Christianity
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2. did. Thus in all ages, in all places, every year it performs the sametask, spins out fruit of the same color, taste, virtue, to refresh the several creatures for which they are provided. {a58} This settled state of things comes from that God who...
3. lviii. 13); in regard of the marvellous work he wrought on it; raisingup our blessed Redeemer on that day, whereby a foundation was laid for the rendering our persons and services acceptable to God (Psalm cxviii. 24); “This is the day which the Lo...
4. vi. 2): his power should make us reverence him, as we are creatures;his justice, as we are sinners; his goodness, as we are restored creatures. “God is clothed with unspeakable majesty; the glory of his face shines brighter than the lights of he...
5. ii. 15), in all their worship; so under the gospel they are under aconstraint of love (2 Cor. v. 14): how then are believing affections exercised, which are alway accompanied with holy fear; a fear of his goodness that admits us into his presen...
6. cxliii. 2, the prophet David, after his supplications, begs of Godnot to enter into judgment with him; and acknowledges any answer that God should give him, as a fruit of his faithfulness to his promise, and not the merit of his worship: “In t...
7. vii. 19); it hinders us in the doing good, and contradicts ourwills in the stirring up evil. This corruption being seated in all the faculties, and a constant domestic in them, has the greater opportunity to trouble us, since it is by thos...
8. ii. 18); we have such assaults in our retired worship especially,(1.) If we find in ourselves a strong resistance of them. The flesh will be lusting; that cannot be hindered; yet if we do not fulfil the lusts of it, rise up at its command, an...
9. xv. 18); but in their true order of succession, as they lie in theeternal council of God, to be brought forth in time. Though there be a succession and order of things as they are wrought, there is yet no succession in God in regard of his kno...
10. civ. 2), and shall in due time be folded up as clothes and curtainsare. As a garment encompasseth the whole body, so do the heavens encircle the earth.[584] Some say, as a garment is folded up to be laid aside, that when there is need it may be...
11. iv. 8), it is not by local motion or change of place, but by specialand spiritual influences, by exciting and supporting grace. As we ordinarily say, the sun is come into the house when yet it remains in its place and order in the heavens, becau...
12. viii. 21), in which respect he is opposed to all the things in theworld, that are but shadows, that are shorter or longer, according to the motion of the sun; mutable also, by every little body that intervenes. God is subject to no decay withi...
13. xiv. 7); that is, comply with the unchangeable will of his precept,the more he declares the immutable will of his providence. We must not think God must disgrace his nature and change his proceedings for us; better the creature should suffer, t...
14. xvii. 28), much more are the motions of other natural agents bya virtue communicated to them, and upheld in them in the time of their acting. This virtual presence of God is evident to our sense, a presence we feel; his essential presence i...
15. iv. 6), above all in his majesty, through all in his providence;he doth not appropriate that as he doth what follows, “and in you all;” in you all by a special grace; as God was specially present with Christ by the grace of union, so he is s...
16. xxiii. 10), because he would not be disturbed by the noise of cannons,and clashing of swords, as that he is not present in the world because of the ill scents. Let us therefore conclude this with the expression of a learned man of our own:[668] “T...
17. xxvi. 11); his soul should not abhor them, as they are washed byChrist, though they are loathsome by sin: in a greater dispensation there cannot be a less presence, since the church under the New Testament is called the temple of the Lord, w...
18. xxiii. 11); he knew what they would do upon that occasion, though itwas never done; as he knew what was in {a418} their power and in their wills, so he must needs know what is within the compass of his own power; as he can permit more than he do...
19. iii. 16), signifying the perpetual presence of things past, beforehim. There are two elegant expressions, signifying the certainty and perpetuity of God’s knowledge of sins past (Job xiv. 17), “My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou...
20. xv. 11); he works all things in the bowels of the earth, and bringsforth all things out of that treasure, say some; but more naturally, God knows the whole state of the dead, all the receptacles and graves of their bodies, all the bodies of men...
21. iv. 12), as a critic discerns every letter, point, and stop; he ismore intimate with us than our souls with our bodies, and hath more the possession of us than we have of ourselves; he knows them by an inspection into the heart, not by the med...
22. xiv. 2, 3), all nations in the world, and every man of every nation;none of their iniquity is hid from his eyes; he searches Jerusalem with candles (Jer. xvi. 17). God follows sinners step by step, with his eye, and will not leave searching out...
23. iii. 11), and a decree of election past before the foundation of theworld;――a separation of some to redemption, and forgiveness of sin in the blood of Christ, in whom they were from eternity chosen, as well as in time accepted in Christ (Eph. i....
24. xl. 15); so little a thing can be seen by man at once; and all thingsbeing as little in the eye of God, are seen at once by him. As all time is but a moment to his eternity, so all things are but as a point to the immensity of his knowledge, whic...
25. v. 18), and there is the same reason of the certainty of one as wellas the other; his essence is the measure of his knowledge; whence it is as impossible that God should be mistaken in the knowledge of the least thing in the world, as it is that...
26. viii. 19); but especially this, since it hath been less evidenced thanothers, and as much, or more, abused than any; it expects, therefore, a public righting in the eye of the world. There have been, indeed, some few sparks of this perfection sens...
27. xvii. 1), a contradiction between the heart and the tongue, a clamorin the voice, and scoffing in the soul; a crying out to God, thou art my Father, the guide of my youth, and yet speaking and doing evil to the utmost of our power (Jer. iii. 4,...
28. xiv. 22), against the demonstrations of my glory in Egypt and thewilderness. The whole guilt in every circumstance is spread before him: his knowledge of men’s sins is not confused; such an imperfection an infinite understanding cannot be sub...
29. xx. 7), some in counsels and counsellors, some in their arms andcourage, and some in mere vanity and nothing; yet, let us remember the name and nature of the Lord our God, his divine perfections, of which this of his infinite understanding a...
30. cxlvii. 19, 20); but now he causes it to spring with greater majestyout of those narrow bounds, and spread its wings about the world. This manifestation of the gospel he declares, 1. from the subject, All nations. 2. From the principal efficient...
31. xxiii. 16, 17), because it was gained with the hazard of lives: hecould endure nothing that had the taste of blood {a542} in it. Our fear of a thing depends much upon a trial of it: a child will not fear too near approaches to the fire till he...
32. xvii. 30); that, as he forbore punishing their crimes, in order to4. Hence appears the immutability of God in his decrees. He is not destitute of a power and strength to change his own purposes, but his infinite perfection of wisdom is a bar t...
33. xi. 33)! His judgments or decrees are incomprehensibly wise, and theways of effecting them are as wise as his resolves effected by them. We can as little search into his methods of acting, as we can into his wisdom of resolving; both his judgmen...
34. Volume 2NAHUM i. 3.――The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are th...
35. i. 20): by one word, all the beasts of the field, with their varieties(Gen. i. 24). Heaven and earth, spiritual and corporeal creatures, mortal and immortal, the greater and the less, visible and invisible, were formed with the same ease:[853] a w...
36. ii. 8); nor nursed up in the school of Athens, under the philosophersand orators of the time: not the wise men of Greece, but the fishermen of Galilee; naturally skilled in no language but their own, and no more exact in that than those of the sa...
37. i. 3); no less in fulfilling the work of faith, than in engraftingthe word of faith (2 Thess. i. 11). The apostle well understood the necessity and efficacy of it in the preservation of faith, {b80} as well as in the first infusion, when he ex...
38. xlviii. 10); because of his righteousness he can never use it ill, andbecause of his wisdom he can never use it unseasonably. Men that have strength, often misplace the actings of it, because of their folly; and sometimes employ it to base ends, b...
39. i. 11), in regard of the holiness of the gospel precepts, and inregard of the declaration of the holiness of God in all the streams and branches, wherein his purity, in which his blessedness consists, is as illustrious as any other perfectio...
40. cxix. 96), reaching to all actions, all motions, all circumstancesattending them; full of inexhaustible treasures of righteousness. And though this law, since the fall, doth irritate sin, it is no disparagement, but a testimony to the righteou...
41. xiii. 10), into a lake of sulphur; to make it, both in his word and(4.) What design hath God in all these acts of severity and vindictive justice, but to set off the lustre of his holiness? He testifies himself concerned for those laws, which h...
42. v. 3); from the first to the last command, there is nothing impossible,nothing hard to the original and created nature of man, which were all summed up in a love to God, which was the pleasure and delight of man, as well as his duty, if he had not,...
43. vii. 11)! Though the holiness of God be not mentioned, yet it is tobe understood; the emphasis lies on these words, “if you, being evil:” God is then considered in a disposition contrary to this, which can be nothing but his righteousness. If y...
44. lxxiii. 20), but he cannot disesteem his own stamp on the godly; hecannot but delight in his own work, his choice work, the master‑piece of all his works, the new creation of things; that which is next to himself, as being a Divine nature like...
45. v. 26, 27) till not a wrinkle or spot be left, so it is the part ofGod not to leave that work imperfect which his holiness hath attempted a second time to beautify his creature with. He will not cease exalting this attribute, which is the belie...
46. iii. 2, 3), else the sight of God would be terrible and troublesome:we cannot be satisfied with the likeness of God at the resurrection, unless we have a righteousness {b205} wherewith to “behold his face” (Ps. xvii. 15). It is a vain imaginatio...
47. xix. 12); as if God had been beholden to him, and could not, withoutmanifest wrong, deny him his demand. And Paul confesseth it to be his own sentiment before his conversion; he accounted this “righteousness of the law gain to him” (Phil. iii. 7...
48. iv. 4); every creature hath some communications from him, which cannotbe without some affection to them; every creature hath a footstep of Divine goodness upon it; God, therefore, loves that goodness in the creature, else he would not love himself...
49. xxxii. 10), when he spoke to him to let him alone, that his angermight wax hot against the people, after they had made a golden calf and worshipped it. “Let me alone,” said God: not that Moses restrained him, saith Chrysostom, who spake nothi...
50. cxlv. 9); he is, therefore, good in all; not a drop of the creation,but is a drop of his goodness. These are the colors worn upon the heads of every creature. As in every spark the light of the fire is manifested, so doth every grain of the crea...
51. ii. 19); a soul able to discover the nature of other creatures, andmanage and conduct their motions. In the ruins of a palace we may see the curiosity displayed, and the cost expended in the building of it; in the ruins of this fallen structure...
52. vii. 29); his nature was suited to the law, and the law to his nature;it was not above his understanding to know it, nor his will to embrace it, nor his passions to be regulated by it. The law and his nature were like to exact straight lines, touc...
53. v. Hence we may consider the height of this goodness in redemption toexceed that in creation. He gave man a being in creation, but did not draw him from inexpressible misery by that act. His liberality in the gospel doth infinitely surpass what w...
54. xlix. 8), much more costly than the whole fabric of the world, or asmany worlds as the understandings of angels in their utmost extent can conceive to be created. For the effecting of this, God parts with his dearest treasure, and his Son eclips...
55. xi. 3); he did nothing but by his directions, as he was not a Mediator,but by the constitution of Divine goodness. As a “liberal man deviseth liberal things” (Isa. ii. 8), so did a bountiful God devise a bountiful act, wherein his kindness and love...
56. xi. 17); so it was the triumph of Divine goodness, to give so great,3. And this Son given to rescue us by his death. It was a gift to us; for our sakes he descended from his throne, and dwelt on earth; for our sakes he was “made flesh,” and infi...
57. iii. 35); and, by consequence, given all things into the hands of hisredeemed creatures, by giving them Him to whom he gave all things; whatsoever we were invested in by creation, whatsoever we were deprived of by corruption, and more, he hath de...
58. i. 21); yea, fancied God no better than a devil, since that destroyerwas worshipped instead of the Creator, and a homage paid to the powers of hell that had ruined them, which was due to the goodness of that Benefactor, who had made them and pres...
59. vi. By this redemption God restores us to a more excellent conditionthan Adam had in innocence. Christ was sent by Divine goodness, not only to restore the life Adam’s sin had stripped us of, but to give it more abundantly than Adam’s standing c...
60. xiv. 5): in this case he seems to remit for a time the rights of theDeity for the rescue of a mere animal. His goodness extends not only to those kind of creatures that have life, but to the insensible ones; he clothes the grass, and “arrays the...
61. iii. 5, 6) in this world are of this sort; and when princes will beoppressing the people, God will be “pouring contempt on the princes, and set the poor on high from affliction” (Ps. cvii. 40, 41). An evidence of God’s care and kindness in the...
62. vii. 15): a metaphor taken from a chirurgeon that applies corroborating9th. We contemn the goodness of God, in ascribing our benefits to other causes than Divine goodness. Thus Israel ascribed her felicity, plenty, and success, to her idols, as “re...
63. ii. 4), so, by the same reason, the goodness of God by his promisesleads us to reliance. If God be not first believed to be good, he would not be believed at all in anything that he speaks or swears: if you were not satisfied in the goodness of...
64. cxxxvi. 5), he made them by some rule, not by a mere will, but a rule(1.) This dominion is managed by the rule of wisdom. What may appear to us to have no other spring than absolute sovereignty, would be found to have a depth of amazing wisdom, a...
65. lxxxix. 14); alluding perhaps to the supporters of arms and thrones,which among princes are the figures of lions, emblems of courage, as Solomon had (1 Kings, x. 19). But God makes not so much might, as right, the support of his. He sits on a “t...
66. iv. 23): an emblem of the covenant, that hath the pleasantness of agreen color, delightful to the eye, betokening mercy. Though his nature be infinitely excellent above us, and his power infinitely transcendent over us, yet the majesty of his g...
67. viii. 15), their legislative power, which is a prime flower of theirsovereignty, is derived from him also: and the apostle resolves it into this original when he orders us to be “subject to the higher powers, not only for wrath, but for conscien...
68. x. 15), but, at the second and standing commission, orders them topreach to “every creature?” Why did he put a demur to the resolutions of Paul and Timothy, to impart light to Bithynia, or order them to go into Macedonia? Was that country more...
69. lix. 19), shall give a sudden check, and damp their spirits, and putthem to a stand. When Laban furiously pursued Jacob, with an intent to do him an ill turn, God gave him a command to do otherwise (Gen. xxxi. 24). Would Laban have respected tha...
70. iii. 5); and though it be restrained to the matter of knowledge, yetthat being a fitness for government, it may be extended to that also. But it is plainly a persuading them, that they might be, in some sort, equal with God, and independent on h...
71. viii. 21), wishing him out of his throne; no sin is so devilish as this;there is not any strikes more at all the attributes of God than this, against his goodness, righteousness, holiness, wisdom, and doth as little spare his sovereignty as any of t...
72. xxxiii. 31, as though he were the Sovereign only of the body, and notof the soul. To have devout figures of the face, and uncomely postures of the soul, is to exclude his dominion from our spirits, while we own it only over our outward man; we re...
73. xvii. 6), in whose time, or, as some think, later, Nahum uttered thisprophecy. The name, _Nahum_, signifies Comforter; though the matter of his prophecy be dreadful to Nineveh, it was comfortable to the people of God: for a promise is made, (ver....
74. iv. 5); and when he moves them, as his chariot, against a people, theyend in an irresistible destruction. Thus the ruin of the wicked is described (Prov. x. 25): “As the whirlwind passes, so is the wicked no more:” it blows them down, sweeps them...
75. xi. 23), looking still towards, and hovering about the temple, whichwas 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 awa...
76. lxxviii. 38); he doth but pinch, where he might have torn asunder; whenhe 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...
77. 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 comf...
78. 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....
79. 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...
80. 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 engage...
81. i. 481, 483;_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 G...
82. i. 350, 351;_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.
83. 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...
84. ii. 431, 432;_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...
85. 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...
86. i. 151, 152;_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,...
87. ii. 440, 441;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 _Presby...