than in God. When in any distress we will try every creature refuge,
before we have recourse to God; and when we apply ourselves to him,
we do it with such slight and perfunctory frames, and with so much
despondency, as if we despaired either of his ability or will to help
us; and implore him with cooler affections than we solicit creatures:
or, when in a disease we depend upon the virtue of the medicine, the
ability of the physician, and reflect not upon that power that endued
the medicine with that virtue, and supports the quality in it, and
concurs to the operation of it. When we depend upon the activity of
the means, as if they had power originally in themselves, and not
derivatively; and do not eye the power of God animating and assisting
them. We cannot expect relief from anything with a neglect of God, but
we render it in our thoughts more powerful than God: we acknowledge
a greater fulness in a shallow stream, than in an eternal spring; we
do, in effect, depose the true God, and create to ourselves a new one;
we assert, by such a kind of acting, the creature, if not superior,
yet equal with God, and independent on him. When we trust in our own
strength, without begging his assistance; or boast of our own strength,
without acknowledging his concurrence, as the Assyrian; “By the
strength of my hand have I done this; I have put down the inhabitants
like a valiant man” (Isa. x. 13). It is, as if the axe should boast
itself against him that hews therewith, and thinks itself more mighty
than the arm that wields it (ver. 15), when we trust in others more
than in God. Thus God upbraids those by the prophet, that sought help
from Egypt, telling them (Isa. xxxi. 3), “The Egyptians were men, and
not gods;” intimating, that by their dependence on them, they rendered
them gods and not men, and advanced them from the state of creatures
to that of almighty {b95} deities. It is to set a pile of dust, a heap
of ashes, above Him that created and preserves the world. To trust
in a creature, is to make it as infinite as God; to do that which is
impossible in itself to be done. God himself cannot make a creature
infinite, for that were to make him God. It is also contemned when we
ascribe what we receive to the power of instruments, and not to the
power of God. Men, in whatsoever they do for us, are but the tools
whereby the Creator works. Is it not a disgrace to the limner to admire
his pencil, and not himself; to the artificer, to admire his file and
engines, and not his power? “It is not I,” saith Paul, “that labor, but
the grace, the efficacious grace of God, which is in me.” Whatsoever
good we do is from him, not from ourselves; to ascribe it to ourselves,
or to instruments, is to overlook and contemn his power.
5. Unbelief of the gospel is a contempt and disowning Divine power.
This perfection hath been discovered in the conception of Christ,
the union of the two natures, his resurrection from the grave, the
restoration of the world, and the conversion of men, more than in the
creation of the world: then what a disgrace is unbelief to all that
power that so severely punished the Jews for the rejecting the gospel:
turned so many nations from their beloved superstitions; humbled the
power of princes and the wisdom of philosophers; chased devils from
their temples by the weakness of fishermen; planted the standard of
the gospel against the common notions and inveterate customs of the
world! What a disgrace is unbelief to this power which hath preserved
Christianity from being extinguished by the force of men and devils,
and kept it flourishing in the midst of sword, fire, and executioners;
that hath made the simplicity of the gospel overpower the eloquence
of orators, and multiplied it from the ashes of martyrs, when it was
destitute of all human assistances! Not heartily to believe and embrace
that doctrine, which hath been attended with such marks of power, is
a high reflection upon this Divine perfection, so highly manifested in
the first publication, propagation, and preservation of it.
Secondly, The power of God is abused, as well as contemned.
1. When we make use of it to justify contradictions. The doctrine of
transubstantiation is an abuse of this power. When the maintainers of
it cannot answer the absurdities alleged against it, they have recourse
to the power of God. It implies a contradiction, that the same body
should be on earth and in heaven at the same instant of time; that it
should be at the right hand of God, and in the mouth and stomach of a
man; that it should be a body of flesh, and yet bread to the eye and
to the taste; that it should be visible and invisible, a glorious body,
and yet gnawn by the teeth of a creature; that it should be multiplied
in a thousand places, and yet an entire body in every one, where there
is no member to be seen, no flesh to be tasted; that it should be above
us in the highest heavens, and yet within us in our lower bowels; such
contradictions as these are an abuse of the power of God. Again, we
abuse this power when we believe every idle story that is reported,
because God is able to make it so if he pleased. We may as well believe
Æsop’s Fables to be true, that birds spake, and beasts reasoned,
because the power of {b96} God can enable such creatures to such
acts. God’s power is not the rule of our belief of a thing without
the exercise of it in matter of fact, and the declaration of it upon
sufficient evidence.
2. The power of God is abused by presuming on it, without using
the means he hath appointed. When men sit with folded arms, and make
a confidence in his power a glorious title to their idleness and
disobedience, they would have his strength do all, and his precept
should move them to do nothing; this is a trust of his power against
his command, a pretended glorifying his power with a slight of his
sovereignty. Though God be almighty, yet, for the most part, he
exerciseth his might in giving life and success to second causes and
lawful endeavors. When we stay in the mouth of danger, without any call
ordering us to continue, and against a door of providence opened for
our rescue, and sanctuary ourselves in the power of God without any
promise, without any providence conducting us; this is not to glorify
the Divine might, but to neglect it, in neglecting the means which his
power affords to us for our escape; to condemn it to our humors, to
work miracles for us according to our wills, and against his own.[884]
God could have sent a worm to be Herod’s executioner when he sought the
life of our Saviour, or employed an angel from heaven to have tied his
hands or stopped his breath, and not put Joseph upon a flight to Egypt
with our Saviour; yet had it not been an abuse of the power of God,
for Joseph to have neglected the precept, and slighted the means God
gave him for the preserving his own life and that of the child’s?
Christ himself, when the Jews consulted to destroy him, presumed not
upon the power of God to secure him, but used ordinary means for his
preservation, by walking no more openly, but retiring himself into a
city near the wilderness till the hour was come, and the call of his
Father manifest (John xi. 53, 54). A rash running upon danger, though
for the truth itself, is a presuming upon, and consequently an abuse
of, this power; a proud challenging it to serve our turns against the
authority of his will, and the force of his precept; a not resting in
his ordinate power, but demanding his absolute power to pleasure our
follies and presumptions; concluding and expecting more from it than
what is authorized by his will.
_Instruct. 9._ If infinite power be a peculiar property of God, how
miserable will all wicked rebels be under this power of God! Men may
break his laws, but not impair his arm; they may slight his word, but
cannot resist his power. If he swear that he will sweep a place with
the besom of destruction, “as he hath thought, so shall it come to pass;
and as he hath purposed, so shall it stand,” (Isa. xiv. 23, 24). Rebels
against an earthly prince may exceed him in strength, and be more
powerful than their sovereign; none can equal God, much less exceed
him. As none can exercise an act of hostility against him without his
permissive will, so none can struggle from under his hand without his
positive will. He hath an arm not to be moved, a hand not to be wrung
aside. God is represented on his throne like a “jasper stone” (Rev. iv.
3), as one of invincible power when he comes to judge; the jasper is a
stone which withstands the {b97} greatest force.[885] Though men resist
the order of his laws, they cannot the sentence of their punishment,
nor the execution of it. None can any more exempt themselves from the
arm of his strength, than they can from the authority of his dominion.
As they must bow to his sovereignty, so must they sink under his force.
A prisoner in this world may make his escape, but a prisoner in the
world to come cannot (Job x. 7). “There is none that can deliver out of
thine hand.” “There is none to deliver when he tears in pieces” (Ps. l.
22). His strength is uncontrollable; hence his throne is represented as
a “fiery flame” (Dan. vii. 9). As a spark of fire hath power to kindle
one thing after another, and increase till it consumes a forest, a city,
swallow up all combustible matter till it consumes a world, and many
worlds, if they were in being, what power hath the tree to resist the
fire, though it seems mighty, when it outbraves the winds? What man,
to this day, hath been able to free himself from that chain of death
God clapped upon him for his revolt? And if he be too feeble to rescue
himself from a temporal, much less from an eternal death. The devils
have, to this minute, groaned under the pile of wrath, without any
success in delivering themselves by all their strength, which much
surmounts all the strength of mankind, nor have they any hopes to work
their rescue to eternity. How foolish is every sinner! Can we poor
worms strut it out against Infinite Power? We cannot resist the meanest
creatures when God commissions them, and puts a sword into their hands.
They will not, no, not the worms, be startled at the glory of a king,
when they have the Creator’s warrant to be his executioners (Acts xii.
23). Who can withstand him, when he commands the waves and inundations
of the sea to leap over the shore; when he divides the ground in
earthquakes, and makes it gape wide to swallow the inhabitants of it;
when the air is corrupted to breed pestilences; when storms and showers,
unseasonably falling, putrify the fruits of the earth; what created
power can mend the matter, and, with a prevailing voice, say to him,
What dost thou? There are two attributes God will make glister in
hell to the full; his wrath and his power (Rom. ix. 22): “What if God,
willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with
much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction?” If
it were mere wrath, and no power to second it, it were not so terrible;
but it is wrath and power: both are joined together. It is not only a
sharp sword, but a powerful arm; and not only that, for then it were
well for the damned creature. To have many sharp blows, and from a
strong arm, this may be without putting forth the highest strength a
man hath; but in this God makes it his design to make his power known
and conspicuous; he takes the sword, as it were, in both hands, that
he may show the strength of his arm in striking the harder blow; and
therefore the apostle calls it (2 Thess. i. 9) “the glory of his power,”
which puts a sting into his wrath; and it is called (Rev. xix. 15)
“the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty.” God will do it in
such a manner as to make men sensible of his almightiness in every
stroke. {b98} How great must that vengeance be, that is backed by all
the strength of God! When there will be a powerful wrath, without a
powerful compassion; when all his power shall be exercised in punishing,
and not the least mite of it exercised in pitying; how irresistible
will be the load of such a weighty hand! How can the dust of the
balance break the mighty bars, or get out of the lists of a powerful
vengeance, or hope for any grain of comfort? O, that every obstinate
sinner would think of this, and consider his unmeasurable boldness
in thinking himself able to grapple with Omnipotence! What force can
any have to resist the presence of Him, before whom rocks melt, and
the heavens, at length, shall be shrivelled up as a parchment by the
last fire! As the light of God’s face is too dazzling to be beheld
by us, so the arm of his power is too mighty to be opposed by us.
His almightiness is above the reach of our potsherd strength, as his
infiniteness is above the capacity of our purblind understanding. God
were not omnipotent, if his power could be rendered ineffectual by any.
_Use II._ A second use of this point, from the consideration of the
infinite power of God, is of comfort. As Omnipotence is an ocean that
cannot be fathomed, so the comforts from it are streams that cannot
be exhausted. What joy can be wanting to him that finds himself folded
in the arms of Omnipotence? This perfection is made over to believers
in the covenant, as well as any other attribute; “I am the Lord, your
God;” therefore, that power, which is as essential to the Godhead as
any other perfection of his nature, is, in the rights and extent of it,
assured unto you. Nay, may we not say, it is made over more than any
other, because it is that which animates every other perfection; and is
the Spirit that gives them motion and appearance in the world. If God
had expressed himself in particular, as, “I am a true God, a wise God,
a loving God, a righteous God, I am yours;” what would all, or any
of those, have signified, unless the other also had been implied, as,
“I am an almighty God, I am your God?” In God’s making over himself
in any particular attribute, this of his power is included in every
one, without which, all his other grants would be insignificant. It
is a comfort that power is in the hands of God; it can never be better
placed, for he can never use his power to injure his confiding creature;
if it were in our own hands, we might use it to injure ourselves. It is
a power in the hands of an indulgent Father, not a hard‑hearted tyrant;
it is a just power; “His right hand is full of righteousness” (Ps.
xlviii. 10); because of his righteousness he can never use it ill, and
because of his wisdom he can never use it unseasonably. Men that have
strength, often misplace the actings of it, because of their folly;
and sometimes employ it to base ends, because of their wickedness;
but this power in God is always awakened by goodness, and conducted by
wisdom; it is never exercised by self‑will and passion, but according
to the immutable rule of his own nature, which is righteousness. How
comfortable is it to think, that you have a God that can do what he
pleases; nothing so difficult but he can effect, nothing so strong but
he can overrule! You need not dread men, since you have One to restrain
them; nor fear devils, {b99} since you have One to chain them; no
creature but is acted by this power; no creature but must fall upon the
withdrawing of this power. It was not all laid out in creation; it is
not weakened by his preservation of things; he yet hath a fullness of
power, and a residue of Spirit; for whom should that eternal arm of the
Lord be displayed, and that incomprehensible thunder of his power be
shot out, but for those for whose sake and for whose comfort it is
revealed in his word? In particular,
1. Here is comfort in all afflictions and distresses. Our evils can
never be so great to oppress us, as his power is great to deliver us.
The same power that brought a world out of a chaos, and constituted,
and hath hitherto preserved, the regular motion of the stars, can bring
order out of our confusions, and light out of our darkness. When our
Saviour was in the greatest distress, and beheld the face of his Father
frowning, while he was upon the cross, in his complaint to him, he
exerciseth faith upon his power (Matt. xxvii. 46): “Eli, Eli: My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” that this, My strong, my strong; El,
is a name of power, belonging to God; he comforts himself in his power,
while he complains of his frowns. Follow his pattern, and forget not
that power that can scatter the clouds, as well as gather them together.
The Psalmist’s support in his distress, was in the creative power of
God (Ps. cxxi. 2): “My help comes from the Lord, which made heaven and
earth.”
2. It is comfort in all strong and stirring corruptions and
mighty temptations. It is by this we may arm ourselves, and “be strong
in the power of his might” (Eph. vi. 10); by this we may conquer
principalities and powers, as dreadful as hell, but not so mighty as
heaven; by this we may triumph over lusts within, too strong for an
arm of flesh; by this the devils that have possessed us may be cast
out; the battered walls of our souls may be repaired; and the sons
of Anak laid flat. That power that brought light out of darkness, and
over‑mastered the deformity of the chaos, and set bounds to the ocean,
and dried up the Red Sea by a rebuke, can quell the tumults in our
spirits, and level spiritual Goliahs by his word. When the disciples
heard that terrifying speech of our Saviour, concerning rich men, that
it was “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Matt. xix. 24), to
entertain the gospel, which commanded self‑denial; and that, because
of the allurements of the world, and the strong habits in their soul;
Christ refers them to the power of God (ver. 26), who could expel those
ill habits, and plant good ones: “With men this is impossible, but
with God all things are possible.” There is no resistance, but he can
surmount; no strong‑hold, but he can demolish; no tower, but he can
level.
3. It is comfort from hence, that all promises shall be performed.
Goodness is sufficient to make a promise, but power is necessary to
perform a promise. Men that are honest, cannot often make good their
words, because something may intervene that may shorten their ability:
but nothing can disable God, without diminishing his godhead. He
hath an infiniteness of power to accomplish his word, as well as an
infiniteness of goodness to make and utter his word. {b100} That might
whereby he made heaven and earth, and his keeping truth forever, are
joined together (Ps. cxlvi. 5, 6); his Father’s faithfulness, and
his creative power are linked together. It is upon this basis the
covenant, and every part of it, is established, and stands as firm as
the almightiness of God, whereby he sprung up the earth, and reared
the heavens. “No power can resist his will” (Rom. ix. 19); “Who can
disannul his purpose, and turn back his hand when it is stretched out”
(Isa. xiv. 27)? His word is unalterable, and his power is invincible.
He could not deceive himself, for he knew his own strength when he
promised: no unexpected event can change his resolution, because
nothing can happen without the compass of his foresight. No created
strength can stop him in his action, because all creatures are ready
to serve him at his command; not the devils in hell, nor all the wicked
men on earth, since he hath strength to restrain them, and an arm
to punish them. What can be too hard for Him that created heaven and
earth? Hence it was, that when God promised anything anciently to his
people, he used often the name of the Almighty, the Lord that created
heaven and earth, as that which was an undeniable answer to any
objection, against anything that might be made against the greatness
and stupendousness of any promise; by that name, in all his works of
grace, was he known to them (Exod. vi. 3). When we are sure of his
will, we need not question his strength, since he never over‑engaged
himself above his ability. He that could not be resisted by anything in
creation, nor vanquished by devils in redemption, can never want power
to glorify his faithfulness in his accomplishment of whatsoever he hath
promised.
4. From this infiniteness of power in God, we have ground of
assurance for perseverance. Since conversion is resembled to the works
of creation and resurrection, two great marks of his strength, he doth
not surely employ himself in the first of changing the heart, to let
any created strength baffle that power which he began and intends to
glorify. It was this might that struck off the chain, and expelled
that strong one that possessed you. What, if you are too weak to keep
him out of his lost possession, will God lose the glory of his first
strength, by suffering his foiled adversary to make a re‑entry, and
regain his former usurpation? His out‑stretched arm will not do less
by his spiritual, than it did by his national Israel: it guarded them
all the way to Canaan, and left them not to shift for themselves after
he had struck off the fetters of Egypt, and buried their enemies in
the Red Sea (Deut. i. 31). This greatness of the Father, above all,
our Saviour makes the ground of believers’ continuance forever, against
the blasts of hell and engines of the world (John x. 29). “My Father
is greater than all, and none is able to pluck them out of my Father’s
hands.” Our keeping is not in our own weak hands, but in the hands of
Him who is mighty to save. That power of God keeps us which intends
our salvation. In all fears of falling away, shelter yourselves in
the power of God: “He shall be holden up,” saith the apostle, speaking
concerning one weak in faith; and no other reason is rendered by him
but this, “For God is able to make him to stand” (Rom. xiv. 4).
{b101} 5. From this attribute of the infinite power of God, we have
a ground of comfort in the lowest estate of the church. Let the state
of the church be never so deplorable, the condition never so desperate,
that Power that created the world, and shall raise the bodies of
men, can create a happy state for the church, and raise her from an
overwhelming grave; though the enemies trample upon her, they cannot
upon the arm that holds her, which by the least motion of it, can
lift her up above the heads of her adversaries, and make them feel the
thunder of that Power that none can understand: by the “blast of God
they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils they are consumed” (Job
iv. 9); they “shall be scattered as chaff before the wind.” If once
he “draw his hand out of his bosom,” all must fly before him, or sink
under him (Ps. lxxiv. 11): and when there is “none to help, his own arm
sustains him, and brings salvation, and his fury doth uphold him” (Isa.
lxiii. 5). What if the church totter under the underminings of hell?
What if it hath a sad heart and wet eyes? In what a little moment can
he make the night turn into day, and make the Jews, that were preparing
for death in Shushan, triumph over the necks of their enemies, and
march in one hour with swords in their hands, that expected the last
hour “ropes about their necks” (Esth. ix. 1, 5)? If Israel be pursued
by Pharaoh, the sea shall open its arms to protect them: if they
be thirsty, a rock shall spout out water to refresh them: if they
be hungry, heaven shall be their granary for manna: if Jerusalem be
besieged, and hath not force enough to encounter Sennacherib, an angel
shall turn the camp into an Aceldema, a field of blood. His people
shall not want deliverances, till God want a power of working miracles
for their security: he is more jealous of his power, than the church
can be of her safety. And if we should want other arguments to press
him, we may implore him by virtue of his power: for when there is
nothing in the church as a motive to him to save it, there is enough
in his own name, and “the illustration of his power” (Ps. cvi. 8). Who
can grapple with the omnipotency of that God, who is jealous of, and
zealous for, the honor of it? And therefore God, for the most part,
takes such opportunities to deliver, wherein his almightiness may be
most conspicuous, and his counsels most admirable. He awakened not
himself to deliver Israel, till they were upon the brink of the Red Sea;
nor to rescue the three children, till they were in the fiery furnace;
nor Daniel, till he was in the lion’s den. It is in the weakness of his
creature that his strength is perfected, not in a way of addition of
perfectness to it, but in a way of manifestation of the perfection of
it; as it is the perfection of the sun to shine and enlighten the world,
not that the sun receives an increase of light by the darting of his
beams, but discovers his glory to the admiration of men, and pleasure
of the world. If it were not for such occasions, the world would not
regard the mightiness of God, nor know what power were in him. It
traverses the stage in its fulness and liveliness upon such occasions,
when the enemies are strong, and their strength edged with an intense
hatred, and but little time between the contrivance and execution. It
is a great comfort that the lowest distresses of the church are a fit
scene for the discovery of this attribute, and that the {b102} glory
of God’s omnipotence, and the church’s security, are so straitly linked
together. It is a promise that will never be forgotten by God, and
ought never to be forgotten by us, that “in this mountain the hand of
the Lord shall rest” (Isa. xxv. 10); that is, the power of the Lord
shall abide; and Moab “shall be trodden under him, even as straw is
trodden down for the dunghill.” And the “plagues of Babylon shall come
in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; for strong is the Lord
who judgeth her” (Rev. xviii. 8).
_Use III._ The third use is for exhortation.