggar, than only to bring her to live deliciously in his courts. All other benefits are of a meaner strain, if compared with this ; there is little less of goodness in imparting the holiness of his nature, than imputing the righteousness of his Son. 6th. The Divine goodness doth appear in answering prayers. He delights to be familiarly acquainted with his people, and to hear them call upon him. He indulgeth them a free access to him, and delights in every address of an " upright man" (Prov. xv. 8). The wonderful efficacy of prayer depends not upon the nature of our pe- titions or the temper of our soul, but the goodness of God to whom we address. Christ establisheth it upon this bottom : when he ex- horts to ask in his name, he tells them the spring of all their grants is the Father's love : "I say not, I will pray the Father for vou, for 308 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. ihe Failiei himself loves you" (John xvi. 26, 27). And since it ih of itself incredible, that a Majesty, exalted above the cherubims, should stoop so low as to give a miserable and rebellious creature admittance to him, and afford him a gracious hearing, and a quick suppl}", Christ ushers in the promise of answering prayer with a note of great assurance : " I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you" (Luke xi. 9, 10). I, that know the mind of my Father, and his good disposition, assure you your prayer shall not be in vain. Perhaps you will not be so ready of yourselves to imagine so great a liber- ality ; but take it upon my word, it is true, and so you will find it. And his bounty travels, as it were, in birth, to give the gi'eatest blessings, upon our asking, rather than the smallest : " your heavenly Father shall give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him" (ver. 13) : which in Matt. vii. 11, is called, " good things." Of all the good and rich things Divine goodness hath in his treasury, he delights to give the best upon asking, because God doth act so as to manifest the greatness of his bounty and magnificence to men ; and, therefore, is delighted when men, by their petitioning him, own such a liberal disposition in him, and put him upon the manifesting it. He would rather you should ask the greatest things heaven can afford, than the trifles of this world ; because his bounty is not discovered in meaner gifts : he loves to have an opportunity to manifest his aflfec tion above the liberality and tenderness of worldly fathers. He doth more wait to give in a way of grace, than we to beg ; and, " there- fore, will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you" (Isa. xxx. 18). He stands expecting your suits, and employs his wisdom in pitching upon the fittest seasons, when the manifestation of his goodness may be most gracious in itself, and the mercy you want most welcome to you; as it follows, " for the Lord is a God of judg- ment." He chooseth. the time wherein his doles may be most ac- ceptable to his suppliants; "In an acceptable time have I heard thee" (Isa. xlix. 8). He often opens his hand while we are opening our lips, and his blessings meet our petitions at the first setting out upon their journey to heaven : " While they are yet speaking, I will hear" (Isa. Ixv. 24). How often do we hear a secret voice withm us, while we are praying, saying, " Your prayer is granted ;" as well as hear a voice behind us, while we are erring, saying, " This is the way, walk in it !" And his liberality exceeds often our desires, as well as our deserts ; and gives out more than we had the wisdom or confidence to ask. The apostle intimates it in that doxology, " Unto Him who is able to do abundantly above all that we ask or think" (Epli. iii. 20). This power would not have been so strong an argu- ment of comfort, if it were never put in practice ; he is more liberal than his creatures are craving. Abraham petitioned for the life of Ishmael, and God promiseth him the " birth of Isaac" (Gen. xvii. 18, 19). Isaac asks for a " child," and God gives him "two" (Gen. xxv. 21, 22). Jacob desires "food" to eat, and "raiment" to put on; God confines not his bounty within the narrow limits of his petition, but instead of a " staff," wherewith he passed Jordan, makes him re- pass it with " two bands" (Gen. xxviii. 20). David asked life of God, and he gave him " life," and a " crown" to boot (Ps. xxi. 2 — 5). The ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 309 Israelites would have been contented with a free life in Egjpt ; they only cried to have their chains struck off; God gave them that, and adopts them to be his "peculiar people," and raises them into a fa- mous state. It is a wonder that God should condescend so much, that he should hear prayers so weak, so cold, so wandering, and gather up our sincere petitions from the dung of our distractions and diffidence. David vents his astonishment at it; " Blessed be God, for he hath shown me marvellous kindness. I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes : nevertheless, thou heardest the voice of my supplication" (Ps. xxxi 21, 22). How do we wonder at the goodness of a petty man, in granting our desires ; how much more should we at the humility and goodness of the most sovereign Majesty of heaven and earth ! 7th. The goodness of God is seen in bearing with the infirmities of his people, and accepting imperfect obedience. Though Asa had many blots in his escutcheon, yet they are overlooked, and this note set upon record by Divine goodness, that his heart was perfeet to- wards the Lord all his days ; " But the high places were not re- moved : nevertheless, Asa's heart was perfect with the Lord all his days" (1 Kings, xv. 14). He takes notice of a sincere, though chequered obedience, to reward it, which could claim nothing but a slight from him, if he were extreme to mark what is done amiss. When there is not an opportunity to work, but only to will, he ac- cepts the will, as if it had passed into work and act. He sees no in- iquity in Jacob (Numb, xxiii. 21), i. e. He sees it not so as to cast off a respect to their persons, and the acceptance of their services: his omniscience knows their sins, but his goodness doth not reject their persons. He is of so good a disposition, that he delights in a weak obedience of his servants, not in the imperfection, but in the obedience (Ps. xxxvii. 23) ; " He delights in the way of a good man," though he sometimes slips in it: he accepts a poor man's pigeon, as well as a rich man's ox : he hath a bottle for the tears, and a book for the " services of the upright," as well as for the most perfect obedience of angels (Ps. Ivi. 8) : he preserves their tears, as if they were a rich and generous wine, as the vine-dresser doth the expressions of the grape. 8th. The goodness of God is seen in afflictions and persecutions K it be "good for us to be afflicted," for which we have the psalm- ist's vote (Ps. cxix. 71), then goodness in God is the principal cause and orderer of the afflictions. It is his goodness to snatch away that whence we fetch supports for our security, and encouragements for our insolence against him : he takes away the thing which we have some value for, but such as his infinite wisdom sees inconsist- ent with our true happiness. It is no ill-will in the physician to* take away the hurtful matter the patient loves, and prescribe bitter potions, to advance that health which the other impaired ; nor any mark of unkindness in a friend, to wrest a sword out of a madman's hand, wherewith he was about to stab himself, though it were beset with the most orient pearls. To prevent what is evil, is to do us the greatest good. It is a kindness to prevent a man from falling down ft precipice, though it be with a violent blow, that lays him flat upon 310 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. tlie ground at some distance from the edge of it. By afflictions he oftea snaps asunder those chains which fettered us, and quells those passions which ravaged us : he sharpens our faith, and quickens our prayers ; he brings us in the secret chamber of our own heart, which we had little mind before to visit by a self-examination. It is such a goodness that he will vouchsafe to correct man in order to his eternal happiness, that Job makes it one part of his astonishment (Job. vii. 17) ; " What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him ? that thou shouldest set thy heart upon him ? and that thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment ?" His strokes are often the magnifyings and exaltings of man. He sets his heart upon man, while he inflicts the smart of his rod : he shows thereby, what a high account he makes of him, and what a special affection lie bears to him. When he might treat us with more severity after the breach of his covenant, and make his jealousy flame out against us in furious methods, he will not destroy his relation to us, and leave us to our own inclinations, but deal with us as a father with his children ; and when he takes this course with us, it is when it cannot be avoided without our ruin : his goodness would not suffer him to do it, if our badness did not force him to it (Jer. ix. 7), " I will melt them and try them, for how shall I do for the daughter of my people ?" What other course can I take but this, according to the nature of man ? The goldsmith hath no other way to separate the dross from the metal, but by melting it down. And when the impurities of his people necessitate him to this proceeding, "he sits as a refiner" (Mai. iii. 3) : he watches for the purifying the silver, not for his own profit as the goldsmith, but out of a care of them, and good will to them ; as himself speaks (Isa. xlviii. 10), " I have refined thee, but not with silver ;" or, as some read it, " not for sil- ver." As when he scatters his people abroad for their sin, he will not leave them without his presence for their "sanctuary" (Ezek. xi. 16) : he would hj his presence with them supply the place of ordi- nances, or be an ark to them in the midst of the deluge : his hand that struck them, is never without a goodness to comfort them and pity them. When Jacob was to go into Egypt, which was to prove a furnace of affliction to his offspring, God promises to go down with him, and to " bring him up again" (Gen. xlvi. 4) : a promise not only made to Jacob in his person, but to Jacob in his posterity. He re- turned not out of Egypt in his person, but as the father of a nu- merous posterity. He that would go down with their root, and afterwards bring up the branches, was certainly with them in all their oppressions: "I will go down with thee." "Down," saith .one ; what a word is that for a Deity ! into Egypt, idolatrous Egypt] what a place is that for his holiness !' Yet O, the goodness of God !. He never thinks himself low enough to do his people good, nor any place too bad for his society with them. So when he had sent away into captivity the people of Israel by the hand of the Assyrian, his bowels yearn after them in their affliction (Isa. Iii. 4, 5) ; the Assy- rian " oppressed them without cause," i. e. without a just cause in the conqueror to inflict so great an evil upon them, but not without ' Harwood's Sermon ;it Oxford, p. 5. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 311 cause from God, whom they had provoked. " Now, therefore, what have I here, saith the Lord ?" What do I here ? I will not stay behind them. What do I longer here ? for I will redeem again those jewels the enemy hath carried away. That chapter is a pro- phecy of redemption : God shows himself so good to his people in their persecutions, that he gives them occasion to glorify him in the very fires, as the Divine order is (Isa. xxiv. 15), " Wherefore glorify the Lord in the fires." 9th. The goodness of God is seen in temptations. In those he takes occasion to show his care and watchfulness, as a father uses the distress of a child as an opportunity for manifesting the tender- ness of his affection. God is at the beginning and end of every temptation ; he measures out both the quality and quantity : he ex- poseth them not to temptation beyond the ability he had already granted them, or will at the time, or afterwards multiply in them. He hath promised his people that " the gate of hell shall not prevail against them" (1 Cor. x. 13) : that " in all things" they shall be " more than conquerors through Him that loved them :" that the most raging malice of hell shall not wrest them out of his hands. His goodness is not less in performing than it was in promising : and as the care of his providence extends to the least as well as the greatest, so the watchfulness of his goodness extends to us in the least as well as in the greatest temptations. 1. The goodness of God appears in shortening temptations. None of them can go beyond their " appointed times" (Dan. xi. 35) : the strong blast Satan breathes cannot blow, nor the waves he raises rage one minute beyond the time God allows them ; when they have done their work, and come to the period of their time, God speaks the word, and the wind and sea of hell must obey him, and retire into their dens. The more violent temptations are, the shorter time doth God allot to them. The assaults Christ had at the time of his death were of the most pressing and urging nature : the powers of darkness were all in arms against him ; the reproaches and scorns put upon him, questioning his sonship, were very sharp ; yet a little before his suffering he calls it but an hour (Luke xxii. 53), " This is your hour, and the power of darkness." A short time that men and devils were combined against him ; and the time of temptation that is to come upon all the world for their trial, is called but an " hour" (Rev. iii. 10). In all such attempts, the greatness of the rage is a certain prognostic of the shortness of the season (Rev. xii. 12). 2. The goodness of God appears in strengthening his geople un- der temptations. If he doth not restrain the arm of Satan from striking, he gives us a sword to manage the combat, and a shield to bear off the blow (Eph. vi. 16, 17). If he obscures his goodness in one part, he clears and brightens it in another : he either binds the strong man that he shall not stir, or gives us armor to render us victorious. If we fall, it is not for want of provision from him, but for want of our " putting on the armor of God" (Eph. vi. 11, 13). When we have not a strength by nature, he gives it us by grace : he often quells those passions within which would join hands with, and iftecond the temptation without. He either qualifies the temptation 312 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. Buitably to the force we have, or else supplies us witL i new strength to mate the temptation he intends to let loose against us ; he knows we are but aast, and his goodness will not have us unequally match- ed. The Jews that in Antiochus' time were under great temptation to apostasy by reason of the violence of their persecutions, were, " out of weakness, made strong" for the combat (Heb. xi. 34). The Spirit came more strongly upon Sampson when the Philistines most furiously and confidently assaulted him. His Spirit is sent to strengthen his people before the devil is permitted to tempt them (Matt. iv. 2) ; " Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit." Then ; When? When the Spirit had in an extraordinary manner descended upon him (Matt. iii. 16), " then," and not before. As the angels appeared to Christ, after his temptation, to minister to him, so they appeared to him before his passion, the time of the strongest powers of dark- ness, to strengthen him for it : he is so good, that when he knows our potsherd strength too weak, he furnisheth our recruits from his own omnipotence (Eph. vi. 10) ; " Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." He doth, as it were, breathe in something of his own almightiness, to assist us in our wrestling against principal- ities and powers, and make us capable to sustain the violent storms of the enemies. 3. The goodness of God is seen in temptations, in giving great comforts in or after them. The Israelites had a more immediate provision of manna from heaven when they were in the wilderness. We read not that the Father spake audibly to the Son, and gave him so loud a testimony, that he was his " beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased," till he was upon the brink of strong temptations (Matt. iii. 17) : nor sent angels to minister immediately to his per- son, till after his success (Matt. iv. 11). Job never had such evi- dences of Divine love till after he had. felt the sharp strokes of Sa- tan's malice ; he had heard of God before, by the " hearing of the ear," but afterwards is admitted into greater familiarity (Job. xlii. 5) : he had more choice appearances, clearer illuminations, and more lively instructions. And, though his people fall into temptation, yet, after their rising, they have more signal marks of his favor than others have, or themselves, before they fell. Peter had been the butt of Satan's rage, in tempting him to deny Christ, and he had shamefully complied with the temptation ; yet, to him particularly, must the first news of the Eedeemer's resurrection be carried, by God's order, in the mouth of an angel (Mark xvi. 7) ; " Go youi ways, tell his disciples, and Peter." We have the greatest commu- nion with God after a victory ; the most refreshing truths after the devil hath done his worst. God is ready to furnish us with strength in a combat, and cordials after it. 4. The goodness of God is seen in temptations, in discovering and advancing inward gra se by this means. The issue of a temptation of a Christian is often like that of Christ's, the manifesting a greater vigor of the Divine nature, in affections to God, and enmity to sin. Spices perfume not the air with their scent till they are invaded by the fire : the truth of grace is evidenced by them. The assault of an enemy revives, and actuates that strength and courage which ia ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 813 «n a man, perhaps unknown to himself, as well as others, till he meets with an adversary : many seem good, not that they are so in themselves, but for want of a temptation : this many times verifies a virtue, which was owned upon trust before, and discovers that we had more grace than we thought we had. The solicitations of Joseph's mistress cleared up his chastity : we are many times under temptation, as a candle under the snuffer ; it seems to be out, but presently burns the clearer. Afflictions are like those clouds which look black, and eclipse the sun from the earth, but yet, when they drop, refresh that ground they seem to threaten, and multiply the grain on the earth, to serve for our food ; and so our troubles, while they wet us to the skin, wash much of that dust from our graces which in a clearer day had been blown upon us. Too much rest corrupts ; exercise teacheth us to manage our weapons : the spiritual armor would grow rusty, without opportunity to furbish it up ; faith receives a new heart by every combat, and by every victory ; like a fire, it spreads itself further, and gathers strength by the blowing of the wind. While the gardener commands his servant to shake the tree, he intends to fasten its roots, and settle it firmer in its place ; and is this an ill-will to the plant ? 5. His goodness is seen in temptations, in preventing sin which we were likely to fall into. Paul's thorn in the flesh was to prevent the pride of his spirit, and let out the windiness of his heart (2 Cor. xii. 7), lest it should be exalted above measure. The goodness of God makes the devil a polisher, while he intends to be a destroyer. The devil never works, but suitably to some corruption lurking in us : Divine goodness makes his fiery darts a means to discover, and so to prevent the treachery of that perfidious inmate in our hearts ; humility is a greater benefit than a putrefying pride ; if God brings us into a wilderness to be tempted of the devil, it is to bring down our loftiness, to starve our carnal confidence, and expel our rusting " security" (Deut. viii. 2) ; we many times fly under a temptation to God, from whom we sat too loose before. Is it not goodness to use those means that may drive us into his own arms ? It is not a want of goodness to soap the garment, in order to take away the spots ; we have reason to bless God for the assaults from hell, as weU as pure mercies from heaven ; and it is a sin to overlook the one as well as the other, since Divine goodness shines in both. 6. The goodness of God is seen in temptations, in fitting us more for his service. Those whom God intends to make choice mstru- ments in his service, are first seasoned with strong temptations, as timber reserved for the strong beams of a building is first exposed tc. &un and wind, to make it more compact for its proper use. By this men are brought to answer the end of their creation, the service of God, which is their proper goodness. Peter was, after his foil by a temptation, more courageous in his Master's cause than before, and ihe more fitted to strengthen his brethren. Thus the goodness of God appears in all parts of his government. V. I shall now come to the tise. First, Of instruction. 1. If God be so good, how unworthy is the contempt or abuse of nis goodness ! (1.) The contempt and abuse of Divine goodness is 314 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. frequent and common ; it began in the first ages of the world, and commenced a few moments after the creation ; it hath not to this day diminished its affronts ; Adam began the dance, and his pos- terity have followed him ; the injury was directed against this, when ne entertained the seducer's notion of God's being an envious Deity, in not indulging such a knowledge as he might have afforded him (Gen. iii. 5) : " God doth know, that you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." The charge of envy is utterly inconsistent with pure goodness. What was the language of this notion, so easily enter- tained by Adam, but that the tempter was better than God, and tlie nature of God as base and sordid as the nature of a devil ? Satan paints God with his own colors, represents him as envious and ma- licious as himself; Adam admires, and believes the picture to be true, and hangs it up as a beloved one in the closet of his heart. The devil still drives on the same game, fills men's hearts with the same sentiments, and by the same means he murdered our first parents, he redoubles the stabs to his posterity. Every violation of the Divine law is a contempt of God's goodness, as well as his sovereignty, be- cause his laws are the products both of the one and the other. Good- ness animates them, while sovereignty enjoys them : God hath com- manded nothing but what doth conduce to our happiness. All dis- obedience implies, that his law is a snare to entrap us, and make us miserable, and not an act of kindness, to render us happy, which is a disparagement to this perfection, as if he had commanded what would promote our misery, and prohibited what would conduce to our blessedness : to go far from him, and walk after vanity, is tc charge him with our iniquity, and unrighteousness, baseness, and cruelty, in his commands : God implies it by his speech (Jer. ii, 5), " What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and walked after vanity ?" as if, like a tyrant, he had consulted cruelty in the composure of them, and designed to feast liimself with the blood and misery of his creatures. Every sin is, in its own nature, a denial of God to be the chiefest good and happi- ness, and implies that it is no great matter to lose him : it is a for- saking him as the Fountain of Life, and a preferring a cracked and " empty cistern" as the chief happiness before him (Jer, ii. 13). Though sin is not so evil as God is good, yet it is the greatest evil, and stands in opposition to God as the greatest good. Sin disorders the frame of the world ; it endeavored to frustrate all the communi- cations of Divine goodness in creation, and to stop up the way of any further streams of it to his creatures. (2,) The abuse and contempt of the Divine goodness is base and disingenious. It is the highest wickedness, because God is the high- est goodness, pure goodness that cannot have anything in him worthy of our contempt. Let men injure God under what notion they will, they injure his goodness ; because all his attributes are summed up in this one, and all, as it were, deified by it. For what- soever power or wisdom he might have, if he were destitute of this he were not God : the contempt of his goodness implies him to be the greatest evil, and worst of beings. Badness, not goodness, is the proper object of contempt: as respect is a propension of mind tO' ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 315 sometliiiig that is good, so contempt is an alienation of the mind from something as evil, either simply or supposedly evil in its nature, or base or unworthy in its action towards that person that contemns it. As men desire nothing but what they apprehend to be good, so they slight nothing but what they apprehend to be evil : since no- thing, therefore, is more contemned by us than God, nothing more spurned at by us than God, it will follow that we regard him as the most loathsome and despicable being, which is the gTeatest baseness. And our contempt of him is worse than that of the devils ; they in- jure him under the inevitable strokes of his justice, and we slight him when we are surrounded with the expressions of his bounty ; they abuse him under vials of wrath, and we under a plenteous lib- erahty : they malice him, because he inflicts on them what is hurt- ful ; and we despise him, because he commands what is profitable, holy, and honorable, in its own nature, though not in our esteem. They are not under those high obhgations as we ; they abuse his creating, and we his redeeming goodness : he never sent his Son to shed a drop of blood for their recovery ; they can expect nothing but the torment of their persons, and the destruction of their works ; but we abuse that goodness that would rescue us since we are miserable, as well as that righteousness which created us innocent. How base is it to use him so ill, that is not once or twice, but a daily, hourly Benefactor to us ; whose rain drops upon the earth for our food, and whose sun shines upon the earth for our pleasure as well as profit : such a Benefactor as is the true Proprietor of what we have, and thinks nothing too good for them that think everything too much for his service ! How unworthy is it to be guilty of such base car- riage towards him, whose benefits we cannot want, nor live without ! How disingenious both to God and ourselves, to " despise the riches of his goodness, that are designed to lead us to repentance" (Rom. ii. 4), and by that to happiness ! And more heinous are the sins of re- newed men upon this account, because they are against his " good- ness" not only offered to them, but tasted by them ; not only against the notion of goodness, but the experience of goodness, and the rel- ished sweetness of choicest bounty. (3). God takes this contempt of his goodness heinously. He never upbraids men with anything in the Scrij)ture, but with the abuse of the good things he hath vouchsafed them, and the un- mindfulness of the obligations arising from them. This he bears with the greatest regret and indignation. Thus he upbraids Eli with the preference of him to the priesthood above other families (1 Sam. ii. 28) : and David with his exaltation to the crown of Israel (2 Sam. xii. 7 — 9), when they abused those honors to carelessness and licentiousness. All sins offend God, but sins against his good- ness do more disparage him ; and, therefore, his fiiry is the greater, by how much the more liberally his benefits have been dispensed. It was for abuse of Divine goodness, as soon as it was tasted, that some angels were hurled from their blessed habitation and more happy nature : it was for this Adam lost his present enjoyments, and future happiness, for the abuse of God's goodness in creation. For the abuse of God's goodness the old world fell under the fury 316 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. of t"he flood ; and for the contempt of the Divine goodness in re demption, Jerusalem, once the darling city of the infinite Monarch of the world, was made an Aceldema, a field of blood. For this cause it is, that candlesticks have been removed, great lights put out, nations overturned, and ignorance hath triumphed in places bright before with the beams of heaven. God would have little care of his own goodness, if he always prostituted the fruits of it to our contempt. Why should we expect he should always continue that to us which he sees we will never use to his service ? When the Israelites would dedicate the gifts of God to the service of Baal, then he would return, and take away his corn, and his wine, and make them know by the loss, that those things were his in do- minion, which they abused, as if they had been sovereign lords of them (Hos. ii. 8, 9). Benefits are entailed upon us no longer than we obey (Josh. xxiv. 20) : "If you forsake the Lord, he will do you hurt, after he hath done you good." While we obey, his bounty shall shower upon us : and when we revolt, his justice shall con- sume us. Present mercies abused, are no bulwarks against inde- pendent judgments. Got hath curses as well as blessings; and they shall light more heavy when his blessings have been more weighty : justice is never so severe as when it comes to right goodness, and revenge its quarrel for the injuries received, A convenient inquiry may be here, How God's goodness is con- temned or abused ? 1st. By a forgetfulness of his benefits. We enjoy the mercies, and forget the Donor ; we take what he gives, and pay not the tribute he deserves ; the " Israelites forgot God their Saviour, which had done great things in Egypt" (Ps. c, 21). We send God's mercies where we would have God send our sins, into the land of forgetfulness, and write his benefits where himself will write the names of the wicked, in the dust, which every wind defaceth : the remembrance soon wears out of our minds, and we are so far fi'om remembering what we had before, that we scarce think of that hand that gives, the very instant wherein his benefits drop upon us. Adam basely forgot his Benefactor, presently after he had been made capable to remember him, and reflect upon him; the first re- mark we hear of him, is of his forgetfulness, not a syllable of his thankfulness. We forget those souls he hath lodged in us, to ac- knowledge his favors to our bodies ; we forget that image where- with he beautified us, and that Christ he exposed as a criminal to death for our rescue, which is such an act of goodness as cannot be expressed by the eloquence of the tongue, or conceived by the acuteness of the mind. Those things which are so common, that they cannot be invisible to our eyes, are unregarded by our minds , our sense prompts our understanding, and our understanding is deaf to the plain dictates of our sense. We forget his goodness in the sun, while it warms us, and his showers while the}^ enrich us ; in the corn, while it nourisheth us, and the wine while it refi^esheth us ; " She did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil" (Hos. ii. 8) : she that might have read my hand in every bit of bread, and every drop of drink, did not consider this. It is an in ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 31? justice to foi get the benefits we receive from man ; it is a (irime of a higher nature to forget those dispensed to us by the hand of God, who gives us those things that all the world cannot furnish us with, without him. The inhabitants of Troas will condemn us, who worshipped mice, in a grateful remembrance of the victory they had made easy for them, by gnawing their enemies' bow-strings. They were mindful of the courtesy of animals, though unintended by those creatures; and we are regardless of the fore-meditated Dounty of Grod. It is in God's judgment a brutishness beyond that of a stupid ox, or a duller ass ; " The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib : but Israel doth not know, my people do not consider" (Isa. i. 3). The ox knows his owner that pastures him, and the ass his master that feeds him ; but man is not so good as to be like to them, but so bad as to be inferior to them : he forgets Him that sustains him, and spurns at him, instead of valuing him for the benefits conferred by him. How horrible is it, that God should lose more by his bounty, than he would do by his parsi- mony ! If we had blessings more sparingly, we should remember him more gratefully. K he had sent us a bit of bread in a distress by a miracle, as he did to Elijah by the ravens, it would have stuck longer in our memories ; but the sense of daily favors soonest wears out of our minds, which are as great miracles as any in their own nature, and the products of the same power ; but the wonder they should beget in us, is obscured by their frequency. 2d. The goodness of God is contemned by an impatient murmur- ing. Our repinings proceed from an inconsideration of God's free liberality, and an ungrateful temper of spirit. Most men are guilty of this. It is implied in the commendation of Job under his pres- sures (Job i. 22): "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly," as if it were a character peculiar to him, whereby he verified the eulogy God had given of hmi before (ver. 8), that there was " none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man." What is implied by the expression ? but that scarce a man is to be found without unjust complaints of God, and charging him under their crosses with cruelty ; when in the greatest they have much more reason to bless him for his bounty in the remainder. Good men have not been innocent. Baruch complains of God for adding grief to his sorrow, not furnishing him with those " great things" he expected (Jer. xlv. 3, 4) ; whereas, he had matter of thankful- ness in God's gift of his life as a prey. But his master chargeth God in a higher strain: " O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived : I am in derision daily" (Jer. xx. 7). When he met with reproach instead of success in the execution of his function, he quarrels with God, as if he had a mind to cheat him into a mischief, when he had more reason to bless him for the honor of being em- ployed in his service. Because we have not what we expect, we slight his goodness in what we enjoy. If he cross us in one thing, he might have made us successless in more : if he take away some things, he might as well have taken away all. The unmerited re- mainder, though never so little, deserves our acknowledgements more than the deserved loss can justify our repining. And for that 318 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. which is snatched from us, there is more cause to be thankful, thai we have enjoj^ed it so long, than to murmur that we posse.-^s it no »onger. Adam's sin implies a repining : he imagined God had been short in his goodness, in not giving him a knowledge he foolishly conceived himself capable of, and would venture a forfeiture of what already had been bountifully bestowed upon him. Man thought God had envied him, and ever since man studies to be even with God, and envies him the free disposal of his own doles : all murmuring, either in our own cause or others, charges God with a want of goodness, because there is a want of that which he fool- ishly thinks would make himself or others happy. The language of this sin is, that man thinks himself better than God ; and if it were in his power, would express a more plentiful goodness than bis Maker. As man is apt to think himself " more pure than God" (Job iv. 17), so of a kinder nature also than an infinite goodness. The Israelites are a wonderful example of this contempt of Divine goodness ; they had been spectators of the greatest miracles, and partakers of the choicest deliverance : he had solicited their re- demption from captivity ; and when words would not do, he came to blows for them, musters up his judgments against their enemies, and, at last, as the Lord of hosts and God of battles, totally defeats their pursuers, and drowns them and their proud hopes of victory in the Red Sea. Little account was made of all this by the redeemed ones; "they lightly esteemed the rock of their salvation," and launch into greater unworthiness, instead of being thankful for the breaking their yoke : they are angiy with him, that he had done so much for them : they repented that ever they had complied with him, for their own deliverance, and had a regret that they had been brought out of Egypt : they were angry that they were freemen, and that their chains had been knocked off: they were more de- ■ sirous to return to the oppression of their Egyptian tyrants, than have God for their governor and caterer, and be fed with his manna. " It was well with us in Egypt : Why came we forth out of Egypt?" which is called a " despising the Lord" (Numb. xi. 18, 20). They were so far from rejoicing in the expectation of the future benefits j)romised them, that they murmured that they had not enjoyed less ; they were so sottish, as to be desirous to put themselves into the irons whence God had delivered them : they would seek a remedy in that Egypt, which had been the prison of their nation, and under the successors of that Pharaoh, who had been the invader of their liberties ; they would snatch Moses from tlie place where the Lord, by an extraordinary providence, hath established him ; they would stone those that minded them of the goodness of God to them, and thereupon of their crime and their duty. (Numb. xvi. 3, 9 — 11); they rose against their benefactors, and " mui-mured against God," that had strengthened the hands of their deliverers; they "despised the manna" he had sent them, and " despised the pleasant land" he intended them (Ps. cvi. 24) ; all which was a high contempt of God and his unparalleled good- ness and care of them. All murmuring is an accusation of Divine goodness. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 319 3d. By unbelief and impenitencj. What is tlie reason we come not to Him when he calls us ; but some secret imagination that he is of an ill nature, means not as he speaks, but intends to mock us, in- stead of welcoming us? When we neglect his call, spurn at his bowels, slight the riches of his grace ; as it is a disparagement to his wisdom to despise his counsel, so it is to his goodness to slight his offers, as though jou could make better provision for yourselves than he is able or willing to do. It disgraceth that which is designed to the praise of the glory of his grace, and renders God cruel to his own Son, as being an unnecessary shedder of his bloou. As the devil by his temptation of Adam, envied God the glory of his creating goodness, so unbelief envies God the glory of his redeeming grace : it is a bidding defiance to him, and challenging him to muster up the legions of his judgments, rather than have sent his Son to suffer for us, or his Spirit to solicit us. Since the sending his Son was the greatest act of goodness that God could express, the refusal of him must be the highest reproach of that liberality God designed to com- mend to the world in so rare a gift : the ingratitude in this refusal must be as high in the rank of sins, as the person slighted is in the rank of beings, or rank of gifts. Christ is a gift (Rom. v. 16), the royalest gift, an unparalleled gift, springing from inconceivable trea- sures of goodness (John iii. 16). What is our turning our backs upon this gift but a low opinion of it ? as though the richest jewel of heaven were not so valuable as a swinish pleasure on earth, and deserved to be treated at no other rate than if mere offals had been presented to us. The plain language of it is, that there were no gra- cious intentions for our welfare in this present ; and that he is not as good, in the mission of his Son, as he would induce us to imagine. Impenitence is also an abuse of this goodness, either by presump- tion, as if God would entertain rebels that bid defiance against him with the same respect that he doth his prostrate and weeping sup- pliants ; that he will have the same regard to the swine as to the children, and lodge them in the same habitation ; or it speaks a sus- picion of God as a deceitful Master, one of a pretended, not a real goodness, that makes promises to mock men, and invitations to de- lude them: that he is an implacable tyrant, rather than a good Father ; a rigid, not a kind Being, delightful only to mark our faults, and overlook our services. 4th. The goodness of God is contemned by a distrust of his provi- dence. As all trust in him supposeth him good, so all distrust of him supposeth him evil ; either without goodness to exert his power, or without power to display his goodness. Job seems to have a spice of this in his complaint (Job xxx. 20), " I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me ; I stand up, and thou regardest me not." It is a fume of the serpent's venom, first breathed into man, to suspect him of cruelty, severity, regardlessness, even under the daily evidences of his good disposition : and it is ordinary not to be! '.eve him when he speaks, nor credit him when he acts ; to question the goodhess of his precepts, and misinterpret the kindness of his providence ; as if they were designed for the supports of a tyranny, and the deceit of the miserable. Thus the Israelite!* thought their miraculous deliver- ,520 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. ance from Egypt, and the placing tliem in security in the wilderness was intended only to pound them up for a slaughter (Numb. xiv. 3) : thus they defiled the lustre of Divine goodness which tlmy had so highly experimented, and placed not that confidence in him which was due to so frequent a Benefactor, and thereby crucified the rich kindness of God, as Genebrard translates the word "limited" (Ps. Ixxviii. 41), It is also a jealousy of Divine goodness, when we seek to deliver ourselves from our straits by unlawful ways, as thougli God had not kindness enough to deliver us without committing evil. What ! did God make a world, and all creatures in it, to think of them no more, not to concern himself in their affairs ? If he be good, he is diffusive, and delights to communicate himself ; and what subjects should there be for it, but those that seek him, and implore his assistance ? It is an indignity to Divine bounty to have such mean thoughts of it, that it should be of a nature contrary to that of his works, which, the better they are, the more diffusive they are. Doth a man distrust that the sun will not shine any more, or the earth not bring forth its fruit ? Doth he distrust the goodness of an approved medicine for the expelling his distemper ? If we distrust those things, should we not render ourselves ridiculous and sottish ? and if we distrust the Creator of those things, do we not make our- selves contemners of his goodness ? K his caring for us be a princi- pal argument to move us to cast our care upon him, as it is 1 Pet. v. 7, "Casting your care upon him, for he cares for 3'ou;" then, if we cast not our care upon him, it is a denial of his gracious care of us, as if he regarded not what becomes of us. 5th. We do contemn or abuse his goodness by omissions of duty. These sometimes spring from injurious conceits of God, which end in desperate resolutions. It was the crime of a good prophet in his passion (2 Kings vi. 33) : " This evil is of the Lord, why should I wait on the Lord any longer?" God designs nothing but mischief to us, and we will seek him no longer. And the complaint of those in Malachi (Mai. iii. 14) is of the same nature ; " Ye have said. It is vain to serve God ; and what profit is it that we have kept his ordi- nances?" We have all this while served a hard Master, not a Bene* factor, and have not been answered with advantages proportionable to our services ; we have met with a hand too niggardly to dispense that reward which is due to the largeness of our offerings. When men will not lift up their eyes to heaven, and solicit nothing but the contrivance of tlieir own brain, and the industry of their own heads, they disown Divine goodness, and approve themselves as their own gods, and the spring of their own prosperity. Those that run not to God in their necessity, to crave his support, deny either the arm of his power, or the disposition of his will, to sustain and deliver them : they must have very mean sentiments, or none at all, of this perfec- tion, or think him either too empty to fill them, or too churlish to relieve them ; that he is of a narrow and contracted, temper, and that they may sooner expect to be made better and happier by anything else than by him : and as we contemn his goodness by a total omis- sion of those duties which respect our own advantage and supply, as prayer ; so we contemn him as the chiefest good, by an omission of ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 'S2l Oie duo manner of any act of worship wMch is designed purely foi the acknowledgment of him. As every omission of the material part of a duty is a denial of his sovereignty as commanding it, so every omission of the manner of it, not performing it with due esteem and valuation of him, a surrender of all the powers of our soul to him, is a denial of him as the most amiable object. But certainly to omit those addresses to God which his precept enjoins, and his excellency deserves, speaks this language, that they can be well enough, and do well enough, without God, and stand in no need of his goodness to maintain them. The neglect or refusal in a malefactor to supplicate for his pardon, is a wrong to, and contempt of, the prince's goodness : either implying that he hath not a goodness in his natui-e worthy of an address, or that he scorns to be obliged to him for any exercise of it. 6th. The goodness of God is contemned, or abused, in relying upon our services to procure God's good will to us. As, when we stand in need either of some particular mercy, or special assistance ; when pressures are heavy, and we have Kttle hopes of ease in an ordinary way ; when the devotions in course have not prevailed for what we want ; we engage ourselves by extraordinary vows and promises to God, hereby to open that goodness which seems to be locked up from us.k Sometimes, indeed, vows may proceed from a sole desire to engage ourselves to God, from a sense of the levity and inconstancy of our spirits ; binding ourselves to God by something more sacred and inviolable than a common resolution. But many times the vowing the building of a temple, endowing a hospital, giving so much in alms if God will free them from a fit of sickness, and spin out the thread of their lives a little longer (as hath been frequent among the Romanists), arises from an opinion of laziness and a sel- fishness in the Divine goodness ; that it must be squeezed out by some solemn promises of retm-ns to him, before it will exercise itself to take their parts. Popular vows are often the effects of an igno- rance of the free and bubbling nature of this perfection of the gener- ousness and royalty of Divine goodness : as if God were of a mean and mechanic temper, not to part with anything unless he were in some measure paid for it ; and of so bad a nature as not to give pas- sage to any kindness to his creature without a bribe. It implies also that he is of an ignorant as well as contracted goodness ; that he hath so little understanding, and so much weakness of judgment, as to be taken with such trifles, and ceremonial courtships, and little prom- ises ; and meditated only low designs, in imparting his bounty : it is just as if a malefactor should speak to a prince, — Sir, if you will but bestow a pardon upon me, and prevent the death I have merited for this crime, I will give you this rattle. All vows made with such a temper of spirit to God, are as injurious and abusive to his good- ness, as any man will judge such an ofler to be to a majestic and gracious prince ; as if it were a trading, not a free and royal good- ness. 7th. The goodness of God is abused when we give up our souls cind affections to those benefits we have from God ; when we make * Amyral. Moral. Tom. IV. p. 291. VOL. n. — 21 322 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. those things God's rivals, which were sent to woo us for him, and offer those affections to the presents themselves, which they weie sent to solicit for the Master. This is done, when either we place our trust in them, or glue our choicest affections to them. This charge God brings against Jerusalem, the trusting in her own beauty, glory, and strength, though it was a comeliness put upon her by God (Ezek. xvi. 14, 15). When a little sunshine of prosperity breaks out upon us, we are apt to grasp it with so much eagerness and closeness, as if we had no other foundation to settle ourselves upon, no other being that might challenge from us our sole dependence And the love of ourselves, and of creatures above God, is very natural to us : " Lovers of themselves, and lovers of pleasure more than of God" (2 Tim. iii. . 2, 4). Self-love is the root, and the love of pleasures the top branch, that mounts its head high- est against heaven. It is for the love of the world that the dangers of the sea are passed over, that men descend into the bowels of the earth, pass nights without sleep, undertake suits without in- termission, wade through many inconveniences, venture their souls, and contemn God ; in those things men glory, and foolishly grow proud by them, and think themselves safe and happy in them.i Now to love ourselves above God, is to own ourselves better than God, and that we transcend him in an amiable goodness ; or, if we love ourselves equal with God, it at least manifests that we think God no better than ourselves ; and think ourselves our own chief good, and deny anything above us to outstrip us in goodness, where- by to deserve to be the centre of our affections and actions, and to love any other creature above him, is to conclude some defect in God ; that he hath not so much goodness in his own nature as that creature hath, to complete our felicity ; that God is a slighter thing than that creature. It is to account God, what all the things in the world are, — an imaginary happiness, a goodness of clay ; and them what God is, — a Supreme Goodness. It is to value the goodness of a drop above that of the spring, and the goodness of the spark above that of the sun. As if the bounty of God were of a less alloy than the advantages we immediately receive from the hands of a silly worm. By how much the better we think a creature to De, and place our affections chiefly upon it, by so much the more defi- cient and indigent we conclude God ; for God wants so much in our conception, as the other thing hath goodness above him in our thoughts. Thus is God lessened below the creature, as if he had a mixture of evil in him, and were capable of an imperfect goodness. He that esteems the sun that shines upon him, the clothes that warm him, the food that nourisheth him, or any other benefit above the Donor, regards them as more comely and useful than God himself; and behaves himself as if he were more obliged to them than to God, who bestowed those advantageous qualities upon them. 8th. The Divine goodness is contemned, in sinning more freely upon the account of that goodness, and employing God's benefits in a drudgery for our lusts. This is a treachery to bis goodness, to make his benefits serve for an end quite contrary to that for which • Cressol. Antholotr. Part II. p. 29- ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 823 he seut them. As if God had been plentiful in his blessings, to Lire them to be more fierce in their rebellions, and fed them to no other purpose, but that they might more strongly kick against him ; this is the fruit which corrupt nature producetli. Thus the Egyptians, who had so fertile a country, prove unthankful to the Creator, by adoring the meanest creatures, and putting the sceptre of the Monarch of the world into the hands of the sottishest and cruellest beasts. And the Romans multiply their idols, as God multiplied their vic- tories. This is also the complaint of God concerning Israel : " She did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal" (Hos. ii. 8). They ungratefully employed the blessings of God in the worship of an idol against the will of the Donor. So in Hos. x. 1 ; " According to the multitude of his fruit, he hath increased the altars ; according to the goodness of his land, they have made goodly images." They followed their own inventions with the strength of my outward bless- ings; as their wealth increased, they increased the ornaments of their images ; so that what were before of wood and stone, they ad- vanced to gold and silver. And the like complaint you may see Ezek. 16, 17. Thus, [1.] The benefits of God are abused to pride, when men standing upon a higher ground of outward prosperity, vaunt it loftily above their neighbors ; the common fault of those that enjoy a worldly sunshine, which the apostle observes in his direction to Timothy ; " Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-, minded" (1 Tim. vi. 17). It is an ill use of Divine blessings to be filled by them with pride and wind. Also, [2.] When men abuse plenty to ease ; because they have abmi- dance, spend their time in idleness, and make no other use of Divine benefits than to trifle away their time, and be utterly useless to the world. [3.] When they also abuse peace and other blessing to security ; as they which would not believe the threatenings of judgment, and the storm coming from a far country, because the Lord was in Sion, and her King in her ; *' Is not the Lord in Sion, is not her King in her" (Jer. viii. 19) ? thinking they might continue their progress in their sin, because they had the temple, the seat of the Divine glory, Sion, and the promise of an everlasting kingdom to David ; abusing the promise of God to presumption and security, and turning the grace of God into wantonness. [4.] Again, when they abuse the bounty of God to sensuality and luxury, misemploying the provisions God gives them, in resolving to live like beasts, when by a good improvement of them, they might attain the life of angels. Thus is the light of the sun abused to con- duct them, and the fruits of the earth abused to enable them to their prodigious debauchery : as we do, saith one, with the Thames, which brings us in provision, and we soil it with our rubbish."^ The more God sows his gifts, the more we sow our cockle and darnel. Thus we make our outward happiness the most unhappy part of our lives, and by the strength of Divine blessings, exceed all laws of reason and tjligion too. How unworthy a carriage is this, to use the express- " Youug, ui Affliction, p. 34. 32-4 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. ions of Divine goodness as occasions of a gnjater outrage and affront of liim ; when we stab liis honor by those instruments he puts into our hands to glorify him ! as if a favorite should turn that sword into the bowels of his prince, wherewith he knighted him ; and a servant, enriched by a lord, should hire by that wealth, murderers to take away liis life ! How brutish is it, the more God courts us with his blessings, the more to spurn at him with our feet ; like the mule that lifts up his heel against the dam, as soon as ever it hath sucked her ! We never beat God out of our hearts, but by his own gifts ; he receives no blows from men, but by those instruments he gave them to promote their happiness. While man is an enjoyer, he makes God a loser, by his own blessings ; inflames his rebellion by those benefits which should kindle his love ; and runs from him by the strength of those favors Avhich should endear the donor to him : " Do you thus requite the Lord, 0 foolish people, and unwise ?" is the expostulation (Deut. xxxii. 6.) Divine goodness appears in the com|)laint of the abuse of it, in giving them titles below their crime, and comj^laining more of their being unfaithful to their own interest, than enemies to his glory : " foolish and unwise" in neglect- ing their own happiness ; a charge below the crime, which deserved to be " abominable, ungrateful people to a jDrodigy." All this car- riage towards God, is as if a man should knock the chirurgeon on the head, as soon as he hath set and bound up liis dislocated members. So God compares the ungrateful behavior of the Israelites against him : " Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me" (Hos. vii. 15) : a metaphor taken from a chirurgeon that applies corroborating plasters to a broken limb. 9th, We contemn the goodness of God, in ascribing our benefits to other causes than Divine goodness. Thus Israel ascribed her feli- city, plenty, and success, to her idols, as " rewards which her lovers had given her" (Hos. ii. 5, 12). And this charge Daniel brought home upon Belshazzar: "Thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, and brass, and iron ; and the God in whose hand is thy breath, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified" (Dan. v. 23). The God who hath given success to the arms of thy ancestors, and conveyed by their hands so large a dominion to thee, thou hast not honored in the same rank with the sordidest of thy idols. It is the same case, when we own him not as the author of any success in our affairs, but by an overweaning conceit of our own sagacity, applaud and admire ourselves, and overlook the hand that conducted us, and brought our endeavors to a good issue. We eclipse the glory of Di- vine goodness, by setting the crown that is due to it upon the head of our own industry ; a sacrilege worse than Belshazzar's drinking of wine with his lords and concubines in the sacred vessels pilfered from the temple ; as in that place of Daniel. This was the proud vaunt of the Assyrian conqueror, for which God threatens to punish the fruit of his stout heart: "By the strength of my hand, I have done it, and by my wisdom ; for I am prudent ;" and, " I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures ;" and, "I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man" (Isa. x. 12-1-i). Not a word of Divine goit Iness and assistance in all this, but applauding ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 325 his own courage and conduct. This is a robbing of God, to set up ourselves, and making Divine goodness a footstool, to as(;end into his throne. And as it is unjust, so it is ridiculous, to ascribe to our- selves, or instruments, the chief honor of any work ; as ridiculous as if a soldier, after a victory, should erect an altar to the honor of his sword ; or an artificer offer sacrifices to the tools whereby he com- pleted some excellent and useful invention : a practice that every rational man would disdain, where he should see it. It is a discard- ing any thoughts of the goodness of God, when we imagine, that we chiefly owe anj^thing in this world to our own industry or wit, to friends or means, as though Divine goodness did not open its hand to interest itself in our affairs, support our ability, direct our coun- sels, and mingle itself with anything we do. God is the principal author of any advantage that accrues to us, of any wise resolution we fix upon, or any proper way we take to compass it ; no man can be wise in opposition to God, act wisely, or Avell without him ; his goodness inspires men with generous and magnificent counsels, and furnisheth them with fit and proportionable means ; when he with- draws his hand, men's heads grow foolish, and their hands feeble ; folly and weakness drop upon them, as darkness upon the world upon the removal of the sun ; it is an abuse of Divine goodness not to own it, but erect an idol in its place. Ezra was of another mind 'when he ascribed to the good hand of God the "providing ministers for the temple," and not to his own care and diligence (chap. viii. 18) ; and Nehemiah, the " success he had with the king" in the behalf of his nation, and not solely to his favor with the prince, or the arts he used to please him (chap. ii. 8). 2. The second information is this : If God be so good, it is a cer- tain argument that man is fallen from his original state. It is the complaint of man, sometimes, that other creatures have more of earthly happiness than men have ; live freer from cares and trouble, and are not racked with that solicitousness and anxiety as man is : have not such distempers to embitter their lives. It is a good ground for man to look into himself, and consider whether he hath not, some ways or other, disobliged God more than other creatures can possi- bly do. We often find that the creatures men have need of in this state, do not answer the expectation of man: "Cursed be the ground for thy sake" (Gen, iii. 17). A fruitful land is made barren ; thorns and thistles triumph upon the face of the earth, instead of good fruit Is it likely that that goodness, which is as infinite as his power, and knows no more limits than his Almightiness, should imprint so many scars upon the world, if he had not been heinously provoked by some miscarriage of his creature? Infinite Goodness could never move Infinite Justice to inflict j)unishment upon creatures, if they had not highly merited it ; we cannot think that any creature was blemished with a principle of disturbance, as it came first out of the hand of God. All things were certainly settled in a due order and depend- ence upon one another ; nothing could be ungrateful and unuseful to man by the original law of their creation ; if there had, it had not been goodness, but evil and baseness, that had created the world. When we see, therefore, the course of nature overturned, the ordei 326 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. Divine goodness had placed, disturbed; and the creatures pronoun ced good and useful to man, employed as Instruments of vengeance igaiust liim ; we must conclude some horrible blot upon human na- ture, and very odious to a God of infinite goodness ; and that this blot was dashed upon man by himself, and his own fault ; for it is repugnant to the infinite goodness of God to put into the creature a sinning nature, to hurry him into sin, and then punish him for that which ho had impressed upon him. The goodness of God inchnes him to love goodness wherever he finds it ; and not to punish any that have not deserved it by their own crimes. The curse we there fore see the creatures groan under, the disorders in nature, the frus- trating the expectations of man in the fruits of the earth and plenti- ful harvests, the trouble he is continually exposed to in the world, which tedders down his spirit from more generous employments, shows that man- is not what he was when Divine goodness first erected him ; but hath admitted into his nature something more un- comely in the eye of God ; and so heinous, that it puts his goodness sometimes to a stand, and makes him lay aside the blessings his hand was filled with, to take up the arms of vengeance, wherewith to fight against the world. Divine goodness would have secured his crea- tures from any such invasions, and never used those things against man, which he designed in the first frame for man's service, were there not some detestable disorder risen in the nature of man which makes God withhold his liberality and change the dispensation of his numerous benefits into legions of judgments. The consideration of the Divine goodness, which is a notion that man naturally con- cludes to be inseparable from the Deity, would, to an unbiassed rea- son, verify the history of those punishments settled upon man in the third chapter of Genesis, and make the whole seem more probable- to reason at the first relation. This instruction naturally flows from the doctrine of Divine goodness : if God be so good, it is a certain argument that man is fallen from his original state. 3. The third information is this : If God be infinitely good, there can be no just complaint against God, if men be punished for abus- ing his goodness. Man had nothing, nay, it was impossible he could have anything, from Infinite Goodness to disoblige him, but to en- gage him. God never did, nay, never could, draw his sword against man, till man had slighted him and affronted him by the strength of his own bounty. It is by this God doth justify his severest pro- ceedings against men, and very seldom charges them with any else as the matter of their provocations (Hos. ii. 9): "Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax." And in Ezek. xvi., after he had drawn out a bill of complaint against them, and inserted only the abuse of his benefits, as a justification of what he intended to do ; he concludes (ver. 27), " Behold, there- fore, I have stretched out my hand over thee, and diminished thy ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee." When men suffer, they suffer justly ; they were not con- strained by any violence, or forced by any necessity, nor provoked bv any ill usage, to turn head against God, but broke the bands of ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 827 the stiongest obligations and most tender allurements. What man, what devil, can justly blame God for punishing them, after they had been so intolerably bold, as to fly in the face of that goodness that had obliged them, by giving them beings of a higher elevation than to inferior creatures, and furnishing them with sufficient strength to continue in their first habitation ? Man seems to have less reason to accuse God of rigor than devils ; since, after his unreasonable re- volt, a more express goodness than that which created him hath soli- cited him to repentance, courted him by melting promises and ex- postulations, added undeniable arguments of bounty, and drawn out the choicest treasures of heaven, in the gift of his Son, to prevail over men's perversity. And yet man, after he might arrive to the height and happiness of an angel, will be fond of continuing in the meanness and misery of a devil ; and more strongly link himself tc the society of the damned spirits, wherein, by his first rebellion, h( had incorporated himself. Who can blame God for vindicating his- own goodness from such desperate contempts, and the extreme in- gratitude of man ? If God be good, it is our happiness to adhere to him ; if we depart ft-om him, we depart from goodness ; and if evil happen to us, we cannot blam.e God, but ourselves, for our depar- ture. ^^ Why are men happy ? because they cleave to God. Why are men miserable ? because they recede from God. It is then out .own fault that we are miserable ; God cannot be charged with any injustice if we be miserable, since his goodness gave means to pre- vent it, and afterwards added means to recover us from it, but all despised by us. The doctrine of Divine goodness justifies every stone laid in the foundation of hell, and every spark in that burn- ing furnace, since it is for the abuse of infinite goodness that it was kindled. 4. The fourth information : Here is a certain argument, both for God's fitness to govern the world, and his actual government of it. (1.) This renders him fit for the government of the world, and gives him a full title to it. This perfection doth the Psalmist cele brate throughout the 107th Psalm, where he declares God's works of providence (ver. 8, 15, 21, 32). Power without goodness would de- face, instead of preserving ; ruin is the fruit of rigor without kind- ness ; but God, because of his infinite and immutabl(3 goodness, cannot do anything unworthy of himself, and uncomely in itself, or destructive to any moral goodness in the creature. It is impossible he should do anything that is base, or act anything but for the best, because he is essentially and naturally, and, therefore, necessarily good. As a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit, so a good God cannot produce evil acts, no more than a pure beam of the sun can engender so much as a mite of darkness, or infinite heat produce any particle of cold. As God is so much light, that he can be no dark- ness, so he is so much good, that he can have no evil ; and because there is no evil in him, nothing simply evil can be produced by him. Since he is good by nature, all evil is against his nature, and God can do nothing against his nature ; it would be a part of impotence in him to will that which is evil ; and, therefore, the misery mar » Petav. Theolog. Dogmat. Vol. I. p. 407. 328 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. feels, as well as the sin whereby he deserves that misery, are said tc be from himself (Hos. xiii. 9) : "0 Israel, thou hast destroyed thy- self!" And though God sends judgments upon the world, we have shown these to be intended for the support and vindication of his goodness. And Hezekiah judged no otherwise, when, after the threatening of the devastation of his house, the plundering his treas- ures, and captivity of his posterity, he replies, " Good is the word of the Lord, which thou hast spoken" (Isa. xxxix. 8). God cannot act anything that is base and cruel, because his goodness is as infinite a3 his power, and his power acts nothing but what his wisdom directs, and his goodness moves him to. Wisdom is the head in government, omniscience the eye, power the arm, and goodness the heart and spirit in them, that animates all. (2.) As goodness renders Him fit to govern the world, so God doth actually govern the world. Can we understand this perfection aright, and yet imagine that he is of so morose a disposition as to neglect the care of his creatures ? that his excellency, which was displayed in framing the world, should withdraw and wrap up itself in his own bosom, without looking out, and darting itself out in the disposal of them ? Can that which moved him first to erect a world, suffer him to be unmindful of his own work ? Would he design first to display it in creation, and afterwards obscure the honor of it ? That cannot be entitled an infinite permanent goodness, which should be so indifferent as to let the creatures tumble together as they please, without any order, after he had moulded them in his hand. If good- ness be diffusive and communicative of itself, can it consist with the nature of it, to extend itself to the giving the creatures being, and then withdraw and contract itself, not caring what becomes of them ? It is the nature of goodness, after it hath communicated itself, to en- large its channels ; that fountain that springs up in a little hollow part of the earth, doth in a short progress increase its streams, and widen the passages through which it runs ; it would be a blemish to Divine goodness, if it did desert what it made, and leave things to wild confusions, which would be, if a good hand did not manage them, and a good mind preside over them. This is the lesson in- tended to us by all his judgments (Dan. iv. 17), " That the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdoms of men." If he doth not actually govern the world, he must have devolved it somewhere, either to men or angels ; not to men, who naturally want a goodness and wisdom to govern themselves, much more to govern others exactly. And, besides the misinterpretations of actions, they are liable to the want of patience, to bear with the provocations of the world ; since some of the best at one time in the world, and, in the greatest example of meekness and sweetness, would have kindled a fire in heaven to have consumed the Samaritans, for no other affront than a non-entertainment of their Master and themselves (Luke ix. 54). Nor hath he committed the disposal of things to angels, either good or bad ; though he useth them as instruments in his govern- ment, yet they are not the j)rincipal pilots to steer the world. Bad angels certainly are not ; they would make continual ravages, med- itate ruin, never defeat their own counsels, which they manage by the ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 829 wicked as tlie instruments in the world, nor fill their spirits with dis- quiet and restlessness when the}^ are engaged in some ruinous design, as often is experienced : nor hath he committed it to the good angels, who, for aught we know, are not more numerous than the evil ones are ; but besides, we can sca*-cely think their finite nature capable of so much goodness, as to bear the innumerable debaucheries, villanies, blasphemies, vented in one year, one week, one day, one hour, throughout the world ; their zeal for their Creator might well be supposed to move them to testify their affection to him in a constant and speedy righting of his injured honor upon the heads of the of- fenders. The evil angels have too much cruelty, and would have no care of justice, but take pleasure in the blood of the most inno- cent, as well as the most criminal ; and the good angels have too little tenderness to suffer so many crimes : since the world, therefore, continues without those floods of judgments, which it daily merits ; since, notwithstanding all the provocations, the order of it is pre- served ; it is a testimony that an Infinite Goodness holds the helm in his hands, and spreads its warm wings over it. 5. The fifth information is this : Hence we may infer the ground of all rehgion ; it is this perfection of goodness. As the goodness of God is the lustre of all his attributes, so it is the foundation and link of all true religious worship : the natural religion of the hea- thens was introduced by the consideration of Divine goodness, in the being he had bestowed upon them, and the provisions that were made for them. Divine bounty was the motive to erect altars, and present sacrifices, though they mistook the object of their worship, and offered the dues of the Creator to the instruments whereby he conveyed his benefits to them : and you find, that the religion insti- tuted by him among the Jews, was enforced upon them by the con- sideration of their miraculous deliverance from Egypt, the preserva- tion of them in the wilderness, and the enfeoflfing them in a land flowing with milk and honey. Every act of bounty and success the heathens received, moved them to appoint new feasts, and repeat their adorations of those deities they thought the authors and promo- ters of their victories and welfare. The devil did not mistake the common sentiment of the world in Divine service, when he alleged to God, that "Job did not fear him for nought," i. e. worship him for nothing (Job i. 9). All acts of devotion take their rise from God'a liberality, either from what they have or from what they hope ; praise speaks the possession, and prayer the expectation, of some benefit from his hand : though some of the heathens made fear to be tlie prime cause of the acknowledgment and worship of a deity, yet surely something else besides and beyond this established so great a thing as religion in the world ; an ingenuous religion could never have been born into the world without a notion of goodness, and would have gaped its last as soon as this notion should have expired in the minds of men. What encouragement can fear of power give , without sense of goodness? just as much as thunder hath, to invite a man to the place where it is like to fall, and crush him. The na ture of " fear" is to drive from, and the nature of " goodness" to al lure to, the object: the Divine thunders, prodigies, and other armies 880 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. of his astice in the world, which are the marks of his power, could conch de in nothing but a slavish worship : fear alone would have made men blaspheme the Deit}^ ; instead of serving him, they would have fretted against him ; they might have offered him a trembling worship ; but they could never have, in their minds, thought him worthy of an adoration ; they would rather have secretly complained of him, and cursed him in their heart, than inwarly have admired him : the issue would have been the same, which Job's wife advised him to, when God withdrew his protection from his goods and body : " Curse God, and die" (Job h. 9). It is certainly the common senti- ment of men, that he that acts cruelly and tyrannically, is not worthy of an integrity to be retained towards him in the hearts of his subjects: but Job fortifies himself against this temptation from his bosom friend, by the consideration of the good he had received from God, which did more deserve a worship from him than the present evil had reason to discourage it. Alas ! what is only feared, is hated, not adored. Would any seek to an irreconcileable enemy ? would any person af- fectionately list himself in the service of a man void of all good dis- position? would any distressed person put up a petition to that prince, who never gave any experiment of the sweetness of his na- ture, but always satiated himself with the blood of the meanest crim- inals ? All affection to service is rooted up when hopes of receiving good are extinguished : there could not be a spark of that in the world, which is properly called religion, without a notion of goodness; the existence of God is the first pillar, and the goodness of God in rewarding the next, upon which coming to him (which includes all acts of devotion) is established (Heb. xi. 6); "He that comes unto God, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him :" if either of those pillars be not thought to stand firm, all religion falls to the ground. It is this, as the most agreeable motive, that the apostle James uses, to encourage men's approach to God, because " he gives liberally, and upbraideth not" (James i. 5). A man of a kind heart and a bountiful hand shall have his gate thronged with suppliants, who sometimes would be willing to lay down their lives ; " for a good man one would even dare to die:" when one of a niggardly or tyrannical temper shall be destitute of all free and affectionate applications. What eyes would be lifted up to heaven ? what hands stretched out, if there were not a knowledge of goodness there to enliven their hopes of speeding in their petitions ? Therefore Christ orders our prayers to be directed to God as a Father, which is a title of tenderness, as well as a " Father in heaven." a mark of his greatness ; the one to support our confi- dence, as well as the other to preserve our distance. God could not be ingenuously adored and acknowledged, if he were not liberal as well as powerful ; the gootlness of God is the foundation of all in- genuous religion, devotion and worship. 6. The sixth instruction : The goodness of God renders God amiable. His goodness renders him beautiful, and his beauty ren ders him lovely; both are linked together (Zech. ix. 17) : "How great is his goodness ! and how great is his beauty !" This is the most powerful attractive, and masters the affections of the soul r it ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 331 is goodn.;ss only supposed, or real, that is tHouglit wortliy to demerit our aifections to anytMng. If there be not a reality of this, or at least an opinion and estimation of it in an object, it would want a force and vigor to allure our will. This perfection of God is the loadstone to draw us, and the centre for our spirits to rest in. 1. This renders God amiable to himself. His goodness is his " Godhead" (Eom. i. 20) : by his Godhead is meant his goodness ; if he loves his Godhead for itself, he loves his goodness for itself; he would not be good, if he did not love himself; and if there were anything more excellent, and had a greater goodness than himself, he would not be good if he did not love that greater goodness above himself ; for not only a hatred of goodness is evil, but an indifferent or cold affection to goodness hath a tincture of evil in it. K God were not good, and yet should love himself in the highest manner, ne would be the greatest evil, and do the greatest evil in that act ; for he would set his love upon that which is not the proper object of such an affection, but the object of aversion : his own infinite excellency, and goodness of his nature, renders him lovely and de- lightful to himself ; without this he could not love himself in a com- mendable and worthy way, and becoming the purity of a Deity ; and he cannot but love himself for this ; for, as creatures, by not loving him as the supreme good, deny him to be the choicest good, so God would deny himself, and his own goodness, if he did not love himself, and that for his goodness. But the apostle tells us, that " God cannot deny himself" (2 Tim. ii. 13). Self-love, upon this ac- count, is the only prerogative of God, because there is not anything better than himself that can lay any just claim to his affections : he only ought to love himself, and it would be an injustice in him to himself, if he did not. He only can love himself for this : an infin- ite goodness ought to be infinitely loved, but he only being infinite, can only love himself according to the due merit of his own good- ness. He cannot be so amiable to ^ny man, to any angel, to the highest seraphim, as he is to himself; because he is only capable in regard of his infinite wisdom, to know the infiniteness of his own goodness. And no creature can love him as he ought to be loved, unless it had the same infinite capacity of understanding to know him, and of affection to embrace him. This first renders God amiable to himself 2. It ought therefore to render him amiable to us. What renders him lovely to his own eye, ought to render him so to ours ; and since, by the shortness of our understandings, we cannot love him as he merits, yet we should be induced by the measures of his bounty, to love him as we can. If this do not present him lovely to us, we own him rather a devil than a God : if his goodness moved him to frame creatures, his goodness moved him also to frame crea- tures for himself and his own glory. It is a mighty wrong to him not to look with a delightful eye upon the marks of it, and return an affection to God in some measure suitable to his liberality to us ; we are descended as low as brutes, if we understand him not to be the perfect good ; and we are descended as low as devils, if oui affections are not attracted by it. 332 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. (1.) If God were not infinitely good, he could not be the object of supreme love. If he were finitely good, there might be other things as good as God, and then God in justice could not challenge our choicest affections to him above anything else : it would be a de- fect of goodness in him to demand it, because he would despoil that which were equally good with him, of its due and right to our affections, which it might claim from us upon the account of its o-oodness : God would be unjust to challenge more than was due to him ; for he would claim that chiefly to himself which another had a lawful share in. Nothing can be supremely loved that hath not a triumphant excellency above all other things ; where is an equality of goodness, neither can justly challenge a supremacy, but only an equality of affection. (2.) This attribute of goodness renders him more lovely than any other attribute. He never requires our adoration of him so much as the strongest or wisest, but as the best of beings : he uses this chiefly to constrain and allure us. Why would he be feared or worshipped, but because " there is forgiveness with him" (Ps. cxxx. 4:) ? it is for his goodness' sake that he is sued to by his people m distress (Ps. xxv. 7), " For thy goodness' sake, O Lord." Men may be admired because of their knowledge, but they are affected because of their goodness : the will, in all the variety of objects it pursues, centres in this one thing of good as the term of its appetite. All things are beloved by men, because they have been bettered by them. Severity can never conquer enmity, and kindle love : were there nothing but wrath in the Deity, it would make him be feared, but render him odious, and that to an innocent nature. As the spouse speaks of Christ (Cant. v. 10, 11), so we may of God : though she commends him for his head, the excellency of his wisdom ; his eyes, the extent of his omnis- cience ; his hands, the greatness of his power ; and his legs, the swiftness of his motions and ways to and for his people ; yet the " sweetness of his mouth," in his gracious words and promises, closes all, and is followed with nothing but an exclamation, that " he is altogether lovely" (ver. 16). His mouth, in pronouncing pardon of sin, and justification of the person, presents him most lovely. His power to do good is admirable, but his will to do good is amiable : this puts a gloss upon all his other attributes. Though he had knowledge to understand the depth of our neces sities, and power to prevent them, or rescue us from them, yet his knowledge would be fruitless, and his power useless, if he were of a rigid nature, and not touched with any sentiments of kindness. (3.) This goodness therefore lays a strong obligation upon us. It is true he is lovely in regard of his absolute goodness, or the goodness of his nature, but we should hardly be persuaded to re* turn him an affection without his relative goodness, his benefits to Ids creatures ; we are obliged by both to love him. [1.] By his absolute goodness, or the goodness of his nature. Suppose a creature had drawn its original from something else wherein God had no influx, and had never received the least ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 333 mite of a benefit from him, but from some othei hand, yet the infinite ex(!ellency and goodness of his nature would merit the love of that creature, and it would act sordidly and disingenuous- ly if it did not discover a mighty respect for God : for what in- genuity could there be in a rational creature, that were possessed with no esteem for any nature filled with unbounded goodness and excellency, though he had never been obliged to him for any favor ? That man is accounted odious, and justly despicable by man, that reproaches and disesteems, nay, that doth not value a person of a high virtue in himself, and an universal goodness and charity to others, though himself never stood in need of his charity, and never had any benefit conveyed from his hands, nor ever saw his face, or had any commerce with him : a value of such a person is but a just due to the natural claim of virtue. And, indeed, the first object of love is God in the excellency of his own nature, as the first object of love in marriage is the person ; the portion is a thing consequent upon it. To love God only for his benefits, is to love ourselves first, and him secondarily : to love God for his own goodness and excellency, is a true love of God ; a love of .him for himself. That flaming fire in his own breast, though we have not a spark of it, hatJi a right to kindle one in ours to him. [2.] By his relative goodness, or that of his benefits. Though the excellency of his own nature, wherein there is a combination of good- ness, must needs ravish an apprehensive mind ; yet a reflection upon his imparted kindness, both in the beings we have from him, and the support we have by him, must enhance his estimation. When the excellency of his nature, and the expressions of his bounty are in conjunction, the excellency of his own nature renders him estima- ble in a way of justice, and the greatness of his benefits renders him valuable in a way of gratitude : the first ravisheth, and the other allures and melts : he hath enough in his nature to attract, and sufii- cient in his bounty to engage our affections. The excellency of his nature is strong enough of itself to blow up our affections to him, were there not a malignity in our hearts that represents him under the notion of an enemy ; therefore in regard of our corrupt state, the consideration of Divine largesses comes in for a share in the elevation of our affections. For, indeed, it is a very hard thing for a man to loA'e another, though never so well qualified, and of an eminent vir- tue, while he believes him to be his enemy, and one that will severely handle him, though he hath before received many good turns from him ; the virtue, valor, and courtesy of a prince, will hardly make him affected by those against whom he is in arms, and that are daily pilfered by his soldiers, unless they have hopes of a reparation from him, and future security from injuries. Christ, in the repetition of the command to " love God with all our mind, with all our heart, and with all our soul," i. e. with Such an ardency above all things which glitter in our eye, or can be created by him, considers him as " our God" (Matt. xxii. 87). And the Psalmist considers him as one that had kindly employed his power for him, in the eruption of his love (Ps. xviii. 1), "I will love thee, O Lord, my strength ;" and so in Ps. cxvi. 1, " I love the Lord, because he hath heard the voice- 334: CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES of my supp'lcations." An esteem of tlie benefactor is inseparable from gratitude for the received benefits : and should not then the unparalleled kindness of God advance him in our thoughts, much more than slighter courtesies do a created 'benefactor in ours ? It is an obligation on every man's nature to answer bounty with gratitude, and goodness with love. Hence you never knew any man, nor can the records of eternity produce any man, or devil, that ever hatoJ any person, or anything as good in itself: it is a thing absolutely repugnant to the nature of any rational creature. The devils hate not God because he is good, but because he is not so good to them as they would have him ; because he will not unlock their chains, turn them into liberty, and restore them to happiness ; i. e. because he will not desert the rights of abused goodness. But how should we send up flames of love to that God, since we are under his direct beams, and enjoy such plentiful influences ! If the sun is comely in itself, yet it is more amiable to us, by the light we see, and the warmth we feel. 1st. The greatness of his benefits have reason to affect us with a love to him. The impress he made upon our souls when he extracted us from the darkness of nothing ; the comeliness he hath put upon ua by his own breath ; the care he took of our recovery, when we had lost ourselves ; the expense he was at for our regaining our defaced beauty ; the gift he made of his Son ; the affectionate calls we have heard to over-master our corrupt appetites, move us to repentance, and make us disaffect our beloved misery; the loud sound of his word in our ears, and the more inward knockings of his Spirit in our heart ; the offering us the gift of himself, and the everlasting happiness he courts us to, besides those common favors we enjoy in the world, which are all the streams of his rich bounty : the voice of all is loud enough to solicit our love, and the merit of all ought to be strong enough to engage our love : " there is none like the God of Jeshurun, who rides upon the heaven in thy help, and in his ex- cellency on the sky" (Deut. xxxiii. 26). 2d. The unmeritedness of them doth enhance this. It is but reason to love him who hath loved us first (1 John iv. 19). Hath he placed his delight upon any when they were nothing, and after they were sinful ; and shall he set his delight upon such vile persons, and shall not we set our love upon so excellent an object as himself? How base are we, if his goodness doth not constrain us to affect him who hath been so free in his favor to us, who have merited the quite con- trary at his hands? Jf " his tender mercies are over all his works" (Ps. cxlv. 9), he ought for it to be esteemed by all his works that are capable of a rational estimation. 3d. Goodness in creatures makes them estimable, much more should the goodness of God render him lovely to us. If we love a little spark of goodness in this or that creature, if a drop be so de- licious to us, shall not the immense Sun of goodness, the ever-flowing Fountain of all, be much more delightful ? The original excellency always outstrips what is derived from it ; if so mean and contracted an object as a little creature deserves estimation for a little mite com- municated to it, so great and extended a goodness as is in the Creator ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 836 rr.ncli more merits it at our hands: lie is good uflei tlie infinite rricfcliods of a Deity: a weak resemblance is lovely; mucli more ami- able, tben, must be tlie incomprehensible original of that beauty. We love creatures for what we think to be good in them, though it may be hurtful ; and shall we not love God, who is a real and un- blemished goodness, and from whose hand are poured out all those blessings that are conveyed to us by second causes ? The object that delights us, the capacity we have to delight in it, are both from him ; our love, therefore, to him should transcend the affection we bear to any instruments he moves for our welfare. " Among the gods, there is none like thee, 0 Lord, neither are there any works like unto thy works" (Ps. Ixxxvi. 8): among the pleasantest crea- tures there is none like the Creator, nor any goodness like unto his goodness. Shall we love the food that nourisheth us, and the med- icine that cures us, and the silver whereby we furnish ourselves with useful commodities ? Shall we love a horse, or dog, for the benefits we have by them ? and shall not the spring of all those draw our souls after it, and make us aspire to the honor of loving and em- bracing Him who hath stored every creature with that which may pleasure us ? But, instead of endeavoring to parallel our affection with his kindness, we endeavor to make our dlsingenuity as exten- sive and towering as his Divine goodness. 4th. This is the true end of the manifestation of his goodness, that he might appear amiable, and have a return of affection. Did God display his goodness only to be thought of, or to be loved ? It is the want of such a return, that he hath usually aggravated, from the benefits he hath bestowed upon men. Every thought of him should be attended with r. iiKytion suitable to the excellency of his nature and works. Can we think those nobler spirits, the angels, look upon themselves, or those frames of things in the heavens and earth, with- out starting some jrractical affection to him for them ? Their knowl- edge of his excellency and works cannot be a lazy contemplation: it is impossible their wills and affections should be a thousand miles distant from their understandings in their operations. It is not the least part of his condescending goodness to court in such methods the affections of us worms, and manifest his desire to be beloved by us. Let us give him, then, that affection he deserves, as well as de- mands, and which cannot be withheld from him without horrible sacrilege. There is nothing worthy of love besides him ; let no fire oe kindled in our hearts, but what may ascend directly to him. 7. The seventh instruction is this : This renders God a fit object of trust and confidence. Since none is good but God, none can be a full and satisfactory ground or object of confidence but God: as all things derive their beings, so they derive their helpfulness to us from ( lod ; they are not, therefore, the principal objects of trust, but that goodness alone that renders them fit instruments of our support; they can no more challenge from us a stable confidence, than they can a supreme affection. It is by this the Psalmist allures men to a trust in him ; " Taste and see how good the Lord is :" what is the consequence? "Blessed is the man that trusts in thee" (Ps. xxxiv. 8). The voice of Divine goodness sounds nothing more intelligibly, 88H CHAENOCK ON THE ATTKIBUTE;'. and a taste of it produceth nothing more effectually, than this. Aa the vials of his justice are to make us fear him, so the streams of his goodness are to make us rely on him : as his patience is designed tc broach our repentance, so his goodness is most proper to strengthen our assurance in him : that goodness which surmounted so many difficulties, and conquered so many motions that might be made against any repeated exercise of it, after it had been abused by the first rebellion of man ; that goodness that after so much contempt of it, appeared in such a majestic tenderness, and threw aside those im- pediments which men had cast in the way of Divine inclinations : this goodness is the foundation of all reliance upon God. "Who is better than God ? and, tlierefore, who more to be trusted than God ? As his power cannot act anything weakly, so his goodness cannot act anything unbecomingly, and unworthy of his infinite majesty. And here consider, (1.) Goodness is the first motive of trust. Nothing but this could be the encouragement to man, had he stood in a state of innocence, to present himself before God ; the majesty of God would have con- strained him to keep his due distance, but the goodness of God could only hearten his confidence : it is nothing else now that can preserve the same temper in us in our lapsed condition. To regard him only as the Judge of our crimes, will drive us from him ; but only the regard of him as the Donor of our blessings, will alliu-e us to him. The principal foundation of faith is not the word of God, but God himself, and God as considered in this perfection. As the goodness of God in his invitations and providential blessings "leads us to re- pentence" (Eom. ii. 4), so, by the same reason, the goodness of God by his promises leads us to reliance. K God be not first believed to be good, he would not be believed at all in anything that he speaks or swears : if you were not satisfied in the goodness of a man, though he should swear a thousand times, you would value neither his word nor oath as any security. Many times, where we are cer- tain of the goodness of a man, we are willing to trust him without his promise. This Divine perfection gives credit to the Divine pro- mises; they of themselves would not be a sufficient ground of trust, without an apprehension of his truth ; nor would his truth be very comfortable without a belief of his good will, whereby we are as- sured that what ho p'omiscs to give, he gives liberally, free, and without regret. The truth of the promiser makes the promise cred- ible, but the goodness of the promiser makes it cheerfully relied on. In Ps. Ixxiii. (Asaph's penitential psalm for his distrust of God, he begins the first verse v^ith an assertion of this attribute (ver. 1), "Truly God is good to Israel;" and ends with this fruit of it (ver. 28), "I will put my trust in the Lord God." It is a mighty ill na- ture that receives not with assurance the dictates of Inlinite Good- ness, (that cannot deceive or frustrate the hopes we conceive of him) that is inconceivably more abundant in the breast and inclinations of the promiser, than expressible in the words of his promise, " All true faith works by love" (Gal. v. 6), and, therefore, necessa-rily in- cludes a particular eyeing of this excellency in the Divine nature, which renders him amiable, and is the motive and encouragement ol ON THE GOODNESS OF OOD. 337 51 loTC to him. His power indeed is a foundation of trust, but his goodness is the principal motive of it. His power without good- will would be dangerous, and could not allure affection ; and his good- will without power would be useless ; and though it might merit a love, yet could not create a confidence; both in conjunction are strong grounds of hope, especially since his goodness is of the same infinity with his wisdom and power ; and that he can be no more "wanting in the effusions of this upon them that seek him, than in his wisdom ro contrive, or his power to effect, his designs and works. (2.) This g()(.>(lness is more the foundation and motive of trust un^ der the got'pd, than under the law. They under the law had more evidences of Divine power, and their trust eyed that much ; though there was mi cminency of goodness in the frequent deliverances they had, yet the power of God had a more glorious dress than his goodness, because of the extraordinary and miraculous ways where- by he brought those deliverances about. Therefore, in the catalogue of believer;:, in Heb. xi. you shall find the power of God to be the centre of tiicir rest and trust; and their faith was built upon the ex- traordinary marks of Divine power, which were frequently visible to them. But under the gospel, goodness and love was intended by God to be the chief object of trust ; suitable to the excellency of that dispensation, he would have an exercise of more ingenuity in the creatures : therefore, it is said (Hos. iii. 5), a promise of gospel- times, " They shall fear God and his goodness in the latter days," when they shall return to " seek the Lord, and David their king." It is not said, they shall fear God, and his power, but the Lord and his goodness, or the Lord for his goodness : fear is often in the Old Testament taken for faith, or trust. This Divine goo<^lness, the ob- ject of faith, is that goodness discovered in David their king ; the Messiah, our Jesus. God, in this dispensation, recommends his good- ness and love, and reveals it more clearly than other attributes, that the soul might have more prevailing and sweeter attractives to con- fide in him. (3.) A confidence in him gives him the glory of his goodness.. Most nations that had nothing but the light of nature, thought it a great part of the honor that was due to God, to implore his good ness, and cast their cares upon it. To do good, is the most honor- able tiling in the world, and to acknowledge a goodness in a way of confidence, is as high an honor as we can give to it, and a great part of gratitude for what it hath already expressed. Therefore we find often, that an acknowledgment of one benefit received, was attend- ed with a trust in him for what they should in the future need (Ps. Ivi. 13) : " Thou hast delivered my soul from death, wilt thou not deliver my feet from falling ? So, 2 Cor. i. 10 : and they who have been most eminent for their trust in him, have had the greatest eulogies and commendations from him. As a difiidence doth dis- parage this perfection, thinking it meaner and shallower than it is, so confidence highly honors it. We never please him more, than when we trust in him: "The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear nim, in them that hope in his mercy" (Ps. cxlvii. 1 1). He takes it for an honor to have this attribute exalted by such a carriage of hi.tj vol.. II.— 22 338 CHABNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. creature. He is no less oflfended wlien we think his heart straiteii- ed, as if he were a parsimonious God ; than when we think his arm shortened, as if he were an impotent and feeble God. Let us, there- fore, make this use of his goodness, to hearten our faith. When we are scared by the terrors of his justice, when we are dazzled by the arts of his wisdom, and confounded by the splendor of his ma-jesty, we may ttfke refuge in the sanctuary of his goodness ; this will en- courage us, as well as astonish us ; whereas, the consideration of his other attributes would only amaze us, but can never refresh us, but when they are considered marching under the conduct and banners of this. When all the other perfections of the Divine nature are looked upon in conjunction with this excellency, each of them send forth ravishing and benign influences upon the applying creature. It is more advantageous to depend upon Divine bounty, than our own cares ; we may have better assurance upon ■ this account in his cares for us, than in ours for ourselves. Our goodness for ourselves is finite ; and besides, we are too ignorant : his goodness is infinite, and attended with an infinite wisdom ; we have reason to distrust ourselves, not God. We have reason to be at rest, under that kind influence we have so often experimented ; he hath so much good- ness, that he can have no deceit : his goodness in making the prom- ise, and his goodness in working the heart to a reliance on it, are grounds of trust in him ; " Remember thy word to thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope" (Ps. cxix. 49). If his promise did not please him, why did he make it ? If reliance on the promise did not please him, why did his goodness work it ? It would be inconsistent with his goodness to mock his creature, and it would be the highest mockery to publish his word, and create a tem- per in the heart of his supplicant, suited to his promise which he never intended to satisfy. He can as little wrong his creature, as wrong hin uiself ; and, therefore, can never disappoint that faith which in his own methods casts itself into the arms of his kindness, and is his own workmanship, and calls him Author. That goodness that imparted itself so freely in creation, will not neglect those nobler creatures that put their trust in him. This renders God a fit object for trust and confidence. 8. The eighth instruction : This renders God worthy to be obey- ed and honored. Tliere is an excellency in God to allure, as well as sovereignty to enjoin obedience: the infinite excellency of his na- ture is so great, that if his goodness had promised us nothing to en- courage our obedience, we ought to prefer him before ourselves, de- vote ourselve,^ to serve him, and make his glory our greatest con- tent ; but much more when he hatli given such admirable express- ions of his liberality, and stored us with hopes of richer and fuller streams of it. When David considered the absolute goodness of his nature, and the relative goodness of his benefits, he presently expresseth an ardent desire to be acquainted with the Divine statutes, that he might make ingenious returns in a dutiful observ- ance ; " Thou art good, and thou Sost good ; teach me thy statutes" (Ps. cxix. 68). As his goodness is the original, so the acknowledg- ment Df it is the end oi all, which cannot be without an observance ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 339 of liis wiL. His goo.dness requires of us an ingenuous, not a servile obedience. And this is established upon two foundations. [1.] Because the bounty of God hath hiid upon us the strongest obligations. The strength of an obligation depends upon the great- ness and numerousness of the benefits received. The more excel- lent the favors are which are conferred upon any person, the more right hath the benefactor to claim an observance from the person bettered by him. Much of the rule and empire which hath been in iseveral ages conferred by communities upon princes, hath had its first spring from a sense of the advantages they have received by them, either in protecting them from their enemies, or rescuing them from an ignoble captivity ; in enlarging their territories, or increasing their wealth. Conquest hath been the original of a constrained, but beneficence always the original of a voluntary and free subjection." Obedience to parents is founded upon their right, because they are instrumental in bestowing upon us being and hfe ; and because this of life is so great a benefit, the law of nature never dissolves this obligation of obeying and honoring parents ; it is as long-lived as the law of nature, and hath an universal practice, by the strength of that law, in all parts of the world : and those rightful chains are not unlocked, but by that which unties the knot between soul and body : much more hath God a right to be obeyed and reverenced, "who is the principal Benefactor, and moved all those second causes to impart to us, what conduced to our advantage. The just author- ity of God over us results from the superlativeness of his blessings he hath poured down upon us, which cannot be equalled, much less exceeded, by any other. As therefore upon this account he hath a claim to our choicest affections, so he hath also to most exact obedience ; and neither one nor other can be denied him, without a sordid and dis- ingenuous ingratitude ; God therefore aggravates the rebellion of the Jews from the cares he had in the bringing them up (Isa. ii. 2), and the miraculous deliverance from Egypt (Jer. xi. 7, 8) ; implying that those benefits were strong obligations to an ingenuous observance of him. [2.] It is established ujDon this, that God can enjoin the observ ance of nothing but what is good. He may by the right of his sovereign dominion, command that which is indifferent in its own nature : as in positive laws, the not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which had not been evil in itself, set aside the command of God to the contrary ; and likewise in those ceremonial laws he gave the Jews : but in regard to the transcendent goodness and righteousness of his nature, he will not, he cannot command anything that is evil in itself, or repugnant to the true interest of his creature ; and God never obliged the creature to any- thing but what was so free from damaging it, that it highly conduced to its good and welfare: and therefore it is said, that " his commands are not grievous" (1 John v. 3) : not grievous in their own nature, nor grievous to one possessed with a true reason. The command given to Adam in Paradise was not grievous in itself, nor could he ever have thought it so, but upon a false supposition instilled into him by the tempter. There is a pleasure results from the Jaw of God " Amyrald. Dissert, p. 05. 340 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. to a holy rational nature, a sweetness tasted both by the understand- ing and by the will, lor they both " rejoice the heart and enlighten the eyes" of the inind (Ps. xix. 8). God being essentially wisdom and goodness, cannot deviate from that goodness in any orders he gives the creature ; whatsoever he enacts must be agreeable to that rule, and therefore he can will nothing but what is good and excel lent, and what is good for the creature ; for since he hath put origin- ally into man a natural instinct to desire that which is good, he would never enact any thing for the creature's observance,? thai might control that desire imprinted by himself, but what might countenance that impression of his own hand ; for if God did other- wise, he would contradict his own natural law, and be a deluder of his creatures, if he impressed upon them desires one way, and order- ed directions another. The truth is, all his moral precepts are comely in themselves, and they receive not their goodness from God's positive command, but that command supposeth their goodness ; if everything were good because God loves it, or because God wills it, I. e, that God's loving it or willing it made that good which was not good before, then, as Camero well argues somewhere, God's goodness would depend upon his loving himself; he was good because he loved himself, and was not good till he loved himself ; whereas, in- deed, God's loving himself, doth not make him good, but supposeth him good : he was good in the order of nature before he loved him- self; and his being good was the ground of his loving himself, be cause, as was said before, if there were anj^thing better than God, God would love that ; for it is inconsistent with the nature of God and infinite goodness not to love that which is good, and not to love that supremely which is the supreme good. Further to understand it, you may consider, if the question be asked, why God loves himself? you would think it a reasonable answer to say, because he is good. But if the question be asked, why God is good ? you would think that answer, because he loves himself, would be destitute of reason ; but the true answer would be, because his nature is so, and he could not be God if he were not good : therefore God's goodness is in or- der of our conception before his self-love, and not his self-love be- fore his goodness ; so the moral things God commands, are good in themselves before God commands them; and such, that if God should command the contrary, it would openly speak him evil and unrighteous. Abstract from Scripture, and weigh things in your own reason ; could you conceive God good, if he should command a crea- ture not to love him ? could you preserve the notion of a good nature in him, if he did command murder, adultery, tyranny, and cutting of throats ? You would wonder to what purpose he made the world, and framed it for society, if such things were ordered, that should deface all comeliness of society : the moral commands given in the word, appeared of themselves very beautiful to mere reason, that had no knowledge of the written law ; they are good, and because they are so, his goodness had moved his sovereign authority strictly to enjoin them. Now this goodness, whereby he cannot oblige a F " As a heathen," Maximus Tyrius, Dissert. 22, p. 220. Ov ydp dEfiic Aii (iov?iea6ai ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 341 creature to anything tliat is evil, speaks him highly worthy of on r observance, and our disobedience to his la^Y to be full of inconceiv able malignity : that is the last thing. Second Use is of comfort. He is a good without mixture, good without weariness — none good but God, none good purely, none good inexhaustibly, but God ; because he is good, we may, upon our speaking, expect his instruction ; " Good is the Lord, therefore will he teach sinners in his way" (Ps. xxv. 8). His goodness makes him stoop to be the tutor to those worms that lie prostrate before him ; and though they are sinners full of filth, he drives them not from his school, nor denies them his medicines, if they ap|)ly themselves to him as a physician. He is good in removing the punishment due to our crimes, and good in bestowing benefits not due to our merits ; because he is good, penitent believers may expect forgiveness ; " Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive" (Ps. Ixxxvi. 5). He acts not according to the rigor of the law, but willingly grants his pardon to those that fly into the arms of the Mediator ; his goodness makes him more ready to forgive, than our necessities make us desirous to en- joy ; he charged not upon Job his impatient expressions in cursing the day of his birth ; his goodness passed that over in silence, and extols him for speaking the thing that is right, right in the main, when he charges his friends for not speaking of him the thing that is right, as his servant Job had done (Job xlii. 7). He is so good, that if we offer the least thing sincerely, he will graciously receive it ; if we have not a lamb to ofter, a pigeon or turtle shall be accepted upon his altar ; he stands not upon costly presents, but sincerely ten- dered services. All conditions are sweetened by it ; whatsoever any in the world enjoy, is from a redundancy of this goodness; but whatsoever a good man enjoys, is from a propriety in this goodness. 1. Here is comfort in our addresses to him. If he be a fountain and sea of goodness, he cannot be weary of doing good, no more than a fountain or sea are of flowing. All goodness delights to communi- cate itself; infinite goodness hath then an infinite delight in express- ing itself; it is a part of his goodness not to be weary of showing it ; he can never, then, be weary of being solicited for the effusions of it ; if he rejoices over his people to do them good, he will rejoice in any opportunities offered to him to honor his goodness, and gladly meet with a fit subject for it ; he therefore delights in prayer. Never can we so delight in addressing, as he doth in imparting ; he delights more in our prayers than we can ourselves ; goodness is not pleased with shyness. To what purpose did his immense bounty bestow his Son upon us, but that we should be " accepted" both in our persons and petitions (Eph. i. 6) ? " His eyes are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry" (Ps. xxxiv. 15) ; he fixes the eye of his goodness upon them, and opens the ears of his goodness for them ; he is pleased to behold them, and pleased to listen to them, as if he had no pleasure in anything else ; he loves to be sought to, to give a vent to his bounty ; " Acquaint thyself with God, and thereby good shall come unto thee" (Job xxii. 21). The word signifies, to accustom ourselves to God; the more we accustom oui'selves in speaking, the more he will accustom himself in giving ; he loves not 342 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. to keep his goodness close under lock and key, as men do tlieir treasures. If we knock, he opens his exchequer (Matt. vii. 7) ; his goodness is as flexible to our importunities, as his power is invincible by the arm of a silly worm ; he thinks his liberality honored by be- ing applied to, and your address to be a recompense for his expense. There is no reason to fear, since he hath so kindly invited us, but he will as heartily welcome us ; the nature of goodness is to compassion- ate and communicate, to pity and relieve, and that with a heartiness and cheerfulness ; man is weary of being often solicited,because he hath a finite, not a bottomless, goodness : he gives sometimes to be rid of his suppliant, not to encourage him to a second approach. But every experience God gives us of his bounty, is a motive to solicit him afresh, and a kind of obligation he hath laid upon himself to " renew it" (1 Sam. xvii, 87) : it is one part of his goodness that it is bound- less and bottomless ; we need not fear the wasting of it, nor any weariness in him to bestow it. The stock cannot be spent, and infi- nite kindness can never become niggardly ; when we have enjoyed it, there is still an infinite ocean in Him to refresh us, and as full streams as ever to supply us. What an encouragement have we to draw near to God ! We run in our straits to those that we think have most good will, as well as power to relieve and protect us. The oftener we come to him, and the nearer we approach to him, the more of his influences we shall feel : as the nearer the sun, the more of its heat insinuates itself into us. The greatness of God, joined with his goodness, hath more reason to encourage our approach to him, than our flight from him, because his greatness never goes unattended with his goodness ; and if we were not so good, he would not be so great in the apprehensions of any creature. How may his goodness, in the great gift of his Son, encourage us to apply to him : since he hath set him as a day's-man between himself and us, and appointed him an Advocate to present our requests for us, and speed them at the throne of grace ; and he never leaves till Divine good- ness subscribes 2ifiat to our believing and just petitions ! 2. Here is comfort in afflictions. What can we fear from the con- duct of Infinite Goodness ? Can his hand be heavy upon those that are humble before him ? They are the hands of Infinite Power in- deed, but there is not any motion of it upon his people, but is or- dered by a goodness as infinite as his power, which will not suffer any affliction to be too sharp or too long. By what wa\'s soever he conveys grace to us here, and prepares us for glory hereafter, they are good, and those are the good things he hath chiefly obliged himself to give (Ps. Ixxxiv. 11) : " Grace and glory" will he " give, and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." This David comforted himself with, in that which his devout soul ac- counted the greatest calamity, his absence from the courts and house of God (ver. 2). Not an ill will, but a good will, directs his scourges ; he is not an idle spectator of our combats ; his thoughts are fuller of kindness than ours, in any case, can be of trouble : and because he is good, he wills the best good in everything he acts ; in exercising virtue, or correcting vice. There is no affliction without some ap- parent mixtures of goodness ; when he speaks how he had smitten ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 343 Israel (Jer, ii. 30), he presently adds (ver. 31), " Have I been a wil- derness to Israel, a land of darkness ?" Though he led them through a desert, yet he was not a desert to them ; he was no land of dark- ness to them ; while they marched through a land of barrenness, he was a caterer to provide them " manna," and a place of " broad rivers" and streams. How often hath Divine goodness made our afflictions our consolations ; our diseases, our medicines, and his gen- tle strokes, reviving cordials ! How doth he provide for us above our deserts, even while he doth punish us beneath our merits ! Di- vine goodness can no more mean ill, than Divine wisdom can be mistaken in its end, or Divine power overruled in its actions, " Charity thinks no evil" (1 Cor, xiii. 5) ; charity in the stream doth not, much less doth charity in the fountain. To be afflicted by a hand of goodness hath something comfortable in it, when to be afflicted by an evil hand is very odious. Elijah, who was loth to die by the hand of a whorish idolatrous Jezebel, was very desirous to die by the hand of God (1 Kings, xix. 2 — 4). He accounted it a misery to have died by her hand, who hated him, and had nothing but cruelty ; and, therefore, fled from her, when he wished for death, as a desirable thing by the hand of that God who had been good to him, and could not but be good in whatsoever he acted. 8. The third comfort flowing from this doctrine of the goodness of God, is, it is a ground of assurance of happiness. K God be so good, that nothing is better, and loves himself, as he is good, he can- not be wanting in love to those that resemble his nature, and imitate his goodness : he cannot but love his own image of goodness : wherever he finds it, he cannot but be bountiful to it ; for it is im- possible there can be any love to any object, without wishing v/ell to it, and doing well for it. If the soul loves God as its chiefest good, God will love the soul as his pious servant : as he hath offered to them the highest allurements, so he will not withhold the choicest communications. Goodness cannot be a deluding thing ; it cannot consist with the nobleness and largeness of this perfection to invite the creature to him, and leave the "creature empty of him when it comes. It is inconsistent with this perfection to give the creature a knowledge of himself, and a desire of enjoyment larger than that knowledge ; a desire to know, and enjoy him perpetually, jet never intend to bestow an eternal communication of himself upon it. The nature of man was erected by the goodness of God, but with an en- larged desire for the highest good, and a capacity of enjoying it. Can goodness be thought to be deceitful, to frustrate its own work, be tired with its own effusions, to let a gracious soul groan under its burden, and never resolve to ease him of it ; to see delightfully the aspirings of the creature to another state, and resolve never to admit him to a happy issue of those desires ? It is not agreeable to this inconceivable perfection to be unconcerned in the longings of his creature, since their first longings were placed in them by that good- ness which is so free from mocking the creature, or falling short of its well-grounded expectations or desires, that it infinitely exceeds them. If man had continued in innocence, the goodness of God, without question, would have continued hin in happiness . and. S44 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. since lie hath had so much goodness to restore man, would it not be dislionorable to that goodness to break his own conditions, and de- feat the believing creature of happiness, after it hath complied with his terms ? He is a believer's God in covenant, and is a God in the utmost extent of this attribute, as well as of any other ; and, there- fore, will not commimicate mean and shallow benefits, but according to the gi'andeur of it, sovereign and divine, such as the gift of a happy immortality. Since he had no obligation upon him, to make any promise, but the sweetness of his own nature, the same is as strong upon him to make all the words of his grace good ; they cannot be invalid in any one tittle of them as long as his nature remains the same ; and his goodness cannot be diminished without the impairing of his Godhead, since it is inseparable from it. Divine goodness will not let any man serve God for nought ; he hath promised our weak obe- dience more than any man in his right wits can say it merits (Matt. X. 42) : " A cup of cold water shall not lose its reward." He will manifest our good actions as he gave so high a testimony to Job, in the face of the devil, his accuser : it will not only be the happiness of the soul, but of the body, the whole man, since soul and body were in conjunction in the acts of righteousness; it consists not with the goodness of God to reward the one, and to let the other lie in the ruins of its first nothing : to bestow joy upon the one for its being prin- cipal, and leave the other without any sentiments of joy, that was in- strumental in those good works, both commanded and approved by God : he that had the goodness to pity our original dust, will not want a goodness to advance it : and if we put off" our bodies, it is but afterwards to put them on repaired and fresher. From this goodness, the upright may expect all the happiness their nature is capable of. 4. It is a ground of comfort in the midst of public dangers. This hath more sweetness in it to support us, than the malice of enemies hath to deject us ; because he is " good," he is " a stronghold in the day of trouble" (Nah. i. 7). If his goodness extends to all his crea- tures, it will much more extend to those that honor him : if the earth be full of his goodness, that part of heaven which he hath upon earth shall not be empty of it. He hath a goodness often to deliver the righteous, and a justice to put the wicked in his stead (Pro v. xi. 8). When his people have been under the power of their enemies, he hath changed the scene, and put the enemies under the power of his people : he hath clapped upon them the same bolts which they did upon his servants. How comfortable is this goodness that hath yet maintained us in the midst of dangers, preserved us in the mouth of lions, quenched kindled fire ; hitherto rescued us from designed ruin subtilly hatched, and supported us in the midst of men very passion- ate for cur destruction ; how hath this watchful goodness been a sanctuary to us in the midst of an upper hell ! Third Use is of exhortation. 1. How should we endeavor after the enjoyment of God as good! How earnestly should we desire him ! As there is no other good- ness worthy of our supreme lo ^e, so there is no other goodness worthy oui most ardent thirst. Nothing; deserves the name of a desirable ON THE GOODNESS OP GOD. 845 good, but as it tends to the attainment of this : here we must pitch our desires, which otherwise will terminate in nullities or incon ceivable disturbances. (1.) Consider, nothing but good can be the object of a rational apjDetite. The will cannot direct its motion to anything under the notion of evil, evil in itself, or evil to it ; whatsoever courts it must present itself in the quality of a good in its own nature, or in its present circumstances to the present state and condition of the de- sire ; it will not else touch or affect the will. This is the language of that faculty : "Who will show me any good?" (Ps. iv. 6), and good is as inseparably the object of the will's motion, as truth is of the understanding's inquiry. Whatsoever a man would allure another to comply with, he must propose to the person under the notion of some beneficialness to him in point of honor, profit, or pleasure. To act after this manner is the proper character of a rational creature ; and though that which is evil is often embraced instead of that which is good, and what we entertain as conducing to our felicity proves our misfortune, yet that is from our ignorance, and not from a formal choice of it as evil ; for what evil is chosen it is not possible to choose under the conception of evil, but undei the appearance of a good, though it be not so in reality. It is in separable from the wills of all men to propose to themselves that which in the opinion and judgment of their understandings or im agination is good, though they often mistake and cheat themselves. (2.) Since that good is the object of a rational appetite, the purest, best, and most universal good, such as God is, ought to be most sought after. Since good only is the object of a rational appetite, all the motions of our souls should be carried to the first and best good : a real good is most desirable ; the greatest excellency of the creatures cannot speak them so, since, by the corruption of man, they are " subjected to vanity" (Rom. viii. 20). God is the most ex- cellent good without any shadow ; a real something without that nothing which every creature hath in its nature (Isa. xl. 17). A perfect good can only give us content : the best goodness in the creature is but slender and imperfect ; had not the venom of cor- ruption infused a vanity into it, the make of it speaks it finite, and the best qualities in it are bounded, and cannot give satisfaction to a rational appetite which bears in its nature an imitation of Divine infiniteness, and therefore can never find an eternal rest in mean trifles. God is above the imperfection of all creatures ; creatures are but drops of goodness, at best but shallow streams ; God is like a teeming ocean, that can fill the largest as well as the narrowest creek. He hath an accumulative goodness ; several creatures answer several necessities, but one God can answer all our wants : he hath an universal fulness, to overtop our universal emptiness : he con- tains in himself the sweetness of all other goods, and holds in hi? bo3om plentifully what creatures have in their natures sparingly. Creatures are uncertain goods ; as they begin to exist, so they may cease to be ; they may be gone with a breath, they will certa'nly languish if God blows upon them (Isa. xl. 24) : the same breath that raised them can blast them ; but who can rifle God of the least part 346 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. of his excellency ? Mutability is inherent in the nature of every creature, as a creature. All sublunary things are as gourds, that re- fresh us one moment with their presence, and the next fret us with their absence ; like fading flowers, strutting to day, and drooping to-morrow (Isa. xl. 6) : while we possess them, we cannot clip their wings, that may carry them away from us, and may make us vainly seek what we thought we firmly held. But God is as permanent a good as he is a real one : he hath wings to fly to them that seek iim but no wings to fly from them forever, and leave them. God is an universal good ; that which is good to one may be evil to another ; Arhat is desirable by one may be refused as inconvenient for another: but God being an universal, unstained good, is useful for all, con- venient to the natures of all but such as will continue in enmity igainst him. There is nothing in God can displease a soul that desires to please him ; when we are in darkness, he is a light to scatter it ; when we are in want, he hath riches to relieve us ; when we are in spiritual death, he is a Prince of life to deliver us ; when we are defiled, he is holiness to purify us : it is in vain to fix our hearts anywhere but on him, in the desire of whom there is a delight, and in the enjoyment of whom there is an inconceivable pleasure. (3.) He is most to be sought after, since all things else that are desirable had their goodness from him. If anything be desii'able because of its goodness, God is much more desirable because of his, since all things are good by a participation, and nothing good but by his print upon it : as what being creatures have was derived to them by God, so what goodness they are possessed with they were furnished with it by God ; all goodness flowed from him, and all created goodness is summed up in him. The streams should not terminate our appetite without aspiring to the fountain. If the waters in the channel, which receive mixture, communicate a plea- sure, the taste of the fountain must be much more delicious ; that original Perfection of all things hath an inconceivable beauty above those things it hath framed. Since those things live not by their own strength, nor nourish us by their own liberality, but by the " word of God" (Matt. iv. 4), that God that speaks them into life, and speaks them into usefulness, should be most ardently desired as the best. If the sparkling glory of the visible heavens delight us, and the beauty and bounty of the earth please and refresh us, what should be the language of our souls upon those views and tastes but that of the Psalmist, " Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth that I can desire beside thee" (Ps. Ixxiii. 25). No greater good can possibly be desired, and no less good should be ardently desired. As he is the supreme good, so we should bear that regard to him as supremely, and above all, to thirst for him : as he is good, lie is the object of desire ; as the choicest and first goodness, he is desirable with the greatest vehemency. " Give me children, or else I die" (Gen. xxx. 1), was an uncomely speech ; the one was granted, and the other inflicted ; she had children, but the last cost her her life : but. Give me God, or I will not be content, is a gracious speech, wherein we cannot miscarry ; all that God demands of us is, that we should long for him, and look for our happiness only id ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 347 him. That is the first thing, endeavor after the enjoyment of God as good. 2. Often meditate on the goodness of God. Whf.t was man pro- duced for, but to settle his thoughts upon this ? What should have been Adam's employment in innocence, but to read over all the lines of nature, and fix his contemplations on that good hand that drew them ? What is man endued with reason for, above all other ani- mals, but to take notice of this goodness spread over all the creatures, which they themselves, though they felt it, could not have such a sense of as to make answerable returns to their Benefactor ? Can we satisfy ourselves in being spectators of it, and enjoy ers of it, only in such a manner as the brutes are ? The beasts behold things as well as we, they feel the warm beams of this goodness as well as we, but without any reflection upon the Author of them. Shall Divine blessings meet with no more from us but a brutish view and be- holding of them? What is more just, than to spend a thought upon Him who hath enlarged his hand in so many benefits to us ? Are we indebted to any more than we are to him ? Why should we send our souls to visit anything more than him in his works ? That we are able to meditate on him is a part of his goodness to us, who hath bestowed that capacity upon us ; and, if we will not, it is a great part of our ingratitude. Can anything more delightful enter into us, than that of the kind and gracious disposition of that God who first brought us out of the abyss of an unhappy nothing, and hath hitherto spread his wings over us ? Where can we meet with a nobler object than Divine goodness ? and what nobler work can be practised by us than to consider it ? What is more sensible in all the operations of his hands than his skill, as they are considered in themselves, and his goodness, as they are considered in relation to us ? It is strange that we should miss the thoughts of it ; that we should look upon this earth, and everything in it, and yet overlook that which it is most full of, viz. Divine goodness (Ps. xxxiii. 5) ; it runs through the whole web of the world ; all is framed and diversi- fied by goodness ; it is one entire single goodness, which appears in various garbs and dresses in every part of the creation. Can we turn our eyes inward, and send our eyes outward, and see nothing of a Divinity in both worthy of our deepest and seriousest thoughts ? Is there anything in the world we can behold, but we see his bounty, since nothing was made but is one way or other beneficial to us ? Can we think of our daily food, but we must have some reflecting thoughts on our great Caterer ? Can the sweetness of the creature to our palate obscure the sweetness of the Provider to our minds ? It is strange that we should be regardless of that wherein every creature without us, and every sense within us and about us, is a tutor to instruct us ! Is it not reason we should think of the times wherein we were nothing, and from thence run back to a never-be* gun eternity, and view ourselves in the thoughts of that goodness, to be in time brought forth upon this stage, as we are at present ? Can we consider but one act of our understandings, but one thought, one blossom, one spark of our souls mounting upwards, and not re» fleet upon the goodness of God to us, who, in that faculty that 848 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. sparkles out rational thoughts, has advanced us to a nobler state, and endued us with a nobler principle, than all the creatures we see on earth, except those of our own rank and kind ? Can we consider but one foolish thought, one sinful act, and reflect upon the guilt and filth of it, and not behold goodness in sparing us, and miracles of goodness in sending his Son to die for us, for the expiation of it ? This perfection cannot well be out of our thoughts, or at least it is horrible it should, when it is writ in every line of the creation, and in a legible rubric, in bloody letters, in the cross of his Son. Let us think with ourselves, how often he hath multiplied his blessings, when we did deserve his wrath ! how he hath sent one unexpected benefit upon the heel of another, to bring us with a swift pace the tidings of good-will to us ! how often hath he delivered us from a disease that had the arrows of death in its hand ready to pierce us ! how often hath he turned our fears into joys, and our distempers into promoters of our felicity ! how often hath he mated a temptation, sent seasonable supplies in the midst of a sore distress, and prevented many dangers which we could not be so sensible of, because we were, in a great measure, ignorant of them ! How should we meditate upon his goodness to our souls, in preventing some sins, in pardon- ing others, in darting upon us the knowledge of his gospel, and of himself, in the face of his Son Christ ! This seems to stick much upon the spirit of Paul, since he doth so often sprinkle his epistles with the titles of the " grace of God, riches of grace, unsearchable riches of God, riches of glory," and cannot satisfy himself, with the extolling of it. Certainly, we should bear upon our heart a deep and quick sense of this perfection ; as it was the design of God to manifest it, so it would be acceptable to God for us to have a sense of it : a dull receiver of his blessings is no less nauseous to him than a dull dispenser of his alms ; he loves a " cheerful giver" (2 Cor. ix. 7) ; he doth himself what he loves in others ; he is cheerful in giv- ing, and he loves we should be serious in thinking of him, and have a right apprehension and sense of his goodness, (1.) A right sense of his goodness would dispose us to an mgenu ous worship of God, It would damp our averseness to any act ol religion ; what made David so resolute and ready to " worship to wards his holy temple" but the sense of his " loving kindness ?" (Ps. cxxxviii, 2). This would render him always in our mind a worthy object of our devotion, a stable prop of our confidence. "We should then adore him, when we consider him as " our God," and ourselves as " the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand" (Ps. xcv. 7) : we should send up prayers with strong faith and feeling, and praises with great joy and pleasure. The sense of his goodness would make us love him, and our love to him would quicken our adoration of him ; but if we regard not this, we shall have no mind to think of him, no mind to act anything towards him ; we may tremble at his presence, but not heartily worship him ; we shall rather look upon him as a tyrant, and think no other affection du^ to him than what we reserve for an oppressor, viz. hatred and ill- will. (2.) A sense of it will keep us humble. A sense of it would effect ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 349 that for wliicli itself was intended ; viz. bring us to i repentance for our crimes, and not suffer us to harden ourselves against him. When we should deeply consider how he hath made the sun to shine upon us, and his rain to fall upon the earth for our support ; the one to supple the earth, and the other to assist the juice of it to bring forth fruits ; how would it reflect upon us our ill requitals, and make us hang down our heads before him in a low posture, pleasing to him, and advantageous to ourselves ! What would the first charge be upon ourselves, but what Moses brings in his expostulation against the Israelites (Deut. xxxii. 6) : " Do I thus requite the Lord ?" W hat is this goodness for me, who am so much below him ; for me, who have so much incensed him ; for me, who have so much abused what he hath allowed ? It would bring to remembrance the horror of our crimes, and set us a blushing before him, when we should consider the multitude of his benefits, and our unworthy behaviour, that hath not constrained him even against the inclination of his goodness, to punish us : how little should we plead for a further liberty in sin, or palliate our former faults ! When we set Divine goodness in one column, and our transgressions in another, and com- pare together their several items, it would fill us with a deep con- sciousness of our own guilt, and divest us of any worth of our own in our approaches to him ; it would humble us, that we cannot love so obliging a God as much as he deserves to be loved by us ; it would make us humble before men. Who would be proud of a mere gift which he knows he hath not merited? How ridiculous would that servant be, that should be proud of a rich livery, which is a badge of his service, not a token of his merit, but of his master's magnificence and bounty, which, though he wear this day, he may be stripped of to-morrow, and be turned out of his master's family I (3.) A sense of the Divine goodness would make us faithful to him. The goodness of God obhgeth us to serve him, not to offend him ; the freeness of his goodness should make us more ready to contribute to the advancement of his glory. When we consider the benefits of a friend proceed out of kindness to us, and not out of self ends and vain applause, it works more upon us, and makes us more careful of the honor of such a person. It is a pure bounty God hath manifest- ed in creation and providence, which could not be for himself, who, being blessed forever, wanted nothing from us : it was not to draw a profit from us, but to impart an advantage to us ; " Our goodness extends not to him" (Ps. xvi. 2). The service of the benefactor is but a rational return for benefits ; whence Nehemiah aggravates tlie sins of the Jews (Neh. ix. 35) : " They have not served thee in thy great goodness that tliou gavest them ;" i. e. which thou didst freely bestow upon them. How should we dare to spend upon our lusts that which we possess, if we considered by whose liberality we came by it ? how should we dare to be unfaithful in the goods he hath made us trustees of? A deep sense of Divine goodness will enno- ble the creature, and make it act for the most glorious and noble end ; it would strike Satan's temptation dead at a blow ; it would pull off the false mask and vizor from what he presents to us, to draw us from the service of our Benefactor ; we could not, with a S50 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. uense of this, tliink him kinder to us than God hath, and will be, w^hich is the great motive of men to join hands with him, and turn their backs upou God. (4.) A sense of the Divine goodness would make us |;atieut under our miseries. A deep sense of this would make us give God the honor of his goodness in whatsover he doth, though the reason of ais actions be not apparent to us, nor the event and issue of his pro- ceedings foreseen by us. It is a stated case, that goodness can never mtend ill, but designs good in all its acts " to them that love God" (Rom. viii. 28) : nay, he always designs the best ; when he bestows anything upon his people, he sees it best they should have it ; and svhen he removes anything from them, he sees it best they should lose it. "When we have lost a thing we loved, and refuse to be com- forted, a sense of this perfection, which acts God in all, would keep us from misjudging our sufferings, and measuring the intention of the hand that sent them, by the sharpness of what we feel. What patient, fully persuaded of the affection of the physician, would not value him, though that which is given to purge out the humors, racks his bowels? When we lose what we love, perhaps it was some outward lustre tickled our apprehensions, and we did not see the viper we would have harmed ourselves by ; but God seeing it, snatched it from us, and we mutter as if he had been cruel, and de- prived us of the good we imagined, when he was kind to us, and freed us from the hurt we should certainly have felt. We should regard that which in goodness he takes from us, at no other rate than some gilded poison and lurking venom ; the sufferings of men, though upon high provocations, are often followed with rich mercies, and many times are intended as preparations for greater goodness. When God utters that rhetoric of his bowels, "How shall I give thee up, 0 Ephraim, I will not execute the fierceness of my anger !" (Hos. xi. 8), he intended them mercy in their captivity, and would prepare them by it, to walk after the Lord. And it is likely the posterity of those ten tribes were the first that ran to God, upon the publishing the gospel in the places where they lived ; he doth not take away himself when he takes away outward comforts ; while he snatcheth away the rattles we play with, he hath a breast in himself for us to suck. The consideration of his goodness would dispose is to a composed frame of spirit. If we are sick, it is goodness, it is a disease, and not a hell. It is goodness, that it is a cloud, and not a total daikness. What if he transfers from us what we have ? he takes nj more than what his goodness first imparted to us; and never takes so much from his people as his goodness leaves them : if he strips them of their lives, he leaves them their souls, with those faculties he furnished them with at first, and removes them from those houses of clay to a richer mansion. The time of our sufferings here, were it the whole course of our life, bears not the proportion of a moment to that endless eternity wherein he hath designed to manifest his goodness to us. The consideration of Divine goodness would teach us to draw a calm even from storms, and distil balsam &om rods. If the reproofs of the righteous be an excellent oil (Ps. ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 851 3xlv. 5) we should not tHnk the corrections of a pjood God to tave a less virtue. (5.) A sense of the Divine goodness would mount us above the world. It would damp our appetites after meaner things ; we should look upon the world not as a God, but a gift from God, and never think the present better than the Donor. We should never lie soaking in muddy puddles were we always filled with a sense of the richness and clearness of this Fountain, wherein we might bathe ourselves ; little petty particles of good would give us no content, when we were sensible of such an unbounded ocean. Infinite goodness, rightly apprehended, would dull our desires after other things, and sharpen them with a keener edge after that which is best of all. How earn- estly do we long- for the presence of a friend, of whose good will towards us we have full experience. (6.) It would check any motions of envy : it would make us joy in the prosperity of good men, and hinder us from envying the out- ward felicity of the wicked. We should not dare with an evil eye to censure his good hand (Matt. xx. 15), but approve of what he thinks fit to do, both in the matter of his liberality and the subjects he chooseth for it. Though if the disposal were in our hands, we should not imitate him, as not thinking them subjects fit for our bounty ; yet since it is in his hands, we be to approve of his actions and not have an ill will towards him for his goodness, or towards those he is pleased to make the subject of it. Since all his doles are given to "invite man to repentance" (Eom. ii. 4), to envy them those goods God hath bestowed upon them, is to envy God the glory of his own goodness, and them the felicity those things might move them to aspire to ; it is to wish God more contracted, and thy neighbor more miserable : but a deep sense of his sovereign goodness would make us rejoice in any marks of it upon others, and move us to bless him instead of censuring him. (7.) It would make us thankful. What can be the most proper, the most natural reflection, when we behold the most magnificent characters he hath imprinted upon our souls ; the conveniency of the members he hath compacted in our bodies, but a praise of him? Such motion had David upon the first consideration : " I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Ps. cxxxix. 14). What could be the most natural reflection, when we behold the rich prerogatives of our natures above other creatures, the provision he hath made for us for our delight in the beauties of heaven, for our support in the creatures on earth ? What can reasonably be expected from uncorrupted man, to be the first motion of his soul, but an ex- tolling the bountiful hand of the invisible donor, whoever he be ? This would make us venture at some endeavors of a grateful ac- knowledgment, though we should despair of rendering anything pro- portionable to the greatness of the benefit ; and such an acknowledg- ment of our own weakness would be an acceptable part of our gratitude. Without a due and deep sense of Divine goodness, our praise of it, and thankfulness for it, will be but cold, formal, and customary ; our tongues may bless him, and our heart slight him : and this will lead us to the third exhortation ; 352 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. 3. Wliicli is tliat of thankfulness for Divine goodness. The abso- lute goodness of God, as it is the excellency of his nature, is the object of praise : the relative goodness of God, as he is our benefactor, is the object of thankfulness. This was always a debt due from man to God ; he had obligations in the time of his integrity, and was then to render it ; he is not less, but more obliged to it in the state cf corruption ; the benefits being the greater, by how much the more unworthy he is of them by reason of his revolt. The bounty be- stowed upon an enemy that merits the contrary, ought to be received with a greater resentment than that bestowed on a friend, who is not unworthy of testimonies of respect. Gratitude to God is the duty of every creature that hath a sense of itself; the more excellent being au}^ enjoy the more devout ought to be the acknowledgment. How often doth David stir up, not only himself, but summon all creatures, even the insensible ones, to join in the concert ! He calls to the " deeps, fire, hail, snow, mountains and hills," to bear a part in this work of praise (Ps. cxlviii) ; not that they are able to do it actively, but to show that man is to call in the whole creation to assist him passively, and should have so much charity to all creatures, as to re- ceive what they ofi:er, and so much affection to God, as to present to him what he receives from him. Snow and hail cannot bless and praise God, but man ought to praise God for those things wherein there is a mixture of trouble and inconvenience, sometliing to molest our sense, as well as something that improves the earth for fruit. This God requires of us : for this he instituted several offerings, and required a little portion of fruits to be presented to him, as an ac- knowledgment they held the whole from his bounty. And the end of the festival days among the Jews was to revive the memory of those signal acts wherein his power for them, and his goodness to them, had been extraordinarily evident ; it is no more but our mouths to praise him, and our hand to obey him, that he exacts at our hands. He commands us not to expend what he allows us in the erecting stately temples to his honor ; all the coin he requires to be paid with for his expense is the " offering of thanksgiving" (Ps. 1. 14) : and this we ought to do as much as Ave can, since we cannot do it as much as he merits, for " who can show forth all his praise ?" (Ps. cvi. 2.) If we have the fruit of his goodness, it is fit he should have the " fruit of our lips" (Heb. xiii. 15) : the least kindness should inflame our souls with a kindly resentment. Though some of his benefits have a brighter, some a darker, aspect towards us, yet they all come from this common spring ; his goodness shines in all ; there are the foot- steps of goodness in the least, as well as the smiles of goodness in the greatest ; the meanest therefore is not to pass Avithout a regard of the Author. As the glory of God is more illustrious in some crea- tures than in others, yet it glitters in all, and the lowest as well as the highest administers matter of praise ; but they are not only little things, but the choicer favors he has bestowed upon us. How much doth it deserve our acknoAvledgment, that he should contrive our re- covery, Avhen we had plotted our ruin ! that when he did from eter- nity behold the crimes whercAvith Ave would incense him, he should not, according to the rights of justice, cast us into hell, but prize us at ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 85^ tne rate of tlie blood and life of his only Son, in value above tlie blood of men and lives of angels ! How should we bless that God, that we have yet a gospel among us, that we are not driven into the utmost regions, that we can attend upon him in the face of the sun, and not forced to the secret obscurities of the night ! Whatsoever we enjoy, whatsoever we receive, we must own him as the Donor, and read his hand in it. Rob him not of any praise to give to an instrument. No man hath wherewithal to do us good, nor a heart to do us good, nor opportunities of benefitting us without him. When the cripple received the soundness of his limbs fi-om Peter, he praised the hand that sent it, not the hand that brought it (Acts iii 6) : he " praised God" (ver. 8). When we want anything that is good, let the goodness of Divine nature move us to David's practice, to " thirst after God" (Ps. xlii. 1) : and when we feel the motions of his goodness to us, let us imitate the temper of the same holy man (Ps. ciii. 2) : " Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget not all his benefits." It is an unworthy carriage to deal with him as a traveller doth with a fountain, kneel down to drink of it when he is thirsty, and turn his back 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 (Matt. v. 4A, 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 God's purity, so charity is a resemblance of God's goodness ; and this our Saviour calls perfection (ver. 48): "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect." As God would not be a per- fect God without goodness, so neither can any be a perfect Christian without kindness ; charity and love being the splendor and loveliness of all Christian graces, as goodness is the splendor and loveliness of all Divine attributes. This and holiness are ordered 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 dis- tant from him too mean for his. His infinite glory mounts him above the creature, but his infinite goodness stoops him to the mean est works of his hands. As he lets not the transgressions of pros perity pass without punishment, so he lets not the distress of his af- flicted people pass him without support. ShaU God provide for the ease of beasts, and shall not we have some tenderness towards those that are of the same blood with ourselves, 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 statehest prince in the world, who cannot ascend to ^ ()!,. It. — 23 354 OHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. ancestors beyond Adam ? Shall we glut ourselves witli Divine be- neficence to us, and wear his livery only on our own backs, forget- ting the affictions of some dear Joseph ; when God, who hath an unblemished 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 merelj for themselves, or rather that they might have a bottom to attain the honor of imitating him ? Shall we embezzle 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 bestowed upon any of us? Did not his goodness strip his Son of the glory of heaven for a timo to enrich us ? and shall we shrug when we are to part with a little to pleasure him ? It 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 Son's blood. He demands not that we should strip ourselves of all for others, but of a pittance, something of superfluity, which will turn more to our account than what is vainly and unprofitably con- sumed on our backs and bellies. If he hath given much to any of us, it is rather to lay aside part of the income for his service ; else we would monopolize Divine goodness to ourselves, and seem to dis« trust 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 whole scope of Divine goodness. If we do not endeavor to write after the comely copy he hath set us, we may provoke him to har- den 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 ene- mies. The best man is more unworthy to receive anything 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 those 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 van- quish the hearts of men, and render us greater than Alexanders and Caesars, who did only triumph over miserable carcasses ; yea, it is to triumph over ourselves in being good against the sentiments of cor- rupt nature. Revenge makes us slaves to our passions, as much as the offenders, and good returns render us victorious over our adverl saries (Rom. xii. 21) : " Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evi- with good." When we took up our arms against God, his goodness contrived not our ruin, but our recovery. This is such a goodness of God as could not be discovered in an innocent state ; while maD ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 355 had continued in his duty, he could not have been guilty of an en- mity ; and God could not but aiFect him, unless he had denied him- jself : so this of being good to our enemies could never have been practised in a state of rectitude ; since, where was a perfect inno- cence, there could be no spark of enmity to one another. It can be no disparagement to any man's dignity to cast his influences on his greatest opposers, since God, who acts for his own glory, thinks not himself disparaged by sending forth the streams of his bounty on the wickedest persons, Avho 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 vapors to cloud it? it can be no disgrace to resemble God ; if his hand and bowels be open to us. kt not ours be shut to any. DISCOURSE Xlll. ON GOD'S DOMINION. Pbalm ciii. 19. — The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens: and his kiugdoiK 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 holy name :" and because himself and all men were in- sufficient to offer up a praise to God answerable to the greatness of his benefits, he summons in the end of the psalm the angels^ and all creatures, to join in concert with him. Observe, 1. As man is too shalloAv a creature to comprehend the excellency of God, so he is too dull and scanty a creature to offer up a due praise to God, both in regard of the excellency of his nature, and the multitude and greatness of his benefits. 2. We are apt to forget Divine benefits : our souls must therefore be often jogged, and roused up. "All that is within me," every power of my rational, and every affection of my sensitive part : all his fac- ulties, all his thoughts. Our souls will hang back from God in every duty, much more in this, if we lay not a strict charge upon them We are so void of a pure and entire love to God, that we have nO' mind to those duties. Wants will spur us on to prayer, but a pure love to God can only spirit us to praise. We are more ready to reach out a hand to receive his mercies, than to lift up our hearts to recognize them after the receipt. After the Psalmist had summoned his own soul to this task, he enumerates the Divine blessings received by him, to awaken his soul by a sense of them to so noble a work. He begins at the first and foundation mercy to himself, the pardon of his sin and justification of his person, the renewing of his sickly and languishing nature (ver. 3) : " Who forgives all thy iniquities, and heals all thy diseases." His redemption from death, or eternal destruction ; his expected glorification thereupon, which he speaks of with that certainty, as if it were present (ver. 4): "Who redeems thy life from destruction, who crowns thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies." He makes his progress to the mercy manifested to the church in the protection of it against, or delivery of it from, op- pressions (ver. 6) : " The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed." In the discovery of his will and law, and the glory of his merciful name to it (ver. 7, 8) : " He made known his ways unto Moses, and his acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy:"' ON GODS DOMINION. 357 which latter words may refer also to the free and unmerited spring of the benefits he had reckoned up : viz.^ the mercy of God, which he mentions also (ver. 10) : " He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities ;" and then extols the perfection of Divine mercy, in the pardoning of sin (ver, 11, 12) ; the paternal tenderness of God (ver. 13) ; the eternity of his mercy (ver. 17) ; but restrains it to the proper object (ver. 11, 17), " to them that fear him ;" i. e. to them that believe in him. Fear being the word commonly used for faith in the Old Testament, under the legal dispensation, wherein the spirit of bondage was more eminent than the spirit of adoption, and their fear more than their confidence. Observe, 1. All true blessings grow up from the pardon of sin (ver. 3) : *' Who forgives all thine iniquities." That is the first blessing, the top and crown of all other favors, which draws all other blessings after it, and sweetens all other blessings with it. The principal in- tent of Christ was expiation of sin, redemption from iniquity ; the purchase of other blessings was consequent upon it. Pardon of sin is every blessing virtually, and in the root and spring it flows from the favor of God, and is such a gift as cannot be tainted with a curse, as outward things may. 2. Where sin is pardoned, the soul is renewed (ver. 3) : " Who heals all thy diseases." Where guilt is remitted, the deformity and sickness of the soul is cured. Forgiveness is a teeming mercy ; it never goes single ; when we have an interest in Christ, as bearing the chastisement of our peace, we receive also a balsam from his blood, to heal the wounds we feel in our nature. (Isa. liii. 5) : " The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and mth his strij)es we are healed." As there is a guilt in sin, which binds us over to punish- ment, so there is a contagion in sin, which fills us with pestilent dis- eases ; when the one is removed, the other is cured. We should not know how to love the one without the other. The renewing the soul is necessary for a delightful relish of the other blessings of God. A condemned malefactor, infected with a leprosy, or any other loathsome distemper, if pardoned, could take little comfort in his freedom from the gibbet without a cure of his plague. 3. God is the sole and sovereign Author of all spiritual blessings : " Who forgives all thy iniquities, and heals all thy diseases." He refers all to God, nothing to himself in his own merit and strength. All, not the pardon of one sin merited by me, not the cure of one disease can I owe to my own power, and the strength of my free- will, and the operations of nature. He, and he alone is the iPrince of pardon, the Physician that restores me, the Redeemer that delivers me ; it is a sacrilege to divide the praise between God and ourselves. God only can knock off our fetters, expel our distempers, and restore a deformed soul to its decayed beauty. 4. Gracious souls will bless God as much for sanctification as foi justification. The initials of sanctification (and there are no more in this life) are worthy of solemn acknowledgment. It is a sign of growth in grace when our hymns are made up of acknowledgments of God's sanctifying, as well as pardoning grace. In blessing God 858 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. for the one, we ratlier sliow a love to ourselves ; in blessing God foi the other, we cast out a pure beam of love to God : because, bj puri- fying grace, we are fitted to the service of our Maker, prepared to every good work which is delightful to him ; by the other, we are eased in ourselves. Pardon fills us with inward peace, but sanctifi- cation fills us with an activity for God. Nothing is so caj)able of Betting the soul in a heavenly tune, as the consideration of God as a pardoner and as a healer, 5. Where sin is pardoned, the punishment is remitted (ver. 3, 4) : " Who forgives all thy iniquities, and redeems thy life from destruc- lion." A malefactor's pardon puts an end to his chains, frees him from the stench of the dungeon, and fear of the gibbet. Pardon is nothing else but the remitting of guilt, and guilt is nothing else but an obligation to punishment as a penal debt for sin. A creditor's tearing a bond frees the debtor from payment and rigor. 6. Growth in grace is always annexed to true sanctification. So that " thy youth is renewed like tlie eagle's" (ver. 5). Interpreters trouble themselves much about the manner of the eagle's renewing its youth, and regaining its vigor: he speaks best that saith, the Psalmist speaks only according to the opinion of the vulgar, and his design was not to write a natural history. q Growth always accom- panies grace, as well as it doth nature in the body ; not that it is without its qualms and languishing fits, as children are not, but still their distempers make them grow. Grace is not an idle, but an ac- tive principle. It is not like the Psalmist means it of the strength of the body, or the prosperity and stability of his government, but the vigor of his grace and comfort, since they are spiritual blessings here that are the matter of bis song. The healing the disease con- duceth to the sprouting up and flourishing of the body. It is the nature of grace to go from strength to strength. 7. When sin is pardoned, it is perfectly pardoned. " As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us" (ver. 11, 12). The east and west are the greatest distance in the world ; the terms can never meet together. When sin is par- doned, it is never charged again ; the guilt of it can no more return, than east can become west, or west become east. 8. Obedience is necessary to an interest in the mercy of God. " The mercy of the Lord is to them that fear him, to them that re- member his commandments, to do them" (ver. 17). Commands are to be remembered in order to practice ; a vain speculation is not the intent of the publication of them. After the Psalmist had enumerated the benefits of God, he reflects upon the greatness of God, and considers him on his throne encom- Eassed with the angels, the ministers of his providence. " The Lord ath prepared his throne in the lieavens and his kingdom rules over all" (ver. 19). He brings in this of his dominion just after he had largely treated of his mercy. Either, 1. To signify. That God is not only to be praised for bis mercy, but for his majesty, both for the height and extent of his authority 2. To extol the greatness of his mercy and pity. What I have q Aniyrald. *« Inc. ON GOD'S DOMINION. 359 said now, 0 my soul, of the mercj of God, and liis paternal pity, is commended by his majesty ; liis grandeur hinders not his clemency : though his throne be high, his bowels are tender. He looks down upon his meanest servants from the height of his glory. Since his majesty is infinite, his mercy must be as great as his majesty. It must be a greater pity lodging in his breast, than what is in any creature, since it is not damped by the greatness of his sovereignty. 3. To render his mercy more comfortable. The mercy I have spoken of, 0 my soul, is not the mercy of a subject, but of a sover- eign. An executioner may torture a criminal, and strip him of his life, and a vulgar pity cannot relieve him, but the clemency of the prince can perfectly pardon him. It is that God who hath none above him to control him, none below him to resist him, that hath performed all the acts of grace to thee. If God by his supreme au- thority pardons us, who can reverse it ? If all the subjects of God in the world should pardon us, and God withhold his grant, what will it profit us? Take comfort, O my soul, since God from his throne in the highest, and that God who rules over every particular of the creation, hath granted and sealed thy pardon to thee. What would his grace signify, if he were not a monarch, extending his royal empire over everything, and swaying all by his sceptre ? 4. To render the Psalmist's confidence more firm in any pressures. Ver. 15, 16. He had considered the misery of man in the shortness- of his life ; his place should know him no more ; he should never return to his authority, employments, opportunities, that death would take from him ; but, howsoever, the mercy and majesty of God were the ground of his confidence. He draws himself from poring upon any calamities which may assault him, to heaven, the place where God orders all things that are done on the earth. He is able to pro- tect us from our dangers, and to deliver us from our distresses ; whatsoever miseries t]iou may est lie under, 0 my soul, cast thy eye up to heaven, and see a pitying God in a majestic authority : a God who can perform what he hath promised to them that fear him, since he hath a throne above the heavens, and bears sway over all that envy thy happiness, and would stain thy felicity : a God whose au- thority cannot be curtailed and dismembered by any. When the prophet solicits the sounding of the Divine bowels, he urgeth him by his dwelling in heaven, the habitation of his holiness (Isa. Ixiii. 15). His kingdom ruleth over all : there is none therefore hath any authority to make him break his covenant, or violate his promise. 5. As an incentive to obedience. The Lord is merciful, saith he, to them " that remember his commandments to do them" (ver. 17, 18) : and then brings in the text as an encouragement to observe his precepts. He hath a majesty that deserves it from us, and an au- thority to protect us in it. If a king in a small spot of earth is to be obeyed by his subjects, how much more is God, who is more ma jestic than all the angels in heaven, and monarchs on earth ; who hath a majesty to exact our obedience, and a mercy to allure it ! We should not set upon the performance of any duty, without au eye lifted up to God as a great king. It would make us willing to serve him ; the more noble the person, the more honorable and 360 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. powerful the prince, the more glorious is his service. A view of God upon his throne will make us think his service our privilege, his precepts our ornaments, and obedience to him the greatest honoi and nobility. It will make us weighty and serious in our perform- ances : it would stake us down to any duty. The reason we are so loose and unmannerly in the carriage of our souls before God, is be- cause we consider him not as a " great King" (Mai. i. 14). " Our Father, which art in heaven," in regard of his majesty, is the preface to prayer. Let us now consider the words in themselves. '' The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all." The Lord hath prepared. — 'The word signifies " established," a a well as " prepared," and might so be rendered. Due preparation is a natural way to the establishment of a thing : hasty resolves break and moulder. This notes, 1. The infiniteness of his authority. He prepares it, none else for him. It is a dominion that originally re- sides in his nature, not derived from any by birth or commission ; he alone prepared it. He is the sole cause of his own kingdom ; hia authority therefore is unbounded, as infinite as his nature : none can set laws to him, because none but himself prepared his throne for him. As he will not impair his own happiness, so he will not abridge himself of his own authority. 2. Readiness to exercise it upon due occasions. He hath prepared his throne : he is not at a loss ; he needs not stay for a commission or instructions from any how to act. He hath all things ready for the assistance of his people ; he hath rewards and punishments ; his treasures and axes, the great marks of authority lying by him, the one for the good, the other for the wicked. His " mercy he keeps by him for thousands" (Exod. xxxiv. 7). His " arrows" he hath prepared by him for rebels (Ps. vii. 13). 8. Wise management of it. It is prepared ; preparations imply pru- dence ; the government of God is not a rash and heady authority. A prince upon his throne, a judge upon the bench, manages things with the greatest discretion, or should be supposed so to do. 4. Successfulness and duration of it. He hath prepared or established. It is fixed, not tottering ; it is an immovable dominion ; all the stragglings of men and devils cannot overturn it, nor so much as shake it. It is established above the reach of obstinate rebels ; he cannot be deposed from it, he cannot be mated in it. His dominion, as himself, abides forever. And as his counsel, so his authority, shall stand, and " he will do all his pleasure" (Isa. xlvi. 10). His throne in the heavens. — This is an expression to signify the authority of God ; for as God hath no member properly, though he be so represented to us, so he hath properly no throne. It signifies his power of reigning and judging. A throne is proper to royalty, the seat of majesty in its excellency, and the place where the deepest respect and homage of subjects is paid, and their petitions presented. That the throne of God is in the heavens, that there he sits as Sove- reign, is the opinion of all that acknowledge a God ; when they stand in need of his authority to assist them, their eyes are lifted up, and tlieir heads stretched out to heaven ; so his Son Christ prayed ; he " lifteil up liis eyes to heaven," as the place where his Father sat ON GOD'S DOMINION. 361 m majesty, as tlie most adorable object (Jolin xvii. 1). Heaven hath the title of his " throne," as the earth hath that of his " foot- stool" (Isa. Ixvi. 1.) And, therefore, heaven is sometimes put for the authority of God (Dan. iv. 26). " After that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule," i. e. that God, who hath his throne in the heavens, orders earthly princes and sceptres as he pleases, and rules over the kingdoms of the world. His throne in the heavens notes, 1. The glory of his dominion. The heavens are the most stately and comely pieces of the creation. His majesty is there most visible, his glory most splendid (Ps. xix. 1). The heavens speak out with a full mouth his glory. It is therefore called " the habitation" of his " holiness and of his glory" (Isa. Ixiii. 15). There is the greater glister and brightness of his glory. The whole earth, indeed, is full of his glory, full of the beams of it ; the heaven is full of the body of it ; as the rays of the sun reach the earth, but the full glory of it is in the firmament. In heaven his dominion is more acknowl- edged by the angels standing at his beck, and by their readiness and swiftness obeying his commands, going and returning as a flash of lightning (Ezek. i. 14). His throne may well be said to be in the heavens, since his dominion is not disputed there by the angels that attend him, as it is on earth by the rebels that arm themselves against him. 2. The supremacy of his empire. The heavens are the loftiest part of the creation, and the only fit palace for him ; it is in the heavens his majesty and dignity are so sublime, that they are elevated above all earthly empires. 3. Peculiarity of this dominion. He rules in the heavens alone. There is some shadow of empire in the world. Royalty is communicated to men as his substitutes. He hath disposed a vicarious dominion to men in his footstool, the earth ; he gives them some share in his authority ; and, therefore, the title of his name (Ps. Ixxxii. 6) : "I have said, ye are gods ;" but in heaven he reigns alone without any substitutes ; his throne is there. He gives out his orders to the angels himself; the marks of his immediate sovereignty are there most visible. He hath no vicars- general of that empire. His authority is not delegated to any crea- ture ; he rules the blessed spirits by himself ; but he rules men that are on his footstool by others of the same kind, men of their own nature. 4. The vastness of his empire. The earth is but a spot to the heavens ; what is England in a map to the whole earth, but a spot you may cover with your finger ? much less must the whole earth be to the extended heavens ; it is but a little point or atom to what is visible ; the sun is vastly bigger than it, and several stars are supposed to be of a greater bulk than the earth ; and how many, and what heavens are beyond, the ignorance of man cannot under- stand. If the " throne" of God be there, it is a larger circuit he rules in than can well be conceived. You cannot conceive the many millions of little particles there are in the earth ; and if all put together be but as one point to that place where the throne of God is seated, how vast must his empire be ! He rules there over the angels, which "excel in strength" those "hosts" of his "which do his pleasure," in comparison of whom all the men in the world, and the power of the greatest potentates, is no more than the strength 862 CHARNOCK ON TBK ATTRIBUTES. of an ant or fly ; multitudes of them encircle his throne, and listeir to liis orders without roving, and execute them without disputing.. And since his throne is in the heavens, it will follow, that all things under the heaven are parts of his dominion ; his throne being in the highest place, the inferior things of earth cannot but be subject to him ; and it necessarily includes his influence on all things below: because the heavens are the cause of all the motion in the world, the immediate thing the earth doth naturally address to for corn, wine, and oil, above which there is no superior but the Lord (IIos. ii. 21, 22) : " The earth hears the corn, wine, and oil ; the heavens hear the earth, and the Lord hears the heavens." 5. The easi- ness of managing this government. His throne being placed on high, he cannot but behold all things that are done below ; the height of a place gives advantage to a pure and clear eye to be- hold things below it. Had the sun an eye, nothing could be done in the open air out of its ken. The " throne" of God being in heaven, he easily looks from thence upon all the children of men (Ps. xiv. 2) : " The Lord looked down from heaven upon the chil- dren of men, to see if there were any that did understand." He looks not down from heaven as if he were in regard of his presence con- fined there : but he looks down majestically, and by way of authori- ty, not as the look of a bare spectator, but the look of a governor, to j)ass a sentence upon them as a judge. His being in the heavens renders him capable of doing " whatsoever he pleases" (Ps. cxv. 3). His " throne" being there, he can by a word, in stopping the mo- tions of the heavens, turn the whole earth into confusion. In this respect, it is said, " He rides upon the heaven in thy help" (Deut, xxxiii. 26) ; discharges his thunders upon men, and makes the in- fluences of it serve his people's interest. By one turn of a cock, as you see in grottoes, he can cause streams from several parts of the heavens to refresh, or ruin the world. 6. Duration of it. The heavens are incorruptible ; his throne is placed there in an incor ruptible state. Earthly empires have their decays and dissolutions The throne of God outlives the dissolution of the world. His kingdom rules over all. — He hath an absolute right over all things within the circuit of heaven and earth ; though his throne be in heaven, as the place where his glory is most eminent and visible, his authority most exactly obeyed, yet his kingdom extends itself to the lower parts of the earth. He doth not muffle and cloud up himself in heaven, or confine his sovereignty to that place, his royal power extends to all visible, as well as invisible things : he is pro- prietor and possessor of all (Deut. x. 14): "The heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that is there." He hath right to dispose of all as he pleases. He doth not say, his kingdom rules all that fear him, but, " over all ;" so that it is not the kingdom of grace he here speaks of, but his natural and universal kingdom. Over angels and men ; Jews and Gentiles ; animate and inanimate things. The Psalmist considers God here as a great monarch and general, and all creatures as his hosts and regiments under him, and takes notice principally of two things. 1. The establishment of his throne ON GOD'S DOMINION. 363 fcogetlier witli the seat of it. He hath prepared his throne in the heav- ens. 2. The extent of his empire. — His kingdom rules over all. Tliis text, in all the parts of it, is a fit basis for a discourse upon the do- minion of God, and the observation will be this. Doctrine. — God is sovereign Lord and King, and exerciseth a do- minion over the whole world, both heaven and earth. This is so clear, that nothing is more spoken of in Scripture. The very name, " Lord," imports it ; a name originally belonging to gods, and from them translated to others. And he is frequently called " the Lord of Hosts," because all the troops and armies of spiritual and corporeal creatures are in his hands, and at his service : this is one of his prin- cipal titles. And the angels are called his " hosts" (ver. 21, follow- ing the text) his camp and militia: but more plainly (1 Kings, xxii. 19), God is presented upon his throne, encompassed with all the " hosts of heaven" standing on his right hand and on his left, which can be understood of no other than the angels, that wait for the commands of their Sovereign, and stand about, not to counsel him, but to receive his orders. The sun, moon, and stars, are called his "hosts" (Deut. iv. 19); appointed by him for the government of inferior things : he hath an absolute authority over the greatest and the least creatures ; over those that are most dreadful, and those that are most beneficial ; over the good angels that willingly obey him, over the evil angels that seem most incapable of government. And as he is thus " Lord of hosts," he is the " King of glory," or a glorious King (Ps. xxi^. 10). You find him called a "great King," the "Most High" (Ps. xcii. 1), the Supreme Monarch, there being no dignity in heaven or earth but what is dim before him, and infinitely inferior to him ; yea, he hath the title of " Only King" (1 Tim. vi. 15). The title of royalty truly and properly only belongs to him : you may see it described very magnificently by David, at the free-will offering for the building of the temple (IChron. xxix. 11, 12) : " Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the vic- tory, and the majesty; thine is the kingdom, O God, and thou art exalted as Head above all : both riches and honor come of thee, and thou reignest over all ; and in thy hand is power and might ; and in thy hand it is to make great, and to give strength to all." He hath an eminency of power or authority above all : all earthly princes received their diadems from him, yea, even those that will not ac- knowledge him, and he hath a more absolute power over them than they can challenge over their meanest vassals : as God hath a knowl- edge infinitely above our knowledge, so he hath a dominion incom- prehensibly above any dominion of man ; and, by all the shadows drawn from the authority of one man over another, we can have but weak glimmerings of the authority and dominion of God. There is a threefold dominion of God. 1. Natural, which is abso- lute over all creatures, and is founded in the nature of God as Crea tor. 2. Spir.tual, or gracious, which is a dominion over his church as redeemed and founded in the covenant of grace. 3. A glorious kingdom, at the winding up of all, wherein he shall reign over all, either in the glory of his mercy, as over the glorified saints, or in the glory of his justice, in the condemned devils and men. The first 364 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. dominion is founded in nature ; the second in grace ; the third in re- gard of the blessed in grace; in regard of tlie damned, in demerit in them, and justice in him. He is Lord of all things, and always in regard of propriety (Ps. xxiv. 1) : " The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and all that dwell therein." The earth, with the riches and treasures in the bowels of it ; the habitable world, with everything that moves upon it, are his ; he hath the sole right, and what right soever any others have is derived from him. In re- gard also of possession (Gren. xiv. 22): " The Most High God, pos- sessor of heaven and earth :" in respect of whom, man is not the Proprietary nor possessor, but usufructuary at the will of this grand lOrd. In the prosecution of this, I. I shall lay down some general prop- ositions for the clearing and confirming it. II. I shall show wherein this right of dominion is founded. III. What the nature of it is. IV. Wherein it consists ; and how it is manifested. I. Some general propositions for the clearing and confirming of it. 1. We must knoAv the difference between the might or power of God and his authority. We commonly mean by the power of God the strength of God, whereby he is able to effect all his purposes ; by the authority of God, we mean the right he hath to act what he pleases : omnipotence is his physical power, whereby he is able to do what he will ; dominion is his moral power, whereby it is lawful for him to do what he will. Among men, strength and authority are two distinct things ; a subject may be a giant, and be stronger than his prince, but he hath not the same authority as his prince : worldly dominion may be seated, not in a brawny arm, but a sickly and infirm body. As knowledge and wisdom are distinguished ; knowledge respects the matter, being, and nature of a thing ; wisdom respects the harmony, order, and actual usefulness of a thing ; knowh edge searcheth tlie nature of a thing, and wisdom employs that thing to its proper use : a man may have much knowledge, and little wis dom ; so a man may have much strength, and little or no authority a greater strength may be settled in the servant, but a greater au thority resides in the master ; strength is the natural vigor of a man ; God hath an infinite strength, he hath a strength to bring to pass whatsover he decrees ; he acts without fainting and weakness (Isa. xl. 28), and impairs not his strength by the exercise of it : as God is Lord, he hath a right to enact ; as he is almighty, he hath a power to execute ; his strength is the executive power belonging to his dominion : in regard of his sovereignty, he hath a right to command all creatures ; in regard of his almightiness, he hath power to make his commands be obeyed, or to punish men for the violation of them : his power is that whereby he subdues all creatures under him ; hia dominion is that whereby he hath a right to subdue all creatures under him. This dominion is a right of making what he pleases, of possessing what he made, of disposing of what he doth possess ; whereas his power is an ability to make what he hath a right to create, to hold what he doth possess, and to execute the mannei wherein he resolves to dispose of his creatures. 2. All the other attributes of God refer to this perfection of domi- ON GOD'S DOMINION. 365 nion. They all bespeak him fit for it, and are discovered in the exercise of it (which hath been manifested in the discourses of those attributes we have passed through hitherto). His goodness fits him for it, because he can never use his authority but for the good of the creatures, and conducting them to their true end : his wisdom can never be mistaken in the exercise of it ; his power can accomplish the decrees that flow from his absolute authority. What can be more rightful than the placing authority in such an infinite Good- ness, that hath bowels to pity, as well as a sceptre to sway his sub- jects ? that hath a mind to contrive, and a will to regulate his con- trivances for his own glory and his creatures' good, and an arm of power to bring to pass what he orders? Without this dominion, some perfections, as justice and mercy, would lie in obscurity, and much of his wisdom would be shrouded from our sight and know! edge. 3. This of dominion, as well as that of power, hath been acknowl edged by all. The high priest was to "waive the offering," or shake it to and fro (Exod. xxix. 24), which the Jews say was customarily from east to west, and fi'om north to south, the four quarters of the world, to signify God's sovereignty over all the parts of the world ; and some of the heathens, in their adorations, turned their bodies to all quarters, to signify the extensive dominion of God throughout the whole earth. That dominion did of right pertain to the Deity, was confessed by the heathen in the name " Baal," given to their idols, which signifies Lord ; and was i;iot a name of one idol, adored for a god, but common to all the eastern idols. God hath inter- woven the notion of his sovereignty in the nature and constitution of man, in the noblest and most inward acts of his soul, in that fac- ulty or act which is most necessary for him, in his converse in this world, either with God or man : it is stamped upon the consicence of man, and flashes in his face in every act of self-judgment conscience passes upon a man : every reflection of conscience implies an obliga- tion of man to some law " written in his heart" (Eom. ii. 15). This law cannot be without a legislator, nor this legislator without a sove- reign dominion ; these are but natural and easy consequences in the mind of man from every act of conscience. The indelible authority of conscience in man, in the whole exercise of it, bears a respect to the sovereignty of God, clearly proclaims not only a supreme Being, but a supreme Governor, and points man directly to it, that a man may as soon deny his having such a reflecting principle within him, as deny God's dominion over him, and consequently over the whole world of rational creatures. 4. This notion of sovereignty is inseparable from the notion of a God. To acknowledge the existence of a God, and to acknowledge him a rewarder, are linked together (Heb. xi. 6). To acknowledge him a rewarder, is to acknowledge him a governor ; rewards being the marks of dominion. The very name of God includes in it a supremacy and an actual rule. He cannot be conceived as God, but he must be conceived as the highest authority in the world. It is as possible for him not to be God as not to be supreme. Wherein can the exercise of his excellencies be apparent, but in his so verign rule ? 366 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. To fancy an infinite power without a supreme dominion, is to fancy a mighty senseless statue, fit to be beheld, but not fit to be obeyed ; as not being able or having no right to give out orders, or not caring for the exercise of it. God cannot be supposed to be the chief being, but he must be supposed to give laws to all, and receive laws from none. And if we suppose him with a perfection of justice and right- eousness (which we must do, unless we would make a lame and im- perfect God) we must suppose him to have an entire dominion, with- ')ut which he could never be able to manifest his justice. And without a supreme dominion he could not manifest the supremacy and infiniteness of his righteousness. (1.) We cannot suppose God a Creator, without supposing a sovereign dominion in him. No creature can be made without some law in its nature ; if it had not law, it would be created to no pur- pose, to no regular end. It would be utterly unbecoming an infinite -wisdom to create a lawless creature, a creature wholly vain ; much less can a rational creature be made without a law : if it had no law, it were not rational : for the very notion of a rational creature implies reason to be a law to it, and implies an acting by rule. If jou could suppose rational creatures without a law, you might sup- pose that they might blaspheme their Creator, and murder their fellow-creatures, and commit the most abominable villanies destruc- tive to human society, without sin ; for " where there is no law, there is no transgression."'' But those things are accounted sins by all mankind, aud sins against the Supreme Being : so that a dominion, ;and the exercise of it, is so fast linked to God, so entirely in him, so intrinsic in his nature, that it cannot be imagined that a rational creature can be made by him, without a stamp and mark of that dominion in his very nature and frame ; it is so inseparable from God in his very act of creation. (2.) It is such a dominion as cannot be renounced by God himself. It is so intrinsic and connatural to him, so inlaid in the nature 3f God, that he cannot strip himself of it, nor of the exercise of it, while any creature remains. It is preserved by him, for it could not isubsist of itself; it is governed by him, it could not else answer its end. It is impossible there can be a creature, which hath not God for its Lord. Christ himself, though in regard of his Deity equal with God, yet in regard of his created state, and assuming our nature, was God's servant, was governed by him in the whole of his ofl&ce, acted according to his command and directions ; God calls him hig servant (Isa. xlii. 1) : and Christ, in that prophetic psalm of him, calls God his Lord (Ps. xvi. 2) : "0 my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord." It was impossible it should be otherwise ; justice had been so far from being satisfied, that it had been highly incensed if the order of things in the due subjection to God had been broke, and his terms had not been complied with. It would be a judgment upon the world if God should give up the government to '.any else, as it is when he gives " children to be princes" (Isa. iii. 4) ; !». e. children in understanding. (3.) It is so inseparable, that it cannot be communicated to any ' Maccov. CoUeg. Theolog. 10 Disput. 18, pp. 6, 7, or thereabout. ON GOD'S DOMINION. 36? creature. ISo creature is able to exercise it , every creature is unable to perform all the offices that belong to this dominion. No creature can impose laws upon the consciences of men : man knows not the inlets into the soul, his pen cannot reach the inwards of man. What laws he hath power to propose to conscience, he cannot see executed ; because every creature wants omniscience ; he is not able to perceive all those breaches of the law which may be committed at the same time in so many cities, so many chambers. Or, suppose an angel, in regard to the height of his standing, and the insufficiency of walls, and darkness, and distance to obstruct his view, can behold men's actions, yet he cannot know the internal acts of men's minds and wills, without some outward eruption and appearance of them. And if he be ignorant of them, how can he execute his laws ? K he only understand the outward fact without the inward thought, how can he dispense a justice proportionable to the crime ? he must needs be ignorant of that which adds the greatest aggravation sometimes to a sin, and inflicts a lighter punishment upon that which receives a deeper tincture from the inward posture of the mind, than another fact may do, which in the outward act may appear more base and unjust; and so while he intends righteousness, may act a degree of injustice. Besides, no creature can inflict a due punishment for sin ; that which is due to sin, is a loss of the vision and sight of God ; but none can deprive any of that but God himself; nor can a creature reward another with eternal life, which consists in communion with God, which none but God can bestow. ^ II. Wherein the dominion of God is founded. 1. On the excellency of his nature. Indeed, a bare excellency of nature bespeaks a fitness for government, but doth not properly con- vey a right of government. Excellency speaks aptitude, not title : a subject may have more wisdom than the prince, and be fitter to hold the reins of government, but he hath not a title to royalty. A man of large capacity and strong virtue is fit to serve his countr}'" in parliament, but the election of the people conveys a title to him. Yet a strain of intellectual and moral abilities beyond others, is a foundation for dominion. And it is commonly seen that such eminences in men, though they do not invest them with a civil author- ity, or an authority of jurisdiction, yet they create a veneration in the minds of men ; their virtue attracts reverence, and their advice is regarded as an oracle. Old men by their age, when stored with more wisdom and knowledge by reason of their long experience, acquire a kind of power over the younger in their dictates and councils, so that they gain, by the strength of that excellency, a real authority in the minds of those men they converse with, and possess themselves of a deep respect for them. God therefore being an in- comprehensible ocean of all perfection, and possessing infinitely all those virtues that may lay a claim to dominion, hath the first foun- dation of it in his own nature. His incomparable and unparalleled excellency, as well as the greatness of his work, attracts the volun- tary worship of him as a sovereign Lord (Ps. Ixxxvi. 8) : " Among the gods, there is none like unto thee; neither are there any works • Maccov. CoUeg. Theolog. Disput. 18, pp. 12, 13. 368 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. like unto thj work. All nations shall come and worship before thee." Though his benefits are great engagements to our obedience and affection, yet his infinite majesty and perfection requires the first place in our acknowledgements and adorations. Upon this ac- count God claims it (Isa. xlvi. 9): "I am God, and there is none like me ; I will do all my pleasure :" and the prophet Jeremiah upon the same account acknowledgeth it (Jer. x. 6, 7) : " Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O Lord, thou art great, and thy name is great in might : who would not fear thee, 0 King of nations ? for to thee doth it appertain : forasmuch as there is none like unto thee." And this is a more noble title of dominion, it being an un- created title, and more eminent than that of creation or preservation. This is the natural order God hath placed in his creatures, that the more excellent should rule the inferior.* He committed not the government of lower creatures to hons and tigers, that have a delight in blood, but no knowledge of virtue ; but to man, who had an emi- nence in his nature above other creatures, and was formed with a perfect rectitude, and a height of reason to guide the reins over them. In man, the soul being of a more sublime nature, is set of right to rule over the body ; the mind, the most excellent faculty of the soul, to rule over the other powers of it : and wisdom, the most excellent habit of the mind, to guide and regulate that in its determinations ; and when the body and sensitive appetite control the soul and mind, it is an usurpation against nature, not a rule according to nature. The excellency, thereof, of the Divine nature is the natural founda- tion for his dominion. He hath wisdom to know what is fit for him to do, and an immutable righteousness whereby he cannot do any thing base and unworthy : he hath a foreknowledge whereby he is able to order all things to answer his own glorious designs and the end of his government, that nothing can go awry, nothing put him to a stand, and constrain him to meditate new counsels. So that if it could be supposed that the world had not been created by him, that the parts of it had met together by chance, and been compacted into such a body, none but God, the supreme and most excellent Being in the world, could have merited, and deservedly challenged the government of it ; because nothing had an excellency of nature to capacitate it for it, as he hath, or to enter into a contest with him for a sufficiency to govern." 2. It is founded in his act of creation. He is the sovereign Lord, as he is the almighty Creator. The relation of an entire Creator in- duceth the relation of an absolute Lord; he that gives being, motion, that is the sole cause of the being of a thing, which was be- fore nothing, that hath nothing to concur with him, nothing to as- sist him, but by his sole power commands it to stand up into being, is the unquestionable Lord and proprietor of that thing that hath no dependence but upon him ; and by this act of creation, which extended to all things, he became universal Sovereign over all things : and those that waive the excellency of his nature as the foundation of his government, easily acknowledge the sufficiency of it upon his actual creation. His dominion of jurisdiction results from creation. » Riij uaud, Theolog. Nat. p. 757. Cameio. p. 371. .\inyrald, Dissert, pp. 72. 7.S ON" god's dominion, 369 W"lien God Mmself makes an oration in defence of ais sovereignty (Job xxxviii.). liis cliief arguments are drawn from creation ; and (Ps. xcv. 8, 5), " The Lord is a great King above all gods; the sea is his, and he made it :" and so the apostle, in his sermon to the Athenians. As he " made the world, and all things therein," he is styled, "Lord of heaven and earth" (Acts xvii. 24). His dominion, also, of property stands upon this basis : " The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine : as for the world, and the fulness thereof j thou hast founded them" (Ps. Ixxxix. 11). Upon this title of form- ing Israel as a creature, or rather as a church, he demands then- ser- vice to him as their Sovereign : " 0 Jacob and Israel, thou art my servant, I have formed thee : thou art my servant, 0 Israel" (Isa. xUv. 21). The sovereignty of God naturally ariseth from the rela- tion of all things to himself as their entire Creator, and their natural and inseparable dependence upon him in regard of their being and well-being. It depends not upon the election of men ; God hath a natural dominion over us as creatures, before he hath a dominion by consent over us as converts : as soon as ever anything began to be a creature, it was a vassal to God, as a Lord. Every man is acknow- ledged to have a right of possessing what he hath made, and a power of dominion over what he hath framed : he may either cherish his own work, or dash it in pieces ; he may either add a greater come- liness to it, or deface what he hath already imparted. He hath a right of property in it : no other man can, without injury, pilfer his own work from him. The work hath no propriety in itself; the right must lie in the immediate framer, or in the person that em- ployed him. The first cause of everything hath an unquestionable dominion of propriety in it upon the score of justice. By the law of nations, the first finder of a country is esteemed the rightful pos- sessor and lord of that country, and the first inventor of an art hath a right of exercising it. If a man hath a just claim of dominion over that thing whose materials were not of his framing, but from only the addition of a new figure from his skill ; as a limner over his pic- ture, the cloth whereof he never made, nor the colors wherewith he draws it were never endued by him with their distinct qualities, but only he applies them by his art, to compose such a figure ; much more hath God a rightful claim of dominion over his creatures, whose entire being, both in matter and form, and every particle of their excellency, was breathed out by the word of his mouth. He did not only give the matter a form, but bestowed upon the matter itself a being ; it was formed by none to his hand, as the matter is on which an artist works. He had the being of all things in his own power, and it was at his choice whether he would impart it or no ; there can be no juster and stronger ground of a claim than this. A man hath a right to a piece of brass or gold by his purchase, but when by his engraving he hath formed it into an excellent statue, there results an increase of his right upon the account of his artifice. God's creatior of the matter of man gave him a right over man ; but his creation of him in so eminent an excellency, with reason to guide him, a clear eye of understanding to discern light from darkness, and truth from falsehood, a freedom of will to act accordingly, and VOL. II. — 24 370 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. an original righteousness as the varnish and beauty of all ; here is the strongest foundation for a claim of authority over man, and the strongest obligation on man for subjection to God. K all those things had been past over to God by another hand, he could not be the supreme Lord, nor could have an absolute right to dispose of them at his pleasure : that would have been the invasion of another's right. Besides, creation is the only first discovery of his dominion. Before the world was framed there was nothing but God himself, and, properly, nothing is said to have dominion over itself; this is a relative attribute, reflecting on the works of God.'f He had a right of dominion in his nature from eternity, but before creation he was actually Lord only of a nullity ; where there is nothing it can have no relation ; nothing is not the subject of possession nor of dominion. There could be no exercise of this dominion without creation : what exercise can a sovereign have without subjects? Sovereignty speaks a relation to subjects, and none is properly a sovereign without sub- jects. To conclude : from hence doth result God's universal do- minion ; for being Maker of all, he is the ruler of all, and his per- petual dominion ; for as long as God continues in the relation of Creator, the right of his sovereignty as Creator cannot be abolished. 3. As God is the final cause, or end of all, he is Lord of all. The end hath a greater sovereignty in actions than the actor itself: the actor hath a sovereignty over others in. action, but the end for which any one works hath a sovereignty over the agent himself : a limner hath a sovereignty over the picture he is framing, or hath framed, but the end for which he framed it, either his profit he de- signed from it, or the honor and credit of skill he aimed at in it, hath a dominion over the limner himself: the end moves and ex- cites the artist to work ; it spirits him in it, conducts him in his whole business, possesses his mind, and sits triumphant in him in all the progress of his work ; it is the first cause for which the whole work is wrought. y Now God, in his actual creation of all, is the sovereign end of all; "for thy pleasure they are and were created" (Rev. iv. 11) ; "The Lord hath made all things for himself" (Pro v. xvi. 4). Man, indeed, is the subordinate and immediate end of the lower creation, and therefore had the dominion over other creatures granted to him : but God being the ultimate and principal end, hath the sovereign and principal dominion ; all things as much refer to him, as the last end, as they flow from him as the first cause. So that, as I said before, if the world had been compacted together by a jumbling chance, without a wise hand, as some have foolishly im- agined, none could have been an antagonist with God for the gov- emmcDt of the world ; but God, in regard of the excellency c f his nature, would have been the Rector of it, unless those atoms that had composed the world had had an ability to govern it. Since there could be no universal end of all things Wt God, God only can claim an entire right to the government of it ; for though man be the end of the lower creation, yet man is not the end of himself and his own being ; he is not the end of the creation of the supreme " Stougbtou's " Rii^bteoiis Man's Plea," Serm. VI. p. 28 J Vid. Lossium ;le PfrtVct. Divin. pp. 77, 78. ON GOD'S DOMINION. 371 heaveiis ; ne is not able to govern tliem ; they are out of liis ken, and out of liis reach. None fit in regard of the excellency of na- ture, to be the chief end of the whole world but God ; and therefore none can have a right to the dominion of it but God : in this regard God's dominion diS'ers from the dominion of all earthly potentates. All the subjects in creation were made for God as their end, so are not people for rulers, but rulers made for j^eople for their protec- tion, and the preservation of order in societies. 4. The dominion of God is founded upon his preservation of things. (Ps. xcv. 3, 4) ; " The Lord is a great King above all gods :" why? "In his hand are all the deep places of the earth." While his hand holds things, his hand hath a dominion over them. He that holds a stone in the air, exerciseth a dominion over its natural inclination in hindering it from falling. The creature depends wholly upon God in its preservation ; as soon as that Divine hand which sustains everything were withdrawn, a languishment and swooning would be the next turn in the creature. He is called Lord, Adonai, in regard of his sustentation of all things by his con- tinual influx ; the word coming of ths, which signifies a basis or pillar, that supports a building. God is the Lord of all, as he is the sustainer of all by his power, as well as the Creator of all by his word. The sun hath a sovereign dominion over its own beams, which depend upon it, so that if he withdraws himself, they all at- tend him, and the world is left in darkness. God maintains the vigor of all things, conducts them in their operations ; so that no- thing that they are, nothing that they have, but is owing to his pre- serving power. The Master of this great family may as well be call- ed the Lord of it, since every member of it depends upon him for the support of that being he first gave them, and holds of his em- pire. As the right to govern resulted from creation, so it is perpet- uated by the preservation of things. 5. The dominion of God is strengthened by the innumerable benefits he bestows upon his creatures : the benefits he confers upon us after creation, are not the original ground of his dominion. A man hath not authority over his servant from the kindness he shows to him, but his authority commenceth before any act of kindness, and is founded upon a right of purchase, conquest, or compact. Dominion doth not depend upon mere benefits ; then inferiors might have dominions over superiors. A peasant may save the life of a prince to whom he was not subject ; he hath not therefore a right to step up into his throne and give laws to him : and children that maintain their parents in their poverty, might then acquire an authority over them which they can never climb to ; because the benefits they confer cannot parallel the benefits they have received from the authors of their lives. The bounties of God to us add nothing to the intrinsic right of his natural dominion ; they being the effects of that sovereignty, as he is a rewarder and governor ; as the benefits a prince bestows upon his favorite increases not that right of authority which is inherent in the crown, but strengthens that dominion as it stands in relation to the receiver, by increasing the obligation of the favorite to an observance of him, not only as 372 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. his natural prince, but his gracious benefactor. The beneficence • ot God adds, though not an original right of power, yet a foundation of a stronger upbraiding the creature, if he walks in a violation and forgetfulness of those benefits, and j)ull in pieces the links of that ingenuous duty they call for ; and an occasion of exercising of jus- tice in punishing the delinquent, which is a part of his empire (Isa. i. 2) : " Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, the Lord hath spoken ; I have nourished children, and they have rebelled against me." Thus the fundamental right as Creator is made more indisputable by his relation as a benefactor, and more as being so after a forfeiture of wliat was enjoyed by creation. The benefits of God are innumer' able, and so magnificent that they cannot meet with any compensa- tion from the creature ; and, therefore, do necessarily require a sub- mission from the creature, and an acknowledgment of Divine authority. But that benefit of redemption doth add a stronger right of dominion to God ; since he hath not only as a Creator g^ven them being and life as his creatures, but paid a price, the price of his Son's blood, for tlieir rescue from captivity ; so that he hath a sovereignty of grace as well as nature, and the ransomed ones belong to him as Eedeemer as well as Creator (1 Cor. vi. 19, 20) : " Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price ;" therefore your body and your spirit are God's. By this he acquired a right of another kind, and bought us from that uncontrollable lordship we affected over our- selves by the sin of Adam, that he might use us as his own peculiar for his own glory and service. By this redemption there results to God a right over our bodies, over our spirits, over our ser\dces, as well as by creation ; and to shoAv the strength of this right, the apostle repeats it, " you are bought ;" a purchase cannot be without a price paid; but he adds price also, "bought with a price." To strengthen the title, purchase gave him a new right, and the great- ness of the price established that right. The more a man pays foi a thing, the more usually we say, he deserves to have it, he hath paid enough for it ; it was, indeed, price enough, and too much foi such vile creatures as we are. III. The third thing is, The nature of this dominion. 1. This dominion is independent. His throne is in the heavens; the heavens depend not upon the earth, nor God upon his creatures. Since he is independent in regard of his essence, he is so in his do- minion, which flows from the excellency and falness of his essence ; as he receives his essence from none, so he derives his dominion from none ; all other dominion except paternal authority is rooted origin- ally in the wills of men. The first title was the consent of the people, or the conquest of others by the help of those people that first consented ; and in the exercise of it, earthly dominion depends upon assistance of the subjects, and the members being joined with the head carry on the work of government, and prevent civil dissen sions ; in the support of it, it depends upon the subjects' contribu- tions and taxes ; the subjects in their strength are the arms, and in their purses the sinews of government ; but God depends upon none m the foundation of his government ; he is not a Lord by the votes ON GOD'S DOMINION. 373 of his vassals. =^ Nor is it successive!}^ liandecl to liim by any prede- cessor, nor constituted by the power of a sujjerior ; nor forced he his way by war and conquest, nor j^recariously attained it by suit or flattery, or bribing j^romises. He holds not the right of his empire from any other ; he hath no superior to hand him to his throne, and settle him by commission; he is therefore called "King of kings, and Lord of lords," having none above him ; "A great King above all gods" (Ps. xcv. 3) : needing no license from any when to act, nor direction how to act, or assistance in his action ; he owes not any of those to any person ; he was not ordered by any other to create, and therefore received not orders from any other to rule over what he hath created. He received not his power and wisdom from another, and therefore is not subject to any for the rule of his government. He only made his own subjects, and from himself hath the sole authority ; his own will was the cause of their beings, and his own will is the director of their actions. He is not determined by his creatures in any of his motions, but determines the creatures in all ; his actions are not regulated by anj^ law without him, but by a law within him, the law of his own nature. It is impossible he can have any rule without himself, because there is nothing superior to him- self, nor doth he depend upon any in the exercise of his govern- ment ; he needs no servants in it, when he uses creatures : it ia not out of want of their help, but for the manifestationof his wisdom and power. "What he doth by his subjects, he can do by himself: " The government is upon his shoulder" (Isa. ix. 6), to show that he needs not any supporters. All other governments flow from him, all other authorities depend upon him ; Dei Gratia, or Dei Providentid, is in the style of princes. As their being is derived from his power, so their authority is but a branch of his dominion. They are govern- ors by Divine providence ; God is governor by his sole nature. All motions depend upon the first heaven, which moves all ; but that depends upon nothing. The government of Christ depends upon God's uncreated dominion, and is by commision from him ; Christ assumed not this honor to himself, " But he that said unto him. Thou art my Son," bestowed it upon him. " He put all things under his feet," but not himself (1 Cor. xv. 27). " When he saith. All things are put under him, he is excepted, which did put all things under him." He sits still as an independent governor upon his throne. 2. This dominion is absolute. If his throne be in the heavens, there is nothing to control him. If he be independent, he must needs be absolute ; since he hath no cause in conjunction with him as Creator, that can share with him in his right, or restrain him in the disposal of his creature. His authority is unlimited ; in this re- gard the title of " Lord" becomes not any but God properly. Ti- berius, though none of the best, though one of the subtilest princes, accounted the title of " Lord" a reproach to him : since he was not absolute," =1 1st. Absolute in regard of freedom and liberty. (1.) Thus creation IB a work of his mere sovereignty ; he created, because it was his plea- ■ Raynaud, Theolog. Natural, pp. f60 — 762. • Suetoa. de Tiberio, cap. 27. 374 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. sure to create (Rev. iv. 11), He is not necessitated to do this or that He might have chosen whether he wouhl have framed an earth and heavens, and laid the foundations of his chambers in the waters. He was under no obhgation to reduce things from nulhty to existence. (2.) Preservation is the fruit of his sovereignty. When he had called the world to stand out, he might have ordered it to return into its dark den of nothingness, ripped up every part of its founda- tion, or have given being to many more creatures then he did. li you consider his absolute sovereignty, why might he not have di- vested Adam presently of those rational perfections wherewith he had endowed him ? And might he not have metamorphosed him into some beast, and elevated some beast into a rational nature? Why might he not have degraded an angel to a worm, and advanced a worm to the nature and condition of an angel ? Why might he Qot have revoked that grant of dominion, which he had passed to man over all creatures ? It was free to him to permit sin to enter into the earth, or to have excluded it out of he earth, as he doth out of heaven. (3.) Redemption is a fruit of his sovereignty. By his absolute sovereignty he might have confirmed all the angels in their standing by grace, and prevented the revolt of any of their members from him ; and when there was a revolt both in heaven and earth, it was free to him to have called out his Son to assume- the angelical, as well as the human, nature, or have exercised his do- minion in the destruction of men and devils, rather than in the re- demption of any ; he was under no obligation to restore either the one or the other. (4.) May he not impose what terms he pleases ? May he not impose what laws he pleases, and exact what he will of his creature without promising any rewards? May he not use his own for his own honor, as well as men use for their credit what they do possess by his indulgence ? (5.) Affliction is an act of his sover> eignty. By this right of sovereignty, may not God take away any man's goods, since they were his doles ? As he was not indebted to us when he bestowed them, so he cannot wrong us when he removes them. He takes from us what is more his own than it is ours, and was never ours but by his gift, and that for a time only, not forever. By this right he may determine our times, put a period to our days when he pleases, strip us of one member, and lop off another. Man's being was from him, and why should he not have a sovereignty to take what he had a sovereignty to give ? Why should this seem strange to any of us, since we ourselves exercise an absolute domin- ion over those things in our possession, which have sense and feel ing, as well as over those that want it ? Doth not every man think he hath an absolute authority over the utensils of his house, over his horse, his dog, to preserve or kill him, to do what he please with him, without rendering any other reason than. It is my own ? May not God do much more ? Doth not his dominion over the work of his hands transcend that which a man can claim over his beast that he never gave life unto? He that dares dispute against God's abso- lute right, fancies himself as much a god as Ids Creator : understands not the vast difference between the Divine nature and his own ; be- tween the sovereignty of God and his o^vn, which is all the theme ON GODS DOMINION. 375 God himself discoursetli upon in those stately cnapters (Job. xxxviii. xxxix. &c.) ; not mentioning a word of Job's sin, but only vindicat- ing the rights of his own authority. Nor doth Job, in his reply (Job xl. 4), speak of his sin, but of his natural vileness as a creature in the presence of his Creator. By this right, God unstops the bot- tles of heaven in one place, and stops them in another, causing it " to rain upon one city, and not upon another" (Amos iv. 7) ; order- ing the clouds to move to this or that quarter where he hath a mind to be a benefactor or a judge. (6.) Unequal dispensations are acts of his sovereignty. By this right he is patient toward those whose sins, by the common voice of men, deserve speedy judgments, and pours out pain upon those that are patterns of virtue to the world. By this he gives sometimes the worst of men an ocean of wealth and honor to swim in, and reduceth an useful and exemplary grace to a scanty poverty. By this he "rules the kingdoms of men," and sets a crown upon the head of the basest of men (Dan. iv. 17), while he deposeth another that seemed to deserve a weightier diadem. This is, as he is the Lord of the ammunition of his thunders, and the trea- sures of his bounty. (7.) He may inflict what torments he pleases. Some say, by this right of sovereignty he may inflict what torments he pleaseth upon an innocent person ; which, indeed, will not bear the nature of a punishment as an effect of justice, without the sup- posal of a crime ; but a torment, as an effect of that sovereign right he hath over his creature, which is as absolute over his work as the " potter's" power is " over his own clay" (Jer. xviii. 6 ; Eom. ix. 21). May not the potter, after his labor, either set his " vessel" up to adorn his house, or knock it in pieces, and fling it upon the dung- hill ; separate it to some noble use, or condemn it to some sordid service?'' Is the right of God over his creatures less than that of the potter over his vessel, since God contributed all to his creature, but the potter never made the clay, which is the substance of the vessel, nor the water which was necessary to make it tractable, but only moulded the substance of it into such a shape ? The vessel that is framed, and the potter that frames it, differ only in life : the body of the potter, whereby he executes his authority, is of no better a mould than the clay, the matter of his vessel. Shall he have so absolute a power over that which is so near hun, and shall not God over that which is so infinitely distant from him ? The " ves- sel," perhaps, might plead for itself that it was once part of the body of a man, and as good as the "potter" himself; whereas no creature can plead it was part of God, and as good as God himself Though there be no man in the world but deserves affliction, yet the Scrip- ture sometimes lays affliction upon the score of God's dominion, without any respect to the sin of the afflicted person. Speaking of a sick person (James v. 15), " If he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him ;" whereby is implied, that he might be struck into sickness by God, without any respect to a particular sin, but in a way of trial ; and that his affliction sprung not from any exercise of Divine justice, but from his absolute sovereignty ; and so, in the case of the blind man, when the disciples asked for what sin it was, ^ Lessius de Perfect. Divin. pp. 66, 67. 376 CHARNOCK OK THE ATTRIBUTES. whether for his "own," or his "parents sin," he was bom blind? (John ix. 3), "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents;" which speaks, in itself, not against the whole current of Scripture ; but the words import thus much, that God, in this blindness from the birth, neither respected any sin of the man's own, nor of his parents, but he did it as an absolute sovereign, to manifest his own glory in that miraculous cure which was wrought by Christ. Though afflictions do not happen without the desert of the creature, yet some afflic- tions may be sent without any particular respect to that desert, merely for the manifestation of God's glory, since tke creature was made for God himself, and his honor, and therefore may be used in a serviceableness to the glory of the Creator. 2d. His dominion is absolute in regard of unlimiteciliess by any law without him. He is an absolute monarch that makes laws for his subjects, but is not bound by any himself, nor receives any rules and laws from his subjects, for the management of his government. But most governments in the world are bounded by laws made by common consent. But when kings are not limited by the laws of their kingdoms, yet they are bounded by the law of nature, and by the providence of God. But God is under no law without himself; his rule is within him, the rectitude and righteousness of his own nature ; he is not under that law he hath prescribed to man. The law was not made for a " righteous man" (1 Tim. i. 9), much less for a righteous God. God is his own law ; his own nature is his rule, as his own glory is his end ; himself is his end, and himself is his law. He is moved by nothing without himself; nothing hath the dominion of a motive over him but his own will, which is his rule for all his actions in heaven and earth. (Dan. iv. 32), " He rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever he will." And, (Rom. ix. 18,) " He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy ;" as all things are wrought by him according to his own eternal ideas in his own mind, so all is wrought by him according to the inward motive in his own will, which was the manifestation of his own honor. The greatest motives, therefore, that the best persons have used, when they have pleaded for any grant from God, was his own glory, which would be advanced by an answer of their pe- tition. 3d, His dominion is absolute in regard of supremacy and uncon- trollableness. None can implead him, and cause him to render a reason of his actions. He is the sovereign King, " Who may say unto him. What dost thou ?" (Eccles. viii. 4.) It is an absurd thing for any to dispute with God. (Rom. xi. 20), " Who art thou, 0 man, that repliest against God ?" Thou, a man, a piece of dust, to argue with a God incomprehensibly above thy reason, about the reason of his works ! Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth, but " not with Him that fashioned them" (Isa. xlv. 9). In all the desolations he works, he asserts his own supremacy to silence men (^Ps. xlvi. 10), " Be still, and know that I am God !" Beware of any quarrelling motions in your minds ; it is sufficient than t am God, that is supreme, and will not be impleaded, and censured, or worded with bv any creature about what I do. He is not bound to render a ON GOD'S DOMINION. 377 reason of any of his proceedings. Subjects are a3Conntable to their princes, and princes to God, God to none ; since oe is not limited by any superior, his prerogative is supreme. 4th. His dominion is absolute in regard of irresistibleness. Other governments are bounded by law ; so that what a governor hath strength to do, he hath not a right to do ; other governors have a limited ability, that what they have a right to do, they have not al ways a strength to do ; they may want a power to execute their own counsels. But God is destitute of neither ; he hath an infinite right, and an infinite strength ; his word is a law ; he commands things to stand out of nothing, and they do so. " He commanded," or spake, 6 einwf^ "light to shine out of darkness" (2 Cor. iv. 6). There is no distance of time between his word : " Let there be light ; and there was light" (Gen. i. 3). Magistrates often use not their author- ity, for fear of giving occasion to insurrections, which may overturn their empire. But if the Lord will work, " who shall let it ?" (Isa. xlui. 19) : and if God will not work, who shall force him ? He can check and overturn all other powers ; his decrees cannot be stopped, nor his hand held back by any : if he wills to dash the whole world in pieces, no creature can maintain its being against his order. He sets the ordinances of the heavens, and the dominion thereof in the earth ; and sends lightnings, that they may go, and say unto him, " Here we are" (Job. xxxviii. 33, 34). 3. Yet this dominion, though it be absolute, is not tyrannical, but it is managed by the rules of wisdom, righteousness, and goodness. K his throne be in the heavens, it is pure and good : because the heavens are the purest parts of the creation, and influence by their goodness the lower earth. Since he is his own rule, and his nature is infinitely wise, holy, and righteous, he cannot do a thing but what is unquestionably agreeable with wisdom, justice, and purity. In all the exercises of his sovereign right, he is never unattended with those perfections of his nature. Might not God, by his absolute power, have pardoned men's guilt, and thrown the invading sin out of his creatures ? but in regard of his truth pawned in his threaten- ing, and in regard of his justice, which demanded satisfaction, he would not. Might not God, by his absolute sovereignty, admit a man into his friendship, without giving him any grace ? but in re- gard of the incongruity of such an act to his wisdom and holiness, he will not. May he not, by his absolute power, refus© to accept a man that desires to please him, and reject a purely innocent crea- ture ? but in regard of his goodness and righteousness, he will not. Though innocence be amiable in its own nature, yet it is not neces- sary in regard of God's sovereignty, that he should love it ; but in regard of his goodness it is necessary, and he will never do other- wise. As God never acts to the utmost of his power, so he never exerts the utmost of his sovereignty : because it would be inconsi-t< ent with those other properties which render him perfectly adora- ble to the creature. As no intelligent creature, neither angel nor man, can be framed without a law in his nature, so we cannot imag- ine God without a law in his own nature, unless we would fancy him a rude, tyrannical, foolish being, that hath nothing of holiness, 378 CHARNOCK OX THE ATTRIBUTES. goodness, righteousness, wisdom. If be "made the heavens in wis- dom" (Ps. cxxxvi. 5), he made them by some rule, not by a mere will, but a rule within himself, not without. A wise work is nevet the result of an absolute unguided will. (1.) This dominion is managed by the rule of wisdom. What may appear to us to have no other spring than absolute sovereignty, would be found to have a depth of amazing wisdom, and account- able reason, were our short capacities long enough to fathom it. When the apostle had been discoursing of the eternal counsels of God, in seizing upon one man, and letting go another, in neglecting the Jews, and gathering in the Gentiles, which appears to us to be results only of an absolute dominion, yet he resolves not those amaz- ing acts into that, without taking it for granted that they were gov- erned by exact wisdom, though beyond his ken to see and his line to sound. " O, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ; how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out" (Rom. ii. 33) ! There are some things in matters of state, that may seem to be acts of mere will, but if we were acquainted with the arcana imperii, the inward engines which moved them, and the ends aimed at in those undertakings, we might find a rich vein of prudence in them, to incline us to judge other- wise than bare arbitrary proceedings. The other attributes of power and goodness are more easily perceptible in the works of God than his wisdom. The first view of the creation strikes us with this sen- timent, that the Author of this great fabric was mighty and benefi- cial ; but his wisdom lies deeper than to be discerned at the first glance, without a diligent inquiry ; as at the first casting our eyes upon the sea, we behold its motion, color, and something of its vast- ness, but we cannot presently fathom the depth of it, and understand those lower fountains that supply that great ocean of waters. It is part of God's sovereignity, as it is of the wisest princes, that he hath a wisdom beyond the reach of his subjects ; it is not for a finite na- ture to understand an Infinite AVisdom, nor for a foolish creature that hath lost his understanding by the fall, to judge of the reason of the methods of a wise Counsellor. Yet those actions that savor most of sovereignty, present men with some glances of his wisdom. Was it mere will, that he suffered some angels to fall? But his wis- dom was in it for the manifestation of his justice, as it was also in the case of Pharaoh. Was it mere will, that he suffered sin to be committed by man ? Was not his wisdom in this for the discovery of his mercy, which never had been known without that, whicli should render a creature miserable ? "He hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all" (Rom. xi. 32). Though God had such an absolute right, to have annihilated the world ag soon as ever he had made it, yet how had this consisted with his wisdom, to have erected a creature after his own image one day, and despised it so much the next, as to cashier it from being ? What wisdom had it been to make a thing only to destroy it ; to repent of his work as soon as ever it came out of liis hands, without any occa sion ofl'ered by the creature ? If God be supposed to be Creator, he must be suj^posed to have an end in creation ; what end can that be ON GOD'S DOMINION. 879 but himself and his own glory, the manifestation of the perfeciions of his nature ? What perfection could have been discovered in so quick an annihilation, but that of his power in creating, and of hia sovereignty in snatching away the being of his rational creature, be- fore it had laid the methods of acting? What wisdom to make a world, and a reasonable creature for no use ; not to praise and honor him, but to be broken in pieces, and destroyed by him ? (2.) His sovereignty is managed according to the rule of righteous- ness. Worldly princes often fancy tyranny and oppression to be the chief marks of sovereignty, and think their sceptres not beautiful till died in blood, nor the throne secure till established upon slain carcasses. But "justice and judgment" are the foundation of the throne of God (Ps. Ixxxix. 14) ; alluding perhaps to the supporters of arms and thrones, which among princes are the figures of lions, emblems of courage, as Solomon had (1 Kings, x. 19). But God makes not so much might, as right, the support of his. He sits on a " throne of holiness" (Ps. xlvii. 8). As he reigns over the heath- ens, referring to the calling of the Gentiles after the rejecting of the Jews ; the Psalmist here praising the righteousness of it, as the Apostle had the unsearchable wisdom of it (Eom. xi. 33). " In all his ways he is righteous" (Ps. cxlv. 17) : in his ways of terror as well as those of sweetness ; in those works wherein little else but that of his sovereignty appears to us. It is always linked with his holiness, that he will not do by his absolute right anything but what is con- formable to it : since his dominion is founded upon the excellency of his nature, he will not do anything but what is agreeable to it, and becoming his other j)erfections. Though he be an absolute sov- ereign, he is not an arbitrary governor ; " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right" (Gen. xviii. 25) ? ^. e. it is impossible but he should act righteously in every punctilio of his government, since his right- eousness capacitates him to be a judge, not a tyrant, of all the earth. The heathen poets represented their chief god Jupiter with Themis, or Right, sitting by him upon his throne in all his orders. God cannot by his absolute sovereignty command some things, because they are directly against unchangeable righteousness ; as to com- mand a creature to hate or blaspheme the Creator, not to own him nor praise him. It would be a manifest unrighteousness to order the creature not to own him, upon whom he depends both in its being and well-being ; this would be against that natural duty which is in- dispensably due from every rational creature to God. This would be to order him to lay aside his reason, while he retains it ; to dis- own him to be the Creator, while man remains his creature. This is repugnant to the nature of God, and the true nature of the crea- ture ; or to exact anything of man, but what he had given him a capacity, in his original nature, to perform. If any command were above our natural power, it would be unrighteous ; as to command a man to grasp the globe of the earth, to stride over the sea, to lave out the waters of the ocean ; these things are impossible, and becomi not the righteousness and wisdom of God to enjoin. There can be Qo obligation on man to an impossibility. God had a free dominion over nullity before the creation ; he could call it out into the being 380 CHARNOo'K ON THE ATTRIBUTES. of man and beast, but lie could not do anything in creation foolisUy, because of his infinite wisdom ; nor could lie by the right of his ab- solute sovereignty make man sinful, because of his infinite purity. As it is impossible for him not to be sovereign, it is impossible for him to deny his Deity and his purity. It is lawful for God to do what he will, but his will being ordered by the righteousness of his nature, as infinite as his will, he cannot do anything but what is just ; and therefore in his dealing with men, you find him in Scripture submitting the reasonableness and equity of his proceedings to the judgment of his depraved creatures, and the inward dictates of their own conscience. " And now, 0 inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard" (Isa. v. 3). Though God be the great Sovereign of the world, yet he acts not in a way of absolute sovereignty. He rules by law ; he is a " Lawgiver" as well as a " King" (Isa. xxxiii. 22). It had been re- pugnant to the nature of a rational creature to be ruled otherwise ; to be governed as a beast, this had been to frustrate those faculties of will and understanding which had been given him. To conclude this : when we say, God can do this or that, or command this or that, his authority is not bounded and limited properly. Who can reason- ably detract from his almightiness, because he cannot do anything which savors of weakness ; and what detracting is it from his author- ity, that he cannot do anything unseemly for the dignity of his na- ture ? It is rather from the infiniteness of his righteousness than the straitness of his authority ; at most it is but a voluntary bound- ing his dominion by the law of his own holiness. (3.) His sovereignty is managed according to the rule of goodness. Some potentates there have been in the world, that have loved to suck the blood, and drink the tears, of their subjects ; that would rule more by fear than love ; like Clearchus, the tyrant of Heraclea, who bore the figure of a thunderbolt instead of a sceptre, and named his son Thunder, thereby to tutor him to terrify his subjects. ^ But as God's throne is a throne of holiness, so it is a " throne of grace" (Heb. iv. 16), a throne encircled with a rainbow : " In sight like to an emerald" (Rev. iv. 23) : an emblem of the covenant, that hath the pleasantness of a green color, delightful to the eye, betokening mercy. Though his nature be infinitely excellent above us, and his power infinitely transcendent over us, yet the majesty of his government is tempered with an unspeakable goodness. He acts not so much as an absolute Lord, as a gracious Sovereign and obliging Benefactor. He delights not to make his subjects slaves ; exacts not from them any servile and fearful, but a generous and cheerful, obedience. He requires them not to fear, or worship him so much for his power, as his goodness. He requires not of a rational creature anything re- pugnant to the honor, dignity, and principles of such a natui^e ; not anything that may shame, disgrace it, and make it weary of its own being, and the service it owes to its Sovereign. He draws by the cords of a man ; his goodness renders his laws as sweet as honey or the honey-comb to an unvitiatoi palate and a renewed mind. And though it be granted he hath a full dispose of his ,reature, as the " Causin, Poly-Histor. lib. iv. cap. 22. ON GOD'S DOMINION. 381 potter of Ms vessel, and miglit by Ms absolute sovereignty inflici upon an innocent an eternal torment, yet liis goodness will never permit him to use this sovereign right to the hurt of a creature that deserves it not, K God should cast an innocent creature into the furnace of his wrath, who can question him ? But who can think that his goodness will do so, since that is as infinite as his authority c As not to punish the sinner would be a denial of his justice, so to torment an innocent would be a denial of his goodness. A man hath an absolute power over his beast, and may take away his life, and put him to a great deal of pain ; but that moral virtue of pity and tenderness would not permit him to use this right, but when it conduceth to some greater good than that can be evil ; either for the good of man, which is the end oF the creature, or for the good of the poor beast itself, to rid him of a greater misery ; none but a sav- age nature, a disposition to be abhorred, would torture a poor beast merely fbr his pleasure. It is as much against the nature of God to punish one eternally, that hath not deserved it, as it is to deny him- self, and act anything foolishly and unbeseeming his other perfections, which render him majestical and adorable. To afflict an innocent creature for his own good, or for the good of the world, as in the case of the Redeemer, is so far from being against goodness, that it is the highest testimony of his tender bowels to the sons of men. God, though he be mighty, "withdraws not his eyes," i. e. his tender respect, " from the righteous" (Job, xxxvi. 6, 7 — 10). And if he " bind them in fetters," it is to " show them their transgressions," and " open their ear to discipline," and renewing commands, in a more sensible strain, " to depart from iniquity." What was said of Fab- ritius, " You may as soon remove the sun from its course, as Fabri- tius from his honesty," may be of God : you may as soon dash in pieces his throne, as separate his goodness from his sovereignty. 4. This sovereignty is extensive over all creatures. He rules all, as the heavens do over the earth. He is " King of worlds, King of ages," as the word translated "eternal" signifies (1 Tim. i. 17), ^w de ^itadeT laf aiwvujv : and the same word is so translated (Heb. i. 2), " By whom also he made the worlds." The same word is rendered " worlds" (Heb. xi. 3) : " The worlds were framed by the Word of God." God is King of ages or worlds, of the invisible world and the sensible ; of all from the beginning of their creation, of whatsoever is measured by a time. It extends over angels and devils, over wicked and good, over rational and irrational creatures ; all things bow dowr ander his hand ; nothing can be exempted from him : because there is nothing but was extracted by him from nothing into being. All tilings essentially depend upon him ; and, therefore, must be essentially subject to him ; the extent of his dominion flows from the perfection of his essence ; since his essence is unlimited, his royalty cannot be restrained. His authority is as void of any im- perfection as his essence is ; it reaches out to all points of the heaven above, and the earth below. Other princes reign in a spot of ground. Every worldly potentate hath the confines of his dominions. The Pyrenean mountains divide France from Spain, and the Alps, Italy from France. None are called kings absolutely, but kings of this ojr 382 OHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. that place. But God is the King ; the spacious firmament limits not his dominion ; if we could suppose him bounded by any place, in regard of his presence, yet he could never be out of his own do- minion ; whatsoever he looks upon, wheresoever he were, would be under his rule. Earthly kings may step out of their own country into the territory of a neighbor prince ; and as one leaves his country, so he leaves his dominion behind him ; but heaven and earth, and every particle of both, is the tcrritijry of God. " He hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all." (1.) The heaven of angels, and other excellent creatures, belong to his authority. He is principally called " The Lord of Hosts," in re lation to his entire command over the angelical legions : therefore, ver. 21, following the text, they are called his " hosts," and " minis- ters that do his pleasure." Jacob called him so before (Gen. xxxii. 1, 2), When he met the angels of God, he calls them " the host of God ;" and the Evangelist, long after, calls them so (Luke, ii. 13) : ^' A multitude of the heavenly host, praising God ;" and all this host he commands (Isa. xlv. 12) : " My hands have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded." He employs them all in his service ; and when he issues out his orders to them to do this or that, he finds no resistance of his will. And the inanimate creatures in heaven are at his beck ; they are his armies in heaven, disposed in an excellent order in their several ranks (Ps. cxlvii. 4) : •" He calls the stars by name ;" they render a due obedience to him as servants to their master, when he singles them out, " and calls them by name," to do some special service ; he calls them out to their several ofiices, as the general of an army appoints the station of every regiment in a battalia. Or "he calls them by name," i. e. he imposeth names upon them, a sign of dominion : the giving names to the inferior creatures being the first act of Adam's derivative do- minion over them. These are under the sovereignty of God. The stars, by their influences, fight against Sisera (Judges, v. 20). And the sun holds in its reins, and stands stone still, to light Joshua to a complete victory (Josh. x. 12). They are all marshalled in their ranks to receive his word of command, and fight in close order, as being desirous to have a share in the ruin of the enemies of their Sovereign. And those creatures which mount up from the earth, and take their place in the lower heavens, vapors, whereof hail and snow are formed, are part of the army, and do not only receive, but fulfil, his word of command (Ps. cxlviii. 8). These are his stores and magazines of judgment against a time of trouble, and " a day of battle and war" (Job, xxxviii. 22. 23). The sovereignty of God is visible in all their motions, in their going and returning. If he says, Go, they go ; if he say. Come, they come ; if he say, do this, they gird up their loins, and stand stiff to their duty. (2.) The hell of devils belong to his authority. They have cast themselves out of the arms of his grace into the furnace of his jus- tice ; they have, by their revolt, forfeited the treasure of his good- ness, but cannot exempt themselves from the sceptre of his dominion ; when tliey would not own him as a Lord Father, they are under hun as a Lord Judge ; they are cast out of his affection, but not ON GOD'S DOMINION. 383 freed from hi^. joke He rules over the good angels as his subjects, over the evil ones as his rebels. In whatao-^- ?r relation he stands, either as a friend or enemy, he never loses tj^t of i Lord. A prince is the lord of his criminals as well as of his loyalest subjects. By this right of his sovereignty, he uses them to punish some, and be the occasion of benefit to others : on the wicked he employs them as instruments of vengeance ; towards the godly, as in the case of Job, as an instrumert of kindness for the manifestation of his sincerity against the intention of that malicious executioner. Though the devils are the executioners of his justice, it is not by their own au- thority, but Grod's ; as those that are employed either to rack or ex- ecute a malefactor, are subjects to the prince not only in the quality of men, but in the execution of their function. The devil, by draw- ing men to sin, acquires no right to himself over the sinner : for man by sin offends not the devH, but God, and becomes guilty of punishment under God.'^ When, therefore, the devil is used by God for the punishment of any, it is an act of his sovereignty for the man- ifestation of the order of his justice. And as most nations use the vilest persons in offices of execution, so doth God those vile spirits. He doth not ordinarily use the good angels in those offices of ven- geance, but in the preservation of his people. When he would solely punish, he employs " evil angels" (Ps. Ixxviii. 49), a troop of devils. His sovereignty is extended over the " deceiver and the deceived" (Job, xii. 16); over both the malefactor and the executioner, the devil and his prisoner. He useth the natural mahce of the devils for his own just ends, and by his sovereign authority orders them to be the executioners of his judgments upon their own vassals, as well as sometimes inflicrert- of punishments upon his own servants, (3.) The earth of men and other creatures belongs to his authority (Ps. xlvii. 7). God is King of "all the earth," and riles to the " ends" of it (Ps. lix, 13). Ancient atheists confined Goa's dominion to the heavenly orbs, and bounded it within the circuit of the celes- tial sphere (Job, xxii. 14) : " He walks in the circuit of heaven," i. e. he exerciseth his dominion only there. Pedum positio wa.^ tbe sign of the possession of i piece of land, and the dominion of tht^. tossessor of it ; and land was resigned by such a ceremony, as now, by the delivery of a twig or turf.e But his dominion extends, 1st. Over the least creatures. All the creatures of the earth are listed in Christ's muster-roll, and make up the number of his regi- ments. He hath "^r host on earth as well as in heaven (Gen. ii. 1) • " The heavens and earth were finished, and all the host of them." And they are " all his servants" (Ps. cxiv. 91), and move at his pleasure. And he vouchsafes the title of his army to the locust, caterpillar, and pLlm^r worm (Joel, ii. 25) ; and describes their motions by military words, " olimbing the walls, marching, not breaking their ranks" (ver. 7). He hath the command, as a great general, over the highest angel and ihe meanest worm ; all the kinds of the smallest insects he presseth for his service. By this sovereignty he muzzled the devouring nature of the fire to preserve the three children, and let it loose to consume their adversaries ; and if he speaks the word, * Su^rez. YoL il. lib. viii. cup, 20. p. 136. • Bolduc. in loc. 384 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. the stormy waves are hushed, us if they had no principle of rage within them (Ps. Ixxjz^l. 9). Since the meanest creature attains its end, and no arrow that God hath by his power shot into the world but hits the mark he aimed at, we must conclude, that there is a sovereign hand that governs all : not a spot of earth, or air, or water in the world, but is his possession ; not a creature in any element but is his subject. 2d, H";S dominion extends over men. It extends over the highest potentate, as well as the meanest peasant ; the proudest monarch is no more exempt than the most languishing beggar. He lays not aside his authority to please the prince, nor strains it up to terrify the indigent. " He accepts not the persons of princes, nor regards the rich more than the poor ; for they are all the worlc of his hand" (Job, xxxiv. 19). Both the powers and weaknesses, the gallantry and peasantry of the earth, stand and fall at his pleasure. Man, in innocence, was under his authority as his creature ; and man, in his revolt, is further imder his authority as a criminal : as a person is under the authority of a prince, as a governor, while he obeys his laws ; and further under the authority of the prince, as a judge, when he violates his laws. Man is under God's dominion in everything, in his settlement, in his calling, in the ordering his very habitation (Acts, xvii. 26): "He determines the bounds of their habitations." He never yet permitted any to be universal monarch in the world, nor over the fourth part of it, though several, in the pride of their heart, have designed and attempted it : the pope, who hath bid the fairest for it in spirituals, never attained it ; and when his power was most flourishing, there were multitudes that would never acknowledge his authority. 8d. But especially this dominion, in the peculiarity of its extent, IS seen in the exercise of it over the spirits and hearts of men. Earthly governors have, by his indulgence, a share with him in a do- . ninion over men's bodies, upon which account he graceth princes and judges with the title of " gods" (Ps. Ixxxii. 6) ; but the highest prince is but a prince " according to the flesh," as the apostle calls masters in relation to their servants (Col. iii. 22). God is the sovereign ; man rules over the beast in man, the body ; and God rules over the man in man, the soul. It sticks not in the outward surface, but pierceth to the inward marrow. It is impossible God should be without this ; if our wills were independent of him, we were in some sort equal with himself, in part gods, as well as creatures. It is impossible a creature, either in whole or in part, can be exempted from it ; since he is the fashioner of hearts as well as of bodies. He is the Father of spirits, and therefore hath the right of a paternal dominion over them. When he established man lord of the other creatures, he did not strip himself of the p2X)priety ; and when he made man a free agent, and lord of the acts of his will, he did not divest himself of the sovereignty. His sovereignty is seen, [1.] In gifting the spirits of men. Earthly magistrates have hands too short to inspire the hearts of their subjects with worthy senti- ments : when they confer an employment, they are not able to convey an ability with it fit for the station : they may as soon frame a statue ON eOD'S DOMINION. 385 of liquid water, and gild, or paint it over with the costliest colors, as impart to any a state-head for a state-ministry. But when God chooseth a Saul from so mean an employment as seeking of asses, he can treasure up in him a spirit fit for government ; and fire David, in age a stripling, and by education a shepherd, with courage to en- counter, and skill to defeat, a massy Goliath. And when he designs a person for glory, to stand before his throne, he can put a new and a royal spirit into him (Ezek. xxxvi. 26). God only can infuse habits into the soul, to capacitate it to act nobly and generously. [2.] His sovereignty is seen in regard of the inclinations of men's wills. No creature can immediately work upon the will, to guide it to what point he pleaseth, though mediately it may, by proposing reasons which may master the understanding, and thereby determine the will. But God bows the hearts of men, by the efficacy of his dominion, to what centre he pleaseth. When the more overweaning sort of men, that thought their own heads as fit for a crown as Saul's, scornfully despised him ; yet God touched the hearts of a band of men to follow and adhere to him (1 Sam. x. 26, 27). When the anti- christian whore shall be ripe for destruction, God shall " put it into the heart" of the ten horns or kings, " to hate the whore, burn her with fire, and fulfil his will" (Rev. xvii. 16, 17). He " fashions the hearts" alike, and tunes one string to answer another, and both to answer his own design (Ps. xxxiii. 15). And while men seem to gratify their own ambition and malice, they execute the will of God, by his secret touch upon their spirits, guiding their inclinations to serve the glorious manifestation of truth. While the Jews would, in a reproachful disgrace to Christ, crucify two thieves with him, to render him more incapable to have any followers, they accomplished a prophecy, and brought to light a mark of the Messiah, whereby he had been charactered in one of their prophets, that he should be " numbered among transgressors" (Isa. liii. 12). He can make a man of not willing, willing ; the wills of all men are in his hand ; i. e. under the power of his sceptre, to retain or let go upon this or that errand, to bend this or that way ; as water is carried by pipes to what house or place the owner of it is pleased to order. " The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of waters ; he turns it whithersoever he will" (Prov. xxi. 1) without any limitation. He speaks of the heart of princes ; because, in regard of their height,, they seem to be more absolute, and impetuous as waters ; yet God holds them in his hand, under his dominion ; turns them to acts of clemency or severity, like waters, either to overflow and damage, or to refi'esh and fructify. He can convey a spirit to them, or " cut it off" from them (Ps. Ixxvi. 12). It is with reference to his efficacious power, in graciously turning the heart of Paul, that the apostle breaks off his discourse of the story of his conversion, and breaks out into a magnifying and glorifying of God's dominion. " Now unto the King eternal," &c. "be honor and glory forever and ever" (1 Tim. i. 17). Our hearts are more subject to the Divine sovereignty than our members in their motions are subject to our own wills. As we can move our hand east or west to any quarter of the world, so can God Dend our wills to what mark he pleases. The second cause in every VOL. II. — 2^ S86 CHARNOCK OX THE ATTRIBUTES. motion depends npon the first ; and that "will, being a second cause, may be farthered or hindered in its inclinations or executions by God ; he can bend or unbend it, and change it from one actual inclination to another. It is as much under his authority and power to move, or hinder, as the vast engine of the heavens is in its motion or stand- ing still, which he can affect by a word. The work depends upon the workman ; the clock upon the artificer for the motions of it. [3.] His dominion is seen in regard of terror or comfort. The heart or conscience is God's special throne on earth, which he hath reserved to himself, and never indulged human authority to sit upon it. He solely orders this in ways of conviction or comfort. He can •flash terror into men's spirits in the midst of their earthly jollities, and put death into the pot of conscience, when they are boiling up themselves in a high pitch of worldly delights, and can raise men's spirits above the sense of torment under racks and flames. He can draw a hand- writing not only in the outward chamber, but the in- ward closet ; bring the rack into the inwards of a man. None car infuse comfort when he writes bitter things, nor can any fill the heart with gall, when he drops in honey. Men may order outward duties, but they cannot unlock the conscience, and constrain men to think them duties which they are forced, by human laws, outwardly to act : and as the laws of earthly princes are bounded by the outward man, so do their executions and punishments reach no farther than the case of the body : but God can run upon the inward man, as a giant, and inflict wounds and gashes there. 5. It is an eternal dominion. In regard of the exercise of it, it was not from eternity, because there was not from eternity any crea- ture under the government of it ; but in regard of the foundation of it, his essence, his excellency, it is eternal; as God was from eternity almighty, but there was no exercise or manifestation of it till he began to create. Men are kings only for a time ; their lives ex- pire like a lamp, and their dominion is extinguished with their lives ; they hand their empire by succession to others, but many times it is snapped off before they are cold in their graves. How are the fa- mous empires of the Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, and Greeks, mould- ered away, and their place knows them no more ! and how are the wings of the Eoman eagle cut, and that empire which overspread a great part of the world, hath lost most of its feathers, and is confined to a narrower compass ! The dominion of God flourisheth from one generation to another: "He sits King forever" (Ps. xxix. 10). His "session" signifies the establishment, and "forever" the duration ; and he " sits now," his sovereignty is as absolute, as powerful as ever. How many lords and princes hath this or that kingdom had ! in how many families hath the sceptre lodged ! when as God hath had an uninterrupted dominion ; as he hath been always the same in his essence, he hath been always glorious in his sovereignty: among men, he that is lord to-day, may be stripped of it to-morrow ; the dominions in the world vary ; he that is a prince may see his royalty upon the wings, and feel himself laden with fetters ; and a prisoner may be " lifted from his dungeon" to a throne. But there can be no diminution of God's government ; " His throne is from generation ON GOD'S DOMINION. 387 to generation" (Lam, v. 19) ; it cannot be shaken : his sceptre, like Aaron's rod, is always green ; it cannot be wrested out of his hands; none raised him to it, none therefore can depose him from it ; it bears the same splendor in all human affairs; he is an eternal, an "immortal King" (1 Tim. i. 17) ; as he is eternally mighty, so he is eternally sovereign ; and, being an eternal King, he is a King that gives not a momentary and perishing, but a durable and everlasting life, to them that obey him : a durable and eternal punishment to them that resist him. IV. Wherein this dominion and sovereign consists, and how it is manifested. First. The first act of sovereignty is the making laws. This is essential to God ; no creature's will can be the first rule to the crea- ture, but only the will of God : he only can prescribe man his duty, and establish the rule of it ; hence the law is called " the royal law" (James, ii. 8) : it being the first and clearest manifestation of sover- eignty, as the power of legislation is of the authority of a prince. Both are joined together in Isa. liii. 22 : " The Lord is our Lawgiver ; the Lord is our King ;" legislative power being the great mark of royalty. God, as King, enacts his laws by his own proper authority, and his law is a declaration of his own sovereignty, and of men's moral subjection to him, and dependence on him. His sovereignty doth not appear so much in his promises as in his precepts : a man s power over another is not discovered by promising, for a promise doth not suppose the promiser either superior or inferior to the per- son to whom the promise is made.f It is not an exercising authority over another, but over a man's self; no man forceth another to the acceptance of his promise, but only proposeth and encourageth to an embracing of it. But commanding supposeth always an authority in the person giving the precept ; it obligeth the person to whom the command is directed ; a promise obligeth the person by whom the promise is made. God, by his command, binds the creature ; by his promise he binds himself; he stoops below his sovereignty, to lay obligations upon his own majest}^ ; by a precept he binds the creature, by a promise he encourageth the creature to an observance of his pre- cept : what laws God makes, man is bound, by virtue of his creation, to observe ; that respects the sovereignty of God : what promises God makes, man is bound to believe ; but that respects the faithful- ness of God. God manifested his dominion more to the Jews than to any other people in the world; he was their Lawgiver, both as they were a church and a commonwealth : as a church, he gave them ceremonial laws for the regulating their worship ; as a state, he gave them judicial laws for the ordering their civil affairs ; and as both, he gave them moral laws, upon which both the laws of the church and state were founded. This dominion of God, in this regard, will be manifest, (1.) In the supremacy of it. The sole power of making laws doth originally reside in him (James, iv. 12); "There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save, and to destroy." By his own law he judges of the eternal states of men, and no law of man is obligatory, but as it f Suarez. de Legib. p. 23. 388 OHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. is agreeable to the laws of this supreme Lawgiver, and pursuant to his righteous rules for the government of the world. The power that the potentates of tlie world have to make laws is but derivative from God. If their dominion be from him, as it is, for " bj him kings reign" (Prov. viii. 15), their legislative power, which is a prime flower of their sovereignty, is derived from him also : and the apos- tle resolves it into this original when he orders us to be " subject to the higher powers, not only for wrath, but for conscience sake" (Rom. xiii. 5). Conscience, in its operations, solely respects God ; and therefore, when it is exercised as the principle of obedience to the laws of men, it is not with respect to them, singly considered, but as the majesty of God appears in their station and in their decrees. This power of giving laws was acknowledged by the heathen to be solely in God by way of original ; and therefore the greatest law- givers among the heathen pretended their laws to be received from some deity or supernatural power, by special revelation : now, whether they did this seriously, acknowledging themselves this part of the dominion of God, — for it is certain that whatsoever just orders were issued out by princes in the world, was by the secret influ- ence of God upon their spirits (Prov. viii. 15): " By me princes de- cree justice ;" by the secret conduct of Divine wisdom, — or whether they pretended it only as a public engine, to enforce upon people the observance of their decrees, and gain a greater credit to their edicts, yet this will result from it, that the people in general enter- tained this common notion, that God was the great Lawgiver of the world. The first founders of their societies could never else have so absolutely gained upon them by such a pretence. There was always a revelation of a law from the mouth of God in every age : the ex- hortation of Eliphaz to Job (Job, xxii. 22), of receiving a " law from the mouth" of God, at the time before the moral law was published, had been a vain exhortation had there been no revelation of the mind of God in all ages. (2.) The dominion of God is manifest in the extent of his laws. As he is the Governor and Sovereign of the whole world, so he en- acts laws for the whole world. One prince cannot make laws for another, unless he makes him his subject by right of conquest; Spain cannot make laws for England, or England for Spain ; but God having the supreme government, as King over all, is a Lawgiver to all, to irrational, as well as rational creatures. The "heavens have their ordinances" (Job, xxxviii. 83); all creatures have a law im- printed on their beings; rational creatures have Divine statutes copied in their heart : for men, it is clear (Rom. ii. 1-1), every son of Adam, at his coming into the world, brings with him a law in his nature, and when reason clears itself up from the clouds of sense, he can make some difference between good and evil ; discern something of fit and just. Every man finds a law within him that checks him if he offends it : none are without a legal indictment and a legal exe- cutioner within them ; God or none was the Author of this as a sovereign Lord, in establishing a law in man at the same time, wherein, as an Almighty Creator, he imparted a being. This law proceeds from God's general power of governing, as he is the Author OS GOD'S DOMINION". 8S9 ot natuTb, vnd binds not barely as it is the reason of man, but by the authority of God, as it is a law engraven on his conscience : and no doubt but a law was given to the angels ; God did not govern those intellectual creatures as he doth brutes, and in a way inferior to hia rule of man. Some sinned ; all might have sinned in regard to the changeableness of their nature. Sin cannot be but against some rule ; " where there is no law, there is no transgression ;" what that law was is not revealed ; but certainly it nmst be the same in part with the moral law, so far as it agreed with their spiritual natures ; a love to God, a worship of him, and a love to one another in their societies a.nd persons. (3.) The dominion of God is manifest in the reason of some laws, which seem to be nothing else than purely his own will. Some laws there are for which a reason may be rendered from the nature of the thing enjoined, as to love, honor, and worship God : for others, none but this, God will have it so : such was that positive law to Adam of " not eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. ii. 17), which was merely an asserting his own dominion, and was different from that law of nature God had written in his heart. No other reason of this seems to us, but a resolve to try man's obedience in a way of absolute sovereignty, and to manifest his right over all creatures, to reserve what he pleased to himself, and permit the use of what he pleased to man, and to signifj- to man that he was to de- pend on him, who was his Lord, and not on his own will. There was no more hurt in itself, for Adam to have eaten of that, than of any other in the garden ; the fruit was pleasant to the eye, and good for food ; but God would show the right he had over his own goods, and his authority over man, to reserve what he pleases of his own creation from his touch ; and since man could not claim a propriety in anything, he was to meddle with nothing but by the leave of his Sovereign, either discovered by a special or general license. Thus God showed himself the Lord of man, and that man was but hih steward, to act by his orders. If God had forbidden man the use of more trees in the garden, his command had been just ; since, as a sovereign Lord, he might dispose of his own goods ; and when he had granted him the whole compass of that pleasant garden, and tlie whole world round about for him and his posterity, it was a more tolerable exercise of his dominion to reserve this " one tree," as a mark of his sovereignty, when he had left " all others" to the use of Adam. He reserved nothing to himself, as Lord of the manor, but this ; and Adam was prohibited nothing else but this one, as a sign of his subjection. Now for this no reason can be rendered by any man but merely the will of God ; this was merely a fruit of Ins do- minion. For the moral laws a reason may be rendered ; to love God hath reason to enforce it besides God's will ; viz., the excellency of his nature, and the greatness and multitudes of his benefits. To love our neighbor hath enforcing reasons ; viz., the conjunction in blood, the preservation of human society, and the need we may stand in of their love ourselves : but no reason can be assigned of this positive command about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but ^he plensure of God. It was a branch of his pure dominion to JJ90 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. but meiely tlie pleasure of God. It was a branch of his pure doi,iiniou to try man's obedience, and a mark of his goodness to try it by so and light a precept, when he might have extended his authority further. Had not God given this or the like order, his absolute dominion had not been so conspicuous. It is true, Adam had a law of nature in him, whereby he was obliged to perpetual obedience ; and though it was a part of God's dominion to implant it in him, yet his supreme dominion over the creatures had not been so visible to man but by this, or a precept of the same kind. What was com- manded or prohibited by the law of nature, did bespeak a comeliness in itself, it appeared good or evil to the reason of man ; but this was neither good nor evil in itself, it received its sole authority from the absolute will of God, and nothing could result from the fruit itself, as a reason why man should not taste it, but only the sole will of God. And as God's dominion was most conspicuous in this precept, BO man's obedience had been most eminent in observing it : for in his obedience to it, nothing but the sole power and authority of God, which is the proper rule of obedience, could have been respected, not any reason from the thing itself. To this we may refer some other commands, as that of appointing the time of solemn and public wor- ship, the seventh day; though the worship of God be a part of the law of nature, yet the appointing a particular day, wherein he would be more formally and solemnly acknowledged than on other days, was grounded upon his absolute right of legislation : for there was nothing in the time itself that could render that day more holy than another, though God respected his " finishing the work of creation" in his institution of that day (Gen. ii. 3). Such were the ceremonial commands of sacrifices and washings under the law, and the com- mands of sacraments under the gospel : the one to last till the first coming of Christ and his passion ; the other to last till the second coming of Christ and his triumph. Thus he made natural and un- avoidable 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. xxxi. 18), which is very emphatic- ally expressed to be a mark of God's dominion. " And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God en- graven upon the tables" (Exod. xxxii, 16) ; 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. xxxiv. 1). It 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 sov- ereignty eminently appear ; it was published by God in state, with a numerous attendance of his heavenly militia (Deut. xxxii. 2) ; and the artillery of heaven was shot off at the solemnity ; and therefore it is called a fiery law, coming from his right hand, i. e. his sovereign- power. It was published with all the marks of supreme majesty. (5.) The dominion of God appears in the obligation of the law, which reacheth the conscience. The laws of every prince are fram ON GOD'S DOMINION. 391 ed for the outward conditions of men ; they do not by theii author* ity 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 protec- tion from the King of kings, and cannot be arrested by any human 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 re- served the authority over the better and more heavenly half to him- self The dominion of earthly princes extends only to the bodies of men ; they have no authority over the soul, theii- punishment and rewards cannot reach it : and therefore their laws, by their single authority, cannot bind it, but as they are coincident with the law of God, or as the equity of them is subservient to the preservation of human society, a regular and righteous thing, which is the divine end in government ; and so they bind, as they have relation to God as the supreme 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 whether we embrace this law in our heart and consciences, or only in appearance ; " He only can judge it" (Luke xii. 3, 4), and therefore he only can impose laws upon it ; it is out of the reach of human penal authority, if their laws be transgressed inwardly by it. Conscience is a book in some sort as sacred as the Scripture ; no addition can be lawfully made to it, no subtraction from it. Men cannot diminish the duty of conscience, or raze out the law God hath stamped 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 ; it is a flower in the crown of Divine sovereignty only. 2. His sovereignty appears in a power of dispensing with his own laws. It is as much a part of his dominion to dispense with his laws, as to enjoin 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. It is true, God will never dispense with those moral laws which have an eter- nal reason in themselves and their own nature ; as for a creature to fear, love, and honor God; this would be to dispense with his own holiness, and the righteousness of his nature, to sully 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 creature's being a Creator, and make him independent upon the Sovereign of tlie 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 ; ta 592 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. bind up tbe womb of the earth, and bar 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 neighboring countries : he can dispense with the natural laws of the wliole creation, and strain everything beyond its ordinary pitch. Positive laws he hath revers- ed ; as the ceremonial law given to the Jews. The very nature, in- deed, of that law required 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 likelihood, been propagated among the Gentiles. This was the " partition wall between Jews and Gentiles" (Eph. xii. 14) ; which made them a distinct family from all the world, and was the occa- sion of the enmity of the Gentiles against the Jews. "When God had, by bringing in what w^as signified by those rites, declared 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 bur}^ them in the ruins of the temple and city, and make them forever incapable 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 rights of sacrificing, it being peculiarly annexed to that place ; they have no altar digni- fied w4th a fire from heaven to consume their sacrifices, no legal high-priest to offer them. God hath by his providence changed his own law as well as by his precept ; yea, he hath gone higher, by virtue of his sovereignty, and changed the whole scene and methods of liifl fovernment after the fall, from King Creator to King Kedeemer. [e hath revoked the law of works as a covenant ; released the penalty of it from the believing sinner, by transferring it upon the Surety, who interposed himself b}^ his own will and Divine designa- tion. He hath established another covenant upon other promises in a higher root, with greater privileges, and easier terms. Had not God had this right of sovereignty, not a man of Adam's pos- terity could have been blessed ; he and they must have lain groan- ing under the misery of the fall, which had rendered both himself and all in his loins unable to observe the terms of the first covenant. He hath, as some speak, dispensed with his own moral law in some cases ; in commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son, a righteous son, a son whereof he had the promise, that " in Isaac should his seed be called ;" yet he was commanded to sacrifice him by the right of his absolute sovereignty as the supreme Lord of the lives of his creatures, from the highest angel to the lowest worm, whereby he bound his subjects to this law, not himself. Our lives are due to him when he calls for them, and they are a just forfeit to him, at the very moment we sin, at the very moment we come into the world, by reason of the venom of our nature against him, and the disturbance the first sin of man (whereof we are inheritors) gave to his glory. Had Abraham sacrificed his son of his own head, he had sinned, yea, in attempting it ; but being authorized ON god's dominion. 393 from heaven, his act was obedience to the Sovereign of the world, who had a power to dispense with his own Law ; and with this Law he had before dispensed, in the case of Cain's murder of Abel, as to the immediate punishm.ent of it with death, which, indeed, was settled afterwards by his authority, but then omitted because of the paucity of men, and for the peopling the world ; but settled after- wards, when there was almost, though not altogether, the hke occa sion of omitting it for a time. 3. His sovereignty appears in punishing the transgression of his law. (1.) This is a branch of God's dominion as lawgiver. So was the vengeance God would take upon the Amalekites (Bxod. xvii. 16) : " The Lord hath sworn, that the Lord will have war ;" the Hebrew is, " The hand upon the throne of the Lord," as in the margin : as a " lawgiver" he " saves or destroys" (James, iv. 12). He acts accord- ing to his own law, in a congruity to the sanction of his own pre- cepts; though he be an arbitrary lawgiver, appointing what laws he pleases, yet he is not an arbitrary judge. As he commands nothing but what he hath a right to command, so he punisheth none but whom he hath a right to punish, and with such punishment as the law hath denounced. All his acts of justice and inflictions of curses are the effects of this sovereign dominion (Ps. xxix. 10) : " He sits King upon the floods;" upon the deluge of waters wherewith he drowned the world, say some. It is a right belonging to the au- thority of magistrates to pull up the infectious weeds that corrupt a commonwealth ; it is no less the right of God, as the lawgiver and judge of all the earth, to subject criminals to his vengeance, after they have rendered themselves abominable in his eyes, and carried themselves unworthy subjects of so great and glorious a King. The first name whereby God is made known in Scripture, is Elohim (Gen. i. 1): "In the beginning God created the heaven and earth;" a name which signifies his power of judging, in the opinion of pome critics ; from him it is derived to earthly magistrates ; their judg- ment is said, therefore, to be the "judgment of God" (Deut. i. 17). When Christ came, he proposed this great motive of repentance from the " kingdom of heaven being at hand ;" the kingdom of his grace, whereby to invite men; the kingdom of his justice in the punishment of the neglecters of it, whereby to terrify men. Punish ments as well as rewards belong to royalty ; it issued accordingly ; those that believed and repented came under his gracious sceptre, those that neglected and rejected it fell under his iron rod; Jerusa- lem was destroyed, the temple demolished, the inhabitants lost their lives by the edge of the sword, or lingered them out in the chains of a miserable captivity. This term of "judge," which signifies a sovereign right to govern and punish delinquents, Abraham gives him, when he came to root out the people of Sodom, and make them the examples of his vengeance (Gen. xviii. 25). (2.) Punishing the transgressions of his law. This is a necessary branch of dominion. His sovereignty in making laws would be a trifle, if there were not also an authority to vindicate those laws from contempt and injury ; he would be a Lord only spurned at by 394 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. rebels. Sovereignty is not preserved -without justice. When the Psalmist speaks of the majesty of God's kingdom, he tells us, thai " righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne" (Ps. xcvii. 1, 2). These are tlie engines of Divine dignity which render him glorious and majestic. A legislative jDower would be trampled on without executive ; by this the reverential apprehensions of God are preserved in the world. He is known to be Lord of the world "by the judgments which he executes" (Ps. ix. 16). When he seems to have lost his dominion, or given it up in the world, he re- covers it by punishment. When he takes some away " with a whirl- wind, and in his wrath," the natural consequence men make of it, is this : " Surely there is a God that judgeth the earth" (Ps. Iviii. 9, 11). He reduceth the creature, by the lash of his judgments, that would not acknowledge his authority in his precepts. Those sins which disown his government in the heart and conscience, as f)ride, inward blasphemy, &c., he hath reserved a time hereafter to reckon for. He doth not presently shoot his arrows into the marrow of every delin- quent, but those sins which traduce his government of the world, and tear up the foundations of human converse, and a public respect to him, he reckons with particularly here, as well as hereafter, that the life of his sovereignty might not always faint in the world. (3.) This of punishing was the second discovery of his dominion in the world. His first act of sovereignty was the giving a law ; the next, his appearance in the state of a judge. When his orders were violated, he rescues the honor of them by an execution of justice. He first judged the angels, punishing the evil ones for their crime: the first court he kept among them as a governor, was to give them a law ; the second court he kept was as a judge trying the delin- quents, and adjudging the offenders to be "reserved in chains of darkness" till the final execution (Jude, 6) ; and, at the same time probably, he confirmed the good ones in their obedience by grace. So the first discovery of his dominion to man, was the giving him a precept, the next was the inflicting a punishment for the breach of it. He summons Adam to the bar, indicts him for his crime, finds him guilty by his own confession, and passeth sentence on him, ac- cording to the rule he had before acquainted him with. (4.) The means whereby he punisheth shows his dominion. Sometimes he musters up hail and mildew ; sometimes he sends regiments of wild beasts; so he threatens Israel (Lev. xxvi. 22). Sometimes he sends out a party of angels to beat up the quarters of men, and make a carnage among them (2 Kings, xix. 35). Some- times he mounts his thundering battery, and shoots forth his ammu- nition from the clouds, as against the Philistines (1 Sam. vii. 10) Sometimes he sends the slightest creatures to shame the pride and punish the sin of man, as " lice, frogs, locusts," as upon the Egypt ians (Exod. viii. — x.). Secondly. This dominion it manifested by God as a proprietor and Lord of his creatures and his own goods. And this is evident, 1. In the choice of some persons from eternity. He hath set apart some from eternity, wherein he will display the invincible effi- 'iacy of his grace, and thereby infallibly bring them to the friiitiott ON GOD'S DOMINION. 895 of glory (Eph. i. 4, 5) : " According as lie liatli cliosea us in liim be- fore the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his wilL" Why doth he write some names in the "book of life," and leave out others ? Why doth he enrol some, whom he intends to make denizens of heaven, and refuse to put others in his register ? The apostle tells us, it is the pleasure of his will. You may render a reason for many of God's actions, till you come to this, the top and foundation of all ; and under what head of reason can man reduce this act but to that of his royal prerogative? Why doth God save some, and condemn others at last? because of the faith of the one, and unbelief of the other. Why do some men believe? because God hath not only given them the means of grace, but accompanied those means with the efficacy of his Spirit. Why did God accom- pany those means with the efl&cacy of his Spirit in some, and not in others ? because he had decreed by grace to prepare them for glory. But why did he decree, or choose some, and not others ? Into what will you resolve this but into his sovereign pleasure ? Salvation and condemnation at the last upshot, are acts of God as the Judge, con- formable to his own law of giving life to believers, and inflicting death upon unbelievers ; for those a reason may be rendered ; but the choice of some, and pretention of others, is an act of God as he is a sovereign monarch, before any law was actually transgressed, because not actually given. When a prince redeems a rebel, he acts as a judge according to law ; but when he calls some out to pardon, he acts as a sovereign by a prerogative above law ; into this the apos- tle resolves it (Rom. ix. 13, 15). When he speaks of God's loving Jacob and hating Esau, and that before they had done either good or evil, it is, "because God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and compassion on whom he will have compassion." Though the first scope of the apostle, in the beginning of the chapter, was to declare the reason of God's rejecting the Jews, and calling in the Gentiles ; had he only intended to demolish the pride of the Jews, and flat their opinion of merit, and aimed no higher than that pro- vidential act of God ; he might, convincingly enough to the reason of men, have argued from the justice of God, provoked by the ob- stinacy of the Jews, and not have had recourse to his absolute will ; but, since he asserts this latter, the strength of his argument seems to lie thus : if God by his absolute sovereignty may resolve, and fix his love upon Jacob and estrange it from Esau, or any other of his creatures, before they have done good or evil, and man have no ground to call his infinite majesty to account, may he not deal thus with the Jews, when their demerit would be a bar to any complaints of the creature against him ?g If God were considered here in the quality of a judge, it had been fit to have considered the matter of fact in the criminal ; but he is considered as a sovereign, rendering no other reason of his action but his own will ; " whoni he will he hardens" (ver. 18). And then the apostle concludes (ver. 20), " Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God ?" If the reason drawn « Amyrald, Dissert, pp. 101, 102. 396 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. fix)in God's sovereignty doth not satisfy in this inquiry, no other rea- son can be found wherein to acquiesce : for the last condemnation there will be sufficient reason to clear the justice of his proceedings. But, in this case of election, no other reason but what is alleged, viz.^ the will of God, can be thought of, but what is liable to such knotty exceptions that cannot well be untied. (1.) It could not be any merit in the creature that might determine God to choose him. If the decree of election falls not under the merit of Christ's passion, as the procuring cause, it cannot fall under the merit of any part of the corrupted mass. The decree of sending Christ did not precede, but followed, in order of nature, the determi- nation of choosing some. When men were chosen as the subjects for glory, Christ was chosen as the means for the bringing them to glory (Eph, i. 4) : " Chosen us in him, and predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ." The choice was not merely in Christ as the moving cause ; that the apostle asserts to be " the good pleasure of his will ;" but in Christ, as the means of conveying to the chosen ones the fruits of their election. What could there be in any man that could invite God to this act, or be a cause of dis- tinction of one branch of Adam from another ? Were they not all hewed out of the same rock, and tainted with the same corruption in blood ? Had it been possible to invest them with a power of merit at the first, had not that venom, contracted in their nature, degraded all of power for the future ? What merit was there in any but of wrathful punishment, since they were all considered as criminals, and the cursed brood of an ungrateful rebel ? What dignity can there be in the nature of the purest part of clay, to be made a vessel of honor, more than in another part of clay, as pure as that which was formed into a vessel for mean and sordid use ? What had any one to move his mercy more than another, since they were all chil- dren of wrath, and equally daubed with original guilt and filth ? Had not all an equal proportion of it to provoke his justice ? Wha1 merit is there in one dry bone more than another, to be inspired with the breath of a spiritual life ? Did not all lie wallowing in their own filthy blood ? and what could the steam and noisomeness of that deserve at the hands of a pure Majesty, but to be cast into a sink furthest from his sight ? Were they not all considered in this de- plorable posture, with an equal proportion of poison in their nature, when God first took his pen, and singled out some names to write in the book of life ? It could not be merit in any one piece of this abominable mass, that should stir up that resolution in God to set apart this person for a vessel of glory, while he permitted another to putrefy in his own gore. He loved Jacob, and hated Esau, though they were both parts of the common mass, the seed of the same loins, and lodged in the same womb. (2.) Nor could it be any foresight of works to be done in time by them, or of faith, that might determine God to choose them. What good could he foresee resulting from extreme corruption, and a nature alienated from him ? What could he foresee of good to be done by them, but what he resolved in his own will, to bestow an ability upon thi^m to bring forth ? His choice of them was to a ON god's dominion. 397 holiness, not for a holiness preceding his determination (Eph. i. 4). He hath chosen ns, " that we might be hol}^" before him ; he ordain- ed us " to good works," not for them (Eph. ii. 10). What is a frait cannot be a moving cause of that whereof it is a fruit : grace is a stream from the spring of electing love ; the branch is not the cause of the root, but the root of the branch ; nor the stream the cause of the spring, but the spring the cause of the stream. Good works suppose grace, and a good and right habit in the person, as rational acts suppose reason. Can any man say that the rational acts man performs after his creation were a cause why God created him ?' This would make creation, and everything else, not so much an act of his will, as an act of his understanding. God foresaw no rational act in man, before the act of his will to give him reason ; nor fore- sees faith in any, before the act of his will determining to give him faith : " Faith is the gift of God" (Eph. ii. 8). In the salvation which grows up from this first purpose of God, he regards not the works we have done, as a principal motive to settle the top-stone of our happiness, but his own purpose, and the grace given in Christ ; " who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not accord- ing to our own works, but according to his own purpose and grace,, which was given to us in Christ, before the world began" (2 Tim. i. 9). The honor of our salvation cannot be challenged by our works,, much less the honor of the foundation of it. It was a pure gift of grace, without any respect to any spiritual, much less natural, per- fection. Why should the apostle mention that circumstance, when he speaks of God's loving Jacob, and hating Esau, " when neither of them had done good or evil" (Rom. ix. 11), if there were any fore- sight of men's works as the moving cause of his love or hatred ? God regarded not the works of either as the first cause of his choice, but acted by his own liberty, without respect to any of their actions which were to be done by them in time. If faith be the fruit of election, the prescience of faith doth not influence the electing act of God. It is called " the faith of God's elect" (Tit. i. 1) : " Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect ;" i. e. settled in this office to bring the elect of God to faith. If men be chosen by God upon the foresight of faith, or not chosen till they have faith, they are not so much God's elect, as God their elect ; they choose God by faith, before God chooseth them by love : it had not been the faith of God's elect, ^. e. of those already chosen, but the faith of those that were to be chosen by God afterwards. Elec- tion is the cause of faith, and not faith the cause of election ; fire is the cause of heat, and not the heat of fire ; the sun is the cause of the day, and not the day the cause of the rising of the sun. Men are not chosen because they believe, but they believe because they are chosen : the apostle did ill, else, to appropriate that to the elect which they had no more interest in, by virtue of their election, than the veriest reprobate in the world. ^ If the foresight of what works might be done by his creatures was the motive of his choosing them, why did he not choose the devils to redemption, who could Lave done liim better service, by the strength of their nature, than the •" Daille, in lac. 398 CHARNOCK ON" THE ATTRIBUTES. whole mass of Adam's posterity ? Well, then, there is no possible way to lay the original foundation of this act of election and preten- tion in anything but the absolute sovereignty of God. Justice or in- justice comes not into consideration in this case. There is no debt which justice or injustice always respects in its acting: if he had pleased, he might have chosen all ; if he had pleased, he might have chosen none. It was in his supreme power to have resolved to have left all Adam's posterity under the rack of his justice; if lie deter- mined to snatch out any, it was a part of his dominion, but without any injury to the creatures he leaves under their own guilt. Did he not pass by the angels, and take man ? and, by the same right of dominion, may he pick out some men from the common mass, and lay aside others to bear the punishment of their crimes. Are they not all his subjects ? all are his criminals, and may be dealt with at the pleasure of their undoubted Lord and Sovereign. This is a work of arbitrary power ; since he might have chosen none, or chosen all, as he saw good himself. It is at the liberty of the artificer to deter- mine his wood or stone to such a figure, that of a prince, or that of a toad ; and his materials have no right to complain of him, since it lies wholly upon his own liberty. They must have little sense of their own vileness, and God's infinite excellency above them by right of creation, that will contend that God hath a lesser right over his creatures than an artificer over his wood or stone. If it were at his liberty whether to redeem man, or send Christ upon such an un- dertaking, it is as much at his liberty, and the prerogative is to be allowed him, what person he will resolve to make capable of enjoy- ing the fruits of that redemption. One man was as fit a subject for mercy as another, as they all lay in their original guilt : why would not Divine mercy cast its eye upon this man, as well as upon his neighbor ? There was no cause in the creature, but all in God ; it must be resolved into his own will : yet not into a will without wis- dom. God did not choose hand over head, and act by mere 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 ; " not in him that wills, nor in him that runs, but in God that shows mercy" (Rom. ix. 15, 16). Since God hath revealed no other cause than his will, we can resolve it into no other than his sovereign em pire over all creatures. It is not without a stop to our curiosity, that in the same place where God asserts the absolute sovereignty of his mercy to Moses, he tells him he could not see his face : "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious ;" and he said, " Thou canst not see my face" (Exod. xxxiii. 19, 20) : the rays of his infinite wisdom are too bright and dazzling 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. xi. 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 ourselves swallowed up into a bottomless gulf : though ON GOD'S DOMINION. 899 tne understanding be above our capacity, yet tbe admiration of hia authority and submission to it are not, " We should cast ourselves down at his feet, with a full resignation of ourselves to his sovereign pleasure,"' This is a more comely carriage in a Christian than all the contentious endeavors 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 ex- tinguish 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 distil 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 en- grafts one man into the true Vine, and lets the other remain a wild olive ? Why is not the efiicacy of the Spirit always linked with the motions of the Spirit? Why does he not mould the heart into a gospel frame when he fills the ear with a gospel sound ? Why doth he strike ofi" the chains from some, and tear the veil from the heart, while he leaves others under their natural slavery and Egyptian darkness? Why do some lie under the bands of death, while an other is raised to a spiritual life ? What reason is there for all this but his absolute will ? The apostle resolves the question, if the question be asked, why he begets one and not another ? Not from the will of the creature, but " his own will," is the determination of one (James, i. 18), Why doth he work in one "to will and to do," and not in another? Because of "his good pleasure," is the an- swer of another (Phil, ii, 13), He could as well new create every one, as he at first created them, and make grace as universal as na- ture and reason, but it is not his pleasure so to do, (1.) It is not from want of strength in himself. The power of God is unquestionably able to strike off the chains of unbelief 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 virtue 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 hindrance could there be in any created spirit, which cannot be easily pierced into and new moulded by the Father of spirits ? Yet he only breathes this efficacious virtue into some, and leaves others under that insensibility and hardness which they love, and suffer them to continue in their benighting ignorance, and consume them- ' This was Dr Goodwin's speech when he was in trouble. 400 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. selves in the embraces of their dear, though deceitful Delilahs, He could have conquered the resistance of tlie Jews, as well as chased away the darkness and ignorance of the Gentiles. Xo doubt but he could overpower the heart of the most malicious devil, as well as that of the simplest and weakest man. But the breath of the Al- mighty Spirit is in his own power, to breathe " where he lists" (John, iii. 8). It is at his liberty whether he will give to any the feelings of the invincible efiicacy of his grace ; he did not want strength to have kept man as firm as a rock against the temptation of Satan, and poured 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. [!.} Not for their natural perfection of knowledge. He opened the minds and hearts of the more ignorant. Were the nature of the Gentiles better manured than that of the Jews, or did the ta- pers of their understandings burn clearer ? No ; the one were skilled in the prophecies of the Messiah, and might have compared the pre- dictions they owned 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 appear- ance, both grounded upon the oracles wherewith he had entrusted them. The Gentiles were unacquainted with the prophets, and therefore destitute of the expectations of the Messiah (Eph. ii. 12) : they were "without Christ;" without any revelation of Christ, be- cause " aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world," without any knowledge of God, or promises of Christ. The Jews might sooner, in a way of reason, have been wrought upon than the Gentiles, who were ignorant of the prophets, by whose writings they might have examined the truth of the apostles' decla- rations. Thus are they refused that were the kindred of Christ, ac- cording to the flesh, and the Gentiles, that were at a greater distance from him, brought in by God; thus he catcheth not at the subtle and mighty devils, who had an original in spiritual nature more like to him, but at weak and simple man. [2,] Not for any moral perfection, because he converts the most sinful : the Gentiles, steeped in idolatry and superstition. He sow- ed more faith among the Romans than in Jerusalem ; more faith in a city that was the common sewer of all the idolatry of the nations conquered by them, than in that city which had so signally been owned by him, and had not practised any idolatry since the Baby- lonish captivity. He planted saintship at Corinth, a place notorious for the infamous worship of Venus, a superstition attended with the grossest uncleanness ; at Bphesus, that presented the whole world with a cup of fornication in their temple of Diana ; among the Colos- ON GOD-S DOMINION; 40l wans, votaries to Gybele in a manner of worship attended with beastly and lascivious ceremonies. And what character had the Oretians from one of their own poets, mentioned by the apostle to I'itus, whom he had placed among them to further the progress of tiie gospel, but the vilest and most abominable ? (Titus i. 12) : " liars," not to be credited ; " evil beasts," not to be associated with ; " slow bellies," tit for no service. What prerogative was there in the nature of such putrefaction ? as much as in that of a toad to be elevated to the dignity of an angel, AVhat steam from such dung- hills could be welcome to him, and move him to cast his eye on them, and sweeten them from heaven ? What treasures of worth were here to open the treasures of his grace ! Were such filthy snuffs fit of themselves to be kindled by, and become a lodging for, a gospel beam? What invitements could he have from lying, beastliness, gluttony, but only from his own sovereignty ? By this he plucked firebrands out of the fire, while he left straighter and more comely sticks to consume to ashes. [3.] Not for any civil perfection, because he turns the most des- picable. He elevates not nature to grace upon the account of wealth, honor, or any civil station in the world : he dispenseth not ordi- narily those treasures to those that the mistaken world foolishly ad mire and dote upon (1 Cor. i. 26) ; " Not many mighty, not many noble :" a purple robe is not usually decked with this jewel ; he takes more of mouldy clay than refined dust to cast into his image, and lodges his treasures more in the earthly vessels than in the world's golden ones ; he gives out his richest doles to those that are the scorn and reproach of the world. Should he impart his grace most to those that abound in wealth or honor, it had been some founda tion for a conception that he had been moved by those vulgarly es teemed excellencies to indulge them more than others. But such a conceit languisheth when we behold the subjects of his grace as void originally of any allurements, as they are full of provocations. Hereby he declares himself free from all created engagements, and that he is not led by any external motives in the object. [4.] It is not from any obligation which lies upon him. He is in- debted to none : disobliged by all. No man deserves from him any act of grace, but every man deserves what the most deplorable are left to suffer. He is obhged by the children of wrath to nothing else but showers of wrath ; owes no more a debt to fallen man, than to fallen devils, to restore them to their first station by a superlative grace. How was he more bound to restore them, than he was to preserve them ; to catch them after they fell, than to put a bar in the way of their falling ? God, as a sovereign, gave laws to men, and a strength sufficient to keep those laws. What obligation is there upon God to repair that strength man wilfully lost, and extract him out of that condition into which he voluntarily plunged him- self? What if man sinned by temptation, which is a reason alleged by some, might not many of the devils do so too ? Though there was a first of them that sinned without a temptation, yet many of them might be seduced into rebellion by the ringleader. Upon that account he is no more bound to give grace to all men, than to devils, VOL. II. — 26 402 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES If lie promised life upon obedience, he threatened death upon trans- gression. By man's disobedience God is quit of his promise, and owes nothing but punishment upon the violation of his law. Indeed man may pretend to a claim of sufficient strength from him by crea- tion, as God is the author of nature, and he had it ; but since he hath extinguished it by his sin, he cannot in the least pretend any obliga- tion on God for a new strength. If it be a " perad venture" ' whether he will " give repentance," as it is 2 Tim. ii. 25, there is no tie in the case ; a tie would put it beyond a peradventure with a God that never forfeited his obligation. No husbandman thinks himself obliged to bestow cost and pains, manure and tillage, upon one field more than another ; though the nature of the ground may requir< i more, yet he is at his liberty whether he will expend more upon om,' than another.!^ He may let it lie fallow as long as he please. God is less obliged to till and prune his creatures, than man is obhged to his field or trees. If a king proclaim a pardon to a company of rebels, upon the condition of each of them paying such a sum of money ; their estates before were capable of satisfying the condition, but their rebellion hath reduced them to an indigent condition ; the proclamation itself is an act of grace, the condition required is not impossible in itself : the prince, out of a tenderness to some, sends them that sum of money, he hath by his proclamation obliged them to pay, and thereby enabled them to answer the condition he re- quires ; the first he doth by a sovereign authority, the second he doth by a sovereign bounty. He was obliged to neither of them ; punishment was a debt due to all of them ; if he would remit it upon condition, he did relax his sovereign right ; and if he would by his largess make any of them capable to fulfil the condition, by sending them presently a sufficient sum to pay the fine, he acted as proprie- tor of his own goods, to dispose of them in such a quantity to those to whom he was not obliged to bestow a mite. [5.] It must therefore be an act of his mere sovereignty. This can only sit arbitrator in every gracious act. Why did he give grace to Abel and not to Cain, since they both lay in the same womb, and equally derived from their parents a taint in their na- ture ; but that he would show a standing example of his sovereignty to the future ages of the world in the first posterity of man ? Why did he give grace to Abraham, and separate him from his idolatrous kindred, to dignify him to be the root of the Messiah? Why did he confine his promise to Isaac, and not extend it to Ishmael, the seed of the same Abraham by Hagar, or to the children he had by Keturah after Sarah's death ? What reason can be alleged for this but his sovereign will ? Why did he not give the fallen angels a moment of repentance after their sin, but condemned them to irrevocable pains ? Is it not as free for him to give grace to whom he please, as create what worlds he please ; to form this corrupted clay into his own image, as to take such a parcel of dust from all the rest of the creation whereof to compact Adam's body ? Hath he not as much jurisdiction over the sinful mass of his creatures in a new creation, as he had over the chaos in the old ? And what reason can be ren- k Claude, sur la Parabole des Noces. p. 29. ON GOD'S DOMINION. 403 dered, of his advancing this part of matter to the nobler dignity of a etar, and leaving that other part to make up the dark body of the earth ; to compact one part into a glorious sun, and another part into a hard rock, but his royal prerogative ? What is the reason a prince subjects one malefactor to punishment, and lifts up another to a place of trust and profit ? that Pharaoh honored the butler with an attendance on his person, and remitted the baker to the hands of the executioner ? It was his pleasure. And is not as great right due to God, as is allowed to the worms of the earth ? What is the reason he hardens a Pharaoh, by a denying him that grace which should mob lify him, and allows it to another ? It is because he will. " Whom he will he hardens" (Pom. ix. 18). Hatli not man the liberty to pull up the sluice, and let the water run into what part of the ground he pleases ? What is the reason some have not a heart to understand the beauty of his ways ? Because the Lord doth not give it them (Deut. xxix. 4). Why doth he not give all his converts an equal measure of his sanctifying gi-ace ? some have mites and some have treasures. Why doth he give his grace to some sooner, to some later ? some are inspired in their infancy, others not till a full age, and after ; some not till they have fallen into some gross sin, as Paul ; some betimes, that they may do him service : others later, as the thief upon the cross, and presently snatcheth them out of the world ? Some are weaker, some stronger in nature, some more beautiful and lovely, others more uncomely and sluggish. It is so in supernatu- rals. What reason is there for this, but his own will ? This is in- stead of all that can be assigned on the part of God. He is the fi'ee disposer of his own goods, and as a Father may give a greater portion to one child than to another. And what reason of complaint is there against God? may not a toad complain that God did not make it a man, and give it a portion of reason ? or a fly complain that God did not make it an angel, and give it a garment of light ; had they but any spark of understanding ; as well as man complain that God did not give him grace as well as another ? Unless he sincerely de- sired it, and then was denied it, he might complain of God, though not as a sovereign, yet as a promiser of grace to them that ask it. God doth not render his sovereignty formidable ; he shuts not up his throne of grace from any that seek him ; he invites man ; his arms are open, and the sceptre stretched out ; and no man continues under the arrest of his lusts, but he that is unwilling to be other- wise, and such a one hath no reason to complain of God. 3. His sovereignty is manifest in disposing the means of grace to some, not to all. He hath caused the sun to shine bright in one place, while he hath left others benighted and deluded by the devil's oracles. Why do the evangelical dews fall in this or that place, and not in another ? Why was the gospel published in Rome so soon, and not in Tartary ? Why hath it been extinguished in some places, as soon almost as it had been kindled in them ? Why hath one place been honored with the beams of it in one age, and been covered with darkness the next ? One country hath been made a sphere for this star, that directs to Christ, to move in ; and after- wards it hath been taken away, and placed in another ; sometimes 40-1 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. more clearly it hath shone, sometimes more darkly, in the same place ; what is the reason of this? It is true something of it may be referred to the justice of God, but much more to the sovereignty of God. That the gospel is published later, and not sooner, the apostle tell us is " according to the commandment of the everlasting God'* (Rom. xvi. 26). (1.) The means of grace, after the families from Adam became dis- tinct, were never granted to all the world. After that fatal breach in Adam's family by the death of Abel, and Cain's separation, we read not of the means of grace continued among Cain's posterity ; it seems to be continued in Adam's sole family, and not published in societies till the time of Seth. " Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord" (Gen. iv. 26). It was continued in that family till the deluge, which was 1523 years after the creation, according to some^ or 1656 years, according to others. After that, when the world de- generated, it was communicated to Abraham, and settled in the pos- terity that descended from Jacob ; though he left not the world with- out a witness of himself, and some sprinklings of revelations in other parts, as appears by the Book of Job, and the discourses of his friends. (2.) The Jews had this privilege granted them above other nations^ to have a clearer revelation of God. God separated them from all the world to honor them with the deposiium of his oracles (Rom. iii. 2) : " To them were committed the oracles of God." In which re- gard all other nations are said to be " without God" (Eph. ii. 12), as being destitute of so great a privilege. The Spirit blew in Canaan when the lands about it felt not the saving breath of it. " He hath not dealt so with any nation ; and as for his judgments, they have Qot known them" (Ps, cxlvii. 20). The rest had no warnings from the prophets, no dictates from heaven, but what they had by the light of nature, the view of the works of creation, and the administration of Providence, and what remained among them of some ancient tradi- tions derived from Noah, which, in tract of time, were much defaced. We read but of one Jonah sent to Nineveh, but frequent alarms to the Israelites by a multitude of prophets commissioned b}^ God. It is true, the door of the Jewish church was open to what proselytes would enter themselves, and embrace their religion and worship ; but there was no public proclamation made in the world ; only God, by his miracles in their deliverance from Egypt (which could not but be famous among all the neighbor nations), declared them to be a people favored by heaven : but the tradition from Adam and Noah w as not publicly revived by God in other parts, and raised from that gitive of forgetfulness wherein it had lain so long buried. Was there any reason in them for this indulgence ? God might have been as liberal to any other nation, yea, to all the nations in the world, if it had been his sovereign pleasure : any other people were as fit to be entrusted with his oracles, and be subjects for his worship, as that people ; yet all other nations, till the rejection of the Jews, because of theijL rejection of Christ, were strangers from the covenant of promise. These people were part of the common mass of the world : they had" no prerogative in nature above Adam's posterity. Were ON GOD'S DOMINION. 405 they the extract of an innocent part of his loins, and all the other nations drained out of his putrefaction ? Had the blood of Abraham, from whom they were more immediately descended, any more pre- cious tincture than the rest of mankind ? They, as well as other nations, were made of " one blood" (Acts xvii. 26) ; and that cor- rupted both in the spring and in the rivulets. Were they better than other nations, when God first drew them out of their slavery ? We have Josliua's authority for it, that they had complied with the Egypt- ian idolatry, "and served other gods," in that place of their servi- tude (Josh. xxiv. 14). Had they had an abhorrency of the supersti- tion of Egypt, while they remained there, they could not so soon have erected a golden calf for worship, in imitation of the Egyptian idols. All the rest of mankind had as inviting reasons to present Ood with, as those people had. God might have granted the same privilege to all the world, as well as to them, or denied it them, and endowed all the rest of the world with his statutes : but the enrich- ing such a small company of people with his Divine showers, and leaving the rest of the world as a barren wilderness in spirituals, can be placed upon no other account originally than that of his unaccount- able sovereignty, of his love to them : there was nothing in them to merit such high titles from God as his first-born, his peculiar treas- ure, the apple of his eye. He disclaims any righteousness in them, and speaks a word sufficient to damp such thoughts in them, by charging them with their wickedness, while he " loaded them with his benefits" (Deut. ix. 4, 6). The Lord " gives thee not" this land for " thy righteousness ;" for thou art a stiff-necked jDcople. It was an act of God's free pleasure to " choose them to be a people to him- self" (Deut. vii. 6). (3.) God afterwards rejected the Jews, gave them up to the hard- ness of their hearts, and spread the gospel among the Gentiles. He hath cast off* the children of the kingdom, those that had been en- rolled for his subjects for many ages, who seemed, by their descent from Abraham, to have a right to the privileges of Abraham ; and called men from the east and from the west, from the darkest cor- ners in the world, to " sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven," i. e. to partake with them of the promises of the gospel (Matt. viii. 11). The people that were accounted ac- cursed by the Jews enjoy the means of grace, which have been hid from those that were once dignified this 1600 years ; that they have neither ephod, nor teraphim, nor sacrifice, nor any true worship of God among them (Hos. iii. 4). Why he should not give them, grace to acknowledge and own the person of the Messiah, to whom he had made the promises of him for so many successive ages, but let their " heart be fat," and " their ears heavy" (Isa. vi. 10) ? — why the gos- pel at length, after the resurrection of Christ, should be presented to the Gentiles, not by chance, but pursuant to the resolution and pre- diction of God, declared by the prophets that it should be so in time ? — why he should let so many hundreds of years pass over, after the world was peopled, and let the nations all that while soak in their idolatrous customs ? — why he should not call the Gentiles without rejecting the Jews, and bind them both up together in the bundle of 406 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. life ? — Avliy lie should acquaint some people witli it a little after the publishing it in Jerusalem, by the descent of the S])irit, and others not a long time after ? — some in the first ages of Christianity enjoyed it ; others have it not, as those in America, till the last age of the world ; — can be referred to nothing but his sovereign pleasure. What merit can be discovered in the Gentiles ? There is something of jus- tice in the case of the Jews' rejection, nothing but sovereignty in the Gentiles' reception into the church. If the Jews were bad, the Gen- tiles were in some sort worse : the Jews owned the one true God, without mixture of idols, though they owned not the Messiah in his appearance, which they did in a promise ; but the Gentiles owned neither the one nor the other. Some tell us, it was for the merit of some of their ancestors. How comes the means of grace, then, to be taken from the Jew, who had (if any people ever had) meritori- ous ancestors for a plea ? If the merit of some of their former pro- genitors were the cause, what was the reason the debt due to their merit was not paid to their immediate progeny, or to themselves, but to a posterity so distant from them, and so abominably depraved as the Gentile world was at the day of the gospel-sun striking into their horizon ? What merit might be in their ancestors (if any could be supposed in the most refined rubbish), it was so little for themselves, that no oil could be spared out of their lamps for others. What merit their ancestors might have, might be forfeited by the succeed- ing generations. It is ordinarily seen, that what honor a father de- serves in a state for public service, may be lost by the son, forfeited by treason, and hmiself attainted. Or was it out of a foresight that the Gentiles would embrace it, and the Jews reject it ; that the Gen- tiles would embrace it in one place, and not in another ? How did God foresee it, but in his own grace, which he was resolved to dis- play in one, not in another ? It must be then still resolved into his sovereign pleasure. Or did he foresee it in their wills and nature ? What, were they not all one common dross ? Was any part of Adam, by nature, better than another ? How did God foresee that which was not, nor could be, without his pleasure to give ability, and grace to receive ? Well, then, what reason but the sovereign pleasure of God can be alleged, why Christ forbade the apostles, at their first commission, to preach to the Gentiles (Matt, x, 15), but, at the sec- ond and standing commission, orders them to preach to "every crea- ture ?" Why did he put a demur to the resolutions of Paul and Timothy, to impart light to Bithynia, or order them to go into Mace- donia ? Was that country more worthy upon whom lay a great part of the blood of the world shed in Alexander's time (Acts xvi. 6, 7, 9, 10) ? Why should Corazin and Bethsaida enjoy those means that were not granted to the Tyrians and Sidonians, who might prob- ably ha^ve sooner reached out their arms to welcome it (Matt. xi. 21) ? Why should God send the gospel into our island, and cause it to flourish so long here, and not send it, or continue it, in the furthest eastern parts of the world ? Why should the very profession of Christianity possess so small a compass of ground in the world, but five parts in thirty, the Mahometans holding six parts, and the other nineteen overgrown with Paganism, where either the gospel was ON GOD'S DOMINION. 407 never planted, or else since rooted up ? To wliom will you refei this, but to the same cause our Sa-viour doth the revelation of the gospel to babes, and not to the wise — even to his Father ? " For so it seemed good in thy sight" (Matt, xi. 25, 26) ; " For so was thy good pleasure before thee" (as in the original) ; it is at his pleasure whether he will give any a clear revelation of his gospel, or leave them only to the light of nature. He could have kept up the first beam of the gospel in the promise in all nations among the aposta- ;5ies of Adam's posterity, or renewed it in all nations when it began to be darkened, as \vell as he first published it to Adam after his fall ; but it was his sovereign pleasure to permit it to be obscured in one place, and to keep it lighted in another. 4. His sovereignty is manifest in the various influences of the means of grace. He saith to these waters of the sanctuary, as to the floods of the sea, " Hitherto you shall go, and no further." Some- times they wash away the filth of the flesh and outward man, but not that of the spirit ; the gospel spiritualizeth some, and only moralizeth others ; some are by the power of it struck down to con- viction, but not raised up to conversion ; some have only the gleams of it in their consciences, and others more powerful flashes ; some remain in their thick darkness under the beaming of the gospel every day in their face, and after a long insensibleness are roused by its light and warmth ; sometimes there is such a powerful breath in it, that it levels the haughty imaginations of men, and lays them at its feet that before strutted against it in the pride of their heart. The foundation of this is not in the gospel itself, which is always the same, nor in the ordinances, which are channels as sound at one time as at another, but Divine sovereignty that spirits them as he pleaseth, and •' blows when and where it lists." It has sometimes conquered its thousands (Acts, ii. 41) ; at another time scarce its tens ; sometimes the harvest hath been great, when the laborers have been but few ; at another time it hath been small, when the laborers have been many ; sometimes whole sheaves ; at another time scarce glean- ings. The evangelical net hath been sometimes full at a cast, and at every cast ; at another time many have labored all night, and day too, and catched nothing (Acts, ii. 47) : " The Lord added to the church daily." The gospel chariot doth not always return with cap- tives chained to the sides of it, but sometimes blurred and reproach- ed, wearing the marks of hell's spite, instead of imprinting the marks of its own beauty. In Corinth it triumphed over many people (Acts, xviii. 10) ; in Athens it is mocked, and gathers but a few clusters (Acts, xvii. 32, 34). God keeps the key of the heart, as well as of the womb. The apostles had a power of publishing the gospel, and working miracles, but under the Divine conduct ; it was an instrumentality durante bene placito, and as God saw it con- »renient. Miracles were not upon every occasion allowed to them to be wrought, nor success upon every administration granted to them ; God sometimes lent them the key, but to take out no more treasure than was allotted to them. There is a variety in the time of gospel operation ; some rise out of their graves of sin, and beds of Bluggishness, at the first appearance of this sun ; others lie snorting 408 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. longer. "Why dotli not God spirit it at one season as well as at another, but set his distinct periods of time, but because he will show his absolute freedom ! And do we not sometimes experiment that after the most solemn preparations of the heart, we are frustrated of those incomes we expected ? Perhaps it was because we thought Divine returns were due to our preparations, and God stops up the channel, and we return drier than we came, that God may confute our false opinion, and preserve the honor of his own sovereignty. Sometimes we leap with John Baptist in the womb at the appear- ance of Christ ; sometimes we lie upon a lazy bed when he knocks from heaven ; sometimes the fleece is dry, and sometimes wet, and God withholds to drop down his dew of the morning upon it. The dews of his word, as well as the droppings of the clouds, belong to his royalty ; light will not shine into the heart, though it shine round about us, without the sovereign order of that God " who command- ed light to shine out of the darkness" of the chaos (2 Cor. iv. 6). And is it not seen also in re2;ard of the refreshina; influences of the word ? sometimes the strongest arguments, and clearest promises, prevail nothing towards the quelling black and despairing imagi- nations ; when, afterwards, we have found them frighted away by an unexpected word, that seemed to have less virtue in it itself than any that passed in vain before it. The reasonings of wisdom have dropped down like arrows against a brazen wall, when the speech of a weaker person hath found an efiicacy. It is God by his sovereignty spirits one word and not another ; sometimes a secret word comes in, which was not thought of before, as dropped from heaven, and gives a refreshing, when emptiness was found in all the rest. One word from the lips of a sovereign prince is a greater cordial than all the harangues of subjects without it ; what is the reason of this variety, but that God would increase the proofs of his own sover- 'eignty ? that as it was a part of his dominion to create the beauty of a world, so it is no less to create the peace as well as the grace of the heart (Isa. Ivii. 19): " I create the fruit of the lips, peace." Let us learn from hence to have adoring thoughts of, not murmuring fancies against, the sovereignty of God ; to acknowledge it with thankfulness in what we have ; to implore it with a holy submission in what we want. To own God as a sovereign in a way of depend- ence, is the way to be owned by him as subjects in a way of favor. 5. His sovereignty is manifested in giving a greater measure of knowledge to some than to others. Wliat parts, gifts, excellency of nature, any have above others, are God's donative ; " He gives wis- dom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding" (Dan. ii. 21) ; wisdom, the habit, and knowledge, the right use of it in discerning the right nature of objects, and the fitness of means, conducing to the end ; all is but a beam of Divine light ; and the different degrees of knowledge in one man above another, are the effects of his sovereign pleasure. He enlightens not the minds of all men to know every part of his will ; one " eats with a doubtful conscience," another in " faith," without any staggering (Rom. xiv. 2). Peter had a desire to keep up circumcision, not fully understand- ing the mind of God in the abolition of the Jewish ceremonies ; ON GOD'S DOMINION. 409 labile Paul was clear in tlie truth of that doctrine. A thought comeg into our mind that, like a sunbeam, makes a Scripture truth visible in a moment, which before we were poring upon without any suc- cess ; this is from his pleasure. One in the primitive times had the gift of knowledge, another of wisdom, one the gift of prophecy, another of tongues, one the gift of healing, another that of discern- ing spirits ; why this gift to one man, and not to another ? Why Buch a distribution in several subjects ? Because it is his sovereign pleasure. " The Spirit divides to every man severally as he will" (1 Cor. xii. 11). Why doth he give Bezaleel and Aholiab the gift ■of engraving, and making curious works for the tabernacle (Exod. xxxi. 3), and not others? Why doth he bestow the treasures of evangelical knowledge upon the meanest of earthen vessels, the poor Galileans, and neglect the Pharisees, stored with the knowledge both of naturals and morals ? Why did he give to some, and not to others, " to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven ?" (Matt, xiii. 11.) The reason is implied in the words, " Because it was the mystery of his kingdom," and therefore was the act of his sover- eignty. How would it be a kingdom and monarchy if the govern- or of it Avere bound to do what he did ? It is to be resolved only into the sovereign right of propriety of his own goods, that he fur- nisheth babes with a stock of knowledge, and leaves the wise and prudent empty of it (Matt. xi. 26) : " Even so, Father : for so it seemed good in thy sight." Why did he not reveal his mind to Eli, a grown man, and in the highest ofl&ce in the Jewish church, but open it to Samuel, a stripling ? why did the Lord go from the one to the other ? Because his motion depends upon his own will. Some are of so dull a constitution, that they are incapable of any impres- sion, like rocks too hard for a stamp ; others like water ; you may stamp what you please, but it vanisheth as soon as the seal is re- moved. It is God forms men as he pleaseth : some have parts to govern a kingdom, others scarce brains to conduct their own affairs ; one is fit to rule men, and another scarce fit to keep swine ; some have capacious souls in crazy and deformed bodies, others contracted spirits and heavier minds in a richer and more beautiful case. Why are not all stones alike ? some have a more sparkling light, as gems, more orient than pebbles ; — some are stars of first, and others of a less magnitude ; others as mean as glow-worms, a slimy lustre : — it is because he is the sovereign Disposer of what belongs to him ; and gives here, as well as at the resurrection, to one "a glory of the sun;" to another that of the "moon;" and to a third a less, resembling that of a " star" (1 Cor. xv. 40). And this God may do by the same right of dominion, as he exercised when he endowed som*. kinds of creatures with a greater perfection than others in their na- ture. Why may he not as well garnish one man with a greater proportion of gifts, as make a man differ in excellency from the na- ture of a beast ? or frame angels to a more purely spiritual nature than a man? or make one angel a cherubim or seraphim, with a greater measure of hght than another ? Though the foundation of this is his dominion, yet his wisdom is not uninterested in his so'V er- eign disposal ; he garni sheth those with a greater ability whom he ilO CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUl'ES. intends for greater service, than those that he intends for less, or none at all ; as an artificer bestows more labor, and carves a more excellent iigure upon those stones that he designs for a more honor- able place in the building. But though the intending this or that man for service be the motive of la^dng in a greater provision in him than in others, yet still it is to be referred to his sovereignty, since that first act of culling him out for such an end was the fruit solely of his sovereign pleasure : as when he resolved to make a crea- ture actively to glorify him, in wisdom he must give him reason ; yet the making such a creature was an act of his absolute dominion. 6. His sovereignty is manifest in the calling some to a more spe- cial service in their generation. Grod settles some in immediate ofl&ces of his service, and perpetuates them in those of&ces, with a neglect of others, who seem to have a greater pretence to them. Moses was a great sufferer for Israel, the solicitor for them in Egypt, and the conductor of them from Egypt to Canaan ; yet he was not chosen to the high priesthood, but that was an office settled upon Aaron, and his posterity after him, in a lineal descent ; Moses was only pitched upon for the present rescue of the captived Israelites, and to be the instrument of Divine miracles ; but notwithstanding all the success he had in his conduct, his faithfulness in his employ- ment, and the transcendent familiarity he had with the great Kuler of the world, his posterity were left in the common level of the tribe of Levi, without any special mark of dignity upon them above the rest for all the services of that great man. Why Moses for a tem- porary magistrate, Aaron for a perpetual priesthood, above all the rest of the Israelites ? hath little reason but the absolute pleasure of God, who distributes his employments as he pleaseth ; and as a master orders his servant to do the noblest work, and another to labor in baser offices, according to his pleasure. Why doth he caU out David, a shepherd, to sway the Jewish sceptre, above the rest of the brothers, that had a fairer appearance, and had been bred in arms, and inured to the toils and watchings of a camp ? Why should Mary be the mother of Christ, and not some other of the same family of David, of a more splendid birth, and a nobler educa- tion ? Though some other reasons may be rendered, yet that which affords the greatest acquiescence, is the sovereign will of God. Whj? did Christ choose out of the meanest of the people the twelve apostles, to be heralds of his grace in Judea, and other parts of the world ; and afterwards select Paul before Gamaliel, his instructor, and others of the Jews, as learned as himself, and advance him to be the most eminent apostle, above the heads of those who had min- istered to Christ in the days of his flesh ? Why should he preserve eleven of those he first called to propagate and enlarge his kingdom, and leave the other to the employment of shedding his blood? Why, in the times of our reformation, he should choose a Luther out of a monastery, and leave others in their superstitious nastiness, to perish in the traditions of their fathers? Why set up Calvin, as a bulwark of the gospel, and let others as learned as himself wallow in the sink of popery ? It is his pleasure to do so. The potter hath power to separate this part of the clay to form a vessel ON god's dominion. 411 for a more public use, and auotlier part of the clay to form a vessel for a more private one. God takes the meanest clay to form the most excellent and honorable vessels in his house. As he formed man, that was to govern the creatures of the same clay and earth whereof the beasts were formed, and not of that noblei element of water, which gave birth to the fish and birds : so he forms some, that are to do him the greatest service, of the meanest materials, to manifest the absolute right of his dominion. 7. His sovereignty is manifest in the bestowing much wealth and honor upon some, and not vouchsafing it to the more industrious labors and attempts of others. Some are abased, and others are elevated ; some are enriched, and others impoverished ; some scarce feel any cross, and others scarce feel any comfort in their whole lives ; some sweat and toil, and what they labor for runs out of their reach ; others sit still, and what they wish for falls into their lap. One of the same clay hath a diadem to beautify his head, and another wants a covering to protect him from the weather. One hath a stately palace to lodge in, and another is scarce master of a cottage where to lay his head. A sceptre is put into one man's hand, and a spade into another's; a rich purple garnisheth one man's body, while another wraps himself in dunghill rags. The poverty of some, and the wealth of others, is an effect of the Di v^ine sovereignty, whence God is said to be the Maker of the " poor as well as the rich" (Prov. xxii. 2), not only of their persons, but ot their conditions. The earth, and the fulness thereof, is his propriety ; and he hath as much a right as Joseph had to bestow changes ol raiment upon what Benjamins he please. There is an election to a greater degree of worldly felicity, as there is an election of some to a greater degree of supernatural grace and glory : as he makes it " rain upon one city, and not upon another" (Amos iv. 7), so he causeth prosperity to distil upon the head of one and not upon another; crowning some with earthly blessings, while he crosseth others with continual afflictions : for he speaks of himself as a great proprietor of the corn that nourisheth us, and the wine that cheers us, and the wood that warm us (Hos. ii. 8, 9) : "I will take away," not your corn and wine, but " my corn, my wine, my wool." His right to dispose of the goods of every particular person is unques- tionable. He can take away from one, and pass over the propriety to another. Thus he devolved the right of the Egyptian jewels to the Israelites, and bestowed upon the captives what before he had vouchsafed to the oppressors ; as every sovereign state demands the goods of their subjects for the public advantage in a case of exi- gency, though none of that wealth was gained by any public office, but by their private industry, and gained in a country not subject to the dominion of those that require a portion of them. By this right he changes strangely the scene of the world ; sometimes those that are high are reduced to a mean and ignominious condition, those that are mean are advanced to a state of plenty and glory. The counter, which in accounting signifies now but a penny, is presently raised up to signify a pound. The proud ladies of Israel^ mstead of a girdle of curious needlework, are brought to make use il2 CHARNOCK Oisr THE ATTRIBUTES. of a 3ord ; as tlie vulgar translates rent^ a rag, or list of cloth (laa iii. 2x), and sackcloth for a stomacher instead of silk. This is the sovereign act of God, as he is Lord of the world (P3. Ixxv. 6, 7) : " Promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south, but God is the Judge : he putteth down one, and setteth up another." He doth no wrong to any man, if he lets him languish out his days in poverty and disgrace : if he gives or takes away, he meddles with nothing but what is his own more than ours : if he did dispense his benefits equally to all, men would soon tliink it their due. The inequality and changes preserve the notion of God's sovereignty, and correct our natural unmindful ness of it. If there were no changes, God would not be feared as the " King of all the earth" (Ps. Iv. 19) : to this might also be referred his investing some countries with greater riches in their bowels, and on the surface ; the disposing some of the fruitfal and pleasant regions of Canaan or Italy, while he settles others in the icy and barren parts of the northern climates. 8. His sovereignty is manifest in the times and seasons of dispens- ing his goods. He is Lord of the times when, as well as of the goods which, he doth dispose of to any person ; these " the Father hath put in his own power" (Acts i. 7). As it was his sov- ereign pleasure to restore the kingdom to Israel, so he would pitch upon the time when tc do it, and would not have his right invaded, so much as by a question out of curiosity. This disposing of op- portunities, in many things, can be referred to nothing else but his sovereign pleasure. Why should Christ come at the twilight and evening of the world ? at the fulness, and not at the beginning, of time ? Why should he be from the infancy of the world so long wrapt up in a promise, and not appear in the flesh till the last times and gray hairs of the world, when so many persons, in all nations, had been hurried out of the world without any notice of such a Redeemer? What was this but his sovereign will? Why the Gentiles should be left so long in the devil's chains, wallowing in the sink of their abominable superstitions, since God had declared his intention by the prophets to call multitudes of them, and reject the Jews ; — why he should defer it so long, can be referred to nothing but the same cause. What is the reason the veil continues so long upon the heart of the Jews, that is promised, one time or other, to be taken oif ? Why doth God delay the accomplishment of those glorious predictions of the haj^piness and interest of that people ? Is it because of the sin of their ancestors, — a reason that cannot bear much weight? If we cast it upon that account, their conversion can never be expected, can never be effected ; if for the sins of their ancestors, is it not also for their own sins ? Do their sins grow less in number, or less venomous, or provoking in quality, by this delay ? Is not their blasphemy of Christ as malicious, their hatred of him as strong and rooted, as ever? Do they not as much approve of the bloody act of their ancestors, since so many ages are past, as their ancestors did applaud it at the time of the execution ? Have they not the same disposition and will, discovered sufficiently by the scorn of Christ, and of those that profess his name, to act the ON GOD'S DOMINION. -ilS same thing over again, were Christ now in the same state in the world, and they invested with the same power of government ? If their conversion were deferred one age after the death of Christ for the sins of their preceding ancestors, is it to be expected now ; since the present generation of the Jews in all countries have the sins of those remote, the succeeding, and their more immediate ancestors, lying upon them ? This, therefore, cannot be the reason ; but as it was the sovereign pleasure of God to foretell his intention to over- come the stoutness of their hearts, so it is his sovereign pleasure that it shall not be performed till the " fulness of the Gentiles be oome in" (Eom. xi. 25), As he is the Lord of his own grace, so he is the Lord of the time when to dispense it. Why did God create the world in six days, which he could have erected and beautified in a moment ? Because it was his pleasure so to do. Why did he frame the world when he did, and not many ages before ? Because he is Master of his own work. Why did he not resolve to bring Israel to the fruition of Canaan till after four hundred years ? Why did he draw out their deliverance to so long time after he began to attempt it? Why such a multitude of plagues upon Pharaoh to work it, when he could have cut short the work by one mortal blow upon the tyi'ant and his accomplices ? It was his sovereign plea- sure to act so, though not without other reasons intelligible enough by looking into the story. Why doth he not bring man to a perfec- tion of stature in a moment after his birth, but let him continue in a tedious infancy, in a semblance to beasts, for the want of an exer- cise of reason ? Why doth he not bring this or that man, whom he intends for service, to a fitness in an instant, but by long tracts of study, and through many meanders and labyrinths ? Why doth he transplant a hopeful person in his youth to the pleasures of another world, and let another, of an eminent holiness, continue in the misery of this, and wade through many floods of afflictions ? What can we chiefly refer all these things to but his sovereign pleasure ? The "times are determined by God" (Acts, xvii. 26). Thirdly. The dominion of God is manifested as a governor, as well as a lawgiver and proprietor. 1. In disposing of states and kingdoms. (Ps. Ixxv. 7) : " liod is Judge ; he puts down one, and sets up another." " Judge" is to be taken not in the same sense that we commonly use the word, for a judicial minister in a way of trial, but for a governor ; as you know the extraordinary governors raised up among the Jews were called judges, whence one entire book in the Old Testament is so denomi- nated, the Book of Judges. God hath a prerogative to "change times and seasons" (Dan. ii. 21), ^. e. the revolutions of government, whereby times are altered. How many empires, that have spread their wings over a great part of the world, have had their carcasses torn in pieces ; and unheard-of nations plucked off the wings of the Eoman eagle, after it had preyed upon many nations of the world ; and the Macedonian empire was as the dew that is dried up a short time after it falls.i He erected the Chaldean monarchy, used Nebu- chadnezzar to overthrow and punish the ungrateful Jews, and, by a Mr. Mede, in one of his letters 4:14 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. sovereign act, gave a great parcel of land into his hands ; and whaf he thought was his right by conquest, was God's donative to him. You may read the charter to Nebuchadnezzar, whom he terms hia servant (Jer, xxvii. 6) : " And now I liave given all those lands" (the lands are mentioned ver. 3), " into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant:" which decree he pronounceth after his asserting his right of sovereignty over tl e whole earth (ver. 5). After that, he puts a period to the Chaldean empire, and by the same sovereign authority decrees Babylon to be a spoil to the nations of the north country, and delivers her up as a spoil to the Persian (Jer. 1. 9, 10) : and this for the manifestation of his sovereign dominion, that he was the Lord, that made peace, and created evil (Isa. xlv. 6, 7). God afterwards overthrows that by the Grecian Alexander, pro- phesied of under the figure of a goat, with " one horn between his eyes" (Dan. viii.) : the swift current of his victories, as swift as his motion, showed it to be from an extraordinary hand of heaven, and not either from the jDolicy or strength of the Macedonian. His strength", in the proj^het, is described to be less, being but one horn running against the Persian, described under the figure of a ram with two horns :™ and himself acknowledged a Divine motion exciting him to that great attempt, when he saw Joddus, the high-priest, com- ing out in his priestly robes, to meet him at his approach to Jeru- salem, whom he was about to worship, acknowledging that the vision which put him upon the Persian war appeared to him in such a garb. What was the reason Israel was rent from Judah, and both split into two distinct kingdoms ? Because Rehoboam would not hearken to sober and sound counsels, but follow the advice of upstarts. What was the reason he did not hearken to sound advice, since he had so advantageous an education under his father Solomon, the wisest prince of the world? " The cause was from the Lord" (1 Kings, xii. 15), that he might perform what he had before spoke. In this he acted according to his royal word ; but, in the first resolve, he acted as a sovereign lord, that had the disposal of all nations in the world. And though Ahab had a numerous posterity, seventy sons to inherit the throne after him, yet God by his sovereign authority gives them up into the hands of Jehu, who strips them of their lives and hopes together : not a man of them succeeded in the throne, but the crown is transferred to Jehu by God's disposal. In wars, whereby flour- ishing kingdoms are overthrown, God hath the chief hand ; in ref- erence to which it is observed that, in the two prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, God is called "the Lord of Hosts" one hundred and thirty times. It is not the sword of the captain, but the sword of the Lord, bears the first rank ; " the sword of the Lord and of Gideon" (Judges, vii. 18). The sword of a conquerer is the sword of the Lord, and receives its charge and commission from the great Sovereign (Jer xlvii. 6, 7). We are apt to confine our thoughts to second causes^ lay the fault upon the miscarriages of persons, the ambition of the one, and the covetousness of another, and regard them not as the effects of God's sovereign authority, linking second causes together to serve his own purpose. The skill of one man may lay open the ■" Josephufl. ON GOD'S DOMINION. 416 folly of a counsellor ; an earthly force may break in pieces the power of a mighty prince : but Job, in his consideration of those things, refers the matter higher : " He looseth the bond of kings, and girdeth their loins with a girdle" (Job, xii. 18). " He looseth the bonds of kings," i. e. takes off the yokes they lay upon their subjects, " and girds their loins with a girdle" (a cord^ as the vulgar) ; he lays upon them those fetters they framed for others ; such a girdle, or band, as is the mark of captivity, as the words, ver. 19, confirm it : " He leads princes away spoiled, and overthrows the mighty." God lifts up some to a great height, and casts down others to a disgraceful ruin. All those changes in the face of the world, the revolutions of empires, the desolating and ravaging wars, which are often immediately the birth of the vice, ambition, and fury of princes, are the royal acts of Ood as Governor of the world. All government belongs to him ; he is the Fountain of all the great and the petty dominions in the world ; and, therefore, may place in them what substitutes and vice- gerents he pleaseth, as a prince may remove his of&cers at pleasure, and take their commissions from them. The highest are settled by God durante bene placito, and not quamdiu hene se gessermt. Those princes that have been the glory of their country have swayed the sceptre but a short time, when the more wolvish ones have remained longer in commission, as God hath seen fit for the ends of his own sovereign government. Now, by the revolutions in the world, and changes in governors and government, God keeps up the acknowl- edgment of his sovereignty, when he doth arrest grand and public offenders that wear a crown by his providence, and employ it, by their pride, against him that placed it there. When he arraigns such by a signal hand from heaven, he makes them the public examples of the rights of his sovereignty, declaring thereby, that the cedars of Lebanon are as much at his foot, as the shrubs of the valley ; that he hath as sovereign an authority over the throne in the palace, as over the stool in the cottage. 2. The dominion of God is manifested in raising up and ordering the spirits of men according to his pleasure. He doth, as the Father of spirits, communicate an influence to the spirits of men, as well as an existence ; he puts what inclinations he pleaseth into the will, stores it with what habits he please, whether natural or supernatural, whereby it may be rendered more ready to act according to the Di- vine purpose. The will of man is a finite principle, and therefore subject to Him who hath an infinite sovereignty over all things ; and God, having a sovereignty over the will, in the manner of its acting, causeth it to will what he wills, as to the outward act, and the out- ward manner of performing it. There are many examples of this part of his sovereignty. God, by his sovereign conduct, ordered Moses a protectoress as soon as his parents had formed an " ark of bul- rushes," wherein to set him floating on the river (Exod. ii, 3-6) : they exjDose him to the waves, and the weaves expose him to the view of Pharoah's daughter, whom God, by his secret ordering her motion, had posted in that place ; and though she was the daughter of a prince that inveterately hated the whole nation, and had, by various arts, endeavored to extirpate them, yet God inspires the royal lady il6 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. with sentiments of compassion to the forlorn infant, though she knew him to be one of the Hebrews' cliildren (ver. 6), i. e. one of that race whom her father had devoted to the hands of the executioner; yet God, that doth by his sovereignty rule over the spirits of all men, moves her to take that infant into her protection, and nourish him at her own charge, give him a liberal education, adopt him as her son, who, in time, was to be the ruin of her race, and the saviour of his nation. Thus he appointed Cyrus to be his shepherd, and gave him a pastoral spirit for the restoration of the city and temple of Jeru- salem (Isa. xliv. 28) : and Isaiah (chap. xlv. 5) tells them, in the prophecy, that he had girded him, though Cyrus had not known him, i. e. God had given him a military spirit and strengtli for so great an attempt, though he did not know that he was acted by God for those divine purposes. And when the time came for the house of the Lord to be rebuilt, the spirits of the people were raised up, not by themselves, but by God (Ezra, i. 5), " Whose spirit God had raised to go up;" and not only the spirit of Zerubbabel, the magis. trate, and of Joshua, the priest, but the spirit of all the people, from the highest to the meanest that attended him, were acted by God to strengthen their hands, and promote the work (Hag. i. 14). The spirits of men, even in those works which are naturally desirable to them, as the restoration of the city and rebuilding of the Temple was to those Jews, are acted by God, as the Sovereign over them, much more when the wheels of men's spirits are lifted up above their or- dinary temper and motion. It was this empire of God good Nehe- miah regarded, as that whence he was to hope for success ; he did not assure himself so much of it, from the favor he had with the king, nor the reasonableness of his intended petition, but the abso- lute power God had over the heart of that great monarch ; and, there- fore, he supplicates the heavenly, before he petitioned the earthly, throne (Neh. ii. 4) : " So I prayed to the God of heaven." The heathens had some glance of this ; it is an expression that Cicero hath somewhere, " That the Roman commonwealth was rather gov- erned by the assistance of the Supreme Divinity over the hearts of men, than by their own counsels and management." How often hath the feeble courage of men been heightened to such a pitch as to stare death in the face, which before were damped with the least thought or glance of it ! This is a fruit of God's sovereign dominion. 3. The dominion of God is manifest in restraining the furious passions of men, and putting a block in their way. Sometimes God doth it by a remarkable hand, as the Babel builders were diverted from their proud design by a sudden confusion of their language, and rendering it unintelligible to one another ; sometimes by ordi- nary, though unexpected, means ; as when Saul, like a hawk, was ready to prey upon David, whom he had hunted as a partridge upon the mountains, he had another object presented for his arms and fury by the Philistines' sudden invasion of a part of his territory (1 Sam. xxiii. 26 — 28). But it is chiefly seen by an inward curbing mutinous affections, when there is no visible cause. What reason but this can be rendered, why the nations bordering on Canaan, who bore no good will to the Jews, but rather wished the whole race oi ON GOD'S DOMINION. 417 them rooted out from the face of the earth, should not invade their country, pillage their houses, and plunder their cattle, while they were left naked of any human defence, the males being annually employed at one time at Jerusalem in worship ; what reason can be rendered, but an invisible curb God put into their spirits ? What was the reason not a man, of all the buyers and sellers in the Tern pie, should rise against our Saviour, when, with a high hand, he be- gan to whip them out, but a Divine bridle upon them ? though it ap- pears, by the questioning his authority, tliat there were Jews enough to have chased out him and his company (John, ii. 15, 18). What was the reason that, at the publishing the gospel by the apostles at the first descent of the Spirit, those that had used the Master so bar- barously a few days before, were not all in a foam against the ser- vants, that, by preaching that doctrine, upbraided them with the late murder ? Had they better sentiments of the Lord, whom they had put to death ? Were their natures grown tamer, and their malignity expelled ? No ; but that Sovereign who had loosed the reins of their malicious corruption, to execute the Master for the purchase of redemption, curbed it from breaking out against the servants, to fur- ther the propagation of the doctrine of redemption. He that re- strains the roaring lion of hell, restrains also his whelps on earth ; he and they must have a commission before they can put forth a finger to hurt, how malicious soever their nature and will be. His empire reaches over the malignity of devils, as well as the nature of beasts. The lions out of the den, as well as those in the den, aie bridled by him in favor of his Daniels. His dominion is above that of principalities and powers ; their decrees are at his mercy, whether they shall stand or fall ; he hath a vote above their stiffest resolves : his single word, I will, or, I forbid^ outweighs the most resolute pur- poses of all the mighty Nimrods of the earth in their rendezvouses and cabals, in their associations and counsels (Isa. viii. 9, 10) : *' As- sociate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces ; take counsel together, and it shall come to nought." " When the enemy shall come in like a flood," with a violent and irresistible force, intending nothing but ravage and desolation, " the Spirit of the Lord shall Hft up a standard against them" (Isa. lix. 19), shall give a sudden check, and damp their spirits, and put them to a stand. When Laban furiously pursued Jacob, with an intent to do him an ill turn, God gave him a command to do otherwise (Gen. xxxi. 24). Would Laban have respected that command any more than he did the light of nature when he worshipped idols, had not God exercised his authority in inclining his will to observe it, or laying restraints upon his natural inclinations, or denying his concourse to the acting those ill intentions he had entertained ? The stilling the principles of commotion in men, and the noise of the sea, are arguments of the Divine dominion ; neither the one nor the other is in the power of the most sovereign prince without Divine assistance : as no prince can command a calm to a raging sea, so no prince can order stillness to a tumultuous people ; they are both put together as equally parta of the Divine prerogative (Ps. Ixv. 7), which " stills the noise" of the sea^ and tumult of the people :" and David owns God's sovereignty vol.. II.— 27 418 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. more than his own, " in subduing the people under him" (Ps. xviu. 47). In this his empire is illustrious (Ps. xxix. 10): "The Lord sitteth upon the floods, yea, the Lord sittcth King for ever ;" a King impossible to be deposed, not only on the natural floods of the sea, that would naturally overflow the world, but the metaphorical floods or tumults of the people, the sea in every wicked man's heart, more apt to rage morally than the sea to foam naturally. K you will take the interpretation of an angel, waters and floods, in the prophetic style, signify the inconstant and mutable people (Rev. xvii. 1, 5) : " The waters where the whore sits are people, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues :" so the angel expounds to John the vision which he saw (ver. 1). The heathens acknowledged this part of God's sovereignty in the inward restraints of men : those apparitions of the gods and goddesses in Homer, to several of the great men when they were in a fury, were nothing else, in the judgment of the wisest philosophers, than an exercise of God's sovereignty in quelling their passions, checking their uncomely intentions, and controlling them in that which their rage prompted them to. And, indeed, did not God set bounds to the storms in men's hearts, we should soon see the faneral, not only of religion, but civility ; the one would be blown out, and the other torn up by the roots. 4. The dominion of God is manifest in defeating the purposes and devices of men. God often makes a mock of human projects, and doth as well accomplish that which they never dreamt of, as disap- point that which they confidently designed. He is present at all cabals, laughs at men's formal and studied counsels, bears a hand over every egg they hatch, thwarts their best compacted designs, supplants their contrivances, breaks the engines they have been many years rearing, diverts the intentions of men, as a mighty wind blows an arrow from the mark which the archer intended. (Job, v. 12) : "He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise ; he taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong." Enemies often draw an exact scheme of their intended proceedings, marshal their companies, appoint their rendezvous, think to make but one morsel of those they hate ; God, by his sovereign dominion, turns the scale, changeth the gloominess of the oppressed into a sun- shine, and the enemies' sunshine into darkness. When the nations were gathered together against Sion, and said, " Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Sion" (Micah, iv. 11), what doth God do in this case? (ver. 12), " He shall gather them," i. e. those conspiring nations, as "sheaves into the floor." Then he sounds a trumpet to Sion : " Arise, and thresh, O daughter of Sion, for I will make thy horn iron, and thy hoofs brass, and thou shalt beat in pieces many people ; and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth." I will make them and their counsels, them and their strength, the monuments and signal marks of m}- empire over the whole earth. When you see the cun- ningest designs baffled by some small thing intervening ; when you see men of profound wisdom infatuated, mistake their way, and "grop3 in the noon-day as in the night" (Job, \. 14), bewildered in ON GOD'S DOMINIOJSl. 419 a plain way ; when you see the hopes of mighty attempters dashed into despair, their triumphs turned into funerals, and their joyful ex- pectations into sorrowful disappointments ; when you see the weak, devoted to destruction, victorious, and the most presumptuous de- feoted in their purposes, then read the Divine dominion in the deso- lation of such devices. How often doth God take away the heart and spirit of grand designs, and burst a mighty wheel, by snatching but one man out of the world ! How often doth he " cut off the spirits of princes" (Ps. Ixxvi. 12), either from the world by death, or f.om the execution of their projects by some unforeseen interruption, or from favoring those contrivances, which before they cherished by u change of their minds ! How often hath confidence m God, and religious prayer, edged the weakest and smallest number of weapons to make a carnage of the carnally confident I How often hath pre- sumption been disappointed, and the contemned enemy rejoiced in the spoils of the proud expectant of victory ! Phidias made the image of Nemesis, or Revenge, at Marathon, of that marble which the haughty Persians, despising the weakness o^ the Athenian forces, brought with them, to erect a trophy for an expected, but an un> gained, victory." Haman's neck, by a sudden turn, was in the halter, when the Jews' necks were designed to the block ; Julian de- signed the overthrow of all the Christians, just before his breast wab pierced by an unexpected arrow ; the Powder-traitors were all ready to give fire to the mine, when the sovereign hand of Heaven snatched away the match. Thus the great Lord of the world cuts off men on the pinnacle of their designs, when they seem to threaten heaven and earth ; puts out the candle of the wicked, which they thought to use to light them to the execution of their purposes ; turns their own counsels into a curse to themselves, and a blessing to their adversa- ries, and makes his greatest enemies contribute to the effecting his purposes. How may we take notice of God's absolute disposal of things in private affairs, when we see one man, with a small measure of prudence and little industry, have great success, and others, with a greater measure of wisdom, and a greater toil and labor, find their enterprises melt between their fingers! It was Solomon's observa- tion, " That the race was not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill" (Eccles. ix. 11). Many things might in- terpose to stop the swift in his race, and damp the courage of the most valiant : things do not happen according to men's abilities, but according to the overruling authority of God : God never yet granted man the dominion of his own way, no more than to be lord of his own time: " The way of man is not in himself, it is not in him that walketh to direct his steps" (Jer. x. 23). He hath given man a power of acting, but not the sovereignty to command success. He makes even those things which men intended for their security to turn to their ruin ; Pilate delivered up Christ to be accounted a friend to Caesar, and Caesar soon after proves an enemy to him, removes him from his government, and sends him into banishment. Tlie Jews imagined by the crucifying Christ to keep the Roman ensigns at a " Causiu. Symb. lib. ii. cap. 65. 420 OHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES, distance from tliera, and tliis Lasted their march, by God's sovereign disposal, which ended in a total desolation. " He makes the judges fools" (Job, xxii. 17), by taking away his light from their under- standing, and suffering them to go on in the vanity of their own spirits, that his sovereignty in the management of things may be more apparent ; for then he is known to be Lord, when he " snares the wicked in the work of his own hands" (Ps. ix. 16). You have seen much of this doctrine in your experience, and, if my judgment fail me not, you will yet see much more. 5. The dominion of God is manifest in sending his judgments upon whom he please. " He kills and makes alive ; he wounds and heals" whom he pleaseth : his thunders are his own, and he may cast them upon what subjects he thinks good : he hath a right, in a way of jus- tice, to punish all men ; he hath his choice, in a way of sovereignty, to pick out whom he please, to make the examples of it. Might not some nations be as wicked as those of Sodom and Gomorrah, yet have not been scorched with the like dreadful flames ? Zoar was •untouched, while the other cities, her neighbors, were burnt to ashes. Were there never any places and persons successors in So- dom's guilt ? Yet those only by his sovereign authority are sepa- rated by him to be the examples of his " eternal vengeance" (Jude, 7). Why are not sinners as Sodom, like as those ancient ones, scalded to death by the like fierj^ drops ? It is because it is his pleasure ; and the same reason is to be rendered, why he would in a way of justice cut off the Jews for their sins, and leave the Gentiles un- touched in the midst of their idolatries. When the church was con- sumed because of her iniquities, they acknowledged God's sovereign- ty in this. " We are the clay, and thou art our Potter, and we all the work of thy hands" (Isa. Ixiv. 7, 8) ; thou hast a liberty to break or preserve us. Judgments move according to God's order. When the sword hath a charge against Ashkelon and the sea-shore, thither it must march, and touch not any other place or person as it goes, though there may be demerit enough for it to punish. When the f)rophet had spake to the sword, " 0 thou sword of the Lord, how ong will it be ere thou be quiet ? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest and be still ;" the prophet answers for the sword, " How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon? tnere hath he appointed it" (Jer. xlvii. 6, 7). If he hath appointed a judgment against London or Westminster, or any other place, there it shall drop, there it shall pierce, and in no other place with- oat a like charge. God, as a sovereign, gives instructions to every judgment, when, and against whom, it shall march, and what cities, what persons, it shall arrest ; and he is punctually obeyed by them, as a sovereign Lord. All creatures stand ready for his call, and are picpared to be executioners of his vengeance, when he speaks the word ; they are his hosts by creation, and in array for his service : at the sound of his trumpet, or beat of his drum, they troop together with arms in their hands, to put his orders exactly in execution. 6. The dominion of God is manifest in appointing to every man his ccilling and station in the world. If the hairs of every man's head tall under his sovereign care, the calling of every man, wherein ON GOD'S DOMINION. 421 he is to glorify God and serve his generation, whicli is of a greater concern than the hairs of the head, falls under his dominion. He is the master of the great family, and divides to every one his work as he pleaseth. The whole work of the Messiah, the time of every action, as well as the hour of his passion, was ordered and appointed by God. The separation of Paul to the preaching of the gospel, was by the sovereign disposal of God (Rom. i. 1). By the same exercise of his authority, that he "sets every man the bounds of his habita- tion" (Acts, xvii. 26), he prescribes also to him the nature of his work. He that ordered Adam, the father of mankind, his work, and the place of it, the "dressing the garden" (Gen. ii. 15), doth not let any of his posterity be their own choosers, without an influence of his sovereign direction on them. Though our callings are our work, yet they are by God's order, wherein we are to be faithful to our great Master and Ruler. 7. The dominion of God is manifest in the means and occasions of men's conversion. Sometimes one occasion, sometimes another ; one word lets a man go, another arrests him, and brings him before God and his own conscience ; it is as God gives out the order. He lets Paul be a prisoner at Jerusalem, that his cause should not be determined there ; moves him to appeal to Ctesar, not only to make him a prisoner, but a preacher, in Caesar's court, and render his chains an occasion to bring in a harvest of converts in Nero's palace. His bonds in or for Christ are " manifest in all the palace" (Phil. i. 12, 13); not the bare knowledge of his bonds, but the sovereign de- sign of God in those bonds, and the success of them ; the bare knowl- edge of them would not make others more confident for the gospel, as it follows, ver. 14, without a providential design of them. Ones- imus, running from his master, is guided by God's sovereign order into Paul's company, and thereby into Christ's arms ; and he who came a fugitive, returns a Christian (Philem. 10, 15). Some, by a strong affliction, have had by the Divine sovereignty their under- standings awakened to consider, and their wills spirited to conver- sion. Monica being called Meribibula, or toss-pot, was brought to consider her way, and reform her life. A word hath done that at one time, which hath often before fallen without any fruit. Many have come to suck in the eloquence of the minister, and have found in the honey for their ears a sting for their consciences. Austin had no other intent in going to hear Ambrose but to have a taste of his famous oratory. But while Ambrose spake a language to his ear, God spake a heavenly dialect to his heart. No reason can be ren- dered of the order, and timing, and influence of those things, but the sovereign pleasure of God, who will attend one occasion and season with his blessing, and not another. 8. The dominion of God is manifest in disposing of the lives of men. He keeps the key of death, as well as that of the womb, in his own hand ; he hath given man a life, but not power to dispose of it, or lay it down at his pleasure ; and therefore he hath ordered man not to murder, not another, not himself; man must expect his call and grant, to dispose of the life of his body. Why doth he cut the thread of this man's life, and spin another's out to a longer term ? i22 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. Why dotli one die an inglorious death, and another more honorable? One silently drops away in the multitude, while another is made a sacrifice for the honor of God, or the safety of his country. This is a mark of honor he gives to one and not to another. "To you it is given" (Phil. i. 29). The manner of Peter's death was appointed (John, xxi. 19). Why doth a small and slight disease against the rules of physic, and the judgment of the best practitioners, dis- lodge one man's soul out of his body, while a greater disease is mastered in another, and discharges the patient, to enjoy himself a longer time in the land of the living? Is it the effect of means so much as of the Sovereign Disposer of all things ? If means only did it, the same means would always work the same effect, and sooner master a dwarfish than a giant-like distemper. " Our times are only in God's hands" (Ps. xxxi. 15) ; either to cut short or con- tinue long. As his sovereignty made the first marriage knot, so he reserves the sole authority to himself to make the divorce. Fourthly. The dominion of God is manifest in his being a Re- deemer, as well as Lawgiver, Proprietor, and Governor. His sovereignty was manifest in the creation, in bestowing upon this or that part of matter a form more excellent than upon another. He was a Lawgiver to men and angels, and prescribed them rules ac- cording to the counsel of his own will. These were his creatures,, and perfectly at his disposal. But in redemption a sovereignty is- exercised over the Son, the Second person in the Trinity, one equal with the Father in essence and works, by whom the worlds were created, and by whom they do consist. The whole gospel is nothing else but a declaration of his sovereign pleasure concerning Christ, and concerning us in him ; it is therefore called " the mystery of his will" (Bph. i. 9) ; the will of God is distinct from the will of Christ, a purpose in himself, not moved thereunto by any ; the whole design was framed in the Deity, and as much the purpose of his- sovereign will as the contrivance of his immense wisdom. He de- creed, in his own pleasure, to have the Second Person assume our nature for to deliver mankind from that misery whereinto it was fallen. The whole of the gospel, and the privileges of it, are in that chapter resolved into the will and pleasure of God. God is^ therefore called " the head of Christ" (1 Cor. xi. 3). As Christ is superior to all men, and the man superior to the woman, so is God superior to Christ, and of a more eminent dignity ; in regard of the constituting him mediator, Christ is subject to God, as the body to the head. " Head" is a title of government and sovereignty, and magistrates were called the " heads" of the people. As Christ is the head of man, so is God the head of Christ ; and as man is sub- ject to Christ, so is Christ subject to God ; not in regard of the Di- vine nature, wherein there is an equality, and consequently no do- minion of jurisdiction ; nor only in his human nature, but in the economy of a Redeemer, considered as one designed, and consenting to be incarnate, and take our flesh ; so that after this agreement, God had a sovereign right to dispose of him according to the articles consented to. In regard of his undertaking, and the advantage he was to bring to the elect of God u])oa the earth, he calls God bv the' ON GOD'S DOMINION. 423 solemn title of " his Lord" in that prophetic psalm of him (Ps. xvi. 2) : " O mj soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord : my goodness extends not unto thee, but unto the saints that are in the earth." It seems to be the speech of Christ in heaven, mention- ing the saints on earth as at a distance from him. I can add nothing to the glory of thy majesty, but the whole fruit of my meditation and sufferings -will redound to the saints on earth. And it ma}^ be observed, that God is called the Lord of Hosts in the evangelical prophets, Isaiah, Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi, more in reference to this affair of redemption, and the deliverance of the church, than for any other works of his providence in the world. 1. This sovereignty of God appears, in requiring satisfaction for the sin of man. Had he indulged man after his fall, and remitted his offence without a just compensation for the injury he had received by his rebellion, his authority had been vilified, man would always have been attempting against his jurisdiction, there would have been a continual succession of rebellions on man's part ; and if a continual succession of indulgences on God's part, he had quite dis- owned his authority over man, and stripped himself of the flower of his crown ; satisfaction must have been required some time or othei from the person thus rebelling, or some other in his stead; and to require it after the first act of sin, was more preservative to the right of the Divine sovereignty, than to do it after a multitude of repeated revolts. God must have laid aside his authority if he had laid aside wholly the exacting punishment for the offence of man. 2. This sovereignty of God appears, in appointing Christ to this work of redemption. His sovereignty was before manifest over angels and men by the right of creation ; there was nothing wanting to declare the highest charge of it, but his ordering his own Son ta become a mortal creature ; the Lord of all things to become lower than those angels that had, as well as all other things, received their being and beauty from him, and to be reckoned in his death among the dust and refuse of the world : he by whom God created all things, not only became a man, but a crucified man, by the Avill of his Father (Gal. i. 4), "who gave himself for our sins according to the will of God ;" to which may refer that expression (Pro v. viii. 22), of his being " possessed by God in the beginning of his way." Possession is the dominion of a thing invested in the possessor ; he was possessed, indeed, as a Son by eternal generation ; he was pos- sessed also in the beginning of his way or works of creation, as a Mediator by special constitution : to this the expression seems to re- fer, if you read on to the end of ver. 31, wherein Christ speaks of his " rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth," the earth of the great God, who hath designed him to this special work of redemp- '■ion. He was a Son by nature, but a Mediator by Divine will ; in regard of which Christ is often called God's servant, which is a rela- tion to God as a Lord. God being the Lord of all things, the do- minion of all things inferior to him is inseparable from liim ; and in this regard, the whole of what Christ was to do, and did actually do, was acted by him as the will of God, and is expressed so by himself in the prophecy (Ps. xl. 7), " Lo, I come ;" (ver. 8), " I delight to do 424 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. thy will ;" which are put together (Heb. x. 7), " Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." The designing Christ to this work was an act of mercv, but founded on his sovereignty. His compassionate bowels might have pitied us without his being sovereign, but without it could not have relieved us. It was the coimcil of his own will, as well as of his bowels : none was his counsellor or persuader to tha^ mercy he showed : (Bom. xi. 34), " Who hath been his counsellor ?' for it refers to that mercy in " sending the Deliverer out of Sion" (ver. 26), as well as to other things the apostle had been discoursing of As God was at liberty to create, or not to create, so he was at liberty to redeem or not to redeem, and at his liberty whether to ap- point Christ to this work, or not to call him out to it. In giving this order to his Son, his sovereignty was exercised in a higher man- ner than in all the orders and instructions he hath given out to men or angels, and all the employments he ever sent them upon. Christ hath names which signify an authority over him : he is called " an Angel," and a " Messenger" (Mai. iii. 1) ; an " Apostle" (Heb. iii. 1) : declaring thereby, that God hath as much authority over him as over the angels sent upon his messages, or over the apostles com- missioned by his authority, as he was considered in the quality of Mediator. 3. This sovereignty of God appears in transferring our sins upon Christ. The supreme power in a nation can only appoint or allow of a conmiutation of punishment; it is a part of sovereignty to transfer the penalty due to the crime of one upon another, and sub- stitute a sufferer, with the sufferer's own consent, in the place of a criminal, whom he had a mind to deliver from a deserved punish- ment. God transferred the sins of men upon Christ, and inflicted on him a punishment for them. He summed up the debts of man, charged them upon the score of Christ, imputing to him the guilt, and inflicting upon him the penalty. (Isa. liii. 6) : " The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all ;" he made them all to meet upon his back : " He hath made him to be sin for us" (2 Cor. v. 21) ; he was made so by the sovereign pleasure of God : a punishment for sin, as most understand it, which could not be righteously inflicted, had not sin been first righteously imputed, by the consent of Christ, and the order of the Judge of the world. This imputation could be the immediate act of none but God, because he was the sole creditor. A creditor is not bound to accept of another's suretyship, but it is at his liberty whether he will or no ; and when he doth accept of him, he may challenge the debt of him, as if he were the principal debtor himself Christ made himself sin for us by a voluntary submission ; and God made him sin for us by a full imputation, and treated him penally, as he would have done those sinners in whose stead he suf- fered. Without this act of sovereignty in Gt)d, we had forever perished : for if we could suppose Christ lajdng down his life for us without the pleasure and order of God, he could not have been said to have borne our punishment. What could he have undergone in his humanity but a temporal death ? But more than this was due to us, even the wrath of God, which far exceeds the calamity of a mere bodily death. The soul being principal in the crime, was to ON god's dominion. 425 be principal in the punishment. The wrath of God could not have dropped upon his soul, and rendered it so full of agonies, without the hand of God : a creature is not capable to reach the soul, neither as to comfort nor terror ; and the justice of God could not have made him a sufferer, if it had not first considered him a sinner by imputa- tion, or by inherency, and actual commission of a crime in his own person. The latter was far from Christ, who was holy, harmless, and undefiled. He must be considered then in the other state of imputation, which could not be without a sovereign appointment, or at least concession of God : for without it, he could have no more authority to lay down his life for us, than Abraham could have had to have sacrificed his son, or any man to expose himself to death without a call ; nor could any plea have been entered in the court of heaven, either by Christ for us, or by us for ourselves. And though the death of" so great a person had been meritorious in itself, it had not been meritorious for us, or accepted for us ; Christ is " dehvered up by him" (Rom. viii. 32), in every part of that condition wherein he was, and suffered ; and to that end, that " we might become the righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor. v. 21) : that we might havethe righteousness of him that was God imputed to us, or that we might have a righteousness as great and proportioned to the righteousness of God, as God required. It was an act of Divine sovereignty to account him that was righteous a sinner in our stead, and to account us, who were sinners, righteous upon the merit of his death. 4. This was done by the command of God ; by God as a Lawgiver, having the supreme legislative and preceptive authority : in which respect, the whole work of Christ is said to be an answer to a law, not one given him, but put into his heart, as the law of nature was in the heart of man at first. (Ps. xl. 7, 8) : " Thy law is within my heart." This law was not the law of nature or moral law, though that was also in the heart of Christ, but the command of doing those things which were necessary for our salvation, and not a com- mand so much of doing, as of dying. The moral law in the heart of Christ would have done us no good without the mediatory law ; we had been where we were by the sole observance of the precepts of the moral law, without his suffering the penalty of it : the law in the heart of Christ was the law of suffering, or dying, the doing that for us by his death which the blood of sacrifices was unable to effect. Legal " sacrifices thou wouldest not ; thy law is within my heart ;" t. e. thy law ordered me to be a sacrifice ; it was that law, his obedi- ence to which was principally accepted and esteemed, and tliat was principally his passive, his obedience to death (Phil. ii. 8) ; this was the special command received from God, that he should die (John X. 18). It is not so clearly manifested when this command was gi ven, whether after the incarnation of Christ, or at the point of his consti- tution as Mediator, upon the transaction between the leather and the Son concerning the affiiir of redemption : the promise was given "be- fore the world began" (Tit. i. 2). Might not the precept be given, before the world began, to Christ, as considered in the quality of Mediator and Eedeemer? Precepts and promises usually attend one another ; every covenant is made up of both. Christ, considered 42 i CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. here as the Son of God in the Divine nature, was not capable of » command or promise; but considered in the relation of Mediator be* tween God and man, he was capable of both. Promises of assist- ance were made before his actual incarnation, of which the Prophets are full : why not precepts for his obedience, since long before his incarnation this was his speech in the Prophet, " Thy law is witliin my heart 1" however, a command, a law it was, which is a fruit of the Divine sovereignty ; that as the sovereignty of God was im- peached and violated by the disobedience of Adam, it might be owned and vindicated by the obedience of Christ ; that as we fell by disloyalty to it, we might rise by the highest submission to it in an- other head, infinitely superior in his person to Adam, by whom v/e fell 5. This sovereignty of God appears in exalting Christ to such a sovereign dignity as our Redeemer. Some, indeed, say, that this sov- ereignty of Christ's human nature was natural, and the right of it resulted from its union with the Divine ; as a lady of mean condi- tion, when espoused and married to a prince, hath, by virtue of that, a natural right to some kind of jurisdiction over the whole kingdom, because she is one with the king." But to waive this ; the Scripture placeth wholly the conferring such an authority upon the pleasure and will of God. As Christ was a gift of God's sovereign will to us, so this was a gift of God's sovereign will to Christ (Matt, xxviii. 28) : " All power is given me." And he " gave him to be head over all things to the churcli" (Eph. i. 22) ; " God gave him a name above every name" (Phil. ii. 9) ; and, therefore, his throne he sits upon is called "The throne of his Father" (Rev. iii. 21). And he " commit' ted all judgment to the Son," ^. e. all government and dominion ; an empire in heaven and earth (John, v. 22) ; and that because he is " the Son of Man" (ver. 27) ; which may understood, that the Father hath given him authority to exercise that judgment and government as the Son of Man, which he originally had as the Son of God ; or rather, because he became a servant, and humbled himself to death, he gives him this authority as the reward of his obedience and hu- mility, conformable to Phil. ii. 9. This is an act of the high sover- eignty of God, to obscure his own authority in a sense, and take into association with him, or vicarious subordination to him, the hu- man nature of Christ as united to the Divine ; not only lifting it above the heads of all the angels, but giving that person in our na- ture an empire over them, whose nature was more excellent than ours : yea, the sovereignty of God appears in the whole management of this kingly office of Christ ; for it is managed in every part of it according to God's order (Ezek. xxxvii. 24, 25): "David, my ser- vant, shall be king over them," and " my servant David shall be their prince forever :" he shall be a prince over them, but my servant in that principality, in the exercise and duration of it. The sover- eignty of God is paramount in all that Christ hath done as a priest. or shall do as a king. Use I. For instruction. 1. How great is the contempt of this sovereignty of God ! Man • Lessius, de Perfect. Diviu. lib. x. p. 65; ON GOD'S DOMINION. 427 naturally would be free from God's empire, to be a slave under the dominion of his own lust ; the sovereignty of God, as a Lawgiver, is most abhorred by man (Lev. xxvi. 43). The Israelites, the best people in the world, were apt, by nature, not only to despise, but ab- hor, his statutes ; there is not a law of God but the corrupt heart of man hath an abhorrency of : how often do men wish that God had not enacted this or that law that goes against the gTain ! and, in wish- ing so, wish that he were no sovereign, or not such a sovereign as he is in his own nature, but one according to their corrupt model. This is the great quarrel between God and man, whether he or they shall be the Sovereign Ruler. He should not, by the will of man, rule in any one village in the world ; God's vote should not be predominant in any one thing. There is not a law of his but is exposed to contempt by the perverseness of man (Prov. i. 21) : " Ye have set at nought aU my counsel, and would have none of my reproof:" Septuag. " Ye have made all my counsels without authority." The nature of man cannot endure one precept of God, nor one rebuke from him ; and for this cause God is at the expense of judgments in the world, to assert his own empire to the teeth and consciences of men (Ps. lix. 13): "Lord, consume them in wrath, and let them know that God rules in Jacob, to the ends of the earth." The dominion of God is not slighted by any creature of this world but man ; all others ob- serve it by observing his order, whether in their natural motions or preternatural irruptions ; they punctually act according to their com- mission. Man only speaks a dialect against the strain of the whole creation, and hath none to imitate him among all the creatures in heaven and earth, but only among those in hell : man is more im- patient of the yoke of God than of the yoke of man. There are not so many rebellions committed by inferiors against their superi- ors and fellow-creatures, as are committed against God. A willing and easy sinning is an equalling the authority of God to that of man (Hos. vi. 7) : " They, like men, have transgressed my covenant ;" they have made no more account of breaking my covenant than if they had broken some league or compact made with a mere man ; so slightly do they esteem the authority of God ; such a disesteem of the Divine authority is a virtual uncleifying of him.P To slight his sovereignty is to stab his Deity ; since the one cannot be preserved without the support of the other, his life would expire with his au- thority. How base and brutish is it for vile dust and mouldering clay to lift up itself against the majesty of God, whose throne is in the heavens, who sways his sceptre over all parts of the world — a Majesty before whom the devils shake, and the highest cherubims tremble ! It is as if the thistle, that can presently be trod down by the foot of a wild beast, should think itself a match for the cedar of Lebanon, as the phrase is, 2 Kings, xiv. 9. Let us consider this in general ; and, also, in the ordinary practice of men. First, In general. (1.) All sin in its nature is a contempt of the Divine dominion. As every act of obedience is a confirmation of the law, and conse- quently a subscription of the authority of the Lawgiver (Deut. xxvii P Munster. 428 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. 26), SO every breacli to it is a conspiracy against tlie sovereignty of the Lawgiver ; setting up our will against the will of God is an arti- cling against his authority, as setting up our reason against the methods of God is an articling against his wisdom ; the intendment of every act of sin is to wrest the sceptre out of God's hand. The authority of God is the first attribute in the Deity which it directs its edge against ; it is called, therefore, a " transgression of his law" (1 John, iii. 4), and, therefore, a slight, or neglect, of the majesty of God ; and the not keeping his commands is called a " forgetting God" (Deut. viii. 11), i. e. a forgetting him to be our absolute Lord. As the first notion we have of God as a Creator is that of his sover- eignty, so the first perfection that sin struck at, in the violation of the law, was his sovereignty as a Lawgiver. " Breaking the law is a dishonoring God" (Rom. ii. 23), a snatching off his crown ; to obey our own wills before the will of God, is to prefer ourselves as our own sovereigns before him. Sin is a wrong, and injury to God, not in his essence, that is above the reach of a creature, nor in anything profitable to him, or pertaining to his own intrinsic advantage ; not an injury to God in himself, but in his authority, in those things which pertain to his glory ; a disowning his due right, and not using his goods according to his will. Thus the whole world may be called, as God calls Chaldea, " a land of rebels" (Jer. 1, 21) : " Go up against the land of Merathaim," or rebels : rebels, not against the Jews, but against God. The mighty opposition in the heart of man to the supremacy of God is discovered emphatically by the apostle (Rom. viii. 7) in that expression, " The carnal mind is enmity against God, i. e. against the authority of God, because " it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." It refuseth not subjection to this or that part, but to the whole ; to every mark of Divine au- thority in it ; it will not lay down its arms against it, nay, it cannot but stand upon its terms against it ; the law can no more be fulfilled by a carnal mind, than it can be ' disowned by a sovereign God. God is so holy, that he cannot alter a righteous law, and man is so averse, that he cares not for, nay, cannot fulfil, one title ; so much doth the nature of man swell against the majesty of God. Now an enmity to the law, which is in every sin, implies a perversity against the authority of God that enacted it. (2.) All sin, in its nature, is the despoiling God of his sole sover- eignty, which was probably the first thing the devil aimed at. That pride was the sin of the devil, the Scripture gives us some account of, when the apostle adviseth not a novice, or one that hath but lately embraced the faith, to be chosen a bishop (1 Tim. iii. 6), "Lest, being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil ;" lest he fall into the same sin for which the devil was con- demned. But in what particular thing this pride was manifest, is not so easily discernible ; the ancients generally conceived it to be an affecting the throne of God, grounding it on Isa. xiv. 12 : " How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! for thou hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God." It is certain the prophet speaks there of the king of Babylon, and taxeth him for his pride, and gives to him the title ON GOD'S DOMINION. 429 ot ' Lucifer," perhaps likening him in his pride to the devil, and then it notes plainly the particular sin of the devil, attempting a share in the sovereignty of God ; and some strengthen their conjec- ture fi-om the name of the archangel who contended against Satan (Jude, 9), which is Michael, which signifies, " Who as God ?" or, " Who like God ?" the name of the angel giving the superiority to God, intimating the contrary disposition in the devil, against whom he contended. It is likely his sin was an affecting equality with God in empire, or a freedom from the sovereign authority of God ; because he imprinted such a kind of persuasion on man at his first temptation : " Ye shall be as gods" (Gen. iii. 5) ; and though it be restrained to the matter of knowledge, yet that being a fitness for government, it may be extended to that also. But it is plainly a persuading them, that they might be, in some sort, equal with God, and independent on him as their superior. What he had found so fatal to himself, he imagined would have the same success in the ruin of man. And since the devil hath, in all ages of the world, usurped a worship to himself which is only due to God, and would be served by man, as if he were the God of the world ; since all his endeavor was to be worshipped as the Supreme God on earth, it is not unrea- sonable to think, that he invaded the supremacy of God in heaven, and endeavored to be like the Most High before his banishment, as he hath attempted to be like the Most High since. And since the devil and antichrist are reputed by John, in the Revelation, to be so near of kin, and so like in disposition, why might not that, which is the sin of antichrist, the image of him, be also the sin of Satan, " to exalt himself above all that is called God" (2 Thess. ii. 4), and "sit as God in his temple," affecting a partnership in his throne and worship ? Whether it was this, or attempting an unaccountable do- minion over created things, or because he was the prime angel, and the most illustrious of that magnificent corporation, he might think himself fit to reign with God over all things else ? Or if his sin were envy, as some think, at the felicity of man in paradise, it was still a quarrelling with God's dominion, and right of disposing his own goods and favors ; he is, therefore, called " Belial" (2 Cor. vi. 14, 15) : " What concord hath Christ with Belial ?" i. e. with the devil, one " without yoke," as the word " Belial" signifies. (3.) It is more plain, that this was the sin of Adam. The first act oi Adam was to exercise a lordship over the lower creatures, in giving names to them, — a token of dominion (Gen. ii. 19). The next was to affect a lordship over God, in rebelhng against him. After he had writ the first mark of his own delegated dominion, in the names he gave the creatures, and owned their dependence on him as their governor, he would not acknowledge his own dependence on God. As soon as the Lord of the world had put him into possession of the power he had allotted him, he attempted to strip his Lord of that which he had reserved to himself; he was not content to lay a yoke upon the other creatures, but desirous to shake off the Divine yoke from himself, and be subject to none but his own will ; hence Adam's sin is more particularly called " disobedience" (Eom. v. 19) : for, in the eating the apple, there \N-as no moral evil in itself, but a 4:30 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. contradiction to the positive command and order of God, ■whereby he did disown God's right of commanding him, or reserving anj'thing from him to his own use. Tlie language all his posterity speaks, *' Let us break his bands, and cast away his cords from us" (Ps. ii. 3), was learned from Adam in that act of his. The next act we read of, was that of Cain's murdering Abel, which was an invading God's right, in assuming an authority to disj)ose of the life of his brother, — a life which God had given him, and reserved the period of it in his own hands. And he persists in the same usurpation when God came to examine him, and ask him where his brotlier was ; how scornful was his answer ! (Gen. iv. 9) : " Am I my brother's keeper ?" as much as if he had said. What have you to do to examine me ? or, What obligation is there upon me to render an account of him ? or, as one saith, it is as much as if he had said, " Go, look for him yourself."*! The sovereignty of God did not remain undisturbed as soon as ever it appeared in creation ; the devils rebelled against it in heaven, and man would have banished it from the earth. (4.) The sovereignty of God hath not been less invaded by the usurpations of men. One single order of the Eoman episcopacy hath endeavored to usurp the prerogatives of God ; the Pope will prohibit what God hath allowed ; the marriage of priests ; the re- ceiving of the cup, as well as of the bread, in the sacrament ; the eating of this or that sort of meat at special times, meats which God hath sanctified ; and forbid them, too, upon pain of damnation. It is an invasion of God's right to forbid the use of what God hath granted, as though the earth, and the fulness thereof, were no longer the Lord's, but the Pope's ; much more to forbid what God hath commanded, as if Christ overreached his own authority, when he en- joined all to drink of the sacramental wine, as well as eat of the sacramental bread. No lord but will think his right usurped by that steward who shall permit to others what his lord forbids, and forbid that v/hich his master allows, and act the lord instead of the servant. Add to this the pardons of many sins, as if he had the sole key to the treasures of Divine mercy ; the disposing of crowns and domin- ions at his pleasure, as if God had divested himself of the title of King of kings, and transferred it u]3on the see of Eome. The allow- ing public stews, dispensing with incestuous marriages, as if God had acted more the part of a tyrant than of a righteous Sovereign in for- bidding them, depriving the Jews of the propriety in their estates upon their conversion to Christianity, as if the pilfering men's goods were the way to teach them self-denial, the first doctrine of Christian religion ; and God shall have no honor from the Jew without a breach of his law by theft from the Christian. Granting many years' indulgences upon slight performances, the repeating so many Ave-Marias and Pater-Nosters in a day, canonizing saints, claiming the keys of heaven, and disposing of the honors and glory of it, and proposing creatures as objects of religious worship, wherein he an- swers the character of the apostle (2 Thess. ii. 4), " showing himself that he is God," in challenging that power which is only the right of Divine sovereignty ; exalting himself above God, in indulging (1 Ti-ap. in Inc. ON GOD'S DOMINION. 431 those tMngs wTiicTi tlie law of God never allowed, but hath severely prohibited. This controlling the sovereignty of God, not allowing him the rights of his crown, is the soul and spirit of many errors. Why are the decrees of election and preterition denied ? Because men wil-^ not acknowledge God the Sovereign Disposer of his crea- ture. Why is effectual calling and efficacious grace denied ? Be- cause they will not allow God the proprietor and distributer of his own goods. Why is the satisfaction of Christ denied? Because they will not allow God a power to vindicate his own law in what way he pleaseth. Most of the errors of men may be resolved into a denial of God's sovereignty ; all have a tincture of the first evil sen- timent of Adam. Secondly. The sovereignty of God is contemned in the practices of men — (1.) As he is a Lawgiver. [1.] When laws are made, and urged in any state contrary to the law of God. It is part of God's sovereignty to be a Lawgiver ; not to obey his law is a breach made upon his right of government ; but it is treason in any against the crown of God, to mint laws with a stamp contrary to that of heaven, whereby they renounce their due subjection, and vie with God for dominion, snatch the supremacy from him, and account themselves more lords than the Sovereign Monarch of the world. When men will not let God be the judge of good and evil, but put in their own vote, controlling his to estab- lish their own ; such are not content to be as gods, subordinate to the supreme God, to sit at his feet ; nor co-ordinate with him, to sit equal upon his throne ; but paramount to him, to over-top and shadow his crown ; — a boldness that leaves the serpent, in the first temp- tation, under the character of a more commendable modesty ; who advised our first parents to attempt to be as gods, but not above him, and would enervate a law of God, but not enact a contrary one to be observed by them. Such was the usurpation of Nebuchad- nezzar, to set up a golden image to be adored (Dan. iii.), as if he had power to mint gods, as well as to conquer men ; to set the stamp of a Deity upon a piece of gold, as well as his own effigies upon his current coin. Much of the same nature was that of Darius, by the motion of his flatterers, to prohibit any petition to be made to God for the space of thirty days, as though God was not to have a wor- ship without a license from a doting piece of clay (Dan. vi. 7). So Henry the Third of France, by his edict, silenced masters of families from praying with their households. ^ And it is a farther contempt of God's authority, when good men are oppressed by the sole weight of power, for not observing such laws, as if they had a real sover- eignty over the consciences of men, more than God himself.^ When the apostles were commanded by an angel from God, to preach in the Temple the doctrine o"^ Christ (Acts, v. 19, 20), they were fetched from thence with a guard before the council (ver. 6). And what is the language of those statesmen to them ? as absolute as God him- self could speak to any transgressors of his law. " Did not we straitly command you, that you should not teach in this name?" (ver, 28). It is sufficient that we gave yuo a command to be silent, and publ'^sb ' Trap, in he. • Faueheur, Vol. II. pp. 663, 664. 432 CHAHNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. no more tliib doctrine of Jesus ; it is not for you to examine our de- crees, but rest in our order as loyal subjects, and comply with youi rulers ; they might have added, — though it be with the damnation of your soids. How would those overrule the apostles by no other reason but their absolute pleasure ! And though God had espoused their cause, by delivering thsm out of the prison, wherein they had locked them the day before, yet not one of all this council had the wit or honesty to entitle it a fighting against God, but Gamaliel (ver. 29). So foolishly fond are men to put themselves in the place of God, and usurp a jurisdiction over men's conscien ~i: and to pre- smne that laws made against the interest and command of God, must be of more force than the laws of God's enacting. [2.] The sovereignty of God is contemned in making additions to the laws of God. The authority of a sovereign Lawgiver is invaded and vilified when an inferior presumes to make orders equivalent to his edicts. It is a prcemunire against heaven to set up an authority dis- tinct from that of God, or to enjoin anything as necessary in matter of worship for which a Divine commission cannot be shown. God was always so tender of this part of his prerogative, that he would not have anything wrought in the tabernacle, not a vessel, not an instrument, but what himself had prescribed. " According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it" (Exod. xxv. 9) ; Twhich is strictly urged again, ver. 40 : " Look that thou make them after their pattern ;" look to it, beware of doing anything of thine own head, and j iistling with my authority. It was so afterwards in the matter of the temple, which succeeded the taberi.acle ; God gave the model of it to David, and made him " understand in writing by his hand upon him, even all the works of this pattern" (1 Chron xxviii. 19). Neither the royal authority in Moses, who was king i> Jesurun ; nor in David, who was a man after God's own heart, and called to the crown by a special and extraordinary providence ; noi Aaron, and the high priests his successors, invested in the sacerdotal office, had any authority from God, to do anything in the framing the tabernacle or temple of their own heads. God baiTcd them from anything of that nature, by giving them an exact pattern, so dear to him was always this flower of his crown. And afterwards, the power of appointing officers and ordinances in the church was delegated tc Christ, and was among the rest of those royalties given to him, which he fully completed "for the edifying of the body" (Eph. iv. 11, 12); and he hath the eulogy by the Spirit of God, to be " faithful as Moses was in all his house, to Him that appointed him" (Heb. iii. 2). Faithfulness in a trust implies a punctual observing directions ; God was still so tender of this, that even Christ, the Son, should no more do anything in this concern without appointment and pattern, than " Moses, a servant" (ver. 5, 6). It seems to be a vote of nature to refer the original of the modes of all worship to God ; and therefore in all those varieties of ceremonies among the heathens, there was scarce any but were imagined by them to be the dictates and orders oi some of their pretended deities, and not the resolves of mere hu- man authority. What intrusion upon God's right hath the papacy UN god's dominion. 433 made in regard of ofl&cers, cardinals, patriarchs, &c., not known in any Divine order? In regard of ceremonies in worship, pressed aa necessary to obtain the favor of God, holy water, crucifixes, altars, images, cringings, reviving many of the Jewish and Pagan ceremo- nies, and adopting them into the family of Christian ordinances ; as if God had been too absolute and arbitrary in repealing the one, and dashing in pieces the other. When God had by his sovereign order framed a religion for the heart, men are ready to usurp an authority to frame one for the sense, to dress the ordinances of God in new and gaudy habits, to take the eye by a vain pomp ; thus affecting a Divine royalty, and acting a silly childishness ; and after this, to im- pose the observation of those upon the consciences of men, is a bold ascent into the throne of God ; to impose laws upon the conscience, which Christ hath not imposed, hath deservedly been thought the very spirit of antichrist ; it may be called also the spirit of anti-god. God hath reserved to himself the sole sovereignty over the con- science, and never indulged men any part of it ; he hath not given man a power over his own conscience, much less one man a power over another's conscience. Men have a power over outward things to do this or that, where it is determined by the law of God, but not the least authority to control any dictate or determination of con- science : the sole empire of that is appropriate to God, as one of the great marks of his royalty. What an usurpation is it of God's right to make conscience a slave to man, which God hath solely, as the Father of spirits, subjected to himself! — an usurpation which, though the apostles, those extraordinary officers, might better have claimed, yet they utterly disowned any imperious dominion over the faith of others (2 Oor. i. 24). Though in this they do not seem to climb up above God, yet they set themselves in the throne of God, envy him an absolute monarchy, would be sharers with him in his legislative power, and grasp one end of his sceptre in their own hands. They do not pretend to take the crown from God's head, but discover a bold ambition to shuffle their hairy scalps under it, and wear part of it upon their own, that they may rule with him, not under him ; and would be joint lords of his manor with him, who hath, by the apos- tle, forbidden any to be "lords of his heritage" (1 Pet. v. 3): and therefore they cannot assume such an authority to themselves till they can show where God hath resigned this part of his authority to them. If their exposition of that place (Matt. xvi. 18), "Upon this rock I will build my church," be granted to be true, and that the person and successors of Peter are meant by that rock, it could be no apology for their usurpations ; it is not Peter and his successors shall build, but "I will build;" others are instruments in building, but they are to observe the directions of the grand Architect. [3.] The sovereignty of God is contemned when men prefer obe- dience to men's laws before obedience to God. As God hath an undoubted right, as the Lawgiver and Ruler of the world, to enact laws without consulting the pleasure of men, or requiring their con- sent to the verifying and establishing his edicts, so are men obliged, by their allegiance as subjects, to observe the laws of their Creator, without consulting whether they be agreeable to the laws of his re- VOL. II. — 28 i84 CHARNOCK ON" THE ATTRIBUTES. volted creatures. To consult with flesh and blood whether we should obey, is to authorize flesh and blood above the purest and most sovereign Spirit. When men will obey their superiors, without tak- ing in the condition the apostle prescribes to servants (Col. iii. 22), " In singleness of heart fearing God," and postpone the fear of God to the fear of man, it is to render God of less power with them than the drop of a bucket, or dust of the balance. When we, out of fear of punishment, will observe the laws of men against the laws of God, it is like the Egyptians, to worship a ravenous crocodile instead of a Deity ; when we submit to human laws, and stagger at Divine, it is to set man upon the throne of God, and God at the footstool of man ; to set man above, and God beneath ; to make him the tail, and not the head, as God speaks in another case of Israel (Deut, xxviii. 13). When we pay an outward observation to Divine laws, because they are backed by the laws of man, and human authority is the motive of our observance, we subject God's sovereignty to man's authority; what he hath from us, is more owing to the pleasure of men than any value we have for the empire of God : when men shall commit murders, and imbrue their hands in blood by the order of a grandee ; when the worst sins shall be committed by the order of papal dis- pensations ; when the use of his creatures, which God hath granted and sanctified, shall be abstained from for so many days in the week, and so many weeks in the year, because of a Roman edict, the au- thority of man is acknowledged, not only equal, but superior, to that of God ; the dominion of dust and clay is preferred before the un- doubted right of the Soverign of the world ; the commands of God are made less than human, and the orders of men more authoritative than Divine, and a grand rebel's usurpation of God's right is coun- tenanced. When men are more devout in observance of uncertain traditions, or mere human inventions, than at the hearing of the un- questionable oracles of God ; when men shall squeeze their counte- nances into a more serious figure, and demean themselves in a more religious posture, at the appearance of some mock ceremony, clothed in a Jewish or Pagan garb, which hath unhappUy made a rent in the coat of Christ, and pay a more exact reverence to that which hath no Divine, but only a human stamp upon it, than to the clear and plain word of God, which is perhaps neglected with sleepy nods, or which is worse, entertained with profane scoffs ; — this is to prefer the au- thority of man employed in trifles, before the authority of the wise Lawgiver of the world : besides, the ridiculousness of it is as great as to adore a glow-worm, and laugh at the sun ; or for a courtier to be more exact in his cringes and starched postures before a puppet than before his sovereign prince. In all this we make not the will and authority of God our rule, but the will of man ; disclaim oui dependence on God, to hang upon the uncertain breath of a creature. In all this God is made less than man, and man more than God ; God is deposed, and man enthroned ; God made a slave, and man a sovereign above him. To this we may refer the solemn addresses of some for the maintenance of the Protestant religion according to law, the law of man ; not so much minding the law of God, resolving to make the law, the church, the state, the rule of their religion, and ON GOD'S DOMINION. 435 ■change that if the laws be changed, steering their opinions by the compass of the magistrate's judgment and interest. (2.) The dominion of God, as a Proprietor, is practically con- temned. [1.] By envy. When we are not flush and gay, as well spread and sparkling as others, this passion gnaws our souls, and we be- come the executioners to rack ourselves, because God is the executor of his own pleasure, The foundation of this passion is a quarrel with God ; to envy others the enjoyment of their propriety is to envy God his right of disposal, and, consequently, the proi^riety of his own goods ; it is a mental theft committed against God ; we rob him of his right in our will and wish ; it is a robbery to make ourselves equal with God when it is not our due, which is implied (Phil. ii. 6), when Christ is said " to think it no robbery to be equal with God." We would wrest the sceptre out of his hand, wish he were not the con- ductor of the world, and that he would resign his sovereignty, and the right of the distribution of his own goods, to the capricios of our humor, and ask our leave to what subjects he should dispense his favors. All envy is either a tacit accusation of God as an usurper, and assuming a right to dispose of that which doth not belong to him, and so it is a denial of his propriety, or else charges him with a blind or unjust distribution, and so it is a bespattering his wisdom and righteousness. When God doth punish envy, he vindicates his own sovereignty, as though this passion chiefly endeavored to blast this perfection (Ezek. xxv. 11, 12): "As I live, saith the Lord, I will do according to thy anger, and according to thy envy, and thou shall know that I am the Lord." The sin of envy in the devils was im- mediately against the crown of God, and so was the sin of envy in the first man, envying God the sole prerogative in knowledge above himself. This base humor in Cain, at the preference of Abel's sacri- fice before his, was the cause that he deprived him of his life : deny- ing God, first his right of choice and what he should accept, and then invading God's right of propriety, in usurping a power over the life and being of his brother, which solely belonged to God. [2.] The dominion of God, as a proprietor, is practically contemned by a violent or surreptitious taking away from any what God hath given him the possession of Since God is the Lord of all, and may give the possession and dominion of things to whom he pleaseth, all theft and purloining, all cheating and cozening another of his right, is not only a crime against the true possessor, depriving him of what he is entrusted with, but against God, as the absolute and universal proprietor, having a right thereby to confer his own goods upon whom he pleaseth, as well as against God as a Lawgiver, forbidding such a violence : the snatching away what is another's, denies man the right of possession, and God the right of donation : the Israelites taking the Egyptians' jewels had been theft had it not been by a Divine license and order, but cannot be slandered with such a term, after the Proprietor of the whole world had altered the title, and ahenated them by his positive grant from the Egyptians, to confer them upon the Israelites. [3.] The dominion of God, as a proprietor, is practically contemned 456 CHARNOCK OJN THE ATTEIBUTES. by not using what God liath given us fur those ends for which he gave them to us. God passeth things over to us with a condition to use that for his glory wliich he hath bestowed upon us by his boun- ty : he is Lord of the end for which lie gives, as well as Lord of what he gives ; the donor's right of propriety is infringed when the lands and legacies he leaves to a particular use are not employed to those ends to which he bequeathed them : the right of the lord of a manor is violated when the copyhold is not used according to the condition of the conveyance. So it is an invasion of God's sovereignty not to use the creatures for those ends for which we are entrusted with them : when we deny ourselves a due and lawful support from them ; hence covetousness is an invasion of his right : or when we unneces- sarily waste them ; hence prodigality disowns his propriety : or when we bestow not anything upon the relief of others ; hence uncharita- bleness comes under the same title, appropriating that to ourselves, as if we were the lords, when we were but the usufructuaries for our- selves, and stewards for others ; this is to be " rich to ourselves, not to God" (Luke xii. 21), for so are they who employ not their wealth for the service, and according to the intent, of the donor. Thus the Israelites did not own God the true proprietor of their corn, wine, and oil, which God had given them for his worship, when they pre- pared offerings for Baal out of his stock : " For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her gold and silver, which they prepared for Baal" (Hos. ii. 8) ; as if they had been sole proprietors, and not factors by commission, to improve the goods for the true owner. It is the same invasion of God's right to use the parts and gifts that God hath given us, either as fuel for our pride, or advancing self, or a witty scofl&ng at God and religion ; when we use not religion for the honor of our Sovereign, but a stool to rise by, and observe his precepts outwardly, not out of regard to his authority, but as a stale to our interest, and furnishing self with a little concern and trifle ; when men will wrest his word for the favor of their lusts, which God intended for the checking of them, and make interpretations of it according to their humors, and not according to his will discovered in the Scripture, this is to pervert the use of the best goods and deposiium he hath put into our hands, even Divine revelations. Thus hypocrisy makes the sovereignty of God a nullity. (3.) The dominion of God, as a Oovernor, is practically con- temned. [1.] In idolatry. Since worship is an acknowledgment of God's sovereignty, to adore any creature instead of God, or to pay to any- thing that homage of trust and confidence which is due to God, though it be the highest creature in heaven or earth, is to acknowl- edge that sovereignty to pertain to a creature, which is challenged by God ; as to set up the greatest lord in a kingdom in the govern- ment, instead of the lawful prince, is rebellion and usurpation ; and that woman incurs the crime of adultery, who commits it with a person of great port and honor, as well as with one of a mean condition. While men create anytliing a god, they own themselves supreme above the true God, yea, and above that which they a'> count a god ; for, by the right of creation, they have a superiority, ON GOD'S DOMINION. 437 tifl it is a deiiy blown up by the breath of their own imagination^ The authority of God is in this sin acknowledged to belong to an idol ; it is called loathing of God as a husband (Ezek. xvi. 45), all the authority of God as a husband and Lord over them : so when we make anything or any person in the world the chief object and prop of our trust and confidence, we act the same part. Trust in an idol is the formal part of idolatry ; "so is every one that trusts in them" (Ps. cxv. 8), ^. e. in idols : whatsoever thing we make the ob ject of our trust, we rear as an idol. It is not unlawful to have the image of a creature, but to bestow divine adoration upon it ; it was not unlawful for the Egyptians to possess and use oxen, but to dub them gods to be adored, it was : it is not unlawful to have wealth and honor, nor to have gifts and parts, they are the presents of God ; but to love them above God, to fix our reliance upon them more than upon God, is to rob God of his due, who, being our Creator, ought to be our confidence. What we want we are to de- sire of him, and expect from him. When we confide in anything else we deny God the glory of his creation ; we disown him to be Lord of the world ; imply that our welfare is in the hands of, and depends upon, that thing wherein we confide ; it is not only to "•equal it to God" in sovereign power, which is his own phrase (Isa. xl. 25), but to prefer it before him in a reproach of him. When the hosts of heaven shall be served instead of the Lord of those hosts ; when we shall lackey af^er the stars, depend barely upon their in- fluences, without looking up to the great Director of the sun, it is to pay an adoration unto a captain in a regiment which is due to the general. When we shall " make gold our hope, and say to the fine gold. Thou art my confidence," it is to deny the supremacy of that God that is above ; as well as if we kiss our hands, in a way of adoration, to the sun in its splendor, or " the moon walking in its brightness," for Job couples them together (ch. xxxi. 25 — 28) ; it is to prefer the authority of earth before that of heaven, and honor clay above the Sovereign of the world : as if a soldier should con- fide more in the rag of an ensign, or the fragment of a drum, for his safety, than in the orders and conduct of his general ; it were as much as is in his power to uncommission him, and snatch from him his commander's staff. When we advance the creature in our love above God, and the altar of our soul smokes with more thoughts and affections to a petty interest than to God, we lift up that which was given us as a servant in the place of the Sovereign, and bestow that throne upon it which is to be kept undefiled for the rightful Lord, and subject the interest of God to the demands of the crea- ture. So much respect is due to God, that none should be placed in the throne of our affections equal with him, much less anything to perk above him. [2.] Impatience is a contempt of God as a governor. When we meet with rubs in the way of any design, when our expectations are crossed, we will break through all obstacles to accomplish our pro- jects, whether God will or no. When we are too much dejected at some unexpected providence, and murmur at the instruments of it, as if God divested himself of his prerogative of conducting human 438 CHARXOCK uN THE ATTRIBUTES. affairs ; when a little cross blows us into a mutiny, and swells Uff' into a sauciness to implead Grod, or make us fret against him (as the expression is, Isa, viii. 21), wishing him out of his throne ; no sin is- so devilish as this ; there is not anv strikes more at all the attributes- of God than this, against his goodness, righteousness, holiness, wis- dom, and doth as little spare his sovereignty as any of the rest : what can it be else, but an impious invasion of his dominion, to quarrel with him for what he doth, and to say. What reason hast thou to deal thus with me ? This language is in the nature of all impatience, whereby we question his sovereignty, and parallel our- dominion with his. When men have not that confluence of wealth or honor they greedily desired, they bark at God, and revile his government : they are an^ry God doth not more respectfully ob- serve them, a£ though he had nothing to do in their matters, and were wanting in that becoming reverence which they think him bound to pay to such great ones as they are ; they would have God obedient to their minds, and act nothing but what he receives a commission for from their wills. When we murmur, it is as if we would com- mand his will, and wear his crown ; a wresting the sceptre out of his hands to sway it ourselves ; we deny him the right of government, disown his power over us, and would be our own sovereigns : you may find the character of it in the language of Jehoram (as many understand it), " Behold, this evil is of the Lord ; what should I wait for the Lord any longer?" (2 Kings, vi. 33). This is an evil of such a nature, that it could come from none but the hand of God ; why should I attend upon him, as my Sovereign, that delights to do me so much mischief, that throws curses upon me when I expected blessings ? I will no more observe his directions, but follow my own sentiments, and regard not his authority in the lips of his do- ting prophet. The same you find in the Jews, when they were un- der God's lash ; " And they said, There is no hope : but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagina- tion of his evil heart" (Jer. xviii. 12) : we can expect no good from him, and therefore we will be our own sovereigns, and prefer the authority of our own imaginations before that of his precejjts. Men would be their own carvers, and not suffer God to use his right ; as if a stone should order the mason in what manner to hew it, and in what part of the building to place it. We are not ordinarily con- cerned so much at the calamities of our neighbors, but swell against heaven at a light drop upon ourselves. We are content God should be the sovereign of others, so that he will be a servant to us : let him deal as he will himself with others, so he will treat us, and what relates to us, as we will ourselves. We would have God re sign his authority to our humors, and our humors should be in the place of a God to him, to direct him what was tit to do in our cause. When things go not according to our vote, our impatience is a wish that God was deposed from his throne, that he would surrender his Beat to some that would deal more favorably, and be more punctual observers of our directions. Let us look to ourselves in regard of this sin, which is too common, and the root of much mischief. This seems to be the first bubbling of Adam's will ; he was not content ON GOD'S DOMINION. 438 witli the condition wherein God had placed him, but affected an- other, which ended in the ruin of himself, and of mankind. [3.] Limiting God in his way of working to our methods, is an- other part of the contempt of his dominion. When we will pre- scribe him methods of acting, that he should deliver us in this or that way, we would not suffer him to be the Lord of his own favors, and have the privilege to be his own dkector. When we will limit him to such a time, wherein to work our deliverance, we would rob him of the power of times and seasons, which are solely in his hand. We would regulate his conduct according to our imagina- tions, and assume a power to give laAvs to our Sovereign, Thus the Israelites "limited the Holy One of Israel" (Ps. Ixxviii. 41) : they would control his absolute dominion, and, of a sovereign, make him their slave. Man, that is God's vassal, would set bounds to his Lord, and cease to be a servant, and commence master, when he would give, not take, directions from him. When God had given them manna, and their fancies were weary of that delicious food, they would prescribe heaven to rain down some other sort of food for them. When they wanted no suf&cient provision in the wild- erness, they quarrelled with God for bringing them out of Egypt, and not presently giving them a place of seed, of figs, vines, and pomegranates (Numb. xx. 5), which is called a "striving with the Lord" (ver. 13), a contending with him for his Lordship. When we tempt God, and require a sign of him as a mark of his favor, we circumscribe his dominion ; when we will not use the means he hath appointed, but father our laziness upon a trust in his providence, as if we expected he should work a miracle for our relief; when we censure him for what he hath done in the course of his providence ; when we capitulate with him, and promise such a service, if he will do us such a good turn according to our platform, we would bring down his sovereign pleasure to our will, we invade his throne, and expect a submissive obedience from him. Man that hath not wit enough to govern himself, would be governing God, and those that cannot be their own sovereigns, affect a sovereignty over heaven, [4,] Pride and presumj^tion is another invasion of his dominion. When men will resolve to go to-morrow to such a city, to such a fair and market, to trafiic, and get gain, without thinking of the ne- cessity of a Divine license, as if ourselves were the lords of oui' time and of our lives, and God were to lackey after us (James iv. 13, 15): " Ye that say. To-day we will go into such a city, and buy and sell, whereas ye ought to say, K the Lord will, we shall live ;" as if they had a freehold, and were not tenants at will to the Lord of the manor. When we presume upon our own strength or wit to get the better of our adversaries ; as the Germans (as Tacitus relates) assured themselves, by the numerousness of their army, of a victory against the Eomans, and prepared chains to fetter the captives before the conquest, which were found in their camp after their defeat ; — when we are peremptory in expectations of success according to our will ; as Pharaoh (Exod, xv, 9), " I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my lust shall be satisfied upon them, I will dr&.w my sword, my hand shall destroy them :" he speaks more like a 440 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. god than a man, as if lie were the sovereign power, and God onljr his vicar and lieutenant ; how he struts, without thinking of a supe- rior jDOwer to curb him ! — when men ascribe to themselves what is the sole fruit of God's sovereign pleasure ; as the king of Assyria speaks a language fit only to be spoken by God (Isa. x. 13, 14, &c.), " I have removed the bounds of the people ; my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people ; I have gathered all the earth ;" which God declares to be a wrong to his sovereignty by the title wherewith he prefaceth his threatening against him (ver. 16) : " Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness," &c. It is indeed a rifling, if not of his crown, yet of the most glittering jewel of it, his glory. " He that mocks the poor reproacheth his Maker" (Pro v. xvii. 5). He never thinks that God made them poor, and himself rich ; he owns not his riches to be dropped upon him by the Divine hand. Self is the great invader of God's sovereignty ; doth not only spurn at it, but usurp it, and as- sume divine honors, payable only to the universal Sovereign. The Assyrian was not so modest as the Chaldean, who would impute his power and victories to his idol (Hab. i. 11), whom he thought to be God, though yet robbing the true God of his authority ; and so much was signified by their names, Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-Merodach, Belshazzar, Nebo, Merodach, Bel, being the Chaldean idols, and the names signifying. Lord of wealth, Giver of riches, and the like. — When we behave ourselves proudly towards others, and imagine ourselves greater than our Maker ever meant us ;• — -when we would give laws to others, and expect the most submissive observances from them, as if God had resigned his authority to us, and made us, in his stead, the rightful monarchs of the world. To disdain that any creature should be above us, is to disdain God's sovereign dis- position of men, and consequently, his own superiority over us. A proud man would govern all, and would not have God his Sovereign, but his subject ; to overvalue ourselves, is to undervalue God. [5.] Slight and careless worship of God is another contempt of his sovereignty, A prince is contemned, not only by a neglect of those reverential postures which are due to him, but in a reproach- ful and scornful way of paying them. To behave ourselves un- comely or immodestly before a prince, is a disesteem of majesty. Sovereignty requires awe in every address, where this is wanting there is a disrepect of authority. We contemn God's dominion when we give him the service of the lip, the hand, the knee, and deny him that of the heart ; as they in Ezekiel, xxxiii. 31, as though he were the Sovereign only of the body, and not of the soul. To have devout figures of the face, and uncomely postures of the soul, is to exclude his dominion from our spirits, while we own it only over our outward man ; we render him an insignificant Lord, not worthy of any higher adorations from us than a senseless statue ; we demean not ourselves according to his majestical authority over us, when we present him not with the cream and quintessence of our Bouls, The greatness of God required a great house, and a costly palace (1 Cliron. xxix. 11, 16) ; David speaks it in order to the building God a house and a temple ; God being a great King ex- ON GOD'S DOMINION, 441 pects a male, the best of our flock (Mai. i. 14), a masculine and vig- orous service. When we present him with a sleepy, sickly rheu- matic service, we betray our conceptions of him to be as mean as if he were some petty lord, Avhose dominion were of no larger extent than a mole-hill, or some inconsiderable village. [6.] Omission of the service he hath appointed is another contempt of his sovereignty. This is a contempt of his dominion, whereby he hath a right to appoint what means and conditions he pleaseth, for the enjoyment of his proffered and promised benefits. It is an enmity to his sceptre not to accept of his terms after a long series of precepts and invitations made for the restoring us to that happiness we had lost, and providing all means necessary thereunto, nothing being wanting but our own concurrence with it, and acceptance of it, by rendering that easy homage he requires. By withholding from him the service he enjoins, we deny that we hold anything of Mm ; as he that pays not the quit rent, though it be never so small, disowns the sovereignty of the lord of the manor ; it implies, that he is a miserable poor lord, having no right, or destitute of any power, to dispose of anything in the world to our advantage (Job, xxii. 17) : " They say unto God, Depart from us, what can the Al- mighty do for them ?" They will have no commerce with him in a way of duty, because they imagine him to have no sovereign power to do anything for them in way of benefit, as if his dominion were an empty title, and as much destitute of any authority to com- mand a favor for them as any idol. They think themselves to have as absolute a disposal of things, as God himself What can he do for us ? what can he confer upon us, that we cannot invest ourselves in ? as though they were sovereigns in an equality with God. Thus men live " without God in the world" (Eph. ii. 12), as if there were no SR.ipreme Being to pay a respect to, or none fit to receive any homage at their hands ; withholding from God the right of his time and the right of his service, which is the just claim of his sovereignty. [7.] Censuring others is a contempt of his sovereignty. When we censure men's persons or actions by a rash judgment ; when we will be judges of the good and evil of men's actions, where the law of God is utterly silent, we usurp God's place, and invade his right ; we claim a superiority over the law, and judge God defective, as the Eector of the world, in his prescriptions of good and evil. (James, iv. 11, 12), " He that speaks evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaks evil of the law, and judgeth the law ; there is one Lawgiver who is able to save, and to destroy : who art thou that judgest another ? Do 3^ou know what you do in judging another ? You take upon you the garb of a sovereign, as if he were more your servant than God's, and more under your authority than the authori- ty of God ; it is a setting thyself in God's tribunal, and assuming his rightful power of judging; thy brother is not to be governed by thy fancy, but by God's law, and his own conscience. 2. Information. Hence it follows, that God doth actually goveni the world. He hath not only a right to rule, but " he rules over all," so saith the text. He is " King of kings, and Lord of lords," — 442 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. ■what, to let tliem do what they please, and all that their 1 usts prompt them to ? hath God an absolute dominion ? Is it good, and is it wise ? Is it then a useless prerogative of the Divine nature ? Shall so excellent a power lie idle, as if God were a lifeless image? Shall we fanej God like some lazy monarch, that solaceth himself in the gardens of his palace, or steeps himself in some charming pleas- ures, and leaves his lieutenants to govern the several provinces, Virhich are all members of his empire, according to their own humor? Not to exercise this dominion is all one as not to have it ; to what purpose is he invested with this sovereignty, if he were careless of what were done in the world, and regarded not the oppressions of men ? God keeps no useless excellency by him ; he actually reigns over the heathen (Ps. xlvii. 8), and those as bad, or worse than heathens. It had been a vanity in David to call upon the heavens to be glad, and the earth to rejoice, under the rule of a " sleepy Deity" (1 Chron. xvi. 31). No ; his sceptre is full of eyes, as it was painted by the Egyptians ; he is always waking, and always more than Ahasuerus, reading over the records of human actions. Not to exercise his authority, is all one as not to regard whether he keep the crown upon his head, or continue the sceptre in his hand. If his sovereignty were exempt from care, it would be destitute of justice; God is more righteous than to resign the ensigns of his authority to blind and oppressive man ; to think that God hath a power, and doth not use it for just and righteous ends, is to imagine him an un righteous as well as a careless Sovereign ; such a thing in a man renders him a base man, and a worse governor ; it is a vice that dis turbs the world, and overthrows the ends of authority, as to have a power, and use it well, is the greatest virtue of an earthly sovereign. What an unworthy conception is it of God, to acknowledge him to be possessed of a greater authority than the greatest monarch, and yet to think that he useth it less than a petty lord ; that his crown is of no more value with him than a feather ? This represents God impotent, that he cannot, or unrighteous and base, that he will not administer the authority he hath for the noblest and justest end. But can -we say, that he neglects the government of the world ? How come things then to remain in their due order ? How comes the law of nature yet to be preserved in every man's soul ? How comes con- science to check, and cite, and judge? If God did not exercise his authority, what authority could conscience have to disturb man in unlawful practices, and to make his sports and sweetness so unpleas- ant and sour to him ? Hath he not given frequent notices and me morials, that he holds a curb over corrupt inclinations, puts rubs in the way of malicious attempters, and often oversets the disturbers of the peace of the world ? 3. Information. God can do no wrong, since he is absolute Sov ereign. Man may do wrong, princes may oppress and rifle, but it is a crime in them so to do : because their power is a power of government, and not of propriety, in the goods or lives of their subjects ; but God cannot do any wrong, whatsoever the clamors of creatures are, because he can do nothing but Avhat he hath a sov- o,reign right to do. If he takes away your goods, he takes not ON GOD"S DOMINION. 443 away anything that is yours more than his own, since though he entrusted you with them, he divested not himself of the propriety, "When he takes away our hves, he takes what he gave us by a temporary donation, to be surrendered at his call : we can claim no right in anything but by his will. He is no debtor to us: and since he owes us nothing, he can wrong us in nothing that he takes away. His own sovereignty excuseth him in all those acts which are most distasteful to the creature. If we crop a medicinal plant for our use, or a flower for our pleasure, or kill a lamb for our food, we do neither of them any wrong : because the original of them was for our use, and they had their life, and nourishment, and pleasing qualities for our delight and support. And are not we much more made for the pleasure and use of God, than any ol those can be for us? " Of him and to him are all things" (Eom. xi. 36) : hath not God as much right over any one of us, as over the meanest worm ? Though there be a vast difference in nature between the angels in heaven and the worms on earth, yet they are all one in regard of subjection to God ; he is as much the Lord oi the one as the other ; as much the Proprietor of the one as the other ; as much the Governor of one as the other ; — not a cranny in the world is exempt from his jurisdiction ; — ^not a mite or grain of a creature exempt from his propriety. He is not our Lord by election ; he was a Lord before we were in being ; he had no terms put upon him who capitulated with him, and set him in his throne by covenant. What oath did he take to any subject at his first in- vestiture in his authority ? His right is as natural, as eternal as himself : as natural as his existence, and as necessary as his Deity. Hath he any law but his own will ? What wrong can he do that breaks no law, that fulfils his law in everything he doth, by fal- filjing his own will, which as it is absolutely sovereign, so it is in- finitely righteous ? In whatsoever he takes from us, then, he can- not injure us ; it is no crime in any man to seize upon his own goods to vindicate his own honor ; and shall it be thought a wrong in God to do such things, besides the occasion he hath from every man, and that every day provoking him to do it ? He seems rather to wrong himself by forbearing such a seizure, than wrong us by executing it. 4. Information. If God have a sovereignty over the whole world, then merit is totally excluded. His right is so absolute over all creatures, that he neither is, nor can be, a debtor to any ; not to the undefiled holiness of the blessed angels, much less to poor earthly worms ; those blessed spirits enjoy their glory by the title of his sovereign pleasure, not by virtue of any obligation devolving from them upon God. Are not the faculties, whereby they and we per- form any act of obedience, his grant to us ? Is not the strength, whereby they and we are enabled to do anything pleasing to him, a gift from him ? Can a vassal merit of his lord, or a slave of his master, by using his tools, and emjjloying his strength in his ser- vice, though it was a strength he had naturally, not by donation from the man in whose service it is employed ? God is Lord of all — all is due to him ; how can we oblige him bv giving him what 444 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. is his own, moro liis to whom it is presented, than ours by whom it is offered ? He becomes not a debtor by receiving anything from us, but by promising something to us.* 5. Information. If God hath a sovereign dominion over the whole world, then hence it follows, that all magistrates are but sovereigns under God. He is King of kings, and Lord of lords ; all the poten- tates of the world are no other than his lieutenants, movable at his pleasure, and more at his disposal than their subjects are at theirs. Though they are dignified with the title of " gods," yet still they are at an infinite distance from the supreme Lord ; gods under God, not to be above him, not to be against him. The want of the due sense of their subordination to God hath made many in the world act as sovereigns above him more than sovereigns under him. Had they all bore a deep conviction of this upon their spirits, such audacious language had never dropped from the mouth of Pharaoh : '' Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice, to let Israel go?" (Bxod. V. 2), presuming that there was no superior to control him, nor any in heaven able to be a match for him ; Darius had never published such a doting edict, as to prohibit any petition to God ; Nero had never fired Rome, and sung at the sight of the devouring flames ; nor ever had he ripped up his mother's belly, to see the womb where he first lodged, and received a life so hateful to his country. Nor would Abner and Joab, the two generals, have ac- counted the death of men but a sport and interlude. " Let the young men arise and play before us" (2 Sam. ii. 14) ; what play it was, the next verse acquaints you with; thrusting their swords into one another's sides. They were no more troubled at the death of thousands, than a man is to kill a fly, or a flea. Had a sense of this but hovered over their souls, people in many countries had not been made their foot-balls, and used worse than their dogs ! Nor had the lives of millions, worth more than a world, been exposed to fire and sword, to support some sordid lust, or breach of faith upon an idle quarrel, and for the depredation of their neighbors' estates ; the flames of cities had not been so bright, nor the streams of blood so deep, nor the cries of innocents so loud. In particular, (1). If God be Sovereign, all under-sovereigns are not to rule against him, but to be obedient to his orders. If they " rule by his authority" (Prov. viii. 15), they are not to rule against his in- terest ; they are not to imagine themselves as absolute as God, and that their laws must be of as sovereign authority against his honor, as the Divine are for it. If they are his lieutenants on earth, they ought to act according to his orders. No man but will account a governor of a province a rebel, if he disobeys the orders sent to him by the sovereign prince that commissioned him. Rebellion against God is a crime of princes, as well as rebelUon against princes a crime of subjects. Saul is charged with it by Samuel in a high manner for an act of simple disobedience, though intended for the service cf God, and the enriching his country with the spoils of the Amalekites. " Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft" (1 Sam. xv. 23); like witchcraft ot covenanting with the devil, acting as if he ha 452 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. from your presence with a nod ; if wo are banished from one place, he can command a shelter for us in another ; if he orders Moab, a nation that had no great kindness for his people, to let " his outcasts dwell with them," they shall entertain them, and afford them sanctu- ary (Isa. xvi. 4). Again, God chasteneth as a " Sovereign," but teach- eth as a " Father" (Ps. xcix. 12) ; the exercise of his authority is not without an exercise of his goodness ; he doth not correct for his own pleasure, or the creature's torment, but for the creature's instruction ; though the rod be in the hand of a sovereign, yet it is tinctured with the kindness of Divine bowels : he can order them as a sovereign to mortify our flesh, and try our faith. In the severest tempest, the Lord that raised the wind against us, which shattered the ship, and tore its rigging, can change that contrary wind for a more haj^py one, to drive us into the port. 6. It is a comfort against the projects of the church's adversaries m times of public commotions. The consideration of the Divine sovereignty may arm us against the threatenings of mighty ones, and the menaces of persecutors. God hath authority above the crowns of men, and a wisdom superior to the cabals of men ; none can have a step without him ; he hath a negative voice upon their counsels, a negative hand upon their motions ; their politic resolves must stop at the point he hath prescribed them ; their formidable strength cannot exceed the limits he hath set them ; their overreaching wisdom ex- pires at the breath of God : " There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord" (Prov. xxi. 30) ; not a bullet can be discharged, nor a sword drawn, a wall battered, nor a person de- spatched out of the world, without the leave of God, by the mighti- est in the world. The instruments of Satan are no more free from his sovereign restraint than their inspirer ; they cannot pull the hook out of their nostrils, nor cast the bridle out of their mouths ; this Sovereign can shake the earth, rend the heavens, overthrow moun- tains, the most mountainous opposers of his interest. Though the nations rush in against his people like the rushing of many waters, " God shall rebuke them, they shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirl- wind" (Isa. xvii. 13) ; so doth he often burst in pieces the most mis- chievous designs, and conducts the oppressed to a happy port : he often turns the severest tempests into a calm, as well as the most peaceful calm into a horrible storm. How often hath a well-rigged ship, that seemed to spurn the sea under her feet, and beat the waves before her to a foam, been swallowed up into the bowels of that ele- ment, over whose back she rode a little before ! God never comes to deliver his church as a governor, but in a wrathful posture (Ezek. XX. 33) : " Surely, saith the Lord, with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you ;" not with fury poured out upon the church, but fury poured out upon her enemies, as the words following evidence : the church he would bring out from the countries where she was scattered, and bring the people into the bond of the covenant. He sometimes " cuts off the spirits of princes" (Ps. Ixxvi. 12), i. e. cuts off their designs as men do the pipes of a water-course. The hearts of all are as open to him ON god's dominion. 453 as the riches of heaven, where he resides ; he can slip an inchnution into the heart of the mighty, which they dreamed not of before ; and if he doth not change their projects, he can make them abortive, and waylay them in their attempts. Laban marched with fury, but God put a i)adlock on his passion against Jacob (Gen. xxxi. 24, 29) ; the devils, which ravage men's minds, must be still when he gives out hia sovereign orders. This Sovereign can make his people find favor in the eyes of the cruel Egyptians, which had so long oppressed them (Exod. xi. 3) ; and speak a good word in the heart of Nebuchadnez- zar for the prophet Jeremiah, that he should order his captain to take him into his special protection, when he took Zedekiah away prisoner in chains, and "put out his eyes" (Jer. xxxix. 11). His people cannot want deliverance from Him who hath all the world at his command, when he is pleased to bestow it ; he hath as many in- struments of deliverance as he hath creatures at his beck in heaven or earth, from the meanest to the highest. As he is the Lord of hosts, the church hath not only an interest in the strength he himself is possessed with, but in the strength of all the creatures that are under his command, in the elements below, and angels above. In those armies of heaven, and in the inhabitants of the earth, he doth " what he will" (Dan. iv. 35) ; they are all in order and array at his com mand. There are angels to employ in a fatal stroke, lice and frogs to quell the stubborn hearts of his enemies ; he can range his thun- ders and lightnings, the cannon and granadoes of heaven, and the worms of the earth in his service ; he can muzzle lions, calm the fury of the fire, turn his enemies' swords into their own bowels, and their artillery on their own breasts ; set the wind in their teeth, and make their chariot-wheels languish ; make the sea enter a quarrel with them, and wrap them in its waves till it hath stifled them in its lap. The angels have storms, and tempests, and wars in their hands, but at the disposal of God ; when they shall cast them out against the empire of antichrist (Rev. vii. 1, 2), then shall Satan be discharged from his throne, and no more seduce the nations ; the everlasting gospel shall be preached, and God shall reign gloriously in Sion. Let us, therefore, shelter ourselves in the Divine sovereignty, regard 'God as the most high in our dangers and in our petitions. This was David's resolution (Ps. Ivii. 1, 2) : "I will cry unto God most high ;" this dominion of God is the true " tower of David, wherein there are a thousand shields" for defence and encouragement (Cant. iv. 4). Use IV. K God hath an extensive dominion over the whole world, this ought to be often meditated on, and acknowledged by us. This is the universal duty of mankind. If he be the Sovereign of all, we should frequently think of our great Prince, and acknowledge our- selves his subjects, and him our Lord. God will be acknowledged the Lord of the whole earth ; the neglect of this is the cause of the judgments which are sent upon the world. All the prodigies were to this end, that they might know, or acknowledge, that " God was the Lord". (Exod. x. 2) ; as God was proprietor, he demanded the first-born of every Jew, and the first-born of every beast ; the one was to be redeemed, and the other sacrificed ; this was the quit rent they were to pay to him for their fruitful land. The first-fruits of 454 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. the earth were ordered to be paid to him, as a homage due to the landlord, aud an acknowledgment they held all in chief of him. The practice of offering first-fruits for an acknowledgment of Grod's sov- ereignty, was among many of the heathens, and very ancient ; hence they dedicated some of the chief of their spoils, owning thereby the dominion and goodness of God, whereby they had gained the vic- tory; Cain owned this in offering the fruits of the earth, and it was his sin he owned no more, w'z., his being a sinner, and meriting the justice of God, as his brother Abel did in his bloody sacrifice. God was a sovereign Proprietor aud Governor while man was in a state of innocence ; but when man proved a rebel, the sovereignty of God bore another relation towards him, that of a Judge, added to the other. The first-fruits might have been offered to God in a state of innocence, as a homage to him as Lord of the manor of the world ; the design of them was to own God's propriety in all things, and men's dependence on him for the influences of heaven in producing the fruits of the earth, which he had ordered for their use. The de- sign of sacrifices, and placing beasts instead of the criminal, was to acknowledge their own guilt, and God as a sovereign Judge ; Cain owned the first, but not the second ; he acknowledged his depend- ence on God as a Proprietor, but not his obnoxiousness to God as a Judge ; which may be probably gathered from his own speech, when God came to examine him, and ask him for his brother (Gen. iv. 9) : " Am I my brother's keeper ?" Why do you ask me ? though I own thee as the Lord of my land and goods, yf^t I do not think myself accountable to thee for all my actions. This sovereignty of God ought to be acknowledged in all the parts of it, in all the manifesta- tions of it to the creature ; we should bear a sense of this always upon our spirits, and be often in the thoughts of it in our retirements ; we should fancy that we saw God upon his throne in his royal garb, and great attendants about him, and take a view of it, to imprint an awe upon our spirits. The meditation of this would, 1. Fix us on him as an object of trust. It is upon his sovereign dominion as much as upon anything, that safe and secure confidence is built ; for if he had any superior above him to control him in his designs and promises, his veracity and power would be of little effi- cacy to form our souls to a close adherency to him. It were not fit to make him the object of our trust that can be gainsay ed by a higher than himself, and had not a full authority to answer our ex- pectations ; if we were possessed with this notion fully and believ- ingly, that God were high above all, that " his kingdom rules over all," we should not catch at every broken reed, and stand gaping for comforts from a pebble stone. He that understands the authority of a kmg, would not waive a reliance on his promise to depend upon the breath of a changeling favorite. None but an ignorant man would change the security he may have upon the height of a rock, to expect it from the dwarfishness of a molehill. To put confidence in any inferior lord more than in the prince, is a folly in civil con- verse, but a rebellion in divine ; God only being above all, can only rule all ; can command things to help us, and check other things which we depend on, and make them tall short of our expectations oisr god's dominion. 4-55 The due consideration of this doctrine would make us pierce through second causes to the first, and look further than to the smaller sort of sailors, that climb the ropes, and dress the sails, to the pilot that sits at the helm, the master, that, by an indisputable authority, orders all their notions. We should not depend upon second causes for our support, but look beyond them to the authority of the Deity, and the dominion he hath over all the works of his hands (Zech. x. 1) : " Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain ;" when the seasons of the year conspire for the producing such an effect, when the usual time of rain is wheeled about in the j'car, stop not your thoughts at the point of the heavens whence yon expect it, but pierce the heavens, and solicit God, who must give order for it before it comes. The due meditation of all things depending on the Divine dominion would strike off our hands from all other holds, so that no creature would engross the dependence and trust which is due to the First Cause ; as we do not thank the heavens when they pour out rain, so we are not to depend upon them when we want it ; God is to be sought to when the womb of second causes is opened to relieve us, as well as when the womb of second causes is barren, and brings not forth its wonted progeny. 2. It would make us diligent in worship. The consideration of God, as the Supreme Lord, is the foundation of all religion : " Our Father, which art in heaven," prefaceth the Lord's prayer ; " Father'' is a name of authority ; " in heaven," the place where he hath fixed his throne, notes his government; not "my Father," but " our Father,'' notes the extent of this authority. In all worship we acknowledge the object of our worship our Lord, and ourselves his vassals ; if we bear a sense that he is our Sovereign King, it would draw us to him in every exigence, and keep us with him in a reverential posture, in every address ; when we come, we should be careful not to violate his right, but render him the homage due to his royalty. We should not appear before him with empty souls, but filled with holy thoughts : we should bring him the best of our flock, and preseni him with the prime of our strength ; were we sensible we hold al] of him, we should not withhold anything from him which is mort worthy than another. Our hearts would be framed into an awfu' regard of him, when we consider that glorious and " fearful name, the Lord our God" (Deut. xxviii. 58). We should look to our feel when we enter into his house ; if we considered him in .heaven upon his throne, and ourselves on earth at his footstool (Eccles. v. 2), lower before him than a worm before an angel, it would hinder gar- nishness and lightness. The Jews, saith Capel, on 1 Tim. i. 17, re- peat this expression, n^^-n -;b^, King of worlds, or Eternal King ; probably the first original of it might be to stake them down from wandering. When we consider the majesty of God, clothed with a robe of light, sitting upon his high throne, adorned with his royal ensigns, we should not enter into the presence of so great a Majesty with the sacrifice of fools, with light motions and foolish thoughts, as if he were one of our companions to be drolled with. We should not hear his word as if it were the voice of some ordinary peasant. The consideration of majesty would engender reverence in our sei 456 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. vice ; it would also make us speak of God with honor and respect, as of a great and glorious king, and not use defaming expressions of him, as if lie were an infamous being. And were he considered as a terrible majesty, he would not be frequently solicited by some to pronounce a damnation upon them upon every occasion. 3. It would make us charitable to others. Since he is our Lord, the great Proprietor of the world, it is fit he should have a part of our goods, as well as our time : he being the Lord both of our goods and time. The Lord is to be honored with our substance (Prov. iii. 9) ; kings were not to be approached to without a present ; tribute is due to kings : but because he hath no need of any from us to bear up his state, maintain the charge of his wars, or pay his mili- tary officers and hosts, it is a debt due to him to acknowledge him in his poor, to sustain those that are a part of his substance ; though he stands in no need of it himself, yet the poor, that we have always with us, do ; as a seventh part of our weekly time, so some part of our weekly gains, are due to him. There was to be a weekly laying by in store somewhat of what God had prospered them, for the re- lief of others (1 Cor. xvi. 1,2); the quantity is not determined, that is left to every man's conscience, " according as God hath prospered him" that week. If we did consider God as the Donor and Pro- prietor, we should dispose of his gifts according to the design of the true owner, and act in our places as stewards entrusted by him, and not purse up his part, as well as our own, in our coffers. We should not deny him a small quit rent, as an acknowledgement that we hare a greater income from him ; we should be ready to give the inconsiderable pittance he doth require of us, as an acknowledgment of his propriety, as well as liberality. 4. It would make us watchful, and arm us against all temptations. Had Eve stuck to her first argument against the serpent, she had not been instrumental to that destruction which mankind yet feel the smart of (Gen. iii. 3) : " God hath said. Ye shall not eat of it;" the great Governor of the world hath laid his sovereign command upon us in this point. The temptation gained no ground till her heart let go the sense of this for the pleasure of her eye and palate. The re- petition of this, the great Lord of the world hath said or ordered, had both unargumented and disarmed the tempter. A sense of God's dominion over us would discourage a temptation, and put it out of countenance ; it would bring us with a vigorous strength to beat it back to a retreat. If this were as strongly urged as the temptation, it would make the heart of the tempted strong, and the motion of the tempter feeble. 5. It would make us entertain afflictions as they ought to be en- tertained, wz., with a respect to God. When men make light of any affliction from God, it is a contempt of his sovereignty, as to contemn tlie frown, displeasure, and check of a prince, is an affront to majesty : it is as if they did not care a straw what God did with them, but dare him to do his worst. There is a " despising the chastening of the Almighty" (Job, v. 17). To be unhumbled under his hnnd, is as much, or more, affrdht to him, than to be impatient under it. Afflictions must be entertained as a check from heaven. ON GOD'S DOMINION. 457 as a liown from the great Monarch of the world ; under the feeiing of every stroke, we are to acknowledge his sovereignty and bounty ; to despise it, is to make light of his authority over us ; as to despise his favors is to make light of his kindness to us. A sense of God's dominion would make us observe every check from him, and not diminish his authority by casting off a due sense of his correction. 6. This dominion of God would make us resign up ourselves to God in everything. He that considers himself a thing made by God, a vassal under his authority, would not expostulate with him, and call him to an account why he hath dealt so or so with him. It would stab the vitals of all pleas against him. We should not then contest with him, but humbly lay our cause at his feet, and say with Eli, (1 Sam. iii. 18), "It is the Lord, let him do what seems good." We should not commence a suit against God, when he doth not answer our prayers presently, and send the mercy we want upon the wings of the wind ; he is the Lord, the Sovereign. The consid- eration of this would put an end to our quarrels with God ; should I expect that the Monarch of the world should wait upon me ; or I, a poor worm, wait upon him ? Must I take state upon me be- fore the throne of heaven, and expect the King of kings should lay by his sceptre, to gratiiy my humor ? Surely Jonah thought God no more than his fellow, or his vassal, at that time when he told him to his face he did well to be angry, as though God might not do what he pleased with so small a thing as a gourd ; he speaks as if he would have sealed a lease of ejectment, to exclude him from any propriety in anything in the world. 7. This dominion of God would stop our vain curiosity. When Peter was desirous to know the fate of John, the beloved disciple, Christ answereth no more than this : (John, xxi. 22), " If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? follow thou me." Con- sider your duty, and lay aside your curiosity, since it is my pleasure not to reveal it. The sense of God's absolute dominion would silence many vain disputes in the world. What if God will not re- veal this or that? the manner and method of his resolves should humble the creature under intruding inquiries. UseY. Of exhortation. 1. The doctrine of the dominion of God may teach us humility. We are never truly abased, but by the consideration of the emi- nence and excellency of the Deity. Job never thought himself so pitiful a thing, so despicable a creature, as after God's magnificent declamation upon the theme of his own sovereignty (Job, xlii. 5, 6). When God's name is regarded as the most excellent and sovereign name in all the earth, then is the soul in the fittest temper to lie low, and cry out. What is man, that so great a Majesty should be mindful of him ? When Abraham considers God as the supreme Judge of all the earth, he then owns " himself but dust and ashes ' (Gen. xviii. 25, 27). Indeed, how can vile and dusty man vaunt before God, when angels, far more excellent creatures, cannot stand before him, but with a veil on their faces ? How little a thing is man in regard of all the earth I How mean a thing is the earth in regard of the vaster heavens I How poor a thing is the whole 458 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. world in comparison of God! How pitiful a thing is man, if com- pared with so excellent a Majesty ! There is as great a distance be- tween God and man, as between being and not being ; and the more man considers the Divine royalty, the more disesteem he will have of himself ; it would make him stoop and disrobe himself, and fall low before the throne of the King of kings, throwing down before his throne any crown he gloried in (Rev. iv. 10). (1), In regard of authority. How unreasonable is pride in the presence of majesty ! How foolish is it for a country justice of peace to think himself as great as his prince that commissioned him ! How unreasonable is pride in the presence of the greatest sov- ereignty ! What, is human greatness before Divine ? The stars discover no light when the sun appears, but in a humble posture withdraw in their lesser beam?, to give the sole glory of enlighten- ing the world to the sun, who is, as it were, the sovereign of those stars, and imparts a light unto them. The greatest prince is in- finitely less, if compared with God, than the meanest scullion in his kitchen can be before him. As the wisdom, goodness, and holiness^ of a man is a mere mote compared to the goodness and holiness of God, so is the authority of a man a mere trifle in regard of the sovereignty of God : and who but a simple child would be proud of a mote or trifle ? Let man be as great as he can, and command others, he is still a subject to One greater than himself. Pride would then vanish like smoke at the serious consideration of this sov- ereignty. One of the kings of this country did very handsomely shame the flattery of his courtiers, that cried him up as lord of sea and land, by ordering his chair to be set on the sand of the sea shore, when the tide was coming in, and commanding the waters not to touch his feet, which when they did without any regard to his authorit}', he took occasion thereby to put his flatterers out of countenance, and instruct himself in a lesson of humility. " See," saith he, " how I rule all things, when so mean a thing as the water will not obey me !" It is a ridiculous pride that the Turk and Persian discover in their swelling titles. What poor sovereigns are they, that cannot command a cloud, give out an effectual order for a drop of rain, in a time of drought, or cause the bottles of heaven to turn their mouth another way in a time of too much moisture ! Yet their own prerogatives are so much in their minds, that they jostle out all thoughts of the supreme prerogative of God, and give thereby occasion to frequent rebellions against him. (2). In regard of propriety. And this doctrine is no less an abatement of pride in the highest, as well as in the meanest; it lowers pride in point of propriety, as well as in point of authority.. Is any proud of his possessions ? how many lords of those posses- sions have gone before you! how many are to follow youl'^ Your dominion lasts but a short time, too short to be a cause of any pride and glory in it. God by a sovereign power can take you from them, or them from you, when he pleaseth. The traveller re- fresheth himself in the heat of summer under a shady tree ; how many have done so before him the same day he knows not, and « Kaynard, de Deo, p. 766. ON GOD'S DOMINION. 459 HOW many will have tlie benefit after before nignt comes, ho is a? much ignorant of; he, and the others that went before him and follow after him, use it for their refreshment, but none of them can say, that they are the lords of it ; the property is invested in some other person, whom perhaps they know not. The propriety of all you have is in God, not truly in yourselves. Doth not that man deserve scorn from you, who will play the proud fool in gay clothes and attire, which are known to be none of his own, but borrowed ? Is it not the same case with every proud man, though he hath a property in his goods by the law of the land ? Is anything you have your own truly ? Is it not lent you by the great Lord ? Is it not the same vanity in any of you, to be proud of what you have as God's loan to you, as for such a one to be proud of what he hath borrowed of man ? And do you not make yourselves as ridiculous to angels and good men, who know that though it is yours in op- position to man, yet it is not yours in opposition to God ? they are granted you only for your use, as the collar of esses and sword, ■ and other ensigns of the chief magistrate in the city, pass through many hands in regard of the use of them, but the propriety remains in the community and body of the city : or as the silver plate of a person that invites you to a feast is for your use during the time of the invitation. What ground is there to be proud of those things you are not the absolute lords and proprietors of, but only have the use of them granted to you during the pleasure of the Sov* ereign of the world ! 2. Praise and thankfulness result from this doctrine of the sov- ereignty of God. (1). He is to be praised for his royalty. (Ps. cxlv. 1), "I will ex- toll thee, my God, O King." The Psalmist calls upon men five times to sing praise to him as King of all the earth. (Ps. xlvii. 6, 7), " Sing praises to God, sing praises : sing praises to our king, sing praises : for God is the King of all the earth ; sing ye praises with understanding." All creatures, even the inanimate ones, are called upon to praise him because of the excellency of his name and the supremacy of his glory, in the 148th Psalm throughout, and ver. 13. That Sovereign Power that gave us hearts and tongues, deserves to have them employed in his praises, especially since he hath by the same hand given us so great matter for it. As he is a Sovereign we owe him thankfulness ; he doth not deal with us in a way of absolute dominion ; he might then have annihilated us, since he hath as full a dominion to reduce us to nothing. Con- sider the absoluteness of his sovereignty in itself, and you must needs acknowledge that he might have multiplied precepts, enjoined us the observance of more than he hath done ; he might have made our tether much shorter ; he might exact obedience, and promise no reward for it ; he might dash us against the walls, as a potter doth his vessel, and no man have any just reason to say. What dost thou ? or. Why dost thou use me so ? A greater right is in him to use us in such a manner as we do sensible as well as insensible things. And if you consider his dominion as it is capable to be ex- ercised in a way of unquestionable justice, and submitted to the 460 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. reason and judgments of creatures, lie might have dealt with us II a smarter way than he hath hitherto done ; instead of one affliction, we might have had a thousand : he might have shut his own hands from pouring out any good upon us, and ordered innumerable scourges to be prepared for us ; but he deals not with us according to the rights of his dominion. He doth not oppress us by the great- ness of his majesty ; he enters into covenant with us, and allures us by the chords of a man, and shows himself as much a merciful as an absolute Sovereign. (2.) As he is a Proprietor, we owe him thankfulness. He is at his own choice whether he will bestow upon us any blessings or no ; the more value, therefore, his benefits deserve from us, and the Donor the more sincere returns. If we have anything from the creature to serve our turn, it is by the order of the chief Proprietor. He is the spring of honor, and the fountain of supplies : all creatures are but as the conduit pipes in a great city, which serve several houses with water, but from the great spring. All things are conveyed originally from his own hand, and are dispensed from his exchequer. If this great Sovereign did not order them, you would have no more sup- plies from a creature than you could have nourishment from a chip : it is the Divine will in everything that doth us good ; every favor from creatures is but a smile from God, an evidence of his royalty to move us to pay a respect to him as the great Lord. Some hea- thens had so much respect for God, as to conclude that his will, and not their prudence, was the chief conductor of their affairs. His goodness to us calls for our thankfulness, but his sovereignty calls for a higher elevation of it : a smile from a prince is more valued, and thought worth}^ of more gratitude, than a present from a peasant ; a small gift from a great person is more gratefully to be received than a larger from an inferior person : the condescension of royalty magnifies the gift. What is man, that thou, so great a Majesty, art mindful of him, to bestow this or that favor upon him ? — ^is but a due reflection upon every blessing we receive. Upon every fresh blessing we should acknowledge the Donor and true Proprietor, and give him the honor of his dominion : his property ought to be thank- fully owned in everything we are capable of consecrating to him ; as David, after the liberal collection he had made for the building of the temple, owns in his dedication of it to that use the propriety of God : " Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort ? for all things come of tliee, and of thine own have we given thee" (1 Chron. xxix. 14) : it was but a return of God's own to him, as the waters of the river are no other than the return to the sea of what was taken from it. Praise and thankfulness is a rent due from all mankind, and from every crea- ture, to the great Landlord, since all are tenants, and hold by him at his will. " Every creature in heaven and earth, and under the earth, and in the sea," were heard, by John, to ascribe " blessing, honor, glory, and power, to Him that sits on the throne" (Rev. v. 13). We are as much bound to the sovereignty of God for his preserva tion of us, as for his creation of us ; we are no less obliged to him that preserves our beings when exposed to dangers, than we are foi ON GOD'S DOMLNION. 461 bestowing a being upon us wTien we were not capable of danger. Thankfulness is due to this Sovereign for public concerns. Hath he not preserved the ship of his church in the midst of whistling ^nds and roaring waves ; in the midst of the combats of men and devils ; and rescued it often when it hath been near shipwrecked ? 3. How should we be induced from hence to promote the honor of this Sovereign ! We should advance him as supreme, and all our actions should concur in his honor : Ave should return to his giorj what we have received from his sovereignty, and enjoy by his mercy: lie that is the superior of all, ought to be the end of all. This is the harmony of the creation ; that which is of an inferior nature is or- dered to the service of that which is of a more excellent nature : thus water and earth, that have a lower being, are employed for the honor and beauty of the plants of the earth, who are more excellent in having a principle of a growing life : these plants are again sub- servient to Ihe beasts and birds, which exceed them in a principle of sense, which the others want: those beasts and birds are ordered for the good of man, who is superior to them in a principle of reason, and is invested with a dominion over them. Man having God for his superior, ought as much to serve the glory of God, as other things are designed to be useful to man. Other governments are intended for the good of the community, the chief end is not the good of the governors themselves : but God being every way sover- eign, the sovereign Being, giving being to all things, the sovereign Euler, giving order and preservation to all things, is also the end of all things, to whose glory and honor all things, all creatures, are to be subservient; "for of him. and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever" (Eom. xi. 36): o/'him, as the efficient cause ; through him, as the preserving cause ; to him, as the final cause. All our actions and thoughts ought to be addressed to his glory ; our whole beings ought to be consecrated to his honor, though we should have no reward but the honor of having been subservient to the end of our creation : so much doth the excellency and majesty of God, infinitely elevated above us, challenge of us. Subjects use to value the safety, honor, and satisfaction of a good prince above their own : David is accounted worth ten thousand of the people; and some of his courtiers thought themselves obliged to venture their lives for his satisfaction in so mean a thing as a little water from the well of Bethlehem. Doth not so great, so good a. Sovereign as God, deserve the same affection from us ? " Do we swear," saith a heathen, " to prefer none before Cgesar, and have we not greater reason to prefer none before God ?"y It is a justice due from us to God to maintain his glory, as it is a justice to preserve the right and property of another. As God would lay aside his Deity if he did deny himself, so a creature acts irregularly, and out of the rank of a creature, if it doth not deny itself for God. He that makes himself his own end, makes himself his own sovereign. To napkin up a gift he hath bestowed upon us, or to employ what we possess solely to our own glory, to use anything barely for ourselves, without respect to God, is to apply it to a wrong use, and to injure ' Arrian iu EjDietet. t62 CHARNOCK OX THE ATTRIBUTES. God in his propriety, and the end of his donation. What we have ought to be used for the honor of God : he retains the dominion and lordship, though he grants us the use : we are but stewards, not pro- prietors, in regard to God, who expects an account from us, how we have employed his goods to his honor. The kingdom of God is to be advanced by us : we are to pray that his kingdom may come : we are to endeavor that his kingdom may come, that is, that God may be known to be the chief Sovereign ; that his dominion, which was obscured by Adam's fall, may be more manifested ; that his sub- jects, which are suppressed in the world, may be supported ; his laws, which are violated by the rebellions of men, may be more obeyed ; and his enemies be fully subdued by his final judgment, the last evidence of his dominion in this state of the world ; that tlie empire of sin and the devil may be abolished, and the kingdom of God perfected, that none may rule but the great and rightful Sover- eign. Thus while we endeavor to advance the honor of his throne, we shall not want an honor to ourselves. He is too gracious a Sovereign to neglect them that are mindful of his glory; "those that honor him, he will honor" (1 Sam. ii. 30). 4. Fear and reverence of God in himself, and in his actions, is a duty incumbent on us from this doctrine (Jer. x. 7) : " Who would not fear thee, O King of nations ?" The ingratitude of the world is taxed in not reverencing God as a great king, who had given so many marks of his royal government among them. The prophet wonders there was no fear of so great a King in the world, since, " among all the wise men of the nations, and among all their kings, there is none like unto this;" no more reverence of him, since none ruled so wisely, nor any ruled so graciously. The dominion of God is one of the first sparks that gives fire to religion and worship, con- sidered with the goodness of this Sovereign (Ps. xii. 27, 28): "All the nations shall worship before thee, for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he is Governor among the nations." Epicurus, who thought God careless of human affairs, leaving them at hap-hazard, to the conduct of men's wisdom and mutability of fortune, yet acknowl- edged that God ought to be worshipped by man for the excellency of his nature, and the greatness of his majesty. How should we reverence that God, that hath a throne encompassed with such glo- rious creatures as angels, whose faces we are not able to behold, though shadowed in assumed bodies ! how should we fear the Lord of Hosts, that hath so many armies at his command in the heavens above, and in the earth below, whom he can dispose to the exact obedience of his will ! how should men be afraid to censure any of his actions, to sit judge of their Judge, and call him to an account at their bar ! how should such an earth-worm, a mean animal as man, be afraid to speak irreverently of so great a King among his pots and strumpets ! Not to fear him, not to reverence him, is to pull his throne from under him, and make him of a lower authority than ourselves, or any creature that we reverence more. 5. Prayer to God, and trust in him, is inferred from his sovereign ty. If he be the supreme Sovereign, holding heaven and earth in his hand, dis2)osing all things here below, not committing everything ON GOD'S DOMINION 463 to the influence of the stars or the humors of men, we ought, then, to apply ourselvea to him in every case, implore the exercise of his authority ; we hereby own his peculiar right over all things and per- sons. He only is the supreme Head in all causes, and over all per- sons: " Thine is the kingdom" (Matt. vi. 13), concludes the Lord's prayer, both as a motive to pray, and a ground to expect what we want. He that believes not God's government will think it needless to call upon him, will expect no refuge under him in a strait, but make some creature-reed his support. If we do not seek to him, but rely upon the dominion we have over our own possessions, ur upon the authority of anything else, we disown his supremacy «a J dominion over all things ; we have as good an opinion of ourselves, or of some creatures, as we ought to have of God; we think our- selves, or some natural cause we seek to or depend upon, as much sovereigns as he, and that all things which concern us are as much at the dispose of an inferior, as of the great Lord. It is, indeed, to make a god of oui-selves, or of the creature ; when we seek to him, dpon all occasions, we own this Divine eminency, we acknowleage that it is by him men's hearts are ordered, the world governed, all things disposed ; and God, that is jealous of his glory, is best pleas- ed with any duty in the creature that doth acknowledge and desire the glorification of it, which prayer and dependence on him doth in a special manner, desiring the exercise of his authority, and the preservation of it in ordering the affairs of the world. 6. Obedience naturally results from this doctrine. As his justice requires fear, his goodness thankfulness, his faithfulness trust, his truth belief, so his sovereignty, in the nature of it, demands obe- dience : as it is most fit he should rule, in regard of his excellency, so it is most fit we should obey him in regard of his authority : he is our Lord, and we his subjects; he is our Master, and we his ser- vants ; it is righteous we should observe him, and conform to his will : he is everything that speaks an authority to command us, and that can challenge an humility in us to obey. As that is the truest doctrine that subjects us most to God, so he is the truest Christian that doth, in his practice, most acknowledge this aubjection ; and as sovereignty is the first notion a creature can have of God, so obe- dience is the first and chief thing conscience reflects upon the crea- ture. Man holds all of God ; and therefore owes all the operations capable to be produced by those faculties to that Sovereign Power that endowed him with them. Man had no being but from him ; he hath no motion without him ; he should, therefore, have no being but for him ; and no motion but according to him : to call him Lord, and not to act in subjection to liim, is to mock and put a scorn upon him (Luke vi. 46): "Why cal] you me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say ?" It is like the crucifying Christ an- der the title of a King. It is not by professions, but by observ- ance of the laws of a prince, that we manifest a due respect to him : by that we reverence that authority that enacted them, and the prudence that framed them. This doctrine affords us motives to obey, and directs us to the manner of obedience. 464 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. 1st. Motives to obey, (1.) It is comely and orderly. Is it not a more becoming thing tc be ruled by the will of our Sovereign than by that of our lusts ? — to observe a wise and gracious Authority, than to set up inordinate appetites in the room of his law ? Would not all men account it a disorder to be abominated, to see a slave or vassal control the just orders of his lord, and endeavor to subject his master's will to his own ? much more to expect God should serve our humor rather than we be regulated by his will. It is more orderly that subjects should obey their governors, than governors their subjects ; that passion should obey reason, than reason obey passion. When good governors are to conform to subjects, and reason veil to passion, it is monstrous ! the one disturbs the order of a community, and the other defaceth the beauty of the soul. Is it a comely thing for God to stoop to our meanness, or for us to stoop to his gre atness ? (2.) In regard of the Divine sovereignty, it is both honorable and advantageous to obey God. It is, indeed, the glory of a superior to be obeyed by his inferior ; but where the sovereign is of transcend- ent excellency and dignity, it is an honor to a mean person to be under his immediate commands, and enrolled in his service. It is more honor to be God's subject than to be the greatest worldly monarch ; his very service is an empire, and disobedience to him is a slavery. It is a part of his sovereignty to reward any service 4one him.z Other lords may be willing to recompense the service of their subjects, but are often rendered unable ; but nothing can stand in the way of God to hinder your reward, if nothing stand in your way to hinder your obedience (Lev. xviii. 5): " If you keep my statutes, you shall live in them ; I am the Lord." Is there anything in the world can recompense you for rebellion against God, and obe- dience to a lust ? Saul cools the hearts of his servants from running after David, by David's inability to give them fields and vineyards (1 Sam. xxii. 7) : " Will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you captains of thousands, and cap- tains of hundreds, that you have conspired against me ?" But God hath a dominion to requite, as well as an authority to command your obedience ; he is a great Sovereign, to bear you out in your observance of his precepts against all reproaches and violence of men, and at last to crown you with eternal honor. If he should neglect vindicating, one time or other, your loyalty to him, he will neglect the maintaining and vindicating his own sovereignty and greatness. (3.) God, in all his dispensations to man, was careful to preserve the rights of his sovereignty in exacting obedience of his creature. The second thing he manifested his sovereignty in was that of a Lawgiver to Adam, after that of a Proprietor in giving him the pos- session of the garden ; one followed immediately the other (Gen. ii. 15, 16) : " The Lord God took the man, and put him into the gar- den of Eden, to dress it , and the Lord God commanded the man, Baying, Of eveiy tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it,'- * Servire, Deo regnare est. ON GODS DOMINION. &c. Notiiing was to be enjoyed by man but upon tbe condition of obedience to bis Lord ; and it is observed that in the description of thq creation, God is not called " Lord" till the finishing of the crea- tion, and particularly in the forming of man. " And the Lord God formed man" (Gen. ii. 7). Though he was Lord of all creatures, yet it was in man he would have his sovereignty particularly manifest- ed, and by man have his authority specially acknowledged. The law is prefaced with this title : " I am the Lord thy God" (Exod. XX. 2) : authority in Lord, sweetness in God, the one to enjoin, the other to allure ot3edience ; and God enforceth several of the com- mands with the same title. And as he begins many precepts with it, so he concludes them with the same title, " I am the Lord," Lev. xix. 37, and in other places. In all his communications of his good- ness to man in ways of blessing them, he stands upon the preserva- tion of the rights of his sovereignty, and manifests his graciousness in favor of his authority. " I am the Lord your God," your God in all my perfections for your advantage, but yet your Sovereign for your obedience. In all his condescension he will have the rights of this untouched and unviolated by us. When Ohrist would give the most pregnant instance of his condescending and humble kindness, he urgeth his authority to ballast their spirits from any presumptu- ous eruptions because of his humility. " You call me Master, and Lord ; and you say well : for so I am" (John, xiii. 13). He asserts his authority, and presseth them to their duty, when he had seemed to lay it by for the demeanor of a servant, and had, below the dig- nity of a master, put on the humility of a mean underling, to wash the disciples feet ; all which was to oblige them to perform the com- mand he then gave them (ver. 14), and in obedience to his author- ity, and imitation of his example. (4.) All creatures obey him. All creatures punctually observe the law he hath imprinted on their nature, and in their several capa- cities acknowledge him their Sovereign ; they move according to the inclinations he imprinted on them. The sea contains itself in its bounds, and the sun steps out of its sphere ; the stars march in their order, " they continue this day according to thy ordinance, for all are thy servants" (Ps. cxix. 91). If he orders things contrary to their primitive nature, they obey him. When he speaks the word, the devouring fire becomes gentle, and toucheth not a hair of the children he will preserve ; the hunger-starved lions suspend their ravenous nature, when so good a morsel as Daniel is set before them ; and the sun, which had been in perpetual motion since its creation, obeys the writ of ease God sent it in Joshua's time, and stands still. Shall insensible and sensible creatures be punctual to his orders, pas- sively acknowledge his authority? shall lions and serpents obey God in their places? — and shall not man, who can, by reason, argue out the sovereignty of God, and understand the sense and goodness of his laws, and actively obey God with that will he hath enriched him with above other creatures ? Yet the truth is, every sensitive, yea, every senseless creature, obeys God more than his rational, more than his gracious creatures in this world. The rational creatures since the fall have a prevailing principle of corruption. Let the obe- vol.. II. — 30 466 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. dience of other creatures incite us more to imitate them, and shame our remissness in not acknowledging the dominion of God, in the just way he prescribes us to walk in. Well then, let us not pretend to own God as our Lord, and yet act the part of rebels; let us give him the reverence, and pay him that obedience, which of right be- longs to so great a King. Whatsoever he speaks as a true God ought- to be believed ; whatsoever he orders as a sovereign God, ought to be obeyed ; let not God have less than man, nor man have more than God. It is a common principle writ upon the reason of all men, that respect and observance is due to the majesty of a man, much more to the Majesty of God as a Lawgiver. 2d. As this doctrine presents us motives, so it directs us to thj; manner and kind of our obedience to God. (1.) It must be with a respect to his authority. As the veracity of God is the formal object of faith, and the reason why we believs the things he hath revealed ; so the authority of God is the forma.l object of our obedience, or the reason why we observe the things he hath commanded. There must be a respect to his will as the rule, as well as to his glory as the end. It is not formally obedience that is not done with regard to the order of God, though it may be ma- terially obedience, as it answers the matter of the precept. As when men will abstain from excess and rioting, because it is ruinous to their health, not because it is forbidden by the great Lawgiver ; this is to pay a respect to our own conveniency and interest, not a con- scientious observance to God ; a regard to our health, not to oui Sovereign; a kindness to ourselves, not a justice due to the rights of God. There must not only be a consideration of the matter of the precept as convenient, but a consideration of the authority of the- Lawgiver as obligatory. " Thus saith the Lord," ushers in everj order of his, directing our eye to the authority enacting it ; Jero- boam did God's will of prophecy in taking the kingdom of Israel-, and the devils may be subservient in God's will or providence ; bui, neither of them are put upon the account of obedience, because not done intentionally with any conscience of the sovereignty of God. God will have this owned by a regular respect to it ; so much he insists upon the honor of it, that the sacrifice of Christ, God-man, was most agreeable to him, not only as it was great and admu-able in it- self, but also for that ravishing obedience to his will, whicli was the life and glory of his sacrifice, whereby the justice of God was not only owned in the offering, but the sovereignty of God owned in the obedience. ^' He became obedient unto death ; wherefore God highly exalted him" (Phil. ii. 8). (2.) It must be the best and most exact obedience. The most sovereign authority calls for the exactest and lowest observance ; the highest Lord for the deepest homage ; being, he is, a " great King, he must have the best in our flock" (Mal..i. 14). Obedience is due to God, as King, and the choicest obedience is due to him, as he is the most excellent King. The more majestic and noble any man is, the more careful we arc in our manner of service to him. We are bound to obey God, not only under the title of a "Lord" in regard of jurisdiction and political subjection, but under the title of a true ON GOD'S DOMINION. 467 "Lord and Master," in regard of propriety ; since we are not only Ills subjects but his servants, the exactest obedience is due to God, jure servitutis ; " When jou have done all, say you are unprofitable servants" (Luke, xvii. 10), because we can do nothing which we owe not to God, (3.) Sincere and inward obedience. As it is a part of his sover- eignty to prescribe laws not only to man in his outward state, but to his conscience, so it is a part of our subjection to receive his laws into our will and heart. The authority of his laws exceeds human laws in the extent and riches of them, and our acknowledgment of his sovereignty cannot be right, but by subjecting the faculties of our soul to the Lawgiver of our souls; we else acknowledge his au- thority to be as limited as the empire of man ; when his will not only sways the outward action, but the inward motion, it is a giving him the honor of his high throne above the throne of mortals. The right of God ougiit to be preserved undamaged in affection, as well as action. (4.) It must be sole obedience. We are ordered to serve him only ; " Him only shalt thou serve" (Matt. iv. 10) : as the only Supreme Lord, as being the highest Sovereign, it is fit he should have the highest obedience before all earthly sovereigns, and as being unpar- alleled by any among all the nations, so none must have an obe- dience equal to him. When God commands, if the highest power •on earth countermands it, tlue precept of God must be preferred be* fore the countermand of the creature. " Whether it be right in the sight of God, to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye" (Acts, iv. 18, 19). We must never give place to the authority of all the monarchs in the world, to the prejudice of that obedience we owe to the Supreme Monarch of heaven and earth ; this would be to Elace the throne of God at the footstool of man, and debase him elow the rank of a creature. Loj^alty to man can never recompense for the mischief accruing from disloyalty to God. All the obedience we are to give to man, is to be paid in obedience to God, and with an eye to his precept : therefore, what servants do for their masters, they must do " as to the Lord" (Col. iii. 28) ; and children are to obey their parents " in the Lord" (Eph. vi. 1). The authority of God is to be eyed in all the services payable to man ; proper and true obedience hath God solely for its principal and primary object; all obedience to man that interferes with that, and would justie out obedience to God, is to be refused. What obedience is due to man, is but rendered as a part of obedienceto God, and a stooping of his authority. (5.) It must be universal obedience. The laws of man are not to be universally obeyed ; some may be oppressing and unjust : no man hath authority to make an unjust law, and no subject is bound to obey an unrighteous law ; but God being a righteous . Sovereign, there is not one of his laws but doth necessarily oblige us to obe- dience. Whatsoever this Supreme Power declares to be his will, it must be our care to observe ; man, being his creature, is bound to be sabject to whatsoever laws he doth impose to the meanest as well as to the greatest : they having equally a stamp of Divine authority 468 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. upon them. We are not to pick and clioose among his ])recept3 this is to pare away part of his authority, and render him a half so v- eloign. It must be universal in all places. An Englishman in Spain is bound to obey the Laws of that country wherein he resides: and so not responsible there for the breach of the laws of his native country. In the same condition is a Spaniard in England. But the laws of God are to be obeyed in every part of the world ; whereso- ever Divine Providence doth cast us, it casts us not out of the places where he commands, nor out of the compass of his own empire. He is Lord of the world, and his laws oblige in every part of the world -, they were ordered for a world, and not for a particular climate and territory. (6.) It must be indisputable obedience. All authority requires readiness in the subject; the centurion had it from his soldiers; they went when he ordered them, and came when he beckoned to them (Matt. viii. 9). It is more fit God should have the same promptness from his subjects. We are to obey his orders, though our purblind understanding may not apprehend the reason of every one of them. It is without dispute that he is sovereign, and therefore it is without dispute that we are bound to obey him, without controlling his conduct. A master will not bear it from his slave, why should God from his creature ? Though God admits his creatures some- times to treat with him about the equality of his justice, and also about the reason of some commands, yet sometimes he gives no other reason but his own sovereignty, " Thus saith the Lord ;" to correct the malapertness of men, and exact from them an entire obe- dience to his unlimited and absolute authority. When Abraham wa3 commanded to offer Isaac, God acquaints him not with the reason of his demand till after (Gen. xxii. 2, 12), nor did Abraham enter any demur to the order, or expostulate with God, either from his own natural affection to Isaac, the hardness of the command, it being, as it were, a ripping up of his own bowels, nor the quickness of it after he had been a child of the promise, and a Divine donation above the course of nature. Nor did Paul confer with flesh and blood, and study arguments from nature and interest to oppose the Divine command, when he was sent upon his apostolical employment (Gal. i. 16). The more indisputable his right is to command, the stronger ia our obligation to obey, without questioning the reason of his orders. (7.) It must be joyful obedience. Men are commonly more cheep ful in their obedience to a great prince than to a mean peasant ; be- cause the quality of the master renders the service more honorable. It is a discredit to a prince's government, when his subjects obey him with discontent and dejectedness, as though he were a hard master, and his laws tyrannical and unrighteous. When we pay obedience but with a dull and feeble pace, and a sour and sad tem- per, we blemish our great Sovereign, imply his commands to be grievous, void of that peace and pleasure he proclaims to be in them ; that he deserves no respect from us, if we obey him because we must, and not because we will. Involuntary obedience deserves not the title : it is rather submission than obedience, an act of the body, not of the mind : a mite of obedience with cheerfulness, is better ON GOD'S DOMINION-. 469 than a talent without it. In the little Paul did, he comforts himself in this, that with the " mind he served the law of God" (Rom, vii. ■25) ; the testimonies of God were David's delight (Ps. cxix. 24"). Our understandings must take pleasure in knowing him, our wills de- lightfully embrace him, and our actions be cheerfully squared to him. This credits the sovereignty of God in the world, makes others believe him to be a gracious Lord, and move them to have some veneration for his authority. (8.) It must be a perpetual obedience. As man is a subject as soon as he is a creature, so he is a subject as long as he is a creature. God's sovereignty is of perpetual duration, as long as he is God ; man's obedience must be perpetual, while he is a man. God cannot part with his sovereignty, and a creature cannot be exempted from subjection ; we must not only serve him, but cleave to him (Deut. xiii. 4). Obedience is continued in heaven, his throne is established in heaven, it must be bowed to in heaven, as well as in earth. The angels continually fulfil his pleasure. 7. Exhortation. Patience is a duty flowing from this doctrine. In all strokes upon ourselves, or thick showers upon the church, "the Lord reigns, ' is a consideration to prevent muttering against him, and make us quietly wait to see what the issue of his Divine pleasure will be. It is too great an insolence against the Divine Majesty to censure what he acts, or quarrel with him for what he inflicts. Proud clay doth very unbecomingly swell against an infinite superior. If God be our Sovereign, we ought to subscribe to his afflicting will without debates, as well as to his liberal will with affectionate applauses. We should be as full of patience under his sharper, as of praise under his more grateful, dispen- sations, and be without reluctancy against his penal, as well as his preceptive, pleasure. It is God's part to inflict, and the creature's part to submit. This doctrine affords us motives, and shows us the nature of pa- tience. 1. Motives to it. (1.) God, being Sovereign, hath an absolute right to dispose of all things. His title to our persons and possessions is, upon this ac- count, stronger than our own can be ; we have as much reason to be angry with ourselves, when we assert our worldly right against ■others, as to be angry with God for asserting the right of his domin- ion over us. "Why should we enter a charge against him, because he hath not tempered us so strong in our bodies, drawn us with as fair colors, embellished our spirits with as rich gifts as others ? Is he not the Sovereign of his own goods, to impart what, and in what measure, he pleaseth ? Would you be content your servants should check your pleasure in dispensing your own favors ? It is an un- reasonable thing not to leave God to the exercise of his own domin- ion. Though Job were a pattern of patience, yet he had deep tinc- tures of impatience ; he often complains of God's usage of him as too hard, and stands much upon his own integrity ; but when God comes, in the latter chapters of that book, to justify his carriage to- wards him, he chargeth him not as a criminal, but considers him only as his vassal. He might have found flaws enough in Job's car* 470 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. riage, and corruption enough in Job's nature, to clear the equity of his proceeding as a judge ; but he useth no other medium to con- vince him, but the greatness of his Majesty, the unlimitedness of his sovereignty, which so appals the good man, that he puts his finger on his mouth and stands mute with a self-abhorrency before him, as a Sovereign, rather than as a Judge. When he doth pinch us, and deprive us of what we most affect, his right to do it should silence our lips and calm our hearts from any boisterous uproars against him. (2.) The property of all still remains in God, since he is sovereign. He did not divest himself of the property when he granted us the use ; the earth is his, not ours ; the fulness any of us have, as well as the fulness others have. After he had given the Israelites corn, wine, and oil, he calls them all Ats, and emphatically adds my, to every one of them (Hos. ii. 9). His right is universal over every mite we have, and perpetual too ; he may, therefore, take from us what he please. He did but deposit in our hands for awhile the benefits we enjoy, either children, friends, estate, or lives ; he did not make a total conveyance of them, and alienate kis own property, when he put them into our hands ; we can show no patent for them, wherein the full right is passed over to us, to hold them against his will and pleasure, and implead him if he offer to re-assume them : he re- served a power to dispossess us upon a forfeiture, as he is the Lord and Governor. Did any of us yet answer the condition of his grant? it was his indulgence to allow them so long ; there is reason to sub- mit to him, when he re-assumes what he lent us, and rather to thank him that he lent it so long, and did not seize upon it sooner. (3.) Other things have more reason to complain of our sover- eignty over them, than we of God's exercise of his sovereignty over us. Do we not exercise an authority over our beasts, as to strike them when we please, and merely for our pleasure ; and think we merit no reproof for it, because they are our own, and of a nature inferior to ours ? And shall not God, who is abso- lute, do as much with us, who are more below him than the mean- est creatures are below us ? They are creatures as well as we, and we no more creatures than they ; they were framed by Omnipotence as well as we ; there is no more. difference between them and us in the notion of creatures. As there is no difference between the great- est monarch on earth, and the meanest beggar on the dunghill, in the notion of a man ; the beggar is a man, as well as the monarch, and as much a man ; the difference consists in the special endow- ments we have above them by the bounty of their and our common Creator. We are less, if compared with God, than the worst, mean- est, and most sordid creature can be, if compared with us. Hath not a bird or a hare (if they had a capacity) more reason to complain of men's persecuting them by their hawks and their dogs ? but would their complaints appear reasonable, since both were made for the use of man, and man doth but use the nature of the one to attain a benefit by the other ? Have we any reason to complain of God if he lets loose other creatures, the devouring hounds of the world, to bite and afflict us ? We must not open our lips against him, noi ON GOD'S DOMINION. 471 let our heart swell against his scourge, since both thej and we were made, for his use, as well as other creatures for our ; this is a reason to stifle all complaints against God, but not to make us care- less of preventing afflictions, or emerging out of them by all just ways. The hare hath a nature to shift for itself by its winding and turning, and the bird by its flight ; and neither of them could be blamed, if they were able, should the one scratch out the eyes of the hounds, and the other sacrifice the hawk to its own fury. (4.) It is a folly not to submit to him. Why should we strive against him, since he is an unaccountable Sovereign, and " gives no account of any of his matters ?" (Job, xxxiii, 13.) Who can dis* annul the judgment God gives? There is no appeal from the su- preme court ; a higher court can repeal or null the sentence of an inferior court, but the sentence of the highest stands irreversible, but by itself and its own authority. It is better to lower our sails, than to grapple with one that can shoot us under water ; to submit to that Sovereign whom we cannot subdue. 2. It shows us the true nature of patience in regard of God : it is a submission to God's sovereignty. As the formal object of obe- dience is the authority of God enacting the law, so the formal object of patience is the authority of God inflicting the punishment : as his right of commanding is to be eyed in the one, so his right of punish- ing is to be considered in the other. This was Eli's condition, when he had received a message that might put flesh and blood into a mutiny, the rending the priesthood from his family, and the ruin of his house : yet this consideration, " It is the Lord,'' calms him into submission, and a walling compliance with the Divine pleasure (1 Sam. iii. 18) : " It is the Lord, let him do what seems good in his sight." Job was of the same strain (Job, i. 21) : " The Lord gives, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord ;" he considers God as a sovereign, who was not to be reproached, or have anything uncomely uttered of him, for what he had done. To be patient because we cannot avoid it, or resist it, is a violent, not a loyal patience ; but to submit because it is the will of God to inflict ; to be silent, because the sovereignty of God doth order it, is a pa- tience of a true complexion. The other kind of patience is no other than that of an enemy that will free himself as soon as he can, and by any way, though never so violent, that offers itself. This sort of patience is that of a subject acknowledging the supreme authority over him, and that he ought to be ordered by the will, and to the glory of God, more than by his own will, and for his own ease ; "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth" (Ps. xxxix. 10) ; not because I could not help it, but " because thou didst it," thou who art my sovereign Lord. The greatness of God claims an awful and invio- lable respect from his creatures in what way soever he doth dispose of them ; this is due to him ; since his kingdom ruleth over all, his kingdom should be acknowledged by all, and his royal authority ■ubmitted to in aU that he doth. DISCOURSE XIV. ON GOD'S PATIENCE. Nahitic, I. 3. — The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked : the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the cloudt are the dust of his feet. The subject of this prophecy is God's sentence against Nineveh, the head and metropohs of the Assyrian empire : a city famous for its strength, and thickness of its walls, and the multitude of its towers for defence against an enemy. The forces of this empire did God use as a scourge against the Israelites, and by their hands ruined Samaria, the chief city of the ten tribes, and transplanted them as captives into another country (2 Kings, xvii. 5, 6), about six years after Hezekiah came to the crown of Judah (2 Kings, xviii. compared with chap. xvii. 6), in whose time, or, as some think, later, Nahum uttered this prophecy. The name, Nahum, signifies Comforter ; though the matter of his prophecy be dreadful to Nineveh, it was comfortable to the people of God : for a promise is made, (ver. 7), " The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble ; and he knoweth them that trust in him." And an encouragement to Judah, to keep their solemn feasts, (ver. 15 : and also in chap. ii. 3), with a declaration of the misery of Nineveh, and the destruction of it. Observe, 1. In all the fears of God's people, God will have a Comforter for them. Judah might well be dejected with the calamity of their brethren, not knowing but it might be their own turn shortly after. They knew not where the ambition of the Assyrian would stop ; but God by his prophets calms their fears of their furious neighbor, by predicting to them the ruin of their feared adversary, 2. The destruction of the church's enemies is the comfort of the church. By that God is glorified in his justice, and the church se- cured in its worship. 3. The victories of persecutors secure them not from being the triumphs of others. The Assyrians that conquered and captived Israel, were themselves to be conquered and captived by the Medes. The whole oppressing empire is threatened with destruction in the ruin of their chief city ; accordingly it was accomplished, and the empire extinguished by a greater power. God burns the rod when it hath done the work he appointed it for ; and the wisp of Btraw wherewith the vessels are scoured, is flung into the fire, or upon the dunghill. Nahuni begins his prophecy majestically, with a description of the ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 473 %VTatli and fury of God, (Ver, 2), " God is jealous and tlie Lord revengetli ; the Lord revengeth, and is furious : the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and reserveth wrath for his enemies." And therefore the whole of it is called (ver. 1), " The burden of Nineveh," as those prophecies are, which are composed of threaten- ings of judgments, which lie as a mighty weight upon the heads and backs of sinners. Ood is jealous — jealous of his glory and worship, and jealous for his people, and their security. He cannot long bear the oppressions of his people, and the boasts of his enemies. He is jealous for him- self, and is jealous for you of Judah, who retain his worship. He is not forgetful of those that remember him, nor of the danger of those that are desirous to maintain his honor in the world. In this first •expression, the prophet uses the covenant name, God ; the covenant runs, " I am your God," or " the Lord your God ;" mostly God with- out Lord, never Lord without God : and, therefore, his jealousy here is meant of the care of his people, and the relation that his actions against his enemies have to his servants. He is a lover of his own, and a revenger on his enemies. The Lord revengeth^ and is furious. — He now describes God by a name of sovereignty and power, when he describes him in his wrath and fury, and is furious. Heb. nan bra, Lord ofliot anger. God will vindicate his own glory, and have his right on his enemies in a way of punishment, if they will not give it him in a way of obedience. It is three times repeated, to show the certainty of the judgment -.^ and the name of " Lord" added to every one, to intimate the power wherewith the judgment should be executed. It is not a fatherly correction of children in a way of mercy, but an offended Sovereign's destruction of his enemies in a way of vengeance. There is an anger of God with his own people, which hath more of mercy than wrath ; in this his rod is guided by his bowels. There is a fury of God against his enemies, where there is sole wrath without any tincture of mercy ; when his sword is all edge, without any balsam drops upon it. Such a fury as David deprecates (Ps. vi. 1) : " O Lord, re- buke me not in thy anger, nor chasten me in thy sore displeasure," with a fury untempered with grace, and insupportable wrath. He reserves wrath for his enemies. — He lays it up in his treasury, to be brought out and expended in a due season. " Wrath" is supplied by our translators, and is not in the Hebrew. He reserves, what ? — that which is too sharp to be expressed, too great to be conceived : a vengeance it is. And x'n tji^-i, He reserves it. He that hath an in- finite wrath, he reserves it ; that hath a strength and power to exe- cute it. (Ver. 3.) The Lord is slow to anger, Heb. d'^ss -|ns, ofhroad nostrils. The anger of God is expressed by this word, which signifies " nos- trils :" as, Job, ix. 13, " If God will not withdraw his anger," Hd). *' his nostrils." And the anger whereby the wicked are consumed, is called the " breath of nostrils" (Job, iv. 9) ; and when he is angry, smoke and fire are said to go out of his nostrils (2 Sam. ii. 9) ; and In Psalm Ixxiv. 1, " Why doth thy anger smoke ?" Heb. " Why do ■ Ribeni, in loc. 474 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. tliy nostrils smoke ?'' So the rage of a horse, when he is provoked in battle, is called the glory of his nostrils (Job, xxxix. 20). He breathes quick fumes, and neighs with fury. And slowness to anger is here expressed by the phrase of " long or wide nostrils :" because in a vehement anger, the blood boiling about the heart, exhales men's spirit, which fume up, and break out in dilated nostrils. But where tlie passages are straighter the spirits have not so quick a vent, and therefore raise more motions within ; or, because the wider the nos- trils are, the more cool air is drawn in to temper the heat of the heart, where the angry spirits are gathered ; and so the passion ia allayed, and sooner calmed, God speaks of himself in Scripture often after the rate of men ; Jeremiah prays (ch. xv. 15) that God would not take him away in his long-suffering, Heb. " in the length of his nostrils," i. e. Be not slow and backward in thy anger against my persecutors, as to give them time and opportunity to destroy me. The nostrils, as well as other members of a human body, are ascribed to God. He is slow to anger ; he hath anger in his nature, but is not always in the execution of it. And great in power. — This may refer to his patience as the cause of it, or as a bar to the abuse of it. 1. " He is slow to anger, and great in power," i. e. his power mod- erates his anger ; he is not so impotent as to be at the command of his passions, as men are ; he can restrain his anger under just pro- vocations to exercise it. His power over himself is the cause of his slowness to wrath, as Numb. xiv. 17 : " Let the power of my Lord be great," saith Moses, when he pleads for the Israelites' pardon. Men that are great in the world are quick in passions, and are not so ready to forgive an injury, or bear with an offender, as one of a meaner rank. It is a want of a power over a man's self that makes him do unbecoming things upon a provocation. A prince that can bridle his passion, is a king over himself, as well as over his subjects. God is slow to anger, because great in power : he hath no less power over himself than over his creatures: he can sustain great injuries without an immediate and quick revenge : he hath a power of pa- tience, as well as a power of justice. 2. Or thus : "He is slow to anger and great in power." He is slow to anger, but not for want of power to revenge himself; his power is as great to punish, as his patience to spare. It seems thus, that slowness to anger is brought in as an objection against the re- venge proclaimed. What do you tell us of vengeance, vengeance, nothing but such repetitions of vengeance ? — as though we were ig- norant that God is slow to anger. It is true, saith the prophet, I acknowledge it as much as you, that God is slow to anger; but withal, great in power. His anger certainly succeeds his abused patience ; he will not always bridle in his wrath, but one time or other let it march out in fury against his adversaries. The Assyrians, who had captived the ten tribes, and been victorious a little against the Jews, might think that the God of Israel had been conquered by their gods, as well as the people professing him had been sub- dued by their arms ; that God had lost all his power ; and the Jews might argue, from God's patience to his enemies, against the credit ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 475 of the prophet's denoimcing revenge. The piophet answers, to the terror of the one, and the comfort of the other, that this indulgence to his enemies, and not accounting with them for their crimes, pro* ceeded from the greatness of his patience, and not from any debihty in his power. As it refers to the Assyrian, it may be rendered thus: You Ninevites, upon your repentance after Jonah's thundering of judgments, are witnesses of the slowness of God to anger, and had your punishments deferred ; but, falling to your old sins, you shall find a real punishment, and that he hath as much power to execute his ancient threatenings, as he had then compassion to recall them ; his patience to you then was not for want of power to ruin you, but was the effect of his goodness towards you. As it refers to the Jews, it may be thus paraphrased ; Do not despise this threatening against your enemies because of the greatness of their might, the seeming stability of their empire, and the terror they possess all the nations with round about them : it may be long before it comes, but assure yourselves the threatening I denounce shall certainly be exe ■ cuted ; though he hath patience to endure them a hundred and thirty-five years (for so long as it was before Nineveh was destroyed after this threatening, as Ribera, in loc.^ computes from the years of the reign of the kings of Judah), yet he hath also power to verify his word, and accomplish his will : assure yourselves, he will not at all acquit the wicked. He will not acquit the wicked. — He will not always account the crim- inal an innocent, as he seems to do by a present sparing of them, and dealing with them as if they were destitute of any provoking carriage towards him, and he void of any resentment of it. He will " not acquit the wicked ;" how is this? Who then can be saved ? Is there no place for remission? He will " not acquit the wicked.'* i. e. he will not acquit obstinate sinners. As he hath patience for the wicked, so he hath mercy for the penitent. The wicked are the subjects of his long-suffering, but not of his acquitting grace ; he doth not presently punish their sins, because he is slow to anger ; but without their repentance he will not blot out their sins, because he is righteous in judgment : if God should acquit them without re- pentance for their crimes, he must himself repent of his own law and righteous sanction of it. " He will not acquit," i. e. he will Tiot go back from the thing he hath spoken, and forbear, at long run the punishment he hath threatened. The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind. — The way of God signifies sometimes the law of God, sometimes the providential operations of God : " Is not my way equal ?" (Ezek. xviii. 25). It seems there to take in both. And in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. — The pro- phet describes here the fight of God with the Assyrians, as if he rushed upon them with a mighty noise of an army, raising the dust with the feet of their horses, and motion of their chariots. ^ Symbol- icalljr, it signifies the multitude of the Chaldean and Median forces, invading, besieging, and storming the city. It signifies, 1. The rule of providence. The way of God is in every motion " Page 359, col. 1. « Tiriuus, in. loc. 476 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. of the creature ; lie rules all things, whirlwinds, storms, and clouds ; his way is in all their walks, in the whirlings and blusterings of the one, in the raising and dissolving the other. He blows up the winds, and compacts the clouds, to make them serviceable to his designs. 2. The management of wars by God. His way is in the storm : as he was the Captain of the Assyrians against Samaria, so he will be the Captain of the Medes against Nineveh : as Israel was not so much wasted by the Assyrians as by the Lord, who levied and armed their forces ; so Nineveh shall be subverted, rather by God, than by the arms of the Medes. Their force is described not to be so much from human power as Divine. God is President in all the commotions of the world, his way is in every whirlwind. 3. The easiness of executing the judgment. He is of so great power that he can excite tempests in the air, and overthrow them with the clouds, which are the dust of his feet : he can blind his enemies, and avenge himself on them : he is Lord of clouds, and can fill their womb with hail, lightnings, and thunders, to burst out upon those he kindles his anger against : he is of so great force, that he needs not use the strength of his arm, but the dust of his feet, to effect his destroying purpose. 4. The suddenness of the judgment. Whirlwinds come suddenly, without any harbingers to give notice of their approach : clouds are swift in their motion ; " Who are those that fly as a cloud ?" (Isa. Ix. 8), i. e. with a mighty nimbleness. What God doth, he shall do on the sudden, come upon them before they are aware, be too quick for them in his motion to overrun and overreach them. The winds are described with wings, in regard of the quickness of their motion. 5. The terror of judgments. " The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind," i.^e. in great displeasure. The anger of the Lord is often compared to a storm ; he shall bring clouds of judgments upon them, many and thick, as terrible as when a day is turned into night, by the mustering of the darkest clouds that interpose between the sun and the earth. " Clouds and darkness are round about him, and a fire goes before him," when he "burns up his enemies" (Ps. xcvii. 2, 3). The judgments shall have terror without mercy, as clouds ob- scure the light, and are dark masks before the face and glory of the sun, and cut off its refreshing beams from the earth. Clouds note multitude and obscurity ; God could crush them without a whirl- wind, beat them to powder with one touch, but he will bring his judgments in the most surprising and amazing manner to flesh and blood, so that all tlieir glory shall be changed into nothing but ter- ror, by the noise of the bellowing winds, and the clouds, like ink, blacking the heavens. 6. The confusion of the offenders upon God's proceeding. A whirlwind is not only a boisterous wind, that hurls and rolls every- thing out of its place, but, by its circular motion, by its winding to all points of the compass, it confounds things, and jumbles them to- gether. It keeps not one point, but, by a circumgyration, toucheth upon all. Clouds, like dust, shall be blown in their face, and gum ap their eyes : they shall be in a posture of confusion, not know what counsels to take, what motions to resolve upon. Let them look ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 477 to every point of heaven and earth, they shall meet with a whirl- wind to confound them, and cloudy dust to blind them. 7. The irresistibleness of the judgment. Winds have more than a giant-like force, a torrent of compacted air, that, with an invincible wifulness, bears all before it, displaceth the firmest trees, and levels the tallest towers, and pulls up bodies from their natural place. Clouds also are over our heads, and above our reach ; when God places them upon his people for defence they are an invincible se- curity (Isa. iv. 5) ; and when he moves them, as his chariot, against a people, they end in an irresistible destruction. Thus the ruin of the wicked is described (Prov. x. 25) : "As the whirlwind passes, so is the wicked no more :" it blows them down, sweeps them away,, they irrecoverably fall before the force of it. What heart can en dure, and what hands can be strong, in the days wherein God doth deal with them ! (Ezek. xxii. 14). Thus is the judgment against Nineveh described : God hath his way in the whirlwind, to thunder down their strongest walls, which were so thick that chariots could march abreast upon them ; and batter down their mighty towers^ which that city had in multitudes upon their walls. They are the first words I intend to insist upon, to treat of the Patience of God described in those words, " The Lord is slow to anger." Doctrine. Slowness to anger, or admirable patience, is the property of the Divine nature. As patience signifies suffering, so it is not in God. The Divine nature is impassible, incapable of any impair, it cannot be touched by the violences of men, nor the essential glorv of it be diminished by the injuries of men ; but as it signifies a will- ingness to defer, and an unwillingness to pour forth his wrath upon sinful creatures, he moderates his provoked justice, and forbears tc revenge the injuries he daily meets with in the world. He suffers no grief by men's wronging him, but he restrains his arm from pun- ishing them according to their merits ; and thus there is patience in every cross a man meets with in the world, because, though it be a punishment, it is less than is merited by the unrighteous rebel, and less than may be inflicted by a righteous and powerful God. This patience is seen in his providential works in the world : " He suffered the nations to walk in their own way," and the witness of his provi- dence to them was his " giving them rain and fruitful seasons, filling their heart with food and gladness" (Acts, xvi. 17). The heathens took notice of it, and signified it by feigning their god Saturn, to be bound a whole year in a soft cord, a cord of wool, and expressed it by this proverb: "The mills of the gods grind slowly;" i. e. God doth not use men with that severity that they deserve ; the mills being usually turned by criminals condemned to that work.'i This, in Scripture, is frequently expressed by a slowness to anger (Ps. ciii. 8), sometimes by long-suffering, which is a patience with duration (Ps.' cxlv. 8 ; Joel, ii. 13). He is slow to anger, he takes not the first occasions of a provocation ; he is long-suffering (Rom. ix. 22), and (Ps. Ixxxvi. 15) he forbears punishment upon many occasions of- fered him. It is long before he consents to give fire to his wrath, ' Rhodigi. lib. vi. c. 14. t78 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. and sLoot out bis thunderbolts. Sin hath a loud cr_y, but God seems to stop his ears, not to hear the clamor it raises and the charge it presents. He keeps his sword a long time in the sheath ; one calls the patience of God the sheath of his sword, upon those words (Ezek, xxi. 3), "I will draw forth my sword out of his sheath." This is one remarkable letter in the name of God ; he himself proclaims it (Exod xxxiv. 6) : " The Lord, the Lord God, merciful, gracious, and long- suffering." And Moses pleads it in the behalf of the people (Numb. xiv. 18), where he placeth it in the first rank; the Lord is "long- suffering and of great mercy :" it is the first spark of mercy, and ush- ers it to its exercises in the world. " In the Lord's proclamation, it is put in the middle link, mercy and truth together ; mercy could have no room to act if patience did not prepare the way ; and his truth and goodness, in his promise of the Redeemer, would not have been manifest to the world if he had shot his arrows as soon as men com mitted their sins, and deserved his punishment. This perfection is expressed by other phrases, as "keeping silence" (Ps. 1. 21) : "These things hast thou done, and I kept silence," ■'niu nnm nior rbs ; it signifies to behave one's self as a deaf or dumb man. I did not fly in thy face, as some do, with a great noise upon a light provoca- tion, as if their life, honor, estates, were at the stake ; I did not presently call thee to the bar, and pronounce judicial sentence upon thee according to the law, but demeaned myself as if I had been ignorant of thy crimes, and had not been invested with the power of judging thee for them. GhaM. " I waited for thy conversion." God's patience is the silence of his justice, and the first whisper of his mercy. It is also expressed by not laying folly to men (Job, xxiv, 12) ; men groan under the oppressions of others, yet God lays not folly to them, i. e. to the oppressors ; God suffers them to go on with impunity. He doth not deliver his people because he would try them, and takes not revenge upon the unrighteous, because in pa- tience he doth bear with them : patience is the life of his providence in this world. He chargeth not men with their crimes here, but re- serves them, upon impenitency, for another trial. This attribute is so great a one, that it is signally called by the name of "Perfection" (Matt. V. 45, 48). He had been speaking of Divine goodness, and patience to evil men, and he concludes, " Be you perfect," &c., im- plying it to be an amazing perfection of the Divine nature, and wor- thy of imitation. In the prosecution of this, I. Let us consider the nature of this pa- tience. II. Wherein it is manifested. III. Why God doth exercise so much patience. IV. The Use. I. The nature of this patience. 1. It is part of the Divine goodness and mercy, yet differs from both. God being the greatest goodness, hath the greatest mildness. Mildness is always the companion of true goodness, and the greater the goodness the greater the mildness. Who so holy as Christ, and who so meek ? God's slowness to anger is a branch or slip from hie mercy (Ps. cxlv. 8) : "The Lord is full of compassion, slow to anger " « A)/?^ov 6t oTL eyxei-pi^tov rfjv Ti/nupiav Ka'r.el, koXeov 6^ rovreaTt t/)v 6rJKi/v tov lyxetp-Aiot •JOKpudvfiiav ovofiu^d. Tlieodorct, in. loc. ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 4^9 It differs from mercy in the formal consideration of the object ; mercy respects the creature as miserable, patience respects the creature as criminal ; mercy pities him in his misery, and patience bears with the sin which engendered that misery, and is giving birth to more. Again, mercy is one end of patience ; his long-suifering is partly to glorify his grace : so it was in Paul (1 Tim. i. 16). As slowness to anger springs from goodness, so it makes mercy the butt and mark of its operations (Isa. xxx. 18) : " He waits that he may be gracious." Goodness sets God upon the exercise of patience, and patience sets many a sinner on running into the arms of mercy. That mercy which makes God ready to embrace returning sinners, makes him willing to bear with them in their sins, and wait their return. It differs also from goodness, in regard of the object. The object of goodness is every creature, angels, men, all inferior creatures, to the lowest worm that crawls upon the ground. The object of patience IS, primarily, man, and secondarily, those oreatures that respect men's support, conveniency, and delight ; but they are not the objects of patience, as considered in themselves, but in relation to man, for whose use they were created ; and therefore God's patience to them is properly his patience with man. The lower creatures do not in- jure God, and therefore are not tlie objects of his patience, but as they are forfeited by man, and man deserves to be deprived of them ; as man in this regard falls under the patience of God, so do those creatures which are designed for man's good. That patience which spares man, spares other creatures for him, v.'bich were all forfeited by man's sin, as well as his own life, and are lathier the testimonies of God's patience, than the proper objects of it. The object of God's goodness, then, is the whole creation ; not a devil in hell, but as a creature, is a mark of his goodness, but not of his patience. There is a kind of sparing exercised to the devils, in deferring their com- plete punishment, and hitherto keeping off the day wherein their final sentence is to be pronounced ; yet tlie Scripture never mentions this by the aame of slowness to anger, or long-suffering. It can no more be called patience, than a prince's keeping a malefactor in chains, and not pronouncing a condemning sentence, or not executing a sen- tence already pronounced, can be called a patience ^vith him, when it is not out of kindness to the offender, but for some reasons of state. God's sparing the devils from their total punishment — which they have not yet, but are " reserved in chains, under darkness for it" (Jude, 6) — is not in order to repentance, or attended with any invita- tions from God, or hopes in them ; and, therefore, cannot come un- der the same title as God's sparing man : where there is no proposal of mercy, there is no exercise of patience. The fallen angels had no mercy reserved for them, nor any sacrifices prepared for them ; God " spared not the angels" (2 Pet. ii. 4), " but delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment," i. e. he had no patience for them ; for patience is properly a temporary sparing a person, with a waiting of his relenting, and a change of his injurious de- meanor. The object of goodness is more extensive than that of pa- tience : nor do they both consider the object under the same relation. Goodness respects things in a capacity, or in a state of creation, and 4:80 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. orings them forth inlo creation, and nurseth and supports them slp creatures. Patience considers theui already created, and fallen short of the duty of creatures ; it considers them a,s siuiitTS, or in relation to sinners. Had not .-^in entered, pftticnce had never been exercised ; but goodness had been exercised, had the creature stood firm in its createti state withoiu any transgression ; nay, creation could not have been without goodness, because it was goodness to create ; but patience had never been known without an object, which could not have been without a^i injury. Where there is no wrong, no suffer- ing, nor like to be any, patience hath no prospect of any operation. So, then, goodness respects persons as creatures, patience as trans- gressors ; mercy eyes men as miserable and obnoxious to punish- rrent ; . patience considers men as sinful, and provoking to punish- ment. 2. Since it is a part of goodness and mercy, it is not an insensible patience. What is the fruit of pure goodness cannot be from a weak- ness of resentment ; he is " slow to anger ;" the prophet doth not say, he is incapable of anger, or cannot discern what is a real object of anger ; it implies, that he doth consider every provocation, but he is not hasty to discharge his arrows upon the offenders ; he sees all, while he bears with them ; his omniscience excludes any ignorance ; he cannot but see every wrong ; every aggravation in that wrong, every step and motion from the beginning to the completing it ; for he knows all our thoughts ; he sees the sin and the sinner at the same time ; the si n with an eye of abhorrency, and the sinner with an eye of pity. His eye is upon their iniquities, and his hatred edged against them ; while he stands with arms open, waiting a penitent return. When he publisheth his patience in his keeping silence, he publisheth also his resolution, to set sin in order before their eyes (Ps. 1. 21) : " I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thy eyes." Think me not such a piece of phlegm, and so dull as not to resent your insolences ; you shall see, in my final charge, when I come to judge, that not a wry look escaped my knowledge, that I had an eye t-^ heboid, and a heart to loathe every one of your trans- gressions. The ch urch was ready to think that God's slowness to de- liver her, and his bearing with her oppressors, was not from any pa- tience in his nature, but a drowsy carelessness, a senseless lethargy (Ps. xliv. 23) : " Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord ?" We must conclude him an inapprehensive God, before we can conclude him an insensible God. As his delaying his promise is not slackness to his people (2 Pet. iii. 9), so his deferring of punishment is not from a stupidity under the affronts offered him. 3. Since it is a [)art of his mercy and goodness, it is not a con- strained or faint-hearted patience. It is not a slowness to anger,^ arising from a despondency of his own power to revenge. He hath as much power to punish as he hath to forbear punishment. He that created a world in six days, and that by a word, wants not a strength to crush all mankind in one minute ; and with as much ease as a word in^ports, can give satisfaction to his justice in the blood of the offender. Patience in man is many times interpreted, and truly too, a cowardice, a feebleness of spirit, and a want of strength. But it is ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 48J QOt from the shortness of the Divine arm, that he cannot reach us, Qor from the feebleness of his hand, that he cannot strike us. It is not because he cannot level us with the dust, dash us in pieces like a potter's vessel, or consume us as a moth. He can make the might- iest to fall before him, and lay the strongest at his feet the first mo- ment of their crime. He that did not want a powerful word to create a world, cannot want a powerful word to dissolve the whole frame of it, and raze it out of being. It is not, therefore, out of a distrust of his own power, that he hath supported a sinful world for so manj ages, and patiently borne the blasphemies of some, the neglects of others, and the ingratitude of all, without inflicting that severe jus iice which righteously he might have done ; he wants no thunder to crash the whole generation of men, nor waters to drown them, nor earth to swallow them up. How easy is it for him to single out this or that particular person to be the object of his wrath, and not of his patience ! What he hath done to one, he may to another ; any sig- nal judgment he hath sent upon one, is an evidence that he wants not power to inflict it upon all. Could he not make the motes in the air to choke us at every breath, rain thunderbolts instead of drops of water, fill the clouds with a consuming lightning, take ofi" the reverence and fear of man, which he hath imprinted upon the creature, spirit our domestic beasts to be our executioners, unloose the tiles from the house-top to brain us, or make the fall of a house to crush us ? It is but taking out the pins, and giving a blast, and the work is done. And doth he want a power to do any of those things ? It is not then a faint-hearted, or feeble patience, that he exerciseth towards man. 4. Since it is not for want of power over the creature, it is from a ftdness of power over himself. This is in the text, " The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power ;" it is a part of his dominion over himself, whereby he can moderate, and rule his own affections accord- ing to the holiness of his own will. As it is the effect of his power, so it is an argument of his power ; the greatness of the effect demon- strates the fulness and sufficiency of the cause. The more feeble any man is in reason the less command he hath over his passions, and he is the more heady to revenge. Kevenge is a sign of a child- ish mind ; the stronger any man is in reason, the more command he hath over himself. " He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty ; and he that rules his own spirit, than he that takes a city" (Prov. xvi. 32) ; he that can restrain his anger, is stronger than the Caesars and Alexanders of the world, that have filled the earth with slain carcasses and ruined cities. By the same reason, God's slowness to anger is a greater argument of his power than the creating a world, or the power of dissolving it by a word; in this he hath a dominion over creatures, in the other over himself; this is the reason he will not return to destroy ; because " I am God, and not man" (Hos. xi.. 9); I am not so weak and impotent as man, that cannot restrain his anger. This is a strength possessed only by a God, wherein a crea- ture is no more able to parallel him, than in any other : so t bat he may be said to be the Lord of himself; as it is in the verse before the text, that he is the Lord of anger, in the Hebrew, instead of V')L. II. — 31 482 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES, " furious," as we translate it ; so lie is the Lord of patience. The end why God is patient, is to show his power. " What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suifering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction ?" (Rom. ix. 22). To show his wrath upon sinners, and his power over him- self in bearing such indignities, and forbearing punishment so long, when men were vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, of whom there was no hopes of amendment. Had he immediately broken in pieces those vessels, his power had not so eminently appeared as it hath done, in tolerating them so long, that had provoked him to take them off so often ; there is indeed the power of his anger, and there is the power of his patience ; and his power is more seen in his patience than in his wrath : it is no wonder that He that is above all, is able to crush all ; but it is a wonder, that he that is provoked by all, doth not, upon the first provocation, rid his hands of all. This is the reason why he did bear such a weight of provocations from vessels of wrath, prepared for ruin, that he might ytwoiaui t6 Swuib^ itiTov, show what he was able to do, the lordship and royalty he had over himself The power of God is more manifest in his patience to a multitude of sinners, than it would be in creating millions of worlds out of nothing; this was the Sviajuf «i5roD, a power over him- self 5. This patience being a branch of mercy, the exercise of it is founded in the death of Christ. Without the consideration of this, we cwi give no account why Divine patience should extend itself to us, and not to the fallen angels. The threatening extends itself to us as well as to the fallen angels ; the threatening must necessarily have sunk man, as well as those glorious creatures, had not Christ stepped in to our relief Had not Christ interposed to satisfy the justice of God, man upon his sin had been actually bound over to punishment, as well as the fallen angels were upon theirs, and been fettered in chains as strong as those spirits feel.^ The reason wh\ man was not hurled into the same deplorable condition upon his sin, as they were, is Christ's promise of taking our nature, and not theirs. Had God designed Christ's taking their nature, the same patience had been exercised towards them, and the same offers would have been made to them, as are made to us. In regard to these fruits of this patience, Christ is said to buy the wickedest apostates fi-om him : " Denying the Lord that bought them" (1 Pet. ii. 1). Such were bought by him, as " bring upon themselves just destruction, and ■whose damnation slumbers not" (ver. 3) ; he purchased the continu- ance of their lives, and the stay of their execution, that ofiers of grace might be made to them. This patience must be either upon the account of the law, or the gospel ; for there are no other rules, whereby God governs the world. A fruit of the law it was not-, that spake nothing but curses after disobedience ; not a letter of mercy was writ upon that, and therefore nothing of patience ; death and wrath were denounced ; no slowness to anger intimated. It must be therefore upon account of the gospel, and a fruit of the cov- enant of grace, whereof Christ was Mediator. Besides this perfection f Ti'Stiinl. de Natur. et Grat. Thess. 119. ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 483 being God's " "waiting that lie might be gracious" (Isa. xxx. 18), that which made way for God's grace made way for his waiting to mani- fest it. God discovered not his grace, but in Christ ; and therefore disooTered not his patience but in Christ ; it is in him he met with the satisfaction of his justice, that he might have a ground for the manifestation of his patience. And the sacrifices of the law, wherein the life of a beast was accepted for the sin of man, discovered the ground of his forbearance of them to be the expectation of the great Sacrifice, whereby sin was to be completely expiated (Gen. viii. 21) The publication of his patience to the end of the world is j^resently after the sweet savor he found in Noah's sacrifice. The promised and designed coming of Christ, was the cause of that patience God exercised before in the world ; and his gathering the elect together, is the reason of his patience since his death. 6. The naturalness of his veracity and holiness, and the strictness of his justice, are no bars to the exercise of his patience. (1.) His veracity. In those threatenings where the punishment is expressed, but not the time of inflicting it prefixed and determined in the threatening, his veracity suffers no damage by the delaying execution ; so it be once done, though a long time after, the credit of his truth stands unshaken : as when God promises a thing with- out fixing the the time, he is at liberty to pitch upon what time he pleases for the performance of it, without staining his faithfulness to his word, by not giving the thing promised presently. Why should the deferring of justice upon an offender be any more against his veracity than his delaying an answer to the petitions of a suppliant? But the difference will lie in the threatening. " In the day thou eat- est thereof, thou shalt die the death" (Gen. ii. 17). The time was there settled ; " in that day thou shalt die ;" some refer " day" to eating, not to dying ; and render the sentence thus : I do not pro- hibit thee the eating this fruit for a day or two, but continually. In whatsoever day thou eatest IJiiereof, thou shalt die ; but not under- standing his dying that very day he should eat of it ; referring " day" to the extensiveness of the prohibition, as to time. But to leave this as uncertain, it may be answered, that as in some threat- enings a condition is implied, though not expressed, as in that posi- tive denouncing of the destruction of Ninevah : " Yet forty days, and Ninevah shall be destroyed" (Jonah, iii. 4), the condition is im- pHed ; unless they humble themselves, and repent ; for upon their repentance, the sentence was deferred. So here, " in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die the death," or certainly die, unless there be a way found for the expiation of thy crime, and the righting my honor. This condition, in regard of the event, may as well be as- serted to be implied in this threatening, as that of repentance was in the other ; or rather, " thou shalt die," thou shalt die spiritually, thou shalt lose that image of mine in thy nature, that righteousness which is as much the life of thy soul as thy soul is the life of thy body ; that righteousness whereby thou art enabled to live to me and thy own happiness. What the soul is to the body, a quickening soul, that the image of God is to the soul, a quickening image. Or "thou ehalt die the leath," or certainly die ; thou shalt be liable to death. 484 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. And so it IS to be understood, not of an actual death of the body, but the merit of death, and the necessity of death ; thou wilt be oD- noxious to death, which will be avoided, if thou dost forbear to cat of the forbidden fruit ; thou shalt be a guilty person, and so under a sentence of death, that I may, when I please, inflict it on thee.s Death did come upon Adam that day, because his nature was vitiat- ed ; he was then also under an expectation of deatli, he was obnox- ious to it, though that day it was not poured out upon him in the full bitterness and gall of it : as when the apostle saith, " The body is dead because of sin" (Eom. viii. 10), he speaks to the living, and yet tells them the body was dead because of sin ; he means no more than that it was under a sentence, and so a necessity of dying, though not actually dead ; so thou shalt be under the sentence of death that day, as certainly as if that day thou shouldst sink into the dust : and as by his patience towards man, not sending forth death upon him in all the bitter ingredients of it, his justice afterwards was more emioent upon man's surety, than it would have been if it had been then employed in all its severe operations upon man. So was his veracity eminent also in making good this threatening, in inflicting the punishment included in it upon our nature assumed by a mighty Person, and upon that Person in our nature, who was infinitely higher than our nature. (2.) His justice and righteousness are not prejudiced by his pa- tience. There is a hatred of the sin in his holiness, and a sen- tence past against the sin in his justice, though the execution of that sentence be suspended, and the person reprieved by patience, which is implied (Eccles. viii. 11) : " Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily ; therefore, the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil ;" sentence is past, but a speedy execution is stopped. Some of the heathens, who would not imagine God unjust, and yet, seeing the villanies and oppressions of men in the world remain unpunished, and frequently beholding prosperous wickedness, to free him from the charge of injustice, denied his providence and actual government of the world ; for if he did take notice of human affairs, and concern himself in what was done upon the earth, they could not think an Infinite Goodness and Jus- tice could be so slow to punish oppressors, and relieve the misera- ble, and leave the world in that disorder under the injustice of men : they judged such a patience as was exercised by him, if he did gov em the world, was drawn out beyond the line of fit and just. Is it not a presumption in men to prescribe a rule of righteousness and 3onvenioncy to their Creator ? It might be demanded of such, whe- ther they never injured an}^ in their lives ; and when certainly they have one way or another, would they not think it a very unworthy, if not unjust, thing, that a person so injured by them should take a speedy and severe revenge on them? — and if every man should do the like, would there not be a speedy despatch made of mankind ? Would not the world be a shambles, and men rush forwards to one another's destructions, for the wrongs they have mutually received ? If it be accounted a virtue in man, and no unrighteousness, not pre- * Perer, in loc. ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 48o mailj to be all on fire against an offence ; by wliat right should any question the inconsistency of Grod's patience with his justice ? Do we praise the lenity of parents to children, and shall we disparage the long-suffering of God to men ? We do not censure the right- eousness of physicians and chirurgeons, because they cut not off a corrupt member this day as well as to-morrow ? And is it just to asperse God, because he doth defer his vengeance which man as- sumes to himself a right to do ? We never account him a bad gov- ernor that defers the trial, and consequently the condemnation and execution of a notorious offender for important reasons, and, bene- ficial to the public, either to make the nature of his crime more evi- dent, or to find out the rest of his complices by his discovery. A governor, indeed, were unjust, if he commanded that which were unrighteous, and forbade that which were worthy and commenda- ble ; but if he delays the execution of a convict offender for weighty reasons, either for the benefit of the state whereof he is the ruler, or for some advantage to the offender himself, to make him have a sense of, and a regret for his offence, we account him not unjust for this. God doth not by his patience dispense with the holiness of his law, nor cut off anything from its due authority. If men do strengthen themselves by his long-suffering against his law, it is their fault, not any unrighteousness in him ; he will take a time to vindicate the righteousness of his own commands, if men will wholly neglect the time of his patience, in forbearing to pay a duti- ful observance to his precept. If justice be natural to him, and he cannot but punish sin, yet he is not necessitated to consume sinners, as the fire doth stubble put into it, which hath no command over its own qualities to restrain them from acting ; but God is a free agent, and may choose his own time for the distribution of that punish- ment his nature leads him to. Though he be naturally just, yet it is not so natural to him, as to deprive him of a dominion over his own acts, and a freedom in the exerting them what time he judgeth most convenient in his wisdom. God is necessarily holy, and is ne- cessarily angry with sin ; his nature can never like it, and cannot but be displeased with it ; yet he hath a liberty to restrain the effects of this anger for a time, without disgracing his holiness, or being in- terpreted to act unrighteously ; as well as a prince or state may sus- pend the execution of a law, which they will never break, only for a time and for a public benefit. If God should presently execute his justice, this perfection of patience, which is a part of his good- ness, would never have an opportunity of discovery ; part of his glory, for which he created the world, would lie in obscurity from the knowledge of his creature ; his justice would be signal in the destruction of sinners, but this stream of his goodness would be stopped up from any motion. One perfection must not cloud an- other ; God hath his seasons to discover all, one after another : " The times and seasons are in his own power" (Acts, i. 7) : the seasons of manifesting his own perfections as well as other things ; succession of them, in their distinct appearance, makes no invasion upon the rights of any. If justice should complain of an injury from pa- tience, because it is delayed, patience hath more reason to complain 486 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. of an injury from justice, that by sucli a plea it would be wholly obscured and inactive : for this perfection hath the shortest time to act its part of any, it hath no stage but this world to move in ; mercy hath a heaven, and justice a hell, to display itself to eternity, but long-suffering hath only a short-lived earth for the compass of its operation. Again, justice is so far from being wronged by pa- tience, that it rather is made more illustrious, and hath the fuller scope to exercise itself ; it is the more righted for being deferred, and will have stronger grounds than before for its activity ; the equit}' of it "will be more apparent to every reason, the objections more fully answered against it, when the way of dealing with sinners by patience hath been slighted. When this dam of long-suffering is re- moved, the floods of fiery justice will rush down with more force and violence ; justice will be fully recompensed for the delay, when, after patience is abused, it can spread itself over the offender with a more unquestionable authority ; it will have more arguments to hit the sinner in the teeth with, and silence him ; there will be a sharper edge for every stroke ; the sinner must not only pay for the score of his former sins, but the score of abused patience, so that justice hath no reason to commence a suit against God's slowness to anger : what it shall want by the fulness of mercy upon the truly penitent, it will gain by the contempt of patience on the impenitent abusers. When men, by such a carriage, are ripened for the stroke of justice, justice may strike without any regret in itself, or pull-back from mercy ; the contempt of long-suffering will silence the pleas of the one, and spirit the severity of the other. To conclude : since God hath glorified his justice on Christ, as a surety for sinners, his pa- tience is so far from interfering with the rights of his justice, that it promotes it ; it is dispensed to this end, that God might pardon with honor, both upon the score of purchased mercy and contented jus- tice ; that by a penitent sinner's return his mercy might be acknowl- edged free, and the satisfaction of his justice by Christ be glorified in believing: for he is long-suffering from an unwillingness "that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Pet. iii. 9) ; i. e. all to whom the promise is made, for to such the apostle speaks, and calls it " long-suffering to us-ward ;" and repentance be- ing an acknowledgment of the demerit of sin, and a breaking off unrighteousness, gives a particular glory to the freeness of mercy, and the equity of justice. IL The second thing. How this patience or slowness to anger is manifested. 1. To our first parents. His slowness to anger was evidenced in not directing his artillery against them, when they first attempted to rebel. He might have struck them dead when they began to bite at the temptation, and were inclinable to a surrender ; for it was a de- gree of sinning, and a breach of loyalty as well, though not so much as the consummating act. God might have given way to the floods of his wrath at the first spring of man's aspiring thoughts, when the monstrous motion of being as God began to be curdled in his heart ; but he took no notice of any of their embryo sins till they came to a ripeness, and started out of the womb of their minds into the open ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 487 air: and after lie had brouglit his sin to perfection, God did not presently send that death upon him, which he had merited, but con- tinued his life to the space of 930 years (Gen. v. 5). The sun and stars were not arrested from doing their office for him. Creatures were continued for his use, the earth did not swallow him up, nor a thunderbolt from heaven raze out the memory of him. Though he had deserved to be treated with such a severity for his ungrateful demeanor to his Creator and Benefactor, and affecting an equality with him, yet God continued him with a sufficiency for his content, after he turned rebel, though not with such a liberality as when he remained a loyal subject ; and though he foresaw that he would not make an end of sinning, but with an end of living, he used him not in the same manner as he had used the devils. He added days and years to him, after he had deserved death, and hath for this 6,000 years continued the propagation of mankind, and derived from his loins an innumerable posterity, and hath crowned multitudes of them with hoary heads. He might have extinguished human race at the first ; but since he hath preserved it till this day, it must be interpreted nothing else but the effect of an admirable patience. 2. His slowness to anger is manifest to the Gentiles. What they were, we need no other witness than the apostle Paul, who sums up many of their crimes (Rom. i. 29 — 82). He doth preface the cata- logue with a comprehensive expression, " Being filled with all un- righteousness ;" and concludes it with a dreadful aggravation, " They not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." They were so soaked and naturalized in wickedness, that they had no de- light, and found no sweetness in anything else but what was in itself abominable ; all of them were plunged in idolatry and superstition ; none of them but either set up their great men, or creatures, benefi- cial to the world, and some the damned spirits in his stead, and paid an adoration to insensible creatures or devils, which was due to God. Some were so depraved in their lives and actions, that it seemed to be the interest of the rest of the world, that they should have been extinguished for the instruction of their contemporaries and pos- terity. The best of them had turned all rehgion into a fable, coined a world of rites, some unnatural in themselves, and most of them un- becoming a rational creature to offer, and a Deity to accept : yet he did not presently arm himself against them with fire and sword, nor stopped the course of their generations, nor tear out all those relics of natural light which were left in their minds. He did not do what he might have done, but he winked at the " times of that ignorance" (Acts, xvii. 30), their ignorant idolatry ; for that it refers to (ver. 29) : " They thought the Godhead was like to gold or silver, or stone graven by art, and men's device ; Ti'nfQid(hi'^ overlooking them. He demeaned himself so, as if he did not take notice of them. He winked as if he did not see them, and would not deal so severely with them : the eye of his justice seemed to wink, in not calling them to an account for their sin. 3. His slowness to anger is manifest to the Israelites. You know how often they are called a " stiff-necked people ;" they are said to do evil " from their youth ;" ^. e. from the time wherein they were 488 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. erected a nation and commonwealth ; and that " the city had been a provocation of his anger, and of his fury, from the day that they built it, even to this day ;" i. e. the day of Jeremiah's prophecy, " that he should remove it from before his face" (Jer. xxxii. 31) : from the days of Solomon, say some, which is too much a curtailing of the text, as though their provocations had taken date no higher than from the time of Solomon's rearing the temple, and beautifying the city, whereby it seemed to be a new building. They began more early ; they scarce discontinued their revolting from God ; they were a " grief to him forty years together in the wilderness" (Ps.'xcv. 101 "yet he suffered their manners" (Acts, xiii. 18). He bore with their ill-behaviour and sauciness towards him ; and no sooner was Joshua's head laid, and the elders, that were their conductors, gathered to their fathers, but the next generation forsook God, and smutted themselves with the idolatry of the nations (Judges, ii. 7, 10, 11) : and when he punished them by prospering the arms of their enemies against them, they were no sooner delivered upon their cry and hu« miliation, but they began a new scene of idolatry ; and though he brought upon them the power of the Babylonian empire, and laid chains upon them to bring them to their right mind. And at seventy years' end he struck oflE" their chains, by altering the whole posture of afl^irs in that part of the world for their sakes : overturning one empire, and settling another for their restoration to their ancient city. And though they did not after disown him for their God, and set up " Baal in his throne," yet they multiplied foolish traditions, whereby they impaired the authority of the law ; yet he sustained them with a wonderful patience, and preferred them before all other people in the first offers of the gospel ; and after they had outraged not only his servants, the prophets, but his Son, the Redeemer, yet he did not forsake them, but employed his apostles to solicit them, and publish among them the doctrine of salvation : so that his treating this peo- ple might well be called " much long-suffering," it being above 1500 years, wherein he bore with them, or mildly punished them, far less than their deserts ; their coming out of Egypt being about the year of the world 2450, and their final destruction as a commonwealth, not till about forty years after the death of Christ ; and all this while his patience did sometimes wholly restrain his justice, and sometimes let it fall upon them in some few drops, but made no total devasta- tion of their country, nor wrote his revenge in extraordinary bloody characters, till the Roman conquest, wherein he put a period to them both as a church and state. In particular this patience is manifest, 1st. In his giving warnings of judgments, before he orders them to go forth. He doth not punish in a passion, and hastily ; he speaks before he strikes, and speaks that he may not strike. Wrath is pub- lished before it is executed, and that a long time ; an hundred and twenty years' advertisement was given to a debauched world before the heavens were opened, to spout down a deluge upon them. He will not be accused of coming unawares upon a people ; he inflicts nothing but what he foretold either immediately to the people that provoke him, or anciently to them that have been their forerunners ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 489 in the same provocation (Hos. vii. 12), " I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard." Many of the leaves of the Old Testament are full of those presages and warnings of approaching judgment. These make up a great part of the volume of it in various editions, according to the state of the several provoking times. Warnings are given to those people that are most abominable in his sight (Zeph. ii. 1, 2) ; " Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, 0 nation not desired," — it is a Meiosis^ 0 nation abhorred, — "before the decree bring forth." He sends his heralds before he sends his armies ; he summons them by the voice of his prophets, before he confounds them by the voice of his thunders. When a parley is beaten, a white flag of peace is hung out, before a black flag of fury is set up. He seldom cuts down men by his judgments, before he hath " hewed them by his prophets" (Hos. vi. 5). Not a remarkable judgment but was foretold : the flood to the old world by Noah ; the famine to Egypt - by Joseph ; the earthquake by Amos (ch. i. 1); the storm from Chaldea by Jeremiah ; the captivity of the ten tribes by Hosea ; the total destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by Christ himself, He hath chosen the best persons in the world to give those intima- tions; Noah, the most righteous person on the earth, for the old world ; and his Son, the most beloved person in heaven, for the Jews in the later time : and in other parts of the world, and in the later times, where he hath not warned by prophets, he hath supplied it by prodigies in the air and earth ; histories are full of such items from heaven. Lesser judgments are forewarners of greater, as lightnings before thunder are messengers to tell us of a succeeding clap. (1). He doth often give warning of judgments. He comes not to extremity, till he hath often shaken the rod over men ; he thundetrs often, before he crusheth them with his thunderbolt ; he doth not till after the first and second admonition punish a rebel, as he would have us reject a heretic. " He speaks once, yea, twice" (Job, xxxiii. 14), " and man perceives it not ;" he sends one message after an- other, and waits the success of many messages before he strikes. Mght prophets were ordered to acquaint the whole world with approaching judgment (2 Pet. ii. 5): he saved "Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly," called " the eighth" in respect of his preach- ing, not in regard of his preservation ; he was the eighth preacher in order, from the beginning of the world, that endeavored to restore the world to the way of righteousness. Most, indeed, consider him here as the eighth person saved, so do our translators ; and, there- fore, add person, which is not in the Greek. Some others consider him here as the eighth preacher of righteousness, reckoning Enoch, the son of Seth, the first, grounding it upon Gen. iv. 26 : " Them began men to call upon the name of the Lord," Seb. " Then it waa began to call in the name of the Lord," t6 opoua rov Kv(jiov &i-ov. Sept, " He began to call in the name of the Lord," which others render, " Ho began to preach, or call upon men in the name of the Lord." Tho word x^p signifies to preach, or to call upon men by preach- ing (Prov. i. 21): " Wisdom crieth," or "preaches;" and if this be 80, as it is very probable, it is easy to reckon him the eighth i90 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. preacher, by numbering the successive heads of tne generations' (Gen. v.), beginning at Enoch, the first preacher of righteousness. So many there were before God choked the old world with water, and swept them away. It is clear he often did admonish, by his prophets, the Jews of their sin, and the wrath which should come upon them.'' One prophet, Hosea, prophesied seventy years; for he prophesied in the days of four kings of Judah, and one of Israel, Jeroboam, the son of Joash (Hos. i. 1), or Jeroboam, the second of that name. Uzziah, king of Judah, in whose reign Hosea pro- phesied, lived thirty-eight years after the death of Jeroboam. The second Jotham, Uzziah's successor, reigned sixteen years; Ahaz sixteen ; Hezekiah twenty-nine years. Now, take nothing of Heze- kiah's time, and date the beginning of his prophecy from the last year of Jeroboam's reign, and the time of Hosea's prophecy will be seventy years complete ; wherein God warned those people, and waited the return particularly of Israel ;i and not less than five of those we call the Lesser Prophets, were sent to foretell the destruc- tion of the ten tribes, and to call them to repentance, — Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah, Jonah ; and though we have nothing of Jonah's prophecy in this concern of Israel, yet that he lived in the time of the same Jeroboam, and prophesied things which are not upon record in the book of Jonah, is clear (2 Kings, xiv. 25). And besides those, Isaiah prophesied also in the reign of the same kings as Hosea did (Isa. i. 1) ; and it is God's usual method to send forth his servants, and when their admonitions are slighted he commissions others, before he sends out his destroying armies (Matt. xxii. 3, 4, 7). (2). He doth often give warning of judgments, that he might not pour out his wrath. He summons them to a surrender of themselves, and a return from their rebellion, that they might not feel the force of his arms. He offers peace before he shakes off the dust of his feet, that his despised peace might not return in vain to him to solicit a revenge from his anger. He hath a right to punish upon the first commission of a crime, but he warns men of what they have deserved, of what his justice moves him to inflict, that by having recourse to his mercy he might not exercise the rights of his justice. God sought to kill Moses for not circumcising his son (Exod. iv. 24). Could God, that sought it, miss a way to do it? Could a creature lurch, or fly from him? God put on the garb of an enemy, that Moses might be discouraged from being an instrument of his own ruin ; God manifested an anger against Moses for his neglect, as if he would then have destroyed him, that Moses might prevent it by casting off his carelessness, and doing his duty. He sought to kni him by some evident sign, that Moses might es- cape the judgment by his obedience. He threatens Nineveh,- by the prophet, with destruction, that Nineveh's repentance might make void the prophecy. He fights with men by the sword of his mouth, that he might not pierce them by the sword of his wrath. He threatens, that men might prevent the execution of his threaten- ing ; he terrifies, that he might not destroy, but that men by humi * Vid. Gell's A-yyeT^oKaria. • Sanctius. Prolegom. in Hosea, Prolog. IIL ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 491 liation may lie prostrate before him, and move the bowels of his mercy to a louder sound than the voice of his anger. He takes time to whet his sword, that men may turn themselves from the edge of it. He roars like a lion, that men, by hearing his voice, may shelter themselves from being torn by his wrath. There is patience in the sharpest threatening, that we may avoid the scourge. W ho can charge God with an eagerness to revenge, that sends so many heralds, and so often before he strikes, that he might be pre- vented from striking ? His threatenings have not so much of a black flag as of an olive branch. He lifts up his hand before he strikes, that men might see and avert the stroke (Isa. xxvi. 11). 2d. His patience is manifest in long delaying his threatened judg- ments, though he finds no repentance in the rebels. He doth some- times delay his lighter punishments, because he doth not delight in torturing his creatures ; but ne doth longer delay his destroying pun- ishments, such as put an end to men's happiness, and remit them to their final and unchangeable state ; because he " doth not de- light in the death of a sinner." While he is preparing his arrows, he is waiting for an occasion to lay them aside, and dull their points, that he may with honor march back again, and disband his armies. He brings lighter smarts sooner, that men might not think him asleep, but he suspends the more terrible judgments that men might be led to repentance. He scatters not his consuming fires at the first, but brings on ruining vengeance with a " slow pace ; sen- tence against an evil work is not speedily executed" (Eccles. viii. 11). The Jews therefore say, that Michael, the minister of justice, flies with one wing, but Grabriel, the minister of mercy, with two. An hundred and twenty years did God wait upon the old world, and delay their punishment all the time the "ark was preparing" (1 Pet. iii, 20) ; wherein that wicked generation did not enjoy onlj a bare patience, but a striving patience (Gen. vi. 3) : " My Spirit shall not always strive with man, yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years," the days wherein I will strive with him ; that his long-suffering might not lose all its fruit, and remit the objects of it into the hands of consuming justice. It was the tenth genera- tion of the world from Adam, when the deluge overflowed it, so long did God bear with them : and the tenth generation from Noah wherein Sodom was consumed. God did not come to keep his as- sizes in Sodom, till "the cry of their sins was very strong," that it had been a wrong to his justice to have restrained it any longer. The cry was so loud that he could not be at quiet, as it were, on his throne of glory for the disturbing noise (Gen. xviii. 20, 21). Sin iransgresseth the law ; the law being violated, solicits justice ; justice, being urged, pleads for punishment ; the cry of their sins did, as it were, force him from heaven to come down, and examine what cause there was for that clamor. Sin cries loud and long be- fore he takes his sword in hand. Four hundred years he kept off deserved destruction from the Amorites, and deferred making good his promise to Abraham, of giving Canaan to his posterity, out of his long-suffering to the Amorites (Gen. xv. 16). In the fourth gene- ration they shall come hither again, " for the iniquity of the Amor 492 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. ites is not jet full." Their measure was filling then but not ao full as to put a stop to any further patience till four hundred years after. The usual time in succeeding generations, from the denounc- ing of judgments to the execution, is forty years ; this some ground upon Ezek. iv. 6, *' Thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house oi Judah forty days," taking each day for a year. Though Hosea lived seventy years, yet from the beginning of his prophesying judgments against Israel to the pouring them out upon that idola- trous people, it was forty years. Hosea, as was mentioned before, prophesied against them in the days of Jeroboam the Second, in whose time God did wonderfully deliver Israel (2 Kings, xiv..26, 27). From that time, till the total destruction of the ten tribes, it was forty years, as may easily be computed from the stoiy (2 Kings, XV. — xvi.), by the reign of the succeeding kings. So forty years after the most horrid villany that ever was committed in the face of the sun, viz.^ the crucifying the Son of God, was Jerusalem de- stroyed, and the inhabitants captive'd ; so long did God delay a visible punishment for such an outrage. Sometimes he prolongs sending a threatened judgment upon a mere shadow of humiliation ; so he did that denounced against Ahab. He turned it over to his posterity, and adjourned it to another season (1 Kings, xxi. 29). He doth not issue out an arrest upon one transgression ; you often find him not commencing a suit against men till "three and four trans- gressions." The first of Amos, all along that chapter and the second chapter, for " three and four," i. e. " seven ;" a certain number for an uncertain. He gives not orders to his judgments to march till men be obstinate, and refuse any commerce with him ; he stops them till " there be no remedy" (2 Ghron. xxxvi. 16). It must be a great wickedness that gives vent to them (Hos. x. 15); Ueb. "Your wickedness of wickedness." He is so " slow to anger," and stays the punishment his enemies deserve, that he may seem to have forgot his " kindness to his friends" (Ps. xliv. 24) : " Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our aflOiction and. oppression ?" He lets his people groan under the yoke of their enemies, as if he were made up of kindness to his enemies, and anger against his friends. This delaying of punishment to evil men is visible in his suspending the terrifying acts of conscience, and supporting it only in its checking, admonishing, and controlling acts. The patience of a governor is seen in the patient mildness of his deputy : David's conscience did not terrify him till nine months after his sin of murder. Should God set open the mouth of this power within us, not only the earth, but our own bodies and spirits, would be a burden to us : it is long be- fore God puts scorpions into the hands of men's consciences to scourge them : he holds back the rod, waiting for the hour of our return, as if that would be a recompense for our offences and his forbearance. 3d. His patience is manifest in his unwillingness to execute his judgments when he can delay no longer. " He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men" (Lam. iii. 33) : Heb. " He doth not afflict from his heart •" he takes no pleasure in it, as he ia Creator. The height of tions, and the necessity of the ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 493 E reserving liis riglits, and vindicating his laws, obligetTi him to it, as e is the Governor of the world ; as a judge may willingly condemn a malefactor to death out of affection to the laws, and desire to pre- serve the order of government, but unwillingly, out of compassion to the offender himself. When he resolved upon the destruction of the old world, he spake it as a God grieved with an occasion of pun- ishment (Gen. vi. 6, 7, compared together). "When he came to reckon with Adam, " he walked," he did not run with his sword in his hand upon him, as a mighty man with an eagerness to destroy him (Gen. iii. 8), and that "in the cool of the day," a time when men, tired in the day, are unwilling to engage in a hard employment. His exer- cising judgment is a " coming out of his place" (Isa. xxvi. 21 ; Mic. i. 3) : he comes out of his station to exercise judgment ; a throne is more his place than a tribunal. Every prophecy, loaded with threat- enings, is called the " burden of the Lord ;" a burden to him to exe- cute it, as well as to men to suffer it. Though three angels came to Abraham about the punishment of Sodom, whereof one Abraham speaks to as to God, yet but two appeared at the destruction of Sod- om, as if the Governor of the world were unwilling to be present at such dreadful work (Gen. xix. 1) : and when the man, that had the ink-horn by his side, that was appointed to mark those that were to be preserved in the common destruction, returned to give an account of the performing his commission (Ezek. ix. 10), we read not of the return of those that were to kill, as if God delighted only to hear again of his works of mercy, and had no mind to hear again of his severe proceedings. The Jews, to show God's unwillingness to punish, imagine that hell was created the second day, because that day's work is not pronounced good by God as all the other days' works are^ (Gen. i. 8). (1.) When God doth punish he doth it with some regret. When he hurls down his thunders, he seems to do it with a backward hand, because with an unwilling heart.i He created, saith Chrysostom, the world in six days, but was seven days in destroying one city, Jericho, which he had before devoted to be razed to the ground. What is the reason, saith he, that God is so quick to build up, but slow to pull down ? His goodness excites his power to the one, but is not earn- est to persuade him to the other : when he comes to strike, he doth it with a sigh or groan (Isa. i. 24) : " Ah ! I will ease me of my ad- versaries, and avenge me on my enemies," "'in, Ah ! a note of grief. So Hos. vi. 4, " O Ephraim ! what shall I do unto thee ? O Judah f what shall I do unto thee?" It is an adduhitatio^ a figure in rhetoric, as if God were troubled that he must deal so sharply with them, and give them up to their enemies : — I have tried all means to reclaim you ; I have used all ways of kindness, and nothing prevails ; what fihali I do ? my mercy invites me to spare them, and their ingratitude provokes me to ruin them. God had borne with that people of Israel almost three hundred years, from the setting up of the calves at Dan and Bethel ; sent many a prophet to warn them, and spent many a rod to reform them : and when he comes to execute his threatenings, he doth with a conflict in himself (Hos. xi. 8) : " How •■ Mercer in Gen. ' Cressol. Decad. II. p. 163. 494 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. shall I give thee up, 0 Ephraim ? how shall I deliver thee, Israel?'" as if there were a pull-back in his own bowels. He solemnizetb their approaching funeral with a hearty groan, and takes his farewell of the dying malefactor with a pang in himself How often, in for- mer times, when he had signed a warrant for tiieir execution, did he call it back ? (Ps. Ixxviii. 38) : " Many a time turned he his anger away." Many a time he recalled or ordered his anger to return again, as the word signifies, as if he were irresolute what to do : he recalled it, as a man doth his servant, several times, when he is sending him upon an unwelcome message ; or as a tender-hearted prince wavers and trembles when he is to sign a writ for the death of a rebel that hath been before his favorite, as if, when he had sign- ed the writ, he blotted out his name again, and flung away the pen. And his method is remarkable when he came to punish Sodom , though the cry of their sin had been fierce in his ears, yet when he comes to make inquisition, he declares his intention to Abraham, as if he were desirous that Abraham should have helped him to some arguments to stop the outgoings of his judgment. He gave liberty to the best person in the world to stand in the gap, and enter into a treaty with him, to show, saith one,™ how willingly his mercy would have compounded with his justice for their redemption ; and Abra- ham interceded so long, till he was ashamed for pleading the cause of patience and mercy to the wrong of the rights of Divine justice. Perhaps, had Abraham had the courage to ask, God would have had the compassion to grant a reprieve just at the time of execution. (2.) His patience is manifest in that when he begins to send out his judgments, he doth it by degrees. His judgments are "as the morning light," which goes forth by degrees in the hemisphere (Hos. vi. 5). He doth not shoot all his thunders at once, and bring his sharpest judgments in array at one time, but gradually, that a people may have time to turn to him (Joel, i. 4). First the palmer-worm, then the locust, then the canker-worm, then the caterpillar ; what one left, the other was to eat, if there were not a timely return. A Jewish writer" saith, these judgments came not all in one year, but one year after another. The palmer- worm and locust might have eaten all, but Divine patience set bounds to the devouring creatures. Ood had been first as a moth to Israel (Hos. v. 12) : " Tnerefore will I be to the house of Ephraim as a moth ;" Eivet translates it, "I have been ;" in the Hebrew it is " I," without adding " I have been," or " I will be," and more probably " I have been ;" I was as a moth, which makes little holes in a garment, and consumes it not all at once ; and as " rottenness to the house of Judah," or a worm that eats into wood by degrees. Indeed, this people had consumed in- sensibly, partly by civil combustions, change of governors, foreign invasions, yet they were as obstinate in their idolatry as ever ; at last God would be no longer to them as a moth, but as a lion, tear and go away (ver. 14) : so Hos. ii., God had disowned Israel for hia spouse (ver. 2), " She is not my wife, neither am I her husband ;" yet he had not taken away her ornaments, which by the right of divorce he might have done, but still expected her reformation, foi " Pierce, Siuner Implead, p. 227. • Klmchi. ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 495 that the threatening intimates (ver. 3) ; let her put awaj her whore- dom, " lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day when she was born." If she returned, she might recover what she had lost ; if not, she might be stripped of what remained : thus God dealt with Judah (Ezek. ix. 3). The glory of God goes first from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and stays there, as if he had a mind to be invited back again ; then it goes from the threshold of the house, and stands over the cherubims, as if upon a penitent call it would drop down again to its ancient station and seat, over which it hover- ed (Ezek. X. 18) ; and when he was not solicited to return, he de- parts out of the city, and stood upon the mountain, which is on the east part of the city (Ezek. xi. 23), looking still towards, and hover- ing about the temple, which was on the east of Jerusalem, as if loth to depart, and abandon the place and people. He walks so leisurely, with his rod in his hand, as if he had a mind rather to fling it away than use it ; his patience in not pouring out all his vials, is more re- markable than his wrath in pouring out one or two. Thus hath God made his slowness to anger visible to us in the gradual punishment of us ; first, the pestilence on this city, then firing our houses, con- sumption of trade ; these have not been answered with such a carriage as God expects, therefore a greater is reserved. I dare prognosti- cate, upon reasons you may gather from what hath been spoke be- fore, if I be not much mistaken, the forty years of his usual patience are very near expired ; he hath inflicted some, that he might be met with in a way of repentance, and omit with honor the inflicting the remainder. 4th. His patience is manifest, in moderating his judgments, when lie sends them. Doth he empty his quiver of his arrows, or exhaust his magazines of thunder ? No ; he could roll one thunderbolt suc- cessively upon all mankind ; it is as easy with him to create a perpet- ual motion of hghtning and thunder, as of the sun and stars, and make the world as terrible by the one, as it is delightful by the other. He opens not all his store, he sends out a light party to skir- mish with men, and puts not in array his whole army ; " He stirs aot up all his wrath" (Ps. Ixxviii. 38) ; he doth but pinch, ivhere he might have torn asunder ; when he takes away much, he leaves enough to support us ; if he had stirred up all his anger, he had taken away all, and our lives to boot. He rakes up but a few sparks, tojies but one firebrand to fling upon men, when he might discharge the whole furnace upon them ; he sends but a few drops out of the cloud, which he might make to break in the gross, and fall down upon our heads to overwhelm us ; he abates much of what he might do. When he might sweep away a whole nation by deluges of water, corruption of the air, or convulsions of the earth, or by other ways that are not wanting at his order ; he picks out only some persons, some families, some cities ; sends a plague into one house, and not into another ; here is patience to the stock of a nation, while he inflicts punishment upon some of the most notorious sinners in it. Herod is suddenly snatched away, being wilhngly flattered into the thoughts of his being a god ; God singled out the chief in the herd for whose sake he had been affronted by the rabble (Acts xii. 22. 496 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. 23). Some find liim sparing tliem, while others feel him destroying them ; he arrests some, when he might seize all, all being liis debt- ors ; and often in great desolations brought upon a people for their sin, he hath left a stump in the earth, as Daniel speaks (Dan. iv. 15), for a nation to grow upon it again, and arise to a stronger constitu- tion. He doth punish " less than our iniquities deserve" (Ezra ix. 13), and rewards us " not according to our iniquities" (Ps. ciii. 10). The greatness of any punishment in this hfe, answers not the great- ness of the crime. Though there be an equity in whatsoever he doth, yet there is not an equality to what we deserve ; our iniquities would justify a severer treating of U3 ; his justice goes not here to the end of its line, it is stopped in its progress, and the blows of it weakened by his patience ; he did not curse the earth after Adam's fall, that it should bring forth no fruit, but that it should not bring forth fruit without the wearisome toil of man, and subjected him to distem- pers presently, but inflicted not death immediately ; while he pun- ished him, he supported him ; and while he expelled him ftom paradise, he did not order him not to cast his eye towards it, and conceive some hopes of regaining that happy place. 5th. His patience is seen iu giving great mercies after provoca- tions. He is so slow to anger, that he heaps many kindnesses upon a rebel, instead of punishment. There is a prosperous wickedness, wherein the provoker's strength continues firm ; the troubles, which like clouds drop upon others, are blown away from them, and they are " not plagued like other men," that have a more worthy de- meanor towards God (Ps. Ixxiii. 3—5). He doth not only continue their lives, but sends out fresh beams of his goodness upon them, and calls them by his blessings, that they may acknowledge their own fault and his bounty, which he is not obliged to by any grati tude he meets with from them, but by the richness of his own patien* nature : for he finds the unthankfulness of men as great as his bene- fits to them. He doth not only continue his outward mer( iep, while we continue our sins, but sometimes gives fresh benefits after new provocations, that if possible he might excite an ingenuity in men. When Israel at the Eed Sea flung dirt in the face of God, by quar- relling with his servant Moses for bringing them out of Egypt, and misjudging God in his design of deliverance, and were ready to sub- mit themselves to their former oppressors (Exod. xiv. 11, 12), which might justly have urged God to say to them. Take your own course yet he is not only patient under their unjust charge, but " makes bare his arm in a dehverance at the Red Sea," that was to be an amazing monument to the world in all ages ; and afterwards, when they repiningly quarrelled with him in their wants in the wilderness, he did not only not revenge himself upon them, or cast off the con- duct of them, but bore with them by a miraculous long-sufiering, and supplied them with miraculous provision, — manna from heaven, and water from a rock. Food is given to support us, and clothes to cover us, and Divine patience makes the creature which we turn to another use than what they were at first intended for, serve us con- trary to their own genius : for had they reason, no question but they would complain to be subjected to the service of man, wlu> ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 497 hatli been so ungrateful to their Creator, and groan at the abuse of God's patience, in the abuse they themselves suffer from the hands of man. 6th, All this is more manifest, if we consider the provocations he hath. Wherein his slowness to anger infinitely transcends the pa- tience of any creature ; nay, the spirits of all the angels and glorified saints in heaven, would be too narrow to bear the sins of the world for one day, nay, not so much as the sins of churches, which is a lit- tle spot in the whole world ; it is because he is the Lord, one of an infinite power over himself, that not only the whole mass of the re- bellious world, but of the sons of Jacob (either considered as a church and nation springing from the loins of Jacob, or considered as the regenerate part of the world, sometimes called the seed of Jacob), " are not consumed" (Mai. iii. 6). A Jonah was angry with God, for recalling his anger from a sinful people ; had God com- mitted the government of the world to the glorified saints, who are perfect in love and holiness, the world would have had an end long ago ; they would have acted that which they sue for at the hands of God, and is not granted them. " How long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ? (Rev. vi. 10). God hath designs of patience above the world, above the unsinning angels, and perfectly renewed spirits in glo^3^ The greatest created long-suffering is infinitely disproportioned to the Di- vine : fire from heaven would have been showered down before the greatest part of a day were spent, if a created patience had the con- duct of the world, though that creature were possessed with the spirit of patience, extracted from all the creatures which are in heaven, or are, or ever were upon the earth. Methinks Moses intimates this ; for as soon as God had passed by, proclaiming his name gracious and long suffering, as soon as ever Moses had paid his adoration, he falls to praying that God would go with the Israelites ; " For it is a stiff- necked people" (Exod. xxxiv. 8, 9). What an argument is here for God to go along with them ! he might rather, since he had heard him but just before say "he would by no means clear the guilty," desire God to stand further off from them, for fear the fire of his wrath should burst out from him, to burn them as he did the Sodom- ites. But he considers, that as none but God had such anger to destroy them, so none but God had such a patience to bear with them ; it is as much as if he should have said, Lord ! if thou shouldest send the most tender-hearted angel in heaven to have the guidance of this people, they would be a lost people ; a period will quickly be set to their lives, no created strength can restrain its power from crushing such a stiff-necked people; flesh and blood cannot bear them, nor any created spirit of a greater might. (1.) Consider the greatness of the provocations. No light matter, but actions of a great defiance : what is the practical language of most in the world, but that of Pharoah ? " Who is the Lord, that I should obey him ?" How many questions his being, and more his authority ? What blasphemies of him, what reproaches of his Ma- jesty ! Men " drinking up iniquity like water," and with a haste and ardency " rushing into sin, as the horse into the battle." What VOL. ir. — 'A2 498 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. IS tliere in the reasonable creature, that hath the quickest capacity and the deepest obligation to serve him, but opposition and enmity, a slight of him in everything, yea, the services most seriously per- formed, unsuited to the royalty and purity of so great a Being ? such provocations as dare him to his face, that are a burden to so right- eous a Judge, and. so great a lover of tlie authority and majesty of liis laws; that were there but a spark of anger in him, it is a wonder it doth not shoAV itself When he is invaded in all his attributes, it is astonishing that this single one of patience and meekness should withstand the assault of all the rest of his j)erfections ; his being, which is attacked by sin, speaks for vengeance ; his justice cannot be imagined to stand silent without charging the sinner. His holi- ness cannot but encourage his justice to urge its pleas, and be an ad- vocate for it. His omniscience proves the truth of all the charge, and his abused mercy hath little encouragement to make opposition to the indictment ; nothing but patience stands in the gap to keep off the arrest of judgment from the sinner. (2.) His patience is manifest, if you consider the multitudes of these provocations. Every man hath sin enough in a day to make him stand amazed at Divine patience, and to call it, as well as the apostle did, " all long-suffering" (1 Tim. i. 16). How few duties of a per- fectly right stamp are performed ! What unworthy considerations mix themselves, like dross, with our purest and sincerest gold ! How more numerous are the respects of the worshippers of him to them- selves, than unto him ! How many services are paid him, not out of love to him, but because he should do us no hurt, and some ser- vice ; when we do not so much design to please him, as to please ourselves by expectations of a reward from him I What master vrould endure a servant that endeavored to please him, only because he should not kill him ? Is that former charge of God upon the old world yet out of date, " That the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of man was only evil, and that continually ?" (Gen. vi. 5.) Was not the new world as chargeable with it as the old ? Certainly it was (Gen. viii. 21) ; and is of as much force this very minute as it was then. How many are the sins against knowledge, as well as those of ignorance ; presumptuous sins, as well as those of infirmity ! How numerous those of omission and commission ! It is above the reach of any man's understanding to conceive all the blasphemies, oaths, thefts, adulteries, murders, oppressions, contempt of religion, the open idolatries of Turks and heathens, the more spiritual and refined idolatries of others." Add to those, the ingratitude of those that profess his name, their pride, earthliness, carelessness, sluggish- ness to Divine duties, and in every one of those a multitude of ]>rovocations ; the whole man being engaged in every sin, the under- standing contriving it, the will embracing it, the affections comply- ing with it, and all the members of the body instruments in the acting the unrighteousness of it ; every one of these faculties be- stowed upon men by him, are armed against him in every act : and in every employment of them there is a distinct provocation, though centred in one sinful end and object. What are the offences all the • Lessius, p. 152. ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 499 men of the world receive from their fellow-creatures, to the injuries God receives from men, but as a small dust of earth to the whole mass of earth and heaven too ? What multitudes of sins is one profane wretch guilty of in the space of twenty, forty, fifty years ? VV no uau compute the vast number of his transgressions, from the first use of reason to the time of the separation of his soul from his body, from his entrance into the world to his exit? "What are those, to those of a whole village of the like inhabitants ? What are those, to those of a great city ? Who can number up all the foul-mouthed oaths, the beastly excess, the goatish uncleanness, com- mitted in the space of a day, year, twenty years in this city, much less in the whole nation, least of all, in the whole world ? Were it no more than the common idolatry of former ages, when the whole world turned their backs upon their Creator, and passed him by to sue to a creature, a stock or stone, or a degraded spirit ? How pro- voking would it be to a prince to see a whole city under his domin- ion deny him a respect, and pay it to his scullion, or the common executioner he employs ! Add to this the unjust invasion of kings, the oppressions exercised upon men, all the private and public sins that have been in the world ever since it began. The Gentiles were described by the apostle (Rom. i. 29 — 31), in a black character, " They were haters of God ;" yet how did the " riches of his pa- tience" preserve multitudes of such disingenuous persons, and how " many millions of such haters of him" breathe every day in his air, and are maintained by his bounty, have their tables spread, and their cups filled to the brim, and that, too, in the midst of reiterated belchings of their enmity against him ? All are under sufficient provocations of him to the highest indignation. The presiding angels over nations could not forbear, in love and honor to their governor, to arm themselves to the destruction of their several charges, if Divine patience did not set them a pattern, and their obedience incline them to expect his orders, before they act what their zeal would prompt them to. The devils would be glad of a commission to destroy the world, but that his patience puts a stop to their fury, as well as his own justice. (3.) Consider the long time of this patience. He spread out his hands " all the day" to a rebellious world (Isa. Ixv. 2). All men's day, all God's day, which is a " thousand years,"' he hath borne with the gross of mankind, with all the nations of the world in a long succession of ages, for five thousand years and upwards already, and will bear with them till the time comes for the world's dissolu- tion. He hath suffered the monstrous acts of men, and endured the contradictions of a sinful world against himself, from the first sin of Adam, to the last committed this minute. The line of his patience hath run along with the duration of the world to this day ; and there is not any one of Adam's posterity but hath been expensive to him, and partaken of the riches of it. (4.) All these he bears when he hath a sense of them. He sees every day the roll and catalogue of sin increasing ; he hath a distinct view of every one, from the sin of Adam to the last filled up in his omniscience ; and yet gives no order for t^^e arrest of the world. He 500 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. knows men fitted for destruction ; all the instants lie exerciseth long* suffering towards them, which makes the apostle call it not simply long-STilfering, without the addition of loAi^, " much long-suffering" (Rom. ix, 23). There is not a grain in the whole mass of sin, that he hath not a distinct knowledge of, and of the quality of it. He perfectly understands the greatness of his own majesty that is vili- fied, and the nature of the offence that doth disparage him. He is solicited by his justice, directed by his omniscience, and armed with judgments to vindicate himself, but his arm is restrained by patience. To conclude : no indignity is hid from him, no iniquity is beloved hy him ; the hatred of their sinfulness is infinite, and the knowledge of the malice is exact. The subsisting of the world under such weighty jDrovocations, so numerous, so long time, and with his full sense of every one of them, is an evidence of such a "forbearance and long-suffering," that the addition of riches which the apostle puts to it (Rom. ii. 4), labors with an insufficiency clearly to display it. III. Why God doth exercise so much patience. 1. To show himself appeasable. God did not declare by his pa- tience to former ages, or any age, that he was appeased with them, or that they were in his favor ; but that he was appeasable, that he was not an implacable enemy, but that they might find him favorable to them, if they did seek after him. The continuance of the world by patience, and the bestowing many mercies by goodness, were not a natural revelation of the manner how he would be appeased : that was made known only by the prophets, and after the coming of Christ by the apostles ; and had indeed been intelligible in some sort to the whole world, had there been a faithfulness in Adam's posterity, to transmit the tradition of the fhoet promise to succeeding generations. Had not the knowledge of that died by their carelessness and neglect, it had been easy to tell the reason of God's patience to be in order to the exhibition of the " Seed of the woman to bruise the serpent's head." They could not but naturally know themselves sinners, and worthy of death ; they might, by easy reflections upon themselves, collect that they were not in that comely and harmonious posture now, as they were when God first wrought them with his own finger, and placed them as his lieutenants in the world ; they knew they did grievously offend him ; this they were taught by the sprinklings of his judg- ments among them sometimes. And since he did not utterly root tip mankind, his sparing patience was a prologue of some further &vors, Oi pardoning grace to be displayed to the world by some methods of God yet unknown to them. Though the earth was something impaired by the curse after the fall, yet the main pillars of it stood ; the state of the natural motions of the creature was not changed ; the heavens remained in the same posture wherein they "were created ; the sun, and moon, and other heavenly bodies, con- tinued their usefulness and refreshing influences to man. The heavens did still " declare the glory of God, day unto day" did " utter speech ; their line is gone throughout all the earth, and their words to the end of the world" (Ps. xix. 1 — 4) : which declared God to be willing to do good to his creatures, and were as so many ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 501 legible letters or rudiments, whereby they might read his patience, and that a further design of favor to the world lay hid in that pa- tience. Paul applies this to the preaching of the gospel (Rom. x. 18): "Have they not heard the word of God? yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words imto the end of the world." Redeeming grace could not be spelled out by them in a clear notion, but yet they did declare that which is the foundation of gospel mercy. Were not God patient, there were no room for a gospel mercy, so that the heavens declare the gospel, not formally, but fundamentally, in declaring the long-suffering of God, without which no gospel had been framed, or could have been expected. They could not but read in those things favorable inclinations to- wards them : and though they could not be ignorant that they de- served a mark of justice, yet seeing themselves supported by God, and beholding the regular motions of the heavens from day to day, and the revolutions of the seasons of the year, the natural conclu- sions they might draw from thence was, that God was placable ; since he behaved himself more as a tender friend, that had no mind to be at war with them, than an enraged enemy. The good things which he gave them, and the patience whereby he spared them, were no arguments of an implacable disposition ; and, therefore, of a disposition willing to be appeased. This is clearly the design of the apostle's arguing with the Lystrians, when they would have of- fered sacrifices to Paul (Acts, xiv. 17). When God " suffered all na- tions to walk in their own ways, he did not leave himself without witness, giving rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons." What were those witnesses of? not only of the being of a God, by their readi- ness to sacrifice to those that were not gods, only supposed to be so in their false imaginations ; but witnesses to the tenderness of God, that he had no mind to be severe with his creatures, but would allure them by ways of goodness. Had not God's patience tended to this end, to bring the world under another dispensation, the apostle's arguing from it had not been suitable to his design, which aeems to be a hindering the sacrifices they intended for them, and a drawing them to embrace the gospel, and therefore preparing the way to it, by speaking of the patience and goodness of God to them, as an unquestionable testimony of the reconcilableness of good to them, by some sacrifice which was represented under the common notion of sacrifices.? These things were not witnesses of Christ, or syllables whereby they could spell out the redeeming person ; but witnesses that God was placable in his own nature. When man abused those noble faculties God had given him, and diverted them from the use and service God intended them for, God might have stripped man of them the first time that he misemployed them ; and it would have seemed most agreeable to his wisdom and justice, not to suffer himself to be abused, and the world to go contrary to its natural end. But since he did not level the world with its first nothing, but healed the world so favorably, it was evident that his patience pointed the world to a farther design of mercy and good- ness in him. To imagine that God had no other design in his long- P Auiyrald, Dissert, pp. 191, 192. 502 CHAENOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. suffering but tliat of vengeance, liad been a notion unsuitable to the goodness and wisdom of God. He would never have pretended himself to be a friend, if he had harbored nothing but enmity in his heart against them. It had been far from his goodness to give them a cause to suspect such a design in him, as his patience certainly did, had he not intended it. Had he preserved men only for punishment, it is more like he would have treated men as princes do those they reserve for the axe or halter, give them only things necessary to up- hold their lives till the day of execution, and not have bestowed upon them so many good things to make their lives delightful to tiiem, nor have furnished them with so many excellent means to please their senses, and recreate their minds ; it had been a mocking of them to treat them at that rate, if nothing but punishment had been intended towards them. K the end of it, to lead men to re- pentance, were easily intelligible by them, as the apostle intimates (Rom. ii. 4) — which is to be linked with the former chapter, a dis- course of the Gentiles : "Not knowing," saith he, " that the riches of his forbearance and goodness leads thee to repentance" — it also gives them some ground to hope for pardon. For what other argu- ment can more induce to repentance than an expectation of mercy upon a relenting, and acknowledging the crime ? Without a design of pardoning grace, his patience would have been in a great mea- sure exercised in vain : for by mere patience God is not reconciled to a sinner, no more than a prince to a rebel, by bearing with him. Nor can a sinner conclude himself in the favor of God, no more than a rebel can conclude himself in the favor of his prince ; only, this he may conclude, that there is some hopes he may have the grant of a pardon, since he hath time to sue it out. And so much did the patience of God naturally signify that he was of a reconcilable tem- per, and was willing men should sue out their pardon upon repent- ance ; otherwise, he might have magnified his justice, and con- demned men by the law of works. (2.) He therefore exercised so much patience to wait for men's repentance. All the notices and warnings that God gives men, of either public or personal calamities, is a continual invitation to re- pentance. This was the common interpretation the heathens made of extraordinary presages and prodigies, which showed as well the delays as the approaches of judgments. What other notion but this, that those warnings of judgments witness a slowness to anger, and a willingness to turn his arrows another way, should move them to multiply sacrifices, go weeping to their temples, sound out prayers to their gods, and show all those other testimonies of a repentance which their blind understandings hit upon ? If a prince should sometimes in a light and gentle manner punish a criminal, and then relax it, and show him much kindness, and afterwards inflict upon him another kind of punishment as light as the former, and less than was due to his crime, what could the malefactor suspect by such a way of proceeding, but that the prince, by those gently-repeated chastisements, had a mind to move him to a regret for his crime ? b«;- ~n to use his sword, he sticks it up naked, that it might be rea:^ y ''Ci "ise upon every occasion. Though he hath feet of lead, yet he lUiih bands of iron. It was long that he supported the peevish- ne?^ c-J' iAQ Jews, but at last he captived them by the arms of the Bai.y^^,~Ji5.ns, and laid them waste by the power of the Eomans. He plan.^'l, by the apostles, churches in the east ; and when his good- ness and long-suffering prevailed not with them, he tore them up by the roots. What Christians are to be found in those once famous parts of Asia but what are overgrown with much error and ignorance? [3.] The more his patience is abused, the sharper will be the wrath he inflicts. As his wrath restrained makes his patience long, so his compassions restrained will make his wrath severe ; as he doth tran- scend all creatures in the measures of the one. so he doth transcend all creatures in the sharpness of the other. Christ is described with "feet of brass," as if they burned in a furnace (Kev. i. 15), slow to move, but heavy to crush, and hot to burn. His wrath loseth nothing by delay ; it grows the fresher by sleeping, and strikes with greater strength when it awakes : all the time men are abusing his patience, God is whetting his sword, and the longer it is whetting the sharper wiU be the edge ; the longer he is fetching his blow, the smarter it 512 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. will be. The heavier the cannons are, the more difficultly are thty drawn to the besieged town ; but, when arrived, they recompense the slowness of their march by the fierceness of their battery. " Be- cause I have purged thee," i. e, used means for thy reformation, and waited for it, " and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee : I will not go back, neither will I spare ; according to thy ways, and according to tliy doings, shall they judge thee" (Ezek. xxiv. 13. 14). God will spare as little then as he spared much before ; his wrath shall be as raging upon them as the sea of their wickedness was within them. When there is a bank to forbid the irruption of the streams, the waters swell ; but when the bank is broke, or the lock taken away, they rush with the greater violence, and ravage more than they would have done had they not met with a stop : the longer a stone is in falling, the more it bruiseth and grinds to pow- der. There is a greater treasure of wrath laid up by the abuses of patience : every sin must have a just recompense of reward ; and therefore every sin, in regard of its aggravations, must be more pun- ished than a sin in the singleness and simplicity of its own nature. As treasures of mercy are kept by God for us, " he keeps mercy for thousands ;" so are treasures of wrath kept by him to be expended, and a time of expense there must be : patience will account to jus- tice all the good offices it hath done the sinner, and demand to be righted by justice ; justice will take the account from the hands of patience, and exact a recompense for every disingenuous injury of- fered to it. When justice comes to arrest men for their debts, pa- tience, mercy, and goodness, will step in as creditors, and clap their actions upon them, which will make the condition so much more deplorable. [4.] When he puts an end to his abused patience, his wrath will make quick and sure work. He that is "slow to anger' xT;]! be swift in the execution of it. The departure of God from eiM.-:-Jera is described with " wings and wheels" (Ezek. xi. 23). One h-rrf-kc- of his hand is irresistible; he that hath spent so much time in wainng needs but one minute to ruin ; though it be long ere he drawr^ , when God should come to bring them to an account for his length and patience, so much abused by them. Though God endured the murmuring Israelites so long in the wilderness, yet he paid them off at last, and took away the reb- els in his wrath : he uttered their sentence with an irreversible oath, that " none of them should enter into his rest;" and he did as surely execute it as he had solemnly sworn it. [5.] Though he doth defer his visible wrath, yet that very delay may be more dreadful than a quick punishment. He may forbear striking, and give the reins to the hardness and corruption of men's hearts ; he may suffer them to walk in their own counsels, without any more striving with them, whereby they make themselves fitter fuel for his vengeance. This was the fate of Israel when they would not hearken to his voice ; he " gave them up to their own hearts' lusts, and they walked in their own counsels" (Ps. Ixxxi. 12). Though his sparing them had the outward aspect of patience, it was a wrathful one, and attended with spiritual judgments ; thus many abusers of patience may still have their line lengthened, and the candle of prosperity to shine upon their heads, that they may in- crease their sins, and be the fitter mark at last for his arrows ; they iswim down the stream of their own sensuality with a deploralble se- curity, till they fall into an unavoidable gulf, where, at last, it will be a great part of their hell to reflect on the length of Divine pa- tience on earth, and their inexcusable abuse of it. 2. It informs us of the reason why he lets the enemies of his church oppress it, and defers his promise of the deliverance of it. If he did punish them presently, his holiness and justice would be glorified, but his power over himself in his patience would be ob- scured. Well may the church be content to have a perfection of God glorified, that is not like to receive any honor in another world by any exercise of itself If it were not for this patience, he were incapable to be the Governor of a sinful world ; he might, without it, be the Governor of an innocent world, but not of a criminal one ; he would be the destroyer of the world, but not the orderer and dis- poser of the extravagancies and sinfulness of the world. The in- terest of his wisdom, in drawing good out of evil, would not be served, if he were not clothed with this perfection as well as with others. If he did presently destroy the enemies of his church apon the first oppression, his wisdom in contriving, and his power in accomplishing deliverance against the united powers of hell and earth, would not be visible, no, nor that power in preserving his people unconsumed in the furnace of affliction. He had not got so great a name in the rescue of his Israel from Pharaoh, had he thun- dered the tyrant into destruction upon his first edicts against the innocent. If he were not patient to the most violent of men, he might seem to be cjuel. But when he offers peace to them un- der their rebellions, waits that they may be members of his church, '-ni,. II. — 88 51'1 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. rather than enemies to it, he frees himself from any such impu- tation, even in the judgment of those that shall feel most of hia wrath ; it is this renders the equity of his justice unquestionable, and the deliverance of his people righteous in the judgment of those from whose fetters they are delivered. Christ reigns in the midst of his enemies, to show his power over himself, as well as over the heads of his enemies, to show his power over his re- bels. And though he retards his promise, and suffers a great in- terval of time between the publication and performance, sometimes years, sometimes ages to pass away, and little appearance of any preparation, to show himself a God of truth ; it is not that he hath forgotten his word, or repents that ever he passed it, or sleej^s in a supine neglect of it : but that men might not perish, but bethink themselves, and come as friends into his bosom, rather than be crushed as enemies under his feet (2 Pet. iii. 9) : " The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repent- ance." Hereby he shows, that he would be rather pleased with the conversion, than the destruction, of men. 3. We see the reason why sin is suffered to remain in the regene- rate ; to show his patience towards his own ; for since this attribute hath no other place of appearance but in this world, God takes op- portunity to manifest it ; because, at the close of the world, it will remain closed up in the Deity, without any further operation. As God suffers a multitude of sins in the world, to evidence his pa- tience to the wicked, so he suffers great remainders of sin in his people, to show his patience to the godly. His sparing mercy is ad- mirable, before their conversion, but more admirable in bearing with them after so high an obligation as the conferring upon them special converting grace. Use 2. Of comfort. . It is a vast comfort to any when God is paci- fied towards them ; but it is some comfort to all, that God is yet pa- tient towards them, though but very little to a refractory sinner. His continued patience to all, speaks a possibility of the care of all, would they not stand against the way of their recovery. It is a terror that God hath anger, but it is a mitigation of that terror that God is slow to it ; while his sword is in his sheath there is some hopes to prevent the drawing of it : alas ! if he were all fire and sword upon sin, what would become of us ? We should find no- thing else but overflowing deluges, or sweeping pestilences, or per- petual flashes of Sodom's fire and brimstone from heaven. He dooms us not presently to execution, but gives us a long breathing time after the crime, that by retiring from our iniquities, and having re- course to his mercy, he may be withheld forever from signing a war- rant against us, and change his legal sentence into an evangelical pardon. It is a special comfort to his people, that he is a " sanc- tuary to them" (Ezek. xi. 16); a place of refuge, a place of spiritual communications ; but it is some refreshment to all in this life, that he is a defence to them : for so is his patience called (Numb. xiv. 9) : " Their defence is departed from them ;" speaking to the Israelites, that they should not be afraid of the Canaanites, for ON GOD'S PATIENCE. Slf their defence is departed from them. God is no longer patient U them, since their sins be full and ripe. Patience, as long as it lasts, is a temporary defence to those that are under the wing of it ; but to the believer it is a singular comfort ; and God is called the " God of patience and consolation" in one breath (Rom. xv. 5) : " The God of patience and consolation grant jou to be lilse-minded ; all interpre- ters underatand it effectively. The God that inspires you with pa- tience, and cheers you with comfort, grant this to you. Why may it not be understood formally, of the patience belonging to the na- ture of God ? and though it be expressed in the way of petition, yet it might also be proposed as a pattern for imitation, and so suits very well to the exhortation laid down (ver. 1), which was to "bear with the infirmities of the weak," which he presseth them to (ver. 3) by the example of Christ ; and (ver. 5) by the pa- tience of God to them, and so they are very well linked together. " God of patience and consolation" may well be joined, since pa- tience is the first step of comfort to the poor creature. If it did not administer some comfortable hopes to Adam, in the interval between his fall and God's coming to examine him, I am sure it was the first discovery of any comfort to the creature, after the sweeping the destroying deluge out of the world (Gen. ix. 21) ; after the "savor of Noah's sacrifice," representing the great Sac- rifice which was to be in the world, had ascended up to God, the return from him is a publication of his forbearing to punish any more in such a manner : and though he found man no bet- ter than he was before, and the imaginations of men's hearts as evil as before the deluge, that he would not again smite every living thing, as he had done. This was the first expression of comfort to Noah, after his exit from the ark ; and declares no- thing else but the continuance of patience to the new world above what he had shown to the old. 1. It is a comfort, in that it is an argument of his grace to his peo- le. K he hath so rich a patience to exercise towards his enemies, e hath a greater treasure to bestow upon his friends. Patience is the first attribute which steps in for our salvation, and therefore called "salvation" (2 Pet. iii. 15). Something else is therefore built upon it, and intended by it, to those that believe. Those two letters of his name, " a God keeping mercy for thousands, and forgiving iniquity, transgressions and sin," follow the other letter of his long- sufiering in the proclamation (Exod, xxxiv. 6, 7). He is " slow to anger," that he may be merciful, that men may seek, and receive their pardon. K he be long-suffering, in order to be a pardoning God, he will not be wanting in pardoning those who answer the de- sign of his forbearance of them. You would not have had sparing mercy to improve, if God would have denied you saving mercy upon the improvement of his sparing goodness. If he hath so much re- spect to his enemies that provoke him, as to endure them with mu(ih long-suffering, he will surely be very kind to those that obey him, and conform to his will. If he hath much long-suffering to those that are " fitted for destruction" (Rom. ix. 22), he will have a much ness of mercy for those that are prepared for glory by faith and re I 516 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. pentauce. It is but a natural conclusion a gracious soul may make, — If God had not a mind to be appeased towards me, he would not have had a mind to forbear me ; but since he hath forborne me, and given me a heart to see, and answer the true end of that forbearance, I need not question, but that sparing mercy will end in saving, since it finds that repentance springing up in me, which that jiatience con- ducted me to. 2. His patience is a ground to trust in his promise. If his slow- ness to anger be so great when his precept is slighted, his readiness to give what he hath promised will be as great when his promise is believed. If the provocations of them meet with such an unwill- ingness to punish them, faith in him will meet with the choicest embraces from him. He was more ready to make the promise of redemption after man's apostasy, than to execute the threatening of the law. He doth still witness a greater willingness to give forth the' fruits of the promise, than to pour out the vials of his curses. His slowness to anger is an evidence still, that he hath the same disposi- tion, which is no slight cordial to faith in his word. 3. It is a comfort in infirmities. If he were not patient, he could not bear with so many peevishnesses and weaknesses in the hearts of his own. If he be patient to the grosser sins of his enemies, he will be no less to the lighter infirmities of his people. When the- soul is a bruised reed, that can emit no sound at all, or one very harsh and ungratefal, he doth not break it in pieces, and fling it away in disdain, but waits to see whether it will fully answer his pains, and be brought to a better frame and sweeter note. He brings them not to account for every slip, but, " as a father, spares his son that serves him" (Mai. iii. 17). It is a comfort to us in our distracted services ; for were it not for this slowness to anger, he would stifle us in the midst of our prayers, wherein there are as many foolish thoughts to disgust him, as there are petitions to implore him. The patientest angels would hardly be able to bear with the follies of good men in acts of worship. Use 3. For exhortation. 1. Meditate often on the patience of God. The devil labors for nothing more than to deface in us the consideration and memory of this perfection. He is an envious creature ; and since it hath reached out itself to us and not to him, he envies God the glory of it, and man the advantage of it : but God loves to have the volumes of it studied, and daily turned over by us. We cannot without an inex- cusable wilfulness miss the thoughts of it, since it is visible in every bit of bread, and breath of air in ourselves, and all about us. (1.) The frequent consideration of his patience would render God highly amiable to us. It is a more endearing argument than his mere goodness ; his goodness to us as creatures, endowing us wath such ex- cellent faculties, furnishing us with such a commodious world, and bestowing upon us so many attendants for our pleasure and service, and giving us a lordship over his other works, deserves our affection : "but his patience to us as sinners, after we have merited the greatest w/ath, shows him to be of a sweeter disposition than creating good- nessi to unoffending creatures; and, consequently, speaks a greater ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 617 ■'ove m liim, and bespeaks a greater affection from us. His creating goodness discovered the majesty of his Being, and the greatness of his mind, but this the sweetness and tenderness of his nature. In this patience he exceeds the mildness of all creatures to us ; and therefore should be enthroned in our affections above all other crea- tures. The consideration of this would make us affect him for his nature as well as for his benefits. (2.) The consideration of his patience would make us frequent and serious in the exercise of repentance. In its nature it leads to it, and the consideration of it would engage us to it. and melt us in the ex- ercise of it. Could we deeply think of it without being touched with a sense of the kindness of our forbearing Creditor and Governor ? Could we gaze upon it, nay, could we glance upon it, without relent- ing at our offending one of so mild a nature, without being sensibly affected, that he hath preserved us so long from being loaded with those chains of darkness, under which the devils groan ? This for- bearance hath good reason to make sin and sinners ashamed. That you are in being, is not for want of advantages enough in his hand .*.gainst you ; many a forfeiture you have made, and many an en- gagement you have broke ; he hath scarce met with any other deal- ing from us, than what had treachery in it. Whatsoever our sincerity is, we have no reason to boast of it, when we consider what mixtures there are in it, and what swarms of base motions taint it. Hath he not lain pressed and groaning under our sins, as a "cart is pressed with sheaves" (Amos, ii. 13), when one shake of himself, as Sampson, might have rid him of the burden, and dismissed us in his fury into hell ? If we should often ask our consciences why have we done thus and thus against so mild a God, would not the reflection on it put us to the blush ? If men would consider, that such a time they provoked God to his face, and yet not have felt his sword ; such a time they blasphemed him, and made a reproach of his name, and his thunder did not stop their motion ; such a time they fell into an abominable brutishness, yet he kept the punishment of devils, the unclean spirits, from reaching them ; such a time he bore an open affront from them, when they scoffed at his word, and he did not send a destruction, and laugh at it: would not such a meditation work some strange kind of relentings in men ? What if we should consider, that we cannot do a sinful act without the support of his concurring Providence ? We cannot see, hear, move, without his concourse. All creatures we use for our necessity or pleasure, are supported by him in the very act of assisting to pleasure us ; and when we abuse those creatures against him, which he supports for our use, how great is his patience to bear with us, that he doth not anni- hilate those creatures, or at least embitter their use ! What issue could reasonably be expected from this consideration, but, " O wretched man that I am, to serve myself of God's power to affront him, and of his long-suffering to abuse him ?" 0 infinite patience to employ that power to preserve me, that might have been used to punish me ! He is my Creator, I could not have a being with- out him, and yet I offend him ! He is my Preserver, I cannot main- tain my being without him, and yet I affront him ! Is this a 618 CIIARNOCK OX THE ATTRIBUTES. wortliy requital of God (Deut. xxxii. 6), "Do you thus requite the Lord?" would be the heartbreaking reflection. How would it give men a fuller prospect of the depravation of their nature than anything else ; that their corruption should be so deep and strong, that so much patience could not overcome it ! It would certainly make a man ashamed of his nature as well as his actions. (3.) The consideration of his patience would make us resent more the injuries done by others to God. A patient sufferei", though a deserving sufferer, attracts the pity of men, that have a value for any virtue, though clouded with a heap of vice. How much more should we have a concern of God, who suffers so many abuses from others ! and be grieved, that so admirable a patience should be slighted by men, who solely live by and under the daily influence of it ! The impression of this would make us take God's part, as it is usual Avith men to take the part of good dispositions that lie under oppression. (4.) It would make us patient under God's hand. His slowness to anger and his forbearance is visible, in the very strokes we feel in this life. We have no reason to murmur against him, who gives us so little cause, and in the greatest afflictions gives us more occasion of thankfulness than of repining. Did not slowness to the extremest anger moderate every affliction, it had been a scorpion instead of a rod. We have reason to bless Him, who, from his long-suffering, sends temporal sufferings, where eternal are justly due. (Ezra, ix. 13), " Thou hast punished us less than our iniquities do deserve." His indulgences towards us have been more than our corrections, and the length of his patience hath exceeded the sharpness of his rod. Upon the account of his long-suffering, our mutinies against God have as little to excuse them, as our sins against him have to deserve his forbearance. The consideration of this would show us more rea- son to repine at our own repinings, than at any of his smarter deal- ings ; and the consideration of this would make us submissive under the judgments we expect. His undeserved patience hath been more than our merited judgments can possibly be thought to be. If we fear the removal of the gospel for a season, as we have reason to do, we should rather bless him, that by his waiting patience, he hath continued it so long, than murmur, that he threatens to take it away so late. He hath borne with us many a year, since the light of it was rekindled, when our ancestors had but six years' of patience between the rise of Edward the Sixth, and the ascent of Queen Mary, to the crown. 2. Exhortation is to admire and stand astonished at his patience, " and bless him for it." If you should have defiled your neighbor's bed, or sullied his reputation, or rifled his goods, would he have withheld his vengeance, unless he had been too weak to execute it ? We have done worse to God than we can do to man, and yet he draws not that sword of wrath out of the scabbard of his patience, to sheath it in our hearts. It is not so much a wonder that any judgments are sent, as that there are no more, and sharper. That the world shall be fired at last, is not a thing so strange, as that fire doth not come down every day upon some part of it. Had the disciples, that saw such excellent patterns of mildness from theii ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 619 Mi.3ter, and were so often urged to learn of liim that was lowly and meek, the government of the world, it had been long since turned into ashes, since they were too forward to desire him to open his magazine of judgments, and kindle a fire to consume a Samaritan village, for a slight affront in comparison of what he received from others, and afterwards from themselves in their forsaking of him (Luke, ix. 52 — 54). We should admire and praise that here which shall be praised in heaven ; though patience shall cease as to its exercise after the consummation of the world, it shall not cease from receiving the acknowledgments of what it did, when it traversed the stage of this earth. If the name of God be glorified, and ac- knowledged in heaven, no question but this will also ; since long- suffering is one of his Divine titles, a letter in his name, as well as "merciful, and gracious, abundant in goodness and truth." And there is good reason to think that the patience exercised towards some, before converting grace was ordered to seize upon them, will bear a great part in the anthems of heaven. The greater his long- suffering hath been to men, that lay covered with their own dung, a long time before they were freed by grace from their filth ; the more admiringly and loudly they will cry up his mercy to them, after they have passed the gulf, and see a deserved hell at a distance from them, and many in that place of torment who never had the tastes of so much forbearance. If mercy will be praised there, that which began the alphabet of it, cannot be forgot. If Paul speak so highly of it in a damping world, and under the pull-backs of a '' body of death," as he doth 1 Tim. i. 16, 17 : " For this cause I ob- tained mercy ; that Christ might show forth all long-suffering. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor, and glory, for ever and ever. Amen." No doubt, but he will have a higher note for it, when he is surrounded with a hea- venly flame, and freed from all remains of dulness. Shall it be praised above, and have we no notes for it here below ? Admire Christ, too, who sued out your reprieve upon the account of his merit. As mercy acts not upon any but in Christ, so neither had patience borne with any but in Christ. The pronouncing the arrest of judgment (Gen. viii. 21) was when "God smelled a sweet savor from Noah's sacrifice," not from the beasts offered, but the anti- typical sacrifice represented. That we may be raised to bless God for it, let us consider, (1.) The multitude of our provocations. Though some have blacker guilt than others, and deeper stains, yet let none wipe hia mouth, but rather imagine himself to have but little reason to bless it. Are not all our offences as many as there have been minutes in our lives ? All the moments of our continuance in the world have been moments of his patience and our ingratitude. Adam waa punished for one sin, Moses excluded Cana'an for a passionate un- believing word. Ananias and Sapphira lost their lives for one sin against the Holy Ghost. One sin sullied the beauty of the world, defaced the works of God, and cracked heaven and earth in pieces, had not infinite satisfaction been proposed to the provoked Justice by the Redeemer , and not one sin committed, but is of the sam€ 620 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES, venomous nature. How many of those contradictions against hini' self hath he borne with ! Had we been only unprofitable to him, his forbearance of us had been miraculous ; but how much doth it exceed a miracle, and lift itself above the meanness of a conjunction wdth such an epithet, since we have been provoking! Had there been no more than our impudent or careless rushings into his pres- ence in worship ; had they been only sins of omission, and sins of ignorance, it had been enough to have put a stand to any further operations of this perfection towards us. But add to those, sins of commission, sins against knowledge, sins against spiritual motions, sins against repeated resolutions, and pressing admonitions, the neglects of all the opportunities of repentance ; put them all toge- ther, and we can as little recount them, as the sands on the sea-shore. But what, do I only speak of particular men ? View the whole world, and if our own iniquities render it an amazing patience, what a mighty supply will be made to it in all the numerous and weighty provocations, under which he hath continued the world for so many revolutions of years and ages! Have not all those pressed into his presence with a loud cry, and demanded a sentence from justice? yet hath not the Judge been overcome by the importunity of our sins ? Were the devils punished for one sin, a proud thought, and that not committed against the blood of Christ, as we have done numberless times ; yet hath not God made us j)artakers in their punishment, though we have exceeded them in the quality of their sin. O admirable patience ! that would bear with me under so many, while he would not bear with the sinning angels for one.'^ (2.) Consider how mean things we are, who have provoked him. What is man but a vile thing, that a God, abounding with all riches, should take care of so abject a thing, much more to bear so many affronts from such a drop of matter, such a nothing creature ! That he that hath anger at his command, as well as pity, should endure such a detestable, deformed creature by sin, to fly in his face ! " What is man, that thou art mindful of him ?" (Ps, viii.) i:3i5x, miserable, incurable man, derived from a word, that signifies to be incurably sick. Man is "Adam," earth from his earthly original, and " Enoch/' incurable from his corruption. Is it not worthy to be admired, that a God of infinite glory should wait on such Adams, worms of earth, and be, as it w^ere, a servant, and attendant to such Enochs, sickly and peevish creatures? (3.) Consider who it is that is thus patient. He it is that, with one breath, could turn heaven and earth, and all the inhabitants of both, into nothing ; that could, by one thunderbolt, have razed up the foundations of a cursed world. He that wants not instruments without to ruin us, that can arm our own consciences against us, and can drown us in our own phlegm ; and, by taking out one pin from our bodies, cause the whole fi-ame to fall asunder. Besides, it is a God that, while he suffers the sinner, hates the sin more than all the holy men upon earth, or angels in heaven, can do ; so that his patience for a minute transcends the patience of all creatures, from the crea- tion to the dissolution of the world : because it is the patience of a ♦ Pout. Part I. p. 42. ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 521 God, infinitely more sensible to the cursed quality of sin, and infi nitely more detesting it. (4.) Consider how long lie liath forborne his anger. A repiieve for a week or a month is accounted a great favor in civil states ; the civil law enacts, " That if the emperor commanded a man to be con- demned, the execution was to be deferred thirty days : because in that time the prince's auger might be appeased."*^ But how great a favor is it to be reprieved thirty years for many offences, every one of which deserves death more at the hands of God than any offence can at the hands of man ! Paul was, according to the common account, but about thirty years old at his conversion ; and how much doth he elevate Divine long-suffering ! Certainly there are many who have more reason, as having larger quantities of patience cut out to them, who have lived to see their own gray hairs in a rebellious posture against God, before grace brought them to a sur- render. We were all condemned in the womb ; our lives were forfeited the first moment of our breath, but patience hath stopped the arrest ; the merciful Creditor deserves to have acknowledgment from us, who hath laid by his bond so many years without putting it in suit against us. Many of your companions in sin have perhaps been surprised long ago, and haled to an eternal prison ; nothing is remaining of them but their dust, and the time is not yet come for your funeral. Let it be considered, that that God that would not wait upon the fallen angels one instant after their sin, nor give them a moment's space of repentance, hath prolonged the life of many a sinner in the world to innumerable moments, to 420,000 minutes in the space of a year, to 8,400,000 minutes in the space of twenty years. The damned in hell would think it a great kindness to have but a year's, month's, nay, day's respite, as a space to repent in. (5.) Consider also, how many have been taken away under shorter measures of patience : some have been struck into a hell of misery, while thou remainest upon an earth of forbearance. In a plague, the destroying angel hath hewed down others, and passed by us ; the arrows have flew about our heads, passed over us, and stuck in the heart of a neighbor. How many rich men, how many of our friends and familiars, have been seized by death since the be- ginning of the year, when they least thought of it, and imagined it far from them ! Have you not known some of your acquaintance snatched away in the height of a crime ? Was not the same wrath due to you as well as to them ! And had it not been as dreadful for you to be so surprised by Him as it was for them ? Why should he take a less sturdy sinner out of thy company, and let thee re- main still upon the earth ? If God had dealt so with you, how had you been cut off, not only from the enjoyment of this life, but the hopes of a better ! And if God had made such a providence bene- ficial for reclaiming you, how much reason have you to acknowledge him 1 He that hath had least patience, hath cause to admire ; but those that have more, ought to exceed others in blessing him for it. If God had put an end to your natural life before you had made pro- virdon for eternal, how deplorable would your condition have been I » Cod. lib. ix. Titul. 476, p. 20. 522 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. Consider also, whoever liave been sinners formerly of a deeper note; might not God have struck a man in the embraces of his harlots, and choked him in the moment of his excessive and intemperate healths, or on the sudden have spurted fire and brimstone into a blasphemer's mouth ? What if God had snatched you away, when you had been sleeping in some great iniquit}^, or sent you while burning in lust to the lire it merited ? Might he not have cracked the string that linked your souls to your bodies, in the last sickness you had? And what then had become of you ? What could have been expected to succeed your impenitent state in this world, but bowlings in another ? but he reprieved you upon your petitions, or the solicitations of your friends ; and have you not broke your word with him ? Have your hearts been steadfast ; hath he not yet waited, expecting when you would put your vows and resolutions into execution ? What need had he to cry out to any so loud and so long, 0 you fools, "how long will you love foolishness?" (Prov. i 22), when he might have ceased his crying to you, and have by your death prevented your many neglects of him ? Did he do all this that any of us might add new sins to our old ; or rather, that we should bless him for his forbearance, comply with the end of it in reforming our lives, and having recourse to his mercy ? 3. Exhortion ; therefore presume not upon his patience. The ex- ercise of it is not eternal ; you are at present under his patience ; yet, while you are unconverted, you are also under his anger (Ps. vii. 11), " God is angry with the wicked every day." You know not how soon his anger may turn his patience aside, and step before it. It may be his sword is drawn out of his scabbard, his arrows may be settled in his bow ; and perhaps there is but a little time be- fore you may feel the edge of the one or the point of the other : and then there will be no more time for patience in God to us, or petition from us to him. If we repent here he will pardon us. If we defer repentance, and die without it, he will have no longer mercy to par- don, nor patience to bear. What is there in our power 'but the present ? the future time we cannot command, the past time we can- not recall ; squander not then the present away. The time will come when " time shall be no more," and then long-suffering shall be no more. Will you neglect the time, wherein patience acts, and vainly hope for a time beyond the resolves of patience ? Will you spend that in vain, which goodness hath allotted you for other purposes ? What an estimate will you make of a little forbearance to respite death, when you are gasping under the stroke of its arrows ! How much would you value some few days of those many years you now trifle away ! Can any think God will be always at an expense witli them in vain, that he will have such riches trampled under their feet, and so many editions of his patience be made waste paper ? Do you know how few sands are yet to run in your glass ? Are you sure that He that waits to-day, will wait as well to-morrow ? How can you tell, but that God that is slow to anger to-day, may be swift to it the next ? Jerusalem had but a day of peace, and the most careless sinner hath no more. When their day was done, they were destroyed by famine, pestilence, or sword, or led into a doleful ON GOD'S PATIENCE. 523 captivity. Did God make our lives so uncertain, and the duration of his forbearance unknown to us, that we should live in a lazj neglect of his glorj, and our own happiness ? K you should have more patience in regard of your lives, do you know whether you shall have the effectual offers of grace ? As your lives depend upon his will, so your conversion depends solely upon his grace. There have been many examples of those miserable wretches, that have been left to a reprobate sense, after they have a long time abused Divine forbearance. Though he waits, yet he "binds up sin." (Hos. xiii. 12), " The sin of Ephraim is bound up," as bonds are bound up by a creditor till a lit opportunity : when God comes to put the bond in suit, it will be too late to wish for that patience we have so scornfully despised. Consider therefore the end of patience. The patience of God considered in itself, without that which it tends to, affords very little comfort ; it is but a step to pardoning mercy, and it may be without it, and often is. Many have been reprieved that were never forgiven ; hell is full of those that had patience as well as we, but not one that accepted pardoning grace went within the gates of it. Patience leaves men, when their sins have ripened them for hell ; but pardoning grace never leaves men till it hath con- ducted them to heaven. His patience speaks him placable, but doth not assure us that he is actually ajDpeased. Men may hope that a long-suffering tends to a pardon, but cannot be assured of a pardon, but by something else above mere long-suffering. Eest not then upon bare patience, but consider the end of it ; it is not that any should sin more freely, but repent more meltingly ; it is not to spirit rebellion, but give a merciful stop to it. Why should any be so ambitious of their ruin, as to constrain God to ruin them against the inclinations of his sweet disposition ? 4. The fourth exhortation is, Let us imitate God's patience in our own to others. He is unhke God that is hm-ried, with an unruly impetus, to punish others for wronging him. The consideration of Divine patience should make us square ourselves according to that pattern. God hath exercised a long-suffering from the fall of Adam to this minute on innumerable subjects, and shall we be transported with desire of revenge upon a single injury ? If God were not " slow to \vrath," a sinful world had been long ago torn up from the foundation. And if revenge should be exercised by all men against their enemies, what man should have been alive, since there is not a man without an enemy ? If every man were like Saul, breathing out threatenings, the world would not only be an aceldema, but a desert. How distant are they from the nature of God, who are in a flame upon every slight provocation from a sense of some feeble and imaginary honor, that must bloody their sword for a trifle, and write their revenge in wounds tmd death ! When God hath his glory every day bespattered, yet he keeps his sword in his sheath ; what a woe would it be to the world, if he drew it upon every affront I This is to be like brutes, dogs, or tigers, that snarl, bite, and devour, upon every slight occasion : but to be patient is to be divine, and to show ourselves acquainted with the disposition of God. "Be you thr ■ ore perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt, v, 48) : 524 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES. i. e. Be jou perfect and good ; for lie had been exhorting them to bless them that cursed them, and to do good to them that hated them, and that from the example God had set them, in causing his sun to rise upon the evil as well as the good. "Be you there- fore perfect." To conclude : as patience is God's perfection, so it is the accomplishment of the soul : and as his " slowness to anger" argues the greatness of his power over himself, so an unwillingness to revenge is a sign of a power over ourselves which is more noble than to be a monarch over others. I N D E I. Acquaintance with God, men are unwilling to have any, i. 158. — See Communion. Actions a greater proof of principles than words, i. 92. All are known by God, i. 424. Activity reqidred in spiritual worship, i. 227, 228. Adam, the greatness of his sin, ii. 269, 429. — See Man, and Fall of Man. Additions in matters of religion an inva- sion of God's sovereignty, ii. 432, 433. — See Worship, and Ceremonies Admiration ought to be exercised in spir- itual worship, i. 233. Affections, human, in what sense ascribed "to God, i. 340—343. Afflictions, sharp, make Atheists fear there is a God, i. 81. Make us impatient (See Impatience). We should be patient un- der them (see Patience). Many call on God only under them, i. 151. Fill us with distraction in the worship of God, i. 258. The presence of God a comfort in them, i. 399 ; and his knowledge, i. 488. The wisdom of God apparent in them, i. 547 — 550. The wisdom of God a comfort in them, i. 593 ; and his power, ii. 98, 99 ; and his sovereignty, ii. 461. Do not impeach his goodness, ii. 243, 244. The goodness of God seen in them, ii. 309 — 311. His goodness a comfort in them, ii. 342. Acts of God's sovereignty, ii. 373 — 376; the consideration of which would make us entertain them as we ought, ii. 456. Age, many neglect the serving of God till old, i. 113. Air, how useful a creature, i. 54. Almighty, how often God ia so called in Scripture, ii. 10. How often in Job, ii. 36. Angels, good, what benefit they have by Christ, i. 536, ii. 263, 264. Not instru- ments in the creation of man, ii. 41. Evil, not redeemed, ii. 263, 264. Angels, not governors of the woidd, ii. 328, 329. Subject to God, ii. 381, 382. Apostasy. Men apostatize from G.>d vii«»n his will crosses theirs, 1. 136. In timna of persecution, i. 149, 150. By reason of practical atheism, i. 167. Apostles, the first preachers of the gospel, mean and worthless men, ii. 69 — 71. Spirited by Divine p(5wer for spreading of it, ii. 72 — 74. The wisdom of God seen in using such instruments, i. 578, 579. Applauding ourselves. — See Pride. Atheism, opens a door to all manner of wickedness, i. 24. Some spice of it in all men, i. 25 — 27. The greatest folly, i. 24 — 77. Common in our days, i. 26, 79, 80. Strikes at the foundation of all re- ligion, i. 26. We should establish our- selves against it, ib. It is against the light of natural reason, i. 2. Against the universal consent of all nations, i. 29, 30. But few, if any, professed it in former ages, i. 32—34," 80. Would root up the foundations of all government, i. 77. In- troduce all evil into the world, i. 78. Pernicious to the atheist himself, i. 79. The cause of public judgments, i. 80. Men's lusts the cause of it, i. 82. Pro- moted by the devil most since the de- struction of idolatry, i 84. Uncomfort- able, i. 85. Directions against it, i. 87. AU sin founded in a secret atheism, i. 98. Atheism, practical, natural to man, i, 89. Natural since the fall, i. 90. To all men, ib. Proved by arguments, L 99 — 161. We ought to be humbled for it, both in our- selves and others, i. 167. How great a sin it is, i. 169 — 171. Misery will at- tend it, i. 171, 172. We should watch against it, ib. Directions against it, i. 172, 173. Atheist cau never prove there is no God, i. 81. All the creatures fight against him, ib. In afflictions, suspects and fears there is a God, i. 82. How much pains he takes to blot out the notion, ib. S'lp- pose it were an even lay that there wera no God, yet he is very imprudent, i. 83. Usee not means to inform himself, ib 526 INDEX, Atoms, the world not made by a casual concourse of them, i. 6U. Atfribntes of God bear a comfortable re- spect to believers, i. 513. AiUhority, how distinguished from power, ii. 364. B. Lest we have, ought to be given to God, i. 24*2—244. Blessmgs, spiritual, God only the author of, ii. 367. Temporal, God uses a sover- eignty iu bestowing them, ii. 412, 413. — See Riches. Body of man, how curiously wrought, i. 63 — 67, 528. Every human one hath different features, i. 66. God hath none (See Spirit). We must worship God with our bodies, i. 219 — 222; yet not with our bodies only. — See Soul, and Worship. Bodily shape, we must not conceive of God under a, i. 197, 198, Bodily members ascribed to him. — See Members. Brain, how curious a workmanship, i. 65. 0. Calf, golden, the Israelites worshipped the true God uuder, i. 195. Callings, God tits and inclines men to seve- ral, i. 531, 532 ; ii. 598. Appoints every man's calling, ii. '121. Cause, a first, of all things, i. 50, 51 ; which doth necessarily exist, and is infiuitely perfect, i. 51. Censure. God not to be censured in his counsels, actions, or revelations, i. 295. Or in his ways, i. 605, 606. Censuring the heai-ts of others is an injury to God's omniscience, i. 478. Men, is a contempt of God's sovereignty, ii. 441. Ceremonial Law abolished to promote spir- itual worship, i. 213. Called flesh, ib. Not a fit means to bring the heart into a spiritual frame, i. 214. Rather hindered than furthered spiritual worship, i. 215, 216. God never testified himself well- pleased with it, nor intended it should always last, i. 216 — 218. The abroga- tion of it doth not argue any change in God, i. 346. The holiness of God ap- pears in it, ii. 131, 132. Ceremonies, men are prone to bring their own into God's worship, i. 133, 134. — See Worship, and Additions, Ac. Chance., the world not made nor governed by it, i. 59. Charity, men have bad ends in it, i. 153. We should exercise it, ii. 353, 354. The consideration of God's sovereignty would promote it, ii. 456. Cheerful, iu God's Avorship we should be, i. 235. Christ, his Godhead proved from his eter- nity, i. 291 — 293 ; ffom his omiripreBenoe, i. 392, 393 ; from his immutability, i. 346 — 348; from his knowledge of God, all creatures, the hearts of men, and hia pi'escience of their inclinations, L 465 — 469; from his omnipotence, manifest in ci'ealion, preservation and resuri'ection, ii. SO — 86; from his holiness, ii. 190; from his wisdom, i. 558. Christ is God man. ii. 62. Spiritual wor- ship oflered to God through him, i. 241, 242. The imperf'eetness of our services should make us pi-ize his inedtatioii, i. 261. The only fit Person in the Truiity to assume our nature, i. 558 — 560. P'it- ted to be our Mediator aud Saviour bv his two natures, i. 563 — 565. Should be imitated iu his holiness, and often viewed by us to that end, ii. 200 — 207. The greatest gifr, ii. 266 — 269. Appointed by the Father to be our Redeemer, it 424—426. Christian religion, its excellency, i. 167. Of Divine extraction, i. 580. Most op- posed in the world, i. 111. — See Gospel. Church, God's eternity a comfort to her in all her distresses and threatenings of her enemies, i. 299, 300. Under God's sjte- cial providence, L 406. His infinite knowledge a comfort in all su'otile con- trivances of men against her, i. 483, 484, Troublers of her peace by cx)rrupt doc- trines no better than devils, i. 498. God's wisdom a comfort to her in )ier greatest dangers, i. 594. Hath shown his power in her deliverance in all ages, i. 277, iL 56 ; aud in the destruetion of her ene- mies, ii. 56 — 59. Ought to take comfort in his power in her lowest eotate, ii. 101. Should not fear her enemies (see Fear). His goodness a comfort in dangers, iL 344. How great is God's love to her, ii. 449 — 515. Hi» sovereignty a comfort to her, ii. 452, 463. He will comfort her in her fears, and destroy her enemies, ii, 472, 473. God exercises patience to wards her, ii. 504, 505 ; for her sake to the wicked also, iL 506. Why her ene- mies are not mimediately desl/oyed. ii- 513, 513. Commands of God. — See Laws. Comfort, the holiness of God to be relied on for, iL 190, 191. Comfort us, creatures caimot, if God be an gry, iL 448. Comforts, God gives great, in or after temptations, ii. 311 — 313. Communion with God, man naturally no desire of, L 161. The advantage of, i 172. Can only be in our spiiits, i. 202 We should desire it, i. 308. Cannot be between God and sinners, ii. 183. Holi- ness only fits us for it, ii. 204, 206. Conceptions, we cannot have adequate ones of (iod, i. 196, 1 97, We ought to labor af- ter as high ones as we can, ib. They must INDEX. 527 not be of him in a corporeal shape, i. 197, 198. There will be in them a sim- iltude of some corporeal thing in our fancy, i. 198, 199, We ought to refine and spirituaUze them, i. 200. Conceptions, right, of him, a great help 'C spiritual worship, i. 272, 273. Coitcurrence of God to all the actions of his creatures, ii. 156, 157. Concurring to sinful actions no blemish to God's holiness, ii. 157 — 163. Conditions, various, of men, a fruit of Di- vine wisdom, i. 531, 532. Conditions of tlie covenant. — See Covenant, Faith, and Repentance. Confession of sin, men may have bad euds iu it, i. 153. Partial ones a practical de- nial of God's omniscience, i. 480, 481. Conscience proves a Deity, i. 69 — 73. Fears and stings of it iu all uieu upon the com- mission of sin, i. 70 — 72; though never so secret, i. 71, 72. Cannot be totally shaken ot^ i. 72. Comforts a man in well-doing, i. 72, 73. Necessary for the good of tiie world, i. 73. Terrified ones wish there were no God, i. 97. Men naturally displeased with it, when it contradicts the desires of self, i. 123. Obey carnal self against the light of it, i. 140, 141. Accusations of it evidence God's knowledge of all things, i. 463. God, and he only, can speak peace to it when troubled, ii. 79, 386. His laws only reach it, ii. 390, 391, 432, 433. Constancy in that which is good, we should labor after, and why, i. 360, 361. Content the soul, nothing but an infinite good can, i. 73, 74. — See Satisfaction, and So^(,l. Contingents all foreknown by God. — See Knowledge of God. Ccmtradictioyis cannot be made true by God, ii. 26 — 30 ; yet this doth not over- throw God's omnipotence, ib. It is an abuse of God's power to endeavor to justify them by it, ii. 95. Contrary qualities linked together in the creatures, i. 52, 53, 524. Conversion, carnal self-love a great hin- drance to it, i. 137. There may be a conversion from sin which is not good, i. 150. Men are enemies to it, i. 160, 161. The necessity of it, i. 163, 164. God only can be the Author of it, i. 165, 166, ii. 396. The wisdom of God appears in it, in the subjects, seasons, and manner of it, i. 641 — 547 ; and his power, ii. 72 — 78 ; and his lioliness, ii. 139 , and his goodness, ii. 306, 307 ; and his sovereign- ty, ii. 396 — 404. He could convert all, ii. 399. Not bound to convert any, ii. 401, 402. The various means and occa- sions of it, ii. 421. Convictions, genuine, would be promoted by right and strong apprehensions of Gk)d'8"holiness, ii. 191. Corruptions, the knowledge of God a com fort under fears of them lurking in the heart, i. 489, 490. The power of God a comfort when they are strong and stir- riug, ii. 99 In God's people shall be subdued, ii. 450, 451 ; the remaiuders of them God orders for their good, i. 628, 544. Covenant of God with his people eternal, i. 297, 298 ; and unchangeable, i. 354. Covenant, God in, an eternal good to hip people, i. 297. Covenant of grace, conditions of, evidence the wisdom of God, i. 571. Suited to man's lapsed state, and God's glory, ib. Opposite to that which was the cause of the fall, i. 572. Suited to the common sentiments and customs of the world and consciences of men, i. 572, 573. Only likely to attain the end, i. 573. Evidence God's holiness, ii. 138. The wisdom cf God made over to believers in it, i. 59? f94r- and power, li. 98; and holiness, ii. 190, 181. A promise of life Implied in the covenant uf woiks, ii. 2!i3, 254 ; why not expressed, ii. 527. Ttie goodness of God manifest in making a covenant of grace after man had broken the fir&t, iu 274, 275. In the nature and tenor of it, ii. 275 — 277. In the choice gift of himself made over in it, ii. 277, 278. Ir its confirmation, ii. 278, 279. Its coudi tions easy, reasonable, necessary, ii. 279 — 284. It promises a more excellent re- ward than the life iu paradise, ii. 291 — 293. Covetousness. — See Riches, and World. Creation, the wisdom of God appeal's in it, i. 618 — 525; and should be meditated upon, i. 626 ; motives to it, ii. 5 — 9 ; his power, ii. 35 — 44; his holiness, ii. 126, 127 ; his goodness, 244 — 258. Goodness the end and motive of it, ii. 228, 229. Ascribed to Christ, ii. 81—85. The foundation of God's dominion, ii. 368 — 370. Creatures evidence the being of God, i. 28, 42 — 64 ; in their produviicu, i. 43 — 61 ; in their harmony, i. 52 — 60 ; ii^ pursuing their several ends, i. 60 — 62 ; in their preservation, i. 62, 63. "Were not, and cannot be, from eternity, i. 45, 46, 292. None of them can make themselves, i. 47 — 49 ; or the world, i. 49, 50. Subservi- ent to one another, i. 53, 378. Regular, uniform, and constant in it, i. 56, 57. Are various, i. 58. 519, 620. Have seve- ral natures, i. 60. All fight against the atheist, i. 82. God ought to be studied in them, i. 86. All manifest something of God's perfections, (6. Setting them up as our end (see End). Must not be worshipped (see Idolatry). Used by man to a contrary end than God appointed, i. 148. All are changeable, i. 865. Therefore an humutable God to be pr& 528 INDEX. ferrod before them. i. 358. Are ridthiiii^ to God, 395. Are all known by (tocI, i. 42-2, 4:23. Shall be restored "to their primitive end, i. 313, ii. 293. TJieu- beau- tiful order and situation, i. 520, 621. Are fitted for their several ends, i 522 — 524. None of them can be omnipresent, i. 378; or omnipotent, ii. 18; or infinitely perfect, ii. 24 ; Goil eoukl have made more than he hath, ii. 21, 22. Made them all moie perfect than they are, ii. Id, 24. Yet all are made in the best manner, ii. 24, 25. The power that is in them demonstrates a greater to be in God, i* 31. Ordered by God as he pleases, ii. 57. The meanest of them can destroy us by God's order, ii. 107, 448. Making different ranks of them, doth not impeach God's goodness, ii. 232 — 235. Cursed for the sin of man, ii. ?50, 293. What benefit they have by the redemption of man, ii. 293, 294. Cannot comfort us if God be angry, li. 448. All subject to God, li. 381—387. All obey God,"ii. 465, 4*'6. Curiositii in inquiries about God's counsels and actions, a great folly, i. 295. It is an iujui'ing God's knowledge, 475 — 477. It is a contempt of Divine wisdom, i. 590. Should not be employed about what God hath not revealed, i. 603, 604. The considei-ation of God's sovereignty would check it, ii. 457. D. Diiy, how necessary, i, 523. Death of Christ, its value is from his Di- vine Nature, i. 564. Vindicated the honor of the law, both as to precept and penalty, i. 566. Overturned the Devil's empire, i. 568. He.suifered to rescue us bv it, ii. 268. By the command of the Father, ii. 425, 426. Debatiched persons wish there were no God, i. 97. Decrees of God, no succession in them. i. 285. Unchaugeable, i. 582, 583, ii. 451, 452. — See Iinmutabiliti/. Dejilemtnt, God not capable of it from any corporeal thing, i. 201, 390, 392. Deiiffhf, holy duties sliotdd be performed with, i. 234 — 236. All delight in wor- ship doth not prove it to be spiritual, i. 235. We should examine oui'selves after worship, what delight we had in it, L 252. Deliverances chiefly to be ascribed to God, L 406. The wisdom of God seen iii them, i. 550—552. Desires, of man, naturally after an infinite good, i. 73, 74 ; which evidences the be- ing of a God, i. 74. Men naturally have no desire of remembrance of God, con- Tcrae with him, thorough return to him, or imitation of bira, i. 159 — 161. Devil, man naturally under tiis dominion, i. 118, 119. God's restraining him, how- great a mercy (see Restraint). Shall be totally subdueil by God, i. 498. Out. witted by God, i. 568. His first sin, what it was, ii. 427 — 429. — See Angd. U-'ection, men neglect to ask it of God ;see Trust ine/ in ourselves). Should seek it of him, i. 585. Not to do it, how sin- ful, i. 589, 590. Should not presume to give it to him, i. 591. Disappointments make many cast off their obedience to God, i. 115, 116. God dis- appoints the devices of men, ii. 418— 420. Dispensations of God with his own law, ii. 391—393. Distance from God naturallv affected by men, i. 158, 159. How great it is, ii. 180. Distractions in the service of God, how natural, i. 114, 256. Will be so while we have natural corruption within, i. 256, 257 ; while we art in the Devil's precinct, i. 257. Most frequent ir time of afflic- tion, i 258. Ma^ be improved to make us more spiritual, i. 268 — 261 ; when we are humbled for them in worship, i. 258, 259 ; and for the baseness of our natures, the cause of them, i. 2-~9. Make us prize duties of worship the more, ib. Fill us with admirations of the graciousness of God, 1 260. Prize the meditation of Christ, i. 261. They should not discou- rage us, if we resist them, ib ; and if wt narrowly watch against them, i 262. Should be speedily cast out, i. 274, Thoughts of God's presence a remedy against them, i. 404. Distresses. — See Aff^ictions. Distrust of God, a ct)ntempt of God's wis- dom, i. 593 ; and his power, ii. 93 ; and of his goodness, ii. 319, 320. Too great fear of man arises from it, ii. 94. — Sec Trusting in God, and in ourselves. Divinity of Christ. — See Christ. Of the Holy Ghost — See Holy Ghost. Doctrines that are self-pleasing desired by men, i. 139. — See Truths. Dominion of God distinguished from his power, ii. 364 All his other attributes fit him for it, ii 364, 365. Acknowledged by all, ib. Inseparable from the notioL of God, ii. 365, 366. We cannot suppose God a creator without it, ii. 366. Can not be renounced by God himself, ib.j nor communicated ft) any creature, ii. 366 367. Its foundation, ii. 367—372. It is independent, ii. 372, 373 ; absolute, ii 373 — 377 ; yet not tyrannical, ii. 377 378 ; mauiiged with wisdom, righteous ness, and goodness, ii. 378 — 380. It ia eternal, ii. 386, 387. It is manifested as he is a lawgiver, ii. 387 — 394 ; as a pro- prietor, ii. 394 — 413 ; as a governor, iL 413 — 4?2 ; as a redeemer, ii. 422 — 426. The cont^.mpt of it, how great, ii. 42& INDEX. 52ir 427. All sin is a coutempt of it, ii. 427, 428. The first thing the devil aimed against, ii. 428, 429 ; and Adam, ii. 429. Invaded by the usurpations of men, ii. 430, 431. Wherem it is contemned af as he is a la'wgiver, ii. 431 — 435 ; as a proprietor, ii. 435, 436 ; as a governor, ii. 436 — 441. It is terrible to the wick- ed, ii. 446 — 448. Comfortable to the righteous, ii. 449 — 453. Should be often meditated upon by us, ii. 453, 454. The advantages of so doing, ii. 454 — 457. It should teach us humility, ii. 458. Calls for our praise and thanks, ii. 459, 460. Should make us promote his honor, ii. 461, 462. Calls for fear, prayer, and obedience, ii. 462, 463. Affords motives to obedience, iL 463 — 466 ; and shows the manner of it, ii. 466 — 469. Calls for patience, ii. 469. Atfords motives to it, ii. 469— r471. Shows us the true nature of it, ii. 471. Duties of religion performed often merely for self-interest, i. 150 — 154. Men un- wieldy to them, i. 151. Perform them only in affliction, i. 161, 152. — See Ser- vice of God, and Worship. Dwelling in heaven, and in the ark, how to be understood of God, i. 385, 386. E. Ear of man, how curious an organ, i. 66. Earth, how useful, i. 54, 56. The wisdom of God seen in it, i. 522. Earthly things. — See World. ^aculations, how useful, i. 272. Elect. God knows all their persons, i. 485, 486. Election evidenced by holiness, ii. 205. The sovereignty of God appears in it, ii. 394 — 396. Not grounded on merit in the creature, ii. 396. Nor on foresight of faith and good works, ii. 396—399. Elements, though contrary, yet linked to- gether, i. 52, 53. End. All creatures conspire to one com- mon end, i. 53 — 60 ; pursue their several ends, though they know them not, i. 60 — 62. Men have corrupt ends in reli- gious duties, i. 132, 160 — 164; for evil ends, i. 105, 106 ; desire the knowledge of God's law, for by ends, i. 104. Man naturally would make himself his own end, i. 135 — 141 ; how sinful this is, L 141, 142 ; would make anything his end rather than God, i. 142 — 144 ; a creatm-e, or a lust, i. 144 — 146 ; how sinful this is, ib.; would make himself the end of all creatures, i. 147, 149 ; how sinful this is, i. 149 ; would make himself the end of God, i. 148 — 154 ; how sinful this is, i. 154, 155 ■ cannot make God his end, tiU converted, i. 163, 164. Spiritual ones required in spiritual worship, i. 239 — 241 ; many have other ends in it, ib. VOL. II. — 34 God orders the hearts of all men to hia own, ii. 54. God hath one, and man another in sin, i. 161, 162. We should make God our end, ii. 206. God makes himself his own end, how to be under- stood, ii. 228 — 230. His being the end of all things is one foundation of his do- minion, ii. 370, 371. Not using God'» gifts for the end for which he gave them, how great a sin, ii. 435, 436. Enemies of the church (see Church). We should be kind to our worst enemies, ii. 354, 355. Enjoyment of God in heaven always fresh and glorious, i. 298, 299. We should en- deavor after it here, ii. 344 — 346. Envy. Men envy the gifts and prosperi- ties of others, i. 131, 132. An imitation of the devil, ib. A sense of God's good- ness would check it, ii. 351. A contempt of God's dominion, ii. 435. Essence of God cannot be seen, i. 184, 185. Is unchangeable, i. 319. Eternity a property of God and Christ, L 2>78, 279, 293, 294. What it is, i. 280. In what respects God is eternal, i. 280 — 286. That he is so, proved, i. 286—291. God's incommunicable property, i. 44 — 46, 291 — 293. Dreadful to sinners, i. 295, 296. Comfortable to the righteous, i. 297—301. The thoughts of it should abate our pride, L 302 — 304 ; take off our love and confidence from the world, L 304 — 306. We should provide for a happy interest in it, i 306 ; often meditate on. it, I 307, 308. Renders him worthy of our choicest affections, i. 308 ; and ovur best service, i. 308, 309. Exaltation of Christ, the holiness of God appears in it, ii. 136, 137. His goodness to us as well as to Christ, ii. 268, 269 , and his sovereignty, ii. 426. Examination of ourselves before and after worship, and wherein our duty, i. 252^ 256, 275. Experience of God's goodness a preserva- tive against atheism, i. 86, 87. Extremity, then God usually deUvera hie? church, 101. Faith, the same thing may be the object of it, and of reason too, i. 27 — 29. Must be exercised in spirituai worship, i. 230^ 231. The wisdom, holiness, and good- ness of God in prescribing it as a condi tioa of the covenant of grace (see Cove- nant). Must look back as far as the foundation promise, i. 499. Only the obedience flowing from it acceptable to God, i. 504, 505. Distinct, but insepara- ble fi'om obedience, i. 505, 506. Fore- sight of it not the ground of election, iL 396—399. Fall of man, God no way the author of itj 530 INDEX. ii. 123—125, 142, 143. How great it is, ii. 480, 481. Doth not inipeaeh God's goodness, ii. 231, 232. It is evident, ii. 825, 326 ; brought a curse on the crea- tures.— See Creature!!. Falls of God's children turned to their good, i. 537—547. Fear, not the onuss of the belief of a Grod, i. 41. Men that are under a slavish fear of him wish there were no God, i. 98, 99. Of man, a coutem|)t of God's power, ii, 93, 94. Should be of God, and not of the pride or force of man, ii. 106, 107. God's sovereignty should cause it, ii. 462. Features different in every man, and how necessary it should be so, i. 66, 67, 520. Fervency. — See Activity. Flesh, the legal services so called, i. 213, 214. Fools, wicked men are so, i. 23, 686, 587. Folly, sin is so. — See Sin. Forgetfulness of God, men naturally are prone to it, i. 159, 160. Of his mercies a great sin (see Mercies). How attrib- uted to God, i. 421. Foreknowledge in God of sin, no blemish to his holiness, ii. 145, l46. — See Knowledge of God. Future things, men desirous to know them, i. 476, 477. Known by God. — See Know- ledge of God. Or. Gabriel, on what messages he was sent, ii. 75. Generation, could not be from eternity, i. 44—46. Gifts, God can bestow them on men, ii 384, 385. His sovereignty seen in giving greater measures to one than another, ii. 408—410. Glory of all they do or have, men are apt to ascribe to themselves, i. 139. Of God little minded in many seemingly good actions, i. 124 — 127. Men are more con- cerned for their own reputation than God's glory, i. 140. Should be aimed at in spiritual worship, i. 239 — 241. God's permission of sin is in order to it, ii. 154 — 156. Should be advanced by us, ii. 461, 462. God, his existence known by the light of nature, i. 86; by the creatures, i. 28, 29, 42 — 64. Mirades not wrought to prove it, i. 29. Owned by the universal con- sent of all nations, i. 30, 31. Never dis- puted of old, i. 31, 32. Denied by very few, if any, i. 32, 33. Constantly owned in all changes of the world, i. 34 ; under anxieties of conscience, ib. The devil not able to root out the belief of it, i. 35. Natural and innate, i. 35, 36. Not intro- duced merely by tradition, i. 37, 38 ; nor policy, L 38, 39 ; nor fear, i. 41. Wit- nessed to by the very nature of man, i 63 — 75 , and by extraordinary occur rences, i. 76, 77 ; impossible to demon strate there is none, i. 81. Motives tc endeavor to be settled in the belief of it, i. 84, 85. Directions, i. 86, 87. Men wish there were none, and who they are, i. 96 — 99. Two ways of describing him, ne- gation and affirmation, i. 181, 182. la active and communicative, i. 201. Pro- priety in him a great blessedness (See <'ove7iant). Infinitely happj', ii. 86, 87. O'ood, that which is materially so may be done, and not forra:dly, i. 12J, 124—126. Actions cannot be performed before con- version, i. 163, 164, The thoughts of God's presence a spur to them, L 404, 405. God only is so, ii. 210, 211. Goodness, pure and perfect, the royal pre- rogative of God onlv, ii. 214. Owned by all nations, ii. 215, 219. Inseparable from the notion of God, iL 216, 217. What is meant by it, ii. 217. How dis- tinguished from mercy, ii. 218, 219. Com- prehends all his attributes, iL 219, 220. Is so by his essence, ii. 221, 222. The chief, ib. It is coimnunicative, ii. 223, 224 ; necessary to kim, ii. 224 — 226 ; voluntary, ii. 226, 227 ; eomnmnieative with the greatest pleasure, ii, 227, 228 ; the displaying of it, the motive and end of all his works, ii. 228 — 230. Arguments to prove it a property of God, ii 230, 231 ; vindicated from the objections mad« against it, ii. 231 — 244 ; appears in crea- tion, ii. 244 — 258 ; in redemption, ii. 258 — 294 : in his government, ii. 295 — 313 ; frequently contemned and abused, ii. 31S, 314 ; the abuse and contempt of it, base and disingenuous, ii. 314, 315 ; highly re- sented by God, ii. 315, 316. How it is contemned and abused, ii. 316 — 325. Men justly punished for it, ii. 326, 327. Fits God for the government of the worW, and engages him actually to govern it, iL 327, 328. The ground of all religion, iL 329, 330. Renders God amiable to him- self, ii. 331. Should do so to us, and why, ii. 332 — 335. Renders him a fit object of trust, with motives to it, drawn hence, iL 335 — 338 ; and worthy to be obeyed and honored, ii. 338 — 341. Com- fortable to the righteous, and wherein, iL 841 — 344. Should engage us to endeavor after the eujt.yment of him, with mo- tives, iL 344 — 347. Should be often meditated on, and the advantages of so doing, ii. 347 — 351. We should be thank- ful for it, iL 351 — 353; and imitate it, and wherein, ii. 353 — 355. Gospel, men greater enemies to, than to the law, i. 165. Its excellency, i. 167, 501, 602. Called spirit, L 213. The only means of establishment, i. 501. Of an eternal resolution, though of a tempora- ry revelation, i. 502. Mysta-ious, ib. The first preachers of it (see ApostUt). INDEX. 531 Its antiquity, i. 503, 504. The goodness of God in spreading it among the Gen- tiles, i. 504. Gives no encouragement to licentiousness, ib. The wisdom of God in its propagation, i. 574 — 580 ; and power, ii. 65 — 73. — See Christian Reli- gion. Oovertmienf, (sf the World : God could not manage it without immutability, i. 394 ; and knowledge, i. 464, 465 ; and wisdom, i. 575, 576. The wisdom of God appears in his government of man, as rational, i. 525—532 ; as sinful, i. 532—544 ; as re- stored, i. 544 — 547. The power of God appears in natural governineut, ii. 44 — &2 ; moral, ii. 52 — 54 ; gracious and ju- dicial, ii. 55 — 58. The goodness of God in it, ii. 295—313 God only fit foi' it, i. 580, 581, 544 ; ii. 186, 327 ; doth actual- ly manage it, i. 580, 581 ; ii. 328, 329. Is contemned, ii. 436 — 441. — See Laws. Governor, God's dominion as such, ii. 413 — 422. Grace, the power of God in planting it, ii. 74 — 78 (see Conversion) ; and preserving it, ii. 79, 80. — See Perseverance. God's withdrawing it no blemish to his holi- ness, i. 166 — 170. Shall be perfected in the upright, ii. 190, 191. God exercises a sovereignty in bestowing and denying it, ii. 400 — 404. Means of grace. — See Means. Graces must be acted in worship, ii. 229 — • 234. We should examine how we acted them after it, i. 263, 254. Growth in grace annexed to true sanctifica- tion, ii. 358. Should be labored after, ii. 206, 207. H. Habits, spiritual, to be acted in spiritual worship, i. 229, 230. The rooting up evil ones shows the power of God, ii. 76, 77. _ _ Hand. Christ's sitting at God's right hand doth not prove the ubiquity of his hu- man nature, ii. 378. Hardness, how God, and how man, is the cause of it, ii. 166—168. Harmony of the creatures show the being and wisdom of God, i. 52 — 60. Heart of man, how curiously contrived, i. 65. We should examine ourselves, how our hearts are prepared for worship, i. 252, 253 ; how they are fixed in it, and how they are after it, i. 253 — 256. God orders all men's to his own ends, ii. 54. Heaven, the enjoyment of God there will be always fresh and glorious, i. 298, 299. Why called God's throne, i. 3S5, 386. Heavenly bodies subservient to the good of the world, i. 53, 54, Hosea, when he prophesied, ii. 490. Holiness a necessary ingredient in spiritual worship, i. 238, 239. A glorious perfec- tion of God, ii. 110, 111, Owned to be so both by heathens and heretics, ii. Ill God cannot be conceived without it, ii 111, 112. It hath an excellency above all his other perfections, ii. 112. Most loftily and frequently sounded forth by the angels, ib. He swears by it, ib. It is his glory and life, ii. 112, 113, The glory of all the rest, ii. 113, 114. What it is, and how distinguished from right- eousness, ii. 114, 115. His essential and necessary perfection, ii. 115, 116. God only absolutely holy, ii. 116 — 118. Causes him to abhor all sin necessarily, intense- ly, universally, and perpetually, ii. 118 — 122. lucUnes him to love it in others, ii. 121, 190, 191. So great that he cannot positively will and encourage sin in oth- ers,or do it himself ii. 122 — 126. Appears in his creation, ii. 126, 127 ; in his gov- ernment, ii. 127 — 135 ; in redemption, ii. 135 — 138; in justification, ii. 138; in regeneration, ii. 139. Defended in all his acts about sin, ii. 139 — 171. How much it is contemned in the world, and where- in, ii. 171 — 180. To hate and scoff at it in others, how great a sin, ii. 176. Ne- cessarily obliges hiai to punish sin, ii. 181 — 183 ; and exact satisfection for it, ii. 183, 184. Fits him for the govern- ment of the world, ii. 186, 187. Com fortable to holy men, ii. 190, 191. Shall be perfected in the upright, ib. We should get, and preserve right and strong apprehensions of it ; and the advantage of so doing, il 191 — 196. We should glorify God for it, and how, ii. 196—199 ; and labor after a conformity to it, and wherein, ii. 199 — 201 ; motives to do so, ii. 203—205 ; and directions, ii. 205 — 207. We should labor to grow in it, ii. 206, 207. Exert it in our approaches to God, ii. 207. Seek it at his hands, ii. 207, 208. Holy Ghost, his Deity proved, ii. 86. Humility a necessary ingredient in spirit- ual worship, i. 237, 238. We should ex- amine ourselves about it after worship, L 256. A consideration of God's eternity would promote it, i. 302 ; and of his knowledge, i. 496, 497 ; and of his wis- dom, i. 697; and of his power, ii. 106; and of his holiuess, ii. 192, 193 ; and of his goodness, ii. 323 ; and his sovereign- ty, ii. 457, 458. Hypocrites, their false pretences a virtual denial of God's knowledge, i. 481, 483 ; h is terrible to them, i. 492. I. Idleness, it is an abuse of God's mercies to make them an occasion of it, ii. 323. Idolatry of the heathens proves the belief of a God to be universal, i. 30, 31. The first object of it was the heavenly bodies, i. 43. Springs from unworthy imagina- tions of God, L 167. Not countenanced 632 INDEX. by God's omui presence, i. 389, 390. Springs from a want of due notion of QihYs infinite power, ii. 92. A contempt of God's dominion, ii. 436, 437. Image of God in man consists not in exter- nal form and figure, i. 192, 192. Un- reasonable to make any of him, i. 193 — 196; it is idolatry so to do, i. 195, 196. The defacing it an injury to God's holi- ness, ii. 173, 174. Man, at first, made after it, ii. 248. Imaginations, men naturally have un- worthy ones of God, i. 155, 156. Vain ones the cause of idolatry, and supersti- tion, and presumption, i. 156, 157 ; worse than idolatry or atheism, i. 158 ; an in- jury to God's holiness, ii. 172, 173. Imitation of God, man naturally hath no desire of it, i. 161. We should strive to imitate his immutability in that which is good, i. 360, 361. In holiness, wherein, and why, and how, ii. 199 — 207 ; and in goodness, ii. 353 — 355. Im.mortal, God is so, i. 202. — See Eternity of God I)nmutability a property of God, i. 3x6, 317 ; a perfection, i. 317, 318 ; a glory belonging to all his attributes, i. 318 ; necessary to him, i. 318, 319. God is immutable in his essence, i. 319 — 321 ; in knowledge, i. 321 — 825 ; in his will, though the things willed by him are not, i 325—328. This doth not infringe his liberty, i. 328. Immutable in regard of place, i. 328, 329. Proved by arguments, i. 320—334, 582, 583; ii. 87. Incom- municable to any creature, i. 334, 335, ii. 141. Objections against it answered, i. 837—346. Ascribed to Christ, i. 346— 348. A ground and encouragement to worship him. i. 348 — 350. How contra- ry to God in it man is, i. 350, 353. Ter- ' rible to sinners, i. 353, 354. Comfortable to the righteous, and wherein, i. 354 — 856. An argument for patience, i. 859. Should make us prefer God before all creatures, i. 358. We should imitate this his immutability in goodness ; mo- tives to it, i. 360, 361. lmpatie?).ce of men is great when God crosses them, i. 130, 131. A contempt of God's wisd'om, i. 592 ; and of his good- ness, ii, 317. 318; and of his dominion, ii. 437, 438. ' Impenitence an abuse of God's goodness, ii. 319. It will clear the equity of God's justice, ii. 506, 507. An abuse of pa- tience, ii. 508, 509. Imperfections in holy duties we should be sensible of, i. 232. Should make us prize Christ's meditation, i. 261. Impossible, some things are in their own nature, iL 26, 27. Some things so to the nature and being of God, and his per- fections, ii. 27 — 29. Some things so, be- cause of God's ordination, ii. 29, 30. Do not infringe the al mightiness of God't power, ii. 29 — 30. Incarnation of Christ, the potrer of God seen in it, ii. 59 — 65. Incomprehensible, God is so, i. 394, 395. Inconstancy, natural to man, i. 350 — 353 In the knowledge of the truth, i. 350, 351 ; in will and affections, i. 351 ; in practice, i. 352 — 354; is the root of much evil, ib. Infirmities, the knowledge of God a com- fort to his people under them, i. 488, 489. The goodness of God in bearing witli them, ii. 309. His patience a com- fort under thfm, ii. 516. Injuries, men highly concerned for those that are done to themselves ; little for those that are done to God, i. 140. God's patience under them should make us re- sent them, ii. 517, 518. Injustice, a contempt of God's dominion, ii, 435, Innocent person, whether God may inflict eternal torments upon him, ii. 375, 380, 381. Instruments, men are apt to pay a service to them rather than to God, i. 144; which is a contempt of divine power, ii. 94, 95 ; and of his goodness, ii. 324, 325. Deliverances not to be chiefly ascribed to them, i. 407. God makes use of sin- ful ones, i. 534, 535. None in creation, ii. 40 — 42. The power of God seen ia effecting his purposes by weak ones, ii. 58, 59. Inventions of men. — See Addition and Worship. J. Jehovah signifies God's eternity, i. 290 ; and his immutability, i. 330. God called so but once in the book of Job, ii. 36. Job, when he lived, ii. 8. Jonah, how he came to be believed by the Ninevites, i. 637. Joy, a necessary ingredient in spiritual worship, i. 234 — 236. Should accompa- ny all our duties, ii. 468, 469. Judging the hearts of others, a great sin, i. 478, 479. Their eternal state a greater, ib. Judgment-day, necessity of it, i. 470, 471, 583, 584. Judgments, extraordinary, prove the being of God, i. 74, 76. Men are apt to put bold interpretations on them, i. 133. God is just in them, L 162, 163; especially after the abuse of his goodness imd pa- tience, ii. 326, 327, 506, 507. On God's enemies, matter of praise, iL 110. De- clare God's holiness, ii. 132 — 135; which should be observed in them, ii. 197. Not sent without warning, ii. 241, 242, 488 — 491. Mercy mixed with them, ii. 242, 243. God sends them on whom he pleases, ii. 420. Delayed a long tim« INDEX. 533 where there is uo repeutauce, ii. 491, 492. God unwilling to pour them out when he cannot delay them any longer, il 492, 493. Poured out with regret, ii, 493, 494; by degrees, ii. 494, 495; moderated, ii. 495, 496. — See Punish- ments. Justice of God, a motive to worship, i. 207. Its plea against man, i. 554 — 656. Re- conciled with mercy in Christ, i. 556, 657. Vindictive, natural to God, ii. 181 — 183. Requires satisfaction, ii. 185, 186. Justification cannot be by the best and strongest works of nature, i. 166, 473, 474; ii. 177, 178, 185, 186. The holi- ness of God appears in that of the gos- pel, ii. 138. The expectations of it by the outward observance of the law can- not satisfy an inquisitive conscience, ii. 212. Men naturally look for it by works, ii. 212, 213. K Kingdoms are disposed of by God, ii. 418, 414. Knowledge in God hath no succession, i. 284, 285, 294, 295, 454 — 456. Immu- table, i. 321 — 324, 460. Arguments to prove it, i. 393—395, 461—465. The maimer of it incomprehensible, i. 324, 325, 428, 429, 438. God is infinite in it, I 409. Owned by all, i. 409, 410. He hath a knowledge of vision and intelli- gence, speculative and practical, i. 411, 412; of apprehension and approbation, i. 412, 413. Hath a knowledge of him- self, i. 414—417. Of all things possible, i. 417 — 420 ; of all things past and pres- ent, i. 420 — 422. Of all creatures, their actions and thoughts, i. 422—427. Of all sins, and how, i. 427—429. Of all future things, he alone, and how, i. 429 — 439. Of all future contingencies, i. 439 — 446. Doth not necessitate the will of man, i. 446 — 451. It is by his essence, L 452, 453. Intuitive, i. 453 — 456. In- dependent, i. 456, 457. Distin t, i. 458, 469. Infallible, i. 459. No blemish to his holiness, i. 461 — 465. Infinite, at- tributed to Christ, i. 465 — 469. Infers his providence, i. 469, 470 ; and a day of judgment, i. 470, 471 ; and the resur- rection, i. 471, 472. Destroys all hopes of justification by anything in ourselves, i. 472, 473. Calls for our adoring thoughts of him, i. 47'-3, 474 ; and humili- ty, i. 474, 475. How injured in the ■world, and wherein, i. 475 — 483. Com- fortable to the righteous, and wherein, i. 483 — 491. Terrible to sinners, i. 491, 492. We should have a sense of it on om' hearts, and the advantages of it, i. 492-^97. Knoiohdge of God's will, men negligent in using the means to attain it, i. 100, 101 Enemies to it, and have no delight in it, 1. iOl — 103 Seek it for by-ends, L 104. Admit it with wavering affections, ib. Seek it, to improve some lust by it, i. 105, 106. A sense of man's, hath a greater influence on us than that of God, i. 144, 145, 479, 480. Sins against it should be avoided, i. 173. Distinct from wisdom, i. 508. Oi all creatures, fs derived from God, i. 462, 463. Ours, how imperfect, i. 474, 475. Law of God, how opposite man naturally is to it — See Alan. There is one in the minds of men, which is the rule of good and evil, i. 69, 70. A change of them doth not infer a change in God, i. 346. Vindicated, both as to the precept and penalty, in the death of Christ, i. 565 — 567. Suited to our natures, happiness, and conscience, i. 527 — 529 ; ii. 253. We should submit to them, i. 603, 604. The transgression of them punished by God, ii. 132, 133, 393, 394. God's enjoining one which he knew man would not ob- serve, no blemish to his hoUness, ii. 143. To charge them with rigidness, how great a sin, ii. 178, 179. We should imitate the holiness of them, iL 199 — 201. The goodness of God in that of in- nocence, ii. 252 — 254. Cannot but be good, ii. 339, 340. He gives laws to all, ii. 388, 389. Positive ones, ih. His only reach the conscience, ii. 390, 391. Dispensed with by him, but cannot by man, ii. 391—393, 430, 431. To make any, contrary to God's, how great a sin, ii. 431, 432 ; or make additions to them, ii. 432, 433 ; or obey those of men be- fore them, ii. 433—435, 467, 468.— See Governor and Magistrates. Licentioiosness. the gospel no friend to, I 504. Life, eternal, expected by men from some thing of their own. — See Justification Assured to the people of God, i. 356. Light, a glorious creature, iL 343, 344, Light of nature shows the being of a God, i. 27—29. Limiting God, a contempt of his dominion, ii. 439. Lives of men at God's disposal, ii. 421, 422 Love to God, sometimes aiises merely from some self-pleasing benefits, i. 149 — 151. A necessary ingredient in spiritual wor ship, i. 231, 232. A great help to it, i. 272 God is liighly worthy of it, i. 308 ; ii. 196, 197,332 — 335. Outward expressions of it insignificant without obedience, ii. 213, 214. God's gospel name, ii. 257, 269, Of God to his people, great, ii. 449, 450. lAists of men make them atheists, i. 24, 2& 534 INI>EX. M. Magistracy, the goodness of God ia settling it, ii. 300, 301. Magistrates ai-e inferior to God ; to be obe- dient to him, iL 444, 445. Ought to govern justly and righteously, ii. 445. To be obeyed, ii. 445, 446. Man couki nut make himself, i. 45 — 49. The world subservient to him, i. 53 — 55. The abridgment of the universe, i. 64 ; ii. 248, 249. Naturally disowns the rule God hath set him, L 99 — 117. Owns any rule rather than God's, i. 117 — 121. Would set himself up as his own rule, i. 121 — 127. Would give laws to God, i. 127—135. Would make himself his own end. — See End. His natural corruption how great, ii. 53, 54. Made holy at first, ii. 126, 127, 248, ; yet mutable, which was no blemish to God's holiness, ii. 140 — 143. Made after God's image, ii. 248. The world made and furnished for him, ii. 249 — 252. In his corrupt estate, with- out any motives to excite God's redeem- ing love, ii. 268 — 273. Restored to a more excellent state than his first, ii. 291—293. Under God's dominion, ii. 384 — 386. Means. — See Instrument. To de|)eud on the power of God, and neglect them, is an abuse of it, ii. 96. Of grace, to neg- lect them an affront of God's wisdom, i. 589, 590. Given to some, and not to others, ii. 403 — 407. Have various in- fluences, ii. 407, 408. Meditation on the law of God, men have no delight iu, i. 101, 102. Members, bodily, attributed to God do not prove him a body, i. 188 — 190. What sort of them attributed to him, i. 189; with a respect to the incarnation of Christ, i. 189, 190. Mercies of God to sinners, how wonderful, I 161, 162. A motive to worship, i. 206 — 208. Former ones should be remem- bered when we come to beg new ones, i. 277, 278. Its plea for fallen man, i. 556, 557. It and justice reconciled in Christ, L 557, 558. Holiness of God in them to be observed, ii. 197, 198. Contempt and abuse of them. — See Goodness. One foundation of God's dominion, iL 371, 372. Call for our love of him, ii. 232 — 235 ; and obedience to him, ii. 338, 339. Given after great provocations, ii. 496, 497. Merit of Christ, hot the cause of the first resolution of God to redeem, ii. 265, 266. Not the cause of election, ii. 396. Man mcapable of ii. 343, 344, Miracles prove the being of a God, though not wrought to that end, i. 29, 76. Wrouglit by God but seldom, i. 550. The power of God, ii. 34, 35 ; seen no more in them than in the ordinary works of na- ture, iL 51, 52. Many wrought b\ Christ iL 64. Moral goodness encouraged by God, ii. 303, 304. Moral law, commands things good in their own nature, i. 94, 95 ; ii 389, The holi- ness of God appears in it, iL 128. Holy in the matter and manner of his pre- cepts, ii. 128 — 130. Reaches the inward man, ii. 130. Perpetual, ii. 130, 131. — See Law of Ood. Published with maj- esty, iL 390. Mortification, how difficult, L 164, 165. Motions of all creatures in God, ii. 49, Va- riety of them in a single creature, ii, 60. Mountains, how useful, i. 54. Before the deluge, i. 278. Month, how curiously contrived, L 65, N. Nature of man must be sanctified before it can perform spiritual worship, i. 223, 224. Human, highly advanced by its union with the Son of God, ii. 273, 274, Human and divine in Christ. — See Union. Night, how necessary, L 523, 0. Obedience to God, not true unless it be universal, i. 108, 109. Due to him upon the account of his eternity, i. 308, 309. To him should be preferred before obe- dience to men. — See Laios. Of faith only acceptable to God, i. 505. Distinct, but inseparable from faith, i. 505, 506. Shall be rewarded, i. 529, 530. Redemption a strong incentive to it, i, 571. Without it nothing will avail us, ii. 213, 214. The goodness of God in accepting it, though imperfect, ii 3U9. Due to God for his goodness, ii. 338 — 341. Due to him as a sovereign, iL 462 — 46b. What kind of it due to him, ii. 466 — 169. Objects, the proposing them to man which God knows he will use to sin, no blemish to God's holiness, iL 161 — 166. Obstinacy in sin a contempt of Divine power, ii. 92, 93. Omissions of prayer a practical denial of God's knowledge, i. 481 ; of duty, a con tempt of his goodness, ii. 320, 321. Omnipresence, an attribute of God, i. 366, 367. Denied by some Jews and hea- thens, but acknowledged by the wisest amongst them, i. 368. To be understood negatively, L 369. Influential on all creatures, i. 369, 370. Limited to sub- jects capacitated for this or that kind of it, L 370, Essential, L 371. In all places, u 371, 372. With all creatures, L 373, 3'74 ; without mixture with them, or division of himself, i. 374. Not by multiplica- tion or extension, i. 375 ; but totally, ib. INDEX. 535 Tu iiuiigiiiiwy spaces beyond the world, i. 375 — 377. God's iacoinmunieable prop- erty, i. 378. Arguments to prove his omuipreseuce, i. 378 — 385 Objections against it answered, i. 385 — 392. As- cribed to Christ, i. 392, 393. Proves God a Spirit, i. 393 ; and his providence, ib.; and omniscient and incomprehensible, i. 394, 395. Calls for admiration of him, i. 395 396. Forgotten and contemned, i. 396, 397. Terrible to sinners, i. 397, 398. Comfortable to the righteous, and wherein, i. 398—402. Should be often thought of, and the advantages of so doing, i. 402 — 405. Opposition in the hearts of men naturally against the will of God, i. 102, 103. P. Pardon, God's infinite knowledge a com- fort when we reflect on it, or seek it, i. 490, 491. The power of God in granting it, and giving a sense of it, ii. 78 — 80. The spring of all other blessings, ii. 357. Always accompanied with regeneration, ib. Punishment remitted upon it, ii. 858. It is perfect, ib. Of God, and his alone, gives a full security, ii. 450. Patience under afflictions a duty, L 604, 605. God's immutability should teach us it i. 359. A seuse of God's holiness would promote it, ii. 195, 196; and his goodness, ii. 350. Motives to it. ii. 469, 470, The true uatureof it, ii 471. Con- sideration of God's patience to us would promote it, ii. 518. Patience of God how admirable, i. 161, 395, 396 ; ii 497—500. His wisdom the ground of it, i. 581, 582. Evidences his power, ii. 64, 474. Is a property of the Divine nature, ii, 477, 178. A part of goodness and mercy, but differs from both, ii. 478—480. Not insensible, con- strained, or faint-hearted, ii. 480, 481. Flows from his fulness of power over himself, ii. 481, 482. Founded in the death of Christ, ii. 482, 483. His vera- city, ht)liness, aud justice no bars to it, li. 483 — i86. Exercised towards our first parents, Gentiles, and Israelites, ii. 486 — 488. Wherein it is evidenced, ii. 488 — 500. The reason of its exercise, ii. 600—507. It is abused, and how, ii. 507 —509. The abuse of it sinful aud danger- ous, ii. 509 — 513. Exercised towards sinners and saints, ii. 613, 514. Com- fortable to aU, ii. 514 — 516; especially jO the righteous, ib. Should be medita- ted on, and the advantage of so doiug, ii. *16 — 618. We should admire aud bless God for it, with motives so to do, ii. 618 — 522. Should not be presumed on, ii. 522, 523. Should be imitated, ii. 623, 524. Poems, fewer sacred ones good, than of any other kind, i. 143. Peace, God only can speak it to troubled souls, ii. 79. Permission of sin, what it is. and that it is no blemish to God's holiness, il 146 — 156. Persecutions, the goodness of God seen in them, ii. 309 — 311. See Apostasy. Perseverance of the saints a gospel doctrine, i. 501. Certain, i. 355, 356 ; ii. 100, 189. Motives to labor after it, i. 360, 361. De- pends on God's power and wisdom, L 500, 501 ; ii. 79, 80. Pleasures, sensual men strangely addicted to, i. 144. We ought to take heed of them, i. 173. Poor, the wisdom of God in making soma so, i. 531, 532. Power, iufiuite, belongs to God, ii. 10. The meaning of the word, ii. 12. Absolut* and ordinate, ii. 12, 13. Distinct fi*om will and wisdom, ii. 14, 15. Gives life and activity to his other perfections, iu 15, 16. Of a larger extent than some others, ii. 16. Originally and essentially, in the nature of God, and the same with his essence, ii. 17, 18. Incommunicable to the creature, il 18, 24. Infinite and eternal, ii. 18 — 26. Bounded by his de- cree, ii. 26, 26. Not infringed by the impossibility of doiug some things, ii. 26 — 30. Arguments to piove it is iu God, ii. 30 — 36. Appears in creation, ii. 35 — ■ 44 ; in the government of the world, iu 44 — 59 ; in redemption, ii. 59—65 ; ia the publication and propagation of the gospel, ii. 65 — 74 ; in planting aud pre- serving grace, and pardoning sin, ii. 74 — 80. Ascribed to Christ, ii. 80 — 86 ; and to the Holy Ghost, ii. 86. Infers his blessedness, inunutability, autl provi- dence, ii. 86 — 88. A ground of worship, ii. 88—90 ; aad for the belief of the re- surrection, ii. 90 — 92. Contemned and abused, and wherein, ii. 92 — 96. Terri- ble to the wicked, ii. 96—98. Comfort- able to the I'ighteous, and wherein, ii, 98 — 102. Should be meditated on, ii. 102, 103; aud trusted iu, and why, iL 103 — 106. Should teach us humility and submission, ii. 106 ; aud the fear of him, and not of man, ii. lOd, 107. Praise, consideration of God's wisdom and goodness would help us to give it to liim, i. 597, 598 ; ii. 351. Men backward to it, ii. 356, 357. Due to him, ii. 459, 460. Prayer, men impatient if God do not an- swer it, i. 162, 153. We should take the most melting opportunities for secret prayer, i. 276. Not unnecessary because of God's immutability aud knowledge, i. 348—350, 479. To creatures a wrong to God's omniscience, i. 475, 476. Omis- sion of it a practical denial of God'a knowledge, i. 481. It is a comfort that the most secret ones are understood by God, i. 486 — 488. God's wisdom a con> 536 INDEX. fort in delaying or denying an answer to them, i. 593. For success on ■wicked de- sigus liow sijiful, ii, 176, 176. God fit to be triistetl in for au answer of them, ii. 188, 189. The goodness of God in au- ewering them, ii. 307 — 309. His good- ness a comfort in them, ii. 341, 342, Gknl's dominion an encouriigemeut to, and ground of it, ii. 451, 462, 463. Preparation, we shouki examine ourselves concerning it before woi'ship, i. 252, 253. Consideration of God's knowledge would promote it, i. 495, 496. How great a sin to come into God's presence without it, ii. 176, 177. Presence of men more i-egarded than God's, i. 144. We should seek for God's special and influential presence, L 405. See Om- nipresence. Preserve himself, no creature can, i. 48, 49 ; ii. 46, 47. God only can the world, i. 62, 63. The power of God seen in it, ii. 44 — 47. One foundation of God's dominion, ii. 371. Presumption springs from vain imagina- tions of God, i. 157. A contempt of God's dominion, ii. 440, 441. Pride, how common, i. 139. An exalting ourselves above God, i. 147, 148. The thoughts of God's eternity should abate it, i. 303. An affront to God's wisdom, i. 592. Of our own wisdom, foolish, i. 600, 601. God's mercies abused to it, ii. 323. A contempt of his dominion, ii. 439, 440. Principles better known by actions than words, i. 92, 93. Some kept up by God to facihtate the reception of the gospel, i. 676, 677. Propagation of creatures, the powei- of God seen in it, ii. 47 — 49. Of mankind one end of God's patience, ii. 504. Prophesies prove the being of God, i. 76, 77. Promises, men break them with God, i. 116, 117, 351, 353. Of God shall be per- formed, i. 300, 301 ; ii. 99, 100, 516. We should believe them, and leave God to his own season of accomplishing them, i. 499. Distrust of them a contempt of God's wisdom, i. 593. The holiness of God in the performance of them to be observed, ii. 197, 198. Providence of God proved, i. 393, 394, 469, 470 ; ii. 87, 88. — See Government of the world. Especially to his church, and the meanest in it, i. 406 — 408, Extends to all creatures, ii. 296 — 300. Distrust of it, a contempt of God's goodnefls, ii. 319, 820. Pwnishments. — See Judgments. God al- ways just in them, i. 162, 163 ; ii. 326, 827. Of sinners eternal, i. 296, 297. The wisdom of God seen in them, i. 548. Necessarily follow sins, ii. 181 — 183. Do not impeach God's goodness, ii. 236 — 244. Not God's primary intention, ii. 240. 241. Inflicting them a branch of God's domin- ion, ii. 393, 394; necessarily follow upon it, ii. 447. Of the wicked unavoidable and terrible, ii. 447 — 449. Purgatory held by the Jews,i. 126. R. Rain, an instance of God's wisdom ana power, i. 522. Reason should not be the measure of Qod'c revelations, i. 602, 603. Repentance, how ascribed to God, L 841, 342. A reasonable condition, L 678. The end of God's patience, ii. 602 — 504* The Consideration of God's patience would make us frequent and serious in the practice of it, ii. 517, 518. Reprobation consistent with God's holiness and justice, ii. 146, 147. Reproof may be for evil ends, i. 1 54. Reputation, men more concerned for their own, than God's glory, i. 140. Resignatiu7i of ourselves would flow from consideration of God's wisdom, i. 604, 605 ; should from that of his sovereignty, ii. 457. Restraint of men and devils by God in mercy to man, i. 532, 533, ii. 52—54, 154, 301-, 416—418. Resolutions, good, how soon broken, i. 351. Resurrection of the body no incredible doc- trine, i. 471, 472 , ii. 90—92. The power of God in that of Christ, ii. 66. Of men, ascribed to Christ, ii. 84, 85. Reverence necessary in the worship of God, i. 236, 237. Revelations of God are not to be censured, i. 690, 591. Riches, inordinate desire after them a hin- drance to spiritual worship, i. 273. God exercises a sovereignty in bestowing them, ii. 41 L, 412. Rivers, how useful, i. 522, 523. Rotne, why called Babylon, i. 39. Sacrainents, the goodness of God in appoint* ing them. ii. 287, 288. Salvation of men, how desirous God is of it, ii. 284—287, 500—502. Sanctification deserves our thanks as much as justification, ii. 357, 358. — See Holi- ness. Satisfaction of the soul only in God, i. 74, 202, 203, 305, 306. Necessary for sin, ii. 183, 184. Sceptics must own a Fii'st Cause, i. 51. Scoffing at holiness a great sin, ii. 170; and at convictions in others, ii. 191, 192. Scriptures are wrested and abused, i. 105, 106, 134, 135. Ought to be prized and studied, i. 173. The not fulfilling some predictions in them, doth not prove God to Ve changeable, i. 842—345. Of the INDEX. 537 OM Testament give credit to the New ; and of the New illustrate those of the Old, i. 503. All truth to be drawn thence, ib. Of the Old Testament to be studied, ib. Something in them suitable to all sorts of men, i. 628 — 530. Written so as to prevent foreseen corruptions, i. 530, 631. To study arguments from them to defend sin, a contempt of God's holiness, IL 175. The goodness of God in giving them as a rule, ii. 304, 306. Sea, how useful, i. 54, 56. The wisdom of God seen in it, i. 522 ; and his power, ti. 7, 46, 46. Searching the hearts of men, how to be un- derstood of God, i. 427, 428, Seasons, the variety of them necessary, i. 523. Secresy, a poor refuge to sinners, i. 491, 492. Secret sins cause stings of conscience, i. 71, 72, 463 ; known to God, i. 394, 397, 398, 490, 491 ; shall be revealed in the day of judgment, i. 470, 471 ; prayers and works known to God, i. 486 — 488. Security, men abuse God's blessings to it, ii. 323. ^elf, man most opposite to those truths that are most contrary to it, i. 107. Man sets up as his own rule, i. 121. Dissatis- fied with conscience when it contradicts its desires, i. 123, 124. Merely the agreeableness to it the springs of many materially good actions, i. 124 — 126, 149 —154, 240, 241. Would make it the rule of God, i. 127 — 135 ; and his own end, and the end of all creatures, and of God. — See End. Applauding thoughts of it how common, i. 138, 139. Men ascribe the glory of what they have or do to it, i. 139, 140 ; desire doctrines pleasing to it, ib ; highly concerned for any injury done to it, i. 140; obey it against the light of conscience, i. 140, 141 ; how great a sin this is, i. 141, 142. The giving mercies pleasing to it, the only cause of many men's love to God, L 149, 150. Men unwieldy to their duty ■where it is not concerned, i. 151, 152 • how sinful this is, i. 154, 155. The gre&t enemy to the gospel and conversion, i. 165. Self-love threefold, L 136. The cause of all sin, and hindrance of conversion, i. 135 — 138. Service of God, how unwilling men are to it, i. 112 — 114; sUght in the perform- ance of it, i. 113, 114; show not that natu- ral vigor in it as they do in their world- ly business, i. 113 — 115 ; quickly weary of it, i. 114, 115; desert it, i. 116—117. The presence of God a comfort in it, i. 401, 402. Hypocritical pretences for avoiding it, a denial of God's knowledge, i 481, 482. A sense of God's goodness would make us faithful in it, ii. 339 — 341. Some called to, and fitted for moi-e emi- nent ones in their generation, ii. 410 — 416. Omissions of it a contempt of God'a sovereignty, ii. 441. Sin founded in a secret atheism and self- love, i. 93, 136—138. Reflects a dis- honor on all the attributes of God, i. 93, 94. ImpUes God is unworthy of a being, ib. Would make him a foolish, impure and miserable being, i. 94, 95. More troublesome than holiness, i. Ill, 112. To make it our end, a great debasing of God, i. 144 — 146. No excuse, but an ag- gravation, that we serve but one, i. 145, 146. Abstinence from it proceeds many times from an evil cause, i. 150, 479, 480. God's name, word, and mercies, made use of to countenance it, i. 154; ii. 172, 173, 321—324, 508, 509, Spiritual to be avoided, i. 203, 204. It is folly, i. 295, 296. Past ones we should be hum- bled for, i. 301, 302, 492, 493. Hath brought a curse on the creation, i. 316. — See Creatures. Past known to God, i. 420, 421 ; all known to him, and how, i. 427—431, 493, 494. A sense of God's knowledge and holiness would check it, 494, 495 ; ii. 194. Bounded by God, I 532, 533. God brings glory to himself, and good to the creature out of it, i. 533 — 544. God hath shown the greatest ha- tred of it in redemption, i. 567, 568. A contempt of God's power, ii. 92. Ab- horred by God, ii. 118—122, 181, 182. In God's people more severely punished in this world than in others, ii. 120, 121. God cannot be tlie author of it in others, or do it himself, ii. 122 — 127. God pun- ishes it, and cannot but do so, ii. 132, 133, 182, 1*S. The instruments of it detestable to God, ii. 133, 134. Opposite to the holiness of God, ii. 171, 172, To charge it on God, or defend it by his word, a great sin, ii. 174, 175. Entrance of it into the world doth not impeach God's goodness, ii. 231, 232. Those that disturb societies most signally punished in this Ufe, ii. 301, 302, A contempt of God's dcnuiniou, ii 427 — 431. How much God is daily provoked by it, n. 497 — 499. 519, 520. An abuse of God's patience, ii. 508, 509. Sincerity required in spiritual worship, i. 225, 226. Cannot be unknown to God, i. 486. Consideration of God's know- ledge would promote it, i. 496. Sinful times, in them we should be most holy, ii. 198, 199. Sinners, God hath shown the greatest love to them, and hatred to their sins, i. 567, 568. Evei-y thing in their possession de- testable to God, il 133, 134. Society, the goodness of God seen in th« preservation of it, ii. 300 — 302. CoaU 638 INDEX. not exist without restraining grace.-^ See Restraint. Sou/, the viistness of its capacity, and quickness of its motion, i. 67, 68. Its union to tlio body wonderful, i. 69. God only can satisfy it. — See Satisfaction. They only can converse with God. i. 202. Should be the objects of our chiefest care, i. 203. We should worship God with them. i. 209 — 211. The wisdom and goodness of God seen in them, ii. 49, 247, 248. Spaces, imaginary beyond the world, God is present with, i. 375 — 377. Spirit, that God is so, plainly asserted but • ouce in sci'ipture, i. 180. Various ac- ceptations of the word, i. 181, 182. That God is so, how to be understood, ib. God the only pure one, i. 182, 183. Arguments to prove God is one, L 183 — 188. Objection against it answered, i. 188—190. Spirit of God, his assistance necessary to spiritual worship, i. 224, 225. Spirits of men raised up, aud ordered by God as he pleases, ii. 416, 416. Subjection to our superiors, God remits of his own right for preserving it, ii. 301, 302. Success, men apt to ascribe to themselves, L 139. Not to be ascribed to ourselves, ii. 324, 325. Denied by God to some, ii. 411, 412. Swmiier, how necessary, i. 523. Su7i, conveniently placed, i. 63. Its motion useful, i. 53, 57. The power of God seen in it, i. 195, 196. Supper, Lord's, the goodness of God in ap- pointing it, ii. 287, 288. Seals the cove- naut of grace, ii. 288, 289. In it we have union and communion with Christ, ii. 289 — 29 1. The neglect of it reproved, ii. 291. Supererogation, an opinion that injures the holiness of God, ii. 179, 180. Superstition proceetis from vain imagina- tions of God, i. 156, 157. Swearing by any creature, an injury to God's omniscience, i. 477, 478. T. Temptations, the presence of God a comfort in them, i. 399 ; the thoughts of it would be a shield against them, i. 403. The wisdom aud power of God a comfort un- der them, i. 594; ii. 99. The goodness manifested to his people under them, ii. 811—313. The thoughts of God's sov- eignty would arm and make us watchful against them, ii. 466. Thankfidness, a necessary ingredient in spiritual worship, i. 233, 234. Due to God, ii. 351, 852, 460, 518—522 ; a sense of hie goodness would promote it, L 361. Theft, an invasion of God's dominion, it 435. Thoughts should be often upon God, i. 87, 88 ; Seldom are on him, i. 143, 159, 16o! All known by God only, i. 424 — 427; and by Christ, i. 467 — 469. Cherishing evil ones a practical denial of God's know- ledge, i. 482, 483. Thoughts of God's knowledge would make us watchful over them, i. 495. Threatenings, the not fulfilling them some- times, argue no change in God, i. 342 — 345. Are conditional, ib. Tl*e goodness of God in them, ii. 255. Go before judgments. — See Judgments. Time cannot be infinite, i. 44, 45. Times of bestowing mercy, God orders as a sovereign, ii. 412, 413. Tongue, how curious a workmanship i. 66. Traditions, old ones generally lost, L 37, 38. Belief of a God not owing merely to them, ib. Transubstantiation an absurd doctrine, ii 95. I'rees, how useful, L 54, 623. Trust in themselves, men do, and not in God, i. 150. We should not in the world, i. 304—307, 857, 358. God the fit ob- ject of it, i, 484, 485, 669, 570, 583 ; iL 103, 104, 188, 335—337,462,463; means to promote it, i. 497 ; ii. 454, 455. Should not in our own wisdom, L 600, 601. In ourselves, a contempt of God's power and dominion, ii. 94, 95, 436, 437. God's power the main ground of trusting him, ii. 104, 105 ; and sometimes the only one, ii. 105, 106. Should be placed in God against outward appearances, ii. 198. Goodness the first motive of it, ii. 336. More foundations of it, and motives to it under the gospel than under the law, iL 337. Gives God the glory of his good- ness, ii. 337, 338. God's patience to the wicked, a ground for the righteous to trust in his promise, ii. 516. Truths of God most contrary to self, man most opposite to ; and to those that are most holy, spiritual, lead most to God, and relate most to him, i. 107. Men in constant in the belief of them, i. 350, 351. U. Ubiquity of Christ's human nature con futed, i. 378. Venial sins, an opinion that reproaches God's holiness, ii. 179. Virtue and vice not arbitrary things i. 93, 94. Unbelief, the reason of it, i. 166. A con tempt of Diviue power, ii. 96 ; and good ncss, ii. 319. Union of soul and body an effect of Al mighty power, i. 69.. Union of two natures in Christ, made dq INDEX. ood change in his Divine nature, i. 339, 340. Shows the -wisdom of God, i. 552 — 568. How necessary for us, i. 563 — 566. Shows the power of God, ii. 62. Explained, ii. 62, 63 — See Tncariiation. Usurpations of men an invasion of God's sovereignty, ii. 430, 431. W. Water, an excellent creature, ii. 224. Weakness, sensibleness of a necessary in- gredient iu spiritual worship, L 232. Will of God cannot be defeated, L 95, 96. Man averse to it. — See Man. The same with his essence, i. 325, 326. Always accompanied with his imderstanding, i. 326. Unehaugeable, i. 326—328. The unchangeableuess of it doth not make things willed by him so, i. 327, 328. Free, ib. How concurrent about sin, ii. 147, 148. Will of man not necessitated by God's fore- knowledge, i. 446 — 451 ; subject to God, ii. 385, 386. Winds, how useful, i. 522. Winter, how useful, i. 523. Wisdom, an attribute of God, L 507. What it is, and wherein it consists, ib. Distinct from knowledge, i. 508. . Essential, which is the same with his essence ; and per- sonal, ib. hi what sense God is only wise, i. 509 — 514. Proved to be in God, i. 515 — 518. Appears in creation, i. 518 — 525. In the government of man as rational, i. 525 — 532; as fallen and sinful, i. 532 — 544 ; as restored, i. 544 — 552. In redemption, i. 552 — 571. In the condition of the covenant of grace, i. 571 — 574. In the propagation of the gospel, i. 574 — 580. Asc ibed to Christ, i. 580. Renders God fit to govern the world, and inclines him actually to gov- ern it, i. 580 — 582. A ground of his patience and immutability iu his de- crees, i. 582, 583. Makes hun a fit object of our trust, i. 583. Infers a day of judgment, i. 583, 584. Calls for a vene- ration of him, i, 584. A ground of prayer to him, i. 585. Prodigiously contemned, and wherein, i. 585 — 593. Comfortable to the righteous, i. 593 — 595. In creation and government should be meditated on, and motives to it, i. 595 — 598. In redemption to be studied and admired, i. 698 — 600. To be submitted to in his revelations, precepts, provi- dences, i. 602 — 605. Not to be censured in any of his ways, i. 605, 606. Wisdom, no man should be proud of, or trust in, i. 600, 601. Should be sought from God, L 601, 602. World was not, and could not be from eternity, i. 44 — 46, Could not make it- self, I 47—49. No creature could make it," i 49, 50. Its harmony, L 52 — 60. Greedily pursued by men, i 143, 144, Inordinate desires after it a great hin- drance to spiritual worship, i. 273. Our love and confidence not to bo placed Ll it, L 304, 315, 316. Shall not be annihi- lated, but refined, i. 311 — 314. — See Creatures. We should be sensible of the inconstancy of all things in it, i. 356, 357 ; our thoughts should not dwell much on them, i. 367 ; we should not trust or rejoice in them, i. 357, 358. Not to be preferred before God, i. 358, 359. Made in the best manner, ii, 24, 25. Made and richly furnished for man, ii. 249 — 261. A sense of God's goodness would lift us up above it, ii. 351. Worship of God, a folly to neglect it, i. 87, 88. If not according to his rule, no bet- ter than a worshipping the devil, i. 118, 119. Men prone to corrupt it with their own rites and inventions, i. 133, 134. Spiritual, men naturally have no heart to, i. 160. Cannot be right without a true notion of God, i. 198. Should be spiritual, and spiritually performed, i. 206, 206. God's spirituality the rule, though his attributes be the foundation of it, i. 206—208 ; ii. 88—90. Spiritual, to be due to him, manifest by the light of natm'e, though not the outward means and matter of an acceptable worship dis- coverable by it, L 208 — 211. Spiritual, owned to be due to God by heathens, i. 209, 210. Always required by God, i. 211, 212. Men as much obliged to it a» to worship him at all, i. 212, 213. Cere- monial law abolished to promote it, L 213 — 219. Legal ceremonies did not promote, but rather hinder it, i. 214 — • 216. By them God was never well- pleased with, nor intended it should be durable, i. 216—219. Under the gospel it is more spiritual than under the law, L 219. Yet doth not exclude bodily worship, i. 219' — 222. In societies, due to God, i. 221. Spii-itual, what it is, and wherein it consists, i. 222 — 242. Due to God, proved, i. 242—249. Those re- proved that render him none at all, i 249. A duty incumbent on all, i. 249, 260. Wholly to neglect it a great de- gree of atheism, i. 250. To a false God, or in a false manner, better than a total neglect of it, i. 250, 251. Outward, not to be rested in, i. 251, 252. We should examine ourselves of the manner of it, and in what particulars, i. 252 — 256. Spiritual, it is a comfort that God re- quires it, i. 256. Not to give it to God, is to affront all his attributes, i. 263 — 271, 481. To give it him, and not that of our spu'its, is a bad sign, i, 268, 269. Merely carnal, uncomfortable, unaccept- able, abominable, i. 269 — 271. Direction* 540 INDEX. for spiritual, L 271 — 275. Immuta'bility of God, a ground of worship, and en- couragement to it, i. 848 — 360. Bring- ing humau inventions into it an affront to God's wisdom, L 587 — 589. — See Cere- monies. A strong sense of God's holi- ness would make us reverent in it, ii. 194. We should carry it holily in it, ii. 207. Ingenuous, would be promoted by a sense of God's goodness, ii. 348. Slight and careless, a contempt of God's sover- eignty, ii. 440, 441 ; and bo is omission of it, ii. 441. Thoughts of God's sover eignty would make ua diligent in it, ii 455, 466. Worship of creatures is idolatry, i. 194 — • 196. Not- countenanced by God's omni- presence, L 890, 391. Wrong, God can do none, L 171, ii 442, 448 Zeal, sometimes a base end in it, i IM A TABLE PLACES OF SOEIPTUBB EXPLAINED IN THIS BOOK. GENESIS. JOB. Ohap. Ver. VoL Page Ohap. Ver. Vol. Page 1. 1 . 1. 619, 11. 36 1 iv. 18 . iL 117 i. 26 . li. . 42 ix. 21 . L 473 iL 7 . i 64, ii. 249 | xiL 18 . iL 415 ii. 17 . ii . 483 xiv. 5 . L 435 iii. 8 it . 493 xiv. 17 . . . L 420 iii. 15 . iL . ^ 61 xvi. 19 . i. 486 iv. 26 . i221, ii489 | xxii. 14 . iu 383 vi. 6 . L . 343 xxiv. 12 . iL 478 xviii. 19 L . 427 xxvi. 5—1^ t . . iL . 6—10 xxii. 12 . . ib. xxxi. 26— 2i $ . . L 148 xxxii. SO L . Ill xxxiv. 21 . . . L 423 xlvi 4 . L . 310 xxxviii. 7 . . . il 268 xlviL 31 I . 222 PSALMS. EXODUSw Psalm UL 11 . . . L . 482 L 4 L 863 iii. 14 L 287 ii. 4 L 385 iv. 24 ii* 490 viiL 4 . iL 620 vi. ix. XV. xxxii. 3 16 11 10 ii. . iL iL iL 36 65 108 241 X. xiv. xvL xix. 11,18 1 2 1—4 L *. ! ii! iL 23 ib. 423 500 52C 130 427 xxxiii. 19 iL 219 xix. 4 L xxxiv. 9 ii. 497 xix. xix. 9 12 iL L NUMBERS. xxii. XX vL 2—4 8 iL . . . L 198 886 xiv. 14 . . . i. 190 xxviL 4 iL lis xxviL 10 L 400 DEUTERONOMY. xxix. 10 iL 393 xxxii. 33, 34 . . I 445 xxxiL L 1,2 21 L . iL 480 478, 480 xxxiv. 10 . . . i. 185 1. 23 L 480 IL 4 • • L 449 1 KINGS. U. « . . . i 566 viii. 27 . . . i- 876 Iviii. 8 L 90 vii. 89 . . . i- 467 IviiL 4 L 91 IviiL 10 . . . iL 242 2 KINGS. Ixii. 11 iL 10 Ixix. 19 i. 483 XX. S . . »• 112 Ixsiv. 14 L 594 XX. 1,4,5 . . i. 842, 844 IxxvL 12 . . . fi. 452 Ixxviii 86 . . L 481 i CHRONICLES. Ixxviii 38 iL 494 xi 16 ^ , L 118 xe. 1 . . i 276 542 PLACES OF SCRIPTURE EXPLAINED. Psalm xc. xc. cil cii. ciii. ciii. ciii. civ. civ. cv. cvi. cxi. cxiii. cxxx. cxxxix. cxxxix. cxxxix. cxxxix. cxxxix. cxlv. cxlvii. cxlvii. cxlvii. via. viil viii. IX. XV. xvi. Ver. 2 . 8 . 25—27 8—28 5 14 19 2 81 25 19 20 5 4 2 1- 15, 16, 16 23, 24 17 1—3 4 5 Vol. i. L i. L Page 277. 278 470 810—314 847, 348 358 489 858, 359 42 315 163 195 41 206 445 372 64 435 490 218 1. 406, 407 i. 407 ; ii. 382 i. . 408 PROVERBS. 12 22 80 10 11 4 518 294; ii.423 415 41 425 155 ECCLESIASTES. 11 . . . L 90 EZEKIEL. Chap. Ver Vol Page iv. 6 . , iL 49'.> viii. 2 ii. IIJ ix. 10 ii. 493 xi. 16 ii. 310 xviiL 25 ii. . 475 XX. 33 ii. 462 DANIEL. vii. 9 HOSEA. i. 197 5 , , iL 610 iL 2, 3 ii. 494, 507 ii. 16 i. 230 ii. 19 ii. 449 V. 6 iL 134 V. 12 iL 494 vL 4 iL ib. vi. 7 ii. 427 vii. 8 L 121 viL 15 ii. 824 viii. 12 L 100 X. 15 i. 194 xi. 10 i. 236 xi. 8 iL 493 xiii. 12, 13 L 494 ;iL 503. 623 xiv. 2 • i. 283 JOEL. L 4 , iL 494 AMOS. ISAIAH. u. iiL 6 . . . 2 . . . 1. L .145 ,146 418 i. 10, 11, 14 . i. 217 iv. 2 . iL 60 JONAH. ix. 6 . i. 465 xxix. 15 . L 483 iiL 4, 10. i . 842 xxxiv. 4 . i. 312 xxxviii. 1, 5 . i. 342 MIOAH. xl. 15, 17 i. 379 V. 2 . . . L , 294 xU. 21, 22 i. 431 xliiL 20, 21 i. 115 NAHUM. xlv. 6 . ii. 416 i. 1, 2 . . ii. 472 473 xlv. 11 . ii. 449 i. 8 . . . iL 473—477 xlviii. 10 . ii. 810 lii. 4, 5. _. ib. HABAKKUK. liv. 16 . L 518 IxvL 1 . L 377 i. 16 . . . L 144 JEREMIAH. ZEPHANIAH vL 21 . . . iL 162 iL 1, 2 . . . ii. • 489 viL xii. 21 . 9 . i. L 217 352 ZEOHARIAH. XV. 15 . iL 474 vL 1 . . . L , 825 xvL 17 . i. 427 viiL 8 . . . L . 886 xxi. 35, 36 i. 313 xiv. 16 . . . i. 234 KxiiL 16—24 L 1 63—366 ixxiL 31 . ii. 488 MALACHL i. 81, 14 i. 118 LAMENTATIONS. iii. 5 . . . L , 471 a 88 . . ii. 492 iiL 6 . iL • 497 PLACES OF SCRIPTURE EXPLAINED. d4:'6 MATTHEW, Chap. Ver. Vol 1. 18 . . . ii. Ul. 9 lU V. 48 11. Vll. 11 . . u. VIL 23 . 1. XV. 6 1. XVUl. 10 1- zzv. 12 I. L iv. iv. V. vi. viL ix. X. xii. xii. xvii. vli. xvii xvii. xvii L L i. 1. ii. iii. iii. V. viL vii. viii viii viii. viiL ix. ix. ix. X. xii. XV. xvl 18 86 20 8 . 10—24 24 19 64 87 3 30 38 39,41 5 MARK LUKE. JOHN. Page 60 13 478, 623 188 418 110 414 413 ii. 209—211 59 356 ii. . 83 L 176—178 i. 177—179, 205 81 468 234 376 393 449 186 293, 340 Chap, ii. ACTS. 51 18 28 30 103 66 367, 373 487 ROMANS. 9 . . . L . 225 19—21 L 27, 28, 42, 519 ; ii. 216 23 25 4 9—12 23 7 6 8 4 10 21 38, 89 88, 39 6 22 18 1 6 25—27 1. ii. I it ii. L i. I IL i. i. ii. i. 1 OORINTfilANS. 21 . . . L 386 80 502 90 180 219 214 102 566 484 313 509 395 214 482, 507 501 220 516 498—507 518 IL ii. iii. u iv. xi. xi xi, xi. 11. ii. iii. 11. vi, vi Ver, 2 . 10, 11 20, 21 Vol. L L L 2 GORINTHIANS, 18 . . . L GALATIANS. EPHESIANS. 10 18 3 12 10 6 L L I i i PHILIPPIANS. 6 . . . L COLOSSIANS. 6 . . . ii. 10 19 2 TIMOTHY. Page 427 414 118 552 214 262 554 166 89, 158 553 370 122 82 262 580 277 355 TITUS. 16 . . . L . 25, 92 HEBREWS. 1, 2, 10, 11 . i. 347; ii. 82 9 . . . ii. . 136 12 . . . i. . 424 3 . . . i. 44; ii. 104 6 . . . i. . 27 16 . . . ii. . 277 21 . . . i . 222 JAMES. 10, 11. . . i. . 108 15 . . . i. . 91 2 PETER. 1 . . . ii. . 482 5 . . , ii. . 489 9 . . . ii. . 488 12,13. . . i. . 312 REVELATION. 10 . . . i. . 270 18, 19, 22 . .11. 484 10 . . . i . 497 U . . L . 312