power are not essentially infinite; and therefore we must not measure
the infiniteness of Divine power by an ability to make an infinite
being; because there is an incapacity in any created thing to be
infinite; 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
God is infinite. But the power of God is infinite, because it can
produce infinite effects, or innumerable things, such as surpass the
arithmetic of a creature; nor yet doth the infiniteness consist simply
in producing innumerable effects; for that a finite cause can produce.
Fire can, by its finite and limited heat, burn numberless combustible
things and parcels; and the understanding of man hath an infinite
number of thoughts and acts of intellection, {b20} and thoughts
different 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 foundation in things that are
in being. But the infiniteness of God’s power consists in an ability
to produce infinite effects, 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 from nothing. To
produce innumerable effects of distinct natures, and from so distant
a term as nothing, is an argument of infinite power. Now, that the
objects of Divine power are innumerable, appears, because God can do
infinitely more than he hath done, or will do. Nothing that God hath
done can enfeeble or dull his power; there still resides in him an
ability beyond all the settled contrivances of his understanding 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. iii. 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 God’s 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” (Rom. iv. 17); not
some things, but all things possible. The barren womb of nothing 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 ease, 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. If from 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 many more. “It is the breath of the Almighty that gives life”
(Job. xxxiii. 4). He can create infinite species and kinds 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 numberless
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 understanding 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 xxxvi. 23).
For the understanding of man, {b21} 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 composition 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 infinite number of
creatures more than have been created? The Almightiness of God in
producing real effects, 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 and motion;
and a limner can draw many draughts, and frame many pictures with a new
variety of colors, according 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
from it; so long as there is nothing, God can produce out of that
nothing whatsoever he pleases. We see the same in inanimate creatures.
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 refining, whatsoever you
offer to it. It will reach all, and refuse none; and by the efficacious
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, still 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 from 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 of flowers and
plants now created, the sun hath a power residing in it, ever since its
first creation, to afford the same warmth to them for the nourishing
and bringing them forth. Whatsoever you can conceive the sun to be able
to do 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 sun is able to influence more things than
it doth, and produce {b22} numberless effects; but it doth not do so
much 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 free agent. Every free agent can do more than he
will do. Man being a free creature, can do more than ordinarily 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 will. 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 limited to such
a term of time by any weakness, 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 of
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 will, 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. If God 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 will follow, that he is not a free, but
a natural and necessary agent, which cannot be supposed of God.
Second. This power is infinite in regard of action. As he can produce
numberless objects above what he hath produced, so he could produce
them more magnificently than he hath made them. 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:
he wants no instrument to act. When there was nothing but God, 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 anything.
God can perfect his action without dependence on any thing;[827] and to
be simply independent, is to be simply infinite. In {b23} this 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 creature; 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 objects
he can bring into being, so it is infinite intensive, in regard of the
manner of operation, and the endowments he can bestow upon them.[828]
Some things, indeed, God doth so perfect, that higher degrees of
perfection cannot be imagined to be added to them.[829] 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 creature, _respectu
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 God 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 makes a plain
vessel, can embellish it more, engrave more figures upon it, according
to the capacity of the subject: and cannot God do so much more with
his works? Could not God have made this world of a larger quantity,
and the sun of a greater bulk and proportionable strength, to influence
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 excellent kind, and endow those
which he hath made with excellency 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 diffusive
usefulness in the world. What is made use of by the prophet (Mal. ii.
15) in another 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 {b24} 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. If 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 limitation 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,
[1.] That though God can make everything with a higher degree of
perfection, yet still within the limits of a finite being. No creature
can be made infinite, because no creature can be made God. No creature
can be so improved as to equal the goodness and perfection of God;[830]
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 amount 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 understanding to count them. The finite
condition of the creature suffers 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, which 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 greater
and nobler perfections than he hath bestowed upon it, yet he hath
framed all things in the perfectest manner, and most convenient 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.[831] 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 goodness 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 marshals them to his grand purpose. Had God only created things
that are most excellent, he had created only angels and men; how, then,
would his wisdom have {b25} been conspicuous in other works in the
subordination and subserviency of them to one another? God therefore
determined his power by his wisdom: and though his absolute power could
have made every creature better, yet his ordinate power, which in every
step was regulated by his wisdom, made everything best for his designed
intention.[832] 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 miraculous 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.
[3.] Though God hath an absolute power to make more worlds, and
infinite numbers of other creatures, and to render every creature a
higher mark of his power, yet in regard of his decree to the contrary,
he cannot do it. He hath a physical power, but after his resolve 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.[833] 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 in
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 he hath not divested
himself of his absolute power to {b26} save all or damn all.[834] 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 liberty, 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 his will against using his strength in any such motion
to that place. The will of God hath set bounds to the exercise of his
power, but doth not infringe that absolute power which still resides
in his nature: he is girded about with more power than he puts forth
(Ps. lxv. 6).
[4.] As the power of God is infinite in regard of his essence, in
regard of the objects, 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 contains 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. If it be eternal, it must be infinite,
and hath neither beginning nor end; what is eternal hath no bounds. If
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 interrupting
qualm (Isa. xl. 28): “Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard,
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
upon nothing, will not suffer any dimness or decrease to eternity. This
power being the same with 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
infringing of his almightiness, but rather a strengthening of it. It
is granted that some things 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 reflection
of weakness on God,[835] and because the reason of the impossibility 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 {b27} will;
while 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.[836] 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 understanding.
Some things are impossible to be done, because of the incapability of
the subject; as for a creature to be made infinite, independent, to
preserve itself without the Divine concourse and assistance. So a brute
cannot be taken into communion with God, and to everlasting spiritual
blessedness, because the nature of a brute is incapable 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 subject; so that this is not for
want of power in God, but because 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. If God were able to
deprive himself of life, he might then cease to be: he were not then
a necessary, but an uncertain, contingent being, and could not be said
only to have immortality, as he is (1 Tim. vi. 16). He cannot 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 would be impotent, not omnipotent: death is the
feebleness of nature. It is undoubtedly the greatest impotence to cease
to be: who would count it a part of omnipotency 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 be
a strange way of arguing: a thing is not powerful, because it is not
feeble, and 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.[837] 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 impossible 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. If he could walk, he were not
everywhere present: motion speaks succession. If he could increase,
he would not have been perfect before.
3. Some things are impossible to the glorious perfections of God.
God cannot do anything unbecoming his holiness and goodness; {b28} 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 contrary 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 innocent? 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
cannot 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 will of God cannot will anything but what is worthy of him, and
decent for his goodness.