of his sovereignty. This is a contempt of his dominion, whereby he
hath a right to appoint what means and conditions he pleaseth, for the
enjoyment of his proffered and promised benefits. It is an enmity to
his sceptre not to accept of his terms after a long series of precepts
and invitations made for the restoring us to that happiness we had lost,
and providing all means necessary thereunto, nothing being wanting but
our own concurrence with it, and acceptance of it, by rendering that
easy homage he requires. By withholding from him the service he enjoins,
we deny that we hold anything of him; as he that pays not the quit rent,
though it be never so small, disowns the sovereignty of the lord of the
manor; it implies, that he is a miserable poor lord, having no right,
or destitute of any power, to dispose of anything in the world to our
advantage (Job xxii. 17): “They say unto God, Depart from us, what
can the Almighty do for them?” They will have no commerce with him
in a way of duty, because they imagine him to have no sovereign power
to do anything for them in way of benefit, as if his dominion were
an empty title, and as much destitute of any authority to command a
favor for them as any idol. They think themselves to have as absolute
a disposal of things, as God himself. What can he do for us? what
can he confer upon us, that we cannot invest ourselves in? as though
they were sovereigns in an equality with God. Thus men live “without
God in the world” (Eph. ii. 12), as if there were no Supreme Being
to pay a respect to, or none fit to receive any homage at their hands;
withholding from God the right of his time and the right of his service,
which is the just claim of his sovereignty.
[7.] Censuring others is a contempt of his sovereignty. When we
censure men’s persons or actions by a rash judgment; when we will be
judges of the good and evil of men’s actions, where the law of God is
utterly silent, we usurp God’s place, and invade his right; we claim a
superiority over the law, and judge God defective, as the Rector of the
world, in his prescriptions of good and evil. (James iv. 11, 12), “He
that speaks evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaks evil
of the law, and judgeth the law; there is one Lawgiver who is able
to save, and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?” Do you
know what you do in judging another? You take upon you the garb of a
sovereign, as if he were more your servant than God’s, and more under
your authority than the authority of God; it is a setting thyself in
God’s tribunal, and assuming his rightful power of judging; thy brother
is not to be governed by thy fancy, but by God’s law, and his own
conscience.
2. _Information._ Hence it follows, that God doth actually govern the
world. He hath not only a right to rule, but “he rules over all,” so
saith the text. He is “King of kings, and Lord of lords,”――what, {b442}
to let them do what they please, and all that their lusts prompt them
to? hath God an absolute dominion? Is it good, and is it wise? Is it
then a useless prerogative of the Divine nature? Shall so excellent
a power lie idle, as if God were a lifeless image? Shall we fancy God
like some lazy monarch, that solaceth himself in the gardens of his
palace, or steeps himself in some charming pleasures, and leaves his
lieutenants to govern the several provinces, which are all members of
his empire, according to their own humor? Not to exercise this dominion
is all one as not to have it; to what purpose is he invested with this
sovereignty, if he were careless of what were done in the world, and
regarded not the oppressions of men? God keeps no useless excellency by
him; he actually reigns over the heathen (Ps. xlvii. 8), and those as
bad, or worse than heathens. It had been a vanity in David to call upon
the heavens to be glad, and the earth to rejoice, under the rule of
a “sleepy Deity” (1 Chron. xvi. 31). No; his sceptre is full of eyes,
as it was painted by the Egyptians; he is always waking, and always
more than Ahasuerus, reading over the records of human actions. Not
to exercise his authority, is all one as not to regard whether he keep
the crown upon his head, or continue the sceptre in his hand. If his
sovereignty were exempt from care, it would be destitute of justice;
God is more righteous than to resign the ensigns of his authority to
blind and oppressive man; to think that God hath a power, and doth not
use it for just and righteous ends, is to imagine him an unrighteous
as well as a careless Sovereign; such a thing in a man renders him a
base man, and a worse governor; it is a vice that disturbs the world,
and overthrows the ends of authority, as to have a power, and use it
well, is the greatest virtue of an earthly sovereign. What an unworthy
conception is it of God, to acknowledge him to be possessed of a
greater authority than the greatest monarch, and yet to think that he
useth it less than a petty lord; that his crown is of no more value
with him than a feather? This represents God impotent, that he cannot,
or unrighteous and base, that he will not administer the authority he
hath for the noblest and justest end. But can we say, that he neglects
the government of the world? How come things then to remain in their
due order? How comes the law of nature yet to be preserved in every
man’s soul? How comes conscience to check, and cite, and judge? If God
did not exercise his authority, what authority could conscience have to
disturb man in unlawful practices, and to make his sports and sweetness
so unpleasant and sour to him? Hath he not given frequent notices and
memorials, that he holds a curb over corrupt inclinations, puts rubs in
the way of malicious attempters, and often oversets the disturbers of
the peace of the world?
3. _Information._ God can do no wrong, since he is absolute Sovereign.
Man may do wrong, princes may oppress and rifle, but it is a crime in
them so to do: because their power is a power of government, and not of
propriety, in the goods or lives of their subjects; but God cannot do
any wrong, whatsoever the clamors of creatures are, because he can do
nothing but what he hath a sovereign right to do. If he takes away your
goods, he takes not {b443} away anything that is yours more than his
own, since though he entrusted you with them, he divested not himself
of the propriety. When he takes away our lives, he takes what he gave
us by a temporary donation, to be surrendered at his call: we can claim
no right in anything but by his will. He is no debtor to us: and since
he owes us nothing, he can wrong us in nothing that he takes away.
His own sovereignty excuseth him in all those acts which are most
distasteful to the creature. If we crop a medicinal plant for our
use, or a flower for our pleasure, or kill a lamb for our food, we do
neither of them any wrong: because the original of them was for our use,
and they had their life, and nourishment, and pleasing qualities for
our delight and support. And are not we much more made for the pleasure
and use of God, than any of those can be for us? “Of him and to him
are all things” (Rom. xi. 36): hath not God as much right over any one
of us, as over the meanest worm? Though there be a vast difference in
nature between the angels in heaven and the worms on earth, yet they
are all one in regard of subjection to God; he is as much the Lord of
the one as the other; as much the Proprietor of the one as the other;
as much the Governor of one as the other;――not a cranny in the world is
exempt from his jurisdiction;――not a mite or grain of a creature exempt
from his propriety. He is not our Lord by election; he was a Lord
before we were in being; he had no terms put upon him who capitulated
with him, and set him in his throne by covenant. What oath did he take
to any subject at his first investiture in his authority? His right is
as natural, as eternal as himself: as natural as his existence, and as
necessary as his Deity. Hath he any law but his own will? What wrong
can he do that breaks no law, that fulfils his law in everything he
doth, by fulfilling his own will, which as it is absolutely sovereign,
so it is infinitely righteous? In whatsoever he takes from us, then, he
cannot injure us; it is no crime in any man to seize upon his own goods
to vindicate his own honor; and shall it be thought a wrong in God to
do such things, besides the occasion he hath from every man, and that
every day provoking him to do it? He seems rather to wrong himself by
forbearing such a seizure, than wrong us by executing it.
4. _Information._ If God have a sovereignty over the whole world, then
merit is totally excluded. His right is so absolute over all creatures,
that he neither is, nor can be, a debtor to any; not to the undefiled
holiness of the blessed angels, much less to poor earthly worms;
those blessed spirits enjoy their glory by the title of his sovereign
pleasure, not by virtue of any obligation devolving from them upon God.
Are not the faculties, whereby they and we perform any act of obedience,
his grant to us? Is not the strength, whereby they and we are enabled
to do anything pleasing to him, a gift from him? Can a vassal merit of
his lord, or a slave of his master, by using his tools, and employing
his strength in his service, though it was a strength he had naturally,
not by donation from the man in whose service it is employed? God is
Lord of all――all is due to him; how can we oblige him by giving him
what {b444} is his own, more his to whom it is presented, than ours by
whom it is offered? He becomes not a debtor by receiving anything from
us, but by promising something to us.[1019]
5. _Information._ If God hath a sovereign dominion over the whole
world, then hence it follows, that all magistrates are but sovereigns
under God. He is King of kings, and Lord of lords; all the potentates
of the world are no other than his lieutenants, movable at his pleasure,
and more at his disposal than their subjects are at theirs. Though
they are dignified with the title of “gods,” yet still they are at
an infinite distance from the supreme Lord; gods under God, not to be
above him, not to be against him. The want of the due sense of their
subordination to God hath made many in the world act as sovereigns
above him more than sovereigns under him. Had they all bore a deep
conviction of this upon their spirits, such audacious language had
never dropped from the mouth of Pharaoh: “Who is the Lord, that I
should obey his voice, to let Israel go?” (Exod. v. 2), presuming that
there was no superior to control him, nor any in heaven able to be
a match for him; Darius had never published such a doting edict, as
to prohibit any petition to God; Nero had never fired Rome, and sung
at the sight of the devouring flames; nor ever had he ripped up his
mother’s belly, to see the womb where he first lodged, and received
a life so hateful to his country. Nor would Abner and Joab, the two
generals, have accounted the death of men but a sport and interlude.
“Let the young men arise and play before us” (2 Sam. ii. 14); what
play it was, the next verse acquaints you with; thrusting their swords
into one another’s sides. They were no more troubled at the death of
thousands, than a man is to kill a fly, or a flea. Had a sense of this
but hovered over their souls, people in many countries had not been
made their foot‑balls, and used worse than their dogs! Nor had the
lives of millions, worth more than a world, been exposed to fire and
sword, to support some sordid lust, or breach of faith upon an idle
quarrel, and for the depredation of their neighbors’ estates; the
flames of cities had not been so bright, nor the streams of blood so
deep, nor the cries of innocents so loud. In particular,
(1.) If God be Sovereign, all under‑sovereigns are not to rule against
him, but to be obedient to his orders. If they “rule by his authority”
(Prov. viii. 15), they are not to rule against his interest; they are
not to imagine themselves as absolute as God, and that their laws must
be of as sovereign authority against his honor, as the Divine are for
it. If they are his lieutenants on earth, they ought to act according
to his orders. No man but will account a governor of a province a rebel,
if he disobeys the orders sent to him by the sovereign prince that
commissioned him. Rebellion against God is a crime of princes, as well
as rebellion against princes a crime of subjects. Saul is charged with
it by Samuel in a high manner for an act of simple disobedience, though
intended for the service of God, and the enriching his country with
the spoils of the Amalekites. “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft”
(1 Sam. xv. 23); like witchcraft or covenanting with the devil, acting
as if he had {b445} received his commission not from God, but from
Satan. Magistrates, as commissioned by God, ought to act for him. Doth
human authority ever give a commission to any to rebel against itself?
did God ever depute any earthly sovereignty against his glory, and give
them leave to outlaw his laws, to introduce their own? No; when he gave
the vicarious dominion to Christ, he calls upon the kings of the earth
to be instructed, and be wise, and “kiss the Son” (Ps. ii. 10, 12),
_i. e._ to observe his orders, and pay him homage as their Governor.
What a silly doltish thing is it to resist that Supreme Authority, to
which the archangels submit themselves, and regulate their employments
punctually by their instructions! Those excellent creatures exactly
obey him in all the acts of their subordinate government in the world;
those in whose hand the greatest monarch is no more than a silly fly
between the fingers of a giant. A contradiction to the interest of
God hath been fatal to kings. The four monarchies have had their wings
clipped, and most of them have been buried in their own ashes; they
have all, like the imitators of Lucifer’s pride, fallen from the heaven
of their glory to the depth of their shame and misery. All governors
are bound to be as much obedient to God, as their subjects are bound
to be submissive to them. Their authority over men is limited; God’s
authority over them is absolute and unbounded. Though every soul ought
to be subject to the higher powers, yet there is a higher Power of
all, to which those higher powers are to subject themselves; they are
to be keepers of both the tables of the law of God, and are then most
sovereigns when they set in their own practice an example of obedience
to God, for their subjects to write after.
(2.) They ought to imitate God in the exercise of their sovereignty in
ways of justice and righteousness. Though God be an absolute sovereign,
yet his government is not tyrannical, but managed according to the
rules of righteousness, wisdom, and goodness. If God, that created
them as well as their subjects, doth so exercise his government, it
is a duty incumbent upon them to do the same; since they are not the
creators of their people, but the conductors. As God’s government
tends to the good of the world, so ought theirs to the good of their
countries. God committed not the government of the world to the
Mediator in an unlimited way, but for the good of the church, in order
to the eternal salvation of his people. “He gave him to be head over
all things to the church” (Eph. i. 22). He had power over the devils
to restrain them in their temptation and malice; power over the angels
to order their ministry for the heirs of salvation. So power is given
to magistrates for the civil preservation of the world and of human
society; they ought therefore to consider for what ends they were
placed over the rest of mankind, and not exercise their authority in
a licentious way, but conformable to that justice and righteousness
wherein God doth administer his government, and for the preservation of
those who are committed to them.
(3.) Magistrates must then be obeyed when they act according to God’s
order, and within the bounds of the Divine commission. They are no
friends to the sovereignty of God, that are enemies to magistracy, his
ordinance. Saul was a good governor, though none of the {b446} best
men, and the despisers of his government after God’s choice, were the
sons of Belial (1 Sam. x. 27). Christ was no enemy to Cæsar. To pull
down a faithful magistrate, such an one as Zerubbabel, is to pluck a
signet from the hand of God; for in that capacity he accounts him (Hag.
ii. 23). God’s servants stand or fall to their own Master; how doth he
check Aaron and Miriam for speaking against Moses, his servant? “Were
you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” (Numb. xii. 8);
against Moses as related to you in the capacity of a governor; against
Moses as related to you in the capacity of my servant? To speak
anything against them, as they act by God’s order, is an invasion of
God’s sovereign right, who gave them their commission. To act against
just power, or the justice of an earthly power, is to act against God’s
ordinance, who ordained them in the world, but not any abuse, or ill
use of their power.
_Use II._ How dreadful is the consideration of this doctrine to all
rebels against God! Can any man that hath brains in his head, imagine
it an inconsiderable thing to despise the Sovereign of the world? It
was the sole crime of disobedience to that positive law, whereby God
would have a visible memorial of his sovereignty preserved in the eye
of man, that showered down that deluge of misery, under which the world
groans to this day. God had given Adam a soul, whereby he might live
as a rational creature; and then gives him a law, whereby he might live
as a dutiful subject: for God forbidding him to eat of the fruit of
the tree of knowledge of good and evil, declared his own supremacy over
Adam, and his propriety in the pleasant world he had given him by his
bounty; he let him know hereby, that man was not his own lord, nor was
to live after his own sentiments, but the directions of a superior. As
when a great lord builds a magnificent palace, and brings in another to
inhabit it, he reserves a small duty to himself, not of an equal value
with the house, but for an acknowledgment of his own right, that the
tenant may know he is not the lord of it, but hath this grant by the
liberality of another.[1020] God hereby gave Adam matter for a pure
obedience, that had no foundation in his own nature by any implanted
law; he was only in it to respect the will of his Sovereign, and to
understand that he was to live under the power of a higher than himself.
There was no more moral evil in the eating of this fruit, as considered
distinct from the command, than in eating of any other fruit in the
garden: had there been no prohibition, he might with as much safety
have fed upon it as upon any other. No law of nature was transgressed
in the act of eating of it, but the sovereignty of God over him was
denied by him; and for this the death threatened was inflicted on his
posterity: for though divines take notice of other sins in the fall of
Adam, yet God, in his trial, chargeth him with none but this, and doth
put upon his question an emphasis of his own authority: “Hast thou
eaten of the tree whereof I commanded ye that thou shouldest not eat?”
(Gen. iii. 11). This I am pleased with, that thou shouldest disown my
dominion over thyself, and this garden. This was the inlet to all the
other sins: as the acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty is the first
step to the practice of all the {b447} duties of a creature, so the
disowning his sovereignty is the first spring of all the extravagances
of a creature. Every sin against the sovereign Lawgiver is worthy of
death: the transgression of this command deserved death, and procured
it to spread itself over the face of the world. God’s dominion cannot
be despised without meriting the greatest punishment.
1. Punishment necessarily follows upon the doctrine of sovereignty.
It is a faint and a feeble sovereignty that cannot preserve itself,
and vindicate its own wrongs against rebellious subjects; the height of
God’s dominion infers a vengeance on the contemners of it: if God be an
eternal King, he is an eternal Judge. Since sin unlinks the dependence
between God the Sovereign, and man the subject, if God did not
vindicate the rights of his sovereignty, and the authority of his law,
he would seem to despise his own dominion, be weary of it, and not act
the part of a good governor. But God is tender of his prerogative, and
doth most bestir himself when men exalt themselves proudly against him:
“In the thing wherein they dealt proudly, he will be above them” (Exod.
xviii. 11). When Pharaoh thought himself a mate for God, and proudly
rejected his commands, as if they had been the messages of some petty
Arabian lord, God rights his own authority upon the life of his enemy
by the ministry of the Red Sea. He turned a great king into a beast,
to make him know that the Most High ruled in the kingdoms of men: “The
demand is by the word of the holy ones, to the intent that the living
may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdoms of men” (Dan. iv. 16,
17); and that by the petitions of the angels, who cannot endure that
the empire of God should be obscured and diminished by the pride of man.
Besides the tender respect he hath to his own glory, he is constantly
presented with the solicitations of the angels to punish the proud ones
of the earth, that darken the glory of his majesty: it is necessary
for the rescue of his honor, and necessary for the satisfaction of his
illustrious attendants, who would think it a shame to them to serve a
Lord that were always unconcerned in the rebellions of his creatures,
and tamely suffer their spurns at his throne; and therefore there is
a day wherein the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down, the cedars
of Lebanon overthrown, and high mountains levelled, that “God may
be exalted in that day” (Isa. ii. 11, 12), &c. Pride is a sin that
immediately swells against God’s authority; this shall be brought down
that God may be exalted; not that he should have a real exaltation,
as if he were actually deposed from his government, but that he shall
be manifested to be the Sovereign of the whole world. It is necessary
there should be a day to chase away those clouds that are upon his
throne, that the lustre of his majesty may break forth to the confusion
of all the children of pride that vaunt against him. God hath a
dominion over us as a Lawgiver, as we are his creatures; and a dominion
over us in a way of justice, as we are his criminals.
2. This punishment is unavoidable.
(1.) None can escape him. He hath the sole authority over hell and
death, the keys of both are in his hand: the greatest Cæsar can no
more escape him than the meanest peasant: “Who art thou, {b448} O great
mountain, before Zerubbabel?” (Zech. iv. 7). The height of angels is
no match for him, much less that of the mortal grandees of the world;
they can no more resist him than the meanest person; but are rather, as
the highest steeples, the fittest marks for his crushing thunder. If he
speaks the word, the principalities of men come down, and “the crown of
their glory” (Jer. xiii. 18). He can “take the mighty away in a moment,”
and that “without hands,” _i. e._ without instruments (Job xxxiv. 20).
The strongest are like the feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s image, iron and
clay; iron to man, but clay to God, to be crumbled to nothing.
(2.) What comfort can be reaped from a creature, when the Sovereign
of the world arms himself with terrors, and begins his visitation?
“What will you do in the day of visitation, to whom will you flee for
help, and where will you leave your glory?” (Isa. x. 3). The torments
from a subject may be relieved by the prince, but where can there be
an appeal from the Sovereign of the world? Where is there any above him
to control him, if he will overthrow us? Who is there to call him to
account, and say to him, What dost thou? He works by an uncontrollable
authority; he needs not ask leave of any; “he works, and none can
let it” (Isa. xliii. 13): as when he will relieve, none can afflict;
so when he will wound, none can relieve. If a king appoint the
punishment of a rebel, the greatest favorite in the court cannot speak
a comfortable word to him: the most beloved angel in heaven cannot
sweeten and ease the spirit of a man that the Sovereign Power is
set against to make the butt of his wrath. The devils lie under his
sentence, and wear their chains as marks of their condemnation, without
hope of ever having them filed off, since they are laid upon them by
the authority of an unaccountable Sovereign.
(3.) By his sovereign authority God can make any creature the
instrument of his vengeance. He hath all the creatures at his beck,
and can commission any of them to be a dreadful scourge. Strong winds
and tempests fulfil his word (Ps. cxlviii. 8); the lightnings answer
him at his call, and cry aloud, “Here are we” (Job xxxviii. 35). By
his sovereign authority he can render locusts as mischievous as lions,
forge the meanest creatures into swords and arrows, and commission the
most despicable to be his executioners. He can cut off joy from our
spirits, and make our own hearts be our tormentors, our most confident
friends our persecutors, our nearest relations to be his avengers;
they are more his, who is their Sovereign, than ours, who place a vain
confidence in them. Rather than Abraham shall want children, he can
raise up stones, and adopt them into his family; and rather than not
execute his vengeance, he can array the stones in the streets, and make
them his armed subjects against us. If he speak the word, a hair shall
drop from our heads to choke us, or a vapor, congealed into rheum in
our heads, shall drop down and putrefy our vitals. He can never want
weapons, who is Sovereign over the thunders of heaven and stones of
the earth, over every creature; and can, by a sovereign word, turn our
greatest comforts into curses.