Existence and Attributes of God

but Man could not be Miserable as long as he remained Innocent. The Reign of Sin opened a door for the Reign and Triumph of Grace, Rom. 5.21. As sin hath reigned unto death, so might grace reign through righteousness to eternal life: Without it, the Bowels of Mercy had never sounded, and the ravishing Music of Divine Grace could never have been heard by the Creature. Mercy, which renders God so amiable, could never else have beam'd out to the World. Angels and Men upon this occasion beheld the stirrings of Divine Grace, and the Tenderness of Divine Nature, and the glory of the Divine Persons in their several Functions about the Redemption of Man, which had else been a Spring shut up and a Fountain sealed; the Song of Glory to God, and Good will to Men in a way of Redemption had never been Sung by them. It appears in his dealings with Adam, that he permitted his Fall, not only to show his Justice in punishing, but principally his Mercy in rescuing; since he proclaims to him first the Promise of a Redeemer to bruise the Serpents head, before he settled the Punishment he should smart under in the World . And what fairer prospect could the Creature have of the Holiness of God, and his Hatred of Sin, than in the edge of that Sword of Justice, which punished it in the Sinner; but glitter'd more in the Punishment of a Surety so near Allied to him. Had not Man been Criminal, he could not have been Punishable, nor any been punishable for him: And the Pulse of Divine Holiness could not have beaten so quick, and been so visible, without an exercise of his Vindicative Justice. He left Mans mutable Nature, to fall under Unrighteousness, that thereby he might commend the Righteousness of his own Nature . Adams Sin in its Nature tended to the ruin of the World, and God takes an occasion from it for the glory of his Grace in the Redemption of the World: He brings forth thereby a new Scene of Wonders from Heaven, and a surprizing Knowledge on Earth: As the Sun breaks out more strongly after a Night of Darkness and Tempest. As God in Creation framed a Chaos by his Power, to manifest his Wisdom in bringing Order out of Disorder, Light out of Darkness, Beauty out of Confusion and Deformity; when he was able by a Word to have made all Creatures stand up in their Beauty, without the precedency of a Chaos: So God permitted a Moral Chaos, to manifest a greater Wisdom in the repairing a broken Image, and restoring a deplorable Creature, and bringing out those Perfections of his Nature, which had else been wrapped up in a perpetual silence in his own bosom . It was therefore very congruous to the Holiness of God, to permit that which he could make subservient for his own glory, and particularly for the manifestation of this Attribute of Holiness, which seems to be in opposition to such a permission.

5. Proposition: The Holiness of God is not blemisht by his concurrence with the Creature in the material part of a sinful Act. Some to free God from having any hand in Sin, deny his concurrence to the Actions of the Creature; because, if he concurs to a sinful Action, he concurs to the Sin also: Not understanding, how there can be a distinction between the Act, and the Sinfulness or Viciousness of it; and how God can concur to a Natural Action, without being stained by that Moral Evil which cleaves to it.

For the understanding of this, observe

1. There is a concurrence of God to all the acts of the Creature; Acts 17.28. In him we live, and move, and have our being. We depend upon God in our Acting, as well as in our Being: There is as much an efficacy of God in our Motion, as in our Production; as none have life without his Power in producing it, so none have any operation without his Providence concurring with it. In him, or by him, that is, by his Virtue preserving and governing our Motions, as well as by his Power bringing us into Being. Hence Man is compared to an Ax, Isai. 10.15. an Instrument that hath no action, without the cooperation of a Superior Agent handling it: And the Actions of the Second Causes are ascribed to God; the Grass, that is the product of the Sun, Rain, and Earth, he is said to make to grow upon the Mountains, Psal. 147.8. and the Skin and Flesh, which is by Natural generation, he is said to clothe us with, Job 10.5. in regard of his co-working with Second Causes, according to their Natures. As nothing can exist, so nothing can operate without him; let his Concurrence be removed, and the Being and Action of the Creature cease: Remove the Sun from the Horizon, or a Candle from a Room, and the Light which flowed from either of them ceaseth. Without God's preserving and concurring Power, the course of Nature would sink, and the Creation be in vain. All Created things depend upon God as Agents, as well as Beings, and are subordinate to him in a way of Action, as well as in a way of Existing. If God suspend his Influence from their Action, they would cease to act, (as the Fire did from burning the Three Children ) as well as if God suspend his Influence from their Being, they would cease to be. God supports the Nature whereby Actions are wrought, the Mind where Actions are consulted, and the Will where Actions are determined, and the Motive power whereby Actions are produced. The Mind could not contrive, nor the Hand act a Wickedness, if God did not support the Power of the one in designing, and the Strength of the other in executing a wicked Intention. Every faculty in its Being, and every faculty in its Motion, hath a dependence upon the Influence of God. To make the Creature Independent upon God in anything which speaks Perfection, as Action considered as Action is, is to make the Creature a Sovereign Being. Indeed we cannot imagine the Concurrence of God to the good Actions of Men since the Fall, without granting a Concurrence of God to evil Actions; because there is no Action so purely Good, but hath a mixture of Evil in it, though it takes its denomination of Good from the better part, Eccles. 7.20. There is no man that doth good and sins not.

2. Though the Natural virtue of doing a sinful Action be from God, and supported by him, yet this doth not blemish the Holiness of God; while God concurs with them in the Act, he instils no Evil into Men.

1. No Act in regard of the substance of it is Evil. Most of the Actions of our Faculties, as they are Actions, might have been in the state of Innocency. Eating is an act Adam would have used, if he had stood firm, but not Eating to excess. Worship was an act that should have been performed to God in Innocence, but not hypocritically. Every Action is good by a physical goodness, as it is an act of the Mind or hand, which have a Natural goodness by Creation; but every Action is not Morally good: The Physical goodness of the Action depends on God, the Moral Evil on the Creature. There is no Action, as a Corporeal action, is prohibited by the Law of God; but as it springs from an Evil disposition, and is tainted by a venomous temper of Mind. There is no action so bad, as attended with such Objects and Circumstances; but if the Objects and Circumstances were changed, might be a brave and commendable Action: So that the Moral goodness or badness of an Act is not to be esteemed from the substance of the act, which hath always a Physical goodness; but from the Objects, Circumstances, and Constitution of the Mind in the doing of it. Worship is an Act good in itself, but the worship of an Image is bad in regard of the Object. Were that act of Worship directed to God, that is paid to a Statue, and offered up to him with a sincere frame of Mind, it would be Morally good. The Act in regard of its substance is the same in both, and considered as separated from the Object to which the Worship is directed, hath the same real goodness in regard of its substance; but when you consider this action in relation to the different Objects, the one hath a Moral Goodness and the other a Moral Evil. So in Speaking; Speaking being a motion of the Tongue in the forming of words, is an excellency belonging to a Reasonable Creature; an Endowment bestowed, continued, and supported by God. Now if the same Tongue forms words whereby it curseth God this minute, and forms words whereby it blesses and praises God the next minute; the faculty of Speaking is the same, the motion of the Tongue is the same in pronouncing the Name of God either in a way of Cursing or Blessing, James 3.9, 10. 'tis the same mouth that blesseth and curseth; and the motion of it is naturally good in regard of the substance of the Act in both; 'tis the use of an excellent Power God hath given, and which God preserves in the use of it. But the estimation of the Moral Goodness or Evil is not from the act itself, but from the disposition of the Mind. Once more, Killing as an act is good, nor is it unlawful as an Act: For if so, God would never have commanded his People Israel to wage any War, and Justice could not be done upon Malefactors by the Magistrate. A Man were bound to sacrifice his life to the fury of an Invader, rather than secure it by dispatching that of an Enemy. But killing an Innocent, or killing without Authority, or out of revenge, is bad. 'It is not the Material part of the act, but the Object, Manner, and Circumstance, that makes it good or evil. 'It is no blemish to God's Holiness to concur to the substance of an Action, without having any hand in the Immorality of it, because whatsoever is real in the substance of the Action might be done without Evil. 'It is not Evil as it is an act, as it is a motion of the Tongue or Hand, for then every motion of the Tongue or Hand would be Evil.

2. Hence it follows, that an Act as an Act is one thing, and the Viciousness another. The Action is the efficacy of the Faculty, extending itself to some outward Object; but the Sinfulness of an act consists in a privation of that Comliness and Righteousness, which ought to be in an Action; in a want of conformity of the act with the Law of God, either written in Nature, or revealed in the Word. Now the Sinfulness of an Action is not the act itself, but is considered in it as it is related to the Law, and is a deviation from it; and so it is something cleaving to the Action, and therefore to be distinguished from the act itself, which is the Subject of the Sinfulness. When we say, such an Action is sinful, the Action is the Subject, and the Sinfulness of the Action is that which adheres to it. The Action is not the Sinfulness, nor the Sinfulness the Action; they are distinguished as the Member, and a disease in the Member, the Arm and the Palsy in it: The Arm is not the Palsy, nor is the Palsy the Arm; but the Palsy is a Disease that cleaves to the Arm: So Sinfulness is a deformity that cleaves to an Action.

The Evil of an Action is not the effect of an Action, nor attends it as it is an Action, but as it is an Action so circumstantiated, and conversant about this or that Object; for the same Action done by two several Persons, may be good in one, and bad in the other. As when two Judges are in joint Commission for the Trial of a Malefactor, both upon the appearance of his Guilt condemn him. This Action in both, considered as an Action, is good; for it is an adjudging a Man to death, whose Crime deserves su •• • punishment. But this same Act, which is but one joint Act of both, may be Morally good in one Judge, and Morally evil in the other: Morally good in him that Condemns him out of an unbiased consideration of the Demerit of his Fact, Obedience to the Law, and Conscience of the Duty of his place; and Morally evil in the other, who hath no respect to those Considerations, but joins in the act of Condemnation, principally moved by some private Animosity against the Prisoner, and desire of revenge for some Injury he hath really received, or imagines that he hath received from him. The Act in itself is the same materially in both; but in one it is an Act of Justice, and in the other an Act of Murder, as it respects the Principles and Motives of it in the two Judges; take away the respect of private Revenge, and the Action in the Ill Judge had been as laudable as the Action of the other. The substance of an Act, and the sinfulness of an Act, are separable and distinguishable; and God may concur with the substance of an Act, without concurring with the sinfulness of the Act: As the good Judge, that Condemned the Prisoner out of Conscience, concurred with the evil Judge, who condemned the Prisoner out of private Revenge; not in the Principle and Motive of Condemnation, but in the Material part of Condemnation. So God assists in that Action of a Man wherein Sin is placed, but not in that which is the Formal reason of Sin, which is a privation of some Perfection the Action ought Morally to have.

3. It will appear further in this, that hence it follows that the Action, and the viciousness of the Action, may have two distinct Causes. That may be a cause of the one that is not the cause of the other, and hath no hand in the producing of it. God concurs to the Act of the Mind as it Counsels, and to the external Action upon that Counsel, as he preserves the Faculty, and gives strength to the Mind to consult, and the other parts to execute; yet he is not in the least tainted with the Viciousness of the Action. Though the Action be from God as a concurrent Cause, yet the ill quality of the Action is solely from the Creature with whom God concurs. The Sun and the Earth concur to the production of all the Plants, that are formed in the womb of the one, and Midwiv'd by the other: The Sun distributes Heat, and the Earth communicates Sap; 'tis the same Heat dispersed by the one, and the same Juice bestowed by the other: It hath not a sweet Juice for one, and a sour Juice for another. This general Influx of the Sun and Earth is not the immediate cause that one Plant is poisonous, and another wholesome; but the Sap of the Earth is turned by the Nature and quality of each Plant: If there were not such an Influx of the Sun and Earth, no Plant could exert that poison which is in its Nature; but yet the Sun and Earth are not the cause of that poison which is in the Nature of the Plant. If God did not concur to the motions of Men, there could be no sinful Action, because there could be no Action at all; yet this Concurrence is not the cause of that Venom that is in the Action, which ariseth from the Corrupt Nature of the Creature, no more than the Sun and Earth are the cause of the Poison of the Plant, which is purely the effect of its own Nature upon that general Influx of the Sun and Earth. The Influence of God pierceth through all Subjects; but the Action of Man done by that Influence is vitiated according to the Nature of its own Corruption. As the Sun equally shines through all the Quarrels in the Window; if the Glass be bright and clear, there is a pure splendor; if it be Red or Green the splendor is from the Sun, but the discolouring of that Light upon the Wall, is from the quality of the Glass. But to be yet plainer; The Soul is the Image of God, and by the Acts of the Soul, we may come to the knowledge of the Acts of God; the Soul gives motion to the Body and every Member of it, and no Member could move without a concurrent virtue of the Soul; if a Member be Paralitick or Gouty, whatsoever motion that Gouty Member hath, is derived to it from the Soul; but the Goutyness of the Member, was not the Act of the Soul, but the fruit of Ill humors in the Body; the lameness of the Member, and the motion of the Member, have two distinct causes, the motion is from one cause, and the Ill motion from another. As the Member could not move irregularly without some Ill humor or cause of that distemper; so it could not move at all without the activity of the Soul: So though God concur to the act of Understanding, Willing, and Execution, why can he not be as free from the Irregularity in all those, as the Soul is free from the Irregularity of the m •• ion of the Body, while it is the cause of the motion itself? There are two Illustrations generally used in this case, that are not unfit; the motion of the Pen in writing is from the hand that holds it, but the Blurs by the Pen are from some fault in the Pen itself: And the Music of the Instrument is from the hand that touches it, but the Jarring from the faultiness of the Strings; both are the causes of the motion of the Pen and Strings, but not the blurs or jarrings.

4. 'It is very congruous to the Wisdom of God, to move his Creatures according to their particular Natures; but this Motion makes him not the cause of Sin. Had our Innocent Nature continued, God had moved us according to that Innocent Nature; but when the state was changed for a Corrupt one, God must either forbear all concourse, and so annihilate the World, or move us according to that Nature he finds in us. If he had overthrown the World upon the entrance of Sin, and created another upon the same terms, Sin might have as soon defaced his second Work, as it did the first; and then it would follow, that God would have been always building and demolishing. It was not fit for God to cease from acting as a Wise Governor of his Creature, because Man did cease from his Loyalty as a Subject. Is it not more agreeable to God's Wisdom as a Governor, to concur with his Creature according to his Nature, than to deny his concurrence upon every Evil determination of the Creature? God concur'd with Adams mutable Nature in his first act of Sin; he concur'd to the act and left him to his Mutability. If Adam had put out his hand to eat of any other unforbidden Fruit, God would have supported his Natural faculty then, and concur'd with him in his motion.

When Adam would put out his hand to take the Forbidden Fruit, God concur'd to that Natural action; but left him to the choice of the Object, and to the use of his mutable Nature: And when Man became Apostate, God concurs with him according to that condition wherein he found him, and cannot move him otherwise, unless he should alter that Nature Man had contracted. God moving the Creature as he found him, is no cause of the Ill motion of the Creature: As when a Wheel is broken the space of a foot, it cannot but move ill in that part till it be mended. He that moves it, uses the same motion (as it is his Act) which he would have done had the Wheel been sound; the motion is good in the Mover, but bad in the Subject: 'It is not the fault of him that moves it, but the fault of that Wheel that is moved, whose breaches came by some other cause. A Man doth not use to lay aside his Watch for some Irregularity, as long as it is capable of motion, but winds it up: Why should God cease from concurring with his Creature in its vital Operations and other actions of his Will, because there was a flaw contracted in that Nature, that came right and true out of his hand? And as he that winds up his disordered Watch, is in the same manner the cause of its motion then, as he was when it was regular; yet by that act of his, he is not the cause of the false motion of it, but that is from the deficiency of some part of the Watch itself: So though God concurs to that Action of the Creature, whereby the Wickedness of the Heart is drawn out; yet is not God therefore as Unholy as the Heart.

5. God hath one End in his Concurrence, and Man another in his Action. So that there is a Righteous, and often a gracious End in God, when there is a base and unworthy End in Man. God concurs to the substance of the Act; Man produceth the circumstance of the Act, whereby it is Evil. God orders both the Action wherein he concurs, and the Sinfulness over which he presides, as a Governor, to his own Ends. In Josephs case, Man was sinful, and God merciful; his Brethren acted Envy, and God designed Mercy, Gen. 45.4, 5. They would be rid of him as an Eyesore, and God concur'd with their Action to make him their Preserver, Gen. 50.20. Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. God concurred to Judas his action of betraying our Savior; he supported his Nature while he contracted with the Priests, and supported his Members while he was their Guide to apprehend him; God's end was the manifestation of his choicest love to Man, and Judas his end was the gratification of his own Covetousness. The Assyrian did a Divine Work against Jerusalem, but not with a Divine end . He had a mind to enlarge his Empire, enrich his Coffers with the Spoil, and gain the Title of a Conqueror; he is desirous to Invade his Neighbors, and God employs him to punish his Rebels; but he means not so, nor doth his heart think so: He intended not as God intended. The Axe doth not think what the Carpenter intends to do with it. But God used the rapine of an Ambitious Nature as an Instrument of his Justice: As the exposing Malefactors to wild Beasts was an ancient Punishment, whereby the Magistrate intended the execution of Justice, and to that purpose used the natural fierceness of the Beasts to an end different from what those ravaging Creatures aimed at. God concurred with Satan in spoiling Job of his Goods, and scarifying his Body; God gave Satan license to do it, and Job acknowledges it to be God's act: But their ends were different; God concurred with Satan for the clearing the Integrity of his Servant, when Satan aimed at nothing but the provoking him to Curse his Creator. The Physician applies Leeches to suck the superfluous blood, but the Leeches suck to glut themselves, without any regard to the intention of the Physician, and the welfare of the Patient. In the same act where men intend to hurt, God intends to correct; so that his concurrence is in a holy manner, while men commit unrighteous actions. A Judge commands the Executioner to execute the Sentence of Death which he hath justly pronounced against a Malefactor, and admonisheth him to do it out of love to Justice; the Executioner hath the Authority of the Judge for his Commission, and the protection of the Judge for his Security: The Judge stands by to countenance and secure him in the doing of it; but if the Executioner hath not the same intention as the Judge, viz. a love to Justice in the performance of his Office, but a private hatred to the Offender; the Judge, though he commanded the fact of the Executioner, yet did not command this Error of his in it; and though he protects him in the Fact, yet he owns not this corrupt disposition in him in the doing of what was enjoin'd him, as any act of his own.

To Conclude this. Since the Creature cannot act without God, cannot lift up a Hand, or move his Tongue, without God's preserving and upholding the Faculty, and preserving the power of Action, and preserving every Member of the Body in its actual Motion, and in every circumstance of its Motion, we must necessarily suppose God to have such a way of concurrence as doth not intrench upon his Holiness. We must not equal the Creature to God, by denying its dependence on him: Nor must we imagine such a concurrence to the sinfulness of an act, as stains the Divine Purity, which is I think, sufficiently salv'd by distinguishing the matter of the act from the evil adhering to it: For since all evil is founded in some good; the evil is distinguishable from the good, and the deformity of the action from the action itself, which as it is a created act, hath a dependence on the will and influence of God: And as it is a sinful act, is the product of the will of the Creature.

6. Proposition. The holiness of God is not blemisht by proposing Objects to a man, which he makes use of to sin. There is no Object proposed to man, but is directed by the Providence of God, which influenceth all motions in the World; and there is no Object proposed to man, but his active Nature may, according to the goodness or badness of his disposition, make a good or an ill use of. That two men, one of a charitable, the other of a hard-hearted disposition, meet with an indigent and necessitous Object, is from the Providence of God; yet this indigent person is relieved by the one, and neglected by the other. There could be no action in the World, but about some Object; there could be no Object offered to us but by Divine Providence; the active Nature of man would be in vain, if there were not Objects about which it might be exercised. Nothing could present itself to man as an Object, either to excite his Grace, or awaken his Corruption, but by the conduct of the Governor of the World. That David should walk upon the Battlements of his Palace, and Bathsheba be in the Bath at the same time, was from the Divine Providence which orders all the affairs of the World ; and so some understand Jer. 6.21. Thus saith the Lord, I will lay stumbling blocks before this People, and the Fathers and Sons together shall fall upon them. Since they have offered Sacrifices without those due qualifications in their hearts, which were necessary to render them acceptable to me. I will lay in their way such Objects, which their Corruption will use ill to their further sin and ruin; so Psal. 105.25. He turned their heart to hate his people; that is, by the multiplying his People, he gave occasion to the Egyptians of hating them, instead of caressing them as they had formerly done.

But God's Holiness is not blemisht by this; for,

1. This proposing or presenting of Objects invades not the liberty of any man: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil set in the midst of the Garden of Eden, had no violent influence on man to force him to eat of it; his liberty to eat of it, or not, was reserved entire to himself; no such Charge can be brought against any Object whatsoever. If a man meet accidentally at a Table with Meat that is grateful to his Palate, but hurtful to the present temper of his Body; doth the presenting this sort of Food to him strip him of his liberty to decline it, as well as to feed of it? Can the Food have any internal influence upon his will, and lay the freedom of it asleep whether he will or no? Is there any Charm in that, more than in other sorts of Diet? No; but it is the habit of love which he hath to that particular Dish, the curiosity of his Fancy, and the strength of his own Appetite, whereby he is brought into a kind of slavery to that particular Meat, and not anything in the food itself. When the word is proposed to two persons, 'tis embraced by the one, rejected by the other; is it from the word itself, which is the Object that these two persons perform different acts? The Object is the same to both, but the manner of acting about the Object is not the same: Is there any invasion of their liberty by it? Is the one forced by the word to receive it, and the other forced by the word to reject it? Two such contrary effects cannot proceed from one and the same Cause: Outward things have only an objective influence, not an inward: If the mere proposal of things did suspend or strike down the liberty of Man, no Angels in Heaven, no Man upon Earth, no not our Savior himself, could do anything freely, but by force: Objects that are ill used are of God's Creation, and though they have allurements in them, yet they have no compulsive power over the will. The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was pleasing to the sight; it had a quality to allure, there had not else needed a Prohibition to bar the eating of it; but it could not have so much power to allure as the Divine threatening to deter.

2. The Objects are good in themselves, but the ill use of them is from man's corruption. Bathsheba was by God's Providence presented to David's sight, but it was David's disposition moved him to so evil an act: What if God knew that he would use that Object ill? yet he knew he had given him a power to refrain from any ill use of it: The Objects are innocent, but our Corruption poisons them. The same Object hath been used by one to holy purposes and holy improvements, that hath been used by another to sinful ends; when a charitable Object is presented to a good man and a cruel man, one relieves him, the other reviles him: The Object was rather an occasion to draw out the Charity of one, as well as the other; but the refusing to reach out a helping hand, was not from the person in Calamity, but the disposition of the Refuser to whom he was presented: 'It is not from the nature of the Object that men do good or evil, but from the disposition of the person; what is good in itself, is made bad by our Corruption. As the same Meat which nourishes and strengthens a sound Constitution, cherisheth the Disease of another that eats at the same Table, not from any unwholesome quality in the Food, but the vicious quality of the humors lodging in the Stomach, which turn the Diet into fuel for themselves, which in its own nature was apt to engender a wholesome juice. Some are perfected by the same things whereby others are ruined. Riches are used by some, not only for their own, but the advantage of others in the World; by others only for themselves, and scarcely so much as their necessities require. Is this the fault of the wealth, or the dispositions of the Persons, who are covetous instead of being Generous? 'It is a Calumny therefore upon God to charge him with the sin of man upon this account: The rain that drops from the Clouds upon the Plants, is sweet in itself, but when it moystens the root of any venomous Plant, 'tis turned into the juice of the Plant, and becomes venomous with it. The Miracles that our Savior wrought, were applauded by some, and envied by the Pharisees; the sin arose not from the nature of the Miracles, but the Malice of their spirits: The Miracles were sitter in their own nature to have induced them to an adoration of our Savior, than to excite so vile a Passion against one that had so many marks from Heaven to dignify him, and proclaim him worthy of their respect. The Person of Christ was an Object proposed to the Jews; some worship him, others condemn and crucify him, and according to their several Vices and base ends they use this object. Judas to content his Covetousness, the Pharisees to glut their Revenge, Pilate for his Ambition, to preserve himself in his Government, and avoid the Articles the People might charge him with of Countenancing an Enemy to Caesar. God at that time put into their minds a rational and true Proposition which they apply to ill purposes. Caiaphas said, that it was expedient for one man to die for the people, which he spake not of himself, Joh. 11.50, 51. God put it into his mind, but he might have applied it better than he did, and considered, though the Maxim was commendable, whether it might justly be applied to Christ, or whether there was such a necessity that he must die, or the Nation be destroyed by the Romans: The Maxim was sound and holy, decreed by God; but what an ill use did the High Priest make of it to put Christ to death as a seditious Person, to save the Nation from the Roman Fury?

3. Since the natural Corruption of men will use such Objects ill, may not God without tainting himself, present such Objects to them in subserviency to his gracious Decrees? Whatsoever God should present to men in that state, they would make an ill use of; hath not God then the Sovereign Prerogative to present what he pleases, and suppress others? To offer that to them which may serve his holy purpose, and hide other things from them which are not so conducing to his gracious ends, which would be as much the occasions of exciting their sin, as the others which he doth bring forth to their view? The Jews, at the time of Christ, were of a turbulent and seditious humor, they expected a Messiah, a Temporal King, and would readily have embraced any occasion to have been up in arms to have delivered themselves from the Roman yoke; to this purpose the People attempted once to make him King: And probably the expectation they had that he had such a Design to Head them, might be one reason of their Hosannas, because without some such conceit it was not probable they should so soon change their note, and vote him to the Cross in so short a time, after they had applauded him as if he had been upon a Throne; but their being defeated of strong Expectations, usually ended in a more ardent Fury. This turbulent and seditious humor God directs in another Chanel, suppresseth all Occurrences that might excite them to a Rebellion against the Romans, which if he had given way to, the crucifying Christ, which was God's design to bring about at that time, had not probably been effected, and the Salvation of Mankind been hindered or stood at a stay for a time. God therefore orders such Objects and Occasions, that might direct this seditious Humour to another Chanel, which would else have run out in other Actions, which had not been conducing to the great Design he had then in the World. Is it not the right of God, and without any blemish to his Holiness, to use those Corruptions which he finds sown in the Nature of his Creature by the hand of Satan, and to propose such Objects as may excite the exercise of them for his own service? Sure God hath as much right to serve himself of the Creature of his own framing, and what Natures soever they are possessed with, and to present Objects to that purpose, as a Faulconer hath to offer this or that Bird to his Hawk to exercise his courage, and excite his ravenousness, without being termed the Author of that ravenousness in the Creature. God planted not those Corruptions in the Jews, but finds them in those Persons over whom he hath an absolute Sovereignty in the right of a Creator, and that of a Judge for their sins: And by the right of that Sovereignty may offer such Objects and Occasions, which, though innocent in themselves, he knows they will make use of to ill purposes, but which by the same decree that he resolves to present such Occasions to them, he also resolves to make use of them for his own glory. 'It is not conceivable by us what way that Death of Christ, which was necessary for the Satisfaction of Divine Justice, could be brought about without ordering the evil of some men's hearts by special Occasions to effect his purpose; we cannot suppose that Christ can be guilty of any Crime that deserved Death by the Jewish Law; had he been so a Criminal, he could not have been a Redeemer: A perfect Innocence was necessary to the design of his coming. Had God himself put him to that Death, without using Instruments of Wickedness in it, by some remarkable hand from Heaven, the Innocence of his Nature had been forever eclipsed, and the voluntariness of his Sacrifice had been obscured: The strangeness of such a Judgment would have made his innocence incredible; he could not reasonably have been proposed as an Object of Faith; What, to believe in one that was struck dead by a hand from Heaven? The propagation of the Doctrine of Redemption had wanted a Foundation; and though God might have raised him again, the certainty of his Death had been as questionable as his Innocence in dying, had he not been raised. But God orders everything so, as to answer his own most wise and holy ends, and maintain his Truth, and the fulfilling the Predictions of the minutest Concerns about them, and all this by presenting Occasions innocent in themselves, which the Corruptions of the Jews took hold of, and whereby God, unknown to them, brought about his own Decrees: And may not this be conceived without any taint upon God's Holiness; for when there are Seeds of all sin in man's Nature, why may not God hinder the sprouting up of this or that kind of Seed, and leave liberty to the growth of the other, and shut up other ways of sinning, and restrain men from them, and let them loose to that Temptation which he intends to serve himself of, hiding from them those Objects which were not so serviceable to his purpose, wherein they would have sinned, and offer others, which he knew their Corruption would use ill, and were serviceable to his ends; since the depravation of their Natures would necessarily hurry them to evil without restraining Grace, as a Scale will necessarily rise up when the weight in it, which kept it down, is taken away?

7. Proposition: The Holiness of God is not blemisht by withdrawing his Grace from a sinful Creature, whereby he falls into more sin. That God withdraws his Grace from men, and gives them up sometimes to the fury of their Lusts, is as clear in Scripture as anything; Deut. 29.4. Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, &c. Judas was delivered to Satan after the Sop, and put into his power for despising former Admonitions. He often leaves the Rains to the Devil, that he may use what efficacy he can in those that have offended the Majesty of God; he withholds further influences of Grace, or withdraws what before he had granted them. Thus he withheld that Grace from the Sons of Eli, that might have made their Fathers pious Admonitions effectual to them, 1 Sam. 2.25. They hearkened not to the voice of their Father, because the Lord would slay them. He gave Grace to Eli to reprove them, and withheld that Grace from them, which might have enabled them against their natural Corruption and obstinacy to receive that Reproof.

But the Holiness of God is not blemisht by this.

1. Because the act of God in this is only negative . Thus God is said to harden men: Not by positive hardening, or working anything in the Creature, but by not working, not softening, leaving a man to the hardness of his own heart, whereby it is unavoidable by the depravation of man's Nature, and the fury of his Passions, but that he should be further hardened, and increase unto more ungodliness, as the Expression is 2 Tim. 2.16. As a man is said to give another his life, when he doth not take it away when it lay at his mercy; so God is said to harden a man, when he doth not mollify him when it was in his power, and inwardly quicken him with that Grace whereby he might infallibly avoid any further provoking of him. God is said to harden men, when he removes not from them the Incentives to sin, curbs not those Principles, which are ready to comply with those Incentives, withdraws the common assistances of his Grace, concurs not with counsels and admonitions to make them effectual; flasheth not in the convincing light which he darted upon them before. If hardness follows upon God's withholding his softening Grace, 'tis not by any positive act of God, but from the natural hardness of Man. If you put Fire near to Wax or Rosin, both will melt, but when that Fire is removed, they return to their natural quality of hardness and brittleness; the positive act of the Fire is to melt and soften, and the softness of the Rosin is to be ascribed to that, but the hardness is from the Rosin itself, wherein the Fire hath no influence, but only a negative act by a removal of it: So when God hardens a man, he only leaves him to that stony heart which he derived from Adam, and brought with him into the world. All men's understandings being blinded, and their wills perverted in Adam, God's withdrawing his Grace, is but a leaving them to their natural pravity, which is the cause of their further sinning, and not God's removal of that special light he before afforded them, or restraint he held over them. As when God withdraws his preserving Power from the Creature, he is not the efficient, but deficient cause of the Creatures destruction; so in this case, God only ceaseth to bind and damm up that sin which else would break out.

2. The whole positive cause of this hardness is from man's corruption. God infuseth not any sin into his Creatures, but forbears to infuse his Grace & restrain their Lusts, which upon the removal of his Grace work impetuously: God only gives them up to that, which he knows will work strongly in their hearts. And therefore the Apostle wipes off from God any positive act in that uncleanness the Heathens were given up to ( Rom. 1.24. Wherefore God gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts. And verse 26. God gave them up to vile affections; but they were their own affections, none of God's inspiring) by adding, through the lusts of their own Hearts: God's giving them up was the Logical cause, or a cause by way of Argument; their own Lusts were the true and natural cause; their own they were, before they were given up to them; and belonging to none as the Author, but themselves, after they were given up to them. The Lust in the Heart, and the temptation without, easily close and mix interests with one another: As the Fire in a Coal pit will with the fuel, if the streams derived into it for the quenching it, be dam'd up: The natural Passions will run to a temptation, as the Waters of a River tumble towards the Sea. When a man that hath bridled in a high mettled-Horse from running out, gives him the Rains; or a Huntsman takes off the string that held the Dog, and lets him run after the Hare; are they the immediate cause of the motion of the one, or the other? no, but the mettle and strength of the Horse, and the natural inclination of the Hound, both which are left to their own motions to pursue their own natural instincts. Man doth as naturally tend to sin as a stone to the Center, or as a weighty thing inclines to a motion to the Earth: T • s from the propension of man's nature that he drinks up iniquity like water; and God doth no more when he leaves a man to sin, by taking away the Hedge which stopped him, but leave him to his natural Inclination. As a man that breaks up a damm he hath placed, leaves the Streams to run in their natural Chanel; or one that takes away a prop from a Stone to let it fall, leaves it only to that nature which inclines it to a descent; both have their motion from their own Nature, and man his Sin from his own Corruption. The withdrawing the Sun-beams, is not the cause of Darkness, but the Shadiness of the Earth; nor is the departure of the Sun the cause of Winter, but the coldness of the Air and Earth, which was tempered and beaten back into the bowels of the Earth by the vigor of the Sun, upon whose departure they return to their natural state: The Sun only leaves the Earth and Air as it found them at the beginning of the Spring, or the beginning of the Day. If God do not give a man Grace to melt him, yet he cannot be said to communicate to him that nature which hardens him, which man hath from himself. As God was not the cause of the first sin of Adam, which was the root of all other, so he is not the cause of the following sins, which as branches spring from that root; man's free-will was the cause of the first sin, and the corruption of his nature by it the cause of all succeeding sins. God doth not immediately harden any man, but doth propose those things, from whence the natural Vice of man takes an occasion to strengthen and nourish itself: Hence God is said to harden Pharaoh'hs Heart , by concurring with the Magicians in turning their rods into Serpents, which stiffened his Heart against Moses, conceiving him by reason of that to have no more power than other men, and was an occasion of his further hardening: And Pharaoh is said to harden himself , that is, in regard of his own natural passion.

3. God is holy and righteous, because he doth not withdraw from man, till man deserts him: To say that God withdrew that Grace from Adam, which he had afforded him in Creation, or anything that was due to him, till he had abused the Gifts of God, and turned them to an end contrary to that of Creation, would be a reflection upon the Divine Holiness: God was first deserted by man before man was deserted by God; and man doth first contemn and abuse the common Grace of God, and those relics of natural light that enlighten every man that comes into the World , before God leaves him to the hurry of his own Passions Ephraim was first joined to Idols, before God pronounced the fatal sentence, Let him alone : And the Heathens first changed the glory of the incorruptible God, before God withdrew his common Grace from the corrupted creature ; and they first served the Creature more then the Creator, before the Creator gave them up to the slavish Chains of their vile affections . Israel first cast off God before God cast off them, but then he gave them up to their own Hearts Lusts, and they walked in their own Counsels, Psa. 81.11, 12. Since sin entered into the World by the fall of Adam, and the blood of all his posterity was tainted, Man cannot do anything that is formally good; not for want of faculties, but for the want of a righteous habit in those faculties, especially in the Will; yet God discovers himself to man in the works of his hands; he hath left in him footsteps of natural reason, he doth attend him with common motions of his Spirit, corrects him for his faults with gentle Chastisements. He is near unto all in some kind of Instructions: He puts many times providential bars in their way of sinning; but when they will rush into it as the Horse into the battle, when they will rebel against the light, God doth often leave them to their own course, sentence him that is filthy to be filthy still , which is a righteous act of God, as he is Rector and Governor of the World. Man's not receiving, or not improving what God gives, is the cause of God's not giving further, or taking away his own, which before he had bestowed; This is so far from being repugnant to the Holiness and Righteousness of God, that it is rather a commendable act of his Holiness and Righteousness, as the Rector of the World, not to let those gifts continue in the hand of a man who abuses them contrary to his glory. Who will blame a Father, that after all the good Counsels he hath given his Son to reclaim him, all the Corrections he hath inflicted on him for his irregular practice, leaves him to his own courses and withdraws those assistances which he scoffed at and turned the deaf Ear unto? Or who will blame the Physician for deserting the Patient, who rejects his Counsel, will not follow his Prescriptions, but dasheth his Physic against the Wall? No man will blame him, no man will say that he is the cause of the Patients death, but the true cause is the fury of the Distemper, and the obstinacy of the diseased Person to which the Physician left him. And who can justly blame God in this case, who yet never denied supplies of Grace to any that sincerely sought it at his hands; and what man is there that lies under a hardness, but first was guilty of very provoking sins? What unholiness is it to deprive men of those assistances because of their sin, and afterwards to direct those counsels and practices of theirs which he hath justly given them up unto, to serve the ends of his own glory in his own methods?

4. Which will appear further by considering, that God is not obliged to continue his Grace to them. It was at his liberty whither he could give any renewing Grace to Adam after his fall, or to any of his Posterity: He was at his own liberty to withhold it or communicate it: But if he were under any Obligation then, surely he must be under less now, since the multiplication of Sin by his Creatures: But if the Obligation were none just after the fall, there is no pretence now to fasten any such Obligation on God. That God had no Obligation at first hath been spoken to before: He is less obliged to continue his Grace after a repeated refusal, and a peremptory abuse, than he was bound to proffer it after the first Apostasy. God cannot be charged with unholiness in withdrawing his Grace after we have received it, unless we can make it appear that his Grace was a thing due to us, as we are his Creatures, and as he is Governor of the World. What Prince looks upon himself as obliged to reside in any particular place of his Kingdom? But suppose he be bound to inhabit in one particular City, yet after the City rebels against him, is he bound to continue his Court there, spend his Revenue among Rebels, endanger his own Honor and Security, enlarge their Charter, or maintain their Ancient Privileges? Is it not most just and righteous for him to withdraw himself and leave them to their own Tumultuousness and Sedition, whereby they should eat the fruit of their own doings? If there be an Obligation on God as a Governor, it would rather lie on the side of Justice, to leave Man to the Power of the Devil whom he courted, and the prevalency of those Lusts he hath so often caressed, and wrap up in a Cloud all his common Illuminations, and leave him destitute of all common workings of his Spirit.

8. Proposition. God's Holiness is not blemisht, by his commanding those things sometimes which seem to be against Nature, or thwart some other of his Precepts. As when God commanded Abraham with his own hand to Sacrifice his Son , there was nothing of Unrighteousness in it. God hath a Sovereign Dominion over the lives and beings of his creatures, whereby as he creates one day, he might annihilate the next; and by the same right that he might demand the life of Isaac, as being his Creature, he might demand the Obedience of Abraham in a ready return of that to him, which he had so long enjoyed by his grant. 'It is true, killing is unjust when it is done without cause, and by a private Authority: But the Authority of God surmounts all private and Public Authority whatsoever. Our lives are due to him when he calls for them, and they are more than once forfeit to him by reason of Transgression. But howsoever the case is, God commanded him to do it for the trial of his Grace, but suffered him not to do it in favor to his ready Obedience: But had Isaac been actually slain and offered, how had it been unrighteous in God, who enacts Laws for the Regulation of his Creature, but never intended them to the prejudice of the Rights of his Sovereignty? Another Case is that of the Israelites borrowing Jewels of the Egyptians by the order of God . Is not God Lord of man's goods, as well as their lives? What have any, they have not received? & that not as Proprietors independent on God, but his Stewards, and may not he demand a portion of his Steward to bestow upon his Favorite? He that had power to dispose of the Egyptians Goods, had power to order the Israelites to ask them. Besides, God acted the part of a just Judge in ordering them their wages for their Service in this method, and making their Task-masters give them some recompense for their unjust oppression so many years: It was a Command from God therefore, rather for the preservation of Justice, (the Basis of all those Laws which link human Society) than any infringement of it. It was a material recompense in part, though not a formal one in the intention of the Egyptians: It was but in part a recompense; It must needs come short of the damage the poor Captives had sustained by the tyranny of their Masters, who had inslav'd them contrary to the rules of hospitality; and could not make amends for the lives of the poor Infants of Israel, whom they had drowned in the River. He that might for the unjust oppression of his People have taken away all their Lives, destroyed the whole Nation, and put the Israelites into the possession of their Lands, could without any unrighteousness dispose of part of their Goods: And it was rather an act of Clemency to leave them some part, who had doubly forfeited all. Again, the Egyptians were as ready to lend by God's influence, as the Israelites were to ask by God's order: And though it was a loan, God as Sovereign of the World, and Lord of the Earth and the fullness thereof, alienated the property by assuming them to the use of the Tabernacle, to which service most, if not all of them, were afterwards dedicated. God who is Lawgiver hath power to dispence with his own Law, and make use of his own Goods and dispose of them as he pleases. 'It is no unholiness in God to dispose of that which he hath a right unto. Indeed God cannot command that which is in its own nature intrinsically evil; as to command a rational Creature not to love him, not to worship him, to call God to witness to a Lye; these are intrinsically evil; but for the disposing of the Lives and Goods of his Creatures, which they have from him in right, and not in absolute propriety, is not evil in him, because there is no repugnancy in his own Nature to such acts, nor is it anything inconsistent with the natural duty of a Creature, and in such cas • s he may use what instruments he please.

The Point was, That Holiness is a glorious perfection of the nature of God. We have showed the Nature of this Holiness in God; what it is, and we have demonstrated it, and proved that God is holy, and must needs be so, and also the purity of his Nature in all his acts about sin: Let us now improve it by way of Use.

[Use.] Is holiness a transcendent perfection belonging to the Nature of God? The first Use shall be of Instruction and Information.

1. How great and how freque •• is the contempt of this eminent perfection in the Deity? Since the fall, this attribute, which renders God most amiable in himself, renders him most hateful to his Apostate Creature. 'It is impossible that he that loves iniquity, can affect that which is irreconcilably contrary to the iniquity he loves. Nothing so contrary to the sinfulness of man as the Holiness of God, and nothing is thought of by the sinner with so much detestation. How do Men account that which is the most glorious perfection of the divinity, unworthy to to be regarded as an accomplishment of their own Souls? And when they are pressed to an imitation of it, and a detestation of what is contrary to it, have the same sentiments in their Heart which the Devil had in his Language to Christ. Why art thou come to torment us before our time? What an enmity the World naturally hath to this perfection, I think is visible in the practice of the Heathen, who among all their Heroes which they deified, elevated none to that dignity among them for this or that moral Virtue that came nearest to it, but for their valor or some usefulness in the concerns of this Life. Aesculapius was deified for his skill in the cure of Diseases; Bacchus for the use of the grape; Vulcan for his operations by Fire; Hercules for his destroying of Tyrants and Monsters; but none for their mere Virtue: As if anything of purity were unworthy their consideration in the frame of a Deity, when it is the glory of all other Perfections: So essential it is, that when Men reject the imitation of this, God regards it as a total rejection of himself, though they own all the other attributes of his Nature; Psal. 81.11. Israel would none of me; why? because they walked not in his ways, Vers. 13. those ways wherein the purity of the Divine nature was most conspicuous: They would own him in his Power, when they stood in need of a Deliverance; they would own him in his Mercy, when they were plunged in Distress; but they would not imitate him in his Holiness. This being the luster of the Divine Nature, the contempt of it is an obscuring all his other Perfections, and a dashing a blot upon his whole Scutcheon. To own all the rest, and deny him this, is to frame him as an unbeautiful Monster, a Deformed power. Indeed, all sin is against this attribute; all sin aims in general at the being of God, but in particular at the Holiness of his Being: All sin is a violence to this perfection: There is not an Iniquity in the World, but directs its venomous sting against the divine purity: Some sins are directed against his Omniscience, as secret Wickedness; some against his Providence, as distrust; some against his Mercy, as unbelief; some against his Wisdom, as neglecting the means instituted by him, censuring his ways and actings; some against his Power, as trusting in means more than in God, and the immoderate fear of Men more than of God; some against his Truth, as distrusting his Promise, or not fearing his Threatning; but all agree together in their enmity against this, which is the peculiar glory of the Deity. Everyone of them is a receding from the Divine Image; and the blackness of everyone is the deeper, by how much the distance of it from the holiness of God is the greater. This contrariety to the Holiness of God is the cause of all the absolute Atheism (if there be any such) in the World; What was the reason the Fool hath said in his heart, there is no God? but because the Fool is corrupt and hath done abominable works . If they believe the being of a God, their own Reason will enforce them to imagine him holy: Therefore rather then fancy a holy God, they would fain fancy none at all.

In particular,

1. The Holiness of God is injured, in unworthy representations of God, and imaginations of him in our own minds. The Heathen fell under this guilt, and ascribed to their Idols those Vices which their own Sensuality inclined them to, unworthy of a man, much more unworthy of a God, that they might find a protection of their Crimes in the practice of their Idols. But is this only the notion of the Heathens? may there not be many among us whose love to their Lusts, and desires of sinning without control, move them to slander God in their thoughts rather than reform their lives, and are ready to frame by the power of their imaginative faculty, a God not only winking, but smiling at their Impurities? I am sure God charges the Impieties of Men upon this score, in that Psalm, (Psa. 50.21.) which seems to be a representation of the day of Judgment, as some gather from Verse 6. When God • ums up all together. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence, thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; not a detester, but approver of thy crimes. And the Psalmist seems to express God's loathing of sin in such a manner, as intimates it to be contrary to the Ideas and Resemblances Men make of him in their minds, Psal. 5.4 For thou art not a God that hast pleasure in wickedness. As we say in vindication of a man, he is not such a man as you imagine him to be; Thou art not such a God as the World commonly imagines Thee to be, a God taking pleasure in iniquity. 'It is too common for men to fancy God not as he is, but as they would have him; strip him of his excellency for their own security. As God made man after his Image, man would dress God after his own Modes, as may best suit the content of his Lusts, and encourage him in a course of sinning; For when they can frame such a notion of God, as if he were a Countenancer of sin, they will derive from thence a reputation to their Crimes, commit Wickedness with an unbounded licentiousness, and crown their Vices with the name of Virtues, because they are so like to the Sentiments of that God they fancy: From hence, as the Psalmist in the Psalm before mentioned, ariseth that mass of Vice in the World; such Conceptions are the Mother and Nurse of all Impiety, I question not but the first Spring is some wrong notion of God in regard of his holiness: We are as apt to imagine God as we would have him, as the black Ethiopians were to draw the Image of their God's after their own dark hue, and paint him with their own Colour: As a Philosopher in Theodoret speaks; if Oxen and Lions had hands, and could paint as men do, they would frame the Images of their God's according to their own likeness and complexion: Such notions of God render him a Swinish Being, and worse than the vilest Idols adored by the Egyptians, when Men fancy a God indulgent to their Appetites, and most sordid Lusts.

2. In defacing the Image of God in our own Souls. God in the first draught of man conformed him to his own Image, or made him an Image of himself: Because we find that in Regeneration this Image is renewed, Eph. 4.24. The new Man, which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness. He did not take Angels for his Pattern in the first polishing the Soul, but himself. In defaceing this Image we cast dirt upon the Holiness of God, which was his pattern in the framing of us; and rather choose to be conformed to Satan, who is God's grand Enemy, to have God's Image wiped out of us, and the Devils pictured in us: Therefore natural men in an unregenerate state may justly be called Devils, since our Savior called the worst man, Judas, so , and Peter, one of the best : And if this title be given by an infallible Judge to one of the worst, and one of the best, it may without wrong to any be ascribed to all men that wallow in their sin, which is directly contrary to that illustrious Image God did imprint upon them. How often is it seen that men control the light of their own Nature, and stain the clearest beams of that Candle of the Lord in their own spirits, that fly in the face of their own Consciences, and say to them, as Ahab to Micaiah, thou dist never prophecy good to me; thou dist never encourage me in those things that are pleasing to the Flesh; & use it at the same rate as the wicked King did the Prophet, imprison it in unrighteousness ; because it starts up in them sometimes Sentiments of the Holiness of God, which it represents in the Soul of man. How jolly are many men when the exhalations of their Sensitive part rise up to Cloud the exactest Principle of moral Nature in their minds, and render the monstrous Principles of the Law of Corruption more lively? Whence ariseth the wickedness which hath been committed with an open face in the World, and the applause that hath been often given to the worst of villainies? Have we not known among ourselves, men to glory in their shame, & esteem that a most gentile accomplishment of man, which is the greatest blot upon his Nature, and which if it were upon God, would render him no God, but an impure Devil, so that to be a Gentleman among us hath been the same as to be an incarnate Devil? and to be a man, was to be no better, but worse than a Bruit? Vile Wretches! Is not this a contempt of Divine holiness, to kill that Divine seed which lies languishing in the midst of corrupted Nature; to cut up any Sprouts of it as weeds unworthy to grow in their gardens, & cultivate what is the Seed of Hell? prefer the rotten fruits of Sodom, marked with a Divine curse, before those Relicks of the fruits of Eden, of God's own planting?

3. The Holiness of God is injured in charging our sin upon God. Nothing is more, natural to men, than to seek excuses for their sin, & transfer it from themselves to the next at hand; and rather than fail, shift it upon God himself; and if they can bring God into a society with them in sin, they will hug themselves in a security that God cannot punish that guilt, wherein he is a Partner: Adam's Children are not of a different disposition from Adam himself, who after he was Arraign'd and brought to his Trial, boggles not at flinging his dirt in the face of God his Creator, and accuseth him as if he had given him the Woman, not to be his help, but his ruin Gen. 3.12. And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the Tree and I did eat. He never supplicates for Pardon, nor seeks a remedy, but reflects his Crime upon God; Had I been alone, as I was first created, I had not eaten, but the woman whom I received as a special gift from thee, hath proved my tempter and my bane. When man could not be like God in Knowledge, he endeavor'd to make God like him in his Crime; and when his Ambition failed of equallizing himself with God, he did with an insolence too common to corrupted Nature, attempt by the imputation of his sin, to equal the Divinity with himself. Some think Cain had the same sentiment in his answer to God's demand, Where his brother was, Gen. 2.9. Am I my brother's keeper? Art not thou the Keeper and Governor of the World, why didst not thou take care of him, and hinder my killing him, and drawing this guilt upon myself, and terror upon my Conscience? David was not behind, when after the murder of Uriah, he sweeps the dirt from his own door to God's, Sam. 2.11.25. The sword devoureth one as well as another; Fathering that solely upon Divine Providence, which was his own wicked Contrivance: Though afterwards he is more ingenuous in clearing God, and charging himself, Psal. 51.4. Against thee, thee only have I sinned; and he clears God in his Judgment too. 'It is too common for the foolishness of man to pervert his way, and then his heart frets against the Lord, Pro. 19.3. He studies mischief, runs in a way of sin, and when he hath conjur'd up troubles to himself by his own folly, he excuseth himself, and with indignation charges God as the Author both of his sin and misery, and sets his mouth against the Heavens. 'It is a more horrible thing to accuse God as a Principal or Accessory in our guilt, than to conceive him to be a favourer of our iniquity; yet both are bad enough.

4. The Holiness of God is injured, when men will study Arguments from the holy word of God to Colour & shelter their Crimes. When men will seek for a shelter for their Lies, in that of the Midwifes to preserve the Children, or in that of Rahab to save the Spies; as if because God rewarded their fidelity, he countenanc'd their sin. How often is Scripture wrested to be a plea for unbecoming practices, that God in his Word may be imagined a Patron for their Iniquity? 'It is not unknown that some have maintained their quaffing and carowsing from Eccles. 8.11. That a man hath no better thing under the Sun, than to eat and drink and be merry: And their Gluttony from Matth. 5.11 That which goes into the belly, defiles not a man. The Jesuits morals are a transcript of this. How often hath the Passion of our Savior, the highest expression of God's holiness, been employed to stain it, & encourage the most debauched practices? Grace hath been turned into wantonness & the abundance of grace been used as a blast to increase the flames of sin; as if God had no other aim in that work of Redemption, but to discover himself more indulgent to our Sensual Appetites, and by his Severity with his Son, become more gracious to our Lusts: This is to feed the Roots of Hell with the Dews of Heaven, to make Grace a Pandor for the abuse of it, and to employ the Expressions of his Holiness in his Word to be a Sword against the essential Holiness of his Nature: As if a man should draw an Apology for his Treason out of that Law that was made to forbid, not to protect his Rebellion. Not the meanest Instrument in the Temple was to be alienated from the use it was by Divine Order appointed to, nor was it to be employed in any common use; and shall the Word of God, which is the Image of his Holiness, be transferred by base Interpretations to be an Advocate for Iniquity? such an ill use of his Word reflects upon that Hand which imprinted those Characters of Purity and Righteousness upon it: As the mis-interpretation of the wholesome Laws of a Prince, made to discourage Debauchery, reflects upon his righteousness and sincerity in enacting them.

5. The Holiness of God is injured, when men will put up Petitions to God to favor them in a wicked Design. Such there are, and taxed by the Apostle, James 4.3. Ye ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your Lusts: who desired Mercies from God, with an intent to make them Instruments of Sin, and Weapons of Unrighteousness; as it is reported of a Thief, that he always prayed for the success of his Robery. It hath not been rare in the World to appoint Fasts and Prayers for success in Wars manifestly unjust, and commenc'd upon breaches of Faith. Many Covetous men petition God to prosper them in their unjust gain; as if the blessed God sat in his pure Majesty upon a Throne of Grace, to espouse unjust practices, and make Iniquity prosperous. There are such as offer Sacrifice with an evil mind , to barter with God for a Divine Blessing to spirit a wicked contrivance. How great a contempt of the Holiness of God is this? How inexcusable would it be for a Favorite to address himself to a just Prince with this Language? Sir, I desire a Boon of such Lands that lie near me, for an addition to my Estate, that I may have supports for my Debauchery, and be able to play the Villain more powerfully among my Neighbors. Hereby he implies that his Prince is a Friend to such Crimes and Wickedness he intends his Petition for. Is not this the language of many men's hearts in the immediate presence of God? The Order of Prayer runs thus, Hallowed be thy Name; first to have a deep sense of the Holiness of the Divine Nature, and an ardent desire for the glory of it: This Order is inverted by asking those things which are not agreeable to the Will of God; not meet for us to ask, nor meet for God to give; or asking things agreeable to the Will of God, but with a wicked intention: This is, in effect, to desire God to strip himself of his Holiness, and commit Sacrilege upon his own Nature to gratify our Lusts.

6. The Purity of God is contemned, in hating and scoffing at the holiness which is in a Creature. Whoever looks upon the holiness of a Creature as an unlovely thing, can have no good Opinion of the amiableness of Divine Purity. Whosoever hates those qualities and graces that resemble God in any person, must needs contemn the Original Pattern, which is more eminent in God. If there be no comeliness in a Creature's holiness, to render it grateful to us, we should say of God himself, were he visible among us, with those in the Prophet, Isa. 53. There is no beauty in him that we should desire him: Holiness is beautiful in itself. If God be the most lovely Being, that which is a likeness to him, so far as it doth resemble him, must needs be amiable, because it partakes of God: And therefore those that see no beauty in an inferior holiness, but contemn it because it is a Purity above them, contemn God much more: He that hates that which is imperfect merely for that excellency which is in it, doth much more hate that which is perfect, without any mixture or stain. Holiness being the glory of God, the peculiar Title of the Deity, and from him derived unto the Nature of a Creature; he that mocks this in a Person, derides God himself; and when he cannot abuse the Purity in the Deity, he will do it in his Image. As Rebels that cannot wrong the King in his Person, will do it in his Picture, and his Subjects that are Loyal to him: He that hates the Picture of a Man, hates the Person represented by it much more; he that hates the Beams, hates the Sun; the holiness of a Creature is but a Beam from that Infinite Sun, a Stream from that Eternal Fountain. Where there is a derision of the Purity of any Creature, there is a greater reflection upon God in that derision, as he is the Author of it. If a mixed and stained holiness be more the subject of any man's Scoff, than a great deal of Sin, that Person hath a disposition more roundly to scoff at God himself, should he appear in that unblemisht and unspotted Purity which infinitely shines in his Nature. O! 'tis a dangerous thing to scoff and deride holiness in any person, though never so mean; Such do deride and scoff at the most holy God.

7. The Holiness of God is injured by our unprepared addresses to him, when like Swine, we come into the presence of God with all our mire reeking and steaming upon us. A holy God requires a holy Worship: And if our best Duties, having filth in every part, as performed by us, are unmeet for God; how much more unsuitable are dead and dirty Duties to a living and immense Holiness? Slight approaches and drossy frames speak us to have imaginations of God as of a slight and sottish Being: This is worse than the Heathens practice'd, who would purge their Flesh before they Sacrific'd, and make some preparations in a seeming Purity, before they would enter into their Temples. God is so holy, that were our Services as refined as those of Angels, we could not present him with a Service meet for his holy Nature . We contemn then this Perfection when we come before him without due preparation; as if God himself were of an impure Nature, and did not deserve our purest thoughts in our applications to him; as if any blem • sht and polluted Sacrifice were good enough for him, and his Nature deserved no better. When we excite not those elevated Frames of Spirit which are due to such a Being; when we think to put him off with a lame and imperfect Service, we worship him not according to the excellency of his Nature, but put a slight upon his Majestick Sanctity: When we nourish in our Duties those foolish Imaginations which creep upon us; when we bring into, and continue our worldly, carnal, debauched Fancies in his Presence, worse than the nasty Servants, or bemired Dogs, a man would blush to be attended with in his Visits to a neat Person. To be conversing with sordid Sensualities, when we are at the feet of an Infinite God, sitting upon the Throne of his Holiness, is as much a contempt of him, as it would be of a Prince, to bring a Vessel full of nasty Dung with us, when we come to present a Petition to him clothed in his Royal Robes. Or as it would have been to God, if the High Priest should have swept all the Blood and Excrements of the Sacrifices from the Foot of the Altar into the Holy of Holies, and heaped it up before the Mercy Seat, where the Presence of God dwelt between the Cherubims, and afterwards shovel'd it up into the Ark, to be lodged with Aaron's Rod and the Pot of Manna.

8. God's Holiness is slighted in depending upon our imperfect Services to bear us out before the Tribunal of God. This is too ordinary: The Jews were often infected with it , who not well understanding the enormity of their Transgressions, the interweaving of Sin with their Services, and the unspottedness of the Divine Purity, mingled an Opinion of Merit with their Sacrifices, and thought by the cutting the Throat of a Beast, and offering it upon God's Altar, they had made a sufficient Compensation to that Holiness they had offended. Not to speak of many among the Romanists, who have the same notion, thinking to make satisfaction to God, by erecting an Hospital, or endowing a Church, as if this injured Perfection could be contented with the Dregs of their Purses, and the offering of an unjust Mammon, more likely to mind God of the Injury they have done him, than contribute to the appeasing of him. But is it not too ordinary with miserable men, whose Consciences accuse them of their Crimes, to rely upon the mumbling of a few formal Prayers, and in the strength of them to think to stand before the tremendous Tribunal of God, and meet with a Discharge upon this account from any Accusation this Divine Perfection can present against them? Nay, do not the best Christians sometimes find a Principle in them, that makes them stumble in their goings forth to Christ, and glorifying the Holiness of God in that method which he hath appointed? Sometimes casting an eye at their Grace, and sticking a while to this or that Duty, and gazing at the glory of the Temple-building, while they should more admire the glorious Presence that fills it. What is all this but a vilifying of the Holiness of the Divine Nature, as though it would be well enough contented with our Impurities and Imperfections, because they look like a Righteousness in our estimation? As though Dross and Dung, which are the Titles the Apostle gives to all the Righteousness of a Fallen Creature , were valuable in the sight of God, and sufficient to render us comely before him. 'It is a Blasphemy against this Attribute, to pretend that anything so imperfect, so daub'd, as the best of our Services are, can answer to that which is Infinitely Perfect, and be a ground of demanding Eternal Li • e: 'It is at best, to set up a guilded Dagon as a fit Companion for the Ark of his Holiness; our own Righteousness as a suitable Mate for the Righteousness of God: As if he had repented of the Claim he made by the Law to an exact conformity, and thrown off the Holiness of his Nature for the fondling of a Corrupted Creature. Rude and foolish Notions of the Divine Purity, are clearly evidenced by any confidence in any Righteousness of our own, though never so splendid. 'It is a rendering the Righteousness of God, as dull and obscure as that of Men; a mere Out-side, as their own: As blind as the Heathens pictured their Fortune, that knew as little how to discern the Nature and value of the Offerings made to her, as to distribute her gifts, as if it were all one to them, to have a Dog or a Lamb presented in Sacrifice. As if God did not well understand his own Nature, when he enacted so Holy a Law, and strengthened it with so severe a Threatning; which must follow upon our Conceit, that he will accept a Righteousness lower than that, which bears some suitableness to the Holiness of his own Nature, and that of his Law; and that he could easily be put off with a pretended and counterfeit Service. What are the Services of the generality of Men, but Suppositions, that they can bribe God to an Indulgence of them in their Sins, and by an Oral Sacrifice, cause him to devest himself of his Hatred of their former Iniquities, and countenance their following Practises. As the Harlot, that would return fresh to her Uncleanness, upon the confidence that her Peace Offerings had contented the Righteousness of God : As though a small Service could make him wink at our Sins, and lay aside the Glory of his Nature; when alas, the best Duties in the most gracious Persons in this life, are but as the steams of a Spiced Dunghil, a composition of Myrrh and Froth, since there are swarms of Corruptions in their Nature, and secret Sins that they need a cleansing from.

9. 'It is a contemning the Holiness of God, when we charge the Law of God with rigidness. We cast Durt upon the Holiness of God, when we blame the Law of God, because it shackles us, and prohibits our desired Pleasures; and hate the Law of God, as they did the Prophets, because they did not Prophesy smooth things; but called to them, to get them out of the way, and turn aside out of the path, and cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before them, Isai. 30.10, 11. Put us no more in mind of the Holiness of God, and the Holiness of his Law; 'tis a troublesome thing for us to hear of it: Let him be gone from us, since he will not countenance our Vices, and indulge our Crimes; We would rather hear there is no God, than you should tell us of a Holy one. We are contrary to the Law, when we wish it were not so exact; and therefore contrary to the Holiness of God, which set the stamp of Exactness and Righteousness upon it. We think him Injurious to our Liberty, when by his Precept he thwarts our Pleasure; we wish it of another frame, more mild, more suitable to our Minds: 'It is the same, as if we should openly blame God for consulting with his own Righteousness, and not with our Humors, before he settled his Law; that he should not have drawn it from the depths of his Righteous Nature, but squar'd it to accommodate our Corruption.

This being the language of such Complaints, is a reproving God, because he would not be Unholy, that we might be Unrighteous with Impunity. Had the Divine Law been suited to our Corrupt state, God must have been Unholy to have complied with his Rebellious Creature. To charge the Law with rigidness, either in Language or Practice, is the highest contempt of God's Holiness; for it is an Implicit Wish, that God were as defiled, polluted, disorderly, as our Corrupted Selves.

10, The Holiness of God is injured Opinionatively.

(1.) In the Opinion of Venial sins. The Romanists divide Sins into Venial and Mortal: Mortal, are those which deserve Eternal Death; Venial, the lighter sort of Sins, which rather deserve to be pardoned than punished; or if punished, not with an Eternal, but Temporal Punishment. This Opinion hath no foundation in, but is contrary to Scripture. How can any Sin be in its own nature Venial, when the due Wages of every Sin is death, Rom. 6.23. and he, who continues not in everything that the Law commands, falls under a Curse? Gal. 3.10. 'It is a mean thought of the Holiness and Majesty of God to imagine, that any Sin which is against an Infinite Majesty, and as Infinite a Purity both in the Nature of God and the Law of God, should not be considered as infinitely heinous. All Sins are Transgressions of the Eternal Law, and in everyone the Infinite Holiness of God is some way slighted.

(2.) In the Opinion of Works of Supererogation. That is, such Works as are not commanded by God, which yet have such a dignity and worth in their own nature, that the Performers of them do not only merit at God's hands for themselves, but fill up a Treasure of Merits for others, that come short of fulfilling the Precepts God hath enjoin'd. 'It is such a mean thought of God's Holiness, that the Jews, in all the Charges brought against them in Scripture, were never guilty of. And if you consider what pitiful things they are, which are within the compass of such Works, you have sufficient reason to bewail the Ignorance of Man, and the low esteem he hath of so glorious a Perfection. The Whipping themselves often in a Week, extraordinary Watchings, Fastings, Macerating their Bodies, wearing a Capuchins Habit, &c. are pitiful things to give content to an Infinite Purity. As if the Precept of God required only the Inferior degrees of Virtue, and the Counsels the more high and excellent; as if the Law of God, which the Psalmist counts perfect , did not command all Good, and forbid all Evil; as if the Holiness of God had forgotten itself in the framing the Law, and made it a scanty and defective Rule; and the Righteousness of a Creature were not only able to make an Eternal Righteousness, but surmount it. As Man would be at first as knowing as God, so some of his Posterity would be more holy than God; set up a Wisdom against the Wisdom of God, and a Purity above the Divine Purity. Adam was not so presumptuous, he intended no more than an equalling God in Knowledge; but those would exceed him in Righteousness, and not only presume to render a Satisfaction for themselves to the Holiness they have injured, but to make a Purse for the supply of others that are Indigent, that they may stand before the Tribunal of God with a Confidence in the Imaginary Righteousness of a Creature. How horrible is it for those that come short of the Law of God themselves, to think that they can have enough for a Loan to their Neighbors? An unworthy Opinion.

2. Information. It may Inform us, how great is our Fall from God, and how distant we are from him. View the Holiness of God, and take a prospect of the Nature of Man, and be astonished to see a Person created in the Divine Image, degenerated into the Image of the Devil. We are as far fallen from the Holiness of God, which consists in a Hatred of Sin, as the lowest Point of the Earth is from the highest Point of the Heavens. The Devil is not more fallen from the rectitude of his Nature and likeness to God, than we are; and that we are not in the same condition with those Apostate Spirits, is not from anything in our Nature, but from the Mediation of Christ, upon which account God hath indulged in us a continuance of some Remainders of that which Satan is wholly deprived of. We are departed from our Original Pattern; we were created to live the life of God, that is, a life of Holiness; but now we are alienated from the life of God , and of a beautiful piece we are become deformed, daub'd over with the most defiling Mud: We work uncleanness with greediness, according to our ability, as Creatures; as God doth work Holiness with affection and ardency, according to his Infiniteness, as Creator. More distant we are from God by reason of Sin, than the vilest Creature, the most deformed Toad or poisonous Serpent is from the highest and most glorious Angel. By forsaking our Innocence, we departed from God as our Original Copy. The Apostle might well say, Rom. 3.23. that by Sin we are come short of the glory of God. Interpreters trouble themselves much about that place, Man is come short of the glory of God, that is, of the Holiness of God, which is the glory of the Divine Nature, and was pictured in the Rational, Innocent Creature. By the Glory of God, is meant the Holiness of God: As 1 Cor. 3.18. Beholding, as in a glass, the Glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same Image from glory to glory; that is the Glory of God in the Text, into the Image of which we are changed; but the Scripture speaks of no other Image of God, but that of Holiness: We are come short of the glory of God; of the Holiness of God, which is the glory of God; and the Image of it, which was the glory of Man. By Sin, which is particular in opposition to the Purity of God, Man was left many Leagues behind any resemblance to God; he stripped off that which was the glory of his Nature, and was the only means of glorifying God as his Creator. The word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , the Apostle uses, is very significant, Postpon'd by Sin an infinite distance from any imitation of God's Holiness, or any appearance before him in a garb of Nature pleasing to him. Let us lament our Fall, and distance from God.

3. Information. All Unholiness is vile and opposite to the Nature of God. 'It is such a loathsome thing, that the Purity of God's eye is averse from beholding, Hab. 1.3. 'It is not said there, that he will not, but he cannot look on Evil; there cannot be any amicableness between God and Sin, the Natures of both are so directly and unchangeably contrary to one another. Holiness is the Life of God, it endures as long as his Life; He must be Eternally averse from Sin, he can live no longer than he lives in the hatred and loathing of it. If he should for one instant cease to hate it, he would cease to live. To be a Holy God is as Essential to him, as to be a Living God; and he would not be a living, but a dead God, if he were in the least point of Time an Unholy God. He cannot look on Sin without loathing it, he cannot look on Sin but his Heart riseth against it: It must needs be most odious to him, as that which is against the glory of his Nature, and directly opposite to that which is the luster and varnish of all his other Perfections. 'It is the Abominable thing which his Soul hates, Jer. 44.4. the vilest terms imaginable are used to signify it: Do you understand the loathsomeness of a miry Swine, or the nauseousness of the vomit of a Dog? These are Emblems of Sin . Can you endure the steams of putrefied Carkasses from an open Sepulcher ? Is the smell of the stinking sweat or Excrements of a Body delightful? the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 in James 1.21. signifies as much. Or is the sight of a Body overgrown with Scabs and Leprosy grateful to you? So vile, so odious is Sin in the sight of God. 'It is no light thing then to fly in the Face of God, to break his Eternal Law, to dash both the Tables in pieces, to trample the Transcript of God's own Nature under our feet, to cherish that which is inconsistent with his Honor, to lift up our heels against the glory of his Nature, to join Issue with the Devil in stabbing his Heart, and depriving him of his life. Sin in every part of it is an opposition to the Holiness of God, and consequently an envying him a Being and Life, as well as a Glory. If Sin be such a thing, ye that love the Lord, hate Evil.

4. Information. Sin cannot escape a due Punishment. A hatred of Unrighteousness, and consequently a will to punish it, is as Essential to God as a love of Righteousness. Since he is not as an Heathen Idol, but hath Eyes to see, and Purity to hate every Iniquity, he will have an Infinite Justice to punish whatsoever is against Infinite Holiness. As he loves everything that is amiable, so he loathes everything that is filthy, and that constantly without any change; his whole Nature is set against it, he abhors nothing but this. 'It is not the Devils knowledge or activity that his Hatred is terminated in, but the Malice and Unholiness of his Nature; 'tis this only is the Object of his Severity: 'It is in the recompense of this only, that there can be a manifestation of his Justice.

Sin must be punished; for,

1. This Detestation of Sin must be manifested. How should we certainly know his loathing of it, if he did not manifest by some act how ungrateful it is to him? As his love to Righteousness would not appear, without rewarding it; so his hatred of Iniquity would be as little evidenced, without punishing it: His Justice is the great Witness to his Purity. The Punishment therefore inflicted on the Wicked shall be, in some respect, as great as the Rewards bestowed upon the Righteous. Since the hatred of Sin is natural to God, 'tis as natural to him to show one time or other his hatred of it. And since Men have a conceit that God is like them in Impurity, there is a necessity of some manifestation of himself to be Infin • tely distant from those Conceits they have of him, Psal. 50.21. I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. He would else encourage the Injuries done to his Holiness, favor the Extravagances of the Creature, and condemn, or at least slight the Righteousness, both of his own Nature and his Sovereign Law. What way is there for God to manifest this Hatred, but by Threatning the Sinner? and what would this be but a vain Affrightment, and ridiculous to the Sinner, if it were never to be put in execution? There is an indissoluble connection between his Hatred of Sin, and Punishment of the Offender, Psal. 11.5, 6. The wicked his Soul hates: Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire, and brimstone, &c. He cannot approve of it without denying himself, and a total Impunity would be a degree of Approbation.

The Displeasure of God is Eternal and Irreconcileable against Sin; for Sin being absolutely contrary to his holy Nature, He is Eternally contrary to it: If there be not therefore a way to separate the Sin from the Sinner, the Sinner must lie under the Displeasure of God; no displeasure can be manifested without some marks of it upon the Person that lies under that Displeasure. The Holiness of God will right itself of the wrongs done to it, and scatter the Prophaners of it at the greatest distance from him, which is the greatest Punishment that can be inflicted; to be removed far from the Fountain of Life is the worst of Deaths: God can as soon lay aside his Purity, as always forbear his Displeasure against an Impure Person; 'tis all one, not to hate it, and not to manifest his Hatred of it.

2. As his Holiness is natural and necessary, so is the punishment of Unholiness necessary to him. 'It is necessary that he should abominate Sin, and therefore necessary he should discountenance it. The Severities of God against Sin are not vain Scare-crows, they have their foundation in the Righteousness of his Nature; 'tis because he is a Righteous and Holy God, that he will not forgive our Transgressions and Sins, Josh. 24.19. that is, that he will punish them. The Throne of his Holiness is a fiery flame, Dan. 7.9. there is both a pure light and a scorching heat. Whatsoever is contrary to the Nature of God, will fall under the Justice of God; he would else violate his own Nature, deny his own Perfection, seem to be out of love with his own Glory and Life. He doth not hate it out of choice, but from the Immutable propension of his Nature; 'tis not so free an act of his Will, as the Creation of Man and Angels, which he might have forborne as well as effected. As the detestation of Sin results from the universal rectitude of his Nature, so the punishment of Sin follows upon that, as he is the Righteous Governor of the World: 'It is as much against his Nature not to punish it, as it is against his Nature not to loath it; He would cease to be Holy if he ceased to hate it, and he would cease to hate it if he ceased to punish it. Neither the Obedience of our Savior's Life, nor the strength of his Cries, could put a bar to the Cup of his Passion: God so hated Sin, that when it was but imputed to his Son, without any commission of it, he would bring a Hell upon his Soul. Certainly if God could have hated Sin without punishing it, his Son had never felt the smart of his Wrath: His love to his Son had been strong enough to have caused him to forbear, had not the Holiness of his Nature been stronger to move him to inflict a Punishment according to the demerit of the Sin. God cannot but be Holy, and therefore cannot but be Just, because Injustice is a part of Unholiness.

3. Therefore there can be no Communion between God and Unholy spirits. How is it conceivable, that God should hate the Sin, and cherish the Sinner with all his filth in his bosom; that he should Eternally detest the Crime, and Eternally fold the S • nner in his Arms? Can less be expected from the Purity of his Nature, than to separate an impure Soul, as long as it remains so? Can there be any delightful Communion between those whose Natures are contrary? Darkness and Light may as soon kiss each other, and become one Nature; God and the Devil may as soon enter into an Eternal League and Covenant together: For God to have pleasure in wickedness, and to admit Evil to dwell with him, are things equally impossible to his Nature ; while he hates Impurity, he cannot have Communion with an impure Person. It may as soon be expected, that God should hate himself, offer Violence to his own Nature, lay aside his Purity as an Abominable thing, and blot his own Glory, as love an Impure Person, entertain him as his delight, and set him in the same Heaven and Happiness with himself, and his holy Angels: He must needs loath him, he must needs banish him from his Presence, which is the greatest Punishment. God's Holiness and Hatred of Sin, necessarily infer the Punishment of it.

5. Information. There is therefore a necessity of the satisfaction of the Holiness of God by some sufficient Mediator. The Divine Purity could not meet with any acquiescence in all Mankind after the Fall: Sin was hated, the Sinner would be ruined, unless some way were found out to repair the Wrongs done to the Holiness of God; either the Sinner must be condemned forever, or some Satisfaction must be made, that the Holiness of the Divine Nature might Eternally appear in its full luster. That it is Essential to the Nature of God to hate all Unrighteousness, as that which is absolutely repugnant to his Nature, none do question. That the Justice of God is so Essential to him, as that Sin could not be pardoned without Satisfaction, some do question; though this latter seems rationally to follow upon the former . That Holiness is Essential to the Nature of God is evident, because else God may as much be conceived without Purity, as he might be conceived without the creating the Sun or Stars. No Man can in his right Wits frame a right Notion of a Deity, without Purity. It would be a less Blasphemy against the Excellency of God, to conceit him not Knowing, than to imagine him not Holy: And for the Essentialness of his Justice, Joshua joins both his Holiness and his Jealousy as going hand in hand together, Josh. 24.19. He is a Holy God, he is a Jealous God, he will not forgive your sin.

But consider only the Purity of God, since it is contrary to Sin, and consequently hating the Sinner; the guilty Person cannot be reduced to God, nor can the Holiness of God have any complacency in a filthy Person, but as Fire hath in Stubble, to consume it. How the Holy God should be brought to delight in Man without a Salvo for the Rights of his Holiness, is not to be conceived without an impeachment of the Nature of God. The Law could not be abolished; that would reflect indeed upon the Righteousness of the Law-giver; to abolish it because of Sin, would imply a change of the Rectitude of his Nature: Must be change his Holiness for the sake of that which was against his Holiness, in a compliance with a profane and unrighteous Creature? This should engage him rather to maintain his Law, than to null it. And to abrogate his Law as soon as he had enacted it, since Sin stepped into the World presently after it, would be no credit to his Wisdom.

There must be a reparation made of the Honor of God's Holiness; by ourselves it could not be without Condemnation; by another it could not be without a sufficiency in the Person: No Creature could do it. All the Creatures being of a finite Nature, could not make a compensation for the disparagements of Infinite Holiness. He must have despicable and vile Thoughts of this Excellent Perfection, that imagines that a few Tears, and the glavering Fawnings at the death of a Creature, can be sufficient to repair the Wrongs, and restore the Rights of this Attribute. It must therefore be such a compensation as might be commensurate to the Holiness of the Divine Nature and the Divine Law, which could not be wrought by any, but him that was possessed of a Godhead, to give efficacy and exact congruity to it. The Person designed and appointed by God for so great an affair, was one in the form of God, one equal with God, Phil. 2.6. who could not be termed by such a Title of Dignity, if he had not been equal to God in the universal rectitude of the Divine Nature, and therefore in his Holiness. The Punishment due to Sin is translated to that Person for the righting Divine Holiness, and the Righteousness of that Person is communicated to the Sinner for the Pardon of the Offending Creature.

If the Sinner had been Eternally damned, God's hatred of Sin had been evidenced by the strokes of his Justice; but his Mercy to a Sinner had lain in obscurity. If the Sinner had been Pardoned and Saved without such a reparation, Mercy had been evident; but his Holiness had hid its head forever in his own bosom. There was therefore a necessity of such a way to manifest his Purity, and yet to bring forth his Mercy: That Mercy might not always sigh for the destruction of the Creature, and that Holiness might not mourn for the neglect of its Honor.

6. Information. Hence it will follow, There is no justification of a Sinner by anything in himself. After Sin had set foot in the World, Man could present nothing to God acceptable to him, or bearing any proportion to the Holiness of his Law, till God set forth a Person, upon whose account the Acceptation of our Persons and Services is founded, Ephes. 1.6. Who hath made us accepted in the Beloved. The Infinite Purity of God is so glorious, that it shames the Holiness of Angels, as the light of the Sun dims the light of the Fire: Much more will the Righteousness of Fallen Man, who is Vile, and drinks up Iniquity like water, vanish into Nothing in his Presence. With what Self-abasement and Abhorrence ought he to be possessed that comes as short of the Angels in Purity, as a Dunghill doth of a Star? The highest Obedience that ever was performed by any mere Man, since Lapsed Nature, cannot challenge any acceptance with God, or stand before so exact an Inquisition. What Person hath such a clear Innocence, and unspotted Obedience in such a Perfection, as in any degree to suit the Holiness of the Divine Nature? Psal. 143.2. Enter not into judgment with thy Servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. If God should debate the case simply with Man in his own Person, without respecting the Mediator, he were not able to answer one of a thousand. Though we are his Servants, as David was, and perform a sincere Service, yet there are many little Motes and Dust of Sin in the best Works, that cannot lie undiscover'd from the Eye of his Holiness: And if we come short in the least of what the Law requires, we are guilty of all . So that in thy sight shall no man living be justified: In the sight of thy Infinite Holiness, which hates the least spot; in the sight of thy Infinite Justice, which punishes the least Transgression.

God would descend below his own Nature, and vilify both his Knowledge and Purity, should he accept that for a Righteousness and Holiness which is not so in itself; and nothing is so, which hath the least stain upon it contrary to the Nature of God. The most holy Saints in Scripture, upon a prospect of his Purity, have cast away all confidence in themselves; every flash of the Divine Purity has struck them into a deep sense of their own Impurity and shame for it, Job 42.6. Wherefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes. What can the language of any Man be that lies under a sense of Infinite Holiness and his own Defilement in the least, but that of the Prophet, Isai. 6.5. Woe is me, I am undone? And what is there in the World can administer any other thought than this, unless God be considered in Christ, reconciling the World to himself? As a Holy God, so righted, as that he can dispense with the Condemnation of a Sinner, without dispensing with his Hatred of Sin; pardoning the Sin in the Criminal, because it hath been punished in the Surety. That Righteousness which God hath set forth for Justification, is not our own, but a Righteousness which is of God, Phil. 3.9, 10. of God's appointing, and of God's performing; appointed by the Father, who is God, and performed by the Son, who is one with the Father. A Righteousness surmounting that of all the glorious Angels, since it is an Immutable one which can never fail, an Everlasting Righteousness, Dan. 9.24. A Righteousness wherein the Holiness of God can acquiesce, as considered in itself, because it is a Righteousness of one equal with God. As we therefore dishonor the Divine Majesty, when we insist upon our own bemir'd Righteousness for our Justification; (as if a Mortal Man were as just as God, and a Man as pure as his Maker, Job 4.17.) So we highly honor the Purity of his Nature, when we charge our Selves with Folly, acknowledge ourselves Unclean, and accept of that Righteousness which gives a full content to his Infinite Purity. There can be no Justification of a Sinner by anything in himself.

7. It In • orms us, If Holiness be a glorious Perfection of the Divine Nature, then the Deity of Christ might be argued from hence. He is indeed dignified with the Title of the Holy One, Acts 3.14, 16. a Title often given to God in the Old Testament; and he is called the Holy of Holies, Dan. 9.24. but because the Angels seemed to be termed holy Ones, Dan. 4.13, 17. and the most Sacred place in the Temple was also called the Holy of Holies, I shall not insist upon that. But you find our Savior particularly applauded by the Angels, as Holy; when this Perfection of the Divine Nature, together with the Incommunicable Name of God, are linked together, and ascribed to him. Isai. 6.3. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts, and the whole Earth is full of his glory, which the Apostle interprets of Christ, John 12.39, 41. Isaiah again, He hath blinded their Eyes, and hardened their Hearts, that they should not see with their Eyes, nor understand with their Hearts, and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said Isaiah, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. He that Isaiah saw environ'd with the Seraphims in a Reverential posture before his face, and praised as most Holy by them, was the True and Eternal God; such Acclamations belong to none, but the great Jehovah, God Blessed forever: But, saith John, It was the glory of Christ that Isaiah saw in this Vision; Christ therefore is God blessed forever, of whom it was said, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts . The Evangelist had been speaking of Christ, the Miracles which he wrought, the obstinacy of the Jews against believing on him; his Glory therefore is to be referred to the Subject he had been speaking of. The Evangelist was not speaking of the Father, but of the Son, and cites those words out of Isaiah; not to teach anything of the Father, but to show that the Jews could not believe in Christ. He speaks of Him that had wrought so many Miracles; but Christ wrought those Miracles: He speaks of him whom the Jews refused to believe on; but Christ was the Person they would not believe on, while they acknowledged God. It was the Glory of this Person Isaiah saw, and this Person Isaiah spake of, if the Words of the Evangelist be of any credit. The Angels are too holy to give Acclamations belonging to God, to any but Him that is God.

8. It Informs us, that God is fully fit for the Government of the World. The Righteousness of God's Nature qualifies Him to be Judge of the World: If he were not perfectly Righteous and Holy, he were uncapable to govern and Judge the World; Rom. 3.5. If there be unrighteousness with God, how shall he judge the World? God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment, Job 34.12. How despicable is a Judge that wants Innocence? As Omniscience fits God to be a Judge, so Holiness fits him to be a Righteous Judge; Psal. 1.6. The Lord knows, that is, loves the way of the Righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

9. Information. If Holiness be an eminent Perfection of the Divine Nature, The Christian Religion is of a Divine Extraction. It discovers the Holiness of God, and forms the Creature to a conformity to him. It gives us a prospect of his Nature, represents him in the Beauty of Holiness, Psal. 110.3. more than the whole Glass of the Creation. 'It is in this Evangelical Glass the Glory of the Lord is beheld, and rendered amiable and imitable . 'It is a Doctrine according to Godliness, 1 Tim. 6.3. directing us to live the Life of God; a life worthy of God, and worthy of our first Creation by his hand. It takes us off from ourselves, fixeth us upon a Noble End, points our Actions and the scope of our lives to God. It quells the Monsters of Sin, discountenanceth the Motes of Wickedness; and it is no mean Argument for the Divinity of it, that it sets us no lower a Pattern for our Imitation, than the Holiness of the Divine Majesty. God is exalted upon the Throne of his Holiness in it, and the Creature advanced to an Image and resemblance of it, 1 Pet. 1.16. Be ye holy, for I am holy.

Use. 2. The Second use is for Comfort. This Attribute frowns upon Lapsed Nature, but smiles in the Restorations made by the Gospel. God's Holiness, in conjunction with his Justice, is Terrible to a guilty Sinner; but now, in conjunction with his Mercy, by the Satisfaction of Christ, 'tis sweet to a Believing Penitent. In the first Covenant, the Purity of his Nature was joined with the Rigours of his Justice: In the second Covenant, the Purity of his Nature is joined with the Sweetness and Tenderness of his Mercy. In the one, Justice flames against the Sinner in the right of Injur'd Holiness: In the other, Mercy yearns towards a Believer, with the consent of Righted Holiness. To rejoice in the Holiness of God, is the true and genuine Spirit of a Renewed Man: My heart rejoiceth in the Lord; what follows? There is none holy as the Lord, 1 Sam. 2.1, 2. Some Perfections of the Divine Nature are Astonishing, some Affrighting; but this may may fill us both with Astonishment at it, and a Joy in it.

1. By Covenant we have an Interest in this Attribute, as well as any other. In that Clause of God's being our God, entire God with all his Glory, all his Perfections are past over as a portion, and a gracious Soul is brought into Union with God, as his God: Not with a part of God, but with God in the Simplicity, Extent, Integrity of his Nature; and therefore in this Attribute. And upon some account it may seem more in this Attribute, than in any other; for if he be our God, he is our God in his Life and Glory, and therefore in his Purity especially, without which he could not live, he could not be happy and blessed. Little comfort will it be to have a dead God, or a vile God made over to us: And as by this Covenant he is our Father, so he gives us his Nature, and communicates his Holiness in all his Dispensations; and in those that are severest, as well as those that are sweetest; Heb. 12.10. But he corrects us for our profit, that we might be partakers of his Holiness. Not simply, partakers of Holiness, but of his Holiness; to have a Portrayture of it in our Nature, a Meddal of it in our hearts, a spark of the same Nature with that Immense splendor and flame in himself. The Holiness of a Covenant Soul is a resemblance of the Holiness of God, and formed by it: As the Picture of the Sun in a Cloud is a fruit of his Beams, and an Image of its Author. The fullness of the Perfection of Holiness remains in the Nature of God, as the fullness of the Light doth in the Sun; yet there are transmissions of Light from the Sun to the Moon, and it is a Light of the same Nature both in the one and in the other. The Holiness of a Creature, is nothing else but a reflection of the Divine Holiness upon it; and to make the Creature capable of it, God takes various methods, according to his Covenant Grace.

2. This Attribute renders God a fit Object for Trust and Dependance. The Notion of an Unholy and Unrighteous God, is an uncomfortable Idea of him, and beats off our hands from laying any hold of him. 'It is upon this Attribute the Reputation and Honor of God in the World is built: What encouragement can we have to believe him, or what Incentives could we have to serve him, without the luster of this in his Nature? The very thought of an Unrighteous God, is enough to drive Men at the greatest distance from him: As the Honesty of a Man gives a reputation to his Word; so doth the Holiness of God give credit to his Promise. 'It is by this he would have us stifle our Fears, and fortify our Trust, Isai. 41.14. Fear not thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the holy one of Israel: He will be in his Actions, what he is in his Nature. Nothing shall make him defile his own Excellency: Unrighteousness is the ground of Mutability; but the Promise of God doth never fail, because the rectitude of his Nature doth never languish: Were his Attributes without the conduct of this, they would be altogether formidable. As this is the glory of all his other Perfections; so this only renders him comfortable to a Believing Soul, Might we not fear his Power to crush us, his Mercy to overlook us, his Wisdom to design against us, if this did not influence them? What an oppression is Power without Righteousness in the hand of a Creature, destructive instead of protecting? The Devil is a mighty Spirit, but not fit to be trusted, because he is an Impure Spirit. When God would give us the highest Security of the sincerity of his Intentions, he swears by this Attribute : His Holiness as well as his Truth is laid to pawn for the Security of his Promise. As we make God the Judge between us and others, when we swear by him; so he makes his Holiness the Judge between himself and his People, when he swears by it.

1. 'It is this renders him fit to be confided in for the answer of our Prayers. This is t • e ground of his readiness to give. If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts; how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good th • ng • to them that ask him? Though the holiness of God be not mentioned, yet it is to be understood; the Emphasis lies in those words if you being evil: God is then considered in a disposition contrary to this, which can be nothing but his Righteousness. If you that are unholy, and have so much Corruption in you, to render you cruel, can bestow upon your Children the good things they want, how much more shall God, who is holy, and hath nothing in him to check his mercifulness to his Creatures, grant the Petitions of his Suppliants? 'Twas this Attribute edge'd the siduciary importunity of the Souls under the Altar for the revenging their blood unjustly shed upon the Earth; Rev. 6.10. How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the Earth? Let not thy holiness stand with folded Arms as careless of the eminent Sufferings of those that fear thee; we implore thee by the holiness of thy Nature, and the truth of thy Word.

2. This renders him fit to be confided in for the comfort of our Souls in a broken condition. The reviving the hearts of the spiritually afflicted, is a part of the holiness of his Nature; Isa. 57.15. Thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity, whose name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble. He acknowledgeth himself the lofty One, they might therefore fear, he would not revive them; but he is also the holy One, and therefore he will refresh them; he is not more lofty than he is holy; besides the argument of the immutability of his Promise, and the might of his Power, here is the holiness of his Nature moving him to pity his drooping Creature: His Promise is ushered in with the name of power, high and lofty One, to bar their distrust of his strength; and with a declaration of his holiness, to check any despair of his Will▪ There is no ground to think I should be false to my word, or misemploy my Power, since that cannot be, because of the holiness of my Name and Nature.

3. This renders him fit to be confided in for the maintenance of grace, and protection of us against our spiritual Enemies. What our Savior thought an argument in Prayer, we may well take as a ground of our confidence. In the strength of this he puts up his suit, when in his mediatory Capacity he intercedes for the preservation of his People; John 17.11. Holy Father, keep through thy own Name those that thou hast given me that they may be one as we are. Holy Father, not merciful Father, or powerful, or wise Father, but holy; and Verse 25. righteous Father. Christ pleads that Attribute for the performance of God's Word, which was laid to pawn when he past his word: For it was by his Holiness that he swore, That his seed should endure forever, and his Throne as the Sun before him ; which is meant of the perpetuity of the Covenant which he made with Christ, and is also meant of the preservation of the mystical Seed of David, and the perpetuating his loving kindness to them . Grace is an Image of God's holiness, and therefore the holiness of God is most proper to be used as an Argument to interest and engage him in the preservation of it. In the midst of Church provocations, he will not utterly extinguish, because he is the holy One in the midst of her : Nor in the midst of Judgments will he condemn his people to death, because he is their holy one ; but their Enemies shall be ordained for Judgment, and established for Correction. One Prophet assures them in the Name of the Lord, upon the strength of this Perfection; and the other upon the same ground is confident of the protection of the Church, because of God's holiness engaged in an inviolable Covenant.

3. Comfort. Since holiness is a glorious Perfection of the Nature of God, he will certainly value every holy Soul. 'It is of a greater value with him than the Souls of all men in the World, that are destitute of it: Wicked men are the worst of vilenesses, mere dross and dunghill ; Purity then, which is contrary to wickedness, must be the most precious thing in his esteem; he must needs love that quality which he is most pleased with in himself, as a father looks with most delight upon the child which is possessed with those dispositions he most values in his own nature. His Countenance doth behold the upright, Ps. 11.7. He looks upon them with a full and open Face of favor, with a countenance clear, unmaskt and smiling, with a Face full of delight: Heaven itself is not such a pleasing Object to him, as the Image of his own increated holiness in the created holiness of Men and Angels: As a man esteems that most, which is most like him, of his own Generation, more than a piece of Art, which is merely the product of his wit or strength. And he must love holiness in the Creature, he would not else love his own Image, and consequently would undervalue himself: He despiseth the Image the wicked bears , but he cannot disesteem his own stamp on the godly; he cannot but delight in his own work, his choice work, the Master-piece of all his works, the new Creation of things; that which is next to himself, as being a Divine Nature like himself : When he overlooks strength, parts, knowledge, he cannot overlook this; He sets apart him that is godly for himself, Psal. 4.3. as a peculiar Object to take pleasure in, he reserves such for his own complacency, when he leaves the rest of the World to the Devils power; he is choice of them above all his other works, and will not let any have so great a propriety in them as himself. If it be so dear to him here in its imperfect and mixed condition, that he appropriates it as a peculiar Object for his own delight; how much more will the unspotted purity of glorified Saints be infinitely pleasing to him? So that he will take less pleasure in the material Heavens than in such a Soul. Sin only is detestable to God, and when this is done away, the Soul becomes as lovely in his account, as before it was loathsome.

4. 'It is comfort, upon this account, That God will perfect holiness in every upright Soul. We many times distrust God, and despond in ourselves, because of the infinite holiness of the Divine Nature, and the dunghill Corruptions in our own; but the holiness of God engageth him to the preservation of it, and consequently to the perfection of it; as appears by our Savior's Argument, Joh. 17.11. Holy Father, keep through thy own name, those whom thou hast given me; to what end? that they may be one as we are; one with us, in the resemblances of Purity. And the holiness of the Soul is used as an Argument by the Psalmist. Psal. 86.2. Preserve my soul for I am holy; that is, I have an ardent desire to holiness: Thou hast separated me from the mass of the corrupted World, preserve & perfect me with the Assembly of the glorified Choir. The more holy any are, the more communicative they are; God being most holy, is most communicative of that which he most esteems in himself, and delights to see in his Creature: He 〈◊〉 therefore more ready to impart his holiness to them, that beg for it, than to communicate his knowledge or his power. Though he were holy, yet he let Adam fall, who never petition'd his Holiness to preserve him; he let him fall, to declare the Holiness of his own Nature, which had wanted its due manifestation without it: But since that cannot be declared in a higher manner than it hath been already in the death of the Surety, that bore our Guilt, there is no fear he should cast the work out of his hands, since the design of the permission of man's Apostasy, in the discovery of the perfections of his Nature, has been fully answered. The finishing the good work, he hath begun, hath a relation to the glory of Christ; and his own glory in Christ to be manifested in the day of his Appearing , wherein the glory, both of his own holiness, and the holiness of the Mediator, are to receive their full manifestation. As it is a part of the holiness of Christ to sanctify his Church , till not a wrinkle or spot be left; so it is the part of God not to leave that work imperfect, which his holiness hath attempted a second time to beautify his Creature with. He will not cease exalting this Attribute, which is the Believers by the new Covenant, till he utters that applauding Speech of his own work, Cant. 4.7. Thou art all fair, my Love, there is no spot in thee.

[Use.] 3. Is for Exhortation. Is holiness an eminent perfection of the Divine Nature, then

1. Let us get and preserve right and strong apprehensions of this Divine Perfection. Without a due sense of it, we can never exalt God in our hearts; and the more distinct Conceptions we have of this, and the rest of his Attributes, the more we glorify him. When Moses considered God as his strength and salvation, he would exalt him , and he could never break out in so admirable a Doxology as that in the Text, without a deep sense of the glory of his Purity, which he speaks of with so much admiration. Such a sense will be of use to us.

1. In promoting genuine Convictions. A deep consideration of the holiness of God cannot but be followed with a deep consideration of our impure and miserable Condition by reason of sin: We cannot glance upon it without reflections upon our own Vileness. Adam no sooner heard the Voice of a holy God in the Garden, but he considered his own nakedness with shame and fear : Much less can we fix our Minds upon it, but we must be touched with a sense of our own uncleanness. The clear beams of the Sun discover that filthiness in our Garments and Members, which was not visible in the darkness of the night. Impure Metals are discerned by comparing them with that which is pure and perfect in its kind. The sense of guilt is the first natural Result upon a sense of this excellent Perfection; and the sense of the Imperfection of our own Righteousness is the next. Who can think of it, and reflect upon himself as an Object fit for Divine Love? Who can have a due thought of it without regarding himself as stubble before a consuming Fire? Who can without a confusion of heart and face, glance upon that pure Eye which beholds with detestation, the foul Motes as well as the filthier and bigger Spots? When Isaiah saw his glory, and heard how highly the Angels exalted God for this Perfection, he was in a cold sweat, ready to swoon, till a Seraphim, with a Coal from the Altar, both purged and revived him . They are sound and genuine Convictions, which have the prospect of Divine Purity for their immediate Spring, and not a foresight of our own Misery; when it is not the punishment we have deserved, but the holiness we have offended, most grates our hearts. Such Convictions are the first rude Draughts of the Divine Image in our Spirits; and grateful to God, because they are an acknowledgment of the glory of this Attribute, and the first mark of honor given to it by the Creature: Those that never had a sense of their own Vileness, were always destitute of a sense of God's holiness. And by the way we may observe, That those that scoff at any for hanging down the head under the Consideration and Conviction of Sin, (as is too usual with the World) scoff at them for having deeper Apprehensions of the Purity of God than themselves, and consequently make a mock of the holiness of God, which is the ground of those Convictions; a sense of this would prevent such a damnable reproaching.

2. A sense of this will render us humble in the possession of the greatest holiness a Creature were capable of. We are apt to be proud with the Pharisee, when we look upon others wallowing in the Mire of base and unnatural Lusts; but let any clap their Wings, if they can, in a vain boasting and exaltation, when they view the holiness of God. What Torch, if it had reason, would be proud and swagger in its own light, if it compared itself with the Sun? Who can stand before this holy Lord God, is the just reflection of the holiest Person, as it was of those 1 Sam. 6.20. that had felt the marks of his jealousy after their looking into the Ark, though likely out of affection to it, and triumphant joy at its return. When did the Angels testify, by the covering of their Faces, their weakness to bear the luster of his M • jesty, but when they beheld his glory? When did they signify by their covering their feet the shame of their own Vileness, but when their hearts wer fullest of the applaudings of this Perfection ? Though they found themselves without spot, yet not with such a holiness, that they could appear either with their faces or feet unvail'd and unmaskit in the Presence of God. Doth the immense splendor of this Attribute, engender shaming reflections in those pure Spirits? What will it, • h •• should it do in us, that dwell in Houses of Clay, and creep up and down with that Clay upon our backs, and too much of it in our hearts? The Stars themselves which appear beautiful in the night, are maskt at the awaking of the Sun: What a dim light is that of a Glowworm to that of the Sun? The apprehensions of this made the Elders humble themselves in the midst of their glory, by casting down their Crowns before his Throne ; a Metaphor taken from the triumphing Generals among the Romans, who hung up their victorious Laurels in the Capitol, dedicating them to their God's▪ acknowledging them their Superiors in strength, and Authors of their victory. This self-emptiness at the consideration of Divine Purity, is the note of the true Church represented by the 24 Elders, and a note of a true Member of the Church; whereas boasting of Perfection & Merit is the property of the Antichristian tribe, that have mean thoughts of this adorable Perfection, & think themselves more righteous than the unspotted Angels. What a self annihilation is therein a good man, when the sense of Divine Purity is most lively in him; yea, how detestable is he to himsel? There is as little proportion between the holiness of the Divine Majesty, and that of the most righteous Creature, as there is between a nearness of a Person that stands upon a Mountain to the Sun, and of him that beholds him in a Vale, one is nearer than the other, but it is an advantage not to be boasted of, in regard of the vast distance that is between the Sun and the elevated Spectator.

3. This would make us full of an affectionate Reverence in all our approaches to God. By this Perfection God is rendered venerable, and fit to be reverenc'd by his Creature; and magnificent thoughts of it in the Creature would awaken him to an actual reverence of the Divine Majesty. Psal. 111.9. Holy and reverend is his name; a good opinion of this would engender in us a sincere respect towards him; we should then serve the Lord with fear, as the Expression is Psal. 2.11. that is, be afraid to cast anything before him that may offend the eyes of his Purity. Who would venture rashly and garishly into the presence of an eminent Moralist, or of a righteous King upon his Throne? The fixedness of the Angels arose from the continual prospect of this. What if we had been with Isaiah when he saw the Vision, and beheld him in the same glory, and the heavenly Choir in their reverential Posture in the Service of God; would it not have barred our wanderings, and stak'd us down to our Duty? Would not the fortifying an Idea of it in our Minds produce the same effect? 'It is for want of this we carry ourselves so loosely and unbecomingly in the Divine Presence, with the same, or meaner Affections than those wherewith we stand before some vile Creature, that is our Superior in the World; as though a piece of filthy Flesh were more valuable than this Perfection of the Divinity. How doth the Psalmist double his Exhortation to men to sing Praise to God, Psal. 47.6. Sing praise to God, sing praises; sing praise to our King, sing praise; because of his Majesty, and the Purity of his Dominion: And verse 8. God reigns over the Heathen, God sits upon the Throne of his Holiness. How would this elevate us in Praise, and prostrate us in Prayer, when we praise and pray with an understanding and insight of that Nature we bless or implore; as he speaks verse 7. Sing ye praise with understanding. The holiness of God in his Government and Dominion, the holiness of his Nature, and the holiness of his Precepts, should beget in us an humble respect in our Approaches. The more we grow in a sense of this, the more shall we advance in the true performance of all our Duties. Those Nations which adored the Sun, had they at first seen his Brightness wrapped and maskt in a Cloud, and paid a veneration to it, how would their Adorations have mounted to a greater point, after they had seen it in its full brightness, shaking off those Vails, and chasing away the Mists before it; what a profound reverence would they have paid it, when they beheld it in its Glory and Meridian Brightness? Our reverence to God in all our Addresses to him will arrive to greater degrees, if every act of Duty be ushered in, and seasoned with the thoughts of God as sitting upon a Throne of Holiness; we shall have a more becoming sense of our own Vileness, a greater ardor to his Service, a deeper respect in his Presence, if our Understanding be more cleared, and possessed with Notions of this Perfection. Thus take a view of God in this part of his Glory, before you fall down before his Throne, and assure yourselves you will find your hearts and services quickened with a new and lively Spirit.

4. A due sense of this Perfection in God would produce in us a fear of God, and arm us against Temptations and Sin. What made the Heathens so wanton and loose, but the representations of their God's as vicious? Who would stick at Adulteries and more prodigious Lusts, that can take a Pattern for them from the Person he adores for a Deity? Upon which account Plato would have Poets banished from his Commonwealth, because by dressing up their God's in wanton garbs in their Poems, they encouraged wickedness in the People. But if the thoughts of God's holiness were imprest upon us, we should regard sin with the same eye, mark it with the same detestation in our measures, as God himself doth. So far as we are sensible of the Divine Purity, we should account sin vile as it deserves; we should hate it entirely, without a grain of love to it, and hate it perpetually. Psal. 119.104, Through thy Precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. He looks into God's Statute-Book, and thereby arrives to an understanding of the Purity of his Nature, whence his hatred of Iniquity commenc'd. This would govern our Motion, check our Vices; it would make us tremble at the hissing of a Temptation: When a Corrup ion did but peep out, and put forth its head, a look to the Divine Purity would be attended with a fresh Con • oy of Strength to resist it. There is such Fortification, as to be wrapped up in the sense of this: This would fill us with an awe of God; we should be ashamed to admit any filthy thing into us, which we know is detestable to his pure Eye. As the approach of a grave and serious Man makes Children hasten their Trifles out of t • e way; so would a Consideration of this Attribute make us cast away our Idols, and fling away our ridiculous thoughts and designs.

5. A due sense of this Perfection, would inflame us with a vehement desire to be conformed to him. All our Desires would be ardent to regulate ourselves according to this Pattern of Holiness and Goodness, which is not to be equalled; the Contemplating it as it shines forth in the Face of Christ, will transform us into the same Image . Since our lapsed state, we cannot behold the holiness of God in itself without affrightment; nor is it an Object of Imitation, but as tempered in Christ to our view. When we cannot without blinding ourselves, look upon the Sun in its Brightness, we may behold it through a color'd Glass, whereby the luster of it is moderated, without dazzling our eyes. The sense of it will furnish us with a greatness of mind, that little things will be contemned by us; Motives of a greater alloy would have little influence upon us; we should have the highest Motives to every Duty, and Motives of the same strain which influence • he Angels above. It would change us, not only into an Angelical Nature, but a Divine Nature: We should act like men of another Sphere; as if we had received our Original in another World, and seen with Angels the ravishing Beauties of Heaven. How little would the mean Employments of the World sink us into dirt and mud? How often hath the Meditation of the Courage of a Valiant Man, or Acuteness and Industry of a Learned Person, spurred on some men to an imitation of them, and transformed them into the same Nature? As the looking upon the Sun imprints an Image of the Sun upon our eye, that we seem to behold nothing but the Sun a while after. The view of the Divine Purity would fill us with a holy generosity to imitate him, more than the Examples of the best men upon Earth. It was a saying of a Heathen, That if Virtue were visible, it would kindle a noble flame of Love to it in the heart, by its ravishing beauty. Shall the Infinite Purity of the Author of all Virtue come short of the strength of a Creature? Can we not render that visible to us by frequent Meditation, which though it be invisible in his Nature, is made visible in his Law, in his Ways, in his Son? It would make us ready to obey him, since we know he cannot Command anything that is sinful, but what is holy, just, and good: It would put all our Aff ctions in their due place, elevate them above the Creature, and subject them to the Creator.

6. It would make us patient and contented under all God's Dispensations. All penal Evils are the Fruits of his Holiness, as he is Judge and Governor of the World: He is not an Arbitrary Judge, nor doth any Sentence pronounced, nor Warrant for Execution issue from him, but what bears upon it a Stamp of the Righteousness of his Nature; he doth nothing by Passion or Unrighteousness, but according to the Eternal Law of his own unstained Nature, which is the Rule to him in his Works, the Basis and Foundation of his Throne and Sovereign Dominion. Psal. 89.14. Justice, or Righteousness, and Judgment are the Habitation of thy Throne; upon these his Sovereign Power is established: So that there can be no just Complaint or Indict ••• t brought against any of his Proceedings with men. How doth our Savior, who had the highest Apprehensions of God's Holiness, justify God in his deepest Distresses, when he cried and was not answered in the particular he desired, in that Prophetick Psalm of him, Psal. 22.2, 3. I cry day and night, but thou hearest not. Thou seemest to be deaf to all my Petitions, afar off from the words of my roaring; but thou art holy. I cast no blame upon thee: All thy dealings are squar'd by thy holiness, this is the only Law to thee; in this I acquiesce. 'It is part of thy holiness to hide thy face from me, to show thereby thy detestation of sin. Our Savior adores the Divine Purity in his sharpest Agony, and a like sense of it would guide us in the same steps to acknowledge and glorify it, in our greatest desertions and afflictions; especially since as they are the fruit of the holiness of his Nature, so they are the means to impart to us clearer stamps of holiness, according to that in himself, which is the original Copy . He melts us down as Gold, to fit us for the receiving a new Impression, to mortify the Affections of the Flesh, and clothe us with the Graces of his Spirit. The due sense of this would make us to submit to his stroke, and to wait upon him for a good issue of his dealings.

2. Exhortation. Is holiness a Perfection of the Divine Nature? Is it the glory of the Deity? Then let us glorify this holiness of God. Moses glorifies it in the Text, and glorifies it in a Song, which was a Copy for all Ages. The whole Corporation of Seraphims have their Mouths filled with the praises of it. The Saints, whither Militant on Earth, or Triumphant in Heaven, are to continue the same Acclamation, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts . Neither Angels nor glorified Spirits exalt at the same rate, the Power which formed them Creatures, nor Goodness which preserves them in a blessed Immortality; As they do holiness, which they bear some beams of in their own Nature, and whereby they are capacitated to stand before his Throne. Upon the account of this, a Debt of Praise is demanded of all Rational Creatures by the Psalmist, Psal. 99.3. Let them praise thy great and terrible Name, for it is holy. Not so much for the greatness of his Majesty, or the treasures of his Justice; but as they are considered in conjunction with his holiness, which renders them beautiful; for it is holy. Grandeur and Majesty simply in themselves, are not Objects of Praise, nor do they merit the Acclamations of men, when destitute of Righteousness: This only renders everything else adorable; and this adorns the Divine Greatness with an amiableness: Isa. 12.6. Great is the holy One of Israel in the midst of thee; and makes his Might worthy of Praise, Luke 1.49. In honoring this, which is the soul and spirit of all the rest, we give a glory to all the Perfections which constitute and beautify his Nature: And without the glorifying this, we glorify nothing of them, though we should extol every other single Attribute a thousand times. He values no other Adoration of his Creatures, unless this be interested, nor accepts anything as a glory from them; Levite. 10.3. I will be sanctified in them that come near me, and I will be glorified. As if he had said, in manifesting my Name to be holy, you truly, you only honor me. And as the Scripture seldom speaks of this Perfection without a particular Emphasis, it teaches us not to think of it without a special Elevation of heart: By this act only, while we are on Earth, can we join consort with the Angels in Heaven; he that doth not honor it, delight in it, and in the meditation of it, hath no resemblance of it; he hath none of the Image, that delights not in the Original. Every thing of God is glorious, but this most of all. If he built the World principally for anything, it was for the communication of his Goodness, and display of his Holiness. He formed the Rational Creature to manifest his Holiness in that Law whereby he was to be governed: Then deprive not God of the design of his own Glory.

We honor this Attribute,

1. When we make it the ground of our love to God. Not because he is gracious to us, but holy in himself. As God honors it, in loving himself for it, we should honor it, by pitching our Affections upon him chiefly for it. What renders God amiable to himself, should render him lovely to all his Creatures. Isa. 42.21. The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness sak • ▪ If the hatred of evil be the immediate result of a love to God, then the peculiar object or term of our love to God, must be that Perfection which stands in direct opposition to the hatred of evil. Psal. 97.10. Ye that love the Lord, hate evil. When we honor his holiness in every stamp and impression of it; his Law, not principally because of its usefulness to us, its accommodateness to the order of the World, but for its innate Purity, and his People not for our interest in them, so much as for bearing upon them this glittering mark of the Deity, we honor then the Purity of the Law-giver, and the Excellency of the Sanctifier.

2. We honor it, when we regard chiefly the illustrious appearance of this in his Judgments in the World. In a case of Temporal Judgment, Moses celebrates it in the Text: In a case of Spiritual Judgments, the Angels applaud it in Isaiah. All his Severe proceedings are nothing but the strong breathings of this Attribute. Purity is the flash of his revenging sword. If he did not hate evil, his Vengeance would not reach the Committers of it: He is a Refiners fire in the day of his Anger : By his separating Judgments, he takes away the wicked of the earth like Dross, Psal. 119.119. How is his holiness honored, when we take notice of his sweeping out the rubbish of the World: How he suits punishment to sin, and discovers his hatred of the matter and circumstances of the Evil, in the matter and circumstances of the Judgment. This Perfection is legible in every stroke of his Sword; we honor it when we read the syllables of it, and not by standing amazed only at the greatness and severity of the Blow, when we read how holy he is in his most terrible Dispensations: For as in them God magnifies the greatness of his Power, so he sanctifies himself; that is, declares the Purity of his Nature as a Revenger of all Impiety. Ezek. 38.22, 23. And I will plead against him with Pestilence, and with Blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the people that are with him, an overflowing Rain and great Hail-stones, Fire and Brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself.

3. We honor this Attribute, when we take notice of it in every accomplishment of his Promise, and every grant of a Mercy. His Truth is but a branch of his Righteousness, a slip from this Root. He is glorious in Holiness in the account of Moses, because he led forth his People whom he had redeemed, Exod. 15.13. His People by a Covenant with their Fathers, being the God of Moses, the God of Israel, and the God of their Fathers: Verse 2. My God, and my Fathers God, I will exalt thee. For what? for his faithfulness to his Promise. The holiness of God, which Mary, Luke 1.49. magnifies, is sum'd up in this, the help he afforded his Servant Israel in the remembrance of his mercy, as he spake to our Fathers, to Abraham and his Seed forever, Verse 54, 55. The certainty of his Co • enant Mercy depends upon an unchangeableness of his holiness. What are sure mercies, are holy mercies in the Septuagint; and in Acts 13.34. which makes that Tr nslation Canonical. His nearness to answer us when we call upon him for suc • Mercies, is a fruit of the holiness of his Name and Nature. Psal. 145.17. The Lord is holy in all his works; the Lord is nigh to all them that call upon him. Hannah, after a return of Prayer, sets a particular mark upon this in her Song, 1 Sam. 2.2. There is none holy as the Lord; separated from all Dross, firm to his Covenant, and righteous in it to his Suppliants that confide in him, and plead his Word. When we observe the workings of this in every return of Prayer, we honor it; 'tis a sign the Mercy is really a return of Prayer, and not a Mercy of course, bearing upon it only the Characters of a common Providence. This was the Perfection David would bless for the Catalogue of Mercies in Psal. 103.1. &c, Bless his (holy) Name. Certainly one reason why sincere Prayer is so delightful to him, is because it puts him upon the exercise of this his beloved Perfection, which he so much delights to honor. Since God acts in all those as the Governor of the World, we honor him not, unless we take notice of that Righteousness which sits him for a Governor, and is the inward Spring of all his Motions. Gen. 18.25. Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right? It was his design in his pity to Israel, as well as the Calamities he intended against the Heathens, to be sanctified in them; that is, declared holy in his Merciful, as well as his Judicial procedure . Hereby God credits his Righteousness, which seemed to be forgotten by the one, and contemned by the other , he removes by this all suspicion of any unfaithfulness in him.

4. We honor this Attribute, when we trust his Covenant, and Promise against outward Appearances. Thus our Savior in the Prophecy of him ; when God seemed to bar up the Gates of his Palace against the entry of anymore Petitions, This Attribute proves the support of the Redeemers Soul; But thou art holy, Oh thou that inhabitest the Praises of Israel: As it refers to what goes before, it has been twice explained; as it refers to what follows, it is a ground of trust, Thou inhabitest the Praises of Israel: Thou hast had the Praises of Israel for many Ages for thy holiness. How? Our Fathers trusted in thee, and thou didst deliver them; They honored thy holiness by their trust and thou didst honor their Faith by a deliverance; thou always hadst a Purity that would not shame nor confound them. I will trust in thee as thou art holy, and expect the breaking out of this Attribute for my good as well as my Predecessors; Our Fathers trusted in thee &c.

5. We honor this Attribute, when we show a greater Affection to the marks of his holiness in times of the greatest Contempt of it. As the Psalmist, Psal. 119.126, 127. They have made void thy Law, therefore I love thy Commandments above Gold. While they spurn at the Purity of thy Law, I will value it above the Gold they possess; I will esteem it as Gold, because others count it as Dross: By their scorn of it, my love to it shall be the warmer, and my hatred of iniquity shall be the sharper: The disdain of others should enflame us with a zeal and fortitude to appear in the behalf of his despised Honor. We honor this Holiness many other ways; by preparation for our addresses to him out of a sense of his purity: When we imitate it; As he honors us by teaching us his Statutes ; so we honor him by learning and observing them. When we beg of him to show himself a Refiner of us, to make us more conformable to him in holiness, and bless him for any communication of it to us, it render us beautiful and lovely in his sight.

To conclude; To honor it is the way to engage it for us: To give it the glory of what it hath done by the arm of power for our rescue from Sin, and beating down our Corruptions at his feet, is the way to see more of its marvelous works, & behold a clearer brightness. As unthankfulness makes him withdraw his Grace , so glorifying him causes him to impart it. God honors men in the same way they honor him: When we honor him by acknowledging his Purity, he will honor us by communicating of it to us. This is the way to derive a greater excellency to our Souls.

3. Exhortation. Since holiness is an eminent Perfection of the Divine Nature, let us labor after a Conformity to God in this Perfection. The Nature of God is presented to us in the Scripture, both as a pattern to imitate, and a Motive to persuade the Creature to holiness. . S • nce it is therefore the Nature of God, the more our Natures are beautified with it, the more like we are to the Divine Nature. 'It is not the pattern of Angels, or Arch-angels, that our Savior or his Apostle proposeth for our imitation, but the original of all Purity, God himself: The same that created us, to be imitated by us. Nor is an equal degree of Purity enjoined us; though we are to be pure, and perfect, and merciful as God is, yet not essentially so; for that would be to command us an impossibility in itself; as much as to order us to cease to be Creatures, and commence God's. No Creature can be essentially holy but by participation from the chief Fountain of holiness; but we must have the same kind of holiness, the same truth of holiness. As a short line may be as straight as another, though it parallel it not in the immense length of it: A copy may have the likeness of the Original, though not the same Perfection: We cannot be good, without eying some exemplar of goodness as the Pattern. No pattern is so suitable as that which is the highest Goodness and Purity. That Limner that would draw the most excellent piece, fixes his eyes upon the most perfect Pattern. He that would be a good Orator, or Poet, or Artificer, considers some person most excellent in each kind, as the Object of his imitation. Who so sit as God to be viewed, as the pattern of holiness, in our intendment of, and endeavor after holiness? The Stoics, one of the best sects of Philosophers, advised their Disciples to pitch upon some eminent example of Virtue, according to which to form their lives; as Socrates &c. But true holiness doth not only endeavor to live the life of a good man, but chooses to live a divine life: As before the man was alienated from the life of God , so upon his return he aspires after the life of God. To endeavor to be like a good man, is to make one Image like another; to set our Clocks by other Clocks, without regarding the Sun: But true holiness consists in a likeness to the most exact Sampler. God being the first Purity, is the Rule as well as the Spring of all Purity in the Creature, the chief and first Object of Imitation. We disown ourselves to be his Creatures, if we breath not after a resemblance to him in what he is imitable. There was in man, as created according to God's Image, a natural appetite to resemble God: It was at first planted in him by the Author of his Nature. The Devils temptation of him by that Motive to transgress the Law, had been as an Arrow shot against a b azen Wall, had there not been a desire of some likeness to his Creator engraven upon him : It would have had no more influence upon him, than it could have had upon a mere Animal. But man mistook the term; he would have been like God in knowledge, whereas he should have affected a greater resemblance of him in Purity. O that we could exemplify God in our Nature! Precepts may instruct us more, but Examples affect us more; one directs us, but the other attracts us. What can be more attractive of our imitation, than that which is the Original of all Purity both in Men and Angels?

This conformity to him consists in an imitation of him,

1. In his Law. The Purity of his Nature was first visible in this Glass; hence 'tis called a holy Law, Rom. 7.12. a pure Law, Psal. 19.8. Holy and pure, as it is a Ray of the pure Nature of the Law-giver. When our Lives are a Comment upon his Law, they are expressive of his Holiness: We conform to his Holiness, when we regulate ourselves by his Law, as it is a Transcript of his Holiness: We do not imitate it, when we do a thing in the matter of it agreeable to that holy Rule, but when we do it with respect to the Purity of the Law-giver beaming in it. If it be agreeable to God's will, and convenient for some design of our own, and we do anything only with a respect to that design, we make not God's Hol • ness discovered in the Law our Rule, but our own conveniency: 'It is not a conformity to God, but a conformity of our Actions to Self. As in abstinence from intemperate Courses, not because the holiness of God in his Law hath prescribed it, but because the health of our Bodies, or some noble Contentments of life require it; then it is not God's holiness that is our Rule, but our own security, conveniency, or something else which we make a God to ourselves.

It must be a real conformity to the Law: Our holiness should shine as really in the practice, as God's Purity doth in the Precept. God hath not a pretence of Purity in his Nature, but a reality: 'It is not only a sudden boiling up of an admiration of him, or a starting wish to be like him, from some sudden impression upon the Fancy, (which is a mere temporary blaze) but a settled temper of Soul, loving everything that is like him, doing things out of a firm desire to resemble his Purity in the Copy he hath set; not a resting in Negatives, but aspiring to Positives; Holy and harmless are distinct things: They were distinct qualifications in our High Priest in his Obedience to the Law , so they must be in us.

2. In his Christ. As the Law is the Transcript, so Christ is the Image of his Holiness: The glory of God is too dazzling to be beheld by us: The acute eye of an Angel is too weak to look upon that bright Sun without covering his Face: We are much too weak to take our Measures from that Purity which is infinite in his Nature. But he hath made his Son like us, that by the imitation of him in that temper, and shadow of human Flesh, we may arrive to a resemblance of him . Then there is a conformity to him, when that which Christ did is drawn in lively Colours in the Soul of a Christian; when as he died upon the Cross we die to our sins; as he rose from the Grave, we rise from our Lusts; as he ascended on high, we mount our Souls thither: When we express in our lives what shined in his, and exemplify in our hearts what he acted in the world, and become one with him, as he was separate from sinners. The holiness of God in Christ is our ultimate pattern: As we are not only to believe in Christ, but by Christ in God , so we are not only to imitate Christ, but the holiness of God as discovered in Christ.

And to enforce this upon us, let us consider

1. 'It is this only wherein he commands our imitation of him. We are not commanded to be mighty and wise, as God is mighty and wise; but be holy as I am holy. The declarations of his power are to enforce our subjection; those of his wisdom to encourage our direction by him; but this only to attract our imita • ion. When he saith, I am holy, the immediate inference he makes, is be ye so too, which is not the proper instruction from any other Perfection . Man was created by Divine Power, and harmoniz'd by Divine Wisdom, but not after them, or according to them, as the true Image; this was the Prerogative of Divine Holiness, to be the Pattern of his Rational Creature : Wisdom and Power were subservient to this, the one as the Pensil, the other as the Hand that moved it. The condition of a Creature is too mean to have the communications of the Divine Essence, the true Impressions of his Righteousness and Goodness we are only capable of. 'It is only in those moral Perfections we are said to resemble God. The Devils, those impure and ruined Sp • rits, are nearer to him in strength and knowledge than we are; yet in regard of that natural and intellectual Perfection, never counted like him, but at the greatest distance from him, because at the greatest distance from his Purity. God values not a natural Might, nor an acute Understanding, nor vouchsafes such Perfections the glorious Title of that of his Image. Plutarch saith, God is angry with those that imitate his Thunder or Lightning, his works of Majesty, but delighted with those that imitate his Virtue. In this only we can never incur any reproof from him, but for falling short of him and his glory. Had Adam endeavor'd after an imitation of this, instead of that of Divine Knowledge, he had escaped his fall, and preserved his standing; And had Lucifer wished himself like God in this, as well as his Dominion, he had still been a glorious Angel, instead of being now a ghastly Devil: To reach after a Union with the Supreme Being in regard of holiness, is the only generous and commendable Ambition.

2. This is the prime way of honoring God. We do not so glorify God by elevated Admirations, or eloquent Expressions, or pompous Services of him, as when we aspire to a conversing with him with unstained Spirits, and live to him in living like him. The Angels are not called holy for applauding his Purity, but conforming to it. The more perfect any Creature is in the rank of Beings, the more is the Creator honored; As it is more for the honor of God to create an Angel or Man, than a mere Animal; because there are in such, clearer Characters of Divine power and goodness, than in those that are Inferior. The more perfect any Creature is morally, the more is God glorified by that Creature; tis a real declaration that God is the best and most amiable Being; that nothing besides him is valuable, and worthy to be the Object of our imitation. 'It is a greater honoring of him, than the highest acts of Devotion, and the most religious bodily Exercise, or the singing this Song of Moses in the Text, with a triumphant spirit. As it is more the honor of a Father to be imitated in his Virtues by his Son, than to have all the glavering Commendations by the Tongue or Pen of a vicious and debauched Child. By this we honor him in that Perfection which is dearest to him, and counted by him as the chiefest glory of his Nature. God seems to accept the glorifying this Attribute, as if it were a real addition to that holiness which is infinite in his Nature, and because infinite, cannot admit of any increase: And therefore the word sanctified is used instead of glorified. Isa. 8.13. Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And Isa. 29.23. They shall sanctify the holy One of Jacob, and fear the God of Israel. This sanctification of God is by the fear of him, which signifies in the Language of the Old Testament, a reverence of him, and a righteousness before him. He doth not say, when he would have his Power or Wisdom glorified, empower me, or make me wise; but when he would have holiness glorified by the Creature, 'tis sanctify me; that is, manifest the purity of my Nature by the holiness of your lives: But he expresseth it in such a term, as if it were an addition to this infinite Perfection; so acceptable it is to him, as if it were a contribution from his Creature for the enlarging an Attribute so pleasing to him, and so glorious in his Eye. 'It is as much as in the Creature lies, a preserving the life of God, since this Perfection is his Life; and that he would as soon part with his Life as part with his Purity. It keeps up the Reputation of God in the World, and attracts others to a love of him; whereas unworthy carriages defame God in the eyes of men, and bring up an ill report of him, as if he were such a one as those that profess him, and walk unsutably to their Profession, appear to be.

3. This is the excellency and beauty of a creature The title of beauty is given to it in Psal. 110.3. beauties in the plural number, as comprehending in it all other beauties whatsoever. What is a Divine excellency cannot be a Creatures Deformity: The natural beauty of it is a representation of the Divinity; and a holy man ought to esteem himself excellent, in being such in his measure as his God is, and puts his principal felicity in the possession of the same purity in Truth. This is the refined Complexion of the Angels that stand before his Throne. The Devils lost their comeliness when they fell from it. It was the honor of the human Nature of our Savior, not only to be united to the Deity, but to be sanctified by it. He was fairer than all the Children of men, because he had a holiness above the Children of men: Grace was poured into his lips, Psal. 45.2. It was the Jewel of the reasonable Nature in paradise: Conformity to God was man's original happiness in his created state, and what was naturally so, cannot but be immutably so in its own Nature. The beauty of every copyed thing consists in its likeness to the Original: Every thing hath more of loveliness, as it hath greater impressions of its first Pattern: In this regard holiness hath more of beauty on it, than the whole Creation, because it partakes of a greater excellency of God than the Sun, Moon, and Stars No greater glory can be, than to be a conspicuous and visible Image of the invisible, and holy, and blessed God. As this is the splendor of all the Divine Attributes, so it is the flower of all a Christians Graces, the Crown of all Religion: 'It is the glory of the Spirit. In this regard the Kings Daughter is said to be all glorious within . 'It is more excellent than the soul itself, since the greatest soul is but a deformed piece without it: (A Diamond without luster .) What are the noble faculties of the Soul without it, but as a curious rusty Watch, a delicate heap of Disorder and confusion? 'It is impossible there can be beauty, where th • re are a multitude of spots and wrinkles that blemish a Countenance . It can never be in its true brightness, but when it is perfect in Purity, when it regains what it was possessed of by Creation, and dispossessed of by the fall, and recovers its primitive temper. We are not so beautiful by being the work of God, as by having a stamp of God upon us. Worldly greatness may make men honorable in the sight of creeping worms. Soft lives, ambitious reaches, luxurious pleasures, and a pompous Religion render no man excellent and noble in the sight of God: This is not the excellency and nobility of the Deity which we are bound to resemble: Other lines of a Divine Image must be drawn in us to render us truly excellent.

4. 'It is our life. What is the life of God, is truly the life of a rational Creature . The life of the body consists not in the perfection of its Members, and the integrity of its Organs, these remain when the body becomes a Carcass; but in the presence of the Soul, and its vigorous animation of every part, to perform the distinct offices belonging to each of them. The life of the Soul consists not in its being, or spiritual substance, or the excellency of its Faculties of understanding and will, but in the moral and becoming operations of them. The spirit is only life because of righteousness . The Faculties are turned by it, to acquit themselves in their functions, according to the will of God; the absence of this doth not only deform the Soul, but in a sort annihilate it, in regard of its true essence and end: Grace gives a Christian being, and a want of it is the want of a true being, Cor. 1.15.10. When Adam devested himself of his original righteousness, he came under the force of the threatening, in regard of a spiritual death: Every person is morally dead whiles he lives an unholy life . What life is to the body, that is righteousness to the Spirit; and the greater measure of holiness it hath, the more of life it hath, because it is in a greater nearness, and partakes more fully of the fountain of life. Is not that the most worthy life, which God makes most account of, without which his life could not be a pleasant and blessed life, but a life worse than death? What a miserable life is that of the men of the World, that are carried with greedy inclinations to all manner of unrighteousness, whither their interests or their lusts invite them? The most beautiful body is a Carcass, and the most honorable person hath but a brutish life ; miserable Creatures when their life shall be extinct without a Divine rectitude, when all other things will vanish as the shadows of the night at the appearance of the Sun.

Holiness is our life.

5. 'It is this only fits us for Communion with God. Since it is our beauty and our life, without it, what Communion can an excellent God have with deformed Creatures, a living God with dead Creatures? Without Holiness none shall see God, Heb. 12.14. The Creature must be stripped of his Unrighteousness, or God of his Purity, before they can come together. Likeness is the ground of Communion and of Delight in it: The opposition between God and unholy Souls, is as great as that between light and darkness . Divine fruition is not so much by a union of Presence, as a union of Nature. Heaven is not so much an outward, as an inward life; the foundation of Glory is laid in Grace; a resemblance to God is our vital happiness, without which the Vision of God would not be so much as a cloudy and shadowy happiness, but rather a torment than a felicity; unless we be of a like nature to God, we cannot have a pleasing fruition of him. Some Philosophers think, that if our Bodies were of the same nature with the Heavens, of an Ethereal Substance, the nearness to the Sun would cherish, not scorch us. Were we partakers of a Divine nature, we might enjoy God with delight; whereas remaining in our unlikeness to him, we cannot think of him, and approach to him without terror. As soon as sin had stripped man of the Image of God, he was an Exile from the comfortable presence of God, unworthy for God to hold any correspondence with: He can no more delight in a defiled person, than a man can take a Toad into intimate converse with him; he would hereby discredit his own Nature, and justify our Impurity. The holiness of a Creature only prepares him for an eternal conjunction with God in glory. Enoch's walking with God, was the cause of his being so soon wafted to the place of a full fruition of him; he hath as much delight in such, as in Heaven itself; one is his Habitation as well as the other: The one is his habitation of Glory, and the other is the house of his Pleasure: If he dwell in Zion, it must be a holy Mountain , and the Members of Zion must be upheld in their rectitude and integrity, before they be set before the face of God forever . Such are stilled his Jewels, his Portion, as if he lived upon them, as a man upon his Inheritance. As God cannot delight in us, so neither can we delight in God without it. We must purify ourselves as he is pure, if we expect to see him as he is in the comfortable glory and beauty of his Nature , else the sight of God would be terrible and troublesome: We cannot be satisfied with the likeness of God at the Resurrection, unless we have a righteousness wherewith to behold his face . 'It is a vain imagination in any to think that Heaven can be a place of happiness to him, in whose eye the Beauty of Holiness, which fills and adorns it, is an unlovely thing: Or that any can have a satisfaction in that Divine Purity which is loathsome to him in the imitations of it. We cannot enjoy him, unless we resemble him; nor take any pleasure in him if we were with him, without something of likeness to him.

Holiness fits us for Communion with God.

6. We can have no evidence of our Election and Adoption without it. Conformity to God in Purity, is the fruit of electing Love, Eph. 1.4. He hath chosen us that we should be holy. The goodness of the Fruit evidenceth the nature of the Root: This is the Seal that assures us the Patent is the Authentic Grant of the Prince. Whatsoever is holy, speaks itself to be from God; and whosoever is holy, speaks himself to belong to God. This is the only evidence that we are born of God . The subduing our souls to him, the forming us into a resemblance to himself, is a more certain sign we belong to him, than if we had with Isaiah seen his glory in the Vision with all his train of Angels about him. This justifies us to be the seed of God, when he hath as it were taken a slip from his own Purity, and engrafted it in our Spirits: He can never own us for his Children without his mark, the stamp of holiness. The Devils stamp is none of God's Badge. Our spiritual extraction from him is but pretended, unless we do things worthy of so illustrious a Birth, and becoming the honor of so great a Father: What evidence can we else have of any childlike love to God, since the proper act of love is to imitate the Object of our Affections?

And that we may be in some measure like to God in this excellent Perfection;

1. Let us be often viewing and ruminating on the holiness of God, especially as discovered in Christ: It is by a believing meditation on him, that we are changed into the same image . We can think often of nothing that is excellent in the World, but it draws our Faculties to some kind of suitable operation; and why should not such an excellent Idea of the holiness of God in Christ perfect our understandings, and awaken all the powers of our Souls to be formed to actions worthy of him? A Painter employed in the limning some excellent Piece, has not only his Pattern before his eyes, but his eye frequently upon the Pattern, to possess his fancy to draw forth an exact resemblance. He that would express the Image of God, must imprint upon his Mind the purity of his Nature; Cherish it in his thoughts, that the excellent beauty of it may pass from his Understanding to his Affections, and from his Affections to his Practice. How can we arise to a conformity to God in Christ, whose most holy nature we seldom glance upon, and more rarely sink our Souls into the depths of it by meditation? Be frequent in the meditation of the holiness of God.

2. Let us often exercise ourselves in acts of love to God, because of this Perfection. The more adoring thoughts we have of God, the more delightfully we shall aspire to, & more ravishingly catch after anything, that may promote the more full draught of his Divine Image in our hearts. What we intensely affect, we desire to be as near to as we can, and to be that very thing rather than ourselves. All imitations of others, arise from an intense love to their persons or excellency. When the Soul is ravished with this Perfection of God, it will desire to be united with it; to have it drawn in it, more than to have its own being continued to it. It will desire and delight in its own being, in order to this heavenly and spiritual work. The impressions of the Nature of God upon it, and the imitations of the Nature of God by it, will be more desirable than any natural perfection whatsoever. The Will in loving is rendered like the object beloved; is turned into its nature , and imbibes its qualities. The Soul by loving God, will find itself more and more transformed into the Divine Image, whereas slighted ensamples are never thought worthy of Imitation.

3. Let us make God our end. Every man's mind forms itself to a likeness to that which it makes its chief end. An earthy Soul is as drossy as the Earth he gapes for: An ambitious Soul is as elevated as the honor he reaches at: The same Characters that are upon the thing aimed at, will be imprinted upon the Spirit of him that aims at it. When God and his glory are made our end, we shall find a silent likeness pass in upon us; the Beauty of God will by degrees enter upon our Souls.

4. In every deliberate action, let us reflect upon the Divine Purity as a pattern. Let us examine whither anything we are prompted unto, bear an impression of God upon it: Whether it looks like a thing, that God himself would do in that case, were he in our Natures and in our Circumstances. See whether it hath the livery of God upon it, how congruous it is to his Nature: whether, and in what manner the holiness of God can be glorified thereby; and let us be industrious in all this: For can such an imitation be easy which is resisted by the constant assaults of the Flesh, which is discouraged by our own ignorance, and deprest by our faint and languishing Desires after it? O! happy we, if there were such a Heart in us.

4. A fourth Exhortation. If holiness be a Perfection belonging to the Nature of God; then, where there is some weak conformity to the holiness of God, let us labor to grow up in it, and breath after fuller measures of it. The more likeness we have to him, the more love we shall have from him. Communion will be suitable to our imitation; his love to himself in his Essence, will cast out beams of love to himself in his Image. If God loves holiness in a lower measure, much more will he love it in a higher degree, because then his Image is more illustrious and beautiful, and comes nearer to the lively lineaments of his own Infinite Purity. Perfection in anything is more lovely and amiable than Imperfection in any state; and the nearer anything arrives to Perfection, the further are those things separated from it which might Cool an affection to it. An increase in holiness is attended with a manifestation of his love, Joh. 14.21. He that hath my Commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me, and he shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and I will manifest myself to him: It is a testimony of love to God, and God will not be behind hand with the Creature in kindness: He loves a holy man for some resemblance to him in his Nature; but when there is an abounding in Sanctified dispositions suitable to it, there is an increase of savor: The more we resemble the Original, the more shall we enjoy the blessedness of that Original: As any partake more of the Divine likeness, they partake more of the Divine happiness.

5. Exhortation. Let us carry ourselves holily in a spiritual manner in all our religious approaches to God; Psal. 93.5. Holiness becomes thy house, O Lord, forever. This Attribute should work in us a deep and reverential respect to God. This is the reason rendered why we should worship at his footstool, in the lowest posture of humility prostrate before him, because he is holy . Shooes must be put off from our feet, Exod. 3.5. that is, Lusts from our Affections, everything that our souls are clogged and bemired with, as the Shooe is with dirt. He is not willing we should offer to him an impure soul, mired hearts, rotten carcasses, putrefied in vice, rotten in iniquity: Our Services are to be as free from profaneness, as the sacrifices of the Law were to be free from sickliness or any blemish. Whatsoever is contrary to his Purity is abhorred by him, and unlovely in his sight, and can meet with no other success at his hands, but a disdainful turning away both of his eye and ear . Since he is an Immense purity, he will reject from his presence, and from having any communion with him, all that which is not conformable to him; as light chases away the darkness of the night, and will not mix with it. If we stretch out our hands towards him, we must put iniquity far away from us ; the fruits of all Service will else drop off to nothing. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant to the Lord; When? when the heart is purged by Christ sitting as a purifier of silver . Not all the Incense of the Indies yield him so sweet a Savour, as one spiritual act of worship from a heart estranged from the vileness of the World, and ravished with an affection to, and a desire of imitating the Puririty of his Nature.

6. Exhortation. Let us address for holiness to God the fountain of it. As he is the Author of bodily life in the Creature, so he is the Author of his own life, the life of God in the soul. By his holiness he makes men holy, as the Sun by his light enlightens the Air. He is not only the Holy One, but our holy One : The Lord that sanctifies us, Levite. 20.8. As he hath mercy to pardon us, so he hath holiness to purify us, the excellency of being a Sun to comfort us and a Shield to protect us, giving Grace and Glory . Grace whereby we may have Communion with him to our comfort, and strength against our spiritual enemies for our defense; Grace as our preparatory to glory, and Grace growing up till it ripen in Glory. He only can mould us into a Divine frame. The great Original can only derive the excellency of his own Nature to us. We are too low, too lame to lift up ourselves to it; too much in love with our own Deformity, to admit of this Beauty without a heavenly power inclining our desires for it, our affections to it, our willingness to be partakers of it. He can as soon set the beauty of Holiness in a deformed heart, as the beauty of Harmony in a confused mass when he made the World. He can as soon cause the light of Purity to rise out of the darkness of Corruption, as frame glorious spirits out of the insufficiency of nothing. His beauty doth not decay, he hath as much in himself now as he had in his eternity: He is as ready to impart it, as he was at the Creation; only we must wait upon him for it, and be content to have it by small measures and degrees. There is no fear of our sanctification, if we come to him as a God of holiness, since he is a God of peace, and the breach made by Adam is repaired by Christ, Thes. 1.5.23. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, &c. He restores the sanctifying spirit which was withdrawn by the Fall, as he is a God pacified and his holiness righted by the Redeemer. The beauty of it appears in its smiles upon a man in Christ, and is as ready to impart itself to the reconciled Creature, as before Justice was to punish the rebellious one. He loves to send forth the streams of this perfection into created Chanels, more than any else. He did not design the making the Creature so powerful as he might, because power is not such an excellency in its own Nature, but as it is conducted and managed by some other excellency. Power is indifferent and may be used well or ill according as the possessor of it is righteous or unrighteous. God makes not the Creature so powerful as he might, but he delights to make the Creature that waits upon him as holy as it can be, beginning it in this world and ripening it in the other: 'It is from him we must expect it, and from him that we must beg it, and draw Arguments from the holiness of his Nature to move him to work holiness in our Spirits: We cannot have a stronger plea. Purity is the favourite of his own Nature; and delights itself in the resemblances of it in the Creature. Let us also go to God, to preserve what he hath already wrought and imparted. As we cannot attain it, so we cannot maintain it without him. God gave it Adam, and he lost it: When God gives it us, we shall lose it without his influencing and preserving Grace: The channel will be without a Stream, if the Fountain do not bubble it forth; and the streams will vanish, if the Fountain doth not constantly supply them. Let us apply ourselves to him for holiness as he is a God glorious in holiness: By this we honor God, and advantage ourselves.

A DISCOURSE UPON THE Goodness of God.

THE words are part of a Reply of our Savior to the Young-man's Petition to him: A certain Person came in haste, running, as being eager for satisfaction, to entreat his directions, what he should do, to inherit Everlasting Life; The Person is described only in general, verse. 17. There came one, A certain Man: But Luke describes him by his Dignity, A certain Ruler; One of Authority among the Jews. He desires of him an Answer to a legal Question, [What he should do?] Or, as Matthew hath it, What good thing shall I do, that I may have Eternal Life? He imagined Everlasting Felicity was to be purchased by the works of the Law; He had not the least Sentiments of Faith: Christ 's Answer implies, there was no hopes of the happiness of another World by the works of the Law, unless they were perfect, and answerable to every Divine Precept. He doth not seem to have any ill, or hypocritical intent in his Address to Christ; not to tempt him, but to be instructed by him. He seems to come with an ardent desire, to be satisfied in his Demand; he performed a solemn act of Respect to him, he kneeled to him, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , prostrated himself upon the ground; Besides Christ is said, verse. 21. to love him, which had been inconsistent with the knowledge Christ had of the hearts and thoughts of Men, and the abhorrence he had of Hypocrites, had he been only a Counterfeit in this Question.

But the first Reply Christ makes to him, respects the Title of Good Master, which this Ruler gave him in his Salutation.

1. Some think, that Christ hereby would draw him to an acknowledgment of him as God; You acknowledge me good, How come you to salute me with so great a Title, since you do not afford it to your greatest Doctors? Lightfoot in loc. observes, that the Title of Rabbi bone is not in all the Talmud. You must own me to be God, since you own me to be good: Goodness being a Title only due and properly belonging to the Supreme Being.

If you take me for a Common-man, with what Conscience can you salute me in a manner proper to God? Since no Man is good, no, not one, but the heart of Man is evil continually. The Arians used this place, to back their denying the Deity of Christ: Because, say they, He did not acknowledge himself good, therefore he did not acknowledge himself God. But he doth not here deny his Deity, but reproves him for calling him Good, when he had not yet confessed him to be more than a Man. You behold my Flesh, but you consider not the fullness of my Deity; If you account me Good, account me God, and imagine me not to be a simple and a mere Man. He disowns not his own Deity, but allures the Young-man to a confession of it. Why call'st thou me good, since thou dost not discover any apprehensions of my being more than a Man? Though thou comest with a greater Esteem to me, than is commonly entertained of the Doctors of the Chair, why dost thou own me to 〈◊〉 , unless thou own me to be God? If Christ had denied himself in this Speech to be good, he had rather entertained this Person with a frown and sharp reproof for giving him a Title due to God alone, than have received him with that, courtesy, and complaisance as he did . Had he said there is none good but the Father, he had excluded himself; but in saying, there is none good but God, he comprehends himself.

2. Others say, that Christ had no intention to draw him to an acknowledge • 〈◊〉 of his Deity, but only asserts his Divine Authority, or Mission from God. For which interpretation Maldonado calls Calvin an Arrianizer. He doth not here assert the Essence of his Deity, but the Authority of his Doctrine: As if he should have said, you do without ground give me the Title of good, unless you believe I have a Divine Commission for what I declare and act. Many do think me an Impostor, an Enemy of God, and a friend to Devils; you must firmly believe, that I am not so as your Rulers report me, but that I am sent of God, and authorized by him; you cannot else give me the Title of good, but of wicked. And the reason they give for this interpretation, is, because it is a question, whether any of the Apostles understood him at this time, to be God, which seems to have no great strength in it; since not only the Devil had publicly owned him, to be the Holy One of God , but John the Baptist had born Record, that he was the Son of God ; and before this time Peter had confessed him openly, in the hearing of the rest of the Disciples, that he was the Christ the Son of the living God . But I think Pareus his interpretation is best, which takes in both those; Either you are serious or deceitful in this Address; if you are serious, Why do you call me good, and make bold to fix so great a Title upon one you have no higher thoughts of than of a mere Man? Christ takes occasion from hence, to assert God to be only and Sovereignly good; There is none good but God. God only hath the honor of absolute goodness, and none but God merits the name of good. A Heathen could say much after the same manner: All other things are far from the nature of good; call none else good but God, for this would be a profane Error: Other things are only good in opinion, but have not the true Substance of Goodness: He is Good in a more excellent way, than any Creature can be denominated Good.

1. God is only Originally Good, Good of himself. All Created Goodness is a Rivulet from this Fountain, but Divine Goodness hath no Spring; God depends upon no other for his Goodness, he hath it in, and of himself: Man hath no Goodness from himself, God hath no Goodness from without himself: His Goodness is no more derived from another, than his Being: If he were Good by any External thing, that thing must be in being before him, or after him; If before him, he was not then himself from Eternity; If after him, he was not Good in himself from Eternity. The End of his Creating things then, was not to confer a Goodness upon his Creatures, but to partake of a Goodness from his Creatures. God is Good by and in himself, since all things are only Good by him; and all that Goodness which is in Creatures, is but the breathing of his own Goodness upon them. They have all their loveliness from the same Hand they have their Being from. Though by Creation God was declared Good, yet he was not made Good by any, or by all the Creatures. He partakes of none, but all things partake of him. He is so Good that he gives all, and receives nothing; Only Good because nothing is Good but by him: Nothing hath a Goodness but from him.

2. God only is Infinitely Good.

A boundless Goodness that knows no limits, a Goodness as infinite as his Essence, not only Good, but best; not only Good, but Goodness itself, the Supreme inconceivable Goodness. All things else are but little Particles of God, small Sparks from this Immense Flame, Sips of Goodness to this Fountain. Nothing that is good by his influence, can equal him, who is good by himself: Derived goodness, can never equal Primitive goodness. Divine Goodness communicates itself to a vast number of Creatures in various degrees; to Angels, Glorifi'd Spirits, Men on Earth, to every Creature; and when it hath communicated all that the present World is capable of, there is still less displayed, than left to enrich another World. All possible Creatures are not capable of exhausting the Wealth, and Treasures, that Divine Bounty is filled with.

3. God is only perfectly good, because only Infinitely good.

He is good without indigence, because he hath the whole Nature of goodness, not only some beams that may admit of increase of degree. As in him is the whole Nature of Entity, so in him is the whole Nature of Excellency. As nothing hath an absolute perfect Being but God, so nothing hath an absolutely perfect goodness but God. As the Sun hath a perfection of heat in it, but what is warmed by the Sun, is but imperfectly hot, and equals not the Sun in that perfection of heat, wherewith it is naturally endued. The goodness of God is the measure and rule of goodness in everything else.

4. God only is Immutably good.

Other things may be perpetually good by Supernatural Power, but not Immutably good in their own Nature. Other things are not so good, but they may be bad; God is so good, that he cannot be bad. It was the Speech of a Philosopher, That it was a hard thing to find a good Man, yea impossible; but though it were possible to find a good Man, he would be good but for some moment, or a short time: For though he should be good at this instant, it was above the Nature of Man to continue in a habit of goodness, without going awry and warping. But the goodness of God endureth forever . God always glitters in goodness, as the Sun, which the Heathens called the visible Image of the Divinity, doth with light. There is not such a perpetual light in the Sun, as there is a fullness of goodness in God; no variableness in him, as he is the Father of Lights.

Before I come to the Doctrine, that is the chief scope of the words, some remarks may be made upon the Young-man's Question and Carriage, What must I do, to inherit Eternal Life?

1. The opinion of gaining Eternal Life by the outward observation of the Law, will appear very unsatisfactory to an inquisitive Conscience. This Ruler affirmed, and certainly did confidently believe, that he had fulfilled the Law: All this have I observed from my youth; yet he had not any full satisfaction in his own Conscience; his heart misgave, and started upon some Sentiments in him, that something else was required, and what he had done might be too weak, too short to shoot Heavens lock for him. And to that purpose he comes to Christ, to receive Instructions for the piercing up whatsoever was defective. Whosoever will consider the Nature of God, and the Relation of a Creature, cannot with reason think, that Eternal Life was of itself due from God as a Recompence to Adam, had he persisted in a State of Innocence: Who can think so great a Reward due, for having performed that, which a Creature in that Relation was obliged to do? Can any Man think another obliged to convey an Inheritance of 1000 l. per annum upon his payment of a few Farthings, unless any compact appears to support such a conceit? And if it were not to be expected in the integrity of Nature, but only from the goodness of God, how can it be expected since the Revolt of Man, and the Universal Deluge of Natural Corruption? God owes nothing to the holiest Creature; what he gives is a present from his Bounty, not the Reward of the Creatures Merit. And the Apostle defies all Creatures from the greatest to the least, from the tallest Angel to the lowest Shrub, to bring out any one Creature, that hath first given to God; Who hath first given to him; And it shall be Recompenced to him again? The Duty of the Creature, and God's gift of Eternal Life is not a Bargain and Sale.

God gives to the Creature, he doth not properly repay: For he that repays hath received something of an equal value, and worth before. When God Crowns Angels and Men, he bestows upon them purely what is his own, not what is theirs by Merit and Natural Obligation: Though indeed what God gives by virtue of a Promise made before, is upon the performance of the Condition due by gracious Obligation. God was not indebted to Man in Innocence, but every Mans Conscience may now mind him, that he is not upon the same level as in the State of Integrity; And that he cannot expect anything from God, as the Salary of his Merit, but the free gift of Divine Liberality. Man is obliged to the practice of what is good, both from the Excellency of the Divine Precepts, and the Duty he owes to God, and cannot without some Declaration from God, hope for any other Reward, than the satisfaction of having well acquitted himself.

2. 'It is the Disease of Human Nature since its Corruption, to hope for Eternal Life by the tenor of the Covenant of Works.

Though this Rulers Conscience was not thoroughly satisfied with what he had done, but imagined he might for all that, fall short of Eternal Life, yet he still huggs the imagination of obtaining it by doing, What shall I do, that I may inherit Eternal Life? This is natural to Corrupted Man: Cain thought to be accepted for the sake of his Sacrifice; and when he found his mistake, he was so weary of seeking Happiness by doing, that he would court Misery by Murdering. All Men set too high a value upon their own Services: Sinful Creatures would fain make God a Debtor to them, and be Purchasers of Felicity; They would not have it conveyed to them by God's Sovereign Bounty, but by an obligation of Justice upon the value of their Works. The Heathens thought God would treat Men according to the Merit of their Services; and it is no wonder they should have this Sentiment, when the Jews Educated by God in a wiser School, were wedded to that Notion. The Pharisees were highly fond of it, it was the only Argument they used in Prayer, for Divine Blessing: You have one of them boasting of his frequency in Fasting, and his exactness in paying his Tithes ; as if God had been beholding to him, and could not without manifest wrong deny him his demand. And Paul confesseth it to be his own Sentiment before his Conversion, he accounted this Righteousness of the Law gain to him ; he thought by this to make his Market with God. The whole Nation of the Jews affected it, compassing Sea and Land to make out a Righteousness of their own, as the Pharisees did to make Proselytes.

The Papists follow their Steps, and Dispute for Justification by the Merit of Works, and find out another Key of Works of Supererogation, to unlock Heavens Gate, than what ever the Scripture informed us of: 'It is from hence also, that Men are so ready to make Faith as a Work, the cause of our Justification. Man foolishly thinks he hath enough to set up himself after he hath proved Bankrupt, and lost all his Estate. This Imagination is born with us, and the best Christians may find some sparks of it in themselves, when there are springings up of joy in their Hearts, upon the more close performance of one Duty than of another, as if they had wiped off their Scores, and given God a satisfaction for their former neglects. We have forsaken all and followed thee, was the boast of his Disciples: What shall we have therefore? was a Branch of this Root . Eternal Life is a gift not by any Obligation of Right, but an abundance of goodness; 'tis owing not to the dignity of our Works, but the magnificent Bounty of the Divine Nature, and must be sued for by the Title of God's Promise, not by the Title of the Creatures Services. We may observe,

3. How insufficient are some Assents to Divine Truth, and some Expressions of Affection to Christ, without the Practice of Christian Precepts. This Man Addrest to Christ with a profound Respect, acknowledging him more than an ordinary Person, with a more Reverential Carriage than we read any of his Disciples paid to him in the day of his Flesh; he fell down at his Feet, kist his Knees, as the Custom was, when they would testify the great Respect, they had to any eminent Person, especially to their Rabbins. All this some think to be included in the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ; He seems to acknowledge him the Messiah by giving him the Title of Good, a Title they did not give to their Doctors of the Chair; He breaths out his opinion, that he was able to instruct him beyond the ability of the Law; He came with a more than ordinary Affection to him, and expectation of advantage from him, evident by his departing sad, when his expectations were frustrated by his own perversity; it was a sign he had a high esteem of him, from whom he could not part without marks of his Grief. What was the cause of his refusing the instructions, he pretended such an affection to receive? He had Possessions in the World. How soon do a few drops of Wordly advantages quench the first Sparks of an ill grounded love to Christ? How vain is a complemental and cringing devotion, without a supreme preference of God, and valuation of Christ above every outward allurement? We may observe this,

4. We should never admit anything to be ascribed to us, which is proper to God. Why callest thou me Good? There is none Good but One, that is God. If you do not acknowledge me God, ascribe not to me the Title of Good. It takes off all those Titles which fawning Flatterers give to Men, Mighty, Invincible to Princes, Holiness to the Pope. We call one another Good, without considering how Evil; and Wise, without considering how Foolish; Mighty, without considering how Weak; and Knowing without considering how Ignorant. No man but hath more of Wickedness than Goodness; of Ignorance than Knowledge; of Weakness than Strength. God is a jealous God of his own Honor, he will not have the Creature share with him in his Royal Titles. 'It is a part of Idolatry to give Men the Titles which are due to God; a kind of a Worship of the Creature together with the Creator. Worms will not stand out, but assault Herod in his Purple, when he Usurps the Prerogative of God; and prove stiff and invincible Vindicators of their Creators Honor, when summoned to Arms by the Creators Word .

The Observation which I intend to prosecute is this:

[Doct.] Pure and Perfect Goodness is only the Royal Prerogative of God: Goodness is a choice Perfection of the Divine Nature.

This is the true and genuine Character of God; He is Good, He is Goodness, Good in Himself, Good in his Essence, Good in the Highest Degree, possessing whatsoever is Comely, Excellent, Desirable; the Highest Good, because the First Good; whatsoever is perfect Goodness, is GOD; whatsoever is truly Goodness in any Creature, is a resemblance of God . All the Names of God are comprehended in this one of Good. All Gifts, all variety of Goodness, are contained in him as one common Good. He is the efficient cause of all Good, by an over-flowing Goodness of his Nature; He refers all things to Himself as the end, for the representation of his own Goodness; Truly God is Good . Certainly it is an undoubted Truth, 'tis written in his Works of Nature; and his Acts of Grace , He is abundant in Goodness.

And everything is a Memorial, not of some few Sparks, but of his greater Goodness . This is often celebrated in the Psalms, and Men invited more than once, to Sing forth the Praises of it . It may better be admired than sufficiently spoken of or thought of, as it Merits. 'It is discovered in all his Works, as the Goodness of a Tree in all its Fruits; 'tis easy to be seen, and more pleasant to be contemplated. In General,

1. All Nations in the World have acknowledged GOD Good, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 was one of the Names the Platonists expressed him by, and Good, and God are almost the same words in our Language. All as readily consented in the Notion of his Goodness, as in that of his Deity. Whatsoever divisions or disputes there were among them in the other Perfections of God, they all agreed in this without dispute, saith Synesius . One calls him Venus, in regard of his Loveliness . Another calls him 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , Love, as being the Band which tyes all things together. No Perfection of the Divine Nature is more eminently, nor more speedily visible in the whole Book of the Creation than this. His Greatness shines not in any part of it, where his Goodness doth not as gloriously glister. Whatsoever is the Instrument of his Work, as his Power; Whatsoever is the Orderer of his Work, as his Wisdom; yet nothing can be Ador'd as the Motive of his Work, but the Goodness of his Nature. This only could induce him, to resolve to Create: His Wisdom then steps in, to dispose the Methods of what he resolved; And his Power follows to execute, what his Wisdom hath disposed, and his Goodness designed. His Power in making, and his Wisdom in ordering, are subservient to his Goodness; and this Goodness which is the end of the Creation, is as visible to the Eyes of Men, as legible to the Understanding of Men, as his Power in forming them, and his Wisdom in tuning them. And as the Book of Creation, so the Records of his Government must needs acquaint them with a great part of it, when they have often beheld him, stretching out his Hand, to supply the Indigent, relieve the Oppressed, and punish the Oppressors, and give them in their Distresses, what might fill their Hearts with Food and Gladness. 'It is this the Apostle means by his Godhead, which he links with his Eternity and Power, as clearly seen in the things that are made, as in a pine Glass. For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his Eternal Power and Godhead. The Godhead, which comprehends the whole Nature of God as discoverable to his Creatures, was not known, yea was impossible to be known by the Works of Creation. There had been nothing then reserved to be manifested in Christ. But his Goodness, which is properly meant there by his Godhead, was as clearly visible as his Power. The Apostle upbraids them with their Unthankfulness, and argues their inexcusableness, because the Arm of his Power in Creation made no due impressions of fear upon their Spirits, nor the Beams of his Goodness wrought in them sufficient sentiments of Gratitude. Their not glorifying God, was a contempt of the former, and their not being thankful, was a slight of the later. God is the Object of Honor, as he is Powerful, and the Object of Thankfulness properly, as he is bountiful.

All the Idolatry of the Heathens, is a clear testimony of their common sentiment of the Goodness of God: Since the more eminently useful any person was in some advantageous Invention for the benefit of Mankind, they thought he merited a Rank in the number of their Deities. The Italians esteemed Pythagoras a God because he was 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : To be Good and Useful, was an Approximation to the Divine Nature: Hence it was, that when the Lystrians saw a resemblance of the Divine Goodness in the charitable and miraculous Cure of one of their Crippled Citizens, presently they mistook Paul and Barnabas for God's, and inferred from thence their right to Divine Worship, inquiring into nothing else but the visible Character of their goodness, and usefulness, to capacitate them for the Honor of a Sacrifice . Hence it was that they adored those Creatures, that were a common Benefit, as the Sun, and Moon, which must be founded upon a preexistent Notion not only of the Being, but of the Bounty, and Goodness of God, which was naturally implanted in them, and legible in all God's Works. And the more beneficial anything was to them, and the more sensible advantages they received from it, the higher station they gave it in the rank of their Idols, and bestowed upon it a more solemn Worship. An absurd mistake to think everything that was sensibly good to them, to be God, clothing himself in such a form, to be adored by them. And upon this account the Egyptians worshipped God under the figure of an Ox, and the East Indians in some parts of their Country Deifie a Heyfer, intimating the Goodness of God as their Nourisher and Preserver, in giving them Corn, whereof the Ox is an instrument in serving for Plowing, and preparing the Ground.

2. The Notion of Goodness is inseparable from the Notion of a God.

We cannot own the Existence of God, but we must confess also the Goodness of his Nature. Hence the Apostle gives to his Goodness the Title of his Godhead, as if Goodness and Godhead were convertible terms . As it is indissoluby linked with the Being of a Deity, so it cannot be severed from the Notion of it: We as soon Undeify him by denying him Good, as by denying him Great: Optimus, Maximus, the Best, Greatest, was the name whereby the Romans entitled Him. His Nature is as Good, as it is Majestick; so doth the Psalmist join them . I will declare thy Greatness, they shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great Goodness. They considered his Goodness before his Greatness, in putting Optimus before Maximus; Greatness without Sweetness, is an unruly and affrighting Monster in the World; like a vast turbulent Sea, always casting out Mire, and Dirt. Goodness is the brightness, and loveliness of our Majestical Creator. To fancy a God without it, is to fancy a miserable, scanty, narrow-hearted savage God, and so an unlovely, and horrible Being: For he is not a God that is not Good, he is not a God that is not the highest Good: Infinite Goodness is more necessary to, and more straitly joined with an infinite Deity, than infinite Power, and infinite Wisdom: We cannot conceive him God, unless we conceive him the highest Good, having nothing superior to Himself in Goodness, as he hath nothing Superior to Himself, in Excellency, and Perfection. No man can possibly form a Notion of God in in his Mind, and yet form a Notion of something better than God: for whoever thinks anything better than God, fancieth a God with some defect: By how much the better he thinks that thing to be, by so much the more imperfect he makes God in his thoughts. This Notion of the Goodness of God was so natural, that some Philosophers and others, being startled at the Evil they saw in the World, fancy'd besides a good God, an evil Principle, the Author of all Punishments in the World. This was ridiculous; for those two must be of equal Power, or one inferior to the other; If Equal, the Good could do nothing, but the Evil one would restrain him; and the Evil one could do nothing, but the Good one would contradict him: So they would be always contending and never conquering: If one were inferior to the other, then there would be nothing but what that Superior ordered. Good, if the Good one were Superior, and nothing but Evil, if the Bad one were Superior. In the prosecution of this let us see,

• 1. What this Goodness is.
• 2. Some Propositions concerning the nature of it.
• 3. That God is Good.
• 4. The manifestation of it, in Creation, Providence, and Redemption.
• 5. The Use.

1. What this Goodness is?

There is a Goodness of Being, which is the natural perfection of a thing; There is the Goodness of Will, which is the Holiness, and Righteousness of a Person; There is the Goodness of the Hand, which we call Liberality, or Beneficence, a doing good to others.

1. We mean not by this, The Goodness of his Essence, or the Perfection of his Nature. God is thus Good, because his Nature is infinitely Perfect, He hath all things requisite to the completing of a most Perfect and Sovereign Being. All Good meets in his Essence, as all Water meets in the Ocean. Under this Notion all the Attributes of God, which are requisite to so illustrious a Being, are comprehended. All things that are, have a goodness of being in them, derived to them by the Power of God, as they are Creatures; so the Devil is good, as he is a Creature of God's making: He hath a natural goodness, but not a moral goodness: when he fell from God, he retained his natural goodness as a Creature; because he did not cease to be, he was not reduced to that nothing, from whence he was drawn; but he ceased to be morally good, being stripped of his Righteousness by his Apostasy; as a Creature he was God's Work, as a Creature he remains still God's Work, and therefore as a Creature remains still good, in regard of his created Being. The more of Being anything hath, the more of this sort of natural goodness it hath; and so the Devil hath more of this natural goodness than Men have; because he hath more marks of the Excellency of God upon him, in regard of the greatness of his knowledge. and the extent of his power, the largeness of his capacity, and the acuteness of his understanding, which are natural perfections belonging to the nature of an Angel; though he hath lost his moral perfections. God is Soveraignly, and infinitely Good in this sort of Goodness. He is unsearchably perfect, nothing is wanting to his Essence, that is necessary to the Perfection of it; yet this is not that which the Scripture expresseth under the term of Goodness, but a Perfection of God's Nature as related to us, and which he poureth forth upon all his Creatures, as Goodness which flows from this Natural Perfection of the Deity.

2. Nor is it the same with the Blessedness of God, but something flowing from his Blessedness. Were he not first infinitely Blessed, and Full in Himself, he could not be infinitely Good and Diffusive to us; had he not an infinite abundance in his own Nature, he could not be overflowing to his Creatures.

Had not the Sun a fullness of Light in itself, and the Sea a vastness of Water, the one could not enrich the World with its Beams, nor the other fill every Creek with its Waters.

3. Nor is it the same with the Holiness of God. The Holiness of God is the rectitude of his Nature, whereby he is Pure, and without Spot in himself. The Goodness of God is the efflux of his Will, whereby he is beneficial to his Creatures. The Holiness of God is manifest in his rational Creatures; but the Goodness of God extends to all the Works of his Hands. His Holiness beams most in his Law, his Goodness reacheth to everything that had a Being from him . The Lord is Good to all. And though he be said in the same Psalm, v. 17. to be Holy in all his Works, 'tis to be understood of his Bounty, Bountiful in all his Works; The Hebrew word signifying both Holy and Liberal, and the Margent of the Bible reads it Merciful or Bountiful.

4. Nor is this Goodness of God the same with the Mercy of God. Goodness extends to more Objects than Mercy; Goodness stretcheth itself out to all the Works of his Hands; Mercy extends only to a miserable Object; for it is joined with a sentiment of Pity, occasioned by the Calamity of another. The Mercy of God is exercised about those that Merit Punishment; the Goodness of God is exercised upon Objects that have not merited anything contrary to the acts of his Bounty. Creation is an act of Goodness, not of Mercy; Providence in governing some part of the World, is an act of Goodness, not of Mercy . The Heavens, saith Austin, need the Goodness of God to govern them, but not the Mercy of God to relieve them; The Earth is full of the Misery of Man, and the Compassions of God; but the Heavens need not the Mercy of God to pity them, because they are not miserable; though they need the Goodness, and Power of God to sustain them; because as Creatures they are impotent without him. God's Goodness extends to the Angels, that kept their standing, and to Man in Innocence, who in that state stood not in need of Mercy. Goodness and Mercy are distinct, though Mercy be a Branch of Goodness; There may be a manifestation of Goodness, though none of Mercy. Some think Christ had been Incarnate, had not Man fallen: Had it been so, there had been a manifestation of Goodness to our Nature, but not of Mercy; because Sin had not made our Natures miserable. The Devils are Monuments of God's creating Goodness, but not of his Pardoning Compassions. The Grace of God respects the rational Creature, Mercy the miserable Creature, Goodness all his Creatures, Brutes, and the senseless Plants, as well as reasonable Man.

5. By Goodness is meant the Bounty of God. This is the Notion of goodness in the World; when we say a good Man, we mean either a holy Man in his life, or a charitable and liberal Man in the management of his Goods. A righteous Man, and a good Man are distinguished . For scarcely for a righteous Man will one die; yet for a good Man one would even dare to die. For an innocent Man, one as innocent of the Crime as Himself would scarce venture his Life; but for a good Man, a liberal tender-hearted Man, that had been a common Good in the place where he lived, or had done another as great a benefit as life itself amounts to, a Man out of gratitude might dare to die. The Goodness of God is his inclination to deal well and bountifully with his Creatures . 'It is that whereby he wills, there should be something besides Himself for his own Glory. God is good in Himself, and to Himself, i. e. highly amiable to Himself; and therefore some define it a Perfection of God, whereby he loves himself and his own Excellency; but as it stands in Relation to his Creatures, 'tis that Perfection of God, whereby he delights in his Works, and is beneficial to them. God is the highest Goodness, because he doth not act for his own profit, but for his Creatures welfare, and the manifestation of his own Goodness. He sends out his Beams, without receiving any addition to himself, or substantial advantage from his Creatures. 'It is from this Perfection that he loves whatsoever is good, and that is, whatsoever he hath made, For every Creature of God is good ; Every Creature hath some Communications from him, which cannot be without some Affection to them; Every Creature hath a Footstep of Divine Goodness upon it; God therefore loves that goodness in the Creature, else he would not love himself. God hates no Creature, no not the Devils, and Damn'd, as Creatures; he is not an Enemy to them, as they are the Works of his Hands: He is properly an Enemy, that doth simply and absolutely wish Evil to another; but God doth not absolutely wish Evil to the Damned; that Justice that he inflicts upon them, the deserved Punishment of their Sin, is part of his Goodness, (as shall afterward be shewn.)

This is the most pleasant Perfection of the Divine Nature; His Creating Power amazes us, His Conducting Wisdom astonisheth us, His Goodness, as furnishing us with all Conveniencies, delights us, and renders both his amazing Power, and astonishing Wisdom delightful to us.

As the Sun by effecting things, is an Emblem of God's Power, by discovering things to us, is an Emblem of his Wisdom, but by refreshing and comforting us, is an Emblem of his Goodness; And without this refreshing Virtue it communicates to us, we should take no pleasure in the Creatures it produceth, nor in the Beauties it discovers. As God is Great and Powerful, he is the Object of our Understanding; but as Good and Bountiful, he is the Object of our Love and Desire.

6. The Goodness of God comprehends all his Attributes. All the Acts of God are nothing else but the Effluxes of his Goodness, distinguished by several names, according to the Objects it is exercised about. As the Sea, though it be one Mass of Water, yet we distinguish it by several names, according to the Shores it washeth, and beats upon, as the British and German Ocean, though all be one Sea. When Moses longed to see his Glory, God tells him, he would give him a prospect of his Goodness; I will make all my goodness to pass before thee. His Goodness is his Glory and Godhead, as much as is delightfully visible to his Creatures, and whereby he doth benefit Man; I will cause my Goodness or Comeliness, as Calvin renders it, to pass before thee; what is this, but the Train of all his lovely Perfections springing from his Goodness? The whole Catalogue of Mercy, Grace, longsuffering, abundance of truth, summed up in this one word. All are Streams from this Fountain; he could be none of this, were he not first Good. When it confers Happiness without Merit, 'tis Grace; when it bestows Happiness against Merit, 'tis Mercy; when he bears with provoking Rebels, 'its longsuffering; when he performs his Promise, 'tis Truth; when it meets with a person, to whom it is not obliged, 'tis Grace; when he meets with a person in the World, to which he hath obliged himself by Promise, 'tis Truth ; when it Commiserates a Distressed Person, 'tis Pity; when it supplies an Indigent Person, 'tis Bounty; when it succors an Innocent Person, 'tis Righteousness, and when it pardons a Penitent Person, 'tis Mercy; all sum'd up in this one name of Goodness: And the Psalmist expresseth the same Sentiment in the same words: They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy: the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. He is first Good, and then Compassionate. Righteousness is often in Scripture taken, not for Justice, but Charitableness: This Attribute, saith one, is so full of God, that it doth defy all the rest, and verify the Adorableness of him. His Wisdom might contrive against us, His Power bear too hard upon us; one might be too hard for an Ignorant, and the other too mighty for an Impotent Creature; His holiness would scare an impure and guilty Creature, but his goodness conducts them all for us, and makes them all amiable to us; Whatever Comeliness they have in the Eye of a Creature, whatever Comfort they afford to the Heart of a Creature, we are obliged for all to his goodness. This puts all the rest upon a delightful Exercise, this makes his Wisdom design for us, and this makes his Power to act for us: This Vails his Holiness from affrighting us, and this Spirits his Mercy to relieve us: All his acts towards Man, are but the Workmanship of this. What moved him at first to Create the World out of nothing, and erect so noble a Creature as Man, endowed with such excellent gifts; was it not his goodness? What made him separate his Son to be a Sacrifice for us, after we had endeavored to raze out the first marks of his favor; Was it not a strong bubbling of goodness? What moves him, to reduce a Fallen Creature to the due sense of his Duty, and at last bring him to an Eternal Felicity; is it not only his goodness? This is the Captain Attribute that leads the rest to act. This attends them, and Spirits them in all his ways of acting. This is the Complement and Perfection of all his Works; had it not been for this, which set all the rest on work, nothing of his Wonders had been seen in Creation, nothing of his Compassions had been seen in Redemption. The Second thing is some Propositions to explain the Nature of this Goodness;