be ripe, that his justice may appear more equitable, and the offender
more inexcusable (Dan. ix. 14); he watches upon the evil to bring it
upon men; to bring it in the just season and order for his righteous
and gracious purpose; his righteous purpose on the enemies, and his
gracious purpose on his people. Jerusalem’s calamity came upon them,
when the city was full of people at the solemnity of the passover,
that he might mow down his enemies at once, and time their destruction
to such a moment wherein they had timed the crucifixion of his Son. He
watched over the clouds of his judgments, and kept them from pouring
down, till his people, the Christians, were provided for, and had
departed out of the city to the {a549} chambers and retiring places
God had provided for them. He made not Jerusalem the shambles of his
enemies, till he had made Pella, and other places, the arks of his
friends. As Pliny tells us, “The providence of God holds the sea in a
calm for fifteen days, that the halcyons, little birds that frequent
the shore, may build their nests, and hatch up their young.” The
judgment upon Sodom was suspended for some hours, till Lot was secured.
God suffered not the church to be invaded by violent persecutions, till
she was established in the faith: he would not expose her to so great
combats, while she was weak and feeble, but gave her time to fortify
herself, to be rendered more capable of bearing up under them.[789] He
stifled all the motions of passion the idolaters might have for their
superstition, till religion was in such a condition, as rather to
be increased and purified, than extinguished by opposition. Paul was
secured from Nero’s chains, and the nets of his enemies, till he had
broke off the chain of the devil from many cities of the Gentiles, and
catched them by the net of the gospel out of the sea of the world. Thus
the wisdom of God is seen in the seasons of judgments and afflictions.
(3.) It is apparent in the gracious issue of afflictions and penal
evils. It is a part of wisdom to bring good out of evil of punishment,
as well as to bring good out of sin. The church never was so like
to heaven, as when it was most persecuted by hell: the storms often
cleansed it and the lance often made it more healthful. Job’s integrity
had not been so clear, nor his patience so illustrious, had not the
devil been permitted to afflict him. God, by his wisdom, outwits Satan;
when he by his temptations intends to pollute us and buffet us, God
orders it to purify us; he often brings the clearest light out of the
thickest darkness, makes poisons to become medicines. Death itself, the
greatest punishment in this life, and the entrance into hell in its own
nature, he hath by his wise contrivance, made to his people the gate of
heaven, and the passage into immortality.[790] Penal evils in a nation
often end in a public advantage: troubles and wars among a people
are many times not destroying, but medicinal, and cure them of that
degeneracy, luxury, and effeminateness, they contracted by a long peace.
(4.) This wisdom is evident in the various ends which God brings about
by afflictions. The attainment of various ends by one and the same
means, is the fruit of the agent’s prudence. By the same affliction,
the wise God corrects sometimes for some base affection, excites some
sleepy grace, drives out some lurking corruption, refines the soul, and
ruins the lust; discovers the greatness of a crime, the vanity of the
creature, and the sufficiency in himself. The Jews bind Paul, and by
the judge he is sent to Rome; while his mouth is stopped in Judea, it
is opened in one of the greatest cities of the world, and his enemies
unwittingly contribute to the increase of the knowledge of Christ
by those chains, in that city (Acts xxviii. 31) that triumphed over
the earth. And his afflictive bonds added courage and resolution to
others (Phil. i. 14): “Many waxing confident by my bonds;” which could
not in their own nature produce such an effect, but by the order and
contrivance of Divine wisdom: {a550} in their own nature, they would
rather make them disgust the doctrine he suffered for, and cool their
zeal in the propagating of it, for fear of the same disgrace and
hardship they saw him suffer.[791] But the wisdom of God changed the
nature of these fetters, and conducted them to the glory of his name,
the encouragement of others, the increase of the gospel, and the
comfort of the apostle himself (Phil. i. 12, 13, 18). The sufferings
of Paul at Rome confirmed the Philippians, a people at a distance from
thence, in the doctrine they had already received at his hands. Thus
God makes sufferings sometimes, which appear like judgments, to be
like the viper on Paul’s hand (Acts xxviii. 6), a means to clear up
innocence, and procure favor to the doctrine among those barbarians.
How often hath he multiplied the church by death and massacres, and
increased it by those means used to annihilate it!
(5.) The Divine wisdom is apparent in the deliverances he affords to
other parts of the world, as well as to his church. There are delicate
composures, curious threads in his webs, and he works them like an
artificer: a goodness wrought for them, curiously wrought (Ps. xxxi.
19), [1.] In making the creatures subservient in their natural order
to his gracious ends and purposes. He orders things in such a manner,
as not to be necessitated to put forth an extraordinary power in
things, which some part of the creation might accomplish. Miraculous
productions would speak his power; but the ordering the natural course
of things, to occasion such effects they were never intended for, is
one part of the glory of his wisdom. And that his wisdom may be seen
in the course of nature, he conducts the motions of creatures, and
acts them in their own strength; and doth that by various windings and
turnings of them, which he might do in an instant by his power, in a
supernatural way. Indeed, sometimes he hath made invasions on nature,
and suspended the order of their natural laws for a season, to show
himself the absolute Lord and Governor of nature: yet if frequent
alterations of this nature were made, they would impede the knowledge
of the nature of things, and be some bar to the discovery and glory
of his wisdom, which is best seen by moving the wheels of inferior
creatures in an exact regularity to his own ends. He might, when his
little church in Jacob’s family was like to starve in Canaan, have, for
their preservation, turned the stones of the country into bread; but
he sends them down to Egypt to procure corn, that a way might be opened
for their removal into that country; the truth of his prediction in
their captivity accomplished, and a way made after the declaration
of his great name, Jehovah, both in the fidelity of his word and
the greatness of his power, in their deliverance from that furnace
of affliction. He might have struck Goliath, the captain of the
Philistine’s army, with a thunderbolt from heaven, when he blasphemed
his name, and scared his people; but he useth the natural strength of
a stone, and the artificial motion of a sling, by the arm of David,
to confront the giant, and thereby to free Judea from the ravage of
a potent enemy. He might have delivered the Jews from Babylon by as
strange miracles as he used in their deliverance from Egypt: he {a551}
might have plagued their enemies, gathered his people into a body, and
protected them by the bulwark of a cloud and a pillar of fire, against
the assaults of their enemies. But he uses the differences between the
Persians and those of Babylon, to accomplish his ends. How sometimes
hath the veering about of the wind on a sudden been the loss of a navy,
when it hath been put upon the point of victory, and driven back the
destruction upon those which intended it for others! and the accidental
stumbling, or the natural fierceness of a horse, flung down a general
in the midst of a battle, where he hath lost his life by the throng,
and his death hath brought a defeat to his army, and deliverance to the
other party, that were upon the brink of ruin! Thus doth the wisdom of
God link things together according to natural order, to work out his
intended preservation of a people. [2.] In the season of deliverance.
The timing of affairs is a part of the wisdom of man, and an eminent
part of the wisdom of God. It is in due season he sends the former
and the latter rain, when the earth is in the greatest indigence,
and when his influences may most contribute to the bringing forth and
ripening the fruit. The dumb creatures have their meat from him in due
season (Ps. civ. 27): and in his due season have his darling people
their deliverance. When Paul was upon his journey to Damascus with
a persecuting commission, he is struck down for the security of the
church in that city. The nature of the lion is changed in due season,
for the preservation of the lambs from worrying. The Israelites are
miraculously rescued from Egypt, when their wits were at a loss, when
their danger to human understanding was unavoidable; when earth and
sea refused protection, then the wisdom and power of heaven stepped
in to effect that which was past the skill of the conductors of that
multitude. And when the lives of the Jews lay at the stake, and their
necks were upon the block at the mercy of their enemies’ swords by
an order from Shushan, not only a reprieve, but a triumph, arrives to
the Jews, by the wisdom of God guiding the affair, whereby of persons
designed to execution, they are made conquerors, and have opportunity
to exercise their revenge instead of their patience, proving triumphers
where they expected to be sufferers (Esth. viii. 9). How strangely doth
God, by secret ways, bow the hearts of men and the nature of things
to the execution of that which he designs, notwithstanding all the
resistance of that which would traverse the security of his people!
How often doth he trap the wicked in the work of their own hands, make
their confidence to become their ruin, and ensnare them in those nets
they wrought and laid for others (Ps. ix. 16)! “The wicked is snared in
the work of his own hands. He scatters the proud in the imagination of
their hearts” (Luke i. 51), in the height of their hopes, when their
designs have been laid so deep in the foundation, and knit and cemented
so close in their superstructure, that no human power or wisdom could
rase them down: he hath then disappointed their projects, and befooled
their craft. How often hath he kept back the fire, when it hath been
ready to devour; broke the arrows when they have been prepared in the
bow; turned the spear into the bowels of the bearers, and wounded them
at the very instant they were ready to wound {a552} others! [3.] In
suiting instruments to his purpose. He either finds them fit, or makes
them on a sudden fit for his gracious ends. If he hath a tabernacle to
build, he will fit a Bezaleel and an Aholiab with the spirit of wisdom
and understanding in all cunning workmanship (Exod. xxxi. 3, 6). If
he finds them crooked pieces, he can, like a wise architect, make them
straight beams for the rearing his house, and for the honor of his
name. He sometimes picks out men according to their natural tempers,
and employs them in his work. Jehu, a man of a furious temper, and
ambitious spirit, is called out for the destruction of Ahab’s house.
Moses, a man furnished with all Egyptian wisdom, fitted by a generous
education, prepared also by the affliction he met with in his flight,
and one who had had the benefit of conversation with Jethro, a man of
more than an ordinary wisdom and goodness, as appears by his prudent
and religious counsel; this man is called out to be the head and
captain of an oppressed people, and to rescue them from their bondage,
and settle the first national church in the world. So Elijah, a
high‑spirited man, of a hot and angry temper, one that slighted the
frowns, and undervalued the favor of princes, is set up to stem the
torrent of Israelitish idolatry. So Luther, a man of the same temper,
is drawn out by the same wisdom to encounter the corruptions in the
church, against such opposition, which a milder temper would have sunk
under. The earth, in Rev. xii. 16, is made an instrument to help the
woman: when the grandees of that age transferred the imperial power
upon Constantine, who became afterwards a protecting and nursing father
to the church, an end which many of his favorers never designed, nor
ever dreamt of: but God, by his infinite wisdom, made these several
designs, like several arrows shot at rovers, meet in one mark to which
he directed them, viz., in bringing forth an instrument to render peace
to the world and security and increase to his church.
III. The wisdom of God doth wonderfully appear in redemption. His
wisdom in creature ravisheth the eye and understanding; his wisdom
in government doth no less affect a curious observer of the links and
concatenation of the means; but his wisdom in redemption mounts the
mind to a greater astonishment. The works of creation are the footsteps
of his wisdom; the work of redemption is the face of his wisdom. A man
is better known by the features of his face, than by the prints of his
feet. We, with “open face,” or a revealed face, “beholding the glory of
the Lord” (2 Cor. iii. 18). Face, there, refers to God, not to us; the
glory of God’s wisdom is now open, and no longer covered and veiled by
the shadows of the law. As we behold the light glorious as scattered
in the air before the appearance of the sun, but more gloriously in the
face of the sun when it begins its race in our horizon. All the wisdom
of God in creation, and government in his variety of laws, was like
the light the three first days of the creation, dispersed about the
world; but the fourth day it was more glorious, when all gathered into
the body of the sun (Gen. i. 4, 16). So the light of Divine wisdom
and glory was scattered about the world, and so more obscure, till the
fourth divine day of the world, about the four thousandth year, it was
gathered into one body, the Sun of Righteousness, and so shone {a553}
out more gloriously to men and angels. All things are weaker the
thinner they are extended, but stronger the more they are united and
compacted in one body and appearance. In Christ, in the dispensation
by him, as well as his person, were “hid all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge” (Coloss. ii. 3). Some doles of wisdom were given out
in creation, but the treasures of it opened in redemption, the highest
degrees of it that ever God did exert in the world. Christ is therefore
called the “wisdom of God,” as well as the “power of God” (1 Cor.
i. 24); and the gospel is called the “wisdom of God.” Christ is the
wisdom of God principally, and the gospel instrumentally, as it is the
power of God instrumentally to subdue the heart to himself. This is
wrapped up in the appointing Christ as Redeemer, and opened to us in
the revelation of it by the gospel.
1. It is a hidden wisdom. In this regard God is said, in the text, to
be only wise: and it is said to be a “hidden wisdom” (1 Tim. i. 17),
and “wisdom in a mystery” (1 Cor. ii. 7), incomprehensible to the
ordinary capacity of an angel, more than the obstruse qualities of the
creatures are to the understanding of man. No wisdom of men or angels
is able to search the veins of this mine, to tell all the threads of
this web, or to understand all the lustre of it; they are as far from
an ability fully to comprehend it, as they were at first to contrive it.
That wisdom that invented it can only comprehend it. In the uncreated
understanding only there is a clearness of light without any shadow of
darkness. We come as short of full apprehensions of it, as a child doth
of the counsel of the wisest prince. It is so hidden from us, that,
without revelation, we could not have the least imagination of it; and
though it be revealed to us, yet, without the help of an infiniteness
of understanding, we cannot fully fathom it: it is such a tractate of
divine wisdom, that the angels never before had seen the edition of it,
till it was published to the world (Eph. iii. 10): “to the intent that
now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known
by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” Now made known to them,
not before; and now made known to them “in the heavenly places.” They
had not the knowledge of all heavenly mysteries, though they had the
possession of heavenly glory: they knew the prophecies of it in the
word, but attained not a clear interpretation of those prophecies till
the things that were prophesied of came upon the stage.
2. Manifold wisdom: so it is called. As manifold as mysterious: variety
in the mystery, and mystery in every part of the variety. It was not
one single act, but a variety of counsels met in it; a conjunction of
excellent ends and excellent means. The glory of God, the salvation of
man, the defeat of the apostate angels, the discovery of the blessed
Trinity in their nature, operations, their combined and distinct acts
and expressions of goodness. The means are the conjunction of two
natures, infinitely distinct from one another; the union of eternity
and time, of mortality and immortality: death is made the way to
life, and shame the path to glory. The weakness of the cross is the
reparation of man, and the creature is made wise by the “foolishness of
preaching;” fallen man grows rich by {a554} the poverty of the Redeemer,
and man is filled by the emptiness of God; the heir of hell made a son
of God, by God’s taking upon him the “form of a servant;” the son of
man advanced to the highest degree of honor, by the Son of God becoming
of “no reputation.” It is called (Eph. i. 8) “abundance of wisdom and
prudence.” Wisdom, in the eternal counsel, contriving a way; prudence,
in the temporary revelation, ordering all affairs and occurrences
in the world for the attaining the end of his counsel. Wisdom refers
to the mystery; prudence, to the manifestation of it in fit ways and
convenient seasons. Wisdom, to the contrivance and order; prudence,
to the execution and accomplishment. In all things God acted as became
him, as a wise and just Governor of the world (Heb. ii. 10). Whether
the wisdom of God might not have found out some other way, or whether
he were, in regard of the necessity and naturalness of his justice,
limited to this, is not the question; but that it is the best and
wisest way for the manifestation of his glory, is out of question.
This wisdom will appear in the different interests reconciled by it:
in the subject, the second person in the Trinity, wherein they were
reconciled: in the two natures, wherein he accomplished it; whereby
God is made known to man in his glory, sin eternally condemned, and
the repenting and believing sinner eternally rescued: the honor and
righteousness of the law vindicated both in the precept and penalty:
the devil’s empire overthrown by the same nature he had overturned,
and the subtilty of hell defeated by that nature he had spoiled:
the creature engaged in the very act to the highest obedience and
humility, that, as God appears as a God upon his throne, the creature
might appear in the lowest posture of a creature, in the depths of
resignation and dependence: the publication of this made in the gospel,
by ways congruous to the wisdom which appeared in the execution of his
counsel, and the conditions of enjoying the fruit of it, most wise and
reasonable.
1. The greatest different interests are reconciled, justice in
punishing, and mercy in pardoning. For man had broken the law, and
plunged himself into a gulf of misery: the sword of vengeance was
unsheathed by justice, for the punishment of the criminal; the bowels
of compassion were stirred by mercy, for the rescue of the miserable.
Justice severely beholds the sin, and mercy compassionately reflects
upon the misery. Two different claims are entered by those concerned
attributes: justice votes for destruction, and mercy votes for
salvation. Justice would draw the sword, and drench it in the blood of
the offender; mercy would stop the sword, and turn it from the breast
of the sinner. Justice would edge it, and mercy would blunt it. The
arguments are strong on both sides.
(1.) Justice pleads. I arraign, before thy tribunal, a rebel, who was
the glorious work of thy hands, the centre of thy rich goodness, and a
counterpart of thy own image; he is indeed miserable, whereby to excite
thy compassion; but he is not miserable, without being criminal. Thou
didst create him in a state, and with ability to be otherwise: the
riches of thy bounty aggravate the blackness {a555} of his crime. He
is a rebel, not by necessity, but will. What constraint was there upon
him to listen to the counsels of the enemy of God? What force could
there be upon him, since it is without the compass of any creature to
work upon, or constrain the will? Nothing of ignorance can excuse him;
the law was not ambiguously expressed, but in plain words, both as to
precept and penalty; it was writ in his nature in legible characters:
had he received any disgust from thee after his creation, it would not
excuse his apostasy, since, as a Sovereign, thou wert not obliged to
thy creature. Thou hadst provided all things richly for him; he was
crowned with glory and honor: thy infinite power had bestowed upon him
an habitation richly furnished, and varieties of servants to attend
him. Whatever he viewed without, and whatever he viewed within himself,
were several marks of thy Divine bounty, to engage him to obedience:
had there been some reason of any disgust, it could not have balanced
that kindness which had so much reason to oblige him: however, he
had received no courtesy from the fallen angel, to oblige him to turn
into his camp. Was it not enough, that one of thy creatures would have
stripped thee of the glory of heaven, but this also must deprive thee
of thy glory upon earth, which was due from him to thee as his Creator?
Can he charge the difficulty of the command? No: it was rather below,
than above his strength. He might rather complain that it was no higher,
whereby his obedience and gratitude might have a larger scope, and a
more spacious field to move in than a precept so light; so easy, as
to abstain from one fruit in the garden. What excuse can he have, that
would prefer the liquorishness of his sense before the dictates of his
reason, and the obligations of his creation? The law thou didst set
him was righteous and reasonable; and shall righteousness and reason be
rejected by the supreme and infallible reason, because the rebellious
creature hath trampled upon it? What! must God abrogate his holy law,
because the creature hath slighted it? What reflection will this be
upon the wisdom that enacted it, and upon the equity of the command
and sanction of it? Either man must suffer, or the holy law be
expunged, and forever out of date. And is it not better man should
eternally smart under his crime, than any dishonorable reflections
of unrighteousness be cast upon the law, and of folly, and want
of foresight upon the Lawgiver? Not to punish, would be to approve
the devil’s lie, and justify the creature’s revolt. It would be a
condemnation of thy own law as unrighteous, and a sentencing thy own
wisdom as imprudent. Better man should forever bear the punishment of
his offence, than God bear the dishonor of his attributes: better man
should be miserable than God should be unrighteous, unwise, false,
and tamely bear the denial of his sovereignty. But what advantage
would it be to gratify mercy by pardoning the malefactor? Besides the
irreparable dishonor to the law, the falsifying thy veracity in not
executing the denounced threatenings, he would receive encouragement by
such a grace to spurn more at thy sovereignty, and oppose thy holiness
by running on in a course of sin with hopes of impunity. If the
creature be restored, it cannot be expected that he that hath fared so
well, after the {a556} breach of it, should be very careful of a future
observance: his easy readmission would abet him in the repetition of
his offence, and thou shalt soon find him cast off all moral dependence
on thee. Shall he be restored without any condition, or covenant? He
is a creature not to be governed without a law, and a law is not to
be enacted without a penalty. What future regard will he have to thy
precept, or what fear will he have of thy threatening, if his crime be
so lightly past over? Is it the stability of thy word? What reason will
he have to give credit to that, which he hath found already disregarded
by thyself? Thy truth in future threatenings will be of no force with
him, who hath experienced thy laying it aside in the former. It is
necessary, therefore, that the rebellious creature should be punished
for the preservation of the honor of the law, and the honor of the
Lawgiver, with all those perfections that are united in the composure
of it.