providence of God is a manifestation of his power in a continued
creation, so the preservation of grace is a manifestation of his power
in a continued regeneration. To keep a nation under the yoke, is an act
of the same power that subdued it. It is this that strengthens men in
suffering against the fury of hell (Col. i. 13); it is this that keeps
them from falling against the force of hell――the Father’s hand (John x.
29). His strength abates and moderates the violence of temptations; his
staff sustains his people under them; his might defeats the power of
Satan, and bruiseth him under a believer’s feet. The counter‑workings
of indwelling corruption, the reluctances of the flesh against the
breathings of the spirit, the fallacy of the senses, and the rovings
of the mind, have ability quickly to stifle and extinguish grace, if
it were not maintained by that powerful blast that first imbreathed it.
No less power is seen in perfecting it, than was in planting it (2 Pet.
i. 3); no less in fulfilling the work of faith, than in engrafting
the word of faith (2 Thess. i. 11). The apostle well understood the
necessity and efficacy of it in the preservation of faith, {b80} as
well as in the first infusion, when he expresses himself in those terms
of a greatness or hyperbole of power, “His mighty power,” or the power
of his might (Eph. i. 19). The salvation he bestows, and the strength
whereby he effects it, are joined together in the prophet’s song (Isa.
xii. 2): “The Lord is my strength and my salvation.” And indeed, God
doth more magnify his power in continuing a believer in the world, a
weak and half‑rigged vessel, in the midst of so many sands whereon it
might split, so many rocks whereon it might dash, so many corruptions
within, and so many temptations without, than if he did immediately
transport him into heaven, and clothe him with a perfect sanctified
nature.――To conclude, what is there, then, in the world which is
destitute of notices of Divine power? Every creature affords us the
lesson; all acts of Divine government are the marks of it. Look into
the word, and the manner of its propagation instructs us in it; your
changed natures, your pardoned guilt, your shining comfort, your
quelled corruptions, the standing of your staggering graces, are
sufficient to preserve a sense, and to prevent a forgetfulness, of
this great attribute, so necessary for your support, and conducing so
much to your comfort.
_Use I._ Of information and instruction.
_Instruct. 1._ If incomprehensible and infinite power belongs to
the nature of God, then Jesus Christ hath a divine nature, because
the acts of power proper to God are ascribed to him. This perfection
of omnipotence doth unquestionably pertain to the Deity, and is an
incommunicable property, and the same with the essence of God: he,
therefore, to whom this attribute is ascribed, is essentially God. This
is challenged by Christ, in conjunction with eternity (Rev. i. 8); “I
am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which
is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” This the Lord
Christ speaks of himself. He who was equal with God, proclaims himself
by the essential title of the Godhead, part of which he repeats again
(ver. 11), and this is the person which “walks in the midst of the
seven golden candlesticks,” the person that “was dead and now lives”
(ver. 17, 18), which cannot possibly be meant of the Father, the First
Person, who can never come under the denomination of having been dead.
Being, therefore, adorned with the same title, he hath the same Deity;
and though his omnipotence be only positively asserted (ver. 8), yet,
his eternity being asserted (ver. 11, 17), it inferreth his immense
power; for he that is eternal, without limits of time, must needs be
conceived powerful, without any dash of infirmity. Again, when he is
said to be a child born, and a son given, in the same breath he is
called the Mighty God (Isa. ix. 6). It is introduced as a ground of
comfort to the church, to preserve their hopes in the accomplishment of
the promises made to them before. They should not imagine him to have
only the infirmity of a man, though he was veiled in the appearance of
a man. No, they should look through the disguise of his flesh, to the
might of his Godhead. The attribute of mighty is added to the title of
God, because the consideration of power is most capable to sustain the
drooping church in such a condition, and to prop up her hopes. It is
upon this account he saith of himself, “Whatsoever things the {b81}
Father doth, those also doth the Son likewise” (John v. 19). In the
creation of heaven, earth, sea, and the preservation of all creatures,
the Son works with the same will, wisdom, virtue, power, as the Father
works: not as two may concur in an action in a different manner, as
an agent and an instrument, a carpenter and his tools, but in the same
manner of operation, ὁμοίως, which we translate likeness, which doth
not express so well the emphasis of the word. There is no diversity of
action between us; what the Father doth, that I do by the same power,
with the same easiness in every respect; there is the same creative,
productive, conservative power in both of us; and that not in one work
that is done, _ad extra_, but in all, in whatsoever the Father doth. In
the same manner, not by a delegated, but natural and essential power,
by one undivided operation and manner of working.
1st. The creation, which is a work of Omnipotence, is more than once
ascribed to him. This he doth own himself; the creation of the earth,
and of man upon it; the stretching out the heavens by his hands, and
the forming of “all the hosts of them by his command” (Isa. xlv. 12).
He is not only the Creator of Israel, the church (ver. 12), but of the
whole world, and every creature on the face of the earth, and in the
glories of the heavens; which is repeated also ver. 18, where, in this
act of creation, he is called God himself, and speaks of himself in
the term Jehovah; and swears by himself (ver. 23). What doth he swear?
“That unto me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear.”
Is this Christ? Yes, if the apostle may be believed, who applies
it to him (Rom. xiv. 11) to prove the appearance of all men before
the judgment‑seat of Christ, whom the prophet calls (ver. 15) “a God
that hides himself;” and so he was a hidden God when obscured in our
fleshly infirmities. He was in conjunction with the Father when the sea
received his decree, and the foundations of the earth were appointed;
not as a spectator, but as an artificer, for so the word in Prov.
viii. 30, signifies, “as one brought up with him;” it signifies also,
“a cunning workman” (Cant. vii. 1). He was the east, or the sun, from
whence sprang all the light of life and being to the creature; so the
word קדם (ver. 22), which is translated, “before his works of old,” is
rendered by some, and signifies the east as well as before: but if it
notes only his existence before, it is enough to prove his Deity. The
Scripture doth not only allow him an existence before the world, but
exalts him as the cause of the world: a thing may precede another that
is not the cause of that which follows; a precedency in age doth not
entitle one brother, or thing, the cause of another: but our Saviour is
not only ancienter than the world, but is the Creator of the world (Heb.
i. 10, 11). “Who laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens
are the work of his hands.” So great an eulogy cannot be given to one
destitute of omnipotence; since the distance between being and not
being is so vast a gulf that cannot be surmounted and stepped over,
but by an Infinite Power: he is the first and the last, that called
the “generations from the beginning” (Isa. xli. 4), and had an almighty
voice to call them out of nothing. In which regard he is called the
“everlasting Father” (Isa. ix. 6), as being the efficient {b82} of
creation; as God is called the Father of the rain, or as father is
taken for the inventor of an art; as Jubal, the first framer and
inventor of music, is called “the father of such as handle the harp”
(Gen. iv. 21). And that Person is said to “make the sea, and form the
dry land by his hands” (Ps. xcv. 5, 6) against whom we are exhorted not
to harden our hearts, which is applied to Christ by the apostle (Heb.
iii. 8); in ver. 6, he is called “a great King,” and “a great God our
Maker.” The places wherein the creation is attributed to Christ, those
that are the antagonists of his Deity, would evade by understanding
them of the new, or evangelical, not of the first, old material
creation: but what appearance is there for such a sense? Consider,
(1.) That of Heb. i. 10, 11, it is spoken of that earth and heavens
which were in the beginning of time; it is that earth shall perish,
that heaven that shall be folded up, that creation that shall grow old
towards a decay; that is, only the visible and material creation: the
spiritual shall endure forever; it grows not old to decay, but grows up
to a perfection; it sprouts up to its happiness, not to its detriment.
The same Person creates that shall destroy, and the same world is
created by him that shall be destroyed by him, as well as it subsisted
by virtue of his omnipotency.
(2.) Can that also (Heb. i. 2), “By whom also he made the worlds,”
speaking of Christ, bear the same plea? It was the same Person by whom
“God spake to us in these last times,” the same Person which he hath
constituted “Heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds:”
and the particle _also_, intimates it to be a distinct act from his
speaking or prophetical office, whereby he restored and new created
the world, as well as the rightful foundation God had to make him
“Heir of all things.” It refers likewise, not to the time of Christ’s
speaking upon earth, but to something past, and something different
from the publication of the gospel: it is not “doth make,” which had
been more likely if the apostle had meant only the new creation; but
“hath made,”[878] referring to time long since past, something done
before his appearance upon earth as a Prophet: “By whom also he made
the worlds,” or ages, all things subjected to, or measured by time;
which must be meant according to the Jewish phrase of this material
visible world: so they entitle God in their Liturgy, the “Lord of Ages,”
that is, the Lord of the world, and all ages and revolutions of the
world, from the creation to the last period of time. If anything were
in being before this frame of heaven and earth, and within the compass
of time, it received being and duration from the Son of God. The
apostle would give an argument to prove the equity of making him Heir
of all things as Mediator, because he was the framer of all things
as God. He may well be the Heir or Lord of angels as well as men, who
created angels as well as men: all things were justly under his power
as Mediator, since they derived their existence from him as Creator.
(3.) But what evasion can there be for that (Col. i. 16)? “By him were
all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, whether
they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, {b83} all
things were created by him and for him.” He is said to be the Creator
of material and visible things, as well as spiritual and invisible;
of things in heaven, which needed no restoration, as well as things on
earth, which were polluted by sin, and stood in need of a new creation.
How could the angels belong to the new creation, who had never put off
the honor and purity of the first? Since they never divested themselves
of their original integrity, they could not be reinvested with that
which they never lost. Besides, suppose the holy angels be one way
or other reduced as parts of the new creation, as being under the
mediatory government of our Saviour, as their Head, and in regard of
their confirmation by him in that happy state. In what manner shall the
devils be ranked among new creatures? They are called principalities
and powers as well as the angels, and may come under the title of
things invisible: that they are called principalities and powers is
plain (Eph. vi. 12): “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities and powers, and the rulers of the darkness of
this world; against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Good angels
are not there meant, for what war have believers with them, or they
with believers? They are the guardians of them, since Christ hath taken
away the enmity between our Lord and theirs, in whose quarrel they
were engaged against us: and since the apostle, speaking of “all things
created by him,” expresseth it so, that it cannot be conceived he
should except anything; how come the finally impenitent and unbelievers,
which are things in earth, and visible, to be listed here in the roll
of new creatures? None of these can be called new creatures, because
they are subjected to the government of Christ; no more than the earth
and sea, and the animals in it, are made new creatures, because they
are all under the dominion of Christ and his providential government.
Again, the apostle manifestly makes the creation he here speaks of,
to be the material, and not the new creation; for that he speaks of
afterwards as a distinct act of our Lord Jesus, under the title of
Reconciliation (Col. i. 20, 21), which was the restoration of the world,
and the satisfying for that curse that lay upon it. His intent is here
to show that not an angel in heaven, nor a creature upon earth, but was
placed in their several degrees of excellency by the power of the Son
of God, who, after that act of creation, and the entrance of sin, was
the “reconciler” of the world through the blood of his cross.
(4.) There is another place as clear (John i. 3): “All things were
made by him, and without him was nothing made that was made.” The
creation is here ascribed to him; affirmatively, “All things were made
by him;” negatively, there was nothing made without him: and the words
are emphatical, οὐδὲ ἕν, not one thing; excepting nothing; including
invisible things, as well as things conspicuous to sense only,
mentioned in the story of the creation (Gen. i.); not only the entire
mass, but the distinct parcels, the smallest worm and the highest angel,
owe their original to him. And if not _one_ thing, then the matter
was not created to his hands; and his work consisted not only in the
forming things from that matter: if that _one_ thing of matter were
excepted, a chief thing were excepted; if {084} _not one thing_ were
excepted, then he created something of nothing, because spirits, as
angels and souls, are not made of any pre‑existing or fore‑created
matter. How could the evangelist phrase it more extensively and
comprehensively? This is a character of Omnipotency; to create the
world, and everything in it, of nothing, requires an infinite virtue
and power. If all things were created by Him, they were not created
by him as man, because himself, as man, was not in being before the
creation; if all things were made by him, then himself was not made,
himself was not created; and to be existent without being made, without
being created, is to be unboundedly omnipotent. And if we understand it
of the new creation, as they do that will not allow him an existence in
his Deity before his humanity, it cannot be true of that; for how could
he regenerate Abraham, make Simeon and Anna new creatures, who “waited
for the salvation of Israel,” and form John Baptist, and fill him with
the Holy Ghost, even from the womb (Luke i. 15), who belonged to the
new creation, and was to prepare the way, if Christ had not a being
before him? The evangelist alludes to, and explains the history of
the creation, in the beginning, and acquaints us what was meant by
God, said so often, _viz._ the eternal Word, and describes him in
his creative power, manifested in the framing the world, before he
describes him in his incarnation, when he came to lay the foundation of
the restoration of the world (John i. 14), “The Word was made flesh;”
this Word who was “with God, who was God, who made all things,” and
gave being to the most glorious angels and the meanest creature without
exception; this Word, in time, “was made flesh.”
(5.) The creation of things mentioned in these Scriptures cannot be
attributed to him as an instrument. As if when it is said, “God created
all things by him, and by him made the worlds,” we were to understand
the Father to be the agent, and the Son to be a tool in his Father’s
hand, as an axe in the hand of a carpenter, or a file in the hand of
a smith, or a servant acting by command as the organ of his master.
The preposition _per_, or διά, doth not always signify an instrumental
cause: when it is said, that the apostle gave the Thessalonians a
command “by Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. iv. 2), was Christ the instrument,
and not the Lord of that command the apostle gave? The immediate
operation of Christ dwelling in the apostles, was that whereby they
gave the commands to their disciples. When we are called “by God”
(1 Cor. i. 9), is he the instrumental, or principal cause of our
effectual vocation? And can the will of God be the instrument of
putting Paul into the apostleship, or the sovereign cause of investing
him with that dignity, when he calls himself an “Apostle by the will
of God” (Eph. i. 3)? And when all things are said to be through God,
as well as of him, must he be counted the instrumental cause of his
own creation, counsels, and judgments (Rom. xi. 36)? When we “mortify
the deeds of the body through the Spirit” (Rom. viii. 13), or keep the
“treasure of the word by the Holy Ghost” (2 Tim. i. 14), is the Holy
Ghost of no more dignity in such acts than an instrument? Nor doth the
gaining a thing by a person make him a mere instrument or inferior; as
when a man gains his right in a way of justice against his adversary
by the magistrate, {b85} is the judge inferior to the suppliant? If the
Word were an instrument in creation, it must be a created or uncreated
instrument: if created, it could not be true what the Evangelist saith,
that “all things were made by him,” since himself, the principal thing,
could not be made by himself: if uncreated, he was God, and so acted
by a Divine omnipotency, which surmounts an instrumental cause. But,
indeed, an instrument is impossible in creation, since it is wrought
only by an act of the Divine will. Do we need any organ to an act
of volition? The efficacious will of the Creator is the cause of the
original of the body of the world, with its particular members and
exact harmony. It was formed “by a word, and established by a command”
(Ps. xxxiii. 9); the beauty of the creation stood up at the precept
of his will. Nor was the Son a partial cause; as when many are said to
build a house, one works one part, and another frames another part: God
created all things by the immediate operation of the Son, in the unity
of essence, goodness, power, wisdom; not an extrinsic, but a connatural
instrument. As the sun doth illustrate all things by his light, and
quickens all things by his heat, so God created the worlds by Christ,
as he was the “brightness or splendor of his glory, the exact image of
his person;” which follows the declaration of his making the worlds by
him (Heb. i. 3, 4), to show, that he acted not as an instrument, but
one in essential conjunction with him, as light and brightness with
the sun. But suppose he did make the world as a kind of instrument,
he was then before the world, not bounded by time; and eternity cannot
well be conceived belonging to a Being without omnipotency. He is the
End, as well as the Author, of the creatures (Col. i. 16); not only
the principle which gave them being, but the sea, into whose glory they
run and dissolve themselves, which consists not with the meanness of an
instrument.
2d. As creation, so preservation, is ascribed to Him (Col. i. 17). “By
him all things consist.” As he preceded all things in his eternity, so
he establishes all things by his omnipotency, and fixes them in their
several centres, that they sink not into that nothing from whence
he fetched them. By him they flourish in their several beings, and
observe the laws and orders he first appointed: that power of his which
extracted them from insensible nothing, upholds them in their several
beings with the same facility as he spake being into them, even “by the
word of his power” (Heb. i. 3), and by one creative continued voice,
called all generations, from the beginning to the period of the world
(Isa. xli. 4), and causes them to flourish in their several seasons.
It is “by him kings reign, and princes decree justice,” and all things
are confined within the limits of government. All which are acts of an
Infinite Power.
3d. Resurrection is also ascribed to Him. The body crumbled to
dust, and that dust blown to several quarters of the world, cannot be
gathered in its distinct parts, and new formed for the entertainment
of the soul, without the strength of an infinite arm. This he will do,
and more; change the vileness of an earthly body into the glory of an
heavenly one; a dusty flesh into a spiritual body, which is an argument
of a power invincible, to which all things cannot but stoop; {b86} for
it is by such an operation, which testifies an ability “to subdue all
things to himself” (Phil. iii. 21), especially when he works it with
the same ease as he did the creation, by the power of his voice. (John
v. 28), “All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall
come forth:” speaking them into a restored life from insensible dust,
as he did into being from an empty nothing. The greatest acts of
power are owned to belong to creation, preservation, resurrection.
Omnipotence, therefore, is his right; and, therefore, a Deity cannot be
denied to him that inherits a perfection essential to none but God, and
impossible to be entrusted in, or managed by the hands of any creatures.
And this is no mean comfort to those that believe in him: he is, in
regard of his power, “the horn of salvation;” so Zacharias sings of him
(Luke i. 69). Nor could there be any more mighty found out upon whom
God could have “laid our help” (Ps. lxxxix. 19). No reason, therefore,
to doubt his ability to save to the utmost, who hath the power of
creation, preservation, and resurrection in his hands. His promises
must be accomplished, since nothing can resist him: he hath power to
fulfil his word, and bring all things to a final issue, because he is
Almighty: by his outstretched arm in the deliverance of his Israel from
Egypt, (for it was his arm, 1 Cor. x.) he showed that he was able to
deliver us from spiritual Egypt. The charge of Mediator to expiate
sin, vanquish hell, form a church, conduct and perfect it, are not
to be effected by a person of less ability than infinite. Let this
almightiness of His be the bottom, wherein to cast and fix the anchor
of our hopes.
_Instruct. 2._ Hence may be inferred the Deity of the Holy Ghost.
Works of omnipotency are ascribed to the Spirit of God: by the motion
of the wings of this Spirit, as a bird over her eggs, was that rude and
unshapen mass hatched into a comely world.[879] The stars,――or perhaps
the angels, are meant by the “garnishing of the heavens” in the verse
before the text,――were brought forth in their comeliness and dignity,
as the ornaments of the upper world, by this Spirit; “By his Spirit he
hath garnished the heavens.” To this Spirit Job ascribes the formation
both of the body and soul, under the title of Almighty (Job xxxiii. 4),
“The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty
hath given me life.” Resurrection, another work of omnipotency, is
attributed to him (Rom. viii. 11). The conception of our Saviour in
the womb; the miracles that he wrought, were by the power of the Spirit
in him. Power is a title belonging to him, and sometimes both are put
together (1 Thess. i. 5, and other places). And that great power of
changing the heart, and sanctifying a polluted nature, a work greater
than creation, is frequently acknowledged in the Scripture to be
the peculiar act of the Holy Ghost. The Father, Son, Spirit, are one
principle in creation, resurrection, and all the works of omnipotence.
_Instruct. 3._ Inference from the doctrine. The blessedness of God
is hence evidenced. If God be Almighty, he can want nothing; all want
speaks weakness. If he doth what he will, he cannot be miserable;
all misery consists in those things which happen contrary to our
will. There is nothing can hinder his happiness, because nothing {b87}
can resist his power. Since he is omnipotent, nothing can hurt him,
nothing can strip him of what he hath, of what he is.[880] If he can
do whatsoever he will, he cannot want anything that he wills. He is as
happy, as great, as glorious, as he will; for he hath a perfect liberty
of will to will, and a perfect power to attain what he will; his will
cannot be restrained, nor his power meted. It would be a defect in
blessedness, to will what he were not able to do: sorrow is the result
of a want of power, with a presence of will. If he could will anything
which he could not effect, he would be miserable, and no longer God:
he can do whatsoever he pleases, and therefore can want nothing that
pleases him.[881] He cannot be happy, the original of whose happiness
is not in himself: nothing can be infinitely happy, that is limited and
bounded.