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J^ariiacli Slnibctsitg
Utirars of tift IPtbfnitg <Sct;aol '
THE BEQUEST OF
JOSEPH HENRY THAYER
Y'/J :^^uyirtt': r-
I ~
DISCOURSES
UPON THX
EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTi
OF GOD.
BY STEPHEN £HARNOCK, B.D.,
FELLOW OF NEW COLLEOB, OXFORD.
WITH HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER,
BY WILLIAM SYMINGTON, D.D.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. n.
NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
No. 385 BROADWAY. 185S.
•pi . ' 1 f 1 !*>. 4T-«»-
M'^roh ?,'J, lOOa,
P -J — I
T>ri>T.:AS B SMITH. JOHN A OJUY.
2l(i Willium SI. N. Y. 87 Cliff J<U
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
^
DISCOURSE X.
ON THE POWER OF GOD.
PAOB
Job, XXVI. 14. — L»» 1 those are parts of his ways : but how little a p«)rtion is heard of him ? hut the thuodci* of his power who can uuderstancf ? 5
DISCOUKSE XL
ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.
llvnuirt. XV. ! 1. — Who is like nuto thee, O Lord, aiii(»Qp^ the gods ? Who is like thoe, i;UH*i«mB ill holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders ? 106
DISCOUKSE XII.
*
ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.
Mauk, x. is. — And Jesus said unto liini. Why callest thou me good! There is none g<K>J but one, that is, God. 209
DISCOURSE xm.
ON god's dominion.
I'sAUf.ciii. 19. — ^"llie Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens : and his kingdom rulcth over all 850
DISCOURSE XIV.
ON GOD'S PATIENCE.
KvuuM. I. 3. — The Lonl is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all :i"quit the wiek«»<l: the Ijord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and tiif clouds are the dudt of his feet 472
1 NDEX 626
OF Texts 541
DISCOURSE X.
ON THE POWER OF GOD.
Job xxvi. 14. — Lol these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard* of him ? but the thunder of his power who can understand !
BiLDAD had, in the foregoing chapter, entertained Job with a dis- course 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 hirgely 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 subject of Job's discourse was the woridly happiness of the wicked, and the calamities of the godly : and Bddad reads him a lecture, of the ex- tent of God's dominion, the number of his armies, and the unspotted rectitude of his nature, in comparison of which the purest creatures arc foul and crooked? Job, therefore, from ver. 1 — 4, taxeth him in a kind of scoflSng manner, that he had not touched the point, but rambled from the subject in hand, and had not applied a salve pro- per to this 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 BUdad would take up the argument of God's power, and discourse so short of it, Job would show that he wanted not his instructions in that kind, and that he had more distinct conceptions of it than his antagonist had uttered : and 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 biegins 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 visi- ble there, yet ol 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 com that dies, and by the moistening influ- «Mices of the clouds, springs up again with a numerous progeny and increase for the nourishment of man ? What do you think of those N'arieties of metals and minerals conceived in the bowels of the earth ; tliose pearls and riches in the depths of the waters, midwifed by this p>wer of God ? Add to these those more prodigious creatures in the
' Munster.
6 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
sea, the inhabitants of the waters, with their vastncss 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 provi- dence. 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 worid (for so hell is sometimes taken in Scrip- ture : ver. 6, " Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no "overing.") The several lodgings of deceased men are known to him : no screen can obscure them from his sight, nor their dissolu- tion 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 ^rave, 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 per- son punished there is known to him, and feels the power of his wrath. From the lower parts of the world he ascends to the con- sideration 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 ana thinness of that clement; and he mentions here the north, or north pole, for tlic whole heaven, because it is more known and apparent than tlie 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. Tlie heavens have no prop to sustain them in their height, and tlie earth hath no basis to support it in its place. The heavens are as if wu saw a curtain stretchoi smooth in the air without any hand to I lold it ; and the earth is as if you saw a ball hanging in the air with- out any solid body to under-prop it, or any line to hinder it from falling ; both standing monuments of the omnipotence of God. He then tSLkes notice of his daily power in the clouds ; " He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent imder tliem (ver. 8). He compacts the waters together in clouds, and keeps them oy 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 aoove it He causes them to distQ 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 iudustry of man, and bring famine upon the world, by destroy- ing the fruits of the earth. What a wonder it would be to see but one entire drop of water hang itself but one inch above the ground, unless it be a bubble which is preserved by the air en- closed within it I What a wonder would it be to see a gallon of water contained in a thin cobweb as strongly as in a vessel
ON THE POWER OP GOD. 7
of brass I 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 ba such a gradual and successive falling of them, as if the air were pierced with holes like a gardener's watering-pot, and not fall in one entire body to drown or orench 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 clouds upon it." The clouds are designed as curtains to cover the heavens, as weU 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 magnifi- cently declare the gtory of God ; and the clouds are as a screen be- tween the scorching heat of the sun, and the tender plants of the earth, and the weak bodies of men. From hence he descends to the sea, and considers the Divine power apparent in the bounding of it (ver. 10) ; " He hath compassed the waters with bounds, till the day and night come to an end." This is several times mentioned 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 lim- its of it as with a compass, that it might not mount above the sur- face of the land, and ruin the ends of the earth's creation ; and this, while day and night have their mutual turns, till he shall make an ' end of time by removing the measures of it. The bounds of the tumultuous sea are, in many places, as weak as the bottles of the upper Avaters ; the one is contained in thin air, and the other re- strained by weak sands, in many places, as well as by stubborn rocks in others ; that, though it swells, foams, roars, and the waves, en- couraged and egged on by strong winds, come like mountains against the shore; thev overflow it not, but humble themselves when they come near to those sands, which are set as their lists and limits, and retire back to the womb that brought them forth, as if they were ashamed and repented of their proud invasion : or else it may be meant of the tides of the sea, and the stated time God hath set ^t for its ebbing and flowing, till night and day come to an end ;â– both that the fluid waters should contain themselves within due bounds, and keep their perpetually orderly motion, are amazing arguments of Divine power. He passes on to the consideration of the commo- tions 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 of place, as it continues and knits together the parts of the world, as pillars do the uppor and nether parts of a building : as the lowest parts of the earth are
• Coccei in loc.
8 CHARKOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
called the foundations of the earth, so the lowest parts of the heaven may be called the pillars of heaven :« or else by that phrase may be meant mountains, which sepm, 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 oe sus- tained by the two extreme parts of the earth, as a convex body, or to be arched by pillars ; whence the Scripture, according to common apprehensions, mentions the ends of the earth, and the utmost parts of the heavens, though the^ have properly no end, as being round. The power of God is seen in those commotions in the air and earth, by tnunders, lightnings, storms, earthquakes, which rack the air, and make the mountains and hills tremble as servants before a frown- ing 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 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 tne 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, reduccth 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 restoration 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 pro- digious monument of God's po\ver, ofl«n mentioned in Scripture to this purpose, and, in particular, in this book of Job (ch. xJi.) ; 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 astronomei'S 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 con- clusion 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, » 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
* CocceL " DroBius in loe, * As the word signifies in the Hebrew.
ON THE POWEB OF GOD. 9
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 use of this lecture in the text, " Lo, these are parts of his ways ; but how little a portion is heard of him ? but the thunder of his power who can understand?" 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 Crea- tor, in his works of creation and providence, yet they are nothins 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 comparison of a mighty voice of thunder.y 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 diunder 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 thunder of his power," that is, the greatness and immensity of his power, manifested in the mag- nificent miracles of nature, in the consideration whereof men are as- tonished, as if they had heard an unusual clap of thunder. So thunder is used (Job xxxix. 25), " The thunder of the captains ;" that is, strength and force of the captains of an army : and (vcr. 19\ God, speaking to Job of a horse, saith, " Hast thou clothed his nect with thunder f" 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 astonisnment, than the object of our comprehensive knowledge. The power of the greatest potentate, 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
y Oecolarap.
â– The ancient Gauls worshipped him under the name of Taranis. The Greeks called Jupiter B(w>vrmof, and Thor; whence our Thursday is derived, signifieth 'I'hiinJerer, a title the Gennans gave their God. And Toran, in the British language, signifies thun- der. VoM. Idolo. lib. ii. cap. 33. Camb. Britan. p. 17.
10 CHABKOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
conceive something more beyond what I have spoken, and what you have thought. His power shines in everything, and is beyond every- thing. There is infinitelv more power lodged in his nature, not ex- pressed to the world. The understanding of men and angels, cen- tred in one creature, would fall short of the perception of the iafiniteness 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 GocTs power, according to the magnificence of it. No creature can conceive it ; God himself only comprehends it ; God himself is only able to express it. Man's power being limited, his line is too short to measure the incomprehensible omnipotence of God. " The thun- der of his power who can understand? that is, none can. The text is a lofty aeclaration of the Divine power, with a particular note of attention, Lol I. In the expressions of it, in the works of creation and providence, Lo^ these are his ways ; ways and works excelling any created strength, referring to the little simimary of them he had made before. 11. In the insufficiency of these ways to measure his power, But how little a portion is heard of him. III. In the incom- prehensibleness of it, Tlt^ thunder of his power ^ who can understand f jOoctrine, Infinite and incomprehensible power pertains to the nature of God, and is expressed, in part, in his works; or, though there be a mighty expression of Divine power in hLs works, yet an incompre- hensible 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. IxiL 11) : " Twice have I heard this, that power belongs imto God." In the law and in the prophets, say some; but why power twice, and not mercy, which he speats of in the following verse? he had heard of power twice, from the voice of creation, and firom the voice of government. Mercy was heard in government after man's fall, not 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 liave I heard that power belongs to God, that is, it is »i cer- tain and imdoubted truth, that power is essential to the Divine nature. It is true, mercy is essential, justice is essential ; but power more ap- parently essential, because no acts of mercy, or justice, or wisdom, can be exercised by him without power ; the repetition of a thing confirms the certamty of it. Some observe, that God is called Al- mighty seventy times in Scripture.^ Though his power be evident in all nis 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 ex- cellent paraphrasis for the honor 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." Wc have reason to acknowledge him Almighty, who hath a power of acting above our power of understanding. Who could have imag- ined such a powerful operation 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.
^ Lessiusy de Perfect. Divin. lib. v. cap. 1.
ON THE POWEK OF GOD. 11
iii. 4) ; because all the works of liis 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.
1. It is ingenuously illustrated by some by a unit ;*> all numbers de- pend upon it ; it makes numbers by addition, multiplies them unexpres- rfibly ; when one unit is removed, from a number, how vastly doth it diminish it 1 It gives perfection to all other numbers, it receives per- fection from none. If you add a unit before 100, how doth it mul- tiply it to 1,100 ! If you set a unit before 20,000,000, it presently makes the number swell up to 120,000,000 ; and so powerful is a unit, by adding it to numbers, that it will infinitely enlarge them to such a vastness, that shall transcend the capacity of the best arithme- tician to count them. By such a meditation as this, you may have some prospect of the power of that God who is only unity ; the be- ginning of all things, as a unit is the beginning of all numbers ; and can perform as many things really, as a unit can numerically ; that is, can do as much in the making of creatures, as a unit can do in the multiplying of numbers. The omnipotence of God was scarce denied by any heathen that did not deny the being of a God ; and that was Pliny, and that upon weak arguments.
2. Indeed we cannot have a conception of God, if we conceive iiiin not most powerful, as well as most wise; he is not a God that jumot do what he will, and perform all his pleasure. If we imag- iue liim restrained in his power, we imagine him limited in his es-. r^.'QCc; as he hath an infinite knowledge to know what is possible, he cannot be without an infinite power to do what is possible ; as he hath a will to resolve what he sees good, so he cannot want a power to effect what he sees good to decree ; as the essence of a creature cannot be conceived without that activity that belongs to his nature ; as when you conceive fire, you cannot conceive it without a power of burning and warming ; and when you conceive water, you cannot conceive it without a power of moistening and cleansing : so you cannot conceive an infinite essence without an infinite power of ac- tivity ; and therefore a heathen could say, " If you know God, you know he can do all things ;" and therefore, saith Austin, " Give me not only a Christian, but a Jew ; not only a Jew, but a heathen, that ^vill deny God to be Almighty." A -Jew, a heathen, may deny Christ to be omnipotent, but no heathen will deny God to be omnip- otent, and no devU will deny either to be so : God cannot be con- ceived without some power, for then he must be conceived without action. Whose, then, are those products and efiects of power, which are visible to us in the world? to whom do they belong? who is the Father of them ? God cannot be conceived without a power suitable to his nature arid essence. K we imagine him to be of an infinite »?s3ence, we must imagine him to be of an infinite power and strength.
*» Fotlierby, Atheomastic, pp. 306, 807.
12 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTBIBUTES.
,In particular, I shall show — I. The nature of God's power. II. Seasons to prove that God must needs be powerful. III. How his power appears in creation, in government, in redemption. IV. The Use.
I. What this power is ; or the nature of it.
1. Power sometimes signifies authority : and a man is said to be mighty and powerful in regard of his dominion, and the right he hatn to command multitudes of other persons to take his part ; but power taken for strength, and power taken for authority, are distinct things, and may be separated from one another. Power msLY be without authority ; as in successful invasions, that have no just K)un- dation. Authority may be without power; as in a just prince, ex-
Eelled by an unjust rebellion, the authority resides in him, though e be overpowered, and is destitute of strength to support and exer- cise that authority. The power of God is not to be understood of his authority ana dominion, but his strength to act ; and the word in the text properly signifies strength.^
2. This power is divided ordinarily into absolute and ordinate. Absolute, IS that power whereby God is able to do that which he will not do, but is possible to be done ; ordinate, is that power whereby God doth that which he hath decreed to do, that is, which he hath ordained or appointed to be exercised ;d which are not dis- tinct powers, but one and the same power. His ordinate power is a part of his absolute ; for if he had not a power to do everjr thing that ne could will, he might not have the power to do everything that he doth will. The object of his absolute power is all things possi- ble ; such things that imply not a contradiction, such that aie not repugnant in their own nature to be done, and such as are not con- trary to the nature and perfections of God to be done. Those things that are repugnant in their own nature to be done are several, as to make a thing which is past not to be past. As, for example, the world is created ; God could have chose whether he would create the world, and after it is created he hath power to dissolve it ; but after it was created, and when it is dissolved, it will be etemallv true, that the world was created, and that it was dissolved ; for it is impossible, that that which was once true, should ever be false : if it be true that the world was created, it will forever be true that it was created, and cannot be otherwise. And also, if it be once true that God hath decreed, it is impossible in its own nature to be true that God hath not decreed. Some things are repumant to the nature and perfections of God ; as it is impossible for nis nature to die and
Sjrish ; impossible for him, in regard of truth, to lie and deceive, ut of this hereafter ; only at present to understand the object of Gt>d's absolute power to be things possible, that is, possible in nature ; not by any strength in themselves, or of themselves ; for nothing hath no strength, and everything is nothing before it comes into being ;« so God, by his absolute power, miglit have prevented the sin of the fidlen angels, and so have preserved them in their first habitation. He might, by his absolute power, have restrained the devil from tempting of Eve, or restrained her and Adam from swal-
• "UTTTSJ Sept. aBevoc. * Scaliger, Publ. ExerciU 366, § 8.
• EiitiuB iu Sent. lib. i. dlst, 43. § 2.
ON THE FOWEB OF QOD. 18
lowing the bait, and Joining hands with the temptation. By his ab- solute power, God mi^ht have given the reins to Peter to betray his Master, as well as to deny him ; and employed Judas in the same glorious and successful service, wherein he employed Paul. By his absolute power, he might have created the world millions of years before he did create it, and can reduce it into its empty nothing this moment. This the Baptist affirms, when he tells us, " That God is able of these stones (meaning the stones in the wilderness, and not the people which came out to him out of Judea, which were children of Abraham) to raise up children to Abraham" (Matt. iii. 9) ; that is, there is a possibility of such a thing there is no contradiction in it> but that God is able to do it if he please. But now the object of his ordinate power, is all things ordained by him to be done, all things decreed by him ; and because of the Divine ordination of things, this power is called ordinate ; and what is thus ordained by him ne cannot but do, because of his unchangeableness. Both those powers are expressed (Matt. xxvi. 53, 54"), " My Father can send twelve legions of angels," there is his absolute power ; " but how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ?" there is his ordi- nate power. As his power is free from any act of his will, it is called absolute ; as it is joined with an act of his will, it is called ordinate. His absolute power is necessary, and belongs to his nature ; his ordi- nate power is free, and belongs to his will ; — sl power guided by his will, — ^not, as I said before, that they are two distinct powers, both belonging to his nature, but the latter is the same with the former, only it is guided by his will and wisdom.
3. It follows, then, that the power of God is that ability and strength, whereby he can bring to pass whatsoever he please ; what- soever his infinite wisdom can direct, and whatsoever the infinite Surity of his will can resolve. Power, in the primary notion of it, oth not signify an act, but an ability to bring a thing into act ; it is power, as able to act before it doth actually produce a thing : as God had an ability to create before he did create, he had power be- fore he acted that power without. Power notes the principle of the action, and, therefore, is greater than the act itself. Power exercised and diffused, in bringing forth and nursing in its particular objects without, is inconceivably less than that strength which is infinite in himself, the same with nis essence, and is indeed himself: by his power exercised he doth whatsoever he actually wills ; but by the power in his nature, he is able to do whatsoever he is able to will. The will of creatures may be, and is more extensive than their power ; and their power more contracted and shortened than their will : but, as the prophet saith, ^* His counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure" (Isa. xlvi. 10\ His power is as great as his will, that is, whatsoever can faU witiiin the verge of his will, falls within the compass of his power. Though he will never actually will this or that, yet supposing he should will it, he is able to per- form it : so that you must, in your notion of Divine power, enlarge it further than to think God can only do what he hath resolved to do ; but that he hath as infinite a capacity of power to act, as he hath an infinite capacity of will to resolve. Besides, this power is of that
14 CHABNOOK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
nature, that be can do whatsoever he pleases without difficulty, with- out resistance ; it cannot be checked, restrained, frustrated/ As be can do all things possible in regard of the object, he can do all things easily in regard of the manner of acting : what in human artificers is knowledge, labor, industry, that in God is his will ; his will woiks without labor ; his works stand forth as he wills them. Hands and arms are ascribed to him for our conceptions, because our power of acting is distinct from our will ; but God's power of acting is not really distinct from his will ; it is sufficient to the existence of a thing that God wills it to exist; he can act what he will only by his will, without any instruments. He needs no matter to work upon, because he can make something from nothing ; all matter owes itself to his creative power : he needs no time to work in, for he can make time when he pleases to begin to work : he needs no copy to work by ; himself is his own pattern and copy in his works. All created agents want matter to work upon, instruments to work with, copies to work by ; time to bring either the births of their minds, or the works of their hands, to perfection : but the power of God needs none of these things, but is of a vast and incomprehensible nature, beyond all these. As nothing can be done without the compass of it, so itself is without the compass of every created understanding.
4. This power is of a distinct conception from the wisdom and will of God. They are not really distinct, but according to our con- ceptions. We cannot discourse of Divine things, without observing some proportion of them with human, ascribing unto God the per- fections, sifted from the imperfections of our nature. In us there are three orders — of understanding, will, power ; and, accordingly, three acts, counsel, resolution, execution ; which, though they arc distinct in us, are not really distinct in God. In our conceptions, the apprehension of a thing belongs to the understanding of God ; de- termination, to the will of God ; direction, to the wisdom of God ; execution, to the power of God. The knowledge of God regards a thing as possible, and as it may be done ; the wisdom of God re- gards a thing as fit, and convenient to be done ; the will of God re- solves that it shall be done ; the power of God is the application of his will to efiect what it hath resolved. AVisdom is a fixing the being of things, the measures and perfections of their several beings ; power is a conferring those perfections and beings upon them. His power is his ability to act, and his wisdom is the director of his ac- tion : his will orders, his wisdom guides, and his power efiects. His will as the spring, and his power as the worker, are expressed (Ps. cxv. 3). " He hath done whatsoever he pleased. He commanded, and they were created" (Ps. cxl. 5) ; and all three expressed (Eph. i. 11\ " Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will :" so that the power of God is a perfection, as it were, subor- dinate to his understanding and will, to execute the results of his wisdom, and the orders of his will ; to his wisdom as directing, be- cause he works skilfully ; to his will as moving and applying, be- cause he works voluntarily and freely. The exercise of his power depends upon his will : his will is the supreme cause of everything
' Cra. Syntag. lib. iii. cnp. 17. p. Gil.
ON THE POWEB OP GOD. 16
that stands up in time, and all things receive a being as he wills them. His power is but will perpetually working, and diffusing it- self in the season his will hath fixed from eternity ; it is his eternal will in perpetual and successive springs and streams in the creatures; it is nothing else but the constant efficacy of his omnipotent will. This must be understood of his ordinate power ; but his absolute power is larger than his resolving will : for though the Scripture tells us, " He hath done whatsoever he will," yet it tells us not, that he hath done whatsoever he could : he can do things that he will never do. Again, his power is distinguished from his will in regard of the exercise of it, which is after the act of his will : his will was conversant about objects, when his power was not exercised about them. Creatures were the objects of his will from eternity, but they were not from eternity the effects of his power. His purpose to create was from eternity, but the execution of his purpose was in time. Now this execution of his will we call his ordinate power : his wisdom and his will are supposed antecedent to his power, as the counsel and resolve ; as the cause precedes the peribrmance of the purpose as the effect. Some « distinguish his power from his under- standing and will, in regard that his understanding and will are larger than his absolute power ; for God understands sins, and wills to permit them, but he cannot himself do any evil or unjust action, nor have a power of doing it. But this is not to distinguish that Divine power, but impotence ; for to be unable to do evil is the per- fection of power ; and to be able to do things unjust and evil, is a weakness, imperfection, and inability. Man indeed wills many things that he is not able to perform, and understands many things that he is not able to effect ; he understands much of the creatures, some- thing of sun, moon, and stars ; he can conceive many suns, many moons, yet is not able to create the least atom : but there is nothing that belongs to power but God understands, and is able to effect. To sum this up, the will of God is the root of all, the wisdom of Gt)d is the copy of all, and the power of God is the framer of all.
6. The power of God gives activity to all the other perfections of his nature, and is of a larger extent and efficacy, in regard of its objects, than some perfections of his nature. 1 put them both together.
(1.) It contributes life and activity to all the other perfections of his nature. How vain would be his eternal counsels, if power did not step in to execute them ! His mercy would be a feeble pity, if he were destitute of power to relieve ; and his justice a slighted scarecrow, without power to punish ; his promises an empty sound, without power to accomplish them. As holiness is the beauty, so power is the life of all his attributes in their exercise ; and as holi- ness, so power, is an adjunct belonging to all, a term that may be given to all. God hath a powerful wisdom to attain his ends with- out interruption : he hath a powerful mercy to remove our misery ; a powerful justice to lay all misery upon offenders : he hath a pow- erful truth to perform his promises ; an infinite power to bestow re- wards, and inflict penalties. It is to this purpose power is first put
8 Gomacheus.
16 CHABKOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
in the two things which the Psalmist had heard (Ps. Ixii. 11, 12). " Twice have I heard," or two things have I heard ; first power, then mercy and justice, included in that expression, " Thou renderest to every man according to his work:" in every perfection of God he heard of power. This is the arm, the hand of the Deity, which all his other attributes lay hold on, when they would appear in their glory ; this hands them to the world : by this they act, in this they triumph. Power framed every stage for their appearance in crea- tion, providence, redemption.
(2.) It is of a larger extent, in regard of its objects, than some other attributes. Power doth not alway suppose an object, but con- stitutes an object It supposeth an object in the act of preservation, but it makes an object in the act of creation ; but mercy supposeth an object miserable, yet doth not make it so. Justice supposeth an object criminal, but aoth not constitute it so : mercy supposeth him miserable, to relieve him ; justice supposeth him criminal, to punish him : but power supposeth not a thing in real existence, but as pos- sible ; or rather, it is from power that any thing hath a possibility, if there be no repugnancy m the nature of the thing. Again, power extends further than either mercy or justice. Mercy hath particu- lar objects, which justice shall not at last be willing to punish ; and justice hath particular objects, which mercy at last shall not be will- ing to refresh : but power doth, and alway will, extend to the ob- jects of both mercy and justice. A creature, as a creature, is neither the object of mercy nor justice, nor of rewarding goodness: a creature, as innocent, is the object of rewarding goodness ; a crea- ture, as miserable, is the object of compassionate mercy ; a creature, as criminal, is the object of revenging justice : but all of them the objects of power,, in conjunction with those attributes of goodness, mercy, ana justice, to which they belong. All the objects that merey, and justice, and truth, and wisdom, exereise tWlves about, hath a possibility and an actual being firom this perfection of Divine power. It is power first frames a creature in a capacity of nature lor mercy or justice, though it doth not give an immediate qualification for the exercise of either. Power makes man a ra- tional creature, and so confers upon him a nature mutable, which may be miserable by its own fault, and punishable by God's justice; or pitiable by God's compassion, and relievable by God's mercy : but it doth not make him sinful, whereby he becomes miserable and punishable. Again, power runs through all the degrees of the states of a creature. As a thing is possible, or may be made, it is the object of absolute power ; as it is factibile, or ordered to be made, it is the object of ordinate power : as a thing is actually made, and brought into being, it is the object of preserving power. So that power doth stretch out its arms to all the works of God, in all ihcir circumstances, and at all times. When mercy ceaseth to relieve a creature, when justice ceaseth to punish a creature, power ceaseth not to preserve a creature. The blessed in heaven, that are out of the reach of punishing justice, are forever maintained by power in that blessed condition : the damned in hell, that are cast out of the
ON THB POWER OF GOD. 17
bosom of entreating mercy, are forever sustained in tlioee remediless torments by the Arm of rower.
6. This power is originally and essentially in the nature of God, and not distinct frova his essence. It is originally and essentially in God. The strength and power of great kings is originally in their people, and managed and ordered by the authority of the prince for the common good. Though a prince hath authority in his person to command, yet he hath not sufl&cient strength in his person, without the assistance of others, to make his commands to be obeyed. He hath not a single strength in his own person to conquer countries and kingdoms, and increase the ^umber of his subjects : he must make use of the arms of his own subjects, to overrun other places, and yoke them under his dominion : but the power of all thinea that ever were, are, or shall be, is originaUjr and essentially in Goi It is not derived from any thing without him, as the power of the greatest potentates in the world is: therefore (Ps. Ixii. 11) it is said, "Power belongs unto God," that is, solely and to none else. He hath a power to make his subjects, and as many as he pleases ; to create worlds, to enjoin precepts, to execute penalties, without call- ing in the strength of ms creatures to his aid. The strength that the subjects of a mortal prince have, is not derived to them from the prince, though the exercise of it for this or that end, is ordered and directed by the authority of the prince : but what strength so- ever any thing hath to act as a means, it hath from the power of God as Creator, as well as whatsoever authority it hath to act is from God, as a Rector and Governor of the world. God hath a strength to act without means, and no means can act any thing without nis power and strength communicated to them. As the clouds, in ver. 8, before the text, are called God's clouds, " his clouds :" so all the strength of creatures may be called, and truly is, God's strength and power in them : a drop of power shot down from heaven, originally only in God. Creatures have but a little mite of power ; somewhat communicated to them, somewhat kept and reserved from them, of what they are capable to possess. They have limited natures, and therefore a limited sphere of activity. Clothes can warm us, but not feed us ; bread can nourish us, but not clothe us. One plant hath a medicinal quality against one disease, another against an- other ; but God is the possessor of universal power, the common exchequer of this mighty treasure. He acta by creatures, as not needing their power, but deriving power to them : what he acts by them, he could act himself without them : and what they act as fix)m themselves, is derived to them from him through invisible chan- nels. And hence it will follow, that because power is essentially in God, more operations of God are possible than are exerted. And as power is essentially in God, so it is not distinct from his essence. It belongs to God in regard of the inconceivable excellency and activity of his essence.** And omnipotent is nothing but the Divine essence efficacious ad extra. It is his essence as operative, and the immediate principle of operation : as the power of enlightening in the sun, and the power of heating in the nre, are not things distmct
^ Ratione summA actuaUtatis eBSCDtiie. Suarez, Vol, I. pp. 150, 161. VOL. II. — 2
18 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
from the nature of them; but the nature of the sun bringing forth light, and the nature of the fire bringeth forth heat. The power of acting is the same with the substance of God, though the action from that power be terminated in the creature. If the power of God were distinct from his essence, he were then compounded of substance and power, and would not be the most simple oeing. As when the understanding is informed in several parts of knowledge, it is skilled in the government of cities and countries, it knows this or that art : it learns mathematics, philosophy ; this, or that science. The imderstanding hath a power to do this ; but this power, where- by it learns those excellent things, and brings forth excellent births, is not a thing distinct from the understanding itself; we may rather call it the understanding powerful, than the power of the under- standing ; and so we may rather say, God powerful, than say, the power of God ; because ms power is not distinct from his essence. From both these, it will follow, that this omnipotence is incommuni- cable to anv creature ; no creature can inherit it, because it is a con- tradiction toT any creature to have the essence of God. This om- nipotence is a peculiar right of God, wherein no creature can share with him. To be omnipotent ^ to be essentially God. And for a creature to be omnipotent, is for a creature to iJe its own Creator. It being therefore the same with the essence of the Godhead, it can- not be communicated to the humanity of Christ, as the Lutherans say it is, without the communication of the essence of the God- head ; for then the humanity of Christ would not be humanity, but Deity. If omnipotence were commimicated to the humanity of Christ, the essence of God were also communicated to his humanity, and then eternity would be communicated. BUs humanity then was not given him in time ; his humanity would be uncompounded, that is, his body would be no body, his soul no soul. Omnipotence is essentially in God ; it is not distinct from the essence of God, it is his essence, omnipotent, able to do all thin^
7. Hence it follows, that this power is infinite (Eph. i. 19) ; " What is the exceeding greatness of his power," &c. " according to the working of his mighty power." God were not omnipotent, un- less his power were iniimte ; for a finite power is a limited power, and a limited power cannot efiect everything that is possible. Nothing can be too difficult for the Divine power to effect ; lie hath a fullness of power, an exceeding strength, above all human capa- cities ; it is a " mighty power" (Eph. i. 19), " able to do above all that we can ask or think" (Eph. iiL 20) : that which he acts, is above the power of any creature to act. Infinite power consists in the bring- mg thin^ forth from nothing. No creature can imitate God in this prerogative of power. Man indeed can carve various forms, and erect various pieces of art, but from pre-existent matter. Every artificer hath tne matter brought to his hand, he only brings it forth in a new figure. Chemists separate one thing from another, but create nothing, but sever those things which were before compacted and crudled together: but when God speaks a powerful word, nothing begins to be something : things stand forth from the womb of nothing, and obey his mighty command, and take what forms he
ON THE POWEB OF GOB. 19
is pleased to ^ve them. The creating one thing, though never ao smiall and minute, as the least fly, cannot be but bj an infinite power ; much less can the producing of such variety we see in the world. His power is infinite, in regard it cannot be resisted by anything that he hath made ; nor can it be confined by anything he can will to make. " His greatness is unsearchable" (rs. cxlv. 8). It is a greatness, not of quantity, but equality. The greatness of his power hath no end : it is a vanity to im^ine any limits can be affixed to it, or that any creature can say, ^' Hitherto it can go, and no further." It is al)ove all conception, all inquisition of any created understanding. No creature ever had, nor ever can have, that strength of wit and understanding, to conceive the extent of his powen and how ma^ificently he can work.
First, His essence is mfinite. As in a finite subject there is a finite virtue, so in an infinite subject there must be an infinite virtue. Where the essence is limited, the power is so :> where the essence is unlimited, the power knows no bounds.^ Among creatures, the more excellency of being and form anything hath, the more activity, vigor, and power it hath, to work according to its nature. The sun hath a mighty power to warm, enlighten, and fiructif^, above what the stars have ; because it hath a vaster body, more intense degrees of light, heat, and vigoi:. Now, if you conceive the sim made much greater than it is, it would proportionablv have greater de- grees of power to heat and enlighten than it hath now : and were it possible to have an infinite heat and light, it would infinitely heat and enlighten other things ; for everything is able to act according to the measures of its being : therefore, since the essence of God is unquestionably infinite, his power of acting must be so also. His power (as was said before) is one and the same with his essence: and though the knowledge of God extends to more objects than his power, because he knows all evils of sin, which because of his holmess he cannot commit, yet it is as infinite as his knowledge, because it is as much one with his essence, as his knowledge and wisdom is : for as the wisdom or knowledge of God is nothing but the essence of God, knowing^ so the power of God is nothing but the essence of God, abU.
The objects of Divine power are innumerable. The objects of Divine power are not essentiallv infinite ; and therefore we must not measure the infiniteness of Divine power by an ability to make an infinite bein^; because there is an incapacity in any created thing to be infimte ; for to be a creature and to be infinite ; to be infinite and yet made, is a contradiction. To be. infinite, and to be God, is one and the same thing. Nothing can be infinite but God ; nothing but Ck)d is infinite. But the power of God is infinite, be- cause it can produce infinite effects, or innumerable thin^, such as surpass the arithmetic of a creature ; nor yet doth the infiniteness consLBt simply in producing innumerable effects ; for that a finite cause can produce. Fire can, by its finite and limited heat, bum numberless combustible things and parcels ; and the imderstanding of man hath an infinite number of thoughts and acts of inteUectioni
(*) Or^catiiXMt Mqamitiir eawwntiain. if) AqaiiL Fvt 1 Qik 26. Artica.
20 CHAKNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
and tlioughtB diflferent from one another. Who can number the imaginations of his fancy, and thoughts of his mind, the space of one month or year? much less of forty or an hundred years ; yet all these thoughts are about things that are in being, or have a founda- tion in things that are in being. But the infiniteness of God's power consists in an ability to produce infinite efiects, formally distinct, and diverse from one another ; such as never had being, such as the mind of man cannot conceive : " Able to do above what we can think" (Eph. iii. 20). And whatsoever God hath made, or is able to make, he is able to make in an infinite manner, by calling them to stand forth firom nothing. To produce innumerable efiects of dis- tinct natures, and from so distant a term as nothing, is an argument of infinite power. Now, that the objects of Divine power are in- numerable, appears, because God can do infinitely more than he hath done, or will do. Nothing that God hath done can enfeeble pr dull his power; there still resides in him an ability beyond all the settled contrivances of his imderstanding and resolves of his will, which no effects which he hath wrought can drain and put to a stand. As he can raise stones to be children to Abraham (Matt. iiL 9) ; so with the same mighty word, whereby he made one world, he can make infinite numbers of worlds to be the monuments of his glory. After the prophet Jeremiah (ch. xxxii. 17), had spoke of Goos power in creation, he adds, " And there is nothing too hard for thee." For one world that he hath made, he can create millions : for one star which he hath beautified the heavens with, he could have garnished it with a thousand, and multiplied, if he had pleased, every one of those into millions, "for he can call things that are not" (Bom. iv. 17) ; not some things, but all things possible. The barren womb of notning can no more resist his power now to educe a world from it, than it could at first : no doubt, but for one angel which he hath made, he could make many worlds of angels. He that made one with so much case, as by a word, cannot want power to make many more, till he wants a word. The word that was not too weak to make one, cannot be too weak to make multitudes. K firom one man he hath, in a way of nature, multiplied so many in all ages of the world, and covered with them the whole face of the earth ; he could, in a supernatural way, by one word, multiply as manjr more. " It is the breath of the Almighty that gives life (Job. xxxiii. 4). He can create infinite species ana kin(fi of creatures more than he hath created, more variety of forms : for since there is no searching of his greatness, there is no conceiving the number- less possible effects of his power. The understanding of man can conceive numberless things possible to be, more than have been or shall be. And shall we imagine, that a finite understanding of a creature hath a greater omnipotency to conceive things possible, than God hath to produce things possible? When the understand- ing of man is tired in its conceptions, it must still be concluded, that the power of God extends, not only to what can be conceived, but infinitely beyond the measures of a finite faculty. "Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out ; he is excellent in power and in judgment" (Job xxxvL 23). For the understanding or man,
ON THE POWER OP GOD. 21
in its conceptions of more kind of creatures, is limited to those creatures which are: it cannot, in its own imagination, conceive anything but what hath some foundation in and from something already in being. It may frame a new kind of creature, made up of a lion, a horse, an ox ; but all those parts whereof its conception is made, have distinct beings in the world, though not in that com- position as his mind mixes and joins them ; but no question but God can create creatures that have no resemblance with any kind of creatures yet in being. It is certain that if God only knows those things which he hath done, and will do, and not all things possible to be done by him, his knowledge were finite ; so if he could do no more than what he hath done, his power would be finite.
(1.) Creatures have a power to act about more objects than they do. The understanding of man can frame from one principle of truth, many conclusions and inferences more than it doth. Why cannot, then, the power of God frame from one first matter, an infi- nite number of creatures more than have been created? The Almightiness of God in producing real efiects, is not inferior to the understanding of man in drawing out real truths. An artificer that makes a watch, supposing his life and health, can make many more of a different form ana motion; and a limner can draw many draughts, and frame many pictures with a new variety of colors, ac- cording to the richness of his fancy. If these can do so, that require a pre-existent matter framed to their hands, God can much more, who can raise beautiful structures from nothing. As long as men have matter, they can diversify the matter, and make new figures fixjm it ; so long as there is nothinff, God can produce out of that nothing whatsoever he pleases. We see the same in inanimate crea- tures. A spark of fire hath a vast power in it : it will kindle other things, increase and enlarge itself; nothing can be exempt from the active force of it. It will alter, by consuming or refinmg, whatso- ever you ofier to it. It will reach all, and refuse none ; and by the eflficacious power of it, all those new figures which we see in metals, are brought forth; when you have exposed to it a multitude of things, stdl add more, it will exert the same strength ; yea, the vigor is increased rather than diminished. The more it catcheth, the more fiercely and irresistibly it will act ; you cannot suppose an end of its operation, or a decrease of its strength, as long as you can conceive its duration and continuance : this must be but a weak shadow of that infinite power which is in God. Take another instance, in the sun : it hath power every year to produce flowers and plants fix)m the earth ; and is as able to produce them now, as it was at the first lighting it and rearing it in that sphere wherein it moves. And if there were no kind oi flowers and plants now created, the sun hath a power residing in it, ever since its first creation, to afibrd the same warmth to them for the nourishing and bringing them forth. What- soever you can conceive the sun to be able to ao in regard of plants, that can God do in regard of worlds ; produce more worlds than the sun doth plants every year, without weariness, without languishment The sxm is able to influence more things than it doth, and produce
22 CHABNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
numberless effects ; but it doth not do so mucb as it is able to do, because it wants matter to work upon. God, therefore, who wants no matter, can do much more than he doth ; he can either act by second causes if there were more, or make more second causes if he pleased.
(2.) God is the most firee agent. Every free agent can do more than he will do. Man being a free creature, can do more than ordi- narily he doth will to do. God is most free, as being the spring of liberty in other creatures ; he acts not by a necessity of nature, as the waves of the sea, or the motions of the wind ; and, therefore, is not determined to those things which he hath already called forth into the world. If God be infinitely wise in contrivance, he could contrive more than he hath, and therefore, can effect more than he hath effected. He doth not act to the extent of his power upon all occasions. It is according to his will that he works (Eph. i.). It is not according to his work that he wills ; his work is an evidence of his will, but not the rule of his will. His power is not the rule of his will, but his will is the disposer of his power, according to the light of his infinite wisdom, and other attributes that direct his will ; and therefore his power is not to be measured by his actual ^dlL No doubt, but he could in a moment have produced that world which he took six days' time to frame ; he could have drowned the old world at once, without prolonging the time till the revolution of forty days ; he was not umited to such a term of time by any weak- ness, but by the determination of his own will. God doth not do the hundred thousandth part of what he is able to do, but what is convenient to do, according to the end which he hath proposed to himself. Jesus Christ, as man, could have asked legions oi angels ; and God, as a sovereign, could have sent them (Matt. xxvi. 53). God could raise the dead every day if he pleased, but he doth not : he could heal every diseased person in a moment, but he doth not As God can will more than he doth actually wUl, so he can do more than he hath actually done ; he can do whatsoever he can will ; he can will more worlds, and therefore can create more worlds. KGod hath not ability to do more than he will do, he then can do no more than what he actually hath done ; and then it wiU follow, that he is not a free, but a natural and necessary agent, which cannot be sup- posed of God.
Second. This power is infinite in regard of action. As he can [iroduce numberless objects above what he hath produced, so he could produce them more magnificently than he hath made themu As he never works to the extent of his power in regard of things, so neither in regard of the manner of acting ; for he never acts so but he could act in a higher and perfecter manner.
(1.) His power is infinite in regard of the independency of action: l>e wants no instnmient to act. W hen there was nothing but Gx)d, there was no cause of action but God ; when there was nothing in being but God, there could be no instrumental cause of the being of an^rthing. God can perfect his action without dependence on any thmg ;^ and to be simply independent, is to be simply infinite. In
^ 8uAref» Vol I« de Deo. p. 161.
ON THE POWER OP GOD. 28
tills respect it is a power incommunicable to any creature, though you conceive a creature in higher degrees of perfection than it is. A creature cannot cease to be dependent, but it must cease to be a crea- ture ; to be a creature and independent, are terms repugnant to one another.
(2.) But the infiniteness of Divine power consists in an ability to give higher degrees of perfection to everything which he hath made. As his power is infinite extensive, in regard of the multitude of ob- jects he can bring into bein^, so it is infinite intensive, in regard of the manner of operation, and the endowments he can bestow upon them.â„¢ Some things, indeed, God doth so perfect, that higher de- grees of perfection cannot be imagined to be added to them.^ As the humanity of Christ cannot be united more gloriously than to the person of the Son of God, a greater degree of perfection cannot be conferred upon it. Nor can the souls of the blessed have a nobler object of vision and fruition than God himself, the infinite Being: no higher than the enjoyment of himself can be conferred upon a "crea- ture, respeciu termini. This is not want of power; he cannot be greater, because he is greatest; not better, because he is best: nothing can be more than infinite. But as to the things which Goa hath made in the world, he could have given them other manner of being than they have, A human understanding may improve a thought or conclusion ; strengthen it with more and more force of reason ; and adorn it with richer and richer elegancy of language : why, then, may not the Divine providence produce a world more perfect and excellent than this ? He that mates a plain vessel, can embellish it more, engrave more figures upon it, according to the capacitv of the subject : and cannot God do so much more with his works f Could not God have made this world of a larger quantity, and the sun of a greater bulk and proportionable strength, to influ- ence a bigger world ? so that this world would have been to another that God- might have made, as a ball or a mount, this sun as a star to another sun that he might have kindled. He could have made every star a sun, every spire of grass a star, every grain of dust a flower, every soul an angel. And though the angels be perfect creatures, and inexpressibly more glorious than a visible creature, yet who can imagine God so confined, that he cannot create a more exejcUent kind, and endow those which he hath made with excellen- cy of a higher rank than he invested them with at the first moment of their creation? Without question God might have given the meaner creatures more excellent endowments, put them into another ' order of nature for their own good and more aifPusive usefulness in the world. What is made use of by the prophet (Mai. ii. 15) in an- other case, may be used in this : " Yet had he a residue of Spirit" The capacity of every creature might have been enlarged by God; for no work of his in the world doth equal his power, as nothing that he hath framed doth equal his wisdom. The same matter which is the matter of the body of a beast, is the matter of a plant and flower; is the matter of the body of a man ; and so was capable of a higher form and higher perfections; than God hath been pleased
» Becan. Sum. TheoL p. 82. ■Ibid. p. 84.
24 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
to bestow upon it And he had power to bestow that perfection on one part of matter which he denied to it, and bestowed on another part. K God cannot make things in a greater perfection, there must be some limitation of him : he cannot be limited by another, because nothing is superior to God. If limited by himself, that limi- tion is not from a want of power, but a want of will. He can, by his own power, raise stones to be children to Abraham (Matt. iii. 9) : he could alter the nature of the stones, form them into human bodies, dignify them with rational souls, inspire those souls with such graces that may render them the children of Abraham. But for the more fully understanding the nature of this power, we may observe,
p..] That though God can make everything with a higher degree of perfection, yet still within the limits of a finite being. No crea- ture can be made infinite, because no creature can be made God. No creature can be so improved as to equal the goodness and per- fection of God;o yet there is no creature but we may conceive a possibility of its being made more perfect in that rank of a creature than it is : as we may imagine a flower or plant to have greater beauty and richer qualities imparted to it by Divine power, without rearing it so high as to the dignity of a rational or sensitive creature. Whatsoever perfections may be added by God to a creature, are still finite perfections ; and a multitude of finite excellences can never amoimt to the value and honor of infinite : as if you add one number to another as high as you can, as much as a large piece of paper can contain, you can never make the numbers really infinite, though they may be infinite in regard of the inability of any human under- standing to count them. The finite condition of the creature suflfers it not to be capable of an infinite perfection. God is so great, so excellent, that it is his perfection not to have any equal ; the defect is in the creature, whicn cannot be elevated to such a pitch ; as you can never make a gallon measure to hold the quantity of a butt, or a butt the quantity of a river, or a river the fulness of the sea.
[2.] Though God hath a power to furnish every creature with
freater and nobler perfections than he hath bestowed upon it, yet e hath framed all things in the perfectest manner, and most con- venient to that end for which he intended them. Everything is endowed with the best nature and quality suitable to God's end in creation, though not in the best manner for itself.? In regard of the universal end, there cannot be a better ; for God himself is the end of all things, who is the Supreme Goodness. Nothing can be better than God, who could not be God if he were not superlatively best, or optimus; and he hath ordered all things for the declaration of his gooaness or justice, according to the behaviors of his creatures. Man doth not consider what strength or power he can put forth in the means he useth to attain such an end, but the suitableness of them to his main design, and so fits and marahals them to his grand pur- pose. Had God only created things that are most excellent, he had created only angels and men ; how, then, would his wisdom have
* Qamach in Aquin. Tom. L Qu. 25.
f He8t. ex parte faeientis et modi: but not ex parte reu EstL in Senten. lib. i. dis- tm.4i.8 2.
ON THE POWER OF OOD. 25
been conspicuous in other works in the subordination and subser- viency of them to one another? God therefore determined his power by his ^dsdom : and though his absolute power could have made every creature better, yet his ordinate power, which in everjr step w^as regulated by his wisdom, made everjrthing best for his designed intention.*! A musician hath a power to wind up a string on a lute to a higher and more perfect note in itself, but in wisdom he will not do it, because the intended melody would be disturbed thereby if it were not suited to the other strings on the instrument ; a discord would mar and taint the harmony which the lutenist designed. God, in creation, observed the proportions of nature: he can make a spider as strong as a lion ; but according to the order of nature which he hath settled., it is not convenient that a creature of so small a compass should be as strong as one of a greater bulk. The absolute power of God could have prepared a body for Christ as glorious as that he had after his resurrection ; but that had not been agreeable to the end designed in his humiliation : and, therefore, God acted most perfectly by his ordinate power, in giving him a body that wore the livery of our infirmities. God's power is alway regulated by his wisdom and will ; and though it produceth not what is most perfect in itself, yet what is most perfect and decent in relation to the end he fixed. And so in his providence, though he could rack the whole frame of nature to bring about his ends in a more mirac- ulous way and astonishment to mortals, yet his power is usually and ordinarily confined by his will to act in concurrence with the nature of the creatures, and direct them according to the laws of their being, to such ends which he aims at in their conduct, without violencing their nature.
S3.] Though God hath an absolute power to make more worlds, [ infinite numbers of other creatures, and to render every creature a higher mark of his power, •yet in regard of his decree to the con- trary, he cannot do it. He hath a physical power, but after his re- solve to the contrary, not a moral power : the exercise of his power is subordinate to his decree, but not the essence of his power. The decree of God takes not away any power from God, because the power of God is his own essence, and incapable of change ; and is as great physically and essentially after his decree, as it was before ; only his will hath put in a bar to the demonstration of all that power which he is able to exercise.' As a prince that can raise 100,000 men for an invasion, raises only 20 or 30,000 ; he here, by his order, limits his power, but doth not divest himself of his authority and power to raise the whole number of the forces of his dominions if he pleases : the power of God hath more objects than his decree hath ; but since it is his perfection to be immutable, and not to change his decree, he cannot morally put forth his power upon all those objects, which, as it is essentially m him, he hath ability to do. God hath decreed to save those that believe in Christ, and to judge unbelievers to everlasting perdition : he cannot morally damn the first, or save the latter; yet ne hath not divested himself of his absolute power to
4 Aquin. Part I, Qu, 26, art 6. ' Gamach ia Aquin. Tom. I. Qo. 26.
26 CHABNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
gave all or damn all.* Or suppose God hath decreed not to create more worlds than this we are now in, doth his decree weaken his strength to create more if he pleased? His not creating more is not a want of strength, but a want of will : it is an act of lioerty, not an act of impotency. As when a man solemnly resolves not to walk in such a way, or come at such a place, his resolution deprives him not of his natural strength to walk thither, but fortifies ms will against using his strength m any such motion to that place. The will of God hath set bounds to the exercise of his power, but doth not in- fringe that absolute power which still resides in his nature : he is girded about with more power than he puts forth (Ps. Ixv. 6).
[4.] As the power of God is infinite in regard of his essence, in regard of the oDJects, in regard of action, so, fourthly, in regard of duration. The apostle calls it " an eternal power" (Rom. i. 20). His eternal power is collected and concluded from the things that are made : they must needs be the products of some Being which con- tains truly in itself all power, who wrought them without engines, without instruments ; and, therefore, this power must be infinite, and possessed of an unalterable virtue of acting. K it be eternal, it must be infinite, and hath neither beginning nor end; what is eternal hath no bounds. K it be eternal, and not limited by time, it must be infinite, and not to be restrained by any finite object : his power never begun to be, nor ever ceaseth to be ; it cannot languish ; men are fain to unbend themselves, and must have some time to recruit their tired spirits : but the power of God is perpetually vigorous, without any mterrupting qualm (Isa. xl. 28) : " Hast thou not known, hast thou not heara, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" That might which suffered no diminution from eternity, but hatched so great a world by brooding ^jpon nothing, will not suffer any dimness or de- crease to eternity. This power being the same witn his essence, is as durable as his essence, and resides for ever in his nature.
8. The eighth consideration, for the right understanding of this attribute, the impossibility of God's doing some things, is no in- fringing of his almightiness, but rather a strengthening of it. It is granted that some tmngs God cannot do ; or, rather, as Aquinas and others, it is better to say, such things cannot be done, than to say that God cannot do them ; to remove all kind of imputation or re- flection of weakness on God,^ and because the reason of the impos- sibility of those things is in the nature of the things themselves.
1. Some things are impossible in their own nature. Such are all those things which imply a contradiction ; as for a thing to be, and not to be at the same time ; for the sun to shine, and not to shine at the same moment of time ; for a creature to act, and not to act at the same instant : one of those parts must be false ; for if it be true that the sun shines this moment, it must be false to say it doth not shine. So it is impossible that a rational creature can be without reason : 'Tis a contradiction to be a rational creature, and yet want that which is essential to a rational creature. So it is impossible that the will of man can be compelled, because liberty is the essence of the
* CreU. de Dea cap. 22. * fiobins. Obserr. p. 14.
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 27
will ; wliile it is will it cannot be constrained ; and if it be constrained, it ceaseth to be will. God cannot at one time act as the author of the will and the destroyer of the will.«> It is impossible that vice and virtue, light and darkness, life and death, should be the same thing. Those things admit not of a conception in any understand- ing. Some things are impossible to be done, because of the incapa- bility of the subject ; as for a creature to be made infinite, indepen- dent, to preserve itself without the Divine concourse and assistance. So a brute cannot be taken into communion with God, and to ever- lasting spiritual blessedness, because the nature of a brute is incapa- ble of such an elevation : a rational creature only can understand and relish spiritual delights, and is capable to enjoy God, and have communion with him. Indeed, God may change the nature of a brute, and bestow such faculties of understanding and will upon it, as to render it capable of such a blessedness ; but then it is no more a brute, but a rational creature : but, while it remains a brute, the excellency of the nature of God doth not admit of communion with such a suDJect ; so that this is not for want of power in God, but be- cause of a deficiency in the creature : to suppose that God could make a contradiction true, is to make himself false, and to do just nothing.
2. Some things are impossible to the nature and being of God. As to die, implies a flat repugnance to the nature of God ; to be able to die, is to be able to be cashiered out of being. K God were able to deprive himself of life, he might then cease to be : he were not then a necessary, but an uncertam, contingent being; and could not be said only to have immortality, as he is (1 Tim. vi. 16). He can- not die who is life itself, and necessarily existent ; he cannot grow old or decay, because he cannot be measured by time : and this is no part of weakness, but the perfection of power. His power is that whereby he remains forever fixed in his own everlasting being. That cannot be reckoned as necessary to the omnipotence of God which all mankind count a part of weakness in themselves : God is omnipotent, because he is not impotent ; and if he could die, he woula be impotent, not omnipotent : death is the feebleness of na- ture. It is undoubtedly the greatest impotence to cease to be : who would count it a part of ommpotency to disenable himself, and sink into nothing and not being? The impossibility for God to die is not a fit article to impeach his omnipotence ; this would bea strange way of arguing : a tning is not powerful, because it is not feeble, ana cannot cease to be powerful, for death is a cessation of all power. God is almighty in doing what he will, not in suffering what he will not.* To die is not an active, but a passive power ; a defect of a power : God is of too noble a nature to perish. Some things are mipossible to that eminency of nature which he hath above all creatures ; as to walk, sleep, feed, these are imperfections belonging to bodies and compounded natures. K he could walk, he were not everywhere present: motion speaks succession. If he could increase, he would not have been perfect before.
8. Some things are impossible to the glorious perfections of God. God cannot do anything unbecoming his holiness and goodness ;
■Magilana de Scientia Dei, Pari II. e. 6, §. 8. ' Angus.
28 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
any thing unworthy of himself and against the perfections of his nature. God can do whatsoever he can will. As he doth actually do whatsoever he doth actually will, so it is possible for him to do whatsoever it is possible for him to will. He doth whatsoever he will, and can do whatsoever he can will ; but he cannot do what he cannot will : he cannot will any unrighteous thing, and therefore cannot do any unrighteous thing. God cannot love sin, this is con- trary to his holiness ; he cannot violate his word, this is a denial of his truth ; he cannot punish an innocent, this is contrary to his goodness ; he cannot cherish an impenitent sinner, this is an injury to his justice ; he cannot forget what is done in the world, this is a disgrace to his omniscience ; he cannot deceive his creature, this is contrary to his faithfulness : none of these things can be done by him, because of the perfection of his nature. Would it not be an imperfection in God to absolve the guilty, and condemn the inno- cent? Is it congruous to the righteous and holy nature of God, to command murder and adultery ; to command men not to worship him, but to be base and unthankful ? These things would be against the rules of righteousness ; as, when we say of a good man, he can- not rob or fight a duel, we do not mean that he wants a courage for such an act, or that he hath not a natural strength and knowledge to manage his weapon as well as another, but he hath a righteous principle strong in him which will not suffer him to do it ; his will IS settled against it : no power can pass into act unless applied by the will ; but the vnll of God cannot will anything but what is worthy of him, and decent for his goodness.
(1.) The Scripture saith it is impossible for God to lie (Heb. vi. 18) ; and God cannot deny himself because of his faithfulness (2 Tim. ii. 13). As he cannot die, because he is life itself; as he can not deceive, because he is goodness itself; as he cannot do an un- wise action, because he is wisdom itself, so he cannot speak a false word, because he is truth itself. If he should speak anything as true, and not know it, where is his infinite knowledge ana compre- hensiveness of understanding? If he should speak anjrthing as true, which he knows to be false, where is his infinite righteousness? If he should deceive any creature, there is an end of ms perfection of fidelity and veracity. If he should be deceived himself, there is - an end of his omniscience; we must then fancy him to be a deceit- ful God, an ignorant God, that is, no God at all. If he should lie, he would be God and no God ; God upon supposition, and no God, because not the first truth.y AH unrighteousness is weakness, not power ; it is a defection from right reason, a deviation from moral principles, and the rule of perfect action, and ariseth from a defect of goodness and power : it is a weakness, and not omnipotence, to lose goodness : Gt)d is light ; it is the perfection of light not to be- come darkness, and a want of power in light, if it should become darkness :* his power is infinitely strong, so is his wisdom infinitely clear, and his wiU infinitely pure : would it not be a part of weak- ness to have a disorder in himself, and these perfections shock one against another ? Since all perfections are in God, in the most sov-
J Becan. sum. Theolog. p. 83. " Mazimus Tjrrius.
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 29
ereign height of perfection, nothing can be done by the infiniteness of one against the infiniteness of the other. He would then be un- stable in his own perfections, and depart from the infinite rectitude of his own will, if he should do an evil action. Again,* what is an argument of greater strength, than to be utterly ignorant of infirm- ity ? God is omnipotent because he cannot do evil, and would not be omnipotent if he could ; those things would be marks of weak- ness, ana not characters of majesty. Would you count a sweet foun- tain impotent because it cannot send forth bitter streams? or the sun weak, because it cannot difluse darkness as well as light in the air ? There is an inability arising from weakness, and an abiUty arising firom perfection : it is the perfection of angels and blessea spirits, that tney cannot sin ; and it would be the imperfection of God, if he could do evil.
(2.) Hence it follows, that it is impossible that a thing past should not be past. If we ascribe a power to God, to make a thing that is past not to be past, we do not truly ascribe power to him, but a weakness ; for it is to make God to lie, as though God might not have created man, yet, after he had created Adam, though he should presently have reduced Adam to his first nothing, yet it would be forever true that Adam was created, and it would forever be false that Adam never was created : so, though God may prevent sin, yet when sin hath been committed, it will alway be true that sin was committed ; it will never be true to say such a creature that did sin, did not sin ; his sin cannot be recalled : though God, by pardon, take off the guilt of Peter*s denying our Saviour, yet it will oe eter- nally true that Peter did deny him. It is repugnant to the right- eousness and truth of God to make that whicn was once true to be- come false, and not true ; that is, to make a truth to become a lie, and a lie to become a^ truth. This is well argued from Heb. vi. 18 : " It is impossible for God to lie." The apostle argues, that what God had promised and sworn will come to pass, and cannot but come to pass.** Now, if God could make a tning past not to be
East, this consequence would not be good, for then ne might make imself not to have promised, not to have sworn, after he hath promised and sworn ; an4 so, if there were a power to undo that which is past, there would be no foundation for faith, no certainty of revelation. It cannot be asserted, that God hath created the world ; that God hath sent his Son to die ; that God hath accepted his death for man. These might not be true, if it were possible, that that which hath been done, might be said never to have been done : so that what any may imagine to be a want of power in God, is the highest perfection of God, and the greatest security to a be- lieving creature that hath to do with God.
4. Some things are impossible to be done, because of God's ordi- nation* Some tilings are impossible, not ill their own nature, but in regard of the determined wiU of God: so God might have destroy- ed the world after Adam's fall, but it was impossible ; not that God wanted power to do it, but because he did not only decree from eternity to create the world, but did also decree to redeem the world
* Ambrose. ^ Becan. sum. Tlieol. p. 84. Orel, de Deo, cap. 22.
so CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
by Jesus Christ, and erected the world in order to the manifestation of his "glory in Christ" (Eph. i. 4, 5). The choice of some in Christ was "before the foundation of the world." Supposing that there was no hindrance in the justice of God to pardon thesm of Adam after his fall, and to execute no punishment on him, yet in regard of God's threatening, that in the day he eat of the forbidden fruit he should die, it was impossible : so, though it was possible that the cup should pass from our blessed Saviour, that is, possible in its own nature, yet it was not possible in regard of the determination of God's will, since he had both decreed and published his will to re- deem man by the passion and blood of his Son. These things God, by his absolute power, might have done ; but upon the account of his decree, they were impossible, because it is repugnant to the na* ture of God to be mutable : it is to deny his own wisdom which contrived them, and his own will which resolved them, not to do that which he had decreed to do. This would be a dif&dence in his wisdom, and a change of his will. The impossibility of them is no result of a want of power, no mark of an imperfection, of feeble- ness and impotence ; but the perfection of immutability and un- changeableness. Thus have I endeavored to give you a right no- tion of this excellent attribute of the power of God, in as plain terms as I could, which may serve us for a matter of meditation, admira- tion, fear of him, trust in him, which are the proper uses we should make of this doctrine of Divine power. The want of a richt im- derstanding of this doctrine of the Divine power hath caused many to run into mighty absurdities ; I have, tnerefore, taken the more pains to explain it.
n. The second thing I proposed, is the reasons to prove God to be omnipotent. The Scripture describes God by this attribute of power (Ps. cxv. 8): "He hath done whatsoever he pleased." It sometimes sets forth his power in a way of derision of those that seem to doubt of it. When Sarah doubted of his ability to give her a child in her old age (Gen. xviii. 14), " Is anything too hard for the Lord?" They deserve to be scoffeo, that will despoil God of his strength, and measure him by their shallow models. And when Moses uttered something of unbelief of this attribute, as if God were not able to feed 600,000 Israelites, besides women and children, which he aggravates by a kind of imperious scoff; " Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them to suffice them r Or, shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them ?" &c. (Numb. xL 22S. God takes him up short (ver. 23) : " Is the Lord's hand waxed short r* What ! can any weakness seize upon my hand ? Can I draw out of my own treasures what is needful for a supply ? The hand of God is not at one time strong, and another time feeble. Hence it is that we read of the hand and arm of God, an outstretched arm ; because the strength of a man is exerted by his hand and arm ; the power of God is called the arm of his power, and the right hand of his strength* Sometimes, according to the different m^mifestation of it, it is ex- pressed by finger, when a less power is evidenced ; by hand, when something greater; by arm, wnen more mighty than the former. Since God is eternal, without limits of time, he is also Almightyi
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 81
without limits of strength. As he cannot be said to be more in being now than he was before, so he is neither more nor less in strength than he was before: as he cannot cease to be so, so he cannot cease to be powerful, because he is eternal. His eternity and power are linked together as equally demonstrable (Rom. i. 20); (iod is called the Gr^ of ffods El Mhhim (Dan. xi. 36) ; the Miffhty of mighties, whence all mighty persons have their activity and vigor: he is called the Lord of Hosts, as being the Creator and Conductor of the heavenly militia.
Reason 1. The power that is in creatures demonstrates a greater and an unconceivaole power in God. Nothing in the world is without a power of activity according to its nature : no creature but can act something. The sun warms and enlightens everything : it sends its influences upon the earth, into the bowels of the earth, into the depths of the sea : all generations owe themselves to its instrumental virtue. How powerful is a small seed to rise into a mighty tree with a lofty top, and extensive branches, and send forth other seeds, which can still multiply into numberless plants ! How wonderful is the power of the Creator, who hath endowed so small a creature as a seed, with so fruitful an activity ! Yet this is but the virtue of a hmited nature. God is both the producing and preserving cause of all the virtue in any creature, in every creature. The power of every creature be- longs to him as the Fountain, and is truly his power in the creature. As he is the first Being, he is the original of all being ; as he is the flr;5t Good, he is the spring of all goodness ; as he is the first Truth, he is the. source of all truth ; so, aa he is the first Power, he is the fountain of all power.
1. He, therefore, that communicates to the creature what power it hath, contains eminently much more power in himself, f Ps. xciv. 10), " He that teaches man knowledge, shall not he know ? So he that gives created beings power, shall not he be powerful ? The first Being must have as much power as he hath given to others: he could not transfer that upon another, which he did not transcendently possess himself The sole cause of created power cannot be destitute of any power in himself. We see that the power of one creature transcends the power of another. ^ Beasts can do the things that plants cannot do ; besides the power of growth, they have a power of sense and progressive motion. Men can do more than beasts ; they have rational souls to measure the earth and heavens, and to be repositories of multitudes of things, notions, and conclusions. We may well imagine angels to be far superior to man : the power of the Creator must fiir surmount the power of the creature, ana must needs be infinite : for if it be limited, it is limited by himself or by some other ; if by some other, he is no longer a Creator, but a creature ; for that which limits him in his nature, did communicate that nature to him ; not by himself, for he would not deny himself any neces- sary perfection : we must still conclude a reserve of power in him, that he that made these can make many more of the same kind.
2. All the power which is distinct in the creatures, must be united in God. One creature hath a strength to do this, another to do that ; every creature is aa a cistern filled with a particular and limited
32 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTBIBUTES.
power, according to the capacity of its nature, from this fountain ; all are distinct streams from God. But the strength of every creature, though distinct in the rank of creatures, is united in God the centre, whence those lines were drawn, the fountain whence those streams were derived. If the power of one creature be admirable, as the power of an angel, whicn the Psalmist saith (Ps. ciii. 20), " excelleth m strength ;" how much greater must the power of a legion of angels be I How inconceivably superior the power of all those numbers of spiritual natures, which are the excellent works of God ! Now, if all this particular power, which is in every angel distinct, were com- pacted in one angel, how would it exceed our understanding, and be above our power to form a distinct conception of it ! What is thus divided in every angel, must be thought united in the Creator of angels, and far more excellent in him. Everything is in a more noble manner in the fountain, than in the streams which distil and descend from it. He that is the Original of all those distinct powers, must be the seat of all power without distinction : in him is the union of all without division; what is in them as a quality, is in him as his essence. Again, if all the powers of several creatures, with all their principal qualities and vigors, both of beasts, plants, and rational creatures, were united in one subject ; as if one lion had the strength of all the lions that ever were ; or, if one elephant had the strength of all the elephants that ever were ; nay, if one bee had all the power of motion and stinging that all bees ever had, it would have a vast strength ; but if the strength of all those thus gathered into one of everv kind should be lodged in one sole creature, one man, would it not be a strength too big for our conception ? Or, suppose one can- non had all the force of all the cannons that ever were m the world, what a battery would it make, and, as it were, shake the whole frame of heaven ana earth ! All this strength must be much more incompre- hensible in God ; all is united in him. If it were in one individual created nature, it would still be but a finite power in a finite nature : but in God it is infinite and immense.
Eeason 2. If there were not an incomprehensible power in God, he would not be infinitely perfect. God is the first Being ; it can only be said of him. Est, he is. All other things are nothing to him ; " less than nothing and vanity" (Isa. xl. 17), and " reputed as nothing*' (Dan. iv. 35). All the inhabitants of the earth, with all their wit and strengtn, are counted as if they were not ; just in comparison with Him and his being, as a little mote in the sun-beams : God, therefore, is a pure Being. Any kind of weakness whatsoever is a defect, a degree of not being ; so far as anything wants this or that power, it may be said not to be. Were there anything of weakness in God, any want of strength which belonged to the perfection of a nature, it might be said of God, He is not this or that, he wants this or that perfection of Being, and so he would not be a pure Being, there would be something of not being in him. But God being the first Being, the only original Being, he is infinitely distant from not baing, and therefore infinitely distant from anything of weakness. Again, if God can know whatsoever is possible to be done by him, and cannot do it, tliere would be somethmg more in lus knowledge
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 88
than in his power.^ What would then follow? That the essence of God would oe in some regard greater than itself, and less than itself because his knowledge and his power are his essence ; his power as much his essence as his knowledge: and therefore, in regard of his knowledge, his essence would be greater ; in regard of his power, his essence would be less ; which is a thing impossible to be con- ceived in a most perfect Bsing. We must understand this of those things which are properly and in their own nature subjected to the Divine knowledge ; for otherwise God knows more than he can do, for he knows sin, but he cannot act it, because sin belongs not to power but weakness ; and sin comes under the knowledge of God^ not in itself and its own nature, but as it is a defect from God, and contrary to good, which is the proper object of Divine knowledge. He knows it also not as possible to be done by himself, but as possi* ble to be done by the creature. Again, if God were not omnipotent, we might imagine something more perfect than God :^ for if we bar God from any one thing which in its own nature is possible, we may imagine a being that can do that thing, one that is able to effect it ; and so imagine an a^ent greater than God, a being able to do more than God is able to do, and consequently a being more perfect than God : but no being more perfect than God can be imagmed by any creature. Nothing can be called most perfect, if anything of activity be wanting to it. Active power follows the perfection of a thing, and all things are counted more noble by how much more of efficacy and virtue they possess. We count those the best and most perfect plants, that have the greatest medicinal virtue in them, and power of working upon the body for the cure of distempers. God is per- fect of himself, and therefore most powerful of himself. K his per- fection in wisdom and goodness be unsearchable, his power, which belongs to perfection, and without which all the other excellencies of Ilia nature were insignificant, and could not show themselves, (as was before evidenced,) must be unsearchable also. It is by the title of Almighty he is denominated, when declared to be unsearchable to perfection (Job xi. 7): " Canst thou by searching find out God, canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" This would be limited and searched out, if he were destitute of an active ability to do whatsoever he pleased to do, whatsoever was possible to be done. As he hath not a perfect liberty of will, if he could not will what he pleased ; so he would not have a perfect activity, if he could not do what he willed.
Reason 3. The simplicity of God manifests it. Every substance, the more spiritual it is, the more powerful it is. All perfections are more united in a simple, than in a compounded bein^. Angels, being spirits, are more powerful than bodies. Where there is the greatest simplicity, there is the greatest unity ; and where there is the greatest unity, there is the greatest power. Where there is a composition of a faculty and a member, the member or organ mav be weakened and rendered unable to act, though the power doth Btill reside in the faculty. As a man, when his arm or hand is cut oflF or broke, he hath the faculty of motion still ; but he hath lost
• Vietoim in Petar. Tom. L p. 333. ' Ibid p. 233.
VOL. II. — 3
84 CHARNOOK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
that instrument that part whereby he did manifest and put forth that motion : but Goa being a pure spiritual nature, hath no mem- bers, no organs to be defaced or impaired. All impediments of actions arise either from the nature of the thing that acts, or from something without it. There can be no hindrance to God to do whatsoever he pleases ; not in himself, because he is the most sim- ple being, hath no contrariety in himself, is not composed of divers thin^ ; and it cannot be from anything without himself^ because nothing is equal to him, much less superior. He is the greatest, the Supreme : all things were made by him, depend upon him, nothing can disappoint his intentions.
Beason 4. The miracles that have been in the worid evidence the power of God. Extraordinary productions have awakened men from their stupidity, to the acknowledgment of the immensity of Divine power. Miracles are such effects as have been wrought without the assistance and co-operation of natural causes, yea, con- trary and besides the ordinary course of nature, above the reach of any created power. Miracles have been ; and saith Bradwardine,* to deny that ever such things were, is uncivil : it is inhuman to deny all the histories of Jews and Christians; whosoever denies miracles, must deny all possibility of miracles, and so must imagine himself fully skilled in tne extent of Divine power. How was the sun suspended from its motion for some hours (Josh. x. 18) ; " the dead raised from the grave ;" those reduced from the brink of it, that had been brought near to it by prevailing diseases; and this by a word speaking? How were the famished lions bridled from ex- ercising their rage upon Daniel, exposed to them for a prey (Dan. vi. 22) r the activity of the fire curbed for the preservation of the three children (Dan. iii. 15)? which proves a Deity more powerful than all creatures. No power upon earth can hinder the operation of the fire upon combustible matter, when they are united, unless by quenching the fire, or removing the matter : but no created power can restrain the fire, so long as it remains so, from acting according to its nature. This was done by God in the case of the three chil- dren, and that of the burning bush (Exod. iii. 2). It was as much miraculous that the bush should not consume, as it was natural that it should bum by the efficacy of the fire upon it. No element is so obstinate and dea^ but it hears and obeys his voice, and performs his orders, though contrary to its own nature : all the violence oi the creature is suspended as soon as it receives his command. He that gave the origmal to nature, can take away the necessity of na- ture ;f he presides over creatures, but is not confined to those laws he hath prescribed to creatures. He framed nature, and can turn the channels of nature according to his own pleasure. Men dig into the bowels of nature, search into all the treasures of it, to find medicines to cure a disease, and after all their attempts it may prove labor in vain : but Gt)d, by one act of his will, one word of nis mouth, overturns the victory of death, and rescues from the most desperate diseases.* All the miracles which were wrought bv the apostles, either speaking some words or touching with the hand,
* lib. i. cap. L p. 88. ' Damiaaus, in Petar. ' Fauch. in Acts. Vol IL g 66.
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 86
were not effected by any virtue inherent in their words or in their touches ; for such virtue inherent in any created finite subject would be created and finite itself, and consequently were incapable to produce effects which required an infinite virtue, as miracles do which are above the power of nature. So when our Saviour wrought miracles, it was not by any quality resident in his human nature, but by the sole power of his Divinity. The flesh could only do what was proper to the flesh ; but the Deity did what was proper to the Deity, " God alone doth wonders" (Ps. cxxxvi. 4) : excluaing every other cause firom producing those things. He only doth those things which are aoove the power of nature, and cannot be wrought by any natural causes wnatsoever. He doth not hereby put his omm- potence to any stress : it is as easy with him to turn nature out of its settled course, as it was to place it in that station it holds, and appoint it that course it runs. All the works of nature are indeed miracles and testimonies of the power of God producing them, and sustaining them : but works above the power ot nature, being novel- ties and unusual, strike men with a greater admiration upon their appearance, because they are not the products of nature, but the convulsions of it I might also add as an argument, the power of the mind of man to conceive more than hath been wrought by God in the world. And God can work whatsoever perfection the mind of man can conceive : otherwise the reaches of a created imagina- tion and fancy would be more extensive than the power of God. His power, therefore, is fax greater than the conception of any intel- lectual creature ; else the creature would be of a greater capacity to conceive than God is to effect. The creature would have a power of conception above God's power of activity ; and consequently a creature, in some respect greater than himseli. Now whatsoever a creature can conceive possible to be done, is but finite in its own nature ; and if God could not produce what being a created under- standing can conceive possible to be done, he would be less than infinite in power, nay, he could not go to the extent of what is finite. But I have touched this before ; that God can create more than he hath created, and in a more perfect way of being, as con- sidered simply in themselves.
ni. The third general thing is to declare, how the power of Qtod appears in Creation, in Government, in Bedemption.
First, In Creation. With what majestic lines doth God set for his power, in the giving being and endowments to all the crea- tures in the world (Job xxxviii) I All that is in heaven and earth is his, and shows the greatness of his power, glory, victory, and ma- jesty (1 Chron. xxix. 11). The heaven being so magnificent a piece of work, is called emphatically, " the firmament of his power*^ (Pa cL 1^; his power bemg more conspicuous and unavailed in tnat glorious arch of the world. Inde^, " God exalts by his power" ^ob xxxvi 22), that is, exalts himself by his power in all the works of his hands ; in the smallest shrub, as well as the most glorious sun. All his works of nature are truly miracles, though we consider them not, being blinded with two frequent and cus* tomaiy a sight of them ; yet, in the neglect of all the rest, the view
86 CHABNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
of the heavens doth more affect us with astonishment at the might of God's arm : these declare his glory, and " the firmament showeth his handy work" (Ps. xix. 1). And the Psalmist peculiarly, calls them his heavens, and the work of his fingers (Ps. viii. 8) : these were immediately created by God, whereas many other things in the . world were brought into being by the power of God, yet by the means of the influence of the heavens.
1. His power is the first thing evident in the story of the creation, " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. i. 1). There is no appearance of anything in this declaratory preface, but of power : the characters of wisdom march after in the distinct formation of things, and animating them with suitable qualities for an universal good. By heaven and earth, is meant the whole mass of the creatures : by heaven, all the airy region, with all the host of it ; by the earth, is meant, all that which makes the entire inferior globe.** The Jews observe, that in the first of Genesis, in the whole chapter, unto the finishing the work in six days, God is called c^nbK, which is a name of Power, and that thirty-two times in that chapter ; but after the finishing the six days' work, he is called oinbxn, which, according to their notion, is a name of goodness and kindness : hia power is first visible in framing the world, before his goodness is visible in the sustaining and preserving it. It was by this name of Power and Almighty that he was known in the nrst ages of the world, not by his name, Jehovah (Exod. vi. 8) : " And I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by the name of God Almighty ; but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." Not but that they were acquainted \nth. the name, but did not experience the intent of the name, which signified his truth in the performance of his prom- ises ; they knew him by that name as promising, but they knew hin. not by that name, as performing. He would be known oy his name Jehovah, true to his word, when he was about to efiect the deliver- ance from Egypt ; a type of the eternal redemption, wherein the truth of God, in performing of his first promise, is gloriously magni- fied. And hence it is that God is called Almighty more in the book of Job than in all the Scripture besides, I think about thirty-two times, and Jehovah but once, which is Job xii. 9, unless in Job xxxviiL when God is introduced speaking himself; which is an argument of Job's living before the deliverance fi:om Egypt, when God was known more by his works of creation than by the perform- ance of his promises, before the name Jehovah was formally publish- ed. Indeed, this attribute of his eternal power, is the first thing visible and intelligible upon the first glance of the eye upon the creatures (Rom. i. 20). Bring a man out of the cave wnere he hath been nursed, without seeing anything out of the confines of it, and let him lift up his eyes to the heavens, and take a prospect of that glorious body, the sun, then cast them down to the earth, and behold the surface of it, with its green clothing ; the first notion which will start up in his mind fi-om that sprint of wonders, is that of power, which ne will at first adore with a religious astonishment. Tne wis- dom of God in them is not so presently apparent, till after a more
^ Mercer, p. '7, eol. 1, 2.
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 87
exquisite consideration of his works and knowledge of the proper- ties of their natures, the conveniency of their situations, and the use- fulness of their functions, and the order wherein they are linked together for the good of the universe.
2. By this creative power God is often distinguished from all the idols and false gods in the world. Atid by this title he sets forth himself when he would act any great and wonderful work in the world (Ps. cxxxv. 5, 6) : " He is great above all gods," for " he hath done whatsoever he pleased in heaven and in earth." Upon this is founded all the worship he challengeth in the world, as his peculiar,
flory (Rev. iv. 11): "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, onor, and power, for thou hast created all things." And (Rev. x. 6) " I have made the earth, and created man upon it." " I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have 1 commanded" (Isa. xlv. 12). What is the issue (ver. 16) ? " They shall be ashamed and confounded, all of them, that are makers oi idols." And the weakness of idols is expressed by this title. " The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth" (Jerl x. IIV " The portion of Jacob is not like them, for he is the former of all things (ver. 16). What is not that God able to do, that hath created so great a worla ? How doth the power of God appear in creation ? 1st. In making the world of nothing. When we say, the world was made of nothing, we mean, that there was no matter existent for God to work upon, but what he raised himself in the first act of creation. In this regard, the power of God in creation surmounts his power in providence. Creation supposeth nothing, providence supposeth something in being. Creation intimates a creature making, providence speaks a thing already made, and capable of government, and in government. God uses second causes to bring about his purposes.
1. The world was made of nothing. The earth which is described as the first matter, without any form or ornament, without any dis- tinction or figures, was of God's forming in the bulk, before he did adorn it with his pencil (Gen. i. 1, 2). God, in the beginning, crea- ting the heaven and the earth, includes two things : First. That those were created in the beginning of time, and before all other things. Secondlv. That God begun the creation of the world from those things.' Therefore before the heavens and the earth there was nothing absolutely created, and therefore no matter in bein^ before an act of creation passed upon it. It could not be eternal, because nothing can be eternal but God ; it must therefore have a beginning. If it had a beginning from itself, then it was before it was. If it acted in the making itself before it was made, then it had a being before it had a being ; for that which is nothing, can act nothing : the action of anything supposeth the existence of the thing which acts. It being made, it was not before it was made ; for to be made is to be brought into being. It was made, then, by another, and that Maker is God. It is necessary that the First Original of things was from nothing : when we see one thing to arise from another, we must suppose an original of the first of each kind ; as, when we see
' Suarez, Vol III. p. 33.
88 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
a tree spring up from a seed, we know that seed came out of the bowels of another tree ; it had a parent, it had a master ; we must come to some first, or else we run into an endless maze : we must come to some first tree, some first seed that had no cause of the same kind, no matter of it, but was mere nothing. Creation doth suppose a production from nothing ; because, if you suppose a thing without any real or actual existence, it is not capable of any other production than from nothing : nothing must be supposed before the world, or we must suppose it eternal, and that is to deny it to be a creature, and make it God.*^ The creation of spiritual substances, such as angels and souls, evince this ; those things that are purely spiritual, and consist not of matter, cannot pretend to any original from matter, and therefore they rose up from nothing. If spiritual things arose from nothing, much more may corporeal, because they are of a lower nature than spiritual ; and he that can create a higher nature of nothing, can create an inferior nature of nothing. As bodily things are more imperfect than spiritual, so their creation may be supposed easier than that of spiritual. There was as little need of any matter to be wrought to his hands, to contrive into this visible iabric, as there was to erect such an excellent order as the glorious cheni- bims.
2. This creation of things from nothing speaks an infinite power. The distance between nothing and being hath been alway counted so great, that nothing but an Infinite Power can make such distances meet together, either for nothing to pass into being, or beine to re- turn to nothing. To have a thing arise from nothing, was so aifiicult a text to those that were ignorant of the Scripture, that they knew not how to fathom it, and therefore laid it down as a certain rule, that of nothing, nothing is made ; which is true of a created power, but not of an uncreated and Almighty Power. A greater distance cannot be imagined than that which is between nothing and some- thing ; that which hath no being, and that which hath ; and a greater power cannot be imagined than that which brings something out of nothing. We know not how to conceive a nothing, and afterwards a being from that nothing ; but we must remain swallowed up in admiration of the Cause that gives it being, and acknowledge it to be without any bounds and measures of greatness and power.* The further anything is from being, the more immense must that power be which brings it into being : it is not conceivable that the power of all the angels in one can give being to the smallest spire of grass. To imagine, therefore, so small a thing as a bee, a flv, a gram of corn, or an atom of dust, to be made of nothing, would stupefy any creature in the consideration of it, much more to behold the neavens, with all the troop of stars ; the earth, with all its embroidery ; and the sea, with all her inhabitants of fish ; and man, the noblest crea- ture of all, to arise out of the womb of mere emptiness. Indeed,' God had not acted as an almighty Creator, if he had stood in need of any materials but of his own framing : it had been as much as his Deity was worth, if he had not had all within the compass of his own power that was necessiiry to operation ; if he must have been
^ Suarex, Vol IIL p. 6. ^ Amyrald Morale. Tom. I. d. 262.
ON THE FOWEB OF OOD. 89
beholden ^ something without himself, and above himself for mat- ter to work upon : had there been such a necessity, we could not have imagined him to be omnipotent, and, consequently, not God.
3. In this the power of God exceeds the power of all natural and rational agents. Nature, or the order of second causes, hath a vast power ; the sun generates flies and other insects, but of some matter, the slime of the earth or a dunghill ; the sun and the earth bring forth harvests of corn, but from seed first sown in the earth ; fruits are brought forth, but from the sap of the plant ; were there no seed or plants in the earth, the power of the earth would be idle, and the influence of the sun insignificant; whatsoever strength either of them had in their nature, must be useless without matter to work upon. All the united strength of nature cannot produce the least thing out of nothing; it may multiply and increase things, by the powerful blessing God gave it at, the first erecting of the world, but it cannot create. The word which signifies creaiion, used in Gen. i. 1, is not ascribed to any second cause, but onlv to God ; a word, in that sense, as incommunicable to anything else as the action it signifies. Eational creatures can produce admirable pieces of art firom small things, yet still out of matter created to their hands. Ex- cellent garments may be woven, but from the entrails of a small silkworm. Delightful and medicinal spirits and essences may be ex- tracted, by ingenious chemists, but out of the bodies of plants and minerals. No picture can be drawn without colors ; no statue en- graven without stone ; no building erected v/ithout timber, stones, and other materials : nor can any man raise a thought without some matter framed to his hands, or cast into him. Matter is, by nature, formed to the hands of all artificers ; they bestow a new figure upon it, by the help of instruments, and the product of their own wit and skill,^ but they create not the least particle of matter ; when they want it, they must be supplied or else stand still, as well as nature, for none of them, or all together, can make the least mite or atom : and when they have wrought all that they can, they will not want some to find a flaw and defect in their work. God, as a Creator, hath the only prerogative to draw what he pleases from nothing, without any aefect, without any imperfection : he can raise what matter he please ; ennoble it with what form he pleases. Of nothing, nothing can be made, by any created agent : out the omnipotent Architect of the world is not imder the same necessity, nor is limited to the same rule, and tied by so short a tedder as created nature, or an ingenious, yet feeble artificer.
2d. It appears, in raising such variety of creatures from this bar- ren womb of nothing, or from the matter which he first commanded to appear out of nothing. Had there been any pre-existent matter, yet the bringing forth such varieties and diversities of excellent creatures, some with life, some with sense, and others with reason superadded to the rest, and those out of indisposed and undigested matter, would arffue an infinite power resident m the first Author of this variegated ftS^ric. From this matter he formed that glorious sun, which every day displays its glory, scatters its beams, clears the air, ripens our fruits, and maintains the propagation of creatures in
40 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
the world. From this matter he lighted those torches which he set in the heaven to qualify the darkness of the night : from this he compacted those bodies of light, which, though they seem to us as little sparks, as if they were the glow-worms of heaven, ^et some of them exceed in greatness this globe of the earth on which we live : and the highest of them hath so quick a motion, that some tell us they run, in the space of every hour, 42,000,000 of leagues. From the same matter he drew the earth on which we walk ; from thence he extracted the flowers to adorn it, the hills to secure the valleys, and the rocks to fortify it against the inundations of the sea ; and on this dull and sluggish element he bestowed so great a fruitfrilness, to maintain, feed, and multiply so many seeds of different kinds, and conferred upon those little bodies of seeds a power to multiply their kinds, in conjunction with the fruitfulness of the earth, to many thousands. From this rude matter, the slime or dust of the earth, he kneaded the body of man, and wrought so curious a fabric, fit to entertain a soul of a heavenly extraction, formed by the breath of God (Gen. ii. 7^. He brought light out of thick darkness, and liv- ing creatures, nsh and fowl, out of inanimate waters (Gen. i. 20), and gave a power of spontaneous motion to things arising from that matter which had no living motion. To convert one thing into another, is an evidence of infinite power, as well as creating things of nothing ; for the distance between life and not life is next to thai which is between being and not being. God first forms matter out of nothing, and then draws upon, and from this indisposed chaos, many excellent portraitures. Neither earth nor sea were capable of producing living creatures without an infinite power working upon it, and bringing into it such varietur and multitude of forms ; and this is called, by some, mediate creation, as the producing the chaos, which was without form and void, is called immediate creation. Is not the power of the potter admirable in forming, out of tempered dav, such varieties ot neat and curious vessels, that, after they are feshioned and past the furnace, look as if they were not of any kin to the matter they are formed of? and is it not the same with the glass-maker, that, from a little melted jelly of sand and ashes, or the dust of flint, can blow up so pure a body as glass, and in such va- rieties of shapes ? and is not the power of God more admirable, be- cause infinite in speaking out so beautiful a world out of nothing, and such varieties of living creatures from matter utterly indisposeo, in its own nature, for such forms ?
3d. And this conducts to a third thing, wherein the power of God appears, in that he did all this with the greatest ease and facility.
1. Without instruments. As God made the world without the advice, so without the assistance, of any other : " He stretched forth the heavens alone, and spread abroad the earth by himself" (Isa. xliv. 24). He had no engine, but his word; no pattern or model, but himself. What need can he have of instruments, that is able to create what instruments he pleases? Where there is no resistance in the object, where no need of preparation or in- strumental advantage in the agent ; there the actual determination of the will is sufficient to a production. What instrument need
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 41
we to the thinking of a thought, or an act of our will ? Men, indeed, cannot act anything without tools ; the best^ artificer must be beholden to sometning else for his noblest works of art. The carpenter cannot work without his rule, and axe, and saw, and other instruments; the watch-maker cannot act without his file and pliers; but in creation, there is nothing necessary to God's bringing forth a world, but a simple act of his will, which is both the principal cause, and instrumental. He had no scaffolds to rear it, no engines to polish it, no hammers or mattocks to clod and work it together. It is a miserable error to measure the actions of an Infinite Cause by the imperfect model of a finite, since, by his own "power and out-stretched arm, he made the heaven and the earth" (Jer. xxxii. 17\ What excellency would God have in his work above others, ii he needed instruments, as feeble men do ?"» Every artificer is counted more admirable, that can frame curious works with the less matter, fewer tools, and assistances. God uses instruments in his works of providence, not for necessity, but for the display of his wisdom in the management of them ; yet those in- struments were originally framed by him without instruments. In- deed, some of the Jews thought the angels were the instruments of God in creating man, and that those words, ** Let us make man in our own image^' (Gen. i. 26), were spoken to angels. But certainly the Scripture, which denies God any counsellor in the model of creation (Isa. xl. 12 — 14), doth not jom any instrument with him in the operation, which is everywhere ascribed to himself " without created assistance" (Isa. xlv. 18). It was not to angels God spake in that affair; if so, man was made after the image of angels, if they were companions with God in that work ; but it is everywhere said, that " Man was made after the image of God" (Gen. i. 27). Again, the image wherein man was created, was that of dominion over the lower creatures, as appears ver. 26, which we find not conferred upon angels ; and it is not likely that Moses should introduce the angels, as God's privy counsel, oi whose creation he had not mentioned one syllable. " Let us make man," rather signifies the Trinity, and not spoken in a royal style, as some think. Which of the Jewish kings wrote in the style, \Ve ? That was the custom of later times ; and we must not measure the language of Scripture by the style of Europe, of a far later date than the penning tne historv of the crea- tion. If angels were his counsellors in the creation of the material world, what instrument had he in the creation of angels ? If his own wisdom were the director, and his own will the producer of the one ; why should we not think, that he acted by his sole power in the other? It is concluded by most, that the power of creation can- not be derived to any creature, it being a work of omnipotency ; the drawing something out from nothing, cannot be communicated without a communication of the Deity itself. The educing things from nothing exceeds the capacity of any creature, and the creature is of too feeble a nature to be elevated to so high a degree. It is very unreasonable to think, that God needed any such aid. If an instrument were necessary for God to create the world, then he could
â– * Gassend.
42 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
not do it iivdthout tliat instrument : if he could not, he were not then all-sufficient in himself, if he depended upon anything without him- self, for the production or consummation of his works. And it might be inquired, how that instrument came into being; if it begun to be, and there was a time when it was not, it must have its being from the power of God ; and then, why could not God as well create all things without an instrment, as create that in- strument without an instrument ? For there was no more power necessary to a producing the whole without instruments, than to produce one creature without an instrument. » No creature can, m its own nature, be an instrument of creation. If any such in- strument were used by God, it must be elevated in a miraculous and supernatural way ; and what is so an instrument, is, in effect, no instrument ; for it works nothing by its own nature, but from an elevation by a superior nature, and beyond its own nature. All that power in the instrument is truly the power of God, and not the power of the instrument; and, therefore, what God doth by an instrument, he could do as well without. If ypu should sec one apply straw to iron, for the cutting of it, ana effect it, you would not call the straw an instrument in that action, be- cause there was nothing in the nature of the straw to do it. It was done wholly by some other force, which might have done it as well without the straw as \vith it. The narrative of the creation in Genesis, removes any instrument from God. The plants which are preserved and propagated by the influence of the sun, were created the day before tne sun, viz. on the " third day," whereas, the light was collected into the body of the sun on the "fourth day" (Gen. i. 11, 16) ; to show, that though the plants do instrumentally owe their yearly beauty and preservation to the sun, yet they did not in any manner owe their creation to the instrumental heat and vigor of it.
2. God created the world by a word, by a simple act of his will. The whole creation is wrought by a word ; " God said, Let there be light ;" and " God said. Let there be a firmament."" Not that we should understand it of a sensible word, but understand it of a powerful order of his own will, which is expressed by the Psalmist m the nature of a command (Ps. xxxiii 9) : " He spate, and it was done ; he commanded, and it stood fast ; and (Ps. cxlviii, 5), " He commanded, and they were created." At the same instant that he willed them to stand forth, they did stand forth. The efficacious command of the Creator was the original of all tilings : the insensi- bility of nothing obeyed the act of his will. Creation is therefore entitled a calling (Rom. iv. 17) : " He calls those things which are not, as if they were." To create is no more with God, than to call ; and what he calls, presents itself before him in the same posture that he calls it. He did with more ease make a world, than we can form a thought. It is the same ease to him to create worlds, as to decree them ; there needs no more than a resolve to have things wrought at such a time, and they will be, according to his pleasure. This will is his power ; " Let there be light," is the precept of his will;
> Qen. L 8, 5, &c. throughout the whole chapter.
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 48
and " there waa light," is the effect of his precept. By a word, was the matter of the heavens and the earth framea ; by a word, things separate themselves from the rude mass into their proper forms ; by a word, light associates itself into one body, and forms a sun ; by a word, are the heavens, as it were, bespangled with stars, and the earth dressed with flowers ; by a word, is the world both ceiled and floored : one act of his will, formed the world, and perfected its beauty. All the variety and several exploits of his power were not caused by distinct words or acts of power. God uttered not distinct words for distinct species ; as, let there be an elephant, and let there be a lion ; but as he produced those various creatures out of one matter, so by one word. By one single command, those varieties of creatures, with their clothing, ornaments, distinct notes. Qualities, functions, were brought forth (Gen. i. 11): by one word, all tne seeds of the earth, with their various virtues: by one word, all the fish of the sea, and fowls of the air, in their distinct natures, instincts, colors (Gen. i. 20) : by one word, all the beasts of the field, with their va- rieties (Gen. i. 24). Heaven and earth, spiritual and corporeal crea- tures, mortal and immortal, the greater and the less, visiole and in- visible, were formed with the same ease :° a word made the least, and a word made the greatest. It is as little difiiculty to him to pro- duce the highest angel, as the lighest atom. It is enough for the existence of the stateliest cherubim, for God only to will his being. It was enough for the forming and fixing the sun, to will the com- pacting of light into one body. The creation of the soul of man is expressed by inspiration (Gen. ii. 7) ; to show, that it is as easy with God to create a rational soul, as for man to breathe.? Breathing is natural to man, by a communication of God's goodness ; and the creation of the soul is as easy to God, by virtue of his Almighty word. As there was no proportion between nothing and being, so there was as little proportion between a word and such glorious effects. A mere voice, coming from an Omnipotent will, was capa- ble to produce such varieties, which angels and men have seen in all ages oi the world, and this without weariness. What labor is there in willing? what pain could there be in speaking a word ? fisa. xl. 28), " The Creator of the ends of the earth is not weary." And though he be said to rest after the creation, it is to be meant a rest fix)m work, not a repose from weariness. So great is the power of God, that without any matter, without any instruments, ne could create many worlds, and with the same ease as he made this.
4th. I might add also, the appearance of this power in the instan- taneous production of things. The ending of his word was not only the beginning, but the perfection of every thing he spake into being ; not several words to several parts and members, but one word, one breath of his mouth, one act of his will, to the whole species of the creatures, and to every member in each individual. Heaven and earth were created in a moment ; six days went to their disposal ; and that comely order we observe in the world was the worK of a week : the matter was formed as soon as God had spoken the word ; and in every part of the creation, as soon as God spake the word,
« Augus. P Theodoret.
44 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
" Let it be so" (Gen. i.), the answer immediately is, " It was so ;" wliich notes the present standing up of the creature according to the act of his will : and, therefore,*! one observes, that "Let there be light, and there was light ;" in the Hebrew are the same words, with- out any alteration of letter or point, only the conjunctive particle added, -^'.x '^n^^ nix •'n^, " Let there be light, and let there be light," to show, that the same instant of the speaking the Divine word, was the appearance of the creature : so great was the authority of his will.
Secondly, We are to show Grod's power in the Government of the world. As Qoi decreed from eternity the creation of things in time, so he decreed from eternity the particular ends of creatuiefiL and their operation respecting those ends. Now, as there was need of his power to execute his decree of creation, there is also need of his power to execute his decree about the manner of government' All government is an act of the understanding, will, and power. Prudence to design belongs to the understanding ; the election of the means belongs to the will ; and the accomplishment of the whole is an act of power. It is a hard matter to determine which is most necessary : wisdom stands in as much need of power to perfect, as power doth of wisdom, to model and draw out a scheme ; though wisdom directs, power must effect. Wisdom and power are distinct things among men : a poor man in a cottage may have more pru- dence to advise, than a privy counsellor ; and a prince more power to act, than wisdom to conduct. A pilot may direct though ne be lame, and cannot climb the masts, and spread the sails : but Qod is wanting in nothing ; neither in wisdom to desim, nor in will to de- termine, nor in power to accomplish. His wisdom is not feeble, nor his power foolish : a feeble wisdom could not act what it would, and a foolish power would act more than it should. The power express- ed in his government is shadowed forth in the living creatures, which are God's instruments in it. It is said, " Everv one of them had four faces" (Ezek. i. 10) ; that of a man to signify wisdom ; of a lion, eagle, the strongest amongbirds, to signify their courage and strength to perform their offices. This power is evident ij^ the natural, moral, gracioits government. There is a natural providence, which consists m the preservation of all things, propogation of them by corruptions and generations, and in a co-operation with them in their motions to attain their ends. Moral government is of the hearts and actions of men. Gracious government, as respecting the Church.
First, His power is evident in natural government.
1. In preservation. God is the great Father of the world, to nourish it as well as create it.» Man and beast would perish if there were not herbs for their food ; and herbs would wither and perish, if the earth were not watered with fruitful showers. This some of the heathens acknowledged, in their worshipping God under the image of an ox, a useful creature, by reason of its strength, to which we owe so much of our food in com. Hence, God is sfyled the " Preserver of man and beast" (Ps. xxxvi. 6). Hence, tne Jews called God,^ Place ; because he is the subsistence of all things. By
q Poire, p. 111. ' Suarez, Vol. I lib. iii: cap. 10.
• Daille, in 1 Cor. x. p. 102. « Dipn.
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 45
the same word wherebj he gave being to things, he gives to them continuance and duration in being so much a term of time. As they were " created by his word," they are supported by his word (Heb. i. 3). The same powerful fiat, " Let the earth bring forth grass" (Gen. i. 11), when the plants peeped upon man out of nothing, is expressed every spring, when they begin to lift up their heads from their naked roots and winter graves. The resurrection of light every mominff, the reviving the pleasure of all thiags to the eye ; the a\ a- tering the valleys from the mountain springs ; tne curbing the natural appetite of the waters from covering the earth ; every draught that the beasts drink, every lodging the fowls have, every bit of lood for the sustenance of man and beast, is ascribed to the " opening of his hand," the diflftising of his power (Ps. civ. 27, kcX as much as the first creation of things, and endoAving them -witn their particular nature: whence the plants, which are so serviceable, are called "the trees of the Lord" (ver. 16\ of Jehovah, that hath onl^ being and power in himself The wnole Psalm is but the description of his preserving, as the first of Genesis is of his creating power. It is by this power angels have so many thousand years remained in the power of understanding and willing. By this power things distant in their natures have been joined together ; a spiritual soul and a dusty body knit in a marriage knot. By this power tlie heavenlv bodies have for so many ages rolled in their spheres, and the tumul- tuous elements have persisted in their order : by this hath the matter of the world been to this day continued, and as capable of entertain- ing forms as it was at the first creation. What an amazing sight would it be to see a man hold a pillar of the Exchange upon one of his fingers? What is this to the power of God, "who holds the waters in the hollow of his hand, metes out the heaven with a span, and weighs the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance" (Isa. xl. 12)? The preserving the earth from the violence of the sea is a plain instance of this power." How is that raging element kept pent within those lists where he first lodged it ; continues its course in its channel >vithout overflowing the earth, and dashing in pieces the lower part of the creation? The natural situation of the water is to be above the earth, because it is lighter; and to be immediately under the air, because it is heavier than that thinner element. Who re- strains this natural quality of it, but that God that first formed it? The word of command at first, "Hitherto shalt thou go, and no fur- ther," keeps those waters linked together in their den, that they may not ravage the earth, but be useful to the inhabitants of it. And when once it finds a gap to enter, what power of earth can hinder its passage ? How fruitless sometimes is all the art of man to send it to its proper channel, when once it hath spread its mighty waves over some countries, and trampled part of the inhabited earth under its feet ? It hath triumphed in its victory, and withstood all the
Sower of man to conquer its force. It is only the power of God that oth bridle it from spreading itself over the whole earth. And that his power might be more manifest, he hath set but a weak and small bank against it Though he hath bounded it in some, places by
• DaiUo Melange, Part 11. p. 457.
46 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
mighty rocks, which lift up their heads above it, yet in most places by feeble sand. How often is it seen in every stonny motion, when the waves boil high and roll furiously, as if they would swallow up all the neighboring houses upon the shore ; when they come to touco those sandy limits, they bow their heads, fall flat, and sink into the lap whence they were raised, and seem to foam with anger that they can march no further, but must split themselves at so weak an ob- stacle! Can the sand be thougnt to be the cause of this? The weakness of it gives no footing to such a thought. Who can appre- hend, that an enraged army should retire upon the opposition of a straw in an infant's hand ? Is it the nature of the water ? Its retire- ment is against the natural quality of it ; pour but a little upon the ground, and you always see it spread itself. No cause can oe ren- dered in nature ; it is a standing monument of the power of God in the preservation of the world, and ought to be more taken notice of by us in this island, surrounded with it, than by some other countries in the world.
(1.) We find nothing hath power to preserve itself. Doth not every creature upon earth require the assistance of some other for its maintenance? " Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow up without water" (Job viii. 11)? Can man or beast main- tain itself without grain from the bowels of the earth ? Would not every man tumble into the grave, without the aid of other creatures to nourish him ? Whence do these creatures receive that virtue of supplying him nourishment, but from the sun and earth ? and whence do they aerive that virtue, but from the Creator of all things ? And should he but slack his hand, how soon would they and all their qualities perish, and the links of the world fall in pieces, and dash one another into their first chaos and confusion I All creatures in- deed have an appetite to preserve themselves ; they iiave some knowl- edge of the outward means for their preservation ; so have irrational animals a natural instinct, as well as men have some skill to avoid things that are hurtful, and apply things that are helpful. But what thing in the world can preserve itself by an inward influx into its own being? All things want such a power without GodJs fiat, "Let it be so :" nothing but is destitute of such a power for its own preser- vation, as much as it is of a power for its own creation. Were there any true power for such a work, what need of so many external helps from things of an inferior nature to that which is preserved by them? No created thing hath a power to preserve any decayed being. Who can lay claim to such a virtue, as to recall a withering flower to its former beauty, to raise the head of a drooping plants or put life into a gasping worm when it is expiring ; or put mipaired vitals into their former posture? Not a man upon earth, nor an angel in heaven, can pretend to such a virtue ; they may be spec- tators, but not assisters, and are, in this case, physicians of no value.
(2.) It is, therefore, the same Power preserves things which at first created them. The creature doth as much depend upon God, in the first instant of its being, for its preservation, as it old, when it was nothing, for its production and creation into being : as the continu- ance of a t&ought of our mind depends upon the power of our mind,
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 47
as well as the first framing of that thought.* There is a little differ- ence between creating and preserving power, as there is between the power of mine eye to begin an act of vision and continue that act of vision, as to cast my eye upon an object and continue it upon that object : as the first act is caused by the eye, so the duration of the act is preserved by the eye ; shut the eye, and the act of vision perishes ; divert the eye from that object, and that act of vision is exchanged for another. And, therefore, the preservation of things is commonly called a continual creation : and certainly it is no less, if we under- stand it of a preservation by an inward influence into the being of things. It is one and the same action invariably continued, and obtaining its force every moment; the same action whereby he created them of nothing, and which every moment hath a virtue to produce a thing out of nothing, if it were not yet extant in the world : it remains the same without any diminution throughout the whole time wherein anything doth remain in the world.y For all things would return to nothing, if God did not keep them up in the elevation and state to which he at first raised them by his creative
Eower (Acts xvii. 28): "In him we live, and move, and have our eing." By him, or by the same Power whence we derived our being, are our lives maintained: as it was his Almighty Power whereby we were, after we bad been nothing, so it is the same power whereby we now are, after he hath made us something. Certainly all things have no less a dependence on God than light upon the sun, which vanisheth and hides its head upon the withc&awing of the sun. And should God suspend that powerful Word, whereby he erected the frame of the world, it would sink down to what it was, before he commanded it to stand up. There needs no new act of power to reduce things to nothing, but the cessation of that Omnip- otent influx. When the appointed time set them for their being comes to a period, they faint and bend down their heads to their dissolution; they return to their elements, and perish (Ps. civ. 29): ** Thou hidest thy face, and they are troubled : thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. That which was nothing cannot remain on this side nothing, but by the same Power that first called it out of nothing. As when God withdrew his con- curring power from the fire, its quality ceased to act upon the three children : so if he withdraws his sustaining power from the creature, its nature wiQ cease to be.
2. It appears in propagation. That powerful word (Gen. i. 22, 23), " Increase and multiply," pronounced at the first creation, hath spread itself over every part of the world ; every animal in the world, in the formation oi every one of them. From two of a kind, how great a number of individuals and single creatures have been multiplied, to cover the face of the earth in their continued succes- sions! What a world of plants spring up from the womb of a dry earth, moistened by the influence of a cloud, and hatched by the beams of the sun I How admirable an instance of his propagating power is it, that from a little seed a massy root should strike into the bowels of the earth, a tall body and thick branches, vith leaves
' Leaiias de Perfect Divin. p. 69. ^ Lessiua de Snm. Bon. pp. 580 — 682.
48 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
and flowers of various colors, should break tlirougli tlie sur&ce of the earth, and mount up towards heaven, when in the seed you neither smell the scent, nor see any firmness of a tree, nor behold any of those colors which you view in the flowers that the ears pro- duce ! A power not to be imitated by any creature. How astonish- ing is it, that a small seed, whereof many will not amount to the weight of a grain, should spread itself into leaves, bark, fruit of a vast weight, and multiply itself into millions of seeds I What power is that, that from one man and woman hath multiplied families, and from families, stocked the world with people I Consider the living creatures, as formed in the womb of their several kinds ; every one is a wonder of power. The Psalmist instanceth in the forming and propagation of man (Ps. cxxxix. 14) : " I am fearfully and wonder- luUy made ; marvellous are thy works." The forming of the parts distinctly in the womb, the bringing forth into the world every par- ticular member, is a roll of wonders, of power. That so fine a structure as the body of man should be polished in " the lower parts of the earth," as he calls the womb (ver. 15), in so short a time, with members of a various form and usefulness, each laboring in their several functions I Can any man give an exact account oi the manner " how the bones do grow in the womb" (Eccles. xi. 5)? It is unknown to the father, and no less hid from the mother, and the wisest men cannot search out the depth of it. It is one of the secret works of an Omnipotent Power, secret in the manner, though open in the effect. So that we must ascribe it to God, as Job dotn, ** Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about" (Job X. 8). Thy hands which formed heaven, have formed every part, every member, and wrought me like a mighty workman. The heavens are said to be the " work of God's hands," and man is here said to be no less. The forming and propagation of man from that earthy matter, is no less a wonder of power than the structure of the world from a rude and indisposed matter. A heathen philo- sopher descants elegantly upon it : " Dost thou understand (my bojiS the forming of man in the womb ; who erected that noble rabricr who carved the eyes, the crystal windows of light, and the con- ductors of the body ; who bored the nostrils and ears, those loop- holes of scents and sounds ; who stretched out and knit the sinews and ligaments for the fastening of every member; who cast the hollow veins, the channels of blood ; set and strengthened the bones, the pillars and rafters of the body ; who digged the pores, the sinks to expel the filth ; who made the heart, the repository of the soul, and formed the lungs like a pipe? What mother, what &ther, wrought these things ? No, none but the Almighty God, who made all things according to his pleasure ; it is He who propagates this noble piece from a pile of dust. Who is bom by his own advice ; who gives stature, leatures, sense, wit, strength, speech, but God ?"» It is no less a wonder, that a little infant can live so long in a dark sink, in the midst of filth, without breathing ; and the eduction of it out of the womb is no less a wonder than the forming, increase, nourishment of it in that cell. A wonder, that the life of the infant
* Trismegist, in Serm. Qreek, in the Temple, p, 67.
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 49
is not the death of the mother, or the life of the mother the death of the infant. This little creature when it springs up from such small beginnings by the power of God, grows up to be one of the lords of the world, to have a dominion over the creatures, and pro- pagates its kind in the same manner : all this is unaccountable with- out having recourse to the power of God in the government of the creatures. And to add to this wonder, consider also what multi- tudes of formations and births there are at one time all over the world, in every of which the finger of God is at work ; and it will speak an unwearied power. It is admirable in one man, more in a town of men, still more in a greater and larger kingdom, a vaster world ; there is a birth for every hour in this city, were but 168 bom in a week, though the weekly bills mention more : what is this city to three kingdoms ? what three kingdoms to a populous world ? Eleven thousand and eighty will make one for every minute in the week ; what is this to the weekly propagation in all the na- tions of the universe, besides the generation of all the living crea- tures in that space, which are the works of God's fingers as well as man? What will be the result of this, but the notion of an uncon- ceivable, unwearied Almightiness, always active, always operating?
3. It appears in the motions of all creatures. " AU things live and move in him" (Acts xvii. 28) ; by the same power that creatures have their beings, they have their motions : they have not only a being by his powerful command, but they have tneir minutely mo- tion by his powerful concurrence. Nothing can act without the almighty influx of God, no more than it can exist without the crea- tive word of God. It is true indeed, the ordering of all motions to his holy ends, is an act of wisdom ; but the motion itself, whereby those ends are attained, is a work of his power.
(1). God, as the first cause, hath an influence into the motions of all second causes. As all the wheels in a clock are moved in their diflFerent motions by the force and strength of the principal and primary wheel ; if there be any defect in that, or if that stand still, all the rest languish and stand idle the same moment. All creatures are his instruments, his engines, and have no spirit, but what he gives, and what he assists. Whatsoever nature works, God works in nature ; nature is the instrument, God is the supporter, director, mover of nature ; that which the prophet saith in another case, may be the language of universal nature: "Lord, thou hast Avrouffht all our work in us" (Isa. xxvi. 12^). They are works subjectively, effi- ciently, as second causes ; God s works originally, concurrently. The sun moved not in the valley of Ajalon for the space of many hours, in the time of Joshua fJosh. x. 13) ; nor did the fire exercise its con- suming quality upon tne three children, in Nebuchadnezzar's fur- nace (Dan. iii. 25): he withdrew not his supporting power from their being, for then they had vanished, but his mfluencmg power from their qualities, whereby their motion ceased, till he returned his in- fluential concurrence to them ; which evidenceth, that without a per- petual derivation of Divine power, the sun could not run one stride or inch of its race, nor the nre devour one grain of light chaff, or an inch of straw. Nothing without his sustaining power can con-
VOL. II. — 3
60 CHABNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
tinue in being; nothing without his co- working power can exer- cise one mite of those qualities it is possessed of. All creatures aie wound up by him, and his hand is constantly upon them, to keep them in perpetual motion.
(2). Consider the variety of motions in a single creature. How many motions are there in the vital parts of a man, or in any other animal, which a man knows not, and is imable to number 1 The renewed motion of the lungs, the systoles and diastoles of the heart; the contractions and dilations of the heart, whereby it spouts out and takes in blood ; the power of concoction in the stomach ; the motion of the blood in the veins, &c., all which were not only settled by the powerful hand of God, but are upheld by the same, preserved and influenced in every distinct motion by that power that stamped them with tJiat nature. To every one of those tnere i3 not only the sustaining power of God holding up their natures, but the motive power of God concurring to every motion ; for if we move in him as well as we live in him, then every particle of our motion is exer- cised by his concurring power, as well as every moment pf our life supported by his preserving power. What an infinite variety of motions is there in the whole world in universal nature, to all wnich God concurs, all which he conducts, even the motions of the meanest as well as the greatest creatures, which demonstrate the indefatigable power of the governor I It is an Infinite Power which doth act in so many varieties, whereby the souls forms every thought, . the tongue speaks every word, the body exerts everv action. W hat an Infinite rower is tliat which presides over the birth of all things, concurs with the motion of the sap in the tree, rivers on the cartn, clouds in the air, every drop of rain, fleece of snow, crack of thun- der I Not the least motion in the world, but is under an actual in- fluence of this Almighty Mover. And lest any should scruple the concurrence of God to so many varieties of the creature's motion, as a thing utterly inconceivable, let them consider the sim, a natural image and shadow of the perfections of God ; doth not the power of that finite creature extend itself to various objects at the same mo- ment of time ? How many insects doth it animate, as flies, &c., at the same moment throughout the world I How many several plants doth it erect at its appearance in the spring, whose roots lay mourn- ing in the earth all the foregoing winter! What multitudes of spires of grass, and nobler flowers, doth it midwife in the same hour! It warms the air, melts the blood, cherishes living creatures of various kinds, in distinct places, without tiring : and shall the God of this sun be less than his creature ?
(3.) And since I speak of the sun, consider the power of God in the motion of it The vastness of the sun is computed to be, at the least, 166 times bigger than the earth, and its distance from the earth, some tell us, to be about 4,000,000 of miles;' whence it fol- lows, that it is whirled about the world with that swiftness, that in the space of an hour it runs 1,000,000 of miles, which is as much as if* it should move round about the surface of the earth fifty times in one hour ; which vastness exceeds the swiftness of a bullet shot out
* A Lapide, in 1 cap. Qen. xvL Lessius, de Perfect. Diyin. pp. 90, 91.
ON THE POWEB OF GOD. 61
of a cannon, which is computed to fly not above three miles in a minute :*» so that the sun runs further in one hour's spaed, than a bullet can in 5,000, if it were kept in motion ; so that if it were near the earth, the swiftness of its motion would shatter the whole frame of the world, and dash it in pieces ; so that the Psalmist may well say, " It runs a race like a strong man" (Ps. xix. 5). What an in- comprehensible Power is that which hath conmiunicated such a strength and swiftness to the sun, and doth daily influence its mo- tion ; especially since after all those years of its motion, wherein one would think it should have spent itself, we behold it every day as vigorous as Adam did in Paraaise, without limping, without shat- tering itself, or losing any thing of its natural spirits in its unwearied motion. How great must that power be, whicn hath kept this great body so entire, and thus swiftly moves it every day 1 Is it not now an argument of omnipotency, to keep all the stnngs of nature in tune ; to wind them up to a due pitch for the harmony he intended by them ; to keep things that are contrary from that conftision they would naturally fall into ; to prevent those jarring which would naturally result from their various and snarling qualities ; to preserve every being in its true nature ; to propagate every kind of creature ; order all the operations, even the meanest of them, when there are such innumerable varieties ? But let us consider, that this power oi preserving things in their station and motion, and the renewing of them, is more stupendous than that which we commonly call mirac- ulous. We call those miracles, which are wrought out of the track of nature, and contrary to the usual stream and current of it ; which men wonder at, because they seldom see them, and hear of them as things rarely brought forth in the world ; when the truth is, there b more of power expressed in the ordinary station and motion of natural causes than in those extraordinary exertings of power. Is not more power signalized in that whirling motion of the sun every hour for so many ages, than in the suspending of its motion one day, as it was in the days of Joshua? That fire should continualljr ravage and consume, and greedily swallow up every thing that is oflFered to it, seems to be the effect of as admirable a power, as the stopping of its appetite a few moments, as in the case Of the three chiiaren. Is not the rising of some small seeds from the ground, with a multiplication of their numerous posterity, an effect of as Kreat a power, as our Saviour's feeding many thousands with a few K)aves, by a secret augmentation of them ?« Is not the chemical producing so pleasant and delicious a fruit as the grape, from a dry krth, inlpid rain, and a sour vine, as admirable t token of Divi/e power, as our Saviour's turning water into wine ? Is not the cure of diseases by the application of a simple inconsiderable weed, or a slight infusion, as wonderful in itself, as the cure of it by a power- ful weed? What if it be naturally designed to heal ; what is that nature, who gave that nature, who maintains that nature, who con- ducts it, co-operates with it ? Doth it work of itself^ and by its own strength ? wny not then equally in all, in one as well as another?
^ LeMioB, de Proriden, p. 688. Vots. de IdoL lilx iL e^p. 2. • Faadier for Act YoL IL p. 47.
62 CHABNOOK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
Miracles, indeed, aflfect more, because they testify the immodiote operation of God, without the concurrence of second causes ; not that there is more of the power of God shining in them than in the other.
Secondly^ This power is evident in moral government.
1. In the restraint of the malicious nature of the devil. Since Satan hath the power of an angel, and the malice of a devil, what safety would there be for our persons from destruction, what secur- ity for our goods from rifling, Dy this invisible, potent, and envious spirit, if his power were not restrained, and his malice curbed, by One more mighty than himself? How much doth he envy God the fflory of his creation ; and man, the use and benefit of it ! How desirous would he be, in regard of his passion, how able in regard of his strength and subtlety, to overthrow or infect all worship, but what was directed to himself ; to manage all things according to his lusts, turn all things topsy-turvy, plague the world, burn cities, houses, plunder us of the supports of nature^ waste kingdoms, &c. ; if he were not held in a chain, as a ravenous lion, or a ftirious wild horse, by the Creator and Governor of the world I What remedy could be used by man against the activity of this unseen and swirl spirit ? The world could not subsist under his malice ; he would practise the same things upon all as he did upon Job, when he had got leave from his Governor ; turn the swords of men into one an- other's bowels ; send fire from heaven upon the fruits of the earth and the cattle intended for the use of man ; raise winds, to shake and tear our houses upon our heads ; daub our bodies with scalbs and boils, and let all the humors in our blood loose upon us. He that envied Adam a paradise, doth envy us the pleasure of enjoying its out-works. If we were not destroyed by him, we should live in a continued vexation by spectrums and apparitions, affrighting sounds and noise, as some think the Egyptians aid in that three days' dark- ness : he would be alway winnowing us, as he desired to winnow Peter (Luke xxii. 31). but God over-masters his strength, that he cannot move a hair's breadth beyond his tedder ; not only is he un- able to touch an upright Job, but to lay his fingers upon one of the unbelieving Gadarenes forbidden and filthy swine without special license (Matt. viii. 31). When he is cast out of one place, he walks " through dr^ places seeking rest" (Luke xi. 24), new objects for his malicious designs, — but finding none, till God lets loose the reins upon him for a new employment. Though Satan's power be great, yet God suffers him not to tempt as much as his diabolical appetite would, but as much as Divine wisdom thinks fit ; and the Divine power tempers the other's active malice, and gives the creature vic- tory, where the enemy intended spoil and captivity. How much stronger is God, than all the legions of hell ; as he that holds a " strong man" (Luke xi. 22) from effecting his purpose, testifies more ability than his adversary^ I How doth he lock him up for a "thou- sand years" (Rev. xx. 3) in a pound, which he cannot leap over ! and this restraint is wrought partly by blinding the devil in nis designs, partly by denying him concourse to his motion ; as he hindered the active quality of the fire upon the three children, by withdrawing
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 68
his power, wliicli was necessary to the motion of it ; and his power is as necessary for the motion of the devil, as for that of any other creature : sometimes he makes him to confess him against his own interest, as Apollo's oracle confessed. *i And though when the devil was cast out of the possessed person, he publicly owned Christ to be the " Holy one of God" (Mark i. 24), to render him suspected b^ the people of having commerce with the unclean spirits; yet this he could not do without the leave and permission of God, that the
Eower of Christ, in stopping his mouth and imposing silence upon im, might be evidencea; and that it reaches to the gates of hell, as well as to the quieting of winds and waves. This is a part of the strength, as well as the wisdom of God, that " the deceived and the deceiver are his" (Job xii. 16): wisdom to defeat, and power to over- rule his most malicious designs, to his own glory.
2. In the restraint of the natural corruption of men. Since the impetus of original corruption runs in the blood, conveyed down from Adam to the veins of all his posterity, and universally diffused in all mankind ; what wreck and havoc would it make in the world, if it were not suppressed by this Divine power which presides over the hearts of men ! Man is so wretched by nature, that nothing but what is vile and pernicious can drop from him. Man " drinks ini- quity like water," being, by nature, "abominable and filthy" (Job XV. 16). He greedily swallows all matter for iniquity, everything suitable to the mire and poison in his nature, and would sprout it out with all fierceness and insolence. God himself gives us the description of man's nature (Gen. vi. 5), that he hath not one good imagination at any time ; and the apostle from the Psalmist dilates and comments upon it (Rom. iii. 10, &c.) " There is none righteous ; no, not one ; their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, tneir feet are swift to shed blood," &c. This corruption is e(jual in all, natural in all ; it is not more poisonous or more fierce m one man, than in another. The root of all men is the same ; all the branches therefore do equally possess the villanous nature of the root. No child of Adam can, oy natural descent, be better than Adam, or have less of baseness, and vileness, and venom, than Adam. How fruitful would this loathsome lake be in all kind of streams I What unbridled licentiousness and headstrong fury would triumph in the world, if the power of God did not interpose itself to lock down the flood-gates of it ! What rooting up of human society would there be ! how would the world be drenched in blood, the number of malefactors be greater than that of apprehenders and punishersl How would the prints of natural laws De rased out of the heart, if God should leave human nature to itself I Who can read the first chapter of Romans, (verses 24 to 29), without acknowledging this truth? where there is a catalogue of those villanies which followed upon God's pulling up the sluices, and letting the malignity of their inward corruption have its natural course 1 K God did not hold back the fury of man, his garden would be overrun, his vine rooted up ; the inclinations of men would hurry them to the worst of wickedness. How great is that Power that curbs, bridles, or changes
' CaeteroB deos oeremi (•^Kc, &j^ Grot. Vcrit, ReL lib, 4,
54 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBUTES.
«
as many headstrong horses at once, and every minute, as there are sons of Adam upon the earth? The "floods lift up their waves; the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea" (Ps. xciii. 3, 4) ; fliat doth hush and pen in the turbulent passions of men.
3. In the ordering and framing the hearts of men to his own ends. That must be an Omnipotent hand that grasps and contains the hearts of all men ; the heart of the meanest person, as well as of the most towering angel, and turns them as he pleases, and makes them some- time ignorantly, sometime knowingly, concur to the accomplishment of his own purposes I When the hearts of men are so numerous, their thoughts so various and different from one another, yet he hath a key to those milUons of hearts, and with infinite power, guided by as infinite wisdom, he draws them into what channels he pleases, for the gaining his own ends. Though the Jews had imbrued their hands in the blood of our Saviour, and their rage was yet reeking- hot against his followers, God bridled their fury in the church's in- fancy, till it had got some strength, and cast a terror upon them by the wonders wrought by the apostles (Acts ii. 43) : " And fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles." Was there not the same reason in the nature of the works our Saviour wrought, to point them to the finger of God, and calm their rage ? Yet did not the power of God work upon their passions in those miracles, nor stop the impetuousness of the corruption resi- dent in their hearts. Yet now those who had the boldness to attack the Son of God and nail him to the cross, are frighted at the appear- ance of twelve unarmed apostles ; as the sea seems to be afraid when it approacheth the bounds of the feeble sand. How did God bend the hearts of the Egyptians to the Israelites, and turn them to that point, as to lend their most costly vessels, their precious jewels, and rich garments, to supply those whom they had just before tyrani- cally loaded with their chains (Exod. iii. 21, 22) ! When a great part of an army came upon Jehoshaphat, to dispatch him into another world, how doth God, in a trice, touch their hearts, and move them, by a secret instinct, at once to depart from him (1 Chron. xviii. 31) 1 as if you should see a numerous sight of birds in a moment turn wing another way, by a sudden and joint consent. When he gave Saul a kingdom, he gave him a spirit fit for government, " and gave him another heart" H. Sam. x. 9) ; and brought the people to submit to his yoke, who, a little before, wandered about the land upon no nobler employment than the seeking of asses. It is no small remark of the' power of God, to make a number of strong and discontented persons, and desirous enough of liberty, to bend their necks under the yoke of government, and submit to the authority of one, and that of their own nature, often weaker and un wiser than the most of them, and many times an oppressor and invader of their rights. Upon this account David caUs God " his fortress, tower, shield" (Ps. cxliv. 2) ; all terms of strength in subduing the people under him. It is the mighty hand of God that links princes and people together in the bandis of government. The same hand that assuagetn the waves of the sea, suppresseth the tumults of the people.
ON THE POWEB OP GOD. 66
Thirdly^ It appears in his gracious and judicial government.
1. In his gracious government. In the deliverance of his church : he is the " strength of Israel" (1 Sam. xv. 29), and hath protected his little flock in the midst of wolves ; and maintained their stand- ing, when the strongest kingdoms have sunk, and the best jointed states have been broken in pieces ; when judgments have ravaged countries, and torn up the mighty, as a tempestuous wind hath often done the tallest trees, which seemed to threaten heaven with their tops, and dare the storm with the depth of their roots, when yet the vine and rose-bushes have stood firm, and been seen in their beauty next morning. The state of the church hath outlived the most flourishing monarchies, when there hath been a mighty knot of ad- versaries against her ; when the bulls of Bashan have pushed her^ and the whole tribe of the dragon have sharpened their weapons, and edged their malice ; when tne voice was strong, and the hopes high to rase her foundation even with the ground ; when hell hath roared ; when the wit of the world hath contrived, and the strength of the world hath attempted her ruin ; when decrees have been passed against her, and the powers of the world armed for the exe- cution of them ; when her friends have drooped and skulked in cor- ners ; when there was no eye to pity, and no hand to assist, help hath come from heaven; her enemies have been defeated; kings have brought gifls to her, and reared her ; tears have been wiped off her cheeks, and her very enemies, by an unseen power, have been forced to court her whom before they would have devoured quick. The devil and his armies have sneaked into their den, and the church hath triumphed when she hath been upon the brink of the grave. Thus did God send a mighty angel to be the executioner of Senna- cherib's army, and the protector of Jerusalem, who run his sword into the hearts of eighty thousand (2 Kings xix. 85), when they were ready to swallow up his beloved city. When the knife was at the throats of the Jews, in Shushan (Esther viii.), by a powerful hand it was turned into the hearts of their enemies. With what an out- stretched arm were the Israelites freed from the Egyptian yoke(Deut iv. 34) ! When Pharaoh had mustered a great army to pursue them, assisted with six hundred chariots of war, the Eed Sea obstructed their passage before, and an enraged enemy trod on their rear ; when the fearful Israelites despaired of deliverance, and the insolent Egyp- tian assured himself of his revenge, God stretches out his irresistible arm to defeat the enemy, and assist his people ; he strikes down the wolves, and preserves the flock. God restrained the Egyptian en- mity against the Israelites till they were at the brink of the Ked Sea, and then lets them follow their humor, and pursue the fugitives, that his power might more gloriously shine forth in the deliverance of the one, and the destruction of the other. God might have brought Israel out of Egypt in the time of those kings that had remembered the good service of Joseph to their country, but he leaves them till the reign of a cruel tyrant, suffers them to be slaves, that they might by his sole power, be conquerors, which had had no appearance had there been a willing dismission of them at the first smnmons (Exod. ix. 16) ; " In very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to
66 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTRIBnTES.
shew my power, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. I have permitted thee to rise up against my people, and keep them in captivity, that thou mightest oe an occasion for the manifestation of my power in their rescue ; and whilst thou art ob- stinate to enslave them, I will stretch out my arm to deliver them, and make my name famous among the Gentiles, in the wreck of thee and thy host in the Red Sea. The deliverance of the church hath not been in one age, or in one part of the world, but Grod hath sig- nalized his power in all kingdoms where she hath had a footing : as he hath guided her in all places by one rule, animated her by one spirit, so he hath protected her by the same arm of power. When the Roman emperors bandied all their force against her, for about three hundred years, they were further from eftecting her ruin at the end than when they first attempted it ; the church grew under their sword, and was hatched under the wings of the Roman eagle, which were spread 4o destroy her. The ark was elevated by the deluge, and the waters the devil poured out to drown her did out slime the earth for a new increase of her. She hath sometimes been beaten down, and, like Lazarus, hath seemed to be in the grave for some days, that the power of God might be more visible in her sudden re- surrection, and lifting up her head above the throne of her persecu- tors.
2. In his judicial proceedings. The deluge was no small testimo- ny of his power, in opening the cisterns of heaven, and pulling up the sluices of the sea. He doth but call for the waters of the sea, and they " pour themselves upon the face of the earth" (Amos ix. 6.^ In forty days' time the waters overtopped the highest mountains fif- teen cubits (Gen. vii. 17 — 20) ; and by the same power he afterwards reduced the sea to its proper channel, as a roaring lion into his den. A shower of fire from heaven, upon Sodom, and the cities of the plain, was a signal display of his power, either in creating it on the sudden, for the execution of his righteous sentence, or sending down the element of fire, contrary to its nature, which affects ascent, for the punishment of rebels against the light of nature. How often hath he ruined the most flourishing monarchies, led princes away spoiled, and overthrown the mighty, which Job makes an argument of his strength (Job xii. 13, 14). Troops of unknown people, the Goths and Vandals, broke the Romans, a warlike people, and hurled down all before them. Thev could not have had tne thought to suc- ceed in such an attempt, unless God had given them strength and motion for the executing his judicial vengeance upon the people of his wrath. How did he evidence his power, by daubing the throne of Pharaoh, and his chamber of presence, as well as the houses of his subjects, with the slime of frogs (Exod. viii. 3) ; turning their waters into blood, and their dust into biting lice (Exod. vii. 20) ; raising his militia of locusts against them ; causing a three days' darkness without stopping the motion of the sun ; taking off their first-bom, the excellency of their strength, in a night, by the stroke of the angel's sword 1 He takes off the chariot wheels of Pharaoh, and presents him with a destruction where he expected a victory ; brings those waves over the heads of him and his host, which stood
ON THE POWER OP GOD. 57
firm as marble walls for the safety of his people ; the sea is made to swallow them up, that durst not, by the order of their Governor, touch the Israelites : it only sprinkled the one as a type of baptism, and drowned the other as an image of hell. Thus he made it both a deliverer and a revenger, the instrument of an offensive and de- fensive war (Isa. xl. 23, 24^ ; " He brings princes to nothing, and makes the judges of the earth as vanity." Great monarchs have, by his power, been hurled from their thrones and their sceptres, like Venice-glasses, broken before their faces, and they been advanced that have had the least hopes of grandeur. He hath plucked up ce- dars by the roots, lopped off the branches, and set a shrub to grow up in the place ; dissolved rocks, and established bubbles (Luke i. 52) : " He hath showed strength with his arm ; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts; he hath put down the mighty from their seat, and exalted them of low degree." — And these things he doth magnify his power in : —
(1.) By ordering the nature of creatures as he pleases. By re- straining their force, or guiding their motions. The restraint of the destructive qualities of the creatures argues as great a power as the change of their natures, yea, and a greater. The qualities of crea- tures may be changed by art and composition, as in the preparing of medicines ; but what but a Divine Power could restrain the opera- tion of the fire from the three children, while it retained its heat and burning quality in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace ? The operation was curbed while its nature was preserved. All creatures are called his liost, because he marshals and ranks them as an army to serve his purposes. The whole scheme of nature is ready to favor men when God orders it, and ready to punish men when God commissions it. He gave the Eed Sea but a check, and it obeyed his voice (Ps. cvi. 9) : " He rebuked the Eed Sea also, and it was dried up ;" the mo- tion of it ceased, and the waters of it were ranged as defensive walls, to secure the march of his people : and at the motion of the hand of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the sea recovered its violence, and the walls that were framed came tumbling down upon the Egyp- tian's heads (Exod. xiv. 27). The Creator of nature is not led by the necessity of nature : he that settled the order of nature, can change or restrain the order of nature according to his sovereign pleasure. The most necessary and useful creatures he can use as in- struments of his vengeance : water is necessary to cleanse, and by that he can deface a world ; fire is necessary to warm, and by that he can bum a Sodom : from the water he formed the fowl (Gen. i. 21), and by that he dissolves them in the deluge ; fire or neat is necessary to the generation of creatures, and by that he ruins the cities of the plain. He orders all as he pleases, to perform every tittle and punctilio of his purpose. The sea observed him so exactly, that it drowned not one Israelite, nor saved one Egyptian (Ps. cvi. 11). There was not one of them left. And to perfect the Israelites' deliverance, he followed them with testimonies of his power above the strength of nature. When they wanted drink, he orders Moses to strike a rock, and the rock spouts a river, and a channel is formed for it to attend them in their journey. When they wanted bread, he
58 CHABNOCK ON THE ATTBIBUTES.
dressed manna for them in the heavens, and sent it to their tables in the desert. When he would declare his strength, he calls to the heavens to pour down righteousness, and to the earth to bring forth salvation (Isa. xlv. 8). Though God had created righteousness or deliverance for the Jews in Babylon, yet he calls to the heavens and the earth to be assistant to the design of Cyrus, whom he had raised for that purpose, as he speaks in the beginning of the chapter (verses 1 — 4). As (jod created man for a supernatural end, and all creatures for man as their immediate end, so he makes them, according to op- portunities, subservient to that supernatural end of man, for which ne created him. He that spans the heavens with his fist, can shoot all creatures like an arrow, to hit what mark he pleases. He that spread the heavens and the earth by a word, and can by a word fold them up more easily than a man can a garment (Heb. i 12), can order the streams of nature ; cannot he work without nature as well as with it, beyond nature, contrary to nature, that can, as it were, fillip nature with his finger into that nothing whence he drew it; who can cast down the sun from his throne, clap the distinguished parts of the world together, and make them march in the same order to their confusion, as they did in their creation : who can jumble the whole frame together, and, by a word, dissolve the pillars of the world, and make the fabric lie in a ruinous heap ?
(2.) In effecting his purposes by small means : in making use of the meanest creatui-es. As the power of God is seen in the creation of the smallest creatures, and assembling so manjr perfections in the little body of an insect, as an ant, or spider, so his power is not less magnified in the use he makes of them. As he magnifies his wis- dom, by using ignorant instruments, so he exalts his power, by em- ploying weak instruments in his service : the meanness and imper- fection of the matter sets ofi^ the excellency of the workman ; so the weakness of the instrument is no foil to the power of the principal Agent. When God hath eficctcd things by means in the Scripture, he hath usually brought about his purposes by weak instruments. Moses, a fugitive from Egypt, and Aaron a captive in it, are the in- struments of the Israelites deliverance. By the motion of Moses' rod, he works wonders in the court of Pharaoh, and summons up his judgments against him. He brought down Pharaoh's stomach lor a while, by a squadron of lice and locusts, wherein Divine power was more seen, than if Moses had brought him to his own articles by a multitude of warlike troops. The fall of the walls of Jericho by the sound of rams' horns, was a more glorious character of Gods
f)ower, than if Joshua had battered it down with a hundred of war- ike engines (Josh vi. 20). Thus the great army of the Midianites, which lay as grasshoppers upon the ground, were routed by Gideon in the head of three hundred men ; and Goliath, a giant, laid level with the ground by David, a stripling, by the force of a sling : a thousand Philistines dispatched out of the world by the jaw-bone of an ass in the hand of Samson. He can master a stout nation by an army of locusts, and render the teeth of those little insects as de- structive as the teeth, yea, the strongest teeth, the cheek-teeth, of a
(,7).
great lion (Joel i. 6, 7). The thunderbolt, which produces some-
ON THE POWER OF GOD. 69
times dreadful effects, is compacted of little atoms which fly in the air, small vapors drawn np by the sun, and mixed with other sul- phurous matter and petrifying juice. Nothing is so weak, but his strength can make victorious ; nothing so small, but by his power he can accomplish his great ends by it ; nothing so vile, but his might can conduct to his glory ; and no nation so mighty, but he can waste and enfeeble by the meanest creatures. God is great in power in the greatest things, and not little in the smallest ; his power in the minutest creatures which he uses for his service, surmounts the force of our imderstanding.
Thirdly. The power of God appears in Redemption. As our Saviour is called the Wisdom of Grod, so he is called the Power of God (1 Cor. i. 24). The arm of Power Avas lifted up as high as the desi^s of Wisdom were laid deep : as this way of redemption could not be contrived but by an Infinite Wisdom, so it could not be ac- oomphshed but by an Infinite Power. None but God could shape 8ach a design, and none but God could effect it. The Divine Power m temporal deliverances, and freedom from the slavery of human oppressors^ vails to that which glitters in redemption ; whereby the devil is defeated in his designs, stripped of his spoils, and yoked in his strength. The power of God in creation requires not those de- grees of admiration, as in redemption. In creation, the world was erected from nothing ; as there was nothing to act, so there was nothing to oppose ; no victorious devil was in that to be subdued ; * no thundering law to be silenced ; no death to be conquered ; no transgression to be pardoned and rooted out ; no hell to be shut ; no imominious death upon the cross to be suffered. It had been, in toe nature of the thing, an easier thing to Divine Power to have created a new world than repaired a broken, and purified a polluted one. This is the most admirable work that ever God brought forth in the world, greater than all the marks of his power in the first creation.
And this will appear, I. In the Person redeeming. II. In the publication and propagation of the doctrine of redemption. III. In the application of redemption.
L In the Person redeeming. First^ In his conception.
1. He was conceived by the Holy Ghost in tne womb of the Virgin (Luke i. 35): " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and ^e power of the Highest shall overshadow thee :" which act is ex- pressed to be the enect of the infinite power of God ; and it ex- presses the supernatural manner of the forming the humanity of our Saviour, and signifies not the Divine nature of Christ infusing itself into the womb of the virgin ; for the angel refers it to the manner of the operation of the Holy Ghost in the producing the human nature of Christ, and not to the nature assuming that hu- manity into union with itself. The Holy Ghost, or the Third Per- son in the Trinity, overshadowed the virgin, and by a creative act framed the humanity of Christ, and united it to the Divinity. It is, therefore, expressed by a word of the same import with that used in Gen. i 2, " The Spirit moved upon the fece of the waters," which signifies (as it were) a brooding upon the chaos, shadowing it with his wings, as hens sit upon their eggs, to form them and hatch them
60 CHARNOCK ON THE ATTBIBUTES.
into animals; or else it is an allusion to the " cloud which coveied the tent of the congregation, when the glory of the Lord filled tlie tabernacle*^ (Exod. xL 34). It was not such a creative act as we call immediate, which is a production out of nothing; but a mediate creation, such as God's bringing things into form out of the firrt matter, which had nothing but an obediential or passive dispositioa to whatsoever stamp the powerful wisdom of God should imprint upon it. So the suDstance of the Virgin had no active, but only a passive disposition to this work : the matter of the body was earthy, the substance of the virgin ; the forming of it was heavenly, the Holy Ghost working upon that matter. And therefore when it k said^ that "she was found with child of the Holy Ghost" (Matt L 18), it is to be understood of the eflBcacy of the Holy Ghost, not of the substance of the Holy Ghost. The matter was natural, but the man- ner of conceiving was in a supernatural way, above the methods of nature. In reference to the active principle the 'Redeemer is called in the prophecy (Isa. iv. 2), " The branch of the Lord," in regard of the Divine hand that planted him : in respect to the passive princi- ple, the fruit of the earth, in regard of the womb that bare him ; and therefore said to be ** made of a woman" (Gal. iv. 4). That part of the flesh of the virgin whereof the human nature of Christ was made, was refined and purified from corruption by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, as a skilful workman separates the dross from the gold : our Saviour is therefore called, " that holy thing" (Luke i 86). though born of the virgin : he was necessarily some way to descend from Adam. God, indeed, might have created his body out of nothing, or have formed it (as he did Adam's) out of the dust of the ground : but had he been thus extraordinarily formed, and not pro-
Eagated from Adam, though he had been a man like one of us, yet e would not have been of kin to us, because it would not have been a nature derived from Adam, the common parent of us all. It was therefore necessary to an affinity with us, not only that he should have the same human nature, but that it should flow from the same principle, and be propagated to him.® But now, by this way of producing the humanity of Christ of the substance of the virgin, he was in Adam (say some) corporally, but not seminally ; of the sub- stance of Adam, or a daughter of Adam, but not of the seed of Adam: and so he is of the same nature that had sinned, and so what he did and suffered may be imputed to us ; which, had he been created as Adam, could not be claimed in a legal and judicial way.
2. It was not convenient he should be born in the common order of nature, of father and mother : for whosoever is so bom is polluted. " A clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean" (Job xiv. 4). And our Saviour had been incapable of being a redeemer, had he been tainted with the least spot of our nature, out would have stood in need of redemption himself. Besides, it had been inconsistent with the holiness of the Divine nature, to have assumed a tainted and defiled body. He that was the fountain of blessedness to all nations, was not to be subject to the curse of the law for himself; which he would have been, had he been conceived in an ordinary
* Amy raid, in Symbol p. 108, Ac
ON THE POWER OP GOD. 61
way. He that was to overturn the devirs empire, was not to be any- way captive under the devil's power, as a creature under the curse ; nor coiUd he be able to break the serpent's head, had he been tainted with the serpent's breath. Again, supposing that Almighty God by his divine power had so ordered the matter, and so iDerfectly sanc- tified an earthly father and mother from all original spot, that the human nature might have been transmitted immaculate to him, as well as the Holy Ghost did purge that part of the flesh of the virgin of which the bodv of Christ was made, yet it was not convenient that that person, tnat was God blessed for ever as well as man, par- taking of our nature, should have a conception in the same manner as ours, but different, and in some measure conformable to the in- finite dignity of his person : which could not have been, had not a supernatural power and a Divine person been concerned as an active
Ciciple in it ; besides, such a birth had not been agreeable to the promise, which calls him " the Seed of the woman" (Gen. i. 15J, not of the man ; and so the veracitv of God had suffered some detri- ment : the Seed of the woman only is set in opposition to the seed of the serpent
8. By this manner of conception the holiness of his nature is se- cured, and his fitness for his office is atsured to us. It is now a pure and unpolluted humanity that is the temple and tabernacle of the Divinity : the fulness oi the Godhead dwells in him bodily, and dwells m him holily. His humanity is supematuralized and elevated by the activity of the Holy Ghost, hatching the flesh of the virgin into man, as the chaos into a world. Though we read of some sanc- tified from the womb, it was not a pure and perfect holiness ; it was like the light of fire mixed with smoke, an infused holiness accom- panied with a natural taint : but the holiness of the Redeemer by this conception, is like the light of the sun, pure, and without spot. The Spirit of holiness supplying the place of a father in the way of crea- tion. His fitness for nis office is also assured to us; for being born of the virgin, one of our nature, but conceived by the Spirit of a Divine person, the guilt of our sins may be imputed to him because of our nature, without the stain of sin inherent in him ; because of his supernatural conception he is capable, as one of kin to us, to bear our curse without being touched by our taint. By this means our sinful nature is assumed without sm in that nature which was as- sumed by him : " flesh he hath, but not sinful flesh" (Rom. viiL 3). Beal flesD, but not really sinful, only by way of imputation. Nothing but the power of God is evident in this whole work : by ordinary laws and the course of nature a virgin could not bear a son : nothing but a supernatural and almighty grace could intervene to make so holy ana perfect a conjunction. The generation of others, in an ordinary way, is by male and female : but the virgin is overshadowed by the Spirit and power of the Highest.^ Man only is the product of natural generation ; this which is bom of the virgin is the holy thing, the Son of God. In other generations, a rational soul is only united to a material body: but in this, the Divine nature is united with the human in one person by an indissoluble union.
- ' AmjTant. eur Timole, p. 292.
62 CHARNOCK ON THE AITBIBUTES.
The Second act of power in the person redeeming, is the i^nion of the two natures, the Divine and human. The designing indeed of this was an act of wisdom; but the accomplishing it was an act of power.
1. There is in this redeeming person a union of two najkures. He is God and man in one person (Heb. i. 8, 9). " Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever : God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness," &c. The Son is called God, having a throne for ever and ever, and the unction speaks him man : the (jrodhead can- not be anointed, nor hath any fellows. Humanity and Divinity aie ascribed to him (Rom. i. 3, 4). " He was of the seed of Davia ac^ cording to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God, by his resor- rcction from the dead." The Divinity and humanity are both pro- phetically joined (Zech. xii. 10), " I will pour out my Spirit ;" the pouring forth the Spirit is an act only of Divine grace and power. " And they shall look upon mc whom they have pierced ;" the same person pours forth the Spirit as God, and is pierced as man. " The Word was made flesh" (John i. 14). Word Irom eternity was tdbAb flesh in time ; Word and flesh in one person ; a great God, and a little infant.
2. The terms of this union were infinitely distant. What greater distance can there be than between the Deity and humanity, between the Creator and a creature ? Can you imagine the distance between eternity and time, Infinite Power and miserable infirmity, an immor- tal spirit and dyin^ flesh, the highest Beinff and nothing? yet theae are espoused. A God of unmixed blesseoness is linked personally with