A Body of Practical Divinity

Branch 4. From hence, God manifest in the flesh, Christ born of a Virgin, a thing not only strange in nature, but impossible, learn, That there are no impossibilities with God: God can bring about Things which are not within the sphere of Nature to produce: That Iron should swim, that the Rock should gush out with water, that the Fire should lick up the water in the Trenches, 1 Kings 18.38. 'Tis natural for the water to quench the fire, but for the fire to consume the water, this is impossible in the course of Nature: But God can bring about all this, Jer. 32.27. There is nothing too hard for thee. Zach. 8.6. If it be marvellous in your Eyes, should it be marvellous in my eyes, saith the Lord? How should God be united to our flesh? It is impossible to us, but not with God. He can do that which transcends Reason, and exceeds Faith. He should not be God, if he could not do more than we can think, Eph. 3.20. He can reconcile Contraries. How apt are we to be discouraged with seeming impossibilities: how do our hearts die within us when things go cross to our Sense and Reason. We are apt to say as that Prince, 2 Kings 7.1, 2. If the Lord would make windows in Heaven, might this thing be? It was a time of Famine, and now that a measure of Wheat, which was a good part of a Bushel, should be sold for a Shekel, viz. half an Ounce of Silver; how can this be? So when things are cross, or strange, God's own People are apt to question, how they should be brought about with success. Moses, who was a Man of God, and one of the brightest Stars that ever shined in the firmament of God's Church, yet he was apt to be discouraged with seeming Impossibilities, Numb. 11.21. And Moses said, the People among whom I am are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou hast said I will give them flesh, that they may eat for a whole month, shall the flocks and herds be slain for them to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the Sea be gathered for them to suffice them? As if he had said in plain English, he did not see how the People of Israel, being so numerous, could be fed for a month. Vers. 23. And the Lord said, is the Lord's hand waxed short? Surely that God who brought Isaac out of a dead Womb, and the Messiah out of a Virgins Womb, what cannot he do? O let us rest upon the Arm of God's Power, and believe in him in the midst of seeming Impossibilities.