fons: they may be reduced to one of these two heads, either high or low: thofe that are of a mean condition, it would be in vain to trust them; they that cannot fecure themselves from meannefs, cannot fecure others from mifchief; Men of low degree are vanity: but the great ones of the world, they would feem to promise fomething of affiftance and fecurity to us; but if we depend upon them, they will fruftrate us; Men of high degree are a lie. As for the things of the world, that which men ufually place their confidence in, is riches; thefe are either got by unlawful, or lawful means; if they be ill gotten, by oppreffion or robbery, they will be fo far from fecuring us from evil, that they will bring it upon us; if they be well gotten, they are of an uncertain nature, that we have little reafon to place our hopes in them; If riches increafe, fet not your hearts upon them; that is, your hope; for heart in fcripture fignifies any of the affections.

2.

Because God is the proper object of our trust and confidence. We may fafely rely upon any one, in whom thefe two things concur, a power to help us, and goodnefs to incline him fo to do. Now, David tells us, that both these are eminently in God, and do in a peculiar manner belong to him; power, ver. 11. and goodness,

ver. 12.

I fhall speak to that which David makes the first ground of our confidence, the power of God; power belongs to God: for which he brings the teftimony of God himself; once hath Cod spoken, yea twice have 1 heard this. Some interpreters trouble themselves about the meaning of this expreffion, as if it did refer to fome particular revelation of God; and then again, they are troubled how to reconcile God's fpeaking this but once, with David's hearing it twice: but I do not love to fpy myfteries in thofe expreffions, which are capable of a plain fenfe, for I understand no more by it but this, that God hath feveral times revealed this; he frequently declared himself by this attribute, once, yea twice; that is, he hath Spoken it often, and David had heard it often. This is answerable to that phrase of the Latins, Šemel atque iterum; and it is ufual in all writers, to ufe a certain number for an uncertain, and particularly among

the

the poets, Felices ter & amplius. Hor. And fo in the poetical writers of scripture, Job v. 19. he hath delivered thee in fix troubles, yea, in feven there shall no evil touch thee; that is, in feveral and various troubles. Ecclef.

xi. 2. Give a portion to feven, and also to eight; that is, diftribute thy charity to many; and which is neareft to this, Job xl. 5. Once have I spoken, but I will not anfwer; yea, twice, but I will proceed no farther; that is, I have had feveral difcourfes with my friends; and, xxxiii. 14. God fpeaketh once, yea twice, in a dream, in a vifion of the night; that is, God reveals himself in feveral ways and manners to men; fo here God hath Spoken once, yea twice, that is, God hath often declared this. And if I would be fo curious to refer to a particular declaration of God, I fhould think, that it related either to the preface to the law, I am the Lord thy God, that is, the great and powerful God, that brought thee out of the land of Egypt; or rather to the declaration which God made of himself to Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, by the name of the Almighty God, Gen. xvii. 1. Concerning which revelation of God, it is faid exprefly, Exod. vi. 3. I appeared unto Abraham, and Ifaac, and Facob, by the name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah, was I not known to them.

But that which I defign to fpeak to is the propofition itfelf, that power belongs to God; that is, that the excellency of power, power in its highest degree and perfeEtion; all power belongs to God, that is, that omnipotence is a property or perfection of the divine nature.

In the handling of this, I fhall shew,

1. What we are to understand by the omnipotence of God.

2. That this perfection belongs to God.

First, What we are to understand by the omnipofence of God. And this I fhall confider,

1. As to the principle. And,

2. As to the exercife of it.

I. As to the principle, it is an ability to do all things, the doing of which fpeaks power and perfection; that is, whatever is not repugnant either to the nature of things, or of God; whatever does not imply a contradiction in the thing, or an imperfection in the doer; an

ability

ability to do all things which are confiftent with itself, and with the divine nature and perfection; by which we must mean an executive power, the effect whereof is without himfelf; for what he is faid to do within him. felf, the acts of his understanding and will, as we conceive his will to be diftinct from his power, are not to be referred to his omnipotence. To have a right conception of omnipotence, we muft imagine the most perfect active principle that we can, and it is still something more perfect than that, or any thing we can imagine. To help our conception,

1. Let us imagine a principle from which all other power is derived, and upon which it depends, and to which it is perfectly fubject and fubordinate.

2. A perfect active principle, which can do, not only what any finite being or creature can do, but what all beings joined together can do; nay, more and greater things than they all can do.

3. A perfect active principle, to which nothing can make any confiderable, much less effectual refiftance, which can check and countermand at pleasure, and carry down before it, and annihilate all other powers that we can imagine befides this; becaufe we cannot imagine any other power, that is not derived from this, and does not depend upon it.

4. A perfect active principle, which can do all things in a most perfect manner, and can do all things at once, and in an inftant, and that with eafe. We can but do one thing at once; and the greater and more confiderable it is, the more time it will take us to do it, and we find it the harder and more difficult to be done: but God, to whofe knowledge all things are prefent at once, and together, and the acts of whofe will are as quick and perfect as of his understanding, hath a power anfwerable to the perfection of both; and therefore it is as eafy to him to do all things, as one thing; at once, as fucceffively, and in time. For this is the privilege of an infinite spirit, that it does not only act without hands and material engines or inftruments, as every spirit doth, but without motion from one place to another, because he is every where, and fills all places; he acts per modum voluntatis, as if his actings were nothing else but a willing that

fuch

fuch a thing be done, and, ipfo facto, every thing is fo, as he wills it should be, and when he wills it fhould be; as if things did start up into being, or vanish out of being, as if they did break forth into being, and fculk again into nothing, and undergo fuch and fuch changes, ad nutum voluntatis, "at the beck of his will." And this is the most perfect way of acting that can be imagined, which the fcripture feems to exprefs to us, when it reprefents God, as making things by his word, upholding all things by the word of his power; as if he did but speak the word, and fay, Let fuch a thing be, and it was fo; as if there were nothing more required to the doing of any thing, but an exprefs act of the divine will, which is all we can understand by God's fpeaking by his word and voice, and faying, Let things be; but the least that it can fi gnify, is the quick and fpeedy manner of working, whereby God is able to do things in an inftant, as foon as a word can be fpoken.

And as he can do all things at once, and in an inftant, fo with eafe, without any pain or laborious endeavour; for what is it that can object any difficulty to him? At the firft creation of things, there was nothing to refift him; and fince the creation, there is nothing but what was made by him, and confequently all, whose power is derived from him, and depends upon him, and is fubject to him, and being finite and limited, is infi nitely unequal to the infinite power of God; fo that we may imagine the divine power would pafs through all the refiftance that all created power can make, and all the difficulties it can object to it, with more eafe than a bullet paffeth through the thin air, or a man would pafs through a net of cobweb.

5. The most perfect active principle we can imagine, the utmost bounds and limits of whofe perfection we cannot imagine, that is, when we have imagined it to be as perfect, and to act in as perfect a manner as we can imagine, yet we have not reached the perfection of it; but after all this, that it can do many things more than we can imagine, and in a manner much more perfect than we can imagine. This is the omnipotence of God as to the principle, which hath no bounds and limits. And,

Ser. 152. II. As to the exercife of it, it is only limited by the divine will and wildom. The divine will determines it to its exercite, the divine wisdom directs, and regu lates the exercise of it; that is, God exercifeth his power willingly, and not by neceflity, and in fuch manner, for the producing fuch effects, and in order to fuch ends and purpofes, as feem beft to his wifdom. Hence he is faid to act all things according to his good pleafure, and according to the counsel of his will; that is, freely and wifely.

As to the extent of this power, I said it was an ability to do all things that are confiftent with itself, and with the nature and perfection of God.

First, That are confiftent with itself, that is, with a power to do all things. It is a contradiction to imagine, that omnipotence can do that, which if it could be done, would render all power infignificant. Upon this account, the divine power is not faid to extend to the working of any thing which implies a contradiction, and the terms whereof (peak a repugnancy to one another, and mutually deftroy one another, and the doing whereof is contrary to the nature of the thing which is fuppofed to be done, that is, is nonfenfe, and cannot be imagined to be. For example, that a thing fhould be and not be at the fame time. For a power to make a thing to be, fo as it fhould not be while it is, fignifies nothing, because fuch a being as is not, is nothing; and to make fuch a being, would be to do nothing, and confequently fuch a power would fignify nothing. So likewife we cannot lay, that the divine power can cause that the fame thing fhould be made and not be made; that that which hath been, fhould not have been; for the power which makes a thing, fo as that it was not made, and caufeth a thing to have been, fo as that it hath not been, does nothing; and confequently is no power. Nor can we fay, that the divine power can effect that any thing fhould be made by itself, that is, be the cause of its own being; for that would be to cause that a thing fhould be before it is, that is, be when it is not, which fignifies nothing. We cannot fay, that the divine power can effect, that twice two fhould not make four; for that would be to caufe that things fhould not be what they

are,