of his promife; that he will withhold what is conve- S E R`M. nient for us? It fhould preferve us from defpair. What temptation can we have to defpair of mercy, II. if we heartily repent of our mifdoings, and fincerely Vid. Chryf. endeavour to please him? to ad Theod. 2. tom. 6. P. 63. opti me et fufe. For Matt. vii. 7. It fhould upon the fame account excite us a free and conftant exercise of all devotions. why should we be fhy or fearful of entering into fo " friendly and favourable a prefence? why fhould we be backward from having (upon any occafion or need) a recourse to him, who is fo willing, fo defirous, fo ready to do us good? what fhould hinder us from delighting in oblations of bleffing and praife unto him? 8. It ought to render us fubmiffive, patient, and contented under God's hand, of correction, or trial, as knowing that it cannot be without very juft cause, that fuch goodnets feemeth displeased with us; that we are the chief caufes of our fuffering, or our want; fo that we can have no good caufe to repine, or complain: for, Wherefore doth the living man complain? Lam. iii. fince a man (fuffers) for the punishment of his fins; fince 39. it is our fins that withhold good things from us; fince Jer. v. 25. alfo we confidering this attribute may be affured, that all God's difpenfations do aim and tend to our good. 9. It should also, in gratitude toward God, and imitation of him, engage us to be good, kind, and bountiful, peaceable, and apt to forgive; meek and gentle, pitiful, and affectionate toward our brethren. To be good and merciful, as our heavenly Father is mer- Luke vi. ciful and benign even toward the wicked and ungrate-35 iii. ful; to be kind unto one another, full of bowels, for- 16. giving one another, as God for Chrifl's fake hath forgiven co 15. 36. John Coloff. iii. 13. Eph. iv. 32. 10. Laftly, we ought to have an efpecial care of perverting this excellent truth by miftakes and vain. prefumptions; that we do not turn the grace of God Jule 4. into wantonness, or occafion of licentious practice. Be caufe II. SER M. caufe God is very good and merciful, we must not conceive him to be fond, or flack, or careless; that he is apt to indulge us in fin, or to connive at our prefumptuous tranfgreffion of his laws. No; iπEται τῷ ἀγαθῷ, ἢ ἀγαθὸν, ἡ μισοπονηρία (the hatred of ท wickedness is confequent upon goodness even as fuch, as Clemens Alexandrinus faith) God, even as he is good, cannot but deteft that which is oppofite and prejudicial to goodness; he cannot but maintain the honour and intereft thereof; he cannot, he will not endure us to dishonour him, to wrong our neighbour, to fpoil ourselves. As he is a fure friend to us as his creatures, fo he is an implacable enemy to us as imPfal. xi. 5. penitent rebels and apoftates from our duty. The wicked, and him that loveth violence, his foul bateth. As he is infinitely benign, so he is alfo perfectly holy, and Hab. i. 13. of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. He is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with him. The foolish shall not stand in his fight; he hateth all workers of iniquity. His face is against them that do evil. Finally, as God is gracious to all fuch as are capable of his love, and qualified for his mercy; so he is an impartial and upright Judge, who will deal with men according to their deferts, according to the tenour of his laws and ordinances; according to his immutable decree and word: fo that as we have great reason to trust and hope in him, so we have no true ground to prefume upon him, vainly to trifle, or infolently to dally with him. Pfal. v. 4. Pfal. xxxiv. 16. But I leave this point to be farther improved by your meditations. SERMON III. The Doctrine of Univerfal Redemption afferted and explained. I TIM. iv. 10. -The living God; who is the Saviour of all men, THE III. HERE are two points of doctrine here plainly s ER M. afferted by St. Paul, which I shall endeavour to explain, and to apply: one, that God is the Saviour of all men; another, that he is peculiarly the Saviour of the faithful. For the first, God in many refpects may truly be conceived and called the Saviour of all men; for the word fave doth in a large acceptation denote the conferring any kind of good; as implying a removal of need, or indigence. Whence God is the Saviour of all men, as the Pfal. xxxvi. univerfal preserver and upholder of all things in their old Tranfl. being and natural state, as it is in the Pfalm: Thou, and the Lxx. Lord, favest man and beaft, or, as the general benefac-sis of tor, who is good to all, and whofe mercies are over all Pfal. cxlv. his works; who maketh his fun to rife upon the good and Matt. v. 45. * Θεῖ γὰρ πολλῶν ὄντων, ἐφ ̓ οἷς θαυμάζεται, ἐδὲν ἔτως, ὡς τὸ πάντας εὐεργετεῖν ἰδιώτατον. Νaz. Orat. 26. 6. σώζεις. or III. SER M. bad, rains upon the juft and unjuft, is kind and benign even to the ungrateful and evil: or, as the common affiftant, protector, and deliverer of all men, who in Luke vi. 5. need or diftrefs have recourfe unto him for fuccour and relief, according to what is faid in the Pfalms; Pfal. ix. 9. The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times cxlvi. 7, &c. of trouble. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon evil, 13, &c. him. They cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he faved them out of their diftreffes. cxlv. 18. lxviii. 19, 20. In thefe kinds of fenfes efpecially refpecting natural and temporal good, it is manifeft that God is the Saviour of all men. But that he is in this place termed fuch in a higher fenfe, with regard to mercies and bleffings of a more excellent kind, and greater confequence (to mercies and bleffings of a fpiritual nature, and relating to the eternal ftate of men) may from feveral confiderations appear. 1. For that according to apoftolical ufe the word Saviour, Save, Salvation, are wont to bear an evangelical fenfe, relating to the benefits by our Lord Jefus Chrift procured, purchased, and dispensed, concerning the future state of men. 2. For that queftionlefs St. Paul doth here intend God to be Saviour of the faithful in this higher fenfe, and confequently he means him in the fame fenfe (although not in the fame degree and meafure, or not altogether to the fame effects and purposes) a Saviour of all men. 3 Because it is plain that in other places of Scripture, like and parallel to this, fuch a fenfe is defigned. As, where, in this very Epiftle, we are enjoined to pray Tim.ii. 4 for all men, for this reafon; For (faith St. Paul) this is good and acceptable before God our Saviour, who would have all men to be faved, and to come to the knowledge (or acknowledgment) of the truth; where cwrng u, the Saviour of us, feems to denote the Saviour of us as men (that interpretation beft fuiting with the argument St. Paul ufeth), however it is expreffed that God is, according to defire or intention,the Sa viour of all men, in reference to their spiritual and S É R M. eternal advantage; as willing that all men should embrace the Gospel; which is farther most evidently confirmed by the words immediately following; For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Chrift fefus. 4. Because, according to the tenour of Scripture, and the analogy of Chriftian doctrine, St. Paul's affertion thus interpreted is true, as our fubfequent difcourfe may declare. ii. 3. 16. 3. iii. Rom. ix. 5. 5. I might add, that the living God in our text Tim. i. 1. may very well be understood and expounded to be 2 Tim.i. 10. our Lord Jefus himfelf; not only as partaking of the Tit. ii. 10. divine nature, but as exhibited in the Golpel, the 3.4. Word incarnate, who as fuch may feem commonly 1 Tim. iii. by St. Paul to be ftyled, God our Saviour; God mani- Aas xx. fefted in the flesh; God, that purchafed the Church with 28. his own blood; Chrift, who is over all, God blessed for evermore. However it from the premises is fufficiently apparent, that God's being the Saviour of all men doth relate unto our Saviour Jefus's undertakings and performances for the falvation of all men; fince God in a fenfe evangelical is no otherwife faid to fave, than in concurrence with what Jefus did undertake and perform; than as defigning, ordering, accepting, profecuting, and accomplishing our Lord's performances; Jefus being the conduit through which all evangelical mercies and bleffings are from God conveyed and difpenfed to mankind. So that God being the Saviour of mankind, is either directly and Eph. i. 3, 6., immediately, or by equivalence and in confequence the fame with Jefus being the Saviour of all men. That our Lord Jefus is the Saviour of all men; or that the most fignal of his faving performances do in their nature and their defign refpect all men, as meant for, as conducing and tending to all men's falvation, yea and as in their own nature (fuppofing men's due and poffible concurrence with them) effectually productive of their falvation; that, I fay, D 2 this |