Christs eternal existence, and the dignity of his person asserted and proved in opposition…

Fifthly, He is not the bare instrument of God in sustaining the creature, but as a coequal Agent. As he made the World, and with the father created all things, so he doth support and order all things. It is as well the work of the Son as of the Father; for he is God equal with him in glory and power, John 5.17. My Father worketh hitherto and I work, and he hath a command of all the creatures, that they can do nothing without him, how much soever they attempt to do against him.

Fifthly, He is not the bare instrument of God in sustaining the creature, but as a coequal Agent. As he made the World, and with the father created all things, so he doth support and order all things. It is as well the work of the Son as of the Father; for he is God equal with him in glory and power, Iohn 5.17. My Father worketh hitherto and I work, and he hath a command of all the creatures, that they can do nothing without him, how much soever they attempt to do against him.

2. Let me give you the reasons of this, why all things must subsist by him.

1. Because preservation is but a kind of continued creation, or a continuance of the being which God hath caused: Gods will in creation maketh a thing to be, his will in preservation maketh it continue to be: the same omnipotency and efficacy of God is necessary to sustain our beings, as at first to create them. Therefore it is said Psal. 104.2. Thou stretchest out the Heavens like a curtain, which noteth a continued act, God erected them at first and still sustaineth them by his secret power in this posture: so that with respect to God it is the same action to conserve as to create. That the creature may have a being the influence of God is necessary to produce it,