iction; so that infinite worlds of creatures more perfect
than this,--numbers of angels and men above these,--and creatures in glory
surpassing them again,--are within the compass of the boundless power and
omnipotency of God. But yet for all this it might have fallen out that
nothing should actually and really have been, unless his majesty had of
his own free will decreed what is, or hath been, or is to be. His will
determines his power, and, as it were, puts it in the nearest capacity to
act and exercise itself. Here, then, we must look for the first beginning
of all things that are. They are conceived in the womb of the Lord's
everlasting purpose, as he speaks, Zeph. ii. 2. The decree is, as it were,
with child of beings, Isa. xliv. 7. It is God's royal prerogative to
appoint things to come, and none can share with him in it. From whence is
it, I pray you, that of so many worlds which his power could have framed,
this one is brought to light? Is it not because this one was formed, as it
were, in the belly of his eternal counsel and will? From whence is it that
so many men are, and no more--that our Lord Jesus was slain, when the power
of God might have kept him alive,--that those men, Judas, &c. were the
doers of it, when others might have done it? From whence are all those
actions, good or evil, under the sun, which he might have prevented, but
from his good will and pleasure, from his determinate counsel? Acts iv.
28. Can you find the original of these in the creature, why it is thus,
and why not otherwise? Can you conceive why, of all the infinite numbers
of possible beings these are, and no other? And, what hath translated that
number of creatures, which is, from the state of pure possibility to
futurition or actual being, but the decisive vote of God's everlasting
purpose and counsel? Therefore we should always conceive, that the
creatures, and all their actions, which have, or will have any being in
the world, have first had a being in the womb of God's eternal counsel,
and that his will and pleasure hath passed upon all things that are and
are not. His counsel has concluded of things that have been, or will be,
that thus they shall be; and his counsel determined of all other things
which are also possible, that they shall never come forth into the light
of the world, but remain in the dark bowels of omnipotency, that so we may
give him the glory of all things that are not, and that are at all.--Then,
4th. We shou