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pleasure, do any thing that contradicts the nature of God, and the effential perfections of the Deity; or to imagine that the pleasure and will of the hoily, and juft, and good God, is not always regulated and determined by the effential and indifpenfable laws of goodness, and holinefs, and righteoufnefs.

Secondly, Pofitively; we may infer from the fovereignty and dominion of God,

1. That we ought to own and acknowlege God for our Lord and Sovereign, who by creating us, and giving us all that we have, did create to himself a right

in us.

2. That we owe to him the utmost poffibility of our love, to love him with all our hearts, and fouls, and ftrength; because the fouls that we have, he gave us; and that we are in a capacity to love him, is his gift; and when we render these to him, we do but give him of his own.

3. We owe to him all imaginable subjection, and obfervance, and obedience; and are with all diligence, to the utmost of our endeavours, to conform our felves to his will, and to thofe laws which he hath impofed upon us.

4. In cafe of offence and difobedience, we are, without murmuring, to fubmit to what he fhall inflict upon us, to accept of the punishment of our iniquity, and patiently to bear the indignation of the Lord, because we have finned against him, who is our Lord and Sovereign.

SER

370

SERMON CXXXVII.

The wisdom of God in the creation of the world.

PSAL. Civ. 24.9

O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom haft thou made them all.

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Am tteating of the attributes and properties of God, particularly thofe which relate to the divine understanding, which I told you are his knowledge and wifdom. I have finished the first, the knowledge of God. The laft day I fpake concerning the wisdom of God in general; but there are three eminent arguments and famous inftances of God's wifdom, which I have referved for a more large and particular handling. The wifdom of God fhines forth in the creation of the world, in the government of it, and in the redemption of mankind by Jefus Chrift. Of these three I shall speak feverally.

I begin with the firft, the argument of God's wifdom, which the creation doth furnish us withal. In this vifible frame of the world, which we behold with our eyes, which way foever we look, we are encountered with ocular demonftrations of the wif dom of God. What the Apoftle faith of the power of God is likewife true of his wifdom, Rom. i. 20. The invifible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly feen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead: So the eternal wisdom of God is understood by the things which are made. Now the creation is an argument of the wifdom of God, as it is an effect of

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admirable counsel and wildom. As any curious work, or rare engine doth argue the wit of the artificer fo the variety, and order, and regularity, and fitnefs of the works of God, argue the infinite wifdom of him who made them; a work fo beautiful and magnificent, fuch a ftately pile as heaven and earth is, fo curious in the feveral pieces of it, fo harmonious in all its parts, every part fo fitted to the fervice of the whole, and each part for the fervice of another; is not this a plain argument that there was infinite wifdom in the contrivance of this frame?

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Now I fhall endeavour to prove to you, that this frame of things which we fee with our eyes, which we call the world or the creation, is contrived after the best manner, and hath upon it evident impreffions of counsel and wifdom. I grant the wifdom of God is infinite, and that many of the ends and defigns of his wifdom are unfearchable, and past finding out, both in the works of creation and providence and that though a wife man feek to find out the work of God from the beginning to the end, he Shall not be able to do it; and we shall never be able to exhauft all the various wifdom and contrivance which is in the works of God; though the oftner, and the nearer we meditate upon them, the more we fhall fee to admire in them; the more we ftudy this book of the creation, the more we shall be aftonifhed at the wisdom of the author: but this doth not hinder, but that we may difcover fomething of the wifdom of God, though it be infinite. As the effects of infinite power may fall under our fenfes, fo the defigns of infinite wifdom may fall under our reafon and understanding; and when things appear to our best reafon plainly to be ordered for the beft, and the greatest advantages of the world and mankind, fo far as we are able to judge; and if they had been otherwife, as they might have been a hundred thoufand ways, they would not have been fo well ought to conclude, that things are thus, and not otherwife, is the refult of wisdom.

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Now the wisdom of God in the creation will appear by confidering the works of God. Thofe who

have ftudied nature, can difcourfe these things more exactly and particularly. It would require perfect skill in aftronomy, to declare the motions and order of heavenly bodies; and in anatomy, to read lectures of the rare contrivance of the bodies of living creatures. But this, as it is beyond my ability, fo it would probably be above moft of your capacities; therefore I fhall content myself with fome general and more obvious inftances of the divine wisdom, which fhine forth fo clear in his works, that he that runs may read it.

1. I fhall take a short survey of the feveral parts of the world.

2. Single out man, the master-piece of the vifible

-creation.

1. If we furvey the world, and travel over the feveral parts of it in our thoughts, we shall find that all things in it are made with the greatest exactness, ranged in the most beautiful order, and ferve the wifeft and best ends.

If we look up to heaven, and take notice only there of what is most visible, the fun, you fee, how by the wife order and conftancy of its course it makes day and night, winter and fummer. This the Pfalmift takes notice of, Pfal. xix. 1, 2. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament fheweth his handy work. Day unto day uttereth speech; and night unto night fheweth knowledge. It may eafily be imagined many ways, how the fun might have had another courfe in reference to the earth ; but no man can devife any other, that should not be very much to the prejudice of the world; fo that this being the best, it is an argument that wisdom had the ordering and difpofing of it.

If we look down to the earth, we shall fee gods afcending and defcending; I mean clear reprefentations of divine wifdom in the treasures that are hid in the bowels of it, and thofe fruits that grow upon the furface of it. What vaft heaps, and what variety of ufeful materials and minerals are fcattered up and down in the earth as one would think with a careless hand, but yet fo wifely difperfed, as is moft

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proper for the neceffities and ufes of feveral countries! Look upon the furface of the earth, and you fhall find it cloathed and adorned with plants of various and admirable frame, and beauty, and usefulnefs. Look upon the vaft ocean, and there you may fee the wifdom of God in bridling and reftraining that unruly element, I mean, in finking it below the earth; whereas the water might have been above and covered the earth, and then the earth had been in a great meafure ufelefs, and incapable of thofe inhabitants which now poffefs it.

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Look again upon the earth, and in the air, and fea, and you fhall find all these inhabited and furnished with great ftore of living creatures of feveral kinds, wonderfully made in the frame of their bodies, endued with strong inclinations to increase their kinds, and with a natural affection and care towards their young ones and every kind of thefe creatures armed either with ftrength or wit to oppose their enemy, or fwiftnefs to fly from him, or strong holds to fecure themselves. But the creation is a vast field, in which we may easily lose ourselves. I fhall therefore call home our wandering thoughts, for we need not go out of ourselves for a proof of divine wisdom. I fhall therefore,

2. Select the choiceft piece of it, man, who is the top and perfection of this vifible world. What is faid of the elephant, or behemoth, Job xl. 19. in refpect of the vast bignefs and ftrength of his body, is only abfolutely true of man, that he is divini opificii caput, the chief of the works of God, and upon earth there is none like him. Man is mundi utriufque nexus, the bond of both worlds, as Scaliger calls him, in whom the world of bodies, and the world of fpirits do meet, and unite; for in refpect of his body, he is related to this vifible world, and is of the earth; but in refpect of his foul, he is allied to heaven, and defcended from above. We have looked above us, and beneath us, and about us, upon the feveral representations of God's wif dom, and the feveral parts of the creation; but we have not yet confidered the best piece of the VOL. VI,

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