The Existence and Attributes of God, Volumes 1 and 2 (part 7 of 7)

The Existence and Attributes of God, Volumes 1 and 2 (part 7 of 7)

3. Since it is a part of his mercy and goodness, it is not a constrained or faint‑hearted patience. It is not a slowness to anger, arising from a despondency of his own power to revenge. He hath as much power to punish as he hath to forbear punishment. He that created a world in six days, and that by a word, wants not a strength to crush all mankind in one minute; and with as much ease as a word imports, can give satisfaction to his justice in the blood of the offender. Patience in man is many times interpreted, and truly too, a cowardice, a feebleness of spirit, and a want of strength. But it is {b481} not from the shortness of the Divine arm, that he cannot reach us, nor from the feebleness of his hand, that he cannot strike us. It is not because he cannot level us with the dust, dash us in pieces like a potter’s vessel, or consume us as a moth. He can make the mightiest to fall before him, and lay the strongest at his feet the first moment of their crime. He that did not want a powerful word to create a world, cannot want a powerful word to dissolve the whole frame of it, and raze it out of being. It is not, therefore, out of a distrust of his own power, that he hath supported a sinful world for so many ages, and patiently borne the blasphemies of some, the neglects of others, and the ingratitude of all, without inflicting that severe justice which righteously he might have done; he wants no thunder to crush the whole generation of men, nor waters to drown them, nor earth to swallow them up. How easy is it for him to single out this or that particular person to be the object of his wrath, and not of his patience! What he hath done to one, he may to another; any signal judgment he hath sent upon one, is an evidence that he wants not power to inflict it upon all. Could he not make the motes in the air to choke us at every breath, rain thunderbolts instead of drops of water, fill the clouds with a consuming lightning, take off the reverence and fear of man, which he hath imprinted upon the creature, spirit our domestic beasts to be our executioners, unloose the tiles from the house‑top to brain us, or make the fall of a house to crush us? It is but taking out the pins, and giving a blast, and the work is done. And doth he want a power to do any of those things? It is not then a faint‑hearted, or feeble patience, that he exerciseth towards man.

4. Since it is not for want of power over the creature, it is from a fulness of power over himself. This is in the text, “The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power;” it is a part of his dominion over himself, whereby he can moderate, and rule his own affections according to the holiness of his own will. As it is the effect of his power, so it is an argument of his power; the greatness of the effect demonstrates the fulness and sufficiency of the cause. The more feeble any man is in reason the less command he hath over his passions, and he is the more heady to revenge. Revenge is a sign of a childish mind; the stronger any man is in reason, the more command he hath over himself. “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that rules his own spirit, than he that takes a city” (Prov. xvi. 32); he that can restrain his anger, is stronger than the Cæsars and Alexanders of the world, that have filled the earth with slain carcasses and ruined cities. By the same reason, God’s slowness to anger is a greater argument of his power than the creating a world, or the power of dissolving it by a word; in this he hath a dominion over creatures, in the other over himself; this is the reason he will not return to destroy; because “I am God, and not man” (Hos. xi. 9); I am not so weak and impotent as man, that cannot restrain his anger. This is a strength possessed only by a God, wherein a creature is no more able to parallel him, than in any other; so that he may be said to be the Lord of himself; as it is in the verse before the text, that he is the Lord of anger, in the Hebrew, instead of {b482} “furious,” as we translate it; so he is the Lord of patience. The end why God is patient, is to show his power. “What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long‑suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?” (Rom. ix. 22). To show his wrath upon sinners, and his power over himself in bearing such indignities, and forbearing punishment so long, when men were vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, of whom there was no hopes of amendment. Had he immediately broken in pieces those vessels, his power had not so eminently appeared as it hath done, in tolerating them so long, that had provoked him to take them off so often; there is indeed the power of his anger, and there is the power of his patience; and his power is more seen in his patience than in his wrath: it is no wonder that He that is above all, is able to crush all; but it is a wonder, that he that is provoked by all, doth not, upon the first provocation, rid his hands of all. This is the reason why he did bear such a weight of provocations from vessels of wrath, prepared for ruin, that he might γνωρίσαι τὸ δυνατὸν αὑτοῦ, show what he was able to do, the lordship and royalty he had over himself. The power of God is more manifest in his patience to a multitude of sinners, than it would be in creating millions of worlds out of nothing; this was the δυνατὸν αὑτοῦ, a power over himself.

5. This patience being a branch of mercy, the exercise of it is founded in the death of Christ. Without the consideration of this, we can give no account why Divine patience should extend itself to us, and not to the fallen angels. The threatening extends itself to us as well as to the fallen angels; the threatening must necessarily have sunk man, as well as those glorious creatures, had not Christ stepped in to our relief. Had not Christ interposed to satisfy the justice of God, man upon his sin had been actually bound over to punishment, as well as the fallen angels were upon theirs, and been fettered in chains as strong as those spirits feel.[1029] The reason why man was not hurled into the same deplorable condition upon his sin, as they were, is Christ’s promise of taking our nature, and not theirs. Had God designed Christ’s taking their nature, the same patience had been exercised towards them, and the same offers would have been made to them, as are made to us. In regard to these fruits of this patience, Christ is said to buy the wickedest apostates from him: “Denying the Lord that bought them” (1 Pet. ii. 1). Such were bought by him, as “bring upon themselves just destruction, and whose damnation slumbers not” (ver. 3); he purchased the continuance of their lives, and the stay of their execution, that offers of grace might be made to them. This patience must be either upon the account of the law, or the gospel; for there are no other rules, whereby God governs the world. A fruit of the law it was not; that spake nothing but curses after disobedience; not a letter of mercy was writ upon that, and therefore nothing of patience; death and wrath were denounced; no slowness to anger intimated. It must be therefore upon account of the gospel, and a fruit of the covenant of grace, whereof Christ was Mediator. Besides this perfection {b483} being God’s “waiting that he might be gracious” (Isa. xxx. 18), that which made way for God’s grace made way for his waiting to manifest it. God discovered not his grace, but in Christ; and therefore discovered not his patience but in Christ; it is in him he met with the satisfaction of his justice, that he might have a ground for the manifestation of his patience. And the sacrifices of the law, wherein the life of a beast was accepted for the sin of man, discovered the ground of his forbearance of them to be the expectation of the great Sacrifice, whereby sin was to be completely expiated (Gen. viii. 21). The publication of his patience to the end of the world is presently after the sweet savor he found in Noah’s sacrifice. The promised and designed coming of Christ, was the cause of that patience God exercised before in the world; and his gathering the elect together, is the reason of his patience since his death.

6. The naturalness of his veracity and holiness, and the strictness of his justice, are no bars to the exercise of his patience.

(1.) His veracity. In those threatenings where the punishment is expressed, but not the time of inflicting it prefixed and determined in the threatening, his veracity suffers no damage by the delaying execution; so it be once done, though a long time after, the credit of his truth stands unshaken: as when God promises a thing without fixing the time, he is at liberty to pitch upon what time he pleases for the performance of it, without staining his faithfulness to his word, by not giving the thing promised presently. Why should the deferring of justice upon an offender be any more against his veracity than his delaying an answer to the petitions of a suppliant? But the difference will lie in the threatening. “In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die the death” (Gen. ii. 17). The time was there settled; “in that day thou shalt die;” some refer “day” to eating, not to dying; and render the sentence thus: I do not prohibit thee the eating this fruit for a day or two, but continually. In whatsoever day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die; but not understanding his dying that very day he should eat of it; referring “day” to the extensiveness of the prohibition, as to time. But to leave this as uncertain, it may be answered, that as in some threatenings a condition is implied, though not expressed, as in that positive denouncing of the destruction of Ninevah: “Yet forty days, and Ninevah shall be destroyed” (Jonah iii. 4), the condition is implied; unless they humble themselves, and repent; for upon their repentance, the sentence was deferred. So here, “in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die the death,” or certainly die, unless there be a way found for the expiation of thy crime, and the righting my honor. This condition, in regard of the event, may as well be asserted to be implied in this threatening, as that of repentance was in the other; or rather, “thou shalt die,” thou shalt die spiritually, thou shalt lose that image of mine in thy nature, that righteousness which is as much the life of thy soul as thy soul is the life of thy body; that righteousness whereby thou art enabled to live to me and thy own happiness. What the soul is to the body, a quickening soul, that the image of God is to the soul, a quickening image. Or “thou shalt die the death,” or certainly die; thou shalt be liable to death. {b484} And so it is to be understood, not of an actual death of the body, but the merit of death, and the necessity of death; thou wilt be obnoxious to death, which will be avoided, if thou dost forbear to eat of the forbidden fruit; thou shalt be a guilty person, and so under a sentence of death, that I may, when I please, inflict it on thee.[1030] Death did come upon Adam that day, because his nature was vitiated; he was then also under an expectation of death, he was obnoxious to it, though that day it was not poured out upon him in the full bitterness and gall of it: as when the apostle saith, “The body is dead because of sin” (Rom. viii. 10), he speaks to the living, and yet tells them the body was dead because of sin; he means no more than that it was under a sentence, and so a necessity of dying, though not actually dead; so thou shalt be under the sentence of death that day, as certainly as if that day thou shouldst sink into the dust: and as by his patience towards man, not sending forth death upon him in all the bitter ingredients of it, his justice afterwards was more eminent upon man’s surety, than it would have been if it had been then employed in all its severe operations upon man. So was his veracity eminent also in making good this threatening, in inflicting the punishment included in it upon our nature assumed by a mighty Person, and upon that Person in our nature, who was infinitely higher than our nature.

(2.) His justice and righteousness are not prejudiced by his patience. There is a hatred of the sin in his holiness, and a sentence past against the sin in his justice, though the execution of that sentence be suspended, and the person reprieved by patience, which is implied (Eccles. viii. 11): “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily; therefore, the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil;” sentence is past, but a speedy execution is stopped. Some of the heathens, who would not imagine God unjust, and yet, seeing the villanies and oppressions of men in the world remain unpunished, and frequently beholding prosperous wickedness, to free him from the charge of injustice, denied his providence and actual government of the world; for if he did take notice of human affairs, and concern himself in what was done upon the earth, they could not think an Infinite Goodness and Justice could be so slow to punish oppressors, and relieve the miserable, and leave the world in that disorder under the injustice of men: they judged such a patience as was exercised by him, if he did govern the world, was drawn out beyond the line of fit and just. Is it not a presumption in men to prescribe a rule of righteousness and conveniency to their Creator? It might be demanded of such, whether they never injured any in their lives; and when certainly they have one way or another, would they not think it a very unworthy, if not unjust, thing, that a person so injured by them should take a speedy and severe revenge on them?――and if every man should do the like, would there not be a speedy despatch made of mankind? Would not the world be a shambles, and men rush forwards to one another’s destructions, for the wrongs they have mutually received? If it be accounted a virtue in man, and no unrighteousness, not presently {b485} to be all on fire against an offence; by what right should any question the inconsistency of God’s patience with his justice? Do we praise the lenity of parents to children, and shall we disparage the long‑suffering of God to men? We do not censure the righteousness of physicians and chirurgeons, because they cut not off a corrupt member this day as well as to‑morrow? And is it just to asperse God, because he doth defer his vengeance which man assumes to himself a right to do? We never account him a bad governor that defers the trial, and consequently the condemnation and execution of a notorious offender for important reasons, and beneficial to the public, either to make the nature of his crime more evident, or to find out the rest of his complices by his discovery. A governor, indeed, were unjust, if he commanded that which were unrighteous, and forbade that which were worthy and commendable; but if he delays the execution of a convict offender for weighty reasons, either for the benefit of the state whereof he is the ruler, or for some advantage to the offender himself, to make him have a sense of, and a regret for his offence, we account him not unjust for this. God doth not by his patience dispense with the holiness of his law, nor cut off anything from its due authority. If men do strengthen themselves by his long‑suffering against his law, it is their fault, not any unrighteousness in him; he will take a time to vindicate the righteousness of his own commands, if men will wholly neglect the time of his patience, in forbearing to pay a dutiful observance to his precept. If justice be natural to him, and he cannot but punish sin, yet he is not necessitated to consume sinners, as the fire doth stubble put into it, which hath no command over its own qualities to restrain them from acting; but God is a free agent, and may choose his own time for the distribution of that punishment his nature leads him to. Though he be naturally just, yet it is not so natural to him, as to deprive him of a dominion over his own acts, and a freedom in the exerting them what time he judgeth most convenient in his wisdom. God is necessarily holy, and is necessarily angry with sin; his nature can never like it, and cannot but be displeased with it; yet he hath a liberty to restrain the effects of this anger for a time, without disgracing his holiness, or being interpreted to act unrighteously; as well as a prince or state may suspend the execution of a law, which they will never break, only for a time and for a public benefit. If God should presently execute his justice, this perfection of patience, which is a part of his goodness, would never have an opportunity of discovery; part of his glory, for which he created the world, would lie in obscurity from the knowledge of his creature; his justice would be signal in the destruction of sinners, but this stream of his goodness would be stopped up from any motion. One perfection must not cloud another; God hath his seasons to discover all, one after another: “The times and seasons are in his own power” (Acts i. 7): the seasons of manifesting his own perfections as well as other things; succession of them, in their distinct appearance, makes no invasion upon the rights of any. If justice should complain of an injury from patience, because it is delayed, patience hath more reason to complain {b486} of an injury from justice, that by such a plea it would be wholly obscured and inactive: for this perfection hath the shortest time to act its part of any, it hath no stage but this world to move in; mercy hath a heaven, and justice a hell, to display itself to eternity, but long‑suffering hath only a short‑lived earth for the compass of its operation. Again, justice is so far from being wronged by patience, that it rather is made more illustrious, and hath the fuller scope to exercise itself; it is the more righted for being deferred, and will have stronger grounds than before for its activity; the equity of it will be more apparent to every reason, the objections more fully answered against it, when the way of dealing with sinners by patience hath been slighted. When this dam of long‑suffering is removed, the floods of fiery justice will rush down with more force and violence; justice will be fully recompensed for the delay, when, after patience is abused, it can spread itself over the offender with a more unquestionable authority; it will have more arguments to hit the sinner in the teeth with, and silence him; there will be a sharper edge for every stroke; the sinner must not only pay for the score of his former sins, but the score of abused patience, so that justice hath no reason to commence a suit against God’s slowness to anger: what it shall want by the fulness of mercy upon the truly penitent, it will gain by the contempt of patience on the impenitent abusers. When men, by such a carriage, are ripened for the stroke of justice, justice may strike without any regret in itself, or pull‑back from mercy; the contempt of long‑suffering will silence the pleas of the one, and spirit the severity of the other. To conclude: since God hath glorified his justice on Christ, as a surety for sinners, his patience is so far from interfering with the rights of his justice, that it promotes it; it is dispensed to this end, that God might pardon with honor, both upon the score of purchased mercy and contented justice; that by a penitent sinner’s return his mercy might be acknowledged free, and the satisfaction of his justice by Christ be glorified in believing: for he is long‑suffering from an unwillingness “that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. iii. 9); i. e. all to whom the promise is made, for to such the apostle speaks, and calls it “long‑suffering to us‑ward;” and repentance being an acknowledgment of the demerit of sin, and a breaking off unrighteousness, gives a particular glory to the freeness of mercy, and the equity of justice.

II. The second thing, How this patience or slowness to anger is manifested.

1. To our first parents. His slowness to anger was evidenced in not directing his artillery against them, when they first attempted to rebel. He might have struck them dead when they began to bite at the temptation, and were inclinable to a surrender; for it was a degree of sinning, and a breach of loyalty as well, though not so much as the consummating act. God might have given way to the floods of his wrath at the first spring of man’s aspiring thoughts, when the monstrous motion of being as God began to be curdled in his heart; but he took no notice of any of their embryo sins till they came to a ripeness, and started out of the womb of their minds into the open {b487} air: and after he had brought his sin to perfection, God did not presently send that death upon him, which he had merited, but continued his life to the space of 930 years (Gen. v. 5). The sun and stars were not arrested from doing their office for him. Creatures were continued for his use, the earth did not swallow him up, nor a thunderbolt from heaven raze out the memory of him. Though he had deserved to be treated with such a severity for his ungrateful demeanor to his Creator and Benefactor, and affecting an equality with him, yet God continued him with a sufficiency for his content, after he turned rebel, though not with such a liberality as when he remained a loyal subject; and though he foresaw that he would not make an end of sinning, but with an end of living, he used him not in the same manner as he had used the devils. He added days and years to him, after he had deserved death, and hath for this 5,000 years continued the propagation of mankind, and derived from his loins an innumerable posterity, and hath crowned multitudes of them with hoary heads. He might have extinguished human race at the first; but since he hath preserved it till this day, it must be interpreted nothing else but the effect of an admirable patience.

2. His slowness to anger is manifest to the Gentiles. What they were, we need no other witness than the apostle Paul, who sums up many of their crimes (Rom. i. 29‒32). He doth preface the catalogue with a comprehensive expression, “Being filled with all unrighteousness;” and concludes it with a dreadful aggravation, “They not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” They were so soaked and naturalized in wickedness, that they had no delight, and found no sweetness in anything else but what was in itself abominable; all of them were plunged in idolatry and superstition; none of them but either set up their great men, or creatures, beneficial to the world, and some the damned spirits in his stead, and paid an adoration to insensible creatures or devils, which was due to God. Some were so depraved in their lives and actions, that it seemed to be the interest of the rest of the world, that they should have been extinguished for the instruction of their contemporaries and posterity. The best of them had turned all religion into a fable, coined a world of rites, some unnatural in themselves, and most of them unbecoming a rational creature to offer, and a Deity to accept: yet he did not presently arm himself against them with fire and sword, nor stopped the course of their generations, nor tear out all those relics of natural light which were left in their minds. He did not do what he might have done, but he winked at the “times of that ignorance” (Acts xvii. 30), their ignorant idolatry; for that it refers to (ver. 29): “They thought the Godhead was like to gold or silver, or stone graven by art, and men’s device;” ὑπεριδὼν, overlooking them. He demeaned himself so, as if he did not take notice of them. He winked as if he did not see them, and would not deal so severely with them: the eye of his justice seemed to wink, in not calling them to an account for their sin.

3. His slowness to anger is manifest to the Israelites. You know how often they are called a “stiff‑necked people;” they are said to do evil “from their youth;” i. e. from the time wherein they were {b488} erected a nation and commonwealth; and that “the city had been a provocation of his anger, and of his fury, from the day that they built it, even to this day;” i. e. the day of Jeremiah’s prophecy, “that he should remove it from before his face” (Jer. xxxii. 31): from the days of Solomon, say some, which is too much a curtailing of the text, as though their provocations had taken date no higher than from the time of Solomon’s rearing the temple, and beautifying the city, whereby it seemed to be a new building. They began more early; they scarce discontinued their revolting from God; they were a “grief to him forty years together in the wilderness” (Ps. xcv. 10), “yet he suffered their manners” (Acts xiii. 18). He bore with their ill‑behaviour and sauciness towards him; and no sooner was Joshua’s head laid, and the elders, that were their conductors, gathered to their fathers, but the next generation forsook God, and smutted themselves with the idolatry of the nations (Judges ii. 7, 10, 11): and when he punished them by prospering the arms of their enemies against them, they were no sooner delivered upon their cry and humiliation, but they began a new scene of idolatry; and though he brought upon them the power of the Babylonian empire, and laid chains upon them to bring them to their right mind. And at seventy years’ end he struck off their chains, by altering the whole posture of affairs in that part of the world for their sakes: overturning one empire, and settling another for their restoration to their ancient city. And though they did not after disown him for their God, and set up “Baal in his throne,” yet they multiplied foolish traditions, whereby they impaired the authority of the law; yet he sustained them with a wonderful patience, and preferred them before all other people in the first offers of the gospel; and after they had outraged not only his servants, the prophets, but his Son, the Redeemer, yet he did not forsake them, but employed his apostles to solicit them, and publish among them the doctrine of salvation: so that his treating this people might well be called “much long‑suffering,” it being above 1500 years, wherein he bore with them, or mildly punished them, far less than their deserts; their coming out of Egypt being about the year of the world 2450, and their final destruction as a commonwealth, not till about forty years after the death of Christ; and all this while his patience did sometimes wholly restrain his justice, and sometimes let it fall upon them in some few drops, but made no total devastation of their country, nor wrote his revenge in extraordinary bloody characters, till the Roman conquest, wherein he put a period to them both as a church and state. In particular this patience is manifest,

1st. In his giving warnings of judgments, before he orders them to go forth. He doth not punish in a passion, and hastily; he speaks before he strikes, and speaks that he may not strike. Wrath is published before it is executed, and that a long time; an hundred and twenty years’ advertisement was given to a debauched world before the heavens were opened, to spout down a deluge upon them. He will not be accused of coming unawares upon a people; he inflicts nothing but what he foretold either immediately to the people that provoke him, or anciently to them that have been their forerunners {b489} in the same provocation (Hos. vii. 12), “I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard.” Many of the leaves of the Old Testament are full of those presages and warnings of approaching judgment. These make up a great part of the volume of it in various editions, according to the state of the several provoking times. Warnings are given to those people that are most abominable in his sight (Zeph. ii. 1, 2); “Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired,”――it is a Meiosis, O nation abhorred,――“before the decree bring forth.” He sends his heralds before he sends his armies; he summons them by the voice of his prophets, before he confounds them by the voice of his thunders. When a parley is beaten, a white flag of peace is hung out, before a black flag of fury is set up. He seldom cuts down men by his judgments, before he hath “hewed them by his prophets” (Hos. vi. 5). Not a remarkable judgment but was foretold: the flood to the old world by Noah; the famine to Egypt by Joseph; the earthquake by Amos (ch. i. 1); the storm from Chaldea by Jeremiah; the captivity of the ten tribes by Hosea; the total destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by Christ himself. He hath chosen the best persons in the world to give those intimations; Noah, the most righteous person on the earth, for the old world; and his Son, the most beloved person in heaven, for the Jews in the later time: and in other parts of the world, and in the later times, where he hath not warned by prophets, he hath supplied it by prodigies in the air and earth; histories are full of such items from heaven. Lesser judgments are forewarners of greater, as lightnings before thunder are messengers to tell us of a succeeding clap.

(1.) He doth often give warning of judgments. He comes not to extremity, till he hath often shaken the rod over men; he thunders often, before he crusheth them with his thunderbolt; he doth not till after the first and second admonition punish a rebel, as he would have us reject a heretic. “He speaks once, yea, twice” (Job xxxiii. 14), “and man perceives it not;” he sends one message after another, and waits the success of many messages before he strikes. Eight prophets were ordered to acquaint the whole world with approaching judgment (2 Pet. ii. 5): he saved “Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly,” called “the eighth” in respect of his preaching, not in regard of his preservation; he was the eighth preacher in order, from the beginning of the world, that endeavored to restore the world to the way of righteousness. Most, indeed, consider him here as the eighth person saved, so do our translators; and, therefore, add person, which is not in the Greek. Some others consider him here as the eighth preacher of righteousness, reckoning Enoch, the son of Seth, the first, grounding it upon Gen. iv. 26: “Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord,” Heb. “Then it was began to call in the name of the Lord,” τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Κυρίου Θεοῦ. Sept. “He began to call in the name of the Lord,” which others render, “He began to preach, or call upon men in the name of the Lord.” The word קרא signifies to preach, or to call upon men by preaching (Prov. i. 21): “Wisdom crieth,” or “preaches;” and if this be so, as it is very probable, it is easy to reckon him the eighth {b490} preacher, by numbering the successive heads of the generations (Gen. v.), beginning at Enoch, the first preacher of righteousness. So many there were before God choked the old world with water, and swept them away. It is clear he often did admonish, by his prophets, the Jews of their sin, and the wrath which should come upon them.[1031] One prophet, Hosea, prophesied seventy years; for he prophesied in the days of four kings of Judah, and one of Israel, Jeroboam, the son of Joash (Hos. i. 1), or Jeroboam, the second of that name. Uzziah, king of Judah, in whose reign Hosea prophesied, lived thirty‑eight years after the death of Jeroboam. The second Jotham, Uzziah’s successor, reigned sixteen years; Ahaz sixteen; Hezekiah twenty‑nine years. Now, take nothing of Hezekiah’s time, and date the beginning of his prophecy from the last year of Jeroboam’s reign, and the time of Hosea’s prophecy will be seventy years complete; wherein God warned those people, and waited the return particularly of Israel;[1032] and not less than five of those we call the Lesser Prophets, were sent to foretell the destruction of the ten tribes, and to call them to repentance,――Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah, Jonah; and though we have nothing of Jonah’s prophecy in this concern of Israel, yet that he lived in the time of the same Jeroboam, and prophesied things which are not upon record in the book of Jonah, is clear (2 Kings xiv. 25). And besides those, Isaiah prophesied also in the reign of the same kings as Hosea did (Isa. i. 1); and it is God’s usual method to send forth his servants, and when their admonitions are slighted he commissions others, before he sends out his destroying armies (Matt. xxii. 3, 4, 7).

(2.) He doth often give warning of judgments, that he might not pour out his wrath. He summons them to a surrender of themselves, and a return from their rebellion, that they might not feel the force of his arms. He offers peace before he shakes off the dust of his feet, that his despised peace might not return in vain to him to solicit a revenge from his anger. He hath a right to punish upon the first commission of a crime, but he warns men of what they have deserved, of what his justice moves him to inflict, that by having recourse to his mercy he might not exercise the rights of his justice. God sought to kill Moses for not circumcising his son (Exod. iv. 24). Could God, that sought it, miss a way to do it? Could a creature lurch, or fly from him? God put on the garb of an enemy, that Moses might be discouraged from being an instrument of his own ruin: God manifested an anger against Moses for his neglect, as if he would then have destroyed him, that Moses might prevent it by casting off his carelessness, and doing his duty. He sought to kill him by some evident sign, that Moses might escape the judgment by his obedience. He threatens Nineveh, by the prophet, with destruction, that Nineveh’s repentance might make void the prophecy. He fights with men by the sword of his mouth, that he might not pierce them by the sword of his wrath. He threatens, that men might prevent the execution of his threatening; he terrifies, that he might not destroy, but that men by humiliation {b491} may lie prostrate before him, and move the bowels of his mercy to a louder sound than the voice of his anger. He takes time to whet his sword, that men may turn themselves from the edge of it. He roars like a lion, that men, by hearing his voice, may shelter themselves from being torn by his wrath. There is patience in the sharpest threatening, that we may avoid the scourge. Who can charge God with an eagerness to revenge, that sends so many heralds, and so often before he strikes, that he might be prevented from striking? His threatenings have not so much of a black flag as of an olive branch. He lifts up his hand before he strikes, that men might see and avert the stroke (Isa. xxvi. 11).

2d. His patience is manifest in long delaying his threatened judgments, though he finds no repentance in the rebels. He doth sometimes delay his lighter punishments, because he doth not delight in torturing his creatures; but he doth longer delay his destroying punishments, such as put an end to men’s happiness, and remit them to their final and unchangeable state; because he “doth not delight in the death of a sinner.” While he is preparing his arrows, he is waiting for an occasion to lay them aside, and dull their points, that he may with honor march back again, and disband his armies. He brings lighter smarts sooner, that men might not think him asleep, but he suspends the more terrible judgments that men might be led to repentance. He scatters not his consuming fires at the first, but brings on ruining vengeance with a “slow pace; sentence against an evil work is not speedily executed” (Eccles. viii. 11). The Jews therefore say, that Michael, the minister of justice, flies with one wing, but Gabriel, the minister of mercy, with two. An hundred and twenty years did God wait upon the old world, and delay their punishment all the time the “ark was preparing” (1 Pet. iii. 20); wherein that wicked generation did not enjoy only a bare patience, but a striving patience (Gen. vi. 3): “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years,” the days wherein I will strive with him; that his long‑suffering might not lose all its fruit, and remit the objects of it into the hands of consuming justice. It was the tenth generation of the world from Adam, when the deluge overflowed it, so long did God bear with them: and the tenth generation from Noah wherein Sodom was consumed. God did not come to keep his assizes in Sodom, till “the cry of their sins was very strong,” that it had been a wrong to his justice to have restrained it any longer. The cry was so loud that he could not be at quiet, as it were, on his throne of glory for the disturbing noise (Gen. xviii. 20, 21). Sin transgresseth the law; the law being violated, solicits justice; justice, being urged, pleads for punishment; the cry of their sins did, as it were, force him from heaven to come down, and examine what cause there was for that clamor. Sin cries loud and long before he takes his sword in hand. Four hundred years he kept off deserved destruction from the Amorites, and deferred making good his promise to Abraham, of giving Canaan to his posterity, out of his long‑suffering to the Amorites (Gen. xv. 16). In the fourth generation they shall come hither again, “for the iniquity of the Amorites {b492} is not yet full.” Their measure was filling then, but not so full as to put a stop to any further patience till four hundred years after. The usual time in succeeding generations, from the denouncing of judgments to the execution, is forty years; this some ground upon Ezek. iv. 6, “Thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days,” taking each day for a year. Though Hosea lived seventy years, yet from the beginning of his prophesying judgments against Israel to the pouring them out upon that idolatrous people, it was forty years. Hosea, as was mentioned before, prophesied against them in the days of Jeroboam the Second, in whose time God did wonderfully deliver Israel (2 Kings xiv. 26, 27). From that time, till the total destruction of the ten tribes, it was forty years, as may easily be computed from the story (2 Kings xv.‒xvi.), by the reign of the succeeding kings. So forty years after the most horrid villany that ever was committed in the face of the sun, viz., the crucifying the Son of God, was Jerusalem destroyed, and the inhabitants captived; so long did God delay a visible punishment for such an outrage. Sometimes he prolongs sending a threatened judgment upon a mere shadow of humiliation; so he did that denounced against Ahab. He turned it over to his posterity, and adjourned it to another season (1 Kings xxi. 29). He doth not issue out an arrest upon one transgression; you often find him not commencing a suit against men till “three and four transgressions.” The first of Amos, all along that chapter and the second chapter, for “three and four,” i. e. “seven;” a certain number for an uncertain. He gives not orders to his judgments to march till men be obstinate, and refuse any commerce with him; he stops them till “there be no remedy” (2 Chron. xxxvi. 16). It must be a great wickedness that gives vent to them (Hos. x. 15); Heb. “Your wickedness of wickedness.” He is so “slow to anger,” and stays the punishment his enemies deserve, that he may seem to have forgot his “kindness to his friends” (Ps. xliv. 24): “Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and oppression?” He lets his people groan under the yoke of their enemies, as if he were made up of kindness to his enemies, and anger against his friends. This delaying of punishment to evil men is visible in his suspending the terrifying acts of conscience, and supporting it only in its checking, admonishing, and controlling acts. The patience of a governor is seen in the patient mildness of his deputy: David’s conscience did not terrify him till nine months after his sin of murder. Should God set open the mouth of this power within us, not only the earth, but our own bodies and spirits, would be a burden to us: it is long before God puts scorpions into the hands of men’s consciences to scourge them: he holds back the rod, waiting for the hour of our return, as if that would be a recompense for our offences and his forbearance.

3d. His patience is manifest in his unwillingness to execute his judgments when he can delay no longer. “He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” (Lam. iii. 33): Heb. “He doth not afflict from his heart:” he takes no pleasure in it, as he is Creator. The height of men’s provocations, and the necessity of the {b493} preserving his rights, and vindicating his laws, obligeth him to it, as he is the Governor of the world; as a judge may willingly condemn a malefactor to death out of affection to the laws, and desire to preserve the order of government, but unwillingly, out of compassion to the offender himself. When he resolved upon the destruction of the old world, he spake it as a God grieved with an occasion of punishment (Gen. vi. 6, 7, compared together). When he came to reckon with Adam, “he walked,” he did not run with his sword in his hand upon him, as a mighty man with an eagerness to destroy him (Gen. iii. 8), and that “in the cool of the day,” a time when men, tired in the day, are unwilling to engage in a hard employment. His exercising judgment is a “coming out of his place” (Isa. xxvi. 21; Mic. i. 3): he comes out of his station to exercise judgment; a throne is more his place than a tribunal. Every prophecy, loaded with threatenings, is called the “burden of the Lord;” a burden to him to execute it, as well as to men to suffer it. Though three angels came to Abraham about the punishment of Sodom, whereof one Abraham speaks to as to God, yet but two appeared at the destruction of Sodom, as if the Governor of the world were unwilling to be present at such dreadful work (Gen. xix. 1): and when the man, that had the ink‑horn by his side, that was appointed to mark those that were to be preserved in the common destruction, returned to give an account of the performing his commission (Ezek. ix. 10), we read not of the return of those that were to kill, as if God delighted only to hear again of his works of mercy, and had no mind to hear again of his severe proceedings. The Jews, to show God’s unwillingness to punish, imagine that hell was created the second day, because that day’s work is not pronounced good by God as all the other days’ works are[1033] (Gen. i. 8).

(1.) When God doth punish he doth it with some regret. When he hurls down his thunders, he seems to do it with a backward hand, because with an unwilling heart.[1034] He created, saith Chrysostom, the world in six days, but was seven days in destroying one city, Jericho, which he had before devoted to be razed to the ground. What is the reason, saith he, that God is so quick to build up, but slow to pull down? His goodness excites his power to the one, but is not earnest to persuade him to the other: when he comes to strike, he doth it with a sigh or groan (Isa. i. 24): “Ah! I will ease me of my adversaries, and avenge me on my enemies,” הוי, Ah! a note of grief. So Hos. vi. 4, “O Ephraim! what shall I do unto thee? O Judah! what shall I do unto thee?” It is an addubitatio, a figure in rhetoric, as if God were troubled that he must deal so sharply with them, and give them up to their enemies:――I have tried all means to reclaim you; I have used all ways of kindness, and nothing prevails; what shall I do? my mercy invites me to spare them, and their ingratitude provokes me to ruin them. God had borne with that people of Israel almost three hundred years, from the setting up of the calves at Dan and Bethel; sent many a prophet to warn them, and spent many a rod to reform them: and when he comes to execute his threatenings, he doth with a conflict in himself (Hos. xi. 8): “How {b494} shall I give thee up, O Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel?” as if there were a pull‑back in his own bowels. He solemnizeth their approaching funeral with a hearty groan, and takes his farewell of the dying malefactor with a pang in himself. How often, in former times, when he had signed a warrant for their execution, did he call it back? (Ps. lxxviii. 38): “Many a time turned he his anger away.” Many a time he recalled or ordered his anger to return again, as the word signifies, as if he were irresolute what to do: he recalled it, as a man doth his servant, several times, when he is sending him upon an unwelcome message; or as a tender‑hearted prince wavers and trembles when he is to sign a writ for the death of a rebel that hath been before his favorite, as if, when he had signed the writ, he blotted out his name again, and flung away the pen. And his method is remarkable when he came to punish Sodom; though the cry of their sin had been fierce in his ears, yet when he comes to make inquisition, he declares his intention to Abraham, as if he were desirous that Abraham should have helped him to some arguments to stop the outgoings of his judgment. He gave liberty to the best person in the world to stand in the gap, and enter into a treaty with him, to show, saith one,[1035] how willingly his mercy would have compounded with his justice for their redemption; and Abraham interceded so long, till he was ashamed for pleading the cause of patience and mercy to the wrong of the rights of Divine justice. Perhaps, had Abraham had the courage to ask, God would have had the compassion to grant a reprieve just at the time of execution.

(2.) His patience is manifest in that when he begins to send out his judgments, he doth it by degrees. His judgments are “as the morning light,” which goes forth by degrees in the hemisphere (Hos. vi. 5). He doth not shoot all his thunders at once, and bring his sharpest judgments in array at one time, but gradually, that a people may have time to turn to him (Joel i. 4). First the palmer‑worm, then the locust, then the canker‑worm, then the caterpillar; what one left, the other was to eat, if there were not a timely return. A Jewish writer[1036] saith, these judgments came not all in one year, but one year after another. The palmer‑worm and locust might have eaten all, but Divine patience set bounds to the devouring creatures. God had been first as a moth to Israel (Hos. v. 12): “Therefore will I be to the house of Ephraim as a moth;” Rivet translates it, “I have been;” in the Hebrew it is “I,” without adding “I have been,” or “I will be,” and more probably “I have been;” I was as a moth, which makes little holes in a garment, and consumes it not all at once; and as “rottenness to the house of Judah,” or a worm that eats into wood by degrees. Indeed, this people had consumed insensibly, partly by civil combustions, change of governors, foreign invasions, yet they were as obstinate in their idolatry as ever; at last God would be no longer to them as a moth, but as a lion, tear and go away (ver. 14): so Hos. ii., God had disowned Israel for his spouse (ver. 2), “She is not my wife, neither am I her husband;” yet he had not taken away her ornaments, which by the right of divorce he might have done, but still expected her reformation, for {b495} that the threatening intimates (ver. 3); let her put away her whoredom, “lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day when she was born.” If she returned, she might recover what she had lost; if not, she might be stripped of what remained: thus God dealt with Judah (Ezek. ix. 3). The glory of God goes first from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and stays there, as if he had a mind to be invited back again; then it goes from the threshold of the house, and stands over the cherubims, as if upon a penitent call it would drop down again to its ancient station and seat, over which it hovered (Ezek. x. 18); and when he was not solicited to return, he departs out of the city, and stood upon the mountain, which is on the east part of the city (Ezek. xi. 23), looking still towards, and hovering about the temple, which was on the east of Jerusalem, as if loth to depart, and abandon the place and people. He walks so leisurely, with his rod in his hand, as if he had a mind rather to fling it away than use it; his patience in not pouring out all his vials, is more remarkable than his wrath in pouring out one or two. Thus hath God made his slowness to anger visible to us in the gradual punishment of us; first, the pestilence on this city, then firing our houses, consumption of trade; these have not been answered with such a carriage as God expects, therefore a greater is reserved. I dare prognosticate, upon reasons you may gather from what hath been spoke before, if I be not much mistaken, the forty years of his usual patience are very near expired; he hath inflicted some, that he might be met with in a way of repentance, and omit with honor the inflicting the remainder.

4th. His patience is manifest, in moderating his judgments, when he sends them. Doth he empty his quiver of his arrows, or exhaust his magazines of thunder? No; he could roll one thunderbolt successively upon all mankind; it is as easy with him to create a perpetual motion of lightning and thunder, as of the sun and stars, and make the world as terrible by the one, as it is delightful by the other. He opens not all his store, he sends out a light party to skirmish with men, and puts not in array his whole army; “He stirs not up all his wrath” (Ps. lxxviii. 38); he doth but pinch, where he might have torn asunder; when he takes away much, he leaves enough to support us; if he had stirred up all his anger, he had taken away all, and our lives to boot. He rakes up but a few sparks, takes but one firebrand to fling upon men, when he might discharge the whole furnace upon them; he sends but a few drops out of the cloud, which he might make to break in the gross, and fall down upon our heads to overwhelm us; he abates much of what he might do. When he might sweep away a whole nation by deluges of water, corruption of the air, or convulsions of the earth, or by other ways that are not wanting at his order; he picks out only some persons, some families, some cities; sends a plague into one house, and not into another; here is patience to the stock of a nation, while he inflicts punishment upon some of the most notorious sinners in it. Herod is suddenly snatched away, being willingly flattered into the thoughts of his being a god; God singled out the chief in the herd for whose sake he had been affronted by the rabble (Acts xii. 22, 23). {b496} Some find him sparing them, while others feel him destroying them; he arrests some, when he might seize all, all being his debtors; and often in great desolations brought upon a people for their sin, he hath left a stump in the earth, as Daniel speaks (Dan. iv. 15), for a nation to grow upon it again, and arise to a stronger constitution. He doth punish “less than our iniquities deserve” (Ezra ix. 13), and rewards us “not according to our iniquities” (Ps. ciii. 10). The greatness of any punishment in this life, answers not the greatness of the crime. Though there be an equity in whatsoever he doth, yet there is not an equality to what we deserve; our iniquities would justify a severer treating of us; his justice goes not here to the end of its line, it is stopped in its progress, and the blows of it weakened by his patience; he did not curse the earth after Adam’s fall, that it should bring forth no fruit, but that it should not bring forth fruit without the wearisome toil of man, and subjected him to distempers presently, but inflicted not death immediately; while he punished him, he supported him; and while he expelled him from paradise, he did not order him not to cast his eye towards it, and conceive some hopes of regaining that happy place.

5th. His patience is seen in giving great mercies after provocations. He is so slow to anger, that he heaps many kindnesses upon a rebel, instead of punishment. There is a prosperous wickedness, wherein the provoker’s strength continues firm; the troubles, which like clouds drop upon others, are blown away from them, and they are “not plagued like other men,” that have a more worthy demeanor towards God (Ps. lxxiii. 3‒5). He doth not only continue their lives, but sends out fresh beams of his goodness upon them, and calls them by his blessings, that they may acknowledge their own fault and his bounty, which he is not obliged to by any gratitude he meets with from them, but by the richness of his own patient nature: for he finds the unthankfulness of men as great as his benefits to them. He doth not only continue his outward mercies, while we continue our sins, but sometimes gives fresh benefits after new provocations, that if possible he might excite an ingenuity in men. When Israel at the Red Sea flung dirt in the face of God, by quarrelling with his servant Moses for bringing them out of Egypt, and misjudging God in his design of deliverance, and were ready to submit themselves to their former oppressors (Exod. xiv. 11, 12), which might justly have urged God to say to them, Take your own course; yet he is not only patient under their unjust charge, but “makes bare his arm in a deliverance at the Red Sea,” that was to be an amazing monument to the world in all ages; and afterwards, when they repiningly quarrelled with him in their wants in the wilderness, he did not only not revenge himself upon them, or cast off the conduct of them, but bore with them by a miraculous long‑suffering, and supplied them with miraculous provision,――manna from heaven, and water from a rock. Food is given to support us, and clothes to cover us, and Divine patience makes the creature which we turn to another use than what they were at first intended for, serve us contrary to their own genius: for had they reason, no question but they would complain to be subjected to the service of man, who {b497} hath been so ungrateful to their Creator, and groan at the abuse of God’s patience, in the abuse they themselves suffer from the hands of man.

6th. All this is more manifest, if we consider the provocations he hath. Wherein his slowness to anger infinitely transcends the patience of any creature; nay, the spirits of all the angels and glorified saints in heaven, would be too narrow to bear the sins of the world for one day, nay, not so much as the sins of churches, which is a little spot in the whole world; it is because he is the Lord, one of an infinite power over himself, that not only the whole mass of the rebellious world, but of the sons of Jacob (either considered as a church and nation springing from the loins of Jacob, or considered as the regenerate part of the world, sometimes called the seed of Jacob), “are not consumed” (Mal. iii. 6). A Jonah was angry with God, for recalling his anger from a sinful people; had God committed the government of the world to the glorified saints, who are perfect in love and holiness, the world would have had an end long ago; they would have acted that which they sue for at the hands of God, and is not granted them. “How long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Rev. vi. 10). God hath designs of patience above the world, above the unsinning angels, and perfectly renewed spirits in glory. The greatest created long‑suffering is infinitely disproportioned to the Divine: fire from heaven would have been showered down before the greatest part of a day were spent, if a created patience had the conduct of the world, though that creature were possessed with the spirit of patience, extracted from all the creatures which are in heaven, or are, or ever were upon the earth. Methinks Moses intimates this; for as soon as God had passed by, proclaiming his name gracious and long suffering, as soon as ever Moses had paid his adoration, he falls to praying that God would go with the Israelites; “For it is a stiff‑necked people” (Exod. xxxiv. 8, 9). What an argument is here for God to go along with them! he might rather, since he had heard him but just before say “he would by no means clear the guilty,” desire God to stand further off from them, for fear the fire of his wrath should burst out from him, to burn them as he did the Sodomites. But he considers, that as none but God had such anger to destroy them, so none but God had such a patience to bear with them; it is as much as if he should have said, Lord! if thou shouldest send the most tender‑hearted angel in heaven to have the guidance of this people, they would be a lost people; a period will quickly be set to their lives, no created strength can restrain its power from crushing such a stiff‑necked people; flesh and blood cannot bear them, nor any created spirit of a greater might.

(1.) Consider the greatness of the provocations. No light matter, but actions of a great defiance: what is the practical language of most in the world, but that of Pharaoh? “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?” How many questions his being, and more his authority? What blasphemies of him, what reproaches of his Majesty! Men “drinking up iniquity like water,” and with a haste and ardency “rushing into sin, as the horse into the battle.” What {b498} is there in the reasonable creature, that hath the quickest capacity, and the deepest obligation to serve him, but opposition and enmity, a slight of him in everything, yea, the services most seriously performed, unsuited to the royalty and purity of so great a Being? such provocations as dare him to his face, that are a burden to so righteous a Judge, and so great a lover of the authority and majesty of his laws; that were there but a spark of anger in him, it is a wonder it doth not show itself. When he is invaded in all his attributes, it is astonishing that this single one of patience and meekness should withstand the assault of all the rest of his perfections; his being, which is attacked by sin, speaks for vengeance; his justice cannot be imagined to stand silent without charging the sinner. His holiness cannot but encourage his justice to urge its pleas, and be an advocate for it. His omniscience proves the truth of all the charge, and his abused mercy hath little encouragement to make opposition to the indictment; nothing but patience stands in the gap to keep off the arrest of judgment from the sinner.

(2.) His patience is manifest, if you consider the multitudes of these provocations. Every man hath sin enough in a day to make him stand amazed at Divine patience, and to call it, as well as the apostle did, “all long‑suffering” (1 Tim. i. 16). How few duties of a perfectly right stamp are performed! What unworthy considerations mix themselves, like dross, with our purest and sincerest gold! How more numerous are the respects of the worshippers of him to themselves, than unto him! How many services are paid him, not out of love to him, but because he should do us no hurt, and some service; when we do not so much design to please him, as to please ourselves by expectations of a reward from him! What master would endure a servant that endeavored to please him, only because he should not kill him? Is that former charge of God upon the old world yet out of date, “That the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of man was only evil, and that continually?” (Gen. vi. 5.) Was not the new world as chargeable with it as the old? Certainly it was (Gen. viii. 21); and is of as much force this very minute as it was then. How many are the sins against knowledge, as well as those of ignorance; presumptuous sins, as well as those of infirmity! How numerous those of omission and commission! It is above the reach of any man’s understanding to conceive all the blasphemies, oaths, thefts, adulteries, murders, oppressions, contempt of religion, the open idolatries of Turks and heathens, the more spiritual and refined idolatries of others.[1037] Add to those, the ingratitude of those that profess his name, their pride, earthliness, carelessness, sluggishness to Divine duties, and in every one of those a multitude of provocations; the whole man being engaged in every sin, the understanding contriving it, the will embracing it, the affections complying with it, and all the members of the body instruments in the acting the unrighteousness of it; every one of these faculties bestowed upon men by him, are armed against him in every act: and in every employment of them there is a distinct provocation, though centred in one sinful end and object. What are the offences all the {b499} men of the world receive from their fellow‑creatures, to the injuries God receives from men, but as a small dust of earth to the whole mass of earth and heaven too? What multitudes of sins is one profane wretch guilty of in the space of twenty, forty, fifty years? Who can compute the vast number of his transgressions, from the first use of reason to the time of the separation of his soul from his body, from his entrance into the world to his exit? What are those, to those of a whole village of the like inhabitants? What are those, to those of a great city? Who can number up all the foul‑mouthed oaths, the beastly excess, the goatish uncleanness, committed in the space of a day, year, twenty years in this city, much less in the whole nation, least of all, in the whole world? Were it no more than the common idolatry of former ages, when the whole world turned their backs upon their Creator, and passed him by to sue to a creature, a stock or stone, or a degraded spirit? How provoking would it be to a prince to see a whole city under his dominion deny him a respect, and pay it to his scullion, or the common executioner he employs! Add to this the unjust invasion of kings, the oppressions exercised upon men, all the private and public sins that have been in the world ever since it began. The Gentiles were described by the apostle (Rom. i. 29‒31), in a black character, “They were haters of God;” yet how did the “riches of his patience” preserve multitudes of such disingenuous persons, and how “many millions of such haters of him” breathe every day in his air, and are maintained by his bounty, have their tables spread, and their cups filled to the brim, and that, too, in the midst of reiterated belchings of their enmity against him? All are under sufficient provocations of him to the highest indignation. The presiding angels over nations could not forbear, in love and honor to their governor, to arm themselves to the destruction of their several charges, if Divine patience did not set them a pattern, and their obedience incline them to expect his orders, before they act what their zeal would prompt them to. The devils would be glad of a commission to destroy the world, but that his patience puts a stop to their fury, as well as his own justice.

(3.) Consider the long time of this patience. He spread out his hands “all the day” to a rebellious world (Isa. lxv. 2). All men’s day, all God’s day, which is a “thousand years,” he hath borne with the gross of mankind, with all the nations of the world in a long succession of ages, for five thousand years and upwards already, and will bear with them till the time comes for the world’s dissolution. He hath suffered the monstrous acts of men, and endured the contradictions of a sinful world against himself, from the first sin of Adam, to the last committed this minute. The line of his patience hath run along with the duration of the world to this day; and there is not any one of Adam’s posterity but hath been expensive to him, and partaken of the riches of it.

(4.) All these he bears when he hath a sense of them. He sees every day the roll and catalogue of sin increasing; he hath a distinct view of every one, from the sin of Adam to the last filled up in his omniscience; and yet gives no order for the arrest of the world. He {b500} knows men fitted for destruction; all the instants he exerciseth long‑suffering towards them, which makes the apostle call it not simply long‑suffering, without the addition of πολλῇ, “much long‑suffering” (Rom. ix. 23). There is not a grain in the whole mass of sin, that he hath not a distinct knowledge of, and of the quality of it. He perfectly understands the greatness of his own majesty that is vilified, and the nature of the offence that doth disparage him. He is solicited by his justice, directed by his omniscience, and armed with judgments to vindicate himself, but his arm is restrained by patience. To conclude: no indignity is hid from him, no iniquity is beloved by him; the hatred of their sinfulness is infinite, and the knowledge of the malice is exact. The subsisting of the world under such weighty provocations, so numerous, so long time, and with his full sense of every one of them, is an evidence of such a “forbearance and long‑suffering,” that the addition of riches which the apostle puts to it (Rom. ii. 4), labors with an insufficiency clearly to display it.

III. Why God doth exercise so much patience.

1. To show himself appeasable. God did not declare by his patience to former ages, or any age, that he was appeased with them, or that they were in his favor; but that he was appeasable, that he was not an implacable enemy, but that they might find him favorable to them, if they did seek after him. The continuance of the world by patience, and the bestowing many mercies by goodness, were not a natural revelation of the manner how he would be appeased: that was made known only by the prophets, and after the coming of Christ by the apostles; and had indeed been intelligible in some sort to the whole world, had there been a faithfulness in Adam’s posterity, to transmit the tradition of the first promise to succeeding generations. Had not the knowledge of that died by their carelessness and neglect, it had been easy to tell the reason of God’s patience to be in order to the exhibition of the “Seed of the woman to bruise the serpent’s head.” They could not but naturally know themselves sinners, and worthy of death; they might, by easy reflections upon themselves, collect that they were not in that comely and harmonious posture now, as they were when God first wrought them with his own finger, and placed them as his lieutenants in the world; they knew they did grievously offend him; this they were taught by the sprinklings of his judgments among them sometimes. And since he did not utterly root up mankind, his sparing patience was a prologue of some further favors, or pardoning grace to be displayed to the world by some methods of God yet unknown to them. Though the earth was something impaired by the curse after the fall, yet the main pillars of it stood; the state of the natural motions of the creature was not changed; the heavens remained in the same posture wherein they were created; the sun, and moon, and other heavenly bodies, continued their usefulness and refreshing influences to man.

The heavens did still “declare the glory of God, day unto day” did “utter speech; their line is gone throughout all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Ps. xix. 1‒4): which declared God to be willing to do good to his creatures, and were as so many {b501} legible letters or rudiments, whereby they might read his patience, and that a further design of favor to the world lay hid in that patience. Paul applies this to the preaching of the gospel (Rom. x. 18): “Have they not heard the word of God? yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world.” Redeeming grace could not be spelled out by them in a clear notion, but yet they did declare that which is the foundation of gospel mercy. Were not God patient, there were no room for a gospel mercy, so that the heavens declare the gospel, not formally, but fundamentally, in declaring the long‑suffering of God, without which no gospel had been framed, or could have been expected. They could not but read in those things favorable inclinations towards them: and though they could not be ignorant that they deserved a mark of justice, yet seeing themselves supported by God, and beholding the regular motions of the heavens from day to day, and the revolutions of the seasons of the year, the natural conclusions they might draw from thence was, that God was placable; since he behaved himself more as a tender friend, that had no mind to be at war with them, than an enraged enemy. The good things which he gave them, and the patience whereby he spared them, were no arguments of an implacable disposition; and, therefore, of a disposition willing to be appeased. This is clearly the design of the apostle’s arguing with the Lystrians, when they would have offered sacrifices to Paul (Acts xiv. 17). When God “suffered all nations to walk in their own ways, he did not leave himself without witness, giving rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons.” What were those witnesses of? not only of the being of a God, by their readiness to sacrifice to those that were not gods, only supposed to be so in their false imaginations; but witnesses to the tenderness of God, that he had no mind to be severe with his creatures, but would allure them by ways of goodness. Had not God’s patience tended to this end, to bring the world under another dispensation, the apostle’s arguing from it had not been suitable to his design, which seems to be a hindering the sacrifices they intended for them, and a drawing them to embrace the gospel, and therefore preparing the way to it, by speaking of the patience and goodness of God to them, as an unquestionable testimony of the reconcilableness of good to them, by some sacrifice which was represented under the common notion of sacrifices.[1038] These things were not witnesses of Christ, or syllables whereby they could spell out the redeeming person; but witnesses that God was placable in his own nature. When man abused those noble faculties God had given him, and diverted them from the use and service God intended them for, God might have stripped man of them the first time that he misemployed them; and it would have seemed most agreeable to his wisdom and justice, not to suffer himself to be abused, and the world to go contrary to its natural end. But since he did not level the world with its first nothing, but healed the world so favorably, it was evident that his patience pointed the world to a further design of mercy and goodness in him. To imagine that God had no other design in his long‑suffering {b502} but that of vengeance, had been a notion unsuitable to the goodness and wisdom of God. He would never have pretended himself to be a friend, if he had harbored nothing but enmity in his heart against them. It had been far from his goodness to give them a cause to suspect such a design in him, as his patience certainly did, had he not intended it. Had he preserved men only for punishment, it is more like he would have treated men as princes do those they reserve for the axe or halter, give them only things necessary to uphold their lives till the day of execution, and not have bestowed upon them so many good things to make their lives delightful to them, nor have furnished them with so many excellent means to please their senses, and recreate their minds; it had been a mocking of them to treat them at that rate, if nothing but punishment had been intended towards them. If the end of it, to lead men to repentance, were easily intelligible by them, as the apostle intimates (Rom. ii. 4)――which is to be linked with the former chapter, a discourse of the Gentiles: “Not knowing,” saith he, “that the riches of his forbearance and goodness leads thee to repentance”――it also gives them some ground to hope for pardon. For what other argument can more induce to repentance than an expectation of mercy upon a relenting, and acknowledging the crime? Without a design of pardoning grace, his patience would have been in a great measure exercised in vain: for by mere patience God is not reconciled to a sinner, no more than a prince to a rebel, by bearing with him. Nor can a sinner conclude himself in the favor of God, no more than a rebel can conclude himself in the favor of his prince; only, this he may conclude, that there is some hopes he may have the grant of a pardon, since he hath time to sue it out. And so much did the patience of God naturally signify that he was of a reconcilable temper, and was willing men should sue out their pardon upon repentance; otherwise, he might have magnified his justice, and condemned men by the law of works.

(2.) He therefore exercised so much patience to wait for men’s repentance. All the notices and warnings that God gives men, of either public or personal calamities, is a continual invitation to repentance. This was the common interpretation the heathens made of extraordinary presages and prodigies, which showed as well the delays as the approaches of judgments. What other notion but this, that those warnings of judgments witness a slowness to anger, and a willingness to turn his arrows another way, should move them to multiply sacrifices, go weeping to their temples, sound out prayers to their gods, and show all those other testimonies of a repentance which their blind understandings hit upon? If a prince should sometimes in a light and gentle manner punish a criminal, and then relax it, and show him much kindness, and afterwards inflict upon him another kind of punishment as light as the former, and less than was due to his crime, what could the malefactor suspect by such a way of proceeding, but that the prince, by those gently‑repeated chastisements, had a mind to move him to a regret for his crime?[1039] And what other thoughts could men naturally have of God’s conduct, {b503} that he should warn them of great judgments, send light afflictions, which are testimonies rather of a patience than of a severe wrath, but that it was intended to move them to a relenting, and a breaking off their sins by working righteousness? Though Divine patience does not, in the event, induce men to repentance, yet the natural tendency of such a treatment is to mollify men’s hearts, to overcome their obstinacy; and no man hath any reason to judge otherwise of such a proceeding. The “long‑suffering of God is salvation,” saith Peter (2 Pet. iii. 15), i. e. hath a tendency to salvation, in its being a solicitation of men to the means of it; for the apostle cites Paul for the confirmation of it,――“Even as our beloved brother, Paul, hath written unto you,” which must refer to Rom. ii. 4: “it leads to repentance,” ἄγει, it conducts, which is more than barely to invite; it doth, as it were, take us by the hand, and point us to the way wherein we should go; and for this end it was exercised, not only towards the Jews, but towards the Gentiles, not only towards those that are within the pale of the church, and under the dews of the gospel, but to those that are in darkness, and in the shadow of death; for this discourse of the apostle was but an inference from what he had treated of in the first chapter concerning the idolatry and ingratitude of the Gentiles; since the Gentiles were to be punished for the abuse of it as well as the Jews, as he intimates, ver. 9. It is plain that his patience, which is exercised towards the idolatrous Gentiles, was to allure them to repentance as well as others; and it was a sufficient motive in itself to persuade them to a change of their vile and gross acts, to such as were morally good: and there was enough in God’s dealing with them, and in that light they had to engage them to a better course than what they usually walked in; and though men do abuse God’s long‑suffering, to encourage their impenitence, and persisting in their crimes, yet that they cannot reasonably imagine that to be the end of God is evident; their own gripes of conscience would acquaint them that it is otherwise. They know that conscience is a principle that God hath given them, as well as understanding, and will, and other faculties; that God doth not approve of that which the voice of their own consciences, and of the consciences of all men under natural light, are utterly against: and if there were really, in this forbearance of God, an approbation of men’s crimes, conscience could not, frequently and universally in all men, check them for them. What authority could conscience have to do it? But this it doth in all men: as the apostle (Rom. i. 22), “They know the judgment of God, that those that do such things,” which he had mentioned before, “are worthy of death.” In this thing the consciences of all men cannot err: they could not, therefore, conclude from hence God’s approbation of their iniquities, but his desire that their hearts should be touched with a repentance for them. The “sin of Ephraim is hid” (Hos. xiii. 12, 13); i. e. God doth not presently take notice of it, to order punishment; he lays it in a secret place from the eye of his justice, that Ephraim might not be his unwise son, and “stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children;” i. e. that he should speedily reclaim himself, and not continue in the way of destruction. God hath no {b504} need to abuse any; he doth not lie to the sons of men; if he would have men perish, he could easily destroy them, and have done it long ago: he did not leave the woman Jezebel in being, nor lengthened out her time, but as a space to repent (Rev. ii. 21), that she might reflect upon her ways, and devote herself seriously to his service, and her own happiness. His patience stands between the offending creature and eternal misery a long time, that men might not foolishly throw away their souls, and be damned for their impenitency; by this he shows himself ready to receive men to mercy upon their return. To what purpose doth he invite men to repentance, if he intended to deceive them, and damn them after they repent?

3. He doth exercise patience for the propagation of mankind. If God punished every sin presently, there would not only be a period put to churches, but to the world; without patience, Adam had sunk into eternal anguish the first moment of his provocation, and the whole world of mankind, in his loins, had perished with him, and never seen the light. If this perfection had not interposed after the first sin, God had lost his end in the creation of the world, which he “created not in vain, but formed it to be inhabited” (Isa. xlv. 18). It had been inconsistent with the wisdom of God to make a world to be inhabited, and destroy it upon sin, when it had but two principal inhabitants in it; the reason of his making this earth had been insignificant; he had not had any upon earth to glorify him, without erecting another world, which might have proved as sinful and as quickly wicked as this; God should have always been pulling down and rearing up, creating and annihilating; one world would have come after another, as wave after wave in the sea. His patience stepped in to support the honor of God, and the continuance of men, without which one had been in part impaired, and the other totally lost.

4. He doth exercise patience for the continuance of the church. If he be not patient toward sinners, what stock would there be for believers to spring up from? He bears with the provoking carriage of men, evil men, because out of their loins he intends to extract others, which he will form for the glory of his grace. He hath some unborn that belong to the election of grace, which are to be the seed of the worst of men; Jeroboam, the chief incendiary of the Israelites to idolatry, had an Abijah, in whom was found “some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel” (1 Kings xiv. 13). Had Ahaz been snapped in the first act of his wickedness, the Israelites had wanted so good a prince and so good a man as Hezekiah, a branch of that wicked predecessor. What gardener cuts off the thorns from the rose‑brush till he hath gathered the roses? and men do not use to burn all the crab‑tree, but preserve a stock to engraft some sweet fruit upon. There could not have been a saint in the earth, nor, consequently, in heaven, had it not been for this perfection: he did not destroy the Israelites in the wilderness, that he might keep up a church among them, and not extinguish the whole seed that were heirs of the promises and covenant made with Abraham. Had God punished men for their sins as soon as they had been committed, {b505} none would have lived to have been better, none could have continued in the world to honor him by their virtues. Manasseh had never been a convert, and many brutish men had never been changed from beasts to angels, to praise and acknowledge their Creator. Had Peter received his due recompense upon the denial of his Master, he had never been a martyr for him; nor had Paul been a preacher of the gospel; nor any else: and so the gospel had not shined in any part of the world. No seed would have been brought into Christ; Christ is beholding immediately to this attribute for all the seed he hath in the world: it is for his name’s sake that he doth defer his anger; and for his praise that he doth refrain from “cutting us off” (Isa. xlviii. 9): and in the next chapter follows a prophecy of Christ. To overthrow mankind for sin, were to prevent the spreading a church in the world: a woman that is guilty of a capital crime, and lies under a condemning sentence, is reprieved from execution for her being with child; it is for the child’s sake the woman is respited, not for her own: it is for the elect’s sake, in the loins of transgressors, that they are a long time spared, and not for their own ( Isa. lxv. 8): “As the new wine is found in a cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it, so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all;” as a husbandman spares a vine for some good clusters in it. He had spoke of vengeance before, yet he would reserve some from whom he would bring forth those that should be “inheritors of his mountains,” that he might make up his church of Judea; Jerusalem being a mountainous place, and the type of the church in all ages. What is the reason he doth not level his thunder at the heads of those for whose destruction he receives so many petitions from the “souls under the altar?” (Rev. vi. 9, 10). Because God had others to write a testimony for him in their own blood, and perhaps out of the loins of those for whom vengeance was so earnestly supplicated; and God, as the master of a vessel, lies patiently at anchor, till the last passenger he expects be taken in.[1040]

5. For the sake of his church he is patient to wicked men. The tares are patiently endured till the harvest, for fear in the plucking up the one, there might be some prejudice done to the other. Upon this account he spares some, who are worse than others whom he crusheth by signal judgments: the Jews had committed sins worse than Sodom, for the confirmation of which we have God’s oath (Ezek. xvi. 48); and more by half than Samaria, or the ten tribes had done (ver. 51): yet God spared the Jews, though he destroyed the Sodomites. What was the reason, but a larger remnant of righteous persons, more clusters of good grapes, were found among them than grew in Sodom? (Isa. i. 9). A few more righteous in Sodom had damped the fire and brimstone designed for that place, and a “remnant of such in Judea” was a bar to that fierceness of anger, which otherwise would have quickly consumed them. Had there been but “ten righteous in Sodom,” Divine patience had still bound the arms of Justice, that it should not have prepared its brimstone, notwithstanding the clamor of the sins of the multitude. Judea was ripe for the sickle, but God would put a lock upon the torrent of his {b506} judgments, that they should not flow down upon that wicked place, to make them a desolation and a curse, as long as tender‑hearted Josiah lived, “who had humbled himself” at the threatening, and wept before the Lord (2 Kings xxii. 19, 20). Sometimes he bears with wicked men, that they might exercise the patience of the saints (Rev. xiv. 12): the whole time of the “forbearance of antichrist” in all his intrusions into the temple of God, invasions of the rights of God, usurpations of the office of Christ, and besmearing himself with the blood of the saints, was to give them an opportunity of patience. God is patient towards the wicked, that by their means he might try the righteous. He burns not the wisp till he hath scoured his vessels; nor lays by the hammer, till he hath formed some of his matter into an excellent fashion. He useth the worst men as rods to correct his people, before he sweeps the twigs out of his house. God sometimes uses the thorns of the world, as a hedge to secure his church, sometimes as instruments to try and exercise it. Howsoever he useth them, whether for security or trial, he is patient to them for his church’s advantage.

6. When men are not brought to repentance by his patience, he doth longer exercise it, to manifest the equity of his future justice upon them. As wisdom is justified by her obedient children, so is justice justified by the rebels against patience; the contempt of the latter is the justification of the former. The “apostles were unto God a sweet savor of Christ in them that perish,” as well as in them that were saved by the acceptation of their message (2 Cor. ii. 15). Both are fragrant to God; his mercy is glorified by the one’s acceptance of it, and his justice freed from any charge against it by the other’s refusal. The cause of men’s ruin cannot be laid upon God, who provided means for their salvation, and solicited their compliance with him. What reason can they have to charge the Judge with any wrong to them, who reject the tenders he makes, and who hath forborne them with so much patience, when he might have censured them by his righteous justice, upon the first crime they committed, or the first refusal of his gracious offers? “Quanto Dei magis judicium tardum est tanto magis justum.”[1041] After the despising of patience, there can be no suspicion of an irregularity in the acts of justice. Man hath no reason to fall foul in his charge upon God, if he were punished for his own sin, considering the dignity of the injured person, and the meanness of himself, the offender; but his wrath is more justified when it is poured out upon those whom he hath endured with much long‑suffering. There is no plea against the shooting of his arrows into those, for whom this voice hath been loud, and his arms open for their return. As patience, while it is exercised, is the silence of his justice, so when it is abused, it silenceth men’s complaints against his justice. The “riches of his forbearance” made way for the manifesting the “treasures of his wrath.” If God did but a little bear with the insolencies of men, and cut them off after two or three sins, he would not have opportunity to show either the power of his patience, or that of his wrath; but when he hath a right to punish for one sin, and yet bears with them for many, {b507} and they will not be reclaimed, the sinner is more inexcusable, Divine justice less chargeable, and his wrath more powerful. (Rom. ix. 22), “What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long‑suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction?” The proper and immediate end of his long‑suffering is to lead men to repentance; but after they have by their obstinacy fitted themselves for destruction, he bears longer with them, to “magnify his wrath” more upon them; and if it is not the finis operantis, it is at least the finis operis, where patience is abused. Men are apt to complain of God, that he deals hardly with them; the Israelites seem to charge God with too much severity, to cast them off, when so many promises were made to the fathers for their perpetuity and preservation, which is intimated, Hos. ii. 2. “Plead with your mother, plead:” by the double repetition of the word “plead;” do not accuse me of being false or too rigorous, but accuse your mother, your church, your magistracy, your ministry, for their spiritual fornications which have provoked me; for their נאפופיה, intimating the greatness of their sins by the reduplication of the word, “lest I strip her naked.” I have borne with her under many provocations, and I have not yet taken away all her ornaments, or said to her, according to the rule of divorce, Res tuas tibi habeto. God answers their impudent charge: “She is not my wife, nor am I her husband;” he doth not say first, I am not her husband, but she is not my wife; she first withdrew from her duty by breaking the marriage covenant, and then I ceased to be her husband. No man shall be condemned, but he shall be convinced of the due desert of his sin, and the justice of God’s proceeding. God will lay open men’s guilt, and repeat the measures of his patience to justify the severity of his wrath (Hos. vii. 10), “Sins will testify to their face.” What is in its own nature a preparation for glory, men by their obstinacy make a preparation for a more indisputable punishment. We see many evidences of God’s forbearance here, in sparing men under those blasphemies which are audible, and those profane carriages which are visible, which would sufficiently justify an act of severity; yet when men’s secret sins, both in heart and action, and the vast multitude of them, far surmounting what can arrive to our knowledge here, shall be discovered, how great a lustre will it add to God’s bearing with them, and make his justice triumph without any reasonable demur from the sinner himself! He is long‑suffering here, that his justice may be more public hereafter.

Use IV. For instruction. How is this patience of God abused! The Gentiles abused those testimonies of it, which were written in showers and fruitful seasons. No nation was ever stripped of it, under the most provoking idolatries, till after multiplied spurns at it: not a person among us but hath been guilty of the abuse of it. How have we contemned that which demands a reverence from us! How have we requited God’s waitings with rebellions, while he hath continued urging and expecting our return! Saul relented at David’s forbearing to revenge himself, when he had his prosecuting and industrious enemy in his power. (1 Sam. xxiv. 17), “Thou art more righteous than I; thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded {b508} thee evil:” and shall we not relent at God’s wonderful long‑suffering, and silencing his anger so much? He could puff away our lives, but he will not, and yet we endeavor to strip him of his being, though we cannot.

1. Let us consider the ways, how slowness to anger is abused.

(1.) It is abused by misinterpretations of it, when men slander his patience to be only a carelessness and neglect of his providence; as Averroes argued from his slowness to anger, a total neglect of the government of the lower world: or when men from his long‑suffering charge him with impurity, as if his patience were a consent to their crimes; and because he suffered them, without calling them to account, he were one of their partisans, and as wicked as themselves (Ps. l. 21): “Because I kept silence, thou thoughtest I was altogether such a one as thyself.” His silence makes them conclude him to be an abettor of, and a consort in their sins; and think him more pleased with their iniquity than their obedience. Or when they will infer from his forbearance a want of his omniscience; because he suffers their sins, they imagine he forgets them (Ps. x. 11): “He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten:” thinking his patience proceeds not from the sweetness of his nature, but a weakness of his mind. How base is it, instead of admitting him, to disparage him for it; and because he stands in so advantageous a posture towards us, not to own the choicest prerogatives of his Deity! This is to make a perfection, so useful to us, to shadow and extinguish those others, which are the prime flowers of his crown.

(2.) His patience is abused by continuing in a course of sin under the influences of it. How much is it the practical language of men, Come, let us commit this or that iniquity; since Divine patience hath suffered worse than this at our hands! Nothing is remitted to their sensual pleasures, and eagerness in them. How often did the Israelites repeat their murmurings against him, as if they would put his patience to the utmost proof, and see how far the line of it could extend! They were no sooner satisfied in one thing, but they quarrelled with him about another, as if he had no other attribute to put in motion against them. They tempted him as often as he relieved them, as though the declaration of his name to Moses (Exod. xxxiv.), “to be a God gracious, and long‑suffering,” had been intended for no other purpose but a protection of them in their rebellions. Such a sort of men the prophet speaks of, that were “settled in their lees,” or dregs (Zeph. i. 12): they were congealed, and frozen in their successful wickedness. Such an abuse of Divine patience is the very dregs of sin; God chargeth it highly upon the Jews (Isa. lvii. 11): “I have held my peace, even of old, and thou fearest me not;” my silence made thee confident, yea, impudent in thy sin.

(3.) His patience is abused by repeating sin, after God hath, by an act of his patience, taken off some affliction from men. As metals melted in the fire remain fluid under the operations of the flames, yet when removed from the fire, they quickly return to their former hardness, and sometimes grow harder than they were before; so men who, in their afflictions, seem to be melted, like Ahab confess their sins, lie prostrate before God, and seek him early; yet, if they be {b509} brought from under the power of their afflictions, they return to their old nature, and are as stiff against God, and resist the blows of the Spirit as much as they did before. They think they have a new stock of patience to sin upon. Pharaoh was somewhat thawed under judgments, and frozen again under forbearance (Exod. ix. 27, 34). Many will howl when God strikes them, and laugh at him when he forbears them. Thus that patience which should melt us, doth often harden us, which is not an effect natural to his patience, but natural to our abusing corruption.

(4.) His patience is abused, by taking encouragement from it to mount to greater degrees of sin. Because God is slow to anger, men are more fierce in sin, and not only continue in their old rebellions, but heap new upon them. If he spare them for three transgressions, they will commit four, as is intimated in the first and second of Amos; “Men’s hearts are fully set in them to do evil, because sentence against an evil work is not speedily executed” (Eccles. viii. 11). Their hearts are more desperately bent; before they had some waverings, and pull‑backs, but after a fair sunshine of Divine patience, they entertain more unbridled resolutions, and pass forward with more liberty and licentiousness. They make his long‑suffering subservient to turn out all those little relentings and regrets they had before, and banish all thoughts of barring out a temptation. No encouragement is given to men by God’s patience, but they force it by their presumption. They invert God’s order, and bind themselves stronger to iniquity by that which should bind them faster to their duty. A happy escape at sea makes men go more confidently into the deeps afterward. Thus we deal with God as debtors do with good‑natured creditors: because they do not dun them for what they owe, they take encouragement to run more upon the score, till the sum amounts above their ability of payment.

But let it be considered, 1st. That this abuse of patience is a high sin. As every act of forbearance obligeth us to duty, so every act of it abused, increaseth our guilt. The more frequent its solicitations of us have been, the deeper aggravations our sin receives by it. Every sin, after an act of Divine patience, contracts a blacker guilt. The sparing us after the last sin we committed, was a superadded act of long‑suffering, and a laying out more of his riches upon us: and, therefore, every new act committed is a despite against greater riches expended, and greater cost upon us, and against his preserving us from the hand of justice for the last transgression. It is disingenuous not to have a due resentment of so much goodness, and base to injure him the more, because he doth not right himself. Shall he receive the more wrongs from us, by how much the sweeter he is to us? No man’s conscience but will tell him it is vile to prefer the satisfaction of a sordid lust, before the counsel of a God of so gracious a disposition. The sweeter the nature, the fouler is the injury that is done unto it. 2d. It is dangerous to abuse his patience. Contempt of kindness is most irksome to an ingenuous spirit; and he is worthy to have the arrows of God’s indignation lodged in his heart, who despiseth the riches of his long‑suffering. For,

[1.] The time of patience will have an end. Though his Spirit {b510} strives with man, yet it shall “not always strive” (Gen. vi. 3). Though there be a time wherein Jerusalem might “know the things that concerned her peace,” yet there is another period wherein they should be “hid from her eyes” (Luke xix. 43): “O that thou hadst known in this thy day!” Nations have their day, and persons have their day; and the day of most persons is shorter than the day of nations. Jerusalem had her day of forty years; but how many particular persons were taken off before the last or middle hours of that day were arrived! “Forty years was God grieved” with the generation of the Israelites (Heb. iii. 11). One carcass dropped after another in that limited time, and at the end not a man but fell under the judicial stroke, except Caleb and Joshua. One hundred and twenty years was the term set to the mass of the old world, but not to every man in the old world; some fell while the ark was preparing, as well as the whole stock when the ark was completed. Though he be patient with most, yet he is not in the same degree with all; every sinner hath his time of sinning, beyond which he shall proceed no further, be his lusts never so impetuous, and his affections never so imperious. The time of his patience is, in Scripture, set forth sometimes by years; three years he came to find fruit on the fig‑tree: sometimes by days; some men’s sins are sooner ripe, and fall. There is a measure of sin (Jer. ii. 13), which is set forth by the ephah (Zech. v. 8), which, when it is filled, is sealed up, and a weight of lead cast upon the mouth of it. When judgments are preparing, once and twice the Lord is prevailed with by the intercession of the prophet: the prepared grass‑hoppers are not sent to devour, and the kindled fire is not blown up to consume (Amos vii. 1‒8). But at last God takes the plumb‑line, to suit and measure punishment to their sin, and would not pass by them any more; and when their sin was ripe, represented by a “basket of summer‑fruit,” God would withhold his hand no longer, but brought such a day upon them, wherein “the songs of the Temple should be howlings, and dead bodies be in every place” (Amos viii. 2, 3). He lays by any further thoughts of patience to speed their ruin. God had borne long with the Israelites, and long it was before he gave them up. He would first brake the “bow in Jezreel” (Hos. i. 5); take away the strength of the nation by the death of Zechariah, the last of Jehu’s race, which introduced civil dissentions and ambitious murders, for the throne, whereby in weakening one part they weakened the whole; or, as some think, alluding to Tiglah Pilezar, who carried captive two tribes and a half. If this would not reclaim them, then follows “Lo‑ruhamah, I will not have mercy,” I will sweep them out of the land (ver. 6). If they did not repent, they should be “Lo‑ammi” (ver. 9), “You are not my people,” and “I will not be your God.” They should be discovenanted, and stripped of all federal relation. Here patience forever withdrew from them, and wrathful anger took its place. And, for particular persons, the time of life, whether shorter or longer, is the only time of long‑suffering. It hath no other stage than the present state of things to act upon; there is none else to be expected after but giving account of what hath been done in the body, not of anything done after the soul is fled from the body: {b511} the time of patience ends with the first moment of the soul’s departure from the body. This time only is the “day of salvation;” i. e. the day wherein God offers it, and the day wherein God waits for our acceptance of it: it is at his pleasure to shorten or lengthen our day, not at ours; it is not our long‑suffering, but his; he hath the command of it.

[2.] God hath wrath to punish, as well as patience to bear. He hath a fury to revenge the outrages done to his meekness: when his messages of peace, sent to reclaim men, are slighted, his sword shall be whetted, and his instruments of war prepared (Hos. v. 3): “Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah.” As he deals gently, like a father, so he can punish capitally as a judge: though he holds his peace for a long time, yet at last he will go forth like a mighty man, and stir up jealousy, as a man of war, to cut in pieces his enemies. It is not said he hath no anger, but that he is “slow to anger,” but sharp in it: he hath a sword to cut, and a bow to shoot, and arrows to pierce (Ps. xii. 13): though he be long drawing the one out of its scabbard, and long fitting the other to his bow, yet, when they are ready, he strikes home, and hits the mark: though he hath a time of patience, yet he hath also a “day of rebuke” (Hos. v. 9); though patience overrules justice, by suspending it, yet justice will at last overrule patience, by an utter silencing it. God is Judge of the whole earth to right men, yet he is no less Judge of the injuries he receives to right himself. Though God awhile was pressed with the murmurings of the Israelites, after their coming out of Egypt, and seemed desirous to give them all satisfaction upon their unworthy complaints, yet, when they came to open hostility, in setting a golden calf in his throne, he commissions the “Levites to kill every man his brother and companion in the camp” (Exod. xxxii. 27): and how desirous soever he was to content them before, they never murmured afterwards but they severely smarted for it. When once he hath begun to use his sword, he sticks it up naked, that it might be ready for use upon every occasion. Though he hath feet of lead, yet he hath hands of iron. It was long that he supported the peevishness of the Jews, but at last he captived them by the arms of the Babylonians, and laid them waste by the power of the Romans. He planted, by the apostles, churches in the east; and when his goodness and long‑suffering prevailed not with them, he tore them up by the roots. What Christians are to be found in those once famous parts of Asia but what are overgrown with much error and ignorance?

[3.] The more his patience is abused, the sharper will be the wrath he inflicts. As his wrath restrained makes his patience long, so his compassions restrained will make his wrath severe; as he doth transcend all creatures in the measures of the one, so he doth transcend all creatures in the sharpness of the other. Christ is described with “feet of brass,” as if they burned in a furnace (Rev. i. 15), slow to move, but heavy to crush, and hot to burn. His wrath loseth nothing by delay; it grows the fresher by sleeping, and strikes with greater strength when it awakes: all the time men are abusing his patience, God is whetting his sword, and the longer it is whetting the sharper will be the edge; the longer he is fetching his blow, the smarter it {b512} will be. The heavier the cannons are, the more difficultly are they drawn to the besieged town; but, when arrived, they recompense the slowness of their march by the fierceness of their battery. “Because I have purged thee,” i. e. used means for thy reformation, and waited for it, “and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee: I will not go back, neither will I spare; according to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they judge thee” (Ezek. xxiv. 13, 14). God will spare as little then as he spared much before; his wrath shall be as raging upon them as the sea of their wickedness was within them. When there is a bank to forbid the irruption of the streams, the waters swell; but when the bank is broke, or the lock taken away, they rush with the greater violence, and ravage more than they would have done had they not met with a stop: the longer a stone is in falling, the more it bruiseth and grinds to powder. There is a greater treasure of wrath laid up by the abuses of patience: every sin must have a just recompense of reward; and therefore every sin, in regard of its aggravations, must be more punished than a sin in the singleness and simplicity of its own nature. As treasures of mercy are kept by God for us, “he keeps mercy for thousands;” so are treasures of wrath kept by him to be expended, and a time of expense there must be: patience will account to justice all the good offices it hath done the sinner, and demand to be righted by justice; justice will take the account from the hands of patience, and exact a recompense for every disingenuous injury offered to it. When justice comes to arrest men for their debts, patience, mercy, and goodness, will step in as creditors, and clap their actions upon them, which will make the condition so much more deplorable.

[4.] When he puts an end to his abused patience, his wrath will make quick and sure work. He that is “slow to anger” will be swift in the execution of it. The departure of God from Jerusalem is described with “wings and wheels” (Ezek. xi. 23). One stroke of his hand is irresistible; he that hath spent so much time in waiting needs but one minute to ruin; though it be long ere he draws his sword out of his scabbard, yet, when once he doth it, he despatcheth men at a blow. Ephraim, or the ten tribes, had a long time of patience and prosperity, but now shall a “month devour him with his portion” (Hos. v. 7). One fatal month puts a period to the many years’ peace and security of a sinful nation; his arrows wound suddenly (Ps. lxiv. 7); and while men are about to fill their bellies, he casts the fruits of his wrath upon them (Job xx. 23), like thunder out of a cloud, or a bullet out of a cannon, that strikes dead before it is heard. God deals with sinners as enemies do with a town, batter it not by planted guns, but secretly undermines and blows up the walls, whereby they involve the garrison in a sudden ruin, and carry the town. God spared the Amalekites a long time after the injury committed against the Israelites, in their passage out of Egypt to Canaan; but when he came to reckon with them, he would waste them in a trice, and make an utter consumption of them (1 Sam. xv. 2, 3). He describes himself by a “travailing woman” (Isa. xxiv. 14), that {b513} hath borne long in her womb, and at last sends forth her birth with strong cries. Though he hath held his peace, been still, and refrained himself, yet, at last, he will destroy and devour at once: the Ninevites, spared in the time of Jonah for their repentance, are, in nature, threatened with a certain and total ruin, when God should come to bring them to an account for his length and patience, so much abused by them. Though God endured the murmuring Israelites so long in the wilderness, yet he paid them off at last, and took away the rebels in his wrath: he uttered their sentence with an irreversible oath, that “none of them should enter into his rest;” and he did as surely execute it as he had solemnly sworn it.

[5.] Though he doth defer his visible wrath, yet that very delay may be more dreadful than a quick punishment. He may forbear striking, and give the reins to the hardness and corruption of men’s hearts; he may suffer them to walk in their own counsels, without any more striving with them, whereby they make themselves fitter fuel for his vengeance. This was the fate of Israel when they would not hearken to his voice; he “gave them up to their own hearts’ lusts, and they walked in their own counsels” (Ps. lxxxi. 12). Though his sparing them had the outward aspect of patience, it was a wrathful one, and attended with spiritual judgments; thus many abusers of patience may still have their line lengthened, and the candle of prosperity to shine upon their heads, that they may increase their sins, and be the fitter mark at last for his arrows; they swim down the stream of their own sensuality with a deplorable security, till they fall into an unavoidable gulf, where, at last, it will be a great part of their hell to reflect on the length of Divine patience on earth, and their inexcusable abuse of it.

2. It informs us of the reason why he lets the enemies of his church oppress it, and defers his promise of the deliverance of it. If he did punish them presently, his holiness and justice would be glorified, but his power over himself in his patience would be obscured. Well may the church be content to have a perfection of God glorified, that is not like to receive any honor in another world by any exercise of itself. If it were not for this patience, he were incapable to be the Governor of a sinful world; he might, without it, be the Governor of an innocent world, but not of a criminal one; he would be the destroyer of the world, but not the orderer and disposer of the extravagancies and sinfulness of the world. The interest of his wisdom, in drawing good out of evil, would not be served, if he were not clothed with this perfection as well as with others. If he did presently destroy the enemies of his church upon the first oppression, his wisdom in contriving, and his power in accomplishing deliverance against the united powers of hell and earth, would not be visible, no, nor that power in preserving his people unconsumed in the furnace of affliction. He had not got so great a name in the rescue of his Israel from Pharaoh, had he thundered the tyrant into destruction upon his first edicts against the innocent. If he were not patient to the most violent of men, he might seem to be cruel. But when he offers peace to them under their rebellions, waits that they may be members of his church, {b514} rather than enemies to it, he frees himself from any such imputation, even in the judgment of those that shall feel most of his wrath; it is this renders the equity of his justice unquestionable, and the deliverance of his people righteous in the judgment of those from whose fetters they are delivered. Christ reigns in the midst of his enemies, to show his power over himself, as well as over the heads of his enemies, to show his power over his rebels. And though he retards his promise, and suffers a great interval of time between the publication and performance, sometimes years, sometimes ages to pass away, and little appearance of any preparation, to show himself a God of truth; it is not that he hath forgotten his word, or repents that ever he passed it, or sleeps in a supine neglect of it: but that men might not perish, but bethink themselves, and come as friends into his bosom, rather than be crushed as enemies under his feet (2 Pet. iii. 9): “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, but is long‑suffering to us‑ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Hereby he shows, that he would be rather pleased with the conversion, than the destruction, of men.

3. We see the reason why sin is suffered to remain in the regenerate; to show his patience towards his own; for since this attribute hath no other place of appearance but in this world, God takes opportunity to manifest it; because, at the close of the world, it will remain closed up in the Deity, without any further operation. As God suffers a multitude of sins in the world, to evidence his patience to the wicked, so he suffers great remainders of sin in his people, to show his patience to the godly. His sparing mercy is admirable, before their conversion, but more admirable in bearing with them after so high an obligation as the conferring upon them special converting grace.

Use 2. Of comfort. It is a vast comfort to any when God is pacified towards them; but it is some comfort to all, that God is yet patient towards them, though but very little to a refractory sinner. His continued patience to all, speaks a possibility of the care of all, would they not stand against the way of their recovery. It is a terror that God hath anger, but it is a mitigation of that terror that God is slow to it; while his sword is in his sheath there is some hopes to prevent the drawing of it: alas! if he were all fire and sword upon sin, what would become of us? We should find nothing else but overflowing deluges, or sweeping pestilences, or perpetual flashes of Sodom’s fire and brimstone from heaven. He dooms us not presently to execution, but gives us a long breathing time after the crime, that by retiring from our iniquities, and having recourse to his mercy, he may be withheld forever from signing a warrant against us, and change his legal sentence into an evangelical pardon. It is a special comfort to his people, that he is a “sanctuary to them” (Ezek. xi. 16); a place of refuge, a place of spiritual communications; but it is some refreshment to all in this life, that he is a defence to them: for so is his patience called (Numb. xiv. 9): “Their defence is departed from them;” speaking to the Israelites, that they should not be afraid of the Canaanites, for {b515} their defence is departed from them. God is no longer patient to them, since their sins be full and ripe. Patience, as long as it lasts, is a temporary defence to those that are under the wing of it; but to the believer it is a singular comfort; and God is called the “God of patience and consolation” in one breath (Rom. xv. 5): “The God of patience and consolation grant you to be like‑minded;” all interpreters understand it effectively. The God that inspires you with patience, and cheers you with comfort, grant this to you. Why may it not be understood formally, of the patience belonging to the nature of God? and though it be expressed in the way of petition, yet it might also be proposed as a pattern for imitation, and so suits very well to the exhortation laid down (ver. 1), which was to “bear with the infirmities of the weak,” which he presseth them to (ver. 3) by the example of Christ; and (ver. 5) by the patience of God to them, and so they are very well linked together. “God of patience and consolation” may well be joined, since patience is the first step of comfort to the poor creature. If it did not administer some comfortable hopes to Adam, in the interval between his fall and God’s coming to examine him, I am sure it was the first discovery of any comfort to the creature, after the sweeping the destroying deluge out of the world (Gen. ix. 21); after the “savor of Noah’s sacrifice,” representing the great Sacrifice which was to be in the world, had ascended up to God, the return from him is a publication of his forbearing to punish any more in such a manner: and though he found man no better than he was before, and the imaginations of men’s hearts as evil as before the deluge, that he would not again smite every living thing, as he had done. This was the first expression of comfort to Noah, after his exit from the ark; and declares nothing else but the continuance of patience to the new world above what he had shown to the old.

1. It is a comfort, in that it is an argument of his grace to his people. If he hath so rich a patience to exercise towards his enemies, he hath a greater treasure to bestow upon his friends. Patience is the first attribute which steps in for our salvation, and therefore called “salvation” (2 Pet. iii. 15). Something else is therefore built upon it, and intended by it, to those that believe. Those two letters of his name, “a God keeping mercy for thousands, and forgiving iniquity, transgressions and sin,” follow the other letter of his long‑suffering in the proclamation (Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7). He is “slow to anger,” that he may be merciful, that men may seek, and receive their pardon. If he be long‑suffering, in order to be a pardoning God, he will not be wanting in pardoning those who answer the design of his forbearance of them. You would not have had sparing mercy to improve, if God would have denied you saving mercy upon the improvement of his sparing goodness. If he hath so much respect to his enemies that provoke him, as to endure them with much long‑suffering, he will surely be very kind to those that obey him, and conform to his will. If he hath much long‑suffering to those that are “fitted for destruction” (Rom. ix. 22), he will have a muchness of mercy for those that are prepared for glory by faith and repentance. {b516} It is but a natural conclusion a gracious soul may make,――If God had not a mind to be appeased towards me, he would not have had a mind to forbear me; but since he hath forborne me, and given me a heart to see, and answer the true end of that forbearance, I need not question, but that sparing mercy will end in saving, since it finds that repentance springing up in me, which that patience conducted me to.

2. His patience is a ground to trust in his promise. If his slowness to anger be so great when his precept is slighted, his readiness to give what he hath promised will be as great when his promise is believed. If the provocations of them meet with such an unwillingness to punish them, faith in him will meet with the choicest embraces from him. He was more ready to make the promise of redemption after man’s apostasy, than to execute the threatening of the law. He doth still witness a greater willingness to give forth the fruits of the promise, than to pour out the vials of his curses. His slowness to anger is an evidence still, that he hath the same disposition, which is no slight cordial to faith in his word.

3. It is a comfort in infirmities. If he were not patient, he could not bear with so many peevishnesses and weaknesses in the hearts of his own. If he be patient to the grosser sins of his enemies, he will be no less to the lighter infirmities of his people. When the soul is a bruised reed, that can emit no sound at all, or one very harsh and ungrateful, he doth not break it in pieces, and fling it away in disdain, but waits to see whether it will fully answer his pains, and be brought to a better frame and sweeter note. He brings them not to account for every slip, but, “as a father, spares his son that serves him” (Mal. iii. 17). It is a comfort to us in our distracted services; for were it not for this slowness to anger, he would stifle us in the midst of our prayers, wherein there are as many foolish thoughts to disgust him, as there are petitions to implore him. The patientest angels would hardly be able to bear with the follies of good men in acts of worship.

Use 3. For exhortation.

1. Meditate often on the patience of God. The devil labors for nothing more than to deface in us the consideration and memory of this perfection. He is an envious creature; and since it hath reached out itself to us and not to him, he envies God the glory of it, and man the advantage of it: but God loves to have the volumes of it studied, and daily turned over by us. We cannot without an inexcusable wilfulness miss the thoughts of it, since it is visible in every bit of bread, and breath of air in ourselves, and all about us.

(1.) The frequent consideration of his patience would render God highly amiable to us. It is a more endearing argument than his mere goodness; his goodness to us as creatures, endowing us with such excellent faculties, furnishing us with such a commodious world, and bestowing upon us so many attendants for our pleasure and service, and giving us a lordship over his other works, deserves our affection: but his patience to us as sinners, after we have merited the greatest wrath, shows him to be of a sweeter disposition than creating goodness to unoffending creatures; and, consequently, speaks a greater {b517} love in him, and bespeaks a greater affection from us. His creating goodness discovered the majesty of his Being, and the greatness of his mind, but this the sweetness and tenderness of his nature. In this patience he exceeds the mildness of all creatures to us; and therefore should be enthroned in our affections above all other creatures. The consideration of this would make us affect him for his nature as well as for his benefits.

(2.) The consideration of his patience would make us frequent and serious in the exercise of repentance. In its nature it leads to it, and the consideration of it would engage us to it, and melt us in the exercise of it. Could we deeply think of it without being touched with a sense of the kindness of our forbearing Creditor and Governor? Could we gaze upon it, nay, could we glance upon it, without relenting at our offending one of so mild a nature, without being sensibly affected, that he hath preserved us so long from being loaded with those chains of darkness, under which the devils groan? This forbearance hath good reason to make sin and sinners ashamed. That you are in being, is not for want of advantages enough in his hand against you; many a forfeiture you have made, and many an engagement you have broke; he hath scarce met with any other dealing from us, than what had treachery in it. Whatsoever our sincerity is, we have no reason to boast of it, when we consider what mixtures there are in it, and what swarms of base motions taint it. Hath he not lain pressed and groaning under our sins, as a “cart is pressed with sheaves” (Amos ii. 13), when one shake of himself, as Sampson, might have rid him of the burden, and dismissed us in his fury into hell? If we should often ask our consciences why have we done thus and thus against so mild a God, would not the reflection on it put us to the blush? If men would consider, that such a time they provoked God to his face, and yet not have felt his sword; such a time they blasphemed him, and made a reproach of his name, and his thunder did not stop their motion; such a time they fell into an abominable brutishness, yet he kept the punishment of devils, the unclean spirits, from reaching them; such a time he bore an open affront from them, when they scoffed at his word, and he did not send a destruction, and laugh at it: would not such a meditation work some strange kind of relentings in men? What if we should consider, that we cannot do a sinful act without the support of his concurring Providence? We cannot see, hear, move, without his concourse. All creatures we use for our necessity or pleasure, are supported by him in the very act of assisting to pleasure us; and when we abuse those creatures against him, which he supports for our use, how great is his patience to bear with us, that he doth not annihilate those creatures, or at least embitter their use! What issue could reasonably be expected from this consideration, but, “O wretched man that I am, to serve myself of God’s power to affront him, and of his long‑suffering to abuse him?” O infinite patience to employ that power to preserve me, that might have been used to punish me! He is my Creator, I could not have a being without him, and yet I offend him! He is my Preserver, I cannot maintain my being without him, and yet I affront him! Is this a {b518} worthy requital of God (Deut. xxxii. 6), “Do you thus requite the Lord?” would be the heart‑breaking reflection. How would it give men a fuller prospect of the depravation of their nature than anything else; that their corruption should be so deep and strong, that so much patience could not overcome it! It would certainly make a man ashamed of his nature as well as his actions.

(3.) The consideration of his patience would make us resent more the injuries done by others to God. A patient sufferer, though a deserving sufferer, attracts the pity of men, that have a value for any virtue, though clouded with a heap of vice. How much more should we have a concern of God, who suffers so many abuses from others! and be grieved, that so admirable a patience should be slighted by men, who solely live by and under the daily influence of it! The impression of this would make us take God’s part, as it is usual with men to take the part of good dispositions that lie under oppression.

(4.) It would make us patient under God’s hand. His slowness to anger and his forbearance is visible, in the very strokes we feel in this life. We have no reason to murmur against him, who gives us so little cause, and in the greatest afflictions gives us more occasion of thankfulness than of repining. Did not slowness to the extremest anger moderate every affliction, it had been a scorpion instead of a rod. We have reason to bless Him, who, from his long‑suffering, sends temporal sufferings, where eternal are justly due. (Ezra ix. 13), “Thou hast punished us less than our iniquities do deserve.” His indulgences towards us have been more than our corrections, and the length of his patience hath exceeded the sharpness of his rod. Upon the account of his long‑suffering, our mutinies against God have as little to excuse them, as our sins against him have to deserve his forbearance. The consideration of this would show us more reason to repine at our own repinings, than at any of his smarter dealings; and the consideration of this would make us submissive under the judgments we expect. His undeserved patience hath been more than our merited judgments can possibly be thought to be. If we fear the removal of the gospel for a season, as we have reason to do, we should rather bless him, that by his waiting patience, he hath continued it so long, than murmur, that he threatens to take it away so late. He hath borne with us many a year, since the light of it was rekindled, when our ancestors had but six years’ of patience between the rise of Edward the Sixth, and the ascent of Queen Mary, to the crown.

2. Exhortation is to admire and stand astonished at his patience, “and bless him for it.” If you should have defiled your neighbor’s bed, or sullied his reputation, or rifled his goods, would he have withheld his vengeance, unless he had been too weak to execute it? We have done worse to God than we can do to man, and yet he draws not that sword of wrath out of the scabbard of his patience, to sheath it in our hearts. It is not so much a wonder that any judgments are sent, as that there are no more, and sharper. That the world shall be fired at last, is not a thing so strange, as that fire doth not come down every day upon some part of it. Had the disciples, that saw such excellent patterns of mildness from their {b519} Master, and were so often urged to learn of him that was lowly and meek, the government of the world, it had been long since turned into ashes, since they were too forward to desire him to open his magazine of judgments, and kindle a fire to consume a Samaritan village, for a slight affront in comparison of what he received from others, and afterwards from themselves in their forsaking of him (Luke ix. 52‒54). We should admire and praise that here which shall be praised in heaven; though patience shall cease as to its exercise after the consummation of the world, it shall not cease from receiving the acknowledgments of what it did, when it traversed the stage of this earth. If the name of God be glorified, and acknowledged in heaven, no question but this will also; since long‑suffering is one of his Divine titles, a letter in his name, as well as “merciful, and gracious, abundant in goodness and truth.” And there is good reason to think that the patience exercised towards some, before converting grace was ordered to seize upon them, will bear a great part in the anthems of heaven. The greater his long‑suffering hath been to men, that lay covered with their own dung, a long time before they were freed by grace from their filth; the more admiringly and loudly they will cry up his mercy to them, after they have passed the gulf, and see a deserved hell at a distance from them, and many in that place of torment who never had the tastes of so much forbearance. If mercy will be praised there, that which began the alphabet of it, cannot be forgot. If Paul speak so highly of it in a damping world, and under the pull‑backs of a “body of death,” as he doth 1 Tim. i. 16, 17: “For this cause I obtained mercy; that Christ might show forth all long‑suffering. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor, and glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” No doubt, but he will have a higher note for it, when he is surrounded with a heavenly flame, and freed from all remains of dulness. Shall it be praised above, and have we no notes for it here below? Admire Christ, too, who sued out your reprieve upon the account of his merit. As mercy acts not upon any but in Christ, so neither had patience borne with any but in Christ. The pronouncing the arrest of judgment (Gen. viii. 21) was when “God smelled a sweet savor from Noah’s sacrifice,” not from the beasts offered, but the anti‑typical sacrifice represented. That we may be raised to bless God for it, let us consider,

(1.) The multitude of our provocations. Though some have blacker guilt than others, and deeper stains, yet let none wipe his mouth, but rather imagine himself to have but little reason to bless it. Are not all our offences as many as there have been minutes in our lives? All the moments of our continuance in the world have been moments of his patience and our ingratitude. Adam was punished for one sin, Moses excluded Canaan for a passionate unbelieving word. Ananias and Sapphira lost their lives for one sin against the Holy Ghost. One sin sullied the beauty of the world, defaced the works of God, and cracked heaven and earth in pieces, had not infinite satisfaction been proposed to the provoked Justice by the Redeemer; and not one sin committed, but is of the same {b520} venomous nature. How many of those contradictions against himself hath he borne with! Had we been only unprofitable to him, his forbearance of us had been miraculous; but how much doth it exceed a miracle, and lift itself above the meanness of a conjunction with such an epithet, since we have been provoking! Had there been no more than our impudent or careless rushings into his presence in worship; had they been only sins of omission, and sins of ignorance, it had been enough to have put a stand to any further operations of this perfection towards us. But add to those, sins of commission, sins against knowledge, sins against spiritual motions, sins against repeated resolutions, and pressing admonitions, the neglects of all the opportunities of repentance; put them all together, and we can as little recount them, as the sands on the sea‑shore. But what, do I only speak of particular men? View the whole world, and if our own iniquities render it an amazing patience, what a mighty supply will be made to it in all the numerous and weighty provocations, under which he hath continued the world for so many revolutions of years and ages! Have not all those pressed into his presence with a loud cry, and demanded a sentence from justice? yet hath not the Judge been overcome by the importunity of our sins? Were the devils punished for one sin, a proud thought, and that not committed against the blood of Christ, as we have done numberless times; yet hath not God made us partakers in their punishment, though we have exceeded them in the quality of their sin. O admirable patience! that would bear with me under so many, while he would not bear with the sinning angels for one.[1042]

(2.) Consider how mean things we are, who have provoked him. What is man but a vile thing, that a God, abounding with all riches, should take care of so abject a thing, much more to bear so many affronts from such a drop of matter, such a nothing creature! That he that hath anger at his command, as well as pity, should endure such a detestable, deformed creature by sin, to fly in his face! “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” (Ps. viii.) אנוש, miserable, incurable man, derived from a word, that signifies to be incurably sick. Man is “Adam,” earth from his earthly original, and “Enoch,” incurable from his corruption. Is it not worthy to be admired, that a God of infinite glory should wait on such Adams, worms of earth, and be, as it were, a servant, and attendant to such Enochs, sickly and peevish creatures?

(3.) Consider who it is that is thus patient. He it is that, with one breath, could turn heaven and earth, and all the inhabitants of both, into nothing; that could, by one thunderbolt, have razed up the foundations of a cursed world. He that wants not instruments without to ruin us, that can arm our own consciences against us, and can drown us in our own phlegm; and, by taking out one pin from our bodies, cause the whole frame to fall asunder. Besides, it is a God that, while he suffers the sinner, hates the sin more than all the holy men upon earth, or angels in heaven, can do; so that his patience for a minute transcends the patience of all creatures, from the creation to the dissolution of the world: because it is the patience of a {b521} God, infinitely more sensible to the cursed quality of sin, and infinitely more detesting it.

(4.) Consider how long he hath forborne his anger. A reprieve for a week or a month is accounted a great favor in civil states; the civil law enacts, “That if the emperor commanded a man to be condemned, the execution was to be deferred thirty days: because in that time the prince’s anger might be appeased.”[1043] But how great a favor is it to be reprieved thirty years for many offences, every one of which deserves death more at the hands of God than any offence can at the hands of man! Paul was, according to the common account, but about thirty years old at his conversion; and how much doth he elevate Divine long‑suffering! Certainly there are many who have more reason, as having larger quantities of patience cut out to them, who have lived to see their own gray hairs in a rebellious posture against God, before grace brought them to a surrender. We were all condemned in the womb; our lives were forfeited the first moment of our breath, but patience hath stopped the arrest; the merciful Creditor deserves to have acknowledgment from us, who hath laid by his bond so many years without putting it in suit against us. Many of your companions in sin have perhaps been surprised long ago, and haled to an eternal prison; nothing is remaining of them but their dust, and the time is not yet come for your funeral. Let it be considered, that that God that would not wait upon the fallen angels one instant after their sin, nor give them a moment’s space of repentance, hath prolonged the life of many a sinner in the world to innumerable moments, to 420,000 minutes in the space of a year, to 8,400,000 minutes in the space of twenty years. The damned in hell would think it a great kindness to have but a year’s, month’s, nay, day’s respite, as a space to repent in.

(5.) Consider also, how many have been taken away under shorter measures of patience: some have been struck into a hell of misery, while thou remainest upon an earth of forbearance. In a plague, the destroying angel hath hewed down others, and passed by us; the arrows have flew about our heads, passed over us, and stuck in the heart of a neighbor. How many rich men, how many of our friends and familiars, have been seized by death since the beginning of the year, when they least thought of it, and imagined it far from them! Have you not known some of your acquaintance snatched away in the height of a crime? Was not the same wrath due to you as well as to them! And had it not been as dreadful for you to be so surprised by Him as it was for them? Why should he take a less sturdy sinner out of thy company, and let thee remain still upon the earth? If God had dealt so with you, how had you been cut off, not only from the enjoyment of this life, but the hopes of a better! And if God had made such a providence beneficial for reclaiming you, how much reason have you to acknowledge him! He that hath had least patience, hath cause to admire; but those that have more, ought to exceed others in blessing him for it. If God had put an end to your natural life before you had made provision for eternal, how deplorable would your condition have been! {b522} Consider also, whoever have been sinners formerly of a deeper note; might not God have struck a man in the embraces of his harlots, and choked him in the moment of his excessive and intemperate healths, or on the sudden have spurted fire and brimstone into a blasphemer’s mouth? What if God had snatched you away, when you had been sleeping in some great iniquity, or sent you while burning in lust to the fire it merited? Might he not have cracked the string that linked your souls to your bodies, in the last sickness you had? And what then had become of you? What could have been expected to succeed your impenitent state in this world, but howlings in another? but he reprieved you upon your petitions, or the solicitations of your friends; and have you not broke your word with him? Have your hearts been steadfast; hath he not yet waited, expecting when you would put your vows and resolutions into execution? What need had he to cry out to any so loud and so long, O you fools, “how long will you love foolishness?” (Prov. i. 22), when he might have ceased his crying to you, and have by your death prevented your many neglects of him? Did he do all this that any of us might add new sins to our old; or rather, that we should bless him for his forbearance, comply with the end of it in reforming our lives, and having recourse to his mercy?

3. Exhortion; therefore presume not upon his patience. The exercise of it is not eternal; you are at present under his patience; yet, while you are unconverted, you are also under his anger (Ps. vii. 11), “God is angry with the wicked every day.” You know not how soon his anger may turn his patience aside, and step before it. It may be his sword is drawn out of his scabbard, his arrows may be settled in his bow; and perhaps there is but a little time before you may feel the edge of the one or the point of the other: and then there will be no more time for patience in God to us, or petition from us to him. If we repent here he will pardon us. If we defer repentance, and die without it, he will have no longer mercy to pardon, nor patience to bear. What is there in our power but the present? the future time we cannot command, the past time we cannot recall; squander not then the present away. The time will come when “time shall be no more,” and then long‑suffering shall be no more. Will you neglect the time, wherein patience acts, and vainly hope for a time beyond the resolves of patience? Will you spend that in vain, which goodness hath allotted you for other purposes? What an estimate will you make of a little forbearance to respite death, when you are gasping under the stroke of its arrows! How much would you value some few days of those many years you now trifle away! Can any think God will be always at an expense with them in vain, that he will have such riches trampled under their feet, and so many editions of his patience be made waste paper? Do you know how few sands are yet to run in your glass? Are you sure that He that waits to‑day, will wait as well to‑morrow? How can you tell, but that God that is slow to anger to‑day, may be swift to it the next? Jerusalem had but a day of peace, and the most careless sinner hath no more. When their day was done, they were destroyed by famine, pestilence, or sword, or led into a doleful {b523} captivity. Did God make our lives so uncertain, and the duration of his forbearance unknown to us, that we should live in a lazy neglect of his glory, and our own happiness? If you should have more patience in regard of your lives, do you know whether you shall have the effectual offers of grace? As your lives depend upon his will, so your conversion depends solely upon his grace. There have been many examples of those miserable wretches, that have been left to a reprobate sense, after they have a long time abused Divine forbearance. Though he waits, yet he “binds up sin.” (Hos. xiii. 12), “The sin of Ephraim is bound up,” as bonds are bound up by a creditor till a fit opportunity: when God comes to put the bond in suit, it will be too late to wish for that patience we have so scornfully despised. Consider therefore the end of patience. The patience of God considered in itself, without that which it tends to, affords very little comfort; it is but a step to pardoning mercy, and it may be without it, and often is. Many have been reprieved that were never forgiven; hell is full of those that had patience as well as we, but not one that accepted pardoning grace went within the gates of it. Patience leaves men, when their sins have ripened them for hell; but pardoning grace never leaves men till it hath conducted them to heaven. His patience speaks him placable, but doth not assure us that he is actually appeased. Men may hope that a long‑suffering tends to a pardon, but cannot be assured of a pardon, but by something else above mere long‑suffering. Rest not then upon bare patience, but consider the end of it; it is not that any should sin more freely, but repent more meltingly; it is not to spirit rebellion, but give a merciful stop to it. Why should any be so ambitious of their ruin, as to constrain God to ruin them against the inclinations of his sweet disposition?

4. The fourth exhortation is, Let us imitate God’s patience in our own to others. He is unlike God that is hurried, with an unruly impetus, to punish others for wronging him. The consideration of Divine patience should make us square ourselves according to that pattern. God hath exercised a long‑suffering from the fall of Adam to this minute on innumerable subjects, and shall we be transported with desire of revenge upon a single injury? If God were not “slow to wrath,” a sinful world had been long ago torn up from the foundation. And if revenge should be exercised by all men against their enemies, what man should have been alive, since there is not a man without an enemy? If every man were like Saul, breathing out threatenings, the world would not only be an aceldema, but a desert. How distant are they from the nature of God, who are in a flame upon every slight provocation from a sense of some feeble and imaginary honor, that must bloody their sword for a trifle, and write their revenge in wounds and death! When God hath his glory every day bespattered, yet he keeps his sword in his sheath; what a woe would it be to the world, if he drew it upon every affront! This is to be like brutes, dogs, or tigers, that snarl, bite, and devour, upon every slight occasion: but to be patient is to be divine, and to show ourselves acquainted with the disposition of God. “Be you therefore perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. v. 48): {b524} i. e. Be you perfect and good; for he had been exhorting them to bless them that cursed them, and to do good to them that hated them, and that from the example God had set them, in causing his sun to rise upon the evil as well as the good. “Be you therefore perfect.” To conclude: as patience is God’s perfection, so it is the accomplishment of the soul: and as his “slowness to anger” argues the greatness of his power over himself, so an unwillingness to revenge is a sign of a power over ourselves which is more noble than to be a monarch over others.

{b525} INDEX.

A.

Acquaintance with God. Men are unwilling to have any, i. 158. See Communion.

Actions. A greater proof of principles than words, i. 92. All are known by God, i. 424.

Activity. Required in spiritual worship, i. 227, 228

Adam. The greatness of his sin, ii. 269, 429. See Man, and Fall of Man.

Additions. In matters of religion an invasion of God’s sovereignty, ii. 432, 433. See Worship, and Ceremonies.

Admiration. Ought to be exercised in spiritual worship, i. 233.

Affections, human. In what sense ascribed to God, i. 340‒343.

Afflictions, sharp. Make Atheists fear there is a God, i. 81. Make us impatient (see Impatience). We should be patient under them (see Patience). Many call on God only under them, i. 151. Fill us with distraction in the worship of God, i. 258. The presence of God a comfort in them, i. 399; and his knowledge, i. 488. The wisdom of God apparent in them, i. 547‒550. The wisdom of God a comfort in them, i. 593; and his power, ii. 98, 99; and his sovereignty, ii. 451. Do not impeach his goodness, ii. 243, 244. The goodness of God seen in them, ii. 309‒311. His goodness a comfort in them, ii. 342. Acts of God’s sovereignty, ii. 373‒376; the consideration of which would make us entertain them as we ought, ii. 456.

Age. Many neglect the serving of God till old, i. 113.

Air. How useful a creature, i. 54.

Almighty. How often God is so called in Scripture, ii. 10. How often in Job, ii. 36.

Angels. Good, what benefit they have by Christ, i. 536, ii. 263, 264. Not instruments in the creation of man, ii. 41. Evil, not redeemed, ii. 263, 264.

Angels. Not governors of the world, ii. 328, 329. Subject to God, ii. 381, 382.

Apostasy. Men apostatize from God when his will crosses theirs, i. 135. In times of persecution, i. 149, 150. By reason of practical atheism, i. 167.

Apostles, the first preachers of the gospel. Mean and worthless men, ii. 69‒71. Spirited by Divine power for spreading of it, ii. 72‒74. The wisdom of God seen in using such instruments, i. 578, 579.

Applauding ourselves. See Pride.

Atheism. Opens a door to all manner of wickedness, i. 24. Some spice of it in all men, i. 25‒27. The greatest folly, i. 24‒77. Common in our days, i. 26, 79, 80. Strikes at the foundation of all religion, i. 26. We should establish ourselves against it, ib. It is against the light of natural reason, i. 2. Against the universal consent of all nations, i. 29, 30. But few, if any, professed it in former ages, i. 32‒34, 80. Would root up the foundations of all government, i. 77. Introduce all evil into the world, i. 78. Pernicious to the atheist himself, i. 79. The cause of public judgments, i. 80. Men’s lusts the cause of it, i. 82. Promoted by the devil most since the destruction of idolatry, i. 84. Uncomfortable, i. 85. Directions against it, i. 87. All sin founded in a secret atheism, i. 93.

Atheism, practical. Natural to man, i. 89. Natural since the fall, i. 90. To all men, ib. Proved by arguments, i. 99‒161. We ought to be humbled for it, both in ourselves and others, i. 167. How great a sin it is, i. 169‒171. Misery will attend it, i. 171, 172. We should watch against it, ib. Directions against it, i. 172, 173.

Atheist. Can never prove there is no God, i. 81. All the creatures fight against him, ib. In afflictions, suspects and fears there is a God, i. 82. How much pains he takes to blot out the notion, ib. Suppose it were an even lay that there were no God, yet he is very imprudent, i. 83. Uses not means to inform himself, ib.

{b526}Atoms. The world not made by a casual concourse of them, i. 50.

Attributes of God. Bear a comfortable respect to believers, i. 513.

Authority. How distinguished from power, ii. 364.

B.

Best we have. Ought to be given to God, i. 242‒244.

Blessings. Spiritual, God only the author of, ii. 357. Temporal, God uses a sovereignty in bestowing them, ii. 412, 413. See Riches.

Body of man. How curiously wrought, i. 63‒67, 523. Every human one hath different features, i. 66. God hath none (see Spirit). We must worship God with our bodies, i. 219‒222; yet not with our bodies only. See Soul, and Worship.

Bodily shape. We must not conceive of God under a, i. 197, 198.

Bodily members. Ascribed to him (see Members.)

Brain. How curious a workmanship, i. 65.

C.

Calf, golden. The Israelites worshipped the true God under, i. 195.

Callings. God fits and inclines men to several, i. 531, 532; i. 598. Appoints every man’s calling, ii. 421.

Cause, a first. Of all things, i. 50, 51; which doth necessarily exist, and is infinitely perfect, i. 51.

Censure. God not to be censured in his counsels, actions, or revelations, i. 295. Or in his ways, i. 605, 606.

Censuring the hearts of others. Is an injury to God’s omniscience, i. 478. Men, is a contempt of God’s sovereignty, ii. 441.

Ceremonial Law. Abolished to promote spiritual worship, i. 213. Called flesh, ib. Not a fit means to bring the heart into a spiritual frame, i. 214. Rather hindered than furthered spiritual worship, i. 215, 216. God never testified himself well‑pleased with it, nor intended it should always last, i. 216‒218. The abrogation of it doth not argue any change in God, i. 346. The holiness of God appears in it, ii. 131, 132.

Ceremonies. Men are prone to bring their own into God’s worship, i. 133, 134. See Worship, and Additions, &c.

Chance. The world not made nor governed by it, i. 59.

Charity. Men have bad ends in it, i. 153. We should exercise it, ii. 353, 354. The consideration of God’s sovereignty would promote it, ii. 456.

Cheerful, in God’s worship. We should be, i. 235.

Christ. His Godhead proved from his eternity, i. 291‒293. From his omnipresence, i. 392, 393. From his immutability, i. 346‒348. From his knowledge of God, all creatures, the hearts of men, and his prescience of their inclinations, i. 465‒469. From his omnipotence, manifest in creation, preservation and resurrection, ii. 80‒86. From his holiness, ii. 190. From his wisdom, i. 558.

Christ. Is God man, ii. 62. Spiritual worship offered to God through him, i. 241, 242. The imperfectness of our services should make us prize his mediation, i. 261. The only fit Person in the Trinity to assume our nature, i. 558‒560. Fitted to be our Mediator and Saviour by his two natures, i. 563‒565. Should be imitated in his holiness, and often viewed by us to that end, ii. 200‒207. The greatest gift, ii. 266‒269. Appointed by the Father to be our Redeemer, ii. 424‒426.

Christian religion. Its excellency, i. 167. Of Divine extraction, i. 580. Most opposed in the world, i. 111. See Gospel.

Church. God’s eternity a comfort to her in all her distresses and threatenings of her enemies, i. 299, 300. Under God’s special providence, i. 406. His infinite knowledge a comfort in all subtile contrivances of men against her, i. 483, 484. Troublers of her peace by corrupt doctrines no better than devils, i. 498. God’s wisdom a comfort to her in her greatest dangers, i. 594. Hath shown his power in her deliverance in all ages, i. 277, ii. 55; and in the destruction of her enemies, ii. 56‒59. Ought to take comfort in his power in her lowest estate, ii. 101. Should not fear her enemies (see Fear). His goodness a comfort in dangers, ii. 344. How great is God’s love to her, ii. 449‒515. His sovereignty a comfort to her, ii. 452, 453. He will comfort her in her fears, and destroy her enemies, ii. 472, 473. God exercises patience towards her, ii. 504, 505; for her sake to the wicked also, ii. 506. Why her enemies are not immediately destroyed, ii. 513.

Commands of God. See Laws.

Comfort. The holiness of God to be relied on for, ii. 190, 191.

Comfort us. Creatures cannot, if God be angry, ii. 448.

Comforts. God gives great, in or after temptations, ii. 311‒313.

Communion with God. Man naturally no desire of, i. 161. The advantage of, i. 172. Can only be in our spirits, i. 202. We should desire it, i. 308. Cannot be between God and sinners, ii. 183. Holiness only fits us for it, ii. 204, 205.

Conceptions. We cannot have adequate ones of God, i. 196, 197. We ought to labor after as high ones as we can, ib. They must {b527} not be of him in a corporeal shape, i. 197, 198. There will be in them a similitude of some corporeal thing in our fancy, i. 198, 199. We ought to refine and spiritualize them, i. 200.

Conceptions, right. Of him, a great help to spiritual worship, i. 272, 273.

Concurrence of God. To all the actions of his creatures, ii. 156, 157.

Concurring to sinful actions. No blemish to God’s holiness, ii. 157‒163.

Conditions, various. Of men, a fruit of Divine wisdom, i. 531, 532.

Conditions of the covenant. See Covenant, Faith, and Repentance.

Confession of sin. Men may have bad ends in it, i. 153. Partial ones a practical denial of God’s omniscience, i. 480, 481.

Conscience. Proves a Deity, i. 69‒73. Fears and stings of it in all men upon the commission of sin, i. 70‒72; though never so secret, i. 71, 72. Cannot be totally shaken off, i. 72. Comforts a man in well‑doing, i. 72, 73. Necessary for the good of the world, i. 73. Terrified ones wish there were no God, i. 97. Men naturally displeased with it, when it contradicts the desires of self, i. 123. Obey carnal self against the light of it, i. 140, 141. Accusations of it evidence God’s knowledge of all things, i. 463. God, and he only, can speak peace to it when troubled, ii. 79, 386. His laws only reach it, ii. 390, 391, 432, 433.

Constancy in that which is good. We should labor after, and why, i. 360, 361.

Content the soul. Nothing but an infinite good can, i. 73, 74. See Satisfaction, and Soul.

Contingents all foreknown by God. See Knowledge of God.

Contradictions. Cannot be made true by God, ii. 26‒30; yet this doth not overthrow God’s omnipotence, ib. It is an abuse of God’s power to endeavor to justify them by it, ii. 95.

Contrary. Qualities linked together in the creatures, i. 52, 53, 524.

Conversion. Carnal self‑love a great hindrance to it, i. 137. There may be a conversion from sin which is not good, i. 150. Men are enemies to it, i. 160, 161. The necessity of it, i. 163, 164. God only can be the Author of it, i. 165, 166, ii. 396. The wisdom of God appears in it, in the subjects, seasons, and manner of it, i. 544‒547; and his power, ii. 72‒78; and his holiness, ii. 139; and his goodness, ii. 306, 307; and his sovereignty, ii. 396‒404. He could convert all, ii. 399. Not bound to convert any, ii. 401, 402. The various means and occasions of it, ii. 421.

Convictions, genuine. Would be promoted by right and strong apprehensions of God’s holiness, ii. 191.

Corruptions. The knowledge of God a comfort under fears of them lurking in the heart, i. 489, 490. The power of God a comfort when they are strong and stirring, ii. 99. In God’s people shall be subdued, ii. 450, 451; the remainders of them God orders for their good, i. 538, 544.

Covenant of God. With his people eternal, i. 297, 298; and unchangeable, i. 354.

Covenant, God in. An eternal good to his people, i. 297.

Covenant of grace. Conditions of, evidence the wisdom of God, i. 571. Suited to man’s lapsed state, and God’s glory, ib. Opposite to that which was the cause of the fall, i. 572. Suited to the common sentiments and customs of the world and consciences of men, i. 572, 573. Only likely to attain the end, i. 573. Evidence God’s holiness, ii. 138. The wisdom of God made over to believers in it, i. 593, 594; and power, ii. 98; and holiness, ii. 190, 191. A promise of life implied in the covenant of works, ii. 253, 254; why not expressed, ii. 527. The goodness of God manifest in making a covenant of grace after man had broken the first, ii. 274, 275. In the nature and tenor of it, ii. 275‒277. In the choice gift of himself made over in it, ii. 277, 278. In its confirmation, ii. 278, 279. Its conditions easy, reasonable, necessary, ii. 279‒284. It promises a more excellent reward than the life in paradise, ii. 291‒293.

Covetousness. See Riches, and World.

Creation. The wisdom of God appears in it, i. 518‒525; and should be meditated upon, i. 525; motives to it, ii. 5‒9; his power, ii. 35‒44; his holiness, ii. 126, 127; his goodness, ii. 244‒258. Goodness the end and motive of it, ii. 228, 229. Ascribed to Christ, ii. 81‒85. The foundation of God’s dominion, ii. 368‒370.

Creatures. Evidence the being of God, i. 28, 42‒64; in their production, i. 43‒51; in their harmony, i. 52‒60; in pursuing their several ends, i. 60‒62; in their preservation, i. 62, 63. Were not, and cannot be, from eternity, i. 45, 46, 292. None of them can make themselves, i. 47‒49; or the world, i. 49, 50. Subservient to one another, i. 53, 378. Regular, uniform, and constant in it, i. 56, 57. Are various, i. 58, 519, 520. Have several natures, i. 60. All fight against the atheist, i. 82. God ought to be studied in them, i. 86. All manifest something of God’s perfections, ib. Setting them up as our end (see End). Must not be worshipped (see Idolatry). Used by man to a contrary end than God appointed, i. 148. All are changeable, i. 355. Therefore an immutable God to be preferred {b528} before them, i. 358. Are nothing to God, i. 395. Are all known by God, i. 422, 423. Shall be restored to their primitive end, i. 313, ii. 293. Their beautiful order and situation, i. 520, 521. Are fitted for their several ends, i. 522‒524. None of them can be omnipresent, i. 378; or omnipotent, ii. 18; or infinitely perfect, ii. 24. God could have made more than he hath, ii. 21, 22. Made them all more perfect than they are, ii. 23, 24. Yet all are made in the best manner, ii. 24, 25. The power that is in them demonstrates a greater to be in God, ii. 31. Ordered by God as he pleases, ii. 57. The meanest of them can destroy us by God’s order, ii. 107, 448. Making different ranks of them, doth not impeach God’s goodness, ii. 232‒235. Cursed for the sin of man, ii. 250, 293. What benefit they have by the redemption of man, ii. 293, 294. Cannot comfort us if God be angry, ii. 448. All subject to God, ii. 381‒387. All obey God, ii. 465, 466.

Curiosity in inquiries about God’s counsels and actions. A great folly, i. 295. It is an injuring God’s knowledge, i. 475‒477. It is a contempt of Divine wisdom, i. 590. Should not be employed about what God hath not revealed, i. 603, 604. The consideration of God’s sovereignty would check it, ii. 457.

D.

Day. How necessary, i. 523.

Death of Christ. Its value is from his Divine Nature, i. 564. Vindicated the honor of the law, both as to precept and penalty, i. 566. Overturned the Devil’s empire, i. 568. He suffered to rescue us by it, ii. 268. By the command of the Father, ii. 425, 426.

Debauched persons. Wish there were no God, i. 97.

Decrees of God. No succession in them, i. 285. Unchangeable, i. 582, 583, ii. 451, 452. See Immutability.

Defilement. God not capable of it from any corporeal thing, i. 201, 390, 392.

Delight. Holy duties should be performed with, i. 234‒236. All delight in worship doth not prove it to be spiritual, i. 235. We should examine ourselves after worship, what delight we had in it, i. 252.

Deliverances. Chiefly to be ascribed to God, i. 406. The wisdom of God seen in them, i. 550‒552.

Desires, of man. Naturally after an infinite good, i. 73, 74; which evidences the being of a God, i. 74. Men naturally have no desire of remembrance of God, converse with him, thorough return to him, or imitation of him, i. 159‒161.

Devil. Man naturally under his dominion, i. 118, 119. God’s restraining him, how great a mercy (see Restraint). Shall be totally subdued by God, i. 498. Outwitted by God, i. 568. His first sin, what it was, ii. 427‒429. See Angel.

Direction. Men neglect to ask it of God (see Trusting in ourselves). Should seek it of him, i. 585. Not to do it, how sinful, i. 589, 590. Should not presume to give it to him, i. 591.

Disappointments. Make many cast off their obedience to God, i. 115, 116. God disappoints the devices of men, ii. 418‒420.

Dispensations. Of God with his own law, ii. 391‒393.

Distance from God. Naturally affected by men, i. 158, 159. How great it is, ii. 180.

Distractions in the service of God. How natural, i. 114, 256. Will be so while we have natural corruption within, i. 256, 257; while we are in the Devil’s precinct, i. 257. Most frequent in time of affliction, i. 258. May be improved to make us more spiritual, i. 258‒261; when we are humbled for them in worship, i. 258, 259; and for the baseness of our natures, the cause of them, i. 259. Make us prize duties of worship the more, ib. Fill us with admirations of the graciousness of God, i. 260. Prize the meditation of Christ, i. 261. They should not discourage us, if we resist them, ib.; and if we narrowly watch against them, i. 262. Should be speedily cast out, i. 274. Thoughts of God’s presence a remedy against them, i. 404.

Distresses. See Afflictions.

Distrust of God. A contempt of God’s wisdom, i. 593; and his power, ii. 93; and of his goodness, ii. 319, 320. Too great fear of man arises from it, ii. 94. See Trusting in God, and in ourselves.

Divinity. Of Christ (see Christ). Of the Holy Ghost (see Holy Ghost).

Doctrines. That are self‑pleasing desired by men, i. 139. See Truths.

Dominion of God. Distinguished from his power, ii. 364. All his other attributes fit him for it, ii. 364, 365. Acknowledged by all, ib. Inseparable from the notion of God, ii. 365, 366. We cannot suppose God a creator without it, ii. 366. Cannot be renounced by God himself, ib.; nor communicated to any creature, ii. 366, 367. Its foundation, ii. 367‒372. It is independent, ii. 372, 373; absolute, ii. 373‒377; yet not tyrannical, ii. 377, 378; managed with wisdom, righteousness, and goodness, ii. 378‒380. It is eternal, ii. 386, 387. It is manifested as he is a lawgiver, ii. 387‒394; as a proprietor, ii. 394‒413; as a governor, ii. 413‒422; as a redeemer, ii. 422‒426. The contempt of it, how great, ii. 426, 427. {b529} All sin is a contempt of it, ii. 427, 428. The first thing the devil aimed against, ii. 428, 429; and Adam, ii. 429. Invaded by the usurpations of men, ii. 430, 431. Wherein it is contemned as he is a lawgiver, ii. 431‒435; as a proprietor, ii. 435, 436; as a governor, ii. 436‒441. It is terrible to the wicked, ii. 446‒448. Comfortable to the righteous, ii. 449‒453. Should be often meditated upon by us, ii. 453, 454. The advantages of so doing, ii. 454‒457. It should teach us humility, ii. 458. Calls for our praise and thanks, ii. 459, 460. Should make us promote his honor, ii. 461, 462. Calls for fear, prayer, and obedience, ii. 462, 463. Affords motives to obedience, ii. 463‒466; and shows the manner of it, ii. 466‒469. Calls for patience, ii. 469. Affords motives to it, ii. 469‒471. Shows us the true nature of it, ii. 471.

Duties of religion. Performed often merely for self‑interest, i. 150‒154. Men unwieldy to them, i. 151. Perform them only in affliction, i. 151, 152. See Service of God, and Worship.

Dwelling in heaven, and in the ark. How to be understood of God, i. 385, 386.

E.

Ear of man. How curious an organ, i. 65.

Earth. How useful, i. 54, 55. The wisdom of God seen in it, i. 522.

Earthly things. See World.

Ejaculations. How useful, i. 272.

Elect. God knows all their persons, i. 485, 486.

Election. Evidenced by holiness, ii. 205. The sovereignty of God appears in it, ii. 394‒396. Not grounded on merit in the creature, ii. 396. Nor on foresight of faith and good works, ii. 396‒399.

Elements. Though contrary, yet linked together, i. 52, 53.

End. All creatures conspire to one common end, i. 53‒60; pursue their several ends, though they know them not, i. 60‒62. Men have corrupt ends in religious duties, i. 132, 150‒154; for evil ends, i. 105, 106; desire the knowledge of God’s law, for by ends, i. 104. Man naturally would make himself his own end, i. 135‒141; how sinful this is, i. 141, 142; would make anything his end rather than God, i. 142‒144; a creature, or a lust, i. 144‒146; how sinful this is, ib.; would make himself the end of all creatures, i. 147, 149; how sinful this is, i. 149; would make himself the end of God, i. 148‒154; how sinful this is, i. 154, 155; cannot make God his end, till converted, i. 163, 164. Spiritual ones required in spiritual worship, i. 239‒241; many have other ends in it, ib. God orders the hearts of all men to his own, ii. 54. God hath one, and man another in sin, i. 161, 162. We should make God our end, ii. 206. God makes himself his own end, how to be understood, ii. 228‒230. His being the end of all things is one foundation of his dominion, ii. 370, 371. Not using God’s gifts for the end for which he gave them, how great a sin, ii. 435, 436.

Enemies. Of the church (see Church). We should be kind to our worst enemies, ii. 354, 355.

Enjoyment of God. In heaven always fresh and glorious, i. 298, 299. We should endeavor after it here, ii. 344‒346.

Envy. Men envy the gifts and prosperities of others, i. 131, 132. An imitation of the devil, ib. A sense of God’s goodness would check it, ii. 351. A contempt of God’s dominion, ii. 435.

Essence of God. Cannot be seen, i. 184, 185. Is unchangeable, i. 319.

Eternity. A property of God and Christ, i. 278, 279, 293, 294. What it is, i. 280. In what respects God is eternal, i. 280‒286. That he is so, proved, i. 286‒291. God’s incommunicable property, i. 44‒46, 291‒293. Dreadful to sinners, i. 295, 296. Comfortable to the righteous, i. 297‒301. The thoughts of it should abate our pride, i. 302‒304; take off our love and confidence from the world, i. 304‒306. We should provide for a happy interest in it, i. 306; often meditate on it, i. 307, 308. Renders him worthy of our choicest affections, i. 308; and our best service, i. 308, 309.

Exaltation of Christ. The holiness of God appears in it, ii. 136, 137. His goodness to us as well as to Christ, ii. 268, 269; and his sovereignty, ii. 426.

Examination of ourselves. Before and after worship, and wherein our duty, i. 252‒256, 275.

Experience of God’s goodness. A preservative against atheism, i. 86, 87.

Extremity. Then God usually delivers his church, ii. 101.

F.

Faith. The same thing may be the object of it, and of reason too, i. 27‒29. Must be exercised in spiritual worship, i. 230, 231. The wisdom, holiness, and goodness of God in prescribing it as a condition of the covenant of grace (see Covenant). Must look back as far as the foundation promise, i. 499. Only the obedience flowing from it acceptable to God, i. 504, 505. Distinct, but inseparable from obedience, i. 505, 506. Foresight of it not the ground of election, ii. 396‒399.

Fall of man. God no way the author of it, {b530} ii. 123‒125, 142, 143. How great it is, ii. 480, 481. Doth not impeach God’s goodness, ii. 231, 232. It is evident, ii. 325, 326; brought a curse on the creatures (see Creatures).

Falls of God’s children. Turned to their good, i. 537‒547.

Fear. Not the cause of the belief of a God, i. 41. Men that are under a slavish fear of him wish there were no God, i. 98, 99. Of man, a contempt of God’s power, ii. 93, 94. Should be of God, and not of the pride or force of man, ii. 106, 107. God’s sovereignty should cause it, ii. 462.

Features. Different in every man, and how necessary it should be so, i. 66, 67, 520.

Fervency. See Activity.

Flesh. The legal services so called, i. 213, 214.

Fools. Wicked men are so, i. 23, 586, 587.

Folly. Sin is so (see Sin).

Forgetfulness of God. Men naturally are prone to it, i. 159, 160. Of his mercies a great sin (see Mercies). How attributed to God, i. 421.

Foreknowledge in God of sin. No blemish to his holiness, ii. 145, 146. See Knowledge of God.

Future things. Men desirous to know them, i. 476, 477. Known by God, (see Knowledge of God).

G.

Gabriel. On what messages he was sent, ii. 75.

Generation. Could not be from eternity, i. 44‒46.

Gifts. God can bestow them on men, ii. 384, 385. His sovereignty seen in giving greater measures to one than another, ii. 408‒410.

Glory of all they do or have. Men are apt to ascribe to themselves, i. 139. Of God little minded in many seemingly good actions, i. 124‒127. Men are more concerned for their own reputation than God’s glory, i. 140. Should be aimed at in spiritual worship, i. 239‒241. God’s permission of sin is in order to it, ii. 154‒156. Should be advanced by us, ii. 461, 462.

God. His existence known by the light of nature, i. 86; by the creatures, i. 28, 29, 42‒64. Miracles not wrought to prove it, i. 29. Owned by the universal consent of all nations, i. 30, 31. Never disputed of old, i. 31, 32. Denied by very few, if any, i. 32, 33. Constantly owned in all changes of the world, i. 34; under anxieties of conscience, ib. The devil not able to root out the belief of it, i. 35. Natural and innate, i. 35, 36. Not introduced merely by tradition, i. 37, 38; nor policy, i. 38, 39; nor fear, i. 41. Witnessed to by the very nature of man, i. 63‒75; and by extraordinary occurrences, i. 76, 77; impossible to demonstrate there is none, i. 81. Motives to endeavor to be settled in the belief of it, i. 84, 85. Directions, i. 86, 87. Men wish there were none, and who they are, i. 96‒99. Two ways of describing him, negation and affirmation, i. 181, 182. Is active and communicative, i. 201. Propriety in him a great blessedness (see Covenant). Infinitely happy, ii. 86, 87.

Good. That which is materially so may be done, and not formally, i. 120, 124‒126. Actions cannot be performed before conversion, i. 163, 164. The thoughts of God’s presence a spur to them, i. 404, 405. God only is so, ii. 210, 211.

Goodness. Pure and perfect, the royal prerogative of God only, ii. 214. Owned by all nations, ii. 215, 219. Inseparable from the notion of God, ii. 216, 217. What is meant by it, ii. 217. How distinguished from mercy, ii. 218, 219. Comprehends all his attributes, ii. 219, 220. Is so by his essence, ii. 221, 222. The chief, ib. It is communicative, ii. 223, 224; necessary to him, ii. 224‒226; voluntary, ii. 226, 227; communicative with the greatest pleasure, ii. 227, 228; the displaying of it, the motive and end of all his works, ii. 228‒230. Arguments to prove it a property of God, ii. 230, 231; vindicated from the objections made against it, ii. 231‒244; appears in creation, ii. 244‒258; in redemption, ii. 258‒294; in his government, ii. 295‒313; frequently contemned and abused, ii. 313, 314; the abuse and contempt of it, base and disingenuous, ii. 314, 315; highly resented by God, ii. 315, 316. How it is contemned and abused, ii. 316‒325. Men justly punished for it, ii. 326, 327. Fits God for the government of the world, and engages him actually to govern it, ii. 327, 328. The ground of all religion, ii. 329, 330. Renders God amiable to himself, ii. 331. Should do so to us, and why, ii. 332‒335. Renders him a fit object of trust, with motives to it, drawn hence, ii. 335‒338; and worthy to be obeyed and honored, ii. 338‒341. Comfortable to the righteous, and wherein, ii. 341‒344. Should engage us to endeavor after the enjoyment of him, with motives, ii. 344‒347. Should be often meditated on, and the advantages of so doing, ii. 347‒351. We should be thankful for it, ii. 351‒353; and imitate it, and wherein, ii. 353‒355.

Gospel. Men greater enemies to, than to the law, i. 165. Its excellency, i. 167, 501, 502. Called spirit, i. 213. The only means of establishment, i. 501. Of an eternal resolution, though of a temporary revelation, i. 502. Mysterious, ib. The first preachers of it (see Apostles). {b531} Its antiquity, i. 503, 504. The goodness of God in spreading it among the Gentiles, i. 504. Gives no encouragement to licentiousness, ib. The wisdom of God in its propagation, i. 574‒580; and power, ii. 65‒73. See Christian Religion.

Government of the World. God could not manage it without immutability, i. 394; and knowledge, i. 464, 465; and wisdom, i. 575, 576. The wisdom of God appears in his government of man, as rational, i. 525‒532; as sinful, i. 532‒544; as restored, i. 544‒547. The power of God appears in natural government, ii. 44‒52; moral, ii. 52‒54; gracious and judicial, ii. 55‒58. The goodness of God in it, ii. 295‒313. God only fit for it, i. 580, 581, 544; ii. 186, 327; doth actually manage it, i. 580, 581; ii. 328, 329. Is contemned, ii. 436‒441. See Laws.

Governor. God’s dominion as such, ii. 413‒422.

Grace. The power of God in planting it, ii. 74‒78 (see Conversion); and preserving it, ii. 79, 80 (see Perseverance). God’s withdrawing it no blemish to his holiness, i. 166‒170. Shall be perfected in the upright, ii. 190, 191. God exercises a sovereignty in bestowing and denying it, ii. 400‒404. Means of grace (see Means).

Graces. Must be acted in worship, ii. 229‒234. We should examine how we acted them after it, i. 253, 254.

Growth in grace. Annexed to true sanctification, ii. 358. Should be labored after, ii. 206, 207.

H.

Habits. Spiritual, to be acted in spiritual worship, i. 229, 230. The rooting up evil ones shows the power of God, ii. 76, 77.

Hand. Christ’s sitting at God’s right hand doth not prove the ubiquity of his human nature, ii. 378.

Hardness. How God, and how man, is the cause of it, ii. 166‒168.

Harmony of the creatures. Show the being and wisdom of God, i. 52‒60.

Heart of man. How curiously contrived, i. 65. We should examine ourselves, how our hearts are prepared for worship, i. 252, 253; how they are fixed in it, and how they are after it, i. 253‒256. God orders all men’s to his own ends, ii. 54.

Heaven. The enjoyment of God there will be always fresh and glorious, i. 298, 299. Why called God’s throne, i. 385, 386.

Heavenly bodies. Subservient to the good of the world, i. 53, 54.

Hosea. When he prophesied, ii. 490.

Holiness. A necessary ingredient in spiritual worship, i. 238, 239. A glorious perfection of God, ii. 110, 111. Owned to be so both by heathens and heretics, ii. 111. God cannot be conceived without it, ii. 111, 112. It hath an excellency above all his other perfections, ii. 112. Most loftily and frequently sounded forth by the angels, ib. He swears by it, ib. It is his glory and life, ii. 112, 113. The glory of all the rest, ii. 113, 114. What it is, and how distinguished from righteousness, ii. 114, 115. His essential and necessary perfection, ii. 115, 116. God only absolutely holy, ii. 116‒118. Causes him to abhor all sin necessarily, intensely, universally, and perpetually, ii. 118‒122. Inclines him to love it in others, ii. 121, 190, 191. So great that he cannot positively will and encourage sin in others, or do it himself, ii. 122‒126. Appears in his creation, ii. 126, 127; in his government, ii. 127‒135; in redemption, ii. 135‒138; in justification, ii. 138; in regeneration, ii. 139. Defended in all his acts about sin, ii. 139‒171. How much it is contemned in the world, and wherein, ii. 171‒180. To hate and scoff at it in others, how great a sin, ii. 176. Necessarily obliges him to punish sin, ii. 181‒183; and exact satisfaction for it, ii. 183, 184. Fits him for the government of the world, ii. 186, 187. Comfortable to holy men, ii. 190, 191. Shall be perfected in the upright, ib. We should get, and preserve right and strong apprehensions of it, and the advantage of so doing, ii. 191‒196. We should glorify God for it, and how, ii. 196‒199; and labor after a conformity to it, and wherein, ii. 199‒201; motives to do so, ii. 203‒205; and directions, ii. 205‒207. We should labor to grow in it, ii. 206, 207. Exert it in our approaches to God, ii. 207. Seek it at his hands, ii. 207, 208.

Holy Ghost. His Deity proved, ii. 86.

Humility. A necessary ingredient in spiritual worship, i. 237, 238. We should examine ourselves about it after worship, i. 256. A consideration of God’s eternity would promote it, i. 302; and of his knowledge, i. 496, 497; and of his wisdom, i. 597; and of his power, ii. 106; and of his holiness, ii. 192, 193; and of his goodness, ii. 323; and his sovereignty, ii. 457, 458.

Hypocrites. Their false pretences a virtual denial of God’s knowledge, i. 481, 483; it is terrible to them, i. 492.

I.

Idleness. It is an abuse of God’s mercies to make them an occasion of it, ii. 323.

Idolatry. Of the heathens proves the belief of a God to be universal, i. 30, 31. The first object of it was the heavenly bodies, i. 43. Springs from unworthy imaginations of God, i. 157. Not countenanced {b532} by God’s omnipresence, i. 389, 390. Springs from a want of due notion of God’s infinite power, ii. 92. A contempt of God’s dominion, ii. 436, 437.

Image of God. In man consists not in external form and figure, i. 192, 192. Unreasonable to make any of him, i. 193‒195; it is idolatry so to do, i. 195, 196. The defacing it an injury to God’s holiness, ii. 173, 174. Man, at first, made after it, ii. 248.

Imaginations. Men naturally have unworthy ones of God, i. 155, 156. Vain ones the cause of idolatry, and superstition, and presumption, i. 156, 157; worse than idolatry or atheism, i. 158; an injury to God’s holiness, ii. 172, 173.

Imitation of God. Man naturally hath no desire of it, i. 161. We should strive to imitate his immutability in that which is good, i. 360, 361. In holiness, wherein, and why, and how, ii. 199‒207; and in goodness, ii. 353‒355.

Immortal. God is so, i. 202. See Eternity of God.

Immutability. A property of God, i. 316, 317; a perfection, i. 317, 318; a glory belonging to all his attributes, i. 318; necessary to him, i. 318, 319. God is immutable in his essence, i. 319‒321; in knowledge, i. 321‒325; in his will, though the things willed by him are not, i. 325‒328. This doth not infringe his liberty, i. 328. Immutable in regard of place, i. 328, 329. Proved by arguments, i. 320‒334, 582, 583; ii. 87. Incommunicable to any creature, i. 334, 335, ii. 141. Objections against it answered, i. 337‒346. Ascribed to Christ, i. 346‒348. A ground and encouragement to worship him, i. 348‒350. How contrary to God in it man is, i. 350, 353. Terrible to sinners, i. 353, 354. Comfortable to the righteous, and wherein, i. 354‒356. An argument for patience, i. 359. Should make us prefer God before all creatures, i. 358. We should imitate this his immutability in goodness, motives to it, i. 360, 361.

Impatience of men. Is great when God crosses them, i. 130, 131. A contempt of God’s wisdom, i. 592; and of his goodness, ii. 317, 318; and of his dominion, ii. 437, 438.

Impenitence. An abuse of God’s goodness, ii. 319. It will clear the equity of God’s justice, ii. 506, 507. An abuse of patience, ii. 508, 509.

Imperfections. In holy duties we should be sensible of, i. 232. Should make us prize Christ’s meditation, i. 261.

Impossible. Some things are in their own nature, ii. 26, 27. Some things so to the nature and being of God, and his perfections, ii.27‒29. Some things so, because of God’s ordination, ii. 29, 30. Do not infringe the almightiness of God’s power, ii. 29‒30.

Incarnation of Christ. The power of God seen in it, ii. 59‒65.

Incomprehensible. God is so, i. 394, 395.

Inconstancy. Natural to man, i. 350‒353. In the knowledge of the truth, i. 350, 351; in will and affections, i. 351; in practice, i. 352‒354; is the root of much evil, ib.

Infirmities. The knowledge of God a comfort to his people under them, i. 488, 489. The goodness of God in bearing with them, ii. 309. His patience a comfort under them, ii. 516.

Injuries. Men highly concerned for those that are done to themselves, little for those that are done to God, i. 140. God’s patience under them should make us resent them, ii. 517, 518.

Injustice. A contempt of God’s dominion, ii. 435.

Innocent person. Whether God may inflict eternal torments upon him, ii. 375, 380, 381.

Instruments. Men are apt to pay a service to them rather than to God, i. 144; which is a contempt of divine power, ii. 94, 95; and of his goodness, ii. 324, 325. Deliverances not to be chiefly ascribed to them, i. 407. God makes use of sinful ones, i. 534, 535. None in creation, ii. 40‒42. The power of God seen in effecting his purposes by weak ones, ii. 58, 59.

Inventions of men. See Addition and Worship.

J.

Jehovah. Signifies God’s eternity, i. 290; and his immutability, i. 330. God called so but once in the book of Job, ii. 36.

Job. When he lived, ii. 8.

Jonah. How he came to be believed by the Ninevites, i. 537.

Joy. A necessary ingredient in spiritual worship, i. 234‒236. Should accompany all our duties, ii. 468, 469.

Judging the hearts of others. A great sin, i. 478, 479. Their eternal state a greater, ib.

Judgment‑day. Necessity of it, i. 470, 471, 583, 584.

Judgments, extraordinary. Prove the being of God, i. 74, 75. Men are apt to put bold interpretations on them, i. 133. God is just in them, i. 162, 163; especially after the abuse of his goodness and patience, ii. 326, 327, 506, 507. On God’s enemies, matter of praise, ii. 110. Declare God’s holiness, ii. 132‒135; which should be observed in them, ii. 197. Not sent without warning, ii. 241, 242, 488‒491. Mercy mixed with them, ii. 242, 243. God sends them on whom he pleases, ii. 420. Delayed a long time {b533} where there is no repentance, ii. 491, 492. God unwilling to pour them out when he cannot delay them any longer, ii. 492, 493. Poured out with regret, ii. 493, 494; by degrees, ii. 494, 495; moderated, ii. 495, 496. See Punishments.

Justice of God. A motive to worship, i. 207. Its plea against man, i. 554‒556. Reconciled with mercy in Christ, i. 556, 557. Vindictive, natural to God, ii. 181‒183. Requires satisfaction, ii. 185, 186.

Justification. Cannot be by the best and strongest works of nature, i. 166, 473, 474; ii. 177, 178, 185, 186. The holiness of God appears in that of the gospel, ii. 138. The expectations of it by the outward observance of the law cannot satisfy an inquisitive conscience, ii. 212. Men naturally look for it by works, ii. 212, 213.

K.

Kingdoms. Are disposed of by God, ii. 413, 414.

Knowledge. In God hath no succession, i. 284, 285, 294, 295, 454‒456. Immutable, i. 321‒324, 460. Arguments to prove it, i. 393‒395, 461‒465. The manner of it incomprehensible, i. 324, 325, 428, 429, 438. God is infinite in it, i. 409. Owned by all, i. 409, 410. He hath a knowledge of vision and intelligence, speculative and practical, i. 411, 412; of apprehension and approbation, i. 412, 413. Hath a knowledge of himself, i. 414‒417. Of all things possible, i. 417‒420; of all things past and present, i. 420‒422. Of all creatures, their actions and thoughts, i. 422‒427. Of all sins, and how, i. 427‒429. Of all future things, he alone, and how, i. 429‒439. Of all future contingencies, i. 439‒446. Doth not necessitate the will of man, i. 446‒451. It is by his essence, i. 452, 453. Intuitive, i. 453‒456. Independent, i. 456, 457. Distinct, i. 458, 459. Infallible, i. 459. No blemish to his holiness, i. 461‒465. Infinite, attributed to Christ, i. 465‒469. Infers his providence, i. 469, 470; and a day of judgment, i. 470, 471; and the resurrection, i. 471, 472. Destroys all hopes of justification by anything in ourselves, i. 472, 473. Calls for our adoring thoughts of him, i. 473, 474; and humility, i. 474, 475. How injured in the world, and wherein, i. 475‒483. Comfortable to the righteous, and wherein, i. 483‒491. Terrible to sinners, i. 491, 492. We should have a sense of it on our hearts, and the advantages of it, i. 492‒497.

Knowledge of God’s will. Men negligent in using the means to attain it, i. 100, 101. Enemies to it, and have no delight in it, i. 101‒103. Seek it for by‑ends, i. 104. Admit it with wavering affections, ib. Seek it, to improve some lust by it, i. 105, 106. A sense of man’s, hath a greater influence on us than that of God, i. 144, 145, 479, 480. Sins against it should be avoided, i. 173. Distinct from wisdom, i. 508. Of all creatures, is derived from God, i. 462, 463. Ours, how imperfect, i. 474, 475.

L.

Law of God. How opposite man naturally is to it (see Man). There is one in the minds of men, which is the rule of good and evil, i. 69, 70. A change of them doth not infer a change in God, i. 346. Vindicated, both as to the precept and penalty, in the death of Christ, i. 565‒567. Suited to our natures, happiness, and conscience, i. 527‒529; ii. 253. We should submit to them, i. 603, 604. The transgression of them punished by God, ii. 132, 133, 393, 394. God’s enjoining one which he knew man would not observe, no blemish to his holiness, ii. 143. To charge them with rigidness, how great a sin, ii. 178, 179. We should imitate the holiness of them, ii. 199‒201. The goodness of God in that of innocence, ii. 252‒254. Cannot but be good, ii. 339, 340. He gives laws to all, ii. 388, 389. Positive ones, ib. His only reach the conscience, ii. 390, 391. Dispensed with by him, but cannot by man, ii. 391‒393, 430, 431. To make any, contrary to God’s, how great a sin, ii. 431, 432; or make additions to them, ii. 432, 433; or obey those of men before them, ii. 433‒435, 467, 468. See Governor and Magistrates.

Licentiousness. The gospel no friend to, i. 504.

Life, eternal. Expected by men from something of their own (see Justification). Assured to the people of God, i. 356.

Light. A glorious creature, ii. 343, 344.

Light of nature. Shows the being of a God, i. 27‒29.

Limiting God. A contempt of his dominion, ii. 439.

Lives of men. At God’s disposal, ii. 421, 422.

Love to God. Sometimes arises merely from some self‑pleasing benefits, i. 149‒151. A necessary ingredient in spiritual worship, i. 231, 232. A great help to it, i. 272. God is highly worthy of it, i. 308; ii. 196, 197, 332‒335. Outward expressions of it insignificant without obedience, ii. 213, 214. God’s gospel name, ii. 257, 259. Of God to his people, great, ii. 449, 450.

Lusts of men. Make them atheists, i. 24, 25.

{b534} M.

Magistracy. The goodness of God in settling it, ii. 300, 301.

Magistrates are inferior to God. To be obedient to him, ii. 444, 445. Ought to govern justly and righteously, ii. 445. To be obeyed, ii. 445, 446.

Man. Could not make himself, i. 45‒49. The world subservient to him, i. 53‒55. The abridgment of the universe, i. 64; ii. 248, 249. Naturally disowns the rule God hath set him, i. 99‒117. Owns any rule rather than God’s, i. 117‒121. Would set himself up as his own rule, i. 121‒127. Would give laws to God, i. 127‒135. Would make himself his own end. (see End). His natural corruption how great, ii. 53, 54. Made holy at first, ii. 126, 127, 248; yet mutable, which was no blemish to God’s holiness, ii. 140‒143. Made after God’s image, ii. 248. The world made and furnished for him, ii. 249‒252. In his corrupt estate, without any motives to excite God’s redeeming love, ii. 268‒273. Restored to a more excellent state than his first, ii. 291‒293. Under God’s dominion, ii. 384‒386.

Means. See Instrument. To depend on the power of God, and neglect them, is an abuse of it, ii. 96. Of grace, to neglect them an affront of God’s wisdom, i. 589, 590. Given to some, and not to others, ii. 403‒407. Have various influences, ii. 407, 408.

Meditation on the law of God. Men have no delight in, i. 101, 102.

Members, bodily. Attributed to God do not prove him a body, i. 188‒190. What sort of them attributed to him, i. 189; with a respect to the incarnation of Christ, i. 189, 190.

Mercies of God to sinners. How wonderful, i. 161, 162. A motive to worship, i. 206‒208. Former ones should be remembered when we come to beg new ones, i. 277, 278. Its plea for fallen man, i. 556, 557. It and justice reconciled in Christ, i. 557, 558. Holiness of God in them to be observed, ii. 197, 198. Contempt and abuse of them (see Goodness). One foundation of God’s dominion, ii. 371, 372. Call for our love of him, ii. 232‒235; and obedience to him, ii. 338, 339. Given after great provocations, ii. 496, 497.

Merit of Christ. Not the cause of the first resolution of God to redeem, ii. 265, 266. Not the cause of election, ii. 396. Man incapable of, ii. 343, 344.

Miracles. Prove the being of a God, though not wrought to that end, i. 29, 76. Wrought by God but seldom, i. 550. The power of God, ii. 34, 35; seen no more in them than in the ordinary works of nature, ii. 51, 62. Many wrought by Christ, ii. 64.

Moral goodness. Encouraged by God, ii. 303, 304.

Moral law. Commands things good in their own nature, i. 94, 95; ii. 389. The holiness of God appears in it, ii. 128. Holy in the matter and manner of his precepts, ii. 128‒130. Reaches the inward man, ii. 130. Perpetual, ii. 130, 131. See Law of God. Published with majesty, ii. 390.

Mortification. How difficult, i. 164, 165.

Motions of all creatures. In God, ii. 49. Variety of them in a single creature, ii. 50.

Mountains. How useful, i. 54. Before the deluge, i. 278.

Mouth. How curiously contrived, i. 65.

N.

Nature of man. Must be sanctified before it can perform spiritual worship, i. 223, 224. Human, highly advanced by its union with the Son of God, ii. 273, 274. Human and divine in Christ (see Union).

Night. How necessary, i. 523.

O.

Obedience to God. Not true unless it be universal, i. 108, 109. Due to him upon the account of his eternity, i. 308, 309. To him should be preferred before obedience to men (see Laws). Of faith only acceptable to God, i. 505. Distinct, but inseparable from faith, i. 505, 506. Shall be rewarded, i. 529, 530. Redemption a strong incentive to it, i. 571. Without it nothing will avail us, ii. 213, 214. The goodness of God in accepting it, though imperfect, ii. 309. Due to God for his goodness, ii. 338‒341. Due to him as a sovereign, ii. 462‒466. What kind of it due to him, ii. 466‒469.

Objects. The proposing them to man which God knows he will use to sin, no blemish to God’s holiness, ii. 161‒166.

Obstinacy in sin. A contempt of Divine power, ii. 92, 93.

Omissions. Of prayer, a practical denial of God’s knowledge, i. 481; of duty, a contempt of his goodness, ii. 320, 321.

Omnipresence. An attribute of God, i. 366, 367. Denied by some Jews and heathens, but acknowledged by the wisest amongst them, i. 368. To be understood negatively, i. 369. Influential on all creatures, i. 369, 370. Limited to subjects capacitated for this or that kind of it, i. 370. Essential, i. 371. In all places, i. 371, 372. With all creatures, i. 373, 374; without mixture with them, or division of himself, i. 374. Not by multiplication or extension, i. 375; but totally, ib. {b535} In imaginary spaces beyond the world, i. 375‒377. God’s incommunicable property, i. 378. Arguments to prove his omnipresence, i. 378‒385. Objections against it answered, i. 385‒392. Ascribed to Christ, i. 392, 393. Proves God a Spirit, i. 393; and his providence, ib.; and omniscient and incomprehensible, i. 394, 395. Calls for admiration of him, i. 395, 396. Forgotten and contemned, i. 396, 397. Terrible to sinners, i. 397, 398. Comfortable to the righteous, and wherein, i. 398‒402. Should be often thought of, and the advantages of so doing, i. 402‒405.

Opposition. In the hearts of men naturally against the will of God, i. 102, 103.

P.

Pardon. God’s infinite knowledge a comfort when we reflect on it, or seek it, i. 490, 491. The power of God in granting it, and giving a sense of it, ii. 78‒80. The spring of all other blessings, ii. 357. Always accompanied with regeneration, ib. Punishment remitted upon it, ii. 358. It is perfect, ib. Of God, and his alone, gives a full security, ii. 450.

Patience. Under afflictions a duty, i. 604, 605. God’s immutability should teach us it i. 359. A sense of God’s holiness would promote it, ii. 195, 196; and his goodness, ii. 350. Motives to it, ii. 469, 470. The true nature of it, ii. 471. Consideration of God’s patience to us would promote it, ii. 518.

Patience. Of God how admirable, i. 161, 395, 396; ii. 497‒500. His wisdom the ground of it, i. 581, 582. Evidences his power, ii. 64, 474. Is a property of the Divine nature, ii. 477, 478. A part of goodness and mercy, but differs from both, ii. 478‒480. Not insensible, constrained, or faint‑hearted, ii. 480, 481. Flows from his fulness of power over himself, ii. 481, 482. Founded in the death of Christ, ii. 482, 483. His veracity, holiness, and justice no bars to it, ii. 483‒486. Exercised towards our first parents, Gentiles, and Israelites, ii. 486‒488. Wherein it is evidenced, ii. 488‒500. The reason of its exercise, ii. 500‒507. It is abused, and how, ii. 507‒509. The abuse of it sinful and dangerous, ii. 509‒513. Exercised towards sinners and saints, ii. 513, 514. Comfortable to all, ii. 514‒516; especially to the righteous, ib. Should be meditated on, and the advantage of so doing, ii. 516‒518. We should admire and bless God for it, with motives so to do, ii. 518‒522. Should not be presumed on, ii. 522, 523. Should be imitated, ii. 523, 524.

Peace. God only can speak it to troubled souls, ii. 79.

Permission of sin. What it is, and that it is no blemish to God’s holiness, ii. 146‒156.

Persecutions. The goodness of God seen in them, ii. 309‒311. See Apostasy.

Perseverance of the saints. A gospel doctrine, i. 501. Certain, i. 355, 356; ii. 100, 189. Motives to labor after it, i. 360, 361. Depends on God’s power and wisdom, i. 500, 501; ii. 79, 80.

Pleasures. Sensual men strangely addicted to, i. 144. We ought to take heed of them, i. 173.

Poems. Fewer sacred ones good, than of any other kind, i. 143.

Poor. The wisdom of God in making some so, i. 531, 532.

Power. Infinite, belongs to God, ii. 10. The meaning of the word, ii. 12. Absolute and ordinate, ii. 12, 13. Distinct from will and wisdom, ii. 14, 15. Gives life and activity to his other perfections, ii. 15, 16. Of a larger extent than some others, ii. 16. Originally and essentially, in the nature of God, and the same with his essence, ii. 17, 18. Incommunicable to the creature, ii. 18, 24. Infinite and eternal, ii. 18‒26. Bounded by his decree, ii. 25, 26. Not infringed by the impossibility of doing some things, ii. 26‒30. Arguments to prove it is in God, ii. 30‒35. Appears in creation, ii. 35‒44; in the government of the world, ii. 44‒59; in redemption, ii. 59‒65; in the publication and propagation of the gospel, ii. 65‒74; in planting and preserving grace, and pardoning sin, ii. 74‒80. Ascribed to Christ, ii. 80‒86; and to the Holy Ghost, ii. 86. Infers his blessedness, immutability, and providence, ii. 86‒88. A ground of worship, ii. 88‒90; and for the belief of the resurrection, ii. 90‒92. Contemned and abused, and wherein, ii. 92‒96. Terrible to the wicked, ii. 96‒98. Comfortable to the righteous, and wherein, ii. 98‒102. Should be meditated on, ii. 102, 103; and trusted in, and why, ii. 103‒106. Should teach us humility and submission, ii. 106; and the fear of him, and not of man, ii. 106, 107.

Praise. Consideration of God’s wisdom and goodness would help us to give it to him, i. 597, 598; ii. 351. Men backward to it, ii. 356, 357. Due to him, ii. 459, 460.

Prayer. Men impatient if God do not answer it, i. 152, 153. We should take the most melting opportunities for secret prayer, i. 275. Not unnecessary because of God’s immutability and knowledge, i. 348‒350, 479. To creatures a wrong to God’s omniscience, i. 475, 476. Omission of it a practical denial of God’s knowledge, i. 481. It is a comfort that the most secret ones are understood by God, i. 486‒488. God’s wisdom a comfort {b536} in delaying or denying an answer to them, i. 593. For success on wicked designs how sinful, ii. 175, 176. God fit to be trusted in for an answer of them, ii. 188, 189. The goodness of God in answering them, ii. 307‒309. His goodness a comfort in them, ii. 341, 342. God’s dominion an encouragement to, and ground of it, ii. 451, 462, 463.

Preparation. We should examine ourselves concerning it before worship, i. 252, 253. Consideration of God’s knowledge would promote it, i. 495, 496. How great a sin to come into God’s presence without it, ii. 176, 177.

Presence of men. More regarded than God’s, i. 144. We should seek for God’s special and influential presence, i. 405. See Omnipresence.

Preserve himself. No creature can, i. 48, 49; ii. 46, 47. God only can the world, i. 62, 63. The power of God seen in it, ii. 44‒47. One foundation of God’s dominion, ii. 371.

Presumption. Springs from vain imaginations of God, i. 157. A contempt of God’s dominion, ii. 440, 441.

Pride. How common, i. 139. An exalting ourselves above God, i. 147, 148. The thoughts of God’s eternity should abate it, i. 303. An affront to God’s wisdom, i. 592. Of our own wisdom, foolish, i. 600, 601. God’s mercies abused to it, ii. 323. A contempt of his dominion, ii. 439, 440.

Principles. Better known by actions than words, i. 92, 93. Some kept up by God to facilitate the reception of the gospel, i. 576, 577.

Promises. Men break them with God, i. 116, 117, 351, 353. Of God shall be performed, i. 300, 301; ii. 99, 100, 516. We should believe them, and leave God to his own season of accomplishing them, i. 499. Distrust of them a contempt of God’s wisdom, i. 593. The holiness of God in the performance of them to be observed, ii. 197, 198.

Propagation of creatures. The power of God seen in it, ii. 47‒49. Of mankind one end of God’s patience, ii. 504.

Prophesies. Prove the being of God, i. 76, 77.

Providence. Of God proved, i. 393, 394, 469, 470; ii. 87, 88. See Government of the world. Especially to his church, and the meanest in it, i. 406‒408. Extends to all creatures, ii. 296‒300. Distrust of it, a contempt of God’s goodness, ii. 319, 320.

Punishments. See Judgments. God always just in them, i. 162, 163; ii. 326, 327. Of sinners eternal, i. 296, 297. The wisdom of God seen in them, i. 548. Necessarily follow sins, ii. 181‒183. Do not impeach God’s goodness, ii. 236‒244. Not God’s primary intention, ii. 240, 241. Inflicting them a branch of God’s dominion, ii. 393, 394; necessarily follow upon it, ii. 447. Of the wicked unavoidable and terrible, ii. 447‒449.

Purgatory. Held by the Jews, i. 126.

R.

Rain. An instance of God’s wisdom and power, i. 522.

Reason. Should not be the measure of God’s revelations, i. 602, 603.

Repentance. How ascribed to God, i. 341, 342. A reasonable condition, i. 573. The end of God’s patience, ii. 502‒504. The consideration of God’s patience would make us frequent and serious in the practice of it, ii. 517, 518.

Reprobation. Consistent with God’s holiness and justice, ii. 146, 147.

Reproof. May be for evil ends, i. 154.

Reputation. Men more concerned for their own, than God’s glory, i. 140.

Resignation of ourselves. Would flow from consideration of God’s wisdom, i. 604, 605; should from that of his sovereignty, ii. 457.

Resolutions, good. How soon broken, i. 351.

Restraint. Of men and devils by God in mercy to man, i. 532, 533, ii. 52‒54, 154, 301, 416‒418.

Resurrection. Of the body no incredible doctrine, i. 471, 472, ii. 90‒92. The power of God in that of Christ, ii. 65. Of men, ascribed to Christ, ii. 84, 85.

Reverence. Necessary in the worship of God, i. 236, 237.

Revelations. Of God are not to be censured, i. 590, 591.

Riches. Inordinate desire after them a hindrance to spiritual worship, i. 273. God exercises a sovereignty in bestowing them, ii. 411, 412.

Rivers. How useful, i. 522, 523.

Rome. Why called Babylon, i. 39.

S.

Sacraments. The goodness of God in appointing them. ii. 287, 288.

Salvation of men. How desirous God is of it, ii. 284‒287, 500‒502.

Sanctification. Deserves our thanks as much as justification, ii. 357, 358. See Holiness.

Satisfaction. Of the soul only in God, i. 74, 202, 203, 305, 306. Necessary for sin, ii. 183, 184.

Sceptics. Must own a First Cause, i. 51.

Scoffing. At holiness a great sin, ii. 170; and at convictions in others, ii. 191, 192.

Scriptures. Are wrested and abused, i. 105, 106, 134, 135. Ought to be prized and studied, i. 173. The not fulfilling some predictions in them, doth not prove God to be changeable, i. 342‒345. Of the {b537} Old Testament give credit to the New, and of the New illustrate those of the Old, i. 503. All truth to be drawn thence, ib. Of the Old Testament to be studied, ib. Something in them suitable to all sorts of men, i. 528‒530. Written so as to prevent foreseen corruptions, i. 530, 531. To study arguments from them to defend sin, a contempt of God’s holiness, ii. 175. The goodness of God in giving them as a rule, ii. 304, 305.

Sea. How useful, i. 54, 55. The wisdom of God seen in it, i. 522; and his power, ii. 7, 45, 46.

Searching the hearts of men. How to be understood of God, i. 427, 428.

Seasons. The variety of them necessary, i. 523.

Secresy. A poor refuge to sinners, i. 491, 492.

Secret sins. Cause stings of conscience, i. 71, 72, 463; known to God, i. 394, 397, 398, 490, 491; shall be revealed in the day of judgment, i. 470, 471; prayers and works known to God, i. 486‒488.

Security. Men abuse God’s blessings to it, ii. 323.

Self. Man most opposite to those truths that are most contrary to it, i. 107. Man sets up as his own rule, i. 121. Dissatisfied with conscience when it contradicts its desires, i. 123, 124. Merely the agreeableness to it the springs of many materially good actions, i. 124‒126, 149‒154, 240, 241. Would make it the rule of God, i. 127‒135; and his own end, and the end of all creatures, and of God (see End). Applauding thoughts of it how common, i. 138, 139. Men ascribe the glory of what they have or do to it, i. 139, 140; desire doctrines pleasing to it, ib.; highly concerned for any injury done to it, i. 140; obey it against the light of conscience, i. 140, 141; how great a sin this is, i. 141, 142. The giving mercies pleasing to it, the only cause of many men’s love to God, i. 149, 150. Men unwieldy to their duty where it is not concerned, i. 151, 152; how sinful this is, i. 154, 155. The great enemy to the gospel and conversion, i. 165.

Self‑love. Threefold, i. 136. The cause of all sin, and hindrance of conversion, i. 135‒138.

Service of God. How unwilling men are to it, i. 112‒114; slight in the performance of it, i. 113, 114; show not that natural vigor in it as they do in their worldly business, i. 113‒115; quickly weary of it, i. 114, 115; desert it, i. 115‒117. The presence of God a comfort in it, i. 401, 402. Hypocritical pretences for avoiding it, a denial of God’s knowledge, i. 481, 482. A sense of God’s goodness would make us faithful in it, ii. 339‒341. Some called to, and fitted for more eminent ones in their generation, ii. 410‒416. Omissions of it a contempt of God’s sovereignty, ii. 441.

Sin. Founded in a secret atheism and self‑love, i. 93, 136‒138. Reflects a dishonor on all the attributes of God, i. 93, 94. Implies God is unworthy of a being, ib. Would make him a foolish, impure and miserable being, i. 94, 95. More troublesome than holiness, i. 111, 112. To make it our end, a great debasing of God, i. 144‒146. No excuse, but an aggravation, that we serve but one, i. 145, 146. Abstinence from it proceeds many times from an evil cause, i. 150, 479, 480. God’s name, word, and mercies, made use of to countenance it, i. 154; ii. 172, 173, 321‒324, 508, 509. Spiritual to be avoided, i. 203, 204. It is folly, i. 295, 296. Past ones we should be humbled for, i. 301, 302, 492, 493. Hath brought a curse on the creation, i. 315. See Creatures. Past known to God, i. 420, 421; all known to him, and how, i. 427‒431, 493, 494. A sense of God’s knowledge and holiness would check it, i. 494, 495; ii. 194. Bounded by God, i. 532, 533. God brings glory to himself, and good to the creature out of it, i. 533‒544. God hath shown the greatest hatred of it in redemption, i. 567, 568. A contempt of God’s power, ii. 92. Abhorred by God, ii. 118‒122, 181, 182. In God’s people more severely punished in this world than in others, ii. 120, 121. God cannot be the author of it in others, or do it himself, ii. 122‒127. God punishes it, and cannot but do so, ii. 132, 133, 182, 183. The instruments of it detestable to God, ii. 133, 134. Opposite to the holiness of God, ii. 171, 172. To charge it on God, or defend it by his word, a great sin, ii. 174, 175. Entrance of it into the world doth not impeach God’s goodness, ii. 231, 232. Those that disturb societies most signally punished in this life, ii. 301, 302. A contempt of God’s dominion, ii. 427‒431. How much God is daily provoked by it, ii. 497‒499, 519, 520. An abuse of God’s patience, ii. 508, 509.

Sincerity. Required in spiritual worship, i. 225, 226. Cannot be unknown to God, i. 486. Consideration of God’s knowledge would promote it, i. 496.

Sinful times. In them we should be most holy, ii. 198, 199.

Sinners. God hath shown the greatest love to them, and hatred to their sins, i. 567, 568. Everything in their possession detestable to God, ii. 133, 134.

Society. The goodness of God seen in the preservation of it, ii. 300‒302. Could {b538} not exist without restraining grace (see Restraint).

Soul. The vastness of its capacity, and quickness of its motion, i. 67, 68. Its union to the body wonderful, i. 69. God only can satisfy it (see Satisfaction). They only can converse with God, i. 202. Should be the objects of our chiefest care, i. 203. We should worship God with them, i. 209‒211. The wisdom and goodness of God seen in them, ii. 49, 247, 248.

Spaces. Imaginary beyond the world, God is present with, i. 375‒377.

Spirit, that God is so. Plainly asserted but once in scripture, i. 180. Various acceptations of the word, i. 181, 182. That God is so, how to be understood, ib. God the only pure one, i. 182, 183. Arguments to prove God is one, i. 183‒188. Objection against it answered, i. 188‒190.

Spirit of God. His assistance necessary to spiritual worship, i. 224, 225.

Spirits of men. Raised up, and ordered by God as he pleases, ii. 415, 416.

Subjection to our superiors. God remits of his own right for preserving it, ii. 301, 302.

Success. Men apt to ascribe to themselves, i. 139. Not to be ascribed to ourselves, ii. 324, 325. Denied by God to some, ii. 411, 412.

Summer. How necessary, i. 523.

Sun. Conveniently placed, i. 53. Its motion useful, i. 53, 57. The power of God seen in it, i. 195, 196.

Supper, Lord’s. The goodness of God in appointing it, ii. 287, 288. Seals the covenant of grace, ii. 288, 289. In it we have union and communion with Christ, ii. 289‒291. The neglect of it reproved, ii. 291.

Supererogation. An opinion that injures the holiness of God, ii. 179, 180.

Superstition. Proceeds from vain imaginations of God, i. 156, 157.

Swearing by any creature. An injury to God’s omniscience, i. 477, 478.

T.

Temptations. The presence of God a comfort in them, i. 399; the thoughts of it would be a shield against them, i. 403. The wisdom and power of God a comfort under them, i. 594; ii. 99. The goodness manifested to his people under them, ii. 311‒313. The would arm and make us watchful against them, ii. 456.

Thankfulness. A necessary ingredient in spiritual worship, i. 233, 234. Due to God, ii. 351, 352, 460, 518‒522; a sense of his goodness would promote it, i. 351.

Theft. An invasion of God’s dominion, ii. 435.

Thoughts. Should be often upon God, i. 87, 88; seldom are on him, i. 143, 159, 160. All known by God only, i. 424‒427; and by Christ, i. 467‒469. Cherishing evil ones a practical denial of God’s knowledge, i. 482, 483. Thoughts of God’s knowledge would make us watchful over them, i. 495.

Threatenings. The not fulfilling them sometimes, argue no change in God, i. 342‒345. Are conditional, ib. The goodness of God in them, ii. 255. Go before judgments (see Judgments).

Time. Cannot be infinite, i. 44, 45.

Times of bestowing mercy. God orders as a sovereign, ii. 412, 413.

Tongue. How curious a workmanship i. 66.

Traditions. Old ones generally lost, i. 37, 38. Belief of a God not owing merely to them, ib.

Transubstantiation. An absurd doctrine, ii. 95.

Trees. How useful, i. 54, 523.

Trust in themselves. Men do, and not in God, i. 150. We should not in the world, i. 304‒307, 357, 358. God the fit object of it, i. 484, 485, 569, 570, 583; ii. 103, 104, 188, 335‒337, 462, 463; means to promote it, i. 497; ii. 454, 455. Should not in our own wisdom, i. 600, 601. In ourselves, a contempt of God’s power and dominion, ii. 94, 95, 436, 437. God’s power the main ground of trusting him, ii. 104, 105; and sometimes the only one, ii. 105, 106. Should be placed in God against outward appearances, ii. 198. Goodness the first motive of it, ii. 336. More foundations of it, and motives to it under the gospel than under the law, ii. 337. Gives God the glory of his goodness, ii. 337, 338. God’s patience to the wicked, a ground for the righteous to trust in his promise, ii. 516.

Truths of God. Most contrary to self, man most opposite to; and to those that are most holy, spiritual, lead most to God, and relate most to him, i. 107. Men inconstant in the belief of them, i. 350, 351.

U.

Ubiquity. Of Christ’s human nature confuted, i. 378.

Unbelief. The reason of it, i. 165. A contempt of Divine power, ii. 95; and goodness, ii. 319.

Union of soul and body. An effect of Almighty power, i. 69.

Union of two natures in Christ. Made no {b539} change in his Divine nature, i. 339, 340. Shows the wisdom of God, i. 552‒568. How necessary for us, i. 563‒566. Shows the power of God, ii. 62. Explained, ii. 62, 63. See Incarnation.

Usurpations. Of men an invasion of God’s sovereignty, ii. 430, 431.

V. Venial sins. An opinion that reproaches God’s holiness, ii. 179.

Virtue and vice. Not arbitrary things, i. 93, 94.

W.

Water. An excellent creature, ii. 224.

Weakness. Sensibleness of a necessary ingredient in spiritual worship, i. 232.

Will of God. Cannot be defeated, i. 95, 96. Man averse to it (see Man). The same with his essence, i. 325, 326. Always accompanied with his understanding, i. 326. Unchangeable, i. 326‒328. The unchangeableness of it doth not make things willed by him so, i. 327, 328. Free, ib. How concurrent about sin, ii. 147, 148.

Will of man. Not necessitated by God’s foreknowledge, i. 446‒451; subject to God, ii. 385, 386.

Winds. How useful, i. 522.

Winter. How useful, i. 523.

Wisdom. An attribute of God, i. 507. What it is, and wherein it consists, ib. Distinct from knowledge, i. 508. Essential, which is the same with his essence; and personal, ib. In what sense God is only wise, i. 509‒514. Proved to be in God, i. 515‒518. Appears in creation, i. 518‒525. In the government of man as rational, i. 525‒532; as fallen and sinful, i. 532‒544; as restored, i. 544‒552. In redemption, i. 552‒571. In the condition of the covenant of grace, i. 571‒574. In the propagation of the gospel, i. 574‒580. Ascribed to Christ, i. 580. Renders God fit to govern the world, and inclines him actually to govern it, i. 580‒582. A ground of his patience and immutability in his decrees, i. 582, 583. Makes him a fit object of our trust, i. 583. Infers a day of judgment, i. 583, 584. Calls for a veneration of him, i. 584. A ground of prayer to him, i. 585. Prodigiously contemned, and wherein, i. 585‒593. Comfortable to the righteous, i. 593‒595. In creation and government should be meditated on, and motives to it, i. 595‒598. In redemption to be studied and admired, i. 598‒600. To be submitted to in his revelations, precepts, providences, i. 602‒605. Not to be censured in any of his ways, i. 605, 606.

Wisdom. No man should be proud of, or trust in, i. 600, 601. Should be sought from God, i. 601, 602.

World. Was not, and could not be from eternity, i. 44‒46. Could not make itself, i. 47‒49. No creature could make it, i. 49, 50. Its harmony, i. 52‒60. Greedily pursued by men, i. 143, 144. Inordinate desires after it a great hindrance to spiritual worship, i. 273. Our love and confidence not to be placed in it, i. 304, 315, 316. Shall not be annihilated, but refined, i. 311‒314. See Creatures. We should be sensible of the inconstancy of all things in it, i. 356, 357; our thoughts should not dwell much on them, i. 357; we should not trust or rejoice in them, i. 357, 358. Not to be preferred before God, i. 358, 359. Made in the best manner, ii. 24, 25. Made and richly furnished for man, ii. 249‒251. A sense of God’s goodness would lift us up above it, ii. 351.

Worship of God. A folly to neglect it, i. 87, 88. If not according to his rule, no better than a worshipping the devil, i. 118, 119. Men prone to corrupt it with their own rites and inventions, i. 133, 134. Spiritual, men naturally have no heart to, i. 160. Cannot be right without a true notion of God, i. 198. Should be spiritual, and spiritually performed, i. 205, 206. God’s spirituality the rule, though his attributes be the foundation of it, i. 206‒208; ii. 88‒90. Spiritual, to be due to him, manifest by the light of nature, though not the outward means and matter of an acceptable worship discoverable by it, i. 208‒211. Spiritual, owned to be due to God by heathens, i. 209, 210. Always required by God, i. 211, 212. Men as much obliged to it as to worship him at all, i. 212, 213. Ceremonial law abolished to promote it, i. 213‒219. Legal ceremonies did not promote, but rather hinder it, i. 214‒216. By them God was never well‑pleased with, nor intended it should be durable, i. 216‒219. Under the gospel it is more spiritual than under the law, i. 219. Yet doth not exclude bodily worship, i. 219‒222. In societies, due to God, i. 221. Spiritual, what it is, and wherein it consists, i. 222‒242. Due to God, proved, i. 242‒249. Those reproved that render him none at all, i. 249. A duty incumbent on all, i. 249, 250. Wholly to neglect it a great degree of atheism, i. 250. To a false God, or in a false manner, better than a total neglect of it, i. 250, 251. Outward, not to be rested in, i. 251, 252. We should examine ourselves of the manner of it, and in what particulars, i. 252‒256. Spiritual, it is a comfort that God requires it, i. 256. Not to give it to God, is to affront all his attributes, i. 263‒271, 481. To give it him, and not that of our spirits, is a bad sign, i. 268, 269. Merely carnal, uncomfortable, unacceptable, abominable, i. 269‒271. Directions {b540} for spiritual, i. 271‒275. Immutability of God, a ground of worship, and encouragement to it, i. 348‒350. Bringing human inventions into it an affront to God’s wisdom, i. 587‒589. See Ceremonies. A strong sense of God’s holiness would make us reverent in it, ii. 194. We should carry it holily in it, ii. 207. Ingenuous, would be promoted by a sense of God’s goodness, ii. 348. Slight and careless, a contempt of God’s sovereignty, ii. 440, 441; and so is omission of it, ii. 441. Thoughts of God’s sovereignty would make us diligent in it, ii. 455, 456.

Worship of creatures. Is idolatry, i. 194‒196. Not countenanced by God’s omnipresence, i. 390, 391.

Wrong. God can do none, i. 171; ii. 442, 443.

Z.

Zeal. Sometimes a base end in it, i. 154.

{b541} A TABLE OF THE

PLACES OF SCRIPTURE EXPLAINED IN THIS BOOK.

GENESIS.

Gen. i. 1. i. 519; ii. 36.

Gen. i. 26. ii. 42.

Gen. ii. 7. i. 64; ii. 249.

Gen. ii. 17. ii. 483.

Gen. iii. 8. ii. 493.

Gen. iii. 15. ii. 61.

Gen. iv. 26. i. 221; ii. 489.

Gen. vi. 6. i. 343.

Gen. xviii. 19. i. 427.

Gen. xxii. 12. ib.

Gen. xxxii. 30. i. 111.

Gen. xlvi. 4. i. 310.

Gen. xlvii. 31. i. 222.

EXODUS.

Exod. iii. 11. i. 482.

Exod. iii. 14. i. 287.

Exod. iv. 24. ii. 490.

Exod. vi. 3. ii. 36.

Exod. ix. 16. ii. 55.

Exod. xv. 11. ii. 108.

Exod. xxxii. 10. ii. 241.

Exod. xxxiii. 19. ii. 219.

Exod. xxxiv. 9. ii. 497.

NUMBERS.

Numb. xiv. 14. i. 190.

DEUTERONOMY.

Deut. xxxii. 33, 34. i. 445.

Deut. xxxiv. 10. i. 185.

1 KINGS.

1Ki. viii. 27. i. 375.

1Ki. viii. 39. i. 467.

2 KINGS.

2Ki. xx. 3. i. 112.

2Ki. xx. 1, 4, 5. i. 342, 344.

2 CHRONICLES.

2Chr. xi. 15. i. 118.

JOB.

Job iv. 18. ii. 117.

Job ix. 21. i. 473.

Job xii. 18. ii. 415.

Job xiv. 5. i. 435.

Job xiv. 17. i. 420.

Job xvi. 19. i. 486.

Job xxii. 14. ii. 383.

Job xxiv. 12. ii. 478.

Job xxvi. 5‒14. ii. 5‒10.

Job xxxi. 26‒28. i. 146.

Job xxxiv. 21. i. 423.

Job xxxviii. 7. ii. 258.

PSALMS.

Psal. i. 4. i. 353.

Psal. ii. 4. i. 385.

Psal. viii. 4. ii. 520.

Psal. x. 11, 13. i. 23.

Psal. xiv. 1. ib.

Psal. xvi. 2. ii. 423.

Psal. xix. 1‒4. ii. 500.

Psal. xix. 4. i. 520.

Psal. xix. 9. ii. 130.

Psal. xix. 12. i. 427.

Psal. xxii. 2‒4. ii. 198.

Psal. xxvi. 8. i. 386.

Psal. xxvii. 4. ii. 113.

Psal. xxvii. 10. i. 400.

Psal. xxix. 10. ii. 393.

Psal. xxxii. 1, 2. i. 480.

Psal. l. 21. ii. 478, 480.

Psal. l. 23. i. 480.

Psal. li. 4. i. 449.

Psal. li. 6. i. 566.

Psal. lviii. 3. i. 90.

Psal. lviii. 4. i. 91.

Psal. lviii. 10. ii. 242.

Psal. lxii. 11. ii. 10.

Psal. lxix. 19. i. 483.

Psal. lxxiv. 14. i. 594.

Psal. lxxvi. 12. ii. 452.

Psal. lxxviii. 36. i. 481.

Psal. lxxviii. 38. ii. 494.

Psal. xc. 1. i. 276.

{b542} Psal. xc. 2. i. 277, 278.

Psal. xc. 8. i. 470.

Psal. cii. 25‒27. i. 310‒314.

Psal. cii. 3‒8. i. 347, 348.

Psal. ciii. 5. ii. 358.

Psal. ciii. 14. i. 489.

Psal. ciii. 19. ii. 358, 359.

Psal. civ. 2. i. 42.

Psal. civ. 31. i. 315.

Psal. cv. 25. ii. 163.

Psal. cvi. 19. i. 195.

Psal. cxi. 20. i. 41.

Psal. cxiii. 5. i. 385.

Psal. cxxx. 4. i. 206.

Psal. cxxxix. 2. i. 445.

Psal. cxxxix. 7‒9. i. 372.

Psal. cxxxix. 15, 16. i. 64.

Psal. cxxxix. 16. i. 435.

Psal. cxxxix. 23, 24. i. 490.

Psal. cxlv. 17. ii. 218.

Psal. cxlvii. 1‒3. i. 406, 407.

Psal. cxlvii. 4. i. 407; ii. 382.

Psal. cxlvii. 5. i. 408.

PROVERBS.

Prov. viii. 12. i. 518.

Prov. viii. 22. i. 294; ii. 423.

Prov. viii. 30. i. 415.

Prov. ix. 10. i. 41.

Prov. xv. 11. i. 425.

Prov. xvi. 4. ii. 155.

ECCLESIASTES.

Eccl. viii. 11. i. 90.

ISAIAH.

Isa. i. 10, 11, 14. i. 217.

Isa. iv. 2. ii. 60.

Isa. ix. 6. i. 465.

Isa. xxix. 15. i. 483.

Isa. xxxiv. 4. i. 312.

Isa. xxxviii. 1, 5. i. 342.

Isa. xl. 15, 17. i. 379.

Isa. xli. 21, 22. i. 431.

Isa. xliii. 20, 21. i. 115.

Isa. xlv. 5. ii. 416.

Isa. xlv. 11. ii. 449.

Isa. xlviii. 10. ii. 310.

Isa. lii. 4, 5. ib.

Isa. liv. 16. i. 518.

Isa. lxvi. 1. i. 377.

JEREMIAH.

Jer. vi. 21. ii. 162.

Jer. vii. 21. i. 217.

Jer. xii. 9. i. 352.

Jer. xv. 15. ii. 474.

Jer. xvi. 17. i. 427.

Jer. xxi. 35, 36. i. 313.

Jer. xxiii. 16‒24. i. 363‒366.

Jer. xxxii. 31. ii. 488.

LAMENTATIONS.

Lam. ii. 33. ii. 492.

EZEKIEL.

Ezek. iv. 6. ii. 492.

Ezek. viii. 2. ii. 114.

Ezek. ix. 10. ii. 493.

Ezek. xi. 16. ii. 310.

Ezek. xviii. 25. ii. 475.

Ezek. xx. 33. ii. 452.

DANIEL.

Dan. vii. 9. i. 197.

HOSEA.

Hos. i. 5. ii. 510.

Hos. ii. 2, 3. ii. 494, 507.

Hos. ii. 16. i. 230.

Hos. ii. 19. ii. 449.

Hos. v. 5. ii. 134.

Hos. v. 12. ii. 494.

Hos. vi. 4. ib.

Hos. vi. 7. ii. 427.

Hos. vii. 3. i. 121.

Hos. vii. 15. ii. 324.

Hos. viii. 12. i. 100.

Hos. x. 15. i. 194.

Hos. xi. 10. i. 236.

Hos. xi. 8. ii. 493.

Hos. xiii. 12, 13. i. 494; ii. 503, 523.

Hos. xiv. 2. i. 233.

JOEL.

Joel i. 4. ii. 494.

AMOS.

Amos ii. 6. i. 145, 146.

Amos iii. 2. i. 418.

JONAH.

Jon. iii. 4, 10. i. 342.

MICAH.

Mic. v. 2. i. 294.

NAHUM.

Nah. i. 1, 2. ii. 472, 473.

Nah. i. 3. ii. 473‒477.

HABAKKUK.

Hab. i. 16. i. 144.

ZEPHANIAH.

Zeph. ii. 1, 2. ii. 489.

ZECHARIAH.

Zech. vi. 1. i. 325.

Zech. viii. 3. i. 386.

Zech. xiv. 16. i. 234.

MALACHI.

Mal. i. 31, 14. i. 113.

Mal. iii. 5. i. 471.

Mal. iii. 6. ii. 497.

{b543} MATTHEW.

Matt. i. 18. ii. 60.

Matt. iii. 9. ii. 13.

Matt. v. 48. ii. 478, 523.

Matt. vii. 11. ii. 188.

Matt. vii. 23. i. 413.

Matt. xv. 6. i. 110.

Matt. xviii. 10. i. 414.

Matt. xxv. 12. i. 413.

MARK.

Mark x. 18. ii. 209‒211.

LUKE.

Luke i. 35. ii. 59.

Luke x. 20. i. 355.

JOHN.

John i. 3. ii. 83.

John iv. 10‒24. i. 176‒178.

John iv. 24. i. 177‒179, 205.

John v. 19. ii. 81.

John vi. 64. i. 468.

John vii. 37. i. 234.

John ix. 3. ii. 376.

John x. 30. i. 393.

John xii. 38. i. 449.

John xii. 39, 41. ii. 186.

John xvii. 5. i. 293, 340.

ACTS.

Acts vii. 51. i. 103.

Acts xvii. 18. ii. 66.

Acts xvii. 28. i. 367, 373.

Acts xvii. 30. ii. 487.

ROMANS.

Rom. i. 9. i. 225.

Rom. i. 19‒21. i. 27, 28, 42, 519; ii. 216.

Rom. i. 23. i. 386.

Rom. i. 25. i. 80.

Rom. ii. 4. ii. 502.

Rom. iii. 9‒12. i. 90.

Rom. iii. 23. ii. 180.

Rom. v. 7. ii. 219.

Rom. vii. 6. i. 214.

Rom. vii. 8. i. 102.

Rom. viii. 4. i. 566.

Rom. viii. 10. ii. 484.

Rom. viii. 21. i. 313.

Rom. viii. 38, 39. i. 509.

Rom. ix. 38, 39. i. 395.

Rom. ix. 6. i. 214.

Rom. ix. 22. ii. 482, 507.

Rom. x. 18. ii. 501.

Rom. xii. 1. ii. 220.

Rom. xv. 5. ii. 515.

Rom. xvi. 25‒27. i. 498‒507.

1 CORINTHIANS.

1Cor. i 21. i. 518.

1Cor. ii. 2. i. 427.

1Cor. ii. 10, 11. i. 414.

1Cor. x. 20, 21. i. 118.

2 CORINTHIANS.

2Cor. iii. 18. i. 552.

GALATIANS.

Gal. iii. 3. i. 214.

EPHESIANS.

Eph. i. 10. ii. 262.

Eph. i. 18. i. 554.

Eph. ii. 3. i. 166.

Eph. ii. 12. i. 89, 158.

Eph. iii. 10. i. 553.

Eph. iv. 6. i. 370.

PHILIPPIANS.

Phil. ii. 6. i. 122.

COLOSSIANS.

Col. i. 16. ii. 82.

Col. i. 20. ii. 262.

Col. ii. 3. i. 580.

2 TIMOTHY.

2Tim. i. 10. ii. 277.

2Tim. ii. 19. i. 355.

TITUS.

Tit. i. 16. i. 25, 92.

HEBREWS.

Heb. i. 1, 2, 10, 11. i. 347; ii. 82.

Heb. i. 9. ii. 136.

Heb. iv. 12. i. 424.

Heb. xi. 3. i. 44; ii. 104.

Heb. xi. 6. i. 27.

Heb. xi. 16. ii. 277.

Heb. xi. 21. i. 222.

JAMES.

Jam. ii. 10, 11. i. 108.

Jam. iii. 15. i. 91.

2 PETER.

2Pet. ii. 1. ii. 482.

2Pet. ii. 5. ii. 489.

2Pet. iii. 9. ii. 488.

2Pet. iii. 12, 13. i. 312.

REVELATION.

Rev. i. 10. i. 270.

Rev. ii. 18, 19, 22. ii. 484.

Rev. vi. 10. i. 497.

Rev. vi. 14. i. 312.

FOOTNOTES.

1 – The Society which met in Crosby Hall has been represented as a congregational church; but Wilson, in his History of Dissenting Churches, repeatedly speaks of it as Presbyterian.――Vide v. i. p. 330.

2 – Robert Hall.

3 – Toplady.

4 – Mr. J. Wickens, and Mr. Ashton.

5 – Treatise of Providence and of Thoughts.

6 – Isaiah xl. 7. נבל ציץ “the flower fadeth.” Isaiah xxviii. 1.

7 – Mais נבל and לא חכם put together. Deut. xxxii. 6. “O foolish people and unwise.”

8 – אין אלהים “No God.” Muis.

9 – Cocceius.

10 – Not owning him as the Egyptians called, θεον εγκοσμιον. Eugubin in cloc.

11 – Atheism absolute is not in all men’s judgments, but practical is in all men’s actions. The Apostle in the Romans applying the latter part of it to all mankind, but not the former; as the word translated corrupt signifies.

12 – Rom. i. 24.

13 – Heb. xi. 6.

14 – Coccei Sum. Theol. c. 8. § 1.

15 – Aquin.

16 – Heb. xi. 6.

17 – Voet. Theol. Natural. cap. 3. § 1. p. 22.

18 – Ibid.

19 – Job xxviii. 39, 40, &c. It is but one truth in philosophy and divinity; that which is false in one, cannot be true in another; truth, in what appearance soever, doth never contradict itself.

20 – Isaiah xliv. 17.

21 – Charron de la Sagesse, Liv. i. ch. 7. p. 43, 44.

22 – Gassend. Phys. § 1, lib. iv. c. 2. p. 291.

23 – Amyrant des Religion, p. 50.

24 – Gassend. Phys. § 1, lib. iv. c. 2. p. 291.

25 – Gassend. Phys. § 1, lib. iv. c. 7. p. 282.

26 – Gassend. ibid. p. 290.

27 – Cicero.

28 – Gen. iii. 5.

29 – Gen. iii. 9.

30 – Pink. Eph. 6, p. 10, 11.

31 – King on Jonah, p. 16.

32 – Amyrant des Relgious, p 6‒9.

33 – Charleton.

34 – Gen. x. 9. “Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord.”

35 – Or if we understand it as some think, that he defended his invasions under a pretext 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.

36 – Fotherby de Theomastix, p. 64.

37 – And there is not a Richlieu but leaves his axioms to a Mazarine.

38 – Ερως.

39 – Gassend. Phys. § 1. lib. iv. c. 2. p. 291, 292.

40 – Prov. ix. 10. Psalm. cxi. 10.

41 – Rom. i. 19.

42 – Jupiter est quodcunque vides, &c.

43 – Psalm viii. 1.

44 – Banes in Aquin. Par. 2. Qu. 2. Artic. 2. p. 78. col. 2.

45 – Psalm civ. 2.

46 – “For their voice goeth to the end of the earth,” Psalm xix. 1, 2.

47 – Job xxxi. 26, 27.

48 – Philo. ex Petav. Theolo. Dog. Tom. I. lib. i. c. 1, p. 4, somewhat changed.

49 – Rom. i. 20.

50 – Gen. i. “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God,” &c. Heb. xi. 3.

51 – Daille 20. Serm. Psalm cii. 26. p. 13, 14.

52 – Daille, ut supra.

53 – Petar. Theo. Dogmat. Tom. I. lib. i. c. 2. p. 15.

54 – Wolseley, on Atheism, p. 47.

55 – Petav. ut supra, p. 10.

56 – Damason.

57 – Petav. Theo. Dog. Tom. I. lib. i. c. 2. p. 14.

58 – Gen. ii. 17. Psalm xlix. 8.

59 – Therefore the heathens called God τὸ ὄν, the only Being. Other things were not beings, because they had not all degrees of being.

60 – Job xxxviii. 11.

61 – Isaiah xxxviii. 12.

62 – Job. vii. 6‒9.

63 – Isaiah xlv. 6, 7. Deut. iv. 35.

64 – Psalm cxxxix. 16.

65 – Coccei sum. Theol. c. 8. § 33, &c.

66 – Petav. Theol. Dog. Tom. I. lib. i. c. 2. p. 10, 11.

67 – Philo. Judæ. Petav. Theo. Dog. Tom. I. lib. i. c. 1. p. 9.

68 – Athanasius Petav. Theol. Dog. Tom. I. lib. i. c. 1. p. 4, 5.

69 – Gassend. Physic § 1. lib. iv. c. 2. p. 315.

70 – Lessius.

71 – Ps. viii. 3.

72 – Job xxxviii. 25, 27.

73 – Job xxxviii. 28.

74 – Job xxxviii. 37, 38.

75 – Psalm civ. 6, 9.

76 – Job xxxviii. 8, 9, 11.

77 – Amirald. de Trinitate, pp. 13, 18.

78 – Jer. x. 13.

79 – Morn. de Verit. c. 1. p. 7.

80 – Amirant.

81 – Coccei. sum. Theol. c. 8. § 77.

82 – Petav. ex Athanas. Theol. Dog. Tom. I. lib. i. c. 1. § 4.

83 – Whether it be the sun or the earth that moves, it is all one. Whence have either of them this constant and uniform motion?

84 – Josh. x. 13

85 – Matt. v. 45.

86 – Psalm civ. 5.

87 – Job xxxviii. 33.

88 – Jer. xxxiii. 20.

89 – Amirald. de Trinitate, p. 21.

90 – Gen. i. 31.

91 – Lactant.

92 – Coccei. sum. Theol. c. 8. § 63, 64.

93 – Matt. vi. 28.

94 – Coccei. sum. Theolog. c. 8. § 67, &c.

95 – Peirson on the Creed, p. 35.

96 – Gen. xxxvii.

97 – Lessius de Providen. lib. i. p. 652.

98 – Job xxxvii. 12.

99 – Gassend. Phys. § 6. lib. iv. c. 2. p. 101.

100 – Psalm xxxvi. 6.

101 – Gen. ii. 7.

102 – Lib. iii. de Usu. Partium. Petav. Theol. Dog. Tom. I. lib. i. c. 1. p. 6.

103 – Job xxvi. 7.

104 – Theod. de Providen. Orat. 3.

105 – Eccles. xii. 4.

106 – Coccei. sum. Theol. c. 8. § 49.

107 – Ibid. c. 8. § 50, 51.

108 – More.

109 – Culverwell.

110 – Theodoret.

111 – Coccei. sum. Theolog. c. 8. § 51, 52.

112 – 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.

113 – Deut. xxix. 19.

114 – Heb. xi. 6.

115 – Lib. xix. Antiq. Acts xii. 21‒23.

116 – Lessius de Provid. p. 665.

117 – Psalm cxi. 10.

118 – Lessius de Provid. p. 664.

119 – Lessius de Provid. p. 665.

120 – Psalm xix. 5.

121 – Job xviii. 7, 8, &c. to the end.

122 – Ver. 24.

123 – As Justin informs us.

124 – James ii. 19.

125 – Psalm xciv. 6, 7.

126 – Heb. xi. 27.

127 – Heb. vi. 10.

128 – Heb. xi. 6.

129 – Mal. i. 13, 14.

130 – Maimon. Funda. Legis. cap. 1.

131 – Psalm civ. 24.

132 – 1 Pet. iv. 19.

133 – Acts xvii. 24.

134 – Psalm viii. 9.

135 – Psalm xxxiv. 8.

136 – Eccl. xii. 13.

137 – Heb.

138 – Rom. i. 21.

139 – Prov. iv. 23.

140 – Job i. 5.

141 – So the Chaldee reads לית שולטנא Non potestas, denying the authority of God in the world.

142 – Augustin de Civit. Dei.

143 – Rom. iii. 9‒12.

144 – Coccei.

145 – James iii. 15.

146 – Psalm lviii. 4.

147 – Illyric.

148 – Tit. iii. 3.

149 – Gen. xx. 11.

150 – Job i. 5.

151 – Jer. xxxii. 33.

152 – Deut. xxxii. 15.

153 – Numb. xv. 30. Ezek. xx. 27.

154 – Psalm xciv. 12.

155 – Job xxi. 14.

156 – Psalm 1. 17.

157 – Heb. v. 11, 12.

158 – Jer. iv. 22.

159 – Hosea viii. 12.

160 – Prov. xvii. 16.

161 – Rom. i. 21.

162 – Mark ix. 33, 38.

163 – Psalm civ. 34.

164 – Thes. Salmur. De Spiritu. Servitutis Thes. xix.

165 – Acts xix. 24, 28, 29.

166 – 1 Thess. ii. 13.

167 – James ii. 2.

168 – Gen xlix. 4. James i. 8.

169 – John v. 35.

170 – 2 Peter iii. 16.

171 – Psalm xciv. 1.

172 – Matt. iv. 4‒6.

173 – Psalm 1. 17.

174 – 2 Sam. xii. 9, 10.

175 – Claud.

176 – Rom. xiii. 10.

177 – Jer. ii. 24.

178 – Heb. xii. 20.

179 – Ver. 25.

180 – Ver. 28.

181 – Num. xxi. 4, 5, and Daillé, Serm. 1 Cor. x. Ser. 9, pp. 234, 235, 40.

182 – Ps. cxix. 126.

183 – Psalm l, 6, 17, 19.

184 – Micah vii. 3.

185 – Job xv. 16.

186 – 1 Sam. xv. 3, 9, 15, 21.

187 – Mal. i. 13, 14.

188 – Mal. i. 14.

189 – 1 Sam. v. 4.

190 – Amos viii. 5.

191 – Psalm cxxiii. 2.

192 – Reyn.

193 – Amos iv. 6‒11.

194 – 2 Tim. iii. 4.

195 – 1 Cor. x. 20, 21.

196 – 2 Chron. xi. 15.

197 – John xvi. 2.

198 – Rom. xii. 1, 2.

199 – Hos. v. 11.

200 – Hos. vii. 3.

201 – Dan. vi.

202 – Dr. Jackson.

203 – Eph. ii. 3.

204 – Prov. iii. 5.

205 – Eccl. xi. 9.

206 – Rom. i. 28.

207 – Job xxiv. 13.

208 – 1 Thess. ii. 13.

209 – Rom. vii. 8, 9.

210 – Matt. xxiii. 14: “You devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers.”

211 – Gerrard in loc.

212 – Eccles. ix. 1.

213 – Job xxii. 28.

214 – Decay of Christian Piety, p. 169, somewhat changed.

215 – Job xxi. 22.

216 – Isa. xxii. 12, 13.

217 – Rom. xi. 34.

218 – Mal. ii. 17.

219 – Numb. xvi. 41, compared with xvii. 10.

220 – Cœlum suspiciens vitam, &c. Vita Titi. c. 10.

221 – Because wicked men flourish in the world. Solicitor nullos esse putare Deos.

222 – Gen. iv. 5.

223 – Jonah iv. 2.

224 – Luke iv. 6.

225 – Job xviii. 4.

226 – Prov. vii. 14.

227 – 2 Sam. xvi. 5.

228 – 2 Cor. xi. 3.

229 – Matt. xiii. 6.

230 – Hos. viii. 12.

231 – 1 Kings xii. 27.

232 – 1 Kings xi. 7.

233 – Amos vii. 10.

234 – Mark x. 17, 22.

235 – Mark vi. 20, 27.

236 – Eph. i. 10.

237 – More, Dial. 2. § 17. p. 274.

238 – Rom. vi.

239 – 1 Cor. v. 15.

240 – Psalm xiv. 1.

241 – 1 Cor. v. 15.

242 – Heb. i. 5.

243 – John xvii. 4.

244 – Luke xviii. 11.

245 – Mark xiv. 72.

246 – Matt. xxvi. 75. Luke xxii. 62.

247 – Sanderson’s Sermons.

248 – Acts xii. 22, 23.

249 – Mark vi. 18, 19, 28.

250 – 1 Sam. xv. 21.

251 – Sabunde, Tit. 140.

252 – Prov. xvi. 4.

253 – Rom. i. 23.

254 – Psalm x. 4.

255 – Jackson, Book I. c. 14, p. 48.

256 – Hos. ii. 8.

257 – Quod quisque præ cæteris petit, summum judicat bonum. Boet. lib. iii. p. 24.

258 – Job xxxi. 24, 25.

259 – Col. iii. 5. Eph. v. 5.

260 – Hab. i. 16.

261 – Neremberg de Adorat. p. 30.

262 – Ezek. viii. 5, 6, 10.

263 – Heb. xii. 16.

264 – Sabunde, Tit. 200. p. 352.

265 – Matt. iv. 9.

266 – Pascal, Pens. § 30, p. 294.

267 – Psalm viii. 6.

268 – Trap, on Gen. p. 148.

269 – Hos. x. 1.

270 – Ezek. xxxiii. 31.

271 – Jonah iv. 2.

272 – Gurnall, Part III. p. 337.

273 – Matt. vi. 1.

274 – Dei injuriæ Deo curæ.

275 – Sanderson’s Sermons. Part II. p. 158.

276 – Hosea viii. 13. Vid. Cocc. in locum.

277 – Psalm x. 4.

278 – Prov. xxx. 2, 3.

279 – Rom. i. 21‒23.

280 – Δεισιδαιμονία.

281 – 1 Sam. vi. 3, 4.

282 – Gurnall, Part II. pp. 245, 246.

283 – Tertul. cont. Maxim. lib. i. cap. 2.

284 – Exod. xxxiv. 30.

285 – Isa. xxvi. 8.

286 – Job xxii. 17.

287 – Job xv. 4.

288 – Hos. vii. 10.

289 – Hos. xi. 2.

290 – Hos. ii. 6, 7.

291 – Gen. iii. 15.

292 – Psalm cvi. 7.

293 – Rom. ii. 4.

294 – Eph. ii. 3.

295 – John iii. 19, 20.

296 – Gen. vi. 5.

297 – Job i.

298 – Rom. vii. 9‒12.

299 – Job xxxi. 33. “If I cover my transgressions, as Adam.”

300 – 2 Cor. x. 5.

301 – 2 Cor. v. 15.

302 – Psalm cx. 3.

303 – Eph. iv. 17, 18.

304 – Lawson’s Body of Divinity, pp. 153, 154.

305 – Psalm cxix. 136.

306 – Exod. xxxii. 3,――“All the people brake off the golden ear‑rings.”

307 – Reynolds.

308 – Gen. iii. 14.

309 – Ezek. xiv. 4.

310 – 1 John iv. 18.

311 – Job i. 4.

312 – Amarant. Paraph. sur Jean.

313 – Ver. 10; or “living water.”

314 – Ver. 11.

315 – Ver. 13, 14.

316 – Ver. 15.

317 – Ver. 16.

318 – Ver. 17.

319 – Ver. 18.

320 – Ver. 19.

321 – Ver. 20.

322 – Ver. 21.

323 – Ver. 22.

324 – Ver. 23.

325 – Vulgar Lat. Illyre. Clav.

326 – Episcop. Institut. lib. iv. c. 3.

327 – Melancthon.

328 – Ver. 23.

329 – Heb. ix. 10.

330 – Terniti.

331 – Amirald, in loc.

332 – Amirald, in loc.

333 – Muscul.

334 – Chemnit.

335 – Muscul.

336 – 2 Cor. iii. 8; Rom. vii. 6.

337 – Episcop. Institut. lib. iv. c. 3.

338 – Amirald, in loc.

339 – Suarez. de Deo, vol. i. p. 9, col. 2.

340 – Heb. i. 14.

341 – Gerhard. μονοτρόπως.

342 – Gamacheus, Tom. I. Q. 3. c. i. p. 42.

343 – Coccei, Sum. Theol. c. 8.

344 – Thes. Sedan. Part II. p. 1000.

345 – Vossius Idolol. lib. ii. c. 1. Forbes, Instrument. lib. i. c. 36.

346 – Οὐκ ὅσιον.

347 – Plutarch, incorporalis ratio divinus spiritus. Seneca.

348 – Rom. i. 23.

349 – Calov. Socin. Proflig. pp. 129, 130.

350 – Amirald. Sup. Heb. ix. p. 146, &c.

351 – Amyrant, Morale. Tom. I. p. 282.

352 – Job xxxviii. 36.

353 – Daille, in Tim.

354 – Rom. i. 20.

355 – John v. 37.

356 – Goulart. de Dieu, p. 94.

357 – 1 Kings xxii. 19.

358 – Goulart. de Dieu, p. 95, 96.

359 – Deut. iv. 39.

360 – Jer. xxiii. 24.

361 – Job xi. 8.

362 – Gamacheus, Theol. Tom. I. Quos 3. c. i.

363 – 1 John i. 5.

364 – Dan. vii. 9.

365 – Psalm xi. 4.

366 – “Loquitur lex secund. ling. filiorum hominum,” was the Heathen saying.

367 – Amirald de Trin. pp. 218, 219.

368 – Psalm xxxiv. 15.

369 – Isa. li. 9.

370 – Episcop. institut. lib iv. § 3. c. 3.

371 – It is Zanchie’s observation, Tom. II. De Natura Dei, lib. i. c. 4. Thes. 9.

372 – Amyraut, Morale. Tom. I. pp. 293, 294.

373 – Gen. iii. 8.

374 – Amirald.

375 – Job x. 4. 2 Chron. xxxii. 8.

376 – Psalm xxxvi. 7.

377 – Hos. xiii. 7, 8.

378 – Maimon. More Nevoc. par. 1. c. 27.

379 – More’s Conjectura Cabalistica, p. 122.

380 – Col. iii. 10.

381 – Petav. Theol. Dog. Tom. I. lib. ii. c. 1. p. 104.

382 – Gen. i. 26.

383 – Iamblic. Protrept. cap. 21. Symb. 24.

384 – Austin de Civitat. Dei, lib. iv. cap. 31. out of Varro.

385 – Tacitus.

386 – Gerhard, loc. Comun. Vol. IV. Exegesis de Natura Dei, cap. 8. § 1.

387 – Amyraut. Morale Chrétienne, Tom. I. p. 294.

388 – Cocceius Sum. Theol. c. 9. p. 47. § 35.

389 – Rom. i. 25.

390 – Rom. i. 22.

391 – Hos. x. 15.

392 – Daillé, super Cor. i. 10, Ser. III.

393 – Gen. xxxi. 30‒34.

394 – Gen. iii. 16, 17.

395 – Job xxxi. 26‒28. Chin. Predict. Part II. p. 252.

396 – Lawson, Body Divin. p. 161.

397 – Acts xvii. 29.

398 – Amyraut. Morale. Tom. I. p.289.

399 – Episco. Institut. lib. iv. § 2. c. 10.

400 – Exod. xx. 4.

401 – Nazianzen.

402 – Amyraut, Morale, Tom. I. p. 180, &c.

403 – Lessius.

404 – Towerson on the Commandments, p. 112.

405 – Heb. i. 13.

406 – Isa. xxxi. 3.

407 – Eph. i. 3.

408 – 1 Tim. i. 17.

409 – James i. 17.

410 – Psalm li. 17.

411 – Eph. iv. 23.

412 – Psalm xc. 1.

413 – Psalm lxiii. 1.

414 – Heb. xii. 9.

415 – 2 Cor. vii. 1.

416 – Eph. ii. 2, 3.

417 – Lingend. Tom. II. p. 777.

418 – Taylor’s Exemplar, Preface, § 30.

419 – Ames Medul. lib. ii. c. 4. § 20.

420 – So 2 Kings xvii. 32, 33.

421 – Amirald, Dissert. 6, disp. i. p. 11.

422 – Amyraut, de Relig.

423 – King, on Jonah, p. 63.

424 – Amos v. 26.

425 – Menander. Grot. de Veritat Relig. lib. iv. § 12.

426 – Iamblic.

427 – Amyraut. Mor. Tom. I. pp. 309, 310.

428 – Rom. i. 21.

429 – Bias.

430 – Amyraut, ib.

431 – Heb. i. 11, 12.

432 – Heb. xi. 4.

433 – Gen. iv. 5.

434 – Eccles. xii. 7.

435 – Rom. xii. 1.

436 – Heb. ix. 10.

437 – Heb. vii. 16.

438 – 2 Cor. iii 8.

439 – Gal. iii. 3.

440 – Rom. vii. 14.

441 – Rom. vii. 6.

442 – 1 Cor. x. 18.

443 – Rom. ix. 6.

444 – 1 Cor. x. 3, 4.

445 – Gal. iv. 9.

446 – Heb. x. 1; ix. 9.

447 – Heb. ix. 14.

448 – Burges’ Vind. p. 256.

449 – Gal. v. 2.

450 – Gal. iv. 24.

451 – Psalm cxxx. 4.

452 – 2 Cor. iii. 13, 14.

453 – Illyric de Velam. Mosis, p. 221 &c.

454 – 2 Cor. xi. 3.

455 – Exod. xxxii. 1.

456 – Isai. i. 10.

457 – Isai. lxvi. 3.

458 – Heb. vii. 18.

459 – Gal. iv. 2.

460 – Mal. i. 11.

461 – Pascal. Pen. 142.

462 – Isai. xliii. 18, 19.

463 – Jer. iii. 16.

464 – Psalm cx.

465 – Hos. iii. 4.

466 – Rom. xii. 1.

467 – Vide Hammond, in loc.

468 – John i. 17.

469 – Rom. xii. 1.

470 – Sherman’s Greek in the Temple, pp. 61, 62.

471 – Stillingfleet’s Irenicum, c. 1. § I. p. 23.

472 – Psalm lxxiv. 8.

473 – Luke ii. 13.

474 – Luke xxii. 41, 42.

475 – Matt. xi. 26.

476 – John xi. 41; xii. 1.

477 – Heb. xi. 21.

478 – Gen. xlvii. 31.

479 – Gen. xiv. 1, 2.

480 – 2 Cor. iv. 13.

481 – Eph. ii. 10.

482 – Col. iii. 4.

483 – Gal. ii. 20.

484 – Rom. viii. 13.

485 – Rom. viii. 11.

486 – Rom. viii. 26.

487 – Eph. vi. 18.

488 – Jude 20.

489 – Cant. iv. 16.

490 – Prov. xxiii. 26.

491 – Moulin. Sermons, Decad. 4. Sermon IV. p. 80.

492 – Exod. xxv. 7.

493 – Rom. x. 10.

494 – Hos. xi. 12.

495 – Rev. ii. 9.

496 – Psalm lxxxvi. 11.

497 – Ezek. xxxiii. 31.

498 – Psalm xxxix. 18.

499 – Matt. vi. 6.

500 – Psalm cxix. 10.

501 – Οὐ γὰρ πάρεργον δεῖ ποεῖσθαι τὸν Θεόν. Iamblic. lib. i. c. 518. p. 87.

502 – Rom. xii. 11, ζέοντες.

503 – Luke xxiv. 32.

504 – Lady Falkland’s Life, p. 130.

505 – Rom. vi. 11.

506 – Rev. i. 6.

507 – Exod. xiii. 13.

508 – Isaiah xix. 1.

509 – Col. i. 29.

510 – ἀγωνιζόμενος.

511 – Heb. i. 7.

512 – 1 Tim. v. 6.

513 – Psalm cxxvi. 1.

514 – Psalm ciii. 1.

515 – Cant. iv. 16.

516 – Heb. xi. 6.

517 – Daille, sur 3 Jean. p. 150.

518 – Plutarch, Moral. p. 344.

519 – Rev. iv. 10, compared with v.10.

520 – Caudam aculeatam vel linguam nigram, Alexand. ab Alex. l. 3. c. 12.

521 – Isa. vi. 3. Rev. iv. 8.

522 – As the Jewish doctors observe on Lev. i. 9.

523 – Psalm cxxxiv. 3. “The Lord bless thee out of Sion.”

524 – Exod. xxix. 13. The inward fat, not the offal.

525 – Amyraut, Mor. Tom. II. p. 311.

526 – Daille, Melange des Sermons. Ser. ii.

527 – Μᾶλλον τὸ δαιμόνιον πρὸς τὸ τῶν φυόντων ἦθος ἢ τῶν θυομένων πλῆθος. Porphyr. de Abstinentia.

528 – “Non valet protestatio contra factum,” is a rule in the civil law.

529 – Fitzherbert, Pol. in Relig. Part II. c. 19, § 12.

530 – Guliel. Paris. Rhetor. Divin. c. 26, p. 350, col. 1.

531 – Reynolds.

532 – Coccei in loc.

533 – Austin in loc.

534 – Pareus in loc.

535 – Theodoret in loc.

536 – אל, strong.

537 – Amyrald, in loc.

538 – Ἄναρχος καὶ ἀτελεύτητος, Theodoret in loc.

539 – Calv. in loc.

540 – Confes. lib. ii. Confes. 14.

541 – Moulin. Cod. 1, Ser. 2, p. 52.

542 – Gassend.

543 – Crellius de Deo, c. 18. p. 41.

544 – Lingend. Tom. II. p. 496.

545 – אל עולם.

546 – Coccei Sum. p. 48. Theol. Gerhard Exeges. c. 86. 4. p. 266.

547 – Crellius de Deo, c. 18, p. 41.

548 – 1 Tim. vi. 16. Daille, in loc.

549 – Lessius de Perfect. Divin. lib. iv. c. 1.

550 – Gamacheus in Aquin. Part I. Qu. 10. c. 1.

551 – Gassend. Tom. I. Physic. § 1. lib. ii. c. 7. p. 223.

552 – Daille, Melange de Sermon, p. 252.

553 – Parisiensis.

554 – Calov. Socinian.

555 – Existentia durans.

556 – Gassend.

557 – Ps. xc. 4. Amyrald, Trin. p. 44.

558 – Daille, Vent. Sermons, Serm. I. sur 102, Ps. 27, p. 21.

559 – Crellius weakens this argument, De Deo, c. 18, p. 42.

560 – Thes. Salmur. p. 1. p. 145, Thes. 14.

561 – Plutarch de Εἶ, I. p. 392.

562 – Perer. in Exo. 3. Disput. 13.

563 – Petav. Theol. Dogm. Tom. I. lib. i. c. 6, § 6, 7.

564 – Amyrald, de Trinit. p. 48.

565 – Voet. Natural. Theol. p. 310.

566 – Rev. i. 8. Ficin. de Immort. lib. ii. c. 5.

567 – Coccei Sum. Theol. c. 8.

568 – Crellius de Deo, c. 18. p. 43.

569 – Petav. Theol. Dogmat. Tom. I. lib. i. c. 10, 11.

570 – Bapt.

571 – Lessius de Perfect, lib. iv. c. 2.

572 – Ibid.

573 – Crellius de Deo, c. 18. p. 43.

574 – Heb. xiii. 8. Rev. i. 8. “He which is, and which was, and which is to come.”

575 – Mestræzat. in loc.

576 – Petav.

577 – Job xxxvi. 26, compared with ver. 23.

578 – Crellius de Deo, c. 18, p. 44, 45.

579 – Charrontrois. Vent. liv. i. c. 5, p. 17, &c.

580 – Pareus.

581 – Plin. Hist. lib. ii. c. 3.

582 – Coccei. in loc.

583 – Septuag.

584 – Estius in Heb. i.

585 – Hyper. in Heb. 1.

586 – Mestræzat sur. Heb. i.

587 – Mestræzat sur. Heb. i.

588 – Estius in Heb. i.

589 – Chrysostom, אתה הוא.

590 – Ἀλλοιώσεως κρείττων above all change. Theodor.

591 – Gamacheus.

592 – Amyrant sur Heb. ix. p. 153.

593 – Archbold, Serm.

594 – Hugo Victorin. in Petavio.

595 – Ibid.

596 – Austin. Fulgen in Petavio.

597 – Petav. Tom. I. p. 173.

598 – Suarez. Vol. I. p. 137.

599 – Psalm cxlv. 5. “His understanding is infinite.”

600 – Austin. Bradwardine.

601 – Gamch. p. 1. Acquin. Qu. 9. c. i. p. 73.

602 – Maxim. Tyrius dissert. 3, 30.

603 – Turrentin de Satisfac. p. 266.

604 – Gamacheus ut supra.

605 – The ancients, as Dionysius, expressed it by this similitude.

606 – Plato calls God οὐσίαν ἀεὶ ἐχόμενον, lib. i. de Be.

607 – Stabilisque manens dat cuncta moveri. Boet. Consolat. lib. iii.

608 – Trap. on Exod.

609 – Amyrald, de Trinitat. p. 433.

610 – Spanhe. Synta. Part. I. p. 39.

611 – Petav. Theol. Dogmat. Tom. I. c. 6. § 6‒8.

612 – Gamach. in prim. part. Aquin. qu. 9. c. 1. part. 72.

613 – Ficinus Zachar. mitylen in Peta. Tom. I. p. 169.

614 – Austin in Pet. Tom. I. p. 201.

615 – Ps. cxlv. 3, אין חקר no end, no term.

616 – Fotherby Atheomastix, p. 308. Gerhard loc. com.

617 – Gamach. in Part I. Aquin. Q. 9. c. i. p. 72.

618 – Petav. Theol. Dogmat. Tom. I.

619 – Zanch. de Immutab. Dei.

620 – Goulart de Immutab. de Dieu.

621 – Gamach in Part I. Aquin. Qu. 9. c. i.

622 – Mercer in loc.

623 – Petavius Theol. Dogmat.

624 – Daille, in Sermon on 2 Pet. iii. 9. p. 30.

625 – Rivet in Genes. exercita. 51. p. 213.

626 – Sanderson’s Sermon, Part II. p. 157, 158.

627 – Placeus de Deitate Christi.

628 – Daille, Melang. des Sermons, Part II. § 1. p. 8‒10, &c.

629 – Sedgwick Christ’s Counsel, p. 230.

630 – Lawrence, of Faith, p. 262.

631 – Turretin. Ser. p. 322.

632 – Cocceius.

633 – Munster, Vatablus, Castalio Oecolamp.

634 – Tum perspicacia, tum efficacia, Grot.

635 – Suarez.

636 – Amirald. de Trinitate, p. 57.

637 – Seneca de Benefic. lib. 4. c. 8. Ipse opus suum implet.

638 – Chrysostom.

639 – Hierom. on Isa. lxvi. 1.

640 – Hammond on Matt. vi. 7.

641 – Med. Diatrib. Vol. I. pp. 71, 72.

642 – Dought Analec. excurs. 61, 113.

643 – מקום Grot. upon Matt. v. 16. Mares. contra Volk. lib. i. cap. 27. p. 494.

644 – Vide Minut. Fel. p. 20.

645 – Plotin. Enead. 6. lib. 5. cap. 4.

646 – Zanch.

647 – Matt. vii. 22. “In thy name we have done many wonderful works.”

648 – Cajetan in Aquin. Par. i. Qu. 8. Art. 3.

649 – Ficin.

650 – Maimonid.

651 – Ficin.

652 – Hornbeck Soun. Part I. p. 303.

653 – Amyrald, de Trinit.

654 – Ps. civ. 2. John i. 5. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”

655 – Bernard.

656 – Petar.

657 – Maccor. loc. commun. cap. 19, p. 153.

658 – Rivet. Ps. cx. p. 301, col. 2.

659 – Amyrald, de Trinitat. p. 89.

660 – Deus est actus purus et nullam habet potentiam passivam.

661 – Pont.

662 – Amyrald, de Trinitat, p. 106, 107.

663 – Amyrald, de Trinitat, p. 74, 75.

664 – Gassend.

665 – Amyrald, de Trinit. pp. 99, 100.

666 – Rom. vi. 1, 2, 15. “Shall we sin, because we are not under the law but under grace?”

667 – Shelford on the Attributes, p. 170.

668 – Dr. More.

669 – Cyril.

670 – Κρυφιότης, Dionysius called God.

671 – Drexel. Nicet. lib. ii. cap. 2.

672 – Drexel, Nicet. lib. ii. cap. 10.

673 – Quo fugis Encelade quascunque accesseris oras, sub Jove semper eris.

674 – Ps. cxxxix. 12. “The darkness and light are both alike to him.”

675 – Chrysostome.

676 – Musculus.

677 – Drexel.

678 – Omnia diis plena.

679 – Agamemnon, (Homer II. 3. v. 8.) making a Covenant with Priam, invocates the Sun, Ἠέλιος ὃς πάντ᾽ ἐφορᾷς καὶ πάντ᾽ ἐπακούεις.

680 – Gamach in 1 Pa. Aqui. Q. 14. cap. 1; p. 119. Clem. Alexander Strom. lib. 6.

681 – Suarez de Deo, lib. 3. cap. 4. p. 130.

682 – Suarez de Deo, lib. 3. cap. 4. p. 138.

683 – Ibid. p. 140.

684 – Moulin.

685 – Magalaneus.

686 – Petar. Theol. Dogm. lib. p. 257.

687 – Ficin de Immort. lib. 2. cap. 10.

688 – Gamach.

689 – Ficin de Immort. lib. 2. cap. 10.

690 – Bradward.

691 – Daille, Serm. Part 1. p. 230.

692 – Fotherby Atheoma, p. 132.

693 – Ἐν Διὸς δέλτῳ Cross. Anthol. Dec. 1. cap. 395. p. 101.

694 – Cusan, p. 246.

695 – Petavius changed.

696 – Bradward, lib. 3 cap. 14.

697 – Pacuvius said, Siqui quæ eventura sunt provident, æqui parent, Gell. lib. 14. c. 1.

698 – Cusanus.

699 – Fuller’s Pisgah, l. 2. p. 281.

700 – Chequell.

701 – Coccei sum. Theol. p. 50.

702 – Ibid.

703 – Gamach in Aquin, Part I. Q. 14. cap. 3. p. 124.

704 – Maimonid. More Nevoch, Part 3. cap. 21. pp. 393, 394.

705 – Gamach. in Aquin. Part I. Q. 14. cap. 3. p. 124.

706 – Eph. i. 5. and in other places.

707 – Gerhard Exeges, ch. 8. de Deo sect. 13. p. 303.

708 – Bradward, lib. 3. cap. 14.

709 – Hornbeck.

710 – Pugio Fidei, Part I. ch. 19.

711 – Boet. consolat lib. 5. pros. 6.

712 – Ficinus in Procl. cap. 91.

713 – Zanch.

714 – Scrivener.

715 – The Stoics, that thought their souls to be some particle of God, Ἀποσπάσματα, pieces pulled off from him, did conclude from thence that he knew all the motions of their souls as his own mover, as things coherent with him. Arrian Epictet. lib. 1. cap. 14. p. 60.

716 – Vid. Rivet. in loc. exerci. 86. p. 329.

717 – Mare. cont. Volkel. lib. 1. cap. 24. p. 343.

718 – Amyrald, de Prædestin. cap. 6.

719 – Rawley of the World, lib. i. cap. 1, sec. 12.

720 – Rivet, in Isa. liii. 1. p. 16.

721 – Daille, Melang. Part II. pp. 712, 725.

722 – Maxim. Tyrius. Dissert. 1. pp. 9, 10.

723 – Maimonides More Nevochim. Part III. c. 20. pp. 291‒293.

724 – Dionys.

725 – Kendall against Goodwin of Foreknowledge.

726 – Suarez. Vol. I. de Deo, lib. 3. cap. 2. pp. 133, 134.

727 – Gamach in Aquin Q. 14. cap. 1. p. 113.

728 – Epiphanius.

729 – Amyrant, Morale Chréti. Tom. III. p. 137.

730 – Cusan. p. 646.

731 – Bradward, lib. 1. cap. 15.

732 – Suarez. Vol. II. p. 228.

733 – Tileni Syntagma, Part I. Disp. 13. Thes. 14.

734 – Plato, ἀκοίμητος ὀφθαλμός.

735 – Damianus.

736 – Gerhard.

737 – Gamach in Aquin. Part 1. Q. 14, cap. 1. pp. 118, 119.

738 – Bradwardin, p. 6.

739 – Sabund. Tit. 84 much changed.

740 – Petav. Theo. Dogmat. I. p. 467, &c.

741 – Petav. Theol. Dogmat. Tom. I. p. 467.

742 – Placæus de Deitate Christi.

743 – Ἐξ ἀρχῆς.

744 – Daille, Serm. 15. pp. 21‒24.

745 – Sabund. Theol. Natural. Tit. 84. somewhat changed.

746 – Pascall, p. 170.

747 – Amyrant, de Prædest. pp. 116, 117. somewhat changed.

748 – Daille, Melang. Part II., pp. 560, 561.

749 – Amyrant. Moral. Tom. III. p. 75, &c.

750 – Cajetan, Sum. p. 190.

751 – Ps. xxxii. 1, 2, Camero, p. 89, col. 1.

752 – Drexel. Nicetas, lib. ii. cap. 10, p. 357.

753 – Nov. 1678, when the Popish Plot was discovered.

754 – For the evidence of it I refer you to Dr. More’s Exposition of the Seven Churches, worthy every learned and understanding man’s reading, and of every sober Romanist.

755 – Coc. in loc.

756 – Turretin’s Sermons, p. 362.

757 – Barlow’s Man’s Refuge, pp. 29, 30.

758 – Isai. lxv. 6. “Behold it is written.”

759 – Antiquit. lib. i. cap. 3.

760 – Gomarus, in loc.

761 – Amyraut. Moral. Tom. III. p. 123.

762 – Maimon. Mor. Part I. cap. 53.

763 – Laert. lib. i. Proem.

764 – Polhill against Sherlock, p. 377.

765 – Culverwell, Light of Nature, p. 30.

766 – Isa. xlvi. 10. Jer. xxxii. 19. “Great in counsel.” Job xii. 13. “He hath counsel and understanding.”

767 – Eugub. per Philosoph. lib. i. cap. 5.

768 – Licet magnum sit posse, majus tamen est sapere.

769 – Suarez, Vol. I. lib. i. cap. 3. p. 10.

770 – Amiraut. Moral.

771 – Amyrald, Desart. Theol. p. 111.

772 – Omne opus naturæ est opus intelligentiæ.

773 – Amyraut. Moral, Vol. I. p. 257.

774 – Mountag. against Selden, p. 281. Plutarch calls God ἁρμονικὸς καὶ μουσικὸς; he saith nothing was made without music.

775 – Charlton, Light of Nature, p. 57.

776 – Daille, Mel. Part I. p. 483.

777 – Amyraut. Predestin. p. 9.

778 – Amyraut. sur diverses Text. p. 127.

779 – Lessius.

780 – Daille, Melan. Part II, pp. 472, 473.

781 – Daille, Melan. II. p. 477, &c.

782 – Daille Sermon XV. p. 170.

783 – Castellio, Dialog. l. 4, p. 46.

784 – Amyraut.

785 – Moulin’s Serm. decad. 10. p. 231, 232.

786 – Which I have upon another occasion noted.

787 – Daille sur Philip. Part I. pp. 545, 646.

788 – Sanderson, Part II. p. 205.

789 – Daille sur 1 Cor. x. p. 390.

790 – Turretin, Serm. p. 53.

791 – Daille sur Philip. Part I. pp. 116, 117.

792 – Amyraut. Moral. Tom. V. pp. 478‒480.

793 – Savana Triump. Crucis, lib. iii, cap. 7. p. 211.

794 – Gomb. de Relig. p. 42.

795 – Amyraut. Morals. Tom. V. pp. 468, 469.

796 – And indeed the Heathen oracles, managed by the devils, declared that they were not long to hold their sceptre in the world, but the Hebrew child should vanquish them.

797 – Laud against Fisher, p. 5.

798 – Bradward, p. 28.

799 – Janeway. p. 88.

800 – Ἐπιφάνειαι.

801 – Dionys. Halicar, Antiq. l. 2, p. 128.

802 – Iamblych. Vit. Pythag., lib. i. cap. 6, p. 44, and lib. ii. c. 19, p. 94.

803 – Faucheur. in loc. pp. 294, 295.

804 – Amyraut, Moral. Tom. I. pp. 258, 259.

805 – Strong, of The Will.

806 – Vaisin. The Talmud takes notice, that the court of Bethany was wasted three years before Jerusalem, because they preferred their own words before the words of the Law.

807 – Pont. Medit. Part III. p. 366.

808 – Durant de Tent, pp. 403, 404.

809 – Seaman’s Sermon before the Parliament.

810 – Munster.

811 – Coccei in loc.

812 – Coccei.

813 – Drusius in loc.

814 – As the word signifies in the Hebrew.

815 – Oecolamp.

816 – The ancient Gauls worshipped him under the name of Taranis. The Greeks called Jupiter Βρονταῖος, and Thor; whence our Thursday is derived, signifieth Thunderer, a title the Germans gave their God. And Toran, in the British language, signifies thunder. Voss. Idolo. lib. ii. cap. 33. Camb. Britan. p. 17.

817 – Lessius, de Perfect. Divin. lib. v. cap. 1.

818 – Fotherby, Atheomastic, pp. 306, 307.

819 – גבורתו Sept. σθενος.

820 – Scaliger, Publ. Exercit. 365, § 8.

821 – Estius in Sent. lib. i. dist. 43. § 2.

822 – Cra. Syntag. lib. iii. cap. 17. p. 611.

823 – Gamacheus.

824 – Ratione summæ actualitatis essentiæ. Suarez, Vol. I. pp. 150, 151.

825 – Operationes sequuntur essentiam.

826 – Aquin. Part 1. Qu. 25. Articæ.

827 – Suarez, Vol. I. de Deo. p. 151.

828 – Becan. Sum. Theol. p. 82.

829 – Ibid. p. 84.

830 – Gamach in Aquin. Tom. I. Qu. 25.

831 – Best, ex parte facientis et modi: but not _ex parte rei_. Esti. in Senten. lib. i. distin. 44. § 2.

832 – Aquin. Part I. Qu. 25. art. 6.

833 – Gamach. in Aquin. Tom. I. Qu. 25.

834 – Crell. de Deo. cap. 22.

835 – Robins. Observ. p. 14.

836 – Magalano. de Scientia Dei, Part II. c. 6. § 3.

837 – Augus.

838 – Becan. Sum. Theolog. p. 83.

839 – Maximus Tyrius.

840 – Ambrose.

841 – Becan. Sum. Theol. p. 84. Crel. de Deo, cap. 22.

842 – Victorin. in Petar. Tom. I. p. 333.

843 – Ibid. p. 233.

844 – Lib. i. cap. 1. p. 38.

845 – Damianus, in Petar.

846 – Fauch. in Acts. Vol. II. § 56.

847 – Mercer, p. 7. col. 1, 2.

848 – Suarez, Vol. III. p. 33.

849 – Suarez, Vol. III. p. 6.

850 – Amyrald, Morale. Tom. I. p. 252.

851 – Gassend.

852 – Gen. i. 3, 5, &c. throughout the whole chapter.

853 – Augus.

854 – Theodoret.

855 – Peirs. p. 111.

856 – Suarez, Vol. I. lib. iii. cap. 10.

857 – Daille, in 1 Cor. x. p. 102.

858 – מקום.

859 – Daille, Melange, Part II. p. 457.

860 – Lessius, de Perfect. Divin. p. 69.

861 – Lessius, de Sum. Bon. pp. 580‒582.

862 – Trismegist, in Serm. Greek, in the Temple, p. 57.

863 – A Lapide, in 1 cap. Gen. xvi. Lessius, de Perfect. Divin. pp. 90, 91.

864 – Lessius, de Providen, p. 633. Voss. de Idol. lib. ii. cap. 2.

865 – Faucher, sur Act. Vol. II. p. 47.

866 – Cæteros deos æreos esse, &c. Grot. Verit. Rel. lib. 4.

867 – Amyrald. in Symbol. p. 103, &c.

868 – Amyrant. sur Timole, p. 292.

869 – Lessius, de Perf. Divin. lib. xii. cap. 4. p. 104.

870 – Lessius, pp. 103, 104.

871 – Lessius, pp. 103, 104. Amyrald. Irenic. p. 284.

872 – Amyrald. Irenic. p. 282.

873 – Σπερμολόγος.

874 – Daille. Serm. XV. p. 57.

875 – Colos. i. 13. ἐῤῥύσατο.

876 – Grotius in Luke i. 19.

877 – Numb. xiv. 17. ὑψωθήτω, be exalted. Sept. Strength, &c.

878 – ἐποίησεν.

879 – Gen. i. 2. So the word “moved” properly signifies.

880 – Sabunde, Tit. 39.

881 – Pont. Part VI. med. 16. p. 531.

882 – Capel. in 1 Tim. i. 17.

883 – Lingend. Tom. III. pp. 779, 780.

884 – Harwood, p. 13.

885 – Grot. in loc.

886 – Amyrant. Moral. Tom. V. p. 170.

887 – Trap. in loc.

888 – Manass. ben Israel, de Resurr. lib. 1, cap. 1, p. 7.

889 – Pareus in Exod. xv.

890 – Rivet.

891 – Calvin.

892 – Munster.

893 – Ἄχραντος ἡγεμών.

894 – οὐδ᾽ ἀκούειν ὅσιον. Ammon. in Plut. de Εἰ apud Delphos, p. 393.

895 – Gassend. Tom. I. Phys. § 1, lib. 4, cap. 2, p. 289.

896 – Petav. Theol. Dogmat. Tom. I. lib. 6, cap. 5, p. 415.

897 – Plutarch Eugubin. de Perenni Phil. lib. 6, cap. 6.

898 – Martin. de Deo, p. 86.

899 – Turretin. de Satisfact. p. 28.

900 – Ochino, Predic. Part III. Bodic. 51, pp. 347, 348.

901 – Turretin. de Satisfact. pp. 35, 36.

902 – Amyrald. Disert. pp. 103, 104.

903 – Amyrald. Defens. de Calvin. pp. 151, 152.

904 – Ames de Consc. lib. v. cap. 1. quest. 7.

905 – Suarez.

906 – Amirant. Moral. Tom. V. p. 388.

907 – Lingend. Tom. III. pp. 699, 700.

908 – Tit. ii. 11‒14, and many other places.

909 – Suarez, Vol. II. p. 548.

910 – Amyr. Moral. Tom. I. pp. 615, 616.

911 – Amyral. Defence de Calv. p. 145.

912 – Rispolis.

913 – Bradward. lib. i. cap. 34. “God wills it secundum quid.”

914 – Aquin. cont. Gent. lib. i. cap. 95.

915 – Lawson, p. 64.

916 – Suarez, Vol. IV. p. 414.

917 – Suarez, de Legib. p. 43.

918 – Ps. lxxvi. 10, as the word “restrain” signifies.

919 – Majus bonum, saith Bradward.

920 – But of the wisdom of God in the permitting sin in order to redemption, I have handled in the attribute of “Wisdom.”

921 – Suarez, Metaph. Part I. p. 552.

922 – Amyrald. de Libero arbit. pp. 98, 99.

923 – Amyrald, pp. 321, 332.

924 – Zanch. Tom. II. lib. iii. cap. 4, quest. iv. p. 226.

925 – Amyral. de Libero arbit. p. 224.

926 – Amyrald, Irenic. p. 337.

927 – This I have spoken of before, but it is necessary now.

928 – Testard, de Natur, et Grat. Thes. 150, 151. Amy on Divers Texts, p. 311.

929 – Amyrald, de Predest. p. 107.

930 – Turretin. de Satisfac. p. 8.

931 – Placeus, de Deitat. Christi, in loc.

932 – Ps. xii. 8. The vilest men.

933 – Amyrald. Moral. Tom. V. p. 462.

934 – Sanct. in loc.

935 – “In this,” saith Plato, “God is ἐν μέσῳ παράδειγμα.”

936 – Eph. iv. 24. Col. iii. 10.

937 – Eugubin. de Perenni Philoso. lib. vi. cap. 6.

938 – Vaughan pp. 4, 5.

939 – Amirald. in Heb. pp. 101, 102.

940 – Amor naturam induit, et mores imbibit rei amatæ.

941 – Erasm. in loc.

942 – Augustin.

943 – Hensius in Matt.

944 – Calvin in loc.

945 – Trismegist. Pœmœnd. cap. 2.

946 – Eugubin. de Peren. Philos. lib. v. cap. 9.

947 – Eugubin. de Peren. Philos. lib. v. cap. 9. p. 97. col.

948 – Amyrant, Morale.

949 – Rom. x. 3. “Going about to establish their own righteousness.”

950 – Ver. 17. Lightfoot in loc.

951 – Ficin. in Dionys. de Divin. Nom. cap. 511.

952 – Empedocles.

953 – Hesiod.

954 – Iamblych. Vit. Pythag. lib. i. col. 6. p. 43.

955 – Lombard lib. iv. distinct. 46. p. 286.

956 – Coccei. sum. p. 50.

957 – Cajetan in secund. secunda. Qu. 34. Ar. 3.

958 – Herle upon Wisdom, cap. 5. pp. 41, 42.

959 – Ingelo Bentivolio, and Uran. Book IV. pp. 260, 261.

960 – Daille, Melang. Part II. pp. 704, 705.

961 – Ficini. Epist. lib. xi. epist. 30.

962 – Tom. II. p. 926.

963 – Cocceii sum Theolog. p. 91.

964 – Gilbert de Dei Dominio, p. 6.

965 – Amyr. Moral. Tom. I. p. 260.

966 – Ficinus in Con. Amor. Orat. 2. cap. p. 1326.

967 – Camero, p. 30.

968 – Boetius.

969 – Zarnovecius, de Satisfact. Part I. cap. i. pp. 3, 4.

970 – Suarez, Vol. I. de Deo, lib. iii. cap. 7. p. 146.

971 – Cressol. Anthol. Decad. II. p. 162.

972 – Cusan, p. 228.

973 – Petav. Theolog. Dogmat. Tom. i. p. 402.

974 – Lessius, de Perfect. Div. p. 100.

975 – Pherecydes.

976 – Eugubin, lib. v. cap. 9.

977 – Amyral. Dissertat. pp. 637, 638.

978 – Suarez. de Gratia, Vol. I. pp. 126, 127.

979 – Rada. Controvers. Part III. p. 363.

980 – Lingend. de Eucharist, pp. 84, 85.

981 – Lessius.

982 – Turreti, Ser. p. 33.

983 – Amyral. Irenicum. pp. 16, 17.

984 – Daille, Melang. Part I. p. 253.

985 – Gulielmus Parisien. p. 184.

986 – Harwood’s Sermon at Oxford, p. 5.

987 – Amyral. Moral. Tom. IV. p. 291.

988 – Cressol. Antholog. Part II. p. 29.

989 – Young, of Affliction, p. 34.

990 – Petav. Theolog. Dogmat. Vol. I. p. 407.

991 – Amyrald. Dissert. p. 65.

992 – “As a heathen,” Maximus Tyrius, Dissert. 22, p. 220. Οὐ γὰρ θέμις διὶ βούλεσθαι ἄλλο τι ἢ τὸ κάλλιστον.

993 – Amyrald. in loc.

994 – Maccov. Colleg. Theolog. 10 Disput. 18, pp. 6, 7, or thereabout.

995 – Maccov. Colleg. Theolog. Disput. 18, pp. 12, 13.

996 – Raynaud, Theolog. Nat. p. 757.

997 – Camero. p. 371. Amyrald, Dissert. pp. 72, 73.

998 – Stoughton’s “Righteous Man’s Plea,” Serm. VI. p. 28.

999 – Vid. Lessium de Perfect. Divin. pp. 77, 78.

1000 – Raynaud, Theolog. Natural, pp. 760‒762.

1001 – Sueton. de Tiberio, cap. 27.

1002 – Lessius de Perfect. Divin. pp. 66, 67.

1003 – Causin, Poly‑Histor. lib. iv. cap. 22.

1004 – Suarez. Vol. II. lib. viii. cap. 20. p. 736.

1005 – Bolduc. in loc.

1006 – Suarez. de Legib. p. 23.

1007 – Amyrald, Dissert. pp. 101, 102.

1008 – Daille, in loc.

1009 – This was Dr. Goodwin’s speech when he was in trouble.

1010 – Claude, sur la Parabole des Noces, p. 29.

1011 – Mr. Mede, in one of his letters.

1012 – Josephus.

1013 – Causin. Symb. lib. ii. cap. 65.

1014 – Lessius, de Perfect. Divin. lib. x. p. 65.

1015 – Munster.

1016 – Trap. in loc.

1017 – Trap. in loc.

1018 – Faucheur, Vol. II. pp. 663, 664.

1019 – Austin.

1020 – Chrysost. in Gen. Hom. 16.

1021 – Raynard, de Deo, p. 766.

1022 – Arrian in Epictet.

1023 – Servire Deo regnare est.

1024 – Ribera, in loc.

1025 – Page 359, col. 1.

1026 – Tirinus, in loc.

1027 – Rhodigi. lib. vi. c. 14.

1028 – Δῆλον δὲ ὅτι ἐγχειρίδιον τὴν τιμωρίαν καλεῖ, κολεὸν δὲ τουτέστι τὴν θήκην τοῦ ἐγχειριδίου τὴν μακροθυμίαν ὀνομάζει. Theodoret, in loc.

1029 – Testard. de Natur. et Grat. Thess. 119.

1030 – Perer, in loc.

1031 – Vid. Gell’s Ἀγγελοκρατία.

1032 – Sanctius. Prolegom. in Hosea, Prolog. III.

1033 – Mercer in Gen.

1034 – Cressol. Decad. II. p. 163.

1035 – Pierce, Sinner Implead. p. 227.

1036 – Kimchi.

1037 – Lessius, p. 152.

1038 – Amyrald, Dissert. pp. 191, 192.

1039 – Amyraldus, Moral. Tom. II. p. 186.

1040 – Smith on the Creed. p. 404.

1041 – Minuc. Felix, p. 41.

1042 – Pont. Part I. p. 42.

1043 – Cod. lib. ix. Titul. 476, p. 20.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.

The following corrections have been made in the text:

Page a54: Sentence starting: Every year are the fields.... – ‘baren’ replaced with ‘barren’ (creatures; no part is barren,)

Page a64: Sentence starting: The Lord breathed into his.... – ‘חזום’ replaced with ‘חיים’ (“... and man,”[101] &c.: חיים, of lives.)

Page a75: Sentence starting: Tully Hostilius, a Roman.... – ‘whe’ replaced with ‘who’ (a Roman king, who counted it) Sentence starting: The strange revelations of murderers,... – ‘vengeanee’ replaced with ‘vengeance’ (instruments of vengeance on a sinful)

Page a107: Sentence starting: The rule of God is burthensome.... – ‘ונח’ replaced with ‘זנח’ (the word זנח signifies,)

Page a117: Sentence starting: There is not the basest thing.... – ‘dispicable’ replaced with ‘despicable’ (of a poor despicable beggar.)

Page a154: Sentence starting: It were more excusable to serve.... – ‘נדכות’ replaced with ‘נדבות’ (they sacrificed the נדבות)

Page a162: Sentence starting: Has he not promised.... – ‘or’ replaced with ‘of’ (strip him of his crown)

Page a172: Sentence starting: In every action we should.... – ‘shold’ replaced with ‘should’ (we should make the inquiry,)

Page a230: Sentence starting: If any one spiritual.... – ‘spirital’ replaced with ‘spiritual’ (any one spiritual string)

Page a270: Sentence starting: As our gracious God.... – ‘118’ replaced with ‘18’ (Ps. lxvi. 18)

Page a300: Sentence starting: ביה יהוה צור עולמים.... – ‘ביה יהוה צור צול טם’ replaced with ‘ביה יהוה צור עולמים’ (ביה יהוה צור עולמים)

Page a382: Sentence starting: To act by a virtue,... – ‘kindoms’ replaced with ‘kingdoms’ (in their kingdoms by ministers)

Page a392: Sentence starting: Let us therefore conclude.... – ‘expresssion’ replaced with ‘expression’ (the expression of a learned man)

Page a408: Sentence starting: Much power, plenteous in power;... – ‘רבחרד’ replaced with ‘רב חסד’ ((Ps. v. 15), רב חסד, a multitude of power) Sentence starting: He knows universals,... – ‘תגונה’ replaced with ‘תבונה’ (תבונה, in the consideration of them,)

Page a410: Sentence starting: The heathens did acknowledge.... – ‘selemnized’ replaced with ‘solemnized’ (solemnized with oaths and)

Page a414: Sentence starting: As God is the most perfect being,... – ‘he’ replaced with ‘be’ (he would be ignorant of)

Page a417: Sentence starting: .... – ‘knowedge’ replaced with ‘knowledge’ (so is his knowledge infinite,)

Page a457: Sentence starting: Is it to be imagined.... – ‘notiou’ replaced with ‘notion’ (by the notion of things so mean?)

Page a470: Sentence starting: The word עלומנו signifies.... – ‘צלומנו’ replaced with ‘עלומנו’ (The word עלומנו signifies youth,) Sentence starting: As his justice, which consists.... – ‘manfestation’ replaced with ‘manifestation’ (a manifestation of the secret motions)

Page a480: Sentence starting: David’s heart smote him.... – ‘cirumstantiated’ replaced with ‘cirumstantiated’ (as particularly cirumstantiated by the )

Page a488: Sentence starting: His knowledge comes not.... – ‘profitaby’ replaced with ‘profitably’ (they may be profitably removed.)

Page a491: Sentence starting: His infinite understanding.... – ‘unstanding’ replaced with ‘understanding’ (His infinite understanding of what)

Page a510: Sentence starting: 2. Therefore “only wise”.... – ‘αὐδίδακτος’ replaced with ‘αὐτοδίδακτος’ (God is αὐτοδίδακτος αὐτόσοφος.)

Page a511: Sentence starting: The absolute power of God.... – ‘righteousnesness’ replaced with ‘righteousness’ (because of his righteousness,)

Page a516: Sentence starting: He could not be an universal.... – ‘wihout’ replaced with ‘without’ (without an incorruptible wisdom.)

Page a523: Sentence starting: The summer consumes.... – ‘inhabtants’ replaced with ‘inhabitants’ (the inhabitants of the world.)

Page a535: Sentence starting: The magistrate inspired not.... – ‘magistate’ replaced with ‘magistrate’ (The magistrate inspired not)

Page a571: Sentence starting: The grace of God teaches.... – ‘ungodlinsss’ replaced with ‘ungodliness’ (teaches us to deny ungodliness.)

Page a593: Sentence starting: Like a skilful physician,... – ‘und’ replaced with ‘and’ (bitter potions, and sometimes cheering)

Page a594: Sentence starting: He defeated the serpent.... – ‘surpentine’ replaced with ‘serpentine’ (the after‑game of the serpentine brood.)

Page b24: Sentence starting: If limited by himself,... – ‘limition’ replaced with ‘limitation’ (that limitation is not from)

Page b36: Sentence starting: The Jews observe, that.... – ‘האלחום’ replaced with ‘האלהים’ (he is called האלהים,)

Page b42: Sentence starting: And it might be inquired, how.... – ‘instrment’ replaced with ‘instrument’ (create all things without an instrument,)

Page b43: Sentence starting: It is as little difficulty.... – ‘lighest’ replaced with ‘lightest’ (as the lightest atom.)

Page b44: Sentence starting: There is a natural providence,... – ‘propogation’ replaced with ‘propagation’ (propagation of them by corruptions)

Page b50: Sentence starting: It is an Infinite Power which.... – ‘souls’ replaced with ‘soul’ (the soul forms every thought,)

Page b61: Sentence starting: By this manner of conception.... – ‘atsured’ replaced with ‘assured’ (his fitness for his office is assured)

Page b65: Sentence starting: (1.) It was contrary.... – ‘contary’ replaced with ‘contrary’ (It was contrary to the common)

Page b66: Sentence starting: The philosophers, the masters.... – ‘philosphers’ replaced with ‘philosophers’ (The philosophers, the masters)

Page b71: Sentence starting: They employed not troops.... – ‘themselve’ replaced with ‘themselves’ (subdue men unto themselves,)

Page b73: Sentence starting: The court of Nero,... – duplicated word removed ‘and’ (its standing, and flourished)

Page b76: Sentence starting: The stream of nature cannot.... – ‘venemous’ replaced with ‘venomous’ (or a venomous toad into an)

Page b77: Sentence starting: To dispossess man then of his.... – ‘makes’ replaced with ‘make’ (make desires of self‑advancement)

Page b80: Sentence starting: And indeed, God doth.... – ‘wheron’ replaced with ‘whereon’ (sands whereon it might split,)

Page b81: Sentence starting: So great an eulogy cannot.... – ‘surmounded’ replaced with ‘surmounted’ (cannot be surmounted and stepped over,)

Page b97: Sentence starting: His strength is uncontrollable;... – ‘his’ replaced with ‘is’ (his throne is represented) Sentence starting: To have many sharp blows,... – ‘apostles’ replaced with ‘apostle’ (therefore the apostle calls it)

Page b106: Sentence starting: When you beg of him the melting.... – ‘liveless’ replaced with ‘lifeless’ (and prayer will be lifeless,)

Page b110: Sentence starting: This is more affixed.... – duplicated word removed ‘his’ (or His wise name;)

Page b112: Sentence starting: His power or sovereignty,... – ‘sovreignty’ replaced with ‘sovereignty’ (His power or sovereignty,)

Page b117: Sentence starting: It is as certain a truth,... – duplicated word removed ‘any’ (cannot create anything actually)

Page b134: Sentence starting: O, how detestable is sin.... – ‘abhorence’ replaced with ‘abhorrence’ (of his abhorrence of evil!) Sentence starting: To punish and witness against.... – ‘נאון’ replaced with ‘גאון’ (the word גאון, which is here)

Page b140: Sentence starting: It is certain that God made.... – ‘witholding’ replaced with ‘withholding’ (negative in withholding that grace)

Page b146: Sentence starting: Reprobation, in its first notion,... – duplicated word removed ‘the’ (wicked by the act of God;)

Page b168: Sentence starting: Hence, God is said to.... – ‘father’ replaced with ‘farther’ (occasion of his farther hardening:)

Page b170: Sentence starting: .... – ‘Israelities’ replaced with ‘Israelites’ (of the Israelites borrowing jewels)

Page b171: Sentence starting: .... – ‘intrinsisically’ replaced with ‘intrinsically’ (its own nature intrinsically evil;)

Page b177: Sentence starting: The Jews were often infected.... – ‘taansgressions’ replaced with ‘transgressions’ (the enormity of their transgressions,)

Page b178: Sentence starting: Sometimes casting an eye.... – ‘villifying’ replaced with ‘vilifying’ (but a vilifying of the holiness) Sentence starting: What are the services of.... – ‘practises’ replaced with ‘practices’ (their following practices.)

Page b180: Sentence starting: We are departed from our.... – duplicated word removed ‘that’ (that is, a life of “holiness;”)

Page b181: Sentence starting: All unholiness is vile,... – ‘unholinesss’ replaced with ‘unholiness’ (All unholiness is vile,)

Page b186: Sentence starting: As we therefore dishonor.... – duplicated word removed ‘a’ (as if a “mortal man were as just as God,”)

Page b190: Sentence starting: When he overlooks strength,... – ‘complaceny’ replaced with ‘complacency’ (such for his own complacency,)

Page b198: Sentence starting: It was his design in his pity.... – ‘Ezra’ replaced with ‘Ezek’ (judicial procedure (Ezek. xxxvi. 21, 23))

Page b204: Sentence starting: As soon as sin had stripped.... – ‘that’ replaced with ‘than’ (a defiled person than a man)

Page b205: Sentence starting: Let us often exercise ourselves.... – ‘exericse’ replaced with ‘exercise’ (Let us often exercise ourselves)

Page b214: Sentence starting: It is a part of idolatry.... – ‘idolatary’ replaced with ‘idolatry’ (part of idolatry to give men) – ‘creatnre’ replaced with ‘creature’ (a worship of the creature together with)

Page b215: Sentence starting: All the idolatry of the heathens,... – ‘idolary’ replaced with ‘idolatry’ (All the idolatry of the heathens,)

Page b216: Sentence starting: The Italians esteemed Pythagoras.... – ‘Pithagoras’ replaced with ‘Pythagoras’ (esteemed Pythagoras a god,)

Page b218: Sentence starting: Were he not first infinitely.... – ‘itseif’ replaced with ‘itself’ (fulness of light in itself,) Sentence starting: The mercy of God is exercised.... – ‘pnnishment’ replaced with ‘punishment’ (those that merit punishment;)

Page b220: Sentence starting: He is first good, and then.... – ‘compasssionate’ replaced with ‘compassionate’ (and then compassionate.)

Page b239: Sentence starting: Justice and judgment are.... – ‘חבוק’ replaced with ‘מכון’ (“... habitation of thy throne,” מכון,) Sentence starting: So, Ps. xciii. 2.... – ‘xcii.’ replaced with ‘xciii.’ (So, Ps. xciii. 2.) Sentence starting: And shall it be accounted.... – ‘acounted’ replaced with ‘accounted’ (be accounted an unkindness,)

Page b245: Sentence starting: It is the goodness of God.... – ‘multitutes’ replaced with ‘multitudes’ (extract such multitudes of things)

Page b247: Sentence starting: It hath a tongue to express.... – ‘counseller’ replaced with ‘counsellor’ (what the inward counsellor directs;)

Page b249: Sentence starting: This some of the Jews understood.... – ‘חיום’ replaced with ‘חיים’ (חיים, breath of lives, in the Hebrew;)

Page b258: Sentence starting: This only excited wisdom to bring.... – ‘apostacy’ replaced with ‘apostasy’ (as the apostasy of man,)

Page b289: Sentence starting: As the right of a house.... – ‘annointed’ replaced with ‘anointed’ (wherewith kings were anointed,)

Page b297: Sentence starting: The goodness of God is seen.... – duplicated word removed ‘and’ (the animals and inanimate things.)

Page b299: Sentence starting: And when public justice was.... – ‘admininistered’ replaced with ‘administered’ (was to be administered upon)

Page b301: Sentence starting: They are fruits of his goodness.... – missing word added ‘no’ (there would be no government,)

Page b303: Sentence starting: Though moral goodness cannot.... – ‘siganlly’ replaced with ‘signally’ (hath often signally rewarded)

Page b311: Sentence starting: The goodness of God appears.... – ‘geople’ replaced with ‘people’ (strengthening his people under)

Page b315: Sentence starting: How disingenuous both to God.... – ‘disingenious’ replaced with ‘disingenuous’ (How disingenuous both to God)

Page b316: Sentence starting: God hath curses as well as blessings;.... – ‘Got’ replaced with ‘God’ (God hath curses as well as blessings;)

Page b330: Sentence starting: The nature of “fear” is to.... – ‘inwarly’ replaced with ‘inwardly’ (than inwardly have admired him:)

Page b336: Sentence starting: As the goodness of God.... – ‘repentence’ replaced with ‘repentance’ (“leads us to repentance”)

Page b350: Sentence starting: A deep sense of this would.... – ‘whatsover’ replaced with ‘whatsoever’ (goodness in whatsoever he doth,)

Page b354: Sentence starting: Revenge makes us slaves’.... – ‘adverlsaries’ replaced with ‘adversaries’ (victorious over our adversaries) – ‘evi‑’ replaced with ‘evil’ (but overcome evil with good.)

Page b364: Sentence starting: As knowledge and wisdom are.... – ‘whatsover’ replaced with ‘whatsoever’ (to pass whatsoever he decrees;)

Page b373: Sentence starting: The government of Christ.... – ‘commision’ replaced with ‘commission’ (by commission from him;)

Page b378: Sentence starting: It is part of God’s sovereignty,... – ‘sovereignity’ replaced with ‘sovereignty’ (It is part of God’s sovereignty,)

Page b414: Sentence starting: The sword of a conqueror.... – ‘conquerer’ replaced with ‘conqueror’ (The sword of a conqueror)

Page b415: Sentence starting: God, by his sovereign conduct,... – “Pharoah’s” replaced with “Pharaoh’s” (to the view of Pharaoh’s daughter,)

Page b431: Sentence starting: It is sufficient that we gave.... – ‘yuo’ replaced with ‘you’ (we gave you a command)

Page b434: Sentence starting: When we pay an outward.... – ‘Soverign’ replaced with ‘Sovereign’ (the Sovereign of the world;)

Page b440: Sentence starting: Sovereignty requires awe in.... – ‘disrepect’ replaced with ‘disrespect’ (is a disrespect of authority)

Page b480: Sentence starting: Think me not such a piece.... – ‘hehold’ replaced with ‘behold’ (I had an eye to behold)

Page b483: Sentence starting: In those threatenings where.... – duplicated word removed ‘the’ (without fixing the time,)

Page b497: Sentence starting: No light matter, but.... – ‘Pharoah’ replaced with ‘Pharaoh’ (but that of Pharaoh?)

Page b504: Sentence starting: It had been inconsistent with.... – duplicated word removed ‘down’ (been pulling down and rearing)

Page b506: Sentence starting: Divine patience had still bound.... – ‘1 Kings’ replaced with ‘2 Kings’ (2 Kings xxii. 19, 20)

Index Christ: – ‘medtation’ replaced with ‘mediation’ (make us prize his mediation)

Index Conceptions: – ‘similtude’ replaced with ‘similitude’ (will be in them a similitude)

Index Dominion: – duplicated word removed ‘as’ (contemned as he is a)

Index Temptations: – ‘soveignty’ replaced with ‘sovereignty’ (thoughts of God’s sovereignty)

Footnote 6: – ‘ציע’ replaced with ‘ציץ’ (Isaiah xl. 7. נבל ציץ “the flower fadeth.”)

Footnote 7: – ‘לאכחם’ replaced with ‘לא חכם’ (Mais נבל and לא חכם put together.)

Footnote 8: – ‘אינ’ replaced with ‘אין’ (אין אלהים “No God.” Muis.)

Footnote 135: – ‘98’ replaced with ‘8’ (Psalm xxxiv. 8.)

Footnote 282: – ‘Gurnal’ replaced with ‘Gurnall’ (Gurnall, Part II.)

Footnote 545: – ‘אל עדלם’ replaced with ‘אל עולם’ (אל עולם.)

Footnote 553: – ‘Parsiensis’ replaced with ‘Parisiensis’

Footnote 615: – ‘אדז חףר’ replaced with ‘אין חקר’ (אין חקר no end, no term.)

Footnote 643: – ‘מולם’ replaced with ‘מקום’ (מקום Grot. upon Matt. v. 16.)

Footnote 819: – ‘גבזדתו’ replaced with ‘גבורתו’ (גבורתו Sept. σθενος.)

Footnote 875: – ‘Colos. i. 19.’ replaced with ‘Colos. i. 13.’ ‘ἐῤῤύὁατο’ replaced with ‘ἐῤῥύσατο’ (Colos. i. 13. ἐῤῥύσατο.)

Footnote 1031: – ‘Ἀγγελοκατία’ replaced with ‘Ἀγγελοκρατία’ (Vid. Gell’s Ἀγγελοκρατία.)