|
The Spirit of Prayer |
By William Law
Original Printing
was accomplished in the year of our Lord 1749 'England'
The Fourth
edition, was revised and corrected by the author 1758 'England'
This Fifth edition, was revised and
printed in the year of our Lord 2004 by the
Old Truth Publishing Company
38 Borck Lane
Lebanon, TN 37090
United States Of America
Table Of Contents
Part 1
Chapter 1 Treating of Some
Matters Preparatory To The Spirit of Prayer
Chapter 2 Discovering The
True Way Of Turning To God, And Of Finding The Kingdom Of Heaven, The Riches Of
Eternity In Our Souls
Part 2
Chapter 3 The First Dialogue, Being several Dialogues between
Robert, Allen, and Henry. At which Harold was present.
Chapter 4 The Second
Dialogue between Robert, Allen, and Henry.
Chapter 5 The Third
Dialogue between Robert, Allen, and Henry.
Considering Things Preparatory To The Spirit Of Prayer
The greatest part of mankind, no, of Christians, may be said
to be asleep; and that particular way of life, which takes up each man's mind,
thoughts, and actions, may very well be called his particular dream. This
degree of vanity is equally visible in every form and order of life. The
learned and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, are all in the same state of
slumber, each passing away a short life in a different kind of dream. But why
is this so? It is because man has an eternity within him, and is born into this
world, not for the sake of living here, nor for anything that this world can
offer him, but only to have a time and place, to become either an eternal
partaker of a Divine life with God, or to have an hellish eternity among fallen
Angels: Therefore, every man who does not have his eyes, his heart, and his
hands, continually governed by this two-fold eternity, may justly be said to be
fast asleep, to have no awakened sensibility of himself. And a life devoted to
the interests and enjoyments of this world, spent and wasted in the slavery of
earthly desires, may be truly called a dream; as having all the shortness,
vanity, and delusion of a dream; but with this one great difference, that when
a dream is over, nothing is lost but fictions and fantasies; but when the dream
of life is ended, and it ends only
by death, all eternity is lost for
which we were brought into being. Now there is no misery in this world, nothing
that makes either the life or death of a man to be full of calamity, but this
blindness and insensibility of his state, into which he so willingly, no,
obstinately plunges himself. Everything that has the nature of evil and
distress in it ascends from this. Suppose a man to know himself, to know that
he comes into this world on no other errand, but to rise out of the vanity of
time into the riches of eternity. Suppose him to govern his inward thoughts and
outward actions by this view of himself, and then to him everyday has lost all
of its evil; prosperity and adversity have no difference, because he receives,
and uses them both in the same spirit; life and death are equally welcome,
because both are equally parts of his path to eternity. For poor and miserable
as this life is, we all have free access to all that is great, good, and happy,
and carry within ourselves a key
to all the treasures that Heaven has to bestow upon us.
We Are Void Of
That Spirit Of Prayer
We starve in the midst of plenty, groan under infirmities,
and all the time with the remedy in our own hand; we live and die without
knowing and feeling anything of the one,
and only good, while we have it in our power to know and enjoy it in as
great a reality, as we know and feel the power of this world over us: For
Heaven is as near to our souls, as this world is to our bodies; and we are
created, we are redeemed, to have our life in it. God, is the only Good of all intelligent natures, He is
not an absent or distant God, but is more present in and to our souls, than
our own bodies are. We are strangers to Heaven, and without God in the world,
for this reason only, because we are void of that Spirit of prayer, which alone
can, and never fails, to unite us with the one,
and only good, and to open Heaven, and
the Kingdom of God within us. A root set in the finest soil, in the best
climate, and blessed with all that sun, air, and rain can do for it, is not in
so sure a way of its growth to perfection, as every man may be, whose spirit
aspires after all that which God is ready, and infinitely desirous to give him.
For the sun does not meet the
springing bud that stretches towards it with half as much certainty, as God,
who is the source of all good, communicates Himself to the soul that longs to
partake of Him.
All of us are by birth, the offspring of God, and more
nearly related to Him than we are to one another; for in Him we live, and move, and have our being. The first man
that was brought forth from God had the breath and Spirit of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
breathed into him, and so he became a living soul. As a result, our first
father Adam, was born of God, descended from Him, and stood in paradise in the
image and likeness of God. He was the image and likeness of God, not with any
respect to his outward shape or form, for no shape has any likeness to God; but
he was in the image and likeness of God, because the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit had breathed their own nature and Spirit into him. And as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are always in heaven,
and make heaven to be everywhere, so this Spirit, breathed by them into man,
brought heaven into man along with it; and so man was in heaven, as well as on
earth, that is, in paradise, which signifies an heavenly state, or birth of
life.
Adam had all that
Divine Nature, both as to a heavenly Spirit,
and heavenly body, which the Angels have. But as he was brought forth to be a
lord and ruler of a new world, created out of the chaos or ruins of the
kingdom of fallen Angels; so it was necessary that he should also have the
nature of this new created world in himself, both as to its Spirit and substance. For this reason it was, that he had a body taken
from this new created earth, not such a dead earth as we now make bricks of, but the blessed earth of paradise, that had
the powers of Heaven in it, out of which the tree of life itself could grow.
Into the nostrils of this outward body, was the breath or spirit of this world breathed; and
in this spirit and body of this world, did the inward celestial spirit and body
of Adam dwell: it was the medium or means through which he was to have communication with this
world, to become visible to its creatures, and rule over them. Thus stood our
first father; an Angel both as to body and spirit (as he will be again after the
resurrection) yet dwelling in a body and spirit taken from this newly created
world, which was as inferior, and subject to him, as the earth and all its
creatures were. It was no more alive in him, nor did it bring forth its nature
within him, than Satan and the
serpent were alive in him at his first creation. And herein is the ground of Adam's ignorance of good and evil;
it was because his outward body, and the outward world (in which alone was good
and evil) could not open their own life within him, but were kept inactive by
the power and life of the celestial man within it. And this was man's first and
great trial; a trial not imposed upon him by the will of God, or by way of
experiment; but a trial necessarily implied in the nature of his state: He was
created an Angel, both as to body and spirit; and this Angel stood in an
outward body, of the nature of the outward world; and therefore, by the nature
of his state, he had his trial, or power
of choosing, whether he would live as an Angel, using his outward body only as
a means of opening the wonders of the outward world to the glory of his
Creator; or whether he would turn his desire to the opening of the bestial life
of the outward world in himself, for the sake of knowing the good and evil that was in it. This fact is certain,
that he lusted after the knowledge of this good and evil, and made use of the
means available to obtain it. No sooner had he receive this knowledge, by the
opening of the bestial life and sensibility within himself, but in that day,
no, in that instant, he died;
that is his heavenly Spirit with its heavenly body were extinguished in him;
but his soul, an immortal fire that could not die, became a poor slave in the
prison of bestial flesh and blood. See in this, the nature and necessity of our
redemption; it is to redeem the first Angelic nature that had departed from Adam; it is to make that heavenly
Spirit and body which Adam lost, to
come alive again in our human nature; and this is called regeneration. See also the true
reason why only the Son, or Eternal Word of God, could be our
Redeemer; it is because He alone, by whom all things were at first made, was
able to bring to life again that celestial Spirit and body which had departed
from Adam. Understand also why our
blessed Redeemer said,
"Except a
Man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of
Heaven."
He must be born again of the Spirit, because Adam's
first heavenly Spirit was
lost: he must be born again of water,
because that heavenly body which Adam
lost, was formed out of the heavenly materiality, which is called water. Therefore, in the Revelation of John, the heavenly
materiality, out of which the bodies of Angels and also of Adam were formed, is called a glassy Sea,
as being the nearest and truest representation of it that can be made to our
minds. The necessity of our regaining our first heavenly body, is the necessity
of our eating the body and blood of Christ. The necessity of receiving again
our first heavenly Spirit, is declared by the necessity of our being baptized
by the Holy Ghost. Our fall is nothing else, but the falling of our soul from
this celestial body and spirit into a bestial
body and spirit of this world. Our rising out of our fallen state, or
redemption, is nothing else but the regaining of our first Angelic spirit and
body, which in Scripture is called our inward,
or new man, created again in Christ Jesus. See here, lastly, the true
ground of all the degradations of flesh and blood, required in the Gospel; it
is because this bestial Life of
this outward world should not have been opened in man; it is his separation
from God, and death to the Kingdom of Heaven; and therefore, all its workings, appetites, and desires, are to be restrained and
kept under, that the first heavenly life, to which Adam died, may have room to rise up in us.
But to return. That Adam
was an Angel at his first Creation, dwelling in an outward body and outward
world, incapable of receiving any impressions from them, and able to rule them
at his pleasure. That all outward nature was a state of life below him, in subjection to him; that
neither sun, nor stars, nor fire, nor water, nor earth, nor stones, could act
upon him, or hurt him, is undeniably plain for this reason; because his first
and great sin, which cost him his Angelic life, and took from him his crown of
glory, consisted in this, that he lusted to know, and took the means of
knowing, what good and evil are in the bestial life of this world: For this
plainly demonstrates, that before his sin, while he stood in the first state of
his creation, that he was an Angel in nature and power, that neither his own
outward body, nor any part of outward nature, had any power in him or
upon him; for had his own outward body, or any element of outward nature, had
any power to act upon him, to make any impressions, or raise any sensations in
him, he could not have been ignorant of good and evil in this world. Therefore,
seeing that his eating of the forbidden tree, was that which opened this
knowledge in him, it is a demonstration, that in his first state he was in this
world as an Angel, who was put into the possession of it only to rule as a
superior being over it; that he was to have no share of its life and nature, no
feeling of good or evil from it, but was to act in it as a heavenly artist,
that had power and skill to open the wonders of God in every part of outward
nature. An Angel, we read, was accustomed at a certain time to come down into a
pool at Jerusalem; the water
stirred by the Angel gave forth its virtues, but the Angel felt no impressions
of weight, or cold from the water. This is an Image
of Adam's first freedom from,
and power over all outward nature. He could wherever he went, do as this Angel
did, make every element, and elementary thing, discover all the riches of God
that were hidden in it, without feeling any impressions, of any kind from it.
This was to have been the work both of Adam, and his offspring, to make all
the creation show forth the glory of God, to spread paradise over all the
earth, until the time came, that all the good in this world was to be called
back to its first state, and all the evil in every part left to be possessed by
the Devil and his fallen Angels. But since he fell from this first state into
the animalistic life of this
world, his work is changed, and he must now labor with sweat to “till” this
cursed earth, both for himself and the beasts upon it.
Let us now consider some simple, but important truths, that
follow from a result of what has been said above.
First, it is plain that the sin
and fall of Adam did not consist in this, that he had only committed a single
act of disobedience, and so might have been just as he was before, if God had
been pleased to overlook this single
act of disobedience, and not to have brought a curse upon him and his
posterity for it. None of this is true, either on the part of God, or on the
part of man.
Secondly, it is simple
also to see, that the command of God, not to lust after, and eat of the
forbidden tree, was not an arbitrary
command of God, given at His pleasure, or as a mere trial of man's obedience;
but was a most kind and loving piece of information
given by the God of love to his newborn offspring. This information concerned
the state he was in, with regard to the outward world: warning him to withdraw
all desire of entering into a sensibility
of its good and evil; because such sensibility could not be had, without his
immediately dying to that Divine and heavenly life which he then enjoyed.
"You shall not eat," says the God of love, "Of the
tree of knowledge of good and evil, for in the day you eat thereof you will
surely die."
As if God had said, "I have brought you into this
paradise, with such a nature as the Angels have in Heaven. By the order and
dignity of your creation, everything that lives and moves in this world is made
subject to you, you are their ruler. I have made you in your outward body, of
this world, to be for a time a little lower than the Angels, until you have
brought forth a many offspring. The world around you, and the life which is
newly awakened in it, is much lower than you are; it is of a nature quite
inferior to yours. It is a disgusting, corruptible state of things, that cannot
remain long before me; but must for a while bear the marks of those creatures,
which first made evil to be known in the creation. The Angels, that first
inhabited this region, where you are to bring forth a new order of beings, were
great and powerful spirits, highly endowed with the riches and powers of their
Creator. While they stood in meekness and resignation as the order of creation
requires, under their Creator, nothing was impossible to them; there was no end
of their glorious powers throughout their whole kingdom. Perpetual scenes of light,
and glory, and beauty, were rising and changing through all the height and
depth of their glassy sea, simply at
their will and pleasure. But finding what wonders of light and glory they could
perpetually bring forth; how all the powers
of eternity, treasured up in their glassy
sea, unfolded themselves, and broke forth in ravishing forms of wonder and
delight, merely in obedience to their call; they began to admire and even adore
themselves, and to fancy that there was some
infinity of power hidden in themselves, which they supposed was suppressed,
by that meekness, and subjection to God, and so they acted. Fired and
intoxicated with this proud imagination, they boldly resolved, with all their
eternal energy and strength, to take their kingdom, with all its glories, to
themselves, by eternally walking away from all meekness and submission to God.
No sooner did their eternal potent desires fly in this direction in a revolt to
God, but in the swiftness of a thought, heaven was lost; and they found
themselves dark spirits, stripped of all their light and glory. Instead of
rising up above God (as they had hoped) by breaking off from Him, there was no
end of their eternal sinking into new depths of slavery, under their own
self-tormenting natures. As a wheel going down a mountain, that has no bottom,
must continually keep on turning, so
are they whirled down by the impulsiveness of their own wrong turned wills, in
a continual descent from the fountain of all glory, into the bottomless depths
of their own dark, fiery, working powers. In no hell, but what their own
natural strength had awakened; bound in no chains, but their own unbending,
hardened spirits; made such, by their renouncing, with all their eternal
strength, all meekness, and subjection to God. In that moment, the beautiful
material of their kingdom, their glassy
sea in which they dwelt, was by the wrathful rebellious workings of these
fallen spirits, broken into pieces, and became a black lake, a horrible chaos
of fire and wrath, thickness and darkness, a height and depth of the confused,
divided, fighting properties of nature. My creating command stopped the
workings of these rebellious spirits, by dividing the ruins of their wasted
kingdom, into a earth, sun, stars, and separated elements. Had not this revolt
of Angels brought forth that disordered chaos,
no such material as this outward world is made up of, would have ever been
known. Compacted earth, stones, rocks, wrathful fire here, dead water there,
fighting elements, with all their unpleasant vegetation and animals, these are
things not known in eternity, and will be only seen in time, until the great
designs are finished, for which you are brought forth in paradise. And then, as
a fire awakened by the rebel creature, began all the disorders of nature, and
turned that glassy sea into a chaos, so a last
fire, kindled at My word, shall thoroughly purge the floor of this world.
In those purifying flames, the sun, the stars, the air, the earth and water,
shall part with all their deadness, and division, and all will become again
that first, heavenly material, a glassy
sea of everlasting light and glory, in which you and your offspring shall
sing hallelujahs through all eternity. Therefore do not look, you child of
paradise, you son of eternity, do not look with a longing eye after anything in
this outward world. It has the remains of the fallen Angels in it; You have
nothing to do in it, but to be a ruler over it. It stands before you, as a
mystery, big and wondrous; and you, while an Angel in paradise, have power to
open and display them all. It does not stand in your sphere of existence; it
is, as it were, but a picture, and transitory form of things; for all that is
not eternal, is but as an image in a glass, that seems to have a reality, which
it does not have. The life which springs up in this form of a world, in such an
infinite variety of kinds and degrees, is but a shadow; it is a life of such
days and years, as in eternity will have no distinction from a moment of time.
It is a life of such animals and insects, which are without any Divine sense,
capacity, or feeling. Their natures have nothing in them, but what I commanded
this chaos, this order of stars and fighting elements, to bring forth.
Now Adam, observe,
I will open up a great mystery to you. The heavenly materiality of the Angel’s
kingdom before their revolt was a glassy
sea, a mirror of beautiful forms, figures, virtues, powers, color, and
sounds, which were perpetually springing up, appearing and changing in an
infinite variety, to the manifestation of the wonders of the Divine nature, and
to the joy of all the Angelical kingdom. This heavenly materiality had its
fruits and vegetables, much more real than any that grow in time, but as
different from the grossness of the fruits of this world, as the heavenly body
of an Angel is different from the body of the grossest beast upon earth. In
this Angelical kingdom, the one
element (which is now in four parts) was then a fruitful mother of wonders,
continually bringing forth new forms
and figures of life; not animals,
beasts, or insects, but beautiful figures,
and ideal forms of the endless
divisibility, and degrees of life, which only broke forth as delightful wonders
of the depth of the riches of the Divine nature, and to tune the voices of Angels
with songs of praise to the infinite source of life. And therefore, Adam, exists that endless infinite
variety both of the animal and vegetable life in this perishable world. For no
fruits or vegetables could have sprung up in the divided elements, but because
they are the divided parts of that one heavenly materiality, or glassy sea, in which Angelical fruits
had formerly come forth. No animal life could have arisen from stars, air, and
water, but only because they are all the gross remains of that one element, in
which the figures and images of life had once risen up in such
an infinite variety of degrees and kinds. Consequently it was, that when the
creating fiat[1]
of God spoke to these new stars, and elements, and bid life awake in them all according to its kind, they all obeyed
His word, and every property of nature strove to bring forth, after the kind and manner as it had done in the region of eternity. This, is the
source and origin of all that infinite variety, and degrees of life, both of
animals and vegetables, in this world. It is because all outward nature, being
fallen from heaven, must yet, as well as it can, do and work as it had in
heaven.
In Heaven, all births, all figures and spiritual forms of
life, though infinite in variety, yet are all of an heavenly kind, and only so
many manifestations of the goodness, wisdom, beauty, and riches of the Divine
nature. But in this new chaos, where
the disorders that were raised by Lucifer
are not wholly removed, but evil and good must stand in strife, until the last
purifying fire, here every kind and degree of life, like the world from which
it springs, is a mixture of good and evil in its birth.
Therefore, be content with your Angelical nature, be
content, as an Angel in paradise, to eat Angel’s food, and to rule over this
mixed, imperfect, and perishing world, without partaking of its corruptible,
impure, and perishing nature. Do not desire to know how the animals feel the evil and good which this life affords
them; for if you could feel what they feel, you must be as they are; you cannot
have their sensibility, unless you
have their nature: you cannot at the same time be an Angel and an earthly
animal. If the bestial life is raised up in you, in that same instant, the
heavenly birth of your nature must die in you. Therefore turn your lust and
imagination away from a tree, that can only help you to the knowledge of such
good and evil, as belongs to the animals of this outward world; for nothing but
the bestial nature can receive good or evil from the stars and elements; they
have no power, but over that life which proceeds from them. Eat therefore only
the food of paradise; be content with Angel’s bread; for if you eat of the tree
of good and evil, it will unavoidably awaken and open the bestial life within
you; and in that moment, all that is heavenly must die, and it will cease to
have any power in you. And you must fall into a slavery for life, under the
divided fighting powers of stars and elements. Stripped of your Angelical
garment, that hid your outward body under its glory, you will become more naked
than any beast upon earth, and be forced to seek from beasts a covering, to
hide you from the different sights of your own eyes, a shameful, fearful,
sickly, wanting, suffering, and distressed heir of the same speedy death in the
dust of the earth, as the poor beasts, whom you will have made to be your
brethren."
This paraphrase I leave to the reflection of the reader, and
proceed to show Thirdly, that the
misery, distressed, and woeful condition, which Adam by his transgression brought upon himself, and all his
posterity, was not the effect of any severe
vindictive wrath in God, calling
for justice to His offended sovereignty, and inflicting pains and punishments
suitable to the greatness of His just indignation, and anger at the disobedient
creature. If Adam, contrary to the
will of God, and for the sake of some new-fancied knowledge, had broken both
his own legs, and put out both his eyes, could it with any show of truth and
reason have been said, that God, in the severity of his wrath at so heinous an
offense, had punished Adam with lameness and blindness? And if it is further supposed, that God seeing Adam lying in this lame and blind
condition, came and spoke kindly to him, informing him of a secret of love, which He had in heaven, which He promised to send
him immediately by his highest messenger of love; assuring him, that by the use
of this heavenly secret or Divine power, his legs and eyes should,
in some course of time, be restored to him, even in a better state than they
were in at the first; must it not be still more unreasonable and absurd, to
charge anything of this lameness and blindness upon a wrath in God against Adam?
No, is it not clear, in the highest degree, that in all this matter, Adam had nothing from God, but the
overflowing of love and goodness, and that he had no lameness and blindness,
but from his own voluntary acts upon himself?
This is a simple, but clear representation of the case, this
is how matters stood between God and our first father, when by his own act and
deed he extinguished that Divine life, in which God had created him. Adam had no more hurt, or more evil done
to him, at his fall, than the very nature of his own action brought upon him. He lusted to have the sensibility of that good and evil, which
the beasts of this world have. He was told, that it could not be had without
the loss of his heavenly life; because such loss was as necessarily implied in
the nature of the thing itself, as blindness is implied in the extinction of
the eyes. However, he ventured to make the trial, and chose to eat of that,
which could, and did open his sensibility
of earthly good and evil in himself. No sooner was this sensibility opened in
himself, but that he found it to be a subjection
and slavery to all outward nature, to
heat and cold, to pains and sickness, horror of mind, disturbed passions,
misery, and fears of death. Which is in other words only saying, that he found
it to be an extinction of that Divine, Angelical nature, which until then had
kept him insensible and incapable of any hurtful impressions, from any of the
powers of this world. Therefore, to charge his miserable state, as a punishment
inflicted upon him by the severe wrath of an incensed God, is the same
absurdity as in the former example of supposed lameness and blindness.
Because the whole nature of all that miserable change, both
as to his body and soul, which came upon him, was neither
more, nor less, than what was necessarily implied in that which he chose to do
to himself. And therefore it had nothing of the nature of a punishment
inflicted from without, but was only
that which his own action had done to himself: just as the man that puts out
his own eyes, has only that darkness and blindness, which his own action has
brought forth in himself.
From this short, yet true account of this matter, we are at
once delivered from a load of difficulties that have been raised about the fall of man, and original sin. It has been a great question, how the goodness of God
could punish such a small and single act of disobedience in Adam,
with so great a punishment? Here the sovereignty
of God has been appealed to, and has set the matter right; and from this
sovereignty, came forth the different systems of absolute election, and absolute reprobation.
But for our comfort it appears, that the question asked here, concerns neither
God nor man, that it relates not at all to the matter, which has no existence,
but in the brains of those that formed it. For the action in which Adam's sin consisted, was such an act,
as to cause all that miserable change
that came upon him, and so was not a small,
or single act of disobedience, nor had the least punishment, of any kind, inflicted by
God upon it. All that God did on this transgression was to love them, show
compassion, and give relief to them. All the sovereignty that God showed here,
was a sovereignty of love to the fallen creature. So that all the volumes on this question may be laid
aside, as quite ridicules.
Another question, and the greatest question of all, of which
preachers and theologians of all
sorts have been forever trying to solve, and yet have never solved, is this: How it can consist with the goodness of God,
to impute the sin of Adam to all his
posterity? But here, to our comfort again, it may be said, that this
question is equally as vain an illusion as the other, and has nothing to do
with the procedure of God towards mankind. For there is no imputation of the sin of Adam
to his posterity, and so no foundation for a dispute upon it. How absurd would
it be to say, that God imputes the
nature, or the body and soul of Adam
to his posterity? For have they not the nature of Adam by a natural birth from him, and not by imputation from God?
Now this is all the sin that Adam's
posterity have from him, they have only their flesh and blood, their body and
soul from him, by a birth from him, and not imputed
to them from God. Instead of the former question, which is quite beside the
point, it should have been asked, how it was consistent with the goodness of
God, that Adam could not generate children of a nature and kind quite superior to
himself? This is the only question that can be asked with relation to God;
and yet it is a question whose absurdity proves itself to be wrong. For the
only reason why sin is found in all the sons of Adam, is this, it is because Adam
of earthly flesh and blood, cannot bring forth a holy Angel out of himself, but
must produce children of the same nature and condition with himself. And here
again it may be truly said, that all the laborious volumes on God's imputing Adam's sin to his posterity, ought to be
considered as wasted paper!
But further, as it is thus evident from the nature of Adam's transgression, that all his
misery came from the nature of his own action, and that nothing was inflicted
upon him, from a wrath or anger in God directed toward him, so it is still much
more so, from a consideration of the Divine nature. For it is a glorious and
joyful truth, (however suppressed in various systems of denominations) that
from eternity to eternity, no spark of wrath ever was, or ever will be in the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If a wrath of God was anywhere, it must be
everywhere, if it burned once, it must burn to all eternity. For everything
that is in God Himself is boundless, incapable of any increase or reduction,
without beginning, and without end. It is as good sense, and as consistent with
the Divine nature, to say that God, moved by a wrath in and from Himself,
began the creation, as that a wrath in God ever punished any part of it. Nature
and creature is the only source from
which, wrath, pain, and vexation can dwell. Nor can they ever break forth
either in nature or creature, but so far as either this
thing, or that, has lost its state in God. This is as certain, as that storms
and tempests, thunder and lightning, have no existence in heaven. God, is as
infinitely separate from all possibility of doing hurt, or willing pain to any
creature, as He is from a possibility of suffering pain or hurt from the hand
of a man. And this is so, for this reason, because He is in Himself, in the God
Head, nothing else but the boundless abyss of all that is good, and sweet, and
amiable, and therefore stands in the utmost contrariety to everything that is
not a blessing, and it is an eternal impossibility for God to will or intend a
moment's pain or hurt to any creature. For from this un-bounding source of
goodness and perfection, nothing but infinite streams of blessing are
perpetually flowing forth upon all nature and creature, in a never-ending
abundance, more so than rays of light stream from the sun. And as the sun has only one nature, and can give
forth nothing but the blessings of light, and heat, so our Holy Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit has but one nature
and intent towards all the creation, which is, to pour forth the riches and
sweetness of His Divine perfections, upon everything that is capable of them,
and according to its capacity to receive them.
The goodness of God breaking forth into a desire to communicate good, was the cause and the beginning of the creation. Therefore it follows, that to all eternity, God can have no thought, or intent towards the creature, but to communicate good; because He made the creature for this sole end, to receive good. The first motive towards the creature is unchangeable; it takes its rise from God's desire to communicate good; and it is an eternal impossibility, that anything can ever come from God, as His will and <