enlivens the earth, or the earth that travels with the plant, know
what plant it produceth in such a soil, what temper it should be of,
what fruit it should bear, and of what color? What plant knows its
own medicinal qualities, its own beautiful flowers, and for what use
they are ordained? When it strikes up its head from the earth, doth it
know what proportion of them there will be? yet it produceth all these
things in a state of ignorance. The sun warms the earth, concocts the
humors, excites the virtue of it, and cherishes the seeds which are
cast into her lap, yet all unknown to the sun or the earth. Since,
therefore, that nature, that is the immediate cause of those things
doth not understand its own quality, nor operation, nor the end of
its action, that which thus directs them must be conceived to have an
infinite wisdom. When things act by a rule they know not, and move for
an end they understand not, and yet work harmoniously together for an
end, that all of them, we are sure, are ignorant of, it mounts up our
minds to acknowledge the wisdom of that Supreme Cause that hath ranged
all these inferior causes in their order, and imprinted upon them
the laws of their motions according to the ideas in his own mind, who
orders the rule by which they act, and the end for which they act, and
directs every motion according to their several natures, and therefore
possessed with infinite wisdom in his own nature.

_Reason 4._ God is the fountain of all wisdom in the creatures, and,
therefore, is infinitely wise himself. As he hath a fulness of being in
himself, because the streams of being are derived to other things from
him, so he hath a fulness of wisdom, because he is the spring of wisdom
to angels and men. That being must be infinitely wise from whence all
other wisdom derives its original; for nothing can be in the effect,
which is not eminently in the cause; the cause is alway more perfect
than the effect. If, therefore, the creatures are wise, the Creator
must be much more wise. If the Creator were destitute of wisdom, the
creature would be much more perfect than the Creator. If you consider
the wisdom of the spider in her web, which is both her house and
net; the artifice of the bee in her comb, which is both her chamber
and granary; the provision of the pismire in her repositories for
corn,――the wisdom of the Creator is illustrated by them: whatsoever
excellency you see in any creature, is an image of some excellency in
God. The skill of the artificer is visible in {a518} the fruits of his
art; a workman transcribes his spirit in the work of his hands. But
the wisdom of rational creatures, as men, doth more illustrate it; all
arts among men are the rays of Divine wisdom shining upon them, and,
by a common gift of the Spirit, enlightening their minds to curious
inventions, as (Prov. viii. 12): “I, wisdom, find out the knowledge of
witty inventions;” that is, I give a faculty to men to find them out;
without my wisdom all things would be buried in darkness and ignorance:
whatsoever wisdom there is in the world, it is but a shadow of the
wisdom of God, a small rivulet derived from him, a spark leaping
out from uncreated wisdom (Isa. liv. 16): “He created the smith that
bloweth the coals in the fire, and makes the instruments.” The skill to
use those weapons in warlike enterprises is from him: “I have created
the waster to destroy;” it is not meant of creating their persons, but
communicating to them their art; he speaks it there to expel fear from
the church of all warlike preparations against them; he had given men
the skill to form and use weapons, and could as well strip them of it,
and defeat their purposes. The art of husbandry is a fruit of divine
teaching (Isa. xxviii. 24, 25). If those lower kinds of knowledge, that
are common to all nations, and easily learned by all, are discoveries
of Divine wisdom, much more the nobler sciences, intellectual and
political wisdom (Dan. ii. 21): “He gives wisdom to the wise, and
knowledge to them that know understanding;” speaking of the more
abstruse parts of knowledge, “The inspiration of the Almighty gives
understanding” (Job xxxii. 8). Hence the wisdom which Solomon expressed
in the harlot’s case (1 Kings iii. 28), was, in the judgment of all
Israel, the wisdom of God; that is, a fruit of Divine wisdom, a beam
communicated to him from God. Every man’s soul is endowed, more or
less, with those noble qualities; the soul of every man exceeds that
of a brute; if the streams be so excellent, the fountain must be fuller
and clearer. The first Spirit must infinitely more possess what other
spirits derive from him by creation; were the wisdom of all the angels
in heaven, and men on earth, collected in one spirit, it must be
infinitely less than what is in the spring; for no creature can be
equal to the Creator. As the highest creature already made, or that we
can conceive may be made by infinite power, would be infinitely below
God in the notion of a creature, so it would be infinitely below God in
the notion of wise.

IV. The fourth thing is, wherein the wisdom of God appears. It appears,
1st, In creation. 2dly, In government. 3dly, In redemption.

First, In creation. As in a musical instrument there is first the
skill of the workman in the frame, then the skill of the musician in
stringing it proper for such musical notes as he will express upon
it, and after that the tempering of the strings, by various stops,
to a delightful harmony, so is the wisdom of God seen in framing
the world, then in tuning it, and afterwards in the motion of the
several creatures. The fabric of the world is called the wisdom of God
(1 Cor. i. 21): “After that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom
knew not God;” _i. e._, by the creation the world knew not God. The
framing cause is there put for the effect and the work framed; because
{a519} the Divine wisdom stepped forth in the creatures, to a public
appearance, as if it had presented itself in a visible shape to
man, giving instructions in and by the creatures, to know and adore
him. What we translate (Gen. i. 1) “In the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth,” the Targum expresseth, “In wisdom God created
the heaven and the earth.” Both bear a stamp of this perfection on
them;[772] and when the apostle tells the Romans (Rom. i. 20) “The
invisible things of God were clearly understood by the things that are
made,” the word he uses is ποιήμασι not ἔργοις; this signifies a work
of labor, but ποίημα a work of skill, or a poem. The whole creation is
a poem, every species a stanza, and every individual creature a verse
in it. The creation presents us with a prospect of the wisdom of God,
as a poem doth the reader with the wit and fancy of the composer: “By
wisdom he created the earth” (Prov. iii. 19), “and stretched out the
heavens by discretion” (Jer. x. 12). There is not anything so mean, so
small, but glitters with a beam of Divine skill; and the consideration
of them would justly make every man subscribe to that of the psalmist,
“O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them
all” (Ps. civ. 24). All, the least as well as the greatest, and the
meanest as well as the noblest; even those creatures which seem ugly
and deformed to us, as toads, &c., because they fall short of those
perfections which are the dowry of other animals: in these there is
a footstep of Divine wisdom, since they were not produced by him at
random, but determined to some particular end, and designed to some
usefulness, as parts of the world in their several natures and stations.
God could never have had a satisfaction in the review of his works, and
pronounced them good or comely, as he did (Gen. i. 31), had they not
been agreeable to that eternal original copy in his own mind. It is
said he was refreshed, _viz._ with that review (Exod. xxxi. 17), which
could not have been, if his piercing eye had found any defect in any
thing which had sprung out of his hand, or an unsuitableness to that
end for which he created them. He seems to do as a man that hath made
a curious and polite work, with exact care to peer about every part
and line, if he could perceive any imperfection in it, to rectify the
mistake: but no defect was found by the infinitely wise God upon this
second examination. This wisdom of the creation appears, 1. In the
variety. 2. In the beauty. 3. The fitness of every creature for its
use. 4. The subordination of one creature to another, and the joint
concurrence of all to one common end.

1. In the variety (Ps. civ. 24): “O Lord, how manifold are thy works!”
How great a variety is there of animals and plants, with a great
variety of forms, shapes, figurations, colors, various smells, virtues,
and qualities! and this rarity is produced from one and the same matter,
as beasts and plants from the earth (Gen. i. 11, 24): “Let the earth
bring forth living creatures; and the earth brought forth grass, and
the herb yielding seed after his kind:” such diversity of fowl and fish
from the water (Gen. i. 20): “Let the waters bring forth abundantly
the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly;” such a
beautiful and active variety from so dull a matter {a520} as the earth;
so solid a variety from so fluid a matter as the water; so noble a
piece as the body of man, with such variety of members fit to entertain
a more excellent soul as a guest, from so mean a matter as the dust of
the ground (Gen. ii. 7). This extraction of such variety of forms out
of one single and dull matter, is the chemistry of Divine wisdom. It is
a greater skill to frame noble bodies of vile matter, as varieties of
precious vessels of clay and earth, than of a nobler matter, as gold
and silver. Again, all those varieties propagate their kind in every
particular and quality of their nature, and uniformly bring forth exact
copies according to the first pattern God made of the kind (Gen. i. 11,
12, 24). Consider, also, how the same piece of ground is garnished with
plants and flowers of several virtues, fruits, colors, scents, without
our being able to perceive any variety in the earth that breeds them,
and not so great a difference in the roots that bear them. Add to this
the diversities of birds of different colors, shapes, notes, consisting
of various parts, wings like oars, to cut the air, and tails as the
rudder of a ship, to guide their motion. How various, also, are the
endowments of the creatures! some have vegetation, and the power of
growth; others have the addition of sense, and others the excellency of
reason; something wherein all agree, and something wherein all differ;
variety in unity, and unity in variety: the wisdom of the workman had
not been so conspicuous had there been only one degree of goodness: the
greatest skill is seen in the greatest variety. The comeliness of the
body is visible in the variety of members, and their usefulness to
one another. What an inform thing had man been had he been all ear,
or all eye! If God had made all the stars to be suns, it would have
been a demonstration of his power, but, perhaps, less of his wisdom:
no creatures, with the natures they now have, could have continued in
being under so much heat: there was no less wisdom went to the frame
of the least, than to the greatest creature. It speaks more art in a
limner to paint a landscape exactly, than to draw the sun, though the
sun be a more glorious body. I might instance also, in the different
characters and features imprinted upon the countenances of men and
women, the differences of voices and statures, whereby they are
distinguished from one another: these are the foundations of order and
of human society, and administration of justice. What confusion would
have been, if a grown‑up son could not be known from his father, the
magistrate from the subject, the creditor from the debtor, the innocent
from the criminal! The laws God hath given to mankind could not have
been put in execution: this variety speaks the wisdom of God.

2. The wisdom of the creation appears in the beauty, and order, and
situation of the several creatures (Eccles. iii. 11): “He hath made
everything beautiful in his time.” As their being was a fruit of Divine
power, so their order is a fruit of Divine wisdom. All creatures are
as members in the great body of the world, proportioned to one another,
and contributing to the beauty of the whole; so that if the particular
forms of everything, the union of all for the composition of the
world, and the laws which are established in the order of nature
for its conservation, be considered, it would ravish us {a521} with
an admiration of God.[773] All the creatures are so many pictures
or statues, exactly framed by line (Ps. xix. 4): “Their line is
gone through all the earth;” their “line,” a measuring line, or a
carpenter’s rule, whereby he proportions several pieces to be exactly
linked and coupled together. “Their line,” that is, their harmonious
proportion, and the instruction from it, is gone forth through all the
earth. Upon the account of this harmony, some of the ancient heathens
framed the images of their gods with musical instruments in their hands,
signifying that God wrought all things in a due proportion.[774] The
heavens speak this wisdom in their order. The revolutions of the sun
and moon determine the seasons of the year, and make day and night in
orderly succession. The stars beautify the heavens, and influence the
earth, and keep their courses (Judges v. 20). They keep their stations
without interfering with one another; and though they have rolled about
for so many ages, they observe their distinct laws, and in the variety
of their motions have not disturbed one another’s functions. The sun is
set as the heart in the midst of this great body, to afford warmth to
all: and had it been set lower, it had long since turned the earth into
flame and ashes: had it been placed higher, the earth would have wanted
the nourishment and refreshment necessary for it. Too much nearness
had ruined the earth by parching heat, and too great a distance had
destroyed the earth by starving it with cold.[775] The sun hath also
its appointed motion; had it been fixed without motion, half of the
earth had been unprofitable; there had been a perpetual darkness in
a moiety of it; nothing had been produced for nourishment, and so it
had been rendered uninhabitable: but now, by its motion, it visits all
the climates of the world, runs its circuit, so that “nothing is hid
from the heat thereof,” (Ps. xix. 6). It imparts its virtue to every
corner of the world in its daily and yearly visits. Had it been fixed,
the fruits of the earth under it had been parched and destroyed before
their maturity; but all those inconveniences are provided against by
the perpetual motion of the sun. This motion is orderly; it makes its
daily course from east to west, its yearly motion from north to south:
it goes to the north, till it comes to the point God hath set it, and
then turns back to the south, and gains some point every day: it never
riseth nor sets in the same place one day, where it did the day before.
The world is never without its light; some see it rising the same
moment we see it setting.[776] The earth also speaks the Divine wisdom;
it is the pavement of the world, as the heaven is the ceiling of
fretwork. It is placed lowermost, as being the heaviest body, and fit
to receive the weightiest matter, and provided as an habitation proper
for those creatures which derive the matter of their bodies from it,
and partake of its earthly nature; and garnished with other creatures
for the profit or pleasure of man.[777] The sea also speaks the same
Divine wisdom. “He strengthened the fountains of the deep, and gave the
sea a decree that it should not pass his {a522} command” (Prov. viii.
28, 29). He hath given it certain bounds that it should not overflow
the earth (Job xxviii. 11). It contains itself in the situation
wherein God hath placed it, and doth not transgress its bounds. What
if some part of a country, a little spot, hath been overflowed by it,
and groaned under its waves? yet for the main, it retains the same
channels wherein it was at first lodged. All creatures are clothed
with an outward beauty, and endowed with an inward harmony; there is an
agreement in all parts of this great body; every one is beautiful and
orderly; but the beauty of the world results from all of them disposed
and linked together.

3. This wisdom is seen in the fitness of everything for its end, and
the usefulness of it. Divine wisdom is more illustrious in the fitness
and usefulness of this great variety, than in the composure of their
distinct parts: as the artificer’s skill is more eminent in fitting
the wheels, and setting them in order for their due motion, than in
the external fabric of the materials which compose the clock. After the
most diligent inspection, there can be found nothing in the creation
unprofitable; nothing but is capable of some service, either for the
support of our bodies, recreation of our senses, or moral instruction
of our minds: not the least creature but is formed, and shaped, and
furnished with members and parts, in a due proportion for its end
and service in the world; nothing is superfluous, nothing defective.
The earth is fitted in its parts;[778] the valleys are appointed for
granaries, the mountains to shadow them from the scorching heat of the
sun; the rivers, like veins, carry refreshment to every member of this
body; plants and trees thrive on the face of the earth, and metals are
engendered in the bowels of it, for materials for building, and other
uses for the service of man. “There he causes the grass to grow for the
cattle and herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food
out of the earth” (Ps. civ. 14). The sea is fitted for use; it is a
fish pond for the nourishment of man; a boundary for the dividing of
lands and several dominions: it joins together nations far distant:
a great vessel for commerce (Ps. civ. 26), “there go the ships.” It
affords vapors to the clouds, wherewith to water the earth, which the
sun draws up, separating the finer from the salter parts, that the
earth may be fruitful without being burdened with barrenness by the
salt. The sea hath also its salt, its ebbs, and floods; the one as
brine, the other as motion, to preserve it from putrefaction, that it
may not be contagious to the rest of the world. Showers are appointed
to refresh the bodies of living creatures, to open the womb of the
earth, and “water the ground to make it fruitful” (Ps. civ. 3). The
clouds, therefore, are called the chariots of God; he rides in them
in the manifestation of his goodness and wisdom. Winds are fitted to
purify the air, to preserve it from putrefaction, to carry the clouds
to several parts, to refresh the parched earth, and assist her fruits:
and also to serve for the commerce of one nation with another by
navigation.[779] God, in his wisdom and goodness, “walks upon the
wings of the wind” (Ps. civ. 3). Rivers[780] are appointed to bathe the
ground, and render it fresh and lively; {a523} they fortify cities, are
the limits of countries, serve for commerce; they are the watering‑pots
of the earth, and the vessels for drink for the living creatures that
dwell upon the earth. God cut those channels for the wild asses, the
beasts of the desert, which are his creatures as well as the rest (Ps.
civ. 10, 12, 13). Trees are appointed for the habitations of birds,
shadows for the earth, nourishment for the creatures, materials for
building, and fuel for the relief of man against cold. The seasons of
the year have their use; the winter makes the juice retire into the
earth, fortifies plants, and fixes their roots: it moistens the earth
that was dried before by the heat of summer, and cleanseth and prepares
it for a new fruitfulness. The spring calls out the sap in new leaves
and fruit. The summer consumes the superfluous moisture, and produceth
nourishment for the inhabitants of the world.[781] The day and night
have also their usefulness: the day gives life to labor, and is a guide
to motion and action (Ps. civ. 24), “The sun ariseth, man goeth forth
to his labor until the evening.” It warms the air, and quickens nature;
without day the world would be a chaos, an unseen beauty. The night
indeed casts a veil upon the bravery of the earth, but it draws the
curtains from that of heaven; though it darkens below, it makes us see
the beauty of the world above, and discovers to us a glorious part of
the creation of God, the tapestry of heaven, and the motions of the
stars, hid from us by the eminent light of the day. It procures a truce
from labor, and refresheth the bodies of creatures, by recruiting the
spirits which are scattered by watching. It prevents the ruin of life,
by a reparation of what was wasted in the day. It takes from us the
sight of flowers and plants, but it washeth their face with dews for
a new appearance next morning. The length of the day and night is not
without a mark of wisdom; were they of a greater length, as the length
of a week or month, the one would too much dry, and the other too
much moisten; and for want of action, the members would be stupified.
The perpetual succession of day and night is an evidence of the Divine
wisdom in tempering the travel and rest of creatures. Hence, the
psalmist tells us (Ps. lxxxiv. 16, 17), “The day is thine, and the
night is thine; thou hast prepared the light of the sun, and made
summer and winter;” _i. e._ they are of God’s framing, not without
a wise counsel and end. Hence, let us ascend to the bodies of living
creatures, and we shall find every member fitted for use. What a
curiosity is there in every member! Every one fitted to a particular
use in their situation, form, temper, and mutual agreement for the good
of the whole: the eye to direct; the ear to receive directions from
others; the hands to act; the feet to move. Every creature hath members
fitted for that element wherein it resides; and in the body, some parts
are appointed to change the food into blood, others to refine it, and
others to distribute and convey it to several parts for the maintenance
of the whole: the heart to mint vital spirits for preserving life,
and the brain to coin animal spirits for life and motion; the lungs
to serve for the cooling the heart, which else would be parched as the
ground in summer. The motion of the members of the body by one act of
the will, and also without the will by a {a524} natural instinct, is
an admirable evidence of Divine skill in the structure of the body; so
that well might the psalmist cry out (Ps. cxxxix. 14), “I am fearfully
and wonderfully made!” But how much more of this Divine perfection is
seen in the soul! A nature, furnished with a faculty of understanding
to judge of things, to gather in things that are distant, and to
reason and draw conclusions from one thing to another, with a memory
to treasure up things that are past, with a will to apply itself so
readily to what the mind judges fit and comely, and fly so speedily
from what it judges ill and hurtful. The whole world is a stage; every
creature in it hath a part to act, and a nature suited to that part and
end it is designed for; and all concur in a joint language to publish
the glory of Divine wisdom; they have a voice to proclaim the “glory
of God” (Ps. xix. 1, 3). And it is not the least part of God’s skill,
in framing the creatures so, that upon man’s obedience, they are the
channels of his goodness; and upon man’s disobedience, they can, in
their natures, be the ministers of his justice for the punishing of
offending creatures.

4. This wisdom is apparent in the linking of all these useful parts
together, so that one is subordinate to the other for a common end. All
parts are exactly suited to one another, and every part to the whole,
though they are of different natures, as lines distant in themselves,
yet they meet in one common centre, the good and the preservation of
the universe; they are all jointed together, as the word translated
_framed_ (Heb. xi. 2) signifies; knit by fit hands and ligaments to
contribute mutual beauty, strength, and assistance to one another;
like so many links of a chain coupled together, that though there be
a distance in place, there is a unity in regard of connection and end,
there is a consent in the whole (Hos. ii. 21, 22). “The heavens hear
the earth; and the earth hears the corn, and the wine, and the oil.”
The heavens communicate their qualities to the earth, and the earth
conveys them to the fruits she bears.[782] The air distributes light,
wind and rain to the earth; the earth and the sea render to the
air exhalations and vapors, and altogether charitably give to the
plants and animals that which is necessary for their nourishment and
refreshment. The influences of the heavens animate the earth; and the
earth affords matter, in part, for the influences it receives from
the regions above. Living creatures are maintained by nourishment;
nourishment is conveyed to them by the fruits of the earth; the fruits
of the earth are produced by means of rain and heat; matter for rain
and dew is raised by the heat of the sun; and the sun by its motion
distributes heat and quickening virtue to all parts of the earth. So
colors are made for the pleasure of the eye, sounds for the delight
of the ear; light is formed, whereby the eye may see the one, and air
to convey the species of colors to the eye, and sound to the ear; all
things are like the wheels of a watch compacted: and though many of
the creatures be endowed with contrary qualities, yet they are joined
in a marriage‑knot for the public security, and subserviency to the
preservation and order of the universe; as the variety of strings upon
an instrument, sending forth various and distinct sounds, are tempered
together, for the framing excellent and {a525} delightful airs. In
this universal conspiring of the creatures together to one end, is the
wisdom of the Creator apparent; in tuning so many contraries as the
elements are, and preserving them in their order, which if once broken,
the whole frame of nature would crack, and fall in pieces; all are so
interwoven and inlaid together, by the Divine workmanship, as to make
up one entire beauty in the whole fabric: as every part in the body of
man hath a distinct comeliness, yet there is besides, the beauty of the
whole, that results from the union of divers parts exactly fashioned to
one another, and linked together.

By the way, _Use_. How much may we see of the perfection of God in
everything that presents itself to our eyes! And how should we be
convinced of our unworthy neglect of ascending to him with reverend
and admiring thoughts, upon the prospect of the creatures! What dull
scholars are we, when every creature is our teacher, every part of the
creature a lively instruction! Those things that we tread under our
feet, if used by us according to the full design of their creation,
would afford rich matter, not only for our heads, but our hearts. As
grace doth not destroy nature, but elevate it, so neither should the
fresher and fuller discoveries of Divine wisdom in redemption deface
all our thoughts of his wisdom in creation. Though the greater light
of the sun obscures the lesser sparkling of the stars, yet it gives
way in the night to the discovery of them, that God may be seen, known,
and considered, in all his works of wonder, and miracles of nature. No
part of Scripture is more spiritual than the Psalms; none filled with
clearer discoveries of Christ in the Old Testament; yet how often do
the penmen consider the creation of God, and find their meditations
on him to be sweet, as considered in his works (Ps. civ. 34)! “My
meditation of him shall be sweet.” When? why, after a short history
of the goodness and wisdom of God in the frame of the world, and the
species of the creatures.

Secondly. The wisdom of God appears in his government of his
creatures. The regular motion of the creatures speaks for this
perfection, as well as the exact composition of them. If the
exquisiteness of the frame conducts us to the skill of the Contriver,
the exactness of their order, according to his will and law, speaks
no less the wisdom of the Governor. It cannot be thought that a rash
and irrational power presides over a world so well disposed: the
disposition of things hath no less characters of skill, than the
creation of them. No man can hear an excellent lesson upon a lute,
but must presently reflect upon the art of the person that touches it.
The prudence of man appears in wrapping up the concerns of a kingdom
in his mind, for the well‑ordering of it; and shall not the wisdom of
God shine forth, as he is the director of the world? I shall omit his
government of inanimate creatures, and confine the discourse to his
government of man, as rational, as sinful, as restored.

1st. In his government of man as a rational creature.

1. In the law he gives to man. Wisdom framed it, though will
enacted it. The will of God is the rule of righteousness to us, but
the wisdom of God is the foundation of that rule of righteousness which
he prescribes us. The composure of a musician is the rule {a526} of
singing to his scholars; yet the consent and harmony in that composure
derives not itself from his will, but from his understanding; he would
not be a musician if his composures were contrary to the rules of true
harmony: so the laws of men are composed by wisdom, though they are
enforced by will and authority.[783] The moral law, which was the law
of nature, the law imprinted upon Adam, is so framed as to secure the
rights of God as supreme, and the rights of men in their distinctions
of superiority and equality: it is therefore called “holy and good”
(Rom. vii. 12); holy, as it prescribes our duty to God in his worship;
good, as it regulates the offices of human life, and preserves the
common interest of mankind.

(1.) It is suited to the nature of man. As God hath given a law of
nature, a fixed order to inanimate creatures, so he hath given a law of
reason to rational creatures: other creatures are not capable of a law
differencing good and evil, because they are destitute of faculties and
capacities to make distinction between them. It had not been agreeable
to the wisdom of God to propose any moral law to them, who had neither
understanding to discern, nor will to choose. It is therefore to be
observed, that whilst Christ exhorted others to the embracing his
doctrine, yet he exhorted not little children, though he took them in
his arms, because, though they had faculties, yet they were not come to
such a maturity as to be capable of a rational instruction. But there
was a necessity for some command for the government of man; since God
had made him a rational creature, it was not agreeable to his wisdom to
govern him as a brute, but as a rational creature, capable of knowing
his precepts, and voluntarily walking in them; and without a law,
he had not been capable of any exercise of his reason in services
respecting God. He therefore gives him a law, with a covenant annexed
to it, whereby man is obliged to obedience, and secured of a reward.
This was enforced with severe penalties, death, with all the horrors
attending it, to deter him from transgression (Gen. ii. 17); wherein
is implied a promise of continuance of life, and all its felicities,
to allure him to a mindfulness of his obligation. So perfect a hedge
did Divine wisdom set about him, to keep him within the bounds of that
obedience, which was both his debt and security, that wheresoever he
looked, he saw either something to invite him, or something to drive
him to the payment of his duty, and perseverance in it. Thus the law
was exactly framed to the nature of man; man had twisted in him a
desire of happiness; the promise was suited to cherish this natural
desire. He had also the passion of fear; the proper object of this
was any thing destructive to his being, nature, and felicity; this
the threatening met with. In the whole it was accommodated to man as
rational; precepts to the law in his mind, promises to the natural
appetite, threatenings to the most prevailing affection, and to the
implanted desires of preserving both his being and happiness in that
being. These were rational motives, fitted to the nature of Adam, which
was above the life God had given plants, and the sense he had given
animals. The command given man in innocence was suited to his strength
and power. God gave him not {a527} any command but what he had ability
to observe: and since we want not power to forbear an apple in our
corrupted and impotent state, he wanted not strength in his state of
integrity. The wisdom of God commanded nothing but what was very easy
to be observed by him, and inferior to his natural ability. It had
been both unjust and unwise to have commanded him to fly up to the sun,
when he had not wings; or stop the course of the sea, when he had not
strength.

(2.) It is suited to the happiness and benefit of man. God’s laws
are not an act of mere authority respecting his own glory, but of
wisdom and goodness respecting man’s benefit. They are perfective
of man’s nature, conferring a wisdom upon him, “rejoicing his heart,
enlightening his eyes” (Ps. xix. 7, 8), affording him both a knowledge
of God and of himself. To be without a law, is for men to be as beasts,
without justice and without religion: other things are for the good
of the body, but the laws of God for the good of the soul; the more
perfect the law, the greater the benefit. The laws given to the Jews
were the honor and excellency of that nation (Deut. i. 8); “What nation
is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous?”
They were made statesmen in the judicial law, ecclesiastics in the
ceremonial, honest men in the second table, and divine in the first.
All his laws are suited to the true satisfaction of man, and the good
of human society. Had God framed a law only for one nation, there would
have been the characters of a particular wisdom; but now an universal
wisdom appears, in accommodating his law, not only to this or that
particular society or corporation of men, but to the benefit of all
mankind, in the variety of climates and countries wherein they live;
everything that is disturbing to human society is provided against;
nothing is enjoined but what is sweet, rational, and useful: it orders
us not to attempt anything against the life of our neighbor, the honor
of his bed, propriety in his goods, and the clearness of his reputation;
and, if well observed, would alter the face of the world, and make it
look with another hue. The world would be altered from a brutish to
a human world; it would change lions and wolves, men of lion‑like and
wolfish disposition, into reason and sweetness. And because the whole
law is summed up in love, it obligeth us to endeavor the preservation
of one another’s beings, the favoring of one another’s interests, and
increasing the goods, as much as justice will permit, and keeping up
one another’s credits, because love, which is the soul of the law,
is not shown by a cessation from action, but signifies an ardor, upon
all occasions, in doing good. I say, were this law well observed, the
world would be another thing than it is: it would become a religious
fraternity; the voice of enmity, and the noise of groans and cursings,
would not be heard in our streets; peace would be in all borders;
plenty of charity in the midst of cities and countries; joy and singing
would sound in all habitations. Man’s advantage was designed in God’s
laws, and doth naturally result from the observance of them. God so
ordered them, by his wisdom, that the obedience of man should draw
forth his goodness, and prevent those smarting judgments which were
necessary {a528} to reduce the creature to order that would not
voluntarily continue in the order God had appointed. The laws of men
are often unjust, oppressive, cruel, sometimes against the law of
nature; but an universal wisdom and righteousness glitters in the
Divine law; there is nothing in it but is worthy of God, and useful for
the creature; so that we may well say, with Job, “Who teaches like God”
(Job xxxvi. 22)? or as some render it, “Who is a lawgiver like God?”
Who can say to him, Thou hast wrought iniquity or folly among men?
His precepts were framed for the preservation of man in that rectitude
wherein he was created, in that likeness to God wherein he was first
made, that there might be a correspondence between the integrity of
the creature and the goodness of his Creator, by the obedience of man;
that man might exercise his faculties in operation worthy of him, and
beneficial to the world.

(3.) The wisdom of God is seen in suiting his laws to the consciences
as well as the interests of all mankind (Rom. ii. 14); “The Gentiles
do, by nature, the things contained in the law;” so great an affinity
there is between the wise law and the reason of man. There is a natural
beauty emerging from them, and darting upon the reasons and consciences
of men, which dictates to them that this law is worthy to be observed
in itself. The two main principles of the law, the love and worship
of God, and doing as we would be done by, have an indelible impression
in the consciences of all men, in regard of the principle, though they
are not suitably expressed in the practice. Were there no law outwardly
published, yet every man’s conscience would dictate to him that God was
to be acknowledged, worshipped, loved, as naturally as his reason would
acquaint him that there was such a being as God. This suitableness of
them to the consciences of men is manifest, in that the laws of the
best governed nations among the heathen have had an agreement with them.
Nothing can be more exactly composed, according to the rules of right
and exact reason, than this; no man but approves of something in it,
yea, of the whole, when he exerciseth that dim reason which he hath.
Suppose any man, not an absolute atheist, he cannot but acknowledge
the reasonableness of worshipping God. Grant him to be a spirit, and it
will presently appear absurd to represent him by any corporeal image,
and derogate from his excellency by so mean a resemblance; with the
same easiness he will grant a reverence due to the name of God; that
we must not serve our turn of him, by calling him to witness to a lie
in a solemn oath; that as worship is due to him, so is some stated time
a circumstance necessary to the performance of that worship. And as
to the second table, will any man, in his right reason, quarrel with
that command that engageth his inferiors to honor him, that secures
his being from a violent murder, and his goods from unjust rapine? and
though, by the fury of his lusts, he break the laws of wedlock himself,
yet he cannot but approve of that law, as it prohibits every man
from doing him the like injury and disgrace. The suitableness of the
law to the consciences of men is further evidenced by those furious
reflections, and strong alarms of conscience, upon a transgression
of it, {a529} and that in all parts of the world, more or less, in all
men; so exactly hath Divine wisdom fitted the law to the reason and
consciences of men, as one tally to another: indeed, without such an
agreement, no man’s conscience could have any ground for a hue and cry;
nor need any man be startled with the records of it. This manifests the
wisdom of God in framing his laws so that the reasons and consciences
of all men do, one time or other, subscribe to it. What governor in the
world is able to make any law distinct from this revealed by God, that
shall reach all places, all persons, all hearts? We may add to this the
extent of his commands, in ordering goodness at the root, not only in
action, but affection; not only in the motion of the members, but the
disposition of the soul; which suiting a law to the inward frame of man,
is quite out of the compass of the wisdom of any creature.

(4.) His wisdom is seen in the encouragements he gives for the
studying and observing his will (Ps. xix. 11); “In keeping thy
commandments there is great reward.” The variety of them; there is
not any particular genius in man but may find something suitable to
win upon him in the revealed will of God. There is a strain of reason
to satisfy the rational; of eloquence, to gratify the fanciful; of
interest, to allure the selfish; of terror, to startle the obstinate.
As a skilful angler stores himself with baits, according to the
appetites of the sorts of fish he intends to catch, so in the word
of God there are varieties of baits, according to the varieties of
the inclinations of men; threatenings to work upon fear; promises to
work upon love; examples of holy men set out for imitation; and those
plainly; neither his threatenings nor his promises are dark, as the
heathen oracles; but peremptory, as becomes a sovereign lawgiver;
and plain, as was necessary for the understanding of a creature.
As he deals graciously with men in exhorting and encouraging them,
so he deals wisely herein, by taking away all excuse from them if
they ruin the interest of their souls, by denying obedience to their
Sovereign. Again, the rewards God proposeth are accommodated, not to
the brutish parts of man, his carnal sense and fleshly appetite, but
to the capacity of a spiritual soul, which admits only of spiritual
gratifications; and cannot, in its own nature, without a sordid
subjection to the humors of the body, be moved by sensual proposals.
God backs his precepts with that which the nature of man longed for,
and with spiritual delights, which can only satisfy a rational appetite;
and thereby did as well gratify the noblest desires in man, as oblige
him to the noblest service and work.[784] Indeed, virtue and holiness
being perfectly amiable, ought chiefly to affect our understandings,
and by them draw our wills to the esteem and pursuit of them. But
since the desire of happiness is inseparable from the nature of man,
as impossible to be disjoined as an inclination to descend to be
severed from heavy bodies, or an instinct to ascend from light and
airy substances; God serves himself of the inclination of our natures
to happiness, to enjender in us an esteem and affection to the holiness
he doth require. He proposeth the enjoyment of a supernatural good
and everlasting glory, as a bait to that insatiable {a530} longing
our natures have for happiness, to receive the impression of holiness
into our souls. And, besides, he doth proportion rewards according the
degrees of men’s industry, labor, and zeal for him; and weighs out a
recompense, not only suited to, but above the service. He that improves
five talents, is to be ruler over five cities; that is, a greater
proportion of honor and glory than another (Luke xix. 17, 18); as a
wise father excites the affection of his children to things worthy of
praise, by varieties of recompenses according to their several actions.
And it was the wisdom of the steward, in the judgment of our Saviour,
to give every one the “portion that belonged to him” (Luke xii. 42).
There is no part of the word wherein we meet not with the will and
wisdom of God, varieties of duties, and varieties of encouragement,
mingled together.

(5.) The wisdom of God is seen in fitting the revelations of his will
to aftertimes, and for the preventing of the foreseen corruptions of
men. The whole revelation of the mind of God is stored with wisdom in
the words, connexion, sense; it looks backwards to past, and forwards
to ages to come: a hidden wisdom lies in the bowels of it, like gold
in a mine. The Old Testament was so composed, as to fortify the New,
when God should bring it to light. The foundations of the gospel were
laid in the law: the predictions of the Prophets, and figures of the
law, were so wisely framed, and laid down in such clear expressions,
as to be proofs of the authority of the New Testament, and convictions
of Jesus’ being the Messiah (Luke xxiv. 14). Things concerning Christ
were written in Moses, the Prophets, and Psalms; and do, to this day,
stare the Jews so in the face, that they are fain to invent absurd
and nonsensical interpretations to excuse their unbelief, and continue
themselves in their obstinate blindness. And in pursuance of the
efficacy of those predictions, it was a part of the wisdom of God to
bring forth the translation of the Old Testament, (by the means of
Ptolomy, king of Egypt, some hundreds of years before the coming of
Christ) into the Greek language, the tongue then most known in the
world; and why? to prepare the Gentiles, by the reading of it, for that
gracious call he intended them, and for the entertainment of the gospel,
which some few years after was to be published among them; that, by
reading the predictions so long before made, they might more readily
receive the accomplishment of them in their due time. The Scripture is
written in such a manner, as to obviate errors foreseen by God to enter
into the church. It may be wondered, why the universal particle should
be inserted by Christ, in the giving the cup in the supper, which
was not in the distributing the bread (Matt. xxvi. 27): “Drink ye all
of it;” not at the distributing the bread, “Eat you all of it;” and
Mark, in his relation, tells us, “They all drank of it” (Mark xi. 23).
The church of Rome hath been the occasion of discovering to us the
wisdom of our Saviour, in inserting that particle _all_, since they
were so bold to exclude the communicants from the cup by a trick
of concomitancy. Christ foresaw the error, and therefore put in a
little word to obviate a great invasion: and the Spirit of God hath
particularly left upon record that particle, as we may reasonably
suppose to such a purpose. And so, in the description {a531} of
the “blessed Virgin” (Luke i. 27), there is nothing of her holiness
mentioned, which is with much diligence recorded of Elizabeth (ver. 6):
“Righteous, walking in all the commandments of God, blameless;”
probably to prevent the superstition which God foresaw would arise in
the world. And we do not find more undervaluing speeches uttered by
Christ to any of his disciples, in the exercise of his office, than to
her, except to Peter. As when she acquainted him with the want of wine
at the marriage in Cana, she receives a slighting answer: “Woman, what
have I to do with thee” (John ii. 4)? And when one was admiring the
blessedness of her that bare him, he turns the discourse another way,
to pronounce a blessedness rather belonging to them that “hear the word
of God, and keep it” (Luke xi. 27, 28); in a mighty wisdom to antidote
his people against any conceit of the prevalency of the Virgin over him
in heaven, in the exercise of his mediatory office.

2. As his wisdom appears in his government by his laws, so it
appears in the various inclinations and conditions of men. As there
is a distinction of several creatures, and several qualities in them,
for the common good of the world, so among men there are several
inclinations and several abilities, as donatives from God, for the
common advantage of human society; as several channels cut out from
the same river run several ways, and refresh several soils, one man is
qualified for one employment, another marked out by God for a different
work, yet all of them fruitful to bring in a revenue of glory to God,
and a harvest of profit to the rest of mankind. How unuseful would the
body be, if it had but “one member” (1 Cor. xii. 19)! How unprovided
would a house be, if it had not vessels of dishonor as well as of
honor! The corporation of mankind would be as much a chaos, as the
matter of the heavens and the earth was, before it was distinguished by
several forms breathed into it at the creation. Some are inspired with
a particular genius for one art, some for another; every man hath a
distinct talent. If all were husbandmen, where would be the instruments
to plough and reap? If all were artificers, where would they have
corn to nourish themselves? All men are like vessels, and parts in
the body, designed for distinct offices and functions for the good
of the whole, and mutually return an advantage to one another. As the
variety of gifts in the church is a fruit of the wisdom of God, for the
preservation and increase of the church, so the variety of inclinations
and employments in the world is a fruit of the wisdom of God, for the
preservation and subsistence of the world by mutual commerce. What
the apostle largely discourseth of the former, in 1 Cor. xii. may be
applied to the other. The various conditions of men is also a fruit
of Divine wisdom. Some are rich, and some poor; the rich have as much
need of the poor, as the poor have of the rich; if the poor depend upon
the rich for their livelihood, the rich depend upon the poor for their
conveniences. Many arts would not be learned by men, if poverty did
not oblige them to it; and many would faint in the learning of them, if
they were not thereunto encouraged by the rich. The poor labor for the
rich, as the earth sends vapors into the vaster and fuller air; and the
rich return advantages again to the poor, as the clouds {a532} do the
vapors in rain upon the earth. As meat would not afford a nourishing
juice without bread, and bread without other food would immoderately
fill the stomach, and not be well digested, so the rich would be
unprofitable in the commonwealth without the poor, and the poor would
be burdensome to a commonwealth without the rich. The poor could not
be easily governed without the rich, nor the rich sufficiently and
conveniently provided for without the poor. If all were rich, there
would be no objects for the exercise of a noble part of charity: if all
were poor, there were no matter for the exercise of it. Thus the Divine
wisdom planted various inclinations, and diversified the conditions of
men for the public advantages of the world.

2dly. God’s wisdom appears, in the government of men, as fallen and
sinful; or, in the government of sin. After the law of God was broke,
and sin invaded and conquered the world, divine wisdom had another
scene to act in, and other methods of government were necessary. The
wisdom of God is then seen in ordering those jarring discords, drawing
good out of evil, and honour to himself out of that which in its own
nature tended to the supplanting of his glory. God being a sovereign
good, would not suffer so great an evil to enter, but to serve himself
of it for some greater end, for all his thoughts are full of goodness
and wisdom. Now, though the permission of sin be an act of his
sovereignty, and the punishment of sin be an act of his justice, yet
the ordination of sin to good, is an act of his wisdom, whereby he doth
dispose the evil, overrules the malice, and orders the events of it to
his own purposes. Sin in itself is a disorder, and therefore God doth
not permit sin for itself; for in its own nature it hath nothing of
amiableness, but he wills it for some righteous end, which belongs to
the manifestation of his glory, which is his aim in all the acts of his
will; he wills it not as sin, but as his wisdom can order it to some
greater good than was before in the world, and make it contribute to
the beauty of the order he intends. As a dark shadow is not delightful
and pleasant in itself, nor is drawn by a painter for any amiableness
there is in the shadow itself, but as it serves to set forth that
beauty which is the main design of his art, so the glorious effects
which arise from the entrance of sin into the world, are not from the
creatures evil, but the depths of divine wisdom. Particularly,

1. God’s wisdom is seen in the bounding of sin; as it is said of the
wrath of man, it shall praise him, and the remainder of wrath God doth
restrain (Ps. lxxvi. 10). He sets limits to the boiling corruption of
the heart, as he doth to the boisterous waves of the sea; “Hitherto
shalt thou go, and no further.” As God is the rector of the world, he
doth so restrain sin, so temper and direct it, as that human society is
preserved, which else would be overflown with a deluge of wickedness,
and ruin would be brought upon all communities. The world would be a
shambles, a brothel‑house, if God, by his wisdom and goodness, did not
set bars to that wickedness which is in the hearts of men: the whole
earth would be as bad as hell. Since the heart of man is a hell of
corruption, by that the souls of all men would be excited to the acting
the worst villanies; since {a533} “every thought of the heart of man
is only evil, and that continually” (Gen. vi. 5). If the wisdom of God
did not stop these floodgates of evil in the hearts of men, it would
overflow the world, and frustrate all the gracious designs he carries
on among the sons of men. Were it not for this wisdom, every house
would be filled with violence, as well as every nature is with sin.
What harm would not strong and furious beasts do, did not the skill of
man tame and bridle them? How often hath Divine wisdom restrained the
viciousness of human nature, and let it run, not to that point they
designed, but to the end he purposed! Laban’s fury, and Esau’s enmity
against Jacob, were pent in within bounds for Jacob’s safety, and their
hearts overruled from an intended destruction of the good man, to a
perfect amity (Gen. xxxi. 29, and xxxii.)

2. God’s wisdom is seen in the bringing glory to himself out of sin.

(1.) Out of sin itself. God erects the trophies of honor upon
that which is a natural means to hinder and deface it. His glorious
attributes are drawn out to our view, upon the occasion of sin, which
otherwise had lain hid in his own Being. Sin is altogether black and
abominable; but by the admirable wisdom of God, he hath drawn out
of the dreadful darkness of sin the saving beams of his mercy, and
displayed his grace in the incarnation and passion of his Son for the
atonement of sin. Thus he permitted Adam’s fall, and wisely ordered
it, for a fuller discovery of his own nature, and a higher elevation
of man’s good, that “as sin reigned to death, so might grace reign
through righteousness to eternal life, by Jesus Christ” (Rom. v. 21).
The unbounded goodness of God could not have appeared without it. His
goodness in rewarding innocent obedience would have been manifested;
but not his mercy, in pardoning rebellious crimes. An innocent creature
is the object of the rewards of grace, as the standing angels are under
the beams of grace; but not under the beams of mercy, because they
were never sinful, and, consequently, never miserable. Without sin
the creature had not been miserable: had man remained innocent, he
had not been the subject of punishment; and without the creature’s
misery, God’s mercy in sending his Son to save his enemies, could not
have appeared. The abundance of sin is a passive occasion for God to
manifest the abundance of his grace. The power of God in the changing
the heart of a rebellious creature, had not appeared, had not sin
infected our nature. We had not clearly known the vindictive justice
of God, had no crime been committed; for that is the proper object of
Divine wrath. The goodness of God could never have permitted justice to
exercise itself upon an innocent creature, that was not guilty either
personally or by imputation (Ps. xi. 7), “The righteous Lord loveth
righteousness, his countenance doth uphold the upright.” Wisdom is
illustrious hereby. God suffered man to fall into a mortal disease, to
shew the virtue of his own restoratives to cure sin, which in itself
is incurable by the art of any creature. And otherwise this perfection,
whereby God draws good out of evil, had been utterly useless, and would
have been destitute of an object wherein to discover itself. Again,
wisdom, in ordering a rebellious head‑strong world to its own ends, is
greater than the ordering an {a534} innocent world, exactly observant
of his precepts, and complying with the end of the creation. Now,
without the entrance of sin, this wisdom had wanted a stage to act
upon. Thus God raised the honor of this wisdom, while man ruined the
integrity of his nature; and made use of the creature’s breach of his
divine law, to establish the honor of it in a more signal and stable
manner, by the active and passive obedience of the Son of his bosom.
Nothing serves God so much, as an occasion of glorifying himself, as
the entrance of sin into the world; by this occasion God communicates
to us the knowledge of those perfections of his nature, which had else
been folded up from us in an eternal night; his justice had lain in
the dark, as having nothing to punish; his mercy had been obscure, as
having none to pardon; a great part of his wisdom had been silent, as
having no such object to order.

(2.) His wisdom appears, in making use of sinful instruments. He uses
the malice and enmity of the devil to bring about his own purposes, and
makes the sworn enemy of his honor contribute to the illustrating of it
against his will. This great craftsmaster he took in his own net, and
defeated the devil by the devil’s malice; by turning the contrivances
he had hatched and accomplished against man, against himself. He
used him as a tempter, to grapple with our Saviour in the wilderness,
whereby to make him fit to succor us; and as the god of this world, to
conspire the wicked Jews to crucify him, whereby to render him actually
the Redeemer of the world, and so make him an ignorant instrument of
that divine glory he designed to ruin. It is more skill to make a
curious piece of workmanship with ill‑conditioned tools, than with
instruments naturally fitted for the work: it is no such great wonder
for a limner to draw an exact piece with a fit pencil and suitable
colors, as to begin and perfect a beautiful work with a straw and
water, things improper for such a design.[785] This wisdom of God is
more admirable and astonishing than if a man were able to rear a vast
palace by fire, whose nature is to consume combustible matter not to
erect a building. To make things serviceable contrary to their own
nature, is a wisdom peculiar to the Creator of Nature. God’s making use
of devils, for the glory of his name, and the good of his people, is a
more amazing piece of wisdom than his goodness in employing the blessed
angels in his work. To promise, that the world, (which includes the god
of the world), and death, and things present, let them be as evil as
they will, should be ours, that is, for our good, and for his glory,
is an act of goodness; but to make them serviceable to the honor of
Christ, and the good of his people, is a wisdom that may well raise our
highest admirations: they are for believers, as they are for the glory
of Christ, and as Christ is for the glory of God (1 Cor. iii. 22). To
chain up Satan wholly, and frustrate his wiles, would be an argument
of Divine goodness; but to suffer him to run his risk, and then improve
all his contrivances for his own glorious and gracious ends and
purposes, manifests, besides his power and goodness, his wisdom also.
He uses the sins of evil instruments for the glory of his justice (Isa.
x. 5‒7). Thus he served {a535} himself of the ambition and covetousness
of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Romans, for the correction of his
people, and punishment of his rebels, just as the Roman magistrates
used the fury of lions and other wild beasts, in their theatres, for
the punishment of criminals: the lions acted their natural temper in
tearing those that were exposed to them for a prey; but the intent of
the magistrates was to punish their crimes. the lions with their rage,
that they had from their natures; but served themselves of that natural
rage to execute justice.

(3.) God’s wisdom is seen in bringing good to the creature out of sin.
He hath ordered sin to such an end as man never dreamt of, the devil
never imagined, and sin in its own nature could never attain. Sin in
its own nature tends to no good, but that of punishment, whereby the
creature is brought into order. It hath no relation to the creature’s
good in itself, but to the creature’s mischief: but God, by an act
of infinite wisdom, brings good out of it to the creature, as well as
glory to his name, contrary to the nature of the crime, the intention
of the criminal, and the design of the tempter. God willed sin, that
is, he willed to permit it, that he might communicate himself to the
creature in the most excellent manner. He willed the permission of
sin, as an occasion to bring forth the mystery of the incarnation and
passion of our Saviour; as he permitted the sin of Joseph’s brethren,
that he might use their evil to a good end. He never, because of his
holiness, wills sin as an end; but in regard of his wisdom he wills to
permit it as a means and occasion; and thus, to draw good out of those
things which are in their own nature most contrary to good, is the
highest pitch of wisdom.

[1.] The redemption of man in so excellent a way, was drawn from
the occasion of sin. The greatest blessing that ever the world was
blessed with, was ushered in by contraieties, by the lust and irregular
affection of man; the first promise of the Redeemer by the fall of Adam
(Gen. iii. 15), and the bruising the heel of that promised Seed, by the
blackest tragedy acted by wicked rebels, the treachery of Judas, and
the rage of the Jews; the highest good hath been brought forth by the
greatest wickedness. As God out of the chaos of rude and indigested
matter framed the first creation; so from the sins of men, and malice
of Satan, he hath erected the everlasting scheme of honor in a new
creation of all things by Jesus Christ. The devil inspired man, to
content his own fury in the death of Christ; and God ordered it to
accomplish his own design of redemption in the passion of the Redeemer;
the devil had his diabolical ends, and God overpowers his actions to
serve his own divine ends. The person that betrayed him was admitted
to be a spectator of the most private actions of our Saviour, that
his innocence might be justified; to shew, that he was not afraid to
have his enemies judges of his most retired privacies. While they all
thought to do their own wills, Divine wisdom orders them to do God’s
will (Acts ii. 23): “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have
crucified and slain.” And wherein the crucifiers of {a536} Christ
sinned, in shedding the richest blood, upon their repentance they found
the expiation of their crimes, and the discovery of a superabundant
mercy. Nothing but the blood was aimed at by them: the best blood was
shed by them; but infinite Wisdom makes the cross the scene of his own
righteousness, and the womb of man’s recovery. By the occasion of man’s
lapsed state, there was a way open to raise man to a more excellent
condition than that whereinto he was put by creation: and the depriving
man of the happiness of an earthly paradise, in a way of justice, was
an occasion of advancing him to a heavenly felicity, in a way of grace.
The violation of the old covenant occasionally introduced a better: the
loss of the first integrity ushered in a more stable righteousness, an
everlasting righteousness (Dan. ix. 24). And the falling of the first
head was succeeded by one whose standing could not but be eternal. The
fall of the devil was ordered by infinite Wisdom, for the good of that
body from which he fell. It is supposed by some, that the devil was the
chief angel in heaven, the head of all the rest; and that he falling,
the angels were left as a body without a head; and after he had
politically beheaded the angels, he endeavored to destroy man, and rout
him out of paradise; but God takes the opportunity to set up his Son,
as the head of angels and men. And thus whilst the devil endeavored to
spoil the corporation of angels, and make them a body contrary to God,
God makes angels and men one body under one head, for his service.
The angels in losing a defectible head, attained a more excellent and
glorious Head in another nature, which they had not before; though of
a lower nature in his humanity, yet of a more glorious nature in his
divinity: from whence many suppose they derive their confirming grace,
and the stability of their standing. “All things in heaven and earth
are gathered together in Christ” (Eph i. 10), ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι, all
united in him, and reduced under one head: that though our Saviour be
not properly their Redeemer, for redemption supposeth captivity, yet in
some sense he is their Head and Mediator: so that now the inhabitants
of heaven and earth are but one family (Eph. iii. 15). And the
innumerable company of angels are parts of that heavenly and triumphant
Jerusalem, and that general assembly, whereof Jesus Christ is Mediator
(Heb. xii. 22, 29).

[2.] The good of a nation often, by the skill of Divine wisdom, is
promoted by the sins of some men. The patriarchs’ selling Joseph to the
Midianites (Gen. xxxvii. 28), was without question a sin, and a breach
of natural affection; yet, by God’s wise ordination, it proved the
safety of the whole church of God in the world, as well as the Egyptian
nation (Gen. xlv. 5, 8; l. 20). The Jews’ unbelief was a step whereby
the Gentiles arose to the knowledge of the gospel; as the setting of
the sun in one place is the rising of it in another (Matt. xxii. 9).
He uses the corruptions of men instrumentally to propogate his gospel:
he built up the true church by the preaching of some out of envy
(Phil. i. 15), as he blessed Israel out of the mouth of a false prophet
(Numb. xxiii.) How often have the heresies of men been the occasion of
clearing up the truth of God, and fixing the more lively impressions
of it on {a537} the hearts of believers! Neither Judah nor Tamar, in
their lust, dreamt of a stock for the Redeemer; yet God gave a son
from that unlawful bed, whereof “Christ came according to the flesh”
(Gen. xxxviii. 29, compared with Matt. i. 3). Jonah’s sin was probably
the first and remote occasion of the Ninevites giving credit to his
prophecy; his sin was the cause of his punishment, and his being flung
into the sea might facilitate the reception of his message, and excite
the Ninevites’ repentance, whereby a cloud of severe judgment was blown
away from them. It is thought by some, that when Jonah passed through
the streets of Nineveh, with his proclamation of destruction, he might
be known by some of the mariners of that ship, from whence he was cast
overboard into the sea, and might, after their voyage, be occasionally
in that city, the metropolis of the nation, and the place of some
of their births; and might acquaint the people, that this was the
same person they had cast into the sea, by his own consent, for his
acknowledged running from the presence of the Lord: for that he had
told them (Jonah i. 10); and the mariner’s prayer (ver. 14) evidenced
it; whereupon they might conclude his message worthy of belief, since
they knew from such evidences, that he had sunk into the bowels of the
waters, and now saw him safe in their streets, by a deliverence unknown
to them; and that therefore that power that delivered him, could
easily verify his word in the threatened judgment. Had Jonah gone at
first, without committing that sin, and receiving that punishment, his
message had not been judged a divine prediction, but a fruit of some
enthusiastic madness; his sin upon this account was the first occasion
of averting a judgment from so great a city.

[3.] The good of the sinner himself is sometimes promoted by Divine
wisdom ordering the sin. As God had not permitted sin to enter upon
the world, unless to bring glory to himself by it; so he would not let
sin remain in the little world of a believer’s heart, if he did not
intend to order it for his good. What is done by man, to his damage
and disparagement, is directed by Divine wisdom to his advantage; not
that it is the intent of the sin, or the sinner; but it is the event of
the sin, by the ordination of Divine wisdom and grace. As without the
wisdom of God permitting sin to enter into the world, some attributes
of God had not been experimentally known, so some graces could not have
been exercised; for where had there been an object for that noble zeal,
in vindicating the glory of God, had it not been invaded by an enemy?
The intenseness of love to him could not have been so strong, had
we not an enemy to hate for his sake. Where had there been any place
for that noble part of charity in holy admonitions and compassion
to the souls of our neighbors, and endeavors to reduce them out of
a destructive, to a happy path? Humility would not have had so many
grounds for its growth and exercise, and holy sorrow had no fuel. And
as without the appearance of sin there had been no exercise of the
patience of God, so without afflictions, the fruits of sin, there had
been no ground for the exercise of the patience of a christian, one
of the noblest parts of valor. Now sin being evil, and such as cannot
but be evil, hath no respect in itself to any {a538} good, and cannot
work a gracious end, or anything profitable to the creature; nay it is
a hindrance to any good, and, therefore, what good comes from it, is
accidental; occasioned, indeed, by sin, but efficiently caused by the
over‑ruling wisdom of God, taking occasion thereby to display itself
and the Divine goodness.

1. The sins and corruptions remaining in the heart of man, God orders
for good; and there are good effects by the direction of his wisdom and
grace, as the soul respects God.

(1.) God often brings forth a sensibleness of the necessity of
dependence on him. The nurse often lets the child slip, that it may the
better know who supports it, and may not be too venturous and confident
of its own strength. Peter would trust in habitual grace, and God
suffers him to fall, that he might trust more in assisting grace (Matt.
xxvi. 35): “Though I should die with thee, yet I will not deny thee.”
God leaves sometimes the brightest souls in eclipse, to manifest that
their holiness, and the preservation of it, depend upon the darting
out his beams upon them. As the falls of men are the effects of their
coldness and remissness in acts of faith and repentance, so the fruit
of these falls is often a running to him for refuge, and a deeper
sensibleness where their security lies. It makes us lower our swelling
sails, and come under the lee and protection of Divine grace. When the
pleasures of sin answer not the expectations of a revolted creature,
he reflects upon his former state, and sticks more close to God, when
before God had little of his company (Hos. ii. 7): “I will return to
my first husband, for then it was better with me than now.” As God
makes the sins of men sometimes an occasion of their conversion, so he
sometimes makes them an occasion of a further conversion. Onesimus run
from Philemon, and was met with by Paul, who proved an instrument of
his conversion (Philem. 10): “My son, Onesimus, whom I have begotten
in my bonds.” His flight from his master was the occasion of his
regeneration by Paul, a prisoner. The falls of believers God orders to
their further stability; he that is fallen for want of using his staff,
will lean more upon it to preserve himself from the like disaster. God,
by permitting the lapses of men, doth often make them despair of their
own strength to subdue their enemies, and rely upon the strength of
Christ, wherein God hath laid up power for us, and so becomes stronger
in that strength which God hath ordained for them. We are very apt to
trust in ourselves, and have confidence in our own worth and strength;
and God lets loose corruptions to abate this swelling humor. This was
the reason of the apostle Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. xii. 7);
whether it were a temptation, or corruption, or sickness, that he might
be sensible of his own inability, and where the sufficiency of grace
for him was placed. He that is in danger of drowning, and hath the
waves come over his head, will, with all the might he hath, lay hold
upon anything near him, which is capable to save him. God lets his
people sometimes sink into such a condition, that they may lay the
faster hold on him who is near to all that call upon him.

(2.) God hereby raiseth higher estimations of the value and virtue of
the blood of Christ. As the great reason why God permitted sin {a539}
to enter into the world, was to honor himself in the Redeemer, so the
continuance of sin, and the conquests it sometimes makes in renewed
men, are to honor the infinite value and virtue of the Redeemer’s merit,
which God, from the beginning, intended to magnify: the value of it, in
taking off so much successive guilt; and the virtue of it, in washing
away so much daily filth. The wisdom of God hereby keeps up the credit
of imputed righteousness, and manifests the immense treasure of the
Redeemer’s merit to pay such daily debts. Were we perfectly sanctified,
we should stand upon our own bottom, and imagine no need of the
continual and repeated imputation of the righteousness of Christ for
our justification: we should confide in inherent righteousness, and
slight imputed. If God should take off all remainders of sin, as well
as the guilt of it, we should be apt to forget that we are fallen
creatures, and that we had a Redeemer; but the relics of sin in us mind
us of the necessity of some higher strength to set us right: they mind
us both of our own misery, and the Redeemer’s perpetual benefit. God,
by this, keeps up the dignity and honor of our Saviour’s blood to the
height, and therefore sometimes lets us see, to our own cost, what
filth yet remains in us for the employment of that blood, which we
should else but little think of, and less admire. Our gratitude is so
small to God as well as man, that the first obligations are soon forgot
if we stand not in need of fresh ones successively to second them; we
should lose our thankful remembrance of the first virtue of Christ’s
blood in washing us, if our infirmities did not mind us of fresh
reiterations and applications of it. Our Saviour’s office of advocacy
was erected especially for sins committed after a justified and renewed
state (1 John ii. 1). We should scarce remember we had an Advocate,
and scarce make use of him without some sensible necessity; but our
remainders of sin discover our impotency, and an impossibility for us
either to expiate our sin, or conform to the law, which necessitates
us to have recourse to that person whom God hath appointed to make up
the breaches between God and us. So the apostle wraps up himself in the
covenant of grace and his interest in Christ, after his conflict with
sin (Rom. vii. _ult._), “I thank God, through Jesus Christ.” Now, after
such a body of death, a principle within me that sends up daily steams,
yet as long as I serve God with my mind, as long as I keep the main
condition of the covenant, “there is no condemnation” (Rom. viii. 1):
Christ takes my part, procures my acceptance, and holds the band
of salvation firm in his hands. The brightness of Christ’s grace
is set off by the darkness of our sin. We should not understand the
sovereignty of his medicines, if there were no relics of sin for him to
exercise his skill upon: the physician’s art is most experimented, and
therefore most valued in relapses, as dangerous as the former disease.
As the wisdom of God brought our Saviour into temptation, that he might
have compassion to us, so it permits us to be overcome by temptation,
that we might have due valuations of him.

(3.) God hereby often engageth the soul to a greater industry for his
glory. The highest persecutors, when they have become converts have
been the greatest champions for that cause they both hated and {a540}
oppressed. The apostle Paul is such an instance of this, that it needs
no enlargement. By how much they have failed of answering the end of
their creation in glorifying God, by so much the more they summon up
all their force for such an end, after their conversion; to restore
as much as they can of that glory to God, which they, by their sin,
had robbed him of. Their sins, by the order of Divine wisdom, prove
whetstones to sharpen the edge of their spirits for God. Paul never
remembered his persecuting fury, but he doubled his industry for the
service of God, which before he trampled under his feet. The further
we go back, the greater leap many times we take forward. Our Saviour,
after his resurrection, put Peter upon the exercise of that love to him,
which had so lately shrunk his head out of suffering (John xxi. 15‒17);
and no doubt, but the consideration of his base denial, together with
a reflection upon a gracious pardon, engaged his ingenuous soul to
stronger and fiercer flames of affection. A believer’s courage for God
is more sharpened oftentimes by the shame of his fall: he endeavors to
repair the faults of his ingratitude and his disingenuity by larger and
stronger steps of obedience; as a man in a fight, having been foiled by
his enemy, reassumes new courage by his fall, and is many times obliged
to his foil, both for his spirit and his victory. A gracious heart will,
upon the very motions to sin, double its vigor, as well as by good ones:
it is usually more quickened, both in its motion to God and for God, by
the temptations and motions to sin which run upon it. This is another
good the wisdom of God brings forth from sin.

(4.) Again, humility towards God is another good Divine wisdom brings
forth from the occasion of sin. By this God beats down all good opinion
of ourselves. Hezekiah was more humbled by his fall into pride, than by
all the distress he had been in by Sennacherib’s army (2 Chron. xxxii.
26). Peter’s confidence before his fall, gave way to an humble modesty
after it; you see his confidence (Mark xiv. 24). “Though all should be
offended in thee, yet will not I;” and you have the mark of his modesty
(John xxi. 17). It is not then, Lord, I will love thee to the death,
I will not start from thee; but, “Lord, thou knowest that I love thee:”
I cannot assure myself of anything after this miscarriage; but, Lord,
thou knowest there is a principle of love in me to thy name. He was
ashamed, that himself who appeared such a pillar, should bend as meanly
as a shrub to a temptation. The reflection upon sin lays a man as low
as hell in his humiliation, as the commission of sin did in the merit.
When David comes to exercise repentance for his sin, he begins it from
the well‑head of sin (Ps. li. 5), his original corruption, and draws
down the streams of it to the last commission; perhaps he did not so
seriously humble himself for the sin of his nature all his days, so
much as at that time; at least, we have not such evidences of it. And
Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart; not only for the
pride of his act (2 Chron. xxxii. 26), but for the pride in the heart,
which was the spring of that pride in act, in showing his treasures to
the Babylonish ambassadors. God lets sin continue in the hearts of the
best in this world, and sometimes gives the reins to Satan, and {a541}
a man’s own corruption, to keep up a sense of the ancient sale we made
of ourselves to both.

2. In regard of ourselves. Herein is the wonder of Divine wisdom, that
God many times makes a sin, which meritoriously fits us for hell, a
providential occasion to fit us for heaven; when it is an occasion of a
more humble faith and believing humility, and an occasion of a thorough
sanctification and growth in grace, which prepares us for a state of
glory.

(1.) He makes use of one sin’s breaking out to discover more; and so
brings us to a self‑abhorrency and indignation against sin, the first
step towards heaven. Perhaps David, before his gross fall, thought he
had no hypocrisy in him. We often find him appealing to God for his
integrity, and desiring God to try him, if any guile could be found in
his heart, as if he could find none himself; but his lapse into that
great wickedness makes him discern much falseness in his soul, when
he desires God to renew a right spirit within him, and speaks of truth
in the inward parts (Ps. li. 6, 10). The stirring of corruption makes
all the mud at the bottom appear, which before a soul did not suspect.
No man would think there were so great a cloud of smoke contained in
a little stick of wood, were it not for the powerful operation of the
fire, that both discovers and separates it. Job, that cursed the day of
his birth, and uttered many impatient expressions against God upon the
account of his own integrity; upon his recovery from his affliction,
and God’s close application of himself, was wrought to a greater
abhorrency of himself than ever we read he was exercised in before (Job
xlii. 6). The hostile acts of sin increase the soul’s hatred of it; and
the deeper our humiliations are for it, the stronger impressions of
abhorrency are made upon us.

(2.) He often orders it, to make conscience more tender, and the soul
more watchful. He that finds by his calamity his enemy to have more
strength against him than he suspected, will double his guards, and
quicken his diligence against him. A being overtaken by some sin, is,
by the wisdom of God, disposed to make us more fearful of cherishing
any occasion to inflame it, and watchful against every motion and start
of it. By a fall, the soul hath more experience of the deceitfulness
of the heart; and by observing its methods, is rendered better able to
watch against them. It is our ignorance of the devices of Satan, and
our own hearts, that makes us obnoxious to their surprises. A fall
into one sin is often a prevention of more which lay in wait for us;
as the fall of a small body into an ambush prevents the design of the
enemy upon a greater: as God suffers heresies in the church, to try
our faith, so he suffers sins to remain, and sometimes to break out, to
try our watchfulness. This advantage he brings from them, to steel our
resolutions against the same sins, and quicken our circumspection for
the future against new surprises by a temptation. David’s sin was ever
before him (Ps. li. 3), and made his conscience cry, Blood, blood! upon
every occasion: he refused the water of the well of Bethlehem (2 Sam.
xxiii. 16, 17), because it was gained with the hazard of lives: he
could endure nothing that had the taste of blood {a542} in it. Our
fear of a thing depends much upon a trial of it: a child will not
fear too near approaches to the fire till he feels the smart of it.
Mortification doth not wholly suppress the motions of sin, though it
doth the resolutions to commit it; but that there will be a proneness
in the relics of it, to entice a man into those faults, which, upon
sight of their blemishes, cost him so many tears; as great sicknesses,
after the cure, are more watched, and the body humored, that a man
might not fall from the craziness they have left in him, which he is
apt to do if relapses are not provided against. A man becomes more
careful of anything that may contribute to the resurrection of an
expired disease.

(3.) God makes it an occasion of the mortification of that sin which
was the matter of the fall. The liveliness of one sin, in a renewed
man, many times is the occasion of the death of it. A wild beast, while
kept close in a den, is secure in its life, but when it breaks out to
rapine, it makes the master resolve to prevent any further mischief by
the death of it. The impetuous stirring of a humor, in a disease, is
sometimes critical, and a prognostic of the strength of nature against
it, whereby the disease loses its strength, by its struggling, and
makes room for health to take place by degrees. One sin is used by
God for the destruction both of itself and others, as the flesh of a
scorpion cures the biting of it. It sometimes, by wounding us, loseth
its sting, and, like the bee, renders itself incapable of a second
revenge. Peter, after his gross denial, never denied his Master
afterwards. The sin that lay undiscovered, is, by a fall, become
visible, and so more obvious to a mortifying stroke. The soul lays the
faster hold on Christ and the promise, and goes out against that enemy,
in the name of that Lord of Hosts, of which he was too negligent before;
and, therefore, as he proves more strong, so more successful: he hath
more strength, because he hath less confidence in himself, and more in
God, the prime strength of his soul. As it was with Christ, so it is
with us; while the devil was bruising his heel, he was bruising his
head; and while the devil is bruising our heel, the God of peace and
wisdom is sometimes bruising his head, both in us and for us, so that
the strugglings of sin are often as the faint groans or bitings of a
beast that is ready to expire. It is just with a man, sometimes, as
with a running fountain that hath mud at the bottom, when it is stirred
the mud tinctures and defiles it all over; yet some of that mud hath a
vent with the streams which run from it, so that, when it is re‑settled
at the bottom, it is not so much in quantity as it was before. God, by
his wisdom, weakens the sin by permitting it to stir and defile.

(4.) Sometimes Divine wisdom makes it an occasion to promote a
sanctification in all parts of the soul. As the working of one
ill‑humor in the body is an occasion of cashiering, not only that, but
the rest, by a sound purge; as a man, that is a little cold, doth not
think of the fire, but if he slips with one foot into an icy puddle,
he hastens to the fire, whereby not only that part, but all the rest
receive a warmth and strength upon that occasion; or, as if a person
fall into the mire, his clothes are washed, and by that means cleansed,
not only from the filth at present contracted, but from the {a543}
former spots that were before unregarded. God, by his wisdom, brings
secret sins to a discovery, and thereby cleanseth the soul of them.
David’s fall might be ordered as an answer to his former petition
(Ps. xix. 12): “Cleanse thou me from my secret sins;” and as he did
earnestly pray after his fall, so no doubt but he endeavored a thorough
sanctification (Ps. li. 7); “Purge me, wash me;” and that he meant
not only a sanctification from that single sin, but from all, root and
branch, is evident by that complaint of the flaw in his nature (ver. 5):
the dross and chaff which lies in the heart is hereby discovered, and
an opportunity administered of throwing it out, and searching all the
corners of the heart to discover where it lay. As God sometimes takes
occasion from one sin to reckon with men, in a way of justice, for
others, so he sometimes takes occasion, from the commission of one sin,
to bring out all the actions against the sinner, to make him, in a way
of gracious wisdom, set more cordially upon the work of sanctification.
A great fall sometimes hath been the occasion of a man’s conversion.
The fall of mankind occasioned a more blessed restoration; and the
falls of particular believers ofttimes occasion a more extensive
sanctification. Thus the only wise God makes poisons in nature to
become medicines in a way of grace and wisdom.

(5.) Hereby the growth in grace is furthered. It is a wonder of Divine
wisdom, to subtract sometimes grace from a person, and let him fall
into sin, thereby to occasion the increase of habitual grace in him,
and to augment it by those ways that seemed to depress it. By making
sins an occasion of a more vigorous acting, the contrary grace, the
wisdom of God, makes our corruptions, in their own nature destructive,
to become profitable to us. Grace often breaks out more strongly
afterwards, as the sun doth with its heat, after it hath been masked
and interrupted with a mist: they often, through the mighty working of
the Spirit, make us more humble, and “humility fits us to receive more
grace from God” (James iv. 6). How doth faith, that sunk under the
waves, lift up its head again, and carry the soul out with a greater
liveliness! What ardors of love, what floods of repenting tears, what
severity of revenge, what horrors at the remembrance of the sin, what
tremblings at the appearance of a second temptation! so that grace
seems to be awakened to a new and more vigorous life (2 Cor. vii. 11).
The broken joint is many times stronger in the rupture than it was
before. The luxuriancy of the branches of corruption is an occasion
of purging, and purging is with a design to make grace more fruitful
(John xv. 2); “He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” Thus
Divine wisdom doth both sharpen and brighten us by the dust of sin,
and ripen and mellow the fruits of grace by the dung of corruption.
Grace grows the stronger by opposition, as the fire burns hottest and
clearest when it is most surrounded by a cold air; and our natural heat
reassumes a new strength by the coldness of the winter. The foil under
a diamond, though an imperfection in itself, increaseth the beauty and
lustre of the stone. The enmity of man was a commendation of the grace
of God: it occasioned the {a544} breaking out of the grace of God upon
us; and is an occasion, by the wisdom and grace of God, of the increase
of grace many times in us. How should the consideration of God’s
incomprehensible wisdom, in the management of evil, swallow us up in
admiration! who brings forth such beauty, such eminent discoveries
of himself, such excellent good to the creature, out of the bowels of
the greatest contrarieties, making dark shadows serve to display and
beautify, to our apprehensions, the Divine glory! If evil were not in
the world, men would not know what good is; they would not behold the
lustre of Divine wisdom, as without night we could not understand the
beauty of the day. Though God is not the author of sin, because of
his holiness, yet he is the administrator of sin by his wisdom, and
accomplisheth his own purposes, by the iniquities of his enemies, and
the lapses and infirmities of his friends. Thus much for the second,
the government of man in his lapsed state, and the government of sin,
wherein the wisdom of God doth wonderfully appear.

3dly. The wisdom of God appears in the government of man in his
conversion and return to him. If there be a counsel in framing the
lowest creature, and in the minutest passages of providence, there
must needs be a higher wisdom in the government of the creature to a
supernatural end, and framing the soul to be a monument of his glory.
The wisdom of God is seen with more admirations, and in more varieties,
by the angels, in the church than in the creation (Eph. iii. 10);
that is, in forming a church out of the rubbish of the world, out of
contrarieties and contradictions to him, which is greater than the
framing a celestial and elementary world out of a rude chaos. The most
glorious bodies in the world, even those of the sun, moon, and stars,
have not such stamps of Divine skill upon them as the soul of man; nor
is there so much of wisdom in the fabric and faculties of that, as in
the reduction of a blind, wilful, rebellious soul, to its own happiness,
and God’s glory (Eph. i. 11, 12); “He worketh all things according to
the counsel of his own will, that we should be for the praise of his
glory.” If all things, then this, which is none of the least of his
works; to the praise of the glory of his goodness in his work, and to
the praise of the rule of his work, his counsel, in both the act of
his will, and the act of his wisdom. The restoring of the beauty of the
soul, and its fitness for its true end, speaks no less wisdom than the
first draught of it in creation: and the application of redemption, and
bringing forth the fruits of it, is as well an act of his prudence, as
the contrivance was of his counsel. Divine wisdom appears,

1. In the subjects of conversion. His goodness reigns in the very dust,
and he erects the walls and ornaments of his temple from the clay and
mud of the world. He passes over the wise, and noble, and mighty, that
may pretend some grounds of boasting in their own natural or acquired
endowments; and pitches upon the most contemptible materials, wherewith
to build a spiritual tabernacle for himself (1 Cor. i. 26, 27), “the
foolish, and weak things of the world;” those that are naturally most
unfit for it, and most refractory to it. Herein lies the skill of an
architect, to render the most knotty, {a545} crooked, and inform pieces,
by his art, subservient to his main purpose and design. Thus God hath
ordered, from the beginning of the world, contrary tempers, various
humors, diverse nations, as stones of several natures, to be a building
for himself, fitly framed together, and to be his own family (1 Cor.
iii. 9). Who will question the skill that alters a black jet into a
clear crystal, a glow‑worm into a star, a lion into a lamb, and a swine
into a dove? The more intricate and knotty any business is, the more
eminent is any man’s ability and prudence, in untying the knots and
bringing it to a good issue. The more desperate the disease, the more
admirable is the physician’s skill in the cure. He pitches upon men for
his service, who have natural dispositions to serve him in such ways as
he disposeth of them, after their conversion: so Paul was naturally a
conscientious man; what he did against Christ was from the dictates of
an erroneous conscience, soaked in the Pharisaical interpretations of
the Jewish law: he had a strain of zeal to prosecute what his depraved
reason and conscience did inform him in. God pitches upon this man,
and works him in the fire for his service. He alters not his natural
disposition, to make him of a constitution and temper contrary to
what he was before; but directs it to another object, claps in another
bias into the bowl, and makes his ill‑governed dispositions move in
a new way of his own appointment, and guides that natural heat to the
service of that interest which he was before ambitious to extirpate;
as a high‑mettled horse, when left to himself, creates both disturbance
and danger, but under the conduct of a wise rider, moves regularly; not
by a change of his natural fierceness, but a skilful management of the
beast to the rider’s purpose.

2. In the means of conversion. The prudence of man consists in the
timing the executions of his counsels; and no less doth the wisdom of
God consist in this. As he is a God of judgment or wisdom, he waits to
introduce his grace into the soul in the fittest season. This attribute,
Paul, in the story of his own conversion, puts a particular remark
upon, which he doth not upon any other; in that catalogue he reckons
up (1 Tim. i. 17), “Now, unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible,
the only wise God, be honor and glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” A most
solemn doxology, wherein wisdom sits upon the throne above all the rest,
with a special Amen to the glory of it, which refers to the timing
of his mercy so to Paul, as made most for the glory of his grace, and
the encouragement of others from him as the pattern. God took him at
a time when he was upon the brink of hell; when he was ready to devour
the new‑born infant church at Damascus; when he was armed with all the
authority from without, and fired with all the zeal from within, for
the prosecution of his design: then God seizeth upon him, and runs him
in a channel for his own honor, and his creatures’ happiness. It is
observable[786] how God set his eye upon Paul all along in his furious
course, and lets him have the reins, without putting out his hand
to bridle him; yet no motion he could take, but the eye of God runs
along with him: he suffered him to kick against the pricks of miracles,
and the convincing discourse of Stephen at his martyrdom. {a546}
There were many that voted for Stephen’s death, as the witnesses that
flung the stones first at him; but they are not named, only Saul, who
testified his approbation as well as the rest, and that by watching
the witnesses’ clothes while they were about that bloody work (Acts
vii. 58); “the witnesses laid their clothes at a young man’s feet,
named Saul.” Again, though multitudes were consenting to his death,
yet (Acts viii. 1) Saul only is mentioned. God’s eye is upon him, yet
he would not at that time stop his fury. He goes on further, and makes
“havoc of the church” (Acts viii. 3). He had surely many more complices,
but none are named (as if none regarded with any design of grace) but
Saul: yet God would not reach out his hand to change him, but eyes him,
waiting for a fitter opportunity, which in his wisdom he did foresee.
And, therefore (Acts ix. 1) the Spirit of God adds a _yet_; “Saul yet
breathing out threatenings.” It was not God’s time yet, but it would
be shortly. But, when Saul was putting in execution his design against
the church of Damascus, when the devil was at the top of his hopes, and
Saul in the height of his fury, and the Christians sunk into the depth
of their fears, the wisdom of God lays hold of the opportunity, and by
Paul’s conversion at this season, defeats the devil, disappoints the
high priests, shields his people, discharges their fears, by pulling
Saul out of the devil’s hands, and forming Satan’s instruments to a
holy activity against him.

3. The wisdom of God appears in the manner of conversion. So great
a change God makes, not by a destruction, but with a preservation of,
and suitableness to nature. As the devil tempts us, not by offering
violence to our natures, but by proposing things convenient to our
corrupt natures, so doth God solicit us to a return by proposals suited
to our faculties. As he doth in nature convey nourishment to men, by
means of the fruits of the earth, and produceth the fruits of the earth
by the influences of heaven; the influences of heaven do not force the
earth, but excite that natural virtue and strength which is in it. So
God produceth grace in the soul by the means of the word, fitted to the
capacity of man, as man, and proportioned to his rational faculties,
as rational. It would be contrary to the wisdom of God to move man
like a stone, to invert the order and privilege of that nature which
he settled in creation; for then God would in vain have given man
understanding and will: because, without moving man according to those
faculties, they would remain unprofitable and unuseful in man.[787]
God doth not reduce us to himself, as logs, by a mere force, or as
slaves forced by a cudgel, to go forth to that place, and do that
work which they have no stomach to: but he doth accommodate himself
to those foundations he hath laid in our nature, and guides us in a
way agreeable thereunto, by an action as sweet as powerful; clearing
our understandings of dark principles, whereby we may see his truth,
our own misery, and the seat of our happiness; and bending our wills
according to this light, to desire and move conveniently to this
end of our calling; efficaciously, yet agreeably; powerfully, yet
without imposing on our natural faculties; sweetly, without violence,
in ordering the {a547} means; but effectually, without failing, in
accomplishing the end.[788] And therefore the Scripture calleth it,
teaching (John vi. 45), alluring (Hos. ii. 15), calling us to seek the
Lord (Ps. xxvii. 8). Teaching is an act of wisdom; alluring, an act of
love; calling, an act of authority: but none of them argue a violent
constraint. The principle that moves the will is supernatural; but the
will, as a natural faculty, concurs in the act or motion. God doth not
act in this in a way of absolute power, without an infinite wisdom,
suiting himself to the nature of the things he acts upon: he doth
not change the physical nature, though he doth the moral. As in the
government of the world, he doth not make heavy things ascend, nor
light things descend, ordinarily, but guides their motions according
to their natural qualities: so God doth not strain the faculties
beyond their due pitch. He lets the nature of the faculty remain, but
changes the principle in it: the understanding remains understanding,
and the will remains will. But where there was before folly in the
understanding, he puts in a spirit of wisdom; and where there was
before a stoutness in the will, he forms it to a pliableness to his
offers. He hath a key to fit every ward in the lock, and opens the will
without injuring the nature of the will. He doth not change the soul
by an alteration of the faculties, but by an alteration of something
in them: not by an inroad upon them, or by mere power, or a blind
instinct, but by proposing to the understanding something to be known,
and informing it of the reasonableness of his precepts, and the innate
goodness and excellency of his offers, and by inclining the will to
love and embrace what is proposed. And things are proposed under those
notions, which usually move our wills and affections. We are moved by
things as they are good, pleasant, profitable; we entertain things as
they make for us, and detest things as they are contrary to us. Nothing
affects us but under such qualities, and God suits his encouragements
to these natural affections which are in us: his power and wisdom go
hand in hand together; his power to act what his wisdom orders, and his
wisdom to conduct what his power executes. He brings men to him in ways
suited to their natural dispositions. The stubborn he tears like a lion,
the gentle he wins like a turtle, by sweetness; he hath a hammer to
break the stout, and a cord of love to draw the more pliable tempers:
he works upon the more rational in a way of gospel reason; upon the
more ingenuous in a way of kindness, and draws them by the cords of
love. The wise men were led to Christ by a star, and means suited to
the knowledge and study that those eastern nations used, which was much
in astronomy: he worketh upon others by miracles accommodated to every
one’s sense, and so proportions the means according to the nature of
the subjects he works upon.

4. The wisdom of God is apparent in his discipline and penal evils. The
wisdom of human governments is seen in the matter of their laws, and in
the penalties of their laws, and in the proportion of the punishment to
the offence, and in the good that redounds from the punishment either
to the offender, or to the community. The wisdom of God is seen in the
penalty of death upon the transgression {a548} of his law; both in that
it was the greatest evil that man might fear, and so was a convenient
means to keep him in his due bound, and also in the proportion of it
to the transgression. Nothing less could be in a wise justice inflicted
upon an offender for a crime against the highest Being and the Supreme
Excellency: but this hath been spoken of before in the wisdom of his
laws. I shall only mention some few; it would be too tedious to run
into all.

(1.) His wisdom appears in judgments, in the suiting them to the
qualities of persons, and nature of sins. He deviseth evil (Jer. xviii.
11); his judgments are fruits of counsel. “He also is wise, and will
bring evil” (Isa. xxxi. 2),――evil suitable to the person offending,
and evil suitable to the offence committed: as the husbandman doth
his threshing instruments to the grain: he hath a rod for the cummin,
a tenderer seed, and a flail for the harder; so hath God greater
judgments for the obdurate sinner, and lighter for those that have
something of tenderness in their wickedness (Isa. xxviii. 27, 29):
“Because he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working;” so some
understand the place, “With the froward, he will show himself froward.”
He proportions punishment to the sin, and writes the cause of the
judgment in the forehead of the judgment itself. Sodom burned in lust,
and was consumed by fire from heaven. The Jews sold Christ for thirty
pence; and at the taking of Jerusalem, thirty of them were sold
for a penny. So Adonibezek cut off the thumbs and great toes of
others, and he is served in the same kind (Judges i. 7). The Babel
builders designed an indissoluble union, and God brings upon them an
unintelligible confusion. And in Exod. ix. 9, the ashes of the furnace
where the Israelites burnt the Egyptian bricks, sprinkled towards
heaven, brought boils upon the Egyptian bodies, that they might feel in
their own, what pain they had caused in the Israelites’ flesh; and find,
by the smart of the inflamed scab, what they had made the Israelites
endure. The waters of the river Nilus are turned into blood, wherein
they had stifled the breath of the Israelites’ infants: and at last the
prince, and the flower of their nobility, are drowned in the Red Sea.
It is part of the wisdom of justice to proportion punishment to the
crime, and the degrees of wrath to the degrees of malice in the sin.
Afflictions also are wisely proportioned: God, as a wise physician,
considers the nature of the humor and strength of the patient, and
suits his medicines both to the one and the other (1 Cor. x. 13).

(2.) In the seasons of punishments and afflictions. He stays till sin
be ripe, that his justice may appear more equitable, and the offender
more inexcusable (Dan. ix. 14); he watches upon the evil to bring it
upon men; to bring it in the just season and order for his righteous
and gracious purpose; his righteous purpose on the enemies, and his
gracious purpose on his people. Jerusalem’s calamity came upon them,
when the city was full of people at the solemnity of the passover,
that he might mow down his enemies at once, and time their destruction
to such a moment wherein they had timed the crucifixion of his Son. He
watched over the clouds of his judgments, and kept them from pouring
down, till his people, the Christians, were provided for, and had
departed out of the city to the {a549} chambers and retiring places
God had provided for them. He made not Jerusalem the shambles of his
enemies, till he had made Pella, and other places, the arks of his
friends. As Pliny tells us, “The providence of God holds the sea in a
calm for fifteen days, that the halcyons, little birds that frequent
the shore, may build their nests, and hatch up their young.” The
judgment upon Sodom was suspended for some hours, till Lot was secured.
God suffered not the church to be invaded by violent persecutions, till
she was established in the faith: he would not expose her to so great
combats, while she was weak and feeble, but gave her time to fortify
herself, to be rendered more capable of bearing up under them.[789] He
stifled all the motions of passion the idolaters might have for their
superstition, till religion was in such a condition, as rather to
be increased and purified, than extinguished by opposition. Paul was
secured from Nero’s chains, and the nets of his enemies, till he had
broke off the chain of the devil from many cities of the Gentiles, and
catched them by the net of the gospel out of the sea of the world. Thus
the wisdom of God is seen in the seasons of judgments and afflictions.

(3.) It is apparent in the gracious issue of afflictions and penal
evils. It is a part of wisdom to bring good out of evil of punishment,
as well as to bring good out of sin. The church never was so like
to heaven, as when it was most persecuted by hell: the storms often
cleansed it and the lance often made it more healthful. Job’s integrity
had not been so clear, nor his patience so illustrious, had not the
devil been permitted to afflict him. God, by his wisdom, outwits Satan;
when he by his temptations intends to pollute us and buffet us, God
orders it to purify us; he often brings the clearest light out of the
thickest darkness, makes poisons to become medicines. Death itself, the
greatest punishment in this life, and the entrance into hell in its own
nature, he hath by his wise contrivance, made to his people the gate of
heaven, and the passage into immortality.[790] Penal evils in a nation
often end in a public advantage: troubles and wars among a people
are many times not destroying, but medicinal, and cure them of that
degeneracy, luxury, and effeminateness, they contracted by a long peace.

(4.) This wisdom is evident in the various ends which God brings about
by afflictions. The attainment of various ends by one and the same
means, is the fruit of the agent’s prudence. By the same affliction,
the wise God corrects sometimes for some base affection, excites some
sleepy grace, drives out some lurking corruption, refines the soul, and
ruins the lust; discovers the greatness of a crime, the vanity of the
creature, and the sufficiency in himself. The Jews bind Paul, and by
the judge he is sent to Rome; while his mouth is stopped in Judea, it
is opened in one of the greatest cities of the world, and his enemies
unwittingly contribute to the increase of the knowledge of Christ
by those chains, in that city (Acts xxviii. 31) that triumphed over
the earth. And his afflictive bonds added courage and resolution to
others (Phil. i. 14): “Many waxing confident by my bonds;” which could
not in their own nature produce such an effect, but by the order and
contrivance of Divine wisdom: {a550} in their own nature, they would
rather make them disgust the doctrine he suffered for, and cool their
zeal in the propagating of it, for fear of the same disgrace and
hardship they saw him suffer.[791] But the wisdom of God changed the
nature of these fetters, and conducted them to the glory of his name,
the encouragement of others, the increase of the gospel, and the
comfort of the apostle himself (Phil. i. 12, 13, 18). The sufferings
of Paul at Rome confirmed the Philippians, a people at a distance from
thence, in the doctrine they had already received at his hands. Thus
God makes sufferings sometimes, which appear like judgments, to be
like the viper on Paul’s hand (Acts xxviii. 6), a means to clear up
innocence, and procure favor to the doctrine among those barbarians.
How often hath he multiplied the church by death and massacres, and
increased it by those means used to annihilate it!

(5.) The Divine wisdom is apparent in the deliverances he affords to
other parts of the world, as well as to his church. There are delicate
composures, curious threads in his webs, and he works them like an
artificer: a goodness wrought for them, curiously wrought (Ps. xxxi.
19), [1.] In making the creatures subservient in their natural order
to his gracious ends and purposes. He orders things in such a manner,
as not to be necessitated to put forth an extraordinary power in
things, which some part of the creation might accomplish. Miraculous
productions would speak his power; but the ordering the natural course
of things, to occasion such effects they were never intended for, is
one part of the glory of his wisdom. And that his wisdom may be seen
in the course of nature, he conducts the motions of creatures, and
acts them in their own strength; and doth that by various windings and
turnings of them, which he might do in an instant by his power, in a
supernatural way. Indeed, sometimes he hath made invasions on nature,
and suspended the order of their natural laws for a season, to show
himself the absolute Lord and Governor of nature: yet if frequent
alterations of this nature were made, they would impede the knowledge
of the nature of things, and be some bar to the discovery and glory
of his wisdom, which is best seen by moving the wheels of inferior
creatures in an exact regularity to his own ends. He might, when his
little church in Jacob’s family was like to starve in Canaan, have, for
their preservation, turned the stones of the country into bread; but
he sends them down to Egypt to procure corn, that a way might be opened
for their removal into that country; the truth of his prediction in
their captivity accomplished, and a way made after the declaration
of his great name, Jehovah, both in the fidelity of his word and
the greatness of his power, in their deliverance from that furnace
of affliction. He might have struck Goliath, the captain of the
Philistine’s army, with a thunderbolt from heaven, when he blasphemed
his name, and scared his people; but he useth the natural strength of
a stone, and the artificial motion of a sling, by the arm of David,
to confront the giant, and thereby to free Judea from the ravage of
a potent enemy. He might have delivered the Jews from Babylon by as
strange miracles as he used in their deliverance from Egypt: he {a551}
might have plagued their enemies, gathered his people into a body, and
protected them by the bulwark of a cloud and a pillar of fire, against
the assaults of their enemies. But he uses the differences between the
Persians and those of Babylon, to accomplish his ends. How sometimes
hath the veering about of the wind on a sudden been the loss of a navy,
when it hath been put upon the point of victory, and driven back the
destruction upon those which intended it for others! and the accidental
stumbling, or the natural fierceness of a horse, flung down a general
in the midst of a battle, where he hath lost his life by the throng,
and his death hath brought a defeat to his army, and deliverance to the
other party, that were upon the brink of ruin! Thus doth the wisdom of
God link things together according to natural order, to work out his
intended preservation of a people. [2.] In the season of deliverance.
The timing of affairs is a part of the wisdom of man, and an eminent
part of the wisdom of God. It is in due season he sends the former
and the latter rain, when the earth is in the greatest indigence,
and when his influences may most contribute to the bringing forth and
ripening the fruit. The dumb creatures have their meat from him in due
season (Ps. civ. 27): and in his due season have his darling people
their deliverance. When Paul was upon his journey to Damascus with
a persecuting commission, he is struck down for the security of the
church in that city. The nature of the lion is changed in due season,
for the preservation of the lambs from worrying. The Israelites are
miraculously rescued from Egypt, when their wits were at a loss, when
their danger to human understanding was unavoidable; when earth and
sea refused protection, then the wisdom and power of heaven stepped
in to effect that which was past the skill of the conductors of that
multitude. And when the lives of the Jews lay at the stake, and their
necks were upon the block at the mercy of their enemies’ swords by
an order from Shushan, not only a reprieve, but a triumph, arrives to
the Jews, by the wisdom of God guiding the affair, whereby of persons
designed to execution, they are made conquerors, and have opportunity
to exercise their revenge instead of their patience, proving triumphers
where they expected to be sufferers (Esth. viii. 9). How strangely doth
God, by secret ways, bow the hearts of men and the nature of things
to the execution of that which he designs, notwithstanding all the
resistance of that which would traverse the security of his people!
How often doth he trap the wicked in the work of their own hands, make
their confidence to become their ruin, and ensnare them in those nets
they wrought and laid for others (Ps. ix. 16)! “The wicked is snared in
the work of his own hands. He scatters the proud in the imagination of
their hearts” (Luke i. 51), in the height of their hopes, when their
designs have been laid so deep in the foundation, and knit and cemented
so close in their superstructure, that no human power or wisdom could
rase them down: he hath then disappointed their projects, and befooled
their craft. How often hath he kept back the fire, when it hath been
ready to devour; broke the arrows when they have been prepared in the
bow; turned the spear into the bowels of the bearers, and wounded them
at the very instant they were ready to wound {a552} others! [3.] In
suiting instruments to his purpose. He either finds them fit, or makes
them on a sudden fit for his gracious ends. If he hath a tabernacle to
build, he will fit a Bezaleel and an Aholiab with the spirit of wisdom
and understanding in all cunning workmanship (Exod. xxxi. 3, 6). If
he finds them crooked pieces, he can, like a wise architect, make them
straight beams for the rearing his house, and for the honor of his
name. He sometimes picks out men according to their natural tempers,
and employs them in his work. Jehu, a man of a furious temper, and
ambitious spirit, is called out for the destruction of Ahab’s house.
Moses, a man furnished with all Egyptian wisdom, fitted by a generous
education, prepared also by the affliction he met with in his flight,
and one who had had the benefit of conversation with Jethro, a man of
more than an ordinary wisdom and goodness, as appears by his prudent
and religious counsel; this man is called out to be the head and
captain of an oppressed people, and to rescue them from their bondage,
and settle the first national church in the world. So Elijah, a
high‑spirited man, of a hot and angry temper, one that slighted the
frowns, and undervalued the favor of princes, is set up to stem the
torrent of Israelitish idolatry. So Luther, a man of the same temper,
is drawn out by the same wisdom to encounter the corruptions in the
church, against such opposition, which a milder temper would have sunk
under. The earth, in Rev. xii. 16, is made an instrument to help the
woman: when the grandees of that age transferred the imperial power
upon Constantine, who became afterwards a protecting and nursing father
to the church, an end which many of his favorers never designed, nor
ever dreamt of: but God, by his infinite wisdom, made these several
designs, like several arrows shot at rovers, meet in one mark to which
he directed them, viz., in bringing forth an instrument to render peace
to the world and security and increase to his church.

III. The wisdom of God doth wonderfully appear in redemption. His
wisdom in creature ravisheth the eye and understanding; his wisdom
in government doth no less affect a curious observer of the links and
concatenation of the means; but his wisdom in redemption mounts the
mind to a greater astonishment. The works of creation are the footsteps
of his wisdom; the work of redemption is the face of his wisdom. A man
is better known by the features of his face, than by the prints of his
feet. We, with “open face,” or a revealed face, “beholding the glory of
the Lord” (2 Cor. iii. 18). Face, there, refers to God, not to us; the
glory of God’s wisdom is now open, and no longer covered and veiled by
the shadows of the law. As we behold the light glorious as scattered
in the air before the appearance of the sun, but more gloriously in the
face of the sun when it begins its race in our horizon. All the wisdom
of God in creation, and government in his variety of laws, was like
the light the three first days of the creation, dispersed about the
world; but the fourth day it was more glorious, when all gathered into
the body of the sun (Gen. i. 4, 16). So the light of Divine wisdom
and glory was scattered about the world, and so more obscure, till the
fourth divine day of the world, about the four thousandth year, it was
gathered into one body, the Sun of Righteousness, and so shone {a553}
out more gloriously to men and angels. All things are weaker the
thinner they are extended, but stronger the more they are united and
compacted in one body and appearance. In Christ, in the dispensation
by him, as well as his person, were “hid all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge” (Coloss. ii. 3). Some doles of wisdom were given out
in creation, but the treasures of it opened in redemption, the highest
degrees of it that ever God did exert in the world. Christ is therefore
called the “wisdom of God,” as well as the “power of God” (1 Cor.
i. 24); and the gospel is called the “wisdom of God.” Christ is the
wisdom of God principally, and the gospel instrumentally, as it is the
power of God instrumentally to subdue the heart to himself. This is
wrapped up in the appointing Christ as Redeemer, and opened to us in
the revelation of it by the gospel.

1. It is a hidden wisdom. In this regard God is said, in the text, to
be only wise: and it is said to be a “hidden wisdom” (1 Tim. i. 17),
and “wisdom in a mystery” (1 Cor. ii. 7), incomprehensible to the
ordinary capacity of an angel, more than the obstruse qualities of the
creatures are to the understanding of man. No wisdom of men or angels
is able to search the veins of this mine, to tell all the threads of
this web, or to understand all the lustre of it; they are as far from
an ability fully to comprehend it, as they were at first to contrive it.
That wisdom that invented it can only comprehend it. In the uncreated
understanding only there is a clearness of light without any shadow of
darkness. We come as short of full apprehensions of it, as a child doth
of the counsel of the wisest prince. It is so hidden from us, that,
without revelation, we could not have the least imagination of it; and
though it be revealed to us, yet, without the help of an infiniteness
of understanding, we cannot fully fathom it: it is such a tractate of
divine wisdom, that the angels never before had seen the edition of it,
till it was published to the world (Eph. iii. 10): “to the intent that
now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known
by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” Now made known to them,
not before; and now made known to them “in the heavenly places.” They
had not the knowledge of all heavenly mysteries, though they had the
possession of heavenly glory: they knew the prophecies of it in the
word, but attained not a clear interpretation of those prophecies till
the things that were prophesied of came upon the stage.

2. Manifold wisdom: so it is called. As manifold as mysterious: variety
in the mystery, and mystery in every part of the variety. It was not
one single act, but a variety of counsels met in it; a conjunction of
excellent ends and excellent means. The glory of God, the salvation of
man, the defeat of the apostate angels, the discovery of the blessed
Trinity in their nature, operations, their combined and distinct acts
and expressions of goodness. The means are the conjunction of two
natures, infinitely distinct from one another; the union of eternity
and time, of mortality and immortality: death is made the way to
life, and shame the path to glory. The weakness of the cross is the
reparation of man, and the creature is made wise by the “foolishness of
preaching;” fallen man grows rich by {a554} the poverty of the Redeemer,
and man is filled by the emptiness of God; the heir of hell made a son
of God, by God’s taking upon him the “form of a servant;” the son of
man advanced to the highest degree of honor, by the Son of God becoming
of “no reputation.” It is called (Eph. i. 8) “abundance of wisdom and
prudence.” Wisdom, in the eternal counsel, contriving a way; prudence,
in the temporary revelation, ordering all affairs and occurrences
in the world for the attaining the end of his counsel. Wisdom refers
to the mystery; prudence, to the manifestation of it in fit ways and
convenient seasons. Wisdom, to the contrivance and order; prudence,
to the execution and accomplishment. In all things God acted as became
him, as a wise and just Governor of the world (Heb. ii. 10). Whether
the wisdom of God might not have found out some other way, or whether
he were, in regard of the necessity and naturalness of his justice,
limited to this, is not the question; but that it is the best and
wisest way for the manifestation of his glory, is out of question.

This wisdom will appear in the different interests reconciled by it:
in the subject, the second person in the Trinity, wherein they were
reconciled: in the two natures, wherein he accomplished it; whereby
God is made known to man in his glory, sin eternally condemned, and
the repenting and believing sinner eternally rescued: the honor and
righteousness of the law vindicated both in the precept and penalty:
the devil’s empire overthrown by the same nature he had overturned,
and the subtilty of hell defeated by that nature he had spoiled:
the creature engaged in the very act to the highest obedience and
humility, that, as God appears as a God upon his throne, the creature
might appear in the lowest posture of a creature, in the depths of
resignation and dependence: the publication of this made in the gospel,
by ways congruous to the wisdom which appeared in the execution of his
counsel, and the conditions of enjoying the fruit of it, most wise and
reasonable.

1. The greatest different interests are reconciled, justice in
punishing, and mercy in pardoning. For man had broken the law, and
plunged himself into a gulf of misery: the sword of vengeance was
unsheathed by justice, for the punishment of the criminal; the bowels
of compassion were stirred by mercy, for the rescue of the miserable.
Justice severely beholds the sin, and mercy compassionately reflects
upon the misery. Two different claims are entered by those concerned
attributes: justice votes for destruction, and mercy votes for
salvation. Justice would draw the sword, and drench it in the blood of
the offender; mercy would stop the sword, and turn it from the breast
of the sinner. Justice would edge it, and mercy would blunt it. The
arguments are strong on both sides.

(1.) Justice pleads. I arraign, before thy tribunal, a rebel, who was
the glorious work of thy hands, the centre of thy rich goodness, and a
counterpart of thy own image; he is indeed miserable, whereby to excite
thy compassion; but he is not miserable, without being criminal. Thou
didst create him in a state, and with ability to be otherwise: the
riches of thy bounty aggravate the blackness {a555} of his crime. He
is a rebel, not by necessity, but will. What constraint was there upon
him to listen to the counsels of the enemy of God? What force could
there be upon him, since it is without the compass of any creature to
work upon, or constrain the will? Nothing of ignorance can excuse him;
the law was not ambiguously expressed, but in plain words, both as to
precept and penalty; it was writ in his nature in legible characters:
had he received any disgust from thee after his creation, it would not
excuse his apostasy, since, as a Sovereign, thou wert not obliged to
thy creature. Thou hadst provided all things richly for him; he was
crowned with glory and honor: thy infinite power had bestowed upon him
an habitation richly furnished, and varieties of servants to attend
him. Whatever he viewed without, and whatever he viewed within himself,
were several marks of thy Divine bounty, to engage him to obedience:
had there been some reason of any disgust, it could not have balanced
that kindness which had so much reason to oblige him: however, he
had received no courtesy from the fallen angel, to oblige him to turn
into his camp. Was it not enough, that one of thy creatures would have
stripped thee of the glory of heaven, but this also must deprive thee
of thy glory upon earth, which was due from him to thee as his Creator?
Can he charge the difficulty of the command? No: it was rather below,
than above his strength. He might rather complain that it was no higher,
whereby his obedience and gratitude might have a larger scope, and a
more spacious field to move in than a precept so light; so easy, as
to abstain from one fruit in the garden. What excuse can he have, that
would prefer the liquorishness of his sense before the dictates of his
reason, and the obligations of his creation? The law thou didst set
him was righteous and reasonable; and shall righteousness and reason be
rejected by the supreme and infallible reason, because the rebellious
creature hath trampled upon it? What! must God abrogate his holy law,