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Beloved, this is to be considered, that you may know what your comfort is, and upon what foundation you are built.

¹If GOD be most simple, without all composition, then this will follow, that he cannot be hindered in any thing that he goes about to do,² but is most independent as in being, so in working, by reason of his simplicity. There is no creature but may be hindered: for in the best of the creatures, to wit, in the Angels, there is an essence, and an executive power by which they work: Even as you see it in the fire, there is the substance of fire, and the quality of heat by which it works: now where there are two things, an essence and a faculty by which it works, something may come between, and hinder the working and operation. As in the Babylonish furnace, GOD separated between the fire, and the heat, that it could not burn the men that were cast into it, Dan. 3. So he doth ⟨p. 53⟩with the Angels, he comes between the substance, and the executive power, and often hinders them from doing what they would: But in GOD, seeing he is most simple, and entire, there is not an essence, and executive power, (as the Schoolmen call it:) therefore there can nothing come between to be an impediment; there is not any action that he intends, but he works it absolutely and of himself. Therefore we are to consider, that that GOD which we have to worship and serve, that nothing can come between, and hinder him in working, but what he will do, he doth: and therefore we should learn to fear before him, and to trust in him, and to acknowledge the greatness of his power, and to know the ground of it, seeing he is so absolute and wonderful in all his works.

¹If GOD be most simple, without all composition, then this will follow, that he cannot be hindred in any thing that he goes about to doe,