nothing at all. For instance, the consequences of Adam's tranfgreffion upon his pofterity; the covenant made with Abraham; the nature and miffion of the Son of God; the grant of blessings, and of eternal life by him. Concerning those things, we could have known nothing at all, had not God revealed them to us. And in such matters of pure Revelation, the first thing we have to do, is to inquire, not what human Reason can discover, but what God has discovered, and declared in Scripture. But at the same time it is true, that God hath discovered nothing in Scripture inconsistent with what he has discovered in the nature of things exposed to the view of all mankind. And therefore, if we understand any thing in revealed religion, in a sense contradictory to natural religion, or to the known perfections of God, and the common no tions of good and evil, which he hath written upon all our hearts, we may be sure we are in an error, and mistake the sense of Revelation.

I. He who would effectually study the word of God, ought, above all things, to be deeply sensible of the infinite value of true knowledge and wisdom; and how absolutely necessary it is to his eternal happiness, to cultivate and improve his intellectual powers, in the use of all those means which God hath put into his hands, The Scriptures are given us, not for amusement, or mere speculation, in perusing the curious remains of antiquity, the language, manners, and Theology of fome celebrated ancients; but they are all, from beginning to end, pointed directly at our hearts and lives, to make us wise unto salvation. There we find every rule of the most confummate wisdom, and every principle of truth and comfort; and the whole is designed to refine our nature into its proper excellence, to guide us into the paths of purity, peace, and righteousness; to make us happy in ourselves, and a blessing to all about us; and finally to qualify us for the full enjoyment of God for

ever.

But if we are cold and indifferent to any attainments in true wisdom; if we choose to dream, or jest and trifle away the important season of life, despising the glorious advantages we enjoy, while we eagerly pursue the low and transitory things of this world, in neglect of ourselves, of God, and immortality, of all that is truly great and good and excellent, we shall receive little or no advantage from any explications of the Holy Scriptures. We shall not value or relish them, we can have no ground to expect the divine blessing to assist our studies, but have reason to fear we shall be left to ourselves, to wander from God, from truth, and life, in deplorable ignorance and folly. Attend, therefore, to the voice of Divine Wisdom, Prov, ii. I, &c. My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments within thee, [lay them up as a treasure תצפן in thy heart] so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart unto understanding; yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding [as we do for those things, which we most of all defire, and most of all stand in need of]: If thou seekeft ber as filver, and fearchest for her as for hid treasures [as covetous mer seek money, and ransack the whole world for the treasures, in whi they delight: If thus you value, and study to advance the improve of your minds in knowledge and wisdom]: Then shalt thou under

1

!

:

fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God [which of all understanding is infinitely the most excellent].

II. But this sense of the value of Divine Knowledge, and this defire to obtain it, must be understood in a connexion with a fincere endeavour to live agreeably to it. For should a person, under the greatest advantages of learning, and with the utmost affiduity study the Scriptures, he will be, after all, but a poor proficient in Divine Knowledge, if he do not bring it home to his heart, and reduce it to practice. It is not speculation, but practice and experience, which renders a man truly skilful in any business. So in Religion, no man can be truly wife and knowing, but he who liveth wifely and virtuousfly. If ye continue in my word, (faith our Lord, Joh. viii. 31.) then shall ye know the truth, and the truth shall make you free [from the darkness of ignorance and error, and the fervitude of abfurd lufts and paffions]. Joh. vii. 27. If any man will do his, God's, will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God. [He shall fee it in its true light, and be convinced that it is perfectly divine.] For (Pfal. xxv. 14.) the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will shew them his covenant. But (Dan. xii. 10.) the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wife [the pious and virtuous] shall understand.

This is to make you sensible, that a fincere defire of true knowledge is a necessary disposition in entering upon the study of the Scriptures; and the obedience to God's commands, in the course of a pious life, is necessary to enlarge and establish the judgment in the knowledge of divine truths.

III. To the effectual study of Scripture, it is necessary, that our minds and hearts be unbiassed, unprejudiced, open to the truth, and always quite free to difcern and receive it. If our spirits are under the power of prepoffeffion and prejudice, we cannot be well disposed for searching the Scriptures. For instance, if a person, in matters of religion and confcience, is ambitious to gain reputation in the world, or folicitous only to please and recommend himself to a party, how should he study the word of God with the fincere and single view of discovering and embracing the truth, when he is pre-engaged, and all his care is to find what will please his fellow-creatures, and suit his own mean and selfish purposes? Joh. v. 44. How can ye believe, who receive honour one of another, whose ruling principle is the defire of temporal honour, and the favour of men, and feek not the honour which comes from God only, the honour of a good confcience, and of upright conduct? Or, if we resign our understandings and confciences to the authority of human decifions and decrees; or imbibe the bigotry of a party, which determines a person to retain pertinaciously a set of religious notions, without confidering, or examining, how far they are agreeable to the word of God, our understandings and judgments are locked up, and no longer at liberty to discover the truth.

It is owing to this malignant cause, that great numbers of learned men, who call themselves Christians, will not allow themselves to make inquiry, whether the worship of saints, images, relicks, bread, and inmamerable other absurd doctrines, and superftitious practices, are agreeable to the truth and purity of the Christian Religion. The error and iniquity

A 4

iniquity of this conduct in Papists we fee and deteft. But the same moral cause will in all cases produce the fame effects. If we act upon the same vicious principles; if we indulge the like prejudices, and in the same manner wilfully shut our eyes, we shall be more faulty than Papists, because it is contrary to our profession, as Protestants; and shall be equally incapable of feeing the truth and glory of our holy Religion. In studying the Scriptures we should always keep our minds open to evidence, and further discoveries of truth; which is the only way to be more and more solidly established in our religious principles; for in no other way can we grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, Moreover, this is the only possible mean of reducing the Chriftian world to unity both of hearts and sentiments,

IV. Prayer to God, the Father of Lights, the Fountain of all Illumination, is necessary to the successful study of the Scriptures. Prov. ii. 6. The Lord alone gives wisdom; out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. Nor hath he appointed any means, how excellent foever in themselves, which exempt us from a dependence upon his blessing. All our springs are in him; and his gracious influences render our endeavours, of any kind, fuccessful. And therefore, when we address ourselves to the study of the holy Scriptures, we should make our fupplication to God, that he would open our eyes, that we may behold wonderous things out of his law. Or, in the Apostle's words, (Ephef. i. 17, 18.) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, would give unto us the spirit of wisdom, and revelation, in the knowledge of him; that the eyes of our understanding being enlightened, we may have just apprehensions of the riches of his wisdom and grace, and that our hearts may be duly impreffed with a deep and lasting sense of them.

CHAP. II.

Of the Divine Difpenfations, in Scripture called the WAYS and WORKS

TH

of GOD,

HE Ways of God דרבי אלהים frequently signify the Rules of Life, which he hath given us to observe, Pfal. cxix. 3. They also do no iniquity; they walk in his ways, i. e. in the law of the Lord, ver. I. And the Works מעשים of God may fignify the mere operation and productions of his power. But both these words have a more restricted and emphatical fignification. דרך a Way, figaeth also a course of action, a custom, conftitution or institution, which any person, or number of perfons form to themselves. Prov. viii. 22. The Lord poffeffed me, Wisdom, in the beginning of his Way, before bis Works of old. Prov. xii. 26. The way of the wicked, their course of action, feduceth them. Hof. x. 13. Because thou didst trust in thy way, the schemes and methods, methods, political or religious, of thy own devising, and in the multitude of thy mighty men. Amos viii. 14. The manner, the way, i. e. the religious constitution, of Beersheba liveth, subsists, flourisheth, notwithstanding the opposition made to it. עשה fignifies to constitute, or dain, appoint, dispose. Num. xxviii. 6. 2 Chron. ii. 11. Pfal. civ. 19.

Ecel. iii. 11.

Hence Ways and Works signify the appointments, constitutions, or Dispensations of God. By which are meant, "The schemes or me"thods devised or contrived by the wisdom and goodness of God, to " discover, or shew himself, his nature and will, his beneficence, holi" ness and justice, to the minds of his rational creatures, for their in"struction, discipline and reformation, in order to promote their hap" piness." These are the great ends of the Divine Dispensations; and these the principal points to be attended to, in the explications of

them.

The great God, for ever to be adored, hath actually given existence to a world of moral agents, fuch as we are. He therefore is our Father, and we are his offspring, whom he hath created in love, that in a right and virtuous use of our rational powers, we may be qualified for honour and enjoyment in the heavenly world. This seems to be the highest defign the Divine Goodness can form, and the highest excellency to which our nature can attain. And this may be confidered as the basis of all the Divine Dispensations from the beginning of the world. For without pious and virtuous dispositions we cannot be qualified for honour and enjoyment. But pious and virtuous dispositions cannot be forced upon us, by any external power whatever; they must, in some degree, be the effect of our own attention and choice. It is, therefore, becoming the Father of our Spirits, and suitable to beings of our capacities and circumstances, that proper means be provided for our instruction and discipline. For instance, as God is not the object of any of our fenfes, and can be seen only by our understandings, it is proper that he should set before us, in the frame and furniture of the world, such visible and various displays of his Being, Power, Wisdom, Justice, and kind Regards, as may engage our attention, discover his eternal Godhead, and lead us to the acknowledgment, adoration, love, and dutiful obedience of our Creator, Father, and Benefactor. These are the works, the dispensations, or conftitutions of Nature; whereby our Father, as in a glass held before our eyes and thoughts, has shewn himfelf to us for our inftruction in piety and virtue.

But befides the constitution of universal Nature, there are a variety of dispensations, which are more immediately relative to mankind. As the being born of parents, to supply the several generations of the world, whence result sundry relations and duties; the being sustained by food, covered and sheltered by clothes and habitations, healed by physicians, taught by the learned and skilful; the infirmities, appetites, and passions of our constitution; the forming societies for mutual help and commerce; the institution of government, or the fubordination of some to the authority of others, for preferving good order, for the protection of virtue, and the restraint and punishment of vice. Add to these, wars, pestilence, lence, famine, earthquakes, and such like events; all these may be reckoned among the Divine Appointments, or Dispensations; some for the exercise of our rational powers in right action; some for difcipline, correction, and reformation; but none merely for destruction, except where reformation cannot be effected.

But those Ways, or Dispensations, which in Scripture are confidered as the great hinges of Divine Providence, on which his dealings with mankind have turned; or, as the principal events, by which the great purposes and councils of God's will have been executed, are chiefly to be attended unto. Because right conceptions of these, under their several views, circumstances, and connexions, will greatly contribute to the explaining of Scripture-Theology, and also mark out the proper order and method, in which it may be studied. Let us therefore here, at first setting out, take a general survey of them.

I. The Creation of the World, as above.

II. The Formation of Man after the Image of God.

III. Man, being created capable of enjoying the honours and felicity of heaven, was to be disciplined and proved, in order to his being confirmed in the habits of virtue and holiness; without which, neither man, nor any other rational being, can be fit to fee, or enjoy, the Lord. Accordingly, the first most remarkable of God's works, in the newlycreated world, was to put the Man, whom he had formed, upon a trial fuitable to his circumstances.

IV. Under which trial, man, yielding to temptation, finned, and so became fubjected to the threatening of eternal death.

V. Which heavy doom, God, not willing to destroy his creature, was pleased in mercy, not only to mitigate, but also, man having altered his moral state, thought fit to introduce a new dispensation of grace, in the hands of a Mediator; at the fame time, subjecting the human race to a laborious life, to diseases, and to death temporal; and this, in much goodness, to fubdue the fleshly Principle, to give a taste of the bitter fruits of fin, to prevent the opportunities and occafions of it; and, by increasing the vanity of the creature, to turn his regards more steadily to the all-fufficient Creator.

VI. But men multiplying in the earth, abused the grace of God, and in about 1656 years time became so wicked, that all flesh had corrupted his way, and the earth was filled with violence. Then, to purge the world from iniquity, and to recover it to a state of righteousness, God created a new thing in the earth, and, by a deluge of water, destroyed that wicked generation, preserving the only Family that remained uncorrupt in the old world, in order to propagate piety and virtue in the new. At the same time, and for the fame good purposes, he reduced human life into much narrower bounds.

VII. Not long after the deluge, to prevent a second general corruption, God introduced another dispensation, by confounding the language of mankind; which divided the world into several distinct societies, and, consequently, kept them under a stricter government, and better preserved their liberties, than if the world had been one great Empire. VIII. Thus the outrage of violence and rapine was, in a good meafure, cured. But now mankind fall into a different iniquity, namely, that