Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

2. His Sovereignty appears in a power of dispensing with his own Laws. 'Tis as much a part of his Dominion, to dispense with his Laws, as to enjoin them; he only hath the power of relaxing his own right, no Creature hath power to do it; that would be to usurp a superiority over him, and order above God himself. Repealing or dispensing with the Law is a branch of Royal Authority. 'Tis true, God will never dispense with those Moral Laws, which have an eternal reason in themselves, and their own nature; as for a Creature, to Fear, Love, and Honour God: this would be to dispense with his own Holiness, and the Righteousness of his Nature, to fully the purity of his own Dominion; it would write folly upon the first Creation of man after the Image of God, by writing mutability upon himself, in framing himself after the corrupted Image of man. It would null and frustrate the excellency of the Creature, wherein the Image of God mostly shines; nay it would be to dispense with a Creatures being a Creator, and make him independent upon the Sovereign of the World in Moral Obedience.

2. His Soveraignty appears in a power of dispensing with his own Laws. 'Tis as much a part of his Dominion, to dispense with his Laws, as to enjoyn them; he only hath the power of relaxing his own right, no Creature hath power to do it; that would be to usurp a superiority over him, and order above God himself. Repealing or dispensing with the Law is a branch of Royal Authority. 'Tis true, God will never dispense with those Moral Laws, which have an eternal reason in themselves, and their own nature; as for a Creature, to Fear, Love, and Honour God: this would be to dispense with his own Holiness, and the Righteousness of his Nature, to fully the purity of his own Dominion; it would write folly upon the first Creation of man after the Image of God, by writing mutability upon himself, in framing himself after the corrupted Image of man. It would null and frustrate the excellency of the Creature, wherein the Image of God mostly shines; nay it would be to dispense with a Creatures being a Creator, and make him independent upon the Soveraign of the World in Moral Obedience.

But God hath a right to dispense with the ordinary Laws of Nature in the inferior Creatures; he hath a power to alter their course by an arrest of Miracles, and make them come short, or go beyond his Ordinances established for them. He hath a right to make the Sun stand still, or move backward; to bind up the Womb of the Earth, and bar the influences of the Clouds, bridle in the rage of the fire, and the fury of Lions, make the liquid waters stand like a Wall, or pull up the dam, which he hath set to the Sea, and command it to overflow the neighbouring Countries. He can dispense with the natural Laws of the whole Creation, and strain every string beyond its ordinary pitch.