Part 11
170 CHABNOCK'S WORKS. [Jos XXVI. 14.
changing his resolves, because of his infinite wisdom, so he is incapable of being forced to any change, because of his infinite power. Being almighty, he can be no more changed from power to weakness, than being all-wise, he can be changed from wisdom to folly, or being omniscient, from know ledge to ignorance. He cannot be altered in his purposes because of his wisdom, nor in the manner and method of his actions because of his infinite strength. Men, indeed, when their designs are laid deepest, and their pur poses stand firmest, yet are forced to stand still, or change the manner of the execution of their resolves, by reason of some outward accidents that
obstruct them in their course ; for having not wisdom to foresee future hin drances, they have not power to prevent them, or strength to remove them, when they unexpectedly interpose themselves between their desire and per formance ; but no created power has strength enough to be a bar against God. By the same act of his will that he resolves a thing, he can puff away any impediments that seem to rise up against him. He that wants no means to effect his purposes, cannot be checked by anything that riseth up to stand in his way. Heaven, earth, sea, the deepest places, are too weak to resist
his will, Ps. cxxxv. 6. The purity of the angels will not, and the devil's malice cannot, frustrate his will ; the one voluntarily obeys the beck of his hand, and the other are vanquished by the power of it. What can make him change his purposes, who (if he please) can dash the earth against the heavens in the twinkling of an eye, untying the world from its centre, clap the stars and elements together into one mass, and blow the whole creation of men and devils into nothing. Because he is almighty, therefore he is immutable.
5. Hence is inferred the providence of God, and his government of the world. His power as well as his wisdom gives him a right to govern. Nothing can equal him, therefore nothing can share the command with him ; since all things are his works, it is fittest they should be under his order : he that frames a work is fittest to guide and govern it. God hath the most right to govern, because he hath knowledge to direct his power, and power to execute the results of his wisdom. He knows what is convenient to order,
and hath strength to effect what he orders. As his power would be oppres sive without goodness and wisdom ; so his goodness and wisdom would be fruitless without power. An artificer that hath lost his hands may direct, but cannot make an engine ; a pilot that hath lost his arms may advise the way of steerage, but cannot hold the helm ; something is wanting in him to be a complete governor ; but since both counsel and power are infinite in
God, hence results an infinite right to govern, and an infinite fitness, because his will cannot be resisted, his power cannot be enfeebled or diminished ; he can quicken and increase the strength of all means as he pleases. He can hold all things in the world together, and preserve them in those func tions wherein he settled them, and conduct them to those ends for which he designed them.
Every artificer, the more excellent he is, and the more excellency of power appears in his work, is the more careful to maintain and cherish it.
Those that deny providence do not only ravish from him the bowels of his goodness, but strip him of a main exercise of his power, and engender in men a suspicion of weariness and feebleness in him, as though his strength had been spent in making them, that none is left to guide them. They would make him headless in regard of his wisdom, and bowel-less in regard of his goodness, and armless in regard of his strength. If he did not, or were not able to preserve and provide for his creatures, his power in making them would be in a great part an invisible power ; if he did not preserve
JOB XXVI. 14.] GOD'S POWER. 171
what he made, and govern what he preserves, it would be a kind of strange and rude power, to make and suffer it to be dashed in pieces at the pleasure of others. If the power of God should relinquish the world, the life of things would be extinguished, the fabric would be confounded and fall into a deplorable chaos. That which is composed of so many various pieces could not maintain its union, if there was not a secret virtue binding them together, and maintaining those varieties of links.
Well then, since God is not only so good that he cannot will anything but what is good, so wise that he cannot err or mistake, but also so able that he cannot be defeated or mated, he hath every way a full ability to govern the world, where those three are infinite. The right and fitness result ing from thence is unquestionable ; and, indeed, to deny God this active part of his power, is to render him weak, foolish, cruel, or all.
6. Here is a ground for the worship of God. Wisdom and power are the grounds of the respect we give to men ; they being both infinite in God, are the foundation of a solemn honour to be returned to him by his creatures. If a man make a curious engine, we honour him for his skill ; if another vanquish a vigorous enemy, we admire him for his strength ; and shall not
the efficacy of God's power in creation, government, redemption, inflame us with a sense of the honour of his name and perfections ! We admire those princes that have vast empires, numerous armies, that have a power to conquer their enemies, and preserve their own people in peace ; how much more ground have we to pay a mighty reverence to God, who, without trouble and weariness, made and manages this vast empire of the world by a word and beck ! What sensible thoughts have we of the noise of thunder, the power of the sun, the storms of the sea ! These things, that have no under standing, have struck men with such a reverence that many have adored them as gods. What reverence and adoration doth this mighty power, joined with an infinite wisdom in God, demand at our hands !
All religion and worship stands especially upon two pillars, goodness and power in God ; if either of these were defective, all religion would faint away. We can expect no entertainment with him without goodness, nor any benefit from him without power. This God prefaceth to the command to worship him, the benefit his goodness had conferred upon them, and the powerful manner of conveyance of it to them : 2 Kings xvii. 86, ' The Lord brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and an outstretched
arm ; him shall you fear, and him shall you worship, and to him shall you do sacrifice.' Because this attribute is a main foundation of prayer, the Lord's prayer is concluded with a doxology of it, ' For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.' As he is rich, possessing all blessings, so he is powerful to confer all blessings on us, and make them efficacious to us. The Jews repeat many times in their prayers, some say an hundred times,
D/iyn *:pD, ' The king of the world ;' it is both an awe and an encourage ment.* We could not without consideration of it pray in faith of success, nay, we could not pray at all, if his power were defective to help us, and his mercy too weak to relieve us. Who would solicit a lifeless, or lie a prostrate suppliant to a feeble arm ! Upon this ability of God our Saviour built his petitions : Heb. v. 7, « He offered up strong cries unto him that was able to save him from death.' Abraham's faith hung upon the same string, Rom. iy. 21, and the captive church supplicates God to act ' ac cording to the greatness of his power,' Ps. Ixxix. 11. In all our addresses, this is to be eyed and considered, God is able to help, to relieve, to
* Capel in Tim. L 17.
172 CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [Jos XXVI. 14.
ease me, let my misery be never so great, and my strength never so weak.
' If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean,' was the consideration the leper had when he came to worship Christ, Mat. viii.*42 ; he was clear in his power, and therefore worshipped him, though he was not equally clear in his will. All worship is shot wrong that is not directed to, and conducted by, the thoughts of this attribute whose assistance we need. When we beg the pardon of our sins, we should eye mercy and power ; when we beg his righting us in any case where we are unjustly oppressed, we do not eye righteousness without power ; when we plead the performance of his promise, we do not regard his faithfulness only without the prop of his power. As power ushers in all the attributes of God in their exercise and manifestation in the world,
so should it be the butt our eyes should be fixed upon in all our acts of wor ship ; as without his power his other attributes would be useless, so without apprehensions of his power our prayers will be faithless and comfortless. The
title in the Lord's prayer directs us to a prospect both of his goodness and power ; his goodness in the word Father, his greatness, excellency, and power in the word heaven. The heedless consideration of the infiniteness of this perfection roots up piety in the midst of us, and makes as so care less in worship. Did we more think of that power that raised the world out of nothing, that orders all creatures by an act of his will, that performed so great an exploit as that of our redemption, when masterless sin had triumphed over the world, we should give God the honour and adoration which so great an excellency challengeth and deserves at our hands, though we ourselves
had not been the work of his hands, or the monuments of his strength. How could any creature engross to itself that reverence from us which is due to the powerful Creator, of whom it comes infinitely short in strength as well as wisdom !
7. From this we have a ground for the belief of the resurrection. God aims at the glory of his power, as well as the glory of any other attribute. Moses else would not have culled out this as the main argument in his pleading with God for the sheathing the sword, which he began to draw out
against them in the wilderness : Num. xiv. 16, ' The nations will say, Be cause the Lord was not able to bring these people into the land which he
sware to them,' &c. As the finding out the particulars of the dust of our bodies discovers the vastness of his knowledge, so to raise them will mani fest the glory of his power as much as creation. Bodies that have mouldered away into multitudes of atoms, been resolved into the elements, passed through varieties of changes, been sometimes the matter to lodge the form
of a plant, or been turned into the substance of a fish or fowl, or vapoured up into a cloud, and been part of that matter which hath compacted a thunder-bolt ; disposed of in places far distant, scattered by the winds, swallowed and concocted by beasts : for these to be called out from their different places of abode to meet in one body, and be restored to their former
consistency in a marriage union, ' in the twinkling of an eye,' 1 Cor. xv. 52, it is a consideration that may justly amaze us, and our shallow understand
ings are too feeble to comprehend it. But is it not credible, since all the disputes against it may be silenced by reflections on infinite power, which nothing can oppose, for which nothing can be esteemed too difficult to effect, which doth not imply a contradiction in itself ? It was no less amazing to the blessed virgin to hear a message that she should conceive a son with out knowing a man ; but she is quickly answered by the angel, with a No thing is impossible to God, Luke i. 34, 87. The distinct parts of our bodies cannot be hid from his all-seeing eye, wherever they are lodged, and in all the changes they pass through, as was discovered when the omniscience of God
JOB XXVI. 14.] GOD'S POWER. 173
was handled ; shall, then, the collection of them together be too hard for his invincible power and strength, and the uniting all those parts into a body, with new dispositions to receive their several souls, be too big and bulky for that power which never yet was acquainted with any bar ? Was not the
miracle of our Saviour's multiplying the loaves, suppose it had not been by a new creation, but a collection of grain from several parts, very near as stupendous as this ? Had any one of us been the only creature made just before the matter of the world, and beheld that inform chaos, covered with a thick darkness, mentioned Gen. i. 2, would not the report, that from this dark deep, next to nothing, should be raised such a multitude of comely creatures, with such innumerable varieties of members, voices, colours, motions, and such numbers of shining stars ; a bright sun, one uniform body of light from this darkness, that should, like a giant, rejoice to run a race for many thousand years together, without stop or weariness ; would not all these have seemed as incredible as the collection of scattered dust ? What was it that erected the innumerable host of heaven, the glorious angels, and glittering stars, for aught we know more numerous than the bodies of men, but an act of the divine will ? And shall the power that wrought this, sink under the charge of gathering some dispersed atoms, and compacting them into a human body ? Can you tell how the dust of the ground was kneaded by God into the body of man, and changed into flesh, skin, hair, bones, sinews, veins, arteries, and blood, and fitted for so many several
activities, when a human soul was breathed into it ? * Can you imagine how a rib, taken from Adam's side, a lifeless bone, was formed into head, hands, feet, eyes ? Why may not the matter of men which have been be restored, as well as that which was not be first erected? Is it harder to repair those things which were, than to create those things which were not ? Is there not the same artificer ? Hath any disease or sickness abated his power ? Is the Ancient of days grown feeble ? or shall the elements and other creatures, that alway yet obeyed his command, ruffle against his raising voice, and refuse to disgorge those remains of human bodies they have swallowed up in their several bowels ? Did the whole world, and all the parts of it, rise at his word ? and shall not some parts of the world, the dust of the dead, stand up out of the graves at the word of the same mighty efficacy ? Do we not annually see those marks of power which may stun our incredulity in this concern ? Do you see, in a small acorn or little seed, any such sights as a tree, with body, bark, branches, leaves, flowers, fruit ? Where can you find them ? Do you know the invisible corners where they lurk in that little body ? And yet these you afterwards view rising up from this little body, when sown in the ground, that you could not possibly have any prospect of when you rolled it in your hand, or opened its bowels. And why may not all the particulars of our bodies, however disposed as to their
distinct natures invisibly to us, remain distinct, as well as if you mingle a thousand seeds together, they will come up in their distinct kinds, and pre serve their distinct virtues ?
Again, is not the making heaven and earth, the union of the divine and human nature, eternity and infirmity, to make a virgin conceive a son, bear the Creator, and bring forth the Redeemer, to form the blood of God of the flesh of a virgin, a greater work than the calling together and uniting the scattered parts of our bodies, which are all of one nature and matter ? And since the power of God is manifested in pardoning innumerable sins, is not the scattering our transgressions, as far as the east is from the west, as the
expression is, Ps. ciii. 12, and casting such numbers into the depths of the
* Lingend, to . iii. p. 779, 780.
174 CHABNOCK'S WORKS. [Jos XXVI. 14.
sea, which is God's power over himself, a greater argument of might than the recalling and repairing the atoms of our bodies from their various recep tacles ? It is not hard for them to believe this of the resurrection, that have been sensible of the weight and force of their sins, and the power of God in pardoning and vanquishing that mighty resistance, which was made in their hearts against the power of his renewing and sanctifying grace. The con sideration of the infinite power of God is a good ground of the belief of the resurrection.
8. Since the power of God is so great and incomprehensible, how strange is it that it should be contemned and abused by the creatures as it is ! The power of God is beaten down by some, outraged by others, blasphemed by many under their sufferings. The stripping God of the honour of his creation, and the glory of his preservation of the world, falls under this charge. Thus do they that deny his framing the world alone, or thought the first matter was not of God's creation ; and such as fancied an evil principle, the author of all evil, as God is the author of all good, and so exempt from the power of God that it could not be vanquished by him. These things have formerly found defenders in the world, but they are in themselves ridiculous and vain, and have no footing in common reason, and are not worthy of debate in a Christian auditory.
In general, all idolatry in the world did arise from the want of a due notion of this infinite power. The heathen thought one God was not suffi cient for the managing of all things in the world, and therefore they feigned several gods that had several charges : as Ceres presided over the fruits of the earth ; Esculapius over the cure of distempers ; Mercury for merchan dise and trade ; Mars for war and battles ; Apollo and Minerva for learning and ingenious arts ; and Fortune for casual things. Whence doth the other sort of idolatry, the adoring our bags and gold, our dependencies on and
trusting in creatures for help, arise, but from ignorance of God's power, or mean and slender apprehensions of it ?
First, There is a contempt of it. Secondly, An abuse of it. (1.) It is contemned in every sin, especially in obstinacy in sin. All sin whatsoever is built upon some false notion or monstrous conception of one
or other of God's perfections, and in particular of this. It includes a secret and lurking imagination, that we are able to grapple with omnipotence, and
enter the lists with almightiness ; what else can be judged of the apostle's expression, 1 Cor. x. 22, ' Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy ? are we stronger than he ? ' Do we think we have an arm too powerful for that justice we provoke, and can repel that vengeance we exasperate ? Do we
think we are an even match for God, and are able to despoil him of his divinity ? To despise his will, violate his order, practise what he forbids with a severe threatening, and pawns his power to make it good, is to pre tend to have an arm like God, and be able to thunder with a voice equal or superior to him, as the expression is, Job xl. 9. All security in sin is of this strain ; when men are not concerned at divine threatenings, nor staggered in their sinful race, they intimate that the declarations of divine power are but vain-glorious boastings, that God is not so strong and able as he reports himself to be ; and therefore they will venture it, and dare him to try whether the strength of his arm be as forcible as the words of his mouth are terrible in his threats. This is to believe themselves creators, not
creatures. We magnify God's power in our wants, and debase it in our rebellions, as though omnipotence were only able to supply our necessities, and unable to revenge the injuries we offer him.
JOB XXVI. 14.] GOD'S POWER. 175
(2.) This power is contemned in distrust of God. All distrust is founded in a doubting of his truth, as if he would not be as good as his word ; or
of his omniscience, as if he had not a memory to retain his word ; orii of his power, as if he could not be as great as his word. We measure the infinite power of God by the short line of our understandings, as if infinite strength were bounded within the narrow compass of our finite reason, as if he could do no more than we were able to do.
How soon did those Israelites lose the remembrance of God's out stretched arm, when they uttered that atheistical speech, Ps. Ixxviii. 19,
' Can God furnish a table in the wilderness ?' As if he that turned the dust of Egypt into lice for the punishment of their oppressors, could not turn the dust of the wilderness into corn for the support of their bodies ! As if he that had miraculously rebuked the Red Sea for their safety, could not pro vide bread for their nourishment ! Though they had seen the Egyptians with lost lives in the morning, in the same place where their lives had been miraculously preserved in the evening, yet they disgrace that experimented power by opposing to it the stature of the Anakims, the strength of their cities, and the height of their walls, Numb. xiii. 32. And Numb. xiv. 8,
' Wherefore hath the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword ?' as though the giants of Canaan were too strong for him, for whom they had seen the armies of Egypt too weak. How did they contract the almightiness of God into the littleness of a little man, as if he must needs sink under the sword of a Canaanite !
This distrust must arise either from a flat atheism, a denial of the being of God or his government of the world, or unworthy conceits of a weakness in him, that he had made creatures too hard for himself, that he were not strong enough to grapple with those mighty Anakims, and give them the possession of Canaan against so great a force. Distrust of him implies, either that he was alway destitute of power, or that his power is exhausted by his former works, or that it is limited and near a period ; it is to deny him to be the Creator that moulded heaven and earth. Why should we by distrust put a slight upon that power which he hath so often expressed, and which in the minutest works of his hands surmounts the force of the sharpest understanding ?
(3.) It is contemned in too great a fear of man, which ariseth from a distrust of divine power. Fear of man is a crediting the might of man with a disrepute of the arm of God ; it takes away the glory of his might, and renders the creature stronger than God, and God more feeble than mortal, as if the arm of man were a rod of iron, and the arm of God a brittle reed. How often do men tremble at the threatenings and hectorings of ruffians, yet will stand as stakes against the precepts and threatenings of God ; as though he had less power to preserve us, than enemies had to destroy ! With what disdain doth God speak to men infected with this humour !
Isa. li. 12, 13, ' Who art thou, that art afraid of a man that shall die, and
of the son of man, that shall be made as grass, and forgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth, and hast feared continually every day, because of the fury of the
oppressor ?' To fear man that is as grass, that cannot think a thought without a divine concourse, that cannot breathe but by a divine power, nor touch a hair without license first granted from heaven ; this is a forgetfulness, and con sequently a slight, of that infinite power which hath been manifested in founding the earth and garnishing the heavens. All fear of man in the way of our duty, doth in some sort thrust out the remembrance and discredit
176 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Jos XXYI. 14.
the great actions of the Creator. Would not a mighty prince think it a disparagement to him if his servant should decline his command for fear of one of his subjects ? And hath not the great God just cause to think himself disgraced by us, when we deny him obedience for fear of a creature, as though he had but an infant ability, too feeble to bear us out in duty, and incapable to balance the strength of an arm of flesh !
(4.) It is'contemned by trusting in ourselves, in means, in man, more than in God. When in any distress we will try every creature-refuge before we have recourse to God, and when we apply ourselves to him, we do it with such slight and perfunctory frames, and with so much despondency, as if we despaired either of his ability or will to help us, and implore him with cooler affections than we solicit creatures ; or, when in a disease we depend upon the virtue of the medicine, the ability of the physician, and reflect not upon that power that endued the medicine with that virtue, and supports the quality in it, and concurs to the operation of it ; when we depend upon the activity of the means, as if they had power originally in themselves, and not derivatively, and do not eye the power of God animating and assisting them. We cannot expect relief from anything with a neglect of God, but we render it in our thoughts more powerful than God ; we acknowledge a greater fulness in a shallow stream, than in an eternal spring ; we do in effect depose the true God, and create to ourselves a new one ; we assert by such a kind of act ing the creature, if not superior, yet equal with God and independent on him. When we trust in our own strength without begging his assistance, or boast of our own strength without acknowledging his concurrence, as the
Assyrian, — ' By the strength of my hand have I done this, I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man,' Isa. x. 13, — it is as if ' the axe should boast itself against him that hews therewith,' and thinks itself more mighty than the arm that wields it, verse 15, when we trust in others more than in God. Thus God upbraids those by the prophet that sought help from
Egypt, telling them, Isa. xxxi. 3, ' The Egyptians were men, and not gods,' intimating that, by their dependence on them, they rendered them gods and not men, and advanced them from the state of creatures to that of almighty deities. It is to set a pile of dust, a heap of ashes, above him that created and preserves the world. To trust in a creature, is to make it as infinite as God, to do that which is impossible in itself to be done. God him self cannot make a creature infinite, for that were to make him God.
It is also contemned when we ascribe what we receive to the power of instruments, and not to the power of God. Men, in whatsoever they do for us, are but the tools whereby the Creator works. Is it not a disgrace to the limner to admire his pencil and not himself ; to the artificer to admire
his file and engines, and not his power ! It is ' not I,' saith Paul, that labour, ' but the grace,' the efficacious grace, ' of God which is in me.' What soever good we do is from him, not from ourselves ; to ascribe it to our selves, or to instruments, is to overlook and contemn his power.
(5.) Unbelief of the gospel is a contempt and disowning divine power. This perfection hath been discovered in the conception of Christ, the union of the two natures, his resurrection from the grave, the restoration of the world, and the conversion of men, more than in the creation of the world ; then what a disgrace is unbelief to all that power, that so severely punished the Jews for the rejecting the gospel, turned so many nations from their beloved superstitions, humbled the power of princes and the wisdom of
philosophers, 'chased devils from their temples by the weakness of fishermen, planted the standard of the gospel against the common notions and inveterate customs of the world ! What a disgrace is unbelief to this power, which
JOB XXVI. 14.] GOD'S POWER. 177
hath preserved Christianity from being extinguished by the force of men and devils, and kept it flourishing in the midst of sword, fire, and executioners ; that hath made the simplicity of the gospel overpower the eloquence of orators, and multiplied it from the ashes of martyrs, when it was destitute of all human assistances ! Not heartily to believe and embrace that doctrine which hath been attended with such marks of power, is a high reflection upon this divine perfection, so highly manifested in the first publication, pro pagation, and preservation of it.
The power of God is abused as well as contemned ; (1.) When we make use of it to justify contradictions. The doctrine of transubstantiation is an abuse of this power. When the maintainers of it cannot answer the absurdities alleged against it, they have recourse to the power of God. It implies a contradiction, that the same body should be on earth and in heaven at the same instant of time ; that it should be at the right hand of God, and in the mouth and stomach of a man ; that it should be a body of flesh, and yet bread to the eye and to the taste ; that it should be visible and invisible, a glorious body, and yet gnawn by the teeth of a creature ; that it should be multiplied in a thousand places, and yet an entire body in every one, where there is no member to be seen, no flesh to be tasted ; that it should be above us in the highest heavens, and yet within us in our lower bowels. Such contradictions as these are an abuse of the power of God.
Again, we abuse this power, when we believe every idle story that is reported, because God is able to make it so if he pleased. We may as well believe
yEsop's fables to be true, that birds spake and beasts reasoned, because the power of God can enable such creatures to such acts. God's power is not the rule of our belief of a thing, without the exercise of it in matter of fact, and the declaration of it upon sufficient evidence.
(2.) The power of God is abused, by presuming on ik, without using the means he hath appointed. When men sit with folded arms, and make a confidence in his power a glorious title to their idleness and disobedience, they would have his strength do all, and his precept should move them to do nothing ; this is a trust of his power against his command, a pretended glorifying his power with a slight of his sovereignty. Though God be almighty, yet for the most part he exerciseth his might in giving life and success to second causes and lawful endeavours. When we stay in the mouth of danger, without any call ordering us to continue, and against a door of providence opened for our rescue, and sanctuary ourselves in the power of God without any promise, without any providence conducting us, this is not to glorify the divine might, but to neglect it, in neglecting the means which his power affords to us for our escape ; to condemn it to our humours, to work miracles for us according to our wills, and against his own.* God could have sent a worm to be Herod's executioner, when he Bought the life of our Saviour, or employed an angel from heaven to have tied his hands or stopped his breath, and not put Joseph upon a flight to Egypt with our Saviour; yet had it not been an abuse of the power of God, for Joseph to have neglected the precept, and slighted the means God gave him
for the preserving his own life and that of the child's ! Christ himself, when the Jews consulted to destroy him, presumed not upon the power of God to secure him, but used ordinary means for his preservation, by walking no more openly, but retiring himself into a city near the wilderness till the hour was come, and the call of his Father manifest, John xi. 58, 54. A rash running upon danger, though for the truth itself, is a presuming upon, and
* Harwood, p 13. VOL. II. M
178 CHABNOCK'S WORKS. [Jos XXVI. 14.
consequently an abuse of, this power; a proud challenging it to serve our turns against the authority of his will, and the force of his precept ; a not resting in his ordinate power, but demanding his absolute power to pleasure our follies and presumption, concluding and expecting more from it than
what is authorised by his will.
9. Instruction. If infinite power be a peculiar property of God, how miserable will all wicked rebels be under this power of God ! Men may break his laws, but not impair his arm ; they may slight his word, but can not resist his power. If he swear that he will sweep a place with the besom
of destruction, ' As he hath thought, so shall it come to pass ; and as he hath purposed, so shall it stand,' Isa. xiv. 23, 24. Rebels against an earthly prince may exceed him in strength, and be more powerful than their sove reign. None can equal God, much less exceed him. As none can exercise an act of hostility against him without his permissive will, so none can struggle from under his hand without his positive will. He hath an arm not to be moved, a hand not to be wrung aside. God is represented on his throne like a jasper stone, Rev. iv. 8, as one of invincible power when he
comes to judge. The jasper is a stone which withstands the greatest force.* Though men resist the order of his laws, they cannot resist the sentence of their punishment, nor the execution of it. None can any more exempt themselves from the arm of his strength, than they can from the authority of his dominion. As they must bow to his sovereignty ; so they must sink under his force. A prisoner in this world may make his escape ; but a
prisoner in the world to come cannot : Job. x. 7, ' There is none that can deliver out of thine hand.' There is ' none to deliver when he tears in pieces,' Ps. 1. 22. His strength is uncontrollable ; hence his throne is represented as a fiery flame, Dan. vii. 9. As a spark of fire hath power to kindle one thing after another, and increase till it consumes a forest, a city, swallow up all combustible matter, till it consumes a world, and many worlds, if they were in being. What power hath a tree to resist the fire, though it seems mighty when it out-braves the winds ? What man to this day hath been able to free himself from that chain of death God clapped upon him for his revolt ? And if he be too feeble to rescue himself from a temporal, much less from an eternal death. The devils have to this minute groaned under the pile of wrath, without any success in delivering themselves by all their strength, which much surmounts all the strength of mankind, nor have they any hopes to work their rescue to eternity.
How foolish is every sinner ! Can we poor worms strut it out against infinite power ? We cannot resist the meanest creatures when God com missions them, and puts a sword into their hands. They will not, no, not
the worms, be startled at the glory of a king, when they have their Creator's warrant to be his executioners, Acts xii. 23. Who can withstand him, when he commands the waves and inundations of the sea to leap over the shore ; when he divides the ground in earthquakes, and makes it gape wide to
swallow the inhabitants of it ; when the air is corrupted to breed pestilences ; when storms and showers, unseasonably falling, putrefy the fruits of the earth ? What created power can mend the matter, and with a prevailing voice say to him, What dost thou ?
There are two attributes God will make glister in hell to the full, his wrath and his power : Rom. ix. 22, ' What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels
of wrath fitted for destruction ?' If it were mere wrath, and no power to second it, it were not so terrible ; but it is wrath and power, both are joined
* Grot, in loc.
JOB XXVI. 14.] GOD'S POWEE. 179
together ; it is not only a sharp sword, but a powerful arm ; and not only that, for then it were well for the damned creature. To have many sharp blows, and from a strong arm, this may be without putting forth the highest strength a man hath ; but in this God makes it his design to make his power known and conspicuous. He takes the sword (as it were) in both hands, that he may shew the strength of his arm in striking the harder blow ; and
therefore the apostle calls it, 2 Thes. i. 9, ' the glory of his power,' which puts a sting into this wrath ; and it is called, Rev. xix. 15, ' the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty.' God will do it in such a manner, as to make men sensible of his almightiness in every stroke. How great must that vengance be, that is backed by all the strength of God ? When there will be a powerful wrath without a powerful compassion, when all this power shall be exercised in punishing, and not the least mite of it exercised in pitying, how irresistible will be the load of such a weighty hand ! How can the dust of the balance break the mighty bars, or get out of the lists of a powerful vengeance, or hope for any grain of comfort ! Oh that every obstinate sinner would think of this, and consider his unmeasurable boldness in thinking himself able to grapple with omnipotence ! What force can any have to resist the presence of him before whom rocks melt, and the heavens at length shall be shrivelled up as a parchment by the last fire ! As the
light of God's face is too dazzling to be beheld by us, so the arm of his power is too mighty to be opposed by us. His almightiness is above the reach of our potsherd strength, as his infiniteness is above the capacity of our purblind understandings. God were not omnipotent, if his power could be rendered ineffectual by any.
Use 2. A second use of this point, from the consideration of the infinite power of God, is of comfort. As omnipotence is an ocean that cannot be fathomed, so the comforts from it are streams that cannot be exhausted. What joy can be wanting to him that finds himself folded in the arms of
nipotence ! This perfection is made over to believers in the covenant, as well as any
other attribute : ' I am the Lord your God ;' therefore'that power, which is as essential to the Godhead as any other perfection of his nature, is in the rights and extent of it assured unto you. Nay, we may not say, it is made over more than any other, because it is that which animates every other perfection, and is the spirit that gives them motion and appearance in the world. If God had expressed himself in particular, as, I am a true God, a wise God, a loving God, a righteous God, I am yours, what would all or any of those have signified, unless the other also had been implied, as, I am
almighty God, I am your God ! In God's making over himself in any par ticular attribute, this of his power is included in every one, without which all his other grants would be insignificant. It is a comfort that power is in the hand of God ; it can never be better placed, for he can never use his power to injure his confiding creature. If it were in our own hands, we might use it to injure ourselves. It is a power in the hand of an indulgent father, not a hard-hearted tyrant ; it is a just power. ' His right hand is full of righteousness,' Ps. xlviii. 10 ; because of his righteousness he can never use it ill, and because of his wisdom he can never use it unseasonably. Men that have strength often misplace the actings of it, because of their folly, and sometimes employ it to base ends, because of their wickedness. But this power in God is alway awakened by goodness and conducted by wisdom ; it is never exercised by self-will and passion, but according to the immutable rule of his own nature, which is righteousness. How comfortable is it to think that you have a God that can do what he pleases ; nothing so
180 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Jos XXVI. 14.
difficult but he can effect, nothing so strong but he can over-rule! Yon need not dread men, since you have one to restrain them ; nor fear devils, since you have one to chain them. No creature but is acted by this power ; no creature but must fall upon the withdrawing of this power. It was not all laid out in creation ; it is not weakened by his preservation of things ; he yet hath a fulness of power, and a residue of Spirit. For whom should that eternal arm of the Lord be displayed, and that incomprehensible thun der of his power be shot out, but for those for whose sake and for whose
comfort it is revealed in his word ?
In particular,
1. Here is comfort in all afflictions and distresses. Our evils can never be so great to oppress us as his power is great to deliver us. The same power that brought a world out of chaos, and constituted and hath hitherto preserved the regular motion of the stars, can bring order out of our confu sions, and light out of our darkness. When our Saviour was in the greatest distress, and beheld the face of his Father frowning, while he was upon the cross, in his complaint to him he exerciseth faith upon his power : Mat.
xxvii. 46, ' Eli, Eli ; My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' that is, ' My strong, my strong.' El is a name of power belonging to God ; he comforts himself in his power, while he complains of his frowns. Follow his pattern, and forget not that power that can scatter the clouds, as well as
gather them together. The psalmist's support in his distress was in the creative power of God : Ps. cxxi. 2, ' My help comes from the Lord which made heaven and earth.'
2. It is comfort in all strong and stirring corruptions and mighty tempta
tions. It is by this we may arm ourselves, and be ' strong in the power of his might,' Eph. vi. 10. By this we may conquer principalities and powers as dreadful as hell, but not so mighty as heaven ; by this we ma}' triumph over lusts within, too strong for an arm of flesh ; by this the devils that have possessed us may be cast out, the battered walls of our souls may be repaired, and the sons of Anak laid flat. That power that brought light out of darkness, and over-mastered the deformity of the chaos, and set bounds to the ocean, and dried up the Red Sea by a rebuke, can quell the tumults in our spirits, and level spiritual Goliahs by his word. When the disciples heard that terrifying speech of our Saviour concerning rich men,
that it was ' easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God,' Mat. xix. 24, to entertain the gospel, which commanded self-denial ; and that, because of the allure ments of the world, and the strong habits in their soul, Christ refers them to the power of God, ver. 26, who could expel those ill habits and plant good ones : ' With men this is impossible, but with God all things are pos sible.' There is no resistance but he can surmount, no stronghold but he can demolish, no tower but he can level.
3. It is comfort from hence that all promises shall be performed. Good ness is sufficient to make a promise, but power is necessary to perform a promise. Men that are honest cannot often make good their words, because something may intervene that may shorten their ability, but nothing can disable God without diminishing his Godhead. He hath an infiriiteness of power to accomplish his word, as well as an infiniteness of goodness to make
and utter his word. That might whereby he ' made heaven and earth,' and his ' keeping truth for ever,' are joined together, Ps. cxlvi. 5, 6 ; his Father's faithfulness and his creative power are linked together. It is upon this basis the covenant, and every part of it, is established, and stands as firm as the almightiness of God, whereby he sprung up the earth and reared the
JOB XXVI. 14.] GOD'S POWER. 181
heavens: 'No power can resist his will,' Rom. ix. 19; 'Who can disannul his purpose, and turn back his hand when it is stretched out ? ' Isa. xiv. 27. His word is unalterable, and his power is invincible. He could not deceive himself, for he knew his own strength when he promised ; no unexpected event can change his resolution, because nothing can happen without the compass of his foresight. No created strength can stop him in his action, because all creatures are ready to serve him at his command ; not the devils in hell, nor all the wicked men on earth, since he hath strength to restrain
them, and an arm to p*unish them. What can be too hard for him that created heaven and earth ? Hence it was that when God promised anything
anciently to his people, he used often the name of the ' Almighty,' the ' Lord that created heaven and earth,' as that which was an undeniable answer to any objection against anything that might be made against the greatness and stupendousness of any promise. By that name in all his works of grace was he known to them, Exod. vi. 3. When we are sure of his
will, we need not question his strength, since he never over-engageth himself above his ability. He that could not be resisted by nothing in creation, nor vanquished by devils in redemption, can never want power to glorify his faith fulness in his accomplishment of whatsoever he hath promised.
4. From this infmiteness of power in God, we have ground of assurance for perseverance. Since conversion is resembled to the works of creation and resurrection, two great marks of his strength, he doth not surely employ himself in the first work of changing the heart, to let any created strength baffle that power which he began and intends to glorify. It was this might that struck off the chain, and expelled that strong one that possessed you. What if you are too weak to keep him out of his lost possession, will God lose the glory of his first strength, by suffering his foiled adversary to make a re-entry, and regain his former usurpation ? His outstretched arm will not do less by his spiritual than it did by his national Israel ; it guarded them all the way to Canaan, and left them not to shift for themselves after he had struck off the fetters of Egypt, and buried their enemies in the Red
Sea, Deut. i. 31. This greatness of the Father above all our Saviour makes
the ground of believers' continuance for ever against the blasts of hell and engines of the world : John x. 29, ' My Father is greater than all, and none
is able to pluck them out of my Father's hands.' Our keeping is not in our own weak hands, but in the hands of him who is mighty to save. That power of God keeps us which intends our salvation. In all fears of falling
away, shelter yourselves in the power of God : ' He shall be holden up,' saith the apostle, speaking concerning one weak in faith. And no other
reason is rendered by him but this, ' for God is able to make him to stand," Rom. xiv. 4.
From this attribute of the infinite power of God, we have a ground of comfort in the lowest estate of the church. Let the state of the church be never so deplorable, the condition never so desperate, that power that created the world, and shall raise the bodies of men, can create a happy state for the church, and raise her from an overwhelming grave. Though the enemies trample upon her, they cannot upon the arm that holds her, which by the least motion of it can lift her up above the heads of her adversaries, and make them feel the thunder of that power that none can understand. ' By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils they are con
sumed,' Job iv. 9 ; they shall be ' scattered as chaff before the wind.' If once he ' draw his hand out of his bosom,' all must fly before him, or sink under him, Ps. Ixxiv. 11 ; and when there is none to help, his own arm sus tains him, and brings salvation, and his fury doth uphold him, Isa. Ixiii. 5.
182 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Jos XXVI. 14.
What if the church totter under the underminings of hell ! "What if it hath a sad heart and wet eyes ! In what a little moment can he make the night turn into day, and make the Jews that were preparing for death in Shushan triumph over the necks of their enemies, and march in one hour with swords in their hands, that expected the last hour ropes about their necks ! Esth. ix. 1, 5. If Israel be pursued by Pharaoh, the sea shall open its arms to protect them ; if they be thirsty, a rock shall spout out water to refresh them ; if they be hungry, heaven shall be their granary for manna ; if Jeru salem be besieged, and hath not force enough to encounter Sennacherib, an angel shall turn the camp into an Aceldama, a field of blood. His people shall not want deliverances, till God want a power of working miracles for their security. He is more jealous of his power than the church can be of her safety ; and if we should want other arguments to press him, we may implore him by virtue of his power ; for when there is nothing in the church as a motive to him to save it, there is enough in his own name, and the illus tration of his power, Ps. cvi. 8. Who can grapple with the omnipotency of that God who is jealous of, and zealous for, the honour of it ? And there fore God, for the most part, takes such opportunities to deliver, wherein his almightiness may be most conspicuous, and his counsels most admirable. He awakened not himself to deliver Israel till they were upon the brink of the Red Sea ; nor to rescue the three children till they were in the fiery furnace ; nor Daniel till he was in the lion's den. It is in the weakness of his crea ture that his strength is perfected ; not in a way of addition of perfectness to it, but in a way of manifestation of the perfection of it ; as it is the per fection of the sun to shine and enlighten the world, not that the sun receives an increase of light by the darting of his beams, but discovers his glory to the admiration of men, and pleasure to the world. If it were not for such occasions, the world would not regard the mightiness of God, nor know what power were in him. It traverses the stage in its fulness and liveliness upon such occasions, when the enemies are strong, and their strength edged with an intense hatred, and but little time between the contrivance and execution. It is the great comfort that the lowest distresses of the church are a fit scene
for the discovery of this attribute, and that the glory of God's omnipotence, and the church's security, are so straitly linked together. It is a promise that will never be forgotten by God, and ought never to be forgotten by us,
that ' in this mountain, the hand of the Lord shall rest," Isa. xxv. 10 ; that is, the power of the Lord shall abide ; ' and Moab shall be trodden under him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill.' And the plagues of Babylon ' shall come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine ; for strong is the Lord who judges her,' Rev. xviii. 8. Use 3. The third use is for exhortation. 1. Meditate on this power of God, and press it often upon your minds. We conclude many things of God that we do not practically suck the comfort of, for want of deep thoughts of it, and frequent inspection into it. We believe God to be true, yet distrust him ; we acknowledge him powerful, yet fear the motion of every straw. Many truths, though assented to in our understandings, are kept under hatches by corrupt affections, and have not their due influence, because they are not brought forth into the open air of our souls by meditation. If we will but search our hearts, we shall find it is the power of God we often doubt of. When the heart of Ahaz and his subjects trembled at the combination of the Syrian and Israelitish kings against him, for want of a confidence in the power of God, God sends his prophet with commission to work a miraculous sign at his own choice, to
rear up his fainting heart ; and when he refused to ask a sign out of dim-
JOB XXVI. 14.] GOD'S POWEB. 183
dence of that almighty power, the prophet complains of it as an affront to his master, Isa. vii. 12, 13. Moses, so great a friend of God, was overtaken with this kind of unbelief, after all the experiments of God's miraculous acts in Egypt ; the answer God gives him manifests this to be at the core :
' Is the Lord's hand waxed short ?' Num. xi. 23.
For want of actuated thoughts of this, we are many times turned from our known duty by the blast of a creature ; as though man had more power to dismay us than God hath to support us in his commanded way. The belief
of God's power is one of the first steps to all religion ; without settled thoughts of it, we cannot pray lively and believingly, for the obtaining the mercies we want, or the averting the evils we fear ; we should not love him, unless we are persuaded he hath a power to bless us ; nor fear him, unless we are per suaded of his power to punish us. The frequent thoughts of this would render our faith more stable, and our hopes more stedfast ; it would make us more feeble to sin, and more careful to obey. When the virgin staggered at the message of the angel, that she should bear a Son, he in his answer turns her to the creative power of God : Luke i. 35, ' The power of the Highest shall overshadow thee ;' which seems ;to be an allusion to the Spirit's moving upon the face of the deep, and bringing a comely world out of a con fused mass. Is it harder for God to make a virgin conceive a Son by the power of his Spirit, than to make a world ? Why doth he reveal himself so often under the title of Almighty, and press it upon us, but that we should press it upon ourselves ? And shall we be forgetful of that, which everything about us, everything within us, is a mark of? How come we by the power of seeing and hearing, a faculty and act of understanding and will, but by this power framing us, this power assisting us ? What though the thunder of his power cannot be understood ; no more can any other perfection of his
lature ; shall we therefore seldom think of it ? The sea cannot be fathomed, pet the merchant excuseth not himself from sailing upon the surface of it.
Je cannot glorify God without due consideration of this attribute ; for his power is his glory as much as any other, and called both by the name of
' glory,' Rom. vi. 4, speaking of Christ's resurrection by the glory of the Father ; and also ' the riches of his glory,' Eph. iii. 16. Those that have strong temptations in their course, and over-pressing corruptions in their hearts, have need to think of it out of interest, since nothing but this can relieve them. Those that have experimented the working of it in their new creation, are obliged to think of it out of gratitude. It was this mighty
)wer over himself that gave rise to all that pardoning grace already conerred, or hereafter expected ; without it, our souls had been consumed, the vorld overturned : we could not have expected a happy heaven, but have lain Celling in an eternal hell, had not the power of his mercy exceeded that of
lis justice, and his infinite power executed what his infinite wisdom had con-
rived for our redemption. How much also should we be raised in our admi-
itions of God, and ravish ourselves in contemplating that might that can lise innumerable worlds in those infinite imaginary spaces without this »lobe of heaven and earth, and exceed inconceivably what he hath done in
creation of this !
2. From the pressing the consideration of this upon ourselves, let us be iduced to trust God upon the account of his power. The main end of the evelation of his power to the patriarchs, and of the miraculous operations of it in Egypt, was to induce them to an entire reposing themselves in God ;
id the psalmist doth scarce speak of the divine omnipotence without making this inference from it ; and scarce exhorts to a trust in God, but backs it
nth a consideration of his power in creation, it being the chief support of
184 CHAKNOCK'S WOEKS. [Jos XXVI. 14.
the soul : Ps. cxlvi. 5, 6, ' Happy is he whose hope is in the Lord his God, which made heaven and earth, the sea and all that therein is.' That power is invincible that drew the world out of nothing : nothing can happen to us harder than the making the world without the concurrence of instruments. No difficulty can nonplus that strength, that hath drawn all things out of nothing, or out of a confused matter next to nothing. No power can rifle what we commit to him, 2 Tim. i. 12. He is all power, above the reach of all power ; all other powers in the world flowing from him, or depending on him. He is worthy to be trusted, since we know him true, without ever breaking his word, and omnipotent, never failing of his purpose ; and a con fidence in it is the chief act whereby we can glorify this power and credit his arm. A strong God, and a weak faith in omnipotence, do not suit well together ; indeed, we are more engaged to a trust in divine power than the ancient patriarchs were. They had the verbal declaration of his power, and many of them little other evidence of it than in the creation of the world ; and their faith in God being established in this first discovery of his omnipotence,
drew out itself further to believe, that whatsoever God promised by his word, he was able to perform, as well as the creation of the world out of nothing, which seems to be the intendment of the apostle, Heb. xi. 3 ; not barely to speak of the creation of the world by God, which was a thing the Hebrews understood well enough from their ancient oracles, but to shew the founda
tion of the patriarchs' faith, viz., God making the world by his word, and what use they made of the discovery of his power in that, to lead them to believe the promise of God concerning the seed of the woman to be brought into the world ; but we have not only the same foundation, but superadded demonstrations of this attribute in the conception of our Saviour, the union of the two natures, the glorious redemption, the propagation of the gospel, and the new creation of the world. They relied upon the naked power of God, without those more illustrious appearances of it, which have been in the ages since, and arrived to their notice. We have the wonderful effects of that which they had but obscure expectations of.
(1.) Consider, trust in God can never be without taking in God's power as a concurrent foundation with his truth. It is the main ground of trust, and so set forth in the prophet : Isa. xxvi. 4, ' Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.' And the faith of the ancients so recommended, Heb. xi., had this chiefly for its ground, and the
faith in gospel times is called a ' trusting on his arm,' Isa. li. 5. All the attributes of God are the objects of our veneration, but they do not equally contribute to the producing trust in our hearts ; his eternity, simplicity,
infiniteness, ravish and astonish our minds when we consider them.* But there is no immediate tendency in their nature to allure us to a confidence in him, no, not in an innocent state, much less in a lapsed and revolted con dition. But the other perfections of his nature, as his holiness, righteous ness, mercy, are amiable to us in regard of the immediate operations of them upon and about the creature, and so having something in their own nature to allure us to repose ourselves in him ; but yet those cannot engage to an entire trust in him, without reflecting upon his ability, which can only render those useful and successful to the creature. For whatsoever bars stand in the way of his holy, righteous, and merciful proceedings towards his creatures are not overmastered by those perfections, but by that strength of his which can only relieve us in concurrence with the other attributes. How could his mercy succour us without his arm, or his wisdom guide us without his hand, or his truth perform promises to us without his strength !
* Amyraut, Moral, torn. v. p. 170.
JOB XXVI. 14.] GOD'S POWER. 185
As no attribute can act without it, so in our addresses to him upon the account of any particular perfection in the Godhead according to our indigency, one eye must be perpetually fixed upon this of his power, and our faith would be feeble and dispirited without eying this ; without this, his holiness, [which hates sin, would not be regarded, and his mercy, pitying a grieving sinner, would not be valued. As this power is the ground of a
wicked man's fear, so it is the ground of a good man's trust. This was that which was the principal support of Abraham, not barely his promise,
but his ability to make it good, Rom. iv. 21 ; and when he was commanded to sacrifice Isaac, the ability of God to raise him up again, Heb. xi. 19. All faith would droop, and be in the mire, without leaning upon this. All those attributes which we consider as moral in God would have no influence upon us without this, which we consider physical in God. Though we value the kindness men may express to us in our distresses, yet we make them not the objects of our confidence, unless they have an ability to act what they express. There can be no trust in God without an eye to his power.
(2.) Sometimes the power of God is the sole object of trust. As when we have no promise to assure us of his will, we have nothing else to pitch upon but his ability ; and that not his absolute power, but his ordinate, in the way of his providence. We must not trust in it so as to expect he should please our humour with fresh miracles, but rest upon his power, and leave the manner to his will. Asa, when ready to conflict with the vast Ethiopian army, pleaded nothing else but this power of God, 2 Chron. xiv. 11. And the three children, who had no particular promise of deliver
ance (that we read of), stuck to God's ability to preserve them against the king's threatening, and owned it in the face of the king, yet with some kind of inward intimations in their own spirits that he would also deliver them : Dan. iii. 17, ' Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burn
ing fiery furnace.' And accordingly the fire burned the cords that tied them, without singeing anything else about them. But when this power had been exercised upon like occasions, it is a precedent he hath given us to rest upon. Precedents in law are good pleas, and strong encouragements to the client to expect success in his suit. ' Our fathers trusted in thee, and thou
didst deliver them,' saith David, Ps. xxii. 4. And Jehoshaphat in a case of distress, 2 Chron. xx. 7, ' Art not thou our God, that didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel ? ' When we have not any
statute law and promise to plead, we may plead his power, together with the former precedents and acts of it. The centurion had nothing else to act his faith upon, but the power of Christ, and some evidences of it in the miracles reported of him ; but he is silent in the latter, and casts himself only upon the former, acknowledging that Christ had the same command over diseases as himself had over his soldiers, Mat. viii. 10. And our
Saviour, when he receives the petition of the blind men, requires no more of them in order to a cure, but a belief of his ability to perform it: Mat. ix. 28,
' Believe you that I am able to do this ? ' His will is not known but by revelation, but his power is apprehended by reason, as essentially and eternally linked with the notion of a God. God also is jealous of the honour of this attribute, and since it is so much virtually discredited, he is pleased when any do cordially own it, and entirely resign themselves to the assistance of it.
Well then, in all duties where faith is particularly to be acted, forget not this as the main prop of it. Do you pray for a flourishing and triumphing
grace ? Consider him as « able to make all grace to abound in you,' 2 Cor. ix. 8. Do you want comfort and reviving under your contritions and godly
186 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Jos XXYI. 14.
sorrow ? Consider him as he declares himself, ' the high and lofty one,' Isa. Ivii. 15. Are you under pressing distresses? Take Eliphaz his advice to Job, when he tells him what he himself would do if he were in
his case : Job v. 8, ' I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause.' But observe under what consideration ; ver. 9, as to one that
' doth great things and unsearchable, marvellous things without number.' When you beg of him the melting of your rocky hearts, the dashing in pieces your strong corruptions, the drawing his beautiful image in your soul, the quickening your dead hearts, and reviving your drooping spirits, and supplying your spiritual wants, consider him as one ' able to do abundantly,' not only ' above what you can ask,' but ' above what you can think,' Eph. iii. 20. Faith will be spiritless, and prayer will be lifeless, if power be not eyed by us in those things which cannot be done with an arm of omnipotence.