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7^ PRINCETON. N. J. *f,
PRESENTED BV
THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION
■R L
DISCOURSES
THE EXISTENCE
ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
BY
STEPHEN CHARNOCK, B. D.
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
PHILADELPHIA: PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION.
JAMES RUSSELL, PUBLISHING AGENT.
1840.
riiii.MiKi.ni! \ wii.ium I. mmitiks. PRINTER.
CONTENTS.
VOLUME II.
DISCOURSE X. THE POWER OF GOD.
PAGE
Lo, these are parts of his ways : but how little a portion is heard of him 1 but the thunder of his power who can understand 1 — Job. xxvi. 14. • 5
DISCOURSE XL
THEJHOLINESS OF GOD.
Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? — Exod. xv. 11. 126
DISCOURSE XII.
THE GOODNESS OF GOD.
And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good ? there is none good but one, that is God. — Mark x. 18. 245
DISCOURSE XIII.
GOD'S DOMINION.
The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens ; and his kingdom ruleth over all. — Psalm ciii. 19. 417
DISCOURSE XIV.
GOD'S PATIENCE.
The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked : the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. — Nahum i. 3. 554
ON THE
EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
DISCOURSE X.
ON THE POWER OP GOD.
Job xxvi. 14. — Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him ! but the thunder of his power who can understand?
Bildad had in the foregoing chapter entertained Job with a discourse on the dominion and power of God, and the purity of his righteousness, whence he argues an impossibility of the jus- tification of man in his presence, who is no better than a worm. Job in this chapter acknowledges the greatness of God's power, and descants more largely upon it than Bildad had done ; but doth preface it with a kind of ironical speech, as if he had not acted a friendly part, or spake little to the purpose, or the mat- ter in hand. The subject of Job's discourse was the worldly happiness of the wicked, and the calamities of the godly; and Bildad reads him a lecture of the extent of God's dominion, the number of his armies, and the unspotted rectitude of his nature, in comparison of which the purest creatures are foul and crooked. Job, therefore, from ver. 1 to 4, taxes him in a kind of scoffing manner, that he had not touched the point, but rambled from the subject in hand, and had not applied a salve proper to his sore: " How hast thou helped him that is with- out power? How savest thou the arm of him that hath no strength?" ver 2 ; your discourse is so impertinent, that it will neither strengthen a weak person, nor instruct a simple one. ' But since Bildad would take up an argument of God's power, and discourse so short of it, Job would show that he wanted not his instructions in that kind, and that he had more distinct conceptions of it than his antagonist had uttered : and there- fore, from ver. 5, to the end of the chapter, he does magnifi-
i Munser. Vol. II.— 2
(J ON THE POWER OF GOD.
cently treat of the power of God in several branches. And he begins with the lowest, ver. 25.
" Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the in- habitants thereof." You read me a lecture of the power of God in the heavenly host: indeed it is visible there, yet of a larger extent; and monuments of it are found in the lower parts. What do you think of those dead things under the earth and waters, of the corn that dies, and by the moistening influences of the clouds springs up again with a numerous pro- geny and increase for ihe nourishment of man? What do you think of those varieties of metals and minerals conceived in the bowels of the earth, those pearls and riches in the depths of the waters, brought forth by this power of God? Add to these those more prodigious creatures in the sea, the inhabitants of the waters, with their vastness and variety, which are all the births of God's power, both in their first creation by his mighty voice, and their propagation by his cherishing providence.
Stop not here, but consider also that his power extends to hell; either the graves, the repositories of all the crumbled dust that has yet been in the world; (for so hell is sometimes taken in Scripture; " Hell is naked before him, and destruction has no covering," ver. 6;) the lodgings of deceased men are known to him; no screen can obscure them from his sight, nor their dissolution be any bar to his power, when the time is come to compact those mouldered bodies to entertain again their de- parted souls, either for weal or woe: or hell, the place of punishment, is naked before him; as distinctly discerned by hnu as a naked body in all its lineaments by us, or a dissected body is in all its parts by a skilful eye. Destruction has no covering: none can free himself from the power of his hand. Every person in the bowels of hell, every person punished there, is known to him, and feels the power of his wrath.
From the lower parts of the world he ascends to the conside- ration of the power of God in the creation of heaven and earth: "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place," ver. 7; the north or north pole over the air, which by the Greeks was called void or empty, because of the tenuity and thinness of that element; and he mentions here the north, or north pole, for the whole heaven, because it is more known and apparent than the southern pole. "And hangeth the earth upon nothing." The massy and weighty earth hangs like a thick globe, in the midst of a thin air, that there is as much air on the one side of it as on the other. The heavens have no prop to sustain them in their height, and the earth has no basis lu support it in us place. The heavens are as if you saw a curtain stretched smooth in the air without any hand to hold it; and the earth is as if you saw a ball hanging in the air
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 7
without any solid body to underprop it, or any line to hinder it from falling; both standing monuments of the omnipotence of God.
He then takes notice of his daily power in the clouds: "He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them," ver. 8. He compacts the waters together in clouds, and keeps them by his power in the air against the force of their natural gravity and heaviness, till they are fit to flow down upon the earth, and perform his pleasure in the places for which he designs them. " The cloud is not rent under them;" the thin air is not split asunder by the weight of the waters contained in the clouds above it. He causes them to distil by drops, and strains them as it were through a thin lawn, for the refreshment of the earth: and suffers them not to fall in the whole lump, with a violent torrent, to waste the in- dustry of man, and bring famine upon the world by destroying the fruits of the earth. What a wonder would it be to see but one entire drop of water hang itself but one inch above the ground, unless it be a bubble which is preserved by the air en- closed within it! What a wonder would it be to see a gallon of water contained in a thin cobweb as strongly as in a vessel of brass! Greater is the wonder of Divine power in those thin bottles of heaven, as they are called, Job xxxviii. 37; and therefore called his clouds here, as being daily instances of his omnipotence. That the air should sustain those rolling vessels, as it should seem, weightier than itself; that the force of this mass of waters should not break so thin a prison, and hasten to its proper place which is below the air; that they should be daily confined against their natural inclination, and held by so slight a chain ; that there should be such a gradual and succes- sive falling of them, as if the air were pierced with holes like a gardener's watering-pot, and not fall in one entire body to drown or drench some parts of the earth; these are hourly miracles of Divine power, as little regarded as clearly visible.
He proceeds, ver. 9. " He holdeth back the face of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it." The clouds are de- signed as curtains to cover the heavens, as well as vessels to water the earth, Psal. cxlvii. 8; as a tapestry curtain between the heavens, the throne of God, and the earth, his footstool, Isa. lxvi. 1. The heavens are called his throne, because his power does most shine forth there, and magnificently declare the glory of God ; and the clouds are as a screen between the scorching heat of the sun, and the tender plants of the earth, and the weak bodies of men.
From hence he descends to the sea, and considers the Divine power apparent in the bounding of it: "He has compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an
8
ON THE POWER OF GOD.
end," vet. 10. This is several times mentioned in Scripture, as a signal mark of Divine strength, Job xxxviii. 8 ; Prov. viii. 27. He has measured a place for the sea, and struck the limits of it as with a compass, that it might not mount above the sur- face of the land, and ruin the ends of the earth's creation; and this while day and night have their mutual turns, till he shall make an end of time by removing the measures of it. The bounds of the tumultuous sea are in many places as weak as the bottles of the upper waters; the one is contained in thin air, and the other restrained by weak sands in many places, as well as by stubborn rocks in others; that though it swells, foams, roars, and the waves, encouraged and urged on by strong winds, come like mountains against the shore, they overflow it not, but humble themselves when they come near to those sands, which are set as their lists and limits, and retire back to the womb that brought them forth, as if they were ashamed, and repented of their proud invasion: or else it may be meant of the tides of the sea, and the stated time God has set it for its ebbing and flowing, till night and day come to an end.1 Both that the fluid waters should contain themselves within due bounds, and keep their perpetual orderly motion, are amazing arguments of Divine power.
He passes on to the consideration of the commotions in the air and earth, raised and stilled by the power of God: " The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof," ver. 11. By pillars of heaven are not meant angels, as some think; but either the air, called the pillars of heaven in regard of place, as it continues and knits together the parts of the world, as pillars do the upper and nether parts of a building. As the lowest parts of the earth are called the foundations of the earth; so the lowest parts of the heaven may be called the pillars of heaven.2 Or else by that phrase may be meant moun- tains which seem at a distance to touch the sky, as pillars do the top of a structure; and so it may be spoken according to vulgar capacity, which imagines the heavens to be sustained by the two extreme parts of the earth, as a convex body, or to be arched by pillars; whence the Scripture, according to com- mon apprehensions, mentions the ends of the earth, and the Utmost parts of the heavens, though they have properly no • ■ml. as being round. The power of God is seen in those com- motions in the air and earth, by thunders, lightnings, storms, earthquakes, which rack the air, and make the mountains and hills tremble as servants before a frowning and rebuking master. °
And as he makes motions in the earth and air, so is his power seen in their influences upon the sea. "He divideth the sea
' Coccci. in loc. i Coccei.
ON THE POWER OF GOD. g
with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud," verse 12. At the creation he put the waters into several channels, and caused the dry land to appear barefaced for a habitation for man and beast; or rather he splits the sea by storms, as though he would make the bottom of the deep visible, and rakes up the sands to the surface of the waters, and marshals the waves into mountains and valleys. After that he smites through the proud, that is, humbles the proud waves, and by allaying the storm reduces them to their former level: the power of God is visible, as well in rebuking, as in awakening the winds; he makes them sensible of his voice, and according to his pleasure exasperates or calms them. The striking through the proud here, is not properly meant of the destruction of the Egyptian army; for some guess that Job died that year,1 or about the time of the Israelites coming out of Egypt: so that this discourse here being in the time of his affliction, could not point at that which was done after his res- toration to his temporal prosperity.
And now at last he sums up the power of God in the chiefest of his works above, and the greatest wonder of his works be- low: "By his Spirit hs hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent," verse 13. The greater and lesser lights, sun, moon, and stars, the ornaments and furniture of heaven; and the whale, a prodigious monument of God's power, often mentioned in Scripture to this purpose, and in particular in this book of Job, chap. xli. and called by the same name of crooked serpent, Isa. xxvii. 1 ; where it is ap- plied by way of metaphor to the king of Assyria or Egypt, or all oppressors of the church. Various interpretations there are of this crooked serpent: some understanding that constellation in heaven, which astronomers call the dragon; some that com- bination of weaker stars which they call the galaxy, which winds about the heavens: but it is most probable that Job, drawing near to a conclusion of his discourse, joins the two greatest testimonies of God's power in the world, the highest heavens and the lowest leviathan, which is here called a bar- serpent2 in regard of his strength and hardness, as mighty men are called bars in Scripture: her bars are broken things, Jer. li. 30. And in regard of this power of God in the creation of this creature, it is particularly mentioned in the catalogue of God's works; "And God created great whales," Gen. i. 21; all the other creatures being put into one sum, and not particularly expressed.
And now he makes the use of this lecture in the text, "Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?"
1 Drusius in loc. 2 As the word signifies in the Hebrew
jO ON THE POWER OF GOD.
This is but a small landscape of some of his works of power, the outsides and extremities of it; more glorious things are within Ins palaces: though those things argue a stupendous power of the Creator in his works of creation and providence, y.t they are nothing to what may be declared of his power. And what may be declared, is nothing to what may be con- ceived*; and what may be conceived, is nothing to what is above the conceptions of any creature. These are but little crumbs and fragments of that infinite power which is in his nature, like a drop in comparison of the mighty ocean; a hiss or whisper, in comparison of a mighty voice of thunder.1 This which I have spoken is but like a spark to the fiery region, a few lines by the by, a drop of speech.
"The thunder of his power:" some understand it of thunder literally, for material thunder in the air: "the thunder of his power," that is, according to the Hebrew dialect, his powerful thunder. This is not the sense; the nature of thunder in the air does not so much exceed the capacity of human understand- ing; it is therefore rather to be understood metaphorically, "The thunder of his power," that is, the greatness and im- mensity of his power manifested in the magnificent miracles of nature, in the consideration whereof men are astonished, as if they had heard an unusual clap of thunder. So thunder is used, Job xxxix. 25. "The thunder of the captains," that is, strength and force of the captains of an army. And verse 19, God speaking to Job of a horse, saith, " Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?" that is strength. And thunder being a mark of the power of God, some of the heathen have called God by the name of a Thunderer.2 As thunder pierces the lowest places, and alters the state of things, so does the power of God penetrate into all things whatsoever. " The thunder of his power," that is, the greatness of his power; as, the strength of his salvation, Psal. xx. 6, that is, a mighty salva- tion.
" Who can understand?" Who is able to count all the monu- ments of his power? How does this little, which I have spoken of, exceed the capacity of our understanding, and is rather the matter of our astonishment than the object of our comprehen- sive knowledge! The power of the greatest potentate or the mightiest creature, is but of small extent; none but have their hunts: it may be understood how far they can act, in what sphere their activity is bounded: but when I have spoken all of Di vim; power that I can, when you have thought all that
1 ' tecolamp.
2 The ancient Gaols worshipped him under tlic name of Tarinis; and Thor, winner our Thursday is derived, signifies Thunderer, a title the Germans gave tin i. god. And Toran in the British langiKi're signifies thunder.— Voss. Idolo. Lb. 2. cap. 33, Camd.Britan.^.17.
ON THE POWER OF GOD.
11
you can think of it, your souls will prompt you to conceive something more beyond what I have spoken, and what you have thought. His power shines in every thing, and is beyond every thing. There is infinitely more power lodged in his na- ture, not expressed to the world. The understanding of men and angels centred in one creature, would fall short of the per- ception of the infiniteness of it. All that can be comprehended of it, are but little fringes of it, a small portion. No man ever discoursed, or can, of God's power according to the magnifi- cence of it. No creature can conceive it; God himself only comprehends it; God himself is only able to express it. Man's power being limited, his line is too short to measure the incom- prehensible omnipotence of God. " The thunder of his power who can understand?" that is, none can.
The text is a lofty declaration of the Divine power, with a particular note of attention, Lo.
In the expressions of it in the works of creation and provi- dence, "Lo, these are his ways;" ways and works excelling any created strength, referring to the little summary of them he had made before. — In the insufficiency of these ways to mea- sure his power; "but how little a portion is heard of him?" — In the incomprehensibleness of it; "the thunder of his power who can understand?"
Doctrine. Infinite and incomprehensible power pertains to the nature of God, and is expressed in part in his works: or, Though there be a mighty expression of Divine power in his works, yet an incomprehensible power pertains to his nature. " The thunder of his power who can understand?"
His power glitters in all his works, as well as- his wisdom; "Twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God," Psal. lxii. 11; in the law and in the prophets, some say: but why power twice, and not mercy, which he speaks of in the following verse? He had heard of power twice, from the voice of creation, and from the voice of government. Mercy was not heard in government after man's fall, not in creation; inno- cent man was an object of God's goodness, not of his mercy till he made himself miserable; power was expressed in both: or, Twice have I heard that power belongs to God; that is, it is a certain and undoubted truth that power is essential to the Divine nature. It is true, mercy is essential, justice is essential; but power more apparently essential, because no acts of mercy, or justice, or wisdom, can be exercised by him without power. The repetition of a thing confirms the certainty of it. Some observe, that God is called Almighty seventy times in Scrip- ture.1 Though his power be evident in all his works, yet he has a power beyond the expression of it in his works, which,
1 Lcssius, de Perfect. Divin. lib. 5. cap. 1.
12
ON THE FOWER OF GOD.
as it is the glory of his nature, so it is the comfort of a believer. To which purpose the apostle expresses it by an excellent periphrasis for (he honour of the Divine nature. "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, — unto him be glory in the church," Eph. iii. 20, 21. We have reason to acknowledge him almighty, who has a power of acting above our power of understanding. Who could have imagined such a powerful operation in the propa- gation of the gospel, and the conversion of the gentiles, which the apostle seems to hint at in that place? His power is ex- pressed by horns in his hands, Hab. iii. 4, because all the works of his hands are wrought with almighty strength. Power is also used as a name of God, Mark xiv. 62. " The Son of man sitting on the right hand of power," that is, at the right hand of God. God and power are so inseparable that they are re- ciprocated. As his essence is immense, not to be confined in place, as it is eternal, not to be measured, by time, so it is almighty, not to be limited in regard of action.
It is ingeniously illustrated by some by a unit; ' all numbers depend upon it, it makes numbers by addition, multiplies them inexpressibly; when one unit is removed from a number, how vastly does it diminish it! It gives perfection to all other numbers, it receives perfection from none. If you add a unit before 100, how does it multiply it to 1100! If you set a unit before twenty millions, it presently makes the number swell up to a hundred and twenty millions: and so powerful is a unit by adding it to numbers, that it will infinitely enlarge them to such a vastuess, that shall transcend the capacity of the best arithmetician to count them. By such a meditation as this, you may have some prospect of the power of that God who is only unity; the beginning of all things, as a unit is the begin- ning of all numbers; and can perform as many things really, as a unit can numerically, that is, can do as much in the making of creatures, as a unit can do in the multiplying of numbers. The omnipotence of God was scarce denied by any heathen, that did not deny the being of a God, and that was Pliny, and that upon weak arguments.
Indeed we cannot have a conception of God, if we conceive him not most powerful, as well as most wise: he is not a God, that cannol do what he will, and perform all his pleasure. If we imagine him restrained in his power, we imagine him limit- ed in his essence. As he has an infinite knowledge to know what is possible, he cannot be without an infinite power to do what is possible. As he has a will to resolve what he sees good, so he cannot want a power to effect what he sees good to decree. As the essence of a creature cannot be conceived ' Fotherby, Athcomastic. p. 306, 307.
ON THE POWER OF GOD. |3
without that activity that belongs to his nature; (as when you conceive lire, you cannot, conceive it without a power of burn- ing and warming; and when you conceive water, you cannot conceive it without a power of moistening and cleansing;) so you cannot conceive an infinite essence without an infinite power of activity. And therefore a heathen could say, If you know God, you know he can do all things; and therefore says Austin, Give me not only a Christian, but a Jew, not only a Jew, but a heathen, that will deny God to be almighty. A Jew, a heathen, may deny Christ to be omnipotent, but no heathen will deny God to be omnipotent, and no devil will deny either to be so. God cannot be conceived without some power, for then he must be conceived without action: whose then are those products and effects of power which are visible to us in the world? to whom do they belong? who is the Father of them? God cannot be conceived without a power suitable to his nature and essence ; if we imagine him to be of an infinite essence, we must imagine him to be of an infinite power and strength.
In particular, I shall show,
The nature of God's power. — Reasons to prove that God must needs be powerful. — How his power appears; in creation, in government, in redemption. — Lastly the use.
1. What this power is, or the nature of it.
(1.) Power sometimes signifies authority; and a man is said to be mighty and powerful in regard of his dominion, and the right he has to command multitudes of other persons to take his part; but power taken for strength, and power taken for authority, are distinct things, and may be separated from one another. Power may be without authority, as in successful invasions that have no just foundation : authority may be with- out power, as in a just prince expelled by an unjust rebellion; the authority resides in him, though he be overpowered, and is destitute of strength to support and exercise that authority. The power of God is not to be understood of his authority and dominion, but his strength to act, and the word in the text pro- perly signifies strength.
(2.) This power is divided ordinarily into absolute and ordi- nate. Absolute, is that power whereby God is able to do that which he will not do, but is possible to be done: ordinate, is that power whereby God does that which he has decreed to do, that is, which he has ordained or appointed to be exercised;1 which are not distinct powers, but one and the same power; his ordinate power is a part of his absolute; for if he had not a power to do every thing that he could will, he might not have a power to do every thing that he does will.
i Scaliger, Publ. exercit. 365. § 8. Vol. II.— 3
|4 ON THE POWER OF GOD.
The object of his absolute power is all things possible; such things thai imply not a contradiction, such that are not repug- nant in their own nature to be done, and such as are not con- trary to the nature and perfections of God to be done. Those things that are repugnant in their own nature to be done are several, as to make a thing which is past not to be' past. As for example, the world is created; God could have chosen whether he would create the world, and after it is created he has power to dissolve it; but after it was created, and when it is dissolved, it will be eternally true, that the world was crea- ted, antLthaJUit was dissolved; for it is impossible that that which was once true should ever be false. If it be true that the world was created, it will for ever be true that it was created, and cannot be otherwise. And also, if it be once true that God has decreed, it is impossible in its own nature to be true that God has not decreed. Some things are repugnant to the nature and perfections of God: as it is impossible for his nature to die and perish; impossible for him, in regard of truth, to lie and deceive. But of this hereafter; only at present to understand the object of God's absolute power to be things possible, that is, possible in nature ; not by any strength in themselves, or of themselves; for nothing has no strength, and every thing is nothing before it comes into being. * So God by his absolute power might have prevented the sin of the fallen angels, and so have preserved them in their first habitation. He might by his absolute power have restrained the devil from tempting of Eve, or restrained her and Adam from swal- lowing the bait, and joining hands with the temptation. By his absolute power, God might have given the reins to Peter to betray his Master, as well as to deny him; and employed Judas in the same glorious and successful service wherein he employed Paul. By his absolute power he might have created the world millions of years before he did create it, and can re- duce it into its empty nothing this moment. This the Baptist affirms, when he tells us, « That God is able of these stones" (meaning the stones in the wilderness, and not the people which came out to him from Judea, which were children of A.braham) "to raise up children unto Abraham," Matt. iii. 9; that is, there is a possibility of such a thing, there is no contra- diction in it, but that God is able to do it if he please.
Bui now the object of his ordinate power, is all things or- dained by him to be done, all things decreed by him; and be- cause of the Divine ordination of things this power is called ordinate; and what is thus ordained by him he cannot but do, because of his unchangeableness. Both those powers are ex- pressed, Matt. xxvi. 53, 54. " My Father can send twelve
1 Estius in Sent. lib. 1. dist. 43. § 2.
ON THE POWER OF GOD.
15
legions of angels" there is his absolute power; "but how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" there is his ordinate power. As his power is free from any act of his will, it is called absolute; as it is joined with an act of his will, it is called ordinate. His absolute power is necessary, and be- longs to his nature; his ordinate power is free, and belongs to his will; a power guided by his will ; not, as I said before, that they are two distinct powers, both belonging to his nature, but the latter is the same with the former, only it is guided by his will and wisdom.
(3.) It follows then, that the power of God is that ability and strength, whereby he can bring to pass whatsoever he pleases; whatsoever his infinite wisdom can direct, and what- soever the infinite purity of his will can resolve. Power, in the primary notion of it, does not signify an act, but art ability to bring a thing into act; it is power, as able to act before it does actually produce a thing: as God had an ability to create be- fore, he did create, he had power before he acted that power Without. Power denotes the principle of the action, and there- fore is greater than the act itself. Power exercised and dif- fused, in bringing forth and nursing up its particular objects without, is inconceivably less than that strength which is infi- nite in himself, the same with his essence, and is indeed him- self. By his power exercised he does whatsoever he actually wills; but by the pojjrer in his nature, he is able to do whatso- ever he is able to will. The will of creatures may be and is more extensive than their power, and their power more con- tracted and shortened than their will ; but, as the prophet says, His counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure, Isa. xlvi. 10. His power is as great as his will, that is, whatsoever can fall within the verge of his will, falls within the compass of his power. Though he will never actually will this or that, yet supposing he should will it, he is able to perform it: so that you must in your notion of Divine power, enlarge it further than to think, God can only do what he has resolved to do; but that he has as infinite a capacity of power to act, as he has an infinite capacity of will to resolve.
Besides, this power is of that nature that he can do whatso- ever he pleases without difficulty, without resistance; it cannot be checked, restrained, frustrated.1 As he can do all things possible in regard of the object, he can do all things easily in regard of the manner of acting. What in human artificers is knowledge, labour, industry, that in God is his will; his will works without labour, his works stand forth as he wills them. Hands and arms are ascribed to him for our conceptions, be- cause our power of acting is distinct from our will; but God's
" Cra. Syntag-. lib. 3. cap. 17. p. 611.
16
ON THE POWER OF GOD.
power of acting is not really distinct from his will: it is suffi- cient to the existence of a thing that God wills it to exist; he can act what he will only hy his will, without any instruments. He needs no matter to work upon, because he can make some- thing from nothing; all matter owes itself to his creative power: ho needs no time to work in, for he can make time, when he pleases to begin to work: he needs no copy to work by, him- self is his own pattern and copy in his works. All created agents want matter to work upon, instruments to work with, copies to work by; time to bring either the births of their minds or the works of their hands to perfection; but the power of God needs none of these things, but is of a vast and incompre- hensible nature, beyond all these. As nothing can be done without the compass of it, so itself is without the compass of every created understanding.
(4.) This power is of a distinct conception from the wisdom and will of God. They are not really distinct, but according to our conceptions. We cannot discourse of Divine things, without observing some proportion of them with human, as- cribing unto God the perfections, sifted from the imperfections of our nature. In us there are three orders, of understanding, will, power; and accordingly three acts, counsel, resolution, execution; which though they are distinct in us, are not really distinct in God. In our conceptions, the apprehension of a thing belongs to the understanding of God; determination, to the will of God; direction, to the wisdom of God; execution, to the power of God. The knowledge of God regards a thing as possible, and as it may be done; the wisdom of God regards a thing as fit, and convenient to be done; the will of God re- solves that it shall be done; the power of God is the applica- tion of his will to effect what it has resolved. Wisdom is a fixing the being of things, the measures and perfections of their several beings; power is a conferring those perfections and be- ings upon them. His power is his ability to act, and his wisdom is the director of his action: his will orders, his wisdom guides, and his power effects. His will as the spring, and his power as the worker, are expressed, Psal. cxv. 3. " He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased." "He commanded, and they were created," Psal. cxlviii. 5: and all three expressed, Eph. i. 11. " Who worketh all things after the counsel of* his own will." So that the power of God is a perfection (as it were) subordi- nate to his understanding and will, to execute the results of his wisdom and the orders of his will; to his wisdom, as directing, because he works skilfully; to his will, as moving and apply- ing, because he works voluntarily and freely. The exercise of his power depends upon his will: his will is the supreme cause of every thing that stands up in time, and all things receive a
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being as he wills tliem. His power is but will perpetually working, and diffusing itself in the season his will has fixed from eternity; it is his eternal will in perpetual and successive springs and streams in the creatures; it is nothing else but the constant efficacy of his omnipotent will. This must be under- stood of his ordinate power, but his absolute power is larger than his resolving will; for though the Scripture tells us he has done whatsoever he will, yet it tells us not that he has done whatsoever he could: he can do things that he will never do.
Again, his power is distinguished from his will, in regard of the exercise of it, which is after the act of his will: his will was conversant about objects, when his power was not exer- cised about them. Creatures were the objects of his will from eternity, but they were not from eternity the effects of his power. His purpose to create was from eternity, but the exe- cution of his purpose was in time. Now this execution of his will we call his ordinate power: his wisdom and his will are supposed antecedent to his power, as the counsel and resolve, as the cause precedes the performance of the purpose, as the effect. Some distinguish his power from his understanding and will, in regard that his understanding and will are larger than his absolute power;1 for God understands sins, and wills to permit them, but he cannot himself do any evil or unjust ac- tion, nor have a power of doing it. But this is not to distin- guish that Divine power, but impotence; for to be unable to do evil is the perfection of power; and to be able to do things unjust and evil, is a weakness, imperfection, and inability. Man indeed wills many things that he is not able to perform, and understands many things that he is not able to effect; he un- derstands much of the creatures, something of sun, moon, and stars ; he can conceive many suns, many moons, yet is not able to create the least atom: but there is nothing that belongs to power but God understands, and is able to effect. To sum this up, the will of God is the root of all, the wisdom of God is the copy of all, and the power of God is the framer of all.
(5.) The power of God gives activity to all the other perfec- tions of his nature, and is of a larger extent and efficacy, in re- gard to its objects, than some perfections of his nature. I put them both together.
It contributes life and activity to all the other perfections of his nature. How vain would be his eternal counsels, if power did not step in to execute them! His mercy would be a feeble pity, if he were destitute of power to relieve; and his justice a slighted scarecrow, without power to punish; his promises an empty sound, without power to accomplish them. As holiness is the beauty, so power is the life of all his attributes in their
' Gamacheus.
jg ON THE POWER OF GOD.
exercise; and as holiness, so power is an adjunct belonging to all, a term that may be given to all. God hath a powerful wisdom to attain his ends, without interruption; he has a powerful mercy to remove our misery; a powerful justice to lay all misery upon offenders; he has a powerful truth to per- form his promises, an infinite power to bestow rewards and inflict penalties. It is to this purpose power is first put in the two things which the psalmist had heard, " Twice have I heard," or, two things have I heard ; first power, then mercy and justice included in that expression, "Thou renderest to every man according to his works," Psal. lxii. 11, 12. In every perfection of God he heard of power. This is the arm, the hand of the Deity, which all his other attributes lay hold on, when they would appear in their glory; this hands them to the world; by this they act, in this they triumph. Power Jramed every stage for their appearance in creation, providence, re- demption.
It is of a larger extent in regard of its objects, than some other attributes. Power does not always suppose an object, but constitutes an object. It supposes an object in the act of preservation, but it makes an object in the act of creation; but mercy supposes an object miserable, yet does not. make it so. Justice supposes an object criminal, but does not "constitute it so: mercy supposes him miserable, to relieve him; justice supposes him criminal, to punish him: but power supposes not a thing in real existence, but as possible; or rather,- it is from power that any thing has a possibility, if there be no re- pugnancy in the nature of the thing.
Again, power extends further than either mercy or justice. Mercy has particular objects, which justice shall not at- last be willing to punish ; and justice has particular objects, which mercy at last shall not be willing to refresh; but power does, and always will extend to the objects of both mercy and jus- tice. A creature, as a creature, is neither the object of mercy nor .justice, nor of rewarding goodness: a creature, as innocent, is the object of rewarding goodness; a creature, as miserable, is the object of compassionate mercy; a creature, as criminal, is the object of revenging justice; but all of them the objects of power, in conjunction with those attributes of goodness, mercy, and justice, to which they belong. All the objects that mercy, and justice, and truth, and wisdom, exercise themselves about, have a possibility and an actual being from this perfection of Divine power. It is power first frames a creature in a capa- city of nature for mercy or justice, though it does not give an immediate qualification for the exercise of either. Power makes man a rational creature, and so confers upon him a nature mu- table, which may be miserable by its own fault, and punish-
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able by God's justice; or pitiable by God's compassion, and relievable by God's mercy ; but it does not make him sinful, whereby he becomes miserable and punishable.
Again, power runs through all the decrees of the states of a creature. As a thing is possible, or may be made, it is the object of absolute power; as it is factibile, or ordered to be made, it is the object of ordinate power; as a thing is actually made, and brought into being, it is the object of preserving power. So that power does stretch out its arms to all the works of God, in all their circumstances, and at all times. When mercy ceases to relieve a creature, when justice ceases to punish a creature, power ceases not to preserve a creature. The blessed in heaven, that are out of the reach of punishing justice, are for ever maintained by power in that blessed con- dition: the damned in hell, that are cast out of the bosom of entreating mercy, are for ever sustained in those remediless torments by the arm of power.
(6.) This power is originally and essentially in the nature of God, and not distinct from his essence. It is originally and essentially in God. The strength and power of great kings is originally in their people, and managed and ordered by the authority of the prince for the common good. Though a prince has authority in his person to command, yet he has not suffi- cient strength in his person, without the assistance of others, to make his commands to be obeyed. He has not a single strength in his own person to conquer countries and kingdoms, and in- crease the number of his subjects: he must make use of the arms of his own subjects, to overrun other places, and yoke them under his dominion: but the power of all things that ever were, are, or shall be, is originally and essentially in God. It is not derived from any thing without him, as the power of the greatest potentates in the world is: therefore it is said, " Power belongeth unto God," Psal. lxii. 11, that is, solely, and to none else. He has a power to make his subjects, and as many as he pleases; to create worlds, to enjoin precepts, to execute penal- ties, without calling in the strength of his creatures to his aid. The strength that the subjects of a mortal prince have, is not derived to them from the prince, though the exercise of it for this or that end, is ordered and directed by the authority of the prince : but what strength soever any thing has to act as a means, it has from the power of God as Creator, as well as whatsoever authority it has to act is from God, as a Rector and Governor of the world. God has a strength to act without means, and no means can act any thing without his power and strength communicated to them. As the clouds, in the Sth verse before the text, are called God's clouds, his clouds; so all the strength of creatures may be called, and truly is, God's
j2() ON THE POWER OF GOD.
strength and power in them; a drop of power shot down from heaven, originally only in God. Creatures have but a little mite of power; somewhat communicated to them, somewhat kept and reserved from them, of what they are capable to pos- sess. They have limited natures, and therefore a limited sphere of activity. Clothes can warm us, but not feed us; bread can nourish us, but not clothe us; one plant has a medicinal quality against one disease, another against another; but God is the possessor of universal power, the common exchequer of this mighty treasure. He acts by creatures, as not needing their power, but deriving power to them: what he acts by them, he could act himself without them; and what they act as from themselves, is derived to them from him through invisible chan- nels. And hence it will follow, that because power is essen- tially in God, more operations of God are possible than are exerted.
And as power is essentially in God, so it is not distinct from his essence. It belongs to God in regard of the inconceivable excellency and activity of his essence.1 And omnipotence is nothing but the Divine essence efficacious ad extra, or " with- out." It is his essence as operative, and the immediate prin- ciple of operation: as the power of enlightening in the sun, and the power of heating in the fire, are not things distinct from the nature of them; but the nature of the sun bringing forth light, and the nature of the fire bringing forth heat. The power of acting is the same with the substance of God, though the action from that power be terminated in the creature. If the power of God were distinct from his essence, he were then compounded of substance and power, and would not be the most simple Being. As when the understanding is informed in several parts of knowledge: it is skilled in the government of cities and countries, it knows this or that art ; it learns mathe- matics, philosophy, this or that science. The understanding has a power to do this; but this power, whereby it learns those excellent things, and brings forth excellent births, is not a thing distinct from the understanding itself: we may rather call it the understanding powerful, than the power of the understanding; and so we may rather say, God powerful, than say, the power of God, because his power is not distinct from his essence.
From both these it will follow, that this omnipotence is in- communicable to any creature; no creature can inherit it, be- cause it is a contradiction for any creature to have the essence of God. This omnipotence is a peculiar right of God, wherein no creature can share with him. To be omnipotent, is to be essentially God. And for a creature to be omnipotent, is for a creature to be its own creator. It being therefore the same
1 Rationc summtu actualitatis essentia?. Suarez. vol. 1. p. 150, 151.
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with the essence of the Godhead, it cannot be communicated to the humanity of Christ, as the Lutherans say it is, without the communication of the essence of the Godhead; for then the humanity of Christ would not be humanity, but Deity. If omnipotence were communicated to the humanity of Christ, the essence of God were also communicated to his humanity, and then eternity would be communicated. His humanity then was not given him in time, his humanity would be un- compounded, that is, his body would be no body, his soul no soul. Omnipotence is essentially in God ; it is not distinct from the essence of God, it is his essence, omnipotent, able to do all things.
(7.) Hence it follows, that this power is infinite ; " What is the exceeding greatness of his power — according to the work- ing of his mighty power," Eph. i. 19. God were not omnipo- tent, unless liis power were infinite; for a finite power is a limited power, and a limited power cannot effect every thing that is possible. Nothing can be too difficult for the Divine power to effect: he has a fulness of power, and exceeding strength, above all human capacities; it is a mighty power, Eph. i. 19 ; able to do above all that we can ask or think, Eph. iii. 20; that which he acts, is above the power of any creature to act. Infinite power consists in the bringing things forth from nothing. No creature can imitate God in this prerogative of power. Man indeed can carve various forms, and erect various pieces of art; but from pre-existent matter. Every artificer has the matter brought to his hand, he only brings it forth in a new figure. Chemists separate one thing from an- other, but create nothing, but sever those things which were before compacted and blended together. But when God speaks a powerful word, nothing begins to be something ; things stand forth from the womb of nothing, and obey his mighty com- mand, and take what forms he is pleased to give them. The creating one thing, though never so small and minute, as the least fly, cannot be but by an infinite power; much less can the producing of such variety we see in the world. His power is infinite, in regard it cannot be resisted by any thing that he has made ; nor can it be confined by any thing he can will to make. " His greatness is unsearchable," Psal. cxlv. 3. It is a greatness, not of quantity, but quality. The greatness of his power has no end ; it is a vanity to imagine any limits can be affixed to it, or that any creature can say, Hitherto it can go, and no further. It is above all conception, all inquisition of any created understanding. No creature ever had, nor ever can have that strength of wit and understanding, to conceive the extent of his power, and how magnificently he can work.
[1.] His essence is infinite. As in a finite subject there is a Vol. II.— 4
22
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finite virtue, so in an infinite subject there must be an infinite virtue. Where the essence is limited, the power is so; ' where the essence is unlimited, the power knows no bounds. 2 Among creatures, the more excellency of being and form any thing has, the more activity, vigour, and power it has, to work according to its nature. The sun has a mighty power to warm, enlighten, and fructify, above what the stars have; because it has a vaster body, more intense degrees of light, heat, and vigour. Now, if you conceive the sun made much greater than it is, it would proportionably have greater degrees of power to heat and enlighten than it has now; and were it possible to have an infinite heat and light, it would infinitely heat and en- lighten other things; for every thing is able to act according to the measures of its being. Therefore, since the essence of God is unquestionably infinite, his power of acting must be so also. His power (as was said before) is one and the same with his essence: and though the knowledge of God extends to more objects than his power, because he knows all evils of sin, which because of his holiness he cannot commit; yet it is as infinite as his knowledge, because it is as much one with his essence as his knowledge and wisdom are; for as the wisdom or know- ledge of God are nothing but the essence of God, knowing; so the power of God is nothing but the essence of God, able.
[2.] The objects of Divine power are innumerable. The objects of Divine power are not essentially infinite; and there- fore we must not measure the infiniteness of Divine power by an ability to make an infinite being ; because there is an inca- pacity in any created thing to be infinite; for to be a creature and to be infinite, to be infinite and yet made, is a contradic- tion. To be infinite, and to be God, is one and the same thing. Nothing can be infinite but God; nothing but God is infinite. But the power of God is infinite, because it can produce infi- nite effects, or innumerable things, such as surpass the arith- metic of a creature: nor yet does the infiniteness consist simply in producing innumerable effects; for that a finite cause can produce. Fire can by its finite and limited heat, burn number- less combustible things and parcels; and the understanding of man has an infinite number of thoughts and acts of intellection, and thoughts different from another. Who can number the imaginations of his fancy, and thoughts of his mind, the space ot one month or year? much less of forty or a hundred years; yet all these thoughts are about things that are in being, or have a foundation in things that are in being. But the infi- niteness of God's power consists in an ability to produce infi- nite effects, formally distinct, and diverse from one another; such as never had being, such as the mind of man cannot con 1 Operations Bequuatur essentiam. 2 Aquin. par. 1. q. 25. a. 2.
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 23
ceive; able lo do above what he can think, Eph. iii. 20. And whatsoever God has made, or is able to make, he is able to make in an infinite manner, by calling them to stand forth from nothing. To produce innumerable effects of distinct natures, and from so distant a term as nothing, is an argument of infi- nite power.
Now, that the objects of Divine power are innumerable ap- pears, because God can do infinitely, more than he has done, or will do. Nothing that God has done can enfeeble or dull his power; there still resides in him an ability beyond all the settled contrivances of his understanding, and resolves of his will, which no effects which he has Wrought can drain and put to a stand. As he can raise stones to be children to Abra- ham, Matt. iii. 9; so with the same mighty word whereby he made one world, he can make infinite numbers of worlds, to be the monuments of his glory. After the prophet Jeremy, ch. xxxii. 17, had spoken of God's power in creation, he adds, " And there is nothing too hard for thee." For one world that he has made, he can create millions; for one star which he hath beautified the heavens with, he could have garnished it with a thousand, and multiplied, if he had pleased, every one of those into millions; for he can call things that are not, Rom. iv. 17; not some things, but all things possible. The barren womb of Nothing can no more resist his power now to educe a world from it, than it could at first: no doubt but for one angel which he hath made, he could make many worlds of an- gels. He that made one with so much ease, as by a word, can- not want power to make many more, till he wants a word. The word that was not too weak to make one, cannot be too weak to make multitudes. If from one man he has, in a way of nature, multiplied so many in all ages of the world, and covered with them the whole face of the earth; he could in a supernatural way, by one word multiply as many more. It is the breath of the Almighty that gives life, Job xxxiii. 4. He can create infinite species and kinds of creatures more than he has created, more variety of forms; for since there is no search- ing of his greatness, there is no conceiving the numberless pos- sible effects of his power. The understanding of man can con- ceive numberless things possible to be, more than have been or shall be. And shall we imagine, that a finite understanding of a creature hath a greater omnipotence to conceive things possi- ble, than God has to produce things possible? When the un- derstanding of man is tired in its conceptions, it must still be concluded, that the power of God extends, not only to what can be conceived, but infinitely beyond the measures of a finite faculty: "Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment," Job xxxvii. 23. For
24 ON THE POWER OF GOD.
the understanding of man, in its conceptions of more kinds of creatures, is limited to those creatures which are : it cannot, in its own imagination, conceive any thing but what has some foundation in and from something already in being. It may frame a new kind of creature, made up of a lion, a horse, an ox; but all those parts whereof its conception is made, have distinct beings in the world, though not in that composition as his mind mixes and joins them: but no question but God can create creatures that have no resemblance with any kind of creatures yet in being. It is certain, that if God only knows those things which he has done, and will do, and not all things possible to be done by him, his knowledge were finite; so if he could do no more than what he has done,' his power would be finite.
Creatures have a power to act about more objects than they do. The understanding of man can frame from one principle of truth many conclusions and inferences more than it does. Why cannot then the power of God frame from one first mat- ter, an infinite number of creatures more than have been created? The almightiness of God in producing real effects, is not inferior to the understanding of man in drawing out real truths. An artificer that makes a watch, supposing his life and health, can make many more of a different form and motion ; and a limner can draw many draughts, and frame many pic- tures with a new variety of colours, according to the richness of his fancy. If these can do so, that require a pre-existent matter framed to their hands, God can much more, who can raise beautiful structures from nothing. As long as men have matter, they can diversify the matter, and make new figures from it: so long as there is nothing, God can produce out of that nothing, whatsoever he pleases.
We see the same in inanimate creatures. A spark of fire has a vast power in it; it will kindle other things, increase and enlarge itself. Nothing can be exempt from the active force of it. It will alter by consuming or refining whatsoever you offer to it. It will reach all, and refuse none ; and by the efficacious power of it, all those new figures which we see in metals are brought forth. When you have exposed it to a multitude of things, still add more, it will exert the "same strength; yea, the vigour is increased rather than diminished. The more it catches the more fiercely and irresistibly it will act; you cannot sup- pose an end of its operation, or a decrease of its strength, as long as you can conceive its duration and continuance: this must be but a weak shadow of that infinite power which is in God. Take another instance in the sun; it has power every year to produce flowers and plants from the earth; and is as able to produce them now, as it was at the first lighting it, and
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 25
rearing it in the sphere wherein it moves. And if there were no kind of flowers and plants now created, the sun has a power residing in it, ever since its first creation, to afford the same warmth to them for the nourishing and bringing them forth. Whatsoever you can conceive the sun to be able to do in re- gard of plants, that can God do in regard of worlds; produce more worlds than the sun does plants every year, without wea- riness, without languish meat. The sun is able to influence more things than it does, and produce numberless effects; but it does not do so much as it is able to do, because it wants matter to work upon: God therefore who wants no matter, can do much more than he does; he can either act by second causes if there were more, or make more second causes if he pleased.
God is the most free agent. Every free agent can do more than he will do. Man being a free creature, can do more than ordinarily he does will to do. God is most free, as being the spring of liberty in other creatures. He acts not by a neces- sity of nature, as the waves of the sea, or the motions of the wind; and therefore is not determined to those things which he has already called forth into the world. If God be infinitely wise in contrivance, he could contrive more than he has, and therefore can effect more than he has effected. He does not act to the extent of his power upon all occasions. It is accord- ing to his will that he works, Eph. i. 11. It is not according to his work that he wills; his work is an evidence of his will, but not the rule of his will. His power is not the rule of his will, but his will is the disposer of his power, according to the light of his infinite wisdom, and other attributes that direct his will; and therefore his power is not to be measured by his ac- tual will. No doubt but he could in a moment have produced that world which he took six days' time to frame: he could have drowned the old world at once, without prolonging the time till the revolution of forty days; he was not limited to such a term of time by any weakness, but by the determination of his own will. God does not do the hundred thousandth part of what he is able to do, but what is convenient to do, according to the end which he has proposed to himself. Jesus Christ, as man, could have asked legions of angels: and God, as a Sove- reign, could have sent them, Matt. xxvi. 53. God could raise the dead every day if he pleased, but he does not; he could heal every diseased person in a moment, but he does not. As God can will more than he does actually will, so he can do more than he has actually done ; he can do whatsoever he can will; he can will more worlds, and therefore can create more worlds. If God has not ability to do more than he will do, he then can do no more than what he actually has done; and then
2(3 ON THE POWER OF GOD.
it will follow, that he is not a free, but a natural and necessary agent, which cannot he supposed of God.
[3.] This power is infinite in regard of action. As he can produce numberless objects above what he has produced, so he could produce them more magnificently than he has made them. As he never works to the extent of his power in regard of things, so neither in regard of the manner of acting; for he never acts so, but he could act in a higher and more perfect manner.
His power is infinite in regard of the independency of action; he wants no instrument to act. When there was nothing but God, there was no cause of action but God: when there was nothing in being but God, there could be no instrumental cause of the being of any thing. God can perfect his action without dependence on anything;1 and to be simply independent, is to be simply infinite. In this respect it is a power incommuni- cable to any creature, though you conceive a creature in higher degrees of perfection than it is. A creature cannot cease to be dependent, but it must cease to be a creature; to be a creature and independent, are terms repugnant to one another.
But the infiniteness of Divine power consists in an ability to give higher degrees of perfection to every thing which he has made. As his power is infinite extensive, in regard of the multi- tude of objects he can bring into being; so it is infinite intensive, in regard of the manner of operation, and the endowments he can bestow upon them.2 Some things indeed God does so per- fectly, that higher degrees of perfection cannot be imagined to be added to them.3 As the humanity of Christ cannot be united more gloriously than to the person of the Son of God; a greater degree of perfection cannot be conferred upon it. Nor can the souls of the blessed have a nobler object of vision and fruition than God himself, the infinite Being: no higher than the enjoyment of himself can be conferred upon a creature, re- spectu termini, "with respect to his end." This is not want of power: he cannot be greater because he is greatest, nor better because he is the best; nothing can be more than infi- nite. But as to the things which God has made in the world, he could have given them other manner of beings than they have. A human understanding may improve a thought or conclusion, strengthen it with more and more force of reason, ami adorn it with richer and richer elegancy of language ; why then may not the Divine Providence produce a world more perfect and excellent than this? He that makes a plain vessel can embellish it more, engrave more figures upon it, according to the capacity of the subject ; and cannot God do so much
' Suarez dc Deo. vol. 1. p. 151.
* Becan. Sum. Thcol. p. 82. 3 ibid. p. 84.
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 27
more with his works? Could not God have made this world of a larger quantity, and the sun of a greater bulk and propor- tionable strength to influence a bigger world? so that this world would have been to another that God might have made, as a ball or a mount, this sun as a star to another sun that he might have kindled. He could have made every star a sun, every spire of grass a star, every grain of dust a flower, every soul an angel. And though the angels be perfect creatures, and inexpressibly more glorious than a visible creature; yet who can imagine God so confined, that he cannot create a more excellent kind, and endow those which he has made with ex- cellency of a higher rank than he invested them with at the first moment of their creation ? Without question, God might have given the meaner creatures more excellent endowments, put them into another order of nature for their own good, and more diffusive usefulness in the world. What is made use of by the prophet, Mai. ii. 15, in another case, may be used in this, " Yet had he the residue of the Spirit." The capacity of every creature might have been enlarged by God; for no work of his in the world does equal his power, as nothing that he has framed does equal his wisdom. The same matter which is the matter of the body of a beast, is the matter of a plant and flower; is the matter of the body of a man; and so was capa- ble of a higher form and higher perfections, than God has been pleased to bestow upon it. And he had power to bestow that perfection on one part of matter which he denied to it, and be- stowed on another part. If God cannot make things in a greater perfection, there must be some limitation of him; he cannot be limited by another, because nothing is superior to God. If limited by himself, that limitation is not from a want of power, but a want of will. He can by his own power raise stones to be children to Abraham, Matt. iii. 9 : he could alter the nature of the stones, form them into human bodies, dignify them with rational souls, inspire those souls with such graces that may render them the children of Abraham. But for the more fully understanding the nature of this power, we may observe,
That though God can make everything with a higher degree of perfection, yet still within the limits of a finite being. No creature can be made infinite, because no creature can be made God. No creature can be so improved, as to equal the good- ness and perfection of God;1 yet there is no creature, but we may conceive a possibility of its being made more perfect in that rank of a creature than it is: as we may imagine a flower or plant to have greater beauty and richer qualities imparted to it by Divine power, without rearing it so high as to the
1 Gamach. in Aquin. torn. 1 qu. 25.
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dignity of a rational or sensitive creature. Whatsoever per- fections may be added by God to a creature, are still finite per- fections; and a multitude of finite excellencies can never amount to the value and honour of infinite: as, if you add one number to another as high as you can, as much as a large piece of paper can contain, you can never make the numbers really infinite, though they may be infinite in regard of the inability of any human understanding to count them. The finite con- dition of the creature suffers it not to be capable of an infinite perfection. God is so great, so excellent, that it is his perfec- tion not to have any equal; the defect is in the creature, which cannot be elevated to such a pitch; as you can never make a gallon measure hold the quantity of a butt, or a butt the quan- tity of a river, or a river the fulness of the sea.
Though God has a power to furnish every creature with greater and nobler perfections than he has bestowed upon it, yet he has framed all things in the most perfect manner, and most convenient to that end for which he intended them. Every thing is endowed with the best nature and quality suit- able to God's end in creation, though not in the best manner for itself. ' In regard of the universal end, there cannot be a better; for God himself is the end of all things, who is the Supreme Goodness. Nothing can be better than God, who could not be God if he were not superlatively best, or opti- mum; and he hath ordered all things for the declaration of his goodness or justice, according to the behaviour of his creatures. Man does not consider what strength or power he can put forth in the means he uses to attain such an end, but the suit- ableness of them to his main design, and so fits and marshals them to his grand purpose. Had God only created things that are most excellent, he had created only angels and men ; how then would his wisdom have been conspicuous in other works in the subordination and subserviency of them to one another? God therefore determined his power by his wisdom:2 and though his absolute power could have made every creature better, yet his ordinate power, which in every step was regu- lated by his wisdom, made every thing best for his designed intention. A musician has a power to wind up a string on a lute to a higher and more perfect note in itself, but in wisdom he will not do it, because the intended melody should be dis- turbed thereby, if it were not suited to the other strings on the instrument; a discord would mar and taint the harmony which the lutenist designed. God in creation observed the propor- tions of nature. He can make a spider as strong as a lion; but according to the order of nature he has settled, it is not con-
1 Best "ex parte facientis et modi," but not "ex parte rei." — Esti. in Senten. lib. 1. distin. 44. §2. 2 Aquin. part. 1. qu. 25. artic.
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venient that a creature of so small a compass, should be as strong as one of a greater bulk. The absolute power of God could have prepared a body for Christ as glorious as that he had after his resurrection: but that had not been agreeable to the end designed in his humiliation: and therefore God acted most perfectly by his ordinate power, in giving him a body that wore the livery of our infirmities. God's power is always regulated by his wisdom and will ; and though it produces not what is most perfect in itself, yet what is most perfect and de- cent in relation to the end he fixed. And so in his providence, though he could rack the whole frame of nature to bring about his ends in a more miraculous way and astonishment to mor- tals; yet his power is usually and ordinarily confined by his will to act in concurrence with the nature of the creatures, and direct them according to the laws of their being, to such ends which he aims at in their conduct, without doing violence to their nature.
Though God has an absolute power to make more worlds, and infinite numbers of other creatures, and to render every creature a higher mark of his power, yet in regard of his de- cree to the contrary, he cannot do it. He hath a physical power, but after his resolve to the contrary, not a moral power: the exercise of his power is subordinate to his decree, but not the essence of his power. 1 The decree of God takes not away any power from God, because the power of God is his own essence, and incapable of change; and is as great physically and essentially after his decree as it was before; only his will has put in a bar to the demonstration of all that power which he is able to exercise. As a prince that can raise a hundred thousand men for an invasion, raises only twenty or thirty thousand; he here, by his order limits his power, but does not divest himself of his authority and power to raise the whole number of the forces of his dominions if he pleases. The power of God has more objects than his decree has; but since it is his perfection to be immutable, and not to change his decree, he cannot morally put forth his power upon all those objects, which as it is essentially in him, he has ability to do.2 God has decreed to save those that believe in Christ, and to judge unbelievers to everlasting perdition: he cannot morally damn the former, or save the latter; yet he has not divested himself of his absolute power to save all, or damn all. Or suppose God has decreed not to create more worlds than this we are now in, does his decree weaken his strength to create more if he pleased: his not creating more is not a want of strength, but a want of will. It is an act of liberty, not an act of impotency. As when a man solemnly resolves not to walk in such a way,
1 Gamach. in Aquin. torn. 1. quest. 25. 2 Crell. de Deo, cap. 22.
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or come at such a place, his resolution deprives him not of his natural strength to walk thither; but fortifies his will against using his strength in any such motion to that place. The will of God has set bounds to the exercise of his power, but does not infringe that absolute power which still resides in his na- ture: he is girded with more power than he puts forth, Psal. lxv. 6.
[4.] As the power of God is infinite, in regard of his essence, in regard of the objects, in regard of action, so fourthly, in re- gard of duration. The apostle calls it an eternal power, Rom. i. 20. His eternal power is collected and concluded from the things that are made. They must needs be the product of some Being which contains truly in itself all power, who wrought them without engines, without instruments; and therefore this power must be infinite, and possessed of an unalterable virtue of acting. If it be eternal, it must be infinite, and has neither beginning nor end; what is eternal has no bounds. If it be eter- nal, and not limited by time, it must be infinite, and not to be restrained by any finite object. His power never begun to be, nor ever ceases to be, it cannot languish: men are fain to un- bend themselves, and must have some time to recruit their tired spirits; but the power of God is perpetually vigorous, without any interrupting qualm. " Hast thou not known ? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" Isa. xl. 28. That might which suffered no diminution from eternity, but hatched so great a world by brooding upon nothing, will not suffer any dimness or decrease to eternity. This power being the same with his essence, is as durable as his essence, and re- sides for ever in his nature.
(8.) The eighth consideration, for the right understanding of this attribute, is, the impossibility of God's doing some things is no infringing of his almightiness, but rather a strengthening of it. It is granted that some things God cannot do; or rather, as Aquinas and others, it is better to say, such things cannot be done, than to say that God cannot do them; to remove all kind of imputation or reflection of weakness on God, ' and because the reason of the impossibility of those things is in the nature of the things themselves.
[1.] First, some things are impossible in their own nature. Such are all those things which imply a contradiction; as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time; for the sun to shine and not to shine at the same moment of time; for a creature to act and not to act at the same instant. One of those parts must be false; for if it be true that the sun shines this moment, it must be false to say it does not shine. So it is impossible that
1 Robins. Observat. p. 11.
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a rational creature can be without reason: it is a contradiction to be a rational creature, and yet want that which is essen- tial to a rational creature. So it is impossible that the will of man can be compelled, because liberty is the essence of the will; while it is will it cannot be constrained; and if it be con- strained it ceases to be will. ' God cannot at one time act as the author of the will and the destroyer of the will. It is im- possible that vice and virtue, light and darkness, life and death should be the same thing. Those things admit not of a concep- tion in any understanding. Some things are impossible to be done, because of the incapability of the subject; as for a crea- ture to be made infinite, independent, to preserve itself without the Divine concourse and assistance. So a brute cannot be taken into communion with God, and to everlasting spiritual blessedness, because the nature of a brute is incapable of such an elevation: a rational creature only can understand and relish spiritual delights, and is capable to enjoy God and have com- munion with him. Indeed God may change the nature of a brute, and bestow such faculties of understanding and will upon it, as to render it capable of such a blessedness; but then it is no more a brute, but a rational creature; but while it remains a brute, the excellency of the nature of God does not admit of communion with such a subject. So that this is not for want of power in God, but because of a deficiency in the creature. To suppose that God could make a contradiction true, is to make himself false, and to do just nothing.
[2.] Some things are impossible to the nature and being of God. As to die, implies a flat repugnance to the nature of God: to be able to die, is to be able to be cashiered out of being. If God were able to deprive himself of life, he might then cease to be: he were not then a necessary, but an uncertain contin- gent being, and could not be said only to have immortality, as he is, 1 Tim. vi. 16. He cannot die who is life itself, and ne- cessarily existent: he cannot grow old or decay, because he can- not be measured by time. And this is no part of weakness, but the perfection of power. His power is that whereby he remains for ever fixed in his own everlasting being; that cannot be reck- oned as necessary to the omnipotence of God, which all man- kind count a part of weakness in themselves. God is omnipotent because he is not impotent; and if he could die, he would be im- potent, not omnipotent: death is the feebleness of nature. It is undoubtedly the greatest impotence to cease to be: who would count it a partof omnipotency to disenable himself, and sink into nothing and not being? The impossibility for God to die, is not a fit article to impeach his omnipotence: this would be a strange way of arguing, a thing is not powerful because it is not feeble,
1 Magalano de Scientia Dei, part. 2. c. 6. § 3.
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and cannot cease to be powerful ; for death is a cessation of all power. God is almighty in doing what he will, not in suffering what he will not. ' To die is not an active, but a passive pow- er; a defect of a power: God is of too noble a nature to perish.
Some things are impossible to that eminency of nature which he has above all creatures; as to walk, sleep, feed, these are imperfections belonging to bodies and compounded natures. If he could walk, he were not every where present: motion speaks succession. If he could increase, he would not have been perfect before.
[3.] Some things are impossible to the glorious perfections of God. God cannot do any thing unbecoming his holiness and goodness: any thing unworthy of himself, and against the perfections of his nature. God can do whatsoever he can will. As he does actually do whatsoever he does actually will; so it is possible for him to do whatsoever it is possible for him to will. He does whatsoever he will, and can do whatsoever he can will; but he cannot do what he cannot will. He cannot will any unrighteous thing, and therefore cannot do any un- righteous thing. God cannot love sin, this is contrary to his holiness; he cannot violate his word, this is a denial of his truth; he cannot punish an innocent, this is contrary to his goodness; he cannot cherish an impenitent sinner, this is an injury to his justice; he cannot forget what is done in the world this is a disgrace to his omniscience; he cannot deceive his creature, this is contrary to his faithfulness. None of these things can be done by him, because of the perfection of his nature. Would it not be an imperfection in God to absolve the guilty and condemn the innocent? Is it congruous to the righteous and holy nature of God to command murder and adultery; to command men not to worship him, but to be base and unthankful? These things would be against the rules of righteousness. As when we say of a good man, he cannot rob or fight a duel; we do not mean that he wants a courage for such an act, or that he has not a natural strength and know- ledge to manage his weapon as well as another; but he has a righteous principle strong in him which will not suffer him to do it; his will is settled against it: no power can pass into act unless applied by the will. But the will of God cannot will any thing but what is worthy of him, and decent for his goodness. The Scripture says, it is impossible for God to lie, Heb. vi. 18; and God cannot deny himself because of his faithfulness, 2 Tim. ii. 13. As he cannot die, because he is life itself; as he cannot deceive, because he is goodness itself; as he cannot do an unwise action, because he is wisdom itself; so he cannot speak a false word, because he is truth itself. If he should
1 August
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speak any thing as true, and not know it, where is his infinite knowledge and comprehensiveness of understanding? If he should speak any thing as true, which he knows to be false, where is his infinite righteousness? If he should deceive any creature, there is an end of his perfection and fidelity and veracity. If he should be deceived himself, there is an end of his omniscience; we must then fancy him to be a deceitful God, an ignorant God, that is, no God at all. If he should lie, he would be God and no God; God upon supposition, and no God, because not the first truth.1 All unrighteousness is weak- ness, not power; it is a defection from right reason, a deviation from moral principles and the rule of perfect action, and arises from a defect of goodness and power: it is a weakness, and not omnipotence, to lose goodness.2 God is light; it is the perfection of light not to become darkness, and a want of power in light if it should become darkness. His power is infinitely strong, so is his wisdom infinitely clear, and his will infinitely pure. Would it not be a part of weakness to have a disorder in himself, and these perfections shock one against another? Since all perfections are in God in the most sovereign height of perfection, nothing can be done by the infiniteness of one against the infiniteness of the other. He would then be unsta- ble in his own perfections, and depart from the infinite recti- tude of his own will, if he should do an evil action. Again, what is an argument of greater strength, than to be utterly ignorant of infirmity?3 God is omnipotent because he cannot do evil, and would not be omnipotent if he could; those things would be marks of weakness, and not characters of majesty. Would you count a sweet fountain impotent, because it cannot send forth bitter streams? or the sun weak, because it cannot diffuse darkness as well as light in the air? There is an inabil- ity arising from weakness, and an inability arising from per- fection. It is the perfection of angels and blessed spirits, that they cannot sin; and it would be the imperfection of God, if he could do evil.
Hence it follows, that it is impossible that a thing past should not be past. If we ascribe a power to God, to make a thing that is past not to be past, we do not truly ascribe power to him, but a weakness. For it is to make God to lie. As though God might not have created man, yet after he had created Adam, though he should presently have reduced Adam to his first nothing, yet it would be for ever true that Adam was cre- ated, and it would for ever be false that Adam never was cre- ated : so though God may prevent sin, yet when sin has been committed, it will always be true that sin was committed: it will never be true to say such a creature that did sin, did not
1 Becan. Sum. Theolog. p. 83. J Maximus Tyrius. 3 Ambrose.
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sin ; his sin cannot be recalled. Though God by pardon take off the guilt of Peter's denying our Saviour, yet it will be eter- nally true that Peter did deny him. It is repugnant to the righteousness and the truth of God, to make that which was once true to become false, and not true ; that is, to make a truth to become a lie, and a lie to become a truth.
This is well argued from Heb. vi. 18. It is impossible for God to lie. The apostle argues, that what God had promised and sworn, will come to pass, and cannot but come to pass.1 Now if God could make a thing past not to be past, this conse- quence would not be good, for then he might make himself not to have promised, not to have sworn, after he has promised and sworn : and so if there were a power to undo that which is past, there would be no foundation for faith, no certainty of revelation. It cannot be asserted, that God has created the world, that God has sent his Son to die, that God has accepted his death for man : these might not be true, if it were possible that that which has been done might be said never to have been done : so that what any may imagine to be a want of power in God, is the highest perfection of God; and the greatest security to a believing creature that has to do with God.
Again, some things are impossible to be done, because of God's ordination. Some things are impossible, not in their own nature, but in regard of the determined will of God. So God might have destroyed the world after Adam's fall, but it was impossible; not that God wanted power to do it, but because he did not only decree from eternity to create the world, but did also decree to redeem the world by Jesus Christ, and erected the world in order to the manifestation of his glory in Christ, Eph. i. 4, 5. The choice of some in Christ was before the foundation of the world : supposing that there was no hinder- ance in the justice of God to pardon the sin of Adam after his fall, and to execute no punishment on him; yet in regard of God's threatening, that in the day he ate of the forbidden fruit he should die, it was impossible. So though it was possible that the cup should pass from our blessed Saviour, that is, pos- sible in its own nature; yet it was not possible in regard of the determination of God's will, since he had both decreed and published his will to redeem man by the passion and blood of his Son. These things God by his absolute power might have done, but upon the account of his decree they were impossible, because it is repugnant to the nature of God to be mutable. It is to deny his own wisdom which contrived them, and his own will which resolved them, not to do that which he had decreed to do. This would be a diffidence in his wisdom, and a change of his will. The impossibility of them is no result of a want of
i Becan. Sum Theol. p. 84. Orel, dfl Deo, cap. 22.
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power, no mark of an imperfection, of feebleness and impo- tence; but the perfection of immutability and unchangeableness.
Thus have I endeavoured to give you a right notion of this excellent attribute of the power of God, in as plain terms as I could; which may serve us for a matter of meditation, admiration, fear of him, trust in him, which are the proper uses we should make of this doctrine of Divine power. The want of a right understanding of this doctrine of the Divine power has caused many to run into mighty absurdities; I have there- fore taken the more pains to explain it.
2. The second thing I proposed, is — the. reasons to prove God to be omnipotent. The Scripture describes God by this attribute of power, " He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased/' Psal. cxv. 3. It sometimes sets forth his power in a way of derision of those that seem to doubt of it. When Sarah doubted of his ability to give her a child in her old age, "Is any thing too hard for the Lord?" Gen. xviii. 14. They de- serve to be scoffed at, that will despoil God of his strength, and measure him by their shallow models. And when Moses ut- tered something of unbelief of this attribute, as if God were not able to feed 600,000 Israelites besides women and children, which he aggravates by a kind of imperious scoff; "Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them?" Numb, xi. 22. God takes him up short, ver. 23. "Is the Lord's hand waxed short?" What, can any weakness seize upon my hand? Can I not draw out of my own treasures what is needful for a supply? The hand of God is not at one time strong, and ano- ther time feeble. Hence it is that we read of the hand and arm of God, an out-stretched arm; because the strength of a man is exerted by his hand and arm; the power of God is called the arm of his power, and the right hand of his strength. Some- times, according to the different manifestations of it, it is ex- pressed by finger, when a less power is evidenced; by hand, when something greater; by arm, when more mighty than the former. Since God is eternal, without limits of time, he is also almighty, without limits of strength. As he cannot be said to be more in being now than he was before, so he is neither more nor less in strength than he was before; as he cannot cease to be, so he cannot cease to be powerful, because he is eternal. His eternity and power are linked together as equally demonstrable, Rom. i. 20: God is called the God of gods, El elohim, Dan. xi. 36, the mighty of mighties, whence all mighty persons have their activity and vigour; he is called the Lord of hosts, as being the Creator and Conductor of the heavenly militia.
Reason (1.) The power that is in creatures demonstrates a
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greater and an inconceivable power in God. Nothing in the world is without a power of activity according to its nature; no creature but can act something. The sun warms and en- lightens everything; it sends its influences upon the earth, into the bowels of the earth, into the depths of the sea; all genera- tions owe themselves to its instrumental virtue. How power- ful is a small seed to rise into a mighty tree, with a lofty top, and extensive branches, and send forth other seeds, which can still multiply into numberless plants. How wonderful is the power of the Creator, who has endowed so small a creature as a seed with so fruitful an activity! Yet this is but the virtue of a limited nature: God is both the producing and preserving cause of all the virtue in any creature, in every creature. The power of every creature belongs to him as the Fountain, and is truly his power in the creature. As he is the first being, he is the original of all being; as he is the first good, he is the spring of all goodness; as he is the first truth, he is the source of all truth; so, as he is the first power, he is the fountain of all power.
[1.] He therefore that communicates to the creature what power it has, contains eminently much more power in himself. " He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?" Psal. xciv. 10. So he that gives created beings power, shall not he be powerful? The first Being must have as much power as he' has given to others: he could not transfer that upon another, which he did not transcendently possess himself. The sole Cause of created power cannot be destitute of any power in himself. We see that the power of one creature transcends the power of another. Beasts can do the things that plants cannot do; besides the power of growth, they have a power of sense and progressive motion. Men can do more than beasts; they have rational souls to measure the earth and heavens, and to be repositories of multitudes of things, notions, and conclu- sions. We may well imagine angels to be far superior to man: the power of the Creator must far surmount the power of the creature, and must needs be infinite; for if it be limited, it is limited by himself or by some other: if by some other, he is no longer a Creator, but a creature; for that which limits him in his nature, did communicate that nature to him: not by him- self, for he would not deny himself any necessary perfection. We must still conclude a reserve of power in him, that he that made these can make many more of the same kind.
[2.] All the power which is distinct in the creatures must be united in God. One creature has a strength to do this, another to do that; every creature is as a cistern filled with a particular and limited power, according to the capacity of its nature, from this Fountain; all are distinct streams from God. But the
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strength of every creature, though distinct in the rank of crea- tures, is united in God, the centre whence those lines were drawn, the fountain whence those streams were derived. If the power of one creature be admirable, as the power of an angel, which, the psalmist says, excels in strength, Psal. ciii. 20; how much greater must the power of a legion of angels be! How inconceivably superior the power of all those num- bers of spiritual natures, which are the excellent works of God! Now if all this particular power which is in every angel dis- tinct, were compacted in one angel, how would it exceed our understanding, and be above our power to form a distinct con- ception of it! What is thus divided in every angel, must be thought united in the Creator of angels, and far more excellent in him. Every thing is in a more noble manner in the foun- tain, than in the streams which distil and descend from it. He that is the original of all those distinct powers, must be the seat of all power without distinction. In him is the union of all without division; what is in them as a quality, is in him as his essence. Again, if all the powers of several creatures, with all their principal qualities and vigours, both of beasts, plants, and rational creatures, were united in one subject; as if one lion had the strength of all the lions that ever were; or if one elephant had the strength of all the elephants that ever were; nay, if one bee had all the power of motion and stinging that all bees ever had, it would have a vast strength; but if the strength of all those thus gathered into one of every kind should be lodged into one sole creature, one man, would it not be a strength too big for our conception? Or suppose one cannon had all the force of all the cannons that ever were in the world, what a battery would it make, and, as it were, shake the whole frame of heaven and earth! All this strength must be much more incomprehensible in God; all is united in him. If it were in one individual created nature, it would still be but a finite power in a finite nature: but in God it is infinite and immense.
Reason (2.) If there were not an incomprehensible power in God, he would not be infinitely perfect. God is the first Being; it can only be said of him, " Est," he is. All other things are nothing to him, less than nothing, and vanity, Isa. xl. 17, and reputed as nothing, Dan. iv. 35. All the inhabitants of the earth, with all their wit and strength, are counted as if they were not; just, in comparison with him and his being, as a little mote in the sun-beams. God therefore is a pure Being. Any kind of weakness whatsoever is a defect, a degree of not being; so far as any thing wants this or that power, it may be said not to be. Were there any thing of weakness in God, any want of strength which belonged to the perfection of a nature, Vol. II.— 6
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it might be said of God, He is not this or that, he wants this or that perfection of being, and so he would not be a pure Being, there would be something of not being in him. But God being the first Being, the only original Being, he is infinitely distant from not being, and therefore infinitely distant from any thing of weakness.
Again, if God can know whatsoever is possible to be done by him and cannot do it, there would be something more in his knowledge than in his power.1 What would then follow? That the essence of God would be in some regard greater than itself, and less than itself, because his knowledge and his power are his essence; his power as much his essence, as his know- ledge. And therefore in regard of his knowledge his essence would be greater, in regard of his power his essence would be less, which is a thing impossible to be conceived in a most perfect Being. We must understand this of those things, which are properly and in their own nature subjected to the Divine knowledge; for otherwise God knows more than he can do; for he knows sin, but he cannot act it, because sin belongs not to power, but weakness; and sin comes under the knowledge of God, not in itself and its own nature, but as it is a defect from God, and contrary to good, which is the proper object of Divine knowledge. He knows it also not as possible to be done by himself, but as possible to be done by the crea- ture. Again, if God were not omnipotent, we might imagine something more perfect than God:2 for if we bar God from any one thing which in its own nature is possible, we may im- agine a being that can do that thing, one that is able to effect it; and so imagine an agent greater than God, a being able to do more than God is able to do, and consequently a being more perfect than God: but no being more perfect than God can be imagined by any creature. Nothing can be called most perfect if any thing of activity be wanting to it. Active power follows the perfection of a thing, and all things are counted more noble, by how much more of efficacy and virtue they possess. We count those the best and most perfect plants, that have the greatest medicinal virtue in them, and power of working upon the body for the cure of distempers. God is perfect of himself, and therefore most powerful of himself. If his perfection in wisdom and goodness be unsearchable, his power, which be- longs to perfection, and without which all the other excellencies of his nature were insignificant, and could not show themselves, (as was before evidenced,) must be unsearchable also. It is by the title of Almighty he is denominated, when declared to be unsearchable to perfection. " Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" Job
i Victorin. in Petar. torn. 1. p. 333. 2 Ibid. p. 233.
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xi. 7. This would be limited and searched out, if he were des- titute of an active ability to do whatsoever he pleased to do, whatsoever was possible to be done. As he has not a perfect liberty of will, if he could not will what he pleased, so he would not have a perfect activity, if he could not do what he willed.
Reason (3.) The simplicity of God manifests it. Every sub- stance, the more spiritual it is, the more powerful it is. All perfections are more united in a simple than in a compounded being. Angels being spirits, are more powerful than bodies. Where there is the greatest simplicity there is the greatest unity; and where there is the greatest unity there is the greatest power. Where there is a composition of a faculty and a member, the member or organ may be weakened, and ren- dered unable to act, though the power does still reside in the faculty. As a man, when his arm or hand is cut off or broken, he has the faculty of motion still; but he has lost that instru- ment, that part whereby he did manifest and put forth that motion: but God being a pure spiritual nature, has no mem- bers, no organs to be defaced or impaired. All impediments of action arise either from the nature of the thing that acts, or from something without it. There can be no hinderance to God to do whatsoever he pleases; not in himself, because he is the most simple Being, has no contrariety in himself, is not composed of divers things; and it cannot be from any thing without himself, because nothing is equal to him, much less superior. He is the greatest, the Supreme: all things were made by him, depend upon him, nothing can disappoint his intentions.
Reason (4.) The miracles that have been in the world evi- dence the power of God. Extraordinary productions have awakened men from their stupidity, to the acknowledgment of the immensity of Divine power. Miracles are such effects as have been wrought without the assistance and co-operation of natural causes, yea, contrary, and besides the ordinary course of nature, above the reach of any created power. Miracles have been; and, says Bradwardine,1 to deny that ever such things were, is uncivil: it is inhuman to deny all the histories of Jews and Christians. Whosoever denies miracles must deny all possibility of miracles, and so must imagine himself fully skilled in the extent of Divine power. How was the sun sus- pended from its motion for some hours, Josh x. 13; the dead raised from the grave ; those reduced from the brink of it, that had been brought near to it by prevailing diseases; and this by a word speaking! How were the famished lions bridled from exercising their rage upon Daniel, exposed to them for a prey! Dan. vi. 22; the activity of the fire curbed for the
' Lib. Leap. 1. p. 38.
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preservation of the three children! Dan. iii. 25. Which proves a Deity more powerful than all creatures. No power upon earth can hinder the operation of the fire upon combustible matter, when they are united, unless by quenching the fire or removing the matter : but no created power can restrain the fire, so long as it remains so, from acting according to its na- ture. This was done by God in the case of the three children, and that of the burning bush, Exod. iii. 2. It was as much miraculous that the bush should not be consumed, as it was natural that it should burn by the efficacy of the fire upon it. No element is so obstinate and deaf, but it hears and obeys his voice, and performs his orders, though contrary to its own na- ture: all the violence of the creature is suspended as soon as it receives his command. He that gave the original to nature, can take away the necessity of nature: he presides over crea- tures, but is not confined to those laws he has prescribed to creatures.1 He framed nature, and can turn the channels of nature according to his own pleasure. Men dig into the bowels of nature, search into all the treasures of it, to find medicines to cure a disease, and after all their attempts it may prove labour in vain: but God, by one act of his will, one word of his mouth, overturns the victory of death, and rescues from the most desperate diseases. All the miracles which were wrought by the apostles, either speaking some words, or touching with the hand, were not effected by any virtue inherent in their words, or in their touches.2 For such virtue inherent in any created finite subject would be created and finite itself, and consequently were incapable to produce effects, which re- quired an infinite virtue, as miracles do, which are above the power of nature. So when our Saviour wrought miracles, it was not by any quality resident in his human nature, but by the sole power of his Divinity. The flesh could only do what was proper to the flesh; but the Deity did what was proper to the Deity. God alone does wonders, Psal. cxxxvi. 4; exclud- ing every other cause from producing such things. He only does those things which are above the power of nature, and cannot be wrought by any natural causes whatsoever. He does not hereby put his omnipotence to any stress: it is as easy with him to turn nature out of its settled course, as it was to place it in that station it holds, and appoint it that course it runs. All the works of nature are indeed miracles and testi- monies of the power of God producing them, and sustaining them; but works above the power of nature, being novelties and unusual, strike men with a greater admiration upon their appearance, because they are not the products of nature, but the convulsions of it.
1 Damianus in Petar. 2 Faucli. in Acts, vol. 2. § 56.
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I might also add as an argument, the power of the mind of man to conceive more than has been wrought by God in the world. And God can work whatsoever perfection the mind of man can conceive; otherwise the reaches of a created imagi- nation and fancy would be more extensive than the power of God. His power, therefore, is far greater than the conception of any intellectual creature; else the creature would be of a greater capacity to conceive than God is to effect. The crea- ture would have a power of conception above God's power of activity; and consequently, a creature in some respect greater than himself. Now whatsoever a creature can conceive possi- ble to be done, is but finite in its own nature ; and if God could not produce what being a created understanding can conceive possible to be done, he would be less than infinite in power, nay, he could not go to the extent of what is finite. But [ have touched this before; that God can create more than he has created, and in a more perfect way of being, as considered sim- ply in themselves.
3. The third general thing, is to declare, how the power of God appears in creation, in government, in redemption.
(1.) In creation, with what majestic lines does God set forth his power, in the giving being and endowments to all the crea- tures in the world! Job xxxviii. All that is in heaven and earth is his, and shows the greatness of his power, glory, victory and majesty, 1 Chron. xxix. 11. The heaven being so magnificent a piece of work, is called, emphatically, " the firmament of his power," Psal. cl. 1; his power being more conspicuous and unveiled in that glorious arch of the world. Indeed, " God exalteth by his power," Job xxxvi. 22; that is, exalts himself by his power in all the works of his hands; in the smallest shrub, as well as the most glorious sun. All his works of nature are truly miracles, though we consider them not, being blinded with too frequent and customary a sight of them; yet in the neglect of all the rest, the view of the heavens more af- fects us with astonishment at the might of God's arm. These declare his glory, and " the firmament showeth his handy work," Psal. xix. 1. And the Psalmist peculiarly calls them his heavens, and the work of his fingers, Psal. viii. 3: these were immediately created by God, whereas many other things in the world were brought into being by the power of God, yet by the means of the influence of the heavens.
His power is the first thing evident in the story of creation. " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," Gen. i. 1. There is no appearance of any thing in this decla- ratory preface, but of power: the characters of wisdom march after, in the distinct formation of things, and animating them with suitable qualities for a universal good. By heaven and
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earth, is meant the whole mass of the creatures; by heaven, all the airy region, with all the host of it; by the earth is meant, all that which makes the entire inferior globe. The Jews ob- serve, that in the first of Genesis, in the whole chapter unto the finishing the work in six days, God is called otiSn, which is a name of power, and that thirty-two times in that chapter; but after the finishing the six days' work, he is called by a name which, according to their notion, is a name of goodness and kindness.1 His power is first visible in framing the world, be- fore his goodness is visible in the sustaining and preserving it. It was by this name of power and Almighty that he was known in the first ages of the world, not by his name Jehovah: "And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them," Exod. vi. 3. Not but that they were ac- quainted with the name, but did not experience the intent of the name, which signified his truth in the performance of his promises: they knew him by that name, as promising, but they knew him not by that name, as performing. He would be known by his name Jehovah, true to his word, when he was about to effect the deliverance from Egypt; a type of the eter- nal redemption, wherein the truth of God, in performing of his first promise, is gloriously magnified. And hence it is that God is called Almighty more in the book of Job, than in all the Scripture besides, I think about thirty-two times, and Jehovah but once, which is Job xii. 9, unless in Job xxxviii., when God is introduced speaking himself; which is an argument of Job's living before the deliverance from Egypt; when God was known more by his works of creation than by the performance of his promises, before the name Jehovah was formally pub- lished. Indeed, this attribute of his eternal power, is the first thing visible and intelligible upon the first glance of the eye upon the creatures, Rom. i. 20. Bring a man out of the cave where he has been nursed, without seeing any thing out of the confines of it, and let him lift up his eyes to the heavens, and take a prospect of that glorious body the sun, then cast them down to the earth, and behold the surface of it with its green clothing; the first notion which will start up in his mind from that spring of wonders is that of power, which he will at first adore with a religious astonishment. The wisdom of God in them is not so presently apparent, till after a more exquisite consideration of his works, and knowledge of the properties of their natures, the conveniency of their situations, and the useful- ness of their functions, and the order wherein they are linked together for the good of the universe.
By this creative power God is often distinguished from all
' Mercer, p. 7, col. 1, 2.
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the idols and false gods in the world. And by this title he sets forth himself when he would act any great and wonderful work in the world. He is great above all gods, for he has done whatsoever he pleased In heaven and in earth, Psal. cxxxv. 5, 6. Upon this is founded all the worship he challenges in the world, as his peculiar glory. " Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things," Rev. iv. 11; and x. 6. " I have made the earth, and created man upon it : I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded," Isa. xlv. 12. What is the issue ? " They shall be ashamed, and also con- founded, all of them — that are makers of idols," ver. 16. And the weakness of idols is expressed by this title, " The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth," Jer. x. 11. "The portion of Jacob is not like them: for he is the former of all things," ver. 16.
What is not that God able to do, that has created so great a world? How does the power of God appear in creation!
[1.] In making the world of nothing. When we say, the world was made of nothing, we mean, that there was no mat- ter existent for God to work upon, but what he raised himself in the first act of creation. In this regard, the power of God in creation surmounts his power in providence. Creation sup- poses nothing; providence supposes something in being. Crea- tion intimates a creature making; providence speaks a thing already made, and capable of government, and in government. God uses second causes to bring about his purposes.
The world was made of nothing. The earth which is des- cribed as the first matter, without any form or ornament, with- out any distinction or figures, was of God's forming in the bulk, before he did adorn it with his pencil, Gen. i. 1, 2. God in the beginning creating the heaven and the earth, includes two things:1 First, that those were created in the beginning of time, and before all other things. Secondly, that God began the creation of the world from those things. Therefore before the heavens and the earth there was nothing absolutely created, and therefore no matter in being before an act of creation pass- ed upon it. It could not be eternal, because nothing can be eternal but God; it must therefore have a beginning. If it had a beginning from itself, then it was before it was. If it acted in the making itself before it was made, then it had a being before it hrd a being; for that which is nothing can act no- thing; the action of any thing supposes the existence of the thing which acts. It being made, it was not before it was made; for to be made is to be brought into being. It was made then by another, and that Maker is God. It is necessary that 1 Suarez. vol. iii* p. 33.
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the first original of things was from nothing: when we see one thing to arise from another, we must suppose an original of the first of each kind: as when we see a tree spring up from a seed, we know that seed came out of the bowels of another tree; it had a parent, and it had a matter; we must come to some first, or else we run into an endless maze: we must come to some first tree, some first seed that had no cause of the same kind, no matter of it, but was mere nothing. Creation does suppose a production from nothing; because if you suppose a thing without any real or actual existence, it is not capable of any other production than from nothing. • Nothing must be supposed before the world, or we must suppose it eternal, and that is to deny it to be a creature, and make it God. The crea- tion of spiritual substances, such as angels and souls, evinces this: those things that are purely spiritual, and consist not of matter, cannot pretend to any original from matter, and there- fore they rose up from nothing. If spiritual things arose from nothing, much more may corporeal, because they are of a lower nature than spiritual. And he that can create a higher nature of nothing, can create an inferior nature of nothing. As bodily things are more imperfect than spiritual, so their crea- tion may be supposed easier than that of spiritual. There was as little need of any matter to be wrought to his hands, to con- trive into this visible fabric, as there was to erect such an ex- cellent order as the glorious cherubim.
This creation of things from nothing, speaks an infinite power. The distance between nothing and being, has been always counted so great, that nothing but an infinite power can make such distances meet together; either for nothing to pass into being, or being to return to nothing. To have a thing arise from nothing, was so difficult a text to those that were ignorant of the Scripture, that they knew not how to fathom it; and therefore laid it down as a certain rule, that of nothing, nothing is made: which is true of a created power, but not of an uncreated and almighty power. A greater distance cannot be imagined than that which is between nothing and some- thing, that which has no being and that which has. And a greater power cannot be imagined, than that which brings something out of nothing. 2 We know not how to conceive a nothing, and afterwards a being from that nothing : but we must remain swallowed up in admiration of the cause that gives it being, and acknowledge it to be without any bounds and measures of greatness and power. The further any thing is from being, the more immense must that power be which brings it into being: it is not conceivable that the power of all the angels in one, can give being to the smallest spire of grass.
1 Suarez, vol. iii. p. 6. * Amyral. Morale, torn. 1. p. 252.
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To imagine therefore so small a thing as a bee, a fly, a grain of corn, or an atom of dust? to be made of nothing, would stu- pify any creature in the consideration of it; much more to be- hold the heavens with all the troop of stars, the earth with all its embroidery, and the sea with all her inhabitants of fish, and man, the noblest creature of all, to arise out of the womb of mere emptiness. Indeed God had not acted as an almighty Creator if he had stood in need of any materials, but of his own framing. It had been as much as his Deity was worth, if he had not had all within the compass of his own power, that was necessary to operation; if he must have been beholden to something without himself, and above himself, for matter to work upon. Had there been such a necessity, we could not have imagined him to be omnipotent, and consequentlv not God.
In this the power of God exceeds the power of all natural and rational agents. Nature, or the order of second causes, has a vast power. The sun generates flies and other insects, but of some matter, the slime of the earth or a dunghill: the sun and the earth bring forth harvests of corn, but from seed first sown in the earth: fruits are brought forth, but from the sap of the plant. Were there no seed or plants in the earth, the power of the earth would be idle, and the influence of the sun insignificant; whatsoever strength either of them had in their nature, must be useless without matter to work upon. All the united strength of nature cannot produce the least thing out of nothing; it may multiply and increase things, by the power- ful blessing God gave it at the first erecting of the world, but it cannot create. The word which signifies creation, used in Gen. i. 1, is not ascribed to any second cause, but only to God; a word in that sense as incommunicable to any thing else, as the action it signifies.
Rational creatures can produce admirable pieces of art from small things, yet still out of matter created to their hands. Ex- cellent garments may be woven, but from the entrails of a small silk-worm. Delightful and medicinal spirits and essences may be extracted by ingenious chemists, but out of the bodies of plants and minerals. No picture can be drawn without colours; no statue engraven without stone; no building erected without timber, stones, and other materials. Nor can any man raise a thought, without some matter framed to his hands, or cast into him. Matter is by nature formed to the hands of all artificers; they bestow a new figure upon it, by the help of in- struments, and the product of their own wit and skill; but they create not the least particle of matter: when they want it, they must be supplied, or else stand still, as well as nature; for none of them, nor all together, can make the least mite or atom. Vol. II.— 7
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And when they have wrought all that they can, they will not want some to find a flaw and defect in their work. God as a Creator has the only prerogative, to draw what he pleases from nothing, without any defect, without any imperfection: he can raise what matter he pleases; ennoble it with what form he pleases. Of nothing, nothing can be made by any created agent. But the omnipotent Architect of the world is not under the same necessity, nor is limited to the same rule, and tied by so short a tether as created nature, or an ingenious, yet feeble artificer.
[2.] It appears, in raising such variety of creatures from this barren womb of nothing, or from the matter which he first commanded to appear out of nothing. Had there been any pre-existent matter, yet the bringing forth such varieties and diversities of excellent creatures; some with life, some with sense, and others with reason superadded to the rest; and those out of indisposed and undigested matter, would argue an infi- nite power resident in the first Author of this variegated fabric. From this matter he formed that glorious sun, which every day displays its glory, scatters its beams, clears the air, ripens our fruits, and maintains the propagation of creatures in the world. From this matter he lighted those torches which he set in the heaven to qualify the darkness of the night: from this he com- pacted those bodies of light, which though they seem to us as little sparks, as if they were the glow-worms of heaven, yet some of them exceed in greatness this globe of the earth on which we live. And the highest of them has so quick a mo- tion, that some tell us tfiey run in the space of every hour forty- two millions of leagues: From the same matter he drew the earth, on which we walk; from thence he extracted the flowers to adorn it, the hills to secure the valleys, and the rocks to for- tify it against the inundations of the sea. And on this dull and sluggish element, he bestowed so great a fruitfulness, to main- tain, feed, and multiply so many seeds of different kinds, and conferred upon those little bodies of seeds a power to multiply their kinds in conjunction with the fruitfulness of the earth to many thousands. From this rude matter, the slime, or dust of the earth, he kneaded the body of man, and wrought so curi- ous a fabric, fit to entertain a soul of a heavenly extraction, formed by the breath of God, Gen. ii. 7. He brought light out of thick darkness, and living creatures, fish and fowl, out of inanimate waters, Gen. i. 20; and gave a power of spontaneous motion to things arising from that matter which had no living motion. To convert one thing into another, is an evidence of infinite power, as well as creating things of nothing; for the distance between life and not life, is next to that which is be- tween being and not being. God first forms matter out of no-
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thing, and then draws upon and from this indisposed chaos many excellent portraitures. Neither earth nor sea were capa- ble of producing living creatures, without an infinite power working upon it, and bringing into it such variety and multi- tude of forms: and this is called by some mediate creation; as the producing the chaos, which was without form and void, is called immediate creation. Is not the power of the potter ad- mirable, in forming out of tempered clay such varieties of neat and curious vessels, that after they are fashioned, and passed the furnace, look as if they were not of any kin to the matter they are formed of? And is it not the same with the glass- maker, that from a little melted jelly of sand and ashes, or the dust of flint, can blow up so pure a body as glass, and in such varieties of shapes? And is not the power of God more admi- rable, because infinite, in speaking so beautiful a world out of nothing; and such varieties of living creatures from matter utterly indisposed in its own nature for such forms?
[3.] And this conducts to a third thing, wherein the power of God appears, in that he did all this with the greatest ease and facility.
Without instruments. As God made the world without the advice, so without the assistance of any other. He stretched forth the heavens alone, and spread abroad the earth by him- self, Isa. xliv. 24. He had no engine, but his word; no pattern or model, but himself. What need can he have of instruments, that is able to create what instruments he pleases? Where there is no resistance in the object, where no need of pre- paration or instrumental advantage in the agent, there the actual determination of the will is sufficient to a production. What instrument need we to the thinking of a thought, or an act of our will? Men, indeed, cannot act any thing with- out tools; the best artificer must be beholden to something else for his noblest works of art. The carpenter cannot work without his rule, and axe, and saw, and other in- struments. The watchmaker cannot act without his file and pliers. But in creation, there is nothing necessary to God's bringing forth a world, but a simple act of his will, which is both the principal cause, and instrumental. He had no scaf- folds to rear it, no engines to polish it, no hammers or mattocks to clod and work it together. It is a miserable error to mea- sure the actions of an infinite cause by the imperfect model of a finite, since by his own power and outstretched arm, he made the heaven and the earth, Jer. xxxii. 17. What excellency would God have in his work above others, if he needed instru- ments, as feeble men do ? ' Every artificer is counted more ad- mirable, that can frame curious works with the less matter,
1 Gassend.
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fewer tools, and assistances: God uses instruments in his works of providence, not for necessity, but for the display of his wis- dom in the management of them; yet those instruments were originally framed by him without instruments. Indeed some of the Jews thought the angels were the instruments of God in creating man, and that those words, " Let us make man in our image," Gen. i. 26, were spoken to angels. But certainly the Scripture, which denies God any counsellor in the model of creation, Isa. xl. 12 — 14, does not join any instrument with him in the operation, which is every where ascribed to himself with- out created assistance, Isa. xlv. 18. It was not to angels God spake in that affair; if so, man was made after the image of angels, if they were companions with God in that work. But it is every where said, that man was made after the image of God, Gen. i. 27. Again, the image wherein man was created, was that of dominion over the lower creatures, as appears ver. 26; which we find not conferred upon angels; and it is not likely that Moses should introduce the angels, as God's privy council, of whose creation he had not mentioned one syllable. Let us make man, rather signifies the Trinity, and not spoken in a royal style, as some think. Which of the Jewish kings wrote in the style, " We ?" That was the custom of later times ; and we must not measure the language of Scripture by the style of Europe, of a far later date than the penning the history of the creation. If angels were his counsellors in the creation of the material world, what instrument had he in the creation of angels? If his own Avisdom were the director, and his own will the producer of the one, why should we not think, that he acted by his sole power in the other? It is concluded by most that the power of creation cannot be derived to any creature, it being a work of omnipo- tency. The drawing something out from nothing, cannot be communicated without a communication of the Deity itself. The educing things from nothing exceeds the capacity of any creature, and the creature is of too feeble a nature to be elevated to so high a degree. It is very unreasonable to think, that God needed any such aid. If an instrument were necessary for God to create the world, then he could not do it. without that instru- ment: if he could not, he were not then all-sufficient in himself, if he depended upon any thing without himself, for the produc- tion or consummation of his works. And it might be inquired, how that instrument came into being: if it begun to be, and there was a time when it was not, it must have its being from the power of God; and then, why could not God as well create all things without an instrument, as create that instrument with- out an instrument? For there was no more power necessary to a producing the whole without instruments, than to produce one creature without an instrument.
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No creature can in its own nature be an instrument of crea- tion. If any such instrument were used by God, it must be ele- vated in a miraculous and supernatural way, and what is so an instrument, is in effect no instrument; for it works nothing by its own nature, but from an elevation of a superior nature, and beyond its own nature. All the power in the instrument is truly the power of God, and not the power of the instrument. And therefore what God does by an instrument, he could do as well without. If you should see one apply a straw to iron, for the cutting of it, and effect it, you would not call the straw an in- strument in that action, because there was nothing in the nature of the straw to do it. It was done wholly by some other force, which might have done it as well without the straw as with it. The narrative of the creation in Genesis removes any instru- ment from God. The plants which are preserved and propa- gated by the influence of the sun, were created the day before the sun, viz. on the third day, whereas the light was collected into the body of the sun on the fourth day, Gen. i. 11. 16; to show, that though the plants do instrumentally owe their yearly beauty and preservation to the sun, yet they did not in any manner owe their creation to the instrumental heat and vigour of it.
God created the world by a word, by a simple act of his will. The whole creation is wrought by a word; " God said, Let there be light;" and, "God said, Let there be a firma- ment," Gen. i. 3. 6, &c. throughout the whole chapter. Not that we should understand it of a sensible word, but to express the easiness of this operation to God, as easy as a word to man. We must understand it of a powerful order of his own will, which is expressed by the psalmist in the nature of a com- mand: "He spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast," Psal. xxxiii. 6; and, "He commanded and they were created," Psal. cxlviii. 5. At the same instant that he willed them to stand forth, they did stand forth. The efficacious com- mand of the Creator was the original of all things; the insensi- bility of nothing obeyed the act of his will. Creation is there- fore entitled a calling; He calls those things which are not, as if they were, Ron], iv. 17. To create is no more with God, than to call; and what he calls, presents itself before him in the same posture that he calls it. He did with more ease make a world, than we can form a thought. It is the same ease to him to create worlds, as to decree them: there needs no more than a resolve to have things wrought at such a time, and they will be, according to his pleasure. This will is his power; "Let there be light," is the precept of his will; and, "there was light," is the effect of his precept. By a word was the matter of the heavens and the earth framed: by a word things
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separate themselves from the rude mass into their proper forms. By a word light associates inself into one body, and forms a sun: by a word are the heavens, as it were, bespangled with stars, and the earth dressed with flowers: by a word is the world both ceiled and floored. One act of his will formed the world, and perfected its beauty. All the variety and several exploits of his power were not caused by distinct words or acts of power. God uttered not distinct words for distinct species; as, Let there be an elephant, and, Let there be a lion; but as he produced those various creatures out of one matter, so by one word. By one single command, those varieties of creatures, with their clothing, ornaments, distinct notes, qualities, func- tions, were brought forth. By one word, all the seeds of the earth, with their various virtues, Gen. i. 11. By one word, all the fish of the sea and fowls of the air in their distinct natures, instincts, colours, Gen. i. 20. By one word, all the beasts of the field, with their varieties, Gen. i. 24. Heaven and earth, spiritual and corporeal creatures, mortal and immortal, the greater and the less, visible and invisible, were formed with the same ease. ' A word made the least, and a word made the greatest. It is as little difficult to him to produce the highest angel, as the lightest atom. It is enough for the existence of the stateliest cherub, for God only to will his being. It was enough for the forming and fixing the sun, to will the com- pacting of light into one body. The creation of the soul of man is expressed by inspiration, Gen. ii. 7, to show, that it is as easy with God to create a rational soul, as for man to breathe. 2 Breathing is natural to man, by a communication of God's goodness; and the creation of the soul is as easy to God, by virtue of his almighty word. As there was no proportion be- tween nothing and being; so there was as little proportion between a word and such glorious effects. A mere voice, coming from an omnipotent will, was capable to produce such varieties, which angels and men have seen in all ages of the world; and this without weariness. What labour is there in willing, what pain could there be in speaking a word? The Creator of the ends of the earth is not weary, Isa. xl. 28. And though he be said to rest after the creation, it is to be meant a rest from work, not a repose from weariness. So great is the power of God, that without any matter, without any instru- ments, he could create many worlds, and with the same ease as he made this.
[4.] I might add also, the appearance of this power in the instantaneous production of things. The ending of his word was not only the beginning, but the perfection of every thing he spake into being; not several words to several parts and
1 August. 2 Tlicodoret.
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members, but one word, one breath of his mouth, one act of his will to the whole species of the creatures, and to every member of each individual. Heaven and earth were created in a moment, six days went to their disposal; and that comely order we observe in the world was the work of a week. The matter was formed as soon as God had spoken the word; and in every part of the creation, as soon as God spake the word, Let it be so, the answer immediately is, It was so, Gen. i. ; which notes the present standing up of the creature according to the act of his will. And therefore one observes, 1 that "Let there be light," and "there was light," in the Hebrew are the same words, without any alteration of letter or point, only the conjunctive particle added, -iin irri -nsnrp Let there be light, and, let there be light, to show, that the same instant of the speaking the Divine word, was the appearance of the creature: so great was the authority of his will.
(2.) We are to show God's power in the government of the world. As God decreed from eternity the creation of things in time, so he decreed from eternity the particular ends of creatures, and their operations respecting those ends. Now, as there was need of his power to execute his decree of creation, there is also need of his power to execute his decree about the manner of government.2 All government is an act of the understand- ing, will, and power. Prudence to design belongs to the under- standing, the election of the means belongs to the will, and the accomplishment of the whole is an act of power. It is a hard matter to determine which is most necessary: wisdom stands in as much need of power to perfect, as power does of wisdom to model and draw out a scheme; though wisdom directs, power must effect. Wisdom and power are distinct things among men: a poor man in a cottage may have more prudence to advise, than a privy counsellor; and a prince more power to act, than wisdom to conduct. A pilot may direct though he be lame, and cannot climb the masts and spread the sails. But God is wanting in nothing; neither in wisdom to design, nor in will to determine, nor in power to accomplish. His wisdom is not feeble, nor his power foolish; a powerful wisdom could not act what it would, and a foolish power would act more than it should. The power expressed in his government, is shadowed forth in the living creatures, which are God's instru- ments in it. It is said, every one of them had four faces; that of a man to signify wisdom; of a lion, eagle, the strongest among birds, to signify their courage and strength to perform their offices, Ezek. i. 6. 10.
This power is evident in the natural, moral, gracious gov- ernment.
' Peirs, p. 111. 2 Suarez. lib. 3. cap. 10.
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There is a natural providence, which consists in the preser- vation of all things, propagation of them by corruptions and generations, and in a co-operation with them in their motions to attain their ends.
Moral government is of the hearts and actions of men.
Gracious government, as respecting the church.
[1.] His power is evident in natural government.
In preservation. God is the great Father of the world, to nourish it as well as create it.1 Man and beast would perish, if there were not herbs for their food: and herbs would wither and perish, if the earth were not watered with fruitful showers. This some of the heathens acknowledged, in their worshipping God under the image of an ox, a useful creature, by reason of its strength, to which we owe so much of our food in corn. Hence God is styled the Preserver of man and beast, Psal. xxxvi. 6. Hence the Jews called God, Place; because he is the subsistence of all things. By the same word whereby he gave being to things, he gives to them continuance and dura- tion in being to such a term of time. As they were created by his word, they are supported by his word, Heb. i. 3. The same powerful fiat, " Let the earth bring forth grass," Gen. i. 11, when the plants peeped upon earth out of nothing, is ex- pressed every spring, when they begin to lift up their heads from their naked roots and winter graves. The resurrection of light every morning, the reviving the pleasure of all things to the eye; the watering the valleys from the mountain springs; the curbing the natural appetite of the waters from covering the earth; every draught that the beasts drink, every lodging the fowls have, every bit of food for the sustenance of man and beast, is ascribed to the opening of his hand, the diffusing of his power, Psal. civ. 27, 28, as much as the first creation of things, and endowing them with their particular nature. Whence the plants, which are so serviceable, are called the trees of the Lord, of Jehovah, verse 16, that only has being and power in himself. The whole psalm is but the description of his preserving, as the first of Genesis is of his creating power. It is by this power, angels have so many thousand years re- mained in the power of understanding and willing. By this power, things distant in their natures have been joined together, a spiritual soul and a dusty body knit in a marriage knot. By this power, the heavenly bodies have for so many ages rolled in their spheres, and the tumultuous elements have persisted in their order: by this has the matter of the world been to this day continued, and as capable of entertaining forms as it was at the first creation. What an amazing sight would it be to see a man hold a pillar of the exchange upon one of his fingers!
i Daille, in 1 Cor. 10. p. 102.
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What is this to the power of God, who holds the waters in the hollow of his hands, metes out the heaven with a span, and weighs the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Isa. Xl. 12.
The preserving the earth from the violence of the sea is a plain instance of this power.1 How is that raging element kept pent within those lists where he first lodged it; continuing its course in its channel without overflowing the earth, and dashing in pieces the lower part of the creation ! The natural situation of the water is to be above the earth, because it is lighter; and to be immediately under the air, because it is heavier than that thinner element. Who restrains this natural quality of it, but that God that first formed it? The word of command at first, Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further, keeps those waters linked together in their den, that they may not ravage the earth, but be useful to the inhabitants of it. And when once it finds a gap to enter, what power of earth can hinder its passage ? How fruitless sometimes is all the art of man to send it to its proper channel, when once it has spread its mighty waves over some countries, and trampled part of the inhabited earth under its feet ! It has triumphed in its victory, and withstood all the power of man to conquer its force. It is only the power of God that does bridle it from spreading itself over the whole earth. And that his power might be more manifest, he has set but a weak and small bank against it. Though he has bounded it in some places by mighty rocks, which lift up their heads above it, yet in most places by feeble sand. How often is it seen in every stormy motion, when the waves boil high, and roll furiously, as if they would swallow up all the neighbouring houses upon the shore; when they come to touch those- sandy limits, they bow their heads, fall flat, and sink into the lap whence they were raised; and seem to foam with anger that they can march no further, but must fall back at so weak an obstacle ! Can the sand be thought to be the cause of this? The weakness of it gives no footing to such a thought. Who can apprehend that an enraged army should retire upon the opposition of a straw in an infant's hand? Is it the nature of the water? Its retirement is against the natural quality of it; pour but a little upon the ground, and you always see it spread itself. No cause can be rendered in nature; it is a standing monument of the power of God in the preservation of the world, and ought to be more taken notice of by us in this island, surrounded with it, than by some other countries in the world.
We find nothing has power to preserve itself. Does not every creature upon earth require the assistance of some other
1 Daille Melange, part 2. p. 457, &c. Vol. II.— 8
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for its maintenance? "Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water? Job viii. 11. Can man or beast maintain itself without grain from the bowels of the earth? Would not every man tumble into the grave, without the aid of other creatures to nourish him? Whence do these creatures receive that virtue of supplying him nourishment, but from the sun and earth? and whence do they derive that vir- tue, but from the Creator of all things? And should he but slack his hand, how soon would they and all their qualities perish, and the links of the world fall in pieces, and dash one another into their first chaos and confusion ! All creatures indeed have an appetite to preserve themselves, they have some knowledge of the outward means for their preservation; so have irrational animals a natural instinct, as well as men have some skill to avoid things that are hurtful, and apply things that are helpful. But what thing in the world can pre- serve itself by an inward influx into its own being? All things want such a power without God's fiat, Let it be so. Nothing but is destitute of such a power for its own preserva- tion, as much as it is of a power for its own creation. Were there any true power for such a work, what need of so many external helps from things of an inferior nature to that which is preserved by them?
No created thing has a power to preserve any decayed being. Who can lay claim to such a virtue, as to recall a withering flower to its former beauty, to raise the head of a drooping plant, or put life into a gasping worm when it is ex- piring, or put impaired vitals into their former posture? Not a man upon earth, nor an angel in heaven, can pretend to such a virtue: they may be spectators, but not assisters, and are in this case physicians of no value.
It is therefore the same power preserves things which at first created them. The creature does -as much depend upon God in the first instant of its being, for its preservation, as it did when it was nothing, for its production and creation into being;' as the continuance of a thought of our mind depends upon the power of our mind, as well as the first framing of that thought. There is as little difference between creating and preserving power, as there is between the power of my eye to begin an act of vision and continue that act of vision; as to cast my eye upon an object, and continue it upon that object. As the first act is caused by the eye, so the duration of that act is preserved by the eye: shut the eye, and the act of vision priishes; divert the eye from that object, and that act of vision is exchanged for another. And therefore the preservation of things is commonly called a continual creation: and certainly it 1 Lessius de Perfect Divin. p. 69.
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is no less, if we understand it of a preservation by an inward influence into the being of things. It is one and the same ac- tion invariably continued, and obtaining its force every mo- ment : the same action whereby he created them of nothing, and which every moment has a virtue to produce a thing out of nothing, if it were not yet extant in the world: it remains the same without any diminution throughout the whole time wherein any thing does remain in the world.1 For all things would return to nothing, if God did not keep them up in the elevation and state to which he at first raised them by his creative power. " In him we live — and have our being," Acts xvii. 28. By him, or by the same power whence we derived our being, are our lives maintained. As it was his almighty power whereby we were after we had been nothing; so it is the same power whereby we now are, after he has made us something.
Certainly all things have no less a dependence on God, than light upon the sun, which vanishes and hides its head upon the withdrawing of the sun. And should God suspend that power- ful word, whereby he erected the frame of the world, it would sink down to what it was, before he commanded it to stand up. There needs no new act of power to reduce things to nothing, but the cessation of that omnipotent influx. When the ap- pointed time set them for their being comes to a period, they faint and bend down their heads to their dissolution, they return to their elements and perish: "Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust," Psal. civ. 29. That which was nothing cannot remain on this side nothing, but by the same power that first called it out of nothing. As when God withdrew his concurring power from the fire, its quality ceased to act upon the three children; so if he withdraws his sustaining power from the creature, its nature will cease to be.
It appears in propagation. That powerful word, increase and multiply, Gen. i. 22. 28, pronounced at the first creation, has spread itself over every part of the world; every animal in the v/orld, in the formation of every one of them. From two of a kind, how great a number of individuals and single crea- tures have been multiplied, to cover the face of the earth in their continued successions! What a world of plants spring up from the womb of a dry earth, moistened by the influence of a cloud, and hatched by the beams of the sun! How admirable an instance of his propagating power is it, that from a little seed a massy root should strike into the bowels of the earth, a tall body and thick branches, with leaves and flowers of vari- ous colours, should break through the surface of the earth, and
i Lessius de Sum. Bon. p. 580—582.
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mount up towards heaven, when in the seed you neither smell the scent nor see any firmness of a tree, nor behold any of those colours which you view in the flowers that the years produce! A power not to be imitated by any creature. How astonishing is "it, that' a small seed, whereof many will not amount to the weight of a grain, should spread itself into leaves, bark, fruit of a vast weight, and multiply itself into millions of seeds! What power is that, that from one man and woman has multiplied families, and from families stocked the world with people ! Consider the living creatures as formed in the womb of their several kinds; every one is a wonder of power. The psalmist instances in the forming and propaga- tion of man, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvel- lous are thy works," Psal. cxxxix. 14. The forming of the parts distinctly in the womb, the bringing forth into the world every particular member, is a roll of wonders, of power. That so fine a structure as the body of man should be polished in the lowest parts of the earth, as he calls the womb, ver. 15, in so short a time, with members of a various form and useful- ness, each labouring in their several functions. Can any man give an exact account of the manner, how the bones do grow in the womb? Eccles. xi. 5. It is unknown to the father, and no less hid from the mother, and the wisest men cannot search out the depths of it. It is one of the secret works of an omni- potent power, secret in the manner, though open in the effect. So that we must ascribe it to God, as Job does, "Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about," Job. x. 8. Thy hands which formed heaven, have formed every part, every member, and wrought me like a mighty workman. The heavens are said to be the work of God's hands, and man is here said to be no less. The forming and propagation of man from that earthly matter, is no less a wonder of power, than the structure of the world from a rude and indisposed matter. A heathen philosopher1 descants elegantly upon it; " Dost thou understand (my son) the forming of man in the womb; who erected that noble fabric; who carved the eyes, the crystal windows of light, and the conductors of the body; who bored the nostrils and ears, those loop-holes of scents and sounds; who stretched out and knit the sinews and ligaments for the fastening of every member; who cast the hollow veins, the channels of blood; set and strengthened the bones, the pil- lars and rafters of the body; who digged the pores, the sinks to expel the filth; who made the heart, the respository of the soul, and formed the lungs like a pipe? What mother, what father wrought these things? No, none but the almighty God, who made all things according to his pleasure; it is he who
1 Trismegist. in Serm. Greek in the Temple, p. 57.
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propagates this noble piece from a pile of dust. Who is born by his own advice ? who gives stature, features, sense, wit strength, speech, but God?"
It is no less a wonder, that a little infant can live so long in the womb. And the eduction of it out of the womb is no less a wonder than the forming, increase, nourishment of it in that cell. A wonder that the life of the infant is not the death of the mother, or the life of the mother the death of the infant. This little creature, when it springs up from such small beginnings by the power of God, grows up to be one of the lords of the world, to have a dominion over the creatures, and propagates its kind in the same manner. All this is unaccountable with- out having recourse to the power of God in the government of the creatures.
And to add to this wonder, consider also what multitudes of formations and births there are at one time all over the world, in every one of which the finger of God is at work; and it will speak an unwearied power. It is admirable in one man, more in a town of men, still more in a greater and larger kingdom, a vaster world; there is a birth for every hour in this city, were but one hundred and sixty eight born in a week, though the weekly bills mention more. What is this city to three kingdoms; what three kingdoms to a populous world? Eleven thousand and eighty will make one for every minute in the week? what is this to the weekly propagation in all the nations of the universe, besides the generation of all the living creatures in that space, which are the works of God's fingers as well as man? What will be the result of this, but the notion of an inconceivable, un- wearied almightiness, always active, always operating?
This power appears in the motions of all creatures. All things live and move in him, Actsxvii. 2S; by the same power that creatures have their beings, they have their motions. They have not only a being by his powerful command, but they have their every motion by his powerful concurrence. Notbing can act without the almighty influx of God, no more than it can exist without the creative word of God. It is true indeed, the ordering of all motions to his holy ends is an act of wisdom: but the motion itself, whereby those ends are attained, is a work of his power.
God as the first cause has an influence into the motions of all second causes; as all the wheels in a clock are moved in their different motions by the force and strength of the principal and primary wheel; if there be any defect in that, or if that stand still, all the rest languish and stand still the same moment. All creatures are his instruments, his engines, and have no spirit, but what he gives, and what he assists. Whatsoever nature works, God works in nature; nature is the instrument, God is
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the supporter, director, mover of nature : that what the prophet says in another case, may be the language of universal nature, "Lord — thou hast wrought all our works in us," Isa. xxvi. 12. They are our works subjectively, efficiently, as second causes; God's works originally, concurrently. The sun moved not in the valley of Ajalon for the space of many hours, in time of Joshua, Josh. x. 13; nor did the fire exercise its consuming quality upon the three children, in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, Dan. iii. 25: he withdrew not his supporting power from their be- ing, for then they had vanished, but his influencing power from their qualities, whereby their motion ceased, till he returned his influential concurrence to them; which evidences, that without a perpetual derivation of Divine power, the sun could not run one stride or inch of its race, nor the fire devour one grain of light chaff" or an inch of straw. Nothing without his sustaining power can continue in being; nothing without his co- working power can exercise one mite of those qualities it is possessed of. All creatures are wound up by him, and his hand is constantly upon them, to keep them in perpetual motion.
Consider the variety of motions in a single creature. How many motions are there in the vital parts of a man, or in any other animal, which a man knows not, and is unable to number! the renewed motion of the lungs ; the systole and diastole of the heart; the contractions and dilatations of the heart, whereby it spouts out and takes in blood; the power of concoction in the stomach; the motion of the blood in the veins, &c. All which were not only settled by the powerful hand of God, but are upheld by the same, preserved and influenced in every distinct motion by that power that stamped them with that nature. To every one of those there is not only the sustaining power of God holding up their natures, but the motive power of God con- curring to every motion; for if we move in him as well as we live in him, then every particle of our motion is exercised by his concurring power, as well as every moment of our life supported by his preserving power. What an infinite variety of motions is there in the whole world in universal nature, to all which God concurs, all which he conducts, even the motions of the meanest as well as the greatest creatures! Which demonstrates the indefatigable power of the Governor. It is an infinite power which does act in so many varieties, whereby the soul forms every thought, the tongue speaks every word, the body exerts every action. What an infinite power is that which presides over the birth of all things, concurs with the motion of the sap in the tree, rivers on the earth, clouds in the air, every drop of rain, fleece of snow, crack of thunder! Not the least motion in the world, but is under an actual influence of this Almighty Mover.
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And lest any should scruple the concurrence of God to so many varieties of the creatures' motion, as a thing utterly in- conceivable, let them consider the sun, a natural image and shadow of the perfections of God. Does not the power of that finite creature extend itself to various objects at the same mo- ment of time? How many insects does it animate, as flies, &c. at the same moment throughout the world! How many seve- ral plants does it erect at its appearance in the spring, whose roots lay mourning in the earth all the foregoing winter! What multitudes of spires of grass, and nobler flowers, does it bring forth in the same hour! It warms the air, melts the blood, cherishes living creatures of various kinds, in distinct places, without tiring: and shall the God of this sun be less than his creature?
And since I speak of the sun, consider the power of God in the motion of it. The vastness of the sun is computed to be at the least a hundred and sixty-six times bigger than the earth, and its distance from the earth some tell us to be about four millions of miles;1 whence it follows, that it is whirled about the world with that swiftness, that in the space of an hour it runs a million of miles, which is as much as if it should move round about the surface of the earth fifty times in one hour; which vastness exceeds the swiftness of a bullet shot out of a cannon, which is computed to fly not above three miles in a minute. So that the sun runs further in one hour's space than a bullet can in five thousand, if it were kept in motion; so that if it were near the earth, the swiftness of its motion would shatter the whole frame of the world, and dash it in pieces; so that the Psalmist may well say, It runs a race like a strong man, Psal. xix. 5. What an incomprehensible power is that which has communicated such a strength and swiftness to the sun, and does daily influence its motion; especially since after all those years of its motion, wherein one would think it should have spent itself, we behold it every day as vigorous as Adam did in paradise, without limping, without shattering itself, or losing any thing of its natural spirits in its unwearied motion. How great must that power be, which has kept this great body so entire, and thus swiftly moves it every day!
Is it not now an argument of omnipotency to keep all the strings of nature in tune; to wind them up to a due pitch for the harmony he intended by them; to keep things that are con- trary from that confusion they would naturally fall into; to prevent those jarrings which would naturally result from their various and snarling qualities; to preserve every being in its true nature; to propagate every kind of creature; order all the
1 A Lapide. in 1 cap. Gen. 16. Lessius, de Perfect. Divin. p. 90, 91. Lessius, de Providen. p 633. Voss. de Idol. lib. 2. cap. 2.
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operations, even the meanest of them, when there are such in- numerable varieties?
But let us consider that this power of preserving things in their station and motion, and the renewing of them, is more stupendous than that which we commonly call miraculous.
We call those miracles which are wrought out of the track of nature, and contrary to the usual stream and current of it; which men wonder at, because they seldom see them, and hear of them as things rarely brought forth in the world; when the truth is, there is more of power expressed in the ordinary sta- tion and motion of natural causes than in those extraordinary exertions of power. Is not more power signalized in that whirling motion of the sun every hour for so many ages, than in the suspending of its motion one day, as it was in the days of Joshua? that fire should continually ravage and consume, and greedily swallow up every thing that is offered to it, seems to be the effect of as admirable a power as the stopping of its ap- petite a few moments, as in the case of the three children? Is not the rising of some small seeds from the ground, with a multiplication of their numerous posterity, an effect of as great a power as our Saviour's feeding many thousands with a few loaves, by a secret augmentation of them?1 Is not the chemical producing so pleasant and delicious a fruit as the grape from a dry earth, insipid rain, and a sour vine, as admirable a token of Divine power as our Saviour's turning water into wine? Is not the cure of diseases by the application of a simple inconsider- able weed, or a slight infusion, as wonderful in itself as the cure of it by a powerful word? What if it be naturally design- ed to heal, what is that nature, who gave that nature, who maintains that nature, who conducts it, co-operates with it? Does it work of itself, and by its own strength? why not then equally in all, in one as well as another? Miracles indeed affect more, because they testify the immediate operation of God without the concurrence of second cause; not that there is more of the power of God shining in them than in the other.
[2.] This power is evident in moral government.
In the restraint of the malicious nature of the devil. Since Satan has the power of an angel, and the malice of a devil, what safety would there be for our persons from destruc- tion, what security for our goods from rifling, by this invisible, potent, and envious spirit, if his power were not restrained and his malice curbed, by one more mighty than himself? How much does he envy God the glory of his creation, and man the use and benefit of it ! How desirous would he be in regard of his passion, how able in regard of his strength and subtlety, to overthrow or infect all worship but what was directed to him-
1 Faucher, sur Act. vol. 2. p. 47.
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self, to manage all things according to his lusts, turn all things topsy-turvy, plague the world, burn cities, houses, plunder us of the supports of nature, waste kingdoms, &c. if he were not held in a chain, as a ravenous lion, or a furious wild horse, by the Creator and Governor of the world! What remedy could be used by man against the activity of this unseen and swift spirit ? The world could not subsist under his malice ; he would practise the same things upon all, as he did upon Job, when he had got leave from his Governor; turn the swords of men into one another's bowels; send fire from heaven upon the fruits of the earth and the cattle, intended for the use of man; raise winds, to shake and tear our houses upon our heads ; plague our bodies with scabs and boils, and let all the humours in our blood loose upon us. He that envied Adam a paradise, does envy us the pleasure of enjoying its outworks. If we were not destroyed by him, we should live in a continued vexation by spectra and apparitions, affrighting sounds and noise; as some think the Egyptians did in that three days' darkness. He would be always winnowing us, as he desired to winnow Peter, Luke xxii. 31. But God over-masters his strength, that he cannot move a hairs' breadth beyond his tether: not only is he unable to touch an upright Job, but to lay his fingers upon one of the unbelieving Gadarenes' forbidden and filthy swine without speeial licence, Matt. viii. 31. When he is cast out of one place, he walks through dry places seeking rest, Luke xi. 24, new objects";for his malicious designs; but finding none, till God lets loose the reins upon him for a new employment. Though Satan's power be great, yet God suffers him not to tempt as much'as his diabolical appetite would, but as much as Divine wisdom thinks fit. And the Divine power tempers the other's active malice, and gives the creature victory, where the enemy intended spoil and captivity. How much stronger is God than all the legions of hell! as he that holds a strong man from effecting his purpose, testifies more ability than his adver- sary, Luke xi. 22. How does he lock him up for a thousand, years in a prison, Rev. xx. 2, from which he cannot escape! And this restraint is wrought partly by blinding the devil in his designs, partly by denying him concourse to his motion; as he hindered the active quality, of the fire upon the three children, by withdrawing his power, which was necessary to the motion of it; and his poweris as necessary for the motion of the devil, as for that of any other creature. Sometimes he makes him to confess him against his own interest, as Apollo's oracle con- fessed. ' And though, when the devil was cast out of the pos- sessed person, he publicly owned Christ to be the Holy One of God, Mark i. 24, to render him suspected by the people of
1 Cseteros deos sereos esse, &c. Grot. Verit. Rel. lib. 4. Vol. H.— 9
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having commerce with the unclean spirits; yet this he could not do without the leave and permission of God, that the power of Christ in stopping his mouth and imposing silence upon him might be evidenced: and that it reaches to the gates of hell, as well as to the quieting of winds and waves. This is a part of the strength, as well as the wisdom of God, that " the deceived and the deceiver are his," Job. xii. 16; wisdom to defeat, and power to overrule his most malicious designs to his own glory. In the restraint of the natural corruption of men. Since the impetus of original corruptions in the blood, conveyed down from Adam to the veins of all his posterity, and universally dif- fused in ail mankind, what wreck and havoc would it make in the world, if it were not suppressed by this Divine power, which presides over the hearts of men ! Man is so wretched by nature, that nothing but what is vile and pernicious can drop from him. Man drinks iniquity like water, being by nature abominable and filthy, Job xv. 16. He greedily swallows all matter for iniquity, every thing suitable to the mire and poison in his na- ture, and would cast it out with all fierceness and insolence. God himself gives us the description of man's nature, Gen. vi. 5, that he has not one good imagination at any time. And the apostle from the psalmist dilates and comments upon it, Rom. iii. 10, &c. " There is none righteous, no not one; their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood," &c. This corruption is equal to all, natural to all; it is not more poisonous or more fierce in one man, than in another. The root of all men is the same; all the branches therefore do equally possess the villanous nature of the root. No child of Adam can by natural descent be better than Adam, or have less of baseness, and vileness, and venom than Adam. How fruitful would this loathsome lake be in all kinds of streams! What unbridled licentiousness and head-strong fury would triumph in the world, if the power of God did not interpose itself to lock down the flood-gates of it! What rooting up of human society would there be! How would the world be drenched in blood, the number of malefactors be greater than that of apprehenders and punishers! How would the prints of natural laws be razed out of the heart, if God should leave hu- man nature to itself! Who can read the first chapter to the Romans, ver. 24 — 31, without acknowledging this truth; where there is a catalogue of those villanies which followed upon God's pulling up the sluices, and letting the malignity of their inward corruption have its natural course ? If God did not hold back the fury of man, his garden would be overrun, his vine rooted up; the inclinations of men would hurry them to the worst of wickedness. How great is that power, that curbs, bridles, or changes as many headstrong horses at once and
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every minute, as there are sons of Adam upon the earth ! " The floods lift up their waves: the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea," Psah xciii. 3, 4: that does hush and pen in the turbulent passions of men.
In the ordering and framing the hearts of men to his oivn ends. That must he an omnipotent hand that grasps and con- tains the hearts of all men; the heart of the meanest person, as well as of the most towering angel; and turns them as he pleases, and makes them sometimes ignorantly, sometimes knowingly, concur to the accomplishment of his own purposes. When the hearts of men are so numerous, their thoughts so various and different from one another, yet he has a key to those millions of hearts, and with infinite power, guided by as infinite wisdom, he draws them into what channels he pleases for the gaining his own ends. Though the Jews had embrued their hands in the blood of our Saviour, and their rage was yet reeking hot against his followers, God bridled their fury in the church's infancy, till it had got some strength, and cast a terror upon them by the wonders wrought by the apostles: " And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles," Acts ii. 43. Was there not the same reason in the nature of the works our Saviour wrought to point them to the finger of God and calm their rage? Yet the power of God did not work upon their passions in those miracles, nor stop the impetuousnessof the corruption resident in their hearts. Yet now those who had the boldness to attack the Son of God, and nail him to the cross, are frightened at the appearance of twelve unarmed apostles; as the sea seems to be afraid when it approaches the bounds of the feeble sand. How did God bend the hearts of the Egyptians to the Israelites, and turn them to that point as to lend their most costly vessels, their precious jewels, and rich garments, to supply those whom they had just before tyrannically loaded with their chains! Exod. iii. 21, 22. When a great part of an army came upon Jehos- haphat to despatch him into another world, how does God in a trice touch their hearts, and move them by a secret instinct at once to depart from him! 2 Chron. xviii. 31. As if you should see a numerous flight of birds in a moment turn wing another way, by a sudden and joint consent. When he gave Saul a kingdom, he gave him a spirit fit for government, and gave him another heart, 1 Sam. x. 9; and brought the people to sub- mit to his yoke, who a little before wandered about the land upon no nobler employment than the seeking of asses. It is no small remark of the power of God, to make a number of strong and discontented persons, and desirous enough of liber- ty, to bend their necks under the yoke of government, and sub-
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mit to the authority of one, and that of their own nature, often weaker and more unwise than the most of them; and, many- times, an oppressor and invader of their rights. Upon this ac- count David calls God his fortress, tower, shield, Psal. cxliv. 2; all terms of strength, in subduing the people under him. It is the mighty hand of God, that links princes and people toge- ther in the bands of government. The same hand that assuages the waves of the sea, suppresses the tumults of the people.
[3.] His power appears in his gracious and judicial govern- ment.
In his gracious government. In the deliverance of his church: he is the Strength of Israel, 1 Sam. xv. 29; and has protected his little flock in the midst of wolves; and maintained their standing, when the strongest kingdoms have sunk, and the best jointed states have been broken in pieces; when judg- ments have ravaged countries and torn up the mighty; as a tempestuous wind has often done the tallest trees, which seem- ed to threaten heaven with their tops, and dare the storm with the depth of their roots, when yet the vine and rose-bushes have stood firm, and been seen in their beauty next morning. The state of the church has outlived the most flourishing mo- narchies. When there has been a mighty knot of adversaries against her; when the bulls of Bashan have pushed her, and the whole tribe of the dragon have sharpened their weapons and edged their malice; when the voice was strong, and the hopes high to raze her foundation even with the ground; when hell has roared; when the wit of the world has contrived, and the strength of the world has attempted her ruin; when de- crees have been past against her, and the powers of the world armed for the execution of them; when her friends have drooped and skulked into corners; when there was no eye to pity, and no hand to assist — help has come from heaven; her enemies have been defeated, kings have brought gifts to her and reared her; tears have been wiped off her cheeks; and her very enemies, by an unseen power, have been forced to court her, whom before they would have devoured. The devil and his armies have sneaked into their den, and the church has triumphed when she has been upon the brink of the grave. Thus did God send a mighty angel to be the exe- cutioner of Sennacherib's army, and the protector of Jerusalem, who ran his sword into the hearts of a hundred and eighty-five thousand, 2 Kings xix. 35, when they were ready to swallow up his beloved city.
When the knife was at the throats of the Jews in Shushan, by a powerful hand it was turned into the hearts of their ene- mies, Esther viii. With what outstretched arm were the Israelites freed from the Egyptian yoke! Deut. iv. 34. When
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Pharaoh had mustered a great army to pursue them, assisted with six hundred chariots of war, the Red sea obstructed their passage before, and an enraged enemy trod on their rear; when the fearful Israelites despaired of deliverance, and the insolent Egyptian assured himself of his revenge, God stretches out his irresistible arm, to defeat the enemy and assist his peo- ple; he strikes down the wolves, and preserves the flock. God restrained the Egyptian enmity against the Israelites till they were at the brink of the Red sea, and then lets them fol- low their humour and pursue the fugitives, that his power might more gloriously shine forth in the deliverance of the one, and the destruction of the other. God might have brought Israel out of Egypt in the time of those kings that had remem- bered the good service of Joseph to their country ; but he leaves them till the reign of a cruel tyrant, suffers them to be slaves, that they might by his sole power be conquerors; which had had no appearance, had there been a willing dismission of them at the first summons. " In very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth," Exod. ix. 16. I have permitted thee to rise up against my people, and keep them in captivity, that thou mightest be an occasion for the manifestation of my power in their rescue; and whilst thou art obstinate to enslave them, I will stretch out my arm to de- liver them, and make my name famous among the gentiles, in the wreck of thee and thy host in the Red sea. The deliverance of the church has not been in one age or in one part of the world, but God has signalized his power in all kingdoms where she has had a footing. As he has guided her in all places by one rule, animated her by one spirit, so he has protected her by the same arm of power.
When the Roman emperors bandied all their force against her for about three hundred years, they were further from effecting her ruin at the end, than when they first attempted it; the church grew under their sword, and was hatched under the wings of the Roman eagle, which were spread to destroy her. The ark was elevated by the deluge; and the waters the devil poured out to drown her, did but slime the earth for a new increase of her. She has sometimes been beaten down, and, like Lazarus, has seemed to lie in the grave for some days, that the power of God might be more visible in her sudden resur- rection, and lifting up her head above the throne of her perse- cutors.
In his judicial proceedings. The deluge was no small tes- timony of his power, in opening the cisterns of heaven, and pulling up the sluices of the sea. He but calls for the waters of the sea, and they pour themselves upon the face of the earth,
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Amos ix. 6. In forty days' time, the waters overtopped the highest mountains fifteen cubits, Gen. vii. 17. 19, 20; and by the same power he afterwards reduced the sea to its proper channel, as a roaring lion into his den. A shower of fire from heaven upon Sodom and the cities of the plain, was a signal display of his power, either in creating it on the sudden for the execution of his righteous sentence, or sending down the ele- ment of fire, contrary to its nature, (which affects ascent,) for the punishment of rebels against the light of nature.
How often has he ruined the most flourishing monarchies, led princes away spoiled, and overthrown the mighty! which Job makes an argument of his strength, Job xii. 13, 14. Troops of unknown people, the Goths and Vandals, broke the Romans, a warlike people, and hurled down all before them. They could not have had the thought to succeed in such an attempt, unless God had given them strength and motion, for the executing his judicial vengeance upon the people of his wrath.
How did he evidence his power by defiling the throne of Pharoah, and his chamber of presence, as well as the houses of his subjects, with the slime of frogs, Exod. viii. 3; turning their waters into blood, ch. vii. 20, and their dust into biting lice; raising his militia of locusts against them; causing a three days' darkness without stopping the motion of the sun; taking off their first-born, the excellency of their strength, in a night, by the stroke of the angel's sword! He takes off the chariot- wheels of Pharoah, and presents him with a destruction where he expected a victory; brings those waves over the heads of him and his host, which stood firm as marble walls for the safety of his people: the sea is made to swallow them up, that durst not, by the order of their Governor, touch the Israelites. It only sprinkled the one as a type of baptism, but drowned the other as an image of hell. Thus he made it both a deliv- erer and a revenger, the instrument of an offensive and defen- sive war. He brings princes to nothing, and makes the judges of the earth as vanity, Isa. xl. 23. Great monarchs have by his power been hurled from their thrones, and their sceptres (like Venice glasses) broken before their faces, and they been ad- vanced, that have had the least hopes of grandeur. He has plucked up cedars by the roots, lopped ofY the branches, and set a shrub to grow up in the place; dissolved rocks and established bubbles. " He hath showed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts; he hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree," Luke i. 52.
And in these things also he magnifies his power:
By ordering the nature of creatures as he pleases. By re-
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straining their force, or guiding their motions. The restraint of the destructive qualities of the creatures argues as great a power, as the change of their natures, yea, and a greater. The qualities of creatures may be changed by art and composition, as in the preparing of medicines-, but what but a Divine power could restrain the operation of the fire from the three children, while it retained its heat and burning quality in Nebuchadnez- zar's furnace? The operation was curbed, while its nature was preserved. All creatures are called his host, because he marshals and ranks them as an army to serve his purposes: the whole scheme of nature is ready to favour men when God orders it, and ready to punish men when God commissions it. He gave the Red sea but a cheek, and it obeyed his voice: " He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up," Psal. cvi. 9; the motion of it ceased, and the waters of it were ranged as defensive walls, to secure the march of his people. And at the motion of the hand of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the sea recovered its violence, and the walls that were framed came tumbling down upon the Egyptians' heads, Exod. xiv. 27. The Creator of nature is not led by the necessity of nature: he that settled the order of nature, can change or restrain the order of nature according to his sovereign pleasure. The most neces- sary and useful creatures he can use as instruments of his vengeance. Water is necessary to cleanse, and by that he can deface a world; fire is necessary to warm, and by that he can burn a Sodom. From the water he formed the fowl, Gen. i. 21, and by that he dissolves them in the deluge; fire or heat is necessary to the generation of creatures, and by that he ruins the cities of the plain. He orders all as he pleases, to perform every tittle and punctilio of his purpose. The sea observed him so exactly, that it drowned not one Israelite, nor saved one Egyptian: "There was not one of them left," Psal. cvi. 11. And to perfect the Israelites' deliverance, he followed them with testimonies of his power above the strength of nature. When they wanted drink, he orders Moses to strike a rock, and the rock spouts a river, and a channel is formed for it to attend them in their journey. When they wanted bread, he dressed manna for them in the heavens, and sent it to their tables in the desert. When he would declare his strength, he calls to the heavens to pour down righteousness, and to the earth to bring forth salvation, Isa. xlv. 8. Though God had created righ- teousness or deliverance for the Jews in Babylon, yet he calls to the heavens and the earth to be assistant in the design of Cyrus, whom he had raised for that purpose, as he speaks in the beginning of the chapter, ver. 1 — 4. As God created man for a supernatural end, and all creatures for man as their im- mediate end; so he makes them, according to opportunities,
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subservient to that supernatural end of man for which he cre- ated him. He that spans the heavens with his fist, can shoot all creatures, like an arrow, to li it what mark he pleases. He that spread the heavens and the earth by a word, and can by a word fold them up more easily than a man can a garment, Heb. i. 12, can order the streams of nature. Cannot he work with- out nature as well as with it, beyond nature, contrary to nature, that can (as it were) fillip nature with his finger into that noth- ing whence he drew it; who can cast down the sun from his throne, clap the distinguished parts of the world together, and make them march in the same order to their confusion, as they did in their creation; who can jumble the whole frame together, and by a word dissolve the pillars of the world, to make the fabric lie in a ruinous heap?
In effecting his purposes by small means: in making use of the meanest creatures. As the power of God is seen in the creation of the smallest creatures, and assembling so many per- fections in the little body of an insect, as an ant, or spider; so his power is not less magnified in the use he makes of them. As he magnifies his wisdom by using ignorant instruments; so he exalts his power by employing weak instruments in his service. The meanness and imperfection of the matter sets off the excellency of the workman ; so the weakness of the instru- ment is a foil to the power of the principal agent. When God has effected things by means in the Scripture, he has usually brought about his purposes by weak instruments.
Moses, a fugitive from Egypt, and Aaron, a captive in it, are the instruments of the Israelites' deliverance. By the motion of Moses's rod, he works wonders in the court of Pharaoh, and summons up his judgments against him. He brought down Pharaoh's stomach for a while by a squadron of lice and locusts, wherein Divine power was more seen, than if Moses had brought him to his own articles by a multitude of warlike troops. The fall of the walls of Jericho by the sound of rams' horns, Josh. vi. 20, was a more glorious character of God's power, than if Joshua had battered it down with a hundred of warlike engines. Thus the great army of the Midianites, which lay as grasshoppers upon the ground, were routed by Gideon at the head of three hundred men; and Goliath a giant, laid level with the ground by David a stripling, by the force of a sling; a thousand Philistines despatched out of the world by the jaw-bone of an ass in the hand of Samson. He can master a stout nation by an army of locusts, and render the teeth of those little insects as destructive as the teeth, yea, the strongest teeth, the cheek-teeth of a great lion, Joel i. 6, 7. The thunder- bolt, which produces sometimes dreadful effects, is compacted of little atoms which fly in the air, small vapours drawn up by
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the sun, and mixed with other sulphurous matter and petrify- ing juice. Nothing is so weak, but his strength can make vic- torious; nothing so small, but by his power he can accomplish his great ends by it; nothing so vile, but his might can conduct to his glory; and no nation so mighty, but he can waste and enfeeble by the meanest creatures. God is great in power in the greatest things, and not little in the smallest; his power in the minutest creatures which he uses for his service, surmounts the force of our understanding.
(3.) The power of God appears in redemption. As our Sa- viour is called the Wisdom of God, so he is called the Power of God, 1 Cor. i. 24. The arm of power was lifted up as high as the designs of wisdom were laid deep. As this way of re- demption could not be contrived but by an infinite wisdom, so it could not be accomplished but by an infinite power. None but God could shape such a design, and none but God could etfect it. The Divine power in temporal deliverances, and free- dom from the slavery of human oppressors, veils to that which glitters in redemption; whereby the devil is defeated in his de- signs, stripped of his spoils, and yoked in his strength. The power of God in creation requires not those degrees of admi- ration as in redemption. In creation the world was erected from nothing; as there was nothing to-act, so there was nothing to oppose; no victorious devil was in that to be subdued, no thundering law to be silenced, no death to be conquered, no transgression to be pardoned and rooted out, no hell to be shut, no ignominious death upon the cross to be suffered. It had been in the nature of the thing, an easier thing to Divine power to have created a new world, than repaired a broken, and puri- fied a polluted one. This is the most admirable work that ever God brought forth in the world, greater than all the marks of his power in the first creation.
And this will appear,
In the Person redeeming. — In the publication and propaga- tion of the doctrine of redemption. — In the application of re- demption.
[1.] In the Person redeeming.
In his conception.
He was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the virgin: " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee," Luke i. 35. Which act is expressed to be the effect of the infinite power of God; and it expresses the supernatural manner of the forming the humanity of our Saviour, and signifies not the Divine nature of Christ infusing itself into the womb of the virgin; for the angel refers it to the manner of the operation of the Holy Ghost in the producing the human nature of Christ, and not to the Vol. II.— 10
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nature assuming that humanity into union with itself. The Holy Ghost, or the third Person in the Trinity, overshadowed the virgin, and by a creative act framed the humanity of Christ, and united it to the Divinity. It is therefore expressed by a word of the same import with that used in Gen. i. 2. "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," which sig- nifies (as it were) a brooding upon the chaos, shadowing it with his wings, as hens sit upon their eggs to form them and hatcli them into animals; or else it is an allusion to the cloud which covered the tent of the congregation, when the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, Exod. xl. 34. It was not such a crea- tive act as we call immediate, which is a production out of no- thing; but a mediate creation, such as God's bringing things into form out of the first matter, which had nothing but an obediential or passive disposition to whatsoever stamp the powerful wis- dom of God should imprint upon it. So the substance of the virgin had no active, but only a passive disposition to this work. The matter of the body was earthy, the substance of the vir- gin; the forming of it was heavenly, the Holy Ghost working upon that matter. And therefore when it is said that " she was found with child of the Holy Ghost," Matt. i. 18; it is to be understood of the efficacy of the Holy Ghost, not of the substance of the Holy Ghost. The matter was natural, but the manner of conceiving was in a supernatural way, above the methods of nature. In reference to the active principle, the Redeemer is called in the prophecy, "the branch of the Lord," Isa. iv. 2, in regard of the Divine hand that planted him; in respect to the passive principle, "the fruit of the earth," in regard of the womb that bare him, and therefore said to be made of a woman, Gal. iv. 4. That part of the flesh of the virgin whereof the human nature of Christ was made, was refined and purified from corruption by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, as a skilful workman separates the dross from the gold ; our Saviour is therefore called that holy thing, Luke i. 3.5, though born of the virgin: he was necessarily some way to descend from Adam. God indeed might have created his body out of nothing, or have formed it (as he did Adam's) out of the dust of the ground; but had he been thus extraordina- rily formed, and not propagated from Adam, though he had been a man like one of us, yet he would not have been of kin to us, because it would not have been a nature derived from Adam, the common parent of us all. It was therefore neces- sary to an affinity with us, not only that he should have the same humanjiature, but that it should flow from the same prin- ciple, and be propagated to him.' But now, by this way of producing the humanity of Christ of the substance of the vir-
1 Amyrald. in Symbol, p. 103, &c.
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gin, he was in Adam (say some) corporeally, but not seminal- ly ; of the substance of Adam, or a daughter of Adam, but not of the seed of Adam: and so he is of the same nature that had sinned, and so what he did and suffered may be imputed to us; which, had he been created as Adam, could not be claimed in a legal and judicial way.
It was not convenient he should be born in the common order of nature, of father and mother. For whosoever is so born is polluted; a clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean, Job. xiv. 4. And our Saviour had been incapable of being a Redeemer, had he been tainted with the least spot of our nature, but would have stood in need of redemption him- self. Besides, it had been inconsistent with the holiness of the Divine nature, to have assumed a tainted and defiled body. He that was the fountain of blessedness to all nations, was not to be subject to the curse of the law for himself; which he would have been, had he been conceived in an ordinary way. He that was to overturn the devil's empire, was not to be any way captive under the devil's power, as a creature under the curse; nor could he be able to break the serpent's head, had he been tainted with the serpent's breath.
Again, supposing that Almighty God by his Divine power had so ordered the matter, and so perfectly sanctified an earthly father and mother from all original spot, that the human nature might have been transmitted immaculate to him, as well as the Holy Ghost did purge that part of the flesh of the virgin of which the body of Christ was made; yet it was not convenient that that person that was God blessed for ever as well as man, partaking of our nature, should have a conception in the same manner as ours, but different, and in some measure conforma- ble to the infinite dignity of his person; which could not have been, had not a supernatural power and a Divine person been concerned as an active principle in it. Besides, such a birth had not been agreeable to the first promise, which calls him the seed of the woman, Gen. iii. 15, not of the man; and so the veracity of God had suffered some detriment. The seed of the woman only, is set in opposition to the seed of the serpent.
By this manner of conception, the holiness of his nature is secured, and his fitness for his office is assured to us. It is now a pure and unpolluted humanity that is the temple and taber- nacle of the Divinity: the fulness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily, and dwells in him holily. His humanity is supernatu- ralized and elevated by the activity of the Holy Ghost, trans- forming the flesh of the virgin into man, as the chaos into a world. Though we read of some sanctified from the womb, it was not a pure and perfect holiness; it was like the light of fire mixed with smoke, an infused holiness accompanied with
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a natural taint. But the holiness of the Redeemer by this con- ception, is like the light of the sun, pure and without spot. The Spirit of holiness supplying the place of a father in a way of creation.
His fitness for his office is also assured to us; for being born of the virgin, one of our nature, but conceived by the Spirit a Divine person, the guilt of our sins may be imputed to him because of our nature, without the stain of sin inherent in him; because of his supernatural conception he is capable, as one of kin to us, to bear our curse without being touched by our taint. By this means our sinful nature is assumed without sin in that nature which was assumed by him: flesh he has, but not sinful flesh, Rom. viii. 3. Real flesh, but not really sinful, only by way of imputation.
Nothing but the power of God is evident in this whole work: by the ordinary laws and course of nature a virgin could not bear a son; nothing but a supernatural and almighty grace could intervene to make so holy and perfect a conjunction. The generation of others, in an ordinary way, is by male and female; but the virgin is overshadowed by the Spirit, and power of the Highest.1 Man only is the product of natural generation; this which is born of the virgin is the Holy thing, the Son of God. In other generations a rational soul is only united to a material body; but in this, the Divine nature is united with the human in one person by an indissoluble union.
Another act of power in the Person redeeming, is the union of the two natures, the Divine and human. The designing indeed of this was an act of wisdom, but the accomplishing it was an act of power.
There is in this redeeming Person a union of two natures. He is God and man in one person. "Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever: — God, even thy God, hath anoinled thee with the oil of gladness, &c. Heb. i. 8, 9. The Son is called God, having a throne for ever and ever, and the unction speaks him man. The Godhead cannot be anointed, nor has any fel- lows. Humanity and Divinity are ascribed to him, Rom. i. 3, 4. He was of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. The Divinity and humanity are both prophetically joined, Zech. xii. 10. I will pour out my Spirit: the pouring forth the Spirit is an act only of Divine grace and power. " And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced:" the same person pours forth the Spirit as God, and is pierced as man. "The Word was made flesh," John i. 14. Word from eternity was made flesh in time, Word and flesh in one person; a great God, and a little infant.
1 Amyrant. sur. Tim. p. 292.
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The terms of this union ivere infinitely distant. What greater distance can there be than between the Deity and hu- manity, between the Creator and a creature? Can you imagine the distance between eternity and time, infinite power and mis- erable infirmity, an immortal spirit and dying flesh, the highest Being and nothing? yet these are espoused. A God of unmixed blessedness is linked personally with a man of perpetual sor- rows; life incapable of death, joined to a body in that economy incapable of life without dying first; infinite purity, and a re- puted sinner; eternal blessedness with a cursed nature; al- mightiness and weakness, omniscience and ignorance, immuta- bility and changeableness, incomprehensibleness and compre- hensibility; that which cannot be comprehended, and that which can be comprehended; that which is entirely independ- ent, and that which is totally dependent; the Creator forming all things and the creature made, met together to a personal union; the Word made flesh, John i. 14; the eternal Son the seed of Abraham, Heb. ii. 16. What more miraculous than for God to become man, and man to become God? That a per- son possessed of all the perfections of the Godhead, should in- herit all the imperfections of the manhood in one person, sin only excepted; a holiness incapable of sinning to be made sin; God blessed for ever taking the properties of human nature, and hu- man nature admitted to a union with the properties of the Crea- tor: the fulness of the Deity and the emptiness of man united together, Col. ii. 9; not by a shining of the Deity upon the hu- manity's the light of the sun upon the earth, but by an inhabi- tation or indwelling of the Deity in the humanity. Was there not need of an infinite power to bring together terms so far asunder, to elevate the humanity to be capable of and disposed for a conjunction with the Deity? If a clod of earth should be advanced to and united with the body of the sun, such an ad- vance would evidence itself to be a work of almighty power: the clod has nothing in its own nature to render it so glorious, no power to climb up to so high a dignity: how little would such a union be, to that we are speaking of! Nothing less than an incomprehensible power could effect, what an incomprehen- sible wisdom did project in this affair.
Especially since the union is so strait. It is not such a union as is between a man and his house he dwells in, whence he goes out, and to which he returns, without any alteration of himself or his house; nor such a union as is between a man and his garment, which both communicate and receive warmth from one another; nor such as is between an artificer and his instrument wherewith he works; nor such a union as one friend has with another: all these are distant things, not one in nature, but have distinct substances. Two friends, though united by
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love, are distinct persons; a man and his clothes, an artificer and his instruments, have distinct subsistences; but the humanity of Christ has no subsistence but in the person of Christ.
The straitness of this union is expressed, and may be some- what conceived, by the union of fire with iron;1 " fire pierceth through all the parts of iron, it unites itself with every particle, bestows a light, heat, purity upon all of it; you cannot distin- guish the iron from the fire, or the fire from the iron, yet they are distinct natures: so the Deity is united to the whole human- ity, seasons it, and bestows an excellency upon it, yet the na- tures still remain distinct. And as during that union of fire with iron, the iron is incapable of rust or blackness; so is the hu- manity incapable of sin : and as the operation of fire is attributed to the red hot iron, (as the iron may be said to heat, burn, and the fire may be said to cut and pierce,) yet the imperfections of the iron do not affect the fire; so in this mystery, those things which belong to the Divinity are ascribed to the humanity, and those things which belong to the humanity are ascribed to the Divinity, in regard of the Person in whom those natures are united; yet the imperfections of the humanity do not hurt the Divinity." " The Divinity of Christ is as really united with the humanity, as the soul with the body: the Person was one, though the natures were two, so united, that the sufferings of the hu- man nature were the sufferings of that Person, and the dignity of the Divine was imputed to the human, by reason of that unity of both in one person: hence the blood of the human na- ture is said to be the blood of God, Acts xx. 28. All things ascribed to the Son of God, may be ascribed to this man; and the things ascribed to this man, may