Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

The whole Creation, 'Tis the pang of universal Nature, the agony of the whole Creation, to be alienated from the original use for which they were intended, and be disjointed from their end, to serve the disloyalty of a Rebel. The Drunkards Cup, and the Gluttons Table, the Adulterers Bed, and the proud Mans Purple would groan against the abuser of them. But when all the fruits of Redemption shall be completed, the Goodness of God shall pour it self upon the Creatures, deliver them from the Bondage of Corruption into the glorious liberty of the Children of God^*, they shall be reduced to their true end, and retuned in their original harmony. As the Creation doth passionately groan under its vanity, so it doth earnestly expect and wait for its deliverance at the time of the manifestation of the Sons of God. ^*The manifestation of the Sons of God is the attainment of the liberty of the Creature. They shall be freed from the vanity under which they are enslaved. As it entered by sin, it shall vanish upon the total removal of sin. What use they were designed for in Paradise, they will have afterwards, except that of the nourishment of Men, who shall be as Angels, neither eating nor drinking. The Glory of God shall be seen and contemplated in them. It can hardly be thought that God made the World to be little a moment after he had reared it, sullied by the Sin of Man, and turned from its original end, without thoughts of a restoration of it to its true end, as well as Man to his lost happiness. The World was made for Man: Man hath not yet enjoyed the Creature in the first intention of them; Sin made an interruption in that Fruition. As Redemption restores Man to his true end, so it restores the Creatures to their true use. The restoration of the World to its beauty and order, was the design of the Divine Goodness in the coming of Christ, as it is intimated in Isaiah 11.6, 7, 8, 9. As he came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it, so he came not to destroy the Creatures, but to repair them. To restore to God the honour and pleasure of the Creation, and restore to the Creatures their felicity in restoring their Order. The Fall corrupted it, and the full Redemption of Men restores it. The last time is called not a time of destruction, but a time of restitution, and that of all things ^*