Chap. 5. nothing? Exact pence from our Brother, when Talents are forgiven to our felves? Is God come into our flesh? and fhall we hide our felves from it, I mean, in the neglect or contempt of the poor? Did he take humanity, that we fhould put it off? No, in fo doing we should reproach not our Maker only, but our Redeemer too. Inhumanity is now double, treble, to what it was before our Saviour took an humane Nature, to read us a Lecture of Love and Goodness in: the old Commandment of Love is now a new one, urged upon us by a new Motive, The incomparable Love of God in his giving his Son for us. If we now shut up our Bowels and Mercies from others, how dwelleth the Love of God in us? What fenfe can we have of it upon our hearts? Charity was the badg of the Primitive Chriftians. The imprefs of Gods Love upon Mr. Fox was fo great, that he never denied any that asked for Jefus fake. Our Love towards men fhould be a little picture or refemblance of Gods Love towards us. Our Mercies and Compaffions fhould tell the world, that we have tafted of that infinite Grace and Mercy which is above. Our Charity towards all should bear witness, that we have been great receivers from God. Our Love towards Enemies should be a thankful acknowledgment, that we being fuch, were reconciled to God by the Death of his Son,

CHAP.

99

CHAP. VI.

The Power of God manifeft in Chrift. In his Incarnation and Conception. In his Miracles. These were true in the Hiftory. True in the Nature of Miracles. They were numerous and great. They were fuited to the Evangelical defign. Divine Power manifeft in converting the World; notwithstanding its deep Corruption, and the oppofition of Potentates and Philofophers to the Gospel. The inftruments mean, that the Power might be of God. The Gospel proposes superrational Myfteries, fuper-moral Virtues, fuper-mundane rewards; things fo much above us, that without a Divine Power the proposal would have been fruitless.

'N the next place I come to confider the Power of God. Power being a Perfection, must needs be in him, and being (as all other Attributes are) his very Effence, it must needs be infinite. The very light of Nature reveals this Attribute. In the Grecian Philofophers he is called arronews, Omnipotent; Nihil eft, quod Deus efficere non poffet, faith Tully. Ludovicus Vives wonders, that fo learned a Man as comment. in Pliny fhould cavil at Gods Omnipotence, as if he Aug. de Civis. could not do all things, because he could not dye. In Scripture he is called Gibbor, a mighty one ;Shaddai, an All-fufficient God: he is the only Potentate, 1 Tim. 6. 15. He can do every thing, Job 42. 2. Nothing is too hard for him, Gen. 18. 14. Power belongeth to him, Pfal. 62.11. Whatever is an act of Power, O 2

that

1. 5. c. 10.

Chap. 6. that he can do; that he cannot do contradictories, is not Impotency, but Power and Perfection: for him to lye, were to deny his own Truth; for him to dye, were to caft off his Immortality; for him to make a thing be, and at the fame inftant to make it not to be, were to act repugnantly, and overturn his own action. Thefe argue Impotency, not Power. We may more properly fay, that these cannot be done, than that God cannot do them: he can do all things, which being done, do argue Power or Perfection; but what argues Impotency, can no more fall upon him, than darkness can feize upon

the Sun.

This excellent Attribute of Power was eminently fet forth in Chrift: He is called the power of God, I Cor. 1. 24. Divine Power fhews forth it felf in him in feveral refpects.

First it breaks out in his Incarnation. The word was made flesh, John 1. 14. He, who was in the form of God, took upon him the form of a fervant, Phil. 2. 6,7; that is, he, who had the Effence and Majesty of God, affumed fo low a thing as an humane Nature: He did not lay down his Deity, but affumed an Humanity; two Natures, a Divine and Humane, were in one perfön. Never did God come fo near the Creature as here. He was in the world by his Univerfal Prefence; he was in the Temple in types and fymbols; in the Saints he is by his Grace, in Heaven he is in immediate Glory : but in the Incarnation he is hypoftatically in an humane Nature. The perfon of the Word, which was from Eternity an Hypoftafis to his Divine Nature, became an Hypostasis to his humane Nature in time. O what won

ders

ders of Power are here! Here God was made Man, Chap. 6. the Creator became one with his Creature! Had the whole world been crowded into a fingle Atom, it would have been infinitely a lefs wonder than this. ; the putting a greater finite into a lefs, cannot be comparable to the taking of finite into infinite. Here are two Natures, a Divine and an Humane, in themselves infinitely diftant, met in perfonal conjunction; finite is not abforp't by infinite, infinite is not changed by finite. Here Eternal dwells in the fame perfon with Temporal, yet runs not into fucceffion; immortal dwells with mortal, yet falls not into paffion. Here an humane Nature is united to a perfon infinitely fimple, and infinitely compleat; yet he loses not his fimplicity, nor yet doth he receive any additional perfection. Here's an humane Nature without any Perfonality of its own. Naturally the humane Nature of Chrift would have had a Subfiftence of its own; a Perfonality would have flown from it but the refultance was miraculously prevented; the want of its own finite Subfiftence was

:

supplied by the Prefence of an infinite one; the Son Mr. Jeans of of God communicated his Hypoftafis to it, to fuftain the words Init. Here we have in fome refpect more of Divine carn, fol. 8. Power manifested, than there was in the making of the World. When meer nothing was by an Almighty word elevated into Elements, Plants, Beafts, Men, Angels, ftill it was but into finite; but here a finite humane Nature was taken into infinite: and between the infinite God and the humane Nature, the difparity must be far greater than it is between a world and nothing. Here indeed God did not create an infinite (that being impoffible), but he came as

near.

Chap. 6.

near it as poffibly could be, by affuming a finite Nature into himself. All other Creatures are comparatively extra Deum; but here the humane Nature was in the very inftant of its production, interwoven with the infinite Perfon of the Son. Thus we fee, that in this ftupendious work, Divine Power acted magnificently and congruoully to its own infinity; never any work did fo fully answer and correfpond to Omnipotence as this.

A fecond inftance of Power we have in the Conception of our Saviour: his body was not formed in an ordinary way, by the concurrence of Man and Woman, but in a way fuper-natural; A Virgin was with Child. As the body of the first Adam was wonderfully framed out of the duft; fo the body of the fecond was admirably framed out of the Virgin. That a Virgin should be with Child, was a great, an high Miracle, far above all the Power of Nature. How then was it effected? The Evangelift tells us, The Holy Ghoft came upon her, the power of the highest did overshadow her, Luk. 1. 35. This is a fublime tremendous Mystery; the Holy Ghost, as the word (overshadow) imports, did, as it were, caft a Cloud over her; to teach us, that we should not over-cuThe riously pry into fo great a Work as this was. body of our Saviour was not produced fpermatically, out of the substance of the Holy Ghost, but Operatively, by the Power of it. The matter of his body was from the substance of the Virgin; the active Principle was the infinite Spirit. The feed of Man was not here used; it was not congruous, that he, who had God for his Father, fhould have any Man to be fo: it was a miraculous extraordinary opera