I need not bring teftimonies from heathen writers to confirm this; their books are full of expreffions of their admiration of God's wife government of the world. I need not trouble you with quotations of particular teftimonies. Epicurus indeed denied that God either made or governed the world; but he muft needs acknowledge him to have been a very wife being, because he made him happy, which cannot be without wifdom, though he had taken away all other evidence of his wifdom. Ariftotle feems to have fuppofed the world to be a neceffary refult and emanation from God :. but then the other fects of Philofophers did fuppofe the world to be the free product of God's goodnefs and wisdom.

2. From fcripture; Job ix. 4. He is wife in heart; -xxxvi. 5. He is mighty in ftrength and wisdom. Dan. ii. 20. Bleffed be the name of God for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are his. Hither we may refer those texts, which attribute wisdom to God in a fingular and peculiar manner, Rom. xvi. 27. and thofe which speak of God as the fountain of it, who communicates and beftows it upon his creatures, Dan. ii. 21. James i. 5. and thofe texts which speak of the wisdom of God in the creation of the world, Pfal. civ. 24. O Lord, how wonderful are thy works, in wisdom haft thon made them all! Jer. x. 12. Who hath established the world by his wisdom, and stretched forth the heavens by his discretion; in the providence and government of the world. Dan. ii. 20. Wisdom and ftrength are his, and he changeth times and feafons; he removeth Kings, and fetteth up Kings: and in many other places, in the redemption of mankind. Therefore Chrift is called the wisdom of God, 1 Cor. i. 24. and the difpenfation of the gofpel, the hidden wisdom of God, and the manifold wisdom of God, Eph. ii. 10.

If then God be only wife, the original and only fountain of it, from thence we learn,

Firft, To go to him for it, Jam. 1. 5. If any man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God. There are many conceited men that think they are rich and increafed, and stand in need of nothing. The Apoftle

doth

Ser. 136. doth not speak, as if there were fome that did not want wifdom, but because there are fome fo proud and conceited, that they, think they lack nothing; thofe are ftark fools, and God refifts fuch foolish and proud men: But if any man, fenfible of his defect and imperfection, cometh to God, he gives liberally and upbraids no man. We are afhamed to learn wifdom of men, left they fhould contemn and upbraid us with our folly: Men are envious and unwilling that others fhould be as wife as themfelves; but God's goodness makes him willing to impart wifdom; he gives liberally, and upbraids no

man.

This is the most defirable accomplishment and perfection; Happy is the man that getteth wisdom; wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: It is better than thofe things which are of the higheft value amongst men, as Solomon often makes the comparison. Now because it comes down from above, we fhould look up for it; it is by the revelation of his will, and the wife counfels of his word, that we are made wife unto falvation; therefore we fhould beg of him, that he would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of himself, Eph. i. 17.

2. If God be only wife in fuch an eminent and tranfcendent degree, then let us be humble. There is no cause of boafting, feeing we have nothing but what we have received. The loweft inftance, the leaft fpecimen of divine wisdom out-fhines the higheft pitch of human wisdom; the foolishness of God is wifer than men, 1 Cor. i. 25. therefore let not the wife man glory in his wisdom, Jer. ix. 29. Of all things we should not be proud of wifdom; the proud man throws down the reputation of his wifdom, by the way that he would raise it. No fuch evidence of our folly, as a conceit that we are wife; fapientis animus nunquam turgefcit, nunquam tumet, Cic. To pride ourselves in our wifdom, is the way to have our folly made manifeft. God threatens to deftroy the wisdom of the wife men, and to turn their wifdom into foolishness.

3. We should labour to partake of the wisdom of God, so far as it is communicable. The greatest wifdom that we are capable of, is to diftinguifh between good and evil; to be wife to that which is good, as the Apoftle fpeaks, Rom. xvi. 19. that is, to provide for the future in time, to make provifion for eternity, to think of our latter end, to fear God and obey him, to be pure and peaceable, to receive instruction, and to win fouls; these are the characters which the fcripture gives of wisdom. When Job had declared, that the excellency of the divine wisdom was not to be attained by men; he tells us what that wisdom is, which is proper for us: And unto man he said, The fear of the Lord, that is wif dom; and to depart from evil, that is understanding. There are many that are wife to worldly ends and purposes, as our Saviour tells us; wife to get riches, and to afcend to honours: But this is not the wifdom which we are to labour after; this is but a. fhort-witted prudence, to ferve a present turn, with-out any profpect to the future, without regard to the next world, and the eternity which we are to live in; this is to be wife for a moment, and fools for ever.

4. If God be only wife, then put your truft and confidence in him. Whom should we truft rather than infinite wisdom, which manageth and directs infinite goodness and power? In all cafes of diffi-culty trust him for direction; acknowledge him in all thy ways, that he may direct thy steps; commit thy way unto the Lord, and lean not to thine own understanding. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but the providence of God difpofeth all these things. And if we rely upon our own wifdom, that will prove a broken reed. And as our own wisdom is a broken reed, fo the wisdom of other men. Ifai. xxxi. 1, 2. God curseth them that go down into Egypt, and truft to their ftrength and wisdom, but look not to the holy One of Ifrael, neither feek the Lord; yet he also is wife, faith the Prophet.

5. Let us adore the wifdom of God, and fay with St. Paul, 1 Tim. i. 17. To the only wife God, be honour and glory for ever and ever, Amen: and with VOL. VI.

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Daniel,

Daniel, Bleffed be the name of God for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are his. Veneration is the acknowledgment of an infinite excellency and perfection. We reverence any extraordinary degree of wifdom in men; but the divine wifdom, which is perfect and infinite, is matter of our adoration, and bleffing, and praife. Thanfgiving refpects the benefits we receive: but we blefs God when we acknowJedge any excellency: for as God's bleffing us, is to do us good; fo our bleffing him, is to speak good of him: As all God's perfections are the objects of our bleffing, fo more efpecially his wifdom is of our praife; for the praife of God is to take notice of the wife defign and contrivance of his goodness and mercy towards us.

Before I pafs on to the other particulars contained in thefe words, I cannot but take notice, that this wife God here fpoken of, is ftiled our Saviour, which fome underftand of our Saviour Jefus Christ, and bring this place as an argument to prove his diviniy; and if that were fo, it were all one to my purpofe, which is in the next place to fhew, that glory, and majesty, and dominion, and power, belong to the divine Being. But although I would not willingly part with any place that may fairly be brought for the proof of the divinity of Chrift, yet feeing there are fo many plain texts in fcripture for the proof of it, we have have the lefs reafon to ftretch doubtful places; and that this is fo, will appear to any one who confiders that the title of Saviour is feveral times in fcripture attributed to God the Father; befides that, in a very ancient and authentick copy we find the words read fomewhat otherwife, and fo as to put this out of all controverfy, μόνῳ θεῷ σωτῆρι ἡμῶν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χρισοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν δόξα, σι

Having premifed thus much for the clearing of thefe words, I fhall briefly confider, firft, God's glory and majefty, and then his dominion and fovereignty.

First, God's glory and majefty. By majesty, we may understand the greatnefs, or eminent excellency of the divine nature, which results from his perfecti

ons,

ons, and whereby the divine nature is fet and placed infinitely above all other beings; I fay, the eminent excellency of the divine nature, which results from his perfections, more efpecially from those great perfections, his goodnefs, and wifdom, and power, and holiness.

And his glory is a manifeftation of this excellency, and a juit acknowledgment and due opinion of it. Hence it is, that in fcripture, God is faid to be glorious in power, and glorious in holiness, and his goodness is called his glory; and here in the text, glory and majefty are afcribed to him upon the ac count of his wifdom and goodness.

That these belong to God, I fhall prove,

1. From the acknowledgment of natural light. The Heathen did conftantly afcribe greatnefs to God, and that as refulting chiefly from his goodnefs, as appears by their frequent conjunction of these two attributes, goodness and greatnefs, opt. max. were their most familiar titles of the Deity; to which I will add that known place of Seneca, Primus deorum cultus eft deos credere, dein reddere illis majeftatem fuam, reddere bonitatem, fine qua nulla majeftas.

2. From fcripture. It were endless to produce all thofe texts wherein greatness and glory are afcribed to God. I fhall mention two or three. Deut. x. 17, The Lord is a great God; Pfal. xxiv. 10. he is called the King of glory: civ. 1. he is faid to be cloathed with majesty and honour. The whole. earth is full of his glory. Hither belong all those doxologies in the Old and New Teftament, wherein greatness, and glory, and majefty are ascribed to God.

From all which we may learn,

1. What it is that makes a perfon great and glorious, and what is the way to majefty, viz. real. worth and excellency, and particularly, that kind of excellency which creatures are capable of in a very eminent degree, and that is goodness; this is that which advanceth a perfon, and gives him a pre-eminency. above all others; this cafts a luftre upon a man, and makes his face to fhine. Ariftotle tells us, that ho

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nous