Senn. f.,X_XXII. Sovereignty of God. a. That we ought to own and acknowledge God for our Lord and Sovereign, who by creating us, and giving us all that we have, did create to himfelf a Right in us. z. That we owe to him the utmost poffìbility of our Love, to love him with all our hearts, and fouls, and flrength ; becaufe the Souls that we have he gave us ; and that we are in a capacity to love him, is his Gift ; and when we render thefe to him, we do but give him of his own. 3. We owe to him all imaginable fubje&ion, and obfervance, and obedience ; and are with all diligence, to the utmost of our endeavours, toconform our felves to his Will, and to thofe Laws which he bath impofedupon us. 4. In cafe of Offence and Difobedience, we are without murmuring, to fub- mit to what he shall inslidt upon us, to accept of the punishment of our iniquity, and patiently to bear the indignation of the Lord, becaufe we have finned against him, who is our Lord andSovereign. 623 SERMON LXXXIII. The Wifdom of God in the Creationof the World. PSALM CIV. 24. O Lord, how manifold are thy Works ! in Wifdom hall thou made them all. I Am treating of the Attributes and Properties of God, particularly thofe which relate to the Divine Underftanding, which I told you are hisKnowledge and Wifdom. I have finished the firfl, the Knowledge of God. The laft Day I fpake concerning the Wifdom 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 shines forth in the Creation of the World, in the Government of it, and in the Redemption of Man- kind by Jefus Chrift. Of thefe Three I (hall fpeak feverally. I begin with the Fin!, the Argument of God's Wifdom, which the Creation doth furnish us withal. In this visible frame of the World which we behold with our Eyes, which way foever we look, we are encountred with ocular de- monlirations of the Wifdom of God. What the Apoftle faith of the Power of God is true likewife of his Wifdom, Rom. a. zo. The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly feen, being underfloodby the things that aremade, even his eternalpower and Godhead : fo the eternal wifdom of God is understood Sy the things which are made. Now the Creation is an Argument of the wifdom of God, as it is an effeét of admirable Counfel and Wifdom. 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 thefervice of the whole, and each part for the fervice of another ; is not this a plain Argument that there was infinite wif- dom in the contrivance of this Frame ? 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 belt manner, and bath upon it evident tmpreflions of Counfel and Wifdom. I grant the wifdom of God is Infinite, and that many of the Ends and Defigtts of his wifdom are unfearchable, and pall finding out, both in the Works of Creation and Providence ;
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