172 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF A CHRISTIAN. [SERM. X. The divine wisdom is another part of bis all-suffici- ence. There are in God infinite varieties of thought and counsel, riches of knowledge, and wisdom unsearch able ; and he bath made these abound in his new crea- tion, as well as in the old ; in the supernatural, as well as in the natural world. Ep. i. 8. He bath abounded towards us, sinners, in this work of salvation, in all wis- dom and prudence. What surprising wisdom appears in the vital powers of an animal, even in the life of brutes that perish? What glorious contrivance, and divine skill, to animate clay, and make a fly, a dog, or a lion of it? What sublime advances of wisdom to create a living man, and join these two distinct extremes, flesh and spirit, in such a.vital union, that has puzzled the philosophers of all ages, and constrained some of them to confess and adore a God ? And what a superior work of divinity, is it, to turn a dead sinner into a living saint, here on earth? and then to adorn a heaven, with all its proper furniture, for the eternal life and habitation of hissons and his daughters? What divine skill is required ,here ? What immense profusion of wisdom, to form bo- dies of immortality and glory, for every saint, out of the dust of the grave, and the ashes of martyred christians? Our spiritual and our eternal life are hid in the wisdom of God. The power ofGod is his all- sufficience too. The power that quickens and raises a soul to this divine life, must be almighty; Eph. i. 19, 20. It is the same exceeding greatness of his power that works in us who believe, which wrought in our Lord Jesus Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right-hand in heavenly places. It is the same powerful word that commanded the light to shine out of darkness, that shone into our hearts, when he wrought the knowledge of Christ there; 2 Cor. iv. 6. and when he commanded us, who lay among the dead, to awake, and arise, and .live. Was it not a noble instance of power, to spread abroad these heavens of unknown circumference, with all the rolling worlds of light in them, the planets and the stars ? And the same hand is mighty enough, if these were not sufficient, to build a brighter heaven, fit for the saints to live in during all their immortality, and to
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