in the gospel. It was made known to all nations for the obedience of
faith. The goodness of God is published, that our enmity to him may
be parted with. Christ’s righteousness is not offered to us to be put
on, that we may roll more warmly in our lusts. The doctrine of grace
commands us to give up ourselves to Christ, to be accepted through him,
and to be ruled by him. Obedience is due to God, as a sovereign lord in
his law; and it is due out of gratitude, as he is a God of grace in the
gospel. The discovery of a further perfection in God weakens not the
right of another, nor the obligation of the duty the former attribute
claims at our hands. The gospel frees us from the curse, but not from
the duty and service: “We are delivered from the hands of our enemies,
that we might serve God in holiness and righteousness” (Luke i. 74).
“This is the will of God” in the gospel, “even our sanctification.”
When a prince strikes off a malefactor’s chains, though he deliver
him from the punishment of his crime, he frees him not from the duty
of {a505} a subject: his pardon adds a greater obligation than his
protection did before, while he was loyal. Christ’s righteousness gives
us a title to heaven; but there must be a holiness to give us a fitness
for heaven.
6. Observe, that evangelical obedience, or the obedience of Faith, is
only acceptable to God. Obedience of faith; _genitivus speciei_, noting
the kind of obedience God requires; an obedience springing from faith,
animated and influenced by faith. Not obedience of faith, as though
faith were the rule, and the law were abrogated; but to the law as a
rule, and from faith as a principle. There is no true obedience before
faith (Heb. xi. 6.) “Without faith it is impossible to please God;”
and therefore without faith impossible to obey him. A good work cannot
proceed from a defiled mind and conscience; and without faith every
man’s mind is darkened, and his conscience polluted (Tit. i. 15). Faith
is the band of union to Christ, and obedience is the fruit of union;
we cannot bring forth fruit without being branches (John xv. 4, 5),
and we cannot be branches without believing. Legitimate fruit follows
upon marriage to Christ, not before it (Rom. vii. 4). “That you should
be married to another, even to him that is raised from the dead, that
you should bring forth fruit unto God.” All fruit before marriage is
bastard, and bastards were excluded from the sanctuary. Our persons
must be first accepted in Christ, before our services can be acceptable;
those works are not acceptable where the person is not pardoned. Good
works flow from a pure heart; but the heart cannot be pure before faith.
All the good works reckoned up in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews
were from this spring; those heroes first believed and then obeyed. By
faith Abel was righteous before God, without it his sacrifice had been
no better than Cain’s: by faith Enoch pleased God, and had a divine
testimony to his obedience before his translation; by faith Abraham
offered up Isaac, without which he had been no better than a murderer.
All obedience hath its root in faith, and is not done in our own
strength, but in the strength and virtue of another, of Christ, whom
God hath set forth as our head and root.
7. Observe, faith and obedience are distinct, though inseparable:
“The obedience of faith.” Faith, indeed, is obedience to a gospel
command, which enjoins us to believe; but it is not all our
obedience. Justification and sanctification are distinct acts of
God; justification respects the person, sanctification the nature;
justification is first in order of nature, and sanctification follows:
they are distinct, but inseparable; every justified person hath a
sanctified nature, and every sanctified nature supposeth a justified
person. So faith and obedience are distinct: faith as the principle,
obedience as the product; faith as the cause, obedience as the effect;
the cause and the effect are not the same. By faith we own Christ as
our Lord: by obedience we regulate ourselves according to his command.
The acceptance of the relation to him as a subject, precedes the
performance of our duty: by faith we receive his law, and by obedience
we fulfil it. Faith makes us God’s children (Gal. iii. 26). Obedience
manifests us to be Christ’s disciples (John xv. 8). Faith is {a506}
the touchstone of obedience; the touchstone, and that which is tried
by it, are not the same. But though they are distinct, yet they are
inseparable. Faith and obedience are joined together; obedience follows
faith at the heels. Faith purifies the heart, and a pure heart cannot
be without pure actions. Faith unites us to Christ, whereby we partake
of his life; and a living branch cannot be without fruit in its season,
and “much fruit” (John xv. 5), and that naturally from a “newness of
spirit” (Rom. vii. 9); not constrained by the rigors of the law, but
drawn forth from a sweetness of love; for faith works by love. The
love of God is the strong motive, and love to God is the quickening
principle; as there can be no obedience without faith, so no
faith without obedience. After all this, the apostle ends with the
celebration of the wisdom of God; “To God only wise, be glory, through
Jesus Christ forever.” The rich discovery of the gospel cannot be
thought of, by a gracious soul, without a return of praise to God, and
admiration of his singular wisdom.
_Wise God._ His power before, and his wisdom here, are mentioned in
conjunction (in which his goodness is included, as interested in his
establishing power) as the ground of all the glory and praise God hath
from his creatures.
_Only wise._ As Christ saith (Matt. xix. 17), “None is good, but God;”
so the apostle saith, None wise, but God. As all creatures are unclean
in regard of his purity, so they are all fools in regard of his wisdom;
yea, the glorious angels themselves (Job iv. 18). Wisdom is the royalty
of God; the proper dialect of all his ways and works. No creature can
lay claim to it; he is so wise, that he is wisdom itself.
_Be glory, through Jesus Christ._ As God is only known in and by
Christ, so he must be only worshipped and celebrated in and through
Christ. In him we must pray to him, and in him we must praise him. As
all mercies flow from God through Christ to us, so all our duties are
to be presented to God through Christ. In the Greek, _verbatim_, it
runs thus: “To the alone wise God, through Jesus Christ, to him be
glory forever.” But we must not understand it, as if God were wise by
Jesus Christ, but that thanks is to be given to God through Christ;
because in and by Christ God hath revealed his wisdom to the world.
The Greek hath a repetition of the article ᾧ, and expressed in the
translation, “To him be glory.” Beza expungeth this article, but
without reason, for ᾧ is as much as αὐτῷ, “to him;” and joining
this, “the only wise God” with ver. 25, “to him that is of power to
establish you;” reading it thus, “To him that is of power to establish
you, the only wise God,” leaving the rest in a parenthesis, it runs
smoothly, “to him be glory, through Jesus Christ,” And Crellius, the
Socinian, observes, that this article ᾧ, which some leave out, might
be industriously inserted by the apostle, to shew that the glory we
ascribe to God is also given to Christ. We may observe, that neither in
this place, nor any where in Scripture, is the Virgin Mary, or any of
the saints, associated with God or Christ in the glory ascribed to them.
In the words there is, 1. An appropriation of wisdom to God, and
{a507} a remotion of it from all creatures; “only wise God.” 2. A
glorifying him for it. The point I shall insist upon is, That wisdom is
a transcendant excellency of the Divine nature. We have before spoken
of the knowledge of God, and the infiniteness of it; the next attribute
is the wisdom of God. Most confound the knowledge and wisdom of God
together; but there is a manifest distinction between them in our
conception. I shall handle it thus: I. Shew what wisdom is. Then
lay down, II. Some propositions about the wisdom of God. And shew,
III. That God is wise, and only wise. IV. Wherein his wisdom appears.
V. The Use.
I. What wisdom is. Wisdom, among the Greeks, first signified an
eminent perfection in any art or mystery; so a good statuary, engraver,
or limner, was called wise, as having an excellent knowledge in his
particular art. But afterwards the title of wise was appropriated
to those that devoted themselves to the contemplation of the highest
things that served for a foundation to speculative sciences.[761] But
ordinarily we count a man a wise man, when he conducts his affairs
with discretion, and governs his passions with moderation, and carries
himself with a due proportion and harmony in all his concerns. But in
particular, wisdom consists,
1. In acting for a right end. The chiefest part of prudence is in
fixing a right end, and in choosing fit means, and directing them to
that scope; to shoot at random is a mark of folly. As he is the wisest
man that hath the noblest end and fittest means, so God is infinitely
wise; as he is the most excellent being, so he hath the most excellent
end. As there is none more excellent than himself, nothing can be his
end but himself; as he is the cause of all, so he is the end of all;
and he puts a true bias into all the means he useth to hit the mark
he aims at: “Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things”
(Rom. xi. 36).
2. Wisdom consists in observing all circumstances for action. He is
counted a wise man that lays hold of the fittest opportunities to bring
his designs about, that hath the fullest foresight of all the little
intrigues which may happen in a business he is to manage, and times
every part of his action in an exact harmony with the proper minutes of
it. God hath all the circumstances of things in one entire image before
him; he hath a prospect of every little creek in any design. He sees
what second causes will act, and when they will act this or that; yea,
he determines them to such and such acts; so that it is impossible he
should be mistaken, or miss of the due season of bringing about his own
purposes. As he hath more goodness than to deceive any, so he hath more
understanding than to be mistaken in any thing. Hence the time of the
incarnation of our blessed Saviour is called the fulness of time, the
proper season for his coming. Every circumstance about Christ was timed
according to the predictions of God; even so little a thing as not
parting his garment, and the giving him gall and vinegar to drink;
and all the blessings he showers down upon his people, according to
the covenant of grace, are said to come “in his season” (Ezek. xxxiv.
25, 26).
{a508} 3. Wisdom consists in willing and acting according to the
right reason, according to a right judgment of things. We can never
count a wilful man a wise man; but him only that acts according to
a right rule, when right counsels are taken and vigorously executed.
The resolves and ways of God are not mere will, but will guided by the
reason and counsel of his own infinite understanding (Eph. i. 11); “Who
works all things according to the counsel of his own will.” The motions
of the Divine will are not rash, but follow the proposals of the Divine
mind; he chooses that which is fittest to be done, so that all his
works are graceful, and all his ways have a comeliness and decorum in
them. Hence all his ways are said to be “judgment” (Deut. xxxii. 4),
not mere will. Hence it appears, that wisdom and knowledge are two
distinct perfections. Knowledge hath its seat in the speculative
understanding, wisdom in the practical. Wisdom and knowledge are
evidently distinguished as two several gifts of the Spirit in man
(1 Cor. xii. 8); “To one is given, by the Spirit, the word of wisdom;
to another, the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit.” Knowledge is
an understanding of general rules, and wisdom is a drawing conclusions
from those rules in order to particular cases. A man may have the
knowledge of the whole Scripture, and have all learning in the treasury
of his memory, and yet be destitute of skill to make use of them
upon particular occasions, and untie those knotty questions which
may be proposed to him, by a ready application of those rules. Again,
knowledge and wisdom may be distinguished, in our conception, as two
distinct perfections in God: the knowledge of God is his understanding
of all things; his wisdom is the skilful resolving and acting of
all things. And the apostle, in his admiration of him, owns them as
distinct; “O the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God” (Rom. xi. 33)! Knowledge is the foundation of wisdom, and
antecedent to it; wisdom the superstructure upon knowledge: men may
have knowledge without wisdom, but not wisdom without knowledge;
according to our common proverb, “The greatest clerks are not the
wisest men.” All practical knowledge is founded in speculation, either
_secundum rem_, as in a man; or, _secundum rationem_, as in God.
They agree in this, that they are both acts of the understanding; but
knowledge is the apprehension of a thing, and wisdom is the appointing
and ordering of things. Wisdom is the splendor and lustre of knowledge
shining forth in operations, and is an act both of understanding and
will; understanding in counselling and contriving, will in resolving
and executing: counsel and will are linked together (Eph. i. 11).
II. The second thing is to lay down some propositions in general,
concerning the wisdom of God.
First, There is an essential and a personal wisdom of God. The
essential wisdom, is the essence of God; the personal wisdom is the Son
of God. Christ is called Wisdom by himself (Luke vii. 35). The wisdom
of God by the apostle (1 Cor. i. 24). The wisdom I speak of belongs
to the nature of God, and is considered a necessary perfection. The
personal wisdom is called so, because he opens to us the secrets of God.
If the Son were that wisdom whereby the {a509} Father is wise, the Son
would be also the essence whereby the Father is God. If the Son were
the wisdom of the Father, whereby he is essentially wise, the Son would
be the essence of the Father, and the Father would have his essence
from the Son, since the wisdom of God is the essence of God; and so
the Son would be the Father, if the wisdom and power of the Father were
originally in the Son.
Secondly, Therefore the wisdom of God is the same with the essence
of God. Wisdom in God is not a habit added to his essence, as it is
in man, but it is his essence. It is like the splendor of the sun,
the same with the sun itself; or like the brightness of crystal, which
is not communicated to it by anything else, as the brightness of a
mountain is by the beam of the sun, but it is one with the crystal
itself. It is not a habit superadded to the Divine essence; that
would be repugnant to the simplicity of God, and speak him compounded
of divers principles; it would be contrary to the eternity of his
perfections: if he be eternally wise, his wisdom is his essence; for
there is nothing eternal but the essence of God. As the sun melts some
things, and hardens others; blackens some things, and whitens others,
and produceth contrary qualities in different subjects, yet it is
but one and the same quality in the sun, which is the cause of those
contrary operations; so the perfections of God seem to be diverse in
our conceptions, yet they are but one and the same in God.[762] The
wisdom of God, is God acting prudently; as the power of God, is God
acting powerfully; and the justice of God, is God acting righteously;
and therefore it is more truly said, that God is wisdom, justice, truth,
power, than that he is wise, just, true, &c. as if he were compounded
of substance and qualities. All the operations of God proceed from
one simple essence; as all the operations of the mind of man, though
various, proceed from one faculty of understanding.
Thirdly, Wisdom is the property of God alone: He is “only wise.” It
is an honor peculiar to him. Upon the account that no man deserved
the title of wise, but that it was a royalty belonging to God,[763]
Pythagoras would not be called Σόφος, a title given to their learned
men, but Φιλόσοφος. The name philosopher arose out of a respect to this
transcendent perfection of God.
1. God is “only wise” _necessarily_. As he is necessarily God, so he
is necessarily wise; for the notion of wisdom is inseparable from the
notion of a Deity. When we say, God is a Spirit, is true, righteous,
wise; we understand that he is transcendently these, by an intrinsic
and absolute necessity, by virtue of his own essence, without the
efficiency of any other, or any efficiency in and by himself. God doth
not make himself wise, no more than he makes himself God. As he is a
necessary Being in regard of his life, so he is necessarily wise in
regard of his understanding. Synesius saith, that God is essentiated,
οὐσιοῦσθαι, by his understanding. He places the substance of God in
understanding and wisdom: wisdom is the first vital operation of God.
He can no more be unwise than he can be untrue; for folly in the mind
is much the same with falsity in speech. Wisdom among men is gained
by age and experience, furthered by instructions and exercise; but the
wisdom of {a510} God is his nature. As the sun cannot be without light,
while it remains a sun, and as eternity cannot be without immortality,
so neither can God be without wisdom. As he only hath immortality
(1 Tim. vi. 16), not arbitrarily, but necessarily; so he only hath
wisdom: not because he will be wise, but because he cannot but be wise.
He cannot but contrive counsels, and exert operations, becoming the
greatness and majesty of his nature.
2. Therefore “only wise” _originally_. God is αὐτοδίδακτος αὐτόσοφος.
Men acquire wisdom by the loss of their fairest years; but his wisdom
is the perfection of the Divine nature, not the birth of study, or the
growth of experience, but as necessary, as eternal, as his essence. He
goes not out of himself to search wisdom: he needs no more the brains
of creatures in the contrivance of his purposes, than he doth their arm
in the execution of them. He needs no counsel, he receives no counsel
from any (Rom. xi. 34): “Who hath been his counsellor?” and (Isa. xl.
14) “With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, or taught him
in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him
the path of understanding?” He is the only Fountain of wisdom to others;
angels and men have what wisdom they have, by communication from him.
All created wisdom is a spark of the Divine light, like that of the
stars borrowed from the sun. He that borrows wisdom from another, and
doth not originally possess it in his own nature, cannot properly be
called wise. As God is the only Being, in regard that all other beings
are derived from him, so he is only wise, because all other wisdom
flows from him. He is the spring of wisdom to all; none the original
of wisdom to him.
3. Therefore “only wise” _perfectly_. There is no cloud upon his
understanding. He hath a distinct and certain knowledge of all things
that can fall under action; as he hath a perfect knowledge without
ignorance, so he hath a beautiful wisdom without mole or wart. Men are
wise, yet have not an understanding so vast as to grasp all things,
nor a perspicacity so clear, as to penetrate into the depths of all
being. Angels have more delightful and lively sparks of wisdom, yet so
imperfect, that in regard of the wisdom of God they are charged with
folly (Job iv. 18). Their wisdom as well as their holiness is veiled in
the presence of God. It vanisheth, as the glowing of a fire doth before
the beauty of the sun, or as the light of a candle in the midst of a
sunshine contracts itself, and none of its rays are seen, but in the
body of the flame. The angels are not perfectly wise, because they are
not perfectly knowing: the gospel, the great discovery of God’s wisdom,
was hid from them for ages.
4. Therefore “only wise” _universally_. Wisdom in one man is of one
sort, in another of another sort; one is a wise tradesman, another
a wise statesman, and another a wise philosopher: one is wise in the
business of the world, another is wise in divine concerns. One hath not
so much of plenty of one sort, but he may have a scantiness in another;
one may be wise for invention, and foolish in execution; an artificer
may have skill to frame an engine, and not skill to use it. The ground
that is fit for olives may not be fit {a511} for vines; that will
bear one sort of grain and not another. But God hath an universal
wisdom, because his nature is wise; it is not limited, but hovers over
everything, shines in every being. His executions are as wise as his
contrivances: he is wise in his resolves, and wise in his ways: wise
in all the varieties of his works of creation, government, redemption.
As his will wills all things, and his power effects all things, so
his wisdom is the universal director of the motions of his will, and
the executions of his power: as his righteousness is the measure of
the matter of his actions, so his wisdom is the rule that directs the
manner of his actions. The absolute power of God is not an unruly power:
his wisdom orders all things, so that nothing is done but what is fit
and convenient, and agreeable to so excellent a Being: as he cannot do
an unjust thing because of his righteousness, so he cannot do an unwise
act, because of his infinite wisdom. Though God be not necessitated
to any operation without himself, as to the creation of anything, yet
supposing he will act, his wisdom necessitates him to do that which is
congruous, as his righteousness necessitates him to do that which is
just: so that though the will of God be the principle, yet his wisdom
is the rule of his actions. We must, in our conceiving of the order,
suppose wisdom antecedent to will: none that acknowledges a God can
have such an impious thought as to affix temerity and rashness to
any of his proceedings. All his decrees are drawn out of the infinite
treasury of wisdom in himself.[764] He resolves nothing about any of
his creatures without reason; but the reason of his purposes is in
himself, and springs from himself, and not from the creatures: there
is not one thing that he wills but “he wills by counsel, and works by
counsel” (Eph. i. 11). Counsel writ down every line, every letter, in
his eternal Book; and all the orders are drawn out from thence by his
wisdom and will: what was illustrious in the contrivance, glitters
in the execution. His understanding and will are infinite; what is
therefore the act of his will, is the result of his understanding, and
therefore rational. His understanding and will join hands; there is no
contest in God, will against mind, and mind against will; they are one
in God, one in his resolves, and one in all his works.
5. Therefore he is “only wise” _perpetually_. As the wisdom of man
is got by ripeness of age, so it is lost by decay of years; it is
got by instruction, and lost by dotage. The perfectest minds, when
in the wane, have been darkened with folly: Nebuchadnezzar, that was
wise for a man, became as foolish as a brute. But the Ancient of Days
is an unchangeable possessor of prudence; his wisdom is a mirror of
brightness, without a defacing spot. It was “possessed by him in the
beginning of his ways, before his works of old” (Prov. viii. 22),
and he can never be dispossessed of it in the end of his works. It
is inseparable from him: the being of his Godhead may as soon cease
as the beauty of his mind; “with him is wisdom” (Job xii. 13); it is
inseparable from him; therefore, as durable as his essence. It is a
wisdom infinite, and therefore without increase or decrease in itself.
The experience of so many ages in the government {a512} of the world
hath added nothing to the immensity of it, as the shining of the sun
since the creation of the world hath added nothing to the light of that
glorious body. As ignorance never darkens his knowledge, so folly never
disgraces his prudence. God infatuates men, but neither men nor devils
can infatuate God; he is unerringly wise; his counsel doth not vary and
flatter; it is not one day one counsel, and another day another, but
it stands like an immovable rock, or a mountain of brass. “The counsel
of the Lord stands forever, and the thoughts of his heart to all
generations” (Ps. xxxiii. 11).