and xvii. 1-5. III. Though the third Person, the holy Spirit, is not mentioned in the passage in Proverbs; yet the Spirit, as he is of the same nature with the Father and the Son always took infinite delight in his own nature and perfections; and as he was privy to all the thoughts, purposes, and counsels of God which are the deep things he searches and reveals. IV. This mutual delight and complacency which each Person had in one another, lay in and arose from the perfect knowledge they had of each other; As the Father knoweth me, says Christ, so know I the Father, John x. 15, and the Spirit knows them both, and the things that are in them, 1 Cor, ii. 10, 11. and hence arises mutual love to each other; the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, John iii. 35, and v. 20. and xiv. 31. and the Spirit proceeding from them both, loves them both. Moreover,

IV. The three divine Persons had from eternity, and be. fore any creature was in actual being, the utmost delight and complacency in the elect of God, and in the foreviews of their salvation and happiness. The joy and delight of the Son in them are strongly expressed in Prov. viii. 31. Rejoring in the habitable part of his earth, and my delights were with the sons of men; then was the Son of God rejoicing in the habitable part of the ea th; in the foreviews of those spots of ground, houses and cottages, where it was known the chosen vessels of mercy would dwell; as lovers express their love to the objects of their affection by saving they love the ground on which they tread; so Christ having loved his peo. ple with a love of complacency and delight, rejoiced in the foresight of those parts of the habitable world, where, he saw their habitations would be: the church of God on earth, may be called the habitable part of his earth, being the dwellingplace which he has chosen for himself as such, and where he delights to dwell, and they were from everlasting his Hephzibah and Beulah. Some respect may be had to the new earth, or the second Adam's earth; in which only righteous persons will dwell; and where the tabernacle of God will be with men.

In the views of this the Son of God was rejoicing before the world was; and in time expressed his desire of it; as may be concluded from his frequent appearances in an human form, before his incarnation, as precludiums of it. Now not only the Son of God took delight and complacency in the elect of God, before the world was; but the Father and Spirit also; 2 Thess. ii. 13. Eph. i. 4. Thus we see what delight and complacency, satisfaction and happiness, God had in himself before any creature existed; and would have continued the same, if none had ever been created; and the whole furnishes an answer to those curious questions, if it is proper to make them; What was God doing in eternity? what did his thoughts chiefly run upon then? and wherein lay his satisfaction, delight, and happiness?

BOOK III.

OF THE EXTERNAL WORKS OF GOD.

OF CREATION IN GENERAL.

HAVING considered the internal and eternal acts of the divine mind, I proceed to consider the external acts of God. I shall begin with the work of creation, which is what God himself began with; and shall consider the following things concerning it.

I. What creation is. Sometimes it only signifies the natural production of creatures, by generation and propagation; the birth of persons, in the common course of nature, is called the creation of them, Ezek. xxi. 30. and xxviii. 14. Eccles. xii 1. Sometimes it designs acts of providence, in bringing about affairs of moment and importance in the world; as when it is said, I form the light, and create darkness. It is to be un derstood of prosperous and adverse dispensations of providence, Isai. Iv. 7. So the renewing of the face of the earth, and reproduction of herbs, plants, &c. is a creation, Psal. civ. 30. And the renewing of the world, in the end of time is called a creating new heavens and a new earth, Isai. lxv. 17. Sometimes it intends the doing something unusual and wonderful; such as the earth's opening its mouth, Numb. xvi. 30. the wonderful protection of the church, Isai. iv. 5. and particularly the incarnation of the Son of God, Jer. xxxi. 22. To observe no more, creation may be distinguished into mediate and immediate; mediate creation is the production of beings, by the power of God, out of pre-existent matter, so God is said to create great whales and other fishes, which, at his command,

the waters brought forth abundantly; and he created men, male and female; and yet man, as to his body, was made of the dust of the earth, and the woman out of the rib of man, Gen. i. 21, 27. and, indeed, all that was created on the five last days of the creation, was made out of matter which before existed, though indisposed of itself for such a production. Immediate creation is the production of things out of nothing, as was the work of the first day, the creating the heavens and the earth, the unformed chaos, and light commanded to arise upon it, Gen. i. 1-3. These are the original of things; so that all thing ultimately are made out of nothing, Heb. xi. 3. it cannot be conceived otherwise, than that the world was made out of nothing: for, if nothing existed from eternity, but God, there was nothing existing, out of which it could be made; to say it was made out of pre-existent matter, is to beg the question; besides, that pre-existent matter must be made by him; for he has created all things, Rev. iv. 11. and if all things, nothing can be expected; and certainly not matter; be that visible or invisible, one of them it must be; and both the one and the other are created of God, Col. i. 16. and this matter must be made out of nothing, so that it comes to the same thing, that all things are originally made out of nothing. Besides, there are some creatures, and those the most noble, as angels and the souls of men, which are immaterial, and therefore not made out of matter, and consequently are made out of nothing; and if these, why not others? and if these and others, why not all things, even matter itself?

II. The objects of creation are all things, nothing excepted in the whole compass of finite nature; Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure, or by thy will, they are and were created, Rev. iv. 11. these are comprehended by Moses under the name of the heavens and the earth, Gen. i. 1. and more fully by the apostles, Acts iv. 24. and still more explicitly by the Angel, Rev. x. 6. 1. The heavens and all in them; these are often represented as made and created by God, Psal. viii. 3. and xix. 1. and cii. 25. They are spoken of in the plural

number, for there are certainly three; we read of a third hea. ven, 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4. this s,-1. The heaven of heavens; he habitation of God, where angels dwell, and where glorified. saints will be in soul and body to all eternity. Now this is a place made and created by God, 1 Kings viii. 27. it is where the angels are, who must have an ubi, some where to be in; and here bodies are, which require space and place, as those of Enoch and Elijah, and the human nature of Christ, here the bodies of those are, who rose at the time of his resurrec tion; and all the bodies of the saints will be to all eternity: this is by Christ distinguished as the place of the blessed, from that of the damned, John xiv. 2. 3. Luke xvi. 26. It is called a city whose builder and maker is God, Heb. xi. 10. for he that built all things built this. 2. There is another hea ven, lower than the former, and may be called the second, and bears the name of the starry heaven, because the sun, and moon, and stars are placed in it: Look towards heaven, and tell the stars, Gen xv. 5. this reaches from the moon, to the place of the fixed stars. Now this, and all that in it are, were created by God, Gen. i. 16. 3. There is another heaven, low. er than both the former, and may be called the ærial heaven, Gen. vii. 3, 23. This wide expanse, or firmament of heaven, is the handy-work of God, and all things in it; not only the fowls that fly in it, but all the meteors gendered there; as rain, snow, thunder and lightning. Hath the rain a father? Job. xxxvii. 6. III. The earth and all that is therein, Gen. i. 2, 9, 10. as this was made by God, so all things in it; the grass, the herbs, the plants, and trees upon it; the metals and min erals in the bowels of it, gold, silver, brass, and iron; all the beasts of the field, and "the cattle on a thousand hills ;"— 111. The sea, and all that is in that; when God cleaved an hol low in the earth, the waters he drained of it, he gathered unto it; and gave those waters the name of seas, Gen. i. 10. Psal. xcv. 5. the marine plants and trees, and all the fishes that swim in it great and small, innumerable, Psal. civ. 25, 26: That the planets are so many worlds as our earth is, and that