¶501. FALL OF MAN. Adam had a sufficient assistance of God always present with him, to have enabled him to have obeyed, if he had used his natural abilities in endeavoring it; though the assistance was not such as it would have been after his confirmation, to render it impossible for him to sin. Man might be deceived, so that he should not be disposed to use his endeavors to persevere; but if he did use his endeavors, there was a sufficient assistance always with him to enable him to persevere. See No. 436.

 

¶502. CHRIST'S RIGHTEOUSNESS. 'Tis most agreeable to the tenor of the Scripture, that believers shall partake with Christ in that exaltation and glory which the Father gives him in reward for his obedience, his doing the work which he did in the world by the Father's appointment. The whole mystical Christ shall be rewarded for this, which is the same thing as the having Christ's righteousness imputed to them.

 

¶503. CEREMONY. See Sermon on Luke 10:38 ff., under the second doctrine.

 

¶504. CONDITION OF JUSTIFICATION. REPENTANCE. FAITH. The freedom of grace appears in the forgiving of sin upon repentance, or only for our being willing to part with it; just after the same manner, as the bestowment of eternal life only for accepting of it. For to make us an offer of freedom from a thing only for quitting of it, is equivalent to the offering the possession of a thing for the receiving of it. God makes us this offer, that if we will in our hearts quit sin, we shall be [free] from it, and all the evil that belongs to it and flows from it; which is the same thing, as the offering us freedom only for accepting it. Accepting in this case is quitting and parting with, in our wills and inclinations. So that repentance is implied in faith, 'tis a part of our willing reception of the salvation of Jesus Christ; though faith with respect to sin implies something more in it, viz. a respect to Christ as him by whom we have deliverance. Thus by faith we destroy sin. See Gal. 2:18, with my notes.

 

¶505. HELL TORMENTS. When the law was given at Sinai, it was in a very different manner from that in which the word of God was delivered by Christ. At Sinai the terrors of the law, God's justice and wrath ready to revenge the breaches of it, chiefly, were represented by the appearances there. And doubtless God's wrath upon sinners that suffer the curse of the law, is answerable to those appearances. The appearances there1 were very awful thunders and lightnings and earthquakes, so that they could not endure. God spake out of the fire, the fire that God spake out of was a dreadful fire, Deut. 4:11, ""And the mountain burnt with fire unto the midst [of heaven], with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness. And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire"; and v. 36, ""Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he showed thee his great fire; and thou heardst his words out of the midst of the fire." God's vengeance on the breakers of that law, will be answerable to those significations of it; for Moses himself testifies, that according to God's fear, so is his wrath (Ps. 90:11).

 

¶506. CHRIST'S SATISFACTION. FIRST COVENANT, ETC. It may be objected, that although death fulfills the threatening, ""Thou shalt surely die," as it may very fairly be understood; yet Adam did not understand it so, but took it that he personally must surely die. I answer, that perhaps Adam did not probably distinctly know, that the suffering the eternal wrath of God was meant by that threatening; he understood it only in the general, that it was [to] be a destruction of him, not particularly conceiving of all that misery that was naturally implied in that expression. He therefore understood that he personally, and perhaps his posterity if he had any, were certainly to be destroyed: and it was fulfilled in his and his posterity's temporal death, so as to be consistent with the words as he understood them; though it might be mitigated, so as to be more gentle than he feared, in not being with that wrath, and being followed by a resurrection. And so far as they were not understood by Adam, God is obliged by them only according to their proper and fair construction. Adam had a distinct notion of this, that the frame of his body was to be destroyed; but had no distinct notion about the doleful state of the soul, the dissolution of the body was to usher in. See Nos. 1083, 357.

¶Corol. Hence we see why it was needful, that temporal death should be inflicted on Adam and all his posterity, except in some extraordinary instances, though eternal death may be wholly escaped.

 

¶507. JUSTIFICATION. See Nos. 416, 632. 'Tis upon the account of faith, that God looks upon it as meet, that such and such should be looked upon as having an interest in Christ and his redemption; because faith, or the mind's receiving or closing with Christ as Mediator, is (if I may so express it) the active suitableness, or rather suiting, of the receiver with Christ and his redemption. 'Tis the active direct suiting and according of the soul to the Redeemer, and to his salvation and the nature of it--to salvation as salvation--and under the notion and quality of a free gift; a suiting with the way wherein it is procured and made ours; 'tis the immediate suiting of the faculties of the soul, a suiting of judgment and sense and disposition of the soul. The mind don't receive as the body receives, by taking with [the] hand or by opening the door: mental or spiritual reception can be nothing else, but the suiting or according of the mind to a thing declared and proposed. You may say, other graces are a suiting of the soul to salvation, as for instance love to God. I answer, not directly, in that sense that we speak of; in that sense, love to God is rather a suiting or according of the soul to the nature of God.

¶This suiting or agreeing of the faculties of the soul to salvation, renders it meet for an interest in salvation, in a quite different manner from what righteousness, or moral excellency, renders anyone meet for happiness, as being a suitable testimony of God's respect to that excellency. This suiting that we speak of, is only that of compliance, agreeing, or closing of the faculties. Christ having purchased salvation, God waits for nothing else but this; righteousness being already fulfilled, if there be only this, it renders it suitable to receive it, as 'tis a next capacity and disposition in the subject for it. The soul by it is suited as the socket for the jewel that is set in it; by this the soul admits it, as things transparent admit light, when opaque bodies refuse it. Why should there be a declared belonging of Christ's salvation to that soul, that disagrees and refuses and wars against it?

 

¶508. WISDOM OF GOD IN THE WORK OF REDEMPTION. As 'tis so ordered in redemption, that thereby man's dependence should become greater on God, and man should be brought nearer to God; so God hereby acquires a greater right to the creature. The creature was God's before, as he created it, and as it was absolutely dependent on God for its being: now besides that, 'tis God's as he has created it again. 'Tis God's as he hath redeemed [it] from a state infinitely worse than nothing, and brought it to a state vastly better than its former being before the fall; and then, when it could not be done without infinite expense. So that hereby, God acquires an infinitely great and strong right to the redeemed; for the right is equal to the expense that obtained it, since that expense was necessary, and the benefit of the redeemed equal to the expense. Which is not only to the glory of God, but will be matter of rejoicing to the redeemed, to think that God hath so great a right to them; and will make [them], with so much the more earnestness of consent and desire, yield up themselves to God, and devote themselves to serve and glorify him.

 

¶509. HELL TORMENTS. That God should so lay out himself, and do things so astonishingly great to redeem man, argues the exceeding greatness of his misery; and so doth the work of redemption's being made so much of, that all the great works of God that were wrought in the world before, and all laws and divine constitutions, must be so contrived as to be only introductory to it. Everything must be so ordered as to be a shadow; it must be so much prophesied of, spoken of so often in such an exalted manner, in songs and psalms, that all the events in the world must be only so many preparations for it. Doubtless 'tis a redemption from a very great misery, as well as to a great happiness, or it would not be made so much of.

 

¶510. WISDOM OF GOD IN THE WORK OF REDEMPTION. One design of God in the gospel, is to bring us to make God the object of our undivided respect, that he may engross our regard every way, that whatever natural inclination there is in us, he may be the center of it, and that God may be all in all. Thus there is a natural inclination in the creature, not only to the adoration of a glorious being infinitely superior; but to friendship, to love and delight in a fellow creature, one that may be familiarly conversed with and enjoyed: and virtue and holiness don't destroy or weaken this inclination.

¶That God therefore might also be the object of the exercise of this natural inclination of ours, of our love and friendship to a companion, God is come down to us, has taken our nature, and is become one of us, that he might be our companion; so that there is now provision made, that we may have sufficient vent for all our inclination and love, in God and towards him. (Christ conversed in the most mild, sweet, familiar, and humane manner with his disciples.) If this inclination in us be sanctified and governed and directed by a holy principle, as it ought to be, we shall need no other kind of person to exercise it upon than Jesus Christ; but in him it can be immensely better satisfied, than in any other object. There is everything in him, in the highest perfection, that tends to answer this inclination of ours. He stands in a relation to us the most advantageous for this, possible; he has those qualifications, that are the most endearing and qualifying for a friend, possible; and he hath done that for us which, above all things conceivable, tends to attract our hearts and unite them to him, in entire love and confidence.

¶If God had not thus descended to us, this inclination to friendship and love to a companion might have been subordinate to a supreme regard to God: as holiness and the image of God might have been the main qualification, that moved the choice of a companion and attracted love; and as this friendship might be improved to holy purposes, jointly to adore and assist each other in serving and glorifying God. But yet the heart doth not so universally and undividedly center in God, as when this love to a companion [not only] is subordinate to the adoration of God, and improved to the purposes of serving and glorifying of God; but also when the person who is the immediate object of it, is God.

 

¶511. CONVICTION. This is one great design and end of God in suffering man to fall, that by a sense of evil he might have the greater sense of good. How congruous therefore is it, that God should prepare man by a sense of evil, which consists in sin and misery, for a sense of good; especially that good, which consists in a salvation from those evils.

 

¶512. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. CHRIST'S MIRACLES were such as were properly divine works, and are often spoken of as such in the Old Testament: particularly, his walking on the water when in a storm, and the waves were raised--Job 9:8, ""Which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth on the waves of the sea."

¶His stilling the tempest and raging of the sea--Ps. 65:7, ""Which stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves." Ps. 107:29, ""He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still." Ps. 89:8-9, ""O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee, or to thy faithfulness round about thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea; when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them." Ps. 93:4, ""The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea." Job 38:8-11, ""Or who shut up the sea with doors...and said, ''Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed'?"

¶Casting out devils--Job 41, with Ps. 74: 13-14 and Is. 51:9.2

¶Feeding a multitude in the wilderness--Deut. 8:15-16, ""Who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint, who fed thee in the wilderness." Christ did that which the children of Israel questioned whether God could do, Ps. 78:19 (20, 23-25), ""Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" and Ps. 146:7, ""Which giveth food to the hungry."

¶Telling men's thoughts--Amos 4:13, ""That declareth unto man what is his thought."

¶Raising the dead--Ezek. 37. Is. 26:19, ""Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." Ps. 68:20, ""He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death." I Sam. 2:6, ""The Lord kills, and he makes alive; he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up." So Deut. 32:39, ""See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no God with me: I kill and I make alive." See II Kgs. 5:7.

¶Opening the eyes of the blind--Ps. 146:8, ""The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind." Is. 29:18; 35:5; 42:7.

¶Healing the leprosy--II Kgs. 5:6-7, compared with Deut. 32:39.

¶Unstopping the ears of the deaf--Is. 29:18; 35:5.

¶Healing grievous sores, or wounds, or issues--Job 5:17-18.

¶Christ healed such diseases, as of old were appointed to by types of our souls' diseases, or the corruption of our nature; such as the plague of leprosy, and issues of blood.

¶Loosing the tongue of the dumb--Is. 35:6.

¶Causing him that hath an impediment in his speech to speak plain--Is. 32:4.

¶Lifting up her that was bound and bowed together by a spirit of infirmity--Ps. 146:7-8, ""The Lord looseth the prisoners...the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down."

¶Restoring the lame--Is. 35:6.

¶Healing the sick--Ps. 103:3, ""Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, and who healeth all thy diseases." Remarkable is that place, Ex. 15:26.

¶Christ joined pardoning sins with his healing the sick. When one came to be healed, he several times first told him that his sins were forgiven; and when the Jews were stumbled at it, and found fault that he should pretend to forgive sins, then immediately upon it he heals the person's disease, that they might believe that he had power to forgive sins; and tells 'em that he does it for this end (Matt. 9:2-8; Mark 2:3-12; Luke 5:18-26). Now if Christ were an impostor, can it be believed, that [God] would so countenance such horrid blasphemy as this would be, as to enable him to cure the disease by a word's speaking--a work which God appropriates to himself as his own work, and joins it to forgiving iniquities, and mentions them as both alike his peculiar works? Would God give an impostor this attestation to his blasphemous lie, when he pretended to do [it] as an attestation? Christ urges this argument with the Jews, when they found fault with his calling himself the Son of God, John 10:37, ""If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not."

¶There are three other things that are to [be] remarked of Christ's miracles, viz. (1) that they were such as it was prophesied he would work; (2) they were works of mercy and love, no needless miracles; and (3) they were lively types of the great spiritual works of God and the Redeemer.

 

¶513. INCARNATION. See Nos. 487, 624. It seems to me reasonable to suppose, that that which the man Christ Jesus had his divine knowledge by, that he had his union with the divine Logos by. For doubtless, this union was some union of the faculties of his soul: but Christ had his divine knowledge by the Holy Ghost, Acts 1:2, ""After that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles."

 

¶514. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Without divine revelation, 'tis impossible the world should ever [have] come to any tolerable knowledge of future rewards and punishments. I believe the world, without revelation, never would have come to any determination that there was any future rewards and punishments, but would have remained in midnight darkness about it. But if they could have found out that there was to be any such thing, they would have been forever ignorant, whether they were eternal or temporal, and of what kind they were; the nature, kind, and degree, and circumstances of the happiness of heaven; what it was they were to enjoy, and with what qualifications. These things would forever have been as much unknown, as how that part of the universe is formed that is beyond the starry heavens. Indeed, what the Scripture reveals of the future happiness of the righteous, is exceeding rational, and excellently fit and congruous: that those that are holy shall hereafter be made perfectly holy, that they shall enjoy a happiness that is holy and spiritual, that they shall see God, and be in his presence, and everlastingly enjoy his love. But the world never would have found out this.

 

¶515. CONFIRMATION OF THE ANGELS. See Nos. 442, and 702 (corol. 4). The fall of the angels that fell, was a great establishment and confirmation to the angels that stood. They resisted a great temptation by which the rest fell, whatever that temptation was, and they resisted the enticement of the ringleaders which drew away multitudes; and the resisting and overcoming great temptation, naturally tends greatly to confirm in righteousness. And probably they had been engaged on God's side, in resisting those that fell, when there was war, rebellion raised in heaven against God. All the hosts of heaven soon divided, some on one side and some [on the other]; and standing for God, in opposition and war against those that were his enemies, naturally tended to confirm their friendship to God. And then they saw the dreadful issue of the fallen angels' rebellion, how much it was to their loss. They saw how dreadful the wrath of God was; which tended to make them dread rebellion, and sufficiently careful to avoid it. They now learnt more highly to prize God's favor, by seeing the dreadfulness of his displeasure; they now saw more of the beauty of holiness, now they had the deformity of sin to compare it with.

¶But when their time of probation was at [an] end, and they had the reward of certain confirmation, by having eternal life absolutely made certain to them, is uncertain. However, there are many things that make it look exceeding probable to me, that whenever this was done, it was through the Son of God; that he was the immediate dispenser of this reward, and that they received it of the Father through him.

¶1) We have shown before (No. 320), that it was in contempt of the Son of God, that those of them that fell rebelled; it was because they would not have one in the human nature to rule over them. How congruous therefore is it, that those that stood should be dependent on him for their reward of confirmation, in contempt of whom the others had rebelled, that God should thus honor his Son in the sight of the angels, that had been thus contemned by the angels that fell, in their sight. It was congruous that Christ, who was despised and rejected by a great number of the angels, should become the foundation upon which the rest should be built for eternal life, Ps. 118:22, ""The stone which the builders refused, the same is become the head of the corner." This makes it seem probable to me, that the time of their confirmation was when Jesus Christ ascended into heaven. For,

¶First, it was Jesus Christ in the human nature, that was despised and rejected by the rebelling angels; it was congruous therefore, that it should be Jesus Christ in the human nature, that should confirm them that stood.

¶Secondly, it was also congruous that their confirmation should be deferred till that time; that before they were confirmed, they might have a thorough trial of their obedience, in that particular wherein the rebelling angels were guilty, viz. in their submission to Jesus Christ in the human nature. It was congruous therefore, that their confirmation should be deferred, till they had actually submitted to Christ in man's nature as their King: as they had opportunity to do when Christ in man's nature ascended into heaven. And,

¶Thirdly, it seems very congruous that this should be reserved to be part of Christ's exaltation. We often read of Christ's being set over the angels, when he ascended and sat at the right hand [of God]; and that then he was made head of all principality and power, that then all things were put under his feet, that then God the Father said, ""Let all the angels of God worship him." It was very congruous that Christ should have this honor immediately, after such great humiliation and sufferings. And,

¶Fourthly, it was fit that the angels should be confirmed after they had seen Christ in the flesh; for this was the greatest trial of the angels' obedience that ever was. If the other angels rebelled, only at its being foretold that such an one in man's nature should rule over them, if that was so great a trial that so many angels fell in it; how great a trial was [it], when they saw a poor obscure despised afflicted man, and when they had just seen [him] so mocked and spit upon, and crucified and put to death, like a vile malefactor! This was a great trial to those thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, those mighty glorious and exalted spirits, whether or no they would submit to such an one, for their sovereign Lord and King.

¶Fifthly, it was very fit that God should honor the day of the ascension and glorious exaltation of his Son, which was a day of such joy to Christ, by3 joining with it such an occasion of joy to the angels, as the reception of their reward of eternal life; that when Christ rejoices, who had lately endured so much sorrow, the heavenly hosts might rejoice with him. Obj. 1. It may be objected that it was a long time for the angels to be kept in a state of trial, from the beginning of the world till the ascension of Christ. [I answer], but there might very fitly be a longer time of trial for those mighty spirits, than for others. Obj. 2. That the angels could not enjoy that quiet and undisturbed happiness for all that while, if they were all the time unconfirmed, and did not certainly know that they should not fall. I answer, there was no occasion for any disresting fears; for they never could be guilty of rebellion without knowing, when they were going to commit it, that it was rebellion, and that thereby they should forfeit eternal life and expose themselves to wrath, by the tenor of God's covenant. And they could not fall, but it must be their voluntary act; and they had perfect freedom of mind from any lust, and had been sufficiently warned and greatly confirmed when the angels fell: so that there was a great probability that they should not fall, though God had not yet declared and promised absolutely that they should not. They were not absolutely certain of it--this was an occasion of joy reserved for that joyful and glorious day of Christ's ascension.

¶Sixthly, the angels are now confirmed and hence have been since Christ’s ascension, for Christ, since he appeared in the flesh, gathered together and united into one society, one family, one body, all the angels and saints in heaven and the church on earth. Now tis not to be supposed that part of this body are in a confirmed state and part still in a state of probation. But,

¶2) The second argument that the angels are confirmed by Christ, we learn by Scripture: that Christ is the Head of the angels, and that the angels are united to him as part of his body. Which holds forth, that he is not only their head of government, but their head of communication: he is the head from whence they derive their good. And 'tis manifest that he that is their head of government, should be their head of communication too: Christ is therefore the head from whence the angels receive communication of good. But how well doth this agree, with their receiving their reward of obedience from him! God, in making Christ head of angels and men, hath made him his dispenser of his benefits to all universally. 'Tis therefore most probable, [that he] who now dispenses the blessings of the angels' reward to them, is he from whom they first received that reward; that God bestowed it upon them at first through his hands. And this also confirms, that the time of the angels' confirmation was at Christ's ascension: for then was he made the head of the angels; then were all things put under his feet.

¶3) It [is] most congruous that that person that is to judge the angels, and that shall publicly declare the unalterable condemnation of those that fell, and also shall publicly declare the unalterable confirmation of those that stood, should be the same person that acted the part of a judge before, when they were first confirmed. He that is the judge of the angels at the last day, publicly before heaven, earth, and hell to confirm them, is probably the same person that was their judge, when they were first confirmed in heaven. The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son, and this he did to Christ God-man; for the committing all judgment to him was done at Christ's first exaltation, and the first fruits of it was probably his confirming the angels as their judge.4

¶4) Christ being called the tree of life, that grows in the midst of the paradise of God (Rev. 2:7). If we consider the use of the tree of life that grew in the midst of the earthly paradise, it was to confirm man in life, in case of obedience; if he had stood, he was to have received the reward in that way, by eating the fruit of that tree. Christ, being the tree of life in the heavenly paradise, is so to all the inhabitants of that paradise. See Nos. 570, 591, 664 (secs. 6-9).

¶Corol. 1. Here we may observe the wonderful analogy there is, in God's dispensations towards angels and men.

¶Corol. 2. Here we may take notice of the manifold wisdom of God. What glorious and wonderful ends are accomplished by the same events, in heaven, earth, and hell--as particularly by those dispensations of providence in Christ's incarnation, death, and exaltation--how manifold are the wise designs that are carried on in different worlds, by the turning of one wheel!

¶Corol. 3. Here we may observe, how the affairs of the church on earth and of the blessed assembly of heaven are linked together. When the joyful times of the gospel begin on earth, which begin with Christ's exaltation, then joyful times begin also in heaven amongst the angels there; and by the same means, when we have such a glorious occasion given us to rejoice, they have an occasion given them. So long as the church continued under a legal dispensation, so long the angels continued under law; for since their confirmation, the angels are not under law (as is evident by what I have said in my notes on Gal. 5:18). So doubtless at the same time, there was a great addition to the happiness of the separate spirits of the saints, as the resurrection of many of them with Christ's resurrection is an argument. And in the general, when God gradually carries on the designs of grace in this world, by accomplishing glorious things in the church below, there is a new accession of joy and glory to the church in heaven; thus the matter is represented in John's revelations. And 'tis fit that it should be thus, seeing they are one family.

 

¶516. SATISFACTION OF CHRIST.5 The sufferings of Christ herein differed from the sufferings of the damned in hell, that Christ had immensely a greater sense of the worth of the good that he lost, viz. the manifestation and enjoyment of the love of God; and therefore, when God forsook him and hid his face from him, it was so much more grievous.

¶There were these things, gave him a sense of the worth of the enjoyment of the Father's love: (1) He infinitely loved the Father, and the love of the man Christ Jesus was in some sort infinite; and proportionable was his desire of the love of the Father. (2) He had actually been infinitely happy in the enjoyment of the Father's love; so that he knew more by experience of the worth of it, than any angel or saint in heaven. And (3) the Father's love was infinite to him. It was a greater thing to have the expressions and manifestations of great love interrupted, than lesser love; the loss by the interruption was greater. As a sense of evil increases a sense of good, so a sense of good doth as much increase a sense of evil. See Nos. 265, 664, 1005.

 

¶517. HUMILIATION. It appears by that text, I Cor. 11:31-32, ""If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged...of the Lord," that men are not brought thoroughly to judge themselves, as justly liable to the punishment which the law threatens, but by saving repentance.

 

¶518 [a]. FAITH JUSTIFICATION.6 Faith, when spoken of as compared with works, or an universal and persevering obedience. It may be said alone to be the condition of salvation, if by condition we mean that which of it self, without the actual performance of the other, will, according to the tenor of the divine promise, give a man a certainty of life.

 

¶518 [b]. CHRIST'S MIRACLES. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Christ, by the works which he wrought, showed that he had an absolute and sovereign power over the course of nature, and over the spiritual and invisible world, and over the bodies and souls of men, as Dr. Sharp observes.7 It was not so with other prophets that were wont to work miracles. They could not work what miracles they pleased, or when they pleased; they could not work miracles, but only when they were excited and directed to it, by a special command or impulse from heaven. But Christ wrought miracles in a constant course, from the time of the beginning of his public ministry. They sought to him for it, and he did them as of his own power at all times. It was under that notion that they came to him for it, that he was able; and this Christ required that they should believe, in order to it; which never any prophet pretended to. Moses was shut out of Canaan, partly for working a miracle in his own name, and not sanctifying the Lord God: ""Must we fetch water out of this rock?" said he. The prophets never pretended that they themselves had properly any power to work miracles, but disclaimed it. God never subjected the course of nature to them, to work miracles by their own word and command upon all occasions. Care was taken that in all the miracles that God wrought, wherein he made any use of the prophets, that it should be visible that what was done, was done only by God; and that what they said or did, upon which the miracle was wrought, was by particular revelation from heaven.

¶They that came to Christ that he might work miracles for them, did [it] in the faith of that by his own power and holiness he was able to do it for them. The leper said, Matt. 8:2, “Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean.” He believed that Christ could work miracles when he would. This Christ approved of. Matt. 8:8, “But speak the word only and my servant shall be healed.” Matt. 9:18, “My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thine hand on her, and she shall live.” Matt. 9:28, “Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, yea, Lord.” Matt. 9:21, “If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole.” See Matt. 9:21. Christ there reproves the disciples, because they were afraid of wanting bread, not remembering how he had fed multitudes in the wilderness: which implies that he was able to do the like again, when he was pleased. He cast out devils as of his own power & authority. Mark 1:27, “With authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits and they do obey him.” And Christ as having power of his own to work miracles, gave power to his disciples. as Matt. 10, Mark 3:14 etc., and 6:7 etc., and Luke 9 and 10. And so miracles were wrought in Christs name by the apostles and multitudes of other disciples. Moses did not work those miracles that were wrought in his time, nor did he in the least pretend to any such thing, but Christ did pretend to work his miracles. They are often spoken of and he himself speaks of them, as works that he did. Yea, and declares himself fellow with God in working; John 5:17, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.”

 

¶519. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. If there must be a revelation, this is convincing that the Christian revelation is the true [one], that it has been by means of this revelation, and this only, that the world has come to the knowledge of the one only true God. Till this came, all the world lay in ignorance of him; but when this came, it was successful to bring the world to the acknowledgment of him: and 'tis from hence that all that part of the world, that owns the one only true God, whether Christians, Jews, Mahometans, or deists, have received. If there be a true revelation in the world, 'tis not to be supposed that God would so order things, that it should not be by that true revelation, but by a false one, an imposture, that the world should come to the knowledge of the true God.

¶And this is evidential, that the Christian revelation is that which God designed, as the proper means to bring the world to the knowledge of himself, rather than other revelation and rather than human reason. For 'tis unreasonable to suppose that God would so order, that another means, which God did not design as proper means for the obtaining this effect, should actually obtain it, and that only. If the Christian revelation ben't the proper means to bring the world to the knowledge of the true God, 'tis strange that the world, who were before ignorant of him, should be brought to knowledge of him by it, and no part of it ever brought to the knowledge of him by any other means; which may be supposed to be the means which God designed.

 

¶520. FEW SAVED. (See Shepard's Sincere Convert, pp. 83-4)8 The following seem to be some of the reasons, why there are but few of fallen men chosen to eternal life.

¶1) Hereby it becomes more sensible and remarkable, that they are dependent on the sovereign power and grace of God for salvation, and that it is his work, that their redemption is owing only to him. Because 'tis a remarkable and strange thing, that a few should be so different from all the rest of mankind, that they should become so different in themselves, and be in so different state. When [there is] such a distinction of a small part from the common mass, it the more commands notice; and it is natural to enquire what should be the cause of it. It is natural to enquire why these few, in these respects, are so different from all the rest, that are of the same kind of beings, of the same original, and otherwise in the same circumstances. 'Tis natural to conclude, that there is some extrinsic cause of the distinction; it don't look as if it were from anything in their nature: for then, why are none of the rest so? Why so few of all mankind, when all have the same nature? When a few are exceptions from all the world, 'tis more apparent that divine power and sovereign will makes the difference. If the generality were so, we should be ready to think there was something in man's nature that tended to it, or that there are some efficacious causes of it in man himself, or in what belongs to him, or in the common state or circumstances of mankind. But the smallness of the number leads us to seek a cause out of that nature which is common to mankind. The redeemed themselves are put in mind by it, that the cause that distinguishes them is not in themselves.

¶That the difference is owing to divine election, is more apparent. If the generality were saved and but few perished, a designing of those many to salvation could hardly be called an election. ""Election" seems to denote a choosing out one or a few out of many, a choosing a portion out of the common mass; but if the multitude or mass itself was taken, and only a few distinguished ones left, this could hardly be called an election. The divine sovereign will is more obviously the cause of the distinction in such an election, when a few are distinguished from the generality and are chosen to a supernatural state, than if the generality were designed to this state, and only a few left in their natural state. If the generality were in a state of grace, we should be more ready to look upon that state as natural.

¶That which is rare is more taken notice of, and looked upon as more wonderful. Those works that are ordinary, though they are very great, ben't so much admired as those that are more rare. Thus the power of God in the works of nature, is as great as in miracles; yet the power of God is more notable and remarkable in miracles: miracles are therefore spoken of in Scripture as works of the great power of God.

¶2) This teaches that the saints don't belong to this world, that this world is not their country; because they are only some few that are chosen out of the world (John 15:19). ""These are they that are redeemed from amongst men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb" (Rev. 14:4). The world is fallen and lost; 'tis only a number that God hath set his love upon, that are redeemed. The world is in a perishing state; 'tis sinking down into eternal perdition; 'tis set on fire of hell, and is burning up in the dreadful flames: those are only a few chosen ones, that are plucked from the common ruin (see Num. 23:9).

¶3) By reason of there being so few saved, the grace and love of God towards those that are saved will be the more valued and admired, and that upon two accounts. First, there is the same kind of cause why it should be so, as why a man that escapes some great evil will rejoice the more, the narrower his escape is. If the generality of an army was condemned to die, and only a certain small number was to be saved by lot; those upon whom this happy lot fell, would rejoice so much the more for the smallness of the number; every time they think how narrow their escape was, they will prize the blessing of life the more. And when men are saved by the free and sovereign will of a benefactor, and not by chance, that don't alter the case as to the joy of him that is saved. For he considers his being involved with others in the same state of misery and danger, as prior to the will of the benefactor to deliver him from that misery and danger; and his danger before his deliverance was so much the greater, by how much the fewer there were to be saved.

¶Secondly, any good that is enjoyed, is valued and admired according as it appears great or small in comparison, both according to the degree by which it excells something else that it is compared with, and also according to the number excelled. The same riches, the same esteem, the same pleasures, the same advantages every way that a king has, would not be so valued, were not the person hereby so distinguished and exalted above such a multitude. So, he that outrun in the Olympic games. So the creature admires the love of God, for his being thereby so distinguished and exalted above so many.

¶Upon these accounts, if God should by some miracle or wonder of providence wherein the divine hand was visible, and from a peculiar favor and love, snatch a man out of a sinking ship, he would be more affected with God's favor and love to him in particular, than if God had, by a miracle, stopped the leak and saved the ship and whole crew. This world is like a sinking ship.

 

¶521. WISDOM OF GOD IN THE WORK OF REDEMPTION. DEATH OF THE SAINTS. There is this good comes by the saints dying: they thereby are able to have something of an idea of what Christ suffered for them; they themselves taste of death, and so are the better able to judge, how wonderful Christ's love to them was in dying for them.

 

¶522. NO PROMISES, TO UNCONVERTED MEN'S SEEKING SALVATION. It was not meet that God should make any promises of success to unregenerated seekers of salvation. For it is not meet that any should have absolute promises of success, unless they do what they can; or if they are slack and partial and ben't thorough in seeking. Nor is it meet that absolute promises should be made to such as are thorough in seeking, unless they are persevering in it. It is not meet that God should promise men success, if they would be engaged in seeking during any limited time, as for a day or month or year. Therefore, it was not meet that God should make any absolute promises of success to any unconverted seekers; for no unconverted man will be thorough in striving for eternal life, and be fixed and persevering in it.

¶The Arminians say that God has promised, that if men will make a good improvement of common grace, he will give special. Then I would ask, how long must a man make a good improvement of common grace, in order to be entitled to that promise? Will it be a performance of the condition of the promise, if a man doth it for a day or a week? If it be said, that a man must go on in making a good improvement of it, waiting for the fulfilling of the promise in God's time; I answer, that I believe that God has promised special grace, to those that are faithful in the improvement of common grace, and continue so to be; but there are none but those that have special grace, that do thus. There is no promise of grace but what is implied in that, ""To him that hath shall be given." God makes promises of grace only to grace.

 

¶523. ANTICHRIST. The two empires of Antichrist and of the Mahometans seem to have been raised up on purpose, that the glory of the power and dominion of Jesus might appear, in overcoming and overthrowing the mightiest empires of the world, and in establishing his own empire upon their ruins. It was foretold, that the kingdom of Christ should break in pieces and consume all the four mighty monarchies that have been in the world; which was represented by the stone's smiting the image, and breaking in pieces the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, and making of them like the chaff of the summer threshing floor, and the wind's carrying them away, so that no place was found for them. Now the Antichristian and the Mahometan empire, they comprehend all those parts of the earth that have been subject to those four monarchies.

¶That Christ's victory therefore might be the more visible, and his triumph the more glorious, God hath so ordered it that the empire of these parts of the world should be set on such a foot, that the very being of it must be overthrown and utterly abolished, by the setting up the kingdom of Christ in those parts of the world. Thus the being of Antichrist's kingdom must be abolished, if Christ sets up his own kingdom. The Antichristian empire being fundamentally opposite to Christ's, the dominion of Christ and the dominion of Antichrist over the same parts of the world, are inconsistent one with another. Now when Christ overcame the Roman empire in Constantine's time, it was not to the abolition of the empire itself, but only the heathenism of it: the victory over the earthly power and empire therefore, was not so visible and remarkable; because the strife was not about the being of that power and empire, as it was when the Greeks strove with the Persians, and afterwards the Romans with the Greeks, [when] the prevailing of the empire of the one overthrew the empire of the other.

¶When Christ overcomes the powers of earth so as to abolish their very being, his superiority is the more visible, because it is to be supposed that that earthly power will exert itself to its utmost, to preserve its own being. God therefore saw meet, that the power and dominion of the Roman empire should come to stand on such a foot,9 as that the being of it should be incompatible with Christ's dominion; that Christ might be glorified in overthrowing [it] and setting up his own kingdom upon its ruins. And it seems to me also very probable that the case will be so ordered, that the prevailing of Christianity will also abolish the being of the Mahometan empire.

 

¶524. WISDOM OF GOD IN THE WORK OF REDEMPTION. See sermon on Job 11:12, inference 1.

 

¶525. PROVIDENCE. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. That God takes care of and governs the world is evident, because the same ends, designs, and motives (whatever they were) that induced God to create the world, will oblige him forever to take care of it and look after it, as Abp. Sharp observes.10 For whatever end it was, that [God] gave the world a being, to be continued in being; it must be supposed that the continuance of the being of the world, so long as God does continue [it] in being, or so long as he made it to be continued in being, is that which as much concerns the obtaining of God's end, as the first giving of it being. It is not to be supposed, that God answered his end merely in making a world, and that if [it] had dropped into nothing the next moment, his design would have been fully obtained.

¶And further, if so, we must necessarily suppose, that the manner of the world's continuance in being, or its manner of existing from time [to time] through the several parts of its continuance, is as much to be looked at, in order to the obtaining God's end, as the manner of its existing at first; i.e. it must concern God as much, to see and take care of the manner of [the] world's existence from time to time, as it did to see and take care after what manner it should be first made. And it is evident that God did take care how the world was first made, by the visible and remarkable contrivance of every part of it.

¶Again, 'tis evident that it must of necessity be more agreeable to the divine will, that the world should exist in one manner, than another. It can't be, that God should be indifferent to all possible manners of existence of the world; and therefore he must of necessity take care how it exists from time [to time]. 'Tis evident that he is not indifferent to all manners of the world's existence; for if so, he would have taken no care how it existed at first: which it is evident he did.

¶Again, 'tis evident that God, in the first creation of the world, in his creating it in such a manner, had respect to the manner of its future existence: for the contrivance of it in innumerable instances, and indeed in every instance, was with an eye to its future existence. So that 'tis evident, that [he] is not indifferent to the manner of the world's being in continuance. He that takes care of the manner of the world's being in its continuance, in the first making of [it], shows that he is concerned how the affairs of the world proceed.

¶God concerned himself in the manner of the existence of the world in its creation, in minute circumstances, such as the particular form and shape and position of every minutest part; he chose one position and one manner rather than another, in every minutest particular. And there is no reason can be given, why God should not choose one manner of existence rather than another in all circumstances, at any other time, as well as that of the world's first existence.

¶As to God's moral government of intelligent creatures. How unreasonable is it to suppose, that God intended that those creatures that he made in his own image, in the image of his own intelligent nature, should have no concern with that being who is their author and pattern; when God has made them capable of understanding of him, and knowing their own dependence on him and seeing the manifestations which he makes of himself, and capable of knowing their obligations to him?

 

¶526. WISDOM OF GOD IN THE WORK OF REDEMPTION. God made the world for his own glory. And Jesus Christ has this honor, to be the greatest instrument of glorifying God that ever was, and more than all other beings put together: yea, he is so the great means or author of the glory of God, that what others do towards it is in a dependence upon what he does; the actions of others are to God's glory through him, and 'tis as his servants, and under his direction, and by his influence.

¶Agreeable to this it was so ordered, that Christ should be the great means of bringing the world from heathenism, to the knowledge of the true God and the true religion. Therefore it was reserved for him to be the revealer of glorious divine truths, which were in a great measure kept hid till he came. Therefore he probably was appointed, to cast out Satan and his angels out of heaven when they sinned; therefore I suppose, it was by him that the elect angels were confirmed. Therefore he is appointed judge of the world, and is to glorify God at the day of judgment, by declaring his righteousness, by destroying all his enemies, and glorifying his elect. Therefore is Christ the grand medium of all communications of grace and happiness from God, by which especially God glorifies himself. Christ has this honor, that the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hands.

 

¶527. HELL TORMENTS, their greatness. When I read some instances of the monstrous and amazing cruelty of some popish persecutors, I have such a sense of the horridness of what they did, that the extremity of hell torments don't seem too much for them. So if we were sensible of the evil and horrid nature of all sin, the misery of hell would not seem at all more than a just and equal punishment. 'Tis no argument that sin is not of such a horrid nature, that we that are guilty of it, are not sensible of the horridness of it: for the actions of those persecutors did not seem horrid to them, as they do to us; the devilish spirit of pride and cruelty made it not seem so. Nor is it any argument why sin should not be punished with such an extreme misery, that although sin be of so dreadfully evil a nature yet we that commit it are not sensible of it, and so are to be in a great measure excused: for 'tis the wickedness of our temper and nature, that makes us insensible of it. As we don't think those persecutors don't deserve to be extremely punished, because they had no sense of the horridness of what they did; because it was their devilish disposition, that made it not seem horrid to them.

 

¶528. CONVICTION. HUMILIATION. It is very plain [that] in order to a sense of the sufficiency of Christ's satisfaction for our sins, and the propriety and fitness of our guilt's being looked upon as removed by Christ's redemption, or our sense of its suitableness to God's nature and glory, that it should be pleasing to him to look upon our guilt as satisfied for by Christ's redemption; it is absolutely necessary that we should have a view of both, viz. both of our guilt, and also of Christ's redemption. There must be a sense of guilt, of the evil nature of sin, and of the demerit of it, of the agreeableness and connection between that and the punishment; and there must also be a sense of Christ's redemption, that is, a belief of the truth and reality of it, and a sense of the nature of it. And here 'tis necessary that the sense of guilt should be first which is first in fact and is first in order of nature; and thus undoubtedly it ordinarily is first in legal conviction: then [follows] gracious repentance, and then succeeds the explicit acting of faith on Jesus Christ. A sense of sin and guilt, being first in the order of nature, must of necessity be either before the other, or with it; it can't be after it.

 

¶529. HEAVEN. There can be no doubt, but that the saints in heaven shall see the flourishing and prosperity of the church on earth. For how can they avoid it, when they shall be with the King himself, whose kingdom this church is, and that as King manages all those affairs--shall the royal family be kept in ignorance of the success of the affairs of the kingdom? They shall also be with the angels, those ministers by which the King manages those affairs. In the flourishing of Christ's kingdom here on earth, consists much of Christ's mediatorial glory, and of the reward that the Father promised him for his performing what he did on earth in the work of redemption: the happiness of the saints in heaven consists much in that, that they are with Christ and are partakers with him in that glory and reward. The saints are not only with the King that reigns over this kingdom, but they reign with him in the same kingdom, they sit with him in his throne. And therefore it is said that they shall reign on earth [Rev. 5:10]; that is, when the time of the flourishing and prosperity of Christ's kingdom comes on earth, when he shall reign here in such a glorious manner in his kingdom of grace, they shall reign with him; so they are said to reign with him a thousand years [Rev. 20:4,6]. Therefore, doubtless, they are not ignorant of the flourishing of the church here on earth.

¶Can it be supposed, that the saints in heaven had not notice of Christ's incarnation, and did not know what he did here upon earth, and that they had no notice when he was crucified and buried and rose again? And if so, why should they be ignorant of what succeeded, as of the pouring out of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, and how the kingdom which Christ had thus laid the foundation of, flourished? Why should their knowledge of the affairs of Christ's kingdom on earth cease, as soon as Christ was ascended?

¶The saints in heaven are under infinitely greater advantages, to take the pleasure of beholding how Christ's kingdom flourishes, than if they were here upon earth; for they can better see and understand the marvellous steps that divine wisdom takes in all that is done, and the glorious ends he accomplishes, and what opposition Satan makes, and how he is baffled and overthrown. They can see the wise connection of one event with another, and the beautiful order of all things that come to pass in the church in different ages, that to us appear like confusion. They will behold the glory of the divine attributes in his works of providence, infinitely more clearly than we can.

¶The greatest objection that I think of against this, is that of Simeon, who had it revealed to him that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ; and when he saw him said, ""Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation" [Luke 2:29-30], as though he should [have] missed of the pleasure and satisfaction of seeing this salvation, if he had died before. But shall we conclude from hence, that if Simeon had died before, he would not have known of Christ's birth? He surely at least would have seen this salvation, when Christ ascended into heaven. But the case was thus: Simeon was now more willing to die, more willing to venture his soul into another world, and he should die in much stronger hope, because his faith in God's salvation was abundantly strengthened by this sight; he had the greater assurance that when he did depart, he should depart in peace, for his eyes had actually seen the salvation which God had provided for souls; and was therefore more fully persuaded, that his soul should be safe and happy in a future state. Or if otherwise, it was because the state of separate souls in that particular was not known to him.

¶Indeed 'tis desirable, to live to see the flourishing of God's church upon this account, that those saints that live to see it, will probably be partakers in that spiritual prosperity. Their souls will receive a portion of the Spirit that is then plentifully poured out, and so will be increased in grace and holiness; their own souls will prosper, and will be partakers of the prosperity of the church. And besides, they will have a more glorious opportunity to do good, in having a hand in promoting that public prosperity.

¶An objection may be raised from Eccles. 9:5-6, ""The dead...have no more a portion forever in anything done under the sun." But see an answer in my notes on the verse.11

 

¶530. LOVE TO GOD. SELF-LOVE. Whether or no a man ought to love God more than himself. Self-love taken in the most extensive sense, and love to God are not things properly capable of being compared one with another. For they are not opposites, or things entirely distinct; but one enters into the nature of the other. Self-love is a man's love of his own pleasure and happiness, and hatred of his own misery; of rather, 'tis only a capacity of enjoyment or suffering. For to say a man loves his own happiness and pleasure, is only to say that he delights in what he delights [in]; and to say that he hates his own misery, is only to say that he is grieved or afflicted in his own affliction. So that self-love is only a capacity of enjoying or taking delight in anything.

¶Now surely 'tis improper to say, that our love to God is superior to our general capacity of delighting in anything. Proportionable to our love to God, is our disposition to delight in his good. Now our delight in God's good, can't be superior to our general capacity of delighting in anything; or which is the same thing, our delight in God's good can't be superior to our love to delight in general: for proportionably as we delight in God's good, so shall we love that delight. A desire of and delight in God's good, is love to God; and love to delight is self-love. Now the degree of delight in a particular thing, and the degree of love to pleasure or delight in general, ben't properly comparable one with another; for they are not entirely distinct, but one enters into the nature of the other. Delight in a particular thing includes a love to delight in general. A particular delight in anything can't be said to be superior to love to delight in general; for always in proportion to the degree of delight, is the love a man hath to that delight: for he loves greater delight more than less, in proportion as it is greater--if he did not love it more, it would not be a greater delight to him.12

¶Love of benevolence to any person is an inclination to their good. But evermore equal to the inclination or desire anyone has of another's good, is the delight he has in that other's good if it be obtained, and the uneasiness if it be not obtained. But equal to that delight, is a person's love to that delight; and equal to that uneasiness, is his hatred of that uneasiness. But love to our own delight or hatred of our own uneasiness, is self-love: so that no love to another can be superior to self-love, as most extensively taken.

¶Self-love is a man's love to his own good; but self-love may be taken in two senses, as any good may be said to be a man's own good in two senses. First, any good whatsoever that a man any way enjoys, or anything that he takes delight in, it is thereby his own good. Whether it be a man's own proper and separate pleasure or honor, or the pleasure or honor of another, our delight in it renders it our own good, in proportion as we delight in it. 'Tis impossible that a man should delight in any good that is not his own; for to say that, would be to say that he delights in that in which he does not delight. Now take self-love for a man's love to his own good in this more general sense, and love to God can't be superior to it. But secondly, a person's good may be said to be his own good, as 'tis his proper and separate good, which is his and what he has delight in directly and immediately; and love to good that is a man's own in this sense, is what is ordinarily called self-love. And superior to this, love to God can and ought to be.

¶Self-love is either [1] simple mere self-love, which is a man's love to his own proper, single, and separate good; and is what arises simply and necessarily from the nature of a perceiving willing being; it necessarily arises from that, without the supposition of any other principle. I therefore call it simple self-love, because it arises simply from that principle, viz. the nature of a perceiving willing being. Self-love taken in this sense, and love to God are entirely distinct, and don't enter one into the nature of the other at all.

¶There is (2) a compounded self-love, which is exercised in the delight that a man has in the good of another: it is the value that he sets upon that delight. This I call compounded self-love, because it arises from a compounded principle. It arises from the necessary nature of a perceiving and willing being, whereby he loves his own pleasure or delight; but not from this alone, but it supposes also another principle, that determines the exercise of this principle, and makes that to become its object which otherwise cannot: a certain principle uniting this person with another, that causes the good of another to be its good. The first arises simply from his own being, whereby that which agrees immediately and directly with his own being, is his good; the second arises also from a principle uniting him to another being, whereby the good of that other being does in a sort become his own. This second sort of self-love is not entirely distinct from love to God, but enters into its nature.

¶Corol. Hence 'tis impossible for any person to be willing to be perfectly and finally miserable for God's sake; for this supposes love to God to be superior to self-love in the most general and extensive sense of self-love, which enters into the nature of love to God. It may be possible, that a man may be willing to be deprived of all his own proper separate good for God's sake: but then he is not perfectly miserable but happy, in the delight that he hath in God's good; for he takes greater delight in God's good, for the sake of which he parts with his own, than he did in his own. So that the man is not perfectly miserable, he is not deprived of all delight, but he is happy he has greater delight in what is obtained for God, than he had in what he has lost of his own; so that he has only exchanged a lesser joy for a greater.

¶But if a man is willing to be perfectly miserable for God's sake, then he is willing to part with all his own separate good--but he must be willing also to be deprived of that which is indirectly his own, viz. God's good. Which supposition is inconsistent with itself; for to be willing to be deprived of this latter sort of good, is opposite to that principle of love to God itself, from whence such a willingness is supposed to arise. Love to God, if it be superior to any other principle, will make a man forever unwilling, utterly and finally to be deprived of this part of his happiness, which he has in God's being blessed and glorified; and the more he loves him the more unwilling he will be. So that this supposition, that a man can be willing to be perfectly and utterly miserable out of love to God, is inconsistent with itself.

¶Note. That love of God which we have hitherto spoken of, is a love of benevolence only. But this is to be observed, that there necessarily accompanies a love of benevolence, a love of appetite, or complacence; which is a disposition to desire or delight in beholding the beauty of another, and a relation to or union with him. Self-love in its most general extent, is very much concerned in this, and is not entirely distinct from it. The difference is only this, that self-love is a man's desire of or delight in his own happiness, and this love of complacence is a placing of his happiness, which he thus desires and delights in, in a particular object.

¶This sort of love, which is always in proportion to a love of benevolence, is also inconsistent with a willingness to be utterly miserable for God's sake; for if the man is utterly miserable, he is utterly excluded [from] the enjoyment of God: but how can man's love of complacence towards God be gratified in this? The more a man loves God, the more unwilling will he be, to be deprived of this happiness.

 

¶531. LORD'S DAY. It is to be observed to have been God's manner, gradually to abolish old constitutions and gradually to introduce new ones. John was the forerunner of Christ, and his baptism was only to prepare the way for his appearing; but his baptism did not wholly cease as soon as he appeared, but gradually decreased, and Christ gradually increased (as John 3:30 and context, and 4:1); as the day star don't immediately disappear at the sun's rising, but gradually goes out. So the worship of the Jewish [religion] was not abolished at once, but gradually; God for some time continued a degree of his blessing upon the rites of the Jewish worship (till the destruction of Jerusalem) to Christianized Jews, that had not yet had the cessation of them and the grounds of it fully revealed to 'em. And the apostles themselves were wont to attend them, many of them for a considerable time. Thus the moon and stars gradually disappear, and daylight gradually comes on. So it was with respect to the sabbath: the seventh-day sabbath was for some time kept as a holy day by the Christian church, at least amongst the Jews; and as the observation of the Christian sabbath more and more prevailed, the Christian sabbath and Jewish sabbath both were kept for a while; till the Jewish sabbath gradually ceased, and the Christian sabbath only prevailed.

 

¶532. RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST. It seems strange to me, that those that hold that Christ's merits are imputed to us, or (which is the same thing) that he merited for us, or that we have the benefit of his merit, should deny that his active righteousness is imputed to us. For what was it that Christ merited by, if it was not by his righteousness; or what should there be that ever anyone should merit or deserve anything by, besides their righteousness or goodness? If anything that Christ did or suffered, merited or deserved any,13 it was by virtue of the goodness or righteousness or holiness of it. If there was any merit in Christ's suffering and death, it must be because there was an excellent righteousness or holiness in that act of laying down his life, as there was shown in it a transcendent love to the Father, and it was a glorious act of obedience to him.14

 

¶533. LAW OF NATURE. The Apostle says, Rom. 2:14-15, that ""the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law; these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness." In order to men's having the law of God made known to them by the light of nature, two things are necessary: the light of nature must not [only] discover to them that these and those things are their duty, i.e. that they are right, that there is a justice and equality in them, and the contrary unjust; but it must discover to 'em also, that 'tis the will of God that they should be done, and that they shall incur his displeasure by the contrary. For a law is a signification of the will of a lawgiver, with the danger of the effects of his displeasure, in case of the breach of that law.

¶The Gentiles had both these. Their natural consciences testified to the latter after this manner: natural conscience suggests to every man the relation and agreement there is, between that which is wrong or unjust, and punishment; this naturally disposes men to expect it. To think of wrong and injustice, especially such as often is seen without any punishment to balance it, is shocking to men's minds. Men therefore are naturally averse to thinking that there will be no punishment, especially when they themselves are great sufferers by injustice, and have it not in their power to avenge themselves; and the same sense made guilty persons jealous lest they should meet with their deserved punishment. And this kept up in the world, among all nations, the doctrine of a superior power that would revenge iniquity; this sense of men's consciences kept alive that tradition, and made it easily and naturally received. The light of nature discovered the being of a Deity otherwise; but this sense of conscience upheld this notion of him, that he was the revenger of evil, and it also made them the more easily believe the being of a Deity itself. God also gave many evidences of it in his providence amongst the heathen, that he was the revenger of iniquity. When the light of nature discovered to 'em, that there was a God that governed the world, they the more easily believed him to be a just being, and so that he hated injustice, because it appeared horrid to think of a supreme Judge of the universe, that was unjust. Gen. 18:25; ""Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

 

¶534. RESTRAINING GRACE AND CORRUPTION OF MAN'S NATURE. (See sermon on Matt. 10:17.)15 Mere self-love, if it be the sole governing principle in the heart and without restraint, will dispose one to delight in another's misery: because self-love seeks its own comparative happiness, or to diminish its comparative misery; which is obtained in the depression of others. This seems to be the cause, that the devils do delight in others' misery; for they are governed wholly and solely by mere simple self-love, and 'tis without any restraint.

¶Self-love will delight in cruelty and putting others to pain, because it appears to it as an exercise of power and dominion. One's power over another appears in being able to afflict another; that shows them to be in their power. For all regard their own comfort and happiness, and would not part with it if they were free; and the more one is afflicted by another, the more it shows him to be in his power: because there is the greater incitement to the sufferer to show his liberty, if he had it, in delivering himself. When anyone is affronted or crossed, self-love will excite to be cruel in revenge, because self-love makes men seek prodigiously to advance themselves, and this is one thing wherein the greatness and power of anyone appears: that his wrath shall be terrible, that it shall appear a terrible thing to offend him.

¶There in no degree of self-advancement, but what self-love, if it be the sole governing principle, will make men to seek; for [then] there is no other principle to be a balance to it, or to limit its desires. If there be only self-love that bears rule, it will be contented with nothing short of the throne of God; and so there will be no limits to a man's revenge, and other manifestations of pride.

 

¶535. FATHERS. There can be no doubt of it, but that we may do well to make use of arguments from what is said by the fathers, and from the accounts that history gives us of the church in times near the apostles for the confirmation of [the] truth of a doctrine or goodness of a practice; for arguments may in many cases be very rationally drawn from thence, to that purpose. They may in themselves be very rational, probable arguments; and surely every argument may have influence on our minds, according to the degree of force it really and indeed has in itself. But this I am satisfied of, that God never designed that the dependence of his church should be at all upon them; that is, that it was God's design, when he gave the church the Scriptures, so to make and dispose them, and to put so much into them, and in such a manner, that they should be completely sufficient of themselves, that they should hold forth to us things sufficient for us to know, and that they should be sufficiently there exhibited,16 and that in all important matters, whether in doctrine or practice, the Scriptures should sufficiently explain themselves; so that we should have no need of joining unto them the writings of the fathers or church historians, and being acquainted with them, in order to our being directed and determined in any important matter: for this reason, because the church never was, is not, nor ever will be capable of being so well acquainted with them, as to be capable of judging by them, but only those of the church that are learned men. It is not sufficient that the teachers of the church can, and can tell others, unless they could lead their hearers to see and understand the evidence that arises from thence, that they may judge for themselves. 'Tis not sufficient ground for them to believe that there is such evidence from the fathers and church history, because that learned man that happens to [be] their teacher tells them so; because other learned men say otherwise. The Scriptures are not so large, but that all may be well acquainted with them; and ministers may so lead men's understandings, that they may see the evidence that may be fetched from thence, themselves.

¶This being not the design of providence, that any of our dependence should be upon any other ancient ecclesiastical writings besides the holy Scripture; there is not that safety in trusting to 'em, we han't that ground to expect that care of divine providence to order it, so that we should not be led into unavoidable mistakes, either about the affairs of those times, or in the conclusions we draw from them. We can't be so sure of the care of providence, that things should not come to us so, as that we should unavoidably be led into error about them, that the authors should not be corrupted; and yet we have no means to discover that they are so, or to determine wherein. Though the arguments we go upon may seem very probable, yet seeing that we han't the care of divine providence here to depend upon, we can't be so assured that [we] are not deceived, in judging of the state, doctrines and practice of the primitive church, and the arguments we draw from thence concerning the doctrines and institutions of the apostles.

¶It seems to me, that God would have our whole dependence be upon the Scriptures; because the greater our dependence is on the word of God, the more direct and immediate is our dependence on God himself. The more absolute and entire our dependence on the word of God is, the greater respect shall we have to that word, the more shall we esteem and honor and prize it; and this respect to the word of God, will lead us to have the greater respect to God himself. If we were forced to join the fathers with the Scriptures, as though they were not sufficient of themselves, or not so sufficient as that we can well judge of some important things17 by them alone without the fathers, this will take off something of our respect to the Scriptures; and here will be a temptation, to exalt other writings to be sharers with God's word in the respect we pay them.

¶God did not intend to cumber us with a rule of greater bulk than the Bible. 'Tis a mercy of God, an instance of his care of his church, that their rule is so fully and completely contained within so small a compass; that it is so compendious, that 'tis not beyond the capacity of ordinary Christians to manage it, and become well acquainted with it: 'tho here is also room enough, for the most learned forever to exercise their study and scrutiny. They that introduce the fathers, and tack them to our Scripture rules--as not being enough, sufficiently to direct us in some important things without them--do us no kindness: they frustrate God's forementioned merciful care of his church; they make our rule so prodigiously bulky that [it] is to most of the church unmanageable, and what they can never be well acquainted with; and instead of making our way to the knowledge of truth more plain and direct, they make it more obscure and exceedingly roundabout. Our rule, instead of becoming the more easy and clear for it, becomes exceedingly the more difficult and perplexed.

¶Therefore, if the writings of the fathers and accounts of the primitive church seem to make it probable, that the apostles taught such a doctrine or instituted such a practice; if the same also seems probable from Scripture, this is a confirmation that we understand the Scripture right. And if we have not seen it before in the Scripture, or have understood the Scriptures in time past otherwise; if we are anything doubtful about the mind of the Scripture in the matter, this may well put us upon searching the Scripture more diligently. But it must be the Scripture at last, that must determine us; that way that the scale is turned by the Scriptures alone, that way must we be determined: and we ought to look upon the matter as undetermined, till it is determined by Scripture alone.

 

¶536. LORD'S DAY. The first day of the week being called in Scripture the Lord's day, sufficiently marks it out to be that day of the week that is to be kept holy to God. God has been pleased to call it by his name. God's putting his name upon anything, or anything's being called by God's name, denoted the holiness of it and its appropriatedness to God. Thus God put his name upon the people of Israel of old (Num. 6:27); they were called by God's name, as 'tis said, II Chron. 7:14; they were called God's people, or the Lord's people: this denoted that they were a holy and peculiar people above all others. So the city Jerusalem was a city that was called by God's name (Jer. 25:29; Dan. 9:18-19); this denoted that [it] was a holy city, a place chosen of God for holy uses, above all other cities. So the temple is said to be an house that was called by God's name (I Kgs. 8:43, and often elsewhere); that is, it was called God's house, or the Lord's house: this denoted that it was a house appropriated to holy uses above all other houses, that it was a holy place. So the first day of the week's being called by God's name, being called God's day, or the Lord's day, denotes that 'tis a holy day, a day appropriated to holy uses above all other days in the week. The appellation of ""Lord's day" denotes a day consecrated to an holy use and to the remembrance of Christ, as the appellation of ""the Lord's Supper" denotes a supper so consecrated.18

¶That by which the sabbath day was distinguished from other days, consisted in two things, viz. God's hallowing of it, and his blessing it. But when God put his name upon anything, or appointed that it should be called after his name, it betokened both these things:

¶1. It betokened that God hallowed or sanctified it, and that it was holy. Thus the temple of old was called by God's name, and he had put his name there, so as by God's appointment to be called the house of the Lord (I Kgs. 8:43); by this it was hallowed or sanctified, as appears by ch. 9:7, ""And this house, which I have hallowed19 for may name." So of old the people of Israel were called by God's name (Jer. 14:9) and God had put his name on them (Num. 6:27), so that by God's appointment they were called his people; and hence they are said to be an holy nation or people (Ex. 19:6; Deut. 7:6, 14:2, 26:19). So Jerusalem was the city that was called by God's name, it was the place that God had chosen to put his name there (II Chron. 6:6; Jer. 25:29; Dan. 9:18); so that it was called the city of the Lord, the city of the great King (Ps. 48:2; Matt. 5:35): hence 'tis so often called the holy city.

¶[2.] So also when God put his name upon anything, or appointed it should be called by his name, it betokened that God had blessed it, or had annexed his blessing to it. Ex. 20:24, ""In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee." This was denoted by the people Israel's having God's name put upon them; as Num. 6 at the latter end, ""On this wise shall ye bless the people, The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them." Therefore the prophet makes use of this as an argument with God, that he would be with his people and bless them. Jer. 14:9, ""Yet thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not." And so also the prophet Daniel, in the 9th chapter of his prophecy, 18th and 19th verses, uses this argument concerning both the people and city. So God's calling the temple by his name, denoted that God had annexed his blessing to that house, so that there was especial encouragement that his blessing might be found there; which was to bless an holy place, in the same sense as God has blessed the sabbath, or holy time. See I Kgs. 8:43, ""Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for: that all the people of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee, as do thy people Israel; and that they may know that this house, which I have builded, is called by thy name." And as God has promised that in all places where he puts his name that he will come to us and will [bless us?], so by a parity of reason we may expect that in all times on which he puts his name (as he has on the Christian sabbath), in them he will come to us and will bless us.

¶And the following places do show that God's putting his name on anything did betoken that God had both hallowed and blessed it. So concerning the people of Israel, Deut. 28:9 ff.: ""The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways. And all the people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of thee. And the Lord shall make thee plenteous," etc. So concerning the temple, II Chron. 7:16: ""For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there forever: and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually." So that since the Lord has been pleased to call the first day of the week by his name (Rev. 1:10), we may conclude that this is the day that the Lord hath blessed and hallowed; and therefore that he has appointed this day to be kept as a sabbath holy unto himself (Gen. 2:3).

 

¶537. GRACE. SPIRIT'S OPERATION. There is no gift or benefit that is so much in God, that is so much of himself [and] of his nature, that is so much a communication of the Deity, as grace is: 'tis as much a communication of the Deity, as light [is] a communication of the sun. 'Tis therefore fit that when it is bestowed, it should be so much the more immediately given, from himself and by himself. There is no good that we want or are capable of, so nextly in God; and therefore 'tis fit that there should be none so nextly from him.

¶As this may show us, why God will bestow this good more immediately and directly; so also, why he will especially exercise and manifest his sovereignty and free pleasure, in bestowing of this gift. God's grace is eminently his own: God's creatures, the sun, moon and stars, etc. are his own to dispose of as he pleases; but with more eminent reason, that which is so nearly pertaining to the very nature of God as his grace, the actings and influences of his own Spirit, the communications of his own beauty and his own happiness. God will therefore make his sovereign right here more eminently to appear, in the bestowment of this.

 

¶538. PROMISES. ENCOURAGEMENTS. Though there be no promise to any seekers of grace, but gracious ones; yet there must be a greater probability of their conversion who seek, though not after a gracious manner, though they are not thorough and sufficiently resolved in seeking, than of others who wholly neglect their salvation; and20 not so great an unlikelihood of it, upon these accounts. The more persons seek their salvation, the less sin they commit; for there is21 no other way of seeking, but only avoiding sins of omission and commission: and surely, the more persons sin and provoke God, the more are they exposed to his wrath, and so to be denied his mercy.

¶And again, we know that God's manner is to bestow his grace on men by outward means. Otherwise, to what purpose is the Bible, and sabbath, and preaching, and sacraments, or doctrinal knowledge of religion? And therefore, if persons are out of the way of those means, there is no likelihood of their receiving grace; because God bestows his grace by means. And so the more they are in the way of means, the more they attain of means, the more they are concerned with them, and the more they attend them, the more are they in the way of being met with by God, and receiving his grace, by those means.

 

¶539. MEANS OF GRACE. Grace is from God as immediately and directly as light is from the sun; and that notwithstanding the means that are improved, such as word, ordinances, etc.: for though these are made use of, yet they have no influence to produce grace, either as causes or instruments, or any other way. And yet they are concerned in the affair of the production of grace, and are necessary in order to it.

¶They are concerned in this affair either immediately or remotely. As they are immediately concerned, it is not either as adjuvent causes or instruments, but only as by them the Spirit of God has an opportunity to cause acts of grace in the soul; and that grace, as immediately from him, may have an opportunity to act more fully and freely and suitably to the nature of things, i.e. to the nature and works of God, and our own state and nature, and the relation there is between God and us and others. The means of grace have to do22 in this affair of the production of grace, or any act of it, in our souls, no otherwise than as those means cause those effects in our souls, whereby there is an opportunity for grace to act, and to act suitably to the nature of things, as it proceeds and flows from the Holy Ghost. God don't see meet to infuse grace, where there is no opportunity for it to act, or to act in some measure suitably.

¶If it be inquired, what I mean by grace's acting suitably to the nature of things, and whether or no grace can act at all, and not act suitably to the nature of things: I answer, it acts suitably so far as it does act, as to the matter of the act; but it may be so, that it may act very partially and lamely, like a man that has but one leg or arm or a hand, [or is] without any feet, etc. and mayn't have any opportunity to act otherwise. Thus for instance, I don't know but it is possible, for God to infuse a principle of grace into the heart of a man, that never has been informed that Christ is any more than a man; or believes that there are some things God can't do, and that he is sometimes mistaken; or has a notion of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as three distinct Gods, friends one to another. But the actings of grace will be very unsuitable to the nature of things; it must act very lamely or monstrously, and so unsuitably, that I believe God ordinarily don't see meet that it should be, where there is no opportunity for it to act no better.

¶But that it may appear, how that outward means are no otherwise concerned in this affair of the production of grace, any otherwise than as by the effects these means cause in our souls, [they] give opportunity for grace to act as infused or excited; we will consider what effects they do produce in our souls. And they are of three kinds: (1) They supply the mind with notions, or speculative ideas, of the things of religion. (2) They may have an effect upon mere natural reason, in a measure to gain the assent of the judgment. (3) They may have an effect upon the natural principles of heart, to give, in a degree, a sense of the natural good or evil of those things that they have a notion of, and so may accordingly move the heart with fear, etc. Now none of these effects are any way concerned in the existing or acting of grace in the heart, any otherwise than as they afford an opportunity for it to act, or to act more freely and suitably; as we shall show concerning each of them.

¶First, the means of grace, such as the word and sacraments, supply the mind with notions, or speculative ideas, of the things of religion, and thus give an opportunity for grace to act in the soul. For hereby the soul is supplied with matter for grace to act upon, when God shall be pleased to infuse it. And this matter is by those means there upheld and so disposed, as that it may be more capable of, and fitted for, the acting of grace upon it in a suitable manner, or in a manner most agreeable to the nature of things. The matter which the principle of grace acts upon, is those notions or ideas that the mind is furnished with, of the things of religion: or of God, Christ, the future world, the saints, the attributes of God, the works of God, those things that Christ has done and suffered, etc. If there could be a principle of grace in the heart, without these notions or ideas there, yet it could not act; because it could have no matter to act upon.

¶Now they are the means of grace, such as the Scriptures, instructions of parents and ministers, sacraments, etc. that supply our minds with those ideas and notions: and the end of these means is to supply our minds with them, and to supply us with them more fully, and to revive and maintain those ideas in our minds, and that the attention of our mind to them may be more strong; that they may be (as much as may be) not only habitually, but actually existing in our minds, and that [those] ideas, as to their actual existence, may be clear and lively, and that they may be disposed in the most advantageous order. And thus the means of grace have no influence to work grace, but only give such notions to our minds, and so disposed, as to give opportunity for grace to act, when God shall infuse it; as Elijah, by laying fuel upon the altar, and laying it in order, gave opportunity for the fire to burn, when God should send it down from heaven. Here,

¶1. It is needful, in order to give this opportunity, that these notions should be true; for those that are false ben't proper fuel for the fire. A false notion gives no opportunity for grace to act, but on the contrary, will hinder its acting. Thus if a man has been taught that God is a foolish and unjust being, these notions of folly or injustice in God, give no opportunity for a principle of grace to act towards God; but on the contrary, tend to prevent. Therefore, those outward means that do most exhibit the truth to our minds, give us the greatest advantage for the obtaining grace.

¶2. The more fully we are supplied with these notions, the greater opportunity has grace to act, and to act more suitably to the nature of things when God infuses it; because it has more objects to act upon, and one object illustrates another: so that we han't only more notions, but all our notions are the more clear, and more according to truth. So that this is another thing that means do: they more and more fully and purely supply our minds with matter for grace to act upon. Here therefore, is the benefit of frequent and abundant instructions; here is the benefit of study and meditation, and comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

¶3. The more lively these notions are, the more strong the ideas, the greater opportunity for grace to act if infused. Surely, if the existence of these ideas gives an opportunity, then the more perfect the actual existence of them is, the greater opportunity. The stronger and more lively the impression, with which the ideas actually exists, the more perfect is its existence; as when we look on the sun, our idea of it has a more perfect existence, than when we only think of it by imagination, because the impression is much stronger. Therefore here is the advantage of clear, convincing instructions, of setting forth divine things in a clear light; here is the advantage of divine eloquence, in instructing, warning, counselling, etc.: they serve as they give more strong and lively impressions of the truth. The stronger reasons and arguments are offered to confirm any truth, or to show the eligibleness of any practice, it serves as it gives those ideas, that are the matter that grace acts upon, and disposes them in such order, sets them in such light, that grace, if in the heart, shall have the greater opportunity to act more fully and more according to its tendency, upon them. Reasonings and pathetical counsels and warnings do give an opportunity for grace another way also, by the effect they have upon natural principles; of which I shall speak by and by.

¶4. The oftener these notions or ideas are revived, and the more they are upheld in the soul, the greater opportunity for the Spirit of God to infuse grace; because he hath more opportunity, hath opportunity more constantly. The more constantly the matter for grace to work upon is upheld, the more likely are persons to receive grace of the Spirit. 'Tis the wisest way, to maintain the opportunity; for we know not when the Spirit's time is.

¶Secondly. Means may have an effect upon our reason, in a degree, to gain the assent of that.23 But that effect which means have upon mere reason, is no otherwise concerned in the affair of the production of grace in the soul, [than] only as hereby the soul is so prepared for it, that grace, when communicated from the Spirit of God, will have a better opportunity to act. For the judgment of mere reason, concurring with that conviction which arises from the heart's sense of the divine excellency of spiritual things, strengthens the assurance; and the mind’s having the stronger and more confirmed belief of the truth of spiritual things, love and other graces flow out the more freely and fully, towards those objects that are thus believed to be real. The more fully realized the being of the objects of grace's actings [is], the greater opportunity will there be for the new nature to exert itself towards them.

¶The knowledge of the rational arguments that are brought to prove the truth of religion, whether they have any effect upon mere natural reason or no, prepares the mind for grace another way; viz. as hereby the mind has ideas and notions set in that order, has those arguments present, that when grace has removed prejudices and given eyes to see, they will see the connection and relation of the ideas, and the force of the arguments. But this belongs to the foregoing way, wherein means give opportunity for grace to act.

¶Thirdly. The third effect of means is upon the natural principles of heart, to give in a degree a sense of the natural good or evil of those things that the mind has a notion, or speculative idea, of; and so may accordingly move the heart with fear, and desire, etc.; and by this means also, the soul may be the better prepared for grace. For these effects upon the natural principles of heart remaining and existing with the supernatural principle24 of heart when infused, the actings of the soul may be greater and more suitable, and the effects that follow greater, than otherwise would be. Thus if a person has been deeply possessed with a sense of the dreadfulness of divine wrath and with great fear of it; when afterwards the soul comes to have a sense of the grace and love of God, this appears the more glorious; because the mind is already possessed with a deep sense of the dreadfulness of that evil, which this grace and love delivers from and the preciousness of love is illustrated by the dreadfulness of the opposite, wrath. God is more loved for his grace and goodness to him; and then grace more naturally exercises itself in awful and humble reverence, which is most suitable to our nature and state, and the relation we stand in to God; for being in a mind that was before prepared, by so deep a sense of the dreadfulness of God's anger, these effects upon natural principles direct the stream of grace into that channel.

¶Thus we have shown, how that means are concerned in the affair of the production of grace. They are also concerned in another way, more remotely: (1) as they restrain from sin, whereby God might be provoked to withold grace;25 (2) as means excite to attend and use means. Thus men are persuaded by the word to hear and read the word and to meditate upon it, to keep sabbaths, to attend sacraments, etc.; counsels of parents may persuade to a diligent use of means.26 See No. 542.

¶Corol. 1. Hence it follows, that attending and using means of grace is no more than a waiting upon God for his grace, in the way wherein he is wont to bestow [it]; 'tis watching at wisdom's gates, and waiting at the posts of her doors.

¶Corol. 2. By what has been said, we see the necessity of means of grace, in order to the obtaining grace; for without means there could be no opportunity for grace to act, there could be no matter for grace to act upon. God gives grace immediately; but he don't give immediately and by inspiration, those ideas and speculative notions, that are the matter that grace acts upon. Neither will God give grace, where there is no opportunity for it to act.

 

¶540. SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING.27 Remember, when speaking of the creation of man, and the state and nature with which he was created, to distinguish between mere speculative and notional understanding, and that which implies a sense of heart, or arises from it, wherein is exercised not merely the faculty of understanding, but the other faculty of will, or inclination, or the heart; and to make a distinction between the speculative faculty and the heart; and then to show how many principles of heart God created man with, viz.28 natural and supernatural principles.

 

¶541. SPIRIT'S OPERATION. In the order of beings in the natural world, the more excellent and noble any being is, the more visible and immediate hand of God is there in bringing them into being; and the most noble of all, and that which is most akin to the nature of God, viz. the soul of man, is most immediately and directly from him: so that here, second causes have no causal influence at all. Second causes have something to do in bringing the body into being; but they have no influence here, but the soul is directly breathed from God (Heb. 12:9, Eccles. 12:7, Zech. 12:1). And so it is in the moral and spiritual world: the most noble and excellent gift and qualification, wherein the glory and happiness of that most noble creature, the soul of man, is immediately from God. This is the excellency and dignity of this excellent and noble being, the soul, of which God is the immediate Father; all notional knowledge and outward virtue without this, is but the body without the spirit. 'Tis the soul of all virtue and religious knowledge.

 

¶542. MEANS OF GRACE. See No. 539.29 (3) Another way that means are more remotely concerned in the affair of the production of grace, is that in the use of them, persons do seek and strive for grace; and this prepares the heart for it. Earnestly seeking and taking pains for grace, prepares the heart highly to prize it, and make much of it when obtained. And their natural powers and principles are hereby already awakened, and got into such a way of acting, that they are the more prepared to concur with grace.

 

¶543. LORD'S DAY. It is evident by Matt. 24:20, ""Pray that your flight be not on the sabbath day," that it was the design of Christ, that a day should be kept in the Christian church as a sabbath; and also that the Lord's day is well called by the name of the sabbath, as well as the Jewish sabbath.

 

¶544. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. It seems to me a kind of unreasonable thing, to suppose that there should be a God, without any word of his; that there should be a God, an intelligent voluntary being, that has so much concern with [us], and with whom we have infinitely more concern than with any other being, and yet that he should never speak. It is a property of all intelligent beings, that God has made in his own image, to speak; they are hereby distinguished from inferior creatures: it is therefore strange, that any should imagine that the supreme intelligence should never speak, that there should be no word of his.

 

¶545. HELL TORMENTS. See No. 491. We are taught by the Scripture, that God will punish wicked men, to show the dreadfulness of his wrath and the greatness of his power, that they shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the glory of God's power. And it seems by the Scripture, that God will show his power upon wicked men, as being enraged, and as [an] enraged man lays out his strength (it so seems by Nahum 1:1 ff.; Deut. 29:20; 32:22, 40-42; Rev. 19:15, and many other places). As Mr. Halyburton observes, the power of man produces greater effects, when anger and fury make him strain as it were every sinew and nerve, than when he is cool and in a sedate composed frame; a Samson in such a case, pulled down the pillars of the house.

¶And when the wicked, at the day of judgment, see the immense and terrible greatness and awful majesty of God, and also see how exceedingly he abhors sin, and how he is provoked with them, as it will then appear; they will expect it, their own hearts will forebode it, that now their sufferings must be answerable to that great power, excited by fierceness of wrath. When they shall see the awful majesty of God, they will doubtless fear the more; but Moses tells us, that according to his fear, so is his wrath [Ps. 90:11]: God's wrath, which they shall experience, will doubtless be at least in the compounded proportion of that manifestation of majesty and of abhorrence of their sins, which they shall then see.

¶One thing, that is implied in that fear or terribleness of God that Moses speaks of, according to which his wrath will be, consists in that appearance of power and might that there is in God. God's wrath will be according to the manifestation or glory of God's power, at the day of judgment. Now the punishment of wicked men don't answer this part of God's fear or terribleness by its eternity; the terribleness of God's might don't so much appear in making their punishment eternal, as in the degree of suffering.

¶I know it will be ready to [be] objected, that such an extreme degree of suffering is incredible, that 'tis incredible that [God] should ever make any creature so miserable. But there is no arguing from hence; for God will have no respect or consideration at all, of the welfare of those that are damned, nor any concern lest they should suffer too much--they are the godly only, that God afflicts in measure (Is. 27:8, Jer. 30:11)--but only that justice should take place. God will cast upon them and not spare, he will have no pity upon them, he will stir up all his wrath, he will utterly forsake them; they shall be ""given over unto death" (Ps. 118:18). The creature will be utterly lost and thrown away of God, as to any concern God will have for it. God will have a concern for justice, but no sort of concern for the creature. This is evident, because he makes their sufferings eternal. We can therefore make no guess, to what degree they will suffer, by that, nor can we say to what degree they will not suffer. I can't say, from any concern that God will have for them, lest they should [be] too much tormented, any otherwise than merely that they ben't punished beyond strict justice, that their torment won't rise more beyond any torment in this world, than any man can rise by multiplication of numbers. No degree of misery whatever is incredible, merely because 'tis so great, or that God can't find it in his heart to inflict so great misery. But if it be incredible upon any account, it must be because 'tis beyond what severe justice will allow of. The truth is, those that die in sin, there is no mortal can tell to what degree they shall or shall not be tormented.

¶The exceedingness of the misery of the damned may be argued, from the fears and amazing expectations of wicked men at the end of the world, from those things that they then shall see and hear. If we now do but see a flash of lightning and hear a clap of thunder, or feel the shock of an earthquake, what awful things do they seem to suggest to us, of the anger and displeasure of God. If we hear a severe clap of thunder, and imagine any person aimed at by it, and it directed upon him in divine wrath; what a terrible apprehension does that suggest to our minds of that wrath, and of the inexpressible misery of the person that is subject to it, if he be in the meantime sensible. And if we do but behold and hear a hurricane, or great whirlwind, or a mighty storm of hail or rain, or behold and hear the falls of a great river, or the raging of a sea in a storm, or of the flames when only a house is on fire; and do but imagine in our own minds, that this is from divine wrath, or that they are significations and emblems of that wrath, what an apprehension will it give us, of the misery [of] him against whom this wrath rages.

¶What amazing fears, then, will the wicked have begotten in their minds, of their approaching misery: when the earth shall be shaken out of its place, when God shall arise and terribly shake the earth even from its foundation, and the mountains shall totter and sink and be overturned in God's anger, and the rocks shall be thrown down, yea, when the mountains shall skip like rams, and little hills like lambs, and shall be cast into the midst of the sea, and the waves shall roar, and heaven and earth shall be all rent in pieces with amazing thunders, when the heavens shall be passing away with a great noise, and they shall see not only a house or city but the world, in a conflagration immensely greater and fiercer than any fire that now we see; and all this they shall know to be significations of the anger of God against them, whose majesty and terrible greatness they shall see at the same time, as he appears in the clouds of heaven--what expectations will these things give them of misery; what fears will they beget in them! Christ tells us, that the extraordinary things that will be seen, will cause men's hearts to fail them for fear: but according to God's fear, so is his wrath; they shall find it as dreadful as these things foreboded.

¶They shall always to eternity continue to see such amazing significations of God's wrath; for the heavens and earth which now are, that are reserved and kept in store on purpose, against the day of their perdition, will eternally be wracked and rent and in flames. What an apprehension would the sight of such strong, mighty and raging flames of such a great furnace, suggest to the mind of a beholder, of wrath--but the wrath felt will be answerable thereto. ¶The heat of so great a fire must needs be immensely great. When a house is on fire, the heat in the midst of it is exceedingly beyond what is in a small fire; but how fierce will be the flames, when heaven and earth shall be in a conflagration! The apostle Peter says, the elements shall melt with fervent heat (II Pet. 3:10).

¶Corol. Neither doth God care how much blessedness the saints enjoy; he is not careful lest they should enjoy too much, or lest their enjoyments should be too exquisitely delighting.

 

¶546. SEPARATE STATE. HELL TORMENTS. HEAVEN. It may possibly seem strange that the torments of the wicked should be so great, while they are only in prison in order to their judgment and punishment. But there is no other difference in God's dealing with sinners in this respect, from the treatment of malefactors by human judges and rulers, but what naturally arises from the difference of the nature and qualifications of the judges, and the difference of the ends of judgment. Men commit supposed malefactors to prison, in order to a determination whether they are guilty or no, the matter not being yet sufficiently determined: but God, who imprisons wicked men, certainly and infallibly understands whether they are guilty or not; they are not imprisoned that it may be determined whether they are guilty, but because it is determined and known that they are. The end of human judgment is to find out whether a man be guilty or no; but the end of divine judgment is only to declare their guilt, and God's righteousness in their punishment. The guilt of wicked men is infallibly determined when they die: it is fit therefore, that they should be bound in chains of darkness and misery; it is fit that30 God's enemies and rebels against him and the objects of his eternal wrath, should be imprisoned in dark and dismal recesses, while they are reserved for execution; 'tis fit that the prison of the objects of divine wrath, should be a doleful, horrid abode.

¶So it is fit that those who are his elect, that he hath chosen to make the objects of his love, should be reserved in a paradise in order to that. 'Tis fit that she that God hath chosen for his spouse, and his choice of whom he has declared, should be reserved in a blissful abode, while she is kept against the time of marriage. 'Tis fit that in the meantime, she should have blessed communion and conversation with God. The glorification of the souls of the saints at their death is a marriage, in comparison of their conversion and their state of grace here; but 'tis but an espousal, a state of conversation with Christ in order to marriage, compared with the glory that shall be after the resurrection. So the state of the damned separate spirits, though it be inexpressibly doleful, yet 'tis but as a confinement in chains and a dark dungeon in order to execution, in comparison of their misery after the day of judgment. See note on Matt. 18:34.

 

¶547. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. GOD’S END IN CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. There is doubtless some design that God is pursuing, and scheme that he is carrying on, in the various changes and revolutions that from age to age happen in the world; there is some certain great design, to which providence subordinates all the successive changes that come to pass in the state of affairs of mankind. All revolutions from the beginning of the world to the end, are doubtless but various parts of one scheme, all conspiring for the bringing to pass the great event which is ultimately in view. And the scheme will not be finished, nor the design fully accomplished, the great event fully brought to pass, till the end of the world and the last revolution is brought about. The world, it is most evident, is not an everlasting thing; it will have an end: and God's end in making and governing the world will not be fully obtained, nor his scheme be finished, till the end of the world comes. If it were, he would put an end to it sooner; for God won't continue the world, won't continue to uphold it, and dispose and govern it, and cause changes and revolutions in it, after he has nothing further that he aims at by it.

¶God don't fully obtain his design in any one particular state that the world has been in at one time, but in the various successive states that the world is in, in different ages, connected in a scheme. 'Tis evident that he don't fully obtain his end, his design, in any one particular state that the world has ever been in; for if so, we should have no change. But God is continually causing revolutions; providence makes a continual progress, and continually is bringing forth things new in the state of the world, and very different from what ever were before; he removes one that he may establish another. And perfection will not be obtained till the last revolution, when God's design will be fully reached.

¶Nor yet are the past states of the world abolished by revolutions because they are in vain, or don't do anything towards promoting his design in creating the world; if so, providence would never have ordered them, the world never would have been in such a state. There remains therefore no other way, but that the various successive states of the world do in conjunction, or as connected in a scheme, together attain God's great design.

¶Corol. 1. Hence it may be argued, that the intelligent beings of the world are everlasting, and will remain after the world comes to an end. If the perception and intelligence of the world don't remain after the world comes to an end, then as soon as ever the world comes to an end, the world and all that pertains to it, and its various successive states and revolutions, the whole absolutely ceases and come to nothing; nothing remains of it all, it is at once all as if nothing had been. So that when the world and all its revolutions are finished, nothing is obtained. As soon as ever the last revolution, or the last part of the scheme is finished--when we have but now supposed God first perfectly reaches his great design, and accomplishes what he had in view in making the world--he reaches nothing, he accomplishes nothing; but only is just where he was before he made the world, or so much as entered upon his scheme. There is nothing remains, that can be supposed to be the thing reached or brought forth, as the great thing aimed at in all that God had for so many ages been doing: the great event that is struck out at last, in the consummation of all things, is the same nothing from which things began! There is no benefit, nor glory, nor honor to God himself, nor to any other, remains. God has no benefit that he enjoys, remaining; he has gained no knowledge, no new idea, by all that has happened; there remains no declarative glory of God, nor any benefit to any other being, but all is just as it was before God set out in his work. So that at the end of the world, at the close of all things, when the great design of the whole scheme is to be fully attained, nothing at all is attained. See Nos. 867, 1006.

¶Corol. 2. It is an argument of the truth of the Christian revelation; for there is nothing else that informs [us], what God's design [is in] that series of revolutions and events that are brought to pass in the [world], what end he seeks, and what scheme he has laid out (agreeable to the challenge God makes to the gods and prophets and teachers of the heathen world, Is. 41:22-23). 'Tis most fit, that the intelligent beings of the world should be made acquainted with it; they are the beings that are principally concerned in it. The thing that is God's great design, is something concerning them; and the revolutions by which it is to be brought to pass, are revolutions among them and in their state. The state of [the] inanimate, unperceiving part of the world, is nothing regarded any otherwise, than in a subserviency to the perceiving or intelligent [part]; and then 'tis most rational to suppose, that God should reveal the design he has [been] carrying on, to his rational creatures: that as God has made them capable of it, they may actively fall in with it and promote it, and act herein as the subjects and friends of God.

¶The Christian revelation gives us a most rational account of the design of God in his providential disposition of things--a design most worthy of an infinitely wise, holy, and perfect Being--and of the way and means of God's accomplishment of it. It gives us an account of the principal parts of the scheme, in the principal providences from the beginning of the world to the end of it, and particularly of the manner how all shall be perfected in the consummation of all things.

 

¶548. CONVICTION. See sermon on Matt. 25:8, first particular under the second doctrine. HUMILIATION. See second particular under second doctrine.

 

¶549. CHURCH DISCIPLINE. RULING ELDERS. See my notes on I Cor. 12:28. POWER OF THE BRETHREN. See notes on II Cor. 2:6.

 

¶550. HELL TORMENTS. The devils, their tormenting wicked men in another world, seems to be represented by the unclean fowls of the air and beasts of the earth preying upon men's dead bodies; which was a punishment often threatened to ungodly, accursed men.

 

¶551. LORD'S DAY. The ancient sabbath was to be in imitation and commemoration of God's resting from the work of creation, and his being refreshed, an[d] his being pleased and refreshed at the beholding of his work when finished, when he saw it all very good (Ex. 31:17). But the ground of that refreshment was soon at an end when man fell; and the world that he had created very good was so totally ruined, and God was so burdened and wearied with the sin and corruption of the world, that instead of continuing to rejoice and be refreshed in the view of it, he repented that he had created it, and it grieved him at the heart (Gen. 6:6).

¶It was fit therefore, that that day, that was kept in remembrance of that rest and refreshment of the Creator which so soon ceased, should cease and give place to another day of rest and joy, kept in remembrance of God's glorious and never failing rest and refreshment, which he had when he had completed the restoration of the fallen, corrupted world. Therefore 'tis said, ""Be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create: for behold, I create Jerusalem," etc.

 

¶552. RESURRECTION. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. The doctrine of the general resurrection at the end of the world, upon many accounts, seems to me a most credible doctrine; there are a multitude of resemblances of it in nature and providences, which I doubt not were designed on purpose to be types of it. It32 seems credible upon this account, that the work of the Redeemer is [a] wholly restoring work from beginning to end: and it seems rational to think, that he would therefore go through with it, and would make a thorough restoration, and repair all the ruins that were brought upon the world by sin. 'Tis the glory of the Restorer, that he appears as an all-sufficient and complete Restorer.

 

¶553. END OF THE CREATION. There are many of the divine attributes, that if God had not created the world, never would have had any exercise: the power of God, the wisdom and prudence and contrivance of God, and the goodness and mercy and grace of God, and the justice of God. It is fit that the divine attributes should have exercise. Indeed God knew as perfectly, that there were these attributes fundamentally in himself, before they were in exercise, as since; but God, as he delights in his own excellency and glorious perfections, so he delights in the exercise of those perfections.

¶'Tis true, that there was from eternity that act in God within himself and towards himself, that was the exercise of the same perfection of his nature; but it was not the same kind of exercise: it virtually contained it, but there was not explicitly the same exercise of his perfection. God, who delights in the exercise of his own perfection, delights in all the kinds of its exercise. That eternal act or energy of the divine nature within him, whereby he infinitely loves and delights in himself, I suppose, does imply fundamentally goodness and grace towards creatures, if there be that occasion which infinite wisdom sees fit. But God, who delights in his own perfection, delights in seeing those exercises of his perfection explicitly in being, that are fundamentally implied.

 

¶554. WISDOM OF GOD IN THE WORK OF REDEMPTION. ANGELS. 'Tis probable that the angels in heaven had notice of the election of men before the fall, and that God, when he created this lower world in their view, and created man the inhabitant of it, he might give to those spectators some intimations of his design with them; and that they then knew that God's delights were with the sons of men, and that they were to be a peculiarly favored race. It seems probable (as I have elsewhere said),33 that it was some intimations of the peculiar favor that God had to them, and the dignity to which he designed to advance the human nature above theirs, that was the occasion of the rebellion of some of them.

¶They therefore, knowing God's love to them, and election of them, before they fell, were doubtless greatly surprised when men fell and had sinned against God: for they could no way conceive how it was possible now, consistent with the rule which God had fixed with men and with the glory of God, for God now to fulfill his own decree, and accomplish upon men those eternal designs of love, that he had given them a general intimation of. They were all astonished. Such a thought, as that God should be frustrated and overreached by his enemy the devil, was what they could not entertain; but yet they could not conceive of any way for God honorably to fulfill his declared design in creating men. They had seen that the angels that sinned, perished without remedy; and it never entered into their thoughts, that there was any other way for a sinning creature: they concluded and took it for certain, that if any creature sinned, they must necessarily perish eternally. They could no way conceive, how the wisdom of God could help out in this case. They were all, the wisest angel in heaven, was perfectly nonplussed. They could not [but] have their thoughts excited and set to work to the utmost, to think [how] it could be. Man must be happy and the object of that high favor of God, notwithstanding this fall; for it was the decree of God, and that they knew. This must necessarily put every angel upon a trial of the utmost of his own thought and wisdom; and everyone soon found that they could devise nothing: it was a thing sealed with seven seals. God did as it were give them the trial first, as is said of opening the sealed book in the Revelation.

¶Thus were they prepared for the greater admiration of the wisdom of God, when God should come to reveal his own counsels respecting this matter. They were prepared by this astonishment, for a greater astonishment, when God should come to reveal the immense depths of his own wisdom in this affair.

¶Probably it was kept secret from 'em for ages, that they might have the more thorough trial of their wisdom. And they saw that God still after the fall was not disappointed, he had not let fall his design; but that he still did intend men, though fallen, for that peculiar favor and honor that he had spoken of. They perceived, by what God said to our first parents, that he had a design of redeeming of them; and how earnestly did they wait, to see how God would accomplish it! And as God gradually gave further and further intimations of his design and the manner of it, how engaged their attention, and how deep and fixed their contemplation! These things the angels desired to look into (I Pet. 1:12); as was typified by the posture of the cherubim over the ark, fixedly and as in deep attention looking down into it.

¶It seems to me, that they never had the mystery fully unfolded to 'em till Christ's incarnation: and then was this contrivance, and the accomplishment of it, seen of angels (I Tim. 3:16); and then was made known ""to principalities and powers in heavenly places [...] the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Eph. 3:10-11). They were the more filled with admiration, when they had this contrivance revealed to them, that they not only had it unfolded to 'em, but see it accomplished.

¶And how great was their admiration, when they not only see men restored, but that such was the divine contrivance that it brought forth good out of evil, made it only an occasion of their34 far greater glory. How great was their admiration, when they saw Satan in everything so totally baffled and become a means of his own confusion, in that wherein he thought he had disappointed God and ruined mankind.

 

¶555. HEAVEN. SEPARATE STATE. ANGELS. The saints are spectators of God's providences relating to his church here below. See note on Heb. 6:15. One end of the creation of the angels, and giving them such great understanding, was that they might be fit witnesses and spectators of God's works here below, and might behold all parts of the divine scheme, and see how it was accomplished in the divine works and revolutions from age to age. Mortal men, they see but a very little; they have a very imperfect view of God's providences in the world while they live, and they don't live long enough to see more than a very small part of the scheme. God saw fit that there should be creatures of very great discerning and comprehensive understandings, that [might] be spectators of the whole series of the works of God: and therefore they were created in the beginning of the creation, that they might behold the whole series, from the beginning to the consummation of all things. And therefore we read, that they sang together and shouted for joy, when they beheld God forming this lower world (Job 38:7). So we are taught, that they were spectators of the work of redemption and the progress of it (I Tim. 3:16, Eph. 3:10). And as God has made them to be spectators of the great works of divine wisdom and power; so that their minds may be the more engaged and entertained, God allows them to have a subordinate hand in them, and he improves them as his messengers and servants in bringing them to pass.

¶Hence I argue, that undoubtedly the souls of departed saints are also spectators of the same things; for they go to be in heaven with the angels. The angels carry 'em to paradise; and we can't suppose that they leave 'em there, and that the only opportunity they have to converse with angels, from their death till the end of the world, is while they are in their way from earth to Abraham's bosom. The saints, even on earth, have from time to time been admitted to converse with angels; and shall they not, much more familiarly, when they go to be with Christ in paradise?

¶The spirits of just men made perfect are reckoned as of the same society with the angels, and as dwelling with them in Mount Sion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; which the Apostle elsewhere calls ""Jerusalem which is above" [Heb. 12:22-23], by which he doubtless means, in heaven. Why should not the saints go to be with the angels, when they go from their bodies? seeing they are of the same family, the angels are their brethren. Why should they [be] kept separate from the angels, who are their brethren in the same family? As the angel in the Revelation tells John, he is of his brethren (Rev. 22:9): and if any would understand that not of a proper angel, but the departed soul of one of the saints, then will it make much to our present purpose; if one of them was sent to reveal to John the providences of God relating to the church on earth, then doubtless departed saints are acquainted with them. But that the departed saints do dwell in heaven with the angels is more evident, because we learn by Eph. 3:15 that the whole family is in heaven and in earth. Departed saints are doubtless of the family; the angels, they also are of the family; saints and angels are all gathered together in one in Christ (Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:16, 20). But none can doubt, but that heaven is the dwelling place of the angels.

¶It is no privilege to be continued in this world, to have opportunity to see here the success of the gospel and glorious things accomplished in the church. If this had been any privilege, the man Christ Jesus should have been allowed it. He saw very little success while he was here, of all that he did and suffered; the success was chiefly after he went to heaven, and there he can see it better than if he were here. And this is part of his promised glory, that he there sees the success of his redemption, and his own kingdom carried on and flourishing in this world (Is. 53:10-12). And 'tis the will of Christ, that departed saints should be with him where he is, that they may behold this glory of Christ which the Father gives him, and be partakers of him in it (John 17:24).

 

¶556. HADES. If the souls of departed saints are in any state of existence at all, between their death and resurrection, 'tis unreasonable to suppose, that they should be all that while kept away from Christ; especially considering what Christ has said (John 12:26, 14:3, 17:24), and also considering what the Apostle said, when speaking of dying, that he had a desire to depart and to be with Christ [Phil. 1:23]. If it be said, that the Apostle did not mean that he should be with Christ's human nature, but if it was his divine nature he meant; yet he was doubtless to be with the divine nature of Christ in a manner very different [from] what the saints are here: he was to be where were the glorious manifestations of the presence of Christ in his divine nature. And then, if the departed saints are where they behold and enjoy the glorious presence of Christ in his divine nature, why should they not be admitted to be where is his human nature? When they enjoy the glorious and immediate manifestations of his presence in one nature, and that in his original and highest nature, why should they not behold [him] in the other inferior nature?

 

¶557. ETERNITY OF HELL TORMENTS. It is to be considered, that the wicked in hell will forever continue sinning, exercising malice, and blaspheming, etc.; and 'tis surely therefore no wonder, that God should forever continue punishing. And if any think that 'tis incredible, that God should leave any to continue forever sinning as a punishment of their sins here, as a judicial consequence of their sins; let it be considered what have been the judicial consequences of that one sin of our first parents, their eating of the forbidden fruit: the corruption of the nature of all mankind, and all the actual sins that ever have been committed in the world of mankind, and all the temporal calamities that the world has suffered, the corruption and ruin the world has suffered, and all the punishments of sin in another world, whether they be eternal or no. If it be credible, that all these things should be the judicial consequences of that one sin, I don't see why it should seem incredible, that God should eternally give a man up to sin for his own sin. See No. 559.

 

¶558. DEGREE OF HELL TORMENTS. When we think of the extreme degree of hell torments, we are ready to be shocked by it, and are ready to say within ourselves, ""How can such an infliction consist with the merciful nature of God?" But the saints in heaven, though they'll have a more adequate and lively idea of the greatness of their misery, yet will not be at all shocked by it; and very much because they'll also, at the same time, have a truer and more lively apprehension of the evil of sin, two ways: viz. (1) as they'll see the odiousness of sin in general, and (2) as they'll see how great the corruption of nature is, and principle of enmity against God, that is in the hearts of the sufferers, and how great acts of sin it extends to, or36 how great sins that is the principle or seed of in their hearts. For their circumstances will try them, and cause corruption most violently to rage and to show itself, what it is: and it will seem no way cruel in God, to inflict such extreme sufferings on such extremely wicked creatures.

 

¶559. ETERNITY OF HELL TORMENTS. See No. 557. If it be just in God, in judgment for one sin to leave to another, and yet just for him to punish both; then is it just with him to leave men to continue in sin to all eternity: for as long as they continue sinning, they continue deserving to be punished; and therefore, by the hypothesis, it still continues to be just to leave 'em to commit other sins, and so in infinitum.

 

¶560. WISDOM OF GOD IN THE WORK OF REDEMPTION. SATAN DEFEATED. Says one, ""The old serpent thought, by means of the woman he had undone all forever, to all intents and purposes; whereas behold, the woman by her seed is to bruise his head, and restore all according to the eternal scheme."--Blackwell's Schema Sacrum.37