Absolute Power as you have already heard is to do the greatest good they should think it sufficient to justifie such actions as they have no other way to prove good and just merely by Absolute Power The Glory of Absolute Power is to do what all the world acknowledges to be good and just and therefore Absolute Power cannot prove those actions to be good and just nor make it self Glorious by doing such actions as mankind think very infamous and unjust Let us then lay down this as the Foundation of all That how Unaccountable soever Sovereign and Absolute Will and Power is it neither can nor will do any wrong for it is nothing else but Absolute and Sovereign Justice and Goodness We have no reason to be afraid of the Absolute Power of God no more than we have to be afraid of his Absolute Goodness Absolute Power is the only security we have against suffering wrong for it will do no wrong it self but will rectify all the wrongs which are done by Inferior Powers which none but a Sovereign and Absolute Power can do The firm belief of this will give great relief and satisfaction to our minds under all the unaccountable Passages of Providence for tho Absolute Power be always just and good yet its ways are sometimes past finding out Secondly Let us now consider How unsearchable the Wisdom of Providence is which doth great things past finding out yea and wonders without number 9. Job 10. Which may satisfy us how impossible it is for such ignorant creatures as we are to comprehend all the Wise Reasons of Providence and how impious it is to reproach and censure what we do not and cannot understand We all know the History of Iob and the Dispute betwixt him and his three Friends God exercised Iob with very severe and amazing Sufferings for the Trial of his Vertue his Friends conclude from his great Sufferings That tho his life were visibly very innocent and vertuous yet he had been a secret Hypocrite because God did not use to punish good men but only the wicked in such a manner On the other hand Iob justifies his own Innocence and asserts more truly That bad men were many times very prosperous and good men great sufferers in this world He complains very tragically of his sufferings and that he could not understand the reason why God dealt thus with him and this seems to be Iob's fault that he insisted too much on his own Justification and instead of vindicating the Divine Providence seems to accuse God of a causeless and unaccountable Severity for which Elihu so severely reproved him At last God answers Iob himself as he had often desired he would but instead of a particular Justification of his Providence or of giving Iob the Reasons for which he had thus afflicted him he gives him some sensible Proofs of his own Great and Admirable Wisdom and Power in the Works of Nature which Iob was so far from being able to imitate that he could not understand how they were done The Force of which Argument is this That so weak and ignorant a Creature as Man is ought not to censure the Divine Providence how mysterious and unaccountable soever it be when the very Works of Nature convince us That God is infinitely Wiser and more Powerful than we are This should teach us great Modesty and Humility to adore the Divine Judgments not to censure what we cannot understand for the Power and Wisdom of God can do great and excellent things above our understandings Vain man would be wise tho man be born like a wild asses colt They are impatient to think that God should do any thing which they cannot understand and yet there is not any one thing in Nature which they do understand And if we cannot understand the Mysteries of Nature why should we expect to understand all the unsearchable Depths and Mysteries of Providence If the Wisdom of God be unsearchable why should we not allow his Wisdom in Governing the World to be as unsearchable as his Wisdom in Making it For an Incomprehensible Wisdom will do Incomprehensible Things whatever it employs its self about and when we know that if the world be governed at all it is governed by an Infinite and Incomprehensible Wisdom there is no reason to wonder that there are many Events of Providence which we cannot fathom and much less reason to deny a Providence because we cannot comprehend the Reasons of all Events But this is a matter of such vast consequence to silence the Sceptical Humour of the Age and to shame those trifling and ridiculous Pretences to Wit and Philosophy in Censuring the Wisdom and Justice of Providence that it deserves a more particular Discourse For could we make men confess what all modest considering men must blush to deny That the Wisdom of God is unsearchable this would put an end to all the Disputes about Providence and teach us humbly to Adore and Reverence that Wisdom which we cannot comprehend And to prepare my way to give such full satisfaction in this matter as you may securely acquiesce in without Disputing the Reasons of Providence or being tempted to Deny a Providence when you meet with any Difficulties too hard for you I shall show you how impossible it is that is should be otherwise both from the Infinite Wisdom of God and our own great Ignorance of things which makes the Providence of God in many cases so much above our understandings that we are not capable of such knowledge And 1. I shall show you What reason we have securely to acquiesce in the unsearchable Wisdom of Providence and to trust God beyond our own knowledge because we are certain that Infinite Wisdom can never err or mistake or do wrong 2. That the Wisdom of Providence must be as unsearchable and unaccountable to us as the Wisdom of the Creation 3. That the wise Government of the world requires secret and hidden Methods of Providence and therefore at least in this present state we ought not to expect or desire a particular account or reason of all events 4. That our ignorance of other matters the knowledge of which is absolutely necessary to understand the reasons of Providence makes us utterly uncapable of such knowledge in this state 5. I shall enquire in what cases this is a reasonable answer to all Difficulties That the judgments of God are unsearchable and his ways past finding out 1. That Infinite Wisdom how unsearchable and unaccountable soever its ways are can do no wrong As I observed before that God's Absolute Power is Absolute Rectitude and Justice so all men must grant that Infinite and Perfect Wisdom is always in the right for to be in the wrong is Ignorance and Mistake If Infinite Wisdom will always judge and chuse and act wisely it is then impossible that Infinite Wisdom should ever do wrong for to do wrong is either not to judge or not to chuse wisely In Scripture all
begin with Preserving Providence which commences from the first instant of the Creation for as soon as Creatures are made they need a Divine Power to preserve them For this is the strict Notion of Preservation as distinguished from a Governing Providence That God upholds all things in being from falling back into their first Nothing and preserves their natural Vertues Powers and Faculties and enables them to act and to attain the ends of their several Natures Which distinguishes this Preserving Providence from those many Acts of Preservation which belong to Government Such as preserving the Lives of men from unseen Accidents and visible Dangers nay of Beasts and of Birds too as our Saviour assures us That not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father in which sense the Psalmist tells us That God preserves both man and beasts supplies them with Food and all other things necessary to life and preserves their Lives from violence or accident as long as he sees fit This Preservation as distinguish'd from Government St. Paul expresly teaches 17. Acts 28. For in him we live and move and have our being We were not only made by him but we live and move and have our being in Him as the Apostle to the Hebrews tells us of Christ That he upholds all things by the word of his power 1. Hebr. 3. The Schools have divided this into two distinct Acts. 1. God's upholding and preserving the Being and Natures of all things 2. His Co-operating with all Creatures and by a perpetual influx and concourse actuating their natural Powers to perform their natural Actions that is That we have our being in him that we live and move and act in him or by a new influx of power from him As for the first The preservation of all things in being besides those Texts of Scripture which expresly attribute this to God the Schools urge several Arguments for the proof of it which I think may be resolved into this one That whatever does not necessarily exist by the internal Principles of its own Nature must depend on its Cause not only for its Being but for its Continuance and Preservation For there is no medium between necessary Existence and dependance on its Cause The very notion of a Creature does not only include in it its being made but its dependance on its Maker for its continuance in being For whatever does not necessarily exist must not only be made at first but must be upheld and preserved in being for it can no more preserve than it can make it self It was nothing once and what was once nothing may be nothing again and therefore cannot subsist of it self but in dependance on its Maker It is not with the Being and Natures of things as it is with the Works of Art which though they cannot make themselves yet when they are made can subsist without the Artist that made them As a House cannot build it self but when it is built it continues of it self as long as the Materials and Workmanship last when the Workman has left it for the Workman does not give being to the Materials but only to the Form which subsists in the Matter and that in its first Cause but whatever receives its Being from another as all Creatures do has nothing to support its Being but the Cause that made it This is so certain that I should make no scruple to say That God can no more make an Independent Creature which can subsist without him than he can make an Eternal Creature which shall have no beginning which is not want of Power in God but a repugnancy and contradiction in the Nature of Creatures That which once was not can never be so made as to have no beginning that which has not a necessary existence as nothing has which once was not cannot be made to exist necessarily without dependance on its Cause because necessary existence is not in its Nature for then it would always have been Suarez has another Argument to prove the dependence of Creatures on the perpetual influx of Power from the first Cause which possibly some may think only a School-subtily but seems to me to have great weight in it and it proceeds upon this Supposition which all men must grant That if God made the World out of nothing he could annihilate all things and reduce them into nothing again if he so pleased Now he says That Annihilation is not an Act of Power for all positive Acts of Power must have some real and positive effect whereas to annihilate is to make nothing and therefore to do nothing Now if to annihilate be no Act of Power then it can be nothing else but a withdrawing that Power which supported all things in being and that proves That all things are upheld in being by the Divine Power if they cannot subsist but fall into nothing again when that Upholding and Preserving Power is withdrawn This is a very sensible Argument if we distinguish between what we call destroying and annihilating which is apt to confound us in this matter To destroy is only to change the present form and compages of things while the matter and substance continues the same thus God destroyed the Old World by Water and will destroy this World by Fire again which is like pulling down a House without destroying the Materials and this is an Act of Power and has a positive effect but to annihilate is to reduce something to nothing which is to do nothing and therefore is no Act of Power but only a Cessation of Power And if not to uphold is to annihilate then all things subsist as well as are made by the Power of God I shall only add That God cannot make a Creature independent on himself without bestowing on it a self-subsisting Nature or necessary existence for whatever does not necessarily exist by the internal Principles of its Nature must depend on something else to uphold it in being Now besides what I observed before That whatever necessarily exists can't be made but must be eternal For that which exists necessarily must always exist without a Cause and without a Beginning for nothing can begin to have a necessarily self-subsisting Nature I now add That whatever necessarily is can't be changed destroyed annihilated for whatever necessarily is necessarily is what it is which proves That if God can annihilate whatever he has made then all things subsist by the Will and Pleasure and Power of God not by the internal Principles of their Natures for whatever necessarily exists can never be annihilated for that is a contradiction How God upholds all things in being we no more know than how at first he made all things when there was nothing and therefore it is a vain Inquiry of the Schools which no man can resolve and which serves no End in Religion Whether Creation and Preservation be the same or two different Acts Whether Preservation be a continued Creation or whether they be
therefore are not Absolute themselves Now reason tells us That a Will which has a Superior Will and Law is not it self unerring Rectitude and Justice and therefore may deviate from what is right and just as experience tells us such Absolute Wills very often do and when the Will can chuse wrong the Power which is the Minister of such an erring Will must do wrong also But now reason tells us that the Supreme Will must be the Supreme Law that is Perfect and Absolute Justice and therefore can no more will any thing that is unjust than Justice it self can be unjust and if this Absolute and Soveraign Will be Absolute Power Absolute Power must be perfectly Just and Good as being inseparable from Perfect Justice And therefore the Absolute Power of God can no more do any wrong than his Absolute Will can chuse it 2. Nay if we do but consider the Nature of truly Absolute Power which can do whatever it will this alone may satisfy us That God who is this Supreme Powerful Being can neither will nor do any wrong For if we consider things well we shall plainly see that tho some degree of Power is required to enable men to do wrong yet it is always want of Power which tempts them to do wrong There are two visible Causes of all the Injustice that is committed in the world and both of them are the effects of weakness 1. That men want Power to do what they have a mind to do without doing some wrong or injury to others 2. That men are overpowered by their own passions to do what they know they ought not to do and which they would not do had they the perfect Government of themselves As for the first Is there any man in the world who is not a perfect bruit who does not wish that it were lawful for him to do what he has a mind to and that he might have what he desires to have without offering Violence or Injury to any body Would not a Thief much rather chuse to find a Treasure than to take a Purse upon the Road Would not an Ambitious and Aspiring Monarch rather chuse That all Princes should resign their Crowns to him and all Nations become his Subjects than to be forced to win their Crowns by his Sword and to make bloody Conquests with the lamentable Ravage and Spoils of flourishing Countries Do not men intend to supply some real or imaginary want in all the Injuries they do And does not this suppose weakness and want of Power to want any thing else For is it possible for Absolute Power to want So impossible is it for Absolute Power to do any Injury He who is the sole Lord and Proprietor of the world as he is and must be whose Power is Supreme and Absolute He whos 's all Creatures are and whose Wisdom and Power can accomplish whatever he would have done without doing the least Injustice can never be tempted to injure his own Creatures nor can ever want any thing which should tempt him to do an Injury and therefore Absolute Power must be Absolute Justice 2dly All the Injuries that are done are owing to the Lusts and Passions of men which are the weaknesses even of Human Nature when they are not under the government of Reason No man does any Injury but to gratifie some Lust or Passion and that is a weak and impotent mind where Passion reigns Reason is the Strength and Vigor of the Mind and a man who lives by Reason never does any Injury but through mistake which is the weakness of Reason But now Absolute Power is not an external adventitious thing but is a Powerful Nature and a Powerful Nature is all Power and there can be no place for the Rule and Empire of Passion and if it be one Passion or other which always does the Injury Absolute Power which is void of Passion can do none Excepting a Divine Love which is the true Image of the Divine Nature and never does any Injury and ought not to be reckoned among the Passions all our other Pasons are the effects of weakness and are Arguments of a weak limited and confined Nature Desire and Hope prove that we want something which we cannot certainly bestow upon our selves Fear is a sense of danger which argues want of Power to defend our selves Anger and Revenge is a resentment of some Injuries we have received and that argues want of Power to suffer Injuries Hatred and Malice are but greater degrees of Anger and Revenge and the greater they are the greater sense they argue of Fear and Danger of Injuries either expected or received These are the Passions which do all the mischief that is done in the world and it is demonstrable that Absolute Power is not capable of these injurious Passions can neither desire nor hope nor fear can suffer no Wants nor Injuries nor have any sense or resentment of them and therefore there is no danger it should do any Injury it is acted by calm and steady Wisdom which is unerring Justice too which never did and never can do any injury It is true some of these Passions are in Scripture attributed to God such as Anger Fury Hatred Revenge for the Scripture speaks of God after the manner of men but then all that this signifies is That God will be as severe in his Judgments as Anger and Revenge is tho it is not Passion in God but a Wise and Cool and Equal Justice which punishes which may be as severe as Anger and Revenge but never partial or unjust 3. Nay we may observe That Power it self is a Great and Generous Principle and inspires men with Great and Noble Thoughts Those whose Power secures them from receiving any hurt are never tempted to do any Power which is Cruel Insolent Mischievous is always conscious of its own weakness and danger for it is commonly weakness and fear which makes men cruel but a Power which knows it self out of danger out of the reach of envy and ill-will is always a very generous Adversary never insults over a prostrate Enemy for such great Power makes all its Enemies the objects of Pity or Scorn and then they cease to be the objects of Revenge And if Power that little Power which men have gives them such a Greatness of Mind as sets them above Affronts and Resentments and sense of Injuries if this be so natural to Power that it is always expected from men in Power That they should have a Greatness and Generosity of Mind proportioned to their Power That it is a Reproach to them when it is not so and makes them despised and scorned and hated with all their Power What then may we expect from the Perfect and Absolute Power of God We may fear his Justice but have no reason to fear his Power Justice will punish sinners but his Power will never oppress for that is below his Power that is too mean and base a thing for