covenant which is faith. This was the easiest condition, in its own
nature, that could be imagined; no difficulty in it but what proceeds
from the pride of man’s nature, and the obstinacy of his will. It
was not impossible in itself; it was not the old condition of perfect
obedience. It had been mighty goodness to set us up again upon our old
stock, and restore us to the tenor and condition of the covenant of
works, or to have required the burdensome ceremonies of the law. Nor is
it an exact knowledge he requires of us; all men’s understandings being
of a different size, they had not been capable of this. It was the
most reasonable condition, in regard of the excellency of the things
proposed, and the effects following upon it; nay, it was necessary. It
had been a want of goodness to himself and his own honor; he had cast
that off, had he not insisted on this condition of faith, it being the
lowest he could condescend to with a _salvo_ for his glory. And it was
a goodness to us; it is nothing else he requires, but a willingness
to accept what he hath contrived and acted for us: and no man can be
happy against his will; without this belief, at least, man could never
voluntarily have arrived to his happiness. The goodness of God is
evidenced in that.
[1st.] It is an easy condition, not impossible. 1. It was not the
condition of the old covenant. The condition of that was an entire
obedience to every precept with a man’s whole strength, and without
any flaw or crack. But the condition of the evangelical covenant is a
sincere, though weak, faith; He hath suited this covenant to the misery
of man’s fallen condition; he considers our weakness, and that we are
but dust, and therefore exacts not of us an entire, but a sincere,
obedience. Had God sent Christ to expiate the crime of Adam, restore
him to his paradise estate, and repair in man the ruined image of
holiness, and after this to have renewed the covenant of works for
the future, and settled the same condition in exacting a complete
obedience for the time to come; Divine goodness had {b280} been above
any accusation, and had deserved our highest admiration in the pardon
of former transgressions, and giving out to us our first stock. But
Divine goodness took larger strides: he had tried our first condition,
and found his mutable creature quickly to violate it: had he demanded
the same now, it is likely it had met with the same issue as before,
in man’s disobedience and fall; we should have been as men, as Adam
(Hos. vi. 7), “transgressing the covenant;” and then we must have
lain groaning under our disease, and wallowing in our blood, unless
Christ had come to die for the expiation of our new crimes; for every
transgression had been a violation of that covenant, and a forfeiture
of our right to the benefits of it. If we had broke it but in one
tittle, we had rendered ourselves incapable to fulfil it for the
future; that one transgression had stood as a bar against the pleas of
after‑obedience. But God hath wholly laid that condition aside as to us,
and settled that of faith, more easy to be performed, and to be renewed
by us. It is infinite grace in him, that he will accept of faith in
us, instead of that perfect obedience he required of us in the covenant
of works. 2. It is easy, not like the burdensome ceremonies appointed
under the law. He exacts not now the legal obedience, expensive
sacrifices, troublesome purifications, and abstinences, that “yoke of
bondage” (Gal. v. 1) which they were “not able to bear” (Acts xv. 10).
He treats us not as servants, or children, in their nonage, under the
elements of the world, nor requires those innumerable bodily exercises
that he exacted of them: he demands not “a thousand of lambs,” and
“rivers of oil;” but he requires a sincere confession and repentance,
in order to our absolution; an “unfeigned faith,” in order to our
blessedness, and elevation to a glorious life. He requires only that
we should believe what he saith, and have so good an opinion of his
goodness and veracity, as to persuade ourselves of the reality of his
intentions, confide in his word, and rely upon his promise, cordially
embrace his crucified Son, whom he hath set forth as the means of our
happiness, and have a sincere respect to all the discoveries of his
will. What can be more easy than this? Though some in the days of the
apostles, and others since have endeavored to introduce a multitude of
legal burdens, as if they envied God the expressions of his goodness,
or thought him guilty of too much remissness, in taking off the yoke,
and treating man too favorably. 3. Nor is it a clear knowledge of every
revelation, that is the condition of this covenant. God in his kindness
to man hath made revelations of himself, but his goodness is manifested
in obliging us to believe him, not fully to understand him. He hath
made them, by sufficient testimonies, as clear to our faith, as they
are incomprehensible to our reason: he hath revealed a Trinity of
Persons, in their distinct offices, in the business of redemption,
without which revelation of a Trinity we could not have a right
notion and scheme of redeeming grace. But since the clearness of men’s
understanding is sullied by the fall, and hath lost its wings to fly up
to a knowledge of such sublime things as that of the Trinity, and other
mysteries of the Christian religion, God hath manifested his goodness
in not obliging us to understand them but to believe them; and hath
given us reason enough {b281} to believe it to be his revelation,
(both from the nature of the revelation itself, and the way and manner
of propagating it, which is wholly divine, exceeding all the methods
of human art,) though he hath not extended our understandings to a
capacity to know them, and render a reason of every mystery. He did not
require of every Israelite, or of any of them that were stung by the
fiery serpents, that they should understand, or be able to discourse
of the nature and qualities of that brass of which the serpent upon
the pole was made, or by what art that serpent was formed, or in what
manner the sight of it did operate in them for their cure; it was
enough that they did believe the institution and precept of God, and
that their own cure was assured by it: it was enough if they cast their
eyes upon it according to the direction. The understandings of men
are of several sizes and elevations, one higher than another: if the
condition of this covenant had been a greatness of knowledge, the
most acute men had only enjoyed the benefits of it. But it is “faith,”
which is as easy to be performed by the ignorant and simple, as by
the strongest and most towering mind: it is that which is within the
compass of every man’s understanding. God did not require that every
one within the verge of the covenant should be able to discourse of
it to the reasons of men; he required not that every man should be a
philosopher, or an orator, but a believer. What could be more easy than
to lift up the eye to the brazen serpent, to be cured of a fiery sting?
What could be more facile than a glance, which is done without any pain,
and in a moment? It is a condition may be performed by the weakest as
well as the strongest: could those that were bitten in the most vital
part cast up their eyes, though at the last gasp, they would arise to
health by the expulsion of the venom.
[2d.] As it is easy, so it is reasonable. Repent and believe, is
that which is required by Christ and the apostles for the enjoyment of
the kingdom of heaven. It is very reasonable that things so great and
glorious, so beneficial to men, and revealed to them by so sound an
authority, and an unerring truth, should be believed. The excellency
of the thing disclosed could admit of no lower a condition than to
be believed and embraced. There is a sort of faith, that is a natural
condition in everything: all religion in the world, though never
so false, depends upon a sort of it; for unless there be a belief
of future things, there would never be a hope of good, or a fear of
evil, the two great hinges upon which religion moves. In all kinds of
learning, many things must be believed before a progress can be made.
Belief of one another is necessary in all acts of human life; without
which human society would be unlinked and dissolved. What is that faith
that God requires of us in this covenant, but a willingness of soul
to take God for our God, Christ for our Mediator, and the procurer
of our happiness (Rev. xxii. 17)? What prince could require less upon
any promise he makes his subjects, than to be believed as true, and
depended on as good; that they should accept his pardon, and other
gracious offers, and be sincere in their allegiance to him, avoiding
all things that may offend him, and pursuing all things that may please
him? Thus God, by so {b282} small and reasonable a condition as faith,
lets in the fruits of Christ’s death into our soul, and wraps us up
in the fruition of all the privileges purchased by it. So much he hath
condescended in his goodness, that upon so slight a condition we may
plead his promise, and humbly challenge, by virtue of the covenant,
those good things he hath promised in his word. It is so reasonable a
condition, that if God did not require it in the covenant of grace, the
creature were obliged to perform it: for the publishing any truth from
God, naturally calls for credit to be given it by the creature, and
an entertainment of it in practice. Could you offer a more reasonable
condition yourselves, had it been left to your choice? Should a prince
proclaim a pardon to a profligate wretch, would not all the world cry
shame of him, if he did not believe it upon the highest assurances? and
if ingenuity did not make him sorry for his crimes, and careful in the
duty of a subject, surely the world would cry shame of such a person.
[3d.] It is a necessary condition. 1. Necessary for the honor of
God. A prince is disparaged if his authority in his law, and if his
graciousness in his promises, be not accepted and believed. What
physician would undertake a cure, if his precepts may not be credited?
It is the first thing in the order of nature, that the revelation of
God should be believed, that the reality of his intentions in inviting
man to the acceptance of those methods he hath prescribed for their
attaining their chief happiness, should be acknowledged. It is a
debasing notion of God, that he should give a happiness, purchased by
Divine blood, to a person that hath no value for it, nor any abhorrency
of those sins that occasioned so great a suffering, nor any will to
avoid them: should he not vilify himself, to bestow a heaven upon that
man that will not believe the offers of it, nor walk in those ways
that lead to it? that walks so, as if he would declare there was no
truth in his word, nor holiness in his nature? Would not God by such
an act verify a truth in the language of their practice, _viz._ that he
were both false and impure, careless of his word, and negligent of his
holiness? As God was so desirous to ensure the consolation of believers,
that if there had been a greater Being than himself to attest, and for
him to be responsible to, for the confirmation of his promise, he would
willingly have submitted to him, and have made him the umpire, “He
swore by himself, because he could not swear by a greater” (Heb. vi.
19); by the same reason, had it stood with the majesty and wisdom of
God to stoop to lower conditions in this covenant, for the reducing of
man to his duty and happiness, he would have done it; but his goodness
could not take lower steps, with the preservation of the rights of his
majesty, and the honor of his wisdom. Would you have had him wholly
submitted to the obstinate will of a rebellious creature, and be ruled
only by his terms? Would you have had him received men to happiness,
after they had heightened their crimes by a contempt of his grace,
as well as of his creating goodness, and have made them blessed under
the guilt of their crimes without an acknowledgment? Should he glorify
one that will not believe what he hath revealed, nor repent of what
himself hath committed; and so save a man after {b283} a repeated
unthankfulness to the most immense grace that ever was, or can be,
discovered and offered, without a detestation of his ingratitude, and
a voluntary acceptance of his offers? It is necessary, for the honor
of God, that man should accept of his terms, and not give laws to him
to whom he is obnoxious as a guilty person, as well as subject as a
creature. Again, it was very equitable and necessary for the honor of
God, that since man fell by an unbelief of his precept and threatening,
he should not rise again without a belief of his promise, and casting
himself upon his truth in that: since he had vilified the honor of his
truth in the threatening; since man in his fall would lean to his own
understanding against God, it is fit that, in his recovery, the highest
powers of his soul, his understanding and will, should be subjected to
him in an entire resignation. Now, whereas knowledge seems to have a
power over its object, faith is a full submission to that which is the
object of it. Since man intended a glorying in himself, the evangelical
covenant directs its whole battery against it, that men may “glory
in nothing but Divine goodness” (1 Cor. i. 29‒31). Had man performed
exact obedience by his own strength, he had had something in himself
as the matter of his glory. And though, after the fall, grace had made
itself illustrious in setting him up upon a new stock, yet had the same
condition of exact obedience been settled in the same manner, man would
have had something to glory in, which is struck off wholly by faith;
whereby man in every act must go out of himself for a supply, to that
Mediator which Divine goodness and grace hath appointed. 2. It is
necessary for the happiness of man. That can be no contenting condition
wherein the will of man doth not concur. He that is forced to the
most delicious diet, or to wear the bravest apparel, or to be stored
with abundance of treasure, cannot be happy in those things without
an esteem of them, and delight in them: if they be nauseous to him,
the indisposition of his mind is a dead fly in those boxes of precious
ointment. Now, faith being a sincere willingness to accept of Christ,
and to come to God by him, and repentance being a detestation of
that which made man’s separation from God, it is impossible he
could be voluntarily happy without it: man cannot attain and enjoy
a true happiness without an operation of his understanding about
the object proposed, and the means appointed to enjoy it. There must
be a knowledge of what is offered, and of the way of it, and such a
knowledge as may determine the will to affect that end, and embrace
those means; which the will can never do, till the understanding be
fully persuaded of the truth of the offerer, and the goodness of the
proposal itself, and the conveniency of the means for the attaining of
it. It is necessary, in the nature of the thing, that what is revealed
should be believed to be a Divine revelation. God must be judged
true in the promising justification and sanctification, the means of
happiness; and if any man desires to be partaker of those promises, he
must desire to be sanctified; and how can he desire that which is the
matter of those promises, if he wallow in his own lusts, and desire
to do so, a thing repugnant to the promise itself? Would you have God
force man to be happy against his will? Is it not very reasonable he
should demand the consent {b284} of his reasonable creature to that
blessedness he offers him? The new covenant is a “marriage covenant”
(Hos. ii. 16, 19, 20), which implies a consent on our parts, as well as
a consent on God’s part; that is no marriage that hath not the consent
of both parties. Now faith is our actual consent, and repentance and
sincere obedience are the testimonies of the truth and reality of this
consent.
6th. Divine goodness is eminent in his methods of treating with men
to embrace this covenant. They are methods of gentleness and sweetness:
it is a wooing goodness, and a bewailing goodness; his expressions
are with strong motions of affection: he carrieth not on the gospel
by force of arms: he doth not solely menace men into it, as worldly
conquerors have done; he doth not, as Mahomet, plunder men’s estates,
and wound their bodies, to imprint a religion on their souls: he doth
not erect gibbets, and kindle faggots, to scare men to an entering into
covenant with him. What multitudes might he have raised by his power,
as well as others! What legions of angels might he have rendezvoused
from heaven, to have beaten men into a profession of the gospel! Nor
doth he only interpose his sovereign authority in the precept of faith,
but useth rational expostulations, to move men voluntarily to comply
with his proposals (Isa. i. 18), “Come now, and let us reason together,”
saith the Lord. He seems to call heaven and earth to be judge,
whether he had been wanting in any reasonable ways of goodness, to
overcome the perversity of the creature; (Isa. i. 2), “Hear, O heavens,
and give ear, O earth, I have nourished and brought up children.” What
various encouragements doth he use agreeable to the nature of men,
endeavoring to persuade them with all tenderness, not to despise their
own mercies, and be enemies to their own happiness! He would allure
us by his beauty, and win us by his mercy. He uses the arms of his own
excellency and our necessity to prevail upon us, and this after the
highest provocations. When Adam had trampled upon his creating goodness,
it was not crushed; and when man had cast it from him, it took the
higher rebound: when the rebel’s provocation was fresh in his mind,
he sought him out with a promise in his hand, though Adam fled from
him out of enmity as well as fear (Gen. iii). And when the Jews had
outraged his Son, whom he loved from eternity, and made the Lord of
heaven and earth bow down his head like a slave on the cross, yet in
that place, where the most horrible wickedness had been committed, must
the gospel be preached: the law must go forth out of that Sion, and the
apostles must not stir from thence till they had received the promise
of the Spirit, and published the word of grace in that ungrateful city,
whose inhabitants yet swelled with indignation against the Lord of Life,
and the doctrine he had preached among them (Luke xxiv. 47; Acts i.
4, 5). He would overlook their indignities out of tenderness to their
souls, and expose the apostles to the peril of their lives, rather than
expose his enemies to the fury of the devil.
1. How affectionately doth he invite men! What multitudes of alluring
promises and pressing exhortations are there everywhere sprinkled in
the Scripture, and in such a passionate manner, as if God were solely
concerned in our good, without a glance on his own {b285} glory! How
tenderly doth he woo flinty hearts, and express more pity to them
than they do to themselves! With what affection do his bowels rise
up to his lips in his speech in the prophet, Isa. li. 4, “Hearken to
me, O my people, and give ear unto me, O my nation!” “My people,” “my
nation!”――melting expressions of a tender God soliciting a rebellious
people to make their retreat to him. He never emptied his hand of
his bounty, nor divested his lips of those charitable expressions. He
sent Noah to move the wicked of the old world to an embracing of his
goodness, and frequent prophets to the provoking Jews; and as the world
continued, and grew up to a taller stature in sin, he stoops more in
the manner of his expressions. Never was the world at a higher pitch
of idolatry than at the first publishing the gospel; yet, when we
should have expected him to be a punishing, he is a beseeching God.
The apostle fears not to use the expression for the glory of Divine
goodness; “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you
by us” (2 Cor. v. 20). The beseeching voice of God is in the voice of
the ministry, as the voice of the prince is in that of the herald: it
is as if Divine goodness did kneel down to a sinner with ringed hands
and blubbered cheeks, entreating him not to force him to re‑assume a
tribunal of justice in the nature of a Judge, since he would treat with
man upon a throne of grace in the nature of a Father; yea, he seems
to put himself into the posture of the criminal, that the offending
creature might not feel the punishment due to a rebel. It is not the
condescension, but the interest, of a traitor to creep upon his knees
in sackcloth to his sovereign, to beg his life; but it is a miraculous
goodness in the sovereign to creep in the lowest posture to the rebel,
to importune him, not only for an amity to him, but a love for his own
life and happiness: this He doth, not only in his general proclamations,
but in his particular wooings, those inward courtings of his Spirits,
soliciting them with more diligence (if they would observe it) to their
happiness, than the devil tempts them to the ways of their misery: as
he was first in Christ, reconciling the world, when the world looked
not after him, so he is first in his Spirit, wooing the world to accept
of that reconciliation, when the world will not listen to him. How
often doth he flash up the light of nature and the light of the word
in men’s hearts, to move them not to lie down in sparks of their own
kindling, but to aspire to a better happiness, and prepare them to be
subject to a higher mercy, if they would improve his present entreaties
to such an end! And what are his threatenings designed for, but to move
the wheel of our fears, that the wheel of our desire and love might
be set on motion for the embracing his promise? They are not so much
the thunders of his justice, as the loud rhetoric of his good will, to
prevent men’s misery under the vials of wrath: it is his kindness to
scare men by threatenings, that justice might not strike them with the
sword: it is not the destruction, but the preserving reformation, that
he aims at: he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked; this he
confirms by his oath. His threatenings are gracious expostulations with
them: “Why will ye die, O house of Israel” (Ezek. xxxiii. 11)? They
are like the noise a favorable officer makes in the street, {b286} to
warn the criminal he comes to seize upon, to make his escape: he never
used his justice to crush men, till he had used his kindness to allure
them. All the dreadful descriptions of a future wrath, as well as the
lively descriptions of the happiness of another world, are designed
to persuade men; the honey of his goodness is in the bowels of those
roaring lions: such pains doth Goodness take with men, to make them
candidates for heaven.
2. How readily doth he receive men when they do return! We have
David’s experience for it (Ps. xxxii. 5); “I said, I will confess my
transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.
Selah.” A sincere look from the creature draws out his arms, and opens
his bosom; he is ready with his physic to heal us, upon a resolution
to acquaint him with our disease, and by his medicines prevents the
putting our resolution into a petition. The Psalmist adds a “Selah” to
it, as a special note of thankfulness for Divine goodness. He doth not
only stand ready to receive our petitions while we are speaking, but
answers us before we call (Isa. lxv. 24); listening to the motions of
our heart, as well as to the supplications of our lips. He is the true
Father, that hath a quicker pace in meeting, than the prodigal hath
in returning; who would not have his embraces and caresses interrupted
by his confession (Luke xv. 20‒22); the confession follows, doth not
precede, the Father’s compassion. How doth he rejoice in having an
opportunity to express his grace, when he hath prevailed with a rebel
to throw down his arms, and lie at his feet; and this because “he
delights in mercy” (Micah vii. 18)! He delights in the expressions of
it from himself, and the acceptance of it by his creature.