That God, as universal Creator, is Sovereign Lord and proprietor
of all created things or existences, visible or invisible, is
certain; for the maker has the absolute right to the thing made;
it is his, and he may do with it as he will. As he is sole
creator, he alone hath dominion; and as he is absolute creator,
he has absolute dominion over all the things which he has made.
The guaranty against oppression is his own essential nature, is
in the plenitude of his own being, which is the plenitude of
wisdom and goodness. He cannot contradict himself, be other than
he is, or act otherwise than according to his own essential
nature. As he is, in his own eternal and immutable essence,
supreme reason and supreme good, his dominion must always in its
exercise be supremely good and supremely reasonable, therefore
supremely just and equitable. From him certainly is all power;
he is unquestionably King of kings, and Lord of lords. By him
kings reign and magistrates decree just things. He may, at his
will, set up or pull down kings, rear or overwhelm empires,
foster the infant colony, and make desolate the populous city.
All this is unquestionably true, and a simple dictate of reason
common to all men. But in what sense is it true? Is it true in
a supernatural sense? Or is it true only in the sense that it is
true that by him we breathe, perform any or all of our natural
functions, and in him live, and move, and have our being?
Viewed in their first cause, all things are the immediate
creation of God, and are supernatural, and from the point of view
of the first cause the Scriptures usually speak, for the great
purpose and paramount object of the sacred writers, as of
religion itself, is to make prominent the fact that God is
universal creator, and supreme governor, and therefore the first
and final cause of all things.
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