inflicting them, and a wisdom in removing them. He is wise to suit
his medicines to the humor of our disease, though he doth not to the
humor of our wills: he cannot mistake the nature of our distemper, or
the virtue of his own physic. Like a skilful physician, he sometimes
prescribes bitter potions, and sometimes cheering cordials, according
to the strength of the malady, and necessity of the patient, to reduce
him to health. As nothing comes from him, but what is for our good, so
nothing is acted by him in a rash and temerarious way. His wisdom is as
infinite as his goodness; and as exact in managing, as his goodness is
plentiful in streaming out to us. He understands our griefs, weighs our
necessities, and no remedies are beyond the reach of his contrivance.
When our feeble wits are bewildered in a maze, and at the end of their
line for a rescue, the remedies unknown to us are not unknown to God.
When we know not how to prevent a danger, the wise God hath a thousand
blocks to lay in the way; when we know not how to free ourselves from
an oppressive evil, he hath a thousand ways of relief. He knows how
to time our crosses, and his own blessings. The heart of a wise God,
as well as the heart of a wise man, discerns both time and judgment
(Eccles. viii. 5). There is as much judgment in sending them, as
judgment in removing them. How comfortable is it to think, that our
distresses, as well as our deliverances, are the fruits of infinite
wisdom! Nothing is done by him too soon or too slow; but in the true
point of time, with all its due circumstances, most conveniently for
his glory and our good. How wise is God to bring the glory of our
salvation out of the depths of a seeming ruin. {a594} and make the
evils of affliction subservient to the good of the afflicted.
2. In temptations, his wisdom is no less employed in permitting
them, than in bringing them to a good issue. His wisdom in leading
our Saviour to be tempted of the devil, was to fit him for our succor;
and his wisdom in suffering us to be tempted, is to fit us for his
own service, and our salvation. He makes a thorn in the flesh to be an
occasion of a refreshing grace to the spirit, and brings forth cordial
grapes from those pricking brambles, and magnifies his grace by his
wisdom, from the deepest subtilties of hell. Let Satan’s intentions be
what they will, he can be for him at every turn, to outwit him in his
stratagems, to baffle him in his enterprises; to make him instrumental
for our good, where he designs nothing but our hurt. The Lord hath his
methods of deliverance from him (2 Pet. ii. 9). “The Lord knows how to
deliver the godly out of temptation.”
3. In denials, or delays of answers of prayer. He is gracious to hear;
but he is wise to answer in an acceptable time, and succor us in a day
proper for our salvation (2 Cor. vi. 2). We have partial affections to
ourselves, ignorance is natural to us (Rom. viii. 26). We ask we know
not what, because we ask out of ignorance. God grants what he knows,
what is fit for him to do, and fit for us to receive; and the exact
season wherein it is fittest for him to bestow a mercy. As God would
have us bring forth our fruit in season, so he will send forth his
mercies in season. He is wise to suit his remedy to our condition, to
time it so, as that we shall have an evident prospect of his wisdom
in it; that more of Divine skill, and less of human, may appear in the
issue. He is ready at our call; but he will not answer, till he see
the season fit to reach out his hand. He is wise to prove our faith,
to humble us under the sense of our own unworthiness, to wet our
affections, to set a better estimate on the blessings prayed for, and
that he may double the blessing, as we do our devotion: but when his
wisdom sees us fit to receive his goodness, he grants what we stand in
need of. He is wise to choose the fittest time, and faithful to give
the best covenant mercy.
4. In all evils threatened to the church by her enemies. He hath
knowledge to foresee them, and wisdom to disappoint them (Job. v. 13);
“He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the
froward is carried headlong.” The church hath the wisdom of God, to
enter the lists with the policy of hell. He defeated the serpent in
the first net he laid, and brought a glorious salvation out of hell’s
rubbish, and is yet as skilful to disappoint the after‑game of the
serpentine brood. The policy of hell, and the subtilty of the world,
are no better than folly with God (1 Cor. iii. 19). All creatures are
fools, as creatures, in comparison with the Creator. The angels he
chargeth with folly, much more us sinners. Depraved understandings are
not fit mates for a pure and unblemished mind. Pharaoh, with his wisdom,
finds a grave in the sea; and Ahitophel’s plots are finished in his
own murder. He breaks the enemies by his power, and orders them by his
skill to be a feast to his people (Ps. lxxiv. 14); “Thou breakest the
head of the leviathan, and gavest {a595} him to be meat to the people
in the wilderness.” The spoils of the Egyptians’ carcasses, cast upon
the shore, served the Israelites’ necessities (or were as meat to them);
as being a deliverance the church might feed upon in all ages, in a
wilderness condition, to maintain their faith, the vital principle of
the soul. There is a wisdom superior to the subtilties of men, which
laughs at their follies, and “hath them in derision” (Ps. ii. 4).
“There is no wisdom or counsel against the Lord” (Prov. xxi. 30). You
never question the wisdom of an artist to use his file, when he takes
it into his hand. Wicked instruments are God’s axes and files; let him
alone, he hath skill enough to manage them: God hath too much affection
to destroy his people, and wisdom enough to beautify them by the worst
tools he uses. He can make all things conspire to a perfect harmony for
his own ends, and his people’s good, when they see no way to escape a
danger feared, or attain a blessing wanted.
_Use 4._ For Exhortation. 1. Meditate on the wisdom of God in creation
and government. How little do we think of God when we behold his works!
Our sense dwells upon the surface of plants and animals, beholds the
variety of their colors, and the progress in their motion; our reason
studies the qualities of them; our spirits seldom take a flight to the
Divine wisdom which framed them. Our senses engross our minds from God,
that we scarce have a thought free to bestow upon the Maker of them,
but only on the by. The constancy of seeing things that are common
stifles our admiration of God, due upon the sight of them. How seldom
do we raise our souls as far as heaven, in our views of the order of
the world, the revolutions of the seasons, the nature of the creatures
that are common among us, and the mutual assistance they give to
each other! Since God hath manifested himself in them, to neglect the
consideration of them is to neglect the manifestation of God, and the
way whereby he hath transmitted something of his perfections to our
understanding. It renders men inexcusably guilty of not glorifying
of God (Rom. i. 19, 20). We can never neglect the meditation of the
creatures, without a blemish cast upon the Creator’s wisdom. As every
river can conduct us to the sea, so every creature points us to an
ocean of infinite wisdom. Not the minutest of them, but rich tracts of
this may be observed in them, and a due sense of God result from them.
They are exposed to our view, that something of God may be lodged
in our minds; that, as our bodies extract their quintessence for our
nourishment, so our minds may extract a quintessence for the Maker’s
praise. Though God is principally to be praised, in and for Christ,
yet, as grace doth not rase out the law of nature, so the operations
of grace put not the dictates of nature to silence, nor suspend the
homage due to God upon our inspection of his works. God hath given full
testimonies of this perfection in the heavenly bodies, dispersing their
light, and distributing their influences to every part of the world;
in framing men into societies, giving them various dispositions for
the preservation of governments; making some wise for counsel, others
martial for action; changing old empires, and raising new. Which way
soever we cast our eyes, we shall find frequent occasions to cry out,
“O the depth {a596} of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God” (Rom. xi. 33)! To this purpose, we must not only look upon
the bulk and outside of his works, but consider from what principles
they were raised, in what order disposed, and the exact symmetry and
proportion of their parts. When a man comes into a city or temple, and
only considers the surface of the buildings, they will amaze his sense,
but not better his understanding, unless he considers the methods of
the work, and the art whereby it was erected.
(1.) This was an end for which they were created. God did not make the
world for man’s use only, but chiefly for his own glory; for man’s use
to enjoy his creatures, and for his own glory to be acknowledged in his
creatures, that we may consider his art in framing them, and his skill
in disposing them, and not only gaze upon the glass without considering
the image it represents, and acquainting ourselves whose image it is.
The creatures were not made for themselves, but for the service of the
Creator, and the service of man. Man was not made for himself, but for
the service of the Lord that created him. He is to consider the beauty
of the creation, that he may thereby glorify the Creator. He knows in
part their excellency; the creatures themselves do not. If, therefore,
man be idle and unobservant of them, he deprives God of the glory
of his wisdom, which he should have by his creatures. The inferior
creatures themselves cannot observe it. If man regard it not, what
becomes of it? his glory can only be handed to him by man. The other
creatures cannot be active instruments of his glory, because they
know not themselves, and therefore cannot render him an active praise.
Man is, therefore, bound to praise God for himself, and for all his
creatures, because he only knows himself, and the perfections of the
creatures, and the Author both of himself and them. God created such
variety, to make a report of himself to us; we are to receive the
report, and to reflect it back to him. To what purpose did he make so
many things, not necessary, for the support and pleasure of our lives,
but that we should behold him in them, as well as in the other? We
cannot behold the wisdom of God in his own essence, and eternal ideas,
but by the reflection of it in the creatures: as we cannot steadily
behold the sun with our eye, but either through a glass, or by
reflection of the image of it in the water. God would have us meditate
on his perfections; he therefore chose the same day wherein he
reviewed his work and rested from it, to be celebrated by man for the
contemplation of him (Gen. ii. 2, 3), that we should follow his example,
and rejoice, as himself did, in the frequent reviews of his wisdom
and goodness in them. In vain would the creatures afford matter for
this study, if they were wholly neglected. God offers something to our
consideration in every creature. Shall the beams of God shine round
about us, and strike our eyes, and not affect our minds? Shall we be
like ignorant children, that view the pictures, or point to the letters
in a book, without any sense and meaning? How shall God have the homage
due to him from his works, if man hath no care to observe them? The
148th Psalm is an exhortation to this. The view of them should often
extract from us a wonder of the like nature of {a597} that of David’s
(Ps. civ. 24): “O Lord, how wonderful are thy works, in wisdom hast
thou made them all!” The world was not created to be forgotten, nor man
created to be unobservant of it.
(2.) If we observe not the wisdom of God in the views of the creatures,
we do no more than brutes. To look upon the works of God in the world,
is no higher an act than mere animals perform. The glories of heaven,
and beauties of the earth, are visible to the sense of beasts and
birds. A brute beholds the motion of a man, as it may see the wheels
of a clock, but understands not the inward springs of motion; the end
for which we move, or the soul that acts us in our motion; much less
that Invisible Power which presides over the creatures, and conducts
their motion. If a man do no more than this, he goes not a step beyond
a brutish nature, and may very well acknowledge himself with Asaph, a
foolish and ignorant beast before God (Ps. lxxiii. 22). The world is
viewed by beasts, but the Author of it to be contemplated by man. Since
we are in a higher rank than beasts, we owe a greater debt than beasts;
not only to enjoy the creatures, as they do, but behold God in the
creatures, which they cannot do. The contemplation of the reason of
God in his works, is a noble and suitable employment for a rational
creature: we have not only sense to perceive them, but souls to mind
them. The soul is not to be without its operation: where the operation
of sense ends, the work of the soul ought to begin. We travel over
them by our senses, as brutes; but we must pierce further by our
understandings, as men, and perceive and praise Him that lies invisible
in his visible manufactures. Our senses are given us as servants to the
soul, and our souls bestowed upon us for the knowledge and praise of
their and our common Creator.
(3.) This would be a means to increase our humility. We should then
flag our wings, and vail our sails, and acknowledge our own wisdom
to be as a drop to the ocean, and a shadow to the sun. We should have
mean thoughts of the nothingness of our reason, when we consider the
sublimity of the Divine wisdom. Who can seriously consider the sparks
of infinite skill in the creature, without falling down at the feet of
the Divine Majesty, and acknowledge himself a dark and foolish creature
(Ps. viii. 4, 5)? When the Psalmist considered the heavens, the moon,
and stars, and God’s ordination and disposal of them, the use that
results from it is, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” We
should no more think to mate him in prudence, or set up the spark of
our reason to vie with the sun. Our reason would more willingly submit
to the revelation, when the characters of Divine wisdom are stamped
upon it, when we find his wisdom in creation incomprehensible to us.
(4.) It would help us in our acknowledgments of God, for his goodness
to us. When we behold the wisdom of God in creatures below us, and how
ignorant they are of what they possess, it will cause us to reflect
upon the deeper impressions of wisdom in the frame of our own bodies
and souls, an excellency far superior to theirs; this would make us
admire the magnificence of his wisdom and goodness, sound forth his
praise for advancing us in dignity above other works of his hands,
and stamping on us, by infinite art, {a598} a nobler image of himself.
And by such a comparison of ourselves with the creatures below us, we
should be induced to act excellently, according to the nature of our
souls; not brutishly, according to the nature of the creatures God hath
put under our feet.
(5.) By the contemplation of the creatures, we may receive some
assistance in clearing our knowledge in the wisdom of redemption.
Though they cannot of themselves inform us of it, yet since God hath
revealed his redeeming grace, they can illustrate some particulars of
it to us. Hence the Scripture makes use of the creatures, to set forth
things of a higher orb to us: our Saviour is called a Sun, a Vine, and
a Lion; the Spirit likened to a dove, fire, and water. The union of
Christ and his church, is set forth by the marriage union of Adam and
Eve. God hath placed in corporeal things the images of spiritual, and
wrapped up in his creating wisdom the representations of his redeeming
grace: whence some call the creatures, natural types of what was to be
transacted in a new formation of the world, and allusions to what God
intended in and by Christ.
(6.) The meditation of God’s wisdom in the creatures is, in part, a
beginning of heaven upon earth. No doubt but there will be a perfect
opening of the model of Divine wisdom. Heaven is for clearing what is
now obscure, and a full discovering of what seems at present intricate
(Ps. xxxvi. 9): ‘In his light shall we see light:’ all the light in
creation, government, and redemption. The wisdom of God in the new
heavens, and the new earth, would be to little purpose, if that also
were not to be regarded by the inhabitants of them. As the saints are
to be restored to the state of Adam, and higher; so they are to be
restored to the employment of Adam, and higher: but his employment
was, to behold God in the creatures. The world was so soon depraved,
that God had but little joy in, and man but little knowledge of his
works. And since the wisdom of God in creation is so little seen by
our ignorance here, would not God lose much of the glory of it, if the
glorified souls should lose the understanding of it above? When their
darkness shall be expelled, and their advantages improved; when the eye
that Adam lost shall be fully restored, and with a greater clearness;
when the creature shall be restored to its true end, and reason to its
true perfection (Rom. viii. 21, 22); when the fountains of the depths
of nature and government shall be opened, knowledge shall increase,
and according to the increase of our knowledge, shall the admiration
of Divine wisdom increase also. The wisdom of God in creation was
not surely intended to lie wholly unobserved in the greatest part
of it; but since there was so little time for the full observation
of it, there will be a time wherein the wisdom of God shall enjoy
a resurrection, and be fully contemplated by his understanding and
glorified creature.
_Exhort. 2._ Study and admire the wisdom of God in redemption. This is
the duty of all Christians. We are not called to understand the great
depth of philosophy; we are not called to a skill in the intricacies of
civil government, or understand all the methods of physic; but we are
called to be Christians, that is, studiers of Divine {a599} evangelical
wisdom. There are first principles to be learned; but not those
principles to be rested in without a further progress (Heb. vi. 1):
“Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go
on to perfection.” Duties must be practised, but knowledge is not to be
neglected. The study of Gospel mysteries, the harmony of Divine truths,
the sparkling of Divine wisdom, in their mutual combination to the
great ends of God’s glory and man’s salvation, is an incentive to duty,
a spur to worship, and particularly to the greatest and highest part
of worship, that part which shall remain in heaven; the admiration and
praise of God, and delight in him. If we acquaint not ourselves with
the impressions of the glory of Divine wisdom in it, we shall not much
regard it as worthy our observance in regard of that duty. The gospel
is a mystery; and, as a mystery, hath something great and magnificent
in it worthy of our daily inspection; we shall find fresh springs
of new wonders, which we shall be invited to adore with a religious
astonishment. It will both raise and satisfy our longings. Who can come
to the depths of “God manifested in the flesh?” How amazing is it, and
unworthy of a slight thought, that the death of the Son of God should
purchase the happy immortality of a sinful creature, and the glory
of a rebel be wrought by the ignominy of so great a person! that our
Mediator should have a nature whereby to covenant with his Father, and
a nature whereby to be a Surety for the creature! How admirable is it,
that the fallen creature should receive an advantage by the forfeiture
of his happiness! How mysterious is it, that the Son of God should
bow down to death upon a cross for the satisfaction of justice; and
rise triumphantly out of the grave, as a declaration, that justice
was contented and satisfied! that he should be exalted to heaven to
intercede for us; and at last return into the world to receive us, and
invest us with a glory forever with himself! Are these things worthy
of a careless regard, or a blockish amazement? What understanding
can pierce into the depths of the divine doctrine of the incarnation
and birth of Christ; the indissoluble union of the two natures? What
capacity is able to measure the miracles of that wisdom, found in the
whole draught and scheme of the gospel? Doth it not merit, then, to be
the object of our daily meditation? How comes it to pass, then, that
we are so little curious to concern our thoughts in those wonders,
that we scarce taste or sip of these delicacies? that we busy ourselves
in trifles, and consider what we shall eat, and in what fashion we
shall be dressed; please ourselves with the ingeniousness of a lace
or feather; admire a moth‑eaten manuscript, or some half‑worn piece
of antiquity, and think our time ill‑spent in the contemplating
and celebrating that wherein God hath busied himself, and eternity
is designed for the perpetual expressions of? How inquisitive
are the blessed angels! with what vigor do they renew their daily
contemplations of it, and receive a fresh contentment from it; still
learning, and still inquiring (1 Pet. i. 12)! Their eye is never off
the mercy‑seat; they strive to see the bottom of it, and employ all the
understanding they have to conceive the wonders of it. Shall the angels
be ravished with it, and bend themselves {a600} down to study it, who
have but little interest in it in comparison of us, for whom it was
both contrived and dispensed;――and shall not our pains be greater
for this hidden treasure? Is not that worthy the study of a rational
creature, that is worthy the study of the angelical? There must indeed
be pains; it is expressed by “digging” (Prov. ii. 4). A lazy arm will
not sink to the depth of a mine. The neglect of meditating on it is
inexcusable, since it hath the title and character of the wisdom of God.
The ancient prophets searched into it, when it was folded up in shadows,
when they saw only the fringes of Wisdom’s garment (1 Pet. i. 10);
and shall not we, since the sun hath mounted up in our horizon, and
sensibly scattered the light of the knowledge of this and the other
perfections of God? As the Jewish sabbath was appointed to celebrate
the perfections of God, discovered in creation, so is the Christian
sabbath appointed to meditate on, and bless God, for the discovery of
his perfections in redemption. Let us, therefore, receive it according
to its worth: let it be our only rule to walk by. It is worthy to
be valued above all other counsels; and we should never think of it
without the doxology of the apostle, “To the only wise God be glory
through Jesus Christ, for ever!” that our speculations may end in
affectionate admirations, and thanksgivings, for that which is so full
of wonders. What a little prospect should we have had of God, and the
happiness of man, had not his wisdom and goodness revealed these things
to us! The gospel is a marvellous light, and should not be regarded
with a stupid ignorance, and pursued with a duller practice.