SERMON X Of the OMNIPOTENCE of GOD. PSAL. cxlvii. 5. Great is our Lord, and Great is bis Power. a former difcourfe upon SER M. thefe words, I propofed 1ft, X. to endeavour to show, that God must of neceffity be All powerful: 2dly, to give fome faint hints and reprefentations, fome general and inadequate idea, wherein the Perfection of this Power confifts, and in what inftances it has principally displayed itfelf: 3dly, to confider what particulars are X. SER M. are not included, in the true Notion even of Omnipotence itself. And 4thly, to draw fome practical Inferences from the whole. The Three first of these general Heads, I have already gone through. That God muft of neceffity be All-powerful, I have shown from this confideration, that the Powers of all things that Are, are derived from Him, and depend continually upon him. The peculiar Perfection wherein this divine Power confifts, and the Inftances wherein it has principally difplayed itself, I have shown to be; its giving Being originally to all things, and its governing them continually while they are in Being; its doing all things with abfolute and perfect Eafe, without any difficulty in itself, or oppofition from any other thing; and its doing things perfectly at once without ftanding in need of any Time to do them in. Lastly, the particulars not included in the true Notion even of Omnipotence itself, I have shown, are, whatever things are Contradictory abfolutely in their own Nature; whatever things are naturally evil, and imply weakness or imperfection in the Being itself to whom the Power of doing them is afcri ; bed: X. ཀཀ bed; and whatever things are morally evil S ER M. IV. THAT which remains at this Time, I. THOSE Inferences from the Notion Ift, IF the Power of God be abfolutely ther X. SERM.ther than He himself, in the infinite and unfearchable Wisdom of his Supreme Government, thinks fit to permit and fuffer it should be fo. When therefore we read of the Devil's fetting up a Kingdom in oppofition to the Kingdom of God; great care must be taken that we do not fo understand it, as if the Devil had, properly fpeaking, any Power against God. But the Meaning is This only; that, in like manner as Wicked Men fet up themselves against God, and refift bis Will, and exalt themselves in oppofition to God's Kingdom; and yet really have no Power at all, any further than God thinks fit to permit them: So the Devil likewife opposes the Kingdom and the Will of God, not by any natural, but a moral Power only; not by being able to refift the Will of God, by Force, but by being fuffered to do things wicked and difpleafing to God, through that natural liberty of chufing and acting, which is effential to the Being of a rational Creature. One of the greatest and nobleft Effects of God's creating pow er, is his producing rational Creatures, fuch as are Angels and Men. Without Thefe, all the reft of the whole Creation had U had loft its beauty; because Thefe only are SER M. Yet in order to make them capable of returning him this Praise and Adoration worthily, by delighting to obey his Commands and imitate his Nature; it was ef fentially neceffary they fhould be indued with that Liberty or Freedom of Will, which at the fame time that it made them capable of Virtue, could not but make them likewife capable of Vice. Such of them therefore, as abused that Liberty of Will to the Choice of Wickedness, (which God gave them on the contrary to make them capable of Virtue ;) became thereby Enemies to God, and Deceivers one of another. And the oppofition they make to God by the Practice of Wickedness, is no other, than what originally by the Freedom of an intellectual nature it was neceffary they should be capable of making; and for the preventing of which, it is not proper that the abfolute Power of God fhould interpofe, before the final day of Retribution. For the Kingdom of God, which wicked men and wicked Spirits fet themfelves in oppofition to, is not the King dom |