it with ^n\d? Only Ood, Job xxviii. 4. ^V^lo Imt God could make the sweet music \n the heavens, — cause the angels to join in concert and sound forth the praises of their Maker, Job xxxA-iii. 7., " \\'hen the morn- ing stars sang together, and all the sons of God sliouted for joy ?" If a man should go into a far country, and see stately edi- fices there, he would never imagine that these could build tWemselves, but that some greater power built them ; to imagine that the work of the creation was not framed by God, is as if we should conceive a curious landscape to be drawn by a pencil without the hand of a limner : Acts xvii. 24'., " God that made the world, and all things there- in." To create, is proper to the Deity. — 2. Tlie v\nse government of all things e- Adnces there is a God. God is the ffreat superintendent of the world; he liolds the golden reins of government in his hand, guiding all things most regularly and har- moniously to tlieir ])roper end. Who that eyes ])rm'idence, but must be forced to ac- knowleoffc there is a God? P^o^^dence is the queen and governess of the world ; it is the hand that turns the wheel of the whole creation ; providence sets the sun its race, the sea its bounds. If God should not guide the world, things would run into disorder and confusion. When one looks on a clock, and sees the motion of the wheels, the strik- ing of the hammer, the hanging of the plilm- mcts, he would say, there were some artifi- cer did make it, and put it into that order : so when we see the excellent order and har- mony in the universe, — the sun, that great luminary, dispensing its light and heat to the world, without which the world were but a grave or a prison, — the rivers send- ing forth their silver streams to refresh tlic bodies of men, and prevent a drought, — and every creature acting within its sphere, and keeping its due bounds, — we must needs Acknowledge there is a God, who wisely or- ders and governs all tliese thinirs- Who could set this great army of the creatures in their several ranks and squadrons, and keep them in their constant march, but He, whose name is The Lord of Hosts ? And as God doth wisely dispose all things in the whole regiment of the creatures, so, by his power, he doth support them : did God sus-
pend and udthdraw his influence ever so little, the wheels of the creation would un- pin, and the axle-tree break asunder. — 3 The motion of the creatures. All ninti(»n as the philos(tj)hers say, is from something that is unmoveable : as for example, the elements are moved by the influence and motion of the heavenly ])odies, the sun and moon, and thess planets are moved by the highest orl), called Prhmnn Mobile : now, if one should ask, Who moves that highest orb, or the first mover of the planets ? Sure it can be no other hand but God himself ! (2.) Let us speak of man, who is a micro- cosm, or lesser world. The excellent con- texture and frame of his body, which is wrought curiously as with needle-work, Ps. cxxx-ix. 15., " I was curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth ;" and the en- dowment of this body with a noble soul ; who but God could make such an union of different substances, flesh and spirit ? " In him Ave live, and move, and have our being." The quick acute motion of every part of the body shows that there is a God. We may •see something of him in the sparkling of the eye. And if the cabinet of the body be so curiously wrought, what is the jewel ? The soul hath a celestial brightness iu it ; as Damascene saith, " It is a diamond set in a ring of clay." What noble faculties is the soul endowed with ? Understanding, — ^^'i'K — Afltections, — which are a glass of the Trinity, as Plato speaks. The matter of the soul is spiritual ; it is a divine s])ark lighted from heaven ; and being spiritual, is immortal, as Scaliger notes ; anima non se- Jiescit,— the soul doth not wax old, it lives for ever. And who could create a soul enno- bled with such rare angelical properties, but God? We must needs , say as the P.salmist, " It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves," Ps. c. 3.
3. Wc may prove a Deity by our con- science. Conscience is God's deputy or vicegerent. Conscience is a witness of a Deity ; if there were no I3il>le to tell us there is a God, yet conscience miglit. Conscience, as the apostle saith, ' either accuseth,' or ' excuseth,' Rom. ii. 15. Conscience acts in order to a higher judicatory. — L Natural conscience, being kept free from gi'oss sin, ejccuseth. Wlien a man doth virtuous ac-
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THAT THERE IS A GOD.