11, 12): {a571} “The grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness.”
What chains bind us faster and closer than love? Here is love to our
nature in his incarnation; love to us, though enemies, in his death
and passion; encouragements to obedience by the proffers of pardon
for former rebellions. By the disobedience of man, God introduceth
his redeeming grace, and engageth his creature to more ingenuous and
excellent returns than his innocent state could oblige him to. In his
created state he had goodness to move him, he hath the same goodness
now to oblige him as a creature, and a greater love and mercy to oblige
him as a repaired creature; and the terror of justice is taken off,
which might envenom his heart as a criminal. In his revolted state
he had misery to discourage him; in his redeemed state he hath love
to attract him. Without such a way, black despair had seized upon the
creature exposed to a remediless misery, and God would have had no
returns of love from the best of his earthly works; but if any sparks
of ingenuity be left, they will be excited by the efficacy of this
argument. The willingness of God to receive returning sinners, is
manifested in the highest degree; and the willingness of a sinner to
return to him in duty hath the strongest engagements. He hath done as
much to encourage our obedience, as to illustrate his glory. We cannot
conceive what could be done greater for the salvation of our souls, and
consequently what could have been done, more to enforce our observance.
We have a Redeemer, as man, to copy it to us, and as God, to perfect us
in it. It would make the heart of any to tremble to wound him that hath
provided such a salve for our sores, and to make grace a warrant for
rebellion――motives capable to form rocks into a flexibleness. Thus is
the wisdom of God seen in giving us a ground to the surest confidence,
and furnishing us with incentives to the greatest obedience, by the
horrors of wrath, death and sufferings of our Saviour.
8. The wisdom of God is apparent in the condition he hath settled for
the enjoying the fruits of redemption: and this is faith, a wise and
reasonable condition and the concomitants of it――
(1.) In that it is suited to man’s lapsed state and God’s glory.
Innocence is not required here; that had been a condition impossible
in its own nature after the fall. The rejecting of mercy is now only
condemning, where mercy is proposed. Had the condition of perfection in
works been required, it had rather been a condemnation than redemption.
Works are not demanded, whereby the creature might ascribe anything
to himself, but a condition, which continues in man a sense of his
apostasy, abates all aspiring pride, and makes the reward of grace,
not of debt; a condition, whereby mercy is owned, and the creature
emptied; flesh silenced in the dust, and God set upon his throne of
grace and authority; the creature brought to the lowest debasement,
and Divine glory raised to the highest pitch. The creature is brought
to acknowledge mercy, and seal to justice; to own the holiness of God,
in the hatred of sin; the justice of God, in the punishment of sin; and
the mercy of God, in the pardoning of sin: a condition that despoils
nature of all its pretended excellency; beats down the glory of man at
the foot of God (1 Cor. i. 29, 31). It subjects the reason and will of
man to the wisdom and authority {a572} of God; it brings the creature
to an unreserved submission and entire resignation. God is made the
sovereign cause of all; the creature continued in his emptiness, and
reduced to a greater dependence upon God than by a creation; depending
upon him for a constant influx, for an entire happiness: a condition
that renders God glorious in the creature, and the fallen creature
happy in God; God glorious in his condescension to man, and man happy
in his emptiness before God. Faith is made the condition of man’s
recovery, that “the lofty looks of man might be humbled, and the
haughtiness of man be pulled down” (Isa. ii. 11); that every towering
imagination might be levelled (2 Cor. x. 5). Man must have all from
without doors; he must not live upon himself, but upon another’s
allowance. He must stand to the provision of God, and be a perpetual
suitor at his gates.
(2.) A condition opposite to that which was the cause of the fall.
We fell from God by an unbelief of the threatening; he recovers us by
a belief of the promise; by unbelief we laid the foundation of God’s
dishonor; by faith, therefore, God exalts the glory of his free grace.
We lost ourselves by a desire of self‑dependence, and our return
is ordered by way of self‑emptiness. It is reasonable we should be
restored in a way contrary to that whereby we fell; we sinned by a
refusal of cleaving to God; it is a part of Divine wisdom to restore
us in a denial of our own righteousness and strength.[797] Man having
sinned by pride, the wisdom of God humbles him (saith one) at the very
root of the tree of knowledge, and makes him deny his own understanding,
and submit to faith, or else, forever to lose his desired felicity.
(3.) It is a condition suited to the common sentiment and custom
of the world. There is more of belief than reason in the world. All
instructors and masters in sciences and arts, require, first a belief
in their disciples, and a resignation of their understandings and wills
to them. And it is the wisdom of God to require that of man, which his
own reason makes him submit to another which is his fellow‑creature. He,
therefore, that quarrels with the condition of faith, must quarrel with
all the world, since belief is the beginning of all knowledge;[798]
yea, and most of the knowledge in the world, may rather come under the
title of belief, than of knowledge; for what we think we know this day,
we may find from others such arguments as may stagger our knowledge,
and make us doubt of that we thought ourselves certain of before: nay,
sometimes we change our opinions ourselves without any instructor,
and see a reason to entertain an opinion quite contrary to what we
had before. And if we found a general judgment of others to vote
against what we think we know, it would make us give the less credit
to ourselves and our own sentiments. All knowledge in the world is
only a belief, depending upon the testimony or arguings of others; for,
indeed, it may be said of all men, as in Job (viii. 9), “We are but of
yesterday, and know nothing.” Since, therefore, belief is so universal
a thing in the world, the wisdom of God requires that of us which
every man must count reasonable, or render himself utterly ignorant of
anything. It is a condition that is common to all religions. All {a573}
religions are founded upon a belief: unless men did believe future
things, they would not hope nor fear. A belief and resignation was
required in all the idolatries in the world; so that God requires
nothing but what a universal custom of the world gives its suffrage to
the reasonableness of: indeed, justifying faith is not suited to the
sentiments of men; but that faith which must precede justifying, a
belief of the doctrine, though not comprehended by reason, is common to
the custom of the world.[799] It is no less madness not to submit our
reason to faith, than not to regulate our fancies by reason.
(4.) This condition of faith and repentance is suited to the
conscience of men. The law of nature teaches us, that we are bound to
believe every revelation from God, when it is made known to us: and
not only to assent to it as true, but embrace it as good. This nature
dictates, that we are as much obliged to believe God, because of his
truth, as to love him, because of his goodness. Every man’s reason
tells him, he cannot obey a precept, nor depend upon a promise, unless
he believes both the one and the other. No man’s conscience but will
inform him, upon hearing the revelation of God concerning his excellent
contrivance of redemption, and the way to enjoy it, that it is very
reasonable he should strip off all affections to sin, lie down in
sorrow, and bewail what he hath done amiss against so tender a God.
Can you expect that any man that promises you a great honor or a rich
donative, should demand less of you than to trust his word, bear an
affection to him, and return him kindness? Can any less be expected
by a prince than obedience from a pardoned subject, and a redeemed
captive? If you have injured any man in his body, estate, reputation,
would you not count it a reasonable condition for the partaking of
his clemency and forgiveness, to express a hearty sorrow for it,
and a resolution not to fall into the like crime again? Such are the
conditions of the gospel, suited to the consciences of men.
(5.) The wisdom of God appears, in that this condition was only
likely to attain the end. There are but two common heads appointed by
God,――Adam and Christ: by one we are made a living soul, by the other
a quickening spirit: by the one we are made sinners, by the other we
are made righteous. Adam fell as a head, and all his members, his whole
issue and posterity, fell with him, because they proceeded from him
by natural generation. But since the second Adam cannot be our head
by natural generation, there must be some other way of engrafting us
in him, and uniting us to him as our Head, which must be moral and
spiritual; this cannot rationally be conceived to be by any other way
than what is suitable to a reasonable creature, and, therefore, must
be by an act of the will, consent and acceptance, and owning the terms
settled for an admission to that union. And this is that we properly
call faith, and, therefore, called a receiving of him (John i. 12).
[1.] Now this condition of enjoying the fruits of redemption could not
be a bare knowledge; for that is but only an act of the understanding,
and doth not in itself include the act of the will, and so would have
united only one faculty to him, not the whole soul: but {a574} faith
is an act both of the understanding and will too; and principally of
the will, which doth presuppose an act of the understanding: for there
cannot be a persuasion in the will, without a proposition from the
understanding. The understanding must be convinced of the truth and
goodness of a thing, before the will can be persuaded to make any
motion towards it; and, therefore, all the promises, invitations,
and proffers, are suited to the understanding and will; to the
understanding in regard of knowledge, to the will in regard of appetite;
to the understanding as true, to the will as good; to the understanding
as practical, and influencing the will.
[2.] Nor could it be an entire obedience. That, as was said before,
would have made the creature have some matter of boasting, and this
was not suitable to the condition he was sunk into by the fall.
Besides, man’s nature being corrupted, was rendered incapable to obey,
and unable to have one thought of a due obedience (2 Cor. iii. 5).
When man turned from God, and upon that was turned out of paradise,
his return was impossible by any strength of his own; his nature was
as much corrupted as his re‑entrance into paradise was prohibited.
That covenant, whereby he stood in the garden, required a perfection of
action and intention in the observance of all the commands of God: but
his fall had cracked his ability to recover happiness by the terms and
condition of an entire obedience; yet man being a person governable by
a law, and capable of happiness by a covenant, if God would restore him,
and enter into a covenant with him, we must suppose it to have some
condition, as all covenants have. That condition could not be works,
because man’s nature was polluted. Indeed, had God reduced man’s
body to the dust, and his soul to nothing, and framed another man,
he might have governed him by a covenant of works: but that had not
been the same man that had revolted, and upon his revolt was stained
and disabled. But suppose God had, by any transcendent grace, wholly
purified him from the stain of his former transgression, and restored
to him the strength and ability he had lost, might he not as easily
have rebelled again? And so the condition would never have been
accomplished, the covenant never have been performed, and happiness
never have been enjoyed. There must be some other condition then in
the covenant God would make for man’s security. Now faith is the most
proper for receiving the promise of pardon of sin: belief of those
promises is the first natural reflection that a malefactor can make
upon a pardon offered him, and acceptance of it is the first consequent
from that belief. Hence is faith entitled a persuasion of, and
embracing the promises (Heb. xi. 13), and a receiving the atonement
(Rom. v. 11). Thus the wisdom of God is apparent in annexing such a
condition to the covenant, whereby man is restored, as answers the end
of God for his glory, the state, conscience, and necessity of man, and
had the greatest congruity to his recovery.
9. This wisdom of God is manifest in the manner of the publishing and
propagating this doctrine of redemption.
(1.) In the gradual discoveries of it. Flashing a great light in the
face of a sudden is amazing; should the sun glare in our eye in all
its brightness on a sudden, after we have been in a thick darkness,
{a575} it would blind us, instead of comforting us: so great a work
as this must have several digestions. God first reveals of what seed
the Redeeming Person should be, “the Seed of the woman” (Gen. iii. 15);
then of what nation (Gen. xxvi. 4); then of what tribe (Gen. xlix.
12),――of the tribe of Judah; then of what family,――the family of David;
then what works he was to do, what sufferings to undergo. The first
predictions of our Saviour were obscure. Adam could not well see the
redemption in the promise for the punishment of death which succeeded
in the threatening; the promise exercised his faith, and the obscurity
and bodily death, his humility. The promise made to Abraham was
clearer than the revelations made before, yet he could not tell how
to reconcile his redemption with his exile. God supported his faith
by the promise, and exercised his humility by making him a pilgrim,
and keeping him in a perpetual dependence upon him in all his motions.
The declarations to Moses are brighter than those to Abraham: the
delineations of Christ by David, in the Psalms, more illustrious
than the former: and all those exceeded by the revelations made to
the prophet Isaiah, and the other prophets, according as the age did
approach wherein the Redeemer was to enter into his office. God wrapped
up this gospel in a multitude of types and ceremonies fitted to the
infant state of the church (Gal. iv. 3). An infant state is usually
affected with sensible things; yet all those ceremonies were fitted
to that great end of the gospel, which he would bring forth in time to
the world. And the wisdom of God in them would be amazing, if we could
understand the analogy between every ceremony in the law and the thing
signified by it: as it cannot but affect a diligent reader to observe
that little account of them we have by the apostle Paul, sprinkled in
his epistles, and more largely in that to the Hebrews. As the political
laws of the Jews flowed from the depth of the moral law, so their
ceremonial did from the depth of evangelical counsels, and all of
them had a special relation to the honor of God, and the debasing
the creature. Though God formed the mass and matter of the world at
the first creation at once, yet his wisdom took six days time for the
disposing and adorning it. The more illustrious truths of God are not
to be comprehended on a sudden by the weakness of men. Christ did not
declare all truths to his disciples in the time of his life, because
they were not able at that present to bear them (John xvi. 12): “Ye
cannot bear them now;” some were reserved for his resurrection, others
for the coming of the Spirit, and the full discovery of all kept back
for another world. This doctrine God figured out in the law, oracled
by the prophets, and unveiled by Christ and his apostles.
(2.) The wisdom of God appeared in using all proper means to render the
belief of it easy.
[1.] The most minute things that were to be transacted were predicted
in the ancient foregoing age, long before the coming of the Redeemer.
The vinegar and gall offered to him upon the cross, the parting his
garments, the not breaking of his bones, the piercing of his hands and
feet, the betraying of him, the slighting of him by the multitude, all
were exactly painted and represented in variety of figures. There was
light enough to good men not to mistake {a576} him, and yet not so
plain as to hinder bad men from being serviceable to the counsels of
God in the crucifying of him when he came.
[2.] The translation of the Old Testament from the private language of
the Jews, into the most public language of the world; that translation
which we call Septuagint, from Hebrew into Greek, some years before
the coming of Christ, that tongue being most diffused at that time,
by reason of the Macedonian empire, raised by Alexander, and the
university of Athens, to which other nations resorted for learning
and education. This was a preparation for the sons of Japhet to “dwell
in the tents of Shem.” By this was the entertainment of the gospel
facilitated; when they compared the prophesies of the Old Testament
with the declarations of the New, and found things so long predicted
before they were transacted in the public view.
[3.] By ordering concurrent testimonies, as to matter of fact, that
the matter of fact was not deniable. That there was such a person as
Christ, that his miracles were stupendous, that his doctrine did not
incline to sedition, that he affected not worldly applause, that he
did suffer at Jerusalem, was acknowledged by all; not a man among the
greatest enemies of Christians was found that denied the matter of fact.
And this great truth, that Christ is the Messiah and Redeemer, hath
been with universal consent owned by all the professors of Christianity
throughout the world: whatever bickerings there have been among them
about some particular doctrines, they all centred in that truth of
Christ’s being the Redeemer. The first publication of this doctrine was
sealed by a thousand miracles, and so illustrious, that he was an utter
stranger to the world that was ignorant of them.
[4.] In keeping up some principles and opinions in the world to
facilitate the belief of this, or render men inexcusable for rejecting
of it. The incarnation of the son of God could not be so strange to
the world, if we consider the general belief of the appearances[800]
of their gods among them; that the Epicureans and others, that denied
any such appearances, were counted atheists.[801] And Pythagoras was
esteemed to be one, not of the inferior genii and lunar demons, but one
of the higher gods, who appeared in a human body, for the curing and
rectifying mortal life;[802] and himself tells Abaris, the Scythian,
that he was ἀνθρωπόμορφος, that he “took the flesh of man,” that
men might not be astonished at him, and in a fright fly from his
instructions. It was not therefore accounted an irrational thing
among them, that God should be incarnate: but, indeed, the great
stumbling‑block was a crucified God. But had they known the holy and
righteous nature of God, the malice of sin, the universal corruption of
human nature, the first threatening, and the necessity of vindicating
the honor of the law, and clearing the justice of God, the notion of
his crucifixion would not have appeared so incredible, since they
believed the possibility of an incarnation.
Another principle was that universal one of sacrifices for
expiation, and rendering God propitious to man, and was practised among
{a577} all nations. I remember not any wherein this custom did not
prevail; for it did even among those people where the Jews, as being
no trading nation, had not any commerce; and also in America, found out
in these latter ages. It was not a law of nature; no man can find any
such thing written in his own heart, but a tradition from Adam. Now
that among the loss of so many other doctrines that were handed down
from Adam to his immediate posterity, as, in particular, that of the
“Seed of the woman,” which one would think a necessary appendix to that
of sacrificing, this latter should be preserved as a fragment of an
ancient tradition, seems to be an act of Divine wisdom, to prepare
men for the entertainment of the doctrine of the great Sacrifice for
the expiation of the sin of the world. And as the apostle forms his
argument from the Jewish sacrifices, in the epistle to the Hebrews,
for the convincing them of the end of the death of Christ, so did the
ancient fathers make use of this practice of the heathen to convince
them of the same doctrine.
[5.] The wisdom of God appeared in the time and circumstances of the
first solemn publication of the gospel by the apostles at Jerusalem.
The relation you may read in Acts ii. 1‒12. The Spirit was given to the
apostles on the day of Pentecost; a time wherein there were multitudes
of Jews from all nations, not only near, but remote, that heard the
great things of God spoken in the several languages of those nations
where their habitations were fixed, and that by twelve illiterate
men, that two or three hours before knew no language but that of
their native country. It was the custom of the Jews, that dwelt among
other nations, at a distance from Jerusalem, to assemble together at
Jerusalem at the feast of Pentecost: and God pitched upon this season,
that there might be witnesses of this miracle in many parts of the
world: there were some of every nation under heaven (ver. 5); that is,
of that known part of the world, so saith the text. Fourteen several
nations are mentioned; and proselytes as well as Jews by birth. They
are called “devout men,” men of conscience, whose testimony would carry
weight with it among their neighbors at their return, because of their
reputation by their religious carriage. Again, this was not heard and
seen by some of them at one time, and some at another, by some one
hour, by others the next successively,[803] but altogether, in a solemn
assembly, that the testimony of so many witnesses at a time, might be
more valid, and the truth of the doctrine appear more illustrious and
undeniable. And it must needs be astonishing to them, to hear that
person magnified in so miraculous a manner, who had so lately been
condemned by their countrymen as a malefactor. Wisdom consists in
the timing of things. And in this circumstance doth the wisdom of God
appear, in furnishing the apostles with the Spirit at such a time, and
bringing forth such a miracle, as the gift of tongues, on a sudden,
that every nation might hear in their own language the wonder of
redemption, and as witnesses at their returns into their own countries,
report it to others; that the credit they had, in their several places,
might facilitate the belief and entertainment of the gospel, when
the apostles, or others, should arrive to those several charges
and dioceses {a578} appointed for them to preach the gospel in. Had
this miracle been wrought in the presence only of the inhabitants of
Judea, that understood only their own language, or one or two of the
neighboring tongues, it had been counted by them rather a madness than
a miracle. Or had they understood all the tongues which they spoke,
the news of it had spread no further than the limits of their own
habitations, and had been confined within the narrow bounds of the land
of Judea. But now it is carried to several remote nations, where any
of those auditors then assembled had their residence. As God chose the
time of the Passover for the death of Christ, that there might be the
greatest number of the inhabitants of the country, as witnesses of the
matter of fact, the innocence and sufferings of Christ, so he chose the
time of Pentecost for the first publishing the value and end of this
blood to the world. Thus the evangelical law was given in a confluence
of people from all parts and nations, because it was a covenant with
all nations: and the variety of languages spoken by a company of poor
Galileans, bred up at the lake of Tiberias, and in poor corners of
Canaan, without the instructions of men for so great a skill, might
well evidence to the hearers, that God that brought the confusion of
languages first at Babel, did only work that cure of them, and combine
all together at Jerusalem.