CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

Use 2 2. Did God give the world a beginning, whatsoever excellency, usefulness, and loveliness there is therein, Did it come wholly from God? then how might this raise us up to be with God, and set our hearts upon him that hath all this perfection eminently in him; Oh how unreasonable is it that we should delight in the world and not in God the Author of the world, if there be so much excellency in the creatures, what in the Creator? Therefore when the Psalmist speaks of all the Creatures in the world, he calls upon them to bless God; How foolish and vain did the wise men of the world become in their imaginations, when they robbed God of his divine glory, and gave it to the Sun and Stars, and such Idolatry do we commit in our affections, when we place them principally upon the creature and not on God himself: Oh check thy self, and say, Who gave this delight, this comfort, this usefulness to the creature, did not God? What delight then must be in the fountain or Ocean, if there be so much in a stream.

Ʋse 2 2. Did God give the world a beginning, whatsoever excellency, usefulnesse, and lovelinesse there is therein, Did it come wholly from God? then how might this raise us up to be with God, and set our hearts upon him that hath all this perfection eminently in him; Oh how unreasonable is it that we should delight in the world and not in God the Authour of the world, if there be so much excellency in the creatures, what in the Creator? Therefore when the Psalmist speaks of all the Creatures in the world, he cals upon them to blesse God; How foolish and vain did the wise men of the world become in their imaginations, when they robbed God of his divine glory, and gave it to the Sunne and Stars, and such Idolatry do we commit in our affections, when we place them principally upon the creature and not on God himself: Oh check thy self, and say, Who gave this delight, this comfort, this usefulnesse to the creature, did not God? What delight then must be in the fountain or Ocean, if there be so much in a stream.

Use 3 3. Did God create and make the world? then it's blasphemy and impudency to quarrel and repine at the things which are in the world; This hath been a great Objection with many, If God made the world, why are there any evil or troublesome things in it? How cometh it to be such a miserable wicked world? This made the Manichees hold there were two eternal principles, The one good, from which cometh all good things; The other bad, from which comes all the sins and miseries that are in the world, but you must know that the word world is used divers ways in Scripture, by which this Objection may be answered, Sometimes for the Fabric of the Universe with all the parts thereof, Sometimes for the wickedness that is, in the world, and for wicked men, because they are the greater part of the world: Now if we speak of the world in the latter sense, God did not make it so, Man wilfully sinning made it a wicked world, so that the wickedness of the world is not of God, but by man, as also death and hell is of man, God only inflicts them as just punishments upon ungodly offenders: And thus likewise all the miseries, pains and diseases that are in the world are by sin; The Ground was not cursed to bring forth nothing but briars and thorns till man had sinned; So that the Principles of evil were the Apostate Angels and Apostate man: Otherwise take we the world in an innocent sense, for the Fabric of it, with the Creatures therein, So it is wholly good and of God: Therefore