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 understood 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 fight 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. i. 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 is,-1. The heaven of heavens; the 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, lower 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. 111. 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 minerals in the bowels of it, gold, silver, brass, and iron; all the beasts of the field, and "the cattle on a thousand hills ;”. III. The sea, and all that is in that; when God cleaved an hollow 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

the fixed stars are so many suns to worlds unknown to us, are but the conjectures, however probable, of modern astronomers.

III. The next thing to be enquired into is, When creation began? this was not in eternity, but in time; an eternal creature is the greatest absurdity imaginable; In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, Gen. i. 1. And thou, Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, &c. Heb. i. 10. Some Plilosophers, and Aristotle at the head of them, have asserted the eternity of the world, but without any rea son. To say the world, or matter, was co-eternal with God, is to make that itself God; for eternity is a perfection peculi ar to God; and where one perfection is, all are: what is eternal, is infinite and unbounded; and if the world is eternal, it is infinite; and then there must be two infinites, which is an absurdity not to be received. Besides, if eternal, it must necessarily exist; or exist by necessity of nature; and so be self-existent, and consequently God; yea, must be independent of him, and to which he can have no claim, nor any power and authority over it; whereas according to divine revelation, and even the reason of things, all things were according to the pleasure of God, or by his will, Rev. iv, 11. and therefore must be later than his will, being the effect of it. And as the world had a beginning, and all things in it, it does not appear to be of any great antiquity; it has not, as yet run out six thousand years: according to the Greek version, the age of the world is carried fourteen or fifteen hundred years higher; but the Hebrew text is the surest rule to go by: as for the accounts of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Chinese, which make the original of their kingdoms and states, many thousand of years higher still: these are only vain boasts, and fabulous relations, which have no foundation in true history. The origin of nations, according to the scriptures, which ap. pears to be the truest; and the invention of arts and sciences, and of various things necessary to human life; as of agriculture the bringing up of cattle; making of various utensils of brass and iron, for the various businesses of life; and the find