Ser. 136. nour is nothing else but the fignification of the esteem which we have of a person for his goodness; for, faith he, to be good, and to do good, is the highest glory. God's goodness is his highest glory; and there is nothing fo glorious in any creature, as herein to be like God.

2. Let us give God the glory which is due to his name; Afcribe ye greatness to our God, Deut. xxxii. 3. Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and power, Pfal. xxix, 1. The glory and majefty of God calls for our esteem and honour, our fear and reverence of him. Thus we fhould glorify God in our Spirits, by an inward esteem and reverence of his majefty. The thoughts of earthly majefty will compofe us to reverence: how much more fhould the apprehenfions of the divine majefty ftrike an awe upon our fpirits in all our addreffes to him? His excellency fhould make us afraid, and keep us from all faucy boldnefs and familiarity with him. Reverence is an acknowledgment of the distance which is between the majefty of God, and our meanness. And we fhould glorify him in our bodies, with outward worship and adoration; that is, by all external fi gnifications of reverence and refpect; and we should glorify him in our lives and actions. The highest glory a creature can give to God, is to endeavour to be like him, fatis illos coluit, quifquis imitatus eft, Seneca. Hereby we manifeft and fhew forth his excellency to the world, when we endeavour to be conformed to the divine perfections. And in cafe of fin and provocation, we are to give glory to God by repentance, which is an acknowledgment of his holinefs, who hates fin; and of his justice, which will punish it; and of the mercy of God, which is ready to pardon it; for it is the glory of God to pass by a provocation.

3. We should take heed of robbing God of his glory, by giving it to any creature, by afcribing those titles, or that worship to any creature, which is due to God alone. This is the reafon which is given of the fecond commandment; I the Lord am a jealous God. God is jealous of his honour, and will

not give his glory to another, nor his praife to graven images, Ifa. xlii. 8. Upon this account we find the Apoftle reproves the idolatry of the Heathen, becaufe thereby they debafed the esteem of God, and did fhew they had unworthy thoughts of him, Rom. i. 21. 23. When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, but became vain in their imaginations: and changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and fourfooted beafts, and creeping things. Hereby they denied the glorious excellency of the divine nature; that is, that he is a fpirit, and fo incapable of being. reprefented by any material or fenfible image.

Secondly, I come now to fpeak of the fovereignty and dominion of God: in which I fhall fhew,

First, What we are to understand by the fovereignty and dominion of God. By these we mean the full and abfolute right, and title, and authority which God hath to, and over all his creatures, as his creatures, and made by him. And this right refults from the effects of that goodnefs, and power, and wif dom, whereby all things are and were made; from whence there doth accrue to God a fovereign right and title to all his creatures, and a full and abfolute authority over them; that is, fuch a right and authority, which doth not depend upon any fuperior,. nor is fubject and accountable to any, for any thing that he does to any of his creatures.. And this is that which is called fummum imperium, because there: is no power above it to check or controul it; and! therefore there can be none greater than this. And it is abfolute, becaufe all the creatures have what they have from God, and all depend upon his goodness,. and therefore they owe all poffible duty and perpe-tual fubjection, fo long as they. continue in being, because it is folely by his power and goodnefs that they continue; and therefore whatever right or title. any one can pretend to any perfon or thing, that God : hath to all things; in Deo omnes tituli, omnia jura:

concurrunt.

So that fovereignty and dominion fignifies a full right and title, and propriety in all his creatures, andž

Hh3

ana

an abfolute authority over them, to govern them and dispose of them, and deal with them in any way he pleafeth, that is not contrary to his effential dignity and perfection, or repugnant to the natural state and condition of the creature.

And for our better understanding of this, and the preventing of mistakes which men are apt to fall into about the fovereignty of God, I will fhew, I. Wherein it doth not confift. And,

II. Wherein it doth confift.

I. Wherein it doth not confift.

1. Not in a right to gratify and delight himself in the extreme mifery of innocent and undeferving creatures I fay, not in a right; for the right that God hath in his creatures, is founded in the benefits he hath conferred upon them, and the obligations they have to him upon that account. Now there is none, who because he hath done a benefit, can have, by virtue of that, a right to do a greater evil than the good which he hath done amounts to; and I think it next to madnefs, to doubt whether extreme and eternal mifery be not a greater evil than fimple being is a good. I know they call it phyfical goodness; but I do not understand how any thing is the better for being called by a hard name. For what can there be that is good or defirable in being, when it only ferves to be a foundation of the greatest and moft lafting mifery and we may fafely fay, that the juft God will never challenge more than an equitable right. God doth not claim any fuch sovereigny to himself, as to crufh and opprefs innocent creatures without a cause, and to make them miferable without a provocation. And because it seems fome have been very apt to entertain fuch groundlefs jealoufies and unworthy thoughts of God, he hath given us his oath to affure us of the contrary. As Llive, faith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of a finner, but rather that he should turn and live. So far is he from taking pleafure in the mifery and ruin of innocent creatures, that in cafe of fin and provocation, he would be much rather pleafed, if finners would, by repentance, avoid and

escape

efcape his juftice, than that they fhould fall under it. The good God cannot be glorified or pleafed in doing evil to any, where juftice doth not require it; nothing is further from infinite goodness, than to rejoice in evil. We account him a tyrant and a monfter of men, and of a devilish temper, that can do fo; and we cannot do a greater injury to the good God, than to paint him out after fuch a horrid and deformed manner.

2. The fovereignty of God doth not confift in im pofing laws upon his creatures, which are impoffible either to be underftood or obferved by them. For this would not only be contrary to the dignity of the divine nature, but contradict the nature of a reafonable creature, which, in reason, cannot be obliged by any power to impoffibilities.

3. The fovereignty of God doth not confift in a liberty to tempt men to evil, or by any inevitable decree to neceffitate them to fin, or effectually to procure the fins of men, and to punish them for them. For as this would be contrary to the holinefs, and justice, and goodness of God, fo to the nature of a reasonable creature, who cannot be guilty or deferve punishment for what it cannot help. And men cannot easily have a blacker thought of God, than to imagine that he hath, from all eternity, carried on a fecret defign to circumvent the greatest part men into deftruction, and underhand to draw men into a plot against heaven, that by this unworthy practice he may raife a revenue of glory to his juftice. There is no generous and good man, but would fpit in that man's face, that would charge him. with fuch a defign; and if they who are but very drops of goodness in comparison of God, the infinite ocean of goodness, would take it for fuch a reproach, fhall we attribute that to the best Being in the world, which we would deteft and abominate in Qurfelves?

II. Wherein the fovereignty of God doth confift. 1. In a right to difpofe of, and deal with his crea tures, in any way that doth not contradict the effen

tial perfections of God, and 'the natural condition of the creature.

2. In a right to impofe what laws he pleaseth upon his creatures, whether natural and reasonable; or pofitive, of trial of obedience; provided they contradict not the nature of God, or of the creature.

3. In a right to inflict due and deferved punishment in a cafe of provocation.

4. In a right to afflict any of his creatures, fo the evil he inflicts be fhort of the benefits he hath conferred on them; yea, and farther in a right when he pleafeth to annihilate the creature, and turn it out of being, if it fhould fo feem good to him, though that creature have not offended him; because what he gave was his own, and he may without injury take it away again when he pleafeth. In these the fovereignty of God confifts; and if there be any thing else that can be reconciled with the effential perfections of God.

Secondly, For the proof and confirmation of this. This is univerfally acknowledged by the Heathen, that God is the Lord and Sovereign of the world, and of all creatures. Hence Plato calls him, τῶν πάν Twv nyμove; and Tully, omnium rerum dominum, Lord of all; and this the fcripture doth every where attribute to him, calling him Lord of all, king of kings, and Lord of lords; to which we may refer all thofe doxologies, in which power, and dominion and authority are afcribed to God. I will only mention. that eminent confeffion of Nebuchadnezzar, a great king, who, when his understanding came to him, was forced to acknowledge that God was the most high, Dan. iv. 34, 35. I infer,

First, Negatively we cannot, from the fovereignty of God, infer a right, to do any thing that is unfuitable to the perfection of his nature; and confequently that we are to reft fatisfied with fuch a notion of dominion and fovereignty in God, as doth not plainly and directly contradict all the notions that we have of juftice and goodnefs; nay, it would be little lefs than a horrid and dreadful blafphemy, to fay that God can, out of his fovereign will and

pleasure