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OCT 11 1988
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Charnock, Stephen, 1628-
1680.
The complete works of
NICHOL'S SERIES OF STANDARD DIVINES.
'PUEITAN PERIOD.
Mtfir ^eiteral '^xthtt
BY JOHN C. MILLER, D.D.,
LirfCOLN COI.LEGB ; HOSORAUT CAKOK OF WORCKSTEB ; RECTOR OF 8T MARTIN'S, BIRMIN'OHAX.
THE
V/OEKS OF STEPHEN CHAENOCK, B.D.
VOL. I.
COUNCIL OF PUBLICATION.
W. LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D., Professor of Tlieology, Congregational
Union, Edinburgh.
JAMES BEGG, D.D., Minister of Newington Free Church, Edinburgh.
THOMAS J. CRAWFORD, D.D., S.T.P., Professor of Divinity, University,
Edinburgh.
D. T. K. DRUMMOND, M.A., Minister of St Thomas's Episcopal Church,
Edinburgh.
WILLIAM H. GOOLD, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Church
History, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh.
ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., Minister of Broughton Place United Presby-
terian Church, Edinburgh.
©tnfral ffiiiitor.
REV. THOMAS SMITH, M.A., Edinbuegh.
THE COMPLETE WORKS
or
STEPHEN CHARNOCK, B.D.
BY THE KEY. JAMES M'COSH, LL.D.,
PROFESSOR OP LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS, QUEEN's COLLEGE, BELFAST.
VOL. I.
CONTAINING
DISCOUESES ON DIVINE PROVIDENCE,
AND
THE EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
EDINBURGH : JAMES NICHOL.
LONDON : JAMES NISBET AND CO. DUBLIN : W. ROBERTSON.
M.DCCC.LXIV.
EDIMBORGH
PRINTED BY JOHN QREIO AND SON,
OI.D PHYSIC GARDENS.
CONTENTS.
Pagh
INTRODUCTION. ...... vii
A TREATISE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE.
To THE Reader. . . . . . .3
A DisoouBSE OF Divine Peovidence. . . 2 Chron. XVI. 9. 6
DISCOURSE ON THE EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
To THE Reader. .....
A Discourse upon the Existence of God. . Ps. XIV. 1.
Practical Atheism. . . . Ps, XIV. 1.
A Discourse upon God's being a Spirit. . John IV. 24.
A Discourse upon Spiritual Worship. . John IV. 24.
A Discourse upon the Eternity of God. . Ps. XC. 2.
A Discourse upon the Immutability of God. Ps. CII. 26, 27.
A Discourse upon God's Omnipresence. . Jer. XXIII. 24.
A Discourse upon God's Knowledge. . Ps. CXLVII. 5.
123
126
183
258
283
345
374
420
457
INTRODUCTION TO CHAMOCK'S WORKS.
I. HIS LIFE.
The memorials of the life of Charnock are much scantier than
those who have profited by his writings, or who are interested
in the history of the time, could wish. We have some notices of
him in the sermon preached at his funeral by his ' bosom
friend' Mr Johnson ; a vague general account of him in an
epistle ' To the Eeader,' prefixed by Mr Adams and Mr Veal,
the editors, to his * Discourse of Divine Providence,' published
shortly after his death ; a brief life of him by Calamy in_ his
* Account of the Ejected and Silenced;' his collegiate positions
detailed by Wood in his Athence Oxonienses and Fasti; and this is
all the original matter that we have been able to discover regard-
ing the author of the great work ' On the Attributes.' Mr Johnson
says, ' he heard a narrative of his life would be drawn up by an
able hand ; ' and Calamy mentions that Memoirs of Mr Steph.
Charnock were written by Mr John Gunter, his 'chamber-fellow'
at Oxford ; but of these we have not been able to find any trace.
We have made researches in London, in Cambridge, and in Dublin,
without being rewarded by the discovery of many new facts, not
given by the original authorities. All that we have aimed at in
the following Memoir is to combine the scattered accounts of
him, to allot the incidents the proper place in his life and in the
general history of the times, and thus to furnish, if not a full,
yet a faithful, picture of the man and his work.*
Stephen Charnock was born in the parish of Saint Catherine
Cree (or Creechurch), London, in the year 1628. He was the
son of Mr Eichard Charnock, a solicitor, who was descended
from an ancient Lancashire family, the Charnocks of Charnock.
We have no account of his childish or boyish years, or of his
training in the family. But we know what was the spirit that
reigned around him among the great body of the middle classes
* The writer is under deep obligations to the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, Kinross ;
the Rev. Dr Halley, New College, London ; Joshua Wilson, Esq., Tunbridge_ Wells ;
and Charles Henry Cooper, Esq., author of the Annals of Cambridge, for directing
him in his researches.
ym INTRODUCTION TO CHARNOCK S WORKS.
in the best parts of the metropolis. An awe sat upon their
minds in consequence of the great national collisions which were
impending or had commenced ; public sports were discouraged,
as agreeing not with 'public calamities,' and the Lord's day
was observed with great strictness. The churches were crowded
with earnest hearers, and ' religious exercises were set up in
private families, as reading the Scriptures, family prayer, re-
peating sermons, and singing psalms, which were so universal
in the city of London, that you might walk the streets on the
evening of the Lord's day without seeing an idle person, or
hearing anything but the voice of prayer or praise from churches
or private houses.'*
In those times students entered college at a much earlier age
than they now do, and had their university career over in suffi-
cient time to enable them to enter when yet young on their
several professional employments. Stephen was matriculated
as a sizar at Cambridge July 8. 1642. Whether by the design
of his father, or by the leadings of providential circumstances,
we have no means of knowing, but young Charnock was sent to
Emmanuel, the ' Puritan College,' so called, it is said, from a
conversation between Queen Elizabeth and its founder, Sir
Walter Mildmay. ' Sir Walter,' said the Queen, ' I hear you
have erected a puritan foundation at Cambridge.' ' Madam,*
said Sir Walter, ' far be it from me to countenance anything
contrary to your Majesty's established laws ; but I have set an
acorn which, when it becomes an oak, God alone knows what
will be the fruit thereof.' In 1641, it had 204 students attend-
ing, standing next to St John's and Trinity in respect of
numbers ; f and occupying a still higher place in respect of the
eminence of its pupils. ' Sure I am,' says Fuller, * it has
overwhelmed all the university, more than a moiety of the pre-
sent masters of colleges having been bred therein.'
Charnock entering in 1642, is proceeding B.A. in 1645-6, and
commencing M.A. in 1649. We have no difficulty in appre-
hending the spirit which reigned in Cambridge when he began
his college life. The Preformation struggle was over, and
earnest men saw that the Eeformed Church, with its worldly,
often immoral and ill-educated, clergy, and its ignorant people,
was yet very far from coming up to the pattern which Christ
was supposed to have shewn to his apostles. Two manner of
spirits had sprung up and were contending with each other.
Each had an ideal, and was labouring to bring the church into
accordance with it. The one looked to the written word, and
was seeking to draw forth, systematize, and exhibit its truths ;
the other looked more to the church, and was striving to display
its visible unity before the world, that men's looks and hearts
might be attracted towards it. The one was internal, personal,
puritan, anxious to keep up the connection between the church
and its Head, and between the members of the church in and
• Neal's History of the Puritans, 1642. f Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, 1641.
HIS LIFE. IX
through Christ ; the other was external, ecclesiastical, priestly,
seeking to retain the connection of the Church of England with
the church of the past and the church universal, and to organize
it into a powerful body, which might put down all error and all
schism, and mould the whole institutions and sentiments of the
country.
Every public event of interest, and every collegiate influence,
must have tended to press religious questions upon the attention
of the student at the time when his character was being formed.
The Thirty Years' War, which had begun in 1618, was dragging
its weary length along, and was essentially a religious conflict
which the continental nations were seeking to settle by arms
and by policy. The colonies of Plymouth and Massachussets,
Connecticut and Newhaven, had been founded in the far west,
and Herbert had sung, in a sense of his own,
" Religion stands a tiptoe in our land,
Eeady to pass to the American strand."
In 1641, the three kingdoms had been moved by the reports
of the popish massacres in Ireland, in which it was said two
hundred thousand protestants were put to death. In 1642,
Charles had made his attempt to seize the 'five members,' and
soon after the civil war began, and the king had rather the
worst of it at the tattle of Edge Hill. By the autumn it was
ordained that the prelatic form of government should be abo-
lished from and after November 5. 1643 ; and it was farther
resolved that an assembly of divines should be called to settle
the intended reformation, which assembly actually met at West-
minster in July 1643, and continued its sittings for five years
and a half.
In Cambridge, the feeling has risen to a white heat, and is
ready to burst into a consuming flame. For years past there
had been a contest between those who were for modelling the
colleges after the ecclesiastical, and those who wished to fashion
them after the puritan type. In a paper drawn up in the uni-
versity in 1636, and endorsed by Laud as ' Certain disorders in
Cambridge to be considered in my visitation,' there is a com-
plaint that the order as to vestments is not attended to ; that the
undergraduates wear new-fashioned gowns of any colour what-
soever, and that their other garments are light and gay ; that
upon Fridays and all fasting days, the victualling houses pre-
pare flesh for aU scholars and others that will come and send to
them, and that many prefer their own invented and unapproved
prayers before all the liturgy of the church. When the report
comes to Emmanuel, it says, ' Their Chappel is not consecrate.
At surplice prayers they sing nothing but certain riming psalms
of their own appointment, instead of Hymnes between the Lessons.
And Lessons they read not after the order appointed in the Cal-
lendar, but after another continued course of their own,' &c.
But by 1643 the complaint takes an entirely different turn ; and
an ordinance of both houses of parliament is made, directing
X INTRODUCTION TO CHARNOCK S WORKS.
that in all churches and chapels, all altars and tables of stone
shall be taken away and demolished ; that all communion
tables shall be removed from the east end of the churches ;
that all crucifixes, crosses, images, and pictures of any one or
more persons of the Trinity, or of the Virgin Mary, and all other
images and pictures of saints or superstitious inscriptions in
churches or chapels shall be taken away or defaced.' One Wil-
liam Downing puts this order in execution, and at Queen's he
beats down one hundred superstitious pictures; but when he
comes to Emmanuel, 'there is nothing to be done.' These
scenes must have fallen under the notice of the boy Charnock
during the first year of his collegiate life. More startling
sounds still must have reached the ears of the young student.
Oliver Cromwell, who had been elected one of the burgesses of
the town in 1640, has a close and intimate connection with the
inhabitants ; and in 1642 he is sending down arms to the
county ; the Parliament has committed the care of the town to
him, the mayor, and three aldermen, who raise and exercise
trained bands and volunteers ; and he seizes a portion of the plate
which the colleges are sending to the king. By the beginning
of the following year, Cromwell has taken the magazine in the
castle, the town is fortified, and a large body of armed men are
in the place ; the colleges are being beset and broken open, and
guards thrust into them, sometimes at midnight, whilst the
scholars are asleep in their beds, and multitudes of soldiers are
quartered in them. By this time Holds worth, the Master of
Emmanuel, is in custody, and Dr Beale, Master of St John's, Dr
Martin, President of Queen's College, and Dr Sterne, Master of
Jesus, are sent up to parliament as prisoners.* In 1644, the
royalists are ejected, and their places supplied by friends of the
parUament.
At the time young Charnock entered, the sentiment of the
members of the university was very much divided. Even in
Emmanuel the opinion was not altogether puritan. The tutor
from whom Charnock received his chief instruction was Mr
W. Bancroft (afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury), who was
attached to the royalist cause, and had joined in the congratu-
latory addresses to the king on his return from Scotland in
1641. Dr Holdsworth, who was Master of Emmanuel when
Charnock entered, was appointed by the Lords, and approved by
the Commons, as one of the divines to sit at Westminster ; but
he never attended, and in 1643 he was imprisoned, and in the
following year ejected. The spirit of Emmanuel had been all
along reforming and parliamentary, and after the ejectments
all the colleges became so. Dr Anthony Tuckney, who suc-
ceeded Holdsworth in the Mastership of Emmanuel, was an
active member of the Westminster Assembly, and ' had a con-
siderable hand,' says Calamy, ' in the preparation of the Con-
fession and Catechisms.' Dr Arrowsmith, made Master of St
* These facts are gathered out of Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, vol. iii. 1642-4.
HIS LIFE. Ill
iTohn's, and Dr Hill, appointed Master of Trinity, were of the
same puritan spirit. Cudworth, Culverwel, and Whichcote, who
had all been connected mth Emmanuel, and held places in
the university after the ejection, could scarcely be described as
of the puritan type, but they were opposed to the policy which
the king had been pursuing, and the ecclesiastical system which
Laud intended to set up. In the university and the town, the
popular preaching was decidedly evangelical and Calvinistic. In
particular, Dr Samuel Hammond preached in St Giles ' with
such pious zeal, liveliness, and Christian experience, that his
ministry was attended by persons from all parts of the town and
the most distant colleges ; and it was crowned with the conver-
sion of some scores (Mr Stancliff says some himdreds) of scholars.
It was generally allowed that there was not a more successful
minister in Cambridge since the time of Perkins.'*
This state of things, the conflicts of the time, the talk of the
tutors and students, the earnest preaching in the churches, the
spiritual struggles in many a bosom, and the necessity for under-
standing the questions at issue, and coming to a decision with
its life consequences, all these must have tended to press religion
on the personal attention of so earnest a youth as Charnock was.
Without any living faith when he came to Cambridge, he was
there led to search and pray ; he was for a time in darkness, and
beset with fears and temptations, but he got light and direction
from above, and he devoted himself to God for life. He subse-
quently wrote out a paper explaining the way by which he was
led, and declaring his dedication, but it perished in the great fire
of London. Mr Johnson met him in 1644 ; and in the sermon
which he delivered at his funeral, represents him ' as venerable
and grave, like an aged person from his youth,' and gives the
following account of his conversion and his Cambridge life : —
* The deed of gift, or rather copy of it, which shewed his title to
heaven, I believe perished with his books in London's flames,
and I have forgot the particular places of Scripture by which he
was most wrought upon, and which were there inserted.' ' He
would deeply search into and prove aU things, and allow only
what he found pure and excellent.' ' In this I had him in my
heart at my first acquaintanceship with him in Cambridge thirty-
six, years since. I found him one that, Jonah-like, had turned
to the Lord with all his heart, all his soul, and all his might,
and none like him ; which did more endear him to me. How had
he hid the word of God in a fertile soil, "in a good and honest
heart," which made him "flee youthful lusts," and antidoted
him against the infection of youthful vanities. His study was
his recreation ; the law of God was his delight. Had he it not,
think ye, engraven in his heart? He was as choice, circum-
spect, and prudent in his election of society, as of books, to con-
verse with ; all his delight being in such as excelled in the
divine art of directing, furthering, and quickening him in the
* Calamy's ' Account of Ejected,' Art. Samuel Hammond.
XU INTRODUCTION TO CHABNOCK's WORKS.
way to heaven, the love of Christ and souls. Most choice he
was of the ministers that he would hear ; what he learned from
books, converse, or sermons, that which affected and wrought
most upon him he prayed over till he was delivered into the
form of it, and had Christ, grace, and the Spirit formed in him.
True, he had been in darkness, and then he said full of doubt-
ings, fears, and grievously pestered with temptations. How oft
have we found him (as if he had lately been with Paul caught up
into the third heavens, and heard unspeakable words) magnify-
ing and adoring the mercy, love, and goodness of God.'
We know from general sources what was the course of secular
instruction imparted in the colleges at this time. Aristotle still
ruled, though no longer with an undisputed sway, in the lessons
of the tutors. There is an account left by a pupil, Sir Simonds
D' Ewes, of the books prescribed by Dr Holdsworth in 1618-19,
when he was a tutor in St John's, and probably there was not
much difference in Emmanuel when he became master: 'We
went over all Seton's Logic exactly, and part of Keckerman and
Molingeus. Of ethics or moral philosophy, he read to me Gelius
and part of Pickolomineus ; of physics, part of Magirus ; and of
history, part of Florus.' ' I spent the next month (April 1619)
very laboriously in the perusal of Aristotle's physics, ethics, and
politics ; and I read logic out of several authors.' * But for an
age or two there had been a strong reaction against Aristotle
on the part of the more promising pupils. Bacon had left
Trinity College in the previous century with a profound dis-
satisfaction with the scholastic studies, and already cogitating
those grand views which he gave to the world in his Novum
Organum (1620), as to the importance of looking to things
instead of notions and words. Milton, in his College Exercises
(1625 to 1632), had in his own grandiose style, and by help of
mythological fable, given expression tp his discontent with the
narrow technical method follow^ed, and to his breathings after
some undefined improvement. t The predominant philosophic
spirit in Cambridge prior to the Great Kebellion was Platonic
rather than Aristotelian. This was exhibited by a number of
learned and profound writers who rose about this time, and who
continue to be known by the name of the ' Cambridge Moralists.'
In Emmanuel College, before the ejectment, there were Which-
cote, author of Moral and Religious Aphorisms, and of Letters to
Tuckney (1651) ; Nathanael Culverwel, author of the masterly
work Of the Light of Nature X (1651) ; and Ealph Cudworth, who
produced the great work on The True Intellectual System of
the Universe, — all promoted to important offices in Cambridge
under the Commonwealth. There were also in Cambridge
Henry More, author of the Enchiridion Metaphysicum, and John
* Masson's Life of Milton, p. 229.
t Familiar Letters in Masson's Milton, p. 249.
X See the valuable edition by John Brown, D.D., with a critical essay by John
Cairns, D.D.
HIS LIFE. xiii
Smith, author of the Select Discourses. All of those great
men had caught, and were cherishing, a lofty Platonic spirit.
While they implicitly received and devoutly revered the Bible as
the inspired book of God, they entertained at the same time a
high idea of the office of reason, and delighted in the contem-
plation of the eternal verities which they believed it to sanction,
and sought to unite them with the living and practical truths of
Christianity. Nor is it to be forgotten that John Howe, who
entered Christ College in 1647, imbibed from Cudworth, More,
and Smith his ' Platonic tincture/ which however was more
thoroughly subordinated in him to the letter of Scripture. But
in those times there was probably a still greater number of
students whose college predilections would be those of Hey-
wood : ' My time and thoughts were more employed in practical
divinity, and experimental truths were more vital and vivifical
to my soul. I preferred Perkins, Bolton, Preston, Sibbes, far
above Aristotle, Plato, Magirus, and Wendeton, though I despise
no laborious authors in these subservient studies.' *
Charnock was all his life a laborious student. We can infer
what must have been his favourite reading, begun at college
and continued to his death. While not ignorant of the physical
science of his time, there is no reason to believe that he entered
deeply into it. However, we are expressly told by Adams and
Veal that he had arrived at a considerable knowledge of medi-
cine, and that he was prevented from giving himself farther to
it only by his dedication to a higher work. There are no traces
of his having fallen under the bewitching spirit of Platonism,
which so prevailed among the profounder students of Cam-
bridge ; but he characterises Plato as ' the divine philosopher,'
he quotes More and Culverwel, and his own philosophy is of a
wide and catholic character. It is quite clear from his syste-
matic method, that he had received lessons from the Aristotelian
logic, as modified by the schoolmen ; but he never allowed it to
bind and shackle him. He shews a considerable acquaintance
with the ancient Greek philosophy, including the mystics of
the Neoplatonist school. He is familiar with the writings of
many of the fathers, and quotes from them in a way which
shews that he understood them. He does not disdain to take
instruction from Aquinas and the schoolmen when it serves
his purpose. Among contemporary philosophic writers, he
quotes from Gassendi and Voetius. His favourite uninspired
writers were evidently the reformers, and those who defended
and systematised their theology. Amyraut, and Suarez, and
Daille were evidently favourites; and he was familiar with Tur-
retine, Ames, Zanchius, Cocceius, Crellius, Cameron, Grotius,
and many others ; nay, he is not so bigoted as to overlook
the high church Anglican divines of his own age. But we
venture to say that, deeply read as he was in the works of unin-
spired men, he devoted more time to the study of the word
* Hunter's Life of Oliver Heywood, p. 46.
XIV INTEODUCTION TO OHARNOCK S WORKS.
of God than to all other writings whatsoever. As to his lin-
guistic accomplishments Mr Johnson, himself a scholar, says,
' I never knew any man who had attained near unto that skill
which he had in both their originals [that is, of the Scriptures],
except Mr Thomas Cawton;' and Mr Cawton,it seems, knew Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, French, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish.
Thus furnished by divine gift and acquired scholarship, he
set out on the work to which he had devoted himself. ' Not
long after he had received light himself,' says Johnson, 'when
the Lord by his blessing on his endeavours had qualified him for
it, such was his love, he gave forth light unto others, inviting
them, and saying, " Come and see Jesus." In Southwark,
where seven or eight, in that little time Providence continued
him there, owed their conversion under God to his ministry;
then in the university of Oxford and adjacent parts ; after in
Dublin, where it might be said of his as it was of the Lord's
preaching in the land of Zebulon, "the people which sat in
darkness saw a great Hght." '
On lea^dng college, he is represented by Adams and Veal as
spending some time in a private family, but whether as a tutor
or a chaplain does not appear. He seems to have commenced
his ministry in Southwark, where he knew of seven or eight per-
sons who owned him as the instrument of their conversion ; and
we may hope there were others profited, at a time when the mer-
cantile and middle classes generally so crowded to the house of
God, and the preaching of the word was so honoured. In 1649
or thereabouts, says Wood, he retired to Oxford, purposely to
obtain a fellowship from the visitors appointed by the parliament
when ' they ejected scholars by whole shoals ;' and in 1650, he
obtained a'fellowship in New College. November 19. 1652, he is
incorporated Master of Arts in Oxford, as he had stood in Cam-
bridge. April 5. 1654 (not 1652, as Calamy says), he and Thomas
Cracroft of Magdalene CoUege are appointed Proctors of the univer-
sity. Charnock, greatly respected for his gifts, his learning, and
his piety, was frequently put upon ' public works.' In particular,
he seems to have been often employed in preaching in Oxford
and the adjacent parts. Here he had as his chamber-fellow, Mr
John Gunter, who purposed to write, or did write, a life of him ;
and here he gained or renewed a friendship with Eichard Adams,
formerly, like himself, of Cambridge, and now of Brazennose,
and Edward Veal of Christ's Church, and afterwards with him in
Dublin, the two who joined, many years after, in publishing his
posthumous works. Here he connected himself with ' a church
gathered among the scholars by Dr Goodwin,' a society which
had the honour to have enrolled among its members Thankful
Owen, Francis Howel, Theophilus Gale, and John Howe,*
who must no doubt have enjoyed much sweet fellowship
together, and helped to edify one another. Ohver Cromwell,
* See Life of Goodwin, in folio edition of Works, Vol. V. ; and Calamy's Account
of Ejected, Jolin Howe.
HIS LIFE. XV
Lord Protector, was chancellor of the university, and Dr Owen,
vice-chancellor ; and an energetic attempt was made to produce
and foster a high, though perhaps a somewhat narrow, scho-
larship, and to exercise a discipline of a moral and religious
character, such as Christian fathers set up in their families.
Notwithstanding all that has been said against it, it was by no
means of an uncheerful character, and young men of virtue and
piety delighted in it ; but others, we fear, felt it irksome, because
of the constant supervision, and the restraints meeting them on
every hand, and the number of religious services imposed on
them, and which could have been enjoyed only by converted
persons. Lord Clarendon thinks that such a state of things
might have been expected to extirpate all ' learning, religion,
and loyalty,' and to be ' fruitful only in ignorance, profaneness,
atheism, and rebellion ; ' but is obliged to admit that, ' by God's
wonderful providence, that fruitful soil could not be made
barren,' and that it yielded an harvest of extraordinary good
knowledge in all parts of learning.' It could easily be shewn
that the fruit was what might have been expected to spring from
the labour bestowed and the seed sown. It is a matter of fact,
as Neal remarks, that all the great philosophers and divines of
the Church of England, who flourished in the reigns of Charles
II. and William III., such as Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Patrick,
South, Cave, Sprat, Kidder, Whitby, BuU, Boyle, Newton, Locke,
and others, were trained under teachers appointed by parUament
and Cromwell.*
The scene of Charnock's labours and usefulness was now shifted.
Cromwell had subdued Ireland to the Commonwealth, and he
and others longed to have the protestants in that country sup-
plied with a pure and fervent gospel ministry. Dr John Owen
had been in Ireland a year and a half, overseeing the affairs of
Dublin College and preaching the gospel. He dates a work from
* Dublin Castle, December 20. 1649,' and speaks of himself as
' burdened with manifold employments, with constant preaching
to a numerous multitude of as thirsty people after the gospel as
ever I conversed withal.' In the January following he returns
to England, and has to preach before the Commons. Preferring
to Cromwell's victories, he says : — ' How is it that Jesus Christ
is, in Ireland, only as a lion staining all his garments with the
blood of his enemies, and none to hold him forth as a lamb
sprinkled with his own blood for his friends ? Is it the sove-
reignty and interest of England that is alone to be thus trans-
acted ? For my part, I see no farther into the mystery of these
things, but that I would heartily rejoice that innocent blood being
expiated, the Irish might enjoy Ireland so long as the moon
endureth, so that Jesus might possess the Irish.' ' I would there
were, for the present, one gospel preacher for every walled town
in the English possession in Ireland.' ' They are sensible of their
wants, and cry out for supply. The tears and cries of the inha-
* The History of the Puritans, 1647.
XVI INTRODUCTION TO CHAKNOCK S WORKS.
bitants of Dublin are ever in my view.' In the course of the
year, grants of land are made for the better support of Dublin
University, and the Commissioners brought with them several
Christian ministers. Among them was Samuel Winter, who
afterwards became Provost of Trinity College, and who preached
every Lord's day in Christ Church Cathedral before Deputy
Fleetwood and the Commissioners, his services being reserved
specially for the afternoons, when was the ' greatest auditory.'
By 1654, Mr Veal, who had been in Oxford with Charnock, is a
fellow of Dublin College, and some years after, is often exercising
his ministry in and about the city of Dublin. Nor should we
omit Mr John Murcot, who came from Lancashire in 1653, and
preached with great fervour and acceptance to large numbers in
DubUn and the south-west of Ireland, till the close of the follow-
ing year, when he was cut off suddenly at the early age of twenty-
nine, to the great grief of the Protestant inhabitants, — the Lord
Deputy, and the Mayor, with a large body of citizens, following
the body to the grave.*
Cromwell finding it necessary to restrain the republican Com-
missioners in Ireland, sent over his ablest son Henry to watch
their proceedings, and to succeed them in the government.
When he came to Ireland in August 1655, he brought with him
some eminent ministers of religion, among whom was Samuel
Mather, who, ' with Dr Harrison, Dr Winter, and Mr Charnock,'
attended on Lord Harry Cromwell, t Mather was one of a famous
nonconformist family, well known on both sides of the Atlantic.
A native of England, he received his education in Harvard College,
but returned to his native country, and having spent some time at
Oxford and Cambridge, and in Scotland, he now came to Dublin,
where he was appointed a fellow of the University, and chosen
colleague to Dr Winter, and had to preach every Lord's day at
the church of St Nicholas, besides taking his turn every five or
six weeks before the Lord Deputy and Council. Dr Thomas
Harrison was born at Kingston-upon-Hull, but, like Mather, was
brought up in America, and had returned to England, where he
was chosen to succeed Dr Goodwin in London ; and now in
Dublin he is chaplain to Henry CromweU, with a salary of ^300
a year, and preaches in St Werburgh's.
It was in such company that Stephen Charnock acted as one
of the chaplains of the chief governor of Ireland, living with
much respect in his family, we may suppose whether he resided
at the Castle or in Phoenix Park, and enjoyuag a stipend of .£'200
a year, worth ten times the same nominal sum in the present
day. J When in Dublin, he was also officially minister of St
* See Several Works of Mr John Murcot. It may be mentioned here that there is
a valuable sketch of the state of religion in Dublin at that time, in a lecture,
Independency in Dublin in the Olden Time, by William Urwick, D.D.
t Calamy's Noncon. Mem., by Palmer, Art. Samuel Mather.
± See Extracts from ' The Civil Establishment of the Commonwealth for Ireland,
for the year 1665,' in Appendix to vol. ii. of Reid's 'History of the Presbyterian
Church in Ireland.'
HIS LIFE. XVU
Werburgli's, and lecturer at Christ Church. St Werburgh's
Church, in its foundation going back to near the time of the
Norman settlement, was in the time of Cromwell, and is still,
close by the very walls of Dublin Castle ; and the Lord-Depute
must have attended there or at Christ Church, at one or both.
In 1607, the famous Usher had been appointed to this church,
and was succeeded by William Chappel, who had l)een John
Milton's tutor at Cambridge, and who, according to Synunonds,
was the reputed author of * The Whole Duty of Man J ' The
church is described in 1630 as "in good repair and decency,"
woi-th sixty pounds per annum, there being two hundred and
thirty-nine householders in the parish, all Protestants, with the
exception of twenty-eight Roman Catholics. *' St Warburr's,"
says a wi-iter in 1635, " is a kind of cathedral, wherein preacheth
the judicious Mr Hoile about ten in the morning and three in the
afternoon, — a most zealous preacher, and general scholar in all
manner of learning, a mere cynic." Mr Hoyle, the friend of
Usher, and "the tutor and chamber-fellow" of Sir James Ware,
was elected professor of divinity in, and fellow of, Trinity College,
Dublin ; he sat in the Assembly of Divines, witnessed against
Laud, and in 1648 was appointed Master of University College,
Oxford.'* In this famous church, where the gospel had been
proclaimed with such purity and power by Usher and by Hoyle,
Charnock officiated, down, we may suppose, to the Restoration.
But his most conspicuous field of usefulness seems to have
been on the afternoons of the Lord's day, when the great
audiences of the citizens of Dublin assembled, and to them he
lectured — that is, delivered an elaborate discourse, discussing
fully the subject treated of — we may suppose either at St Wer-
burgh's or Christ Church. Calamy says, ' he exercised his
ministry on the Lord's day afternoons to the admiration of the
most judicious Christians, having persons of the greatest distinc-
tion in the city of Dublin for his auditors, and being applauded
by such as were of very different sentiments from himself.
Many commended his learning and abilities who had no regard
for his piety.' God was now giving his servant, who had been
so thoroughly prepared for his work by a long course of training,
a wide sphere to labour in. In future years, when he was
partially silenced, he must have looked to his Dublin oppor-
tunities with feelings of lively interest. Though a counsellor,
and a wise counsellor, to Henry Cromwell, and at times employed
on public duty, in which his good sense, his moderation, and his
truly catholic spirit gained him universal confidence, yet preach-
ing was his peculiar gift, and to this he devoted all his talents.
His preaching powers had now reached their full maturity. At
a later period his memory somewhat failed him, and he had to
read in a disadvantageous way with a glass. But at this time
he used no notes, and he poured forth the riches of his original
endowments and of his acquired treasures to the great delight of
* The History of the City of Dublin by J. T. Gilbert, vol. 1. p 29.
6
XVllI INTBODUCTION TO OHABNOOK S WORKS.
his audience. His' solid judgment, his weighty thoughts, his
extensive learning, and his cultivated imagination, were all
engaged in the work of recommending the gospel of Jesus Christ
to the principal inhabitants of the capital of Ireland. Most
careful in husbanding time, on which he ever set great value,
spending most of it in his study, in reading and writing, medi-
tation and prayer, accustomed to muse on profound topics in his
restless hours in the night, and when walking in the streets
during the day, constantly jotting down (as many of the puritans
did) the thoughts that occurred to him on these occasions, and
employing them as materials for his jDrojected discourses,* he
made it appear on the Lord's day how well he had been em-
ployed. We know what the discourses which he preached were
from those given to the world after his death, and which were
printed from his manuscripts as he left them. Characterised as
those of most of the preachers of the time were by method,
Charnock's were specially eminent for solidity of thought, for clear
enunciation of important truth, for orderly evolution of all the
parts of a complicated subject, for strength and conclusiveness
of argument, coming forth with a great flow of expression,
recommended by noble sentiment and enlivened by brilliant
fancy, — with the weight he ever had the lustre of the metal.t
Except in the discourses of Usher, there never had been before,
and it is doubtful whether there ever has been since, such able
and weighty evangelical preaching in the metropolis of Ireland ;
and we do not wonder that the thinking and the 'judicious'
«hould have waited eagerly on his ministry, specially on his
* lectures,' seeking not so much excitement as instruction,
presented in a clear and pleasant manner. Doing much good
during the brief period allowed him, we are convinced that he
helped to raise up a body of intelligent Christian men and
women among the English settlers, who within the Established
Church, or beyond it as Presbyterians or Independents, handed
down the truth to the generations following, and that tlie lively
protestant religion of Dublin in the present day owes not a little
to the seed which was then scattered, and which in due time,
fipite of many blights, grew into a forest.
Bui his days of usefulness in Ireland speedily came to a
close.:!: When Oliver Cromwell died, he left no one who could
wield his sceptre. Henry was certainly fittest of his kindred
for the work of government ; but he had one disqualification
(for such it is in our crooked world), he was too upright and
* Adams and Veal mention these habits.
f Cotton Mather, in his History of Nerio Eiiglcmd, speaking of Nathanael Mather,
who succeeded his brother Samuel as pastor in Dublin, says : — ' It was commonly
remarked that Mr Charnock's invention, Dr Harrison's expression, and Mr Mather's
logic, would have made the perfectest preacher in the world.'
X His editors make Charnock B.D. Wood conceives that he was made so by
Dublin University, Mr Armstrong and Dr Seaton Keid make him a fellow of
Trinity College. There is no register of this in the college books ; but the
records both of Trinity College and of Dublin Castle are very defective as to the
Commonwealth period.
HIS LIFE. ZIX
honourable to descend to the base means necessary to keep the
various conflicting parties in subjection. His soul was ex-
pressed in one of his letters : * I will rather submit to any
Bufferings with a good name, than be the greatest man on earth
without it.'* He had to complain during his whole rule in
Ireland of the selfishness of the English settlers, of the extrava-
gancies of the sectaries, and of the jealousy of the army of the
Commonwealth. He seems, however, to have been efficiently
supported in his wise and impartial rule by such men as
Wmterf and Charnock. Nearly all parties in Ireland, Church
of England, Presbyterians, and Eoman Catholics, were opposed
to the Commonwealth and his father's rule; but all respected
and loved Henry Cromwell. He got his brother Eichard
proclaimed in Ireland; but the incapable parliament, out of
jealousy, summoned him to England, and the royalists, at the
Kestoration, expelled him, without his offering any resistance.
Charnock had now to sink for a time into obscurity, with rare
and limited opportunities compared with those which he had
enjoyed for four or five years in the court of the lord deputy,
and in St Werburgh's and Christ Church Cathedral. It was
necessary to shew that he could not only act, but suffer, for
(^hrist's name. Adams and Veal say, that ' about the year
1660, being discharged from the public exercise of his ministry,
he returned back into England, and in and about London spent
the greatest part of fifteen years, without any call to his old
work in a settled way.' Wood and Calamy make statements to
the same effect, and we must believe the account to be correct.
But there is some reason to think, that though for the most part
in London, he had not altogether abandoned Dublin for some
time after 1660. At the close of the year 1661 (Dec. 31), he
signs a certificate in favour of his friend Mr Veal, dated at
Dublin.:]: It is stated that he and Mr Veal ministered in Dublin
after the Eestoration ; and it is certain that at that time the
meetings of nonconformists were winked at in Ireland, and that
the Presbyterian and Independent ministers there took and
were allowed an amount of liberty denied to their brethren in
England and Scotland. It is stated that both Charnock and
Veal preached in a Presbyterian church in Wood Street (after-
wards Strand Street), which continued for many years to have
a flourishing congregation, with such pastors as the Eev. Samuel
Marsden, one of the ejected fellows of Dublin College, the Eev.
* Letter in Thurloe Papers.
t There is a work, Life and Death of Winter, 1677 ; also Sermons by him against
the Anabaptists, preached before the lotd deputy.
X The certificate is given by Calamy in Continuation, p. 83, It is ' Dated at
Dublin, Dec. 31. 1661,' and is signed ' Steph. Charnock, formerly Minister at
Warbouroughs, and late Lecturer at Christ Church, Dublin ; Edward Baines, late
Minister of St John's Parish, Dublin ; Nath. Hoyle, late Minister at Donobrock,
and late Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin; Eobert Chambres, late Minister of St
Patrick's Church, Dublin ; Samuel Coxe, late Minister at Katherine's, Dublin ;
William Leclew, late Minister of Dunboru ; Josiah Marsden, late Fellow of tha
above said Trin. College, Dublin.'
XX INTRODUCTION TO CHAENOCK S WORKS,
Dr Daniel Williams, who founded the Dissenters' Library in
Eed Cross Street, London; Dr Gilbert Eule, afterwards prin-
cipal of the university of Edinburgh; and the Eev. Joseph
Boyse, an able defender of the doctrine of the Trinity, and of
Protestant nonconformists. On the supposition that this is
correct, we find Charnock's ministry in Ireland after the Eestora-
tion followed by a train of important consequences, reaching
forward into coming ages.*
This is the proper place for referring to and examining a
scandalous story about Charnock given by Bishop Parker in the
' History of his own Times.' He tells us that, Jan. 6. 1662-3,
one Philip Alden voluntarily discovered to Vernon, one of the
king's officers, a conspiracy to subvert the government in all the
three kingdoms. This Alden had been an old rebel, and one
who dealt in proscriptions and forfeited estates; but Vernon
had so much obliged him by begging his life of the lord lieu-
tenant, that he x^romised to discover the designs of the rebels.
The principal leaders being chosen in March, determined on
May 11. to open the war with the siege of Dublin : but many
forces were in readiness, and they were dispersed. Lackey, a
Presbyterian teacher, was hanged; but it is said he had seven
accomplices, among whom was Charnock. * This Charnock had
been chaplain of Henry Cromwell, advanced to that dignity by
John Owen. He was sent by the conspirators as their ambas-
sador to London, and promised them great assistance, as Gibbs,
Carr, and others had done in Scotland and Holland. But the
conspiracy being now discovered, he fled again into England, and
changed his name from Charnock to Clarke. He was a man of
great authority among the fanatics, and for a long time was at the
head of a great assembly, and did not die till twenty years after,
anno 1683, and his corpse was carried through the city with the
pomp of almost a royal funeral. 't This statement lays itself
open to obvious criticism. First, Bishop Parker, so inconsistent
in his life and so hasty in his charges, is by no means a safe
authority in any question of fact. Next, the original informer
is described as an old rebel, and a dealer in proscriptions and
forfeited estates, and by no means to be trusted in the charges
which he brings. Then our author makes Charnock live till
1683, whereas we have documentary evidence that he died in
1680. These considerations might seem sufficient to justify us
in dismissing the statement as a fabrication, or an entire mistake.
But we know from better authorities that there was a general
discontent, in the spring of 1663, among the protestante of Ire-
land, indeed among the nonconformists all over the three king-
doms, and that there was a conspiracy formed to seize Dublin
* See Sermon, &c., at the ordination of Rev. James Maiiineau, with an appendix
containing a Summary History of the Presbyterian Churches in the City, by the
Rev. James Armstrong, 1829.
t The statement of the Latin edition is ' neque enim ante vicennium obiit anno,
1683 cujus exequias pene regali funeris pompa per urbem extulerant.'
HIS LIFE. XX],
Castle. In Ireland, the dissatisfaction was very keen among the
English settlers, because they thought their interests neglected ;
among the soldiers of the Commonwealth, who were now stripped
of their importance ; but especially among zealous protestants,
who were bitterly disappointed, because they saw the work of
reformation thrown back. The leader seems to have been the
notorious Blood, who involved in it his brother-in-law, the Eev.
W. Lecky, formerly a fellow of Trinity College, who seems to have
become maddened in the course of the trial. Leland says that
* some lawyers, several Presbyterian ministers. Blood, who was
afterwards so distinguished in London, some members of the
Irish Commons, and several republican of&cers, embarked in this
design.' ' On the eve of the day appointed for seizing the Castle
of Dublin and publishing their declaration, about five-and-twenty
conspirators were seized, and a reward published for the appre-
hension of those who escaped.'* It appears, farther, that some
intimation had been sent to London which raised the suspicion
of the Government there against Charnock, for there is issued,
* 1663, June 19., warrant to Joel Hardy to apprehend Stephen
Charnock,' and, * June 20., an examination of Kob. Littlebury.
Knows Mi; Charnock, who visits at his house, and told him he
had an overture to go beyond seas. Has had no letter from
Ireland for him these six weeks;' and under the same year,
* Note of address of Eobt. Littlebury at the Unicorn, Little
Britain, London, with note not to miss him.' The country is
evidently in a very moved state, in consequence of the ejection
of the two thousand ministers, and the refusal to allow the non-
conformists to meet for the worship of God. Thus William
Kingsley to Secretary Bennet, June 20. 1663 : — ' There are daily
great conventicles in these parts ; on Whitsunday, 300 persons
met at Hobday's house, Waltham parish, &c. ' The news from
Carlisle give indications of an understanding among the discon-
tented. Thus Sir Phil. Musgrave reports to Williamson, June 22.,
Carlisle : — ' There is much talk of the more than ordinary meet-
ing of the sectaries, and the passing of soldiers between Ireland
and Scotland before the public discovery of the horrid plot.'t
The conclusion which we draw from these trustworthy statements
is, that there was deep discontent over all the three kingdoms,
among those who had been labouring to purify the church, and
who were now claiming liberty of worship ; that there was a cor-
respondence carried on among the aggrieved ; that there was a
disposition among some to resist the Government, the anticipa-
tion and precursor of the covenanting struggle in Scotland, and
the revolution of 1688 ; and that there was an ill-contrived con-
spiracy in Dublin, which was detected and put down. But there
is no evidence whatever to shew that Charnock was identified in
any way with the projected rising in Dublin. His name does
not appear in the proclamation from Dublin Castle, 23d May
* History of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 434.
t Calendar State Papers, edited by Mrs Green, vol. iii.
XXU INTEODUCTION TO CHARNOCK's WORKS.
1663. That the government should have proceeded against him,
is no presumption of his guilt, though it may have been quite
BUjBficient to lead Bishop Parker to propagate the story. We
know that * the generality of the ministers of the north (Ulster)
were at this time either banished, imprisoned, or driven into
corners, upon occasion of a plot of which they knew nothing,'*
these Presbyterians having in fact stood throughout by the family
of Stuart, and given evidence of loyalty in very trying times.
We can readily believe that Charnock should deeply sj^mpathise
with the grievances of his old friends in Dublin ; but his sober
judgment, his peaceable disposition, his retiring and studious
habits, all make it very unlikely that he should have taken any
active part in so ill-conceived and foolish a conspiracy, t
From whatever cause, Charnock disappears very much from
public view for twelve or fifteen years. We must be satisfied
with such a general statement as that of Wood, who says that,
returning to England about 1660, ' in and about London he did
spend the greater part of fifteen years without any call to his
own work, whereby he took advantage to go now and then either
into France or Holland.' In France he would see a lordly
church, enjojung full privileges under Louis XIV., 'and meet
with many protestants deprived of political and military power,
but having a precarious liberty under the Edict of Nantes not
yet revoked. In Holland were already gathering those refugees
who in due time were to bring over with them William of Orange
to rescue England from oppression. Calamy represents him as
* following his studies without any stated preaching.' Yes, it
was now a necessity of his nature to study. Adams and Veal
say, ' Even when providence denied him opportunities, he was
still laying in more stock, and preparing for work against he
might be called to it.' During these years when he was in
some measure out of sight, he was probably revolving those
thoughts which were afterwards embodied in his great work on
* Adair MSS., quoted in Eeid's History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, vol.
ii. p. 284.
t In reference to Parker's charge, Bliss, the editor, in Notes to Wood's Athena,
Bays : — ' Quaere — if Stephen Charnock ? Grey. Probably it was the same, the bishop
having mistaken the time of his death.' Mr T. Y. Gilbert, the famous antiquarian,
writes us : — ' Among the names of those committed on account of the alleged con-
spiracy, is that of " Eduard Baines, a fanatic preacher, formerly Harry Cromwell's
chaplain." Could Bishop Parker have confounded the two men ? Baines was rector
of St John's Church, close to Werburgh's, during the Commonwealth, and subse-
quently founded the Cooke Street congregation in Dublin.' It is proper to exj)lain,
as to this alleged ' fanatic preacher and the congregation in Cooke Street (first Wine
Tavern Street), that Mr Baines was ' a clergyman of learning and good sense, of
rational piety and zeal for the truth, and of great integrity and simplicity of spirit ;'
and that in the congregation there were many persons of rank and fortune, particu-
larly Sir John Clotworthy, afterwards Lord Massareene, Lady Chichester, afterwards
Countess of Donegal, and Lady Cole of the Enniskillen family. Dr Harrison became
co-pastor with Mr Baines in this congregation, and John Howe often officiated
there when Lord Massareene, to whom Howe was chaplain, happened to reside in
the capital. In all this we have another example of the continuance of the puritan
influence in Dublin. See Armstrong's ' History of the Presbyterian Churches,' in
Appendix to Sermon.
BIS LIFB. ZZIU
the 'Attributes.' Now, as at all times, he lived much in his
library, which, say Adams and Veal, was his 'workshop,'
furnished, * though not with a numerous, yet a curious, collection
of books ; ' and we can conceive that one so dependent on his
reading, and who had it in view to prepare deep theological
works, must have felt it to be a great trial when his books were
burnt in the great fire of London.
About 1675, he seems to be in a position to receive a call to
minister to a fixed congregation. It appears that a portion of
the congregation were anxious to secure him as joint pastor with
Dr Thomas Jacomb, and successor to Dr Lazarus Seaman, who
died Sept. 9. 1675. John Howe, however, was settled in this
office ;* and Charnock was appointed joint pastor to the Rev.
Thomas Watson in Crosby Hall. The congregation worshipping
there had been collected soon after the Restoration by Mr Watson,
formerly rector of the parish of St Stephen's, Walbrook, whose
little work. Heaven taken by Storm, was the means, under God,
of Colonel Gardiner's conversion. Upon the indulgence in 1674
he licensed the hall in Crosby House, on the east side of Bishops-
gate Street, which had been built in the fifteenth century by Sir
John Crosby, had at a later date been the residence of Richard
Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard IH., and was now
the property of Sir John Langham, who patronised the non-
conformists, and devoted its very beautiful Gothic hall to the
preaching of the word. Charnock was settled there in 1675, and
officiated there to the time of his death, and there a numerous
and wealthy congregation, presbyterian or independent, con-
tinued to worship for some ages.t Charnock could not be
described at this part of his life as specially a popular preacher.
On account of his memory failing, he had to read his sermons ;
and on account of his weak eyesight he had to read them with
a glass, and his delivery was without the flow and impressiveness
which it had in his younger years. Besides, his compositions
were too full of matter, and were far too elaborate to be relished
by the unthinking multitude, who complained of his discourses
as being " but morality or metaphysics," their only fault being
that they were too thoughtful. Adams and Veal say, ' Yet it
may withal be said that if he were sometimes deep, he was
never abstruse ; he handled the great mysteries of the gospel
with much clearness and perspicuity, so that in his preaching, if
he were above most, it was only because most were below it.'
Those who were educated up to him, as many of the middle
classes were in that age, when the word of God and theological
treatises were so studied, and when the public events of the
times compelled men to think on profound topics, waited upon
his ministry with great eagerness, and drank in greedily the
* Roger's Life of Howe, p. 144.
t Wilson's History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches, vol. i. pp. 331, et seq.,
where is a history of Crosby Hall and an account of its ministers. Crosby Hall is
now a merchant's wareroom, but retains traces of its beauty in its timber roof and
-Bplendid bow window.
XXIV INTEODUCTION TO CHAENOCk's WORKS.
instruction which he communicated from sabbath to sabbath.
Mr Johnson tells us that * many able ministers loved to sit at
his feet, for they received by one sermon of his those instructions
which they could not get by many books or sermons of others.'
We can readily picture him at this time from the scattered
notices left of him. We have two portraits of him ; one a paint-
ing in Williams' Library, the other a plate in the folio edition of
his works. Both exhibit him with marked and bony features, and
a deep expressive eye. The painting makes him appear more
heavy looking and sunken, as if he often retreated into himself
to commune with his own thoughts. The plate is more lively,
as if he could be drawn out by those who understood and reci-
procated him. Adams and Veal say he ' was somewhat reserved
when he was not very well acquainted, otherwise very affable
and communicative where he understood and liked his company.'
We now extract from his funeral sermon. Those who did not
know him east upon him ' foul and false aspersions' ' as if he was
melancholy, reserved, unsociable to all, while his acquaintances
will give a character of him diametrically opposite. How cheerful,
free, loving, sweet-dispositioned was he in all companies where
he could take delight ; he was their love, their delight.' By this
time ' our Timothy was somewhat obscured by manifold infirmi-
ties, a crazy body, weak eyes, one dark, the other dim, a hand
that would shake, sometimes an infirm stomach, an aching head,
a fugitive memory, which, after it had failed him sometimes, he
would never trust again, but verbatim penned and read all his
notes, whereas till of late years he never looked within them.*
From such a temperament we might expect a little ' passion or
choler,' which is acknowledged by his friend, but which, he as-
sures us, 'through grace he turned into the right channel.' 'He
was careful to watch over his heart and against spiritual pride.'
Five days each week, and twelve hours each day, he spent in his
study, ' I will not say, as some, to make one sermon ; I know
he had other work there.' When some one told him if he studied
too much it would cost him his life, he replied, 'Why, it cost
Christ his life to redeem and save me.' When he went out from
his books and meditations, it was to visit and relieve his patients,
he having had all along a taste for medicine, and having given
much time to the study of it. His bodily infirmities, his trials
and spiritual conflicts, gave him a peculiar fitness for guiding
the anxious and comforting the afflicted. ' He had bowels of
compassion for sinners to snatch them out of the flames, and
for saints to direct them unto the love of Christ.' ' I need not
speak unto you of his preaching ; how oft went he to children of
light walking in darkness, to cheer and revive them with cordials
wherewith the Lord had usually refreshed him.' ' Your teacher
was,' said the preacher in the face of the congregation, ' though
not a perfect man, a perfect minister, thoroughly accomplished
by the Spirit and the word of truth.'
The ambition of able and thinking ministers in those times
HIS LIFE. ZXY
was to draw out a system of theology. Watson,' his colleague, has
left us a 'Body of Divinity,' which long continued to train the
common people in the puritan theology, and may still be found,
as we can testify, in the cottages of the Scottish peasantry.
Charnock ' intended to have given forth a complete body of
divinity' to the congregation which met in Crosby Hall, the result,
we doubt not, of long reading and much thought. He began with
treating of the being, and went on to the attributes of God ; but
* his sun set before he had gone over half of his transcendent
excellencies and perfections. The last subject he treated on and
finished was the patience of God. He was looking what to say
next of the mercy, grace, and goodness of God, which he is gone
to see and admire, for he found that which he most looked and
longed for, the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life,
in heaven whence he shines now. Indeed, all the while he was
upon the attributes of God, he moved with that extraordinary
strength and celerity, 'twas an argument of his near approach
unto his centre and everlasting rest ; and if it be true, as some
say, that the soul doth jprominere in morte, his words were too true
predictions, and from his soul when he said, that concerning
divine patience would be his last sermon.' ' It was his longing
desire, and his hopes were, that he should shortly be in that
sinless state where there is the acme, the perfection of grace and
holiness.'
He died July 27. 1680, at the comparatively early age of fifty-
two, in the house of Eichard Tymms, a glazier in the parish of
Whitechapel. On July 30th, his body was conveyed to Crosby
Hall, and thence accompanied by great numbers of his brethren
to St Michael's Church, in Cornhill, where * his bosom friend Mr
Johnson, gained at Emmanuel, adhering to him at New College,
preached his funeral sermon from Mat. xiii. 43, ' Then shall
the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their
Father.'! His remains were buried ' over Mr Sykes, under the
steeple ' of St Michael's, where the worshippers have ever since
passed over them in going in to the church.
He published himself nothing but a sermon ' On the Sinful-
ness and cure of Evil Thoughts,' Gen. vi. 5, which appeared in
the supplement to the Morning Exercises at Cripplegate ; and
it is an indication of his disposition to keep his name from public
* We might have doubted whether a nonconformist minister could have been
permitted to preach the funeral sermon of a nonconformist minister in a parish
church, but the statement is made by Wood. The entry in the register of St
Michael's is, ' July 30. was buryed Stephen Charnock, minister, under the steeple.'
f ' EKAAMYI2 THN AIKAIHN. On the shining of the righteous, a
sermon preached partly on the Death of that Eeverend and Excellent Divine, Mr
Stephen Charnock, and in part at the funeral of a godly friend, by John Johnson,
M.A.' 1680. In explanation, he states that the body of the discourse had been
prepared on the occasion of the death of another friend ; but, as being called suddenly
to preach at Mr Charnock"s funeral, he had used the same sermon, but accommodated
to the different person. The discourse is somewhat rambling. We have embodied
most of what relates to Charnock in this memoir. We have used the copy in the
Williams' Library.
XXVI INTRODUCTION TO CHAENOCK S WOEKS.
view, that in the title there is nothing more than the initials S. C,
whereas in every other sermon in the collection there appears
the name of the preacher. His posthumous works were given to
the world by Mr Eichard Adams and Mr Edward Veal, both
Oxford friends, the latter also a Dublin friend, the one then a
nonconformist minister in Southwark, and the other in Wrap-
ping. They first published ' A Discourse on Divine Providence,'
1680, and announce that ' this comes out first as a prodromus
to several works designed to be made public as soon as they can
be with conveniency transcribed,' declaring that 'the piece now
published is a specimen of the strain and spirit of this holy man,
this being his familiar and ordinary way of preaching.' The
same year there appeared * A Sermon on Keconciliation to God
in Christ.' His discourses ' On the Existence and Attributes of
God,' appeared in a large folio in 1681-82, and were followed by
another folio in 1683, containing discourses on regeneration, re-
conciliation, the Lord's supper, and other important subjects.
A second edition of his works, in two volumes folio, appeared in
1684, and a third in 1702. In 1699, were published with ' An
Advertisement to the Eeader,' by Edward Veal, two discourses,
one on Man's Enmity to God, the other on Mercy for the Chief of
Sinners.
His great work is that on the ' Attributes.' Prior to his time
the subject had been treated of near the opening of systems of
theology, but never in the particular and minute way in which it
is done in Charnock's discourses. There had been two works on
the special topic published in the English tongue in the early
part of the century. The one was A Treatise containing the
Original of Unbelief, Misbelief, or Mispersuasion concerning the
Veritie, Unitie, and Attributes of the Deity, by Thomas Jackson,
Doctor in Divinity, Vicar of St Nicholas Church, Neiccastle-upon-
Tyne, and late Felloiv of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1625.
The work is a philosophico-religious one, treating profoundly, if
not clearly, of the origin of ideas as discussed by Plato and
Aristotle, and of belief in God ; but not unfolding, as Charnock
does, the nature of the several attributes. A work more nearly
resembling that of our author, and very probably suggesting it,
was written by Dr Preston, one of the ablest of the Cambridge
di\dnes, and who had been master of Emmanuel some years be-
fore Charnock's time, and left a great name behind him. It is
Life Eternal, or a Treatise of the Knoivledge of the Divine Essence
and Attributes, by the late John Preston. It reached a fourth
edition in 1634. In the eighteen sermons of which the work is
composed, the author first proves the existence and unity of
God, and then dwells on eight of his perfections.* The whole is
* These are (1.) that God is perfect; (2.) that he is without all causes, having
his heing and beginning from himself; (3.) that he is eternal; (4.) that he is
simple and spiritual; (5.) immutable; (6.) infinite (beyond all we can conceive),
including goodness ; {!.) omnipresent ; (8.) omnipotent. The arrangement is vej^
imperfect.
HIS LIFE. XXVn
under 400 pages, of by no means close printing. The analysis
and distribution of the attributes are by no means the same with
those followed by Charnock, whose method is much more logical
and judicious, while his illustration is much more full and ample.
Charnock's work is at this day the most elaborate that has
appeared on the subject.
Some in our day object to the separation of the divine attri-
butes, such as we have in Charnock's work, and in systems of
theology, that it is a division of the divine unity; that it is fitted
to leave the impression that the perfections are so many different
entities ; and that it exhibits the divine being in dry and abstract
forms, which do not engage and win the affections of the heart.
Now, it should be admitted at once, that a theological treatise
on the attributes, or on any other subject, cannot serve every
good puri3ose. No treatise of divinity can accomplish the high
ends secured by the Word of God, with its vivid narratives, its
typical events and ordinances, its instructive parables, and its
attractive exhibition of God as living, acting, and loving — all
suited to the heart and imagination of man as well as his under-
standing. A theological system when compared with the word
of God, is at best like a hortus siccus, when compared with the
growing plants in nature, or a skeleton in reference to the living
frame, clothed with flesh and skin. The most useful and effec-
tive preaching must follow the Word of God as a model rather
than bodies of divinity, and present God and his love in the
concrete and not in the abstract form. Still, systematic theology
has important purposes to secure, not only in testing and guard-
ing purity of doctrine in a church, but in combining the scattered
truths of God's Word, so that we may clearly apprehend them :
in exhibiting the unity of the faith ; and in facing the misappre-
hensions, mistakes, and errors which may arise. In particular,
great good may be effected by a full display, and a reflective
contemplation of the divine character; and in order to this, there
must be some order, plan, and division, and the more logical
these are the better for every purpose, speculative or practical.
Care must be taken always, in drawing such a portraiture, to shew
that the attributes are not distinct parts of the divine essence,
but simply different aspects of the one God, viewed separately
because of the infirmity of our minds, and the narrowness of our
vision, which prevent us from taking in the whole object at once,
and constrain us to survey it part after part. As it is not the
abstract quality, but the concrete being that calls forth feeling
and affection, we must ever contemplate his perfections, as
combined in the unity of his living person. It is to be said,
in behalf of Charnock, that he never leaves the impression that
the attributes are separate existences ; they are simply different
manifestations presented to us, and views taken by us of the one
God, who is at once Great and Good, Holy and Gracious.
XXVm INTRODUCTION TO CHAKNOCK S WORKS.
II. THE -tuRITAN PEEACHING ANP THE PUEITAN
LECTURE^ #^
' Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days were
better than these ? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning
this,' Eccles. vii. 10. There are some ever telling us that the
theology of former times is much superior to that of our day.
Some prefer the theology of the so-called fathers of the church,
some that of the middle ages, some that of the Reformation,
some that of the puritans. Now we believe that it may be good
for us to look to the way in which great and good men have con-
ceived, expressed, and enforced the truth in divers ages, were it
only to widen the narrowness of our views, and recall attention
to catholic verities which particular ages or sects have allowed
to sink out of sight. Let us by all means rise from time to time
above the contracted valleys in which we dwell, and ascend a
height whence we may observe the whole broad and diversified
territory which God has given us as an inheritance, and the rela-
tion of the varied parts which branch out from Christ as the
centre, as do the hills and valleys of our country from some
great mountain, the axis of its range. There is, we should
acknowledge, an attractive simplicity in the expositions of divine
truth by the early fathers ; and we are under deep obligations to
the divines of the fourth century for establishing on Scripture
evidence the doctrine of the Trinity. Those who look into it with
a desire to discover what is good, will find not a few excellencies
even in the mediaeval di"sdnity, notwithstanding the restraints
laid on it by crutches and bandages. It is not to be forgotten
that Thomas a Kempis lived in what are called the dark ages ;
and that we owe to a philosophic divine of that time, not cer-
tainly the doctrine of the atonement, which had been in the
revealed religion of God since Adam and Abel offered lambs in
sacrifice, but a very masterly and comprehensive exposition of
that cardinal truth. Free grace, which had been so limited and
hindered in the priestly and ecclesiastical ages, breathes from
every page of the Reformers as fragrance does from the flower.
The puritan preaching is unsurpassed for clear enunciation of
divine truth, accompanied with close, searching, and fervent
appeal, which now shakes the whole soul, as the earthquake did
the prison at Philippi, and anon relieves it by the command and
promise, ' Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved.'
But we should put implicit trust in no human, or hereditary, or
traditional theology, in no theology except what comes direct from
the Bible, interpreted according to the letter, but received after the
spirit. How often does it happen that you will know what sect a
man belongs to by the favourite passages which he quotes in his
sermons, and in his very prayers, shewing how apt we are to take
our very Scriptures from the traditions of our churches. We act
as if the weU were shut up from us, and as if we were obliged to
THE PUKITAN PREACHING. Xxil
go to the streams, which may have caught earthliness in their
course, and which at the best cannot be so fresh as the fountain.
That is the theology best suited to the age which is put forth by
living men of the age, drinking of the living word for themselves
by the power of the living Spirit.
The peculiarities of the puritan preaching arose from the cir-
cumstances in which they were placed, combined always with
their deep piety. Most of them were highly educated men, trained
in classics, logics, and ethics at the old universities. In their
colleges, and in the Established Church, they had acquired habits
of careful study and preparation for the pulpit, which they re-
tained all their lives, whether they remained in or removed from
the communion of the Church of England. Meanwhile, in the
prosecution of their high aims, they were thrown into the midgt
of most exciting scenes, which moved society from its base to its
summit. They had to make up their minds on most momentous
questions, and to come to a public decision, and take their side, —
it may be at an immense sacrifice of worldly wealth and status.
With a great love for the national Church, and a desire to keep
the unity of the faith, they declined, in obedience to what they
believed to be the commands of God in his word, to conform to
practices which the government, political and ecclesiastical, was
imposing on them. In taking their part in the movements of
these times, they had to mingle with men of all classes, to write
papers of defence and explanation, and at times of controversy,
and to transact a multifarious business, with bearings on states-
men on the one hand, and the mass of the people on the other.
Out of this state of things arose a style of exposition different
from that of the retired scholar on the one hand, and from that
of the man of bustle on the other ; equally removed from the
manner of the independent churchman and of the ever stirring
dissenter. The discourses are by men of thought and erudition,
who must draw their support from the great body of the people,
and address in one and the same sermon both men and women
belonging to all ranks and classes. We see those characteristics
in every treatise of Owen and Baxter, and they come out in the
discourses of Charnock.
The works of Charnock, and of the puritans generally, labour
under two alleged imperfections. With the exception of Howe's
*Li\dng Temple,' and one or two other treatises, they are with-
out that subdued and quiet reflection which gives such a charm
to books which have come out of retired parsonages or the
cloisters of colleges. In most of the writings of the puritans,
there is a movement, and in many of them a restlessness, which
shew that they were composed for hearers or readers who were
no doubt to be instructed, but whose attention required also to
be kept alive. Their profound discussions and their erudite
disquisitions, having reference commonly to expected, indeed
immediate action, are ever mixed with practical lessons and
applications which interrupt the argument, and at times give a
XXX INTRODUCTION TO OHARNOCK S WORKS.
strain and bias to the interpretation of a passage. In this respect
their discourses, written with the picture of a mixed auditory
before them, are very different from the essays or dissertations,
philosophic or critical, of certain of the Anglican or German
divines, who, themselves mere scholars or thinkers, write only
for the learned ; but possess an interest to them such as cannot
attach to spoken addresses in which the popular and the scien-
tific are mixed in every page.
Because of this attempted combination, the puritans labour
under another alleged disadvantage. Most of their writings
contain too much thought, too much erudition, and above all too
many logical" distinctions, to admit of their being appreciated by
vulgar readers. With the living voice and the earnest manner
to set them off, the sermons may have been listened to with pro-
found interest by large mixed audiences ; but in the yellow
pages of the old volume they scare those who do not wish to be
troubled with active or earnest thought. In this respect they
are inferior — some would rather say immeasurably superior — to
the popular works produced in oui' day by evangelical writers
both within and beyond the established churches of England and
Scotland. They are not characterised by that entire absence, in
some cases studious abnegation, of reflective thought and con-
vincing argument, which is a characteristic of some of our modern
preachers, who cast away their manhood and pule like infants ;
nor do they indulge in those stories and anecdotes by which some
of our most successful ministers of the word attract and profit
large audiences in our times. The puritans had learning, and
they gave the results of it to then- congregations. They thought
profoundly themselves, and they wished to stimulate and gratify
thought in their hearers and readers.
The consequence of all this is, that there is a class who reckon
themselves above, and there is a class certainly below, the jjuritan.
There are contemplatists who are disturbed by their feverishness,
and scholars who complain of the intrusion of unasked practical
lessons. But if these persons would only exercise a little of that
patience on which they set so high a value, they would find im-
bedded in the rich conglomerate of the puritans profound reflec-
tions and. wise maxims, which could have come only from deep
thinkers and scholars, who spent long hours in then- studies
reading, meditating, and, we may add, praying over the deepest
questions which the mind of man can ponder. It is also true
that there are men and women of all ranks and conditions who
are below the puritans, such as the devoui'ers of novels in our
circulating libraries, our men of pleasure and of mere business
and agriculture, who have never been led to entertain a thought
above their amusements, or their shops and their warehouses,
their crops and their cattle ; and such are the masses in our
great cities, and in our scattered rural districts too, who have
been allowed to spring up in utter ignorance, but who would not
have been left in such utter degradation, if the puritans had been
THK PUBITAN PREACHING. XXXi
allowed to carry out their system of inspection, catechising, and
careful Bible instruction. We allow that persons so untrained
to thinking would speedily fall asleep if made to read a puritan
treatise, with its deep thoughts and its logical distinctions. The
puritan preachers no doubt required a prepared audience ; but
they had succeeded so far in training intelligent audiences in
their own day, and they had a discipline which, if they had been
allowed to carry it out, might have prepared the great body of
the people for listening to the systematic exposition of the divine
word. Nor is it to be forgotten that there are passages in the
writings of the best puritans more fitted than any composed by
uninspired men to awaken the unthinking and arouse the care-
less, and compel them to think of the things which belong to
their everlasting peace. These passages continue to be regularly
quoted to this day, and often constitute the very best parts of the
articles in our popular reUgious literature. Charnock's discourses,
in particular, have been a mine in which many have dug, and
found there gold wherewithal to enrich themselves, without
exhausting the numberless veins. The preachers who have
caught the spirit of the puritans, but have avoided their techni-
cality and mannerism, have commonly been the most successful
in rousing the sunken and the dead from their apathy, and in
stirring them to anxiety and prayer.
Some of the critical commentaries furnished by the puritans,
such as those of Owen, are among the ablest, and altogether the
best, that have ever been published. It is all true that modern
German industry has dug up and collected materials unknown
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the more recent
contests with the rationalists and infidels, while producing it
may be much immediate mischief, have in the end led to a
larger and more minute acquaintance with ancient thought and
history, and with eastern languages and customs. But the
puritans have been left behind merely by the onward march of
knowledge ; and the time may come when even the most
advanced German critics may in this sense become antiquated.
It is true that the puritans, keeping before them a living
audience, ever mingled practical reflections and aj)plications
with their most erudite criticism, in a way which is now avoided
by learned commentators. But over against this we have to
place the counterbalancing circumstance, that the Scriptures
were written for practical purposes, and will ever be better
interpreted by practical men, who have felt the truth them-
selves, and who have had enlarged and familiar intercourse
with men, women, and children in the actual world, than by
the mere book scholar, who is ever tempted to attribute motives
to historical actors such as real human beings were never
swayed by, and to discard passages because they contain im-
probabilities such as one who mingles with mankind is meet-
ing with every day. We have sometimes thought, in com-
paring the puritan with the modern German criticism, that
XXXll INTRODUCTION TO CHARNOCK S WORKS.
the one of these circumstances is quite fitted to outweigh the
other; of course, the one should be used to counteract the other,
and a perfect commentary should seek to embrace both ad-
vantages.
The multiplied divisions, and ramified subdivisions, employed
in their discourses, furnish matter of very common complaint
against them. The habit arose from the training in a narrow
scholastic logic in the universities, and is to be found in the
ethical, the juridical, the legal, and the parliamentary quite as
much as in the theological writings of the age, and in the high
Anglican as well as in the puritan theology. We are not pre-
pared to "^^ndicate the peculiar manner of the times. The
excess in one direction led in the immediately succeeding age to
an excess in the other direction. The new method, or want of
method, was introduced from France, and came in with a very
light and superficial literature. It was espoused by such
writers as Lord Shaftesbury in his ' Characteristics of Men, and
Manners, and Times;' and appeared in a very graceful dress in
the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian. Shaftesbury tells us that
the miscellaneous manner was in the highest esteem in his day,
that the old plan of dividing into fii-sts and seconds had grown
out of fashion, and that ' the elegant court divine exhorts in
miscellany, and is ashamed to bring his twos and threes before
a fashionable assembly.' ' Eagouts and fricassees are the reign-
ing dishes; so authors, in order to become fasliionable, have
run into the more savoury way of learned ragout and medley.'
In adopting the style of the times, the preachers no doubt sup-
posed that they could thereby recommend religion to the world,
especially to the gay and fashionable classes, who had been
repelled by the old manner, and might be won, it was alleged,
by the new. The comment of the clerical satirist "Withersj)oon,
in his ' Characteristics,' is very pertinent. After stating the
allegation that the old system had driven most of the fashion-
able gentry from the churches, he says : ' Now the only way to
regain them to the church, is to accommodate the worship as
much as may be to their taste ;' and then remarks slily, ' I
confess there has sometimes been an ugly objection thrown up
against this part of my argument, viz., that this desertion of
public worship by those in high life seems in fact to be contem-
porary with, and to increase in a pretty exact proportion to, the
attempts that have been made, and are made, to suit it to their
taste.' Not that we have any right to condemn the preachers
of the eighteenth century because they did not choose to follow
the formalism of the seventeenth. A much graver charge can
be brought against them; that of sinking out of sight, or
diluting, some of the convincing and saving truths of Chris-
tianity. The minister of God's Word, if he is not to make him-
self ridiculous, must wear the dress and accommodate himself
to the innocent manners of his age ; but he is never to forget
that he is a minister of the word, prepared to declare the whole
THE PUBITAN PREACHIN*. XXXIU
counsel of God, and he is not to imagine that he can deliver
himself from the offence of the cross. The polite, the gay, and
the refined admired the preaching of the eighteenth century,
but never thought of allowing themselves to fall under the
power of the religion recommended. The puritan preachers are
still read and have power, ' being dead they yet speak unto us;'
but who remembers the names of the admired pulpit orators of
last century? Who, except the lovers of belles lettres, ever
think of looking into the polished sermons of Hugh Blair and
his school ?
It may be allowed that the puritan preachers, like all the
didactic writers of their time, carried their subdivisions too far.
They sought by abstraction to bring out into distinct view all the
attributes of the concrete object ; and by mental analysis to dis-
tribute a complex subject into its parts. As correct thinkers,
their judgment would have been offended if a single one of the
parts which go to make up the whole had been left out. But
comprehensive minds now see that it is beyond the capacity
of man to find out all the elements of any one existing
object 'in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or the
waters under the earth.' In the subject, for example, discussed
by Charnock, the nature of God, no one should profess, (certainly
Charnock does not) to be able to discover or to unfold all the
perfections of Jehovah ; and it would be simple pretension to
make the propositions we utter assume the appearance of com-
pleteness of knowledge and explanation. The mind feels bur-
dened when a speaker or writer would lay the whole weight of a
comprehensive subject upon it. Charles II. was offering a just
criticism on the whole preaching of the age when he charged
Isaac Barrow with being an unjust preacher, inasmuch as he
left nothing for any other man to say. All people weary of an
enumeration which would count all gifts bestowed in minute
coins ; independent thinkers feel offended when any one would
dogmatically settle everything for them ; and enlarged minds
would rather have a wide margin left for them to write on, and
prefer suggestive to exhaustive writers.
But on the other hand, definition and division are important
logical instruments ; and when they are kept in their proper
place as means, they serve important purposes. The puritan
preachers all aimed at vastly more than mere tickling, rousing,
and interesting their hearers ; they aimed at instructing them.
For this purpose it was needful first of all to give their hearers
clear notions ; and how could that be done except by the speakers
themselves acquiring distinct and adequate ideas, and then
uttering a clear expression of them? They were quite aware
that speculative notions and linked ratiocinations were not fitted
to raise feeling, and that there could be no religion without
affection; and hence they ever mingled appeals to the conscience,
and addresses to the feelings, and even pictures for the fancy,
"with their methodical arrangements and reasoning processes.
IIHT INTRODOCTION TO CHARNOCK S WORKS.
But they knew at the same time that mere feeling, nnsustained
by the understanding, would die out like an unfed flame, and
hence they ever sought to convey clear apprehensions, and to
convince the judgment. Then they wished their audience to
retain what they heard in their memories for future rumination.
But the memory, at least of the intelligent, proceeds in its
reminiscences by correlation; it cannot bring up the uncon-
nected, the dismembered ; it needs hooks on which to hang the
thoughts, compartments in which to arrange them, that we may
know where to find them, and to be able to bring them out for
use when we need them. All skilful teachers of youth know
that if their pupils would make progress they must employ
method, and have division and enumeration in the lessons on
which they examine. And it is certain that the puritans aimed
at nothing less than thoroughly teaching their flocks ; and many
of their hearers, male and female, took notes of the sermons and
afterwards expanded them. Such a process would be quite
impossible in regard to much of the preaching of our times,
satisfying itself with a loose general view of a subject, which
may produce a transient impression for good, but which does
not give a distinct apprehension at the time, and which could
not possibly be recalled afterwards, much less expressed, by any
but the original speaker. Depend upon it, two centuries hence
these writers will be far less read than the puritans are at this
present time.
An objection has frequently been taken to the too graphic
illustrations and quaintnesses of the puritans. An excuse can
easily be pled for it by those who may not be prepared to recom-
mend it for general adoption. It was the habit of the time, and
was adopted in all departments of literature, poetical and prose,
and by the adherents of the Anglican establishment as well as
the nonconformists. The puritan preachers felt as if they were
necessitated to employ some such means of keeping alive the
attention of hearers to the weighty instruction they were in the
habit of imparting to their large mixed audiences. It is a
curious circumstance that the present age has come back to
th^ same practice under a somewhat different form, and with
less excuse for it in the solidity of its thinking ; and it cannot
with any consistency object to the fashion of the good old puritans
as long as it calls for and favours so many sensation means of
summoning the attention, not only in novels, but in every species
of writing, including our religious literature, which is advertised
by catch titles and read for the sake of excitement. It is to be
said in behalf of the puritans, that though there may be at times
an overstrained ingenuity in their illustrations, yet these always
bear directly and pointedly upon the doctrinal truth which they
are expounding, and the practical lessons which they enforce.
The puritans ever sought to enlighten the intellect; but their
aim was also to gain the heart, and in order to both one and
the other, to awaken the conscience — in the addresses to which
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOGY. XXXV
they have not been surpassed, perhaps not equalled, by any
class of teachers in ancient or in modern times.
The best puritan preaching ever tended to take the form of
what they called the * lecture.' We often meet with this phrase
in reading the history of the times. There were lectures delivered
weekly in certain churches in London, and in some of the prin-
cipal towns throughout the three kingdoms ; Laud, we know, en-
deavoured to put down the puritan lecture. Charnock describes
himself as of&cially lecturer at Christ Church, where the lecture
was delivered at three o'clock on the afternoons of the Lord's
day. We are not to suppose that the puritans always preached
in this elaborate style, but the ablest of them did so when they
could get fit audience; and the sermons which they thought
worthy of publication were commonly of this elaborately-exposi-
tory type. In particular, Charnock always discourses to us as
if he were lecturing in a college chapel at Oxford, or in Christ
Church, Dublin.
While it is not desirable that all preaching, or even ordinary
preaching, should be of this stamp, it would surely be for the
benefit of the church of Christ to have a few lecturers or doctors,
fitted for such work, in all our great cities ; or to secure the same
end by systematic lectures delivered by a judicious combination
of competent men, not merely on attractive and popular, but on
profound theological, subjects. To accomplish the purpose in
our day, it is not needful that this elaborate exposition should
proceed in the manner of the puritans ; in particular, it should
avoid the minute dissection of texts in which they so delighted,
but in which the living truth was apt to be killed in the process.
In order to be profitable, the lectures must be addressed to the
age, by men who sympathise with the age ; and it is only thus
that they can accomplish in this century, what the puritan lecture
effected two hundred years ago. Ever founded on the word of
God, they should endeavour to bring out its broad and simple
meaning, rather than exercise their ingenuity in drawing out
significations which were never seen by the writers of the Scrip-
tures. Thus may the church of God expect to raise up a body
of intelligent people, to maintain and defend the truth in our
day, by better weapons than were employed even by the soldiers
of Cromwell in the seventeenth century.
III. PHILOSOPHICAL PEINCIPLES INVOLVED IN THE
PUEITAN THEOLOGY.
The author of this Introduction feels that, on being asked to
write about the divine who discussed the profound subject of the
'Attributes of God,' it will be expected of him, from the character
XXXVl INTRODUCTION TO CHARNOCK S WORKS.
of his favourite studies, that he should say something of the
philosophy of the puritans, or rather of the philosophic principles
involved in the puritan theology. For in truth the puritans were
not, really nor professedly, philosophers, but theologians and
preachers. Not that their religious views discouraged the study
of philosophy. It could be shewn that some of the greatest
thinkers that England has produced, owed not a little to puritan
influence. Francis Bacon had certainly none of the self-sacri-
ficing spirit of the puritans, but he owed much to a puritan
mother. The puritans generally were too much engrossed with
practical questions, to write calm philosophic treatises. But it
is not to be forgotten that Culverwel and Cudworth, about the
most learned and profound thinkers of their age, took the reform-
ing side in Cambridge ; and Howe, who wrote his ' Living Temple'
(at least the first part of it) in his calm retirement in the family
of Lord Massarene at Antrim, was altogether a puritan. Locke
(like Milton) did not keep by the deep religious faith of those
among whom he was brought up, but he cherished their reverence
for the Bible and liberty of thought.
The phrase ' puritan divines' is understood to apply to those
who sought to construct a biblical theology. But Christian
theology, which is a co-ordination of the scattered truths of God's
. word, cannot be constructed without philosophic T)rinciples, more
or fewer, being involved explicitly, or more frequently implicitly.
If we try to connect truths which in the Bible are left unconnected ;
if we generalise wha^ in the Scriptures is particular ; if we infer
from what is revealed ; if we argue from the analogy of the faith,
or from any other principle ; above all, if we would arrange the
truth into a system, we must, whether we avow it or not, whether
we know it or not, proceed on some principle of reason. We
often find that those who afi'ect to be the most determined to
avoid all scholastic forms, are all the while, in their statements
and reasonings, proceeding on j)rinciples which are really meta-
physical, the metaphysics being very confused and ill-founded.
It would be very curious and very instructive withal, to have a
full and clear enunciation of the philosophic principles involved
in the theologies of all different ages and creeds. It is only by
having such a statement spread out articulately, that we can find
what is human and what is divine in systems of divinity. In this
article we are to endeavour to bring out to view the philosophy
implied in the construction of the puritan theology.
Bible theologians, as such, should always avoid identifying
their systems with, or founding them upon, any peculiar meta-
physical system. But let us not be misunderstood. We do not
mean to affirm that no attempt should be made to wed religion
and philosophy. We hold that all philosophy should be thought
out in a religious spirit, and that much good may be effected by
philosophic works on religious topics, such as those of Pascal, and
Culverwel, and Cudworth in the seventeenth century. But in
all such cases the philosophy and the Scriptural theology should
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOOY. XXIVU
be kept separate, not, it may be, in separate chapters, but first
in the mind of the writer, and second in the composition of his
work ; so separate, that the reader may discern the difference,
and that the certainties of God may not be confounded by the
dullest apprehension with the speculations of men.
The pui-itans professed to be students of the Bible, and not
philosophers, and to avoid all mere speculative questions. And
we are prepared to affirm that neither before nor since, has there
been a body of profound divines assuming fewer doubtful meta-
physical principles. But the very puritans did proceed, in the
construction of their systems, on certain logical or metaphysical
maxims. We allow that, like all dogmatic theologians, they
carried their method of technical formulae too far ; that they did
at times squeeze a text, written in an eastern language, to suit
it to a western article ; and that they professed to reach a com-
pleteness of system such as is altogether beyond the limited capa-
cities of man, in dealing with tbe boundless truths of God's Word.
But we maintain that in their theology they ground on no peculiar
philosophy ; that the maxims involved in their construction and
inferences are found in the very nature of the human mind, and
of the reason with which man is endowed, are such as man must
ever take with him, if he is not to abnegate his rational nature,
are such as have had a place allotted them in all profound philo-
sophies, whether in ancient, in mediaeval, or in modern times ;
in short, the puritans proceed on the principles of a catholic philo-
sophy, which is the expression of the laws of man's intellectual
constitution.
It may be allowed indeed that they employed at times the forms
and expressions of authors, and of systems that were favourites
with them. In particular, they used the distinctions and the phrases
of Aristotle, of Augustine, and of the scholastic logicians. But then
it is to be remembered that Aristotle and Augustine were about the
most comprehensive thinkers that ever lived ; and it is a fact that
the schoolmen, all narrow and technical as they were in their spirit,
were the main instruments of giving definiteness to the expressions
used in the western world in our modern literature, — in fact, in our
very speeches, sermons, and common conversation. The puritans
in their learned treatises had to employ the phraseology of the
learning of their times, just as they had to use the language of
their country. The inspired writers themselves had their nation-
alities and their individualities — the speech of the disciples still * be-
wrayeth' them. They had to speak of the sun rising, and the earth
standing, according to the ideas of their time ; and in regard to
man's nature they had to use the phrases, * reins,' ' bowels,' ' heart,'
and employ the distinction of ' body,' ' soul,' and ' spirit,' because
they were accepted in their times. The puritans must use the
language they found ready for them, and the distinctions under-
stood by their readers ; but just as the writers of Scripture did not
mean authoritatively to sanction any theories of the world or of the
mind, so the puritans did not intend to adopt any pecuHar philoso-
XXXVIU INTRODUCTION TO CHAENOCK S WOEKS.
phic system, Platonic or Aristotelian, Greek or Latin, ancient or
modern, but to proceed on the universal principles of reason.
In establishing] the divine existence, Charnock had to make
references to the material universe, as furnishing evidence of order,
design, and beneficence. In doing so, he has to make his state-
ments according to the views of the time. The Copemican theory
of the universe had been adopted for some ages by men of science,
but had not yet been brought down to the common belief of the
people. Bacon had rejected it, and Milton in his great poem forms
his pictures on the idea of the earth being reckoned the stable
centre, with the stars moving round it in cycles and epicycles.
When Charnock was in Dublin, the Royal Society was formed in
Oxford ; and while Charnock was meditating his discourses on the
Attributes, Newton was cogitating the law of universal gravitation.
But the preacher feels that it was not for him to go in advance of
the popular apprehension. He usually supposes, as all men in fact
still do, that the sun moves round the earth, but he states in a
note, ' whether it be the sun or the earth that moves, it is all one,'
that is for his purpose, which is to shew that ' the things in the
world declare the existence of a God in their production, harmony,
preservation, and answering their several ends.' 'Every plant,
every atom, as well as every star, at the first meeting, whispers this
in our ears, " I have a Creator, I am witness to a Deity." Who
ever saw statues or pictures, but presently thinks of a statuary and
limner?' 'The spider, as if it understood the art of weaving, fits
its web both for its own habitation, and a net to catch its prey.
The bee builds its cell, which serves for chambers to reside in, and
a repository for its provision.' ' The whole model of the body is
grounded upon reason. Every member hath its exact proportion,
distinct office, regular motion.' ' The mouth takes in the meat, the
teeth grind it for the stomach, the stomach prepares it.' ' Every
member hath a signature and mark of God, and of his wisdom.'* It
is the office of natural theology to unfold the order and the adapta-
tion which everywhere fall under our notice in the works of God, but
in doing so it should never profess to expound the ultimate constitu-
tion of things : ' No man can find out the work that God maketh
from the beginning to the end.' In order to the conclusiveness of the
argument for the divine existence, it is not necessary that we should
know the final composition and laws of the substances in which the
order and design are exhibited. We may see at once that there
are plan and purpose in the dispositions of an army in march,
though we know not meanwhile whence it has come or whither it
is going. In like manner we are sure that there are skill and con-
trivance in the movements of the hosts of nature, though we cannot
tell their ultimate properties. Charnock lived in an age of transi-
tion in physical science, and some of his representations are anti-
quated ; but his arguments are still conclusive, and his illustrations
need only to be expressed in a new form to become apposite. We
should not forget that we, too, live in an age of transition, and
* Attributes, Dis. I.
FHILOSOPHIOAL PBINOIPLES IN THE PURITA.N THEOLOQT. XXXII
when the grand discoveries of our day in regard to the conservation
of energy and the correlation of all the physical forces, and in regard
to the unity of all organic forms, are wrought out to their full con-
sequences, we suspect that the most advanced works in our century,
that the Natural Theology of Paley, and the Bridge water and
Burnet Treatises, will be found as antiquated in the twentieth cen-
tury as the works of the seventeenth century are to us.
But the divines of the seventeenth century had to deal much
more with mental philosophy than with physical science. It may
serve some good ends to exhibit the exact historical position in
respect of philosophy of the puritans, and more especially of Char-
nock. The puritan divines generally were well acquainted with
the philosophy of Aristotle, with his logic, his psyche, his ethics,
and metaphysics. They were also conversant with the theology of
Augustine, of the middle ages, and of the reformers. The exclu-
sive reverence for the scholastic system had passed away among
advanced thinkers, but the scholastic training still lingered in the
colleges, and the new and experiential method had not yet been
expounded. Charnock was born four years before Locke, and the
' Discourses on the Attributes' appeared ten years before the
' Essay on the Human Understanding,' the work which founded
modern English philosophy. Charnock died fifty -nine years before
David Hume published the sceptical work on Human Nature,
which compelled thinkers to review all old philosophic principles,
even those involved in theology ; eighty years before Thomas Reid
began the work of reconstruction on observational principles ; and a
century before Emmanuel Kant made his attack on rational theo-
logy, and appealed to man's moral nature as furnishing the only
argument for tl)e divine existence. This was no doubt one reason
why the puritan theology was not appreciated except by earnest
Christians in the eighteenth century ; it did not speak to those
who had been trained in the new philosophy. But we have now-
arrived at a time in which neither the philosophy of Locke, nor that
of Kant, can be allowed to reign supremely. We are at a sufficient
distance to regard them, not as suns in our sky, but as stars, with
Plato and Aristotle and Augustine, and many others, their equals
in light and splendour. In particular, those who most admire
Locke and his fresh observational spirit, now see his great defects
in deriving all our ideas from sensation and reflection, and setting
aside the constitutional principles of the mind. The superficial
theology which grounded itself on the philosophy of Locke has
died an unlamented death, and no one wishes to see it raised from
the grave to which it has been consigned. We shall certainly
never return to the phraseology employed by the puritans, nor bind
ourselves to follow them in their favourite distinctions. Let us
copy them only in this, that in our arguments we proceed on the
principles which, in some modification or other, have appeared in all
deep philosophies, and have done so because they are in the very
structure of our minds, and in the nature of human reason, as
reflecting the divine reason.
« INTEODUCTION TO CHAENOCk's WOEKS.
I Let US glance at the Puritan Psychology.
The Faculties of the Mind. — These come out only incidentally.
The following is Charnock's summary, ' The essential faculties of
the rational soul — the mind, the repository of principles, the
faculty whereby we should judge of things honest or dishonest ;
the understanding, the discursive faculty, and the reducer of those
principles into practical dictates ; that part whereby we reason
and collect one thing from another, framing conclusions from the
principles in the mind ; the heart, i. e., the will, conscience, affec-
tions, which were to apply those principles, draw out those reason-
ings upon the stage of the life.'* Though not a perfect, this is not
a bad, distribution of the mental powers. The account of our
intellectual capacities is certainly superior to that given by Locke,
who denied innate ideas, and allowed an inadequate place to in-
tuition. Charnock mentions first 'the mind, the repository of
principles.' What is this but Plato's X&'/os and Aristotle's vo^i de-
scribed by both, each, however, with a different explanation, as roVog
ilhuv (see Aris. Psyche, iii. c. 4 s. 4) ? What but Locke's intuition —
not properly unfolded by him? What but Reid's principles of
common sense, Kant's forms, and Sir William Hamilton's regula-
tive faculty ? Then in regard to the other, or motive, department
of the mind, we may mark how English thinkers had not yet
coroe to the miserably defective psychology of the last century and
beginning of this, in which man's powers are represented as con-
sisting simply in the understanding and feelings. Man's heart is
spoken of as having three essential elements, the will, the con-
science, and the affections, each with a province, each serving a
purpose, and all to be dedicated to God. There was no such
narrow and confused controversy such as that which has been
started in our day as to whether religion be an affair of the head
or of the heart. In their ' repository of principles,' as distinguished
from the discursive faculty and reasoning, they had all that is good
and true in the modem Germano-Coleridgean distinction between
the reason and the understanding ; and they had it in a better
form ; and they never proposed, as some in our day have done, to
make reason the sole discerner and judge of religion. With the
puritan, religion was an affair of the whole man, including head
and heart, and the heart having not only emotive sensibility and
attachment, but a conscience to discern good and evil, and a will
to choose.
Knoivledge. — As opposing themselves to scepticism, both in
natural and revealed religion, they held that man could reach
knowledge, positive and correct. They represented some know-
ledge as being intuitive, and other knowledge as obtained by a
process, both the one and the other being real. They held that
man could rise to a true knowledge of God, to some knowledge by
means of his works within and without us, but to a still closer and
more satisfactory knowledge by the revelation he has given in his
Word, very specially by the manifestation he has made of himself
* Sermon on The Knouledge of God, p. vi.
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOGY. xU
in the face of his Son. The divines of that century did not coun-
tenance the doctrine advocated by Archbishop King and Bishop
Peter Brown in the beginning of the next, and revived in our day,
as to man being incapacitated by his very nature from knowing
God as he is, a doctrine supposed to be favourable to rehgion, but
which may quite as readily serve the purposes of a philosophy
which affirms that man can know nothing, and terminate in scepti-
cism. Charnock declares, as to this knowledge, first, that it is not
immediate or intuitive, such as we have of a man when we see him
face to face, but through ' his excellent works of creation, provi-
dence, redemption, and the revelation of invisible mysteries in the
Word.' He says, secondly, it is not comprehensive. ' To know
comprehensively is to contain, and the thing contained must be
less than that which contains, and therefore, if a creature could
comprehend the essence of God, he would be greater than God.'
He says that we cannot comprehend the nature of the creatures
that are near us, and that not even in heaven shall God be com-
prehensively known. But still we are represented as knowing
God. We know God as we know the sea ; we behold the vastness
of its waters, but we cannot measure the depths and abysses of it.
Yet we may be said truly to see it, as we may touch a mountain
with our hands, but not grasp it in our arms.'
Knowledge and fait/i. — The puritans do not enter into any
minute inquiries as to the natural exercises of knowledge and faith.
The precise nature and relation of knowledge and faith as psycho-
logical acts cannot be said to be yet settled by the professors of
mental science. We here come to a desideratum, which we ven-
ture to think might be supplied by inductive investigation. There
is a constant reference in the present day to knowledge and faith
as different, and each with a province, but we are furnished with
no definition of terms, or explanation of the precise difference of
the exercises. The puritans confined themselves, as the schoolmen
of the age of Anselm and Abelard did, to their own province, the
relation of the two as religious acts. Their views, especially those
of Charnock, are clear and distinctly announced, and they seem to
us to be sound and judicious. Charnock declares unequivocally
that knowledge is necessary in order to faith : ' It is impossible an
act can be without an object ; nothing is grace but as it is con-
versant about God, or hath a respect to God. There can be no act
about an unknown object' * Faith cannot be without the know-
ledge of God and Christ.' ' Knowledge is antecedent to faith in the
order of nature. / know whom I have believed, 2 Tim. i. 12.
That ye may know and believe that I am he, Is. xliii. 10.' The
divines of that century have not started the question whether faith
belongs to the understanding or the feelings. Their view seems to
us to be sounder both psychologically and theologically. 'This
grace (faith), therefore, is set in a double seat by divines, in the
understanding and will : it is properly a consent of the will, which
cannot be ivithout an assent in the mind.' ' Faith is in the under-
standing in regard of disposition, but in the will in regard of the
xlii INTRODUCTION TO CHARNOCk's WORKS.
fiducial apprehension ; for faith is not one simple virtue, but com-
pounded of two, knowledge and trust/*
The conscience. — In respect of the place they give to the con-
science, the puritans have passed far beyond Aristotle, whom they
so far follow in their psychology. Aristotle, in his Ethics, does allot
to 'right reason' {uPtan,ivr\ "kCyui nal ug av 6 (p^ovifiog o^lamv, see EthicS
ii c. 6, § 15), a function in the determination of virtue; but he does
not mention the conscience. The puritans, founding on the pas-
sage in Paul (Rom. ii. 15), make constant references to the con-
science ; no preachers before their time, and few since, have made
such direct and powerful appeals to this mental faculty. 'Con-
science,' says Charnock, ' is natural to man, and an active faculty.'
They attempt no psychological analysis of the power ; they do not
inquire whether it is an exercise of the reason on the one hand, or'
a sense, sentiment, or feeling on the other. This was a question
started in the next age by Samuel Clarke on the one side, and
Shaftesbury and Francis Hutcheson on the other. Charnock, we
have seen, makes the heart embrace 'the conscience, will, affec-
tions.' In the 'mind, the repository of principles,' he places the
faculty 'whereby we should judge of things honest or dishonest ;'
and the office of conscience seems to be that of following this up by
' accusing, or else excusing.' He argues resolutely that the con-
science testifieth in behalf of the existence of God. 'Man witnesseth
to God in the operations and reflections of conscience.' ' There is a
law in the minds of men which is a rule of good and evil. There
is a notion of good and evil in the consciences of men, which is evi-
dent by those laws which are common to all countries.' ' Man, in
the first instant of the use of reason, finds natural principles within
himself; directing and choosing them, he finds a distinction between
good and evil ; how could this be if there were not some rule to him
to try and distinguish good and evil.' ' Common reason supposeth
that there is some hand which hath fixed this distinction in man ;
how could it else be universally impressed ? No law can be without
a lawgiver.' ' As there is a rule in us, there must be a judge.'
' From this a man may rationally be instructed that there is a God ;
for he may thus argue : I find myself naturally obliged to do this
thing and avoid that, I have therefore a superior that doth oblige
me.'i* Has Emmanuel Kant, with his 'practical reason' and 'cate-
gorical imperative,' said anything more direct and convincing than
this?
The affections and the will. These two were never resolved into
each other by the puritans. They asserted that all knowledge
should lead on to affection, and that all genuine faith does produce
* The above extracts from the sermon on The Knowledge of God.
t Attributes, Disc. I. The puritans generally appealed to first principles, intel-
lectual and moral. Thus Baxter says, Reasons of the Christian Religion, P. 1, 'And
if 1 could not answer a sceptic, who denied the certainty of my judgment by sensa-
tion and reflexive intuition (how near to Locke), yet nature would not suffer me to
doubt.' ' By my actions I know that I am ; and that I am a sentient, intelligent,
thinking, willing, and operative being.' ' It is true that there is in the nature of
man's soul a certain aptitude to understand certain truths as soon as they are
revealed ; that is, as soon as the very natura rerum is observed. And it is true that
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PUBITAN THEOLOGY. xliii
affection. But they ever insisted that above the affections there is
a more important power, the power of will. It is thus that Char-
nock puts the relation of tliese attributes : — ' The choice of the will
in all true knowledge treads upon the heel of tlie act of understand-
ing, and men naturally desire the knowledge of that which is true,
in order to the enjoyment of that which is good in it. The end
of all the acts of the understanding is to cause a motion in the will
and affections suitable to the apprehension.' ' Knowledge is but
as a cloud that intercepts the beams of the sun, and doth not advan-
tage the earth, unless melted into drops, and falling down into' the
bosom of it. Let the knowledge of the word of the truth drop down
in a kindly shower upon your hearts, let it be a knowledge of the
word heated with love.'*
II. Philosophic Principles. — We have seen that among the
mental attributes he places 'therepository of principles.' The puritan
divines do not attempt to expound the nature of these principles, and
the accounts given by metaphysicians since that time, as well as prior
this disposition is brought to actual knowledge as soon as the mind comes to actual
consideration of the things. But it is not true that there is any actual knowledge
of any principles born in man.' It is wrong to ' make it consist in certain axioms
(as some say) born in us, or written in our hearts from our birth (as others say),
dispositively there.' These distinctions do not exhaust the subject, but they contain
important truth ; and if Locke had attended to them, he would have been saved
from extravagant statements. Owen, in his Dissertation on Divine Justice, appeals,
in proving the existence of justice, (1.) to the ' common opinion ' and innate con-
ceptions of all ; (2.) to the coneciencea of all mankind ; (3.) to the public consent
of all nations.
• Sermons on Knowledge of God and Regeneration. David Clarkson, in big
account of the ' New Creature,' speaks of the following mental acts as involved
in the religious exercises of the soul : — I. The Mind or Undebstanding. And
under this (1.) apprehensions, view, or notion ; (2.) judgment and assent aris-
ing from apprehensions ; (3.) valuations proceeding from the estimative power
of the mind ; (4.) designs or contrivances of ends ; (5.) inventions, whereby
finds means towards ends ; (6.) reasonings, or discursive power ; (7.) thoughts,
or cogitations ; (8.) consultations, the advising power which philosophers call
BouXsur/xjg, which shews by what means the good end may be secured. II. The
Will, under which we have (1.) new inclinations, — Aristotle calls the act BcvXrisig,
and the schoolmen, simplex volitio, in it the mind has a new object ; (2.) new inten-
tions, aiming at something new, intending God and aiming at him ; (3.) fruitions,
in which the mind rests and is contented ; (4.) new elections in choice of means for
promoting ends, Aristotle's Tgoa/^sff/g tuv rr^bg Tb riXog ; (5.) new consents, in
particular the soul consenting to enter into covenant with God ; (6.) new applica-
tions, whereby the will applies the faculties to prosecute what it has pitched on ;
(7.) new purposes, determinations, resolves, these being fixed and permanent. This
analysis, taken with modifications from Aristotle and the scholastic divines, is too
minute, but it shews how expanded a view the puritans took of the higher attributes
of the mind as engaged in spiritual acts. In his sermon ' Of Faith,' he says — Faith
implies (I J knowledge ; (2 ) assent ; (3) dependence or procumbence. ' To rely upon
Christ alone for salvation is saving faith.' See Sermons and Discourses on Several
Divine Subjects, by the late Reverend and learned David Clarkson, B.D., and sometime
Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, 1696. In these sermons, the scholastic phrases,
objective, subjective, effective, formaliter, interpretive, habitualiter, cast up in all profound
discussion. The account of the mental faculties is the most extended we have seen
in the puritan writings. That of Charnock is more succinct and judicious. But all
the puritans proceed substantially on the same views. The view of faith is the
same with that of Charnock, and it could easily be shewn that it is that held by the
puritan divines generally.
Xliv INTRODUCTION TO CHAKNOCKS WORKS.
to it, have been sufficiently confused. So far as Charnock incidentally,
sketchestheir nature, his views are both just and profound. He speaks
of them as co/ma^ura^,* a phrase the praise of which has been ascribed
to Shaftesbury ; but Culvervvel, with whose writings Shaftesbury was
well acquainted, uses connate, and Whichcote (see Aphorisms) uses
connatural ; and connate and connatural were probably familiar
phrases among the Platonic thinkers in Emmanuel College. Char-
nock is fond of characterising these principles as ' common reason,'
' nature within man ;' he speaks of ' the common principles in the
conscience,' and in this form they are ' a law of nature writ upon
the hearts of men, which will direct them to commendable actions
if they will attend to the writings in the conscience.'
In establishing the existence of God in the opening of his most
elaborate work, Charnock ever appeals to these principles of reason.
' What is the general dictate of nature is a certain truth,' and with
Cicero he appeals to common consent ; ' a general consent of all
nations is to be esteemed as a law of nature.' He shews in regard to
the conviction of the divine existence ; (1) that it hath been universal,
no nation being without it ; (2) that it hath been consistent and
uninterrupted in all kinds and conditions of men ; and (3) natural
and innate. ' Every man is born with a restless instinct to be of
some kind of religion or other, which implies some object of religion.
The impression of a Deity is as common as reason, and of the same
age with reason. It is a relic of knowledge after the fall of man,
like fire under ashes, which sparkles as soon as ever the heap of
ashes is opened. A notion is sealed up in the soul of every man :
how could these people, who were unknown to one another, separate
by seas and mountains, differing in various customs and manner of
living, had no mutual intelligence one with another, light upon
this as a common sentiment, if they had not been guided by one
uniform reason in all their minds, by one nature common to them
all?" While he represents the belief in God as thus a dictate of
nature, he does not allege that it is formed independent of the
observation of objects, or without the exercise of discursive thought.
' The notion of a God seems to be twisted with the nature of man,
and is the first natural branch of common reason, or upon either
the first inspection of a man into himself and his own state
and constitution, or upon the first sight of any external visible
object.'-|*
He has occasion to make use of important metaphysical prin-
ciples, but he does not discuss them as a metaphysician. He inci-
dentally refers to our ideas of Time and Eternity, He accords with
those divines who hold that God may stand in a different relation
to time from that in which man does ; but he does not give any
countenance to the statements of those schoolmen, who, founding
upon certain mystic expressions of Augustine, spoke of time as
having no existence, no reality in the view of God. His view is
characterised by his usual judgment. ' Since God knows time, he
knows all things as they were in time ; he doth not know all things
* Sermon on Regeneration, p. 111. t -Attributes, Discouree I.
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOGY. xlv
to be at once, though he knows at once what is, has been, and will
be. All things are past, present, and to come, in regard to their
existence ; but there is not past, present, and to come, in regard to
God's knowledge of them, because he sees and knows not by any
other but by himself; he is his own light by which he sees, his own
glass wherein he sees ; beholding himself, he beholds all things.'*
David Hume had not yet risen to compel philosophers to discuss
the precise nature of causation. Charnock proceeds as Bacon had
done, and as all thinkers of his time still did, upon the Aristotelian
distinction of causes into material, efficient, formal, and final, a dis-
tinction, we may remark, founded on the nature of things, and
having a deep but somewhat confused meaning. In regard to
efficient cause he assumes that every occuirence has a cause, and
with Aristotle, that there cannot be an infinite series of causes, and
reckons this a principle of reason, though not formed independent
of the observation of things.
But the metaphysical topic which fell more especially under the
notice of the puritan theologians was that of the freedom of the
will, which they had to consider and discuss as against the rising
Arminianism. Really and professedly they followed Augustine
and Calvin, whose doctrines however have often been misunder-
stood. These profound thinkers were most sensitively anxious to
have their doctrine of predestination distinguished from the fatalism
of the Stoics.f They held that man had an essential freedom given
him by his Maker, a freedom which made him a responsible being,
and of which he could never be deprived. At the same time, they
maintained that this freedom had been much impaired by sin,
which has injured man first morally and then physically, so that
the will is now enslaved. This is the doctrine resolutely defended
by Augustine (see De Libero Arbitrio), and by Calvin (see his
De Servitute et Liberatione Humani Arbitrii in reply to Pighius).
They were followed by the puritans generally. Thus Owen in his
* Display of Arminianism' : — ' We grant man in the substance of
all his actions as much power, liberty, and freedom, as a mere
created nature is capable of. We grant him to be free in his choice
from all outward exaction or inward natural necessity to work
according to election and deliberation, spontaneously embracing
what seemeth good unto him.'J The puritans clung to the Scrip-
* Attributes, Discourse on Eternity.
f It is a circumstance worthy of being noted, that in modern times, we have
reversed the meaning of the phrases used by the ancient philosophers, and thus
produced some confusion. The Stoics resolutely denied Necessitas, but held by
Fatum (see Cicero De Fato), by which they meant what was spoken or decreed by
God, whom they represented as an intellectual fire, developing all things in cycles,
according to a fixed and eternal order. The arguments advanced by tliem in favour
of fatalism are substantially the same with those urged iu modern times in behalf
of Philosophical Necessity.
X In the same treatise, Owen speaks of that ' effectual working of his, according
to his eternal purpose, whereby though some agents as the wills of men are causes
free and indefinite or unlimited, lords of their own actions, in respect of their
internal principle of operations (that is, their own nature), they are yet all, in
respect of his decree, and by his powerful working, determined to this and that
xlvi INTRODUCTION TO CHARNOCK's WORKS.
ture doctrine of predestination, but they did not identify it with
the philosophic doctrine of Necessity as Jonathan Edwards did in
the next century. They drew their doctrine from the Word of God,
and founded it upon the perfection of God's Knowledge looking
into the future as well as the past and present, and upon his
Sovereignty doing all things, but all things wisely, justly, and bene-
ficently. Some Calvinistic divines we acknowledge have drawn
distinctions to save the freedom of the will which have rather
Avi-ecked it, and have used expressions which make our moral nature
shudder. Charnock is wonderfully clear of all such extremes : —
' God's foreknowledge of man's voluntary actions doth not neces-
sitate the will of man.' ' It is certain all necessity doth not take
away liberty ; indeed, a compulsive necessity takes away liberty, but
a necessity ojf immutability removes not liberty from God. Why
should then a necessity of infallibility in God remove liberty from
the creature ?' ' God did not only know that we should do such
actions, but that we should do them freely ; he foresaw that the
will would freely determine itself to this or that.' ' God did
not foreknow the actions of men as necessary but as free ; so
that liberty is rather establi-shed by this foreknowledge than
removed.' ' That God doth foreknow every thing, and yet that
there is liberty in the rational creature, are both certain ; but how
fully to reconcile them, may surmount the understanding of man.'
As to his sovereignty and election, he declares, what the experience
of every Christian responds to, ' It could not be any merit in the
creature that might determine God to choose him. If the decree
of election falls not under the merit of Christ's passion, as the pro-
curing cause, it cannot fall under the merit of any part of the cor-
rupted mass.' But he ever falls back upon the goodness and
justice of God as regulating his sovereignty, ' As it is impossible
for him not to be sovereign, it is impossible for him to deny his
deity and his purity. It is lawful to God to do what he wiU,
but his will being ordered by the righteousness of his nature,
effect in particular ; not that they are compelled to do this, or hindered from doing
that, but are inclined and disposed to do this or that according to their proper
manner of working, that is most freely.' ' We grant as large a freedom and
dominion to our wills over their own acts as a creature subject to the supreme rule
of God's providence is capable of. Endued we are with such a liberty of will as is
free from all outward compulsion and inward necessity, having an elective faculty
of applying itself unto that which seems good unto it, in which it has a free choice,
notwithstanding it is subservient to the decree of God.' ' The acts of will being
positive entities,' 'cannot have their essence and existence solely from the will itself,
and cannot be thus, auro ov, a first and supreme cause endued with an underived
being.' He distinguishes between will ' as it was at first by God created,' and ' will
aa it is now by sin corrupted;' yet being considered in that estate also, they ascribe
more unto it than it was ever capable of.' ' There is both an impotency and an
enmity in corrupted nature to anything spiritually good.' ' Even in spiritual things
we deny that our wills are at all debarred or deprived of their proper liberty, but
here we say indfted, that we are not properly free until the Son makes us free.' In
his Saint's Perseverance, he says, ' The impotency that is in us to do good is not
amiss termed eihico-physica, both natural and moral.' These extracts give the views
entertained by the puritans generally, who meant simply to express the doctrines
written on the very face of Scripture, but sometimes did bo by doubtful meta-
physical distinctions.
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE PURITAN THEOLOGY. xUu
as infinite as his will, he cannot do any thing but what is
good.'*
The inspired writers as little profess to give a system of the
faculties of the mind as of the material world. In mentioning the
sun, moon, and stars, and the earth with its rocks, plants, and ani-
mals, they proceed upon the ideas of their time ; and in the same
manner they refer to the attributes of the soul in language under-
stood by those whom they addressed — very often, we may add,
imparting to the phrases and the notions embodied in them, a com-
prehensiveness and an elevation which they never could have had
but for their association with spiritual verities. In the Old Testa-
ment, constant allusions are made to the special senses of seeing,
hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling ; to remembrances, imagi-
nations, and knowledge ; to thoughts, understanding, and compre-
hending ; to belief, trust, and confidence ; to devices, counsels,
purposes, and intents ; to fear and hope, grief and joy, pity and
compassion, anger and mercy, hatred and love. Among the
Hebrews, as indeed in most nations, particular faculties were con-
nected with particular parts of the body ; and we read of ' bowels,'
the seat of sympathy ; of the ' reins,' the seat of deep and anxious
thought; and of the ' heart,' the seat of all inward reflection. And
here we think it of some importance to call attention to the cir-
cumstance that the Scriptures do not distinguish, as we do, the
heart from the head ; and do not make the heart signify mere
emotion, but use it to include all that passes through the mind
prior to action; and we read of the 'imaginations' and of the
'thoughts' of man's heart, — hence the absurdity of arguing that
faith consists in feeling, from the fact that we are said to believe
with the heart. In the New Testament, we have a more ad-
vanced view; and we read of the 'mind' and 'conscience,' the
'soul' and ' spirit,' and 'will' has a higher place allotted to it. The
preacher and divine must, like the inspired writers, proceed so far
upon the distribution of the mental powers understood by their
hearers and readers ; but it will be found that when they take a
limited view of the human mind and its capacities, both their
preaching and their theology will be very much narrowed. It
could easily be shewn that the inspired writers have something
suited to every essential quality of man's complex nature, provid-
ing symbols for the senses, images for the fancy, types for the
imagination, aiding the memory by interesting correlations of time
and number, presenting arguments to the understanding, rousing
appeals to the conscience, a lovely object to draw forth the affec-
tions, and motives to persuade the will The broad and compre-
hensive views of the faculties taken by the puritan preachers led
them to address all the parts of man's complex nature.
As the Bible is not a book of science, mental or material, so it i«
not a book of philosophy. Nor should preaching, nor should theo-
logy, afifect to be metaphysics. If any thinker is discontented with
* Attributet, Discourses on God's Knowledge and Dominion.
Xlviii INTRODUCTION TO CHAENOCk's WORKS.
past speculative philosophy, he is at liberty to attempt to amend
it. But let him do so in a professedly philosophic work, written
always in a religious spirit, but without identifying religion with
his theories. Still it will be difficult for the theologian, difficult
even for the preacher, to avoid proceeding on an implied philo-
sophy. If we do nothing more than exhort persons to beware of
satisfying themselves, with a speculative without a practical
knowledge, we are proceeding, whether we know it or not, on an
Aristotelian distinction. A profound philosophy has in all ages
sought to ally itself with theology. Religion may be inconsistent
with a superficial or a one-sided, but not with a deep or a catholic
philosophy. A shallow philosophy will always tend to produce a
shallow theology. Suppose, for instance, we adopt the principle of
Hobbes and the sensational school of France, And hold that all our
ideas are got from the senses, it will be difficult to establish any of
the higher truths of religion ; or suppose we assert that virtue is
mere utility, it will be difficult to vindicate the justice of God in
the awful punishment of the sinner. Philosophic principles should
certainly not obtrude themselves in the disquisitions of the divine ;
but philosophic conceptions may underlie his whole mode of
thought and discussion, and impart a coherency and consistency to
the system constructed by him. The profound views of human
reason, in its strength and in its weakness, taken by the puritan
divines, enabled them to construct a theology in some measure
corresponding to the profundity of Scripture, and defective only in
this, that at times it propo.sed to settle what should have been left
free, and to embrace all revealed truths, which, in their entireness,
will always refuse to be compressed within human systems.
A TEEATISE OF DIVINE PEOYIDENCE.
VOL. I.
TO THE READER.
Reader, — Thou art here presented with a little piece of a great man ;
great, indeed, if great piety, gi'eat parts, great learning, and great wisdom,
may be admitted to claim that title ; and we verily beHeve that none well
acquainted with him will deny him his right, however malevolent persons may
grudge him the honour. It hath been expected and desired by many that
some account of his life might be given to the world ; but we are not willing
to offer violence to his ashes by making him so pubUc now he is dead, who
so much affected privacy while he Hved. Thou art therefore desired to rest
satisfied with this brief account of him : That being very young he went to
Cambridge, where, in Immanuel College, he was brought up under the
tuition of the present Ai'chbishop of Canterbury. What gracious workings
and evidences of the new birth appeared in him while there, hath already
been spoken of by* one who was at that time his fellow- collegiate and intimate.
Some time he afterward spent in a private family, and a little more in the
exercise of his ministry in Southwark, then removed to New College in Oxon,
where he was fellow, and spent several years ; being then taken notice of for
his singular gifts, and had in reputation by the most learned and godly in
that university, and upon that account the more frequently put upon pubHc
work. Being thence (the year after he had been proctor) called over into
Ireland to a constant public employment, he exercised his ministry for about
four or five years, not with the approbation only, but to the admiration of
the most wise and judicious Christians, and with the concurrent applause of
such as were of very different sentiments from him in the things of religion.
Nay, even those that never loved his piety, yet would commend his learning
and gifts, as being beyond exception, if not above compare. About the year
1660, being discharged from the public exercise of his ministry, he returned
back into England, and in and about London spent the greatest part of fifteen
years, without any call to his old work in a settled way, but for about these
five years last past hath been more known by his constant preaching, of which
we need not speak, but let them that heard him speak for him ; or, if they
Bhould be silent, his works will do it.
He was a person of excellent parts, strong reason, great judgment, and
(which do not often go together) curious fancy, of high improvements, and
general learning, as having been all his days a most dihgent and methodical
student, and a great redeemer of time, rescuing not only his restless hours
in the night, but his very walking time in the streets, from those imperti-
nencies and fruitless vanities which do so customarily fill up men's minds,
and steal away their hearts from those better and more noble objects, which
do so justly challenge their greatest regards. This he did by not only care-
fully watching (as every good Christian should do), but constantly writing
down his thoughts, whereby he both governed them better, and furnished
* Mr Johnson, in his Sermon on occasion of Mr Charnock's death.
TO THE READER.
himself with many materials for his most elaborate discourses. His chief
talent was his preaching-gift, in which, to speak modestly, he had few equals.
To this, therefore, as that for which his Lord and Master had best fitted him
(neglecting the practice of physic, in which he had arrived at a considerable
measure of knowledge), he did especially addict himself, and direct his
studies ; and even when providence denied him opportunities, yet he was
still laying in more stock, and preparing for work against he might be called
to it. When he was in employment, none that heard him could justly blame
his retiredness, he being, even when most private, continually at work for
the public ; and had he been less in his study, he would have been less liked
in the pulpit. His library, furnished, though not with a numerous, yet a
curious collection of books, was his workhouse, in which he laboured hard
all the week, and on the Lord's day made it appear he had not been idle ;
and that though he consulted his privacy, yet he did not indulge his sloth.
He was somewhat reserved where he was not well acquainted, otherwise very
free, afi'able, and communicative, where he understood and liked his com-
pany. He affected not much acquaintance, because he would escape visitants,
well knowing how much the ordinary sort of friends were apt to take up of his
time, which he could ill spare from his beloved studies, meeting with few
that could give him better entertainment with their company than he could
give himself alone. They had need be very good, and very learned, by whose
converse he could gain more than by his own thoughts and books. He was
a true son of the Church of England, in that sound doctrine laid down in
the articles of religion, and taught by our most famous ancient divines and
reformers ; and a real follower of their piety, as well as a strenuous main-
tainer of the truth they professed. His preaching was mostly practical, yet
rational and argumentative, to his hearers' understandings as well as affec-
tions ; and where controversies came in his way, he shewed great acuteness
and judgment in discussing and determining them, and no less skill in apply-
ing them to practice : so that he was indeed * a workman that needed not to
be ashamed,' being able * by sound doctrine both to exhort and convince
gainsayers.' Some have thought his preaching too high for vulgar hearers ;
and it cannot be denied but his gifts were suited to the more intelligent sort
of Christians ; yet it must withal be said, that if he were sometimes deep, he
was never abstruse ; he handled the great mysteries of the gospel with much
clearness and perspicuity ; so that if in his preaching he were above most,
it was only because most were below him. Several considerable treatises on
Bome of the most important points of religion he finished in his ordinary
course, which he hath left behind him, in the same form he usually wrote
them for the pulpit. This comes out first, as a prodrotmis to several others
designed to be made public, as soon as they can be with conveniency tran-
scribed, which (if the Lord will, and spare life) shall be attested with our
hands ; and whatever any else shall publish, can be but imperfect notes (his
own copies being under our revisal at the request of his friends) taken from
him in the pulpit ; in which, what mistakes do often happen, every one
knows, and we have found by experience in the case of this very author more
than once. This was thought fit to be said to secure the reputation of the dead,
and prevent the abuse of the living. These sermons might have come out
with the solemn ceremony of large recommendations, the author's worth being
so well known to, and his preaching so highly esteemed by, the most eminent
ministers about this city ; but it was judged needless, his own works being
sufficient to praise him.
One thing more is to be added : that such as he is here, such he is in his
other pieces. So that thou hast here, reader, a specimen of the strain and
TO THE READER. 5
spirit of this holy man, this being his familiar and ordinary way of preach-
ing, and these sermons coming out first, not as if they were the nonsuch of
what he left behind him, but because they could soonest be despatched,
and to obviate the injuries might else be done by spurious treatises both to
him and thee ; and likewise by this little taste to gratify the appetites of such
who, having been his auditors, did long even with greediness to feast them-
selves again upon those excellent truths which in the delivery were so sweet
to them. Perhaps too it may quicken their appetites who never heard him,
it may be never yet heard of him. If thou like this cluster, fear not but
the vintage will be answerable; if this little earnest be good metal, the
whole sum will be no less current. That a blessing from heaven may be
upon this work, and upon thee in reading and studying the nature, and
beauty, and ends of divine providence, and that the Lord of the harvest
(especially when so many are daily called home) would send forth more and
more such labourers into the harvest, is the hearty prayer of
Thine in the Lord,
Richard Adams.
EcwjiRD Veal.
A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PEOVIDENCE.
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew
himself strong in the behalf of them trhose heart is perfect towards him. —
2 Chron. X'vI. 9.
In the beginning of the chapter you find Baasha king of Israel raising
walls about, and fortifying Ramah, a place about twelve miles from Jerusa-
lem, the metropolis of Judah, intending by that means to block Asa up,
because Ramah lay just upon the road between Jerusalem and Samaria, the
seats of the two kings, ver. 1.
Baasha was probably afraid of the revolt of Israel to Judah, upon that
reformation of religion wrought by Asa, and therefore would fortify that
place, to be a hindrance, and to intercept any that should pass upon that
account ; and to this purpose makes great preparation, as appears ver. 6,
for with the provision Baasha had made for the fortification of Ramah, Asa,
after the seizing of the materials, builds two towns, Geba and Mispah.
Asa seeing Baasha so busy about this design, and fearing the consequence
of it, hath recourse to carnal policy rather than to God ; and therefore
enters into league with Benhadad, a neighbour, though an idolatrous prince,
and purchaseth his assistance with the sacrilegious price of the treasure of
the temple, ver. 2, 3 ; and hereby engageth him to invade the king of
Israel's territories, that he might thereby find work for Baasha in another
part, and so divert him from that design upon which he was so bent : ver. 3,
' Go, break thy league with Baasha, that he may depart from me.'
Benhadad is easily persuaded by the quantity of gold, &c., to break his
league, and make an inroad, and proves victorious, and takes many cities
where the magazines and stores were laid up, ver. 4.
Baasha now, to save his country, and make head against his enemies, is
forced to leave Ramah ; whereupon Asa, who watched his opportunity,
seizeth the materials he had left for the fortifying of Ramah, and puts them
to another use, ver. 5, 6.
Hanani the seer is presently sent by God with a threatening of war,
because he applies himself to a heathen prince rather than to the Lord of
hosts, ver. 7 ; his sin is aggravated by God's former kindness to him, and
experience he had given him of his miraculous providence in his success
against that vast army of the Ethiopians and Lubims, or Lybians, and that
upon his recourse to or reliance on God ; and that he should afterwards
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 7
have recourse to the arm of flesh was a disparagement to God's providential
kindness, ver. 8. He further aggravates his sin by the consideration of
God's general providential care of his creatures, and the particular end of it,
and of all his providences, viz., the good of his church and people, ver. 9,
' For the eyes of the Lord,' &c.
Eyes of the Lord, in Scripture, signify,
1. His knowledge : Job. xxxiv. 21, ' For his eyes are upon all the ways
of man, and he sees all his goings.' Heb. iv. 13, ' All things are naked
and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.'*
2. His providence.
(1.) For good, so it notes his grace and good will; so his eyes and his
heart are joined together : 1 Kings vi. 3, * Mine eyes and my heart shall be
there perpetually,' viz., in his temple, the place which he had hallowed to
put his name there for ever. Ps. xxxii. 8, ' I will guide him with mine eye ;'
that is, I will counsel him, and direct him in a gracious and a favourable
way. Therefore, to be cut off from the eye of the Lord, is to be deprived of
his favour, Ps. xxxi. 22, for none can be cut off from a simple knowledge of
God ; so Zech. iii. 9, ' seven eyes upon one stone,' that is, the providence
of God was in an especial manner with Christ in the midst of his passion.
(2.) For evil, so it notes his anger and vindictive justice. Isa. iii. 8,
' Their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory.'
Kindness and anger appear first in the eye, one by its pleasantness, the other
by its redness.
' Run,' that notes diligence and care, an industrious inspection into all
things. Ps. cxix. 32, ' I will run the ways of thy commandments,' noting
speed and diligence.
In the verse we have,
, I. A description of God's providence.
, II. The end of it.
I. The description of God's providence.
1. The immediateness of it ; * his eyes,' his own eyes, not another's. Not
like princes, who see by their servants' eyes more than by their own, what
is done in their kingdoms ; his care is immediate. Though angels are
ministers of his providence, the guardians and watchers of the world, yet
God is their captain, and is always himself upon the watch.
2. Quickness and speed of providence ; * run.' His eyes do not only walk,
but run the round ; they are not slumbering eyes, nor drowsy eyelids ; their
motion is quick and nimble.
3. Extent of providence ; ' the whole earth ;' all things in the earth, all
the hairs on the heads of these men : the meanest worm as well as the
mightiest prince ; the lowest shrub as well as the tallest cedar ; every cranny,
corner, or chink of the earth.
4. Diligence of providence ; ' to and fro.' His care is repeated, he looks
this way and that way, again and again ; his eyes are not confined to one
place, fixed on one object, but are always rolling about from one place to
another.
5. The efficacy of his providence ; his care doth engage his strength ; he
doth not only discover dangers, but prevent them ; he hath eyes to see,
and power to order all things according to his pleasure ; wise to see, and
strong to save.
II. The end of providence ; * to shew himself strong,' &c.
* ''§'*/C'!^°5 significat spinam dorsi, et in mactatis animalibus per spinam omnia appa-
rent interiora, ita ut nihil latere potest. — Glassius, vol. iii. 1, 106.
8 A DISCOUBSE OF DIVINE PKOVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
1. Finis cujus, ' to shew himself strong.' Heb. to ' make himself strong,'
but best translated, to ' shew himself strong.' It is not an addition of
strength, but an exercise of strength that is here meant.
2. Fijiis cui, or the persons for whom, * those that are perfect in heart.*
Doctrines.
1. There is a providence exercised by God in the world.
2. All God's providences in the world are in order to the good of his
people.
3. Sincerity in God's way gives a man an interest in all God's provi-
» dences, and the good of them.
1. For the first, there is a providential inspection and government of
all things in the world by God. It is not a bare sight of things that is
here meant by God's eye, but a sight and knowledge in order to the govern-
ing and disposing of them. View this doctrine at your leisure, preached by
God himself, with an inconceivable elegancy, and three whole chapters spent
in the sermon. Job xxxviii., xxxix., xl., and by the psalmist, Ps. cxlvii. cxlviii.
Some observe that the society of angels and heavenly creatures is repre-
sented, Ezek. i., by a quatemarian number, because the world is divided
into four dimensions, east, west, north, and south, as intimating the exten-
sion of God's providence over aU parts.*
Things are not ordered in the world ca;co impetu, not by blind fortune, but
an all-seeing Deity, who hath the management of all sublunary affairs. Tig
fiByd}.7i Blva/j,i; r^g ir^ovotag ;+ cravra ut' a^lcrou voS ymrai, was the theological
maxim of the Stoics.
Before I come particularly to explain the providence of God, I shall lay
down some propositions as the foundations of this doctrine.
1. God hath an indisputable and peculiar right to the government of the
world. None ever questioned God's right, no, nor his act, but those that
were swelled with an unreasonable ambition, such as Nebuchadnezzar, who
for this cause underwent the punishment of a seven years' banishment from
the society of men, Dan. iv. 17.
None indeed that acknowledge a God, did or can question God's right,
though they may question his will and actual exercise of his right. He is
the creator, and therefore is the sovereign Lord and Ruler. The world is
his family, and, as a master, he hath an undoubted right to govern his own
family : he gave all creatures their beings, and therefore hath a right to
enact their laws, appoint their stations, and fix their ends. It is as much
his property and prerogative to rule, as it is to create. Creation is so pecu-
liarly proper to God, that it is not communicable to any creature, no, not
to angels, though of a vast capacity in other things, and that because they
are creatures themselves. It is as impossible for one creature, or all, to
govern the world, and manage all the boisterous passions of men to just and
glorious ends, as to create them. It is true, God useth instruments in the
executive part of his providence ; but he doth not design the government of
the world only by instruments. He useth them not for necessity, but orna-
ment. He created the world without them, and therefore can govern the
world without them.
Virtus creativa est fundamentum providentim, et argumentum ad provi-
dentiam. This right is founded upon that of creation, as he is the efficient
cause of it. This right is also founded upon the excellency of his being ;
that which is excellent having a right to rule, in the way of that excellency,
that which is inferior. Every man hath a natural right to rule another in
* Hudson's Divine Right of Government, chap. vi. p. 3.
t Clemens ad Corinth, p. 34.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A. DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 9
his own art and skill wherein he excels him. If it be the right of a chief
magistrate to manage the concerns of his kingdom, with what reason can wo
deny that right to God ?
2. God only is qualified for the universal government of the world. All
creatures, as they were unable to create themselves, so are unable to manage
themselves without the direction of a superior power, much more unable to
manage the vast body of the world. God is only fit in regard of,
(1.) Power. Conservation is coHfi/utc/^a creatio ; that power which is fit
to create, is only fit to preserve. A continued creation belongs as much to
omnipotency as the first creation.
The government of it requires no less power, both in regard of the numer-
ousness of the objects, and the strange contrariety of passions in rational
creatures, and qualities in irrational ; conservation is but one continued act
with creation, following on from an instant to duration, as a line from its
mathematical point.*
(2.) Holiness and righteousness. If he that hates right is not fit to
govern, Job xxxiv. 17, then he that is infinitely righteous, and hath an in-
finite love to righteousness, is the fittest to undertake that task ; without
righteousness there would be nothing but confusion in the whole creation.
Disorder is the effect of unrighteousness, as order is the efiect of justice.
The justest man is fittest for subordinate government among men, and the
infinite just God is fittest for the universal government of the world.
(3.) Ivnowledge. An infinite knowledge to decry all the contrivances and
various labyrinths of the hearts of men, their secret intentions and aims, is
necessary. The government of the world consists more in ordering the
inward faculties of men, touching the hearts, and tuning them to play what
note he pleases, than in external things. No creature hath the skill or
power to work immediately upon the will of man ; neither angels nor devils
can do it immediately, but by proposing objects, and working upon the
fancy, which is not always successful. He that created the heart, knows
all the wards of it, and hath only the skill to turn it and incline it as he
pleases ; he must needs know all the inclinations of the creatures and their
proper activities, since he alone conferred all those several principles and
qualities upon them. * Known unto God are all his works from the begin-
ning of the world,' Acts xv. 8, viz., the particular natures, inclinations, in-
ward motions, which no creature fully understands ; he needs no deputy to
inform him of what is done, he is everywhere, and sees all things. Worldly
governors cannot be everywhere essentially present.
God is so perfect in his knowledge of all things, that he cannot be im-
posed upon by the evil suggestions and flatteries of men or angels.
In nature it is so : the eye guides the body, because that is the chief organ
of sensitive knowledge ; the mind, which is the seat of wisdom, guides the
whole.
(4.) Patience. Infinite patience is requisite to the preservation and govern-
ment of the world, in the circumstances wherein it hath stood ever since the
fall. What angel, though the meekest, or can all the angels in heaven, be
masters of so much patience as is needful for this work of governing the
world, though for the space of one day ? Could they bear with all those evils
which are committed in the world in the space of twenty-four hours ? Might
we not reasonably conceive, that they would be so tired with the obliquities,
disorders, deformities which they would see in the acts of men (besides all
the evil which is in the hearts of men, which He without the verge of their
* Taylor's Exemplar, preface.
10 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChEON. XVI. 9.
knowledge), that they would rather call for fire from heaven to bum the
world to ashes.
Averrcies* thought that because of God's slowness to anger, he meddled
not with sublunary concerns. This rather fits him for it, because he can
bear with the injuries of wicked men, otherwise the world would not con-
tinue a moment.
Angels, though powerful, holy, wise and patient creatures, yet being crea-
tures, they want the infiniteness of all these quahfications which are neces-
sary to this government. Though they are knowing, yet they know not
men's hearts ; though they are wise, yet they may be charged with a folly
uncapable of this ; though holy, yet not able in this respect to manage it to
the ends and designs of an infinite holiness ; though nimble, yet cannot be in
all parts of the world at every turn : but the providence of God is infallible,
because of his infinite wisdom ; indefatigable, because of his omnipotency ;
and righteous, because of his goodness.
3. There can be no reason rendered why God should not actually govern
the world, since he only hath a right and fitness. If God doth not actually
govern it, it is either because he cannot, or because he will not.
(1.) Not because he cannot. This inabihty must be either for want of
knowledge, or want of power. The one, if asserted, would deny his omni-
potence, the other his omniscience ; the one would make him a weak God,
the other an ignorant God, and consequently no God.
(2.) Not because he will not ; if he can and will not, it is, say some, a
testimony of envy, that he maligns the good of his creatures ; but not to
insist upon this ; this must be either because of the,
[l.J Difficulty. This cannot be. What difficulty can there be in a single
word, or one act of his will, which can be done by God without any molesta-
tion, were there millions of worlds as well as this? For still they would be finite,
and so governable by an infinite superior. May we not more reasonably
think the forming such a mass would require more pains than the govern-
ment of it ? The right stringing an instrument is more trouble to a skilful
musician, than the tripping over the strings afterwards to make an harmony.
What difficulty can it be to Omnipotence ? Is it a greater labour to preserve
and govern, than it was to create ? Doth not the soul order every part of
the body, and all its functions, without any pain to it ? and shall not the
God that made that soul so indefatigable, much more manage the concern-
ments of the world without labour to himself ? Is it not as easy with God
to guide all these things by one single act of his will, as for me, by an act of
my soul, to do many things without a distinct act of cogitation or considera-
tion before ? Can it be more laborious to him to govern the world, than it
is to know all things in the world ? He sees all things in an instant by one
act of his understanding, and he orders all creatures in a moment by one act
of his will. Can one act of his will be more painful than one act of his un-
derstanding ? Can he with a word make this great ball ? and can he not
with as much ease order all to conform to the law of his own righteous will ?
Can a continual eruption of goodness be a difficulty to an infinite being,
which we find natural to the sim, to the fountains, to the sea, to many works
of that omnipotent goodness ? Or,
[2. J Disparagement. Denial of God's providence over the lesser things of
the world did arise from the consideration of the state of monarchs, who
thought it an abridgment of their fehcity and dignity, to stoop to such low
considerations as the minuhda of their estates might exact from them, but
left them to their vice-gerents. But they consider not that the felicity of
* Trap on Exod. xxxiv.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 11
God as it respects the creature, is to communicate his goodness to as many
subjects as he had made capable of his care. If it were his glory to create
the world, can it be his dishonour to govern it ? The glorifying his wis-
dom is as honourable to him as the magnifying his power ; though both are
eminent in creation and providence, yet his wisdom is more signal in tho
governing, as his power was in framing of the world.
Why was it not as much a disparagement to God to create things con-
temptible in our eyes, as since he hath created them to take care of them,
and marshal them for his glorious ends ? The sun in the heavens is a sha-
dow of God, which doth not disdain to communicate its natural goodness,
and emit its beams to the meanest creatures, and let the little flies sport
themselves in them, as well as the greatest princes, and transmits an influ-
ence upon things obscure and at a distance from it, whereby it manifests an
universal regard to all. And would it not be a disparagement to an infinite
goodness to be outstripped by a creature, which he hath set up for a natural
communication of goodness to the rest of the world ? The very considera-
tion of the sun, and the nature of it, gives us as much an account of God as
any inanimate being whatsoever. It is as much the sun's honour to pro-
duce a small insect, as the growth of the greatest plant.
Have not all creatures, a natural afi"ection in them to preserve and provide
for their own?* hath not God much more, who endued all creatures vdth
that disposition ? Whatsoever is a natural perfection in creatures, is emi-
nently an infinite perfection in God. If it be therefore a praise to you to
preserve your own, can it be a disgrace to God ? You may as well say it is
as much a dishonour to him to be good, as to have a tender regard to his
creatures. Censm*e him as well you may for creating them for your delight,
as preserving and governing them for the same end. They are all good, for
he pronounced them so ; and being so, a God of goodness will not account
them unworthy of his care. Are they now the products of his omnipotent
wisdom ? and shall not they be the objects of his directing wisdom ? If they
are not unworthy of God to create, how can they be unworthy of God to
govern them ? It would be as much below him to make them, as to rule
them when they were made.
4. Therefore, God doth actually preserve and govern the world ; though
angels are in ministry in some particular works of his providence, yet God is
the steersman who gives out his particular orders to them.
Jacob's ladder had the top in heaven, where God stood to keep it firm, its
foot on earth, and the angels going up and down upon several errands at
their master's beck.
As God made all things for himself, so he orders the ends of all things
made by him for his own glory. For being the most excellent and intelli-
gent agent, he doth reduce all the motions of his creatures to that end for
which he made them.
This actual government of the world by God brancheth itself out in three
things.
1. Nothingis acted in theworld withoutGod's knowledge. The vision of the
wheels inEzekiel presents us with an excellent portraiture of providence, there
are eyes round about the wheels : Ezek. i. 18, * Theirwings were full of eyes,' &c.
The eye of God is upon the whole circle of the creatures' motion. In
all the revolutions in the world, there is the eye of God's omniscience to see
them, and the arm of his omnipotence to guide them. Not the most retired
comer, or the darkest cell, not the deepest cavern, or most inward projecc-
nor the most secret wickedness, not the closest goodness, but the eye of
* Mornse. de Verit. Relig. Christian, chap. xi.
12 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChEON. XVI. 9.
the Lord beholds it : Prov. xv. 3, ' The eyes of the Lord are in every
place, beholding the evil and the good.' He hears the words, sees the
actions, knows the thoughts, registers the gracious discourses, bottles up the
penitent tears, and considers all the ways of men; not a whispered oath, not
an atheistical thought, though but only peeping upon the heart, and sink-
ing down again in that mass of corruption, not a disorderly word, but he knows
and marks it. The soul hath a particular knowledge of every act, because
it is the spring of every act in any member, and nothing is done in this
little world, but the soul knows it. Surely, then, there is not an act done
in the world, nor the motion of any creature, but as God doth concur to it,
he must needs know what he doth concur to. The knowledge and ordaining
every thing is far less to the infinite being of God, than the knowledge and
ordaining every motion of the body is to a finite soul.
Or, suppose a soul clothed with a body of as big a proportion as the
matter of the whole creation, it would actuate this body, though of a greater
bulk, and know every motion of it ; how much more God, who hath infinity
and excellency and strength of all angels and souls, must need actuate this
world, and know every motion of it ! There is nothing done in the world
but some creatm-e or other knows it ; he that acts it doth at least know it.
If God did not know it, the creatures then in that particular knowledge would
be superior to God, and know something more than God knows ; can this
be possible ?
2. Nothing is acted in the world without the will of God. His will either
commands it, or permits it: Eph. i. 11, 'He works all things after the
counsel of his own will,' Ps. cxxxv. 6, ' Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that
did he in heaven and in earth.'
Even the sins of the world his will permits them, his power assists in the
act, and his wisdom orders the sinfulness of the act for holy ends. The
four chariots in Zech. vi. 2-5, by which some understand angels, are sent
upon commission into the several parts of the world, and compared to chariots,
both for their strength, their swdftness, their employment in a military way
to secure the church. These are said to come out of the two mountains of
brass, ver. 1, which signify the irreversible decrees of God, which the angels
are to execute.* He alarms up the winds, when he would have Jonah
arrested in his flight. He sounds a retreat to them, and locks them up in
their chambers, Ps. cvii. 25-29. Bread hath a natural virtue in it to nourish,
but it must be accompanied with his secret blessing. Mat. iv. 4.
Virtute primi actus, agunt agentia omnia quicquid agunt.
3. Nothing doth subsist without God's care and power. His eyes running
to and fro, implies not only knowledge, but care. He doth not carelessly
behold what is done in the world, but, like a skilful pilot, he sits at the hehn,
and steers the world in what course it should sail. Our being we owe to his
power, our well-being to his care, our motion and exerting of every faculty
to his merciful providence and concurrence ; ' in him we live, and move, and
have our being,' Acts xvii. 28. He frames our being, preserves our hfe,
concurs with our motion. This is an idea that bears date in the minds of
men with the very notion of a God. Why else did the heathen in all their
straits fly to their altars, and fill their temples with cries and sacrifices ?
To what purpose was this, if they had not acknowledged God's superinten-
dency, his taking notice of their cause, hearing their prayers, considering
their cries ? Why should they do this, if they thought that God did not
regard human aflairs, but stood untouched with a sense of their miseries ?
* Keynolds.
2 ChBON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOUBSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 13
If all things -were done by chance, there could be no predictions of future
things, which we frequently find in Scripture, and by what ways accomplished.
Impossible it is that anything can be continued without his care. If God
should in the least moment withhold the influence of his providence, we
should melt into nothing, as the impression of a seal upon the water vanishes
as soon as the seal is removed ; or as the reflection of the face in the glass
disappears upon the first instant of our removal from it. The light in the
air is by participation of the light of the sun ; the light in the air withdraws
upon the departure of the sun. The physical and moral goodness [ofj the
creature would vanish upon the removal of God from it, who is the fountain
of both.
What an artificer doth work, may continue, though the workman dies,
because what he doth is materially, as to the matter of it, ready to his hands •
he creates not the matter, but onl}- sets materials together, and disposeth
them into such a form and figure. But God gives a being to the matter
and form of all things, and therefore the continuance of that being depends
upon his preserving influence.* God upholds the world, and causes all
those laws which he hath impressed upon every creature, to be put in exe-
cution : not as a man that makes a watch, and winds it up, and then suffers it
to go of itself ; or that turns a river into another channel, and lets it alone
to run in the graff he hath made for it ; but there is a continual concun-ence
of God to this goodly frame. For they do not only live, but move in him,
or by him ; his living and omnipotent power runs through every vein of the
creation, giving it life and motion, and ordering the acts of every part of this
great body. All the motions of second causes are ultimately resolved into
the providence of God, who holds the first link of them in his hands, Hosea
ii. 21, 22. More particularly, the nature of providence may be explained by
two propositions.
Prop. 1. The universality of it. His eyes run to and fro throughout the
whole earth.
1. It is over all creatures, (1.) the highest, (2.) the lowest.
(1.) The highest and most magnificent pieces of the creation.
[1.] Over Jesus Christ, the first-born of every creature. God's providence
was in an especial manner conversant about him, and fixed upon him. It was
by the determinate counsel of God, that he was delivered up. Acts ii. 23.
His providence was diligently exercised about him in his whole course.
Christ answers his mother's solicitousness with the care his Father took of
him : Luke ii. 49, ' Wist you not that I must be about my Father's busi-
ness ?' Do you not know that I am about those things my Father takes
care of ? This exposition best agrees with his reproof, who blames them
for creating so much trouble to themselves upon their missing him in the
town. It is not. Why do you inteiTupt me in my dispute with the Jewish
doctors ? But ' How is it that you sought me ? Do you think I am not
under the care of my Father ?'t It was particularly exercised on him'in the
midst of his passion, Zech. iii. 9. Seven eyes were upon the stone ; seven,
a number of perfection, a perfect and peculiar care of God attended him.
[2.] Over angels and men. The soul of the least animal, and the smallest
plant, is formed and preserved by God, but the breath of mankind is more
particularly in his hand : Job xii. 10, ' In whose hand is the soul of every
living thing, and the breath of all mankind.'
First, Over good angels and men. He charges his angels with folly and
■speakness. They cannot direct themselves without his wisdom, nor preserve
* Stillingfleet, Orig. sacrse. lib. iii. cap. 3, sect. 3.
t h ro7g roC <:ra7^oc. Hammond in loc.
14 A DISCOUESE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
themselves without his power. God hath a book of providence, wherein he
writes down who shall be preserved, and this book Moses understands : Exod.
xxxii. 33, ' Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book ;'
not the book of election, — no names written there are blotted out, — but out
of the book of pro^ddence. As it is understood, Isa, iv. 3, ' Every one that
is written among the living in Jerusalem,' i. e. every one whom God designs
to preservation and deliverance.* That God, surely, that hath a care of the
mean animals, will not be careless of his affectionate worshippers. He that
feeds the ravens will not starve his doves. He that satisfies the ravening wolf,
will not famish his gentle lambs and harmless sheep. He shelters Jacob
from Laban's fury. Gen. xxxi., and tutors him how he should carry himself
towards the good man. He brought Haman out of favour, and set Mordecai
in his place for the dehverance of the Jews which were designed for slaughter.
Secondly, Over e\dl angels and men. God's power preserves them, his
patience suffers them, his wisdom orders them, and their evil pm'poses and
performances, to his own glory. The devil cannot arrest Job, nor touch a
lamb of his flock, nor a hair of his head, without a commission fi-om God.
He cannot enter into one filthy swine in the Gaderenes' herd, without asking
our Saviour leave. Whatever he doth, he hath a grant or permission from
heaven for it. God's special providence is over his people, but his general
providence over all kingdoms and countries.
He takes care of Syria, as well as of Judea ; and sends Elisha to anoint
Hazael king of Sp'ia, as well as Jehu king of Israel, 1 I{ings xix. 15.
Though Ishmael had mocks for Isaac, yet the God of Isaac provided for the
wants of Ishmael ; Gen. xxv. 16-18, ' He causeth his sun to shine upon
the unjust,' as well as ' the just,' to produce fruits and plants for their pre-
servation.
(2.) Over the meanest creatures. As the sun's light, so God's providence
disdains not the meanest worms. It is observed, that in the enumeration of
the works of creation, Gen. i. 21, only the great whales and small creeping
things are mentioned, and not the intermediate creatures, to shew that the
least as well as the greatest are under his care. It is one of his titles to be
the preserver of beasts as well as men, Neh. ix. 6. He is the great caterer
for all creatures ; Ps. civ. 21, ' The young lions seek their meat from God.'
They attend him for their daily portion, and what they gather and meet with
in their pursuit, is God's gift to them, ver. 27, 28. He listens to the cries
of the young ravens, though they are birds of prey. ' He gives to the beast
his food, and to the young ravens which cry,' Ps. cxlvii. 9. In Ps. civ.
David throughout the whole reads a particular lectm-e of this doctrine,
wherein you may take a prospect of God's providence all over the world. He
acts them by a commandment and imprinted law upon their natures, and
makes them observe exactly those statutes he enacts for the guidance of them
in their proper operations. Ps. cxlvii. 15, ' He sendeth forth his command-
ment upon earth, and his word runs very swiftly,' viz., his word of provi-
dence. God keeps them in the observation of their fii'st ordinance. Ps.
cxix. 91, * They continue this day according to thine ordinances, for all are
thy servants,' i. e. the earth and what is upon it. They observe their
stations, the law God hath set them, as if they had a rational knowledge of
their duty in their particular motions ; Ps. civ. 19, ' the sun knoweth his
going down.' Sometimes he makes them instruments of his ministry to us,
sometimes executioners of his judgments. Lice and frogs arm themselves
at his command to punish Egypt. He makes a whale to attend Jonas drop-
ping into the sea, to be an instrument both to punish and preserve him.
* Horton'a Serm. Ps. Ixxxvii. p. 56,
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.J A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 15
Yea, and which is more wonderful, the multitude of the very cattle is brought
among others as a reason of a people's preservation from destruction, Jonah
iv. 11 ; the multitude of the cattle are joined with the multitude of the infants,
as an argument to spare Nineveh. He remembers Noah's cattle as well as
his sons ; Gen viii. 1, ' God remembered Noah, and every hving thing, and
all the cattle that were with him in the ark.' He numbers the very hairs of
our heads, that not one falls without his will. Not only the immortal soul,
but the decaying body ; not only the vital parts of that body, but the incon-
siderable hairs of the head, are under his care.
Obs. 1. This is no dishonour to God, to take care of the meanest creatures.
It is as honourable for his power to preserve them, and his wisdom to govern
them, as for both to create them. It is one part of a man's righteousness
to be merciful to his beasts, which he never made ; and is it not a part of
God's righteousness, as the rector of the world, to take care of thftse creatures,
which he did not disdain to give a being to ?
Obs. 2. It rather conduceth to his honour.
(1.) The honour of his goodness. It shews the comprehensiveness of his
goodness, which embraceth in the arms of his providence the lowest worm
as well as the highest angel. Shall infinite goodness frame a thing, and
make no provision for its subsistence ? At the first creation he acknow-
ledged whatever he had created good in his kind, good in themselves, good
3n order to the end for which he created them ; it is therefore an honourable
thing for his goodness to conduct them to that end which in their creation
he designed them for ; and not leave them wild disorders, unsuitable to the
end of that goodness which first called them into being. If he grow out of
love with the operations of his hands, he would seem to grow out of love
with his own goodness that formed them.
(2.) The honour of his power and wisdom. The power of God is as much
seen in making an insect full of life and spirit in all the parts of it, to perform
all the actions suitable to its life and nature, as in making creatures of a
greater bulk ; and is it not for the honour of his power to preserve them, and
the honour of his wisdom to direct these httle animals to the end he intended
in theii' creation ? For as little as they seem to be, an end they have, and
glorious too, for natura nihil faclt frustra. It seems not to consist with his
wisdom to neglect that which he hath vouchsafed to create. And though the
apostle seems to deny God's care of brutes, — 1 Cor. ix. 9, ' Doth God take
care for oxen ?' — it is true God did not in that law only take care of oxen,
i. e. with a legislative care, as making a law only for them, though with a
providential care he doth ; but the apostle there doth not deny God's care
for oxen, but makes an argument a viinore ad majus.
2. Providence extends to all the actions and motions of the creature.
Every second cause imphes a dependence upon a first cause in its operation.
If God did not extend his providence over the actions of creatures, he would
not every where, and in all things and beings, be the first cause.
(1.) To natural actions. What an orderly motion is there in the natural
actions of creatures, which evidenceth a guidance by an higher reason, since
they have none of their own ! How do fish serve several coasts at several
seasons, as if sent upon a particular message by God ? This cannot be by
any other faculty than the instinct their Maker hath put into them. Plants
that grow between a barren and fruitful soil, shoot all their roots towards
the moist and fruitful ground, by what other cause than a secret direction
of providential wisdom ?* There is a law impressed upon them and their
motions, that are so orderly, as if they were acted according to a covenant
* Andrew's Catechistical Doctrine, p. 60.
16 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PKOVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
and agreement between them and their Creator, and therefore called ' the
covenant of the day and night,' Jer. xxxiii. 20. What avails the toil and
labour of man in ploughing, trading, watching, unless God influence, unless
he bless, unless he keep the city ! The proceed of all things depends upon
his goodness in blessing, and his power in preserving. God signified this,
when he gave the law from mount Sinai, promising the people, that if they
kept his commandments, he would give them rain in due season, and that
the earth should bring forth her fruit : Lev. xxvi. 3, 4, ' Then will I give you
rain, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall
yield their fr'uit ;' evidencing thereby, that those natural causes can pro-
duce nothing without his blessing ; that though they have natural principles
to produce such fruits according to their natures, yet he can put a stop to
their operations, and make all their fruits abortive. He weighs the waters,
how much shall be poured out in showers of rain upon the parched earth.
He makes a decree for the rain, and gives the clouds commission to dissolve
themselves so much and no more. Job xxviii. 23-26. Yea, he doth order
the conduct of them by counsel, as employing his wisdom about these things
which are of concern to the world. Job xxxvii. 11, 12, ' He scattereth his
bright cloud, and it is turned round about by his counsels, that they may
do whatsoever he commands them upon the face of the world in the earth.'
(2.) To civil actions. Counsels of men are ordered by him to other ends
than what they aim at, and which their wisdom cannot discover. God
stirred up Sennacherib to be the executioner of his justice upon the Jews,
and afterwards upon the Egyptians, when that great king designed only the
satisfaction of his ambition in the enlarging his kingdom, and supporting
his greatness. Isa. x. 6, 7, ' I will send him against an hypocritical nation,
and ac^ainst the people of my wrath. Howbeit he means not so, neither
doth his heart think so,' — ^he designs not to be an instrument of my justice, —
' but it is in bis heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few.' His thoughts
and aims were far different fi'om God's thoughts. The hearts of kings are
in his hands, as wax in the hands of a man, which he can work into what
form and shape he pleases. He hath the sovereignty over, and the ordering
the hearts of magistrates ; Ps. xlvii. 9, ' The shields of the earth belong unto
God.' Counsels of men for the good of his people are his act. The princes
advised Jeremiah and Baruch, Jer. xxxvi. 19, to hide themselves, which
they did, yet, verse 26, it is said the Lord hid them. Though they followed
the ad\dce of their court-friends, yet they could not have been secured, had
not God stepped in by his providential care, and covered them with his
hand. It was the courtiers' counsel, but God challenges the honour of the
success.
Mihtary actions are ordered by him. Martial employments are ordered
by his providence. He is the great general of armies. It is observed that
in the two prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, God is called the Lord of Hosts
no less than a hundred and thirty times.*
(3.) To preternatural actions. God doth command creatures to do those
things which are no way suitable to their incUnations, and gives them some-
times for his own service a writ of ease from the performance of the natural
law he hath impressed upon them. A devouring raven is made by the pro-
vidence of God the prophets' caterer in time of famine, 1 Kings xvii. 4. God
instructs a ravenous bird in a lesson of abstinence for Elijah's safety, and
makes it both a cook and a serving-man to the prophet. The whale, that
delights to play about the deepest part of the ocean, approaches to the shore,
and attends upon Jonah to transport him to the dry land, Jonah ii. 10,
* Arrowsmith, ' Chain of Principles,' Exercit. i. sect 1.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9. J A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 17
The fire was slacked by God, that it should not singe the least hair of the
three children's heads, but was let loose to consume the officers of the court,
Dan. iii. The mouths of the ravenous lions, which had been kept with an
empty stomach, were muzzled by (lod, that they should not prey upon
Daniel in a whole night's space. God taught them an heroical temper-
ance with so dainty a dish at their mouths, and yet they tore the accusers
in a trice.
(4.) To all supernatural and miraculous actions of the creatures, which are
as so many new creations. As when the sun went backward in Hezeluah's
time, when it stood still in the valley of Ajalon, that Joshua might com-
plete his victory on the Canaanites. The boisterous waves stood on a heap
like walls to secure the Israelites' passage ; but, returning to their natural
motion, were the Egyptians' sepulchre. When creatures have stepped out of
their natural course, it could not be the act of the creature, it being so much
against and above their natures, but it must be by the order of some supe-
rior power.
(5.) To all fortuitous actions. What is casual to us is ordained by God ;
as effects stand related to the second cause, they are many times contingent,
but as they stand related to the fii'st cause, they are acts of his counsel, and
directed by his wisdom. God never left second causes to straggle and ope-
rate in a vagabond way ; though the effect seem to us to be a loose act of
the creature, yet it is directed by a superior cause to a higher end than we
can presently imagine. The whole disposing of the lot which is cast into
the lap, is from the Lord, Prov. xvi. 33. A soldier shoots an arrow at
random, and God guides it to be the executioner of Ahab for his sin,
1 Kings xxii. 34, which death was foretold by Micaiah, ver. 17, 28. God
gives us a certain rule to judge of such contingencies, Exod. xxi. 13, ' And
if a man he not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand.' A man acci-
dentally kills another, but it is done by a secret commission from God.
God delivered him into his hands. Providence is the great clock, keeping
time and order, not only hourly, but instantly, to its own honour.*
(6.) To all voluntary actions.
[1.] To good actions. Not by compelling, but sweetly inclining, deter-
mining the will, so that it doth that willingly, which, by an unknown and
unseen necessity, cannot be omitted. It constrains not a man to good
against his will, but powerfully moves the will to do that by consent, which
God hath determined shall be done : ' The way of man is not in himself,' the
motion is man's, the action is man's, but the direction of his steps is from
God. Jer. x. 23, ' It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.'
[2.] To evil actions.
First, In permitting them to be done. Idolatries and follies of the
heathen were permitted by God. He checked them not in their course, but
laid the reins upon their necks, and suffered them to run what race they
pleased : Acts xiv. 16, ' Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in
their own ways.' Not the most execrable villany that ever was committed
in the world could have been done without his permission. Sin is not
amabile propter se, and therefore the permission of it is not desirable in itself,
but the permission of it is only desirable, and honestatur ex fine. God is
good, and wise, and righteous in all his acts, so likewise in this act of per-
mitting sin ; and therefore he wills it out of some good and righteous end,
which belongs to the manifestation of his glory, which is that he intends in
all the acts of his will, of which this is one. Wicked men are said to be a
staff in God's hand ; as a man manages a staff which is in his own power, so
* Fuller, Eccles. Hist. Cent. 6, book ii. p. 51.
VOL. I. B
18 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 CkRON. XYI. 9.
doth God manage wicked men for his own holy purposes, and they can go
no further than God gives them Hcense,
Secondly, In ordering them. God governs them by his own unsearchable
wisdom and goodness, and directs them to the best and holiest ends, con-
trary to the natm'es of the sins, and the intentions of the sinner. Joseph's
brothers sold him to gratify their revenge, and God ordered it for their pre-
servation in a time of famine. Pharaoh's hardness is ordered by God for his
own glory and that king's destruction. God decrees the delivering up Christ
to death ; and Herod, Pilate, the Pharisees, and common rout of people, in
satisfying their own passion, do but execute what God had before ordained :
Acts iv. 28, ' For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel deteiToined
before to be done.' Judas his covetousness, and the devil's malice, are
ordered by God to execute his decree for the redemption of the world. Titus
the emperor, his ambition led him to Jerusalem, but God's end is the fulfil-
ling of his threatenings, and the taking revenge upon the Jews for their mur-
dering of Christ. The aim of the physician is the patient's health, when the
intent of the leeches is only to suck the blood. God hath holy ends in per-
mitting sin, while man hath unworthy ends in committing it. The rain,
which makes the earth fi'uitful, is exhaled out of the salt waters, which would
of themselves spoil the ground and make it unfruitful. ' The deceiver and
the deceived are his,' Job xii. 16. Both the action of the devil the
seducer, and of wicked men the seduced, are restrained by God within due
bounds, in subserviency to his righteous will. For ' with him is strength
and wisdom.'
Prop. 2. As providence is universal, so it is mysterious. Who can trace
the motions of God's eyes in their race ? ' He makes the clouds his chariot,'
Ps. civ. 3, in his motions about the earth, and his throne is in the dark. He
walks upon the wings of the wind, his providential speed makes it too quick
for our understanding. His ways are mysterious, and put the reason and
wisdom of men to a stand. The clearest-sighted servants of God do not see
the bottom of his works, the motion of God's eyes is too quick for ours.
John Baptist is so astonished at the strange condescension of his Saviour
to be baptized of him, that he forbids it, Mat. iii. 14 ; man is a weak crea-
tm-e, and cannot trace or set out the wisdom of God.
But this mysteriousness and darkness of providence adds a lustre to it,
as stones set in ebony, though the gi'ounds be dark, make the beauty and
sparkling the clearer.
1. His ways are above human methods. Dark providences are often
the groundwork of some excellent piece he is about to discover to the world.
His methods are hke a plaited picture, which on the one side represents a
negro, on the other a beauty. He lets Sarah's womb be dead, and then
brings out the root of a numerous progeny. He makes Jacob a cripple, and
then a prince to prevail with God ; he gives him a wound and then a bless-
ing. He sends not the gospel till reason was nonplussed, and that the world,
in that highest wisdom it had at that time attained unto, was not able to
arrive to the knowledge of God. 1 Cor. i. 21, ' After that the world by
wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foohshness of preaching, to
save them that believe.'
2. His ends are of a higher strain than the aims of men. Who would
have thought that the forces C}'rus raised against Babylon, to satisfy his own
ambition, should be a means to deliver the Israelites, and restore the worship
of God in the temple ? God had this end, which Isaiah prophesied of, and
C}Tus never dreamt of: Isa. xliv. 28, ' That saith of Cyrus, Thou art my
shepherd, and shalt perform all my pleasure, even saying that Jerusalem
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.j A DISOOURSK OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 19
shall be built,' &c. ; and this a long time before Cyrus was bom, Isa, xlv. 1.
Phai"a()h sent Israel away in the very night, at the end of the four hundred
and thirty years, the time prclixed by God. He could not keep them longer
because of God's promise, he would not because of God's plagues. God
aims at the glorifying his truth, in keeping touch with his word. Pharaoh
designs not the accomplishing God's will, but his deliverance from God's
judgments.
There is an observable consideration to this purpose, how God's ends are
far diflereut from man's, Luke ii. 1, 4, in the taxing the whole world by
Augustus. Augustus, out of pride^ to see what a numerous people he was
prince of, would tax the whole world. Some tell us he had appointed the
enrolling the whole empu'e twenty- seven years before the birth of our Saviour,
and had proclaimed it at Tarracon, in Spain. But soon after this proclama-
tion, Augustus found a breaking out of some stirs, and thereupon deferred his
resolution to some other tit time, which was the very time of the birth of
Chi-ist. See now God's wise disposal of things, in changing Augustus's
resolution, and deferring it till the forty-fourth year of his reign, when Christ
was ready to come into the world ! And this by giving occasion, yea, neces-
sitating Mary to come from Nazareth, where Joseph and Mary dwelt, who
perhaps being big with child, without this necessity laid upon her by the
emperor's edict, would not have ventured upon the journey to Bethlehem.
There she falls in travail, that so Christ, the seed of David, being conceived
in Nazareth, should be bom at Bethlehem, where Jesse lived, and David was
born. How wisely doth God order the ambition and pride of men to fulfil
his own predictions, and to publish the truth of Christ's birth of the seed of
David, for the names of Joseph and Mary were found in the records of Rome
in Tertullian's time.
3. God hath several ends in the same action. Jacob is oppressed with
famine, Pharaoh enriched with plenty, but Joseph's imprisonment is in order
to his father's rehef, and Pharaoh's wealth ; his;^mistress's anger flings him
into a prison. Joseph is wronged, and hath captivity for a reward of his
chastity. God makes it a step to his advancement, and by this way brings
him from a captive to be a favourite. What is God's end ? Not only to
preserve the Egj'ptian nation, but old Jacob and his family. Was this all
that God aimed at? No; he had a fm-ther design, and lays the foundation
of something to be acted in the futm-e age. By this means Jacob is brought
into Egypt, leaves his posterity there, makes way for that glory in the work-
ing of the future miracles for then- deliverance, such an action that the world
should continually ring of, and which should be a type of the spiritual
deliverance by Christ.
4. God has more remote ends than short-sighted souls are able to espy.
God doth not eye the present advantage of himself and his creature, but hath
an eye to his own glory in all, yea, in the very last ages of the world. In
small things there are often great designs laid by God, and mysteries in the
least of his acts. Isaac was delivered from his father's sword, when he was
intentionally dead, to set forth to the world a type of Christ's resm-rection,
and a ram is conducted thither by God, and entangled in the thickets, and
appointed to sacrifice, whereby God sets forth a type of Christ's death.* He
useth the captivities of the people, to enlarge the bounds of the gospel.
The wise men were guided by a star to Christ as King of the Jews, and
come to pay homage to him in his infancy. When was the foundation of
this remai-kable event laid? Probably in Balaam's prophecy, Nmn. x}dv. 17.
' I shall see him, but not now ; I shall behold him, but not nigh. There
* Hall's Contemp. p. 796.
20 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel,' &c.
transmitted by tradition to those wise men, and perhaps renewed by Sibilla
Chaldcca, and confirmed in their minds by the Jews, whilst in the Babylonish
captivity they conversed with them. Thus God many ages before in this
prophecy had an end in promoting the readier entertainment of Christ
among this people, when he should be born ; what the wise men's end was,
the Scripture doth not acquaint us ; but, however, their gifts were a means
to preserve our Saviour, Joseph, and Mary, from the rage of a tyrant, and
affording them wherewithal to support them in Egj^pt, whither they were
ordered by God to fly for security. So God, 2 Kngs vii. 1, 2, 17, threatens
by the prophet the nobleman for his scoffing unbelief, that though he should
see the plenty, that he should not taste of it. See how God doth order
second causes, naturally to bring about his own decree ! The king gives
this person charge of the gate ; whilst the people crowd for provision to
satisfy their hunger, they accomplish the threatening, which they had no in-
tentions to do, and trod him to death. Now I come to shew that there is a
providence.
Ohs. 1. The wisdom of God would not be so perspicuous, were there not
a providence in the world. It is eminent in the creation, but more illus-
trious in the government of the creatures. A musician discovers more skill
in the touching an instrument, and ordering the strings, to sound what notes
he pleaseth, than he doth in the first framing and making of it. Isa.
xxviii. 29, ' This also comes fi'om the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in
counsel, and excellent in working.' All God's providences are but his touch
of the strings of this great instrument of the world. And all his works are
excellent, because they are the fruit of his wonderful counsel, and unsearch-
able wisdom, which is most seen in his providence, as in reading the verses
before. His power is glorified in creating and upholding this fabric. How
shall his wisdom be glorified but in his government of it ? Surely God will
be no less intent upon the honour of his wisdom than upon that of his
power. For if any attribute may be said to excel another, it is his wisdom
and holiness, because those are perfections which God hath stamped upon
the nobler part of his creation. Inferior creatures have more power and
strength than man, but wisdom is the perfection of a rational creature. Now
it is God's wisdom to direct all things to their proper end, as well as to
appoint them their ends, which direction must be by a particular providence,
especially in those things which know not their end, and have no reason to
guide them. We know in the world it is not a part of wisdom to leave
things to chance, but to state our ends, and lay a platform of those means
which direct to an attaining of them. And wisdom is most seen in drawing
all things together, and making them subservient to the end he hath fixed to
himself; and, therefore, one of the great things that shall be admired at
last, next to the great work of redemption, will be the harmony and consent
of those things which seemed contrary, how they did all conspire for the
bringing about that end which God aimed at.
Obs. 2. The means whereby God acts discover a providence. He acts,
1. By small means. The considerable actions in the world have usually
very small beginnings. As of a few letters how many thousand words are
made ! of ten figures, how many thousand numbers ! And a point is the
beginning of all geometry. A little stone flung into a pond makes a little
circle, then a greater, till it enlargeth itself to both the sides. So from
small beginnings, God doth cause an efilux through the whole world.
(1.) He useth small means in his ordinary works. The common works
of nature spring from small beginnings. Great plants are formed from small
2 ChRON, XVI. 9.j A DISCOURSE OF DIVINK PROVIDENCE. 21
seeds. The clouds which water the great garden of the world arc but a
collection of vapours. The noblest operations of the soul are wrought in an
organ, viz. the brain, composed of coagulated phlegm. Who would imagine
that Saul, in seeking his father's asses, should find a kingdom ?
(2.) In his extraordinary works he useth small means. Elisha, that
waited upon Ehjah, and poured water upon his hands, shall do greater
miracles than his master. And the apostles shall do greater works than
Christ, John xiv. 12, that the world may know that God is not tied to any
means that men count excellent; that all creatures are his, and act not of
themselves, but by his spirit and power.
In his extraordinary works of justice. He makes a rod in the hands of
Moses to confound the skill of the Egj'ptian magicians. He commissioned
frogs and flies to countercheck a powerful and mighty people. When
Benhadad was so proud as to say, the dust of Samaria should not suffice
for handfuls for his army, God scattered his army by the lacqueys of the
princes, — 1 Kings xx. 14, ' The young men of the princes of the pro-
vinces,'— about two hundred thirty-two, ver. 15. The little sling in the
hand of David a youth, guided by God's eye and hand, is a match fit enough
for a blasphemous giant, and defeats the strength of a weaver's beam.
In his extraordinary works of mercy.
[l.j In the deliverance of a people or person. A dream was the occasion
of Joseph's greatness and Joseph's preservation. He used the cacklings of
geese to save the Roman Capitol from a surprise by the Gauls. He picks
out Gideon to be a general, who was least in his father's esteem. Judges
vi. 15 ; and what did his army consist of, but few, and those fearful, Judges
vii. 6, 7 ; those that took water with their hands (which, as Josephus saith,
is a natural sign of fear) did God choose out to overthrow the Midianites,
who had overspread the land as grasshoppers, to shew that he can make the
most fearful men to be sufficient instruments against the greatest powers,
when the concernments of his church and people he at stake.
God so dehghts in thus baffling the pride of men, that Asa uses it as an
argument to move God to deliver him in the strait he was in, when Zerah
the Ethiopian came against him with a great multitude, when he was but a
small point and centre in the midst of a wide circumference : 2 Chron.
xiv. 11, 'Lord, it is nothing with thee to help with many or with few.'
Hereby God sets oft' his own power, and evidenceth his superintendent care
of his people. It was more signally the arm of God for Moses to confound
Pharaoh with his hce and frogs, than if he had beaten him in a plain field
with his six hundred thousand Israelites.
[2.] In the salvation of the soul. Our Saviour himself, though God, the
great redeemer of the world, was so mean in the eyes of the world, that he
calls himself ' a worm, and no man,' Ps. xxii. 6. He picks out many times
the most unlikely persons to accomplish the greatest purposes for men's
souls. He lodgeth the treasures of wisdom in vessels of earth ; he chose
not the cedars of Lebanon, but the shrubs of the valley ; not the learned
Pharisees of Jerusalem, but the poor men of Galilee : ' Out of the mouths of
babes and sucklings, he ordains praise to himseLf.'
The apostles' breeding was not capable of ennobling their minds, and
fitting them for such great actions as Christ employed them in. But after
he had new moulded and inflamed their spirits, he made them of fishermen,
greater conquerors of the world, than the most magnified grandees could
pretend to.
Thus salvation is wrought by a crucified Christ : and that God who made
the world by wisdom, would save it by the foolishness of preaching. And
22 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, [2 ChEON. XVI. 9.
make Paul, the least of the apostles as he terms himself, more successful
than those who had been instructed at the feet of Christ, 1 Cor. xv. 9, 10.
2. By contrary means. God by his providence makes contrary things
contribute to his glory, as contrary colours in a picture do to the beauty of
the piece. Nature is God's instrument to do whatsoever he pleases ; and
therefore nothing so contrary but he may bring to his own -ends ; as in
some engines you shall see wheels have contrary motions, and yet all in
order to one and the same end. God cured those by a brazen serpent, which
were stung by the fiery ones ; whereas brass is naturally hurtful to those
that are bit by serpents.*
(1.) Afflictions. Joseph is scld for a slave, and God sends him as a har-
binger ; his brothers sold him to destroy him, and God sends him to save
them. Paul's bonds, in the opinion of some, might have stifled the gospel ;
but he tells us that they had fallen out to the furtherance of the gospel,
Phil. i. 12.
(2.) Sins.f God doth often effect his just will by our weakness ; neither
thereby justifying our infirmities, nor blemishing his oviTi action. Jacob
gets the blessing by unlawful means, telling no less than two lies to attain
it, — I am Esau, and this is venison, ^ — but hereby God brings about the per-
formance of his promise, which Isaac's natural aiiection to Esau would have
hindered Jacob of.
The breach of the first covenant was an occasion of introducing a better.
Man's sinning away his fu-st stock, was an occasion to^ God to enrich him
with a surer. The loss of his original righteousness made way for a clearer
and more durable. The folly of man made way for the e-sddence of God's
wisdom, and the sin of man for the manifestation of his gi'ace ; and by the
vdse disposal of God, opens a way for the honour of those attributes which
would not else have been experimentally known by the sons of men.
3. Casual means. The viper which leapt upon Paul's hand out of the
bundle of sticks was a casual act, but designed by the providence of God for
the propagation of the gospel. Pharaoh's daughter comes casually to wash
herself in the river, but, indeed, conducted by the secret influence of God
upon her, to rescue Moses, exposed to a forlorn condition, and breed him up
in the Egj-ptian learaing, that he might be the fitter to be his kindred's deh-
verer. Saul had been hunting David, and at last had lodged him in a place
whence he could not well escape, and being ready to seize upon him in that
very instant of time, a post comes to Saul, and brings the news that the
Philistines had invaded the land, which cut out other work for him, and
David for that time escapes, 1 Sam. xxiii. 26, 27, 28.
Prop. 3. Reason. Such actions and events of things are in the world,
which cannot rationally be ascribed to any other cause than a supreme pro-
vidence. It is so in common things. Men have the same parts, the same
outward advantages, the same industry, and yet prosper not alike. One labours
much, and gets httle ; another uses not altogether such endeavom's, and
hath riches flowdng in upon him. Men lay their projects deep, and question
not the accomplishment of them, and are disappointed by some strange and
unforeseen accident. And sometimes men attain what they desire in a dif-
ferent way, and many times contrary to the method they had projected.
This is evidenced,
1. By the restraints upon the passions of men. The waves of the sea, and
the tumults of the people are much of the same impetuous natures, and
are quelled by the same power : Ps. Ixv. 7, * Which stilleth the noise of
* Grotius, Num. xxi, 9. JEs natvraliter nocet roTg o(piohr\KTOig.
t Hall, Contemp. book iii. p. 806, 807.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 28
the sea, and tumult of the people.' Tamults of the people could no more
be stilled by the force of a man, than the waves of the sea by a puff of
breath. How strangely did God qualify the hearts of the Egyptians will-
ingly to submit to the sale of their land, when they might have risen in a
tumult, broke open the granaries, and supplied their wants, Gen. xlvii. 19, 21.
Indeed, if the world were left to the conduct of chance and fortune, what
work would the savage lusts and passions of men make among us ! How is
it possible that any but an almighty power can temper so many jarring
principles, and rank so many quarrelsome and turbulent spirits in a due
order ! If those brutish passions which boil in the hearts of men were let
loose by that infinite power that bridles them, how soon would the world
be run headlong into inconceivable confusions, and be rent in pieces by its
own disorders ?
2. By the sudden changes which are made upon the spirits of men for
the preservation of others. God takes off the spirit of some as he did the
wheels from the Egyptian chariots, in the very act of their rage. Paul was
struck down and changed while he was yet breathing out threatenings, &c.
God sees all the workings of men's hearts, all those cruel intentions in Esau
against his brother Jacob, but God on a sudden turns away that torrent of
hatred, and disposeth Esau for a friendly meeting. Gen. xxxiii. 4. And he
who had before an exasperated malice by reason of the loss of his birth-
right and blessing, was in a moment a changed man. Thus was Saul's
heart changed towards David, and from a persecutor turns a justifier of him,
confesseth David's innocence and his own guilt : 1 Sam. xxiv. 17, 18, ' Thou
art more righteous than I, for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have
rewarded thee evil,' &c. What reason can be rendered for so sudden a change
in Saul's revengeful spirit, which had all the force of interest to support it,
and considered by him at that very time ? For, ver. 24, he takes special
notice that his family should be disinherited, and David be his successor
in the throne. How suddenly did God turn the edge of the sword
and the heart of an enemy from Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. xviii. 81. Jeho-
shaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him, and God moved them to
depart from him. The Holy Ghost emphatically ascribes it to God's
motion of their wills, by twice expressing it. But stranger is the preserva-
tion of the Jews from Haman's bloody designs, after the decree was gone out
against them. Mordecai the Jew is made Ahasuerus's favourite by a strange
wheeling of providence. First, the king's eyes are held waking, Esther
vi. 1, 2, and he is inclined to pass away the solitariness of the night with a
book, rather than a game, or some other court pastime ; no book did he fix
on but the records of that empire, no place in that voluminous book but the
chronicle of Mordecai' s service in the discovery of a treason against the
king's life ; he doth not carelessly pass it over, but inquires what recompence
had been bestowed on Mordecai for so considerable a service, and this just
before Mordecai should have been destroyed. Had Ahasuerus slept, Mordecai
and all his countrymen had been sacrificed, notwithstanding all his loyalty.
Could this be a cast of blind chance, which had such a concatenation of evi-
dences in it for a superior power ?
3. In causing enemies to do things for others which are contrary to all rules
of policy. It is wonderful that the Jews, a people known to be of a stubborn
nature, and tenacious of their laws, wherein they differed from all the nations,
should in the worst of their captivities be so often befriended by their con-
querors, not only to rebuild their city, and re-edify their temple, but at the
charge of their conquerors too. The very enemies that had captived the
Jews, though they knew them to be a people apt to rebel : that the people
24 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
whose temple they had helped to build would keep up a distinct worship and
difference in religion, which is usually attended with the greatest animosities ;
and when they knew it to be so strong in situation as to be a fort as well a3
a place of worship; that for this their enemies should furnish them with
materials, when they were not in a condition to procure any for themselves,
and give them money out of the public exchequer, and timber out of the
king's forest, as we read, Ezra i. 1, 2, 4, 7; iv. 12, 15, 19; vi. 4, 5, 8, 9,
11; Neh. ii. 8. And all this they looked upon as the hand of God : Ezra,
vi. 22, ' The Lord hath turned the heart of the king of Assyria unto them,
to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God.' And the heathen
Artaxerxes takes notice of it. Cicero tells us, that in his time gold was
carried out of Italy for the ornament of the temple. They had their rites
in religion preserved entire under the Roman government, though more
different from the Roman customs than any nation subdued by them. Dion
and Seneca, and others, observe, that wherever they were transplanted they
prospered and gave laws to the victors. And this was so generally
acknowledged, that Haman's cabinet counsel (who were surely none of the
meanest statesmen) gave him no hopes of success, when he appeared against
Mordecai, because he was of the race of the Jews, Esth. vi. 13, so much did
God own them by his gracious providence. They were also so entire
in all their captivities before their crucifying of our Lord and Saviour, that
they count their genealogies.
4. In infatuating the counsels of men. God sets a stamp of folly upon
the wisdom of men, Isa. xliv. 25, ' that turns the wise men backward, and
makes their knowledge foolishness, and makes their counsels as chaff and
stubble.' Isa, xxxiii. 11, 'Ye shall conceive chaff, and bring forth stubble.'
Herod was a crafty person, insomuch that Christ calls him fox.* How
foolish was he in managing his project of destroying Chiist, his supposed
competitor in the kingdom ! When the wise men came to Jerusalem, and
brought the news of the bii"th of a king of the Jews, he calls a synod of
the ablest men among the Jews ! The result of it is to manifest the truth
of God's prediction in the place of our Sa^dour's birth, and to direct the
wise men in their way to him. Herod had no resolutions but bloody con-
cerning Christ, Mat. ii. 3-8. God blinds his mind in the midst of all his
craft, that he sees not those rational ways which he might make use of for
the destruction of that which he feared : he sends those wise men, mere
strangers to him, and entrusts them with so gi-eat a concern ; he goes not
himself, nor sends any of his guard with them to cut him off immediately
upon the discovery, but leaves the whole conduct of the business to those he
had no acquaintance with, and of whose faithfulness he could have no assurance.
God crosses the intentions of men. Joab slew Amasa because he thought
him his rival in David's favour, and then imagined he had rid his hands of
all that could stand in his way; yet God raised up Benaiah, who drew Joab
from the horns of the altar, and cut him in pieces at Solomon's command.
God doth so order it, many times, that when the most rational counsel is
given to men, they have not hearts to follow it. Ahithophel gave as suit-
able counsel for Absalom's design as the best statesman in the world could
give, 2 Sam. xvii. 1,2, to surprise David while he was amused f at his son's
rebellion, and dejected with grief at so unnatural an action, and whilst his
forces had not yet made their rendezvous, and those that were with him were
* This is a singular inadvertence on the part of the author. It was not the
Herod who slew the babes at Bethlehem whom our Lord so designated. — Ed.
t That is, his attention was occupied, or perhaps it mav be a misprint for 'amazed.'
—Ed.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 25
tired in their inarch. Speed was best in attempts of this nature. David in
all probability had been cut off, and the hearts of the people would have
melted at the fall of their sovereign. But Absalom inclines rather to Hushai's
counsel, which was not so proper for the business he had engaged in, ver.
7-14. Now this was from God. ' For the Lord had appointed to defeat
the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil
upon Absalom.' So foolish were the Egj-ptians 'against reason, in entering
into the Red Sea after the Israelites ; for could they possibly think that that
God, who had by a strong hand and an army of prodigies brought Israel out
of their captivity, and conducted them thus far, and now by a miracle opened
the Red Sea and gave them passage through the bowels of it, should give
their enemies the same security in pm'suing them, and unravel all that web
he had been so long a working ?
5. In making the counsels of men subservient to the very ends they design
against. God brings p, cloud upon men's understandings, and makes them
the contrivers of their own ruia, wherein they intend their o^vti safety, and
gains honour to himself by out^vittiag the creature. The Babel projec-
tors, fearing to be scattered abroad, would erect a power to prevent ; and this
proved the occasion of dispersing them over the world in such a confusion
that they could not understand one another. Gen. xi. 4, 8. God ordered
Pharaoh's policies to accomplish the end against which they were directed.
He is afraid Israel should grow too mighty, and so wrest the kingdom out
of his hands, and therefore he would oppress them to hinder their increase,
which made them both stronger and more numerous. Exercise strengthens
men, and luxmy softens the spirit. The Jews fear if they suffered Christ to
make a farther progress in his doctrine and miracles, they should lose Caesar's
favour, and expose their country as a prey to a Roman army : this caused
then- destruction by those enemies they thought by this means to prevent ; God
ordering it so, that a Roman army was poui"ed in upon them which swept
them into all comers of the earth. Priests and Pharisees sit close together
in counsel how to hinder men's believing in Christ, and the result of their
consultation was to put him to death, and no man then would believe in a
dead person, not capable of working any miracles, John xi. 47-50, for the
amusing of the people ; and by this means there were a gi'eatcr number of
believers on him than in the time of his life, according to his o-s\ti prediction,
John xii. 32, ' And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.'
6. In making the fancies of men subsei-vient to their own ruin. God
brings about strange events b}' the mere imaginations and conceits of men, which
are contrary to common and natm-al observation, and the ordinary course of
rational consequences, 2 Kings iii. 22, 23. The army of the Moabites which
had invaded Israel thought the two kings of Judah and Israel had turned
their swords against one another, because the rising sun had coloui'ed those
unexpected waters and made them look red, which they took for the blood
of their enemies, and so disorderly rim without examination of the truth of
their conceit ; but instead of di\dding the spoil, they left their lives upon the
points of the IsraeUtes' swords. So the Sp'ian army are scared with a panic
fear, and scatter themselves upon an empty sound, 2 Kings vii. 6. Thus a dream
struck a terror into the Midianites, and the noise of the broken potsherds
made them fear some treason in their camp, and caused them to turn their
swords into one another's bowels : Judges vii. 19-22, ' The Lord set every
man's sword against his fellow.'
Quest. First, If God's pro-s-idence orders all things in world, and concurs
to every thing, how will you free God from being the author of sin ?
Ansuer, in several propositions.
26 A DISCOURSE OF DrS'INE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
1. It is certain God hath a hand about all the sinful actions in the world.
The selling Joseph to thelshmaelites was the act of his brethren ; the send-
ing him into Egypt was the act of God : Ps. cv. 17, ' He sent a man be-
fore them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant ;' Gen. xlv. 8, ' It was
not you that sent me hither, but God,' where Joseph ascribes it more to
God than to them. Their wicked intention was to be rid of him, that he
might tell no more tales erf them to his father. God's gracious intention
was to advance him for his honour and their good; and to bring about this
gracious purpose, he makes use of their sinful practice. God's end was
righteous, when theirs was wicked. It is said God moved David to number
the people : 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, ' The anger of the Lord was kindled against
Israel, and he moved David against them to say. Go number Israel and
Judah.' Yet Satan is said to provoke David to number the people : 1 Chron.
xxi. 1, 'And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to num-
ber Israel.' Here are two agents ; but the text mentions God's hand in it
out of justice to punish Israel ; Satan's end, no question, was out of
malice to destroy. Satan wills it as a sin, God as a punishment : God, say
some, permissive, Satan efficaciter. In the most villanous and unrighteous
action that ever was done, God is said to have an influence on it. God is
said to deliver up Christ : Acts ii. 23, ' Him, being delivered by the deter-
minate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye "have taken, and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain :' Acts iv. 28, * For to do whatsoever thy hand
and thy counsel determined before to be done.' Not barely as an act of his
presence, but his counsel, and that determinate, i. e. stable and irrever-
sible. He makes a distinction between these two acts. In God it was an
act of counsel, in them an act of wickedness, ' by wicked hands ;' there
was God's counsel about it, an actual tradition : Rom. viii. 32, ' He that
spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.' All the agents
had several ends. God in that act aimed at the redemption of the world,
Satan at the preventing it, Judas to satisfy his covetousness, the Jews to
preserve themselves from the Roman invasion, and out of malice to him
for so sharply reproving them. God had a gracious principle of love to
mankind, and acted for the salvation of the world in it ; the instruments
had base principles and ends, and moved freely in obedience to them. So
in the afiliction of Job, both God and Satan had an hand in it : Job. i. 12,
'The Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power ;'
ver. 11, ' Touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face ;' their
ends were difi'erent: the one righteous, for trial; the other malicious, against
God, that he might be cursed; against Job that he might be damned. God's
end was the brightening of his grace, and the devil's end was the ruin of
his integrity, and despoiling him of God's favour.
2. In all God's acts about sin there is no stain to God's holiness.* In
second causes, one and the same action, proceeding from divers causes, in
respect of one cause, may be sinful ; in respect of the other, righteous. As
when two judges condemn a guilty person, one condemns him out of love to
justice, because he is guilty ; the other condemns him out of a private hatred
and spleen : one respects him as a malefactor only, the other as a private
enemy chiefly. Here is the same action with two concurring causes, one
being wicked in it, the other righteous. Much more may we conceive it in
the concurrence of the Creator with the action of the creature.
(1.) God moves every thing in his ordinary providence according to their
particular natures. God moves every thing ordinarily according to the
nature he finds it in. Had we stood in innocency, we had been moved
* Senguer. Metaph, lib. ii. cap. 15. sect. 5.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 27
according to that originally righteous nature ; but since our fall wo are
moved according to that nature introduced by us with the expulsion of the
other. Our first corruption was our own act, not God's work ; we owe our
creation to God, our corruption to ourselves. Now, since God will govern
his creature, I do not sec how it can be otherwise, than according to the
present nature of the creature, unless God be pleased to alter that nature.
God forces no man against his nature ; he doth not force the will in conver-
sion, but graciously and powerfully inclines it. He doth never force nor
incline the will to sin, but leaves it to the corrupt habits it hath settled in
itself: Ps. Ixxxi. 12, ' So I gave them up to their own hearts' lusts, and
they walked in their own counsels ;' counsels of their own framing, not
of God's. He moves the will, which is sponte mala, according to its own
nature and counsels. As a man flings several things out of his hand, which
are of several figures, some spherical, tetragons, cylinders, conies, some
round and some square, though the motion be from the agent, yet the
variety of their motions is from their own figure and frame ; and if any will
hold his hand upon a ball in its motion, regularh' it will move according
to his nature and figure ; and a man by casting a bowl out of his hand,
is the cause of the motion, but the bad bias is the cause of its irregular
motion. The power of action is from God, but the viciousness of that action
from our own nature. As when a clock or watch hath some fault in any of
the wheels, the man that winds it up, or putting his hand upon the wheels
moves them, he is the cause of the motion, but it is the flaw in it, or defi-
ciency of something, is the cause of its erroneous motion ; that error was not
from the person that made it, or the person that winds it up, and sets it on
going, but from some other cause ; yet till it be mended it will not go other-
wise, so long as it is set upon motion. Our motion is from God, — Acts
xvii. 28, 'In him we move', — but not the disorder of [that motion. It
is the foulness of a man's stomach at sea is the cause of his sickness, and
not the pilot's government of the ship.
(2). God doth not infuse the lust, or excite it, though he doth present the
object about which the lust is exercised. God delivered up Christ to the
Jews, he presented him to them, but never commanded them to crucify him,
nor infused that malice into them, nor quickened it ; but he, seeing such a
frame, withdrew his restraining grace, and left them to the conduct of their
own vitiated wills. All the corruption in the world ariseth from lust- in us,
not from the object which God in his providence presents to us : 2 Peter
i. 4, * The corruption that is in the world through lust.' The creature is
from God, but the abuse of it from corruption. God created the grape, and
filled the vine with a sprightliness, but he doth never infuse a drunken
frame into a man, or excite it. Providence presents us with the wine, but
the precept is to use it soberly. Can God be blamed if that which is good
in itself be turned into poison by others ? No more than the flower can
be called a criminal, because the spider's nature turns that into venom which
is sweet in itself. Man hath such a nature, not from creation, wherein God
is positive, but from corruption, wherein God is permissive. Providence
brings a man into such a condition of poverty, but it doth not encourage his
stubbornness and impatience. There is no necessity upon thee from God
to exercise thy sin under afiliction, when others under the same exercise
their graces. The rod makes the child smart, but it is its own stubbornness
makes it curse. In short, though it be by God's permission that we can do
evil, yet it is not by his inspiration that we will to do evil ; that is wholly
from ourselves.
(3.) God supports the faculties wherewith a man sinneth, and supports a
28 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, [2 CflRON. XVI. 9.
man in that act wherein he sinneth, but concurs not to the sinfulness of
that act. No sin doth properly consist in the act itself, as an act, but in
the deficiency of that act from the rule. No action ■wherein there is sin but
may be done as an action, though not as an irregular action. Killing a man
is not in itself unlawful, for then no magistrate should execute a malefactor
for murdering another, and justice would cease in the world ; man also must
divest himself of all thoughts of preserving his life against an invader ; but
to kill a man without just cause, without authority, without rule, contrary to
rule, out of revenge, is unlawful. So that it is not the act, as an act, is the
sin, but the swerving of that act from the rule, makes it a sinful act. So
speaking, as speaking, is not a sin, for it is a power and act God hath endued
us with, but speaking irreverently and dishonourably of God, or falsely and
slanderously of man, or any otherwise irregularly, therein the sin lies ; so
that it is easy to conceive that an act and the viciousness of it are separable.
That act which is the same in kind with another, may be laudable, and the
other base and vile in respect of its circumstances. The mind wherewith a
man doth this or that act, and the irregularity of it, makes a man a criminal.
There is a concurrence of God to the act wherein we sin, but the sinfulness
of that act is purely from the inherent corruption of the creature ; as the
power and act of seeing is communicated to the eye by the soul, but the
seeing doubly or dimly is from the viciousness of the organ, the eye. God
hath no manner of immediate efficiency in producing sin ; as the sun is not
the efficient cause of darkness, though the darkness immediately succeeds
the setting of the sun, but it is the deficient cause. So God withdraws bis
grace, and leaves us to that lust which is in our wills : Acts xiv. 16, ' Who
in times past sufi'ered all nations to walk in their own ways.' He bestowed
no grace upon them, but left them to themselves. As a man who lets a
glass fall out of his hand is not the efficient cause that the glass breaks, but
its own brittle nature ; yet he is the deficient cause, because he withdraws
his support from it. God is not obliged to give us grace, because we have
a total forfeiture of it. He is not a debtor to any man, by way of merit, of
anything but punishment. He is indeed in some sense a debtor to those
that are in Christ, upon the account of Christ's purchase and his own pro-
mise, but not by any merits of theirs.
(4.) God's providence is conversant about sin as a punishment, yet in a
very righteous manner. God did not will the first sin of Adam as a
punishment, because there was no punishment due to him before he
sinned, but he willed the continuance of it as a punishment to the
nature sub ratione honi. This being a judicial act of God, is therefore
righteously willed by him. Punishment is a moral good. It is also a
righteous thing to suit the punishment to the nature of the ofiience ;
and what can be more righteous than to punish a man by that wherein
he ofiends ? Hence God is said to give up men to sin, — Kom. i. 26,
27, ' For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections,' — and to send
* strong delusions that they may believe a lie.' And the reason is rendered,
2 Thess. ii. 12, ' that they all might be damned who believed not the truth,
but had pleasure in unrighteousness.' What more righteous than to make
those vile affections and that unrighteousness their punishment which
they make their pleasure, and to leave them to pursue their own sinful
inclinations, and make them (as ,'the psalmist speaks) Ps. v. 10, ' fall by
their own counsels ' ? A drunkard's beastliness is his punishment as well as
his sin. Thus God delivers up some to their own lusts, as a punishment
both to themselves and others, as he hardened Pharaoh's heart for the de-
struction both of himself and his people.
2 CnRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 29
(5.) God by his providence draws glory to himself and good out of sin.
It is the highest excellency to draw good out of evil, and it is God's right to
manifest his excellency when he pleases, and to direct that to his honour
which is acted against his law. The holiness of God could never intend sin
as sin. But the wisdom of God foreseeing it, and decreeing to permit it,
intended the making it subservient to his own honour. He would not per-
mit it but for some good, because he is infinitely good, and could not by
reason of that goodness sufler that which is purely evil, if by his wisdom he
could not raise good out of it. It is purely evil, as it is contrary to law ;
it is good ratioiie finis, as God orders it by his providence ; yet that good-
ness flows not from the nature of sin, but from the wise disposal of God.
As God at the creation framed a beautiful world out of a chaos, out of
matter without form, and void, so by his infinite wisdom he extracts honour
to himself out of the sins of men. As sin had dishonoured him at its
entrance, in defacing his works and depraving his creature, so he would
make use of the sins of men in repairing his honour and restoring the
creature.
I It is not conceivable by us what way there could be more congruous to
the wisdom and holiness of God, as the state of the world then stood, to bring
about the death of Christ, which in his decree was necessary to the satisfac-
tion of his justice, without ordering the evil of some men's hearts to serve
his gracious purpose. If we could suppose that Christ could commit some
capital crime, for which he should deserve death, which was impossible by
reason of the hypostatical union, the whole design of God for redemption
had sunk to the ground. Therefore God doth restrain or let out the fury of
men's passions and the corrupt habits of their wills to such a degree as
should answer directly to the full point of his most gracious will, and no
further. He lets out their malice so far as was conducing to the grand
design of his death, and restrains it from everything that might impair the
truth of any prediction, as in the parting his garments, or breaking his
bones. If God had put him to death by some thunder or otherwise, and
after raised him, how could the voluntariness of Christ appear, which was
necessary to make him a perfect oblation ? How would his innocency have
appeared ? The strangeness of the judgment would have made all men
believe him some great and notorious sinner. How then could the gospel
have been propagated ? Who would have entertained the doctrine of one
whose innocency could not be cleared ? If it be said, God might raise him
again, what evidences would have been had that he had been really dead ?
But as the case was, his enemies confess him dead really, and many wit-
nesses there were of his resurrection.
[1.] God orders the sins of men to the glory of his grace. As a foil
serves to make the lustre of a diamond more conspicuous, so doth God
make use of the deformities of men to make his own grace more illustrious,
and convey it with a more pleasing relish to them. Never doth grace
appear more amiable, never is God entertained with so high admirations, as
by those who, of the worst of sinners, are made the choicest of saints.
Paul often takes occasion, from the greatness of his sin, to admire the un-
searchable riches of that grace which pardoned him.
[2.] God orders them to bring forth temporal mercies. In providence
there are two things considerable. First, Man's will. Secondly, God's
purpose. What man's will intends as a harm in sin, God in his secret
purpose orders to some eminent advantage. In the selling of Joseph, his
brothers intend the execution of their revenge ; and God orders it for the
advancement of himself, and the preservation of his unrighteous enemies,
30 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PEOVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
who might otherwise have starved. His brothers sent him to frustrate his
dream, and God to fulfil it. Our reformation and return from under the
yoke of antichrist was, by the wise disposal of God, occasioned by the three
great idols of the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the
pride of life ; lust, covetousness, and ambition, three vices notoriously
eminent in Henry the Eighth, the first instrument in that work. What he
did for the satisfaction of his lust is ordered by God for the glory of his
mercy to us. And though the papists ;upon that account reflect upon our
Reformation, they may as well reflect upon the glorious work of redemption,
because it was in the wisdom of God brought about by Judas his covetous-
ness, and the Jews' malice,
[3.] God orders them for the glory of his justice upon others. Nathan
had thi'eatened David that one in his house should lie with his wives in the
sight of the sun, 2 Sam. xii. 11. Ahithophel adviseth Absalom to do so,
not with any design to fulfil God's threatening, but secure his own stake, by
making the quarrel between the father and the son irreconcilable, because
he might well fear that upon a peace between David and Absalom he might
be ofl'ered up as a sacrifice to David's justice. God orders Ahithophel's
counsel and Absalom's sin to the glory of his justice in David's punishment.
The ambition of Vespasian and Titus was only to reduce Judea to the
Roman province after the revolt of it. But God orders hereby the execution
of his righteous will in the punishment of the Jews for their rejecting
Christ, and the accomplishment of Christ's prediction. Luke xix. 43,
* For the days shall come, that thy enemy shall cast a trench about thee,'
&c. To conclude ; if we deny God the government of sin in the course of
his providence, we must necessarily deny him the government of the world,
because there is not an action of any man's in the world, which is under
the government of God, but is either a sinful action or an action mixed
with sin.
God therefore in his government doth advance his power in the weakness,
his wisdom in the follies, his holiness in the sins, his mercy in the unkind-
ness, and his justice in the unrighteousness of men;* yet God is not defiled
with the impurities of men, but rather draws forth a glory to himself, as a
rose doth a greater beauty and sweetness from the strong smell of the garlic
set near it.f
Quest. 2. If there be a providence, how comes those unequal distributions
to happen in the world ? How is it so bad with good men, as if they were
the greatest enemies to God, and so well with the wicked, as if they were
the most aftectionate firieuds ? Doth not virtue languish away in obscurity,
whiles wickedness struts about the world ? What is the reason that splendid
virtue is oppressed by injustice, and notorious vices triumph in prosperity ?
It would make men believe that the world was governed rather by a blind
and unrighteous, than by a wise, good, and just governor, when they see
things in such disorder, as if the devil had, as he pretends, the whole power
of the world delivered to him, Luke iv. 6, and God had left all care of it
to his will.
.4ns. This consideration has heightened the minds of many against a
providence. It was the notion of many heathens, J when they saw many
who had acted with much gallantry for their countries afliicted, they ques-
tioned whether there were a superintendent power over the world. This
hath also been the stumbling-block of many taught in a higher school than
* Vid. Ovid Amor. lib. iii. Eleg. iii. v. 1, and v. 27.
t Boetius de Conso. lib. i.
i See instances in Jackson. Vol, i. 8, chap. iv. sect. 5,
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 31
that of nature, the Jews : Mai. ii. 17, * Yo say, every one that doth evil is
good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them ; and where is the
God of judgment?' Yea, and the observation of the outward fehcities of
vice, and the oppression of goodness, have caused fretting commotions in
the hearts of God's people ; the Psalm Ixxiii. is wholly designed to answer
this case. Jeremiah, though fixed in the acknowledgment of God's righteous-
ness, would debate the reason of it with God : Jer. xii. 1, ' Righteous art thou,
0 Lord, yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments : Wherefore doth the way of
the wicked prosper ? wherefore arc all they happy that deal very treacherously ?
Thou hast planted them ; yea, they have taken root : they grow ; yea, they
bring forth fruit.' He perceiving it a universal case, — ' Wherefore are all
they happy,' &c. — did not know how to reconcile it with the righteousness
of God, nor Habakkuk with the holiness of God : Hab. i. 13, ' Thou
art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity : wherefore boldest thou thy
tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than
he ? ' In point of God's goodness, too. Job expostulates the case with God :
Job X. 3, ' Is it good unto thee that thou shouldst oppress ? that thou
shouldst despise the work of thy hands ? and shine upon the counsel of the
wicked?' You see upon the account of holiness, righteousness, goodness,
the three great attributes of God, it hath been questioned by good men, and
upon the account of his wisdom by the wicked Jews.
Ans. 1. Answer in general, Is it not a high presumption for ignorance to
judge God's proceedings ? In the course of providence such things are
done that men could not imagine could be done without injustice ; yet when
the whole connection of their end is unravelled, they appear highly beauti-
ful, and discover a glorious wisdom and righteousness. If it had entered
into the heart of man to think that God should send his Son in a very low
estate to die for sinners, would it not have been judged an unjust and
unreasonable act, to deliver up his Son for rebels, the innocent for the
criminals, to spare the offender and punish the observer of his law ? Yet
when the design is revealed and acted, what an admirable connection is there
of justice, wisdom, mercy, and holiness, which men could not conceive of! It
will be known to be so at last in God's dealing wdth all his members. We
are incompetent judges of the righteousness and wisdom of God, unless we
were infinitely righteous and wise ourselves ; we must be gods, or in
another state, before we can understand the reason of all God's actions.
We judge according to the law of sense and self, which are inferior to the
rules whereby God works. * Judge nothing then before the time,' 1 Cor. iv. 5.
It is not a time for us to pass a judgment upon things. A false judgment
is easily made, when neither the counsels of men's hearts, nor the particular
laws of God's actions, are known to us. In general it is certain, God doth
righteously order his providences ; he may see some inward corruptions in
good men to be demolished by afflictions, and some good moral affections,
some useful designs, or some services he employs wicked men in, to be
rewarded in this life.
Ans. 2. God is sovereign of the world. He is sui juris : ' The earth is
his, and the fulness thereof,' may he not * do what he will with his own' ?
Mat. XX. 15. Who shall take upon them to control God, and prescribe laws
to him how to deal with his creatures ? Why should a finite understanding
prescribe measures and methods to an infinite majesty ?
Ans. 3. God is wise and just, and knows how to distribute. If we question
his providence, we question his wisdom. Is it fit for us, who are but of
yesterday, and know nothing, to say to an infinite wisdom, What dost thou?
and to direct the only wise God to a method of his actions ? His own
32 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
■wisdom will best direct him to the time when to punish the insolence of the
wicked, and relieve the miseries of his people. We see the present dis-
pensations, but are we able to understand the internal motives ? May
there not be some sins of righteous men's parents that he will visit upon
their children ? some virtues of their ancestors, that he will reward even in
their wicked posterity ? He may use wicked men as instruments in some
service. It is part of his distributive justice to reward them. They aim
at these things in their service, and he gratifies them according to their
desires. Let not, then, his righteousness be an argument against his pro-
vidence ; it is righteous with God not to be in arrears with them. Some-
times God gives them not to them as rewards of any moral virtue, but puts
power into their hands, that they may be instruments of his justice upon
some ofi"enders against him: Isa. s. 5, the staff in the Assyrian's hand was
God's indignation.
Ans. 4. There is a necessity for some seeming inequality, at least, in order to
the good government of the world. Can all in any community of men be of an
equal height? A house hath not beams and rafters of an equal bigness, some
are greater and some less. The world is God's family. It is here as in a
family ; all cannot have the same office, but they are divided according to
the capacities of some persons, and the necessity of others. Providence
would not be so apparent in the beauty of the world, if all men were alike
in their stations. Where would the beauty of the body be, if all the mem-
bers had one office, and one immediate end ? Man would cease to be man,
if every member had not some distinct work, and a universal agreement in
the common profit of the body. All mankind is but one great body, con-
stituted of several members, which have distinct offices, but all ordered to the
good of the whole ; the apostle argues this excellently in a parallel case of
the diversities of gifts in the church : 1 Cor. xii. 19, 'If all were one mem-
ber, where were the body ?' ver, 23, ' Those members of the body which
we think to be less honourable, upon those we bestow more abundant
honour ; ' ver. 24, ' God hath tempered the body together, having given
more abundant honour to that part which lacked.' What harmony could
there be, if all the voices and sounds were exactly the same in a concert ?
Who can be delighted with a picture that hath no shadows ? The afflic-
tions of good men are a foil to set off the beauty of God's providence in the
world.
Ans. 5. Unequal dispensations do not argue carelessness. A father may
give one child a gayer coat than he gives another, yet he extends his
fatherly care and tenderness over all. According to the several employments
he puts his children upon, he is at greater expense, and yet loves one as
well as another, and makes provision for all. As the soul takes care of the
lowest member, and communicates spirits to every part for their motions ;
so though God place some in a higher, some in a lower condition, yet he
takes care of all : God ' divides to every man as he will,' 1 Cor. xii. 11.
Every man hath a several share, according to God's pleasure, of a goodness
in the world, as well as of gifts in the church.
Ans. 6. Yet upon due consideration the inequality will not appear so
great as the complaint of it. If the wants of one, and the enjoyment of
another, were weighed in the balance, the scales might not appear so
uneven ; we see such a man's wealth, but do you understand his cares ? A
running sore may lie under a purple robe. Health, the salt of blessing, as
one calls it, is bestowed upon a labourer, when many that wallow in abun-
dance have those torturing diseases which embitter their pleasures. If some
want those worldly ornaments which others have, may they not have more
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 83
wisdom than those that enjoy them (the noblest perfection of a rational crea-
ture) ? Prov. iii. 13, 14, ' The merchandise of it is better than the mer-
chandise of silver, and the gain thereof than lino gold :' Prov. xv. IG,
' Better is a little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble
therewith.' As some are stripped of wealth and power, so they are stripped
of their incumbrances they bring with them. One hath that serenity
and tranquillity of mind, which the cares and fears of others will not suffer
them to enjoy, and a grain of contentment is better than many pounds of
wealth. It is not a desirable thing to bo a. great prince, attended with as
many cares and fears as he hath subjects in his empire. He made a true
estimate of his greatness, that said he would not stoop to take up a crown
if it lay at his feet. But more particularly to the parts of the case.
1. It is not well with bad men here.
(1.) Is it well with them who are tortured by their own lusts ? What
peace can worldly things bestow upon a soul filled with impurity ? In 2 Cor.
vii. 1, sin is called filthiness : Can it be well with them that have nasty
souls ? Is it well with them who are racked by pride, stung with cares,
gnawn with envy, distracted by insatiable desires, and torn in pieces by their
own fears ? Can it be well with such who have a multitude of vipers in
their breasts, sticking all their stings into them, though the sun shine, and
the shadows drop upon them ? You are spectators of their felicity, but do
you understand their inward gripes ? Prov. xiv. 13, ' Even in laughter the
heart is sorrowful.' Can silken curtains or purple clothes confer a happi-
ness upon those who have a mortal plague-sore poisoning their bodies, and
are ready to expire ? Sin is their plague, whatever is their happiness.
1 Kings viii. 38, sin is called the plague of the heart. Their insolent
lusts are a far greater misery than the possession of all the kingdoms in the
world can be a happiness.
(2.) Is it well with them who have so great an account to make, and know
not how to make it ? Those that enjoy much are more in God's debt, and
therefore more accountable. The account of wicked men is the greater,
because of their abundance ; and their unfitness to make that account is the
greater, because of their abuse. Would any reckon themselves happy to
be called upon to give an account of their stewardship for talents, and know
not how to give a good account of one farthing ? Luke xvi. 2, ' Give an
account of thy stewardship.'
(3.) Is it well with them who are the worse for what they have ? Is it a
happiness to command others, and be more slaves to the worst of creatures
than any can be to them ? The wicked man's well- spread table sometimes
proves his snare, Ps. Ixix. 22, and his destruction is bound up in his very
prosperity : Prov. i. 32, ' And the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.'
Prosperity falling upon an unregenerate heart, like the sun and rain upon
bad ground, draws forth nothing but weeds and vermin. Would you think
it your happiness to be masters of their concerns, and slaves to their pride ?
Is a stubbornness against God so desirable a thing, which is strengthened
by those things in the hands of the wicked ?
(4.) Is it well with them who in the midst of their prosperity are reserved
for justice ? Can that traitor be accounted happy, that is fed in prison by
the prince with better dishes than many a loyal subject hath at his table,
but only to keep him alive for his trial, and a public example of justice ?
God raises some for greater falls. Miserable was the felicity of Pharaoh,
to be raised up by God for a subject to shew in him the power of his wrath,
Exod. ix. 16. It is but a little time before they shall be * cut down as grass,
and wither as the green herb,'' Ps. xxxvii. 2. None would value the con-
VOL. I. 0
34 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PKOVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
dition of that soldier, who, leaping into a river to save a king's crown,'
and putting it upon his own head, that he might be enabled to swim out
with it, was rewarded for saving it, and executed for wearing it. God
rewards wicked men for their service, and punishes them for their insolence.
2. Neither is it bad here with good men, if all be well considered.
Other men's judgment of a good man is frivolous, they cannot rightly
judge of his state and concerns, but he can make a judgment of theirs :
1 Cor. ii. 15, * A spiritual man judgeth all things, but he himself is judged
of no man.' No man can make a sound judgment and estimate of a right-
eous man's state in any condition, unless he hath had experience of the like
in all the circumstances, the inward comforts as well as the outward crosses.
For,
(1.) Adversity cannot be called absolutely an evil, as prosperity cannot
be called absolutely a good. They are rather indifferent things, because
they may be used either for the honour or dishonour of God. As they are
used for his honour, they are good, and as used for his dishonour, they are
evil. The only absolutely bad thing in the w^orld is sin, which cannot be,
in its own nature, but a dishonour to God. The only absolutely good thing
in the world is holiness, and a likeness to God, which cannot be, in its own
nature, but for his glory. As for all other things, I know no true satisfac-
tion can be in them, but as they are subservient to God's honour, and give
us an advantage for imitating some one or other of his perfections. Crosses
in the Scripture are not excluded from those things we have a right to by
Christ, when they may conduce to our good : 1 Cor. iii. 22, ' Life and death,
things present, and things to come, are yours, and you are Christ's.'
Since the revelation of the gospel, I do not remember that any such com-
plaint against the providence of God fell from any holy man in the New
Testament ; for our Saviour had given them another prospect of those
things. The holy men in the Old Testament comforted themselves against
this objection by the end of the wicked which should happen, and the rod
cease, Ps. Isxiii. In the New Testament we are more comforted by the certain
operation of crosses to our good and spiritual advantage, Rom. viii. Our
Saviour did not promise wealth and honour to his followers, nor did ho
think it worth his pains of coming and dying, to bestow such gifts upon his
children. He made heaven their happiness, and the earth their hell ; the
cross was their badge here, and the crown their reward hereafter ; they
seemed not to be a purchase congruous to so great a price of blood. Was
God's providence to Christ the more to be questioned because he was poor ?
Had he the less love to him because he was ' a man of sorrows,' even while
he was a God of glory ? Such groundless conceits should never enter into
Christians, who can never seriously take up Christ's yoke without a pro-
viso of afflictions, who can never be God's sons without expecting his
corrections.
(2.) God never leaves good men so bare, but he provides for their neces-
sity : Ps. Ixxxiv. 11, ' The Lord will give grace and glory, and no good thing
will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.' If any thing be good, an
upright man may expect it from God's providence ; if it be not good, he
should not desire it : Howsoever grace, which is necessary for preparing
thee for happiness and glory, which is necessary for fixing thee in it, he will
be sure to give ; we have David's experience for it in the whole course of his
life, Ps. xxxvii. 5.
(3.) The little good men have is better than the highest enjoyments of
wicked men : Ps. xxxvii. 16, ' A little that a righteous man hath is better
than the riches of many wicked;' not better than many riches of the wicked,
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINB PROVIDENCE. 35
but better than the riches of many wicked, better than all the treasures of
the whole mass of the wicked world. Others have them in a providential
way, good men in a gracious way : Prov. xvi. 8, * Better is a little with
righteousness, than great revenues without right,' without a covenant right.
Wicked prosperity is like a shadow that glides away in a moment, whereas
a righteous man's little is a part of Christ's purchase, and part of that
inheritance which shall endure for ever: Ps. xxxvii. 18, 'Their inheritance
shall be for ever,' /. e., God regards the state of the righteous, whether good
or evil, all that befalls them, God doth all with a respect to his everlasting
inheritance. No man hath worldly things without their wings. And though
the righteous have worldly things with their wings, yet that love whereby
they have them hath no wings ever to fly away from them. How can those
things bo good to a man that can never taste them, nor God in them ?
(■4.) No righteous man would in his sober wits be willing to make an ex-
change of his smartest afflictions for a wicked man's prosperity, with all the
circumstances attending it. It cannot therefore be bad with the righteous
in the worst condition. "Would any man be ambitious of snares that knows
the deceit of them ? Can any but a madman exchange medicines for
poison ? Is it not more desirable to be upon a dunghill with an intimate
converse with God, than upon a throne without it '? They gain a world in
prosperity, a righteous man gains his soul by afflictions, and possesses it in
patience. Is the exchange of a valuable consideration '? God strips good
men of the enjoyment of the world, that he may wean them from the love
of it ; keeps them from idolatry, by removing the fuel of it ; sends afflictions
that he may not lose them, nor they their souls. Would any man exchange
a great goodness ' laid up for him that fears God,' Ps. sxxi. 19, for a lesser
goodness laid out upon them that are enemies to him ?
"WTio would exchange a few outward comforts with God's promise, inward
comforts with assurance of heaven, godliness with contentment, a sweet and
spiritual life, sovereignty over himself and lusts, though attended with suf-
ferings, for the government of the whole world ?
(5.) It is not ill with the righteous in afflictions, because they have high
advantages by them. That cannot be absolutely evil which conduceth to a
greater good ; as,
Firat, Sensible experiments of the tender providence of God over them.
If the righteous had not afflictions in this life, God would lose the glory of
his providence, and they the sweetness in a gracious deliverance from thom,
in ways which makes the affliction the sweeter as well as the mercy; they
would lose the comfort of them, in not having such sensible evidences of
God's gracious care.
The sweetness of the promises made for times of trouble would never be
tasted: Ps. xxxvii. 19, 'They shall not be ashamed in the evil time;' that
is, they shall be mightily encouraged and supported. God's people do best
understand God's strength when they feel the smart of men's malice :
2 Tim. iv. 17, ' The Lord stood with me, and strengthened me.' He had
never felt so much of God's strength if he had not tasted much of man's
wickedness in forsaking him. Ps. xxxvii. 39, ' He is their strength,' when
in times of trouble they experiment more of his care in preserving them,
and his strength in supporting them, than at other times. Abundance of
consolations are manifested in abundance of sufferings, 2 Cor. i. 5, 1 Peter
iv. 13, 14, A greater sense of joy and glory lights upon them in a storm
of persecutions. Men see the sufferings of the godly, but they do not behold
that inward peace which composeth and delights their souls, worth the whole
mass of the world's goodness, and pleasures of the unrighteous.
36 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
Secondly, Inward improvements, opportunities to manifest more love to
God, more dependence on him, the perfection of the soul : 1 Tim. v. 5,
'Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusts in God, and con-
tinues in supplications and prayers night and day,' There is a ground of
more exercise of trust in God and supplication to him. The poor and
desolate have an advantage for the actual exercise of those graces, which a
prosperous condition wants. God changeth the metal by it ; what was lead
and iron he makes come forth as gold : Job xxiii. 10, ' When he hath tried
me, I shall come forth as gold.' Crosses and sufferings, which fit good men
for special service here, and eternal happiness hereafter, can no more be
said to be evil, than the fire which refines the gold, and prepares it for a
prince's use. If there were not such evils, what ground could you have to
exercise patience ? what heroic acts of faith could you put forth without
difficulties ? how could you believe against hope, if you had not sometimes
something to contradict your hopes ? And if a good man should have a
confluonce of that which the ignorant and pedantical world calls happiness,
he might undervalue the pleasures of a better life, deface the beauty of his
own soul, and withdraw his love from the most gratifying as well as "the
most glorious object, unto that which is not worth the least grain of his
affection.
Thirdh/, Future glory. The great inquiry at the day of Christ's appear-
ing will be, how good men bare their sufferings, what improvements they
had ; and the greater their purity by them, the greater will be their praise
and honour: 1 Peter i. 7, ' That the trial of your faith,' viz., by manifold
temptations, ' may be found to praise, and honour, and glory, at the appear-
ing of Jesus Christ.' For a good improvement by them, they will have a
public praise from God's mouth, and a crown of honour set upon their
heads. Providence sends even light afflictions as so many artificers, to
make the crown more massy and more bright : 2 Cor. iv. 17, ' Works for
us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' They are at work
about a good man's crown while they make him smart. They prepare him
for heaven, and make it more grateful to him when he comes to possess it.
A Christian carriage in them prepares for greater degrees of glory. Every
stroke doth but more beautify the crown.
Fouitlihj, Sufferings of good men for the truth highly glorifies the pro-
vidence of God. This is a matter of glory and honour : 1 Peter iv. 16, ' If
any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed ; but let him glorify
God on this behalf.' They thereby bear a testimony to the highest act of
providence that God ever exercised, even the redemption of the world by
the blood of his Son. And the church, which is the highest object of his
providence in the world, takes the deeper root, and springs up the higher ;
the foundation of it was laid in the blood of Christ, and the growth of it is
furthered by the blood of martyrs. The carriage of the righteous in them
makes the truth they profess more valued. It enhanceth the excellency of
religion, and manifests it to be more amiable for its beauty than for its
dowry, since they see it desirable by the sufferers, not only without
worldly enjoyments, but with the sharpest miseries. This consideration
hath wrought upon many to embrace the religion of the sufferers. If it
reaches as far as death, they are but despatched to their Father's house,
and the day of their death is the day of their coronation; and what evil is
there in all this ?
Fifthly, To conclude; this argument is stronger (upon the infallible right-
eousness of God's nature) for a day of reckoning after this life, than against
providence. It is a more rational conclusion that God will have a time to
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 87
justify the righteousness and wisdom of his providential government, and
repair the honour of the righteous, oppressed by the injustice of the wicked.
And indeed, unless there bo a retribution in another world, the question is
unanswerable, and all the reason in the world knows not how to salve the
holiness and righteousness of God in his providential dispensations in this
life, since we see here goodness unrewarded and debased to the dunghill,
vice glorying in impunity, and ranting to the firmament. We cannot see
how it can consist with the nature of God's wisdom, righteousness, and
holiness, if there were not another life, wherein God will manifest his right-
eousness in the punishing sin and rewarding goodness ; for it is impos-
sible that a God of infinite justice should leave sin unpunished, and grace
unrewarded, here or hereafter. The Scripture gives us so full an account of
a future state, that may satisfy all Christians in this business.
The wicked rich man is in his purple, and Lazarus in his rags ; yet
Abraham's bosom is prepared for the one, and an endless hell for the other.
Jeremiah resolves the case in his dispute with God about it: Jer. xii. 3,
' Pall them out like sheep to the slaughter, and prepare them for the day
of slaughter.' They are but fattening for the knife of justice; and the day
will come when they shall be consumed like the fat of lambs in the sacrifice,
which shall wholly evaporate into smoke ; so the psalmist resolves it in
Ps. xxxvii. 20, a psalm written for the present case. God laughs at their
security in a way of mockery: Ps. xxxvii. 13, 'The Lord shall laugh at
him, for he sees that his day is coming,' — God's day for the justification of
his proceedings in the world, and the wicked man's day for his own destruc-
tion, wherein they shall all be destroyed together, Ps. xxxvii. 38; the whole
mass of them in one bundle. Who then will charge God with unequal
distributions at that day, which is appointed for the clearing up of his
righteousness, which is here masked in the world ? Who can be fond of
the state of the wicked ? Who would be fond of a dead man's condition,
because he lies in state, whose soul may be condemned, whilst his body,
with a pompous solemnity, is carried to the grave, and both body and soul,
joined together at the resurrection, adjudged to eternal misery ?
Quest. 2. What hath been said in this will also answer another question.
Why God doth not immediately punish notorious offenders, since the best
governments in the world are such as call the violators of the law to a
speedy account, to keep up the honour of justice ? Thus the Epicures
charge God with neglects of providence, because if he doth punish wicked
men, it is later than is fit and just : ' Because sentence against an evil work
is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set
in them to do evil,' Eccles. viii. 11. Delay of justice is an encouragement
to sin.
Ans. 1. This is an argument for God's patience, none against his pro-
vidence. Should he make such quick work, what would become of the
world ? Could it have held out to this day ? If God had instantly taken
revenge upon those that thus disparage his providence, the frame of such
an objection had not been alive. No man is so perfectly good but he might
fall under the revenging stroke of his sword, if he pleased to draw it.
Suffer God to evidence his patience here, since after the winding up of the
world he will have no time to manifest it. God doth indeed sometimes
send the sharp arrow of some judgment upon a notorious oflfender, to let
him understand that he hath not forgotten how to govern ; but he doth not
always do so, that his patience may be glorified in bearing with his rebel-
lious creature.
Ans. 2. God is just in that wherein the question supposeth him unjust;
38 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
he suffers -wicked men to continue to be the plagues of the places -where
they live, and the executioners of his justice upon offenders against him,
Ps. xvii. 13. The -n-icked are God's s-word, Jer. slvii. 6. Those that God
-would stir up against the Philistines are called the sword of the Lord, Isa.
X. 5. Asshur is said to be the rod of his anger; -^'ould it consist -with his
•wisdom to drop the instruments out of his hand as soon as he begins to
use them ? to cast his rods out of his hand as soon as he takes them up ?
The rules of justice are as much unknown to us as the communications of
his goodness to his people are unknown to the world.
Ans. 3. Let me ask snch a one whether he never injured another man,
and whether he would not think it very severe, if not unjust, that the
offended person should presently take revenge of him ? If every man
should do the like, how soon would mankind be despatched, and the world
become a shambles, men running furiously to one another's destructions for
the injuries they have mutually received ! Do we praise the lenity of
parents to their childi'en, and dispraise the mercy of God, because he doth
not presently use his right? Is, then, forbearance of revenge accounted a
virtue in a man, and shall it be an imperfection in God? With what
reason can we thus blame the eminent patience of God, which we have
reason to adore, and which every one of us are monuments of ? The use is, —
Use 1. Of information.
How unworthy and absurd a thing is it to deny providence ! Some of
the heathens fancied that God walked his circuit in heaven, or sat with
f(jlded arms there, taking no cognizance of what was done in the world.
Some indeed, upon some great emergencies, have acknowledged the mercies
and justice of God, which are the two arms of his providence. The bar-
barians his justice, when they saw a viper leap upon Paul's hand, Acts
xxviii. 4, they say among themselves, ' No doubt this man is a murderer,
■s\-hom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffers not to live.'
The mariners in Jonah implored his mercy in their distress at sea; yet
they generally attributed affairs to blind chance, and worshipped fortune as
a deity. For this vain conceit the psalmist calls the atheist fool : Ps.
xiv. 1, 'The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.' Potiphar
acknowledged it, he saw that the Lord was with Joseph, and favoured his
designs : Gen. xxxix. 3, ' And his master saw that the Lord was with him,
and that the Lord made all things that he did to prosper in his hand.'
It will not be amiss to consider this, for the root of denial of providence
is in the hearts of the best men, especially under affliction. Asaph was a
holy man, Ps. Ixxiii. 13, saith he, 'Verily I have cleansed my heart in
vain, and washed my hands in innocency.' He had taken much pains with
his heart, and had been under much affliction: ver. 14, 'All the day long
have I been j^lagued, and chastened every morning.' And the consideration
of this, that he should have so much affliction with so much holiness, so
strangely puzzled him, that he utters that dreadful speech, as if he had a
mind to cast off all cares about the worship of God, and sanctifying his
heart, and repent of all that he had done in that business, as much as to
say. Had I been as very a villain as such or such a man, I might have
prospered as well as they, but I was a fool to have any fear of God.
Therefore we will consider,
1. The evil of denying providence,
2. The gi-ounds of the denial of it by the heathen, which we shall find in
our own hearts.
3. The various ways wherein men practically deny providence.
1. The evil of denying it.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 89
(1.) It gives a liberty to all sin. It give an occasion for an unbounded
licentiousness, for what may not bo done where there is no government ?
The Jews tell us* that the dispute between Cain and Abel was this: Cain
said, because his sacritico was not accepted, that there was no judge, no
reward of good works, or punishment of bad, which when Abel opposed,
Cain slew him. They ground it upon the discourse of God with Cain, Gen.
iv. 7, 8, which had been about his providence and acceptation of men, if they
did well, and punishment of men if they did ill ; whence they gather the
discourse, ver. 8, Cain had with his brother was about the same subject,
for Cain talked with Abel, and upon that discourse rose up against him,
and slew him. And his discourse afterwards with God, ver. 9, seems to
favour it, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' Thou dost say thou art the
Governor of the world, it is not my concern to look after him. Their
conjecture is not improbable. If it were so, we see how early this opinion
began in the world, and what was the horrid effect of it, the first sin, the
first murder that we read of after the sin of Adam. And what confusion
■would grow upon the entertainment of such a notion.
Indeed, the Scripture everywhere places sin upon this root: Ps. x. 11,
•God hath foi'gotten: he hides his face; he will never see it.' He hath
turned his back upon the world. This was the ground of the oppression of
the poor by the wicked which he mentions, ver. 9, 10. So Isa. xxvi. 10,
♦ The wicked will not learn righteousness, he will deal unjustly.' The
reason is, ' he will not behold the majesty of the Lord ; he will not regard
God's government of the world, ' though his hand be lifted up to strike.'
There is no sin but receives both its birth and nourishment from this bitter
root. Let the notion of providence be once thrown out, or the belief of it
faint, how will ambition, covetousness, neglect of God, distrust, impatience,
and all other bitter gourds, grow up in a night ! It is from this topic all
iniquity will draw arguments to encourage itself ; for nothing doth so much
discountenance those rising corruptions, and put them out of heart, as an
actuated belief that God takes care of human afi'airs. Upon the want of
this actuated knowledge God charges all the sin of Ephraim : Hosea vii. 2,
' They consider f not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness ;'
as if God were blind and did not see, or stupid and did not concern himself,
or of a verj' frail memory soon to forget.
(2.) It destroys all religion. The first foundation of all religion is, first,
the being, secondly, the goodness, of God in the government of the world :
Heb. xi. 6, ' He that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a
rewarder of them that diligently seek him.' He is the object of religion as
he is the governor of the world. This denial would shut up Bibles and
temples, and bring irreligious disorder into all societies.
[1.] All worship. He that hath not design to govern, is supposed to
expect no homage ; if he regards not his creatures, he cares for no wor-
ship from them. How is it possible to persuade men to regard him for
God, who takes no care of them ? Who will adore him who regards no
adoration ?
[2. J Prayer. To what purpose should they beg his directions, implore
his assistance in their calamities, if he had no regard at all to his crea-
tures ? What favour can we expect from him who is regardless of dis-
pensing any ?
[3.] Praise. Who would make acknowledgments to one from whom they
never received any favour, and hath no mind to receive any acknowledgments
* Targum Hierosolymit, Mercer in Gen. iv. 7.
t Heb., ' They speak not to their hearts.'
40 A. DISCOUKSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
from them, because he takes no care of them ? If the Deity have no rela-
tion to as, how can we have relation to him ? To what purpose will it be
either to call upon him, or praise him, which are the prime pieces of reli-
gion, if he concern not himself with us ?
[4.] Dependence, trust, and hope. What reason have we to commit our
concerns to him, and to depend upon him for relief? Hence the apostle
saith, Eph. ii. 12, the Gentiles were ' without hope, and without God in
the world.' The reason they were without hope was because they were
without God. They denied a settled providence, and acknowledged a blind
chance, and therefore could have no sound hope ; so some understand it of
denial of God's government. It might well give occasion to people to utter
Pharaoh's speech : Exod. v. 2, ' Who is the Lord, that I should obey his
voice, to let Israel go ? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.'
"What is God that I should serve him ? I have no such notion of a God
that governs the world. The regardlessness of his creature disobligeth the
creature from any service to him.
(3.) It is a high disparagement of God. To believe an impotent, igno-
rant, negligent God, without care of his works, is as bad or worse than to
believe no God at all. The denial of his providence is made equal with the
denial of God: Ps. xiv. 1, 'The fool hath said in his heart, There is no
God.' He denied God, Elohim, which word denotes God's providence;
not, there is no JcJwvah, which notes his essence, he denied not God
quoad essentiam, but quoad providentiani, whereupon the psalmist dubs the
atheist fool. It strips God of his judicial power. How shall he judge his
creatures, if he know not what they think, and regards not what they do ?
How easy will it be for him to be imposed upon by the fair pretences and
lying excuses of men ! It is diabolical. The devil denies not God's right
to govern, but he denies God's actual government; for he saith, Luke iv. 6,
* The power and glory of the world is delivered' unto him, ' and to whom-
soever,' saith he, ' I will, I give it.' God had cast oil' all care of all things,
and made the devil his deputy. He that denies providence denies most of
God's attributes, he denies at least the exercise of them. He denies his
omniscience, which is the eye of providence ; mercy and justice, which are
the arms of it; power, which is the life and motion of providence; wisdom,
which is the rudder of providence, whereby it is steered; and holiness,
which is the compass and rule of the motion of providence.
(4.) It is clearly against natural light. Socrates an heathen could say,
Whosoever denied providence did Aai/ioviav, was possessed with a devil.*
Should God create a man anew with a sound judgment, and bring him into
the world, when he should see the harmony, multitudes, virtues, and opera-
tions of all creatures, the stated times and seasons, must he not needs con-
fess that some invisible, inconceivable wisdom did both frame, and doth
govern all the motions of it ? And it is a greater crime in any of us to
deny providence, either in opinion or practice, than it was or could have
been in heathens ; because we have not only that natural reason which they
had, sufficient to convince us, but si;pernatural revelation in the Scripture,,
wherein God hath declared those methods of his providence which reason
could not arrive to ; as to deny his creation of the world is a greater crime
in a man that knows the Scripture than in a heathen, because that hath put
it out of doubt. And the asserting of this being the end of all God's judg-
ments in the world — Job xix. 29, ' Wrath brings the punishment of the sword,
that you may know there is a judgment,' i. e., providence — the denial
of it is a sin against all past or present judgments, which God hath or doth
, * Montague against Selclen, p. 525.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 41
exercise, the Scripture frequently declaring the meaning of such and such
judgments to be, that men may know that the Lord is God,
2. The second thing is, the grounds of the denial of providence. This
atheism has been founded,
(1.) Upon an overweening conceit of men's own worths. When moa
saw themselves frustrated of the rewards they expected, and saw others that
were instruments of tyranny and lust graced with the favours they thought
due to their own virtue, they ran into a conceit that God did not mind the
actions of men below. So that it was pride, interest, self-conceit, and
opinion of merit, rather than any well-grounded reason, introduced this
part of atheism into the world; for upon any cross this opinion of merit
swelled up into blasphemous speeches against God. When we have any
thoughts (as we are apt to have) by our religious acts to merit at God's
hand, we act against the absoluteness of his providence, as though God
could be obliged to us by any other than his own promise. Methiuks Job
hath some spice of this in speaking so often of his own integrity, as though
God dealt injuriously with him in afflicting him. God seems to charge him
with it : Job xl. 8, ' Wilt thou also disannul my judgment '? wilt thou con-
demn me, that thou mayest be righteous ? ' As though in speaking so
much of his own integrity, and in complainiug expressions, he would accuse
God of injustice, and condemn him as an unrighteous governor; and in
Job's answer you find'no syllable or word of his integrity to God, but a self-
abhorrency: Job xlii. 16, 'Wherefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes.'
I doubt that from this secret root arise those speeches which we ordinarily
have among men, What have I done that God should so afflict me ? though
in a serious way it is a useful question, tending to an inquiry into the sin
that is the cause of it; but I doubt ordinarily there is too much of a reflec-
tion upon God, as though they had deserved other dealing at his hands.
Take heed therefore of pride and conceits of our own worth, we shall else be
led by it to disparaging conceits of God, \Yhich indeed are the roots of all
actions contradictory to God's will.
(2.) It is founded upon pedantical and sensual notions of God. As
though it might detract from his pleasures and delight to look down upon
this world, or as though it were a molestation of an infinite power to busy
himself about the cares of sublunary things. They thought it unsuitable to
the felicity of God, that it should interrupt his pleasure, and make a breach
upon his blessedness. As though it were the felicity of a prince not to take
care of the government of his kingdom, nor so much as provide for the well-
being of his children. I doubt that from such or as bad conceptions of God
may spring ordinarily our distrust of God upon any distress. Take heed
therefore of entertaining any conceptions of God but what the Scripture doth
furnish you with.
(3.) Or else, this sort of atheism was ushered in by a flattering conceit of
the majesty of God. They thought it unbecoming the excellency of the
divine majesty to descend to a regard of the petty things of the world. This
seems to be the fancy of them, Ps. Ixxiii. 11, ' How doth God know ? is
there knowledge in the Most High ?' They think him too high to know, too
high to consider. How unreasonable is it to think God most high in place,
and not in perfection ; and if in perfection, not in knowledge and discerning?
They imagined of him as of a great prince, taking his pleasure upon the
battlements of his palace, not beholding the worms upon the ground ;
muffled with clouds, as Job xxii. 13, 14, ' How doth God know '? Can he
judge through the dark clouds ? thick clouds are a covering to him, that he
sees not, and he walks in the circuit of heaven. We cannot indeed have
42 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
too high apprehensions of God's majesty and excellency ; but must take
heed of entertaining superstitious conceits of God, and such as are dishon-
ourable to him, or make the grandeur and ambition of men the measure of
the greatness and majesty of God. Upon this root sprung superstition and
idolatry, and the worship of demons, who, according to the heathens' fancy,
were mediators between God and men. And I doubt such a conceit might
be the first step to the introducing the popish saint- worship into the Chris-
tian world ; and this lies at the root of all our omissions of duty, or neglects
of seeking God. Let us therefore have raised thoughts of God's majesty,
and admiring thoughts of his condescension, who, notwithstanding his great-
ness, humbles himself to behold what is done upon the earth. The psalmist
sets a pattern for both, Ps cxiii. 5, 6.
(4.) From their wishes upon any gripes of conscience. They found
guilt staring them in the face, and were wilHng to comfort themselves with
the embraces of this doctrine, wherein they might find a security and ease
to their prostituted consciences, and unbounded liberty in the ways of sin.
Those in Zephaniah were first settled upon their lees, and then, to drive
away all fears of punishment, deny God's government : Zeph. i. 12, * The
Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil.' A brave liberty, for a city
to be without a magistrate, a house without a governor, a ship without a
pilot, exposed to the mercy of winds and waves ; a man to be without rea-
son, that passion and lust should act their pleasure ; a liberty that beasts
themselves would not have, to be without a shepherd, and one to take care
of them ! Such wishes certainly there are in men upon a sense of guilt ;
they wish, for their own security, there were no providential e^'e to inspect
them. Take heed . therefore of guilt, which will draw jou to wish God
deprived of the government of the world, and all those attributes which
qualify him for it. The readiness to entertain the motions of Satan, rather
than the motions of the Spirit, implies a willingness in them that Satan might
be the god of the world, who favours them in sin, rather than the Creator
who forbids it. But indeed the fears of conscience evidence a secret belief
in men of a just providence, whatever means they use to stifle it ; else why
is man, upon the commission of some notorious sinful act, afraid of some
evil hap to betide him ? Why is he restless in himself ? There is no
sinner, unless extremely hardened, but hath some secret touch of conscience
upon notorious enormities ; while the work of the law is written in their
heart, their conscience will bear witness and accuse them, Rom. ii. 15. la
the most flagitious courses which the apostle reckons up, Rom. i. 29-32,
they cannot put off the knowledge of 'the judgment of God, that they which
commit such things are worthy of death,' that is, worthy of death by the
judgment of God, which judgment is discovered in the law of nature.
3. The third thing is, the various ways wherein men practically deny
providence, or abuse it, or contemn it.
(1.) When we will walk on in a way contrary to checks of providence,
when we will run against the will of God manifested in his providence, we
do deny his government, and refuse subjection to him ; when we will be
peremptory in our resolves against the declaration of God's will by his checks
of providence, we contend with him about the government of us and our
actions. Such a dispute had Pharaoh with God, notwithstanding all the
checks by the plagues poured out upon him, he would march against Israel
to take them out of God's hand into his own service again, Exod. xv. 9,
' The enemy said, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil ; my lust shall be
satisfied upon them ; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.'
Here is the will of man vaunting against the governor of the world, resolved
2 ChBON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 43
to dispute God's royalty with liim in spito of all the hlastingg of his designs,
and the smart blows he had had from that po\Yerful arm, which cost him
and his subjects their lives ; they would not understand the taking off their
wheels, but would run headlong into the Red Sea. A remarkable example of
this is in a good man not so pci'emptory in words, but against the revela-
tions of God's mind both by the prophet and his providence ; Jehoshaphat
had made a league with Ahab, 2 Chron. xviii. 1-3, and God had ordered
Micaiah to acquaint him with the ill success of the allair they went about,
ver. IG, ]9, which Jehoshaphat found true, for his own life was in danger,
he was hardly beset by the enemy upon a mistake, ver. 31, 32, he had an
eminent answer of prayer, for upon his cry he had a quick return ; God
engaged his providence over his enemies' hearts for him: ver. 31, ' The Lord
helped him, and God moved them to depart from him.' And for this con-
junction and continuance in it against Micaiah's prophecy, God sends a
prophet to reprove him, 2 Chron xix. 2, ' Should thou help the ungodly,
and love them that hate the Lord ? therefore is wrath upon thee from the
Lord ;' he reproves him sharply for this confederacy, yet Jehoshaphat after
had a signal providence in delivering him from another army, chap. xx. 24.
Yet after this he goes on in this way, chap. xx. 35, ' after this,' i. e., after a
reproof by a prophet, after ill success in his league, after eminent care of
God in his deliverance, after a signal freeing him from a dangerous invasion
in a miraculous way, he enters into a league with Ahab's son, as wicked as
his father, ver. 36 ; he joined himself with him to make ships to go to
Tarshish, and after that a third prophet is sent to reprove him, and the
ships were broken, ver. 37. Here is a remarkable opposition to checks of
providence, and manifest declarations of God's will, as if he would be the
commander of the world instead of God. Abner's action is much of the
same kind, who would make the house of Saul strong against David, though
he knew and was satisfied that God had promised the kingdom to David.
(2.) In omissions of prayer. One reason to prove the fools' denying
God's government of the world is, that they call not upon the Lord, Ps. xiv.
2, ' The Lord looked down from heaven, to see if there were any that did
understand and seek God.' 'Tis certainly either a denying of God's suffi-
ciency to help us, when we rather beg of every creature, than ask of God ; or
a charging him with a want of providence, as though he had thrown off all
care of worldly matters: 2 Kings i. 3, ' Is it not because there is not a God
in Israel, that you go to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron ?' Seeking
of anything else with a neglect of God, is denying the care of God over his
creature. Do we not in this case make ourselves our own governors and
lords, as though we could subsist without him, or manage our own affairs
without his assistance ? If we did really believe there was a watchful provi-
dence, and an infinite powerful goodness to help us, he would hear from us
oftener than he doth. Certainly those who never call upon him disown his
government of the world, and do not care whether he regards the earth or
no. They think they can do what they please, without any care of God over
them. The restraining prayer is a casting off the fear of God : Job xv. 4,
* Thou easiest oft' fear,' why ? ' and restrainest prayer before God.' The
neglect of prayer ariseth from a conceit of the unprofitableness of it. Job
xxi. 15, ' What profit should we have if we prayed unto him ?' Which con-
ceit must be grounded upon a secret notion of God's carelessness of the
world ; such fruit could not arise but from that bitter root. But the prophet
Malachi plainly expresses it: Malachi iii. 14, ' Ye have said it is in vain to
serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance ?' Whence
did this arise, but from a denial of providence upon the observation of the
44 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
outward happiness of the wicked ? ver. 15, 'And now we call the proud
happy ; yea, they that work wickedness are set up ; yea, they that tempt
God are even delivered.' Sometimes it ariseth fi'om an apprehension that
God in the way of his providence dealeth unjustly with us. A good prophet
utters such a skinful speech in his passion, 2 Kings vi. 33, ' Behold, this
evil is of the Lord, what should I wait for the Lord any longer ?'
(3.) When men will turn every stone to gain the favourable assistance of
men in their designs, and never address to God for his direction or blessing.
When they never desire God to move the hearts of those whose favour they
court, as though providence were an unuseful and unnecessary thing in the
world. It was the case of those Elihu speaks of: Job xxxv. 9, 10, ' They
cry out by reason of the arm of the might3\ But none saith, Where is God
my maker, who gives songs in the night ?' &c. None in the midst of their
oppressions and cries under them, did consider either the power of God in
the creation, as he was their maker, nor his providence in the government
of the world, as he raised up men from low estates, and gave matter of cheer-
fulness even in a time of darkness. This was the charge God by his prophet
brought against Asa : 2 Chron. xvi. 7 (before the text, ver. 9), ' Thou hast
relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God ;' herein thou
hast done foolishly,' where he sets a reliance on the creature, and a reliance
on God, in direct opposition. In several cases men do thus deny and put a
contempt on God as the governor of the world, when we will cast about to
find out some creature-refuge, rather than have recourse to God for any sup-
ply of our necessities. Doth not he slight his father's care, that will not
seek to him in his distress ? This was Asa's sin : 2 Chron. xvi. 12, ' In
his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.' The Jews
think, that one reason why Joseph continued two years in prison, was his
confiding too much upon the butler's remembrance of him, and interest for
his deliverance, which they ground upon the request he makes to him : Gen.
xl. 14, ' But think on me when it shall be well with thee, and shew kind-
ness to me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of
this house.' I must confess the expressions are very urgent, being so often
repeated, and seems to carry a greater confidence at present in the arm of
flesh than in God. We do not read that Joseph prayed so earnestly to God,
though no doubt but being a good man he did. Methinks the setting down
his request with that repetition in the Scripture, seems to intimate a proba-
bility of the Jews' conceit ; or also when we do seek to him, but it is out of
a general belief of his providence and sufficiency, not out of an actuated con-
sideration ; or when we seek to him with colder afi'ections than we seek to
creatures, as if we did half despair of his ability or will to help us ; as when
a man thinks to get learning by the sagacity of his own wit, his indefatigable
industry, and never desires with any ardent afiection the blessing of God
upon his endeavours. When we lean to our own wisdom, we distrust the
providence of God : Prov. iii. 5, ' Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and
lean not to thine own understanding.' Trust in God, and leaning to our
own wisdom, are opposed to one another as inconsistent ; or when a man
hath some great concern, suppose a suit at law, to think to carry his cause
by the favour of friends, the help of his money, the eloquence of his advo-
cate, and never interest God in his business : this is not to acknowledge God
in thy ways, which is the command : ver. 6, ' In all thy ways acknowledge
him;' as though our works were not ' in the hand of God,' Eccles. ix. 1.
This is to take them out of God's hand, and put them into the hands of men.
To trust in our wealth, it is to make God a dead and a stupid God, and dis-
own his providence in the bestowing it upon us. The apostle seems to inti-
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 45
mate this in the opposition which ho makes between ' uncertain riches,' and
' the living God,' 1 Tim. vi. 17. These, and many more actions suitable to
them, are virtual denials of God's snperintondency, as though God had left
off the government of the world to the wits, or rather follies of men. These
are to magnify the things we seek to, above God, as the chief authors of all
our good. It is to imagine him less careful than man, more insufficient than
man. It is a departure from a full fountain to a shallow stream ; not to
desire God's assistance, is either from some check of conscience that our
business is sinful, that we dare not interest him in it, or a disowning God's
care, as if we could hide our counsels from him (Isa. xxix. 15, ' Woe unto
them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and they say. Who
seeth us, and who knoweth us?'), and bring our business to pass before he
shall know of it ; at least it is a slighting God's government, since we will
not engage God by prayer in the exercise of it on our behalf, and disdain to
acquaint him with our concerns. It is a reflection upon God's wisdom to
do so, which the prophet mentions with a woe : Isa. xxxi. 1,2,' Woe unto
them that go down to Egypt for help : but they look not to the Holy One of
Israel ! Yet he also is wise.' It is a disparagement to God's providential
wisdom, not to look to him in our concerns, yea, and of his righteousness
too ; * they look not to the Holy One of Israel.' In this they neither regard
his holiness nor his wisdom. When we consult not with him upon emer-
gent occasions, we trust more to our own wisdom, counsel, and sufficiency,
than to God's ; and set up ourselves as our own lords, and independent upon
him, as though we could manage things according to our pleasure.
(4.) When upon the receiving any good, they make more grateful acknow-
ledgment to the instruments, than to God the principal author of it ; as if
God had no hand in bestowing those blessings upon them, as if the instru-
ments had dispossessed God of his governing providence, and engrossed it
in their own hands. This men are guilty of when they ascribe their wealth
to their own wit and fortune, their health to their own care, or the physi-
cian's skill ; their learning to their own industry, their prosperity to their
friends or merits. When men thus return their thank-offering to second
causes, and ascribe to them what is due to God, they give the glory of his
providence to a miserable creature. Thus was the foolish boasting of the
Assyrian : Isa. x. 13, 14, * By the strength of my hand I have done this,
and by my wisdom : for I am prudent : for I have removed the bounds of
the people,' &c. Belshazzar's offence also, Dan. v. 23, ' Thou hast lifted up
thyself against the Lord of heaven : and praised the gods of silver,' as though
they were the authors of all thy greatness ; so Hab. i. 16, ' They sacrifice to
their net, and burn incense to their drag, because by them their portion is
fat,' alluding to those that then worshipped their warlike weapons, and the
tools whereby they had got their wealth, in the place of God, as the heathen
used to do.* How base a usage is this of God, to rifle him of all his glory,
and bestow it upon the unworthiest instruments, inanimate creatures ! It is
as high idolatry as that of the heathens, inasmuch as it is a stripping God
of the glory of his providential care, though the object to which we direct
our acknowledgments is not so mean as theirs, which was a stock or stone.
But is it not the same injury to a person to rifle him of his goods, to bestow
it upon a beggar, as to give it to a prince ? It is a depriving a man of his
right. f Yet, is not this ordinary ! Do not men ascribe more to the phy-
sician, that saves an eye in danger of being lost by a defluxion, than to God^
who hath given them both, with the enjoyment of the light of the sun ; yea^
more to the medicine than to that God who hath a witness of his deity in
* Bought Analect. Sacr. Eicurs. 182. t Amirant sur lea religions.
46 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
every drng ? It is as if the kindness a prince shews to his subjects should
be attributed to a scullion in his kitchen rather than to himself. This is to
' belie God, and say it is not he,' Jer. v. 12. It is applicable to the case of
mercies as well as afflictions and judgments, of which it is properly meant.
And this contempt is the greater, by how much the greater mercy we have
received in a way of providence : Hos. ii. 8, ' She did not know that I gave
her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they
prepared for Baal ;' she that had most reason to know, because she had
enjoyed so much ; she that had experience how by a strong and mighty hand
I brought her out of Egypt into the land now possessed by her : she
would not know that I gave her those good things she prepared for Baal.
It would be a natural consequence from this Scripture, that those that employ
the good things they enjoy upon their lusts, do deny the providential good-
ness of God in their possession and enjoyment of them, because they pre-
pare God's goodness for their sinful pleasures, as though their own lusts had
been the authors of them ; and also their instruments, that receive too high
and flattering thanks of this nature, are much like Herod, that tickled himself
with the people's applause, that his voice was the voice of God, and not of man.
(5.) When we use indirect courses, and dishonest ways to gain wealth or
honour. This is to leave God, to seek relief at hell's gates, and adore the
devil's providence above God's : when God doth not answer us, like Saul,
we will go to the witch of Endor, and have our ends by hell when heaven
refuseth us. It is a covenanting with the devil, and striking up a bargain
and agreement with hell, and acknowledghig Satan to be the god of the
world. No man will doubt but in express covenants with the devil, as
witches and conjurors are reported to make, that the devil shall give them
such knowledge, such wealth, or bring them to such honour ; it is no doubt,
I say, but such do acknowledge the devil the god of the world, because they
agree by articles to have those things conferred upon them by Satan, which
are only in the power of God absolutely to promise or bestow. So when a
man will commit sin to gain the ends of his ambition or covetousness, does
he not implicitly covenant with the devil, who is the head of sinners, and
set up his sin in the place of God, because he hopes to attain those things
by sinful means, which are only in the hand of God, and on whom he only
can have a dependence ? This is the devil's design out of an enmity to
providence. He tempted Christ to be his own carver, thereby to put him
upon a distrust of his Father's care of him": Mat. iv. 3, ' Command that
these stones be made bread,' as though God would not provide for him ;
which design of the devil is manifest by our Saviour's answer. This is to
prostitute providence to our own lusts, and to pull it down from the govern-
ment of the world, to be a lacquey to our siniul pleasure ; to use means
which God doth prohibit, is to set up hell to govern us, since God will not
govern our affairs in answer to our greedy desires. It is to endeavour that
by God's curse which w^e should only expect by God's blessing ; for when God
hath forbid sinful ways, severely threatened them, perhaps cursed them in
examples before our eyes, what is it but to say, that we will rather believe
God's curse will further us than his blessing ? It is to disparage his bless-
ing, and prefer his curse, to slight his wisdom and adore our folly. When
we go out of God's way, we go out of God's protection, we have no charter
for the blessing of providence without that condition : Ps. xxxvii. 3, ' Trust
in the Lord, and do good : so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou
shalt be fed.' To do evil, then, is not to trust in God, or have any regard to
his providential cai-e.
(6.) When we distrust God when there is no visible means. A distrust
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 47
of God renders ■■' him impotent, or false and mutable, or cruel and regardless,
and what not. Wo detract from his power, as if it depended upon crea-
tures, or that ho were like an artiliccr, that could not act without his tools ;
as if God were tied to means, and were beholding to creatures for his
operating power; as if that God who created the world withoiit instiuments
could not providentially apply himself to our particular exigencies without
the help of some of his creatures. If he cannot work without this or that
means you did expect your mercy by, it supposeth that God hath made
the creature greater than himself, and more necessary to thy well-being than
himself is ; or else we conceit him false or foolish, as if he had undertaken a
task of government too hard for him ; as if he were grown weary of his labour,
and must have some time to recruit his strength ; or as if he were unfaith-
ful, not walking by rules of unerring goodness ; or if we acknowledge him
wise, and able, and faithful, jet it must then be a denial of his gracious
tenderness, which is as great as his power and wisdom, and a perfection
equal with any of the rest. If his caring for us be a principal argument to
move us to cast our care upon him, — as it is 1 Peter v. 7, ' Casting all your
care upon him, for he careth for you ; ' then if we cast not our care upon
him, it is a denial of his gracious care of us, — this is to imagine him a
tenderer governor of beasts than men, as though our Saviour had spoke a
palpable untruth, when he told us, not an hair of our heads doth fall with-
out his leave ; as if he regarded sparrows only, and not his children ; or else
it implies that God cannot mind us in a crowd of business, in such multitudes
in the world, which he hath to take care of. But certainly as the multitude
of things doth not hinder his knowledge of them, so neither do they hinder
his care. The arms of his goodness are as large to embrace all creatures,
as the eyes of his omniscience are to behold them. From this root do all
our fears of the power of men grow : Isa. li. 12, 13, ' Who art thou, that
art afraid of a man that shall die, &c., and forgettest the Lord thy Maker,
that hath stretched forth the heavens ?' &c. Our forgetfulness at least, if not
a secret denial of God's power in the works of creation and providence,
ushers in distrust of him, and that introduceth a fear of man. If they that
know his name, will put their trust in him : Ps. ix. 10, ' For thcu. Lord, hast
not forsaken them that seek thee ; ' then a distrust of him discovers an igno-
rance and inconsideration of his name and his ways of working, and implies
his forsaking of his creatures. He that trusts in anything else besides God,
denies all the powerful operations of God, and conceives him not a strength
sufficient for him, Ps. lii. 7 ; that man doth not 'make God his strength,
who trusts in the abundance of his riches.' How gross is it not to trust
God under the very sense of his powerful goodness, but question whether
he can or will do this or that for us. When we will have jealousies of him,
when he doth compass us round about with mercy, and encircle us with his
beams, it is to question whether the summer sun will warm me, though it
shine directly upon me, and I feel the vigour of its beams upon my body ;
much more base is this, then to distrust him when we have no means.
What doth this imply, but that he cares not what becomes of his children,
that no advantage can be expected from him, that his intentions towards us
are not gracious even whiles we feel him !
(7.) Stoutness under God's afflicting or merciful hand, is a dtnial or
contempt of providence. This was the aggravation of Belshazzar's sin : Dan.
V. 23, ' And the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy
ways, hast thou not glorified.' He glorified not God in the way of his provi-
dence, but was playing the epicure, and was sacrilegiously quafiing in the
* That is, interprets, or represents. — Ed.
48 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
vessels of the temple when the city was besieged ; he seemed to dare the
providence of God upon a presumption that the city was impregnable, by
reason of Euphrates, and the provision they had within their walls, which
Xenophon saith was enough for twenty years, yet was taken that night
when the hand-writing was. And by how much God's judgments have
been more visible to us, and upon some well known by us, or related to us,
80 much the greater is the contempt of his providential government, as
ver. 22, ' And thou his son, Belshazzar, hast not humbled thy heart,
though thou knewest all this,' &c. He had known God's judgments upon
his grandfather Nebuchadnezzar, a domestic example of God's vindicating
his government of the world, and yet went in the same steps ; so Jer. v. 3, 4.
' Thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction :
they have made their faces harder than a rock. What is the reason ? The
prophet renders it, ver. 4, ' They are foolish : for they know not the way
of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God.' Correction calls for submis-
sion ; but those, like a rock under God's hand, were correction-proof, they
would not consider the ways of God's providence, and the manner of them ;
it is as if by our peevishness we would make God weary of afflicting us,
which is the worst case can happen. This is God's complaint of the ten
tribes, Hos. vii. 9, ' gray hairs are upon them, and they know it not ;
strangers have devoured his strength,' &c. There was a consumption of
their strength ; the Assyrians and Egyptians, to whom they gave gifts, had
drained their treasui'e ; but they would not consider God as the author, or
acknowledge whence their misery came ; they would not ' seek God for all
this, ver. 10. It is like a man's picking a pocket, or cutting a throat under
the gallows in contempt of justice; * whereas good men are both afflicted
with, and remember God's judgments. Eber called his son Peleg, division,
because in his days the earth was divided, that in the daily sight of the sunf
be might remember that sharp providence in scattering of the Babel builders.
Judgments affect us when they are before our eyes, as the thunder and
plagues did Pharaoh ; but when they are removed, men return to their
beloved ways, as though God had shot away all his arrows, and was
departed to mind them no more. Take heed of this, it is a sin highly
provoking ; God is so tender that his providence should be minded and
improved, that a sin of this nature he follows with his displeasure, in this
life at least : Isa. xxii. 12, 13, ' And in that day did the Lord God of hosts
call to weeping, and to mourning ; and behold joy and gladness, eating flesh
and drinking wine : let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die.' When
God in any judgment shews himself to be the Lord God of hosts, and calls
us to weeping, and we behave ourselves jollily in spite of his government, it
is a sin he will remember, and bind the guilt upon us, ver 14, ' And it was
revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not
be purged from you till ye die.'
(8.) Envy also is a denial of providence. To be sad at the temporal
good, or the gifts of another, as counting him unworthy of them, it is a
reflection upon the author of those gifts ; an accusing providence of an un-
just or unwise distribution.]; Since God may do what he will with his own,
if our eye be evil, because God is good, we intrench upon his liberty, and
deny him the disposal of his own goods, as if God were but our steward, and
we his lords. It is a temper we are all subject to : Ps. xxxvii. 1, ' Fret
not thyself because of evil-doers, neither be thou envious against the workers
of iniquity.' It is peculiarly the product of self-love, which affects the
principality in the world, and particularly afi'ects the conduct of God in
* Jenkin. f Qu. ' bis son ' ? — Ed. J Cajetan Summa, p. 4, 28.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 49
distributing bis goods, that be must not give but to whom they please. It
ariscth indeed from a sense of our wants ; but the language of it is, God is
unjust in his providence to me, because be bestows not upon me that good
which he gives to another. It is such a sin that it seems to bo a companion
of our first parents' pride, which was the cause of their fall. They envied
God a felicity by himself, for they would be like him, they would be as gods.
Hence, perhaps, the Jews say Cain denied the providence of God, as envy-
ing his brother, because God accepted Abel's sacrifice and not his. Jonah's
passion arose from this pride, for fear ho should bo accounted a false
prophet ; whereupon he envies God the glory of his mercy, and the poor
Ninevites the advantage of it ; he would have God conform the way of his
providence to his pleasure and reputation. Indeed, it is to envy God the
honour of his providence in those gifts or good things another possesses,
whereby he is instrumental to glorify God and advantage others. Thus, wo
would direct God what instruments he should employ ; when no artificer in
his own art would endure to be directed by any ignorant person what tools
he should use in his work.
(9.) Impatience under cross providence is a denial and contempt of God's
government. Men quarrel with God's revealed will, and therefore no
wonder that they quarrel with his providential will ; whereby we deny him
his right of governing, and slight his actual exercise of his right. As if
God were accountable to us for his dispensations, and must have only a
respect to us or our humour in his government : Job xviii. 4, ' He tears
himself in his anger ; shall the earth be forsaken for thee ? and shall the
rock be removed out of his place ? ' Must God alter the scene of his affairs
according to our model and platform ? And because he doth not observe
our rules and methods, must we tear ourselves in anger ? This is a secret
cursing of God and flying in his face, when we see providence so cross, that
there seems to be no help at any time either in heaven or earth : Isa. viii.
21, 22, ' They shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God,
and look upwards. And they shall look unto the earth ; and behold trouble
and darkness.' Take heed of fretting at God's management of things in the
workl, or thy own particular concerns ; this may lead' to a cursing of God,
and is indeed an initial secret swelling against him, and cursing of him.
Man is ambitious to become a god. Adam's posterity have in one sort or
other imitated him. This,
ri.] Is a wrong to the sovereignty of providence. It was a good
admonition of Luther's to Melancthon, when he was troubled much about the
affairs of the church, Monendus est Philippus ut desinat esse rector mundi.
By this temper we .usurp God's place, and set ourselves in his throne ; we
invade his supremacy, by desiring everything to be at our beck, and are
displeased with him, because he doth not put the reins of the world's govern-
ment into our hands ; as if we would command his will and become his
sovereigns. It is a striving with our Maker for the superintendeucy, when
we will sit judge upon him, or censure his acts, and presume to direct him :
Isa. xlv. 9, ' Woe to him that strives with his Maker. Shall the clay
say to him that fashions it. What makest thou ? or thy work, He hath no
hands.' How do men summon God to the bar of their interest, and
expostulate with him about his works, why he did not order them thus and
thus ; and if he doth so, to tell him he hath no hand, no hand of providence
in the world ! The design of that place is to stop such peevishness and
invasions of God's right ; I will not have my sovereign will disputed, as if I
were but the creature's servant. I am content you should ' ask of me things
to come,' ver. 11, and pray to me, but notwithstanding yet to submit to my
VOL. I. D
BO A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON, XVI. 9.
pleasure, without a peevish endeavouring to wrest the sovereignty out of my
hand, and pull the crown from my head.
[2.] It is a wrong to the goodness and righteousness of providence. It
is a charging God with ill management, and an implicit language, that if we
were the commanders of providence, things should be managed more justly
and righteously ; as it was Absalom's pretence in wishing to be the king of
Israel in David's stead, 2 Sam. xv. 4. If patience be a giving God the
honour of his righteousness in his judgments — Ps. cxix. 75, 'I know, 0
Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast
afflicted me ;' — impatience must be a charge against God for unrighteous-
ness in his judicial proceedings, and a saying, ' the way of the Lord is not
equal,' Ezek. xviii. 25. It is implied in that complaint, Isa. Iviii. 2, 3,
* They ask of me the ordinances of justice, &c. Wherefore have we fasted,
and thou seest not ? wherefore have we afflicted our souls, and thou takest
no knowledge ? ' We demand justice of thee, since thou dost not seem to
do that which is fit and righteous, in not regarding us in our suits, and not
bestowing that which we have fasted for. God governs the world according
to his will, our murmuring implies that God's will is not the rule of right-
eousness. We afiront the care of God towards his creatures, as if the
products of our shallow reasons were more beautiful and just than God's
contrivances for us, who hath higher and more glorious ends in everything,
both for ourselves and the world, of which we are members, and for his own
glory, to which we ought to subject ourselves, when perhaps our projects
tend immediately to gratify some sensual or spiritual lust in us. It is the
commendation the Holy Ghost gives of Job, chap. i. 22, 'In all this Job
sinned not, neither charged God foolishly,' as a character peculiar to him,
implying that most men in the world do, upon any emergency, charge God
with their crosses, as dealing unjustly with them, in inflicting punishment
when they think they have deserved rewards. Jeremiah is not innocent in
this case: Jer. xx. 7, ' 0 Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived,'
in the ill success of his prophecy, as though an immense goodness would,
and a sovereign power needed to deal in a fraudulent way with his creatures
to bring his ends about.
[3.] It is a wrong to the wisdom of providence. We would degrade his
omniscience and wisdom, and sway him by our foolish and purblind dictates ;
it is as if we would instruct him better in the management of the world, and
direct him to a reformation of his methods : Job xl. 2, ' Shall he that con-
tends with the Almighty instruct him ? He that reproves God let him
answer it.' It is a reproving God, and reproofs imply a greater autho-
rity, or righteousness, or wisdom, in the person reproving. We reprove
God, as if God should have consulted with us, and asked our advice ; it is
to take upon us to be God's counsellors, and to conclude the only wise God
by our imperfect reason : Kom. xi. 34, ' Who hath been his counsellor ? '
It is a secret boasting of some excellency in ourselves, as if God did not
govern well, or we could govern better. Shall a silly passenger, that under-
stands not the use of the compass, be angry that the skilful pilot will not
steer the vessel according to his pleasure ? Must we give out our orders to
God, as though the counsels of infinite wisdom must roll about according to
the conceits of our fancy ? Is not the language of our hearts in our fits of
impatience as prodigiously proud against God's providence as the speech of
that monster was against the creation, who said if he had been by God at the
creation of the world, he could have directed him to a better platform ? All
this, and much more, is virtually in this sin of impatience.
(10.) In charging our sins and miscarriages by them upon providence, in
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 51
this we contemn it. Some think Cain doth so : Gen iv. 9, * Am I my
brother's keeper ? ' Thou art the keeper and governor of the world, why
didst thou not hinder me from kilHng my brother ? It is certain the first
man did so : Gen, iii. 12, ' The woman thou gavcst to be with me, she
gave me of the tree ; ' thy gift is the cause of my sin and ruin. It is as
certain David laid the sin of Uriah's murder at the door of providence :
2 Sam. xi. 25, when he heard that Uriah was dead, ' The sword,' saith he,
' devours one as well as another.' Man conjures up trouble to himself when
by his folly he brings himself into sin, and from thence to misery, and then
his heart frets against the Lord, and lays the blame both of his sin and fol-
lowing mischiefs upon him : Prov. xix. 3, ' The foolishness of man perverts
his way, and his heart frets against the Lord.' There are many other ways
wherein we deny or slight providence.
[1.] "When we do things with a respect to the pleasure of men more than
of God, as though God were careless both of himself and his own honour,
and regarded not the principles and ends of our actions.
[2.] In vain boasting and vaunting of ourselves. As Benhadad would
have such a multitude of men in his army as that there should not be dust
enough in Samaria to aftbrd every man a handful, 1 Kings xx. 10, wherein
he swaggers with God, and vaunts as if he were the governor of the world ;
yet this man, with his numerous host, was routed by a troop of lacqueys,
ver. 15, 20; they are called 'the young men of the princes.' Such is the
folly of men against the orders of God, when they boast in their hearts that
their house shall continue forever, Ps. xlix. 11.
[3.] Oppression. ' They slay the fatherless, and say. The God of Jacob
shall not regard it,' Ps. xciv. 6, 7. Their denial of providence was the
cause of their oppression of the poor, and where this is found in any, it is
an argument it ariseth principally from a like cause. This is also made the
cause why they eat up God's people as they eat bread, Ps. xiv. 1, 4.
[4.] Misinterpretations of providence.
Such cursed jealousies had the Jews of God : Num. xiv. 3, ' And where-
fore hath the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword ? were it
not better for us to return into Egypt ? ' As though God in that mighty
deliverance had cheated them with a design to destroy them in the wilder-
ness, when one of those plagues poured out upon Pharaoh being turned
upon their heads, had destroyed them in Egypt. So foolish are they to
think that God would ruin them upon dry land who might have drowned
them as well as their enemies in the Red Sea ; so unreasonable is man in
his disputes against God.
[5. J In limiting providence. In bounding it to time, manner, and other
circumstances, as they did : Ps. Ixxviii. 41, ' They limited the holy one of
Israel, for they remembered not his hand.' As though God must manage
everything according to the will of a simple creature. It was a forgetfulness
of providence, at least, that was the cause of it.
Use 2. The second use is of comfort. As the justice and righteousness
of God is the highest comfort to a good man since the evangelical dispensa-
tion, in that he hath to deal with a righteous God, who can as soon deny
himself as his righteousness, so it is none of the meanest comforts that we
acknowledge and worship that God, who exerciseth himself in a constant
government of the world, and leaves not anything to the capriciousness of
that which we call fortune and chance. "What satisfaction can any man in
bis sober wits have, to live in a world cast off from all care of the Creator of
it ? "Wisdom without providence would make any man mad, and the great-
est advantage would be to be a stupid and senseless fool. Can there be
52 A DISCOUESE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChEON. XVI. 9.
any worse news told to men than this, that let them be as religious as they
•will, there is no eye above takes notice of it ? What can be bitterer to a
rational man than that God should be careless of the world ? * What a
door would be opened by it for all sin in the wicked, and despair in the
godly ! It is as great a matter of joy to the godly that God reigns as it is
of terror to the wicked : Ps. xcvii. 1, ' The Lord reigns, let the earth
rejoice ; Ps. xcix. 1, ' The Lord reigns, let the people tremble.'
It is a comfort that,
1. Man is a special object of providence. God provides for all creatures,
even those that are the works of his hands, much more for man, who is
more peculiarly the work of his head, in whose creation he took counsel :
Gen. i. 26, ' Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.' : The work
of his heart, in being made according to his imago, and intended as a sub-
ordinate end of his whole creation, next to the principal, that of God's
glory. He is the preserver of man and beast ; of man principally, of beasts
in subserviency to man's good and preservation.
2. Holy men a more special object of it. God preserves and provides
for all things, and all persons. But his eye is more peculiarly fixed upon
those that fear him : Ps. xxxiii. 18, * Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon
them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy,' so fixed as if he
had no regard to anything else. If God hath a care of man created after
his own image, though his image be depraved, much more of those wherein
his image is restored. If God loves himself, he loves his image and his
works. A man loves the works which he hath made of some external
matter ; much more doth a father love his son, much more doth God love
his own, and therefore will work their good, and dispose of them well. God
exerciseth a special providence over the actions of a good man, as well
as his person, Ps. xxxvii. 23, * The steps of a good man are ordered by
the Lord, and he delighteth in his ways ; ' it is a special, because a delight-
ful providence, he delights in his way. How highly may it cheer a man to
be in covenant with that God which rules the world, and hath all things at
his beck, to be under not only the care of his wisdom, but of his goodness.
The governor of the world, being such an only friend, will do him no hurt,
being such an only father, will order all things to his good out of a fatherly
affection ; he is the world's sovereign, but a good man's father ; he rules
the heavens and the earth, but he loves his holy ones. Other things are
the objects of his providence, and a good man is the end of it. For ' His
eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong for
him whose heart is perfect towards him,' 2 Chron. xvi. 3.
3. Hence it will follow that the spirits of good men have sufiicient grounds
to bear up in theii* innocent sufferings and storms in the world. Innocent
sufferings. There is a righteous governor who orders all, and will reward
them for their pains as well as their service : Heb. vi. 10, * For God is not
unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love ; ' there is one that pre-
sides in the world, who sees all their calamities, and cannot be mistaken in
their cause, who hath as much power and wisdom as will to help them. It
would be an affliction indeed if there were no sovereign power to whom they
might make their moan in their distress, to whom they might ease their con-
sciences, if there were no governor to whom they might offer up their petitions
in the storms they meet with in the world. How doth the presence of a
skilful pilot in a weather-beaten ship cheer the hearts of the fearful passen-
* It was an excellent speech of a Stoic, ovx 'earl ^rv if 'rui Tcoa/Mw xsvw hoj'j zal
fTiovolag.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 53
gers ! What a dread would it be to them to have the vessel wherein their
lives and all are concerned left to the fury of winds and waves, without an
able hand to manage it ? God hath a bridle to check the passions of men,
to marshal them according to his pleasure ; they are all but his instruments
in the government, not the lords of it. God can lay a plot with more wis-
dom for a good man's safety than the enemy can for his destruction ; he
can countermine their plots with more power than they can execute them ;
ho can out-wit their craft, overpower their strength, and turn their designed
cruelty against them, as a knife into their own breasts.
4. Hence follows a certain security against a good man's want. If God
take care of the hairs, the ornamental superfluities, why should we doubt
his care of our necessary supply ? If he be the guardian of oar hairs,
which fall off without our sense of their departure, shall he be careless of us
when we are at a pinch for our all ? Will God reach out his care to beasts,
and deny it to his children ? What would you judge of that father who
should feed his servants and starve hjs sons ? He supplies his enemies,
and hath he no bowels for his friends ? The very unjust as well as the
just are enlightened by his sun, and refreshed by his rain ; and shall he not
have a providence for those that have a special interest in that Mediator,
whose interposition kept up those standing mercies after our forfeiture of
them by sin ? If he bless with those blessings those who are the objects of
his curse, will he not bless those that are in his special favour with them, so
far as they may prove blessings to them ? Ps. xxxiv. 10, ' The young lions
do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any
good thing,' ver. 9, ' for there is no want to them that fear him.' A good
man shall have what he needs, not always what he thinks he needs. Pro-
vidence intends the supply of our necessities, not of our desires ; he will
satisfy our wants, but not our wantonness. When a thing is not needful, a
man cannot properly be said to want it ; when it is needful, a good man
shall not be without it. What is not bestowed upon us may not be so
beautiful at that time wherein we desire it, for everything is beautiful in its
season, Eccles. iii. 11-. He that did not want God's kindness to renew him,
shall never want God's kindness to supply him ; his hand shall not be want-
ing to give, where his heart has been so large in working. Others live that
have an interest only in common providence, but good men have providence
cabineted in a promise, and assured to them by a deed of covenant convey-
ance ; he was a provider before, he hath made himself now your debtor.
You might pray for his providential care before with a common faith, now
with a more special expostulation, for in his promise he hath given a good man
the key of the chest of his providence, because it is ' the promise of this
life, and that which is to come,' 1 Tim. iv. ; of this life, not to our desires,
but necessities ; of the life to come to both, wherein they shall have what-
soever they can want and whatsoever they can desire.
Again consider, God doth exercise a more special providence over men,
as clothed with miserable circumstances, and therefore among his other
titles this is one, to be 'a helper of the fatherless,' Ps. x. 14. It is the
argument the church used to express her return to God : Hosea xiv. 3, ' For
in thee the fatherless find mercy.' Now what greater comfort is there than
this, that there is one presides in the world who is so wise he cannot be
mistaken, so faithful he cannot deceive, so pitiful he cannot neglect his
people, and so powerful that he can make stones even to be turned into
bread if he please !
Further, take this for a comfortable consideration ;
God doth not govern the world only by his will as an absolute monarch, but
54 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDEKCE. [2 ChEON. XVI. 9.
by his wisdom and goodness as a tender father. ' It is not his greatest
pleasure to shew his sovereign power, or his unconceivable wisdom, but his
immense goodness, to which he makes the other attributes subservient.
What was God's end in creating is his end in governing, which was the
communication and diffusion of his goodness ; we may be sure from hence
that God will do nothing but for the best, his wisdom appointing it with the
highest reason, and his goodness ordering it to the most gracious end ; and
because he is the highest good, he doth not only will good, but the best
good in -everything he acts.
WTiat greater comfort can there be than that we are under the care of an
infallible, unwearied, and righteous governor ! infallible because of his in-
finite wisdom, unwearied because of his incomprehensible omnipotency, and
righteous because of his unbounded goodness and holiness.
Use 3. Of exhortation.
The duties arising from hence will run as a thread through the web of
our whole lives, and all the motions of them. This doctrine hath an influ-
ence upon our whole course ; there is nothing we meet with biit is an act of
providence, and there is no act of providence but calls for some particular
duty. Is there any good we want? We must seek it at his hands, we must
depend upon him for it ; we must prescribe no methods to him, but leave
the conduct of it to his own wisdom. Is it a cross providence, and contrary
to our desires and expectations ? Murmur not at it. Is it afllictive and
troublesome ? Submit to it. Is it either good or bad, and present ? We
must study to understand it. Is it a good and present ? Give God the
glory of it.
1. Seek everything you need at the hands of God. It is not only the
skilfulness of the pilot, but a favourable gale from heaven, which must con-
duct the ship to the intended port. As his providence is the foundation, so
it is the encouragement of all prayer. The end of the Lord's prayer is,
' For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.' The providential
kingdom belongs to God. Power he hath to manage it, and his glory is the
end of all. Seek to him therefore for the exercise of his power in thy con-
cerns, and for his directing them to his glorj' in his providential administra-
tions. Every one of our days, and both the mercy and the misery of them,
depe id unon him : Prov. xxvii. 1, ' Thou knowest not what a day may
bring forth,' but God foresees all events; have recourse therefore to his care
for every day's success. What are our contrivances without the leave and
blessing of providence ? Like the bubbles blown up from a nut-shell, easily
broken by the next puff. Our labour will be as fruitless as Peter's, with all
his toil, and catch nothing till God speaks the word, and sends the fish into
our net, Luke v. 5. The way of man is not in himself : Jer. x. 23, ' 0
Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that
walks to direct his steps.' Dangers are not within the reach of our e^e to
foresee, nor within the compass of our power to prevent. Human prudence
may lay the platform, and God's power blast the execution when it seems to
be gi-own up nearest to maturity. Hezekiah was happy in his afiairs, be-
cause he was assisted by God ; Ahaz unhajipy, because he is deserted by
God. If we would have a clock go well, we must look chiefly to the motion
of the chief wheel ; a failure in that makes an error in all the rest. No-
thing can terminate its motion to our benefit without providence. Coloured
glass can reflect no beams without the sun's light, nor fruits be ripened with-
out its influence. Our dependence on God is greater than theirs on the
sun. God lets men play with their own wit and strength, and come to the
brink of execution of their designs, and then blows upon them, that they
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 55
may know there is a God in the earth. Pythagoras could say it was
yiXoTov, a ridiculous thing to seek that which is brave and virtuous anywhere
else than of God.* Cyrus is a brave pattern, who is mentioned in Scrip-
ture, and represented by Xenophon calling upon God when he was first
chosen general ; f and in his speech to his captains to encourage them to
hope for a good success of the expedition, tells them they might expect it,
because I have begun with God, which you know, saith ho, is my custom,
not only when I attempt great matters, but also tcc /Mr/.Pu, iho things of lesser
concernment. The seeking of God should bo the prologue to all our affairs.
We are enjoined first to pray, and then to determine : Job xxii. 27, ' Thou
shalt make thy prayer unto him, thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall
be established unto thee.' The interesting providence in our concerns is
the highway to success. The reason we miscany, is because we consult not
God, but determine without him; and then we have no reason to complain
of him for not prospering our way, when we never commended our affairs to
his conduct. It hath been the practice of holy men. Nehemiah first
petitioned God before he would use his interest in -the king's favour : Neh.
ii. 4, ' Then the king said unto me. For what dost thou make request? So
I prayed to the God of heaven, and I said unto the king,' &c. So Abraham's
steward put up his request to God, before he would put the business he came
upon in execution. Gen. xxiv. 12. David frequently in particular cases, 1 Sam.
xxiii. 9, 2 Sam. ii. 1, 2 Sam. xvi. 12. God only doth what he pleases in heaven
and in earth. He only can bless us, he only can blast us. Shall we be care-
less in any undertaking, whether we have his favour or no ? It is a ridicu-
lous madness to resolve to do anything without God, without whose assisting
and preserving of us we had not been able to make that resolution.
2. Trust providence. To trust God when our warehouses and bags are
full, and our tables spread, is no hard thing ; but to trust him when our
purses are empty, but a handful of meal and a cruse of oil left, and all ways
of relief stopped, herein lies the wisdom of a Christian's grace. Yet none
are exempted from this duty, all are bound to acknowledge their trust in
him by the daily prayer for daily bread, even those that have it iu their cup-
boards as well as those that want it, the greatest prince as well as the meanest
beggar. "Whatever your wants are, want not faith, and you cannot want
supplies. It is the want of this binds up his hand from doing great works
for his creatures ; the more we trust him the more he concerns himself in
our affairs. The more we trust ourselves, the more he delights to cross us ;
for he hath denounced such an one cursed that maketh flesh his arm, Jer.
xvii. 5, though it be the best flesh in the world, because it is a departing
from the Lord. No wonder then that God departs from us, and carries away
his blessing with him ; while we trust om-selves, we do but trouble ourselves,
and know not how to reconcile our various reasons for hopes and fears, but.
the committing our way to the Lord renders our minds calm and composed :
Prov. xvi. 3, ' Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be
established.' Thou shalt have no more of those quarrelling disturbing
thoughts what the success shall be.
(1.) Trust providence in the greatest extremities. He brings us into
straits, that he may see the exercise of our faith : Zeph. iii. 12, ' I will leave
in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the
name of the Lord.' When we are most desolate, we have most need of this
exercise, and have the fittest season to practise it ; he is always our refuge
and our strength, but in time of trouble a present help, Ps. xlvi. 1. Daniel's
new advancement by Belshazzar but a day before the city was taken by the
* Jarablich. Vita. Pythag , lib, i. cap. 18. t Xenophon ff£f' Kuaou Uaib. lib. i.
56 A DISCOURSE OF DIYINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
enemj'-, Dan. v. 29, the king slain, and (no doubt) many of his nobility, and
those that were nearest in authority with him, it being the interest of the
enemy to despatch them, was a danger, yet God by ways not expressed pre-
served Daniel, and gave him favour with the conqueror. God sometimes
leads his people into great dangers, that they may see and acknowledge his
hand in their preservation. Daniel had not had so signal an experience of
God's care of him, had he been in the lower condition he was in before his
new preferment. God's eye is always upon them that fear him, not to keep
distress from them, but to quicken them in it, and give them as it were a
new life from the dead : Ps. xxxiii. 18, 19, ' To deliver their soul from death,
and to keep them alive in famine.' God brings us into straits, that we
may have more lively experiments of his tenderness in his seasonable relief.
If he be angry, he will repent himself for his servants, when he sees their
power is gone, because then the glory of his providence is appropriated to him-
self: Deut. xxxii. 36, 39, ' See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no
god with me : I kill, and I make alive.' No creature can have any pretence
to share in it ; he delights thereby to blow up both our affections to him and
admirations of him, and store up in us a treasure of experiments to encourage
our trusting in him in the like straits. We should therefore repose our-
selves in God in a desert as well as in the cities ; with as much faith among
savage beasts as in the best company of the most sociable men;* and answer
the greatest strait with Abraham's speech to Isaac, * God will provide.'
For we have to do with a God who is bound up to no means, is at no ex-
pense in miraculous succours, who delights to perfect his strength in the
creature's weakness. We have to do with a God who only knows what may
further our good, and accordingly orders it ; what may hinder it, and there-
fore prevents it. He can set all causes in such a posture as shall conspire
together as one link to bring about success, and make even contrary motions
meet in one gracious end ; as the rivers which run from north and south,
the contrary quarters of the world, agree in the surges of one sea. Though
providences may seem to cross one another, they shall never cross his word
and promise, which he hath magnified above all his names. And his pro-
vidence is but a servant to hi? truth.
(2.) Trust it in the way of means. Though we are sure God hath decreed
the certain event of such a thing, yet we must not encourage our idleness,
but our diligence. Though Moses was assured of the victory when Amalek
came armed against him, j'et he commands Joshua to draw up the valiant
men into a hoAj, himself goes to the mount to pray, and is as diligent in the
use of all means as if he had been ignorant of God's purpose, and had rather
suspected the rout of his own than his enemies' forces. Neither doth Joshua
afterwards, though secured by promise in his conquest of Canaan, omit any
part of the duty of a wise and watchful general; he sends spies, disci-
plines his forces, besiegeth cities, and contrives stratagems. Providence
directs us by means, not to use them is to tempt our guardian ; where it in-
tends any great thing for our good, it opens a door, and puts such circum-
stances into our hands as we may use without the breach of any command,
or the neglect of our own duty. God could have secured Christ from Herod's
fury by a miraculous stroke from heaven upon his enemy, but he orders
Joseph and Mary's flight into Egypt as a means of his preservation. God
rebukes Moses for praying, and not using the means in continuing the
people's march : Exod. xiv. 15, ' Wherefore criest thou unto me ? Speak unto
the children of Israel, that they go forwards.' To use means without respect
to God, is proudly to contemn him ; to depend upon God without the use of
* Durant de Tcntat. p. 168.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.j A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 57
means, is irreligiously to tempt him ; in both we abuse his providence. In
the one wo disobey him in not using the means he hath appointed ; in the
other presumptuously impose upon him for the encouragement of our lazi-
ness. Diligence on our part, and the blessing on God's, Solomon joins to-
gether, Prov. X. 4, * The hand of the diligent makes'rich,' but, ver. 22, ' The
blessing of the Lord makcth rich.' So Ecclcs. ix. 1, ' Our works arc in the
hand of God;' our works, but God's blessing; God's blessing, but not with-
out our works.. It was the practice of good men. Jacob wrestles with God
to divert his brother's fury, yet sends a present to his brother to appease
him. Gen. xxxii. 9, 13. David trusts in the name of the Lord his God in
his duel with Goliah, but not without his sling ; our labour should rather be
more vigorous than more faint, when we are assured of the blessing of pro-
vidence by the infallibility of the promise.
(3.) Trust providence in the way of precept. Let not any reliance upon
an ordinary providence induce you into any way contrary to the command.
Daniel had many inducements from an appearance of providence to eat the
king's meat : his necessity of compliance in his captivity, probability of pre-
fennent by learning the wisdom of the country, whereby he might both have
advanced himself and assisted his countrymen, the greatness of the con-
sideration for a captive to be fed from the king's table, the ingratitude he
might be accused of for despising so kind a treatment ; but none of these
things moved hini against a command ; because the law of God forbade it, he
would not eat of the king's meat, Dan. i. 8-10, &c. ' But Daniel purposed in
his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's
meat.' Daniel might have argued, I may wind myself into the king's favour,
do the church of God a great service by my interest in him, which may be
dashed in pieces by my refusal of this kindness ; but none of these things
wrought upon him. No providences wherein we have seeming circumstances
of glorifying God, must lead us out of the way of duty ; this is to rob God
one way to pay him another. God brought Daniel's ends about : he finds
favour with the governor, his request is granted, the success is answerable,
and all those ends attained which he might in a sinful way, by an ill con-
struction of providence, have proposed to himself, all which he might have
missed of had he run on in a carnal manner. This, this is the way to suc-
cess: Ps. xxxvii. 5, ' Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and
he shall bring it to pass.' Commit thy way to the guidance of his provi-
dence, with an obedience to his precept and reliance on his promise, and
refer all success in it to God. If we set up our golden calves made of our
own ear-rings, our wit, and strength, and carnal prudence, because God
seems to neglect us, our fate may be the same with theirs, and the very dust
of our demolished calf may be a bitter spice in our drink, as it was in theirs.
(4.) Trust him solely, without prescribing any methods to him ; leave him
to his wise choice, wait upon him because he is a God of judgment, Isa.
XXX. 18, who goes judiciously to work, and can best time the executions of
his will. The wise God observes particular periods of time for doing his
great works, — John ii. 4, ' My hour is not yet come ; woman, what have I
to do with thee?' — which man is no competent judge of: I will do this
miracle, but the season is not yet come wherein it will be most beautiful.
God hath as much wisdom to pitch the time of performance of his promise,
as he hath mercy at first to make it. How presumptuous would it be for
the shallow world, a thing worse than nothing, and vanity, to prescribe rules
to the Creator ! much more for a single person, a little atom of dust, infi-
nitely worre than nothing, and vanity, to do it. Since we had no hand in
creating tl e world or oui'selves, let us not presume to direct God in the
58 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
government of it : Job xxxviii. 4, ' Where wast thou when I laid the foun-
dation of the earth ? declare, if thou hast understanding.' Would it not be
a disparagement to God to stoop to thy foolish desires ? yea, would you not
yourselves have a lower conceit of him, if he should degrade his wisdom to
the wrong bias of your blind reason ?
3. Submit to providence. It is God's right to govern the world,
and dispose of his creature ; it is his glory in heaven to do what he will :
Ps. cxv. 3, ' But our God is in the heaven : he hath done whatsoever he
pleased.' Let us not, by our unsubmissive carriage, deprive him of the same
glory on earth ; he brings to pass his will by ways the creature cannot under-
stand. It is the wisest speech in the medley of fooleries, the Turkish Alco-
ran.-= We must walk by the rule of reason which God hath placed in us
for our guide ; yet if providence brings to pass any other event contrary to
our rational expectations, because it is a clear evidence of his will, we must
acquiesce. As when a traveller hath two ways to come to his journey's end,
the one safe and the other dangerous, reason persuades him to choose the
safest way, wherein he falls among thieves ; now having used his reason,
which in that case was to be his director, he must acquiesce ; God's provi-
dence bringeth forth an event, which he could not without violence to his
reason avoid. And therefore it is a great vanity, when a man hath resolved
the most probable way in a business, and fails in it, to torment himself;
because though our consultations depend upon ourselves, yet the issues of
them are solely in the hand of God. It concerns us therefore to submit to
God's disposal of us and our affairs, since nothing can come to pass but by
the will of God effecting it, or permitting it. If the fall of a sparrow is not
without his will, Mat. x. 29, much less can the greater events which befall
men, the nobler creatures, be without the same concurrence of God's plea-
sure ; therefore submit : for,
(1.) Whatsoever God doth, he doth wisely. His acts are not sudden and
rash, but acts of counsel ; not taken up upon the present posture of things,
but the resolves of eternity. As his is the highest wisdom, so all his acts
reUsh of it, and he guides his will by counsel: Eph. i. 11, ' Who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will.' If God took counsel in creat-
ing the world, much more in laying a platform of government, much more
in the act of government ; for men can frame models of government that
can never reduce them into practice. Now God being infinitely wise, and
his will infinitely good, it must needs be that goodness and wisdom are the
rules whereby he directs himself in his actions in the world. And what
greater motive can there be to persuade our submission, than wisdom and
goodness transacting all things ? God's counsel being the firmest, as well
as the wisest, it is a folly both ways to resist it.
(2.) God discovers his mind to us by providences. Every work of God
being the result of his counsel, when we see it actually brought forth into
the world, what else doth it discover to us but that counsel and will of his ?
Every single providence hath a language wherein God's mind is signified,
much more a train and contexture of them : Luke vii. 22, ' Tell John what
things you have seen and heard : how that the blind see, the lame walk,
the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, to the
poor the gospel is preached.' Our Saviour informs John's disciples from
acts of providence, he gives them no other answer, but turns him over to
interpret and construe his works in the case. Providence therefore must
not be resisted, when God's mind in it is discovered. It is disingenuous
to act against his pleasure and manifest mind ; it is the devil's sin. Aaron,
* Deus triumphat in sua causa, ^c.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 59
when he lost his two sons in so judicial manner by fire from heaven, yet
hold his peace, Lev, x. 1-3 ; because God had declared his mind positively,
' I will be glorified.' It is dangerous to resist the mind of God, for the
word of his providence shall prosper in spite of men and devils : Isa. Iv. 11,
' My word that goes forth of my mouth, shall not return unto me void ; it
shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it ;' and therefore a resisting of it
is termed koiMayjTv, a fighting against God, by Gamaliel, no great friend to
the church. Acts v. 38, 39.
4. Murmur not at providence. Though we do not clearly resist it, if
there be a repining submission, it is a partial opposition to the will of God.
We might as well murmur at God's creation as at his providence, for that
is as arbitrary as this ; he is under no law but his own righteous will : we
should therefore leave the government of the world to God's wisdom, as we
acknowledge the frame of it to be an act of his power. If God should
manage his ways according to our prescriptions, what satisfaction would
God have ? what satisfaction would the world have ? He might be unjust
to himself, and unjust to others. Your own complaints would not be stilled,
when you should feel the smart of your own counsels ; yet if they were,
what satisfaction could there be to the complaints of others, whose interests
and therefore judgments and desires lie cross to yours ? Man is a cross
creature. The Israelites exclaimed to God against Pharaoh, and when the
scene was changed, they did no less murmur against Moses in the wilder-
ness. They were as troublesome when they were delivered, as when they
were afliicted. In Egypt they would have their liberty, and in the wilder-
ness their stomachs turn, and they long for the onions and garlic, though
attended with their former slavery. Let God govern the world according to
his own wisdom and will, till all mankind can agree in one method to olier
to him, and that I think will never be, though the world should last for ever.
Mui-mur not, therefore ; whatsoever is done in the world is the work of a
wise agent, who acts for the perfection of the whole universe ; and why
should I murmur at that which promotes the common happiness and per-
fection, that being better and more desirable than the perfection of any one
particular person ? Must a lutenist break all his strings because one is out
of tune ? And must God change his coui'se because things are out of order
with one man, though in regard of divine providence things are not out of
order in themselves, or without any care, for God is a God of order ? This
temper will hinder our prayers ; with what face can we pray to that God
whose wisdom we thus repine at ? If God doth exercise a providence in
the world, why do we murmur ? If he doth not take care of those things,
why do we pray to him? It is a contradiction. It also hinders us from
giving God the glory, and ourselves the comfortable sight of his providence.
God may have taken something from us, which is the matter of our sorrow,
and give another thing to us, which might be the matter of our joy. Jacob
lost a joint, and got a blessing, Gen. xxxii. 29, 31. What advantage can it
be to murmur ? Can all your cries stop the motions of the heavens, when
a storm reaches you ? Can your clamours make the clouds move the
faster, or persuade the showers from drenching us ? Murmuring at any
afllictive providence, is the way to make the rod smarter in itself, and
sharper to us.
5. Study providence. It is a part of atheism not to think the acts of God
in the world worth our serious thoughts. And if you would know the mean-
ing of his administrations, grow up in the fear of God : Ps. xxv. 14, ' The
secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.' God is highly angry with
those that mind him not : Ps. xxviii. 5, ' Because they regard not the ope-
60 A DISCOURSE OF DmNE PEOVIDENCE. [2 ChKON. XVI. 9.
ration of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up.' He shall
utterly root them out.
(1.) Study providence universally. The darkest : God brings order out
of the -n-orld's confusion, even as he framed a beautiful heaven and earth out
of a rude mass. The terriblest : these offer something worth our observa-
tion ; the dreadful providence of God makes Sodom an example to after
ages : Jude 7, they are ' set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance
of eternal fire,' &c. The smallest : God is a wise agent, and so the least of
his actions are significant. There is nothing superfluous in those acts we
account the meanest ; for to act vainly and lightl}' argues imperfection, which
cannot be attributed to God. The wisdom of God may be much seen in
those providences the blind world counts small ; as a little picture is oft-
times of more value, and hath more of the workman's skill than a larger,
which an ignorant person might prize at a higher rate ; the lilies, flowers,
sparrows, our Saviour raises excellent observations from.
(2.) Regularly. By the word : compare providence and the promise
together ; God's manner of administrations, and the meaning of them, is
understood by the word : Ps. Ixxvii. 13, ' Thy way, 0 God, is in the sanc-
tuary.' By faith : we many times correct our sense by reason ; when we
look through a blue or green glass, and see all things blue or green, though
our sense represents them so, yet our reason discovers the mistake. Why
should we not correct reason by faith ? Indeed, our purblind reason stands
in as much need of a regulation by faith, as our deceitful sense doth of a
regulation by reason. "We may often observe in the gospel, that the Holy
Ghost taking notice of the particular circumstances in the bringing Christ
into the world, and in the course of his life, often hath those expressions,
' as it is ivritteii ; that tJie Scriptures mi(j]it he fulfilled.' There is not a pro-
vidence happens in the world, but there are some general rules in the word
whereby we may apprehend the meaning of it. From God's former work
discovered in his word, we may trace his present footsteps. Observe the
timings of providence wherein the beauty of it appears, since ' God hath
made every thing beautiful in its time.'
(3.) Entirely. View them in their connection. A harsh touch single
would not be pleasing, but may rarely afiect the concert. The providences
of God bear a just proportion to one another, and are beautiful in theij:
entire scheme ; but when regarded apart, we shall come far short of a delight-
ful understanding of them. As in a piece of arras folded up, and afterwards
particularly opened, we see the hand or foot of a man, the branch of a tree ;
or if we look on the outside, we see nothing but knots and threads, and
uncouth shapes that we know not what to make of; but when it is fully
opened, and we have the whole web before us, we see what histories and
pleasing characters are interwoven in it. View them in their end ; there is
no true judgment to be made of a thing in motion, unless we have a right
prospect of the end to which it tends. Many things which may seem terrible
in their motion, may be excellent in their end. Providence is crowned by the
end of it. Asaph was much troubled about the prosperity of the wicked,
and affliction of the godly, but he was well satisfied when he understood
their end, which was the end of providence too : Ps. Ixxiii. 16, 17, ' When I
thought to know this, it was too painful for me, until I went into the sanc-
tuary, then understood I their end.' Moses his rod was a serpent in its
motion upon the ground ; but when taken up, it was a rod again to work
miracles. God set us a pattern for this in the creation. He. views the
creatures as they came into being, and pronounced them good ; he takes a
review of them afterward in their whole frame, and the subordination of
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PKOVIDENCE. 61
them to one another, and the ends he had destined them to, and then pro-
nounceth them very good. The merciful providences of God, if singly looked
upon, will appear r/ood, but if reviewed in the whole web, and the end of
them, will commence venj (jood in our apprehensions.
(4.) Calmly. Take heed of passion in this study, that is a mist before
the eye of the mind ; several pleasures also disturb and stifle the nobler ope-
ration of the intellective part, and all improving thoughts of God's provi-
dence : Isa. V. 12, ' And the harp, and the viol, and wine, are in their
feasts, but they regard not the work of the Lord, nor consider the opera-
tions of his hands.' All thoughts of them arc choked by the pleasures of
sense. Passions and sensual pleasures are like flying clouds in the ni"ht,
interposing themselves between the stars and our eyes, that we cannot
observe the motions of them. Turbulent passions, or swinish pleasures
prevailing, obscure the providence of God. Our own humour and interest
we often make the measures of our judgment of providence. Shimei, when
Absalom rebels against his father, looks no further than his own interest,
and therefore interprets it as a judgment of God in revenging the house of
Saul : 2 Sam. xvi. 7, 8, ' The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood
of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned.' Therefore the
Spirit of God takes particular notice that he was of the house of Saul, ver. 5,
when indeed this judgment was quite another thing, for David's sin in the
matter of Uriah was written in the forehead of it.
(5.) Seriously. It is not an easy work ; for the causes of things are hid,
as the seminal virtues in plants, not visible till they manifest themselves.
Providence is God's lantern in many afiairs ; if we do not follow it close, we
may be left in the dark, and lose our way. With much prayer, for we can-
not of ourselves find out the reason of them ; being shallow creatures, we
cannot find out those infinite wise methods God observes in the managing
of them ; but if we seriously set to work, and seek God in it, God may
inform us, and make them intelligible to us. Though a man may not be
able of himself to find out the frame and motions of an engine, yet when the
artificer hath explained the work, discovered the intent of the fabric, it may
be easily understood : if it be dark, whilst you seriously muse on it, God
may send forth a light into you, and give you an understanding of it : Mat.
i. 20, Joseph thought of those things, and whilst he thought on them, the
angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream ; God made them known to
him. The Israelites saw God's acts in the bulk of them, but Moses saw his
way, and the manner how he wrought them ; Ps. ciii. 7, ' He made known
his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.' Moses had
more converse with God than they, and therefore was admitted into his
secrets.
(6.) Holily ; with a design to conform to that duty providence calls for.
Our motions should be according to the providence of God, when we under-
stand the intent of them. There is a call of providence : Isa. xxii. 12, * In
that day the Loi'd called to weeping and mourning,' sometimes to sorrow,
sometimes to joy. If it be a providence to discover our sin, let us comply
with it by humiliation ; if it be to further our grace, suit it by lively and
fresh actings. As the sap in plants descends with the sun's declination, and
ascends at the return of the sun from the tropic, there are several graces
to be exercised upon several acts of providence, either public to the church
and nation, or particular to our own persons — sometimes faith, sometimes
joy, sometimes patience, sometimes sorrow for sin. There are spiritual les-
sons in every providence, for it doth not only offer something to be under-
stood, but some things to be practised. Mark x. 15, a child is brought to
62 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
Christ, and Christ from thence teaches them a lesson of humility. Luke
xiii. 1-3. When Christ discourses of that sad providence of the blood of
the Galileans, and the tower of Siloam, he puts them upon the exercise of
repentance. The ruler inquired the time when his son began to recover,
that his faith in Christ might be confirmed, for upon that circumstance it
did much hang ; and in doubtful cases, after a serious study of it, and thou
knowest not which way to determine, consider what makes most for God's
glory and thy spiritual good, for that is the end of all. Let us therefore
study providence, not as children do histories, to know what men were in
the world, or to please their fancy only, but as wise men, to understand
the motions of states, and the intrigues of councils, to enrich them with a
knowledge whereby they might be serviceable to their country. So let us
inquire into the providence of God, to understand the mind of God, the
interest of the church, the wisdom and kindness of God, and our own duty
in conformity thereunto.
6. Ascribe the glory of every providence to God. Abraham's steward
petitioned God at the beginning of his business, Gen. xxiv. 12 ; and he
blesses God at the success of it, ver. 26, 27. We must not thank the
tools which are used in the making an engine, and ascribe unto them what
we owe to the workman's skill. Man is but the instrument, God's wisdom
is the artist. Let us therefore return the glory of all where it is most
rightly placed. We may see the difierence between Eachcl and Leah in
this respect; when Rachel had a son by her maid Bilhah, she ascribes it to
God's care, and calls his name Dan, which signifies judginr/ — Gen. xxx. 6,
' God hath judged me, and heard my voice ' — that the very name might
put her in remembrance of the kindness of God in answering her prayer ;
and the next, Naphthali, she esteems as the fruit of prayer, ver. 8 ; whereas
Leah takes no notice of God, but vaunts of the multitude of her children :
ver. 11, 'Behold, a troop comes.' She imposeth the name of Gad upon
them, which also signifies fortune or good luck; and the next, Asher,
ver. 13, which is fortunate or blessed. And we find Leah of the same
mind afterward, ver. 17. It is said God hearkened unto her, so that her
son Issachar was an answer of prayer ; but she ascribes it to a lower cause
which had moved God, because she had given her maid to her husband,
ver. 18. 'Not unto us, not unto us, 0 Lord, but to thy name be the
glory.'
Doct. 2. All the motions of providence in the world are ultimately for the
good of the church, of those whose heart is perfect towards him. Providence "
follows the rule of Scripture. Whatsoever was written, was written for the
church's comfort, Rom. xv. 4; whatsoever is acted in order to anything
written, is acted for the church's good. All the providences of God in the
world are conformable to his declarations in his word. All former provi-
dences were ultimately in order to the bringing a mediator into the world, and
for the glory of him ; then surely all the providences of God shall be in order
to the perfecting the glory of Christ in that mystical body whereof Christ is
head, and wherein his aftection and his glory are so much concerned. See
the proof of this by a scripture or two: Ps. xxv. 10, ' All the paths of the
Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testi-
monies.' Not one path, but all the works and motions ; not one particular
act or passage of providence, but the whole tract of his proceedings; not
only those which are more smooth and pleasant, but those which are more
rugged and bitter. All mercij and truth suitable to that afi"ection he bears
in his heart to them, and suitable to the declaration of that affection he
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. G3
hath made in his promise. There is a contexture and a friendly connection
of kindness and faithfulness in every one of them. They both kiss and
embrace each other in every motion of God towards them. As mercy
made the covenant, so truth shall perform it. And there shall be as much
mercy as truth in all God's actings towards those that keep it: Rom.
viii. 28, ' We know that all things work together for good to them that love
God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.' We know, we
do not conjecture or guess so, but we have an infallible assurance of it;
all tliinr/s, even the most frightful, and so those that have, in respect of
sense, nothing but gall and wormwood in them; icork to<icthcr, they all
conspire with an admirable harmony and unanimous consent for a Chris-
tian's good. One particular act may seem to work to the harm of the
church, as one particular act may work to the good of wicked men ; but the
whole series and frame of things combine together for the good of those
that are atJectionate to him. Both the lance that makes us bleed, and the
plaster which refresheth the wounds, both the griping purges and the
warming cordials, combine together for the patient's cure. To them who
are called acconlbuj to his imrpose. Here the apostle renders a reason of
this position, because they are called not only in the general amongst the
rest of the world, to whom the gospel comes, but they are such that were
in God's purpose and counsel from eternity to save, and thei'ofore resolved
to incline their will to faith in Christ ; therefore all his other counsels about
the aftairs of the world shall be for their good. Another reason of this
the apostle intimates, verse 27, * The Spirit makes intercession for the
saints, according to the will of God.' The intercessions of the Spirit,
which are also according to God's will and purpose, will not be fruitless in
the main end, which both the intercessions of the Spirit and purpose of
God, and the will and desire of the saints, do aim at, which is their good.
Indeed, where any is the object of this grand purpose of God, he is the
object of God's infinite and innumerable thoughts : Ps. xl. 5, * Many,
0 Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy
thoughts which are to us-ward ; they cannot be reckoned up in order unto
thee : if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be
numbered.' The psalmist seems to intimate that, in all the wonderful works
which God hath done, his thoughts are towards his people. He thinks of
them in all his actions; and those thoughts are infinite, and cannot be
numbered and reckoned up by any creature. He seems to restrain the
thoughts of God towards his people in all those works of wonder which he
doth in the world, and which others are the subjects of; but his thoughts
or purposes and intentions in all (for the word signifies purposes too) are
chiefly, next to his own glory, directed towards his people, those that trust
in him, which, verse 4, he has pronounced blessed. They run in his mind,
as if his heart was set upon them, and none but them.
Here I shall premise two things as the groundwork of what follows :
1. God certainly in all his actions has some end; that is without ques-
tion, because he is a wise agent ; to act vainly and lightly is an evidence of
imperfection, which cannot be ascribed to the only wise God. The wheels
of providence are full of eyes, Ezek. i. 18; there is motion, and a know-
ledge of the end of that motion. And Jesus Christ, who is God's deputy
in the providential government, hath seven eyes as well as seven horns,
Rev. V. 6 ; a perfect strength, and a perfect knowledge how to use that
strength, and to what end to use it, seven being the number of perfection
in Scripture.
2. That certainly is God's end which his heart is most set upon, and that
64 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XYI. 9.
which is last in execution. What doth God do at the folding up of the
world but perfect his people, and welcome them into glory ? Therefore
God principall}' next to himself loves his church. The whole earth is his,
but the church is his treasure: Exod. xix. 5, 'If you will keep my cove-
nant, then shall you be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people ; for
all the earth is mine,' seffuUah; such a treasure, that a man, a king, will
entrust in no hands but his own. ' All the earth is mine ' is not a reason
why the church was his treasure, but an incentive of thankfulness ; that
when the whole earth was his, and lay before him, and there were many
people that he might have chosen and loved before them, yet he pitched
upon them to make them his choicest treasure. And when the blessed God
hath pitched upon a people, and made them his treasure, what he doth for
them is with his whole heart and with his whole soul. Jer. xxxii. 41, 42,
speaking of making an everlasting covenant, he adds, ' Yea, I will rejoice
over them to do them good,' &c., ' assuredly with my whole heart, and with
my whole soul.' As though God minded nothing else but those people he
had made an everlasting covenant with, which is the highest security, and
most pregnant expression of his affection that can be given to any; not to
give them a parcel or moiety of his heart, but the whole, infinite, entire
piece, and to engage it all with the greatest delight in doing good to them.
That infinite heart of God, and all the contrivances and workings of it,
centre in the church's welfare. The world is a wilderness, but the church
is a garden. If he water the wilderness, will he not much more dress his
garden ? If the flights of birds be obsen-ed by him, shall not also the par-
ticular concernments of the church ? He hath a repository for them and
all that belong to them; he hath a book of life for their names, Luke x. 20,
a book of record for their members, Ps. cxxxix. 16; a note-book for their
speeches, Mai. iii. 16, 'A book of remembrance was written before him for
them that feared the Lord;' and a book of providence for their preservation,
Exod. xxxii. 32. In the prosecution of this I shall shew,
1. That it is so de facto, and hath been so.
2. That according to the state of things, and God's economy, it must
be so.
3. The improvement of it, by way of use.
1. That all providence is for the good of the church de facto, and has
been so.
It will appear by an enumeration of things.
(1.) First, All good things.
(2.) Secondly, All bad things are for their good.
(1.) First, All good things.
[1.] The world.
[2.] Gifts and common graces of men in the world.
[3.J Angels.
[1.] The world. The whole world was made and ordained for the good
of the church, next to the gloiy of God. This will appear in three things :
First, The continuance of the world is for their sakes. God would have
destroyed the world because of the ignorance and wickedness of it, before
this time, but he overlooked it all, and had respect to the times of Christ,
and the publishing faith in him, and repentance : Acts xvii. 30, ' And the
times of this ignorance God winked at,' God overlooked,* he looked not so
upon them, as to be provoked to destroy the world, but his eyes were fixed
on the times of Christianity, therefore would not take notice, in the extremity
of his justice, of the wickedness of those foregoing ages. Believers are the
2 ChEON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 65
salt of the earth, Mat. v. 13, which makes the world savoifry to God, and
keeps it from corrupting. It is meant not only of the apostles, but of
Christ's disciples, of all Christians, for to them was that sermon made,
ver. 1. 'If the salt have lost his savour,' if the salt be corrupted, and
Christianity overthrown in the world, wherewith shall the world be salted ?
How can it be kept from corruption ? If they that persecuted the prophets
before you in Judea (which is sometimes called the earth in Scripture),
cannot relish you, and find nothing grateful to their palates in your doctrine
and conversation, wherewith shall they be salted ? How shall they be
preserved from corruption ? The land will be good for nothing but to bo
given as a prey to the Romans, to be trodden under their feet, as being cast
out of God's protection. They are the foundation of the world : Prov.
X. 25, ' The righteous are an everlasting foundation.' Maimonides under-
stands it thus, that the world stands for the righteous' sakes. When God
had Noah and his family lodged in the ark, ho cares not what deluge and
destruction he brings upon the rest of the world. When he had conducted
Lot out of Sodom, he brings down that dreadful storm of fire.* He cares
for no place, no, nor for the whole world, any longer than whilst his people are
there, or he hath some to bring in, in time. For the meanest believer is of
more worth than a world ; therefore when God hath gathered all together,
he will set fire upon this frame of the creation ; for what was the end of
Christ's coming and dying, but to gather all things together in one? Eph.
i. 10, ' That in the dispensation of the fulness of time he might gather
together in one all things in Christ.' When Christ hath summed up all
together, he hath attained his end. And to what purpose, then, can we
imagine God should continue the world any longer ? for his delight is not
simply in the world, but in the saints there : Ps. xvi. 3, * But to the saints
that are in the earth, in whom is all my delight ; ' not in the earth, but in
the saints there, which are the only excellent things in it, which Christ
speaks (of whom that psalm is meant) who knew well what was the object
of his Father's pleasure. The sweet savour God smelt in Noah's sacrifice,
was the occasion of God's declaration for the world's standing: Gen. viii. 21,
' And the Lord said in his heart, I will not curse the ground any -more for
man's sake,' that he would no more smite it with a totally destroying
judgment. It was his respect to Christ represented in that sacrifice, and
to the faith and grace of Noah the sacrificer. What savour could an infi-
nitely pure spirit smell in the blood and flames of beasts ?
Secondhj, The course of natural things is for the good of the church, or
particular members of it. God makes articles of agreement with the beasts
and fowls, whose nature is raging and ravenous, and binds them in sure
bonds for the performance of those articles : Hosea ii. 18, ' And in that day
will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the
fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground, and will make
them to lie down safely.' As upon our sin God can arm them against us,
so upon our obedience he can make them serviceable even against their
natures, as if he had made a covenant with them, and they had both the
reason and virtue to observe it. I do not remember any instance in Scrip-
ture, that God went out of the usual tract of his providence, and acted in
an extraordinary manner, but where his people were one way or other con-
cerned. It was for Joshua's and the Israelites' sake that the sun was
arrested to stand still in the valley of Ajalon, that they might have light
enough to defeat their enemies, and pursue their victory. Josh. x. 12, 13.
The sea shall, against its natural course, stand in heaps like walls of brass
* Grotius on the place.
VOL. I. E
66 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
to assist the Israelites' escape, Exod. xiv. 22. The fire is restrained in the
operation of its nature, even whilst it retains its burning quality, when
the lives of the three valiant believing children are in danger, Dan. iii. 25.
The mouths of lions are muzzled when the safety of his beloved Daniel is
concerned, Dan. vi. 22. And the shadow goes back upon the dial for
Hezekiah's sake, 2 Kings xx. 11. When God would at any time deliver
his people, he can muster up lightnings and thunders for their assistance ;
1 Sam. vii. 10 ; he can draw all the regiments of heaven into battle array,
and arm the stars to fight against Sisera, when Israel's condition needs it ;
and make even the lowest creatures to list themselves as auxiliaries in the
service. God hath not a displeasure with senseless creatures, neither is
transported with strains of fury against such objects, when he alters their
natural course. Hab. iii. 8, * Was the Lord displeased against the rivers ?
was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thy horses and
chariots of salvation ? ' No ; but he made those creatures the horses and
chariots, to speed assistance and salvation to his people, which the psalmist
elegantly describes, Ps. cxiv. All creatures are his host ; and that God
that created them hath still the sovereign command over them, and can
embody them in an army to serve his purpose for the deliverance of his
people, as he did against Pharaoh.
llurdli/, The interest of nations is ordered as is most for the church's
good. He orders both the course of natural things, and of civil affairs for
their interest. He alters the state of things, and changeth governors and
governments for the sake of his people. For these causes God sent Elisha
to crown Jehu king : 2 Kings ix. 6, 7, ' I have anointed thee king over the
people of the Lord, &c., that I may avenge the blood of my servants the
prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord at the hand of
Jezebel.' For the sakes of the godly in that nation, and the revenging the
blood of the prophets which had been shed, was he raised up by the Lord.
He sent such judgments upon Egypt, that it was as much the interest of
that nation to let Israel go, as it was before to keep them their vassals.
God orders the interest and affairs of nations for those ends ; and according
to this disposition of affairs, Christ times his intercession for his church.
The angels had been sent out to view the state of the world, and found it in
peace : Zech. i. 11, ' Behold, all the earth sits still, and is at rest;' there
had been wars in Artaxerxes and Xerxes his time, but in the time of Darius
that part of the world had an universal peace, which was the fittest time for
the restoration of the Jews, and building the temple, because it could not
be built but by the king's cost, whose treasure in the time of war was
expended another way; nor would it consist with their policy to restore the
Jews to their government at such a time when they had wars with the
neighbour-parts of Egypt. See how God orders the state of the world in
subserviency to his gracious intentions towards his church. The time of the
Jewish captivity was now out, according to the promise of God, and God
gives that part of the world a general peace, that the restoration of the Jews,
and the rebuilding of the temple, might be facilitated, and the truth of his
promise in their deliverance accomplished. Upon the news of this general
peace in that part of the world, Christ expostulates with God for the resto-
ration of Jerusalem : ver. 12, * How long, O Lord, wilt thou not have
mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast
had indignation these threescore and ten years ? ' The time of the captivity
determined by God was now expired. The first Keformation in Germany
was backed by reasons of state as it was then altered, it being the interest
of many princes of that country to countenance Luther's doctrine, for the
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 67
putting a stop to the growing greatness of Charles the Fifth, who had evident
designs to enshxve them. I might mention many more ; only by the way
let me advise those that have an inclination to read histories of former
transactions, to which men naturally are addicted, to make this your end,
to observe the strange providences of God in the world, and how admirably
ho hath made them subservient to the interest of the church, which will be
the most profitable way of reading them, whereby they will not only satisfy
your curiosity, but establish your Christianity. Calvin understands that
place : Deut. xxxii. 8, ' He sets the bounds of the people according to the
number of the children of Israel,' that in the whole ordering of the state of
the world, God proposeth this as his end, to consult for the good of his
people, and his care extends to the rest only in order to them ; and though
they are but a small number, yet he orders his whole government of the
world's affairs as may best tend to their salvation. Therefore God sets the
people bounds, or enlargeth them according as they may be serviceable one
way or other to this end. And the reason is rendered, ver. 9, ' For the Lord's
portion is his people, and Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.' Therefore
God orders all the rest of the world in subserviency to the maintaining and
improving his portion and inheritance.
[2.] As the world, so the gifts and common graces of men in the world,
are for the good of the church, which is a great argument for providence
in general ; since there is nothing so considerable in government as the
disposing of places to men according to their particular endowments and
abilities for them. And the bestowing such gifts upon men is none of the
meanest arguments for God's providential government of the world. As,
First, The gifts of good men. The gifts conferred upon Paul were
deposited in him, not only to be possessed by him, but usod and laid out
for the good of the church : Col. i. 25, ' Whereof I am made a minister,
according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you ; ' ' The
manifestation of the Spirit to any man is given to profit withal,' 1 Cor.
xii. 7. And this is the great end for which men should seek to excel, viz.,
for the edifying of the church: 1 Cor. xiv. 12, 'Forasmuch as you are
zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that you may excel to the edifying of the
church.'
Secondhj, The gifts and common graces of bad men. There is something
that is amiable in men, though they have not grace. As in stones, plants,
and flowers, though they have not sense, there is something grateful in
them, as colour and smell, &c. And all those things that are lovely in men
are for the church's good; the best life, and the worst death, things present,
let who will be the possessor, all things between life and death, are for the
good of believers, because they are Christ's : 1 Cor. iii. 22, ' Whether
Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world,' — i. e., whether the gifts of the
prime lights in the church, or the common gifts of the world, — ' are all
yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.' God is the dispenser of
them, Christ is the governor of them, and all for your sakes. As the
medicinal qualities of waters are not for the good of themselves, but the
accommodation of the indigencies of men. By the common works of the
Spirit God doth keep men from the evil of the world. For it cannot be
supposed that the Spirit, whose mission is principally for the church, should
give such gifts out of love to men which hate him, and are not the objects
of his eternal purpose ; but he hath some other ends in doing it, which is
the advantage of his church and people ; and this God causes by the preach-
ing of the gospel, which when it works gracious works in some, produceth
common works in others for the good of those gracious ones. As a seed of
68 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PEOVIDENCE. [2 ChKON. XVI. 9.
corn hath straw, husks, and chaff come up with it, which are shelters to
that little seed which lies in the midst, so in the preaching of the gospel
there are some husks come up among natural men, which God makes to be
shelters to the church, as those common works, and restraining men through
the knowledge of Christ. God gives gifts to them, not out of love to them,
but love to his church. As nurses of great men's children are fed with
better meat than the other servants, not out of any particular personal
respect to them, but to their office, that the milk whereby the child is
nourished may be the sweeter and wholesomer; were it not for that relation,
she must be content with the diet allowed to the rest of the servants. Some
stinking plants may have medicinal virtues, which the '^physician extracts for
the cure of a disease, and flings the rest upon the dunghill. God bestows
such qualities upon men otherwise unsavour}^ to him, which he draws forth
upon several occasions for the good of those that are more peculiarly under
his care, and then casts them away. These gifts are indeed the ruin of bad
men, because of their pride, but the church's advantage in regard of their
excellency, and are often as profitable to others as dangerous to themselves.
As all that good which is in plants and animals is for the good of man, so
all the gifts of natural men are for the church's good ; for they are for that
end as the principal, next the glory of God, because every inferior thing is
ordained to something superior as its end. Plants are ordained for the
nourishment of beasts, and both plants and beasts for men ; the inferior
men for the service of higher ; and all for the community : yet still there is
a higher end beyond those, viz., the glory of God, to which they are ulti-
mately ordained, which is so connected with the church's good, that what
serves one serves the other.
[3.] Angels, the top creatures in the creation, are ordered for the good of
the church. If the stars are not cyphers in the world only to be gazed upon,
but have their influences both upon plants and animals ; as the sun in
impregnating the earth, and enlivening the plants, and assisting the growth
of fruits for the good of mankind ; if the stars have those natural influences
upon the sensible world, the angels, which are the morning stars, have no
less interest as instruments in the government of it. The heathens had
such a notion of demons working those things which were done in the world,
but according to the will and order of the supreme God. The angels are
called watchers: Dan. iv. 13, 'A watcher, and an holy one;' ver. 17,
' This is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the
holy ones;' they watch for God's orders, and watch for God's honour, and the
church's good. There are orders of state among them, for we read of their
decree ; it is called their decree ministerially, as they execute it ; approbative,
as they subscribe to the equity and goodness of it. As the saints are said
to judge the world, not author Hat ire, as in commission with Christ, but as
they approve of Christ's sentence. They seem to request those things of
God which may make for his glory, and they decree among themselves what
is fit to be presented to God in order to his glory. They cannot endure that
men should trample upon God's authority, despoil him of his right, and
tread down his inheritance, and therefore they send such requests to
God to act so as men may acknowledge him and his government, * to the
intent that the living may know that the most high rules in the kingdoms of
men.' Their care therefore must be for the church, since God rules all
things in order to that, and since that is God's portion and inheritance, so
that as they have a care of God's glory, they must also have a care of God's
poi'tion, and his peculiar treasure. The inward part of the temple was to
be adorned with cherubims, to note the special attendance of the holy angels
2 CnRON. XVI. 9. J A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 69
in the assemblies of the saints.* As evil angels plot against tho church, so
good angels project for it. Though in the Scripture we find angels some-
times employed in affairs of common providence, and doing good to them
that are not of the church ; as one is sent to comfort Hagar, and relieve
Ishmael upon his cry, though he had scoffed at Isaac tho heir of the covenant
when he was in Abraham's family, Gen. xxi. 17; yet for the most part they
were employed in the concerns of some of his special servants. Angels
thrust Lot out of Sodom, Gen. xix. 25, 2G. An angel stopped the lions'
mouths when Daniel was in the den : Dan. vi. 22, ' My God hath sent his
angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths.' God employs angels in the pre-
serving and ruining of empires, which is clear in the prophecy of Daniel, and
some understand Isa. x. 34, ' And Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one,' of
an angel. As the soul sends forth a multitude of spirits swiftly into the
nerves for the supply of the lowest member, which runs thither upon the
least motion, so do the angels, which are God's ministers, run at the
appointment of God, and are employed in all the wheels of pi'ovidence.
The spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels of providence,
iii^zek. i. 20.
First, The highest orders among them are not exempted from being
officers for the church. Though they are called God's angels in respect of
their immediate attendance on God, yet they are called man's angels in
respect of the sei^vice they do for them, Mat. xviii. 10, ' Their angels do
always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.' They are not
the ordinary sort of angels which attend upon those little ones, upon young
converts, humble souls, those little ones in the kingdom of heaven ; but
they are the highest courtiers there, such as see the face of God, and stand
before him. A king hath many servants, but not every servant, only the
chief of the nobility stand before him; so they are not angels of the meanest
order and rank in heaven, that are ordered to attend the lowest Christian.
The apostles make no doubt of this : Heb. i. 14, ' Are they not all minister-
ing spirits ' — there is no question but they are — ' sent forth to minister for
them who shall be heirs of salvation ? ' He asserts confidently that not
one of them is blotted out of the list for this employment. ' Are they not
all ? ' None are exempted from the service of God, so none are exempted
from the end of that service, which is the good of believers. They are
God's servants, but for the church's good, for them which shall be heirs.
Are they not all ? It is irrational to deny it. And they are sent forth,
every one of them hath his commission signed by God for this purpose,
and not only for the church in general, but for every member in particular ;
' for the heirs of salvation.' And not only for them which are already called
and enrolled, but for them who shall be called, whose names are written in
the book of God's election ; ' who shall be heirs.' And they are not only
faintly sent, as if they might go if they will, but they have a strict charge
to look after them well, not in one or two of their works, or ways, but in
all : Ps. xci. 11, 'He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee
in all thy ways ; to bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot
against a stone.' They are to use all their strength to this purpose, to bear
them up in their hands ; as the elder children are appointed by parents to
have a care of the younger in their works and motions, and to use both
their widsom and strength for them. The angels are a guard to secure
them here, and at last to convey them to their Father's house, Luke xvi. 22.
"When a man is in favour with a prince, all the courtiers will be observant
of him.
* Trap on Numb. p. 58.
70 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChKON. XVI. 9.
Secondly, Armies of them are employed upon this occasion. There are
great multitudes of them, as Bildad speaks, Job xxv. 3, ' Is there any
number of his armies ? ' that is, of his angels. When Joel speats of the
heathens gathering together, ' Thither,' saith he, ' Lord, cause thy mighty
ones to come down,' chap, iii. 11. A whole squadron of them shall attend
upon a gracious man, according to the circumstances he is involved in. Gen.
sxxiii. 1, 2, ' And Jacob went on his way, and the 'angels of God met him.
And when Jacob saw them, he said. This is God's host.' Regiments of
angels, enough to make up an army (for so Jacob terms them) met him
upon the way, to secure his brother Esau, and to encourage him in his
journey. So some interpret 2 Sam. v. 21, ' The sound of a going in the
tops of the mulberry trees,' the sign of the marching of the brigade of
angels, with the Lord at the head of them, for the discomfiture of David's
enemies ; * then shall the Lord go out before thee, to smite the host of the
Philistines.' And this they do not of their own heads, but by the pleasure
of God; not only by a bare will, but a delight: Ps. ciii. 21, ' Bless the Lord,
all ye his hosts ; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.' 1Ji:i1 his
choicest pleasure, he delights to see this his militia upon action.
Thirdbj, Christ hath the government of them to this end for his church.
Angels are all put in subjection to him : Heb. ii. 7, 8, ' In that he put all
in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him.' He is
' exalted above all principality and power.' ' God hath put all things under
his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,' Eph.
i. 21, 22 ; all things, even principalities and powers, are put under his feet,
to be commissioned and influenced by him for the good of his church :
Ezek. i. 12, ' "Whither the Spirit was to go, they went.' They are ordered
by the Spirit of Christ to this purpose : Zech. i. 10, ' Those are they whom
the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth.' They are his
faithful messengers, despatched into the world by him, as scouts and spies,
to take notice of the state of the world, and to give him intelligence, and an
exact account of affairs, and, ver. 11, they gave an account to Christ.
Christ is the head and general of them, Col. ii. 10. They are his host,
always in a warlike posture, with Christ in the head of them, Zech. i. 8,
upon their horses, which notes readiness to move and speed in motion : and
as an host they are said to pitch their tents round about them that fear him,
and are in a continual conflict with the evil angels to prevent their designs,
in the behalf of Christ, whom they acknowledge as their head by their wor-
ship of him, Heb. i. 6. Christ orders them to take care to seal his ser-
vants in the foreheads, that they may be preserved in the storms which
shall happen in the world at the time of the ruin of the Romish papacy.
Rev. vii. 2, 3. An angel comes that had the seal of the Hving God (com-
mission of God), saying, * Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees,
till we have sealed the servants of our God in the foreheads.'
Fourthly, The great actions which have been done in the world, or shall
be done for the church, are performed by them. Angels were sent as
expresses by God with his great decrees concerning the revolutions of times,
Dan. vii. 16; viii. 16, 'And I heard a man's voice, which called, and
said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.' An angel was sent
to Daniel with the message of a Redeemer, and the clearest prophecy of
Christ, which the Jews are not able to answer to this day, which they most
startle at, Dan. ix. 21. Part of the discovery of the revelation to John,
which is a standing almanac to the church, was made us by an angel.
Rev. X. 8, 9 ; xxii. 8, 9. And when by the course of time those turnings
are to happen in the world, the angels must have their share of service in
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISOOURSK OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 71
them. The trumpets are sounded by angels, and the vials which are filled
with the causes of such alterations, are poured out by the hands of angels.
Some indeed, by the angels there mentioned, understand the visible instru-
ments of reformation, not excluding the angels, who are the invisible minis-
ters in the affairs of the world.*
Fifthly, They engage in this work for the church with delight ; they act
as God's ministers in his providence with a unanimous consent : Ezek, i. 9,
* Their wings were joined one to another ;' so that they perform their oflico
with the same swiftness, and with the same affection, without emulation
to go one before another, which makes many actions succeed ill among men ;
but they go hand in hand. They do it with affection, both in respect of
the kind disposition of their natures, and as they are fellow-members of the
same body, for they are parts of the church and of the heavenly Jerusalem :
Heb. ixii. 22, * Ye are come to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumer-
able company of angels, and to the general assembly and church of the first-
born ;' and therefore act out of affection to that which is a part of their body,
as well as out of obedience to their head. They do it in respect of their
own improvement too, and increase of their knowledge (which is the desire
of all intellectual creatures) ; for they complete their understandings by the
sight of the methods of infinite wisdom in the perfecting his gracious
designs. And it is God's intent that they should grow in the knowledge of
his great mystery by their employment : Eph. iii. 10, ' To the intent that
now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known
by the church the manifold wisdom of God,' i. e., By the gracious works
of God towards the church, and in the behalf of it, for the security and
growth of the church, and in the executions of those decrees which as
instruments they are employed in ; for I do not understand how it can be
meant of the knowledge of Christ, for that they know more than the church
below can acquaint them with : for without question they have a clear insight
into the offices of Christ, who is the head, and whom they are ordered to
worship. They understand the aim of his death and resurrection, and can
better explain the dark predictions of Scripture, than purblind man can. But
by observing the methods which God uses in the accomplishment of them,
they become more intelligent, and commence masters of knowledge in a
higher degree, which it is probable is one reason of their joy, when they see
God's infinite wisdom and grace in the conversion of a sinner ; without affec-
tion to them, and their employment about them, they could not rejoice so
much. And their rejoicing in their first bringing in to God, argues their joy
in all their employments which concerns their welfare.
(2.) As all good things, so all bad things are ordered by providence for
the good of the church. That which in its own nature is an injury, by God's
ordering puts on the nature of a mercy ; and what is poison in itself, by the
almighty art becomes a sovereign medicine. Are God's dispensations in
their own nature destructive ? That wise physician knows how to make
poisons work the effect of purges. Are they sharp ? It is to humble and
purge the church. As shadows serve to set out the pictures, so the darkest
passages of providence are made by God to commend the beauty of those
glorious things he works for his church. We may see this in,
[l.J Bad persons. As,
First, The devil. God manageth him for his own glory, and the strength-
ening of believers. Mat. viii. 31, 32, the devils desired to enter into the
herd of swine, with an intent, probably, not only to destroy the swine, but
to incense the Gadarenes against him, out of whom they had been cast, to do
* I;ightfoot, Temple, chap. 38, p. 253, 256.
72 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PKOVIDENCE. [2 ChEON. XVI. 9.
him some considerable mischief. But what is the issue ? As they discover
their malice, so they enhance the value of Christ's kindness to the distressed
man, whom he had freed from this tyi-anny. Hereby also was the law of God
justified in commanding the Jews to abstain from swine's flesh, which the
Gadarenes, being apostate Jews, had broken ; he magnified his own power
in the routing such a number of unclean spirits, which had not been so
conspicuous in the turning them out of one man, had not this regiment
discovered themselves among the swine, and brought such a loss upon the
Gadarenes, whereby as they shewed their own strength and malice, so they
discovered occasionally the greatness of Christ's charity, and his power over
them; so that in granting the malicious petition of this exasperated legion,
the law of God is justified, our Saviour's love glorified, his power manifested,
and a foundation laid for the gaining proselytes in that country, to which
purpose he left the man he had cured, Luke viii, 39, and to strengthen the
faith of those poor behevers which then followed him. God makes use of
the devils by the sovereignty of providence, to bring about ends unknown
to themselves, for all their wisdom. The malice of the devil against Job
hath rendered him a standing miracle of patience for ever. They are the
' rulers of the darkness of this world,' Eph. vi. 12, not of the lighfof the
world ; they are the rulers of the wicked, and the scullions of the saints, to
scour and cleanse them. They are the rulei-s of the world, but subordinate
to serve the providence of God, wherein God declares his wisdom by serving
himself of the worst of his enemies. The devil thought he had brought a
total destruction upon mankind when he persuaded our first parents to eat
of the forbidden fruit, but the only wise God ordered it to bring about a
greater glory to himself, and a more firm stabihty to his people, in intro-
ducing an everlasting covenant which could not be broken, and establishing
their happiness upon surer terms than it was settled in paradise ; and
afterwards in filling the heart of Judas to betray Christ, and the hearts of
the Jews to crucify him. Even by that way whereby he thought to hinder
the good of mankind, he occasionally promotes their perpetual redemption ;
and I do not much question but those very principles which the devil had
distilled into the Gentile world, of shedding human blood in sacrifices for
expiation of guilt, and the gods conversing with men in human ways, and
the imagination of the intercessions of demons for them, — the first out of
rage against mankind, and both that and the other to induce them to
idolatry, — might facilitate the entertainment of Christ as the great expiatory
sacrifice, and the receiving of him as the Son of God, though in an human
shape, and the belief of his intercession. God overreaches the devil, and
makes him instrumental for good where he designs hurt and mischief.
Secondly, Wicked men. All the wicked in the midst of the church are
for the good of it, either for the exercise of their grace, or security of their
persons, or interest : Prov. xvi. 7, « When a man's ways please the Lord,
he will make his enemies to be at peace with him.' Sometimes he will
incline their hearts intentionally to favour, or order even their actions against
them to procure their peace, contrary to their intentions. Sometimes God
makes them his sword to cut his people, sometimes physic to purge them,
sometimes fii-e to melt and refine them, sometimes hedges to preserve them,
sometimes a ransom to redeem them, Prov. xxi. 18. A traveller makes use
of the mettle of a headstrong horse to carry him to his journey's end. That
wind which would overturn a Httle boat, the skilful pilot makes use of to
drive his ship into the harbour, and the husbandman to cleanse his corn
from the chaft'. Though the ends of the workers, viz., God and| wicked
men, are diflerent, yet the end of the work is but one, which is ordered by
2 ChEON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 73
God's sovei-cign pleasure. It was promised in the promise of the gospel to
the Gentiles : Gen. ix. 27, ' God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell
in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.' God shall allure
Japhet, the Gentiles of Europe, to dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan
the head of the cursed posterity, shall be servants to the church beside their
will, and sometimes against it, by an overruling hand. And Christ hath
bought them to be his servants : 2 Peter ii. 1, ' Denying the liord that
bought them,' and therefore hath the disposing of them, whether they
voluntarily give up themselves to him or no. He is a Lord by purchase
over them, who own him not as a Saviour. The hatred of the church's
enemies sometimes conduceth more to her good than the ail'cctions of all
her worldly friends. Now this appears,
First, In furthering the gospel. The Jews, who speak not of Christ
among themselves, but with opprobrious terms,* have been the exact pre-
servers of the Old Testament, even to the very number of the letters,
wherein Christians have sufficient to confirm them in the belief of Christ s
being the Messiah, and unanswerable arguments against their adversaries ;
whereupon St Austin terms them capsarios ecclesicc, such that carry the books
of the children of great men after them to school. When the authority of
the Revelation was anciently questioned, the Church of Rome was instru-
mental to keep it in the number of the canonical books, not thinking they
should find their own church so plainly deciphered in it to be the mother of
abominations. To this we may refer the action of Ptolemy Philadelphus,
king of Egypt, in causing the Scripture to be translated about three hundred
years before the coming of Christ, through which the nationsf might better
discern (as it were through a prospective glass) the new star of Jacob
which was shortly to arise. No doubt but many of the Gentiles, by com-
paring the old Scripture prophecies, which they could read in the Greek
language, might be more easily induced to an embracing the gospel, and
acknowledging Christ to be the Messiah, when it came to be divulged among
them. Herod is the cause of the consultation about the place of Christ s
birth, not for any goodwill he had to him whom he intended to murder, but
God makes use of this to clear up the truth of the prophecy concerning
Bethlehem, the place of his birth : Mat. ii. 6, ' Out of thee shall come a
Governor that shall rule my people Israel.' And they certainly were not
very good who preached Christ out of envy, and propagated the gospel,
wherein Paul rejoiced ; not in their sin, but in the providential fruit of it :
Philip, i. 15, 18, ' Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife. What
then ? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence or truth, Christ is
preached ; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.'
Secondly, In furthering the temporal good of the church.
(1.) In its preservation. Wicked men are often serviceable to the church,
as the filthy raven was to holy Elijah, or as the lion which would have
devoured Samson is a storehouse to provide him food ; for m his hunger
he finds a table spread in the belly of his enemy. Pharaoh's design was
to destroy Israel, and the daughter of that irreconcilable enemy is directed
to preserve Moses, who was to be the ruin of her family, the destruction ot
the Egyptian glory, and the deliverer of the church. She saves himout ol
charity, and God out of a wise design ; she, by his education m the
Egyptian learning, fits him for the court, and God for the deliverance ot
his church. Egypt had corn to relieve, first Abraham, Gen. xu. 10, after-
ward Jacob in a time of famine, the family wherein the church of God was
only then bound up. Herod lies in wait for Christ's destruction, and Egypt,
* Helvicus contra Jucteos. t Jackson, vol. i. fol. f, p- 62.
74 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
the most idolatrous country in the world, and an ancient enemy to God's
church, affords him shelter, God makes ' Moab to hide his outcasts and
be their covert from the face of the spoiler,' Isa. xvi. 3, 4. Some think
God's design in sending Jonah to Nineveh to work so remarkable a change
by repentance, was to soften some of their hearts, and the hearts of their
posterity, to deal more tenderly with those gracious Israelites, who, in the
captivity of the ten tribes some years after, should be their guests, God
making thereby provision for his own people in that common judgment
which should come upon the nation. This God doth sometimes by reviving
the law of nature and the common sentiments of religion in the hearts of
natural men, whereby their own consciences, bearing witness to the innocency
and excellency of the church of God, put them upon thoughts for its
security. Sometimes it is above their own sphere and besides their own
intentions. The whale which swallowed Jonah intended him as a morsel to
quell his hunger, but proves his security, and disgorgeth him upon the shore ;
they understand their own aim, but not the design of God. The leech that
sucks the patient's blood knows not the chirurgeon's design, who useth it for
the cure of a disease. Sometimes their rage proves their own ruin, and the
church's safety; as the leech bursts itself sometimes, and saves the patient.
The very earth, whereby is meant the carnal world, is said to help the
woman, the church, by swallowing up the flood which the dragon casts out
of his mouth against her, Rev. xii. 16, just as the old rags were the
instruments whereby Jeremiah was drawn out of the dungeon.
(2.) In the advancement of the church or persons eminent. Abner had a
plot for bringhig Israel to David's sceptre, which concurred both with God's
purpose and promises, but sprung from an ill cause, a disdain to be checked
by Ishbosheth, though his king, for an unjustifiable act, for having too much
familiarity with one of Saul's concubines, 2 Sam. iii. 6-10. And from this
animosity he contrives the deposing of Ishbosheth, and the exaltation of
David ; yet dissembles the ground, and pretends the promise of God to
David, ver. 18, 'For the Lord^hath spoken of David, By the hand of my
servant David I will save my people Israel out of the hand of the Philis-
tines.' He is the first engine that moves in this business, and by him and
his correspondents after his death, ver. 17, the business is brought about
by God's overruling hand, wherein God's promise is accomplished, and
David a type of Christ, and the great champion for the church against its
enemies round about is advanced. Very remarkable is the advancement of
Mordecai, in order to the advancing of the Jews as well as preserving them,
when the necks of all the visible church God had in the world were upon
the block. Haman ignorantly is the cause of this preferment of Mordecai,
and at that time too when he came to petition for his death : Esther vi. 4,
* He was come to speak to the king to hang Mordecai upon the gallows
which he had prepared for him.' The king asks him what should^be done to
the man whom the king delights to honour, ver. 16. He imagineth that
the king's question did respect himself, lays out a scheme of what honour
he was ambitious of, ver. 8, 9, which was by the king designed for Mordecai,
and Haman made the herald to proclaim him. Here Haman, not only a
wicked man in himself, but the greatest enemy Mordecai and the whole
church of God had, is made unwittingly an instrument to exalt Mordecai,
and in him the whole church of God.
(3.) In enriching the church, or some persons in it, whereby it may become
more serviceable to God, How wonderful was it, that when the Israelites
were abominated by the Egyptians, God should so order their hearts that the
Egyptians should lend them gold and jewels, Exod. xii. 35, 36, and dismiss
2 ChRON. XVI. 9. J A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 75
them with wealth as well as safety, and not so much as one person molest
them till they arrived at the Bed Sea ! The very gain and honour of the
enemies is sometimes consecrated to the Lord of the whole earth : Micah
iv. 13, 'Arise and thresh, 0 daughter of Zion ; I will make thy horn iron,
and thou shall beat in pieces many people : and I will consecrate their gain
unto the Lord, and their substance to the Lord of the whole earth.' This
was when many nations were gathered against Sion, ver. 11 ; 'the wealth
of the sinner is laid up for the just,' Pro v. xiii. 22. And God sometimes
makes the wicked, unwittingly to themselves, in their carking, be the factors
for good men, into whose lap providence pours the fruit of their labour. God
gave Cyrus the spoils of Babylon and the treasures of Croesus, to enable him
to furnish the Jews with materials for building the temple : Isa. xlv. 3, 4,
* And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden treasures of secret
places (speaking of Cyrus), that thou mayest know that I the Lord which call
thee by thy name, am the God of Israel, for Jacob my servant's sake,' &c.
That he might acknowledge him the God of Israel, and lay his wealth out iu
the service of God, and the service of Jacob his servant.
Tliirdhj, As bad persons, so bad things are ordered to the good of the
church, whether they be sinful evils or afflictive.
1. Sin.
(1.) A man's own sin. Onesimus runs from his master, and finds a spiritual
father ; his being a runagate is the occasion of his being a convert. By
flying from his master he becomes a brother in the Lord, Philem. 10, 12, 16.
What Joseph's brethren sinfully intended for revenge against their brother,
and security from their father's checks (who acquainted Jacob with their
miscarriages), God ordered for the preservation of them who were the only
visible church in the world. Their sin against their brother, contrary both
to their intentions and expectations, became the means of their safety. God
makes the remainder of sin in a good man an occasion to exercise his grace,
discover his strength, and shew his loyalty to God.
(2.) Other men's sins. That might be in Sarah but a heady passion, for
hearing her son mocked by Ishmael, that made her so desirous to have the
bond-woman and her first son thrust out. Gen. xxi. 10 ; but God makes
use of it to make a separation between Isaac, the heir of the covenant, and
Ishmael, that he might not be corrupted by an evil example from him ; God
orders Abraham to hearken to her voice, because in Isaac his seed should
be called, ver. 12. And the revengeful threatening of Esau was the occasion
of Jacob's flight, whereby he was hindered from marrying with any of the
people of the land, by whom he might have been induced to idolatry. Gen.
xxvii. 43, 46. Why should we mistrust that God that can make use of the
lusts of men to bring about his own gracious purposes ?
2. Commotions in the world. There is the eye of God, that eye which
runs to and fro throughout the whole earth in the wheels of worldly motions,
even in the most dreadful providences in the world that stare upon men
with a grim countenance : Ezek. i. 18, ' Their wings were dreadful, and
their wings w^ere full of eyes.' All the overturnings in the world are sub-
servient to the church's interest, though they are not visibly so, unless
diligently attended.- God orders the confusions of the world, and is in the
midst of the tumults of the people: Ps. xxix. 10, 11, ' The Lord sits upon the
flood ; yea, the Lord sits King for ever. The Lord will give strength to his
people ; the Lord will bless his people with peace.' He sits upon the flood
as a charioteer in his chariot, guiding it with holy and merciful intentions to
his people, to give them both strength and peace in the midst of them, and
* Broughton on Rov. xiii. sect. 177.
76 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChEON. XVI. 9.
as the issue of them. By water and floods is frequently meant tumults and
confusions in the world. If it were not so, why should our Saviour encourage
his disciples, and'all their successors in the same profession, to lift up their
heads when they hear of wars, if their redemption were not designed by God
in them? Luke sxi. 25-28; they are all testimonies of the nearer approaches
of Christ in power and glory to judge the earth, and glorify his people.
God's great end in the shaking of nations is the performing those gracious
promises to his church which yet remained unaccomplished. These earth-
quakes in the world will bring heaven to the church. The great revolutions
in the eastern part of the world, the ruin of the Babylonian empire, the
erecting the Persian, and all the means whereby it was brought about, God
ordered, God foretold, God directed, for Jacob's service. Cyrus, led by
ambition, levies an army against Babylon ; yet though he was a ravenous
bird he was to execute the counsel of God : Isa. xlvi. 11, ' Calling a
ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel,' to be an
instrument for the delivery of the captived Jews, and the restorer of the
ruined temple. He had called him out by name to make a great revolution
of the world. He foretold by his prophet Isaiah many years before, the
means he should use in the siege of Babylon to attain the victory, the very
dividing Euphrates, which was the great confidence of the Babylonian :
Isa. xliv. 27, ' That say to the deep. Be dry; and I will dry up the rivers ;'
whereby it was as it were dried up for them to pass over the very opening
of the gates: Isa. xlv. 1, ' And the gates shall not be shut; ' the Babylonians
in a presumptuous secm-ity had left them open, thinking it impossible the
city could be taken, because of the river Euphrates: ' I will go before thee,
and make the crooked places straight ; ' and what was the end of that
great revolution and motion iu that part of the world ? See Isa. xlv. 4,
' For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel, mine elect, I have even called
thee by thy name.' This prophecy was when Jerusalem and the temple
were standing. God casts about long before his people needs, for their wel-
fare in the great revolutions and changes of the world. In Isa. xliv. 28,
' That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure;
even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built ; and to the temple, Thy
foundation shall be laid.' Cyrus had no knowledge of this end of God,
' though thou hast not known me,' Isa. xlv. 4, 5, twice repeated. Cyrus
did not know God, neither did he know God's end ; he acts his own pur-
poses, and is acted by God to higher purposes than he understood. In all
the siftings of nations, and sifting the church among the nations, as corn is
sifted in a sieve, God designs not the destruction of his people, but the
cleansing them, the separating the flour from the bran.
3. Destroying judgments, yea, and the very curses sometimes are turned
into blessings.
Destroying judgments. The desolation of the Jews was not only in order
to the fulfilling God's truth in his threatenings, but useful for the great
gospel design ; the fall of the Jews was the calling of the Gentiles : Rom.
xi. 11, 12, ' Through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles.' And
also their fall and dispersion among the Gentiles was prophesied of as the
occasion of their return to God : Ezek. xx. 36, 37, ' Like as I pleaded with
your fathers in the wilderness, so will I plead with you ; and cause you to
pass under the rod, and bring you into the bond of the covenant ;' when
they are in the wilderness of captivity, then God shall plead with them, and
make them to pass under the rod of propriety, and bring them into covenant.
The like also is prophesied of that captivity of the ten tribes to this day, not
known where they are : Hosea ii. 14, the time of God's speaking kindly to
2 ChUON. XVI. 9.j A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 77
her shonlcl be in the wilderness, and then * I will give her the valley of
Achor for a door of hope.' No question but God hath performed his pro-
mise, and brought many of the posterity of the ten tribes into the church
among the mass of the Gentiles, among whom they were dispersed.
Curses sometimes, as God orders them, prove blessings. The curse of
inspired Jacob upon Levi,— Gen. xlix. 7, ' Cursed bo their anger, for it was
fierce ; and their wrath, for it was cruel : I will divide them in Jacob, and
scatter them in Israel,' — was the advantage both of Levi and the Israelites •
that they were dispersed among the several tribes without any universal
cohabitation as the rest, was a curse ; but that they should be the instruc-
tors of the people in the matters of the law, was an honour God put upon
the head of that tribe, and a public blessing to the people.
4. Divisions in the church. One would think this of all other things
should shake the foundation of it ; yet God orders even these to the good
of the church. Paul and Barnabas, two great apostles, fell out. Acts xv.
3G-30, &c. ; the contention comes to be very sharp, a thing naturally of
very ill consequence in two of the prime guides of Christianity, and at the
laying the first foundation of it ; but the gospel gains ground, one sails to
Cyprus, and the other travels into Syria. Perhaps had not this quarrel been
between them, and they thus disjointed from one another, some of those
poor souls had never, or at least not so soon, have heard of the gospel mercy.
5. Persecutions. These naturally tend to the dissolution and utter
extirpation of it, bul God orders them otherwise. God doth often lay the
scene of his amazing providences in very dismal afiiietions ; as the limner
first puts on the dusky colours on which he intends to draw the portraiture
of some illustrious beauty. The oppression of Israel immediately before
their deliverance was the dusky colour whereupon God drew those gracious
lines of their salvation from Egypt, the pattern of all the after deliverances
of the church in all ages, and a type of our spiritual redemption by Christ.
The humiliation, persecution, and death of the Son of God, was the dusky
colour upon which God drew that amazing piece of divine love and wisdom
in man's salvation, which the eyes of saints and angels will be fixed on with
ravishing admirations to all eternity. All afflictions in the world, which
God doth exercise the church with, are parts of his providence, and like
mournful notes in music, which make the melody of the tune more pleasant,
and set ofi" those sweeter airs which follow upon them. Afiiietions here
cause the joys of heaven to appear more glorious in the eyes of glorified
saints. The persecutions of the martyrs did but heighten their graces, send
them to the place of rest, and enlarge their robes of glory. God many
times saves his people by sufi'erings, and brings them to the shore upon the
planks of a broken ship, and makes that which was the occasion of their
loss to be a means of their safety ; they sometimes evidence that which they
would destroy. Herod's murdering the children, to destroy him that was
born king of the Jews, made his birth more conspicuous in the world ;
snuffing the candle makes it burn the clearer.
They sometimes make,
1. To the improvement of the church. One of the sorest judgments God
brought upon the Jewish church is expressly asserted by God to be for their
good : Jer. xxiv. 5, speaking of the captived Jews, ' Whom I have sent out
of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.' The Chaldeans
had overrun their land, carried them captives, made them slaves, destroyed
the temple ; yet God tells them this was for their good, when there was no
present appearance of any good in it. It should be good in respect of God's
favour towards them, which retired to return with the greater force : ver. 6,
78 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
* I will set mine eyes upon them for good ; I will build them, and not pull
them down.' God will give them a more durable settlement. In respect
also of that frame of heart they should have toward God, their knowledge
of him and cleaving to him, ver. 7, ' I will give them a heart to know me ;
and they shall return to me with their whole heart.' God had but a moiety
of their hearts before, but then he should have the whole. And indeed it
was remarkably for their good ; for they who before were addicted to idolatry
■were never guilty of the same sin after ; and God kept them from being
drawn away to it by the example and solicitation of those among whom they
■were. The church grows by tears and withers by smiles. God's vine
thrives the better for pruning. God makes our persecutions fit us for that
for which we are persecuted ; as Saul by his persecution of David for the
title God had given him to the kingdom, made him fitter to succeed him in
the throne, and manage the government. God uses persecutors as lances,
which, ■whiles they wound us, let out the purulent and oppressive matter ;
and makes them instruments of his providence to work out his people's
happiness, and thus makes the very wrath of man to be an occasion of his
people's praise : Ps. Ixxvi. 10, * The wrath of man shall praise thee.' God
doth in this as a father deals with his son, sends him to a sharp school, that
he may be trained up in learning.
2. In the increase of the church. The Jews crucified our Saviour to
diminish the multitude of his followers, and by this means the number is
increased. The whole world runs after him by that means they used to stop
their course, which Christ foretold, that when he was lifted up he should
draw all men after him ; and that a grain of corn brings not forth more seed
unless it be cast into the ground and die.
1. In the increase of it within its own bounds. When the Israelites were
most oppressed in Egypt, the more they multiplied, Exod. i. 20. When
the dragon's fury did most swell against the woman, she brought forth a
man child, Kev. xii. 1, 3, 4. When the Roman empire was at the highest,
and was most inflamed with anger against the Christians ; when the learning
of the philosophers, the witchcrafts of heretics, the power of the emperors,
and the strength of the whole world was set against them, the Christians
grew more flourishing and numerous by those very means which were used
to destroy them. Not only a new succession of saints sprung up from the
martyrs' ashes, but their flames were the occasion of warming some so much
with a heavenly fire, that some persecutors have become preachers. Their
very bonds for the truth have sometimes a seminal virtue in them to beget
men to faith in Christ : Philip, i. 12, ' The things which have happened unto
me, have fallen out rather to the furtherance of the gospel.'
2. In the increase of it in other parts. Paul's prison made his preaching
famous in Piome, and was an occasion of bringing Christianity into Nero's
court, that monster of mankind, Philip, i. 13, iv. 22 ; one might have looked
for saints in hell as soon ; his bonds were as great a confirmation of the
truth of his doctrine as his eloquence. When Saul made havoc of the
church, and by that storm dispersed the Christians, they, like so many grains
of corn scattered in several parts of a greater field, produced the greater
harvest : Acts viii. 3, 4, ' Therefore they that were scattered abroad went
everywhere preaching the word.' As clouds scattered by the winds, they
rained down the gospel in several quarters. The Jews when scattered in
their several flights did scatter among the heathen the notions of the true
religion. When they shall go down to Egypt to secure themselves from
Sennacherib's invasion, they shall be a means to make many converts among
that idolatrous nation : Isa. xix. 18, 'In that day' (the day of the Jews'
2 ChEON, XYI, 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 79
trouble) ' shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan,
and swear to the Lord of hosts ;' so one expounds it, but I rather think it
meant of the times of the gospel. The flight of the Israelites shall be the
occasion of some Egyptians' conversion. A poor slave in Naaman's family
was an occasion both of the cure of his body and of that of his soul, 2 Kings
V. 2, 3, 17. So much for the first reason, drawn from an enumeration of
things.
Reason 2. To prove that all providence is for the good of the church,
is, because God hath sometimes preferred mercy to the church, and care of
it, above his own concernments of justice. He values his mercy to them
above his justice upon his enemies. He consults their safety "before he
brings ruin upon the wicked whose sins are full. He first prepared the
ark for Noah, and sees him lodged in it before he begins to shower down
destruction upon the world. He hath sometimes punished a nation more
for their oftences against his people, than their sins against himself. Amalek
was guilty of many idolatries and other sins against God, but God char^cth
none of them upon them but their malicious hindering the Israelites in their
march to Canaan : 1 Sam. xv. 2, ' Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember
that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when
he came up from Egypt.' He shews his love to them, and how much he
values them, that when he is acting justice and pouring out his wrath, when
he is (as it were) cutting and slashing on all sides, and is in fury with
wicked men, he hath nothing but sweetness and tenderness towards his own.
Amos ix. 9, 10, in the sifting of Israel and the nations ' Not the least "rain
shall fall upon the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the
sword.' While he thunders out his fury upon wicked men, he hath his eyes
upon the least grain of the true Israel. What would it be for God, when
he is raising the glory of his justice upon the people that have provoked him,
not to regard the concernments of this or that, or many sincere souls, but
put no stop to his fury ? Yet he doth, not a grain shall perish. He is more
desirous to hear of the preservation and welfare of a few righteous, than of
the just punishment of the wicked wherein his justice is gloriously interested.
The man clothed with linen, that was to mark the mourners, returned to
God and gave an account that he had done according to his command, Ezek.
ix. 11 ; the other five, which were to kill, returned not to give any account
of their severe and sharp proceedings. The angels that held the four winds
of the earth, Rev. vii. 1, which some understand of wars and commotions
in the world for the overthrow of the Romish power, were ordered not to
let the winds go till the servants of God were sealed in their foreheads.
Beasou 3. God takes particular notice of the meanest of his people,
and mightily condescends to them, much more of the church. It is stranc^e
to consider that the Scripture mentions none of those great potentates amon^
the heathen, but either as they were instruments of his people's good, or
executioners of his justice upon them, or subjects of his people's triumph.
Cyrus and Darius are mentioned as their friends ; Nebuchadnezzar, and
Sennacherib, and others, as God's instruments in scourging them ; Chedor-
laomer and the other kings with him, as they were the subjects of Abraham's
valour and triumph, Gen. xiv. 9, 10. He takes no notice of the names of
any in his word but upon such accounts ; Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar had
done no doubt many actions before, but none taken notice of but those ; but
he takes notice of the meanest wherein was grace, and the meanest of their
concerns and actions.* He mentions in his word Jacob's flocks, &c., things
of no great moment, the actions, speeches, gestures of his people, to shew
* Eevet in Gen. exercit, 129.
80 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChROX. XYI. 9.
how his providence wrought for them, and how much he is concerned in the
least of their aifairs ; but the great empires of the world, their original and
progress, and the magnified founders of them, he speaks not of but as they
have some relation or other to his people. As we love to use the names of
our friends, so doth God love the relish of the names of his servants. The
name of Noah is repeated several times, as the Jews observe. Gen. vii.,
viii. The Spirit of God loves the very mention of their names, he delights
to dwell upon the catalogue of their names. The Scripture uses to reckon
the genealogies of wicked men in short characters. Cain's generation is
numbered in haste, as if God had no care at all of them. Gen. iv. 17, 18;
he puts them off with a kind of &c. But he insists much upon the gene-
ration of the godly. Seth's posterity are written in a large scroll and more
legible hand. Gen. v., with the number of the years which they lived,
which in Cain's posterity there is no notice taken of. His whole respect,
his heart, his eye, his all is fixed upon them. And Christ himself stands
more astonished and wondering at the faith of the centurion, the impor-
tunity of the Canaanitish woman, condescends to them to grant them what
they would have. You never find him taking notice of the learning of the
rabbis, the magnificence of Herod, or the glorious building of the temple.
See how condescending God is, to work a miracle for the support and
strengthening of a weak faith, and the peevish distrust of his people.
Gideon's faith was weak, yet how compassionate is God towards him
(Judges vi. 36, &c., he would have one time the fleece dry, another time
wet; God condescends to them in all), in ordering his providence as Gideon
would have it, without upbraiding him, just as a tender mother cherishes a
weak child ! And this miracle was in order to the church's deliverance
from a present oppressive enemy. Certainly when we find God taking care
and ordering even the very pins, snufiers, and basins of the temple, the
place of his worship, as well as the more stately ornaments of it, we may
say, Doth his care extend to the meanest utensils in his temple, and not
much more to the worshippers in it ? Doth he give order for the candle-
sticks, and will he not have much more care of the lights in them ? His
care to the least implies his care of the greatest too. In a building, the
little stones must be well laid as well as the greatest. Every believer is a
stone in the spiritual building.
Bcason 4. God reveals often to his people what he will do in the world,
as if he seemed to ask then- advice ; and therefore surely all his providences
shall work for their good. God would not surely acquaint them, and advise
with them what he should do, did he intend to do anything to their hurt.
There is not anything in the heart of Christ wherein the church is con-
cerned but he doth reveal it to them: John xv. 15, 'I have called you
friends ; for all things I have heard of my Father I have made known to
you.' He discovered all to them, the ends of his coming, his Father's love,
his death, and resuiTection, what he would do after his ascension, the pro-
gress of his affairs, and the glory of heaven, and the end of all. John must
be the penman of the Revelation which concerned the future state of the
church in all ages. Joseph must know the interpretation of dreams in
order to the chm'ch's preservation. Moses must be acquainted with God's
methods in the Israelites' deliverance, with the Egyptians' ruin. Daniel must
know the future state of the eastern parts of the world ; he must know the
turnings of the times, and the end of the world, Dan. x. 11, 19, 20. It is
to Noah, and none else, that he immediately discovers his intended
destruction of the world. And all those revelations ended in his people's
advantage ; nay, he doth not only reveal, but as it were consult with him
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 81
in his affairs. God doth as it were unbosom himself to Abraham, as one
friend to another ; as it were adviseth with him concerning his intention on
Sodom: Gen. xviii. 17, 'And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham
the thing which I do '? ' ?. e. I will by no means do it, it will not consist
with my love and friendship to him to hide anything from him. And see
the reason of it: ver. 18, 'Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a
great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in
him.' It was, lirst, his great affection to him, because he had advanced
him, and promised that a mighty nation should spring out of his loins.
And he had not withheld from him the secret of giving the Messias, which
was a universal blessing, and so many ages were to run out before it was to
be accomplished ; he had discovered to him his acts of mercy, and therefore
would not hide from him his acts of justice, he would know his mind in it
and what he thought of it. And you know the story, how God regulated
himself by Abraham's prayer, and denied him nothing, till Abraham left off
suing any more. It would make one conjecture, that if Abraham had pro-
ceeded farther, he had quite diverted the judgment from Sodom. And
when the Israelites had provoked God by a golden calf, he would not do
anything against them till he had consulted Moses, and therefore lays the
whole case before him, and seeks to take him off from pleading with the
Lord, and promising to make of him a great nation (Exod. xxxii. 9, 10,
* And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a
stiff-necked people : now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax
hot against them'), and in such terms that one would wonder at: 'Now
therefore let me alone;' as if God did fear Moses's interposition would pre-
vent him and dissuade him from it. Do not you stand in the way; my
wrath will cool if you interpose yourself; as much as to say, God could not
do it unless Moses gave his consent ; Moses would not be quiet, but pleads
the providences of God, which had been all for him, the promise of God
made to Abraham concerning them. And he would not leave till God
repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people, ver. 14. If
angels, as Calvin saith, are God's counsellor in heaven, believers are (as it
were) his counsellors on earth.
5. God has given the choicest things he hath to his people; he hath given
his law. The church is the sphere wherein the light of the gospel is fixed,
and wherein it shines, from whence its beams do dart out to others : Isa.
ii. 3, ' Out of Sion shall go forth the law.' The oracles of God, the gi-eat
things of the law, as it is phrased, Hosea viii. 12, his covenant, and the
counsel of his will, are entrusted with the chui-ch. Now, this being a
mercy which exceeds all other things in the world, is therefore comprehen-
sive of all other, as the greater comprehends the lesser. And the psalmist
considers it as the top-stone of all blessings ; for after summing up the
providences of God, he shews how God had distinguished Jacob by more
eminent marks of his favour: Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20, 'He shews his word to
Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so
with any nation;' he hath not left so rich a legacy to any, or given any so
much of his heart. Others are ordered by the word of his power (for that
is meant by irord in the foregoing verse), but Jacob hath the word of his
grace too. And this being the choicest piece of affection which God hath
shewed to the church, implies the making all lesser providences subservient
to it. The church, wherein God hath laid up his gospel, and those souls
which are as the ark wherein God hath deposited his law, shall be shadowed
with the wings of his merciful providence, in a perpetual succession of all
true blessings. All the providences of God are to preserve his law in the
VOL. I. F
82 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PEOVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
world ; his severest judgments are to quicken up the law of nature in men
that know no other, and the law of his gospel in men that sit under it.
And he hath given Christ to his church, and thereby hath given an earnest
that still their good shall be promoted. It is not to be thought that God
will spare anything else, when he hath given them his Son.
The second thing. It must needs be that all providences is for the good
of the church.
1. All the providence of God is for the glorifying his grace in Christ.
The whole economy or dispensation of the fulness of time, to the latter ages
of the world, is for the gathering of all things together in him : Eph. i. 10,
' That in the dispensation of the fulness of time he might gather together in
one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are in earth,
even in him ;' in him as their head. This was the design in all his dispen-
sations, both before his coming and since, ever since the promise made to
Adam, though it be more manifest in the latter age. This the apostle
represents as the main purpose of God, ver. 9. This was the mystery of
his will, which accordingly to his good pleasure he had purposed in himself,
that is, purposed in himself as a thing he was mightily pleased with; and,
ver. 11, saith he, he works all things after, or xara, 'according to the
counsel of his own will,' or of that purpose which he had purposed in him-
self, to gather all things in one in Christ. All the things that God acts are
referred to this as their end, and ordered by this counsel as their rule. As
it was the design of God's providence to make way for Christ's entrance
into the world, and all the prophecies in the Old Testament tended to the
discovery of it, so since the coming of Christ the end of all is to advance
him in respect of his headship : Eph. i. 22, 23, ' And hath put all things
under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
which is his body, the fulness of him that fills all in all.' God would
advance Christ to the highest pitch, ver. 21, far above all principality and
power, both in this world and in the world to come ; and there is still a
fulness wanting to Christ to complete him, — not any personal fulness, but a
fulness belonging to him as head, which is the advancement God designs
him. He is already advanced above all principality and power; he is
already given as a head to the church, but the completeness of it is not till
all his members be perfected, to which all his providences in the world doth
ultimately tend. Therefore if the design of God be to honour Christ, and
if the spiritual happiness of the church be part of that glory and fulness of
Christ, it must needs be carried on by God, else he will want part of his
completeness as a head. But this shall not be wanting, since, as all things
are squared according to that counsel of glorifying Christ as head, so all
things are acted for believers by that power whereby he raised Christ from
the grave to be their head, which power is the copy according to which all
acts which respect the church are framed: ver. 19, 'And what is the
exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the
working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised
him up from the dead.' God intended the good of the church in this very act
of glorifying Christ, for he is made the ' head over all things to the church ;'
as if God then had prescribed him that order, that the glory he gave him
should be also managed for the church's interest. Christ is Lord of the
rest of the world, but head of the church. All things are under his feet,
but are not his members; he is head overall things to the church, and
therefore to every member of the church, the least as well as the greatest;
and to the whole church, even that part of it which is on earth, as well as
that part which is in heaven, who are completed. This church is the ful-
2 CURON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 83
ness of Christ, he would be bodiless without it ; therefore since Christ will
be a head without a body if the church be not preserved, in order to the
preservation of it, all things must necessarily concur by the wise disposal
of afl'airs. Therefore since they are travelling to be where their head is, he
having the government of the world, will make all things contribute assist-
ance to them in their journey. That Christ may have that completeness of
glory which God intends him, he expressly tells his Father that ho is
glorified in his people: John xvii. 10, 'And I am glorilied in them.' And
at the sound of the seventh trumpet, ' the kingdoms of this world are to
become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for
ever and ever,' llev. xi. 15. Now, since all the motions in the world are
that the kingdoms of the world may become the kingdoms of his Christ,
peculiarly his, as being anointed King by him, it must needs be that all things
must be subservient one time or other to this end, wherein the good of his
people doth consist ; otherwise they would not bless God so highly for it as
they do: ver. 17, 'We give thee thanks, 0 Lord God Almighty; because
thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.' And where
there is a resistance of this glory of Christ, it is a natural effect of that
decree whereby Christ is constituted King, that the resisters should be
broken in pieces, and dashed like a potter's vessel, Ps, ii. 6, 9; and the
issue of all is the blessedness of those that put their trust in him, ver. 12.
The care that God hath of Christ and the church in the types of them,
seems to be equal. The ark, which was a type of Christ, and the table of
shew-bread, a figure of the church, had three coverings, whereas all the
rest of the vessels, &c., belonging to the ceremonial part, had but two.
Num. iv. 5-8. On the ark there was the veil, and covering of badgers'
skins, and a covering of blue ; on the table of shew-bread there was a cloth
of blue, a cloth of sclarlet, and a covering of badgers' skins. God orders
as much for the security of the church as for the security of Christ, there-
fore the same things that tend to the glorifying of Christ shall tend to the
advantage of the church.
2. God hath given the power of the providential administration of things
to Christ, to this very end, for the good of the church. If God had consti-
tuted him head over all things to the church, can there be any doubt but
that he will manage the government for that which is the principal end of
his government, which he hath shed his blood for, and which is chiefly
intended by God who appointed him ?
(1.) All power of government is given to Christ : Mat. xi. 27, * All things
are delivered to me of my Father.' And, John v. 22, ' The Father judges
no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son,' that is, the whole
government and administration of affairs. It is not to be understood of
the last judgment, for then it would be a limitation of that word all; not
that the Father lays aside all care of things, but as the Father discovers
himself only in him, so he governs things only by him. All this power was
committed to him upon his interposition after the fall of man. He was made
Lord and Christ, that is, anointed by God to the government of the world ;
for, upon the fall, God as a rector, had overturned all. Man could not
with any comfort have treated with the Father, had not Christ stepped in
and pleaded for the creation, whereupon God commits all judgment to the
Son, that he might temper it. It was by Christ as a covenanting mediator,
that the earth was established, Isa. xlix. 8. He had this government
anciently, and it was confirmed to him upon his death : Heb. i. 3, ' Who
being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and
upholding ail things by the word of his power.' Calviu understands the
84 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChEON. XVI. 9.
first word not only of the deity of Christ, but of the discovery the Father
made of himself in and through him as a mediator. The latter words some
understand both of his providential and mediatory' kingdom : ' by the word
of his power :' this, say some, is referred to the Father, whose image Christ
is, as acting by a delegated authority and commission from his Father ;
others, to Christ, as, that Christ upholds or bears up all things by his own
powerful word. Calvin thinks both may be taken, but embraceth the
second as being more generally received.
I may offer, whether it may not be meant also of the powerful interposi-
tion of Christ as mediator, whose interest in God was so great, that he
kept up the world by his powerful intercession, when all was forfeited ; and
God put it, upon that interposition, into his hands, as * heir of all things'
(who having a hand with him in creation, understood both the rights of God
and the duty of the creature), upon the condition of ' purging sin' by his
death, which he did, and thereupon went to heaven to take possession of
the government, at the right hand of God ; * sat down,' took his seat at
the right hand of the Majesty on high, as due to him by covenant and articles
agi'eed on between them. I know nothing at present against such an inter-
pretation of the words ; but I will not contend about it. All this honour
was confirmed unto him upon his death. For having performed the condi-
tion requisite on his part, God deputes him, and entrusts him with the
government of things, that he might order all things so as to see the full
travail of his soul.
(2.) All this power was intended by God for this end, the good of the
church. As God appointed Christ a priest for his church to sacrifice for
them, a prophet to teach them, so the other oflice of king is conferred
upon him for the same end, the advantage of the church. God acquaints
us of this end, aimed at him, in the promise of the government to him :
Jer. xxxiii. 15, 16, * In those days, and at that time, will I cause the branch
of righteousness to grow up to David ; and he shall execute judgment and
righteousness in the land.' What is the end ? ' In those days shall Judah
be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely.' He should execute judgment,
that is, administer the government for the salvation of Judah, and security
of Jerusalem. It was his office both to build the temple, and to bear the
glory, and to rule upon his throne ; to be a priest upon his throne, to rule
as king and priest: Zech. vi. 12, 13, 'He shall build the temple of the
Lord, even he shall build the temple of the Lord.' The erecting a church
is the sole work of Christ by God's appointment ; and he was to bear up the
glory of it. He should rule to this end, ' for the counsel of peace shall be
between them both.' If by both be meant, the Lord, and the man whose
name is the Branch, it then chiefly aims at our reconciliation, as wrought
by covenant between them. If by both be meant the two offices of king
and priest, and that the counsel of peace be between them, it will extend to all
the blessings of the church, to the good and glory of the church, which is
the fi'uit of his kingly, as well as the fii'st reconciliation was the fruit of his
priestly, office. By /^eace, in Scripture,. is meant the confluence of all bless-
ings ; so that the intent of God in bestowing those ofiices upon Christ,
and so gi-eat a rule, was for the good and advantage of that church or
temple, which he appointed him only to build. And in Isa. xi. 9, where the
prophecy of the government of Christ is, the end is expressed to be, that
* none should hui't or destroy in all his holy mountain.' And certainly,
since God set him at his right hand, and confirmed this power unto him,
after he had purged our sins, it was certainly out of the high value God had
for him, and therefore must be the intent of God, that he should govern all
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENOE. 85
things in reference to the design of that death, and for the good of those
whose sins he had hy himself purged. For the possessing this government was
the very end why Christ died and rose again: Bom. xiv. 9, * For to this end
Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that ho might ho Lord both of dead
and Hviug.' If this were Christ's end in dying and rising, it was his Father's
end too, who appointed him to death, and raised him by his mighty power.
And since he was * dcHvered for our offences, and rose again for our justifi-
cation,' Horn. iv. 25, the government he is invested with, being Lord of the
dead and of the hving, must be for the sakes of those for whom he was
deHvered, and for whom he rose. His regal power, which was one end of
his death, cannot cross the other main end, the constituting a church, and
carrying on the good of them that believe. The government, being in the
hands not of God as creator, but in and through the hands of a mediator,
and that mediator which both died and rose again peculiarly for them,
therefore it cannot in the least be for their hurt, but advantage. The whole
management of Christ's kingly office in relation to the church, is prescribed
unto Christ by God. God reveals to him what shall be done in the world,
what acts he shall perform for the church, and gives him a history of all that
was to be done upon the stage, togetlier with an order to communicate it
unto his servants : Rev. i. 1, ' The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God
gave unto him, to shew unto his servants' (to be communicated to the whole
church), ' things that must shortly come to pass.' Whether this revelation
was made to the human nature of Christ at his incarnation, as Tirinus
thinks, or rather upon his ascension, is not material. The whole scheme of
what was to be done in the world is revealed here by God to Christ ; and
you find all the motions in the world relating to the church, and the end of
all is the good of the heavenly Jerusalem.
(3.) All power thus given, and intended for this end, is actually adminis-
tered Uy Christ for this end. Christ, as the head of the church, doth like
a natural head. It never sees, nor hears, nor exerciseth any act of sense
only for itself, but for the good of the whole body. The eye watches for the
body, the tongue speaks for it, the understanding contrives for it ; every part
of the head is active for the whole body. Now Christ as head is more
bouud to act for the church militant than for the church triumphant, because
the greatest part of his work for the church triumphant, viz., the bringing
them to heaven, is already performed. And they are above the reach of
all things in the world, and all the actions and motions in the world cannot
touch or disorder them. But the command of God concerning the other part
behind is not yet performed, and even they are the members of Christ as
well as those in heaven. The apostle, Col. i. 16-18, seems to refer both
Christ's creation, and the preservation of things, to this title of headship :
'All things were created by him, and for him, and by him all things con-
sist, and he is the head of the body the church ;' and therefore the conser-
vation and government of all things shall be subservient to the church, which
is the body of this governing head. The chief seat of Christ's sovereignty
is the church : Ps. ii. 6, ' Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of
Sion;' and he stands upon mount Sion, Rev. xiv. 1. The church is the
proper seat and metropolis of his empire, the royal chamber of this great
king. All the conquests of princes redound to the advantage of that place
where they fix their residence. He is king of the world, but for the
sake of Sion. Christ did manage this charge anciently for his people ; when
Joshua had passed over Jordan, and first entered upon the conquest of
Canaan, he sees a man over against him with a sword drawn in his hand :
Josh. V. 13, 14, ' And Joshua said unto him. Art thou for us, or for our
86 A DISCOUESE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XYI. 9.
adversaries ? And he said, Nay ; but as captain of the hosts of the Lord am
I now comOc' This was Christ, that came armed for his people, according
to his charge, as their captain and general. It was not an angel, because
Joshua worshipped him, ver. 14. An angel did not use to receive any wor-
ship from men ; and he accepts the worship, and commands him to loose
his shoe from his foot, for the place whereon he stood was holy, ver. 15.
And the same person, Josh. vi. 2, is called Jehovah ; and there he gives
him orders how he should manage his war. Christ came here to direct his
people in their concerns ; he employs his wisdom for his church, as well as
his other excellencies. He is called a Counsellor, Isa. ix. 5 : it is one of
the great letters in his name ; and this, as the rest there mentioned, hath a
relation to the church. ' For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is
given.' And the first use he makes of his power, after the confirmation of
it to us, upon his resurrection, is for the church : Mat. xxviii. 18, ' All
power is given unto me in heaven and in earth ; all authoritative power
over angels, and the aflairs of the world ; ' Go you therefore and teach all
nations, baptizing them,' &c. ; ' !^d lo, I am with you always, even unto the
end of the world.' He commands the apostles to gather a church among
all nations ; and doth, by virtue of this authority committed to him, pro-
mise his presence with them, in all such services they should do to this end,
even to the end of the world. He promises his Spirit, and his providential
presence ; as his power should endure to the end of the world, so the exer-
cise of it for this end should run parallel with the continuance of it. There
should be no alteration or change in this great end of his, as long as the
world lasts. How can Christ be with them, and that to the end of the
world, if all the parts of his providential government were not ordered to
serve this end, the good of the church ? For the church is ' the fulness of
him that fills all in all,' Eph. i. 23, that fills all in all places, all in all
actions and motions, for the good of his church, which is his body. •
3. Thirdly, God in the church discovers the glory of all his attributes. It
is in a man's house where his riches and state is seen : it is in the church
God makes himself known in his excellency, more than in all the world
besides : Ps. lxx^•i. 1, ' In Judah is God known ; his name is great in
Israel. In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Sion.' It
is in his church he doth manifest his power. It is called, therefore, ' a glo-
rious high throne : Jer. xvii. 12, ' A glorious high throne from the begin-
ning is the place of our sanctuary.' Kings use to display all their glory and
majesty upon their thrones ; in this sense heaven is called God's throne,
Isa. Ix. 1, because the prospect of the heavens affords us discoveries of the
■wisdom and power of God, more than in any other visible thing, both in
their essence, magnitude, and motion : so is there a greater discovery of
God's attributes in the church (which is also styled heaven in Scripture)
than in the whole world besides ; there it is that the angels look to learn
more of the wisdom of God than they understood before, Eph. iii. 10. It
is there the day of his power dawns, Ps. ex. 3. It is there his saints see
his power and his glory, Ps. Ixiii. 2 ; the sanctuary is called the firmament
of his power, Ps. cl. 1. The glory of God's attributes is centred in Christ
in a higher manner than in the creation ; and in that work did excel them-
selves in what they had done in the framing of the world ; and the church
being the glory of Christ, all those attributes which are glorified in Christ,
do in and through him shine forth more clearly upon the church, than upon
any other part of the world. He styles himself their Creator, as much as
the Creator of the whole frame of heaven and earth : Isa. xliii. 15, ' I am
the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.' As though all
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOUBSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 87
the attributes of God, his power in creation, his holiness in redemption,
were designed for none else but them : and indeed by virtue of the cove-
nant they were to be so ; for if God be their God, then all of God is theirs.
What wisdom, power, sufficiency, grace, and kindness ho hath, is princi-
pally for them. If God be their God, it is in their concerns he will glorify
himself as a God in the manifestation of his perfections. This cannot be
without the ordering all providences for their advantage.
4. Fourthly, There is a peculiar relation of God and Christ to the church ;
upon which account this doctrine must needs be true. God is set out in
all relations to manifest his great care of his people. He is a Father to
provide for them, Isa. Ixiv. 8 ; a mother to suckle them, Isa. xlix. 15. Christ
is a husband to love and protect them, Eph. v. 29 ; a brother to counsel
them, John xx. 17. And when all these relations meet in one and the
same person, the result of it must be very strong. Any one relation where
there is atiection is a great security ; but here all the relations are twisted
together with the highest affections of them in God to the church. A father
will order all for the good of his child, a mother for her infant, a husband
for his wife, and one kind brother for another ; so doth God for his people ;
and whatsoever those relations bind men to on earth, in respect of care,
love, and faithfulness, that is God to his church. The church hath the
relation to God which none in the world have besides. They are his jewels,
therefore he will keep them ; they are his children, therefore he will spare
them, Mai. iii. 17. They shall have protection from him as they are his
jewels, and compassion from him as they are his sons. The church is
Christ's flesh, as dear to him as our flesh is to us ; as much his, as our flesh
is ours : Eph. v. 29, * No man hates his own flesh, but nourisheth it, as
Christ doth his church.' No man can have a higher value for his own flesh
than Christ hath for his church. The church, as TertuUian speaks, is
nothing else but Chrlstiis explicatus ;* and as considered in union with
Christ, is called Christ, 1 Cor. xii. 12. It is ' the apple of his eye,' Zech.
ii. 8, a tender and beloved part. The church is Christ's spouse ; the con-
tract is made, the espousals shall be at the last day. The members are
picked out one by one to be presented to the Lamb at last as a glorious
bride for him, Eev. xxi. 2.
And ail God's dealings with them in the world are but preparations of
them for that state. Upon the making of the match God promises a com-
munion of goods : Hosea ii. 20, ' I will even betroth thee unto me in faith-
fulness,' which is a fruit of marriage, the wife being invested in her husband's
estate. When God hath given the blood of his Son for the church, he will
not deny her the service of the creatures, but jointure her in that as one
part of her dowry. 'In that day will I hear the heavens,' &c., ver. 21.
In what day ? In the day of betrothing, in the day of the evangelical
administration, when the contract shall be made between me and my church.
Heavens, earth, corn, wine, and oil, the voice and motions of all creatures,
are for Jezreel, which signifies the seed of God. This great prince he hath
a care of all his subjects, so more peculiarly of his spouse and princess,
which is his seed too, and all creatures shall be her servants. This fatherly
relation and aftection is strong and pure, not as the love which acts an
ambitious man to ambition, or a covetous man to wealth ; which respects
nothing but the grasping and possessing the objects they doat upon, and
have nothing of love for the objects themselves, therefore deserves not the
name of love. But it is the love of a father, whose love is pure towards
liis children ; he seeks their good as his own.
* Christ unfolded.
88 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChEON. XVI. 9.
Consider these two things.
1. God hath a peculiar love to this very relation, and often mentions it
"with deHght, as if he loved to hear the sound of it in his own lips : Cant,
viii. 12, ' My vineyard which is mine, is before me.' Me, mi/, mine. The
church is always under his eye, seated in his affection, and God is pleased
with his propriety in them. God never calls the world vnj world, though
he created it ; sometimes he saith, the earth is mine, but it is either to
check the presumptions of men, who ascribe that to themselves which is due
to the first cause ; or to encourage his people in the expectation of deliver-
ance, because all things in the earth are at his beck ; or to shew his own
sufficiency, without the services of his people ; as when he saith, the earth is
mine, and the fulness thereof ; but it is never mentioned in such a way, as
to discover any pleasure he hath in the relation between him and it, simply
considered ; but mij vineyard, vuj people, my children, ?«?/ jewels, my
sanctuary, very olten. So much doth God esteem his propriety in them.
2. This relation is prevalent with God in the highest emergencies and
distresses of his people. The very consideration that they are his people,
kindles his affection, and enlivens his strength for them : Isa. Ixiii. 8,
* And he said. Surely they are my people, childi-en that will not He : so he
was their Saviour.' God is brought in, as one that had heard the cries of
his church, and had not been moved ; but when he recollects himself, and
considers that they were his people, and that he was in a special manner
related to them, he became their Saviour ; he could no longer bear it, but
stii-s up himself to relieve them. Nay, it hath so strong an influence upon
him, that if this note be often sounded in his ears, it doth as it were change
his voice, and when he seems to have a mind to cast them off he cannot.
When Israel had offended by erecting and worshipping a golden calf, he calls
them no more his people, but Moses's people : Exod. xxxii. 7, ' And the Lord
said unto Moses, Go, get thee down ; for thi/ people, which thou broughtest out
of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.' As though God had not
been concerned in this miraculous conduct out of Egypt ; and ver. 9, * this
people,' as if he had had no interest in them, but particularises them with
disdain. God had here discarded them, and turned them over upon Moses's
hands, as if he would have no longer anything to do with them ; but Moses
in prayer turns them upon God again, and would not own them as his, but
pleads that they were God's proper goods : ver. 11, ' Lord, why doth thy
wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought fortli out of the
land of Egypt?' And ver. 12, again, ' thy people;' and God at last resumes
his former notes, ver. 14, ' And the Lord repented him of the evil he thought
to do unto his people.' Now they are God's people again ; the repetition
of this relation is a powerful rhetoric to persuade him to own them again,
which he had cashiered and turned off.
5. Fifthly, The whole interest of God in the world lies in his church and
people. He sees little of himself in any part of the corrupted world, but only in
them. It is in the church he hath put his name ; it is there he sees his
image, and therefore places his love there; and shall all this signify nothing?
Shall the Governor of the world let things go contrary to his own interest ?
They are like to him in that which is one of his greatest perfections, viz.,
his holiness, which gives him a greater interest in them. It is his interest
that is oj)posed by an opposition to the church. All the hatred any
bear it grows from the inward root of enmity against God himself : Ps.
xliv. 22, ' Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long.' God surely
will concern himself in the church's interest, since it is his own. His
interest lies,
2 ChEON. XVI. 9.J A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 89
(1.) In tbo persons of his people. It is his inheritance, Isa. xix. 25. It
is his portion : Dcut. xxxii. 9, ' The Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is
the lot of his inheritance.' Every part of an inheritance and a portion doth
as particularly belong to|the owner as the whole. Every part of the ground
which belongs to the inheritance is the heir's, as well as the whole field.
He will not sufler the world, which is but the work of his hands, to lay
waste his church, which is his proper inheritance. It is his treasure, and
where a man's treasure is, there is his heart ; and where God's treasure is,
there is God's heart.
(2.) In the services and actions of the church. lif the church should be
destroyed, whom hath God to love and imitate him, and to shew forth his
glory ? If the candlestick is broken, what is fit to hold out the light to the
world ? He hath none in the world besides, that do intentionally mind his
honour, that take pleasure in glorifying his name, and writing after his copy,
and observing his works. And will it stand with his interest to govern
things conti'ary to theirs, which is really his own ?
When God had made the world, and pronounced it good, what would it
have signified if he had not brought in man as his rent -gatherer, and the
collector of his tribute, to return it to him ! And what would man signify,
since the corrupted world embezzles that which is God's right, and turns it
to its own use, if God had not some honest stewards, who faithfully act
for him, and give him the glory of his works ! And God will spare them,
as a man spares his own son that serves him. God hath no voluntary
service in the world but from them, therefore he is more interested in their
good than in the good of the world besides. The services of the church are
all the delight God hath in the world : Hosea ix. 10, * I found Israel like
grapes in the wilderness ; I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig-tree
at her first time.' They are as the refreshing wine and grapes, as the
delicious fruit of the first ripe figs, wherewith a weary traveller recruits his
spirits after a long and trying journey. And God bath a greater delight in the
fruit he receives from the church, than in it simply as it is his inheritance ;
for no inheritance is valued but for the fruit and revenue it yields ; and
therefore God orders all his blackest providences in the world, like dark
clouds, to be the watering-pots of this his garden, that the fruit and flowers
of it may be brought to maturity, which yield him so much pleasure and
honour. God only is acknowledged by them and in them, as the Jews were
bound to acknowledge God the author of their mercies, by presenting the
first fruits of their increase to God. And believers are called so : Rev.
xiv. 4, ' These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits to God
and the Lamb.' It is by and in them that God hath the acknowledgment
of all his mercies and blessings to the world.
6. It cannot be but all the providences of God shall work to the good of
his church, if we consider the afi"ections of God.
(1.) His love. What hath God in the world as an object to bestow his
afi'ections upon, and communicate the rays of his love unto, since he created
it, but his church ? The men of the world hate him ; he can see nothing
amiable in them ; for what was first lovely they have defaced and blotted
out, but the church hath God's comeliness put upon her : Ezek. xyi. 14,
' It was perfect through my comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the
Lord God ; ' and he did not lay those glorious colours upon her, to manage
his government, or any part of it against her, to deface her. Besides their
lovehness, which is conferred upon them by God, they have a love to God,
and no man will act against those whom he thinks to be his friend. God
being pums actus, there being nothing but purity and activity in God, his
90 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
love must be the purest and highest love, the most vigorous and glowing ;
as fire, which sets all other bodies, so this all other powers in the world in
motion for them. God cannot love them, but he must wish all good to
them, and do all good for them ; for his love is not a lazy love, but hath
its raptures and tenderness, and his aftection is twisted with his almighty
power to work that good for them, which in their present condition in the
world they are capable of. Now it is certain God loves his church ; for,
[1.] He carries them in his hand, Deut xxxiii. 3 ; and that not in a loose
manner to be cast out, but they are engraven upon the palms of his hands,
Isa. xlix. 16, that he cannot open his hand to bestow a blessing upon any
person but the picture of his church doth dart in his eye. God alludes to
the rings wherein men engrave the image of those that are dear to them.
And the Jews did in then- captivity engrave the effigies of their city Jeru-
salem upon their rings, that they might not forget it.* If his eye be alway
upon tho church, his thoughts can never be off it in all his works.
[2.] He loves the very gates and outworks: Ps. Ixxxvii. 2, 'The Lord
loveth tue gates of Sion;' he loves a cottage where a church is more than
the stately palaces of princes. The gates were the places where they con-
sulted together, and gave judgment upon affairs. God loved the assemblies
of his saints because of the truths revealed, the ordinances administered, the
worship presented to him.
[3.] Nay, one saint is more valued by him than the whole world of the
wicked. God is the God of all creatures, but peculiarly the God of Abra-
ham and of his seed. » One Abraham is more deeply rooted in his heart
than all the world, and he doth more entitle himself the God of Abraham
than the God of the whole world ; for in that style he speaks to Isaac :
Gen. xx^T. 24, ' I am the God of Abraham thj' father,' much more the God
of Israel, the God of the whole church, of which Abraham was but a
member, though the father of the faithful, and a feoffee of the covenant.
God hath a greater value for one sincere soul than for a whole city. He
saves a Lot, and burns a Sodom; yea, than for a whole world, he drowns a
world and reserves a Noah ; he secures his jewels, whilst he flings away the
pebbles.
[4.] He loves them so, that he overlooks their crabbed and perverse mis-
constructions of his providence. "When the Israelites had jealous thoughts
of him, and of Moses his instrument, when they saw that mighty Egyptian
army just at their heels, and themselves cooped up between mountains,
forts, and waters, God doth not upon this provoking murmuring draw up
his cloudy pillar to heaven, but puts it in the rear of them, when before it
had marched in the van, Exod. xiv. 19, and wedgeth himself in between
them and Pharaoh's enraged host, to shew that they should as soon sheath
their swords in his heart as in their bowels; and if they could strike them,
it should be through his own deity, which was the highest expression of his
affection. And though they often murmured against his providence after
they were landed on the shore, yet he left them not to shift for themselves,
but bore them all the way in his arms, as a father doth his child, Deut.
i. 31, and bare them like an eagle upon his wings, Deut. xxxii. 11. And
God loves them magnificently and royally: Hosea xiv. 4, 'I will love them
freely,' f without any doubting, without any reluctancy. I will love thee
without any repugnancy in my heart to draw me back from thee ; ' for
mine anger is turned away,' as the streams of a river, quite another way.
Now, all this considered, can the Governor of the world, the King of saints,
* Sanctius in Isa. xlix. 16.
t Hosea xiv. 4, n21j i Sept., o/ioXo/wg.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 91
act anjthinfT against his own affections ? Yea, will he not make all things
subservient to them whom he loves ?
(2.) His delight. See what an inundation of sweetening joy there was in
him, for which ho had not terms of expression to suit the narrow apprehen-
sions of men: Zoph. iii. 17, 'The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is
mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his
love; he will joy over thee with singing.' He seems in his expression to
know no measure of his delight in the church, and no end of it : 'I will
rejoice over thee with joy.' Joy sparkles up fresh after joy; it is his rest,
where the soul and all that is within him centres itself with infinite con-
tentment. 'Joy over thee with singing:' a joy that blossoms into triumph.
Never had any such charming transports in the company of any he most
affected as God hath in his church ; he doth so delight in the graces of his
people, that he delights to mention them. He twice mentions Enoch's walk-
ing with him. Gen. v. 22, 24. And certainly God cannot but dehght in it
more than in the world, because it is a fruit of greater pains than the crea-
tion of the world. The world was created in the space of six days by a
word, the erecting a church hath cost God more pains and time. Before
the church of the Jews could be settled, he hath both a contest with the
peevishness of his people and the malice of their enemies. And his own
Son must bleed and die before the church of the Gentiles could be fixed.
Men delight in that which hath cost them much pains and a great price.
God hath been at too much pains, and Christ at too great price, to have
small delight in the church ; will he then let wild beasts break the hedges,
and tread down the fruit of it ? Shall not all things be ordered to the good
of that which is the object of his greatest delight in the world ?
7. Seventhly, The presence of God in his church will make all providences
tend to the good of it.
It would be an idle, useless presence if it were not operative for their
good. ' The Lord is there ' is the very name of the gospel church, Ezek.
xlviii. 35 ; what would it signify if it were a useless presence ? Christ
stands upon mount Sion, his throne is in the church, when the great things
in the world shall be acted for the ruin of antichrist, Kev. xiv. 1. God's
presence in his church is the glory and defence of it, as the presence of the
king is the glory of the court: Zech. ii. 5, 'For I, saith the Lord, will be
imto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of
her.' His presence is a covenant presence: Isa. xli. 10, ' Fear not, I am
with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God;' whence follows strength,
help, and support : ' I will strengthen thee ; yea, I will help thee ; yea, I
■will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness;' that is, with my
righteous power, with my power engaged to thee in a righteous covenant.
His presence and providence in the world is in a way of absolute dominion,
but in his church in a way of federal relation. He is the God of Israel,
and God to Israel, or for Israel, 1 Chron. xvii. 24, yea, and a God in the
midst of Israel, — every one of them sufficient engagements to protect
Israel, and provide for Israel, and govern everything for Israel's good.
God is under an oath to do good to Israel ; will he violate his oath, tear his
seal, break his covenant, who never broke his league with any of his people yet ?
8. Eighthly, The prayers of the church have a mighty force with God to
this end. God is entitled a God hearing prayer; and what prayers should
God hear, if not the prayers of his church, which aim at God's glory in their
own good ? Though the prayers of the church may in some particulars fail,
yet in general they do not ; because they submit their desires to the will of
God, which always works what is best for them.
92 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PKOVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
When God would do any mighty work in the world, he stirs up his people
to pray for it ; and their prayers by his own appointment have a mighty in-
fluence upon the government of the world, for when they come before him
in behalf of the church in general, he doth indulge them a greater liberty
and boldness, and as it were a kind of authority over him, than upon other
occasions of their own: Isa. xlv. 11, ' Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of
Israel, and his Maker, Ask of me things to come concerning my sons ; and
concerning the work of mine hands command you me.' God would be
uaore positively, confidently, and familiarly dealt with about the concerns of
his sons, though they were things to come to pass in after ages. And
indeed the prayers of the church have a powerful and invisible efficacy on
the great actions and overtumings which are in the world. The being of
the world is maintaioed by them from sinking; according to the Jews' say-
ing, sine stationihus non suhsisteret vnmdus (standing in prayer was their
usual prayer gesture). And that they have actually such a force is evident:
Rev. viii. 3, 4, an angel hath a golden censer with incense, to offer it
with the prayers of the saints upon the altar which was before the throne.
And, verse 5, the censer wherein their prayers were offered was filled with
the fu-e of the altar, and cast into the earth; and there were voices, thun-
derings, lightnings, and earthquakes. When the prayer of the saints were
ofiered to God, and ascended up before him, that is, were very pleasing to
him, the issue is, the angel fills the censer with fire of the altar, and
thereby causes great commotions and alterations in the world, signifying
that the great changes of the world are an answer unto those prayers which
are offered unto God ; for fire is taken fi-om that altar upon which they
were ofiered, and flung into the world. And it must needs be that the
prayers of the church should have an influence on the government of the
world.
(1.) Because God hath a mighty dehght in the prayers of his people. 'The
prayer of the upright is his delight; ' and he loves to hear the church's voice :
Cant. ii. 14, ' 0 my dove, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice '
(Chaldee, ' Thy voice is sweet in prayer'). In the times of the gospel, God
promises that the ofierings of Judah and Jerusalem should be pleasant to
him, Mai. iii. 4. When Christ shall sit as a refiner, ver. 3, what is the
issue of those prayers ? ver. 5, * 1 will come near to you to judgment, and I
wiU be a swift witness against the sorcerers,' &c. Prayer awakes providence
to judge the enemies of the church. A parent delights not in the bare cry-
ing, or the voice of his child simply considered in itself, but in the signifi-
cations and effects of it. He delights in the matter of their prayers, it being
so agreeable to his own heart and will, and in the sense they have of the
sufi"erings of the whole body.
(2.) Because prayer is nothing else but a pleading of God's promises. Unto
this they are directed by that Spirit which knows the mind of God, and mar-
shals their petitions according to his will. Now as God turns his own
decrees and purposes concerning his church into promises to them, so the
church turns those promises into prayers for them ; so that promises being
for the good of the church, and there being an exact harmony between those
promises and the church's prayers, all those providences which are the issue
of those promises, and the answer of the church's prayers, must needs be
for the church's good.
(3.) Because there are united supplications and pleadings both in heaven
and earth. All the hands of the whole family in heaven and earth are con-
cerned in their petitions.
[1.] Christ intercedes for the church, who always desires mercy and deliver-
2 ChKON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DrV'INE PROVIDENCE. 93
ance for them in the appointed time : Zech. i. 12; ' How long wilt thou
not have mercy on Jerusalem ? ' and the issue is always gracious ; for,
vcr. 13, God answers him with ' good and comfortalile words ; ' and there-
upon carpenters are raised to ' cut ofl" the horns which had scattered Judah,'
ver. 20.
[2, J Angels in all probability plead for the church, as we have already
heard ; it is likely they offer and present that to God which makes for his
glory, and that is the good of the church. Angels surely desire that which
their head doth, which is described as one of their own order, and called an
angel, Zech. i. 12. Do they rejoice at the repentance of a sinner, and do
they not likewise triumph at the happiness of the church, which is part of
that family they are of? And we know that the greatness of our joy is
suited to the mercies of our desires ; where our joy is most triumphant, it
implies that our desires before were most vehement.
[3.] Glorified saints are not surely behind. The rich man in the parable
desired his friends on earth might not come into that place of torment,
Luke xvi. 28. If there be so much charity in hell, can there be less in
heaven ? If he desired it, that by the presence of his companions in sin,
his own torments might not be increased, do not the saiuts in heaven de-
sire the presence of the whole church, that their happiness in that of the
whole body may be completed ? If the head Christ be not complete with-
out the body, the members of the body cannot be complete without one
another. The souls of them that were slain for the word of God cry under
the altar for vengeance on them that dwell on the earth ; as Kev. vi. 9, 10,
'How long, 0 Lord holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood
on them that dwell on the earth ? ' Will not their kindness to their fellow-
members be as strong as their justice, and their love for the good of their
friends draw out their prayers as well as their desire of vengeance on their
enemies ? Why may they not as well pray for us as we praise God for
them ? Had they not some likeness to their great Master whilst they were
on earth, and shall they not be more like to him now they are in heaven, and
behold his face, and feel all the stirrings of his heart ? And if they have no
sense at all of the church's sufferings, how shall they be like to him who
hath ? As their bodies shall be like the glorious body of Christ at the
resurrection, are not their souls now like his glorious soul, merciful, and com-
passionate, and sympathising in all the afflictions of the church ? And can
this be without some breathings for a full completing of the church's freedom ?
Are such desires and pleas any hindrance to their present happiness ? It
is so far from that, that it doth rather further their glory, which cannot
be complete, as the glory of Christ, as head, is not mounted to the highest
pitch of glory, till his mystical body be all gathered in and lodged with him.
If it be thus, will God do anything prejudicial to the church, and contrary to
the combined desires of all those that are so near him ? If God doth some-
times stir up himself upon the supplication of one man, and grant an order
upon his petition according to his mind ; and if the prayers of one faithful
Moses, or Elias, or Samuel have such a kind of almighty power in them,
much more is the joint force of so many prayers twisted together.
Use 1. For information. Is it so that all providence is for the good of the
church ? Then,
1. God will always have a church in the world, he will have some to serve
him. The whole course of his providence being designed for it, as long as
the world, which is the object of his providence, doth endure, he will have a
church. God would otherwise lose the end of the motion of his eyes,* the
* As in the text, 2 Chron. xvi. 9.
94 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
operation of his providence, since it is to shew himself strong for the church
and every member of it. As long as the candle and light of the gospel
burns and shines, God will have a candlestick to set the candle in.* His
great design in making a world was not to have sun, moon, and stars, but a
church, a company of men that might bear his mark, and honour him, to
whom he might speak, and extend his grace abroad, which he was so full of
•within. As a limner who would draw an excellent draught, dravv's his design
in the midst of the cloth, and fills the void places with clouds, and land-
scapes, and other fancies at his pleasure, which communicate some beauty
and lustre to the work, but that was not the principal design of the work-
man. That Redeemer which bears the church upon his heart, will create a
stability for it ; it is a part of his priestly office to have a care of the lamps ;
it is one of his titles to be he that walks in the midst of the seven golden
candlesticks. Rev. ii. 1. Priests under the law were to look to the great
candlestick in the temple, supply the lamps with oil, and make them clean,
Lev. xxiv. 3, 4. The church indeed may be eclipsed, but not extinguished ; if
it be not conspicuous on the mountain, yet it shall be hid in the wilderness.
There shall be sprinklings of professors among all people. God will leaven
the places where they are into Christianity, and cause them to fructify and
grow up in purity and glory : Micah v. 7, ' And the remnant of Jacob shall be
in the midst of many people, as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the
grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.' It tarries
not for man. It attends not the power of man, the precepts of man, or
inventions of man ; but whose descent is from heaven, and is carried on not
by human power, but by the divine Spirit and providence ; it shall be firmer
than all worldly power, and the strongest kings : Isa. ii. 2, 'And the moun-
tain of the Lord's house shall be established upon the top of the mountains,
and shall be exalted above the hills.' Above mountains and hills, to which
sometimes the powers of the world are compared, Zech. iv. 7. That provi-
dence which gave the church at first a footing in the world upon a weak
foundation to outward appearance, in spite of men and devils will preserve
it, and not sutler it to be blown up ; he will shadow the church with his
wings in a perpetual succession of the choicest mercies.
2. God will in the greatest exigencies find out means for the protection
of his church. This will be till his providence be at an end. When God
hath removed one instrument of his church's protection, he hath his choice
of others, whom he can raise and spirit for his work. When those upon
whom the church's hopes hang are taken off, he can raise things that are
unlikely to supply the place. As the lutenist accidentally had a grasshopper
leapt upon his instrument, to supply by its noise the place of a string which
had newly cracked, whereby his music was continued without interruption.
God can spirit men against their own natural fears. It is very improbable,
that Nicodemus, one of a fearful disposition, who came to our Saviour by
nicht for fear of the Jews, should have the courage to assert his cause in
the face of a whole council of pharisees, contriving his death, and at present
blunt the edge of their malice, though we read of none at that time in the
council to second him, John vii. 50, 51. The Holy Ghost takes particular
notice that it was he that came to Jesus by night.
Joseph of Arimathea, whose name we meet not with' in the catalogue of
any of our disciples,! till the time of his death, and then he appears boldly
to beg the body of Jesus of Pilate. God will never want instruments for
the preserving that church, which he owns as his. It is observed by some,
* Cham. Les trais verit. liv. 3 chap i. p, 16.
■f Qu. ' in any of the catalogues of our Lord's disciples ' ? — Ed.
2 ChEON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 95
that God so ordered it, that tho same day that Polagius, the great poisoner
of the Christian doctrine, was born in Britain, Austin, the most famous de-
fender of the truth, was born in Africa ; that the horn which pushed tho
truth should no sooner appear, but the carpenter to cut it ofi' should be pro-
vided too. As it is observed where poisons grow, antidotes grow near them
by the indulgent provision of tho God of nature.
As there is tho wisdom of the serpent against the church, so there is the
wisdom of God for it. God's goodness upon his church in former ages is
not all laid out, he hath his stores still, neither is his wisdom nonplussed,
nor his power w^eakened ; neither is he, nor can he be weary of his care.
3. The church shall in the end prove victoiious against all its adversaries,
or providence must miss of its aim. The church is compared to an olive
tree, Hosea siv. 6, in respect of beauty, ' his beauty shall be as the olive
tree.' It is so also in respect of victory. Olive branches were used in
triumph. God is on the church's side, and he is stronger than the strongest,
and wiser than the wisest, and higher than the highest. Jesus Christ
is the church's head and general ; Christ the head watcheth for the good
of the church, the body. He must be destroyed before the church can.
There is a mighty arm, which, though it may for a time seem withered,
will in the end be stretched out, and get itself the victory. Whilst
Christ is in the ship, it may be tossed, but it shall not be sunk. It may
be beaten down, but like a ball to rebound the higher. The young
tree that is shaken by the wind may lose some leaves, and some fruit too,
but the root gets greater strength and strikes itself deeper into the earth,
and makes the branches more capable of a rich return of fruit the following
year. The church's stature is compared to a palm tree, Cant. vii. 7, which
cannot be depressed by the weights which hang upon it, but riseth the
higher. God uses the same method in the church's, as in Christ's advance-
ment. Our Saviour's death was necessary to his glory, Luke xxiv. 26, and
the church's affliction sometimes to its exaltation. A nation may lose some
battles, and yet be victorious ; the church may have many a cross, but in
the end will surmount all difficulties. Though judgments and apostasies
may be great in a nation, yet God will have a care of his own plants, Isa.
vi. 12, 13 ; ' There shall be a tenth ; it shall return, the holy seed shall be
the substance thereof.' As a tree in winter, which seems dead, but its juice
shall revive into rich and generous blossoms. The ark shall float above the
waters. Babylon shall fall, the Lamb shall stand upon mount Zion. Men
may as well stop the rising of the sun in its mounting to the meridian,
bridle in the tide of the ocean, as hinder the current of an almighty providence.
4. The interest of nations is to bear a respect to the church, and coun-
tenance the worship of God in it. This is to concur with God's main end,
and imitate him in his providential administrations. God's people, what-
ever their enemies suggest to the contrary, are a blessing in the midst of a
land, Isa. xix. 24 ; their interest is greater than the interest of all the
world besides ; though they be but a handful, their fruit shall shake Hke
Lebanon, Ps. Ixxii. 16. The neglect of religion is the ruin of nations. It
is observed that Cyrus was slain in the war in Scythia, a little after he
neglected the building of the temple of Jerusalem which he had be^un.*
Those Persian kings reigned the longest that favoured the Jews in that and
their other just requests. God honoured or disgraced them as they were
kind or cruel to his people. And when they act for the good of his people,
they shall not be without their reward. When Cyrus should let the Jewish
captives go free without ransom, he should be no loser by it. God would
* Broughton on Dan. x. 10.
96 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
give him the labour of Egypt, the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the strength
of the Sabeans into his hand for the price of his people's delivery, Isa. xlv.
13, 14. Those nations which should favour them in the times of their per-
secutions and flights, and give them shelter in their countries, should thrive
and prosper by the blessing of God upon them. If Moab give entertain-
ment to the flying Israelites in the time of the invasion of Shalmanezer, God
■will preserve their land that the spoiler shall not enter into the confines of
it, and they shall have kings and judges under the protection of the house
of David, i. e. under the kings of Israel, as some understand it, Isa. xvi. 4,
5. Saints are the guardians of the places where they live, their prayers
have a greater influence than the wisest counsels, or the mightiest force,
2 Kings ii. 12 : ' And Elisha cried, My father, my father ! the chariot of
Israel, and the horsemen thereof.' The Chaldee paraphraseth thus : ' Thou
art better to Israel by thy prayers than chariots and horsemen.' This is
the elogy of one single prophet ; what influence then hath the whole church
of God in a place ? The whole world is the better for the church of God.
The Chaldee paraphrase hath a notion upon that, Ps. xxii. 3 : ' But thou
art holy, 0 thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel ;' thou that estab-
lishest the world for the praises of Israel. God hath nothing to do in the
world but the saving of his people. When that is once done, he will put
an end to this frame of things. When he hath gathered his wheat into his
garner, he will burn up the chaff. His people are the spirit and quint-
essence of the world. When this is extracted, the rest are flung upon the
dunghill, as a caput mortuum.
5. We may see hence the ground of most of the judgments in the world.
Men by their rage against the church, will not acknowledge God's govern-
ment of the world for the church's good ; therefore the psalmist, Ps. lix. 13,
' Consume them in wrath, consume them that they may not be, and let
them know that God rules in Jacob unto the ends of the earth.' The church
is the seat of his government, and from thence he extends it to the utter-
most parts of the earth. In Jacob he rules, and for the sake of Jacob he
orders his government to the ends of the earth ; the not acknowledging this
brings wrathful consumptions upon men ; and it is also the end of his judg-
ments to make men know it. It is likely enough the four kings, Gen. xiv.
9, might have gone clear away with all their booty, had not they laid their
fingers upon Lot ; but when they would pack him up among the rest, they
did but solicit their own ruin, and arm the almighty God against them.
God did not think any of the people worth the mention, verse 11 ; only Lot
a righteous person, verse 12, he is named, as having God's eye only upon
him. And when Abraham returns from the victory, ver, 16, the rest of the
delivered captives are mentioned in the bulk, Lot only in particular, as though
all that had been done had been done by God only for Lot's sake. They
might have preserved the whole prey to themselves, had it not been for this
jewel, too precious in God's account for their custody. And the fearful curse
that God pronounced against the Ammonite and Moabite, that they should
not come into the congregation for ten generations, though any of them
turned proselytes, was because they came not out with so much as bread
and water to meet the Israelites, and because they hired Balaam to curse
them, Deut. xxiii. 3, 4. The utter wasting of nations and kingdoms, is
because they will not serve the interest of God in his people : Isa. Ix. 12,
' For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish ; yea,
those nations shall be utterly wasted.' God will bring an utter consumption
upon those people that refuse to love them, much more upon those that hate
them.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 97
6. What esteem, then, should there be of the godly in the world ? The
providence of God, being chielly for the good of his people, cannot well fall
upon them, but some drops will fall upon those involved with them in a
common interest. When the corn, and wine, and oil hear Jezreel (the seed
of God), and the earth hears the corn, and the heavens hear the earth, and
God hears the heavens, Hosea ii. 21, 22 ; when their supplications come
up to the great superintendent of the world, many of the wicked will fare
the better for that providence which is given only in answer to Jezreel's
prayer ; God causes his sun to shine upon the unjust, upon them, not for
their sakes. When Nebuchadnezzar issued out that unjust order for the
slaying the Chaldeans for not performing an impossible command in teUing
him the dream he had forgotten, Dan. ii. 12, Daniel was sought out to
undergo the same fate ; yet by his wisdom God bends the heart of Arioch,
the executioner of this decree, to stay his hand. Daniel goes to the king,
God stays Nebuchadnezzar's fury, and moves his heai't to give them time.
The providence is chiefly intended for the preservation of Daniel and his
godly companions, but the rest of the wise men have the benefit of it. As
the water with which a man waters his choicest plants and flowers in his
garden is intended only for them, yet some falling ofi" from those flowers
refresheth the weeds that grow under them. If God had not had such
flowers as Daniel and his companions, the weeds in Ghaldea had been
plucked up. Yet the ungrateful world takes no notice of the benefits they
receive from this salt of the earth, which preserves them, and to whom they
are all so much beholding. Lot had been the occasion of restoring Zoar
from captivity, as I mentioned before, for the inhabitants of that city were
engaged with those of Sodom in the fight against the four kings (' And the
king of Bela, the same is Zoar,' Gen. xiv. 8) ; and perhaps were carried
captives with the rest of their neighbours ; and it had been saved from the
flames which fell upon Sodom merely by Lot's prayer : Gen. xix. 21, ' See,
I have accepted thee concerning this thing, that I will not overthrow this city
for the which thou hast spoken ; ' yet he found them a surly people, and was
requited with a rude reception, notwithstanding his kindness : ver. 13, 'He
went up out of Zoar, for he feared to dwell in Zoar.' It was not likely he
was so distrustful of God, that he should overthrow it, when he had abso-
lutely promised him the contrary ; therefore most likely for some churlish
threatenings from them. Nay, Sodom itself was beholden to him for a
small respite of the judgment intended against them. For God tells him
he could do nothing till he were come thither. Gen. xix. 22. And it was
so, for Lot was entered into Zoar before a drop of brimstone and fire was
rained down upon Sodom : ver. 23, 24, * Then the Lord rained upon
Sodom ; ' when ? When Lot was entered into Zoar. This good the
wicked world get by God's people is so evident, that sometimes wicked men
cannot but take notice of it. Laban, a selfish idolater, was sensible of it :
Gen. XXX. 27, ' I have found by experience that the Lord hath blessed me
for thy sake.' It was a lesson so legible that he might have learned it
sooner than in fourteen years. The church is the chief object of preserva-
tion, wicked men are preserved for their sakes ; as dung is preserved, not
for its own sake, but for the manuring a fruitful field, and thorns in the
hedge are preserved for the garden's sake.
7. It is then a very foolish thing for any to contend against the welfare
of God's people. It is to strive against an almighty and unwearied pro-
vidence. Men may indeed sometimes be sufiered by God for holy ends to
have their wills, in some measure, upon the church, but not altogether ;
they must first depose him from his throne, blind his eyes, or hold his arm.
VOL. I. o
98 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
It is as foolish as if a worm should design to dig down a mountain, or chaflf
to martial itself in battle array against the wind, or for a poor fly to stop
the motion of a millstone.
(1.) It is foolish, because it is exceeding sinful. What is done against the
church is rather done against God than against it ; since all her constitu-
tion, worship, observances, are directed to God as their ultimate end ; so
that to endeavour to destroy the church is to deny God a worship, deprive
him of his sanctuary, break open his house, ravish his spouse, cut off
Christ's body, rob him of his jewels, and will be so interpreted by God at
the last, upon the scanning of things. If the church be God's house, the
enemies shall answer for every invasion, every forcible entry, for the
breaking down the gates and bars of it, God will sue them at last for dilapi-
dations.
(2.) Very unsuccessful. Shall God be afraid of the multitudes and power
of men ? No more than * a lion, or a young lion roaring after his prey,
when a multitude of shepherds are called forth against them, shall he be
afraid of their voice, or abase himself for their noise,' Isa. xxxi. 4. Noise
and clamour is all they can do, and that not long ; the fierceness of the lion
quickly scatters them. The associations, and men's girding themselves
against the church, is but a preparation to their own ruin : Isa. viii. 9,
' Associate yourselves together, 0 ye people, and ye shall be broken in
pieces,' three times repeated. Your counsels, saith he, shall not stand
against that presence of God that is with us, * for God is with us.'
(3.) It is very destructive too. God will not alway be still and refrain
himself; he seems to do so for a while, but when he doth arise he will
destroy and devour at once, Isa. xlii. 14, he will make but ^one morsel
of them. When God is angry with his people, and gives them into the
hands of men to execute his justice upon them, and punish them, he will
even punish those enemies for their cruelty, and going beyond their com-
mission, in satisfying tbeir own immoderate passions upon them. Upon this
account God threatens Babylon: Isa. xlvii. 0, ' I was wroth with my people;
I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thy hand : thou
didst shew them no mercy ; ' whereupon God threatens them afterwards,
&c. ; so Zech. i. 15, God was sore displeased with the heathen, for when
he was 'but a little displeased' with his people, ' they helped forward the
affliction.'
Use 2. Is for comforL
If all the providence of God be for the good of the church, if his eyes run
to and fro to shew himself strong for them, it affords matter of great com-
fort. His providence is continual for them, Zech. iv. 2. He hath seven
pipes to convey kindness to them, as well as seven lamps whereby to
discern their straits. His providence is as vast as his omniscience. The
number of pipes belonging to the candlestick of the church is exact accord-
ing to the number of lamps. The church's misery cannot be hid from God's
eye, let it be in what part of the earth soever, for his eyes run to and fro
throughout the whole earth, and his sight excites his strength. Upon the
sight of their distressed condition he watches only for the fittest opportunity
to shew himself strong for them. And when that opportunity comes he is
speedy in the deliverance of them : Ps. xviii. 10, ' He rode upon a cherub,
and did fly ; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.' He doth not
only ride upon a cherub, but fly. His wings are nothing but wind, which
hath the quickest and strongest motion, which moves the gi'eatest bodies,
and turns down all before it. What is for the good of the whole hath an
influence upon every member of the body.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENOB. 09
1. It is comfort in duties and special services. Nothing shall be wanting
for encouragement to duty, and success in it when God calls any to it, since
all his providence is for the good of the church. Let there be but sincerity
on our parts, in our attempts of service upon God's call, and we need not
fear a want of providence on God's part. God never calls any to serve his
church in any station, but he doth both spirit and encourage them. God
hath in his common providence suited the nature of every creature to that
place in which he hath set it in the world ; and will he not much more in
his special providence suit every one to that place he calls them to, for the
service of his church ? He did not forsake Christ in redeeming his church,
neither will he forsake any in assisting his church. When Joseph of
Arimathea would boldly demand the body of our Saviour, providence made
the way plain before him ; he meets with no check, neither from Pilate nor
the priests. Mat. xxvii. 58, Mark xv. 43.
2. In meanness and lowness. It is one and the same God that rules the
affairs of the whole world, of the church and of every particular member of
it. As it is the same soul that informs the whole body, the meanest mem-
ber as well as that which is most excellent. Not the meanest sincere
Christian but is under God's eye for good. The Spirit acts and animates
every member in the church, the weakest as well as the most towering
Christian. Baruch was but the prophet Jeremiah's amanuensis or scribe,
and servant to Jeremiah (who was no great man in the world himself), yet
God takes notice so of his service, that he would particularly provide for
him, and commands Jeremiah in a way of prophecy to tell him as much :
Jer. xlv. 5, ' I will bring evil upon all flesh, but thy life will I give unto thee
for a prey, whithersoever thou goest.'
3. In the greatest judgments upon others. In an epidemical judg-
ment upon the whole nation of the Jews, God would have a special care of
Baruch. If he should cast his people far off among the heathen, and scatter
them among the countries, yet even there he would be a little sanctuary
unto them. His own presence should supply the want of a temple, so he is
pleased to express himself, Ezek. xi. 16. But how is it possible the great
God can be but a little sanctuary ? His eye is upon them to see their
danger, and his hand upon them to secure them from it. His promise shall
shield them, and his wings shall cover them, Ps. xci. 4. While he hath
indignation, he hath a secret chamber for their security, Isa. xxvi. 20,
an almighty shadow under which they abide, Ps. xci. 1. In times of the
most devouring danger he hath a seal to set upon their foreheads as a mark
of his special protection. We never have so much experience of God's care
and strength as in times of trouble : Ps. xxxvii. 39, ' He is their strength
in time of trouble.' He is a friend who is as able as willing, and as willing
as able to help them, whose watchfulness over them is as much above their
apprehension as it is above their merits.
4. In the greatest extremities wherein his people may be, there are pro-
mises of comfort, Isa. xliii. 2. Both in overflowing waters and scorching
fires he will be with them ; his providence shall attend his promise, and his
truth shall be their shield and buckler, Ps. xci. 4. That surely is a sufli-
cient support ; Christ thought it so, when he only said to his disciples, ' It
is I, be not afraid,' John vi, 17, 18. What though there be a storm, a
darkness, and trouble, ' It is I am he.' The darkness of the night troubles
not the pilot whilst he hath his compass to steer by. If all his providences
be for the good of them that fear him, he can never want means to bring
them out of trouble, because he is always actually exercised in governing
that which is for their good, and till he sees it fit to deliver them, he will be
100 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
with them. Great mercies succeed the sharpest afflictions, Jer. xxx. 5, 6, 7,
&c. When there should be a voice of trembUng, and men with their hands
upon their loins, as women in travail, and paleness in their faces from the
excess of their fears, in that day God would break the yoke from them, and
they should serve the Lord their God, and David their king. Though the
night be never so dark, yet it is certain the sun will rise and disperse its
li»ht next morning, and one time or other shew itself in its brightness. We
have no reason to despond in great extremities, since he can think us into
safety, — Ps. xl. 17, 'Lord, think on me,' — much more look us into it; his
thoughts and his eyes move together.
5. In fear of wants. The power of the government of the world cannot
be doubted. His love, as little as it seems, since it hath moved him to pre-
pare heaven to entertain his people at the end of their journey, it will not
be wanting to provide accommodation for them upon the way, since all
things, both good and bad, are at his beck, and under the government of his
gracious wisdom. His eyes run to and fro through the whole earth, not
only to defend them in dangers, but supply them in wants, for his strength
is shewed both ways. Doth he providentially regard them that have no
respect for him, and will he not employ his power for, and extend his care
to them that adore and love him, and keep up his honour in the world? He
will not surely be regardless of the afflictions of bis creatures. His people
are not only his creatures, but his new creatures ; their bodies are not only
created by him, but redeemed by his Son. The purchase of the Redeemer
is joined to the providence of the Creator. If he take care of you when he
might have damned you for your sins, will he not much more since you are
believers in Christ ? And he cannot damn you believing, unless he renounce
his Son's mediation and his own promise. A natural man provides for his
own, much more a righteous man : Pro. xiii. 22, ' A good man leaves an
inheritance to his children,' much more the God of righteousness, a God
who hath his eye always upon them. His eye will affect his heart, and hia
heart spirit the hand of his power to reheve them. He hath ' prepared of
his goodness for the poor,' Ps. Ixviii. 10.
6. It is comfort in the low estate of the church at any time. God's eye
is upon his church even whilst he seems to have forsaken them. If he seem
to be departed, it is but in some other part of the earth, to shew himself
strong for them ; wherever his eye is fixed in any part of the world, his
church hath his heart, and his church's relief is his end. Though the
church may sometimes lie among the pots in a dirty condition, yet there is
a time of resurrection, when God will restore it to its true glory, and make
it as white as a dove with its silver wings, Ps. Ixviii. 13. The sun is not
alway obscured by a thick cloud, but will be freed from the darkness of it.
' God will judge his people, and repent himself concerning his servants,'
Ps. cxxxv. 14.* It is a comfort to God to deliver his people, and he will
do it in such a season when it shall be most comfortable to his glory and
their hearts. The very name Jerusalem some derive from Jireh Salem,
' God will provide in Salem.' The new Jerusalem is the title given to God's
church. Rev. xxi., and is still the object of his providence, and he will provide
for it at a pinch : Gen. xxii. 14, ' Jehovah Jireh,' God will raise up the
honour and beauty of his church ; great men shall be servants to it, and
employ their strength for it when God shall have mercy on it, Isa. Ix. 10, 12;
yea, the learning and knowledge of the world shall contribute to the building
of it ; ver. 13, ' The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree,
the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary.
* QniD''j comfort himself.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 101
It shall be called the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel,
that she may know that the Lord is her Saviour, and her Redeemer, the
mighty one of Jacob.' As Christ rose in his natural, so he will in his
spiritual body. If Christ when dead could not be kept from rising, Christ
now living shall not be hindered from rising and helping his church. His
own glory is linked with his people's security, and though he may not be
moved for anything in them because of their sinfulness, he will for his own
name, because of its excellency : Ezek. xxxvi. 22, ' I do not this for your
sakes, 0 house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake.' As sorrows in-
creased upon the Israelites, the nearer their deliverance approached.
Because this method of God is the greatest startling even to good men,
let us consider this a little, that God doth, and why God doth, leave his
church to extremities before he doth deliver it.
Take the resolution of this in some propositions.
1. It is indeed God's usual method to leave the church to extremity
before he doth command help. You never heard of any eminent deliverance
of the church but was ushered in by some amazing distress. The Israelites
were not saved till they were put in between sea, hills, and forts, that their
destruction was inevitable, unless heaven relieved them. Pharaoh resolves
to have his will, and God resolves to have his ; but he lets him come with
his whole force and open mouth at the Israelites' backs, and then makes the
waters his sepulchre. Constantine, the man-child in the Revelation, was
preceded by Diocletian, the sharpest persecutor. When his people are at a
loss, it is his usual time to do his greatest works for them ; God had pro-
mised Christ many ages, and yet no appearance of him ; still promise after
promise, and no performance, Ps. xl. 8. It was then, ' Lo, I come,' yet
many hundred years rolled away, and no sight of him yet. Captivity and
affliction, and no Redeemer ; but when the world was overrun with idolatry,
the Jews oppressed by the Romans, the sceptre departed from Judah, Herod
an Edomite and stranger-king, and scarce any faith left, then, then he comes.
The world will be in much the like case at his next coming : Luke xviii. 8,
• When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith in the earth ? ' There
shall be faintings, despondency, unbelief of his promise, as though he had
cast off all care of his church's concerns. It is not meant of a justifying
faith, but a faith in that particular promise of his coming. The faith of the
Israelites must needs begin to flag when they saw their males murdered by
the Egyptians ; could they believe the propagation of the seed of Abraham,
■when murder took off the infants, and labour and age would in time the old
ones ? Whilst their children were preserved, the promise might easily be
believed. But consider, this was but just before their deliverance ; like a
violent crisis before recovery. He doth then 'judge his people, and repent
himself for his servants, when he sees their power is gone, and there is none
shut up or left,' Deut. xxxii. 36. He doth so for the wicked many times.
When the affliction of idolatrous Israel was bitter, when there was not any
shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel, then he saved them by the
hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, 2 Kings xiv. 26, 27. He doth so with
private persons ; Peter might have been delivered by God's power out of prison
when he was first sent thither, but God thought it fittest for him to He in chains,
and free him but the night before his intended execution. Acts xii. 6, 7. Lot
had his goods rifled and carried away captive before God stirred up Abraham
to rescue him. When the hand of the wicked lies heaviest upon the heads of
the righteous, and wrings the most mournful sighs from them ; when they are
needy, and the wicked securely puffing. at them, as though they had brought
them to so low a condition as to blow them away with a blast; ' Now,' saith
102
A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PEOVIDENCE. [2 ChEON. XVI. 9.
God, 'will I arise: ' Ps. xii. 5, ' For the oppression of the poor, for the sigh-
ing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord ; I will set him at' safety
from him that puflfeth at him.' Now, this is the time I watched for as fittest
for my own glory and their safety. Then God disappoints them, when they
seem to have got to the goal, with the ball at their foot.
Secondly, God hereby doth glorify himself. He then discovers that there
is nothing too high for his power to check, nothing too subtle for his wisdom
to disappoint, nothing too low for his love to embrace. That is the season
wherein his mercy will be most prized, his power most admired, his wisdom
most adored, and his justice most cleared. God lets the concerns of his
church go backward, that he may bring them on with more glory to himself
and satisfaction to his creature. God will divide the benefit and the honour
between himself and the creature ; he will have the whole glory, and his
creature shall have the sensible advantage. They shall enjoy salvation,
there is their benefit, but ' not by sword or bow, but by the Lord their
God,' Hosea i. 7. Saved they should be, but in such a way wherein the
honour of God might most appear, without any mixture of the creature.
1. God glorifies his power. His eyes run to and fro to shew himself
strong. He will then pitch upon such a season when his strength may
appear most illustrious, and none else have any pretence to claim an equal
strength with him. A time of extremity is the fittest opportunity for this,
when his power cannot be clouded by any interpositions of the creature for
challenging a share in it. The greater the malice against the church, the
weaker the church's ability to help itself, the more glorious is the power of
God magnified in deliverance ; little dangers are not so suitable for the
triumph of an infinite strength. As God let Christ lie three days in the
grave, that his resurrection might be known to be the fruit of a divine power,
for the same end he lets his mystical body lie in the same condition. Had
God brought Israel out of Egypt in the time of the kings that were friends
to them from a kindly remembrance of Joseph, there had been no character
of a divine power, though there had been of a divine truth apparent in the
case ; but he set apart that time for their deliverance, when he was to con-
test with the mightiest opposition from the whole body of the Egyptian
nation, who had forgot Joseph their great benefactor. Had not the disciples
been in a great storm, ready to be cast away, and Christ asleep till they
were in extremity, they had not seen such visible marks of the extensiveness
of their Master's power, Isa. xxxiii. 7, 8, &c. When the hearts of the
strong men fainted, when the Assyrians would not hear the ambassadors of
peace, when they had broke their former covenant, resolved to invade the
land, when their calamity and despair had arrested all their hopes, ' Now,'
when all things are in such a deplorable state, ' will I rise, saith the Lord,
now will I be exalted ; now will I lift up myself.' God was not asleep or
unconcerned, but he sat still watching for such a season ; now is three times
repeated. The Psalmist gives us a record of this in his particular case.
When the waters of his affliction were many, the enemy strong, and too
strong for him, their strength edged with an intense hatred, then God
appears to be his stay, and prevents them in the day of his calamity, Ps.
xviii. 16-18. God lets his enemies be too strong for him, that he might
appear his only stay, without any mixture of David's strength in the case.
When the Jews thrust Christ out of Nazareth, led him to the brow of the
hill, and were ready to cast him down, then, and not till then, he frees him-
self out of their hands, and disappoints the effects of their rage, Luke iv. 29.
As Christ dealt thus for himself, so he deals for his church in all ages.
2. God glorifies his wisdom. ' His eyes run to and fro throughout the
2 Chron. XVI. 9.] A DiscomtsE of divine providence. 108
whole earth, to shew himself strong.' It is not a bare strength that God
would shew, or such a power which we call in man a brntish valour, without
wit or skill, but to shew his strength with his wisdom, when all his other
attributes may be glorified with that of his power. When all worldly helps
are departed, we can as little ascribe our security to our own wisdom and
industry as to our own strength and power. The physician's skill is best
evidenced in mastering a desperate disease. He will bring the counsels of
the heathen to nought, Ps. xxxiii. 10. He will let them counsel, he will let
them devise and carry on their counsels near to execution, that he may shew
that, as the strength of hell is no match for his power, so the craft of Satan
is no mate for his wisdom. But he raises the trophies of his wisdom upon
the subtle devices of his enemies.
3. God glorifies his care and compassion. When his people are nearest
crushing, God is nearest preserving. God's mercy is greatest when his
saints' misery is deepest ; when Zion is as an outcast, it shall be taken into
God's protection : Jer. xxx. 16, 17, ' I will heal thee of thy wounds, because
they called thee an outcast, saying. This is Zion whom no man seeks after.'
W^hen none stood up to plead for her, when her lovers she depended on,
had forgotten and forsaken her, when they thought her cast out of the care
of any creature, the Creator would take her up. When the ruin was inevi-
table as to man, their preservation was most regarded by God. Had God
stopped Pharaoh at his first march, by raising some mutiny in his array, his
mercy to his people, as well as his power against his enemies, had not been
so conspicuous. The more desperate things are, the litter subject for the
advancement of God's kindness. Had God conducted the Israelites through
a rich and fruitful country, it would have obscured the glory of his care of
them, which was more signal in directing them through a barren desert,
crowded with fiery serpents, without bread to nourish them, or water to cool
them, wherein he manifested himself to be both their caterer and physician.
Moses was never more peculiarly under God's protection, no, not when he
had the whole guard of Israel about him in the wilderness, than when his
mother had exposed him to the river forlorn, in a pitched ark, and forsaken
by his sister, who stood aloof off to see how providence would conduct him.
When Laban was possessed with fury against Jacob, God countermands it,
and issues out his own order to him, how he should behave himself towards
his son. Gen. xxxi. 24, 29. God times his kindness, so that it may appear
to be nothing else but grace, grace with a w'itness, that his people may be
able to understand the very particularities of it : Isa. xxx. 18, ' Therefore will
the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you.' He leaves them therefore
for a while to the will of their enemies : verse 17, ' At the rebuke of five
shall you flee, till you be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain,
and as an ensign upon a hill.' Never is salvation sweeter, and mercy better
relished, than when it snatcheth us out of the teeth of danger. God would
have his mercy valued, and it is tit it should. And when is a calm more
grateful than after the bitterest storm, attended with the highest despair?
God's mercy in sparing Isaac after the knife was at his throat, was more
welcome and more delicious both to father and son, than if God had revealed
his intent to Abraham in the three days' journey to the mount Moriah. But
God suspending his soul in bitterness all that time, prepared his heart for
the valuation of that mercy. When human help forsaketh us, God most
embraceth us : Ps. xxvii. 10, ' When my father and mother forsake me,
then the Lord will take me up.'
4. God glorifies his righteousness and justice. There is a measure of
wickedness God stays for, which will be an object of his justice without
104 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
exception. When the measure of a people's covetousness is come, ' then
their end is come, and God will fill them with men as with caterpillars, and
they shall lift up a shout against them,' Jer. H. 13, 14. Hereby God clears
the justice of his proceedings, that he exercised patience so long, that things
were come to that pass, that either his people or his enemies must be de-
stroyed. As the case was with the Israelites, had not God marvellously
appeared, every man of them had been cut off or reduced to slavery. The
die was cast, either the Egyptians or Israelites must be defeated ; either
God must appear for his church, or none would be left in the world to pro-
fess him. In such a case the justice of God is more unexceptionable. No
man has any semblance for complaining of him ; for he struck not till the
safety of his adversaries was inconsistent with his own honour and interest
of the world. When men come to such a height, as to slight and resolve to
break the laws of God, then is the time for the honour of his righteousness
in his own institutions, to vex them in his sore displeasure : Ps. ii. 3, 5,
' Then shall he speak to them in his wrath, and vex them,' &c. When ?
When they resolve to 'cast away his bands and cords from them,' ver. 2.
He is forced to rise then, when men make void his law, and tread down the
honour of it ; when they would not have God to have a standing law in the
world, or a people to profess him : Ps. cxix. 126, ' It is time for the Lord
to work, for they have made void thy law.' When the grapes of wickedness
are thus fully ripe, then is God's time for the honour of his justice to cast
them into the wine-press of his wrath. Rev. xiv. 19, 20. This is God's set
time, when he may glorify, without any exception, his justice in punishing
his enemies' sins, his wisdom in defeating his enemies' plots, his power in
destroying his enemies' strength, and his mercy in reheving his people's
wants.
Thirdly, Such extremities and deliverance in them, are most advantageous
for his people.
1. It being a season to improve and know their interest. Men do not
usually seek to God, or at least so earnestly, as when they are in distress ;
the time of the tempest was the time of the disciples' praying to Christ.
The Israelites, you scarce find them calUng upon God but in times of danger
and distress ; hereby God doth encourage and give an argument for prayer.
The Psalmist useth the extremity of the church often as an argument to move
God to pity : Ps. cxxiii. 3, ' Have mercy upon us, 0 Lord, have mercy upon
us, for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.' We are glutted with con-
tempt, as low as low can be : so Ps. xliv. 23, 24, ' Awake, why sleepest
thou, 0 Lord ? arise, cast us not ofi" for ever ; our soul is bowed to the dust.'
That is the most successful time for prayer, which is the time of the stirring
of God's bowels. He hath been a ' strength to the poor, a strength to the
needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat,
when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall,' Isa. xxv. 4.
They in such a time find how considerable their interest is with God, when
upon their prayer they shall find relief suitable to every kind of danger they
are in. The spirit of prayer upon the church is but the presage of their
adversaries' ruin. When God seeks to destroy the nations that come against
Jerusalem, he will pour upon the inhabitants of it a spirit of gi-ace and of
supphcation : Zech. xii, 9, ' And in that day I will seek to destroy all the
nations that come against Jerusalem, and I will pour upon the house of
David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplica-
tion,' This time of extremity, when all their hands fail, should edge the
church's prayers. Our great intercessor seems in this case to set us a
pattern : Zech. i. 12, ' 0 Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy
2 ChRON, XVI. 9.] A DISCOUESE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 105
upon Jerusalem !' (rTJ^hJ single by itself, not in an affix.) When all the
earth sits still and is at rest, unconcerned in the ailairs of thy church, if
tlt-ou wilt not have mercy on them in this strait, who shall relieve them ?
none else have any mind to it ; then issue out comfortable words to the
angel from the mouth of God. This is an advantage of extremity ; it sets
Christ a pleading, and the church on praying.
2. As a season for acting faith at present, and an encouragement of re-
liance upon him in future straits. As a season for acting faith at present.
Our Saviour lets Lazarus die and stink in the grave, before he raised him,
that he might both confirm faith in his disciples' hearts, and settle it in the
hearts of some of the Jews. John xi. 15, 45, ' I am glad for your sakes
that I was not there, to the intent that ye may believe.' What, let Lazarus
die, one that he loved, one so strongly pleaded for by two sisters that he
loved too, and solicited upon his friendship to relieve him ! ver. 3, ' Behold,
he whom thou lovest is sick,' and our Saviour glad he was not there to pre-
vent it ! yes, not glad of Lazarus his extremity, nor of the church's, but of
the opportunity to give them greater ground of faith and encouragement to
trust him. The church's faith is God's glory. He that hath many things
to trust to, is in suspense which he should take hold of ; but when there is
but one left, with what greediness will he clasp about that ! God cuts down
worldly props, that we might make him our stay. How will the church in
extremity recollect all the deliverances of it in former ages, and put them up
in pleas to God, for a renewal of his wonted kindness and new successions
of deliverance, whereby God gets the glory of his former work, and his church
the present comfort in renewing fiducial acts upon him ! How doth Jehosha-
phat put God in mind of his gracious assistance acted some ages before,
when he was in a strait, by the invasion of a powerful army : 2 Chron.
XX. 7, ' Art not thou our God that didst drive out the inhabitants of this
land before thy people Israel ?' ver. 12, ' We know not what to do, but our
eyes are upon thee.' Never are the church's eyes so fixed upon God, never
God's eyes so fixed upon the church, as in times of their distress. Then
there is a sweet communion with, and recounting of all their former friend-
ships. The church then throws itself wholly upon God ; its prosperity is
but like a troubled sea, its distress is the time of its rest. So Asa, when
assaulted by a million of men under Zerah the Ethiopian, how doth he throw
himself and the whole weight of his concerns upon the hands of God , and makes
his cause God's ! 2 Chron. xiv. 11, ' Help us, 0 Lord our God, for we rest
on thee ; 0 Lord, thou art our God, let not man prevail against thee.'
And there is an encouragement also in the deliverance for future faith. It
gives a ground for future faith from the riches of the present experience ; in
such distresses there is the highest experience of God, and hope is the fruit of
experience. How apt are we to believe God in other straits, when we have
had assistance (like they that dreamed) come unexpectedly upon us. God
overthrew Pharaoh's host in the Red Sea, when they were upon the heels of
the affrighted Israelites and ready to crush them, but God gave them ' to be
meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness,' Ps. Ixxiv. 14, as a standing
excellent dish to feed their hopes for all future deliverances upon their trust
in God. And indeed that dehverance was an earnest of their perpetual
security, by special providence in any succeeding trouble. And God often
gives them a particular charge to remember that deliverance, with a practical
remembrance to still their fear and support their faith : Deut. vii. 18, ' Thou
shalt not be afraid of them, but shalt well remember what the Lord thy God
did unto Pharaoh, and to all the Egyptians.' He would have them remem-
ber it as a covenant-mercy, * what the Lord thy God did,' thy God in cove-
106 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
nant, not what the Lord did barely by an arm of power, but what he did by
a vastness of affection, and as a God of truth and firmness in his covenant.
3. In fitting them by the extremity for a holy reception of the mercy
intended.
God keeps up the distress of his church to expel self-confidence. Trust
in earthly things are the great checks of God's kindness. We hardly
forsake this temper till we are forsaken by all those things we confide in.
Times of extremity make us more humble ; and humility, like the plough,
fits us for the seed of mercy. The gardener's digging up the clods is but
tD prepare the earth for the receiving and nourishing some excellent plants
he intends to put into its womb. There is a certain set time for God's
great actions. He lets the powers of darkness have their hour, and God
will take his hour: Ps. cii. 13, 'Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon
Sion : for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come.' He hath a
set time for the discovery of his mercy, and he will not stay a jot beyond it.
What is this time ? ver. 9, &c. When they ' eat ashes like bread, and
mingle their drink with weeping ;' when they are most humble, and when
the servants of God have more affection to the church ; when their humble
and ardent afl'ections are strong, even to the ruin and rubbish of it ; when
they have a mighty desire and longing for the reparation of it, as the Jews
in captivity had for the very dust of the temple : ver. 14, • For thy servants
take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof.' For there notes
it to be a reason why the set time was judged by them to be come. That is
God's set time when the church is most believing, most humble, most affec-
tionate to God's interest in it, and most sincere. Without faith we are not
fit to desire mercj', without humility we are not fit to receive it, without
affection we are not fit to value it, without sincerity we are not fit to improve
it. Times of extremity contribute to the growth and exercise of those qua-
lifications.
4. In securing them against future straits. For God's disappointing
enemies when they think themselves sure of all, is the highest discourage-
ment to them, and those of the like temper, to renew the like attempt ; but
if they do, it is an evidence they shall meet with the like success ; it is the
highest vexation to see their projects diverted, when they have lighted their
match, and are ready to give fire. Men may better take notice how God
loves his people, when he apprehends their adversaries in the very pinnacle
of their pride, and flings them down from the mount of their hopes. It
doth not only dash the present designs, but dishearten future attempts. The
Egyptians, after their overthrow at the Red Sea, never attempted to disturb
them in their journey in the wilderness. It was a bridle to all their enemies
except Amalek, upon whose country they travelled in the wilderness, when
it was the interest of state in all those nations to rout that swarm of people
that must have some seat to dwell in ; and evei-y nation might justly fear to
be dispossessed by them ; yet we read of no league among those nations
bordering upon the wilderness, such a terror did God strike into them by
that relief he gave his people in their extremity at the Red Sea, v/hereby
he provided for their future security in their whole jom-ney. It was this
melted the hearts of the Gibeonites, one of the nations of Canaan, and
brought them to a submission to Joshua, as the sentiment of all their neigh-
bours : Josh. ix. 9, ' We are come, because of the name of the Lord thy
God ; for we have heard the fame of him, and all that he did in Egypt.'
And for this and other reasons it may be, that the times before the church's
last deliverance shall be sharper than any before, which our Saviour inti-
mates, Mat. xxiv. 21, ' For then there shall be great tribulation, such as
2 ChEON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 107
was not since the beginning of the world, no, nor ever shall bo.' In dis-
coursing his disciples of the troubles at the destruction of Jerusalem, which
was a typo of the trouble preceding the end of the world, he adds a discourse
of what shall bo at the end of the world, in the last attempt of the .enemies
of the church ; for, ver. 29, he saith, ' immediately after the tribulation of
those days,' ho speaks of his coming in the clouds of heaven with groat power
and glory. And also in the Revelation : Rev. xvi. 18, ' And there was a
great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty
an earthquake, and so great.' This, perhaps, at the pouring out of the
seventh viul, may concern the Christian church as well as the antichristian
party. But the reason why it may be sharper just before that last deliverance,
than it was in former ages, may be because it is the last eti'ort the enemy
shall make ; the last demonstration of God's power and wisdom for, and
care of his church, and justice upon his enemies in such cases ; the last
season for their multiplying their cries, and acting their faith for such a
concern.
Use 3. Of exhortation.
If it be so, that the providence of God is chiefly designed for the good of
the church, —
First, Fear not the enemies of the church. It is a wrong to God. Fear
of man is always attended with a forgetfulness of God : Isa. li. 12, 13, ' I,
even I, am he that comforteth you : who art thou, that art afraid of a man
that shalt die, and of the son of man that shalt be made as grass : and for-
gettest the Lord thy Maker, who hath stretched forth the heavens,' &c. It
is to value the power of grass above the po\Yer of the Creator, as though
that had more ability to hurt than God to help. As if men were as strong
as mountains, and God as weak as a bulrush. It is a wrong to his truth ;
hath he not comforted you in his promise ? What creature should then
deject you ? It is a wrong to his mercy. Is he not the Lord thy Maker ?
Calvin refers this to regeneration, and not creation. Hath he not renewed
you by his Spirit ? and will he not protect you by his strength ? and that
you may not question his power, look up to the heavens which he hath
stretched out, and the foundation; of the earth which he hath laid. And is
that arm which hath done such mighty works, too weak to defend that
work, which is choicer in his eye than either the extended heaven or the
established earth ? We vilify God, and defile his glory, when our fear of man's
power stifles our faith in God : Isa. viii. 12, 13, ' Neither fear you their fear, nor
be afraid : sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself, and let him be your fear.'
Let the wicked fear the Assyrians, and engage in confederacies against them ;
but let your eyes be lifted up to me and my providence. God will either
turn away the mouth of the cannon from the church, or arm it against the
shot ; either preserve it from a danger, protect it in it, or sanctify it to the
church ; and who need fear a sword in a father's hand ?
1. Will you fear man, who have a God to secure you? The church
belongs to God, not to man as a just propriety: Isa. xliii. 1, ' Fear not :
for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by my name : thou art mine.
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee,' &c. ' Thou art
mine,' not man's. Thou art mine, I am thine. I will be with thee as
thine, I will secure thee as mine. Is my creating, is my forming, is my
redeeming thee to no purpose ? I will not secure you from trouble ; but
surely my redemption of you, the propriety I have in you, should secure you
from fears in those troubles. None shall hurt you whilst I have power to
defend you. God with us, if well considered and believed, is sufficient to still
those fears which have the greatest outward objects for their encouragement :
108 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
Ps. xxvii. 1, * The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid ?'
If God be our strength to support us, why should the weakness of dust and
ashes scare us ? Alliance to great men, and protection of princes, prop up
men's hearts against the fear of others ; and shall alliance to God be of a
weaker efficacy ? A heathen- could so argue, that knew nothing of redemp-
tion. Let the counsels of enemies be crafty, Ps. Ixxxiii. 3 ; yet they con-
sult against God's hidden ones, hidden by God, whilst plotted against by
men : who would fear the stratagems of men, whilst protected in an impreg-
nable tower ? God hides, when men are ready to seize the prey. How did
the angel protect a sincere trembling Lot against the invasion of a whole
city, and secured his person whilst he blinded his enemies' eyes that they
could not find the door. Instruments cannot design more maliciously, than
Christ watches over them affectionately. Christ hath his eye to see your
works and danger where Satan hath his throne, Eev. ii. 13.
2, Will you fear men, who have a God to watch over their motions ?
What counsels can prevail where God intends to overrule their resolves ?
There is no place so close as to keep private resolutions from his knowledge.
This was the thought of those statesmen against whom the prophet Isaiah
thunders, Isa. xxix. 15, IG : ' Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their
counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark ; surely your turn-
ing of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay.' Their
counsels were as well known to him as the potter's clay is to the potter,
which he can either frame into a vessel, or fling away into the mass from
whence he took it. God hath not despoiled himself of his government ; nor
will devolve his right upon any men to dispose of his concerns. When men
think to act so secretly, as though they framed themselves, as though God's
eye were not upon them, he will watch and trace all their motions, and
make them insignificant to their purposes. Satan himself, the slyest and
subtilest agent, is too open to God to hide his counsels from him. Never
fear man till the whole combined policies of bell can control the resolves of
heaven, till God wants omniscience to dive into their secrets, skill to de-
feat their coimsels, and an arm to abate their power.
3. Will you fear men or devils, who have a God to restrain them ?
The great dragon and general of the serpent's seed is under a binding
power, who can bind him not only a thousand years. Rev. xx. 2, but a thou-
sand ages. Have his seed more force to resist almightiness than their
captain ? The prophet, speaking of the Assyrians threatening Jerusalem,
and the confusion in some cities for fear of them, yet, saith he, ' he shall
remain at Nob,' a city of the Levites, not far from Jerusalem, where he
might have a full prospect of the city. He shall but ' shake his hand,' he
shall not gripe it in his talons : he shall shew his teeth, but not bite, snarl
but not worry, Isa. x. 32. God will let out so much of the enemies' wrath
as may answer his gracious ends to the church in purging of them, but ' the
remainder of wrath,' which remains in their hearts for the church's destruc-
tion, ' he will restrain,' Ps. Ixxvi. 9, 10 ; as the physician weighs out as
much as may curb the disease, not kill the patient. The chain of providence
controls the power of Satan, when it doth not change his desires. The
Egyptian's will against the Israelites was strong, but his power was weak.
Might and power is only in the hand of God, who reigns over all, 1 Chron.
xxix. 12. And God will exert so much of power to bridle the inclinations
of nature in the wicked for the good of his people. He will give them so
much line as may serve his holy purposes, but not so much as shall prejudice
the church's standing. A staff is not capable of giving a smart blow with-
* Anam. in Epist. lib. i. c. 9.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 109
out tho force of the hand that holds it. Wicked men are no more than a stafif
in God's hand: Tsa. x. 5, ' Tho rod of my anger, the staif in their hand is my
indignation :' he can either strike with it, or l)rcak it in pieces. The staff is
still in tho hand of God, and can do no more than what his merciful arm moves
it to ; as he can restrain it, so he can divert it. What should wo fear those
whose hearts are in God's hands, whose enmity is under God's restraint,
who can change their fury into favour, or at least bridle it as ho doth the
waves of the sea ? No enemy's shot can exceed God's commission. God
often laughs when men plot, and disappoints when they begin to act. Some-
times he makes them act contrary to their intentions. Balaam comes to
curse the people, and God turns his tongue to bless them, which, if guided
by his own heart, would have poured out execrations upon them, Num. xxiii.
7, 8. God puts the words into his mouth, but not in his heart, ver. 5, and
makes him bless that which his heart hates.
4. Will you fear them who have a God to ruin them ? Though the beast
in the Revelations hath seven heads, a reaching wisdom, and ten horns, a
mighty power, Rev. xvii. 3 (both the numbers of seven and ten being num-
bers of perfection in Scripture), yet, with all his wisdom and strength, he shall
tumble down to destruction ; they can no more resist God's power than
blustering winds or raging waves can cross his will. When the enemies of
the church are in combination, like thorns full of prickles ' folded together,'
then shall they ' be consumed like stubble that is dry,' Nahum i. 10. God
loves to defeat pride : Exod. xviii. 11, ' In the thing wherein they dealt
proudly, he was above them.' God waits but the time of their swelling to
make them burst. Absalom kills his brother, withdraws the people from
their obedience to the king, stirs them up to revolt, enters Jerusalem in his
father's absence, pollutes his concubines, engages his designs against his life,
raiseth an army against him ; who would not say David was in extremity,
and Absalom alone prospering in his designs ? But when Absalom comes
to open force, God arises, an oak catches him, his mule forsakes him, and
Joab despatches him. Sennacherib had prospered in his conquest of Judea,
taken many strong towns, laid siege to Jerusalem, solicits the people to
revolt, blasphemes the God of heaven, and then an angel comes and makes
a dreadful slaughter in a night, and he, returning to his own country, is
killed by his own sons, 2 Kings xix. 7, 35, 36, 37. God's arrows shall
never miss their mark, and he hath more than one to strike into the hearts
of his enemies : Ps. xviii. 14, * He sent out his arrows and scattered them.'
What reason then to fear even multitudes, who can never be too strong for
that God who gave them that little strength they have !
Secondly, The second duty to which we are exhorted. If all God's pro-
vidences tend to the good of his church and people,
2. Then censure not God in his dark providences. As we are often too
hasty in our desires for mercy, and are not content to stay God's time, so
we are too hasty in making constructions of providence, and will not stay
God's leisure of informing us. When God seems at the beginning of every
providence to speak the same language as Christ did to Peter in washing
his feet, John xiii. 7, * What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt
know hereafter,' the instruments are visible, the action sensible, but the
inward meaning still lies obscured from our view. We are too short-sighted
to apprehend and judge of God's works ; man cannot understand his own
way, Prov. xx. 24, much less the ways of an infinite God. God's judgments
are a great deep, Ps. xxxvi. 6 ; we may sooner fathom the deepest part in
the sea, understand all the turnings of those subterranean passages, lave
out the ocean with a spoon, or suck in, into our bellies, that great mass of
110 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
waters, than understand the ways of God with our shallow brains. He
makes darkness his pavilion ; he is sometimes very obscure in his ways.
Neither the greatness of his means, nor the wisdom of his workings, can be
fully apprehended by men. We have sense to feel the effects, but not heads
to understand the reasons and methods of the divine government. Eccles.
iii. 11, 'No man can find out the work that God makes from the beginning
to the end.' Though a man may see the beginning of God's works, yet is
he able to walk understandingly along with divine wisdom in every step it
takes ? will he not lose the track often before it comes to an end ? It is
not the face, but the back parts of providence which we behold ; why then
should we usurp an authority beyond our ability, and make ourselves God's
judges, as if infinite wisdom and power were bounded within the narrow
compass of our purblind reasons ? His ways are beyond our tracing, and
his counsels too high for our short measures. Since therefore God satisfies
the righteousness of his own will, let us submit our curiosity to his wisdom, and
forbear our censures of that exact righteousness and superlative wisdom which
we cannot comprehend.
1. Therefore, first fix this in your minds, that God is righteous, wise,
and good in everything. Good, therefore nothing can be hurtful to his
people ; righteous, therefore nothing unjust ; wise, therefore nothing in vain ;
our injurious thoughts of him make us so uncharitable towards him, and
greater censurers of his righteous ways than we are of men's wicked actions.
Clouds and darkness are about him ; our eye cannot pierce through his
darkness, or see the frame of his counsels ; yet let these principles be kept
as the centre, that ' righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his
throne,' Ps. Ixxxix. 14. He is righteous in his darkness, wise in his''cloudi-
ness ; though his judgments are unsearchable to us, and his ways past find-
incr out by our most industrious inquisitions, and a depth of knowledge and
wisdom there is in them too deep for us to measure, Rom. xi. 33. God was
always righteous, wise, and good ; he is the same still. Though the motions
of the planets be contrary, yet the sphere where they are fixed, the natures
wherewith they are created, are the same still. Though the providences of
God have various motions, yet the spring of his counsel, the rule of his
goodness, the eye of his wisdom, the arm of his power, are not altered. He
acts by the same rule, disposeth by the same wisdom, orders according to
the same righteousness ; he is unchangeable in the midst of the changeable
efiects of providence. The sun is the same body, which admits of no inward
alteration, keeps exactly its own motion, though its appearances are some-
times ruddy, sometimes clear ; its heat sometimes more faint, at another
time more scorching ; its distance sometimes nearer, sometimes farther off.
He must be very ignorant that thinks the objects upon which we look through
a prism or trigonal glass change their colours as often as they are represented
so in the various turnings of the glass. You see the undulations and
wavings of a chain which hangs perpendicularly, one part moves this way
and another that way, but the hand that holds it, or the beam to which it is
fastened, is firm and steady.
2. Distinguish between preparations to the main work and the perfection
of the work, between the motions of God's eyes and the discovery of his
strength ; his eyes move before his power. The neglect of this was the
cause of the Israelites' uncharitable censures of the kindness of God; they
interpret God's reducing them into the straits near the Red Sea a design
for their destruction, which was but the preparation for their complete
deliverance, in a way most glorious to God, and most comfortable and
advantageous to themselves.
2 ChRON. XVL 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. Ill
He that knows not the use of the grape, would foolishly censure a man
who should fling them into a wine-press, and squeeze them into mash,
which is but a preparation of them to afford that generous liquor which was
the end of their growth.* God treads his grapes in a wine-press to draw
from thence a delicate wine, and preserve the juice for his own use, which
would else wither upon the stalk, and dry up to nothing. We judge
not the husbandman angry with his ground for tearing it with his plough,
nor censure an artificer for hewing his stones or beating his iron, but
expect patiently the issue of the design. Why should we not pay the same
respect to God which we do to men in their arts, since we are less capable
of being judges of his incomprehensible wisdom than of the skill of our
fellow- creatures ? God in his cross providence prepares the church for
fruitfulness whilst he ploughs it. He may seem to be digging up the
bowels of the church, while he is only preparing to lay the foundation in
Sion for the raising a noble structure ; and in what shape soever he appears
in his preparations, he will in his perfection of it appear in glory: Ps. cii.
16, 'When the Lord shall build up Sion, he shall appear in glory;' and
evidence that he was restoring whilst we thought him destroying, and heal-
ing whilst we thought him wounding. As God hath settled a gradual pro-
gress in his works of creation, so by degrees he brings his everlasting
counsels to perfection. The seasons of the year are not jumbled together,
but orderly succeed one another; and the coldness of the winter is but a
preparation for a seasonable spring and a summer harvest. We do not
unrighteously accuse God of disorder in his common works, why should we
do it in his special works of providence ? Do we disparage the musician's
skill for the jarring and intelligible touches in the tuning the instrument,
but rather wait for the lesson he intends to play ? If we stay for God's
fuller touches of this great instrument of the world in the way of his pro-
vidence, it will, like David's harp, chase away that evil spirit from us which
is now too apt to censure him.
3. Fix not your eye only upon the sensible operations of providence, but
the ultimate end. As in a watch the various wheels have different motions,
yet all subservient to one end, to tell the true hour of the day and the mo-
tion of the sun, so are all the providences of God. Should any have been
preserved in the deluge upon some high mountain who had not known the
design of the ark, and had seen it floating upon such a mass of waters, he
would have judged the people in it in a deplorable condition, and have con-
cluded that it would have broke against the mountain, or been overturned
by the waves; yet that was Noah's preservative. Had any of us been with
Christ, and acknowledged him the Saviour of the world, and yet seen him
crucified in such a manner by men, and judged only by that, what wise and
what just constructions should we have made of that providence ? Much
the same as some of his disciples did: Luke xxiv. 21, 'We trusted that it
had been he which should have redeemed Israel;' but the whole design is
spoiled, we are fools, and he an impostor. Yet this, which seemed to be
the ruin of redemption, was the necessary highway to it by God's constitu-
tion. No other way was it to be procured : ver. 26, ' Ought not Christ to
have suffered these things, and to have entered into his glory ? ' His
entrance into glory to perfect our salvation was the end of the sensible
suffering wherein he laid the foundation. As they charge Christ with impos-
ture, not considering the end, so do we God with unrighteousness when we
consider not his aim. The end both beautifies and crowns the work; the
remarks of God's glory in the creation are better drawn from the ends of
* Morn de verit. Rel. Christian, cap. xii. p. 210, 211.
112 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChEON. XVI. 9.
the creatures, and their joint subserviency to them, than from any one
single piece of the creation. We must not only consider the present end,
but the remote end, because God in his providence towards his church
hath his end for after times. God acts for ends at a great distance from us,
which may not be completed till we are dead and rotten. How can we
judge of that which respects a thing so remote from us, unless we view it
in that relation ? God's aims in former providences were things to come,
his aims in present providences are things to come. As the matter of the
church's prayers, so the objects of God's providences are things to come:
Isa. xlv. 11, ' Ask me of things to come, concerning my sons.' The matter
of their prayers then were, that God would order all things for the coming of
the Messiah. The matter of the church's prayer now is, that God would
order all things for the perfecting the Messiah in his mystical body. The
whole frame of providence is for one entire design ; it is one entire book
with seven seals. Rev. v. 1. The beginning of a book, as well as the
middle, hath relation to the end. The design of God's book of providence
is but one in all the seven seals and periods of time.
4. Consider not only one single act of providence, but the whole scheme,
to make a conclusion. The motions of his eyes are various, but all ends in
discoveries of his strength. Men do not argue from one single proposition,
but draw the conclusion from several propositions knit together. It is by
such a spiritual logic we are to make our conclusions from the way of pro-
vidence ; as in the reading Scripture, if we take not the whole period, we
may make not only nonsense, but blasphemy;* as in that of the psalmist,
' Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in unrighteousness.' If a man
should read only, Thou art not a God, and make a full stop there, it would
be blasphemy ; but reading the whole verse, it is an excellent sense, and an
honourable declaration of God's holiness. Such errors will be committed
in reading the books of providence, if we fix our eyes only in one place, and
make a full stop where God hath not made any. We judge not of a picture
by the first draught, but the last lines ; not by one shadow or colour, but
by the whole composure. The wisdom of God is best judged of by the
view of the harmony of providence. The single threads of providence may
seem very weak or knotty and uneven, and seem to administer just occasion
of censure ; but will it not as much raise the admiration to see them all
woven into a curious piece of branched work ? Consider therefore God's
ways of working, but fully judge nothing till the conclusion, for that is to
judge before the time. Judge not then of providence at the first appear-
ance ; God may so lose the glory of his work, and you the comfort.
Thirdly. The third duty. Inquire into providence, and interpret all
public providences by this rule. We must search into it, though we are not
able to find out all the reasons of it. What can be a braver study than that
which is the object of God's eternal counsel ? We are conformed to God in
our wills, when we have the same ends in our motions ; and we are conformed
to God in our understandings, when we have the same object of our thoughts.
Some providences have their interpretation written in their foreheads, we
may run and read : such as his signal judgments in the world, which express
the very sin for which they are inflicted ; others are wrapped up in a harder
shell and more covers, and therefore more labour to reach the kernel ; some
are too high for our knowledge, none for our inquiry. It is our duty to seek
after God, though we can never arrive to a perfect knowledge of him : Job
xi. 7, ' Canst thou by searching find out God ? canst thou find out the
Almighty unto perfection ? ' He prohibits not the searching, though he
* Burgess of Justification, part ii. serm. 2, p. 12.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OP DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 113
asserts the impossibility of finding him out to perfection. What hath God
given us faculties for, but to search after him ? And we must not do it to
satisfy our curiosity, but to inci'ease our knowledge, and consequently our
admiration of his wise and powerful care. Diligence must be used too.
Our first thoughts about things of concernment are usually confused ; so are
our first sights of providence. Providence is a great deep ; deep things are
not seen without stooping down. We must crapaKv-^ai, as the angels do
when they search into the things of the gospel, 1 Pet. i. 12. But let this
aim of God at the good of his church be the rule of your interpretation.
Without this compass to steer our judgments by, we may both lose and rack
ourselves in the wilderness of providence, and fortify our natural atheism and
ignorance instead of our faith. I must confess the study of providence is in
some respect more difficult than in the former ages of the world, because
God seems to manage things in the church more by his wisdom than power,
which is not so intelligible by man as the sensible effects of his strength.
That attribute he manifested most in miraculous ways and the visible minis-
try of angels, as we read in Scripture stories ; now he employs his wisdom
more in ordering second causes, in ordinary ways, to his own high, merciful,
and just ends. Yet since the discovering of Christ, God hath given us a rale
whereby we may discern much of his wisdom in the knowledge of his end, as
the knowledge of Christ removes the veil from the Scripture in our reading
of it : 2 Cor. iii. 14-16, ' The same veil remains in the reading of the Old
Testament, which veil is done away in Christ' (which veil is still upon the
Jews), and makes us understand those parts of the Old Testament which
otherwise would be utterly obscure ; so in the reading the books of provi-
dence, the knowledge of this end of God in them, will help us to understand
the meaning of that which otherwise would non-plus the reason of man. He
that knows the end of one that is making a watch, will not wonder at his
framing small wheels and filing little pins ; but he that understands nothing
of the design, would count it ridiculous for a man so to trifle away his time.
Without the knowledge of this end, we shall expose ourselves to miserable
mistakes ; as Plutarch mistook the cause of the ceasing of oracles, ascribing
it to the change of the nature of the soil, not affording those exhalations as
formerly, or the death of the demons which gave those oi*acles. He had
judged otherwise, had he known or believed the rising of a higher power, the
Sun of righteousness in the world, who imposed silence upon those angels of
darkness, the most famous oracles in the world ceasing about the time of
Christ. To imagine to interpret the motions of providence, without a know-
ledge of Christ and the design of God for his church, is as vain as to imagine
we can paint a sound, or understand a colour by our smell. Correct sense
by reason in this work, and reason by faith. To what end hath God pre-
scribed faith to succour us in the weakness of reason, if it had been capable
to understand his ways without it, and if we make no use of it upon such
occasions ?
Fourthly. A fourth duty. Consider the former providences God hath
wrought for the church in the past ages. Let him not lose the present glory
of his past works : Ps. cii. 18, ' This shall be written for the generation to
come, and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord,' even for
that work of his v;hich is written to be done in former ages. God loves to
have his former works read and pleaded. It is a keeping a standing praise
of him in the world. We have had the benefit of them ; it is fit God should
have the glory of them from us, as well as from those who immediately en-
joyed them. Our good was bound up in every former preservation of the
church. If the candlestick had been broken, where had the candle been ?
VOL. I. H
114 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
Had the churcli been destroyed, how could the gospel have been transmitted
to us ? Let the duty we owe to God's glory engage us to a consideration of
them, and the benefit we have had by them also incite us. We usually for-
get not things that are strange, nor things that are profitable ; his works of
old have been works of wonder in themselves, and profitable to us. To what
end are the praises of God discovered to the generations to come, but that
they should reflect those praises to heaven again, and convey them down to
the generations following ? Ps. Ixxviii. 4, ' Shewing to the generation to
come the praises of the Lord.'
1. This will help us in our inquiries in present providences.
There is a beautiful connection between former and latter providences ;
they are but several links of one chain. The principle and end is the same ;
that God from whence they come, that Christ to which they tend, is the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever. What God doth now, is but a copy of what
he portrayed in his word as done in former ages ; there are the same goodness,
the same design in both. The births of providence are all of a like temper
and disposition. We cannot miss of the understanding of them, if we com-
pare them with the ancient copies ; for God is in the generation of the right-
eous, the same God still. God is the same, his ends are the same, the events
will be the same.
2. It will support our faith. The reason of our diffidence of God in the
cause of the church, is the forgetfulness of his former appearances for her.
Oh if we did remember his former goodness, we should not be so ready to
doubt of his future care. This was the psalmist's care in his despondencies,
and in his overwhelming troubles of spirit : Ps. Ixxvii. 9, 'Hath God forgotten
to be gracious ? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies ? ' but, ver. 10,
he concludes it his infirmity, and resolves upon a review of the records of
God's ancient works for his people, ' and the years of the right hand of the
Most High,' these times wherein he declared his power and his glory, and so
proceeds to the top of all their deliverances, viz., that out of Egypt. Doth
God's wisdom decay, or his power grow feeble ? Is not his interest the
same ? Is he not a God still like himself ? Is not his glory as dear to him
as before ? Hath he cast ofi" his afi'ection to his own name ? Why should
not he then do the same works, since he hath the same concern ? God
himself, to encourage us, calls them to our remembrance : Isa. 1. 2, ' Is my
hand shortened, that I cannot redeem ? or have I no power to deliver ?
Behold, at my rebuke I do dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness,'
&c. Am not I the same God that dried up the sea, that wrought those
ancient wonders which amazed the world ? What doth your distrust signify
but the impair of my power ? Eouse up yourselves to a consideration of
them, and thence gather fresh supplies to strengthen you in your present
dependence upon me ! He puts us in mind of them, because we are apt to
forget them. Gen. xv. 6, when it is said Abraham ' believed in the Lord,
and it was accounted to him for righteousness,' God answered him, ver. 7,
' I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees.' Keep up thy
faith ; and to that end, remember what I did for thee before in calling thee.
Cast thy eye upon that place whence I delivered thee, either from the idola-
tries of the place, or the persecution he was in for the true worship of God.
And as God puts him in mind of his mercy he had shewn to him before, for
the encouragement of his faith, so the people of God have made use of them
to this end. Goliah's sword was counted by David the fittest for his defence
in his flight, because it had been a monument of God's former deliverance of
him, 1 Sam. xxi. 9. When he asks for a sword or spear, Abimelech said,
• The sword of Goliah, whom thou slowest, is here ;* and David said, < There
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 115
is none like that : give it me.' How hasty he catches at it ! There is none
like that sword, that hath so signal a mercy writ upon it. That very sword
will not only defend me against my enemies, but guard my faith against those
temptations that would invade it. This encouragement of faith and hope is
the end of God in his transmission of the records of his former providences
to us : Ps. Ixxviii. G, 7, ' That the generation to come might know them, and
declare them to their children' from one posterity to another, 'that they
might set their hope in God.'
3. It will enliven our prayer.
It is a mighty plea in prayer. How often doth David urge it ! Thou
hast been my help, thou hast delivered my soul from death, wilt thou not
deliver my feet from falling ? But in the church's concerns too : 1 Chron.
xvi. 11, 12, 'Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face continually.
Remember the marvellous works that he hath done.' A reflection upon
what God hath done should be enjoined* with our desires of what we would
have God to do for us. When Moses was praying upon the top, while
Israel was fighting with Amalek at the foot of the hill, he had the rod of
God in his hand, Exod. xvii. 9 ; that miraculous rod which had amazed
Pharaoh, whose motion summoned all the plagues upon them ; that rod
which had split the sea for their passage, broached the rock for their thirst,
and had been instrumental in many miracles : certainly Moses shewed this
rod to God, and pleaded all those wonderful deliverances God had wrought
instrumentally by it. No doubt but he carried it with him to shew to God
for a plea, as well as to the Israelites, to spmt their resolutions against their
enemies.
4. It will prevent much sin.
A forgetfulness of his former works is one cause of our present provoca-
tions. It was so in the case of the Israelites' sin : Ps. cvi. 7, ' They
remembered not the multitude of his mercies ; but provoked thee at the sea,
even at the Red Sea ; ' they had lost the memory of so many miracles in
Egypt, and which aggravated their sin, ' they provoked him at the sea, at the
Red Sea ; ' they provoked him under a present indigency, as well as against
former mercy ; they provoked him in that place of straits where all the
powers on earth could not have relieved them had heaven neglected them.
The provocation you may see, Exod. xiv. 11, 12, which sprang from a
forgetfulness of his kindness so lately shewed to them. How apt are we to
forget old mercies, when we are so naturally apt to blot out of our memories
mercies newly received ! If this were well considered by men, it would
prevent their enterprises against the church, and consequently their shame
and ruin. Are there records of any who have hardened themselves against
God and prospered ? Job ix. 4. How might in that reflection be seen the
frustrations of counsels, disgracing of attempts, showers of fury and
vengeance from heaven upon the heads of such ! The reason why the
wonderful works of God were to be made known to posterity, was ' that
they might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation of
men,' Ps. Ixxviii. 6, 8. If they did consider those transactions of God in
and for his church, they could no more think to stop the breath of per-
petual powerful providence, than to bridle in a storm, or stop the motion
of the sun. To conclude this : God's providential judgments are to be
remembered; though they are for the punishment of the age that feel them,
they are also for the instruction of the age which succeeds them ; tell,
]T1D, number, be as exact as in your accounts, wherein you take notice of
every number, minute, and cypher. The works of providence as well as the
* That is, 'joined in,' or incorporated. — Ed.
116 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
doctrine of God are parts of a child's catechism, they are to keep up the
consideration of them in themselves, and hand them in instruction to their
children.
Fithly, The fifth duty. Act faith on God's providence.
Times of trouble should be times of confidence ; fixedness of heart on
God would prevent fears of heart : Ps. cxii. 7, ' He shall not be afraid of
evil tidings: his heart is fixed.' How? ' Trusting in the Lord. His heart
is established, they shall not be moved.' Otherwise without it we shall be
as light as a coclC' moved with every blast- of evil tidings, our hopes will
swim or sink according to the news we hear. Providence would seem to
sleep, unless faith and prayer awakened it. The disciples had but little faith
in their Master's account, yet that little faith awakened him in a storm,
and he relieved them. Unbelief doth only discourage God from shewing
his power in taking our parts. ' Every one will walk in the name of his god,
and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever,'
Micah iv. 5. Heathens wdll trust in their idols, and shall not we in that
God that lives for ever ? Have we any reason to have a less esteem of our
confidence in God than heathens had of and in their idols ? We should do
our duty, which is faith and hope, and leave God to do his work, which is
mercy and kindness. By unbelief we deny his providence, disparage his
■wisdom, and strip him of his power; we have none else to trust; no
creature can order anything for the church's good without God's commission
and direction. What should we trust him for ? For that wherein his glory
is concerned, which is more worth to him than all the world besides. Trust
him most when instruments fail. God takes them ofi' some time, to shew
that he needs not any, and to have our confidence rightly placed on him,
which staggered before between him and the creature.
1. All the godly formerly did act faith on a less foundation. The godly
patriarchs who lived eight or nine hundred years, depended upon providence
that long time, and shall not we for seventy years, the usual term of man's
life ! They had promises to support them, we have not only the same
promises, but the performances of them too. They had providences, we have
the same and more, all upon record in Scripture, all since the canon of
Scripture was closed, whatsoever God hath remarkably done for his people
in all ages. Adam had but one promise, and but little experience of God's
providence, yet no doubt trusted in him. We have a multitude of promises,
not only pronounced, but sealed, confirmed by many repetitions, which are
fresh obligations laid by God upon himself, the experience of all the pro-
vidences of God towards his church for above five thousand years, and shall
our faith stagger when upon us are come the ends of the world ? Doth it
become us to have our obligations to faith so strong, and our exercise of it
so weak ? The promise of Christ, Isa. vii. 14, that a virgin should bring
forth a Son, was thought by God a sufficient security to support their con-
fidence in him against the fury of their enemies ; it being a greater wonder
that a virgin without loss of her virginity should bring forth a son, than
the routing of an host of enemies. Is not then the performance of this,
God's actual sending his Son to us through the womb of a virgin, a higher
ground of confidence for the church's success in every thing else, than barely
the promise could be ? All creatures in danger have a natural confidence
in God : 'He is the confidence of all the ends of the earth ;' but the
church's confidence may be more firmly placed in him, because he is par-
ticularly the God of their salvation : Ps. Ixv. 5, ' By terrible things in
* That is, a weather-cock or vane. — Ed.
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.] A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 117
righteousness wilt thou answer us, 0 God of our salvation ; who art tho
confidence of all tho ends of the earth.'
2. It is your only way to have mercy for the church, and for ourselves.
If he ' take pleasure in them that hope in his mercy,' as it is in Ps. cxlvii.
11, he will take pleasure to relieve them, ho will ' strengthen the bars of
their gates,' ver. 13. If he take pleasure in them that hope in his mercy,
then the stronger and more lively their hope is, the more intense is God's
pleasure in them. If they do not hope in his mercy, ho hath no pleasure in
them, and no delight to them. He hath a goodness laid up for them that
fear him, and he will lay it out too for them that trust in him : Ps. xxxi. 19,
* Oh how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear
thee, which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of
men ! ' It is laid up for all that fear him, but it is wrought for them that
trust in him. It is manifested upon special acts of trust and reliance, and
wrought before the sons of men. Those that own God publicly in a way of
reliance, God will own them publicly in a way of kindness. Faith is the
key that unlocks the cabinet of special providence. Those eyes which move
about all the world are fixed upon those that trust in him : Ps. xxxiii. 18,
' The eye of the Lord is upon them that hope in his mercy.'
The sixth duty. Wait upon God in the way of his providence. Wait upon
him as he is 'a faithful Creator,' 1 Pet. iv. 19 ; much more since the title
of being our Redeemer is added to that of our Creator, which strengthens
his relation to us. Not to wait disparageth his care, bounds his power, or
reflects upon his wisdom, as if he had stripped himself of his immense good-
ness, and forgot both his promise and his people ; as if he had cancelled the
covenant, and given up his whole interest to the lusts of men. Wait in the
saddest appearances. The hour of Christ's death was dismal in the world,
and darkness upon the earth ; a miraculous eclipse of the sun taken notice
of by the very heathens ; yet were we never nearer to happiness, than in that
dreadful time when our Saviour was most dyed in his own blood. The san-
guine complexion of the evening sky is a presage of a fair succeeding morn-
ing ; so many times is the red vesture of the church.
1. Wait upon him obedientially.
Commit your souls to God, but in ' well-doing,' 1 Pet. iv. 19. Use no
indirect means ; a contempt of the precept cannot consist with faith in either
promise or providence. The obeying part is ours, the governing part is
God's : Prov. xxiii. 17, 18, ' Let not thine heart envy sinners, but be thou
in the fear of the Lord all the day long ; for surely there is an end, and thine
expectation shall not be cut off.' God will govern all the day, but we must
fear him all the day. When fear on our part attends government on God's
part, there will be an end of our carnal fears, and a good issue of our hopes.
The greatest dehverances of his church have been when his people has stood
still, Exod. xiv. 13. As that deliverance was a type of all future and a ground
of faith, so the carriage God enjoined was a rule to his people in all future
straits. It is against the laws of God's government for those listed in his
service to stir without order. The law is our standing rule of duty. Provi-
dence cannot be a standing visible rule, because of the variety and seeming
crossness of it sometimes to our apprehensions. Do not presume to lead
God, but be led by him. It is our safety to follow him ; it is our sin and
danger to presume to be his directors. We may lose ourselves when we are
our own bUnd guides, and fall into a ditch ; but when we follow God, he hath
wisdom to foresee the precipices we may stumble into, and goodness to divert
us from them. By interposing carnal devices, men may perhaps have their
ends, but with little comfort, perhaps much bitterness to themselves. Jacob
118 A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XVI. 9.
by his hasty using his own and his mother's sinful project for the blessing,
got it indeed, but a cross too, for he was a man of sorrows all his days. By
waiting in God's way, we shall have our ends with more sweetness, because
purely a fruit of God's care and goodness.
2. Wait patiently. How often are our spirits troubled about future events,
and are afraid of the evil which threatens us, as if we were in pain for God,
and in doubt of his wise conduct ! Think not God's time too long. He
waits as much for a fit opportunity to shew his mercy, as you can wait for
the enjoyment of it : Isa. xxx. 18, ' Therefore will the Lord wait, that he
may be gracious unto you ; blessed are all they that wait for him.' It is a
part of our blessedness to wait for God, since it is a part of God's kindness
to wait for a fit season to be gracious to us. It is not for us to prescribe
rules to God, but follow the rules he prescribes to us. He hath freely made
his promise ; let him be master of his own time to make it good. He will
shew as much wisdom in accomplishing, as he did mercy in declaring it.
God can do things in a moment, but it is his wisdom to take time, that his
people may have time to exercise their trust, their hope, and their patience.
He will take time in the ways of his providence, as well as he did in the
works of creation. He allotted six days to that which he could have framed
in a minute. He is judge of what is needful for us, and when it is needful
for us. If God should give us that which is a mercy in its own nature, many
times when we desire it, it might not be a mercy. If we will trust the skill
of his wisdom for the best season, it cannot but be a mercy, for he will give
it us with his own glory and grace wrapped up in it, which will make it
sweeter to himself when his wisdom is honoured, and sweeter to us when our
good is promoted. God's methods appear in the end both wiser and better
than our frames. Infinite goodness aims more at our welfare than our shallow
self-love ; and infinite wisdom can conduct things to our welfare, better than
our short-sighted skill. He that knows all the moments of time, knows best
how to time his actions. As God stayed for a fulness of time to bring the
great redemption by Christ into the world, so he stays for a fulness of time
to bring all the great consequences and appendices of it unto his church.
' Everything is beautiful in his time,' Eccles. iii. 11 ; in its own time ; in
God's time, not in ours, &c.
8. Wait constantly. Though the wheels of providence seem sometimes
to stand still, Ezek. i. 21, and God seems to put a period to the care of his
church, yet let not us neglect our duty. W^ait a while, and the wheels will
be put upon their former rolling. Some particular passages of providence
may trouble us for a while ; but in the issue, God may answer our desires
above our expectations, and thereby confute our fears. His providences are
sometimes like rivers that run under ground, out of sight, but will rise again
with a delightful stream, with some new medicinal quality, contracted from
the earth by the way. Joseph a prisoner waits upon God for his liberty,
and God gives him freedom with preferment. God can bring about his
people's safety by unexpected ways. Who would have imagined before, that
his own dream should make him a captive, and Pharaoh's dream make him
a favourite ? The chief butler remembers him not till he was in an exigency,
and the divining skill of the wise men of Egypt confounded. Joseph lost
nothing by waiting upon God, who made so many circumstances concur to
promote his honour. Wait therefore upon him in the sorest afiiictions. The
church is only afflicted in mercy, but the enemies of it are pulled up by the
roots : Jer. xxx. 11, ' I am with thee to save thee ; though I make a full
end of the nations whither I have scattered thee, yet I will not make a full
end of thee, but I will correct thee in measure.' God deals with his people
2 ChRON. XVI. 9.j A DISCOURSE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 119
as a father, who corrects to reform, not to destroy ; but with his enemies he
deals as a judge. God's providence, like Moses his rod, may seem sometimes
a devouring serpent, but it is to convince the Egyptians, and deliver the
Israelites.
4. Wait in the use of lawful means for preservation. Not to use means,
is to slight his providence, not to trust it. It seems not to consist with the
wisdom of God to order things always so, as to be necessitated to put forth
an extraordinary power in things which his creatures, by a common provi-
dence, can naturally accomplish. God saves by natural means ; when they
will not serve the turn, he will save by supernatural. God chose an ark to
preserve Noah in. He did not want supernatural means for his preservation.
He might have catched him up in a cloud, and continued him there till the
drying of the waters. Noah doth not dispute the business with God, but
prepares an ark according to his order; and he was righteous in his obedience,
as well as in his trust. God would not preserve our Saviour by a miracle,
when ordinary means would serve the turn. He commands Joseph, by his
angel, to flee into Egypt with the child. Mat. ii. 13. Joseph desires not God
to preserve him by an extraordinary power, to save his pains of travelling ;
he submits to God's order, and God quickly clears the way for his return.
Indeed, sometimes the wheels of providence are lifted up from the earth, and
do not go in the ordinary tracts, Ezek. i. 19 ; but miracles must be left to
God's pleasure. For us to desire them, is to tempt our great governor.
The seventh duty. Pray for the church.
It is an encouragement that our suit in this case will not be denied. The
desire of welfare is conformable to his counsel, which shall stand, Prov.xix. 21,
notwithstanding the devices of men. His counsel in particular concerns of
men shall stand ; much more is the stability of his counsel for the church.
He is a God hearing prayer in a way of common providence, and a God
hearing prayer in a way of special attention : Ps. Ixi. 1, ' Hear my cry, 0
God, attend unto my prayer.' David desires that God would hear him, as
more particularly concerned in his case. He is so in the concerns of his
church. Will he hear an Ishmael crying for himself, and young lions roar-
ing for their prey, and stop his ears to the voice of his own Spirit in his
people, pleading for the church, dearer to him than the whole mass of nature ?
We have greater arguments to use than in any other case. The relation the
church hath to God ; the affection God hath to the church. ' Lazarus
whom thou lovest is sick,' was Martha's argument to Christ. What greater
encouragement to our petitions than God's affection, than God's relation ?
God loves to have our affection comply with his ; God loves others the better
for soliciting its welfare. Moses had the greatest manifestation of God's love
after he had prayed for the Israelites, Exod. xxxii. 32, though in a case of
sinj and presently after, in Exod. xxxiii. 11, God * speaks with him face to
face, as a man speaks to his friend ; ' and in the same chapter, and the
beginning of Exod. xxxiv., God shews him his glory as much as he was
capable to bear. Daniel was a great petitioner for the church, Dan. ix. 3, 21.
He was God's great favourite upon that account, x. 2, 5, and had the clearest
and highest revelations made to him of the course of providence in the world.
The eighth duty. When you receive any mercy for the church in answer
of prayer, give God the glory of it.
The variety of his providences gives us matter for new songs and com-
positions, Ps. cxlix. 1. What volleys of joyful shouts, what hallelujahs to
God do we find upon the ruin of antichrist ; Rev. xix. 1-3, God calls for
praise out of the throne, ver. 5, and the church returns it, ver. 6, 7. It is
God rides upon the cherub, it is God that sits upon the wings of the wind,
120 A DISCOUESE OF DIVIXE PROVIDENCE. [2 ChRON. XYI. 9.
it is God -who is in all instruments to quicken their motions and direct them
to their scope, Ps. xviii. 10.
The ninth duty. Imitate God in his affection to the church,
Christ did what he did for the good of his church, God doth what he doth
for the advantage of the .church. Let the same mind be in us that was in
Christ, let the same end he ours which is the end of God. Thus we shall
be like our Creator, thus we shall be like our Governor, thus we shall be
like our Redeemer. Men take it kindly from others that love those they
have a respect for. God loves all that love his people, and blesses them
that bless them : Gen. xii. 3, ' I will bless them that bless thee, and curse
them that curse thee.'
The tenth duty. Look after sincerity before God.
It is for the security of such that God shews himself strong. No man
that fully believes and understands this doctrine but should be glad to be of
that happy society, that assembly of the first-born, who are under the care
of a watchful eye, and the mighty power of the God of the whole earth.
When God chose Israel, the very strangers should for their own interest join
■with them, Isa. xiv. 1. And to such as 'take hold of his covenant' he
promises to ' give a name in his house that shall not be cut off,' Isa. Ivi.
4, 5 ; yea, even ' to the sons of the strangers that shall join themselves to
the Lord,' ver. G. Let this encourage us to Christianity. God never
encouraged men to be Christians by promises of worldly greatness, but by
promises of a constant care of them for their happiness, by promises of
making all things work together for their good. If God will shew himself
strong for those that are perfect in heart towards him, then he hath no
strength for those that are unsound and false in heart towards him. No
man hath an interest in his special providence without faith. The power,
knowledge, wisdom of God, are all set against him. Though the whole
world be in commotions, the earth be removed, and the mountains cast into
the depths of the sea, there is no ground of fear to faith ; but what buckler
against them hath unbelief and hypocrisy ? What secui-ity against wrath
can riches give you ? What defence against his power can your potsherd
strength afibrd you ? It was not for Job s wealth that God made his boasts
of him, but for his sincerity : Job i. 8, ' Hast thou considered my servant
Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man ? '
And for the want of this he loathes a world. Labour therefore for sincerity
towards God, beg it of God ; get the evidence of it and preserve it.
DISCOQRSE ON THE EXISTENCE AND
ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
TO THE HEADER.
This long since promised and greatly expected volume of the reverend author
upon the divine attributes, being transcribed out of his own manuscripts by
the unwearied diligence of those worthy persons that undertook it,* is now
at last come to thy hands. Doubt not but thy reading will pay for thy
waiting, and thy satisfaction make full compensation for thy patience. In
the epistle before his Treatise of Providence, it was intimated that his follow-
ing discourses would not be inferior to that, and we are persuaded that ere
thou hast perused one half of this, thou wilt acknowledge that it was modestly
spoken. Enough, assure thyself, thou wilt find here for thy entertainment
and delight, as well as profit. The sublimeness, variety, and rareness of
the truths here handled, together with the elegancy of the composure, neat-
ness of the style, and whatever is wont to make any book desirable, will all
concur in the recommendation of this. What so high and noble a subject,
what so fit for his meditations or thine, as the highest and noblest being,
and those transcendently glorious perfections wherewith he is clothed ! A
mere contemplation of the divine excellencies may afford much pleasure to any
man that loves to exercise his reason, and is addicted to speculation ; but what
incomparable sweetness will holy souls find in viewing and considering those
perfections now, which they are more fully to behold hereafter, and seeing
what manner of God, how wise and powerful, how great, and good, and
holy is he in whom the covenant interests them, and in the enjoyment of
whom their happiness consists ! If rich men delight to sum up their vast
revenues, to read over their rentals, look upon their hoards ; if they bless
themselves in their great wealth, or, to use the prophet's words, Jer. ix. 23,
'glory in their riches,' well may believers rejoice and glory in their ' know-
ing the Lord,' ver. 24, and please themselves in seeing how rich they are in
having an immensely full and all-sufficient God for their inheritance. Alas,
how little do most men know of that Deity they profess to serve, and own,
not as their sovereign only, but their portion ! To such this author might
say, as Paul to the Athenians, Acts xvii. 23, * Whom you ignorantly wor-
ship, him declare I unto you.' These treatises, reader, will inform thee who
he is whom thou callest thine, present thee with a view of thy chief good,
and make thee value thyself a thousand times more upon thy interest in God,
than upon all external accomplishments and worldly possessions. Who but
delights to hear well of one whom he loves ? God is thy love, if thou be a
believer, and then it cannot but fill thee with delight and ravishment to hear
so much spoken in his praise. David desired to ' dwell in the house of the
Lord,' that he might there ' behold his beauty ;' how much of that beauty
(if thou art but capable of seeing it) mayest thou behold in this volume, which
was our author's main business for about three years before he died, to dis-
play before his hearers ! True, indeed, the Lord's glory, as shining forth
before his heavenly courtiers above, is unapproachable by mortal men ; but
what of it is visible in his works, creation, providence, redemption, falls
under the cognisance of his inferior subjects here ; and this is in a great
measure presented to view in these discourses, and so much, we may well
say, as may, by the help of grace, be effectual to raise thy admiration,
* Mr J. Wichens and Mr Ashton.
124
TO THE EEAJJEB.
attract thy love, provoke thy desires, and enable thee to make some guess
at what is yet unseen ; and why not hkewise to clear thy eyes and prepare
them for future sight, as well as turn them away from the contemptible
vanities of this present life ? Whatever is glorious in this world, yet (as
the apostle in another case, 2 Cor, iii. 10) ' hath no glory by reason of the
glory that excels.' This excellent glory is the subject of this book, to which
all created beauty is but mere shadow and duskiness. If thy eyes be well
fixed on this, they will not be easily drawn to wander after other objects ;
if thy heart be taken with God, it will be mortified to everything that is not
God.
But thou hast in this book, not only an excellent subject in the general,
but great variety of matter, for the employment of thy understanding, as
well as enlivening thy affections, and that too such as thou wilt not readily
find elsewhere ; many excellent things M'hich are out of the road of ordinary
preachers and writers, and which may be grateful to the curious, no less
than satisfactory to the wise and judicious. It is not therefore a book to
be played with, or slept over, but read with the most intent and serious
mind ; for though it alibrd much pleasure for the fancy, yet much more
work for the heart, and hath indeed enough in it to busy all the faculties.
The dress is complete and decent, yet not garish or theatrical ; the rhetoric
masculine and vigorous, such as became a pulpit, and was never borrowed
from the stage ; the expressions full, clear, apt, and such as are best suited
to the weightiness and spirituality of the truths here delivered. It is plain
he was no empty preacher, but was more for sense than sound, filled up his
words with matter, and chose rather to inform his hearers' mind than to
claw any itching ears. Yet we will not say but some little things, a word
or a phrase now and then he may have, which no doubt had he lived to
transcribe his own sermons, he would have altered. If in some lesser
matters he differ from thee, it is but in such as godly and learned men do
frequently, and may without breach of charity differ in among themselves ;
in some things he may differ from us too, and it may be we from each
other, and where are there any two persons who have in all, especially the
more disputable points of religion, exactly the same sentiments, at least
express themselves altogether in the same terms ? But this we must say,
that though he treat of many of the most abstruse and mysterious doctrines
of Christianity, which are the subjects of great debates and controversies in
the world, yet we find no one material thing in which he may justly be
called heterodox (unless old heresies be of late grown orthodox, and his
differing from them must make him faulty), but generally delivers (as iu
his former pieces*) what is most consonant to the faith of this, and other
the best reformed churches. He was not indeed for that modern divinity
which is so much in vogue with some, who would be counted the only sound
divines ; having ' tasted the old,' he did not ' desire the new,' but said ' the
old| is better.' Some errors, especially the Socinian, he sets himself
industriously against, and cuts the very sinews of them, yet sometimes
almost without naming them.
In theMoctrinal part of several of his discourses thou wilt find the depth
of polemical divinity, and in his inferences from thence the sweetness of
practical ; some things which may exercise the profoundest scholar, and
others which may instruct and edify the weakest Christian ; nothing is
more nervous than his reasonings, and nothing more affecting than his
applications. Though he make great use of schoolmen, yet they are
* Treatise of Providence and of Tlioughts. [The former of which precedes this,
and the latter will be given in a subsequent volume. — Ed.]
TO THE READER. 125
certainly more beholden to him than he to them ; he adopts their notions,
but he refines them too, and improves them, and reforms them from the
barbarousness in which they were expressed, and dresseth them up in his
own language (so far as the nature of the matter will permit, and more
clear terms are to be found), and so makes them intelligible to vulgar
capasities, which in their original rudeness were obscure and strange, even
to learned heads.
In a word, he handles the great truths of the gospel with that perspicuity,
gravity, and majesty which best becomes the oracles of God ; and we have
reason to believe, that no judicious and unbiassed reader but will acknow-
ledge this to be incomparably the best practical treatise the world ever saw
in English upon this subject. What Dr Jackson did (to whom our author
gave all due respect) was more brief, and in another way. Dr Preston did
worthily upon the attributes in his day, but his discouj-ses likewise are
more succinct, when this author's are more full and large. But whatever
were the mind of God in it, it was not his will that either of these two
should live to finish what he had begun, both being taken away when
preaching upon this subject. Happy souls, whose last breath was spent
in so noble a work, ' praising God while they had any being,' Ps. cxlvi. 2.
His method is much the same in most of these discourses, both in the
doctrinal and practical part, which will make the whole more plain and
facile to ordinary readers. He rarely makes objections, and yet frequently
answers them, by implying them in those propositions he lays down for the
clearing up the truths he asserts. His dexterity is admirable in the appli-
catory work, where he not only brings down, the highest doctrines to the
lowest capacities, but collects great variety of proper, pertinent, useful, and
yet (many times) unthought of inferences, and that from those truths, which
however they aflbi'd much matter for inquisition and speculation, yet might
seem (unless to the most intelHgent and judicious Christians) to have a
more remote influence upon practices. He is not like some school writers,
who attenuate and rarefy the matter they discourse of to a degree bordering
upon annihilation ; at least beat it so thin, that a puff of breath may blow it
away ; spin their thread so fine, that the cloth, when made up, proves
useless ; solidity dwindles into niceties, and what we thought we had got
by their assertions we lose by their distinctions. But if our author have
some subtilties and superfine notions in his argumentations, yet he con-
denseth them again, and consoHdates them into substantial and profitable
corollaries in his applications. And in them his main business is, as to
discipline a profane world for its neglect of God and contempt of him in his
most adorable and shining perfections, so likewise to shew how the divine
attributes are not only infinitely excellent in themselves, but a grand foun-
dation for all true divine worship, and should be the great motives to pro-
voke men to the exercise of faith, and love, and fear, and humility, and all
that holy obedience they are called to by the gospel ; and this without per-
adventure is the great end of all those rich discoveries God hath in his word
made of himself to us, Ps. cix. 1. And, reader, if these elaborate dis-
courses of this holy man, through the Lord's blessing, become a means of
promoting holiness in thee, and stir thee up to love, and live to the God of
his praise, we are well assured that his end in preaching them is answered,
and so is ours in publishing them.
Thine in the Lord,
Edw. Veel.
Ri. AcAiis.
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt ; they
have done abominable works; there is none that doth good. — Ps. XIV. 1.
This psalm is a description of the deplorable corruption by nature of every
son of Adam, since the withering of that common root. Some restrain it
to the gentiles, as a wilderness full of briars and thorns, as not concerning
the Jews, the garden of God, planted by his grace and watered by the dew
of heaven. But the apostle, the best interpreter, rectifies this in extending
it by name to Jews as well as Gentiles : Rom. iii. 9, ' We have before
proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they arejall under sin ;' and ver. 10,
11, 12, cites part of this psalm and other passages of ^Scripture for the
further evidence of it ; concluding both Jews and Gentiles, every person in
the world, naturally in this state of corruption.
The psalmist first declares the corruption of the faculties of the soul : ' The
fool hath said in his heart.' Secondly, The streams issuing from thence,
* they are corrupt,' &c. ; the first in atheistical principles, the other in un-
worthy practices ; and lays all the evil, tyranny, lust, and persecutions by
men, as if the world were only for their sake, upon the neglects of God, and
the atheism cherished in their hearts.
' The fool,' a term in Scripture signifying a wicked man, used also by the
heathen philosophers to signify a vicious person, ^3J as coming from ^2i
T T
signifies the extinction of life in men, animals, and plants ; so the word ^3j
is taken, — Isa. xl. 7, Y>^J ^^^ ' the flower fadeth,' Isa. xxviii. 1, — a plant that
hath lost all that juice that made it lovely and useful. So a fool is one that
hath lost his wisdom and right notion of God and divine things, which were
communicated to man by creation ; one dead in sin, yet one not so much
void of rational faculties, as of grace in those faculties ; not one that wants
reason, but abuses his reason. In Scripture the word signifies foolish.*
' Said in his heart ;' that is, he thinks, or he doubts, or he wishes. The
thoughts of the heart are in the nature of words to God, though not to men.
It is used in the like case of the atheistical person : Ps. x. 11, 13, ' He hath
said in his heart, God hath forgotten,' * he hath said in his heart thou wilt
not require it.' He doth not form a syllogism, as Calvin speaks, that there
is no God ; he dares not openly publish it, though he dares secretly think
* Muis. 73i and DDH is? put together, Deut. xxxii. 6, ' 0 foolish people and
Ps. XIV. l.J THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 127
it ; he cannot rase out the thoughts of a doity, though he endeavours to
blot those characters of God in his soul ; he hath some doubts whether there
be a God or no : he wishes there were not any, and sometimes hopes there
is none at all ; he could not so ascertain himself by convincing arguments
to produce to the world, but he tampered with his own heart to bring it to
that persuasion, and smothered in himself those notices of a deity, which is
80 plain against the light of nature that such a man may well bo called a
fool for it.
* There is no God.' * i^^^bw jvb non potestas Domini (Chaldee), It is
not Jehovah, which name signifies the essence of God as the prime and
supreme being, but Eloahim, which name signifies the providence of God,
God as a rector and judge. Not that he denies the existence of a supreme
being that created the world, but his regarding the creatures, his government
of the world, and consecjuently his reward of the righteous or punishments
of the wicked.
There is a threefold denial of God.f 1. Quoad existentiam, this is
absolute atheism. 2. Quoad j^rovidentiam, or his inspection into, or care
of the things of the world, bounding him in the heavens. 3. Quoad naturam,
in regard of one or other of the perfections due to his nature.
Of the denial of the providence of God most understand this4 not exclud-
ing the absolute atheist, as Diagoras is reported to be, nor the sceptical
atheist, as Protagoras, who doubted whether there were a God. Those that
deny the providence of God, do in efiect deny the being of a God ; for they
strip him of that wisdom, goodness, tenderness, mercy, justice, righteousness,
which are the glory of the Deity. And that principle of a greedy desire to
be uncontrolled in their lusts, which induceth men to a denial of providence,
that thereby they might stifle those seeds of fear which infect and embitter
their sinful pleasures, may as well lead them to deny that there is any such
being as a God. That at one blow their fears may be dashed all in pieces,
and dissolved by the removal of the foundation ; as men who desire liberty
to commit works of darkness would not have the lights in the house dimmed
but extinguished. What men say against providence, because they would
have no check in their lusts, they may say in their hearts against the exist-
ence of God upon the same account ; little difierence between the dissentinw
from the one, and disowning the other.
' They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that
doth good.'
He speaks of the atheist in the singular, the fool ; of the corruption
issuing in the life, in the plural ; intimating that some few may choke in
their hearts the sentiments of God and his providence, and positively deny
them, yet there is something of a secret atheism in all, which is the foun-
tain of the evil practices in their lives, not an utter disowning of the being
of a God, but a denial or doubting of some of the rights of his nature.§
When men deny the God of purity, they must needs be polluted in soul and
body, and grow brutish in their actions ; when the sense of religion is
shaken off, all kinds of wickedness is eagerly rushed into, whereby they be-
come as loathsome to God as putrefied carcases are to men.|| Not one or
* DTtVi^ Vl^ No Goi.—Muts. t Cocceius.
X Not owning him as the Egyptians called, Sbov tyxhsfMiov Eugubin. in loc.
5 Atheism absolute is not in all men's judgments, but practical is in all men's
actions.
\ The apostle in the Eomans, applying the later part of it to all mankind, but not
the former, as the word translated corrupt signifies.
128 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
two evil actions is the product of such a principle, but the whole scene of a
man's life is corrupted, and becomes execrable.
No man is exempted from some spice of atheism by the deprivation of
his nature, which the Psalmist intimates, * there is none that doth good.'
Though there are indelible convictions of the being of a God, that they can-
not absolutely deny it, yet there are some atheistical bubblings in the hearts
of men which evidence themselves in their actions ; as the apostle, Titus
i. 16, ' They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him.'
Evil works are a dust stirred up by an atheistical breath. He that habituates
himself in some sordid lust can scarcely be said seriously and firmly to be-
lieve that there is a God in being ; and the apostle doth not say that they
know God, but they ' profess to know him.' True knowledge and profession
of knowledge are distinct. It intimates also to us the unreasonabieness of
atheism in the consequences ; when men shut their eyes against the beams
of so clear a sun, God revengeth himself upon them for their impiety by
leaving them to their own wills, lets them fall into the deepest sink and
dregs of iniquity ; and since they doubt of him in their hearts, suffers them
above others to deny him in their works ; this the apostle discourseth at
large, Rom. i. 24.
The text, then, is a description of man's corruption.
1. Of his mind. ' The fool hath said in his heart.' No better title than
that of a fool is afforded to the atheist.
2. Of the other faculties. 1. In sins of commission, expressed by the
loathsomeness, ' corrupt,' ' abominable.' 2. In sins of omission, ' there is
none that doth good ; ' he lays down the con-uption of the mind as the cause,
the corruption of the other faculties as the effect.
I. It is a great folly to deny or doubt of the existence or being of God ;
or, an atheist is a great fool.
II. Practical atheism is natural to man in his corrupt state. It is against
nature as constituted by God, but natural as nature is depraved by man.
The absolute disowning of the being of a God is not natural to men, but the
contrary is natural ; but an inconsideration of God, or misrepresentation of
his nature, is natural to man as corrupt.
III. A secret atheism, or a partial atheism, is the spring of all the wicked
practices in the world ; the disorders of the life spring from the ill disposi-
tions of the heart.
I. For the first, every atheist is a grand fool. If he were not a fool, he
would not imagine a thing so contrary to the stream of the universal reason
in the world, contrary to the rational dictates of his own soul, and contrary
to the testimony of every creature and link in the chain of creation. If he
were not a fool, he would not strip himself of humanity, and degrade him-
self lower than the most despicable brute.
It is a folly ; for though God be so inaccessible that we cannot know him
perfectly, yet he is so much in the light, that we cannot be totally ignorant
of him ; as he cannot be comprehended in his essence, he cannot be unknown
in his existence ; it is as easy by reason to understand that he is, as it is
difiicult to know what he is.
The demonstrations reason fumisheth us with for the existence of God
will be evidences of the atheist's folly. One would think there were little
need of spending time in evidencing this truth, since in the principle of it,
it seems to be so universally owned, and at the first proposal and demand
gains the assent of most men.
But, 1, doth the growth of atheism among us render this necessary? May
it not justly be suspected that the swarms of atheists are more numerous in
Ps. XIY. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. 129
our times than history records to have been in any age, when men will not
only say it in their hearts, but publish it with their lips, and boast that they
have shaken off those shackles which bind other men's consciences ? Doth
not the barefaced debauchery of men evidence such a settled sentiment, or
at least a careless belief of the truth, which lies at the root, and sprouts up
in such venomous branches in the world ? Can men's hearts be free from
that principle wherewith their practices are so openly depraved ? It is true
the light of nature shines too vigorously for the power of man totally to put
it out, yet loathsome actions impair and weaken the actual thoughts and
considerations of a deity, and are like mists, that darken the light of the
Ban though they cannot extinguish it ; their consciences, as a candlestick,
must hold it, though their unrighteousness obscure it : Rom. i. 18, * Who
hold the truth in unrighteousness.' The engraved characters of the law of
nature remain, though they daub them with their muddy Inists to make them
illegible, so that since the inconsideration of a deity is the ca,use of all the
wickedness and extravagancies of men ; and, as Austin saith, the proposi-
tion is always true, ' The fool hath said in his heart,' &€>., and more evidently
true in this age than any ; it will not be unnecessary to discourse of the
demonstrations of this first principle.
The apostles spent little time in urging this truth, it was taken for granted
all over the world, and they were generally devout in the worship of those
idols they thought to be gods ; that age ran from one God to many, and our
age is running from one God to none at all.
2. The existence of God is the foundation of all religion. The whole
building totters if the foundation be out of course ; if we have not deliberate
and right notions of it, we shall perform no worship, no service, yield no
affection to him. If there be not a God, it is impossible there can be one ;
for eternity is essential to the notion of a God ; so all religion would be vain
and unreasonable, to pay homage to that which is not in being, nor can ever
be. We must first believe that he is, and that he is what he declares him-
self to be, before we can seek him, adore him, and devote our affections to
him, Heb. xi. 6. We cannot pay God a due and regular homage unless we
understand him in his perfections, what he is ; and we can pay him no
homage at all, unless we believe that he is.
3. It is fit we should know why we believe, that onr belief of a God may
appear to be upon undeniable evidence, and that we may give a better rea-
son for his existence than that we have heard our parents and teachers tell
us so, and our acquaintance think so. It is as much as to say there is no
God, when we know not why we believe there is, and would not consider the
arguments for his existence.
4. It is necessary to depress that secret atheism which is in the heart of
every man by nature. Though every visible object which offers itself to our
sense presents a deity to our minds, and exhorts us to subscribe to the truth
of it, yet there is a root of atheism springing up sometimes in wavering
thoughts and foolish imaginations, inordinate actions and secret wishes.
Certain it is that every man that doth not love God denies God ; now can
he that disaffects him, and hath a slavish fear of him, wish his existence, and
say to his own heart with any cheerfulness, there is a God, and make it his
chief care to persuade himself of it ? He would persuade himself there is
no God, and stifle the seeds of it in his reason and conscience, that he might
have the greatest liberty to entertain the allurements of the flesh.
It is necessary to excite men to daily and actual considerations of God
and his nature, which would be a bar to much of that wickedness which
overflows in the lives of men.
VOL. I. I
130 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
5. Nor is it unuseful to those that effectually believe and love him ;* for
those who have had a converse with God, and felt his powerful influences in
the secrets of their hearts, to take a prospect of those satisfactory accounts
which reason gives of that God they adore and love, to see every creature
justify them in their owning of him, and affections to him ; indeed, the evi-
dences of a God striking upon the conscience of those who resolve to cleave
to sin as their chiefest darling, will dash their pleasures with unwelcome
mixtures.
I shall further premise this,
That the folly of atheism is evidenced by the light of reason. Men that
will not listen to Scripture, as having no counterpart of it in their souls,
caainot easily deny natural reason, which riseth up on all sides for the justi-
fication of this truth. There is a natural as well as a revealed knowledge,
and the book of the creatures is legible in declaring the being of a God, as
well as the Scriptures are in declaring the nature of a God ; there are out-
ward objects in the world, and common principles in the conscience ; whence
it may be inferred.
For (1.) God, in regard of his existence, is not only the discovery of faith,
but of reason. God hath revealed not only his being, but some sparks of
his eternal power and Godhead in his works as well as in his word. Rom.
i. 19, 20, ' God hath shewed it unto them.' How?f In his works, by the
things that ar^ made ; it is a discovery to our reason as shining in the crea-
tures, and an object of our faith as breaking out upon us in the Scriptures ;
it is an article of our faith, and an article of our reason. Faith supposeth
natural knowledge, as grace supposeth nature. Faith indeed is properly of
things above reason, purely depending upon revelation. What can be de-
monstrated by natural light is not so properlj^ the object of faith, though in
regard of the addition of a certainty by revelation it is so.
The belief that God is, which the apostle speaks of, Heb. xi. 6, is not so
much of the bare existence of God, as what God is in relation to them that
seek to him, viz., ' a rewarder.' The apostle speaks of the faith of Abel,
the faith of Enoch, such a faith that pleases God ; but the faith of Abel
testified in his sacrifice, and the faith of Enoch testified in his walking with
God, was not simply a faith of the existence of God. Cain, in the time of
Abel, other men in the world in the time of Enoch, believed this as well as
they ; but it was a faith joined with the worship of God, and desirous to
please him in the way of his own appointment ; so that they believed that
God was such as he had declared himself to be in his promise to Adam,
such an one as would be as good as his word, and bruise the serpent's head;
he that seeks to God according to the mind of God, must believe that he is
such a God that will pardon sin and justify a seeker of him ; that he is a
God of that ability and will to justify a sinner in that way he hath appointed
for the clearing the holiness of his nature, and vindicating the honour of his
law violated by man.
No man can seek God, or love God, unless he believe him to be thus, and
he cannot seek God without a discovery of his own mind how he would be
sought; for it is not a seeking God in any way of man's invention that
renders him capable of this desired fruit of a reward : he that believes God as
a rewarder, must believe the promise of God concerning the Messiah.
Men, under the conscience of sin, cannot tell, without a divine discovery,
whether God will reward, or how he will reward, the seekers of him, and
therefore cannot act towards him as an object of faith. Would anj' man
seek God merely because he is, or love him because he is, if he did not
* Coccei Sum. Theol, c. 8, § 1. t Aquin.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 131
know that he should be acceptable to him ? The bare existence of a thing
is not the ground of affection to it, but those qualities of it, and our interest
in it which render it amiable and delightful. How can men whose con-
sciences fly in their faces seek God or love him, without this knowledge
that he is a rewai'der ? Nature doth not shew any way to a sinner how to
reconcile God's provoked justice with his tenderness. The faith the apostle
speaks of here is a faith that eyes the reward as an encouragement, and the
will of God as the rule of its acting, he doth not speak simply of the exist-
ence of God.
I have spoken the more of this place, because the Socinians* use this to
decry any natural knowledge of God, and that the existence of God is only
to be known by revelation, so that by that reason any one that lived with-
out the Scripture hath no ground to believe the being of a God.
The Scripture ascribes a knowledge of God to all nations in the world,
Rom. i. 19; not only a faculty of knowing, if they had arguments and
demonstrations, as an ignorant man in any art hath a faculty to know, but
it ascribes an actual knowledge: ver. 19, 'manifest in them;' ver. 21,
' they knew God,' — not they might know him, they knew him when they
did not care for knowing him. The notices of God are as intelligible to
us by reason as any object in the world is visible ; he is written in every
letter.
(2.) We are often in the Scripture sent to take a prospect of the crea-
tures for a discovery of God. The apostles drew arguments from the topics
of nature when they discoursed with those that owned the Scripture, Rom.
i. 19, as well as when they treated with those that were ignorant of it, as
Acts xiv. 15, 16; and among the philosophers of Athens, Acts xvii. 27, 29.
Such arguments the Holy Ghost in the apostles thought sufficient to con-
vince men of the existence, unity, spirituality, and patience of God.f Such
arguments had not been used by Ihem and the prophets from the visible
things in the world to silence the Gentiles with whom they dealt, had not
this truth, and much more about God, been demonstrated by natural reason;
they knew well enough that probable arguments would not satisfy piercing
and inquisitive minds.
In Paul's account the testimony of the creatures was without contradic-
tion. God himself justifies this way of proceeding by his own example,
and remits Job to the consideration of the creatures, to spell out something
of his divine perfections. Job xxxviii. xxxix. xl. &c. It is but one truth in
philosophy and divinity, that what is false in one cannot be true in another.
Truth, in what appearance soever, doth never contradict itself. And this
is so convincing an argument of the existence of God, that God never
vouchsafed any miracle, or put forth any act of omnipotency, besides what
was evident in the creatures, for satisfaction of the curiosity of any atheist,
or the evincing of his being,! as he hath done for the evidencing those truths
which were not written in the book of nature, or for the restoring a decayed
worship, or the protection or deliverance of his people. Those miracles in
publishing the gospel indeed did demonstrate the existence of some supreme
power; but they were not seals designedly affixed for that, but for the con-
firmation of that truth which was above the ken of purblind reason, and
purely the birth of divine revelation. Yet what proves the truth of any
spiritual doctrine, proves also in that act the existence of the divine Author
of it. The revelation always implies a revealer ; and that which manifests
it to be a revelation, manifests also the supreme revealer of it. By the
* Voet. Theol. natural, cap. iii. § 1, p. 22. t I^id.
X Lord Bacon has almost the same words in his sixteenth essay. — Ed.
132 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
same light the sun manifests other things to us it also manifests itself. But
what miracles could rationally be supposed to work upon an atheist, who is
not drawn to a sense of the truth proclaimed aloud by so many wonders of
the creation ?
Let us now proceed to the demonstration of the atheist's folly.
It is folly to deny or doubt of a sovereign being, incomprehensible in his
nature, infinite in his essence and perfections, independent in his operations,
who hath given being to the whole frame of sensible and intelligible crea-
tures, and governs them according to their several natures, by an uncon-
ceivable wisdom, who fills the heavens with the glory of his majesty, and
the earth with the influences of his goodness.
It is a folly inexcusable to renounce in this case all appeal to universal
consent, and the joint assurances of the creatures.
Reason 1. It is a folly to deny or doubt of that which has been the acknow-
ledged sentiment of all nations, in all places and ages. There is no nation
but hath owned some kind of religion, and therefore no nation but hath
consented in the notion of a supreme Creator and Governor.
1. This hath been universal.
2. It hath been constant and uninterrupted.
3. Natural and innate.
1. It hath been universally assented to by the judgments and practices of
all nations in the world.
(1.) No nation hath been exempt from it. All histories of former and
later ages have not produced any one nation but fell under the force of this
truth. Though they have difiered in their religions, they have agreed in this
truth; here both heathen, Turk, Jew, and Christian centre without any
contention. No quarrel was ever commenced on this score, though about
other opinions wars have been sharp and enmities irreconcilable. The
notion of the existence of a deity was the same in all, Indians as well as
Britons, Americans as well as Jews.
It hath not been an opinion peculiar to this or that people, to this or that
sect of philosophers, but hath been as universal as the reason whereby men
are differenced from other creatures ; so that some have rather defined man
by animal relifjiosum than animal rationale. It is so twisted with reason,
that a man cannot be accounted rational unless he own an object of reli-
gion ; therefore he that understands not this renounces his humanity when
he renounceth a divinity.
No instance can be given of any one people in the world that disclaimed
it. It hath been owned by the wise and ignorant, by the learned and
stupid, by those who had no other guide but the dimmest light of nature,
as well as by those whose candles were snuffed by a more polite education ;
and that without any solemn debate and contention. Though some philo-
sophers have been known to change their opinions in the concerns of
nature, yet none can be proved to have absolutely changed their opinion
concerning the being of a God. One died for asserting one God, none in
the former ages upon record hath died for asserting no God. Go to the
utmost bounds of America: you may find people without some broken pieces
of the law of nature, but not without this signature and stamp upon them,
though they wanted commerce with other nations, except as savage as them-
selves, in whom the light of nature was as it were sunk into the socket,
who were but one remove from brutes, who clothe not their bodies, cover
not their shame, yet were they as soon known to own a God as they were
known to be a people. They were possessed with the notion of a supreme
being, the author of the world, had an object of religious adoration, put up
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 133
prayers to the deity they owned for the good things they wanted and the
diverting the evils they feared. No people so untamed, where absolute,
perfect atheism had gained a footing.
Not one nation of the world known in the time of the Romans that were
without their ceremonies, whereby they signified their devotion to a deity.
They had their places of worship, where they made their vows, presented
their prayers, offered their sacrifices, and implored the assistance of what
they thought to be a god, and in their distresses ran immediately, without
any deliberation, to their gods ; so that the notion of a deity was as inward
and settled in them as their own souls, and indeed runs in the blood of
mankind. The distempers of the understanding cannot utterly deface it ;
you shall scarce find the most distracted bedlam in his raving fits to deny a
God, though he may blaspheme and fancy himself one.
(2.) Nor doth the idolatry and multiplicity of gods in the world weaken,
but confirm this universal consent. Whatsoever unworthy conceits men
have had of God in all nations, or whatsoever degrading representations
they have made of him, yet they all concur in this, that there is a supreme
power to be adored. Though one people worshipped the sun, others the
fire ; and the Egyptians, gods out of their rivers, gardens, and fields ; yet
the notion of a deity existent, who created and governed the world, and
conferred daily benefits upon them, was maintained by all, though applied
to the stars, and in part to those sordid creatures. All the Dagons of the
world establish this truth, and fall down before it. Had not the nations
owned the being of a God, they had never offered incense to an idol ; had
there not been a deep impression of the existence of a deity, they had never
exalted creatures below themselves to the honour of altars : men could not
so easily have been deceived by forged deities, if they had not had a notion
of a real one. Their fondness to set up others in the place of God, evi-
denced a natural knowledge that there was one who had a right to be wor-
shipped. If there were not this sentiment of a deity, no man would ever
have made an image of a piece of wood, worshipped it, prayed to it, and
said, ' Deliver me, for thou art my god,' Isa, xliv. 17. They applied a
general notion to a particular image. The difference is in the manner and
immediate object of worship, not in the formal ground of worship. The
worship sprung from a true principle, though it was not applied to a right
object : while they were rational creatures they could not deface the notion ;
yet while they were corrupt creatures it was not difiicult to apply themselves
to a wrong object from a true principle. A blind man knows he hath a way
to go as well as one of the clearest sight, but because of his blindness he
may miss the way and stumble into a ditch. No man would be imposed
upon to take a Bristol stone instead of a diamond, if he did not know that
there were such things as diamonds in the world ; nor any man spread forth
his hands to an idol, if he were altogether without the sense of a deity.
Whether it be a false or a true God men apply to, yet in both, the natural
sentiment of a God is evidenced ; all their mistakes were grafts inserted in
this stock, since they would multiply gods rather than deny a deity.
How should such a general submission be entered into by the world, so as
to adore things of base alloy, if the force of religion were not such, that in any
fashion a man would seek the satisfaction of his natural instinct to some
object of worship.* This great diversity confirms this consent to be a good
argument, for it evidenceth it not to be a cheat, combination, or conspiracy
to deceive, or a mutual intelligence, but every one finds it in his climate,
yea, in himself. People would never have given the title of a god to men
* Charron de la Sagesse, livr. i. chap. 7.
134 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
or brutes, had there 'not been a pre-existing and unquestioned persuasion,
that there was such a being.* How else should the notion of a God come
into their minds ? The notion that there is a God must be more ancient.
(3.) Whatsoever disputes there have been in the world, this of the exist-
ence of God was never the subject of contention. All other things have
been questioned. What jarrings were there among philosophers about
natural things, into how many parties were they split, with what animosities
did they maintain their several judgments ? But we hear of no solemn con-
troversies about the existence of a Supreme Being. This never met with
any considerable contradiction. No nation, that had put other things to
question, would ever suffer this to be disparaged, so much as by a public
doubt.f We find among the heathen contentions about the nature of God,
and the number of gods. Some asserted an innumerable multitude of gods ;
some affirmed him to be subject to birth and death ; some affirmed the
entire world was God ; others fancied him to be a circle of a bright fire ;
others, that he was a spirit difi"used through the whole world : yet they una-
nimously concurred in this, as the judgment of universal reason, that there
was such a sovereign being. And those that were sceptical in every thing
else, and asserted that the greatest certainty was that there was nothing cer-
tain, professed a certainty in this. The question was not whether there
was a first cause, but what it was. I It is much the same thing as the dis-
putes about the nature and matter of the heavens, the sun and planets ;
though there be a great diversity of judgments, yet all agree that there are
heavens, sun, planets. So all the contentions among men about the nature
of God, weaken not, but rather confirm, that there is a God, since there
was never a public formal debate about his existence. Those that have
been ready to pull out one another's eyes for their dissent from their judg-
ments, sharply censured one another's sentiments, envied the births of one
anothei''s wits, always shook hands with an unanimous consent in this :
never censured one another for being of this persuasion, never called it into
question. As what was never controverted among men professing Christian-
ity, but acknowledged by all, though contending about other things, has
reason to be judged a certain truth belonging to the Christian religion ; so
what was never subjected to any controversy, but acknowledged by the
whole world, hath reason to be embraced as a truth without any doubt.
(4.) This universal consent is not prejudiced by some few dissenters.
History doth not reckon twenty professed atheists in all ages in the compass
of the whole world ; § and we have not the name of any one absolute atheist
upon record in Scripture : yet it is questioned, whether any of them, noted
in history with that infamous name, were downright deniers of the existence
of God, but rather because they disparaged the deities commonly worshipped
by the nations where they lived, as being of a clearer reason to discern that
those qualities, vulgarly attributed to their gods, as lust and luxury, wan-
tonness and quarrels, were unworthy of the nature of a God. But suppose
they were really what they are termed to be, what are they to the multitude
of men that have sprung out of the loins of Adam ? Not so much as one
grain of ashes is to all that were ever turned into that form by any fires in
your chimneys. And many more were not sufficient to weigh down the con-
trary consent of the whole world, and bear down an universal impression.
Should the laws of a country, agreed universally to by the whole body of
the people, be accounted vain, because a hundred men of those millions dis-
approve of them, when not their reason, but their folly and base interest,
* Gassend. Phys. ? 1. lib. 4. cap. 2, J Gassenrl. Phys. ? 1. h'b. 4. cap. 2.
t Amyrant de Keligion, page 60. § Gassend. Phys. § 1. lib. 4. cap. 7.
Ps. XIY. l.J THE EXISTENCE OP OOD. 135
persuades them to dislike them, and dispute against them ?* What if some
men be blind, shall any conclude from thence that eyes are not natural to
men ? Shall we say that the notion of the existence of God is not natural
to men, because a very small number have been of a contrary opinion ?
Shall a man in a dungeon, that never saw the sun, deny that there is a sun,
because one or two blind men tell him there is none, when thousands assure
him there is ? Why should then the exceptions of a few, not one to mil-
lions, discredit that which is voted certainly true by the joint consent of the
world ? Add this too, that if those that are reported to be atheists had had
any considerable reason to step aside from the common persuasion of the
whole world, it is a wonder it met not with entertainment by great numbers
of those, who, by reason of their notorious wickedness and inward disquiets,
might reasonably be thought to wish in their hearts that there were no God.
It is strange, if there were any reason on their side, that in so long a space
of time as hath run out from the creation of the world, there could not be
engaged a considerable number to frame a society for the profession of it.
It hath died with the person that started it, and vanished as soon as it
appeared.
To conclude this, is it not folly for any man to deny or doubt of the being
of a God, to dissent from all mankind, and stand in contradiction to human
nature ? What is the general dictate of nature is a certain truth. It is
impossible that nature can naturally and universally lie ; and therefore those
that ascribe all to nature, and set it in the place of God, contradict them-
selves, if they give not credit to it in that which it universally affirms. A
general consent of all nations is to be esteemed as a law of nature. f Nature
cannot plant in the minds of all men an assent to a falsity, for then the laws
of nature would be destructive to the reason and the minds of men. How
is it possible that a falsity should be a persuasion spread through all nations,
engraven upon the minds of all men, men of the most towering and men of the
most creeping understanding ; that they should consent to it in all places,
and in those places where the nations have not had any known commerce
with the rest of the known world ? A consent not settled by any law of
man to constrain people to a belief of it ; and indeed it is impossible that
any law of man can constrain the belief of the mind. Would not he deser-
vedly be accounted a fool, that should deny that to be gold which had been
tried and examined by a great number of knowing goldsmiths, and hath
passed the test of all their touchstones ? What excess of folly would it be
for him to deny it to be true gold, if it had been tried by all that had skill
in that metal in all nations in the world !
2. It hath been a constant and uninterrupted consent. It hath been as
ancient as the first age of the world ; no man is able to mention any time
from the beginning of the world, wherein this notion hath not been univer-
sally owned ; it is as old as mankind, and hath run along with the course
of the sun, nor can the date be fixed lower than that.
(1.) In all the changes of the world this hath been maintained. In the
overturnings of the government of states, the alteration of modes of worship,
this hath stood unshaken. The reasons upon which it was founded were in
all revolutions of time accounted satisfactory and convincing, nor could
absolute atheism, in the changes of any laws, ever gain the favour of any
one body of people to be established by a law. When the honour of the
heathen idols was laid in the dust, this suff'ered no impair. The being of
one God was more vigorously owned when the unreasonableness of multi-
plicity of gods was manifest, and grew taller by the detection of counterfeits.
* Gassend. Phys. § 1. lib. 4. cap. 2. t Cicero.
186 chaenock's works. [Ps. XTV. 1.
When other parts of the law of nature have been violated by some nations,
this hath maintained its standing. The long series of ages hath been so
far from blotting it out, that it hath more strongly confirmed it, and maketh
further progress in the confii-mation of it. Time, which hath eaten out the
strength of other things, and blasted mere inventions, hath not been able to
consume this. The discovery of all other impostures never made this by
any society of men to be suspected as one. It will not be easy to name any
imposture that hath walked perpetually in the world without being discovered
and whipped out by some nation or other. Falsities have never been so
universally and constantly owned without public control and question. And
since the world hath detected many errors of the former age, and learning
been increased, this hath been so far from being dimmed, that it hath shone
out clearer with the increase of natural knowledge, and received fresh and
more vigorous confirmations.
(2.) The fears and anxieties in the consciencies of men have given men
sufficient occasion to root it out, had it been possible for them to do it. If
the notion of the existence of God had been possible to have been dashed
out of the minds of men, they would have done it rather than have suffered
so many troubles in their souls upon the commission of sin ; since they did
[not] want wickedness and wit in so many corrupt ages to have attempted
it and prospered in it, had it been possible. How comes it therefore to
pass that such a multitude of profligate persons, that have been in the world
since the fall of man, should not have rooted out this principle, and dis-
possessed the minds of men of that which gave birth to their tormenting
fears ? How is it possible that all should agree together in a thing which
created fear, and an obligation against the interest of the flesh, if it had
been free for men to discharge themselves of it ? No man, as far as corrupt
nature bears sway in him, is willing to live controlled.
The first man would rather be a god himself than under one. Gen. iii. 5.
Why should men continue this notion in them, which shackled them in their
vile inclinations, if it had been in their power utterly to deface it ? If it
were an imposture, how comes it to pass that all the wicked ages of the
world could never discover that to be a cheat, which kept them in continual
alarms ? Men wanted not will to shake ofl" such apprehensions ; as Adam,
so all his posterity are desirous to hide themselves from God upon the com-
mission of sin, ver. 9, and by the same reason they would hide God from
their souls. What is the reason they could never attain their will and their
wish by all their endeavours ? Could they possibly have satisfied them-
selves that there were no God, they had discarded their fears, the dis-
turbers of the repose of their lives, and been unbridled in their pleasures.
The wickedness of the world would never have preserved that which was a
perpetual molestation to it, had it been possible to be razed out.
But since men, under the turmoils and lashes of their own consciences,
could never bring their hearts to a settled dissent from this truth, it
evidenceth, that as it took its birth at the beginning of the world, it cannot
expire, no, not in the ashes of it, nor in anything, but the reduction of the
soul to that nothing from whence it sprung. This conception is so per-
petual, that the nature of the soul must be dissolved before it be rooted out,
nor can it be extinct whilst the soul endures.
(3.) Let it be considered also by us that own the Scripture, that the devil
deems it impossible to root out this sentiment. It seems to be so perpetually
fixed, that the devil did not think fit to tempt man to the denial of the
existence of a deity, but persuaded him to believe, he might ascend to that
dignity, and become a god himself: Gen. iii. 1, 'Hath God said?' and
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. . 137
he there owns him, ver. 5, * Ye shall become as gods.' Ho owns God in
the question he asks the woman, and persuades our first parents to be gods
themselves. And in all stories, both ancient and modern, the devil was
never able to tincture men's minds with a professed denial of the deity,
which would have opened a door to a world of more wickedness than hath
been acted, and took away the bar to the breaking out of that evil, which
is naturally in the hearts of men, to the greater prejudice of human societies.
He wanted not malice to raze out all the notions of God, but power ; he
knew it was impossible to eti'ect it, and therefore in vain to attempt it. He
set up himself in several places of the ignorant world as a god, but never
was able to overthrow the opinion of the being of a God. The impressions
of a deity were so strong as not to be struck out by the malice and power
of hell.
What a folly is it then in any to contradict or doubt of this truth, which
all the periods of time have not been able to wear out ; which all the wars
and quarrels of men with their own consciences have not been able to
destroy; which ignorance, and debauchery, its two greatest enemies, cannot
weaken ; which all the falsehoods and errors which have reigned in one or
other part of the world, have not been able to banish ; which lives in the
consents of men in spite of all their wishes to the contrary, and hath grown
stronger and shone clearer by the improvements of natural reason !
3. Natural and innate, which pleads strongly for the perpetuity of it. It is
natural, though some think it not a principal writ in the heart of man ; * it
is so natural that every man is born with a restless instinct to be of some
kind of religion or other, which implies some object of religion. The im-
pression of a deity is as common as reason, and of the same age with
reason.t It is a relic of knowledge after the fall of Adam, like fire under
ashes, which sparkles as soon as ever the heap of ashes is open ; a notion
sealed up in the soul of every man ; J else how could those people, who
were unknown to one another, separate by seas and mounts, difiering in
various customs and manner of living, had no mutual intelligence one with
another, light upon this as a common sentiment, if they had not been
guided by one uniform reason in all their minds, by one nature common to
them all ; though their climates be different, their tempers and constitutions
various, their imaginations in some things as distant from one another as
heaven is from earth, the ceremonies of their religion not all of the same
kind, yet wherever you find human nature, you find this settled persuasion.
So that the notion of a God seems to be twisted with the nature of man,
and is the first natural branch of common reason, or upon either the first
inspection of a man into himself and his own state and constitution, or upon
the first sight of any external visible object. Nature within man, and nature
without man, agree upon the first meeting together to form this sentiment,
that there is a God. It is as natural as anything we call a common prin-
ciple. One thing which is called a common principle and natural is, that
the whole is greater than the parts. If this be not bom with us, yet the
exercise of reason, essential to man, settles it as a certain maxim; upon the
dividing anything into several parts, he finds every part less than when they
were all together. By the same exercise of reason, we cannot cast our eyes
upon anything in the world, or exercise our understandings upon ourselves,
but we must presently imagine there was some cause of those things, some
cause of myself and my own being, so that this truth is as natural to man as
anything he can call most natural or a common principle.
* Pink. Eph. vi. p. 10, 11. t Amyrant dea Eeligions, p. 6-9.
t King on Jonah, p. 16.
138 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
It must be confessed by all, that there is a law of nature writ upon the
hearts of men, which will direct them to commendable actions, if they will
attend to the writing in their own consciences. This law cannot be con-
sidered without the notice of a lawgiver. For it is but a natural and
obvious conclusion, that some superior hand engrafted those principles in
man, since he finds something in him twitching him upon the pursuit of
uncomely actions, though his heart be mightily inclined to them ; man
knows he never planted this principle of reluctancy in his own soul ; he can
never be the cause of that which he cannot be friends with. If he were the
cause of it, why doth he not rid himself of it ? No man would endure a
thing that doth frequently molest and disquiet him, if he could cashier it.
It is therefore sown in man by some hand more powerful than man, which
riseth so high and is rooted so strong, that all the force that man can use
cannot pull it up. If therefore this principle be natural in man, and the
law of nature be natural, the notion of a lawgiver must be as natural as the
notion of a printer, or that there is a printer is obvious upon the sight of a
stamp impressed ; after this the multitude of effects in the world step in to
strengthen this beam of natural light, and the direct conclusion from thence
is, that that power which made those outward objects, implanted this
inward principle; this is sown in us, born with us, and sprouts up with our
growth ; or as one saith,* it is like letters carved upon the bark of a young
plant, which grows up together with us, and the longer it grows the letters
are more legible.
This is the ground of this universal consent, and why it may well be
termed natural.
This will more evidently appear to be natural, because,
[1.] This consent could not be by mere tradition.
[2.] Nor by any mutual intelligence of governors to keep people in
awe, which are two things the atheist pleads. The first hath no strong
foundation, and that other is as absurd and foolish as it is wicked and
abominable.
[3. J Nor was it fear first introduced it.
[1.] It could not be by mere tradition. Many things indeed are enter-
tained by posterity, which their ancestors delivered to them, and that out of
a common reverence to their forefathers, and an opinion that they had a
better prospect of things than the increase of the corruption of succeeding
ages would permit them to have.
But if this be a tradition handed from our ancestors, they also must re-
ceive it from theirs ; we must then ascend to the first man, we cannot else
escape a confounding ourselves with running into infinite. Was it then the
only tradition he left to them ? Is it not probable he acquainted them with
other things in conjunction with this, the nature of God, the way to worship
him, the manner of the world's existence, his own state ? We may reason-
ably suppose him to have a good stock of knowledge ; what is become of it ?
It cannot be supposed, that the first man should acquaint his posterity with
an object of worship, and leave them ignorant of a mode of worship, and of
the end of worship. We find in Scripture his immediate posterity did the
first in sacrifices, and without doubt they were not ignorant of the other.
How come men to be so uncertain in all other things, and so confident of
this, if it were only a tradition ? How did debates and irreconcilable ques-
tions start up concerning other things, and this remain untouched, but by a
small number ? Whatsoever tradition the first man left besides this, is lost,
and no way recoverable, but by the revelation God hath made in his word.
* Charleton.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 139
How comes it to pass, this of a God is longer lived than all the rest, which
we may suppose man left to his immediate descendants ? How come men
to retain the one and forget the other ? What was the reason this survived
the ruin of the rest, and surmounted the uncertainties into which the other
sunk ? Was it likely it should he handed down alone without other attend-
ants on it at first ? Why did it not expire among the Americans, who have
lost the account of their own descent, and the stock from whence they sprung,
and cannot reckon ahove eight hundred or a thousand years at most ? Why
was not the manner of the worship of a God transmitted, as well as that of
his existence ? How came men to dissent in their opinions concerning his
nature, whether he was corporeal or incorporeal, finite or infinite, omnipre-
sent or limited ? Why were not men as negligent to transmit this of his
existence as that of his nature ? No reason can be rendered for the security
of this above the other, but that there is so clear a tincture of a Deity upon
the minds of men, such traces and shadows of him in the creatures, such
indelible instincts within, and invincible arguments without to keep up this
universal consent. The characters are so deep that they cannot possibly be
razed out, which would have been one time or other, in one nation or other,
had it depended only upon tradition, since one age shakes off frequently the
sentiments of the former.
I cannot think of above one which may be called a tradition, which indeed
was kept up among all nations, viz., sacrifices, which could not be natural
but instituted. What ground could they have in nature, to imagine that the
blood of beasts could expiate and wash off the guilt and stains of a rational
creature ? Yet they had in all places (but among the Jews, and some of
them only) lost the knowledge of the reason and end of the institution, which
the Scripture acquaints us was to typify and signify the redemption by the
promised seed. This tradition hath been superannuated and laid aside in
most parts of the world, while this notion of the existence of a God hath
stood firm.
Eut suppose it were a tradition, was it likely to be a mere intention* and
figment of the first man ? Had there been no reason for it, his posterity
would soon have found out the weakness of its foundation. What advantage
had it been to him to transmit so great a falsehood, to kindle the fears or
raise the hopes of his posterity, if there were no God ? It cannot be sup-
posed he should be so void of that natural affection men in all ages bear to
their descendants, as so grossly to deceive them, and be so contrary to the
simphcity and plainness which appears in all things nearest their original.
[2.] Neither was it by any mutual intelligence of governors among them-
selves, to keep people in subjection to them. If it were a political design at
first, it seems it met with the general nature of mankind very ready to give
it entertainment.
First, It is unaccountable how this should come to pass. It must be
either by a joint assembly of them, or a mutual correspondence. If by any
assembly, who were the persons ? Let the name of any one be mentioned.
When was the time ? Where, was the place of this appearance ? By what
authority did they meet together ? Who made the first motion, and first
started this great principle of policy ? By what means could they as-
semble from such distant parts of the world ? Human histories are utterly
silent in it, and the Scripture, the ancientest history, gives an account of
the attempt of Babel, but not a word of any design of this natui-e.
What mutual correspondence could such have, whose interests are for the
most part different, and their designs contrary to one another ? How could
♦ Qu. ' invention' ? — En.
140 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
they, who were divided by such vast seas, have this mutual converse ? How
could those, who were different in their customs and manners, agree so
unanimously together in one thing to gull the people ? If there had been
such a correspondence between the governors of all nations, what is the
reason some nations should be unknown to the world till of late times ? How
could the business be so secretly managed, as not to take vent, and issue in
a discovery to the world ? Can reason suppose so many in a joint conspi-
racy, and no man's conscience in this life under sharp afflictions, or on his
deathbed, when conscience is most awakened, constrain him to reveal
openly the cheat that beguiled the world ? How came they to be so unani-
mous in this notion, and to difi'er in their rites almost in every country ?
Why could they not agree in one mode of worship throughout all the world,
as well as in this universal notion ? If there were not a mutual inteUigence,
it cannot be conceived how in every nation such a state engineer should rise
up with the same trick to keep people in awe. What is the reason we can-
not find any law in any one nation, to constrain men to the belief of the
existence of a God, since politic stratagems have been often fortified by laws ?
Besides, such men make use of principles received to effect their contrivances,
and are not so impohtic as to build designs upon principles that have no
foundation in natui'e. Some heathen law-givers have pretended a converse
with their gods to make their laws be received by the people with a greater
veneration, and fix with stronger obligation the observance and perpetuity of
them ; but this was not the introducing of a new principle, but the supposi-
tion of an old received notion, that there was a God, and an application of
that principle to their present design. The pretence had been vain had not
the notion of a God been ingi-afted. Politicians are so little possessed with
a reverence of God, that the first mighty one in the Scripture (which may
reasonably gain with the atheist the credit ;of the ancientest history in the
word), is represented without any fear of God. Gen. x. 9, ' Nimrod was a
mighty hunter before the Lord.' An invader and oppressor of his neigh-
bours, and reputed the introducer of a new worship, and being the first that
built cities after the flood (as Cain was the first builder of them before the
flood), built also idolatry with them, and erected a new worship, and was
so far from strengthening that notion the people had of God, that he en-
deavom-ed to corrupt it ; the first idolatry in common histories being noted
to proceed from that part of the world, the ancientest idol being at Babylon,
and supposed to be first invented by this person. Whence by the way per-
haps Rome is in the Revelations called Babylon, with respect to that simili-
tude of their saint-w^orship, to the idolatry first set up in that place.* It is
evident politicians have often changed the worship of a nation, but it is not
upon record, that the first thoughts of an object of worship ever entered into
the minds of people by any trick of theirs.
But to return to the present argument ; the being of a God is owned by
some nations that have scarce any form of policy among them. It is as
wonderful how any wit should hit upon such an invention, as it is absurd to
ascribe it to any human device, if there were not prevailing arguments to
constrain the consent. Besides, how is it possible they should deceive them-
selves ? What is the reason the greatest politicians have their fears of a
deity upon their unjust practices, as well as other men, they intended to
befool ? How many of them have had forlorn consciences upon a deathbed,
upon the consideration of a God to answer an account to in another world ?
* Or if we understand it, as some think, that he defended his invasions under a pre-
text of the preserving religion, it assures us that there was a notion of an object of
religion before, since no religion can be without an object of worship.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 141
Is it credible they should be frighted by that wherewith they knew they
beguiled others ? No man satisfying his pleasures would impose such a
deceit upon himself, or render and make himself more miserable than the
creatures he hath dominion over.
Secondly, It is unaccountable how it should endure so long a time ; that
this policy should be so fortunate as to gain ground in the consciences of
men, and exercise an empire over them, and meet with such an universal
success. If the notion of a God were a state-engine, and introduced by some
pohtic grandees for the ease of government, and preserving people with more
felicity in order, how comes it to pass the first broachers of it were never
upon record ? There is scarce a false opinion vented in the world, but may
as a stream be traced to the first head and fountain. The inventors of par-
ticular forms of worship are known, and the reasons why they prescribed
them known ; but what grandee was the author of this ? who can pitch a
time and person that sprung up this notion ? If any be so insolent as to
impose a cheat, he can hardly be supposed to be so successful as to deceive
the whole world for many ages. Impostures pass not free through the whole
world without examination and discovery. Falsities have not been univer-
sally and constantly owned without control and question. If a cheat imposeth
upon some towns and countries, he will be found out by the more piercing
inquiries of other places ; and it is not easy to name any imposture that hath
walked so long in its disguise in the world, without being unmasked and
whipped out by some nation or other. If this had been a mere trick, there
would have been as much craft in some to discern it as there was in others
to contrive it. No man can be imagined so wise in a kingdom, but others
may be found as wise as himself ; and it is not conceivable that so many
clear-sighted men in all ages should be ignorant of it, and not endeavour to
free the world from so great a falsity.* It cannot be found that a trick of
state should always beguile men of the most piercing insights, as well as the
most credulous. That a few crafty men should befool all the wise men in
the world, and the world lie in a belief of it, and never like to be freed from
it. What is the reason the succeeding politicians never knew this stratagem,
since their maxims are usually handed to their successors ? f
This persuasion of the existence of God, owes not itself to any imposture
or subtlety of men. If it had not been agreeable to common nature and
reason, it could not so long have borne sway. The imposed yoke would
have been cast ofi" by multitudes. Men would not have charged themselves
with that which was attended with consequences displeasing to the flesh, and
hindered them from a full swing of their rebellious passions ; such a shackle
would have mouldered of itself, or been broke by the extravagances human
nature is inclined unto. The wickedness of men, without question, hath
prompted them to endeavour to unmask it, if it were a cozenage, but could
never yet be so successful as to free the world from a persuasion, or their
own consciences from the tincture, of the existence of a deity. It must be,
therefore, of an ancienter date than the craft of statesmen, and descend into
the world with the first appearance of human nature. Time, which hath
rectified many errors, improves this notion, makes it shock down its roots
deeper, and spread its branches larger.
It must be a natural truth that shines clear by the detection of those errors
that have befooled the world, and the wit of man is never able to name any
human author that first insinuated it into the beliefs of men.
[3.] Nor was it fear first introduced it. Fear is the consequent of wicked-
* Fotherby, A theomastrix, p. 64.
t ' -^^d. there is not a Richelieu, but leaves his axioms to a Mazarin.'
142 chaknock's wobks. [Ps. XIV. 1.
ness. As man was not created with any inherent sin, so he was not created
with any terrifying fears ; the one had been against the holiness of the Crea-
tor, the other against his goodness. Fear did not make this opinion, but
the opinion of the being of a deity was the cause of this fear, after his sense
of anoering tlie deity by his wickedness. The object of fear is before the
act of fear ; there could not be an act of fear exercised about the deity, till
it was believed to be existent, and not only so, but offended. For God, as
existent only, is not the object of fear or love : it is not the existence of a
thing that excites any of those aifections, but the relation a thing bears to us
in particular. God is good, and so the object of love, as well as just, and
thereby the object of fear. He was as much called love (Eawc) and 7nens, or
mind, in regard of his goodness and understanding, by the heathens, as much
as by any other name. Neither of those names were proper to insinuate
fear, neither was fear the first principle that made the heathens worship a
god. They offered sacrifices out of gratitude to some, as well as to others
out of fear ; the fear of evils in the world, and the hopes of beUef and assist-
ance from their gods, and not a terrifying fear of God, was the principal spring
of their worship. When calamities from the hands of men, or judgments by
the influences of heaven, were upon them, they implored that which they
thought a deity. It was not their fear of him, but a hope in his goodness,
and persuasion of remedy from him, for the averting those evils, that rendered
them adorers of a god. If they had not had pre-existent notions of his being
and goodness, they would never have made addresses to him, or so frequently
sought to that they only apprehended as a terrifying object.* When you
hear men calling upon God in a time of affrighting thunder, you cannot
imagine that the fear of thunder did first introduce the notion of a God, but
implies that it was before apprehended by them, or stamped upon them,
though their fear doth at present actuate that belief, and engage them in a
present exercise of piety ; and whereas the Scripture saith, ' the fear of God
is the beginning of wisdom,' Prov. ix. 10, Ps. cxi. 10, or of all religion, it is
not understood of a distracted and terrifying fear, but a reverential fear of
him, because of his holiness, or a worship of him, a submission to him, and
sincere seeking of him.
Well then, is it not a folly for an atheist to deny that which is the reason
and common sentiment of the whole world, to strip himself of humanity, run
counter to his own consience, prefer a private before a universal judgment,
give the lie to his own nature and reason, assert things impossible to be
proved, nay, impossible to be acted, forge irrationalities for the support of
his fancy against the common persuasion of the world, and against himself,
and so much of God as is manifest in him and every man ? Rom. i. 19.
Reason 2. It is a folly to deny that which all creatures, or all things in the
world manifest.! Let us view this in Scripture since we acknowledge it, and
after consider the arguments from natural reason.
The apostle resolves it : Eom. i. 19, 20, ' 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, so that they are without
excuse.' They know, or might know, by the things that were made, the
eternity and power of God ; their sense might take circuit about every object,
and their minds collect the being, and something of the perfections of the
deity. The first discourse of the mind upon the sight of a delicate piece of
workmanship, is the conclusion of the being of an artificer, and the admira-
tion of his skill and industry. The apostle doth not say, the invisible things
* Gassend. Phys., sect. 1, 1. 4, c. 2, p. 291, 292.
\ Jupiter est quodcunque vides, &c.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 143
of God are believed, or they have an opinion of them, but they are seen, and
dearly seen. They are hke crystal glasses, which give a clear representation
of the existence of a deity, like that mirror reported to be in a temple in
Arcadia, which represented to the spectator, not his own face, but the image
of that deity which he worshipped.
The whole world is like a looking-glass, which whole and entire represents
the image of God, and every broken piece of it, every little shred of a crea-
ture, doth the like ; not only the great ones, elephants and the leviathan,
but ants, flies, worms, whose bodies rather than names we know ; the great
cattle and the creeping things. Gen. i. 24. Not naming there any interme-
diate creature, to direct us to view him in the smaller letters, as well as the
gi-eater characters of the world. His name is glorious, and his attributes
are excellent ' in all the earth,' Ps. viii. 1, in every creature, as the glory of
the sun is in every beam and smaller flash ; he is seen in every insect, in
every spire of grass. The voice of the Creator is in the most contemptible
creature.* The apostle adds that they are so clearly seen, that men are
inexcusable if they have not some knowledge of God by them ; if they micht
not certainly know them, they might have some excuse. So that his exist-
ence is not only probably, but demonstratively, proved from the things of the
world.
Especially the heavens declare him, which God ' stretches out like a cur-
tain,' Ps. civ. 2, or as some render the word, ' a skin,' whereby is signified,
that heaven is as an open book, which was anciently made of the skins of
beasts, that by the knowledge of them we may be taught the knowledge of
God. Where the Scripture was not revealed, the world served for a witness
of a God ; whatever arguments the Scripture uses to prove it are drawn
from nature (though indeed it doth not so much prove as suppose the exist-
ence of a God), but what arguments it uses are from the creatures, and
particularly the heavens, which are the public preachers of this doctrine.
The breath of God sounds to all the world through those organ pipes. His
being is visible in their existence, his wisdom in their frame, his power in
their motion, his goodness in their usefulness; for 'their voice goeth to the
end of the earth,' Ps, xix. 1, 2. They have a voice, and their voice is as
intelligible as any common language. And those are so plain heralds of a
deity, that the heathen mistook them for deities, and gave them a particular
adoration which was due to that god they declared. The first idolatry
seems to be of those heavenly bodies, which began probably in the time of
Nimrod. In Job's time it is certain they admired the glory of the sun and
the brightness of the moon, not without kissing their hand, a sign of adora-
tion. Job xxxi. 25, 27. It is evident a man may as well doubt whether there
be a sun, when he sees his beams gilding the earth, as doubt whether there
be a God, when he sees his works spread in the world.
The things in the world declare the existence of a God.
1, In their production; 2, harmony; 3, preservation; 4, answering their
several ends.
1. In their production. The declaration of the existence of God was
the chief end for which they were created, that the notion of a supreme and
independent eternal being might easier incur into the active understanding
of man from the objects of sense dispersed in every corner of the world,
that he might pay a homage and devotion to the Lord of all : Isa. xl. 12,
13, 18, 19, &c., ' Have you not understood from the foundation of the
earth, it is he that sits upon the circle of the heaven,' &c. How could
this great heap be brought into being unless a God had framed it ? Every
* Banes in Aquiu., Far. 2, Qu. 2, Artie. 2, p. 78, col. 2.
144 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
plant, every atom, as well as every star, at the first meeting whispers this
in our ears, I have a Creator, I am witness to a deity. Who ever saw
statues or pictures, but presently thinks of a statuary and limner ? Who
beholds garments, ships, or houses, but understands there was a weaver, a
carpenter, an architect ?* Who can cast his eyes about the world, but must
think of that power that formed it, and that the goodness which appears in
the formation of it hath a perfect residence in some being ? * Those things
that are good must flow from something perfectly good; that which is chief
in any kind is the cause of all of that kind. Fire, which is most hot, is the
cause of all things which are hot. There is some being therefore which is
the cause of all that perfection which is in the creature, and this is God'
(Aquin. i. qu. 2, art. 3). All things that are demonstrate something from
whence they are. All things have a contracted perfection, and what they
have is communicated to them. Perfections are parcelled out among several
creatures. Anything that is imperfect cannot exist of itself. We are led
therefore by them to consider a fountain which bubbles up in all perfection,
a hand which distributes those several degrees of being and perfection to
what we see. We see that which is imperfect, our minds conclude some-
thing perfect to exist before it; our eye sees the streams, but our under-
standing riseth to the head ; as the eye sees the shadow, but the under-
standing informs us whether it be the shadow of a man or of a beast.
God hath given us sense to behold the objects in the world, and under-
standing to reason his existence from them ; the understanding cannot
conceive a thing to have made itself, that is against all reason, Rom. i. 20.
As they are made, they speak out a maker, and cannot be a trick of chance,
since they are made with such an immense wisdom, that is too big for the
grasp of all human understanding. Those that doubt whether the existence
of God be an implanted principle, yet agree that the effects in the world
lead to a supreme and universal cause ; and that if we have not the know-
ledge of it rooted in our natures, yet we have it by discourse, since by all
masters of reason a processus in infinitum must be Skccounted impossible in
subordinate causes.
This will appear in several things.
(1.) The world and every creature had a beginning. The Scripture ascer-
tains this to us. Gen. i. David, who was not the first man, gives the praise
to God of his being ' curiously wrought,' &c., Ps. cxxxix. 14, 15. God
gave being to men, and plants, and beasts, before they being to one
another. He gives being to them now as the fountain of all being, though
the several modes of being are from the several natures of second causes.
It is true indeed we are ascertained that they were made by the true God,
that they were made by his word (' By faith we understand that the worlds
were framed by the word of God,' &c., Heb. xi. 3), that they were made of
nothing, and not only this lower world wherein we Hve, but according to
the Jewish division, the world of men, the world of stars, and the world of
spirits and souls. We do not waver in it, or doubt of it, as the heathen
did in their disputes ; we know they are the workmanship of the true God,
of that God we adore, not of false gods. * By his word :' without any
instrument or engine as in earthly structures ; ' of things which do not
appear:' without any pre-existent matter, as all artificial works of men are
fi-amed.
Yet the proof of the beginning of the world is affirmed with good reason ;
and if it had a beginning, it had also some higher cause than itself; every
effect hath a cause.
* Philo, ex Petav. Theol. Dog. torn. i. lib. 1, cap. 1, p. 4, somewhat changed.
Ps. XIV. l.j THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. 145
The world was not eternal or from eternity.* The matter of the world
cannot be eternal; matter cannot subsist without form, nor put on any form
without the action of some cause ; this cause must be in being before it
acted ; that which is not cannot act. The cause of the world must neces-
sarily exist before any matter was endued with any form ; that therefore
cannot be eternal before which another did subsist. If it were from
eternity, it would not be subject to mutation ; if the whole was from
eternity, why not also the parts ? What makes the changes so visible,
then, if eternity would exempt it from mutability ?
[1.] Time cannot be infinite, and therefore the world not eternal ;f all
motion hath its beginning ; if it were otherwise, we must say the number of
heavenly revolutions of days and nights, which aro past to this instant, is
actually infinite, which cannot be in nature. If it were so, it must needs
be granted that a part is equal to the whole ; because infinite being equal to
infinite, the number of days past in all ages to the beginning of one year
being infinite (as they would be, supposing the world had no beginning),
would by consequence be equal to the number of days which shall pass to
the end of the next ; whereas the number of days past is indeed but a part,
and so a part would be equal to the whole.
[2.] Generations of men, animals, and plants could not be from eternity.|
If any man say the world was from eternity, then there must be propaga-
tions of living creatures in the same manner as are at this day, for without
this the world could not consist. What we see now done must have been
perpetually done, if it be done by a necessity of nature ; but we see nothing
now that doth arise but by a mutual propagation from another. If the
world were eternal, therefore, it must be so in all eternity. Take any par-
ticular species, suppose a man, if men were from eternity, then there were
perpetual generations, some were born into the world and some died. Now
the natural condition of generation is, that a man doth not generate a man,
nor a sheep a lamb, as soon as ever itself is brought into the world, but
gets strength and vigour by degrees, and must arrive to a certain stated age
before they can produce the like ; for whilst anything is little and below the
due age, it cannot increase its kind. Men therefore and other creatures did
propagate their kind by the same law, not as soon as ever they were born,
but in the interval of some time, and children grew up by degrees in the
mother's womb till they were fit to be brought forth. If this be so, then
there could not be an eternal succession of propagating; for there is no
eternal continuation of time. Time is always to be conceived as having
one part before another; but that perpetuity of nativities is always after
some time, wherein it could not be for the weakness of age. If no man,
then, can conceive a propagation from eternity, there must be then a
beginning of generation in time, and consequently the creatures were made
in time.
To express it in the words of one of our own : * If the world were eternal,
it must have been in the same posture as it is now, in a state of generation
and corruption ; and so corruption must have been as eternal as generation,
and then things that do generate and corrupt must have eternally been, and
eternally not have been : there must be some first way to set generation on
work.'§ We must lose ourselves in our conceptions; we cannot conceive
a father before a child, as well as we cannot conceive a child before a father ;
and reason is quite bewildered, and cannot return into a right way of con-
* Daille, 20 Serm. Psa. cii. p. 13, 14.
t Daille ut supra. | Petav. Theo. Dogmat. torn. i. lib. 1, cap. 2, p. 15.
§ Wolseley of Atheism, page 47.
VOL. I. K
146 chaknock's wokks. [Ps. XIY. 1.
ception till it conceive one first of every kind : one first man, one first ani-
mal, one first plant, from whence others do proceed. The argument is unan-
swerable, and the wisest atheist (if any atheist can be called wise) cannot
unloose the knot. We must come to something that is first in every kind,
and this first must have a cause, not of the same kind, but infinite and
independent ; otherwise men run into inconceivable labyrinths and contra-
dictions.
Man, the noblest creature upon earth, hath a beginning. No man in
the world but was some years ago no man. If every man we see had a
beginning, then the first man bad also a beginning, then the world had a
beginning ; for the earth, which was made for the use of man, had wanted
that end for which it was made. * We must pitch upon some one man that was
unborn ;'* that first man must either be eternal, — that cannot be, for he that
hath no beginning hath no end, — or must spring out of the earth, as plants
and trees do, — that cannot be. Why should not the earth produce men to
this day, as it doth plants and trees ? He was therefore made ; and what-
soever is made hath some cause that made it, which is God. If the world
were uncreated, + it w-ere then immutable, but eveiy creature upon the earth
is in a continual flux, always changing. If things be mutable, they were
created; if created, they were made by some author; whatsoever hath a
beginning must have a maker ; if the world hath a beginning, there was then
a time when it was not: it must have some cause to produce it. That which
makes is before that which is made, and this is God ; which will appear
further in this
Proj). Ko creature can make itself: the world could not make itself.
If every man had a beginning, every man then was once nothing ; he
could not then make himself, because nothing cannot be the cause of some-
thing : Ps. c. 3, ' The Lord he is God : he hath made us, and not we our-
selves.' Whatsoever begun in time, was not; and when it was nothing, it
had nothing, and could do nothing : and therefore could never give to itself
nor to any other to be, or to be able to do ; for then it gave what it had not,
and did what it could not. j Since reason must acknowledge a first of every
kind, a first man, &c., it must acknowledge him created and made, not by him-
self. Why have not other men since risen up by themselves ? Not by chance ;
why hath not chance produced the like in that long time the world hath
stood ? If we never knew any thing give being to itself, how can we ima-
gine any thing ever could ? If the chiefest part of this lower world cannot,
nor any part of it hath been known to give being to itself, then the whole
cannot be supposed to give any being to itself. Man did not form himself:
his body is not fi'om himself; it would then have the power of moving
itself, but that is not able to live or act without the presence of the soul.
Whilst the soul is present, the body moves ; when that is absent, the body
lies as a senseless log, not having the least action or motion. His soul
could not form itself; can that which cannot foim the least mote, the least
grain of dust, form itself a nobler substance than any upon the earth ?
This will be evident to every man's reason, if we consider,
1. Nothing can act before it be. The first man was not, and therefore
could not make himself to be : for any thing to produce itself is to act ; if it
acted before it was, it was then something and nothing at the same time ;
it had then a being before it had a being ; it acted when it brought itself
into being. How could it act without a being, without it was ? Bo that if
it were the cause of itself, it must be before itself as well as after itself: it
* Petav. ut supra, page 10. f Damason.
J Petav. Theol. Dog. torn. i. lib. i. cap. 2, page 14.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 147
was before it was ; it was as a cause before it was as an effect. Action
alwaj's supposes a principle from whence it flows ; as nothliu^ hath no exist-
ence, so it hath no operation ; there must be therefore something of real
existence to give a being to those things that are, and every cause must bo
an effect of some other before it bo a cause. To be and not bo at the samo
time, is a manifest contradiction, which would bo if any thing made itself.
That which makes is always before that which is made. Who will say tho
house is before tho carpenter, or the picture before the limner '? The world
as a creator must be before itself as a creature.
2. That which doth not understand itself, and order itself, could not make
itself. If the first man fully understood his own nature, the excellency of
his own soul, the manner of its operations, why was not that understanding
conveyed to his posterity ? Are not many of them found, who understand
their own nature almost as little as a beast understands itself, or a rose
understands its own sweetness, or a tulip its own colours ? The Scripture
indeed gives us an account how this came about, viz., by the deplorable
rebellion of man, whereby death was brought upon them, a spiritual death,
which includes ignorance as well as an inability to spiritual action. Gen.
ii. 17, Ps. xlix. 8. Thus he fell from his honour, and became like the beasts
that perish, and not retaining God in his knowledge, retained not himself in
his own knowledge.
But what reply can an atheist make to it, who acknowledges no higher
cause than nature ? If the soul made itself, how comes it to be so muddy,
so wanting in its knowledge of itself and of other things ? If the soul made
its own understanding, whence did the defect arise ? If some first principle
was settled by the first man in himself, where was the stop, that he did not
implant all in his own mind, and consequently in the minds of all his descend-
ants ? Our souls know little of themselves, little of the w^orld, are every day
upon new inquiries, have little satisfaction in themselves, meet with many
an invincible rub in their way ; and when they seem to come 'to some reso-
lution in some cases, stagger again, and like a stone rolled up to the top of
the hill, quickly find themselves again at the foot. How come they to be so
purblind in truth ? so short of that which they judge true goodness ? How
comes it to pass they cannot order their own rebellious affections, and suffer
the reins thej' have to hold over their affections to be taken out of their
hands by the unruly fancy and flesh ?
Thus no man that denies the being of a God, and the revelation in Scrip-
ture, can give an account of. Blessed be God that we have the Scripture,
which gives us an account of those things, that all the wit of men could
never inform us of ; and that when they are discovered and known by reve-
lation, they appear not contrary to reason.
'3. If the first man made himself, how came he to limit himself? If he
gave himself being, why did he not give himself all the perfections and orna-
ments of being ? Nothing that made itself could sit down contented with a
little, but would have had as much power to give itself that which is less, as
to give itself being when it was nothing. The excellencies it wanted had not
been more difficult to gain than the other which it possessed, as belonging
to its nature. If the first man had been independent upon another, and had
his perfection from himself, he might have acquired that perfection he
wanted, as well as have bestowed upon himself that perfection he had ; and
then there would have been no bounds set to him. He would have been
omniscient and immutable. He might have given himself what he would ;
if he had had the setting his own bounds, he would have set none at all ; for
what should restrain him ? No man now wants ambition to be what he is
148 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
not ; and if the first man had not been determined by another, but had given
himself beincr, he would not have remained ia that determinate being, no
more than a toad would remain a toad, if it had power to make itself a man,
and that power it would have had, if it had given itself a being. Whatso-
ever gives itself being, would give itself all degrees of being, and so would
have no imperfection, because every imperfection is a want of some degree
of being.* He that could give himself matter and Hfe, might give himself
every thin-'. The giving of life is an act of omnipotence, and what is omni-
potent in one thing, may be in all. Besides, if the first man had made
himself, he would have conveyed himself to all his posterity in the same
manner ; every man would have had all the perfections of the first man, as
every creature hath the perfections of the same kind ; from whence it natu-
rally issues, all are desirous to communicate what they can to their pos-
terity. Communicative goodness belongs to every nature. Every plant
propagates its kind in the same perfection it hath itself; and the nearer any-
thinc^ comes to a rational nature, the greater affection it hath to that which
descends from it ; therefore this afi'action belongs to a rational nature much
more. The first man, therefore, if he had had power to give himself being, and
consequently all perfection, he would have had as much power to convey it
down to his posterity ; no impediment could have stopped his way : then
all souls proceeding from that first man would have been equally intellectual.
What should hinder them from inheriting the same perfections ? whence
should they have diverse qualifications and difl'erences in their understand-
ings ? No man then would have been subject to those weaknesses, doubt-
ings, and unsatisfied desires of knowledge and perfection. But being all
souls are not alike, it is certain they depend upon some other cause for the
communication of that excellency they have. If the perfections of men be
so contracted and kept within certain bounds, it is certain that they were
not in his own power, and so were not from himself. Whatsoever hath a
determinate being must be limited by some superior cause. There is there-
fore some superior power, that hath thus determined the creature by set
bounds and distinct measures, and hath assigned to every one its proper
nature, that it should not be greater or less than it is ; who hath said of
every one, as of the waves of the sea. Job xxxviii. 11, ' Hitherto shalt
thou come, but no further;' and this is God. Man could not have
reserved any perfection from his posterity ; for since he doth propagate not
by choice but nature, he could no more have kept back any perfection from
them than he could, as he pleased, have given any perfection belonging
to his nature to them.
4. That which hath power to give itself being, cannot want power to pre-
serve that being. Preservation is not more difficult than creation. If the
first man made\imself, why did he not preserve himself? He is not now
among the living in the world. How came he to be so feeble as to sink
into the grave ? Why did he not inspire himself with new heat and moisture,
and fill his languishing limbs and declining body with new strength ? Why
did he not chase awav'diseases and death at the first approach ? What crea-
ture can find the dust of the first man ? All his posterity traverse the stage
and retire again ; in a short space again their ' age departs, and is removed
from them as a shepherd's tent, and is cut off with pining sickness,' Isa.
xxxviii. 12. The life of man is as a wind, and like a cloud that is con-
sumed and vanishes away. ' The eye that sees him shall see him no more.
He returns not to his house, neither doth his place know him any more,'
* Therefore the heathens called God rh ov, the only being. Other things were
not beings, because they had not all degrees of being.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. 149
Job vii. 8, 10. The Scripture gives us the reason of this, and lays it upon
the score of sin against his Creator, which no man without revelation can
give any satisfactory account of.
Had the first man made himself, he had been sufficient for himself, able
to support himself without the assistance of any creature. He would not
have needed animals and plants, and other helps to nourish and refresh him,
nor medicines to cure him. He could not be beholding to other things for
his support, which he is certain he never made for himself. His own nature
would have continued that vigour which once he had conferred upon him-
self. He would not have needed the heat and light of the sun ; he would
have wanted nothing sufficient for himself in himself; he needed not have
sought without himself for his own preservation and comfort. What de-
pends upon another is not of itself, and what depends upon things inferior
to itself is less of itself. Since nothing can subsist of itself, since we see
those things upon which man depends for his nourishment and subsistence
growing and decaying, starting into the world and retiring from it, as well
as man himself, some preserving cause must be concluded upon which all
depends.
5. If the first man did produce himself, why did he not produce himself
before ?
It hath been already proved that he had a beginning, and could not be
from eternity. Why then did he not make himself before ? Not because
he would not. For having no being, he could have no will ; he could
neither be willing nor not willing. If he could not then, how could he after-
wards ? If it were in his own power he could have done it, he would have
done it ; if it were not in his own power, then it was in the power of some
other cause, and that is God. How came he by that power to produce him-
self? If the power of producing himself were communicated by another,
then man could not be the cause of himself. That is the cause of it which
communicated that power to it. But if the power of being was in and from
himself, and in no other, nor communicated to him, man would always have
been in act, and always have existed, no hindrance can be conceived. For
that which had the power of being in itself was invincible by anything that
should stand in the way of its own being.
We may conclude from hence the excellency of the Scripture, that it is a
word not to be refused credit. It gives us the most rational account of
things in the 1st and 2d of Genesis, which nothing in the world else is able
to do.
Prop. 2. No creature could make the world. No creature can create
another. If it creates of nothing, it is then omnipotent, and so not a crea-
ture. If it makes something of matter unfit for that which is produced out
of it, then the inquiry will be. Who was the cause of the matter ? and so we
must arrive to some uncreated being, the cause of all. Whatsoever gives
being to any other must be the highest being, and must possess all the per-
fections of that which it gives being to. What visible creature is there
which possesses the perfections of the whole world ? If, therefore, an in-
visible creature made the world, the same inquiries will return, whence that
creature had its being ? For he could not make himself. If any creature
did create the world, he must do it by the strength and virtue of another,
which first gave him being ; and this is God. For whatsoever hath its exist-
ence and virtue of acting from another is not God. If it hath its virtue from
another, it is then a second cause, and so supposeth a first cause. It must
have some cause of itself, or be eternally existent. If eternally existent, it
is not a second cause, but God ; if not eternally existent, we must come to
150 chakkock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
something at length which was the cause of it, or else be bewildered without
being able to give an account of anything. We must come at last to an
infinite, eternal, independent being that was the first cause of this structure
and fabric wherein we and all creatures dwell. The Scripture proclaims this
aloud : Isa. xlv. 6, 7, Deut. iv. 35, ' I am the Lord, and there is none
else. I form the light, and I create darkness.' Man, the noblest creature,
cannot of himself make a man, the chiefest part of the world. If our parents
only, without a superior power, made our bodies or souls, they would know
the frame of them ; as he that makes a lock knows the wards of it ; he that
makes any curious piece of arras knows how he sets the various colours
together, and how many threads went to each division in the web ; he that
makes a watch, having the idea of the whole work in his mind, knows the
motions of it, and the reason of those motions. But both parents and chil-
dren are equally ignorant of the nature of their souls and bodies, and of the
reason of their motions. God only, that had the supreme hand in inform-
ing us, ' in whose book all our members are written, which in continuance
were fashioned,' Ps. cxxxix, 16, knows what we all are ignorant of. If man
hath, in an ordinary course of generation, his being chiefly from an higher
cause than his parents, the world then certainly had its being from some
infinitely wise intelligent being, which is God. If it were, as some fancy,
made by an assembly of atoms, there must be some infinite intelligent cause
that made them, some cause that separated them, some cause that mingled
them together for the piling up so comely a structure as the world. It is
the most absurd thing to think they should meet together by hazard, and
rank themselves in that order we see without a higher and a wise agent.
So that no creature could make the world. For supposing any creature
was formed before this visible world, and might have a hand in disposing
things, yet he must have a cause of himself, and must act by the virtue and
strength of another, and this is God.
Prop. 3. From hence it follows, that there is a'first cause of things, which
we call God. There must be something supreme in the order of nature,
something which is greater than all, which hath nothing beyond it or above
it, otherwise we must run in infinitum. We see not a river but we conclude
a fountain ; a watch, but we conclude an artificer. As all number begins
from unity, so all the multitude of things in the world begins from some
unity, oneness, as the principle of it. It is natural to arise from a view of those
things to the conception of a nature more perfect than any. As from heat
mixed with cold, and light mixed with darkness, men conceive and arise in
their understanding to an intense heat and a pure light, and from a corporeal
or bodily substance joined with an incorporeal (as man is an earthly body
and a spiritual soul), we ascend to a conception of a substance purely in-
corporeal and spiritual, so from a multitude of things in the world, reason
leads us to one choice being above all. And since, in all natures in the
world, we still find a superior nature, the nature of one beast above the
nature of another, the nature of man above the nature of beasts, and some
invisible nature, the worker of strange efiects in the air and earth, which
cannot be ascribed to any visible cause, we must suppose some nature above
all those, of inconceivable perfection.
Every sceptic, one that doubts whether there be anything real or no in
the world, that counts everything an appearance, must necessarily own a
first cause.* They cannot reasonably doubt but that there is some first
cause, which makes the things appear so to them. They cannot be the
cause of their own appearance. For as nothing can have a being from
* Coccei. Sum. Theol. cap, 8, sec. 33.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. 151
itself, so nothing can appear by itself and its own force. Nothing can be
and not be at the same time. But that which is not, and yet seems to be,
if it be the cause why it seems to be what it is not, it may be said to be and
not to be. But certainly such persons must think themselves to exist. If
they do not, they cannot think ; and if they do exist, they must have some
cause of that existence. So that, which way soever we ^ turn ourselves, we
must in reason own a first cause in the world.
Well, then, might the psalmist term an atheist a fool, that disowns a God
against his own reason. Without owning a God as the first cause of the
world, no man can give any tolerable or satisfactory account of the world to
his own reason.
And this first cause,
1. Must necessarily exist. It is necessary that he by whom all things
are should be before all things, and nothing before him.* And if nothing
be before him, he comes not from any other ; and then he always was, and
without beginning. He is from himself ; not that he once was not, but
because he hath not his existence from another, and therefore of necessity
he did exist from all eternity. Nothing can make itself or bring itself into
being ; therefore there must be some being which hath no cause, that depends
upon no other, never was produced by any other, but was what he is from
eternity, and cannot be otherwise, and is not what he is by will, but nature,
necessarily existing, and always existing without any capacity or possibility
ever not to be.
2. Must be infinitely perfect. Since man knows he is an imperfect being,
he must suppose the perfections he wants are seated in some other being,
which hath limited him, and upon which he depends. Whatsover we con-
ceive of excellency or perfection must be in God ; for we can conceive no
perfection but what God hath given us a power to conceive. And he that
gave us power to conceive a transcendent perfection above whatsoever we
saw or heard of, hath much more in himself, or else he could not give us
such a conception.
II. As the production of the world, so the harmony of all the parts of it
declare the being and wisdom of a God. Without the acknowledging God,
the atheist can give no account of those things. The multitude, elegancy,
variety, and beauty of all things are steps whereby to ascend to one fountain
and original of them.
Is it not a folly to deny the being of a wise agent, who sparkles in the
beauty and motions of the heavens, rides upon the wings of the wind, and
is writ upon the flowers and fruits of plants ? As the cause is known by
the effects, so the wisdom of the cause is known by the elegancy of the
work, the proportion of the parts to one another. Who can imagine the
world could be rashly made, and without consultation, which in every part
of it is so artificially framed ?t No work of artjsprings up of its own accord.
The world is framed by an excellent art, and therefore made by some skilful
artist. As we hear not a melodious instrument but we conclude there is a
musician that touches it, as well as some skilful hand that framed and dis-
posed it for those lessons, — and no man that hears the pleasant sound of a
lute but will fix his thoughts, not upon the instrument itself, but upon the
skill of the artist that made it, and the art of the musician that strikes it,
though he should not see the first when he saw the lute, nor see the other
when he hears the harmony, — so a rational creature confines not his thoughts
to his sense when he sees the sun in its glory and the moon walking in its
* Petav. Theol, Dog. torn. i. lib. i. cap. 2, page 10, 11.
t Philo. Judse. Petav. Theol. Dogmat. torn. i. lib. i. cap. 1, page 9.
152 chabnock's woeks. [Ps. XIY. 1.
brightness, but risetb up in a contemplation and admiration of that infinite
spirit that composed and filled them with such sweetness.
This appears,
1. In the Hnking contrary qualities together. All things are compounded
of the elements. Those are endued with contrary qualities, dryness and
moisture, heat and cold ; these would always be contending with and infest-
ing one another's rights, till the contest ended in the destruction of one or
both. Where fire is predominant, it would suck up the water ; where water
is prevalent, it would quench the fire : the heat would wholly expel the
cold, or the cold overpower the heat. Yet we see them chained and linked
one within another in every body upon the earth, and rendering mutual
offices for the benefit of that body wherein they are seated, and all conspiring
together in their particular quarrels for the public interest of the body. How
could those contraries, that of themselves observed no order, that are always
preying upon one another, jointly accord together of themselves for one
common end, if they were not linked in a common band, and reduced to
that order by some incomprehensible wisdom and powex', which keeps a
hand upon them, orders their motions, and directs their events, and makes
them friendly pass into one another's natures ? Confusion had been the
result of the discord and diversity of their natures ; no composition could
have been of those conflicting qualities for the frame of any body, nor any
harmony arose from so many jarring strings, if they had not been reduced
into concord by one that is supreme Lord over them, and knows how to
dispose their varieties and enmities for the public good.* If a man should
see a large city or country, consisting of great multitudes of men of different
tempers, full of frauds, and factions, and animosities in their natures against
one another, yet living together in good order and peace, without oppressing
and invading one another, and joining together for the public good, he would
presently conclude there were some excellent governor, who tempered them
by his wisdom and preserved the public peace, though he had never yet
beheld him with his eye. It is as necessary to conclude a God, who mode-
rates the contraries in the world, as to conclude a wise prince, who over-
rules the contrary dispositions in a state, making every one to keep his own
bounds and confines. Things that are contrary to one another subsist in an
admirable order.
2, In the subserviency of one thing to another. All the members of liv-
ing creatures are curiously fitted for the service of one another, destined to
a particular end, and endued with a virtue to attain that end, and so dis-
tinctly placed, that one is no hindrance to the other in its operations. f Is
not this more admirable than to be the work of chance, which is incapable
to settle such an order, and fix particular and general ends, causing an exact
correspondency of all parts with one another, and every part to conspire
together for one common end ? One thing is fitted for another. The eye
is fitted for the sun, and the sun fitted for the eye. Several sorts of food
are fitted for several creatures, and those creatures fitted with organs for the
partaking of that food.
(1.) Subserviency of heavenly bodies. The sun, the heart of the world,
is not for itself but for the good of the world, | as the heart of man is for the
good of the body. How conveniently is the sun placed, at a distance from
the earth and the upper heavens, to enlighten the stars above and enliven
the earth below ! If it were either higher or lower, one part would want its
influences. It is not in the higher parts of the heavens ; the earth then,
* Athanasius, Petav. Theol., Dog. torn. i. lib. i. cap. 1, p. 4, 5.
t Gassend. Physic, sect. i. lib. iv. cap. 2, page 316. J Lessius.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 153
■which lives and fructifies by its influence, would have been exposed to a per-
petual winter and chillness, unable to have produced anything for the suste-
nance of man or beast ; if seated lower, the earth had been parched up, tho
world made uninhabitable, and long since had been consumed to ashes by
the strength of its heat. Consider the motion, as well as the situation, of
the sun. Had it stood still, one part of the world had been cherished by
its beams, and tho other left in a desolate widowhood, in a disconsolate
darkness. Besides, the earth would have had no shelter from its perpendi-
cular beams striking perpetually and without any remission upon it. Tho
same incommodities would have followed upon its fixedness as upon its too
great nearness. By a constant day the beauty of the stars had been ob-
scured, the knowledge of their motions been prevented, and a considerable
part of the glorious wisdom of the Creator in those choice ' works of his
fingers,' Ps. viii. 3, had been veiled from our eyes. It moves in a fixed
line, visits all parts of the earth, scatters in the day its refreshing blessings
in every creek of the earth, and removes the mask from the other beauties
of heaven in the night, which sparkle out to the glory of the Creator. It
spreads its light, warms the earth, cherisheth the seeds, excites the spirit
in the earth, and brings fruit to maturity. View also the air, the vast
extent between heaven and earth, which serves for a watercourse, a cistern
for water to bedew the face of the sunburnt earth, to satisfy the desolate
ground, and to cause the ' bud of the tender herb to spring forth,' Job
xxxviii. 25, 27. Could chance appoint the clouds of the air to interpose as fans
before the scorching heat of the sun and the faint bodies of the creatures ?
Can that be the ' father of the rain,' or ' beget the drops of dew ' ? ver. 28.
Could anything so blind settle those ordinances of heaven for the preserva-
tion of creatures on the earth ? Can this either bring or stay the bottles of
heaven, when ' the dust grows into hardness and the clods cleave fast
together ' ? ver. 37, 38.
(2.) Subserviency of the lower world, the earth and sea, which wag
created to be inhabited, Isa. xlv. 18. The sea atibrds water to the rivers ;
the rivers, like so many veins, are spread through the whole body of the
earth to refresh and enable it to bring forth fruit for the sustenance of man
and beast: Ps. civ. 10, 11, ' He sends the springs into the valleys, which
run among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field : the wild
asses quench their thirst. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and
the herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the
earth,' ver. 14. The trees are provided for shades against the extremity of
heat, a refuge for the panting beasts, ' an habitation for birds' wherein to
make their nests, ver. 17, and a basket for their provision. How are the
valleys and mountains of the earth disposed for the pleasure and profit of
man! Every year are the fields covered with harvests, for the nourishing
the creatures; no part is barren, but beneficial to man. The mountains that
are not clothed with grass for his food are set with stones to make him an
habitation ; they have their peculiar services of metals and minerals, for
the conveniency, and comfort, and benefit of man. Things which are not
fit for his food are medicines for his cure under some painful sickness.
Where the earth brings not forth corn, it brings forth roots for the service
of other creatures. Wood abounds more in those countries where the cold
is stronger than in others. Can this be the result of chance, or not rather
of an infinite wisdom ?
Consider the usefulness of the sea for the supply of rivers to refresh the
earth, ' which go up by the mountains and down by the valleys into the
place God hath founded for them,' Ps. civ.. 8 : a storehouse for fish for the
^54 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1,
nourishment of other creatures, a shop of medicines for cure, and pearls for
ornament ; the band that ties remote nations together, by giving oppor-
tunity of passage to, and commerce with one another. How should that
natural inclination of the sea to cover the earth submit to this subserviency
to the creatures ? Who hath pounded in this fluid mass of water in certain
limits, and confined it to its own channel for the accommodation of such
creatures, who by its common law can only be upon the earth ? Naturally the
earth was covered with the deep as with a garment, the waters stood above
the mountains : ' Who set a bound that they might not pass over, that they
return not again to cover the earth ? ' Ps. civ. 6, 9. Was it blind chance,
or an infinite power, that ' shut up the sea with doors, and made thick
darkness a swaddling band for it, and said. Hitherto shall thou come, and no
further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed'? Job xxxviii. 8, 9, 11.
All things are so ordered that they are not propter se, but propter aliud.
What advantage accraes to the sun by its unwearied rolling about the world ?
Doth it increase the perfection of its nature by all its circuits ? No, but it
serves the inferior world, it impregnates things by its heat. Not the most
abject thing, but hath its end and use. There is a straight connection : the
earth could not bring forth fruit without the heavens, the heavens could not
water the earth without vapours from it.
(3.) All this subserviency of creatures centres in man. Other creatures
are served by those things as well as ourselves, and they are provided for
their nourishment and refreshment as well as ours ; * yet both they and all
creatures meet in man, as lines in their centres. Things that have no life
or sense are made for those that have both life and sense, and those that
have life and sense are made for those that are endued with reason. When
the psalmist admiringly considers the heavens, moon, and stars, he intimates
man to be the eud for which they were created : Ps. viii, 3, 4, ' What is
man that thou art mindful of him ? ' He expresseth more particularly the
dominion that man hath over ' the beasts of the fields, the fowl of the air,
and whatsoever passes through the paths of the sea,' ver. 6-8, and con-
cludes from thence the ' excellency of God's name in all the earth.' All
things in the world, one way or other, centre in an usefulness for man :
some to feed him, some to clothe him, some to delight him, others to instruct
him, some to exercise his wit, and others his strength. Since man did not
make them, he did not also order them for his own use. If they conspire
to serve him who never made them, they direct man to acknowledge another,
who is the joint Creator both of the lord and the servants under his dominion.
And therefore, as the inferior natures are ordered by an invisible hand for
the good of man, so the nature of man is by the same hand ordered to
acknowledge the existence and the glory of the Creator of him. This visible
order man knows he did not constitute, he did not settle those creatures in
subserviency to himself ; they were placed in that order before he had any
acquaintance with them, or existence of himself, which is a question God
puts to Job, to consider of: Job xxxviii. 4, ' Where wast thou when I laid
the foundation of the earth ? Declare if thou hast understanding.' All is
ordered for man's use, the heavens answer to the earth as a roof to a floor,
both composing a delightful habitation for man ; ' vapours ascend from the
earth,' and the heavens concocts them, and returns them back in welcome
showers for the supplying of the earth, Jer. x. 13. The light of the sun
descends to beautify the earth, and employs its heat to midwife its fruits,
and this for the good of the community, whereof man is the head ; and
though all creatures have distinct natures, and must act for particular ends,
* Amy raid, de Trinitate, p. 13 and p. 18.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 155
according to the law of their creation, yet there is a joint combination for
the good of the whole as the common end ; just as all the rivers in the
world, from what part soever they come, whether north or south, fall into
the sea, for the supply of that mass of waters ; which loudly proclaims some
infinitely wise nature who made those things in so exact an harmony. * As
in a clock, the hammer which strikes the bell leads us to the next wheel,
that to another, the little wheel to a greater, whence it derives its motion,
this at last to the spring, which acquaints us that there was some artist
that framed them in this subordination to one another for this orderly
motion.'*
(4.) This order or subserviency is regular and uniform. Everything is
determined to its peculiar nature. f The sun and moon make day and
night, months and years, determine the seasons, never are defective in
coming back to their station and place, they wander not from their roads,
shock not against one another, nor hinder one another in the functions
assigned them. From a small grain or seed a tree springs, with body, root,
bark, leaves, fruit of the same shape, figure, smell, taste ; that there should
be as many parts in one as in all of the same kind, and no more, and that
in the womb of a sensitive creature should be formed one of the same kind,
with all the due members and no more, and the creature that produceth it
knows not how it is formed or how it is perfected. If we say this is
nature, this nature is an intelligent being ; if not, how can it direct all
causes to such uniform ends ? If it be intelligent, this nature must be the
same we call God, who ordered every herb to yield seed, and every fruit-
tree to yield fruit after its kind, and also every beast and every creeping
thing after its kind. Gen. i. 11, 12, 24.
And everything is determined to its particular season. The sap riseth
from the root at its appointed time, enlivening and clothing the branches
with a new garment at such a time of the sun's returning, not wholly
hindered by any accidental coldness of the weather, it being often colder at
its return than it was at the sun's departure. All things have their seasons
of flourishing, budding, blossoming, bringing forth fruit ; they ripen in their
seasons, cast their leaves at the same time, throw otf their old clothes, and
in the spring appear with new garments, but still in the same fashion.
The winds and the rain have their seasons, J and seem to be administered
by laws for the profit of man. No satisfactory cause of those things can be
ascribed to the earth, the sea, to the air or stars. ' Can any understand
the spreading of his clouds, or the noise of his tabernacle ?' Job xxxvi. 29.
The natural reason of those things cannot be demonstrated without recourse
to an infinite and intelligent being. Nothing can be rendered capable of the
direction of those things but a God.
This regularity in plants and animals is in all nations. The heavens have
the same motion in all parts of the world ; all men have the same law of
nature in their mind ; all creatures are stamped with the same law o f
creation. In all parts the same creatures serve for the same use ; and thoug h
there be different creatures in India and Europe, yet they have the same
subordination, the same subserviency to one another, and ultimately to
man, which shews that there is a God, and but one God, who tunes all
those difierent strings to the same notes in all places. It is nature merely
conducts these natural causes in due measures to their proper effects, with-
out interfering with one another ! Can mere nature be the cause of those
musical proportions of time ? You may as well conceive a lute to sound its
* Morn, de Verit. cap. i. p. 7. t Amyrant.
X Coccei. SuiQ. Theol. cap. viii. sec. 77.
156 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
own strings witliout the hand of an artist, a city well governed without a
governor, an army keep its stations without a general, as imagine so exact
an order without an orderer. Would any naan, when he hears a clock
strike, by fit intervals, the hour of the day, imagine this regularity in it,
without the direction of one that had understanding to manage it? He
would not only regard the motion of the clock, but commend the diligence
of the clock-keeper.
(5.) This order and subserviency is constant. Children change the customs
and manners of their fathers, magistrates change the laws they have received
from their ancestors, and enact new ones in their room ; but in the world
all things consist as they were created at the beginning ; the law of nature
in the creatures hath met with no change.* Who can behold the sun rising
in the morning, the moon shining in the night, increasing and decreasing in
its due spaces, the stars in their regular motions night after night, for all
ages, and j-et deny a president over them ? And this motion of the heavenly
bodies, being contrary to the nature of other creatures, who move in order
to rest, must be from some higher cause. But those, ever since the settling
in their places, have been perpetually rounding the world. — Whether it be
the sun or the earth that moves, it is all one ; whence have either of them
this constant and uniform motion ? — What nature, but one powerful and in-
telligent, could give that perpetual motion to the sun, which being bigger
than the earth a hundred sixty-six times, runs many thousand miles with a
mighty swiftness in the space of an hour, with an unwearied diligence per-
forming its daily task, and as a strong man, rejoicing to run its race for
above five thousand years together, without intermission but in the time of
Joshua? Josh. x. 13. It is not nature's sun, but God's sun, which he
'^makes to rise upon the just and unjust,' Mat. v. 45.
So a plant receives its nourishment from the earth, sends forth its juice
to ever}' branch, forms a bud which spreads it into a blossom and flower;
the leaves of this drop off, and leave a fruit of the same colour and taste,
ever}' year, which being ripened by the sun, leaves seed behind it for the
propagation of its like, which contains in the nature of it the same kind of
buds, blossoms, fruit, which were before ; and, being nourished in the womb
of the earth, and quickened by the power of the sun, discovers itself at
length in all the progresses and motions which its predecessor did. Thus,
in all ages, in all places, every year it performs the same task, spins out
fruit of the same colour, taste, virtue, to refresh the several creatures for
which they are provided.
This settled state of things comes from that God who laid the foundations
of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever, Ps. civ. 5, and set
ordinances for them to act by a stated law. Job xx&viii. 33, according to
which they move as if they understood themselves to have made a covenant
with their Creator, Jer. xxxiii. 20.
3. Add to this union of contrary qualities, and the subserviency of one
thing to another, the admirable variety and diversity of things in the world.
What variety of metals, living creatures, plants ! What variety and dis-
tinction in the shape of their leaves, flowers, smell resulting from them !
Who can number up the several sorts of beasts on the earth, birds in the
air, fish in the sea ? How various are their motions ! Some creep, some
go, some fly, some swim ; and in all this variety each creature hath organs
or members fitted for their peculiar motion. If you consider the multitude
of stars, which shine like jewels in the heavens, their different magnitudes,
or the variety of colours in the flowers and tapestry of the earth, you could
* Petav. ex Athanas. Theol., Dog. torn. i. lib. i. sec. 4.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 157
no more conclude they made themselves, or were made by chance, than you
can imagine a piece of arras, with a diversity of figures and colours, cither
wove itself or were knit together by hazard.
How delicious is the sap of the vine, when turned into wine, above that
of a crab? Both have the same womb of earth to conceive them, both
agree in the nature of wood and twigs as channels to convey it into fruit.
What is that which makes the one so sweet, the other so sour, or makes
that sweet which was a few weeks before unpleasantly sharp ? Is it the
earth ? > [ No ; they both have the same soil ; the branches may touch each
other, the strings of their roots may under ground entwine about one another.
Is it the sun ? Both have the same beams ; why is not the taste and colour
of the one as gratifying as the other ? Is it the root ? The taste of that is
far diiferent from that of the fruit it bears. Why do they not, when they
have the same soil, the same sun, and stand near one another, borrow some-
thing from one another's natures ? No reason can be rendered, but that
there is a God of infinite wisdom hath determined this variety, and bound
up the nature of each creature within itself. ' Everything follows the law
of its creation, and it is worthy observation that the Creator of them hath
not given that power to animals, which arise from different species, to pro-
pagate the like to themselves ; as mules, that arise frora different species.
No reason can be rendered of this but the fixed determination of the Creator
that those species which were created by him should not be lost in those
mixtures, which are contrary to the law of the creation.'* This cannot
possibly be ascribed to that which is commonly called nature, but unto the
God of nature, who will not have his creatures exceed their bounds or come
short of them.
Now, since among those varieties there are some things better than other,
yet all are good in their kind, Gen. i. 31, and partake of goodness, there
must be something better and more excellent than all those, from whom
they derive that goodness, which inheres in their nature and is communi-
cated by them to others. And this excellent being must inherit in an
eminent way in his own nature, the goodness of all those varieties, since
they made not themselves, but were made by another. All that goodness
■which is scattered in those varieties must be infinitely concentrated in that
nature, which distributed those various perfections to them: Ps. xciv. 9,
' He that planted the ear, shall not he hear ? he that formed the eye, shall
not he see ? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know ? ' The
Creator is greater than the creature, and whatsoever is in his effects is but
an impression of some excellency in himself; there is therefore some chief
fountain of goodness, whence all those various goodnesses in the world do
flow.
From all this it follows, if there be an order and harmony, there must be
an orderer, one that ' made the earth by his power, established the world
by his wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by his discretion,' Jer. x. 12.
Order being the effect, cannot be the cause of itself. Order is the disposi-
tion of things to an end, and is not intelligent, but implies an intelligent
orderer; and therefore it is as certain that there is a God as it is certain
there is order in the world. Order is an effect of reason and counsel; this
reason and counsel must have its residence in some being before this order
was fixed. The things ordered are always distinct from that reason and
counsel whereby they are ordered ; and also after it, as the effect is after
the cause. No man begins a piece of work but he hath the model of it in
his own mind; no man builds a house or makes a watch but he hath the
* Amyrald. de Trinitate, page 21.
158 charnock's wokks. [Ps. XIV. 1.
idea or copy of it in his own head. This beautiful world bespeaks an idea
of it or a model, since there is such a magnificent wisdom in the make of
each creature, and the proportion of one creature to another ; this model
must be before the world, as the pattern is always before the thing that is
wrought by it. This therefore must be in some inteUigent and wise agent,
and this is God. Since the reason of those things exceed the reason and
all the art of man, who can ascribe them to any inferior cause ? Chance
it could not be ; the motions of chance are not constant, and at seasons, as
the motions of creatures are. That which is by chance is contingent, this
is necessary ; uniformity can never be the birth of chance. Who can
imagine that all the parts of a watch can meet together, and put themselves
in order and motion, by chance ? ' Nor can it be nature only, which indeed
is a disposition of second causes. If nature hath not an understanding, it
cannot work such efi'ects. If nature therefore uses counsel to begin a
thing, reason to dispose it, ai't to effect it, virtue to complete it, and power
to govern it, why should it be called nature rather than God ? ' -- Nothing
so sure as that that which hath an end to which it tends hath a cause by
which it is ordered to that end. Since therefore all things are ordered in
subserviency to the good of man, they ai-e so ordered by him that made
both man and them. And man must acknowledge the wisdom and good-
ness of his Creator, and act in subserviency to his glory, as other creatures
act in subserviency to his good. Sensible objects were not made only to
gratify the sense of man, but to hand something to his mind as he is a
rational creature, to discover God to him as an object of love and desire to
be enjoyed. t If this be not the efiect of it, the order of the creature, as to
such an one, is in vain, and falls short of its true end.
To conclude this ; as when a man comes into a palace, built according to
the exactest rule of art, and with an unexceptionable conveniency for the in-
habitants, he would acknowledge both the being and skill of the builder,
so whosoever shall observe the disposition of all the parts of the world, — their
connection, comeliness, the variety of seasons, the swarms of different crea-
tures, and the mutual offices they render to one another, — cannot conclude
less than that it was contrived by an infinite skill, efiected by infinite power,
and governed by infinite wisdom. None can imagine a ship to be orderly
conducted without a pilot, nor the parts of the world to perform their several
functions without a wise guide, considering the members of the body cannot
perform theirs without the active presence of the soul. The atheist then is
a fool, to deny that which every creature in his constitution asserts, and
thereby renders himself unable to give a satisfactory account of that constant
uniformity in the motions of the creatures.
Prop. 4. As the production and harmony, so particular creatures, pur-
suing and attaining their ends, manifest that there is a God. All particular
creatures have natural instincts, which move them for some end. The in-
tending of an end is a property of a rational creature ; since the lower
creatures cannot challenge that title, they must act by the understanding
and direction of another. And since man cannot challenge the honour
of inspiring the creatures with such instincts, it must be ascribed to
some nature infinitely above any creature in understanding. No creature
doth determine itself. Why doth the fruits and grain of the earth nourish
us, when the earth, which iustrumentally gives them that fitness, cannot
nourish us, but because their several ends are determined by one higher
than the world ?
. 1. Several creatures have several natures. How soon will all creatm-es,
* Lactant. t Coccel. Sum. Theol. cap. 8, sec. 63, 64.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE KXISTENOE OF GOD. 159
even as soon as they see the light, move to that whereby they must Hve,
and make use of the natural arms God hath given their kind for their
defence, before they are grown to any maturity to afford them that defence.
The Scripture makes the appetite of ini'ants to their milk a foundation of
the divine glory: Ps. viii. 3, 'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings
hast thou ordained strength;' that is, matter of praise and acknowledgment
of God, in the natural appetite they have to their milk, and their relish of
it. All creatures have a natural affection to their young ones, all young
ones by a natural instinct move to and receive the nourishment that is
proper for them. Some are their own physicians as well as their own
caterers, and naturally discern what preserves them in life, and what restores
them when sick. The swallow flies to its celandine, and the toad hastens to
its plantain.
Can we behold the spider's nets or silkworm's web, the bee's closets or
the ant's granaries, without acknowledging a higher being than a creature,
who hath planted that genius in them ? The consideration of the nature of
several creatures God commended to Job (chap, xxxix., where he discourseth
to Job of the natural instincts of the goat, the ostrich, horse, and eagle,
&c.), to persuade him to the acknowledgment and admiration of God, and
humiliation of himself.
The spider, as if it understood the art of weaving, fits its web both for its
own habitation and a net to catch its prey. The bee builds a cell which
serves for chambers to reside in and a repository for its provision. Birds
are observed to build their nests with a clammy matter without, for the
firmer duration of it, and with a soft moss and down within, for the con-
veniency and warmth of their young : ' The stork knows his appointed
time,' Jer. viii. 7; 'and the swallows observe the time of their coming;'
they go and return according to the seasons of the year. This they gain
not by consideration, it descends to them with their nature; they neither
gain nor increase it by rational deductions. It is not in vain to speak of
these. How little do we improve by meditation those objects, which daily
ofi"er themselves to our view, full of instruction for us ? And our Saviour
sends his disciples to spell God in the lilies. Mat. vi. 28. It is observed
also that the creatures offensive to man go single ; if they went by
troops, they would bring destruction upon man and beast. This is the
nature of them for the preservation of others.
2. They know not their end. They have a law in their natures, but have
no rational understanding, either of the end to which they are appointed,
or the means fit to attain it. They naturally do what they do, and move
by no counsel of their own, but by a law impressed by some higher hand
upon their natures.
What plant knows why it strikes its root into the earth ? Doth it under-
stand what storms it is to contest with, or why it shoots up its branches
towards heaven ? Doth it know it needs the droppings of the clouds to pre-
serve itself, and make it fruitful ? These are acts of understanding: the
root is downward to preserve its own standing, the branches upward to pre-
serve other creatures. This understanding is not in the creature itself, but
originally in another. Thunders and tempests know not why they are sent,
yet by the direction of a mighty hand they are instruments of justice upon a
wicked world.
Rational creatures that act for some end, and know the end they aim at,
yet know not the manner of the natural motion of the members to it.=:- When
we intend to look upon a thing, we take no counsel about the natural motion
* Coccei. Sum. Theolog. cap. 8. sec. 67, &c.
IGO charnock's woeks. [Ps. XIV. 1.
of our eyes, we know not all the principles of their operations ; or how that
dull matter whereof our bodies are composed, is subject to the order of our
minds. We are not of counsel with our stomachs about the concoction of
our meat, or the distribution of the nourishing juice to the several parts of
the bod}-.* Neither the mother nor the foetus sit in council how the forma-
tion should be made in the womb. We know no more than a plant knows
what stature it is of, and what medicinal virtue its fruit hath for the good of
man ; j-et all those natural operations are perfectly directed to their proper
end, by an higher wisdom than any human understanding is able to con-
ceive, since they exceed the ability of an inanimate or fleshly nature, yea,
and the wisdom of a man. Do we not often see reasonable creatures acting
for one end, and perfecting a higher than what they aimed at, or could sus-
pect ? When Joseph's brethren sold him for a slave, their end was to be
rid of an informer, Gen. xxxvii. 12 ; but the action issued in preparing him
to be the preserver of them and their families. Cyrus his end was to be a
conqueror, but the action ended in being the Jews' deliverer : Prov. xvi. 9,
* A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directs his steps.'
3. Therefore there is some superior understanding and nature which so acts
them. That which acts for an end unknown to itself, depends upon some over-
ruling wisdom that knows that end. Who should direct them in all those
ends, but he that bestowed a being upon them for those ends,f who knows
what is convenient for their life, security, and propagation of their natures ?
An exact knowledge is necessary, both of what is agreeable to them, and the
means whereby they must attain it ; which, since it is not inherent in them,
is in that wise God, who puts those instincts into them, and governs them
in the exercise of them to such ends. Any man that sees a dart flung,
knows it cannot hit the mark without the skill and strength of an archer ;
or he that sees the hand of a dial pointing to the hours successively, knows
that the dial is ignorant of its own end, and is disposed and directed in that
motion by another. All creatures ignorant of their own natures could not
universally in the whole kind, and in every climate and country, without any
difierence in the whole world, tend to a certain end, if some over-ruling wis-
dom did not preside over the world and guide them ; and if the creatures
have a conductor, they have a creator. All things are ' turned round about
by his counsel, that they may do whatsoever he commands them upon the
face of the world in the earth,' Job xxxvii. 12.
So that in this respect the folly of atheism appears. Without the owning
a God no account can be given of those actions of creatures, that are an
imitation of reason. To say the bees, &c., are rational, is to equal them to
man ; nay, make them his superiors, since they do more by nature than the
wisest man can do by art. It is their own counsel whereby they act, or
another's : if it be their own, they are reasonable creatures ; if by another's,
it is not mere nature that is necessary ; then other creatures would not be
without the same skill : there would be no difference among them. If nature
be restrained by another, it hath a superior ; if not, it is a free agent : it is
an understanding being that directs them. And then it is something supe-
rior to all creatures in the world ; and by this, therefore, we may ascend to
the acknowledgment of the necessity of a God.
Prop. 5. Add to the production and order of the world, and the creatures
acting for their end, the preservation of them. Nothing can depend upon
itself in its preservation, no more than it could in its being. If the order
of the world was not fixed by itself, the preservation of that order cannot be
continued by itself.
* Pearson on the Creed, page 35. f Lessius. de providen. lib. i. page 652.
Ps. XIV. 1,] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 161
Thougli tho matter of tho work! after creation cannot return to that
nothing whence it was fetched, without tho power of God that made it
(because the same power is as requisite to reduce a thing to nothing as to
raise a thing from nothing), yet without the actual exerting of a power that
made the creatures they would fall into confusion. Those contesting quali-
ties which are in every part of it could not have preserved, but would have
consumed and extinguished one another, and reduced the world to that con-
fused chaos wherein it was before the Spirit moved upon the waters. As
contrary parts could not have met together in one form, unless there had
been one that had conjoined them, so they could not have kept together
after their conjunction unless the same band had preserved them. Natural
contrarieties cannot be reconciled. It is as great power to keep discords
knit, as at first to link them. Who would doubt, but that an army made up of
several nations and humours, would fall into a civil war, and sheathe their
swords in one another's bowels, if they were not under the management of
some wise general, or a ship dash against the rocks without the skill of a
pilot?* As the body hath neither life nor motion, without the active
presence of the soul, which distributes to every part the virtue of acting,
sets every one in the exercise of its proper function, and resides in every
part, so there is some powerful cause which doth the like in the world, that
rules and tempers it. There is need of the same power and action to pre-
serve a thing, as there was at first to make it. When we consider that we
are preserved, and knov?' that we could not preserve ourselves, we must
necessarily run to some first cause which doth preserve ns. All works of
art depend upon nature, and are preserved while they are kept by the force
of nature. As a statue depends upon the matter whereof it is made, whether
stone or brass, this nature therefore must have some superior by whose
influx it is preserved. Since therefore we see a stable order in the things
of the world, that they conspire together for the good and beauty of the
universe, that they depend upon one another, there must be some principle
upon which they depend, something to which the first link of the chain is
fastened, which himself depends upon no superior, but wholly rests in his own
essence and being. It is the title of God to be the ' preserver of man and
beast,' Ps. xxxvi. 6. The psalmist elegantly describeth it: Ps. civ. 24, &c.,
' The earth is full of his riches ; all wait upon him, that he may give them
their meat in due season; when he opens his hand, he fills them with good;
when he hides his face, they are troubled : if he take away their breath, they
die and return to dust ; he sends forth his Spirit, and they are created, and
renews the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever,
and the Lord shall rejoice in his works.' Upon the consideration of all
which the psalmist, ver. 34, takes a pleasure in the meditation of God, as
the cause and manager of all those things, which issues into a joy in God
and a praising of him. And why should not the consideration of the power
and wisdom of God in the creatures produce the same efiect in the hearts
of us, if he be our God ? Or as some render it, ' my meditation shall be
sweet,' or acceptable * to him,' whereby I find matter of praise in the things
of the world, and ofier it to the Creator of it.
Reason 3. It is a folly to deny that which a man's own nature witnesseth
to him. The whole frame of bodies and souls bears the impress of the
infinite power and wisdom of the Creator. A body framed with an admir-
able architecture, a soul endowed with understanding, will, judgment,
memory, imagination. Man is the epitome of the world, contains in himself
the substance of all natures, and the fulness of the whole universe, not only
* Gassend. Phys., sect. 6, lib. 4, cap. 2, p. 101.
VOL. I. L
162 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
in regard of the'universalness of his knowledge, whereby he comprehends
the reasons of many things, but as all the perfections of the several natures
of the world are gathered and united in man for the perfection of his own,
in a smaller volume. In his soul he partakes of heaven, in his body of the
earth. There is the life of plants, the sense of beasts, and the intellectual
nature of angels. Gen. ii. 7, * The Lord breathed into his nostril the
breath of life, and man,' &c., D^TT; of lives. Not one sort of life, but several,
not only an animal, but a rational life, a soul of a nobler extract and
nature than what was given to other creatures.
So that we need not step out of doors, or cast our eyes any further than
ourselves to behold a God. He shines in the capacity of our souls and the
vigour of our members. We must flee from ourselves and be stripped of
our own humanity before we can put off the notion of a deity. He that is
ignorant of the existence of God must be possessed with so much folly as to
be ignorant of his own make and frame.
1. In the parts whereof he doth consist, body and soul.
First, Take a prospect of the body. The psalmist counts it a matter of
praise and admiration : Ps. cxxxix. 14, 15, ' I will praise thee ; for I am fear-
fully and wonderfully made. When I was made in secret, and curiously
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth, in thy book all my members were
written.' The scheme of man and every member was drawn in his book ;
all the sinews, veins, arteries, bones, like a piece of embroidery or tapestry,
were wrought by God, as it were, with deliberation, like an artificer that
draws out the model of what he is to do in writing, and sets it before him
when he begins his work.
And indeed the fabric of man's body, as well as his soul, is an argument
for a divinity. The artificial structure of it, the elegancy of every part, the
proper situation of them, their proportion one to another, the fitness for
their several functions, drew from Galen* (a heathen, and one that had no
raised sentiments of a deity) a confession of the admirable wisdom and
power of the Creator, and that none but God could frame it.
(1.) In the order, fitness, and usefulness of every part. The whole model
of the body is grounded upon reason. Every member hath its exact pro-
portion, distinct ofiice, regular motion. Every part hath a particular comeli-
ness and convenient temperament bestowed upon it according to its place in
the body. The heart is hot to enliven the whole ; the eye clear to take in
objects to present them to the soul. Every member is fitted for its peculiar
service and action. Some are for sense, some for motion, some for prepar-
ing, and others for dispensing nourishment to the several parts ; they mutu-
ally depend upon and serve one another. What small strings fasten the
particular members together, as ' the earth that hangs upon nothing,' Job
xxvi. 7. Take but one part away, and you either destroy the whole, or
stamp upon it some mark of deformity. All are knit together by an admir-
able symmetry ; all orderly perform their functions, as acting by a settled
law, none swerving from their rule but in case of some predominant humour;
and none of those in so great a multitude of parts stifled in so little a room,
or jostling against one another to hinder their mutual actions, none can be
better disposed. And the greatest wisdom of a man could not imagine it,
till his eyes present them with the sight and connection of one part and
member with another.
[1.] The heart, f How strongly it is guarded with ribs like a wall, that
it might not be easily hurt ! It draws blood from the liver through a
* Lib. 3, de usu partium. Petav. Theol. Dog., torn. 1, lib. 1, cap. 1, p. 6.
t Theod, de providentia, Orat. 3.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 163
channel made for that purpose, rarefies it, and makes it fit to pass through
the arteries and veins, and to carry heat and life to every part of the body,
and by a perpetual motion, it sucks in the blood and spouts it out again,
which motion depends not upon the command of the soul, but is pure
natural.
[2.] The mouth takes in the meat, the teeth grind it for the stomach, the
stomach prepares it, nature strains it through the milky veins, the liver
refines it and mints it into blood, separates the purer from the drossy parts,
which go to the heart, circuits through the whole body, running through
the veins like rivers through so many channels of the world, for the water-
ing of the several parts, which are framed of a thin skin for the straining
the blood through for the supplying of the members of the body, and framed
■with several valves or doors for the thrusting the blood forwards to perform
its circular motion.
[3.] The brain, fortified by a strong skull to hinder outward accidents, a
tough membrane or skin to hinder any oppression by the skull, the seat of
sense, that which coins the animal spu-its, by purifying and refining those
which are sent to it, and seems like a curious piece of needlework.
[4,] The ear, framed with windings and turnings, to keep anything from
entering to ofiend the brain ; so disposed as to admit sounds with the
greatest safety and delight, Eccles. xii. 4 ; filled with an air within, by the
motion whereof the sound is transmitted to the brain, as sounds are made
in the air by difl'using themselves, as you see circles made in the water by
the flinging in a stone. This is the gate of knowledge, whereby we hear
the oracles of God, and the instruction of men for arts. It is by this they
are ^exposed to the mind, and the mind of another man framed in our
understandings.
[5.j What a curious workmanship is that of the eye, which is in the body
as the sun in the world ; set in the head as in a watch-tower, having the
softest nerves for the receiving the greater multitude of spirits necessary for
the act of vision ! How is it provided with defence, by the variety of coats,
to secure and accommodate the little humour and part whereby the vision is
made ! Made of a round figure, and convex, as most commodious to receive
the species of objects ; shaded by the eyebrows and eyelids, secured by the
eyelids, which are its ornament and safety, which refresh it when it is too
much dried by heat, hinder too much light from insinuating itself into it to
off'end it, cleanse it from impurities, by their quick motion preserve it from
invasion, and by contraction confer to the more evident discerning of things ;
both the eyes seated in the hollow of the bone for security, yet standing out
that things may be perceived more easily on both sides. And this little
member can behold the earth, and in a moment view things as high as
heaven.
[6. J The tongue* for speech framed like a musical instrument ; the teeth
serving for variety of sounds ; the lungs serving for bellows to blow the organs,
as it were, to cool the heart : by a continual motion transmitting a pure air
to the heart, expelling that which was smoky and superfluous. It is by the
tongue that communication of truth hath a passage among men ; it opens
the sense of the mind ; there would be no converse and commerce without
it. Speech among all nations hath an elegancy and attractive force, master-
ing the aS'ections of men.
Not to speak of other parts, or of the multitude of spirits that act every
part, the quick flight of them where there is a necessity of their presence.
Solomon, Eccles. xii., makes an elegant description of them in his speech of
* Coccei. Sum. Theolog., cap. 8, sec. 49.
164 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
old age ; and Job speaks of this formation of the body, Job x. 9-11, &c.
Not the least part of the body is made in vain. The hairs of the head have
their use, as well as are an ornament. The -whole symmetry of the body is
a ravishing object. Every member hath a signature and mark of God and
his wisdom ; he is visible in the formation of the members, the beauty of the
parts, and the vigour of the body. This structure could not be from the
body : that only hath a passive power, and cannot act in the absence of the
soul ; nor can it be from the soul. How comes it then to be so ignorant of
the manner of its formation ? The soul knows not the internal parts of its
own body, but by information from others, or inspection into other bodies.
It knows less of the inward frame of the body than it doth of itself. But he
that makes the clock can tell the number and motions of the wheels within,
as well as what figures are without.
This short discourse is useful to raise our admirations of the wisdom of
God, as well as to demonstrate that there is an infinite, wise Creator. And
the consideration of ourselves every day, and the wisdom of God in our frame,
would maintain religion much in the world, since all are so framed that no
man can tell any error in the constitution of him. If thus the body of man
is fitted for the service of his soul by an infinite God, the body ought to be
ordered for the service of this God, and in obedience to him.
(2.) In the admirable difi'erence of the features of men, which is a great
argument that the world was made by a wise Being. This could not be
wrought by chance, or be the work of mere nature, since we find never, or
very rarely, two persons exactly alike. This distinction is a part of infinite
wisdom ; otherwise, what confusion would be introduced into the world !
Without this, parents could not know their children, nor children their parents,
nor a brother his sister, nor a subject his magistrate. Without it there had
been no comfort of relations, no government, no commerce. Debtors would
not have been known from strangers, nor good men from bad ; propriety
could not have been preserved, nor justice executed ; the innocent might
have been apprehended for the nocent ; wickedness could not have been
stopped by any law.
The faces of men are the same for parts, not for features. A dissimiltude
in a likeness ; man, like to all the rest in the world, yet unlike to any, and
differenced by some mark from all, which is not to be observed in any other
species of creatures. This speaks some wise agent which framed man ; since
for the preservation of human society and order in the world, this distinction
was necessary.
Secondly, As man's own nature witnesseth a God to him in the structure
of his body, so also in the nature of his soul.* We know that we have au
understanding in us : a substance we cannot see, but we know it by its ope-
rations, as thinking, reasoning, willing, remembering, and as operating about
things that are invisible and remote from sense. This must needs be distinct
from the body, for that, being but dust and earth in its original, hath not
the power of reasoning and thinking, for then it would have that power when
the soul were absent, as well as when it is present. Besides, if it had that
power of thinking, it could think only of those things which are sensible and
made up of matter, as itself is. This soul hath a greater excellency. It
can know itself, rejoice in itself, which other creatures in this world are not
capable of. The soul is the gi-eatest glory of this lower world ; and as one
saith.f there seems to be no more difference between the soul and an
angel, than between a sword in the scabbard and when it is out of the
scabbard.
* Coccei. Sum. Theolog., cap. 8, sec. 50, 51. t ^ore.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 165
1. Consider the vastness of its capacity. The understanding can conceive
the whole world, and paint in itself the invisible pictures of all things. It
is capable of apprehending and discoursing of things superior to its own
nature. ' It is suited to all objects, as the' eye to all colours, or the ear to
all sounds.' * How great is the memory to retain such varieties, such diver-
sities ! The will also can accommodate other things to itself. It invents
arts for the use of man, prescribes rules for the government of states, ransacks
the bowels of nature, makes endless conclusions, and steps in reasoning from
one thing to another, for the knowledge of truth ; it can contemplate and
form notions of things higher than the world.
2. The quickness of its motions. * Nothing is more quick in the whole
course of nature. The sun runs through the world in a day : this can do it
in a moment. It can, with one flight of fancy, ascend to the battlements of
heaven. 'f The mists of the air, that hinder the sight of the eye, cannot hinder
the flights of the soul ; it can pass in a moment from one end of the world
to the other, and think of things a thousand miles distant. It can think of
some mean thing in the world, and presently, by one cast, in the twinkling
of an eye, mount up as high as heaven. As its desires are not bounded by
sensual objects, so neither are the motions of it restrained by them. It will
break forth with the greatest vigour, and conceive things infinitely above it ;
though it be in the body, it acts as if it were ashamed to be cloistered in it.
This could not be the result of any material cause. Who ever knew mere
matter understand, think, will ? And what it hath not, it cannot give. That
which is destitute of reason and will, could never confer reason and will. It
is not the effect of the body, for the body is fitted with members to be sub-
ject to it. I It is in part ruled by the activity of the soul, and in part by the
counsel of the soul. It is used by the soul, and knows not how it is used.
Nor could it be from the parents, since the souls of the children often tran-
scend those of the parents in vivacity, acuteness, and comprehensiveness.
One man is stupid, and begets a son with a capacious understanding ; one
is debauched and beastly in morals, and begets a son who from his infancy
testifies some virtuous inclinations, which sprout forth in delightful fruit with
the ripeness of his age. § Whence should this difference arise, a fool begat
the wise man, and a debauched the virtuous man ? The wisdom of the one
could not descend from the foolish soul of the other, nor the virtues of the
son fi-om the deformed and polluted soul of the parent. It lies not in the
organs of the body ; for if the folly of the parent proceeded not from their
souls, but the ill disposition of the organs of their bodies, how comes it to
pass that the bodies of the children are better organised beyond the goodness
of their immediate cause ? We must recur to some invisible hand, that
makes the difference, who bestows upon one at his pleasure richer qualities
than upon another. You can see nothing in the world endowed with some
excellent quality, but you must imagine some bountiful hand did enrich it
with that dowry. None can be so foolish as to think that a vessel ever
enriched itself with that sprightly liquor wherewith it is filled ; or that any-
thing worse than the soul should endow it with that knowledge and activity
which sparkles in it. Nature could not produce it. That nature is intelli-
gent, or not ; if it be not, then it produceth an effect more excellent than
itself, inasmuch as an understanding being surmounts a being that hath no
understanding. If the supreme cause of the soul be inteUigent, why do we
* Culverwell. t Theodoret. t Coccei. Sum. Theolog., cap. 8, sec, 51, 52.
§ I do not dispute whether the soul were generated or no. Suppose the substance
of it was generated by the parents, yet those more excellent qualities were not the
result of them.
166 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
not call it God as well as nature ? We must arise from hence to the notion
of a God. A spiritual nature cannot proceed but from a spirit higher than
itself, and of a transcendent perfection above itself. If we believe we have
souls, and understand the state of our own faculties, we must be assured that
there was some invisible band which bestowed those faculties and the riches
of them upon us. A man must be ignorant of himself before he can be igno-
rant of the existence of God. By considering the nature of our souls, we
may as well be assured that there is a God, as that there is a sun by the
shining of the beams in at our windows. And indeed the soul is a statue
and representation of God, as the landscape of a country or map represents
all the parts of it, but in a far less proportion than the country itself is. The
soul fills the body, and God the world ; the soul sustains the body, and God
the world ; the soul sees, but is not seen ; God sees all things, but is him-
self invisible. How base are they then that prostitute their souls, an image
of God, to base things unespressibly below their own nature !
3, I might add the union of soul and body. Man is a kind of compound of
angel and beast, of soul and body ; if he were only a soul, he were a kind
of angel ; if only a body, he were another kind of brute. Now, that a body
as vile and dull as earth, and a soul that can mount up to heaven and rove
about the world with so quick a motion, should be linked in so strait an
acquaintance ; that so noble a being as the soul should be an inhabitant in
such a tabernacle of clay, must be owned to some infinite power that hath
so chained it.
4. Man witnesseth to a God in the operations and reflections of conscience :
Rom. ii. 15, ' Their thoughts are accusing or excusing.' An inward com-
fort attends good actions, and an inward torment follows bad ones ; for
there is in every man's conscience fear of punishment and hope of reward.
There is therefore a sense of some superior judge, which hath the power
both of rewarding and punishing. If man were his supreme rule, what need
he fear punishment, since no man would inflict any evil or torment on him-
self; nor can any man be said to reward himself, for all rewards refer to
another, to whom the action is pleasing, and is a conferring some good a
man had not before. If an action be done by a subject or servant, with
hopes of reward, it cannot be imagined that he expects a reward from himself,
but from the prince or person whom he eyes in that action, and for whose
sake he doth it.
1. There is a law in the minds of men which is a rule of good and evil.
There is a notion of good and evil in the consciences of men, which is
evident by those laws which are common in all countries, for the preserving
human societies, the encouragement of virtue and discouragement of vice ;
what standard should they have for those laws but a common reason ? The
design of those laws was to keep men within the bounds of goodness, for
mutual commerce ; whence the apostle calls the heathen magistrate ' a
minister of God for good,' Rom. xiii. 4 ; and the Gentiles ' do by nature
the things contained in the law,' Rom. ii. 14.
Man in the first instant of the use of reason finds natural principles within
himself, directing and choosing them ; he finds a distinction between good
and evil ; how could this be if there were not some rule in him to try and
distinguish good and evil ? If there were not such a law and rule in man,
he could not sin ; for where there is no law, there is no transgression. If
man were a law to himself, and his own will his law, there could be no such
thing as evil ; whatsoever he willed would be good and agreeable to the law,
and no action could be accounted sinful ; the worst act would be as com-
mendable as the best. Every thing at man's appointment would be good or
Ps. XIV. 1,] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 107
evil. If there were no such law, how should men that are naturally inclined
to evil disapprove of that which is unlovely, and approve of that good which
they practise not ? No man but inwardly thinks well of that which is good
while he neglects it, and thinks ill of that which is evil while he commits it.
Those that are vicious do praise those that practise the contrary virtues.
Those that are evil would seem to be good, and those that are blameworthy,
yet will rebuke evil in others. This is really to distinguish between good
and evil ; whence doth this arise, by what rule do we measure this, but by
some innate principle ?
And this is universal, the same in one man as in another, the same in one
nation as in another ; they are born with every man, and inseparable from
his nature : Prov. xxvii. 19, ' As in water face answers to face, so the heart
of man to man.' Common reason supposeth that there is some hand which
hath fixed this distinction in man. How could it else be universally im-
pressed ? No law can be without a law-giver ; no sparks but must be
kindled by some other. Whence should this law then derive its original ?
Not from man ; he would fain blot it out, and cannot alter it when he pleases.
Natural generation never intended it ; it is settled therefore by some higher
hand, which, as it imprinted it, so it maintains it against the violences of
men, who, were it not for this law, would make the world, more than it is,
an Aceldama and field of blood ; for, had there not been some supreme good,
the measure of all other goodness in the world, we could not have had such
a thing as good. The Scripture gives us an account that this good was
distinguished from evil before man fell, they were ohjecta scibiUa ; good was
commanded and evil prohibited, and did not depend upon man. From this
a man may rationally be instructed that there is a God ; for he may thus
argue : I find myself naturally obliged to do this thing and avoid that, I
have therefore a superior that doth oblige me ; I find something within me
that directs me to such actions, contrary to my sensitive appetite, there
must be something above me therefore that put this principle into man's
nature. If there were no superior, I should be the supreme judge of good
and evil. Were I the lord of that law which doth oblige me, I should find
no contradiction within myself between reason and appetite.
2. From the transgression of this law of nature fears do arise in the
consciences of men. Have we not known or heard of men struck by so deep
a dart that could not be drawn out by the strength of men, or appeased by
the pleasure of the world, and men crying out with horror upon a death-
bed of their past life, when ' their fear hath come as a desolation, and
destruction as a whirlwind ' ? Prov. i. 27. And often in some sharp affliction
the dust hath been blown off from men's consciences, which for a while hath
obscured the writing of the law. If men stand in awe of punishment, there
is then some superior to whom they are accountable. If there were no God,
there were no punishment to fear. What reason of any fear, upon the
dissolution of the knot between the soul and body, if there were not a God
to punish, and the soul remained not in being to be punished ?
How suddenly will conscience work upon the appearance of an affliction,
rouse itself from sleep like an armed man, and fly in a man's face before he
is aware of it ? It will ' surprise the hypocrites,' Isa. xxxiii. 14. It will
bring to mind actions committed long ago, and set them in order before the
face, as God's deputy acting by his authority and omniscience. As God
hath not left himself without a witness among the creatures. Acts xiv. 17,
so he hath not left himself without a witness in a man's own breast.
1. This operation of conscience hath been universal. No nation hath
been any more exempt from it than from reason ; not a man but hath one
168 chaenock's wobks. [Ps. XIV. 1.
time or other more or less smarted under the sting of it. All over the
world conscience hath shot its darts. It hath torn the hearts of princes in
the midst of their pleasures ; it hath not flattered them whom most men
flatter, nor feared to disturb their rest whom no man dares to provoke.
Judges have trembled on a tribunal, when innocents have rejoiced in their
condemnation ; the iron bars upon Pharaoh's conscience were at last broke
up, and he acknowledged the justice of God in all that he did : Exod. ix. 27,
* I have sinned, the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.*
Had they been like childish frights at the apprehension of bug-bears, why
hath not reason shaken them ofi" ? But, on the contrary, the stronger reason
grows, the smarter those lashes are ; groundless fears had been short-lived,
age and judgment would have worn them off, but they grow sharper with
the growth of persons. The Scripture informs us they have been of as
ancient a date as the revolt of the first man : Gen. iii. 10, ' I was afraid,'
saith Adam, ' because I was naked,' which was an expectation of the judg-
ment of God. All his posterity inherit his fears, when God expresseth him-
self in any tokens of his majesty and providence in the world. Every man's
conscience testifies that he is unlike what he ought to be according to that
law engraven upon his heart. In some, indeed, conscience may be seared
or dimmer ; or, suppose some men may be devoid of conscience, shall it be
denied to be a thing belonging to the nature of man ? Some men have not
their eyes, yet the power of seeing the light is natural to man, and belongs
to the integrity of the body ; who would argue, that because some men are
mad, and have lost their reason by a distemper of the brain, that therefore
reason hath no reality, but is an imaginary thing ? But I think it is a
standing truth, that every man hath been under the scourge of it, one time
or other, in a less or greater degree ; for, since every man is an offender, it
cannot be imagined conscience, which is natural to man and an active faculty,
should always lie idle, without doing this part of its ofiice ? The apostle
tells us of the thoughts, accusing or excusing one another, or by turns,
according as the actions were. Nor is this truth weakened by the corrup-
tions in the world, whereby many have thought themselves bound in con-
science to adhere to a false and superstitious worship and idolatry, as much as
any have thought themselves bound to adhere to a worship commanded by
God. This very thing infers that all men have a reflecting principle in
them ; it is no argument against the being of conscience, but only infers
that it may err in the application of what it naturally owns. We can no
more say, that because some men walk by a false rule, there is no such
thing as conscience, than we can say that because men have errors in their
minds, therefore they have no such faculty as an understanding ; or, because
men will that which is evil, they have no such fiiculty as a will in them.
2. These operations of conscience are when the wickedness is most secret.
These tormenting fears of vengeance have been frequent in men who have
had no reason to fear man, since, their wickedness being unknown to any
but themselves, they could have no accuser but themselves. They have
been in many acts which their companions have justified them in ; persons
above the stroke of human laws, yea, such as the people have honoured as
gods, have been haunted by them. Conscience hath not been frighted by
the power of princes, or bribed by the pleasures of courts. David was pur-
sued by his horrors, when he was by reason of his dignity above the punish-
ment of the law, or at least was not reached by the law ; since, though the
murder of Uriah was intended by him, it was not acted by him. Such
examples are frequent in human records. When the crime hath been above
any punishment by man, they have had an accuser, judge, and executioner in
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE KXISTENCE OF GOD. 109
their own breasts. Can tliis bo originally from a man's self ? Ho who loves
and cherishes himself would ily from anything that disturbs him. It is a
greater power and majesty from whom man cannot hide himself, that holds
him in those fetters. What should affect their minds for that which can
never bring them shame or punishment in this world, if there were not some
supreme judge to whom they were to give an account, whose instrument
conscience is ? Doth it do this of itself ; hath it received an authority from
the man himself to sting him ? It is some supreme power that doth direct
and commission it against our wills.
3. These operations of conscience cannot be totally shaken off by man.
If there be no God, why do not men silence the clamours of their con-
sciences, and scatter those fears that disturb their rest and pleasures ? How
inquisitive are men after some remedy against those convulsions ? Some-
times they would render the chai'ge insignificant, and sing a rest to them-
selves, though they * walk in the wickedness of their own hearts,' Deut.
xxix. 19. How often do men attempt to drown it by sensual pleasures, and
perhaps overpower it for a time ; but it revives, reinforceth itself, and acts
a revenge for its former stop. It holds sin to a man's view, and fixes his
eyes upon it, whether he will or no : ' The wicked are like a troubled sea,
and cannot rest,' Isa. Ivii. 20. They would wallow in sin without control,
but this inward principle will not suffer it ; nothing can shelter men from
those blows. What is the reason it could never be cried down ? Man is
an enemy to his own disquiet ; what man would continue upon the rack, if
it were in his power to deliver himself ? Why have all human remedies been
■without success, and not able to extinguish all those operations, though all
the wickedness of the heart hath been ready to assist and second the attempt ?
It hath pursued men notwithstanding all the violence used against it, and
renewed its scourges with more severity, as men deal with their resisting
slaves. Man can as little silence those thunders in his soul, as he can the
thunders in the heavens. He must strip himself of his humanity before he
can be stripped of an accusing and affrighting conscience : it sticks as close
to him as his nature. Since man cannot throw out the process it makes
against him, it is an evidence that some higher power secures its throne and
standing. Who should put this scourge into the hand of conscience, which
no man in the world is able to wrest out ?
4. We may add, the comfortable reflections of conscience. There are
excusing as well as accusing reflections of conscience, when things are done
as works of the law of nature, Rom. ii. 15. As it doth not forbear to accuse
and torture, when a wickedness, though unknown to others, is committed,
so when a man hath done well, though he be attacked with all the calumnies
the wit of man can forge, yet his conscience justifies the action, and fills
him with a singular contentment. As there is torture in sinning, so there
is peace and joy in well-doing. Neither of those it could do, if it did not
understand a sovereign judge, who punishes the rebels and rewards the well-
doer. Conscience is the foundation of all religion ; and the two pillars upon
which it is built, are the being of God, and the bounty of God to those that
diligently seek him, Heb. xi. 6.
This proves the existence of God. If there were no God, conscience were
useless ; the operations of it would have no foundation, if there were not an
eye to take notice, and a hand to punish or reward the action. The accu-
sations of conscience evidence the omniscience and the holiness of God ;
the terrors of conscience, the justice of God ; the approbations of con-
science, the goodness of God. All the order in the world owes itself, next
to the providence of God, to conscience : without it the world would be a
170 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
Golgotha. As the creatures witness there was a first cause that produced
them, so this principle in man evidenceth itself to he set by the same hand
for the good of that which it had so framed. There could be no conscience
if there were no God, and man could not be a rational creature if there were
no conscience. As there is a rule in us, there must be a judge, whether our
actions be according to the rule ; and since conscience in our corrupted state
is in some particular misled, there must be a power superior to conscience
to judge how it hath behaved itself in its deputed office : we must come to
some supreme judge, who can judge conscience itself. As a man can have
no^ surer evidence that he is a being, than because he thinks, he is a thinking
being, so there is no surer evidence in nature that there is a God, than that
every man hath a natural principle in him, which continually cites him
before God, and puts him in mind of him, and makes him one way or other
fear him, and reflects upon him whether he will or no. A man hath less
power over his conscience than over any other faculty. He may choose
whether he will exercise his understanding about, or move his will to, such
an object, but he hath no such authority over his conscience ; he cannot
limit it, or cause it to cease from acting and reflecting ; and therefore both
that, and the law about which it acts, are settled by some supreme autho-
rity in the mind of man, and this is God.
Prop. 4. The evidence of a God results from the vastness of the desires
in man, and the real dissatisfaction he hath in every thing below himself.
Man hath a boundless appetite after some sovereign good. As his under-
standing is more capacious than any thing below, so is his appetite larger.
This aftection of desire exceeds all other affections. Love is determined to
something known : fear to something apprehended ; but desires approach
nearer to infiniteness, and pursue, not only what we know, or what
we have a glimpse of, but what we find wanting in what we already enjoy.
That which the desire of man is most naturally carried after, is bonum ;
some fully satisfying good. We desire knowledge by the sole impulse of
reason ; but we desire good before the excitement of reason, and the desire
is always after good, but not always after knowledge.
Now the soul of man finds an imperfection in every thing here, and can-
not scrape up a perfect satisfaction and fehcity. In the highest fruitions of
worldly things, it is etill pursuing something else, which speaks a defect in
what it already hath. The world may afford a felicity for our dust, the body,
but not for the inhabitant in it ; it is too mean for that. Is there any one
soul among the sons of men, that can upon due inquiry say, it was at rest and
wanted no more, that hath not sometimes had desires after an immaterial good|?
The soul ' follows hard' after such a thing, and hath frequent looks after it,
Ps. Ixiii. 8. Man desires a stable good, but no sublunary thing is so ; and
he that doth not desire such a good, wants the rational nature of a man.
This is as natural as understanding, will, and conscience. Whence should
the soul of man have those desires ? How came it to understand that some-
thing is still wanting to make its nature more perfect, if there were not in
it some notion of a more perfect being, which can give it rest ?
Can such a capacity be supposed to be in it without something in being
able to satisfy it ? If so, the noblest creature in the world is miserablest,
and in a worse condition than any other : other creatures obtain their ulti-
mate desires, ' they are filled with good,' Ps. civ. 28 ; and shall man only
have a vast desire without any possibility of enjoyment ? Nothing in man
is in vain : he hath objects for his affections, as well as affections for objects.
Every member of his body hath its end, and doth attain it. Every affection
of his soul hath an object, and that in this world ; and shall there be none
Ps. XIV. l.J THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 171
for his desire, which 'comes nearest to infinite of any affection planted in
him ? This boundless desire had not its original from man himself.
Nothing would^rendcr itself restless ; something above the bounds of this world
implanted those desires after a higher good, and made him restless in ever}'-
thing else. And since the soul can only rest in that which is infinite, there
is something infinite for it to rest in. Since nothing in the world, though
a man had the whole, can give it a satisfaction, there is something above
the world only capable to do it, otherwise the soul would be always without it,
and be more in vain than any other creature.
There is therefore some infinite being that can only give a contentment
to the soul, and this is God. And that goodness which implanted such
desires in the soul would not do it to no purpose, and mock it in giving it
an infinite desire of satisfaction, without intending it the pleasure of enjoy-
ment, if it doth not by its own folly deprive itself of it. The felicity of
human nature must needs exceed that which is allotted to other creatures.
Reason 4, and last, s As it is a folly to deny that which all nations in the
world have consented to, which the frame of the world evidenceth, which
man in his body, soul, operations of conscience, witnesseth to, so it is a
folly to deny the being of God, which is witnessed unto by extraordinary
occurrences in the world.
1. In extraordinary judgments. When a just revenge follows abominable
crimes, especially when the judgment is suited to the sin, by a strange con-
catenation and succession of providences, methodised to bring such a par-
ticular punishment ; when the sin of a nation or person is made legible in
the inflicted judgment, which testifies that it cannot be a casual thing. The
Scripture gives us an account of the necessity of such judgments, to keep up
the reverential thoughts of God in the world : Ps. ix. 16, ' The Lord is
known by the judgment which he executes, the wicked is snared in the work
of his own hand.' And jealousy is the name of God : Exod. xxxiv. 14,
* Whose name is Jealous.' He is distinguished from false gods by the judg-
ments which he sends, as men are by their names.
Extraordinary prodigies in many nations have been the heralds of extra-
ordinary judgments, and presages of the particular judgments which
afterwards they have felt, of which the Roman histories and others are full.
That there are such things is undeniable, and that the events have been
answerable to the threatening, unless we will throw away all human testi-
monies, and count all the histories of the world forgeries. Such things are
evidences of some invisible power which orders those afiairs. And if there
be invisible powers, there is also an efficacious cause which moves them ; a
government certainly there is among them as well as in the world, and then
we must come to some supreme governor which presides over them.
Judgments upon notorious oftenders have been evident in all ages, the
Scripture gives many instances. I shall only mention that of Herod
Agrippa, which Josephus* mentions. He receives the flattering applause
of the people, and thought himself a god ; but by the sudden stroke upon him
was forced by his torture to confess another, Acts xii. 21-23. I am God,
saith he, in your account, but a higher calls me away ; the will of the
heavenly Deity is to be endured. The angel of the Lord smote him. The
judgment here was suited to the sin ; he that would be a god is eaten up of
worms, the vilest creatures. Tully Hostilius, a Roman king, who counted
it the most unroyal thing to be religious, or own any other God but hi s
sword, was consumed himself and his whole house by lightning from heaven.
Many things are unaccountable unless we have recourse to God. The
* Lib. 19, Antiq.
172 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
strange revelations of murderers, that have most secretly committed their
crimes ; the making good some dreadful imprecations, which some wretches
have used to confirm a lie, and immediately have been struck with that
judgment they wished ; the raising often unexpected persons to be instru-
ments of vengeance on a sinful and perfidious nation ; the overturning the
deepest and surest counsels of men, when they have had a successful pro-
gress, and came to the very point of execution ; the whole design of men's
preservation hath been beaten in pieces by some unforeseen circumstances,
so that judgments have broken in upon them without control, and all their
subtilties been outwitted ; the strange crossing of some in their estates,
though the most wise, industrious, and frugal persons, and that by strange
and unexpected ways; and it is observable how often everything contributes
to carry on a judgment intended, as if they rationally designed it. All those
loudly proclaim a God in the world ; if there were no God, there would be
no sin ; if no sin, there would be no punishment.
2. In miracles. The course of nature is uniform, and when it is put out
of its course it must be by some superior power invisible to the world, and
by whatsoever invisible instruments they are wrought, the efiicacy of them
must depend upon some first cause above nature. Ps. Ixxii. 18, * Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel, who only doth wondrous things,' by himself and
his sole power.
That which cannot be the result of a natural cause, must be the result of
something supernatural ; what is beyond the reach of nature is the efi'ect of
a power superior to nature. For it is quite against the order of nature, and
is the elevation of something to such a pitch, which all nature could not
advance it to. Nature cannot go beyond its own limits ; if it be determined
by another, as hath been formerly proved, it cannot lift itself above itself
without that power that so determined it. Natural agents act necessarily.
The sun doth necessarily shine, fire doth necessarily burn. That cannot
be the result of nature which is above the ability of nature. That cannot
be the work of nature which is against the order of nature. Nature cannot
do anything against itself, or invert its own course.
We must own that such things have been, or we must accuse all the
records of former ages to be a pack of lies, which whosoever doth destroys
the greatest and best part of human knowledge. The miracles mentioned
in the Scripture, wrought by our Saviour, are acknowledged by the heathen,
by the Jews at this day, though his greatest enemies. There is no dispute
whether such things were wrought, the dead raised, the blind restored to
sight. The heathens have acknowledged the miraculous eclipse of the sun
at the passion of Christ, quite against the rule of nature, the moon being
then in opposition to the sun ; the propagation of Christianity contrary to
the methods whereby other religions have been propagated, that in a few
years the nations of the world should be sprinkled with this doctrine, and
give in a greater catalogue of martyrs courting the devouring flames than all
the religions of the world.
To this might be added the strange hand that was over the Jews, the only
people in the world professing the true God, that should so often be befriended
by their conquerors, so as to rebuild their temple, though they were looked
upon as a people apt to rebel. Dion and Seneca observe, that wherever
they were transplanted they prospered and gave laws to the victors ; so that
this proves also the authority of the Scripture, the truth of Christian reli-
gion, as well as the being of a God, and a superior power over the world.
To this might be added the bridling the tumultuous passions of men for
the preservation of human societies, which else would run the world into
Ps. XIV. l,j THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 17B
unconceivable confusions : Ps. Ixv. 7, * Which stilleth the noise of the sea,
and the tumults of the people ; ' as also the miraculous deliverance of a
person or nation, when upon the very brink of ruin ; the sudden answer of
prayer when God hath been sought to, and the turning away a judgment,
which in reason could not bo expected to bo averted, and the raising a sunk
people from a ruin which seemed inevitable, by unexpected ways.
3. Accomplishments of prophecies. Those things which are purely con-
tingent, and cannot be known by natural signs and in their causes, as
ecUpses and changes in nations, which may be discerned by an observation
of the signs of the times, such things that fall not within this compass, if
they be foretold and come to pass, are solely from some higher hand, and
above the cause of nature. This in Scripture is asserted to be a notice of
the true God : Isa. xli. 23, ' Shew the things that are to come hereafter,
that we may know that you are God;' and Isa. xlvi. 10, 'I am God,
declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times, the things
that are not yet done, saying. My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my
pleasure.' And prophecy was consented to by all the philosophers to be
from divine illumination. That power which discovers things future, which
all the foresight of men cannot ken and conjecture, is above nature. And
to foretell them so certainly as if they did already exist, or had existed long
ago, must be the result of a mind infinitely intelligent ; because it is the
highest way of knowing, and a higher cannot be imagined; and he that
knows things future in such a manner must needs know things present and
past. Cyrus was prophesied of by Isaiah, chap. xliv. 28 and xlv., long before
he was born ; his victories, spoils, all that should happen in Babylon, his
bounty to the Jews, came to pass, according to that prophecy ; and the sight
of that prophecy which the Jews shewed him, as other historians report, was
that which moved him to be favourable to the Jews.
Alexander's sight of Daniel's prophecy concerning his victories moved
him to spare Jerusalem. And are not the four monarchies plainly deci-
phered in that book, before the fourth rose up in the world ? That power
which foretells things beyond the reach of the wit of man, and orders all
causes to bring about those predictions, must be an infinite power, the
same that made the world, sustains it and governs all things in it according
to his pleasure, and to bring about his own ends ; and this being is God.
Use 1. If atheism be a folly, it is then pernicious to the world, and to the
atheist himself. Wisdom is the band of human societies, the glory of man.
Folly is the disturber of families, cities, nations, the disgrace of human
nature.
1. It is pernicious to the world.
(1.) It would root out the foundations of government. It demolisheth
all order in nations. The being of a God is the guard of the world. The
sense of a God is the foundation of civil order ; without this there is no tie
upon the consciences of men. What force would there be in oaths for the
decisions of controversies, what right could there be in appeals made to one
that had no being ? A city of atheists would be a heap of confusion ; there
could be no ground of any commerce when all the sacred bands of it in the
consciences of men were snapped asunder, which are torn to pieces and
utterly destroyed by denying the existence of God. What magistrate could
be secure in his standing, what private person could be secure in his right?*
Can that then be a truth that is destructive of all public good ? If the
atheist's sentiment, that there were no God, were a truth, and the contrary,
that there were a God, were a falsity, it would then follow that falsity made men
* Lessius de Provid., p, 665.
174 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
good and serviceable to one another ; that error were the foundation of all
the beauty, and order, and outward felicity of the world, the fountain of all
good to man. If there were no God, to beheve there is one would be an error,
and to believe there is none would be the greatest wisdom, because it would be
the'greatest truth. And then as it is the greatest wisdom to fear God upon
the apprehension of his existence, Ps. cxi. 10, so it would be the greatest
error to fear him, if there were none. It would unquestionably follow, that
error is the support of the world, the spring of all human advantages, and
that every part of the world were obliged to a falsity for being a quiet
habitation, which is the most absurd thing to imagine. It is a thing impos-
sible to be tolerated by any prince, without laying an axe to the root of the
government.
(2.) It would introduce all evil into the world. If you take away God,
you take away conscience, and thereby all measures and rules of good and
evil. And how could any laws be made when the measure and standard of
them were removed ? All good laws are founded upon the dictates of con-
science and reason, upon common sentiments in human nature, which
spring from a sense of God ; so that if the foundation be demolished, the
whole superstructure must tumble down. A man might be a thief, a mur-
derer, an adulterer, and could not in a strict sense be an offender. The
worst of actions could not be evil if a man were a god to himself, a law to
himself. Nothing but evil deserves a censure, and nothing would be evil if
there were no God, the rector of the world, against whom evil is properly
committed. No man can make that morally evil that is not so in itself.
As where there is a faint sense of God, the heart is more strongly inclined
to wickedness, so where there is no sense of God, the bars are removed,
the flood-gates set open for all wickedness to rush in upon mankind.
Religion pinions men from abominable practices, and restrains them from
bein," slaves to their own passions ; an atheist's arms would be loose to do
anything.* Nothing so villanous and unjust but would be acted, if the
natural fear of a deity were extinguished. The first consequence issuing
from the apprehension of the existence of God, is his government of the
world. If there be no God, then the natural consequence is that there is
no supreme government of the world. Such a notion would cashier all
sentiments of good, and be like a Trojan horse, whence all impurity,
tyranny, and all sorts of mischiefs would break out upon mankind. Cor-
ruption and abominable works in the text are the fruit of the fool's persua-
sion that there is no God. The perverting of the ways of men, oppression,
and extortion, owe their rise to a forgetfulness of God : Jer. iii. 21, ' They
have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the Lord their God ;'
Ezek. xxii. 12, ' Thou hast greedily gained by extortion, and hast forgotten
me, saith the Lord.' The whole earth would be filled with violence, all
flesh would corrupt their way as it was before the deluge, when probably
atheism did abound more than idolatry ; and if not a disowning the being,
yet denying the providence of God by the posterity of Cain, those of the
family of Seth only calling upon the name of the Lord, Gen. vi. 11, 12
compared with Gen. iv. 26.
The greatest sense of a deity in any hath been attended with the greatest
innocence of life and usefulness to others, and a weaker sense hath been
attended with a baser impurity.f If there were no God, blasphemy would
be praiseworthy; as the reproach of idols is praiseworthy, because we tes-
tify that there is no divinity in them. What can be more contemptible
than that which hath no being ? Sin would be only a false opinion of a
* Lessius de Provid., p. 664. t Lessius de Provid., p. 665.
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 175
violated law and an offended deity. If such apprehensions prevail, what a
wide door is opened to the worst of vilhuiies ? If there bo no God, no
respect is due to him ; all the religion in the world is a trifle and error, and
thus the pillars of all human society, and that which hath made common-
wealths to flourish, are blown away.
Secondly, 2, It is pernicious to the atheist himself. If he fear no future
punishment, ho can never expect any future reward; all his hopes must be
confined to a swinish and despicable manner of life, without any imaginations
of so much as a dram of reserved happiness. He is in a worse condition
than the silliest animal, which hath something to please it in its life;
whereas an atheist can have nothing here to give him a full content, no
more than any other man in the world, and can have less satisfaction here-
after. He deposeth the noble end of his own being, which was to serve a
God and have a satisfaction in him, to seek a God and be rewarded by him;
and he that departs from this end, recedes from his own nature. All the
content any creature finds is in performing its end, moving according to its
natural instinct; as it is a joy to the sun to run its race, Ps. xix. 5, in
the same manner it is a satisfaction to every other creature, and its delight,
to observe the law of its creation. What content can any man have that
runs from his end, opposeth his own nature, denies a God by whom and
for whom he was created, whose image he bears, which is the glory of his
nature, and sinks into the very dregs of brutishness ? How elegantly is it
described by Bildad : Job xviii. 7, 8, &c., to the end, ' His own counsel
shall cast him down, terrors shall make him afraid on every side; destruc-
tion shall be ready at his side, the first-born of death shall devour his
strength. His confidence shall be rooted out, and it shall bring him to the
king of terrors: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation. He shall
be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. They that
come after him shall be astonished at his day, as they that went before were
afii-ighted. And this is the place of him that knows not God.' If there be
a future reckoning (as his own conscience cannot but sometimes inform him
of), his condition is desperate, and his misery dreadful and unavoidable.
It is not righteous a hell should entertain any else if it refuse him.
Use 2. How lamentable is it that in our times this folly of atheism should
be so rife ! that there should be found such monsters in human nature, in
the midst of the improvements of reason and shinings of the gospel, who
not only make the Scripture the matter of their jeers, but scoff at the judg-
ments and providences of God in the world, and envy their Creator a being,
■without whose goodness they had had none themselves ; who contradict in
their carriage what they assert to be their sentiment, when they dreadfully
imprecate damnation to themselves ! Whence should [come] that damnation
they so rashly wish be poured forth upon them, if there were not a reveng-
ing God ? Formerly atheism was as rare as prodigious, scarce two or three
known in an age. And those that are reported to be so in former ages, are
rather thought to be counted so for mocking at the senseless deities the
common people adored, and laying open their impurities. A mere natural
strength would easily discover that those they adored for gods could not
deserve that title, since their original was known, their uncleanness mani-
fest and acknowledged by their worshippers. And probably it was so, since
the Christians were termed dSsoi, as Justin informs us, because they acknow-
ledged not their vain idols.
I question whether there ever was or can be in the world an uninterrupted
and internal denial of the being of God, or that men (unless we can suppose
conscience utterly dead) can arrive to such a degree of impiety. For before
176 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
they can stifle such sentiments in them (whatsoever they may assert), they
must be utter strangers to the common conceptions of reason, and despoil
themselves of their own humanity. He that dares to deny a God with his
lips, yet sets up something or other as a god in his heart. Is it not lament-
able that this sacred truth, consented to by all nations, which is the band
of civil societies, the source of all order in the world, should be denied with
a bare face and disputed against in companies, and the glory of a wise
Creator ascribed to an unintelligent nature, to blind chance ? Are not
such worse than heathens ? They worshipped many gods, these none ;
they preserved a notion of God in the world under a disguise of images,
these would banish him both from earth and heaven, and demolish the
statues of him in their own consciences ; they degraded him, these would
destroy him ; they coupled creatures with him — Rom. i. 25, ' Who wor-
shipped the creature with the Creator,' as it may most properly be rendered.
And these would make him worse than a creature, a mere nothing. Earth
is hereby become worse than hell. Atheism is a persuasion, which finds no
footing anj'where else. Hell, that receives such persons, in this point
reforms them ; they can never deny or doubt of his being while they feel
his strokes. The devil, that rejoices at their wickedness, knows them to be
in an error; for he 'believes, and trembles' at the belief, James ii. 19.
This is a forerunner of judgment; boldness in sin is a presage of ven-
geance, especially when the honour of God is more particularly concerned
therein. It tends to the overturning human society, taking off the bridle
from the wicked inclinations of men. And God appears not in such visible
judgments against sin immediately committed against himself, as in the
case of those sins that are destructive to human society. Besides, God as
governor of the world will uphold that, without which all his ordinances in
the world would be useless. Atheism is point blank against all the glory of
God in creation, and against all the glory of God in redemption, and pro-
nounceth at one breath both the Creator and all acts of religion and divine
institutions useless and insignificant.
Since most have had, one time or other, some risings of doubt, whether
there be a God, though few do in expressions deny his being, it may not be
unnecessary to propose some things for the further impressing this truth,
and guarding themselves against such temptations.
1. It is utterly impossible to demonstrate there is no God. He can
choose no medium, but will fall in as a proof for his existence, and a mani-
festation of his excellency rather than against it. The pretences of the
atheist are so ridiculous, that they are not worth the mentioning.
They never saw God, and therefore know not how to believe such a being;
they cannot comprehend him. He would not be God if he could fall within
the narrow model of an human understanding; he would not be infinite if
he were comprehensible, or to be terminated by our sight. How small a
thing must that be which is seen by a bodily eye, or grasped by a weak
mind ! If God were visible or comprehensible, he would be limited. Shall
it be a sufficient demonstration from a blind man that there is no fire in the
room, because he sees it not, though he feel the warmth of it ? The know-
ledge of the effect is sufficient to conclude the existence of the cause.
Who ever saw his own life ? Is it sufficient to deny a man lives, because
he beholds not his life, and only knows it by his motion ? He neVer
saw his own soul, but knows he hath one by his thinking power. The air
renders itself sensible to men in its operations, yet was never seen by
the eye.
If God should render himself visible, they might question as well as now
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. 177
whether that which was so visible were God or some delusion. If he should
appear glorious, wo can as little behold him in his majestic glory as an owl
can behold the sun in its brightness ; we should still but see him in his
effects, as we do the sun by his beams. If he should shew a new miracle,
we should still see him but by his works ; so we see him in his creatures,
every one of which would be as gi-eat a miracle as any can be wrought to
one that had the first prospect of them. To require to see God, is to
require that which is impossible: 1 Tim. vi. 16, 'He dwells in the light
which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see.'
It is visible that he is, for ' he covers himself with light as with a garment,'
Ps. civ. 2 ; it is invisible what he is, for ' he makes darkness his secret
place,' Ps. xviii. 11. Nothing more clear to the eye than light, and
nothing more difficult to the understanding than the nature of it; as light
is the first object obvious to the eye, so is God the first object obvious to
the understanding. The arguments from nature do with greater strength
evince his existence, than any pretences can manifest there is no God. No
man can assure himself by any good reason there is none ; for as for the
• likeness of events to him that is righteous and him that is wicked, to him
that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not,' Eccles. ix 2, it is an argu-
ment for a reserve of judgment in another state, which every man's con-
science dictates to him, when the justice of God shall be glorified in another
world as much as his patience is in this.
2. Whosoever doubts of it makes himself a mark, against which all the
creatures fight.
All the stars fought against Sisera for Israel ; all the stars in heaven, and
the dust on earth, fight for God against the atheist. He hath as many argu-
ments against him as there are creatures in the whole compass of heaven
and earth. He is most unreasonable that denies or doubts of that whose
image and shadow he sees round about him ; he may sooner deny the sun
that warms him, the moon that in the night walks in her brightness, deny
the fruits he enjoys from earth, yea, and deny that he doth exist. He must
tear his own conscience, fly from his own thoughts, be changed into the
nature of a stone, which hath neither reason nor sense, before he can dis-
engage himself from those arguments which evince the being of a God. He
that would make the natural religion professed in the world a mere romance,
must give the lie to the common sense of mankind ; he must be at an irre-
concilable enmity with his own reason, resolve to hear nothing that it speaks,
if he will not hear what it speaks in this case with a greater evidence than
it can ascertain anything else. God hath so settled himself in the reason of
man, that he must vilify the noblest faculty God hath given him, and put
off nature itself, before he can blot out the notion of a God.
3. No question but those that have been so bold as to deny that there
was a God have sometimes been much afraid they have been in an error,
and have at least suspected there was a God, when some sudden prodigy
hath presented itself to them and roused their fears. And whatsoever senti-
ments they might have in their blinding prosperity, they have had other kind
of motions in them in their stormy afflictions, and, like Jonah's mariners,
have been ready to cry to him for help, whom they disdained to own so much
as in being while they swam in their pleasures. The thoughts of a deity
cannot be so extinguished but they will revive and rush upon a man, at least
tinder some sharp affliction. Amazing judgments will make them question
their own apprehensions. God sends some messengers to keep alive the
apprehension of him as a judge, while men resolve not to own or reverence
him as a governor. A man cannot but keep a scent of what was bom with
VOL. I. u
1T8 chaenock's wokks. [Ps. XIY. 1.
him ; as a vessel that hath been seasoned first with a strong juice will pre-
serve the scent of it, whatsoever liquors are afterwards put into it.
4. What is it for which such men rack their wits, to form notions that
there is no God ? Is it not that they would indulge some vicious habit,
which hath gained the possession of their soul, which they know cannot be
favoured by that holy God, whose notion they would raze out? Ps. xciv. 6, 7.
Is it not for some brutish afiection, as degenerative of human nature, as
derogatory to the glory of God ; a lust as unmanly as sinful ?
The terrors of God are the eflects of guilt ; and therefore men would wear
out the apprehensions of a deity, that they might be brutish without control.
They would fain believe there were no God, that they might not be men, but
beasts. How great a folly is it to take so much pains in vain for a slavery
and torment ! to cast off that which they call a yoke for that which really is
one ! There is more pains and toughness of soul requisite to shake off the
apprehensions of God than to believe that he is, and cleave constantly to
iim. What a madness is it in any to take so much pains to be less than a
man, by razing out the apprehensions of God, when with less pains he may
be more than an earthly man, by cherishing the notions of God, and walk-
ing answerably thereunto.
5. How unreasonable is it for any man to hazard himself at this rate in
the denial of a God ! The atheist saith he knows not that there is a God ;
but may he not reasonably think there may be one for aught he knows?
And if there be, what a desperate confusion will he be in, when all his
bravadoes shall prove false ! What can they gain by such an opinion ? A
freedom, say they, from the burdensome yoke of conscience, a liberty to do
what they list, that doth not subject them to divine laws. It is a hard
matter to persuade any that they can gain this. They can gain but a sor-
did pleasure, unworthy the nature of man. But it were well that such
would argue thus : — If there be a God, and I fear and obey him, 1 gain a
happy eternity ; but if there be no God, I lose nothing but my sordid lusts
by firmly believing there is one. If I be deceived at last, and find a God,
can I think to be rewarded by him for disowning him ? Do not I run a
desperate hazard to lose his favour, his kingdom, and endless felicity, for an
endless torment ? By confessing a God, I venture no loss ; but by denying
him, I run the most desperate hazard if there be one.
He is not a reasonable creature that will not put himself upon such a rea-
sonable arguing.
What a doleful meeting will there be between the God who is denied and
the atheist that denies him, who shall meet with reproaches on God's part,
and terrors of his own ! All that he gains is a liberty to defile himself here,
and a certainty to be despised hereafter, if he be in an error, as undoubtedly
he is.
6. Can any such person say he hath done all that he can to inform him-
self of the being of God, or of other things which he denies ? Or rather,
they would fain imagine there is none, that they may sleep securely in their
lusts, and be free (if they could) from the thunder-claps of conscience? Can
such say they have used their utmost endeavours to instruct themselves in
this, and can meet with no satisfaction ? Were it an abstruse truth, it might
not be wondered at ; but not to meet with satisfaction in this which every-
thing minds us of and helpeth, is the fi-uit of an extreme negligence, stupidity,
and a willingness to be unsatisfied, and a judicial process of God against
them. It is strange any man should be so dark in that upon which depends
the conduct of his life, and the expectation of happiness hereafter.
I do not know what some of you may think, but I believe these things
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 179
are not useless to be proposed for ourselves to answer temptations. "We
know not what wicked temptation in a debauched and sceptic age, meeting
with a corrupt heart, may prompt men to, and though there may not be any
atheist here present, yet I know there is more than one who have accidentally
met with such who openly denied a deity. And if the like occasion happen,
these considerations may not be unuseful to apply to their consciences. But
I must confess, that since those that live in this sentiment do not judge
themselves worthy of their own care, they are not worthy of the care of
others ; and a man must have all the charity of the Christian religion, which
they despise, not to contemn them, and leave them to their own folly. As
we are to pity madmen, who sink under an unavoidable distemper, we are
as much to abominate them who will fully hug this prodigious frenzy.
Use 3. If it be the atheist's folly to deny or doubt of the being of God, it
is our wisdom to be firmly settled in this truth, that God is. We should
never be without our arms in an age wherein atheism appears barefaced
without a disguise.
You may meet with suggestions to it ; though the devil formerly never
attempted to demolish this notion in the world, but was willing to keep it
up, so the worship due to God might run in his own channel ; and was
necessitated to preserve it, without which he could not have erected that
idolatry which was his great design in opposition to God ; yet since the
foundations of that are torn up, and never like to be rebuilt, he may endea-
vour, as his last refuge, to banish the notion of God out of the world, that
he may reign as absolutely without it, as he did before by the mistakes about
the divine nature. But we must not lay all upon Satan ; the corruption of
our own hearts ministers matter to such sparks. It is not said, Satan hath
suggested to the fool, but ' The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.'
But let them come from what principle soever, silence them quickly, give
them their dismiss, oppose the whole scheme of nature to fight against
them, as the stars did against Sisera. Stir up sentiments of conscience to
oppose sentiments of corruption. Resolve sooner to believe that yourselves
are not than that God is not. And if you suppose they at any time come
from Satan, object to him that you know he believes the contrary to what
he suggests. Settle this principle firmly in you, let us behold him that is
invisible, as Moses did, Heb. xi. 27. Let us have the sentiments following
upon the notion of a God, to be restrained by a fear of him, excited by a
love to him, not to violate his laws and ofi"end his goodness. He is not a
God careless of our actions, negligent to inflict punishment and bestow
rewards : ' He forgets not the_ labour of our love,' Heb. vi. 10, nor the in-
tegrity of our ways. He were not a God if he were not a governor ; and
punishments and rewards are as essential to government as a foundation to
a building. His being and his government in rewarding, Heb. xi. 6, which
implies punishment (for the neglects of him ai-e linked together), are not*
to be separated in our thoughts of him.
1. Without this truth fixed in us, we can never give him the worship due
to his name. "VVTaen the knowledge of any thing is fluctuating and uncertain,
our actions about it are careless. We regard not that which we think doth
not much concern us. If we do not firmly believe there is a God, we shall pay
him no steady worship ; and if we beUeve not the excellency of his nature,
we shall ofier him but a slight service ; Mai. i. 13, 14. The Jewsf call the
knowledge of the being of God, the foundation and pillar of wisdom. The
* Qu. ' His being and government in rewarding, -which implies punishment for
the neglect of him, are linked together, and are not,' &c. ? — Ed.
t Maimon. Funda. Legis, cap. i.
180 chabnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
whole frame of religion is dissolved without this apprehension, and totters if
this apprehension be wavering. Religion in the heart is as water in a weather
glass, which rises or falls according to the strength or weakness of this belief.
How can any man worship that which he believes not to be, or doubts of ?
Could any man omit the paying an homage to one whom he did believe to
be an omnipotent, wise being, possessing (infinitely above our conceptions)
the perfections of all creatures ? He must either think there is no such
being, or that he is an easy, drowsy, inobservant God, and not such a one
as our natural notions of him, if Hstened to, as well as the Scripture, repre-
sent him to be.
2. Without being rooted in this, we cannot order our lives. All our base-
ness, stupidity, dulness, wanderings, vanity, spring from a wavering and un-
settledness in this principle. This gives ground to brutish pleasures, not
only to solicit but conquer us. Abraham expected violence in any place
where God was not owned : Gen. xx. 11, ' Surely the fear of God is not in
this place, and they will slay me for my wife's sake.' The natural knowledge
of God firmly impressed, would choke that which would stifle our reason
and deface our souls. The belief that God is, and what he is, would have
a mighty influence to persuade us to a real religion, and serious considera-
tion, and casting about how to be like to him and united with him.
3. AVithout it we cannot have any comfort of our lives. Who would will-
ingly live in a stormy world, void of a God ? If we waver in this principle,
to whom should we make our complaints in our afflictions ? Where should
we meet with supports ? How could we satisfy ourselves with the hopes of
a future happiness ? There is a sweetness in the meditation of his existence,
and that he is a creator, Ps. civ. 24. Thoughts of other things have a
bitterness mixed with them : houses, lands, children now are, shortly they
will not be ; but God is, that made the world ; his faithfulness as he is
a creator, is a ground to deposit our souls and concerns in our innocent
suflferings, 1 Peter iv. 19. So far as we are weak in the acknowledg-
ment of God, we deprive ourselves of our content in the view of his infinite
perfections.
4. Without the rooting of this principle, we cannot have a firm belief of
Scripture. The Scripture will be a slight thing to one that hath weak senti-
ments of God. The belief of a God must necessarily precede the belief of any
revelation ; the latter cannot take place without the former as the foundation.
We must firmly believe the being of a God, wherein our happiness doth con-
sist, before we can believe any means which conduct us to him. Moses
begins with the author of creation, before he treats of the promise of redemp-
tion. Paul preached God as a creator to a university, before he preached
Christ as mediator. Acts xvii. 24. What influence can the testimony of
God have in his revelation upon one that doth not firmly assent to the truth
of his being ? All would be in vain that is so often repeated. Thus saith the
Lord, if we do not believe there is a Lord that speaks it. There could be
no awe from his sovereignty in his commands, nor any comfortable taste of
his goodness in his promises. The more we are strengthened in this prin-
ciple, the more credit we shall be able to give to divine revelation, to rest in
his promise, and to reverence his precept ; the authority of all depends upon
the being of the revealer.
To this purpose, since we have handled this discourse by natural argu-
ments,
1. Study God in the creatures as well as in the Scriptures. The primary
use of the creatures, is to acknowledge God in them ; they were made to
be witnesses of himself and his goodness, and heralds of his glory, which
Ps. XIV. 1.] THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, 181
glory of God as creator ' shall endure for ever,' Ps. civ. 31. That^vhole
psalm is a lecture of creation and providence. The world is a sacred temple,
man is introduced to contemplate it, and behold with praise the glory of
God in the pieces of his art. As grace doth not destroy nature, so the book
of redemption blots not out that of creation. Had he not shewn himself in his
creatures, he could never have shewn himself in his Christ. The order of
things required it. God must be read wherever he is legible ; the crea-
tures are one book, wherein he hath writ a part of the * excellency of his
name,' Ps. viii. 9, as many artists do in their works and watches. God's
glory, like the filings of gold, is too precious to be lost wherever it drops ;
nothing so vile and base in the world, but carries in it an instruction for
man, and drives in further the notion of a God. As he said of his cottage,
enter here, sunt hie etiam Dii, God disdains not this place, so the least
creature speaks to man, every shrub in the field, every fly in the air, every
limb in a body : Consider me, God disdains not to appear in me ; he hath dis-
covered in me his being and a part of his skill, as well as in the highest.
The creatures manifest the being of God and part of his perfections. We
have indeed a more excellent way, a revelation setting him forth in a more
excellent manner, a fii-mer object of dependence, a brighter object of love,
raising our hearts from self-confidence to a confidence in him. Though the
appearance of God in the one be clearer than in the other, yet neither is to
be neglected. The Scripture directs us to nature to view God ; it had been
in vain else for the apostle to make use of natural arguments. Nature is
not contrary to Scripture, nor Scripture to nature, unless we should think
God contrary to himself, who is the author of both.
2. View God in your own experiences of him. There is a taste and sight
of his goodness, though no sight of his essence, Ps. xxxiv. 38. By the taste
of his goodness you may know the reality of the fountain, whence it springs
and from whence it flows. This surpasseth the greatest capacity of a mere
natural :' understanding. Experience of the sweetness of the ways of Chris-
tianity is a mighty preservative against atheism. Many a man knows not
how to prove honey to be sweet by his reason, but by his sense ; and if all
the reason in the world be brought against it, he will not be reasoned out
of what he tastes.
Have not many found the delightful illapses of God into their souls, often
sprinkled with his inward blessings upoQ their seeking of him ; had secret
warnings in their approaches to him ; and gentle rebukes in their consciences
upon their swervings from him ? Have not many found sometimes an in-
visible hand raising them up when they were dejected, some unexpected
providence stepping in for their relief, and easily perceived that it could not
be a work of chance, nor many times the intention of the instruments he
hath used in it ? You have often found that he is, by finding that he is a
rewarder, and can set to your seals that he is what he hath declared himself
to be in his word : Isa. xliii. 12, ' I have declared, and have saved, there-
fore you are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God.' The secret
touches of God upon the heart, and inward converses with him, are a greater
evidence of the existence of a supreme and infinitely good being, than all
nature.
Use 4. Is it a folly to deny or doubt of the being of God ? It is a folly also
not to worship God, when we acknowledge his existence. It is our wisdom
then to worship him. As it is not indifferent whether we believe there is a
God or no, so it is not indifi'erent whether we will give honour to that God
or no. A worship is his right as he is the author of our being, and foun-
tain of our happiness. By this only we acknowledge his deity. Though we
182 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
profess his being, yet we deny that profession in neglects of worship. To
deny him a worship is as great a folly as to deny his being. He that
renounceth all homage to his Creator, envies him the being which he can-
not deprive him of. The natural inclination to worship is as universal as
the notion of a God ; idolatry else had never gained footing in the world.
The existence of God was never owned in any nation, but a worship of him
was appointed ; and many people who have turned their backs upon some
other parts of the law of nature, have paid a continual homage to some supe-
rior and invisible being. The Jews gave a reason why man was created in
the evening of the Sabbath, because he should begin his being with the
worship of his Maker. As soon as ever he found himself to be a creature,
his first solemn act should be a particular respect to his Creator. * To fear
God and keep his commandment, is the whole of man,' Eccles. xii. 13, oris
' whole man ' {Hebrew) ; he is not a man but a beast, without observance
of God. Religion is as requisite as reason to complete a man. He were
not reasonable if he were not religious ; because by neglecting religion,
he neglects the chiefest dictate of reason. Either God framed the world
with so much order, elegancy, and variety, to no purpose, or this was his
end at least, that reasonable creatures should admire him in it, and honour him
for it. The notion of God was not stamped upon men, the shadows of God
did not appear in the creatures to be the subject of an idle contemplation,
but the motive of a due homage to God. He created the world for his glory,
a people for himself, that he might have the honour of his works ; that
since we live and move in him and by him, we should live and move to him
and for him. It was the condemnation of the heathen world, that when
they knew there was a God, they did not give him the glory due to him,
Eom. i. 21. He that denies his being is an atheist to his essence: he
that denies his worship is an atheist to his honour.
5. If it be a folly to deny the being of God, it will be our wisdom then,
since we acknowledge his being, often to think of him. Thoughts are the
first issue of a creature as reasonable, Prov. iv. 23. He that hath given us
the faculty whereby we are able to think, should be the principal object
about which the power of it should be exercised. It is a justice to God the
author of our understandings, a justice to the nature of our understandings,
that the noblest faculty should be employed about the most excellent object.
Our minds are a beam from God ; and therefore, as the beams of the sun,
when they touch the earth, should reflect back upon God. As we seem to
deny the being of God, not to think of him, we seem also to unsoul our
souls, in misemploying the activity of them any other way : like flies, to be
oftener on dunghills than flowers.
It is made the black mark of an ungodly man or an atheist, that ' God is
not in all his thoughts,' Ps. x. 4. What comfort can be had in the being
of God without thinking of him with reverence and delight ! A God for-
gotten is as good as no God to us.
PRACTICAL ATHEISM..
' The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. — Ps. XIV. 1.
Doct. 2. Practical atheism is natural to man in his depraved state, and
very frequent in the hearts and lives of men.
' The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.' He regards him as
little as if he had no being. He said in his heart, not with his tongue, nor
in his head ; he never firmly thought it, nor openly asserted it ; shame put
a bar to the first, and natural reason to the second. Yet perhaps he had
sometimes some doubts whether there were a God or no ; he wished there
were not any, and sometimes hoped there were none at all. He could not
raze out the notion of a deity in his mind, but he neglected the fixing the
sense of God in his heart, and made it too much his business to deface and
blot out those characters of God in his soul which had been left under the
ruins of original nature.
Men may have atheistical hearts without atheistical heads. Their reasons
may defend the notion of a deity, while their hearts are empty of affection
to the Deity ; Job's children may ' curse God in theii' hearts,' Job i. 5,
though not with their lips.
' There is no God.' Most understand it of a denial of the providence of
God, as I have said in opening the former doctrine.
He denies some essential attribute of God, or the exercise of that attribute
in the world.*
He that denies any essential attribute may be said to deny the being of
God. Whosoever denies angels or men to have reason and will, denies the
human and angelical nature, because understanding and will are essential to
both those natures ; there could neither be angel nor man without them.
No nature can subsist without the perfections essential to that nature, nor
God be conceived of without his. The apostle tells us, Eph. ii. 12, that
the Gentiles were 'without God in the world.' So in some sense all
unbelievers may be termed atheists ; for rejecting the mediator appointed by
God, they reject that God who appointed him.
But this is beyond the intended scope, natural atheism being the only
subject ; yet this is deducible from it, that the title of akoi doth not only
belong to those who denied the existence of God, or to those who contemn
all sense of a deity, and would root the conscience and reverence of God
out of their souls, but it belongs also to these who give not that worship to
God which is due to him ; who worship many gods, or who worship one
* So the Chaldee reads, J^iloV^J^f Dv, nonpotestas, denying the authority of God
in the world.
184 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
God in a false and superstitious manner ; when they have not right concep-
tions of God, nor intend an adoration of him according to the excellency of
his nature. All those that are unconcerned for any particular religion fall
under this character ; though they own a God in general, yet are willing
to acknowledge any god that shall be coined by the powers under whom they
live. The Gentiles were without God in the world ; without the true notion
of God, not without a god of their own framing.
This general or practical atheism is natural to men.
1. Not natural by created, but by corrupted, nature. It is against nature,
as nature came out of the hand of God ; but universally natural, as nature
hath been sophisticated and infected by the serpent's breath. Inconsidera-
tion of God, or misrepresentations of his nature, are as agreeable to corrupt
nature as the disowning the being of a God is contrary to common reason.
God is not denied naturd sed vitiis.-'-
2. It is universally natural : ' The wicked are estranged from the womb,'
Ps. Iviii. 2, ' They go astray as soon as they be born, their poison is like
the poison of a serpent.' The wicked ; and who by his birth hath a better
title ? They go astray from the dictates of God and the rule of their crea-
tion as soon as ever they be born ; their poison is like the poison of a
serpent, which is radically the same in all of the same species. It is semi-
nally and fundamentally in all men, though there may be a stronger restraint
by a divine hand upon some men than upon others. This principle runs
through the whole stream of nature. The natural bent of evgry man's heart
is distant from God ; when we attempt anything pleasing to God, it is like
the climbing up a hill against nature ; when anything is displeasing to him,
it is like a current running down the channel in its natural course ; when
we attempt anything that is an acknowledgment of the holiness of God, we
are fain to rush with arms in our hands through a multitude of natural
passions, and fight the way through the oppositions of our own sensitive
appetite. How softly do we naturally sink down into that which sets us at
a greater distance from God ! There is no active, potent, efficacious sense
of a God by nature. * The heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to
do evil,' Eccl. viii. 11 ; the heart in the singular number, as if there were
but one common heart beat in all mankind, and bent, as with one pulse,
with a joint consent and force to wickedness, without a sense of the autho-
rity of God in the eai-th ; as if one heart acted every man in the world.
The great apostle cites the text to vei'ify the charge he brought against
all mankind, Rom. iii. 9-12. In his interpretation, the Jews, who owned
one God, and were dignified with special privileges, as well as the Gentiles,
that maintained many gods, are within the compass of this character. The
apostle leaves out the first part of the text, ' The fool hath said in his heart,'
but takes in the latter part, and the verses following. He charges all,
because all, every man of them, was under sin : ' There is none that seeks
God ;' and, ver. 19, he adds, ' What the law saith, it speaks to those that
are under the law,' that none should imagine he included only the Gentiles,
and exempted the Jews from this description. The leprosy of atheism had
infected the whole mass of human nature. No man among Jews or Gentiles
did naturally seek God, and therefore all were void of any spark of the
practical sense of the deity. The eflects of this atheism are not in all ex-
ternally of an equal size ; yet, in the fundamentals and radicals of it, there
is not a hair's difference between the best and the worst men that ever tra-
versed the world. The distinction is laid either in the common grace,
bounding and suppressing it ; or in special grace, killing and crucilying it.
* Augustin. de Civit. Dei.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 185
It is in every one either triumphant or militant, reigning or deposed. No
man is any more born with sensible acknowledgments of God than he is
born with a clear knowledge of the nature of all the stars in the heavens or
plants upon the earth. * None seeks after God.' None seeks God as his
rule, as his end, as his happiness, which is a debt the creature naturally
owes to God ; he desires no communion with God ; he places his happiness
in anything inferior to God ; he prefers everything before him, glorifies
everything above him ; he hath no delight to know him ; he regards not
those paths which lead to him ; he loves his own filth better than God's
holiness ; his actions are tinctured and dyed with self, and are void of that
respect which is due from him to God.
The noblest faculty of man, his understanding, wherein the remain-
ing lineaments of the image of God are visible, the highest operation of
that faculty, which is wisdom, is in the judgment of the Spirit of God
' devilish,' whiles it is ' earthly and sensual,' James iii. 15. And the wis-
dom of the best man is no better by nature ; a legion of impure spirits
possess it ; devilish as the devil, who though he believe there is a God,
yet acts as if there were none, and wishes he had no superior to prescribe
him a law, and inflict that punishment upon him which his crimes have
merited. Hence the poison of man by nature is said to be like * the poison
of a serpent,' alluding to that serpentine temptation which first infected man-
kind, and changed the nature of man into the likeness of that of the devil,
Ps. Iviii. 4. So that notwithstanding the harmony of the world, that presents
men not only with the notice of the being of a God, but darts into their
minds some remarks of his power and eternity, yet the thoughts and
reasonings of man are so corrupt, as may well be called diabolical, and as
contrary to the perfection of God and the original law of their nature, as the
actings of the devil are ; for since every natural man is a child of the devil,
and is acted by the diabolical spirit, he must needs have that nature which
his father hath, and the infusion of that venom which the spirit that
acts him is possessed with, though the full discovery of it may be restrained
by various circumstances, Eph. ii. 2. To conclude : though no man, or at
least very few, arrive to a round and positive conclusion in their hearts that
there is no God, yet there is no man that naturally hath in his heart any
reverence of God.
In general, before I come to a particular proof, take some propositions.
Prop. 1. Actions are a greater discovery of a principle than words. The
testimony of works is louder and clearer than that of words, and the frame
of men's hearts must be measured rather by what they do than by what they
say. There may be a mighty distance between the tongue and the heart,
but a course of actions is as little guilty of lying as interest is, according to
our common saying. All outward impieties are the branches of an atheism
at the root of our nature, as all pestilential sores are expressions of the con-
tagion in the blood. Sin is therefore frequently called ungodliness in our
English dialect. Men's practices are the best indexes of their principles.
The current of a man's life is the counterpart of the frame of his heart : who
can deny an error in the spring or wheels, when he perceives an error in
the hand of the dial ? Who can deny atheism in the heart, when so much
is visible in the life ? The taste of the water discovers what mineral it is
strained through. A practical denial of God is worse than a verbal, because
deeds have usually more of deliberation than words ; words may be the fruit of
a passion, but a set of evil actions are the fruit and evidence of a predominant
evil principle in the heart. All slighting words of a prince do not argue an
habitual treason, but a succession of overt treasonable attempts signify a
186 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
settled treasonable disposition in the mind. Those, therefore, are naore
deservedly termed atheists, who acknowledge a God and walk as if there
were none, than those (if there can be any such) that deny a God, and walk
as if there were one.
A sense of God in the heart would burst out in the life. Where there is no
reverence of God in the life, it is easily concluded there is less in the heart.
What doth not influence a man when it hath the addition of the eyes and
censures of outward spectators, and the care of a reputation (so much the
god of the world), to strengthen it and restrain the action, must certainly have
less power over the heart when it is single, without any other concurrence.
The flames breaking out of a house discover the fire to be much stronger and
fiercer within. The apostle judge th those of the circumcision, who gave heed to
Jewish fables, to be deniers of God, though he doth not tax them with any
notorious profaneness: Tit. i. 16, ' They profess that they know God, but*in
works they deny him ;' he gives them epithets contrary to what they arrogated
to themselves.* They boasted themselves to be holy, the apostle calls them
abominable. They bragged that they fulfilled the law, and observed the tra-
ditions of their fathers ; the apostle calls them disobedient, or unpersuadable.
They boasted that they only had the rule of righteousness, and a sound judg-
ment concerning it ; the apostle said they had a reprobate sense, and unfit
for any good work ; and judges against all their vain-glorious brags, that
they had not a reverence of God in their hearts ; there was more of the
denial of God in their works, than there was acknowledgment of God in
their words. Those that have neither God in their thoughts, nor in their
tongues, nor in their works, cannot properly be said to acknowledge him.
Where the honour of God is not practically owned in the lives of men, the
being of God is not sensibly acknowledged in the hearts of men. The prin-
ciple must be of the same kind with the actions ; if the actions be atheistical,
the principle of them can be no better.
Proj). 2. All sin is founded in a secret atheism. Atheism is the spirit of
every sin ; all the flood of impieties in the world break in at the gate of a
secret atheism ; and though several sins may disagree with one another, yet
like Herod and Pilate against Christ, they join hand in hand against the inte-
rest of God. Though lusts and pleasures be divers, yet they are united in
disobedience to him. Tit. iii. 3. All the wicked inclinations in the heart,
and struggling motions, secret repinings, self- applauding confidences in our
own wisdom, strength, &c., envy, ambition, revenge, are sparks from this
latent fire ; the language of every one of these is, I would be a lord to my-
self, and would not have a God superior to me.
The variety of sins against the first and second table, the neglects of God,
and violences against man, are derived from this in the text, first, * The fool
hath said in his heart,' and then follows a legion of devils. As all virtuous
actions spring from an acknowledgment of God, so all vicious actions rise from
a lurking denial of him. All licentiousness goes glib down where there is no
sense of God. Abraham judged himself not secure from murder, nor his
wife from defilement in Gerar, if there were no fear of God there, Gen.
XX. 11. He that makes no conscience of sin has no regard to the honour,
and consequently none to the being, of God. * By the fear of God men
depart from evil,' Prov. xvi. 6. By the non-regarding of God men rush
into evil. Pharaoh oppressed Israel because he knew not the Lord. If he
did not deny the being of a deity, yet he had such an unworthy notion of
God as was inconsistent with the nature of a deity ; he, a poor creature,
thought himself a mate for the Creator.
-^ Illyric.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 187
In sins of omission we own not God, in neglecting to perform what he
enjoins. In sins of commission we set up some lust in the place of God,
and pay to that the homage which is due to our Maker. In both we dis-
own him ; in the one by not doing what he commands, in the other by doing
what he forbids.
We deny his sovereignty when we violate his laws ; we disgrace his holi-
ness when we cast our filth before his face ; we disparage his wisdom when
we set up another rule as the guide of our actions than that law he hath
fixed ; we slight his sufficiency when we prefer a satisfaction in sin before a
happiness in him alone, and his goodness, when we judge it not strong
enough to attract us to him. Every sin invades the rights of God, and
strips him of one or other of his perfections. It is such a vilifying of God
as if he were not God ; as if he were not the supreme creator and benefactor
of the world ; as if we had not our being from him ; as if the air we breathed
in, the food we lived by, were our own by right of supremacy, not of dona-
tion : for a subject to slight his sovereign is to slight his royalty ; or a ser-
vant a master, is to deny his superiority.
Prop. 3. Sin implies that God is unworthy of a being. Every sin is a
kind of cursing God in the heart, Job i. 5 ; an aim at the destruction of the
being of God, not actually, but virtually ; not in the intention of every sin-
ner, but in the nature of every sin. That afiection which excites a man to
break his law, would excite him to annihilate his being if it were in his
power. A man in every sin aims to set up his own will as his rule, and his
own glory as the end of his actions, against the will and glory of God ; and
could a sinner attain his end, God would be destroyed : God cannot out-live
his will and his glory ; God cannot have another rule but his own will, nor
another end but his own honour. Sin is called a ' turning the back' upon
God, Jer. xxxii. 33 ; a ' kicking against him,' Deut. xxxii. 15 ; as if he were
a slighter person than the meanest beggar. What greater contempt can be
shewed to the meanest, vilest person, than to turn the back, lift up the heel,
and thrust away wdth indignation ? All which actions, though they signify
that such a one hath a being, yet they testify also that he is unworthy of a
being, that he is an unuseful being in the world, and that it were well the
world were rid of him.
All sin against knowledge is called a reproach of God, Num. xv. 10,
Ezek. XX. 27. Reproach is a vilifying a man as unworthy to be admitted
into company. We naturally judge God unfit to be conversed with. God
is the term turned from by a sinner ; sin is the term turned to ; which
implies a greater excellency in the nature of sin than in the nature of God.
And as we naturally judge it more worthy to have a being in our affections,
so consequently more worthy to have a being in the world, than that infinite
nature from whom we derive our beings, and our all, and upon whom with a
kind of disdain we tarn our backs. Whosoever thinks the notion of a deity
unfit to be cherished in his mind by warm meditation, implies that he cares
not whether he hath a being in the world or no. Now though the light of a
deity shines so clearly in man, and the stings of conscience are so smart,
that he cannot absolutely deny the being of a God, yet most men endeavour
to smother this knowledge, and make the notion of a God a sapless and
useless thing : Rom. i. 28, ' They like not to retain God in their knowledge.'
It is said Cain ' went out from the presence of the Lord,' Gen. iv. 16 ;
that is, from the worship of God. Our refusing or abhorring the presence
of a man implies a carelessness whether he continue in the world or no, it
is a using him as if he had no being, or as if he were not concerned in it.
Hence all men in Adam, under the emblem of the prodigal, are said to go
188 chabnock's works. [Ps. XTV. 1.
into a far country. Not in respect of place, because of God's omnipresence,
but in respect of acknowledgment and affection ; they mind and love any-
thing but God. And the descriptions of the nations of the world, lying in
the ruins of Adam's fall, and the dregs of that revolt, is that they know not
God ; they forget God, as if there were no such being above them ; and
indeed, he that doth the works of the devil, owns the devil to be more
worthy of observance, and consequently of a being, than God, whose nature
he forgets, and whose presence he abhors.
Prop. 4. Every sin in its own nature would render God a foolish and
impure being. Many transgressors esteem their acts, which are contrary to
the law of God, both wise and good ; if so, the law against which they are
committed must be both foolish and impure. What a reflection is there
then upon the law-giver ! The moral law is not properly a mere act of
God's will considered in itself, or a tyrannical edict, like those of whom it
may well be said, stat pro ratione voluntas, but it commands those things
which are good in their own nature, and prohibits those things which are in
their own nature evil, and therefore is an act of his wisdom and righteousness,
the result of his wise counsel, and an extract of his pure nature ; as all the
laws of just lawgivers are not only the acts of their will, but of a will
governed by reason and justice, and for the good of the public, whereof
they are conservators. If the moral commands of God were only acts of
his will, and had not an intrinsic necessity, reason, and goodness, God
might have commanded the quite contrary, and made a contrary law,
whereby that which we now call vice might have been canonised for virtue ;
he might then have forbid any worship of him, love to him, fear of his
name ; he might then have commanded murders, thefts, adulteries. In
the first, he would have united the link of duty fi'om the creature, and dis-
solved the obligations of creatures to him, which is impossible to be con-
ceived ; for from the relation of a creature to God, obligations to God, and
duties upon those obligations, do necessarily result. It had been against
the rule of goodness and justice to have commanded the creature not to love
him, and fear and obey him ; this had been a command against righteous-
ness, goodness, and intrinsic obligations to gratitude. And should murder,
adulteries, rapines have been commanded instead of the contrary, God
would have destroyed his own creation ; he would have acted against the
rule of goodness and order ; he had been an unjust tyrannical governor of
the world ; public society would have been cracked in pieces, and the world
become a shambles, a brothel house, a place below the common sentiments
of a mere man. All sin therefore being against the law of God, the wisdom
and holy rectitude of God's nature is denied in every act of disobedience.
And what is the consequence of this, but that God is both foolish and un-
righteous in commanding that which was neither an act of wisdom as a
governor, nor an act of goodness as a benefactor to his creature ?
As was said before, presumptuous sins are called reproaches of God :
Num. XV. 30, ' The soul that doth aught presumptuously reproacheth the
Lord.' Reproaches of men are either for natural, moral, or intellectual
defects. All reproaches of God must imply a charge either of unrighteous-
ness or ignorance ; if of unrighteousness, it is a denial of his holiness ; if of
ignorance, it is a blemishing his wisdom. If God's laws were not wise and
holy, God would not enjoin them ; and if they are so, we deny infinite wis-
dom and holiness in God by not complying with them. As when a man
believes not God when he promises, he ' makes him a liar,' 1 John v. 10, so
he that obeys not a wise and holy God commanding, makes him guilty either
of folly or unrighteousness.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 189
Now, suppose you know an absolute atheist, who denied the being of a
God, yet had a life free from any notorious spot or defilement, would you in
reason count him so bad as the other that owns a God in being, yet lays, by
his course of action, such a black imputation of folly and impurity upon the
God he professeth to own, an imputation which renders any man a most
despicable creature ?
Prop. 5. Sin in its own nature endeavours to render God the most miser-
able being. It is nothing but an opposition to the will of God. The will
of no creature is so much contradicted as the will ; of God is by devils and
men ; and there is nothing under the heavens that the affections of human
nature stand more point blank against, than against God. There is a
slight of him in all the faculties of man ; our souls are as unwilling to know
him as our wills are averse to follow him : Rom. viii. 7, * The carnal mind
is enmity against God ; it is not subject to the law of God, nor can be sub-
ject.' It is true God's will cannot be hindered of its effect, for then God
would not be supremely blessed, but unhappy and miserable ; all misery
ariseth from a want of that which a nature would have and ought to have ;
besides, if anything could frustrate God's will, it would be superior to him ;
God would not be omnipotent, and so would lose the perfection of the deity,
and consequently the deity itself ; for that which did wholly defeat God's
will would be more powerful than he. But sin is a contradiction to the
will of God's revelation ; to the will of his precept, and therein doth natu-
rally tend to a superiority over God, and would usurp his omnipotence, and
deprive him of his blessedness. For if God had not an infinite power to
turn the designs of it to his own glory, but the will of sin could prevail,
God would be totally deprived of his blessedness. Doth not sin endeavour
to subject God to the extravagant and contrary wills of men, and make him
more a slave than any creature can be ? For the will of no creature, not the
meanest and most despicable creature, is so much crossed as the will of God
is by sin : Isa. xhii. 24, * Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins ; ' thou
hast endeavoured to make a mere slave of me by sin. Sin endeavours to sub-
ject the blessed God to the humour and lust of every person in the world.
Prop. 6. Men sometimes in some circumstances do wish the not being of
God. This some think to be the meaning of the text, ' The fool hath said
in his heart, there is no God ; ' that is, he wishes there were no God.
Many tamper with their own hearts to bring them to a persuasion that there
is no God, and when they cannot do that, they conjure up wishes that there
were none. Men naturally have some conscience of sin, and some notices
of justice : Rom. i. 32, ' They know the judgment of God,' and they know
the demerit of sin ; they know the judgment of God, and * that they which
do such things are worthy of death.' What is the consequent of this but
fear of punishment ? and what is the issue of that fear but a wishing the
judge either unwilling or unable to vindicate the honour of his violated law ?
When God is the object of such a wish, it is a virtual undeifying of him.
Not to be able to punish, is to be impotent ; not to be willing to punish, is
to be unjust : imperfections inconsistent with the deity. God cannot be
supposed without an infinite power to act, and an infinite righteousness as
the rule of acting. Fear of God is natural to all men ; not a fear of offend-
ing him, but a fear of being punished by him. The wishing the extinction
of God has its degree in men, according to the degree of their fears of his
just vengeance ; and though such a wish be not in its meridian but in the
damned in hell, yet it hath its starts and motions in affrighted and awakened
consciences on the earth, under this rank of wishers, that there were no
God, or that God were destroyed, do fall, —
190 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
1. Terrified consciences, that are magor missabih* see nothing but matter
of fear round about. As they have Uved without the bounds of the law, they
are afraid to fall under the stroke of his justice ; fear wishes the destruction
of that which it apprehends hurtful. It considers him as a God to whom
'vengeance belongs,' as the 'judge of all the earth,' Ps. xciv. 1, 2. The
less hopes such a one hath of his pardon, the more joy he would have to
hear that his judge should be stripped of his life ; he would entertain with
delight any reasons that might support him in the conceit that there were
DO God ; in his present state, such a doctrine would be his security from an
account ; he would as much rejoice if there were no God to inflame a hell
for him, as any guilty malefactor would if there were no judge to order a
gibbet for him. Shame may bridle men's words, but the heart will be
casting about for some arguments this way to secure itself. Such as are
at any time in Spira's case, would be willing to cease to be creatures, that
God might cease to be judge. ' The fool hath said in his heart, there is
no Elohim,' no judge, fancying God without any exercise of his judicial
authority. And there is not any wicked man under anguish of spirit, but,
were it within the reach of his power, would take away the life of God, and
rid himself of his fears by destroying his avenger.
2. Debauched persons are not without such wishes sometimes. An
obstinate servant wishes his master's death, from whom he expects correction
for his debaucheries. As man stands in his corrupt nature, it is impossible
but one time or other most debauched persons, at least have some kind of
velleities, or imperfect wishes. It is as natural to men to abhor those things
which are unsuitable and troublesome, as it is to please themselves in things
agreeable to their minds and humours. And since man is so deeply in love
with sin, as to count it the most estimable good, he cannot but wish the
abolition of that law which checks it, and consequently the change of the
lawgiver which enacted it ; and in wishing a change in the holy nature of
God, he wishes a destruction of God, who could not be God, if he ceased to
be immutably holy. They do as certainly wish, that God had not a holy
will to command them, as despairing souls wish, that God had not a righteous
wUl to punish them ; and to wish conscience extinct for the molestations
they receive from it, is to wish the power conscience represents out of the
world also.
Since the state of sinners is a state of distance from God, and the language
of sinners to God is, ' Depart from us,' Job xxi. 14, they desire as little
the continuance of his being as they desire the knowledge of his ways. The
same reason which moves them to desire God's distance from them, would
move them to desire God's not being. Since the greatest distance would be
most agreeable to them, the destruction of God must be so too ; because
there is no greater distance from us, than in not being. Men would rather
have God not to be, than themselves under control, that sensuality might
range at pleasure. He is like a ' heifer sliding from the yoke,' Hosea iv. 16.
The cursing of God in the heart, feared by Job of his children, intimates a
wishing God despoiled of his authority, that their pleasure might not be
damped by his law ; besides, is there any natural man that sins against
actuated knowledge, but either thinks or wishes that God might not see him,
that God might not know his actions ? And is not this to wish the destruction
of God, who could not be God unless he were immense and omniscient ?
3. Under this rank fall those who perform external duties only out of a
principle of slavish fear. Many men perform those duties that the law en-
joins, with the same sentiments that slaves perform their drudgery, and are
* That is, y'2B't2 lijD, Jer. xx. 3.— Ed.
Ps. XIV. l.j PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 191
constrained in their duties by no other considerations but those of the whip
and the cudgel. Since, therefore, they do it with rcluctancy, and secretly
murmur while they seem to obey, they would be willing that both the com-
mands were recalled, and the master that commands them were in another
world. The Spirit of adoption makes men act towards God as a father, a
Spirit of bondage only eyes him as a judge. Those that look upon their
superiors as tyrannical, will not be much concerned in their welfare,
and would be more glad to have their nails pared, than be under perpetual
fear of them.
Many men regard not the infinite goodness in their service of him, but
consider him as^mel, tyrannical, injurious to their liberty. Adam's posterity
are not free from the sentiments of their common father, till they are regene-
rate. You know what conceit was the hammer whereby the hellish Jael
struck the nail into our first parents, which conveyed death, together with
the same imagination to all their posterity : Gen. iii. 5, ' God knows that
in the day you eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil.' Alas, poor souls ! God knew what he did
when he forbade you that fnait ; he was jealous you should be too happy ; it
was a cruelty in him to deprive you a food so pleasant and delicious. The
apprehension of the severity of God's commands riseth up no less in desires
that there were no God over us, than Adam's apprehension of envy in God,
for the restraint of one tree moved him to attempt to be equal with God ;
fear is as powerful to produce the one in his posterity, as pride was to pro-
duce the other in the common root. When we apprehend a thing hurtful
to us, we desire so much evil to it, as may render it uncapable of doing us
the hui't we fear. As we wish the preservation of what we love or hope for,
so we are naturally apt to wish the not being of that whence we fear some
hurt or trouble. We must not understand this as if any man did formally
wish the destruction of God, as God. God in himself is an infinite mirror
of goodness and ravishing loveliness. He is infinitely good, and so univer-
sally good, and nothing but good, and is therefore so agreeable to a creature,
as a creature, that it is impossible that the creature, while it bears itself to
God as a creature, should be guilty of this, but thirst after him and cherish
every motion to him. As no man wishes the destraetion of any creature, as
a creature, but as it may conduce to something which he counts may be
beneficial to himself, so no man doth, nor perhaps can wish the cessation
of the being of God, as God ; for then he must wish his own being to cease
also ; but as he considers him clothed with some perfections, which he
apprehends as injurious to him ; as his holiness in forbidding sin, his justice
in punishing sin. And God being judged in those perfections contrary to
what the revolted creature thinks convenient and good for himself, he may
wish God stripped of those perfections, that thereby he may be free from all
fear of trouble and grief from him in his fallen state. In wishing God de-
prived of those, he wishes God deprived of his being, because God cannot
retain his deity without a love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity ; and
he could not testify his love to the one, or his loathing of the other, without
encouraging goodness, and witnessing his anger against iniquity.
Let us now appeal to ourselves, and examine our own consciences. Did
we never please ourselves sometimes in the thoughts, how happy we should
be, how free in our vain pleasures, if there were no God ? Have we not
desired to be our own lords without control, subject to no law but our own,
and be guided by no will but that of the flesh? Did we never rage against
God under his afflicting hand ? Did we never wish God stripped of his holy
will to command, and his righteous will to punish, &c.
192 chajrnock's wobks. [Ps. XIV. 1.
Thus much for the general.
For the proof of this, many considerations will bring in evidence ; most
may be reduced to these two generals.
Man would set himself up, first, as his own rule ; secondly, as his own end
and happiness.
I. Man would set himself up as his own rule instead of God. This will
be evidenced in this method.
1. Man naturally disowns the rule God sets him.
2. He owns any other rule rather than that of God's prescribing.
3. These he doth in order to the setting himself up as his own rule.
4. He makes himself not only his own rule, but would make himself the
rule of God, and give laws to his creator.
1. Man naturally disowns the rule God sets him. It is all one to deny
his royalty and to deny his being. When we disown his authority, we dis-
own his Godhead. It is the right of God to be the sovereign of his crea-
tures ; and it must be a very loose and trivial assent that such men have to
God's superiority over them (and consequently to the excellency of his
being, upon which that authority is founded), who are scarce at ease in
themselves, but when they are invading his rights, breaking his bands, cast-
ing away his cords, and contradicting his will.
Every man naturally is a son of Belial, would be without a yoke, and
leap over God's enclosures ; and in breaking oat against his sovereignty, we
disown his being as God. For to be God and sovereign are inseparable ;
he could not be God, if he were not supreme ; nor could he be a creator
without being a lawgiver. To be God, and yet inferior to another, is a con-
tradiction. To make rational creatures without prescribing them a law, is
to make them without holiness, wisdom, and goodness.
(1.) There is in man naturally an unwiUingness to have any acquaintance
with the rale God sets him : Ps. xiv. 2, ' None that did understand and seek
God.' The ' refusing instruction,' and ' casting his word behind the back,'
is a part of atheism, Ps. 1. 17. We are heavy in hearing the instructions
either of law or gospel, Heb. v. 11, 12, and slow in the apprehension of
what we hear. The people that God had hedged in from the wilderness of
the world for his own garden were foolish, and did not know God ; were
sottish, and had no understanding of him, Jer. iv. 22. The law of God is
accounted a strange thing, Hos. viii. 12, a thing of a different climate and
a far country from the heart of man, wherewith the mind of man had no
natural acquaintance, and had no desire to have any, or they regarded it as
a sordid thing. What God accounts great and valuable, they account mean
and despicable. Men may shew a civility to a stranger, but scarce contract
an intimacy ; there can be no amicable agreement between the holy will of
God and the heart of a depraved creature : one is holy, the other unholy ;
one is universally good, the other stark naught. The purity of the divine
rule renders it nauseous to the impurity of a carnal heart. Water and fire
may as well friendly kiss each other and live together without quarrelling
and hissing, as the holy will of God and the unregenerate heart of a fallen
creature.
The nauseating a holy rule is an evidence of atheism in the heart, as the
nauseating wholesome food is of putrified phlegm in the stomach. It is
found more or less in every Christian, in the remainders, though not in a
full empire. As there is a law in his mind whereby he delights in the law
of God, so there is a law in his members whereby he wars against the law
of God, Rom. vii. 22, 23, 25. How predominant is this loathing of the law
of God, when corrupt nature is in its full strength, without any principle to
Ps. Xiy 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 193
control it ! There is in the mind of such a one a darkness whereby it is
ignorant of it, and in the will a dcpravedness whereby it is repugnant to it.
If man were naturally willing and able to have an intimate acquaintance
with, and delight in the law of God, it had not been such a signal favour for
God to promise to write the law in the heart. A man may sooner engrave
the chronicle of a whole nation, or all the records of God in the Scripture,
upon the hardest marble with his bare finger, than write one syllable of the
law of God in a spiritual manner upon his heart. For,
[1.] Men are negligent in using the means for the knowledge of God's
will. All natural men are fools, who know not how to use the ' price God
puts into their hands,' Prov. xvii. 16; they put not a due estimate upon
opportunities and means of grace, and account that law folly which is tho
birth of an infinite and holy wisdom. The knowledge of God which they
may glean from creatures, and is more pleasant to the natural gust of men,
is not improved to the glory of God, if we will believe the indictment the
apostle brings against the Gentiles, Rom. i. 21. And most of those that
have dived into the depths of nature, have been more studious of the quali-
ties of the creatures than of the excellency of the nature, or the discovery of
the mind of God in them ; who regard only the rising and motions of the
star, but follow not with the wise men, its conduct to the king of the Jews.
How often do we see men filled with an eager thirst for all other kind of
knowledge, that cannot acquiesce in a twilight discovery, but are inquisitive
into the causes and reasons of efi"ects, yet are contented with a weak and
languishing knowledge of God and his law, and are easily tired with the
proposals of them.
He now that nauseates the means whereby he may come to know and
obey God, has no intention to make the law of God his rule. There is no
man that intends seriously an end, but he intends means in order to that
end ; as when a man intends the preservation or recovery of his health, he
will intend means in order to those ends, otherwise he cannot be said to
intend his health. So he that is not diligent in using means to know the
mind of God, has no sound intention to make the will and law of God his
rule. Is not the inquiry after the will of God made a work by the by, and
fain to lacquey after other concerns of an inferior nature, if it hath any place
at all in the soul ? which is a despising the being of God. The notion of
the sovereignty of God bears the same date with the notion of his Godhead;
and by the same way that he reveals himself, he reveals his authority over
us, whether it be by creatures without, or conscience within. All authority
over rational creatures consists in commanding and directing ; the duty of
rational creatures, in compliance with that authority, consists in obeying.
Where there is therefore a careless neglect of those means which convey the
knowledge of God's will and our duty, there is an utter disowning of God as
our sovereign and our rule.
[2.] When any part of the mind and will of God breaks in upon men,
they endeavour to shake it off ; as a man would a sergeant that comes to
arrest him : ' They like not to retain God in their knowledge,' Rom. i. 28.
' A natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God ;' that is, into
his affection ; he pusheth them back as men do troublesome and importunate
beggars. They have no kindness to bestow upon it. They thrust with both
shoulders against the truth of God, when it presseth in upon them ; and
dash as much contempt upon it as the Pharisees did upon the doctrine our
Saviour directed against their covetousness. As men naturally delight to
be without God in the world, so they delight to be without any offspring of
God in their thoughts. Since the spiritual palate of man is depraved, divine
VOL. I. N
194 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
truth is unsavoury and ungrateful to us, till our taste and relish is restored
by grace. Hence men damp and quench the motions of the Spirit to obe-
dience and compliance with the dictates of God ; strip them of their life and
vigour, and kill them in the womb. How unable are our memories to retain
the substance of spiritual truth, but like sand in a glass, put in at one part
and runs out at the other ! Have not many a secret wish that the Scrip-
ture had never mentioned some truths, or that they were blotted out of the
Bible, because they face their consciences, and discourage those boiling lusts
they would with eagerness and delight pursue ? Methinks that interruption
John gives our Saviour, when he was upon the reproof of their pride, looks
little better than a design to divert him from a discourse so much against
the grain, by telling him a story of their prohibiting one to cast out devils,
because he followed not them, Mark ix. 33, 38. How glad are men when
they can raise a buttery against a command of God, and raise some smart
objection, whereby they may shelter themselves from the strictness of it !
[3.] When men cannot shake off the notices of the will and mind of God,
they have no pleasure in the consideration of them ; which could not pos-
sibly be, if there were a real and fixed design to own the mind and law of
God as our rule. Subjects or servants that love to obey their prince and
master, will delight to read and execute their orders. The devils under-
stand the law of God in their minds, but they loathe the impressions of it
upon their wills. Those miserable spirits are bound in chains of darkness,
evil habits in their wills, that they have not a thought of obeying that law
they know. It was an unclean beast under the law that did not chew the
cud ; it is a corrupt heart that doth not chew truth by meditation. A
natural man is said not to know God, or the things of God ; he may know
them notionally, but he knows them not affectionately. A sensual soul can
have no delight in a spiritual law. To be sensual and not to have the Spirit
are inseparable, Jude 19.
Natural men may indeed meditate upon the law and truth of God, but
without delight in it ; if they take any pleasure in it, it is only as it is
knowledge, not as it is a rule ; for we delight in nothing that we desire, but
upon the same account that we desire it. Natural men desire to know God
and some part of his will and law, not out of a sense of their practical excel-
lency, but a natural thirst after knowledge ; and if they have a delight, it is
in the act of knowing, not in the object known, not in the duties that stream
from that knowledge ; they design the furnishing their understandings, not
the quickening their afi"ectious ; like idle boys that strike fire, not to warm
themselves by the heat, but sport themselves with the sparks ; whereas a
gracious soul accounts not only his meditation, or the operations of his soul
about God and his will to be sweet, but he hath a joy in the object of that
meditation, Ps. civ. 34. Many have the knowledge of God, who have no
delight in him or his will. Owls have eyes to perceive that there is a sun,
but by reason of the weakness of their sight have no pleasure to look upon
a beam of it ; so neither can a man by nature love or delight in the will of
God, because of his natural corruption. That law that riseth up in men for
conviction and instruction, they keep down under the power of corruption,
making their souls not the sanctuary, but prison of truth, Rom. i. 18.
They will keep it down in their hearts, if they cannot keep it out of their
heads, and will not endeavour to know and taste the spirit of it.
[4. J There is further a rising and swelling of the heart against the will of
God. (1.) Internal. God's law cast against a hard heart is like a ball
thrown against a stone wall, by reason of the resistance rebounding the
further from it. The meeting of a divine truth and the heart of man, is
Ps. XIV. 1.] PBAOTICAL ATHEISM. 195
like the meeting of two tides, the weaker swells and foams. Wo have a
natural antipathy against a divine rule, and therefore when it is clapped
close to our consciences, there is a suufling at it, high reasonings against it,
corruption hreaks out more strongly ; as water poured on lime sets it oa
fire hy an antiperistasis, and the more water is cast upon it, the more
furiously it burns ; or as the sunbeams shining upon a dunghill makes the
steams the thicker and the stench the noisomer, neither being the positive
cause of the smoke in the lime, or the stench in the dunghill, but by
accident the causes of the eruption : Rom. vii. 8, ' But sin taking occasion
by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for
without the law sin was dead.' Sin was in a languishing posture, as if it
were dead, like a lazy garrison in a city, till upon an alarm from the
adversar}' it takes arms and revives its courage ; all the sin in the heart
gathers together its force to maintain its standing, like the vapours of the
night, which unite themselves more closely to resist the beams of the rising
sun. Deep conviction often provokes fierce opposition ; sometimes disputes
against a divine rule end in blasphemies : Acts xiii. 45, ' Contradicting and
blaspheming' are coupled together. Men naturally desire things that are
forbidden, and reject things commanded, from the corruption of nature,
which affects an unbounded liberty, and is impatient of returning under that
yoke it hath shaken off, and therefore rageth against the bars of the law, as
the waves roar against the restraint of a bank. When the understanding is
dark and the mind ignorant, sin lies as dead : * A man scarce knows he
hath such motions of concupiscence in him, he finds not the least breath of
wind, but a full calm in his soul; but when he is awakened by the law, then
the viciousness of nature being sensible of an invasion of its empire, arms
itself against the divine law, and the more the command is urged, the more
vigorously it bends its strength, and more insolently lifts up itself against
it.'* He perceives more and more atheistical lusts than before ; ' all manner
of concupiscence,' more leprous and contagious than before. When there
are any motions to turn to God, a reluctancy is presently perceived ; athe-
istical thoughts bluster in the mind like the wind, they know not whence they
come nor whither they go, so unapt is the heart to any acknowledgment
of God as his ruler, and any reunion with him. Hence men are said to
* resist the Holy Ghost,' Acts vii. 51, to fall against it, as the word signifies,
as a stone or any ponderous body falls against that which lies in its way ;
they would dash to pieces or grind to powder that very motion which
is made for their instruction, and the Spirit too which makes it, and
that not from a fit of passion, but an habitual repugnance. * Ye always
resist,' &c.
(2.) External, it is a fruit of atheism, in the fourth verse of this Psalm :
* Who eat up my people as they eat bread.' How do the revelations of the
mind of God meet with opposition ! And the carnal world like dogs bark
against the shining of the moon ! So much men hate the light, that they
spurn at the lanterns that bear it ; and because they cannot endure the
treasure, often fling the earthen vessels against the ground wherein it is held.
If the entrance of truth render the market worse for Diana's shrines, the
whole city will be in an uproar. Acts xix. 24, 28, 29. When Socrates upon
natural principles confuted the heathen idolatry, and asserted the unity of
God, the whole cry of Athens, a learned university, is against him, and
because he opposed the public received religion, though with an undoubted
truth, he must end his life by violence. How hath every corner of the
world steamed with the blood of those that would maintain the authority of
* Thes. Salmur. De Spiritu Servitutis, Thea. 19.
196 chaknock's works. [Ps. XTV. 1.
God in the world ! The devil's children will follow the steps of their father,
and endeavour to bruise the heel of divine truth, that would endeavour to
break the head of corrupt lust.
[5.] Men often seem desirous to be acquainted with the will of God, not
out of any respect to his will and to make it their rule, but upon some other
consideration. Truth is scarce received as truth. There is more of
hypocrisy than sincerity in the pale of the church, and attendance on the
mind of God. The outward dowry of a religious profession makes it often
more desirable than the beauty. Judas was a follower of Christ for the
bag, not out of any affection to the divine revelation. Men sometimes
pretend a desire to be acquainted with the will of God, to satisfy their own
passions, rather than to conform to God's will. The religion of such is not
the judgment of the man, but the passion of the brute. Many entertain a
doctrine for the person's sake, rather than a person for the doctrine's sake,
and believe a thing because it comes from a man they esteem, as if his lips
were more canonical than Scripture.
The apostle implies in the commendation he gives the Thessalonians,
1 Thes. ii. 13, that some receive the word for human interest, not ' as it is
in truth the word and will of God,' to command and govern their consciences
by its sovereign authority; or else they 'have the truth of God' (as St
James speaks of the faith of Christ) * with respect of persons,' James ii. 1,
and receive it not for the sake of the fountain, but of the channel ; so that
many times the same truth delivered by another is disregarded, which when
dropping from the fancy and mouth of a man's own idol, is cried up as an
oracle. This is to make not God, but man, the rule ; for though we enter-
tain that which materially is the truth of God, yet not formally as his truth,
but as conveyed by one we affect ; and that we receive a truth and not an
error, we owe the obligation to the honesty of the instrument, and not to
the strength and clearness of our own judgment. Wrong considerations may
give admittance to an unclean as well as a clean beast into the ark of the
Boul ; that which is contrary to the mind of God may be entertained as well
as that which is agreeable. It is all one to such, that have no respect to
God, what they have ; as it is all one to a spunge to suck up the foulest
water or the sweetest wine, when either is applied to it.
[6.1 Many that entertain the notions of the will and mind of God admit
them with unsettled and wavering affections. There is a great levity in the heart
of man. The Jews that one day applaud our Saviour with Hosannaha as their
king, vote his crucifixion the next, and use him as a murderer. We begin
in the Spirit and end in the flesh. Our hearts, like lute-strings, are changed
with every change of weather, with every appearance of a temptation; scarce
one motion of God in a thousand prevails with us for a settled abode. It is
a hard task to make a signature of those truths upon our affections, which
will with ease pass current with our understandings; our affections will as soon
loose them as our understandings embrace them. The heart of man is
unstable as water, Gen. xlix. 4, James i. 8. Some were willing to rejoice
in John's light, which reflected a lustre on their minds, but not in his heat,
which would have conveyed a warmth to their hearts ; and the light was
pleasing to them but for a season, John v. 35, while their corruptions lay
as if they were dead, not when they were awakened. Truth may be admitted
one day, and the next day rejected. As Austin saith of a wicked man, he
loves the truth shining, but he hates the truth reproving. This is not to
make God, but our own humour, our rule and measure.
[7.] Many desire an acquaintance with the law and truth of God, with a
design to improve some lust by it, to turn the word of God to be a pander
Ps. XrV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 197
to the breach of his law. This is so far from making God's will our rale,
that we make our own vile affections the rule of his law. How many forced
interpretations of Scripture have been coined to give consent to the lusts of
men, and the divine rule forced to bend and be squared to men's loose and
carnal apprehensions ! It is a part of the instability or falseness of the
heart to ' wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction,' 2 Peter iii. 16,
which they could not do, if they did not first wring them to countenance
some detestable error or filthy crime. In paradise, the first interpretation
made of the first law of God was point blank against the mind of the law-
giver, and venomous to the whole race of mankind. Paul himself feared that
some might put his doctrine of grace to so ill a use, as to be an altar and
sanctuary to shelter their presumption: Rom. vi. 1, 15, 'Shall we then
continue in sin, that grace may abound ? ' Poisonous consequences are
often drawn from the sweetest truths ; as when God's patience is made a
topic whence to argue against his providence, Ps. xciv. 1, or an encourage-
ment to commit evil more greedily, as though because he had not presently
a revenging hand, he had not an all- seeing eye ; or when the doctrine of
justification by faith is made use of to depress a holy life ; or God's readi-
ness to receive returning sinners an encouragement to defer repentance till
a death-bed. A Har will hunt for shelter in the reward God gave the
midwives that lied to Pharaoh for the preservation of the males of Israel,
and Rahab's saving the spies by false intelligence. God knows how to
distinguish between grace and coiTuption, that they may lie close together,
or between something of moral goodness and moral evil which may be
mixed. "We find their fidelity rewarded, which was a moral good ; but not
their lie approved, which was a moral evil. Nor will Christ's conversing
with sinners be a plea for any to thrust themselves into evil company.
Christ conversed with sinners as a physician with diseased persons, to cure
them, not approve them ; others with profligate persons to receive infec-
tion from them, not to communicate holiness to them. Satan's children
have studied their father's art, who wanted not perverted Scripture to second
his temptations against our Saviour, Mat. iv, 4, 6. How often do carnal
hearts turn divine revelation to carnal ends, as the sea fresh water into
salt ! As men subject the precepts of God to carnal interests, so they
subject the truths of God to carnal fancies. When men will allegorise the
word, and make a humorous and crazy fancy the interpreter of divine
oracles, and not the Spirit speaking in the word, this is to enthrone our own
imaginations as the rule of God's law, and depose his law from being the
rule of our reason ; this is to rifle truth of its true mind and intent. It is
more to rob a man of his reason, the essential constitutive part of man, than
of his estate. This is to refuse an intimate acquaintance with his will. We
shall never tell what is the matter of a precept, or the matter of a promise,
if we impose a sense upon it contrary to the plain meaning of it ; thereby
■we shall make the law of God to have a distinct sense according to the
variety of men's imaginations, and so make every man's fancy a law to
himself.
Now, that this unwillingness to have a spiritual acquaintance with divine
truth is a disowning God as our rule, and a setting up self in his stead, is
evident, because this unwillingness respects truth.
First, As it is most spiritual and holy. A fleshly mind is most contrary
to a spiritual law, and particularly as it is a searching and discovering law,
that would dethrone all other rules in the soul. As men love to be without
a holy God in the world, so they love to be without a holy law, the transcript
and image of God's holiness, in their hearts, and without holy men, the lights
198 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
kindled by the Father of lights. As the holiness of God, so the holiness of
the law most offends a carnal heart : Isa. xxx. 11, ' Cause the Holy One of
Israel to cease from before us ; prophesy [not] to us right things.' They
could not endure God as a holy one. Herein God places their rebellion,
rejecting him as their rule : ver. 9, * Rebellious children, that will not hear
the law of the Lord.' The more pure and precious any discovery of God is,
the more it is disrelished by the world. As spiritual sins are sweetest to a
carnal heart, so spiritual truths are most distasteful. The more of the bright-
ness of the sun any beam conveys, the more offensive it is to a distempered
eye.
Secondly, As it doth most relate to, or lead to God. The devil directs his
fiercest batteries against those doctrines in the word, and those graces in the
heart, which most exalt God, debase man, and bring men to the lowest sub-
jection to their Creator. Such is the doctrine and grace of justifying faith.
That men hate not knowledge as knowledge, but as it directs them to choose
the fear of the Lord, was the determination of the Holy Ghost long ago :
Prov. i. 29, * For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of
the Lord.' Whatsoever respects God, clears up guilt, witnesses man's revolt
to him, rouseth up conscience, and moves to a return to God, a man naturally
rans from, as Adam did from God, and seeks a shelter in some weak bushes
of error, rather than appear before it. Not that men are unwilling to inquire
into and contemplate some divine truths which lie furthest from the heart,
and concern not themselves immediately with the rectifying the soul. They
may view them with such a pleasure as some might take in beholding the
miracles of our Saviour, who could not endure his searching doctrine. The
light of speculation may be pleasant, but the light of conviction is grievous,
that which galls their concieuces, and would affect them with a sense of their
duty to God.
Is it not easy to perceive that when a man begins to be serious in the
concerns of the honour of God and the duty of his soul, he feels a reluctancy
■within him, even against the pleas of conscience, which evidenceth that some
unworthy principle has got footing in the hearts of men, which fights against
the declarations of God without and the impressions of the law of God within,
at the same time when a man's own conscience takes part with it, which is
the substance of the apostle's discourse, Rom. vii. 15, 16, &c.
Close discourses of the honour of God and our duty to him are irksome,
when men are upon a merry pin. They are like a damp in a mine, that
takes away their breath ; they shuffle them out as soon as they can, and are
as unwilling to retain the speech of them in their mouths, as the knowledge
of them in their hearts. Gracious speeches, instead of bettering many men,
distemper them, as sometimes sweet perfumes affect a weak head with aches.
Thmllij, As it is most contrary to self. Men are unwilling to acquaint
themselves with any truth that leads to God, because it leads from self.
Every part of the will of God is more or less displeasing, as it sounds harsh
against some carnal interest men would set above God, or as a mate with him.
Man cannot desire any intimacy with that law which he regards as a bird of
prey, to pick out his right eye or gnaw off' his right hand, his lust, 'dearer than
himself. The reason we have such hard thoughts of God's will, is because
we have such high thoughts of ourselves. It is a hard matter to believe or
will that which hath no affinity with some principle in the understanding, and
no interest in our will and passions. Our unwillingness to be acquainted
with the will of God, ariseth from the disproportion between that and our
corrupt hearts ; we are ' alienated from the life of God in our minds,' Eph.
iv. 18, 19, As we live not like God, so we neither think or will as God.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 199
There is an antipathy in the heart of man aj^ainst that doctrine which teaches
us to deny ourselves, and be under the rule of another ; bub whatsoever favours
the ambition, lusts, and profits of men is easily entertainable. Many are
fond of those sciences which may enrich their understandings, and grate not
upon their sensual delights. Many have an admirable dexterity in finding
out philosophical reasons, mathematical demonstrations, or raising observa-
tions upon the records of history, and spend much time and many serious
and affectionate thoughts in the study of them. In those they have not
immediately to do with God ; their beloved pleasures are not impaired. It
is a satisfaction to self, without the exercise of any hostility against it. But
had those sciences been against self, as much as the law and will of God,
they had long since been rooted out of the world. Why did the young man
turn his back upon the law of Christ ? Because of his worldly self. Why
did the Pharisees mock at the doctrine of our Saviour, and not at their own
traditions ? Because of covetous self. Why did the Jews slight the person
of our Saviour, and put him to death, after the reading so many credentials
of his being sent from heaven ? Because of ambitious self, that the Romans
might not come and take away their kingdom. If the law of God were fitted
to the humours of self, it would be readily and cordially observed by all men.
Self is the measure of a world of seeming religious actions ; while God seems
to be the object and his law the motive, self is the rule and end : Zech. vii. 5,
* Did you fast unto me ? ' &c.
(2.) As men discover their disowning the will of God as a rule by unwill-
ingness to be acquainted with it, so they discover it by the contempt of it,
after they cannot avoid the notions and some impressions of it. The rule of
God is burdensome to a sinner ; he flies from it as from a frightful bugbear
and unpleasant yoke. Sin against the knowledge of the law is therefore
called a ' going back from the commandment of God's lips,' Job xxiii. 12 ;
a ' casting God's word behind them,' Ps. 1. 17, as a contemptible thing, fitter
to be trodden in the dirt than lodged in the heart. Nay, it is a casting it
off as an abominable thing, for so the word TOT signifies : Hos. viii. 3, ' Israel
hath cast off the thing that is good ; ' an utter refusal of God : Jer, xliv. 16,
' As for the word which thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we
will not hearken.' In the slight of his precepts, his essential perfections are
slighted. In disowning his will as a rule, we disown all those attributes
which flow from his will, as goodness, righteousness, and truth. As an act
of the divine undei'standing is supposed to precede the act of the divine will,
so we slight the infinite reason of God. Every law, though it proceeds from
the will of the lawgiver, and doth formally consist in an act of the will, yet
it doth presuppose an act of the understanding. If ' the commandment be
holy, just, and good,' as it is (Rom. vii. 12), if it be the image of God's
holiness, a transcript of his righteousness and the efflux of his goodness, then
in ever}' breach of it, dirt is cast upon those attributes which shine in it, and
a slight of all the regards he hath to his own honour, and all the provisions
he makes for his creature. This atheism or contempt of God, is more taken
notice of by God than the matter of the sin itself; as a respect to God, in a
weak and imperfect obedience, is more than the matter of the obedience itself,
because it is an acknowledgment of God, so a contempt of God, in an act of
disobedience, is more than the matter of disobedience. The creature stands,
in such an act, not only in a posture of distance from God, but defiance of
him. It was not the bare act of murder and adultery which Nathan charged
upon David, but the atheistical principle which spirited those evil acts. The
* despising the commandment of the Lord' was the venom of them, 2 Sam.
xii. 9, 10. It is possible to break a law without contempt ; but when men
200 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
pretend to believe there is a God, and that this is the law of God, it shews
a contempt of his majesty. Men naturally account God's laws too strict,
his yoke too heavy, and his limits too strait ; and he that liveth in a con-
tempt of this law, curseth God in his life. How can they helieve there is a
God, who despise him as a ruler ? How can they believe him to be a guide,
that disdain to follow him ? To think we firmly beheve a God, without
living conformable to his law, is an idle and vain imagination. The true
and sensible motion* of a God cannot subsist with disorder and an afiected
unrighteousness.
This contempt is seen,
[1.] In any presumptuous breach of any part of his law. Such sins are
frequently called in Scripture rebellions, which are a denial of the allegiance
we owe to him. By a wilful refusal of his right in one part, we root up
the foundation of that rule he doth justly challenge over us. His right is
as extensive to command us in one thing as in another. And if it be dis-
owned in one thing, it is virtually disowned in all, and the whole statute-
book of God is contemned: James ii. 10, 11, 'Whosoever shall keep the
whole law, and yet ofiend in one point, is guilty of all.' A willing breaking
one part, though there be a willing observance of all the other points of it,
is a breach of the whole, because the authority of God, which gives sanc-
tion to the whole, is slighted. The obedience to the rest is dissembled ;
for the love which is the root of all obedience is wanting, for ' love is the
fulfilling the whole law,' Rom. xiii. 10. The rest are obeyed because they
cross not carnal desire so much as the other, and so it is an observance of
himself, not of God. Besides, the authority of God, which is not prevalent
to restrain us from the breach of one point, would be of as little force with
us to restrain us from the breach of all the rest, did the allurements of the
flesh give us as strong a diversion from the one as from the other. And
though the command that is transgressed be the least in the whole law, yet
the authority which enjoins it is the same with that which enacts the greatest.
And it is not so much the matter of the command, as the authority com-
manding, which lays the obligation.
[2.] In the natural averseness to the declarations of God's will and mind,
which way soever they tend. Since man afiected to be as God, he desires
to be boundless; he would not have fetters, though they be golden ones,
and conduce to his happiness; though the law of God be a strength to
them, yet they will not: Isa. xxx. 15, ' In returning shall be your strength;
and you would not.' They would not have a bridle to restrain them from
running into the pit, nor be hedged in by the law, though for their security,
as if they thought it too slavish and low-spirited a thing to be guided by the
will of another. Hence man is compared to a wild ass, that loves to ' snufi"
up the wind in the wilderness at her pleasure,' rather than come under the
guidance of God, Jer. ii, 24. From whatsoever quai-ter of the heavens you
pursue her, she will run to the other.
The Israelites could not endure what was commanded, Heb. xii. 20,
though in regard of the moral part, agreeable to what they found written in
their own nature, and to the observance whereof they had the highest obli-
gations of any people under heaven, since God had by many prodigies
delivered them from a cruel slavery, the memory of which prefaced the
Decalogue : Exod, xx. 2, ' I am the Lord thy God, which have brought
thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.' They could
not think of the rule of their duty but they must reflect upon the grand incen-
tive of it in their redemption from Egyptian thraldom ; yet this people were
* Qu. ' notion ' ? — Ed.
Ps. MV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 201
cross to God, wbich way soever he moved. When they were in the brick-
kilns, they cried for dehverance; when they had heavenly manna, they
longed for their onions and garlic. In Num. xiv. 3, they repent of their
deliverance from Egypt, and talk of returning again to seek the remedy of
their evils in the hands of their cruellest enemies; and would rather put
themselves into the irons whence God had delivered them, than believe one
word of the promise of God for giving them a fruitful land. But when
Moses tells them God's order, that they should turn back by the way of
the Bed Sea, ver. 25, and that God had confirmed it by an oath that they
should not see the land of Canaan, ver. 28, they then run cross to this com-
mand of God, and instead of marching towards the Red Sea, which they
had wished for before, they will go up to Canaan, as in spite of God and
his threatening, ' We will go to the place which the Lord hath promised,'
ver. 40, which Moses calls a ' transgressing the commandments of the Lord,'
ver. 41. They would presume to go up, notwithstanding Moses his pro-
hibition, and are smitten by the Amalekites. When God gives them a
precept, with a promise to go up to Canaan, they long for Egypt; when
God commands them to return to the Red Sea, which was nearer to the
place they longed for, they will shift sides and go up to Canaan, Num. xxi.
4, 6, &c.;* and when they found they were to traverse the solitudes of
the desert, they took pet against God, and instead of thanking him for the
late victory against the Canaanites, they reproach him for his conduct from
Egypt, and the manna wherewith he nourished them in the wilderness.
They would not go to Canaan the way God had chosen, nor preserve them-
selves by the means God had ordained. They would not be at God's dis-
posal, but complain of the badness of the way and the lightness of manna,
empty of any necessary juice to sustain their nature. They murmuringly
solicit the will and power of God to change all that order which he had
resolved in his counsel, and take another, conformable to their vain, foolish
desires. And they signified thereby that they would invade his conduct,
and that he should act according to their fancy, which the psalmist calls a
' tempting of God, and limiting the Holy One of Israel,' Ps. Ixxviii. 41.
To what point soever the declarations of God stand, the will of man turns
the quite contrary way. Is not the carriage of this nation, the best then in
the world, a discovery of the depth of our natural corruption, how cross
man is to God ? And that charge God brings against them may be brought
against all men by nature, that they ' despise his judgment,' and have a
rooted abhorrency of his statutes in their soul. Lev. xxvi. 43. No sooner
had they recovered from one rebellion, but they revolted to another; so
difiicult a thing it is for man's nature to be rendered capable of conforming
to the will of God. The carriage of his people is but a copy of the nature
of mankind, and is 'written for our admonition,' 1 Cor. x. 11. From this
temper men are said to ' make void the law of God,' Ps. cxix. 126 ; to make
it of no obligation, an antiquated and moth-eaten record. And the Pharisees,
by setting up their traditions against the will of God, are said to make bis
law ' of none effect,' to strip it of all its authority, as the word signifies,
Mat. XV. 6, rj/tv^uicari.
[3.] We have the greatest slight of that will of God which is most for his
honour and his greatest pleasure. It is the nature of man, ever since Adam,
to do so : Hosea vi. 6, 7, ' God desired mercy, and not sacrifice ; the know-
ledge of himself more than burnt-ofiering. But they, like men,' as Adam,
* have transgressed the covenant,' invade God's rights, and not let him be
Lord of one tree.
* Daille, Serm. 1 Cor. x. Serm. 9.
202 chabnock's woeks. [Ps. XIV. 1.
We are more cnrious observers of the fringes of the law than of the
greater concerns of it. The Jews were diligent in sacrifices and ofierings,
which God did not urge upon them as principals, but as types of other
things, but negligent of the faith which was to be established by him ; holi-
ness, mercy, pity, which concerned the honour of God as governor of the
world, and were imitations of the holiness and goodness of God, they were
strangers to. This is God's complaint, Isa. i. 11, 12, and 16, 17.
We shall find our hearts most averse to the observation of those laws
which are eternal and essential to righteousness ; such that he could not
but command, as he is a righteous governor; in the observation of which
we come nearest to him, and express his image more cleai'ly, as those laws
for an inward and spiritual worship, a supreme affection to him. God, in
regard of his righteousness and holiness of his nature, and the excellency of
his being, could not command the contrary to these ; but this part of his
will our hearts most swell against, our corruption doth most snarl at,
whereas those laws which are only positive, and have no intrinsic righteous-
ness in them, but depend purely upon the will of the lawgiver, and may be
changed at his pleasure (which the other, that have an intrinsic righteous-
ness in them, cannot), we better comply with than that part of his will that
doth express more of the righteousness of his nature, Ps. 1. 6, 17, 19, such
as the ceremonial part of worship, and the ceremonial law among the Jews.
We are more willing to observe order in some outward attendances and
glavering devotions, than discard secret affections to evil, crucify inward
lusts and delightful thoughts. A ' hanging down the head like a bulrush'
is not difficult, but the breaking the heart like a potter's vessel to shreds
and dust (a sacrifice God delights in, whereby the excellency of God and
the vileness of the creature is owned), goes against the grain. To cut off
an outward branch is not so hard as to hack at the root. What God most
loathes, as most contrary to his will, we most love. No sin did God so
severely hate, and no sin were the Jews more inchned unto, than that of
idolatry. The heathen had not ' changed their God ' as the Jews had
'changed their glory,' Jer. ii, 11; and all men are natui'ally tainted with
this sin, which is so contrary to the holy and excellent nature of God. By
how much the more defect there is of purity in our respects to God, by so
much the more respect there is to some idol within or without us, to humour,
custom, and interest, &c.
Never did any law of God meet with so much opposition as Christianity,
which was the design of God from the first promise to the exhibiting the
Redeemer, and from thence to the end of the world. All people drew swords
at first against it. The Romans prepared yokes for their neighbours, but
provided temples for the idols those people worshipped. But Christianity,
the choicest design and most delightful part of the will of God, never met
with a kind entertainment at first in any place. Rome, that entertained all
others, persecuted this with fire and sword, though sealed by greater testi-
monies from heaven than their own records could report in favour of their
idols.
[4.] In running the greatest hazards, and exposing ourselves to more
trouble to cross the will of God, than is necessary to the observance of it.
It is a vain charge men bring against the divine precepts, that they are
rigorous, severe, difficult, when, besides the contradiction to our Saviour,
who tells us his yoke is easy and his burden light, they thwart their own
calm reason and judgment. Is there not more difficulty to be vicious,
covetous, violent, cruel, than to be virtuous, charitable, kind ? Doth the
will of God enjoin that that is not conformable to right reason and secretly
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 203
delightful in the exercise and issue? And, on the contrary, what doth
Satan and the world engage us in that is not full of molestation and hazard ?
Is it a sweet and comely thing to combat continually against our own con-
sciences, and resist our own light, and commence a perpetual quarrel against
ourselves, as we ordinarily do when we sin ? They, in the prophet, Micah
vi. 6, 7, 8, would be at the expense of ' thousands of rams and ten thousand
rivers of oil,' if they could compass them; yea, would strip themselves of
their natural affection to their first-born to expiate the * sin of their soul,'
rather than to * do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God;' things
more conducible to the honour of God, the welfare of the world, the security
of their souls, and of a more easy practice than the oflferings they wished
for.
Do not men then disown God, when they will walk in ways hedged with
thorns, wherein they meet with the arrows of conscience at every turn in
their sides, and slide down to an everlasting punishment, sink under an
intolerable s'avery, to contradict the will of God ? When they will prefer a
sensual satisfaction, with a combustion in their consciences, violation of
their reasons, gnawing cares and weary travels, before the honour of God,
the dignity of their natures, the happiness of peace and health, which might
be preserved at a cheaper rate than they are at to destroy them ?
[5.] In the unwillingness and awkwardness of the heart, when it is to pay
God a service. Men ' do evil with both hands earnestly,' Micah vii. 3, but
do good with one hand faintly ; no life in the heart nor any diligence in the
hand. What slight and loose thoughts of God doth this unwillingness
imply ! It is a wrong to his providence, as though we were not under his
government, and had no need of his assistance ; a wrong to his excellency,
as though there were no amiableness in him to make his service desirable;
an injury to his goodness and power, as if he were not able or willing to
reward the creature's obedience, or careless, not to take notice of it. It is
a sign we receive little satisfaction in him, and that there is a great unsuit-
ableness between him and us.
First, There is a kind of constraint in the first engagement. We are
rather pressed to it than enter ourselves volunteers. What we call service
to God, is done, naturally, much against our wills ; it is not a delightful
food, but a bitter potion ; we are rather haled than run to it. There is a
contradiction of sin within us against our service, as there was a contradic-
tion of sinners without our Saviour against his doing the will of God. Our
hearts are unwieldy to any spiritual service of God ; we are fain to use a
violence with them sometimes. Hezekiah, it is said, ' walked before the
Lord with a perfect heart,' 2 Kings xx. 3 ; he walked, he made himself to
walk. Man naturally cares not for a walk with God ; if he hath any com-
munion with him, it is with such a dulness and heaviness of spirit, as if he
wished himself out of his company. Man's nature, being contrary to holi-
ness, hath an aversion to any act of homage to God, because holiness must
at least be pretended ; in every duty wherein we have a communion with
God, holiness is requisite ; now, as men are against the truth of holiness
because it is unsuitable to them, so they are not fi-iends to those duties
■which require it, and for some space divert them from the thoughts of their
beloved lasts. The word of the Lord is a yoke, prayer a drudgery, obedi-
ence a strange element. We are like fish, that ' drink up iniquity like water,'
Job XV. 16, and come not to the bank without the force of an angle ; no
more willing to do service for God than a fish is of itself to do service for
man. It is a constrained act to satisfy conscience, and such are servile,
not son-like performances, and spring from bondage more than afi'ection ; if
204 ohabnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
conscience, like a task-master, did not scourge them to duty, they would
never perform it.
Let us appeal to ourselves whether we are not more unwilling to secret,
closet, hearty duty to God, than to join with others in some external service ;
as if those inward services were a going to the rack, and rather our penance
than privilege. How much service hath God in the world from the same
principle that vagrants perform their task in Bridewell ! How glad are
many of evasions to back them in the neglect of the commands of God, of
corrupt reasonings from the flesh to waylay an act of obedience, and a
multitude of excuses to blunt the edge of the precept ! The very service of
God shall be a pretence to deprive him of the obedience due to him. Saul
will not be ruled by God's will in the destroying the cattle of the Amalekites,
but by his own ; and will impose upon the will and wisdom of God, judging
God mistaken in his command, and that the cattle God thought fittest to be
meat to the fov.ls were fitter to be sacrifices on the altar, 1 Sam. xv. 3, 9,
15, 21.
If we do perform any part of his will, is it not for our own ends, to have
some deliverance from trouble ? Isa. xxvi. 16, ' In trouble have they visited
thee, they poured out a prayer, when thy chastening was upon them.' In
aftiiction, he shall find them kneeling in homage and devotion ; in prosperity,
he shall feel them kicking with contempt ; they can pour out a prayer in
distress, and scarce drop one when they are delivered.
Secondly, There is a slightness in our service of God. We are loath to
come into his presence, and when we do come, we are loath to continue with
him. We pay not an homage to him heartily, as to our lord and governor ;
we regard him not as our master, whose work we ought to do, and whose
honour we ought to aim at.
First, In regard of the matter of service. When the torn, the lame, and
the sick is offered to God, Mai. i. 13, 14, so thin and lean a sacrifice that
you might have thrown it to the ground with a pufi", so some understand the
meaning of ' you have snufl'ed at it.' Men have naturally such slight thoughts
of the majesty and law of God that they think any service is good enough
for him, and conformable to his law. The dullest and deadest times we
think fittest to pay God a service in ; when sleep is ready to close our eyes,
and we are unfit to serve ourselves, we think it a fit time to open our hearts to
God. How few morning sacrijices hath God from many persons and families !
Men leap out of their beds to their carnal pleasures or worldly employments,
without any thought of their Creator and Preserver, or any reflection upon
his will as the rule of our daily obedience ; and as many reserve the dregs
of their lives, their old age, to ofi'er up their souls to God, so they reserve
the dregs of the day, their sleeping time, for the ofi'ering up their service to
him. How many grudge to spend their best time in the serving the will of
God, and reserve for him the sickly and rheumatic part of their lives ; the
remainder of that which the devil and their own lusts have fed upon !
Would not any prince or governor judge a present half eaten up by wild
beasts, or that which died in a ditch, a contempt of his royalty? A corrupt
thing is too base and vile for so great a king as God is, whose name is
dreadful, Mai. i. 14. When by age men are weary of their own bodies, they
would present them to God, yet grudgingly, as if a tired body were too good
for him, snufiing at the command for service. God calls for our best, and
we give him the worst.
Secondly, In respect of frame. We think any frame will serve God's
turn ; which speaks our slight of God as a ruler. Man naturally performs
duty with an unholy heart, whereby it becomes an abomination to God :
Ps. XrV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 205
Prov. xxviii. 9, ' He that turns away bis car from hearing the law, even his
prayers shall bo an abomination to God.' Tlio services which he commandg
he hates for their evil frames or corrupt ends: Amos v. 21, 'I hate, I
despise your feast-days, I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.' God
requires gracious services, and we give him corrupt ones. Wo do not rouse
up our hearts, as David called upon his lute and harp to awake, Ps. Ivii. 8.
Our hearts are not given to him, we put him off with bodily exercise ; the
heart is but ice to what it doth not affect. There is not that natural vioour
in the observance of God which we have in worldly business. When we see
a liveliness in men in other things, change the scene into a notion towards
God, how suddenly doth their vigour shrink, and their hearts freeze into
sluggishness ! Many times we serve God as languishingly as if we were
afraid he should accept us, and pray as coldly as if we were unwilling he
should hear us, and take away that lust by which we are governed, and
■which conscience forces us to pray against ; as if we were afraid God should
set up his own throne and government in our hearts. How fleeting are we in
divine meditation, how sleepy in spiritual exercises, but in other exercises
active ! The soul doth not awaken itself, and excite those animal and vital
spirits which it will in bodily recreations and sports, much less the powers
of the soul ; whereby it is evident we prefer the latter before any service to
God. Since there is a fulness of animal spirits, why might they not be
excited in holy duties as well as in other operations, but that there is a
reluctancy in the soul to exercise its supremacy in this case, and perform
anything becoming a creature in subjection to God as a ruler ?
It is evident also in the distractions we have in his service. How loath
are we to serve God fixedly one hour, nay, a part of an hour, notwithstand-
ing all the thoughts of his majesty, and the eternity of glory set before our
eye ! What man is there since the fall of Adam that served God one hour
without many wanderings and unsuitable thoughts unfit for that service !
How ready are our hearts to start out and unite themselves with any
worldly objects that please us !
Weariness in it evidenceth it. To be weary of our dulness signifies a
desire ; to be weary of service signifies a discontent to be ruled by God.
How tired are we in the performance of spiritual duties, when in the •vain
triflings of time we have a perpetual motion. How will many willingly revel
whole nights, when their hearts will flag at the threshold of a religious ser-
vice ; like Dagon, 1 Sam. v. 4, lose both our heads to think, and hands
to act, when the ark of God is present. Some in the prophet wished the
new moon and the Sabbath over, that they might sell their corn, and be
busied again in their worldly afiairs, Amos viii. 5. A slight and weariness
of the Sabbath was a slight of the Lord of the Sabbath, and of that freedom
from the yoke and rule of sin which was signified by it. The design of the
sacrifices in the new moon was to signify a rest from the tyranny of sin, and
a consecration to the spiritual service of God. Servants that are quickly
weary of their work are weary of the authority of their master that enjoins
it. If our hearts had a value for God, it would be with us as with the
needle to the loadstone, there would be upon his beck a speedy motion to
him, and a fixed union with him. When the judgments and affections of
the saints shall be fully refined in glory, they shall be willing to behold the
face of God, and be under his government to eternity, without any weari-
ness ; as the holy angels have owned God as their sovereign near these six
thousand years without being weary of running on his errands. But, alas !
while the flesh clogs us, there will be some relics of unwillingness to hear
his injunctions, and weariness in performing them ; though men may excuse
206 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
those things by extrinsic causes, yet God's unerring judgment calls it a
weariness of himself: Isa. xliii. 22, ' Thou bast not called upon me, 0 Jacob,
but thou hast been weary of me, 0 Israel.' Of this he taxeth his own
people, when he tells them he would have ' the beasts of the field, the
dragons, and the owls;' the G-entiles, that the Jews counted no better than
such, to honour him, and acknowlege him their rule in a way of duty, ver.
20, 21.
[6. J This contempt is seen in a deserting the rule of God, when our
expectations are not answered upon our service. When services are per-
formed from carnal principles, they are soon cast off when carnal ends meet
not with desired satisfaction. But when we own ourselves God's servants,
and God our master, * our e3'es will wait upon him till he have mercy on
us,' Ps. cxxiii. 2. It is one part of the duty we owe to God as our master
in heaven to ' continue in prayer,' Col. iv. 1, 2. And by the same reason
in all other service, and to ' Avatch in the same with thanksgiving ; ' to watch
for occasions of praise, to watch with cheerfulness for further manifestations
of his will, strength to perform it, success in the performance, that we may
from all draw matter of praise. As we are in a posture of obedience to bis
precepts, so we should be in a posture of waiting for the blessing of it.
But naturally we reject the duty we owe to God if be do not speed the
blessing we expect from him. How many do secretly mutter the same as
they in Job xxi. 15, 'What is the Almighty that we should serve him, and
what profit shall we have if we pray to him ? ' They serve not God out of
conscience to his commands, but for some carnal profit ; and if God make
them to wait for it, they will not stay his leisure, but cease soliciting him
any longer. Two things are expressed ; that God was not worthy of any
homage from them, — ' What is the Almighty that we should serve him ? ' —
and tiiat the service of him would not bring in a good revenue or an advan-
tage of that kind they expected. Interest drives many men on to some
kind of service, and when they do not find an advance of that, they will
acknowledge God no more ; but like some beggars, if you give them not
upon their asking and calling you good master, from blessing they will turn
to cursing.
Hiw often do men do that secretly, practically if not plainly, which Job's
wife advised him to, curse God, and cast off that disguise of integrity they
had assumed ! Job ii. 9, ' Dost thou still retain thy integrity ? Curse God.'
What a stir, and pulling, and crying is here ! Cast off all thoughts of
religious service, and be at daggers drawing with that God, who for all thy
service of him has made thee so wretched a spectacle to men, and a banquet
for worms. The like temper is deciphered in the Jews : Mai. iii. 14, 'It is
in vain to serve God ; and what profit is it that we have kept bis ordinances,
that we have walked mournfully before the Lord ? ' What profit is it that
we have regarded his statutes, and carried ourselves in a way of subjection
to God as our sovereign, when we inherit nothing but sorrow, and tho
idolatrous neighbours swim in all kind of pleasures? As if it were the
most miserable thing to acknowledge God. If men have not the benefits
they expect, they think God unrighteous in himself, and injurious to them,
in not conferring the favour they imagine they have merited ; and if they
have not that recompence, they will deny God that subjection they owe to
him as creatures. Grace moves to God upon a sense of duty, corrupt nature
upon a sense of interest ; sincerity is encouraged by gracious returns, but is
not melted away by God's delay or refusal. Corrupt nature would have God
at its beck, and steers a course of duty by hope of some carnal profits, not
by a sense of the sovereignty of God.
Ps. XrV. 1.] PRAOTIOAL ATHEISM. 207
[7.J This contempt is seen in breaking promises with God. One while
the conscience of a man makes vows of new obedience, and perhaps binds
himself with many an oath ; but they prove like Jonah's gourd, withering the
next day after their birth. This was Pharaoh's temper ; under a storm he
would submit to God, and let Israel go, but when the storm is ended, he
will not be under God's control, and Israel's slavery shall be increased.
The fear of divine wrath makes many a sinner turn his back upon his
sin, and the love of his ruling lust makes him turn his back upon his true
Lord. This is from the prevalency of sin, that disputes with God for the
sovereignty. =''•
When God hath sent a'sharp disease, as a messenger to bind men to their
beds, and make an interruption of their sinful pleasures, their mouths are
full of promises of a new life, in hope to escape the just vengeance of God.
The sense of hell, which strikes strongly upon them, makes them full of such
pretended resolutions when they howl upon their beds. But if God be
pleased in his patience to give them a respite, to take off the chains where-
with he seemed to be binding them for destruction, and recruit their strength,
they are more earnest in their sins than they were in their promises of a
reformation, as if they had got the mastery of God, and had outwitted him.
How often doth God charge them of not returning to him after a succession
of judgments ! Amos iv. 6-11. So hard it is, not only to allure, but to
scourge men to an acknowledgment of God as their ruler.
Consider, then,
Are we not naturally inclined to disobey the known will of God ? Can we
say. Lord, for thy sake we refrain the thing to which our hearts incline ?
Do we not allow ourselves to be licentious, earthly, vain, proud, revengeful,
though we know it will oflfend him ? Have we not been peevishly cross to
his declared will ? Run counter to him and those laws which express most
of the glory of his holiness ? Is not this to disown him as our rule ? Did
we never wish there were no law to bind us, no pi-ecept to check our idols ?
What is this, but to wish that God would depose himself from being our
governor, and leave us to our own conduct ? or else to wish that he were as
unholy as ourselves, as careless of his own laws as we are ; that is, that he
were no more a God than we, a God as sinful and unrighteous as ourselves ?
He whose heart riseth against the law of God to unlaw it, riseth against the
author of that law to undeify him. He that casts contempt upon the dearest
thing God hath in the world, that which is the image of his holiness, the
delight of his soul ; that which he hath given a special charge to maintain,
and that because it is holy, just, and good ; would not stick to rejoice at the
destruction of God himself. If God's holiness and righteousness in the
beamf be despised, much more will an immense goodness and holiness in the
fountain be rejected ? He that wisheth a beam far from his ej^es, because it
offends and scorcheth him, can be no friend to the sun from whence that
beam doth issue. How unworthy a creature is man, since he only, a rational
creature, is the sole being that withdraws itself from the rule of God in this
earth ? And how miserable a creature is he also, since, departing from the
order of God's goodness, he falls into the order of his justice ; and while he
refuseth God to be the rule of his life, he cannot avoid him being the judge
of his punishment. It is this is the original of all sin, and the fountain of
all our misery.
This is the first thing man disowns, the rule which God sets him.
2. Man naturally owns any other rule rather than that of God's prescrib-
ing. The law of God orders one thing, the heart of man desires another.
* Eeya. t Qu- ' stream ' ? — Ed.
208 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
There is not the basest thing in the world, but man would sooner submit to
be guided by it, rather than by the holiness of God ; and when anything
that God commands crosses our own wills, we value it no more, than we
would the advice of a poor despicable beggar.
How many are ' lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God !' 2 Tim.
iii. 4. To make something which contributes to the perfection of nature,
as learning, wisdom, moral virtues, our rule, would be more tolerable. But
to pay that homage to a swinish pleasure, which is the right of God, is an
inexcusable contempt of him. The greatest excellency in the world is
infinitely below God; much more a bestial delight, which is both dis-
graceful and below the nature of man. If we made the vilest creature on
earth our idol, it is more excusable than to be the slave of a brutish plea-
sure. The viler the thing is that doth possess the throne in our heart, the
greater contempt it is of him who can only claim a right to it and is worthy
of it. Sin is the first object of man's election, as soon as the faculty whereby
he chooses comes to exercise its power; and it is so dear to man, that it is,
in the estimate of our Saviour, counted as the right hand and the right eye,
dear, precious, and useful members.
(1.) The rule of Satan is owned before the rule of God. The natural
man would rather be under the guidance of Satan than the yoke of his
Creator. Adam chose him to be his governor in paradise. No sooner had
Satan spoke of God in a way of derision — Gen. iii. 1, 5, * Yea, hath God
said?' — but man follows his counsel and approves of the scoff; and the
greatest part of his posterity have not been wiser by his fall, but would
rather ramble in the devil's wilderness than to stay in God's fold. It is by
the sin of man that the devil is become the god of the world, as if men were
the electors of him to the government. Sin is an election of him for a lord,
and a putting the soul under his government. Those that live according to
the course of the world, and are loath to displease it, are under the govern-
ment of the prince of it. The greatest part of the works done in the world
is to enlarge the kingdom of Satan. For how many ages were the laws
whereby the greatest part of the world was governed in the aff'airs of reli-
gion, the fruits of his usurpation and policy ! When temples were erected
to him, priests consecrated to his service, the rites used in most of the wor-
ship of the world were either of his own coining, or the misapplying the rites
God had ordained to himself under the notion of a god ; whence the apostle
calls all idolatrous feasts ' the table of devils,' ' the cup of devils,' ' sacrifice
to devils,' 'fellowship with devils,' 1 Cor. x. 20, 21. Devils being the real
object of the pagan worship, though not formally intended by the wor-
shipper, though in some parts of the Indies the direct and peculiar worship
is to the devil, that he might not hurt them ; and though the intention of
others was to ofi'er to God and not the devil, yet since the action was con-
trary to the will of God, he regards it as a sacrifice to devils. It was not
the intention of Jeroboam to establish priests to the devil when he conse-
crated them to the service of his calves, for Jehu afterwards calls them ' the
servants of the Lord : ' 2 Kings x. 23, ' See if there be here none of the
servants of the Lord,' to distinguish them from the servants of Baal, signi-
fying that the true God was worshipped under those images, and not Baal,
nor any of the gods of the heathens ; yet Scripture couples the calves and
devils together, and ascribes the worship given to one to be given to the
other. 2 Chron. xi. 15, ' He ordained him priests for the high places, and
for the devils, and for the calves which he had made ; ' so that they were
sacrifices to devils, notwithstanding the intention of Jeroboam and his sub-
jects that had set them up and worshipped them, because they were contrary
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 209
to the mind of God, and agreeable to the doctrine and mind of Satan, though
the object of their worship in their own intention were not the devil, but
some deified man or some canonised saint. The intention makes not a
good action ; if so, when men kill the best servants of God with a design to
do God service, as our Saviour foretells, John xvi. 2, the action would not
be murder, yet who can call it otherwise, since God is wronged in the persons
of his servants '? Since most of the worship of the world, which men's
corrupt natures incline them to, is false and different from the revealed will
of God, it is a practical acknowledgment of the devil as the governor, by
acknowledging and practising those doctrines which have not the stamp of
divine revelation upon them, but were minted by Satan to depress the honour
of God in the world. It doth concern men then to take good heed, that in
their acts of worship they have a divine rule, otherwise it is an owning the
devil as the rule, for there is no medium. Whatsoever is not from God is
from Satan.
But to bring this closer to us, and consider that which is more common
among us. Men that are in a natural condition, and wedded to their lusts,
are under the paternal government of Satan: John viii. 44, ' Ye are of your
father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.' If we divide sin
into spiritual and carnal, which division comprehends all, the devil's authority
is owned in both : in spiritual, we conform to his example, because those he
commits ; in carnal, we obey his will, because those he directs ; he acts
the one, and sets us a copy ; he tempts to the other, and gives us a kind of
a jjrecept. Thus man by nature being a willing servant of sin, is more
desirous to be bound in the devil's iron chains than in God's silken cords.
What greater atheism can there be than to use God as if he were inferior
to the devil ! to take the part of his greatest enemy, who drew all others
into the faction against him ! to pleasure Satan by offending God, and
gratify our adversary with the injury of our Creator ! For a subject to take
arms against his prince with the deadliest enemy both himself and prince
hath in the whole word, adds a greater blackness to the rebellion.
(2.) The more visible rule preferred before God in the world is man.
The opinion of the world is more our rule than the precept of God, and
many men's abstinence from sin is not from a sense of the divine will, no,
nor from a principle of reason, but from an affection to some man on whom
they depend, or fear of punishment from a superior ; the same principle with
that in a ravenous beast, who abstains from what he desires for fear only of
a stick or club. Men will walk with the herds, go in fashion with the most,
speak and act as the most do. While we ' conform to the world,' we cannot
perform a ' reasonable service ' to God, nor prove, nor approve practically,
' what the good and acceptable will of God is.' The apostle puts them in
opposition to one another, Rom. xii. 1, 2.
This appears,
[1.] In complying more with the dictates of men than the will of God.
Men draw encouragement from God's forbearance, to sin more freely against
him, but the fear of punishment for breaking the will of man lays a restraint
upon them ; the fear of man is a more powerful curb to restrain men in their
duty than the fear of God. So we may please a friend, a master, a governor,
we are regardless whether we please God or no ; men-pleasers are more
than God-pleasers. Man is more advanced as a rule than God, when we
submit to human orders, and stagger and dispute against divine. Would
not a prince think himself slighted in his authority, if any of his servants
should decline his commands, by the order of one of his subjects ? And
will not God make the same account of us when we deny or delay our
VOL. I. O
210 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIY. 1.
obedience for fear of one of his creatures ? In the fear of man we as Httle
acknowledge God for our sovereign as we do for our comforter : Isa.
li. 12, 13, ' I, even I, am he that comforteth you : who art thou, that thou
shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, &c., and forgettest the Lord
thy maker,' &c. We put a slight upon God, as if he were not able to bear
us out in our duty to him, and uncapable to balance the strength of an arm
of flesh.
[2.] In observing that which is materially the will of God, not because it
is his will, but the injunctions of men. As the word of God may be received,
yet not as his word, so the will of God may be performed, yet not as his
will. It is materially done, but not formally obeyed. An action, and
obedience in that action, are two things ; as when man commands the ceasing
from all works of the ordinary calling on the Sabbath, it is the same that
God enjoins ; the cessation or attendance of his ser-^ants on the hearing the
word are conformable in the matter of it to the will of God, but it is only
conformable in the obediential part of the acts to the will of man, when it is
done only with respect to a human precept. As God hath a right to enact
his laws without consulting his creature in the way of his government, so
man is bound to obey those laws without consulting whether they be agree-
able to men's laws or no. If we act the will of God, because the will of our
superiors concurs with it, we obey not God in that, but man ; a human will
being the rule of our obedience, and not the divine, this is to vilify God,
and make him inferior to man in our esteem, and a valuing the rule of man
above that of our Creator.
Since God is the highest perfection, and infinitely good, whatsoever rule
he gives the creature must be good, else it cannot proceed from God. A
base thing cannot be the product of an infinite excellency, and an unreason-
able thing cannot be the product of an infinite wisdom and goodness ; there-
fore as the respecting God's will before the will of man is excellent and
worthy of a creature, and is an acknowledging the excellency, goodness, and
wisdom of God, so the eyeing the will of man before and above the will of
God, is, on the contrary, a denial of all those in a lump, and a preferring
the wisdom, goodness, and power of man in his law above all those per-
fections of God in his. Whatsoever men do that looks like moral virtue or
abstinence from vices, not out of obedience to the rule God hath set, but
because of custom, necessity, example, or imitation, they may in the doing
of it be rather said to be apes than Christians.
[3. J In obeying the will of man when it is contrary to the will of God.
As the Israelites willingly ' walked after the commandment,' Hosea v. 11,
not of God, but of Jeroboam in the case of the calves, and ' made the
king's heart glad with their lies,' Hosea vii. 3. They cheered him with their
ready obedience to his command for idolatry (which was a lie in itself, and
a lie in them) against the commandment of God and the warnings of the
prophets, rather than cheer the heart of God with their obedience to his
worship instituted by him ; nay, and when God ofl'ered them to cure them
their wound, their iniquity breaks out afresh ; they would neither have him
as a Lord to rule them, nor a physician to cure them: Hosea vii. 1, ' When
I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered.'
The whole Persian nation shrunk at once from a duty due by the light of
nature to the Deity, upon a decree that neither God or man should be
petitioned to for thirty days, but only their king, Dan. vi. One only, Daniel,
excepted against it, who preferred his homage to God above obedience to
his prince. An adulterous generation is many times made the rule of
men's professions, as is implied in those words of our Saviour, Mark
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 211
viii. 38, ' Whosoevei' shall bo ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous
and sinful generation.' Own him among his disciples, and be ashamed of
him among his enemies. Thus men are said to deny God, Titus i. 16,
when they attend to Jewish fables and the precepts of men rather than
the word of God ; when the decrees or canons of fallible men are valued
at a higher rate, and preferred before the writings of the Holy Ghost by his
apostles.
As man naturally disowns the rule God sets him, and owns any other
rule than that of God's prescribing, so
•> (3.) He doth this in order to the setting himself up as his own rule, as
though our own wills, and not God's, were the true square and measure of
goodness. We make an idol of our own wills ; and as much as self is
exalted, God is deposed ; the more we esteem our own wills, the more we
endeavour to annihilate the will of God ; account nothing of him, the more
we account of ourselves ; and endeavour to render ourselves his superiors
by exalting our own wills. No prince but would look upon his authority as
invaded, his royalty derided, if a subject should resolve to be a law to him-
self in opposition to his known will. True piety is to hate ourselves, deny
ourselves, and cleave solely to the service of God. To make ourselves our
own rule, and the object of our chiefest love, is atheism. If self-denial be
the greatest part of godliness, the great letter in the alphabet of religion,
self-love is the gi'eat letter in the alphabet of practical atheism. Self is the
great antichrist and antigod in the world, that ' sets up itself above all that
is called God ; ' self-love is the captain of that black band, 2 Tim. iii. 2. It sits
in the temple of God, and would be adored as God ; self-love begins, but
denying the power of godliness, which is the same with denying the ruling
power of God, ends the list ; it is so far from bending to the righteous will
of the Creator, that it would have the eternal will of God stoop to the
humour and unrighteous will of a creature ; and this is the ground of the
contention between the flesh and the Spirit in the heart of a renewed man ;
flesh wars for the godhead of self, and Spirit fights for the Godhead of God ;
the one would settle the throne of the Creator, and the other maintain a law
of covetousness, ambition, envy, lust, in the stead of God.
The evidence of this will appear in these propositions.
Prop. 1. This is natural to man as he is corrupted. What was the
venom of the sin of Adam, is naturally derived with his nature to all poste-
rity. It was not the eating a forbidding apple, or the pleasing his palate,
that Adam aimed at, or was the chief object of his desire ; but to live inde-
pendently on his Creator, and be a god to himself: Gen. iii. 5, ' You shall
be as gods.' That which was the matter of the devil's temptation, was the
incentive of man's rebellion. A likeness to God he aspired to in the judg-
ment of God himself, an infallible interpreter of man's thoughts : ' Behold,
man is become as one of us, to know good and evil,' in regard of self-sufii-
ciency and being a rule to himself. The Jews understand the ambition of
man to reach no further than an equality with the angelical nature ; but
Jehovah here understands it in another sense. God had ordered man by
this prohibition not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil ; not to attempt the knowledge of good and evil of himself, but to wait
upon the dictates of God ; not to trust to his own counsels, but to depend
wholly upon him for direction and guidance. Certainly he that would not
hold off his hand from so small a thing as an apple, when he had his choice
of the fruit of the garden, would not have denied himself any thing his
appetite had desired, when that principle had prevailed upon him. He
would not have stuck at a greater matter to pleasure himself with the dis-
212 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
pleasing of God, when for so small a thing he would incur the anger of his
Creator.
Thus would he deify his own understanding against the wisdom of God,
and his own appetite against the will of God. This desire of equality with
God, a learned man* thinks the apostle intimates : Phil. ii. 6, ' Who being
in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.' The Son's
being in the form of God, and thinking it not robbery to be equal with God,
implies that the robbery of sacrilege committed by our first parents, for
which the Sou of God humbled himself to the death of the cross, was an
attempt to be equal with God, and depend no more upon God's directions,
but his own conduct, which could be no less than an invasion of the throne
of God, and endeavour to put himself into a posture to be his mate. Other
sins, adultery and theft, &c., could not be committed by him at that time,
but he immediately puts forth his hand to usurp the power of his Maker.
This treason is the old Adam in every man. The first Adam contradicted
the will of God to set up himself : the second Adam humbled himself, and
did nothing but by the command and will of his Father. This principle,
wherein the venom of the old Adam lies, must be crucified to make way for
the throne of the humble and obedient principle of the new Adam, or
quickening Spirit. Indeed, sin in its own nature is nothing else but a will-
ing according to self, and contrary to the will of God. Lusts are therefore
called the wills of the flesh and of the mind, Eph. ii. 3. As the precepts of
God are God's will, so the violations of these precepts is man's will ; and
thus man usurps a godhead to himself, by giving that honour to his own
will which belongs to God ; appropriating the right of rule to himself, and
denying it to his Creator. That servant that acts according to his own will
with a neglect of his master's, refuseth the duty of a servant, and invades
the right of his master. This self-love, and desire of independency on God,
has been the root of all sin in the world. The great controversy between
God and man hath been, whether he or they shall be God; whether his
reason or theirs, his will or theirs, shall be the guiding principle. As grace
is the union of the will of God and the will of the creature, so sin is the
opposition of the will of self to the will of God. ' Leaning to our own
understanding' is opposed as a natural evil to ' trusting in the Lord,' a
supernatural grace, Prov. iii. 5. Men commonly love what is their own,
their own inventions, their own fancies ; therefore the ways of a wicked
man are called ' the ways of his own heart,' Eccles. xi. 9 ; and the ways of a
superstitious man his own devices : Jer. xviii. 12, ' We will walk after
our own devices ;' we will be a law to ourselves. And what the psalmist
says of the tongue, — ' our tongues are our own, who shall control us ? ' —
is as truly the language of men's hearts, our wills are our own, who shall
check us ?
Pro}). 2. This is evident in the dissatisfaction of men with their own con-
sciences, when they contradict the desires of self. Conscience is nothing
but an actuated or reflex knowledge of a superior power and an equitable
law ; a law impressed, and a power above it impressing it. Conscience is
not the law-giver, but the remembrancer to mind us of that law of nature
imprinted upon our souls, and actuate the considerations of the duty and
penalty, to apply the rule to our acts, and pass judgment upon matter of
fact. It is to give the charge, urge the rule, enjoin the practice of those
notions of right, as part of our duty and obedience.
But man is much displeased with the directions of conscience, as he is
out of love with the accusations and condemning sentence of this officer of
* Dr Jackson.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATUEISM. 218
God, We cannot naturally enduro any quick and lively practical thoughts
of God and bis will, and distaste our own consciences for putting us in mind
of it ; they therefore ' like not to retain God in their knowledge,' Rom. i. 28 ;
that is, God in their own consciences ; they would blow it out as it is tho
candle of the Lord in them to direct them, and their acknowledgments of
God, to secure themselves against the practice of its principles. They would
stop all the avenues to any beam of light, and would not suffer a sparkle of
divine knowledge to flutter in their minds, in order to set up another direct-
ing rule suited to the fleshly appetite ; and when they cannot stop the light
of it from glaring in their faces, they rebel against it, and cannot endure to abide
in its paths. Job xxiv. 13. He speaks not of those which had the written word or
special revelations, but only a natural light or traditional handed from Adam.
Hence are all the endeavours to still it when it begins to speak, by some
carnal pleasures, as Saul's evil spirit with a fit of music ; or bribe it with
some fits of a glavering devotion when it holds the law of God in its com-
manding authority before the mind ; they would wipe out all the impres-
sions of it when it presses the advances of God above self, and entertain
it with no better compliment than Ahab did Elijah, ' Hast thou found me, 0
my enemy ?'
If we are like to God in anything of our natural fabric, it is in the supe-
rior and more spiritual part of our souls. The resistance of that which is
most like to God, and instead of God in us, is a disowning of the sovereign
represented by that officer. He that would be without conscience, would be
■without God, whose vicegerent it is, and make the sensitive part, which
conscience opposes, his lawgiver. Thus a man out of respect to sinful self,
quarrels with his natural self, and cannot comport himself in a friendly beha-
viour to his internal implanted principles. He hates to come under the
rebukes of them, as much as Adam hated to come into the presence of God,
after he turned traitor against him. The bad entertainment God's deputy hath
in us, reflects upon that God whose cause it pleads. It is upon no other
account that men loathe the upright language of their own reasons in those
matters, and wish the eternal silence of their own consciences, but as they
maintain the rights of God, and would hinder the idol of self from usurping
his Godhead and prerogative. Though this power be part of a man's self,
rooted in his nature, as essential to him, and inseparable from him, as the
best part of his being ; yet he quarrels with it as it is God's deputy, and
stickling for the honour of God in his soul, and quarrelling with that sinful
self he would cherish above God. We are not displeased with this faculty
barely as it exerciseth a self-reflection, but as it is God's vicegerent, and
bears the mark of his authority in it. In some cases this self-reflecting act
meets with good entertainment, when it acts not in contradiction to self, but
suitable to natural affections : as suppose a man hath in his passion struck
his child, and caused thereby some great mischief to him, the reflection of
conscience will not be unwelcome to him, will work some tenderness in him,
because it takes the part of self and of natural aflection ; but in the more
spiritual concerns of God it will be rated as a busy body.
Prop. 3. Many, if not most actions, materially good in the world, are
done more because they are agreeable to self, than as they are honourable
to God. As the word of God may be heard not as his word, 1 Thes. ii. 13,
but as there may be pleasing notions in it, or discourses against an opinion
or party we disafiect, so the will of God may be performed, not as his will,
but as it may gratify some selfish consideration, when we will please God so
far as it may not displease ourselves, and serve him as our master, so far as
his command may be a servant to our humour ; when we consider not who
214 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
it is that commands, but how short it comes of displeasing that sin which
rules in our heart, pick and choose what is least burdensome to the flesh
and distasteful to our lusts.
He that doth the will of God, not out of conscience of that will, but
because it is agreeable to himself, casts down the will of God, and sets his
own will in the place of it, takes the crown from the head of God, and places
it upon the head of self. If things are done, not because they are com-
manded by God, but desirable to us, it is a disobedient obedience ; a con-
formity to God's will in regard of the matter, a conformity to our own will
in regard of the motive ; either as the things done are agreeable to natural
and moral self, or sinful self.
1. As they are agreeable to natural or moral self. "When men will prac-
tise some points of religion, and walk in the track of some divine precepts,
not because they are divine, but because they are agreeable to their humour
or constitution of nature ; from the sway of a natural bravery, the bias of a
secular interest, not from an ingenuous sense of God's authority, or a volun-
tary submission to his will ; as when a man will avoid excess in drinking,
not because it is dishonourable to God, but as it is a blemish to his own
reputation, or an impair of the health of his body, doth this deserve the
name of an observance of the divine injunction, or rather an obedience to
ourselves ? Or when a man will be liberal in the distribution of his charity,
not with an eye to God's precept, but in compliance with his own natural
compassion, or to pleasure the generosity of his nature. The one is obedience
to a man's own preservation, the other an obedience to the interest or impulse
of a moral virtue. It is not respect to the n;le ot God, but the authority of
self, and, at the best, is but the performance of the material part of the
divine rule, without any concurrence of a spiritual motive or a spiritual man-
ner. That only is a maintaining the rights of God, when we pay an obser-
vance to his rule, without examining the agreeableness of it to our secular
interest, or consulting with the humour of flesh and blood ; when we will
not decline his service, though we find it cross, and hath no affinity with the
pleasure of our own nature ; such an obedience as Abraham manifested in
his readiness to sacrifice his son ; such an obedience as our Saviour demands
in cutting off" the right hand. When we observe anything of divine order
upon the account of its suitableness to our natural sentiments, we shall
readily divide from him, when the interest of nature turns its point against
the interest of God's honour ; we shall fall off" from him according to the
change we find in our own humours : and can that be valued as a setting
up the rule of God, which must be deposed upon the mutable interest of an
inconstant mind ? Esau had no regard to God in delaying the execution of
his resolution to shorten his brother's days, though he was awed by the
reverence of his father to delay it ; he considered, perhaps, how justly he
might lie under the imputation of hastening crazy Isaac's death, by depriv-
ing him of a beloved son. But had the old man's head been laid, neither
the contrary command of God, nor the nearness of a fraternal relation, could
have bound his hands from the act, no more than they did his heart from
the resolution : Gen. xxvii. 41, • Esau hated Jacob, because of the blessing
wherewith his father blessed him : and Esau said in his heart. The days of
mourning for my father are at hand ; then will I slay my brother.'
So many children, that expect at the death of their parents great inheri-
tances or portions, may be observant of them, not in regard of the rule fixed
by God, but to their own hopes, which they would not frustrate by a dis-
obligement. Whence is it that many men abstain from gross sins, but in
love to their reputation ? Wickedness may be acted privately, which a man's
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 215
own credit pnts a br\r to the open commission of. The preserving his own
esteem may divert him from entering into a brothel-house, to which he hath
set his mind before, against a known precept of his Creator. As Pharaoh
parted with the Israelites, so do some men with their blemishing sins ; not out
of a sense of God's rule, but the smart of present judgments, or fear^of a future
wrath. Our security, then, and reputation, is set up in the place of God.
This also may be, and is, in renewed men, who have the law written in
their hearts, that is, an habitual disposition to an agreement with the law of
God ; when what is done is with a respect to this habitual inclination, with-
out e3'eing the divine precept, which is appointed to be their rule. This
also is to set up a creature, as renewed self is, instead of the Creator, and
that law of his in his word, which ought to be the rule of our actions. Thus
it is when men choose a moral life, not so much out of respect to the law of
nature, as it is the law of God, but as it is a law become one with their
souls and constitutions. There is more of self in this, than consideration
of God ; for if it were the latter, the revealed law of God would upon the
same reason be received as well as his natural law. From this principle of
self, morality comes by some to be advanced above evangelical dictates.
2. As they are agreeable to sinful self. Not that the commands of God
are suited to bolster up the corruptions of men, no more than the law can
be said to excite or revive sin, Rom. vii. 8, 9. But it is like a scandal
taken, not given; an occasion taken by the tumultuousness of our depraved
nature. The Pharisees were devout in long prayers, not from a sense of
duty or a care of God's honour, but to satisfy their ambition, and rake
together fuel for their covetousness (Mat. xxiii. 14, ' You devour widows'
houses, and for a pretence make long prayers'), that they might have the
greater esteem and richer offerings, to free by their prayers the souls of
deceased persons from purgatory ; an opinion that some think the Jewish
synagogue had then entertained,* since some of their doctors have defended
such a notion. Men may observe some precepts of God to have a better
conveniency to break others. Jehu was ordered to cut off the house of
Ahab ; the service he undertook was in itself acceptable, but corrupt nature
misacted that which holiness and righteousness commanded. God appointed it
to magnify his justice, and check the idolatry that had been supported by
that family. Jehu acted it to satisfy his revenge and ambition ; he did it
to fulfil his lust, not the will of God who enjoined him. Jehu applauds it
as zeal, and God abhors it as murder, and therefore would ' avenge the blood
of Jezreel on the house of Jehu,' Hosea i. 4. Such kind of services are not
paid to God for his own sake, but to ourselves for our lust's sake.
4. This is evident in neglecting to take God's direction upon emergent
occasions. This follows the text, 'None did. seek God.' "When we consult
not with him, but trust more to our own will and counsel, we make our-
selves our own governors and lords, independent upon him; as though we
could be our own counsellors, and manage our concerns without his leave
and assistance ; as though our works were in our own hands, and not in the
hands of God, Eccles. ix. 1, that we can by our own strength and sagacity
direct them to a successful end without him. If we must ' acquaint our-
selves with God' before we decree a thing, Job xxii. 28, then to decree a
thing without acquainting God with it, is to prefer our purblind wisdom
before the infinite wisdom of God ; to resolve without consulting God, is to
depose God and deify self, our own wit and strength. We would rather,
like Lot, follow our own humour and stay in Sodom, than observe the angel's
order to go out of it.
* Gerraid in loc.
216 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
5. As we account the actions of others to be good or evil, as they suit
with or spurn against our fancies and humours. Virtue is a crime, and
vice a Tii'tue, as it is contrary or concurrent with our humours. Little
reason have many men to blame the actions of others, but because they
are not agreeable to what they affect and desire. We would have all men
take directions from us, and move according to our beck; hence that com-
mon speech in the world, Such an one is an honest friend. Why ? Because
he is of their humour, and lacqueys according to their wills. Thus we make
self the measure and square of good and evil in the rest of mankind, and
judge of it by our own fancies, and not by the will of God, the proper rule
of judgment.
Well, then, let us consider,
Is not this very common, are we not naturally more willing to displease
God than displease ourselves, when it comes to a point that we must do one
or other ? Is not our own counsel of more value with us than conformity
to the will of the Creator? Do not our judgments often run counter to the
judgment of God ? Have his laws a greater respect from us than our own
humours '? Do we scruple the staining his honour when it comes in com-
petition with our own ? Are not the lives of most men a pleasing them-
selves, without a repentance that ever they displeased God ? Is not this to
undeify God, to deify ourselves, and disown the propriety he hath in us by
the right of creation and beneficence ? We order our own ways by our own
humoui-s, as though we were the authors of our own being, and had given
ourselves life and understanding. This is to destroy the order that God
hath placed between our wills and his own, and a lifting up of the foot
above the head ; it is the deformity of the creature. The honour of every
rational creature consists in the service of the First Cause of his being; as
the welfare of every creature consists in the orders and proportionable motion
of its members, according to the law of its creation.
He that moves and acts according to a law of his own, offers a manifest
wrong to God, the highest wisdom and chiefest good, disturbs the order of
the world, nulls the design of the righteousness and holiness of God. The
law of God is the rule of that order he would have observed in the world.
He that makes another law his rule, thrusts out the order of the Creator,
and establishes the disorder of the creature.
But this will yet be more evident in the fourth thing.
(i.) Man would make himself the rule of God, and give laws to his Creator.
We are willing God should be our benefactor, but not our ruler ; we are
content to admire his excellency and pay him a worship, provided he will
walk by our rule. ' This commits a riot upon his nature ; to think him
to be what we ourselves would have him and wish him to be, Ps. 1. 21. We
would amplify his mercy and contract his justice, we would have his power
enlarged to supply our wants, and straitened when it goes about to revenge
our crimes ; we would have him wise to defeat our enemies, but not to dis-
appoint our unworthy projects; we would have him all eye to regard our
indigence, and blind, not to discern our guilt ; we would have him true to
his promises, regardless of his precepts, and false to his threatenings ; we
would new mint the nature of God according to our models, and shape a God
according to our fancies, as he made us at first according to his own
image.'* Instead of obeying him, we would have him obey us; instead of
owning and admiring his perfections, we would have him strip himself of his
infinite excellency, and clothe himself with a nature agi'eeable to our own.
* Decay of Christian piety, p. 169, somewhat changed.
Ps, XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 217
This is not only to set up self as the law of God, but to make our own
imaginations the model of the nature of God.
Corrupted man takes a pleasure to accuse or suspect the actions of God.
We would not have him act conveniently to his nature, but act what doth
gratify us, and abstain from what distastes us. Man is never well but when
he is impeaching one or other perfection of God's nature, and undermining
his glory ; as if all his attributes must stand indicted at the bar of our pur-
blind reason. This weed shoots up in the exercise of grace. Peter intended
the refusal of our Saviour's washing his feet as an act of humility, but Christ
understands it to be a prescribing a law to himself, a correcting his love, John
xiii. 8, 9.
This is evidenced,
(1.) In the strivings against his law. How many men imply by their
lives that they would have God deposed from his government, and some
unrighteous being step into his throne ; as if God had or should change his
laws of holiness into laws of licentiousness, as if he should abrogate his old
eternal precepts and enact contrary ones in their stead. What is the lan-
guage of such practices, but that they would be God's lawgivers and not his
subjects ; that he should deal with them according to their own wills, and
not according to his righteousness; that they could make a more holy,
wise, and righteous law than the law of God ; that their imaginations, and
not God's righteousness, should be the rule of his doing good to them ? Jer.
ix. 13, ' They have forsaken my law, and walked after the imaginations of
their own heart.'
When an act is known to be a sin, and the law that forbids it acknowledged
to be the law of God, and after this we persist in that which is contrary to
it, we tax his wisdom as if he did not understand what was convenient for
us; we would 'teach God knowledge,' Job xxi. 22; it is an implicit wish
that God had laid aside the holiness of his nature, and framed a law to
pleasure our lusts. When God calls for weeping, and mourning, and gird-
ing with sackcloth upon approaching judgments, then the corrupt heart is
for joy and gladness, eating of flesh and drinking of wine, because to-morrow
they should die, Isa. xxii. 12, 13; as if God had mistaken himself when he
ordered them so much sorrow when their lives were so near an end, and
had lost his understanding when he ordered such a precept. Disobedience
is therefore called contention — Rom. ii. 8, ' Contentious, and obey not the
truth' — contention against God, whose truth it is that they disobey; a dis-
pute with him, which hath more of wisdom in itself and conveniency for
them, his truth or their imaginations. The more the love, goodness, and
holiness of God appears in any command, the more are we naturally averse
from it, and cast an imputation on him, as if he were foolish, unjust, cruel,
and that we could have advised and directed him better. The goodness of
God is eminent to us in appointing a day for his own worship, wherein we
might converse with him and he with us, and our souls be refreshed with
spiritual communications from him ; and we rather use it for the ease of
our bodies than the advancement of our souls, as if God were mistaken and
injured his creature when he urged the spiritual part of duty. Every dis-
obedience to the law is an implicit giving law to him, and a charge against
him that he might have provided better for his creature.
(2.) In disapproving the methods of God's government of the world. If
the counsels of heaven roll not about according to their schemes, instead of
adoring the unsearchable depths of his judgments, they call him to the bar,
and accuse him, because they are not fitted to their narrow vessels, as if a
nut-shell could contain an ocean. As corrupt reason esteems the highest
218 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
trutlis foolishness, so it counts the most righteous ways unequal. Thus we
commence a suit against God, as though he had not acted righteously and
wisely, but must give an account of his proceedings at our tribunal. This
is to make ourselves God's superiors, and presume to instruct him better in
the government of the world ; as though God hindered himself and the
world in not making us of his privy council, and not ordering his affairs
according to the contrivances of our dim understandings.
Is not this manifest in our immoderate complaints of God's dealings with
his church, as though there were a coldness in God's affections to his church,
and a glowing heat towards it only in us ? Hence are those importunate
desires for things which are not established by any promise, as though we
would overrule and over-persuade God to comply with our humour. We
have an ambition to be God's tutors, and direct him in his counsels ; ' Who
hath been his counsellor,' saith the apostle ? Rom. xi. 34. Who ought not
to be his counsellor, saith corrupt nature ? Men will find fault with God in
what he suffers to be done according to their own minds, when they feel the
bitter fruit of it. When Cain had killed his brother, and his conscience
racked him, how saucily and discontentedly doth he answer God : Gen.
iv. 9, ' Am I my brother's keeper ? ' Since thou dost own thyself the rector
of the world, thou shouldst have preserved his person from my fury ; since
thou dost accept his sacrifice before my offering, preservation was due as
well as acceptance. If this temper be found on earth, no wonder it is
lodged in hell. That deplorable person, under the sensible stroke of God's
sovereign justice, would oppose his nay to God's will : Luke xvi. 30, ' And
he said. Nay, father Abraham : but if one went to them from the dead, they
will repent.' He would presume to prescribe more eflectual means than
Moses and the prophets to inform men of the danger they incurred by their
sensuahty. 'David was displeased,' it is said, 2 Sam. vi. 8, 'when the
Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah; ' not with Uzzah, who was the object
of his pity, but with God, who was the inflicter of that punishment.
When any of our friends have been struck with a rod against our senti-
ments and wishes, have not our hearts been apt to swell in complaints
against God, as though he disregarded the goodness of such a person, did
not see with our eyes, and measure him by our esteem of him ? As if he
should have asked our counsel before he had resolved, and managed himself
according to our will rather than his own. If he be patient to the wicked,
we are apt to tax his holiness, and accuse him as an enemy to his own law.
If he inflict severity upon the righteous, we are ready to suspect his good-
ness, and charge him to be an enemy to his affectionate creature. If he
spare the Nimrods of the world, we are ready to ask, * Where is the God of
judgment?' Mai. ii. 17. If he afflict the pillars of the earth, we are ready
to question. Where is the God of mercy ? It is impossible, since the de-
praved nature of man, and the various interests and passions in the world,
that infinite power and wisdom can act righteously for the good of the uni-
verse, but he will shake some corrupt interest or other upon the earth ; so
various are the inclinations of men, and such a weather-cock judgment hath
every man in himself, that the divine method he applauds this day, upon a
change of his interest, he will cavil at the next. It is impossible for the
just orders of God to please the same person many weeks, scarce many
minutes together. God must cease to be God, or to be holy, if he should
manage the concerns of the world according to the fancies of men.
How unreasonable is it thus to impose laws upon God ? Must God
revoke his own orders ? govern according to the dictates of his creature ?
Must God, who hath only power and wisdom to sway the sceptre, become
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 219
the obedient subject of every man's humour, and manage everything to
serve the design of a simple creature ? This is not to be God, but to set
the creature in his throne. Though this bo not formally done, yet that it
is interpretativcly and practically done is every hour's experience.
(B.) In impatience in our particular concerns. It is ordinary with man
to charge God in his complaints in the time of afiliction. Therefore it is
the commendation the Holy Ghost gives to Job: Job i. 22, that ' in all this,'
that is, in those many waves that rolled over him, ' he did not charge God
foolishly ; ' he never spake nor thought anything unworthy of the majesty
and righteousness of God. Yet afterwards, we tind him warping ; he nick-
names the affliction to be God's oppression of him, and no act of his good-
ness : Job X. 3, ' Is it good for thee that thou shouldst oppress ? ' He
seems to chai'ge God with injustice for punishing him when he was not
wicked, for which he appeals to God, ' Thou knowest that I am not wicked,'
ver. 7, and that God acted not like a Creator, ver. 8.
If our projects are disappointed, what fretfulness against God's manage-
ment are our hearts racked with ! How do uncomely passions bubble up in
ns, interpretatively at least, wishing that the arms of his power had been
bound, and the eye of his omniscience been hoodwinked, that we might have
been left to our own liberty and design ; and this oftentimes when we
have more reason to bless him than repine at him. The Israelites mur-
mured more against God in the wilderness, with manna in their mouths, than
they did at Pharaoh in the brick kilns, with their garlic and onions between
their teeth. Though we repine at instruments in our afflictions, yet God
counts it a reflection upon himself. The Israelites speaking against Moses,
was in God's interpretation a rebellion against himself, Num. xvi. 41 com-
pared with xvii. 10. A rebellion is always a desire of imposing laws and con-
ditions upon those against whom the rebellion is raised. The sottish dealings
of the vine-dressers in Franconia with the statue of St Urban, the protector
of the vines, upon his own day, is an emblem of our dealing with God. If
it be a clear day, and portend a prosperous vintage, they honour the statue,
and drink healths to it ; if it be a rainy day, and presage a scantiness, they
daub it with dirt in indignation. We cast out our mire and dirt against
God when he acts cross to our wishes, and flatter him when the wind of his
providence joins itself to the tide of our interest.
Men set a high price upon themselves, and are angry God values them
not at the same rate, as if their judgment concerning themselves were more
piercing than his. This is to 'disannul God's judgment,' and 'condemn
him,' and 'count ourselves righteous,' as it is Job xl. 8. This is the epi-
demical disease of human nature ; they think they deserve caresses instead
of rods, and upon crosses are more ready to tear out the heart of God than
reflect humbly upon their own hearts. When we accuse God, we applaud
ourselves, and make ourselves his superiors, intimating that we have acted
more righteously to him than he to us, which is the highest manner of im-
posing laws upon him, as that emperor accused the justice of God for
snatching him out of the world too soon.* What an high piece of practical
atheism is this, to desire that that infinite wisdom should be guided by our folly,
and asperse the righteousness of God rather than blemish our own. Instead
of silently submitting to his will and adoring his wisdom, we declaim against
him as an unwise and unjust governor. We would invert his order, make
him the steward, and ourselves the proprietors of what we are and have. We
deny ourselves to be sinners, and our mercies to be forfeited.
(4.) It is evidenced in envying the gifts and prosperities of others. Envy
* Ccelum suspiciens vitam, &c. Vita Titi, ca. 10.
220 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
hath a deep tincture of practical atheism, and is a cause of atheism.* We
are unwilling to leave God to be the proprietor, and do what he will with
his own, and as a Creator to do what he pleases with his creatures ; we
assume a liberty to direct God what portions, when and how he should
bestow upon his creatures ; we would not let him choose his own favourites,
and pitch upon his own instruments for his glory. As if God should have
asked counsel of us how he should dispose of his benefits. We are unwill-
ing to leave to his wisdom the management of his own judgments to the
wicked, and the dispensation of his own love to ourselves. This temper is
natural ; it is as ancient as the first age of the world. Adam envied God a
felicity by himself, and would not spare a tree that he had reserved as a
mark of his sovereignty. The passion that God had given Cain to employ
against his sin he turns against his Creator ; he was wroth with God, Gen.
iv. 5, and with Abel ; but envy was at the root, because his brother's sacri-
fice was accepted and his refused. How could he envy his accepted person
without reflecting upon the acceptor of his ofiering ! Good men have not
been free from it. Job questions the goodness of God, that he should
' shine upon the counsel of the wicked,' Job x. 3. Jonah had too much of
self in fearing to be counted a false prophet, when he came with absolute
denunciations of WTath, Jonah iv. 2. And when be could not bring a volley
of destroying judgments upon the Xinevites, he would shoot his fury against
his master, envying those poor people the benefit, and God the honour of
his mercy ; and this after he had been sent into the whale's belly to learn
humiliation, which, though he exercised there, yet those two great branches
of self-pride and envy were not lopped oft" from him in the belly of hell.
And God was fain to take pains with him, and by a gourd scarce makes
him ashamed of his peevishness. Envy is not like to cease, till all atheism
be cashiered, and that is in heaven.
This sin is an imitation of the devil, whose first sin upon earth was envy,
as his first sin in heaven was pride. It is a wishing that to ourselves which
the devil asserted as his right, to give the kingdoms of the world to whom
he pleased, Luke iv. 6. It is an anger with God because he hath not given
us a patent for government. It utters the same language in disparagement
of God as Absalom did in reflection on his father : If I were king in Israel,
justice should be better managed ; if I were Lord of the world, there should
be more wisdom to discern the merits of men, and more righteousness in
distributing to them their several portions. Thus we impose laws upon
God, and would have the righteousness of his will submit to the corruptions
of ours, and have him lower himself to gratify our minds rather than fulfil
his o\vn. We charge the author of those gifts with injustice, that he hath
not dealt equally, or with ignorance, that he hath mistook his mark. In
the same breath that we censm-e him by our peevishness, we would guide
him by our wills.
This is an unreasonable part of atheism. If all were in the same state
and condition, the order of the world would be impaired. Is God bound to
have a care of thee, and neglect all the world besides ? ' Shall the earth be
forsaken for thee ? Job xviii. 4. Joseph had reason to be displeased with
his brothers, if they had muttered, because he gave Benjamin a double por-
tion, and the rest a single. It was unfit that they, who had deserved no
gift at all, should prescribe him rules how to dispense his own doles. Much
more unworthy is it to deal so with God ; yet this is too rife.
(o.) It is evidenced in corrupt matters or ends of prayer and praise.
When we are importunate for those things that we know not whether the
* Because wicked men flourish in the world; Sollicitornullos esse putare Decs.
Ps. XIV. l.J PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 221
righteousness, holiness, and wisdom of God can grant, because he hath not
discovered his will in any promise to bestow them, we would then impose
such conditions on God which he never obliged himself to grant, when we
pray for things not so much to glorify God, which ought to be the end of
prayer, as to gratify ourselves. We acknowledge, indeed, by the act of
petitioning, that there is a God, but we would have him un-God himself to
be at our beck, and debase himself to serve our turns. When we desire
those things which are repugnant to those attributes whereby he doth
manage the government of the world ; when by some superficial services we
think we have gained indulgence to sins, which seems to bo the thouglit of
the strumpet in her paying her vows to wallow more freely in the mire of her
sensual pleasures : Pro. vii. 14, ' I have peace-offerings with me ; this day
I have paid my vows :' I have made my peace with God, and have entertain-
ment for thee. Or when men desire God to bless them in the commission
of some sin. As when Balak and Balaam ofiered sacrifices that they might
prosper in the cursing of the Israelites, Num. xxv. 1, &c.
So for a man to pray to God to save him, while he neglects the means of
salvation appointed by God, or to I'enew him when he slights the word, the
only instrument to that purpose, this is to impose laws upon God contrary
to the declared will and wisdom of God, and to desire him to slight his own
institutions. When we come into the presence of God with lusts reeking in
our hearts, and leap from sin to duty, we would impose the law of our cor-
ruption on the holiness of God. While we pray the will of God may be
done, self-love wishes its own will may be performed, as though God should
serve our humours when we will not obey his precepts. And when we make
vows under any affliction, what is it often but a secret contrivance to bend
and flatter him to our conditions ! We will serve him if he will restore
us ; we think thereby to compound the business with him, and bring him
down to our terms.
(6.) It is evidenced in positive and bold interpretations of the judgments
of God in the world. To interpet the judgments of God to the disadvantage
of the sufferer, unless it be an unusual judgment, and have a remarkable
hand of God in it, and the sin be rendered plainly legible in the affliction,
is a presumption of this nature. When men will judge the Galileans, whose
blood Pilate mingled with the sacrifices, greater sinners than others, and
themselves righteous, because no drops of it were dashed upon them ; or
when Shimei, being of the house of Saul, shall judge according to his own
interest, and desires David's flight upon Absalom's rebellion to be a punish-
ment for invading the rights of Saul's family, and depriving him of the suc-
cession in the kingdom, 2 Sam. xvi. 5, as if he had been of God's privy
council when he decreed such acts of justice in the world.
Thus we would fasten our own wills as a law or motive upon God, and
interpret his acts according to the motions of self. Is it not too ordinary,
when God sends an affliction upon those that bear ill will to us, to judge it to
be a righting of our cause, to be a fruit of God's concern for us in revenging
our wrongs, as if we had heard the secrets of God, or as Eliphaz saith, had
turned over the records of heaven. Job xv. 8. This is a judgment according
to self-love, not a divine rule, and imposeth laws upon heaven, implying a
secret wish that God would take care only of them, make our concerns his
own, not in ways of kindness and justice, but according to our fancies. And
this is common in the profane world, in those curses they so readily spit out
upon any affront ; as if God were bound to draw his arrows and shoot them
into the heart of all their offenders at their beck and pleasure.
(7.) It is evidenced, in mixing rules for the worship of God, with those
222 chahnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
which have been ordered by him. Since men are most prone to live by
sense, it is no wonder that a sensible worship, which aifects their outward
sense with some kind of amazement, is dear to them, and spiritual worship
most loathsome.
Pompous rites have been the great engine wherewith the devil hath
deceived the souls of men, and wrought them to a nauseating the simplicity
of divine worship, as unworthy the majesty and excellency of God, 2 Cor.
xi. 3. Thus the Jews would not understand the glory of the second temple
in the presence of the Messiah, because it had not the pompous grandeur of
that of Solomon's erecting.
Hence in all ages men have been forward to disfigure God's models, and
dress up a brat of their own ; as though God had been defective in providing
for his own honour in his institutions without the assistance of his creature.
This hath always been in the world : the old world had their imaginations,
and the new world hath continued them. The Israelites, in the midst of
miracles, and under the memory of a famous deliverance, would erect a
calf. The Pharisees, that sat in Moses's chair, would coin new traditions,
and enjoin them to be as current as the law of God, Mat. xxiii. 6. Papists
will be blending the Christian appointments with pagan ceremonies, to
please the carnal fancies of the common people. Altars have been multi-
plied, under the knowledge of the law of God, Hos. viii. 12. Interest is
made the balance of the conveniency of God's injunctions. Jeroboam fitted
a worship to politic ends, and posted up calves to prevent his subjects revolt-
ing from his sceptre, which might be occasioned by their resort to Jerusa-
lem, and converse with the body of the people from whom they were separated,
1 Kings xii. 27. Men will be putting their own dictates with God's laws,
and are unwilling he should be the sole governor of the world without their
counsel : they will not suffer him to be the Lord of that which is purely
and solely his concern. How often hath the practice of the primitive church,
the custom wherein we are bred, the sentiments of our ancestors, been owned
as a more authentic rule in matters of worship, than the mind of God deli-
vered in his word ! It is natural by creation to w'orship God ; and it is as
natural by corruption for man to worship him in a human way, and not in a
divine. Is not this to impose laws upon God ? to esteem ourselves wiser
than he ? to think him negligent of his own service, and that our feeble
brains can find out ways to accommodate his honour better than himself
hath done ? Thus do men for the most part equal their own imaginations
to God's oracles : as Solomon built a high place to Moloch and Chemosh,
upon the mount of Olives, to face on the east part Jerusalem and the temple,
1 Kings xi. 7. This is not only to impose laws on God, but also to make
self the standard of them.
(8.) It is evidenced, in fitting interpretations of Scripture to their own
minds and humours. Like the Lacedaemonians, that dressed the images of
their gods according to the fashion of their own country, we would wring
Scripture to serve our own designs, and judge the law of God by the law of
sin, and make the serpentine seed in us to be the interpreter of divine
oracles. This is like Belshazzar; to drink healths out of the sacred vessels.
As God is the author of his law and word, so he is the best interpreter of
it ; the Scripture having an impress of divine wisdom, holiness, and good-
ness, must be regarded according to that impress, with a submission and
meekness of spirit and reverence of God in it. But when in our inquiries
into the word, we inquire not of God, but consult flesh and blood, the tem-
per of the times wherein we live, or the satisfaction of a party we side
withal, and impose glosses upon it according to our own fancies, it is to
Ps. XIV. X-] PKACTICAL ATHEISM. 223
put laws upon God, and make self the rule of liim. IIo that interprets the
law to bolster up some eager appetite against the will of the lawgiver,
ascribes to himself as great an authority as he that enacted it.
(9.) In falling oil' from God after some fair compliances, when his will
grateth upon us and crosseth ours. They will walk with him as far as ho
pleaseth them, and leave him upon the first distaste, as though God must
observe their humours more than they his will. Amos must be suspended
from prophesying, because ' the land could not bear his words,' Amos vii.
10, &c., and his discourses condemned their unworthy practices against God.
The young man came not to receive directions from our Saviour, but
expected a confirmation of his own rules, rather than an imposition of new,
Mark x. 17, 22. He rather cares for commendations than instructions, and
upon the disappointment turns his back : ' he was sad,' that Christ would
not sutler him to be rich and a Christian together, and leaves him because
his command was not suitable to the law of his covetousness. Some truths
that are at a further distance from us we can hear gladly ; but when the
conscience begins to smart under others, if God will not observe our wills,
we will with Herod be a law to ourselves, Mark vi. 20, 27.
More instances might be observed.
Ingratitude is a setting up self, and an imposing laws on God. It is as
much as to say God did no more than he was obliged to do ; as if the
mercies we have were an act of duty in God, and not of bounty. Insatiable
desires after wealth : hence are those speeches, James iv. 13, ' We will go into
such a city, and buy and sell,' &c., ' to get gain;' as though they had the
command of God, and God must lacquey after their wills. When our hearts
are not contented with any supply of our wants, but are craving an overplus
for our lust ; when we are unsatisfied in the midst of plenty, and still, like
the grave, cry. Give, give.
Incorrigibleness under affliction, &c.
II. The second main thing. As man would be a law to himself, so he
would be his own end and happiness in opposition to God.
Here four things shall be discoursed on :
1. Man would make himself his own end and happiness.
2. He would make any thing his end and happiness rather than God.
3. He would make himself the end of all creatures.
4. He would make himself the end of God.
1. Man would make himself his own end and happiness. As God ouo-ht
to be esteemed the first cause, in point of our dependence on him, so he
ought to be our last end, in point of our enjoyment of him. When we
therefore trust in ourselves, we refuse him as the first cause ; and when we
act for ourselves, and expect a blessedness from ourselves, we refuse him as
the chiefest good, and last end, which is an undeniable piece of atheism ;
for man is a creature of a higher rank than others in the world, and was not
made, as animals, plants, and other works of the divine power, materially to
glorify God ; but a rational creature, intentionally to honour God by obe-
dience to his rule, dependence on his goodness, and zeal for his glory. It is
therefore as much a slighting of God, for man, a creature, to set himself up
as his own end, as to regard himself as his own law.
For the discovery of this, observe that there is a threefold self-love.
(1.) Natural, which is common to us by the law of nature with other
creatures, inanimate as well as animate, and so closely twisted with the
nature of every creature, that it cannot be dissolved but with the disso-
lution of nature itself. It consisted not with the wisdom and goodness of
God to create an unnatural nature, or to command any thing unnatural :
224 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
nor doth he ; for when he commands us to sacrifice ourselves, and dearest
lives for himself, it is not without a promise of a more noble state and being
in exchange for what we lose. This self-love is not only commendable,
but necessary, as a rule to measure that duty we owe to our neighbour,
whom we cannot love as ourselves, if we do not first love ourselves : God
having planted this self-love in our nature, makes this natural principle the
measure of our afiection to all mankind of the same blood with ourselves.
(2.) Carnal self-love ; when a man loves himself above Clod, in opposi-
tion to God, with a contempt of God ; when our thoughts, affections,
designs, centre only in our own fleshly interest, and rifle God of his honour,
to make a present of it to ourselves. Thus the natural self-love, in itself
good, becomes criminal by the excess, when it would be superior and not
subordinate to God.
(3.) A gracious self-love. When we love ourselves for higher ends than
the nature of a creature, as a creature dictates, viz., in subserviency to the
glory of God, this is a reduction of the revolted creature to his true and
happy order. A Christian is therefore said to be ' created in Christ to good
works,' Eph. ii. 10. As all creatures were created, not only for themselves,
but for the honour of God, so the grace of the new creation carries a man to
answer this end, and to order all his operations to the honour of God and
his well-pleasing.
The first is from nature, the second from sin, the third from grace. The
first is implanted by creation, the second the fruit of corruption, the third is
by the powerful operation of grace.
This carnal self-love is set up in the stead of God as our last end ; like
the sea, which all the little and great streams of our actions run to, and
rest in. And this is,
1. Natural. It sticks as close to us as our souls ; it is as natural as sin,
the foundation of all the evil in the world. As self-abhorrency is the first
stone that is laid in conversion, so an inordinate self-love was the first inlet
to all iniquity. As grace is a rising from self to centre in God, so is sin a
shrinking from God into the mire of a cai'nal selfishness. Since every
creature is nearest to itself, and, next, to God, it cannot fall from God, but
must immediately sink into self ; * and therefore all sins are well said to be
branches or modifications of this fundamental passion. What is wrath but
a defence and strengthening self against the attempts of some real or imagi-
nary evil ? Whence springs envy, but from a self-love, grieved at its own
wants in the midst of another's enjoyment, able to supply it ? What is
impatience, but a regret that self is not provided for at the rate of our wish,
and that it hath met with a shock against supposed merit ? What is pride,
but a sense of self-worth, a desire to have self of a higher elevation than
others ? What is drunkenness, but a seeking a satisfaction for sensual self
in the spoils of reason ? No sin is committed as sin, but as it pretends a
self-satisfaction. Sin indeed may well be termed a man's self, because it
is, since the loss of original righteousness, the form that overspreads every
part of our souls. The understanding assents to nothing false, but under
the notion of true, and the will embraceth nothing evil, but under the notion
of good ; but the rule whereby we measure the truth and goodness of pro-
posed objects is not the unerring word, but the inclinations of self, the gra-
tifying of which is the aim of our whole lives.
Sin and self are all one. What is called a ' living to sin' in one place,
Rom. vi., is called a living to self in another: 2 Cor. v. 15, * That they
that live should not live unto themselves.' And upon this account it is
* More, Dial. ii. sect. 17, page 274.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 225
that both the Hebrew word KZOH, and the Greek word a/na^rdvi/v, used in
Scripture to express sin, properly signify to mis^the mark, and swerve from
that tv/iite to which all our actions should be directed, viz., the glory of God.
When we fell to loving ourselves, we fell from loving God ; and therefore,
when the psalmist saith, Ps. xiv. 2, there were none that sought God, viz.,
as the last end, he presently adds, * they are all gone aside,' viz., from
their true mark, and therefore become filthy.
2. Since it is natural, it is also universal. The not seeking God is as
universal as our ignorance of him. No man in a state of nature but hath
it predominant ; no renewed man on this side heaven but hath it partially :
the one hath it flcui-ishing, the other hath it struggling. If to aim at the
glory of God as the chief end, and. not to live to ourselves, be the greatest
mark of the restoration of the divine image-, 2 Cor. v. 15, and a conformity
to Christ, who glorified not himself, Heb. v. 5, but the Father, John xvii. 4,
then every man wallowing in the mire of corrupt nature pays a homage to
self, as a renewed man is biassed by the honour of God.
The Holy Ghost excepts none from this crime: Philip, ii. 21, 'All seek
their own.' It is rare for them to look above or beyond themselves ; what-
soever may be the immediate subject of their thoughts and inquiries, yet
the utmost end and stage is their profit, honour, or pleasure. Whatever it
be, that immediately possesses the mind and will, self sits like a queen, and
sways the sceptre, and orders things at that rate, that God is excluded, and
can find no room in all his thoughts : Ps. x. 4, ' The wicked through the
pride of his countenance will not seek after God ; God is not in all his
thoughts.' The whole little world of man is so overflowed with a deluge of
self, that the dove, the glory of the Creator, can find no place where to set
its foot ; and if ever it gain the favour of admittance, it is to disguise and be
a vassal to some carnal project ; as the glory of God was a mask for the mur-
dering his servants.
It is from the power of this principle that the difiiculty of conversion
ariseth. As there is no greater pleasure to a believing soul than the giving
itself up to God, and no stronger desire in him than to have a fixed and
unchangeable will to serve the designs of his honour, so there- is no greater
torment to a wicked man than to part with his carnal ends, and lay down
the Dagon of self at the feet of the ark. Self-love and self-opinion in the
Pharisees, waylaid all the entertainment of truth : John v. 44, ' They sought
honour one of another, and not the honour which comes from God.' It is
of so large an extent, and so insinuating nature, that it winds itself into the
exercise of moral virtues, mixeth with our charity, Mat. vi. 2, and finds
nourishment in the ashes of martyrdom, 1 Cor. xiii. 3.
This making ourselves our end will appear in a few things.
(1.) In frequent self- applauses, and inward overweening reflections. Nothing
more ordinary in the natures of men, than a dotage on their own perfections,
acquisitions, or actions in the world. Most ' think of themselves above what
they ought to think,' Rom. xii. 3, 4. Few think of themselves so meanly
as they ought to- think : this sticks as close to us as our skin ; and as humi-
lity is the beauty of grace, this is the filthiest soil of nature. Our thoughts
run more delightfully upon the track of our own perfections than the excel-
lency of God ; and when we find any thing of a seeming worth, that may
make us glitter in the eyes of the world, how cheerfully do we grasp and
embrace ourselves 1 When the grosser profanenesses of men have been dis-
carded, and the floods of them dammed up, the head of corruption, whence
they sprang, will swell the higher within, in self-applauding speculations of
their own reformation, without acknowledgments of their own weaknesses,
VOL. I. P
226 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
and desires of divine assistance to make a further progress. ' I thank God
I am not hke this pubhcan,' Luke xviii. 11. A self- reflection, with a con-
tempt rather than compassion to his neighbour, is frequent in every Pha-
risee. The vapours of self-affections in our clouded understandings, like
those in the air in misty mornings, alter the appearance of things, and make
them look bigger than they are. This is thought by some to be the sin of
the fallen angels, who, reflecting upon their own natural excellency, superior
to other creatures, would find a blessedness in their own nature, as God did
in his, and make themselves the last end of their actions. It is from this
principle we are naturally so ready to compare ourselves, rather with those
that are below us, than with those that are above us ; and often think those
that are above us inferior to us, and secretly glory that we are become none
of the meanest and lowest in natural or moral excellencies.
How far were the gracious penmen of the Scripture from this, who when
possessed and directed by the Spirit of God, and filled with a sense of him,
instead of applauding themselves, publish upon record their own faults to all
the eyes of the world ! And if Peter, as some think, dictated the Gospel,
which Mark wrote as his amanuensis, it is observable that his crime in deny-
ing his Master^ i-s aggravated in that gospel in some circumstances, and less
spoken of his repentance than in the other evangelists : ' When he thought
thereon, he wept,' Mark xiv. 72 ; but in the other, ' he went out, and wept
bitterly,' Luke xxii. G2.
This is one part of atheism and self-idolatry, to magnify ourselves, with
the forgetfulness and to the injury of our Creator.
(2.) In ascribing the glory of what we do or have to ourselves, to our own
wisdom, power, vii-tue, &c. How flaunting is Nebuchadnezzar at the pros-
pect of Babylon, which he had exalted to be the head of so great an empire :
Dan. iv. 30, ' I« not this great Babylon that I have built? For,' &c. He
struts upon the battlements of his palace, as if there were no God but himself
in the world, while his eye could not but see the heavens above him to be none
of his own framing ; attributing his acquisitions to his own arm, and refer-
ring them to his own honour, for his own delight ; not for the honour of God,
as a creature ought ; nor for the advantage of his subjects, as the duty of a
prince. He regards Babylon as his heaven, and himself as his idol, as if he
were all, and God nothing. An example of this we have in the present age ;
but it is often observed that God vindicates his own honour, brings the most
heroical men to contempt and unfortunate ends, as a punishment of their
pride, as he did here : Dan. iv. 31, * When the word was in the king's
mouth, there fell a voice from heaven,' &c.* This was Herod's crime, to
suffer others to do it. He had discovered his eloquence actively, and made
himself his own end passively, in approving the flatteries of the people, and
ofiered not with one hand to God the glory he received from his people with
the other. Acts xii. 22, 23. Samosatenus is reported to put down the hymns
which were sung for the glory of God and Christ, and caused songs to be
sung in the temple for his own honour.
When anything succeeds well, we are ready to attribute it to our own
prudence and industry. If we meet with a cross, we fret against the stars
and fortune and second causes, and sometimes against God, as they curse
God as well as their king, Isa. viii. 21, not acknowledging any defect in
themselves. The psalmist, by his repetition of ' Not unto us, not unto us,
but to thy name give glory,' Ps. cxv. 1, implies the naturality of this
temper, and the difficulty to cleanse our hearts from those self-reflections.
If it be angelical to refuse an undue glory stolen from God's throne, Rev.
* Sanderson's Sermons.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 227
xxii. 8, 9, it is diabolical to accept and cherish it. ' To seek our own glory
is not glory,' Prov. xxv. 27. It is vile, and the dishonour of a creature,
who, by the law of his creation, is referred to another end. So much as we
sacrifice to our own credit, to the dexterity of our hands, or the sagacity of
our wit, we detract from God.
(3.) In desires to have self-pleasing doctrines. When we cannot endure
to hear anything that crosses the flesh, though the wise man tells us, * It is
better to hear the rebuke of the wise than the song of fools,' Eccles. vii. 5.
If Hanani the seer reprove king Asa for not relying on the Lord, his pas-
sion shall bo armed for self against the prophet, and arrest him a prisoner,
2 Chron. xvi, 10. If Micaiah declare to Ahab the evil that shall befall him,
Amon the governor shall receive orders to clap him up in a dungeon. Fire
doth not sooner seize upon combustible matter than fury will be kindled, if
self be but pinched. This interest of lustful self barred the heart of Herodias
against the entertainment of the truth, and caused her savagely to dip her
hands in the blood of the Baptist, to make him a sacrifice to that inward
idol, Mark vi. 18, 19, 28.
(4.) In being highly concerned for injuries done to ourselves, and little or
not at all concerned for injuries done to God. How will the blood rise in
us, when our honour and reputation is invaded, and scarce reflect upon the
dishonour God sufi"ers in our sight and hearing, violent passions will trans-
form us into Boanergeses in the one case, and our unconcernedness render us
Gallios in the other. We shall extenuate that which concerns God, and
aggravate that which concerns ourselves. Nothing but the death of
Jonathan, a firstborn and a generous son, will satisfy his father Saul, when
the authority of his edict was broken by his tasting of honey, though he had
recompensed his crime, committed in ignorance, by the purchase of a gallant
victory. But when the authority of God was violated in saving the Ama-
lekites' cattle against the command of a greater sovereign than himself, he can
daub the business, and excuse it with a design of sacrificing. He was not
so earnest in hindering the people from the breach of God's command, as he
was in vindicating the honour of his own, 1 Sam. xv. 21. He could hardly
admit of an excuse to salve his own honour ; but in the concerns of God's
honour pretends piety, to cloak his avarice.
And it is often seen, when the violation of God's authority and the stain
of our own reputation are coupled together, we are more troubled for what
disgraces us than for what dishonours God. When Saul had thus trans-
gressed, he is desirous that Samuel would turn again to preserve his own
honour before the elders, rather than grieved that he had broken the com-
mand of God, ver. 30.
(5.) In trusting in ourselves ; whtn we consult with our own wit and
wisdom, more than inquire of God, and ask leave of him. As the Assyrian,
Isa. x. 13, * By the strength of my hands I have done it, and by wisdom,
for I am prudent.' When we attempt things in the strength of our own
heads and parts, and trust in our own industry, without application to God
for direction, blessing, and success, we afi"ect the privilege of the Deity, and
make gods of ourselves ; the same language in reality with Ajax in
Sophocles, ' Others think to overcome with the assistance of the gods, but
I hope to gain honour without them.' Dependence and trust is an act due
from the creature only to God. Hence God aggravates the crime of the
Jews in trusting in Egypt: Isa. xxxi. 3, ' The Egyptians are men, and not
gods.' Confidence in ourselves is a defection from God, Jer. xvii. 5. And
when we depart from and cast ofi" God to depend upon ourselves, which is but
an arm of flcsb, we choose the arm of flesh for our god ; we rob God of that
228 charnock's works. [Ps. XIY. 1.
confidence we ought to place in him, and that adoration which is due to
him, and build it upon another foundation. Not that we are to neglect the
reason and parts God hath given us, or spend more time in prayer than in
consulting about our own affairs, but to mix our own intentions in business,
with ejaculations to heaven, and take God along with us in every motion ;
but certainly it is an idolising of self when we are more diligent in our
attendance on our own wit then fervent in our recourses to God.
(6.) The power of sinful self, above the efficacy of the notion of God, is
evident in our workings for carnal self against the light of our own con-
sciences. When men of sublime reason, and clear natural wisdom, are
voluntary slaves to their own lusts, row against the stream of their own
consciences, serve carnal self with a disgraceful and disturbing drudgery,
making it their god, sacrificing natural self, all sentiments of virtue, and
the quiet of their lives to tha pleasure, honour, and satisfaction of carnal
self, — this is a prostituting God in his deputy conscience to carnal affec-
tions, when their eyes are shut against the enlightnings of it, and their ears
deaf to its voice, but open to the least breath and whisper of self ; a debt
that the creature owes supremely to God.
Much more might be said, but let us see what Atheism lurks in this, and
how it intrencheth upon God.
1. It is a usurping God's prerogative. It is God's prerogative to be his
own end, and act for his own glory, because there is nothing superior to him
in excellency and goodness to act for. He had not his being from anything
without himself, whereby he should be obliged to act for anything but him-
self. To make ourselves, then, our last end, is to co-rival God in his being,
the supreme good and blessedness to himself, as if we were our own prin-
ciple, the author of our own being, and were not obliged to a higher power than
ourselves for what we are and have. To direct the lines of all our motions
to ourselves is to imply that they first issued only from ourselves. When
we are rivals to God in his chief end, we own or desire to be rivals to him
in the principle of his being. This is to set ourselves in the place of God.
All things have something without them, and above them as their end. All
inferior creatures act for some superior order in the rank of creation ; the
lesser animals are designed for the greater, and all for man. Man therefore
for something nobler than himself. To make ourselves, therefore, our own end,
is to deny any superior, to whom we are to direct our actions. God alone,
being the supreme being, can be his own ultimate end. For if there were
anything higher and better than God, the purity and righteousness of his
own nature would cause him to act for and toward that as his chiefest mark.
This is the highest sacrilege, to alienate the proper good and rights of God,
and employ them for our own use ; to steal from him his own honour, and
put it into our own cabinets, like those birds that ravished the sacrifice from
the altar and carried it to their own nests.* When we love only ourselves,
and act for no other end but ourselves, we invest ourselves with the dominion
which is the right of God, and take the crown from his head ; for as the
crown belongs to the king, so to love his own will, to will by his own will
and for himself is the property of God, because he hath no other will, no
other end above him to be the rule and scope of his actions.
When therefore we are by self-love transformed wholly into ourselves, we
make ourselves our own foundation, without God and against God; when
we mind our own glory and praise, we would have a royal state equal with
God, who * created all things for himself,' Prov. xvi. 4. What can man do
more for God than he naturally doth for himself, since he doth all those things
* Sabunde tit. 146.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 229
for himself which he should do for God ? Wo own ourselves to be our own
creators and benefactors, and flinp; off all sentiments of gratitude to him.
2. It is a vilifying of God. When we make ourselves our end, it is plain
language that God is not our happiness. We postpone God to ourselves, as
if he were not an object so excellent and fit for our love as ourselves are (for
it is irrational to make that our end which is not God, and not the chiefest
good). It is to deny him to be better than we, to make him not to be so
good as ourselves, and so fit to be our chiefest good as ourselves are, that he
hath not deserved any such acknowledgment at our hands by all that he hath
done for us. We assert ourselves his superiors by such kind of acting,
though we arc infinitely more inferior to God than any creature can be to
us. Man cannot dishonour God more than by referring that to his own glory
which God made for his own praise, upon' account whereof he only hath a
right to glory and praise, and none else. He thus ' changeth the glory of
the incorruptible God into a corruptible image,' Rom. i. 23 ; a perishing
fame and reputation, which extends but little beyond the limits of his own
habitation, or, if it doth, survives but a few years, and perishes at last with
the age wherein he lived.
3. It is as much as in us lies a destroying of God. By this temper we
destroy that God that made us, because we destroy his intention and his
honour. God cannot outlive his will and his glory, because he cannot have
any other rule but his own will, or any other end but his own honour. The
setting up self as our end puts a nullity upon the true Deity ; by paying to
ourselves that respect and honour which is due to God, we make the true
God as no God. Whosoever makes himself a king of his prince's rights and
territories, manifests an intent to throw him out of his government. To
choose ourselves as our end is to undeify God, since to be the last end of a
rational creature is a right inseparable from the nature of the Deity, and there-
fore not to set God but self always before us, is to acknowledge no being
but ourselves to be God.
II. The second thing ; man would make anything his end and happiness
rather than God. An end is so necessary in all our actions, that he deserves
not the name of a rational creature that proposeth not one to himself. This
is the distinction between rational creatures and others ; they act with a
formal intention, whereas other creatures are directed to their end by a
natural instinct, and moved by nature to what the others should be moved
by reason. Vv'^hen a man therefore acts for that end, which was not intended
him by the lav^ of his creation, nor is suited to the noble faculties of his soul,
he acts contrary to God, overturns his order, and merits no better a title
than that of an atheist.
A man may be said two ways to make a thing his last end and chief good.
1. Formally. When he actually judges this or that thing to be his
chiefest good, and orders all things to it. So man doth not formally judge
sin to be good, or any object which is the incentive of sin to be his last end.
This cannot be while he hath the exercise of his rational faculties.
2. Virtually and implicitly. When he loves anything against the
command of God, and prefers in the stream of his actions the enjoyment of
that before the fruition of God, and lays out more strength and expends
more time in the gaining that than answering the true end of his creation.
When he acts so as if something below God could make him happy without
God, or that God could not make him happy without the addition of some-
thing else. Thus the glutton makes a god of his dainties, the ambitious
man of his honours, the incontinent man of his lust, and the covetous man
of his wealth, and consequently esteems them as his chiefest good, and the
230 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
most noble end to which he directs his thoughts ; thus he vilifies and lessens
the true God, which can make him happy, in a multitude of false gods, that
can only render him miserable. He that loves pleasure more than God,
says in his heart there is no god but his pleasure. He that loves his belly
more than God, says in his heart there is no god but his belly. Their
happiness is not accounted to lie in that God that made the world, but in the
pleasure or profit they make their god.
In this, though a created object be the immediate and subordinate term to
which we turn, yet principally and ultimately the affection to it terminates
in self; nothing is naturally entertained by us, but as it affects our sense or
mingles with some promise of advantage to us.
This is seen,
1. In the fewer thoughts we have of God than of anything else. Did we
apprehend God to be our chiefest good and highest end, should we grudge
him the pains of a few days' thoughts upon him ? Men in their travels are
frequently thinking upon their intended stage ; but our thoughts run upon
new acquisitions to increase our wealth, rear up our families, revenge our
injuries, and support our reputation. Trifles possess us, but ' God is not in
all our thoughts,' Ps. x. 4, seldom the sole object of them. We have
durable thoughts of transitory things, and flitting thoughts of a durable and
eternal good. The covenant of grace engageth the whole heart to God, and
bars anything else from engrossing it ; but what strangers are God and the
souls of most men ! Though we have the knowledge of him by creation,
3'et he is for the most part an unknown God in the relations wherein he
stands to us, because a God undelighted in. Hence it is, as one observes,*
that because we observe not the ways of God's wisdom, conceive not of him
in his vast perfections, nor are stricken with an admiration of his goodness,
that we have fewer good sacred poems than of any other kind. The wits of
men hang the wing when they come to exercise their reasons and fancies
about God. Parts and strength are given us, as well as corn and wine to
the Israelites, for the service of God, but those are consecrated to some
cursed Baal, Hosea ii. 8. Like Venus in the poet, we forsake heaven to
follow some Adonis.
2. In the greedy pursuit of the world. f 'V\'Taen we pursue worldly wealth
or worldly reputation with more vehemency than the riches of grace or the
favour of God. When we have a foolish imagination that our happiness
consists in them, we prefer earth before heaven, broken cisterns which can
hold no water before an ever springing fountain of glory and bliss, and, as
though there were a defect in God, cannot be content with him as our por-
tion without an addition of something inferior to him; when we make it our
hopes to say to the wedge, Thou art my confidence, and rejoice more because
it is great and because our hand hath gotten much, than in the privilege of
communion with God and the promise of an everlasting fruition of him,
Job xxxi. 24, 25, this is so gross, that Job joins it with the idolatry of the
sun and moon, which he purgeth himself of, ver. 26. And the apostle, when
he mentions covetousness or covetous men, passes it not over without the
title of idolatry to the vice, and idolater to the person. Col. iii. 5, Eph. v. 5, in
that it is a preferring clay and dirt as an end more desirable than the original
of all goodness, in regard of affection and dependence.
3. In a strong addictedness to sensual pleasures, Philip, iii. 19. Who
make their belly their God, subjecting the truths of God to the maintenance
of their luxury. In debasing the higher faculties to project for the satis-
* Jackson, book i. cap, 14, p. 48.
t Quod quisque prae cteteris petit, summum judicat bonum. — Boet. lib. 3, p. 24.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PBAOTICAL ATHEISM. 231
faction of the sensitive appetite as their chief happiness, whereby many
render themselves no better than a rout of sublimated brutes among men,
and gross atheists to God. When men's thoughts run also upon inventing
new methods to satisfy their bestial appetite, forsaking the pleasures which
are to be had in God, which are the delights of angels, for the satisfaction
of brutes ; this is an open and unquestionable refusal of God for our end,
when our rest is in them, as if they were the chief good, and not God.
4. In paying a service upon any success in the world to instruments, more
than to God the sovereign author. When ' they sacrifice to their net, and
burn incense to their drag,' Hab. i. 16. Not that the Assyrian did ofler a
sacrifice to his arms, but ascribed to them what was due only to God, and
appropriated the victory to his forces and arms. The prophet alludes to
those that worshipped their warlike instruments, whereby they had attained
great victories, and those artificers who worshipped the tools by which they
had purchased great wealth in the stead of God, preferring them as the
causes of their happiness before God who governs the world.
And are not our affections, upon the receiving of good things, more closely
fixed to the instruments of conveyance than to the chief benefactor from
whose cotiers they are taken ? Do we not more delight in them, and hug
them with a greater endearedness, as if all our happiness depended on them,
and God were no more than a bare spectator ? Just as if when a man were
warmed by a beam he should adore that, and not admire the sun that darts
it out upon him.
5. In paying a respect to man more than God. When in a public attend-
ance on his service, we will not laugh or be garish, because men see us ;
but our hearts shall be in a ridiculous posture, playing with feathers and
trifling fancies, though God see us ; as though our happinesss consisted in
the pleasing of men, and our misery in a respect to God. There is no fool
that saith in his heart there is no God, but he sets up something in his heart
as a god.
This is,
1. A debasing of God. (1.) In setting up a creature. It speaks God
less amiable than the creature, short of those perfections which some silly
sordid thing which hath engrossed their affections is possessed with ; as if
the cause of all being could be transcended by his creature, and a vile lust
could equal, yea, surmount the loveliness of God ; it is to say to God as
the rich to the poor, James ii. 3, ' Stand thou there, or sit here under my
footstool ; ' it is to sink him below the mire of the world, to order him to
come down from his glorious throne, and take his place below a contemptible
creature, which in regard of its infinite distance is not to be compared with
him. It strips God of the love that is due to him by the right of his nature
and the greatness of his dignity, and of the trust that is due to him as the
first cause and the chiefest good, as though he were too feeble and mean to
be our blessedness. This is intolerable, to make that which is God's foot-
stool, the earth, to climb up into his throne ; to set that in our heart which
God hath made even below ourselves, and put under our feet ; to make
that which we trample upon to dispose of the right God hath to our hearts ;*
it is worse than if a queen should fall in love with the little image of the
prince in the palace, and slight the beauty of his person, and as if people
should adore the footsteps of a king in the dirt, and turn their backs upon
his presence.
(2.) It doth more debase him to set up a sin, a lust, a carnal afiection,
as our chief end. To steal away the honour due to God, and appropriate
* Noremberg de adorat. p. 30.
232 chaknock's WORKS. [Ps. XIV. 1.
it to that which is no work of his hands, to that which is loathsome in his
sight, hath disturbed his rest, and wrung out his just breath to kindle a hell
for its eternal lodging, a God-dishonouring and a soul-murdering lust, is
worse than to prefer Barabbas before Christ. The baser the thing, the
worse is the injury to him with whom we would associate it. If it were
some generous principle, a thing useful to the world, that we place in an
equality with, or a superiority above him, though it were a vile usage, yet
it were not altogether so criminal ; but to gratify some unworthy appetite, with
the displeasure of the Creator, something below the rational nature of man,
much more infinitely below the excellent majesty of God, is a more unworthy
usage of him. To advance one of the most virtuous nobles in a kingdom as
a mark of our service and subjection, is not so dishonourable to a despised
prince, as to take a scabby beggar, or a rotten carcass to place in his throne.
Creeping things, abominable beasts, the Egyptian idols, cats and crocodiles,
were greater abominations, and a greater despite done to God, than the
image of jealousy at the gate of the altar, Ezek. viii. 5, 6, 10,
And let not any excuse themselves, that it is but one lust or one creature
which is preferred as the end. Is not he an idolater that worships the sun
or moon, one idol, as well as he that worships the whole host of heaven ?
The inordinancy of the heart to one lust may imply a stronger contempt
of him, than if a legion of lusts did possess the heart. It argues a greater
disesteem when he shall be slighted for a single vanity. The depth of Esau's
profaneness in contemning his birthright, and God in it, is aggravated by
his selling it for * one morsel of meat,' Heb. xii. 16, and that none of the
daintiest, none of the costliest, ' a mess of pottage,' implying, had he parted
with it at a greater rate, it had been more tolerable, and his profaneness
more excusable. And it is reckoned as a high aggravation of the corruption
of the Israelite judges, Amos ii. 6, that ' they sold the poor for a pair of
shoes ;' that is, that they would betray the cause of the poor for a bribe of
no greater value than might purchase them a pair of shoes. To place any
one thing as our chief end, though never so light, doth not excuse. He
that will not stick to break with God for a trifle, a small pleasure, will leap
the hedge upon a greater temptation.
Nay, and if wealth, riches, friends, and the best thing in the world, our
own lives, be preferred before God, as our chief happiness and end but one
moment, it is an infinite wrong, because the infinite goodness and excellency
of God is denied. As though the creature or lust we love, or our own life
which we prefer in that short moment before him, had a goodness in itself,
superior to, and more desirable than the blessedness in God. And though
it should be but one minute, and a man in all the periods of his days both
before and after that failure, should actually and intentionally prefer God
before all other things, yet he doth him an infinite wrong, because God in
every moment is infinitely good, and absolutely desirable, and can never
cease to be good, and cannot have the least shadow or change in him and
his perfections.
, 2. It is a denying of God. Job. xxxi. 26-28, ' If I beheld the sun when
it shined, and the moon walking in its brightness ; and my heart hath been
secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand, this also were iniquity
to be punished by the judge : for I should have denied the Lord above.'
This denial of God is not only the act of an open idolater, but the conse-
quent of a secret confidence, and immoderate joy in worldly goods ; this
denial of God is to be referred to, ver. 24, 25. When a man saith to
gold, * Thou art my confidence,' and rejoices because his wealth is great, he
denies that God which is superior to all those, and the proper object of
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 233
trust. Both idolatries aro coupled here together, that which hath wealth,
and that which hath those glorious creatures in heaven for its object. And
though some may think it a light sin, yet the crime being of deeper guilt, a
denial of God deserves a severer punishment, and falls under the sentence
of the just judge of all the earth, under that notion ; which Job intimates
in those words, ' this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge.'
The kissing the hand to the sun, moon, or any idol, was an external sign
of religious worship among those and other nations. This is far less than
an inward hearty confidence, and an affectionate trust. If the motion of
the hand be, much more is the affection of the heart to an excrementitious
creature, or a brutish pleasure, is a denial of God, and a kind of an abjuring
of him, since the supreme affection of the soul is undoubtedly and solely the
right of the sovereign creator, and not to be given in common to others, as
the outward gesture may in a way of civil respect. Nothing that is an honour
peculiar to God, can be given to a creature, without a plain exclusion of
God to be God, it being a disowning the rectitude and excellency of his
nature. If God should command a creature such a love, and such a confi-
dence in anything inferior to him, he would deny himself his own glory, he
would deny himself to be the most excellent being. Can the Romanists be
free from this, when they call the cross speyn iiiiicam, and say to the virgin,
In te domina speravi, as Bonaventura, &c.
Good reason therefore have worldlings and sensualists, persons of immoderate
fondness to anything in the world, to reflect upon themselves ; since though
they own the being of a God, they are guilty of so great disrespect to him,
that cannot be excused from the title of an unworthy atheism. And those
that are renewed by the Spirit of God, may here see ground of a daily
humiliation for the frequent and too common excursions of their souls in
creature confidences and affections, whereby they fall under the charge of
an act of practical atheism, though they may be free from an habit of it.
III. The third thing is, man would make himself the end of all creatures.
Man would sit in the seat of God, and ' set his heart as the heart of God,'
as the Lord saith of Tyrus, Ezek. xxviii. 2. What is the consequence of
this, but to be esteemed the chief good and end of other creatures ? — a thing
that the heart of God cannot but be set upon, it being an inseparable right
of the Deity, who must deny himself, if he deny this affection of the heart.
Since it is the nature of man derived from this root, to desire to be equal
with God, it follows that he desires no creature should be equal with him,
but subservient to his ends and his glory. He that would make himself God,
would have the honour proper to God ; he that thinks himself worthy of his
own supreme affection, thinks himself worthy to be the object of the supi'eme
affection of others ; whosoever counts himself the chiefest good and last end,
would have the same place in the thoughts of others. Nothing is more
natural to man, than a desire to have his own judgment the rule and
measure of the judgment and opinions of the rest of mankind He that sets
himself in the place of the prince, doth by that act challenge all the prero-
gatives and dues belonging to the prince ; and apprehending himself fit to
be a king, apprehends himself also worthy of the homage and fealty of the
subjects. He that loves himself chiefly, and all other things and persons
for himself, would make himself the end of all creatures. It hath not been
once or twice only in the world, that some vain princes have assumed to
themselves the title of gods, and caused divine adorations to be given to
them, and altars to smoke with sacrifices for their honour. What hath been
practised by one, is by nature seminally in all. We would have all pay an
obedience to us, and give to us the esteem that is due to God.
234 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
This is evident : —
1. In pride. When we entertain an high opinion of ourselves, and act
for our own reputes, we dispossess God from our own hearts ; and while we
would have our fame to be in every man's mouth, and be admired in the
hearts of men, we would chase God out of the hearts of others, and deny his
glory a residence anywhere else ; that our glory should reside more in their
minds than the glory of God ; that their thoughts should be filled with our
achievements, more than the works and excellency of God, with our image
and not with the divine. Pride would paramount God in the affections of
others, and justle God out of their souls ; and by the same reason that man
doth thus in the place where he lives, he would do so in the whole world,
and press the Avhole creation from the service of their true Lord, to his own
service. Every proud man would be counted by others as he counts him-
self, the highest, chiefest piece of goodness, and be adored by others, as
much as he adores and admires himself. No proud man in his self-love,
and self-admiration, thinks himself in an error ; and if he be worthy of his
own admiration, he thinks himself worthy of the highest esteem of others ;
that they should value him above themselves, and value themselves only for
him. What did Nebuchadnezzar intend, by setting up a golden image, and
commanding all his subjects to worship it, upon the highest penally he
could inflict, but that all should aim only at the pleasing his humour ?
2. In using the creatures contrary to the end God has appointed. God
created the world and all things in it, as steps whereby men might ascend
to a prospect of him, and the acknowledgment of his glory ; and we would
use them to dishonour God, and gratify ourselves. He appointed them to
supply our necessities, and support our rational delights ; and we use them
to cherish our sinful lusts. We wring groans from the creature in diverting
them from their true scope, to one of our own fixing, when we use them not
in his service, but pureh' for our own, and turn those things he created for
himself to be instruments of rebellion against him to serve our turns ; and
hei'eby endeavour to defeat the ends of God in them, to establish our own
ends by them. This is a high dishonour to God, a sacrilegious undermin-
ing of his glory,* to reduce what God hath made to serve our own glory,
and our own pleasure ; it perverts the whole order of the world, and directs
it to another end than what God hath constituted, to another intention con-
trary to the intention of God ; and thus man makes himself a god by his
own authority. As all things were made by God, so they are for God ; but
while we aspire to the end of the creation, we deny and envy God the
honour of being creator. We cannot make ourselves the chief end of the
creatures against God's order, but we imply thereby that we were their first
principle ; for if we lived under a sense of the Creator of them while we
enjoy them for our use, we should return the glory to the right owner.
3. This is diabolical ; though the devil, for his first affecting an authority in
heaven, has been hurled down from the state of an angel of light, into that
of darkness, vileness, and misery, to be the most accursed creature living,
yet he still aspires to mate God, contrary to the knowledge of the impossi-
bility of success in it. Neither the terrors he feels, nor the future tor-
ments he doth expect, do a jot abate his ambition to be competitor with his
Creator. How often hath he, since his first sin, arrogated to himself the
honour of a God from the blind world, and attempted to make the Son of
God, by a particular worship, count him as the chiefest good and benefactor
of the world ! Mat. iv. 9. Since all men by nature are the devil's children,
the serpent's seed, they have something of this venom in their natures, as
* Sabunde Tit. 200, p. 352,
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 235
well as others of his qualities. We see that there may be, and is, a prodi-
gious atheism lurking under the belief of a God. The devil knows there is
a God, but acts like an atheist, and so do his children.
IV. Man would make himself the end of God. This necessarily follows
upon the former. Whosoever makes himself his own law and his own end
in the place of God, would make God the subject in making himself the
sovereign. He that steps into the throne of a prince, sets the prince at his
foot-stool, and while he assumes the prince's prerogative, demands a sub-
jection from him. The order of the creation has been inverted by the
entrance of sin.* God implanted an aifection in man with a double aspect,
the one to pitch upon God, the other to respect ourselves ; but with this
proviso, that our affection to God should be infinite in regard of the object,
and centre in him, as the chiefest happiness and highest end ; our affec-
tions to ourselves should be finite, and refer ultimately to God as the
original of our being. But sin hath turned man's affections wholly to him-
self. Whereas he should love God first, and himself in order to God, he
now loves himself first, and God in order to himself. Love to God is lost,
and love to self hath usurped the throne. As God by creation ' put all
things under the feet' of man, Ps. viii. 6, reserving the heart for himself,
man by corruption hath dispossessed God of his heart, and put him under
his own feet. We often intend ourselves when we pretend the honour of
God, and make God and religion a stale to some designs we have in hand,
our Creator a tool for our own ends.
This is evident,
1. In our loving God because of some self- pleasing benefits distributed
by him. There is in men a kind of natural love to God ; but it is but a
secondary one, because God gives them the good things of this world,
spreads their table, fills their cup, stufts their coffers, and doth them some
good turns by unexpected providences. This is not an affection to God for
the unbounded excellency of his own nature, but for his beneficence, as he
opens his hand for them ; an affection to themselves, and those creatures,
their gold, their honour, which their hearts are most fixed upon, without a
strong spiritual inchnation that God should be glorified by them in the use
of those mercies. It is rather a disowning of God than any love to him,
because it postpones God to those things they love him for. This would
appear to be no love, if God should cease to be their benefactor, and deal
with them as a judge ; if he should change his outward smiles into afflicting
frowns, and not only shut his hand, but strip them of what he sent them.
The motive of their love being expired, the affection raised by it must cease,
for want of fuel to feed it ; so that God is beholden to sordid creatures of
no value (but as they are his creatures) for most of the love the sons of men
pretend to him. The devil spake truth of most men, though not of Job,
when he said. Job i. 10, they • love not God for nought ;' but while he
makes a hedge about them and their families, whilst he blesseth the works
of their hands, and increaseth their honour in the land. It is like Peter's
sharp reproof of his Master, when he spake of the ill usage, even to death,
he was to meet with at Jerusalem, ' This shall not be unto thee.' It was
as much out of love to himself as zeal for his Master's interest, knowing his
Master could not be in such a storm without some drops lighting upon him-
self. All the apostasies of men in the world are witnesses to this. They
fawn whilst they may have a prosperous profession, but will not bear one
chip of the cross for the interest of God. They would partake of his bless-
ings, but not endure the prick of a lance for him, as those that admired the
* Pascal, Pens. sec. 30. p. 294.
236 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
miracles of our Saviour, and shrunk at bis sufferings. A time of trial dis-
covers these mercenary souls to be more lovers of themselves than their
Maker, This is a pretended love of friendship to God, but a real love to a
lust, only to gain by God. A good man's temper is contrary. Quench
hell, burn heaven, said a holy man, I will love and fear my God.
2. It is evident, in abstinence from some sins, not because they offend
God, but because they are against the interest of some other beloved corrup-
tion, or a bar to something men hunt after in the world. When temperance
is cherished, not to honour God, but preserve a crazy carcass ; prodigality
forsaken, out of a humour of avarice ; uncleanness forsaken, not out of a
hatred of lust, but love to their money ; declining a denial of the interest
and truth of God, not out of affection to them, but an ambitious zeal for
their own reputation. There is a kind of conversion from sin, when God
is not made the term of it: Jer. iv. 1, ' If thou wilt return, 0 Israel,
return unto me, saith the Lord.'* When we forbear sin as dogs do the
meat they love ; they forbear not out of a hatred of the carrion, but fear of
the cudgel. These are as wicked in their abstaining from sin as others are
in their furious committing it. Nothing of the honour of God and the end
of his appointments is indeed in all this, but the conveniences self gathers
from them. Again, many of the motives the generality of the world uses
to their friends and relations to draw them from vices are drawn from self,
and used to prop up natural or sinful self in them. Come, reform yourself,
take other courses, you will smut your reputation, and be despicable ; you
will destroy your estate, and commence a beggar ; your family will be un-
done, and you may rot in a prison ; not laying close to them the duty they
owe to God, the dishonour which accrues to him by their unworthy courses,
and the ingratitude to the God of their mercies. Not that the other motives
are to be laid aside and slighted. Mint and cummin may be tithed, but the
weightier concerns are not to be omitted. But this shews that self is the
bias not only of men in their own course, but in their dealings with others.
What should be subordinate to the honour of God, and the duty we owe to
him, is made superior.
8. It is evident, in performing duties merely for a selfish interest ; mak-
ing ourselves the end of religious actions ; paying a homage to that, while
we pretend to render it to God: Zech. vii. 5, ♦ Did you at all fast unto me,
even unto me ? ' Things ordained by God may fall in with carnal ends
afiected by ourselves, and then religion is not kept up by any interest of
God in the conscience, but the interest of self in the heart. We then
sanctify not the name of God in the duty, but gratify ourselves. God may
be the object, self is the end, and a heavenly object is made subservient to
a carnal design. Hypocrisy passes a compliment on God, and is called
flattery : Ps. Ixxviii. 36, ' They did flatter him with their lips,' &c. They
gave him a parcel of good words for their own preservation. Flattery, in
the old notion among the heathens, is a vice more pecuHar to serve our own
turn, and purvey for the belly. They knew they could not subsist without
God, and therefore gave him a parcel of good words, that he might spare
them, and make provision for them : ' Israel is an empty vine,' Hos. x. 1 ;
a vine, say some, with large branches and few clusters, but ' brings forth
fruit to himself,' while they professed love to God with their lips. It was
that God should promote their covetous designs, and preserve their wealth
and grandeur, Ezek. xxxiii. 31 ; in which respect an hypocrite may be well
termed a religious atheist, an atheist masked with religion. The chief
arguments which prevail with many men to perform some duties, and appear
* Trap, on Gen. p. 148.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 237
religious, are the same that Hamor and Shechem used to the people of
their city to submit to circumcision, viz., the engrossing of more wealth :
Gen. xxxiv. 21, 22, * If every male among us be circumcised, as they are
circumcised, shall not their cattle and their substance, and every beast of
theirs, be ours ? '
This is seen,
(1.) In unweildiness to religious duties where self is not concerned. With
what lively thoughts will many approach to God when a revenue may be
brought in to support their own ends ? But when the concerns of God only
are in it, the duty is not the delight but the clog ; such feeble devotions that
warm not the soul, unless there be something of self to give strength and
heat to them. Jonah was sick of his work, and ran from God, because he
thought he should get no honour by his message ; God's mercy will dis-
credit his prophecy, Jonah iv. 2. Thoughts of disadvantage cut the very
sinews of service. You may as well persuade a merchant to venture all his
estate upon the inconstant waves, without hopes of gain, as prevail with a
natural man to be serious in duty, without expectation of some warm advan-
tage. * What profit should we have if we pray to him ? ' is the natural
question, Job xxi. 15. ' What profit shall I have if I be cleansed from my
sin ? ' Job xxxv. 3. I shall have more good by my sin than by my service.
It is for God that I dance before the ark, saith David, therefore ' I will be
more vile,' 2 Sam. vi. 22. It is for self that I pray, saith a natural man,
therefore I will be more warm and quick. Ordinances of God are observed
only as a point of interest, and prayer is often most fervent when it is least
godly, and most selfish ; carnal ends and affections will pour out lively
expressions. If there be no delight in the means that lead to God, there is
no delight in God himself, because love is aijjoetitus unionis, a desire of
union ; and where the object is desirable, the means that brings us to it
would be delightful too.
(2.) In calling upon God only in a time of necessity. How officious will
men be in affliction to that God whom they neglect in their prosperity !
* When he slew them, then they sought him, and they returned and inquired
after God ; and they remembered that God was their rock,' Ps. Ixxviii. 34.
They remembered him under the scourge, and forgat him under his smiles.
They visit the throne of grace, knock loud at heaven's gates, and give God
no rest for their early and importunate devotions when under distress ; but
when their desires are answered, and the rod removed, they stand aloof from
him, and rest upon their own bottom ; as Jer, ii. 31, * We are lords, we will
come no more unto thee.' When we have need of him, he shall find us
clients at his gate ; and when we have served our turn, he hears no more of
us ; like Noah's dove sent out of the ark, that returned to him when she
found no rest on the earth, but came not back when she found a footing else-
where. How often do men apply themselves to God when they have some
business for him to do for them ! And then, too, they are loath to put it
solely into his hand, to manage it for his own honour ; but they presume to
be his directors, that he may manage it for their glory. Self spurs men on
to the throne of grace ; they desire to be furnished with some mercy they
want, or to have the clouds of some judgments which they fear blown over.
This is not affection to God, but to ourselves ; as the Romans worshipped a
quartane ague as a goddess, and Timorem et Pallorem, fear and paleness,
as gods, not out of any affection they had to the disease or the passion, but
for fear to receive any hurt by them.
Again, when we have gained the mercy we need, how little do we warm
our souls with the consideration of that God that gave it, or lay out the
238 chabnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
mercy in his service ! We are importunate to have him our fi-iend in our
necessities, and are ungratefully careless of him, and his injuries he suffers
by us or others. When he hath discharged us from the rock where we stuck,
we leave him, as having no more need of him, and able to do well enough
without him, as if we were petty gods ourselves, and only wanted a lift from
him at first. This is not to glorify God as God, but as our servant ; not an
honouring of God, but a self-seeking. He would hardly beg at God's door
if he could pleasure himself without him.
(3.) In begging his assistance to our own projects. When we lay the plot
of our own atiairs, and then come to God, not for counsel but blessing, self
only shall give us counsel how to act ; but because we believe there is a God
that governs the world, we will desire him to contribute success. God is
not consulted with till the counsel of self be fixed ; then God must be the
executor of our will. Self must be the principal, and God the instrument to
hatch what we have contrived. It is worse when we beg of God to favour
some sinful aim ; the psalmist implies this, Ps. Ixvi. 18, ' If I regard ini-
quity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.' Iniquity regarded as the
aim in prayer renders the prayer successless, and the suppliant an atheist in
debasing God to back his lust by his holy providence.
The disciples had determined revenge, and because they could not act it
without their master, they would have him be their second in their vindic-
tive passion : Luke ix. 55, ' Call for fire from heaven.'
We scarce seek God till we have modelled the whole contrivance in our
own brains, and resolved upon the methods of performance, as though there
were not a fulness of wisdom in God to guide us in resolves, as well as
power to breathe success upon them.
(4.) In impatience upon the refusal of our desires. How often do men's
spirits rise against God, when he steps not in with the assistance they want !
If the glory of God swayed more with them than their private interest, they
would let God be judge of his own glory, and rather magnify his wisdom than
complain of his want of goodness. Selfish hearts will charge God with
neglect of them, if he be not as quick in their supplies as they are in their
desires, like those in Isa. Iviii. 3, ' Wherefore have we fasted; say they, and
thou seest not ? wherefore have we afflicted our souls, and thou takest no
knowledge ? ' When we aim at God's glory in our importunities, we shall
fall down in humble submissions when he denies us ; whereas self riseth up
in bold expostulations, as if God were our servant, and had neglected the
service he owed us, not to come at our call. We over- value the satisfactions
of self above the honour of God. Besides, if what we desire be a sin, our
impatience at a refusal is more intolerable. It is an anger, that God will
not lay aside his holiness to serve our corruption.
5. In the actual aims men have in their duties. In prayer for temporal
things, when we desire health for our own ease, wealth for our own sensu-
ality, strength for our revenge, children for the increase of our family, gifts
for our applause, as Simon Magus did the Holy Ghost, or when some of
those ends are aimed at, this is to desire God not to serve himself of us,
but to be a servant to our worldly interest, our vain glory, the greatening of
our names, &c. In spiritual mercies begged for, when pardon of sin is
desired only for our own security from eternal vengeance ; sanctification
desired only to make us fit for everlasting blessedness ; peace of conscience
only that we may lead our lives more comfortably in the world ; when we
have not actual intentions for the glory of God, or when our thoughts of
God's honour are overtopped by the aims of self- advantage. Not but that as
God hath pressed us to those things by motives drawn from the blessedness
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 239
derived to ourselves by them, so we may desire them with a respect to our-
selves ; but this respect must bo contained within the due banks, in subordi-
nation to the glory of God, not above it, nor in an equal balance with it.*
That which is nourishing or medicinal in the first or second degree, is in the
fourth or fifth degree mere destructive poison.
Let us consider it seriously ; though a duty be heavenly, doth not some
base end smut us in it ?
[1.] How is it with our confessions of sin ? Are they not more to pro-
cure our pai'don than to shame ourselves before God, or to be freed from
the chains that hinder us from bringing him the glory for which we were
created ; or more to partake of his benefits than to honour him in acknow-
ledging the rights of his justice ? Do we not bewail sin as it hath ruined
us, not as it opposed the holiness of God ? Do we not shuffle with God,
and confess our f sin, while we reserve another, as if we would allure God,
by declaring our dislike of one, to give us liberty to commit wantonness with
another ; not to abhor ourselves, but to daub with God ?
[2.] Is it any better in our private and family worship ? Are not such
assemblies frequented by some, when some upon whom they have a depen-
dence may eye them, and have a better opinion of them and aflection to
them ? If God were the sole end of our hearts, would they not be as glow-
ing under the sole eye of God as our tongues or carriages are seemingly
serious under the eye of man ? Are not family duties performed by somo
that their voices may be heard, and their reputation supported among godly
neighbours ?
[3.] Is not the charity of many men tainted with this end, self? Mat.
vi. 1, as the Pharisees were while they set the miserable object before them,
but not the Lord, bestowing alms, not so much upon the necessities of the
people, as the friendship we owe them for some particular respects ; or
casting our bread upon those waters which stream down in the sight of the
world, that our doles may be visible to them and commended by them ; or
when we think to oblige God to pardon our transgressions, as if we merited
it and heaven too at his hands, by bestowing a few pence upon indicrent
persons. And,
[4.] Is it not the same with the reproofs of men ? Is not heat and anger
carried out with full sail when our worldly interest is prejudiced, and be-
calmed in the concerns of God ? Do not masters reprove their servants
with more vehemency, for the neglect of their trade and business, than the
neglect of divine duties, and that upon religious arguments, pretending
the honour of God, that they may mind their own interest ? But when
they are negligent in what they owe to God no noise is made, they
pass without rebuke. Is not this to make God and religion a stale to their
own ends ? It is a part of atheism, not to regard the injuries done to
God, as Tiberius. J Let God's wrongs be looked to, or cared for by
himself.
[5.] Is it not thus in our seeming zeal for religion ? As Demetrius and
the craftsmen at Ephesus cried up aloud the greatness of Diana of the
Ephesians, not out of any true zeal they had for her, but their gain, which
was increased by the confluence of her worshippers, and the sale of her own
shrines, Acts xix. 24, 28.
[6.] In making use of the name of God to countenance our sin. When
we set up an opinion that is a friend to our lusts, and then dig deep into the
Scripture to find crutches to support it, and authorise our practices ; when
* Gurnall, part iii. p. 337. t Dei injuria Deo curse.
t Qu. ' one ' '? — Ed.
240 charnock's woeks. [Ps, XIV. 1.
men will thank God for what they have got by unlawful means, fathering
the fruit of their cheating craft, and the simplicity of their chapmen upon
God ; crediting their cozenage by his name, as men do brass money, with
a thin plate of silver and the stamp and image of the prince. The Jews
urge the law of God for the crucifying his Son : John xix. 7, ' We have a
law, and by that law he is to die ; ' and would make him a party in their
private revenge.* Thus often when we have faltered in some actions we
wipe our mouths, as if we sought God more than our own interest, prostitut-
ing the sacred name and honour of God, either to hatch or defend some
unworthy lust against his word.
Is not all this a high degree of atheism ?
1. It is a viUfying God, an abuse of the highest good. Other sins sub-
ject the creature and outward things to them ; but acting in religious services
for self subjects not only the highest concernments of men's souls, but the
Creator himself to the creature, nay, to make God contribute to that which
is the pleasure of the devil ; a greater slight than to cast the gifts of a
prince to a herd of nasty swine. It were more excusable to serve ourselves
of God upon the higher accounts, such that materially conduced to his glory,
but it is an intolerable wrong to make him and his ordinances caterei-s for
our own bellies, as they did, Hosea viii. 13.t They sacrificed the Q'*2n^n
of which the offerer might eat, not of out of any reference to God, but love
to their gluttony ; not please him, but feast themselves. The belly was truly
made the god, when God was served only in order to the belly : as though
the blessed God had his being, and his ordinances were enjoined to pleasure
their foolish and wanton appetites ; as though the work of God wei'e only
to patronise unrighteous ends, and be as bad as themselves, and become a
pander to their corrupt affections.
2. Because it is a vilifying of God, it is an undeifying or dethroning God.
It is an acting as if we were the lords, and God our vassal ; a setting up
those secular ends in the place of God, who ought to be our ultimate end
in every action ; to whom a glory is as due as his mercy to us is utterly
unmerited by us. He that thinks to cheat and put the fool upon God by
his pretences, doth not heartily believe there is such a being. He could not
have the notion of a God without that of omniscience and justice ; an eye to
see the cheat, and an arm to punish it. The notion of the one would direct
him in the manner of his services, and the sense of the other would scare
him from the cherishing his unworthy ends. He that serves God with a
sole respect to himself is prepared for any idolatry ; his religion shall warp
with the times and his interest ; he shall deny the true God for an idol,
when his worldly interest shall advise him to it, and pay the same reverence
to the basest image which he pretends now to pay to God ; as the Israelites
were as real for idolatry under their basest princes as they were pretenders
to the true religion under those that were pious.
Before I come to the use of this, give me leave to evince this practical
atheism by two other considerations.
1. Unworthy imaginations of God.
' The fool hath said in his heart. There is no God ; ' that is, he is not
such a God as you report him to be ; this is meant by their being corrupt,
in the second verse corrupt being taken for playing the idolaters, Exod.
xxxii. 7. We cannot comprehend God ; if we could, we should cease to be
finite ; and because we cannot comprehend him, we erect strange images of
him in our fancies and aff"ections. And since guilt came upon us, because
we cannot root out the notions of God, we would debase the majesty and
* Sanderson's Sermons, part ii. p. 158. t Vid. Cocc. in locum.
Ps. XIV. l.j PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 241
nature of God, that we may have some ease in our consciences, and lie down
with some comfort in the sparks of our own kindling.
This is universal in men by nature. ' God is not in all his thoughts,'
Ps. X. 4. Not in any of his thoughts, according to the excellency of his
nature, and greatness of his majesty. As the heathen did not glorify God
as God, so neither do the}' conceive of God as God. They are all infected
with some one or other ill opinion of him, thinking him not so holy,
powerful, just, good as he is, and as the natural force of a human under-
standing might arrive to. We join a new notion of God in our vain fancies,
and represent him not as he is, but as we would have him to be, fit for our
own use, and suited to our own pleasure. We set that active power of
imagination on work, and there comes out a god (a calf), whom we own for
a notion of God.
Adam cast him into so narrow a mould as to think that himself, who had
newly sprouted up by his almighty power, was fit to be his corival in know-
ledge, and had vain hopes to grasp as much as infiniteness. If he in his
first declining began to have such a conceit, it is no doubt but we have as
bad under a mass of corruption. When holy Agur speaks of God, he cries
out that he had not ' the understanding of a man, nor the knowledge of the
holy,' Prov. xsx. 2, 3. He did not think rationally of God as man might by
his strength at his first creation. There are as many carved images of God
as there are minds of men, and as monstrous shapes as those corruptions
into which they would transform him.
Hence sprang,
1. Idolatry. Vain imaginations first set afloat'and kept up this in the
world. Vain imaginations of the God ' whose glory they changed into the
image of corruptible man,' Rom. i. 21, 23. They had set up vain images
of him in their fancy, before they set up idolatrous representations of him in
their temples ; the likening him to those idols of wood and stone, and
various metals, were the fruit of an idea erected in their own minds. This
is a mighty debasing the divine nature, and rendering him no better than
that base and stupid matter they make the visible object of their adoration,
equalling him with those base creatures they think worthy to be the repre-
sentations of him. Yet how far did this crime spread itself in all corners of
the world, not only among the more barbarous and ignorant, but the more
polished and civilized nations ! Judea only, where God had placed the ark
of his presence, being free from it in some intervals of time only, after some
sweeping judgment. And though they vomited up their idols under some
sharp scourge, they licked them up again after the heavens were cleared
over their heads. The whole book of Judges makes mention of it. And
though an evangelical light hath chased that idolatry away from a great part
of the world, yet the principle remaining, coins more spiritual idols in the
heart, which are brought before God in acts of worship.
2. Hence all superstition received its rise and growth. When we mint a
God according to our own complexion, like to us in mutable and various
passions, soon angry and soon appeased, it is no wonder that we invent ways
of pleasing him after we have ofiended him, and think to expiate the sin of
our souls by some melancholy devotions and self-chastisements. Supersti-
tion is nothing else but an unscriptural and unrevealed dread of God,
Ais/Bai/Movia. When they imagine him a rigorous, and severe master, they
cast about for ways to mitigate him whom they thought so hard to be
pleased. A very mean thought of him, as if a slight and pompous devotion
could as easily bribe and flatter him out of his rigours, as a few good words
or babbling rattles could please and quiet little children, and whatsoever
VOL. I. Q
242 charnock's woeks. [Ps. XIV. 1.
pleased us could please a God infinitely above us. Such narrow conceits
had the Philistines, when they thought to still the anger of the God of
Israel, whom they thought they possessed in the ark, with the present of a
few golden mice, 1 Sam. vi. 3, 4. All the superstition this day living in
the world is built upon this foundation ; so natural it is to man to pull God
down to his own imaginations, rather than raise up his imaginations up to God.
Hence doth arise also the diffidence of his mercy, though they repent,
measuring God by the contracted models of their own spirits, as though his
nature were as difficult to pardon their offences against him, as they are to
remit wrongs done to themselves.
3. Hence springs all presumption, the common disease of the Vv'orld. All
the wickedness in the world, which is nothing else but presuming upon God,
rises from the ill interpretations of the goodness of God, breaking out upon
them in the works of creation and providence. The corruption of man's
nature engendered by those notions of goodness a monstrous birth of vain
imaginations, not of themselves primarily, but of God ; whence arose all
that folly and darkness in their minds and conversations : Rom. i. 20, 21,
• They glorified him not as God,' but according to themselves imagined him
good that themselves might be bad, fancied him so indulgent as to neglect
his honour for their sensuality. How doth the unclean person represent
him to his own thoughts but as a goat, the murderer as a tiger, the sensual
person as a swine, while they fancy a god indulgent to their crimes without
their repentance ! As the image on the seal is stamped upon the wax, so
the thoughts of the heart are pi'inted upon the actions. God's patience is
ai^prehended to be an approbation of their vices, and from the consideration
of his forbearance they fashion a god that they believe will smile upon their
crimes ; they imagine a god that plays with them, and though he threatens,
doth it only to scare, but means not as he speaks ; a god they fancy like
themselves, that would do as they would do, not be angry for what they
count a light offence : Ps. 1. 21, ' Thou thoughtest I was such a one as thy-
self; ' that God and they were exactly alike, as two tallies. ' Our wilful mis-
apprehensions of God are the cause of our misbehaviour in all his worship ;
our slovenly and lazy services tell him to his face what slight thoughts and
appprehensions we have of him.'*
Compare these two together.
Superstition ariseth from terrifying misapprehensions of God ; pre-
sumption from self-pleasing thoughts. One represents him only rigorous,
and the other careless ; one makes us over-officious in serving him by our
own rules, and the other over-bold in offending him according to our
humours. The want of a true notion of God's justice makes some men
slight him ; and the want of a true apprehension of his goodness makes
others too servile in their approaches to him. One makes us careless of
duties, and the other makes us look on them rather as physic than food ;
an unsupportable penance than a desirable privilege. In this case hell is
the principle of duty performed to heaven. The superstitious man believes
God bath scarce mercy to pardon ; the presumptuous man believes he hath
no such perfection as justice to punish. The one makes him insignificant
to what he desires, kindness and goodness ; the other renders him insig-
nificant to what he fears, his vindictive justice. What between the idolater,
the superstitious, the presumptuous person, God should look like no God
in the world.
These unworthy imaginations of God are likewise,
A vilifying of him, debasing the Creator to be a creature of their own
* Gurnal, part ii. p. 245, 246.
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 243
fancies, putting theii* own stamp upon him, and fashioning him not accord-
ing to that beautiful ima'^e ho impressed upon them by creation, but the
defaced image they inherit by their fall, and which is worse, the imago of
the devil which spread itself over them at their revolt and apostasy. Wero
it possible to see a picture of God, according to the fancies of men, it
would be the most monstrous being, such a god that never was, nor ever
can be.
We honour God when we have worthy opinions of him suitable to his
nature ; when we conceive of him as a being of unbounded loveliness and
perfection. We detract from him when we ascribe to him such qualities as
■would be a horrible disgrace to a wise and good man, as injustice and
impurity. Thus men debase God when they invert his order, and would
create him according to their image, as he first created them according to
his own ; and think him not worthy to be a God, unless he fully answer the
mould they would cast him into, and be what is unworthy of his nature.
Men do not conceive of God as he would have them, but ho must be what
they would have him, one of their own shaping.
(1.) This is worse than idolatry. The grossest idolater commits not a
crime so heinous, by changing his glory into the image of creeping things
and senseless creatures, as the imagining God to be as one of our sinful
selves, and likening him to those filthy images we erect in our fancies ; one
makes him an earthly God, like an earthly creature ; the other fancies him
an unjust and impure God, like a wicked creature : one sets up an image of
him in the earth, which is his footstool ; the other sets up an image of him
in the heart, which ought to be his throne.
(2.) It is worse than absolute atheism or a denial of God. Dignius
credimus non esse, quodcunque iioii itajuerit, ut esse dehehit, was the opinion
of TertuUian.* It is more commendable to think him not to be, than to think
him such a one as is inconsistent with his nature. Better to deny his
existence than to deny his perfection. No wise man but would rather have
his memory rot than be accounted infamous, and would be more obliged to
him that should deny that ever he had a baing in the world, than to say he
did indeed live, but he was a sot, a debauched person, and a man not to be
trusted. When we apprehend God deceitful in his promises, unrighteous
in his threatenings, unwilling to pardon upon repentance, or resolved to
pardon notwithstanding impenitency, these are things either unworthy of
the nature of God , or contrary to that revelation he hath given of himself.
Better for a man never to have been born than be for ever miserable ; so
better to be thought no God than represented impotent or negligent, unjust
or deceitful, which are more contrary to the nature of God than hell can be
to the greatest criminal. In this sense perhaps the apostle affirms the
Gentiles, Eph. ii. 12, to be such as are ' without God in the world,' as
being more atheists in adoring God under such notions as they commonly
did, than if they had acknowledged no God at all.'
2. This is evident by our natural desire to be distant from him, and
unwillingness to have any acquaintance with him. Sin set us first at a dis-
tance from God ; and every new act of gross sin estrangeth us more from him,
and indisposeth us more for him : it makes us both afraid and ashamed to
be near him. Sensual men were of this frame that Job discourseth of: Job
xxi. 7-9, and 14, 15. Where grace reigns, the nearer to God, the more
vigorous the motion ; the nearer anything approaches to us that is the object
of our desires, the more eagerly do we press forward to it ; but our blood
riseth at the approaches of anything to which we have an aversion. We
* Tertul. cent. Marcion, lib. i. cap. 2.
244 chahnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
have naturally a loathing of God's coming to us, or our return to him ; we
seek not after him as our happiness ; and when he offers himself, we like it
not, but put a disgrace upon him in choosing other things before him. God
and we are naturally at as great a distance as light and darkness, life and
death, heaven and hell. The stronger impression of God anything hath, the
more we fly from it. The glory of God in reflection upon Moses his face
scared the Israelites ; they who desired God to speak to them by Moses,
when they saw a signal impression of God upon his countenance, were afraid
to come near him, as they were before unwilling to come near to God, Exod.
xxxiv. 30. Not that the blessed God is in his own nature a frightful object,
but our own guilt renders him so to us, and ourselves indisposed to converse
with him ; as the light of the sun is as irksome to a distempered eye as it
is in its own nature desirable to a sound one. The saints themselves have
had so much frailty, that they have cried out that they were undone, if they
had any more than ordinary discoveries of a God made unto them ; as if
they wished him more remote from them. Vileness cannot endure the splen-
dour of majesty, nor guilt the glory of a judge.
We have naturally, (1.) No desire of remembrance of him ; (2.) or con-
verse with him ; (3.) or thorough return to him ; (4.) or close imitation of
him : as if there were not such being as God in the world ; or as if we
wished there were none at all ; so feeble and spiritless are our thoughts of
the being of a God.
(1.) No desire for the remembrance of him. How delightful are other
things in our minds ! How burdensome the memorials of God, from whom
we have our being ! With what pleasure do we contemplate the nature of
creatures, even of flies and toads ; while our minds tire in the search of him
who hath bestowed upon us our knowing and meditating faculties ! Though God
shews himself to us in every creature, in the meanest weed as well as in the
highest heavens, and is more apparent in them to our reasons than them-
selves can be to our sense, yet though we see them, we will not behold God
in them. We will view them to please our sense, to improve our reason in
their natural perfections ; but pass by the consideration of God's perfections
so visibl}' beaming from them. Thus we play the beasts and atheists in the
very exercise of reason, and neglect our Creator to gratify our sense ; as
though the pleasure of that were more desirable than the knowledge of God.
The desire of our souls is not ' towards his name and the remembrance of
him,' Isa. xxvi. 8, when we set not ourselves in a posture to feast our souls
with deep and serious meditations of him ; have a thought of him only
by the by and away, as if we were afraid of too intimate acquaintance
with him.
Are not the thoughts of God rather our invaders than our guests, seldom
invited to reside and take up their home in our hearts ? Have we not, when
they have broken in upon us, bid them * depart from us,' Job xxii. 17, and
warned them to come no more upon our ground ; sent them packing as soon
as we could, and were glad when they were gone ? And when they have
departed, have we not often been afraid they should return again upon us,
and therefore looked about for other inmates, things not good ; or if good,
infinitely below God, to possess the room of our hearts before any thoughts
of him should appear again ? Have we not often been glad of excuses to
shake off present thoughts of him ; and when we have wanted real ones,
found out pretences to keep God and our hearts at a distance ? Is not this
a part of atheism, to be so unwilling to employ our faculties about the
giver of them, to refuse to exercise them in a way of grateful remembrance
of him, as though they were none of his gift, but our own acquisition ;
Ps. XIY. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 245
as though the God that truly gave them had no right to thorn, and he that
thinks on us every day in a way of providence, were not worthy to bo
thought on by us in a way of special remembrance ?
Do not the best, thatMove the remembrance of him, and abhor this natural
aversencss, find that when they would think of God, many things tempt
them and turn them to think elsewhere ? Do they not find their apprehen-
sions too feeble, theii- motions too dull, and the impressions too slight ? This
natural atheism is spread over human nature.
(2.) No desire of converse with him. The word rcmemher, in the com-
mand for keeping holy the Sabbath-day, including all the duties of the day,
and the choicest of our lives, implies our natural unwillingness to them, and
forgetfulness of them. God's pressing this command with more reasons
than the rest, manifests that man hath no heart for spiritual duties. No
spiritual duty, which sets us immediately face to face with God, but in the
attempts of it we find naturally a resistance from some powerful principle ;
so that every one may subscribe to the speech of the apostle, that ' when
we would do good, evil is present with us.' No reason of this can be ren-
dered but the natural temper of our souls, and an afiecting a distance from
God under any consideration ; for though our guilt first made the breach,
yet this aversion to a converse with him steps up without any actual reflec-
tions upon our guilt, which may render God terrible to us as an ofiended
judge. Are we not also, in our attendance upon him, more pleased with the
modes of worship which gratify our fancy, than to have our souls inwardly
delighted with the object of worship himself ?
This is a part of our natural atheism. To cast such duties ofi" by total
neglect, or in part, by afiecting a coldness in them, is to cast off the fear of
the Lord, Job xv. 4. Not to call upon God, and not to know him, are one
and the same thing, Jer. x. 25. Either we think there is no such being in
the world, or that he is so slight a one, that he deserves not the respect he
calls for ; or so impotent and poor, that he cannot supply what our necessi-
ties require.
(3.) No desire of a thorough return to him. The first man fled from him
after his defection, though he had no refuge to fly to but the grace of his
Creatoi'. Cain went from his presence, would be a fugitive from God, rather
than a supplicant to him ; when by faith in, and application of the promised
Redeemer, he might have escaped the wrath to come for his brother's blood,
and mitigated the sorrows he was justly sentenced to bear in the world.
Nothing will separate prodigal man from commoning with swine, and make
him return to his father, but an empty trough ; have we but husks to feed
on, we shall never think of a father's presence. It were well if our sores
and indigence would drive us to him ; but when our ' strength is devoured,' we
will not ' return to the Lord our God, nor seek him for all this,' Hosea vii. 10.
Not his drawn sword as a God of judgment, nor his mighty power as a Lord,
nor his open arms as the Lord their God, could move them to turn their eyes
and their hearts towards him. The more he invites us to partake of his grace,
the further we run from him to provoke his wrath : the louder God called
them by his prophets, the closer they stuck to their Baal, Hosea xi. 2. We
turn our backs when he stretches out his hand, stop our ears when he lifts
up his voice ; we fly from him when he courts us, and shelter ourselves in
any bush from his merciful hand, that would lay hold upon^^us; nor will
we set our faces towards him, till our ' way be hedged up with thorns,' and
not a gap left to creep out any by-way, Hosea ii. 6, 7. Whosoever is
brought to a return, puts the Holy Ghost to the pain of striving ; he is not
easily brought to a spiritual subjection to God, nor persuaded to a surrender
246 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
at a summons, but sweetly overpowered by storm, and victoriously drawn
into the arms of God. God stands ready, but the heart stands off: grace
is full of entreaties, and the soul full of excuses ; divine love offers, and
carnal self-love rejects. Nothing so pleases us, as when we are furthest
from him ; as if anything were more amiable, anything more desirable than
himself.
(4.) No desire of any close imitation of him. When our Saviour was
to come as a refiner's fire to purify the sons of Levi, the cry is, ' Who shall
abide the day of his coming ?' Mai. iii, 2, 3. Since we are alienated from
the life of God, we desire no more naturally to live the life of God, than a toid
or any other animal desires to live the life of a man. No heart that knows
God but hath a holy ambition to imitate him ; no soul that refuseth him for
a copy, but is ignorant of his excellency ; of this temper is all mankind
naturally. Man in corruption is as loath to be like God in holiness, as
Adam after his creation was desirous to be like God in knowledge ; his pos-
terity are like their father, who soon turned his back upon his original copy.
What can be worse than this ? Can the denial of his being be a greater
injur}^ than this contempt of him ; as if he had not goodness to deserve our
remembrance, nor amiableness fit for our converse ; as if he were not a Lord
fit for our subjection, nor had a holiness that deserved our imitation ?
IV. For the use of this. It serves,
1. For information.
(1.) It gives us occasion to admire the wonderful patience and mercy of
God. How many millions of practical atheists breathe every day in his air,
and live upon his bounty, who deserve to be inhabitants in hell, rather than
possessors of the earth ! An infinite holiness is offended, an infinite
justice is provoked ; yet an infinite patience forbears the punishment, and
an infinite goodness relieves our wants. The more we had merited his jus-
tice and forfeited his favour, the more is his affection enhanced, which makes
his hand so liberal to us.
At the first invasion of his rights, he mitigates the terror of the threaten-
ing, which was set to defend his law, with the grace of a promise to relieve
and recover his rebellious creature. Gen. iii. 15. Who would have looked
for anything but tearing thunders, sweeping judgments, to rase up the foun-
dations of the apostate world ? But oh, how great are his bowels to his
aspiring competitors! Have we not experimented his contrivances for our
good, though we have refused him for our happiness ? Has he not opened
his arms, when we spurned with our feet; held out his alluring mercy, when
we have brandished against him a rebellious sword ? Has he not entreated
us while we have invaded him, as if he were unwilling to lose us, who are
ambitious to destroy ourselves ? Has he yet denied us the care of his
providence, while we have denied him the rights of his honour, and would
appropriate them to ourselves ? Has the sun forborne shining upon us,
though we have shot our arrows against him ? Have not our beings been
supported by his goodness, while we have endeavoured to climb up to his
throne ; and his mercies continued to charm us, while we have used them
as weapons to injure him ? Our own necessities might excite us to own
him as our happiness, but he adds his invitations to the voice of our wants.
Has he not promised a kingdom to those that would strip him of his crown,
and proclaimed pardon, upon repentance, to those that would take away his
glory ? and hath so twisted together his own end, which is his honour,
and man's true end, which is his salvation, that a man cannot truly mind
himself and his own salvation, but he must mind God's glory; and cannot
be intent upon God's honour but by the same act he promotes himself and
Ps. XIV. l.j PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 247
his own happiness ; so loath is God to give any just occasion of dissatisfac-
tion to his creature, as well as dishonour himself. All those wonders of his
mercy arc enhanced by the heinousness of our atheism, a multitude of
gracious thoughts from him above the multituJo of contempts from us,
Ps. cvi. 7. "What rebels in actual arms ag&inst their prince, aiming at his
lifo, ever found that favour from him, to have all their necessaries richly
atlbrdod them, without which they would starve, and without which they
would bo unable to manage their attempts, as we have received from God ?
Had not God had ' riches of goodness, forbearance, and long-suflering,' and
infinite riches too, the despite the world had done him in refusing him as
their rule, happiness, and end, would have emptied him long ago, Rom. ii. 4.
(2.) It brings in a justification of the exercise of his justice. If it gives us
occasion loudly to praise his patience, it also stops our mouths from accus-
ing any acts of his vengeance. What can be too sharp a recompence for
the despising and disgracing so great a being ? The highest contempt
merits the greatest anger, and when we will not own him for our happiness,
it is equal we should feel the misery of separation from him. If he that is
guilty of treason deserves to lose his life, what punishment can be thought
great enough for him that is so disingenuous as to prefer himself before a
God so infinitely good, and so foolish as to invade the rights of one infinitely
powerful ? It is no injustice for a creature to be for ever left to himself, to
see what advantage he can make of that self he was so busily employed to
set up in the place of his Creator. The soul of man deserves an infinite
punishment for despising an infinite good. And is it not unequitable that
that self, which man makes his rule and happiness above God, should
become his torment and misery by the righteousness of that God whom he
despised.
(3.) Hence ariseth a necessity of a new state and frame of soul, to alter an
atheistical nature. We forget God, think of him with reluctancy, have no
respect to God in our course and acts. This cannot be our original state.
God being infinitely good, never let man come out of his hands with this
actual unwillingness to acknowledge and serve him. He never intended to
dethrone himself for the work of his hands, or that the creature should have
any other end than that of his Creator. As the apostle saith in the case of
the Galatians' error. Gal. v. 8, ' This persuasion came not of him that called
you,' so this frame comes not from him that created you. How much,
therefore, do we need a restoring principle in us ! Instead of ordering our-
selves according to the will of God, we are desirous to ' fulfil the wills of
the flesh,' Eph. ii. 3. There is a necessity of some other principle in us to
make us fulfil the will of God, since we were created for God, not for the
flesh.
We can no more be voluntarily serviceable to God while our serpentine
nature and devilish habits remain in us, than we can suppose the devil can
be willing to glorify God while the nature he contracted by his fall abides
powerfully in him. Our nature and will must be changed, that our actions
may regard God as our end, that we may delightfully meditate on him, and
draw the motives of our obedience from him. Since this atheism is seated
in nature, the change must be in our nature. Since our first aspirings to
the rights of God were the fruits of the serpent's breath, which tainted our
nature, there must be a removal of this taint, whereby our natures may be
on the side of God against Satan, as they were before on the side of Satan
against God. There must be a supernatural principle before we can live a
supernatural life, i.e., live to God, since we are naturally alienated from the
life of God.' The aversion of our natures from God is as strong as our
248 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIY. 1.
inclinations to evil ; we are disgusted with one, and pressed with the other;
we have no will, no heart to come to God in any service. This nature must
be broken in pieces, and new moulded, before we can make God our rule
and our end. While men's deeds are evil, they cannot comply with God,
John iii. 19, 20, much less while their natures are evil. Till this be done,
all the service a man performs riseth from some evil imagination of the
heart, which is evil, only evil, and that continually. Gen. vi. 5, from wrong
notions of God, wrong notions of duty, or corrupt motives. All the pre-
tences of devotion to God are but the adoration of some golden image.
Prayers to God for the ends of self, are like those of the devil to our Saviour,
when he asked leave to go into the herd of swine. The object was right,
Christ ; the end was the destruction of the swine, and the satisfaction of
their malice to the owners. There is a necessity, then, that depraved ends
should be removed, that that which was God's end in our framing may be
our end in our acting, viz., his glory, which cannot be without a change of
nature. We can never honour him supremely whom we do not supremely
love. Till this be, we cannot glorify God as God, though we do things by
his command and order, no more than when God employed the devil in
afflicting Job, chap. i. His performance cannot be said to be good, because
his end was not the same with God's. He acted out of malice what God
commanded out of sovereignty, and for gracious designs. Had God em-
ployed an holy angel in his design upon Job, the action had been good in
the affliction, because his nature was holy, and therefore his ends holy ;
but bad in the devil, because his ends were base and unworthy.
(4.) AVe may gather from hence the difficulty of conversion, and mortifica-
tion to follow thereupon. What is the reason men receive no more impres-
sion from the voice of God and the light of his truth, than a dead man in
the grave doth from the roaring thunder, or a blind mole from the light of
the sun ? It is because our atheism is as great as the deadness of the one
or the blindness of the other. The principle in the heart is strong to shut
the door both of the thoughts and affections against God. If a friend oblige
us, we shall act for him as for ourselves. We are won by entreaties ; soft
words overcome us ; but our hearts are as deaf as the hardest rock at the
call of God. Neither the joys of heaven proposed by him can allure us, nor
the flashed terrors of hell affright us to him ; as if we conceived God unable
to bestow the one or execute the other. The true reason is, God and self
contest for the deity. The law of sin is, God must be at the foot-stool;
the law of God is, sin must be utterly deposed. Now it is difficult to leave
a law beloved for a law long ago discarded. The mind of man will hunt
after anything, the will of man embrace anything ; upon the proposal of
mean objects, the spirit of man spreads its wings, flies to catch them, be-
comes one with them ; but attempt to bring it under the power of God, the
wings flag, the creature looks lifeless, as though there were no spring of
motion in it. It is as much crucified to God as the holy apostle was to the
world. The sin of the heart discovers its strength the more God discovers
the holiness of his will, Rom. vii. 9-12. The love of sin hath been predo-
minant in our nature, has quashed a love to God, if not extinguished it.
Hence also is the difficulty of mortification. This is a work tending to
the honour of God, the abasing of that inordinately aspiring humour in our-
selves. If the nature of man be inclined to sin, as it is, it must needs be
bent against anything that opposes it. It is impossible to strike any true
blow at any lust, till the true sense of God be re-entertained in the soil where
it ought to grow. Who can be naturally willing to crucify what is incor-
porated with him, his flesh ; what is dearest to him, himself ? Is it an
Ps. XIV. 1,] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 249
easy thing for man, the competitor with God, to turn his arms against him-
self, that self should overthrow its own empire, lay aside all its pretensions
to and designs for a godhead ; to hew off its own members and subdue its
own affections ? It is the nature of man to cover his sin, to hide it in his
bosom, — Job xxxi. 33, ' If I cover my transgression, as Adam,' — not to des-
troy it, and as unwillingly part with his carnal affections as the legion of
devils were with the man that had been long possessed. And when he is
forced and fired from one, he will endeavour to espouse some other lust, as
those devils desired to possess swine, when they were chased from their pos-
session of that man.
(5.) Here we see the reason of unbelief. That which hath most of God in
it meets with most aversion from us ; that which hath least of God finds
better and stronger inclinations in us. What is the reason that the heart
of man is more unwilling to embrace the gospel than acknowledge the equity
of the law ? Because there is more of God's nature and perfection evident
in the gospel than in the law ; besides, there is more reliance on God and
distance from self commanded in the gospel. The law puts a man upon his
own strength, the gospel takes him off from his own bottom. The law
acknowledges him to have a power in himself, and to act for his own reward ;
the gospel strips him of all his proud and towering thoughts, 2 Cor. x. 5,
brings him to his due place, the foot of God, orders him to deny himself as
his own rule, righteousness, and end, and henceforth not to live to himself,
2 Cor. V. 15. This is the true reason why men are more against the gospel
than against the law, because it doth more deify God and debase man.
Hence it is easier to reduce men to some moral virtue than to faith ; to
make men blush at their outward vices, but not at the inward impurity of
their natures. Hence it is observed that those that assert that all happiness
did arise from something in a man's self, as the Stoics and Epicureans did,
and that a wise man was equal with God, were greater enemies to the truths
of the gospel than others, Acts xvii. 18, because it lays the axe to the root
of their principal opinion ; takes the one from their self-sufficiency, and the
other from their self-gratification. It opposeth the brutish principle of the one,
which placed happiness in the pleasures of the body, and the more noble
principle of the other, which placed happiness in the virtue of the mind.
The one was for a sensual, the other for a moral self, both disowned by the
doctrine of the gospel.
(6.) It informs us, consequently, who can be the author of grace and con-
version, and every other good work. No practical atheist ever yet turned
to God but was turned by God ; and not to acknowledge it to God is a
part of this atheism, since it is a robbing God of the honour of one of his
most glorious works. If this practical atheism be natural to man ever since
the first taint of nature in paradise, what can be expected from it but a
resisting of the work of God, and setting up all the forces of nature against
the operations of grace, till a day of power dawn and clear up upon the
soul ? Ps. ex. 3. Not all the angels in heaven, or men upon earth, can be
imagined to be able to persuade a man to fall out with himself ; nothing can
turn^the tide of nature, but a power above nature. God took away the
sanctifying Spirit from man, as a penalty for the first sin ; who can regain it
but by his will and pleasure ? Who can restore it but he that removed it ?
Since every man hath the same fundamental atheism in him by nature, and
would be a rule to himself, and his own end, he is so far from dethroning
himself that all the strength of his corrupted nature is alarmed up to stand
to their arms, upon any attempt God makes to regain the fort. The will is
so strong against God, that it is like many wills twisted together: Eph. ii. 3,
250 charnock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
'wills of the flesh,' we translate it the 'desires of the flesh.' Like many
threads twisted in a cable, never to he snapped asunder by a human arm, a
power and will above ours can only untwist so many wills in a knot. Man
cannot rise to an acknowledgment of God without God. Hell may as well
become heaven, the devil be changed into an angel of light. The devil
cannot but desire happiness, he knows the misery into which he is fallen ;
he cannot be desirous of that punishment he knows is reserved for him.
Why doth he not sanctify God and glorify his Creator, wherein there is
abundantly more pleasure than in his malicious course ? Why doth he not
petition to recover his ancient standing ? He will not, there are chains of
darkness upon his faculties ; he will not be otherwise than he is. His
desire to be god of the world sways him against his own interest, and out
of love to his malice he will not sin at a less rate to make a diminution of
his punishment. Man, if God utterly refuseth to work upon him, is no
better, and to maintain his atheism would venture a hell. How is it pos-
sible for a man to turn himself to that God, against whom he hath a quarrel
in his nature, the most rooted and settled habit in him being to set himself
in the place of God ? An atheist by nature can no more alter his own
temper, and engrave in himself the divine nature, than a rock can carve
itself into the statue of a man, or a serpent, that is an enemy to man, could
or would raise itself to the nobility of the human nature. That soul that by
nature would strip God of his rights, cannot, without a divine power, be made
conformable to him, and acknowledge sincerely and cordially the rights and
glory of God.
(7.) We may here see the reason why there can be no justification by the
best and strongest works of nature. Can that which hath atheism at the
root justify either the action or person ? What strength can those works
have which have neither God's law for their rule, nor his glory for their
end, that are not wrought by any spiritual strength for him, nor tend with
any spiritual aS'ection to him ? Can these be a foundation for the most
holj' God to pronounce a creature righteous ? They will justify his justice
in condemning, but cannot sway his justice to an absolution. Every natural
man in his works picks and chooses ; he owns the will of God no further
than he can wring it to suit the law of his members, and minds not the
honour of God, but as h justles not with his own glory and secular ends.
Can he be righteous that prefers his own will and his own honour before
the will and honour of the Creator? However men's actions may be bene-
ficial to others, what reason hath God to esteem them, wherein there is no
respect to him but themselves, whereby they dethrone him in their thoughts,
while they seem to own him in their religious works ? Every day reproves
us with something different from the rule, thousands of wanderings ofi"er
themselves to our eyes. Can justification be expected from that which in
itself is matter of despair ?
(8.) See here the cause of all the apostasy in the world. Practical atheism
was never conquered in such, they are still ' alienated from the life of God,'
and will not live to God, as he lives to himself and his own honour, Eph.
iv. 17, 18. 'ihey loathe his rule and distaste his glory; are loath to step
out of themselves to promote the ends of another ; find not the satisfaction
in him as they do in themselves. They will be judges of what is good for
them and righteous in itself, rather than admit of God to judge for them.
When men draw back from truth to error, it is to such opinions which may
serve more to foment and cherish their ambition, covetousness, or some
beloved lust that disputes with God for precedency, and is designed to be
served before him : John xii. 42, 43, ' They love the praise of men more
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 251
than the praise of God.' A preferring man before God was the reason they
\vonld not confess Christ, and God in him.
(9.) This shews us the excellency of the gospel and Christian religion. It
sets man in his duo place, and gives to God what the excellency of his
nature requires. It lays man in the dust from whence he was taken, and
sets God upon that throne where he ought to sit. Man by nature would
annihilate God and deify hiinsolf ; the gospel glorifies God and annihilates
man. In our first revolt wo would be like him in knowledge ; in the means
he hath provided for our recovery he designs to make us like him in grace.
The gospel shews ourselves to be an object of humiliation, and God to be a
glorious object for our imitation. The light of nature tells us there is a God;
the gospel gives us a more magnificent report of him. The light of nature
condemns gross atheism, and that of the gospel condemns and conquers
spiritual atheism in the hearts of men.
Use 2. Of exhortation.
(] .) Let us labour to he sensible of this atheism in our nature, and be
humbled for it. How should we lie in the dust, and go bowing under the
humbling thoughts of it all our days ! Shall we not be sensible of that
whereby we spill the blood of our souls, and give a stab to the heart of our
own salvation ? Shall we be worse than anj' creature, not to bewail that
which tends to our destruction ? He that doth not lament it cannot chal-
lenge the character of a Christian, hath nothing of the divine life and love
planted in his soul. Not a man but shalf one day be sensible, when the
eternal God shall call him out to examination, and charge his conscience to
discover every crime, which will then own the authority whereby it acted ;
when the heart shall be torn open, and the secrets of it brought to pubUc
view, and the world and man himself shall see what a viperous brood of
corrupt principles and ends nested in his heart. Let us, therefore, be
truly sensible of it, till the consideration draws tears from our eyes and sor-
row from our souls. Let us urge the thoughts of it upon our hearts, till the
core of that pride be eaten out, and our stubbornness changed into humility ;
till our heads become waters, and our eyes fountains of tears, and be a spring
of prayer to God, to change the heart and mortify the atheism in it, and con-
sider what a sad thing it is to be a practical atheist ; and who is not so by
nature ?
Let us be sensible of it in ourselves. Have any of our hearts been a soil
wherein the fear and reverence of God hath naturally grown ? Have we a
desire to know him, or a will to embrace him ? Do we delight in his will,
and love the remembrance of his name ? Are our respects to him as God
equal to the speculative knowledge we have of his nature ? Is the heart,
wherein he hath stamped his image, reserved for his residence ? Is not the
world more affected than the Creator of the world, as though that could con-
tribute to us a greater happiness than the author of it ? Have not creatures
as much of our love, fear, trust, nay, more than God, that framed both them
and thus ? Have we not too often relied upon our own strength, and made
a calf of our own wisdom, and said of God as the Israelites of Moses, 'As
for this Moses, we wot not what is become of him,' Exod. xxxii. 1 ; and
given oftener the glory of our good success to our drag and our net, to our craft
and our industry, than to the wisdom and blessing of God ? Are we then
free from this sort of atheism ? * It is as impossible to have two gods at
one time in one heart as to have two kings at one time in full power in one
kingdom. Have there not been frequent neglects of God ? Have we not
been deaf whilst he hath knocked at our doors, slept when he hath sounded
* Lawson, Body of Divinity, p. 153, 154.
252 chabnock's works. [Ps, XIV. 1.
ia our ears, as if there had been no such being as a God in the world ; how many
struggliugs have been against our approaches to him ? Hath not folly often
been committed with vain imaginations starting up in the time of religious
service, which we would scarce vouchsafe a look to at another time, and in
another business, but would have thrust them away with indignation ? Had
they stepped in to interrupt our worldly afiairs, they would have been trouble-
some intruders, but while we are with God they are acceptable guests. How
unwilling have our hearts been to fortify themselves with strong and in-
fluencing considerations of God before we addressed to him ? Is it not too
often that our lifelessness in prayer proceeds from this atheism, a neglect of
seeing what arguments and pleas may be drawn from the divine perfections,
to second our suit in hand, and quicken our hearts in the service ? Whence
are those indispositions to any spiritual duty, but because we have not due
thoughts of the majesty, holiness, goodness, and excellency of God ? Is
there any duty which leads to a more particular inquiry after him, or a more
clear vision of him, but our hearts have been ready to rise up and call it
cursed rather than blessed ? Are not our minds bemisted with an ignorance
of him, our wills drawn by aversion from him, our aflections rising in dis-
taste of him ? More willing to know anything than his nature, and more
industrious to do anything than his will ? Do we not all fall under some
one or other of these considerations ? Is it not fit then that we should have
a sense of them ? It is to be bewailed by us that so little of God is in our
hearts, when so many evidences of the love of God are in the creatures, that
God should be so little our end who hath been so much our benefactor, that
he should be so little in our thoughts who sparkles in everything which pre-
sents itself to our eyes.
(2.) Let us be sensible of it in others. We ought to have a just execration
of the too open iniquity in the midst of us, and imitate holy David, whose
tears plentifully gushed out, ♦ because men kept not God's law,' Ps. cxix. 136.
And is it not a time to exercise this pious lamentation ? Hath the wicked
atheism of any age been greater, or can you find worse in hell than we may
hear of, and behold on earth ? How is the excellent majesty of God adored
by the angels in heaven, despised and reproached by men on earth, as if his
name were published to be matter of their sport ! What a gasping thing is
a natural sense of God among men in the world ! Is not the law of God,
accompanied with such dreadful threatenings and curses, made light of, as if
men would place their honour in being above or beyond any sense of that
glorious majesty ? How many wallow in pleasures, as if they had been
made men only to turn brutes, and their souls given them only for salt to
keep their bodies from putrefying ? It is as well a part of atheism not to be
sensible of the abuses of God's name and laws by others, as to violate them
ourselves. What is the language of a stupid senselessness of them, but that
there is no God in the world, whose glory is worth a vindication, and deserves
our regards ?
That we may be sensible of the unworthiness of neglecting God as our
rule and end, consider,
1. The unreasonableness of it as it concerns God.
(1.) First, It is a high contempt of God. It is an inverting the order of
things, a making God the highest to become the lowest, and self the lowest
to become the highest ; to be guided by every base companion, some idle
vanity, some carnal interest, is to acknowledge an excellency abounding in
them which is wanting in God ; an equity in their orders and none in God's
precepts ; a goodness in their promises and a falsity in God's, as if infinite
excellency were a mere vanity, and to act for God were the debasement of
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAli ATHEISM. 253
our reason ; to act for self, or some pitiful creature, or sordid lust, were the
glory and advancement of it. To prefer any one sin before the honour of
God is as if that sin had been our creator and benefactor, as if it were the
original cause of our being and support. Do not men pay as great a homage
to that as they do to God ? Do not their minds eagerly pursue it ? Are
not the revolvings of it in their foncies as delightful to them as the remem-
brance of God to a holy soul ? Do any obey the commands of God with
more readiness than they do the orders of their base affections ? Did Peter
leap more readily into the sea to meet his master than many into the jaws
of hell to meet their Delilahs ? How cheerfully did the Israelites part with
their ornaments for the sake of an idol, who would not have spared a moiety
for the honour of their deliverer ! Exod. xxxii. 3, ' All the people brake off
the golden earrings.' If to make God our end is the principal duty in
nature, then to make ourselves or anything else our end is the greatest vice
in the rank of evils.
(2.) Secondly, It is a contempt of God as the most amiable object. God
is infinitely excellent and desirable : Zech. ix. 17, ' How great is his good-
ness, and how great is his beauty ! ' There is nothing in him but what may
ravish our affections ; none that knows him but finds attractives to keep
them with him ; he hath nothing in him which can be a proper object of
contempt, no defects or shadow of evil ; there is infinite excellency to charm
us, and infinite goodness to allure us ; the author of our beings, the bene-
factor of our lives ; why then should man, which is his image, be so base as
to slight the beautiful original which stamped it on him ! He is the most
lovely object, therefore to be studied, therefore to be honoured, therefore to
be followed. In regard of his perfection, he hath the highest right to our
thoughts. All other beings were eminently contained in his essence, and
were produced by his infinite power. The creature hath nothing but what
it hath from God. And is it not unworthy to prefer the copy before the
original, to fall in love with a picture instead of the beauty it represents ?
The creature, which we advance to be our rule and end, can no more report
to us the true amiableness of God, than a few colours mixed and suited
together upon a piece of cloth can the moral and intellectual loveliness of
the soul of man. To contemn God one moment is more base than if all
creatures were contemned by us for ever ; because the excellency of crea-
tures is to God like that of a drop to the sea, or a spark to the glory of un-
conceivable millions of suns. As much as the excellency of God is above
our. conceptions, so much doth the debasing of him admit of unexpressible
aggravations.
2. Consider the ingratitude in it. That we should resist that God with
our hearts, who made us the work of his hands, and count him as nothing
from whom we derive all the good that we are or have, there is no con-
tempt of man but steps in here to aggravate our slighting of God, be-
cause there is no relation one man can stand in to another wherein God doth
not more highly appear to man. If we abhor the unworthy carriage of a
child to a tender father, a servant to an indulgent master, a man to his
obliging friend, why do men daily act that towards God which they cannot
speak of without abhorrency if acted by another against man ? Is God a
being less to be regarded than man, and more worthy of contempt than a
creature ? It would be strange if a benefactor should live in the same town,
in the same house with us, and we never exchange a word with him ; yet
this is our case, who have the works of God in our eyes, the goodness of God
in our being, the mercy of God in our daily food, yet think so little of him,
converse so little with him, serve everything before him, and prefer every-
254 chaknock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
thing above liim.'* Whence have we our mercies bnt from his hand? Who,
besides him, maintains our breath this moment ? Would he call for our
spirits this moment, they must depart from us to attend his command.
There is not a moment wherein our unworthy carriage is not aggravated,
because there is not a moment wherein he is not a guardian, and gives us
not tastes of a fresh bounty. And it is no light aggravation of our crime
that v.-e injure him, without whose bounty in giving us our being, we had
not been capable of easting contempt upon him ; that he that hath the
greatest stamp of his image, man, should deserve the character of the worst
of his rebels ; that he who hath only reason by the gift of God to judge of
the equity of the laws of God, should swell against them as grievous, and
the government of the lawgiver as burdensome. Can it lessen the crime, to
use the principle wherein we excel the beasts, to the disadvantage of God,
who endowed us with that principle above the beasts.
(1.) It is a debasing of God beyond what the devil doth at present. He
is more excusable in his present state of acting than man is in his present
refusing God for his rule and end. He strives against a God that exerciseth
upon him a vindictive justice; we debase a God that loads us with his daily
mercies. The despairing devils are excluded from any mercy or divine
patience, but we are not only under the long-suffering of his patience, but
the large expressions of his bounty. He would not be governed by him
when he was only his bountiful Creator. We refuse to be guided by him
after he hath given us the blessing of creation from his own hand, and the
more obliging blessings of redemption by the hand and blood of his Son.
It cannot be imagined that the devils and the damned should ever make
God their end, since he hath assured them he will not be their happiness,
and shut up all his perfections from their experimental notice, but those of
his power to preserve them, and his justice to punish them. They have no
grant from God of ever having a heart to comply with his will, or ever
having the honour to be actively employed for his glory. They have some
plea for tbeir present contempt of God ; not in regard of his nature, for he
is infinitely amiable, excellent, and lovely, but in regard of his administration
towards them. But what plea can man have for his practical atheism, who
lives by his power, is sustained by his bounty, and solicited by his Spirit ?
What an ungrateful thing is it to put off the nature of man for that of devils,
and dishonour God under mercy, as the devils do under his wrathful anger !
(2.) It is an ungrateful contempt of God, who cannot be injurious to us.
He cannot do us wrong, because he cannot be unjust: Gen. xviii. 25, 'Shall
not the Judge of all the earth do right ? ' His nature doth as much abhor
unrighteousness as love a communicative goodness. He never commanded
anything but what was highly conducible to the happiness of man. Infinite
goodness can no more injure man than it can dishonour itself. It lays out
itself in additions of kindness, and whiles we debase him, he continues to
benefit us. And is it not an unparalleled ingratitude to turn our backs upon
an object so lovely, an object so loving, in the midst of varieties of allure-
ments from him ? God did create intellectual creatures, angels and men,
that he might communicate more of himself, and his own goodness and holi-
ness to man, than creatures of a lower rank were capable of. What do we
do by rejecting him as a rule and end, but cross, as much as in us lies, God's
end in our creation, and shut our souls against the communications of those
perfections he was so willing to bestow ? We use him as if he intended us the
greatest wrong, when it is impossible for him to do any to any of his creatures.
3. Consider the misery which will attend such a temper if it continue
* Reynolds.
Ps. XIV. l.J PRACTICAL ATUEISM. 255
predominant. Those that thrust God away as their happiness and end, can
expect no other but to bo thrust away by him as to any rehef and compas-
sion. A distance from God here can look for nothing but a remoteness
from God hereafter. When the devil, a creature of vast endowments, would
advance himself above God, and instruct man to commit the same sin, he is
* cursed above all creatures,' Gen. iii. 14. When we will not acknowledge
him a God of all glory, we shall be separated from him as a God of all com-
fort : ' All they that are afar off shall perish,' Ps. Ixxiii. 27. This is the
spring of all woe. "What the prodigal sulFercd was because he would leave
his father and live of himself. Whosoever is ambitious to be his own
heaven, will at last find his soul to become his own hell. As it loved all
things for itself, so it shall be grieved with all things for itself. As it would
be its own god against the right of God, it shall then be its own tormentor
by the justice of God.
2. Duty. Watch against this atheism, and be daily employed in the
mortification of it. In every action we should make the inquiry, What is
the rule I observe ? Is it God's will or my own ? Whether do my inten-
tions tend to set up God or self? As much as we destroy this, we abate
the power of sin. These two things are the head of the serpent in us, which
we must be bruising by the power of the cross. Sin is nothing else but a
turning from God and centring in self, and most in the inferior part of self.
If we bend our force against those two, self-will and self-ends, we shall inter-
cept atheism at the spring-head, take away that which doth constitute and
animate all sin. The' sparks must vanish, if the fire be quenched which
affords them fuel. They are but two shore things to ask in every under-
taking : Is God my rule in regard of his will ? Is God my end in regard of
his glory ? All sin lies in the neglect of these, all grace lies in the practice
of them.
Without some degree of the mortification of these, we cannot make profit-
able and comfortable approaches to God. When we come with idols in our
hearts, we shall be answered according to the multitude and the baseness of
them too, Ezek. xiv. 4. What expectation of a good look from him can
we have, when we come before him with undeifying thoughts of him, a
petition in our mouths, and a sword in our hearts to stab his honour !
To this purpose,
(1.) Be often in the views of the excellencies of God. When we have no
intercourse with God by delightful meditations, we begin to be estrancfsd
from him, and prepare ourselves to live without God in the world. Strange-
ness is the mother and nurse of disaffection. We slight men sometimes
because we know them not. The very beasts delight in the company of men,
when being trained and familiar, they become acquainted with their disposi-
tion. A daily converse with God would discover so much of loveliness in
his nature, so much of sweetness in his ways, that our injurious thoughts of
God would wear off, and we should count it our honour to contemn our-
selves and magnify him. By this means, a slavish fear, which is both a
dishonour to God and a torment to the soul, 1 John iv. 18, and the root of
atheism, will be cast out, and an ingenious* fear of him wrought in the
heart. Exercised thoughts on him would issue out in affections to him,
which would engage our hearts to make him both our rule and our end.
This course would stifle any temptations to gross atheism wherewith good
souls are sometimes haunted, by confirming us more in the belief of a God,
and discourage any attempts to a deliberate practical atheism. We are not
like to espouse any principle which is confuted by the delightful converse we
* That is 'ingenuous.' — Ed.
256 chaenock's works. [Ps. XIV. 1.
daily have with him. The more we thus enter into the presence chamber
of God, the more we cHng about him with our afiections ; the more vigor-
ous and lively will the true notion of God grow up in us, and be able to
prevent anything which may dishonour him and debase our souls.
Let us therefore consider him as the only happiness, set up the true God
in our understandings, possess our hearts with a deep sense of his desirable
excellency above all other things. This is the main thing we are to do in
order to our great business. All the directions in the world, with the
neglect of this, will be insignificant ciphers. The neglect of this is common,
and is the basis of all the mischiefs which happen to the souls of men.
(2.) To this purpose, prize and study the Scripture. We can have no
delight in meditation on him unless we know him, 'and we cannot know him
but by the means of his own revelation. "When the revelation is despised,
the revealer will be of little esteem. Men do not throw off God from being
their rule, till they throw off Scripture from being their guide ; and God
must needs be cast off from being an end, when the Scripture is rejected
from beinc a rule. Those that do not care to know his will, that love to be
ignorant of his nature, can never be affected to his honour. Let, therefore,
the subtilties of reason veil to the doctrine of faith, and the humour of the
will to the command of the word.
(3.) Take heed of sensual pleasures, and be very watchful and cautious in
the use of those comforts God allows us. Job was afraid, when his sons
feasted, that they should ' curse God in their hearts,' Job i. 4, 5. It was
not without cause that the apostle Peter joined sobriety with watchfulness
and prayer : 1 Pet. iv. 7, ' The end of all things is at hand ; be ye therefore
sober, and watch unto prayer.' A moderate use of worldly comforts.
Prayer is the great acknowledgment of God, and too much sensuality is a
hindrance of this, and a step to atheism. Belshazzar's lifting himself up
against the Lord, and not glorifying of God, is charged upon his sensuality,
Dan. V. 23. Nothing is more apt to quench the notions of God, and root
out the conscience of him, than an addictedness to sensual pleasures. There-
fore take heed of that snare.
(4.) Take heed of sins against knowledge. The more sins against know-
ledge are committed, the more careless we are, and the more careless we
shall be of God and his honour. We shall more fear his judicial power, and
the more we fear that, the more we shall disaffect that God in whose hand
vengeance is, and to whom it doth belong. Atheism in conversation pro-
ceeds to atheism in affection, and that will endeavour to sink into atheism in
opinion and judgment.
The sum of the whole.
And now consider, in the whole, what has been spoken.
1. Man would set himself up as his own rule. He disowns the rule of
God, is unwilling to have any acquaintance with the rule God sets him,
neohf^ent in using the means for the knowledge of his will, and endeavours
to shake it off when any notices of it breaks in upon him. When he cannot
expel it, he hath no pleasure in the consideration of it, and the heart swells
against it. When the notions of the will of God are entertained, it is on
some other consideration, or with wavering and unsettled affections. Many
times men design to improve some lust by his truth. This unwillingness
respects truth, as it is most spiritual and holy, as it most relates and leads
to God, as it is most contrary to self. He is guilty of contempt of the will
of God, which is seen in every presumptuous breach of his law ; in the
natural aversions to the declaration of his will and mind, which way soever
he turns ; in slighting that part of his will which is most for his honour ;
Ps. XIV. 1.] PRACTICAL ATHEISM. 257
in the awkwardness of the heart when it is to pay God a service ; a constraint
in the first engagement ; slightness in the service, in regard of the matter ;
in regard of the frame, without a natural vigour ; many distractions, much
weariness ; in deserting the rule of God, when our expectations are not
answered upon our service ; in breaking promises with God.
Man naturally owns any other rule, rather than that of God's prescribing.
The rule of Satan, the will of man ; in complying more with the dictates of
men than the will of God ; in observing that which is materially so, not
because it is his will, but the injunctions of men ; in obeying the will of man,
when it is contrary to the will of God. This man doth, in order to the set-
ting up himself. This is natural to man, as he is corrupted. Men are dis-
satisfied with their own consciences, when they contradict the desires of self.
Most actions in the world are done, more because they are agreeable to self,
than as they are honourable to God ; as they are agreeable to natural and
moral self, or sinful self. It is evident in neglects of taking God's directions
upon emergent occasions ; in counting the actions of others to be good or
bad, as they suit with, or spurn against, our fancies and humours. Man
would make himself the rule of God, and give laws to his Creator, in striving
against his law, disapproving of his methods of government in the world, in
impatience in our particular concerns, envying the gifts and prosperity of
others, corrupt matter or ends of prayer or praise, bold interpretations of
the judgments of God in the world, mixing rules in the worship of God with
those which have been ordained by him, suiting interpretations of Scripture
with our own minds and humours, falling ofi" from God after some fair com-
pliances, when his will grates upon us and crosseth ours,
2. Man would be his own end. This is natural and universal. This is
seen in frequent self-applauses and inward overweening reflections ; in
ascribing the glory of what we do or have to ourselves ; in desire of self-
pleasing doctrines ; in being highly concerned in injuries done to ourselves,
and little or not at all concerned for injuries done to God ; in trusting in
ourselves ; in working for carnal self, against the light of our own consciences.
This is a usurping God's prerogative, vilifying God, destroying God. Man
would make anything his end or happiness rather than God. This appears
in the fewer thoughts we have of him than of anything else : in the greedy
pursuit of the world ; in the strong addictedness to sensual pleasures ; in
paying a service, upon any success in the world, to instruments more than
to God. This is a debasing God, in setting up a creature ; but more in
setting up a base lust : it is a denying of God. Man would make himself
the end of all creatures : in pride, using the creatures contrary to the end
God hath appointed ; this is to dishonour God, and it is diabolical. Man
would make himself the end of God : in loving God, because of some self-
pleasing benefits distributed by him ; in abstinence from some sins, because
they are against the interest of some other beloved corruption ; in perform-
ing duties merely for a selfish interest, which is evident in unwieldiness in
religious duties where self is not concerned ; in calling upon God only in a
time of necessity ; in begging his assistance to our own projects, after we
have by our own craft laid the plot ; in impatience upon a refusal of our
desires ; in selfish aims we have in our duties. This is a vilifying God, a
dethroning him. In unworthy imaginations of God, universal in man by
nature. Hence springs idolatry, superstition, presumption, the common
disease of the world. This is a vilifying God, worse than idolatry, worse
than absolute atheism. Natural desires to be distant from him ; no desires
for the remembrance of him ; no desires of converse with him ; no desires
of a thorough return to him ; no desire of any close imitation of him.
VOL. I. B
A DISCOURSE UPON GOD'S BEING A SPIRIT.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must loorship him in spirit and
in truth. — John IV. 24,
The words are part of the dialogue between our Saviour and the Samaritan
woman. Christ, intending to return from Judea to Galilee, passed through
the country of Samaria, a place inhabited not by Jews, but a mixed com-
pany of several nations,* and some remainders of the posterity of Israel,
who escaped the captivity and were returned from Assyria, and being
weary with his journey, amved about the sixth hour, or noon (according
to the Jews' reckoning the time of the day), at a w«ll that Jacob had digged,
which was of great account among the inhabitants for the antiquity of it, as
well as the usefulness of it, in supplying their necessities. He being
thirsty, and having none to furnish him wherewith to draw water, at last
comes a woman from the city, whom he desires to give him some water to
drink. The woman, perceiving him by his language or habit to be a Jew,
wonders at the question, since the hatred the Jews bore the Samaritans was
so great, that they would not vouchsafe to have any commerce with them,
not only in religious but civil affairs, and common offices belonging to
mankind. Hence our Saviour takes occasion to publish to her the doc-
trine of the gospel, and excuseth her rude answer by her ignorance of him;
and tells her, that if she had asked him a greater matter, even that which
concerned her eternal salvation, he would readily have granted it, notwith-
standing the rooted hatred between the Jews and Samaritans, and bestowed
a water of a greater virtue, the ' water of life,' ver. 10, or * living water.'
The woman is no less astonished at his reply than she was at his first
demand. It was strange to hear a man speak of giving living water to one
of whom he had begged the water of that spring, and had no vessel to draw
any to quench his own thirst. She therefore demands whence he could
have this water that he speaks of, ver. 11, since she conceived him not
greater than Jacob, who had digged that well and drunk of it. Our
Saviour, desirous to make a progress in that work he had begun, extols
the water he spake of above this of the well, from its particular virtue, fully
to refresh those that drank of it, and be as a cooling and comforting foun-
tain within them, of more efficacy than that without, ver. 13, 14. The
woman, conceiving a good opinion of our Saviour, desires to partake of this
♦ Amirant, Paraph, sur Jean.
John IV. 24.] god is a spirit. 259
water, to save her pains in coming daily to the well, not apprehending the
spirituality of Christ's discourse to her, ver. 15. Christ finding her to take
some pleasure in his discourse, partly to bring her to a sense of her sin
before he did communicate the excellency of his grace, bids her return back
to the city and bring her husband with her to him, ver. 16. She freely
acknowledges that she had no husband, whether having some check of con-
science at present for the unclean life she led, or loath to lose so much time
in the gaining this water so much desired by her. Our Saviour takes occa-
sion from this to lay open her sin before her, and to make her sensible of
her own wicked life, ver. 17, and the prophetic excellency of himself, and
tells her that she had had five husbands, to whom she had been false, and
by whom she was divorced ; and the person she now dwelt with was not her
lawful husband, and in living with him she violated the rights of marriage,
and increased guilt upon her conscience, ver. 18. The woman, being
aflected with this discourse, and knowing him to be a stranger, that could
not be certified of those things but in an extraordinary way, begins to have
a high esteem of him as a prophet, ver. 19 ; and upon this opinion she
esteems him able to decide a question which had been canvassed between
them and the Jews about the place of worship, ver. 20, their fathers wor-
shipping in that mountain, and the Jews affirming Jerusalem to be a place
of worship. She pleads the antiquity of the worship in this place, Abraham
having built an altar there. Gen. xii. 7, and Jacob upon his return from
Syria. And surely, had the place been capable of an exception, such persons
as they, and so well acquainted with the will of God, would not have pitched
upon that place to celebrate their worship.
Antiquity hath too, too often bewitched the minds of men, and drawn
them from the revealed will of God. Men are more willing to imitate the
outward actions of their famous ancestors, than conform themselves to the
revealed will of their Creator. The Samaritans would imitate the patriarchs
in the place of worship, but not in the faith of the worshippers.
Christ answers her, that this question would quickly be resolved by a new
state of the church which was near at hand, and neither Jerusalem, which
had not* the precedency, nor that mountain, should be of any more value
in that concern than any other place in the world, ver. 21. But yet, to
make her sensible of her sin and that of her countrymen, tells her that
their worship in that mountain was not according to the will of God, he
having, long after the altars built in this place, fixed Jerusalem as the place
of sacrifices ; besides, they had not the knowledge of that God which ought
to be worshipped by them, but the Jews had the true object of worship and
the true manner of worship, according to the declaration God had made of
himself to them, ver. 22. But all that service shall vanish, the veil of the
temple shall be rent in twain, and that carnal worship give place to one
more spiritual; shadows shall fly before substance, and truth advance itself
above figures, and the worship of God shall be with the strength of the
Spirit. Such a worship, and such worshippers, doth the Father seek :
ver. 23, ' For God is a Spirit : and those that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth.' The design of our Saviour is to declare that
God is not taken with external worship invented by men, no, nor com-
manded by himself; and that upon this reason, because he is a spiritual
essence, infinitely above gross and corporeal matter, and is not taken with
that pomp which is a pleasure to our earthly imaginations.
TlnZiLa 0 Qiog. Some translate it just as the words lie, * Spirit is God ;'f
but it is not unusual, both in the Old and New Testament languages, to put
« Qu. ' now ' ?— Ed. t Vulgar Lat. lllyric. Clay.
260 chaenock's works. [John IV. 24.
the predicate before the subject ; as Ps. v. 9, * Their throat is an open
sepulchre,' in the Hebrew, * A sepulchre open their throat ;' so Ps. cxi. 3,
♦His work is honourable and glorious;' Hebr., 'Honour and glory his
work.' And there wants not one example in the same evangelist : John
i. 1, 'And the Word was God;' Greek, 'And God was the Word.' In all
the predicate, or what is ascribed, is put before the subject to which it is
ascribed.
One tells us, and he an head of a party that hath made a disturbance in
the church of God,* that this place is not aptly brought to prove God to be
a Spirit. And the reason of Christ runs not thus, God is of a spiritual
essence, and therefore must be worshipped with a spiritual worship ; for the
essence of God is not the foundation of his worship, but his will ; for then
we were not to worship him with a corporeal worship, because he is not a
body, but with an invisible and eternal worship, because he is invisible and
eternal.
But the nature of God is the foundation of worship, the will of God is the
rule of worship ; the matter and manner is to be performed according to the
will of God. But is the nature of the object of worship to be excluded ?
No ; as the object is, so ought our devotion to be, spiritual as he is spiritual.
God in his commands for worship respected the discovery of his own nature ;
in the law, he respected the discovery of his mercy and justice, and there-
fore commanded a worship by sacrifices. A spiritual worship without those
institutions would not have declared those attributes, which was God's end
to display to the world in Christ. And though the nature of God is to be
respected in worship, yet the obligations of the creature are to be considered.
God is a Spirit, therefore must have a spiritual worship. The creature hath
a body as well as a soul, and both from God ; and therefore ought to wor-
ship God with the one as well as the other, since one as well as the other is
freely bestowed upon him.
The spirituality of God was the foundation of the change from the Judaical
carnal worship to a more spiritual and evangelical.
' God is a Spirit.' That is, he hath nothing corporeal, no mixture of
matter; not a visible substance, a bodily form.f He is a Spirit, not a
bare spiritual substance, but an understanding, willing Spirit; holy, wise,
good, and just. Before Christ spake of the Father, ver. 23, the first person
in the Trinity, now he speaks of God essentially. The word Father is
personal, the word God essential. So that our Saviour would render a
reason, not from any one person in the blessed Trinity, but from the divine
nature, why we should worship in spirit; and therefore makes use of the
word God, the being a spirit being common to the other persons with the
Father.
This is the reason of the proposition, ver. 23, of a spiritual worship.
Every nature delights in that which is like it, and distastes that which is
most different from it. If God were corporeal, he might be pleased with
the victims of beasts, and the beautiful magnificence of temples, and the
noise of music; but being a Spirit, he cannot be gratified with carnal
things. He demands something better and greater than all those, that soul
which he made, that soul which he hath endowed, a spirit of a frame suit-
able to his nature. He indeed appointed sacrifices and a temple, as shadows
of those things which were to be most acceptable to him in the Messiah, but
they were imposed only ' till the time of reformation,' Heb. ix. 10.
' Must worship him.' Not they may, or it would be more agreeable to
God to have such a manner of worship, but they rmist. It is not exclusive
* Episcop. Institut. lib. iv, cap. 3. t Melancthon.
John IV. 24.] god is a spirit. 261
of bodily worship, for this were to exclude all public worship in societies,
which cannot be performed without reverential postures of the body.* The
gestures of the body are helps to worship and declarations of spiritual acts.
We can scarcely worship God with our spirits without some tincture upon
the outward man. But he excludes all acts merely corporeal, all resting
upon an external service and devotion, which was the crime of the
Pharisees, and the general persuasion of the Jews as well as heathens, who
used the outward ceremonies, not as signs of better things, but as if they
did of themselves please God, and render the worshippers accepted with
him, without any suitable frame of the inward man.f It is as if he had
said, Now you must separate yourselves from all carnal modes to which the
service of God is now tied, and render a worship chiefly consisting in the
aifectionate motions of the heart, and accommodated more exactly to the
condition of the object, who is a Spirit.
' In spirit and truth.' The evangelical service now required has the
advantage of the former, that was a shadow and figure, this the body and
truth. J Spirit, say some,§ is here opposed to the legal ceremonies, truth
to hypocritical services; or || rather truth is opposed to shadows, and an
opinion of worth in the outward action. It is principally opposed to
external rites; because our Saviour saith, ver. 23, 'The hour comes, and
now is,' &c. Had it been opposed to hypocrisy, Christ had said no new
thing; for God always required truth in the inward parts, and all true wor-
shippers had served him with a sincere conscience and single heart. The
old patriarchs did worship God in Spirit and truth, as taken for sincerity.
Such a worship was always and is perpetually due to God, because he
always was and eternally will be a Spirit. IT And it is said, ' The Father
seeks such to worship him;' not shall seek, he always sought it, it always
was performed to him by one or other in the world. And the prophets
had always rebuked them for resting upon their outward solemnities, Isa.
Iviii. 7 and Micah vi. 8. But a worship without legal rites was proper to
an evangelical state and the times of the gospel, God having then exhibited
Christ, and brought into the world the substance of those shadows and the
end of those institutions ; there was no more need to continue them when
the true reason of them was ceased. All laws do naturally expire when the
true reason upon which they were first framed is changed.
Or by spirit may be meant such a worship as is kindled in the heart by
the breath of the Holy Ghost. Since we are dead in sin, a spiritual light
and flame in the heart, suitable to the nature of the object of our worship,
cannot be raised in us without the operation of a supernatural grace. And
though the fathers could not worship God without the Spirit, yet in the
gospel times, there being a fuller effusion of the Spirit, the evangelical state
is called ' the administration of the Spirit,' and the ' newness of the Spirit,'
in opposition to the legal economy, entitled the ' oldness of the letter,'
2 Cor. iii. 8, Rom. vii. 6. The evangelical state is more suited to the
nature of God than any other. Such a worship God must have, whereby
he is acknowledged to be the true sanctifier and quickener of the soul. The
nearer God doth approach to us, and the more full his manifestations are,
the more spiritual is the worship we return to God. The gospel pares off
the rugged parts of the law, and heaven shall remove what is material in
the gospel, and change the ordinances of worship into that of a spiritual
praise.
In the words there is,
* Terniti. % Amyrald in he. It Chemnit.
t Amyrald in he. § Muacul. S Muscul.
262 chaknock's works. [John IV. 24.
1. A proposition: ' God is a Spirit,' the foundation of all religion.
2. An inference : ' they that worship him,' &c.
As God, a worship belongs to him; as a Spirit, a spiritual worship is due
to him. In the inference we have,
1. The manner of worship: ' in spirit and in truth.'
2. The necessity of such a worship : ' must.'
The proposition declares the nature of God; the inference, the duty of
man.
The observations He plain.
Obs. 1. God is a pure spiritual being; he is a Spirit.
2. The worship due from the creature to God must be agreeable to the
nature of God, and purely spiritual.
3. The evangelical state is suited to the nature of God.
For the first,
Doct. God is a pure spiritual being.
It is the observation of one,* that the plain assertion of God's being a
Spirit is found but once in the whole Bible, and that is in this place ; which
may well be wondered at, because God is so often described with hands,
feet, ej'es, and ears, in the form and figure of a man. The spiritual nature
of God is deducible from many places; but not anywhere, as I remember,
asserted tnlklcni verbis but in this text. Some allege that place, 2 Cor. iii.
17, ' The Lord is that Spirit,' for the proof of it, but that seems to have a
diflerent sense. In the text, the nature of God is described; in that place,
the operations of God in the gospel. * It is not the ministry of Moses, or
that old covenant, which communicates to you that Spirit it speaks of; but
it is the Lord Jesus, and the doctrine of the gospel delivered by him, whereby
this Spirit and liberty is dispensed to you. He opposes here the liberty of
the gospel to the servitude of the law.'f It is from Christ that a divine
virtue diffuseth itself by the gospel ; it is by him, not by the law, that we
partake of that Spirit.
The spirituality of God is as evident as his being. J If we grant that God
is, we must necessarily grant that he cannot be corporeal, because a body is
of an imperfect nature. It will appear incredible to any that acknowledge
God the first being and creator of all things, that he should be a massy,
heavy body, and have eyes and ears, feet and hands, as we have.
For the explication of it.
1. Spirit is taken various ways in Scripture. It signifies sometimes an
aerial substance, as Ps. xi. 6, 'A horrible tempest;' Heb., 'A spirit of tem-
pest;' sometimes the breath, which is a thin substance: Gen. vi. 17, 'All
flesh wherein is the breath of life ;' Heb., ' Spirit of life.' A thin substance,
though it be material and corporeal, is called spirit ; and in the bodies of
living creatures, that which is the principle of their actions is called spirits,
the animal and vital spirits ; and the finer parts extracted from plants and
minerals we call spirits, those volatile parts separated from that gross
matter wherein they were immersed, because they come nearest to the
nature of an incorporeal substance. And from this notion of the word, it is
translated to signify those substances that are purely immaterial, as angels
and the souls of men. Angels are called spirits, Ps. civ. 4 ; ' Who makes
his angels spirits,' Heb. i. 14. And not only good angels are so called,
but evil angels, Mark i. 27. Souls of men are called spirits, Eccles. xii., and
the soul of Christ is called so, John xix. 30, whence God is called ' the God
of the spirits of all flesh,' Numb. xvi. 22 : and spirit is opposed to flesh :
* Episcop. Institut. 1. iv. c. 8. % Suarez. do Deo, vol. i. p. 9, col. 2.
t Amy raid in loc.
John IV. 24.] god is a spirit. 263
Isaiah xxxi. 3, 'The Egyptians* are flesh, and not spirit.' And our
Saviour gives us the notion of a spirit to be something above the nature of
a body, Luke xxiv. 39 ; not having flesh and bones, extended parts, loads
of gross matter. It is also taken for those things which are active and
efficacious, because activity is of the nature of a spirit. Caleb had ' another
spirit,' Numb. xiv. 24, an active affection. The vehement motions of sin
are called spirit, Hos. iv. 12, ' The spirit of whoretloms,' in that sense that
Prov. xxix. 11, ' A fool utters all his mind,' * all his spirit;' he knows not
how to restrain the vehement motions of his mind. So that the notion of
a spirit is, that it is a fine immaterial substance, an active being, that acts
itself and other things. A mere body cannot act itself, as the body of man
cannot move without the soul, no more than a ship can move itself without
wind and waves.
So God is called a Spirit, as being not a body, not having the greatness,
figure, thickness or length of a body, wholly separate from anything of flesh
and matter. We find a principle within us nobler than that of our bodies,
and therefore we conceive the nature of God according to that which is more
worthy in us, and not according to that which is the vilest part of our
natures. God is a most spiritual spirit, more spiritual than all angels, all
souls {/Movor^h'rug).f As he exceeds all in the nature of being, so he
exceeds all in the nature of spirit. He hath nothing gross, heavy, material
in his essence.
2. When we say God is a Spirit, it is to be understood by way of nega-
tion. There are two ways of knowing or describing God : by way of affir-
mation, affirming that of him in a way of eminency which is excellent in the
creature, as when we say God is wise, good. The other by way of negation,
when we remove from God in our conceptions what is tainted with imper-
fection in the creature, f The first ascribes to him whatsoever is excellent,
the other separates fi-om him whatsoever is imperfect. The first is like a
limning, which adds one colour to another to make a comely picture ; the
other is like a carving, which pares and cuts away whatsoever is superfluous,
to make a complete statue. This way of negation is more easy ; we better
understand what God is not, than what he is, and most of our knowledge of
God is by this way. As when we say God is infinite, immense, immutable,
they are negatives ; he hath no limits, is confined to no place, admits of no
change. § When we remove from him what is inconsistent with his being,
we do more strongly assert his being, and know more of him when we
elevate him above all, and above our own capacity. And when we say God
is a Spirit, it is a negation ; he is not a body ; he consists not of various
parts, extended one without and beyond another. He is not a spirit so as
our souls are, to be the form of any body ; a spirit, not as angels and souls
are, but infinitely higher. We call him so because, in regard of our weak-
ness, we have not any other term of excellency to express or conceive of
him by. We transfer it to God in honour, because spirit is the highest
excellency in our nature. Yet we must apprehend God above any spirit,
since his nature is so great, that he cannot be declared by human speech,
perceived by human sense, or conceived by human understanding.
The second thing, that God is a Spirit.
Some among the heathens || imagined God to have a body; some
thought him to have a body of air, some a heavenly body, some a human
* This is not said of the Egyptians, but of their horses. — Ed.
t Gerhard. t Gamacheus, torn. i. q. 3, cap. i. p. 42.
g Coccei. Sum. Theol., cap. 8. U Thes. Sedan., part ii. p. 1000.
264 chaknock's wobks. [John IV. 24.
body ; * and many of them ascribed bodies to their gods, but bodies without
blood, without corruption ; bodies made up of the finest and thinnest atoms ;
such bodies, which, if compared with ours, were as no bodies. The Sadducees
also, who denied all spirits, and yet acknowledged a God, must conclude
him to bo'a body, and no spirit. Some among Christians have been of that
opinion. TertuUian is charged by some, and excused by others ; and some
monks of Egypt were so fierce for this error, that they attempted to kill one
Theophilus, a bishop, for not being of that judgment.
But the wiser heathens f were of another mind, and esteemed it an
unholy thing (o-jx osiov) to have such imaginations of God. And some
Christians have thought God only to be free from anything of body ; because
he is omnipresent, immutable, he is only incorporeal and spiritual : all
things else, even the angels, are clothed with bodies, though of a neater
matter, and a more active frame than ours ; a pure spiritual nature they
allowed to no being but God. Scripture and reason meet together to assert
the spirituality of God. Had God had the lineaments of a body, the Gen-
tiles had not fallen under that accusation of ' changing his glory into that of
a corruptible man,' Rom. i. 23.
This is signified by the name God gives himself: Exod. iii. 14, ' I am that
I am,' a simple, pure, uncompounded being, without any created mixture ;
as infinitely above the being of creatures as above the conceptions of crea-
tures : Job xxxvii. 23, ' Touching the Almighty, we cannot fijid him out.'
He is so much a Spirit that he is the * Father of spirits,' Heb. xii. 9. The
Almighty Father is not of a nature inferior to his children. The soul is a
spirit ; it could not else exert actions without the assistance of the body, as
the act of understanding itself and its own nature, the act of wilhng, and
willing things against the incitements and interest of the body. It could
not else conceive of God, angels, and immaterial substances. It could not
else be so active as with one glance to fetch a compass from earth to heaven,
and by a sudden motion to elevate the understanding from an earthly
thought to the thinking of things as high as the highest heavens. If we
have this opinion of our souls, which in the nobleness of their acts surmount
the body, without which the body is but a dull inactive piece of clay, we
must needs have a higher conception of God than to clog him with any
matter, though of a finer temper than ours. We must conceive of him by
the perfections of our souls, without the vileness of our bodies. If God
made man according to his image, we must raise our thoughts of God
according to the noblest part of that image, and imagine the exemplar or
copy not to come short, but to exceed the thing copied by it. God were
not the most excellent substance if he were not a Spirit. Spiritual sub-
stances are more excellent than bodily, the soul of man more excellent than
other animals, angels more excellent than men. They contain in their own
nature whatsoever dignity there is in the inferior creatures. God must have,
therefore, an excellency above all those, and therefore is entirely remote
from the conditions of a body.
It is a gross conceit, therefore, to think that God is such a spirit as the
air is ; t for that is to be a body as the air is, though it be a thin one ; and
if God were no more a spirit than that, or than angels, he would not be the
most simple being. Yet some § think that the spiritual Deity was repre-
sented by the air in the ark of the testament. It was unlawful to represent
him by any image that God had prohibited. Everything about the ark had
* Vossius Idolol., lib. ii. cap. i. Forbes, Instrument, 1. i. c. 36.
t Plutarch, incorporalis ratio ; divinus spiritus, Seneca.
i CaloY. Socin. Proflig., p. 129, 130. § Amyrald sup., Heb. ix. p. 146, &c.
John IV. 24.] god is a spirit. 265
a particular signification. The gold and other ornaments about it signified
something of Christ, but were unfit to represent the nature of God. A
thing purely invisible, and falling under nothing of sense, could not represent
him to the mind of man. The air in the ark was the fittest ; it represented
the invisibility of God, air being imperceptible to our eyes. Air difluseth
itself through all parts of the world, it glides through secret passages into
all creatures, it fills the space between heaven and earth ; there is no place
wherein God is not present.
To evidence this; —
1. If God were not a Spirit, he could not be Creator. All multitude
begins in, and is reduced to, unity. As above multitude there is an absolute
unity, so above mixed creatures there is an absolute simplicity. You cannot
conceive number without conceiving the beginning of it in that which was
not number, viz., a unit. You cannot conceive any mixture but you must
conceive some simple thing to be the original and basis of it. The works
of art, done by rational creatures, have their foundation in something
spiritual. Every artificer, watchmaker, carpenter, hath a model in his own
mind of the work he designs to frame. The material and outward fabric is
squared according to an inward and spiritual idea. A spiritual idea speaks
a spiritual faculty as the subject of it. God could not have an idea of that
vast number of creatures he brought into being if he had not a spiritual
nature.* The wisdom whereby the world was created could never be the
fruit of a corporeal nature ; such natures are not capable of understanding
and comprehending the things which are within the compass of their nature,
much less of producing them ; and therefore beasts, which have only cor-
poreal faculties, move to objects by the force of their sense, and have no
knowledge of things as they are comprehended by the understanding of man.
All acts of wisdom speak an intelligent and spiritual agent. The effects of
wisdom, goodness, power, are so great and admirable, that they bespeak
him a more perfect and eminent being than can possibly be beheld under a
bodily shape. Can a corporeal substance ' put wisdom in the inward parts,
and give understanding to the heart'? Job xxxviii. 36.
2. If God were not a pure Spirit, he could not be one. If God had a
body consisting of distinct members, as ours, or all of one nature, as the
water and air are, yet he were then capable of division, and therefore could
not be entirely one. Either those parts would be finite or infinite : if
finite, they are not parts of God, for to be God and finite is a contradiction ;
if infinite, then there are as many infinites as distinct members, and there-
fore as many deities. Suppose this body had all parts of the same nature,
as air and water hath, every little part of air is as much air as the greatest,
and every little part of water is as much water as the ocean ; so every little
part of God would be as much God as the whole, as many particular deities
to make up God as little atoms to compose a body. What can be more
absurd ? If God had a body like a human body, and were compounded of
body and soul, of substance and quality, he could not be the most perfect
unity ; he would be made up of distinct parts, and those of a distinct nature,
as the members of a human body are. Where there is the greatest unity,
there must be the greatest simplicity ; but God is one. As he is free from
any change, so he is void of any multitude : Deut. vi. 4, ' The Lord our
God is one Lord.'
3. If God had a body as we have, he would not be invisible. Every
material thing is not visible : the air is a body, yet invisible, but it is sensible ;
the cooling quality of it is felt by us at every breath, and we know it by our
* Amyral. moral, torn. i. p. 282.
266 chaknock's wobks. [John IV. 24.
touch, -which is the most material sense. Every body, that hath members
like to bodies, is visible ; but God is invisible.* The apostle reckons it
amongst his other perfections : 1 Tim. i. 17, ' Now unto the King eternal,
immortal, invisible.' He is invisible to our sense, which beholds nothing
but material and coloured things ; and incomprehensible to our understand-
ing, that conceives nothing but what is finite. God is therefore a Spirit
incapable of being seen, and infinitely incapable of being understood. If he
be invisible, he is also spiritual. If he had a body, and hid it from our eyes,
he might be said not to be seen, but could not be said to be invisible. When
we say a thing is visible, we understand that it hath such qualities which
are the object of sense, though we may never see that which in its own
nature is to be seen. God hath no such quaUties as fall under the percep-
tion of our sense. His works are visible to us, but not his Godhead, Rom.
i.^ 20. The nature of a human body is to be seen and handled ; Christ
gives us such a description of it : Luke xxiv. 39, ' Handle me and see, for a
spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have ;' but man hath been so
far from seeing God, that it is impossible he can see him, 1 Tim. vi. 16.
There is such a disproportion between an infinite object and a finite sense
and understanding, that it is utterly impossible either to behold or compre-
hend him ; but if God bad a body more luminous and glorious than that of
the sun, he would be as well visible to us as the sun, though the immensity
of that light would dazzle our eyes, and forbid any close inspection into him
by the virtue of our sense. We have seen the shape and figm-e of the sun,
but no man hath ever seen the shape of God, John v. 37. If God had a
body he were visible, though he might not perfectly and fully be seen by
us;f as we see the heavens, though we see not the extension, latitude, and
greatness of them. Though God hath manifested himself in a bodily shape,
Gen. xviii. 1, and elsewhere Jehovah appeared to Abraham, yet the sub-
stance of God was not seen, no more than the substance of angels was seen
in their apparitions to men. A body was formed to be made visible by
them, and such actions done in that body, that spake the person that did
them to be of a higher eminency than a bare corporeal creature. Some-
times a representation is made to the inward sense and imagination, as to
Micaiah, 1 Kings xx. 19, and to Isaiah, chap. vi. 1 ; but they saw not the
essence of God, but some images and figures of him proportioned to their
sense or imagination. The essence of God no man ever saw, nor can see,
John i. 18.
Kor doth it follow that God hath a body, t because Jacob is said to * see
God face to face,' Gen. xxxii. 30 ; and Moses had the like privilege, Deut.
xxxiv. 10. This only signifies a fuller and clearer manifestation of God, by
some representations oflered to the bodily sense, or rather to the inward spirit;
for God tells Moses he could not see his face, Exod. xxxiii. 20 ; and that
none ever saw the similitude of God, Deut. iv. 15. Were God a corporeal
substance, he might in some measure be seen by corporeal eyes.
4. If God were not a Spirit, he could not be infinite. All bodies are of
a finite nature : every body is material, and every material thing is termi-
nated. The sun, a vast body, hath a bounded greatness : the heavens, of a
mighty bulk, yet have their limits. If God had a body, he must consist of
parts ; those parts would be bounded and limited, and whatsoever is limited
is of a finite virtue, and therefore below an infinite nature. Reason there-
fore tells us, that the most excellent nature, as God is, cannot be of a cor-
poreal condition, because of the limitation and other actions which belong
* Daille in Tim. $ Goulart. de Dieu. p. 95, 96.
t Goulart. de Dieu, p. 94.
John IV. 24.] god is a spirit. 2G7
to every body. God is infinite, for * the heaven of heavens cannot contain
him,' 2 Chron. ii. 6. The largest heavens, and those imaginary spaces
beyond the world, are no bounds to him. He hath an essence beyond the
bounds of the world, and cannot be included in the vastness of the heavens.
If God be infinite, then ke can have no parts in him ; if he had, they must
be finite, or infinite : finite parts can never make up an infinite being. A
vessel of gold of a pound weight cannot be made of the quantity of an ounce.
Infinite parts they cannot be, because then every part would be equal to
the whole, as infinite as the whole, which is contradictory. We see in all
things every part is less than the whole bulk that is composed of it. As
every member of a man is less than the whole body of man, if all the parts
were finite, then God in his essence were finite ; and a finite God is not
more excellent than a creature : so that if God were not a Spirit, he could
not be infinite.
5. If God were not a Spirit, he could not be an independent being. What-
soever is compounded of many parts, depends either essentially or integrally
upon those parts ; as the essence of a man depends upon the conjunction
and union of his two main parts, his soul and body ; when they are sepa-
rated, the essence of a man ceaseth, and the perfection of a man depends
upon every member of the body ; so that if one be wanting, the perfection
of the whole is wanting. As if a man hath lost a limb, you call him not a
perfect man, because that part is gone upon which his perfection, as an
entire man, did depend. If God, therefore, had a body, the perfection of
the Deity would depend upon every part of that body ; and the more parts
he were compounded of, the more his dependency would be multiplied accord-
ing to the number of those parts of the body; for that which is compounded
of many parts is more dependent than that which is compounded of fewer.
And because God would be a dependent being if he had a bod}', he could
not be the first being; for the compounding parts are in order of nature
before that which is compounded by them, as the soul and body are before
the man which results from the union of them. If God had parts and
bodily members as we have, or any composition, the essence of God would
result from those parts, and those parts be supposed to be before God ; for
that which is a part is before that whose part it is. As in artificial things
you may conceive it, all the parts of a watch or clock are in time before
that watch, which is made by setting those parts together. In natural things,
you must suppose the members of a body framed before you can call it a
man ; so that the parts of this body are before that which is constituted by
them. We can conceive no other of God, if he were not a pure, entire,
unmixed Spirit : if he had distinct parts, he would depend upon them ; those
parts would be before him : his essence would be the eff'ect of those distinct
parts, and so he would not be absolutely and entirely the first being. But
he is so : Isa. xliv. 6, ' I am the first, and I am the last.' He is the first ;
nothing is before him : whereas, if he had bodily parts, and those finite, it
would follow, God is made up of those parts which are not God ; and that
which is not God, is in order of nature before that which is God. So that
we see, if God were not a Spirit, he could not be independent.
6. If God were not a Spirit, he were not immutable and unchangeable.
His immutability depends upon his simplicity. He is unchangeable in his
essence, because he is a pure and unmixed spiritual being. Whatsoever is
compounded of parts, may be divided into those parts, and resolved into
those distinct parts which make up and constitute the nature. Whatsoever
is compounded, is changeable in its own nature, though it should never be
changed. Adam, who was constituted of body and soul, had he stood in
268 charnock's works. [John IV. 24.
innocence, had not died ; there had been no separation made between his
soul and body whereof he was constituted, and his body had not resolved
into those principles of dust from whence it was extracted ; yet in his own
nature he was dissoluble into those distinct parts whereof he was compounded.
And so the glorified saints in heaven, after the resurrection, and the happy
meeting of their souls and bodies in a new marriage knot, shall never be
dissolved ; yet in their own nature they are mutable and dissoluble, and can-
not be otherwise, because they are made up of such distinct parts that may
be separated in their own nature, unless sustained by the grace of God.
They are immutable by will, the will of God, not by nature. God is immu-
table by nature as well as will ; as he hath a necessary existence, so he hath
a necessary unchangeableness ; Mai. iii. 6, ' I the Lord change not.' He is
as unchangeable in his essence, as in his veracity and faithfulnes. They are
perfections belonging to his nature ; but if he were not a pure Spirit, he
could not be immutable by nature.
7. If God were not a pure Spirit, he could not be omnipresent. He is
* in heaven above, and the earth below,' Deut. iv. 39. He ' fills heaven and
earth,' Jer. xxiii. 24. The divine essence is at once in heaven and earth ;
but it is impossible a body can be in two places at one and the same time.
Since God is everywhere, he must be spiritual. Had he a body, he could
not penetrate all things ; he would be circumscribed in place. He could not
be everywhere but in parts, not in the whole ; one member in one place,
and another in another ; for to be confined to a particular place is the pro-
perty of the body, but since he is difi"used through the whole world, * higher
than heaven, deeper than hell, longer than the earth, broader than the sea,'
Job xi. 8, he hath not any corporeal matter. If he had a body wherewith
to fill heaven and earth, there could be no body besides his own. It is the
nature of bodies to bound one another, and hinder the extending of one
another. Two bodies cannot be in the same place, in the same point of
earth : one excludes the other ; and it will follow hence that we are nothing,
no substances, mere illusions ; there could be no place for any body else.*
If his body were as big as the world, as it must be, if with that he filled
heaven and earth, there would not be room for him to move a hand or a foot,
or extend a finger ; for there would be no place remaining for the motion.
8. If God were not a Spirit, he could not be the most perfect being. The
more perfect anything is in the rank of creatures, the more spiritual and simple
it is, as gold is the more pure and perfect, that hath least mixture of other
metals. If God were not a Spirit, there would be creatures of a more excel-
lent nature than God, as angels and souls, which the Scripture calls spirits,
in opposition to bodies. There is more of perfection in the first notion of
a spirit, than in the notion of a body. God cannot be less perfect than his
creatures, and contribute an excellency of being to them which he wants him-
self. If angels and souls possess such an excellency, and God want that
excellency, he would be less than his creatures, and excellency of the efi'ect
would exceed the excellency of the cause ; but every creature, even the
highest creature, is infinitely short of the perfection of God ; for whatsoever
excellency they have is finite and limited : it is but a spark from the sun, a
drop from the ocean ; but God is unboundedly perfect in the highest man-
ner, without any limitation ; and therefore above spirits, angels, the highest
creatures that were made by him. An infinite sublimity, a pure act, to
which nothing can be added, from which nothing can be taken. * In him
there is light and no darkness,' 1 John i. 6 ; spirituality without any mat-
ter, perfection without any shadow or taint of imperfection ; light pierceth
* Gamaclieus Theol. torn. i. quest. 3, cap. 1.
John IV. 24.] god is a spirit. 209
into all things, preserves its owd purity, and admits of no mixture of any-
thing else with it.
Quest. It may be said, if God be a Spirit, and it is impossible he can be
otherwise than a Spirit, how comes God so often to have such members as
we have in our bodies ascribed to him ; not only a soul, but particular bodily
parts, as heart, arms, hands, eyes, ears, face, and back-parts ? And how is
it that he is never called a Spirit in plain words, but in this text by our
Saviour ?
A71S. It is true many parts of the body and natural aflfections of the human
nature are reported of God in Scripture : head, Dan vii. 9 ; eyes and eye-
lids, Ps. xi. 4 ; apple of the eye, mouth, &c. ; our affections also, grief, joy,
anger, &c. But it is to be considered,
1. That this is in condescension to our weakness.* God being desirous
to make himself known to man, whom he created for his glory, humbles
as it were his own nature to such representations as may suit and assist the
capacity of the creature. Since by the condition of our nature nothing
erects a notion of itself in our understanding, but as it is conducted in by our
sense, God hath served himself of those things which are most exposed to
our sense, most obvious to our understandings, to give us some acquaintance
with his own nature, and those things which otherwise we were not capable
of having any notion of. As our souls are linked with our bodies, so our
knowledge is linked with our sense, that we can scarce imagine anything at
first but under a corporeal form and figure, till we come, by great attention to
the object, to make, by the help of reason, a separation of the spiritual sub-
stance from the corporeal fancy, and consider it in its own nature. We are
not able to conceive a spirit without some kind of resemblance to something
below it, nor understand the actions of a spirit without considering the
operations of a human body in its several members. As the glories of an-
other life are signified to us by the pleasures of this, so the nature of God,
by a gracious condescension to our capacities, is signified to us by a likeness
to our own. The more familiar the things are to us which God uses to this
purpose, the more proper they are to teach us what he intends by them,
Ans. 2. All such representation are to signify the acts of God, as they
bear some likeness to those which we perform by those members he ascribes
to himself. So that those members ascribed to him rather note his visible
operations to us, than his visible nature, and signify that God doth some
works like to those which men do by the assistance of those organs of their
bodies. t So the wisdom of God is called his eye, because he knows that
with his mind which we see with our eyes. The efiiciency of God is called
his hand and arm, because, as we act with our hands, so doth God with his
power. The divine efiicacies are signified. By his eyes and ears we under-
stand his omniscience ; by his face, the manifestation of his favour ; by his
mouth, the revelation of his will ; by his nostrils, the acceptation of our
prayers ; by his bowels, the tenderness of his compassion ; by his heart, the
sincerity of his affections ; by his hand, the strength of his power; by his feet,
the ubiquity of his presence. And in this he intends instruction and com-
fort : by his eyes, he signifies his watchfulness over us ; by his ears, his
readiness to hear the cries of the oppressed, Ps. xxxiv. 15 ; by his arm
his power, — an arm to destroy his enemies, and an arm to relieve his
people, Isa. li. 9 ; all those attributed to God to signify divine actions,
which he doth without bodily organs, as we do with them.
^ Ans. 3. Consider also that only those members which are the instruments
* Loquitur lex secundum linguam filiorum hominum.
t Amyral. de Trin. p. 218, 219.
270 chaenook's works. [John IV. 24.
of tiie noblest actions, and under that consideration, are used by bim to
represent a notion of bim to our minds. Whatsoever is perfect and excel-
lent is ascribed to him, but nothing that savours of imperfection.* The
heart is ascribed to him, it being the principle of vital actions, to signify the
life that he hath in himself. Watchful and discerning eyes, not sleepy
and lazy ones ; a mouth to reveal his will, not to take in food. To eat and
sleep are never ascribed to him, nor those parts that belong to the preparing
or transmitting nourishment to the several parts of the body, as stomach,
liver, reins, nor bowels under that consideration, but as they are significant
of compassion ; but only those parts are ascribed to him whereby we acquire
knowledge, as eyes and ears, the organs of learning and wisdom ; or to
communicate it to others, as the mouth, lips, tongue, as they are instruments
of speaking, not of tasting. Or those parts which signify strength and
power, or whereby we perfonn the actions of charity for the relief of others.
Taste and touch, senses that extend no further than to corporeal things, and
are the grossest of all the senses, are never ascribed to him.
It were worth consideration,! whether this describing God by the members
of an human body were so much figuratively to be understood, as with
respect to the incarnation of our Saviour, who was to assume the human
nature and all the members of a human body.
Asaph, speaking in the person of God : Ps. Ixxviii. 2, ' I will open my
mouth in parables.' In regard of God it is to be understood figuratively,
but in regard of Christ literally, to whom it is applied. Mat. xiii. 34, 35.
And that apparition, Isa. vi., which was the appearance of Jehovah, is
applied to Christ, John xli. 40, 41.
After the report of the creation, and the forming of man, we read of God's
speaking to him, but not of God's appearing to him in any visible shape. |
A voice might be formed in the air to give man notice of his duty ; some
way of information he must have what positive laws he was to observe,
besides that law which was engraven in his nature, which we call the
law of nature ; and without a voice the knowledge of the divine will
could not be so conveniently communicated to man. Though God was
heard in a voice, he was not seen in a shape ; but after the fall we several
times read of his appearing in such a form. Though we read of his sjjeak-
inrj before man's committing of sin, yet not of his walkinri, which is more
corporeal, till afterwards. Gen. iii. 8. Though God would not have man
believe him to be corporeal, yet he judged it expedient to give some pre-notices
of that divine incarnation which he had promised. §
5. Therefore we must not conceive of the visible Deity, according to the
letter of such expressions, but the true intent of them. Though the Scrip-
ture speaks of his eyes and arms, yet it denies them to be arms of flesh,
Job X. 4, 2 Chron. xxxii. 8. We must not conceive of God according to the
letter, but the design of the metaphor. When we hear things described by
metaphorical expressions, for the clearing them up to our fancy, we conceive
not of them under that garb, but remove the veil by an act of our reason.
When Christ is called a'sun, a vine, bread, is any so stupid as to conceive
him to be a vine with material branches and clusters, or be of the same
nature with a loaf ? But the things designed by such metaphors are obvious
to the conception of a mean understanding. If we would conceive God to
have a body like a man, because he describes himself so, we may conceit him
to be like a bird, because he is mentioned with wings, Ps. xxxvi. 7, or like
'*■ Episcop, Institu. 1. 4, sect. 3, cap. 3.
t It is Zanchy's observation, torn. 2, de natura Dei, lib. i. cap. 4, thes. 9.
X Amyrald. Moral, torn. i. p. 293, 294. I Amyrald.
John IV. 24.] god is a spibit. 271
a lion or leopard, because he likens himself to them in the acts of his strength
and furj', Hosca xiii, 7, 8. He is called a rock, a horn, fire, to note his
strength and wrath. If any be so stupid as to think God to bo really such,
they would make him not only a man, but worse than a monster.
Onkelos,* the Chaldeo paraphrast, upon parts of the Scripture, was so
tender of expressing the notion of any corporiety in God, that, when he meets
with any expressions of that nature, he translates them according to the true
intent of them, as when God is said to ' descend,' Gen. xi. 5, which implies
a local motion, a motion from one place to another, he translates it * and
God revealed himself.' We should conceive of God according to the design
of the expressions. When we read of his eyes, we should conceive his omni-
science; of his hand, his power; of his sitting, his immutability; of his throne,
his majesty ; and conceive of him as surmounting not only the grossness of
bodies, but the spiritual excellency of the most dignified creatures, something
80 perfect, great, spiritual, as nothing can be conceived higher and purer.
Christ, saith one,t is truly Dens figxiratus, and for his sake was it more
easily permitted to the Jews to think of God in the shape of a man.
Use. If God be a pure spiritual being, then,
1. Man is not the image of God, according to his external bodily form and
figure. The image of God in man consisted not in what is seen, but in
what is not seen ; not in the conformation of the members, but rather in the
spiritual faculties of the soul, or, most of all, in the holy endowments of
those faculties : Eph. iv. 24, * That ye put on the new man, which, after
God, is created in righteousness and true holiness,' Col. iii. 10. The imawe,
which is restored by redeeming grace, was the image of God by original
nature. The image of God cannot be in that part which is common to us
with beasts, but rather in that wherein we excel all living creatures, in
reason, understanding, and an immortal spirit. God expressly saith, that
none ' saw a similitude ' of him, Deut. iv. 15, 16, which had not been true
if man in regard of his body had been the image and similitude of God, for
then a figure of God had been seen every day, as often as we saw a man or
beheld ourselves ; nor would the apostle's argument stand good : Acts
xvii. 29, that ' the Godhead is not like to stone graven by art ' if we were not
the ofi'spring of God, and bore the stamp of his nature in our spirits rather
than our bodies. J It was a fancy of Eugubinus that, when God set upon
the actual creation of man, he took a bodily form for an exemplar of that
which he would express in his work, and, therefore, that the words of Moses,
Gen. i. 26, are to be understood of the body of man, because there was in
man such a shape which God had then assumed. To let alone God's form-
ing himself a body for that work as a groundless fancy, man can in no wise
be said to be the image of God in regard of the substance of his body, but
beasts may as well be said to be made in the image of God, whose bodies have
the same members as the body of man for the most part, and excel men in
the acuteness of the senses and swiftness of their motion, agility of body,
greatness of strength, and in some kind of ingenuities also wherein man hath
been a scholar to the brutes and beholden to their skill. The soul comes
nearest the nature of God as being a spiritual substance, yet, considered
singly in regard of its spiritual substance, cannot well be said to be the image
of God. A beast, because of its corporiety, may as well be called the image
of a man, for there is a greater similitude between man and a brute in the rank
of bodies than there can be between God and the highest angels in the rank
of spirits. If it doth not consist in the substance of the soul, much less can
* Mairnon. More Nevoc. part i .cap. 27. t More's Conjectura Cabalistica, p. 127.
X Petav. Theol. Dog. torn. i. lib. ii. cap. i. p. 104.
272 chabnock's woeks. [John IV. 24.
it in any similitude of the body. This image consisted partly in the state
of man as he had dominion over the creatures, partly in the nature of man
as he was an intelligent being, and thereby was capable of having a grant of
that dominion, but principally in the conformity of the soul with God in the
frame of his spirit and the holiness of his actions ; not at all in the figure
and form of his body physically, though morally there might be, as there was
a rectitude in the body, as an instrument to conform to the holy motions of
the soul, as the holiness of the soul sparkled in the actions and members of
the body. If man were like God because he hath a body, whatsoever hath
a body hath some resemblance to God, and may be said to be in part his
image ; but the truth is, the essence of all creatures cannot be an image
of the immense essence of God.
2. If God be a pure Spirit, it is unreasonable to frame any image or picture
of God.* Some heathens have been wiser in this than some Christians.
Pythagoras forbade his scholars to engrave any shape of him upon a ring,
because he was not to be comprehended by sense, but conceived only in our
minds ; our hands are as unable to fashion him as our own eyes to see him.t
The ancient Romans worshipped their gods one hundred and seventy years
before any material representations of them, J and the ancient idolatrous
Germans thought it a wicked thing to represent God in a human shape ; yet
some, and those no Romanists, labour to defend the making images of God
in the resemblance of man ; because he is so represented in Scripture, he
may be,§ saith one, conceived so in our minds and figured so to our sense. If
this were a good reason, why may he not be pictured as a lion, horn, eagle,
rock, since he is under such metaphors shadowed to us ? The same ground
there is for the one as for the other. What though man be a nobler creature,
God hath no more the body of a man than that of an eagle, and some per-
fections in other creatures represent some excellencies in his nature and
actions which cannot be figured by a human shape, as strength by the lion,
swiftness and readiness by the wings of the bird. But God hath absolutely
prohibited the making any image whatsoever of him, and that with terrible
threatenings : Exod. xx. 5, * I the Lord am a jealous God, visiting the ini-
quities of the fathers upon their childi'en,' and Deut. v. 8, 9. After God had
given the Israelites the commandment wherein he forbade them to have any
God before him, he forbids all figuring of him by the hand of man ; not only
images, but any likeness of him either by things in heaven, in the earth, or
in the water. How often doth he discover his indignation by the prophets,
against them that ofi"er to mould him in a creature form ! This law was not
to serve a particular dispensation, or to endure a particular time, but it was
a declaration of his will, invariable in all places and all times, being founded
upon the immutable nature of his being, and therefore agreeable to the law
of nature ; otherwise, not chargeable upon the heathens. And, therefore,
when God had declared his nature and his works in a stately and majestic
eloquence, he demands of them, to whom they would liken him, or what
likeness they would compare unto him, Isa. xl. 18 ; where they could
find anything that would be a lively image and resemblance of his infinite
excellency ? Founding it upon the infiniteness of his nature, which neces-
sarily implies the spirituality of it. God is infinitely above any statue, and
those that think to draw God by a stroke of a pencil, or form him by the
engravings of art, are more stupid than the statues themselves.
To shew the unreasonableness of it, consider,
* Jamblyc. protrept, cap. 21, symb. 24.
t Austin de Civitat. Dei. lib. iv. cap. 31, out of Varro. J Tacitus.
i Gerhard liOC. Commun. vol. iv. ; Exegesis de natura Dei, cap. 8, sect. 1.
John IY. 24.] god is a spirit. 273
(1.) It is impossible to fashion any image of God. If our more capacious
souls cannot grasp his natui-e, our weaker sense cannot frame his image ; it
is more possible of the two, to comprehend him in our minds, than to frame
him in an imago to our sense. He inhabits inaccessible light ; as it is
impossible for the eye of man to see him, it is impossible for the art of man
to paint him upon walls, and carve him out of wood. None knows him but
himself, none can describe him but himself.* Can we draw a figure of our
own souls, and express that part of ourselves wherein we are most like to
God ? Can we extend this to any bodily figure, and divide it into parts ?
How can we deal so with the original copy, whence the first draught of our
souls was taken, and which is infinitely more spiritual than men or angels ?
No corporeal thing can represent a spiritual substance ; there is no propor-
tion in nature between them ; God is a simple, infinite, immense, eternal,
invisible, incorruptible being. A statue is a compound, finite, limited,
temporal, visible, and corruptible body. God is a living Spirit ; but a
statue nor sees, nor hears, nor perceives anything. But suppose God
had a body, it is impossible to mould an image of it in the true glory
of that body. Can the statue of an excellent monarch represent the majesty
and air of his countenance, though made by the skilfuUest workman in the
world ? If God had a body in some measure suited to his excellency, were
it possible for man to make an exact image of him, who cannot picture the
light, heat, motion, magnitude, and dazzling property of the sun ? The
excellency of any corporeal nature of the least creature, the temper, instinct,
artifice, are beyond the power of a carving tool, much more is God.
(2.) To make any corporeal representation of God is unworthy of God, It
is a disgrace to his nature. Whosoever thinks a carnal corruptible image
to be fit for a representation of God, renders God no better than a carnal
and corporeal being. It is a kind of debasing an angel, who is a spiritual
nature, to represent him in a bodily shape, who is as far removed from any
fleshliness as heaven from earth ; much more to degrade the glory of the
divine nature to the lineaments of a man. The whole stock of images is
but a lie of God : Jer. x. 8, 14, ' A doctrine of vanities and falsehood.' It
represents him in a false garb to the world, and sinks his glory into that of
a corruptible creature, Kom. i. 23, 25. It impairs the reverence of God
in the minds of men, and by degrees may debase men's apprehensions of
God, and be a means to make them believe he is such a one as themselves,
and that not being free from the figure, he is not also free from the imper-
fections of their bodies. Corporeal images of God were the fruits of base
imaginations of him ; and as they sprung from them, so they contribute to a
greater corruption of the notions of the divine nature. The heathens began
their first representations of him by the image of a corruptible man, then of
birds, till they descended, not only to four-footed beasts, but creeping things,
even serpents, as the apostle seems to intimate in his enumeration, Eom.
i. 23. It had been more honourable to have continued in human representation
of him, than have sunk so low as beasts and serpents, the baser images, though
the first had been infinitely unworthy of him, he being more above a man,
though the noblest creature, than man is above a worm, a toad, or the most
despicable creeping thing upon the earth. To think we can make an image
of God of a piece of marble, or an ingot of gold, is a greater debasing of him
than it would be of a great prince, if you should represent him in the statue
of a frog. When the Israelites represented God by a calf, it is said, * They
sinned a great sin,' Exod. sxxii. 31. And the sin of Jeroboam, who
intended only a representation of God by the calves at Dan and Bethel, is
* Cocceius, Sum, Theol., cap. 9, p. 47, sec. 35.
f VOL. I. B
274 charnock's works. [John IV. 24.
called more emphatically, Hosea x. 15, DDn^T D'^l, * the -wicliedness of
your wickedness,' the very scum and dregs of wickedness. As men debased
God by this, so God debased men for this ; he degraded the Israelites into
captivity under the worst of their enemies, and punished the heathens with
spiritual judgments, as uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts,
Rom. i. 24, which is repeated again in other expressions, ver. 26, 27, as
a meet rccompence for their disgracing the spiritual nature of God. Had
God been like to man, they had not offended in it ; but I mention this to
shew a probable reason of those base lusts which are in the midst of us,
that have scarce been exceeded by any nation, viz., the unworthy and
unspiritual conceits of God, which are as much a debasing of him as
material images were when they were more rife in the world, and may be as
well the cause of those spiritual judgments upon men as the worshipping
molten and carved images were the cause of the same upon the heathen.
(3.) Yet this is natural to man. Wherein we may see the contrariety of
man to God. Though God be a Spirit, yet there is nothing man is more
prone to than to represent him under a corporeal form. The most famous
guides of the heathen world have fashioned him, not only according to the
more honourable images of men, but bestialised him in the form of a
brute. The Egyptians, whose country was the school of learning to Greece,
were notoriously guilty of this brutishness, in worshipping an ox for an image
of their god; and the Philistines their Dagon, in a figure composed of the
image of a woman and a fish.* Such representations were ancient in the
oriental parts. The gods of Laban, that he accuseth Jacob of stealing from
him, are supposed to be little figures of men. Gen. xxxi. 30, 34. Such was
the Israelites' golden calf; their worship was not terminated on the image,
but they worshipped the true God under that representation. They could
not be so brutish to call a calf their deliverer, and give to him a great title,
— * These be thy gods, 0 Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of
Egypt,' Exod. xxxii. 4, — or that which they knew belonged to the true God,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They knew the calf to be formed of
their earrings, but they had consecrated it to God as a representation of
him. Though they chose the form of the Egyptian idol, yet they knew
that Apis, Osiris, and Isis, the gods the Egyptians adored in that figure, had
not wrought their redemption from bondage, but would have used their force,
had they been possessed of any, to have kept them under the yoke, rather
than have freed them from it. The feast also which they celebrated before
that image is called by Aaron the feast of the Lord : ver. 5, ' A feast to
Jehovah,' the incommunicable name of the Creator of the world. It is
therefore evident, that both the priest and the people pretended to serve the
true God, not any false divinity of Egypt ; that God who had rescued them
from Egypt with a mighty hand, divided the Red Sea before them, destroyed
their enemies, conducted them, fed them by miracle, spoken to them from
mount Sinai, and amazed them by his thunderings and lightnings when he
instructed them by his law, a God they could not so soon forget. And
with this representing God by that image, they are charged by the psalmist :
Ps. cvi. 19, 20, * They made a calf in Horeb, and changed their glory into
the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.' They changed their glory ; that
is, God the glory of Israel ; so that they took this figure for the image of
the true God of Israel, their own God, not the God of any other nation in
the world. Jeroboam intended no other by his calves, but symbols of the
presence of the true God, instead of the ark and the propitiatory which
remained among the Jews. We see the inclinations of our natures in the
* Daille, super, Cor. i. 10, Ser. 3.
John IV. 24.] god a is spirit. 275
practice of the Israelites, a people chosen out the whole world to bear up
God's name, and preserve his glory ; and in that the images of God were so
soon set up in the Christian church, and to this day the picture of God in
the shape of an old man is visible in the temples of the Romanists. It is
prone to the nature of man.
(4.) To represent God by a corporeal image, and to worship him in and
by that image, is idolatry. Though the Israelites did not acknowledge the
calf to be God, nor intended a worship to any of the Egyptian deities by it,
but worshipped that God in it who had so lately and miraculously delivered
them from a cruel servitude, and could not in natural reason judge him to
be clothed with a bodily shape, much less to be like an ox that eateth grass,
yet the apostle brings no less a charge against them than that of idolatry,
1 Cor. X. 7. He calls them idolaters, who before that calf kept a feast to
Jehovah, citing Exod. xxxii. 5. Suppose we could make such an image of
God as might perfectly represent him, yet since God hath prohibited it,
shall we be wiser than God ? He hath sufficiently manifested himself in
his works without images ; he is seen in the creatures, more particularly in
the heavens, which declare his glory. His works are more excellent repre-
sentations of him, as being the works of his own hands, than anything that is
the product of the art of man. His glory sparkles in the heavens, sun, moon,
and stars, as being magnificent pieces of his wisdom and power, yet the
kissing the hand to the sun or the heavens, as representative of the excel-
lency and majesty of God, is idolatry in Scripture account, and a denial ot
God, Job xxxi. 26-28, a prostituting the glory of God to a creature. Either
the worship is terminated on the image itself,* and then it is confessed by
all to be idolatry, because it is a giving that worship to a creature which is
the sole right of God ; or not terminated in the image, but in the object
represented by it ; it is then a foolish thing ; we may as well terminate our
worship on the true object, without as with an image. An erected statue is no
sign or symbol of God's special presence, as the ark, tabernacle, temple were.
It is no part of divine institution, has no authority of a command to sup-
port it, no cordial of a promise to encourage it ; and the image being infinitely
distant from, and below the majesty and spirituality of God, cannot con-
stitute one object of worship with him. To put a religious character upon
any image formed by the corrupt imagination of man, as a representation of
the invisible and spiritual Deity, is to think the Godhead to be like silver and
gold, or stone graven by art and man's device, Acts xvii. 29.
3. This doctrine will direct us in our conceptions of God as a pure,
perfect spirit, than which nothing can be imagined more perfect, more pure,
more spiritual.
(1.) We cannot have an adequate or suitable conception of God. He
dwells in inaccessible light ; inaccessible to the acuteness of our fancy, as
well as the weakness of our sense. If we could have thoughts of him as
high and excellent as his nature, our conceptions must be as infinite
as his nature. All our imaginations of him cannot represent him, because
every created species is finite ; it cannot, therefore, represent to us a full and
substantial notion of an infinite being. We cannot speak or think worthily
enough of him who is greater than our words,' vaster than our understandings.
Whatsoever we speak or think of God is handed first to' us by the notice we
have of some perfection in the creature, and explains to us some particular
excellency of God, rather than the fulness of his essence. No creature, nor
all creatures together, can furnish us with such a magnificent notion of
God as can give us a clear view of him. Yet God in his word is pleased to
* Lawson, Body of Divin., p. 161.
276 chaenock's works. [John IV. 24.
gtep below his own excellency, and point us to those excellencies in his
works, whereby we may ascend to the knowledge of those excellencies which
are in his nature. But the creatures, whence we draw our lessons, being
finite, and our understandings being finite, it is utterly impossible to have a
notion of God commensurate to the immensity and spirituality of his being.
* God is not like to visible creatures, nor is there any proportion between
him and the most spiritual.'* We cannot have a full notion of a spiritual
nature, much less can we have of God, who is a Spirit above spirits. No
spirit can clearly represent him. The angels, that are great spirits, are
bounded in their extent, finite in their being, and of a mutable nature.
Yet though we cannot have a suitable conception of God, we must not
content ourselves without any conception of him. It is our sin not to
endeavour after a true notion of him ; it is our sin to rest in a mean and low
notion of him, when our reason tells us we are capable of having higher; but
if we ascend as high as we can, though we shall then come short of a suitable
fiotion of him, this is not our sin, but our weakness. God is infinitely superior
to the choicest conceptions, not only of a sinner, but of a creature. If all
conceptions of God below the true nature of God were sin, there is not a holy
angel in heaven free from sin, because though they are the most capacious
creatures, yet they cannot have such a notion of an infinite being as is fully
suitable to his nature, unless they were infinite as he himself is.
(2.) But, however, we must by no means conceive of God under a human
or corporeal shape. Since we cannot have conceptions honourable enough
for his nature, we must take heed we entertain not any which may debase
his nature. Though we cannot comprehend him as he is, we must be care-
ful not to fancy him to be what he is not. It is a vain thing to conceive
him with human lineaments. We must think higher of him than to ascribe
to him so mean a shape. We deny his spirituality when we fancy him under
such a form. He is spiritual, and between that which is spiritual and that
which is qorporeal there is no resemblance. f Indeed, Daniel saw God in a
human form : Dan. vii. 9, ' The Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was
white as snow, and the hairs of his head like pure wool : ' he is described as
coming to judgment. It is not meant of Christ probably ; because Christ,
ver. 13, is called the Son of man coming near to the Ancient of days. This
Is not the proper shape of God, for no man hath seen his shape. It was a
vision wherein such representations were made, as were accommodated to
the inward sense of Daniel. Daniel saw him in a rapture or ecstasy, wherein
outward senses are of no use. God is described, not as he is in himself, of
a human form, but in regard of his fitness to judge. White denotes the
purity and simplicity of the divine nature ; Ancient of days, in regard of his
eternity ; white hair, in regard of his prudence and wisdom, which is more
eminent in age than youth, and more fit to discern causes and to distinguish
between right and wrong. Visions are riddles, and must not be understood
in a literal sense. We are to watch against such determinate conceptions
of God. Vain imaginations do easily infest us ; tinder will not sooner take
fire, than our natures kindle into wrong notions of the divine majesty. We
are very apt to fashion a god like ourselves. We must therefore look upon
such representations of God as accommodated to our weakness, and no more
think them to be literal descriptions of God, as he is in himself, than we
will think the image of the sun in the water to be the true sun in the
heavens. We may indeed conceive of Christ as man, who hath in heaven
the vestment of our nature, and is Deus figuratus, though we cannot conceive
the Godhead under a human shape.
* Amyrald, Moral., torn. i. p. 289. f Episc. Institut., lib. iv. sec 2, c. 17.
John IV. 2-i.] god is a spirit. 277
[1.] To have such a fancy is to disparage and wrong God. A corporeal
fancy of God is as ridiculous in itself, and as injurious to God, as a wooden
statue. The capricioes of our imagination are often more monstrous than
the images which are the works of art. It is as irreligious to measure God's
essence by our line, his perfections by our imperfections, as to measure his
thoughts and actings by the weakness and unworthiness of our own. This
is to limit an infinite essence, and pull him down to our scanty measures,
and render that which is unconceivably above us equal with us. It is
impossible we can conceive God after the manner of a body, but we must
bring him down to the proportion of a body, which is to diminish his glory,
and stoop him below the dignity of his nature. God is a pure Spirit ; he
hath nothing of the nature and tincture of a body. Whosoever, therefore,
conceives of him as having a bodily form, though he fancy the most beautiful
and comely body, instead of owning his dignity, detracts from the super-
eminent excellency of his nature and blessedness. When men fancy God
like themselves in their corporeal nature, they will soon make a progress,
and ascribe to him their corrupt nature ; and while they clothe him with
their bodies, invest him also in the infirmities of them. God is a jealous
God, very sensible of any disgrace, and will be as much incensed against an
inward idolatry, as an outward. That command, Exod. xx. 4, which forbade
corporeal images, would not indulge carnal imaginations, since the nature of
God is as much wronged by unworthy images erected in the fancy, as by
statues carved out of stone or metals. One, as well as the other, is a desert-
ing of our true spouse and committing adultery, one with a material image,
and the other with a carnal notion of God. Since God humbles himself to
our apprehensions, we should not debase him in thinking him to be that in
his nature, which he makes only a resemblance of himself to us.
[2.] To have such fancies of God, will obstruct and pollute our worship
of him. How is it possible to give him a right worship, of whom we have
so debasing a notion ? We shall never think a corporeal deity worthy of a
dedication of our spirits. The hating instruction, and casting God's word
behind the back, is charged upon the imagination they had, that God was
' such a one as themselves,' Ps. 1. 17, 21. Many of the wiser heathens did
not judge their statues to be their gods, or their gods to be like their statues,
but suited them to their politic designs, and judged them a good invention
to keep people within the bounds of obedience and devotion by such visible
figures of them, which might imprint a reverence and fear of those gods upon
them. But these were false measures. A despised and undervalued god is
not an object of petition or afiection. Who would address seriously to a god
he has low apprehensions of ? The more raised thoughts we have of him,
the viler sense we shall have of ourselves. They would make us humble
and self- abhorrent in our supplications to him : Job xlii. 6, ' Wherefore I
abhor myself,' &c.
(3.) Though we must not conceive of God, as of a human or corporeal
shape, yet we cannot think of God without some reflection upon our own
being. We cannot conceive him to be an intelligent being, but we must
make some comparison between him and our own understanding nature, to
come to a knowledge of him. Since we are enclosed in bodies, we apprehend
nothing but what comes in by sense, and what we in some sort measure by
sensible objects. And in the consideration of those things which we desire
to abstract from sense, we are fain to make use of the assistances of sense
and visible things. And therefore, when we frame the highest notion, there
will be some similitude of some corporeal thing in our fancy ; and though
we would spiritualise our thoughts, and aim at a more abstracted and raised
£78 CHAKNOCK S WORKS. [JOHN lY. 24.
understanding, yet there will be some dregs of matter sticking to our con-
ceptions ; yet we still judge, by argument and reasoning, what the thing is
we think of under those material images. A corporeal image will follow us,
as the shadow doth the body.^t- While we are in the body and surrounded
with fleshly matter, we cannot think of things without some help from cor-
poreal representations. Something of sense will interpose itself in our purest
conceptions of spiritual things, for the faculties which serve for contemplation
are either corporeal, as the sense and fancy, or so allied to them, that nothing
passes into them but by the organs of the body, f so that there is a natural
inclination to figure nothing but under a corporeal notion, till by an attentive
application of the mind and reason to the object thought upon, we separate
that which is bodily from that which is spiritual, and by degrees ascend to
that true notion of that we think upon, and would have a due conception of
in our mind. Therefore God tempers the declaration of himself to our weak-
ness, and the condition of our natures. He condescends to our littleness
and narrowness, when he declares himself by the similitude of bodily mem-
bers ; as the light of the sun is tempered, and diffuseth itself to our sense
through the air and vapours, that our weak eyes may not b-e too much dazzled
with it. Without it we could not know or judge of the sun, because we could
have no use of our sense, vhich we must have before we can judge of it in
our understanding ; so we are not able to conceive of spiritual beings
in the purity of their own nature, without such a temperament, and such
shadows to usher them into our minds. And therefore we find the Spirit of
God accommodates himself to our contracted and tethered capacities, and
uses such expressions of God as are suited to us, in this state of flesh wherein
we are ; and therefore, because we cannot apprehend God in the simplicity
of his own being and his undivided essence, he draws the representations of
himself from several creatures, and several actions of those creatures : as
sometimes he is said to be angry, to walk, to sit, to fly. Not that we should
rest in such conceptions of him, but take our rise from this foundation, and
such perfections in the creatures, to mount up to a knowledge of God's
nature by those several steps, and conceive of him by those divided excellen-
cies, because we cannot conceive of him in the purity of his own essence. |
We cannot possibly think or speak of God, unless we transfer the names of
created perfections to him ; yet we are to conceive of them in a higher
manner when we apply them to the divine nature, than when we consider
them in the several creatures formally, exceeding those perfections and excel-
lencies which are in the creature, and in a more excellent manner. As one§
saith : ' Though we cannot comprehend God without the help of such resem-
blances, yet we may, without making an image of him ; so that inability of
ours excuseth those apprehensions of him from any way ofiending against
his divine nature.' These are not notions so much suited to the nature of
God as the weakness of man. They are helps to our meditations, but ought
not to be formal conceptions of him. We may assist ourselves in our appre-
hensions of him, by considering the subtilty and spirituality of air, and con-
sidering the members of a body, without thinking him to be air or to have
any corporeal member. Our reason tells us that whatsoever is a body is
limited and bounded, and the notion of infiniteness and bodiliness cannot
agree and consist together ; and therefore, what is offered by our fancy should
be purified by our reason.
(4.) Therefore we are to elevate and refine all our notions of God, and
spiritualise our conceptions of him. Every man is to have a conception of
* Nazianzen. J Lessius.
t Amyrald, Moral, torn, i p. 180, &c. § Towerson on the CommandmentSj p. 112.
John IV. 24.] god is a spikit. 279
God, therefore he ought to have one of the highest elevation. Since we
cannot have a full notion of him, we should endeavour to make it as high and
as pure as wo can. Though we cannot conceive of God, but some corporeal
representations or images in our minds will be conversant with us, as motes
in the air when we look upon the heavens, yet our conception may afed must
rise higher. As when we see the draught of the heavens and earth in a
globe, or a kingdom in a map, it helps our conceptions, but doth not ter-
minate them ; we conceive them to be of a vast extent, far beyond that short
description of them ; so we should endeavour to refine every representation
of God, to rise higher and higher, and have our apprehensions still more
purified ; separating the perfect from the imperfect, casting away the one
and grcatening the other; conceive him to be a Spirit diflused through all,
containing all, perceiving all. All the perfections of God are infinitely elevated
above the excellencies of the creatures, above whatsoever can be conceived
by the clearest and most piercing understanding. The nature of God, as a
Spirit, is infinitely superior to whatsoever we can conceive perfect in the
notion of a created spirit. Whatsoever God is, he is infinitely so. He is
infinite wisdom, infinite goodness, infinite knowledge, infinite power, infinite
spirit, infinitely distant from the weakness of creatures, infinitely mounted
above the excellencies of creatures. As easy to be known that he is, as im-
possible to be comprehended what he is.
Conceive of him as excellent, without any imperfection. A Spirit with-
out parts ; great without quantity ; perfect without quality ; everywhere
without place ; powerful without members ; understanding without igno-
rance ; wise without reasoning ; light without darkness ; infinitely more
excelling the beauty of all creatures, than the light in the sun pure and un-
violated exceeds the splendour of the sun dispersed and divided through a
cloudy and misty air. And when you have risen to the highest, conceive
him 3'et infinitely above all you can conceive of spirit, and acknowledge the
infirmity of your own minds. And whatsoever conception comes into your
minds, say, This is not God, God is more than this. If I could conceive him,
he were not God, for God is incomprehensibly above whatsoever I can say,
whatsoever I can think and conceive of him.
Inference 4. If God be a Spirit, no corporeal thing can defile him.
Some bring an argument against the omnipresence of God, that it is a dis-
paragement to the divine essence to be everywhere, in nasty cottages as
well as beautiful palaces and garnished temples. What place can defile a
spirit ? Is light, which approaches to the nature of spirit, polluted by
shining upon a dunghill, or a sunbeam tainted by darting upon a quag-
mire ? Doth an angel contract any soil, by stepping into a nasty prison to
deliver Peter ? What can steam from the most noisome body, to pollute
the spiritual nature of God ? As he is ' of purer eyes than to behold ini-
quity,' Hab. i. 13, so he is of a more spiritual substance than to contract
any physical pollution from the places where he doth difi'use himself. Did
our Saviour, who had a true body, derive any taint from the lepers he touched,
the diseases he cured, or the devils he expelled ? God is a pure Spirit,
plungeth himself into no filth, is dashed with no spot by being present with
all bodies. Bodies only receive defilement from bodies.
Inference 5. If God be a Spirit, he is active and communicative. He
is not clogged with heavy and sluggish matter, which is cause of dulness
and inactivity. The more subtle, thin, and approaching nearer the nature
of a spirit anything is, the more diffusive it is. Air is a gliding substance,
spreads itself through all religions,* pierceth into all bodies ; it fills the
* Qu. ' regions ' ? — Ed.
280 chaenock's works. [John IY. 24.
space between heaven and earth, there is nothing but partakes of the virtue
of it. Light, which is an emblem of spirit, insinuates itself into all places,
refresheth all things. As spirits are fuller, so they are more overflowing,
more piercing, more operative than bodies. TheJ Egyptians' horses were
weak things, because they were flesh and not spirit, Isa. xxxi. 3. The soul
being a spirit, conveys more to the body than the body can to it. What
cannot so great a Spirit do for us ! What cannot so great a Spirit work in
us ! God being a Spirit above all spirits, can pierce into the centre of all
spu'its ; make his way into the most secret recesses ; stamp what he pleases.
It is no more to him to turn our spirits, than to make a wilderness become
waters, and speak a chaos into a beautiful frame of heaven and earth. He
can act our souls with infinite more ease than our souls can act our bodies ;
he can fix in us what motions, frames, inclinations he pleases ; he can come
and settle in our hearts with all his treasures. It is an encouragement to
confide in him, when we petition him for spiritual blessings. As he is a
Spirit, he is possessed with spiritual blessings, Eph. i. 3. A spirit dehghts
to bestow things suitable to its nature, as bodies do to communicate what is
agreeable to theirs. As he is a Father of spirits, we may go to him for the
welfare of our spirits ; he being a Spirit, is as able to repair our spirits, as
he was to create them.
As he is a Spirit, he is indefatigable in acting. The members of the
body tire and flag ; but who ever heard of a soul wearied with being active !
Who ever heard of a weary angel ! In the purest simplicity, there is the
greatest power, the most efficacious goodness, the most reaching justice to
aftect the spirit, that can insinuate itself everywhere to punish wickedness
without weariness, as well as to comfort goodness. God is active, because
he is Spirit ; and if we be like to God, the more spiritual we are, the moro
active we shall be.
Inference 6. God being a Spirit, is immortal. His being immortal and
being invisible are joined together, 1 Tim. i. 17. Spirits are in their nature
incorruptible ; they can only perish by that hand that framed them. Every
compounded thing is subject to mutation ; but God being a pure and simple
Spirit, is without corruption, without any shadow of change, James i. 17.
Where there is composition, there is some kind of repugnancy of one part
against the other ; and where there is repugnancy, there is a capability of
dissolution. God, in regard of his infinite spii-ituality, hath nothing in his
own nature contrary to it ; can have nothing in himself which is not him-
self. The world perishes, friends change and are dissolved, bodies moulder,
because they are mutable. God is a Spirit in the highest excellency and
glory of spirits ; nothing is beyond him, nothing above him, no contrariety
within him. This is our comfort, if we devote ourselves to him ; this God
is our God ; this Spirit is our Spirit ; this is our all, our immutable, our
incorruptible support ; a Spirit that cannot die and leave us.
Inferev.ce 7. If God be a Spirit, we see how we can only converse with
him ; by our spirits. Bodies and spirits are not suitable to one another; we
can only see, know, embrace a spirit with our spirits. He judges not of us
by our corporeal actions, nor our external devotions, by our masks and dis-
guises, he fixes his eye upon the frame of the heart, bends his ear to the
groans of our spirits. He is not pleased with outward pomp, he is not a
body; therefore the beauty of temples, delicacy of sacrifices, fumes of
incense, are not grateful to him; by those or any external action we have
no communion with him. A spirit, when broken, is his delightful sacrifice,
Ps. li. 17; we must therefore have our spirits fitted for him, be 'renewed
in the spirit of our mind,' Eph. iv. 23, that we may be in a posture to live
John IY. 24.] god is a spirit. 28X
with him, and have an intercourse with him. We can never be united to
God but in our spirits ; bodies unite with bodies, spirits with spirits. The
more spiritual anything is, the more closely doth it unite. Air hath the
closest union, nothing meets together sooner than that when the parts are
divided by the interposition of a body.
Inference 8. If God be a Spirit, he can only be the true satisfaction of
our spirits. Spirit can only be filled with a spirit. Content flows from
likeness and suitableness ; as we have a resemblance to God in regard of
the spiritual nature of our soul, so we can have no satisfaction but in him.
Spirit can no more be really satisfied with that which is corporeal, than a
beast can delight in the company of an angel; corporeal things can no
more fill a hungry spirit than pure spirit can feed an hungry body; God,
the highest Spirit, can only reach out a full content to our spirits. Man is
lord of the creation ; nothing below him can be fit for his converse, nothing
above him ofiers itself to his converse but God. We have no correspond-
ence with angels. The influence they have upon us, the protection they
afibrd us, is secret and uudiscerned ; but God, the highest Spirit, ofiers
himself to us in his Son, in his ordinances, is visible in every creature,
presents himself to us in every providence ; to him we must seek, in him
we must rest. God had no rest from the creation till he had made man,
and man can have no rest in the creation till he rests in God. God only
is ' our dwelling-place,' Ps. xc. 1 ; our souls should only long for him, Ps.
Ixiii. 1 ; our souls should only wait upon him. The spirit of man never
riseth to its original glory, till it be carried up on the wings of faith and love
to its original copy. The face of the soul looks most beautiful when it is
turned to the face of God, the Father of spirits ; when the derived spirit is
fixed upon the original Spirit, drawing from it life and glory. Spirit is only
the receptacle of spirit. God as Spirit is our principle, we must therefore
live upon him. God as Spirit hath some resemblance to us as his image,
we must therefore only satisfy ourselves in him.
Inference 9. If God be a Spirit, we should take most care of that
wherein we are like to God. Spirit is nobler than body, we must therefore
value our spirits above our bodies ; the soul as spirit partakes more of the
divine nature, and deserves more of our choicest cares. If we have any
love to this Spirit, we should have a real afiection to our own spirit, as
bearing a stamp of the spiritual divinity, the chiefest of all the works of
God ; as it is said of Behemoth, Job xl. 19. That which is most the image
of this immense Spirit should be our darling; so David calls his soul, Ps.
XXXV. 17. Shall we take care of that wherein we partake not of God, and
not delight in the jewel which hath his own signature upon it ? God was
not only the framer of spirits, and the end of spirits, but the copy and
exemplar of spirits. God partakes of no corporiety, he is pure Spirit.
But how do we act, as if we were only matter and body ! We have but
little kindness for this great Spirit as well as our own, if we take no care of
his immediate offspring, since he is not only Spirit, but the Father of spu-its,
Heb. xii. 9.
Inference 10. If God be a Spirit, let us take heed of those sins which are
spiritual. Paul distinguisheth between the filth of the flesh and that of the
spirit, 2 Cor. vii. 1 ; by the one we defile the body, by the other we defile
the spirit, which in regard of its nature is of kin to the Creator. To wrong
one who is near of kin to a prince is worse than to injure an inferior sub-
ject. When we make our spirits, which are most like to God in their
nature, and framed according to his image, a stage to act vain imaginations,
wicked desires, and unclean affections, we wrong God in the excellency of
282 chasnock's works. [John IV. 24.
his work, and reflect upon the nobleness of the pattern ; we wrong him in
that part where he hath stamped the most signal character of his own
spiritual nature, we defile that whereby we have only converse with him as
a Spirit, which he hath ordered more immediately to represent him in this
nature, than all corporeal things in the world can, and make that Spirit
with whom we desire to be joined unfit for such a knot. God's spirituality
is the root of his other perfections. We have already heard he could not
be infinite, omnipresent, immutable without it. Spiritual sins are the
greatest root of bitterness within us ; as grace in our spirits renders us
more like to a spiritual God, so spiritual sins bring us into a conformity
to a degraded devil, Eph. ii. 2, 3. Carnal sins change us from men to
brutes, and spiritual sins divest us of the image of God for the image of
Satan. We should by no means make our spirits a dunghill, which bear
upon them the character of the spiritual nature of God, and were made for
his residence. Let us therefore behave ourselves towards God in all those
ways which the spiritual nature of God requires us.
A DISCOURSE UPON SPIRITUAL WORSHIP.
God is a Spirit : and they that uorship him must uorship him in spirit and in
truth. — John IV. 24.
Having thus despatched the first proposition, ' God is a Spirit,' it ■will not
be amiss to handle the inference our Saviour makes from that proposition,
which is the second observation propounded.
Doct. That the worship due from us to God ought to be spiritual, and
spiritually performed.
Spirit and truth are understood variously. Either we are to worship God,
1. Not by legal ceremonies ; the evangelical administration being called
spirit in opposition to the legal ordinances as carnal, and truth in opposi-
to them as typical. As the whole Judaical service is called flesh, so the
whole evangelical service is called spirit. Or spirit may be opposed to the
worship at Jerusalem, as it was carnal; truth, to the worship on the mount
Gerizim, because it was false. They had not the true object of worship,
nor the true medium of worship as those at Jerusalem had. Their worship
should cease, because it was false, and the Jewish worship should cease,
because it was carnal.
There is no need of a candle when the sun spreads its beams in the air ;
no need of those ceremonies when the Sun of righteousness appeared ; they
only served for a candle to instruct and direct men till the time of his
coming. The shadows are chased away by the displaying the substance, so
that they can be of no more use in the worship of God, since the end for
which they were instituted is expired, and that is discovered to us in the
gospel, which the Jews sought for in vain among the baggage and stuff of
their ceremonies.
2. With a spiritual and sincere frame. ' In spirit,' i. e. with spirit ;
with the inward operations of all the faculties of our souls, and the cream
and flower of them ; and the reason is, because there ought to be a worship
suitable to the nature of God. And as the worship was to be spiritual, so
the exercise of that worship ought to be in a spiritual manner.* It shall
be a worship in truth, because the true God shall be adored without those
vain imaginations, and fantastic resemblances of him, which were common
among the blind Gentiles, and contrary to the glorious nature of God, and
unworthy ingredients in religious services. It shall be a worship in spirit,
without those carnal rites the degenerated Jews rested on. Such a posture
* Lingend, torn. ii. p. 777. Taylor's Exemplar, Preface, sec. 30.
284 charnock's works. [John IV. 24.
of soul, which is the life and ornament of every service, God looks for at
your hands. There must be some proportion between the object adored,
and the manner in which we adore it. It must not be a mere corporeal
worship, because God is not a body; but it must rise from the centre of our
soul, because God is a Spirit. If he were a body, a bodily worship might
suit him, images might be fit to represent him ; but being a Spirit, our
bodily services enter us not into communion with him. Being a Spirit, we
must banish from our minds all carnal imaginations of him, and separate
from our wills all cold and dissembled affections to him. We must not only
have a loud voice, but an elevated soul ; not only a bended knee, but a
broken heart ; not only a supplicating tone, but a groaning spirit ; not only
a ready ear for the word, but a receiving heart ; and this shall be of greater
value with him than the most costly outward services oflered at Gerizim or
Jerusalem.
Our Saviour certainly meant not, by worshipping in spirit, only the matter
of the evangelical service as opposed to the legal administration, without
the manner wherein it was to be performed. It is true, God always sought
a worship in spirit ; he expected the heart of the worshipper should join
with his instituted rights of adoration in every exercise of them ; but he
expects such a carriage more under the gospel administration, because of the
clearer discoveries of his natui'e made in it, and the greater assistances con-
veyed by it.
I shall therefore,
I. Lay down some general propositions.
II. Shew what this spiritual worship is.
III. Why we must offer to God a spiritual service.
IV. The use.
s I. Some general propositions.
Prop. 1. First, The right exercise of worship is founded upon and riseth
from the spirituality of God.'"^ The first ground of the worship we render
to God is the infinite excellency of his nature, which is not only one
attribute, but results from all ; for God as God is the object of worship, and
the notion of God consists not in thinking him wise, good, just, but all those
infinitely beyond any conception. And hence it follows that God is an
object infinitely to be loved and honoured. His goodness is sometimes
spoken of in Scripture as a motive of our homage : Ps. cxxx. 4, ' There is
forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared.' Fear, in the Scripture
dialect, signifies the whole worship of God : Acts x. 35, ' But in every nation
he that fears him is accepted of him ;' so 2 Kings xvii. 32, 33. If God
should act towards men according to the rigours of his justice due to them
for the least of their crimes, there could be no exercise of any afl'ection but
that of despair, which could not engender a worship of God, which ought
to be joined with love, not with hatred. The beneficence and patience of
God, and his readiness to pardon men, is the reason of the honour they return
to him. And this is so evident a motive, that generally the idolatrous world
ranked those creatures in the number of their gods, which they perceived
useful and beneficial to mankind, as the sun and moon, the Egyptians the
ox, &c. And the more beneficial anything appeared to mankind, the higher
station men gave it in the rank of their deities, and bestowed a more peculiar
and solemn worship upon it. Men worshipped God to procure or continue
his favour, which would not have been acted by them, had they not con-
ceived it a pleasing thing to him to be merciful and gracious.
* Ames Medul. lib. ii. cap. 4, sec. 20.
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 285
Sometimes his justice is proposed to us as a motive of worship : Heb. xii.
28, 29, ' Serve God with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a con-
suming fire ;' which inchidcs his holiness, whereby he doth hate sin, as well
as his wrath, whereby ho doth punish it. Who but a mad and totally
brutish person, or one that was resolved to make war against heaven, could
behold the efi'ects of God's anger in the world, consider him in his justice
as a consuming fire, and despise him, and rather be drawn out by that con-
sideration to blasphemy and despair, than to seek all ways to appease hiin ?
Now though the infinite power of God, his unspeakable wisdom, his incom-
prehensible goodness, the holiness of his nature, the vigilance of his provi-
dence, the bounty of his hand signify to man that he should love and honour
him, and are the motive of worship, yet the spirituality of his nature is
the rule of worship, and directs us to render our duty to him with all the
powers of our soul. As his goodness beams out upon us, worship is due in
justice to him ; and as he is the most excellent nature, veneration is due to
him in the highest manner with the choicest affections.
So that indeed the spirituality of God comes chiefly into consideration in
matter of worship. All his perfections are grounded upon this. He could
not be infinite, immutable, omniscient, if he were a corporeal being.* We
cannot give him a worship unless we judge him worthy, excellent, and de-
serving a worship at our hands ; and we cannot judge him worthy of a wor-
ship unless we have some apprehensions and admirations of his infinite
virtues ; and we cannot apprehend and admire those perfections, but as we
see them as causes shining in their efi'ects. When we see, therefore, the
frame of the world to be the work of his power, the order of the world to
be the fruit of his wisdom, and the usefulness of the world to be the pro-
duct of his goodness, we find the motives and reasons of worship ; and
weighing that this power, wisdom, goodness, infinitely transcend any cor-
poreal nature, we find a rule of worship, that it ought to be ofiered by ug
in a manner suitable to such a nature as is infinitely above any bodily being.
His being a Spirit declares what he is, his other perfections declare what
kind of Spirit he is. All God's perfections suppose him a Spirit ; all centre
in this. His wisdom doth not suppose him merciful, or his mercy suppose
him omniscient. There may be distinct notions of those, but all suppose
him to be of a spiritual nature. How cold and frozen will our devotions be
if we consider not his omniscience, whereby he discerns our hearts !f How
carnal will our services be if we consider him not as a pure spirit ! In our
offers to, and transactions with men, we deal not with them as mere
animals, but as rational creatures ; and we debase their natures if we treat
them otherwise. And if we have not raised apprehensions of God's spiritual
nature in our treating with him, but allow him only such frames as we think
fit enough for men, we debase his spirituality to the littleness of our own
being. We must therefore possess our souls with this, we shall else render
him no better than a fleshly service. We do not much concern ourselves in
those things of which we are either utterly ignorant, or have but slight
apprehensions of.
That is the first proposition ; the right exercise of worship is grounded
upon the spirituality of God.
Prop. 2. This spiritual worship of God is manifest by the light of nature
to be due to him. In reference to this, consider,
1. The outward means or matter of that worship which would be accept-
able to God was not known by the light of nature. The law for a worship,
and for a spiritual worship by the faculties of our souls, was natural, and
* Amyrald, Dissert. 6, disp. 1, p. 12. f Amirant de Relig.
286 chaenock's works. [John IV. 24.
part of the law of creation, though the determination of the particular acts
whereby God would have this homage testified was of positive institution,
and depended not upon the law of creation. Though Adam in innocence
knew God was to be worshipped, yet by nature he did not know by what
outward acts he was to pay this respect, or at what time he was more
solemnly to be exercised in it than at another. This depended upon the
directions God, as the sovereign governor and lawgiver, should prescribe.
You therefore find the positive institutions of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, and the determination of the time of worship, Gen. ii. 3, 17.
Had there been any such notion in Adam naturally, as strong as that other,
that a worship was due to God, there would have been found some relics of
these modes universally consented to by mankind, as well as of the other.
But though all nations have by an universal consent concurred in the
acknowledgment of the being of God, and his right to adoration, and the
obligation of the creature to it, and that there ought to be some public rule
and polity in matters of religion (for no nation hath been in the world with-
out a worship, and without external acts and certain ceremonies to signify
that worship), yet their modes and rites have been as various as their
climates, unless in that common notion of sacrifices, not descending to them
by nature, but tradition, from Adam ; and the various ways of worship have
been more provoking than pleasing. Every nation suited the kind of wor-
ship to their particular ends and polities they designed to rule by. How
God was to be worshipped is more difficult to be discerned by nature with
its eyes out than with its eyes clear. The pillars upon which the worship
of God stands cannot be discerned without revelation, ■"' no more than blind
Samson could tell where the pillars of the PhiUstines' theatre stood, without
one to conduct him. What Adam could not see with his sound eyes, we
cannot with our dim eyes ; he must be told from heaven what worship was
fit for the God of heaven. It is not by nature that we can have such a full
prospect of God as may content and quiet us. This is the noble efi"ect of
divine revelation, he only knows himself, and can only make himself known
to us. It could not be supposed that an infinite God should have no per-
fections but what were visible in the works of his hands, and that these
perfections should not be infinitely greater than as they were sensible in
their present effects. This had been to apprehend God a limited being,
meaner than he is. Now it is impossible to honour God as we ought, unless
we know him as he is ; and we could not know him as he is without divine
revelation from himself; for none but God can acquaint us with his own
nature. And therefore the nations void of this conduct heap up modes of
worship from their own imaginations, unworthy of the majesty of God, and
below the nature of man, A rational man would scarce have owned such for
signs of honour, as the Scripture mentions in the services of Baal and
Dagon, much less an infinitely wise and glorious God. And when God
had signified his mind to his own people, how unwilling were they to rest
satisfied with God's determination, but would be warping to their own inven-
tions, and make gods, and ways of worship to themselves, Amos v. 26, as
in the matter of the golden calf, as was lately spoken of.
2. Though the outward manner of worship acceptable to God could not be
known without revelation, and those revelations might be various, yet the
inward manner of worship with our spirits was manifest by nature. And not
only manifest by nature to Adam in innocence, but after his fall, and the scales
he had brought upon his understanding by that fall. When God gave him
his positive institutions before the fall, or whatsoever additions God should
* King on Jonah, p. 63.
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 287
have made had he persisted in that state, or when he appointed him after
his fall to testify his acknowledgment of him by sacrifices, there needed no
command to him to make those acknowledgments by those outward ways
prescribed to him with the intention and prime afiection of his spirit. This
nature would instruct him in without revelation. For he could not possibly
have any semblance of reason to think that the offering of beasts, or the
presenting the first-fruits of the increase of the ground as an acknowledg-
ment of God's sovereignty over him, and his bounty to him, was sufficient,
without devoting to him that part wherein the image of his Creator did con-
sist. He could not but discern by a reflection upon his OM'n being, that he
was made for God as well as by God ; for it is a natura' principle, of which
the apostle speaks Kom. xi. 36, ' For of him, and through him, and to him,
are all things,' &c., that the whole whereof he did consist was due to God;
and that his body, the dreggy and dusty part of his nature, was not fit to be
brought alone before God, without that nobler principle which he had by
creation linked with it. Nothing in the whole law of nature, as it is in-
formed of religion, was clearer, next to the being of God, than this manner
of worshipping God with the mind and spirit. And as the Gentiles never
sunk so low into the mud of idolatry as to think the images they worshipped
were really their gods, but the representations or habitations of their gods,
so they never deserted this principle in the notion of it, that God was to be
honoured with the best they were, and the best they had. As they never
denied the being of a God in the notion, though they did in the practice, so
they never rejected this principle in notion, though they did, and now most
men do, in the inward observation of it. It was a maxim among them that
God was viens, aniimis, mind and spirit, and therefore was to be honoured
with the mind and spirit. That religion did not consist in the ceremonies
of the body, but the work of the soul ; whence the speech of one of them,*
* Sacrifice to the gods not so much clothed with purple garments as a pure
heart.' And of another,! ' God regards not the multitude of the sacrifices,
but the disposition of the sacrificer.' It is not fit we should deny God the
cream and flower, and give him the slotten part and the stalks. And with
what reverence and intention of mind they thought their worship was to be
performed is evident by the priests' crying out often, hoc age, mind this, let
your spirits be intent upon it.
This could not but result,
(1.) From the knowledge of ourselves. It is a natural principle, ' God
hath made us, and not we ourselves,' Ps. c. 1, 2. Man knows himself to
be a rational creature. As a creature, he was to serve his Creator ; and as a
rational creature, with the best part of that rational nature he derived from
him. By the same act of reason that he knows himself to be a creature, he
knows himself to have a Creator. That this Creator is more excellent than
himself, and that an honour is due from him to the Creator for framing of
him ; and therefore this honour was to be offered to him by the most excel-
lent part which was framed by him. Man cannot consider himself as a
thinking, understanding being, but he must know that he must give God the
honour of his thoughts, and worship him with those faculties whereby he
thinks, wills, and acts.]; He must know his faculties were given him to act,
and to act for the glory of that God who gave him his soul and the faculties
of it ; and he could not in reason think they must be only active in his own
service, and the service of the creature, and idle and unprofitable in the ser-
vice of his Creator. With the same powers of our soul whereby we con-
* Meander, Grot, de veritat relig. lib. 4, sec. 12. t lamblich.
X Amyrald, Mor., torn. i. p. 309, 310.
288 chaknock's works. [John IV. 24.
template God, we must also worship God. We cannot think of him but
with our minds, nor love him but with our will; and we cannot worship him
without the acts of thinking and loving, and therefore cannot worship him
without the exercise of our inward faculties. How is it possible, then, for
any man that knows his own nature, to think that extended hands, bended
knees, and lifted up eyes, were sufficient acts of worship, without a quick-
ened and active spirit !
(2.) From the knowledge of God. As there was a knowledge of God by
nature, so the same nature did dictate to man that God was to be glorified
as God. The apostle implies the inference in the charge he brings against
them for neglecting it, Rom. i. 21. * We should speak of God as he is,'
said one ; * and the same reason would inform them that they were to act
towards God as he is. The excellency of the object required a worship
according to the dignity of his nature, which could not be answered but by
the most serious inward affection as well as outward decency ; and a want
of this cannot but be judged to be unbecoming the majesty of the Creator of
the world, and the excellency of religion. No nation, no person did ever
assert that the vilest part of man was enough for the most excellent being,
as God is ; that a bodily service could be a sufficient acknowledgment of the
greatness of God, or a sufficient return for the bounty of God.f Man could
not but know that he was to act in religion conformably to the object of
religion, and to the excellency of his own soul. The notion of a God was
sufficient to fill the mind of man with admiration and reverence, and the
first conclusion from it would be to honour God, and that he have all the
affection placed on him that so infinite and spiritual a being did deserve.
The progress then would be, that this excellent being was to be honoured
with the motions of the understanding and will, with the purest and most
spiritual powers in the nature of man, because he was a spiritual being, and
had nothing of matter mingled with him. Such a brutish imagination to
suppose that blood and fumes, beasts and incense, could please a Deity,
without a spiritual frame, cannot be supposed to befall any but those that
had lost their reason in the rubbish of sense. Mere rational nature could
never conclude that so excellent a spirit would be put off with a mere animal
service, and attendance of matter and body without spirit, when they them-
selves, of an inferior nature, would be loath to sit down contented with an
outside service from those that belong to them ; so that this instruction of
our Saviour, that God is to be worshipped in spirit and truth, is conform-
able to the sentiments of nature, and drawn from the most undeniable prin-
ciples of it. The excellency of God's nature, and the excellent constitution
of human faculties, concur naturally to support this persuasion. This was
as natural to be known by men, as the necessity of justice and temperance
for the support of human societies and bodies. It is to be feared that if
there be not among us such brutish apprehensions, there are such brutish
dealings with God in our services against the light of nature, when we place
all our worship of God in outward attendances and drooping countenances,
with unbelieving frames and formal devotions ; when prayer is muttered over
in private slightly, as a parrot learns lessons by rote, not undei'standing
what it speaks, or to what end it speaks it ; not glorifying God in thought
and spirit, with understanding and will.
(3.) Spiritual worship, therefore, was always required by God, and always
offered to him by one or other. Man had a perpetual obligation upon him
to such a worship, from the nature of God ; and what is founded upon the
nature of God is unvariable. This and that particular mode of worship
* Bias. t Amyrald, ib.
JOHX IV. 24.] SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. 289
may ' wax old as a garment, and as a vesture maybe folded up and changed,'
as the expression is of the heavens, Heb. i. 11, 12, but God endures for
ever. His spirituality fails not, therefore a worship of him in spirit must
run through all ways and rites of worship. God must cease to be spirit,
before any service but that which is spiritual can be accepted by him. The
light of nature is the light of God ; the light of nature being unchangeable,
what was dictated by that was always, and will always be, required by God.
The worshipping of God being pei-petually due from the creature, the wor-
shipping him as God is as perpetually his right, though the outward
expressions of this honour were different, one way in paradise (for a worship
was then due, since a solemn time for that worship was appointed), another
under the law, another under the gospel. The angels also worship God in
heaven, and fall down before his throne ; yet though they diifer in rites,
they agree in this necessary ingredient, — all rites, though of a different
shape, must be offered to him not as carcasses, but animated with the affec-
tions of the soul. Abel's sacrifice had not been so excellent in God's
esteem, without those gracious habits and affections working in his soul,
Heb. xi. 4. Faith works by love ; his heart was on fire as well as hia
sacrifice. Cain rested upon his present, perhaps thought he had obliged
God. He depended upon the outward ceremony, but sought not for the
inward purity. It was an oflering brought to the Lord, Gen. iv. 5 ; he had
the right object, but not the right manner : ver. 7, ' If thou dost well, shalt
thou not be accepted ?' And in the command afterwards to Abraham,
' Walk before me, and be thou perfect,' was the direction in all our religious
acts and walkings with God. A sincere act of the mind and will, looking
above and beyond all symbols, extending the soul to a pitch far above the
body, and seeing the day of Christ through the veil of the ceremonies, was
required by God. And though Moses, by God's order, had instituted a
multitude of carnal ordinances, sacrifices, washings, oblations of sensible
things, and recommended to the people the diligent observation of those
statutes by the allurements of promises and denouncing of threatenings, as
if there were nothing else to he regarded, and the true workings of grace
were to be buried under a heap of ceremonies, yet sometimes he doth point
them to the inward worship, and, by the command of God, requires of them
the ' circumcision of the heart,' Deut. x. 16, the ' turning to God with all
their heart and all their soul,' Deut. xxx. 10, whereby they might recollect
that it was the engagement of the heart and the worship of the spirit that
was most agreeable to God, and that he took not any pleasure in their
observance of ceremonies, without true piety within, and the true purity of
their thoughts.
(4.) It is therefore as much every man's duty to worship God in spirit, as
it is their duty to worship him. Worship is so due to him as God, as that
he that denies it disowns his Deity. And spiritual worship is so due, that
he that waives it denies his spirituality. It is a debt of justice we owe to
God to worship him, and it is as much a debt of justice to worship him
according to his nature. Worship is nothing else but a rendering to God
the honour that is due to him, and therefore the right posture of our spirits
in it is as much or more due than the material worship in the modes of his
own prescribing ; that is grounded both upon his nature and upon his com-
mand, this only upon his command ; that is perpetually due, whereas the
channel wherein outward worship runs may be dried up, and the river
diverted another way ; such a worship wherein the mind thinks of God,
feels a sense of God, has the spirit consecrated to God, the heart glowing
with affections to God. It is else a mocking God with a feather. A rational
VOL. I. T
290 chaknock's works. [John IV. 24.
nature must worship God with that wherein the glory of God doth most
sparkle in him. God is most visible in the frame of the soul; it is there
his image glitters. He hath given us a jewel as well as a case, and the
jewel as well as the case we must return to him. The spirit is God's gift,
and must return to him, Eccles. xii. 7. It must return to him in every service
morally, as well as it must return to him at last physically. It is not fit
we should serve our Maker only with that which is the brute in us, and
withhold from him that which doth constitute us reasonable creatures. We
must give him our bodies, but ' a living sacrifice,' Rom. xii. 1. If the
spirit be absent from God when the body is before him, we present a dead
sacrifice. It is morally dead in the duty, though it be naturally alive in
the posture and action. It is not an indifferent thing whether we shall
worship God or no, nor is it an indifferent thing whether we shall worship
him with our spirits or no. As the excellency of man's knowledge consists
in knowing things as they are in truth, so the excellency of the will in
willing things as they are in goodness. As it is the excellency of man to
know God as God, so it is no less his excellency, as well as his duty, to
honour God as God. As the obligation we have to the power of God for
our being binds us to a worship of him, so the obligation we have to his
bounty, for fashioning us according to his own image, binds us to an exer-
tise of that part wherein his image doth consist. God hath ' made all things
for himself,' Prov. xvi. 4 ; that is, for the evidence of his own goodness and
wisdom. We are therefore to render him a glory according to the excel-
lency of his nature, discovered in the frame of our own. It is as much our
sin not to glorify God as God, as not to attempt the glorifying of him at all.
It is our sin not to worship God as God, as well as to omit the testifying
any respect at all to him. As the divine nature is the object of worship, so
the divine perfections are to be honoured in worship. We do not honour
God, if we honour him not as he is ; we honour him not as a spirit, if we
think him not worthy of the ardours and ravishing admirafions of our spirits.
If we think the devotions of the body are sufficient for him, we contract him
into the condition of our own being, and not only deny him to be a spiritual
nature, but dash out all those perfections which he could not be possessed
of were he not a spirit.
5. The ceremonial law was abolished to promote the spirituality of divine
worship. That service was gross, carnal, calculated for an infant and sensi-
tive church. It consisted in rudiments, the circumcision of the flesh, the
blood and smoke of sacrifices, the streams of incense, observation of days,
distinction of meats, corporal purifications ; every leaf of the law is clogged
with some rite to be particularly observed by them. The spirituality of
worship lay veiled under a thick cloud, that the people could not behold the
glory of the gospel, which lay covered under those shadows : 2 Cor. iii. 13,
' They could not stedfastly look to the end of that which was abolished ! '
They understood not the glory and spiritual intent of the law, and therefore
came short of that spiritual frame in the worship of God, which was their
duty ; and therefore, in opposition to this administration, the worship of
God under the gospel is called by our Saviour in the text, a worship in
spirit ; more spiritual for the matter, more spiritual for the motives, and
more spiritual for the manner and frames of worship,
(1.) This legal service is called flesh in Scripture, in opposition to the
gospel, which is called spirit. The ordinances of the law, though of divine
institution, are dignified by the apostle with no better a title than carnal
ordinances, Heb. ix. 10, and a carnal command, Heb. vii. 16 ; but the
gospel is called the ministration of the spirit, as being attended with a special
John IV. 24.] spiritual woesuip. 291
and spiritual efficacy on the minds of men, 2 Cor. iii, 8. And when the
degenerate Galatians, after having tasted of the pure streams of the gospel,
turned about to drink of the thicker streams of the law, the apostle tells
them that they ' begun in the spirit,' and would not be ' made perfect in the
flesh,' Gal. iii. 3 ; they would leave the righteousness of faith for a justifica-
tion by works. The moral law, which is in its own nature spiritual, Rom.
vii. 14, in regard of the abuse of it in expectation of justification by the out-
ward works of it, is called flesh. Much more may the ceremonial adminis-
tration, which was never intended to run parallel with the moral, nor had
any foundation in nature, as the other had.
That whole economy consisted in sensible and material things which only
touched the flesh ; it is called ' the letter,' and the ' oldness of the letter,'
Rom. vii. G ; as letters, which are but empty sounds in themselves, but put to-
gether and formed into words, signify something to the mind of the hearer
or reader. An old letter, a thing of no efficacy upon the spirit, but as a law
■written upon paper. The gospel hath an efficacious spirit attending it,
strongly working upon the mind and will, and moulding the soul into a
spiritual frame for God ; according to the doctrine of the gospel, the one
is old and decays, the other is new, and increaseth daily.
And as the law itself is called flesh, so the observers of it and resters in
it are called ' Israel after the flesh,' 1 Cor. x. 18 ; and the evangelical wor-
shipper is called a ' a Jew after the spirit,' Rom. ii. 29. They were Israel
after the flesh as born of Jacob, not Israel after the spirit as born of God ;
and therefoi'e the apostle calls them Israel and not Israel, Rom. ix. 6 ;
Israel after a carnal birth, not Israel after a spiritual ; Israel in the circum-
cision of the flesh, not Israel by a regeneration of the heart.
(2.) The legal ceremonies were not a fit means to bring the heart into a
spiritual frame. They had a spiritual intent; the rock and manna prefigured
the salvation and spiritual nourishment by the Redeemer, 1 Cor. x. 3, 4.
The sacrifices were to point them to the justice of God in the punishment
of sin, and the mercy of God in substituting them in their steads, as types
of the Redeemer and the ransom by his blood. The circumcision of the
flesh was to instruct them in the circumcision of the heart. They were flesh
in regard of their matter, weakness, and cloudiness ; spiritual in regard of
their intent and signification ; they did instruct, but not efficaciously work
strong spiritual afiections in the soul of the worshipper. They were ' weak
and beggarly elements,' Gal. iv. 9, had neither wealth to enrich nor strength
to nourish the soul. They could not perfect the comers to them, or put
them into a frame agreeable to the nature of God, Heb. x. 1, ix. 9, nor
• purge the conscience from those dead ' and dull dispositions which were by
nature in them, ver. 14 ; being carnal, they could not have an efficacy to
purify the conscience of the offerer, and work spiritual effects. Had they
continued without the exhibition of Christ, they could never have wrought
any change in us, or purchased any favour for us.* At the best they were
but shadows, and came unespressibly short of the efficacy of that person and
state whose shadows they were. The shadow of a man is too weak to per-
form what the man himself can do, because it wants the life, spirit, and
activity of the substance. The whole pomp and scene was suited more to
the sensitive than the intellectual nature, and, like pictures, pleased the
fancy of children, rather than improved their reason. The Jewish state
was a state of childhood, Gal. v. 2, and that administration a pedagogy,
iv. 24. The law was a schoolmaster, fitted for their weak and childish
capacity, and could no more spiritualise the heart than the teachings in a
* Bulges, Vind. p. 256.
292 chabnock's woeks. [John IY. 24.
primer school can enable the mind, and make it fit for affairs of state ;
and, because they eould not better the spirit, they were instituted only for a
time, as elements delivered to an infant age, which naturally lives a life of
sense rather than a life of reason. It was also a servile state, which doth
rather debase than elevate the mind, rather carnalise than spiritualise the
heart ; besides, it is a sense of mercy that both melts and elevates the heart
into a spiritual frame : Ps. cxxx. 4, ' There is forgiveness with thee that
thou mayest be feared.' And they had in that state but some glimmerings
of mercy in the daily bloody intimations of justice. There was no sacrifice
for some sins, but a cutting ofi" without the least hints of pardon ; and in the
yearly remembrance of sin there was as much to shiver them with fear as to
possess them with hopes, and such a state which always held them under
the conscience of sin could not produce a free spirit, which was necessary
for a worship of God according to his nature.
(3.) In their use they rather hindered than furthered a spiritual worship.
In their own nature they did not tend to the obstructing a spiritual worship,
for then they had been contrary to the nature of religion and the end of God
who appointed them. Nor did God cover the evangelical doctrine under the
clouds of the legal administration, to hinder the people of Israel from per-
ceiving it, but because they were not yet capable to bear the splendour of it
had it been clearly set before them. The shining of the face of Moses w^as
too dazzling for their weak eyes, and therefore there was a necessity of a
veil, not for the things themselves, but the weakness of their ej'es, 2 Cor.
iii. 13, 14. The carnal afiections of that people sunk down into the things
themselves, stuck in the outward pomp, and pierced not through the veil
to the spiritual intent of them ; and by the use of them, without rational
conceptions, they besotted their minds, and became senseless of those
spiritual motions required of them. Hence came all their expectations of a
carnal Messiah ; the veil of ceremonies was so thick, and the film upon their
eyes so condensed, that they could not look through the veil to the Spirit of
Christ. They beheld not the heavenly Canaan for the beauty of the earthly,
nor minded the regeneration of the spirit while they rested upon the purifi-
cations of the flesh. The prevalency of sense and sensitive affections diverted
their minds from inquiring into the intent of them. Sense and matter are
often clogs to the mind, and sensible objects are the same often to spiritual
motions. Our souls are never more raised than when they are abstracted
from the entanglements of them. A pompous worship, made up of many
sensible objects, weakens the spirituality of religion. Those that are most
zealous for outward are usually most cold and indifi'erent in inward observ-
ances, and those that overdo in carnal modes usually underdo in spiritual
affections.
This was the Jewish state.* The nature of the ceremonies being pompous
and earthly, by their show and beauty meeting with their weakness and
childish affections, filled their eyes with an outward lustre, allured their
minds, and detained them from seeking things higher and more spiritual.
The kernel of those rites lay concealed in a thick shell, the spiritual glory
was little seen, and the spiritual sweetness little tasted. Unless the Scripture
be diligently searched, it seems to transfer the worship of God from true
faith and the spiritual motions of the heart, and stake it down to outward
observances and the opus operatum ; besides, the voice of the law did only
declare sacrifices, and invited the worshipper to them with a promise of the
atonement of sin, turning away the wrath of God. It never plainly acquainted
them that those things were types and shadows of something future, that
* lllyric. de velam. Mosis, p. 221, &c.
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 293
they were only outwai'd purifications of the flesh. It never plainly told them
at the time of appointing them that those sacrifices could not abolish sin,
and reconcile them to God. Indeed, we see more of them since their death
and dissection in that one Epistle to the Hebrews than can be discerned in
the five books of Moses. Besides, man naturally affects a carnal ^life, and
therefore affects a carnal worship ; he designs the gratifying his sense, and
would have a religion of the same nature. Most men have no mind to busy
their reason above the things of sense, and are naturally unwilling to raise
them up to those things which are allied to the spiritual nature of God ; and
therefore the more spiritual any onlinance is, the more averse is the heart of
man to it. There is a * simplicity of the gospel,' from which our minds are
easily corrupted by things that pleasure the sense, as Eve was by the
curiosity of her eye and the liquorishness of her palate, 2 Cor. xi. 3. From
this principle hath sprung all the idolatry in the world. The Jews knew
they had a God who had delivered them, but they would have a sensible
God to go before them, Exod. xxxii. 1 ; and the papacy at this day is a
witness of the truth of this natural corruption.
(4.) Upon these accounts, therefore, God never testified himself well
pleased with that kind of worship. He was not displeased with them, as they
were his own institution, and ordained for the representing (though in an
obscure manner) the glorious things of the gospel ; nor was he offended with
those people's observance of them, for since he had commanded them, it was
their duty to perform them, and their sin to neglect them ; but he was dis-
pleased with them as they were practised by them, with souls as morally
carnal in the practices, as the ceremonies were materially carnal in their
substance. It was not their disobedience to observe them ; but it was a
disobedience, and a contempt of the end of the institution, to rest upon them,
to be warm in them and cold in morals. They fed upon the bone, and
neglected the mai'row ; pleased themselves with the shell, and sought not
for the kernel. They joined not with them the internal worship of God, fear
of him, with faith in the promised seed, which lay veiled under those cover-
ings : Hos. vi. 6, * I desired mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of
God more than burnt- offerings.' And therefore he seems sometimes weary
of his own institutions, and calls them not his own, but their sacrifices, their
feasts, Isa. i. 11, 14. They were his by appointment, theirs by abuse. The
institution was from his goodness and condescension, therefore his ; the cor-
ruption of them was from the vice of their nature, therefore theirs. He often
blamed them for their carnality in them, shewed his dislike of placing all
their religion in them, gives the sacrificers, upon that account, no better a
title than that of the ' princes of Sodom and Gomorrah,' Isa. i. 10 ; and
compares the sacrifices themselves to the ' cutting off a dog's neck,' * swine's
blood,' and the * murder of a man,' Isa. Ixvi. 3. And indeed God never
valued them, or expressed any delight in them. He despised the feasts of
the wicked, Amos v. 21, and had no esteem for the material offerings of the
godly : Ps. 1. 13, ' Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats ? '
which he speaks to his saints and people, before he comes to reprove the
wicked, which he begins, ver. 16, ' But to the wicked, God said,' &c. So
slightly he esteemed them, that he seems to disown them to be any part of
bis command, when he brought his people out of the land of Egypt : Jer.
vii. 22, ' I spake not to your fathers, nor commanded them concerning
burnt-offerings and sacrifices.' He did not value nor regard them, in com-
parison of that inward frame which he had required by the moral law ; that
being given before the law of ceremonies, obliged them, in the first place, to
an observance of those precepts. They seemed to be below the nature of
294 chaenock's wokks. [John IV. 24.
God, and could not of themselves please him. None could in reason per-
suade themselves that the death of a beast was a proportionable offering for
the sin of a man, or ever was intended for the expiation of transgression.
In the same rank are all our bodily services under the gospel. A loud voice
without spirit, bended bulrushes without inward affections, are no more
delightful to God than the sacrifices of animals. It is but a change of one
brute for another of a higher species ; a mere brute, for that part of man
which hath an agreement with brutes. Such a service is a mere animal
service, and not spiritual.
(5.) And therefore God never intended that sort of worship to be durable,
and had often mentioned the change of it for one more spiritual. It was
not good or evil in itself ; whatsoever goodness it had was solely derived to
it by institution, and therefore it was mutable. It had no conformity with
the spiritual nature of God, who was to be worshipped, nor with the rational
nature of man, who was to worship. And therefore he often speaks of taking
away the new moons, and feasts, and sacrifices, and all the ceremonial wor-
ship, as things he took no pleasure in, to have a worship more suited to
his excellent nature. But he never speaks of removing the gospel adminis-
tration, and the worship prescribed there, as being more agreeable to the
nature and perfections of God, and displaying them more illustriously to the
world.
The apostle tells us it was to be disannulled because of its weakness, Heb.
vii, 18. A determinate time was fixed for its duration, till the accomplish-
ment of the truth figured under that pedagogj'. Gal. iv. 2. Some of the
modes of that worship being only typical, must naturally expire and be insig-
nificant in their use, upon the finishing of that by the Redeemer, which they
did pi'efigure ; and other parts of it, though God suffered them so long because
of the weakness of the worshipper, yet because it became not God to be
always worshipped in that manner, he would reject them, and introduce
another more spiritual and elevated. ' Incense and a pure offering' should
be ofiered everj'where unto his name, Mai. i. 11.
He often told them he would make a new covenant by the Messiah, and
the old should be rejected ; * that the * former things should not be remem-
bered, and the things of old no more considered,' when he should do ' a new
thing in the earth,' Isa. xliii. 18, 19. Even the ark of the covenant, the
symbol of his presence and the glory of the Lord in that nation, should not
any more be remembered and visited, Jer. iii. 16 ; that the temple and
sacrifices should be rejected, and others established ; that the order of the
Aaronical priesthood should be abolished, and that of Melchisedec set up in
the stead of it in the person of the Messiah, to endure for ever, Ps. ex. ;
that Jerusalem should be changed, a new heaven and earth created, a worship
more conformable to heaven, more advantageous to earth. God had pro-
ceeded in the removal of some part of it, before the time of taking down the
whole furniture of this house. The pot of manna was lost, Urim and
Thummim ceased, the glory of the temple was diminished, and the ignorant
people wept at the sight of the one, without raising their faith and hope in
the consideration of the other, which was promised to be filled with a spiritual
glory. And as soon as ever the gospel was spread in the world, God thun-
dered out his judgments upon that place in which he had fixed all those legal
observances ; so that the Jews, in the letter and flesh, could never practise
the main part of their worship, since they were expelled from that place
where it was only to be celebrated. It is one thousand six hundred years
since they have been deprived of their altar, which was the foundation of all
* Pascal. Pen,, 142.
John IV. 24.] spibixual worship. 295
the Levitical worship, and have wandered in the world * without a sacrifice,
a prince or priest, an ephod or teraphim,' Hos. iii. 4.
And God fully put an end to it in the command he gave to the apostles,
and in them to us, in the presence of Moses and Elias, to hear his Son only:
Mat. xvii. 0, ' Behold a voice out of the cloud, which said. This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased : hear him ; ' and at the death of our
Saviour, testified it to that whole nation and the world, by the rending in
twain the vail of the temple.
The whole frame of that service, which was carnal, and by reason of the
corruption of man, weakened, is nulled, and a spiritual worship is made
known to the world, that we might now serve God in a more spiritual manner,
and with more spiritual frames.
Prop. 6. The service and worship the gospel settles is spiritual, and the
performance of it more spiritual. Spirituality is the genius of the gospel,
as carnality was of the law ; the gospel is therefore called spirit. We are
abstracted from the employments of sense, and brought nearer to a heavenly
state. The Jews had angels' bread poured upon them ; we have angels'
service prescribed to us : the praises of God, communion with God in spirit,
through his Son Jesus Christ, and stronger foundations for spiritual afiections.
It is called a reasonable service, Rom. xii. 1. It is suited to a rational
natm-e, though it finds no fiiendship from the corruption of reason. It pre-
scribes a service fit for the reasonable faculties of the soul, and advanceth
them while it employs them. The word reasonable may be translated icord
service * as well as reasonable service ; an evangelical service, in opposition
to a law service. All evangelical service is reasonable, and all truly reason-
able service is evangelical.
The matter of the worship is spiritual. It consists in love of God, faith
in God, recourse to his goodness, meditation on him, and communion with
him. It lays aside the ceremonial, spiritualiseth the moral. The commands
that concerned our duty to God, as well as those that concerned our duty to
our neighbour, were reduced by Christ to the spiritual intention.
The motives are spiritual. It is a state of more grace, as well as of more
truth, John i. 17, supported by spiritual promises, beaming out in spiritual
privileges. Heaven comes down in it to earth, to spiritualise earth for
heaven.
The manner of worship is more spiritual. Higher flights of the soul,
stronger ardours of afi"ections, sincerer aims at his glory ; mists are removed
from our minds, clogs from the soul ; more of love than fear ; faith in Christ
kindles the afi'ections, and works by them.
The assistances to spiritual worship are greater. The Spirit doth not
drop, but is plentifully pom-ed out. It doth not light sometimes upon, but
dwells in, the heart. Christ suited the gospel to a spiritual heart, and the
Spirit changeth a carnal heart to make it fit for a spiritual gospel. He blows
upon the garden, and causes the spices to flow forth ; and often makes the
soul in worship like the chariots of Amminadab in a quick and nimble motion.
Our blessed Lord and Saviour by his death discovered to us the nature of
God, and after his ascension sent his Spirit to fit us for the worship of God,
and converse with him.
One spiritual evangelical believing breath is more delightful to God than
millions of altars made up of the richest pearls, and smoking with the cost-
liest oblations, because it is spiritual ; and a mite of spirit is of more worth
than the greatest weight of flesh. One holy angel is more excellent than a
whole world of mere bodies.
* V. Hammond, in he.
296 chabnock's works. [John IV. 24.
Prop. 7. Yet the worship of God ■with our bodies is not to be rejected
upon the account that God requires a spiritual worship. Though we must
perform the weightier duties of the law, yet we are not to omit and leave
undone the lighter precepts ; since both the magnaUa and miuutula legis,
the greater and the lesser duties of the law, have the stamp of divine autho-
rity upon them.
As God, under the ceremonial law, did not command the worship of the
body, and the observation of outward rites, without the engagement of the
spirit, so neither doth he command that of the spirit without the peculiar
attendance of the body.
The Schwelkfendians denied bodily worship ; and the indecent postures
of many in public attendance intimate no great care either of composing their
bodies or spirits. A morally discomposed body intimates a tainted heart.
Our bodies as well as our spirits are to be presented to God, Rom. xii, 1.
Our bodies in lieu of the sacrifices of beasts, as in the Judaical institutions :
body for the whole man ; a living sacrifice, not to be slain, as the beasts
were, but living a new life, in a holy posture, with crucified afiections.
This is the inference the apostle makes of the privileges of justification,
adoption, co-heirship with Christ, which he had before discoursed of; pri-
vileges conferred upon the person, and not upon a part of man.
1. Bodily worship is due to God. He hath a right to an adoration by
our bodies as they are his by creation ; his right is not diminished but
increased by the blessing of redemption : 1 Cor. vi. 20, ' For you are bought
with a price ; therefore glorify God in your bodies and your spirits, M'hich are
God's.' The body as well as the spirit is redeemed, since our Saviour suf-
fered crucifixion in his body, as well as agonies in his soul. Body is not
taken here for the whole man, as it may be in Rom. xii. ; but for the mate-
rial part of our nature, it being distinguished from the spirit. If we are to
render to God an obedience with our bodies, we are to render him such acts
of worship with our bodies as they are capable of. As God is ' the Father of
spirits,' so he is ' the God of all tlesh ;' therefore the flesh he hath framed of
the earth, as well as the noble portion he hath breathed into us, cannot be
denied him without a palpable injustice. The service of the body we must not
deny to God, unless we will deny him to be the author of it, and the exer-
cise of his providential care about it. The mercies of God are renewed
every day upon our bodies as well as our souls, and therefore they ought to
express a fealty to God for his bounty every day. ' Both are from God,
both should be for God. Man consists of body and soul ; the service of
man is the service of both. The body is to be sanctified as well as the
soul, and therefore to be offered to God as well as the soul. Both are
to be glorified, both are to glorify. As our Saviour's divinity was manifested
in his body, so should our spirituality in ours. To give God the service
of the body, and not of the soul, is hypocrisy; to give God the service of
the spirit, and not of the body, is sacrilege ; to give him neither, atheism.'*
If the only part of man that is visible were exempted from the service of God,
there could be no visible testimonies of piety given upon any occasion :
since not a moiety of man, but the whole, is God's creature, he ought to pay
a homage with the whole, and not only with a moiety of himself.
2. Worship in societies is due to God, but this cannot be without some
bodily expressions. The law of nature doth as much direct men to combine
together in public societies for the acknowledgment of God, as in civil com-
munities for self-preservation and order ; and the notice of a society for
religion is more ancient than the mention of civil associations for politic
* Sherman's Greek in the Temple, p. 61, 62.
John IV. 24.] spiritual worsuip. 297
gOTeniment : Gen. iv. 26, ' Then began men to call upon the name of the
Lord,' viz., in the time of Seth. No question but Adam had worshipped God
before as well as Abel, and a family religion had been preserved ; but as man-
kind increased in distinct families, they knit together in companies to solem-
nize the worship of God."= Hence, as some think, those that incorporated
together for such ends were called the sons of God ; sons by profession,
though not sons by adoption ; as those of Corinth were saints by profes-
sion, though in such a corrupted church they could not be all so by regene-
ration, yet saints, as being of a Christian society, and calling upon the
name of Christ, that is, worshipping God in Christ, though tbcy might not
be all saints in spirit and practice. So Cain and Abel met together to wor-
ship. Gen. iv. 3, ' at the end of the days,' at a set time. God settled a
public worship among the Jews, instituted synagogues for their convening
together, whence called ' the synagogues of God,' Ps. Ixxiv. 8. The Sab-
bath was instituted to acknowledge God a common benefactor. Public
worship keeps up the memorials of God in a world prone to atheism, and a
sense of God in a heart prone to forgctfulness. The angels sung in com-
pany, not singly, at the birth of Christ, Luke ii. 13, and praised God not
only with a simple elevation of their spiritual nature, but audibly, by form-
ing a voice in the air. Affections are more lively, spirits more raised in
public than private ; God will credit his own ordinance. Fire increaseth
by laying together many coals in one place ; so is devotion inflamed by the
union of many hearts, and by a joint presence ; nor can the approach of the
last day of judgment, or particular judgments upon a nation, give a writ of
ease from such assemblies : Heb. x. 25, ' Not forsaking the assembling our-
selves together, but so much the more as you see the day approaching.'
Whether it be understood of the day of judgment, or the day of the Jewish
destruction and the Christian persecution, the apostle uses it as an argu-
ment to quicken them to the observance, not to encourage them to a neglect.
Since, therefore, natural light informs us, and divine institution commands
us, publicly to acknowledge ourselves the servants of God, it implies the
service of the body. Such acknowledgments cannot be without visible testi-
monies, and outward exercises of devotion, as well as inward affections.
This promotes God's honour, checks others' profaneness, allures men to
the same expressions of duty. And though there may be hypocrisy, and
an outward garb without an inward frame, yet better a moiety of worship
than none at all ; better acknowledge God's right in one than disown it
in both.
3. Jesus Christ, the most spiritual worshipper, worshipped God with his
body. He prayed orally, and kneeled, ' Father, if it be thy will,' &c., Luke
xxii. 41, 42. He blessed with his mouth, ' Father, I thank thee,' Mat.
xi. 26. He lifted up his eyes, as well as elevated his spirit, when he praised
his Father for mercy received, or begged for the blessings his disciples
wanted, John xi, 41 ; xvii. 1. The strength of the spirit must have vent
at the outward members. The holy men of God have employed the body
in significant expressions of worship ; Abraham in falling on his face, Paul
in kneeling, employing their tongues, lifting up their hands. Though
Jacob was bed-rid, yet he would not worship God without some devout
expression of reverence ; it is in one place leaning upon his staff, Heb.
xi. 21 ; in another bowing himself upon his bed's bead. Gen. xlvii. 31. The
reason of the diversity is in the Hebrew word, which without vowels may
be read Mittah, a bed, or Mattch, a staff; howsoever, both signify a testi-
mony of adoration by a reverent gesture of the body. Indeed, in angels and
* Stillingfleefs Irenicum, cap. i. sect. 1, p. 23.
298 chaknock's works. [John IV. 24.
separated souls, a worship is performed purely by the spirit ; but whiles
the soul is in conjunction with the body, it can hardly perform a serious
act of worship without some tincture upon the outward man, and reverential
composure of the body. Fire cannot be in the clothes, but it will be felt by
the members ; nor flames be pent up in the soul without bursting out in the
body. The heart can no more restrain itself from breaking out, than Joseph
could inclose his affections, without expressing them in tears to his brethren,
Gen. xlv. 1, 2. ' We believe, and therefore speak,' 2 Cor. iv, 13.
To conclude ; God hath appointed some parts of worship which cannot be
performed without the body, as sacraments ; we have need of them because
we are not wholly spiritual and incorporeal creatures.
The religion which consists^ in externals only, is not for an intellectual
nature. A worship purely intellectual is too sublime for a nature allied to
sense and depending much upon it. The Christian mode of worship is pro-
portioned to both ; it makes the sense to assist the mind, and elevates the
spirit above the sense. Bodily worship helps the spiritual. The members
of the body reflect back upon the heart, the voice bars distractions, the
tongue sets the heart on fire in good as well as in evil. It is as much against
the light of nature to serve God without external significations, as to serve
him only with them without the intention of the mind. As the invisible
God declares himself to men by visible works and signs, so should we de-
clare our invisible frames by \'isible expressions. God hath given us a soul
and body in conjunction, and we are to serve him in the same manner he
hath framed us.
II. The second thing I am to shew is, what spiritual worship is. In
general, the whole spirit is to be employed. The name of God is not sancti-
fied but by the engagement of our souls.
Worship is an act of the understanding, applying itself to the knowledge
of the excellency of God, and actual thoughts of his majesty, recognising
him as the supreme Lord and governor of the world, which is natural know-
ledge ; beholding the glory of his attributes in the Redeemer, which is evan-
gelical knowledge ; this is the sole act of the spirit of man. The same
reason is for all our worship as for our thanksgiving. This must be done
with understanding : Ps. xlvii. 7, ' Sing ye praise with understanding,' with
a knowledge and sense of his greatness, goodness, and wisdom. It is also
an act of the will, whereby the soul adores and reverenceth his majesty, is
ravished with his amiableness, embraceth his goodness, enters itself into an
intimate communion with this most lovely object, and pitcheth all his afi"ec-
tions upon him.
We must worship God understandingly ; it is not else a reasonable service.
The nature of God and the law of God abhor a blind ofiering ; we must wor-
ship him heartily, else we ofier him a dead sacrifice. A reasonable service
is that wherein the mind doth truly act something with God. All spiritual
acts must be acts of reason, otherwise they are not human acts, because they
want that principle which is constitutive of man, and doth difi'erence him
from other creatures. Acts done only by sense are the acts of a brute ; acts
done by reason are the acts of a man ; that which is only an act of sense
cannot be an act of religion. The sense without the conduct of reason is
not the subject of religious acts, for then beasts were capable of religion as
well as men. There cannot be religion where there is not reason ; and there
cannot be the exercise of religion, where there is not an exercise of the
rational faculties. Nothing can be a Christian act, that is not a human act.
Besides, all worship must be for some end ; the worship of God must be for
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 299
God ; it is by the exorcise of our rational faculties, that we only can intend
an end. An ignorant and carnal worship is a brutish worship,
Particularly,
1. Spiritual worship is a worship from a spiritual nature. Not only
physically spiritual, so our souls arc in their frame, but morally spiritual,
by a renewing principle. The heart must be first cast into the mould of the
gospel, before it can perform a worship required by the gospel. Adam
living in paradise might perform a spiritual worship, but Adam fallen
from his rectitude could not. We being heirs of his nature, are heirs of
his impotence. Eestoration to a spiritual life must precede any act of
spiritual worship. As no work can bo good, so no worship can be spiritual,
till we are created in Christ, Eph. ii. 10. ' Christ is our life,' Col. iii. 4.
As no natural action can be performed without life in the root or heart, so
no spiritual act without Christ in the soul. Our being in Christ is as
necessary to every spiritual act, as the union of our soul with our body is
necessary to natural action. Nothing can exceed the limits of its nature ;
for then it should exceed itself in acting, and do that which it hath no prin-
ciple to do. A beast cannot act like a man, without partaking of the nature
of a man ; nor a man act like an angel, without partaking of the angelical
nature. How can we perform spiritual acts without a spiritual principle ?
Whatsoever worship proceeds from the corrupted nature, cannot deserve the
title of spiritual worship, because it springs not from a spiritual habit. If
those that are evil cannot speak good things, those that are carnal cannot
offer a spiritual service. Poison is the fruit of a viper's nature : Mat. xii. 34,
• 0 generation of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things ? for
out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.' As the root is, so
is the fruit. If the soul be habitually carnal, the worship cannot be actually
spiritual. There may be an intention of spirit, but there is no spiritual
principle as a root of that intention. A heart may be sensibly united with
u duty, w^hen it is not spiritually united with Christ in it. Carnal motives
and carnal ends may fix the mind in an act of worship, as the sense of some
pressing affliction may enlarge a man's mind in prayer. Whatsoever is
agreeable to the nature of God, must have a stamp of Christ upon it ; a
stamp of his grace in performance, as well as of his meditation* in the accept-
ance. The apostle hved not, but ' Christ lived in him,' Gal. ii. 20 ; the
soul worships not, but Christ in him. Not that Christ performs the act of
worship, but enables us spiritually to worship, after he enables us spiritually
to live. As God counts not any soul living but in Christ, so he counts not
any a spiritual worshipper but in Christ. The goodness and fatness of the
fruit comes from the fatness of the olive wherein we are engrafted. We
must find healing in Christ's wings, before God can find spirituality in our
services. All worship issuing from a dead nature, is but a dead service. A
living action cannot be performed without being knit to a living root.
2. Spiritual worship is done by the influence and with the assistance of
the Spirit of God. A heart may be spiritual, when a particular act of wor-
ship may not be spiritual. The Spirit may dwell in the heart, when he may
suspend his influence on the act. Our worship is then spiritual, when the
fire that kindles our affections comes from heaven, as that fire upon the altar
wherewith the sacrifices were consumed. God tastes a sweetness in no
service, but as it is dressed up by the hand of the Mediator, and hath the
air of his own Spirit in it : they are but natural acts without a supernatural
assistance. Without an actual influence we cannot act from spiritual
motives, nor for spiritual ends, nor in a spiritual manner. We cannot
* Qu. ' mediation ' ? — Ed.
300' charnock's works. [John IY. 24.
mortify a Inst without the Spirit, Rom. viii. 13, nor quicken a service with-
out the Spirit. Whatsoever corruption is killed, is slain by his power ;
whatsoever duty is spiritualised, is refined by his breath. He ' quickens
our dead bodies' in our resurrection, ver. 11 ; he renews our dead souls in
our regeneration ; he quickens our carnal services in our adorations ; the
choicest acts of worship are but infirmities, without his auxiliary help,
ver. 26. We are logs, unable to move ourselves, till he raise our faculties
to a pitch agreeable to God, puts his hand to the duty, and lifts that up,
and us with it. Never any great act was performed by the apostles to God,
or for God, but they are said to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Christ
conld not have been conceived immaculate as ' that holy thing,' without the
Spirit's overshadowing the virgin ; nor any spiritual act conceived in our
heart, without the Spirit's moving upon us, to bring forth a living religion
from us. The acts of worship are said to be in the Spirit, ' supplication in
the Spirit,' Eph. vi. 18 ; not only with the strength and aftection of our
own spirits, but with the mighty operation of the Holy Ghost, if Jude may
be the interpreter, ver. 20, — the Holy Ghost exciting us, impelling us, and
firing our souls by his divine flame, raising up the affections, and making the
soul cry, with a holy importunity, 'Abba, i'ather.' To render our worship
spiritual, we should, before every engagement in it, implore the actual pres-
ence of the Spirit, without which we are not able to send forth one spiritual
breath or groan, but be wind-bound, like a ship without a gale, and our wor-
ship be no better than carnal. How doth the spouse solicit the Spirit with
an ' Awake, 0 north wind; and come, thou south wind,' &c., Cant. iv. 16.
3. Spiritual worship is done with sincerity. When the heart stands
right to God, and the soul performs what it pretends to perform ; when we
serve God with our spirits, as the apostle, Rom. i. 9, ' God is my witness,
whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son ;' this is not meant of the
Holy Ghost, for the apostle would never have called the Spirit of God his
own spirit ; but with my spirit, that is, a sincere frame of heart. A carnal
worship, whether under the law or gospel, is when we are busied about
external rites, without an inward compliance of soul. God demands the
heart: Prov. xxiii. 26, 'My son, give me thy heart;' not give me thy
tongue, or thy lips, or thy hands ; these may be given without the heart,
but the heart can never be bestowed without these as its attendants. A
heap of services can be no more welcome to God, without our spirits, than
all Jacob's sons could be to Joseph v/ithout the Benjamin he desired to see.
God is not taken with the cabinet, but the jewel ; he first respected Abel's
faith and sincerity, and then his sacrifice ; he disrespected Cain's infidelity
and hj-pocrisy, and then his ofi"ering. ' For this cause he rejected the
ofi"erings of the Jews, the prayers of the Pharisees, and the alms of Ananias
and Sapphira, because their hearts and their duties were at a distance from one
another. In all spiritual sacrifices our spirits are God's portion. Under
the law the reins were to be consumed by the fire on the altar, because the
secret intentions of the heart were signified by them: Ps. vii. 9, " The Lord
trieth the heart and the reins." It was an ill omen among the heathen if a
victim wanted a heart. The widow's mites, with her heart in them, were
more esteemed than the richer oflerings without it.'* Not the quantity of
service, but the will in it, is of account with this infinite Spirit. All that
was to be brought for the framing of the tabernacle was to be offered ' will-
ingly with the heart,' Exod. xxv. 7. The more of will, the more of spirituality
and acceptableness to God : Ps. cxix. 108, * Accept the free-will-ofi"ering of
my lips.' Sincerity is the salt which seasons every sacrifice. The heart is
* Moulin. Sermons, Decad. 4, Ser. 4, p. 80.
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 801
most like to the object of worship ; the heart in the body is the spring of
all vitul actions, and a spiritual soul is the spring of all spiritual actions.
How can we imagine God can delight in the mere service of the body, any
more than we can delight in converse with a carcass !
Without the heart it is no worship ; it is a stage-play, an acting a part
without being that person really which is acted by us ; a hypocrite, in tbe
notion of the word, is a stage-player. We may as well say a man may
believe with his body as worship God only with his body. Faith is a great
ingredient in worship, and it is ' with the heart man beHeves unto righteous-
ness,' Eom. X. 10. We may be truly said to worship God, though we want
perfection, but we cannot be said to worship him if we want sincerity. A
statue upon a tomb, with eyes and hands lifted up, offers as good and
true a service ; it wants only a voice, the gestures and postures are the
same ; nay, the service is better ; it is not a mockery, it represents all that
it can be framed to. But to worship without our spirits is a presenting God
with a picture, an echo, voice, and nothing else ; a compliment, a mere
lie, a * compassing him about with lies,' Hosea xi. 12. Without the heart
the tongue is a liar, and the greatest zeal, dissembling with him. To present
the spirit is to present that which can never naturally die ; to present him
only the body, is to present him that which is every day crumbling to dust,
and will at last lie rotting in the grave. To offer him a few rags easily torn,
a skin for a sacrifice, a thing unworthy the majesty of God, a fixed e^'e and
elevated hands, with a sleepy heart and earthly soul, are pitiful things for
an ever blessed and glorious Spirit ; nay, it is so far from being spiritual,
that it is blasphemy ; to pretend to be a Jew outwardly, without being so
inwardly, is in the judgment of Christ to blaspheme, Kev. ii. 9. And is
not the same title to be given with as much reason to those that pretend a
worship and perform none ? Such a one is not a spiritual worshipper, but
a blaspheming devil in Samuel's mantle.
4. Spiritual worship is performed with an unitedness of heart. The
heart is not only now and then with God, but ' united to fear' or worship
'his name,' Ps. Ixxxvi. 11. A spiritual duty must have the engagement of
the Spirit, and the thoughts tied up to the spiritual object. The union of
all the parts of the heart together with the body is the life of the body, and
the moral union of our hearts is the life of any duty. A heart quickly flitting
from God makes not God his treasure ; he slights the worship, and therein
affronts the object of worship. All our thoughts ought to be ravished with
God, bound up in him as in a bundle of life. But when we start from him
to gaze after every feather, and run after every bubble, we disown a full and
affecting excellency, and a satisfying sweetness in him. When our thoughts
run from God, it is a testimony we Lave no spiritual affection to God.
Affection would stake down the thoughts to the object affected. It is but a
mouth-love, as the prophet phraseth it: Ezek. xxxiii. 31, 'But their hearts
go after their covetousness.' Covetous objects pipe, and the heart danceth
after them, and thoughts of God are shifted off to receive a multitude of
other imaginations. The heart and the service stayed a while together,
and then took leave of one anothei*. The psalmist still found his heart
with God when he awaked, Ps. cxxxix. 18 ; still with God in spiritual
affections, and fixed meditations. A carnal heart is seldom with God, either
in or out of worship. If God should knock at the heart in any duty, it
would be found not at home, but straying abroad. Our worship is spiritual
when the door of the heart is shut against all intruders, as our Saviour com-
mands in closet-duties, Mat. vi. 6. It was not his meaning to command
the shutting the closet- door, and leave the heart-door open for every thout^ht
302 chaenock's works. [John IV. 24.
that woald be apt to haunt us. Worldly affections are to be laid aside, if
we would have our worship spiritual. This was meant by the Jewish
custom of wiping or washing off the dust of their feet before their entrance
into the temple, and of not bringing money in their girdles. To be spiritual
in worship is to have our souls gathered and bound up wholly in themselves,
and offered to God. Our loins must be girt, as the fashion was in the
eastern countries, where they wore long garments, that they might not
waver with the wind, and be blown between their legs, to obstruct them in
their travel. Our faculties must not hang loose about us. He is a carnal
worshipper that gives God but a piece of his heart, as well as he that denies
him the whole of it ; that hath some thoughts pitched upon God in worship,
and as many willingly upon the world. David sought God, not with a
moiety of his heart, 'but ' with his whole heart,' with his entire frame,
Ps. cxix. 10. He brought not half his heart, and left the other in the pos-
session of another master. It was a good lesson Pythagoras gave his
scholars,* not to make the observance of God a work by the by. If those
guests be invited, or entertained kindly, or if they come unexpected, the
spirituality of that worship is lost ; the soul kicks down what is wrought
before. But if they be brow-beaten by us, and our grief rather than our
pleasure, they divert our spiritual intention from the work in hand, but
hinder not God's acceptance of it as spiritual, because they are not the acts
of our will, but offences to our wills.
5. Spiritual worship is performed with a spiritual activity and sensible-
ness of God, with an active understanding to meditate on his excellency,
and an active will to embrace him when he drops upon the soul. If we
understand the amiableness of God, our affections will be ravished ; if we
understand the immensity of his goodness, _ our spirits will be enlarged.
We are to act with the highest intention, suitable to the greatness of that
God with whom we have to do : Ps. cl. 2, ' Praise him according to his
excellent greatness.' Not that we can worship him equally, but in some
proportion the frame of the heart is to be suited to the excellency of the
object ; our spiritual strength is to be put out to the utmost, as creatures
that act naturally do. The sun shines, and the fire burns, to the utmost of
their'natural power. This is so necessary that David, a spiritual worshipper,
prays for it before he sets upon acts of adoration: Ps. Ixxx. 18, ' Quicken
us, that we may call upon thy name.' As he was loath to have a drowsy
faculty, he was loath to have a drowsy instrument, and would willingly
have them as lively as himself : Ps. Ivii. 8, ' Awake up, my glory ; awake,
psaltery and harp : I myself will awake early.' How would this divine soul
screw himself up to God, and be turned into nothing but a^ holy flame !
Our souls must be boiling hot when we serve the Lord (leovrsg), Eom.
xii. 11. The heart doth no less burn when it spiritually comes to God,
than when God doth spiritually approach to it, Luke xxiv. 32. A Nabal's
heart, one as cold as a stone, cannot offer up a spiritual service.
Whatsoever is enjoined us as our duty, ought to be performed with the
greatest intenseness of our spirit. As it is our duty to pray, so it is our
duty to pray with the most fervent importunity. It is our duty to love God,
but with the purest and most sublime affections. Every command of God
requires the whole strength of the creature to be employed in it. That love
to God, wherein all our duty to God is summed up, is to be with all our
strength, with all our might, &c.t Though in the covenant of grace he
hath "mitigated the severity of the law, and requires not from us such an
* 'Ou yap Tagspyov h7 'ironT^&cti rov Qih. — lamblich, 1. i, c. 518, p. 87.
t Lady Falkland's Life, p. 130.
John IV. 24.] spieitual worship. 303
elevation of our affections as was possible in the state of innocence, yet
God requires of us the utmost moral industry to raise our affections to a
pitch at least equal to what they are in other things. What strength of
affection we naturally have ought to be as much and more excited in acts of
worship than upon other occasions and our ordinary works. As there was
an activity of soul in worship, and a quickness to sin when sin had the
dominion, so when the soul is spiritualised the temper is changed, there is
an inactivity to sin and an ardour in duty. The more the soul is ' dead to
sin,' the more it is ' alive to God,' Rom. vi. 11, and the more lively too in
all that concerns God and his honour. For grace being a new strength
added to our natural, determines the affections to new objects, and excites
them to a greater vigour. And as the hatred of sin is more sharp, the love
to everything that destroys the dominion of it is more strong. And acts of
worship may be reckoned as the chiefcst batteries against the power of this
inbred enemy. When the Spirit is in the soul, like the rivers of waters
flowing out of the belly, the soul hath the activity of a river, and makes
haste to be swallowed up in God, as the streams of the river in the sea.
Christ makes his people * kings and priests to God,' Rev. i. 6. First
kings, then priests; gives first a royal temper of heart, that they may
offer spiritual sacrifices as priests ; kings and priests to God, acting with a
magnificent spirit in all their motions to him. We cannot be spiritual
priests till we be spiritual kings. The Spirit appeared in the likeness of
fire, and where he resides, communicates, like fire, purity and activity.
Dulness is against the light of nature. I do not remember that the
heathen ever offered a snail to any of their false deities, nor an ass, but to
Priapus their unclean idol ; but the Persians sacrificed to the sun a horse, a
swift and generous creature. God provided against those in the law,
commanding an ass's firstling, the offspring of a sluggish creature, to be
redeemed, or his neck broke, but by no means to be offered to him, Exod.
xiii. 18. God is a Spirit infinitely active, and therefore frozen and
benumbed frames are unsuitable to him : ' He rides upon a cherub, and
flies,' he comes * upon the wings of the wind,' he rides upon ' a swift cloud,'
Isa. xix. 1, and therefore demands of us not a dull reason, but an active
spirit. God is a living God, therefore must have a lively service. Christ
is life, and slothful adorations are not fit to be offered up in the name of
life. The worship of God is called wrestling in Scripture, and Paul was a
striver in the service of his Master : Col. i. 29, * in an agony' (dywv/^o'asvos).
Angels worship God spiritually with their wings on; and when God com-
mands them to worship Christ, the next scripture quoted is that he makes
them * flames of fire,' Heb. i. 7.
If it be thus, how may we charge ourselves ? What Paul said of the
sensual widow, 1 Tim. v. 6, that she is * dead while she lives,' we may say
often of ourselves, we are dead while we worship. Our hearts are in duty
as the Jews' were in deliverances, 'as those in a dream,' Ps. cxxvi. 1; by
which unexpectedness God shewed the greatness of his care and mercy, and
we attend him as men in a dream, whereby we discover our negligence and
folly. This activity doth not consist in outward acts. The body may be
hot and the heart may be faint, but in an inward stirring, meltings, flights.
In the highest raptures, the body is most insensible. Strong spiritual affec-
tions are abstracted from outward sense.
6. Spiritual worship is performed with acting spiritual habits. When all
the living springs of grace are opened, as the fountains of the deep were in
the deluge, the soul and all that is within it, all the spiritual impresses of
vJod upon it, erect themselves to bless his holy name, Ps. ciii. 1.
304 chahnock's works. [John IV. 24.
This is necessary to make a worsliip spiritual. As natural agents are
determined to act suitable to their proper nature, so rational agents are to
act conformable to a rational being. When there is a conformity between
the act and the nature whence it flows, it is a good act in its kind ; if it be
rational, it is a good rational act, because suitable to its principle. As a
man endowed with reason must act suitable to that endowment, and exer-
cise bis reason in his acting, so a Christian endued with grace must act
suitable to that nature, and exercise his grace in his acting. Acts done by
a natural inclination are no more human acts than the natural acts of a
beast may be said to be human. Though they are the acts of a man as he
is the efficient cause of them, yet they are not human acts, because they
arise not from that principle of reason which denominates him a man. So
acts of worship performed by a bare exercise of reason, are not Christian
and spiritual acts, because they come not from the principle which con-
stitutes him a Christian. Reason is not the principle, for then all rational
creatures would be Christians. They ought therefore to be acts of a
hi-^her principle, exercises of that grace whereby Christians are what they
are; not but that rational acts in worship are due to God, for worship is
due from us as men, and we are settled in that rank of being by our
reason. Grace doth not exclude reason, but ennobles it, and calls it up to
another form ; but we must not rest in a bare rational worship, but exert
that principle whereby we arc Christians. To worship God with our reason,
is to worship him as men ; to worship God with our grace, is to worship him
as Christians, and so spiritually; but to worship him only with our bodies, is
no better than brutes.
Our desires of the word are to issue from the regenerate principle :
1 Peter ii. 2, * As new born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word.'
It seems to be not a comparison, but a restriction. All worship must have
the same spring, and be the exercise of that principle, otherwise Ave can
have no communion with God. Friends that have the same habitual dis-
positions have a fundamental fitness for an agreeable converse with one
another ; but if the temper wherein their likeness consists be languishing,
and the string out of tune, there is not an actual fitness, and the present
indisposition breaks the converse, and renders the company troublesome.
Though we may have the habitual graces which compose in us a resem-
blance to God, yet for want of acting those suitable dispositions, we render
ourselves unfit for his converse, and make the worship, which is funda-
mentally spiritual, to become actually carnal. As the will cannot naturally
act to anv object but by the exercise of its affections, so the heart cannot
spiritually act towards God but by the exercise of graces. This is God's
music : Eph. v. 19, * singing and making melody to God in your hearts.'
Sin"incr and all other acts of worship are outward, but the spiritual melody
is ' by grace in the heart,' Col. iii. 16. This renders it a spiritual worship,
for it is an efiect of the fulness of the Spirit in the soul; as ver. 19, 'But
be filled with the Spirit.' The overflowing of the Spirit in the heart,
settincr the soul of a believer thus on work to make a spiritual melody to
God, shews that something higher than bare reason is put in tune in the
heart. Then is the fruit of the garden pleasant to Christ, when the Holy
Spirit, 'the north and south wind, blow upon the spices,' Cant. iv. 16, and
strike out the fragrancy of them. Since God is the author of graces, and
bestows them to have a glory from them, they are best employed about him
and his service. It is fit he should have the cream of his own gifts.
Without the exercise of grace, we perform but a work of nature, and offer
him a few dry bones without marrow.
John IV. 2^1.] spiritual worship. 305
The whole set of graces must be one way or other exercised. If any
treble be wanting in a lute, there will bo a great defect in the music. If
any one spiritual string be dull, the spiritual harmony of worship will be
spoiled.
And therefore,
1. First, Faith must be acted in worship; a confidence in God. A
natural worship cannot be performed without a natural confidence in the
goodness of God. Whosoever comes to him must regard him as a rewarder
and a faithful Creator, Heb. xi. G ; a spiritual worship cannot be performed
without an evangelical confidence in him as a gracious Redeemer. To
think him a tyrant, meditating revenge, damps the^soul; to regard him as a
gracious king, full of tender bowels, spirits the allections to him. The
mercy of God is the proper object of trust: Ps, xxsiii. 18, * The eye of the
Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy.'
The worship of God in the Old Testament is most described hy fear, in the
New Testament hy faith. Fear, or the worship of God, and hope in his
mercy, are linked together. When they go hand in hand, the accepting eye
of God is upon us ; when we do not trust, we do not worship. Those of
Judah had the temple worship among them, especially in Josiah's time,
Zeph. iii. 2, the time of that prophecy; yet it was accounted no worship,
because no trust in the worshippers. Interest in God cannot be improved
without an exercise of faith. The gospel worship is prophesied of to be a
confidence in God, as in a husband more than in a lord : Hosea ii. 16,
* Thou shalt call me Ishi, and shalt call me no more Baali.' ' Thou shalt
call me ;' that is, thou shalt worship me, worship being often comprehended
under invocation. More confidence is to be exercised in a husband or father
than in a lord or master.
If a man have not, faith, he is without Christ ; and though a man be in
Christ by the habit of faith, he performs a duty out of Christ without an act
of faith. Without the habit of faith, our persons are out of Christ ; and with-
out the exercise of faith, the duties are out of Christ. As the want of faith
in a person is the death of the soul, so the want of faith in a service is the
death of the ofiering. Though a man were at the cost of an ox, yet to kill
it without bringing it to the door of the tabernacle was not a sacrifice but a
murder, Lev. xvii. 3, 4. The tabernacle was a type of Christ, and a look
to him is necessary in every spiritual sacrifice. As there must be faith to
make any act an act of obedience, so there must be faith to make any act
of worship spiritual. That service is not spiritual that is not vital, and it
cannot be vital without the exercise of a vital principle ; all spiritual life is
• hid in Christ,' and drawn from him by faith, Gal. ii, 20. Faith, as it hath
relation to Christ, makes every act of worship a living act, and consequently
a spiritual act. Habitual unbelief cuts us ofi" from the body of Christ : Rom.
xi. 20, ' Because of unbelief they were broken off;' and a want of actuated
beHef breaks us off from a present communion with Christ in spirit. As
unbelief in us hinders Christ from doing any mighty work, so unbelief in us
hinders us from doing any mighty spiritual duty.
So that the exercise of faith, and a confidence in God, is necessary to every
duty.
2. Love must be acted to render a worship spiritual. Though God com-
manded love in the Old Testament, yet the manner of giving the law bespoke
more of fear than love. The dispensation of the law was with fire, thunder,
&c., proper to raise horror and ibenumb the spirit, which effect it had upon
the Israelites, when they desired that God would speak no more to them.
Grace is the genius of the gospel, proper to excite the affection of love. The
VOL. I. u
306 chabnock's works. [John IV. 24.
law was given * by the disposition of angels,' with signs to amaze ; the gospel
was ushered in with the songs of angels, composed of peace and good will,
calculated to ravish the soul. Instead of the terrible voice of the law. Do this
and live ; the comfortable voice of the gospel is, Grace, grace. Upon this
account, the principle of the Old Testament was fear, and the worship often
expressed by the fear of God ; the principle of the New Testament is love.
' The mount Sinai gendereth to bondage,' Gal. iv. 24 ; mount Zion, from
whence the gospel or evangelical law goes forth, gendereth to liberty ; and,
therefore, the Spirit of bondage unto fear, as the property of the law, is
opposed to the state of adoption, the principle of love, as the property of the
gospel, Rom. viii. 15 ; and therefore the worship of God, under the gospel
or New Testament, is oftener expressed by love than fear, as proceeding
from higher principles, and acting nobler passions. In this state we are to
' serve him without fear,' Luke i. 74 ; without a bondage-fear, not without
a fear of unworthy treating him, with a fear of his goodness, as it is pro-
phesied of, Hosea iii. 5. Goodness is not the object of terror, but reverence.
God, in the law, had more the garb of a judge ; in the gospel, of a father ;
the name of a father is sweeter, and bespeaks more of affection. As their
services were with a feeling of the thunders of the law in their consciences,
so is our worship to be with a sense of gospel grace in our spirits. Spiri-
tual worship is that, therefore, which is exercised with a spiritual and
heavenly affection proper to the gospel. The heart should be enlarged,
according to the liberty the gospel gives of drawing near to God as a father ;
as he gives us the nobler relation of children, we are to act the nobler quali-
ties of children. Love should act according to its nature, which is desire
of union, desire of a moral union by affections, as well as a mystical union
by faith, as flame aspires to reach flame and become one with it. In every
act of worship we should endeavour to be united to God, and become one
spirit with him. This grace doth spiritualise worship. In that one word
love, God hath wrapt up all the devotion he requires of us. It is the total
sum of the first table, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God ;' it is to be acted
in everything we do ; but in worship our hearts should more solemnly'rise
up and acknowledge him amiable and lovely, since the law is stripped of its
cursing power, and made sweet in the blood of the Redeemer. Love is a
thing acceptable of itself, but nothing acceptable without it. The gifts of
one man to another are spiritualised by it. We would not value a present
without the affection of the donor. Every man would lay claim to the love
of others, though he would not to their possessions. Love is God's right in
every service, and the noblest thing we can bestow upon him in our adora-
tions of him. God's gifts to us are not so estimable without his love,']nor our
services valuable by him without the exercise of a choice aflection. Hezekiah
regarded not his deliverance without the love of the dehverer : ' In love to
my soul thou hast delivered me,' Isa. xxxviii. 17 ; so doth God say, In love
to my honour thou hast worshipped me.
So that love must be acted, to render our worship spiritual.
3. A spiritual sensibleness of our own weakness is necessary to make our
worship spiritual. Affections to God cannot be without relentings in our-
selves. When the eye is spiritually fixed upon a spiritual God, the heart
will mourn that the worship is no more spiritually suitable. The more we
act love upon God, as amiable and gracious, the more we should exercise
grief in ourselves, as we are vile and offending. Spiritual worship is a
melting worship as well as an elevating worship; it exalts God, and debaseth
the creature. The publican was more spiritual in his humble address to
God, when the Pharisee was wholly carnal with his swelling language. A
John IV. 2i.J spiritual worship. 307
spiritual love in worship will make us grieve that we have given him so little,
and could give him no more. It is a part of spiritual duty to bewail our
carnality mixed with it. As wo receive mercies spiritually when we receive
them with a sense of God's goodness and our own vileness, in the same
manner we render a spiritual worship.
4. Spiritual desires for God render the service spiritual ; when the soul
* follows hard after him,' Ps. Ixiii. 8, pursues after God, as a God of infinite
communicative goodness, with sighs and groans unutterable. A spiritual
soul seems to bo transformed into hunger and thirst, and becomes nothing
but desire. A carnal worshipper is taken with the beauty and magnificence
of the temple, a spiritual worshipper desires to see the glory of God in the
sanctuary, Ps. Ixiii. 2. He pants after God. As he came to worship, to
find God, so he boils up in desires for God, and is loath to go from it without
God, ' the living God,' Ps. xlii. 2. He would see the Urim and the
Thummim, the unusual sparkling of the stones upon the high priest's breast-
plate. That deserves not the title of spiritual worship, when the soul makes
DO longing inquiries : ' Saw you him whom my soul loves ?' A spiritual
worship is, when our desires are chiefly for God in the worship ; as David
desires to ' dwell in the house of the Lord ;' but his desire is not terminated
there, but * to behold the beauty of the Lord,' Ps. xxvii. 4, and taste the
ravishing sweetness of his presence. No doubt but Elijah's desires for the
enjoyment of God, while he was mounting to heaven, were as fiery as the
chariot wherein he was carried. Unutterable groans acted in worship are
the fruit of the Spirit, and certainly render it a spiritual service, Kom. viii.
26. Strong appetites are agreeable to God, and prepare us to eat the fruit
of worship. A spiritual Paul presseth forward to know Christ, and the
power of his resurrection ; and a spiritual worshipper actually aspires in every
duty to know God, and the power of his grace. To desire worship as an
end, is carnal ; to desire it as a means, and act desires in it for communion
with God in it, is spiritual, and the fruit of a spiritual life.
5. Thankfulness and admiration are to be exercised in spiritual services.
This is a worship of spirits. Praise is the adoration of the blessed angels,
Isaiah vi. 3, and of glorified spirits : Rev. iv. 11, 'Thou art worthy, 0 Lord,
to receive glory, and honour, and power.' And Rev. v. 13, 14, they worship
him, ascribing * blessing, honour, glory, and power to him that sits upon
the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever.' Other acts of worship are
confined to this life, and leave us as soon as we have set our foot in heaven.
There no notes but this of praise are warbled out. The power, wisdom,
love, and grace in the dispensation of the gospel seat themselves in the
thoughts and tongues of blessed souls. Can a worship on earth be spiritual,
that hath no mixture of an eternal heavenly duty with it ? The worship of
God in innocence had been chiefly an admiration of him in the works of
creation ; and should not our evangelical worship be an admiration of him
in the work of redemption, which is a restoration to a better state ? After
the petitioning for pardoning grace, Hos. xiv. 2, there is a rendering the
calves or heifers of our lips, alluding to the heifers used in eucharistical
sacrifices. The praise of God is the choicest sacrifice and worship, under a
dispensation of redeeming grace. This is the prime and eternal part of
worship under the gospel. The Psalmist, Ps. cxlix. and cl., speaking of
the gospel times, spurs on to this kind of worship : * Sing to the Lord a
new song; let the children of Zion be joyful in their King; let the saints
be joyful in glory, and sing aloud upon their beds ; let the high praises of
God be in their mouths.' He begins and ends both psalms with Praise ye
the Lord. ' That cannot be a spiritual and evangelical worship that hath
308 chaknock's works. [John IV. 24.
nothing of the praise of God in the heart. The consideration of God's ador-
able perfections discovered in the gospel will make us come to him with
more seriousness, beg blessings of him with more confidence, fly to him
with a winged faith and love, and more spiritually glorify him in our
attendances upon him.
6. Spiritual worship is performed with delight. The evangelical worship
is prophetically signified by keeping the feast of tabernacles : ' They shall
go up from year to year, to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to
keep the feast of tabernacles,' Zech. xiv. IG. Why that feast, when there
were other feasts observed by the Jews ? That was a feast celebrated with
the greatest joy, typical of the gladness which was to be under the exhibi-
tion of the Messiah, and a thankful commemoration of the redemption
wrought by him. It was to be celebrated five days after the solemn day of
atonement, Lev. xxiii. 34, compared with ver. 27, wherein there was one
of the solemnest types of the sacrifice of the death of Christ. In this feast
they commemorated their exchange of Egypt for Canaan, the manna where-
with they were fed, the water out of the rock wherewith they were refreshed.
In remembrance of this, they poured water on the ground, pronouncing
those words in Isaiah, * they shall draw waters out of the wells of salvation,'
which our Saviour refers to himself,' John vii. 37, inviting them to him to
drink 'upon the last day, the great day of the Feast' of Tabernacles, wherein
this solemn ceremony was observed. Since we are freed by the death of
the Redeemer from the curses of the law, God requires of us a joy in
spiritual privileges. A sad frame in worship gives the lie to all gospel
liberty, to the purchase of the Redeemer's death, the triumphs of his resur-
rection. It is a carriage as if we were under the influences of the legal fire
and lightning, and an entering a protest against the freedom of the gospel.
The evangelical worship is a spiritual worship, and praise, joy, and delight
are prophesied of as great ingredients in attendance on gospel ordinances,
Isa. xii. 3-5. What was occasion of terror in the worship of God under
the law, is the occasion of delight in the worship of God under the gospel.
The justice and holiness of God, so terrible in the law, becomes comfortable
under the gospel, since they have feasted themselves on the active and
passive obedience of the Redeemer. The approach is to God as gracious,
not to God as unpacified ; as a son to a father, not as a criminal to a judge.
Under the law, God was represented as a judge, remembering their sin in
their sacrifices, and representing the punishment they had merited ; in the
gospel as a father, accepting the atonement, and publishing the reconcilia-
tion wrought by the Redeemer. Delight in God is a gospel frame, therefore
the more joyful, the more spiritual. The Sabbath is to be a delight, not
only in regard of the day, but in regard of the duties of it, Isaiah Iviii. 13 ;
in regard of the marvellous work he wrought on it, raising up our blessed
Redeemer on that day, whereby a foundation was laid for the rendering our
persons and services acceptable to God : Ps. cxviii. 24, ' This is the day
which the Lord hath made, we will be glad and rejoice in it.' A lumpish
frame becomes not a day and a duty that hath so noble and spiritual a
mark upon it.
The angels, in the first act of worship after the creation, were highly
joyful : Job xxx^-iii. 7, They ' shouted for joy,' &c.
The saints have particularly acted this in their worship. David would
not content himself with an approach to the altar, without going to God as
his * exceeding joy,' Ps. xliii. 4, my triumphant joy. When he danced
before the ark, he seems to be transformed into delight and pleasure, 2 Sam.
vi. 14, 16. He had as much dehght in worship as others had in their
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 309
harvest and vintage. And those that took joyfully the spoiling of their
goods, would as joyfully attend upon the communications of God. "Where
there is a fulness of the Spirit, there is a ' making melody to God in the
heart,' Eph. v. 18, 19 ; and where there is an acting of love (as there is in
all spiritual services), the proper fruit of it is joy, in a near approach to the
object of the soul's affection. Love is ajipelitHS wiionis. The more love,
the more delight in the approachiugs of God to the soul, or the outgoings of
the soul to God. As the object of worship is amiable in a spiritual eye, so
the means tending to a communion with this object are delightful in the
exercise. Where there is no delight in a duty, there is no delight in the
object of the duty. The more of grace, the more of pleasure in the actings
of it. As the more of nature there is in any natural agent, the more of
pleasure in the act, so the more heavenly the worship, the more spiritual.
Delight is the frame and temper of glory. A heart tilled up to the brim
with jov, is a heart filled up to the brim with the Spirit. Joy is the fruit
of the Holy Ghost, Gal. v. 22.
(1.) Not the joy of God's dispensation, flowing from God, but a gracious
active joy streaming to God. There is a joy when the comforts of God
are dropped into the soul, as oil upon the wheel, which indeed makes the
faculties move with more speed and activity in his service, like the chariots
of Amminadab ; and a soul may serve God in the strength of this taste, and
its delight terminated in the sensible comfort. This is not the joy I mean,
but such a joy that hath God for its object, delighting in him as the term,
in worship as the way to him. The first is God's dispensation, the other
is our duty. The first is an act of God's favour to us, the second a sprout
of habitual gi-ace in us. The comforts we have from God may elevate our
duties, but the grace we have within doth spiritualise our duties.
(2.) Nor is every delight an argument of a spiritual service. All the
requisites to worship must be taken in. A man may invent a worship, and
delight in it, as Micah in the adoration of his idol, when he was glad he had
got both an ephod and a Levite, Judges xvii. As a man may have a con-
tentment in sin, so he may have a contentment in worship ; not because it
is a worship of God, but the worship of his own invention, agreeable to his
own humour and design, as Isaiah Iviii. 2, it is said, they ' delighted in
approaching to God,' but it was for carnal ends. Novelty engenders com-
placency ; but it must be a worship wherein God will delight, and that must
be a worship according to his own rule and infinite wisdom, and not our
shallow fancies.
God requires a cheerfulness in his service, especially under the gospel,
where he sits upon a throne of grace, discovers himself in his amiableness,
and acts the covenant of grace and the sweet relation of a Father. The
priests of old were not to sully themselves with any sorrow when, they
were in the exercise of their functions. God put a bar to the natural affec-
tions of Aaron and his sons when Nadab and Abihu had been cut off by a
severe hand of God, Lev. s. 6. Every true Christian, in a higher order
of priesthood, is a person dedicated to joy and peace, offering himself a
Uvely sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving ; and there is no Christian duty
but is to be set ofl' and seasoned with cheerfulness. He that loves a cheerful
giver in acts of charity, requires no less a cheerful spirit in acts of worship.
As this is an ingredient in worship, so it is the means to make your spirits
intent in worship. "When the heart triumphs in the consideration of divine
excellency and goodness, it will be angry at anything that offers to jog and
disturb it.
7. Spu-itual worship is to be performed, though with a delight in God,
810 chaknock's wokks. [John IV. 24.
yet with a deep reverence of God. The gospel, in advancing the spirituality
of worship, takes off the terror, but not the reverence of God, which is
nothing else in its own nature but a due and high esteem of the excellency
of a thing according to the nature of it. And therefore the gospel, presenting
us with more illustrious notices of the glorious nature of God, is so far from
indulging any disesteem of him, that it requires of us a greater reverence,
suitable to the height of its discovery, above what could be spelled in the
book of creation. The gospel worship is therefore expressed by trembling :
Hos. xi. 10, ' They shall walk after the Lord ; he shall roar like a lion ;
when he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west.' When
the Lion of the tribe of Judah shall lift up his powerful voice in the gospel,
the western Gentiles shall run trembling to walk after the Lord. God hath
alway attended his greatest manifestations with remarkable characters of
majesty, to create a reverence in his creature. He caused the wind to march
before him, to cut the mountain, when he manifested himself to Elijah,
1 Kings xix. 11; a wind and a cloud of fire before that magnificent vision
to Ezekiel, Ezek. i. 4, 5 ; thunders and lightnings before the giving the
law, Exod. xix. 18 ; and a mighty wind before the giving the Spirit, Acts
ii. God requires of us an awe of him in the very act of performance. The
angels are pure, and cannot fear him as sinners, bvtt in reverence they cover
their faces when they stand before him, Isaiah vi. 2. His power should
make us reverence him, as we are creatures; his justice, as we are sinners;
his goodness, as we are restored creatures. ' God is clothed with unspeak-
able majesty ; the glory of his face shines brighter than the lights of heaven
in their beauty. Before him the angels tremble, and the heavens melt; we
ought not, therefore, to come before him with the sacrifice of fools, nor
tender a duty to him without falling low upon our faces, and bowing the
knees of our hearts in token of reverence.'* Not a slavish fear, like that of
devils, but a godly fear, like that of saints, Heb. xii. 28, joined with a sense
of an unmoveable kingdom, becometh us. And this the apostle calls a
grace necessary to make our service acceptable ; and therefore the grace
necessary to make it spiritual, since nothing finds admission to God but
what is of a spiritual nature. The consideration of his glorious nature
should imprint an awful respect upon our souls to him. His goodness
should make his majesty more adorable to us, as his majesty makes his
goodness more admirable in his condescensions to us. As God is a Spirit,
our worship must be spiritual ; and being he is the supreme Spirit, our
worship must be reverential. We must observe the state he takes upon him
in his ordinances; ' he is in heaven, we upon the earth;' we must not there-
fore be ' hasty to utter anything before God,' Eccles. v. 7. Consider him a
Spirit in the highest heavens, and ourselves spirits dwelling in a dreggy
earth. Loose and garish frames debase him to our own quality ; slight pos-
tures of spirit intimate him to be a slight and mean being ; our being in
covenant with him must not lower our awful apprehensions of him. As he
is ' the Lord thy God,' it is a ' glorious and fearful name,' or wonderful,
Deut. xxviii. 58. Though he lay by his justice to believers, he doth not lay
by his majesty. When we have a confidence in him, because he is the Lord
our God, we must have awful thoughts of his majesty, because his name is
glorious. God is terrible from his holy places, in regard of the great things
he doth for his Israel, Ps. Ixviii. 35. We should behave ourselves with that
inward honour and respect of him as if he were present to our bodily eyes.
The higher apprehensions we have of his majesty, the greater awe will be
upon our hearts in his presence, and the greater spirituality in our acts.
* Daille, Sur. 3. Jean, p. UO.
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 311
We should manage our hearts so as if we had a view of God in his heavenly
glory.
8. Spiritual worship is to bo performed with humility in our spirits.
This is to follow upon the reverence of God. As we are to have high
thoughts of God, that we may not debase him, we must have low thoughts
of ourselves, not to vaunt before him. When we have right notions of the
divine majesty, we shall be as worms in our own thoughts, and creep as
worms into his presence. We can never consider him in his glory, but we
have a fit opportunity to reflect upon ourselves, and consider how basely we
revolted from him, and how graciously we are restored by him. As the
gospel affords us greater discoveries of God's nature, and so enhanceth our
reverence of him, so it helps us to a fuller understanding of our own
vileness and weakness, and therefore is proper to engender humility. The
more spiritual and evangelical therefore any service is, the more humble it
is. That is a spiritual service that doth most manifest the glory of God,
and this cannot be manifested by us without manifesting our own emptiness
and nothingness. The heathens were sensible of the necessity of humility
by the light of nature ;* after the name of God signified by ''E/ inscribed on
the temple at Delphos, followed Tvwdi SeaKrov, whereby was insinuated, that
when we have to do with God, who is the only E»s, we should behave our-
selves with a sense of our own infirmity and infinite distance from him. As
a person, so a duty, leavened with pride, hath nothing of sincerity, and there-
fore nothing of spirituality in it : Hab. ii. 4, ' His soul, which is lifted up,
is not upright in him.' The elders that were crowned by God to be kings
and priests, to ofter spiritual sacrifices, uncrown themselves in their worship
of him, and cast down their ornaments at his feet. Rev. iv. 10 compared
with Y. The Greek word to icorship, t^ookwuv, signifies to creep like a dog
upon his belly before his master, to lie low. How deep should our sense
be of the privilege of God's admitting us to his worship, and affording us
such a mercy under our deserts of wTath ! How mean should be our
thoughts, both of our persons and performances ! How patiently should
we wait upon God for the success of worship ! How did Abraham, the
father of the faithful, equal himself to the earth when he supplicated the
God of heaven, and devoted himself to him under the title of very dust and
ashes ! Gen. xviii. 27. Isaiah did but behold an evangelical apparition of
God and the angels worshipping him, and presently reflects upon his own
uncleanness, Isa. vi. 5. God's presence both requires and causes humility.
How lowly is David in his own opinion, after a magnificent duty performed
by himself and his people : 1 Chron. xxix. 14, ' Who am I ? and what is
my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly ? ' The more spiritual
the soul is in its carriage to God, the more humble it is ; and tne more
gracious God is in his communications to the soul, the lower it lies.
God commanded not the fiercer creatures to be ofi'ered to him in sacrifices,
but lambs and kids, meek and lowly creatures ; none that had stings in
their tails or venom in their tongues. f The meek lamb was the daily
sacrifice ; the doves were to be oflered by pairs ; God would not have honey
mixed with any sacrifice. Lev. ii. 11. That breeds choler, and choler pride ;
but oil he commanded to be used, that supples and mollifies the parts.
Swelling pride and boiling passions render our services carnal ; they cannot
be spiritual without an humble sweetness and an innocent sincerity ; one
grain of this transcends the most costly sacrifices. A contrite heart puts a
gloss upon worship, Ps. Ii. 16, 17. The departure of men and angels from
* riutarcli, Moral, p. 344.
t Caudam aculeatam vel linguam Digram Alexand. ab Alex. 1. 3, c. 12.
812 charnock's works. [John IV. 24.
God began in pride ; our approaches"aDd return to him must begin in
humility ; and therefore all those graces which are bottomed on humility
must be acted in worship, as faith, and a sense of our own indigence. Our
blessed Saviour, the most spiritual worshipper, prostrated himself in the
garden with the greatest lowliness, and offered himself upon the cross a
sacrifice with the greatest humility. Melted souls in worship have the most
spiritual conformity to the person of Christ in the state of humiliation, and
his design in that state ; as worship without it is not suitable to God, so
neither is it advantageous for us. A time of worship is a time of God's
communication. The vessel must be melted to receive the mould it is
designed for ; softened wax is fittest to receive a stamp, and a spiritually
melted soul fittest to receive a spiritual impression. We cannot perform
duty in an evangelical and spiritual strain without the meltingness and
meanness in ourselves which the gospel requires.
9. Spiritual worship is to be performed with holiness. God is a holy
Spirit ; a likeness to God must attend the worshipping of God, as he is ;
holiness is alway in season, * it becomes his house for ever,' Ps. xciii. 5.
We can never ' serve the living God' till w^e have ' consciences purged from
dead works,' Heb. ix. li. Dead works in our consciences are unsuitable to
God, an eternal living Spirit. The more mortified the heart, the more
quickened the service. Nothing can please an infinite purity but that which
is pure ; since God is in his glory in his ordinances, we must not be in our
filthiness. The holiness of his Spirit doth sparkle in his ordinances ; the
holiness of our spirits ought also to sparkle in our observance of them.
The holiness of God is most celebrated in the worship of angels, Isa. vi. 3,
Rev. iv. 8. Spiritual worship ought to be like angelical ; that cannot be
with souls totally impure. As there must be perfect hohness to make a
worship perfectly spiritual, so there must be some degree of holiness to
make it in any measure spiritual. God would have all the utensils of the
sanctuary employed about his service to be holy ; the inwards of the sacrifice
were to be rinsed thrice.* The crop and feathers of sacrificed doves was to
be hungf eastward towards the entrance of the temple, at a distance from the
holy of holies, w'here the presence of God was most eminent, Lev. i. 16.
WTien Aaron was to go into the holy of holies, he was to sanctify himself
in an extraordinary manner. Lev. xvi. 4. The priests were to be barefooted
in the temple in the exercise of their office ; shoes alway were to be put off
upon holy ground : ' Look to thy foot when thou goest to the house of God,'
saith the wise man, Eccles. v. 1. Strip the affections, the feet of the soul,
of all the dirt contracted ; discard all earthly and base thoughts from the
heart. A beast was not to touch the mount Sinai without losing his life ;
nor can we come near the throne with brutish affections without losing the
life and fruit of the worship. An unholy soul degrades himself from a spirit
to a brute, and the worship from spiritual to brutish. If any unmortified
sin be found in the life, as it was in the comers to the temple, it taints and
pollutes the worship, Isa. i. 15, Jer. vii. 9, 10. All worship is an acknow-
ledgment of the excellency of God as he is holy ; hence it is called a * sancti-
fj'ing God's name.' How can any person sanctify God's name that hath not
a holy resemblance to his nature ? If he be not holy as he is holy, he
cannot worship him according to his excellency in spirit and in truth ; no
worship is spiritual wherein we have not a communion with God. But
what intercourse can there be between a holy God and an impure creature,
between light and darkness ? We have no fellowship with him in any
service, unless we ' walk in the light,' in service and out of service, as he is
* As the Jewish doctors observe on Lev. i. 9. t Qu. ' flung ' ? — Ed.
John IV. 21.] spiritual avorsiiip. 313
light, 1 John i. 7. The heathen thought not their sacrifices agreeable to
God without washing their hands, whereby they signified the preparation of
their hearts before they made the oblation. Clean hands without a pure
heart signify nothing ; the frame of our hearts must answer the purity of
the outward symbols : Ps. xxvi. C, * I will wash my hands in innocence, so
will I compass thine altar, 0 Lord.' Ho would observe the appointed cere-
monies, but not without cleansing his heart as well as his hands. Vain man
is apt to rest upon outward acts and rites of worship ; but this must alway
be practised, the words are in the present tense, I icash, I compass. Purity
in worship ought to be our continual care. If we would perform a spiritual
service, wherein we would have communion with God, it must be in holiness ;
if we would walk with Christ, it must be in white, Rev. iii. 4, alluding to
the white garments the priests put on when they went to perform their
service. As without this we cannot see God in heaven, so neither can we
see the beaut}- of God in his own ordinances.
10. Spiritual worship is performed with spiritual ends, with raised aims at
the glory of God. No duty can be spiritual that hath a carnal aim. Where
God is the sole object, he ought to be the principal end. In all our actions
he is to be our end, as he is the principle of our being ; much more in
religious acts, as he is the object of our worship. The worship of God in
Scripture is expressed by the * seeking of him,' Heb. xi. G. Him, not our-
selves ; all is to be referred to God. As we are not to live to ourselves, that
being the sign of a carnal state, so we are not to worship for ourselves,
Rom. xiv. 7, 8. As all actions are denominated good from their end as well
as their object, so upon the same account they are denominated spiritual.
The end spiritualiseth our natural actions, much more our religious. Then
are our faculties devoted to him when they centre in him. If the intention
be evil, there is nothing but darkness in the whole service, Luke xi. 34.
The first institution of the Sabbath, the solemn day for worship, was to con-
template the glory of God in his stupendous works of creation, and render
him a homage for them : Rev. iv. 11, ' Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive
honour, glory, and power : for thou hast created all things, and for thy
pleasure they are and were created.' No worship can be returned without
a glorifying of God ; and we cannot actually glorify him without direct aims
at the promoting his honour. As we have immediately to do with God, so
we are immediately to mind the praise of God. As we are not to content
ourselves with habitual grace, but be rich in the exercise of it in worship, so
we are not to acquiesce in habitual aims at the glory of God, without the
actual overflowings of our hearts in those aims.
It is natural for man to worship God for self. Self-righteousness is the
rooted aim of man in his worship since his revolt from God ; and being
sensible it is not to be found in his natural actions, he seeks for it in his
moral and religious. By the first pride we flung God ofi' from being our
sovereign, and from being our end ; since a pharisaical spirit struts it in
nature, not only to do things to be seen of men, but to be admired by God :
Isa. Iviii. 8, ' Wherefore have we fasted, and thou takest no knowledge ? '
This is to have God worship them instead of being worshipped by them.
Cain's carriage, after his sacrifice, testifieth some base end in his worship ;
he came not to God as a subject to a sovereign, but as if he had been the
sovereign, and God the subject ; and when his design is not answered, and
his desire not gz'atified, he proves more a rebel to God, and a murderer of
his brother. Such base scents will rise up in our worship from the body of
death, which cleaves to us, and mix themselves with our services, as weeds
with the fish in the net. David therefore, after his people had offered will-
314 chaknock's wokks. [John IV. 24.
ingly to the temple, begs of God that their * hearts might be prepared to
him,' 1 Chron. xxix. 18 ; that their hearts might stand right to God, without
any squinting to self-ends.
Some present themselves to God, as poor men offer a present to a great
person, not to honour them, but to gain for themselves a reward richer than
their gift. ' What profit is it that we have kept his ordinances?' &c., Mai.
iii. 14. Some worship him, intending thereby to make him amends for the
wrong they have done him, wipe ofl' their scores, and satisfy their debts ; as
though a spiritual wrong could be recompensed with a bodily service, and
an infinite Spirit be outwitted and appeased by a carnal flattery. Self is
the spirit of carnality. To pretend a homage to God, and intend only the
advantage of self,|is rather to mock him than worship him. When we be-
lieve that we ought to be satisfied rather than God glorified; we set God
below ourselves, imagine that he should submit his own honour to our
advantage. We make ourselves more glorious than God, as though we were
not made for him, but he hath a being only for us ; this is to have a very
low esteem of the majesty of God. Whatsoever any man aims at in worship
above the glory of God, that he forms as an idol to himself instead of God,
and sets up a golden image. God counts not this as a worship. The offerings
made in the wilderness for forty j^ears together, God esteemed as not ofiered
to him : Amos v. 25, ' Have you ofiered to me sacrifices and ofierings in
the wilderness forty years, 0 house of Israel ? ' They did it not to God,
but to themselves ; for their own security, and the attainment of the pos-
session of the promised land. A spiritual worshipper performs not worship
for some hopes of carnal advantage ; he uses ordinances as means to bring
God and his soul together, to be more fitted to honour God in the world in
his particular place. When he hath been inflamed and humble in any
address or duty, he gives God the glory ; his heart suits the doxology at the
end of the Lord's prayer, ascribes the kingdom, power, and glory to God
alone ; and if any viper of pride starts out upon him, he endeavours pre-
sently to shake it ofl'. That which was the first end of our framing ought to
be the chief end of our acting towards God. But when men have the same
ends in worship as brutes, the satisfaction of a sensitive part, the service is
no more than brutish. The acting for a sensitive end is unworthy of the
majesty of God to whom we address, and unbecoming a rational creature.
The acting for a sensitive end is not rational, much less can it be a spiritual
service ; though the acting may be good in itself, yet not good in the agent,
because he wants a due end. We are then spiritual, when we have the same
end in our redeemed services as God had in his redeeming love, viz., his
own glory.
11. Spiritual service is offered to God in the name of Christ. Those are
only ' spiritual sacrifices ' that are ' ofi'ered up to God by Jesus Christ,'
1 Peter ii. 5 ; that are the fruits of the sanctification of the Spirit, and
ofiered in the mediation of the Son. As the altar sanctifies the gift, so doth
Christ spiritualise our services for God's acceptation ; as the fire upon the
altar separated the airy and finer parts of the sacrifice from the terrene and
earthly. This is the golden altar upon which the prayers of the saints are
ofiered up before the throne. Rev. viii. 3. As all that we have from God
streams through his blood, so all that we give to God ascends by virtue of
his merits. All the blessings God gave to the Israelites came out of Zion, —
Ps. cxxxiv. 3, ' The Lord bless thee out of Zion,' — that is, from the gospel
hid under the law ; all the duties we present to God, are to be presented in
Zion, in an evangelical manner. All our worship must be bottomed on
Christ. God hath intended that we should ' honour the Son as we honour
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 315
the Father.' As wo honour the Father by offering our service only to him,
so wo are to honour the Sou by oilcring it only in his name. In him alouo
God is well pleased, because in him alone ho tinds our services spiritual and
worthy of acceptation. We must therefore take fast hold of him with our
spirits, and the faster wo hold him, the more spiritual is our worship. To
do anything in the name of Christ, is not to believe the worship shall bo
accepted for itself, but to have our eye fixed upon Christ for the acceptance
of it, and not to rest upon the work done, as carnal people are apt to do.
The creatures present their acknowledgments to God by man, and man can
only present his by Christ. It was utterly unlawful, after the building of the
temple, to sacrifice anywhere else. The temple being a type of Christ, it is
utterly unlawful for us to present our services in any other name than his.
This is the way to be spiritual. If we consider God out of Christ, we
can have no other notions but those of horror and bondage. We behold
him a Spirit, but environed with justice and wrath for sinners ; but the con-
sideration of him in Christ veils his justice, draws forth his mercy, repre-
sents him more a Father than a Judge. In Christ, the aspect of justice is
changed, and by that the temper of the creature ; so that in and by this
mediator wo can have a spiritual ' boldness, and access to God with confi-
dence,' Eph. iii. 12, whereby the spirit is kept from benumbedness and
distraction, and our souls quickened and refined. The thoughts kept upon
Christ, in a duty of worship, quickly elevates the soul, and spiritualizeth the
whole service. Sin makes our services black, and the blood of Christ makes
both our persons and services white.
To conclude this head.
God is a Spirit infinitely happy, therefore we must approach to him with
cheerfulness ; he is a Spirit of infinite majesty, therefore wo must come
before him with reverence ; ho is a Spirit infinitely high, therefore we must
ofler up our sacrifices with the deepest humility ; ho is a Spirit infinitely
holy, therefore wo must address with purity ; he is a Spirit infinitely glo-
rious, we must therefore acknowledge his excellency in all that we do, and
in our measures contribute to his glory, by having the highest aims in his
worship ; ho is a Spirit infinitely provoked by us, therefore we must offer
up our worship in the name of a pacifying mediator and intercessor.
III. The third general is, Why a spiritual worship is due to God, and to
be offered to him. We must consider the object of worship, and the sub-
ject of worship ; the worshipper and the worshipped. God is a spiritual
being, man is a reasonable creature. The nature of God informs us what
is fit to be presented to him ; our own nature informs us what is fit to be
presented by us.
Reason 1. The best we have is to be presented to God in worship. For,
1. Since God is the most excellent being, he is to be served by us with
the most excellent thing we have, and with the choicest veneration. God
is so incomprehensibly excellent, that we cannot render him what he deserves.
We must render him what we are able to offer : the best of our affections,
the flower of our strength, the cream and top of our spirits. By the same
reason that we are bound to give to God the best worship, we must ofier it
to him in the best manner. We cannot give to God anything too good for
so blessed a being. God being a great King, slight services become not
his majesty, Mai. i. 13, 14. It is unbecoming the majesty of God, and the
reason of a creature, to give him a trivial thing. It is unworthy to bestow
the, best of our strength on our lust, and the worst and weakest in the
service of God. An infinite Spirit should have affections as near to infinite
316 chabnock's works. [John IV. 24.
as we can. As he is a Spirit without bounds, so he should have a service
without limits : when we have given him all, we ' cannot serve him' accord-
ing to the excellency of his nature, Joshua xxiv. 19 ; and shall we give him
less than all ? His infinite excellency, and our dependence on him as crea-
tures, demands the choicest adoration. Our spirits being the noblest part
of our nature, are as due to him as the service of our bodies, which are the
vilest. To serve him with the worst only is to diminish his honour.
2. Under the law God commanded the best to be offered him. He would
have the males, the best of the kind ; the fat, the best of the creature,
Exod. xxix. 13, the inward fat, not the ofl'als. He commanded them to
ofier him the firstlings of the flock ; not the firstlings of the womb, but the
firstlings of the year, the Jewish cattle having two breeding times, in the
beginning of the spring and the beginning of September ; the latter breed was
the weaker, which Jacob knew, Gen. xxx., when he laid the rods before
the cattle when they were strong in the spring, and withheld them when
they were feeble in the autumn. One reason, as the Jews say, why God
accepted not the oflerings of Cain was, because he brought the meanest, not
the best of the fruit ; and therefore it is said only that he brought of
the fniit of the ground. Gen. iv. 3, not the first of the fruit, or the best of
the fruit, as Abel, who brought the firstling of his flock, and the fat
thereof, ver. 4.
3. And this the heathen practised by the light of nature. They for the
most part ofiered males, as being more worthy ; and burnt the male, not
the female, frankincense, as it is divided into those two kinds. They ofiered
the best when they ofiered their children to Moloch. Nothing more excel-
lent than man, and nothing dearer to parents than their children, which
are parts of themselves. When the Israchtes would have a golden calf
for a representation of God, they would dedicate their jewels, and strip
their wives and children of their richest ornaments, to shew their devotion.
Shall men serve their dumb idols with the best of their substance, and the
strength of their souls ; and shall the living God have a duller service from
us than idols had from them ? God requires no such hard but delightful
worship from us, our spirits.
4. All creatures serve man, by the providential order of God, with the
best they have. As we, by God's appointment, receive from creatures the
best they can give, ought we not with a free will render to God the best we
can ofier ? The beasts give us their best fat, the trees their best fruit, the
sun its best light, the fountains their best streams : shall God order us
the best from creatures, and we put him ofi" with the worst from ourselves ?
5. God hath given us the choicest thing he had : a Redeemer that was
* the power of God, and the wisdom of God ;' the best he had in heaven,
his own Son, and in himself a sacrifice for us, that we might be enabled to
present ourselves a sacrifice to him. And Christ ofiered himself for us, the
best he had, and that with the strength of the Deity ' through the eternal
Spirit ;' and shall we grudge God the best part of ourselves ? As God would
have a worship from his creature, so it must be with the best part of his creature.
If we have ' given ourselves to the Lord,' 2 Cor. viii. 6, we can worship
with no less than ourselves. What is the man without his spirit ? If we
are to worship God with all that we have received from him, we must worship
him with the best part we have received from him. It is but a small glory
we can give him with the best, and shall we deprive him of his right by
giving him the worst ? As what we are is from God, so what we are
ought to be for God. Creation is the foundation of worship : Ps. c. 2, 3,
♦ Serve the Lord with gladness : know ye that the Lord he is God ; it is he
John IV. 21.] spiritual worship. 317
that made us.' Ho bath ennobled us with spiritual affections ; where is it
fittest for us to employ them, but upon him? and at what time, but when
we come solemnly to converse with him ? Is it justice to deny him the
honour of his best gift to us ? Our souls are more his gift to us than any-
thing in the world. Other things are so given, that they are often taken
from us, but our spirits are the most durable gift. Rational faculties cannot
be removed without a dissolution of nature.
Well, then ;* as he is God, he is to be honoured with all the propensions
and ardour that the infiuiteness and excellency of such a Being requires, and
the incomparable obligations he hath laid upon us iu this state deserve at
our hands. In all our worship, therefore, our minds ought to be filled with
the highest admiration, love, and reverence. Since our end was to glorify
God, we answer not our end, and honour him not, unless we give him the
choicest we have.
Benson 2. We cannot else act towards God according to the nature of
rational creatures. Spiritual worship is due to God, because of his nature ;
and due from us, because of our nature. As we are to adore God, so we
are to adore him as men. The nature of a rational creature makes this
impression upon him : he cannot view his own nature without having this
duty striking upon his mind. As he knows by inspection into himself, that
there was a God that made him, so that he is made to be in subjection to
God, subjection to him in his spirit as well as his body, and ought morally
to testify this natural dependence on him. His constitution informs him
that he hath a capacity to converse with God ; that he cannot converse with
him but by those inward faculties. If it could be managed by his body
without his spirit, beasts might as well converse with God as men. It can
never be a ' reasonable service' as it ought to be, Rom. sii. 1, unless the
reasonable faculties be employed in the management of it. It must be a
worship prodigiously lame, without the concurrence of the chiefest part of
man with it. As we are to act conformably to the nature of the object, so
also to the nature of our own faculties. Our faculties in the very gift of
them to us were destined to be exercised ; about what ? What ? All other
things but the author of them ? It is a conceit cannot enter into the heart
of a rational creature, that he should act as such a creature in other things,
and as a stone in things relating to the donor of them ; as a man with his
mind about him in the afiairs of the world, as a beast without reason in his
acts towards God. If a man did not employ his reason in other things, he
would be an unprofitable creature in the world. If he do not employ his
spiritual faculties in worship, he denies them the proper end and use for which
they were given him ; it is a practical denial that God hath given him a soul,
and that God hath any right to the exercise of it. If there were no worship
appointed by God in the world, the natural inclination of man to some kind
of religion would be in vain ; and if our inward faculties were not employed
in the duties of religion, they would be in vain. The true end of God in
the endowment of us with them would be defeated by us, as much as lies in
us, if we did not serve him with that which we have from him solely
at his own cost. As no man can with reason conclude that the rest com-
manded on the Sabbath, and the sanctification of it, was only a rest of the
Ijody, — that had been performed by the beasts as well as men ; but some
higher end was aimed at for the rational creature, — so no man can think
that the command for worship terminated only in the presence of the body ;
that God should give the command to man as a reasonable creature, and
expect no other service from him than that of a brute.
* Amyrald, Mor., torn. ii. p. 311.
318 chaenock's works. [John IV. 24.
God did not require a worship from man for any want he had, or any
essential honour that could accrue to him, but that men might testify their
gratitude to him, and dependence on him. It is the most horrid ingratitude
not to have lively and deep sentiments of gratitude after such obligations,
and not to make those due acknowledgments that are proper for a rational
creature. Eeligion is the highest and choicest act of a reasonable creature.
No creature under heaven is capable of it that wants reason. As it is a
violation of reason not to worship God, so it is no less a violation of reason
not to worship him with the heart and spirit. It is a high dishonour to
God, and defeats him not only of the service due to him from man, but that
which is due to him from all the creatures. Every creature, as it is an
effect of God's power and wisdom, doth passively worship God; that is, it
doth afford matter of adoration to man, that hath reason to collect it and
return it where it is due. "Without the exercise of the soul, we can no more
hand it to God, than without such an exercise we can gather it from the
creature ; so that by this neglect the creatures are restrained from answering
their chief end ; they cannot pay any service to God without man ; nor can
man without the employment of his rational faculties render a homage to
God, any more than beasts can. This engagement of our inward power
stands firm and unviolable, let the modes of worship be what they will, or the
changes of them by the sovereign authority of God never so frequent, this could
not expire or be changed as long as the nature of man endured. As man
had not been capable of a command for worship, unless he had been endued
with spiritual faculties, so he is not active in a true practice of worship,
unless they be employed by him in it. The constitution of man makes this
manner of worship perpetually obligatory, and the obligation can never
cease till man cease to be a creature furnished with such faculties. In our
worship, therefore, if we would act like rational creatures, we should extend
all the powers of our souls to the utmost pitch, and essay to have appre-
hensions of God equal to the excellency of his nature, which though we may
attempt, we can never attain.
» Reason 3. Without this engagement of our spirits, no act is an act of
worship. True worship being an acknowledgment of God and the perfec-
tions of his nature, results only from the soul, that being only capable of
knowing God, and those perfections, which are the object and motive of
worship. The posture of the body is but to testify the inward temper and
affection of the mind. If therefore it testifies what it is not, it is a lie and
no worship. The cringes a beast may be taught to make to an altar may
as well be called worship, since a man thinks as little of that God he pre-
tends to honour, as the beast doth of the altar to which he bows. Worship
is a reverent remembrance of God, and giving some honour to him with the
intention of the soul. It cannot justly have the name of worship that wants
the essential part of it. It is an ascribing to God the glory of his nature,
an owning subjection and obedience to him as our sovereign Lord. This is
as impossible to be performed without the spirit as that there can be life
and motion in a body without a soul. It is a drawing near to God, not in
regard of his essential presence, — so all things are near to God, — but in
acknowledgment of his excellency, which is an act of the spirit ; without
this, the worst of men in a place of worship are as near to God as the best.
The necessity of the conjunction of our soul ariseth from the nature of wor-
ship, which being the most serious thing we can be employed in, the highest
converse with the highest object requires the choicest temper of spirit in
the performance. That cannot be an act of worship which is not an act of
piety and virtue, but there is no act of virtue done by the members of the
John IV. 24. j spiritual worship. 319
body without the concurrence of the powers of the soul. Wo may as well
call the presence of a dead carcass in a place of worship an act of religion,
as the presence of a living body without an intent spirit. The separation
of the soul from one is natural, the other moral ; that renders the body
lifeless, but this renders the act loathsome to God. As the being of the
soul gives life to the body, so the operation of the soul gives life to the
actions. As he cannot be a man that wants the form of a man, a rational
soul, so that cannot be a worship that wants an essential part, the act of the
spirit. God will not vouchsafe any acts of man so noble a title, without the
requisite qualifications : Hosea v. 6, * They shall go with their flocks and
their herds to seek the Lord,' &c. A multitude of lambs and bullocks for
sacrifice to appease God's anger, God would not give it the title of wor-
ship, though instituted by himself, when it wanted the qualities of such a
service. The spirit of whoredom was in the midst of them, ver. 4. In the
judgment of our Saviour it is a vain worship, when the traditions of men
are taught for the doctrines of God, Mat. xv. 9 ; and no less vain must it
be, when the bodies of men are presented to supply the place of their spirits.
As an omission of duty is a contempt of God's sovereign authority, so the
omission of the manner of it is a contempt of it, and of his amiable excel-
lency ; and that which is a contempt and mockery can lay no just claim to
the title of worship.
Reason 4. There is in worship an approach of God to man. It was
instituted to this purpose, that God might give out his blessings to man.
And ought not our spirits to be prepared and ready to receive his communi-
cations ? We are in such acts more peculiarly in his presence. In the
Israelites' hearing the law, it said God was to ' come among them,' Exod.
xix. 10, 11. Then, men are said to stand before the Lord : Deut. x. 8,
* God before whom I stand ; ' that is, whom I worship. And therefore
when Cain forsook the worship of God, settled in his father's family, he is
said to * go out from the presence of the Lord,' Gen. iv. 16. God is
essentially present in the world, graciously present in his church. The
name of the evangelical city is Jehovah Shammah : Ezek. xlviii. 35, * The
Lord is there.' God is more graciously present in the evangelical institu-
tions than in the legal ; he ' loves the gates of Zion, more than all the
dwellings of Jacob,' Ps. Ixxxvii. 2. His evangelical* law and worship which
was to go forth from Zion, as the other did from Sinai, Micah iv. 2. God
delights to approach to men, and converse with them in the worship insti-
tuted in the gospel, more than in all the dwellings of Jacob. If God be
graciously present, ought not we to be spiritually present? A lifeless
carcass service becomes not so high and delectable a presence as this ; it is
to thrust him from us, not invite him to us ; it is to practise in the ordi-
nances what the prophet predicts concerning men's usage of our Saviour :
Isa. liii. 2, * There is no form, no comeliness, nor beauty that we should desire
him.' A slightness in worship reflects upon the excellency of the object of
worship. God and his worship are so linked together, that whosoever thinks
the one not worth his inward care, esteems the other not worth his inward
afiection. How unworthy a slight is it of God, who profi"ers the opening his
treasure, the re-impressing his image, conferring his blessings, admits us
into his presence, when he hath no need for us, who hath millions of angels
to attend him in his court, and celebrate his praise ! He that worships not
God with his spirit, regards not God's presence in his ordinances, and
slights the great end of God in them, and that perfection he may attain by
them. We can only expect what God hath promised to give, when we
render to him what he hath commanded us to present. If we put ofl" God
320 chabxock's woeks. [John IV. 24.
■with a shell, he will put us off with a husk. How can we expect his heart,
when we do not not give him ours ? or hope for the blessing needful for us,
when we render not the glory due to him ? It cannot be an advantageous
worship without spiritual graces ; for those are uniting, and union is the
ground of all communion.
Reason 5. To have a spiritual worship is God's end in the restoration of
the creature, both in redemption by bis Son, and sanctification by his Spirit.
A fitness for spiritual ofierings was the end of the coming of Christ, Mai.
iii. 3. He should purge them, as gold and silver by fire, a spirit burning up
their dross, melting them into a holy compliance with, and submission to,
God. To what purpose ? That they may ' ofier to the Lord an offering
in righteousness,' a pure ofi"eriQg from a purified spirit. He came to
' bring us to God,' 1 Peter iii. 18, in such a garb as that we might be fit
to converse with him. Can we be thus without a fixedness of our spirits
on him ?
The ' offering of spiritual sacrifices' is the end of making any * a spiritual
habitation, and a holy priesthood,' 1 Peter ii. 5. We can no more be
worshippers ot God, without a worshipper's nature, than a man be a man
without human nature. As man was at first created for the honour and
worship of God, so the design of restoring that image, which was defaced
by sin, tends to the same end. We are not brought to God by Christ, nor
are our services presented to him, if they be without our spirits. Would any
man, that undertakes to bring another to a prince, introduce him in a slovenly
and sordid habit, such a garb that he knows hateful to him ? or bring the
clothes or skin of a man stuffed with straw, instead of the person ? To
come with our skins before God, without our spirits, is contrary to the design
of God in redemption and regeneration.
If a carnal worship would have pleased God, a carnal heart would have
served his turn, without the expense of his Spirit in sanctification. He
bestows upon man a spiritual nature, that he may return to him a spiritual
service. He enlightens the understanding, that he may have a rational
service, and new moulds the will, that he may have a voluntary service. As
it is the milk of the word wherewith he feeds us, so it is the service of the
word wherewith we must glorify him. So much as there is of confusedness
in our understanding, so much of starting and levity in our wills, so much
of slipperiness and skipping in our affections, so much is abated of the due
qualities of the M-orship of God, and so much we fall short of the end of
redemption and sanctification.
Reason G. A spiritual worship is to be offered to God, because no worship
but that can be acceptable. We can never be secured of acceptance without
it. He being a Spirit, nothing but the worship in spirit can be suitable to
him. What is unsuitable cannot be acceptable. There must be something
in us, to make our services capable of being presented by Christ for an actual
acceptation. No service is ' acceptable to God by Jesus Christ,' but as it is
a ' spiritual sacrifice,' and offered by a spiritual heart, 1 Pet. ii. 5. The
sacrifice is first spiritual, before it be acceptable to God by Christ. When
it is ' an offering in righteousness,' it is then, and only then, pleasant to the
Lord, Mai. iii. 3, 4. No prince would accept a gift that is unsuitable to his
majesty, and below the condition of the person that presents it. Would he
be pleased with a bottle of water for drink, from one that hath his cellar full
of wine ? How unacceptable must that be that is unsuitable to the divine
majesty ! And what can be more unsuitable, than a withdrawing the opera-
tions of our souls from him, in the oblation of our bodies ? We as little
' glorify God as God' when we give him only a corporeal worship, as the
John IV. 24.] spirituai. worship. 821
heathen did when they represented him in a corporeal shape, Rom. i. 21 ;
one as well as the other denies his spiritual nature. This is worse, for had
it been lawful to represent God to the eye, it could not have been done but
by a bodily figure suited to the sense ; but since it is necessary to worship
him, it cannot be by a corporeal attendance, without the operation of the
spirit. A spiritual frame is more pleasing to God than the highest exterior
adornments, than the greatest gifts and the highest prophetical illumination.
The glory of the second temple exceeded the glory of the first, Hag. ii. 8, 9.
As God accounts the spiritual glory of ordinances most beneficial for us, so
our spiritual attendance upon ordinances is most pleasing to him. He that
offers the greatest services without it, offers but flesh : Hos. viii. 13, ' They
sacrifice flesh for the sacrifices of my offerings, but the Lord accepts them
not.' Spiritual frames are the soul of religious services ; all other carriages
without them, are contemptible to this spirit. We can never lay claim to
that promise of God, none shall ' seek my face in vain.' We affect a vain
seeking of him, when we want a due temper of spirit for him ; and vain
spirits shall have vain returns. It is more contrary to the nature of God's
holiness to have communion with such, than it is contrary to the nature of
light to have communion with darkness.
IV. To make use of this :
Use 1. First, it serves for information.
1. If spiritual worship be required by God, how sad is it for them that
are so far from giving God a spiritual worship, that they render him no
worship at all ! I speak not of the neglect of public, but of private ; when
men present not a devotion to God from one year's end to the other. The
speech of our Saviour, that we must worship God in spirit and in truth,
implies that a worship is due to him from every one. That is the common
impression upon the consciences of all men in the world, if they have not,
by some constant course in gross sins, hardened their souls, and stifled those
natural sentiments. There was never a nation in the world without some
kind of religion, and no religion was ever without some modes to testify a
devotion. The heathens had their sacrifices and purifications ; and the Jews,
by God's order, had their rites whereby they were to express their allegiance
to God.
Consider,
(1.) Worship is a duty incumbent upon all men. It is a homage mankind
owes to God, under the relation wherein he stands obliged to him. It is a
prime and immutable justice to own our allegiance to him. It is as unchange-
able a truth that God is to be worshipped, as that God is. He is to be wor-
shipped as God, as Creator, and therefore by all, since he is the Creator of
all, the Lord of all, and all are his creatures, and all are his subjects. Wor-
ship is founded upon creation, Ps. c. 2, 3. It is due to God for himself and
his own essential excellency, and therefore due from all. It is due upon the
account of man's nature. The human rational nature is the same in all.
Whatsoever is due to God upon the account of man's nature, and the natural
obligations he hath laid upon man, is due from all men, because they all
enjoy the benefits which are proper to their nature.
Man in no state was exempted, nor can be exempted from it. In paradise
he had his Sabbaths and sacraments. Man therefore dissolves the obligation
of a reasonable nature, by neglecting the worship of God.
Religion is in the first place to be minded. As soon as Noah came out of
the ark, he contrived not a habitation for himself, but an altar for the Lord,
to acknowledge him the author of his preservation from the deluge. Gen.
VOL. I. X
322 charnock's wobks. [John IV. 24.
viii. 20 ; and ■wheresoever Abraham came, his first business was to erect an
altar, and pay his arrears of gratitude to God, before he ran upon the score
for new mercies, Gen. xii. 7, xiii. 4, 18. He left a testimony of worship
wherever he came.
(2.) Wholly therefore to neglect it, is a high degree of atheism. He that
' calls not upon God,' • saith in his heart. There is no God,' and seems to
have the sentiments of natural conscience as to God stifled in him, Ps. xiv.
1, 4. It must arise from a conceit that there is no God, or that we are
equal to him (adoration not being due from persons of an equal state), or
that God is unable or unwilling to take notice of the adoring acts of his
creatures. What is any of these but an undeifying the supreme Majesty ?
When we lay aside all thoughts of paying any homage to him, we are in a
fair way opinionatively to deny him, as much as we practically disown him.
Where there is no knowledge of God, that is, no acknowledgment of God, a
gap is opened to all licentiousness, Hos. iv. 1, 2 ; and that by degrees brawns
the conscience, and razeth out the sense of God. Those forsake God that
* forget his holy mountain,' Isa. Ixv. 11. They do not practically own him
as the Creator of their souls or bodies. It is the sin of Cain, who, turning
his back upon worship, is said to * go out from the presence of the Lord,'
Gen. iv. 16. Not to worship him with our spirits, is against his law of
creation ; not to worship him at all, is against his act of creation ; not to
worship him in truth is hypocrisy ; not to worship him at all is atheism,
whereby we render ourselves worse than the worms in the earth, or a toad
in a ditch.
(3.) To pcrfoiTU a worship to a false God, or to the true God in a false
manner, seems to be less a sin than to live in pei-petual neglect of it. Though
it be directed to a false object instead of God, yet it is under the notion of a
God, and so is an acknowledgment of such a being as God in the world ;
whereas the total neglect of any worship is a practical denying of the exist-
ence of any supreme Majesty.
Whosoever constantly omits a public and private worship, transgresses
against an universallj'-received dictate, for all nations have agreed in the'
common notion of worshipping God, though they have disagreed in the
several modes and rites whereby they would testify that adoration. By a
worship of God, though superstitious, a veneration and reverence of such a
being is maintained in the world ; whereas by a total neglect of worship, he
is virtually disowned and discarded, if not from his existence, yet from his
providence and government of the world. All the mercies we breathe in are
denied to flow from him. A foolish worship owns religion, though it be-
spatters it. As if a stranger coming into a country mistakes a subject for
the prince, and pays that reverence to the subject which is due to the prince,
though he mistakes the object, yet he owns an authority ; or if he pays any
respect to the true prince of that country after the mode of his own, though
appearing ridiculous in the place where he is, he owns the authority of the
prince ; whereas the omission of all respect would be a contempt of majesty.
And therefore, the judgments of God have been more signal upon the sacri-
legious contemners of worship among the heathens, than upon those that
were diligent and devout in their false worship ; and they generalh' owned
the blessings received, to the preservation of a sense and worship of a deity
among them. Though such a worship be not acceptable to God, and every
man is bound to oSer to God a devotion agreeable to his own mind, j-et it is
commendable, not as worship, but as it speaks an acknowledgment of such a
being as God, in his power in creation, and his beneficence in his providence.
Well, then, omissions of worship are to be avoided. Let no man execute
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 828
that upon himself, which God will pronounce at last as the greatest misery,
and bid God depart from hira, who will at last be loath to hear God bid him
depart from him. Though man hath natural sentiments that God is to be
worshipped, yet having an hostility in his nature, he is apt to neglect, or
give it him in a slight manner. He therefore sets a particular mark and
notice of attention upon the fourth command, ' Remember thou keep holy
the Sabbath day.' Corrupt nature is apt to neglect the worship of God, and
flag in it. This command therefore, which concerns his worship, he fortifies
with several reasons.
Nor let any neglect worship, tecause they cannot find their hearts spiritual
in it. The further we are from God, the more carnal shall we be. No man
can expect heat by a distance from the sunbeams, or other means of warmth.
Though God commanded a circumcised heart in the Jewish services, yet he
did not warrant a neglect of the outward testimonies of religion he had then
appointed ; he expected according to his command, that they should offer
the sacrifices, and practise the legal purifications he had commanded ; he
would have them diligently observed, though he had declared that he imposed
them only for a time. And our Saviour ordered the practice of those posi-
tive rights as long as the law remained unrepealed, as in the case of the
leper, Mark xiv. 4. It is an injustice to refuse the ofiering ourselves to
God, according to the manner he hath in his wisdom prescribed and req^uired.
If spiritual worship be required by God, then
2. It informs us, that diligence in outward worship is not to be rested in.
Men* may attend all their days on worship, with a juiceless heart and un-
quickened frame, and think to compensate the neglect of the manner, with
abundance of the matter of service. Outward expressions are but the badges
and liveries of service, not the service itself. As the strength of sin lies in
the inward frame of the heart, so the strength of worship in the inward com-
plexion and temper of the soul. AVhat do a thousand services avail, with-
out cutting the throat of our carnal affections ! What are loud prayers, but
as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals, without divine charity ! A phari-
saical diligence in outward forms, without inward spirit, had no better a title
vouchsafed by our Saviour, than that of hypocritical. God desires not
sacrifices, nor delights in burnt oflferings. Shadows are not to be offered
instead of substance. God required the heart of man for itself ; but com-
manded outward ceremonies, as subservient to inward worship, and goads
and spurs unto it. They were never appointed as the substance of religion,
but auxiliaries to it. What value had the offering of the human nature of
Christ been of, if he had not had a divine nature to qualify him to be the
priest ! And what is the oblation of our bodies, without a priestly act of
the spirit in the presentation of it ! Could the Israelites have called them-
selves worshippers of God according to his order, if they had brought a
thousand lambs that had died in a ditch, or been killed at home ? They
were to be brought living to the altar, the blood shed at the foot of it. A
thousand sacrifices killed without, had not been so valuable as one brought
alive to the place of offering. One sound sacrifice is better than a thousand
rotten ones. As God took no pleasure in the blood of beasts without its
relation to the antitype, so he takes no pleasure in the outward rites of
worship, without faith in the Redeemer. To offer a body with a sapless
spirit, is a sacrilege of the same nature with that of the Israelites when they
offered dead beasts. A man without spiritual worship is dead whiles he
worships, though by his diligence in the externals of it, he may, like the
angel of the church of Sardis, * have a name to live,' Rev. iii. 1. What
* Daille, Melange des Sermons, Ser. ii.
324 chaenock's works. [John IV. 24.
security can we expect from a multitude of dead services ! What weak
shields are they against the holy eye and revenging wrath of God ! What
man, but one out of his wits, would solicit a dead man to be his advocate or
champion ? Diligence in outward worship is not to be rested in.
Use 2. Shall be for examination. Let us try ourselves concerning the
manner of our worship. We are now in the end of the world, and the dregs
of time ■; wherein the apostle predicts, there may be much of a ' form, and
little of the power of godliness,' 2 Tim. iii. 1, 5. And therefore it stands
us in hand to search into ourselves, whether it be not thus with us ; whether
there be as much reverence in our spirits, as there may be devotion in our
countenances and outward carriages.
1. How therefore are our hearts prepared to worship? Is our diligence
greater to put our hearts in an adoring posture, than our bodies in a decent
garb ? Or are we content to have a muddy heart, so we may have a dressed
carcass ? To have a spirit a cage of unclean birds, while we wipe the filth
from the outside of the platter, is no better than a pharisaical devotion, and
deserves no better a name than that of a whited sepulchre.
Do we take opportunities to excite and quicken our spirits to the perform-
ance, and cry aloud with David, ' Awake, awake, my glory '? Are not our
hearts asleep when Christ knocks ? When we hear the voice of God, ' Seek
my face,' do we answer him with warm resolutions, * Thy face, Lord, we
will seek'? Ps. xxvii. 8. Do we comply with spiritual motions, and strike
whiles the iron is hot ? Is there not more of reluctancy than readiness ? Is
there a quick rising of the soul in reverence to the motion, as Eglon to
Ehud^ or a sullen hanging the head at the first approach of it ? Or if our
hearts seem to be engaged and on fire, what are the motives that quicken
that fire ? Is it only the blast of a natural conscience, fear of hell, desires
of heaven as abstracted from God ? Or is it an afi"ection to God, an obe-
dient will to please him, longings to enjoy him, as a holy and sanctifying
God in his ordinances, as well as a blessed and glorified God in heaven ?
What do we expect in our approaches from him ? That which may make
divine impressions upon us, and more exactly conform us to the divine
nature ? Or do we design nothing but an empty formality, a rolling eye,
and a filling the air with a few words, without any openings of heart to
receive the incomes, which according to the nature of the duty might be
conveyed to us ? Can this be a spiritual worship ? The soul then ' closely
waits' upon him, when its * expectation is only from him,' Ps. Ixii. 6. Are
our hearts seasoned with a sense of sin, a sight of our spiritual wants,
raised notions of God, glowing affections to him, strong appetite after a
spiritual fulness ? Do we rouse up our sleepy spirits, and make a covenant
with all that is within us to attend upon him ? So much as we want of
this, so much we come short of a spiritual worship. In Ps. Ivii. 7, ' My
heart is fixed, 0 God, my heart is fixed.' David would fix his heart, before
he would engage in a praising act of worship. He appeals to God about it,
and that with doubling the expression, as being certain of an inward pre-
paredness. Can we make the same appeals in a fixation of spirit ?
2. How are our hearts fixed upon him, how do they cleave to him in the
duty ? Do we resign our spirits to God, and make them an entire holocaust,
a whole burnt- oftering in his worship ? Oh, do we not willingly admit carnal
thoughts to mix themselves with spiritual duties, and fasten our minds to
the creature, under pretences of directing them to the Creator ? Do we not
pass a mere compliment on God, by some superficial act of devotion, while
some covetous, envious, ambitious, voluptuous imagination may possess our
minds ? Do we not invert God's order, and worship a lust instead of God
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 325
with our spirit, that should not have the least service, either from our souls
or bodies, but with a spiritual disdain be sacrificed to the just indignation of
God ? How oflen do we fight against his will, while we cry ' Hail, master ;'
instead of crucifying our own thoughts, crucifying the Lord of our lives ; our
outward carriage plausible, and our inward stark naught ! Do we not often
regard iniquity more than God in our hearts, in a time of worship, roll
some filthy imagination as a sweet morsel under our tongues, and taste more
sweetness in that than in God? Do notour spirits smell rank of earth
while we offer to heaven ? and have wo not hearts full of thick clay, as their
* hands were full of blood' ? Isa. i. 15. When we sacrifice, do we not wrap
up our souls in communion with some sordid fancy, when we should entwine
our spirits about an amiable God ? While we have some fear of him, may
we not have a love to something else above him ? This is to worship, or
swear by the Lord, and by Malcham, Zeph. i. 5. How often doth an apish
fancy render a service inwardly ridiculous, under a grave outward posture,
skipping to the shop, warehouse, counting-house, in the space of a short
prayer ! And we are before God as a Babel, a confusion of internal lan-
guages ; and this in those parts of worship which are in the right use most
agreeable to God, profitable for ourselves, ruinous to the kingdom of sin
and Satan, and means to bring us into a closer communion with the divine
majesty. Can this be a spiritual worship ?
3. How do we act our graces in worship ? Though the instrument be strung,
if the strings be not wound up, what melody can be the issue ? All readi-
ness and alacrity discover a strength of nature, and a readiness in spirituals
discovers a spirituality in the heart. As unaffecting thoughts of God are
not spiritual thoughts, so unafi"ecting addresses to God are not spiritual
addresses. Well then, what awakenings and elevations of faith and love
have we ? what strong outflowings of our souls to him ? what indignation
against sin ? what admirations of redeeming grace ? How low have we
brought our coiTuptions to the footstool of Christ, to be made his con-
quered enemies ? how straitly have we clasped our faith about the cross and
the throne of Christ, to become his intimate spouse ? Do we in hearing
hang upon the lips of Christ ; in prayer, take hold of God and will not let
him go ; in confession, rend the caul of our hearts, and indict our souls
before him with a deep humility ? Do we act more by a soaring love than
a drooping fear ? So far as our spirits are servile, so far they are legal and
carnal ; so much as they are free and spontaneous, so much they are evan-
gelical and spiritual. As men under the law are subject to the constraint of
bondage, Heb. ii. 15, ' all their lifetime,' in all their worship, so under the
gospel they are under a constraint of love, 2 Cor. v. 14. How then are
believing affections exercised, which are always accompanied with holy fear,
a fear of his goodness that admits us into his presence, and a fear to offend
him in our act of worship ? So much as we have of forced or feeble aflPec-
tion, so much we have of carnality.
4. How do we find our hearts after worship ? By our after- carriage we
may judge of the spirituality of it.
(1.) How are we as to inward strength? When a worship is spiritually
performed, grace is more strengthened, corruption more mortified. The
Boul, like Samson after his awakening, goes out with a renewed strength.
As the inward man is renewed day by day, that is, every day, so it is
renewed in every w^orship. Every shower makes the grass and fruit grow
in good ground where the root is good, and the weeds where the ground is
naught. The more prepared the heart is to obedience in other duties after
worship, the more evidence there is that it hath been spiritual in the exer-
826 chaenock's woeks. [John IV. 24.
cise of it. It is the end of God in every dispensation, as in that of John
Baptist, to * make ready a people prepared for the Lord,' Luke i. 17 ; when
the heart is by worship prepared for fresh acts of obedience, and hath a
more exact watchfuhiess against the encroachments of sin. As carnal men,
after worship, sprout up in spiritual wickedness, so do spiritual worshippers
in spiritual graces. Spiritual fruits are a sign of a spiritual frame. When
men are more prone to sin after duty, it is a sign there was but little com-
munion with God in it, and a greater strength of sin, because such an act is
contrary to the end of worship, which is the subduing of sin. It is a sign
the physic hath wrought well, when the stomach hath a better appetite to its
appointed food; and worship hath been well performed when we have a
stronger inclination to other acts well pleasing to God, and a more sensible
distaste of those temptations we too much relished before. It is a sign of a
good concoction, when there is a greater strength in the vitals of religion, a
more eager desire to know God. When Moses had been praying to God,
and prevailed with him, he puts up a higher request, to behold his glory,
Exod. xxxiii. 13, 18. When the appetite stands strong to fuller discoveries
of God, it is a sign there hath been a spiritual converse with him.
(2.) How is it especially as to humility. The Pharisees' worship was,
without dispute, carnal ; and we find them not more humble after all their
devotions, but over-grown with more weeds of spiritual pride ; they per-
formed them as their righteousness. What men dare plead before God in
his day, they plead before them in their hearts in their day ; but this men
will do at the da}^ of judgment, 'we have prophesied in thy name,' &c.. Mat.
vii. 11. They shew what tincture their services left upon their spirits.
That which excludes them from any acceptation at the last da}', excludes
them from any estimation of being spiritual in this day. The carnal wor-
shippers charge God with injustice in not rewarding them, and claim an
acceptation as a compensation due to them : Isa. Iviii. 3, ' Wherefore have
we afflicted our souls, and thou takest no knowledge ?' A spiritual wor-
shipper looks upon his duties with shame, as well as he doth upon his sins
with confusion, and implores the mercy of God for the one as well as the
other. In Psalm cxliii. 2, the prophet David, after his supplications, begs
of God not to enter into judgment with him, and acknowledges any answer
that God should give him, as a fruit of his faithfulness to his promise, and
not the merit of his worship. ' In thy faithfulness answer me,' &c. What-
soever springs from a gracious principle, and is the breath of the Spirit, leaves
a man more humble ; whereas that which proceeds from a stock of nature, hath
the true blood of nature running in the veins of it, viz., that pride which is
naturally derived from Adam. The breathing of the divine Spirit is in
everything to conform us to our Redeemer ; that being the main work of his
office is his work in every particular Christian act influenced by him. Now
Jesus Christ in all his actions was an exact pattern of humility. After the
institution and celebration of the Supper, a special act of worship in the
church, though he had a sense of all the authority his Father had given him,
yet he humbles himself to wash his disciples' feet, John xiii. 2-4. And
after his sublime prayer, John xvii., he humbles himself to the death, and
ofiers himself to his murderers, because of his Father's pleasure : John
xviii. 1, ' When he had spoken those words, he went over the brook Kedron'
into the garden. What is the end of God in appointing worship is the end
of a spiritual heart in ofiering it, not his own exaltation, but God's glory.
Glorifying the name of God is the fruit of that evangelical worship the
Gentiles were in time to give to God : Ps. Ixxxvi. 9, ' All nations which
thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, 0 Lord ; and shall
John IY. 24.] spiritual worship. 827
glorify thy name.' Lei us examine, then, what debasing ourselves there is
in a sense of our own vilcness and distance from so glorious a Spirit.
Self-denial is the heart of all gospel grace. Evangelical spiritual worship
cannot be without the ingredient of the main evangelical principle.
(3.) What delight is there after it ? What pleasure is there, and what is
the object of that pleasure ? Is it communion we have had with God, or a
fluency in ourselves ? Is it something which hath touched our hearts or
tickled our fancies? As the strength of sin is known by the delightful
thoughts of it after the commission, so is the spirituality of duty by the
object of our delightful remembrance after the performanee. It was a^ sign
David was spiritual in the worship of God in the tabernacle when he enjoyed
it, because he longed for the spiritual part of it when he was exiled from it.
His desires were not only for liberty to revisit the tabernacle, but to see the
'power and glory of God in the sanctuary,' as he had seen it before, Ps.
Ixiii. 2. His desires for it could not have been so ardent, if his reflection
upon what had passed had not been delightful ; nor could his soul be poured
out in him for the want of such opportunities, if the remembrance of the con-
verse he had had with God had not been accompanied with a delightful relish,
Ps. xlii. 4. Let us examine what delight we find in our spirits after worship.
Use 3 is of comfort. And it is very comfortable to consider that the
smallest worship with the heart and spirit, flowing from a principle of grace,
is more acceptable than the most pompous veneration, yea, if the oblation
were as precious as the whole circuit of heaven and earth, without it. That
God, that values a cup of cold water given to any as his disciple, will value
a sincere service above a costly sacrifice. God hath his eye upon them that
honour his nature. He would not 'seek such to worship him' if he did not
intend to accept such a worship from them. When we therefore invoke
him, and praise^him, which are the prime parts of religion, he will receive
it as a sweet savour from us, and overlook infirmities mixed with the graces.
The great matter of discomfort, and that which makes us question the
spirituality of worship, is the many starts of our spirits and rovings to other
things.
For answer to which,
1. It is to be confessed that these starts are natural to us. Who is free
from them ? We bear in our own bosom a nest of turbulent thoughts, which,
like busy gnats, will be buzzing about us while we are in our most inward and
spiritual converses. Many wild beasts lurk in a man's heart, as in a close
and covert wood, and scarce discover themselves but at our solemn worship.
No duty so holy, no worship so spiritual, that can wholly privilege us
from them. They will jog us in our most weighty employments, that, as
God said to Cain, sin lies at the door, and enters in, and makes a riot in
our souls. As it is said of wicked men, they cannot sleep for multitude of
thoughts, Eccles. v. 12, so it may be of many a good man, he cannot wor-
ship for multitude of thoughts. There will be starts, and more in our
religious than natural employments ; it is natural to man. Some therefore
think the bells tied to Aaron's garments between the pomegranates were to
warn the people, and recall their fugitive minds to the present service, when
they heard the sound of them, upon the least motion of the high priest.
The sacrifice of Abraham, the father of the faithful, was not exempt^ from
the fowls picking at it. Gen. xv. 11. Zechariah himself was drowsy in the
midst of his vision, which being more amazing, might cause a heavenly
intentness : Zech. iv. 1, ' The angel that talked with me came again, and
awaked me, as a man is awaked out of sleep.' He had been roused up
before, but he was ready to drop down again ; his heart was gone till the
828 charnock's works. [John IY. 24.
angel jogged him. We may complain of such imaginations, as Jeremiah
doth of the enemies of the Jews : Lam. iv. 19, * Our persecutors are swifter
than eagles ; ' they light upon us with as much speed as eagles upon a car-
cass ; they pursue us upon the mountain of divine institution, and they lay
■wait for us in the wilderness, in our retired addresses to God.
And this will be so while,
(1.) There is natural corruption in us. There are in" a godly man two
contrary principles, flesh and spirit, which endeavour to hinder one an-
other's acts, and are always stirring upon the offensive or defensive part,
Gal. V. 17. There is a body of death continually exhaling its noisome
vapours. It is a body of death in our worship as well as in our natures ;
it snaps our resolutions asunder, Rom. vii. 19 ; it hinders us in the doing
good, and contradicts our wills in the stirring up evil. This corruption
being seated in all the faculties, and a constant domestic in them, has the
greater opportunity to trouble us, since it is by those faculties that we
spiritually transact with God ; and it stirs more in the time of rehgious
exercises, though it be in part mortified ; as a wounded beast, though
tired, will rage and strive to its utmost, when the enemy is about to fetch a
blow at it. All duties of worship tend to the wounding of corruption ; and
it is no wonder to feel the striving of sin to defend itself and offend us, when
we have our arms in our hands to mortify it, that the blow may be diverted
which is directed against it.
The apostles had aspiring thoughts, and being persuaded of an earthly
kingdom, expected a grandeur in it. And though we find some appearance
of it at other times, — as when they were casting out devils, and .gave an
account of it to their Master, he gives them a kind of a check, Luke x. 20,
intimating that there was some kind of evil in their rejoicing upon that
account, — yet this never swelled so high as to break out into a quarrel who
should be greatest, until they had the most solemn ordinance, the Lord's
supper, to quell it, Luke xxii. 24. Our corruption is like lime, which dis-
covers not its fire b}^ any smoke or heat till you cast water, the enemy of
fire, upon it ; neither doth our natural corruption rage so much as when we
are using means to quench and destroy it.
(2.) "While there is a devil, and we in his precinct. As he accuseth us to
God, so he disturbs us in ourselves ; he is a bold spirit, and loves to intrude
himself when we are conversing with God. We read that when the angels
presented themselves before God, Satan comes among them. Job i. 6.
Motions from Satan will thrust themselves in with our most raised and
angelical frames. He loves to take ofi" the edge of our spirits from God ;
he acts but after the old rate ; he from the first envied God an obedience
from man, and envied man the felicity of communion with God ; he is
unwilling God should have the honour of worship, and that we should have
the fruit of it ; he hath himself lost it, and therefore is unwilling we should
enjoy it; and being subtle, he knows how to make impressions upon us suit-
able to our inbred corruptions, and assaults us in the weakest part ; he
knows all the avenues to get within us (as he did in the temptation of Eve),
and being a spirit, he wants not a power to dart them immediately upon our
fancy; and being a spirit, and therefore active and nimble, he can shoot
those darts faster than our weakness can beat them ofi". He is diligent
also, and watcheth for his prey, and seeks to devour our services as well as
our souls, and snatch our best morsels from us. We know he mixed him-
self with our Saviour's retirements in the wilderness, and endeavoured to
fly-blow his holy converse with his Father in the preparation to his media-
tory work.
John IY. 24.] spiritual worship. 329
Satan is God's ape, and imitates the Spirit in the oflSce of a remem-
brancer. As the Spirit brings good thoughts and divine promises to mind,
to quicken our worship, so the devil brings evil things to mind, and endea-
vours to fasten them in our souls to disturb us. And though all the foolish
starts we have in worship are not purely his issue, yet being of kin to him,
he claps his hands, and sets them on like so many mastiffs to tear the ser-
vice in pieces.
And both those distractions, which arise from our own corruption and
from Satan, are most rife in worship when we are under some pressing
affliction. This seems to be David's case, Ps. Ixxxvi. When, in verse 11,
he prays God to ' unite his heart to fear and worship his name,' he seems
to be under some affliction, or fear of his enemies : Oh free me from those
distractions of spirit, and those passions which arise in my soul upon con-
sidering the designs of my enemies against me, and press upon me in my
addresses to thee and attendance on thee. Job also in his affliction com-
plains, Job xvii. 11, that his purposes were broken off. He could not
make an even thread of thoughts and resolutions ; they were frequently
snapped asunder, like rotten yarn when one is winding up.
Good men and spiritual worshippers have lain under this trouble. Though
they are a sign of weakness of grace, or some obstructions in the acting of
strong grace, yet they are not alway evidences of a want of grace. What
ariseth from our own corruption, is to be matter of humiliation and resist-
ance ; what ariseth fi-om Satan, should edge our minds to a noble conquest
of them. If the apostle did comfort himself with his disapproving of what
rose from the natural spring of sin within him, with his consent to the law
and dissent from his lust, and charges it not upon himself, but upon the
sin that dwelt in him, with which he had broken off" the former league, and
was resolved never to enter into amity with it, by the same reason we
may comfort ourselves, if such thoughts are undelighted in, and alienate
not our hearts from the worship of God by all their busy intrusions to
interrupt us.
2. These distractions (not allowed) may be occasions, by an holy improve-
ment, to make our hearts more spiritual after worship, though they disturb
us in it, by answering those ends for which we may suppose God permits
them to invade us. And that is,
(1.) When they are occasions to humble us.
[l.j For our carriage in the particular worship. There is nothing so
dangerous as spiritual pride ; it deprived devils and men of the presence of
God, and will hinder us of the influence of God. If we had had raised and
uninterrupted motions in worship, we should be apt to be lifted up; and
the devil stands ready to tempt us to self-confidence. You know how it
was with Paul, 2 Cor. xii. 1-7, his buffetings were occasions to render him
more spiritual than his raptures, because more humble. God suffers those
wanderings, starts, and distractions to prevent our spiritual pride, which is
as a worm at the root of spiritual worship, and minds us of the dusty frame
of our spirits, how easily they are blown away, as he sends sickness to put
us in mind of the shortness of our breath and the easiness to lose it. God
would make us ashamed of ourselves in his presence, that we may own
that what is good in any duty is merely from his grace and Spirit, and not
from ourselves ; that with Paul we may cry out, ' By gi-ace we are what we
are,' and by grace we do what we do. We may be hereby made sensible
that God can alway find something in our exactest worship, as a ground of
denying us the successful fruit of it. If we cannot stand upon our duties
for salvation, what can we bottom upon in ourselves ? If, therefore, they
330 chabnock's works. [John IY. 24.
are occasions to make us out of love with any righteousness of our own, to
make us break our hearts for them because we cannot keep them out, if we
mourn for them as our sins, and count them our great afflictions, we have
attained that brokenness which is a choice ingredient in a spiritual sacrifice.
Though we have been disturbed b}^ them, jet we are not robbed of the suc-
cess ; we may behold an answer of our worship in our humiliation in spite
of all of them.
[2.] For the baseness of our nature. These unsteady motions help us to
discern that lieap of vermin that breeds in our nature. Would any man
thmk he had such an averseness to his Creator and benefactor, such an
unsuitableness to him, such an estrangedness from him, were it not for his
inspection into his distracted frames ? God suffers this to hang over us as
a rod of correction, to discover and fetch out the folly of our hearts. Could
we imagine our natures so highly contrary to that God who is so infinitely
amiable, so desirable an object, or that there should be so much folly and
madness in the heart, as to draw back from God in those services which
God hath appointed as pipes through which to communicate his grace, to
convej^ himself, his love, and goodness to the creature ? If, therefore, we
have a deep sense of, and strong reflections upon, our base nature, and
bewail that mass of averseness which lies there, and that fulness of irreve-
rence towards the God of our mercies, the object of our worship, it is a
blessed improvement of our wanderings and diversions. Certainly if any
Israelite had brought a lame and rotten lamb to be sacrificed to God, and
afterward had bewailed it, and laid open his heart to God in a sensible and
humble confession of it, that repentance had been a better sacrifice, and more
acceptable in the sight of God, than if he had brought a sound and a living
Oifering.
(2.) When they are occasions to make us prize duties of worship. When
we argue, as rationally we may, that they are of singular use, since our
corrupt hearts and a malicious devil doth chiefly endeavour to hinder us
from them, and that we find we have not those gadding thoughts when we
are upon worldly business, or upon any sinful design which may dishonour
God and wound our souls, this is a sign sin and Satan dislike worship, for
he is too subtile a spirit to oppose that which would further his kingdom.
As it is an argument the Scripture is the word of God, because the wicked-
ness of the world doth so much oppose it, so it is a ground to believe the
profitableness and excellency of worship because Satan and our own unruly
hearts do so much interrupt us in it. If, therefore, we make this use of
our cross-steps in worship, to have a greater value for such duties, more
affections to them and desires to be frequent in them, our hearts are grow-
ing spiritual, under the weights that would depress them to carnality.
(3.) When we take a rise from hence, to have heavenly admirations of
the graciousness of God ; that he should pity and pardon so many slight
addresses to him, and give any gracious returns to us. Though men have
foolish ranging every day, and in every duty, yet free grace is so tender as
not to punish them : Gen. viii. 21, ' And the Lord smelt a sweet savour;
and the Lord said in his heart, I will not curse the ground for man's sake ;
for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.' It is observable
that this was just after a sacrifice which Noah offered to God, ver. 20 ; but
probably not without infh-mities common to human nature, which may be
grounded upon the reason God gives, that though he had destroyed the earth
before, because of the evil of man's imaginations. Gen. vi. 5, he still found
evil imaginations ; he doth not say in the heart of Shem, or others of Noah's
family, but in man's heart, including Noah also, who had both the judgments
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 331
of God upon the former world, and the mercy of God in his own preservation
before his eyes ; yet God saw evil imaginations rooted in the nature of man,
and though it were so, yot he would be merciful. If therefore we can, after
finding our hearts so vagrant in worship, have real frames of thankfulness
that God hath spared us, and be heightened in our admirations at God's
giving us any fruit of such a distracted worship, wo take advantage from
them to be raised into an evangelical frame, which consists in the humblo
acknowledgments of the grace of God. When David takes a review of those
tumultuous passions which had ruffled his mind, and possessed him with
unbelieving notions of God in the persons of his prophets, Ps. cxvi. 11, how
high doth his soul mount in astonishment and thankfulness to God ,for his
mercy, ver. 12. Notwithstanding his distrust, God did graciously perform
his promise, and answer his desire ; then it is, ' What shall I render to the
Lord ?' His heart was more affected for it, because it had been so pas-
sionate in former distrusts. It is indeed a ground of wondering at the
patience of the Spirit of God, that he should guide our hearts when they aro
BO apt to start out ; as it is the patience of a master to guide the hand of his
scholar, while he mixes his writing with many blots. It is not one or two
infirmities the Spirit helps us in, and helps over, but many, Rom. viii. 2G.
It is a sign of a spiritual heart when he can take a rise to bless God for
the renewing and blowing up his affections, in the midst of so many incur-
sions from Satan to the contrary, and the readiness of the heart too much
to comply with them.
(4.) When we take occasion from thence to prize the mediation of Christ.
The more distractions jog us, the more need we should see of going out to a
Saviour by faith. One part of our Saviour's office is to stand between us
and the infirmities of our worship. As he is an advocate, he presents our
services, and pleads for them and us, 1 John ii. 1 ; for the sins of our duties,
as well as for our other sins. Jesus Christ is an high priest, appointed by
God to take away the iniquities of our holy things, which was typified by
Aaron's plate upon his mitre, Exod. xxviii. 36, 38. AVere there no imper-
fections, were there no creeping up of those frogs into our minds, we would
think our worship would merit acceptance with God upon its own account ;
but if we behold our own weakness, that not a tear, a groan, a sigh is so
pure, but must have Christ to make it entertainable ; that there is no wor-
ship without those blemishes ; and upon this, throw all our services into the
arms of Christ for acceptance, and solicit him to put his merits in the front
to make our ciphers appear valuable : it is a spiritual act, the design of God
in the gospel being to advance the honour and mediation of his Son. That
is a spiritual and evangelical act, which answers the evangelical design. The
design of Satan and our own corruption is defeated, when those interrup-
tions make us run swifter, and take faster hold on the high priest, who is to
present our worship to God, and our own souls receive comfort thereby.
Christ had temptations offered to him by the devil in his wilderness retire-
ment, that from an experimental knowledge he might be able more compas-
sionately to succour us, Heb. ii. 18: we have such assaults in our retired
worship especially, that we may be able more highly to value him and his
mediation.
8. Let us not therefore be discouraged by those interruptions and starts
of our hearts.
(1.) If we find in ourselves a strong resistance of them. The flesh will
be lusting : that cannot be hindered ; yet if we do not fulfil the lusts of it,
rise up at its command and go about its work, we may be said to walk in the
Spirit : Gal. v. 16, 17, we ' walk in the Spirit,' if we ' fulfil not the lusts of
332 chaenock's works. [John IV. 24.
the flesh,' though there be a lusting of the flesh against the spirit. So we
worship in the Spirit, though there be carnal thoughts arising, if we do not
fulfil them ; though the stirring of them discovers some contrariety in us to
God, yet the resistance manifests that there is a principle of contrariety in
us to them ; that as there is something of flesh that lusts against the spirit, so
there is something of spirit in worship which lusts against the flesh. We
must take heed of omitting worship, because of such inroads, and lying down
in the mire of a total neglect. If our spirits are made more lively and
vigorous against them ; if those cold vapours which have risen from our
hearts, make us like a spring in the midst of the cold earth more warm,
there is in this case more reason for us to bless God than to be discouraged.
God looks upon it as the disease, not the wilfulness of our nature ; as the
weakness of the flesh, not the wilfulness of the spirit. If we would shut
the door upon them, it seems they are unwelcome company ; men do not
use to lock their doors upon those they love : if they break in and disturb
us with their impertinencies, we need not be discomforted, unless we give
them a share in our afi"ections, and turn our back upon God to entertain
them. If their presence makes us sad, their flight would make us joyful.
(2.) If we find ourselves excited to a stricter watch over our hearts against
them ; as travellers will be careful when they come to places where they
have been robbed before, that they be not so easily surprised again. We
should not only lament when we have had such foolish imaginations in wor-
ship breaking in upon us, but also bless God that we have had no more,
since we have hearts so fruitful of weeds. We should give God the glory
when we find our hearts preserved from these intruders, and not boast of
ourselves, but return him our praise for the watch and guard he kept over
us to preserve us from such thieves.
Let us not be discomforted ; for as the greatness of our sins upon our
turning to God is no hindrance to our justification, because it doth not
depend upon our conversion as the meritorious cause, but upon the infinite
value of our Saviour's satisfaction, which reaches the greatest sins as well
as the least, so the multitude of our bewailed distractions in worship are
not a hindrance to our acceptation, because of the uncontrollable power of
Christ's intercession.
Use 4 is for exhortation. Since spiritual worship is due to God, and
the Father seeks such to worship him, how much should we endeavour to
satisf}^ the desire and order of God, and act conformable to the law of our
creation and the love of redemption ! Our end must be the same in worship
which was God's end in creation and redemption : to glorify his name, set
forth his perfections, and be rendered fit, as creatures and redeemed ones, to
partake of that grace which is the fruit of worship. An evangelical dispen-
sation requires a spiritual homage ; to neglect, therefore, either the matter
or manner of gospel duties, is to put a slight upon gospel privileges. The
manner of duty is ever of more value than the matter ; the scarlet dye is
more precious than the cloth tinctured with it. God respects more the dis-
position of the sacrificer than the multitude of the sacrifices.* The solemn
feasts appointed by God were but dung, as managed by the Jews, Mai. ii. 3.
The heart is often welcome without the body, but the body never grateful
without the heart. The inward acts of the Spirit require nothing from with-
out to constitute them good in themselves ; but the outward acts of devotion
require inward acts to render them savoury to God. As the goodness of out-
ward acts consists not in the acts themselves, so the acceptableness of them
* MaXXov rh bai'MOvio'j 'jr^'og rb ruv ^uovruv rjOog rj ruv duo/Avuv TXrjSog. —
Porphyr. de Ahstinentia,
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 833
results not from the acts themselves, but from the inward frame animating
and quickening those acts, as blood and spirits running through the veins of
a duty to make it a living service in the sight of God. Imperfections in
worship hinder not God's acceptation of it, if the heart spirited by grace bo
there to make it a sweet savour. The stench of burning flesh and fat in
the legal sacrifices might render them noisome to the outward senses, but
God smelt a sweet savour in them as they respected Christ. When the
heart and spirit are ofl'ered up to God, it may be a savoury duty, though
attended with unsavoury imperfections ; but a thousand sacrifices without a
stamp of faith, a thousand spiritual duties with an habitual carnality, are no
better than stench with God.
The heart must be purged, as well as the temple was by our Saviour, of
the thieves that would rob God of his due worship. Antiquity had some
temples, wherein it was a crime to bring any gold ; therefore those that
came to worship laid their gold aside before they went into the temple. We
should lay aside our worldly and trading thoughts before we address to wor-
ship : Isa. xxvi. 9, ' With my spirit within me will I seek thee early.' Let
not our minds be gadding abroad, and exiled from God and themselves. It
will be thus when ' the desire of our soul is to his name, and the remem-
brance of him,' ver. 8. When he hath given so great and admirable a gift,
as that of his Son, in whom are all things necessary to salvation, righteous-
ness, peace, and pardon of sin, we should manage the remembrance of his
name in worship with the closest unitedness of heart, and the most spiritual
afiections. The motion of the spirit is the first act in religion ; to this we
are obliged in every act. The devil requires the spirit of his votaries : should
God have a less dedication than the devil ?
Motives to back this exhortation :
1. Not to give God our spirit is a great sin. It is a mockery of God, not
worship ; contempt, not adoration, whatever our outward fervency or pro-
testations may be.* Every alienation of our hearts from him is a real scorn
put upon him. The acts of the soul are real, and more the acts of the man
than the acts of the body, because they are the acts of the choicest part of
man, and of that which is the first spring of all bodily motions ; it is the
"koyog kvhta&iToc, the internal speech, whereby we must speak with God. To
give him, therefore, only an external form of worship, without the life of it,
is a taking his name in vain. We mock him, when we mind not what we
are speaking to him, or what he is speaking to us ; when the motions of our
hearts are contrary to the motions of our tongues ; when we do anything
before him slovenly, impudently, or rashly. As in a lutinist it is absurd to
sing one tune and play another, so it is a foul thing to tell God one thing
with our lips, and think another thing with our hearts. It is a sin like that
the apostle chargeth the heathens with : Rom. i. 28, ' They like not to retain
God in their knowledge ; ' their stomachs are sick while they are upon any
duty, and never leave working, till they have thrown up all the spiritual part
of worship, and rid themselves of the thoughts of God, which are as unwel-
come and troublesome guests to them. When men behave themselves in
the sight of God as if God were not God, they do not only defame him, but
deny him, and violate the unchangeable perfections of the divine nature.
(1.) It is against the majesty of God, when we have not awful thoughts of
that great majesty to whom we address ; when our souls cleave not to him
when we petition him in prayer, or when he gives out his orders in his word.
It is a contempt of the majesty of a prince, if, whiles he is speaking to us,
we listen not to him with reverence and attention, but turn our backs on
* Non valet protestatio contra factum, is a rule in the civil law.
834 chaenock's wokks. [John IV. 24.
him to play witli one of his hounds or talk with a heggar, or while we speak
to him to rake in a dunghill. Solomon adviseth us to ' keep our foot when
we go to the house of God,' Eccles. v. 1. Our affections should be steady,
and not slip away again ; why ? ver. 2. Because ' God is in heaven,' &c.
He is a God of majesty, earthly dirty frames are unsuitable to the God of
heaven, low spirits are unsuitable to the Most High. We would not bring
our mean servants or dirty dogs in a prince's presence chamber ; yet we
bring not only our worldly but our profane affections into God's presence.
We give in this case those services to God which our governor would think
unworthy of him, Mai. i. 8. The more excellent and glorious God is, the
greater contempt of him it is to suffer such foolish affections to be competi-
tors with him for our hearts. It is a scorn put upon him to converse with
a creature while we are dealing with him ; but a greater to converse in our
thoughts and fancies with some sordid lust which is most hateful to him.
And the more aggravation it attracts, in that we are to apprehend him, the
most glorious object, sitting upon his throne in time of worship, and our-
selves standing as vile creatures before him, supplicating for our lives, and
the conveyances of grace and mercy to our souls. As if a grand mutineer,
instead of humble begging the pardon of his offending prince, should present
his petition not only scribbled and blotted, but besmeared with some loath-
some excrement. It is unbecoming the majesty both of God and the worship
itself, to present him with a picture instead of substance, and bring a world
of nasty affections in our hearts, and ridiculous toys in our heads before
him, and worship with indisposed and heedless souls. Mai. i. 14, He is a
great king, therefore address to him with fear and reverence.
(2.) It is against the life of God. Is a dead worship proportioned to a
living God ? The separation of heavenly affections from our souls before
God, makes them as much a carcass in his sight as the divorce of the soul
makes the body a carcass. When the affections are separated, worship is
no longer worship but a dead offering, a lifeless bulk ; for the essence and
spirit of worship is departed. Though the soul be present with the body in
a way of information, yet it is not present in a way of affection, and this is
the worst ; for it is not the separation of the soul from informing that doth
separate a man from God, but the removal of our affections from him. If
a man pretend an application to God, and sleep and snore all the time,
without question such a one did not worship. In a careless worship the
heart is morally dead while the eyes are open. The heart of the spouse
awaked whiles her eyes slept, Cant. v. 2, and our hearts on the contrary
sleep while our eyes awake.
Our blessed Saviour hath died to ' purge our consciences from dead works '
and frames, that we may ' serve the living God,' Heb. ix. 14 ; to serve God
as a God of life. David's soul cried and fainted for God under this con-
sideration, Ps. xlii. 2, But to present our bodies without our spirits is such
a usage of God that implies he is a dead image, not worthy of any but a
dead and heartless service, like one of those idols the psalmist speaks of,
Ps. CSV. 5, that ' have eyes and see not, ears and hear not,' no life in it.
Though it be not an objective idolatry, because the worship is directed to
the true God, yet I may call it a subjective idolatry, in regard of the frame,
fit only to be presented to some senseless stock. We intimate God to be
no better than an idol, and to have no more knowledge of us and insight
into us than an idol can have. If we did believe him to be the living God,
we durst not come before him with services so unsuitable to him, and
reproaches of him.
(3.) It is against the infiniteness of God. We should worship God with
John IV. 24.] " spiritual worship. 335
those boundless affections which bear upon them a shadow or imago of his
infiniteness, such as the desires of the soul, which know no hmits, but start
out beyond whatsoever enjoyment the heart of man possesses. No creeping
creature was to be offered to God in sacrifice, but such as had legs to run
or wings to fly. For us to come before God with a light creeping frame is
to worship him with the lowest finite affections ; as though anything, though
never so mean or torn, might satisfy an infinite being ; as though a poor
shallow creature could give enough to God without fgiving him the heart,
when indeed wo cannot give him a worship proportionable to his infiniteness,
did our hearts swell as large as heaven in our desires for him in every act
of our duties.
(4.) It is against the spirituality of God. God being a Spirit, calls for a
worship in spirit : to withhold this from him, implies him to bo some f^ross
corporeal matter. As a Spirit, he looks for the heart, a wrestling heart in
prayer, a trembling heart in the word, Isa. Ixvi. 2. To bring nothing but
the body when we come to a spiritual God to beg spiritual benefits, to wait
for spiritual communications, which can only be dispensed to us in a spiritual
manner, is unsuitable to the spiritual nature of God. A mere carnal service
implicitly denies his spirituality, which requires of us higher engagements
than mere corporeal ones.
Worship should be rational, not an imaginative service, wherein is required
the activity of our noblest faculties ; and our fancy ought to have no share
in it, but in subserviency to the more spiritual part of our soul.
(5.) It is against the supremacy of God. As God is one, the only sove-
reign, so our hearts should be one, cleaving wholly to him, and undivided
from him. In pretending to deal with him, we acknowledge his Deity and
sovereignty ; but in withholding our choicest faculties and affections from
him, and the starting of our minds to vain objects, we intimate their equahty
with God, and their right as well as his to our hearts and affections. It
is as if a princess should commit adultery with some base scullion while she
is before her husband, which would be a plain denial of his sole right to her.
It intimates that other things are superior to God ; they are true sovereigns
that engross our hearts. If a man were addressing himself to a prince, and
should in an instant turn his back upon him upon a beck or nod from some
inconsiderable person, is it not an evidence that that person that invited
him away hath a greater sovereignty over him than that prince to whom he
was applying himself ? And do we not discard God's absolute dominion
over us, when, at the least beck of a corrupt inclination, we can dispose of
our hearts to it, and alienate them from God ? As they in Ezek. xxxiii. 32,
left the service of God for the service of their covetousness, which evidenced
that they owned the authority of sin more than the authority of God. This
is not to serve God as our Lord and absolute master, but to make God serve
our turn, and submit his sovereignty to the supremacy of some unworthy
affection. The creature is preferred before the Creator, when the heart
runs most upon it in time of religious worship, and our own carnal intei-est
swallows up the affections that are due to God : it is * an idol set up in the
heart,' Ezek. xiv. 4, in his solemn presence, and attracts that devotion to
itself which we only owe to our sovereign Lord ; and the more base and con-
temptible that is to which the spirit is devoted, the more contempt there is
of God's dominion. Judas his kiss, with a Hail, Master, was no act of
worship, or an owning his Master's authority, but a designing the satisfac-
tion of his covetousness in the betraying of him.
(6.) It is against the wisdom of God. God, as a God of order, has put
earthly things in subordination to heavenly, and we by this unworthy
336 chaenock's woeks. [John IV. 24.
carriage invert this order, and put heavenly things in subordination to
earthly, in placing mean and low things in our hearts, and bringing them
so placed into God's presence, which his wisdom at the creation put under
our feet. A service without spiritual affections is a ' sacrifice of fools,'
Eccles. V. 1, which have lost their brains and understandings; a fooHsh
spirit is very unsuitable to an infinitely wise God. Well may God say of
such a one, as Achish of David, who seemed mad, ' Why have you brought
this fellow to play the madman in my presence ? shall this fellow come into
my house ?' 1 Sam. xxi. 15.
(7.) It is against the omnisciency of God. To carry it fair without and
impertinently within, is as though God had not an all-seeing eye that could
pierce into the heart, and understand every motion of the inward faculties ;
as though God were easily cheated with an outward fawning service, like an
apothecary's box with a gilded title, that may be full of cobwebs within.
What is such a carriage, but a design to deceive God, when with Herod
•we pretend to worship Christ, and intend to murder all the motions of
Christ in our souls ! A heedless spirit, an estrangement of our souls, a
giving the reius to them to run out from the presence of God to see every
reed shaken with the wind, is to deny him to be searcher of hearts, and the
discerner of secret thoughts ; as though he could not look through us to the
darkness and remoteness of our minds, but were an ignorant God, who
might be put off with the worst as well as the best in our flock. If we did
really believe there were a God of infinite knowledge, who saw our frames,
and whether we came dressed with wedding- garments suitable to the duties
we are about to perform, should we be so garish, and put him off with such
trivial stuff, without any reverence of his majesty ?
• (8.) It is against the holiness of God. To alienate our spirits is to offend
him while we pretend to worship him ; though we may be mighty officious
in the external part, yet our base and carnal aftections make all our worship
but as a heap of dung ; and who would not look upon it as an affront to lay
dung before a prince's throne ? Prov. xxi. 27, ' The sacrifice of the wicked
is an abomination : how much more when he brings it with a wicked mind ? '
A putrified carcass under the law had not been so great an affront to the
holiness of God as a frothy, unmelted heart, and a wanton fancy in a time of
worship. God is so holy, that if we could offer the worship of angels, and
the quintessence of our souls in his service, it would be beneath his infinite
purity. How unworthy then are they of him, when they are presented not
only without the sense of our uncleanness, but sullied with the fumes and
exhalations of our corrupt affections, which are so many plague-spots upon
our duties, contrary to the unspotted purity of the divine nature ! Is not
this an unworthy conceit of God, and injurious to his infinite holiness ?
(9.) It is against the love and kindness of God. It is a condescension in
God to admit a piece of earth to offer up a duty to him, when he hath
myriads of angels to attend him in his court and celebrate his praise ; to
admit man to be an attendant on him, and a partner with angels, is a high
favour. It is not a single mercy, but a heap of mercies to be admitted into
the presence of God : Ps. v. 7, ' I will come into thy house in the multitude
of thy mercies.' When the blessed God is so kind as to give us access to
his majesty, do we not undervalue his kindness when we deal uncivilly with
him, and deny him the choicest part of ourselves ? It is a contempt of his
sovereignty, as our spirits are due to him by nature ; a contempt of his
goodness, as our spirits are due to him by gratitude ! How abusive a
carriage is it to make use of his mercy to encourage our impudence, that
should excite our fear and reverence ! How unworthy would it be for an
John FV. 24.] spiritual worship. 837
indigent debtor to bring to his indulgent creditor an empty purse instead of
payment ! When God holds out his golden sceptre to encourage our
approaches to him, stands ready to give us the pardon of sin and full
felicity, the best things he hath, is it a fit requital of his kindness to give
him a formal outside only, a shadow of religion, to have the heart overswayed
with other thoughts and aflections, as if all his proffers were so con-
temptible as to deserve only a slight at our hands ? It is a contempt of the
love and kindness of God.
(10.) It is against the sufficiency and fulness of God. When we give
God our bodies and the creature our spirits, it intimates a conceit that there
is more content to be had in the creature than in God blessed for ever, that
the waters in the cistern are sweeter than those in the fountain. Is not this
a practical giving God the lie, and denying those promises wherein he hath
declared the satisfaction he can give to the spirit, as he is the God of the
spirits of all flesh ?
If we did imagine the excellency and loveliness of God were worthy to be
the ultimate object of our affections, the heart would attend more closely
upon him, and be terminated in him ; did we believe God to be all-sufficient,
full of grace and goodness, a tender Father, not willing to forsake his own,
willing as well as able to supply their wants, the heart would not so lamely
attend upon him, and would not upon every impertinency be diverted from
him. There is much of a wrong notion of God, and a predominancy of the
world above him in the heai't, when we can more savourly relish the thoughts
of low inferior things than heavenly, and let our spirits upon every trifling
occasion be fugitives from him. It is a testimony that we make not God
our chiefest good. If apprehensions of his excellency did possess our souls,
they would be fastened on him, glued to him ; we should not listen to that
rabble of foolish thoughts that steal our hearts so often from him. Were
our breathings after God as strong as the pantings of the hart after the
water brooks, we should be like that creature, not diverted in our course by
every puddle. Were God the predominant satisfactory object in our eye, he
would carry our whole soul along with him.
When our spirits readily retreat from God in worship upon every giddy
motion, it is a kind of repentance that ever we did come near him, and
implies that there is a fuller satisfaction, and more attractive excellency, in
that which doth so easily divert us, than in that God to whose worship we
did pretend to address ourselves ; it is as if, when we were petitioning a prince,
we should immediately turn about, and make request to one of his guard,
as though so mean a person were more able to give us the boon we want,
than the sovereign is.
2, Consideration by way of motive. To have our spirits off from God
in worship is a bad sign. It was not so in innocence. The heart of Adam
could cleave to God ; the law of God was engraven upon him ; he could
apply himself to the fulfilling of it without any twinkling ; there was no
folly and vanity in his mind, no independency in his thoughts, no duty was
his burden ; for there was in him a proneness to, and delight in, all the
duties of worship. It is the fall hath distempered us, and the more un-
wieldiness there is in our spirits, the more carnal our affections are in
worship, the more evidence there is of the strength of that revolted state.
(1.) It argues much corruption in the heart. As by the eructations of
the stomach we may judge of the windiness and foulness of it, so by the
inordinate motions of our minds and hearts we may judge of the weakness
of its complexion. A strength of sin is evidenced by the eruptions and
ebullitions of it in worship, when they are more sudden, numerous, and
VOL. I. Y
838 chabnock's works. [John IV. 24.
■vigorous than the motions of grace. When the heart is apt like tinder to
catch fire from Satan, it is a sign of much combustihle matter suitable to
his temptation. Were not corruption strong, the soul could not turn so
easily from God when it is in his presence, and hath advantageous oppor-
tunity to create a fear and awe of God in it ; such base fruit could not
sprout up so suddenly were there not much sap and juice in the root of sin.
What communion with a living root can be evidenced without exercises
of an inward life ! That Spirit, which is a well of living waters in a gracious
heart, will be especially springing up when it is before God.
(2.) It shews much affection to earthly things, and little to heavenly.
There must needs be an inordinate affection to earthly things, when upon every
slight solicitation we can part with God, and turn the back upon a service
glorious for him, and advantageous for ourselves, to wed our hearts to some
idle fancy that signifies nothing. How can we be said to entertain God in
our affections, when we give him not the precedency in our understandings,
but let every trifle jostle the sense of God out of our minds ? Were our
hearts fully determined to spiritual things, such vanities could not seat
themselves in our understandings, and divide our spirits from God. Were
our hearts balanced with a love to God, the world could never steal our
hearts so much from his worship, but his worship would draw our hearts to it.
It shews a base neutrality in the greatest concernments, a halting between
God and Baal, a contrariety between affection and conscience, when natural
conscience presses a man to duties of worship, and his other affections pull
him baxjk, draw him to carnal objects, and make him slight that whereby
he may honour God. God argues the profaneness of the Jews' hearts from
the wickedness they brought into his house and acted there : Jer. xxiii.,
'Yea, in my house,' that is, my worship, ' I found their wickedness,' saith
the Lord. Carnality in worship is a kind of an idolatrous frame ; when the
heart is renewed, idols are cast to the moles and the bats, Isa. ii. 20.
(3.) It shews much hypocrisy to have our spirits off from God. The
mouth speaks, and the carriage pretends, what the heart doth not think ;
there is a dissent of the heart from the pretence of the body.
Instability is a sure sign of hypocrisy. Double thoughts argue a double
heart. The wicked are compared to chaff, Ps. i. 4, for the uncertain and
various motions of their minds by the least wind of fancy. The least motion
of a carnal object diverts the spirit from God, as the scent of carrion doth
the raven from the flight it was set upon.
The people of God are called God's spouse, and God calls himself their
husband ; whereby is noted the most intimate union of the soul with God,
and that there ought to be the highest love and afiection to him, and faith-
fulness in his worship ; but when the heart doth start from him in worship,
it is a sign of the unstedfastuess of it with God, and a disrelish of any
communion with him. It is as God complains of the Israelites, a going
a-whoriug after our own imaginations.
As grace respects God as the object of worship, so it looks most upon
God in approaching to him. Where there is a likeness and love, there is a
desire of converse and intimacy ; if there be no spiritual entwining about
God in our worship, it is a sign there is no likeness to him, no true sense of
him, no renewed image of God in us. Every living image will move strongly
to join itself with its original copy, and be glad, with Jacob, to sit steadily in
those chariots that shall convey him to his beloved Joseph.
Motive 3. Consider the danger of a carnal worship.
(1.) We lose the comfort of worship. The soul is a great gainer when it
offers a spiritual worship, and as great a loser when it is unfaithful with God.
John IV. 24. j spiritual worship. 339
Treachery and pcrfidlousness hinder commerce among men, so doth hypo-
crisy in its own nature communion with God. God never promised any-
thing to the carcass, but to the spirit of worship. God hath no obligation
upon him by any word of his, to reward us with himself, when wo perform
it not to himself. When we give an outside worship, we have only the out-
side of an ordinance. We can expect no kernel, when we give God only
the shell. He that only licks the outside of the glass can never be refreshed
with the rich cordial enclosed within. A cold and lazy formality will make
God to ^Yithdraw the light of his countenance, and not shine with any
delightful communications upon our souls ; but if we come before him with
a liveliness of afiections, and steadiness of heart, he will draw the veil, and
cause his glory to display itself before us. An humble praying Christian,
and a warm affectionate Christian in worship, will soon find a God who is
delighted with such frames, and cannot long withhold himself from the soul.
When our hearts are inflamed with love to him in worship, it is a prepara-
tion for some act of love- on his part, whereby he intends further to gratify
us. When John was ' in the Spirit on the Lord's day,' — that is, in spiritual
employment, and meditation, and other duties, — he had that great revelation
of what should happen to the church in all ages, Eev. i. 10. His being in
the Spirit, intimates his ordinary course on that day, and not any extraordi-
nary act in him, though it was followed with an extraordinary discovery of
God to him. When he was thus engaged, he ' heard a voice behind him.*
God doth not require of us spirituality in worship to advantage himself,
but that we might be prepared to be advantaged by him. If we have a clear
and well disposed eye, it is not a benefit to the sun, but fits us to receive
benefits from his beams. Worship is an act that perfects our own souls ;
they are then most widened by spiritual frames, to receive the influence of
divine blessings, as an eye most opened receives the fruit of the sun's light
better than the eye that is shut. The communications of God are more or
less, according as our spiritual frames are more or less in our worship. God
will not give his blessings to unsuitable hearts. What a nasty vessel is a
carnal heart for a spiritual communication ! The chief end of every duty
enjoined by God is to have communion with him ; and therefore it is called
a drawing near to God. It is impossible, therefore, that the outward part
of any duty can answer the end of God in his institution. It is not a bodily
appearance or gesture whereby men can have communion with God, but by
the impressions of the heart and reflections of the heart upon God. Without
this, all the rich streams of grace will run beside us, and the growth of the
soul be hindered and impaired. * A diligent hand makes rich,' saith the
wise man ; a diligent heart in spiritual worship brings in rich incomes to the
humble and spiritual soul.
(2.) It renders the worship not only unacceptable, but abominable to God.
It makes our gold to become dross, it soils our duties, and bespots our souls.
A carnal and unsteady frame shews an indiflerency of spirit at best ; and
lukewarmness is as ungrateful to God as heavy and nauseous meat is to the
stomach ; he * spues them out of his mouth,' Rev. iii. 16. As our gracious
God doth overlook infirmities where intentions are good, and endeavours
serious and strong, so he loathes the services where the frames are stark
naught: Ps. Ixvi. 18, * If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not
hear my prayer.' Lukewarm and indifferent services stink in the nostrils of
God. The heart seems to loathe God, when it starts from him upon every
occasion, when it is unwilling to employ itself about and stick close to him ;
and can God be pleased with such a frame ? The more of the heart and
spirit is in any service, the more real goodness there is in it, and the more
340 chaknock's works. [John IV. 24.
savoury it is to God ; the less of the heart and spirit, the less of goodness,
and the more nauseous to God, who loves righteousness and ' truth in the
inward parts,' Bs. 11. 9. And therefore infinite goodness and holiness can-
not but hate worship presented to him with deceitful, carnal, and flitting
affections. They must be more nauseous to God than a putrified carcass
can be to man ; they are the profanings of that which should be the habi-
tation of the spirit ; they make the spirit, the seat of duty, a filthy dung-
hill, and are as loathsome to God as money-changers in the temple were to
our Saviour.
We see the evil of carnal frames, and the necessity and benefit of
spiritual frames. For further help in this last, let us practise these following
directions :
Direct. 1. Keep up spiritual frames out of worship. To avoid low afiec-
tions, we must keep our hearts as much as we can in a settled elevation. If
we admit unworthy dispositions at one time, we shall not easily be rid of
them at another. * As he that would not be bittea with gnats in the night,
must keep his windows shut in the day : when they are once entered,
it is not easy to expel them ; in which respect, one adviseth, to be such
out of worship as we would be in worship. If we mis spiritual afi"ections
with our worldly employments, worldly affections will not mingle themselves
so easily with our heavenly engagements. If our hearts be spiritual in our
outward calling, they will scarce be carnal in our religious service. If we
' walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh,' Gal. v. 16. A
spiritual walk in the day will hinder carnal lustings in worship. The
fire was to be kept alive upon the altar when sacrifices were not offered, from
morning till night, from night till morning, as well as in the very time of
sacrifice. A spiritual life and vigour out of worship, would render it at its
Season sweet and easy, and preserve a spontaneity and preparedness to it,
and make it both natural and pleasant to us.
Anything that doth unhinge and discompose our spirits, is inconsistent
with religious services, which are to be performed with the greatest sedate-
ness and gravity. All irregular passions disturb the serenity of the spirit,
and open the door for Satan. Saith the apostle, ' Let not the sun go down
upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil,' Eph. iv. 26, 27. Where
wrath breaks the lock, the devil will quickly be over the threshold ; and
though they be allayed, yet they leave the heart some time after, like the sea,
rolling and swelling after the storm is ceased.
Mixture with ill company leaves a tincture upon us in worship. Ephraim'g
allying himself with the Gentiles, bred an indifferency in religion : Hosea
vii. 8, Ephraim ' hath mixed with the people ;' ' Ephraim is a cake not
turned.' It will make our hearts, and consequently our services, half dough,
as well as half baked. These and the like make the Holy Spirit withdraw
himself, and then the soul Hes like a wind-bound vessel, and can make no
way. When the sun departs from us, it carries its beams away with it ; then
doth ' darkness spread itself over the earth, and the beasts of the forests
creep out,' Ps. civ. 20. When the Spirit withdraws a while from a good
man, it carries away (though not habitual, yet) much of the exciting and
assisting grace ; and then carnal dispositions perk up themselves from the
bosom of natural corruption. To be spiritual in worship, we must bar the
door at other times against that which is contrary to it. As he that would
not be infected with a contagious disease, carries some preservative about
with him, and inures himself to good scents.
To this end, be much in secret ejaculations to God ; these are the purest
* Fitzherbert, Pol. in Relig., part ii. cap. 19, sect. 12.
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 841
flights of the soul, that have more of fervour and less of carnality ; they pre-
serve a liveliness in the spirit, and make it more fit to perform solemn stated
worship with greater freedom and activity. A constant use of this would
make our whole lives, lives of worship. As frequent sinful acts strengthen
habits of sin, so frequent religious acts strengthen habits of grace.
Direct. 2. Excite and exercise particularly a love to God, and dependence
on him.
Love is a commanding affection, a uniting grace ; it draws all the facul-
ties of the soul to one centre. The soul that loves God, when it hath to do
with him, is bound to the beloved object : it can mind nothing else during
such impressions. When the affection is set to the worship of God, every-
thing the soul hath will be bestowed upon it ; as David's disposition was to
the temple, 1 Chron. xxix. 8. Carnal frames, like the fowls, will be light-
ing upon the sacrifice, but not when it is inflamed. Though the scent of
the flesh invite them, yet the heat of the fire drives them to their distance.
A flaming love will singe the flies that endeavour to interrupt and disturb
us. The happiness of heaven consists in a full attraction of the soul to God,
by his glorious influence upon it. There will be such a diffusion of his
goodness throughout the souls of the blessed, as will unite the affections per-
fectly to him. These affections, which are scattered here, will be there
gathered into one flame, moving to him, and centering in him. There-
fore the more of a heavenly frame possesses our affections here, the more
settled and uniform will our hearts be in all their motions to God, and ope-
rations about him.
Excite a dependence on him : Prov. xvi. 3, * Commit thy works to the
Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established.' Let us go out in God's
strength, and not in our own ; vain is the help of man in anything, and vain
is the help of the heart. It is through God only we can do valiantly in
spiritual concerns as well as temporal ; the want of this makes but slight
impressions upon the spirit.
Direct. 3. Nourish right conceptions of the majesty of God in your minds.
Let us consider, that we are drawing to God, the most amiable object, the
best of beings, worthy of infinite honour, and highly meriting the highest
aflections we can give ; a God that made the world by a word ; that upholds
the great frame of heaven and earth ; a majesty above the conceptions of
angels ; who uses not his power to strike us to our deserved punishment,
but his love and bounty to allure us ; a God that gave all the creatures to
serve us, and can in a trice make them as much our enemies as he hath now
made them our servants. Let us view him in his greatness, and in his
goodness, that our hearts may have a true value of the worship of so great
a majesty, and count it the most worthy employment with all diligence to
attend upon him. When we have a fear of God, it will make our worship
serious ; when we have a joy in God, it will make our worship durable. Our
affections will be raised, when we represent God in the most reverential,
endearing, and obliging circumstances. We honour the majesty of God,
when we consider him with due reverence, according to the greatness and
perfection of his works ; and in this reverence of his majesty doth worship
chiefly consist. Low thoughts of God will make low frames in us before
him. If we thought God an infinite glorious Spirit, how would our hearts
be lower than our knees in his presence ! How humbly, how believingly
pleading is the psalmist, when he considers God to be without comparison
in the heavens ; to whom none of the sons of the mighty can be likened ;
when there was none like to him in strength or faithfulness round about,
Ps. Ixxxix. 6-8. We should have also deep impressions of the omniscience
842 charnock's works. [John IV. 24.
of God ; and remember we have to deal with a God that searcheth the
heart and trieth the reins ; to whom the most secret temper is as visible as
the loudest words are audible ; that though man judges by outward expres-
sions, God judges by inward affections. As the law of God regulates the
inward frames of the heart, so the eye of God pitches upon the inward in-
tentions of tbe soul. If God were visibly present with us, should we not
approach to him with strong affections, summon our spirits to attend upon
him, behave ourselves modestly before him ? Let us consider, he is as
really present with us, as if he were visible to us ; let us therefore preserve
a strong sense of .the presence of God. No man but one out of his wits,
when he were in the presence of a prince, and' making a speech to him,
would break off at every period, and run after the catching of butterflies.
Remember in all worship you are before the Lord, to whom all things are
open and naked.
Direct. 4. Lot us take heed of inordinate desires after the world. As the
world steals away a man's heart from the word, so it doth from all other
worship ; * it chokes the word,' Mat. xiii. 27 ; it stifles all the spiritual
breathings after God iu every duty. The edge of the soul is blunted by it,
and made too dull for such sublime exercises. The apostle's rule in prayer,
1 Peter iv. 7, when he joins ' sobriety' with ' watching unto prayer,' is of
concern in all worship, sobriety in the pursuit and use of all worldly things.
A man drunk with worldly fumes cannot watch, cannot be heavenly, aflec-
tionate, spiritual in service. There is a magnetic force in the earth, to
hinder our flights to heaven. Bird?, when they take their first flights from
the earth, have more flutterings of their wings, than when they are mounted
further in the air, and got more without the sphere of the earth's attractive-
ness ; the motion of their wings is more steady, that you can scarce perceive
them stir ; they move like a ship with a full gale. The world is a clog
upon the soul, and a bar to spiritual frames. It is as hard to elevate the
heart to God in the midst of a hurry of worldly affairs, as it is difficult to
meditate when we are near a great noise of waters falling from a precipice,
or in the midst of a volley of muskets. Their clayey affections bemire the
heart, and make it unfit for such high flights it is to take in worship. There-
fore get your hearts clear from worldly thoughts and desires, if you would
be more spiritual in worship.
Direct. 5. Let us be deeply sensible of our present wants, and the sup-
plies we may meet with in worship. Cold affections to the things we would
have, will grow cooler. Weakness of desire for the communications in
worship, will freeze our hearts at tbe time of worship, and make way for vain
and foolish diversions. A beggar that is ready to perish, and knows he is
next door to ruin, will not slightly and dully beg an alms, and will not be
diverted from his importunity by every slight call, or the moving of an atom
in the air. Is it pardon we would have ? Let us apprehend the blackness
of sin, with the aggravations of it as it respects God ; let us be deeply sen-
sible of the want of pardon and worth of mercy, and get our affections into
such a frame as a condemned man would do. Let us consider, that as we
are now at the throne of God's grace, we shall shortly be at the bar of God's
justice ; and if the soul should be forlorn there, how fixedly and earnestly
would it plead for mercy ! Let us endeavour to stir up the same affections
now, which we have seen some dying men have, and which we suppose de-
spairing souls would have done at God's tribunal.* We must be sensible
that the life or death of our souls depends upon worship. Would we not
be ashamed to be ridiculous in our carriage while we are eating ? and shall
* Guliel. Paris, Khetor. Divin. cap. xxvi. p. 350, col. i.
John IV. 24.] spiritual worship. 843
wo not be ashamed to bo cold or garish before God, when the salvation of
our souls, as well as the honour of God, is concerned ? If we did see the
heaps of sins, the eternity of punishment due to them ; if we did see an
angry and offended judge ; if we did see the riches of mercy, the glorious
outgoings of God in the sanctuary, the blessed doles he gives out to men
when they spiritually attend upon him : both the one and the other would
make us perform our duties humbly, sincerely, earnestly, and affectionately,
and wait upon him with our whole souls, to have misery averted and mercy
bestowed. Let our sense of this be encouraged by the consideration of our
Saviour presenting his merits. With what affection doth he present his
merits, his blood shed upon the cross now in heaven ! And shall our
hearts be cold and frozen, flitting and unsteady, when his affections are so
much concerned ? Christ doth not present any man's case and duties with-
out a sense of his wants, and shall we have none of our own ?
Let me add this : let us affect our hearts with a sense of what supplies
we have met with in former worship. The delightful remembrance of what
converse we have had with God in former worship, would spiritualise our
hearts for the present worship. Had Peter a view of Christ's glory in the
mount fresh in his thoughts, he would not so easily have turned his back
upon his master. Nor would the Israelites have been at leisure for their
idolatry, had they preserved the sense of the majesty of God discovered in
his late thunders from mount Sinai.
Direct. 6. If anj'thing intrudes that may choke the worship, cast it
speedily out. We cannot hinder Satan and our own corruption from pre-
senting coolers to us, but we may hinder the success of them. We cannot
hinder the gnats from buzzing about us when we are in our business, but we
may prevent them from settling upon us. A man that is running on a con-
siderable errand, will shun all unnecessary discourse that may make him
forget or loiter in his business. What though there may be something
offered that is good in itself ; yet if it hath a tendency to despoil God of his
honour, and ourselves of the spiritual intentness in worship, send it away.
Those that weed a field of corn, examine not the nature and particular
virtues of the weeds, but consider only how they choke the corn, to which
the native juice of the soil is designed. Consider what you are about ; and
if anything interpose that may divert you, or cool your affections in your
present worship, cast it out.
Direct. 7. As to private worship, let us lay hold of the most melting
opportunities and frames. When we find our hearts in a more than ordi-
nary spiritual frame, let us look upon it as a call from God to attend him.
Such impressions and motions are God's voice, inviting us into communion
with him in some particular act of worship, and promising us some success
in it. When the psalmist had a secret motion to seek God's face, and com-
plied with it, Ps. xxvii. 8, the issue is the encouragement of his heart,
which breaks out into an exhortation to others to be of good courage, and
wait on the Lord, ver. 13, 14, ' Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and
he shall strengthen thy heart ; wait, I say, on the Lord.'
One blow will do more on the iron when it is hot, than a hundred when
it is cold. Melted metals may be stamped with any impression ; but once
hardened, will with difiiculty be brought into the figure we intend.*
Direct. 8. Let us examine ourselves at the end of every act of worship,
and chide ourselves for any carnality we perceive in them. Let us take a
review of them, and examine the reason. Why art thou so low and carnal,
0 my soul ? as David did of his disquietedness : Ps. xlii. 5, * Why art
♦ Reynolds.
344 charnock's works. [John IV. 24.
thou cast down, 0 my soul ? and why art thou disquieted within me ?' If
any unworthy frames have surprised us in worship, let us seek them out
after worship ; call them to the bar ; make an exact scrutiny into the causes
of them, that we may prevent their incursions another time ; let our pulses
beat quick, by way of anger and indignation, against them. This would be
a repairing what hath been amiss ; otherwise they may grow, and clog an
after worship more than they did a former. Daily examination is an anti-
dote against the temptations of the following day, and constant examination
of ourselves after duty is a preservative against vain encroachments in fol-
lowing duties ; and upon the finding them out, let us apply the blood of
Christ by faith for our cure, and draw strength from the death of Christ for
the conquest of them, and let us also be humbled for them. God lifts up
the humble. When we are humbled for our carnal frames in one duty, we
shall find ourselves by the grace of God more elevated in the next.
A DISCOURSE UPON THE ETERNITY OF GOD.
Before the mountains were brotight forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth
and the iiorld, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. —
Psalm XC. 2.
The title of this psalm is a prayer ; the author, Moses. Some think not
only this, but the ten following psalms were composed by him. The title
wherewith he is dignified is ' the man of God,' as also in Dout. xxxiii. 1 :
one inspired by him, to be his interpreter, and deliver his oracles ; one
particularly directed by him ; one who, as a servant, did diligently employ
himself in his Master's business, and acted for the glory of God.* He was
the minister of the Old Testament, and the prophet of the New.t
There are two parts of this psalm.
1. A complaint of the frailty of man's life in general, ver. 3-6 ; and then
a particular complaint of the condition of the church, ver. S-IO.J
2. A prayer, ver. 12.
But before he speaks of the shortness of human life, he fortifies them by
the consideration of the refuge they had and should find in God : ver. 1,
♦ Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.'
We have had no settled abode in the earth since the time of Abraham's being
called out from Ur of the Chaldees. We have had Canaan in a promise,
we have it not yet in possession ; we have been exposed to the cruelties of
an oppressing enemy, and the incommodities of a desert wilderness ; we
have wanted the fruits of the earth, but not the dews of heaven. ' Thou
hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.' Abraham was under thy
conduct, Isaac and Jacob under thy care. Their posterity were multiplied by
thee, and that under their oppressions. Thou hast been our shield against
dangers, our security in the times of trouble. When we were pursued to
the Red sea, it was not a creature delivered us ; and when we feared the
pinching of our bowels in the desert, it was not a creature rained manna
upon us. Thou hast been our dwelling-place ; thou hast kept open house
for us, sheltered us against storms, and preserved us from mischief, as a
house doth an inhabitant from wind and weather, and that not in one or
two, but in all generations. Some think an allusion is here made to the
ark, to which they were to have recourse in all emergencies. Our refuge
and defence have not been from created things ; not from the ark, but from
the God of the ark. •
* Coccei in loe. t Austin in loc. t Pareua in loc.
3i8 charnock's works. [Ps. XC. 2.
Observe,
1. God is a perpetual refuge and security to his people. His providence
is not confined to one generation ; it is not one age only that tastes of bis
bounty and compassion. His eye never yet slept, nor hath be suffered the
little ship of his church to be swallowed up, though it hath been tossed
upon the waves. He hath always been an haven to preserve us, a house to
secure us. He hath always had compassions to pity us, and power to pro-
tect us. He hath had a face to shine, when the world hath had an angry
countenance to frown. * He brought Enoch home by an extraordinary
translation from a brutish world ; and when he was resolved to reckon with
men for their brutish lives, he lodged Noah, the Phoenix of the world, in an
ark, and kept him alive as a spark in the midst of many waters, whereby to
rekindle a church in the world. In all generations he is a dwelling-place,
to secure his people here, or entertain them above.
His providence is not wearied, nor bis care fainting. He never wanted
will to relieve us, for ' he hath been our refuge ; ' nor ever can want power
to support us, for he is a God ' from everlasting to everlasting.' The church
never wanted a pilot to steer her, and a rock to shelter her, and dash in
pieces the waves which threaten her.
2. How worthy is it to remember former benefits, when we come to beg
for new ! Never were the records of God's mercies so exactly revised as
when his people have stood in need of new editions of his power. How
necessary are our wants to stir us up to pay the rent of thankfulness in
arrear ! He renders himself doubly unworthy of the mercies he wants, that
doth not gratefully acknowledge the mercies he hath received. God scarce
promised any deliverance to the Israelites, and the}' in their distress scarce
prayed for any deliverance, but that from Egypt was mentioned on both
sides : by God to encourage them, and by them to acknowledge their con-
fidence in him. The greater our dangers, the more we should call to mind
God's former kindness. We are not only thankfully to acknowledge the
mercies bestowed upon our persons, or in our age, but those of former times.
Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.
Moses was not living in the former generations, yet he appropriates the
former mercies to the present age. Mercies as well as generations proceed
out of the loins of those that have gone before. All mankind are but one
Adam, the whole church but one body.
In the second verse he backs his former consideration.
1. By the greatness of his power in forming the world.
2. By the boundlessness of his duration ; * from everlasting to everlast-
ing.' As thou hast been our dwelling-place, and expended upon us the
strength of thy power and riches of thy love, so we have no reason to doubt
the continuance on thy part, if we be not wanting on our parts; for the vast
mountains and fruitful earth are the works of thy hands, and there is less
power requisite for our relief than there was for their creation ; and though
BO much strength hath been upon various occasions manifested, yet th}' arm
is not weakened ; for ' from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.'f
Thou hast always been God, and no time can be assigned as the begin-
ning of thy being. I The mountains are not of so long a standing as thy-
self ; they are the efiects of thy power, and therefore cannot be equal to thy
duration. Since they are efiects, they suppose a precedency of their cause.
If we would look back, we can reach no further than the beginning of the
creation, and account the years from the first foundation of the world ; but
after that we must lose ourselves in the abysf of eternity. We have no
* Theodoret in he. t 72^, strong. % Amyrald. in loc.
Ps. XC. 2.] THE ETEKNITY OF GOD. 347
cluo to guide our thoughts ; wo can see no bounds in thy eternity ; but as
for man, he traverseth the world a few days, and by thy order, pronounced
concerning all men, returns to the dust, and moulders into the grave.
By mountains some understand angels, as being creatures of a more
elevated nature ; by earth they understand human nature, the earth being
the habitation of men. There is no need to divert in this place from the
letter to such a sense. The description seems to be poetical, and amounts
to this : he neither began with the beginning of time, nor will expire with
the end of it.* He did not begin when he made himself known to our
fathers, but his being did precede the creation of the world, before any
created being was formed, and any time settled.
* Before the mountains were brought forth,' or before they were begotten
or born, the word being used in those senses in Scripture; before they stood
up higher than the rest of the earthly mass God had created. It seems that
mountains were not casually cast up by the force of the deluge softening the
ground, and driving several parcels of it together, to grow up into a massy
body, as the sea doth the sand in several places, but they were at first
formed by God.
The eternity of God is here described.
1. In his priority ' before the world.'
2. In the extension of his duration : ' From everlasting to everlasting thou
art God.' He was before the world, yet he neither began nor ends. He is
not a temporary, but an eternal God. It takes in both parts of eternity,
what was before the creation of the world, and what is after. Though the
eternity of God be one permanent state without succession, yet the Spint of
God, suiting himself to the weakness of our conception, divides it into two
parts, one past before the foundation of the world, another to come after the
destruction of the world ; as he did exist before all ages, and as he will exist
after all ages.
Many truths lie couched in the verse.
1. The world had a beginning of being. It was not from eternity; it was
once nothing. Had it been of a very long duration, some records would
have remained of some memorable actions done of a longer date than any
extant,
2. The world owes its being to the creating power of God. ' Thou hadst
formed it' out of nothing into^being. Thou, that is, God. It could not
spring into being of itself : it was nothing ; it must have a former.
3. God was in being before the world. The cause must be before the
effect ; that Word which gives being must be before ^that which receives
being.
4. This Being was from eternity: * from everlasting.'
. 5. This Being shall endure to eternity : ' to everlasting.'
6. There is but one God, one Eternal : ' From everlasting to everlasting
thou art God.' None else but one hath the property of eternity; the gods
of the heathen cannot lay claim to it.
Doct. God is of an eternal duration. The eternity of God is the founda-
tion of the stability of the covenant, the great comfort of a Christian. The
design of God in Scripture is to set forth his dealing with men in the way
of a covenant. The priority of God before all things begins the Bible :
' In the beginning God created,' Gen. i. 1. His covenant can have no
foundation but in his duration before and after the world.f And Moses
here mentions his eternity, not only with respect to the essence of God,
but to his federal providence ; as he is the dwelling-place of his people m all
* ayag^og xal dnXivrriTog, Theodoret in loc. \ Calv. in loc.
348 charnock's works. [Ps. XC. 2.
generations. The duration of God for ever is more spoken of in Scripture
than his eternity a farte ante, though that is the foundation of all the com-
fort we can take from his immortality. If he had a beginning, he might
have an end, and so all our happiness, hope, and being would expire with
him ; but the Scripture sometimes takes notice of his being without begin-
ning as well as without end : ' Thou art from everlasting,' Ps. xciii. 2 ;
' Blessed be God from everlasting to everlasting,' Ps. xli. 13 ; ' I was set up
from everlasting,' Prov. viii. 23. If his wisdom were from everlasting, him-
self was from everlasting. Whether we understand it of Christ the Son of
God, or of the essential wisdom of God, it is all one to the present purpose.
The wisdom of God supposeth the essence of God, as habits in creatures
suppose the being of some power or faculty as their subject. The wisdom
of God supposeth mind and understanding, essence and substance.
The notion of eternity is difficult, as Austin said of time:* If no man
will ask me the question what time is, I know well enough what it is ; but
if any ask me what it is, I know not how to explain it. So may I say of
eternity; it is easy in the word pronounced, but hardly understood, and more
hardly expressed ; it is better expressed by negative than positive words.
Though we cannot comprehend eternity, yet we may comprehend that
there is an eternity ; as though we cannot comprehend the essence of God,
what he is, yet we may comprehend that he is ; we may understand the
notion of his existence, though we cannot understand the infiniteness of his
nature. Yet we may better understand eternity than infiniteness ; we can
better conceive a time with the addition of numberless days and years, than
iniagine a being without bounds ; whence the apostle joins his eternity with
his power : ' His eternal power and Godhead,' Rom. i. 20 ; because, next
to the power of God apprehended in the creature, we come necessarily, by
reasoning, to acknowledge the eternity of God. He that hath an incompre-
hensible power, must needs have an eternity of nature. His power is most
sensible in the creatures to the eye of man, and his eternity easily from
thence deducible by the reason of man.
1. Eternity is a perpetual duration, which hath neither beginning nor end.
Time hath both. Those things we say are in time, that have beginning,
grow up by degrees, have succession of parts. Eternity is contrary to time,
and is therefore a permanent and immutable state, a perfect possession of
life without any variation. It comprehends in itself all years, all ages, all
periods of ages. It never begins ! It endures after every duration of time,
and never ceaseth. It doth as much outrun time as it went before the be-
ginning of it. Time supposeth something before it, but there can be nothing
before eternity ; it were not then eternity. Time hath a continual succes-
sion ; the former time passeth away, and another succeeds ; the last year is
not this year, nor this year the next. We must conceive of eternity con-
trary to the notion of time. As the nature of time consists in the succession
of parts, so the nature of eternity in an infinite immutable duration. f Eter-
nity and time difi'er as the sea and rivers ; the sea never changes place, and
is always one water, but the rivers glide along, and are swallowed up in the
sea ; so is time by eternity.
A thing is said to be eternal, or everlasting rather, in Scripture,
2. When it is of a long duration, though it will have an end ; when it
hath no measures of time determined to it. So circumcision is said to be in
the flesh ' for an everlasting covenant,' Gen. xvii. 14 ; not purely everlast-
ing, but so long as that administration of the covenant should endure.
And so when a servant would not leave his master, but would have hia
* Consul, lib. ii. Confes. 15. f Moulin. Cor. i., Ser. 2, p. 52.
Ps. XC. 2.] THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 349
ear bored, it is said he should be a servant 'for ever,' Deut. xv. 17; i. c,
till the jubilee, which was every fiftieth year. So the meat-offering they
were to ofier is said to be perpetual, Lev. vi. 20, Canaan is said to bo
given to Abraham for an everlasting possession. Gen. xvii. 8, whenas the
Jews are expelled from Canaan, which is given a prey to the barbarous
nations. Indeed, circumcision was not everlasting, j'et the substance of
the covenant, whereof this was a sign, viz., that God would be the God of
believers, endures for ever; and that circumcision of the heart which was
signified by circumcision of the flesh, shall remain for ever in the kingdom
of glory. It was not so much the lasting of the sign, as of the thing signi-
fied by it, and the covenant sealed by it. The sign had its abolition, so
that the apostle is so peremptory in it, that he asserts that if any went
about to estabhsh it, he excluded himself from a participation of Christ,
Gal. V. 2. The sacrifices were to be perpetual in regard of the thing signi-
fied by them, viz., the death of Christ, which was to endure in the efficacy
of it. And the passover was to be for ever, Exod. xii. 24, in regard of the
redemption signified by it, which was to be of everlasting remembrance.
Canaan was to be an everlasting possession in regard of the glory of heaven
typified, to be for ever conferred upon the spiritual seed of Abraham.
3. "When a thing hath no end, though it hath a beginning. So angels
and souls are everlasting : though their being shall never cease, yet there
was a time when their being began. They were nothing before they were
something, though they shall never be nothing again, but shall live in end-
less happiness or misery.
But that properly is eternal that hath neither beginning nor end ; and thus
eternity is a property oi God. In this doctrine I shall shew,
I. How God is eternal, or in what respects eternity is his property.
II. That he is eternal, and must needs be so.
III. That eternity is only proper to God, and not common to him with
any creature.
iV. The use.
I. How God is eternal, or in what respects he is so. Eternity is a nega-
tive attribute, and is a denying of God any measures of time, as immensity
is a denying of him any bounds of place ; as immensity is the diffusion of
his essence, so eternity is the duration of his essence ; and when we say
God is eternal, we exclude from him all possibility of beginning and ending,
all flux and change. As the essence of God cannot be bounded by any
place, so it is not to be limited by any time; as it is his immensity to be
everywhere, so it is his eternity to be always. As created things are said
to be somewhere in regard of place, and to be present, past, or future in
regard of time, so the Creator in regard of place is everywhere, in regard
of time is semper.*' His duration is as endless as his essence is boundless ;
he always was and always will be, and will no more have an end than he
had a beginning ; and this is an excellency belonging to the Supreme
Being. t As his essence comprehends all beings and exceeds them, and his
immensity surmounts all places, so his eternity comprehends all times, all
durations, and infinitely excels them, J
1. God is without beginning.
•In the beginning God created' the world,' Gen, i. 1. God was then
before the beginning of it ; and what point can be set wherein God began,
if he were before the beginning of created things ? God was without
beginning, though all other things had time and beginning from him. As
* Gassend. t Crellius, de Deo, cap. xviii. p. 41. X Lingend, torn, ii. p, 496.
350 charnock's works. [Ps. XC. 2.
unity is before all numbers, so is God before all his creatures. Abraham
called upon the name of the ' everlasting God,' Q^')'^ S^, Gen. xxi. 33,
the eternal God. It is opposed to heathen gods, which were but of yester-
day new coined, and so new; but the eternal God was before the world
was made. In that sense it is to be understood : Rom. xvi. 26, ' The
mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made
manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the command
of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of
faith.' The gospel is not preached by the command of a new and tem-
porary God, but of that God that was before all ages. Though the mani-
festation of it be in time, yet the purpose and resolve of it was from eternity.
If there were decrees before the foundation of the world, there was a
decreer before the foundation of the world. Before the foundation of the
world he loved Christ as a mediator, John xvii. 24 ; a foreordinatiou of him
was before the foundation of the world, Eph. i. 4. A choice of men, and
therefore a chooser before the foundation of the world ; a ' grace given in
Christ before the world began,' 2 Tim. i. 9, and therefore a donor of that
gi-ace. From those places, saith Crellius, it appears that God was before
the foundation of the world ; but they do not assert an absolute eternity.
But to be before all creatures, is equivalent to his being from eternity.*
Time began with the foundation of the world, but God being before time,
could have no beginning in time ; before the beginning of the creation and
the beginning of time, there could be nothing but eternity, nothing but what
was uncreated, that is, nothing but what was without beginning. To be in
time, is to have a beginning; to be before all time, is never to have a
bef^innincf, but always to be ; for as between the Creator and creatures there
is no medium, so between time and eternity there is no medium. It is as
easily deduced that he that was before all creatures is eternal, as he that
made all creatures is God ; if he had a beginning, he must have it from
another, or from himself. If from another, that from whom he received his
beinff would be better than he, so more a God than he. He cannot be God
that is not supreme, he cannot be supreme that owes his being to the
power of another. He would not be said ' only to have immortality' as he
is, 1 Tim. vi. 16, if he had it dependent upon another; nor could he have
a beginning from himself. If he had given beginning to himself, then he
was once nothing, there was a time when he was not ; if he was not, how
could he be the cause of himself? It is impossible for any to give a
beginning and being to itself; if it acts, it must exist, and so exist before it
existed. A thing would exist as a cause before it existed as an effect. He
that is not cannot be the cause that he is. If therefore God doth exist,
and hath not his being from another, he must exist from eternity. There-
fore when we say God is of and from himself, we mean not that God gave
beinff to himself ; but it is negatively to be understood, that he hath no
cause of existence without himself.
Whatsoever number of millions of millions of years we can imagine before
the creation of the world, yet God was infinitely before those ; he is there-
fore called ' the Ancient of days,' Dan. vii. 9, as being before all days and
time, and eminently containing in himself all times and ages. Though
indeed God cannot properly be called ancient, that will testify that he ia
decaying, and shortly will not be ; no more than he can be called young,
which would signify that he was not long before. All created things are
new and fresh, but no creature can find out any beginning of God. It is
impossible there should be any beginning of him.
* Coccei, Sum. Theol. p. 48 ; Gerhard, Exeges. cap. Ixxxvi. 4, p. 266.
Ps. XC. 2.] THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 851
2. God is without end. Ho always was, always is, and always will bo
what ho is. Ho remains always tho same in being ; so far from any change,
that no shadow of it can touch him, James i. 17. Ho will continue in being
as long as ho hath already enjoyed it ; and if we could add never so many
millions of years together, wo are still as far from an end as from a
beginning, for ' the Lord shall endure for ever,' Ps. ix. 7. As it is impos-
siblo he should not be, being from all eternity, so it is impossible that he
should not be to all eternity. The Scripture is most plentiful in testi-
monies of this eternity of God, d jmrte post, or after the creation of the
world. He is said to * live for ever,' Rev. iv. 9, 10. Tho earth shall
perish, but God shall endure for ever, and his j-ears shall have no end, Ps.
cii. 27. Plants and animals grow up from small beginnings, arrive to their
full growth and decline again, and have always remarkable alterations in
their nature; but there is no declination in God by all the revolutions of
time. Hence some think the incorruptibility of the Deity was signified by
the Shittim or cedar wood, whereof the ark was made, it being of an incor-
ruptible nature, Exod. xxv. 10.
That which had no beginning of duration can never have an end, or any
interruptions in it. Since God never depended upon any, what should
make him cease to be what eternally he hath been, or put a stop to the
continuance of his perfections ? He cannot will his own destruction ; that
is against universal nature in all things to cease from being, if they can
preserve themselves. He cannot desert his own being, because he cannot
but love himself as the best and chiefest good. The reason that anything
decays, is either its own native weakness, or superior power of something
contrary to it.* There is no weakness in the nature of God that can intro-
duce any corruption, because he is infinitely simple, without any mixture.
Nor can he be overpowered by anything else ; a weaker cannot hurt him,
and a stronger than he there cannot be. Nor can he be outwitted or cir-
cumvented, because of his infinite wisdom. As he received his being from
none, so he cannot be deprived of it by any. As he doth necessarily exist,
so he doth necessarily always exist. This indeed is the property of God ;
nothing so proper to him as always to be. Whatsoever perfection any
being hath, if it be not eternal it is not divine. God only is immortal,!
1 Tim. vi. 16 ; he only is so by a necessity of nature. Angels, souls, and
bodies too, after the resurrection, shall be immortal ; not by nature but
grant; they are subject to return to nothing, if that word that raised them
from nothing should speak them into nothing again. It is as easy with
God to strip them of it as to invest them with it ; nay, it is impossible but
that they should perish, if God should withdraw his power from preserving
them, which he exerted in creating them. But God is immovably fixed in
his own being, that as none gave him his life, so none can deprive him of
bis life, or the least particle of it. Not a jot of the happiness and life which
God infinitely possesses can be lost; it will be as durable to everlasting as it
hath been possessed from everlasting.
3. There is no succession in God. God is without succession or change;
it is a part of eternity: 'From everlasting to everlasting he is God,' i.e.
the same. God doth not only always remain in being, but he always remains
the same in that being: 'Thou art the same,' Ps. cii. 27. The being of
creatures is successive, the being of God is permanent, and remains entire
with all its perfections, unchanged in an infinite duration. Indeed, the first
notion of eternity is to be without beginning and end, which notes to us the
duration of a being in regard of its existence ; but to have no succession,
Crellius, de Deo, cap. xviii. p. 41. f Daille in loc.
352 chaknock's works. [Ps. XC. 2.
nothinc first or last, notes rather the perfection of a being in regard of its
essence.
The creatures are in a perpetual flux ; something is acquired, or some-
thin« lost, every day. A man is the same in regard of existence when he
is a man as he was when he was a child, but there is a new succession of
quantities and qualities in him. Every day he acquires something till he
comes to his maturity, every day he loseth something till he comes to his
period. A man is not the same at night that he was in the morning,
something is expired and something is added ; every day there is a change
in his age, a change in his substance, a change in his accidents ; but God
hath his whole being in one and the same point or moment of eternity.
He receives nothing as an addition to what he was before, he loseth nothing
of what he was before ; he is always the same excellency and perfection in
the same infiniteness as ever. His ' years do not fail,' Heb. i. 12 ; his
years do not come and go as others do, there is not this day, to-morrow, or
yesterday with him. As nothing is past or future with him in regard of
knowledge, but all things are present, so nothing is past or future in regard
of his essence. He is not in his essence this day what he was not before,
or will be the next day and year what he is not now.* All his perfections
are most perfect in him every moment, before all ages, after all ages. As
he hath his whole essence undivided in every place, as well as in immense
space, so be hath all his being in one moment of time, as well as in infinite
intervals of time.f Some illustrate the difference between eternity and
time by the similitude of a tree or a rock standing upon the side of a river
or shore of the sea ; the tree stands, always the same and unmoved, while
the waters of the river glide along at the foot. The flux is in the river,
but the tree acquires nothing but a diverse respect and relation of presence
to the various parts of the river as they flow. The waters of the river press
on, and push forward one another, and what the river hath this minute it
hath not the same the next; so are all sublunary things in a continual flux.
And though the angels have no substantial change, yet they have an acci-
dental, for the actions of the angels this day are not the same individual
actions which they performed yesterday; but in God there is no change, he
always remains the same.
Of a creature it may be said, he was, or he is, or he shall be. J Of God
it cannot be said but only he is ; he is what he always was, and he is what
he always will be ; whereas a creature is what he was not, and will be what
he is not now. As it may be said of the flame of a candle, it is flame, but it
is not the same individual flame as was before, nor is it the same that will
be presently after ; there is a continual dissolution of it into air, and a con-
tinual supply for the generation of more ; while it continues it may be said
there is a flame, yet not entirely one, but in a succession of parts : so of
a man it may be said, he is in a succession of parts ; but he is not the
same that he was, and will not be the same that he is. But God is the
same without any succession of parts, and of time ; of him it may be said,
he is ; he is no more now than he was, and he shall be no more hereafter
than he is. God possesses a firm and absolute being, always constant to
himself ; § he sees all things sliding under him in a continual variation ; he
beholds the revolutions in the world without any change of his most glori-
ous and immoveable nature. All other things pass from one state to
* Lessius, de perfect, divin. lib. iv. cap. 1.
t Gamacheus in Aquin. part i. qu. 10, cap. 1.
X Gassend, torn. i. ; Physic, sec. i. 1. 2, c. 7, p. 223.
g Daille, Melange de Sermons, p. 252.
Ps. XC. 2.] THE ETERNITY OF GOD, 353
another, from their original to their eclipse and destruction ; but God
possesses his being in one indivisible point, having neither beginning, end,
nor middle.
(1.) There is no succession in the knowledge of God. The variety of
successions and changes in the world make no succession or new objects in
the divine mind, for all things are present to him from eternity in regard
of his knowleflge, though the}' are not actually present in the world in regard
of their existence. He doth not know one thing now and another anon,
he sees all things at once : ' Known unto God are all things from the be-
ginning of the world,' Acts xv. 18, but in their true order of succession, as
they lie in the eternal counsel of God, to be brought forth in time. Though
there be a succession and order of things as they are wrought, j^et there is
no succession in God in regard of his knowledge of them. God knows the
things that shall be wrought, and the order of them in their being brought
upon the stage of the world ; yet both the things and the order he knows
by one act. Though all things be present with God, yet they are present in
him in the order of their appearance in the world, and not so present with
him as if they should be wrought at once. The death of Christ was to pre-
cede his resurrection in order of time ; there is a succession in this ; both
at once are known by God, yet the act of his knowledge is not exercised
about Christ as dying and rising at the same time, so that there is succes-
sion in things when there is no succession in God's knowledge of them.
Since God knows time, he knows all things as they are in time ; he doth
not know all things to be at once, though he knows at once what is, has
been, and will be. All things are past, present, and to come in regard of
their existence ; but there is not past, present, and to come in regard of
God's knowledge of them,* because he sees and knows not by any other but
by himself ; he is his own light by which he sees, his own glass wherein he
sees ; beholding himself, he beholds all things.
(2.) There is no succession in the decrees of God. He doth not decree
this now which he decreed not before, for as his works were known from
the beginning of the world, so his works were decreed from the beginning of
the world ; as they are known at once, so they are decreed at once ; there
is a succession in the execution of them, first grace, then glory ; but the
purpose of God for the bestowing of both was in one and the same moment
of eternity : Eph. i. 4, * He chose us in him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy ; ' the choice of Christ, and the choice of
some in him to be holy, and to be happy, were before the foundation of the
world. It is by the eternal counsel of God all things appear in time ; they
appear in their order, according to the counsel and will of God, from eternity.
The redemption of the world is after the creation of the world, but the
decree whereby the world was created, and whereby it was redeemed, was
from eternity.
(3.) God is his own eternity. He is not eternal by grant, and the dis-
posal of any other, but by nature and essence. The eternity of God is
nothing else but the duration of God, and the duration of God is nothing
else but his existence enduring, eocistentia dnrans* If eternity were any-
thing distinct from God, and not of the essence of God, then there would be
something which was not God necessary to perfect God. As immortality is
the great perfection of a rational creature, so eternity is the choice perfec-
tion of God, yea, the gloss and lustre of all others. Every perfection would
be imperfect if it were not always a perfection.
j^ God is essentially whatsoever he is, and there is nothing in God but his
* Parisiensis. t Calov. Socinian.
VOL. I. Z t
354 chaknock's works. [Ps. XC. 2.
essence. Duration or continuance in being in creatures differs from their
being, for they might exist but for one instant, in which case they may be
said to have being, but not duration, because all duration 'mclndes prius et
iwsterius. All creatures may cease from being, if it be the pleasure of God ;
they are not therefore durable by their essence, and therefore are not their
own duration, no more than they are their own existence ; and though some
creatures, as angels and souls, may be called everlasting, as a perpetual life
is communicated to them by God, yet they can never be called their own
eternity, because such a duration is not simply necessary nor essential to
them, but accidental, depending upon the pleasure of another ; there is
nothing in their nature that can hinder them from losing it, if God, from
whom they received it, should design to take it away ; but as God is his
own necessity of existing, so he is in his own duration in existing.* As he
doth necessarily exist by himself, so he will always necessarily exist by
himself.
(4.) Hence all the perfections of God are eternal. In regard of the
divine eternity, all things in God are eternal : his power, mercy, wisdom,
justice, knowledge. God himself were not eternal if any of his perfections,
which are essential to him, were not eternal also ; he had not else been a
perfect God from all eternity, and so his whole self had not been eternal.
If anything belonging to the nature of a thing be wanting, it cannot be said
to be that thing which it ought to be ; if anything requisite to the nature of
God had been wanting one moment, he could not have been said to be an
eternal God.
II. The second thing, God is eternal. The Spirit of God in Scripture
condescends to our capacities in signifying the eternity of God by days and
years, which are terms belonging to time, whereby we measure it, Ps.
cii. 27 ; but we must no more conceive that God is bounded or measured
by time, and hath succession of days because of those expressions, than we
can conclude him to have a body because members are ascribed to him in
Scripture, to help our conceptions of his glorious nature and operations.
Though years are ascribed to him, yet they are such as cannot be numbered,
cannot be finished, since there is no proportion between the duration of God
and the years of men : ' The number of his years cannot be searched out,
for he makes small the drops of water, they pour down rain according to
the vapour thereof,' Job xxxvi. 26, 27. The numbers of the drops of rain
which have fallen in all parts of the earth since the creation of the world, if
subtracted from the number of the years of God, would be found a small
quantity, a mere nothing to the years of God. As all the nations in the
world compared with God are but as the ' drop of a bucket, worse than no-
thing, than vanity,' Isa. xl. 15, so all the ages of the world, if compared
with God, amount not to'^so much as the one hundred thousandth part of a
minute. The minutes from the creation may be numbered, but the years
of the duration of God, being infinite, are without measure.
As one day is to the life of man, so are a thousand years to the life of
God, Ps. XC. 4. The Holy Ghost expresseth himself to the capacity of man,
to give us some notion of an infinite duration, by a resemblance suited to the
capacity of man.t If a thousand years be but as a day to the life of God,
then as a year is to the life of man, so are three hundred sixty-five thousand
years to the life of God ; and as seventy years are to the life of man, so are
twenty-five millions four \ hundred and fifty thousand years to the life of
God. Yet still, since there is no proportion between time and eternity, we
* Gassend. | Amyrald, Trin. p. 44. % ' five.' — Ed.
Ps. XC. 2.] THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 855
must dart our thoughts beyond all those,- for years and days measure only
the duration of created things, and of those only that are material and cor-
poreal, subject to the motion of the heavens, which makes days and years.
Sometimes this eternity is expressed by parts, as looking backward and
forward, by the differences of time past, present, and to come, ' which was,
and is, and is to come.'f Though this might be spoken of anything in
being, though but for an hour, it was the last minute, it is now, and it will
be the next minute, yet the Holy Ghost would declare something proper to
God, as including all parts of time ; he always was, is now, and always shall
be ; it might always be said of him he was, and it may always be said of
him he will be. There is no time when he began, no time when he shall
cease. It cannot be said of a creature he always was, he always is what he
was, and he always will be what he is ; but God always is what he was, and
always will be what he is, so that it is a very significant expression of the
eternity of God, as can be suited to our capacities.
1. His eternity is evident, by the name God gives himself: Exod. iii. 14,
* And God said unto Moses, I am that I am ; thus 'shalt thou say to the
children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you.' This is the name whereby
he is distinguished from all creatures. I am is his proper name. This
description being in the present tense, shews that his essence knows no past
nor future. If it were he was, it would intimate he were not now what he
once was ; if it were he trill be, it would intimate he were not yet what he
will be ; but I am; I am the only being, the root of all beings; he is there-
fore at the greatest distance from not being, and that is eternal ; so that is
signifies his eternity, as well as his perfection and immutability. As I a»i
speaks the want of no blessedness, so it speaks the want of no duration ;
and therefore the French, wherever they find this word Jehovah in the Scrip-
ture, which we translate Lord, and Lord eternal, render it the Eternal, —
I am always and immutably the same. The eternity of God is opposed to
the volubility of time, which is extended into past, present, and to come.
Our time is but a small drop, as sand to all the atoms and small particles of
which the world is made ; but God is an unbounded sea of being, — ' I am
that I am,' i.e. am infinite life. I have not that now which I had not for-
merly ; I shall not afterwards have that which I have not now. 1 am that
in every moment which I was, and will be in all moments of time. Nothing
can be added to me, nothing can be detracted from me. There is nothing
superior to him which can detract from him, nothing desirable that can be
added to him. Now if there were anyibeginning and end of God, any
succession in him, he could not be I am; I for in regard of what was past he
would not be, in regard of what was to come he is not yet. And upon this
account a heathen § argues well, of all creatures it may be said they were,
or they will be, but of God it cannot be said anything else but Est, God is,
because he fills an eternal duration. A creature cannot be said to be if it
be not yet, nor if it be not now, but hath been. ||
God only can be called I am ; all creatures have more of not being than
being ; for every creature was nothing from eternity, before it was made
something in time ; and if it be corruptible in its whole nature, it will be
nothing to eternity after it hath been something in time ; and if it be not
corruptible in its nature, as the angels, or in every part of its nature, as man
in regard of his soul, yet it hath not properly a being, because it is depen-
* Daille, Vent. Sermons, Ser. i. siir. Ps. cii. 27, p. 21.
t Rev. i. 8 iv. 8. Crellius weakens this argument, de Deo, cap. 18, p. 42,
1 Thes. Salmur., p. i. p. 145. Thes. 14. § Plutarcli, de 'E/ i. p. 462.
fl Perer. in Exod. iii. Disput. 13.
356 chaknock's wokks. [Ps. XC. 2.
dent upon the pleasure of God to continue it, or deprive it of it ; and while
it is, it is mutable, and all mutability is a mixture of not being. If God,
therefore, be properly I am, i.e. being, it follows that he always was ; for if
he were not always, he must, as was argued before, be produced by some
other, or by himself. By another he could not, then he had not been God,
but a creature ; nor by himself, for then, as producing, he must be before
himself, as produced ; he had been before he was. And he always will be,
for being I am, having all being in himself, and the fountain of all being to
everything else, how can he ever have his name changed to I am not?
2. God hath life in himself: John v. 26, * The Father hath life in him-
self.' He is the * Hving God,' therefore ' stedfast'for ever,' Dan. vi. 26.
He hath life by his essence, not by participation. He is a sun to give light
and life to all creatures, but receives not light or life from anything, and
therefore he hath an unlimited life ; not a drop of life, but a fountain ; not
a spark of a limited life, but a life transcending all bounds. He hath life in
himself ; all creatures have their life in him, and from him. He that hath
life in himself doth necessai'ily exist, and could never be made to exist, for
then he had not life in himself, but in that which made him to exist, and
gave him life. What doth necessarily exist, therefore, exists from eternity;
what hath being of itself could never be produced in time, could not want
being one moment, because it hath being from its essence, without influence
of any efiicient cause. When God pronounced his name, I am that lam,
angels and men were in being ; the world had been created above two thou-
sand four hundred years.* Moses, to whom he then speaks, was in being ;
yet God only is, because he only hath the fountain of being in himself, but
all that they were was a rivulet from him. He hath from nothing else that
he doth subsist ; everything else hath its subsistence from him as their root,
as the beam from the sun, as the rivers and fountains from the sea. All
life is seated in God, as in its proper throne, in its most perfect purity.
God is life ; it is in him originally, radically, therefore eternally. He is a
pure act, nothing but vigour and act. He hath by his nature that life which
others have by his grant ; whence the apostle saith, 1 Tim. vi. 16, not only
that he is immortal, but he 'hath immortality' in a full possession, fee-
simple, not depending upon the will of another, but containing all things
within himself. He that hath life in himself, and is from himself, cannot
but be. He always was, because he received his being from no other, and
none can take away that being which was not given by another.f If there
were any space before he did exist, then there were something which made
him to exist ; life would not then be in him, but in that which produced him
into being. He could not then be God, but that other which gave him
being would be God. And to say God sprung into being by chance, when
we see nothing in the world that is brought forth by chance, but hath
some cause of its existence, would be vain ; for since God is a being, chance,
which is nothing, could not bring forth something ; and by the same reason
that he sprung up by chance, he might totally vanish by chance. What a
strange notion of a God would this be, such a God that had no life in him-
self, but from chance.
Since he had life in himself, and that there was no cause of his existence,
he can have no cause of his limitation, and can no more be determined to
a time than he can to a place. What hath life in itself hath life without
bounds, and can never desert it, nor be deprived of it ; so that he lives
necessarily, and it is absolutely impossible that he should not live ; whereas
* Petav. Theol. Dogm., torn. i. lib. i. c. 6, sec. 6, 7.
t Amyrald, de Trinit., p. 48.
Ps. XC. 2.] THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 357
all other things * live, and move, and have their being in him,' Acts xvii.
28 ; and as they live by his will, so they can return to nothing at his word.
3. If God were not eternal, he were not immutable in his nature. It is
contrary to the nature of immutability to be without eternity ; for whatso-
ever begins, is changed, in its passing from not being to being. It began
to be what it was not, and if it ends, it ceascth to be what it was. It can-
not, therefore, be said to be God, if there were either beginning or ending
or succession in it : Mai. iii. 6, ' I am the Lord, I change not ;' Job xxxvii.
23, ' Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out.' God argues here,
saith Calvin, from his unchangeable nature as Jehovah, to his immutability
in his purpose. Had he not been eternal, there had been the greatest
change, from nothing to something. A change of the essence is greater
than a change of purpose. God is a sun, glittering always in the same
glory ; no growing up in youth, no passing on to age. If he were not
without succession, standing in one point of eternity, there would be a
change from past to present, from present to future. The eternity of God
is a shield against all kind of mutability. If anything sprang up in the
essence of God that was not there before, he could not be said to be either
an eternal or an unchanged substance.
4. God could not be an infinitely perfect being, if he were not eternal. A
finite duration is inconsistent with infinite perfection. Whatsoever is con-
tracted within the limits of time, cannot swallow up all perfections in itself.
God hath an unsearchable perfection : ' Canst thou by searching find out
God ? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection ? ' Job xi. 7. He
cannot be found out, he is infinite, because he is incomprehensible. Incom-
prehensibility ariseth from an infinite perfection, which cannot be fathomed
by the short lines of man's understanding. His essence, in regard of its
difi'usion and in regard of its duration, is incomprehensible, as well as his
action. If God, therefore, had beginning, he could not be infinite ; if not
infinite, he did not possess the highest perfection, because a perfection might
be conceived beyond it. If his being could fail, he were not perfect. Can
that deserve the name of the highest perfection, which is capable of corrup-
tion and dissolution ? To be finite and Hmited is the greatest imperfection,
for it consists in a denial of being. He could not be the most blessed being
if he were not always so, and should not for ever remain to be so ; and
whatsoever perfections he had, would be soured by the thoughts that in time
they would cease, and so could not be pure perfections, because not perma-
nent ; but he is ' blessed from everlasting to everlasting,' Ps. xli. 13. Had
he a beginning, he could not have all perfection without limitation ; he would
have been limited by that which gave him beginning ; that which gave him
being would be God and not himself, and so more perfect than he. But
since God is the most sovereign perfection, than which nothing can be ima-
gined perfecter by the most capacious understanding, he is certainly eternal ;
being infinite, nothing can be added to him, nothing detracted from him.
5. God could not be omnipotent, almighty, if he were not eternal. The
title of Almighty agrees not with a nature that had a beginning ; whatsoever
hath a beginning was once nothing, and when it was nothing, could act no-
thing. Where there is no being, there is no power ; neither doth the title
of Almighty agree with a perishing nature. He cjin do nothing to purpose,
that cannot preserve himself against the outward force and violence of ene-
mies, or against the inward causes of corruption and dissolution. No account
is to be made of man, because ' his breath is in his nostrils,' Isa. ii. 22.
Could a better account be made of God, if he were of the like condition ?
He could not properly be almighty, that were not always mighty. If he be
358 chaenock's works. [Ps. XC. 2.
omnipotent, nothing can impair him ; he that hath all power can have no
hurt.* If he doth whatsoever he pleaseth, nothing can make him miserable,
since misery consists in those things which happen against our will. The
almightiness and eternity of God are linked together : ' I am Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which was, and which
is, and which is to come, the Almighty,' Eev. i. 8. Almighty because eter-
nal, and eternal because almighty.
6. God would not be the first cause of all, if he were not eternal. But
he is * the first and the last,' Rev. i. 8 ; the first cause of all things, the last
end of all things, f That which is the first cannot begin to be : it were not
then the first. It cannot cease to be : whatsoever is dissolved, is dissolved
into that whereof it doth consist, which was before it, and then it was not
the first. J The world might not have been ; it was once nothing : it must
have some cause to call it out of nothing. Nothing hath no power to make
itself something ; there is a superior cause, by whose will and power it comes
into being, and so gives all the creatures their distinct forms.
This power cannot but be eternal, it must be before the world ; the foun-
der must be before the foundation, § and his existence must be from eternity,
or we must say nothing did exist from eternity. And if there were no being
from eternity, there could not now be any being in time. What we see, and
what we are, must arise from itself or some other. It cannot from itself.
If anything made itself, it had a power to make itself ; it then had an active
power before it had a being. It was something in regard of power, and was
nothing in regard of existence, at the same time. Suppose it had a power
to produce itself, this power must be conferred upon it by another ; and so
the power of producing itself was not from itself, but from another. But if
the power of being was from itself, why did it not produce itself before ?
Why was it one moment out of being ? If there be any existence of things,
it is necessary that that which was the first cause should exist from eternity. ||
Whatsoever was the immediate cause of the world, yet the first and chief
cause, wherein we must rest, must have nothing before it ; if it had anything
before it, it were not the first. He therefore that is the first cause must be
without beginning, nothing must be before him. If he had a beginning from
some other, he could not be the first principle and author of all things. If
he be the first cause of all things, he must give himself a beginning, or to
be from eternity. He could not give himself a beginning : whatsoever begins
in time was nothing before, and when it was nothing, it could do nothing ;
it could not give itself anything, for then it gave what it had not, and did
what it could not. If he made himself in time, why did he not make him-
self before ? What hindered him ? It was either because he could not, or
because he would not. If he could not, he always wanted power, and always
would, unless it were bestowed upon him, and then he could not be said to
be from himself. If he would not make himself before, then he might have
made himself when he would : how had he the power of willing and niJling
without a being ? Nothing cannot will or nill ; nothing hath no faculties.
So that it is necessary to grant some eternal being, or run into inextricable
labyrinths and mazes. - If we deny some eternal being, we must deny all
being :^ our own being, the being of everything about us ; unconceivable
absurdities will arise.
So then, if God were the cause of all things, he did exist before all things,
and that from eternity.
* Voet. Natural. Theol., p. 310. § Crellius de Deo, cap. 18, p. 4.3.
t Ficin. de Immort., lib. ii. cap. 5. 1| Petav.Theol.Dogmat., torn, i.l.i. c. 10,11.
t Coccei Sum. Theol.
Ps. XC. 2.] THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 359
III. The third thin;^ is, eternity is only proper to God, and not communi-
cable. It is as great a madness to ascribe eternity to the creature, as to
deprive the Lord of the creature of eternity.* It is so proper to God, that
when the apostle would prove the deity of Christ, he proves it by his immu-
tability and eternity, as well as his creating power : * Thou art the same,
and thy years shall not fail,' Heb. i. 10-12. The argument had no strength,
if eternity belonged essentially to any but God ; and therefore he is said
* only to have immortality,' 1 Tim. vi. 16. All other things receive their
being from him, and can be deprived of their being by him. All things
depend on him, he of none. All other things are like clothes, which would
cousucne if God preserved them not. Immortality is appropriated to God,
i. e. an independent immortality. Angels and souls have an immortality,
but by donation from God, not by their own essence ; dependent upon their
Creator, not necessary in their own nature. God might have annihilated them
after he had created them ; so that their duration cannot properly be called
an eternity, it being extrinsecal to them, and depending upon the will of their
Creator, by whom they may be extinguished. It is not an absolute and
necessary, but a precarious, immortality. Whatsoever is not God, is tempo-
rary ; whatsoever is eternal, is God.
It is a contradiction to say a creature can be eternal : as nothing eternal
is created, so nothing created is eternal. "What is distinct from the nature
of God cannot be eternal, eternity being the essence of God. Every crea-
ture, in the notion of a creature, speaks a dependence on some cause, and
therefore cannot be eternal. As it is repugnant to the nature of God not to
be eternal, so it is repugnant to the nature of a creature to be eternal ; for
then a creature would be equal to the Creator, and the Creator, or the cause,
would not be before the creature, or effect, f
It would be all one to admit many gods, as many eternals ; and all one
to say God can be created, as to say a creature can be uncreated, which is
to be eternal.
1. Creation is a producing something from nothing. What was once
nothing, cannot therefore be eternal : fits] not being was eternal ; therefore
its being could not be eternal, for it should be then before it was, and would
be something when it was nothing. It is the nature of a creature to be
nothing before it was created ; what was nothing before it was, cannot be
equal with God in an eternity of duration.
2. There is no creature but is mutable, therefore not eternal. As it had
a change from nothing to something, so it may be changed from being to not
being. If the creature were not mutable, it would be most perfect, and so
would not be a creature, but God, for God only is most perfect. It is as
much the essence of a creature to be mutable, as it is the essence of God to
be immutable. Mutability and eternity are utterly inconsistent.
3. No creature is infinite, therefore not eternal. To be infinite in dura-
tion, is all one as to be infinite in essence. It is as reasonable to conceive
a creature immense, filling all places at once, as eternal, extended to all ages;
because neither can be without infiniteness, which is the property of the
Deity. J A creature may as well be without bounds of place, as limitations of
time.
4. No effect of an intellectual free agent, can be equal in duration to its
cause. The production of natural agents are as ancient often as themselves :
the sun produceth a beam as old in time as itself ; but who ever heard of a
piece of wise workmanship as old as the wise artificer ? God produced a
creature, not necessarily and naturally, as the sun doth a beam, but freely,
* Bapt. t Lessius de Perfect., lib. iv. cap. 2. J Ibid.
360 charnock's woeks. [Ps. XC. 2.
as an intelligent agent. The sun was not necessary ; it might be or not be,
according to the pleasure of God. A free act of the will is necessary to
precede in order of time, as the cause of such efl'ects as are purely voluntary.*
Those causes that act as soon as they exist, act naturally, necessarily, not
freely, and cannot cease from acting.
But suppose a creature might have existed by the will of God from eter-
nity : yet, as some think, it could not be said, absolutely and in its own
nature, to be eternal, because eternity was not of the essence of it. The
creature could not be its own duration ; for though it were from eternity, it
might not have been from eternity, because its existence depended upon the
free will of God, who might have chose whether he would have created it or no.
God only is eternal, ' the first and the last, the beginning and the end,'
who, as he subsisted before any creature had a being, so he will eternally
subsist, if all creatures were reduced to nothing.
IV. Use. 1. Information.
(1.) If God be of an eternal duration, then Christ is God. Eternity is the
property of God, but it is ascribed to Christ : ' He is before all things,' Col.
i. 17, i.e. all created things. He is therefore no creature ; and if no crea-
ture, eternal. 'All things were created by him,' both in heaven and in earth,
angels as well as men, ' whether they be thrones or dominions,' Col. i. 16.
If all things were his creatures, then he is no creature ; if he were, all things
were not created by him, or he must create himself.
He hath no difierence of time, for he is ' the same yesterday, to-day, and
for ever,' Heb. xiii. 8 ; Rev. i. 8, ' He which is, and which was, and which
is to come : ' the same with the name of God, / am, which signifies his
eternity. He is no more to-day than he was yesterday, nor will be any other
to-morrow than he is to-day ; and therefore Melchisedec, whose descent,
birth and death, father and mother, beginning and end of days, are not upon
record, was a type of the existence of Christ, without difierence of time :
' Having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of
God,' Heb. vii. 3. The suppression of his birth and death was intended by
the Holy Ghost as a type of the excellency of Christ's person in regard of
his eternity, and the duration of his charge in regard of his priesthood. As
there was an appearance of an eternity in the suppression of the race of
Melchisedec, so there is a true eternity in the Son of God. How could the
eternity of the Son of God be expressed by any resemblance so well, as by
such a suppression of the beginning and end of this great person, difierent
from the custom of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament, who often records
the generations and ends of holy men ; and why might not this, which was
a kind of a shadow of eternity, be a representation of the true eternity of
Christ, as well as the restoration of Isaac to his father without death, is said
to be a figure of the resurrection of Christ after a real death. f Melchisedec
is only mentioned once (without any record of his extraction), in his appear-
ance to Abraham after his victory, as if he came from heaven only for that
action, and instantly disappeared again, as if he had been an eternal person.
And Christ himself hints his own eternity : ' I came forth from the Father,
and am come into the world ; again I leave the world, and go to the Father,'
John xvi. 28. He goes to the Father as he came from the Father ; he goes
to the Father for everlasting, so he came from the Father from everlasting ;
there is the same duration in coming forth from the Father as in returning
to the Father. But more plainly, John xvii. 5, he speaks of a glory that
he ' had with the Father before the world was,' when there was no creature
* Crellius de Deo, cap. 18, p. 43. t Mestrsezat. in loc.
Ps. XC. 2.] THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 3G1
in being ; this is an actual glory, and not only in decree ; for a decreed
glory believers had, and why may not every one of them say the same words,
' Father, glorify me with that glory which I had with thee before the world
was,' if it were only a glory in decree ? Nay, it may be said of every man,
be was before the world was, because he was so in decree. Christ speaks
of something peculiar to him, a glory in actual possession before the world
was ; glorify me, embrace, honour me as thy Son, whereas I have now been
in the eyes of the world handled disgracefully as a servant. If it were only
in decree, why is not the like expression used of others in Scripture, as well
as of Christ ? Why did he not use the same words for his disciples that
were then with him, who had a glory in decree ? His eternity is also men-
tioned in the Old Testament ; ' The Lord possessed me in the beginning of
his way, before his works of old,' Prov. viii. 22. If he were the work of
God, he existed before himself if he existed before all the works of God ; it
is not so properly meant of the essential wisdom of God, since the discourse
runs in the name of a person, and several passages there are which belong
not so much to the essential wisdom of God, as ver. 13, ' The evil way
and the froward mouth do I hate ;' which belongs rather to the holiness of
God than to the essential wisdom of God ; besides, it is distinguished from
Jehovah, as possessed by him and rejoicing before him. Yet plainer, Micah
V. 2, ' Out of thee,' i. e. Bethlehem, ' shall he come forth to be ruler in
Israel, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting,' ''D''Q
Ch^^' ' froi^ the ways* of eternity.' There are two goings forth of Christ
described, one from Bethlehem in the days of his incarnation, and another
from eternity. The Holy Ghost adds after his prediction of his incarnation,
his going out from everlasting, that none should doubt of his deity. ^ If this
going out from everlasting were only in the purpose of God, it might be
said of David and of every creature. And in Isa. ix. he is particularly
called the Everlasting, or eternal Father ; not the Father in the Trinity,
but a father to us ; yet eternal, the Father of eternity. As he is ' the
mighty God,' so he is ' the everlasting Father.' Can such a title be ascribed
to any whose being depends upon the will of another, and may be dashed
out at the pleasure of a superior ?
As the eternity of God is the ground of all religion, so the eternity of
Christ is the ground of the Christian religion. Could our sins be perfectly
expiated had he not an eternal divinity to answer for the offences committed
against an eternal God ? Temporary sufferings had been of little validity,
without an infiniteness and eternity in his person to add weight to his passion.
(2.) If God be eternal, he knows all things as present.f _ All things are
present to him in his eternity ; for this is the notion of eternity, to be with-
out succession. If eternity be one indivisible point, and is not diffused into
preceding and succeeding parts, then that which is known in it or by it is
perceived without any succession, for knowledge is as the substance of the
person knowing ; if that hath various actions and distinct from itself, then
it understands things in differences of time as time presents them to view ;
but since God's being depends not upon the revolutions of time, so neither
doth^his knowledge ; it exceeds all motions of years and days, comprehends
infinite spaces of past and future. God considers all things in his eternity
in one simple knowledge, as if they w^ere now acted before him : Acts xv. 18,
' Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world ;' acr'
'uiuvog, a seculo, from eternity. God's knowledge is co-eternal with him.
If he knows that in time which he did not know from eternity, he would not
be eternally perfect, since knowledge is the perfection of an intelligent nature.
* Qu. ' days ' ?— Ed. t Petav.
362 chaknock's works. [Ps. XC. 2.
(3.) How bold and foolish is it for a mortal creature to censure the counsels
and actions of an eternal God, or be too curious in his inquisitions ? It is
by the consideration of the unsearchable number of the j'ears of God that
Elihu checks too bold inquiries : ' Who hath enjoined him his way, or who
can say thou hast wrought iniquity ? Behold, God is great, and we know
him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out,' Job xxxvi.
26 compared with ver. 23. Eternity sets God above our inquiries and
censures. Infants of a day old are not able to understand the acts of wise
and grey heads. Shall we, that are of so short a being and understanding
as yesterday, presume to measure the motions of eternity by our scanty
intellects ? we that cannot foresee an unexpected accident which falls in
to blast a well laid design, and run a ship many leagues back from the
intended harbour ? We cannot understand the reason of things we see done
in time, the motions of the sea, the generation of rain, the nature of light,
the sympathies and antipathies of the creatures ; and shall we dare to
censure the actions of an eternal God, so infinitely beyond our reach ? The
counsels of a boundless being are not to be scanned by the brain of a silly
worm, that hath breathed but a few minutes in the world. Since eternity
cannot be comprehended in time, it is not to be judged by a creature of time.
' Let us remember to magnifj' his works which we behold,' because he is
eternal, which is the exhortation of Elihu backed by this doctrine of God's
eternity, Job xxxvi. 24, and not accuse any work of him who is the ancient
of days, or presume to direct him of whose eternity we come infinitely short.
Whenever therefore any unworthy notion of the counsels and works of God
is suggested to us by Satan or our own corrupt hearts, let us look backward
to God's eternal and our own short duration, and silence ourselves with the
same question wherewith God put a stop to the reasoning of Job, chap,
xxxviii. 4, ' Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? '
and reprove ourselves for our curiosity, since we are of so short a standing,
and were nothing when the eternal God laid the first stone of the world.
(4.) What a folly and boldness is there in sin, since an eternal God is
ofl'ended thereby ! All sin is aggravated by God's eternity. The blackness
of the heathen idolatry was in changing ' the glory of the incorruptible God,'
Rom. i. 23, erecting resemblances of him contrary to his immortal nature ;
as if the eternal God, whose life is as unlimited as eternity, were like those
creatures whose beings are measured by the short ell of time, which are of
a corruptible nature, and daily passing on to corruption. They could not
really deprive God of his glory and immortality, but they did in estimation.
There is in the nature of every sin a tendency to reduce God to a not being.
He that thinks unworthily of God, or acts unworthily towards him, doth (as
much as in him lies) sully and destroy these two perfections of his, immuta-
bility and eternity. It is a carriage as if he were as contemptible as a
creature that were but of yesterday, and shall not remain in being to-morrow.
He that would put an end to God's glory by darkening it, would put an end
to God's hfe by destroying it. He that should love a beast with as great
an afiection as he loves a man, contemns a rational creature, and he that
loves a perishing thing with the same affection he should love an everlasting
God, contemns his eternity ; he debaseth the duration of God below that of
the world ; the low valuation of God speaks him, in his esteem, no better
than withering grass, or a gourd, which lasts for a night; and the creature,
which possesses his affection, to be a good that lasts for ever. How foolish
then is every sin, that tends to destroy a being that cannot destroy or desert
himself ; a being, without whose eternity the sinner himself could not have
had the capacity of a being, to affront him ! How base is that which would
Ps. XC. 2.] THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 3G3
not let the works of God remain in their established posture ! How much
more base in not enduring the fountain and glory of all beings, that would
not only put an end to the beauty of the world, but the eternity of God !
(5.) How dreadful is it to lie under the stroke of an eternal God ! His
eternity is as great a terror to him that hates him, as it is a comfort to him
that loves him, because he is the ' living God, an everlasting king, the nations
shall not be able to abide his indignation,' Jcr. x. 10. Though God bo least
in their thoughts, and is made light of in the world, yet the thoughts of
God's eternity, when ho comes to judge the world, shall make the slighters
of him tremble. That the judge and punishcr lives for ever is the greatest
grievance to a soul in misery, and adds an unconceivable weight to it, above
what the infiniteness of God's executive power could do without that dura-
tion ; his eternity makes the punishment more dreadful than his power ;
his power makes it sharp, but his eternity renders it perpetual ; ever to endure
is the sting at the end of every lash.
And how sad is it to think that God lays his eternity to pawn for the
punishment of obstinate sinners, and engageth it by an oath, that he will
' whet his glittering sword,' that his ' hand shall take hold of judgment,' that
he will * render vengeance to his enemies, and a reward to them that hate
him,' a reward proportioned to the greatness of their offences, and the glory
of an eternal God ! Deut. xxxii. 40, 41, ' I lift up my hand to heaven, and
say, I live for ever ; ' i.e. as surely as I live for ever, I will whet my glit-
tering sword. As none can convey good with a perpetuity, so none can
convey evil with such a lastingness as God. It is a great loss to lose a
ship richly fraught in the bottom of the sea, never to be cast upon the shore ;
but how much greater is it to lose eternally a sovereign God,* which we were
capable of eternally enjoying, and undergo an evil as durable as that God
we slighted, and were in a possibility of avoiding ? The miseries of men
after this life are not eased, but sharpened by the life and eternity of God.
Use 2. The second use is of comfort. What foundation of comfort can we
have in any of God's attributes, were it not for his infiniteness and eternity,
though he be merciful, good, wise, faithful. What support could there be
if they were perfections belonging to a corruptible God ? What hopes of a
resurrection to happiness can we have, or of the duration of it, if that
God that promised it were not immortal to continue it, as well as power-
ful to effect it ? His power were not almighty, if his duration were not
eternal.
1. If God be eternal, his covenant will be so. It is founded upon the
eternity of God ; the oath whereby he confirms it, is by his life. Since
there is none greater than himself, he swears by himself, Heb. vi. 13, or by
his own life, which he engageth, together with his eternity, for the full per-
formance, so that if he Hves for ever, the covenant shall not be disannulled,
it is an immutable counsel, ver. 16, 17. The immutability of his counsel
follows the immutability of his nature. Immutability and eternity go hand
in hand together. The promise of eternal life is as ancient as God himself
in regard of the purpose of the promise, or in regard of the promise made to
Christ for us : Titus i. 2, ' Eternal life, which God promised before the
world began.' As it hath an ante-eternity, so it hath a post-eternity ; there-
fore the gospel, which is the new covenant published, is termed ' the ever-
lasting gospel,' Kev. xiv. 6, which can no more be altered and perish than
God can change and vanish into nothiog. He can as little morally deny
his truth as he can naturally desert his life. The covenant is there repre-
sented in a green colour, to note its perpetual verdure. ' The rainbow,' the
* Qu. 'good'?— Ed.
364 charnock's works. [Ps. XC. 2.
emblem of the covenant ' about the throne, was like to an emerald,' a stone
of a green colour, Eev. iv. 3; whereas the natural rainbow hath many colours,
but this but one, to signify its eternity.
2. If God be eternal, he being our God in covenant, is an eternal good
and possession. ' This God is our God for ever and ever,' Ps. xlviii. 14 ;
he is a ' dwelling place in all generations.' We shall traverse the world a
while, and then arrive at the blessings Jacob wished for Joseph : ' The
blessings of the everlasting hills,' Gen. xlix. 26. If an estate of a thousand
pound per annum render a man's life comfortable for a short time, how
much more may the soul be swallowed up with joy in the enjoyment of the
Creator, whose j'ears never fail, who lives for ever to be enjoyed, and can
keep us in life for ever to enjoy him ! Death indeed will seize upon us by God's
irreversille order, but the immortal Creator will make him disgorge his
morsel, and land us in a glorious immortality, our souls at their dissolution,
and our bodies at the resurrection ; after which they shall remain for ever,
and employ the extent of that boundless eternity in the fruition of the
sovereign and eternal God ; for it is impossible that the believer, who is
united to the immortal God, that is from everlasting to everlasting, can ever
perish ; for being in conjunction with him who is an ever flowing fountain
of life, he cannot suffer him to remain in the jaws of death. While God is
eternal, and always the same, it is not possible that those that partake of his
spiritual life should not also partake of his eternal ; it is from the considera-
tion of the endlessness of the years of God that the church comforts herself,
that her * children shall continue,' and ' their seed be established for ever,'
Ps. cii. 27, 28. And from the eternity of God, Habakkuk, chap. i. ver. 12,
concludes the eternity of believers, ' Ai't thou not from everlasting, 0 Lord
my God, my Holy One ? we shall not die, 0 Lord.' After they are retired
from this world, they shall live for ever with God, without any change by
the multitude of those imaginable years and ages that shall run for ever. It
is that God that hath neither beginning nor end, that is our God, who
hath not only immortality in himself, but immortality to give out to others.
As he hath abundance of Spirit to quicken them, Mai. ii. 15, so he hath
abundance of immortality to continue them. It is only in the consideration
of this a man can with wisdom sa}'', ' Soul, take thy ease, thou hast goods
laid up for many years ; ' to say it of any other possession, is the greatest
folly in the judgment of our Saviour, Luke xii. 19, 20. Mortality shall be
swallowed up of immortality ; rivers of pleasure shall be for evermore.
Death is a word never spoken there by any, never heard by any in that
possession of eternity ; it is for ever put out, as one of Christ's conquered
enemies.
The happiness depends upon the presence of God, with whom believers
shall be for ever present. Happiness cannot perish as long as God lives :
he is the first and the last ; the first of all delights, nothing before him; the
last of all pleasures, nothing beyond him: a paradise of dehghts in every
point, without a flaming sword.
3. The enjoyment of God will be as fresh and glorious after many ages
as it was at first. God is eternal, and eternity knows no change ; there
will then be the fullest possession, without any decay in the object enjoyed.
There can be nothing past, nothing future ; time neither adds to it, nor
detracts from it ; that infinite fulness of perfection which flourisheth in him
now, will flourish eternally, without any discolouring of it in the least by
those innumerable ages that shall run to eternity, much less any despoiling
him of them. He is the same in his endless duration, Ps. cii. 27. As
God is, so will the eternity of him be, without succession, without division.
Ps. XC. 2.] TDE ETERKITY OP GOD. 365
The fulness of joy will be always present ; without past to be thought of with
regret for being gone, without future to be expected with tormenting desires.
When we enjoy God, we enjoy him in his eternity without any flux, an
entire possession of all together, without the passing away of pleasures that
may be wished to return, or expectation of future joys which might be desired
to hasten. Time is fluid, but eternity^is stable ; and after many ages, the
joys will be as savoury and satisfying as if they had been but that moment
first tasted by our hungry appetites. When the glory of the Lord shall rise
upon you, it shall be so far from ever setting, that after millions of years are
expired, as numerous as the sands on the sea shore, the Sun, in the light
of whoso countenance you shall live, shall be as bright as at the first appear-
ance. He will be so far from ceasing to flow, that he will flow as strong,
as full as at the first communication of himself in glory to the creature.
God therefore, as sitting upon his throne of grace, and acting according to
his covenant, is like a jasper stone, which is of a green colour, a colour
always delightful. Rev. iv. 3 ; because God is always vigorous and flourish-
ing, a pure act of life, sparkling new and fresh rays of life and light to the
creature, flourishing with a perpetual spring, and contenting the most
capacious desire ; forming your interest, pleasure, and satisfaction with an
infinite variety, without any change or succession. He will have variety to
increase delights, and eternity to perpetuate them ; this will be the fruit of
the enjoyment of an infinite, an eternal God. He is not a cistern, but a
fountain, w^herein water is always living, and never putrifies.
4. If God be eternal, here is a strong ground of comfort against all the
distresses of the church, and the threats of the church's enemies. God's
abiding for ever is the plea Jeremiah makes for his return to his forsaken
church : Lament, v. 19, ' Thou, 0 Lord, reraainest for ever ; thy throne from
generation to generation.' The church is weak ; created things are easily
cut off. What prop is there but that God that hves for ever ? What
though Jerusalem lost its bulwarks, the temple were defaced, the land
wasted, yet the God of Jerusalem sits upon an eternal throne, and from
everlasting to everlasting there is no diminution of his power. The prophet
intimates in this complaint that it is not agreeable to God's eternity to for-
get his people, to whom he hath from eternity bore good will. In the
greatest confusions, the church's eyes are to be fixed upon the eternity of
God's throne, where he sits as governor of the world. No creature can take
any comfort in this perfection but the church ; other creatures depend upon
God, but the church is united to him.
The first discovery of the name I am, which signifies the divine eternity
as well as immutability, was for the comfort of the oppressed Israelites in
Egypt, Exod. iii. 14, 15 ; it was then published from the secret place of
the Almighty, as the only strong cordial to refresh them. It hath not yet,
it shall not ever lose its virtue in any of the miseries that have or shall suc-
cessively befall the church ; it is a comfort as durable as the God whose
name it is. He is still I am, and the same to the church as he was then to
his Israel. His spiritual Israel have a greater right to the glories of it than
the carnal Israel could have. No oppression can be greater than theirs ;
what was a comfort suited to that distress hath the same suitableness to
every other oppression. It was not a temporary name, but a name for
ever, his * memorial to all generations,' ver. 15, and reacheth to the church
of the Gentiles, with whom he treats as the God of Abraham, ratifying that
covenant by the Messiah, which he made with Abraham the father of the
faithful.
The church's enemies are not to be feared ; they may ' spring as the
366 chaknock's woeks. [Ps. XC. 2.
grass,' but soon after do wither by their own inward principles of decay, or are
cut down by the hand of God, Ps. xcii. 7-9. They may be instruments
of the ano-er of God, but they shall be scattered as the workers of iniquity,
by the hand of the Lord * that is high for evermore,' ver. 8, and is engaged
by his promise to preserve a church in the world. They may threaten, but
their breath may vanish as soon as their threatenings are pronounced, for
they carry their breath in no surer a place than their own nostrils, upon which
the eternal God can put his hand, and sink them with all their rage. '^^Do
the prophets ' and the instructors of the church * live for ever ? ' Zech.
i. 15. No. Shall, then, the adversaries and disturbers of the church live
for ever ? They shall vanish as a shadow ; their being depends upon the
eternal God of the faithful, and the everlasting judge of the wicked. He
that inhabits eternity is above them that inhabit mortahty, and must,
whether they will or no, ' say to corruption. Thou art my father ; and to the
worm. Thou art my mother, and my sister,' Job. xvii. 14. When they will
act with a confidence as if they were living gods, he will not be mated, but
evidence himself to be a living God above them. Why then should mortal
men be feared in their frowns, when an immortal God hath'promised protec-
tion in his word, and lives for ever to perform it ?
5. Hence follows another comfort ; since God is eternal, he hath as much
power as will to be as good as his word. His promises are established upon
his eternity, and this perfection is a main ground of trust : Isa. xxvi. 4,
' Trust in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength,'
D''DViV niiJ mn^ n"'^' His name is doubled, that name J ah and Jehovah,
which was always the strength of his people, and not a single one, but the
strength or rock of eternities ; not a failing, but an eternal truth and power ;
that as his strength is eternal, so our trust in him should imitate his eternity
in its perpetuity ; and therefore in the despondency of his people, as if God
had forgot his promises and made no account of them, or his word, and were
weary of doing good, he calls them to reflect on what they had heard of his
eternity, which is attended with immutability, who hath an infiniteness of
power to perform his will, and an infiniteness of understanding to judge of
the right seasons of it, Isa. xl. 27, 28 ; his wisdom, will, truth, have always
been, and will to eternity be, the same. He wants not life any more than
love for ever to help us ; since his word is past, he will never fail us ; since
his life continues, he can never be out of a capacity to relieve us ; and
therefore, whenever we foolishly charge him by our distrustful thoughts, we
forget his love, which made the promise, and his eternal life, which can
accomplish it. As his word is the bottom of our trust, and his truth is the
assurance of his sincerity, so his eternity is the assurance, of his ability to
perform. His ' word stands for ever,' Isa. xl. 8. A man may be my friend
this day, and be in another world to-morrow ; and though he be never so
sincere in his word, yet death snaps his Ufe asunder, and forbids the execu-
tion. But as God cannot die, so he cannot lie, because he is the eternity
of Israel : 1 Sam. xv, 29, ' The strength of Israel will not lie nor repent,'
nijy perpetuity or eternity of Israel. Eternity implies immutability ; we
could have no ground for our hopes if we knew him not to be longer Hved
than ourselves. The psalmist beats off our hands from trust in men, be-
cause * their breath goes forth, they return to their earth, and in that day
their thoughts perish,' Ps. cxlvi. 3, 4. And if the God of Jacob were like
them, what happiness could we have in making him our help? As his
sovereignty in giving precepts had not been a strong ground of obedience,
without considering him as an eternal lawgiver, who could maintain his
rights ; so his kindness in making the promises had not been a strong ground
Ps. XC. 2. J THE ETERNITY OP GOD. 307
of confidcnco, without considcrinp; him as an eternal promisor, ^Yhose thoughts
and whose life can never perish/'^ And this may ho ono reason why tho
Holy Ghost mentions so often the post-eternity of God, and so little his
ante-eternity ; hecauso that is the strongest foundation of our faith and
hope, which respects chiefly that which is future, and not that which is
past, j-ct, indeed, no assurance of his after-eternity can ho had if his ante-
eternity bo not certain. If he had a beginning, he may have an end; and if
ho had a change in his nature, ho might have in his counsels ; but since all
the resolves of God are as himself is, eternal, and all the promises of God
are the fruits of his counsel, therefore they cannot be changed. If he should
change them for tho better, ho would not have been eternally wise, to know
what was best; if for tho worse, he had not been eternally good or just.
Men may break their promises, because they are made without foresight ;
but God, that inhabits eternity, foreknows all things that shall be done under
the sun, as if they had been then acting before him ; and nothing can intervene,
or work a change in his resolves, because the least circumstances wero
eternally foreseen by him. Though there may be variations and changes to
our sight, tho winds may tack about, and every hour new and cross accidents
happen, yet tho eternal God, who is eternally true to his word, sits at the
helm, and the winds and tho waves obey him. And though he should defer
his promise a thousand years, yet he is ' not slack,' 2 Peter iii. 8, 9, for he
defers it but a day to his eternity ; and who would not with comfort stay a
day in expectation of a considerable advantage ?
Use 3 is for exhortation.
1. To something which concerns us in ourselves.
2. To something which concerns us with respect to God.
1. To something which concei'ns us in ourselves.
(1.) Let us be deeply atfected with our sins long since committed. Though
they are past with us, they are in regard of God's eternity present with him ;
there is no succession in eternity as there is in time. All things are before
God at once ; our sins are before him, as if committed this moment, though
committed long ago. As he is what he is in regard of duration, so he knows
what he knows in regard of knowledge ; as he is not more than he was, nor
shall not be any more than he is, so he always knew what he knows, and
shall not cease to know what he now knows ; as himself, so his knowledge
is one indivisible point of eternity. He knows nothing but what he did
know from eternity ; he shall know no more for the future than he now
knows. Our sins being present with him in his eternity, should be present
with us in regard of our remembrance of them, and sorrow for them. What
though many years are lapsed, much time run out, and our iniquities almost
blotted out of our memory ! yet since a thousand years are in God's si^ht,
and in regard of his eternity, but as a day, — Ps. xc. 4, ' A thousand j'ears
in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the
night,'— they are before him ; for, suppose a man were as old as the
world, above five thousand six hundred years, the sins committed five
thousand years ago are, according to that rule, but as if they were committed
five days ago, so that sixty-two years are but as an hour and a-half, and the
sins committed forty years since are as if they were committed but this present
hour. But if we will go further, and consider them but as a watch of the
night, about three hours (for the night, consisting of twelve hours, was
divided into set watches), then a thousand years are but as three hours in
the sight of God, and then sins committed sixty years ago are but as if they
were committed within this five minutes.
* Crellius de Deo. cap, 18, p, ii, 45.
368 chaknock's works. [Ps. XC. 2.
Let none of us set light by the iniquities committed many years ago, and
imagine that length of time can wipe out their guilt. No ; let us consider
them in relation to God's eternity, and excite an inward remorse, as if they
had been but the birth of this moment.
(2.) Let the consideration of God's eternity abate our pride. This is the
design of the verses following the text, the eternity of God being so suffi-
cient to make us understand our own nothingness, which ought to be one
great end of man, especially as fallen. The eternity of God should make
us as much disesteem ourselves, as the excellency of God made Job abhor
himself, Job xlii. 5, 6. His excellency should humble us under a sense
of our vanity, and his eternity under a sense of the shortness of our dura-
tion. If man compares himself with other creatures, he may be too sen-
sible of his greatness ; but if he compares himself with God, he cannot but
be sensible of his baseness.
[1.] In regard of our impotence to comprehend this eternity of God.
How little do we know, how little can we know, of God's eternity ! We
cannot fully conceive it, much less express it : we have a brutish under-
standing in all those things, as Agur said of himself, Prov. xxx. 7.
What is infinite and eternal cannot be comprehended by finite and tem-
porary creatures. If it could, it would not be infinite and eternal ; for to
know a thing, is to know the extent and cause of it. It is repugnant to
eternity to be known, because it hath no limits, no causes ; the most soaring
understanding cannot have a proportionable understanding of it.* What
disproportion is there between a drop of water and the sea, in their great-
ness and motion ! Yet by a drop we may arrive to a knowledge of the nature
of the sea, which is a mass of drops joined together ; but the longest dura-
tion of times cannot make us know what eternity is, because there is no
proportion between time and eternity. The years of God are as numberless
as his thoughts, Ps. xl. 5, and our minds as far from reckoning the one as
the other. If our understandings are too gross to comprehend the majesty
of his infinite works, they are much more too short to comprehend the
infiniteness of his eternity.
[2.] In regard of the vast disproportion of our duration to this duration
of God.
First, We have more of not being than being. We were nothing from an
unbegun eternity, and we might have been nothing to an endless eternity,
had not God called us unto being ; and if he please, we may be nothing by
a short annihilating word, as we were something by a creating word. As it
is the prerogative of God to be * I am. that I am,' so it is the property of
a creature to be I am vot what I am ; I am not by myself what I am, but
by the indulgence of another. I was nothing formerly, I may be nothing
again, unless he that is I am make me to subsist what I now am. Nothing
is as much the title of the creature, as being is the title of God. Nothing
is so holy as God, because nothing hath being as God : 1 Sam. ii. 2, ' There
is none holy as the Lord ; for there is none besides thee.' Man's life is an
imace, a dream, which are next to nothing; and if compared with God,
worse than nothing, a nullity as well as a vanity ; because ' with God
only is the fountain of life,' Ps. xxxvi. 9. The creature is but a drop
of life from him, dependent on him. A drop of water is a nothing, if
compared with the vast conflux of waters, and numberless drops in the
ocean.
How unworthy is it for dust and ashes, kneaded together in time, to strut
against the Father of eternity ! Much more unworthy for that which is
* Charron. Vent. liv. i. chap. 5, p. 17, &c.
Ps. XC. 2. J THE ETEKNITY OF GOD. 369
nothing, worse than nothing, to quarrel with that which is only being, and
equal himself with him that inhabits eternity.
Secondh/, What being we have, had a beginning. After an unaccount-
able eternity was run out, in the very dregs of time, a few years ago we
were created, and made of the basest and vilest dross of the world, the
slime and dust of the earth ; made of that wherewith birds build their
nests ; made of that which creeping things make their habitation, and beasts
trample upon. How monstrous is pride in such a creature, to aspire, as
if he were the Father of eternity, and as eternal as God, and so his own
eternity !
Thirdly, Wliat being we have, is but of a short duration in regard of our
life in this world. Our life is a constant change and flux: we remain not
the same an entire day ; youth quickly succeeds childhood, and age as
speedily treads upon the heels of youth ; there is a continual defluxion of
minutes, as there is of sands in a glass. He is as a watch wound up at the
beginning of his life, and from that time is running down till he comes to
the bottom : some part of our lives is cut off every day, every minute. Life
is but a moment, what is past cannot be recalled ; what is future cannot be
insured. If we enjoy this moment, we have lost that which is past, and
shall presently lose this by the next that is to come.
The short duration of men is set out in Scripture by such creatures^ as
soon disappear : a worm. Job xxv. 6, that can scarce live a winter j
grass, that withers by the summer sun. Life is a flower soon withering,
Job xiv. 2 ; a vapour soon vanishing, James iv. 14 ; a smoke soon disap-
pearing, Ps. cii. 3. The strongest man is but compacted dust, the fabric
must moulder, the highest mountain falls and comes to nought. Time gives
place to eternity ; we live now, and die to-morrow. Not a man, since the
world began, ever lived a day in God's sight ; for no man ever lived a thou-
sand years. The longest day of any man's life never amounted to twenty-
four hours in the account of divine eternity. A life of so many hundred
years, with the addition * he died,' makes up the greatest part of the histoiy
of the patriarchs. Gen. v. ; and since the life of man hath been curtailed, if
any be in the woild eighty years, he scarce properly lives sixty of them, since
the fourth part of time is at least consumed in sleep.
A greater difference there is between the duration of God and that of a
creature, than between the Hfe of one for a minute, and the life of one that
should live as many years as the whole globe of heaven and earth, if changed
into papers, could contain figures. And this hfe, though but of short dura-
tion according to the period God hath determined, is easily ciit off; the
treasure of life is deposited in a brittle vessel. A small stone hitting against
Nebuchadnezzar's statue will tumble it down into a poor and nasty grave ;
a grape-stone, the bone of a fish, a small fly in the throat, a moist damp,
are enough to destroy an earthly eternity, and reduce it to nothing.
What a nothing then is our shortness, if compared with God's eternity !
our frailty, with God's duration ! How humble then should perishing
creatures be before an eternal God, with whom * our days are as a hand's-
breadth, and our age as nothing "^ ! Ps. xxxix. 5. The angels, that have been
of as long a duration as heaven and earth, tremble before him, the heavens
melt at his presence ; and shall we, that are but of yesterday, approach a
divine eternity with unhumbled souls, and offer the calves of our lips with
the pride of devils, and stand upon our terms with him, without falling upon
our faces, with a sense that we are but dust and ashes, and creatures of
time ? How easily it is to reason out man's humility, but how hard is it to
reason man into it !
VOL. I. A a
370 chabnock's works. [Ps. XC. 2.
(3.) Let the consideration of God's eternity take off our love and confi-
dence from the world, and the things thereof. The eternity of God reproaches
a pursuit of the world, as preferring a momentary pleasure before an ever-
lasting God ; as though a temporal world could be a better supply than a
God whose years never fail. Alas, what is this earth men are so greedy of,
and will get, though by blood and sweat ! What is this whole earth, if we
had the entire possession of it, if compared with the vast heavens, the seat
of angels and blessed spirits! It is but as au atom to the greatest moun-
tain, or a drop of dew to the immense ocean. How foolish is it to prefer a
drop before the sea, or an atom before the world ! The earth is but a point
to the sun, the sun with its whole orb but a little part of the heavens, com-
pared with the whole fabric. If a man had the possession of all those, there
could be no comparison between those that have had a beginning, and shall
have an end, and God, who is without either of them. Yet how many are
there that make nothing of ihe divine eternity, and imagine an eternity of
nothing !
[1.] The world' hath been but of a short standing. It is not yet six
thousand years since the foundations of it were laid, and therefore it cannot
have a boundless excellency, as that God, who hath been from everlasting,
doth possess. If Adam had lived to this day, and been as absolute lord of
his posterity as he was of the other creatures, had it been a competent
object to take up his heart, had he not been a madman to have preferred
this little created pleasure before an everlasting, uncreated God ; a thing
that had a dependent beginning, before that \yhich had an independent
eternity!
[2.] The beauties of the world are transitory and perishing. The
whole world is nothing else but a fluid thing, the fashion of it is a pageantry
• passing away,' 1 Cor. vii. 81. Though the glories of it might be con-
ceived greater than they are, yet they are not consistent, but transient.
There cannot le an entire enjoyment of them, because they grow up and
expire every moujient, and sHp away between our fingers while we are using
them. Have we not heard of God's dispersing the greatest empires like
* chaff before a whirfwind, or as smoke out of a chimney,' Hosea xiii. 3,
which, though it appears as a compacted cloud, as if it would choke the
sun, is quickly scattered into several parts of the air, and becomes invisible ?
Nettles have often been heirs to stately palaces, as God threatens Israel,
Hosea ix. 6. We cannot promise ourselves over night anything the next
day. A kingdom with the gloi'y of a throne may be cut off in a morning,
Hosea x. 15. The new wine may be taken from the mouth when the vintage
is ripe, the devouring locust may snatch away both the hopes of that and
the harvest, Joel i. 15 ; they are therefore things which are not, and nothing
cannot be a fit object for confidence or aflection : Prov. xxiii. 5, ' Wilt thou
set thy eyes upon that which is not ? for riches certainly make themselves
wings.' They are not properly beings, because they ai-e not stable, but
flitting. They are not, because they may not be the next moment to us
what they are this ; they are but cisterns, not springs ; and ' broken
cisterns,' not sound and stable; po solidity in their substance, nor stability
in their duration. What a/ ^foolish thing is it then to prefer a transient
felicity, a mere nullity, befcre. an teletcal God! What a senseless thing
would it be in a man ,to prefer the map of a kingdom, which the hand of a
child can tear in pieces, before the kingdom shadowed by it ! How much
more inexcusable is it to value things that are so far from being eternal,
that they are not so much as dusky resemblances of an eternity 1 Were
the things of the world more glorious than they are, yet they are but as a
Ps. XC. 2.] THE ETERNITy OF GOD. 871
counterfeit sun in a cloud, which comes short of the true sun in the heavens
both in glory and duration; and to esteem them before God is inconceivably
baser than if a man should value a parti-coloured bubble in the air before
a durable rock of diamonds. The comforts of this world are as candles that
will end in a snuff, whereas the felicity that flows from an eternal', God is
like the sun, that shines more and more to a perfect day.
[3.] They cannot therefore be fit for a soul which was made to have
an interest in God's eternity. The soul being of a perpetual nature, was
made for the fruition of an eternal good; without such a good, it can never
be perfect. Perfection, that noblo thing, riseth not from anything in this
world, nor is it a title duo to a soul while in this world. It is then they
are said to be 'made perfect,' when they arrive at that entire conjunction
with the eternal God in another life, Heb. xii. 23. The soul cannot be
ennobled by an acquaintance with these things, or established by a depend-
ence on them ; they cannot confer what a rational nature should desire, or
supply it with what it wants.
The soul hath a resemblance to God in a post-eternity. Why should it
be drawn aside by the blandishments of earthly things, to 'neglect its true
establishment, and lacquey after the body, which is but a shadow of the
soul, and was made to follow it and serve it! But while it busieth itself
altogether in the concerns of a perishing body, and seeks satisfaction in
things that glide awaj', it becomes rather a body than soul, descends below
its nature, reproacheth that God who hath imprinted upon it an imago of
his own eternitj^ and loseth the comfort of the everlastinguess of its Creator.
How shall the whole world, if our lives were as durable as that, be art happy
eternity to>us, who have souls that shall survive all the delights of it, which
must fry in those flames that shall fire the whole frame of nature tit the
general conflagration of the world ? 2 Peter iii. 10. ^
[4.] Therefore let us provide for an happy interest in the eternity of
God. Man is made for an eternal state. The soul hath such a perfection
in its nature, that it is fit for eternity, and cannot display all its operations
but in eternity ; to an eternity it must go, and live as long as God himself
lives. Things of a short duration are not proportioned to a soul made for
an eternal continuance ; to see that it be a comfortable eternity, is worth all
our care. Man is a forecasting creature, considers not only the present, but
the future too, in his provisions for his family ; and shall he disgrace his
nature in casting off all consideration of a future eternity ? Get possession
therefore of the eternal God. A ' portion in this life ' is the lot of those who
shall be for ever miserable, Ps. xvii. 14 ; but God, an ' everlasting portion,'
is the lot of them that are designed for happiness : ' God is my portion for
ever,' Ps. Ixxiii. 26. ■ .
Time is short, 1 Cor. vii. 29. The whole time for which Gpd designed
this building of the world is of a little compass ; it is a stage erected for
rational creatures to act their parts upon for a few thousand years, the
greatest part of which time is run out, and then shall time like a rivulet
fall into the sea of eternity, from whence it sprung. As time is but a slip
of eternity, so it will end- in eternity. Our advantages consist in the pre-
sent instant; what is past never promised a return, and cannot be fetched
back by all our vows; what is future we cannot promise ourselves to enjoy,
we may be snatched away before it comes. Every minute that passeth
speaks the fewer remaining till the time of death ; and as we are every hour
further from our beginning, we are nearer our end. The child born this
day grows up, to grow nothing at last. In all ages ' there is but a step
between us and death,' as David said of himself, 1 Sam. xx. 3. The little
372 chaenock's works. [Ps. XC. 2.
time that remains for the devil till the day of judgment, envenoms his
wrath; he rageth, because 'his time is short,' Rev. xii. 12. The little
time that remains between this moment and our death, should quicken our
diligence to inherit the endless and unchangeable eternity of God.
[5. J Often meditate on the eternity of God. The holiness, power, a,nd
eternitv of God are the fundamental articles of all reUgion, upon which the
whole body of it leans : his holiness for conformity to him, his power and
eternity for the support of faith and hope. The strong and incessant cries
of the four beasts, representing that Christian church, are ' Holy, holy,
holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come,' Rev. iv. 8.
Though his power is intimated, yet the chiefest are his holiness, three
times expressed ; and his eternity, which is repeated, ver. 9, ' who lives for
ever and ever.' This ought to be the constant practice in the church of the
Gentiles, which this book chiefly respects. The meditation of his convert-
ing grace manifested to Paul ravished the apostle's heart, but not without the
triumphant consideration of his immortality and eternity, which are the prin-
cipal parts of the doxology : 1 Tim. i. 15-17, * Now unto the King eternal,
immortal, invisible, only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever.'
It could be no great transport to the spirit to consider him glorious, with-
out considering him immortal; the unconfinedness of his perfections in
regard of time presents the soul with matter of the greatest complacency.
The happiness of our souls depends upon his other attributes, but the per-
petuity of it upon his eternity. Is it a comfort to view his immense
wisdom, his overflowing goodness, his tender mercy, his unerring truth?
What comfort were there in any of those, if it were a wisdom that could be
baffled, a goodness that could be damped, a mercy that can expire, and a
truth that can perish with the subject of it ! Without eternity, what were
all his other perfections but as glorious yet withering flowers, a great but a
decaying beauty ! By a frequent meditation of God's eternity, we should
become more sensible of our own vanity and the world's triflingness. How
nothing should ourselves, how nothing would all other things appear in our
eyes ! how coldly should we desire them ! how feebly should we place any
trust in them ! Should we not think ourselves worthy of contempt to doat
■upon a perishing glory, to expect support from an arm of flesh, when there
is an eternal beauty to ravish us, an eternal arm to protect us ? Asaph,
when he considered God a ' portion for ever,' thought nothing of the glories
of the earth, or the beauties of the created heavens worth his appetite or
complacency, but God, Ps. Ixxiii. 25, 26. Besides, an elevating frame of
heart at the consideration of God's eternity, would batter down the strong-
holds and engines of any temptation. A slight temptation will not know
where to find and catch hold of a soul high and hid in a meditation of it ;
and if he doth, there will not be wanting from hence preservatives to resist
and conquer it. What transitory pleasures will not the thoughts of God's
eternity stifle ! When this work busieth a soul, it is too great to sufi"er it
to descend, to hsten to a sleeveless errand from hell or the world. The
wanton allurements of the flesh will be put oS" with indignation. The prof-
fers of the world will be ridiculous when they are cast into the balance with
the eternity of God, which sticking in our thoughts, we shall not be so easy
a prey for the fowler's gin.
Let us therefore often meditate upon this, but not in a bare speculation,
without engaging our aff'ections, and making every notion of the divine
eternity end in a suitable impression upon our hearts. This would be much
like the disciples gazing upon the heavens at the ascension of their Master,
while they forgat the practice of his orders, Acts i. 11. We may else find
Ps. XC. 2.] THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 873
Bomething of the nature of God, and lose ourselves, not only in eternity, but
to eternity.
2. And hence the second part of the exhortation is to something which
concerns us wilh a respect to God.
(1.) If God be eternal, how worthy is he of our choicest affections, and
strongest desires of communion with him ! Is not everything to be valued
according to the greatness of its being ? How then should wo love him,
who is not only lovely in his nature, but eternally lovely, having from ever-
lasting all those perfections centred in himself, which appear in time ! If
everything be lovely, by how much the more it partakes of the nature of
God, who is the chief good, how much more infinitely lovely is God, who is
superior to all other goods, and eternally so ! Not a God of a few minutes,
months, years, or millions of years ; not of the dregs of time or the top of
time, but of eternity ; above time, unconceivably immense beyond time.
The loving him infinitely, perpetually, is an act of homage due to him for
bis eternal excellency. We may give him the one, since our souls are im-
mortal, though we cannot the other, because they are finite. Since he
encloseth in himself all the excellencies of heaven and earth for ever, he
should have an affection, not only of time in this world, but of eternity in
the future ; and if we did not owe him a love for what we are by him, we
owe him a love for what he is in himself; and more for what he is, than for
what he is to us. He is more worthy of our affections because he is the
eternal God, than because he is our Creator ; because he is more excellent
in his nature than in his transient actions. The beams of his goodness to
us, are to direct our thoughts and affections to him ; but his own eternal
excellency ought to be the ground and foundation of our affections to him.
And truly, since nothing but God is eternal, nothing but God is worth the
loving ; and we do but a just right to our love, to pitch it upon that which
can always possess us and be possessed by us, upon an object that cannot
deceive our affection, and put it out of countenance by a dissolution.
And if our happiness consists in being like to God, we should imitate him
in loving him as he loves himself, and as long as he loves himself. ^ God
cannot do more to himself than love himself ; he can make no addition to
his essence, nor diminution from it. What should we do less to an eternal
being, than to bestow afiections upon him, like his own to himself, since
we can find nothing so durable as himself, for which we should love it !^
(2.) He only is worthy of our best service. The ' Ancient of days' is to
be served before all that are younger than himself; our best obedience is
due to him as a God of unconfined excellency. Every thing that is excellent
deserves a veneration suitable to its excellency. As God is infinite, he hath
right to a boundless service ; as he is eternal, he hath right to a perpetual
service. As service is a debt of justice upon the account of the excellency
of his nature, so a perpetual service is as much a debt of justice upon the
account of his eternity. If God be infinite and eternal, he merits an honour
and comportment from his creatures suited to the unhmited perfection of his
nature, and the duration of his being. How worthy is the psalmist's resolu-
tion, ' I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live ; I will sing praises to my
God while I have any being,' Ps. civ. 33. It is the use he makes of the
endless duration of the glory of God, and will extend to all other service as
well as praise. To serve other things, or to serve ourselves, is to waste a
service upon that which is nothing. In devoting ourselves to God, we serve
him that is ; that was, so as that he never began ; is to come, so as that
he never shall end ; by whom all things are what they are ; who hath both
eternal knowledge to remember our service, and eternal goodness to reward it.
A DISCOURSE UPON THE IMMUTABILITY
OF GOD.
They shall fcrisli, hut thou shall endure ; yea, all of them shall wax old as a
gannent : as a vesture shah thou change them, and they si tall he changed:
but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end. — Ps. CII. 26, 27.
This psalm contains a complaint of a people pressed with a great calamity ;
some think of the Jewish church in Babj'lon, others think the psalmist doth
here personate mankind lying under a state of corruption, because he wishes
for the coming of the Messiah, to accomplish that redemption promised by
God, and needed by them. Indeed, the title of the psalm is ' A prayer of
the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and pours out his complaint before
the Lord :' Avhether afflicted with the sense of corruption, or with the sense
of oppression. And the redemption by the Messiah, which the ancient
church looked upon as the fountain of their deliverance from a sinful or a
servile bondage, is in this psalm spoken of; a set time appointed for the
discover}' of his mercy to Sion, ver. 13 ; an appearance in glory to build up
Sion, ver. 16 ; the loosening of the prisoner by redemption, and them
that are appointed to death, ver. 20 ; the calling of the Gentiles, ver. 22 ;
and the latter part of the psalm, wherein are the verses I have read, are
applied to Christ, Heb. i. Whatsoever the design of the psalm might be,
many things are intermingled that concern the kingdom of the Messiah, and
redemption by Christ.
Some make three parts of the psalm.
1. A petition plainly delivered : ver. 1, 2, ' Hear my prayer, 0 Lord, and
let my cry come unto thee,' &c.
2. The petition strongly and argumentatively enforced and pleaded,
ver. 3, from the misery of the petitioner in himself, and his reproach from
his enemies.
3. An acting of faith, in the expectation of an answer in the general
redemption promised: ver. 12, 13, 'But thou, 0 Lord, shalt endure for
ever ; thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Sion : the heathen shall fear
thy name.'
The first part is the petition pleaded, the second part is the petition
answered in an assurance that there should in time be a full deliverance.*
* Parens.
Ps. en. 26, 27. J THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 375
The design of the penman is to confirm the church in tho truth of the divine
promises, that though the foundations of the world should be ripped up, and
the heavens clatter together, and the whole fabric of them be unpinned and
fall to pieces, the firmest parts of it dissolved, yet the church should con-
tinue in its stability, because it stands not upon the changeableness of crea-
tures, hut is built upon the immutable rock of the truth of God, which is as
little subject to change as his essence.
They shall perish, thou shalt change them. As he had' before ascribed
to God the foundation of heaven and earth, ver..25, so he ascribes to God
here the destruction of them. Both the beginning and end of the world
are here ascertained. There is nothing indeed from the present appearance
of things that can demonstrate the cessation of the world. The heaven and
earth stand firm ; the motions of the heavenly bodies are the same, their
beauty is not decayed ; individuals corrupt, but the species and kinds
remain ; the successions of the year observe their due order, but the sin of
man renders the change of the present appearance of the world necessary to
accomplish the design of God for the glory of his elect.. The heavens do
not naturally perish, as some fancied an old age of the world,, wherein it
must necessarily decay,, as the bodies of animals do ; or that the parts of the
heavens are broken off by their rubbing one against another in their
motion, and falling to the earth,, are the seeds of those things that grow up
among us
*
The earth and heavens. He names here the most stable parts of the
world, and the most beautiful parts of the creation, those that are freest
from corruptibility and change,- to illustrate thsreby the immutability of
God, that though the heavens and earth have a prerogative of fixedness
above other parts of the world, and the creatures that reside below, the
heavens remain the same as they were created, and the centre of the
earth retains its fixedness, and are as beautiful and fresh in their age as
they were in their youth many years ago, notwithstanding the change of the
elements, fire and water being often turned into air, so that there may
remain but little of that air which was first created by reason of the con-
tinual transmutation ; yet this firmness of the earth and heavens is not to
be regarded in comparison of the unmoveablenes and fixedness of the being
of God. As their beauty comes short of the glory of his being, so doth
their firmness come short of his stability.
Some by heavens and earth understand the creatures which reside in the
earth, and those which are in the air, which is called heaven often in Scrip-
ture ; but the ruin and fall of these being seen every day, had been no fit
illustration of the unchangeableness of God,
* They shall perish, they shall be changed,'
1. They may perish, say some ; they have it not from themselves that
they do not perish, but from thee, who didst endue them with an incor-
ruptible nature ; they shall perish if thou speakest the word ; thou canst
with as much ease destroy them as thou canst create them. Bnt the
psalmist speaks not of their possibility, but the certainty of their perishing.
2. They shall perish in their qualities and motion, not in their substance,
say others. They shall cease from that motion which is designed properly
for the generation and corruption of things in the earth, but in regard of
their substance and beauty they shall remain. As when the strings or
wheels of a clock or watch are taken off, the material parts remain, though
the motion of it, and the use for discovering the time of the day, ceaseth.t
To perish doth not signify always a falling into nothing, an annihilation, by
* Plin. Hist. lib. 2, cap. 3. t Coccei. in loc.
376 ohaknock's works. [Ps. CII. 2G, 27.
which both the matter and the form are destroyed, but a ceasing of the
present appearance of them ; a ceasing to be what they now are, as a man
is said to perish when he dies, whereas the better part of man doth not
cease to be. The figure of the body moulders away, and the matter of it
returns to dust ; but the soul, being immortal, ceaseth not to act, when the
body, by reason of the absence of the soul, is incapable of acting. So the
heavens shall perish. The appearance they now have shall vanish, and a
more glorious and incorruptible frame be erected by the power and good-
ness of God. The dissolution of beaven and earth is meant by the word
perish ; the raising a new frame is signified by the word changed ; as if the
Spirit of God would prevent any wrong meaning of the word jyerish by alle-
viating the sense of that by another which signifies only a mutation and
change ; as when we change a habit and garment, we quit the old to receive
the new.
' As a garment, as a vesture.' Thou shalt change them ; — Septuagint,
iXi^sig, ' Thou shalt fold them up.' The heavens are compared to a curtain,
Ps. civ. 2, and shall in due time be folded up as cloths and curtains are.
As a garment encompasseth the whole body, so do the heavens encircle the
earth.'''" Some say, as a garment is folded up to be laid aside, that when
there is need it may be taken again for use, so shalt thou fold up the hea-
vens like a garment, that when they are repaired, thou mayest again stretch
them out about the earth ; thou shalt fold tbem up, so that what did appear
shall not now appear. It may be illustrated by the metaphor of a scroll or
book, which the Spirit of God useth, Isa. xxxiv. 4, liev. vi. 14, ' The
heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together.' When a book is
rolled up or shut, nothing can be read in it till it be opened again ; so the
face of the heavens, wherein the stars are as letters declaring the glory of
God, shall be sliut or rolled together, so that nothing shall appear till by its
renovation it be opened again. As a garment it shall be changed, not to be
used in the same fashion and for the same use again. It seems indeed to
be for the worse ; an old garment is not changed but into rags, to be put to
other uses, and afterwards thrown upon the dunghill. But similitudes are
not to be pressed too far ; and this will not agree with the new heavens and
new earth, physically so as well as metaphorically so. It is not likely the
heavens will be put to a worse use than God designed them for in creation.
However, a change as a garment speaks not a total corruption, but an altera-
tion of qualities, as a garment, not to be used in the same fashion as before.
We may observe,
1. That it is probable the world shall not be annihilated, but refined. It
shall lose its present form and fashion, but not its foundation. Indeed, as
God raised it from nothing, so he can reduce it into nothing ; yet it doth not
appear that God will annihilate it, and utterly destroy both the matter and
form of it ; part shall be consumed, and part purified: 2 Peter iii. 12, 13,
' The heavens shall be on fire, and dissolved. Nevertheless we, according
to his promise, look for a new heaven and a new earth.' They shall be
melted down, as gold by the artificer, to be refined from its dross, and
wrought into a more beautiful fashion, that they may serve the design of
God for those that shall reside therein ; a new world, wherein righteousness
shall dwell, the apostle opposing it thereby to the old world, wherein
wickedness did reside. The heavens are to be purged, as the vessels that
held the sin-olfering were to be purified by the fire of the sanctuary.
God indeed will take down this scafi"old, which he hath built to publish
his glory. As every individual hath a certain term of its duration, so an
* Estius in Heb. i.
Ps. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OP GOD. 377
end is appointed for the universal nature of heaven and earth : Isa. li. 0,
' The heavens shall vanish like smoke ' which disappears. As smoke is
resolved and attenuated into air, not annihilated, so shall the world assume
a new face, and have a greater clearness and splendour. As the hodies of
men dissolved into dust shall have more glorious qualities at their resurrec-
tion ; as a vessel of gold is melted down to remove the batterings in it, and
receive a more comely form by the skill of the workman.
(1.) The world was not destroyed by the deluge ; it was rather washed by
water than consumed ; so it shall be rather refined by the last fire than lie
under an irrecoverable ruin.
(2.) It is not likely God would liken the everlastingness of his covenant,
and the perpetuity of his spiritual Israel, to the duration of the ordinances
of the heavens (as he doth in Jer. xxxi. 35, 36) if they were wholly to depart
from before him. Though that place may only tend to an assurance of a
church in the world while the world endures, yet it would be but small com-
fort if the happiness of believers should endure no longer than the heavens
and earth, if they were to have a total period.
(3.) Besides, the bodies of the saints must have place for their support to
move in, and glorious objects fitted to those glorious senses which shall be
restored to them. Not in any carnal way, which our Saviour rejects, when
he saith there is no eating, or drinking, or marrying, &c., in the other
world, but whereby they may glorify God ; though how or in what manner
their senses shall be used would be rashness to determine ; only something
is necessary for the corporeal state of men, that there may be an employ-
ment for their senses as well as their souls.
(4.) Again, How could the creature, the world, or any part of it, be said
to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of
the sons of God, if the whole frame of heaven and earth were to be annihi-
lated ? Rom. viii. 21. The apostle also saith that ' the creature waits with
an earnest expectation for this manifestation of the sons of God,' ver. 19,
which would have no foundation if the whole frame should be reduced to
nothing. What joyful expectation can there be in any of a total ruin ? How
should the creature be capable of partaking in this glorious liberty of the
sons of God ?* As the world, for the sin of man, lost its first dignity, and
was cursed after the fall, and the beauty bestowed upon it by creation de-
faced, so it shall recover that ancient glory, when he shall be fully restored
by the resurrection to that dignity he lost by his first sin. As man shall be
freed from his corruptibility, to receive that glory which is prepared for him,
so shall the creatures be freed from that imperfection or corruptibility, those
stains and spots upon the face of them, to receive a new glory suited to their
nature, and answerable to the design of God, when the glorious liberty of
the saints shall be accomplished. f As, when a prince's nuptials are solem-
nised, the whole country echoes with joy, so the inanimate creatures, when
the time of the marriage of the Lamb is come, shall have a delight and
pleasure from that renovation. The apostle sets forth the whole world as a
person groaning, and the Scripture is frequent in such metaphors, as when
the creatures are said to wait upon God, and to be troubled, Ps. civ. 27, 29;
the hills are said to leap, and the mountains to rejoice. The creature is
said to groan, as the heavens are said to declare the glory of God, passively,
naturally, not rationally. It is not likely angels are here meant, though
they cannot but desire it : since they are afiected with the dishonour and
reproach God hath in the world, they cannot but long for the restoration of
his honour, in the restoration of the ci'eature to its true end. And indeed
* Hjper. in Heb. i. t Mestraezat sur Heb. i.
378 charnock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
the angels are employed to serve man in this sinful state, and cannot but in
holiness wish the creature freed from his corruption. Nor is it meant of
the new creatures, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, those he brings
in afterwards, ver. 23, ' groaning,' and ' waiting for the adoption,' where he
distinguisheth the rational creature from the creature he had spoken of
before. If he had meant the believing creature by that creature that desired
the liberty of the sons of God, what need had there been of that additional
distinction, ' and not only they, but we also, who have the first fruits of the
Spirit, groan within ourselves'? whereby it seems he means some crea-
tures below rational creatures, since neither angels nor blessed souls can be
said to travail in pain with that distress as a woman in travail hath, as the
word signifies, who perform the work jo}-fully which God sets them upon.*
If the creatures be subject to vanity by the sin of man, they shall also par-
take of a happiness by the restoration of man. The earth hath both thorns
and thistles and venomous beasts, the air hath had its tempests and infec-
tious qualities, the water hath caused its floods and deluges. The creature
hath been abused to luxury and intemperance, and been tjTannised over by
man, contrary to the end of its creation. It is convenient that some time
should be allotted for the creature's attaining its true end, and that it may
partake of the peace of man, as it hath done of the fruits of his sin ; other-
wise it would seem that sin had prevailed more than grace, and would have
had more power to deface, than grace to restore things into their due order.
(5.) Again, upon what account should the psalmist exhort the heavens to
rejoice and the earth to be glad, when God comes to judge the world with
righteousness, Ps. xcvi. 11-13, if they should be annihilated, and sunk for
ever into nothing ? It would seem, saith Daille, to be an impertinent figure
if the Judge of the world brought them to a total destruction. An entire
ruin could not be matter of triumph to creatures, who naturally have that
instinct or inclination put into them by their Creator to preserve themselves,
and to effect their own preservation.
(6.) Again, the Lord is to rejoice in his works, Ps. civ. 31 : ' The glory
of the Lord shall endure for ever ; the Lord shall rejoice in his works ;' not
hath, but shall rejoice in his works ; in the works of creation, which the
psalmist had enumerated, and which is the whole scope of the psalm. And
he intimates that it is part of the glory of the Lord which endures for ever ;
that is, his manifcstative glory, to rejoice in his works. The glory of the
Lord must be understood with reference to the creation he had spoken of
before. How short was that joy God had in his works, after he had sent
them beautified out of his hand ! How soon did he ' repent' not only ' that
he had made man,' but * was grieved at the heart' also that he made the
other creatures which man's sin had disordered ! Gen. vi. 7. What joy can
God have in them, since the curse upon the entrance of sin into the world
remains upon them ? If they are to be annihilated upon the full restoration
of his holiness, what time will God have to rejoice in the other works of
creation ? It is the joy of God to see all his works in their due order, every
one pointing to their tnie end, marching together in their excellency, accord-
ing to his first intendment in their creation. Did God create the world to
perform its end only for one day ? Scarce so much, if Adam fell the very
first day of his creation. What would have been their end if Adam had been
confirmed in a state of happiness as the angels were, it is likely will be
answered and performed upon the complete restoration of man to that hnppy
state from whence he fell. What artificer compiles a work by his skill but
to rejoice in it ? and shall God have no joy from the works of his hands ?
* MestrjEzat but. Heb. i.
Ps. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 3*79
Since God can only rejoice in goodness, the creatures must have that good-
ness restored to them which God pronounced them to have at the first crea-
tion, and which he ordained them for, before he can again rejoice in his
works. The goodness of the creatures is the glory and joy of God.
Inf. 1. We may infer from hence, what a base and vile thing sin is, which
lays the foundation of the world's change. Sin brings it to decrepit age;
sin overturned the whole work of God, Gen. iii. 17 ; so that to render it
useful to its proper end, there is a necessity of a kind of a new creating it.
This causes God to fire the earth, for a purification of it from that infection
and contagion brought upon it by the apostasy and corruption of man. It
bath served sinful man, and therefore must undergo a purging flame to be
fit to serve the holy and righteous Creator. As sin is so riveted in the body
of man, that there is need of a change by death to rase it out, so hath the
curse for sin got so deep into the bowels of the world, that there is need of
a^change by fire to refine it for its Master's use. Let us look upon sin with
no other notion than as the object of God's hatred, the cause of his grief m
the creatures, and the spring of the pain and ruin of the world.
Inf. 2. How foolish a thing is it to set our hearts upon that which shall
perish, and be no more what it is now ! The heavens and earth, the solidest
and firmest parts of the creation, shall not continue in the posture they are,
they must perish and undergo a refining change. How feeble and weak are
the other parts of the creation, the little creatures walking upon and flutter-
ing about the world, that are perishing and dying every day ; and we scarce
see them clothed with life and beauty this day, but they wither and are de-
spciled of all the next ; and are such frail things fit objects for our everlasting
spirits and affections ? Though the daily employment of the heavens is the
declaration of the glory of God, Ps. xix. 1, yet neither this, nor their har-
mony, order, beauty, amazing greatness and glory of them, shall preserve
them from a dissolution and melting at the presence of the Lord. Though
they have remained in the same posture from the creation till this day, and
are of so great antiquity, yet they must bow down to a change before the
vill and word of their Creator ; and shall we rest upon that which shall
vanish like smoke ? Shall we take any creature for our support, like ice,
that will crack under our feet, and must by the order of their Lord Crea-
tor deceive our hopes ? Perishing things can be no support to the soul ;
if we would have rest, we must run to God and rest in God. How con-
temptible should that be to us, whose fashion shall pass away, which shall
not endure long in its present form and appearance ; contemptible as a rest,
not contemptible as the work of God ; contemptible as an end, not con-
temptible as a means to attain our end. If these must be changed, how-
unworthy are other things to be the centre of our souls, that change m our
very using of them, and slide away in our very enjoyment of them.
' Thou art the same.' The essence of God, with all the perfections of his
nature, are pronounced the same, without any variation from eternity to
eternity. So that the text doth not only assert the eternal duration of God,
but his immutability in that duration ; his eternity is signified in that ex^
pression ' thou shalt endure ;' his immutability in this, ' thou art the same.'
To endure, argues indeed this immutability as well as eternity ; for what
endures is not changed, and what is changed doth not endure. But thou
art the same ; NIH nD^, doth more fully signify it. He could not be the
same if he could be changed into any other thing than what he is, ihe
psalmist therefore puts, not thou hast been or shall be, but thou art the same,
without any alteration ; thou art the same, that is, the same God, the same
* Estius in Heb. i.
380 chaexock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
in essence and nature, the same in will and purpose, thou dost change all
other things as thou pleasest ; but thou art immutable in every respect, and
receivest no shadow of change, though never so light and small. The psalmist
here alludes to the name Jehova/t, 1 am* and doth not only ascribe im-
mutability to God, but exclude everything else from partaking in that per-
fection. All things else are tottering ; God sees all other thmgs in continual
motion under his feet, like water passing away and no more seen, while he
remains fixed and immoveable. His wisdom and power, his knowledge and
will, are always the same. His essence can receive no alteration, neither by
itself nor by any external cause ; whereas other things either naturally de-
cline to destruction, pass from one term to another till they come to their
period ; or shall at the last day be wrapped up, after God hath completed
his will in them and by them ; as a man doth a garment he intends to repair
and transform to another use.
So that in the text God, as immutable, is opposed to all creatures, as
perishing and changeable.
I)oct. God is unchangeable in his essence, nature, and perfections. Im-
mutability and eternity are hnked together ; and indeed true eternity is true
immutability, whence eternity is defined the possession of an immutable life.
Yet immutability difiers from eternity in our conception. Immutability re-
spects the essence or existence of a thing, eternity respects the duration of
a being in that state ; or rather, immutability is the state itself.f eternity is
the measure of that state. A thing is said to be changed, when it is other-
wise now in regard of nature, state, will, or any quality than it was before ;
when either something is added to it or taken from it ; when it either loses
or acquires. But now it is the essential property of God, not to have any
accession to, or diminution of, his essence or attributes, but to remain
entirely the same. He wants nothing, he loses nothing, but doth uniformly
exist by himself, without any new nature, new thought, new will, new pur-
pose, or new place.
This unchangeableness of God was anciently represented by the figure of
a cube, I a piece of metal or wood fi-amed four square ; when every side is
exactly of the same equality, cast it which way you will, it will always be in
the same posture, because it is equal to itself in all its dimensions. He was
therefore said to be the centre of all things, and other things the circumfe-
rence ; the centre is never moved while the circumference is ; it remains
immoveable in the midst of the circle. ' There is no variableness nor shadow
of turning with him,' James i. 17. The moon hath her spots, so hath the
sun ; there is a mixture of light and darkness ; it hath its changes ; some-
times it is in the inci-ease, sometimes in the wane ; it is always either gain-
ing or losing, and by the turnings and motions, either of the heavenly bodies
or of the earth, it is in its eclipse, by the interposition of the earth between
that and the sun. The sun also hath its diurnal and annual motion ; it
riseth and sets, and puts on a different face. It doth not alway shine with a
noonday light ; it is sometimes vailed with clouds and vapours ; it is always
gomg from one tropic to another, whereby it makes various shadows on the
earth, and produceth the various seasons of the year ; it is not always in
our hemisphere, nor doth it always shine with an equal force and brightness
in it. Such shadows and variations have no place in the eternal Father of
lights ; he hath not the least spot or diminution of brightness ; nothing can
cloud him or echpse him. For the better understanding this perfection of
God,
• A>.Xo;c/j(T?W5 yAirrm, above all change, Theodor.
t Gamacheus, J Amyrant sur Heb. ix. p. 153.
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 381
I shall premise three things.
1. The immutability of God is a perfection. Immutability considered in
itself, without relation to other things, is not a perfection. It is the greatest
misery and imperfection of the evil angels, that they are immutable in malice
ngainst God. But as God is infinite in essence, intinitelj'' good, wise, holy ;
so it is a perfection necessary to his nature, that he should be immutably
all this ; all excellency, goodness, wisdom, immutably all that he is ; with-
out this he would 1 c an imperfect being. Are not the angels in heaven,
who are confimied in a holy and happy state, more perfect than when they
were in a possibility of committing evil and becoming miserable ? Are not
the saints in heaven, whose wills by grace do unalterably cleave to God and
goodness, more perfect than if they were as Adam in paradise, capable of
losing' their felicity as well as preserving it ? We count a rock, in regard of
its stability, more excellent than the dust of the ground, or a feather that is
tossed about with every wind. Is it not also the perfection of the body to
have a constant tenor of health, and the glory of a man not to warp aside
fi"om what is just and right, by the persuasions of any temptations ?
2. Immutability is a glory belonging to all the attributes of God. It is
not a single perfection of the divine nature, nor is it limited to particular
objects thus and thus disposed. Mercy and justice have their distinct
objects and distinct acts ; mercy is conversant about a penitent, justice con-
versant about an obstinate, sinner. In our notion and conception of the
divine perfections, his perfections are different ; the wisdom of God is not
his power, nor his power his holiness, but immutability is the centre wherein
they all unite. There is not one perfection but may be said to be, and truly
is, immutable ; none of them will appear so glorious without this beam, the
sun of immutability, which renders them highly excellent without the least
shadow of imperfection. How cloudy would his blessedness be if it were
changeable ; how dim his wisdom if it might be obscured ; how feeble his
power if it were capable to be sickly and languish ; how would mercy lose
much of its lustre if it could change into wrath, and justice much of its dread
if it could be turned into mercy, while the object of justice remains unfit for
mercy, and one that hath need of mercy continues only fit for the divine
fury ? But unchangeableness is a thi-ead that runs through the whole web,
it is the enamel of all the rest ; none of them without it could look with a
triumphant aspect. His power is unchangeable : Isa. xxvi. 4, ' In the Lord
Jehovah is everlasting strength ;' his mercy and his holiness endure for ever;
he never coulfl, nor ever can, look upon iniquity, Hab. i. 13 : he is a rock
in the righteousness of his ways, the truth of his word, the holiness of his
proceedings, and the rectitude of his nature. All are expressed : Deut.
xxxii. 4, ' He is a rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are judgment ;
a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right he is.' All that we con-
sider in God is unchangeable, for his essence and his properties are the same,
and therefore what is necessarily belonging to the essence of God belongs
also to every perfection of the nature of God ; none of them can receive any
addition or diminution. From the unchangeableness of his nature the
apostle James, chap. i. 17, infers the unchangeableness of his holiness, and
himself in Mai. iii. 6, the unchangeableness of his counsel.
3. Unchangeableness doth necessarily pertain to the nature of God. It
is of the same necessity with the rectitude of his nature ; he can no more be
changeable in his essence than he can be unrighteous in his actions. God
is a necessary being ; he is necessarily what he is, and therefore is unchange-
ably what he is. Mutability belongs to contingency ; if any perfection of
his nature could be separated from him, he would cease to be God ; what
382 chaknock's works. [Ps. CII. 2G, 27.
did not possess the wliole nature of God could not have the essence of God ;
it is reciprocated with the nature of God. Whatsoever is immutable by
nature, is God ; whatsoever is God, is immutable by nature. Some creatures
are immutable by his grace and power ;* God is holy, happy, wise, good
by his essence ; angels and men are made hoh', wise, happy, strong, and
good by qualities and graces. The holiness, happiness, and wisdom of
saints and angels, as they had a beginning, so they are capable of increase
and diminution, and of an end also ; for their standing is not from themselves,
or from the nature of created strength, holiness, or wisdom, which in them-
selves are apt to fail and finally to decay, but from the stability and confirma-
tion they have by the gift and grace of God. The heaven and earth shall
be changed, and after that renewal and reparation they shall not be changed.
Our bodies after the resurrection shall not be changed, but far ever be 'made
conformable to the glorious body of Christ,' Philip, iii. 21 ; but this is by the
powerful grace of God : so that, indeed, those things may be said afterwards
rather to be unchanged than unchangeable, because they are not so by
nature, but by sovereign dispensation ; as creatures have not necessary
beings, so they have not necessary immutability. Necessity of being, and,
therefore, immutability of being, belongs by nature to God ; otherwise, if
there were any change in God, he would be sometimes what he was not, and
would cease to be what he was, which is against the nature, and, indeed,
against the natural notion of a Deit}'. Let us see then,
I. In what regards God is immutable,
II. Prove that God is immutable.
III. That this is proper to God and incommunicable to any creature.
IV. Some propositions to clear the unchaugoableness of God from any-
thing that seems contrary to it.
V. The use.
I. First, In what respects God is unchangeable.
1. God is unchangeable in his essence. He is unalterably fixed in his
being, that not a particle of it can be lost from it, nor a mite added to it.
If a man continue in being as long as Methuselah, nine hundred and sixty-
nine years, yet there is not a day, nay, an hour, wherein there is not some
alteration in his substance ; though no substantial part is wanting, yet there
is an addition to him by his food, a diminution of something by his labour;
he is always making some acquisition or sufi'ering some loss ; but in God
there can be no alteration by the accession of anything to make his sub-
stance greater or better, or by diminution to make it less or worse ; he who
hath no being from another cannot but be always what he is. God is the
first being, an independent being ; he was not produced of himself, or of any
other, but by nature always hath been, and therefore cannot by himself, or
by any other, be changed from what he is in his own nature : that which is
not may as well assume to itself a being, as he, who hath and is all being,
have the least change from what he is. Again, because he is a Spirit, he is
not subject to those mutations which are found in corporeal and bodily
natures ; because he is an absolutely simple Spirit, not having the least
particle of composition, he is not capable of those changes which may be
in created spirits.
(1.) If his essence were mutable, God would not truly be. It could not
be truly said by himself, / a)ii that I am, Exod. iii. 14, if he were such a
thing or being at this time, and a difi'erent being at another time. What-
soever is changed properly is not, because it doth not remain to be what it
* Archbold. Scrm.
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 383
was ; that which is changed was something, is something, and will be some-
thing ; a being remains to that thing which is changed, yet, though it may
be said such a thing is, yet it may bo also said such a thing is not, because
it is not what it was in its first being ; it is not now what it was, it is now what
it was not ; it is another thing than it was, it was another thing than it is ;
it will be another thing than what it is or was ; it is indeed a being, but a
different baing from what it was before. But if God were changed, it could
not bo said of him that he is, but it might also be said of him that he is not;
or, if he were changeable or could be changed, it might ba said of him
he is, but be will not be what he is ; or he may not be what he is, but there
will bo or may be some difference in his being, and so God would not be
I am that I am; for though he would not cease utterly to be, yet ho would
cease to be what he was before.
(2.) Again, If his essence were mutable, he could not be perfectly blessed,
and fully rejoice in himself. If he changed for the better, he could not have
an infinite pleasure in what he was before the change, because he was not
infinitely blessed, and the pleasure of that state could not be of a higher
liind than the state itself, or at least the apprehension of a happiness iu it ;
if he changed for the worse, he could not have a pleasure in it after the
change ; for according to the diminution of his state would be the decrease
of his pleasure. Ilis pleasure could not be infinite before the change if he
changed for the better; it could not be infinite after the change if he changed
for the worse. If he changed for the better, he would not have had an
infinite goodness of being before ; and not having an infinite goodness of
being, he would have a finite goodness of being ; for there is no medium
between finite and infinite. Then though the change were for the better,
yet being finite before, something would be still wanting to make him
infinitely blessed ; because being finite, he could not change to that which
is infinite ; fo/ finite and infinite are extremes so distant, that they can
never pass into one another; that is, that that which is finite should become
infinite, or that which is infinite should become finite ; so that supposing
him mutable, his essence in no state of change could furnish him with an
infinite peace and blessedness.
(3.) Again, if God's essence be changed,, he either increaseth or dimi-
nisheth.* Whatsoever is changed doth either gain by receiving something
larger and greater than it had in itself before, or gains nothing by being
changed. If the former, then it receives more than itself, more than it had
in itself before. The divine nature cannot be increased ; for whatsoever
receives anything than what it had in itself before, must necessarily receive
it from another, because nothing can give to itself that which it hath not ;
but God cannot receive from another what he hath not already^,, heca.use
whatsoever other things possess is derived from him, and therefore contained
in him, as the fountain contains the virtue in itself which it conveys to the
streams, so that God cannot gain anything. If a thing that is changed
gain nothing by that change, it loseth something of wliat it had before in
itself, and this loss must be by itself or some other. God cannot receive
any loss from anything in himself; he cannot will his own diminution; that
is repugnant to every nature. He may as well will his own destruction as
his own decrease ; every decrease is a partial destruction; but it is impossible
for God to die any kind of death, to have any resemblance of death, for he
is immortal, and ' only hath immortality,' 1 Tim. vi. 16, therefore impossible
to be diminished in any particle of his essence ; nor can he be diminished
by anything in his own nature, because his infinite simpHcity admits of
* Hugo Victoria, in Petavio.
384 chaenock's works. [Ps. CII, 26, 27.
nothinff distinct from himself, or contrary to himself. All decreases come,
from something contrary to the nature of that thing which doth decrease.
"Whatsoever is made less than itself was not truly unum, one and simple,
because that which divides itself in separation was not the same in con-
junction. Nor can he be diminished by any other without himself, because
nothing is superior to God, nothing stronger than God which can oppress
him ; but whatsoever is changed, is weaker than that which changeth it,
and sinks under a power it cannot successfully resist; weakness belongs not
to the Deity.* Nor, lastly, can God change from a state wherein he is to
another state equal to the former, as men in some cases may do ; for in
passing from one state to another equal to it, something must be parted with
which he had before, that some other thing may accrue to him as a recom-
pence for that loss, to make him equal to what he was. This recompence
then he had not before, though he had something equal to it ; and in this
case it could not be said by God, I am that I am, but I am equal to what I
was ; for in this case there would be a diminution and increase which (as
was shewed) cannot be in God.
(4.) Again, God is of himself, from no other. f Natures, which are made
by God, may increase, because they began to be ; they may decrease,
because they were made of nothing, and so tend to nothing ; the condition
of their originals leads them to defect, and the power of their Creator brings
them to increase. But God hath no original, he hath no defect, because he
was not made of nothing; he hath no increase, because he had no beginning ;
he was before all things, and therefore depends upon no other thing which
by its own change can bring any change upon him.| That which is from
itself cannot be changed, because it hath nothing before it, nothing more
excellent than itself; but that which is from another, as its first cause
and chief good, may be changed by that which was its efficient cause and
last end.
2. God is immutable in regard of knowledge. God hath known from all
eternity all that which he can know, so that nothing is hid from him ; he
knows not at present any more than he hath known from eternity, and that
which he knows now, he always knows: ' All things are open and naked
before him,' Heb. iv. 13. A man is said to be changed in regard of know-
ledge, when he knows that now which he did not know before, or knows
that to be false now which he thought true before, or hath something for
the object of his understanding now, which he had not before ; but
(1.) This would be repugnant to the wisdom and omniscience which be-
longs to the notion of a Deity. That cannot be God that is not infinitely
wise ; that cannot be infinitely wise that is either ignorant of or mistaken
in his apprehension of any one thing. If God be changed in knowledge, it
must be for want of wisdom : all change of this nature in creatures impHes
this defect preceding or accompanying it. Such a thought of God would
have been unworthy of him that is ' only wise,' that hath no mate for wis-
dom, 1 Tim. i. 17, none wise besides himself. If he knew that thing this
day which he knew not before, he would not be an only wise being, for a
being that did know everything at once might be conceived, and so a wiser
being be apprehended by the mind of man. If God understood a thing at
one time which he did not at another, he would be changed from ignorance
to knowledge ; as, if he could not do that this day which he could do to-
morrow, he would be changed from impotence to power. He could not be
always omniscient, because there might be yet something still to come which
* Victorinus in Petavio. % Fetav. torn. i. p. 317.
t Austin. Fulgen in Petavio.
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 385
he yet knows not, though ho may know all things that are past. What way
Boever yon suppose a change, you must suppose a present or a past igno-
rance. If he bo changed in his knowledge for the perfection of his under-
standing, he was ignorant before ; if his understanding be impaired by the
change, he is ignorant after it.
(2.) If God were changeable in his knowledge, it would make him unfit
to be an object of trust to any rational creature. His revelations would want
the due ground for entertainment if his understanding were changeable, for
that might be revealed as truth now which might prove false hereafter, and
that as false now which hereafter might prove true ; and so God would be
an unfit object of obedience in regard of his precepts, and an unfit object of
confidence in regard of his promises ; for if he be changeable in knowledge,
he is defective in knowledge, and might promise that now which he would
know afterwards was unfit to be promised, and therefore unfit to be per-
formed. It would make him an incompetent object of dread in regard of
his threatenings, for he might threaten that now which he might know here-
after were not fit or just to be inflicted. A changeable mind and under-
standing cannot make a due and right judgment of things to be done and
things to be avoided. No wise man would judge it reasonable to trust a
weak and flitting person.
God must needs be unchangeable in his knowledge ; but, as the school-
men say, that as the sun always shines, so God always knows ; as the sun
never ceaseth to shine, so God never ceaseth to know. Nothing can be hid
from the vast compass of his understanding, no more than anything can
shelter itself without the verge of his power. This farther appears in that,
(1.) God knows by his own essence. He doth not know as we do, by
habits, qualities, species, whereby we may be mistaken at one time and rec-
tified at another. He hath not an understanding distinct from his essence,
as we have ; but being the most simple being, his understanding is his
essence ; and as from the infiniteness of his essence we conclude the infinite-
ness of his understanding, so from the unchangeableness of his essence we
may justly conclude the unchangeableness of his knowledge. Since, there-
fore, God is without all composition, and his understanding is not distinct
from his essence, what he knows he knows by his essence ; and there can
then be no more mutability in his knowledge than there can be in his
essence ; and if there were any in that, he could not be God, because he
would have the property of a creature. If his understanding then be his
essence, his knowledge is as necessary, as unchangeable, as his essence. As
his essence eminently contains all perfections in itself, so his understanding
comprehends all things past, present, and future in itself. If his under-
standing and his essence were not one and the same, he were not simple,
but compounded ; if compounded, he would consist of parts ; if he consisted
of parts, he would not be an independent being, and so would not be God.
(2.) God knows all things by one intuitive act. As there is no succession
in his being, so that he is one thing now and another thing hereafter, so
there is no succession in his knowledge. He knows things that are succes-
sive, before their existence and succession, by one single act of intuition.
By one cast of his eye, all things future are present to him in regard of his
eternity and omnipresence ; so that though there is a change and variation
in the things known, yet his knowledge of them and their several changes in
nature is invariable and unalterable. As imagine a creature that could see
with his eye at one glance the whole compass of the heavens ; by sending
out beams from his eye, without receiving any species from them, he would
see the whole heavens uniformly ; this part now in the east, then in the
VOL. I. B b
386 charnock's works. [Ps. CII. 2G, 27.
west, without any change in his eye ; for he sees every part and every mo-
tion together ; and though that great body varies and whirls about, and is
in continual agitation, his eye remains stedfast, suffers no change, beholds
all their motions at once, and by one glance.* God knows all things from
eternity, and therefore perpetually knows them ; the reason is, because the
divine knowledge is infinite : Ps. cxlvii. 5, * His understanding is infinite ;'
and therefore comprehends all knowable truths at once. An eternal know-
ledge comprehends in itself all time, and beholds past and present in the
same manner, and therefore his knowledge is immutable. By one simple
knowledge he considers the infinite spaces of past and future.
(3.) God's knowledge and will is the cause of all things and their succes-
sions. There can be no pretence of any changeableness of knowledge in
God, but in this case, before things come to pass, he knows that they will
come to pass ; after they are come to pass, he knows that they are past and
slid away.f This would be something, if the succession of things wei*e the
cause of the divine knowledge, as it is of our knowledge ; but on the con-
trary, the divine knowledge and will is the cause of the succession of them.
God doth not know creatures because they are, but they are because he
knows them : ' All his works were known to him from the beginning of the
world,' Acts XV. 18. All his works were not known to him, if the events of
all those works were not also known to him. If they were not known to
him, how should he make them ? He could not do anything ignorantly.
He made them then after he knew them, and did not know them after he
made them. His knowledge of them made a change in them ; their existence
made no change in his knowledge. He knew them when they were to be
created, in the same manner that he knew them after they were created ;
before they were brought into act, as well as after they were brought into
act ; before they were made, they were, and were not ; they were in the
knowledge of God when they were not in their own nature. God did not
receive his knowledge from their existence, but his knowledge and will acted
upon them to bring them into being.
(4.) Therefore the distinction of past and future makes no change in the
knowledge of God. When a thing is past, God hath no more distinct
knowledge of it after it is past than he had when it was to come ; all things
were all in their circumstances of past, present, and to come, seen by his
understanding as they were determined by his will ; | besides, to know a
day to be past or future is only to know the state of that day in itself, and
to know its relation to that which follows and that which went before.
This day wherein we are, if we consider it in the state wherein it was yester-
day, it was to come, it was future ; but, if we consider it in that state where-
in it will be to-morrow, we understand it as past. This in man cannot be
said to be a different knowledge of the thing itself, but only of the circum-
stance attending a thing, and the different relation of it ; as I see the suu
this day, I know it was up yesterday, I know it will be up to-morrow, my
knowledge of the sun is the same ; if there be any change, it is in the sun,
not in my knowledge, only I apply my knowledge to such particular circum-
stances. How much more must the knowledge of those things in God be
unchangeable, who knows all those states, conditions, and circumstances
most perfectly from eternity, wherein there is no succession, no past or
future, and therefore will know them for ever ! He always beholds the
same thing ; he sees, indeed, succession in things, and he sees a thing to
be past which before was future ; as from eternity he saw Adam as existing
* Suarez. vol. i. p. 137. f Austin. Bradwardine.
X Gamach. in Aquin. Qu. 9, cap. i. p. 73.
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.] TUE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 887
in such a time ; in the first time ho saw that ho would bo, in the following
timo he saw that he had been ; but this ho know from eternity, this he
knew in the same manner ; though there was a variation in Adam, yet there
was no variation in God's knowledge of him in all his states ; though Adam
was not present to himself, yet in all his states ho was present to God's
eternity.
(5.) Consider that the knowledge of God, in regard of the manner of it,
as well as the objects, is incomprehensible to a finite creature. So that,
though we cannot arrive to a full understanding of the manner of God's
knowledge, yet we must conceive so of it, as to remove all imperfection from
him in it ; and since it is an imperfection to be changeable, we must remove
that from God ; the knowledge of God about things past, present, and future,
must be inconceivably above ours : ' His understanding is inhnito,' Ps.
cxlvii. 5. There is no number of it ; it can no more be calculated or drawn
into an account by us, than infinite spaces, which have no bounds and limits,
can be measured by us. We can no more arrive, even in heaven, to a com-
prehensive understanding of the manner of his knowledge, than of the infi-
nite glory of his essence ; we may as well comprehend one as the other.
This we must conclude, that God being not a body, doth not see one thing
with eyes and another thing with mind, as we do ; but being a Spirit, he
sees and knows only with mind, and his mind is himself, and is as unchange-
able as himself; and therefore, as he is not now another thing than what
he was, so he knows not anything now in another manner than as he knew
it from eternity. He sees all things in the glass of his own essence ; as there-
fore the glass doth not vary, so neither doth his vision.
3. God is unchangeable in regard of his will and purpose. A change in
purpose is, when a man determines to do that now which before he determined
not to do, cr to do the contrary ; when a man hates that thing which he
loved, or begins to love that which he before hated. When the will is
changed, a man begins to will that which he willed not before, and ceaseth
to M'ill that which he willed before. But whatsoever God hath decreed, is
immutable ; whatsoever God hath promised, shall be accomplished : ' The
word that goes forth of his mouth shall not return to him void, but it shall
accomplish that which he pleaseth,' Isa. Iv. 11 ; whatsoever ' he purposeth
he will do,' Isa. xlvi. 11, Num. xxiii. 19. His decrees are therefore called
' mountains of brass,' Zech. vi. 1 : brass, as having substance and solidity ;
mountains, as being immoveable, not only by any creature, but by himself,
because they stand upon the basis of infallible wisdom, and are supported
by uncontrollable power. From this immutability of his will published to
man, there could be no release from the severity of the law, without satisfac-
tion made by the death of a mediator, since it was the unalterable will of
God that death should be the wages of sin ; and from this immutable will it
was, that the length of time from the first promise of the Redeemer to his
mission, and the daily provocations of men, altered not his purpose for the
accomplishment of it in the fulness of that time he had resolved upon ; nor
did the wickedness of former ages hinder the addition of several promises as
buttresses to the first.
To make this out, consider,
(1.) The will of God is the same with his essence. If God had a will
distinct from his essence, he would not be the most simple being. ^ God
hath not a faculty of will distinct from himself. As his understanding is
nothing else but Dens inteUuiens, God understanding, so his will is nothing
else but Deus volens, God willing ; being therefore the essence of God,
though it is considered according to our weakness as a faculty, it is as his
388 chaenock's woeks. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
understanding and wisdom, eternal and immutable, and can no more be
changed than his essence. The immutability of the divine counsel depends
upon that of his essence. He is the Lord Jehovah, therefore he is true to
his word : Mai. iii. 6, Isa. xliii. 13, ' Yea, before the day was, I am he, and
there is none that can deliver out of my hand.' He is the same, immutable
in his essence, therefore irresistible in his power.
(2.) There is a concurrence of God's will and understanding in everything.
As his knowledge is eternal, so is his purpose. Things created had not been
known to be, had not God resolved them to be [by] the act of his will. The
existence of anything supposeth an act of his will. Again, as God knows all
things by one simple vision of his understanding, so he wills all things by
one act of volition ; therefore the purpose of God in the Scripture is not
expressed by counsels, in the plural number, but counsel, shewing that all
the purposes of God are not various, but as one will, branching itself out
into many acts towards the creature, but all knit in one root,-'.= all links of
one chain. Whatsoever is eternal is immutable. As his knowledge is
eternal, and therefore immutable, so is his will. He wills or nills nothing
to be in time, but what he willed and nilled from eternity. If he willed in
time that to be that he willed not from eternity, then he would know that
in time which he knew not from eternity ; for God knows nothing future
but as his will orders it to be future, and in time to be brought into being.
(3.) There can be no reason for any change in the will of God. When
men change in their minds, it must be for want of foresight, because they
could not foresee all the rubs and bars which might suddenly offer them-
selves ; which, if they had foreseen, they would not have taken such mea-
sures. Hence men often will that which they afterwards wish they had not
willed, when they come to understand it clearer, and see that to be injurious
to them which they thought to be good for them ; or else the change pro-
ceeds from a natural instability without any just cause, and an easiness to
be drawn into that which is unrighteous ; or else it proceeds from a want
of power, when men take new counsels, because they are invincibly hindered
from executing the old. But none of those can be in God.
[1.] It cannot be for want of foresight. What can be wanting to an in-
finite understanding ? How can any unknown event defeat his purpose,
since nothing happens in the world but what he wills to effect, or wills to
permit, and therefore all future events are present with him ? Besides, it
doth not consist with God's wisdom to resolve anything but upon the
highest reason ; and what is the highest and infinite reason cannot but be
unalterable in itself, for there can be no reason and wisdom higher than the
highest. All God's purposes are not bare acts of will, but acts of counsel:
Eph. i. 11, ' He works all things according to the counsel of his own will;'
and he doth not say so much that his will as that his ' counsel shall stand,'
Isa. xlvi. 10. It stands because it is coimsel. And the immutabihty of a
promise is called the ' immutability of his counsel,' Heb. vi. 17, as being
introduced and settled by the most perfect wisdom, and therefore to be
carried on to a full and complete execution. His purpose then cannot be
changed for want of foresight, for this would be a charge of weakness.
[2.] Nor can it proceed from a natural instability of his will, or an easi-
ness to be drawn to that which is unrighteous. If his will should not
adhere to his counsel, it is because it is not fit to be followed, or because it
will not follow it. If not fit to be followed, it is a reflection upon his
wisdom ; if it be estabhshed, and he will not follow it, there is a contrariety
in God, as there is in a fallen creature, will against wisdom. That cannot
* Qu. 'knot'?— Ed.
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 389
be in God which ho hates in a creature, viz., the disorder of faculties, and
being out of their due place. The righteousness of God is like a great
mountain, Ps. xxxvi. G. The rectitude of his nature is as immovable in
itself as all the great mountains in the world (are by the strength of man :
* He is not as a man that he should repent or lie,' Num. xxiii. 19, who
often changes out of a perversity of will, as well as want oi wisdom to
foresee, or want of ability to perform. His eternal purpose must either be
righteous or unrighteous; if righteous and holy, he would become unholy
by the change ; if not righteous nor holy, then he was unrighteous before
the change ; which way soever it falls, it would reflect upon the righteous-
ness of God, which is a blasphemous imagination.* If God did change his
purpose, it must be either for the better, then the counsel of God was bad
before ; or for the worse, then he was not wise and good before.
[3.] Nor can it be for want of strength. Who hath power to control him?
Not all the combined devices and endeavours of men can make the counsel
of God to totter: Prov. xix. 21, ' There are many devices in a man's heart,
nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand;' that, and that only,
shall stand. Man hath a power to devise and imagine, but no power to
effect and execute of himself. God wants no more power to effect what he
will, than he wants understanding to know what is fit.
Well, then, since God wanted not wisdom to frame his decrees, nor holi-
ness to regulate them, nor power to effect them, what should make him
change them, since there can be no reason superior to his, no event un-
foreseen by him, no holiness comparable to his, no unrighteousness found
in him, no power equal to his to put a rub in his way ?
(4.) Though the will of God be immutable, yet it is not to be understood
so as that the things themselves so willed are immutable. Nor will the im-
mutability of the things willed by him follow upon the unchangeableness of
his will in willing theiu; though God be firm in willing them, yet he doth
not will that they should ahvay be. God did not perpetually will the
doing! those things which he once decreed to be done. He decreed that
Christ should suffer, but he did not decree that Christ should alway suffer;
so he willed the Mosaical rites for a time, but he did not will that they
should alway continue ; he willed that they should endure only for a time,
and when the time came for their ceasing, God had been mutable if he had
not put an end to them, because his will had fixed such a period. So that
the changing of those things which he had once appointed to be practised,
is so far from charging God with changeableness, that God would be
mutable if he did not take them away, since he decreed as well their aboli-
tion at such a time as their continuance till such a time, so that the removal
of them was pursuant to his unchangeable will and decree. If God had
decreed that such laws should alway continue, and afterwards changed that
decree, and resolved the abrogation of them, then indeed God had been
mutable ; he had rescinded one decree by another, he had then seen an
error in his first resolve, and there must be some weakness in the reason
and wisdom whereon it was grounded.]; But it was not so here, for the
change of those laws is so far from slurring God with any mutability, that
the very change of them is no other than the issue of his eternal decree ;
for from eternity he purposed in himself to change this or that dispensation,
though he did decree to bring such a dispensation into the world. The
decree itself was eternal and immutable, but the thing decreed was tem-
porary and mutable. As a decree from eternity doth not make the thing
decreed to be eternal, so neither doth the immutability of the decree render
* Max. Tyr. diss. iii. t Qu. ' will the perpetual doing'? — En. J Turret., de satisf.
390 charnock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
tlie thing so decreed to be immutable. As, for example, God decreed from
all eternity to create the world, the eternity of this decree did not make the
world to be in being and actually created from eternity; so God decreed
immutably that the world so created should continue for such a time ; the
decree is immutable if the world perish at that time, and would not be
immutable if the world did endure beyond that time that God hath fixed for
the duration of it. As when a prince orders a man's remaining in prison
for so many days, if he be prevailed with to give him a delivery before those
days, or to continue him in custody for the same crime after those days, his
order is changed ; but if he orders the delivery of him just at that time till
which he had before decreed that he should continue in prison, the purpose
and order of the prince remains firm, and the change in the state of the
prisoner is the fruit of that firm and fixed resolution ; so that we must dis-
tinguish between the person decreeing, the decree itself, and the thing
decreed. The person decreeing, viz., God, is in himself immutable, and
the decree is immutable, but the thing decreed may be mutable ; and if it
were not changed according to the first purpose, it would argue the decree
itself to be changed; for whiles a man wills that this may be done now and
another thing done afterwards, the same will remains, and though there be
a change in the efl'ect, there is no change in the will.
(5.) The immutability of God's will doth not infringe the liberty of it.
The liberty of God's will consists with the necessity of continuing his pur-
pose. God is necescarily good, immutably good; j'et he is freely so, and
would not be otherwise than what he is. God was free in his first purpose ;
and purposing this or that by an infallible and unerring wisdom, it would
be a weakness to change the purpose. But indeed the liberty of God's will
doth not seem so much to consist in an indifferency to this or that, as in an
independency on anything without himself. His M'ill was free, because it
did not depend upon the objects about which his will was conversant. To
be immutably good, is no point of imperfection, but the height of perfection.
4. As God is unchangeable in regard of essence, knowledge, purpose, so
he is unchangeable in regard of place. He cannot be changed in time,
because he is eternity; so he cannot be changed in place, because he hath
ubiquity. He is eternal, therefore cannot be changed in time; he is omni-
present, therefore cannot be changed in place ; he doth not begin to be in
one place wherein he was not before, or cease to be in a place wherein he
was before. He that fills every place in heaven and earth, cannot change
place; he cannot leave one to possess another, that is equally in regard
of his essence in all: 'He fills heaven and earth,' Jer. xxiii. 24. The
heavens, that are not subject to those changes to which sublunary bodies are
subject, that are not diminished in quantity or quality, yet they are alway
changing place in regard of their motion ; no part of them doth alway con-
tinue in the same point. But God hath no change of his nature, because
he is most inward in everything. He is substantially in all space, real and
imaginary ; there is no part of the world which he doth not fill ; no place
can be imagined wherein he doth not exist. Suppose a million of worlds
above and about this, encircling one another, his essence would be in
every part and point of those worlds, because it is indivisible, it cannot be
divided; nor can it be contained within those created limits of millions of
worlds, when the most soaring and best coining fancy hath run through all
creatures, to the highest sphere of the heavens, and imagined one world
after another, till it can fancy no more. None of these, nor all of these,
can contain God; for 'the heaven of heavens cannot contain him,' 1 Kings
viii. 27. He is 'higher than heaven, deeper than hell,' Job xi. 8, and
Ps. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 391
possesses infinite imaginary spaces beyond created limits. He who hath
no cause of being, can have no Hmits of being.* And though by creation
he began to be in the world, yet he did not begin to bo where the world is,
but was in the same imaginary space from all eternity ; for he was alway in
himself by his own eternal itbi.
Therefore observe, that when God is said to ' draw near to us' when ' we
draw near to him,' James iv. 8, it is not by local motion or change of place,
but by special and spiritual influences, by exciting and supporting grace.
As we ordinarily say, the sun is come into the house, when yet it remains
in its place and order in the heavens, because the beams pierce through the
windows and enlighten the room, so when God is said to come down or
descend, Gen. xi. 5, Exod. xxxiv. 5, it is not by a change of place, but a
change of outward acts, when he puts forth himself in ways of fresh mercy
or new judgments, in the effluxes of his love or the flames of his wrath.
When good men feel the warm beams of his grace refreshing them, or
wicked men feel the hot coals of his anger scorching them. God's drawing
near to us is not so much his coming to us, but his drawing us to him;t as
when watermen pull a rope that is in one end fastened to the shore and the
other end to the vessel, the shore is immoveable, yet it seems to the eye to
come to them, but they really move to the shore. God is an immoveable
rock, we are floating and uncertain creatures; while he seems to approach
to us, he doth really make us to approach to him. He comes not to us by
any change of place himself, but draws us to him by a change of mind, will,
and affections in us.
II. The second thing propounded is the reasons to prove God immutable.
The heathens J acknowledged God to be so; Plato and the Pythagoreans
called God, or the stable good principle, aurov, idem; the evil principle
sTi^ov, another thing, changeable; one thing one time and another thing an-
other time:§ Daniel vi. 2G, ' He is the living God, and stedfast for ever.'
1. The name Jehovah signifies this attribute : Exod. iii. 14, * I am that
I am ; I am hath sent me to you.' It signifies his immutability as well as
eternity. II I am signifies his etei'nity ; that or the same that I am, his
immutability. As it respects the essence of God, it signifies his unchange-
able being from eternity to eternity ;1[ as it respects the creature, it signifies
his constancy in his counsels and promises, which spring from no other
cause but the unchangeableness of his nature. The reason why men stand
not to their covenant, is because they are not always the same. I am, that
is, I am the same, before the creation of the world, and since the creation
of the world; before the [entrance of sin, and since the entrance of sin;
before their going into Egypt, and whiles they remain in Egypt. The very
name Jehovah bears, according to the grammatical order, a mark of God's
unchangeableness.*'"' It never hath anything added to it, nor anything taken
from it ; it hath no plural number, no aflixes, a custom peculiar to the eastern
languages ; it never changes its letters as other words do. That only is a
true being, which hath not only an eternal existence, but stability in it :
that is not truly a being that never remains in the same state. ft All things
* Gamacheus, ut supra.
t The ancients, as Dionysius, expressed it by this similitude.
X Plato calls God ovaiav 'asi s^n/Msvov, lib. i. de Be,
§ Stabilisque manens dat cuncta moveri. — Boet., Consolat. lib. iii.
II Trap, on Exod. ^ Amyrald. de Trinitat. p. 433.
** Spanheim, Syntag, part i. p. S9.
tt Petav. Theol. Dogmat. torn. i. cap. 6, sect. 6, 7, 8,
392 chaknock's woeks. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
that are changed cease to be what they wei*e, and begin to be what they were
not, and therefore cannot have the title truly applied to them they are ;
they are indeed, but like a river in a continual flux, that no man ever sees
the same ; let his eye be fixed upon one place of it, the water he sees slides
away, and that which he saw not succeeds in its place ; let him take his eye
off but for the least moment, and fix it there again, and he sees not the same
that he saw before. All sensible things are in a perpetual stream ; that
which is sometimes this and sometimes that, is not, because it is not always
the same ; whatsoever is changed, is something now which it was not alway ;
but of God it is said I am, which could not be if he were changeable ; for
it may be said of him he is not, as well as he is, because he is not what he
was. If we say not of him he was, nor he will be, but only he is, whence
should any change arrive ? He must invincibly remain the same, of whose
nature, perfections, knowledge, and will, it cannot be said it ii:as, as if it
were not now in him ; or it sJiall be, as if it were not yet in him ; but he is,
because he doth not only exist, but doth alway exist the same. / am, that
is, I receive from no other what I am in myself. He depends upon no
other in his essence, knowledge, purposes, and therefore hath no changing
power over him.
2. If God were changeable, he could not be the most perfect being. God
is the most perfect being, and possesses in himself infinite and essential good-
ness : Mat. v. 48, ' Your heavenly Father is perfect.' If he could change
from that perfection, he were not the highest exemplar and copy for us to
write after. If God doth change, it must be either to a greater perfection
than he had before, or to a less, mututio jicrj'ectiva vel amissiva ; if he changes
to acquire a perfection he had not, then he was not before the most excel-
lent being necessarily ; he was not what he might be ; there was a defect in
him, and a privation of that which is better than what he had and was, and
then he was not alway the best, and so was not alway God ; and being not
alway God, could never be God ; for to begin to be God is against the
notion of God. Not to a less perfection than he had ; that were to change
to imperfection, and to lose a perfection which he possessed before, and
cease to be the best being ; for he would lose some good which he had, and
acquire some evil which he was free from before. So that the sovereign perfec-
tion of God is an invincible bar to any change in him ; for which way soever
you cast it for a change, his supreme excellency is impaired and nulled by
it ; for in all change there is something from which a thing is changed, and
something to which it is changed : so that on the one part there is a loss of
what it had, and on the other part there is an acquisition of what it had not.
If to the better, he was not perfect, and so was not God ; if to the worse,
he will not be perfect, and so be no longer God after that change.
If God be changed, his change must be voluntary or necessary ; if volun-
tary, he then intends the change for the better, and chose it to acquire a
perfection by it. The will must be carried out to anything under the notion
of some goodness in that which it desires. Since good is the object of the
desire and will of the creature, evil cannot be the object of the desire and
will of the Creator. And if he should be changed for the worse when he did
really intend the better, it would speak a defect of wisdom, and a mistake of
that for good which was evil and imperfect in itself; and if it be for the bet-
ter, it must be a motion or change for something without himself; that
which he desireth is not possessed by himself but by some other. There is
then some good without him and above him, which is the end in this change;
for nothing acts but for some end, and that end is within itself or without
itself. If the end for which God changes be without himself, then there is
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 398
something better than himself. Besides, if he were voluntarily changed for
the better, why did he not change before ? If it were for want of power, he
had the imperfection of weakness ; if for want of knowledge of what was the
best good, he had the imperfection of wisdom, he was ignorant of his own
happiness ; if he had both wisdom to know it, and power to effect it, it must
be for want of will. He then wanted that love to himself and his own glory,
which is necessary in the supreme being. Voluntarily he could not be
changed for the worse, he could not be such an enemy to his own glory ;
there is nothing but would hinder its own imperfection and becoming worse.
Necessarily he could not be changed, for that necessity must arise from him-
self, and then the difficulties spoken of before will recur ; or it must arise
from another. He cannot be bettered by another, because nothing hath any
good but what it hath received from the hands of his bounty, and that
without loss to himself: nor made worse. If anything made him worse, it
would be sin, but that cannot touch his essence or obscure his glory, but in
the design and nature of the sin itself: Job xxxv. 6, 7, * If thou sinnest,
what dost thou against him ? or if thy transgressions be multiplied, what
dost thou unto him ? If thou be righteous, what givest thou him ? or what
receives he at thy hand ?' He hath no addition by the service of man, no
more than the sun hath of light by a multitude of torches kindled on the
earth ; nor any more impair by the sins of men, than the light of the sun
hath by men's shooting arrows against it.
3. God were not the most simple being if he were not immutable.* There
is in everything that is mutable a composition, either essential or accidental ;
and in all changes something of the thing changed remains, and something
of it ceaseth and is done away ; as, for example, in an accidental change, if
a white wall be made black, it loses its white colour ; but the wall itself,
which was the subject of that colour, remains, and loses nothing of its sub-
stance. Likewise, in a substantial change, as when wood is burnt, the sub-
stantial part of wood is lost, the earthly part is changed into ashes, the airy
part ascends in smoke, the watery part is changed into air by the fire.
There is not an annihilation of it, but a resolution of it into those parts
whereof it was compounded ; and this change doth evidence that it was com-
pounded of several parts distinct from one another. If there were any
change in God, it is by separating something from him, or adding some-
thing to him : if by separating something from him, then he was com-
pounded of something distinct from himself; for if it were not distinct from
himself, it could not be separated from him without loss of his being ; if by
adding anything to him, then it is a compounding of him, either substantially
or accidentally.
Mutability is absolutely inconsistent with simplicity, whether the change
come from an internal or external principle. If a change be wrought by
something without, it supposeth either contrary or various parts in the thing
so changed, whereof it doth consist ; if it be wrought by anything within, it
supposeth that the thing so changed doth consist of one part that doth change
it, and another part that is changed, and so it would not be a simple being.
If God could be changed by anything within himself, all in God would not
be God ; his essence would depend upon some parts, whereof some would
be superior to others. If one part were able to change or destroy another,
that which doth change would be God, that which is changed would not be
God; so God would be made up of a deity and a non-deity, and part of God
would depend upon God ; part would be dependent, and part would be
independent ; part would be mutable, part immutable ; so that mutability
* Gamach. in Prim. Part. Aquin. quest. 9, cap. 1, part. 72.
394 chaenock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
is against the notion of God's independency as well as his simplicity.* God
is the most simple being ; for that which is first in nature, having nothing
beyond it, cannot by any means be thought to be compounded ; for whatso-
ever is so depends upon the parts whereof it is compounded, and so is not
the first being. Now God being infinitely simple, hath nothing in himself
which is not himself, and therefore cannot will any change in himself, he
being his own essence and existence.
4. God were not eternal if he were mutable. In all change there is
something that perishes, either substantially or accidentally. All change is
a kind of death, or imitation of death ; that which was, dies, and begins to
be what it was not. The soul of man, though it ceaseth not to be and exist,
yet when it ceaseth to be in quality what it was, it is said to die. Adam
died when he changed from integrity to corruption, though both his soul
and body were in being, Gen, ii. 17 ; and the soul of a regenerate man is
said to 'die to sin,' Rom. vi. 11, when it is changed from sin to grace.
In all change there is a resemblance of death : so the notion of mutability
is against the eternity of God. If anything be acquired by a change, then
that which is acquired was not from eternity, and so he was not wholly
eternal; if anything be lost which was from eternity, he is not wholly ever-
lasting ; if he did decrease by the change, something in him which had no
beginning would have an end ; if he did increase by that change, something
in him would have a beginning that might have no end.f What is changed
doth not remain, and what doth not remain is not eternal. Though
God alway remains in regard of existence, he would be immortal and live
alway ; yet if he should suffer any change he could not properly be eternal,
because he would not alway be the same, and would not in every part be
eternal ; for all change is finished in time, one moment preceding, another
moment following, but that which is before time cannot be changed by time.
God cannot be eternally what he was ; that is, he cannot have a true
eternitj^ if he had a new knowledge, new purpose, a new essence ; if he
were sometimes this and sometimes that, sometimes know this and some-
times know that, sometimes purpose this and afterwards hath a new pur-
pose, he would be partly temporary and partly eternal, not truly and
universally eternal. He that hath anything of newness, hath not properly
and truly an entire eternity. Again, by the same reason that God could in
the least cease to be what he was, he might also cease wholly to be, and no
reason can be rendered why God might not cease wholly to be, as well as
cease to be entirely and uniformly what he was. All changeableness im-
plies a corruptibility.
5. If God were changeable, he were not infinite and almighty. All change
ends in addition or diminution ; if anything be added, he was not infinite
before ; if anything be diminished, he is not infinite after. All change implies
bounds and limits to that which is changed; but God is infinite, 'his great-
ness is unsearchable,' Ps. cxlv. 3, "IpH ]''^i, no end, no term. We can add
number to number without any end, and can conceive an infinite number,
yet the greatness of God is beyond all our conceptions. But if there could
be any change in his greatness for the better, it would not be unsearchable
before that change; if for the worse, it would not be unsearchable after that
change. Whatsoever hath limits and is changeable, is conceivable and
searchable ; but God is not only not known, but impossible in his own
nature to be known and searched out, and therefore impossible to have any
* Ficinus Zachar. Mitylen. in Peta., torn. i. p. 169.
t Austin in Pet., torn, i. p. 201.
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 395
diminution in his nature. All that which is changed arrives to something
which it was not before, or ceaseth in part to be what it was before.
He would not also bo almighty. What is omnipotent cannot be made
worse ; for to be made worse, is in part to be corrupted. If he be made
better, he was not almighty before; something of power was wanting to him.
If there should be any change, it must proceed from himself or from another:
if from himself, it would be an inability to preserve himself in the perfection
of his nature; if from another, ho would bo inferior in strength, knowledge,
and power to that which changes him, either in his nature, knowledge, or
will; in both an inability ; an inability in him to continue the same, or an
inability in him to resist the power of another.
6. The world could not be ordered and governed but by some principle or
being w^hich were immutable. Principles are alway more fixed and stable
than things which proceed from those principles, and this is true both iu
morals and naturals. Principles in conscience, whereby men are governed,
remain firmly engraven in their minds. The root lies firmly in the earth,
while branches are shaken with the wind. The heavens, the cause of
generation, are more firm and stable than those things which are wrought
by their influence. All things in the world are moved by some power and
virtue which is stable ; and unless it were so, no order would be observed in
motion, no motion could be regularly continued. He could not be a full
satisfaction to the infinite desire of the souls of his people. Nothing can
truly satisfy the soul of man but rest, and nothing can give it rest but that
which is perfect, and immutably perfect ; for else it would be subject to
those agitations and variation which the being [it] depends upon is subject to.
The principle of all things must be immutable,* which is described by some
by a unit, the principle of number, wherein there is a resemblance of God's
unchangeableness. A unit is not variable, it continues in its own nature
immutably an unit ; it never varies from itself, it cannot be changed from
itself, but is as it were so omnipotent towards others, that it changes all
numbers ; if you add any number, it is the beginning of that number, but
the unit is not increased by it ; a new number ariseth from that addition,
but the unit still remains the same, and adds a value to other figures, but
receives none fi'om them.
III. The third thing to speak to is,
That immutability is proper to God, and incommunicable to any creature.
Mutabihty is natural to every creature as a creature, and immutability is the
sole perfection of God. He only is infinite wisdom, able to foreknow future
events ; he only is infinitely powerful, able to call forth all means to effect ;
so that wanting neither wisdom to contrive, nor strength to execute, he
cannot alter his counsel. None being above him, nothing in him contrary
to him, and being defective in no blessedness and perfection, he cannot vary
in his essence and nature. Had not immutability as well as eternity been
a property solely pertaining to the divine nature, as well as creative power
and eternal duration, the apostle's argument to prove Christ to be God
from this perpetual sameness, had come short of any convincing strength.
These words of the text he applies to Christ : Heb. i. 10-12, ' They shall
be changed, but thou art the same.' There had been no strength in the
reason, if immutabiUty by nature did belong to any creature.
The changeableness of all creatures is evident.
1. Of corporeal creatures it is evident to sense. All plants and animals,
as they have their duration bounded in certain limits, so while they do exist
♦ Fotherby, Atheomastix., p. 308 ; Gerhard, loc. com.
396 chaenock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
they proceed from their rise to their fall ; they pass through many sensible
alterations, from one degree of growth to another, from buds to blossoms,
from blossoms to flowers and fruits ; they come to their pitch that nature
hath set them, and return back to the state from whence they sprung; there
is not a day but they make some acquisition, or suffer some loss ; they die
and spring up every day ; nothing in them more certain than their incon-
stancy : * The creature is subject to vanity,' Rom. viii. 20. The heavenly
bodies are changing their place ; the sun every day is running his race, and
stays not in the same point ; and though they are not changed in their
essence, yet they are in their place ; some indeed say there is a continual
generation of light in the sun, as there is a loss of light by the casting out
its beams, as in a fountain there ,is a flowing out of the streams, and a
continual generation of supply. And though these heavenly bodies have
kept their standing and motion from the time of their creation, yet both the
sun's standiug still in Joshua's time, and its going back in Hezekiah's
time, shew that they are changeable at the pleasure of God.
But in man the change is perpetually visible ; every day there is a change
from ignorance to knowledge, from one will to another, from passion to
passion, sometimes sad, and sometimes cheerful, sometimes craving this
and presently nauseating it. His body changes from health to sickness, or
from weakness to strength ; some alteration there is either in body or mind.
Man, who is the noblest creature, the subordinate end of the creation of
other things, cannot assure himself of a consistency and fixedness in any-
thing the short space of a day, no, not of a minute ; all his months are
' months of vanity,' Job vii. 3 ; whence the psalmist calls man, * at the
best estate, altogether vanity,' Ps. xxxix. 5, a mere heap of vanity. As he
contains in his nature the nature of all creatures, so he inherits in his nature
the vanity of all creatures. A little world, the centre of the world, and of
the vanity of the world ; yea, * lighter than vanity,' Ps. Ixii. 9 ; more move-
able than a feather ; tossed between passion and passion ; daily changing
his end, and changing the means ; an image of nothing.
2. Spiritual natures, as angels. They change not in their being, but that
is from the indulgence of God ; they change not in their goodness, but that
is not from their nature, but divine grace in their confirmation ; but they
change in their knowledge, they know more by Christ than they did by
creation, 1 Tim. iii. IG. They have an addition of knowledge every day, by
the providential dispensations of God to his church, Eph. iii. 10, and the
increase of their astonishment and love is according to the increase of their
knowledge and insight. They cannot have a new discovery without new
admirations of what is discovered to them. There is a change in their joy
when there is a change in a sinner, Luke xv. 10. They were changed in
their essence when they were made such glorious spirits of nothing. Some
of them were changed in their will, when of holy they became impure. The
good angels were changed in their understandings when the glories of God
in Christ were presented to their view ; and all can be changed in their
essence again ; and as they were made of nothing, so, by the power of God,
may be reduced to nothing again. So glorified souls shall have an un-
changed operation about God, for they shall behold his^face without any
grief or fear of loss, without vagrant thoughts ; but they can never be un-
changeable in their nature, because they can never pass from finite to
infinite.
No creature can be unchangeable in its nature.
(1.) Because every creature rose from nothing. As they rose from no-
thing, so they tend to nothing, unless they are preserved by God. The
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.J THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 397
notion of a creature speaks changeableness, because, to bo a creature, is to
be made something of nothing, and therefore creation is a change of nothing
into something. The being of a creature begins from change, and therefore
the essence of a creature is subject to change. God only is uncreated, and
therefore unchangeable. If ho were made, ho could not be immutable, for
the very making is a change of not being into being. All creatures were
made good, as they were the fruits of God's goodness and power, but must
needs be mutable, because they were the extracts of nothing.
(2.) Because every creature depends purely upon the will of God. They
depend not upon themselves, but upon another for their being. As they
received their being from the word of his mouth and the arm of his power,
so by the same word they can be cancelled into nothing, and return into as
little significancy as when they were nothing. He that created them by a
word, can by a word destroy them, Ps. civ. 29. If God should ' take away
their breath, they die, and return into their dust.' As it was in the power
of the Creator that things might be before they actually were, so it is in the
power of the Creator that things, after they are, may cease to be what they
are, and they are in their own nature as reducible to nothing as they were
producible by the power of God from nothing; for there needs no more than
an act of God's will to null them, as there needed only an act of God's will
to make them. Creatures are all subject to a higher cause. They are all
* reputed as nothing. He doth according to his will in the armies of heaven,
and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or say
unto him what doest thou' ? Dan. iv. 35. But God is unchangeable, be-
cause he is the highest good; none above him, all below him; all dependent
on him, himself upon none.
(3.) No creature is absolutely perfect. No creature can be so perfect, or
can ever be, but something by the infinite power of God may be added to it;
for whatsoever is finite may receive greater additions, and therefore a change.
No creature you can imagine, but in your thoughts you may fancy him
capable of greater perfections than you know he hath, or than really he
hath. The perfections of all creatures are searchable, the perfection of God
is only unsearchable. Job xi. 6, and therefore he only immutable.
God only is always the same. Time makes no addition to him, nor
diminisheth anything of him. His nature and essence, his wisdom and will,
have always been the same from eternity, and shall be the same to eternity,
without any variation.
rV. The fourth thing propounded, is some propositions to clear this un-
changeableness of God from anything that seems contrary to it.
1. There was no change in God when he began to create the world in
time. The creation was a real change, but the change was not subjectively
in God, but in the creature; the creature began to be what it was not before.
Creation is considered as active or passive ;* active creation is the will and
power of God to create ; this is from eternity, because God willed from
eternity to create in time. This never had beginning, for God never began
in time to understand anything, to will anything, or to be able to do any-
thing ; but he alway understood, and alway willed, those things which he
determined from eternity to produce in time. The decree of God may be
taken for the act decreeing, that is eternal and the same ; or for the object
decreed, that is in time ; so that there may be a change in the object, but
not in the will whei-eby the object doth exist.
^ (1.) There was no change in God by the act of creation, because there
* Gamacb. in part i. Aquin. Qu. 9, cap. i. p. 72.
398 charnock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
was no new will in liim. There was no new act of bis will which was not
before. The creation begun in time, but the will of creating was from eter-
nity. The work was new, but the decree whence that new work sprung was
as ancient as the Ancient of days. When the time of creating came, God
was not made ex nolcnte volens, as we are ; for whatsoever God willed to be
now done, he willed from eternity to be done ; but he willed also that it
should not be done till such an instant of time, and that it should not exist
before such a time. If God had willed the creation of the world only at that
time when the world was produced, and not before, then, indeed, God had
been changeable. But though God spake that word which he had not spoke
before, whereby the world was brought into act, j'et he did not will that will
he willed not before. God did not create by a new counsel or new will, but
by that which was from eternity, Eph. i. 9. All things are wrought accord-
ing to that * piirpose in himself,' and ' according to the counsel of his will,'
ver. 11 ; and as the holiness of the elect is the fruit of his eternal will ' before
the foundation of the world,' ver. 4, so likewise is the existence of things,
and of those persons whom he did elect. As when an artificer frames a
bouse or a temple according to that model he had in his mind some years
before, there is no change in the model in his mind, the artificer is the
same, though the work is produced by him some time after he had framed
that copy of it in his own mind ; but there is a change of the thing produced
by him according to that model. Or when a rich man intends, four or five
years hence, if he lives, to build an hospital, is there any change in his will
when, after the expiration of that time, he builds and endows it ? Though
it be after his will, yet it is the fruit of his precedent will ; so God from all
eternity did will and command that the creatures should exist in such a part
of time ; and by this eternal will all things, whether past, present, or to
come, did, do, and shall exist at that point of time which that will did ap-
point for them. Not as though God had a new will when things stood up
in being, but only that which was prepared in his immutable counsel and
will from eternity doth then appear. There can be no instant fixed from
eternity wherein it can be said God did not will the creation of the world ;
for had the will of God for the shortest moment been undetermined to the
creation of the world, and afterwards resolved upon it, there had been a
moral change in God from not willing to willing ; but this there was not, for
God executes nothing in time which he had not ordained from eternity, and
appointed all the means and circumstances whereby it should be brought
about ; as the determination of our Saviour to sufier was not a new will, but
an eternal counsel, and wrought no change in God, Acts ii. 23.
(2.) There is no change in God by the act of creation, because there was
no new power in God. Had God had a will at the time of the creation,
which he had not before, there had been a moral change in him ; so had
there been in him a power only to create then and not before ; there had
been a physical change in him from weakness to ability. There can be no
more new power in God than there can be a new will in God ; for his will
is his power, and what he willeth to eff'ect that he doth effect. As he was
unchangeably holy, so he was unchangeably almighty, ' which was, and is, and
is to come,' Rev. iv. 8 ; which was almighty, and is almighty, and ever will
be almighty. The work, therefore, makes no change in God, but there is a
change in the thing wrought by that power of God. Suppose you had a
seal engraven upon some metal a hundred years old, or as old as the crea-
tion, and you should this day, so many ages after the engraving of it, make
an impression of that seal upon wax, would you say the engravement upon
the seal were changed because it produced that stamp upon the wax now
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 399
■which it did not before ? No ; the change is purely in the wax, which
receives a new figure or form by the impression ; not in the seal, that was
capable of imprinting the same long before. God was the same from
eternity as he was when he made a signature of himself upon the creatures
by creation, and is no more changed by stamping them into several forms,
than the seal is changed by making impression upon the wax. As when a
house is enlightened by the sun, or that which was cold is heated by it, there
is a change in the house from darkness to light, from coldness to heat, but
is there any change in the light and heat of the sun ? There is a change
in the thing enlightened or warmed by that light and heat which remains
fixed and constant in the sun, which was as capable in itself to produce the
same effects before as at that instant when it works them. So when God is
the author of a new work, he is not changed, because he works it bv an
eternal will and an eternal power.
(3.) Nor is there any new relation acquired by God by the creation of
the world. There was a new relation acquired by the creature ; as when a
man sins, he bath another relation to God than he had before ; he hath
relation to God as a criminal to a judge ; but there is no change in God, but
in the malefactor. The being of men makes no more change in God than
the sins of men. As a tree is now on our right hand, and by our turning
about it is on our left hand, sometimes before us, sometimes behind us,
according to our motion near it or about it, and the turning of the body.
There is no change in the tree, which remains firm and fixed in the earth ;
but the change is wholly in the posture of the body, whereby the tree may
be said to be before us or behind us, or on the right hand or on the left
hand.* God gained no new relation of Lord or Creator by the creation ; for
though he had created nothing to rule over, yet he had the power to create
and rule though he did not create and rule. As a man may be called a
skilful writer though he does not write, because he is able to do it when he
pleases ; or a man skilful in physic is called a physician though he doth not
practise that skill, or discover his art in the distribution of medicines, be-
cause he may do it when he pleases, it depends upon his own will to shew
his art when he has a mind to it, so the name Creator and Lord belongs to
God from eternity, because he could create and rule though he did not
create and rule. But howsoever, if there were any such change of relation, that
God may be called Creator and Lord after the creation and not before, it is
not a change in essence, nor in knowledge, nor in will ; God gains no per-
fection nor diminution by it, his knowledge is not increased by it ; he is no
more by it than he was and will be if all those things ceased ; and therefore
Austin illustrates it by this similitude : as a piece of money, when it is
given as the price of a thing, or deposited only as a pledge for the security
of a thing borrowed, the coin is the same and is not changed, though the
relation it had as a pledge and as a price be different from one another, so
that suppose any new relation be added, yet there is nothing happens to the
nature of God which may infer any change.
2. The second proposition. There was no change in the divine nature of
the Son when he assumed human nature. There was an union of the two
natures, but no change of the Deity into the humanity, or of the humanity
into the Deity, both preserved their peculiar properties. The humanity was
changed by a communication of excellent gifts from the divine nature, not
by being brought into an equality with it ; for that was impossible that a
creature should become equal to the Creator. He ' took the form of a ser-
vant,' but he lost not the form of God, he despoiled not himself of the per-
* Petav. Theol. Dogmat., torn. i. lib.
400 charnock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
fections of the Deity ; he was indeed ' emptied, and became of no reputation,'
Philip, ii. 7, but he did not cease to be God, though he was reputed to be
only a man, and a very mean one too. The glory of his divinity was not
extinguished nor diminished, though it was obscured and darkened under
the veil of our infirmities ; but there was no more change in the hiding of
it than there is in the body of the sun when it is shadowed by the inter-
position of a cloud. His blood, while it was pouring out from his veins,
was the blood of God, Acts xx. 28 ; and therefore, when he was bowing the
bead of his humanity upon the cross, he had the nature and perfections of
God ; for had he ceased to be God, he had been a mere creature, and his
sufferings would have been of as little value and satisfaction as the suffer-
ings of a creature.
He could not have been a sufficient mediator had be ceased to be God ;
and he had ceased to be God had he lost any one perfection proper to the
divine nature ; and losing none, he lost not this of unchangeableness, which
is none of the meanest belonging to the Deity. Why, by his union with the
human nature, should he lose this any more than he lost his omniscience,
which he discovered by his knowledge of the thoughts of men ; or his mercy,
which he manifested to the height in the time of his suffering ? That is
truly a change, when a thing ceaseth to be what it was before. This was
not in Christ. He assumed our nature without laying aside his own.*
"When the soul is united to the body, doth it lose any of those perfections
that are proper to its nature ? Is there any change either in the substance
or qualities of it ? No ; but it makes a change in the body ; and of a dull
lump it makes it a living mass, conveys vigour and strength to it, and by
its power quickens it to sense and motion. So did the divine nature and
human remain entire, there was no change of the one into the other, as
Christ by a miracle changed water into wine, or men by art change sand or
ashes into glass. And when he prays for ' the glory he had with God before
the world was,' John xvii. 5, he prays that a glory he had in his Deity might
shine forth in his person as Mediator, and be evinced in that height and
splendour suitable to his dignity, which had been so lately darkened by his
abasement ; that as he had appeared to be the Son of man in the infirmity
of the flesh, he might appear to be the Son of God in the glory of his per-
son, that he might appear to be the Son of God and the Son of man in one
person.
Again, there could be no change in this unionf ; for in a real change
something is acquired which was not possessed before, neither formally nor
eminently ; but the divinity had from eternity before the incarnation, all
the perfections of the human nature eminently in a nobler manner than they
'are in themselves, and therefore could not be changed by a real union.
3. The third proposition. Repentance and other affections ascribed to
God in Scripture argue no change in God. We often read of God's repent- ■
ing, repenting of the good he promised, Jer. xviii. 10, and of the evil he
threatened, Exod. xxxii. 14, or of the work he hath wrought, Gen. vi. 6.
We must observe therefore that
(1.) Repentance is not properly in God. He is a pure Spirit, and is not
capable of those passions which are signs of weakness and impotency, or
subject to those regrets we are subject to. Where there is a proper repent-
ance, there is a want of foresight, an ignorance of what would succeed, or a
defect in the examination of the occurrences which might fall within con-
sideration. All repentance of a fact is grounded upon a mistake in the
* Zanch. de Immutab. Dei. Goulart Immutab. de Dieu.
t Gamach. in part. 1, Aquin. qu. 9, cap. 1.
Ps. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 401
event which was not foreseen, or upon an after knowledge of the evil of the
thing which was acted by the person repenting. But God is so wise
that he cannot err, so holy he cannot do evil, and his certain prescience
or foreknowledge secures him against any unexpected events. God doth
not act but upon clear and infallible reason. And a change upon passion
is accounted by all so great a weakness in man, that none can entertain so
unworthy a conceit of God. Where he is said to repent, Gen. vi. G, he is
also said to grieve ; now no proper gi-ief can be imagined to be in God. As
repentance is inconsistent with infallible foresight, so is grief no less incon-
sistent with undefiled blessedness : * God is blessed for ever,' Rom. ix, 8,
and therefore nothing can befall him that can stain that blessedness ; his
blessedness would be impaired and interrupted, while ho is repenting,
though he did soon rectify that which is the cause of his repentance : * God
is of one mind, and who can turn him? what his soul desires, that he doth,'
Job xxiii. 13.
2. But God accommodates himself in the Scripture to our weak capacity.
God hath no more of a proper repentance than he hath of a real body :
though he, in accommodation to our weakness, ascribes to himself the
members of our bodies to set out to our understanding the greatness of his
perfections, we must not conclude him a body like us ; so, because he is
said to have anger and repentance, we must not conclude him to have pas-
sions like us. When we cannot fully comprehend him as he is, he clothes
himself with our nature in his expressions, that we may apprehend him as
we are able, and, by an inspection into ourselves, learn something of the
nature of God ; yet those human ways of speaking ought to be understood in a
manner agreeable to the infinite excellency and majesty of God, and are only
designed to mark out something in God which hath a resemblance v/ith some-
thing in us. As we cannot speak to God as gods, but as men, so we cannot
understand him speaking to us as a God, unless he condescends to speak to
us like a man. God therefore frames his language to our dulness, not to
his own state, and informs us, by our own phrases, what he would have us
learn of his nature, as nurses talk broken language to young children. In
all such expressions, therefore, we must ascribe the perfection we conceive
in them to God, and lay the imperfection at the door of the creature.
3. Therefore repentance in God is only a change of his outward conduct,
according to his infallible foresight and immutable will. He changes the
way of his providential proceeding according to the carriage of the creature,
without changing his will, which is the rule of his providence. When God
Bpeaks of his repenting that he had made man. Gen, vi. 6, it is only his chang-
ing his conduct from a way of kindness to a way of severity, and is a word
suited to our capacities, to signif}' his detestation of sin and his resolution
to punish it, after man had made himself quite another thing than God had
made him. ' It repents me,' that is, I am purposed to destroy the world, as
he that repents of his work throws it away ; -'■ as if a potter cast away the
vessel he had framed, it were a testimony that he repented that ever he
took pains about it ; so the destruction of them seems to be a repentance
in God that ever he made them, it is a change of events, not of counsels.
Repentance in us is a grief for a former fact, and a changing of our course
in it. Grief is not in God,f but his repentance is a willing a thing should
not be as it was, which will was fixed from eternity ; for, God foreseeing
man would fall, and decreeing to permit it, he could not be said to repent
in time of what he did not repent from eternity ; and, therefore, if there
were no repentance in God from eternity, there could be none in time ; but
* Mercer in loc. t Petavius Theol. Dogmat
VOL. I. CO
402 charnock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
God is said to repent when he changes the disposition of afitiirs without
himself; as men when they repent alter the course of their actions, so God
alters things extra se, or without himself, but changes nothing of his own
purpose within himself ; it rather notes the action he is about to do than
anything in his own nature, or any change in his eternal purpose. God's
repenting of his kindness is nothing but an inflicting of punishment, which
the creature, by the change of his carriage, hath merited ; as his repenting
of the evil threatened is the withholding the punishment denounced, when
the creature hath humbly submitted to his authority and acknowledged his
crime.
Or else we may understand those expressions of joy, and grief, and re-
pentance to signify thus much,* that the things declared to be the objects
of joy, and grief, and repentance are of that nature that if God were capable
of our passions he would discover himself in such cases as we do ; as when
the prophets mention the joys and applaudings of heaven, earth, and the
sea, they only signify that the things they speak of are so good, that, if the
heavens and the sea had natures capable of joy, they would express it upon
that occasion in such a manner as we do ; so would God have joy at the
obedience of men, and grief at the unworthy carriage of men, and repent of
his kindness when men abuse it, and repent of his punishment when men
reform under his rod, were the majesty of his nature capable of such
affections.
Prop. 4. The not fulfilling of some predictions in Scripture, which seem
to imply a changeableness of the divine will, do not argue any change in it.
As when he reprieved Hezekiah from death, after a message sent by the
prophet Isaiah that he should die, 2 Kings xx. 1, 5, Isa. xxxviii. 1, 5, and
when he made an arrest of that judgment he had threatened by Jonah against
Nineveh, Jonah iii. 4, 10.
There is not, indeed, the same reason of promises and threatenings alto-
gether, for in promising the obligation lies upon God, and the right to de-
mand is in the party that performs the condition of the promise ; but in
threatenings the obligation lies upon the sinner, and God's right to punish
is declared thereby ; so that, though God doth not punish, his will is not
changed, because his will was to declare the demerit of sin, and his right
to punish upon the commission of it, though he may not punish, according
to the strict letter of the threatening, the person sinning, but relax his own
law for the honour of his attributes, and transfer the punishment from the
offender to a person substituted in his room ; this was the case in the first
threatening against man, and the substituting a surety in the place of the
malefactor.
But the answer to these cases is this,t that where we find predictions in
Scripture declared and yet not executed, we must consider them not as
absolute, but conditional, or, as the civil law calls it, an interlocutory
sentence. God declared what would follow by natural causes, or by the de-
merit of man, not what he would absolutely himself do ; and in many of
those predictions, though the condition be not expressed, yet it is to be
understood ; so the promises of God are to be understood with the condi-
tion of perseverance in well-doing, and threatenings with a clause of revoca-
tion annexed to them, provided that men repent. And this God lays down
as a general case, alway to be remembered as a rule for the interpreting
his threatenings against a nation, and the same reason will hold in threaten-
ings against a particular person : Jer. xviii. 7—10, ' At what instant
I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up,
* Daille, in Sermon on 2 Peter iii. 9, p. 60. t Kivet in Genes, exercita. 51, p. 213.
Ps. CII. 26, 27.J THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 403
and pull down, and destroy it ; if that nation against whom I have pro-
nounced turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do
unto them ; ' and so, when ho speaks of planting a nation, if they do evil
he will repent of the good, &c. It is a universal rule by which all particular
cases of this nature are to be tried, so that when man's repentance arrives,
God remains firm in his first will, always equal to himself, and it is not he
that changes, but man ; for since the interposition of the mediator, with an
eye to whom God governed the world after the f\xll, the right of punishing
was taken off if men repented, and mercy was to flow out, if, by a conversion,
men returned to their duty, Ezek. xviii, 20, 21. This I say is grounded
upon God's entertaining the mediator, for the covenant of works discovered
no such thing as repentance or pardon. Now these general rules are to be
the interpreters of particular cases, so that predictions of good are not to
be counted absolute, if men return to evil ; nor predictions of evil, if men
be thereby reduced to a repentance of their crimes.
So Nineveh shall be destroyed, that is, according to the general rule, unless
the inhabitants repent, which they did ; they manifested a belief of the
threatening, and gave glory to God by giving credit to the prophet ; and
they had a notion of this rule God lays down in the other prophets, for
they had an apprehension that, upon their humbling themselves, they might
escape the threatened vengeance, and stop the shooting those arrows that were
ready in the bow.* Though Jonah proclaimed destruction without declaring
any hopes of an arrest of judgment, yet their natural notions of God afforded
some natural hopes of relief, if they did their duty, and spurned not against
the prophet's message ; and therefore, saith one, God did not always ex-
press this condition, because it was needless ; his own rule revealed in
Scripture was sufficient to some, and the natural notion all men had of God's
goodness upon their repentance made it not absolutely necessary to declare
it ; and, besides, saith he, it is bootless, the expressing it can do but little
good ; secure ones will repent never the sooner, but rather presume upon
their hopes of God's forbearance, and linger out their repentance till it be
too late ; and to work men to repentance, whom he hath purposed to spare,
he threatens them with terrible judgments, which, by how much the more
terrible and peremptory they are, are likely to be more effectual for the end
God in his purpose designs them, viz. to humble them under a sense of
their demerit, and an acknowledgment of his righteous justice, and therefore,
though they be absolutely denounced, yet they are to be conditionally in-
terpreted, with a reservation of repentance. As for that answer which one
gives, that by forty days was not meant forty natural days, but forty pro-
phetical days, that is, years, a day for year ; and that the city was destroyed
forty years after by the Medes ; the expression of God's repenting upon
their humiliation puts a bar to that interpretation. God repented, that is,
he did not bring the punishment upon them according to those days the
prophet had expressed, and therefore forty days are to be understood ; and
if it were meant of forty years, and they were destroyed at the end of that
term, how could God be said to repent, since, according to that, the punish-
ment threatened was, according to the time fixed, brought upon them ? And
the destruction of it forty years after will not be easily evinced, if Jonah
lived in the time of Jeroboam the Second, king of Israel, as he did, 2 Kings
xiv. 25 ; and Nineveh was destroyed in the time of Josiah, king of Judah.
But the other answer is plain : God did not fulfil what he had threatened,
because they reformed what they had committed. When the threatening
was made, they were a fit object for justice ; but when they repented, they
* Sanderson's Sermon, part. ii. p. 157, 158.
404 charnock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27
were a fit object for a merciful respite. To threaten when sins are high, is
a part of God's justice ; not to execute when sins are revoked by repentance,
is a part of God's goodness. And in the case of Hezekiah, 2 Kings xx. 1, 5,
Isa. xxxviii. 1, 5, Isaiah comes with a message from God, that he should
' set his house in order, for he shall die ;' that is, the disease was mortal,
and no outward applications could in their own nature resist the distemper.
' Behold I will add to thy days iifteen yeai's ; I will heal thee.' It seems
to me to be one entire message, because the latter part of it was so suddenly
after the other committed to Isaiah, to be delivered to Hezekiah ; for he was
not gone out of the king's house before he was ordered to return with the
news of his health, by an extraordinary indulgence of God against the power
of nature and force of the disease : ' Behold, I will add to thy life,' noting
it an extraordinaiy thing. He was in the second court of the king's house
when this word came to him, 2 Kings xs. 4 ; the king's house having three
courts, 80 that he was not gone above half-way out the palace. God
might send this message of death, to prevent the pride Hezekiah might
swell with for his deliverance from Sennacherib : as Paul had a messenger
of Satan to buffet him, to prevent his lifting up, 2 Cor. xii. 7 ; and this
good man was subject to this sin, as we find afterwards in the case of the Baby-
lonish ambassadors ; and God delaj-ed this other part of the message to
humble him, and draw out his pra3'er ; and, as soon as ever he found
Hezekiah in this temper, he sent Isaiah with a comfortable message of
recovery, so that the wiU of God was to signify to him the mortality of his
distemper, and afterwards to relieve him by a message of an extraordinary
recovery.
Prop. 5. God is not changed, when of loving to any creatures he be-
comes angry with them, or of angry he becomes appeased. The change in
these cases is in the creature ; according to the alteration in the creature, it
stands in a various relation to God ; an innocent creature is the object of
his kindness, an offending creature is the oliject of his anger ; there is a
change in the dispensation of God, as there is a change in the creature,
making himself capable of such dispensations. God always acts according
to the immutable nature of his holiness, and can no more change in his
affections to good and evil, than he can in his essence. When the devils
now fallen stood as glorious angels, they were the objects of God's love,
because holy. When they fell, they were the objects of God's hatred, be-
cause impure ; the same reason which made him love them while they were
pure, made him hate them when they were criminal. The reason of his
various dispensations to them was the same in both, as considered in God,
his immutable holiness, but as respecting the creature different ; the nature
of the creature was changed, but the divine holy nature of God remained the
same. ' With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure, and with the froward
thou wilt shew thyself froward,' Ps. xviii. 26. He is a refreshing light to
those that obey him, and a consuming fire to those that resist him. Though
the same angels were not always loved, yet the same reason that moved him
to love them, moved him to hate them. It had argued a change in God, if
he had loved them ahvay, in whatsoever posture they were towards him. It
could not be counted love, but a weakness and impotent fondness ; the
change is in the object, not in the affection of God. For the object loved
before is not beloved now, because that which was the motive of love, is not
now in it. So that the creature having a different state from what it had,
falls under a different affection or dispensation.
It had been a mutable affection in God, to love that which was not worthy
of love, with the same love wherewith he loved that which had the greatest
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 405
resemblance to himself. Had God loved the fallen angels in that state and
for that state, he had hated himself, because he had loved that which was
contrary to himself and the image of his own holiness, which made them
appear before good in his sight. The will of God is unchangeably set to
love righteousness and hate iniquity, and from this hatred to punish it.
And if a righteous creature contracts the wrath of God, or a sinful creature
hath the communications of God's love, it must be by a change in themselves.
Is the sun changed when it hardens one thing and softens another, accord-
ing to the disposition of the several subjects ? or when the sun makes a
flower more fragrant, and a dead carcass more noisome ? There are diverse
effects, but the reason of that diversity is not in the sun, but in the subject ;
the sun is the same, and produceth those different effects, by the same quality
of heat. So if an unholy soul approach to God, God looks angrily upon
him ; if a holy soul come before him, the same immutable perfection in
God draws out his kindness towards him. As some think, the sun would
rather refresh than scorch us, if our bodies were of the same nature and
substance with that luminai'y.
As the will of God for creating the world was no new, but an eternd
will, though it manifested itself in time, so the will of God for the punish-
ment of sin, or the reconciliation of the sinner, was no new will, though
his wrath in time break out in the effects of it upon sinners, and his love
flows out in the effects of it upon penitents. Christ by his death reconciling
God to man, did not alter the will of God, but did what was consonant_ to
his eternal will. He came not to change his will, but to execute his will :
• Lo I come to do thy will, 0 God,' Heb. x. 7. And the grace of God in
Christ was not a new grace, but an old grace in a new appearance ; ' the
grace of God hath appeai'ed,' Titus ii, 11.
Prop. 6. A change of laws by God argues no change in God, when God
abrogates some laws which he had settled in the church, and enacts others.
I spake of this something the last day ; I shall only add this, God commanded
one thing to the Jews, when the church was in an infant state, and removed
those laws when the church came to growth. The elements of the world
were suited to the state of children, Gal. iv. 3. A mother feeds not the
infant with the same diet as she doth when it is grown up. Our Saviour
acquainted not his disciples with some things at one time which he did at
another, because they were not able to bear them. Where was the change,
in Christ's will, or in their growth from a state of weakness to that of
strength ? A physician prescribes not the same thing to a person in health,
as he doth to one conflicting with a distemper ; nor the same thing in the
beginning, as he doth in the state or declination of the disease. The
physician's will and skill are the same, but the capacity and necessity
of "the patient for this or that medicine or method of proceeding are [not]
the same.
When God changed the ceremonial law, there was no change in the divine
will, but an execution of his will. For when God commanded the observance
of the law, he intended not the perpetuity of it ; nay, in the prophet he
declares the cessation of it ; he decreed to command it, but he decreed to
command it only for such a time ; so that the abrogation of it was no less
an execution of his decree, than the establishment of it for a season was.
The commanding of it was pursuant to his decree for the appointing of it,
and the nulling of it was pursuant to his decree of continuing it only for
such a season. So that in all this there was no change in the will of God.
The counsel of God stands sure ; what changes soever there are in the
world, are not in God or his will, but in the events of things, and the dif-
406 charnock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
ferent relations of things to God ; it is in the creature, not in the Creator.
The sun alway remains of the same hue, and is not discoloured in itself,
because it shines green through a green glass, and blue through a blue glass ;
the different colours come from the glass, not from the sun. The change
is alway in the disposition of the creatui'e, not in the nature of God or
his will.
V. Use 1. For information.
1. If God be unchangeable in his nature, and immutability be a property
of God, then Christ hath a divine nature. This in the psalm is applied to
Christ in the Hebrews, Heb. i. 11, where he joins the citation out of this
psalm with that out of Ps. xlv. 6, 7, ' Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and
ever : thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity : therefore God, even
thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows ; and
thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth,' &c. As
the first must necessarily be meant of Christ the mediator, — and therein
he is distinguished from God, as one anointed by him, — so the other must
be meant of Christ, whereby he is made one with God in regard of the crea-
tion and dissolution of the world, in regard of eternity and immutability.
Both the testimonies are linked together by the copulative and : * And thou
Lord,' declaring thereby that they are both to be understood of the same
person, the Sou of God. The design of the chapter is to prove Christ to be
God ; and such things are spoken of him as could not belong to any creature,
no, not to the most excellent of angels. The same person that is said to
be anointed above his fellows, and is said to lay the foundation of the earth
and heavens, is said to be * the same,' that is, the same in himself. The
prerogative of sameness belongs to that person, as well as creation of heaven
and earth.
The Socinians say it is spoken of God, and that God shall destroy the
heavens by Christ ; if so, Christ is not a mere creature, not created when
he was incarnate ; for the same person that shall change the world, did
create the world. If God shall change the world by him, God also created
the world by him. He was then before the world was ; for how could God
create the world by one that was not ? that was not in being till after the
creation of the world ? The heavens shall be changed, but the person who
is to change the heavens is said to be the same, or unchangeable, in the crea-
tion as well as the dissolution of the world. This sameness refers to the
whole sentence.
The psalm wherein the text is,-:= and whence this in the Hebrews is cited,
is properly meant of Christ, and redemption by him, 'and the completing of
it at the last day, and not of the Babylonish captivity. That captivity was
not so deplorable as the state the psalmist describes. Daniel and his com-
panions flourished in that captivity. It could not reasonably be said of them,
' that their days were consumed like smoke,' their ' heart withered like
grass ;' that they ' forgot to eat their bread,' as it is, ver. 3, 4 ; besides, he
complains of shortness of Hfe, ver. 11. But none had any more reason to
complain of that in the time of the captivity, than before and after it, than
at any other time. Their deliverance would contribute nothing to the natural
length of their lives ; besides, when Sion should be built, the ' heathen
should fear the name of the Lord' (that is, worship God), ' and all the kings
of the earth his glory,' ver. 15. The rearing the second temple after the
deliverance did not proselyte the nations ; nor did the kings of the earth wor-
ship the glory of God ; nor did God appear in such glory at the erecting the
* Placeus de Deitate Cliristi.
Ps. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 407
second temple. The second temple was less glorious than the first, for it
wanted some of the ornaments which were the glory of the first. But it is
said of this state, that ' when the Lord should build up Sion, he should
appear in his glory,' ver. IG, his proper glory, and extraordinary glory.
Now that God, who shall appear in glory and build up Sion, is the Son of
God, the Redeemer of the world ; he builds up the church, he causes the
nations to fear the Lord, and the kings of the earth his glory. He broke
down the partition wall, and opened a door for the entrance of the Gentiles.
He struck the chains from ofi" the prisoners, and ' loosed those that were
appointed to death' by the curse of the law, ver. 20. And to this person is
ascribed the creation of the world ; and he is pronounced to remain the
same in the midst of an infinite number of changes in inferior things. And
it is likely the psalmist considers not only the beginning of redemption, but
the completing of it at the second coming of Christ ; for he complains of
those evils which shall be removed by his second coming, viz., the shortness
of life, persecutions, and reproaches, wherewith the church is afflicted in
this world ; and comforts not himself with those attributes which are directly
opposed to sin, as the mercy of God, the covenant of God, but with those
that are opposed to mortality and calamities, as the unchangeableness and
eternity of God ; and from thence infers a perpetual establishment of
believers : ' The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall
be established before thee,' ver. 28 ; so that the psalm itself seems to aim
in the whole discourse at Christ, and asserts his divinity, which the apostle,
as an interpreter, doth fully evidence ; applying it to him, and manifesting
his deity by his immutability as well as eternity. While all other things
lose their forms, and pass through multitudes of variations, he constantly
remains the same, and shall be the same, when all the empires of the world
shall slide away, and a period be put to the present motions of the creation.*
And as there was no change made in his being by the creation of things, so
neither shall there be by the final alteration of things ; he shall see them
finish, as he saw them rise up into being, and be the same after their reign
as he was before their original ; he is ' the first and the last,' Rev. i. 17.
2. Here is ground and encouragement for worship. An atheist will
make another use of this. If God be immutable, why should we worship
him, why should we pray to him ? Good will come if he wills it, evil can-
not be averted by all our supplications, if he hath ordered it to fall upon us.
But certainly, since unchangeableness in knowing, and willing goodness
is a perfection, an adoration and admiration is due to God, upon the
account of this excellence. If he be God, he is to be reverenced, and the
more highly reverenced, because he cannot but be God.
Again, what comfort could it be to pray to a god, that, like the chameleon,
changed colours every day, every moment ? What encouragement could there
be to lift up our eyes to one that were of one mind this day, and of another
mind to-morrow ? Who would put up a petition to an earthly prince that
were so mutable as to grant a petition one day, and deny it another, and
change his own act ? But if a prince promise this or that thing upon such
or such a condition, and you know his promise to be as unchangeable as the
laws of the Medes and Persians, would any man reason thus ; — because it is
unchangeable, we will not seek to him, we will not perform the condition
upon which the fruit of the proclamation is to be enjoyed ? — Who would not
count such an inference ridiculous ? What blessings hath not God pro-
mised upon the condition of seeking him ? Were he of an unrighteous
nature, or changeable in his mind, this would be a bar to our seeking him,
* Daille, Melang. des Sermons, part ii. sect. i. p. 8-10, &c.
408 charnock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
and frustrate our hopes. But since it is otherwise, is not this excellency of
his nature the highest encouragement to ask of him the blessings he hath
promised, and a beam from heaven to fire our zeal in asking ? If you
desire things against his will, which he hath declared he will not grant,
prayer then would be an act of disobedience, an injury to him, as well as an
act of folly in itself; his unchangeableness then might stifle such desires.
But if we ask according to his will, and according to our reasonable wants,
what ground have we to make such a ridiculous argument ? He hath willed
everythiiig that may be for our good, if we perform the condition he hath
required ; and hath put it upon record, that we may know it and regulate
our desires and supplications according to it. If we will not seek him, his
immutability cannot be a bar, but our own folly is the cause ; and by our
neglect we despoil him of this perfection as to us, and either imply that he
is not sincere, and means not as he speaks ; or that he is as changeable as
the wind, sometimes this thing, sometimes that, and not at all to be con-
fided in. If we ask according to his revealed will, the unchangeableness of
his nature will assure us of the grant ; and what a presumption would it be
in a creature dependent upon his sovereign, to ask that which he knows he
has declared his will against, since there is no good we can want but he
hath promised to give, upon our sincere and ardent desire for it.
God hath decreed to give this or that to man, but conditionally, and by
the means of inquiring after him, and asking for it: Ezek. xxxvi.'ST, Mat.
vii. 7, * Ask, and you shall receive ;' as much as to say. You shall not receive
unless you ask. When the highest promises are made, God expects they
shall be put in suit. Our Saviour joins the promise and the petition
together, the promise to encourage the petition, and the petition to enjoy
the promise. He doth not say, perhaps it shall be given, but it shall, that
is, it certainly shall ; your heavenly Father is unchangeably willing to give
you those things. We must depend upon his immutability for the thing,
and submit to his wisdom for the time. Prayer is an acknowledgment of
our dependence upon God, which dependence could have no firm foundation
without unchangeableness. Prayer doth not desire any change in God, but
is ofiered to God that he would confer those things which he hath immu-
tably willed to communicate ; but he willed them not without prayer as the
means of bestowing them. The light of the sun is ordered for our comfort,
for the discovery of visible things, for the ripening the fruits of the earth ;
but withal -it is required that we use our faculty of seeing, that we employ
our industry in sowing and planting, and expose our fruits to the view of the
sun, that they may receive the influence of it. If a man shuts his eyes, and
complains that the sun has changed into darkness, it would be ridiculous ;
the sun is not changed, but we alter ourselves. Nor is God changed in not
giving us the blessings he hath promised, because he hath promised in the
way of a due address to him, and opening our souls to receive his influence ;
and to this, his immutability is the greatest encouragement.
3. This shews how contrary man is to God, in regard of his inconsti\ncy.
What an infinite distance is there between the immutable God and mutable
man, and how should we bewail this flittingness in our nature !
There is a mutability in us as creatures, and a creature cannot but be
mutable by nature, otherwise it were not a creature, but God. The establish-
ment of any creature is from grace and gift. Naturally we tend to nothing,
as we come from nothing. This creature-mutabihty is not our sin, yet it
should cause us to lie down under a sense of our own nothingness in the
presence of the Creator. The angels, aff creatures, though not corrupt,
cover their faces before him. And the arguments God uses to humble Job,
Ps. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 409
though a fallen creature, are not from his corruption, for I do not remember
that he taxed him with that, but from the gi-eatncss of his majesty, and
excellency of his nature declared in his works. Job xxxviii.-xli. And there-
fore men that have no sense of God, and humility before him, forget that
they are creatures, as well as corrupt ones.
How great is the distance between God and us in regard of our incon-
stancy in good, which is not natural to us by creation ! For the mind and
aflections were regular, and by the great Artificer were pointed to God as
the object of knowledge and love. We have the same faculties of under-
standing, will, and affection as Adam had in innocence ; but not with the
same light, the same bias, and the same ballast. Man, by his fall, wounded
his head and heart ; the wound in his head made him unstable in the truth,
and that in his heart unstedfast in his affections. He changed himself from
the image of God to that of the devil, from innocence to corruption, and
from an ability to be stedfast to a perpetual inconstancy. His ' silver be-
came dross, and his wine was mixed with water,' Isa. i. 22. He changed,
(1.) To inconstancy in truth, opposed to the immutability of knowledge
in God. How are our minds floating between ignorance and knowledge !
Truth in us is like those ephemera, creatures of a day's continuance, springs
up in the morning and expires at night. How soon doth that fly away from
us which we have had, not only some weak flashes of, but which we have
learned and had some relish of ! The devil ' stood not in the truth,' John
■viii. 44, and therefore manages his engines to make us as unstable as him-
self. Our minds reel, and corrupt reasonings oversway us ; like sponges
we suck up water, and a light compression makes us spout it out again.
Truths are not engraven upon our hearts, but writ as in dust, defaced by the
next puff of wind : ' carried about with every wind of doctrine,' Eph. iv. 14,
like a ship without a pilot and sails, at the courtesy of the next storm ; or
like clouds, that are tenants to the wind and sun, moved by the wind, and
melted by the sun. The Galatians were no sooner called into the grace of
God, but they were removed from it. Gal. i. 6. Some have been reported
to have menstnunn Jidem, kept an opinion for a month, and many are like
him that believed the soul's immortality no longer than he had Plato's book
of that subject in his hand.* One likens such to children ; they play with
truths as children do with babies, one while embrace them, and a little after
throw them into the dirt. How soon do we forget what the truth is
delivered to us, and what it represented us to be ! James i. 23, 24. Is it
not a thing to be bewailed, that man should be such a weather-cock, turned
about with every breath of wind, and shifting aspects as the wind shifts
points?
(2.) Inconstancy in will and aflections, opposed to the immutability of will
in God. We waver between God and Baal ; and while we are not only
resolving, but upon motion a little way, look back with a hankering after
Sodom ; sometimes lifted up with heavenly intentions, and presently cast
down with earthly cares ; like a ship that by an advancing wave seems to
aspire to heaven, and the next fall of the wave makes it sink down to the
depths. We change purposes oftener than fashions, and our resolutions are
like letters in water, whereof no mark remains. We will be as John to-day
to love Christ, and as Judas to-moiTow to betray him, and by an unworthy
levity pass into the camp of the enemies of God; resolved to be as holy as
angels in the morning, when the evening beholds us as impure as devils.
How often do we hate what before we loved, and shun what before we longed
for ! And our resolutions are like vessels of crystal, which bresk at the
* Sedgwick, Christ's Counsel, p. 230.
410 chaknock's wokks. [Ps, CII. 26, 27.
first knock, are dashed in pieces by the next temptation. Saul resolved
not to persecute David any more, but you soon find him upon his old game.
Pharaoh more than once promised, and probably resolved, to let Israel go ;
but at the end of the storm his purposes vanish, Exod. viii. 27, 32. When
an affliction pincheth men, they intend to change their course, and the next
news of ease changes their intentions ; like a bow, not fully bent in their
inclinations, they cannot reach the mark, but live many years between reso-
lutions of obedience and afiections to rebellion, Ps. Ixxviii. 17 ; and what
promises men make to God are often the fruit of their passion, their fear,
not of their will. The Israelites were startled at the terrors wherewith the
law was delivered, and promised obedience, Exod. xx. 19 ; but a month
after forgat them, and made a golden calf, and in the sight of Sinai call for
and dance before their gods, Exod. xxxii. Never people more inconstant.
Peter, who vowed an allegiance to his Master, and a courage to stick to
him, forswears him almost with the same breath. Those that cry out with
a zeal, ' The Lord he is God,' shortly after return to the service of their
idols, 1 Ivings xviii. 39. That which seems to be our pleasure this day, is
our vexation to-morrow. A fear of a judgment puts us into a religious
pang, and a love to our lusts reduceth us to a rebellious inclination ; as
soon as the danger is over, the saint is forgotten. Salvation and damnation
present themselves to us, touch us, and engender some weak wishes, which
are dissolved b}' the next allurements of a carnal interest. No hold can be
taken of our promises, no credit is to be given to our resolutions.
(3.) Inconstancy in practice. How much beginning in the Spirit and
ending in the flesh ; one day in the sanctuary, another in the stews ; clear in
the morning as the sun, and clouded before noon ; in heaven by an excellency
of gifts, in hell by a course of profancness ! Like a flower, which some
mention, that changes its colour three times a day, one part white, then
purple, then yellow. The spirit lusts against the flesh, and the flesh
quickly triumphs over the spirit. In a good man, how often is there a
spiritual lethargy ! Though he doth not openly defame God, yet he doth
not always glorify him ; he doth not forsake the truth, but he doth not
always make the attainment of it, and settlement in it, his business. This
levity discovers itself in religious duties : ' When I would do good, evil is
present with me,' Rom. vii. 21. Never more present than when we have a
mind to do good, and never more present than when we have a mind to do
the best and greatest good. How hard is it to make our thoughts and afiec-
tions keep their stand ! Place them upon a good object, and they will be
frisking from it, as a bird from one bough, one fruit to another. We vary
postures according to the various objects we meet with. The course of the
world is a very airy thing, suited to the uncertain motions of that prince of
the power of the air which works in it, Eph. ii. 2.
This ought to be bewailed by us. Though we may stand fast in the truth,
though we may spin our resolutions into a firm web, though the spirit may
triumph over the flesh in our practice, yet we ought to bewail it, because
inconstancy is our nature, and what fixedness we have in good is from grace.
What we find practised by most men, is natural to all.* ' As face answers
to face in a glass, so doth heart to heart,' Prov. xxvii. 19 : a face in the glass
is not more like a natural face, whose image it is, than one man's heart is
naturally like another.
First, It is natural to those out of the church. Nebuchadnezzar is so
afi"ected with Daniel's prophetic spirit, that he would have none accounted
the true God, but the God of Daniel, Dan. ii. 47. How soon doth this
* Lawrence of Faith, p. 262.
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 411
notion slip from him, and an image must be set up for all to worship, upon
pain of a most cruel, painful death ! Daniel's God is quite forgotten. The
miraculous deUverance of the three children for not worshipping his image,
makes him settle a decree to secure the honour of God from the reproach of
his subjects, Dan. iii. 29 ; yet a little while after, you have him strutting in
his palace, as if there were no God but himself.
Secondly, It is natural to those in the church. The Israelites were the
only church God had in the world, and a notable example of inconstancy.
After the miracles of Egj-pt, they murmured against God, when they saw
Pharaoh marching with an army at their heels. They desired food, and
soon nauseated the manna they were before fond of. When they came into
Canaan, they sometimes worshipped God, and sometimes idols, not only the
idols of one nation, but of all their neighbours. In which regard God calls
this his heritage a speckled bird, Jer. xii. 9, a peacock, saith Jerome, incon-
stant, made up of varieties of idolatrous colours and ceremonies.
This levity of spirit is the root of all mischief : it scatters our thoughts in
the service of God ; it is the cause of all revolts and apostasies from him ; it
makes us unfit to receive the communications of God ; whatsoever we hear
is like words writ in sand, ruffled out by the next gale ; whatsoever is put
into us is like precious Hquour in a palsy hand, soon spilt. It breeds dis-
trust of God ; when we have an uncertain judgment of him, we are not like
to confide in him. An uncertain judgment will be followed with a distrust-
ful heart. In fine, where it is prevalent, it is a certain sign of ungodliness ;
to be driven with the wind like chaff, and to be ungodly, is all one in the
judgment of the Holy Ghost : Ps. i. 4, ' The ungodly are like the chaff which
the wind drives away,' which signifies not their destruction, but their dispo-
sition, for their destruction is inferred from it, ver. 5, ' Therefore the ungodly
shall not stand in judgment.'
How contrary is this to the unchangeable God, who is always the same,
and would have us the same, in our religious promises and resolutions for good !
4. If God be immutable, it is sad news to those that are resolved in
wickedness, or careless of returning to that duty he requires. Sinners
must not expect that God will alter his will, make a breach upon his nature,
and violate his own word, to gratify their lusts. No ; it is not reasonable
God should dishonour himself to secure them, and cease to be God, that
they may continue to be wicked, by changing his own nature, that they may
be unchanged in their vanity. God is the same ; goodness is as amiable in
his sight, and sin as abominable in his eyes now, as it was at the beginning
of the world. Being the same God, he is the same enemy to the wicked, as
the same friend to the righteous ; he is the same in knowledge, and cannot
forget sinful acts ; he is the same in will, and cannot approve of unrighteous
practices ; goodness cannot but be alway the object of his love, and wicked-
ness cannot but be alway the object of his hatred ; and as his aversion to
sin is alway the same, so as he hath been in his judgments upon sinners,
the same he will be still ; for the same perfection of immutability belongs to
bis justice for the punishment of sin, as to his holiness for his disaflection to
sin. Though the covenant of works was changeable by the crime of man
violating it, yet it was unchangeable in regard of God's justice vindicat-
ing it, which is inflexible in the punishment of the breaches of his
law. The law had a preceptive part, and a minatory part ; when man
changed the observation of the precept, the righteous nature of God could
not null the execution of the threatening ; he could not upon the account of
this perfection neglect his just word, and countenance the unrighteous
transgression. Though there were no more rational creatures in being but
412 ciiarnock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
Adam and Eve, yet God subjected them to that death he had assured them
of; and from this immutability of his will ariseth the necessity of the
suflfering of the Son of God for the relief of the apostate creature. His will
in the second covenant is as unchangeable as that in the first, only repent-
ance is settled as the condition of the second, which was not indulged in the
first ; and without repentance the sinner must irrevocably perish, or God
must change his nature. There must be a change in man, there can be
none in God: ' His bow is bent, his arrows are ready, if the wicked do not
turn,' Ps. vii. 12. There is not an atheist, an hypocrite, a profane person,
that ever was upon the earth, but God's soul abhorred him as such, and the
like he will abhor for ever. While any therefore continue so, they may
sooner expect the heavens should roll as they please, the sun stand still at
their order, the stars change their course at their beck, than that God should
change his nature, which is opposite to profaneness and vanity : ' Who hath
hardened himself against him, and hath prospered ?' Job ix. 4.
Use 2. Of comfort.
The immutability of a good God is a strong ground of consolation. Sub-
jects wish a good prince to live for ever, as being loath to change him, but
care not how soon they are rid of an oppressor. This unchangeableness of
God's will shews him as ready to accept any that come to him as ever he
was, so that we may with confidence make our addresses to him, since he
cannot change his aflections to goodness. The fear of change in a friend
hinders a full reliance upon him ; an assurance of stability encourages hope
and confidence. This attribute is the strongest prop for faith in all our
addresses; it is not a single perfection, but the glory of all those that belong
to his nature ; for he is ' unchangeable in his love,' Jer. xxxi. 3 ; ' in his
truth,' Ps. cxvii. 2. The more solemn revelation of himself in this name
Jehovah, which signifies chiefly his eternity and immutability, was to sup-
port the Israelites' faith, in expectation of a deliverance from Egypt, that
he had not retracted his purpose, and his promise made to Abraham for
giving Canaan to his posterity. Exod. iii. 14-17. Herein is the basis and
strength of all his promises ; therefore saith the psalmist, ' Those that know
thy name will put their trust in thee,' Ps. ix. 10 ; those that are spiritually
acquainted with thy name Jehovah, and have a true sense of it upon their
hearts, will put their trust in tiiee. His goodness could not be distrusted,
if his unchangeableness were well apprehended and considered. All distrust
would fly before it as darkness before the sun ; it only gets advantage of
us when we are not well grounded in his name; and if ever we trusted God,
we have the same reason to trust him for ever : Isa. xxvi. 4, * Trust in the
Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength,' or as it ia
in the Hebrew, • a rock of ages ;' that is, perpetually unchangeable. We
find the traces of God's immutability in the creatures ; he has by his
peremptory decree set bounds to the sea : ' Hitherto shalt thou come, but
no further ; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed,' Job xxxviii. 11.
Do we fear the sea overflowing us in this island ? No, because of his fixed
decree. And is not his promise in his word as unchangeable as his word
concerning inanimate things, as good a ground to rest upon ?
1. The covenant stands unchangeable. Mutable creatures break their
leagues and covenants, and snap them asunder like Samson's cords, when
they are not accommodated to their interests. But an unchangeable God
keeps his : ' The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed ;
but my kindness shall not depart from thee, nor shall the covenant of my
peace be removed,' Isa. liv. 10. The heaven and earth shall sooner fall
asunder, and the strongest and firmest parts of the creation crumble to dust,
Ps. CII. 26, 27.] TUE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 413
Booner than one iota of my covenant shall fail. It depends upon the
unchangcableness of his will, and the unchangeableness of his word, and
therefore is called * the immutability of his counsel,' Heb. vi. 17. It is the
fruit of the everlasting purpose of God, whence the apostle links purpose
and grace together, 2 Tim. i. 9. A covenant with a nation may be change-
able, because it may not be built upon the eternal purpose of God to put
his fear in the heart, but with respect to the creature's obedience. Thus
God chose Jerusalem as the place wherein he would dwell for ever, Ps.
cxxxii. 14, yet he threatens to depart from them, when they had broken
covenant with him, and * the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of
the city to the mountain on the east side,' Ezek. xi. 23. The covenant of
grace doth not run, ' I will be your God, if you will be my people ; ' but ' I
will be their God, and they shall be my people.' Hosea ii. 19, &c., ' I will
betroth thee to me for ever ; I will say. Thou art my people ; and they
shall say, Thou art my God.' His everlasting purpose is to write his laws
in the hearts of the elect. He puts a condition to his covenant of grace,
the condition of faith, and he resolves to work that condition in the hearts
of the elect ; and therefore believers have two immutable pillars for their
support, stronger than those erected by Solomon at the porch of the
temple, 1 Kings vii. 21, called Jachin and Boaz, to note the'firmness of that
building dedicated to God : these are election, or the standing counsel of
God, and the covenant of grace. He will not revoke the covenant, and blot
the names of his elect out of the book of life.
2. Perseverance is ascertained. It consists not with the majesty of God
to call a person effectually to himself to-day, to make him fit for his eternal
love, to give him faith, and take away that faith to-morrow ; his effectual
call is the fruit of his eternal election, and that counsel hath no other foun-
dation but his constant and unchangeable will ; a foundation that stands
sure, and therefore called the foundation of God, and not of the creature ;
* the foundation of God stands sure, the Lord knows who are his,' 2 Tim.
ii. 19. It is not founded upon our own natural strength, it maj' be then
subject to change, as all the products of nature are ; the fallen angels had
created grace in their innocency, but lost it by their fall.* Were this the
foundation of the creature, it might soon be shaken, since man after his
revolt can ascribe nothing constant to himself but his own inconstancy ;
but the foundation is not in the infirmity of nature, but the strength of grace,
and of the grace of God who is immutable, who wants not virtue to be able,
nor kindness to be willing, to preserve his own foundation. To what purpose
doth our Saviour tell his disciples then* * names were written in heaven,'
Luke X. 20, but to mark the infallible certainty of their salvation by an
opposition to those things which perish and have their names written in the
earth, Jer. xvii. 13, or upon the sand, where they may be defaced ? And
why should Christ order his disciples to rejoice that their names were written
in heaven, if God were changeable to blot them out again ? Or why should
the apostle assure us that though God had rejected the greatest part of the
Jews, he had not therefore rejected his people elected according to his pur-
pose and immutable counsel, because there are none of the elect of God but
will come to salvation ; for, saith he, ' the election hath obtained it,' Eom.
xi. 7 ; that is, all those that are of the election have obtained it, and the
others are hardened. Where the seal of sanctification is stamped it is a
testimony of God's election, and that foundation shall stand true. ' The
foundation of the Lord stands sure, having this seal, the Lord knows who
are his ;' that is, the foundation, the ' naming the name of Christ,' or believ-
* Turretine, Ser. p. 322.
414 charnock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
ing in Christ and ' departing from iniquity,' is the seal.* As it is impos-
sible when God calls those things that are not, but that they should spring
up into being and appear before him, so it is impossible but that the seed
of God by his eternal purpose should be brought to a spiritual life ; and that
callinff cannot be retracted, for that ' gift and calling is without repentance,'
Rom. xi. 29. And when repentance is removed from God in regard of some
works, the immutability of those works is declared ; and the reason of that
immutability is their pure dependence on the eternal favour and unchange-
able grace of God, ' purposed in himself,' Eph. i. 9, 11, and not upon the
mutability of the creature. Hence their happiness is not as patents among
men, qiiamdiu bene sc gesserint, so long as they behave themselves well, but
they have a promise, that they shall behave themselves so as never wholly
to depart from God : Jer, xxxii. 40, ' I will make an everlasting covenant
with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good ; but I
will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.' God
will not turn from them, to do them good, and promiseth that they shall
not turn from him for ever or forsake him. And the bottom of it is the
everlasting covenant, and therefore believing and sealing, for security, are
linked together, Eph. i. 13. And when God doth inwardly teach us his
law, he puts in a will not to depart from it : Ps. cxix. 102, ' I have not
departed from thy judgments.' What is the reason ? ' For thou hast
taught me.'
3. By this, eternal happiness is ensured. This is the inference made
from the eternity and unchangeableness of God in the verse following the
text : ver. 28, * The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed
shall be established before thee.' This is the sole conclusion drawn from
those perfections of God solemnly asserted before. The children which the
prophets and apostles have begotten to thee, shall be totally delivered from
the relics of their apostasy and the punishment due to them, and rendered
partakers of immortality with thee, as sons to dwell in their Father's house
for ever. The Spirit begins a spiritual life here, to fit for an immutable life
in glory hereafter, where believers shall be placed upon a throne that cannot
be shaken, and possess a crown that shall not be taken off their heads for
ever.
Use 3. Of exhortation.
1. Let a sense ofthe changeableness and uncertainty of all other things
beside God be upon us. There are as many changes as there are figures in
the world. The whole fashion of the world is a transient thing ; every man
may say as Job, ' Changes and war are against me,' Job x. 17. Lot chose
the plain of Sodom, because it was the richer soil ; he was but a little time
there before he was taken prisoner, and his substance made the spoil of his
enemy. That is again restored ; but a while after, fire from heaven devours
his wealth, though his person was secured from the judgment by a special
providence. We burn with a desire to settle ourselves, but mistake the way,
and build castles in the air, which vanish like bubbles of soap in water.
And therefore,
(1.) Let not our thoughts dwell much upon them. Do but consider those
souls that are in the possession of an unchangeable God, that behold his
never-fading glory. Would it not be a kind of hell to them, to have their
thoughts starting out to these things, or find any desire in themselves to the
changeable trifles of the earth ? Nay, have we not reason to think that they
cover their faces with shame, that ever they should have such a weakness of
spirit when they were here below, as to spend more thoughts upon them than
* Cocceius.
Ps. CII. 26, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 415
were necessary for this present life, much more that they should, at any time,
value and court them above an unchangeable good ? Do they not disdain
themselves, that they should ever debase the immutable perfections of God,
as to have neglecting thoughts of him at any time, for the entertainment of
such a mean and inconstant rival ?
(2.) Much less should we trust in them or rejoice in them. The best
things are mutable, and things of such a nature are not fit objects of confi-
dence. Trust not in riches ; they have their wanes as well as increases.
They rise sometimes like a torrent, and flow in upon men ; but resemble
also a torrent in as sudden a fall and departure, and leave nothing but slime
behind them. Trust not in honour ; all the honour and applause in the
world is no better than an inheritance of wind, which the pilot is not sure
of, but shifts from one corner to another, and stands not perpetually in the
same point of the heavens. How in a few ages did the house of David, a
great monarch, and a man after God's own heart, descend to a mean condi-
tion, and all the glory of that house shut up in the stock of a carpenter !
David's sheep-hook was turned into a sceptre, and the sceptre, by the same
hand of providence, turned into a hatchet in Joseph his descendant.
Rejoice not immoderately in wisdom ; that and learning languish with age.
A wound in the head may impair that which is the glory of a man. If an
organ be out of frame, folly may succeed, and all a man's prudence be wound
up in an irrecoverable dotage. Nebuchadnezzar was no fool, yet by a sudden
hand of God he became, not only a fool or a madman, but a kind of brute.
Rejoice not in strength ; that decays, and a mighty man may live to see his
strong arm withered, and a ' grasshopper to become a burden,' Eccles. sii. 5.
* The strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders shall cease because
they are few,' ver. 3. Nor rejoice in children ; they are like birds upon a
tree, that make a little chirping music, and presently fall into the fowler's
net. Little did Job expect such sad news as the loss of all his progeny at a
blow, when the messenger knocked at his gate. And such changes happen
oftentimes, when our expectations of comfort, and a contentment in them,
are at the highest. How often doth a string crack when the musician hath
wound it up to a just height for a tune, and all his pains and delight marred
in a moment ! Nay, all these things change while we are using them, hke
ice that melts between our fingers, and flowers that wither while we are
smelling to them. The apostle gave them a good title, when he called them
' uncertain riches,' and thought it a strong argument to dissuade them from
trusting in them, 1 Tim. vi. 17. The wealth of the merchant depends upon
the winds and waves, and the revenue of the husbandman upon the clouds ;
and since they depend upon those things which are used to express the most
changeableness, they can be no fit object for trust. Besides, God sometimes
• kindles a fire under all a man's glory,' Isa. x. 16, which doth insensibly
consume it ; and while we have them, the fear of losing them renders us not
very happy in the fruition of them. We can scarce tell whether they are
contentments or no, because sorrow follows them so close at the heels. It
is not an unnecessary exhortation for good men ; the best men have been
apt to place too much trust in them. David thought himself immutable in
his prosperity ; and such thoughts could not be without some immoderate
outlets of the heart to them, and confidences in them. And Job promised
himself to 'die in his nest,' and ' multiply his days as the sand,' without any
interruption. Job xxix. 18, 19, &c. ; but he was mistaken and disappointed.
Let me add this : trust not in men, who are as inconstant as anything else,
and often change their most ardent afi'ections into implacable hatred ; and
though their afi'ections may not be changed, their power to help you may.
416 charnock's works. [Ps. CII. 26, 27.
Hainan's friends, that depended on him one day, were crest-fallen the next,
when their patron was to exchange his chariot of state for an ignominious
gallows.
(3.) Prefer an immutable God before mutable creatures. Is it not a hor-
rible thing to see what we are, and what we possess, daily crumbling to dust,
and in a continual flux from us, and not seek out something that is perma-
nent, and always abides the same, for our portion ? In God, or Wisdom,
which is Christ, there is substance, Prov. viii. 21, in which respect he is
opposed to all the things in the world, that are but shadows, that are shorter
or longer, according to the motion of the sun ; mutable also, by every little
body that intervenes. God is subject to no decay within, to no force
without ; nothing in his own nature can change him from what he is, and
there is no power above can hinder him from being what he will to the soul.
He is an ocean of all perfection. He wants nothing without himself to
render him blessed, which may allure him to a change. His creatures can
want nothing out of him to make them happy, whereby they may be enticed
to prefer anything before him. If we enjoy other things, it is by God's
donation, who can as well withdraw them as bestow them ; and it is but a
reasonable as well as a necessary thing to endeavour the enjoyment of the
immutable Benefactor rather than his revocable gifts.
If the creatures had a sufficient virtue in themselves to ravish our thoughts
and engross our souls, yet when we take a prospect of a fixed and unchange-
able being, what beauty, what strength have any of those things to vie with
him ? How can they bear up and maintain their interest against a lively
thought and sense of God ? All the glory of them would fly before him like
that of the stars before the sun. They were once nothing, they may be
nothing again. As their own nature brought them not out of nothing, so
their nature secures them not from being reduced to nothing. What an un-
happiness is it to have our afi"ections set upon that which retains something
of its non esse with its esse, its not being with its being ; that lives indeed,
but in a continual flux, and may lose that pleasureableness to-morrow which
charms us to-day !
2. This doctrine will teach us patience under such providences as declare
his unchangeable will. The rectitude of our wills consists in conformity to
the divine, as discovered in his words and manifested in his providence,
which are the effluxes of his immutable will. The time of trial is appointed
by his immutable will, Dan. xi. 35 ; it is not in the power of the sufi"erer's
will to shorten it, nor in the power of the enemy's will to lengthen it.
Whatsoever doth happen hath been decreed by God : Eccles. vi. 10, ' That
which hath been is named already ;' therefore to murmur, or be discontented,
is to contend with God, who is mightier than we to maintain his own pur-
poses. God doth act all things conveniently for that immutable end in-
tended by himself, and according to the reason of his own divine will, in
the true point of time most proper for it and for us, not too soon or too
slow, because he is unchangeable in knowledge and wisdom. God doth not
act anything barely by an immutable will, but by an immutable wisdom and
an unchangeable rule of goodness ; and therefore we should not only acquiesce
in what he works, but have a complacency in it ; and by having our wills
thus knitting themselves with the immutable will of God, we attain some
degree of likeness to him in his own unchaugeableness. When, therefore,
God hath manifested his will in opening his decree to the world by his work
of providence, we must cease all disputes against it, and with Aaron hold
our peace, though the affliction be very smart, Lev. x. 3 : ' All flesh must
be sUent before God,' Zech. ii. 13 ; for whatsoever is his counsel shall stand,
Ps. CII. 2G, 27.] THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 417
and cannot bo recalled ; all strujrgling against it, is like a brittle glass con-
tending with a rock ; for ' if he cut off and shut up, or gather together, then
who can hinder him?' Job xi. 10. Nothing can help us, if he hath deter-
mined to afflict us, as nothing can hurt us, if he hath determined to secure
us. The more clearly God hath evidenced this or that to be his will, the
moi'e sinful is our struggling against it. Pharaoh's sin was the greater in
keeping Israel, by how much the more God's miracles had been demonstra-
tions of his settled will to deliver them. Let nothing snatch our hearts to
a contradiction to him, but let us fear, and give glory to him, when the hour
of judgment which he hath appointed is come, Rev. xiv. 7 ; that is, comply
with the unchangeable will of his precept, the more he declares the immutable
will of his providence. We must not think God must disgrace his nature
and change his proceedings for us. Better the creature should suffer, than
God be impaired in any of his perfections. If God changed his purpose, he
would change his nature. Patience is the way to perform the immutable
will of God, and a means to attain a gracious immutability for ourselves by
receiving the promise : Heb. x. 36, ' Ye have need of patience, that after ye
have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.'
3, This doctrine will teach us to imitate God in this perfection, by striving
to be immoveable in goodness. God never goes back from himself; he finds
nothing better than himself for which he should change ; and can we find
anything better than God, to allure our hearts to a change from him ? The
sun never declines from the ecliptic line, nor should we from the paths of
holiness. A stedfast obedience is encouraged by an unchangeable God to
reward it : 1 Cor. xv. 58, ' Be stedfast and immoveable, always abounding
in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour shall not be in vain in
the Lord.' Unstedfastness is the note of an hypocrite, Ps. Ixxviii. 37 ;
stedfastness in that which is good is the mark of a saint ; it is the character
of a righteous person to ' keep the truth,' Isa. xxvi. 2 ; and it is as positively
said that * he that abides not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God,'
2 John 9 ; but he that doth, ' hath both the Father and the Son.' So
much of uncertainty, so much of nature ; so much of fijmness in duty, so
much of grace. We can n^ver honour God unless we finish his work, as
Christ did not glorify God but in ' finishing the work God gave him to do,'
John xvii. 4. The nearer the world comes to an end, the more is God's
immutability seen in his promises and predictions, and the more must our
unchangeableness be seen in our obedience : Heb. x. 23, 25, ' Let us hold
fast the profession of our faith without wavering, and so much the more as
you see the day approaching.' The Christian Jews were to be the more
tenacious of their faith the nearer they saw the day approaching, the day of
Jerusalem's destruction prophesied of by Daniel, chap. ix. 26; which accom-
plishment must be a great argument to establish the Christian Jews in the
profession of Christ to be the Messiah, because the destruction of the city
was not to be before the cutting ofi' the Messiah. Let us be therefore con-
stant in our profession and service of God, and not sufi"er ourselves to be
driven from him by the ill usage, or flattered from him by the caresses of
the world.
(1.) It is reasonable. If God be unchangeable in doing us good, it is
reason we should be unchangeable in doing him service. If he assure us
that he is our God, our I am, he would also that we should be his people.
His we are. If he declare himself constant in his promises, he expects we
should be so in our obedience. As a spouse, we should be unchangeably
faithful to him as a husband ; as subjects, have an unchangeable allegiance
to him as our prince. He would not have us faithful to him for an hour or
VOL. I. D d
418 chabnock's works. [Ps. CII. 2G, 27.
a day, but to the death, Rev. ii. 10. And it is reason we should be bis ;
and if we be his children, imitate him in his constancy of his holy purposes.
(2.) It is our glory and interest. To be a reed shaken with every wind
is no commendation among men, and it is less a ground of praise with God.
It was Job's glory that he held fast in his integrity : ' In all this Job sinned
not,' Job i. 22, — in all this, which whole cities and kingdoms would have
thought ground enough of high exclamations against God. And also against
the temptation of his wife he retained his integrity: chap. ii. 9, ' Dost thou
still retain thy integrity?' The devil, who, by God's permission, stripped
him of his goods and health, yet could not strip him of his grace ; as a
traveller, when the wind and snow beats in his face, wraps his cloak more
closely about him, to preserve that and himself. Better we had never made
profession, than afterwards to abandon it; such a withering profession serves
for no other use than to aggravate the crime, if any of us fly like a coward
or revolt like a traitor. What profit will it be to a soldier if he hath with-
stood many assaults, and turn his back at last ? If we would have God
crown us with an immutable glory, we must crown our beginnings with a
happy perseverance : Rev. ii. 10, ' Be faithful to the death, and I will give
thee a crown of life.' Not as though this were the cause to merit it, but a
necessary condition to possess it. Constancy in good is accompanied with
an immutability of glory.
(3.) By an unchangeable disposition to good we should begin the happi-
ness of heaven upon earth. This is the perfection of blessed spirits, those
that are nearest to God, as angels and glorified souls, they are immutable ;
not, indeed, by nature, but by grace ; yet not only by a necessity of grace,
but a liberty of will. Grace will not let them change, and that grace doth
animate their wills, that they would not change ; an immutable God fills
their understandings and afiections, and gives satisfaction to their desires.
The saints, when they were below, tried other things and found them de-
ficient; but now they are so fully satisfied with the beatific vision, that,
if Satan should have entrance among the angels and sons of God, it is not
likely he should have any influence upon them, he could not present to
their understandings anything that could, either at the first glance or upon a
deliberate view, be preferable to what they enjoy and are fixed in.
Well then, let us be immoveable in the knowledge and love of God. It
is the delight of God to see his creatures resemble him in what they are
able. Let not our affections to him be as Jonah's gourd, growing up in
one night and withering the next. Let us not only fight a good fight, but
do so till we have finished our course, and imitate God in an unchangeable-
ness of holy purposes ; and to that pui-pose examine ourselves daily what
fixedness we have arrived unto ; and, to prevent any temptation to a revolt,
let us often possess our minds with thoughts of the immutability of God's
nature and will, which, like fire under water, will keep a good matter boil-
ing up in us, and make it both retain and increase its heat.
4. 'Let this doctrine teach us to have recourse to God, and aim at a near
conjunction with him. When our spirits begin to flag, and a cold aguish
temper is drawing upon us, let us go to him who can only fix our hearts,
and furnish us with a ballast to render them stedfast ; as he is only im-
mutable in his nature, so he is the only principle of immutability as well as
being in the creature. Without his grace we shall be as changeable in our
appearances as a chameleon, and in our turnings as the wind. When Peter
trusted in himself, he changed to the worse ; it was his master's recourse to
God for him that preserved in him a reducing principle, which changed
him again for the better and fixed him in it, Luke xxii. 32.
Ps. CII. 2G, 27. J THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 419
It will be our interest to be in conjunction with him that moves not about
with the heavens, nor is turned by the force of nature, nor changed by the
accidents in the world, but sits in the heavens, moving all things by his
powerful arm, according to his infinite skill ; while we have him for our
God, we have his immutabilit}', as well as any other perfection of his nature,
for our advantage ; the nearer we come to him, the more stability we shall
have in ourselves ; the further from him, the more liable to change. The
line that is nearest to the place where it is first fixed is least subject to
motion ; the further it is stretched from it, the weaker it is, and more liable
to be shaken. Let us also aflect those things which are nearest to him in
this perfection : the righteousness of Christ, that shall never wear out ; and
the graces of the Spirit, that shall never burn out. By this means, what God
is infinitely by nature, we shall come to be finitely, immutable by grace, as
much as the capacity of a creature can obtain.
A DISCOURSE UPON GOD'S OMNIPRESENCE.
Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him ? saith the Lord:
do not I Jfll heaven and earth ? saith the Lord. — Jer. XXIII. 24.
The occasion of this discourse begins, ver. 16, where God admonisheth the
people not to hearken to the words of the false prophets, which spake a
vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord. They
made the people vain by their insinuations of peace, when God had proclaimed
war and calamity ; and uttered the dreams of their fancies, and not the visions
of the Lord ; and so turned the people from the expectation of the evil day
which God had threatened : ver. 17, ' They say still unto them that despise
me. The Lord hath said. Ye shall have peace ; and they say unto every one
that walks after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon
you.' And they invalidate the prophecies of those whom God had sent :
ver. 18, ' "Who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath perceived and
heard his word ? who hath marked his word and heard it ?' * Who hath
stood in the counsel of the Lord ?' Are they acquainted with the secrets of
God more than we ? Who have the word of the Lord, if we have not ? Or
it may be a continuation of God's admonition. Believe not those prophets ;
for who of them have been acquainted with the secrets of God ? or by what
means should they learn his counsel ? No ; assure yourselves, * a whirlwind
of the Lord is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind : it shall fall
grievously upon the head of the wicked,' ver. 19. A whirlwind shall come
from Babylon ; it is just at the door, and shall not be blown over ; it shall
fall with a witness upon the wicked people, and the deceiving prophets, and
sweep them together into captivity. For, ver. 20, * the anger of the Lord
shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the
thoughts of his heart.' My fury shall not be a childish fury, that quickly
languisheth, but shall accomplish whatsoever I threaten, and burn so hot,
as not to be cool till I have satisfied my vengeance ; ' in the latter days ye
shall consider it perfectly,' ver. 20, when the storm shall beat upo'n you ; you
shall then know, that the calamities shall answer the words you have heard.
When the conqueror shall waste your grounds, demolish your houses, and
manacle your hands, then shall you consider it, and have the wishes of
fools, that you had had your eyes in your heads before ; you shall then know
the falseness of your guides, and the truth of my prophets, and discern
who stood in the counsel of the Lord, and subscribe to the messages I have
sent you.
Jer. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipresence. 421
Some understand this not only of the Babylonish captivity, but refer it to
the time of Christ, and the false doctrine of men's own righteousness in oppo-
sition to the righteousness of God, understanding this verse to be partly a
threatening of wrath, which shall end in an advantage to the Jews, who shall
in the latter time consider the falseness of their notions about a, legal right-
eousness, and so make it a promise ; they shall then know the intent of the
Scripture, and in the latter days, the latter end of the world, when time
shall be near the roUing up, they shall reflect upon themselves, ' they shall
look upon him whom they laave pierced :' and till these latter days, they shall
bo hardened, and believe nothing of evangelical truths.
Now God denieth that he sent those prophets : ver. 21, * I have not sent
these prophets, yet they ran ; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophe-
sied.' They have intruded themselves without a commission from me, what-
soever their brags are. The reason to prove it is ver. 22, * If they had
stood in my counsel,' if they had been instructed and inspired by mc, ' they
would have caused my people to hear my words ;' they would have regulated
themselves according to my word, ' and have turned them from their evil
way ;' i. e., endeavoured to shake down their false confidences of peace, and
make them sensible of their false notions of me and my ways. Now, because
those false prophets could not be so impudent as to boast, that they prophe-
sied in the name of God, when they had not commission from him,^ unless
they had some secret sentiment that they and their intentions were hid from
the knowledge and eye of God, he adds, ver. 23, ' Am I a God at hand,
and not a God afar ofi" ? Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall
not see him ?' Have I not the power of seeing and knowing what they do,
what they design, what they think ? Why should I not have such a power,
since ' I fill heaven and earth' by my essence ? * Am I a God at hand, and
not a God afar ofi" ?' He excludes here the doctrine of those that excluded
the providence of God from extending itself to the inferior things of the
earth ; which error was ancient, as ancient as the time of Job, as appears
by their opinion, thatj God's eyes were hood-winked and mufiied by the
thickness of the clouds, and could not pierce through their dark and dense
body : ' Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not,' Job xxii. 14.
Some* refer it to time. Do you imagine me a God new framed like your
idols, beginning a little time ago, and not existing before the foundation of
the world, yea, from eternity ? * a God afar ofi",' further than your acutest
understandings can reach ? I am of a longer standing, and you ought to
know my majesty. But it rather refers to place than time. Do you think
I do not"^ behold everything in the earth as well as in heaven. Am I locked
up within the walls of my palace, and cannot peep out to behold the things
done in the world ? or that I am so linked to pleasure in the place of my
glory, as earthly kings are in their courts, that I have no mind or leisure to
take notice of the carriages of men upon earth ? God doth not say he was
afar off", but only gives an account of the inward thoughts of their minds, or
at least of the language expressed by their actions.
The interrogation carries in it a strong affirmation, and assures us more
of God's care, and the folly of men in not considering it : * Am I a God at
hand, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places?'
Heh., «in hiddenness,' in the deepest cells. What! are you besotted by
your base lusts, that you think me a God careless, ignorant, blind, that I
can see nothing but as a purblind man what is very near my eye ? Are
you so out of your wits, that you imagine you can deceive me ? Do not all
your behaviours speak such a sentiment to He secret in your heart, though
* Munster, Vatablus, Castalio, (Ecolamp.
422 chabnock's works. [Jer. XXIII. 24.
not formed into a full conception, yet testified by your actions ? No, you
are much mistaken ; it is impossible but that I should see and know all
things, since I am present with all things, and am not at a greater distance
from the things on earth than from the things in heaven, for I fill all that
vast fabric which is divided into those two parts of heaven and earth ; and
he that hath such an infinite essence cannot be distant, cannot be ignorant ;
nothing can be far from his eyes, since everything is so near to his essence.
So that it is an elegant expression of the omniscience of Grod, and a strong
argument for it. He asserts, first, the universality of his knowledge; but
lest they should mistake, and confine his presence only to heaven, he adds,
that he ' fills heaven and earth.' I do not see things so, as if I were in one
place and the things seen in another, as it is with man ; but whatsoever I
see, I see not without myself, because every corner of heaven and earth is
filled by me. He that fills all must needs see and know all.
And indeed men that question the knowledge of God would be more con-
vinced by the doctrine of his immediate presence with them. And this
seems to be the design and manner of arguing in this place. Nothing is
remote from my knowledge, because nothing is distant from my presence.
' I fill heaven and earth.' He doth not say, I am in heaven and earth, but
I fill heaven and earth; i. e., say some,* with my knowledge, others with my
authority or my power. But,
1. The v^-ovdjillinij cannot properly be referred to the act of understand-
ing and will. A presence by knowledge is to be granted, but to say such a
presence fills a place, is an improper speech. Knowledge is not enough to
constitute a presence.
A man at London knows there is such a city as Paris, and knows many
things in it ; can he be concluded therefore to be present in Paris, or fill
any place there, or be present with the things he knows there ? If I know
anything to be distant from me, how can it be present with me ? for by
knowing it to be distant I know it not to be present. Besides, filling
heaven and earth is distinguished here from knowing or seeing. His pre-
sence is rendered as an argument to prove his knowledge. Now, a propo-
sition, and the proof of that proposition, are distinct, and not the same.
It cannot be imagined that God should prove idem per idem, as we say ;
for what would be the import of the speech then, I know all things, I see
all things, because I know and see all things ?t The Holy Ghost here
accommodates himself to the capacity of men, because we know that a man
sees and knows that which is done where he is corporally present ; so he
proves that God knows all things that are done in the most secret caverns
of the heart, because he is everywhere in heaven and earth, as light is every-
where in the air, and air everywhere in the world. Hence the schools use
the term repletive for the presence of God.
2. Nor by filhng of heaven and earth is meant his authority and power.
It would be improperly said of a king, that in regard of the government of
his kingdom, is everywhere by his authority, that he fills all the cities and
countries of his dominions. ' I, do not I fill ? ' | That / notes the essence
of God, as distinguished according to our capacity, from the perfections
pertaining to his essence, and is in reason better referred to the substance
of God than to those things we conceive as attributes in him. Besides,
were it meant only of his authority or power, the argument would not run
well. I see all things, because my authority and power fills heaven and
earth. Power doth not always rightly infer knowledge, no, not in a rational
* Turn perspicacia, turn efficacia.— GVo^. J Amyrald, de Trinitate, p. S7.
t Suarez.
Jer. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipresence. 423
ardent. Many things in a kingdom are done by the authority of the king,
that never arrive to the knowledge of the king ; many things in us are done
by the power of our souls, which yet we have not a distinct knowledge of in
our understandings. There are many motions in sleep, by virtue of the soul
informing the body, that we have not so much as a simple knowledge of in
our minds. Knowledge is not rightly inferred from power, or power from
knowledge.
By filling heaven and earth is meant therefore a filling it with his essence.
No place can be imagined that is deprived of the presence of God, and there-
fore when the Scripture anywhere speaks of the presence of God, it joins
heaven and earth together. He so fills them, that there is no place without
him. We do not say a vessel is full so long as there is any space to con-
tain more. Not a part of heaven nor a part of earth, but the whole heaven,
the whole earth, at one and the same time. If he were only in one part of
heaven, or one part of earth, nay, if there were any part of heaven or any
part of earth void of him, he could not be said to fill them. I fill heaven
and earth ; not a part of me fills one place and another part of me fills an-
other, but I, God, fill heaven and earth, I am whole God filling the heaven
and -whole God filling the earth. I fill heaven, and yet fill earth ; I fill
earth and yet fill heaven, and fill heaven and earth at one and the same time.
God fills his own works, a heathen philosopher saith.*
Here is then a description of God's presence.
1. By power: Am I not a God afar off ? a God in the extension of his
arm.
2. By knowledge : Shall I not see them ?
3. By essence : as an undeniable ground for inferring the two former, I
fill heaven and earth.
Doct. God is essentially everywhere present in heaven and earth.
If God be, be must be somewhere ; that which is nowhere is nothing.
Since God is, he is in the world ; not in one part of it, for then he were
circumscribed by it. If in the world, and only there, though it be a great
space, he were also limited. Somef therefore said, God was everywhere,
and nowhere. Nowhere ; i. e. not bounded by any place, nor receiving
from any place anything for his preservation or sustainment. He is every-
where, because no creature, either body or spirit, can exclude the presence
of his essence ; for he is not only near, but in everything : Acts xvii. 28,
' In him we live, and move, and have our being.' Not absent from any-
thing, but so present with them, that they live and move in him, and move
more in God than in the air or earth wherein they are ; nearer to us than
our flesh to our bones, than the air to our breath. He cannot be far from
them that live and have every motion in him. The apostle doth not say
hy Jiim, but in him, to shew the inwardness of his presence.
As eternity is the perfection whereby he hath neither beginning nor end,
immutability is the perfection whereby he hath neither increase nor diminu-
tion, so immensity or omnipresence is that whereby he hath neither bounds
nor limitation. As he is in all time, yet so as to be above time, so is he in
all places, yet so as to be above limitation by any place. It was a good
expression of a heathen to illustrate this, that God is a sphere or circle,
whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere. His meaning was,
that the essence of God was indivisible, i.e. could not be divided. It can-
not be said, here and there the lines of it terminate ; it is like a line drawn
out in infinite spaces, that no point can be conceived where its length and
breadth ends. The sea is a vast mass of waters, yet to that it is said,
* Seneca, de Benefic. lib. iv. cap. 8, Ipse opus suum implet. t Chrysostom.
424 chaekock's works. [Jee. XXIII. 24.
' Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further.' But it cannot be said of God's
essence, Hitherto it reaches, and no further ; here it is, and there it is not.
It is plain that God is thus immense, because he is infinite; wo have
reason and Scripture to assent to it, though we cannot conceive it. We
know that God is eternal, though eternity is too great to be measured by
the short line of a created understanding. We cannot conceive the vast-
ness and glcry of the heavens, much less that which is so great as to fill
heaven and earth; yea, 'not to be contained in the heaven of heavens,'
1 Kings viii. 27.
Things are said to be present, or in a place.
1. Circumscriptive, as circumscribed. This belongs to things that have
quantity, as bodies that are encompassed by that place wherein they are ;
and a body fills but one particular space wherein it is, and the space is com-
mensurate to every part of it, and every member hath a distinct place. The
hand is not in the same particular space that the foot or head is.
2. Definitive, which belongs to angels and spirits, which are said to be in
a point, yet so as that they cannot be said to be in another at the same
time.
3. Bcpletire, filling all places ; this belongs only to God. As he is not
measured by time, so he is not limited by place. A body or spirit, because
finite, fills but one space ; God, because infinite, fills all, yet so as not to be
contained in them, as wine and water is in a vessel. He is from the height
of the heaven to the bottom of the deeps, in every point of the world, and in
the whole circle of it, yet not limited by it, but bej-ond it.
Now this hath been acknowledged by the wisest in the world.
Some indeed had other notions of God. The more ignorant sort of the
Jews confined him to the temple.* And God intimates that they had such
a thought, when he asserts his presence in heaven and earth, in opposition
to the temple they built as his house and ' the place of his rest.'f And the
idolaters among them thought their gods might be at a distance from them,
which Elias intimates in the scofi" he puts upon them : 1 Kings xviii. 27,
' Cry aloud, for he is a god,' meaning Baal ; ' either he is talking, or he is
pursuing, or he is in a journey ; ' and they follow his advice, and cried
' louder,' ver. 28, whereby it is evident they looked not on it as a mock, but
as a truth. And the Syrians called the God of Israel the god of the hills,
as though his presence were fixed there, and not in the valleys, 1 Kings xx.
23 ; and their own gods in the valleys, and not in the mountains. They
fancied every god to have a particular dominion and presence in one place,
and not in another, and bounded the territories of their gods as they did
those of their princes. | And some thought him tied to, and shut up in,
their temples and groves wherein they worshipped him. § Some of them
thought God to be confined to heaven, and therefore sacrificed upon the
highest mountains, that the steam might ascend nearer heaven, and their
praises be heard better in those places which were nearest to the habitation
of God. But the wiser Jews acknowledged it, and therefore called God place, ||
whereby they denoted his immensity ; he was not contained in any place ;
every part of the world subsists by him. He was a place to himself, greater
than anything made by him. And the wiser heathens acknowledged it also.
One ^ calls God a mind passing through the universal nature of things ;
another, that he was an infinite and immense air ; ** another, that it is as
* Jerome on Isa. Ixvi. 1. J Med. Diatrib., vol. i. p. 71, 72.
t HanimoDd on Mat. vi. 7. § Dought Analec. excurs. 61. 113.
II DlpD- <^rot. upon Matt. v. 16. Mares, contra Volk. lib. i. cap. 27, p. 494.
t Vide Minut. Fel. p. 20. ** Plotin. Enead vi. lib. v. cap. 4.
Jer. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipeesence. 425
natural to think God is everywhere, as to think that God is. Hence they
called God the soul of the world ; that as the soul is in every part of the
body to quicken it, so is God in every part of the world to support it.
And there are some resemblances of this in the world, though no creature
can fully resemble God in any one perfection ; for then it would not be a
creature, but God. But air and light are some weak resemblances of it.
Air is in all the spaces of the world, in the pores of all bodies, in the bowels
of the earth, and extends itself from the lowest earth to the highest regions,
and the heavens themselves are probably nothing else but a refined kind of
air ; and light diffuseth itself through the whole air, and every part of it is
truly light, as every part of the air is truly air ; and though they seem to be
mingled together, yet they are distinct things, and not of the same essence.
So is the essence of God in the whole world, not by ditlusion as air or light,
not mixed with any creature, but remaining distinct from the essence of any
created being. Now when this hath been owned by men instructed only in
the school of nature, it is a greater shame to any acquainted with the Scrip-
ture to deny it. For the understanding of this, there shall be some propo-
sitions premised in general.
Prop. 1. This is negatively to be understood. Our knowledge of God is
most by withdrawing from him, or denying to him, in our conception, any
weaknesses or imperfections in the creature. As the infiniteness of God is
a denial of limitation of being, so immensity, or omnipresence, is a denial of
limitation of place. And when we say God is totxis in every place, we must
understand it thus, that he is not everywhere by parts, as bodies are, as air
and light are. He is everywhere, i. e. his nature hath no bounds ; he is not
tied to any place as the creature is, who, when he is present in one place, is
absent from another. As no place can be without God, so no place can
compass and contain him.
Proj). 2. There is an influential omnipresence of God.
(1.) Universal, with all creatures. He is present with all things by his
authority, because all things are subject to him ; by his power, because all
things are sustained by him ; by his knowledge, because all things are naked
before him. He is present in the world, as a king is in all parts of his king-
dom regally present ; providentially present with all, since his care extends
to the meanest of his creatures. His power reacheth all, and his knowledge
pierceth all.
As everything in the world was created by God, so everything in the world
is preserved by God ; and since preservation is not wholly distinct from crea-
tion, it is necessary God should be present with everything while he preserves
it, as well as present with it when he created it : ' Thou preservest man and
beast,' Ps. xxxvi. 6 ; he ' upholds all things by the word of his power,' Heb.
i. 3. There is a virtue sustaining every creature, that it may not fall back
into that nothing from whence it was elevated by the power of God. All
those natural virtues we call the principles of operation, are fountains spring-
ing from his goodness and power, all things are acted and managed by him,
as well as preserved by him ; and in this sense God is present with all crea-
tures, for whatsoever acts another is present with that which it acts, by send-
ing forth some virtue and influence whereby it acts. If free agents do not
only ' live,' but ' move in him,' and by him. Acts xvii. 28, much more are
the motions of other natural agents, by a virtue communicated to them, and
upheld in them in the time of their acting. This virtual presence of God is
evident to our sense, a presence we feel ; his essential presence is evident in
our reason. This influential presence may be compared to that of the sun,
which, though at so great a distance from the earth, is present in the air and
426 chaenock's woees. [Jee. XXIII. 24,
earth by its light, and within the earth by its influence in concocting those
metals which are in the bowels of it, without being substantially either of
them. God is thus so intimate with every creature, that there is not the
least particle of any creature, but the marks of his power and goodness are
seen in it, and his goodness doth attend them, and is more swift in its effluxes
than the breaking out of light from the sun, which yet are more swift than
can be declared ; but to say he is in the world only by his virtue, is to
acknowledge only the efiects of his power and wisdom in the world, that his
eye sees all, his arm supports all, his goodness nourisheth all, but himself
and his essence at a distance from them.* And so the soul of man, accord-
ing to its measure, would have in some kind a more excellent manner of
presence in the body than God, according to the infiniteness of his being
with his creatures ; for that doth not only communicate Hfe to the body, but
is actually present with it, and spreads its whole essence through the body
and every member of it. All grant that God is efficaciously in every creek
of the world, but some say he is only substantially in heaven.
(2.) Limited to such subjects that are capacitated for this or that kind of
presence. Yet it is an omnipresence, because it is a presence in all the
subjects capacitated for it : thus there is a special providential presence of
God with some, in assisting them when he sets them on work as his instru-
ments for some special service in the world. As with Cyrus : Isa. xlv. 2,
' I will go before thee ;' and with Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander, whom he
protected and directed to execute his counsels in the world'; such a presence
Judas and others, that shall not enjoy his glorious presence, had in the work-
ing of miracles in the world : Mat. vii. 22, ' In thy name we have done many
wonderful works.' Besides, as there is an effective presence of God with all
creatures, because he produced them, and preserves them, so there is an
ohjective presence of God with rational creatures, because he offers himself
to them, to be known and loved by them.f He is [near to wicked men in
the offers of grace : Isa. Iv. 6, ' Call ye upon him while he is near ;' besides,
there is a gracious presence of God with his people in whom he dwells, and
makes his abode, as in a temple consecrated to him by the graces of the
Spirit. ' We will come,' i. e. the Father and the Son, ' and make our abode
with him,' John xiv. 23. He is present with all by the presence of his
divinity, but only in his saints by the presence of a gracious efficacy ; he
walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks, and hath dignified the con-
gregation of his people with the title of Jehovah Sliammah, ' the Lord is
there,' Ezek. xlviii. 35 ; 'In Salem is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-
place in Sion,' Ps. Ixxvi. 2. As he filled the tabernacle, so he doth the
church, with the signs of his presence ; this is not the presence wherewith
he fills heaven and earth. His Spirit is not bestowed upon all, to reside in
their hearts, enlighten their minds, and bedew them with refreshing com-
forts. When the apostle speaks of God's being ' above all, and through all,'
Eph. iv. 6, — above all in his majesty, through all in his providence, — he doth
not appropriate that, as he doth what follows, and ' in you all ;' in you all by
a special grace ; as God was specially present with Christ by the grace of
union, so he is specially present with his people by the grace of regenera-
tion. So there are several manifestations of his presence : he hath a pre-
sence of glory in heaven, whereby he comforts the saints ; a presence of
wrath in hell, whereby he torments the damned ; in heaven he is a God
spreading his beam of light ; in hell, a God distributing his strokes of jus-
tice ; by the one he fills heaven, by the other he fills hell ; by his providence
and essence he fills both heaven and earth.
* Zanch. f Cajetan in Aquin. part i. qu. 8, artic. 3.
Jer. XXIII. 24. J god's omnipresence. 427
Prop. 3. There is an essential presence of God in the world. He is not
only everywhere, by his power upholding the creatures, by his wisdom
understanding them, but by his essence containing them. That anything
is essentially present anywhere, it hath from God : God is therefore much
more present everywhere, for he cannot give that which he hath not.
(1.) He is essentially present in all places.* It is as reasonable to think
the essence of God to be everywhere, as to be always ; immensity is as
rational as eternity. That indivisible essence which reaches through all
times, may as well reach through all places. It is more excellent to be
always, than to be everywhere; for to be always iu duration is intrinsecal,
to be everywhere is extrinsic : if the greater belongs to God, why not the
less ? As all times are a moment to his eternity, so all places are as a point
to his essence. As he is larger than all time, so he is vaster than all place.
The nations of the world are to him ' as the dust of the balance, or drop of
a bucket: the nations are accounted as the small dust,' Isa. xl. 15. The
essence of God may well be thought to be present everywhere with that
which is no more than a grain of dust to him, and in all those isles, which,
if put together, are ' a very little thing' in his hand. Therefore, saith a
learned Jew,t If a man were set in the highest heavens, he would not be
nearer to the essence of God than if he were in the centre of the earth. Why
may not the presence of God in the world be as noble as that of the soul in
the body, which is generally granted to be essentially in every part of the
body of man, which is but a httle world ; and animates every member by
its actual presence, though it exerts not the same operation in every part ? I
The world is less to the Creator than the body to the soul, and needs more
the presence of God than the body needs the presence of the soul. That
glorious body of the sun visits every part of the habitable earth in twenty-
four hours by its beams ; which reaches the troughs of the lowest valleys,
as well as the pinnacles of the highest mountains : must we not acknowledge
in the Creator of this sun an infinite greater proportion of presence ? Is it
not as easy with the essence of God to overspread the whole body of heaven
and earth, as it is for the sun to pierce and diftuse itself through the whole
air between it and the earth, and send up its light also as far to the regions
above ? Do we not see something like it in sounds and voices ? Is not
the same sound of a trumpet, or any other musical instrument, at the first
breaking out of a blast, in several places within such a compass at the same
time ? Doth not every ear that hears it receive alike the whole sound of it ?
And fragrant odours scented in several places at the same time, in the same
manner, and the organ proper for smelling takes in the same in every per-
son within the compass of it. How far is the noise of thunder heard alike
to every ear, in places something distant from one another ? And do we
daily find such a manner of presence in those things of so low a concern,
and not imagine a kind of presence of God greater than all those ? Is the
sound of thunder, the voice of God, as it is called, everywhere in such a
compass, and shall not the essence of an infinite God be much more every-
where ? Those that would confine the essence of God only to heaven, and
exclude it from the earth, run into great inconveniences. It may be
demanded whether he be in one part of the heavens, or in the whole vast
body of them ? If in one part of them, his essence is bounded ; if he moves
from that part, he is mutable, for he changes a place wherein he was, for
another wherein he was not. If he be always fixed in one part of the
heavens, such a notion would render him little better than a living statue. §
* Ficin. X Ficin.
t Maimonid. l Hornbeck, Soun. part i. p. 303.
428 CHAKNOCKS WOKKS. [Jee. XXIII. 24.
If he be in the whole heaven, why cannot his essence possess a greater space
than the whole heavens, which are so vast ? How comes he to be confined
within the compass of that, since the whole heaven compasseth the earth ?
If he be in the whole heaven, he is in places farther distant one from another,
than any part of the earth can be from the heavens ; since the earth is like
a centre in the midst of a circle, it must be nearer to every part of the circle
than some parts of the circle can be to one another. If, therefore, his
essence possesses the whole heavens, no reason can be rendered why he doth
not also possess the earth, since also the earth is but a little point in com-
parison of the vastness of the heavens. If, therefore, he be in every part
of the heavens, why not in every part of the earth ?
The Scripture is plain : Ps. cxxxix. 7-9, ' Whither shall I go from thy
Spirit ? or whither shall I fly from thy presence ? If I ascend up to
heaven, thou art there : if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If
I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the
sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall uphold
me.' If he be in heaven, earth, hell, sea, he fills all places with his pre-
sence : his presence is here asserted in places the most distant from one
another ; all the places, then, between heaven and earth are possessed by his
presence. It is not meant of his knowledge, for that the psalmist had
spoken of before: ver. 2, 3, 'Thou understandeth my thoughts afar off:
thou art acquainted with all my ways.' Besides, ' thou art there,' not thy
wisdom or knowledge ; but thou, thy essence, not only thy virtue. For
having before spoken of his omniscience, he proves that such knowledge
could not be in God, unless he were present in his essence in all places, so
as to be excluded from none. He fills the depths of hell, the extension of
the earth, and the heights of the heavens. When the Scripture mentions
the power of God only, it expresseth it by hand or arm ; but when it men-
tions the Spirit of God, and doth not intend the third person in the Trinity,
it signifies the nature and essence of God ; and so here, when he saith,
* Whither shall I go from thy Spirit ?' he adds exegetically, ' whither shall
I fly from thy presence,' or Ileh. ' face ?' and the face of God in Scripture
signifies the essence of God : Exod. xxxiii. 20, 23, * Thou canst not see my
face,' and ' my face shall not be seen;' the effects [of his power, wisdom,
providence, are seen, which are his back-parts, but not his face. The
eflects of his power and wisdom are seen in the world, but his essence is
invisible, and this the psalmist elegantly expresseth. Had I wings endued
with as much quickness as the first dawnings of the morning light, or the
first darts of any sunbeam that spreads itself through the hemisphere, and
passes many miles in as short a space as I can think a thought, I should
find thy presence in all places before me, and could not fly out of the infi-
nite compass of thy essence.
(2.) He is essentially present with all creatures. If he be in all places,
it follows that he is with all creatures in those places ; as he is in heaven,
60 he is with all angels ; as he is in hell, so is he with all devils ; as he is
in the earth and sea, he is with all creatures inhabiting those elements. As
bis essential presence was the ground of the first being of things by creation,
so it is the ground of the continued being of things by conservation. As
his essential presence was the original, so it is the support of the existence
of all the creatures. What are all those magnificent expressions of his
creative virtue, but testimonies of his essential presence at the laying the
foundation of the world ? ' When he measured the waters in the hollow of
his hand, meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of
the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills
Jer. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipresence. 429
in a balance,' Isa. xl. 12 ; he sets forth the power and majesty of God in
the creation and preservation of things, and every expression testifies his
presence with them. The watei's that were upon the face of the earth at
first were no more than a drop in the palm of a man's hand, which in every
part is touched by his hand. And thus he is equally present with the
blackest devils, as well as the brightest angels ; with the lowest dust, as
well as with the most sparkling sun. He is equally present with the
damned and the blessed, as he is an infinite being, but not in regard of his
goodness and grace ; he is equally present with the good and the bad, with
the scoffing Athenians, as well as the believing apostles, in regard of his
essence, but not in regard of the breathing of his divine virtue upon them
to make them like himself: Acts xvii, 27, ' He is not far from every one
of us : for in him we live, and move, and have our being.' The apostle
includes all ; he tells them they should seek the Lord ; the Lord that they were
to seek is God essentially considered. "We are indeed to seek the perfec-
tions of God, that glitter in his works, but to the end that they should
direct us to the seeking of God himself in his own nature and essence.*
And therefore what follows, ' in him we live,' is to be understood not of his
power and goodness, perfections of his nature, distinguished according to
our manner of conception from his essence, but of the essential presence of
God with his creatm-es. If he had meant it of his efficacy in preserving
us, it had not been any proof of his nearness to us. Who would go about
to prove the body or substance of the sun to be near us, because it doth
warm and enlighten us, when our sense evidenceth the distance of it ? We
live in the beams of the sun, but we cannot be said to live in the sun,
which is so fai* distant from us. The expression seems to be more empha-
tical than to intend any less than his essential presence ; but we live in
him not only as the efficient cause of our life, but as the foundation, sus-
taining our lives and motions, as if he were like air, diffused round about
us. And we move in him, as Austin saith, as a sponge in the sea, not
containing him, but being contained by him. He compasseth all, is encom-
passed by none ; he fills all, is. comprehended by none. The Creator con-
tains the world, the world contains not the Creator; as the hollow of the
hand contains the water, the water in the hollow of the hand contains not
the hand, and therefore some have chose to say rather, that the world is
in God, it lives and moves in him, than that God is in the world. If all
things thus live and move in him, then he is present with everything
that hath life and motion ; and as long as the devils and damned have life,
and motion, and being, so long is he with them, for whatsoever lives and
moves, lives and moves in him.
But now this essential presence is,
(1.) Without any mixture. ' I fill heaven and earth,' not, I am mixed
with heaven and earth; his essence is not mixed with the creatures, it
remains entire in itself. The sponge retains the nature of a sponge, though
encompassed by the sea, and moving in it, and the sea still retains its own
nature. God is most simple, his essence therefore it is not mixed with any-
thing. The light of the sun is present with the air, but not mixed with it,
it remains light, and the air remains air ; the light of the sun is difiused
through all the hemisphere, it pierceth all transparent bodies, it seems to
mix itself with all things, yet remains unmixed and undivided ; the light
remains light, and the air remains air ; the air is not light though it be
enlightened. Or, take this similitude: when many candles are lighted up
in a room, the light is altogether, yet not mixed with one another; every
* Amyrald. de Trinit.
430 chaenock's wokks. [Jee. XXIII, 24.
candle hath a particular light belonging to it, which may be separated in a
moment hj removing one candle from another ; but if they were mixed they
could not be separated, at least so easily. God is not formally one with
the world, or with aay creature in the world by his presence in it ; nor can
any creature in the world, no, not the soul of man or an angel, come to be
essentially one with God, though God be essentially present with it.
(2.) The essential presence is without any division of himself. * I fill
heaven and earth,' not part in heaven, and part in earth ; I fill one as well
as the other. One part of his essence is not in one place, and another part
of his essence in another place; he would then be changeable; for that part
of his essence which were now in this place, he might alter it to another,
and place that part of his essence which were in another place to this ; but
he is undivided everywhere. As his eternity is one indivisible point, though
in our conception we divide it into past, present, and to come, so the
whole world is as a point to him in regard of place, as before was said ; it
is as a small dust, and gi-ain of dust ; it is impossible that one part of bis
essence can be separated from another, for he is not a body, to have one
part separable from another. The light of the sun cannot be cut into parts,
it cannot be shut into any place and kept there, it is entire in every j^lace.
Shall not God, who gives the light that power, be much more present him-
self? Whatsoever hath parts is finite, but God is infinite, therefore hath
no parts of his essence. Besides, if there were such a division of his being,
he would not be the most simple and uncompounded being, but would be
made up of various parts ; he would not be a Spirit ; for parts are evidences
of composition, and it could not be said that God is here or there, but only
a part of God here, and a part of God there. But he fills heaven and
earth, he is as much a God 'in the earth beneath' as ' in heaven above,'
Deut. iv. 39 ; entirely in all places, not by scraps and fragments of his
essence.
(3.) This essential presence is not by multiplication. For that which
is infinite cannot multiply itself, or make itself more or greater than it
was.
(4.) This essential presence is not by extension or diffusion ; as a piece
of gold may be beaten out to cover a large compass of ground. No ; if
God should create millions of worlds, he would be in tbem all, not by
stretching out his being, but by the infiniteness of his being ; not by a
new growth of his being, but by the same essence he had from eternity ;
upon the same reasons mentioned before, his simplicity and indivisibility.
(5.) But, totally ; there is no space, not the least, wherein God is not
wholly according to his essence, and wherein his whole substance doth not
exist ; not a part of heaven can be designed wherein the Creator is not
wholly ; as he is in one part of heaven, he is in every part of heaven.
Some kind of resemblance we may have from the water of the sea, which
fills the great space of the world, and is diffused through all ; yet the essence
of water is in every drop of water in the sea, as much as the whole, and the
same quality of water, though it comes short in quantity ; and why shall
we not allow God a nobler way of presence, without diffusion, as is in that ?
Or take this resemblance, since God likens himself to the light in the
Scripture : ' He covereth himself with light,' Ps. civ. 2 ; 1 John i. 5, ' God
is light, and in him is no darkness at all.' A crystal globe hung up in
the air hath light all about it, all within it, every part is pierced by it ;
wherever you see the crystal, you see the light ; the light in one part of
the crystal cannot be distinguished from the light in the other part, and the
whole essence of light is in every part ; and shall not God be as much pre-
Jer. XXIII. 24. J god's omnipresence. 431
sent with bis creatures as one creature can be with another ?* God is
totally everywhere by his own simple substance.
Fwji. 4. God is present beyond the world. He is within and above all
places, though places should be infinite in number. As he was before and
beyond all time, so he is above and beyond all place ; being from eternity
before any real time, he must also be without as well as within any real
space ; if God were only confined to the world, he \Tould be no more infinite
in his essence than the world is in quantity ; as a moment cannot be con-
ceived from eternity, wherein God was not in being, so a space cannot bo
conceived in the mind of man wherein God is not present ; he is not con-
tained in the world nor in the heavens : 1 Kings viii. 27, ' But will God,
indeed, dwell on the earth ? Behold, the heaven of heavens cannot contain
thee.' Solomon wonders that God should appoint a temple to be erected
to him upon the earth, when he is not contained in the vast circuit of the
heavens ; his essence is not straitened in the limits of any created work, he
is not contained in the heavens, i.e. in the manner that he is there ; but he
is there in his essence, and therefore cannot be contained there in his
essence. If it should be meant only of his power and providence, it would
conclude also for his essence ; if his power and providence were infinite,
his essence must be so too, for the infiniteness of his essence is the ground
of the infiniteness of his power. It can never enter into any thought that
a finite essence can have an infinite power, and that an infinite power can
be without an infinite essence ; it cannot be meant of his providence, as if
Solomon should say, the heaven of heaven cannot contain thy providence,
for, naming the heaven of heavens, that which encircles and bounds the
other parts of the world, he could not suppose a providence to be exercised
where there was no object to exercise it about, as no creature is mentioned
to be bej'ond the uttermost heaven, which he calls here the heaven of
heavens ; besides, to understand it of his providence doth not consist with
Solomon's admiration. He wonders that God, that hath so immense an
essence, should dwell in a temple made with hands ; he could not so much
wonder at his providence in those things that immediately concern his wor-
ship. Solomon plainly asserts this ^ of God, that he was so far from being
bounded within the rich wall of the temple, which, with so much cost, he
had framed for the glory of his name, that the richer palace of the heaven
of heavens could not contain him. It is true, it could not contain his power
and wisdom, because his wisdom could contrive other kind of worlds, and
his power erect them. But doth the meaning of that wise king reach no
farther than this ? Will the power and wisdom of God reside on the earth ?
He was too wise to ask such a question, since every object that his eyes met
with in the world resolved him that the wisdom and power of God dwelt
upon the earth, and glittered in everything he had created ; and reason
would assure him that the power that had framed this world was able to
frame many more. But Solomon, considering the immensity of God's
essence, wonders that God should order a house to be built for him, as if
he wanted roofs, and coverings, and habitation, as bodily creatures do.
Will God, indeed, dwell in a temple, who hath an essence so immense as
not to be contained in the heaven of heavens ? It is not the heaven of
heavens that can contain Him, his substance. Here he asserts the
immensity of his essence and his presence, not only in the heaven, but
beyond the heavens ; he that is not contained in the heavens, as a man is in
a chamber, is without, and above, and beyond the heavens ; it is not said
they do not contain him, but it is impossible they should contain him, they
* Bernard,
432 charnock's works. [Jer. XXIII. 24.
' cannot contain him.' It is impossible then but that he should be above
them ; he that is without the compass of the world is not bounded by the
limits of the world. As his power is not limited by the things he hath made,
but can create innumerable worlds, so can his essence be in innumerable
spaces ; for as he hath power enough to make more worlds, so he hath
essence enough to fill them, and therefore cannot be confined to what he
hath already created. Innumerable worlds cannot be a sufiicient place to
contain God ; he can only be a sufficient place to himself;* he that was
before the world, and place, and all things, was to himself a world, a place,
and everything.! He is really out of the world in himself, as he was in
himself before the creation of the world ; as, because God was before the
foundation of the world, we conclude his eternity, so, because he is M'ithout
the bounds of the world, we conclude his immensity, and from thence his
omnipresence. The world cannot be said to contain him, since it was ci'eated
by him ; it cannot contain him now, who was contained by nothing before
the world was. As there was no place to contain him before the world was,
there can be no place to contain him since the world was.
God might create more worlds circular and round as this, and those could
not be so contiguous, but some spaces would be left between ; as, take three
round balls, lay them as close as you can to one another, there will be some
spaces between, none would say but God would be in these spaces, as well
as in the world he had created, though there were nothing real and positive in
those spaces. Why should we then exclude God from those imaginary
spaces without the world ? God might also create many worlds, and
separate them by distances, that they might not touch one another, but be
at a gi'eat distance from one another, and would not God fill them as well
as he doth this ? If so, he must also fill the spaces between them, for if he
were in all those worlds, and not in the spaces between those worlds, his
essence would be divided ; there would be gaps in it, his essence would be
cut into parts, and the distance between every part of his essence would be
as great as the space between each world. The essence of God may be
conceived then well enough to be in all those infinite spaces where he can
erect new worlds.
I shall give one place more to prove both these propositions, viz. that God
is essentially in every part of the world, and essentially above ours without
the world : Isa. Ixvi. 1 , ' The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my foot-
stool.' He is essentially in every part of the world ; he is in heaven and
earth at the same time, as a man is upon his throne and his footstool.
God describes himself in a human shape, accommodated to our capacity, as
if he had his head in heaven and his feet on earth ; doth not his essence
then fill all intermediate spaces between heaven and earth ? As when the
head of a man is in the upper part of a room, and his feet upon the floor,
his body fills up the space between the head and his feet, this is meant of
the essence of God ; it is a similitude drawn from kings sitting upon the
throne, and not their power and authority, but the feet of their persons, are
supported by the footstool ; so here it is not meant only of the perfections
of God, but the essence of God. Besides, God seems to tax them with an
erroneous conceit they had, as though his essence were in the temple, and
not in any part of the world, therefore God makes an opposition between
heaven, and earth, and the temple : ' Where is the house that you built
unto me ? and where is the place of my rest ?' Had he understood it only
of his providence, it had not been anything against their mistake, for they
granted his providence to be not only in the temple, but in all parts of the
* Petav. t Maccor. loc. commun. cap. xix, p. 153.
Jer. XXIII. 2i.] god's omnipresence. 433
world. ' Where is the bouse that you build to me ? ' to me, not to my power
or providence, but think to include me within those walls ?
Again, it shews God to be above the beavens, if the heavens be his
throne ; he sits upon them, and is above them as kings are above the
thrones on which they sit ; so it cannot be meant of his providence, because,
no creature being without the sphere of the heavens, there is nothing of the
power and the providence of God visible there, for there is nothing for
him to employ his providence about ; for providence supposeth a creature
in actual being ; it must be therefore meant of his essence, which is above
the world, and in the world.
And the like proof you may see. Job xi. 7, 8, ' It is as high as heaven,
what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know? the measure
thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea ; ' where he in-
tends the unsearchableness of God's wisdom, but proves it by the influite-
ness of his essence; Heh. ' He is the height of the heavens,' he is the top
of all the heavens ; so that when you have begun at the lowest part, and
traced him through all the creatures, you will lind his essence filling all the
creatures to be at the top of the world, and infinitely beyond it.
Prop. 5. This is the property of God, incommunicable to any creature.
As no creature can be eternal and immutable, so no creature can be immense,
because it cannot be infinite ; nothing can be of an infinite nature, and
therefore nothing of an immense presence but God. It cannot be communi-
cated to the human nature of Christ, though in union with the divine.*
Some indeed argue that Christ, in regard of his human nature, is every-
where, because he sits at the right hand of God, and the right hand of God
is everywhere. His sitting at the right hand of God signifies his exaltation,
and cannot with any reason be extended to such a kind of arguing. ' The
hearts of kings are in the hand of God:' are the hearts of kings everywhere,
because God's hand is everywhere ? The souls of the righteous are in the
hand of God ; is the soul therefore of every righteous man everywhere in the
world ? The right hand of God is from eternity ; is the humanity of Christ
therefore from eternity, because it sits at the right hand of God ? The right
hand of God made the world ; did the humanity of Christ therefore make
heaven and earth ? The humanity of Christ must then be confounded with
his divinity, bp the same with it, not united to it. All creatures are dis-
tinct from their Creator, and cannot inherit the properties esseif'.ial to his
nature, as eternity, immensity, immutability, omnipresence, omniscience.
No angel, no soul, no creature can be in all places at once ; before they can
be so, they must be immense, and so must cease to be creatures, and com-
mence God. This is impossible.
II. Reasons to prove God's essential presence.
Reason 1. Because he is infinite. As he is infinite, he is everywhere ; as
he is simple, his whole essence is everywhere ; for in regard of his infinite-
ness, he hath no bounds ; in regard of his simplicity, he hath no parts ;
and therefore those that deny God's omnipresence, though they pretend to
own him infinite, must really conceive him finite.
1. God is infinite in his perfections. None can set bounds to terminate
the greatness and excellency of God : ' his greatness is unsearchable,' Ps.
cxlv. 3 ; Sept., oD/c 'idri crsgaj, there is no end, no limitation. What hath no
end is infinite ; his power is infinite : Job v. 9, ' Which doth great things
and unsearchable,' no end of those things he is able to do. His wisdom
infinite, Ps. cxlvii. 5 ; he understands all things, past, present, and to come,
* Rivet, Ps. ex. p. 301, coL 2.
VOL. I. E e
434 charnock's works. [Jer. XXIII. 24.
•what is already made, what is possible to be made ; his duration infinite :
Job xxxvi. 26, ' The number of his years cannot be searched out,' uTTi^av-og.
To make a finite thing of nothing is an argument of an infinite virtue. In-
finite power can only extract something out of the barren womb of nothing,
but all things were drawn forth by the word of God, the heavens and all the
host of them. The sun, moon, stars, the rich embellishments of the world,
appeared in being * at the breath of his mouth,' Ps. xxxiii. 6. The author
therefore must be infinite. And since nothing is the cause of God, or of
any perfection in him, since he derives not his being, or the least spark of
his glorious nature, from anything without him, he cannot be limited in any
part of his nature by anything without him ; and indeed the iufiniteness of
his power and his other perfections is asserted by the prophet, when he tells
us that • the nations are as a drop of a bucket, or the dust of the balance,
and less than nothing, and vanity,' Isa. xl. 15, 17. They are all so in
regard of his power, wisdom, &c. Conceive what a little thing a grain of
dust or sand is to all the dust that may be made by the rubbish of a house ;
what a little thing the heap of the rubbish of a house is to the vast heap of
the rubbish of a whole city, such a one as London ; how little that also
•would be to the dust of a whole empire ; how inconsiderable that also to the
dust of one quarter of the world, Europe or Asia ; how much less that still
to the dust of the whole world. The whole world is composed of an uncon-
ceivable number of atoms, and the sea of an unconceivable number of drops ;
now what a little grain of dust is in comparison of the dust of the whole
world, a drop of water from the sea to all the drops remaining in the sea,
that is the whole world to God. Conceive it still less, a mere nothing, yet
is it all less than this in comparison of God. There can be nothing more
magnificently expressive of the iufiniteness of God to a human conception
than this expression of God himself in the prophet.
In the perfection of a creature, something still may be thought greater to
be added to it, but God containing all perfections in himself formally, if they
be mere perfections, and eminently, if they be but perfections in the creature
mixed with imperfection, nothing can be thought greater, and therefore every
one of them is infinite.
2. If his perfections be infinite, his essence must be so. How God can
have infinite perfections and a finite essence is unconceivable by a human
or angelical understanding. An infinite power, an infinite wisdom, an in-
finite duration, must needs speak an infinite essence, since the iufiniteness
of his attributes is grounded upon the iufiniteness of his essence. To own
infinite perfections in a finite subject is contradictory. The manner of act-
ing by his power, and knowing by his wisdom, cannot exceed the manner of
being by his essence. His perfections flow from his essence, and the prin-
ciple must be of the same rank with what flows from it ; and if we conceive
his essence to be the cause of his perfections, it is utterly impossible that an
infinite efi'ect should arise from a finite cause ; but indeed his perfections
are his essence ; for though we conceive the essence of God as the subject,
and the attributes of God as faculties and qnahties in that subject, according
to our weak model, who cannot conceive of an infinite God without some
manner of likeness to ourselves ; who find understanding, and will, and
power in us distinct from our substance, yet truly and really there is no dis-
tinction between his essence and attributes ; one is inseparable from the
other. His power and wisdom are his essence ; and therefore to maintain
God infinite in the one and finite in the other, is to make a monstrous God,
and have an unreasonable notion of the Deity; for thei-e would be the
greatest disproportion in his nature, since there is no greater disproportion
Jeb. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipresence. 436
can possibly be between one tbing and another than there is between finite
and infinite. God must not only then be compounded, but have parts of
the greatest distance from one another in nature ; but God being the most
simple being, without the least composition, both must be equally infinite.
If, then, his essence be not infinite, his power and wisdom cannot be infinite,
which is both against Scripture and reason.
Again, how should his essence be finite and his perfections be infinite,
since nothing out of himself gave them, either the one or the other ?
Again, either the essence can be infinite, or it cannot;* if it cannot, there
must be some cause of that impossibility. That can be nothing without
him, because nothing without him^ can be as powerful as himself, much less
too powerful for him. Nothing within him can be an enemy to his highest
perfection ; since he is necessarily what he is, he must be necessarily the
most perfect being, and therefore necessarily infinite ; since to be something
infinitely is a greater perfection than to be something fkitely. f If he can
be infinite, he is infinite, otherwise he could be greater than he is, and so
more blessed and more perfect than he is, which is impossible ; for being
the most perfect being, to whom nothing can be added, he must needs be
infinite.
If, therefore, God have an infinite essence, he hath an infinite presence.
An infinite essence cannot be contained in a finite place ; as those things
which are finite have a bounded space wherein they are, so that which is
infinite hath an unbounded space ; for as finiteness speaks limitedness, so
infiniteness speaks unboundedness. And if we grant to God an infinite
duration, there is no difficulty in acknowledging an infinite presence. In-
deed, the infiniteness of God is a property belonging to him in regard of
time and place ; he is bounded by no place, and limited to no time.
Again, infinite essence may as well be everywhere, as infinite power reach
everything ; it may as well be present with every being, as infinite power
in its working may be present with nothing to bring it into being. Where
God works by his power, he is present in his essence, because bis power
and his essence cannot be separated, and therefore his power, wisdom, good-
ness, cannot be anywhere where his essence is not. His essence cannot be
severed from his power, nor his power from his essence; for the power of
God is nothing but God acting, and the wisdom of God nothing but God
knowing. As the power of God is always, so is his essence ; as the power
of God is everywhere, so is his essence. Whatsoever God is, he is alway,
and everywhere. To confine him to a place is to measure his essence, as
to confine his actions is to limit his power. His essence being no less in-
finite than his power and his wisdom, can be no more bounded than his
power and wisdom ; but they are not separable from his essence, yea, they
are his essence. If God did not fill the whole world, he would be deter-
mined to some place, and excluded from others, and so his substance would
have bounds and limits, and then something might be conceived greater than
God ; for we may conceive that a creature may be made by God of so vast
a greatness as to fill the whole world ; for the power of God is able to make
a body that should take up the whole space between heaven and earth, and
reach to every corner of it. But nothing can be conceived by any creature
greater than God ; he exceeds all things, and is exceeded by none. God
therefore cannot be included in heaven, nor included in the earth ; cannot
be contained in either of them ; for if we should imagine them vaster than
they are, yet still they would be finite ; and if his essence were contained
* Amyrald de Trinitat., p. 89.
t Dms est actus purus et nullam hahet potentiam passivam.
436 chabnock's works. [Jer. XXIII. 24.
in them, it could be no more infinite than the world which contains it, as
water is not of a larger compass than the vessel which contains it. If the
essence of God were limited either in the heavens or earth, it must needs
be finite, as the heavens and earth are ; but there is no proportion between
finite and infinite ; God therefore cannot be contained in them. If there
were an infinite body, that must be everywhere ; certainly, then, an infinite
spirit must be everywhere. Unless we will account him finite, we can render
no reason why he should not be in one creature as well as in another. If
he be in heaven, which is his creature, why can he not be in the earth,
which is as well his creature as the heavens?
Reason 2. Because of the continual operation of God in the world. This
was one reason made the heathen believe that there was an infinite spirit in
the vast body of the world, acting in everything, and producing those admir-
able motions which we see everywhere in nature. The cause which acts in
the most perfect manner, is also in the most perfect manner present with
its efi'ects.
God preserves all, and therefore is in all. The apostle thought it a good
induction, ' He is not far from us: for in him we live,' Acts xvii. 27. For
being as much as because, shews that from his operation he concluded his
real presence with all. It is not his virtue is not far from every one of us,
but he, his substance, himself; for none that acknowledge a God will deny
the absence of the virtue of God from any part of the world. He works in
everything, everything works and lives in him ; therefore he is present with
all,* or rather, if things live, they are in God, who gives them life. If
things live, God is in them, and gives them life ; if things move, God is in
them, and gives them motion ; if things have any being, God is in them,
and gives them being; if God withdraws himself, they presently lose their
being ; and therefore some have compared the creature to the impression of
a seal upon the wafer, f that cannot be preserved but by the presence of the
seal. As his presence was actual with what he created, so his presence is
actual with what he preserves, since creation and preservation do so little
difi"er ; if God creates things by his essential presence, by the same he sup-
ports them. If his substance cannot be disjoined from his preserving power,
his power and wisdom cannot be separated from his essence ; where there
are the marks of the one, there is the presence of the other ; for it is by his
essence that he is powerful and wise ; no man can distinguish the one from
the other in a simple being. God doth not preserve and act things by a
virtue difi'used from him.
It may be demanded whether that virtue be distinct from God? If it be
not, it is then the essence of God ; if it be distinct, it is a creature, and then
it may be asked how that virtue which preserves other things is preserved
itself? It must bo ultimately resolved into the essence of God, or else there
must be a running in infinitum; or else,^ is that virtue of God a substance
or not ? Is it endued with understanding or not ? If it hath understand-
ing, how doth it diff'er from God ? If it wants understanding, can any
imagine that the support of the world, the guidance of all creatures, the
wonders of nature, can be wrought, preserved, managed, by a virtue that
hath nothing of understanding in it ? If it be not a substance, it can much
less be able to produce such excellent operations as the preserving all the
kinds of things in the world, and ordering them to perform such excellent
ends ; this virtue is therefore God himself, the infinite power and wisdom of
God ; and therefore wheresoever the effects of these are seen in the world,
God is essentially present. Some creatures, indeed, act at a distance by a
* Pont. t Qu. ' water '?— Ed. % Amyrald de Trinitat., p. 106, 107.
Jer. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipresence. 437
virtue diflfused ; but such a manner of acting comes from a limitedness of
n;iture, that such a nature cannot be everywhere present, and extend its
substiuice to all parts. To act by a virtue, speaks the subject finite, and it
is a part of indigence. Kings act in their kingdoms by ministers and mes-
sengers, because they cannot act otherwise; but God, being infinitely perfect,
'works all things in all' immediately, 1 Cor. xii. 6. Illumination, sanctifi-
cation, grace, &c., are the immediate works of God in the heart, and imme-
diate agents are present with what they do ; it is an argument of the greater
perfection of a being to know things immediately which are done in several
places, than to know them at the second hand by instruments. It is no less
a perfection to be everywhere, rather than to be tied to one place of action,
and to act in other places by instruments for want of a power to act imme-
diately itself, (lod indeed acts by means and second causes in his provi-
dential dispensations in the world, but this is not out of any defect of power
to work all immediately himself; but he thereby accomodates his way of
acting to the nature of the creature, and the order of things which he hath
settled in the world. And when he works by means, he acts with those
means, in those means, sustains their faculties and virtues in them, concurs
with them by his power, so that God's acting by means doth rather strengthen
his essential presence than weaken it, since there is a necessary dependence
of the creatures upon the Creator in their being and acting; and what they
are, they are by the power of God ; what they act, they act in the power of
God concurring with them. They have their motion in him as well as their
being ; and where the power of God is, his essence is, because they are
inseparable ; and so this omnipresence ariseth from the simplicity of the
nature of God. The more vast anything is, the less confined. All that
will acknowledge God so great as to be able to work all things by his will
without an essential presence, cannot imagine him upon the same reason,
so little as to be contained in and bounded by any place.
Reason 3. Because of his supreme perfection.
No perfection is wanting to God ; but an unbounded essence is a perfec-
tion, a limited one is an imperfection. Though it be a perfection in a man
to be wise, yet it is an imperfection that his wisdom cannot rule all the
things that concern him ; though it be a perfection to be present in a place
where his affairs lie, yet is it his imperfection that he cannot be present
everywhere in the midst of all his concerns. If any man could be so, it
would be universally owned as a prime perfection in him above others. Is
that which would be a perfection in man to be denied to God ? * As that
which hath life is more perfect than that which hath not life, and that which
hath sense is more perfect than that which hath only life, as the plants have,
and what hath reason is more perfect than that which hath only life and
sense as the beasts have, so what is everywhere is more perfect than that
which is bounded in some narrow confines. If a power of motion be more
excellent than to be bed-rid, and swiftness in a creature be a more excellent
endowment than to be slow and snail-like, then to be everywhere without
motion is unconceivably a greater excellency than to be everywhere suc-
cessively by motion. God sets forth his readiness to help his people and
punish his enemies ; or his omnipresence, by swiftness, or ' flying upon the
wings of the wind,' Ps. xviii. 10. The wind is in every part of the air where
it blows ; it cannot be said that it is in this or that point of the air where you
feel it, so as to exclude it from another part of the air where you are not ; it
seems to possess all at once.
If the divine essence had any bounds of place, it would be imperfect, as
* Amyrald de Trinitat., p. 74, 75.
438 chabnock's works. [Jek. XXIII. 24.
well as if it had bounds of time ; where anything hath limitation, it hath
some defect in being ; and therefore, if God were confined or concluded, he
would be as good as nothing in regard of infiniteness. Whence should this
restraint arise ? There is no power above him to restrain him to a certain
space ; if so, then he would not be God, but that power which restrained
him would be God. Not from his own nature, for the being everywhere
implies no contradiction to his nature ; if his own nature determined him to
a certain place, then if he removed from that place, he would act against his
nature. To conceive any such thing of God is highly absurd. It cannot
be thought God should voluntarily impose any such restraint or confinement
upon himself; this would be to deny himself a perfection he might have.
If God have not this perfection, it is either because it is inconsistent with
his nature, or because he cannot have it, or because he will not. The
former cannot be ; for if he hath impressed upon air and light a resemblance
of his excellency to^^ diffuse themselves and fill so vast a space, is such an
excellency inconsistent with the Creator more than the creature ? What-
soever perfection the creature hath is eminently in God. Ps. xciv. 8, 9,
* Understand, 0 ye brutish among the people : and ye fools, when will you
be wise ? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear ? he that formed the
eye, shall he not see ? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know? '
By the same reason he that hath given such a power to those creatures, air
and light, shall not he be much more filling all spaces of the world ? It is
so clear a rule, that the psalmist fixes a folly and brutishness upon those
that deny it. It is not therefore inconsistent with his nature ; it were not
then a perfection, but an imperfection ; but whatsoever is an excellency in
creatures, cannot in a way of eminency be an imperfection in God. If it be
then a perfection, and God want it, it is because he cannot have it. Where,
then, is his power ? How can he be then the fountain of his own being ?
If he will not, where is his love to his own nature and glory? since no
creature would deny that to itself which it can have and is an excellency to
it. God therefore hath not only a power or fitness to be everywhere, but
he is actually everywhere.
Fieason 4. Because of his immutability.
If God did not fill all the spaces of heaven and earth, but only possess
one, 3'et it must be acknowledged that God hath a power to move himself
to another. It were absurd to fix God in a part of the heavens, like a star
in an orb, without a power of motion to another place. If he be, therefore,
essentially in heaven, may he not be upon the earth if he please, and trans-
fer his substance from one place to another ? To say he cannot is to deny
him a perfection, which he hath bestowed upon his creatures ; the angels,
his messengers, are sometimes in heaven, sometimes on earth ; the eagles,
meaner creatures, are sometimes in the air out of sight, , sometimes upon
the earth. If he doth move, therefore, and recede from one place and settle
in another, doth he not declare himself mutable by changing places, by
being where he was not before, and in not being where he was before ? He
would not fill heaven and earth at once, but successively ; no man can be
said to fill a room that moves from one part of a room to another ; if, there-
fore, any in their imaginations stake God to the heavens, they render him
less than his creatures ; if they allow him a power of motion from one place
to another, they conceive him changeable ; and, in either of them, they own
him no greater than a finite and limited being ; limited to heaven, if they
fix him there; limited to that space, to which they imagine him to move.
lieason 5. Because of his omnipotency.
The Almightiness of God is a notion settled in the minds of all, that God
Jer. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipresence. 439
can do whatsoever he pleases, everything that is not against the purity of
his nature, and doth not imply a contradiction in itself; he can therefore
create millions of worlds greater than this, and millions of heavens greater
than this heaven he hath already created ; if so, he is then in unconceivable
spaces beyond this world, for his essence is not less and narrower than his
power, and his power is not to be thought of a further extent than his
essence ; he cannot be excluded therefore from those vast spaces where his
power may fix those worlds if he please ; if so, it is no wonder that he
should till this world, and there is no reason to exclude God from the narrow
space of this world, that is not contained in infinite spaces beyond the world.
God is wheresoever he hath a power to act, but he hath a power to act
everywhere in the world, everywhere out of the world ; he is therefore
everywhere in the world, everywhere out of the world. Before this world
was made, he had a power to make it in the space where now it stands.
Was he not then unlimitedly where the world now is, before the world re-
ceived a being by his powerful word ? Why should he not then be in every
part of the world now ? Can it be thought that God, who was immense
before, should, after he had created the world, contract himself to the limits of
one of his creatures, and tie himself to a particular place of his own creation,
and be less after his creation than he was before ?
This might also be prosecuted by an argument from his eternity. What
is eternal in duration is immense in essence ; the same reason which renders
him eternal renders him immense ; that which proves him to be always will
prove him to be everywhere.
III. The third thing is, propositions for the further clearing this doctrine
from any exceptions.
1. This truth is not weakened by the expressions in Scripture, where God
is said to dwell in heaven, and in the temple.
(1.) He is, indeed, said to ' sit in heaven,' Ps. ii. 4, and to ' dwell on
high,' Ps. cxiii. 5 ; but he is nowhere said to dwell only in the heavens, as
confined to them. It is the court of his majestical presence, but not the
prison of his essence ; for when we are told that the ' heaven is his throne,'
Isa. Ixvi. 1, we are told with the same breath that the ' earth is his foot-
stool. He dwells on high in regard of the excellency of his nature, but he
is in all places in regard of the difi"usion of his presence. The soul is
essentially in all parts of the body, but it doth not exert the same opera-
tions in all ; the more noble discoveries of it are in the head and heart : in
the head, where it exerciseth the chiefest senses for the enriching the under-
standing ; in the heart, where it vitally resides, and communicates life and
motion to the rest of the body. It doth not understand with the foot or
toe, though it be in all parts of the body it forms. And so God may be
said to dwell in heaven, in regard of the more excellent and majestic repre-
sentation of himself, both to the creatures that inhabit the place, as angels
and blessed spirits, and also in those marks of his greatness which he hath
planted there, those spiritual natures which have a nobler stamp of God upon
them, and those excellent bodies, as sun and stars, which as so many tapers
light us to behold his glory, Ps. xix. 1, and astonish the minds of men when
they gaze upon them. It is his court, where he hath the most solemn wor-
ship from his creatures, all his courtiers attending there with a pure love
and glowing zeal. He reigns there in a special manner, without any oppo-
sition to his government ; it is therefore called his ' holy dwelling-place,'
2 Chron. iii. 27. The earth hath not that title, since sin cast a stain and a
ruining curse upon it ; the earth is not his throne, because his government
440 chabnock's woeks. [Jek. XXIII. 24.
is opposed ; but heaven is none of Satan's precinct, and the rule of God is
uncontradicted by the inhabitants of it. It is from thence also he hath given
the greatest discoveries of himself; thence he sends the angels his mes-
sengers, his Son upon redemption, his Spirit for sanctitication. From
heaven his gifts drop down upon our heads, and his grace upon our hearts,
James iii. 17 ; from thence the chiefest blessings of earth descend. The
motions of the heavens fatten the earth, and the heavenly bodies are i)ut
stewards to the earthly comforts for man by their influence. Heaven is the
richest, vastest, most stedfast and majestic part of the visible creation. It
is there where he will at last manifest himself to his people in a full con-
junction of grace and glory, and be for ever open to his people in unin-
terrupted expi'essions of goodness, and discoveries of his presence, as a
reward of their labour and service ; and, in these respects, it may peculiarly
be called his throne. And this doth no more hinder his essential presence
in all parts of the earth, than it doth his gracious presence in all the hearts
of his people. God is in heaven, in regard of the manifestation of his glory;
in hell, by the expression of his justice ; in the earth, by the discoveries of
his wisdom, power, patience, and compassion ; in his people, by the monu-
ments of his grace ; and in all, in regard of his substance.
(2.) He is said also to dwell in the ark and temple. It is called, Ps.
xxvi. 8, ' the habitation of his house, and the place where his honour
dwells;' and to dwell in Jerusalem, as in his holy mountain, 'the moun-
tain of the Lord of hosts,' Zech. viii, 3 ; in regard of publishing his oracles,
answering their prayers, manifesting more of his goodness to the Israelites
than to any other nation in the world ; erecting his true worship among
them, which was not settled in any part of the world besides ; and his wor-
ship is principally intended in that psalm. The ark is the place where his
honour dwells ; the worship of God is called the glory of God : ' They
changed the glory of God into an image made like to corruptible men,' Rom.
i. 23, i. e. they changed the worship of God into idolatry ; and to that also
doth the place in Zechariah refer.
Now, because he is said to dwell in heaven, is he essentially only there ?
Is he not as essentially in the temple and ark as he is in heaven, since there
are as high expressions of his habitation there, as of his dwelling in heaven?
If he dwell only in heaven, how came he to dwell in the temple ? Both are
asserted in Scripture, one as much as the other. If his dwelling in heaven
did not hinder his dwelling in the ark, it could as little hinder the presence
of his essence on the earth. To dwell in heaven and in one part of the
earth at the same time, is all one as to dwell in all parts of heaven and all
parts of earth. If he were in heaven, and in the ark and temple, it was the
same essence in both, though not the same kind of manifestation of himself.
If by his dwelling in heaven he meant his whole essence, why is it not also
to be meant by his dwelling in the ark ? It was not sure part of his essence
that was in heaven, and part of his essence that was on earth ; his essence
would then be divided ; and can it be imagined that he would be in heaven
and the ark at the same time, and not in the spaces between ? Could his
essence be split into fragments, and a gap made in it, that two distinct spaces
should be filled by him, and all between be empty of him ? So that God's
being, said to dwell in heaven, and in the temple, is so far from impairing
the truth of his doctrine, that it more confirms and evidences it.
2. Nor do the expressions of God's coming to us, or departing from us,
impair this doctrine of his omnipresence.
God is said to 'hide his face' from his people, Ps. x. 1, to be 'far from
the wicked,' Prov. xv. 29 ; and the Gentiles are said to be ' afar ofi',' viz.,
Jer. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipresence. 441
from God, Eph. ii. 17, and upon the manifestation of Christ, 'made near.'
These must not be understood of any distance or nearness of his essence,
for that is equally near to all persons and things, but of some other special
way and manifestation of his presence. Thus God is said to be in believers
by love, as they are in him: 1 John iv. 15, 'He that abides in love abides
in God, and God in him.' He that loves is in the thing beloved ; and
when two love one another, they are in one another. God is in a righteous
man by a special grace, and far from the wicked in regard of such special
works ; and God is said to be in a place by a special manifestation, as when
he was in the bush, Exod. iii., or manifesting his glory upon mount Sinai :
Exod. xxiv. IG, ' The glory of the Lord abode upon mount Sinai.' God is
said to hide his foce when he withdraws his comforting presence, disturbs
the repose of our hearts, flasheth terror into our consciences, when he puts
men under the smart of the cross, as though he had ordered his mercy
utterly to depart from them, or when he doth withdraw his special assisting
providence from us in our affairs. So he departed from Saul, when he
withdrew his direction and protection from him in the concerns of his
government : 1 Sam. xvi. 14, ' The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul,'
t. e. the spirit of government. God may be far from us in one respect, and
near to us in another ; far from us in regard of comfort, yet near to us in
regard of support, when his essential presence continues the same. This
is a necessary consequent upon the infiniteness of God, the other is an act
of the will of God ; so he was said to forsake Christ in regard of his
obscuring his glory from his human nature and inflicting his wrath, though
be was near to him in regard of his grace, and preserved him from contracting
any spot in his sufferings. We do not say the sun is departed out of the
heavens when it is bemisted ; it remains in the same part of the heavens,
passes on its course, though its beams do not reach us by reason of the bar
between us and it. The soul is in every part of the body in regnrd of its
substance, and constantly in it, though it doth not act so sprightly and
vigorously at one time as at another in one and the same member, and dis-
cover itself so sensibly in its operations ; so all the various effects of God
towards the sons of men are but diverse operations of one and the same
essence. He is far from us or near to us, as he is a judge or a benefactor.
When he comes to punish, it notes, not the approach of his essence, but
the stroke of his justice ; when he comes to benefit, it is not by a new
access of his essence, but an efflux of his grace. He departs from us when
he leaves us to the frowns of his justice, he comes to us when he encircles
us in the arms of his mercy ; but he was equally present with us in both
dispensations in regard of his essence. And likewise God is said to
come down — Gen. xi. 5, 'And the Lord came down to see the city' — when
he doth some signal and wonderful works which attract the minds of men to
the acknowledgment of a supreme power and providence in the world, who
judged God absent and careless before,
3. Nor is the essential presence of God with all creatures any disparage-
ment to him. Since it was no disparagement to create the heaven and the
earth, it is no disparagement to him to fill them. If he were essentially
present with them when he created them, it is no dishonour to him to be
essentially present with them to support them. If it were his glory to
create them by his essence when they were nothing, can it be his disgrace
to be present by his essence, since they are something, and something good,
and very good in his eye ? Gen. i. 31, ' God saw everything, and behold it
was very good,' or ' mighty good ;' all ordered to declare his goodness,
wisdom, power, and to make him adorable to man, and therefore took com-
442 cuarnock's works. [Jer. XXIII. 24.
placency in them. There is a harmony in all things, a combination in them
for those glorious ends for which God created them ; and is it a disgrace
for God to be present with his own harmonious composition ? Is it not a
musician's glory to touch with his fingers the treble, the least and tenderest
string, as well as the strongest and greatest bass ? Hath not everything
some stamp of God's own being upon it, since he eminently contains in
himself the perfections of all his works ? Whatsoever hath being hath a
footstep of God upon it, who is all being. Everything in the earth is his
footstool, having a mark of his foot upon it. All declare the being of God,
because they had their being from God ; and will God account it any dis-
paragement to him to be present with that which confirms his being, and
the glorious perfections of his nature to his intelligent creatures ? The
meanest things are not without their virtues, which may boast God's being
the Creator of them, and rank them in the midst of his works of wisdom as
well as power. Doth God debase himself to be present by his essence with
the things he hath made, more than he doth to know them by his essence ?
Is not the least thing known by him ? How ? Not by a faculty or act dis-
tinct from his essence, but by his essence itself. How is anything dis-
graceful to the essential presence of God, that is not disgraceful to his
knowledge by his essence ? Besides, would God make anything that
should be an invincible reason to him to part with his own infiniteness, by
a contraction of his own essence into a less compass than before ? It was
immense before, it had no bounds ; and woul<l God make a world that he
would be ashamed to be present with, and continue it to the diminution and
lessening of himself, rather than annihilate it to avoid the disparagement ?
This were to impeach the wisdom of God, and cast a blemish upon his
infinite understanding, that he knows not the consequences of his work, or
is well contented to be impaired in the immensity of his own essence by it.
No man thinks it a dishonour to light, a most excellent creature, to be pre-
sent with a toad or serpent ; and though there be an infinite disproportion
between light, a creature, and the Father of lights, the Creator, yet* God,
being a Spirit, knows how to be with bodies as if they were not bodies. And
being jealous of his own honour, would not, could not, do anything that might
impair it.
4, Nor will it follow, that because God is essentially everywhere, that
everything is God. God is not everywhere by any conjunction, composi-
tion, or mixture with anything on earth. When light is in every part of a
crystal globe, and encircles it close on every side, do they become one ?
No ; the crystal remains what it is, and the light retains its own nature.
God is not in us as a part of us, but as an efiicient and preserving cause.
It is not by his essential presence, but his efiicacious presence, that he
brings any person into a likeness to his own nature. God is so in his
essence with things as to be distinct from them, as a cause from the effect,
as a Creator difl'erent fi-om the creature, preserving their nature, not com-
municating his own. His essence touches all, is in conjunction with none.
Finite and infinite cannot be joined. He is not far from us, therefore near
to us; so near, that we ' live and move in him,' Acts xvii. 28. Nothing is
God because it moves in him, any more than a fish in the sea is the sea, or
a part of the sea, because it moves in it.f Doth a man that holds a thing
in the hollow of his hand transform it by that action, and make it like hia
hand ? The soul and body are more straitly united than the essence of God
is by his presence with any creature. The soul is in the body as a form in
matter, and from their union doth arise a man ; yet in this near conjunc-
* Gassend. t Amyrald de Trinit., p. 99, 100.
Jer. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipresence. 443
tion both body and soul remain distinct. The soul is not the body, nor
the body the soul ; they both have distinct natures and essences. The
body can never be changed into a soul, nor the soul into a body ; no more
can God into the creature, or the creature into God. Fire is in heated
iron, in every part of it, so that it seems to be nothing but fire ; yet is not
fire and iron the same thing ? But such a kind of arguing against God's
omnipresence, that if God were essentially present everything would be
God, would exclude him from heaven as well as from earth. By the same
reason, since they acknowledge God essentially in heaven, the heaven where
he is should be changed into the nature of God ; and by arguing against
his presence in earth upon this ground, they run such an inconvenience, that
they must own him to be nowhere, and that which is nowhere is nothing !
Doth the earth become God because God is essentially there, any more than
the heavens, where God is acknowledged by all to be essentially present ?
Again, if where God is essentially, that must be God, then if they place
God in a point of the heavens, not only that point must be God, but all the
world, because if that point be God, because God is there, then the point
touched by that point must be God, and so consequently as far as there are
any points touched by one another. We live and move in God, so we live
and move in the air ; we are no more God by that than we are mere air,
because we breathe in it, and it enters into all the pores of our body ; nay,
where there was a straiter union of the divine nature to the human in our
Saviour, yet the nature of both was distinct, and the humanity was not
changed into the divinity, nor the divinity into the humanity.
5. Nor doth it follow, that because God is everywhere, therefore a
creature may be worshipped without idolatry. Some of the heathens, who
acknowledged God's omnipresence, abused it to the countenancing idolatry ;
because God was resident in everything, they thought everything might be
worshipped, and some have used it as an argument against this doctrine ;
the best doctrines may by men's corruption be drawn out into unreasonable
and pernicious conclusions. Have you not met with any, that from the
doctrine of God's free mercy, and our Saviour's satisfactory death, have
drawn poison to feed their lusts, and consume their souls ; a poison com-
posed by their own corruption, and not oliered by those truths ? The
apostle intimates to us, that some did, or at least were ready to be more
lavish in sinning, because God was abundant in grace : Rom. vi. 1, 2,
' Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound ?' ver. 1, ' Shall we sin,
because we are not under the law but under grace ?' when he prevents an
objection that he thought might be made by some ; but as to this case,
since, though God be present in everything, yet everything retains its
nature, distinct from the nature of God, therefore it is not to have a worship
due to the excellency of God. As long as anything remains a creature, it is
only to have the respect from us which is due to it in the rank of creatures.
When a prince is present with his guard, or if he should go arm in arm
with a peasant, is therefore the veneration and honour due to the prince to
be paid to the peasant, or any of his guard ? Would the presence of the
prince excuse it, or would it not rather aggravate it ? He acknowledged
such a person equal to me, by giving him my rights, even in my sight.
Though God dwelt in the temple, would not the Israelites have been
accounted guilty of idolatry had they worshipped the images of the cheru-
bims, or the ark, or the altar, as objects of worship, which were erected
only as a means for his service ? Is there not as much reason to think
God was as essentially present in the temple as in heaven, since the same
expressions are used of the one and the other ? The sanctuary is called
444 charnock's works. [Jee. XXIII. 24.
the ' glorious high throne,' Jer, xvii. 12 ; and he is said to * dwell between
the cherubims,' Ps. Ixxx. 1, i. e. the two cherubims that were at the two
ends of the mercy-seat, appointed by God as the two sides of his throne in the
sanctuary, Exod. xxv. 18, where he was to ' dwell,' ver. 8, and meet and
* commune with his people,' ver. 22. Could this excuse Manasseh's
idolatry in bringing in a carved image into the house of God ? 2 Chron.
xxxiii. 7. Had it been a good answer to the charge, God is present here,
and therefore everything may be worshipped as God. If he be only essen-
t^aby in heaven, would it not be idolatry to direct a worship to the heavens,
o • any pai't of it as a due object, because of the presence of God there ?
Though we look up to the heavens, where we pray and worship God, yet
heaven is not the object of worship, the soul abstracts God from the creature.
6, Nor is God defiled by being present with those creatures which seem
filthy to us. Nothing is filthy in the eye of God as his creature ; he could
never else have pronounced all good ; whatsoever is filthy to us, yet as it is
a creature, it owes itself to the power of God. His essence is no more
defiled by being present with it, than his power by producing it. No
creature is foul in itself, though it may seem so to us. Doth not an infant
lie in a womb of filthiness and rottenness ? Yet is not the power of God
present with it, in ' working it curiously in the lower parts of the earth ? '
Are his eyes defiled by 'seeing the substance when it is yet imperfect' ?
Or his hand defiled by ' writing every member in his book ' ? Ps. cxxxix.
15, 10, Have not the vilest and most noisome things excellent medicinal
virtues ? How are they endued with them ? How are those qualities pre-
served in them ? By anything without God or no ? Every artificer looks
with pleasure upon the work he hath wrought with art and skill ; can his
essence be defiled by being present with them, any more than it was in
giving them such virtues, and preserving them in them ? God measures
the heaven and the earth with his hand ; is his hand defiled by the evil
i'lfluences of the planets, or the corporeal impurities of the earth? Nothing
cm be filthy in the eye of God but sin, since everything else owes its being
t;) him. What may appear deformed and unworthy to us, is not so to the
Creator ; he sees beauty where we see deformity ; finds goodness where we
behold what is nauseous to us. All creatures, being the effects of his power,
may be the objects of his presence ; can any place be more foul than hell,
if you take it either for the hell of the damned, or for the grave, where there
is rottenness ? yet there he is, Ps. cxxxix. 8. When Satan appeared before
God, and spake with him, Job i. 7, could God contract any impurity by
being present where that filthy spirit was, more impure than any corporeal,
noisome, and defiling thing can be ? No ; God is purity to himself in the
midst of noisomeness ; a heaven to himself in the midst of hell. Who ever
heard of a sunbeam stained by shining upon a quagmire, any more than
sweetened by breaking into a perfumed room !* Though the light shines
upon pure and impure things, yet it mixes not itself with either of them ;
60, though God be present with devils and wicked men, yet without any
mixture, he is present with their essence to sustain and support it, not in
their defection, wherein lies their defilement, and which is not a physical
but a moral evil ; bodily filth can never touch an incorporeal substance.
Spirits are not present with us in the same manner that one body is pre-
sent with another ; bodies can, by a touch only, defile bodies. Is the glory
of an angel stained by being in a coal mine ? or could the angel that came
into the lions' den, to deliver Daniel, chap. vi. 22, be any more disturbed by
the stench of the place, than he could be scratched by the paws or torn by
* Shelford of the Attributes, p. 170.
Jer. XXIII. 24. j god's omnipresence. 445
the teeth of the beasts? Their spiritual nature secures them against any infec-
tion, when they are * ministering spirits' to persecuted beUevers in their nasty
prisons, Acts xii. 7. The soul is straitly united with the body, but it is not made
white or bhick by the whiteness or blackness of its habitation ; is it infected
by the corporeal impurities of the body, while it continually dwells in a sea
of filthy pollution ? If the body be cast into a common sewer, is the soul
defiled by it ? Can a diseased body derive a contagion to the spirit that
animates it ? Is it not often the purer by grace, the more the body is
infected by nature. Hezekiah's spirit was scarce ever more fervent with
God than when the sore, which some think to be a plague- sore, was upon
him, Isa. xxxviii. 3. How can any corporeal filth impair the purity of the
divine essence ? It may as well be said, that God is not present in battles
and fights for his people, Joshua xxiii. 10, because he would not be dis-
turbed by the noise of cannons and clashing of swords, as that he is not pre-
sent in the world, because of the ill scents. Let us therefore conclude this
with the expression of a learned man of our own :* * To deny the omnipre-
sence of God, because of ill scented places, is to measure God rather by the
nicety of sense than by the sagacity of reason.'
IV. Use.
1. Of information.
(1.) Christ hath a divine nature. As eternity "and immutability, two
incommunicable properties of the divine nature, are ascribed to Christ, so
also is this of omnipresence or immensity. John iii. 13, ' No man hath
ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the
Son of man which is in heaven.' Not which was, but which is ; he comes
from heaven by incarnation, and remains in heaven by his divinity. He
was, while he spake to Nicodemus, locally on earth, in regard of his humanity,
but in heaven according to his deity, as well as upon earth in the union
of his divine and human nature. He descended upon earth, but he left not
heaven; he was in the world before he came in the flesh. John i. 10, * He
was in the world, and the world was made by him.' He was in the world,
as the ' light that enlightens every man that comes into the world ;' in the
world as God, before he was in the world as man. He was then in the
world as a man, while he discoursed with Nicodemus, yet so that he was
also in heaven as God. No creature but is bounded in place, either cir-
cumscribed as body or determined as spirit to be in one space, so as not
to be in another at the same time ; to leave a place where they were, and
possess a place where they were not. But Christ is so on earth, that at the
same time he is in heaven ; he is therefore infinite. To be in heaven and
earth at the same moment of time, is a property solely belonging to the
Deity, wherein no creature can be a partner with him. ' He was in the
world' before became to the world, 'and the w^orld was made by him,'
John i. 10. His coming was not as the coming of angels, that leave heaven
and begin to be on earth, where they were not before, but such a presence
as can be ascribed only to God, who fills heaven and earth. Again, if all
things were made by him, then he was present with all things which were
made, for where there is a presence of power, there is also a presence of
essence, and therefore he is still present ; for the right and power of con-
servation follows the power of creation. And according to this divine
nature he promiseth his presence with his church : ' There am I in the
midst of them,' Mat. sviii. 20. And * I am with you ahvay, even to the
end of the world,' chap, xxviii. 20, i. e. by his divinity ; for he had before
* Dr Moro.
446 charnock's works. [Jer. XXIII. 24.
told them that they were not to have him alway with them, chap. xxvi. 11,
i. e., according to his humanity; but in his divine nature he is present with,
and ' walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks.' If we understand it
of a presence by his Spirit in the midst of the church, doth it invalidate his
essential presence ? No ; he is no less than the Spirit whom he sends, and
therefore as little confined as the Spirit is, who dwells in every believer; and
this may also be inferred from John x. 30, ' My Father and I are one;' not
one by consent, though that be included, but one in power ; for he speaks
not of their consent, but of their joint power in keeping his people. Where
there is a unity of essence there is a unity of presence.
(2.) Here is a confirmation of the spiritual nature of God. If he were
an infinite body, he could not fill heaven and earth, but with the exclusion
of all creatures. Two bodies cannot be in the same space ; they may be
near one another, but not in any of the same points together. A body
bounded he hath not, for that would destroy his immensity ; he could not
then fill heaven and earth, because a body cannot be at one and the same
time in two different spaces ; but God doth not fill heaven at one time, and
the earth at another, but both at the same time. Besides, a limited body
cannot be said to fill the whole earth, but one particular space in the earth
at a time. A body may fill the earth with its virtue, as the sun, but not
with its substance. Nothing can be everywhere with a corporeal weight and
mass ;^but God being infinite, is not tied to any part of the world, but pene-
trates all, and equally acts by his infinite power in all.
(3.) Here is an argument for providence. His presence is mentioned in
the text, in order to his government of the affairs of the world. Is he every-
where, to be unconcerned with every thing ? Before the world had a being,
God was present with himself ; since the world hath a being, he is present
with his creatures, to exercise his wisdom in the ordering, as he did his
power in the production of them. As the knowledge of God is not a bare
contemplation of a thing, so his presence is not a bare inspection into a
thincr. Were it an idle, careless, presence, it were a presence to no purpose,
which cannot be imagined of God. Infinite power, goodness, and wisdom,
beincr everywhere present with his essence, are never without their exercise.
He never manifests any of his perfections, but the manifestation is full of
some indulgence and benefit to his creatures. It cannot be supposed God
should neglect those things, wherewith he is constantly present in a way of
efficiency and operation.* He is not everywhere without acting everywhere.
Wherever his essence is, there is a power and virtue worthy of God every-
where dispensed. He governs by his presence what he made by his power,
and is present as an agent with all his works. His power and essence are
tocether, to preserve them while he pleases, as his power and his essence
are together to create them when he saw good to do it. Every creature hath
a stamp of God, and his pi'esence is necessary to keep the impression stand-
incf upon the creature. As all things are his works, they are the objects of
his care ; and the wisdom he employed in framing them, will not suffer him
to be careless of them. His presence with them, engageth him in honour
not to be a negligent governor. His immensity fits him for government ;
and where there is a fitness, there is an exercise of government, where there
are objects for the exercise of it. He is worthy to have the universal rule
of the world, he can be present in all places of his empire, there is nothing
can be done by any of his subjects, but in his sight. As his eternity renders
him king alway, so his immensity renders him king everywhere. If he were
only present in heaven, it might occasion a suspicion that he minded only
* Cyril.
Jkr. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipresence. 447
the things of heaven, and had no concern for things belov^ that vast body ;
but if he be present here, his presence hath a tendency to the government
of those things with which he is present. We are all in him as fish in the
sea ; and he bears all creatures in the womb of his providence, and the
arms of his goodness. It is most certain that his presence with his people
is far from being an idle one ; for when he promises to be with them, he
adds some special cordial, as, ' I will be with thee, and bless thee,' Gen.
xxvi. 3, Jer. xv. 20. ' I am with thee, and I will strengthen thee ; I will
help thee, I will uphold thee,' Isa. xh. 10, 14. Infinite goodness will never
countenance a negligent presence.
(4.) The omniscience of God is inferred from hence. If God be present
everywhere, he must needs know what is done everywhere. It is for this
end he proclaims himself a God filling heaven and earth, in the text. ' Can
any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord ?'
I have heard what the prophets say, that prophesy lies in my name. If I
fill heaven and earth, the most secret thing cannot be hid from my si^ht.
An intelligent being cannot be everywhere present, and more intimate in
everything, than it can be in itself; but he must know what is done without,
what is thought within. Nothing can be obscure to him, who is in every
part of the world, in every part of his creatures. Not a thought can start
up but in his sight, who is present in the souls and minds of everythin<y.
How easy is it with him, to whose essence the world is but a point, to know
and observe everything done in this world, as any of us can know what is
done in one point of place where we are present ? If light were an under-
standing being, it would behold and know everj'thing done, where it difi'useth
itself. God is light (as light in a crystal glass, all within it, all without it),
and is not ignorant of what is done within and without ; no ignorance can
be fastened upon him who hath an universal presence.
Hence by the way we may take notice of the wonderful patience of God,
who bears with so many provocations, not from a principle of ignorance, for
he bears with sins that are committed near him, in his sight, sins that he
sees, and cannot but see.
(5.) Hence may be inferred the incomprehensibility of God. He that
fills heaven and earth, cannot be contained in anything ; he fills the under-
standings of men, the understandings of angels, but is comprehended by
neither ; it is a rashness to think to find out any bounds'^of God ; thei-e is no
measuring of an infinite being; if it were to be measured, it were not infinite ;
but because it is infinite, it is not to be measured. God sits above the
cherubims, Ezek. x. 1, above the fulness, above the brightness, not only of
a human, but a created understanding. Nothing is more present than God,
yet nothing more hid'; he is light, and yet obscurity ;* his perfections are
visible, yet unsearchable ; we know there is an infinite God, but it surpasseth
the compass of our minds ; we know there is no number so great, but another
may be added to it ; but no man can put it in practice without losing him-
self in a maze of figures. What is the reason we comprehend not many,
nay, most things in the world ? Partly from the excellency of the object,
and partly from the imperfection of our understanding. How can we then
comprehend God, who exceeds all, and is exceeded by none ; contains all,
and is contained by none ; is above our understanding, as well as above our
sense ; as considered in himself, infinite ; as considered in comparison with
our understandings, incomprehensible ; who can with his eye measure the
breadth, length, and depth of the sea, and at one cast view every dimension
of the heavens ! God is greater, and ' we cannot know him,' Job xxxvi. 25 ;
* K^vfioTTig, Dionysius called God.
448 chaknock's woeks. [Jeb. XXIII. 24.
he fills the understanding as he fills heaven and earth : yet is above the
understanding as he is above heaven and earth. He is known by faith,
enjoyed b}' love, but comprehended by no mind. God is not contained in
that one syllable, God ; by it we apprehend an excellent and unlimited nature ;
himself only understands himselfy and can unveil himself.
(6.) How wonderful is God, and how nothing are creatures ! ' Ascribe
the greatness to our God,' Deut. xxxii. 3. He is admirable in the considera-
tion of his power, in the extent of his understanding, and no less wonderful
in the immensity of his essence ; that as Austin saith, he is in the world, yet
not confined to it ; he is out of the world, yet not debarred from it ; he is
above the world, yet not elevated by it ; he is below the world, yet not de-
pressed by it ; he is above all, equalled by none ; he is in all, not because
he needs them, but they stand in need of him ; this, as well as eternity,
makes a vast dispi'oportion between God and the creature. The creature is
bounded by a little space, and no space is so great as to bound the Creator.
By this we may take a prospect of our own nothingness ; as in the considera-
tion of God's holiness we are minded of our own impurity ; and in the
thoughts of his wisdom have a view of our own folly ; and in the meditation
of his power, have a sense of our weakness ; so his immensity should make
us, accordinc; to our own nature, appear little in our own eyes. What little,
little, little things are we to God ! Less than an atom in the beams of the
sun ; poor drops to a God that fills heaven and earth ; and yet dare we to
strut against him, and dash ourselves against a rock. If the consideration
of ourselves, in comparison with others, be apt to pufi" us up, the considera-
tion of ourselves, in comparison with God, will be sufficient to pull us down.
If we consider him in the greatness of his essence, there is but little more
proportion between him and us, tbau between being and not being, than
between a drop and the ocean. How should we never think of God without
a holy admiration of his greatness, and a deep sense of our own littleness !
and as the angels cover their faces before him, with what awe should ci'eep-
ing worms come into his sight ! and since God fills heaven and earth with
his presence, we should fill heaven and earth with his glory ; for this end
he created angels to pi'aise him in heaven, and men to worship him on earth,
that the places he fills with his presence may be filled with his praise. We
should be swallowed up in admiration of the immensity of God, as men are
at the first sight of the sea, when they behold a mass of waters, without be-
holding the bounds, and immense depth of it.
(7.) How much is this attribute of God forgotten or contemned ! We
pretend to believe him to be present everywhere, and yet many live as if he
were present nowhere.
[1.] It is commonly forgotten, or not believed. All the extravagancies of
men may be traced to the forgetfulness of this attribute as their spring. The
first speech Adam spake in paradise after his fall, testified his unbelief of
this : Gen. iii. 10, ' I heard thy voice in the garden, and I hid myself;' his
ear understood the voice of God, but his mind did not conclude the presence
of God ; he thought the trees could shelter him from him, whose eye was
present in the minutest parts of the earth ; he that thought after his sin, that
he could hide himself from the presence of his justice, thought before that
he could hide himself from the presence of his knowledge ; and being deceived
in the one, he would try what would be the fruit of the other. In both he
forgets, if not denies, this attribute ; either corrupt notions of God, or a
slight belief of what in general men assent unto, gives birth to every sin.
In all transgressions there is something of atheism : either denying the being
of God, or a dash upon some perfection of God ; a not believing his holi-
Jer. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipresence. 449
noss to hate it, his truth that threatens, his justice to punish it, and hia
presence to observe it. Though God bo not afar ofl" in his essence, he is
afar oif in the apprehension of the sinner.* There is no wicked man, but
if he bef an atheist, he is a heretic ; and to gratify his lust, will fancy him-
self to be out of the presence of his Judge. His reason tells him, God is
present with him ; his lust presseth him to embrace the season of a sensual
pleasure. Ho will forsake his reason, and prove a heretic, that he may be
an undisturbed sinner ; and sins doubly both in the error of his mind and
the vileness of his practice ; he will conceit God with those in Job, chap
xxii. 14, * veiled with thick clouds,' and not able to pierce into the lower
world ; as if his presence and cares were confined to celestial things, and
the earth were too low a sphere for his essence to reach, at least with any
credit. It is forgotten by good men, when they fear too much the designs
of their enemies ; ' Fear not, for I am with thee,' Isa. xliii. 6. If the pre-
sence of God be enough to strengthen against fear, then the prevailing of
fear issues from our forgetfulness of it.
[2.] This attribute of God's omnipresence is for the most part con-
temned. When men will commit that in the presence of God, which they
would be afraid or ashamed to do before the eye of man. Men do not prac-
tise that modesty before God, as before men. He that would restrain his
tongue out of fear of men's eye, will not restrain either his tongue or hands
out of fear of God's. What is the language of this, but that God is not
present with us, or his presence ought to be of less regard with us, and
influence upon us, than that of a creature ? Ask the thief why he dares to
steal ? Will he not answer, No eye sees him ? Ask the adulterer why he
strips himself of his chastity, and invades the rights of another ? Will he
not answer. No eye sees me? Job xxiv. 15. He disguiseth himself to be
unseen by man, but slights the all-seeing eye of God. J If only a man
know them, they are in terror of the shadow of death, Job xxiv. 17 ; they
are planet-struck, but stand unshaken at the presence of God. Is not this
to account God as limited as man, as ignorant, as absenting, as if God were
something less than those things which restrain us ? It is a debasing God
below a creature. If we can forbear sin from any awe of the presence of
man, to whom we are equal in regard of nature ; or from the presence of a
very mean man, to whom we are superior in regard of condition ; and not
forbear it because we are within the ken of God, we respect him not only as
our inferior, but inferior to the meanest man or child of his creation, in
whose sight we would not commit the like action. It is to represent him as
a sleepy, negligent, or careless God ; as though anything might be concealed
from him, before whom the least fibres of the heart are anatomized and open,
Heb. iv. 13, who sees as plainly midnight as noonday sins. Now this is a
high aggravation of sin. To break a king's laws in his sight is more bold
than to violate them behind his back ; as it was Haman's offence when he
lay upon Esther's bed, to force the queen before the king's face. The least
iniquity receives a high tincture from this ; and no sin can be little that is
an affront in the face of God, and casting the filth of the creature before the
eyes of his holiness, — as if a wife should commit adultery before her hus-
band's face, or a slave dishonour his master, and disobey his commands in
his presence. And hath it not often been thus with us ? Have we not
been disloyal to God in his sight, before his eyes, those pure eyes, that can-
not behold iniquity without anger and grief? Isa, Ixv. 12, 'Ye did evil
before my eyes.' Nathan chargeth this home upon David : 2 Sam. xii. 9,
* Drexel. Nicet. lib. ii. cap. 10. | Drexel. Nicet. lib. ii. cap. 10.
t Qu. ' be not •?'— Ed.
VOL. I. P f
450 charnock's works. [Jer. XXIII. 24.
' Thou hast despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight.'
And David, in his repentance, reflects upon himself for it : Ps. li. 4, * Against
thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.' I observed
not thy presence ; I neglected thee while thy eye was upon me. And this
consideration should sting our hearts in all our confessions of our crimes.
Men will be afraid of the presence of others, whatsoever they think in their
heart. How unworthily do we deal with God, in not giving him so much
as an eye-service, which we do man ?
(8.) How terrible should the thoughts of this attribute be to sinners !
How foolish is it to imagine any hiding-place from the incomprehensible
God, who fills and contains all things, and is present in every point of the
world.* When men have shut the door, and made all darkness within, to
meditate or commit a crime, they cannot in the most intricate recesses be
sheltered from the presence of God. If they could separate themselves from
their own shadows, they could not avoid his company, or be obscured from
his sight : Ps. cxxxix. 12, ' The darkness and light are both alike to him.'
Hypocrites cannot disguise their sentiments from him ; he is in the most
secret nook of their hearts. No thought is hid, no lust is secret, but the
eye of God beholds this, and that, and the other. He is present with our
heart when we imagine, with our hands when we act. We may exclude the
sun from peeping into our solitudes, but not the eyes of God from beholding
our actions. ' The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil
and good,' Prov. xv. 3. He lies in the depths of our souls, and sees afar off
our designs before we have conceived them. He is in the greatest darkness,
as well as the clearest light ; in the closest thought of the mind, as well as
the openest expressions. Nothing can be hid from him ; no, not in the
darkest cells or thickest walls. ' He compasscth our path' wherever we are,
and ' is acquainted with all our ways,' Ps. cxxxix. 3. He is as much pre-
sent with wicked men to observe their sins, as he is to detest them. Where
he is present in his essence, he is present in his attributes : his holiness to hate,
and his justice to punish, if he please to speak the word. It is strange men
should not be mindful of this, when their very sins themselves might put them
in mind of his presence. Whence hast thou the power to act ? Who preserves
thy being, whereby thou art capable of committing that evil ? Is it not his
essential presence that sustains us, and his arm that supports us ? And where
can any man fly from his presence ? Not the vast regions of heaven could
shelter a sinning angel from his eye. How was Adam ferreted out of his
hidinw-places in paradise ? Nor can we find the depths of the sea a sufficient
covering to us. If we were with Jonah, closeted up in the belly of a whale ;
if we had the wings of the morning, as quick a motion as the light at the
dawning of the day, that doth in an instant surprise and overpower the
regions of darkness, and could pass to the utmost parts of the earth or hell,
there we should find him ; there his eye would be upon us, there would his
hand lay hold of us, and lead us as a conqueror triumphing over a captive,
Ps. cxxxix. 8-10. Nay, if we could leap out of the compass of heaven and
earth, we should find as little reserves from him. He is without the world
in those infinite spaces which the mind of man can imagine. In regard of
his immensity, nothing in being can be distant from him, wheresoever it is.
Use 2 is for comfort. That God is present everywhere, is as much a
comfort to a good man as it is a terror to a wicked one. He is everywhere
for his people, not only by a necessary perfection of his nature, but an im-
mense diffusion of his goodness. He is in all creatures as their preserver,
* Quo fugis, Encelade ? Quascunque accesseris oras,
Sub Jove semper eris.
Jer. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipresence. 461
in the damned as their terror, in his people as their protector. He fills hell
with his severity, heaven with his glory, his people with his grace. He is
with his people as light in darkness, a fountain in a garden, as manna in
the ark. God is in the world as a spring of preservation, in the church as
his cabinet, a spring of grace and consolation. A man is present some-
times in his field, but more delightfully in his garden. A vineyard, as it
hath more of cost, so more of care, and a watchful presence of the owner :
Isa. xxvii. 8, ' I the Lord do keep it,' viz., his vineyard ; ' I will water it
every moment : lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day.' As there is
a presence of essence, which is natural, so there is a presence of grace, which
is federal, — a presence by covenant, ' I will not leave thee,' I will be with
thee ;' this latter depends upon the former. For take away the immensity
of God, and you leave no foundation for his universal gracious presence with
his people in all their emergencies, in all their hearts ; and, therefore, where
he is present in his essence, he cannot be absent in his grace from them that
fear him. It is from his filling heaven and earth he proves his knowledge of the
designs of the false prophets ; and from the same topic may as well be
inferred the employment of his power and grace for his people.
1. The omnipresence of God is comfort in all violent temptations. No
fiery dart can be so present with us, as God is present both with that and
the mai'ksman. The most raging devils cannot be so near us as God is to
us and them. He is present with his people, to relieve them ; and present
with the devil, to manage him to his own holy purposes. So he was with
Job, defeating his enemies, and bringing him triumphantly out of those
pressing trials. This presence is such a terror that, whatsoever the devil
can despoil us of, he must leave this untouched. He might scratch the
apostle with a thorn, 2 Cor. xvii. 7, 9, but he could not rifle him of the pre-
sence of divine grace, which God promised him. He must prevail so far as
to make God cease to be God, before he can make him to be distant from
us ; and, while this cannot be, the devils and men can no more hinder the
emanations of God to the soul, than a child can cut ofi" the rays of the sun
from embellishing the earth ; it is no mean support for a good man, at any
time buffeted by a messenger of Satan, to think God stands near him, and
beholds how ill he is used. It would be a satisfaction to a king's favourite,
in the midst of the violence some enemies might use to him upon a surprise, to
understand that the king who loves him, stands behind a curtain, and through
a hole sees the injuries he suffers ; and were the devil as considering as he
is malicious, he could not but be in great fear at God's being in the genera-
tion of the righteous, as his serpentine seed is : Ps. xiv. 5, ' There were
they in great fear, for God is in the generation of the righteous.*
2. The omnipresence of God is a comfort in sharp afflictions. Good men
have a comfort in this presence in their nasty prisons, oppressing tribunals ;
in the overflowing waters or scorching flames, he is still with them, Isa.
xliii. 2 ; and many times, by his presence, keeps the bush from consuming,
when it seems to be all in a flame. In afflictions, God shews himself most
present when friends are most absent : ' When my father and mother for-
sake me, then the Lord shall take me up,' Ps. xxvii. 10 ; then God will
stoop and gather me into his protection ; Heh. ' shall gather me,' alluding
to those tribes that were to bring up the rear in the Israelites' march, to
take care that none were left behind, and exposed to famine or wild beasts,
by reason of some disease that disenabled them to keep pace with their
brethren. He that is the sanctuary of his people in all calamities, is more
present with them, to support them, than their adversaries can be present
with them, to afflict them : Ps. xlvi. 2, ' A present help in the time of
452 chabnock's works. [Jer. XXIII. 24.
trouble.' He is present with all things for this end ; though bis presence
be a necessary presence, in regard of the immensity of his nature, yet the
end of this presence, in regard that it is for the good of bis people, is a
voluntary presence. It is for the good of man he is present in the lower
world, and principally for the good of bis people, for whose sake he keeps
up the world : 2 Chron. xvi. 9, ' His eyes run to and fro throughout the
whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is
perfect towards bim.' If be doth not deliver good men from afflictions, be
will be so present as to manage them in them, as that his glory shall issue
from them, and their grace be brightened by them.*
What a man was Paul, when he was lodged in a prison, or dragged to the
courts of judicature ; when be was torn with rods, or laden with chains !
Then did he shew the greatest miracles, made the judge tremble upon the
bench, and break the heart, though not the prison, of the jailor, — so power-
ful is the presence of God in the pressures of his people. This presence
outweighs all other comforts, and is more valuable to a Chi'istian than barns
of corn or cellars of wine can be to a covetous man, Ps. iv. 7. It was this
presence was David's cordial in the mutinying of bis soldiers, 1 Sam. xxx. 6.
What a comfort is this in exile, or a forced desertion of our habitations !
Good men may be banished from their country, but never from the presence
of their protector ; ye cannot say of any corner of the earth, or of any
dungeon in a prison, God is not here. If you were cast out of your country
a thousand miles off, you are not out of God's precinct, bis arm is there to
cherish the good, as well as to drag out the wicked ; it is the same God, the
same presence in every country, as well as the same sun, moon, and stars ;
and were not God everywhere, yet he could not be meaner than his creature,
the sun in the firmament, which visits every part of the habitable world in
twenty-four hours.
3. The omnipotence f of God is a comfort in all duties of worship. He
is present to observe, and present to accept our petitions, and answer our
suits. Good men have not only the essential presence, which is common to
all, but his gracious presence ; not only the presence that flows from his
nature, but that which flows from his promise ; his essential presence makes
no difference between this and that man in regard of spirituals, without this
in conjunction with it ; his nature is the cause of the presence of his
essence ; his will, engaged by his truth, is the cause of the presence of bis
grace. He promised to meet the Israelites in the place where he should set
his name, and in all places where be doth record it : Exod. xx. 24, ' In all
places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee ; '
in every place where I shall manifest the special presence of my divinity.
In all places hands maybe lifted up, without doubting of bis ability to hear;
be dwells in the ' contrite hearts,' Isa. Ivii. 15, wherever it is most in the
exercise of contrition, which is usually in times of special worship ; and that
to revive and refresh them. Habitation notes a special presence ; though
be dwell in the highest heavens, in the sparklings of his glory, he dwells
also in the lowest hearts in the beams of bis grace ; as none can expel bim
from bis dwelling in heaven, so none can reject him from bis residence in
the heart. The tabernacle bad bis peculiar presence fixed to it, Levit.
xxvi. 11 ; his soul should not abhor them as they are washed by Christ,
though they are loathsome by sin. In a greater dispensation there cannot
be a less presence, since the church, under the New Testament, is called
the temple of the Lord, wherein he will both dwell and walk : 2 Cor. vi. 16,
or, ' I will indwell them ; ' as if he should say, I will dwell in and in them ;
* Chrysoatom. ■)■ Qu. ' omnipresence ? ' — Ed.
Jer. XXIII. 24. J god's omnipresence. 453
I will dwell in them by grace, and walk in them by exciting their graces ; he
will be more intimate with them than their own souls, and converse with
them as the living God, i. e. as a God that hath life in himself, and life to
convey to them in their converse with him ; and shew his spiritual glory
among them in a greater measure than in the temple, since that was but a
heap of stones, and the figure of the Christian church, the mystical body of
his Son. His presence is not less in the substance than it was in the
shadow ; this presence of God, in his ordinances, is the glory of a church,
as the presence of a king is the glory of a court ; the defence of it, too, as a
wall of fire, Zech, ii. 5, alluding to the fire travellers in a wilderness made
to fright away wild beasts. It is not the meanness of the place of worship
can exclude him ; the second temple was not so magnificent as the first, of
Solomon's erecting ; and the Jews seem to despond of so glorious a presence
of God in the second, as they had in the first, because they thought it not
so good for the entertainment of him that inhabits eternity ; but God comforts
them against this conceit again and again : Hag. ii. 3, 4, ' Be strong, be strong,
be strong, I am with you ; ' the meanness of the place shall not hinder the
grandeur of my presence. No matter what the room is, so it be the presence-
chamber of the King, wherein he will favour our suits, he can everywhere
slide into our souls with a perpetual sweetness, since he is everywhere, and
80 intimate with every one that fears him. If we should see God on earth
in his amiableness, as Moses did, should we not be encouraged by his
presence, to present our requests to him, to echo out our praises of him ?
And have we not as great a ground now to do it, since he is as really present
with us, as if he were visible to us ? He is in the same room with us, as
near to us as our souls to our bodies ; not a word but he hears, not a motion
but he sees, not a breath but he perceives ; he is through all, he is in all.
4. The omnipresence of God is a comfort in all special services. God
never puts any upon a hard task, but he makes promises to encourage them
and assist them ; and the matter of the promise is that of his presence. So
he did assure the prophets of old when he set them difficult tasks ; and
strengthened Moses against the face of Pharaoh, by assuring him he would
' be with his mouth,' Exod. iv. 12 ; and when Christ put his apostles upon
a contest with the whole world, to preach a gospel that would be foolishness
to the Greeks, and a stumbling-block to the Jews, he gives them a cordial
only composed of his presence : Mat. xxviii. 20, ' I will be with you.' It
is this presence scatters, by its light, the darkness of our spirits ; it is this
that is the cause of what is done for his glory in the world ; it is this that
mingles itself with all that is done for his honour ; it is this from whence
springs all the assistance of his creatures, marked out for special purposes.
5. This presence is not without the special presence of all his attributes.
Where his essence is, his perfections are, because they are one with his
essence ; yea, they are his essence, though they have their several degrees
of manifestation. As in the covenant, he makes over himself as our God,
not a part of himself, but his whole deity ; so, in promising of his presence,
he means not a part of it, but the whole, the presence of all the excellencies
of his nature to be manifested for our good. It is not a piece of God is here,
and another parcel there, but God in his whole essence and perfections ; in
his wisdom to guide us, his power to protect and support us, his mercy to
pity us, his fulness to refresh us, and his goodness to relieve us._ He is
ready to sparkle out in this or that perfection, as the necessities of his people
require, and his own wisdom directs for his own honour ; so that being not
far from us in any excellency of his nature, we can quickly have recourse to
him upon any emergency; so that if we are miserable, we have the presence of
454 charnock's works. [Jee. XXIII. 24.
his goodness ; if we want direction, we have the presence of his wisdom ; if we
are weak, we have the presence of his power ; and should we not rejoice in it, as
a man doth in the presence of a powerful, wealthy, and compassionate friend ?
Use 3. Of exhortation.
1. Let us be much in the actual thoughts of his truth. How should we
enrich our understandings with the knowledge of the excellency of God,
whereof this is none of the least ; nor hath less of honey in its bowels,
though it be more terrible to the wicked than the presence of a lion ! It is
this that makes all other excellencies of the divine nature sweet. What
would grace, wisdom, power, signify at a distance from us ? Let us frame
in our minds a strong idea of it ; it is this makes so great a difference be-
tween the actions of one man and another ; one maintains actual thoughts
of it, another doth not, though all believe it as a perfection pertaining to
the infiniteness of his essence. David, or rather a greater than David, had
God ' always before him ;' there was no time, no occasion, wherein he did
not stir up some lively thoughts of him, Ps. xvi. 8. Let us have right
notions of it : imagine not God as a great king, sitting only in his majesty
in heaven, acting all by his servants and ministers. This, saith one,* is a
childish and unworthy conceit of God, and may in time bring such a con-
ceiver by degrees to deny his providence. The denial of this perfection is
an axe at the root of religion ; if it be not deeply imprinted in the mind,
personal religion grows faint and feeble. Who would fear that God that is
not imagined to be a witness of his actions ? Who would worship a God
at a distance both from the worship and worshipper ?f Let us believe this
truth, but not with an idle faith, as if we did not believe it. Let us know
that as wheresoever the fish moves, it is in the water ; wheresoever the bird
moves, it is in the air ; so wheresoever we move, we are in God. As there
is not a moment but we are under his mercy, so there is not a moment that
we are out of his presence. Let us therefore look upon nothing without
thinking who stands by, without reflecting upon him in whom it lives, moves,
and hath its being. When you view a man, you fix your eyes upon his
body, but your mind upon that invisible part that acts every member by life
and motion, and makes them fit for your converse. Let us not bound our
thoughts to the creatures we see, but pierce through the creature to that
boundless God we do not see. We have continual remembrancers of his
presence ; the light whereby we see, and the air whereby we live, give us
perpetual notices of it, and some weak resemblance. Why should we forget
it ? Yea, what a shame is our unmindfulness of it, when every cast of our
eye, every motion of our lungs, jogs us to remember it. Light is in every
part of the air, in every part of the world, yet not mixed with any ; both
remain entire in their own substance. Let us not be worse than some of
the heathens, who pressed this notion upon themselves for the spiriting
their actions with virtue, that all places were full of God. | This was the
means Basil used to prescribe. Upon a question was asked him, How shall
we do to be serious ? Mind God's presence. How shall we avoid distrac-
tions in service '? Think of God's presence. How shall we resist tempta-
tions ? Oppose to them the presence of God.
(1.) This will be a shield against all temptations. God is present, is
enough to blunt the weapons of hell ; this will secure us from a ready com-
pliance with any base and vile attractives, and curb that head-strong prin-
ciple in our nature that would join hands with them. The thoughts of this
would, like the powerful presence of God with the Israehtes, take off the
wheels from the chariots of our sensitive appetites, and make them perhaps
* Musculus. t -Drexel. X Omnia Diis plena.
Jeb. XXIII. 24.] god's omnipbesence. 455
move slower at least towards a tenaptation. How did Peter fling off the
temptation which had worsted him ? Upon a look from Christ. The ac-
tuated faith of this would stifle the darts of Satan, and fire us with an anger
against his solicitations as strong as the fire that inflames the darts. Moses
his sight of 'him that was invisible' strengthened him against the costly
pleasures and luxuries of a prince's court, Heb. xi. 27. We are utterly sense-
less of a Deity if we are not moved with this item from our consciences, God
is present. Had our first parents actually considered the nearness of God
to them when they were tempted to eat of the forbidden fruit, they had not
probably so easily been overcome by the temptation. What soldier would
be so base as to revolt under the eye of a tender and obliging general ? or
what man so negligent of himself as to rob a house in the sight of a judge?
Let us consider that God is as near to observe us as the devil to solicit us ;
yea, nearer. The devil stands by us, but God is in us. We may have a
thought the devil knows not, but not a thought but God is actually pi'esent
with, as our souls are with the thoughts they think ; nor can any creature
attract our heart, if our minds were fixed on that invisible presence that
contributes to that excellency, and sustains it, and considered that no
creature could be so present with us as the Creator is.
(2.) It will be a spur to holy actions. What man would do an unworthy
action, or speak an unhandsome word in the presence of his prince ? The
eye of the general inflames the spirit of a soldier. Why did David * keep
God's testimonies ? ' Because he considered that ' all his ways were before
him,' Ps. cxix. 168 ; because he was persuaded his ways were present with
God, God's precepts should be present with him. The same was the cause
of Job's integrity ; ' doth he not see my ways ?' Job xxxi. 4 ; to have God
in our eye is the way to be sincere, ' walk before me,' as in my sight, ' and
be thou perfect,' Gen. xvii. 1. Communion with God consists chiefly in an
ordering our ways as in the presence of him that is invisible. This would
make us spiritual, raised and watchful in all our passions, if we considered
that God is present with us in our shops, in our chambers, in our walks,
and in our meetings, as present with us as with the angels in heaven ; who
though they have a presence of glory above us, j^et have not a greater
measure of his essential presence than we have. What an awe had Jacob
upon him when he considered God was present in Bethel, Gen. xxviu. 16,
17. If God should appear visibly to us when we were alone, should we not
be reverent and serious before him ? God is everywhere about us, he doth
encompass us with his presence ; should not God's seeing have the same
influence upon us as our seeing God ? He is not more essentially present
if he should so manifest himself to us, than when he doth not ; who would
appear besmeared in the presence of a great person ? or not be ashamed to
be found in his chamber in a nasty posture, by some visitant ? Would not
a man blush to be catched about some mean action, though it were not an
immoral crime ? If this truth were impressed upon our spirits, we should
more blush to have our souls daubed with some loathsome lust, swarms of
sin, like Egyptian lice and frogs, creeping about our heart in his sight. If
the most sensual man be ashamed to do a dishonest action in the sight of
a grave and holy man, one of great reputation for wisdom and integrity,
how much more should we lift up ourselves in the ways of God, who is
infinite and immense, is everywhere, and infinitely superior to man, and
more to be regarded ! We could not seriously think of his presence, but
there would pass some intercourse between us ; we should be putting up
some petition upon the sense of our indigence, or sending up our praises to
him upon the sense of his bounty. The actual thoughts of the presence of
456 chaknock's works. [Jee. XXIII. 24.
God is the life and spirit of all religion ; we could not have sluggish spirits
and a careless watch if we considered that his eye is upon us all the day.
(3.) It will quell distractions in worship. The actual thoughts of this
would establish our thoughts, and pull them back when they begin to rove ;
the mind could not boldly give God the slip if it had lively thoughts of it ;
the consideration of this would blow off all the froth that lies on the top of
our spirits. An eye taken up with the presence of one object is not at
leisure to be filled with another ; he that looks intently upon the sun shall
have nothing for a while but the sun in his eye. Oppose to every intruding
thought the idea of the divine omnipresence, and put it to silence by the
awe of his majesty. When the master is present, scholars mind their books,
keep their places, and run not over the forms to play with one another ;
the master's eye keeps an idle servant to his work, that otherwise would be
gazing at every straw, and prating to every passenger. How soon would
the remembrance of this dash all extravagant fancies out of countenance,
just as the news of the approach of a prince would make the courtiers bustle
up themselves, huddle up their vain sports, and prepare themselves for a
reverent behaviour in his sight. We should not dare to give God a piece of
our heart, when we apprehend him present with the whole ; we should not dare
to mock one that we knew were more inwards with us than we are with our-
selves, and that beheld every motion of our mind as well as action of our body.
Let us endeavour for the more special and influential presence of God.
Let the essential presence of God be the ground of our awe, and his gracious
influential presence the object of our desire. The heathen thought them-
selves secure if they had their little petty household gods with them in their
journeys ; such seem to be the images Rachel stole from her father, Gen.
xxxi. 19, to accompany her travel with their blessings ; she might not at
that time have cast off all respect to those idols, in the acknowledgment of
which she had been educated from her infancy ; and they seem to be kept
by her till God called Jacob to Bethel, after the rape of Dinah, Gen. xxxv.
4, when Jacob called for the strange gods, and hid them under the oak.
The gracious presence of God we should look after in our actions, as
traveller s,;;th at have a charge of money or jewels, desire to keep themselves
in company that may protect them from highwaymen that M'ould rifle them.
Since we have the concerns of the eternal happiness of our souls upon our
hands, we should endeavour to have God's merciful and powerful presence
with us in all our ways : Prov. iii. 6, ' In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths ;' acknowledge him before any action by
imploring ; acknowledge him after, by rendering him the glory ; acknow-
ledge his presence before worship, in worship, after worship. It is this
presence makes a kind of heaven upon earth, causeth affliction to put off the
nature of misery. How much will the presence of the sun outshine the
stars of lesser comforts, and fully answer the want of them ! The ark of
God going before us can only make all things successful. It was this led
the Israelites over Jordan, and settled them in Canaan. Without this, we
signify nothing ; though we live without this, we cannot be distinguished for
ever from devils ; his essential presence they have, and if we have no more,
we shall be no better. It is the enlivening, fructifying presence of the sun
that revives the languishing earth, and this only can repair our ruined soul.
Let it be therefore our desire, that as he fills heaven and earth by his
essence, he may fill our understandings and wihs by his grace ; that we may
have another kind of presence with us than animals have in their brutish
state, or devils in their chains ; his essential presence maintains our beings,
but his gracious presence confers and continues a happiness.
A DISCOURSE UPON GOD'S KNOWLEDGE.
Great is our Lord, and of great power : his understanding is infinite. —
Psalm CXLVII. 5.
It is uncertain who was the author of this psalm, and when it was penned ;
some think after the return from the Babylonish captivity. It is a psalm of
praise, and is made up of matter of praise from the beginning to the end :
God's benefits to the church, his providence over his creatures, the essential
excellency of his nature.
The psalmist doubles his exhortation to praise Grod : ver, 1, 'Praise ye
the Lord, sing praise to our God : ' to praise him from his dominion as
Lord ; from his grace and mercy as our God ; from the excellency of the
duty itself, ' it is good, it is comely.' Some read it comely, some lovely or
desirable, from the various derivation of the word.
Nothing doth so much delight a gracious soul, as an opportunity of celebrat-
ing the perfections and goodness of the Creator.
The highest duties a creature can render to the Creator, are pleasant and
delightful in themselves, * it is comely.' Praise is a duty that afiects the
whole soul.
The praise of God is a decent thing, the excellency of God's nature
deserves it, and the benefits of God's grace requires it.
It is comely when done as it ought to be, with the heart as well as with
the voice ; a sinner sings ill though his voice be good, the soul in it is to
be elevated above earthly things.
The first matter of praise is God's erecting and preserving his church :
ver. 2, ' The Lord doth build up Jerusalem ; he gathers together the out-
casts of Israel.' The walls of demolished Jerusalem are now re-edified ;
God hath brought back the captivity of Jacob, and reduced his people from
their Babylonish exile ; and those that were dispersed into strange regions,
he hath restored to their habitations. Or it may be prophetic of the calling
of the Gentiles, and the gathering the outcasts of the spiritual Israel, that
were before as without God in the world, and strangers to the covenant of
promise. Let God be praised, but especially for building up his church
and gathering the Gentiles, before counted as outcasts, Isa. xi. 12 ; he
gathers them in this world to the faith, and hereafter to glory.
Obs. 1, From the two first verses, observe,
1. All people are under God's care ; but he has a particular regard to his
458 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
church. This is the signet on his hand, as a bracelet upon his arm ; this is
his garden, which he delights to dress ; if he prunes it, it is to purge it ; if he
digs about his vine and wounds the branches, it is to make it more beautiful
with new clusters, and restore it to a fruitful vigour.
2. All great deliverances are to be ascribed to God, as the principal
author, whosoever are the instruments. The Lord doth build up Jerusalem,
he gathers together the outcasts of Israel. This great deliverance from
Babylon is not to be ascribed to Cyrus or Darius, or the rest of our favour-
ers ; it is the Lord that doth it, we had his promise for it, we have now his
performance. Let us not ascribe that which is the eflect of his truth, only
to the good- will of men ; it is God's act, ' not by might, nor by power,' nor
by weapons of war, or strength of horses, ' but by the Spirit of the Lord.'
He sent prophets to comfort us while we were exiles, and now he hath
stretched out his own arm to work our deliverance according to his word ;
blind man looks so much upon instruments, that he hardly takes notice of
God, either in afflictions or mercies ; and this is the cause that robs God of
so much prayer and praise in the world.
Verse 3, ' He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.' He
hath now restored those who had no hope but in his word ; he hath dealt
with them as a tender and skilful chirurgeon, he hath apphed his curing
plasters, and dropped in his sovereign balsams ; he hath now furnished
our fainting hearts with refreshing cordials, and comforted our wounds with
strengthening ligatures.
How gracious is God, that restores liberty to the captives, and righteous-
ness to the penitent ! Man's misery is the fittest opportunity for God to
make his mercy illustrious in itself, and most welcome to the patient.
He proceeds, verse 4. Wonder not that God calls together the outcasts,
and singles them out from every comer for a return ; why can he not do this,
as well as * tell the number of the stars, and call them all by their names ' ?
There are none of his people so despicable in the eye of man, but they
are known and regarded by God. Though they are clouded in the world, yet
they are the stars of the world ; and shall God number the inanimate stars
in the heavens, and make no accomit of his living stars on the earth ? No ;
wherever they are dispersed, he will not forget them; however they are
afflicted, he will not despise them. The stars are so numerous that they are
innumerable by man ; some are visible and known by men, others he more
hid and undiscovered in a confused light, as those in the milky way; man
cannot see one of them distinctly.
God knows all his people. As he can do what is above the power of man
to perform, so he understands what is above the skill of man to discover.
Shall man measure God by his scantiness ? Proud man must not equal
himself to God, nor cut God as short as his own line.
'He tells the number of the stars ; and calls them all by their names.'
He hath them all in his list, as generals the names of their soldiers in their
muster-roll, for they are his host, which he marshals in the heavens, as Isa.
xl. 26, where you have the like expression ; he knows them more distinctly
than man can know anything, and so distinctly as to ' call them all by their
names.' He knows their names, that is, their natural offices, influences, the
different degrees of heat and Kght, their order and motion ; and all of them,
the least glimmering star as well as the most glaring planet, this man cannot
do : ' Tell the stars if thou be able to number them,' Gen. xv. 5, saith God
to Abraham (whom Josephus represents as a great astronomer) ; yea, they
cannot be numbered, Jer. xxxiii. 22, and the uncertainty of the opinions of
men evidenceth their ignorance of their number, some reckoning 1022,
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 459
others 1025, others 1098, others 7000, besides those that, by reason of their
mixture of light with one another, cannot be distinctly discerned, and others
perhaps so high as not to be reached by the eye of man. To impose names
on things, and names according to thoir natures, is both an ai'gumeut of
power and dominion, and of wisdom and understanding ; from the imposition
of names upon the creatures by Adam, the knowledge of Adam is generally
concluded, and it was also a fruit of that dominion God allowed him over
the creatures. Now he that numbers and names the stars, that seem to lie
confused among one another, as well as those that appear to us in an un-
clouded night, may well be supposed accurately to know his people, though
lurking in secret caverns, and know those that are tit to be instruments of
their deUverance ; the one is as easy to him as the other, and the number
of the one as distinctly known by him as the multitude of the other.
Verse 5, ' For great is our Lord, and of great power : his understanding
is infinite.' He wants not knowledge to know the objects, nor power to
effect his will concerning them. Of great power, JID 21- Much power,
plenteous in power ; so the word 2D is rendered, Ps. Ixxxvi. 5. 15, IDR ^1-
A multitude of power, as well as a multitude of mercy; a power that ex-
ceeds all created power and understanding.
' His understanding is infinite.' You may not imagine how he can call
all the stars by name, the multitude of visible being so great, and the
multitude of the invisible being greater ; but you must know that as God is
almighty, so he is omniscient ; and as there is no end of his power, so no
account can exactly be given of his understanding : ' his understanding is
infinite,' "IBDD yii. No number or account of it ; and so the same words
are rendered, Joel i. 6, ' A nation strong, and without number.' No end
of his understanding ; Syriac, no measure, no bounds. His essence is in-
finite, and so is his power and understanding ; and vast is his knowledge,
that we can no more comprehend it, than we can measure spaces that are
without limits, or tell the minutes or hours of eternity. Who then can
fathom that whereof there is no number, but which exceeds all, so that there
is no searching of it out ? He knows universals, he knows particulars. We
must not take understanding, nilHD, here, as noting a faculty, but the use
of the understanding in the knowledge of things, and the judgment in the
consideration of them, and so it is often used.
In the verse there is a description of God.
1. In his essence : ' great is our Lord.'
2. In his power : ' of great power.'
3. In his knowledge : ' his understanding is infinite ; ' his understand-
ing is his eye, and his power is his arm. Of his infinite understanding I
am to discourse.
Doct. God hath an infinite knowledge and understanding ; all knowledge.
Omnipresence, which before we spake of, respects his essence ; omniscience
respects his understanding, according to our manner of conception.
This is clear in Scripture ; hence God is called a God of knowledge :
1 Sam. ii. 3, ' The Lord is a God of knowledge ; ' Heb. ' knowledges,' in the
plural number, of all kind of knowledge. It is spoken there to quell man's
pride in his own reason and parts. What is the knowledge of man but a
spark to the whole element of fire, a grain of dust, and worse than nothing,
in comparison of the knowledge of God, as his essence is in comparison of
the essence of God ? All kind of knowledge. He knows what angels know,
what man knows, and infinitely more ; he knows himself, his own operations,
all his creatures, the notions and thoughts of them ; he is understanding
above understanding, mind above mind, the mind of minds, the light of
460 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
lights ; this the Greek word Qshg signifies in the etymology of it, of Qua^ai *
to see, to contemplate ; and dal/jLuv of daiui scio. The names of God signify
a nature viewing and piercing all things ; and the attribution of our senses
to God in Scripture, as hearing and seeing, which are the senses whereby
knowledge enters into us, signifies God's knowledge.
1. The notion of God's knowledge of all things lies above the ruins of
nature : it was not obliterated by the fall of man. It was necessary offend-
ing man was to know that he had a Creator whom he had injured, that he
had a Judge to try and punish him ; since God thought fit to keep up the
world, it had been kept up to no purpose, had not this notion been continued
aUve in the minds of men ; there would not have been any practice of his
laws, no bar to the worst of crimes. If men had thought they had to deal
with an ignorant Deity, there could be no practice of reUgion. Who would
lift up his eyes, or spread his hand towards heaven, if he imagined his devo-
tion were directed to a God as bhnd as the heathens imagined fortune ? To
what boot would it be for them to make heaven and earth resound with their
cries, if they had not thought God had an eye to see them and an ear to
hear them ? And indeed the very notion of a God at the first blush speaks
him a being endued with understanding ; no man can imagine a Creator
void of one of the noblest perfections belonging to those creatures that are
the flower and cream of his works.
2. Therefore all nations acknowledge this, as well as the existence and
being of God. No nation but had their temples, particular ceremonies of
worship, and pi'esented their sacrifices, which they could not have been so
vain as to do, without an acknowledgement of this attribute. This notion
of God's knowledge owed not its rise to tradition, but to natural implanta-
tion ; it was born and grew up with every rational creature. Though the
several nations and men of the world agreed not in one kind of Deity, or in
their sentiments of his nature or other perfections, some judging him
clothed with a fine and pure body, others judging him an uncompounded
spirit, some fixing him to a seat in the heavens, others owning his univer-
sal presence in all parts of the world, yet they all agreed in the universality
of his knowledge ; and their own consciences reflecting their crimes, un-
known to any but themselves, would keep this notion in some vigour whether
they would or no. Now this being implanted in the minds of all men by
nature, cannot be false, for nature imprints not in the minds of all men an
assent to a falsity. Nature would not pervert the reason and minds of men.
Universal notions of God are from original, not lapsed nature, and preserved
in mankind in order to a restoration from a lapsed state. The heathens did
aclmowledge this ; in all the solemn covenants, solemnised with oaths and
the invocation of the name of God, this attribute was supposed. f They
confessed knowledge to be peculiar to the Deity ; Scientia Deorum vita,
saith Cicero. Some called him NoDc, mc77S, mind, pure understanding,
without any mote ; 'Eto'xtt];, the inspector of all. As they called him Life,
because he was the author of life, so they called him Intellectiis, because he
was the author of all knowledge and understanding in his creatures. And
one being asked. Whether any man could be hid from God ? No, saith he,
not so much as thinking. Some call him the Eye of the world, | and the
*Qu '^iaadan—^n.
t Agamemnon (Homer II. 3. v. 277), making a covenant with Priam, invocatea
tlie sun : —
'HeX<oc S' og -rai/r' s^ooag xal mavr s'^raxovng.
X Gamach in 1 Pa. Aquin. q. 14. cap. 1. p. 119.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 4C1
Egyptians represented God by an eye on the top of a sceptre, because God
is all eye, and can be ignorant of nothing.*
And the same nation made eyes and ears of the most excellent metals,
consecrating them to God, and hanging them up in the midst of their
temples, in signification of God's seeing and hearing all things ; hence they
called God light, as well as the Scripture, because all things are visible to
him.
For the better understanding of this, we will inquire,
I. What kind of knowledge or understanding there is in God.
II. What God knows.
III. How God knows things.
IV. The proof that God knows all things.
V. The use of all to ourselves.
I. What kind of miderstanding or knowledge there is in God.
The knowledge of God in Scriptui-e hath various names, according to the
various relations or objects of it. In respect of j^reseiU things, it is called
knowledge or sight ; in respect of things past, remembrance ; in respect of
things future, or to come, it is called foreknowledge or prescience, 1 Peter
i. 2. In regard of the universahty of the objects, it is called omniscience •
in regard of the simple understanding of things, it is called knovvledfre • in
regard of acting and modelling the ways of acting, it is called wisdom and
prudence, Eph. i. 8. He must have knowledge, otherwise he could not be
wise ; wisdom is the flower of knowledge, and knowledge is the root of
wisdom.
As to what this knowledge is, if we know what knowledge is in man we
may apprehend what it is in God, removing all imperfection from it, and
ascribing to him the most eminent way of understanding ; because we can-
not comprehend God, but as he is pleased to condescend to us in his own
ways of discovery, — that is, under some way of similitude to his perfectest
creatures, — therefore we have a notion of God by his understanding and will :
imderstauding, whereby he conceives and apprehends things ; will, whereby
he extends himself in acting, according to his wisdom, and whereby he doth
approve or disapprove. Yet, we must not measure his understanding by
our own, or think it to be of so gross a temper as a created mind ; that he
hath ' eyes of flesh,' or ' sees or knows as man sees,' Job x. 4. We can no
more measm-e his knowledge by ours, than we can measure his essence by
our essence. As he hath an incomprehensible essence, to which ours is but
as a drop of a bucket, so he hath an incomprehensible knowledge, to which
om's is but as a grain of dust, or mere darkness. ' His thouf^hts are above
our thoughts, as the heavens are above the earth.'
The knowledge of God is variously divided by the schools, and acknow-
ledged by all divines.
1. A knowledge visionis et simplicis intelUg entice ; the one we may call a
sight, the other an understanding ; the one refers to sense, the other to the
mind.
(1). A knowledge of vision or sight. Thus God knows himself and all
things that really were, are, or shall be in time ; aU those things which he
hath decreed to be, though they are not yet actually sprung up in the world
but lie couchant in their causes.
(2). A knowledge of intelHgence, or simple understanding. The object of
this is not things that are in being, or that shall by any decree of God ever
be existent in the world, but such things as are possible to be wrought by the
* Clem. Alexand. Strom, lib. vi.
462 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
power of God, though they shall never in the least peep up into being, but
lie for ever wrapt up in darkness and nothing.* This also is a necessary
knowledge to be allowed to God, because the object of this knowledge is
necessary. The possibility of more creatures than ever were or shall be, is
a conclusion that hath a necessary truth in it, as it is necessary that the
power of God can produce more creatures, though it be not necessary that
it should produce more creatures ; so it is necessary that whatsoever the
power of God can work, is possible to be. And as God knows this possi-
bihty, so he knows all the objects that are thus possible ; and herein doth
much consist the infiniteness of his knowledge, as shall be shewn presently.
These two kinds of knowledge differ. That of vision is of things which
God hath decreed to be, though they are not yet. That of intelligence is of
things which never shall be, yet they may be, or are possible to be, if God
please to will and order their being ; one respects things that shall be, the
other, things that may be, and are not repugnant to the nature of God to
be. The knowledge of vision follows the act of God's will, and supposeth
an act of God's will before, decreeing things to be. (If we could suppose
any first or second in God's decree, we might say God knew them as pos-
sible hefo7-e he decreed them ; he knew them as future because he decreed
them.) For without the will of God decreeing a thing to come to pass, God
cannot know that it will infallibly come to pass. But the knowledge of
intelUgence stands without any act of his will, in order to the being of those
things he knows. He knows possible things only in his power ; he knows
other things both in his power, as able to effect them, and in his will, as
determining the being of them. Such knowledge we must grant to be in
God, for there is such a kind of knowledge in man ; for man doth not only
know and see what is before his eyes in this world, but he may have a concep-
tion of many more worlds, and many more creatures, which he knows are
possible to the power of God.
2. Secondly, There is a speculative and practical knowledge in God.
(1). A speculative knowledge is, when the truth of a thing is known
without a respect to any working or practical operation. The knowledge of
things possible is in God only speculative,! and some say God's knowledge
of himself is only speculative, because there is nothing for God to work in
himself. And, though he knows himself, yet this knowledge of himself doth
not terminate there, but flowers into a love of himself, and dehght in him-
self ; yet this love of himself, and dehght in himself, is not enough to make
it a practical knowledge, because it is natural, and naturally and necessarily
flows from the knowledge of himself and his own goodness. He cannot but
love himself, and delight in himself, upon the knowledge of himself. But
that which is properly practice is where there is a dominion over the action,
and it is wrought, not naturally and necessarily, but in a way of freedom
and counsel. As when we see a beautiful flower or other thing, there
ariseth a delight in the mind ; this no man will call practice, because it is
a natural affection of the will, arising from the virtue of the object, without
any consideration of the understanding in a practical manner, by counselling,
commanding, &c.
(2.) A practical knowledge, which tends to operation and practice, and is
the principle of working about things that are known, as the knowledge an
artificer hath in an art or mystery. This knowledge is in God. The know-
ledf^e he hath of the things he hath decreed, is such a kind of knowledge,
for it terminates in the act of creation, which is not a natural and necessary
act, as the loving himself and delighting in himself is, but wholly free ; for
* Suarez de Deo, lib. iii. cap. iv. p. 230. t Ibid. p. 138.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 463
it was at his liberty whether ho would create them or no. This is called
discretion : Jer. x. 12, * He hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion.'
Such also is his knowledge of the things he hath created, and which are in
being, for it terminates in the government of them for his own glorious ends.
It is by this knowledge ' the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down
their dew,' Prov. iii. 20. This is a knowledge whereby he knows the essence,
qualities, and properties of what he creates, and governs in order to his own
glory, and the common good of the world over which he [pjresides ; so that
speculative knowledge is God's knowledge of himself and things possible ; prac-
tical knowledge is his knowledge of his creatures and things governable ; yet
in some sort, this practical knowledge is not only of things that are made,
but of things which are possible, which God might make, though he will not.
For as he knows that they can be created, so he knows how they are to be
created, and how to be governed, though he never will create them. This
is a practical knowledge ; for it is not requisite to constitute a knowledge
practical, actually to act, but that the knowledge in itself be referrible to
action.*
3. There is a knowledge of approbation, as well as apprehension. This
the Scripture often mentions. Words of understanding are used to signify
the acts of affection. This knowledge adds to the simple act of the under-
standing, the complacency and pleasure of the will, and is improperly know-
ledge, because it belongs to the will, and not to the understanding ; only it
is radically in the understanding, because affection implies knowledge : men
cannot approve of that which they are ignorant of. Thus knowledge is taken :
Amos iii. 2, ' You only have I known of all the families of the earth ; ' and
2 Tim. ii. 19, * The Lord knows who are his,' that is, he loves them : he
doth not only know them, but acknowledge them for his own. It notes not
only an exact understanding, but a special care of them ; and so is that to
be understood. Gen. i. 31, ' God saw everything that he had made, and
behold it was very good ;' that is, he saw it with an eye of approbation, as
well as apprehension. This is grounded upon God's knowledge of vision,
his sight of his creatures ; for God doth not love or delight in anything but
what is actually in being, or what he hath decreed to bring into being. On
the contrary also, when God doth not approve, he is said not to know : Mat.
XXV. 12, ' I know you not ; ' and Mat. vii. 23, ' I never knew you.' He doth
not approve of their works. It is not an ignorance of understanding, but an
ignorance of will ; for whiles he saith he never knew them, he testifies that
he did know them, in rendering the reason of his disapproving them, because
he knows all their works. So he knows them, and doth not know them, in
a different manner ; he knows them so as to understand them, but he doth
not know them so as to love them.
We must then ascribe an universal knowledge to God. If we deny him a
speculative knowledge, or knowledge of intelligence, we destroy his deity, we
make him ignorant of his own power. If we deny him practical knowledge,
we deny ourselves to be his creatures ; for as his creatures, we are the fruits
of this his discretion discovered in creation. If we deny his knowledge of
vision, we deny his governing dominion. How can he exercise a sovereign
and uncontrollable dominion, that is ignorant of the nature and qualities of
the things he is to govern ? If he had not knowledge, he could make no
revelation ; he that knows not, cannot dictate : we could then have no
Scripture. To deny God knowledge, is to dash out the Scripture and
demolish the Deity.
God is described in Zech. ii. 9, with ' seven eyes,' to shew his perfect
* Suarez de Deo, 1. iii. c. iy, p. 140.
4G4 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
knowledge of all things, all occurrences in the world ; and the cherubims, or
whatsoever is meant by the wings, are described to be ' full of eyes both
before and behind,' Ezek. i. 18, round about them ; much more is God all
eye, all ear, all understanding. The sun is a natural image of God. If the
sun had an eye, it would see ; if it had an understanding, it would know all
visible things ; it would see what it shines upon, and understand what it
inJSuenceth in the most obscure bowels of the earth. Doth God excel his
creature the sun in excellency and beauty, and not in light and understanding ?
Certainly more than the sun excels an atom or grain of dust.
We may yet make some representation of this knowledge of God by a lower
thing, a picture, which seems to look upon every one, though there be never
so great a multitude in the room where it hangs. No man can cast his eye
upon it, but it seems to behold him in particular, and so exactly, as if there
were none but him upon whom the eye of it were fixed ; and every man finds
the same cast of it. Shall art frame a thing of that nature, and shall not
the God of art and all knowledge be much more in reality than that is in
imagination ? Shall not God have a far greater capacity to behold everything
in tiie world, which is infinitely less to him than a wide room to a picture ?
II. The second thing. What God knows ; how far his understanding
reaches.
1. God knows himself, and only knows himself. This is the first and
original knowledge wherein he excels all creatures. No man doth exactly
know himself, much less doth he understand the full nature of a spirit, much
less still the nature and perfections of God ; for what proportion can there
be between a finite faculty and an infinite object ? Herein consists the in-
finiteness of God's knowledge, that he knows his own essence, that he knows
that which is unknowable to any else. It doth not so much consist in know-
ing the creature which he hath made, as in knowing himself who was never
made. It is not so much infinite, because he knows all things which are in
the world, or that shall be, or things that he can make, because the number
of them is finite ; but because he hath a perfect and comprehensive knowledge
of his own infinite perfections.* Though it be said that ' angels see his face,'
Mat. xviii. 10, that sight notes rather their immediate attendance than their
exact knowledge. They see some signs of his presence and majesty, more
illustrious and express than ever appeared to man in this life ; but the essence
of God is invisible to them, hid from them in the secret place of eternity.
None knows God but himself: 1 Cor. ii. 11, * What man knows the things
of a man save the spirit of a man ? so the things of God knows no man, but
the Spirit of God ; the Spirit of God searches the deep things of God.'
Searcheth, that is, exactly knows, thoroughly understands, as those who have
their eyes in every chink and crevice, to see what lies hid there. The word
search notes not an inquiry, but an exact knowledge, such as men have of
things upon a dihgent scrutiny; as when God is said to search the heart and
the reins, it doth not signify a precedent ignorance, but an exact knowledge
of the most intimate corners of the hearts of men. As the conceptions of
men are unknown to any but themselves, so the depths of the divine essence,
perfections, and decrees are unknown to any but to God himself ; he only
knows what he is, and what he knows, what he can do, and what he hath
decreed to do.
(1.) For, first, if God did not know himself, he would not be perfect. It
is the perfection of a creature to know itself, much more a perfection belong-
ing to God. If God did not comprehend himself, he would want an infinite
* Moulin.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 465
perfection, and so would cease to be God, in bcinfr defective in that which
intellectual creatures in some measure possess. As God is the most perfect
being, so he must have the most perfect understanding. If he did not under-
stand himself, he would be under the greatest ignorance, because he would
be ignorant of the most excellent object. Ignorance is the imperfection of
the understanding, and ignorance of one's self is a greater imperfection than
ignorance of things without. If God should know all things without himself,
and not know himself, he would not have the most perfect knowledge, because
he would not have the knowledge of the best of objects.
(2.) Without the knowledge of himself he could not be blessed. Nothing
can have any complacency in itself without the knowledge of itself. Nothing
can in a rational manner enjoy itself without understanding itself. The
blessedness of God consists not ia the knowledge of anything without him,
but in the knowledge of himself and his own excellency as the principle of
all things. If, therefore, he did not perfectly know himself and his own
happiness, he could not enjoy a happiness; for to be, and not to know to
be, is as if a thing were not. He is *God blessed for ever,' Rom. ix. 5,
and therefore for ever had a knowledge of himself.
(3.) Without the knowledge of himself he could create nothing. For he
would be ignorant of his own power and his own ability ; and he that doth
not know how far his power extends could not act. If he did not know
himself, he could know nothing ; and he that knows nothing can do nothing.
He could not know an effect to be possible to him unless he knew his own
power as a cause.
(4.) Without the knowledge of himself he could govern nothing. He
could not without the knowledge of his own holiness and righteousness pre-
scribe laws to men, nor without a knowledge of his own nature order himself
a manner of worship suitable to it.
All worship must be congruous to the dignity and nature of the object
worshipped ; he must therefore know his own authority, whereby worship
was to be enacted; his own excellency, to which worship was to be suited;
his own glory, to which worship was to be directed. If he did not know
himself, he did not know what to punish, because he could not know what
was contrary to himself. Not knowing himself, he would not know what
was a contempt of him, and what an adoration of him ; what w^as worthy of
God, and what was unworthy of him. In fine, he could not know other
things unless he knew himself. Unless he knew his own power, he could
not know how he created things ; unless he knew his own wisdom, he could
not know the beauty of his works ; unless he knew his own glory, he could
not know the end of his works ; unless he knew his own holiness, he could
not know what was evil ; and unless he knew his own justice, he could not
know how to punish the crimes of his offending creatures. And therefore,
[1.] God knows himself, because his knowledge with his will is the cause of
all other things that can fall under his cognizance. He knows himself first
before he can know any other thing, that is, first according to our concep-
tions ; for indeed God knows himself and all other things at once. He is
the first truth, and therefore is the first object of his own understanding.
There is nothing more excellent than himself, and therefore nothing more
known to him than himself. As he is all knowledge, so he hath in himself
the most excellent object of knowledge. To understand is properly to know
one's self. No object is so intelligible to God as God is to himself, nor so
intimately and immediately joined with his understanding as himself. For
his understanding is his essence, himself.
[2.j He knows himself by his own essence. He knows not himself and
VOL. I. G g
466 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
his own power by the effect, because he knows himself from eternity, before
there was a world, or any effect of his power extant. It is not a knowledge
by the cause, for God hath no cause, nor a knowledge of himself by any
species or anything from without. If it were anything from without himself,
that must be created or uncreated : if uncreated, it would be God, and so
we must either own many gods, or own it to be his essence, and so not dis-
tinct from himself; if created, then his knowledge of himself would depend
upon a creature. He could not then know himself from eternity, but in time,
because nothing can be created from eternity but in time. God knows not
himself by any faculty, for there is no composition in God, he is not made
up of parts, but is a simple being. Some therefore have called God, not
intellectus, understanding, because that savours of a faculty, but intellectio,
intellection. God is all act in the knowledge of himself, and his knowledge
of other things.
[3. J God therefore knows himself perfectly, comprehensively. Nothing
in his own nature is concealed from him, he reflects upon everything that
he is.* There is a positive comprehension, so God doth not comprehend
himself ; for what is comprehended hath bounds, and what is comprehended
by itself is finite to itself. And there is a negative comprehension, God so
comprehends himself ; nothing in his own nature is obscure to him, un-
known by him. For there is as great a perfection in the understanding of
God to know, as there is in the divine nature to be known. The under-
standing of God and the nature of God are both infinite, and so equal to
one another. His understanding is equal to himself; he knows himself so
well, that nothing can be known by him more perfectly than himself is
known to himself. He knows himself in the highest manner, because
nothing is so proportioned to the understanding of God as himself. He
knows his own essence, goodness, power, all his perfections, decrees, inten-
tions, acts, the infinite capacity of his ovm understanding, so that nothing
of himself is in the dark to himself. And in this respect, some use this
expression, that the infiniteness of God is in a manner finite to himself,
because it is comprehended by himself.
Thus God transcends all creatures. Thus his understanding is truly
infinite, because nothing but himself is an infinite object for it. What
angels may understand of themselves perfectly I know not, but no creature
in the world understands himself. Man understands not fully the excellency
and parts of his own nature ; upon God's knowledge of himself depends the
comfort of his people and the terror of the wicked. This is also a clear
argument for his knowledge of all other things without himself; he that
knows himself must needs know all other things less than himself, and
which were made by himself. When the knowledge of his own immensity
and infiniteness is not an object too difficult for him, the knowledge of a
finite and limited creature in all his actions, thoughts, circumstances, cannot
be too hard for him. Since he knows himself who is infinite, he cannot but
know whatsoever is finite. This is the foundation of all his other knowledge.
The knowledge of everything present, past, and to come is far less than the
knowledge of himself. He is more incomprehensible in his own nature than
all things created, or that can be created, put together can be. If he then
have a perfect comprehensive knowledge of his own nature, any knowledge
of all other things is less than the knowledge of himself. This ought to be
well considered by us, as the fountain whence all his other knowledge flows.
2. Therefore God knows all other things, whether they be possible, past,
present, or future.
* Magalaneus.
Ps. CXLVII. 5. J god's knowledge. 467
AVliethcr tlicy bo things that he can do, but will never do ; or whether
they bo things that he hath done, but are not now ; things that are now in
being, or things that are not now existing, that lie in the womb of their
proper and immediate causes,* if his understanding be infinite, he then
knows all things whatsoever that can bo known, else his understanding
would have bounds ; and what hath limits is not infinite, but finite. If he
be ignorant of any one thing that is knowablo, that is a bound to him, it
comes with an exception, a but ; God knows all things but this, a bar is
then set to his knowledge. If there were anything, any particular circum-
stance in the whole creation, or non-creation, and possible to be known by
him, and yet were unknown to him, he could not be said to be omniscient,
as he would not be almighty if any one thing that implied not a repugnancy
to his nature did transcend his power.
(1.) First, all things possible. No question but God knows what he
could create as well as what he hath created, what he would not create as
well as what he resolved to create ; he knew that he would not do before he
willed to do it. This is the next thing which declares the infiniteness of
his understanding ; for as his power is infinite, and can create innumerable
worlds and creatures, so is his knowledge infinite, in knowing innumerable
things possible to his power. Possibles are infinite, that is, there is no end
of what God can do, and therefore no end of what God doth know, other-
wise his power would be more infinite than his knowledge. If he knew
only what is created, there would be an end of his understanding, because
all creatures may be numbered, but possible things cannot be reckoned up
by any creature. There is the same reason of this in eternity. When
never so many numbers of years are run out, there is still more to come,
there still wants an end ; and when miUious of worlds are created, there is
no more an end of God's power than of eternity. Thus there is no end of
his understanding ; that is, his knowledge is not terminated by anything.
This the Scripture gives us some account of. God knows things that
are not, for ' he calls things that are not as if they were,' Rom. iv. 17. He
calls things that are not as if they were in being ; what he calls is not un-
known to him. If he knows things that are not, he knows things that may
never be, as he knows things that shall be because he wills them, so he
knows things that might be, because he is able to efi'ect them. He knew
that the inhabitants of Keilah would betray David to Saul if he remained in
that place, 1 Sam. xxiii. 11 ; he knew what they would do upon that occa-
sion, though it was never done. As he knew what was in their power and
in their wills, so he must needs know what is within the compass of his own
power. As he can permit more than he doth permit, so he knows what he
can permit, and what upon that permission would be done by his creatures ;
so God knew the possibility of the Tyrians' repentance, if they had the
same means, heard the same truths, and beheld the same miracles which
were ofi'ered to the ears and presented to the eyes of the Jews, Mat. xi. 21.
This must needs be so, because,
[1.] Man knows things that are possible to him, though he will never
efi'ect them. A carpenter knows a house in the model he hath of it in his
head, though he never build a house according to that model. A watch-
maker hath the frame of a watch in his mind, which he will never work
with his instruments. Man knows what he could do, though he never
intends to do it.f As the understanding of man hath a virtue, that where
it sees one man it may imagine thousands of men of the same shape,
stature, form, parts, yea, taller, more vigorous, sprightly, intelligent than
* PetaT, Theol. Dogm., lib. ix. 257. t Ficin. de immort, lib. ii. cap. 10.
468 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5,
the man he sees, because it is possible such a number may be ; shall not
the understanding of God much more know what he is able to eiFect, since
the understanding of man can know what he is never able to produce, yet
may be produced by God, viz. that he who produced this man which I see,
can produce a thousand exactly like him ? If the divine understanding did
not know infinite things, but were confined to a certain number, it may be
demanded whether God can understand anything further than that number,
or whether he cannot? If he can, then he doth actually understand all
those things which he hath a power to understand, otherwise there would
be an increase of God's knowledge, if it were actually now and not before,
and so he would be more perfect than he was before. If he cannot under-
stand them, then he cannot understand what a human mind can under-
stand; for our understandings can multiply numbers in wfinitum, and there
is no number so great but a man can still add to it. We must suppose the
divine understanding more excellent in knowledge. God knows all that a
man can imagine, though it never were nor never shall be. He must needs
know whatsoever is in the power of man to imagine or think, because God
concurs to the support of the faculty in that imagination ; and though it
may be replied, an atheist may imagine that there is no God, a man may
imagine that God can lie, or that he can be destroyed, doth God know
therefore that he is not, or that he can lie, or cease to be ? No, he knows
he cannot ; his knowledge extends to things possible, not to things impossible
to himself. He knows it as imaginable by man, not as possible in itself,
because it is utterly impossible* and repugnant to the nature of God, since
he eminently contains in himself all things possible, past, present, and to
come. He cannot know himself without knowing them.
[2. J God knowing his own power, knows whatsoever is in his power to
effect. If he knows not all things possible, he could not know the extent of
his own power, and so would not know himself as a cause sufficient for more
things than he hath created. How can he comprehend himself, who com-
prehends not all effluxes of things possible that may come from him, and be
wrought by him ? How can he know himself as a cause, if he know not
the objects and works which he is able to produce ? f Since the power of
God extends to numberless things, his knowledge also extends to number-
less objects ; as if a unit could see the numbers it could produce, it would
Bee infinite numbers, for a unit is as it were all number. God, knowing
the fruitfulness of his own virtue, knows a numberless multitude of things
which he can do more than have been done or shall be done by him ; he
therefore knows innumerable worlds, innumerable angels, with higher per-
fections than any of them which he hath created have. So that if the world
should last many millions of years, God knows that he can every day create
another world more capacious than this : and having created an inconceiv-
able number, he knows he could still create more. So that he beholds
infinite worlds, infinite numbers of men and other creatures in himself,
infinite kinds of things, infinite species and individuals under those kinds,
even as many as he can create, if his will did order and determine it ; for
not being ignorant of his own power, he cannot be ignorant of the efiects
wherein it may display and discover itself. A comprehensive knowledge of
bis own power doth necessarily include the objects of that power; so he
knows whatsoever he could eflect, and whatsoever he could permit, if he
pleased to do it.
If God could not understand more than he hath created, he could not
create more than he hath created ; for it cannot be conceived how he can
* Gamach. t Ficin. de immort, lib. ii. cap. x.
Ps. CXLVII. 5. J GODS KNOWLEDGE. 469
create anything that he is ignorant of; what he doth not know, he cannot
do ; he must know also the extent of his own goodness, and how far any-
thing is capable to partake of it. So much therefore as any detract from
the knowledge of God, they detract from his power.
[3.] It is further evident that God knows all possible things, because he
knew those things which he has created before they were created, when
they were yet in a possibility. If God knew things before they were created,
he knew them when they were in a possibility, and not in actual reality.
It is absurd to imagine that his understanding did lacquey after the creatures,
and draw knowledge from them after they were created. It is absurd to
think that God did create, before he knew what he could or would create.
If he knew those things he did create when they were possible, he must
know all things which he can create, and therefore all things that are possible.
To conclude this, we must consider that this knowledge is of another kind
than his knowledge of things that are or shall be. He sees possible things
as possible, not as things that ever are or shall be. If he saw them as
existing or future, and they shall never be, this knowledge would be false,
there would be a deceit in it, which cannot be. He knows those things not
in themselves, because they are not, nor in their causes, because they shall
never be ; he knows them in his own power, not in his will ; he understands
them as able to produce them, not as willing to efiect them. Things pos-
sible he knows only in his power, things future he knows both in his power
and his will, as he is both able and determined in his own good pleasure to
give being to them. Those that shall never come to pass, he knows only
in himself, as a sufficient cause ; those things that shall come into being he
knows in himself as the efficient cause, and also in their immediate second
causes.
This should teach us to spend our thoughts in the admiration of the ex-
cellency of God and the divine knowledge ; his understanding is infinite.^
(2.) God knows all things past. This is an argument used by God him-
self to elevate his excellency above all the commonly adored idols : Isa,
ili. 22, ' Let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may con-
sider them, and know the latter end of them.' He knows them as if they
were now present, and not past ; for indeed in his eternity there is nothing
past or future to his knowledge. This is called remembrance in Scripture,
as when God remembered Kachel's prayer for a child. Gen. xxx. 22 ; and he
is said to put tears into his bottle, and write them into his book of accounts,
which signifies the exact and unerring knowledge in God of the minute cir-
cumstances past in the world ; and this knowledge is called a ' book of
remembrance,' Mai. iii. 16, signifying the perpetual presence of things past
before him. There are two elegant expressions signifying the certainty and
perpetuity of God's knowledge of sins past : Job xiv. 11, ' My transgression
is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up my iniquity !' A metaphor taken
from men, that put up in a bag the money they would charily keep, tie the
bag, sew up the holes, and bind it hard that nothing may fall out ; or a
vessel wherein they reserve liquors, and daub it with pitch and glutinous
stuff, that nothing may leak out, but be safely kept till the time of use. ^ Or
else, as some think, from the bags attorneys carry with them full of writings,
when they are to manage a cause against a person. Thus we find God
often in Scripture calling to men's minds their past actions, upbraiding them
with their ingratitude ; wherein he testifies his remembrance of his own past
benefits, and their crimes. His knowledge in this regard has something of
infinity in it, since though the sins of all men that have been in the world
are finite in regard of number, yet when the sins of one man in thoughts.
470 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
words, and deeds, are numberless in his own account, and perhaps in the
account of any creature, the sins of all the vast numbers of men that have
been, or shall be, are much more numberless, it cannot be less than infinite
tnowledge that can make a collection of them, and take a survey of them all
at once.
If past things had not been known by God, how could Moses have been
acquainted with the original of things ? How could he have declared the
former transactions, wherein all histories are silent but the Scripture ? How
could he know the cause of man's present misery so many ages after, where-
with all philosophy was unacquainted ? How could he have writ the order
of the creation, the particulars of the sin of Adam, the circumstances of
Cain's murder, the private speech of Lamech to his wives, if God had not
revealed them ? And how could a revelation be made, if things past were
forgotten by him ? Do we not remember many things done among men, as
well as by ourselves, and reserve the forms of divers things in our minds,
which rise as occasions are presented to draw them forth ? And shall not
God much more, who hath no cloud of darkness upon his understanding ?
A man that makes a curious picture, hath the form of it in his mind before
he made it ; and if the fire burn it, the form of it in his mind is not de-
stro3'ed by the fire, but retained in it. God's memory is no less perfect
than his understanding. If he did not know things past, he could not be a
righteous governor, or exercise any judicial act in a righteous manner ; he
could not dispense rewards and punishments according to his promises and
threatenings, if things that were past could be forgotten by him ; he could
not require that which is past, Eccles. iii. 15, if he did not remember that
which is past.
And though God be said to forget in Scripture, and not to know his people,
and his people pray to him to remember them, as if he had forgotten them,
Ps. cxix. 49, this is improperly; ascribed to God.* As God is said to
repent, when he changes things according to his counsel beyond the expecta-
tion of men, so he is said to forget, when he defers the making good his
promise to the godly, or his threatenings to the wicked. This is not a defect
of memory belonging to his mind, but an act of his will. When he is said
to remember his covenant, it is to will grace according to his covenant ;
when he is said to forget his covenant, it is to intercept the influences of it,
whereby to punish the sin of his people ; and when he is said not to know
his people, it is not an absolute forgetfulness of them, but withdrawing from
them the testimonies of his kindness, and clouding the signs of his favour ; so
God in pardoning is said to forget sin, not that he ceaseth to know it, but
ceaseth to punish it. It is not to be meant of a simple forgetfulness, or a
lapse of his memory, but of a judicial forgetfulness ; so when his people in
Scripture pray, ' Lord, remember thy word unto thy servant,' no more is
to be understood, but, Lord, fulfil thy word and promise to thy servant.
(3.) He knows things present. Heb. iv. 13, ' All things are naked and
opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.' This is grounded
upon the knowledge of himself; it is not so difficult to know all creatures
exactly, as to know himself, because they are finite, but himself is infinite ;
he knows his own power, and therefore everything through which his omni-
potence is difi"used, all the acts and objects of it ; not the least thing that is
the birth of his power can be concealed from him ; he knows his own good-
ness, and therefore every object upon which the warm beams of his goodness
strike ; he therefore knows distinctly the properties of every creature, be-
cause every property in them is a ray of his goodness ; he is not only the
* Bradward.
Ps, CXLVII. 5. J god's knowledge. 471
efficient, but the exemplary cause ; therefore, as he knows all that his power
hath wrought, as ho is the efficient, so he knows them in himself as the
pattern, as a carpenter can give account of every part and passage in a
house he hath built, by consulting the model in his own mind, whereby he
built it. ' He looked upon all things after he had made them, and pro-
nounced them good,' Gen. i. 31 ; full of a natural goodness he had endowed
them with ; ho did not ignorantly pronounce them so, and call them good,
whether ho knew them or not ; and therefore he knows them in particular, as
he knew them all in their first presence. Is there any reason he should be
ignorant of evei'ything now present in the world, or that anything that derives
an existence from him as a free cause, should be concealed from him ? If
he did not know things present in their piirticularities, many things would
be known by man, yea, by beasts, which the infinite God were ignorant of;
and if he did not know all things present, but only some, it is possible for
the most blessed God to be deceived and be miserable. Ignorance is a
calamity to the understanding. He could not prescribe laws to his creatures,
unless he knew their natures, to which those laws were to be suited ; no, not
natural ordinances to the sun, moon, and heavenly bodies, and inanimate
creatures, unless he knew the vigour and virtue in them, to execute those
ordinances ; for to prescribe laws above the nature of things, is inconsistent
with the wisdom of government ; he must know how far they were able to
obey, whether the laws were suited to their ability ; and for his rational
creatures, whether the punishment annexed to the law were proper, and
suited to the transgression of the creature.
[1.] First, He knows all creatures, from the highest to the lowest, the
least as well as the greatest. He knows the ravens and their young ones,
Job xxxviii. 41 ; the drops of rain and dew which he hath begotten, ver. 29,
every bird in the air, as well as any man doth what he hath in a cage at
home : Ps. 1. 11, ' I know all the fowls in the mountains, and the wild
beasts in the field,' which some read creeping things. The clouds are
numbered in his wisdom. Job xxxviii. 37, every worm in the earth, every
drop of rain that falls upon the ground, the flakes of snow, and the knots of
hail, the sands upon the sea shore, the hairs upon the head ; it is no more
absurd to imagine that God knows them, than that God made them ; they
are all the effects of his power, as well as the stars, which he calls by their
names, as well as the most glorious angel and blessed spirit ; he knows
them as well as if there were none but them in particular for him to know ;
the least things were framed by his art as well as the greatest ; the least
things partake of his goodness as well as the greatest ; he knows his own
arts, and his own goodness, and therefore all the stamps and impressions of
them upon all his creatures ; he knows the immediate causes of the least,
and therefore the effects of those causes. Since his knowledge is infinite,
it must extend to those things which are at the greatest distance from him,
to those which approach nearest to not being ; since he did not want power
to create, he cannot want understanding to know everything he hath created,
the dispositions, qualities, and virtues of the minutest creature.
Nor is the understanding of God imbased, and suffers a diminution by
the knowledge of the vilest and most inconsiderable things. Is it not an
imperfection to be ignorant of the nature of anything ? and can God have
such a defect in his most perfect understanding ? Is the understanding of
man of an impurer alloy by knowing the nature of the rankest poisons ? by
understanding a fly, or a small insect, or by considering the deformity of a
toad ? Is it not generally counted a note of a dignified mind to be able to
discourse of the nature of them ? Was Solomon, who knew all from the
472 chaenock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
cedar to the hyssop, debased by so rich a present of wisdom from his
Creator ? Is any glass defiled by presenting a deformed image ? Is there
anything more vile than the imagination, ' which are only eyil, and con-
tinually' ? Doth not the mind of man descend to the mud of the earth,
play the adulterer or idolater with mean objects, suck in the most unclean
things ? Yet God knows these in all their circumstances, in every appear-
ance, inside and outside. Is there anything viler than some thoughts of
men, than some actions of men, their unclean beds, and gluttonous vomit-
ing, and Luciferian pride ? Yet do not these fall under the eye of God in
all their nakedness !
The second person's taking human nature, though it obscured, yet it did
not disparage the Deity, or bring any disgrace to it. Is gold the worse for
being formed into the image of a fly ? Doth it not still retain the noble-
ness of the metal ? When men are despised for descending to the know-
ledge of mean and vile things, it is because they neglect the knowledge of
the greater, and sin in their inquiries after lesser things, with a neglect of
that which concerns more the honour of God and the happiness of them-
selves ; to be ambitious of such a knowledge, and careless of that of more
concern, is criminal and contemptible. But God knows the greatest as well
as the least; mean things are not known by him to exclude the knowledge of
the greater, nor are vile things governed by him to exclude the order of the
better. The deformity of objects known by God doth not deform him, nor
defile him ; he doth not view tJiem without himself, but w^ithin himself,
wherein all things in their ideas are beautiful and comely. Our knowledge
of a deformed thing is not a deforming of our understanding, but is beauti-
ful in the knowledge, though it be not in the object ; nor is there any fear
that the understanding of God should become material by knowing material
things, any more than our understandings lose their spirituality by knowing
the nature of bodies ; it is to be observed therefore that only those senses
of men, as seeing, hearing, smelling, which have those qualities for their
objects that come nearest the nature of spiritual things, as light, sounds,
fragrant odours, are ascribed to God in Scripture ; not touching or tasting, which
are senses that are not exercised without a more immediate commerce with
gross matter ; and the reason may be, because we should have no gross thoughts
of God, as if he were a body, and made of matter like the things he knows.
[2.] As he knows all creatures, so God knows all the actions of creatures.
He counts in particular all the ways of men : ' Doth he not see all my w^ays,
and count all my steps?' Job xxxi. 4. He ' tells their wanderings,' as if
one by one, Ps. Ivi. 8 ; ' His eyes are upon all the ways of man, and he
sees all his goings,' Job xxxiv. 21, a metaphor taken from men when they
look wistly, with fixed eyes upon a thing, to view it in every circumstance,
whence it comes, whither it goes, to observe every little motion of it. God's
eye is not a wandering, but a fixed eye, and the ways of man are not only
' before his eyes,' but he doth exactly ' ponder' them, Prov. v. 21 ; as one
that will not be ignorant of the least mite in them, but weigh and examine
them by the standard of his law ; he may as well know the motions of our
members as the hairs of our heads ; the smallest actions before they be,
whether civil, natural, or religious, fall under his cognisance. What meaner
than a man carrying a pitcher ? yet our Saviour foretells it, Luke xxii. 10.
God knows not only what men do, but what they would have done had he
not restrained them ; what Abimelech would have done to Sarah had not
God put a bar in his way. Gen. xx. 6 ; what a man that is taken away in
his youth would have done, had he lived to a riper age ; yea, he knows the
most secret words as well as actions ; the words spoken by the king of
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 473
Israel in his bed-chamber were revealed to Elisha, 2 Kings vi. 12 ; and
indeed how can any action of man be concealed from God '? Can we view
the various actions of a heap of ants or a hive of bees in a glass, without
turning our eyes ; and shall not God behold the actions of all men in the
world, which are less than bees or ants in his sight, and more visible to him
than an ant-hill or bee-hive can be to the acutest eye of man ?
[3.] As God knows all the actions of creatures, so he knows all the
thoughts of creatures. The thoughts are the most closeted acts of man,
bid from men and angels, unless disclosed by some outward expressions ;
but God descends into the depths and abysses of the soul, discerns the
most inward contrivances ; nothing is impenetrable to him ; the sun doth
not so much enlighten the earth as God understands the heart; all thoughts
are as visible to him as flies and motes enclosed in a body of transparent
crystal. This man naturally allows to God. Men often speak to God by the
motions of their minds and secret ejaculations, which they would not do if
it were not naturally implanted in them, that God knows all their inward
motions. The Scripture is plain and positive in this : ' He tries the heart and
reins,' Ps. vii. 9, as men by the use of fire discern the drossy and purer
parts of metals. The secret intentions and aims, the most lurking affections
seated in the reins, he knows that which no man, no angel is able to know,
which a man himself knows not, nor makes any particular reflection upon ;
yea, he ' weighs the spirit,' Prov. xvi. 2, he exactly numbers all the devices
and inclinations of men, as men do every piece of coin they tell out of a
heap. He ' discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart,' Heb. iv. 12, all
that is in the mind, all that is in the afiections, every stirring and purpose,
so that not one thought can be withheld from him, Job xlii. 2 ; yea, ' hell
and destruction are before him, much more then the hearts of the children of
men,' Prov. xv. 11. He works all things in the bowels of the earth, and brings
forth all things out of that treasure, say some ; but more naturally, God knows
the whole state of the dead, all the receptacles and graves of their bodies,
all the bodies of men consumed by the earth, or devoured by living creatures,
things that seem to be out of all being ; he knows the thoughts of the devils
and damned creatures, whom he hath cast out of his care for ever into the
arms of his justice, never more to cast a dehghtful glance towards them ; not a
secret in any soul in hell (which he hath no need to know, because he shall
not judge them by any of the thoughts they now have, since they were con-
demned to punishment) is hid from him, much more is he acquainted with
the thoughts of living men, the counsels of whose hearts are yet to be mani-
fested in order to their trial and censure ; yea, he knows them before they
spring up into actual being: Ps. cxxxix. 2, ' Thou understandest my thoughts
afar ofl';' my thoughts, that is, every thought, though innumerable thoughts
pass through me in a day, and that in the source and fountain when it is
yet in the womb, before it is our thought. If he knows them before their
existence, before they can be properly called ours, much more doth he know
them when they actually spring up in us ; he knows the tendency of them,
where the bird will light when it is in flight ; he knows them exactly, he is
therefore called a * discerner' or criticiser ' of the heart,' Heb. iv. 12. As a
critic discerns every letter, point, and stop, he is more intimate with us than
our soul with our bodies, and hath more the possession of us than we have
of ourselves ; he knows them by an inspection into the heart, not by the
mediation of second causes, by the looks or gestures of men, as men may
discern the thoughts of one another.
First, God discerns all good motions of the mind and will. These he
puts into men, and needs must God know his own act : he knew the son of
474 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
Jeroboam to have ' some good thing in him towards the Lord God of
Israel,' 1 Kings xiv. 13, and the integrity of David and Hezekiah, the
freest motions of the will and afi'ections to him. * Lord, thou knowest that
I love thee,' saith Peter, John xxi. 17. Love can be no more restrained
than the will itself can. A man may make another to grieve and desire, but
none can force another to love.
SecomJhj, God discerns all the evil motions of the mind and will ; every
imagination of the heart,' Gen. vi. 5 ; the vanity of men's thoughts, Ps.
xciv. 11 ; their inward darkness and deceitful disguises. No wonder that
God, who fashioned the heart, should understand the motions of it : Ps.
xxxiii. 13, 15, 'He looks from heaven, and beholds all the children of men :
he fashioneth their hearts aUke, and considers all their works.' Doth any
man make a watch, and yet be ignorant of its motion ? Did God fling
away the key to this secret cabinet, when he framed it, and put off the power
of unlocking it when he pleased ? He did not surely frame it in such a
posture as that anything in it should be hid from his eye ; he did not fashion
it to be privileged from his government ; which would follow if he were
ignorant of what was minted and coined in it.
He could not be a judge to punish men, if the inward frames and prin-
ciples of men's actions were concealed from him ; an outward action may
ghtter to an outward eye, yet the secret spring be a desire of applause, and
not the fear arid love of God. If the inward frames of the heart did lie
covrred from him in the secret recesses of the heart, those plausible acts,
which in regard of their principles would merit a punishment, would meet
with a reward, and God should bestow happiness where he had denounced
misery. As without the knowledge of what is just, he would not be a wise
lawgiver, so without the knowledge of what is inwardly committed, he
could not be a righteous judge ; acts that are rotten in the spring, might be
judged good by the fair colour and appearance.
This is the glory of God at the last day, to ' manifest the secrets of all
hearts,' 1 Cor. iv. 5 ; and the prophet Jeremiah links the power of judging,
and the jirerogative of trying the hearts together : Jer. xi. 20, ' But thou,
0 Lord of Hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the
heart ;' and chap. xvii. 10, ' I the Lord search the heart ; I try the reins ;'
To what end ? Even * to give every man according to his way, and accord-
ing to the fruit of his doings.' And indeed his binding up the whole law
with that command of not coveting, evidenceth that he will judge men by
the inward affections and frames of their hearts. Again, God sustains the
mind of man in every act of thinking. In him we have not only the prin-
ciple of life, but every motion, the motion of our minds as well as of our
members. ' In him we live and move,' &c.. Acts xvii. 28. Since he sup-
ports the vigour of the faculty in every act, can he be ignorant of those acts
which spring from the faculty, to which he doth at that instant communicate
power and ability ?
Now this knowledge of the thoughts of men is.
First, An incommunicable propert}', belonging only to the divine under-
standing. Creatures indeed may know the thoughts of others by divine
revelation, but not by themselves ; no creature hath a key immediately to
open the minds of men, and see all that lodgeth there ; no creature can
fathom the heart by the line of created knowledge.* Devils may have a
conjectural knowledge, and' may guess at them, by the acquaintance they
have with the disposition and constitution of men, and the images they
behold in their fancies ; and by some marks which an inward imagination
* Daille, Serm. part i. p. 230.
Ps. CXLVII. 5. J god's knowledge. 475
may stamp upon the brain, blood, animal spirits, face, &c. ; but the knowing
the thoughts merely as thought, without any impression by it, is a royalty
God appropriates to himself, as the main secret of his government, and a
perfection declarative of his Deity as much as any else: Jer. xvii. 9, 10,
' The heart of man is desperately wicked, who can know it ?' Yes, there is
one, and but one ; ' I the Lord search the heart ; I try the reins.' ' Man
looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart,' 1 Sam.
xvi. 7, where God is distinguished by this perfection from all men whatso-
ever; others may know by revelation, as Elisha did, what was in Gehazi's
heart, 2 Kings v. 26 ; but God knows a man more than any man knows
himself. What person upon earth understands the windings and turuings
of his own heart, what reserves it will have, what contrivances, what incli-
nations ? all which God knows exactly.
Secondly, God acquires no new knowledge of the thoughts and heart, by
the discovery of them in the actions. He would then be but equal in this
part of knowledge to his creature ; no man or angel but may thus arrive to
the knowledge of them, God were then excluded from an absolute dominion
over the prime work of his lower creation ; he would have made a creature
superior in this respect to himself, upon whose will to discover, his know-
ledge of their inward intentions should depend ; and, therefore, when God is
said to search the heart, we must not understand it as if God were ignorant
before, and was fain to make an exact scrutiny and inquiry, before he attained
what he desired to know ; but God condescends to our capacity in the expres-
sion of his own knowledge, signifying that his knowledge is as complete as
any man's knowledge can be, of the designs of others, after he hath sifted
them by a strict and thorough examination, and wrung out a discovery of
their intentions ; that he knows them as perfectly as if he had put them
upon the rack, and forced them to make a discovery of their secret plottings.
Nor must we understand that in Gen. xxii. 12, where God saith, after Abra-
ham had stretched out his hand to sacrifice his son, ' Now I know that thou
fearest God,' as though God was ignorant of Abraham's gracious disposition
to him. Did Abraham's drawing his knife furnish God with a new know-
ledge ? No ; God knew Abraham's pious inclinations before : Gen. xviii. 19,
' I know him that he will command his children after him,' &c. Knowledge
is sometimes taken for approbation ; then the sense will be, Now I approve
this fact as a testimony of thy fear of me ; since thy affection to thy Isaac
is extinguished by the more powerful flame of affection to my will and com-
mand, I now accept thee, and count thee a meet subject of my choicest
benefits ; or now I know, that is, I have made known and'manifested, the
faith of Abraham to himself and to the world. Thus Paul uses the word
know : 1 Cor. ii. 2, ' I have determined to know nothing ;' that is, to
declare and teach nothing, to make known nothing ' but Christ crucified ;'
or else, now I know, that is, I have an evidence and experiment in this noble
fact, that thou fearest me. God often condescends to our capacity in speak-
ing of himself after the manner of men, as if he had (as men do) known the
inward afi"ections of others by their outward actions,
[4.] God knows all the evils and sins of creatures.
First, God knows all sin. This follows upon the other. If he knows all
the actions and thoughts of creatures, he knows also all the sinfulness in
those acts and thoughts. This Zophar infers from God's punishing men :
Job xi.: 11, 'For he knows vain man; he sees his wickedness also;' he
knows every man, and sees the wickedness of every man. * He looks down
from heaven,' and beholds not only the filthy persons, but what is filthy in
them, Ps. xiv. 2, 3, all nations in the world, and every man of every nation;
476 chap.nock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
none of their iniquity is hid from his eyes. ' He searches Jerusalem with
candles,' Zeph. i. 22. God follows sinners step by step with his eye, and
will not leave searching out till he hath taken them ; a metaphor taken from
one that searches all chinks with a candle, that nothing can be hid from
him. He knows it distinctly in all the parts of it, how an adulterer rises
out of his bed to commit uncleanness ; what contrivances he had, what steps
he took, every circumstance in the whole progress ; not only evil in the bulk,
but every one of the blacker spots upon it, which may most aggravate it.
If he did not know evil, how could he permit it, order it, punish it, or par-
don it ? Doth he permit he knows not what ? order [to his own holy ends
what he is ignorant of ? punish or pardon that which he is uncertain whether
it be a crime or no ? ' Cleanse me,' saith David, ' from my secret faults,'
Ps. xix. 12, secret in regard of others, secret in regard of himself; how
could God cleanse him from that whereof he was ignorant ? He knows sins
before they are committed, much more when they are in act ; he foreknew
the idolatry and apostasy of the Jews ; what gods they would serve, in what
measure they would provoke him, and violate his covenant, Deut. xxxi. 20, 21 ;
he knew Judas his sin long before Judas his actual existence, foretelling it
in the Psalms ; and Christ predicts it before he acted it. He sees sins future
in his own permitting will ; he sees sins present in his own supporting act.
As he knows things possible to himself, because he knows his own power ;
so he knows things practicable by the creature, because he knows the power
and principles of the creature.* This sentiment of God is naturally writ in
the fear of sinners, upon lightning, thunder, or some prodigious operation
of God in the world ; what is the language of them, but that he sees their
deeds, hears their words, knows the inward sinfulness of their hearts ; that he
doth not only behold them as a mere spectator, but considers them as a just
judge ? And the poets say, that the sins of men leaped into heaven, and
were wi'it in parchments of Jupiter, scelus in terra rferitur, in coelo scribi-
tur, sin is acted on earth, and recorded in heaven. God, indeed, doth not
behold evil with the approving eye ; he knows it not with a practical know-
ledge to be the author of it, but with a speculative knowledge, so as to under-
stand the fulness of it ; or a knowledge sinqdicis intelligentia;, of simple
intelligence, as he permits them, not positively wills them ;^ he knows them
not with a knowledge of assent to them, but dissent from them. Evil per-
tains to a dissenting act of the mind, and an aversive act of the will ; and
what though evil formally taken hath no distinct conception, because it is a
privation, a defect hath no being, and all knowledge is by the apprehension
of some being, would not this lie as strongly against our own knowledge of
sin ? Sin is the privation of the rectitude due to an act ; and who doubts
man's knowledge of sin ? By his knowing the act, he knows the deficiency
of the act ; the subject of evil hath a being, and so hath a conception in the
mind ; that which hath no being cannot be known by itself, or in itself, but
will it follow that it cannot be known by its contrary ? as we know dark-
ness to be a privation of light, and folly to be a privation of wisdom. God
knows all good by himself, because he is the sovereign good. Is it strange,
then, that he should know all evil, since all evil is in some natural good ?
Secondly, The manner of God's knowing evil is not so easily known ; and,
indeed, as we cannot comprehend the essence of God, though it is easily in-
telligible that there is such a being, so we can as little comprehend the
manner of God's knowledge, though we cannot but conclude him to be an
intelligent being, a pure understanding, knowing all things. As God hath a
higher manner of being than his creatures, so he hath another and higher
* Fotlierby, Atheoma, p. i;^2.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 477
maDner of knowing ; and wo can as little comprehend the manner of his
knowing, as we can the manner of his being. But as to the manner.
Doth not God know his own law ? and shall he not know how much any
action comes short of his rule ? He cannot know his own rule without know-
ing all the deviations from it. He knows his own holiness, and shall he not
see how any action is contrary to the holiness of his own nature ? Doth not
God know everything that is true, and is it not true that this or that is
evil ? and shall God be ignorant of any truth ? How doth God know that
he cannot lie, but by knowing his own veracity ? How doth God know that
he cannot die, but by knowing his own immutability ? And, by knowing
those, he knows what a lie is, he knows what death is ; so, if sin never had
been, if no creature had ever been, God would have known what sin was,
because he knows his own holiness, because he knew what law was fit to be
appointed to his creatures, if he should create them, and that that law might
be transgressed by them. God knows all good, all goodness in himself; he
therefore hath a foundation in himself, to know all that comes short of that
goodness, that is opposite to that holiness. As if light were capable of
understanding, it would know darkness only by knowing itself; by knowing
itself, it would know what is contrary to itself. God knows all created good-
ness which he hath planted in the creature ; he knows then all defects from
this goodness, what perfection an act is deprived of, what is opposite to
that goodness, and that is evil. As we know sickness by health, discord by
harmony, blindness by sight, because it is a privation of sight ; whosoever
knows one contrary knows the other. God knows unrighteousness by the
idea which he hath of righteousness, and sees an act deprived of that recti-
tude and goodness which ought to be in it ; he knows evil because he knows
the causes whence evil proceeds.* A painter knows a picture of his own
framing ; and if any one dashes any base colour upon it, shall not he also
know that ? God by his hand painted all creatures, impressed upon man
the fair stamp and colour of his own image ; the devil defiles it, man daubs
it. Doth not God, that knows his own work, know how this piece is be-
come diff'erent from his work ? Doth not God, that knows his creatures'
goodness, which himself was the fountain of, know the change of this good-
ness ? Yea, he knew before, that the devil would sow tares where he had
Bown wheat ; and, therefore, that controversy of some in the schools,
whether God knew evil by its opposition to created or uncreated goodness,
is needless. We may say God knows sin as it is opposite to created good-
ness, yet he knows it radically by his own goodness, because he knows the
goodness he hath communicated to the creature by his own essential good-
ness in himself. To conclude this head :
The knowledge of sin doth not bespot the holiness of God's nature, for
the bare knowledge of a crime doth not infect the mind of man with the
filth and pollution of that crime, for then every man that knows an act of
murder committed by another, would, by that bare knowledge, be tainted
with his sin ; yea, and a judge that condemns a malefactor, may as well
condemn himself, if this were so. The knowledge of sins infects not the
understanding that knows them, but only the will that approves them. It
is no discredit to us to know evil, in order to pass a right judgment upon
it ; so neither can it be to God.
(4.) God knows all future things, all things to come. The difierences of
time cannot hinder a knowledge of all things by him who is before time,
above time, that is not measured by hours, or days, or years ; if God did
not know them, the hindrance must be in himself, or in the things them-
* Cusan, p. 245.
478 chaenock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
selves, because tliey are things to come. Not in himself: if it did, it must
arise from some impotency in his own nature, and so we render him weak ;
or from an unwillingness to know, and so we render him lazy, and an enemy
to his own perfection ; for, simply considered, the knowledge of more things
is a greater perfection than the knowledge of a few ; and if the knowledge
of a thing includes something of perfection, the ignorance of a thing includes
something of imperfection. The knowledge of future things is a greater
perfection than not to know them, and is accounted among men a great part
of wisdom, which they call foresight ; it is then surely a greater perfection
in God to know future things, than to be ignorant of them. And would
God rather have something of imperfection than be possessor of all perfection?
Nor doth the hindrance lie in the things themselves, because their futurition
depends upon his will ; for as nothing can actually be without his will,
giving it existence, so nothing can be future without his will, designing the
futurity of it. Certainly, if God knows all things possible, which he will
not do, he must know all things future, which he is not only able, but re-
solved to do, or resolved to permit. God's perfect knowledge of himself,
that is, of his own infinite power and concluding will, necessarily includes a
foreknowledge of what he is able to do, and what he will do.
Again, if God doth not know future things, there was a time when God
was ignorant of most things in the world, for, before the deluge, he was
more ignorant than after ; the more things were done in the world, the more
knowledge did accrue to God, and so the more perfection ; then, the under-
standing of God was not perfect from eternity, but in time ; nay, is not
perfect yet, if he be ignorant of those things which are still to come to pass ;
he must tarry for a perfection he wants, till those futurities come to be in
act, till those things which are to come cease to be future, and begin to be
present. Either God knows them, or desires to know them ; if he desires
to know them and doth not, there is something wanting to him ; all desire
speaks an absence of the object desired, and a sentiment of want in the
person desiring. If he doth not desire to know them, nay, if he doth not
actually know them, it destroys all providence, all his government of aifairs,
for his providence hath a concatenation of means with a prospect of some-
thing that is future ; as in Joseph's case, who was put into the pit,
and sold to the Egyptians, in order to his future advancement, and the pre-
servation both of his father and his envious brethren. If God did not know
all the future inclinations and actions of men, something might have been
done by the will of Potiphar, or by the free will of Pharaoh, whereby
Joseph might have been cut short of his advancement, and so God have been
interrupted in the track and method of his designed providences. He that
bath decreed to govern man for that end he hath designed him, knows all
the means before whereby he will govern him, and therefore hath a distinct
and certain knowledge of all things, for a confused knowledge is an imper-
fection in government ; it is in this the infiniteness of his understanding is
more seen than in knowing things past or present ; ' his eyes are as a flame
of fire,' Rev. i. 14, in regard of the penetrating virtue of them into things
impenetrable by any else.
To make it further appear that God knows all things future, consider,
1. First, everything which is the object of God's knowledge without him-
self was once only future. There was a moment when nothing was in being
but himself ; he knew nothing actually past, because nothing was past ; no-
thing actually present, because nothing had any existence but himself;
therefore only what was future, and why not everything that is future now,
as well as only what was future and to come to pass just at the beginning of
Ps. CXLYII. C] god's knowledge. 479
the creation? God, indeed, knows everything as present, hut the things
themselves known by him were not present, but future. The whole creation
was once future, or else it was from eternity ; if it begun in time, it was onco
future in itself, else it could never have begun to be. Did not God know
what would bo created by him before it was created by him ? * Did ho
create he knew not what, and knew not before what ho should create ? Was
he ignorant before ho acted, and in his acting, what his operation would
tend to ? Or did he not know the nature of things, and the ends of them,
till he had produced them, and saw them in being ? Creatures then did
not arise from his knowledge, but his knowledge from them ; he did not
then will that his creatures should be, or he had then willed what he knew
not, and knew not what he willed ; they, therefore, must be known before
they were made, and not known because they were made ; he knew them to
make them, and he did not make them to know them. By the same reason
he knew what creatures should be before they were, he knows still what
creatures shall be before they are;t for all things that are were in God,
not really in their own nature, but in him as a cause ; so the earth and
heavens were in him, as a model in the mind of a workman, which is in his
mind and soul before it be brought forth into outward act.
2. The predictions of future things evidence this. There is not a prophecy
of anything to come but is a spark of his foreknowledge, and bears witness
to the truth of this assertion in the punctual accomplishment of it. This is
a thing challenged by God as his own peculiar, wherein he surmounts all the
idols that man's inventions have goded in the world : Isa. xli. 21, 22, ' Let
them bring forth' (speaking of the idols), ' and shew us what shall happen,
or declare us things to come : shew the things that are to come hereafter,
that we may know that you are gods.' Such a foreknowledge of things to
come is here ascribed to God by God himself, as a distinction of him from
all false gods. Such a knowledge that, if any could prove that they were
possessors of, he would acknowledge them gods as well as himself; 'that
we may know that you are gods.' He puts his Deity to stand or fall upon
this account, and this should be the point which should decide the contro-
versy whether he or the heathen idols were the true God. The dispute is
managed by this medium : he that knows things to come is God ; I know
things to come, ergo I am God : the idols know not things to come, there-
fore they are not gods. God submits the being of his Deity to this trial.
If God know things to come no more than the heathen idols, which were
either devils or men, he would be, in his own account, no more a God than
devils or men ; no more a God than the pagan idols he doth scofi' at for this
defect. If the heathen idols were to be stripped of their deity for want of
this foreknowledge of things to come, would not the true God also fall from
the same excellency if he were defective in knowledge ? He would, in his
own judgment, no more deserve the title and character of a God than they.
How could he reproach them for that, if it were wanting in himself? It
cannot be understood of future things in their causes, when the effects neces-
sarily arise from such causes, as light from the sun and heat from the tire.
Many of these men know; more of them, angels and devils know; if God,
therefore, had not a higher and farther knowledge than this, he would not
by this be proved to be God, any more than angels and devils, who know
necessary effects in their causes. The devils, indeed, did predict some
things in the heathen oracles, but God is differenced from them here by the
infiniteness of his knowledge, in being able to predict things to come that
they knew not, or things in their particularities, things that depended on the
* Petavius changed. t Bradward, lib. iii. cap. 14.
480 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
liberty of man's will, which the devils could lay no claim to a certain know-
ledge of. Were it only a conjectural knowledge that is here meant, the
devils might answer they can conjecture, and so their deity were as good as
God's ; for though God might know more things, and conjecture nearer to
what would be, yet still it would be but conjectural, and therefore not a
higher kind of knowledge than what the devils might challenge. How much,
then, is God beholden to the Socinians for denying the knowledge of all
future things to him, upon which here he puts the trial of his deity ? God
asserts his knowledge of things to come as a manifest evidence of his God-
head ; those that deny, therefore, the argument that proves it, deny the
conclusion too ; for this will necessarily follow, that if he be God because
he knows future things, then he that doth not know future things is not
God ; and if God knows not future things but only by conjecture, then there
is no God, because a certain knowledge, so as infallibly to predict things
to come, is an inseparable perfection of the Deity. It was therefore well
said of Austin, that it was as high a madness to deny God to be as* to deny
him the foreknowledge of things to come.
The whole prophetic part of Scripture declares this perfection of God.
Every prophet's candle was lighted at this torch ; they could not have this
foreknowledge of themselves. Why might not many other men have the
same insight, if it were by nature ? f I* must be from some superior agent ;
and all nations owned prophecy as a beam from God, a fruit of divine illu-
mination. Prophecy must be totally expunged if this be denied, for the
subjects of prophecy are things future, and no man is properly a prophet
but in prediction. Now prediction is nothing but foretelling, and things
foretold are not yet come ; and the foretelling of them supposeth them not
to be yet, but that they shall be in time. Several such predictions we have
in Scripture, the event whereof hath been certain. The years of famine in
Egypt foretold that he would order second causes for bringing that judgment
upon them ; the captivity of his people in Babylon ; the calling of the Gen-
tiles ; the rejection of the Jews. Daniel's revelation of Nebuchadnezzar's
dream, that prince refers to God as the revealer of secrets, Dau. ii. 47. By
the same reason that he knows one thing future by himself, and by the
infiniteness of his knowledge, before any causes of them appear, he doth
know all things future.
3. Some future things are known by men, and we must allow God a
greater knowledge than any creature. Future things in their causes may be
known by angels and men, as I said before ; whosoever knows necessary
causes, and the efficacy of them, may foretell the effects ; and M'hen he sees
the meeting and concurrence of several causes together, he may presage
what the consequent effect. will be of such a concurrence. So physicians
foretell the progress of a disease, the increase or diminution of it by natural
sio-ns ; and astronomers foretell eclipses by their observation of the motion
of heavenly bodies many years before they happen. J Can they be hid from
God, with whom are the reasons of all things ?§ An expert gardener, by
knowing the root in the depth of winter, can tell what flowers and what fruit
it will bear, and the month when they will peep out their heads ; and shall
not God much more, that knows the principles of all his creatures, and is
exactly privy to all their natures and qualities, know what they will be, and
what operations shall be from those principles ? Now if God did know
things only in their causes, his knowledge would not be more excellent than
* Qu. 'no higher . . . than'? — Ed.
t Pacuvius said, Siqui quce eventvra sunt provident, aquiparent.
X Cusanus. 'i Fuller's Fisgah, 1. ii. p. 281.
Ps. CXLYII. 5.] god's knowledge. 481
the knowledge of angels and men, though he might know more than they of
the things that will come to pass from every cause singly, and from the con-
currence of many. Now as God is more excellent in being than his creature,
so he is more excellent in the objects of his knowledge and the manner of
his knowledge : well, then, shall a certain knowledge of something future,
and a conjectural knowledge of many things, bo found among men, and shall
a determinate and infallible knowledge of things to come be found nowhere,
in no being '? If the conjecture of future things savours of ignorance, and
God knows them only by conjecture, there is then no such thing in being
as a perfect intelligent being, and so no God.
4. God knows his own decree and will, and therefore must needs know
all future things. If anything be future, or to come to pass, it must be from
itself or from God ; not from itself, then it would be independent and abso-
lute. If it hath its futurity from God, then God must know what he hath
decreed to come to pass. Those things that are future in necessary causes
God must know, because he willed them to be causes of such effects ; he
therefore knows them, because he knows what he willed. The knowledge of
God cannot arise from the things themselves, for then the knowledge of God
would have a cause without him ; and knowledge, which is an eminent per-
fection, would be conferred upon him by his creatures. But as God sees
things possible in the glass of his own power, so he sees things future in the
glass of his own will : in his effecting will, if he hath decreed to produce them ;
in his permitting will, as he hath decreed to suffer them and dispose of them.
Nothing can pass out of the rank of things merely possible into the order of
things future, before some act of God's will hath passed for its futurition.*
It is not from the infiniteness of his own nature, simply considered, that
God knows things to be future ; for as things are not future because God is
infinite (for then all possible things should be future), so neither is anything
known to be future only because God is infinite, but because God hath
decreed it ; his declaration of things to come is founded upon his appoint-
ment of things to come.f In Isa. xliv. 7, it is said, ' And who, as I, shall
call, and declare it, since I appointed the ancient people, and the things that
are coming ? ' J Nothing is created and ordered in the world but what God
decreed to be created and ordered. God knows his own decree, and there-
fore all things which he hath decreed to exist in time, not the minutest part
of the world, could have existed without his will, not an action can be done
without his will. As life, the principle, so motion, the fruit of that life, is
by and from God. As he decreed life to this or that thing, so he decreed
motion as the effect of life, and decreed to exert his power in concurring
with them, for producing effects natural from such causes ; for without such
a concourse they could not have acted anything, or produced anything.
And therefore, as for natural things, which we call necessary causes, God
foreseeing them all particularly in his own decree, foresaw also all eflects
which must necessarily flow from them, because such causes cannot but act
when they are furnished with all things necessary for action. He knows his
own decrees, and therefore necessarily knows what he hath decreed, or else
we must say things come to pass whether God will or no ; or, that he wills
he knows not what. But this cannot be ; for * known unto God are all his
works from the beginning of the world,' Acts xv. 18. Now this necessarily
flows from that principle first laid down, that God knows himself, since
nothing is future without God's will. If God did not know future things,
he would not know his own will ; for as things possible could not be
* Chequell. t Coccei Sum. Theol., p. 50.
t Gamach in Aquin,, part i. qu. 24, cap. 3, p. 124.
VOL. I. H h
482 chaenock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
known by him unless lie knew the fulness of his own power, so things
future could not he known by his understanding unless he knew the resolves
of his own will.
Thus the knowledge of God differs from the knowledge of men. God's
knowledge of his works precedes his works,* man's knowledge of God's
works follows his works. Just as an artificer's knowledge of a watch,
instrument, or engine which he would make, is before his making of it ; he
knows the motions of it, and the reasons of those motions before it is made,
because he knows what he hath determined to work; he knows not those
motions from the consideration of them after they were made, as the spec-
tator doth, who by viewing the instrument after it is made, gains a know-
ledge from the sight and consideration of it, till he understands the reason
of the whole ; so we know things from the consideration of them after we see
them in being, and therefore we know not future things. But God's know-
ledge doth not arise from things because they are, but because he wills them
to be ; and therefore he knows everything that shall be, because it cannot
be without his will, as the creator and maintainer of all things ; knowing his
own substance, he knows all his works.
5. If God did not know all future things, he would be mutable in his
knowledge.
If he did not know all things that ever were or are to be, there would be
upon the appearance of every new object an addition of light to his under-
standing, and therefore such a change in him as every new knowledge causes
in the mind of a man, or as the sun works in the world upon its rising every
morning, scattering the darkness that was upon the face of the earth. If he
did not know them before they came, he would gain a knowledge by them
when they came to pass, which he had not before they were effected ; his
knowledge would be new according to the newness of the objects, and multi-
plied according to the multitude of the objects. If God did not know things
to come as perfectly as he knew things present and past, but knew those
certainly, and the others doubtfully and conjecturally, he would suffer some
change, and acquire some perfection in his knowledge, when those future
things should cease to be future, and become present ; for he would know
it more perfectly when it were present than he did when it was future, and
so there would be a change from imperfection to a perfection ; but God is
every way immutable.
Besides, that perfection would not arise from the nature of God, but from
the existence and presence of the thing. But who will affirm that God
acquires any perfection of knowledge from his creatures, any more than he
doth of being ? He would not then have had that knowledge, and conse-
quently that perfection from eternity, as he had when he created the world,
and will not have a full perfection of the knowledge of his creature till the
end of the world, nor of immortal souls, which will certainly act as well as
live to eternity. And so God never was, nor ever will be perfect in know-
ledge ; for when you have conceived millions of years, wherein angels and
souls live and act, there is still more coming than you can conceive, wherein
they will act. And if God be always changing to eternity from ignorance to
knowledge, as those acts come to be exerted by his creatures, he will not be
perfect in knowledge, no, not to eternity, but will always be changing from
one degree of knowledge to another ; a veiy unworthy conceit to entertain
of the most blessed, perfect, and infinite God.
Hence then it follows, that,
(1.) God foreknows all his creatures ; all kinds which he determined to
* Maimonid. More Nevoch., part iii. cap. 21, p. 393, 394.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 483
make, all particulars that should spring out of every species, the time when
thu_y should come forth of the womb, the manner how : ' In thy book all
members were written,' Ps. cxxxix, IG. Members is not in the Hebrew,
whence some refer all to all living creatures whatsoever, and all the parts
of them which_jGod did foresee. He knew the numbers of creatures, with
all their parts ; they were written in the book of his foreknowledge ; the
duration of them, how long they shall remain in being and act upon the
stage; he knows their strength, the links of one cause with another, and
what will follow in all their circumstances, and the series and combination
of effects with their causes.
The duration of everything is foreknown, because determined : Job
xiv. 5, ' Seeing his days are determined, the number of his montlis arc with
thee ; thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.' Bounds are
fixed, beyond which none shall reach ; he speaks of days and months, not of
years, to give us notice of God's particular foreknowledge of everything, of
every day, month, year, hour of a man's life.
(2.) All the acts of his creatures are foreknown by liim. All natural acts,
because lie knows their causes ; voluntary acts I shall speak of afterwards.
(3.) This foreknowledge was certain. For it is an unworthy notion of
God to ascribe to him a conjectural knowledge ; if there were only a con-
jectural knowledge, he could but conjecturally foretell anything; and then it
is possible the events of things might be contrary to his predictions. It
would appear then that God were deceived and mistaken, and then there
could be no rule of trying things whether they were from God or no ; for
the rule God sets down to discern his words from the words of false
prophets is the event and certain accomplishment of what is predicted.
Deut. xviii. 21, to that question, ' How shall we know whether God hath
spoken or no ? ' he answers, that ' If the thing doth not come to pass, the
Lord hath not spoken.' If his knowledge of future things were not certain,
there were no stability in this rule, it would fall to the ground. We never
yet find God deceived in any prediction; but the event did answer bis fore-
revelation ; his foreknowledge therefore is certain and infallible. We can-
not make God uncertain in his knowledge, but we must conceive him
fluctuating and wavering in his will ; but if his will be not ' yea and nay,'
but ' yea,' his knowledge is certain, because he doth certainly will and
resolve.
(4.) This foreknowledge was from eternity. Seeing he knows things pos-
sible in his power, and things future in his will, if his power and resolves
were from eternity, his knowledge must be so too, or else we must make
him ignorant of his own power, and ignorant of his own will from eternity,
and consequently not from eternity blessed and perfect. His knowledge of
possible things must run parallel with his power, and his knowledge of future
things run parallel with his will. If he willed from eternity, he knew from
eternity what he willed ; but that he did will from eternity we must grant,
unless we would render him changeable, and conceive him to be made in
time of not willing, willing. The knowledge God hath in time w^as alway
one and the same, because his understanding is his proper essence, as per-
fect as his essence, and of an immutable nature.
And indeed the actual existence of a thing is not simply necessary to its
being perfectly known.* We may see a thing that is passed out of being
when it doth not actually exist, and a carpenter may know the house he is
to build before it be built, by the model of it in his own mind ; much more
we may conceive the same of God, whose decrees were before the foundation
* Gamach in Aquin., part 1. q. xiv. c. iii. p. 124.
484 chaenock's wokks. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
of the world, Eph. i. 5, and in other places ; and to be before time was, and
to be from eternity, hath no difference. As God in his being exceeds all
beginning of time, so doth his knowledge all motions of time.
(5.) God foreknows all things, as present with him from eternity.* As
he knows mutable things with an immutable and firm knowledge, so he knows
future things with a present knowledge. Not that the things which are pro-
duced in time were actually and really present with him in their own beings
from eternity, for then they could not be produced in time ; had they a real
existence, then they would not be creatures, but God ; and had they actual
being, then they could not be future, for future speaks a thing to come that
is not yet ; if things had been actually present with him, and yet future,
they had been made before they were made, and had a being before they had
a being ; but they were all present to his knowledge, as if they were in actual
being, because the reason of all things that were to be made was present
with him.
The reason of the will of God that they shall be, was equally eternal with
him,f wherein he saw what, and when, and how he would create things, how
he would govern them, to what ends he would direct them. Thus all things
are present to God's knowledge, though in their own nature they may be past
or future, not in esse reali, but in esse inteUif/ibili, objectively, not actually
present ;l for as the unchangeableuess and infiniteness of God's knowledge
of changeable and finite things doth not make the things he knows immu-
table and infinite, so neither doth the eternity of his knowledge make them
actually present with him from eternity, but all things are present to his
understanding, because he hath at once a view of all successions of times,
and his knowledge of future things is as perfect as of present things, or what
is past. It is not a certain knowledge of present things, and an uncertain
knowledge of future ; but his knowledge of one is as certain and unerring as
his knowledge of the other. § As a man that beholds a circle with several
lines from the centre, beholds the lines as they are joined in the centre, be-
holds them also as they are distant and severed from one another, beholds
them in their extent and in their point all at once, though they may have a
great distance from one another. He saw from the beginning of time to the
last minute of it, all things coming out of their causes, marching in their
order according to his own appointment, as a man may see a multitude of
ants, some creeping one way, some another, employed in several businesses
for their winter provision. The eye of God at once runs through the whole
circle of time, as the eye of man upon a tower sees all the passengers at
once, though some be past, some under the tower, some coming at a farther
distance. God, saith Job, ' looks to the end of the earth, and sees under
the whole heaven,' Job xxviii. 24. The knowledge of God is expressed by
sight in Scripture, and futurity to God is the same thing as distance to us.
We can, with a perspective glass, make things that are afar off" appear as if
they were near, and the sun, so many thousand miles distant from us, to
appear as if it were at the end of the glass. Why should then future things
be at so great a distance from God's knowledge, when things so far from us
may be made to approach so near to us ?
God considers all things, in his own simple knowledge, as if they were
now acted ; and therefore some have chosen to call the knowledge of things
to come not prescience or foreknowledge, but knowledge, because God sees
all things in one instant, scientid nunquam dejicientis instantia. || Upon this
* Gerhard Exeges, ch. viii., de Deo, sect. xiii. p. 303.
t Bradward, 1. iii. c. 14. § Pugio Fidei, part i. cli. 10.
I Hornbeck. jj Boet. Consolat., lib. v. prof. 6.
Ps. CXLVII. 5. J god's knowledge. 485
account things that are to come are set down in Scriptiu*e as present, and
sometimes as past : Isa. ix. G, ' Unto us a Child in born,' though not yet
born ; so of the sutierings of Christ : Isa. liii. 4, &c., ' He hath borne our
griefs, he was wounded for our transgressions, he was taken from prison,'
(fcc, not shall he; and Ps. xxii. 18, ' They j>rt/-< my garments among them,'
as if it were present ; all to express the certainty of God's foreknowledge, as
if things were actually present before him.
(0.) This is proper to God, and incommunicable to any creature. Nothing
but what is eternal can know all things that are to come. Suppose a crea-
ture might know things that are to come after he is in being, he cannot know
things simply as future, because there were things future before he was in
being. The devils know not men's hearts, therefore cannot foretell their
actions with any certainty. They may indeed have a knowledge of some
things to come, but it is only conjectural, and often mistaken, as the devil
was in his predictions among the heathen, and in his presage of Job's cursing
God to his face upon his pressing calamities, Job i. 11. Sometimes indeed
they have a certain knowledge of something future by the revelation of God,
when he uses them as instruments of his vengeance, or for the trial of his
people, as in the case of Job, when he gave him a commission to strip him
of his goods, or as the angels have, when he uses them as instruments of the
deliverance of his people.
(7.) Though this be certain, that God foreknows all things and actions,
yet the manner of his knowing all things before they come, is not so easily
resolved. We must not, therefore, deny this perfection in God, because we
understand not the manner how he hath the knowledge of all things. It
were unworthy for us to own no more of God than we can perfectly conceive
of him ; we should then own no more of him than that he doth exist. ' Canst
thou,' saith Job, ' by searching find out God ? canst thou find out the
Almighty unto perfection ?' Job xi. 7. Do we not see things, unknown to
inferior creatures, to be known to ourselves ? Irrational creatures do not
apprehend the nature of a man, nor what we conceive of them when we look
upon them, nor do we know what they fancy of us when they look wistly
upon us ; for aught as I know, we understand as little the manner of their
imaginations as they do of ours ; and shall we ascribe a darkness in God as
to future things, because we are ignorant of them, and of the manner how
he should know them ?* Shall we doubt whether God doth certainly know
those things which we only conjecture ? As our power is not the measure
of the power of God, so neither is our knowledge the judge of the knowledge
of God, no better, nor so well, as an irrational creature can be the judge of
our reason. Do we perfectly know the manner how we know ? Shall we
therefore deny that we know anything ? We know we have such a faculty
which we call understanding, but doth any man certainly know what it is ?
And because he doth not, shall he deny that which is plain and evident to
him ? Because we cannot ascertain ourselves of the causes of the ebbing
and flowing of the sea, of the manner how minerals are engendered in the
earth, shall we therefore deny that which our eyes convince us of ?
And this will be a preparation to the last thing.
6. God knows all future contingencies ; that is, God knows all things that
shall accidentally happen, or, as we say, by chance ; and he knows all the
free motions of men's wills that shall be to the end of the world.
If ' all things be open to him,' Heb. iv. 13, then all contingencies are,
for they are in the number of things ; and as, according to Christ's speech,
those things that are impossible to man, are possible to God, so those
* Ficinus in Procl., cap 19.
486 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
things which are unknown to man, are known to God, because of the infinite
fulness and perfection of the divine understanding.
Let us see what a contingent is.
That is contingent which we commonly call accidental, as when a tile falls
suddenly ujDon a man's head as he is walking in the street, or when one
letting ofl' a musket at random shoots another he did not intend to hit ; such
was that arrow whereby Ahab was killed, shot by a soldier at a venture,
1 Kings xxii. 34. This some call a mixed contingent, made up partly of
necessity, and partly of accident ; it is necessary the bullet, when sent out
of the gun, or arrow out of the bow, should fly and light somewhere, but it
is an accident that it hits this or that man, that was never intended by the
archer. Other things, as voluntary actions, are purely contingents, and
have nothing of necessity in them ; all free actions that depend upon the
will of man, whether to do or not to do, are of this nature, because they
depend not upon a necessary cause, as burning doth upon the fire, moisten-
ing upon water, or as descent or falling do\A'n is necessary to a heavy body,
for those cannot in their own njiture do otherwise ; but the other actions
depend upon a free agent, able to tui-n to this or that point, and determine
himself as he pleases.
Now we must know that what is accidental in regard of the creature, is
not so in regard of God. The manner of Ahab's death was accidental in
regard of the hand by which he was slain, but not in regard of God, who
foretold his death, and foreknew the shot, and directed the arrow. God was
not uncertain before of the manner of his fall, nor hovered over the battle to
watch for an opportunity to accomplish his own prediction ; what may be or
not be in regard of us, is certain in regard of God. To imagine that what is
accidental to us is so to God, is to measure God by our short line. How
many events, following upon the results of princes in their counsels, seem
to persons ignorant of those counsels to be a hap-hazard, yet were not con-
tingencies to the prince and his assistants, but foreseen by him as certainly
to issue so as they do, which they knew before would be the fruit of such
causes and instruments they would knit together ! That may be necessary
in regard of God's foreknowledge, which is merely accidental in regard of
the natural disposition of the immediate causes which do actually produce
it ; contingent in its own nature and in regard of us, but fixed in the know-
ledge of God. One illustrates it by this similitude : * A master sends two
servants to one and the same place, two several ways, unlmown to one
another ; thej' meet at the place which their master had appointed them ;
their meeting is accidental to them, one Imows not of the other, but it was
foreseen by the master that they should so meet, and that in regard of them
it would seem a mere accident till they came to explain the business to one
another ; both the necessity of their meeting in regard of their master's
order, and the accidentalness of it in regard of themselves, were in both their
circumstances foreknown by the master that employed them.
For the clearing of this, take it in this method.
(1.) It is an unworthy conceit of God, in any, to exclude him from the
knowledge of these things.
[1.] It will bo a strange contracting of him, to allow him no greater a
knowledge than we have ourselves. Contingencies are known to us when
they come into act, and pass from futurit}' to reality ; and when they are
present to us, we can order our affairs accordingly ; shall we allow God no
greater a measure of knowledge than we have, and make him as bhnd as
ourselves, not to see things of that nature before they come to pass ? Shall
* Zanch.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 487
God kaow them no more ; shall wo imagine God knows no otherwise than
we know, and that ho doth, like us, stand gazing with admiration at events?
Man can conjecture mauy things; is it lit to ascrihe the same uncertainty to
God, as though he as well as we could have no assurance till the issue
appear in the view of all ? If God doth not certainly foreknow them, he
doth hut conjecture them ; but a conjectural knowledge is by no means to
be fastened on God, for that is not knowledge but guess, and destroys a
deity by making him subject to mistake ; for he that only gucsseth, may guess
wrong, so that this is to make God like ourselves, and strip him of an uni-
versally acknowledged perfection of omniscience. A conjectural knowledge,
saith oue,t is as unworthy of God, as the creature is unworthy of omni-
science. It is certain man hath a liberty to act many things this or that way
as he pleases, to walk to this or that quarter, to speak or not to speak, to do
this or that thing or not to do it ; which way a man will certainly determine
himself, is unknown before to any creature, yea, often at the present to him-
self, for he may be in suspense ; but shall we imagine this future deter-
mination of himself is concealed from God. Those that deny God's fore-
knowledge in such cases, must either say that God hath an opinion that a
man will resolve rather this way than that ; — but then if a man by his liberty
determine himself contrary to the opinion of God, is not God then deceived?
and what rational creature can own him for a God that can be deceived in
anything ? — or else they must say that God is at uncertainty, and suspends
his opinion without determining it any way ; then he cannot know free acts
till they are done, he would tlien depend upon the creature for his informa-
tion, his knowledge would be every instant increased, as things he knew not
before came into act ; and since there are every minute an innumerable
multitude of various imaginations in the minds of men, there would be every
minute an accession of new knowledge to God, which he had not before ;
besides, this knowledge would be mutable, according to the wavering and
weather-cock resolutions of men, one while standing to this point, another
while to that, if he depended upon the creatures' determination for his
knowledge.
[2.] If the free acts of men were unknown before to God, no man can see
how there can be any government of the world by him. Such contingencies
may happen, and such resolves of men's free wills unknown to God, as may
perplex his affairs, and put him upon new counsels and methods for attain-
ing those ends which he settled at the first creation of things ; if things
happen which God knows not of before, this must be the consequence,
where there is no foresight, there is no providence ; things may happen so
sudden, if God be ignorant of them, that they may give a check to his
intentions and scheme of government, and put him upon changing the
model of it. How often doth a small intervening circumstance, unforeseen
by man, dash in pieces a long meditated and well-formed design. To
govern necessary causes, as sun and stars, whose eff'ects are natural and
constant in themselves, is easy to be imagined ; but how to govern the
world, that consists of so many men of free will, able to determine them-
selves to this or that, and which have no constancy in themselves, as the
sun and stars have, cannot be imagined, unless we will allow in God as
great a certainty of foreknowledge of the designs and actions of men, as there
is inconstancy in their resolves. God must be altering the methods of his
government every day, every hour, every minute, according to the determina-
tions of men, which are so various and changeable in the whole compass of
the world in the space of one minute ; he must wait to see what the counsels
* Scrivener.
488 chaknock's works. [Ps. CXLYIl. 5.
of men will be, before he could settle his own methods of government ;
and so must govern the world according to their mutability, and not accord-
ing to any certainty in himself. But his ' counsel is stable ' in the midst
of multitudes of free 'devices' in the heart of man, Prov. xix. 21, and
knowing them all before, orders them to be subservient to his own stable
counsel. If he cannot know v/hat to-morrow will bring forth in the mind of
a man, how can he certainly settle his own determination of governing him ;
his degrees and resolves must be temporal, and arise j)ro re natd, and he
must alway be in counsel what he should do upon every change of men's
minds. This is an unworthy conceit of the infinite majesty of heaven, to
make his government depend upon the resolves of men, rather than their
resolves upon the design of God.
(2.) It is therefore certain that God doth foreknow the free and voluntary
acts of man. How could he else order his people to ask of him ' things to
come,' in order to their deliverance, such things as depend upon the will of
man, if he foreknew not the motions of their will, Isa. xlv. 11.
[1.] Actions good or inditi'erent depending upon the liberty of man's will
as much as any whatsoever. Several of these he hath foretold ; not only a
person to build up Jerusalem was predicted by him, but the name of that
person, Cyrus, Isa. xliv. 28. "What is more contingent, or is more the
etiect of the liberty of man's will, than the names of their children ? Was
not the destruction of the Babylonish empire foretold, which Cyrus under-
took, not by any compulsion, but by a free inclination and resolve of his
own will '? And was not the dismission of the Jews into their own country
a voluntary act in that conquerer ? If you consider the liberty of man's
will, might not Cyrus as well have continued their yoke as have struck off
their chains, and kept them captive as well as dismissed them ? Had it not
been for his own interest rather to have strengthened the fetters of so
turbulent a people, who, being tenacious of theii* religion and laws, different
from that professed by the whole world, were like to make disturbances
more when they were linked in a body in their own country, than when they
were transplanted and scattered into the several parts of his empire ? It
was in the power of C3TUS (take him as a man) to choose one or the other.
His interest invited him to continue their captivity rather than grant their
deliverance, yet God knew that he would willingly do this rather than the
other ; he knew this which depended upon the will of Cyrus ; and why may
not an infinite God foreknow the free acts of all men, as well as of one ? If
the liberty of Cyrus's will was no hindrance to God's certain and infallible
foreknowledge of it, how can the contingency of any other thing be a hin-
drance to him ? for there is the same reason of one and all ; and his govern-
ment extends to every village, every family, every person, as well as to
kingdoms and nations.
So God foretold by his prophet, not only the destruction of Jeroboam's
altar, but the name of the person that should be the instrument of it,
1 Ivings xiii. 2, and this about three hundred years before Josiah's birth.
It is a wonder that none of the pious kings of Judah, in detestation of
idolatry, and hopes to recover again the kingdom of Israel, had in all that
space named one of their sons by that name of Josiah, in hopes that that
prophecy should be accomphshed by him ; that Manasseh only should do
this, who was the greatest imitator of Jeroboam's idolatry among all the
Jewish kings, and indeed went beyond them, and had no mind to destroy
in another kingdom what he propagated in his own. What is freer than
the imposition of a name ? Yet this he foreknew, and this Josiah was Ma-
nasseh's son, 2 liings xxi, 26. Was there anything more voluntary than for
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 489
Pharaoh to honour the butler by restoring him to his place, and punish the
baker by hanf^ing him on a gibbet ? Yet this was foretold, Gen. xl. 8.
And were not all the voluntary acts of men, which were the means of Joseph's
advancement, forelviiown by God, as well as his exaltation, which was the
end he aimed at by those means ? Many of these may be reckoned up.
Can all the free acts of man surmount the infinite capacity of the divine
understanding ? If God singles out one voluntary action in man as contin-
gent as any, and lying among a vast number of other designs and resolu-
tions, both antecedent and subsequent, why should he not know the whole
mass of men's thoughts and actions, and pierce into all that the liberty of
man's will can ell'ect ? Why should he not know every grain, as well as
one that lies in the midst of many of the same kind ?
And since the Scripture gives so large an account of contingents predicted
by God, no man can certainly prove that anything is unforeknown to him.
It is as reasonable to think he knows every contingent, as that he Icnows
some that lie as much hid from the eye of any creature, since there is no
more difficulty to an infinite understanding to know all, than to know some.*
Indeed, if we deny God's foreknowledge of the voluntary actions of men, we
must strike ourselves oS from the belief of Scripture predictions that yet
I'emain unaccomplished, and will be brought about by the voluntary engage-
ments of men, as the ruin of antichrist, &c. If God foreloiows not the
secret motions of man's will, how can he foretell them ? If we strip him of
this perfection of prescience, why should we believe a word of Scripture pre-
dictions ? All the credit of the word of God is torn up by the roots. If
God were uncertain of such events, how can we reconcile God's declaration
of them to his truth, and his demanding our belief of them to his goodness ?
Were it good and righteous in God to urge us to the belief of that he were
uncertain of himself ? How could he be true in predicting things he were
not sure of? Or good in requiring credit to be given to that which might
be false '? This would necessarily follow, if God did not foreknow the
motions of men's wills, whereby many of his predictions were fulfilled, and
some remain j^et to be accomplished.
[2.] God foreknows the voluntary sinful motions of men's wills.
First, God hath foretold several of them. Were not all the minute sinful
circumstances about the death of our blessed Redeemer, as the piercing him,
giving him gall to drink, foretold, as well as the not breaking his bones, and
parting his garments ? What were those but the free actions of men, which
they did willingly, without any constraint ? And those foretold by David,
Isaiah, and other prophets, some above a thousand, some above eight hun-
di'ed, and some more, some fewer years, before they came to pass ; and
events punctually answered the prophecies. Many sinful acts of men, which
depended upon their free will, have been foretold : the Egyptians' voluntary
oppressing Israel, Gen. xv. 13 ; Pharaoh's hardening his heart against the
voice of Moses, Exod. iii, 19 ; that Isaiah's message would be in vain to
the people, Isa. vi. 19 ; that the Israelites would be rebellious after Moses
his death, arid turn idolaters, Deut. xxxi. 16 ; Judas his betraying of our
Saviour, a voluntary action, John vi. 71 ; he was not forced to do what
he did, for he had some kind of repentance for it ; and not violence, but
voluntariness, falls under repentance.
Secondly, His truth hath depended upon this foresight. Let us consider
* The stoics, that thought their souls to be some particle of God, 'AcoffTaff/iara,
pieces pulled oft" from him, did conclude from thence that he knew all the motions
of their souls as his own movements, as tilings coherent with him. — Arrian Epictet.,
lib. i. chap. xiv. p. GO.
490 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
that in Gen. xv. 16, but ' the fourth generation, they shall come hither
again ; ' that is, the posterity of Abraham shall come into Canaan ; ' for the
iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.'* God makes a promise to Abra-
ham of giving his posterity the land of Canaan, not presently, but in the
fourth generation. If the truth of God be infallible in the performance of
his promise, his understanding is as infallible in the foresight of the Amorites'
sin : the fulness of their iniquity was to precede the Israelites' possession.
Did the truth of God depend upon an uncertainty ? Did he make the pro-
mise hand over head, as we say? How could ho with any wisdom and truth
assure Israel of the possession of the land in the fourth generation, if he had
not been sure that the Amorites would fill up the measure of their iniquities
by that time ? If Abraham had been a Socinian, to deny God's knowledge
of the free acts of men, had he not had a fine excuse for unbeUef ? What
would his reply have been to God ? Alas, Lord, this is not a promise to be
relied upon ; the Amorites' iniquity depends upon the acts of their free will,
and such thou canst have no knowledge of. Thou canst see no more than
a likelihood of their iniquity being full, and therefore there is but a likeli-
hood of thy performing thy promise, and not a certainty. Would not this
be judged not only a sauc}-, but a blasphemous answer ? And upon these
principles the truth of the most faithful God had been dashed to uncertainty
and a peradventure.
Thirdhj, God provided a remedy for man's sin, and therefore foresaw the
entrance of it into the world by the fall of Adam. He had a decree before
the foundation of the world, to manifest his wisdom in the gospel by Jesus
Christ, an ' eternal purpose in Jesus Christ,' Eph. iii. 11. And a decree of
election passed before the foundation of the world, a separation of some to
redemption and forgiveness of sin in the blood of Christ, in whom they were
from eternity chosen, as well as in time accepted in Christ, Eph. i. 4, G, 7,
which is called a ' purpose in himself,' ver. 9. Had not sin entered, there
had been no occasion for the death of the Son of God, it being everywhere
in Scripture laid upon that score. A decree for the shedding of blood sup-
posed a decree for the permission of sin, and a certain foreknowledge of God,
that it would be committed by man. An vincertainty of foreknowledge, and
a fixedness of purpose, are not consistent in a wise man, much less in the
only wise God. God's purpose to manifest his wisdom to men and angels
in this way might have been defeated, had God had only a conjectural fore-
knowledge of the fall of man ; and all those solemn purposes of displaying
his perfections in those methods had been to no purpose. f The provision
of a remedy supposed a certainty of the disease. If a sparrow fall not to
ground without the will of God, how much less could such a deplorable ruin
faU upon mankind, without God's will permitting it, and his knowledge fore-
seeing it !
It is not hard to" conceive how God migl;Lt foreknow it. J He indeed
decreed to create man in an excellent state. The goodness of God could not
but furnish him with a power to stand. Yet in his wisdom he might foresee
that the devil would be envious to man's happiness, and would, out of envy,
attempt his subversion. As God knew of what temper the faculties were he
had endued man with, and how far they were able to endure the assaults of
a temptation, so he also foreknew the grand subtilty of Satan, how he would
lay his mine, and to what point he would drive his temptation : how he
would propose and manage it, and direct his battery- against the sensitive
appetite, and assault the weakest part of the fort ; might he not foresee that
, * Vid. Rivet, in loc. exerci. 86, p, 320.
t Mares, cont. Volkel. lib. i. cap. 2i, p. 343. % Amyrald. de Prsedestiu. cap. 6.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 491
the efficacy of the temptation would exceed the measure of the resistance ?
Cannot God know how far the maUce of Satan would extend ; what shots he
would, according to his nature, use ; how high he would charge his tempta-
tion without his powerful restraint, as well as an engineer judge how many
shots of a cannon will make a breach in a town, and how many casks oi
powder will blow up a fortress, who never yet built the one nor founded the
other '? We may easily conclude God could not be deceived in the judgment
of the issue and event, since he luiew how far he would let Satan loose, how
far he would permit man to act ; and since he dives to the bottom of the
nature of all things, he foresaw that Adam was endued with an ability to
stand, as he foresaw that Benhadad might naturally recover of his disease ; but
he foresaw also that Adam would sink under the allurements of the tempta-
tion, as he foresaw that Hazael would not let Benhadad hve, 2 Kings viii. 10.
Now since the whole race of mankind lies in corruption, and is subject to
the power of the devil, 1 John v. 19, may not God, that knows that corrup-
tion in every man's nature, and the force of every man's spirit, and what
every particular nature will incline him to upon such objects proposed to
him, and what the reasons of the temptation will be, know also the issues ?
Is there any difficulty in God's foreknowing this, since man, knowing the
nature of one he is well acquainted with, can conclude what sentiments he
will have, and how he will behave himself, upon presenting this or that
object to him ?
If a man that understands the disposition of bis child or servant, knows
before what he will do upon such an occasion, may not God much more,
who knows the inclination of all his creatures, and from eternity run with
his eyes over all the works he intended ? Our wills are in the number of
causes, and since God knows our wills, as causes, better than we do our-
selves, why should he be ignorant of the eflects ?
God determines to give grace to such a man ; not to give it to another,
but leave him to himself, and sutler such temptations to assault him. Now
God, knowing the corruption of man in the whole mass, and in every part of
it, is it not easy for him to foreknow what the future actions of the will will
be, when the tinder and fire meet together, and how such a man will deter-
mine himself, both as to the substance and manner of the action ? Is it not
easy for him to know how a corrupted temper and a temptation will suit ?
God is exactly privy to all the gall in the hearts of men, and what principles
they will have before they have a being. He ' knows their thoughts afar ofi",'
Ps. cxxxix. 2, as far off as eternity, as some explain the words, and thoughts
are as voluntary as anything ; he knows the power and inclinations of men
in the order of second causes ; he understands the corruption of men, as
well as the poison of di'agons and the venom of asps. This is ' laid up in
store with him, and sealed among his treasures,' Deut. xxxii. 33, 34 ;
among the treasures of his foreknowledge, say some.
What was the cruelty of Hazael but a free act ? Yet God knew the frame
of his heart, and what acts of murder and oppression would spring from that
bitter fountain, before Hazael had conceived them in himself, 2 Kings viii.
12. As a man that knows the mineral through which waters pass may know
what relish they will have before they appear above the earth, so our Sa-
viour knew how Peter would deny him ; he knew what quantity of powder
would serve for such a battery, in what measure he would let loose Satan,
how far he would leave the reins in Peter's hands, and then the issue might
easily be known ; and so, in every act of man, God knows in his own will
what measure of grace he will give to determine the will to good, and what
measure of grace he will withdraw from such a person, or not give to him,
492 , charnock's works. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
and consequently, how far such a person -will ftill or not. God knows the
incHnations of the creature ; he Imows his own permissions, what degrees of
grace he will either allow him or keep from him, according to which will be the
degree of his sin. This may in some measure help our conceptions in this,
though, as was said before, the manner of God's foreknowledge is not so
easily explicable.
(3). God's foreknowledge of man's voluntary actions doth not necessitate
the will of man. The foreknowledge of God is not deceived, nor the liberty
of man's will diminished. I shall not trouble you with any school distinc-
tions, but be as plain as I can, laying down several propositions in this
case.
Prop. 1, It is certain all necessity doth not take away liberty. Indeed, a
compulsive necessity takes away liberty, but a necessity of immutability
removes not liberty from God ; why should then a necessity of infallibihty
in God remove liberty from the creature ? God did not necessarily create
the world, because he decreed it ; yet freely, because his will from eternity
stood to it : he freely decreed it, and freely created it. As the apostle saith,
in regard of God's decrees, ' Who hath been his counsellor ? ' Kom. xi. 34,
so, in regard of his actions, I may say. Who hath been his compeller ? He
freely decreed, and he freely created. Jesus Christ necessarily took our
flesh, because he had covenanted with God so to do, yet he acted freely and
voluntar[illy according to that covenant, otherwise his death had not been effi-
cacious for us. A good man doth naturally necessarily love his children,
yet voluntary. It is part of the happiness of the blessed to love God un-
changeably, yet freely, for it would not be their happiness if it were done
by compulsion. What is done by force cannot be called felicity, because
there is no delight or complacency in it; and though the blessed love God
freely, yet, if there were a possibility of change, it would not be their hap-
piness ; their blessedness would be damped by their fear of falling from this
love, and consequently from their nearness to God, in whom their happiness
consists. God foreknows that they will love him for ever, but are they
therefore compelled for ever to love him ? If there were such a kind of
constraint, heaven would be rendered burdensome to them, and so no heaven.
Again, God's foreknowledge of what he will do doth not necessitate him
to do ; he foreknew that he would create a world, 3'et he freely created
a world. God's forelmowledge doth not necessitate himself, why should it
necessitate us moi'e than himself '? We may instance in ourselves : when we
will a thing, we necessar[iljy use our faculty of will ; and when we freely will
anything, it is necessary that we fi-eely will ; but this necessity doth not
exclude but include liberty ; or more plainly, when a man writes or speaks,
whilst he writes or speaks, those actions are necessary, because to speak and
be silent, to write and not to write, at the same time, are impossible ; yet
our writing or speaking doth not take away the power not to write or to be
silent at that time, if a man would be so, for he might have chose whether
he would have spoke or writ. So there is a necessity of such actions of
man which God foresees ; that is, a necessity of infallibility, because God
cannot be deceived, but not a coactive necessity, as if they were compelled
by God to act thus or thus.
Froj). 2. No man can say in any of his voluntary actions that he ever
found any force upon him. When any of us have done anything according
to our wills, can we say we could not have done the contrary to it ? Were
we determined to it in our own intrinsic nature, or did we not determine our-
selves ? Did we not act either according to our reason, or according to
outward allurements ; did we find anything without us or within us that
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 493
did force our wills to tho eml^racing this or that ? Whatever action you do,
you do it because you judge it fit to be done, or because you will do it.
What though God foresaw that you would do so, and that you would do this
or that, did you feel any force upon you ? Did you not act according to your
nature ? God foresees that you will eat or walk at such a time ; do you
find anything that moves you to eat but your own appetite, or to walk but
your own reason and will '? If prescience had imposed any necessity upon
man, should we not probably have found some kind of plea from it in the mouth
of Adam '? He knew as much as any man ever since knew of the nature of
God, as discoverable in creation ; he could not in innocence fancy an igno-
rant God, a God that knew nothing of future things ; he could not be so
ignorant of his own action but he must have perceived a force upon his will,
had there been any ; had he thought that God's prescience imposed any
necessity upon him, he would not have omitted the plea, especially when he
was so daring as to charge the providence of God, in the gift of the woman
to him, to be the cause of his crime. Gen. iii. 12. How came his posterity
to invent new charges against God, which their father Adam never thought
of, who had more knowledge than all of them? He could find no cause of
his sin but the liberty of his own will. He charges it not upon any necessity
from the devil, or any necessity from God ; nor doth he allege the gift of the
woman as a necessary cause of his sin, but an occasion of it, by "ivin^ the
fruit to him. Judas knew that our Saviour did foreknow his treachery, for
he had told him of it in the hearing of his disciples, John xiii. 21, 26, yet
he never charged the necessity of his crime upon the foreknowledge of his
Master. If Judas had not done it freely, he had had no reason to repent of it ;
his repentance justifies Christ from imposing any necessity upon him by that
foreknowledge. No man acts anything but he can give an account of the
motives of his action ; he cannot father it upon a blind necessity ; the will
cannot be compelled, for then it would cease to be will. God doth not root
up the foundations of nature, or change the order of it, and make men un-
able to act like men, that is, as free agents. God foreknows the actions of
irrational creatures ; this concludes no violence upon their nature, for we
find their actions to be according to their nature, and spontaneous.
Pwj). 3. God's foreknowledge is not, simply considered, the cause of any-
thing. It puts nothing into things, but only beholds them as present, and
arising fi'om their proper causes. The knowledge of God is not the pi-in-
ciple of things, or the cause of their existence, but directive of the action.
Nothing is because God knows it, but because God wills it, either positively
or permissively. God knows all things possible ; yet because God knows
them, they are not brought into actual existence, but remain still only as
things possible. Knowledge only apprehends a thing, but acts nothing; it
is the rule of acting, but not the cause of acting ; the will is the immediate
principle, and the power the immediate cause. To know a thing is not to
do a thing ; for then we may be said to do everything that we know. But
every man knows those things which he never did, nor never will do.
Knowledge in itself is an apprehension of a thing, and is not the cause of it.
A spectator of a thing is not the cause of that thing which he sees ; that is,
he is not the cause of it as he beholds it. We see a man wi'ite ; we know
before that he will wi-ite at such a time ; but this foreknowledge is not the
cause of his writing. We see a man walk ; but our vision of him brincrs no
necessity of walking upon him ; he was free to walk, or not to walk.* We
foreknow that death will seize upon all men ; we foreknow that the seasons
of the year will succeed one another ; yet is not our foreknowledge the cause
* Ealeigh, of the "World, lib i. cap. i. sec. 12.
494 chaenock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
of this succession of spring after winter, or of the death of all men, or any
man. We see one man fighting with another ; our sight is not the cause of
that contest, but some quarrel among themselves exciting their own passions.
As the knowledge of present things imposeth no necessity upon them while
they are acting and present, so the knowledge of future things imposeth no
necessity upon them while they are coming. We are certain there will
be men in the world to-morrow, and that the sea will ebb and flow ; but is
this knowledge of om"s the cause that those things will be so ? I know that
the sun will rise to-morrow ; it is true that he shall rise ; but it is not true
that my foreknowledge makes it to rise. If a physician prognosticates, upon
seeing the intemperances and debaucheries of men, that they will fall into
such a distemper, is his prognostication any cause of their disease, or of the
shai-pness of any symptoms attending it ? The prophet foretold the cruelty
of Hazael before he committed it ; but who will say that the prophet was
the cause of his commission of tliat evil ? And thus the foreknowledge of
God takes not away the liberty of man's will, no more than a foreknowledge
that we have of any man's actions takes away his liberty. We may, upon
our knowledge of the temper of a man, certainly foreknow that if he falls
into such company, and get among his cups, he will be drunk ; but is this
foreknowledge the cause that he is drimk ? No ; the cause is the liberty of
his own will, and not resisting the temptation. God purposes to leave such
a man to himself and his own ways; and man being so left, God fore-
loiows what will be done by him according to that coiTupt nature which is
in him. Though the decree of God, of leaving a man to the liberty of his
owTi will, be certain, yet the liberty of man's will, as thus left, is the cause
of all the extravagancies he doth commit. Suppose Adam had stood ; would
not God certainly have foreseen that he would have stood ? Yet it would
have been concluded that Adam had stood, not by any necessity of God's
foreknowledge, but by the liberty of his own will. Why should, then, the
foreknowledge of God add more necessity to his falling than to his standing?*
And though it be said sometimes in Scriptm-e that such a thing was done,
* that the Scripture might be fulfilled,' as John xii. 38, ' that the saying of
Esaias might be fulfilled. Lord, who hath beheved our report?' the word
that doth not infer that the prediction of the prophet was the cause of the
Jews' unbelief; but infers this, that the prediction was manifested to be
true by theii- unbelief, and the event answered the prediction. This predic-
tion was not the cause of their sin ; but their foreseen sin was the cause of
this prediction. And so the particle that is taken, Ps. li. 4, * Against thee,
thee only have I sinned, that thou mightest be justified,' &c. The justify-
ing God was not the end and intent of the sin, but the event of it upon his
acknowledgment.
Prop. 4. God foreknows things because they will come to pass ; but things
are not futm-e because God knows them. Foreknowledge presupposeth the
object which is foreknown. A thing that is to come to pass is the object of the
di^ane knowledge, but not the cause of the act of divine knowledge ; and
though the foreknowledge of God doth in eternity precede the actual pre-
sence of a thing which is foreseen as future, yet the future thing, in regard
of its futurity, is as eternal as the foreknowledge of God. As the voice is
uttered before it be heard, and a thing is \'isible before it be seen, and a
thing knowable before it be known ; but how comes it to be knowable to
God ? It must be answered, either in the power of God as a thing possible,
or in the will of God as a thing future. He first willed, and then knew what
he willed ; he knew what he willed to efi'ect, and he knew what he willed to
* Eivet in Isa. liii. 1, p. 16.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 495
permit ; as ho -willed the death of Christ by a determinate counsel, and
willed the permission of the Jews' sin, and the ordorini^ of the malice of
their nature to that end, Acts ii. 23. God decrees to make a rational crea-
ture, and to govern him by a law; God decrees not to hinder this rational
creature from transgressing his law ; and God foresees that what he would
not hinder would come to pass. Man did not sin because God foresaw
him ; but God foresaw him to sin, because man would sin. If Adam and
other men would have acted othersvise, God would have forekno\vn that
they would have acted well. God foresaw our actions because they would
so come to pass by the motion of our free-will, which he would permit,
which he would concur with, which he would order to his own holy and
glorious ends for the manifestation of the perfection of his nature. If I see
a man lie in a sink, no necessity is inferred upon him from my sight to
he iu that filthy place ; but there is a necessity inferred by him that
lies there, that I should see him in that condition if I pass by and cast my
eye that way.
Prop. 5. God did not only foreknow our actions, but the manner of our
actions ; that is, he did not only know that we would do such actions, but
that we would do them freely. He foresaw that the will would freely
determine itself to this or that. The knowledge of God takes not away the
nature of things. Though God knows possible things, yet they remain in
the nature of possibility ; and though God knows contingent things, yet
they remain in the nature of contingencies ; and thougli God Imows free
agents, yet they remain in the nature of liberty. God did not foreknow the
actions of man as necessary, but as free ; so that liberty is rather established
by this foreknowledge than removed. God did not forelaiow that Adam
had not a power to stand, or that any man hath not a power to omit such a
sinful action, but that he would not omit it. Man hath a power to do other-
wise than that which God foreknows he will do. Adam was not determined
by any inward necessity to fall, nor any man by any inward necessity to
commit this or that particular sin ; but God foresaw that he would fall,
and fall freely ; for he saw the whole circle of means and causes whereby
such and such actions should be produced, and can be no more ignorant of
the motions of our wills, and the manner of them, than an artificer can be
ignorant of the motions of his watch, and how far the spring will let down
the string in the space of an hour. He sees all causes leading to such
events in their whole order, and how the free-will of man will comply with
this, or refuse that; he changes not the manner of the creatm-e's operation,
whatsoever it be.
Prop. 6. But what if the foreknowledge of God, and the liberty of the
will, cannot be fully reconciled by man ? Shall we therefore deny a perfec-
tion in God, to support a liberty in ourselves ? Shall we rather fasten igno-
rance upon God, and accuse him of blindness, to maintain our liberty?
That God doth foreknow everything, and yet that there is liberty in the
rational creature, are both certain ; but how fully to reconcile them, may
surmount the understanding of man. Some truths the disciples were not
capable of bearing in the days of Christ ; and several truths our understand-
ings cannot reach as long as the world doth last ; yet in the mean time we
must on the one hand take heed of conceiving God ignorant, and on the
other hand of imagining the creature necessitated : the one will render God
imperfect, and the other will seem to render him unjust, in punishing man
for that sin which he could not avoid, but was brought into by a fatal neces-
sity. God is sufficient to render a reason of his own proceedings, and clear
up all at the day of judgment ; it is a part of man's curiosity, since the fall,
496 CHAENOCIl's V/ORKS. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
to be prying into God's secrets, things too high for him, whereby he singes
his own wings, and confounds his own understanding. It is a cursed affec-
tation that runs in the blood of Adam's posterity, to know as God, though
our first father smarted and ruined his posterity in that attempt ; the ways
and knowledge of God are as much ' above our thoughts' and conceptions,
as ' the heavens are above the earth,' Isa. Iv. 9, and so sublime, that we
cannot comprehend them in their true and just greatness ;- his designs are
so mysterious, and the ways of his conduct so profound, that it is not pos-
sible to dive into them. The force of our understandings is below his infinite
wisdom, and therefore we should adore him with an humble astonishment,
and cry out with the apostle ; llom. xi. 33, ' Oh the depth of the riches of
the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and
his ways past finding out !' Whenever we meet with depths that we cannot
fathom, let us remember that he is God, and we his creatures ; and not be
guilty of so great extravagance, as to think that a subject can pierce into all
the secrets of a prince, or a work understand all the operations of the arti-
ficer. Let us only resolve not to fasten any thing on God that is unworthy
of the perfection of his nature, and dishonourable to the glory of his majesty ;
nor imagine that we can ever step out of the rank of creatures to the glory
of the Deity, to understand fully everything in his nature.
So much for the second general, what God knows.
III. The third is, How God knows all things ? As it is necessary wo
should conceive God to be an understanding being, else he could not be God,
so we must conceive his understanding to be infinitely more pure and perfect
than ours in the act of it, else we liken him to ourselves, and debase him as
low as his footstool. As among creatures there are degrees of being and
perfection ; plants above earth and sand, because they have a power of
growth ; beasts above plants, because to their power of growth, there is an
addition of excellency of sense ; rational creatures above beasts, because to
sense there is added the dignity of reason ; the understanding of man is
more noble than all the vegetative power of plants, or the sensitive power of
beasts : God therefore must be infinitely more excellent in his understand-
ing, and therefore in the manner of it.f As man difiers from a beast in
regard of his knowledge, so doth God also from man in regard of his know-
ledge. As God therefore is, in being and perfection, infinitely more above a
man than a man is above a beast, the manner of his knowledge must be
infinitely more above a man's knowledge, than the knowledge of a man is
above that of a beast ; our understandings can clasp an object in a moment,
that is at a great distance from our sense ; our eye by one elevated motion
can view the heavens ; the manner of God's understanding must be un con-
ceivably above our glimmerings ; as the manner of his being is infinitely
more perfect than all beings, so must the manner of his understanding be
infinitely more perfect than all created understandings. Indeed, the manner
of God's knowledge can no more be known by us, than his essence can be
known by us ; and the same incapacity in man, which renders him unable
to comprehend the being of God, renders him as unable to comprehend the
manner of God's understanding. | As there is a vast distance between the
essence of God, and our beings, so there is between the thoughts of God
and our thoughts. The heavens are not so much higher than the earth, as
the thoughts of God are above the thoughts of men, yea, and of the highest
* Daille, Melang. part i. p. 712, 725.
t Maxim. Tyrius Dissert, i. p, 9, 10.
% Maimonides More NevocMra, part iii. c. xx. p. 891-393.
Ps. CXLVII, 5.] \ god's knowledge. 497
angel, Isa. Iv. 8, 9 ; j'et though we know not the manner of God's knowledge,
we know that ho knows ; as though we know not the infinitoness of God,
yet we know that he is infinite. It is God's sole prerogative to know him-
self what he is ; and it is equally his prerogative to know how he knows ;
the manner of God's knowledge therefore must be considered by us, as free
from those imperfections our knowledge is encumbered with.
In general, God doth necessarily know all things ; he is necessarily omni-
present, because of the immensity of his essence ; so he is necessarily
omniscient, because of the infiuiteness of his understanding. It is no more
at the Liberty of his will, whether he will know all things, than whether he
will be able to create all things ; it is no more at the liberty of his will,
whether he will be omniscient, than whether he will be holy ; he can as
little be ignorant, as he can be impure ; he knows not all things because he
u-iU know them, but because it is essential to his nature to know them.
In particular.
Prop. 1. God knows by his own essence ; that is, he sees the nature of
things in the ideas of his own mind, and the events of things in the decrees
of his own will ; he knows them not by viewing the things, but by viewing
himself ; his own essence is the mirror and book, wherein he beholds all
things that he doth ordain, dispose, and execute ; and so he knows all things
in the first and original cause, which is no other than his own essence will-
ing, and his own essence executing what he wills ; he knows them in his
power as the physical principle, in his will as the moral principle of things,
as some speak.
He borrows not the knowledge of creatures from the creatures, nor depends
upon them for means of understanding, as we poor worms do, who are be-
holden to the objects abroad to assist us with images of things, and to our
senses to convey them into our minds ; God would then acquire a perfection
from those things which are below himself, and an excellency from those
things that are vile ; his knowledge would not precede the being of the
creatures, but the creatures would be before the act of his knowledge. If
he understood by images drawn from the creatures, as we do, there would
be something in God which is not God, viz., the images of things drawn
from outward objects. God would then depend upon creatures for that
which is more noble than a bare being ; for to be understanding, is more
excellent than barely to be. Besides, if God's knowledge of his creatures
were derived from the creatures by the impression of anything upon him, as
there is upon us, he could not know from eternity, because from eternity
there was no actual existence of anything but himself; and therefore there
could not be any images shot out from any thing, because there was not
anything in being but God ; as there is no principle of being to anything but
by his essence, so there is no principle of the knowledge of anything by
himself but his essence. If the knowledge of God were distinct from his
essence, his knowledge were not eternal, because there is nothing eternal but
his essence.
His understanding is not a faculty in him as it is in us, but the same with his
essence, because of the simplicity of his nature ; God is not made up of various
parts, one distinct from another, as we are, and therefore doth not understand
by a part of himself, but by himself ; so that to be and to understand is the
same with God ; his essence is not one thing, and the power whereby he
understands another ; he would then be compounded, and not be the most
simple being. This also is necessary for the perfection of God ; for the
more perfect and noble the way and manner of knowing is, the more perfect
and noble is the knowledge. The perfection of knowledge depends upon
VOL. I. I i
498 chaknock's woeks. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
the excellency of the medium whereby we know. As a knowledge by reason
is a more noble way of knowing than knowledge by sense, so it is more
excellent for God to know by bis essence, than by anything without him,
anything mixed with him ; the first would render him dependent, and the
other would demolish his simplicity.
Again, the natures of all things are contained in God, — not formally, for
then the nature of the creatures would be God ; *• — but eminently, ' he that
planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see ?'
Ps. xciv. 9. He hath in himself eminently the beauty, perfection, life and
vigour of all creatures ; he created nothing contrary to himself, but every-
thing with some footsteps of himself in them ; he could not have pronounced
them good, as he did, had there been anything in them contrary to his own
goodness ; and therefore as his essence primarily represents itself, so it re-
presents the creatures, and makes them known to him. As the essence of
God is eminently all things, so by understanding his essence, he eminently
understands all things. And therefore he hath not one knowledge of him-
self, and another knowledge of the creatures ; but by knowing himself, as
the original and exemplary cause of all things, he cannot be ignorant of any
creature which he is the cause of; so that he knows all things, not by an
understanding of them, but by an understanding of himself; by understand-
ing his own power as the efficient of them, his ow'u will as the orderf of them,
his own goodness as the adorner and beautifier of them, his own wisdom as
the disposer of them, and his own holiness, to which many of their actions
are contrary.
As he sees all things possible in his own power,J because he is able to
produce them, so he sees all things future in his own will ; decreeing to
efi'ect them, if they be good ; or decreeing to permit them, if they be evil.
In this glass he sees what he will give being to, and what he will suflfer to
fall into a deficiency, without looking out of himself, or borrowing knowledge
from his creatures ; he knows all things in himself. And thus his know-
ledge is more noble, and of a higher elevation than ours, or the knowledge
of any creature can be ; he knows all things by one comprehension of the
causes in himself.
Prop. 2. God knows all things by one act of intuition. This the schools
call an intuitive knowledge. This follows upon the other; for if he know
by his own essence, he knows all things by one act; there would be other-
wise a division in his essence, a first and a last, a nearness and a distance.
As what he made, he made by one word, so what he sees, he pierceth into
by one glance from eternity to eternity ; as he wills all things by one act of
his will, so he knows all things by one act of his understanding. He knows
not some things discursively from other things, nor knows one thing suc-
cessively after another. As by one act he imparts essence to things, so by
one act he knows the nature of things.
1. He doth not know by discourse as we do ; that is, by deducing one
thing from another, and from common notions drawing out other rational
conclusions, and arguing one thing from another, and springing up various
consequences from some principle assented to ; but God stands in no need
of reasonings : the making inferences and abstracting things would be stains
in the infinite perfection of God. Here would be a mixture of knowledge
and ignorance ; while he knew the principle, he would not know the con-
sequence and conclusion till he had actually deduced it; one thing would
be known after another, and so he would have an ignorance and then a
knowledge, and there would be difi'erent conceptions in God, and knowledge
* Dionys. f Qm- ' orderer ' ? — Ed. J Kendal against Goodwin of Foreknowledge.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's KNOWLEDGE. 499
would be multiplied according to the multitude of objects, as it is in human
understandings. But God knows all things before they did exist, and never
was ignorant of them: Acts xv. 18, 'Known unto God are all his works,
from the beginning of the world.' He therefore knows them all at once ;
the knowledge of one thing was not befoi'e another, nor depended upon
another, as it doth in the way of human reasoning. Though indeed some*
make a virtual discourse in God, that is, though God hath a simple know-
ledge, yet it doth virtually contain a discourse by the flowing of one know-
ledge from another; as from the knowledge of his own power he knows
what things are possible to be made by him, and from the knowledge of
himself he passes to the knowledge of the creatures; but this is only
according to our conception, and because of our weakness they are appre-
hended as two distinct acts in God, one of which is the reason of another.
As we say that one attribute is the reason of another ; as his mercy may be
said to be the reason of his patience, and his omnipresence to be the reason
of the knowledge of present things done in the world, God indeed by one
simple act knows himself and the creatures, but when that act whereby
he knows himself is conceived by us to pass to the knowledge of the
creatures, we must not understand it to be a new act distinct from the other,
but the same act upon ditferent terms or objects. Such an order is in our
understanding and conceptions, not in God's.
2. Nor doth he know successively as we do; that is, not by drops, one
thing after another. This follows from the former, a knowledge of all things
without discourse is a knowledge without succession.! The knowledge of
one thing is not in God before another, one act of knowledge doth not
forget J another. In regard of the objects, one thing is before another, one
year before another, one generation of men before another ; one is the cause,
the other is the effect. In the creatures there is such a succession, and God
knows there will be such a succession ; but there is no such order in God's
knowledge, for he knows all those successions by one glance, without any
succession of knowledge in himself.
Man in his view of things must turn sometimes his body, sometimes only
his eyes. He cannot see all the contents of a letter at once ; and though
he beholds all the lines in the page of a book at once, and a whole country
in a map, yet to know what is contained in them, he must turn his eye from
word to word, and line to line, and so spin out one thing after another by
several acts and motions. We behold a great part of the sea at once, saith
Epiphanius, but not all the dimensions of it ; for to know the length of the
sea we move our eyes one way ; to see the breadth of it, we turn our eyes
another way ; to behold the depth of it, we hath another motion of them.
And when we cast our eyes up to heaven, we seem to receive in at an
instant the whole extent of the hemisphere ; yet there is but one object the
eye can attentively pitch upon, and we cannot distinctly view what we see
in a lump without various motions of our eyes, which is not done without
succession of time.§ And certainly the understanding of angels is bounded
according to the measure of their beings, so that it cannot extend itself at
one time to a quantity of objects, to make a distinct application of them,
but the objects must present themselves one by one. But God is all eye,
all understanding; as there is no succession in his essence, so there is none
in his knowledge ; ' his understanding,' in the nature and in the act, ' is
infinite,' as it is in the text. He therefore sees eternally and universally all
* Suarez. vol. i. de Deo, lib. iii cap. ii. p. 133, 134.
t Gamach. in Aquin. q. xiv. cap. i. p. 119. J Qu. 'beget' or ' forego '? — Ed.
§ Amyrant, Morale Chresti, torn. iii. p. 137.
500 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
things by one act, without any motion, much less various motions. The
various changes of things in their substance, qualities, places, and relations,
withdraw not anything from his eye, nor bring any new thing to his know-
ledge. He doth not, upon consideration of present things, turn his mind
from past, or when he beholds future things, turn his mind from present ;
but he sees them not one after another, but all at once and altogether, the
whole circle of his own counsels, and all the various lines drawn forth from
the centre of his will to the circumference of his creatures. Just as if a
man were able in one moment to read a whole library ; or as if you should
imagine a transparent crystal globe, hung up in the midst of a room, and so
framed as to take in the images of all things in the room, the fretwork in
the ceiling, the inlaid parts of the floor, and the particular parts of the
tapestry about it, the eye of a man would behold all the beauty of the room
at once in it. As the sun by one light and heat frames sensible things, so
God by one simple act knows all things. As he knows mutable things by
an immutable knowledge, bodily things by a spiritual knowledge, so he
knows many things by one knowledge: Heb. iv. 13, 'All things are open
and naked to him,' more than any one thing can be to us, and therefore he
views all things at once as well as we can behold and contemplate one thing
alone. As he is the ' Father of hghts,' a God of infinite understanding,
there is 'no variableness' in his mind, 'nor any shadow of turning' of his
eye as there is of ours, to behold various things, James i. 17. His know-
ledge being eternal, includes all times ; there is nothing past or future with
him, and therefore he beholds all things by one and the same manner of
knowledge, and comprehends all knowable things by one act, and in one
moment.
This must needs be so,
(1.) Because of the eminency of God. God is above all, and therefore
cannot but see the motions of all. He that sits in a theatre, or at the top
of a place, sees all things, all persons ; by one aspect he comprehends the
whole circle of the place ; whereas he that sits below, when he looks before,
he cannot see things behind. God being above all, about all, in all, sees
at once the motions of all. The whole world in the eye of God is less than
a point that divides one sentence from another in a book ; as a cipher, ' a
grain of dust,' Isa. xl. 15. So little a thing can be seen by man at once,
and all things being as little in the eye of God, are seen at once by him.
As all time is but a moment to his eternity, so all things are but as a point
to the immensity of his knowledge, which he can behold with more ease than
we can move or turn our eye.
(2.) Because all the perfections of knowing are united in God. As par-
ticular senses are divided in man,* — by one he sees, by another he hears, by
another he smells, yet all those are united in one common sense, and this
common sense apprehends all, — so the various and distinct ways of know-
ledge in the creatures, are all eminently united in God. A man, when he
sees a grain of wheat, understands at once all things that can in time pro-
ceed from that seed ; so God, by beholding his own virtue and power,
beholds all things which shall in time be unfolded by him. We have a
shadow of this way of knowledge in our own understanding : the sense only
perceives a thing present, and one object only proper and suitable to it ; as
the eye sees colour, the ear hears sounds, we see this and that man, one
time this, another minute that ; but the understanding abstracts a notion of
the common nature of man, and frames a conception of that nature wherein
all men agree, and so in a manner beholds and understands all men at once,
* Cusan. p. G'ln.
Ps. CXLYII. 5. J god's knowledge. 601
by understanding the common nature of man, which is a degree of know-
ledge above the sense and fancy ; we may then conceive an infinite vaster
perfection in the understanding of God. As to know is simply better than
not to know at all, so to know by one act comprehensive is a greater per-
fection than to know by divided acts, by succession to receive information,
and to have an increase or decrease of knowledge, to be like a bucket,
alway descending into the well and fetching water from thence. It is a
man's w-eakness that he is fixed on one object only at a time ; it is God's
perfection that he can behold all at once, and is fixed upon one no more
than upon another.
Prop. 3. God knows all things independently. This is essential to an
infinite understanding. He receives not his knowledge from anything
without him, he hath no tutor to instruct him, or book to inform him ;
* Who hath been his counsellor ?' saith the prophet, Isa. xl. 13. Ho hath
no need of the counsels of others, nor of the instructions of others. This
follows upon the first and second propositions ; if he knows things by his
essence, then as his essence is independent from the creatures, so is his
knowledge ; he borrows not any images from the creature, hath no species
or pictures of things in his understanding, as we have ; no beams from the
creature strike upon him to enlighten him, but beams from him upon the
world ; the earth sends not light to the sun, but the sun to the earth.
Our knowledge indeed depends upon the object, but all created objects
depend upon God's knowledge and will. We could not know creatures
unless they were, but creatures could not be unless God knew them. As
nothing that he wills is the cause of his will, so nothing that he knows is
the cause of his knowledge ; he did not make things to know them, but he
knows them to make them. Who will imagine that the mark of the foot in
the dust is the cause that the foot stands in this or that particular place ?
If his knowledge did depend upon the things, then the existence of things
did precede God's knowledge of them ; to say that they are the cause of
God's knowledge is to say, that God was not the cause of their being ; and
if he did create them, it was effected by a blind and ignorant power, he
created he knew not what till he had produced it. If he be beholden for
his knowledge to the creatures he hath made, he had then no knowledge of
them before he made them. If his knowledge were dependent upon them,
it could not be eternal, but must have a beginning when the creatures had a
beginning, and be of no longer a date than since the nature of things was in
actual existence ; for whatsoever is a cause of knowledge doth precede the
knowledge it causes, either in order of time or order of nature ; temporal
things therefore cannot be the cause of that knowledge which is eternal.
His works could not be foreknown to him, Acts xv. 18, if his knowledge
commenced with the existence of his works ; if he knew them before he
made them, he could not derive a knowledge from them after they were
made. He made all things in wisdom, Ps. civ. 24. How can this be
imagined, if the things known were the cause of his knowledge, and so before
his knowledge, and therefore before his action ?* God would not then be
the first in the order of knowing agents, because he would not act by know-
ledge, but act before he knew, and know after he had acted, and so the
creature which he made would be before the act of his understanding,
whereby he knew what he made.
Again, since knowledge is a perfection, if God's knowledge of the creatures
depended upon the creatures, he would derive an excellency from them,
they would derive no excellency from any idea in the divine mind ; he would
* Bradward. lib. i. cap. 15.
502 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
not be infinitely perfect in himself. If his perfection in knowledge were
gained from anything without himself and below himself, he would not be
sufficient of himself, but be under an indigence which wanted a supply from
the things he had made, and could not be eternally perfect till he had
created, and seen the effects of his own power, goodness, and wisdom to
render him more wise and knowing in time than he was from eternity.
"V\Tio can fancy such a God as this, without destroying the Deity he pre-
tends to adore ? For if his understanding be perfected by something without
him, why may not his essence be perfected by something without him ?
that as he was made knowing by something without him, he might be made
God by something without him ?
How could his understanding be infinite, if it depended upon a finite
object, as upon a cause ? Is the majesty of God to be debased to a mendi-
cant condition, to seek for a supply from things inferior to himself ? Is it
to be imagined that a fool, a toad, a fly should be assistant to the know-
ledge of God ? that the most noble being should be perfected by things so
vUe, that the supreme cause of all things should receive any addition of
knowledge, and be determined in his understanding by the notion of things
so mean ? To conclude this particular; all things depend upon his know-
ledge, his knowledge depends upon nothing, but is as independent as him-
self, and his own essence.
Prop. 4. God knows all things distinctly. His understanding is infinite
in regard of clearness : ' God is light, and in him is no darkness at all,'
1 John i. 5. He sees not through a mist or cloud ; there is no blemish in
his understanding, no mote or beam in his eye to render anything obscure
to him. Man discerns the surface and outside of things, little or nothing of
the essence of things ; we see the noblest things, but ' as in a glass darkly,'
1 Cor. xiii. 12. The too great nearness, as well as the too great distance of a
thing, hinders our sight; tbe smallness of a mote escapes our eye, and so our
knowledge ; also tbe weakness of our understanding is troubled with the multi-
tude of things, and cannot know many things but confusedly. But God knows
the forms and essence of things, every circumstance ; nothing is so deep but
he sees to the bottom ; he sees the mass, and sees the motes of beings. His
understanding being infinite, is not offended with a multitude of things, or
distracted with the variety of them ; he discerns everything infinitely more
clearly and perfectly than Adam or Solomon could any one thing in the
cu'cle of their knowledge. What knowledge they had was from him ; he
hath therefore infinitely a more perfect knowledge than they were capable
in their natures to receive a communication of. ' All things are open to
him,' Heb. iv. 13. The least fibre in its nakedness and distinct frame is
transparent to him; as by the help of glasses, the mouth, feet, hands of a
small insect are visible to a man, which seem to the eye, w-ithout that
assistance, one entire piece, not diversified into parts. All the causes,
qualities, natures, properties of things are open to him : * He brings out
the host of heaven by number, and calleth them by names,' Isa. xl. 26.
He numbers the hairs of our heads ; what more distinct than number ?
Thus God beholds things in every unity, which makes up the heap. He
knows, and none else can, everything in its true and intimate causes, in its
original and intermediate causes ; in himself as the cause of every particular
of their being, every property in their being.
Knowledge by the causes is the most noble and perfect knowledge, and
most suited to the infinite excellency of the divine being ; he created all
things, and ordered them to a universal and particular end ; he therefore
knows the essential properties of everything, every activity of their nature.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] GODS KNOWLEDGE. 503
all their fitness for those distinct ends to which he orders them, and for
which he governs and disposeth them, and understands their darkest and
most hidden qualities, intinitely clearer than any eye can behold the clear
beams of the sun. He knows all things as he made them ; he made them
distinctly, and therefore knows them distinctly, and that every individual ;
therefore God is said, Gen. i. 31, to ' see everything that he hath made;'
he took a review of every particular creature he had made, and upon his
view pronounced it good. To pronounce that good, which was not exactly
known in every creek, in every mite of its nature, had not consisted with his
veracity ; for every one that speaks truth ignorantly, that knows not that he
speaks truth, is a liar in speaking that which is true. God knows every
act of his own will, whether it be positive or permissive, and therefore every
eflect of his will. We must needs ascribe to God a perfect knowledge, but
a confused knowledge cannot challenge that title. To know things only in
a heap is unworthy of the divine perfection ; for if God knows his own ends
in the creation of things, he knows distinctly the means whereby he will
bring them to those ends for which he hath appointed them. No wise man
intends an end without a knowledge of the means conducing to that end ;
an ignorance then of anything in the world, which falls under the nature of
a means to a divine end (and there is nothing in the world but doth), would
be inconsistent with the perfection of God ; it would ascribe to him a blind
providence in the world. As there can be nothing imperfect in his being
and essence, so there can be nothing imperfect in his understanding and
knowledge, and therefore not a confused knowledge, which is an imperfection :
* Darkness and light are both alike to him,' Ps. cxxsix. 12. He sees dis-
tinctly into the one as well as the other ; what is darkness to us is not so
to him.
Prop. 5. God knows all things infallibly. His understanding is infinite
in regard of certainty. Every tittle of what he knows is as far from failing,
as what he speaks ; our Saviour affirms the one, Mat. v. 18. And there is
the same reason of the certainty of one as well as the other. His essence
is the measure of his knowledge ; whence it is as impossible that God should
be mistaken in the knowledge of the least thing in the world, as it is that he
should be mistaken in his own essence ; for, knowing himself comprehensively,
he must know all other things infallibly. Since he is essentially omniscient,
he is no more capable of error in his understanding, than of imperfection in
his essence ; his counsels are as unerring as his essence is perfect, and his
knowledge as infallible as his essence is free from defect.
Again, since God knows all things with a knowledge of vision, because he
wills them, his knowledge must be as infallible as his purpose ; now his pur-
pose will certainly be etiected : ' What he hath thought shall come to pass,
and what he hath purposed shall stand,' Isa. xiv. 24 ; ' His counsel shall
stand, and he will do all his pleasure,' chap. xlvi. 10. There may be inter-
ruptions of nature, the foundations of it may be out of course, but there can
be no bar upon the author of nature. He hath an infinite power to carry on
and perfect the resolves of his own will, he can eflect what he pleases by a
word. Speech is one of the least motions ; yet when God said, * Let there
be light,' ' there was light,' arising from darkness. No reason can be given
why God knows a thing to be, but because he infallibly wills it to be.
Again, the schools make this difference between the knowledge of the good
and bad angels, that the good are never deceived,* for that is repugnant
to their blessed state, for deceit is an evil and an imperfection, inconsistent
with that perfect blessedness the good angels are possessed of ; and would it
* Suarez, vol. ii. p. 228.
504 chaknock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
not mucli more be a stain upon the blessedness of that God, that is blessed
for ever, to be subject to deceit ? His knowledge, therefore, is not an opinion,
for an opinion is uncertain ; a man knows not what to think, but leans to
one part of the question proposed, rather than to the other. If things did
not come to pass, therefore, as God knows them, his knowledge would be
imperfect ; and since he knows by his essence, his essence also would be
imperfect, if God were exposed to any deceit in his knowledge. He knows
by himself, who is the highest truth ; and therefore it is impossible he should
err in his understanding.
Prop. 6. God knows immutably. His understanding else could not be
infinite. Every thing and every act that is mutable is finite, it hath its
bounds ; for there is a term from which it changeth, and a term to which it
changes. There is a change in the understanding, when we gain the know-
ledge of a thing which was unknown to us before, or when we actually con-
sider a thing which we did not know before, though we had the principles of
the knowledge of it, or when we know that distinctly which we before knew
confusedly.* None of these can be ascribed to God, without a manifest dis-
paragement of his infiniteness. Our knowledge, indeed, is alway arriving
to us or flowing from us ; we pass from one degree to another, from worse
to better, or from better to worse ; but God loses nothing by the ages that
are run, nor will gain anything by the ages that are to come. If there were
a variation in the knowledge of God, by the daily and hourly changes in the
world, he would grow wiser than he was ; he was not then perfectly wise
before. A change in the objects known, infers not any change in the under-
standing exercised about them. The wheel moves round : the spokes that
are lowest are presently highest, and presently return to be low again ; but
the eye that beholds them changes not with the motion of the wheels. God's
knowledge admits no more of increase or decrease than his essence doth.
Since God knows by his essence, and the essence of God is God himself,
his knowledge must be void of any change. The knowledge of possible
things, arising from the knowledge of his own power, cannot be changed
unless his power be changed, and God become weak and impotent. The
knowledge of future things cannot be changed, because that knowledge ariseth
from his will, which is irreversible : ' The counsel of the Lord, that shall
stand,' Prov. xix. 21. So that if God can never decay into weakness, and
never turn to inconstancy, there can be no variation of his knowledge. He
knows what he can do, and he knows what he will do, and both these being
immutable, his knowledge must consequently be so too. It was not neces-
sary that this or that creature should be, and therefore it was not necessary
that God should know this or that creature with a knowledge of vision ; but
after the will of God had determined the existence of this or that creature,
his knowledge being then determined to this or that object, did necessarily
continue unchangeable. God therefore knows no more now than he did
before ; and at the end of the world, he shall know no more than he doth
now ; and from eternity he knows no less than he doth now, and shall do
to eternity. Though things pass into being and out of being, the knowledge
of God doth not vary with them, for he knows them as well before they
were as when they are, and knows them as well when they are past, as when
they are present.
Prop. 7. God knows all things perpetually, i.e. in act. Since he knows
by his essence, he always knows, because his essence never ceaseth, but is
a pure act ; so that he doth not know only in habit, but in act. Men that
have the knowledge of some art or science, have it always in habit, though,
* Tileni Syntagma, part. i. disp. xiii. thes. 13.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge.
-05
when they are asleep, they have it not in act. A musician hath the habit
of music, but doth not so much as think of it when his senses are bound up.
But God is an unsleepy eye,* he never slumbers nor sleeps ; he never slum-
bers in regard of his providence, and therefore never slumbers in regard of
his knowledge. He knows not himself, nor any other creature, more per-
fectly at one time than at another ; he is perpetually in the act of knowing,
as the sun is in the act of shining. The sun never ceased to shine, in one
or other part of the world, since it was first fixed in the heavens, nor God to
be in the act of knowledge, since he was God ; and therefore, since he always
was, and always will be God, he always was, and always will be, in the act
of knowledge. Always knowing his own essence, he must always actually
know what hath been gone and ceased from being, and what shall come and
arise into being. As a watchmaker knows what watch he intends to make,
and after he hath made it, though it be broken to pieces or consumed by the
fire, he still knows it, because he knows the copy of it in his own mind.
Some, therefore, in regard of this perpetual act of the divine knowledge, have
called God not intellect us, but 'the intellection of intellections' (we have no
proper English word to express the act of the understanding). As his power
is co-eternal with him, so his knowledge ; all times past, present, and to
come, are embraced in the bosom of his understanding ; he fixed all things
in their seasons, that nothing new comes to him, nothing old passes from
him.f What is done in a thousand years, is as actually present with his
knowledge, as what is done in one day, or in one watch in the night, is with
ours, since * a thousand years are no more to God than a day, or a watch in
the night' is to us, Ps. xc. 4. God is in the highest degree of being, and
therefore in the highest degi-ee of understanding. Knowledge is one of the
most perfect acts in any creature. God therefore hath all actual, as well as
essential and habitual, knowledge : ' His understanding is infinite.'
IV. The fourth general is, reasons to prove this.
Eeas. 1. God must know what any creature knows, and more than any
creature knows. There is nothing done in the world, but is known by some
creature or other ; every action is at least known by the person that acts,
and therefore known by the Creator, who cannot be exceeded by any ofthe
creatures, or all of them together ; and every creature is known by hirn, since
every creature is made by him. And as God works all things by an infinite
power, so he knows all things by an infinite understanding. J
The perfection of God requires this.§ All perfections that include no
essential defect are formally in God ; but knowledge includes no essential
defect in itself, therefore it "is in God. Knowledge in itself is desirable, and
an excellency ; ignorance is a defect. It is impossible that the least grain
of defect can be found in the most perfect being. Since God is wise, he
must be knowing, for wisdom must have knowledge for the basis of it. ^ A
creature can no more be wise without knowledge, than he can be active
without strength. Now God is ' only wise,' Rom. xvi. 27, and therefore only
knowing in the highest degree of knowledge, incomprehensibly beyond all
degrees of knowledge, because infinite.
Again, the more spiritual anything is, the more understanding it is. The
dull body understands nothing: sense perceives, but the understanding
faculty is seated in the soul, which is of a spiritual nature, which knows
things that are present, remembers things that are past, foresees many things
to come. What is the property of a spiritual nature, must be in a most
* Plato, axoiiMYiTog l(^&u7.n,hc. f Damianus. X Gerhard.
§ Gamach. in part i. Aqnin. qu. xiv. cap. i. p. 118, 119.
506
chaenock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
eminent manner in the supreme Spirit of the world ; that is, in the highest
degree^ of spirituahty, and most remote from any matter.
Again, nothing can enjoy other things but by some kind of understanding
them. God hath the highest enjoyment of himself, of all things he hath
created, of all the glory that accrues to him by them ; nothing of perfection
and blessedness can be wanting to him. Felicity doth not consist with
ignorance, and all imperfect knowledge is a degree of ignorance. God
therefore doth perfectly know himself, and all things from whence he designs
any glory to himself. The most noble manner of acting must be ascribed
to God, as being the most noble and excellent being. To act by knowledge
is the most excellent manner of acting ; God hath therefore not only know-
ledge, but the most excellent manner of knowledge ; for as it is better to
know than to be ignorant, so it is better to know in the most excellent man-
ner than to have a mean and low kind of knowledge. His knowledge, there-
fore, must be every way as perfect as his essence, infinite as well as that.
An infinite nature must have an infinite knowledge. A God ignorant of
anything cannot be counted infinite, for he is not infinite to whom any
degree of perfection is wanting.
2. All the knowledge in any creature is from God ; and you must allow
God a gi-eater and more perfect knowledge than any creature hath, yea, than
all creatures have. All the drops of knowledge any creature hath come
irom God, and all the knowledge in every creature that ever wvas, is, or shall
be in the whole mass, was derived from him. If all those several drops in
particular ci-eatures were collected into one spirit, into one creature, it would
be an unconceivable knowledge, yet still lower than what the author of all
that knowledge hath ; for God cannot give more knowledge than he hath
himself, nor is the creature capable of receiving so much knowledge as God
hath. As the creature is uncapable of receiving so much power as God
hath, for then it would be almighty, so it is uncapable of receiving so much
knowledge as God hath, for then it would be God. Nothing can be made
by God equal to him in anything ; if anything could be made as knowing as
God, it would be eternal as God, it would be the cause of all things as God.
The knowledge that we-poor worms have is an argument God uses for the
asserting the greatness of his own knowledge: Ps. xciv. 10, 'He that
teaches man knowledge, shall not he know ?' Man hath here knowledge
ascribed to him ; the author of this knowledge is God ; he furnished him
with it, and therefore doth in a higher manner possess it, and much more
than can fall under the comprehension of any creature ; as the sun enlightens
all things, but hath more light in itself than it darts upon the earth or the
heavens ; and shall not God eminently contain all that knowledge he imparts
to the creatures, and infinitely more exact and comprehensive ?
3. The accusations of conscience evidence God's knowledge of all actions
of all his creatures. Doth not conscience check for the most secret sins, to
which none are privy but a man's self, the whole world beside being ignorant
of his crime ? Do not the fears of another judge gall the heart ? If a judg-
ment above him be feared, an understanding above him discerning their
secrets is confessed by those fears. Whence can those horrors arise, if there
be not a Superior that understands and records the crime ? What perfec-
tion of the divine Being can this relate unto but omniscience ? What other
attribute is to be feared, if God were defective in this ?
The condemnation of us by our own hearts, when none in the world can
condemn us, renders it legible that there is one ' greater than our hearts '
in respect of knowledge, who * knows all things,' 1 John iii, 20. Conscience
would be a vain principle, and stingless without this. It would be an easy
Ps, CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge.
507
matter to silence all its accusations, and mockingly laugh in the face of its
severest frowns. What need any trouble themselves, if none knows their
crimes but themselves ? Concealed sins, gnawing the conscience, are argu-
ments of God's omniscience of all present and past actions.
4. God is the first cause of everything ; every creature is his production.
Since all creatures, from the highest angel to the lowest worm, exist by the
power of God, if God understands his own power and excellency, nothmg
can be hid from him that was brought forth by that power, as well as nothing
can be unknown to him that that power is able to produce.* If God knows
nothing besides himself, he may then believe there is nothing besides him-
self. We shall then fancy a God miserably mistaken. If he knows nothing
besides himself, then things were not created by him, or not understandingly
and voluntarily created, but dropped from him before he was aware. To
think that the first cause of all should be ignorant of those things he is the
cause of, is to make him not a voluntary, but natural agent, and therefore
necessary ; and then that the creature came from him as light from the sun
and moisture from the water ; this would be an absurd opinion of the world's
creation. If God be a voluntary agent, as he is, he must be an intelligent
agent. The faculty of will is not in any creature without that of under-
standing also. If God be an intelligent agent, his knowledge must extend
as far as his operation, and every object of his operation, unless we imagine
God hath lost his memory in that long tract of time since the first creation
of them. An artificer cannot be ignorant of his own work. If God knows
himself, he knows himself to be a cause. How can he know himself to be
a cause, unless he know the efiects he is the cause of? One relation implies
another. A man cannot know himself to be a father unless he hath a child,
because it is a name of relation, and in the notion of it refers to another.
The name of cause is a name of relation, and impHes an effect. If God,
therefore, know himself in all his perfections as the cause of things, he must
know all his acts, what his wisdom contrived, what his counsel determined,
and what his power effected. The knowledge of God is to be supposed in a
free determination of himself ; and that knowledge must be perfect both of
the object, act, and all the circumstances of it. How can his will freely
produce anything that was not first known in his understanding ? From
this the prophet argues the understanding of God, and the unsearchableness
of it, because he isthe ' Creator of the ends of the earth,' Isa. xl. 28 ; and
the same reason David gives of God's knowledge of him, and of everything
he did, and that afar off, because he was formed by him, Ps. cxxxix. 2, 15,
16. As the perfect making of things only belongs to God, so doth the
perfect knowledge of things. It is absurd to think that God should be
ignorant of what he hath given being to ; that he should not know all the
creatures and their qualities, the plants and their virtues, as that a naan
should not know the letters that are formed by him in writing. Everything
bears in itself the mark of God's perfections, and shall not God know the
representation of his own virtue ?
5. Without this knowledge God could no more be the governor than he
could be the creator of the world. Knowledge is the basis of providence ;
to know things is before the government of things ; a practical knowledge
cannot be without a theoretical knowledge. Nothing could be directed to
its proper end without the knowledge of the nature of it, and its suitableness
to answer that end for which it is intended. As everything, even the minu-
test, falls under the conduct of God, so everything falls under the knowledge
of God. A blind coachman is not able to hold the reins of his horses, and
* Bradwardine, p. 6.
608 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
direct them in right paths. Since the providence of God is about particu-
lars, his knowledge must be about particulars ; he could not else govern
them in particular, nor could all things be said to depend upon him in their
being and operations. Providence depends upon the knowledge of God, and
the exercise of it upon the goodness of God ; it cannot be without under-
standing and will : understanding to know what is convenient, and will to
perform it. When our Saviour therefore speaks of providence, he intimates
these two, in a special manner, ' Your heavenly Father knows that you have
need of these things,' Mat. vi. 32, and goodness, in Luke xi. 13. The
reason of providence is so joined with omniscience that they cannot be
separated. What a kind of God would he be that were ignorant of those
things that were governed by him ! The ascribing this perfection to him
asserts his providence, for it is as easy for one that knows all things to look
over the whole world, if writ with monosyllables in every little particular of
it, as it is with a man to take a view of one letter in an alphabet.
Again,* if God were not omniscient, how could he reward the good, and
punish the evil ? The works of men are either rewai-dable or punishable,
not only according to their outward circumstances, but inward principles and
ends, and the degrees of venom lurking in the heart. The exact discerning
of these, without a possibility to be deceived, is necessary to pass a right
and infallible judgment upon them, and proportion the censure and punish-
ment to the crime. Without such a knowledge and discerning men would
not have their due ; nay, a judgment, just for the matter, would be unjust
in the manner, because unjustly past, without an understanding of the merit
of the cause. It is necessary therefore that the supreme Judge of the
world should not be thought to be blindfold when he distributes his rewards
and punishments, and muffle his face when he passes his sentence. It is
necessary to ascribe to him the knowledge of men's thoughts and intentions,
the secret wills and aims, the hidden works of darkness in every man's con-
science, because every man's work is to be measured by the will and inward
frame. It is necessary that he should perpetually retain all those things in
the indelible and plain records of his memory, that there may not be any
work without a just proportion of what is due to it. This is the glory of
God, to discover the secrets of all hearts at last ; as, 1 Cor. iv. 5, ' The
Lord shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make mani-
fest the counsels of all hearts, and then shall every man have praise of God.'
This knowledge fits him to be a judge ; the reason why ' the ungodly shall
not stand in judgment ' is because God knows their ways, which is implied
in his ' knowing the way of the righteous,' Ps. i. 5, 6.
V. I now proceed to the use.
Use 1. is of information or instruction. If God hath all knowledge, then,
1. Jesus Christ is not a mere creature. The two titles of ' wonderful
Counsellor ' and ' mighty God ' are given him in conjunction, Isa. ix. 6 ; not
only the * angel of the covenant,' as he is called, Mai. iii. 1, or the exe-
cutor of his counsels, but a counsellor, in conjunction with him in counsel, as
"well as power. This title is superior to any title given to any of the prophets
in regard of their predictions, and therefore I should take it rather as the
note of his perfect understanding than of his perfect teaching and discover-
ing, as Calvin doth. He is not only the revealer of what he knows, — so were
the prophets according to their measures, — but the counsellor of what he re-
vealed, having a perfect understanding of all the counsels of God, as being
interested in them as the mighty God. He calls himself by the peculiar
* Sabund, tit. 84, much changed.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 509
title of God, and declares that he will manifest himself by this prerogative
to all the churches : Rev. ii. 23, ' And all the churches shall know that I
am he which searches the reins and hearts,' the most hidden operations of
the minds of men that lie locked up from the view of all the world besides.
And this was no new thing to him after his ascension, for the same perfec-
tion he had in the time of his earthly flesh : Luke vi. 8, ' he knew their
thoughts ; ' his eyes are therefore compared, Cant. v. 12, to * doves' eyes,'
which are clear and quick, and to ' a flame of fire,' Rev. i. 14, not only
heat to consume his enemies, but light to discern their contrivances against
the church. He pierceth, by his knowledge, into all parts, as fire pierceth
into the closest particle of iron, and separates between the most united parts
of metals ; and some tell us he is called a roe, from the perspicacity of his
sight, as well as from the swiftness of his motion.
(1.) He hath a perfects knowledge of the Father ; he knows the Father, and
none else knows tlae Father ; angels know God, men know God, but Christ
in a peculiar manner knows the Father : ' No man knows the Son but the
Father, neither knows any man the Father save the Son,' Mat. xi. 27. He
knows, so as that he learns not from any other ; he doth perfectly compre-
hend him, which is beyond the reach of any creature, with the addition of
all the divine virtue ; not because of any incapacity in God, but the inca-
pacity of the creature to receive. Finite is uncapable of being made infinite,
and therefore incapable of comprehending infinite, so that Christ cannot be
deiis facias, made of a creature a god, to comprehend God, for then of finite
he would become infinite, which is a contradiction. As the Spirit is God,
because he ' searches the deep things of God,' 1 Cor. ii. 10, that is, com-
prehends them ;* as the spirit of a man doth the things of a man (now the
spirit of man understands what it thinks, and what it wills), so the Spirit of
God understands what is in the understanding of God, and what is in the
will of God. He hath an absolute knowledge ascribed to him, and such as
could not be ascribed to anything but a divinity. Now, if the Spirit knows
the deep things of God, and takes from Christ what he shews to us of him,
John xvi. 15, he cannot be ignorant of those things himself, he must know
the depths of God that affords us that Spirit, that is not ignorant of any of
the counsels of the Father's will ; since he comprehends the Father, and the
Father him, he is in himself infinite, for God, whose essence is infinite, is
infinitely knowable, but no created understanding can infinitely know God.
The infiniteness of the object hinders it from being understood by anything
that is not infinite. Though a creature should understand all the works of
God, yet it cannot be therefore said to understand God himself. As though
I may understand all the volitions and motions of my soul, j^et it doth not
follow that therefore I understand the whole nature and substance of my
soul; or, if a man understood all the efiects of the sun, that therefore he
understands fully the nature of the sun. But Christ knows the Father, he
lay 'in the bosom of the Father,' was in the greatest intimacy with him,
John i. 18, and, from this intimacy with him, he saw him and knew him ;
so he knows God as much as he is knowable, and therefore knows him
perfectly, as the Father knows himself by a comprehensive vision. This is
the knowledge of God wherein properly the infiniteness of his understanding
appears. ■ And our Saviour uses such expressions which manifest his know-
ledge to be above all created knowledge, and such a manner of knowledge of
the Father as the Father hath of him.
(2.) Christ knows all creatures. That knowledge which comprehends
God comprehends all created things as they are in God ; it is a knowledge
=>= Petav. Theol. Dogmat., torn. i. p. 467, &c.
510 chaenock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
that sinks to the depths of his will, and therefore extends to all the acts of
his will in creation and providence. By knowing the Father, he knows all
things that are contained in the virtue, power, and will of God ; ' whatso-
ever the Father doth, that the Son doth,' John v. 19. As the Father
therefore knows all things he is the cause of, so doth the Son know all things
he is the worker of ; as the perfect making of all things belongs to both, so
doth the perfect knowledge of all things belong to both ; where the action is
the same, the knowledge is the same. Now, the Father did not create one
thing, and Christ another, but ' all things were created by him, and for
him,' — all things, ' both in heaven and earth,' Col. i. 16. As he knows
himself, the cause of all things, and the end of all things, he cannot be igno-
rant of all things that were effected by him, and are referred to him. He
knows all creatures in God, as he knows the essence of God ; and knows all
creatures in themselves, as he knows his own acts and the fruits of his
power. Those things must be in his knowledge that were in his power ; ' all
the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge ' of God are ' hid in him,' Col.
ii. 3. Now it is not the wisdom of God to know in part, and be in part
ionorant. He cannot be ignorant of anything, since there is nothing but
what was made by him, John i. 3, and since it is less to know than create ;
for we know many things which we cannot make. If he be the creator, he
cannot but be the discerner of what he made ; this is a part of wisdom
belonging to an artificer, to know the nature and quality of what he
makes.* Since he cannot be ignorant of what he furnished with being,
and with various endowments, he must know them not only universally, but
particularly.
(3.) Christ knows the hearts and affections of men. Peter scruples not
to ascribe to him this knowledge among the knowledge of all other things :
John xxi. 17, 'Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love
thee.' From Christ's knowledge of all things, he concludes his knowledge
of the inward frames and dispositions of men. To search the heart is the
sole prerogative of God: 1 Kings viii. 39, 'For thou, even thou only,
knowest the hearts of all the children of men.' Shall we take only here
with a limitation, as some that are no friends to the deity of Christ would, and
say, God only knows the hearts of men from himself and by his own infinite
virtue ? Why may we not take only in other places with a limitation, and
make nonsense of it, as Ps. Ixxxvi. 10, ' thou art God alone ' ? Is it to be
understood that God is God alone from himself, but other gods may be
made by him, and so there may be numberless infinities ? As God is God
alone, so that none can be God but himself, so he alone knows all the hearts
of all the children of men, and none but he can know them ; this knowledge
is from his nature, f The reason why God knows the hearts of men is ren-
dered in the Scripture double, because he created them, and because he is
present everywhere, Ps. xxxiii. 13, 15. These two are by the confession
of Christians and pagans universally received as the proper characters of
divinity, whereby the Deity is distinguished from all creatures. Now when
Christ ascribes this to himself, and that with such an emphasis, that nothing
greater than that could be urged, as he doth Rev. ii. 23, we must conclude
that he is of the same essence with God, one with him in his nature, as well
as one with him in his attributes. God only knows the hearts of the chil-
dren of men : there is the unity of God ; Christ searches the hearts and
reins ; there is a distinction of persons in an oneness of essence. He knows
the hearts of all men, not only of those that were with him in the time of
the flesh, that have been and shall be since his ascension, but of those that
* Petav. Theol. Dogmat., torn. i. p. 467. t Placeus de deitate Cliristi.
Ps. CXLVII. 5. J GODS KNOWLEDGE. 611
lived and died before his comiug, because bo is to be the judge of all that
lived before his humiliation on earth as well as after his exaltation in heaven.
It pertains to him as a judge to know distinctly the merits of the cause of
which he is to judge ; and this excellency of searching the hearts is men-
tioned by himself with relation to his judicial proceeding, I will * give to
every one of you according to your works.' And though a creature may
know what is in a man's heart if it be revealed to him, yet such a knowledge
is a knowledge only by report, not by inspection ; yet this latter is ascribed
to Christ: John ii. 24, 25, 'He knew all men, and needed not that any
should testify of man : for he knew what was in man ; ' he looked into their
hearts. The evangelist, to allay the amazement of men at his relation of
our Saviour's knowledge of the inward falsity of those that made a splendid
profession of him, doth not say the Father revealed it to him, but intimates
it to be an inseparable property of his nature. No covering was so thick as
to bound his eye, no pretence so glittering as to impose upon his under-
standing. Those that made a profession of him, and could not be discerned
by the eye of man from his faithfullest attendants, were in their inside known
to him plainer than their outside was to others ; and therefore he committed
not himself to them, though they seemed to be persuaded to a real belief in
his name because of the power of his miracles, and were touched with an
admiration of him as some great prophet, and perhaps declared him to be
the Messiah, ver. 23.
(4.) He had a foreknowledge of the particular inclinations of men before
those distinct inclinations were in actual being in them. This is plainly
asserted, John vi. 64, ' But there are some of you that believe not. For
Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who
should betray him.' When Christ assured them from the knowledge of the
hearts of his followers, that some of them were void of that faith they pro-
fessed, the evangeHst, to stop their amazement that Christ should have such
a power and virtue, adds, that ' he knew from the beginning ; ' that he had
not only a present knowledge, but a foreknowledge of every one's inclination;
he knew not only now ancl then what was in the hearts of his disciples, but
from the beginning of any one's giving up their names to him ; he knew
whether it were a pretence or sincere, he knew who should betray him, and
there was no man's inward affection but was foreseen by him, ' From the
beginning,' 'E^ «fX^^' whether we understand it from the beginning of the
world, as when Christ saith concerning divorces, ' from the beginning it was
not so ; ' that is, from the beginning of the world, from the beginning of the
law of nature ; or from the beginning of their attending him ; as it is taken,
Luke i. 2, he had a certain prescience of the inward dispositions of men's
hearts and their succeeding sentiments. He foreknew the treacherous heart
of Judas in the midst of his splendid profession, and discerned his resolution
in the root, and his thought in the confused chaos of his natural corruption ;
he knew how it would spring up before it did spring up, before Judas had
any distinct and formal conception of it himself, or before there was any
actual preparation to a resolve. Peter's denial was not unknown to him
when Peter had a present resolution, and no question spake it in the present
sincerity of his soul, never to forsake him ; he foreknew what would be the
result of that poison which lurked in Peter's nature before Peter himself
imagined anything of it ; he discerned Peter's apostatising heart when Peter
resolved the contrary; our Saviour's prediction was accompHshed, and
Peter's valiant resolution languished into cowardice.
Shall we then conclude our blessed Saviour a creature, who perfectly and
only knew the Father, who knew all creatures, who had all the treasures of
512 chaexock's works. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
wisdom and knowledge, who knew the inward motions of men's hearts by
his own virtue, and had not only a present knowledge, but a prescience of
them.
2. The second instruction from this position, that God hath an infinite
knowledge and understanding. Then there is a providence exercised by
God in the world, and that about everything. As providence infers omni-
science as the guide of it, so omniscience infers providence as the end of it.
"What exercise would there be of this attribute but in the government of the
world? To this infinite perfection [he] refers, Jer. xvii. 10, ' I the Lord
search the heart, I try the reins, to give every man according to his ways,
and according to the fruit of his doings.' He searches the heart to reward,
he rewards every man according to the rewardableness of his actions. His
government therefore extends to every man in the world ; there is no heart
but he searches, therefore no heart but he governs. To what purpose else
would be this knowledge of all his creatures ? For a mere contemplation
of them ? No. What pleasure can that be to God, who knows himself,
vrho is infinitely more excellent than all his creatures ? Doth he know
them to neglect all care of them ? This must be either out of sloth, but
how incompatible is laziness to a pure and infinite activity! or out of
majesty, but it is no less for the glory of his majesty to conduct them than
it was for the glory of his power to erect them into being. He that counts
nothinc unworthy of his arms to make, nothing unworthy of his under-
standing to know, why should he count anything unworthy of his wisdom
to govern ? If he knows them to neglect them, it must be because he hath
no will to it, or no goodness for it. Either of these would be a stain upon
God ; to want goodness is to be evil, and to want will is to be negligent
and scornful, which are inconsistent with an infinite active goodness. Doth
a father neglect providing for the wants of the family which he knows ?
or a physician the cure of that disease he understands ? God is omni-
scient, he therefore sees all things ; he is good, he doth not therefore neglect
anything, but conducts it to the end he appointed it. There is nothing
so little that can escape his knowledge, and therefore nothing so little but
falls under his providence ; nothing so sublime as to be above his under-
standing, and therefore nothing can be without the compass of his conduct ;
nothing can escape his eye, and therefore nothing can escape his care ; nothing
is kno\vn by him in vain, as nothing was made by him in vain ; there must
be acknowledged therefore some end of this knowledge of all his creatures. -
3. Hence, then, will follow the certainty of a day of judgment. To what
purpose can we imagine this attribute of omniscience, so often declared and
urged in Scripture to our consideration, but in order to a government of
our practice, and a futui-e trial ? Every perfection of the divine nature hath
sent out brighter rays in the world than this of his infinite knowledge ; his
power hath been seen in the being of the world, and his wisdom in the order
and harmony of the creatures ; his grace and mercy hath been plentifully
poured out in the mission of a Redeemer ; and his justice hath been elevated
by the dying gi'oans of the Son of God upon the cross. But hath his
omniscience yet met with a glory proportionable to that of his other perfec-
tions ? All the attributes of God that have appeared in some beautiful glim-
merings in the world, wait for a more full manifestation in glory, as the
creatures do for ' the manifestation of the sons of God,' Rom. viii. 19 ; but
especially this, since it hath been less evidenced than others, and as much
or more abused than any ; it expects, therefore, a public righting in the eye
of the world. There have been indeed some few sparks of this perfection
sensibly struck out now and then in the world, in some horrors of con-
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 513
science, which have made men become their own accusers of unknown
crimes, iu bringing out hidden wickedness to a public view by various pro-
vidences. This hath also been the design of sprinklings of judgments upon
several generations, as Ps. xc. 7, 8, ' We are consumed by thy anger, and
by thy wrath wo are troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee,
and our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.' The word IJd'?^ sig-
nifies youth, as well as secret, i. e. sins committed long ago, and that with
secresy. By this he hath manifested that secret sins are not hid from
his eye. Though inward terrors and outward judgments have been let loose
to worry men into a belief of this, yet the corruptions of men would still
keep a contrary notion in their minds, that ' God hath forgotten : that he
hides his face from transgression, and will not regard their impiety,' Ps.
X. 11. There must therefore be a time of trial for the public demonstration
of this excellency, that it may receive its due honour by a full testimony,
that no secresy can be a shelter from it. As his justice, which consists in
giving every one his due, could not be glorified, unless men were called to
an account for their actions, so neither would his omniscience appear in its
illustrious colours, without such a manifestation of the secret motions of
men's hearts, and of villanies done under lock and key, when none were
conscious to them but the committers of them. Now the last judgment is
the time appointed for the opening of the books, Dan. vii. 10. The book
of God's records, and conscience the counterpart, were never fully opened
and read before, only now and then some pages turned to in particular judg-
ments ; and out of those books shall men be * judged according to their
works,' Rev. xx. 12. Then shall the defaced sins be brought with all their
circumstances to every man's memory ; the counsels of men's hearts fled
afar from their present remembrance ; all the habitual knowledge they had
of their own actions, shall by God's knowledge of them be excited to an
actual review ; and their works not only made manifest to themselves, but
notorious to all the world. All the words, thoughts, deeds of men shall be
brought forth into the light of their own minds, by the infinite light of God's
understanding reflecting on them. His knowledge renders him an unerring
witness, as well as his justice a ' swift witness,' Mai. iii. 5 ; a swift witness,
because he shall without any circuit, or length of speech, convince their
consciences by an inward illumination of them, to take notice of the black-
ness and deformity of their hearts and works. In all judgments God is
somewhat known to be the searcher of hearts ; the time of judgment is the
time of his remembrance : Hosea viii. 13, ' Now will he remember their
iniquity, and visit their sins ;' but the great instant, or now, of the full glori-
fying it, is the grand day of account. This attribute must have a time for
its full discovery ; and no time can be fit for it but a time of a general
reckoning. Justice cannot be exercised without omniscience ; for as justice
is a giving to every one his due, so there must be knowledge to discern
what is due to every man ; the searching the heart is in order to the
rewarding the works.
4. This perfection in God gives us ground to believe a resurrection. Who
can think this too hard for his power, since not the least atom of the dust
of our bodies can escape his knowledge ? An infinite understanding com-
prehends every mite of a departed carcass ; this will not appear impossible
nor irrational to any, upon a serious consideration of this excellency in God.
The body is perished, the matter of it hath been since clothed with difierent
forms and figures ; part of it hath been made the body of a worm, part of it
returned to the dust that hath been blown away by the wind ; part of it
hath been concocted in the bodies of cannibals, fish, ravenous beasts ; the
VOL. I. K k
514 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
spirits have evaporated into air, part of the blood melted into vrater ; what
then, is the matter of the body annihilated ? Is that wholly perished ? No ;
the foundation remains, though it hath put on variety of forms ; the body
of Abel, the first man that died, nor the body of Adam, are not to this day
reduced to nothing. Indeed, the quantity and the quality of those bodies
have been lost by various changes they have passed through since their dis-
solution ; but the matter or substance of them remains entire, and is not
capable to be destroyed by all those transforming alterations, in so long a
revolution of time.
The body of a man in his infancy and his old age, if it were Methuselah's,
is the same in the foundation in those multitude of years ; though the quan-
tity of it be altered, the quality different, though the colour and other things
be changed in it, the matter of this body remains the same among all the
alterations after death. And can it be so mixed with other natures and
creatures, as that it is past finding out by an infinite understanding ? Can
any particle of this matter escape the eye of him that makes and beholds all
those various alterations, and where every mite of the substance of those
bodies is particularly lodged, so as that he cannot compact it together again
for a habitation of that soul, that many a year before fled from it ? Since
the knowledge of God is infinite, and his pi'ovidence extensive over the least
as well as the greatest parts of the world, he must needs know the least as
well as the greatest of his creatures in their beginning, progress, and disso-
lution ; all the forms through which the bodies of all creatures roll, the parti-
cular instants of time, and the particular place when and where those
changes are made, they are all present with him ; and therefore when the
revolution of time allotted by him for the reunion of souls and deceased
bodies is come, it cannot be doubted but out of the treasures of his know-
ledge he can call forth every part of the matter of the bodies of men, from
the first to the last man that expired, and strip it of all those forms and
figures which it shall then have, to compact it to be a lodging for that soul
which before it entertained ; and though the bodies of men have been
devoured by wild beasts in the earth, and fish in the sea, and been lodged
in the stomachs of barbarous men-eaters, the matter is not lost.* There is
but little of the food we take that is turned into the substance of our own
bodies ; that which is not proper for nourishment, which is the greatest part,
is separated and concocted, and rejected ; whatsoever objections are made,
are answered by this attribute. Nothing hinders a God of infinite know-
ledge from discerning every particle of the matter, wheresoever it is dis-
posed ; and since he hath an eye to discern, and a hand to re-collect and
unite, what difficulty is there in believing this article of the Christian faith ?
He that questions this revealed truth of the resurrection of the body, must
question God's omniscience, as well as his omnipotence and power.
5. What semblance of reason is there to expect a justification in the sight
of God by anything in ourselves ? Is there any action done by any of us,
but upon a scrutiny we may find flaws and deficiency in it ? What then ?
Shall not this perfection of God discern them ? The motes that escape our
eyes cannot escape his : 1 John iii. 20, * God is greater than our hearts, and
knows all things ; ' so that it is in vain for any man to flatter himself with
the rectitude of any work, or enter into any debate with him who can bring
a thousand articles against us, out of his own infinite records, unknown to
us, and unanswerable by us. If conscience, a representative or counterpart
of God's omniscience in our own bosoms, find nothing done by us but in a
copy short of the original, and beholds, if not blurs, yet imperfections in
* Daille, Serm. xv. p. 21-24.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 515
the best actions, God must much more discern them. We never knew a
copy equally exact with the original. If our own conscience be as a thousand
witnesses, the knowledge of God is as millions of witnesses against us. If
our corruption be so great, and our holiness so low in our own eyes, how
much greater must the one, and how much meaner must the other, appear
in the eyes of God ! God hath an unerring eye to see, as well as an un-
spotted holiness to hate, and an unbribable justice to punish ; he wants no
more understanding to know the shortness of our actions, than he doth
holiness to enact, and power to execute his laws. Nay, suppose we could
recollect many actions wherein there were no spot visible to us, the conside-
ration of this attribute should scare us from resting upon any or all of them,
since it is the Lord tliat, by a piercing eye, sees and judges according to the
heart, and not according to appearance. The least crookedness of a stick,
not sensible to an acute eye, yet will appear when laid to the line, and the
impurity of a counterfeit metal be manifest when applied to the touchstone ;
so will the best action of any mere man in the world, when it comes to be
measured in God's knowledge by the straight line of his law.
Let every man therefore, as Paul, though he should ' know nothing by
himself, think not himself therefore justified ;' since it is the Lord, who is
of an infinite understanding, that judgeth, 1 Cor. iv. 4. A man may be jus-
tified in his own sight, but ' not any living man can be justified in the sight
of God,' Ps. cxliii. 2, in his sight, whose eye pierceth into our unknown
secrets and frames. It was therefore well answered of a good man upon
his death-bed, being asked what he was afraid of: I have laboured, saith
he, with all my strength to observe the commands of God ; but since I am
a man, I am ignorant whether my works are acceptable to God, since
God judges in one manner, and I in another manner. Let the considera-
tion therefore of this attribute make us join with Job in his resolution :
Job ix. 21, ' Though we were perfect,' yet would we not * know our own
souls.' I would not stand up to plead any of my virtues before God. Let
us therefore look after another righteousness, wherein the exact eye of the
divine Omniscience, we are sure, can discern no stain or crookedness.
6. What honourable and adoring thoughts ought we to have of God for
this perfection ! Do we not honour a man that is able to predict ? do we
not think it a great part of wisdom ? Have not all nations regarded such a
faculty as a character and a mark of divinity ? There is something more
ravishing in the knowledge of future things, both to the person that knows
them and the person that hears them, than there is in any other kind of
knowledge ; whence the greatest prophets have been accounted in the greatest
veneration, and men have thought it a way to glory to divine and predict.
Hence it was that the devils and pagan oracles gained so much credit; upon
this foundation were they established, and the enemies of mankind owned
for a true. god. I say from the prediction of future things, though their
oracles were often ambiguous, many times false. Yet those poor heathens
framed many ingenious excuses to free their adored gods from the charge of
falsity and imposture. And shall we not adore the true God, the God of
Israel, the God blessed for ever, for this incommunicable property, whereby
he flies above the wings of the wind, the understandings of men and
cherubims ?
Consider how great it is to know the thoughts, and intentions, and works
of one man from the beginning to the end of his life ;* to foreknow all these
before the being of this man, when he was lodged afar off in the loins of his
ancestors, yea, of Adam. How much greater is it to foreknow and know the
* Sabund, Theol. Natural, tit. 84, somewhat clianged.
51G charnock's works. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
thoughts and works of three or four men, of a whole village or neighbour-
hood ! It is greater still to know the imaginations and actions of such a
multitude of men as are contained in London, Paris, or Constantinople ;
how much greater still to know the intentions and practices, the clandestine
contrivances of so many millions, that have, do, or shall swarm in all quar-
ters of the world, every person of them having millions of thoughts, desires,
designs, affections, and actions !
Let this attribute, then, make the blessed God honourable in our eyes
and adorable in all our affections, specially since it is an excellency which
hath so lately discovered itself, in bringing to light the hidden things of
darkness, in opening and in part confounding the wicked devices of bloody
men. Especially let us adore God for it, and admire it in God, since it is
so necessary a perfection, that, without it, the goodness of God had been
impotent, and could not have relieved us ; for what help can a distressed
person expect from a man of the sweetest disposition and the strongest arm,
if the eyes which should discover the danger, and direct the defence and
rescue, were closed up by blindness and darkness ? Adore God for this
wonderful perfection.
7. In the consideration of this excellent attribute, what low thoughts
should we have of our own knowledge, and how humble ought we to be
before God ! There is nothing man is more apt to be proud of than his
knowledge ; it is a perfection he glories in ; but if our own knowledge of the
little outside and barks of things puffs us up, the consideration of the in-
finiteness of God's knowledge should abate the tumour. As our beings are
nothing in regard to the infiniteness of his essence, so our knowledge is
nothing in regard of the vastness of his understanding. We have a spark
of being, but nothing to the heat of the sun ; we have a drop of knowledge,
but nothing to the divine ocean. What a vain thing is it for a shallow
brook to boast of its streams, before a sea whose depths are unfathomable !
As it is a vanity to brag of our strength when we remember the power of
God, and of our prudence when we glance upon the wisdom of God, so it
is no less a vanity to boast of our knowledge when we think of the under-
standing and knowledge of God.
How hard is it for us to know anything ! * Too much noise deafs us,
and too much light dazzles us ; too much distance alienates the object from
us, and too much nearness bars up our sight from beholding it. When we
think ourselves to be near the knowledge of a thing, as a ship to the haven,
a puff of wind blows us away, and the object which we desired to know
eternally flies from us. We burn with a desire of knowledge, and yet are
oppressed with the darkness of ignorance ; we spend our days more in dark
Egypt than in enlightened Goshen. In what narrow bounds is all the know-
ledge of the most intelligent persons included ! t How few understand the
exact harmony of their own bodies, the nature of the life they have in com-
mon with other animals ! Who understands the nature of his own faculties,
how he knows, and how he wills, how the understanding proposeth, and
how the will embraceth, how his spiritual soul is united to his material body,
what the nature is of the operation of our spirits ? Nay, who understands
the nature of his own body, the offices of his senses, the motion of his
members, how they come to obey the command of the will, and a thousand
other things ? What a vain, weak, and ignorant thing is man, when com-
pared with God ! Yet there is not a greater pride to be found among devils
than among ignorant men, with a little, very little, flashy knowledge. Igno-
rant man is as proud as if he knew as God !
* Pascal, p 170. f Amyraut, de Prsedest., p. 116, 117, somewhat changed.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 617
As the consideration of God's omniscience should render him honourable
in our eyes, so it should render us vile in our own. God, because of his
knowledge, is so far from disdaining his creatures, that his omniscience is
a minister to his goodness. No knowledge that we are possessed of should
make us swell with too high a conceit of ourselves and a disdain of others.
We have infinitely more of ignorance than knowledge ; let us therefore
remember, in all our thoughts of God, that he is God, and wo are men,
and therefore ought to be humble, as becomes men, and ignorant and
foolish men, to be. As weak creatures should lie low before an almighty-
God, and impure creatures before a holy God, false creatures before a
faithful God, finite creatures before an infinite God, so should ignorant
creatures before an all-knowing God. All God's attributes teach admiring
thoughts of God, and low thoughts of ourselves.
8. It may inform us how much this attribute is injured in the world.
The first error after Adam's eating the forbidden fruit was the denial of this,
as well as the omnipresence of God : Gen. iii. 10, * I heard thy voice in
the garden, and I hid myself,' as if the thickness of the trees could screen
him from the eye of his Creator. And, after Cain's murder, this is the first
perfection he affronts : Gen. iv. 9, * Where is Abel, thy brother ? ' saith
God. How roundly doth he answer, * I know not ! ' as if God were as weak
as man, to be put off with a lie. Man doth as naturally hate this perfec-
tion as much as he cannot naturally but acknowledge it ; he wishes God
stripped of this eminency, that he might be incapable to be an inspector of
his crimes, and a searcher of the closets of his heart. In wishing him de-
prived of this, there is a hatred of God himself, for it is a loathing an
essential property of God, without which he would be a pitiful governor of
the world. What a kind of God should that be, of a sinner's wishing, that
had wanted eyes to see a crime, and righteousness to punish it ? The want
of the consideration of this attribute is the cause of all sin in the world :
Hos. vii. 2, ' They consider not in their hearts that I remember all their
wickedness.' They speak not to their hearts, nor make any reflection upon
the infiniteness of my knowledge ; it is a high contempt of God, as if he
were an idol, a senseless stock or stone ; in all evil practices this is denied.
We know God sees all things, yet we Jive and walk as if he knew nothing ;
we call him omniscient, and live as if he were ignorant ; we say he is all
eye, yet act as if he were wholly blind.
In particular, this attribute is injured, by invading the peculiar rights of
it, by presuming on it, and by a practical denial of it.
(1.) By invading the peculiar rights of it.
[1.] By invocation of creatures. Praying to saints, by the Romanists,
is a disparagement to this divine excellency ; he that knows all things is
only fit to have the petitions of men presented to him. Prayer supposeth an
omniscient being as the object of it ; no other being but God ought to have
that honour acknowledged to it, no understanding but his is infinite, no
other presence but his is everywhere. To implore any deceased creature for
a supply of our wants, is to own in them a property of the Deity, and make
them deities that were but men, and increase their glory by a diminution of
God's honour, in ascribing that perfection to creatures which belongs only
to God. Alas ! they are so far from understanding the desires of our souls,
that they know not the words of our lips. It is against reason to address
our supplications to them that neither understand us nor discern us : Isa.
Ixiii. 16, ' Abraham is ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledges us not.' The
Jews never called upon Abraham, though the covenant was made with him
for the whole seed ; not one departed saint, for the whole four thousand
518 chaenock's woeks. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
years between the creation of the world and the coming of Christ, was ever
prayed to by the Israehtes, or ever imagined to have a share in God's
omniscience, so that to pray to St Peter, St Paul, much less to St Roch,
St Swithin, St Martin, St Francis, &c., is such a superstition that hath no
footing in the Scripture.
To desire the prayers of the living, with whom we have a communion,
■who can understand and grant our desires, is founded upon a mutual charity;
but to implore persons that are absent, at a great distance from us, ^vith
whom we have not, nor know how to have any commerce, supposeth them
in their departure to have put off humanity, and commenced gods, and en-
dued with some part of the divinity to understand our petitions ; * we are,
indeed, to cherish their memories, consider their examples, imitate their
graces, and observe their doctrines ; we are to follow them as saints, but
not elevate them as gods, in ascribing to them such a knowledge which is
only the necessary right of their and our common Creator. As the invoca-
tion of saints mingles them with Christ in the exercise of his office, so it sets
them equal with God in the throne of his omniscience, as if they had as
much credit with God as Christ in a way of mediation, and as much know-
ledge of men's affairs as God himself. Omniscience is peculiar to God, and
incommunicable to any creature ; it is the foundation of all religion, and
therefore one of the choicest acts of it, viz. prayer and invocation. To
direct our vows and petitions to any else is to inrade the peculiarity of this
perfection in God, and to rank some creatures in a partnership with him
in it.
[2.] This attribute is injured by curiosity of knowledge, especially of
future things, which God hath not discovered in natural causes, or super-
natural revelation. It is a common error of men's spirits to aspire to know
what God would have hidden, and to pry into divine secrets ; and many
men are more willing to remain without the knowledge of those things which
may, with a little industry, be attained, than be divested of the curiosity of
inquiring into those things which are above their reach. It is hence that
some have laid aside the study of the common remedies of nature, to find
out the philosopher's stone, which scarce any ever yet attempted but sunk
in the enterprise. From this inclination to know the most abstruse and
difficult things, it is that the horrors of magic and the vanities of astrology
have sprung, whereby men have thought to find, in a commerce with devils
and the jurisdiction of the stars, the events of their lives, and the disposal
of states and kingdoms.! Hence also arose those multitudes of ways of divi-
nation invented among the heathen, and practised too commonly in these
ages of the world. This is an invasion of God's prerogative, to whom secret
things belong : Deut. xxix. 29, ' Secret things belong unto the Lord our
God, but revealed things belong to us and our children.' It is an intoler-
able boldness to attempt to fathom those, the knowledge whereof God hath
reserved to himself, and to search that which God will have to surpass our
understandings, whereby we more truly envy God a knowledge superior to
our own, than we in Adam imagined that he envied us. Ambition is the
greatest cause of this, ambition to be accounted some great thing among
men, by reason of a knowledge estranged from the common mass of man-
kind, but more especially that soaring pride to be equal with God, which
lurks in our nature ever since the fall of our first parents. This is not yet
laid aside by man, though it was the first thing that embroiled the world
with the wrath of God. Some think a curiosity of knowledge was the cause
of the fall of the devils ; I am sure it was the foil of Adam, and is yet the
* Daille, Melang. part ii. p. 5G0, 561. f Amyraut, Moral, torn. iii. p. 75, &c.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.j god's knowledge. 519
crime of his posterity ; had he been contented to know what God had fur-
nished him with, neither he nor his posterity had smarted under the venom
of the serpent's breath.
All curious and bold inquiries into things not revealed are an attempt
upon the throne of God, and are both sinful and pernicious, like to glaring
upon the sun, where, instead of a greater acuteness, we meet with blindness,
and too dearly by * our ignorance in attempting a superfluous knowledge. As
God's knowledge is destined to the government of the world, so should ours
be to the advantage of the world, and not degenerate into vain speculations.
[3.] This attribute is injured by swearing by creatures. To swear by
the name of God in a righteous cause, f when we are lawfully called to it
by a superior power, or for the necessary decision of some controversy, for
the ends of charity and justice, is an act of religion and a part of worship,
founded upon and directed to the honour of this attribute ; by it we acknow-
ledge the glory of his infallible knowledge of all things. But to swear by
false gods, or by any creature, is blasphemous ; it sets the creature in the
place of God, and invests it in that which is the peculiar honour of the
divinity ; for, when any swear truly, they intend the invocation of an in-
fallible witness, and the bringing an undoubted testimony for what they do
assert. While any therefore swear by a creature, or a false god, they profess
that that creature, or that which they esteem to be a god, is an infallible
witness, which to be is only the right of God ; they attribute to the creature
that which is the property of God alone, to know the heart, and to be a wit-
ness whether they speak true or no, and this was accounted by all nations
the true design of an oath. As to swear falsely is a plain denial of the all-
knowledge of God, so to swear by any creature is to set the creature upon
the throne of God, in ascribing that perfection to the creature which sove-
reignly belongs to the Creator, for it is not in the power of any to witness
to the truth of the heart, but of him that is the searcher of hearts.
[4,] We sin against this attribute by censuring the hearts of others.
An open crime indeed falls under our cognisance, and therefore under our
judgment ; for whatsoever falls under the authority of man to be punished,
falls under the judgment of man to be censured, as an act contrary to the
law of God. Yet when a censure is built upon the evil of the act which is
obvious to the view, if we take a step farther, to judge the heart and state,
we leave the revealed rule of the law, and ambitiously erect a tribunal
equal with God's, and usui-p a judicial power, pertaining only to the supreme
governor of the world ; and consequently pretend to be possessed of this
perfection of omniscience, which is necessary to render him capable of the
exercise of that sovereign authority. For it is in respect of his dominion
that God hath the supreme right to judge ; and in respect of his knowledge
that he hath an incommunicable capacity to judge.
In an action that is doubtful, the good or evil whereof depends only upon
God's determination, and w^herein much of the judgment depends upon the
discerning the intention of the agent, we cannot judge any man without a
manifest invasion of God's peculiar right. Such actions are to be tried by
God's knowledge, not by our surmises. God only is the master in such
cases, to whom a person ' stands or falls,' Kom. xiv. 4. Till the true
principle and ends of an action be known by the confession of the party
acting it, a true judgment of it is not in our power. Principles and ends
lie deep and hid fi'om us ; and it is intolerable pride to pretend to have a
joint key with God, to open that cabinet which he hath reserved to himself.
Besides the violation of the rule of charity in misconstruing actions,
* Qu. 'buy'?— Ed. t Cajetan, Sum. p. 190.
520 chaknock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
which may be great and generous in their root and principle, we invade
God's right, as if our ungrounded imaginations and conjectures were in
joint commission with this sovereign perfection ; and thereby we become
usurping 'judges of evil thoughts,' James ii. 4. It is therefore a boldness
worthy to be punished by the judge, to assume to ourselves the capacity
and authority of him who is the only judge. For as the execution of the
divine law for the inward violation of it belongs only to God, so is the
right of judging a prerogative belonging only to his omniscience ; his right
is therefore invaded if we pretend to a knowledge of it. This humour of
men the apostle checks, when he saith, 1 Cor. iv. 5, ' He that judgeth me
is the Lord : therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come,
who will manifest the coimsels of all hearts,' It is not the time yet for God
to erect a tribunal for the trial of men's hearts, and the principles of their
actions ; he hath reserved the glorious discovery of this attribute for another
season. We must not therefore presume to judge of the counsels of
men's hearts, till God hath revealed them by opening the treasuries of his
own knowledge.
Much less are we to judge any man's final condition. Manasseh may
sacrifice to devils, and unconverted Paul tear the church in pieces ; but God
had mercy on them and called them. The action may be censured, not the
state, for we know not whom God may call. In aeusuring men, we may
doubly imitate the devil, in a false accusation of the brethren, as well as in
an ambitious usurpation of the rights of God.
(2.) This perfection is injured, by presuming upon it, or making an ill
use of it : as in the neglect of prayer for the supply of man's wants, be-
cause God knows them already ; so that that which is an encouragement to
prayer, they make the reason of restraining it before God. Prayer is not to
administer knowledge to God, but to acknowledge this admirable perfection
of the divine nature. If God did not know, there were indeed no use of
prayer ; it would be as vain a thing to send up our prayers to heaven, as to
implore the senseless statue or pictui-e of a prince for a protection. We
pray because God knows, for though he know our wants with a knowledge
of vision, yet he will not know them with a knowledge of supply, till he be
sought unto. Mat. vi. 82, 33. All the excellencies of God are ground of
adoration ; and this excellency is the ground of that part of worship we call
prayer, Mat. vii. 11. If God be to be worshipped, he is to be called upon :
invocations of his name in our necessities is a chief act of worship, whence
the temple, the place of solemn worship, was not called the house of sacrifice,
but ' the house of praj^er.'
Prayer was not appointed for God's information as if he were ignorant,
but for the expression of our desires ; not to furnish him with a knowledge
of what we want, but to manifest to him by some rational sign convenient to
our natm-e, our sense of that want, which he knows by himself. So that
prayer is not designed to acquaint God with our wants, but to express the
desire of a remedy of our wants. God knows om- wants, but hath not made
promises barely to our wants but to our asking, that his omniscience in
hearing, as well as his sufficiency in supplying, may have a sensible honour
in our acknowledgments and receipts. It is therefore an ill use of this
excellency of God to neglect prayer to him as needless, because he knows
already.
(3.) This perfection of God is wronged by a practical denial of it. It is
the language of every sin, and so God takes it when he comes to reckon
with men for their impieties. Upon this he charges the greatness of the
iniquity of Israel, the overflowing of blood in the land, and the perverseness
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 621
of the city : * They say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord
sees not,' Ezek. ix. 9. They deny his eyes to see, and his resolution to
punish.
[1.] It will appear in forbearing sin from a sense of man's knowledge,
not of God's. Open impieties are refrained [from] because of the eye of
man ; but secret sins are not checked because of the eye of God. Wicked-
ness is committed in darkness, that is restrained in light ; as if darlmess
were as great a clog to God's eyes as it is to ours, as though his eyes were
muffled with the cm-tains of the night. Job xxii. 14. This it is likely was at
the root of Jonah's flight ; he might have some secret thought that his
master's eye could not follow him, as though the close hatches of a ship
could secure him from the knowledge of God, as well as the sides of the
ship could from the dashing of the waves. "What Hes most upon the con-
science when it is graciously wounded, is least regarded, or contemned when
it is basely inclined. David's heart smote him not only for his sin in the
gross, but as particularly circumstantiated by the commission of it in the sight
of God : Ps. li 4, ' Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this
evil in thy sight.' None knew the reason of Uriah's death but myself, and
because others knew it not, I neglected any regard to this divine eye. When
Jacob's sons used their brother Joseph so barbarously, they took care to
hide it from their f;ither, but cast away all thoughts of God, from whom it
could not be concealed.
Doth not the presence of a child bridle a man from the act of a longed
for sin, when the eye of God is of no force to restrain him ? As if God's
knowledge were of less value than the sight of ai little boy or girl, as if a
child only could see, and God were bhnd. He that will forbear an unworthy
action for fear of an informer, will not forbear it for God ; as if God's omni-
science were not as full an intelligencer to him, as man can be an informer
to a magistrate. As we acknowledge the power of men seeing us when we
are ashamed to commit a filthy action in their view, so we discover * the
power of God seeing us when we regard not what we do before the light of
his eyes. Secret sins are more against God than open. Open sins are
against the law, secret sins are against the law and this prime perfection of
his nature. The majesty of God is not only violated, but the omniscience
of God disowned, who is the only witness. We must, in all of them, either
imagine him to be without eyes to behold us, or without an arm of justice
to punish us. And often it is, I believe, in such cases, that if any thoughts
of God's knowledge strike upon men, they quickly damp them, lest they
should begin to know what they fear, and fear that they might not eat their
pleasant sinful morsels.
[2,] It appears in partial confessions before God. As by a free, full,
and ingenuous confession we offer a due glory to this attribute, so by a
feigned and curtailed confession we deny him the honour of it ; for though
by any confession we in part own him to be a sovereign and judge, yet by a
half and pared acknowledgment, we own him to be no more than a human
and ignorant one. Achan's full confession gave God the glory of his omni-
science, manifested in the discovery of his secret crime : Joshua vii. 19,
' And Joshua said to Achan, My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and
make confession unto him.' And so, Ps. 1. 23, ' Whoso offereth praise
glorifieth me,' or confession, as the word signifieth, in which sense I would
rather take it, referring to this attribute, which God seems to tax sinners
with the denial of, ver. 21, telling them that he would open the records of
their sins before them, and indict them particularly for every one. If there-
* Qu. ' disown ' ? — Ed.
522 chaenock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
fore you would glorify this attribute, wliich shall one day break open your
consciences, offer to me a sincere confession. When David speaks of the
happiness of a pardoned man, Ps. xxxii. 1, 2, he adds, 'in whose spirit
there is no guile,' not meaning a sincerity in general, but that ingenuity in
confessing.* To excuse or extenuate sin, is to deny God the knowledge of
the depths of our deceitful hearts. "When we will mince it rather than
aggravate it, lay it upon the inducements of others when it was the free act
of our own -wills, study shifts to deceive our judge, this is to ' speak lies of
him,' as the expression is, Hosea vii. 13 ; as though he were a God easy to
be cheated, and knew no more than we are willing to declare. AVhat did
Saul's transferring his sin from himself to the people, 1 Sam. xv. 15, but
charge God -with a defect in this attribute ? "When man could not be hke
God in his knowledge, he would fancy a God like to him in his ignorance,
and imagine a possibiUty of hiding himself from his knowledge ; and all
men tread more or less in their father's steps, and are fruitful to devise
distinctions to disguise errors in doctrine, and excuses to palUate errors in
practice. This crime Job removes from himself, when he speaks of several
acts of his sincerity : ' If I covered my transgression as Adam, by hiding my
iniquity in my bosom,' Job xxxi. 33, I hid not any of my sins in my ovm.
conscience, but acknowledged God a witness of them, and gave God the
glory of his knowledge by a fi'ee confession. I did not conceal it from God
as Adam did, or as men ordinarily do, as if God could understand no more
of their secret crimes than they will let him, and had no more sense of their
faults than they would furnish him with. As the first rise of confession is
the owning of this attribute (for the justice of God would not scare men,
nor the holiness of God awe them without a sense of his knowledge
of their iniquities), so to drop out some fragments of confession, discover
some sins, and conceal others, is a plain denial of the extensiveness of the
divine knowledge.
[3.] It is discovered by putting God off with an outside worship. Men
are often flatterers of God, and think to bend him by formal glavering de-
votions, without the concurrence of their hearts, as though he could not
pierce into the darkness of the mind, but did as httle know us as one man
knows another. There are such things as ' feigned lips,' Ps. xvii. 1 ; a
contradiction between the heart and the tongue, a clamour in the voice and
scoffing in the soul, a ci-ying to God, ' Thou art my father, the guide of my
youth,' and yet speaking and doing evil to the utmost of oiir power, Jer. iii.
4, 5 ; as if God could be imposed upon by fawnmg pretences, and, Uke old
Isaac, take Jacob for Esau, and be cozened by the smell of his garments ;
as if he could not discern the negro heart under an angel's garb. Thus
Ephraim, the ten tribes, apostatised from the true religion, would go with
their flocks and their herds to seek the Lord, Hosea v. 6 ; would sacrifice
multitudes of sheep and heifers, which was the main outside of the Jewish
rehgion ; only with their flocks and their herds, not with their hearts, with
those inward quahfications of deep humiliation and repentance for sin, as
though outside appearances limited God's observation, whereas God had
told them before that he ' knew Ephi-aim, and Israel was not hid from
him' ver. 3. Thus to do is to put a cheat upon God, and think to blind
his all-seeing eye, and therefore it is called deceit : Ps. Ixxviii. 36, ' They
did flatter him with their mouths.' The word nnS) signifies to deceive as
well as to flatter ; not that they or any else can deceive God, but it implies
an endeavour to deceive him by a few dissembhng words and gestm-es, or
an imagination that God was satisfied with bare professions, and would not
* Camero. p. 89, col. 1.
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 523
concern liimself in a further inquisition. This is an unworthy conceit of
God, to fancy that we can satisfy for inward sins, and avert approaching
judgments hy external offerings, hy a loud voice, with a false heart, as if
God (like children) would be pleased with the glittering of an empty shell,
or the rattling of stones, the chinking of money, a mere voice, and crying
without inward frames and intentions of service.
[4. J In cherishing multitudes of evil thoughts. No man but would blush
for shame if the base, impure, slovenly thoughts, cither in or out of duties of
worship, were visible to the understanding of man. How diligent would he be
to curb his luxuriant and unworthy fancies, as well as bite in his words ; but
when we give the reins to the motions of our hearts, and suffer them to run
at random without a curb, it is an evidence we are not concerned for their
falling under the notice of the eye of God, and it argues a very weak belief
of this perfection, or scarce any belief at all. Who can think any man's
heart possessed with a sense of this infinite excellency, that suffers his mind,
in his meditation on God, to wander into every sty, and be picking up
stones upon a dunghill ? What doth it intimate but that those thoughts are
as invisible or inaudible to God as they are to men without the garments of
words ?* When a man thinks of obscene things, his own natm-al notions,
if revived, would tell him that God discerns what he thinks, that the depths
of his heart are open to him ; and the voice of those notions is, deface those
vain imaginations out of your minds. But what is done ? Men cast away
rational light, muster up conceits, that God sees them not, knows them not,
and so sink into the puddle of their sordid imaginations as though they
remained in darkness to God.
I might further instance,
[5.] In omission of prayer, which arises sometimes from a fiat atheism.
Who will call upon a God that believes no such being ? Or from partial
atheism, either a denial of God's sufficiency to help, or of his omniscience
to know, as if God were like the statue of Jupiter in Crete, framed without
ears.
[6.] In the hypocritical pretences of men to exempt them from the ser-
vice God calls them to ; when men pretend one thing, and intend another.
This lurks in the veins sometimes of the best men ; sometimes it ariseth
from the fear of man, when men are more afraid of the power of man than
of dissembling with the Almighty. It will pretend a virtue to cover a secret
wile, and ' choose the tongue of the crafty,' as the expression in Job, chap. xv. 5.
The case is plain in Moses, who, when ordered to undertake an eminent
service, pretends a want of eloquence, and an ungrateful slowness of speech,
Exod. iv. 10. This generous soul, that before was not afraid to discover
himself in the midst of Egypt for his countrymen, answers sneakingly to
God, and would veil his carnal fear with a pretence of insufficiency and
humility. 'Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh?' Exod. iii. 11.
He could not well allege an inabiUty to go to Pharaoh, since he had had an
education in the Egj'ptian learning, which rendered him capable to appear at
court. God- at last uncaseth him, and shews it all to be a dissimulation ;
and whatsoever was the pretence, fear lay at the bottom. He was afraid of
his life upon his appearance before Pharaoh, from whose face he had fled
upon the slaying the Egyptian, which God intimates to him, Exod. iv. 19,
' Go, and return unto Egypt, for all the men are dead which sought thy
life.' What doth this carriage speak, but as if God's eye were not upon
our inward parts ; as though we could lock him out of our hearts that
cannot be shut out from any creek of the hearts of men and angels.
* Drexel Nicetas, lib. ii. cap. x. p 357.
52i charxock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
Use 2. The second use is of comfort. It is a ground of great comfort
under the present dispensation wherein we are. We have heard the
doctrinal part, and God hath given us the experimental part of it in his
special providence this day* upon the stage of world. And blessed be God
that he hath given us a gi-ound of comfort without going out of our ordinary
course to fetch it, whereby it seems to be peculiarly of God's ordering for us.
1. It is a comfort in all the clandestine contrivances of men against the
chui-ch. His eyes pierce as far as the depths of hell. Not one of his
church's adversaries lies in a mist ; all f:r3 as plain as the stars which he
numbers. ' Mine adversaries are all befoi-e thee,' Ps. Ixix. 19 ; more ex-
actly known to thee than I can recount them. It is a prophecy of Christ,
wherein Christ is brought in speaking to God, of his own and the church's
enemies. He comforts himself with this, that God hath his eye upon every
particular person among his adversaries. He knows where they repose
themselves when they go out to consult, and when they come in with their
resolves. He discerns all the rage that spirits their hearts, in what comer
it lurks, how it acts ; all the disorders, motions of it, and every object of
that rage. He cannot be deceived by the closest and subtilest person. Thus
God speaks concerning Sennacherib and his host against Jerusalem, Isa.
xxxvii. 28, 29. After he had spoke of the forming of his church and the
weakness of it, he adds, ' But I know thy abode, and thy going out and thy
coming in, and thy rage against me ; because thy rage against me, and thy
tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore will I put my hook in thy
nose, and my bridle in thy Hps, and I will turn thee back,' &c. He knows
all the methods of the counsels, the stages they had laid, the manner of
execution of their designs, all the ways whither they turned themselves, and
would use them no better than men do devouring fish and untamed beasts,
with a hook in the nose and a bridle in the mouth. Those statesmen in Isa.
xxix. 1.5, thought their contrivances too deep for God to fathom, and too
close for God to frustrate : * They seek deep to hide their counsels from
the Lord ; surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as
the potter's clay,' of no more force and understanding than a potter's vessel,
which understands not its own form wrought by the artificer, nor the use it
is put to by the buyer and possessor ; or shall be esteemed as a potter's
vessel, that can be as easily flung back into the mass from whence it was
taken, as preserved in the figure it is now endued with. No secret designer
is shrouded from God's sight, or can be sheltered from God's arm. He
understands the venom of their hearts better than we can feel it, and dis-
covers then- inward fm-y more plainly than we can see the sting or teeth of
a viper when they are opened for mischief ; and to what purpose doth God
know and see them, but in order to deliver his people from them in his own
due time : ' I know their sorrow, and am come down to deliver them,' Exod.
iii. 7, 8. The walls of Jerasalem are continually before him ; he knows,
therefore, all that would undermine and demolish them. None can hm't
Zion by any ignorance or inadvertency in God.
It is obseiwable that our Saviour, assuming to himself a different title in
eveiy epistle to the seven churches, doth particularly ascribe to himself
this of knowledge and wi-ath in that to Thyatira, an emblem or de-
scription of the Romish state : Eev, ii. 19, ' And unto the angel of
the church at Thyatu'a write : These things saith the Son of God,
who hath his eyes hke to a flame of fire, and his feet like fine brass.' His
eyes, like a flame of fire, are of a piercing nature, insinuating themselves into
aU the pores and parts of the body they encounter with ; and his feet, like
* Xov. 1678, when tlie popish plot was discovered.
Ps, CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledge. 5 25
brass, to crush tlicm with, is explainccl, verse 23, ' I will kill her chiklren
with death, and all the churches shall know that I am he which searches
the reius and the heart : and I will give to every one of you according to
your works.' He knows every design of the Komish party, designed by that
church of Thyatira.* Jezebel, there, signifies a whorish church, such a
church as shall act as Jezebel, Ahab's w-ife, who was not only a worshipper
of idols, but propagated idolatry in Israel, slew the prophets, persecuted
Elijah, murdered Naboth, the name whereof signifies proplwcy , seized upon
his possession. And if it be said that, verse 3 9, this churcli was commended
for her works, faith, patience, it is true Rome did at fii'st strongly profess
Christianity, and maintained the interest of it, but afterwards fell into the
practice of Jezebel, and committed spiritual adultery. And is she to be
owned for a wife that now plays the harlot, because she was honest and
modest at her first marriage ? And though she shall be destroyed, yet not
speedily:! verse 22, ' I will cast her into a bed,' seems to intimate the
destruction of Jezebel not to-be at once and speedily, but in a hngering way,
and b}^ degrees, as sickness consumes a body.
2. This perfection of God fits him to be a special object of trust. If he
were forgetful, what comfort could we have in any promise ? How could
we depend upon him if he were ignorant of our state ? His compassions to
pity us, his readiness to relieve us, his power to protect and assist us, would
be insignificant, without his omniscience to inform his goodness and direct
the arm of his power. This perfection is, as it were, God's office of intelli-
gence. As you go to your memorandum- book to know what you are to do,
so doth God to his omniscience. This perfection is God's eye, to acquaint
him with the necessities of his church, and directs all his other attributes in
their exercise for and about his people. You may depend upon his mercy that
hath promised, and upon his truth to perform, upon his sufficiency to supply
you and his goodness to relieve you, and his righteousness to reward you,
because he hath an infinite understanding to know you and your wants, you
and your services. And without this knowledge of his, no comfort could be
di'awn from any other perfection ; none of them could be a sure nail to hang
our hopes and confidence upon. This is that the church always celebrated :
Ps, cv. 8, ' He hath remembered his covenant for ever, and the word which
he hath commanded to a thousand generations ; ' and verse 42, ' He remem-
bered his holy promise ; ' and Ps. cvi, 45, ' He remembered for them his
covenant.' He remembers and understands his covenant, therefore his pro-
mise to perform it, and therefore our wants to supply them.
3, And the rather, because God knows the persons of all his own. He
hath in his infinite understanding the exact number of all the individual per-
sons that belong to him : 2 Tim. ii. ] 9, ' The Lord knows them that are
his.' He knows all things, because he hath created them ; and he knows
his people, because he hath not only made them, but also chose them. He
could no more choose he knew not what, than he could create he knew not
what. He knows them under a double title : of creation, as creatures, in
the common mass of creation ; as new creatures, by a particular act of
separation. He cannot be ignorant of them in time whom he foreknew from
eternity. His knowledge in time is the same he had from eternity. He
foreknew them that he intended to give the grace of faith unto ; and he
knows them after they believe, because he knows his own act in bestowing
grace upon them, and his own mark and seal wherewith he hath stamped
* For the evidence of it I refer you to Dr Mora's Exposition of the Seven
Churches, worthy every learned and understanding man's reading, and of every sober
Romanist, t Coc. in loc.
526 chabnock's works. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
them, iiTo doubt but he that ' calls the stars of heaven by their names,' Ps.
cxlvii. 4, knows the number of those hving stars that sparkle in the firma-
ment of his church. He cannot be ignorant of their persons, when he num-
bers the hairs of their heads, and hath registered their names in the book of
life. As he only had an infinite mercy to make the choice, so he only hath
an infinite understanding to comprehend then- persons. We only know the
elect of God by a moral assurance in the judgment of charity, when the con-
versation of men is according to the doctrine of God. We have not an in-
faUible knowledge of them, we may be often mistaken ; Judas, a devil, may
be judged by man for a saint, till he be stripped of his disguise. God only
hath an infaUible knowledge of them ; he knows his own records, and the
counterparts in the hearts of his people. None can counterfeit his seal, nor
can any raze it out. When the church is either scattered like dust by per-
secution, or overgrown with superstition and idolatiy, that there is scarce
any gi-ain of true rehgion appearing, as in the time of Elijah, who complained
that he was left alone, as if the church had been rooted out of that corner of
the world, 1 Kings xix. 1-i, 18, yet God knew that he had a number fed in
a cave, and had reserved ' seven thousand men ' that had preseiwed the
purity of his worship, and * not bowed their knee to Baal.' * Christ knew his
sheep as well as he is known of them, yea, better than they can know him.
History acquaints us that Cp'us had so vast a memory that he knew the name
of every particular soldier in his army, which consisted of divers nations.
Shall it be too hard for an infinite understanding to know every one of that
host that march under his banners ? May he not as well know them as
know the number, qualities, influences of those stars which lie concealed
from our eye, as well as those that are visible to our sense ? Yes, he knows
them, as a general, to employ them, as a shepherd, to preserve them. He
knows them in the world to guard them, and he knows them, when they are
out of the world, to gather them, and cull out then- bodies, though ^vl•apped
up in a cloud of the putiified carcasses of the wicked. As he knew them
fi-om aU eternity to elect them, so he knows them in time to clothe their
persons with righteousness, to protect their persons in calamity, according
to his good pleasui-e, and at last to raise and reward them according to his
promise.
4. We may take comfort from hence, that our sincerity cannot be un-
known to an infinite understanding. Not a way of the righteous is con-
cealed from him, and therefore they shall ' stand in judgment before him.'
Ps. i, 6, ' The Lord knows the way of the righteous ;' he knows them to
observe them, and he knows them to reward them. How comfortable is it
to appeal to this attribute of God for our integi'ity, with Hezekiah : 2 Kings
XX. 3, ' Piemember, Lord, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with
a perfect heart.' Christ himself is brought in this prophetical psalm draw-
ing out the comfort of this attribute : Ps. xl. 9, ' I have not refrained my
lips, 0 Lord, thou knowest,' meaning his faithfulness in declaring the
righteousness of God. Job follows the same steps : * Also now, behold, my
record is in heaven, and my witness is on high,' Job xvi. 19; my inno-
cence hath the testimony of men, but my greatest support is in the records
of God. Also noic, or besides the testimony of my own heart, I have
another witness in heaven that knows the heart, and can only judge of the
principles of my actions, and clear me from the scorn of my friends, and
the accusations of men, with a justification of my innocence. He repeats
it twice, to take the greater comfort in it. God knows that we do that
in the simplicity of our hearts, which may be judged by men to be done for
* Turrettine's Sermons, p. 3G2.
Ps. CXLVII. 5. J god's knowledge. 527
unworthy and sordid ends?. He knows not only tbe outward action, but the
inward afl'ection, and praises that which men often dispraise ; and writes
down that with an euf/e, ' Well done, good and fiiithful servant,' which men
daub with their severest censures, Kom. ii. 29. How refreshing is it to
consider that God never mistakes the appearance for reality, nor is led by
the judgment of man ! He sits in heaven, and laughs at their follies and
censures. If God had no sounder and no more piercing a judgment than
man, woe be to the sincerest souls, that are often judged hypocrites by some.
What a happiness is it for integrity to have a judge of infinite understanding,
who will one day wipe otf the dirt of worldly reproaches !
^ 'Again, God knows the least dram of grace and righteousness in the
hearts of his people, though but as a ' smoking flax,' or as the least bruise
of a saving conviction. Mat. xii. 20, and knows it so as to cherish it. He
knows that work he hath begun, and never hath his eye off from it to
abandon it.
5. The consideration of this excellent perfection in God may comfort us
in our secret prayers, sighs, and works. If God were not of infinite under-
standing, to pierce into the heart, what comfort hath a poor creature that
hath a scantiness of expressions, but a heart in a flame ? If God did not
understand the heart, faith and prayer, which are internal works, would be
in vain. How could he give that mercy our hearts plead for, if he were
ignorant of our inward affections ? Hypocrites might scale heaven by lofty
expressions, and a sincere soul come short of the happiness he is prepared
for, for want of flourishing gifts. Prayer is an internal work, words are but
the garment of prayer; meditation is the bod}', and affections the soul and
life, of prayer : ' Give ear to my words, 0 Lord ; consider my meditation,'
Ps. V. 1. Prayer is a rational act, an act of the mind, not the act of a
parrot ; prayer is an act of the heart, though the speaking prayer is the
work of the tongue. Now, God gives ear to the words, but he considers
the meditation, the frame of the heart. Consideration is a more exact
notice than hearing, the act only of the ear. Were not God of an infinite
understanding, an omniscient, he might take fine clothes, a heap of garments,
for the man himself, and be put off by glittering words, without a spiritual
frame. What matter of rejoicing is it, that we call not upon a deaf and
ignorant idol, but on one that listens to our secret petitions to give them a
despatch, that knows our desires afar off, and from the infiniteness of his
mercy, joined with his omniscience, stands ready to give us a return !
Hath he not a book of remembrance for them that fear him, and for their
sighs and ejaculations to him as well as their discourses of him, Mai. iii. 16;
and not only what prayers they utter, but what gracious and holy thoughts
they have of him, ' that thought upon his name' ? Though millions of sup-
plications be put up at the same time, yet they have all a distinct file (as I
may say) in an infinite understanding, which perceives and comprehends
them all. As he observes millions of sins committed at the same time by
a vast number of persons, to record them in order to punishment, so he dis-
tinctly discerns an infinite number of cries ai the same moment to register
them in order to an answer.
A sigh cannot escape an infinite understanding, though crowded among a
mighty multitude of cries from others, or covered with many unwelcome
distractions in ourselves, no more than a believing touch from the woman
that had the bloody issue could be concealed from Christ, and be undiscerned
from the press of the thronging multitudes. Our groans are as audible and
intelligible to him as our words, and he knows what is the mind of his own
Spirit, though expressed in no plainer language than sobs and heavings,
528 chaknock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
Rom. vili. 27. Thus David clieers up himself unrler the neglects of his
friends : Ps. xxxviii. 9, ' Lord, my desire is before thee ; and my groaning
is not hid from thee,' Not a groan of a panting spirit shall be lost till
God hath lost his knowledge, not a petition forgotten while God hath a
record, nor a tear dried while God hath a bottle to reserve it in, Ps. Ivi. 8.
Our secret works are also known and observed by him, not only our out-
ward labour, but our inward love in it, Heb. vi. 10. If with Isaac we go
privately into the field to meditate, or secretly * cast our bread upon the
waters,' he keeps his eye upon us to reward us, and returns the fruit into
our own bosoms, Mat. vi. 4, 6 ; yea, though it be but a cup of cold water,
from an inward spring of love given to a disciple. He sees your works and
your labours, and faith and patience in working them. Rev. ii. 2, all the
marks of j'our industry, and strength of your intentions, and will be as
exact at last in order to a due praise, as to open sins in order to a just
recompence, 1 Cor. iv. 5.
6. The consideration of this excellent attribute afibrds comfort in the
afflictions of good men. He knows their pressures, as well as hears their
cries, Exod. iii. 7. His knowledge comes not by information from us, but
his compassionate listening to our cries springs from his own inspection
into our sorrows; he is affected with them before we make discovery of
them. He is not ignorant of the best season, when they may be usefully
inflicted, and when they may be profitably removed. The tribulation and
poverty of his church is not unknown to him : Rev. ii. 8, 9, * I know thy
works and tribulation,' &c. He knows their works, and what tribulation
they meet with for him ; he sees their extremities, when they are toihng
against the wind and tide of the world, Mark vi. 48; yea, the natural
exigencies of the multitude are not neglected by him, he discerns to take
care of them. Our Saviour considered the three days' fasting of his fol-
lowers, and miraculously provides a dish for them in the wilderness. No
good man is ever out of God's mind, and therefore never out of his com-
passionate care ; his eye pierceth into their dungeons, and pities their
miseries. Joseph may forget his brethren, and the disciples not know
Christ when he walks upon the midnight waves and turbulent sea,* but
a lion's den cannot obscure a Daniel from his sight, nor the depths of the
whale's belly bury Jonah from the divine understanding. He discerns
Peter in his chains, and Stephen under the stones of martyrdom ; he knows
Lazarus under his tattered rags, and Abel wallowing in his blood ; his eye
and knowledge goes along witJa his people when they are transplanted into
foreign countries, and sold for slaves into the islands of the Grecians ; for
' he will raise them out of the place,' Joel iii. 6, 7. He would defeat the
hopes of the persecutors, and applaud the patience of his people. He
knows his people in the tabernacle of life, and in the ' valley of the shadow
of death,' Ps. xxiii. He knows all penal evils, because he commissions and
directs them. He knows the instruments, because they are his sword, Ps.
xvii. 13 ; and he knows his gracious sufferer, because he hath his mark.
He discerns Job in his anguish, and the devil in his malice. By the direc-
tion of this attribute he orders calamities, and rescues from them : ' Thou
hast seen it, for thou beholdest mischief and spite,' Ps. x. 14. That is the
comfort of the psalmist, and the comfort of every believer, and the ground
of committing themselves to God under all the injustice of men.
7. It is a comfort in all our infirmities. As he knows our sins to charge
them, so he knows the weakness of our nature to pity us. As his infinite
understanding may scare us, because he knows our transgressions, so it may
* Barlow's Man's Refuge, p. 29, 30.
Ps. CXLVII. 5. J ood's knowledge. 529
relieve us, because he knows our natural mutability in our first creation :
' He knows our frame, ho remembers that we are dust,' Ps. ciii. 14. It is
the reason of the precedent verses, why he removes our transgression from
us, why ho is so backward in punishing, so patient in waiting, so forward
in pitying ; why ? He doth not only remember our sins, but remember our
frame or forming, what brittle, though clear glasses wo are by creation, how
easy to be cracked. He remembers our impotent and weak condition by
corruption ; what a sink we have of vain imaginations that remain in us
after regeneration ; he doth not only consider that wo were made according
to his image, and therefore able to stand, but that we were made of dust and
weak matter, and had a sensitive soul, like that of beasts, as well as an
intellectual nature, like that of angels, and therefore liable to follow the
dictates of it without exact care and watchfulness. If he remembered only
the first, there would be no issue but indignation ; but the consideration of
the latter moves his compassion. How miserable should we be for want of
this perfection in the divine nature, whereby God remembers and reflects
upon his past act in our first frame, and the mindfulness of our condition
excites the motion of his bowels to us ! Had he lost the knowledge how he
first framed us, did he not still remember the mutability of our nature as we
were formed and stamped in his mint, how much more wretched would our
condition be than it is ! If his remembrance of our original be one ground
of his pity, the sense of his omniscience should be a ground of our comfort
in the stirring of our infirmities ; he remembers we were but dust when he
made us, and yet remembers we are but dust while he preserves and for-
bears us,
8. It is some comfort in the fears of some lurking corruption in our
hearts. We know by this whither to address ourselves for the search and
discovery of it. Perhaps some blessings we want are retarded, some cala-
mities we understand not the particular cause of are inflicted, some petitions
we have put up hang too long for an answer, and the chariot wheels of divine
goodness move slow, and are long in coming. Let us beg the aid of this
attribute to open to us the renioras, to discover what base affection there is
that retards the mercies we want, or attracts the aftiiction we feel, or bars
the door against the return of our supplications. What our dim sight cannot
discover, the clear eye of God can make visible to us. Job x. 2, ' Shew me
wherefore thou contendest with me.' As in want of pardon, we particularly
plead his mercy, and in our desires for the performance of his promise we
argue with him from his faithfulness, so in the fear of any insincerity or
hidden corruption we should implore his omniscience. For as God is a
God in covenant, our God, our God in the whole of his nature, so the per-
fections of his nature are employed in their several stations as assistances of
his creatures. This was David's practice and comfort. After that large
meditation on the omniscience and omnipresence of God, he turns his
thoughts of it into petitions for the employment of it in the concerns of his
soul, and begs a mercy suitable to the glory of this perfection : Ps. cxxxix. 23,
* Search me, 0 God, and try my heart ; try me, and know my thoughts ; '
dive to the bottom : ver. 24, ' And see if there be any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.' His desire is not barely that God
should know him, for it would be senseless to beg of God that he should
have mercy, or faithfulness, or power, or knowledge in his nature ; but he
desires the exercise of this attribute in the discovery of himself to himself,
in order to his sight of any wicked way, and humiliation for it, and reforma-
tion of it in order to his conduct to everlasting life. As we may appeal to
this perfection to judge us, when the sincerity of our actions is censured by
VOL. I.^ L 1
530 chaknock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
others, so we may implore it to search us when our sincerity is questioned
by ourselves, that our minds may be enlightened by a beam from his
knowledge, and the little thieves may be pulled out of their dens in our
hearts by the hand of his power. In particular, it is our comfort that we
can, and our necessity that we must, address particularly to this, when we
engage solemnly in a work of self-examination ; that we may have a clearer
eye to direct us than our own, that we may not mistake bi'ass for gold, or
counterfeit graces for true ; that nothing that is filthy and fit to be cast out
may escape our sight, and preserve its stations. And we need not question
the laying at the door of this neglect (viz., not calling in this attribute to
our aid, whose proper office it is, as I may so say, to search and inquire) all
the mistakes, ill success, and fi'uitlessness of our endeavours in self-exami-
nation,1 because we would engage in it in the pitiful strength of our own
dimness, and. not in the light of God's countenance, and the assistance of
his eye, which can discern what we cannot see, and discover that to us
which we cannot manifest to ourselves. It is a comfort to a learner of an
art, to have a skilful eye to overlook his work, and inform him of the
defects. Beg the help of the eye of God in all your searches and self-
examinations.
9. The consideration of this attribute is comfortable in our assurances of,
and reflections upon, the pardon of sin, or seeking of it. As God punishes
men for sin according to his knowledge of them, which is greater than
the knowledge their own consciences have of them, so he pardons accord-
ing to his knowledge. He pardons not only according to our know-
ledge, but according to his own. He is greater than any man's heart,
to condemn for that which a man is at present ignorant of, and greater
than our hearts, to pardon that which is not at present visible to us ;
he knows that which the most watchful conscience cannot take a survey
of. If God had not an infinite understanding of us, how could we have a
perfect and full pardon from him ? It would not stand with his honour
to pardon he knew not what. He knows what crimes we have to be pardoned,
when we know not all of them ourselves, that stand in need of a gracious
remission ; his omniscience beholds every sin, to charge it upon our Saviour.
If he knows our sins that are black, he knows every mite of Christ's
righteousness, which is pure, and the utmost extent of his merits, as well as
the demerit of our iniquities. As he knows the filth of our sin, he also
knows the covering of our Saviour ; he knows the value of the Kedeemer's
sufi'erings, and exactly understands every plea in the intercession of our
advocate. Though God knows our sins oculo indice, yet he doth not see
them oculo jucUce, with a judicial eye. His omniscience stirs not up his
justice to revenge, but his mercy to pity. His infinite understanding of
what Christ hath done directs him to disarm his justice, and sound an alarm
to his bowels. As he understands better than we what we have com-
mitted, so he understands better than we what our Saviour hath merited,
and his eye directs his hand in the blotting out guilt, and applying the remedy.
Use 3. The third use shall be to sinners to humble them, and put them
upon serious consideration. This attribute speaks terrible things to a pro-
fligate sinner. Basil thinks that the ripping open the sins of the damned to
their faces by this perfection of God is more ten-ible than their other tor-
ments in hell. God knows the persons of wicked men, not one is exempted
from his eye, he sees all the actions of men as well as he knows their per-
sons : Job xi. 11, 'He knows vain men, he sees wickedness also.' Job
xxxiv. 21, 'His eye is upon all their goings.' He hears the most private
whispers, Ps. cxxxix. 4 ; the scope, manner, circumstance of speaking he
Ps. CXLVII. 5. J god's knowledge. 681
knows it altogether ; ' be understands all our thoughts,' the first bubblings
of that bitter spring, ver. 2. The quickest glances of the fancy, the closest
musings of the mind, and the abortive wouldings or wishes of the will, the
language of the heart as well as the language of the tongue ; not a foolish
thought or an idle word, not a wanton glance or a dishonest action ; not a
negligent service, or a distracting faucj', but is more visible to him than the
filth of a dunghill can be to any man by the help of a sunbeam. How much
better would it be for desperate sinners to have their crimes known to all
angels in heaven, and men upon earth, and devils in hell, than that they
should be known to their sovereign, whose laws they have violated, and
to their judge, whose righteousness obligeth him to revenge the injury !
1. Consider, what a poor refuge is secrecy to a sinner ! Not the mists
of a foggy day, not the obscurity of the darkest^night, not the closest curtains,
nor the deepest dungeon, can hide any sin from the eye of God. Adam is
known in his thickets, and Jonah in his cabin. Achan's wedge of gold is
discerned by him, though buried in the earth, and hooded with a tent.
Shall Sarah be unseen by him, when she mockingly laughs behind the door ?
Shall Gehazi tell a lie, and comfort himself with an imagination of his master's
ignorance, as long as God knows it ? Whatsoever works men do, are not
hid from God, whether done in the darkness or daylight, in the midnight
darkness or the noonday sun. He is all eye to see, and he hath a great
wrath to punish. The wheels in Ezekiel are full of eyes : a piercing eye to
behold the sinner, and a swift wheel of wrath to overtake him. God is light,
and of all things light is most difficultly kept out. The ' secretest sins are
set in the light of his countenance,' Ps. xc. 8, as legible to him as if writ with
a sunbeam ; more visible to him than the greatest print to the sharpest eye.
The fornications of the Samaritan woman, perhaps known only to her own
conscience, were manifest to Christ, John iv. 16. There is nothing so
secretly done, but there is an infallible witness to prepare a charge. Though
God be invisible to us, we must not imagine we are so to him ; it is a vanity
therefore to think we can conceal ourselves from God, by concealing the
notions of God from our sense and practice. If men be as close from the
eyes of all men, as from those of the sun ; yea, if they could separate them-
selves from their own shadow ; they could not draw themselves from God's
understanding. How then can darkness shelter us, or crafty artifices de-
fend us ? With what shame will sinners be filled, when God, who hath
traced their steps, and writ their sins in a book, shall make a repetition of
their ways, and unveil the web of their wickedness.
2. What a dreadful consideration is this to the juggling hypocrite, that
masks himself with an appearance of piety ! An infinite understanding
judges not according to the veils and shadows, but according to truth : ' He
judges not according to appearance,' 1 Sam. xvi. 7. The outward comeli-
ness of a work imposeth not on him ; his knowledge, and therefore his esti-
mations, are quite of another nature than those of men. By this perfection
God looks through the veil, and beholds the litter of abominations in the
secrets of the soul, the true quality and principle of every work, and judges
of them as they are, and not as they appear. Disguised pretexts cannot
deceive him ; the disguises are known afar ofi" before they are weaved, he
pierceth into the depths of the most abstruse wills ; all secret ends are dis-
sected before. Every action is naked in its outside, and open in its inside,
all are as clear to him as if their bodies were of crystal, so that if there be
any secret reserves, he will certainly reprove us. Job xiii. 10. We are often
deceived, we may take wolves for sheep, and hypocrites for believers ; for
the eyes of men are no better than flesh, and dive no further than appear-
532 chaknock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
ance ; but an infinite understanding, that fathoms the secret depths of the
heart, is too knowing to let a dream pass for a truth, or mistake a shadow
for a body. Though we call God Father all our days, speak the language of
angels, or be endowed with the gift of miracles, he can discern whether we
have his mark upon us ; he can espy the treason of Judas in a kiss ; Herod's
intent of murdering under a specious pretence of worship ; a Pharisee's
fraud under a broad philactery ; a ravenous wolf under the softness of a
sheep's skin ; and the devil in Samuel's mantle, or when he would shroud
himself among the sons of God, Job i, 6, 7. All the rooms of the heart,
and every atom of dust in the least chink of it, is clear to his eye. He can
strip sin from the fairest excuses, pierce into the heart with more ease than
the sun can through the thinnest cloud or vapour, and look through all
Ephraim's ingenious inventions to excuse his idolatry, Hosea v. 3. Hypocrisy
then is a senseless thing, since it cannot escape unmasking by an infinite
understanding. As all our force cannot stop his arm, when he is resolved
to punish, so all our sophistry cannot blind his understanding, when he
comes to judge. Woe to the hypocrite, for God sees him ; all his juggling
is open and naked to infinite understanding.
3. Is it not also a senseless thing to be careless of sins committed long
ago ? The old sins forgotten by men, stick fast in an infinite understanding.
Time cannot raze out that which hath been known from eternity. Why
should they be forgotten many years after they were acted, since they were
foreknown in an eternity before they were committed, or the criminal capable
to practise them ? Amalek must pay their arrears of their ancient unkind-
ness to Israel in the time of Saul, though the generation that committed
them were rotten in their graves, 1 Sam. xv. 2. Old sins are written in a
book, which lies always before God ; and not only our own sins, but the
sins of our fathers, to be requited upon their posterity : Isa. Ixv. 6, ' Behold
it is written.' What a vanity is it, then, to be regardless of the sins of an
age that went before us ; because they are in some measure out of our
knowledge, are they therefore blotted out of God's remembrance ? Sins are
bound up with him, as men do bonds, till they resolve to sue for the debt :
' The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up,' Hosea xiii. 12. As his foreknow-
ledge extends to all acts that shall be done, so his remembrance extends to
all acts that have been done. We may as well say, God foreknows nothing
that shall be done to the end of the world, as that he forgets any things that
hath been done from the beginning of the world. The former ages of the
world are no further distant from him than the latter. God hath a calendar
(as it were) or an account-book of men's sins ever since the beginning of
the world, what they did in their childhood, what in their youth, what in
their manhood, and what in their old age. He hath them 'in store among
his treasure,' Deut. xxxii. 34. He hath neither lost his understanding to
know them, nor his resolution to revenge them. As it follows : ver. 35,
* To me vengeance belongs.' He intends to enrich his justice with a glorious
manifestation, by rendering a due recompence. And it is to be observed,
that God doth not only necessarily remember them, but sometimes binds
himself by an oath to do it : Amos viii. 7, ' The Lord hath sworn by the
excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works ;' or in
the Hebrew, ' If I ever forget any of their works ;' that is, let me not be
accounted a God for ever, if I do forget ; let me lose my Godhead, if I lose
my remembrance. It is not less a misery to the wicked, than it is a com-
fort to the godly, that their record is in heaven.
4. Let it be observed, that this infinite understanding doth exactly know
the sins of men ; he knows so as to consider. He doth not only know them,
Ps. CXLVII. 5.j GODS KNOWLEDGE. 683
but intently behold them : Ps. xi. 4, ' His eyelids try the children of men,'
a metaphor taken from men, that contract the eyelids when they would
wistly and accurately behold a thing ; it is not a transient and careless
iook : Ps. X. 14, ' Thou hast seen it ;' thou hast intently beheld it, as the
word properly signifies. He beholds and knows the actions of every par-
ticular man, as if there were none but he in the world ; and doth not only
know, but ponder, Prov. v. 21, and ' consider their works,' Ps. xxxiii. 15.
He is not a bare spectator, but a diligent observer : * By him actions are
weighed,' 1 Sam. ii. 3, to see what degree of good or evil there is in
them, what there is to blemish them, what to advantage them, what the
quality and quantity of every action is. Consideration takes in every cir-
cumstance of the considered object. Notice is taken of the place where, the
minute when, the mercy against which it is committed ; the number of them
is exact in God's book : ' They have tempted me now these ten times,'
Num. xiv. 22, against the demonstrations of my glory in Egypt and the
wilderness. The whole guilt in every circumstance is spread before him. His
knowledge of men's sins is not confused, such an imperfection an infinite
understanding cannot be subject to ; it is exact, for ' iniquity is marked before
him,' Jer. ii. 22,
5. God knows men's miscarriage so as to judge. This use his omni-
science is put to, to^maintain his sovereign authority in the exercise of his
justice. His notice of the sins of men is in order to a just retribution : Ps.
X. 14, ' Thou hast seen mischief, to requite it with thy hand.' The eye of
his knowledge directs the hand of his justice, and no sinful action that falls
under his cognizance but will fall under his revenge ; they can as little
escape his censure as they can his knowledge. He is a witness in his
omniscience, that he may be a judge in his righteousness. ' He knows the
hearts of the wicked ' so as to hate their works, and testify his abhorrency
of that which is of high value with men, Luke xvi. 15. Sin is not pre-
served in his understanding, or written down in his books to be moth-eaten
as an old manuscript, but to be opened one day and copied out in the con-
sciences of men. He writes them to pubhsh them, and sets them in the
light of his countenance, to bring them to the light of their consciences. What
a terrible consideration is it, to think that the sins of a day are upon record
in an infallible understanding, much more the sins of a week. What a num-
ber, then, do the sins of a month, a year, ten or forty years arise to ! How
many actions against charity, against sincerity ! What an infinite number
is there of them, all bound up in the court-rolls of God's omniscience, in
order to a trial, to be brought out before the eyes of men ! Who can seri-
ously consider all those bonds, reserved in the cabinet of God's knowledge,
to be sued out against the sinner in due time, without an unexpressible
horror ?
Use 4. The fourth use is of exhortation. Let us have a sense of God's
knowledge upon our hearts. All wickedness hath a spring from a want of
due consideration and sense of it. David concludes it so, Ps. Ixxxvi. 14 ;
the proud rose up against him, and violent men sought after his soul, be-
cause they did not set God before them. They think God doth not know,
and therefore care not what nor how they act. When the fear of this attri-
bute is removed, a door is opened to all impiety. What is there so villan-
ous but the minds of men will attempt to act ? What reverence of a Deity
can be left, when the sense of his infinite understanding is extinguished ?
What faith could there be in judgment, in witnesess? How would the
foundations of human society be overturned ! the pillars upon which com-
merce stands be utterly broken and dissolved ! What society can be
534 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLVII. 5.
preserved if this be not truly believed and faithfully stuck to ? But how
easily would oaths be swallowed and quickly violated if the sense of this
perfection were rooted out of the minds of men ! What fear could they
have of calling to witness a being they imagine blind and ignorant ? Men
secretly imagine that God knows not, or soon forgets, and then make bold
to sin against him, Ezek. viii. 12. How much does it therefore concern us
to cherish and keep alive the sense of this? If God 'writes us upon the
palms of his hands,' as the expression is, to remember us, let us engrave
him upon the tables of our hearts to remember him. It would be a good
motto to write upon our minds, God knows all, he is of infinite under-
standing.
1. This would give check to much iniquity. Can a man's conscience
easily and delightfully swallow that which he is sensible falls under the
cognizance of God, when it is hateful to the eye of his holiness, and renders
the actor odious to him ? ' Doth he not see my ways, and count all my
steps,' saith Job, chap. xxxi. 4. To what end doth he fix this considera-
tion ? To keep him from wanton glances. Temptations have no encour-
agement to come near him that is constantly armed with the thoughts that
his sin is booked in God's omniscience. If any impudent devil hath the
face to tempt us, we should not have the impudence to join issue with him
under the sense of an infinite understanding. How fruitless would his
wiles be against this consideration ! How easily would his snares be
cracked by one sensible thought of this ! This doth Solomon prescribe to
allay the heat of carnal imaginations, Prov. v. 20, 21. It were a useful
question to ask at the appearance of every temptation, at the entrance upon
every action, as the church did in temptations to idolatry, Ps. xliv. 21,
' Shall not God search this out, for he knows the secrets of the heart ? '
His understanding comprehends us more than our consciences can our acts,
or our understanding our thoughts. Who durst speak treason against a
prince if he were sure he heard him, or that it would come to his know-
ledge ? A sense of God's knowledge of wickedness in the first motion and
inward contrivance would bar the accomplishment and execution. The con-
sideration of God's infinite understanding would cry Stand to the first glances
of the heart to sin.
2. It would make us watchful over our hearts and thoughts. Should we
harbour any unworthy thoughts in our cabinet, if our heads and hearts were
possessed with this useful truth, that God knows everything which comes
into our minds, we should as much blush at the rising of impure thoughts
before the understanding of. God as at the discovery of unworthy actions to
the knowledge of men. If we lived under a sense that not a thought of all
those millions which flutter about our minds can be concealed from him,
how watchful and careful should we be of our hearts and thoughts !
3. It would be a good preparation to every duty. This consideration
should be the preface to every service, — The divine understanding knows
how I now act. This would engage us to serious intention, and quell wan-
dering and distracting fancies. Who would come before God with a care-
less and ignorant soul, under a sense of his infinite understanding, and
prerogative of searching the heart ? ' 0 thou that sittest in heaven ' was
a consideration the psalmist had at the beginning of his prayer, Ps. cxxiii. 1,
whereby he testifies not only an apprehension of the majesty and power of
God, but of his omniscience, as one sitting above beholds all that is below.
Would we ofi'er to God such raw and undigested petitions; would there be
so much flatness in our services; should our hearts so often give us the
slip ; would any hang down their heads like a bulrush by an affected or
Ps. CXLVII. 5.] god's knowledgk. 535
counterfeit liumility while the heart is filled with pride, if we did actuate
faith in this attribute ? No ; our prayers would be more sound, our devo-
tions more vigorous, our hearts more close, our spirits like the chariots of
Amminadab, more swift in their motions. Everything would be done by ug
with all our might, which would be very feeble and faint if we conceived
God to be of a finite understanding like ourselves. Let us therefore before
every duty, not draw, but open the curtains between God and our souls,
and think that we are going before him that sees us, Gen. xvi. 13, before
him that knows us. And the stronger impressions of the divine knowledf^e
are upon our minds, the better would our preparation be for, and the more
active our frames in every service. And certainly we may judge of the suit-
ableness of our preparations by the strength of such impressions upon us.
4. This would tend to make us sincere in our whole course. This pre-
scription David gave to Solomon, to maintain a soundness and health of
spirit in his walk before God : 1 Chron. xxviii. 9, ' And thou Solomon, my
son, know the God of thy fathers, and serve him with a perfect heart; for
the Lord understands all the imaginations of the thoughts.' Josephus*
gives this reason for Abel's holiness, that he believed God was i<niorant of
nothing. As the doctrine of omniscience is the foundation of all reli-
gion, so the impression of it would promote the practice of all relif^ion.
When all our ways are imagined by us to be before the Lord, we shall
then keep his precepts, Ps. cxix. 168. And we can never be perfect or
sincere till we walk before God, Gen. xvii. 1, as under the eye of God's
knowledge. What we speak, what we think, what we act, is in his sic^ht.
He knows every place where we are, everything that we do, as well as Christ
knew Nathanael under the fig-tree. As he is too powerful to be vanquished,
so he is too understanding to be deceived. The sense of this would make
us walk with as much care as if the understanding of all men did compre-
hend us and our actions.
5. The consideration of this attribute would make us humble. How
dejected would a person be, if he were sure all the angels in heaven and men
upon earth did perfectly know his crimes, with all their aggravations ! But
what is created knowledge to an infinite and just censuring understanding ?
When we consider that he knows our actions, whereof there ai'e multitudes
and our thoughts, whereof there are millions ; that he views all the blessings
bestowed upon us, all the injuries we have returned to him ; that he exactly
knows his own bounty, and our ingratitude ; all the idolatry, blasphemy,
and secret enmity in every man's heart against him ; all tyrannical oppres-
sions, hidden lusts, omissions of necessary duties, violation of plain precepts
every foolish imagination, with all the circumstances of them, and that per-
fectly in their full anatomy, every mite of unworthiness and wickedness in
every circumstance ; and add to this his knowledge, the wonders of his
patience, which are miraculous upon the score of his omniscience, that he is
not as quick in his revenge as he is in his understanding, but is so far
from inflicting punishment that he continues his former benefits, arms not
his justice against us, but solicits our repentance, and waits to be gracious
with all this knowledge of our crimes : should not the consideration of this
melt our hearts into humiliation before him, and make us earnest in begging
pardon and forgiveness of him ?
Again, Do we not all find a worm in our best fruit, a flaw in our soundest
duties ? Shall any of us vaunt, as if God beheld only the gold, and not any
dross ; as if he knew one thing only, and not another. If we knew some-
thing by ourselves to cheer us, do we not also know something, yea, many
* Antiquit., lib. i. cap. 3.
536 charnock's works. [Ps. CXLYII. 5.
things, to condemn us, and therefore to humble us ? Let the sense of God's
infinite knowledge, therefore, be an incentive and argument for more humi-
liation in us. If we know enough to render ourselves vile in our own ej'es,
how much more doth God know to render us vile in his !
6. The consideration of this excellent perfection should make us to
acquiesce in God, and rely upon him in every strait. In public, in private,
he knows all cases, and he knows all remedies. He knows the seasons of
bringing them, and he knows the seasons of removing them, for his own
glory. What is contingent in respect of us, and of our foreknowledge, and
in respect of second causes, it is not so in regard of God's, who hath the
knowledge of the futurition of all things. He knows all causes in themselves,
and therefore knows what every cause will produce, what will be the event
of every counsel and of every action. How should we commit ourselves
to this God of infinite understanding, who knows all things, and foreknows
everything ; that cannot be forced through ignorance to take new counsel, or
be surprised with anything that can happen to us. This use the psalmist
makes of it : Ps. x. 14, ' Thou hast seen it, the poor committeth him-
self unto thee.' Though ' some trust in chariots and horses,' Ps. xx. 7,
some in counsels and counsellors, some in their arms and courage, and some
in mere vanity and nothing, yet let us ' remember the name' and nature * of
the Lord our God,' his divine perfections, of which this of his infinite under-
standing and omniscience is none of the least, but so necessary, that without
it he could not be God, and the whole world would be a mere chaos and
confusion.
END OF VOL. I.
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