the malice and enmity of the devil to bring about his own purposes, and
makes the sworn enemy of his honor contribute to the illustrating of it
against his will. This great craftsmaster he took in his own net, and
defeated the devil by the devil’s malice; by turning the contrivances
he had hatched and accomplished against man, against himself. He
used him as a tempter, to grapple with our Saviour in the wilderness,
whereby to make him fit to succor us; and as the god of this world, to
conspire the wicked Jews to crucify him, whereby to render him actually
the Redeemer of the world, and so make him an ignorant instrument of
that divine glory he designed to ruin. It is more skill to make a
curious piece of workmanship with ill‑conditioned tools, than with
instruments naturally fitted for the work: it is no such great wonder
for a limner to draw an exact piece with a fit pencil and suitable
colors, as to begin and perfect a beautiful work with a straw and
water, things improper for such a design.[785] This wisdom of God is
more admirable and astonishing than if a man were able to rear a vast
palace by fire, whose nature is to consume combustible matter not to
erect a building. To make things serviceable contrary to their own
nature, is a wisdom peculiar to the Creator of Nature. God’s making use
of devils, for the glory of his name, and the good of his people, is a
more amazing piece of wisdom than his goodness in employing the blessed
angels in his work. To promise, that the world, (which includes the god
of the world), and death, and things present, let them be as evil as
they will, should be ours, that is, for our good, and for his glory,
is an act of goodness; but to make them serviceable to the honor of
Christ, and the good of his people, is a wisdom that may well raise our
highest admirations: they are for believers, as they are for the glory
of Christ, and as Christ is for the glory of God (1 Cor. iii. 22). To
chain up Satan wholly, and frustrate his wiles, would be an argument
of Divine goodness; but to suffer him to run his risk, and then improve
all his contrivances for his own glorious and gracious ends and
purposes, manifests, besides his power and goodness, his wisdom also.
He uses the sins of evil instruments for the glory of his justice (Isa.
x. 5‒7). Thus he served {a535} himself of the ambition and covetousness
of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Romans, for the correction of his
people, and punishment of his rebels, just as the Roman magistrates
used the fury of lions and other wild beasts, in their theatres, for
the punishment of criminals: the lions acted their natural temper in
tearing those that were exposed to them for a prey; but the intent of
the magistrates was to punish their crimes. the lions with their rage,
that they had from their natures; but served themselves of that natural
rage to execute justice.
(3.) God’s wisdom is seen in bringing good to the creature out of sin.
He hath ordered sin to such an end as man never dreamt of, the devil
never imagined, and sin in its own nature could never attain. Sin in
its own nature tends to no good, but that of punishment, whereby the
creature is brought into order. It hath no relation to the creature’s
good in itself, but to the creature’s mischief: but God, by an act
of infinite wisdom, brings good out of it to the creature, as well as
glory to his name, contrary to the nature of the crime, the intention
of the criminal, and the design of the tempter. God willed sin, that
is, he willed to permit it, that he might communicate himself to the
creature in the most excellent manner. He willed the permission of
sin, as an occasion to bring forth the mystery of the incarnation and
passion of our Saviour; as he permitted the sin of Joseph’s brethren,
that he might use their evil to a good end. He never, because of his
holiness, wills sin as an end; but in regard of his wisdom he wills to
permit it as a means and occasion; and thus, to draw good out of those
things which are in their own nature most contrary to good, is the
highest pitch of wisdom.
[1.] The redemption of man in so excellent a way, was drawn from
the occasion of sin. The greatest blessing that ever the world was
blessed with, was ushered in by contraieties, by the lust and irregular
affection of man; the first promise of the Redeemer by the fall of Adam
(Gen. iii. 15), and the bruising the heel of that promised Seed, by the
blackest tragedy acted by wicked rebels, the treachery of Judas, and
the rage of the Jews; the highest good hath been brought forth by the
greatest wickedness. As God out of the chaos of rude and indigested
matter framed the first creation; so from the sins of men, and malice
of Satan, he hath erected the everlasting scheme of honor in a new
creation of all things by Jesus Christ. The devil inspired man, to
content his own fury in the death of Christ; and God ordered it to
accomplish his own design of redemption in the passion of the Redeemer;
the devil had his diabolical ends, and God overpowers his actions to
serve his own divine ends. The person that betrayed him was admitted
to be a spectator of the most private actions of our Saviour, that
his innocence might be justified; to shew, that he was not afraid to
have his enemies judges of his most retired privacies. While they all
thought to do their own wills, Divine wisdom orders them to do God’s
will (Acts ii. 23): “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have
crucified and slain.” And wherein the crucifiers of {a536} Christ
sinned, in shedding the richest blood, upon their repentance they found
the expiation of their crimes, and the discovery of a superabundant
mercy. Nothing but the blood was aimed at by them: the best blood was
shed by them; but infinite Wisdom makes the cross the scene of his own
righteousness, and the womb of man’s recovery. By the occasion of man’s
lapsed state, there was a way open to raise man to a more excellent
condition than that whereinto he was put by creation: and the depriving
man of the happiness of an earthly paradise, in a way of justice, was
an occasion of advancing him to a heavenly felicity, in a way of grace.
The violation of the old covenant occasionally introduced a better: the
loss of the first integrity ushered in a more stable righteousness, an
everlasting righteousness (Dan. ix. 24). And the falling of the first
head was succeeded by one whose standing could not but be eternal. The
fall of the devil was ordered by infinite Wisdom, for the good of that
body from which he fell. It is supposed by some, that the devil was the
chief angel in heaven, the head of all the rest; and that he falling,
the angels were left as a body without a head; and after he had
politically beheaded the angels, he endeavored to destroy man, and rout
him out of paradise; but God takes the opportunity to set up his Son,
as the head of angels and men. And thus whilst the devil endeavored to
spoil the corporation of angels, and make them a body contrary to God,
God makes angels and men one body under one head, for his service.
The angels in losing a defectible head, attained a more excellent and
glorious Head in another nature, which they had not before; though of
a lower nature in his humanity, yet of a more glorious nature in his
divinity: from whence many suppose they derive their confirming grace,
and the stability of their standing. “All things in heaven and earth
are gathered together in Christ” (Eph i. 10), ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι, all
united in him, and reduced under one head: that though our Saviour be
not properly their Redeemer, for redemption supposeth captivity, yet in
some sense he is their Head and Mediator: so that now the inhabitants
of heaven and earth are but one family (Eph. iii. 15). And the
innumerable company of angels are parts of that heavenly and triumphant
Jerusalem, and that general assembly, whereof Jesus Christ is Mediator
(Heb. xii. 22, 29).
[2.] The good of a nation often, by the skill of Divine wisdom, is
promoted by the sins of some men. The patriarchs’ selling Joseph to the
Midianites (Gen. xxxvii. 28), was without question a sin, and a breach
of natural affection; yet, by God’s wise ordination, it proved the
safety of the whole church of God in the world, as well as the Egyptian
nation (Gen. xlv. 5, 8; l. 20). The Jews’ unbelief was a step whereby
the Gentiles arose to the knowledge of the gospel; as the setting of
the sun in one place is the rising of it in another (Matt. xxii. 9).
He uses the corruptions of men instrumentally to propogate his gospel:
he built up the true church by the preaching of some out of envy
(Phil. i. 15), as he blessed Israel out of the mouth of a false prophet
(Numb. xxiii.) How often have the heresies of men been the occasion of
clearing up the truth of God, and fixing the more lively impressions
of it on {a537} the hearts of believers! Neither Judah nor Tamar, in
their lust, dreamt of a stock for the Redeemer; yet God gave a son
from that unlawful bed, whereof “Christ came according to the flesh”
(Gen. xxxviii. 29, compared with Matt. i. 3). Jonah’s sin was probably
the first and remote occasion of the Ninevites giving credit to his
prophecy; his sin was the cause of his punishment, and his being flung
into the sea might facilitate the reception of his message, and excite
the Ninevites’ repentance, whereby a cloud of severe judgment was blown
away from them. It is thought by some, that when Jonah passed through
the streets of Nineveh, with his proclamation of destruction, he might
be known by some of the mariners of that ship, from whence he was cast
overboard into the sea, and might, after their voyage, be occasionally
in that city, the metropolis of the nation, and the place of some
of their births; and might acquaint the people, that this was the
same person they had cast into the sea, by his own consent, for his
acknowledged running from the presence of the Lord: for that he had
told them (Jonah i. 10); and the mariner’s prayer (ver. 14) evidenced
it; whereupon they might conclude his message worthy of belief, since
they knew from such evidences, that he had sunk into the bowels of the
waters, and now saw him safe in their streets, by a deliverence unknown
to them; and that therefore that power that delivered him, could
easily verify his word in the threatened judgment. Had Jonah gone at
first, without committing that sin, and receiving that punishment, his
message had not been judged a divine prediction, but a fruit of some
enthusiastic madness; his sin upon this account was the first occasion
of averting a judgment from so great a city.
[3.] The good of the sinner himself is sometimes promoted by Divine
wisdom ordering the sin. As God had not permitted sin to enter upon
the world, unless to bring glory to himself by it; so he would not let
sin remain in the little world of a believer’s heart, if he did not
intend to order it for his good. What is done by man, to his damage
and disparagement, is directed by Divine wisdom to his advantage; not
that it is the intent of the sin, or the sinner; but it is the event of
the sin, by the ordination of Divine wisdom and grace. As without the
wisdom of God permitting sin to enter into the world, some attributes
of God had not been experimentally known, so some graces could not have
been exercised; for where had there been an object for that noble zeal,
in vindicating the glory of God, had it not been invaded by an enemy?
The intenseness of love to him could not have been so strong, had
we not an enemy to hate for his sake. Where had there been any place
for that noble part of charity in holy admonitions and compassion
to the souls of our neighbors, and endeavors to reduce them out of
a destructive, to a happy path? Humility would not have had so many
grounds for its growth and exercise, and holy sorrow had no fuel. And
as without the appearance of sin there had been no exercise of the
patience of God, so without afflictions, the fruits of sin, there had
been no ground for the exercise of the patience of a christian, one
of the noblest parts of valor. Now sin being evil, and such as cannot
but be evil, hath no respect in itself to any {a538} good, and cannot
work a gracious end, or anything profitable to the creature; nay it is
a hindrance to any good, and, therefore, what good comes from it, is
accidental; occasioned, indeed, by sin, but efficiently caused by the
over‑ruling wisdom of God, taking occasion thereby to display itself
and the Divine goodness.
1. The sins and corruptions remaining in the heart of man, God orders
for good; and there are good effects by the direction of his wisdom and
grace, as the soul respects God.
(1.) God often brings forth a sensibleness of the necessity of
dependence on him. The nurse often lets the child slip, that it may the
better know who supports it, and may not be too venturous and confident
of its own strength. Peter would trust in habitual grace, and God
suffers him to fall, that he might trust more in assisting grace (Matt.
xxvi. 35): “Though I should die with thee, yet I will not deny thee.”
God leaves sometimes the brightest souls in eclipse, to manifest that
their holiness, and the preservation of it, depend upon the darting
out his beams upon them. As the falls of men are the effects of their
coldness and remissness in acts of faith and repentance, so the fruit
of these falls is often a running to him for refuge, and a deeper
sensibleness where their security lies. It makes us lower our swelling
sails, and come under the lee and protection of Divine grace. When the
pleasures of sin answer not the expectations of a revolted creature,
he reflects upon his former state, and sticks more close to God, when
before God had little of his company (Hos. ii. 7): “I will return to
my first husband, for then it was better with me than now.” As God
makes the sins of men sometimes an occasion of their conversion, so he
sometimes makes them an occasion of a further conversion. Onesimus run
from Philemon, and was met with by Paul, who proved an instrument of
his conversion (Philem. 10): “My son, Onesimus, whom I have begotten
in my bonds.” His flight from his master was the occasion of his
regeneration by Paul, a prisoner. The falls of believers God orders to
their further stability; he that is fallen for want of using his staff,
will lean more upon it to preserve himself from the like disaster. God,
by permitting the lapses of men, doth often make them despair of their
own strength to subdue their enemies, and rely upon the strength of
Christ, wherein God hath laid up power for us, and so becomes stronger
in that strength which God hath ordained for them. We are very apt to
trust in ourselves, and have confidence in our own worth and strength;
and God lets loose corruptions to abate this swelling humor. This was
the reason of the apostle Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. xii. 7);
whether it were a temptation, or corruption, or sickness, that he might
be sensible of his own inability, and where the sufficiency of grace
for him was placed. He that is in danger of drowning, and hath the
waves come over his head, will, with all the might he hath, lay hold
upon anything near him, which is capable to save him. God lets his
people sometimes sink into such a condition, that they may lay the
faster hold on him who is near to all that call upon him.
(2.) God hereby raiseth higher estimations of the value and virtue of
the blood of Christ. As the great reason why God permitted sin {a539}
to enter into the world, was to honor himself in the Redeemer, so the
continuance of sin, and the conquests it sometimes makes in renewed
men, are to honor the infinite value and virtue of the Redeemer’s merit,
which God, from the beginning, intended to magnify: the value of it, in
taking off so much successive guilt; and the virtue of it, in washing
away so much daily filth. The wisdom of God hereby keeps up the credit
of imputed righteousness, and manifests the immense treasure of the
Redeemer’s merit to pay such daily debts. Were we perfectly sanctified,
we should stand upon our own bottom, and imagine no need of the
continual and repeated imputation of the righteousness of Christ for
our justification: we should confide in inherent righteousness, and
slight imputed. If God should take off all remainders of sin, as well
as the guilt of it, we should be apt to forget that we are fallen
creatures, and that we had a Redeemer; but the relics of sin in us mind
us of the necessity of some higher strength to set us right: they mind
us both of our own misery, and the Redeemer’s perpetual benefit. God,
by this, keeps up the dignity and honor of our Saviour’s blood to the
height, and therefore sometimes lets us see, to our own cost, what
filth yet remains in us for the employment of that blood, which we
should else but little think of, and less admire. Our gratitude is so
small to God as well as man, that the first obligations are soon forgot
if we stand not in need of fresh ones successively to second them; we
should lose our thankful remembrance of the first virtue of Christ’s
blood in washing us, if our infirmities did not mind us of fresh
reiterations and applications of it. Our Saviour’s office of advocacy
was erected especially for sins committed after a justified and renewed
state (1 John ii. 1). We should scarce remember we had an Advocate,
and scarce make use of him without some sensible necessity; but our
remainders of sin discover our impotency, and an impossibility for us
either to expiate our sin, or conform to the law, which necessitates
us to have recourse to that person whom God hath appointed to make up
the breaches between God and us. So the apostle wraps up himself in the
covenant of grace and his interest in Christ, after his conflict with
sin (Rom. vii. _ult._), “I thank God, through Jesus Christ.” Now, after
such a body of death, a principle within me that sends up daily steams,
yet as long as I serve God with my mind, as long as I keep the main
condition of the covenant, “there is no condemnation” (Rom. viii. 1):
Christ takes my part, procures my acceptance, and holds the band
of salvation firm in his hands. The brightness of Christ’s grace
is set off by the darkness of our sin. We should not understand the
sovereignty of his medicines, if there were no relics of sin for him to
exercise his skill upon: the physician’s art is most experimented, and
therefore most valued in relapses, as dangerous as the former disease.
As the wisdom of God brought our Saviour into temptation, that he might
have compassion to us, so it permits us to be overcome by temptation,
that we might have due valuations of him.
(3.) God hereby often engageth the soul to a greater industry for his
glory. The highest persecutors, when they have become converts have
been the greatest champions for that cause they both hated and {a540}
oppressed. The apostle Paul is such an instance of this, that it needs
no enlargement. By how much they have failed of answering the end of
their creation in glorifying God, by so much the more they summon up
all their force for such an end, after their conversion; to restore
as much as they can of that glory to God, which they, by their sin,
had robbed him of. Their sins, by the order of Divine wisdom, prove
whetstones to sharpen the edge of their spirits for God. Paul never
remembered his persecuting fury, but he doubled his industry for the
service of God, which before he trampled under his feet. The further
we go back, the greater leap many times we take forward. Our Saviour,
after his resurrection, put Peter upon the exercise of that love to him,
which had so lately shrunk his head out of suffering (John xxi. 15‒17);
and no doubt, but the consideration of his base denial, together with
a reflection upon a gracious pardon, engaged his ingenuous soul to
stronger and fiercer flames of affection. A believer’s courage for God
is more sharpened oftentimes by the shame of his fall: he endeavors to
repair the faults of his ingratitude and his disingenuity by larger and
stronger steps of obedience; as a man in a fight, having been foiled by
his enemy, reassumes new courage by his fall, and is many times obliged
to his foil, both for his spirit and his victory. A gracious heart will,
upon the very motions to sin, double its vigor, as well as by good ones:
it is usually more quickened, both in its motion to God and for God, by
the temptations and motions to sin which run upon it. This is another
good the wisdom of God brings forth from sin.
(4.) Again, humility towards God is another good Divine wisdom brings
forth from the occasion of sin. By this God beats down all good opinion
of ourselves. Hezekiah was more humbled by his fall into pride, than by
all the distress he had been in by Sennacherib’s army (2 Chron. xxxii.
26). Peter’s confidence before his fall, gave way to an humble modesty
after it; you see his confidence (Mark xiv. 24). “Though all should be
offended in thee, yet will not I;” and you have the mark of his modesty
(John xxi. 17). It is not then, Lord, I will love thee to the death,
I will not start from thee; but, “Lord, thou knowest that I love thee:”
I cannot assure myself of anything after this miscarriage; but, Lord,
thou knowest there is a principle of love in me to thy name. He was
ashamed, that himself who appeared such a pillar, should bend as meanly
as a shrub to a temptation. The reflection upon sin lays a man as low
as hell in his humiliation, as the commission of sin did in the merit.
When David comes to exercise repentance for his sin, he begins it from
the well‑head of sin (Ps. li. 5), his original corruption, and draws
down the streams of it to the last commission; perhaps he did not so
seriously humble himself for the sin of his nature all his days, so
much as at that time; at least, we have not such evidences of it. And
Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart; not only for the
pride of his act (2 Chron. xxxii. 26), but for the pride in the heart,
which was the spring of that pride in act, in showing his treasures to
the Babylonish ambassadors. God lets sin continue in the hearts of the
best in this world, and sometimes gives the reins to Satan, and {a541}
a man’s own corruption, to keep up a sense of the ancient sale we made
of ourselves to both.
2. In regard of ourselves. Herein is the wonder of Divine wisdom, that
God many times makes a sin, which meritoriously fits us for hell, a
providential occasion to fit us for heaven; when it is an occasion of a
more humble faith and believing humility, and an occasion of a thorough
sanctification and growth in grace, which prepares us for a state of
glory.
(1.) He makes use of one sin’s breaking out to discover more; and so
brings us to a self‑abhorrency and indignation against sin, the first
step towards heaven. Perhaps David, before his gross fall, thought he
had no hypocrisy in him. We often find him appealing to God for his
integrity, and desiring God to try him, if any guile could be found in
his heart, as if he could find none himself; but his lapse into that
great wickedness makes him discern much falseness in his soul, when
he desires God to renew a right spirit within him, and speaks of truth
in the inward parts (Ps. li. 6, 10). The stirring of corruption makes
all the mud at the bottom appear, which before a soul did not suspect.
No man would think there were so great a cloud of smoke contained in
a little stick of wood, were it not for the powerful operation of the
fire, that both discovers and separates it. Job, that cursed the day of
his birth, and uttered many impatient expressions against God upon the
account of his own integrity; upon his recovery from his affliction,
and God’s close application of himself, was wrought to a greater
abhorrency of himself than ever we read he was exercised in before (Job
xlii. 6). The hostile acts of sin increase the soul’s hatred of it; and
the deeper our humiliations are for it, the stronger impressions of
abhorrency are made upon us.