We conclude many things of God that we do not practically suck the
comfort of, for want of deep thoughts of it, and frequent inspection
into it. We believe God to be true, yet distrust him; we acknowledge
him powerful, yet fear the motion of every straw. Many truths, though
assented to in our understandings, are kept under hatches by corrupt
affections, and have not their due influence, because they are not
brought forth into the open air of our souls by meditation. If we
will but search our hearts, we shall find it is the power of God we
often doubt of. When the heart of Ahaz and his subjects trembled at
the combination of the Syrian and Israelitish kings against him, for
want of a confidence in the power of God, God sends his prophet with
commission to work a miraculous sign at his own choice, to rear up his
fainting heart; and when he refused to ask a sign out of diffidence
of that almighty Power, the prophet complains of it as an affront to
his Master (Isa. vii. 12, 13). Moses, so great a friend of God, was
overtaken with this kind of unbelief, after all the experiments of
God’s miraculous acts in Egypt; the answer God gives him manifests this
to be at the core: “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short” (Numb. xi. 23)? For
want of actuated thoughts of this, we are many times turned from our
known duty by the blast of a creature; as though man had more power to
dismay us, than God hath to support us in his commanded way. The belief
of God’s power is one of the first steps to all religion; without
settled thoughts of it, we cannot pray lively and believingly for the
obtaining the mercies we want, or the averting the evils we fear; we
should not love him, unless we are persuaded he hath a power to bless
us; nor fear him, unless we were persuaded of his power to punish
us. The frequent thoughts of this would render our faith more stable,
and our hopes more stedfast; it would make us more feeble to sin,
and more careful to obey. When the virgin staggered at the message of
the angel, that she should “bear a Son,” he, in his answer, turns her
to the creative power of God (Luke i. 35), “The power of the Highest
shall overshadow thee;” which seems to be in allusion to the Spirit’s
moving upon the face of the deep, and bringing a comely world out of
a confused mass. Is it harder for God to make a virgin conceive a Son
by the power of his Spirit, than to make a world? Why doth he reveal
himself so often under the title of Almighty, and press it upon us,
but that we should press it upon ourselves? And shall we be forgetful
of that which everything about us, everything within us, is a mark of?
How come we by a power of seeing and hearing, a faculty, and act of
understanding {b103} and will, but by this power framing us, this power
assisting us? What though the thunder of his power cannot be understood,
no more can any other perfection of his nature; shall we, therefore,
seldom think of it? The sea cannot be fathomed, yet the merchant
excuseth not himself from sailing upon the surface of it. We cannot
glorify God without due consideration of this attribute; for his power
is his glory as much as any other, and called both by the name of glory
(Rom. vi. 4), speaking of Christ’s resurrection by the glory of the
Father; and also “the riches of his glory” (Eph. iii. 16). Those that
have strong temptations in their course and over‑pressing corruptions
in their hearts, have need to think of it out of interest, since
nothing but this can relieve them. Those that have experimented the
working of it in their new creation, are obliged to think of it out of
gratitude. It was this mighty power over himself that gave rise to all
that pardoning grace already conferred, or hereafter expected; without
it our souls had been consumed, the world overturned; we could not
have expected a happy heaven, but have lain yelling in an eternal hell,
had not the power of his mercy exceeded that of his justice, and his
infinite power executed what his infinite wisdom had contrived for our
redemption. How much also should we be raised in our admirations of
God, and ravish ourselves in contemplating that might that can raise
innumerable worlds in those infinite imaginary spaces without this
globe of heaven and earth, and exceed inconceivably what he hath done
in the creation of this?
2. From the pressing the consideration of this upon ourselves, let us
be induced to trust God upon the account of his power. The main end of
the revelation of his power to the patriarchs, and of the miraculous
operations of it in Egypt, was to induce them to an entire reposing
themselves in God: and the Psalmist doth scarce speak of the Divine
Omnipotence without making this inference from it; and scarce exhorts
to a trust in God, but backs it with a consideration of his power in
creation, it being the chief support of the soul (Ps. cxlvi. 1): “Happy
is he whose hope is in the Lord his God, which made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that therein is.” That Power is invincible that drew
the world out of nothing: nothing can happen to us harder than the
making the world without the concurrence of instruments: no difficulty
can nonplus that strength, that hath drawn all things out of nothing,
or out of a confused matter next to nothing: no power can rifle what we
commit to him (2 Tim. i. 12). He is all power, above the reach of all
power; all other powers in the world flowing from him, or depending on
him, he is worthy to be trusted, since we know him true, without ever
breaking his word; and Omnipotent, never failing of his purpose; and
a confidence in it is the chief act whereby we can glorify this power,
and credit his arm. A strong God, and a weak faith in omnipotence,
do not suit well together. Indeed, we are more engaged to a trust in
Divine power than the ancient patriarchs were; they had the verbal
declaration of his power, and many of them little other evidence of
it, than in the creation of the world; and their faith in God being
established in this first discovery of his omnipotence, drew out
itself further to believe, that whatsoever God promised by his word, he
{b104} was able to perform, as well as the creation of the world out of
nothing; which seems to be the intendment of the apostle (Heb. xi. 3);
not barely to speak of the creation of the world by God, which was a
thing the Hebrews understood well enough from their ancient oracles;
but to show the foundation of the patriarch’s faith, _viz._ God making
the world by his Word, and what use they made of the discovery of his
power in that, to lead them to believe the promise of God concerning
the Seed of the woman to be brought into the world. But we have
not only the same foundation, but superadded demonstrations of this
attribute in the conception of our Saviour, the union of the two
natures, the glorious redemption, the propagation of the gospel, and
the new creation of the world. They relied upon the naked power of God,
without those more illustrious appearances of it, which have been in
the ages since, and arrived to their notice; we have the wonderful
effects of that which they had but obscure expectations of.
(1.) Consider, trust in God can never be without taking in God’s power
as a concurrent foundation with his truth. It is the main ground of
trust, and so set forth in the prophet (Isa. xxvi. 4); “Trust ye in the
Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” And
the faith of the ancients so recommended (Heb. xi.), had this chiefly
for its ground; and the faith in gospel times is called a “trusting
on his arm” (Isa. li. 5.) All the attributes of God are the objects
of our veneration, but they do not equally contribute to the producing
trust in our hearts; his eternity, simplicity, infiniteness, ravish
and astonish our minds when we consider them; but there is no immediate
tendency in their nature to allure us to a confidence in him, no, not
in an innocent state, much less in a lapsed and revolted condition: but
the other perfections of his nature, as his holiness, righteousness,
mercy, are amiable to us in regard of the immediate operations of them
upon and about the creature, and so have something in their own nature
to allure us to repose ourselves in him; but yet those cannot engage
to an entire trust in him without reflecting upon his ability, which
can only render those useful and successful to the creature.[886] For
whatsoever bars stand in the way of his holy, righteous, and merciful
proceedings towards his creatures, are not overmastered by those
perfections, but by that strength of his which can only relieve us
in concurrence with the other attributes. How could his mercy succor
us without his arm, or his wisdom guide us without his hand, or his
truth perform promises to us without his strength? As no attribute
can act without it, so in our addresses to him upon the account of
any particular perfection in the Godhead according to our indigency,
our eye must be perpetually fixed upon this of his power, and our
faith would be feeble and dispirited without eyeing this: without this,
his holiness, which hates sin, would not be regarded; and his mercy,
pitying a grieving sinner, would not be valued. As this power is the
ground of a wicked man’s fear, so it is the ground of a good man’s
trust. This was that which was the principal support of Abraham, not
barely his promise, but his ability to make it good (Rom. iv. 21);
{b105} and when he was commanded to sacrifice Isaac, the ability of
God to raise him up again (Heb. xi. 19). All faith would droop, and be
in the mire, without leaning upon this; all those attributes which we
consider as moral in God, would have no influence upon us without this,
which we consider physically in God. Though we value the kindness men
may express to us in our distresses, yet we make them not the objects
of our confidence, unless they have an ability to act what they express.
There can be no trust in God without an eye to his power.
(2.) Sometimes the power of God is the sole object of trust. As when
we have no promise to assure us of his will, we have nothing else to
pitch upon but his ability; and that not his absolute power, but his
ordinate, in the way of his providence; we must not trust in it so
as to expect he should please our humor with fresh miracles, but rest
upon his power, and leave the manner to his will. Asa, when ready to
conflict with the vast Ethiopian army, pleaded nothing else but this
power of God (2 Chron. xiv. 11). And the three children, who had no
particular promise of deliverance (that we read of) stuck to God’s
ability to preserve them against the king’s threatening, and owned
it in the face of the king, yet with some kind of inward intimations
in their own spirits, that he would also deliver them (Dan. iii. 17).
“Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery
furnace.” And accordingly the fire burnt the cords that tied them,
without singeing any thing else about them. But when this power
hath been exercised upon like occasions, it is a precedent he hath
given us to rest upon. Precedents in law are good pleas, and strong
encouragements to the client to expect success in his suit. “Our
fathers trusted in thee, and thou didst deliver them,” saith David (Ps.
xxii. 4). And Jehoshaphat, in a case of distress (2 Chron. xx. 7), “Art
not thou our God, that didst drive out the inhabitants of this land
before thy people Israel?” When we have not any statute law and promise
to plead, we may plead his power, together with the former precedents
and act of it. The centurion had nothing else to act his faith upon but
the power of Christ, and some evidences of it in the miracles reported
of him; but he is silent in the latter, and casts himself only upon the
former, acknowledging that Christ had the same command over diseases,
as himself had over his soldiers (Matt. viii. 10). And our Saviour,
when he receives the petition of the blind men, requires no more of
them in order to a cure, but a belief of his ability to perform it
(Matt. ix. 28). “Believe you that I am able to do this?” His will is
not known but by revelation, but his power is apprehended by reason,
as essentially and eternally linked with the notion of a God. God also
is jealous of the honor of this attribute; and since it is so much
virtually discredited, he is pleased when any do cordially own it, and
entirely resign themselves to the assistance of it. Well, then, in all
duties where faith is particularly to be acted, forget not this as the
main prop of it: do you pray for a flourishing and triumphing grace?
Consider him “as able to make all grace to abound in you” (2 Cor. ix.
8). Do you want comfort and reviving under your contritions and godly
sorrow? Consider him, as he declares himself, {b106} “the high and
lofty One” (Isa. lvii. 15). Are you under pressing distresses? take
Eliphaz’s advice to Job, when he tells him what he himself would do if
he were in his case (Job v. 8), “I would seek unto God, and unto God
would I commit my cause:” but observe under what consideration (ver. 9)
as to one “that doth great things, and unsearchable; marvellous things
without number.” When you beg of him the melting your rocky hearts, the
dashing in pieces your strong corruptions, the drawing his beautiful
image in your soul, the quickening your dead hearts, and reviving your
drooping spirits, and supplying your spiritual wants, consider him as
one “able to do abundantly,” not only “above what you can ask,” but
“above what you can think” (Eph. iii. 20). Faith will be spiritless,
and prayer will be lifeless, if power be not eyed by us in those things
which cannot be done without an arm of Omnipotence.
3. This doctrine teacheth us humility and submission. The vast
disproportion between the mightiness of God, and the meanness of
a creature, inculcates the lesson of humility in his presence. How
becoming is humility under a mighty hand (1 Pet. v. 6)! What is an
infant in a giant’s hand, or a lamb in a lion’s paw? Submission to
irresistible power is the best policy, and the best security; this
gratifies and draws out goodness, whereas murmuring and resistance
exasperates and sharpens power. We sanctify his name, and glorify his
strength, by falling down before it; it is an acknowledgment of his
invisible strength, and our inability to match it. How low should we
therefore lie before him, against whose power our pride and murmuring
can do no good, who can out‑wrestle us in our contests, and alway
overcome when he judges (Rom. iii. 4)!
4. This doctrine teacheth us not to fear the pride and force of man.
How unreasonable is it to fear a limited, above an unbounded power!
How unbecoming is the fear of man in him, who hath an interest in a
strength able to curb the strongest devils! Who would tremble at the
threats of a dwarf, that hath a mighty and watchful giant for his
guard? If God doth but arise, his enemies are scattered (Ps. lxviii.
1): the least motion makes them fly before him: it is no difficult
thing for Him, that made them by a word, to unmake their designs, and
shiver them in pieces by the breath of his mouth: “He brings princes to
nothing, and makes the judges of the earth vanity; they wither when he
blows upon them, and their stock shall not take root in the earth. He
can command a whirlwind to take them away as stubble” (Isa. xl. 23, 24);
yea, with the “shaking of his hand he makes servants to become rulers
of those that were their masters” (Zech. ii. 9). Whole nations are no
more in his hands than a “morning cloud,” or the “dew upon the ground,”
or “the chaff before the wind,” or the smoke against the motion of the
air, which, though it appear out of a chimney like a black invincible
cloud, is quickly dispersed, and becomes invisible (Hos. xiii. 3). How
inconsiderable are the most mighty to this strength, which can puff
away a whole world of proud grasshoppers, and a whole sky of daring
clouds! He that by his word masters the rage of the sea, can overrule
the pride and power of men. Where is the fury of the oppressor? It
cannot overleap the bounds he hath set it, nor march an inch {b107}
beyond the point he hath prescribed it. Fear not the confederacies of
man, but “sanctify the Lord of hosts; let him be your fear, and let him
be your dread” (Isa. viii. 13). To fear men is to dishonor the name of
God, and regard him as a feeble Lord, and not as the Lord of hosts, who
is mighty in strength, so that they that harden themselves against him
shall not prosper.
5. Therefore this doctrine teacheth us the fear of God. The prophet
Jeremiah counts it as an impossible thing for men to be destitute of
the fear of God, when they seriously consider his name to be great and
mighty (Jer. x. 6, 7): “Thou art great, and thy name is great in might:
who would not fear thee, O thou King of nations?” Shall we not tremble
at his presence, who hath placed the “sand for the bound of the sea by
a perpetual decree;” that though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet
they cannot prevail (Jer. v. 22). He can arm the weakest creature for
our destruction, and disarm the strongest creatures which appear for
our preservation. He can command a hair, a crumb, a kernel, to go awry,
and strangle us. He can make the heavens brass over our head, stop
close the bottles of the clouds, and make the fruit of the fields droop,
when there is a small distance to the harvest; he can arm men’s wit,
wealth, hands, against themselves; he can turn our sweet morsels into
bitter, and our own consciences into devouring lions; he can root
up cities by moles, and conquer the proudest by lice and worms. The
omnipotence of God is not only the object of a believer’s trust, but
a believer’s fear. It is from the consideration of this power only,
that our Saviour presses his disciples, whom he entitles his friends,
to fear God; which lesson he presses by a double repetition, and with
a kind of asseveration, without rendering any other reason than this of
the ability of God to cast into hell (Luke xii. 5). We are to fear Him
because he can; but bless his goodness because he will not. In regard
of his omnipotence, he is to be reverenced, not only by mortal men,
but by the blessed angels, who are past the fear of any danger by his
power, being confirmed in a happy state by his unalterable grace: when
they adore him for his holiness, they reverence him for his power with
covered faces: the title of the “Lord of hosts” is joined in their
reverential praise with that of his holiness (Isa. vi. 3), “Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord of hosts.” How should we adore that Power which can
preserve us, when devils and men conspire to destroy us! How should
we stand in awe of that Power which can destroy us, though angels
and men should combine to preserve us! The parts of his ways which
are discovered, are sufficient motives to an humble and reverential
adoration: but who can fear and adore him according to the vastness of
his power, and his excellent greatness, since “the thunder of his power
who can understand?”
{b108} DISCOURSE XI.
ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.
EXODUS xv. 11.――Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?
Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises,
doing wonders?
THIS verse is one of the loftiest descriptions of the majesty and
excellency of God in the whole Scripture.[887] It is a part of Moses’
Ἐπινίκιον, or “triumphant song,” after a great and real, and a typical
victory; in the womb of which all the deliverances of the church were
couched. It is the first song upon holy record, and it consists of
gratulatory and prophetic matter; it casts a look backward to what God
did for them in their deliverance from Egypt; and a look forward to
what God shall do for the church in future ages. That deliverance was
but a rough draught of something more excellent to be wrought towards
the closing up of the world; when his plagues shall be poured out
upon the anti‑christian powers, which should revive the same song of
Moses in the church, as fitted so many ages before for such a scene
of affairs (Rev. xv. 2, 3). It is observed, therefore, that many words
in this song are put in the future tense, noting a time to come; and
the very first word, ver. 1, “Then sang Moses and the children of
Israel this song;” ישיר, shall sing; implying, that it was composed and
calculated for the celebrating some greater action of God’s, which was
to be wrought in the world.[888] Upon this account, some of the Jewish
rabbins, from the consideration of this remark, asserted the doctrine
of the resurrection to be meant in this place; that Moses and those
Israelites should rise again to sing the same song, for some greater
miracles God should work, and greater triumphs he should bring forth,
exceeding those wonders at their deliverance from Egypt.
It consists of, 1. A preface (ver. 1); “I will sing unto the
Lord.”[889] 2. An historical narration of matter of fact (ver. 3, 4),
“Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the Red Sea;” which
he solely ascribes to God (ver. 6), “Thy right hand, O Lord, is become
glorious in power: thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the
enemy;” which he doth prophetically, as respecting something to be done
in after‑times; or further for the completing of that deliverance; or,
as others think, respecting their entering into Canaan; for the words,
in these two verses, are put in the future tense. The manner of the
deliverance is described (ver. 8); “The floods stood upright {b109} as
an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.” In the
9th verse, he magnifies the victory from the vain glory and security
of the enemy; “The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will
divide the spoil,” &c. And ver. 16, 17, He prophetically describes
the fruit of this victory, in the influence it shall have upon those
nations, by whose confines they were to travel to the promised land;
“Fear and dread shall fall upon them; by the greatness of thy arm they
shall be as still as a stone, till thy people pass over which thou hast
purchased.” The phrase of this and the 17th and 18th verses, seems to
be more magnificent than to design only the bringing the Israelites
to the earthly Canaan; but seems to respect the gathering his redeemed
ones together, to place them in the spiritual sanctuary which he had
established, wherein the Lord should reign forever and ever, without
any enemies to disturb his royalty; “The Lord shall reign forever and
ever” (ver. 18). The prophet, in the midst of his historical narrative,
seems to be in an ecstasy, and breaks out in a stately exaltation of
God in the text.
_Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? &c._ Interrogations
are, in Scripture, the strongest affirmations or negations; it is
here a strong affirmation of the incomparableness of God, and a strong
denial of the worthiness of all creatures to be partners with him in
the degrees of his excellency; it is a preference of God before all
creatures in holiness, to which the purity of creatures is but a shadow
in desert of reverence and veneration, he being “fearful in praises.”
The angels cover their faces when they adore him in his particular
perfections.
_Amongst the gods._ Among the idols of the nations, say some;
others say,[890] it is not to be found that the Heathen idols are ever
dignified with the title of “strong or mighty,” as the word translated
gods, doth import; and therefore understand it of the angels, or other
potentates of the world; or rather inclusively, of all that are noted
for, or can lay claim to, the title of strength and might upon the
earth or in heaven. God is so great and majestic, that no creature can
share with him in his praise.