discourse of the dominion and power of God, and the purity of his
righteousness, whence he argues an impossibility of the justification
of man in his presence, who is no better than a worm. Job, in this
chapter, acknowledges the greatness of God’s power, and descants more
largely upon it than Bildad had done; but doth preface it with a kind
of ironical speech, as if he had not acted a friendly part, or spake
little to the purpose, or the matter in hand: the subject of Job’s
discourse was the worldly happiness of the wicked, and the calamities
of the godly: and Bildad reads him a lecture, of the extent of God’s
dominion, the number of his armies, and the unspotted rectitude of
his nature, in comparison of which the purest creatures are foul
and crooked. Job, therefore, from ver. 1‒4, taxeth him in a kind of
scoffing manner, that he had not touched the point, but rambled from
the subject in hand, and had not applied a salve proper to 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.[810] But since Bildad 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 begins with
the lowest. “Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the
inhabitants thereof:” You read me a lecture of the power of God in
the heavenly host: indeed it is visible there, yet of a larger extent;
and monuments of it are found in the lower parts. What do you think of
those dead things under the earth and waters, of the corn that dies,
and by the moistening influences of the clouds, springs up again with
a numerous progeny and increase for the nourishment of man? What do you
think of those varieties of metals and minerals conceived in the bowels
of the earth; those pearls and riches in the depths of the waters,
midwifed by this power of God? Add to these those more prodigious
creatures in the {b6} sea, the inhabitants of the waters, with their
vastness and variety, which are all the births of God’s power; both in
their first creation by his mighty voice, and their propagation by his
cherishing providence. Stop not here, but consider also that his power
extends to hell; either the graves the repositories of all the crumbled
dust that hath yet been in the world (for so hell is sometimes taken
in Scripture: ver. 6, “Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath
no covering.”) The several lodgings of deceased men are known to him:
no screen can obscure them from his sight, nor their dissolution be
any bar to his power, when the time is come to compact those mouldered
bodies to entertain again their departed souls, either for weal or woe.
The grave, or hell, the place of punishment, is naked before him; as
distinctly discerned by him, as a naked body in all its lineaments by
us, or a dissected body is in all its parts by a skilful eye.
Destruction hath no covering; none can free himself from the power of
his hand. Every person in the bowels of hell; every person punished
there is known to him, and feels the power of his wrath. From the lower
parts of the world he ascends to the consideration of the power of God
in the creation of heaven and earth; “He stretches out the north over
the empty places” (ver. 7). The north, or the north pole, over the air,
which, by the Greeks, was called void or empty, because of the tenuity
and thinness of that element; and he mentions here the north, or north
pole, for the whole heaven, because it is more known and apparent than
the southern pole. “And hangs the earth upon nothing:” the massy and
weighty earth hangs like a thick globe in the midst of a thin air,
that there is as much air on the one side of it, as on the other. The
heavens have no prop to sustain them in their height, and the earth
hath no basis to support it in its place. The heavens are as if you saw
a curtain stretched smooth in the air without any hand to hold it; and
the earth is as if you saw a ball hanging in the air without any solid
body to under‑prop it, or any line to hinder it from falling; both
standing monuments of the omnipotence of God. He then takes notice of
his daily power in the clouds; “He binds up the waters in his thick
clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them” (ver. 8). He compacts
the waters together in clouds, and keeps them by his power in the air
against the force of their natural gravity and heaviness, till they are
fit to flow down upon the earth, and perform his pleasure in the places
for which he designs them. “The cloud is not rent under them;” the thin
air is not split asunder by the weight of the waters contained in the
cloud above it. He causes them to distil by drops, and strains them,
as it were, through a thin lawn, for the refreshment of the earth; and
suffers them not to fall in the whole lump, with a violent torrent,
to waste the industry of man, and bring famine upon the world, by
destroying the fruits of the earth. What a wonder 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 enclosed within it!
What a wonder would it be to see a gallon of water contained in a thin
cobweb as strongly as in a vessel {b7} of brass! Greater is the wonder
of Divine power in those thin bottles of heaven, as they are called
(Job xxxviii. 37); and therefore called his clouds here, as being daily
instances of his omnipotence: that the air should sustain those rolling
vessels, as it should seem, weightier than itself; that the force of
this mass of waters should not break so thin a prison, and hasten to
its proper place, which is below the air: that they should be daily
confined against their natural inclination, and held by so slight
a chain; that there should be such a gradual and successive falling
of them, as if the air were pierced with holes like a gardener’s
watering‑pot, and not fall in one entire body to drown or drench
some parts of the earth. These are hourly miracles of Divine power,
as little regarded as clearly visible. He proceeds (ver. 9), “He
holds back the face of his throne, and spreads the clouds upon it.”
The clouds are designed as curtains to cover the heavens, as well
as vessels to water the earth (Ps. cxlvii. 8). As a tapestry curtain
between the heavens, the throne of God (Isa. lxvi. 1), and the earth
his footstool: the heavens are called his throne, because his power
doth most shine forth there, and magnificently declare the glory of God;
and the clouds are as a screen between the scorching heat of the sun,
and the tender plants of the earth, and the weak bodies of men. From
hence he descends to the sea, and considers the Divine power 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 limits of it as with a compass, that it might not mount above
the surface of the land, and ruin the ends of the earth’s creation;
and this, while day and night have their mutual turns, till he shall
make an end of time by removing the measures of it. The bounds of the
tumultuous sea are, in many places, as weak as the bottles of the upper
waters; the one is contained in thin air, and the other restrained by
weak sands, in many places, as well as by stubborn rocks in others;
that, though it swells, foams, roars, and the waves, encouraged and
egged on by strong winds, come like mountains against the shore; they
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 it for its ebbing and flowing, till
night and day come to an end;[811] 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 commotions in the air and earth, raised and
stilled by the power of God; “The pillars of heaven tremble, and are
astonished at his reproof.” By pillars of heaven are not meant angels,
as some think, but either the air, called the pillars of heaven in
regard of place, as it continues and knits together the parts of the
world, as pillars do the upper and nether parts of a building: as
the lowest parts of the earth are {b8} called the foundations of the
earth, so the lowest parts of the heaven may be called the pillars of
heaven:[812] or else by that phrase may be meant mountains, which seem,
at a distance, to touch the sky, as pillars do the top of a structure;
and so it may be spoken, according to vulgar capacity, which imagines
the heavens to be sustained by the two extreme parts of the earth,
as a convex body, or to be arched by pillars; whence the Scripture,
according to common apprehensions, mentions the ends of the earth, and
the utmost parts of the heavens, though they have properly no end, as
being round. The power of God is seen in those commotions in the air
and earth, by thunders, lightnings, storms, earthquakes, which rack
the air, and make the mountains and hills tremble as servants before a
frowning and rebuking master. And as he makes motions in the earth and
air, so is his power seen in their influences upon the sea; “He judges
the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smites through
the proud” (ver. 12). At the creation he put the waters into several
channels, and caused the dry land to appear barefaced for a habitation
for man and beasts; or rather, he splits the sea by storms, as though
he would make the bottom of the deep visible, and rakes up the sands
to the surface of the waters, and marshals the waves into mountains
and valleys. After that, “he smites through the proud,” that is,
humbles the proud waves, and, by allaying the storm, reduceth them to
their former level: the power of God is visible, as well in rebuking,
as in awakening the winds; he makes them sensible of his voice, and,
according to his pleasure, exasperates or calms them. The “striking
through the proud” here, is not, probably, meant of the destruction
of the Egyptian army, for some guess that Job died that year,[813]
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
prodigious monument of God’s power, often mentioned in Scripture to
this purpose, and, in particular, in this book of Job (ch. xli.); and
called by the same name of crooked serpent (Isa. xxvii. 1), where it
is applied, by way of metaphor, to the king of Assyria or Egypt, or
all oppressors of the church. Various interpretations there are of this
crooked serpent: some understanding that constellation in heaven which
astronomers call the dragon; some that combination of weaker stars,
which they call the galaxia, which winds about the heavens: but it is
most probable that Job, drawing near to a conclusion of his discourse,
joins the two greatest testimonies of God’s power in the world, the
highest heavens, and the lowest leviathan, which is here called a bar
serpent,[814] 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 {b9} 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
Creator, in his works of creation and providence, yet they are nothing
to what may be declared of his power. And what may be declared, is
nothing to what may be conceived; and what may be conceived, is nothing
to what is above the conceptions of any creature. These are but little
crumbs and fragments of that Infinite Power, which is, in his nature,
like a drop in comparison of the mighty ocean; a hiss or whisper in
comparison of a mighty voice of thunder.[815] This, which I have spoken,
is but like a spark to the fiery region, a few lines, by the by, a drop
of speech.
_The thunder of his power._ Some understand it of thunder literally,
for material thunder in the air: “The thunder of his power,” that is,
according to the Hebrew dialect, “his powerful thunder.” This is not
the sense; the nature of thunder in the air doth not so much exceed
the capacity of human understanding; it is, therefore, rather to be
understood metaphorically, “the thunder of his power,” that is, the
greatness and immensity of his power, manifested in the magnificent
miracles of nature, in the consideration whereof men are astonished,
as if they had heard an unusual clap of thunder. So thunder is used
(Job xxxix. 25), “The thunder of the captains;” that is, strength and
force of the captains of an army: and (ver. 19), God, speaking to Job
of a horse, saith, “Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?” that is,
strength: and thunder being a mark of the power of God, some of the
heathen have called God by the name of a Thunderer.[816] As thunder
pierceth the lowest places, and alters the state of things, so doth
the power of God penetrate into all things whatsoever; the thunder of
his power, that is, the greatness of his power; as “the strength of
salvation” (Ps. xx. 6), that is, a mighty salvation.
_Who can understand?_ Who is able to count all the monuments of
his power? How doth this little, which I have spoken of, exceed
the capacity of our understanding, and is rather the matter of our
astonishment, than the object of our comprehensive knowledge. The power
of the greatest 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 {b10} conceive
something more beyond what I have spoken, and what you have thought.
His power shines in everything, and is beyond everything. There is
infinitely more power lodged in his nature, not expressed to the world.
The understanding of men and angels, centred in one creature, would
fall short of the perception of the infiniteness of it. All that can
be comprehended of it, are but little fringes of it, a small portion.
No man ever discoursed, or can, of God’s power, according to the
magnificence of it. No creature can conceive it; God himself only
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 thunder of his power who can understand?”
that is, none can. The text is a lofty declaration of the Divine power,
with a particular note of attention, _Lo!_ 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
summary of them he had made before. II. In the insufficiency of these
ways to measure his power, _But how little a portion is heard of him_.
III. In the incomprehensibleness of it, _The thunder of his power,
who can understand?_ _Doctrine._ Infinite and incomprehensible power
pertains to the nature of God, and is expressed, in part, in his works;
or, though there be a mighty expression of Divine power in his works,
yet an incomprehensible power pertains to his nature. “The thunder of
his power, who can understand?”
His power glitters in all his works, as well as his wisdom (Ps. lxii.
11): “Twice have I heard this, that power belongs unto God.” In the
law and in the prophets, say some; but why power twice, and not mercy,
which he speaks of in the following verse? he had heard of power twice,
from the voice of creation, and from the voice of government. Mercy was
heard in 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 have I heard that
power belongs to God, that is, it is a certain and undoubted truth,
that power is essential to the Divine nature. It is true, mercy is
essential, justice is essential; but power more apparently essential,
because no acts of mercy, or justice, or wisdom, can be exercised by
him without power; the repetition of a thing confirms the certainty
of it. Some observe, that God is called Almighty seventy times in
Scripture.[817] Though his power be evident in all his works, yet he
hath a power beyond the expression of it in his works, which, as it is
the glory of his nature, so it is the comfort of a believer. To which
purpose the apostle expresseth it by an excellent 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.” We have reason to acknowledge him Almighty,
who hath a power of acting above our power of understanding. Who could
have imagined such a powerful 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. iii. 4); {b11} because all the works of his hands are wrought
with Almighty strength. Power is also used as a name of God (Mark xiv.
62): “The Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power,” that is, at
the right hand of God; God and power are so inseparable, that they are
reciprocated. As his essence is immense, not to be confined in place;
as it is eternal, not to be measured by time; so it is Almighty, not
to be limited in regard of action.
1. It is ingenuously illustrated by some by a unit;[818] all
numbers depend upon it; it makes numbers by addition, multiplies them
unexpressibly; when one unit is removed from a number, how vastly doth
it diminish it! It gives perfection to all other numbers, it receives
perfection from none. If you add a unit before 100, how doth it
multiply 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 arithmetician
to count them. By such a meditation as this, you may have some prospect
of the power of that God who is only unity; the beginning of all things,
as a unit is the 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 him
not most powerful, as well as most wise; he is not a God that cannot
do what he will, and perform all his pleasure. If we imagine him
restrained in his power, we imagine him limited in his essence; 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 activity; 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 will deny God to be Almighty.” A Jew, a heathen,
may deny Christ to be omnipotent, but no heathen will deny God to
be omnipotent, and no devil will deny either to be so: God cannot be
conceived without some power, for then he must be conceived without
action. Whose, then, are those products and effects of power, which are
visible to us in the world? to whom do they belong? who is the Father
of them? God cannot be conceived without a power suitable to his nature
and essence. If we imagine him to be of an infinite essence, we must
imagine him to be of an infinite power and strength.
{b12} In particular, I shall show――I. The nature of God’s power.
II. Reasons 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 hath
to command multitudes of other persons to take his part; but power
taken for strength, and power taken for authority, are distinct things,
and may be separated from one another. Power may be without authority;
as in successful invasions, that have no just foundation. Authority
may be without power; as in a just prince, expelled by an unjust
rebellion, the authority resides in him, though he be overpowered, and
is destitute of strength to support and exercise that authority. The
power of God is not to be understood of his authority and dominion,
but his strength to act; and the word in the text properly signifies
strength.[819]
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;[820] which are not distinct powers, but
one and the same power. His ordinate power is a part of his absolute;
for if he had not a power to do every thing that he could will, he
might not have the power to do everything that he doth will. The object
of his absolute power is all things possible; such things that imply
not a contradiction, such that are not repugnant in their own nature to
be done, and such as are not contrary 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 eternally 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 repugnant
to the nature and perfections of God; as it is impossible for his
nature to die and perish; impossible for him, in regard of truth, to
lie and deceive. But of this hereafter; only at present to understand
the object of God’s absolute power to be things possible, that is,
possible in nature; not by any strength in themselves, or of themselves;
for nothing hath no strength, and everything is nothing before it comes
into being;[821] so God, by his absolute power, might have prevented
the sin of the fallen angels, and so have preserved them in their first
habitation. He might, by his absolute power, have restrained the devil
from tempting of Eve, or restrained her and Adam from swallowing {b13}
the bait, and joining hands with the temptation. By his absolute power,
God might have given the reins to Peter to betray his Master, as well
as to deny him; and employed Judas in the same glorious and successful
service, wherein he employed Paul. By his absolute power, he might have
created the world millions of years before he did create it, and can
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 he 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
ordinate power. As his power is free from any act of his will, it is
called absolute; as it is joined with an act of his will, it is called
ordinate. His absolute power is necessary, and belongs to his nature;
his ordinate power is free, and belongs to his will;――a power guided
by his will,――not, as I said before, that they are two distinct powers,
both belonging to his nature, but the latter is the same with the
former, only it is guided by his will and wisdom.