justification, and the conditions he requires of all that would
enjoy the benefit of redemption. His wisdom hath so tempered all the
conditions of it, that the honor of his holiness is as much preserved,
as the sweetness of his mercy is experimented by us; all the conditions
are records of his exact purity, as well as of his condescending grace.
Our justification is not by the imperfect works of creatures, but by
an exact and infinite righteousness, as great as that of the Deity
which had been offended: it being the righteousness of a Divine person,
upon which account it is called the righteousness of God; not only in
regard of God’s appointing it, and God’s accepting it, but as it is
a righteousness of that person that was God, and is God. Faith is the
condition God requires to justification; but not a dead, but an active
faith, such a “faith as purifies the heart” (James ii. 20; Acts xv. 9).
He calls for repentance, which is a moral retracting our offences,
and an approbation of contemned righteousness and a violated law;
an endeavor to gain what is lost, and to pluck out the heart of that
sin we have committed. He requires mortification, which is called
crucifying; whereby a man would strike as full and deadly a blow at
his lusts, as was struck at Christ upon the cross, and make them as
certainly die, as the Redeemer did. Our own righteousness must be
condemned by us, as impure and imperfect: we must disown everything
that is our own, as to righteousness, in reverence to the holiness of
God, and the valuation of the righteousness of Christ. He hath resolved
not to bestow the inheritance of glory without the root of grace. None
are partakers of the Divine blessedness that are not partakers of the
Divine nature: there must be a renewing of his image before there be
a vision of his face (Heb. xii. 14). He will not have men brought only
into a relative state of happiness by justification, without a real
state of grace by sanctification; and so resolved he is in it, that
there is no admittance into heaven of a starting, but a persevering
holiness (Rom. ii. 7), “a patient continuance in well‑doing:” patient,
under the sharpness of affliction, and continuing, under the pleasures
of prosperity. Hence it is that the gospel, the restoring doctrine,
hath not only the motives of rewards to allure to good, and the danger
of punishments to scare us from evil, as the law had; but they are set
forth in a higher strain, in a way of stronger engagement; the rewards
are heavenly, and the punishments eternal: and more powerful motives
besides, from the choicer expressions of God’s love in the death of his
Son. The whole design of {b139} it is to reinstate us in a resemblance
to this Divine perfection; whereby he shows what an affection he hath
to this excellency of his nature, and what a detestation he hath of
evil, which is contrary to it.
3. It appears in the actual regeneration of the redeemed souls, and a
carrying it on to a full perfection. As election is the effect of God’s
sovereignty, our pardon the fruit of his mercy, our knowledge a stream
from his wisdom, our strength an impression of his power; so our purity
is a beam from his holiness. The whole work of sanctification, and the
preservation of it, our Saviour begs for his disciples of his Father,
under this title (John xvii. 11, 17): “Holy Father, keep them through
thy own name,” and “sanctify them through thy truth;” as the proper
source whence holiness was to flow to the creature: as the sun is
the proper fountain whence light is derived, both to the stars above,
and the bodies here below. Whence He is not only called Holy, but the
Holy One of Israel (Isa. xliii. 15), “I am the Lord your Holy One, the
Creator of Israel:” displaying his holiness in them, by a new creation
of them as his Israel. As the rectitude of the creature at the first
creation was the effect of his holiness, so the purity of the creature,
by a new creation, is a draught of the same perfection. He is called
the Holy One of Israel more in Isaiah, that evangelical prophet, in
erecting Zion, and forming a people for himself, than in the whole
Scripture besides. As he sent Jesus Christ to satisfy his justice
for the expiation of the guilt of sin, so he sends the Holy Ghost for
the cleansing of the filth of sin, and overmastering the power of it:
Himself is the fountain, the Son is the pattern, and the Holy Ghost the
immediate imprinter of this stamp of holiness upon the creature. God
hath such a value for this attribute, that he designs the glory of this
in the renewing the creature, more than the happiness of the creature;
though the one doth necessarily follow upon the other, yet the one
is the principal design, and the other the consequent of the former:
whence our salvation is more frequently set forth, in Scripture,
by a redemption from sin, and sanctification of the soul, than by a
possession of heaven.[908] Indeed, as God could not create a rational
creature, without interesting this attribute in a special manner,
so he cannot restore the fallen creature without it. As in creating
a rational creature, there must be holiness to adorn it, as well
as wisdom to form the design, and power to effect it; so in the
restoration of the creature, as he could not make a reasonable creature
unholy, so he cannot restore a fallen creature, and put him in a
meet posture to take pleasure in him, without communicating to him a
resemblance of himself. As God cannot be blessed in himself without
this perfection of purity, so neither can a creature be blessed without
it. As God would be unlovely to himself without this attribute, so
would the creature be unlovely to God, without a stamp and mark of it
upon his nature. So much is this perfection one with God, valued by him,
and interested in all his works and ways!
III. The third thing I am to do, is to lay down some proposition in
the defence of God’s holiness in all his acts, about, or concerning
{b140} sin. It was a prudent and pious advice of Camero, not to be too
busy and rash in inquiries and conclusions about the reason of God’s
providence in the matter of sin. The Scripture hath put a bar in the
way of such curiosity, by telling us, that the ways of God’s wisdom and
righteousness in his judgments are “unsearchable” (Rom. xi. 33): much
more the ways of God’s holiness, as he stands in relation to sin, as a
Governor of the world; we cannot consider those things without danger
of slipping: our eyes are too weak to look upon the sun without being
dazzled: too much curiosity met with a just check in our first parent.
To be desirous to know the reason of all God’s proceedings in the
matter of sin, is to second the ambition of Adam, to be as wise as God,
and know the reason of his actings equally with himself. It is more
easy, as the same author saith, to give an account of God’s providence
since the revolt of man, and the poison that hath universally seized
upon human nature, than to make guesses at the manner of the fall
of the first man. The Scripture hath given us but a short account of
the manner of it, to discourage too curious inquiries into it. It is
certain that God made man upright; and when man sinned in paradise, God
was active in sustaining the substantial nature and act of the sinner
while he was sinning, though not in supporting the sinfulness of the
act: he was permissive in suffering it: he was negative in withholding
that grace which might certainly have prevented his crime, and
consequently his ruin; though he withheld nothing that was sufficient
for his resistance of that temptation wherewith he was assaulted. And
since the fall of man, God, as a wise governor, is directive of the
events of the transgression, and draws the choicest good out of the
blackest evil, and limits the sins of men, that they creep not so far
as the evil nature of men would urge them to; and as a righteous Judge,
he takes away the talent from idle servants, and the light from wicked
ones, whereby they stumble and fall into crimes, by the inclinations
and proneness of their own corrupt natures, leaves them to the bias of
their own vicious habits, denies that grace which they have forfeited,
and have no right to challenge, and turns their sinful actions into
punishments, both to the committers of them and others.
_Prop. I._ God’s holiness is not chargeable with any blemish for
his creating man in a mutable state. It is true, angels and men were
created with a changeable nature; as though there was a rich and
glorious stamp upon them by the hand of God, yet their natures were not
incapable of a base and vile stamp from some other principle: as the
silver which bears upon it the image of a great prince, is capable of
being melted down, and imprinted with no better an image than that of
some vile and monstrous beast. Though God made man upright, yet he was
capable of seeking “many inventions” (Eccl. vii. 29); yet the hand of
God was not defiled by forming man with such a nature. It was suitable
to the wisdom of God to give the rational creature, whom he had
furnished with a power of acting righteously, the liberty of choice,
and not fix him in an unchangeable state without a trial of him in his
natural; that if he did obey, his obedience might be the more valuable;
and if he did freely offend, his offence might be more inexcusable.
{b141} 1. No creature can be capable of immutability by nature.
Mutability is so essential to a creature, that a creature cannot be
supposed without it; you must suppose it a Creator, not a creature, if
you allow it to be of an immutable nature. Immutability is the property
of the Supreme Being. God “only hath immortality” (1 Tim. vi. 16);
immortality, as opposed not only to a natural, but to a sinful death;
the word _only_ appropriates every sort of immortality to God, and
excludes every creature, whether angel or man, from a partnership with
God in this by nature. Every creature, therefore, is capable of a death
in sin. “None is good but God,” and none is naturally free from change
but God, which excludes every creature from the same prerogative;
and certainly, if one angel sinned, all might have sinned, because
there was the same root of mutability in one as well as another. It
is as possible for a creature to be a Creator, as for a creature to
have naturally an incommunicable property of the Creator. All things,
whether angels or men, are made of nothing, and therefore, capable of
defection;[909] because a creature being made of nothing, cannot be
good, _per essentiam_, or essentially good, but by participation from
another. Again, every rational creature, being made of nothing, hath a
superior which created him and governs him, and is capable of a precept;
and, consequently, capable of disobedience as well as obedience to the
precept, to transgress it, as well as obey it. God cannot sin, because
he can have no superior to impose a precept on him. A rational creature,
with a liberty of will and power of choice, cannot be made by nature
of such a mould and temper, but he must be as well capable of choosing
wrong, as of choosing right; and, therefore, the standing angels, and
glorified saints, though they are immutable, it is not by nature that
they are so, but by grace, and the good pleasure of God; for though
they are in heaven, they have still in their nature a remote power
of sinning, but it shall never be brought into act, because God will
always incline their wills to love him, and never concur with their
wills to any evil act. Since, therefore, mutability is essential to a
creature as a creature, this changeableness cannot properly be charged
upon God as the author of it; for it was not the term of God’s creating
act, but did necessarily result from the nature of the creature, as
unchangeableness doth result from the essence of God. The brittleness
of a glass is no blame to the art of him that blew up the glass into
such a fashion; that imperfection of brittleness is not from the
workman, but the matter; so, though unchangeableness be an imperfection,
yet it is so necessary a one, that no creature can be naturally without
it; besides, though angels and men were mutable by creation, and
capable to exercise their wills, yet they were not necessitated to evil,
and this mutability did not infer a necessity that they should fall,
because some angels, which had the same root of changeableness in their
natures with those that fell, did not fall, which they would have done,
if capableness of changing, and necessity of changing, were one and the
same thing.
2. Though God made the creature mutable, yet he made him not {b142}
evil. There could be nothing of evil in him that God created after
his own image, and pronounced “good” (Gen. i. 27, 31). Man had an
ability to stand, as well as a capacity to fall: he was created with
a principal of acting freely, whereby he was capable of loving God as
his chief good, and moving to him as his last end; there was a beam
of light in man’s understanding to know the rule he was to conform
to, a harmony between his reason and his affections, an original
righteousness: so that it seemed more easy for him to determine his
will to continue in obedience to the precept, than to swerve from it;
to adhere to God as his chief good, than to listen to the charms of
Satan. God created him with those advantages, that he might with more
facility have kept his eyes fixed upon the Divine beauty, than turn
his back upon it, and with greater ease have kept the precept God gave
him, than have broken it. The very first thought darted, or impression
made, by God, upon the angelical or human nature, was the knowledge of
himself as their Author, and could be no more than such whereby both
angels and men might be excited to a love of that adorable Being, that
had framed them so gloriously out of nothing; and if they turned their
wills and affections to another object it was not by the direction
of God, but contrary to the impression God had made upon them, or
the first thought he flashed into them. They turned themselves to the
admiring their own excellency, or affecting an advantage distinct from
that which they were to look for only from God (1 Tim. iii. 6). Pride
was the cause of the condemnation of the devil. Though the wills of
angels and men were created mutable, and so were imperfect, yet they
were not created evil. Though they might sin, yet they might not sin,
and, therefore, were not evil in their own nature. What reflection,
then, could this mutability of their nature be upon God? So far is it
from any, that he is fully cleared, by storing up in the nature of man
sufficient provision against his departure from him. God was so far
from creating him evil, that he fortified him with a knowledge in his
understanding, and a strength in his nature to withstand any invasion.
The knowledge was exercised by Eve, in the very moment of the serpent’s
assaulting her (Gen. iii. 3); Eve said to the serpent, “God hath said,
ye shall not eat of it:” and had her thoughts been intent upon this,
“God hath said,” and not diverted to the motions of the sensitive
appetite and liquorish palate, it had been sufficient to put by all
the passes the devil did, or could have made at her. So that you see,
though God made the creature mutable, yet he made him not evil. This
clears the holiness of God.
3. Therefore it follows, That though God created man changeable, yet
he was not the cause of his change by his fall. Though man was created
defectible, yet he was not determined by God influencing his will by
any positive act to that change and apostasy. God placed him in a free
posture, set life and happiness before him on the one hand, misery and
death on the other; as he did not draw him into the arms of perpetual
blessedness, so he did not drive him into the gulf of his misery.[910]
He did not incline him to evil. It was repugnant {b143} to the goodness
of God to corrupt the righteousness of those faculties he had so lately
beautified him with. It was not likely he should deface the beauty of
that work he had composed with so much wisdom and skill. Would he, by
any act of his own, make that bad, which, but a little before, he had
acquiesced in as good? Angels and men were left to their liberty and
conduct of their natural faculties; and if God inspired them with any
motions, they could not but be motions to good, and suited to that
righteous nature he had endued them with. But it is most probable
that God did not, in a supernatural way, act inwardly upon the mind
of man, but left him wholly to that power, which he had, in creation,
furnished him with. The Scripture frees God fully from any blame in
this, and lays it wholly upon Satan, as the tempter, and upon man, as
the determiner of his own will (Gen. iii. 6); Eve “took of the fruit,
and did eat;” and Adam took from her of the fruit, “and did eat.” And
Solomon (Eccles. vii. 29) distinguisheth God’s work in the creation of
man “upright,” from man’s work in seeking out those ruining inventions.
God created man in a righteous state, and man cast himself into a
forlorn state. As he was a mutable creature, he was from God; as he was
a changed and corrupted creature, it was from the devil seducing, and
his own pliableness in admitting. As silver, and gold, and other metals,
were created by God in such a form and figure, yet capable of receiving
other forms by the industrious art of man; when the image of a man is
put upon a piece of metal, God is not said to create that image, though
he created the substance with such a property, that it was capable of
receiving it; this capacity is from the nature of the metal by God’s
creation of it, but the carving the figure of this or that man is not
the act of God, but the act of man. As images, in Scripture, are called
the work of men’s hands, in regard of the imagery, though the matter,
wood or stone, upon which the image was carved, was a work of God’s
creative power. When an artificer frames an excellent instrument, and
a musician exactly tunes it, and it comes out of their hands without
a blemish, but capable to be untuned by some rude hand, or receive
a crack by a sudden fall, if it meet with a disaster, is either the
workman or musician to be blamed? The ruin of a house, caused by the
wastefulness or carelessness of the tenant, is not to be imputed to the
workman that built it strong, and left it in a good posture.
_Prop. II._ God’s holiness is not blemished by enjoining man a law,
which he knew he would not observe.
1. The law was not above his strength. Had the law been impossible to
be observed, no crime could have been imputed to the subject, the fault
had lain wholly upon the Governor; the non‑observance of it had been
from a want of strength, and not from a want of will. Had God commanded
Adam to fly up to the sun, when he had not given him wings, Adam might
have a will to obey it, but his power would be too short to perform it.
But the law set him for a rule, had nothing of impossibility in it; it
was easy to be observed; the command was rather below, than above his
strength; and the sanction of it was more apt to restrain and scare him
from the breach of it, than encourage any daring attempts against it;
he had as much {b144} power, or rather more, to conform to it, than
to warp from it; and greater arguments and interest to be observant
of it, than to violate it; his all was secured by the one, and his ruin
ascertained by the other. The commands of God are not grievous (1 John
v. 3); from the first to the last command, there is nothing impossible,
nothing hard to the original and created nature of man, which were all
summed up in a love to God, which was the pleasure and delight of man,
as well as his duty, if he had not, by inconsiderateness, neglected the
dictates and resolves of his own understanding. The law was suited to
the strength of man, and fitted for the improvement and perfection of
his nature; in which respect, the apostle calls it “good,” as it refers
to man, as well as “holy,” as it refers to God (Rom. vii. 12). Now,
since God created man a creature capable to be governed by a law, and
as a rational creature endued with understanding and will, not to be
governed, according to his nature, without a law; was it congruous to
the wisdom of God to respect only the future state of man, which, from
the depth of his infinite knowledge, he did infallibly foresee would
be miserable, by the wilful defection of man from the rule? Had it been
agreeable to the wisdom of God, to respect only this future state, and
not the present state of the creature; and therefore leave him lawless,
because he knew he would violate the law? Should God forbear to act
like a wise governor, because he saw that man would cease to act like
an obedient subject? Shall a righteous magistrate forbear to make just
and good laws, because he foresees, either from the dispositions of his
subjects, their ill‑humor, or some circumstances which will intervene,
that multitudes of them will incline to break those laws, and fall
under the penalty of them? No blame can be upon that magistrate
who minds the rule of righteousness, and the necessary duty of his
government, since he is not the cause of those turbulent affections of
men, which he wisely foresees will rise up against his just edicts.
2. Though the law now be above the strength of man, yet is not the
holiness of God blemished by keeping it up. It is true, God hath been
graciously pleased to mitigate the severity and rigor of the law,
by the entrance of the gospel; yet where men refuse the terms of the
gospel, they continue themselves under the condemnation of the law,
and are justly guilty of the breach of it, though they have no strength
to observe it. The law, as I said before, was not above man’s strength,
when he was possessed of original righteousness, though it be above
man’s strength, since he was stripped of original righteousness. The
command was dated before man had contracted his impotency, when he
had a power to keep it as well as to break it. Had it been enjoined
to man only after the fall, and not before, he might have had a better
pretence to excuse himself, because of the impossibility of it; yet he
would not have had sufficient excuse, since the impossibility did not
result from the nature of the law, but from the corrupted nature of the
creature. It was “weak through the flesh” (Rom. viii. 3), but it was
promulged when man had a strength proportioned to the commands of it.
And now, since man hath unhappily made himself incapable of obeying it,
must God’s holiness in his law be blemished for enjoining it? Must he
abrogate those commands, and prohibit {b145} what before he enjoined,
for the satisfaction of the corrupted creature? Would not this be
his “ceasing to be holy,” that his creature might be unblameably
unrighteous? Must God strip himself of his holiness, because man will
not discharge his iniquity? He cannot be the cause of sin, by keeping
up the law, who would be the cause of all the unrighteousness of
men, by removing the authority of it. Some things in the law that
are intrinsically good in their own nature, are indispensable, and
it is repugnant to the nature of God not to command them. If he were
not the guardian of his indispensable law, he would be the cause and
countenancer of the creatures’ iniquity. So little reason have men to
charge God with being the cause of their sin, by not repealing his law
to gratify their impotence, that he would be unholy if he did. God must
not lose his purity, because man hath lost his, and cast away the right
of his sovereignty, because man hath cast away his power of obedience.