Part 6
2. In temptations ; his wisdom is no less employed in permitting them than in bringing them to a good issue. His wisdom in leading our Saviour to be tempted of the devil, was to fit him for our succour, and his wisdom in Buffering us to be tempted is to fit us for his own service, and our salvation. He makes a thorn in the flesh to be an occasion of a refreshing grace to the
spirit, and brings forth cordial grapes from those pricking brambles, and
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magnifies his grace by his wisdom from the deepest subtilties of hell. Let
Satan's intentions be what they will, he can be for him at every turn to out wit him in his stratagems, to baffle him in his enterprises, to make instru mental for our good where he designs nothing but our hurt. The Lord hath his methods of deliverance from him : 2 Peter ii. 9, ' The Lord knows how
to deliver the godly out of temptation.'
3. In denials or delays of answers of prayer. He is gracious to hear, but he is wise to answer in an acceptable time, and succour us in a day proper for our salvation, 2 Cor. vi. 2. We have partial affections to ourselves ; ignorance is natural to us, Rom. viii. 26, we ask we know not what, because we ask out of ignorance. God grants what he knows, what is fit for him to do, and fit for us to receive, and the exact season wherein it is fittest for him to bestow a mercy. As God would have us bring forth our fruit in season, so he will send forth his mercies in season.
He is wise to suit his remedy to our condition, to time it so as that we shall have an evident prospect of his wisdom in it, that more of divine skill, and less of human, may appear in the issue. He is ready at our call, but he will not answer till he see the season fit to reach out his hand. He is wise to prove our faith, to humble us under the sense of our own unworthiness, to whet our affections, to set a better estimate on the blessings prayed for, and that he may double the blessing as we do our devotion ; but when his wisdom sees us fit to receive his goodness, he grants what we stand in need of. He is wise to choose the fittest time, 'and faithful to give the best covenant mercy.
4. la all evils threatened to the church by her enemies. He hath knowledge to foresee them, and wisdom to disappoint them : Job v. 13,
' He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong.' The church hath the wisdom of God to enter the lists with the policy of hell. He defeated the serpent in the first net he laid, and brought a glorious
salvation out of hell's rubbish, and is yet as skilful to disappoint the after game of the serpentine brood. The policy of hell, and the subtilty of the world, are no better than folly with God, 1 Cor. iii. 19. All creatures are fools, as creatures, in comparison with the Creator. The angels he chargeth with folly, much more sinners.
Depraved understandings are not fit mates for a pure and unblemished mind. Pharaoh, with his wisdom, finds a grave in the sea, and Ahithophel's plots are finished in his own murder. He breaks the enemies by his power, and orders them by his skill to be a feast to his people. Ps. Ixxiv. 14,
' Thou brakest the head of the leviathan, and gavest him to be meat to the people in the wilderness.' The spoils of the Egyptians' carcasses cast upon the shore served the Israelites' necessities (or were as meat to them), as being a deliverance the church might feed upon in all ages, in a wilderness
condition, to maintain their faith, the vital principle of the soul.
There is a wisdom superior to the subtilties of men, which laughs at their
follies, and ' hath them in derision,' Ps. ii. 4. ' There is no wisdom or counsel against the Lord,' Prov. xxi. 30. You never question the wisdom of an artist to use his file when he takes it into his hand. Wicked instru
ments are God's axes and files ; let him alone, he hath skill enough to manage them. God hath too much affection to destroy his people, and wisdom enough to beautify them by the worst tools he uses. He can make all things conspire in a perfect harmony for his own ends, and his
people's good, when they see no way to escape a danger feared, or attain a blessing wanted.
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Use 4. For exhortation. 1. Meditate on the wisdom of God in creation and government. How little do we think of God when we behold his works ! Our sense dwells upon the surface of plants and animals, beholds the variety of their colours, and the progress in their motion. Our reason studies the qualities of them ;
our spirits seldom take a flight to the divine wisdom which framed them. Our senses engross our minds from God, that we scarce have a thought free to bestow upon the maker of them, but only on the by. The constancy of
seeing things that are common stifles our admiration of God, due upon the sight of them. How seldom do we raise our souls as far as heaven in our views of the order of the world, the revolutions of the seasons, the natures of the creatures that are common among us, and the mutual assistance they give to each other ! Since God hath manifested himself in them, to neglect the consideration of them is to neglect the manifestation of God, and the way whereby he hath transmitted something of his perfections to our under standing. It renders men inexcusably guilty of not glorifying God, Rom. i. 19, 20. We can never neglect the meditation of the creatures without a
blemish cast upon the Creator's wisdom. As every river can conduct us to the sea, so every creature points us to an ocean of infinite wisdom. Not the minutest of them, but rich tracts of this may be observed in them, and a due sense of God result from them. They are exposed to our view, that somethingjOf God may be lodged in our minds ; that as our bodies extract their quintessence for our nourishment, so our minds may extract a quintessence
for the maker's praise. Though God is principally to be praised in and for Christ, yet as grace doth not raze out the law of nature, so the operations of grace put not the dictates of nature to silence, nor suspend the homage due to God upon our inspection of his works. God hath given full testimonies of this perfection in the heavenly bodies, dispersing their light, and distributing their influences to every part of the world. In framing men into societies, giving them various dispositions, for the preservation of governments ; making some wise for counsel, others martial for action; changing old empires, and raising new. Which way soever we cast our eyes, we shall find frequent occasions
to cry out, ' Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God !' Rom. xi. 83.
To this purpose we must not only look upon the bulk and outside of his works, but consider from what principles they were raised, in what order disposed, and the exact symmetry and proportion of their parts. When a man comes into a city or temple, and only considers the surface of the build ings, they will amaze his sense, but not better his understanding, unless he considers the methods of the work, and the art whereby it was erected.
(1.) This was an end for which they were created. God did not make
the world for man's use only, but chiefly for his own glory ; for man's use 'to enjoy his creatures, and for his own glory to be acknowledged in his creatures, that we may consider his art in framing them, and his skill in disposing them, and not only gaze upon the glass without considering the image it represents, and acquainting ourselves whose image it is. The creatures were not made for themselves, but for the service of the Creator and the service of man. Man was not made for himself, but for the service of the Lord that created him. He is to consider the beauty of the creation, that he may thereby glorify the Creator. He knows in part their excel lency, the creatures themselves do not. If, therefore, man be idle, and unobservant of them, he deprives God of the glory of his wisdom which he should have by his creatures.
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The inferior creatures themselves cannot observe it.' If man regard it not, •what becomes of it ; his glory can only be handed to him by man. The other creatures cannot be active instruments of his glory, because they know not themselves, and therefore cannot render him an active praise. Man is therefore bound to praise God for himself and for all his creatures, because he only knows himself and the perfections of the creatures, and the Author both of himself and them.
God created such variety to make a report of himself to us ; "we are to receive the report, and to reflect it back to him. To what purpose did he make so many things, not necessary for the support and pleasure of our lives, but that we should behold him in them as well as in the other ? ! We cannot behold the wisdom of God in his own essence and eternal ideas, but by the reflection of it in the creatures, as we cannot steadily behold the sun with our eye, but either through a glass, or by reflection of the image of it in the water. God would have us meditate on his perfec tions ; he therefore chose the same day wherein he reviewed his work, and rested from it, to be celebrated by man for the contemplation of him, Gen. ii. 2, 8, that we should follow his example, and rejoice as himself did, in the frequent reviews of his wisdom and goodness in them. In vain would the creatures afford matter for this study if they were wholly neglected.
God offers something to our consideration in every creature. Shall the beams of God shine round about us, and strike our eyes, and not affect our minds ? Shall we be like ignorant children, that view the pictures or point to the letters in a book without any sense and meaning ? How shall God have the homage due to him from his works, if man hath no care to observe them ? The 148th Psalm is an exhortation to this. The view of them
should often extract from us a wonder of the like nature of that of David's : Ps. civ. 24, ' 0 Lord, how wonderful are thy works ; in wisdom hast thou made them all.' The world was not created to be forgotten, nor man created to be unobservant of it.
(2.) If we observe not the wisdom of God in the views of the creatures, we do no more than brutes. To look upon the works of God in the world is no higher an act than mere animals perform. The glories of heaven and beauties of the earth are visible to the sense of beasts and birds. A brute beholds the motion of a man, as it may see the wheels of a clock, but under stands not the inward springs of motion, the end for which we move, or the soul that acts us in our motion, much less that invisible power which pre sides over the creatures and conducts their motion. If a man do no more than this, he goes not a step beyond a brutish nature, and may very well acknowledge himself, with Asaph, a foolish and ignorant beast before God, Ps. Ixxiii. 22. The world is viewed by beasts, but the author of it to be contemplated by man. Since we are in a higher rank than beasts, we owe a greater debt than beasts, not only to enjoy the creatures, as they do, but behold God in the creatures, which they cannot do.
The contemplation of the reason of God in his works is a noble and suit able employment for a rational creature. We have not only sense to per ceive them, but souls to mind them. The soul is not to be without its operation. Where the operation of sense ends, the work of the soul ought to begin. We travel over them by our senses, as brutes, but we must pierce further by our understandings, as men, and perceive and praise him that lies invisible in his visible manufactures. Our senses are given us as servants to the soul, and our souls bestowed upon us for the knowledge and praise of their and our common Creator.
(8.) This would be a means to increase our humility. We should then
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flag our wings and veil our sails, and acknowledge our own wisdom to be as a drop to the ocean and a shadow to the sun. We should have mean thoughts of the nothingness of our reason when we consider the sublimity of the divine wisdom. Who can seriously consider the sparks of infinite skill in the creature, without falling down at the feet of the divine Majesty, and acknowledging himself a dark and foolish creature ? Ps. viii. 4, 5. When
the psalmist ' considered the heavens, the moon and stars,' and God's ordi nation and disposal of them, the use that results from it is, ' What is man, that thou art mindful of him ?' We should no more think to mate him in prudence, or set up the spark of our reason to vie with the sun. Our reason would more willingly submit to the revelation, when the characters of divine wisdom are stamped upon it, when we find his wisdom in creation incom prehensible to us.
(4.) It would help us in our acknowledgments of God for his goodness to us. When we behold the wisdom of God in creatures below us, and how ignorant they are of what they possess, it will cause us to reflect upon the deeper impressions of wisdom in the frame of our own bodies and souls, an excellency far superior to theirs. This would make us admire the magnifi cence of his wisdom and goodness, and sound forth his praise for advancing us in dignity above other works of his hands, and stamping on us by infinite
art a nobler image of himself.
And by such a comparison of ourselves with the creatures below us, we should be induced to act excellently, according to the nature of our souls ; not brutishly, according to the nature of the creatures God hath put under
our feet.
(5.) By the contemplation of the creatures, we may receive some assist ance in clearing our knowledge in the wisdom of redemption. Though they cannot of themselves inform us of it, yet since God hath revealed his redeeming grace, they can illustrate some particulars of it to us. Hence the
Scripture makes use of the creatures to set forth things of a higher orb to us. Our Saviour is called a sun, a vine, and a lion ; the Spirit likened to a dove, fire, and water. The union of Christ and his church is set forth by the marriage union of Adam and Eve.
God hath placed in corporeal things the images of spiritual, and wrapped up in his creating wisdom the representations of his redeeming grace ; whence some call the creatures natural types of what was to be transacted in a new formation of the world, and allusions to what God intended in and by Christ.
(6.) The meditation of God's wisdom in the creatures is in part a begin ning of heaven upon earth. No doubt but there will be a perfect opening of the model of divine wisdom. Heaven is for clearing what is now obscure, and a full discovering of what seems at present intricate : Ps. xxxvi. 9, ' In his light shall we see light ;' all the light in creation, government, and redemption. The wisdom of God in the new heavens and the new earth would be to little purpose, if that also were not to be regarded by the inha bitants of them. As the saints are to be restored to the state of Adam, and higher, so they are to be restored to the employment of Adam, and higher. But his employment was to behold God in the creatures. The world was
so soon depraved, that God had but little joy in, and man but little knowledge'of, his works. And since the wisdom of God in creation is so little seen by our ignorance here, would not God lose much of the glory of it, if the glorified souls should lose the understanding of it above, when their darkness shall be expelled, and their advantages improved ; when the eye that Adam lost shall be fully restored, and with a greater clearness ; when the creature shall be restored
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to its true end, and reason to its true perfection, Rom. viii. 21, 22 ; when the fountains of the depths of nature and government shall be opened, know ledge shall increase ; and according to the increase of our knowledge, shall the admiration of divine •wisdom increase also.
The wisdom of God in creation was not surely intended to lie wholly unobserved in the greatest part of it ; but since there was so little time for the full observation of it, there will be a time wherein the wisdom of God shall enjoy a resurrection, and be fully contemplated by his understanding and glorified creature.
2. Study and admire the wisdom of God in redemption. This is the duty of all Christians. We are not called to understand the great depth of philo sophy ; we are not called to a skill in the intricacies of civil government, or understand all the methods of physic ; but we are called to be Christians, that is, studiers of divine, evangelical wisdom. There are first principles to be learned, but not those principles to be rested in, without a further pro
gress : Heb. vi. 1, ' Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection.' Duties must be practised, but knowledge is not to be neglected. The study of gospel mysteries, the harmony of divine truths, the sparkling of divine wisdom, in their mutual combination to the
great ends of God's glory and man's salvation, is an incentive to duty, a spur to worship, and particularly to the greatest and highest part of worship, that part which shall remain in heaven, the admiration and praise of God, and delight in him. If we acquaint not ourselves with the impressions of the glory of divine wisdom in it, we shall not much regard it as worthy our observance in regard of that duty.
The gospel is a mystery ; and as a mystery hath something great and magnificent in it, worthy of our daily inspection, we shall find fresh springs of new venders, which we shall be invited to adore with a religious astonish ment. It will both raise and satisfy our longings. Who can come to the
depths of ' God manifest in the flesh ' ? How amazing is it, and unworthy of a slight thought, that the death of the Son of God should purchase the happy immortality of a sinful creature, and the glory of a rebel be wrought by the ignominy of so great a person ! that our Mediator should have a nature whereby to covenant with his Father, and a nature whereby to be a surety for the creature ! How admirable is it, that the fallen creature should receive an advantage by the forfeiture of his happiness ! How mysterious is it, that the Son of God should bow down to death upon a cross, for the satisfaction of justice, and rise triumphantly out of the grave, as a declara tion that justice was contented and satisfied ! that he should be exalted to heaven to intercede for us, and at last return into the world to receive us, and invest us with a glory for ever with himself !
Are these things worthy of a careless regard or a blockish amazement ? What understanding can pierce into the depths of the divine doctrine of the incarnation and birth of Christ, the indissoluble union of the two natures ? What capacity is able to measure the miracles of that wisdom, found in the whole draft and scheme of the gospel ? Doth it not merit then to be the object of our daily meditation ? How comes it to pass then, that we are so little curious to concern our thoughts in those wonders, that we scarce taste or sip of these delicacies ? that we busy ourselves in trifles, and consider what we shall eat, and in what fashion we shall be dressed ? please ourselves with the ingeniousness of a lace or feather, admire a moth-eaten manuscript or some halfworn piece of antiquity, and think our time illspent in the con templating and celebrating that wherein God hath busied himself, and eter nity is designed for the perpetual expressions of ?
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How inquisitive are the blessed angels ! with what vigour do they renew their daily contemplations of it, and receive a fresh contentment from it, still learning and still inquiring ! 1 Pet. i. 12, their eye is never off the mercyseat ; they strive to see the hottom of it, and employ all the understanding they have to conceive the wonders of it. Shall the angels be ravished with it, and bend themselves down to study it, who have but little interest in it in comparison of us, for whom it was both contrived and dispensed, and shall not our pains be greater for this hidden treasure ? Is not that worthy the study of a rational creature, that is worthy the study of the angelical ? There must indeed be pains ; it is expressed by digging, Prov. ii. 4. A lazy arm will not sink to the depth of a mine. The neglect of meditating on it is inexcusable, since it hath the title and character of the wisdom of God.
The ancient prophets searched into it when it was folded up in shadows,
when they saw only the fringes of Wisdom's garment, 1 Pet. i. 10 ; and shall not we, since the sun hath mounted up in our horizon, and sensibly scattered the light of the knowledge of this and the other perfections of God ? As the Jewish Sabbath was appointed to celebrate the perfections of God discovered in creation, so is the Christian Sabbath appointed to meditate on and bless God for the discovery of his perfections in redemption. Let us therefore receive it according to its worth ; let it be our only rule to walk by. It is worthy to be valued above all other counsels ; and we should never think
of it without the doxology of the apostle, ' To the only wise God be glory through Jesus Christ for ever !' that our speculations may end in affectionate admirations and thanksgivings, for that which is so full of wonders. What a little prospect should we have had of God and the happiness of man, had not his wisdom and goodness revealed things to us ! The gospel is a mar vellous light, and should not be regarded with a stupid ignorance, and pur sued with a duller practice.
3. Let none of us be proud of, or trust in, our own wisdom. Man, by affecting wisdom out of the way of God, got a crack in his head, which hath continued five thousand years and upwards ; and ever since, our own ' wisdom and knowledge hath perverted us,' Isa. xlvii. 10. To be guided by this, is to be under the conduct of a blind leader, and follow a traitor and enemy to
God and ourselves. Man's prudence often proves hurtful to him. He often accomplisheth his ruin, while he designs his establishment, and finds his fall where he thought to settle his fortune ; such bad eyes hath human wisdom often in its own affairs. Those that have been heightened with a conceit of their own cunning, have at last proved the greatest fools. God delights to
' make foolish the wisdom of this world,' 1 Cor. i. 20.
Thus God writ folly upon the crafty brains of Ahithophel, and simplicity upon the subtle projects of Herod against our Saviour ; and the devil, the prince of carnal wisdom, was befooled into a furthering our redemption by his own projects to hinder it. Carnal policy against the prescripts of divine wisdom never prospers. It is like an ignis fatuus, which leads men out of the way of duty and out of the way of security, and perverts them into the mire and dangerous precipices.
When Jeroboam would coin a religion to serve his interests of state, he tore up the foundations both of his kingdom and family. The way the Jews took to prevent a fresh invasion of the Romans, by the crucifying Christ, brought the judgment more swift upon them, John xi. 48. There is no man ruined here or damned hereafter, but by his own wisdom and will. Prov. iii. 5, 7, the fear of the Lord and departure from evil, are inconsistent with an overweening conceit of our own wisdom, and leaning to our own under-
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standing is inconsistent with a trusting in the Lord with all our hearts. It
is as much a deifying ourselves to trust to our own wit, as it is a deifying the creature to affect or confide in it, superior to God, or equally with 1 • i ./ him.
The true way to wisdom is to be sensible of our own folly : 1 Cor. iii. 18,
' If any man be wise, let him become a fool.' He that distrusts his own guidance, will more securely and successfully follow the counsel of another iu whom he confides. The more water, or any other liquor, is poured out of a vessel, the more air enters ; the more we distrust our own wisdom, the
more capable we are of the conduct of God's. Had Jehoshaphat relied upon his own policy, he might have found a defeat when he met with a deliverance ; but he disowned his own skill and strength
in telling God, ' We know not what to do, but our eyes are towards thee,' 2 Chron. xx. 12. Let us therefore, with Agur, disesteem our own under
standing to esteem divine. Human prudence is like a spider's web, easily blown away, and easily swept down by the besom of some unexpected revo lution. God, by his infinite wisdom, can cross the wisdom of man, and
make a man's own prudence hang in his own light : Isa. xxix. 14, ' The un derstanding of their prudent men shall be hid.' 4. Seek to God for wisdom. The wisdom we have by nature is like the weeds the earth brings forth without tillage. Our wisdom since the fall is the wisdom of the serpent, without the innocency of the dove ; it flows from
self-love, runs into self-interest. It is the wisdom of the flesh, and a pru dence to manage means for the contenting our lusts. Our best wisdom is imperfect, a mere nothing and vanity, in comparison of the divine, as our beings are in comparison of his essence. We must go to God for a holy and innocent wisdom, and fill our cisterns from a pure fountain. The wis dom that was the glory of Solomon, was the donation of the Most High : James i. 5, ' If any man want wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, 'and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.' The faculty of understanding is from God by nature ; but a heavenly light to direct the understanding is from God by grace. Children have an under standing, but stand in need of wise masters to rectify it, and form judicious
notions in it. ' There is a spirit in man, but the inspiration of the Almighty gives him understanding,' Job xxii. 8. We must beg of God wisdom. The gospel is ' the wisdom of God ;' the concerns of it great and mysterious, not to be known without a new understanding, 1 John v. 20. A new understanding is not to be had but from the Creator of the first. The
Spirit of God is the ' searcher of the deep things of God ;' the revealer of them to us, and the enlightener of our minds to apprehend them ; and there
fore called a ' Spirit of wisdom and revelation,' Eph. i. 17. Christ is made wisdom to us as well as righteousness, not only by imputation, but effusion.* Seek to God, therefore, for that wisdom which is like the sun, and not that worldly wisdom which is like a shadow ; for that wisdom whose effects are not so outwardly glorious, but inwardly sweet ; seek it from him, and seek it in his word, that is the transcript of divine wisdom ; through his precepts understanding is to be had, Ps. cxix. 104. As the wisdom of men appears in their laws, so doth the wisdom of God in his statutes.
By this means we arrive to a heavenly sagacity. If these be rejected, what wisdom can be in us ? A dream and conceit only : Jer. viii. 9, ' They have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them ?' Who knows how to order any concerns as he ought, or any one faculty of the
soul ? Therefore desire God's direction in outward concerns, in personal,
* Seaman's Sermon before the Parliament.
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family, in private and public. He hath not only a wisdom for our salvation,
but for our outward direction. He doth not only guide us in the one, and leave Satan to manage us in the other. Those that go with Saul to a witch of Endor, go to hell for craft, and prefer the wisdom of the hostile serpent before the holy counsel of a faithful Creator. If you want health in your body, you advise with a physician ; if directions for your estate, you resort to a lawyer ; if passage for a voyage, you address to a pilot ; why not much more yourselves, your all, to a wise God ? As Pliny said concerning a wise man, Oh, sir, how many Catos are there in that wise person ! how much more wisdom than men or angels possess, is infinitely centred in the wise God !
5. Submit to the wisdom of God in all cases. What else was inculcated
in the first precept, forbidding man to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but that he should take heed of the swelling of his mind against the wisdom of God ? It is a wisdom incomprehensible to flesh and blood. We should adore it in our minds, and resign up ourselves to it in our
practice. How unreasonable are repinings against God, whereby a creature's ignorance indicts and judges a Creator's prudence ? Were God weak in wis dom, and only mighty in power, we might suspect his conduct. Power without wisdom and goodness is an unruly and ruinous thing in the world ; but God being infinite in one, as well as the other, we have no reason to be jealous of him, and repine against his methods ; why should we quarrel with
him that we are not as high or as wealthy as others ; that we have not pre sently the mercy we want ? If he be wise, we ought to stay his time, and
wait his leisure, because ' he is a God of judgment,' Isa. xxx. 18. Presume not to shorten the time which his discretion hath fixed ; it is a folly to think to do it. By impatience we cannot hasten relief; we alienate him from us bv debasing him to stand at our bar, disturb ourselves, lose the comfort of our lives and the sweetness of his mercy. Submission to God we are in no case exempted from, because there is no case wherein God doth not direct all the acts of his will by counsel. Whatsoever is drawn by a straight rule must be right and straight ; the rule that is right in itself is the measure of the straightness of everything else. Whatsoever is wrought in the world by God must be wise, good, righteous ; because God is essentially wisdom, goodness, and righteousness. Submit to God,
(1.) In his revelations. [1.] Measure them not by reason. The truths of the gospel must ba received with a self-emptiness and annihilation of the creature. If our rea son seems to lift up itself against revelation, because it finds no testimony for it in its own light, consider how crazy it is in natural and obvious things, and therefore sure it is not strong enough to enter into the depths of divine wis dom. The wisdom of God in the gospel is too great an ocean to be con tained or laved out by a cockle-shell. It were not infinite, if it were not beyond our finite reach ; our reason must as well stoop to his wisdom, as our wills to his sovereignty. How great a vanity is it for a glow-worm to boast that it is as full of light as the sun in the firmament ! for reason to leave its proper sphere, is to fall into confusion, and thicken its own darkness. We should settle ourselves in the belief of the Scripture, and confirm ourselves by a meditation on those many undeniable arguments for its divine authority ; the fulfilling of its predictions, the antiquity of the writing, the holiness of the precepts, the heavenliness of the doctrine, the glorious effects it hath produced, and doth yet produce, different from human methods of success, and submit our reason to the voice of so high a majesty.
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[2.] Not to be too curiously inquisitive into what is not revealed. There is something hid in whatsoever is revealed. We know the Son of God was begotten from eternity, but how he was begotten we are ignorant. We know there is a union of the divine nature with the human, and that the fulness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily ; but the manner of its inhabi tation we are in a great part ignorant of. We know God hath chosen some and refused others, and that he did it with counsel ; but the reason why he chose this man and not that, we know not ; we can refer it to nothing but
God's sovereign pleasure. It is revealed that there will be a day wherein God shall judge the world, but the particular time is not revealed. We know that God created the world in time ; but why he did not create the world millions of years before, we are ignorant of, and our reasons would be bewildered in their too much curiosity. If we ask why he did not create it before, we may as well ask why he did create it then ? And may not the same question be asked, if the world had been created millions of years before it was ? That he created it in six days, and not in an instant, is revealed ; but why he did not do it in a moment, since we are sure he was
able to do it, is not revealed. Are the reasons of a wise man's proceedings hid from us, and shall we presume to dive into the reason of the proceed ings of an only wise God, which he hath judged not expedient to discover to us ? Some sparks of his wisdom he hath caused to issue out, to exercise and delight our minds ; others he keeps within the centre of his own breast. We must not go about to unlock his cabinet : as we cannot reach to the utmost lines of his power, so we cannot grasp the intimate reasons of his wisdom. We must still remember that what is finite can never be able to comprehend the reasons, motives, and methods of that which is infinite. It doth not become us to be resty, because God hath not admitted us into the debates of eternitjr. We are as little to be curious at what God hath hid, as to be careless of what God hath manifested. Too great an inquisitiveness beyond our line, is as much a provoking arrogance, as a blockish negligence of what is revealed is a slighting ingratitude.
(2.) Submit to God in his precepts and methods. Since they are the results of infinite wisdom, disputes against them are not tolerable. What orders are given out by infallible wisdom are to be entertained with respect and ,reverence, though the reason of them be not visible to our purblind minds. Shall God have less respect from us than earthly princes, whose laws we observe without being able to pierce into the exact reason of them all ? Since we know he hath not a will without an understanding, our observance of him must be without repining. We must not think to mend
our Creator's laws, and presume to judge and condemn his righteous statutes. If the flesh rise up in opposition, we must cross its motions, and silence its murmurings. His will should be an acceptable will to us, because it is a wise will in itself. God hath no need to impose upon us and deceive
us ; he hath just and righteous ways to attain his glory and his creatures' good. To deceive us would be to dishonour himself and contradict his own nature. He cannot impose false injurious precepts, or unavailable to his
subjects' happiness ; not false, because of his truth ; not injurious, because of his goodness ; not vain, because of his wisdom. Submit, therefore, to him in his precepts, and in his methods too. The honour of his wisdom,
and the interest of our happiness, calls for it. Had Noah disputed with God about building an ark, and listened to the scoffs of the senseless world, he had perished under the same fate, and lost the honour of a preacher and worker of righteousness. Had not the Israelites been their own enemies, if they had been permitted to be their own guides, and returned to the
96 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [ROM. XVI. 27.
Egyptian bondage and furnaces, instead of a liberty and earthly felicity in Canaan ? Had our Saviour gratified the Jews by descending from the cross and freeing himself from the power of his adversaries, he might have had that faith from them which they promised him, but it had been a faith to no purpose, because without ground ; they might have believed him to be the Son of God, but he could not have been the Saviour of the world. Hia
death, the great ground and object of faith, had been accomplished, they had believed a God pardoning without a content to his justice, and such a faith could not have rescued them from falling into eternal misery. The precepts and methods of divine wisdom must be submitted to.
(3.) Submit to God in all crosses and revolutions. Infinite wisdom cannot
err in any of his paths, or step the least hair's-breadth from the way of righteousness. There is the understanding of God in every motion ; an eye
in every wheel, the wheel that goes over us and crusheth us. We are led by fancy more than reason. We know no more what we ask or what is fit for us than the mother of Zebedee's children did, when she
petitioned Christ for her sons' advancement, when he came into his temporal kingdom, Mat. xx. 22. The things we desire might pleasure our fancy or appetite, but impair our health. One man complains for want of children, but knows not whether they may prove comforts or crosses ; another for want of health, but knows not whether the health of his body may not prove the disease of his soul. We might lose in heavenly things, if we possess in earthly things what we long for. God, in regard of his infinite wisdom, is fitter to carve out a condition than we ourselves ; our shallow reason and self-love would wish for those things that are injurious to God, to ourselves, to the world, but God always chooses what is best for his glory, and what is best for his creatures, either in regard of them selves, or as they stand in relation to him, or to others as parts of the world.
We are in danger from our self-love, in no danger in complying with God's wisdom. When Rachel would die if she had no children, she had children, but death with one of them, Gen. xxx. 1. Good men may conclude, that whatsoever is done by God in them or with them is best and fittest for them, because by the covenant [in] which makes over God to them, as their God, the conduct of his wisdom is assured to them as well as any other attribute ; and therefore, as God in every transaction appears as their God, so he appears as their wise director, and by this wisdom he extracts good out of evil, makes the affliction which destroys our outward comforts consume our inward defilements, and the waves which threatened to swallow up the vessel, to cast it upon the shore ; and when he hath occasion to manifest his anger against his people, his wisdom directs his wrath. In judgment he hath a work to do upon Zion, and when that work is done he ' punishes the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria,' Isa. x. 12. As in the answers of prayer he doth give oftentimes ' above what we ask or think,' Eph. iii. 20, so in outward concerns he doth above what we can expect, or by our shortsightedness conclude will be done ; let us therefore in all things frame our minds to the divine wisdom, and say with the
psalmist, Ps. xlvii. 4, ' The Lord shall choose our inheritance ' and condi tion ' for us.'
6. Censure not God in any of his ways. Can we understand the full scope of divine wisdom in creation, which is perfected before our eyes ? Can we by a rational knowledge walk over the whole surface of the earth, and wade through the sea ? Can we understand the nature of the heavens ? Are all, or most, or the thousandth part of the particles of divine skill
ROM. XVI. 27.] GOD'S WISDOM. 97
known by us, yea, or any of them thoroughly known ? How can we then understand his deeper methods in things that are but of yesterday, that we have not had a time to view ! We should not be too quick or too rash in our judgments of him. The best that we attain to is but feeble conjectures at the designs of God.
As there is something hid in whatsoever is revealed in his word, so there is something inacessible to us in his works, as well as in his nature and majesty. In our Saviour's act in washing his disciples' feet, he checked Peter's contradiction : John xiii. 7, ' What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.' God were not infinitely wise, if the reason of all his acts were obvious to our shallowness. He is no profound states man whose inward intention can be sounded by vulgar heads at the first act he starts in his designed method. The wise God is in this like wise men, that have not breasts like glasses of crystal, to discover all that they intend.
There are ' secrets of wisdom' above our reach, Job xi. 6 ; nay, when we see all his acts, we cannot see all the draughts of his skill in them. An unskilful hearer of a musical lesson may receive the melody with his ear, and understand not the rarities of the composition as it was wrought by the musician's mind. Under the Old Testament there was more of divine power, and less of his wisdom apparent in his acts. As his laws, so his acts,
were more fitted to their sense. Under the New Testament, there is more of wisdom, and less of power ; as his laws, so his acts, are more fitted to a spiritual mind ; wisdom is less discernible than power. Our wisdom there fore in this case, as it doth in other things, consists in silence and expecta tion of the end and event of a work. We owe that honour to God that we do to men wiser than ourselves, to imagine he hath reason to do what he doth, though our shallowness cannot comprehend it. We must suffer God to be wiser than ourselves, and acknowledge that there is something sovereign in his ways, not to be measured by the feeble reed of our weak understand ings, and therefore we should acquiesce in his proceedings ; take heed we be not found slanderers of God, but be adorers instead of censurers, and lift up our hands in admiration of him and his ways, instead of citing him to answer it at our bar. Many things in the first appearance may seem to be rash and unjust, which in the issue appear comely and regular. If it had been plainly spoke before that the Son of God should die, that a most holy person should be crucified, it would have seemed cruel to expose a Son to misery, unjust to inflict punishment upon one that was no criminal, to join together exact goodness and physical evil, that the sovereign should die for the malefactor, and the observer of the law for the idolaters* of it. But when the whole design is unravelled, what an admirable conjunction is there of justice and mercy, love and wisdom, which before would have appeared absurd to the muddied reason of man !
We see the gardener pulling up some delightful flowers by the roots, digging up the earth, overwhelming it with dung ; an ignorant person would imagine him wild, out of his wits, and charge him with spoiling his garden ; but when the spring is arrived, the spectator will acknowledge his skill in his former operations.
The truth is, the whole design and methods of God are not to be judged by us in this world ; the full declaration of the whole contexture is reserved
for the other world, to make up a part of good men's happiness, in the amazing views of divine wisdom, as well as the other perfections of his nature. We can no more perfectly understand his wisdom, than we can his mercy and justice, till we see the last lines of all drawn, and the full expres-
* Qu. 'violators'?— ED. VOL. II. G
98 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ron. XVI. 27.
sions of them ; we should therefore be sober and modest in the considera
tion of God's ways : ' His judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out." The riches of his wisdom are past our counting, his depths not to be fathomed, yet they are depths of righteousness and equity ; though
the full manifestation of that equity, the grounds and methods of his proceed ings, are unknown to us. As we are too short fully to know God, so we are too ignorant fully to comprehend the acts of God. Since he is a God of judgment, we should wait till we see the issue of his works, Isa. xxx. 18, and in the meantime, with the apostle in the text, give him the glory of
all, in the same expressions : ' To the only wise God be glory, through Jesus Christ, for ever ! Amen.'
A DISCOURSE UPON THE POWER OF GOD.
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 ? — JOB XXVI. 14.
BILDAD had, in the foregoing chapter, entertained Job with a discourse of the dominion and power of God, and the purity of his righteousness, whence he argues an impossibility of the justification 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 matter in hand ; the sub
ject 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 ver. 4, taxeth 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 : ver. 2, ' How hast thou helped him that is without power ? how savest thou the arm of him that hath no
strength ? ' &c. 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 shew that he wanted not his instructions in that kind, and that he had more distinct conceptions of it than his antagonist had uttered ; and therefore, from ver. 5 to the end of the chapter, he doth magnificently treat of the power of God in several branches, and ver. 5 he begins with the lowest.
' Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants 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 progeny and increase for the 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, midwifed by this power of God ? Add to these * Minister.
100 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Jos XXVI. 14.
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 hath yet been in the
world (for so hell is sometimes taken in Scripture : ver. 6, ' Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering '). The several 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 departed souls,
either for weal or woe. The grave, or ' hell,' the place of punishment, ' is naked before him ; ' as distinctly discerned by him as a naked body in all its lineaments by us, or a dissected body is in all its parts by a skilful eye.
' Destruction hath 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 consideration of the
power of God in the creation of heaven and earth : ' He stretches out the north over the empty places,' ver. 7 ; the north, or the 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 hangs 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 sus tain them in their height, and the earth hath no basis to support it in its 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 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 binds 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 cloud 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 industry 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 enclosed 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 successive falling of them, as if the air were pierced with holes
JOB X'XVI. 14.] GOD'S POWER. 101
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 holds back the face of his throne, and spreads the cloud upon it.' The clouds are designed as curtains to cover the heavens, as well as vessels to water the earth, Ps. cxlvii. 8 ; as a tapestry curtain between the heavens, the throne of God, Isa. Ixvi. 1, and the earth his footstool. The heavens are called his throne, because his power doth 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 appa
rent in the bounding of it: ver. 10, 'He hath compassed the waters with bounds, till the day and night come to an end.' This is several times men tioned in Scripture as a signal mark of divine strength, Job xxxviii. 8, Prov. viii. 27. He hath measured a place for the sea, and struck the limits of it as with a compass, that it might not mount above the surface 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 egged on by strong winds, come like mountains against the shore, they over flow 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 hath set for its ebbing and flowing, till day and night come to an
end ;* 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.' By pillars of heaven are not meant angels, as some think, but either the air, called the pillars of heaven in regard to 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. f Or else by that phrase may be meant mountains, 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, accord ing to common apprehensions, mentions the ends of the earth, and the utmost parts of the heavens, though they have properly no end, as being round. The power of God is seen in those commotions 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 judges the sea with his power, and ^by
his understanding he smites through the proud,' ver. 12. At the creation * Coccei in loc. t Coccei.
102 CHABNOCK'S WOBKS. [Jos XXVI. 14.
he put the waters into several channels, and caused the dry land to appear barefaced for a habitation for man and beasts ; 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, reduceth 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 probably meant of the destruction of the Egyptian army ; for some guess that Job died that year,* 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 restora tion 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 below: ver. 13, 'By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent,' &c. 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 applied 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 combination of weaker stars which they call the galaxia, 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 serpent (as the word signifies in the Hebrew), in regard of his strength and hardness, as mighty
men are called bars in Scripture : Jer. li. 30, ' Her bars are broken things.' 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: Gen. i. 21, 'And God created great whales,' 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, those are parts of his ways ; but how little a portion is heard of him ? but the thunder
of his power who can understand ? ' This is but a small landscape of some of his works of power, the outsides and extremities of it; more glorious things are within his palaces. Though those things argue a stupendous power of the Creator in his works of creation and providence, yet they are nothing to what may be declared of his power. And what may be declared is nothing to what may be conceived; 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 com parison of a mighty voice of thunder, f 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 doth not so much exceed the capacity of human
understanding, it is therefore rather to be understood metaphorically. ' The
* Drusius in loc. t CEcolamp.
JOB XXVI. 14.] GOD'S POWEK. 103
thunder of his power,' that is, the greatness and immensity 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 cap tains,' that is, strength and force of the captains of an army. And ver. 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.* As thunder pierceth the lowest places, and alters the state of things, so doth
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 salvation,' Ps. xx. 6, that is, a mighty salvation.
' Who can understand ? ' Who is able to count all the monuments of his power ? How doth 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 comprehensive knowledge ? The power of the greatest poten tate or the mightiest creature is but of small extent ; none but have their limits ; it may be understood how far they can act, in what sphere their activity is bounded ; but when I have spoken all of divine power that I can, when you have thought all that 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 everything, and is beyond everything. There is infinitely more power lodged in his nature, not expressed to the world. The understanding of men and angels centered in one creature, would fall short of the perception 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 magnificence of it. No creature can conceive it ; God himself only com
prehends it, God himself is only able to express it. Man's power being limited, his line is too short to measure the incomprehensible omni
potence 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 !
1. In the expressions of it in the works of creation and providence : ' Lo, these are his ways.' Ways and works excelling any created strength, refer ring to the little summary of them he had made before.
2. In the insufficiency of these ways to measure his power : ' but how little a portion is heard of them ! '
3. In the incomprehensibleness of it : ' the thunder of his power who can understand ? '
Doct. Infinite and incomprehensible power pertains to the nature of God, and is expressed in part in his works ; or, though there be a mighty expres sion 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 : Ps. Ixii. 11,
' Twice have I heard this, that power belongs unto God.' In the law and in the prophets, say some ; 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 heard in
* The ancient Gauls worshipped him under the name of Taranis. The Greeks called Jupiter Bgovra/bg ; and Thor, whence our Thursday is derived, signifieth thun
derer, a title the Germans gave their god ; and Toran in the British language sig nifies thunder. — Vots. Idolo. lib. ii. cap. xxxiii. ; Camb. Britan. p. 17.
104 CHAENOCK'S WOEES. [Jos XXVI. 14.
government after man's fall, not in creation ; innocent 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 Scripture.* Though his power be evident in all his works, yet he hath a power beyond the expression of it in his works, which, as it is the glory of his nature, so it is the comfort of a believer ; to which purpose the apostle expresseth it by an excellent periphrasis for the honour of the divine nature, Eph. iii. 20, ' Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above
all that we can ask or think, unto him be glory in the churches.' We have reason to acknowledge him almighty, who hath a power of acting above our power of understanding. Who could have imagined such a powerful opera tion in the propagation of the gospel and the conversion of the Gentiles, which the apostle seems to hint at in that place ? His power is expressed 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 reciprocated. 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.