( OCT li
B#93TB .CA27 1864 v. 2 Charnock, Stephen, 1628
1680. The complete works of
NICHOL'S SERIES OF STANDARD DIVINES.
PUEITAN PERIOD.
Wii\ (^mral f r^fm
BY JOHN C. MILLEK, D.D.,
LiNCOi-N college; HosoEAur canoh of Worcester; rector of st martin's, birminqham.
THE
\^ORKS OF STEPHEN CHAENOCK, B.D.
VOL. II.
COUNCIL OF PUBLICATION.
W. LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D., Professor of Theology, Congregational Union, Edinburgli.
JAMES BEGG, D.D., Minister of Newington Free Chnreh, Edinburgh,
THOMAS J. ORAWFOED, D.D., S.T.P., Professor of Divinity, University, Edinburgh,
D, T. K. DRUMMOND, M,A., Minister of St Thomas's Episcopal Church, Edinburgh,
WILLIAM H. GOOLD, D.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Church History, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh.
ANDREW THOMSON, D,D., Minister of Broughton Place United Presby- terian Church, Edinburgh.
General ffiftttor. REV. THOMAS SMITH, M.A., Edinbtjegh.
THE COMPLETE WORKS
STEPHEN CHARNOCK, B.D.
Wiiil^ gntxatindxan
PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS, QUEEN S COLLEGE, BELFAST.
VOL. II.
CONTAINING
DISCOURSE ON THE EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
EDINBURGH: JAMES NICHOL.
LONDON: JAMES NISBET AND CO. DUBLIN: G. HERBERT.
M.DCCO.LXIV.
KDINBURGn
PRINTED BY JOHN GREIG AND SON,
OLD PHTSIC GARDENS.
CONTENTS.
DISCOUESE ON THE EXISTENCE AND ATTEIBUTES OF GOD-
(CONTINUED).
Pagk
A DiSCOUESE UPON THE WiSDOM OP GoD.
A Discourse upon the Power of God. A Discourse upon the Holiness of God. A Discourse upon the Goodness op God. A Discourse upon God's Dominion. A Discourse upon God's Patience. .
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. Rom. XVI. 27. |
3 |
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. Job XXVI. 14 |
. 99 |
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. ExoD. XV. 11. |
. 188 |
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. Mark X. 18. |
. 275 |
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. Ps. cm. 19. |
. 400 |
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. Nahum. I. 3. |
. 500 |
DISCOURSE ON THE EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.
(Continued.)
A DISCOURSE UPON THE WISDOM OF GOD.
To God only wise, he glory through Jems Christ for ever. Amen. — Rom. XVI. 27.
This chapter, being the last of this epistle, is chiefly made up of charitable and friendly salutations, and commendations of particular persons, according to the earliness and strength of their several graces, and their labour of love for the interest of God and his people.
In ver. 17, he warns them not to be drawn aside from the gospel doctrine which had been taught them, by the plausible pretences and insinuations which the corrupters of the doctrine and rule of Christ never want from the suggestions of their carnal wisdom. The brats of soul- destroying errors may walk about the world in a garb and disguise of good words and fair speeches, as it is in the 18th verse, ' by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.' And for their encouragement to a constancy in the gospel doctrine, he assures them that all those that would dispossess them of truth, to possess them with vanity, are but Satan's instruments, and will fall under the same captivity and yoke with their principal : ver. 16^ ^^ ♦ The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.'
Whence observe,
1. All corrupters of divine truth, and troublers of the church's peace, are no better than devils. Our Saviour thought the name Satan a title merited by Peter, when he breathed out an advice, as an axe at the root of the gos- pel, the death of Christ, the foundation of all gospel truth ; and the apostle concludes them under the same character, which hinder the superstructure, and would mix their chaff with his wheat. Mat. xvi. 23, ' Get thee behind me, Satan.' It is not, * Get thee behind me, Simon,' or, ' Get thee behind me, Peter,' but, * Get thee behind me, Satan : thou art an offence to me.' Thou dost oppose thyself to the wisdom, and grace, and authority of God, to the redemption of man, and to the good of the world.
As the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of truth, so is Satan the spirit of falsehood ; as the Holy Ghost inspires believers with truth, so doth the devil corrupt unbelievers with error. Let us cleave to the truth of the gospel, that we may not be counted by God as part of the corporation of fallen angels, and not be barely reckoned as enemies of God, but in league with the greatest enemy to his glory in the world.
2. The reconciler of the world will be the subduer of Satan. The God of
4 charnock's works. [Rom. XYI. 27.
peace sent the Prince of peace to be the restorer of his rights, and the hammer to beat in pieces the usurper of them. As a God of truth, he will make good his promise ; as a God of peace, he will perfect the design his wisdom hath laid and begun to act. In the subduing Satan, he will be the conqueror of his instruments. He saith not, God shall bruise your troublers and heretics, but Satan. The fall of a general proves the rout of the army. Since God, as a God of peace, hath delivered his own, he will perfect the victory, and make them cease from bruising the heel of his spiritual seed.
3. Divine evangelical truth shall be victorious. No weapon formed against it shall prosper ; the head of the wicked shall fall as low as the feet of the godly. The devil never yet blustered in the world, but he met at last with a disappointment. His fall hath been hke lightning, sudden, certain, vanishing.
4. Faith must look back as far as the foundation-promise, ' The God of peace shall bruise,' &c. The apostle seems to allude to the first promise, Gen. iii. 15 ; a promise that hath vigour to nourish the church in all ages of the world ; it is the standing cordial ; out of the womb of this promise all the rest have taken their birth. The promises of the Old Testament were designed for those under the New, and full performance of them is to be expected, and will be enjoyed by them. It is a mighty strengthening to faith, to trace the footsteps of God's truth and wisdom, from the threatening against the serpent in Eden, to the bruise he received in Calvary, and the triumph over him upon mount Olivet.
5. We are to confide in the promise of God, but leave the season of its accomplishment to his wisdom. He will bruise Satan under your feet, there- fore do not doubt it ; and shortly, therefore wait for it. Shortly it will be done, that is, quickly, when you think it may be a great way off ; or shortly, that is, seasonably, when Satan's rage is hottest, God is the best judge of the seasons of distributing his own mercies, and darting out his own glory. It is enough to encourage our waiting, that it will be, and that it will be shortly; but we must not measure God's shortly by our minutes.
The apostle, after this, concludes with a comfortable prayer, that since they were liable to many temptations to turn their backs upon the doctrine which they had learned, yet he desires God, who had brought them to the knowledge of his truth, would confirm them in the belief of it, since it was the gospel of Christ his dear Son, and a mystery he had been chary of and kept in his own cabinet, and now brought forth to the world in pursuance of the ancient prophecies, and now had published to all nations, for that end that it might be obeyed ; and concludes with a doxology, a voice of praise, to him who was only wise to efiect his own purposes, ver. 25-27 : ' Now to him that is of power to establish you, according to my gospel and the preach- ing of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.' This doxology is interlaced with many comforts for the Romans. He explains the causes of this glory to God, power and wisdom. Power to establish the Romans in grace, which includes his will. This he proves from a divine testimony, viz., the gospel ; the gospel committed to him and preached by him, which he commends by calling it the preaching of Christ ; and describes it, for the instruction and comfort of the church, from the adjuncts, the obscurity of it nnder the Old Testament, and the clearness of it under the New. It was hid from the former ages and kept in silence, not simply and absolutely, but comparatively and in part ; because in the Old Testament, the doctrine of
Rom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 5
salvation by Christ was confined to the limits of Judea, preached only to the inhabitants of that country : ' To them he gave his statutes and his judg- ments, and dealt not so magnificently with any nation,' Ps. cxlvii. 19, 20 ; but now he causes it to spring with greater majesty out of those naiTow bounds, and spread its wings about the world. This manifestation of the gospel he declares, first, from the subject, all nations ; 2, from the principal efficient cause of it, the commandment and order of God ; 3, the instrumental cause, the prophetic scriptures ; 4, from the end of it, the obedience of faith.*
Obs. 1. The glorious attributes of God bear a comfortable respect to believers. Power and wisdom are here mentioned as two props of their faith; his power here includes his goodness. Power to help, without will to assist, is a dry chip. The apostle mentions not God's power simply and absolutely con- sidered, for that of itself is no more comfort to men than it is to devils ; but as considered in the gospel covenant, his power, as well as his other perfec- tions, are ingredients in that cordial of God's being our God. We should never think of the excellency of the. divine nature, without considering the duties they demand, and gathering the honey they present.
Obs. 2. The stability of a gracious soul depends upon the wisdom, as well as the power of God. It would be a disrepute to the almightiness of God, if that should be totally vanquished which was introduced by his mighty arm, and rooted in the soul by an irresistible grace. It would speak a want of strength to maintain it, or a change of resolution, and so would be no honour to the wisdom of his first design. It is no part of the wisdom of an artificer to let a work, wherein he determined to shew the greatness of his skill, to be dashed in pieces, when he hath power to preserve it. God designed every gracious soul for a piece of his workmanship, Eph. ii. 10. What, to have the skill of his grace defeated ? If any soul which he hath graciously con- quered should be wrested from him, what could be thought but that his power is enfeebled ? If deserted by him, what could be imagined, but that he repented of his labour and altered his counsel, as if rashly undertaken ? These Romans were rugged pieces, and lay in a filthy quarry, when God came first to smooth them, for so the apostle represents them with the rest of the heathen, Rom. i. 19 ; and would he throw them away, or leave them to the power of his enemy, after all his pains he had taken with them, to fit them for his building ? Did he not foresee the designs of Satan against them, what stratagems he would use to defeat his purposes and strip him of the honour of his work ? And would God so gratify his enemy, and disgi-ace his own wisdom ? The deserting of what hath been acted is a real repent- ance, and argues an imprudence in the first resolve and attempt. The gospel is called, ' the manifold wisdom of God,' Eph. iii. 10 ; the fruit of it in the heart of any person, which is a main design of it, hath a title to the same character ; and shall this grace, which is the product of this gospel, and therefore the birth of manifold wisdom, be suppressed ? It is at God's hand we must seek our fixedness and establishment, and act faith upon these two attributes of God. Power is no ground to expect stabiUty, without wisdom interesting the agent in it, and finding out and applying the means for it. Wisdom is naked without power to act, and power is useless without wisdom to direct. They are these two excellencies of the Deity, the apostle here pitches the hope and faith of the converted Romans upon for their stability.
Obs. 3. Perseverance of believers in grace is a gospel doctrine. ' Ac- cording to my gospel : ' my gospel ministerially, according to that gospel doctrine I have taught you in this epistle (for as the prophets were comments upon the law, so are the epistles upon the gospel). This very doctrine he * Gomanis in loc.
9 chabnock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
had discoursed of, Rom. viii. 88, 39, where he tells them, that * neither death nor life,' the terrors of a cruel death, or the allurements of an honour- able and pleasant life, * nor principalities and powers,' with all their subtilty and strength ; not the things we have before us, nor the promises of a future felicity, by either ' angels ' in heaven or devils in hell ; not the highest angel, nor the deepest devil, ' is able to separate us,' us Romans, ' from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.' So that, according to my yospel may be according to that declaration of the gospel which I have made in this epistle, which doth not only promise the first creating grace, but the perfect- ing and crowning grace ; for not only the being of grace, but the health, liveliness, and perpetuity of grace is the fruit of the new covenant, Jer. xxxii. 40.
Obs. 4. That the gospel is the sole means of a Christian's establishment. ' According to my gospel ;' that is, • by my gospel.' The gospel is the in- strumental cause of our spiritual life, it is the cause also of the continuance of it ; it is the seed whereby we were bom, and the milk whereby we are nourished, 1 Peter i. 23 ; it is the power of God to salvation, 1 Peter ii. 2, and therefore to all the degrees of it : John xvii. 17, ' Sanctify them by thy truth,' or ' through thy truth ; ' by or through his truth he sanctifies us, and by the same truth he establisheth us. The first sanctification, and the pro- gress of it ; the first lineaments, and the last colours, are wrought by the gospel. The gospel therefore ought to be known, studied, and considered by us ; it is the charter of our inheritance, and the security of our standing. The law acquaints us with our duty, but contributes nothing to our strength and settlement.
Ohs. 5. The gospel is nothing else but the revelation of Christ : verse 25, * According to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ.' The discovery of the myster}', and redemption, and salvation in and by him, it is genitiviis objecti, that preaching wherein Christ is declared and set out, with the benefits accruing by him. This is the privilege the wisdom of God reserved for the latter times, which the Old Testament Church had only under a veil.
Obs. 6. It is a part of the excellency of the gospel that it had the Son of God for its publisher : ' The preaching of Jesus Christ.' It was first preached to Adam in paradise by God, and afterwards published by Christ in person to the inhabitants of Judea. It was not the invention of man, but copied from the bosom of the Father, by him that lay in his bosom. The gospel we have is the same which our Saviour himself preached when he was in the world. He preached it not to the Romans, but the same gospel he preached is transmitted to the Romans. It therefore commands our respect ; ■whoever slights it, it is as much as if he slighted Jesus Christ himself, were he in person to sound it from his own lips. The validity of a proclamation is derived from the authority of the prince that dictates it and orders it ; yet, the greater the person that publisheth it, the more dishonour is cast upon the authority of the prince that enjoins it, if it be contemned. The everlasting God ordained it, and the eternal Son published it.
Obs. 7. The gospel was of an eternal resolution, though of a temporary reve- lation : ver. 25, ' According to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.' It is an everlasting gospel. It was a promise ' before the world began,' Tit. i. 2. It was not a new invention, but only kept secret among the Arcana, in the breast of the Almighty. It was hidden from angels, for the depths of it are not yet fully made known to them ; their ' desire to look into ' it speaks yet a deficiency in their know- ledge of it, 1 Peter i. 12. It was published in paradise, but in such words as Adam did not fully understand ; it was both discovered and clouded in
Rom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 7
the smoke of sacrifices ; it was wrapped up in a veil under the law, but not opened till the death of the Redeemer ; it was then plainly said to the cities of Judah, * Behold, your God comes.' The whole transaction of it between the Father and the Son, which is the spirit of the gospel, was from eternity; the creation of the world was in order to the manifestation of it. Let us not then regard the gospel as a novelty ; the consideration of it, as one of God's cabinet rarities, should enhance our estimation of it. No traditions of men, no invention of vain wits, that pretend to be wiser than God, should have the same credit with that which bears date from eternity.
Obs. 8. That divine truth is mysterious. ' According to the revelation of the mystery,' Christ, ' manifested in the flesh.' The whole scheme of God- liness is a mystery. No man or angel could imagine how two natures, so distant as the divine and human, should be united ; how the same person should be criminal and righteous ; how a just God should have a satisfac- tion, and a sinful man a justification ; how the sin should be punished and the sinner saved. None could imagine such a way of justification as the apostle in this epistle declares ; it was a mystery, when hid under the shadows of the law ; and a mystery to the prophets, when it sounded firom their mouths ; they searched it without being able to comprehend it, 1 Peter i. 10, 11.
If it be a mystery, it is humbly to' be submitted to ; mysteries surmount human reason. The study of the gospel must not be with a yawning and careless frame. Trades you call mysteries are not learned sleeping and nodding, diligence is required ; we must be disciples at God's feet. As it had God for the author, so we must have God for the teacher of it ; the contrivance was his, and the illumination of our minds must be from him. As God only manifested the gospel, so he only can open our eyes to see the mysteries of Christ in it.
In verse 26 we may observe,
1. The Scriptures of the Old Testament verify the substance of the New, and the New doth evidence the authority of the Old : ' By the Scriptures of the prophets made known.' The Old Testament credits the New, and the New illustrates the Old. The New Testament is a comment upon the pro- phetic part of the Old. The Old shews the promises and predictions of God, and the New shews the performance ; what was foretold in the Old is fulfilled in the New ; the predictions are cleared by the events. The predictions of the Old are divine, because they are above the reason of man to foreknow ; none but an infinite knowledge could foretell them, because none but an in- finite wisdom could order all things for the accomplishment of them.
The Christian religion hath then the surest foundation, since the Scrip- tures of the prophets, wherein it is foretold, are of undoubted antiquity, and owned by the Jews and many heathens, which are and were the great enemies of Christ. The Old Testament is therefore to be read for the strengthening of our faith. Our blessed Saviour himself draws the streams of his doctrine from the Old Testament ; he clears up the promise of eternal life, and the doctrine of the resurrection, from the words of the covenant, ' I am the God of Abraham,' &c.. Mat. xxii. 32. And our apostle clears up the doctrine of justification by faith, from God's covenant with Abraham, Rom. iv. It must be read, and it must be read as it is writ ; it was writ to a gospel end, it must be studied with a gospel spirit. The Old Testament was writ to give credit to the New, when it should be manifested in the world. It must be read by us to give strength to our faith, and establish us in the doctrine of Christianity. How many view it as a bare story, an almanack out of date, and regard it as a dry bone, without sucking from it the evangelical marrow I
8 ' charnock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
Christ is, in Genesis, Abraham's seed ; in David's Psalms and the prophets, the Messiah and Redeemer of the world.
2. Observe, the antiquity of the gospel is made manifest by the Scriptures of the prophets. It was of as ancient a date as any prophecy. The first pro- phecy was nothing else but a gospel charter ; it was not made at the incarna- tion of Christ, but made manifest ; it then rose up to its meridian lustre, and sprung out of the clouds wherewith it was before obscured. The gospel was preached to the ancients by the prophets, as well as to the Gentiles by the apostles : Heb. iv. 2, * Unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them.' To them first, to us after ; to them indeed more cloudy, to us more clear ; but they, as well as we, were evangelised, as the word signifies.
The covenant of grace was the same in the writings of the prophets and the declarations of the evangelists and apostles. Though by our Saviour's incarnation the gospel light was clearer, and by his ascension the effusions of the Spirit fuller and stronger, yet the believers under the Old Testament saw Christ in the swaddling bands of legal ceremonies and the lattice of prophetical writings. They could not ofier one sacrifice, or read one pro- phecy, with a faith of the right stamp. Abraham's justifying faith had Christ for its object, though it was not so explicit as ours, because the manifestation was not so clear as ours,
8. Ail truth is to be drawn from Scripture. The apostle refers them here to the gospel and the prophets. The Scripture is the source of divine knowledge ; not the traditions of men, nor reason separate from Scripture. Whosoever brings another doctrine coins another Christ : nothing is to be added to what is written, nothing detracted from it. He doth not send us for truth to the puddles of human inventions, to the enthusiasms of our brain ; nor to the see of Rome, no, nor to the instructions of angels ; but the writings of the prophets, as they clear up the declarations of the apostles. The church of Rome is not made here the standard of truth, but the Scrip- tures of the prophets are to be the touch-stone to the Romans for the trial of the truth of the gospel.
4. How great is the goodness of God ! The borders of grace are enlarged to the Gentiles, and not hid under the skirts of the Jews. He that was so long the God of the Jews, is now also manifest to be the God of the Gen- tiles. The gospel is now ' made known to all nations, according to the commandment of the everlasting God ;' not only in a way of common pro- vidence, but special grace, in calling them to the knowledge of himself, and a justification of them by faith. He hath brought strangers to him, to ' the adoption of children,' and lodged them under the wings of the covenant, that were before ' alienated from him ' through the universal corruption of nature. Now he hath manifested himself a God of truth, mindful of his promise in blessing all nations in the seed of Abraham. The fury of devils and the violence of men could not hinder the propagation of this gospel. Its light hath been dispersed as far as that of the sun, and that grace that sounded in the Gentiles' ears hath bent many of their hearts to the obedience of it.
5. Observe that libertinism and licentiousness find no encouragement in the gospel. It was made known to all nations ' for the obedience of faith.' The goodness of God is published, that our enmity to him may be parted with. Christ's righteousness is not ofi'ered to us to be put on, that we may roll more warmly in our lusts. The doctrine of grace commands us to give up ourselves to Christ, to be accepted through him, and to be ruled by him. Obedience is due to God, as a sovereign Lord in his law, and it is due out of gratitude, as he is a God of grace in the gospel. The discovery of a
KoM. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 9
farther perfection in God weakens not the right of another, nor the obliga- tion of the duty the former attribute claims at our hands. The gospel frees us from the curse, but not from the duty and service. We are ' delivered from the hands of our enemies, that we might serve God in holiness and righteousness,' Luke i. 74. ' This is the will of God' in the gospel, ' even our sanctification.' When a prince strikes off a malefactor's chains, though he deliver him from the punishments of his crime, he frees him not from the duty of a subject. His pardon adds a greater obligation than his pro- tection did before, while he was loyal. Christ's righteousness gives us a title to heaven, but there must be a holiness to give us a fitness for heaven.
6. Observe that evangelical obedience, or the obedience of faith, is only acceptable to God. ' Obedience of faith,' genitivus speciei, noting the kind of obedience God requires ; an obedience springing from faith, animated and influenced by faith. Not obedience of faith, as though faith were the rule, and the law were abrogated ; but to the law as a rule, and fmm faith as a principle. There is no true obedience before faith : Heb. xi. 6, 'With- out faith it is impossible to please God,' and therefore without faith impos- sible to obey him. A good work cannot proceed from a defiled mind and conscience, and without faith every man's mind is darkened, and his con- science polluted. Tit. i. 15. Faith is the band of union to Christ, and obedience is the fruit of union. We cannot bring forth fruit without being branches, John xv. 4, 5 ; and we cannot be branches without believing. Legitimate fruit follows upon marriage to Christ, not before it : Rom. vii. 4, * That you should be married to another, even to him that is raised from the dead, that you should bring forth fruit unto God.' All fruit before marriage is bastard, and bastards were excluded from the sanctuary. Our persons must be first accepted in Christ before our services can be acceptable. Those works are not acceptable where the person is not pardoned. Good works flow from a pure heart, but the heart cannot be pure before faith. All the good works reckoned up in the eleventh chapter of the Hebrews were from this spring ; those heroes first believed, and then obeyed. By faith Abel was righteous before God; without it, his sacrifice had been no better than Cain's. By faith Enoch pleased God, and had a divine testimony to his obedience before his translation. By faith Abraham offered up Isaac, without which he had been no better than a murderer. All obedience hath its root in faith, and is not done in our own strength, but in the strength and virtue of another, of Christ, whom God hath set forth as our head and root.
7. Observe, faith and obedience are distinct, though inseparable : ' The obedience of faith.' Faith, indeed, is obedience to a gospel command, which enjoins us to believe ; but it is not all our obedience. Justification and sanctification are distinct acts of God; justification respects the person, sanctification the nature ; justification is first in order of nature, and sanc- tification follows. They are distinct, but inseparable. Every justified per- son hath a sanctified nature, and every sanctified nature supposeth a justified person. So faith and obedience are distinct ; faith as the principle, obe- dience as the product ; faith as the cause, obedience as the eflect. The cause and the effect are not the same. By faith we own Christ as our Lord, by obedience we regulate ourselves according to his command. The accept- ance of the relation to him as a subject precedes the performance of our duty. By faith we receive his law, and by obedience we fulfil it. Faith makes us God's children, Gal. iii. 26, obedience manifests us to be Christ's disciples, John xv. 8. Faith is the touchstone of obedience : the touchstone, and that which is tried by it, are not the same; but though they are distinct,
10 chaenock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
yet they are inseparable. Faith and obedience are joined together ; obe- dience follows faith at the heels. Faith ' purifies the heart,' and a pure heart cannot be without pure actions. Faith unites us to Christ, whereby we partake of his life ; and a living branch cannot be without fruit in its season, and * much fruit,' John xv. 5, and that naturally, from a * newness of spirit,' Rom. vii. 6, not constrained by the rigours of the law, but drawn forth from a sweetness of love ; for * faith works by love.' The love of God is the strong motive, and love to God is the quickening principle. As there can be no obedience without faith, so no faith without obedience.
After all this, the apostle ends with the celebration of the wisdom of God : * To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever !' The rich discovery of the gospel cannot be thought of by a gracious soul without a return of praise to God and admiration of his singular wisdom.
* Wise God.' His power before, and his wisdom here, are mentioned in conjunction (in which his goodness is included as interested in his estab- lishing power), as the ground of all the glory and praise God hath from his creatures.
* Only wise.' As Christ saith, Mat. xix. 17, * None is good but God,' so the apostle saith, none wise but God. As all creatures are unclean in regard of his purity, so they are all fools in regard of his wisdom, yea, the glorious angels themselves, Job iv. 18. Wisdom is the royalty of God ; the proper dialect of all his ways and works. No creature can lay claim to it ; he is so wise, that he is wisdom itself.
' Be glory through Jesus Christ.' As God is only known in and by Christ, so he must be only worshipped and celebrated in and through Christ. In him we must pray to him, and in him we must praise him. As all mercies flow from God through Christ to us, so all our duties are to be pre- sented to God through Christ.
In the Greek, verbatim, it runs thus : * To the alone wise God, through Jesus Christ, to him be glory for ever.' But we must not understand it, as if God were wise by Jesus Christ ; but that thanks is to be given to God through Christ, because in and by Christ God hath revealed his wisdom to the world. The Greek hath a repetition of the article w not expressed in the translation, ' To him be glory.' Beza expungeth this article, but without reason, for cS is as much as durw, to him ; and joining this, ' the only wise God,' with the 25th verse, * To him that is of power to establish you,' reading it thus, ' To him that is of power to establish you, the only wise God,' leaving the rest in a parenthesis, it runs smoothly, ' To him be glory through Jesus Christ.' And Crellius the Socinian observes that this article J, which some leave out, might be industriously inserted by the apostle, to shew, that the glory we ascribe to God is also given to Christ.
We may observe, that neither in this place, nor anywhere in Scripture, is the Virgin Mary, or any of the saints, associated with God or Christ in the glory ascribed to them.
In the words there is,
1. An appropriation of wisdom to God, and a remotion of it from all creatures : ' only wise God.'
2. A glorifying him for it.
The point I shall insist upon is.
That wisdom is a transcendent excellency of the divine nature. We have before spoken of the knowledge of God, and the infiniteness of it. The next attribute is the wisdom of God. Most confound the knowledge and wisdom of God together ; but there is a manifest distinction between them in our conception.
Rom. XVI. 27.J god's wisdom. 11
I shall handle it thus :
I. Shew what wisdom is ; then lay down,
II. Some propositions about the wisdom of God ; and shew,
III. That God is \sise, and only wise.
IV. Wherein his wisdom appears.
V. The use.
I. What wisdom is. Wisdom among the Greeks first signified an emi- nent perfection in any art or mystery ; so a good statuary, engraver, or limner, was called wise, as having an excellent knowledge in his particular art ; but afterwards the title of wise was appropriated to those that devoted themselves to the contemplation of the highest things, that served for a foundation to speculative sciences.* But ordinarily we count a man a wise man, when he conducts his afi'airs with discretion, and governs his passions with moderation, and carries himself with a due proportion and harmony in all his concerns.
But in particular, wisdom consists,
1. In acting for a right end. The chiefest part of prudence is in fixing a right end, and in choosing fit means, and directing them to that scope. To shoot at random is a mark of folly. As he is the wisest man that hath the noblest end and fittest means, so God is infinitely wise ; as he is the most excellent being, so he hath the most excellent end. As there is none more excellent than himself, nothing can be his end but himself. As he is the cause of all, so he is the end of all ; and he puts a true bias into all the means he useth, to hit the mark he aims at : 'Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things,' Rom. xi. 36.
2. Wisdom consists in observing all circumstances for action. He is counted a wise man that lays hold of the fittest opportunities to bring his designs about, that hath the fullest foresight of all the little intrigues which may happen in a business he is to manage, and times every part of his action in an exact harmony with the proper minutes of it. God hath all the circumstances of things in one entire image before him ; he hath a prospect of every little creek in any design. He sees what second causes will act, and when they will act this or that ; yea, he determines them to such and such acts ; so that it is impossible he should be mistaken, or miss of the due season of bringing about his own purposes. As he hath more goodness than to deceive any, so he hath more understanding than to be mistaken in any- thing. Hence the time of the incarnation of our blessed Saviour is called the ' fulness of time,' the proper season for his coniing. Every circum- stance about Christ was timed according to the predictions of God ; even so little a thing as not parting his garment, and the giving him gall and vinegar to drink. And all the blessings he showers down upon his people, according to the covenant of grace, are said to come * in his due season,' Ezek. xxxiv. 25, 26.
3. Wisdom consists, in willing and acting according to the right reason, according to a right judgment of things. We never count a wilful man a wise man, but him only that acts according to a right rule, when right coun- sels are taken, and vigorously executed. The resolves and ways of God are not mere will, but will guided by the reason and counsel of his own mfi- nite understanding: Eph. i. 11, ' Who works all things according to the counsel of his own will.' The motions of the divine will are not rash, but follow the proposals of the divine mind. He chooses that which is fittest to be done, so that all his works are graceful, and all his ways have a come-
* Amyraut, Moral, torn. iii. p. 123.
12 chaknock's works. [Eom. XVI. 27.
liness and decorum in them. Hence all his ways are said to be judgment, Deut. xxxii. 4, not mere will.
Hence it appears that wisdom and knowledge are two distinct perfections. Knowledge hath its seat in the speculative understanding, wisdom in the practical. Wisdom and knowledge are evidently distinguished as two several gifts of the Spirit in man : 1 Cor. xii. 8, ' To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit.' Knowledge is an understanding of general rules, and wisdom is a drawing conclusions from those rules in order to particular cases. A man may have the knowledge of the whole Scripture, and have all learning in the treasury of his memory, and yet be destitute of skill to make use of them upon par- ticular occasions, and untie those knotty questions which may be proposed to him, by a ready application of those rules.
Again, knowledge and wisdom may be distinguished in our conception, as two distinct perfections in God. The knowledge of God is his understand- ing of all things ; his wisdom is the skilful resolving and acting of all things ; and the apostle, in his admiration of him, owns them as distinct. ' Oh the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God,' Rom. xi. 33. Knowledge is the foundation of wisdom, and antecedent to it ; wisdom, the superstructure upon knowledge. Men may have knowledge without wis- dom, but not wisdom without knowledge ; according to our common proverb, the greatest clerks are not the wisest men. All practical knowledge is founded in speculation, either secunduyn rem, as in men ; or secundum ratio- nem, as in God. They agree in this, that they are both acts of the under- standing ; but knowledge is the apprehension of a thing, and wisdom is the appointing and ordering of things. AVisdom is the splendour and lustre of knowledge shining forth in operations, and is an act both of understand- ing and will ; understanding in counselling and contriving, will in resolving and executing. Counsel and will are linked together, Eph. i. 11.
II. The second thing is to lay down some propositions in general concern- ing the wisdom [ofj God.
Prop. 1. There is an essential and a personal wisdom of God. The essential wisdom is the essence of God, the personal wisdom is the Son of God. Christ is called 'wisdom' by himself, Luke vii. 35. The 'wisdom of God' by the apostle, 1 Cor. i. 24. The wisdom I speak of belongs to the nature of God, and is considered as a necessary perfection. The per- sonal wisdom is called so, because he opens to us the secrets of God. If the Son were that wisdom whereby the Father is wise, the Son would be also the essence whereby the Father is God. If the Son were the wisdom of the Father, whereby he is essentially wise, the Son would be the essence of the Father, and the Father would laave his essence from the Son, since the wisdom of God is the essence of God ; and so the Son would be the Father, if the wisdom and power of the Father were originally in the Son.
Prop. 2. Therefore, secondly, the wisdom of God is the same with the essence of God. Wisdom in God is not a habit added to his essence, as it is in man, but it is his essence. It is like the splendour of the sun, the same with the sun itself; or like the brightness of crystal, which is not communicated to it by anything else, as the brightness of a mountain is by the beam of the sun, but it is one with the crystal itself. It is not a habit superadded to the divine essence : that would be repugnant to the simplicity of God, and speak him compounded of diverse principles ; it would be con- trary to the eternity of his perfections. If he be eternally wise, his wisdom
KoM, XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 13
is his essence ; for there is nothing eternal but the essence of God.* As the sun melts some things and hardens others, blackens some things and ■whitens others, and produceth contrary qualities in different subjects, yet it is but one and the same quality in the sun which is the cause of those con- trary operations, so the perfections of God seem to be diverse in our con- ceptions, yet they are but one and the same in God. The wisdom of God is God acting prudently, as the power of God is God acting power- fully, and the justice of God is God acting righteously ; and therefore it is more truly said, that God is wisdom, justice, truth, power, than that he is wise, just, true, &c., as if he were compounded of substance and qualities. All the operations of God proceed from one simple essence, as all the operations of the mind of man, though various, proceed from one faculty of understanding.
Prop. 3. Wisdom is the property of God alone. He is only wise. It is an honour peculiar to him. Upon the account that no man deserved the title of wise, but that it was a royalty belonging to God,f Pythagoras would not be called 2cf &;, a title given to their learned men, but O/Xotropoj. The name philosopher arose out of a respect to this transcendent perfection of God.
(1.) God is only wise necessarily. As he is necessarily God, so he is necessarily wise ; for the notion of wisdom is inseparable from the notion of a Deity. When we say God is a Spirit, is true, righteous, wise, we under- stand that he is transcendently these by an intrinsic and absolute necessity, by virtue of his own essence, without the efficiency of any other, or any efficiency in and by himself. God doth not make himself wise, no more than he makes himself God. As he is a necesssary being in regard of his life, so he is necessarily wise in regard of his understanding. Synesius saith, that God is esseutiated, ouaioiJcdat, by his understanding. He places the substance of God in understanding and wisdom ; wisdom is the first vital operation of God. He can no more be unwise than he can be untrue; for folly in the mind is much the same with falsity in speech. Wisdom among men is gained by age and experience, furthered by instructions and exercise, but the wisdom of God is his nature ; as the sun cannot be with- out light, while it remains a sun, and as eternity cannot be without immor- tality, so neither can God be without wisdom. As ' he only hath immor- tality,' 1 Tim.'vi. 16, not arbitrarily, but necessarily, so he only hath wisdom; not because he will be wise, but because he cannot but be wise. He cannot but contrive counsels, and exert operations becoming the greatness and majesty of his nature.
(2.) Therefore only wise originally. God is avroBida.}(.Tog, avrosofog. Men acquire wisdom by the loss of their fairest years : but his wisdom is the perfection of the divine nature, not the birth of study or the growth of experience, but as necessary, as eternal as his essence. He goes not out of himself to search wisdom ; he needs no more the brains of creatures in the contrivances of his pui-poses than he doth their arm in the execution of them. He needs no counsel, he receives no counsel from any : Rom. xi. 34, ' Who hath been his counsellor?' and Isa. xl. 14, ' With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, or taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the path of understanding ? ' He is the only fountain of w^isdom to others ; angels and men have what wisdom they have by communication from him. All created wisdom is a spark of the divine light, like that'of the stars borrowed from the sun. He that borrows wisdom from another, and doth not originally possess it in his own nature, cannot properly be called wise. As God is the only being, * Maimon. Mor. part i. cap. 53. t Laert. lib. i. Proem.
14 charnock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
in regard that all other beings are derived from him, so he is only wise, because all other wisdom flows from him. He is the spring of wisdom to all ; none the original of wisdom to him.
(3.) Therefore only wise perfectly. There is no cloud upon his under- standing. He hath a distinct and certain knowledge of all things that can fall under action. As he hath a perfect knowledge, without ignorance, so he hath a beautiful wisdom, without mole or wart. Men are wise, yet have not an understanding so vast as to grasp all things, nor a perspicacity so clear as to penetrate into the depths of all beings. Angels have more delightful and lively sparks of wisdom, yet so imperfect, that in regard of the wisdom of God they ate charged with folly. Job iv. 18. Their wisdom as well as their holinesJip* veiled in the presence of God. It vanisheth, as the glowing of a fire doth before the beauty of the sun ; or as a light of a candle in the midst of a sunshine contracts itself, and none of its rays are seen, but in the body of the flame. The angels are not perfectly wise, because they are not perfectly knowing. The gospel, the great discovery of God's wisdom, was hid from them for ages.
(4.) Therefore only wise universally. Wisdom in one man is of one sort, in another of another sort ; one is a wise tradesman, another a wise states- man, and another a wise philosopher ; one is wise in the business of the world, another is wise in divine concerns ; one hath not so much of plenty of one sort, but he may have a scantiness in another ; one may be wise for invention, and foolish in execution ; an artificer may have skill to frame an engine, and not skill to use it. The ground that is fit for olives, may not be fit for vines ; that will bear one sort of grain and not another. But God hath an universal wisdom, because his nature is wise ; it is not limited, but hovers over everything, shines in every being. His executions are as wise as his contrivances ; he is wise in his resolves, and wise in his ways ; wise in all the varieties of his works of creation, government, redemption. As his will wills all things, and his power eflects all things, so his wisdom is the universal director of the motions of his will, and the executions of his power ; as his righteousness is the measure of the matter of his actions, so his wisdom is the rule that directs the manner of his actions. The absolute power of God is not an unruly power ; his wisdom orders all things, so that nothing is done but what is fit and convenient, and agreeable to so excellent a being ; as he cannot do an unjust thing because of his righteousness, so he cannot do an unwise act because of his infinite wisdom. Though God be not necessitated to any operation without himself, as to the creation of anything, yet supposing he will act, his wisdom necessitates him to do that which is congruous ; as his righteousness necessitates him to do that which is just, so that though the will of God be the principle, yet his wisdom is the rule of his actions. We must in our conceiving of the order suppose wisdom antecedent to will. None that acknowledges a God can have such an impious thought as to affix temerity and rashness to any of his proceedings.
All his decrees are drawn out of the infinite treasury of wisdom in him- self. He resolves nothing about any of his creatures without reason, but the reason of his purposes is in himself, and springs from himself, and not from the creatures.* There is not one thing that he wills, but he wills by counsel, and works by counsel, Eph. i. 11. Counsel writ down every line, every letter in his eternal book, and all the orders are drawn out from thence by his wisdom and will. What was illustrious in the contrivance glitters in the execution. His understanding and will are infinite ; what is rill is the result of his undersf Polliill against Sherlock, p. 377.
Rom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 15
rational; his understanding and will join hands; there is no contest in God, will against mind, and mind against will ; they are one in God, one in his resolves, and one in all his works.
(5.) Therefore he is only wise perpetually. As the wisdom of man is got by ripeness of age, so it is lost by decay of years ; it is got by instruction, and lost by dotage. The perfectest minds, when in the wane, have been darkened with folly. Nebuchadnezzar, that was wise for a man, became as foolish as a brute. But ' the Ancient of days ' is an unchangeable possessor of prudence ; his wisdom is a mirror of brightness, without a defacing spot. It was ' possessed by him in the beginning of his ways, before his works of old,' Prov. viii. 22, and he can never be dispossessed of it in the end of his works. It is inseparable from him ; the being of his Godht^u may as soon cease as the beauty of his mind. ' With him is wisdom,' Job xii. 13 ; it is inseparable from him, therefore as durable as his essence. It is a wisdom infinite, and therefore without increase or decrease in itself. The experi- ence of so many ages in the government of the world hath added nothing to the immensity of it, as the shining of the sun since the creation of the world hath added nothing to the light of that glorious body. As ignorance never darkens his knowledge, so folly never disgraces his prudence. God infatuates men, but neither men nor devils can infatuate God ; he is un- erringly wise, his counsel doth not vary and flatter.* It is not one day one counsel, and another day another, but it stands like an immoveable rock or a mountain of brass : * The counsel of the Lord stands for ever, and the thoughts of his heart to all generations,' Ps. xxxiii. 11.
(6.) He is only incomprehensibly wise. His * thoughts are deep,' Ps. xcii. 5; 'his judgments unsearchable, his ways past finding out,' Rom. xi. 83, depths that cannot be fathomed ; a splendour more dazzling to our dim minds, than the light of the sun to our weak eyes. The wisdom of one man may be comprehended by another, and over comprehended ; and often men are understood by others to be wiser in their actions than they understand themselves to be. And the wisdom of one angel may be measured by another angel of the same perfection ; but as the essence, so the wisdom of God, is incomprehensible to any creature. God is only comprehended by God. The secrets of wisdom in God are double to the expressions of it in his works : Job xi. 6, 7, ' Canst thou by searching find out God ? ' There is an unfathomable depth in all his decrees, in all his works. We cannot comprehend the reason of his works, much less that of his decrees, much less that in his nature ; because his wisdom being infinite as well as his power, can no more act to the highest pitch than his power. As his power is not terminated by what he hath wrought, but he could give further testimonies of it, so neither is his wisdom, but he could furnish us with infinite expressions and pieces of his skill. As in regard of his im- mensity he is not bounded by the limits of place, in regard of his eternity not measured by the minutes of time, in regard of his power not terminated with this or that number of objects, so in regard of his wisdom he is not confined to this or that particular mode of working ; so that in regard of the reason of his actions, as well as the glory and majesty of his nature, •he dwells in unapproachable light,' 1 Tim. vi. 16; and whatsoever we understand of his wisdom in creation and providence, is infinitely less than what is in himself and his own unbounded nature.
Many things in Scripture are declared chiefly to be the acts of the divine will, yet we must not think that they were acts of mere will without wisdom, but they are represented so to us, because we are not capable of understand- * Qu. • flutter ' V— Ed.
16 charnock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
ing the infinite reason of its acts. His sovereignty is more intelligible to us than his wisdom. We can better know the commands of a superior, and the laws of a prince, than understand the reason that gave birth to those laws. We may know the orders of the divine will as they are published, but not the sublime reason of his will. Though election be an act of God's sovereignty, and he hath no cause from without to determine him, yet his infinite wisdom stood not silent while mere dominion acted. Whatsoever God doth, he doth wisely as well as sovereignly, though that wisdom which lies in the secret places of the divine being be as incomprehensible to us as the efiects of his sovereignty and power in the world are visible. God can give a reason of his proceeding, and that drawn from himself, though we understand it not.
Though causes of things visible lie hid from us ; — doth any man know how to distinguish the seminal virtue of a small seed from the body of it, and in what nook and corner that lies, and what that is that spreads itself in so fair a plant, and so many flowers ? Can we comprehend the justice of God's proceedings in the prosperity of the wicked, and the afflictions of the godly ? — yet as we must conclude them the fruits of an unerring righteous- ness, so we must conclude all his actions the fruits of an unspotted wisdom, though the concatenation of all his counsels is not intelligible to us ; for he is as essentially and necessarily wise, as he is essentially and necessarily good and righteous.
God is not onl}^ so wise that nothing more wise can be conceived, but he is more wise than can be imagined, something greater in all his perfections than can be comprehended by any creature. It is a foolish thing therefore to question that which we cannot comprehend ; we should adore instead of disputing against it, and take it for granted that God would not order any- thing, were it not agi*eeable to the sovereignty of his wisdom as well as that of his will. Though the reason of man proceed from the wisdom of God, yet there is more difi'erence between the reason of man and the wisdom of God than between the light of the sun and the feeble shining of the glow- worm ; yet we presume to censure the ways of God, as if our purblind reason had a reach above him.
(7.) God is only wise infallibly. The wisest men meet with rubs in the way, that make them fall short of what they aim at. They often design, and fail ; then begin again, and yet all their counsels end in smoke, and none of them arrive at perfection. If the wisest angels lay a plot, they may be disappointed ; for though they are higher and wiser than man, yet there is one higher and wiser than they that can check their projects. God always compasseth his end, never fails of anything he designs and aims at ; all his undertakings are counsel and will. As nothing can resist the efficacy of his will, so nothing can countermine the skill of his counsel : ' There is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord,' Prov. xxi. 30. He compasseth his ends by those actions of men and devils wherein they think to cross him ; they shoot at their own mark and hit his. Lucifer's plot by divine wisdom fulfilled God's purpose against Lucifer's mind. The counsel of redemption by Christ, the end of the creation of the world, rode into the world upon the back of the serpent's temptation. God never mis- takes the means, nor can there be any disappointments to make him vary his counsels, and pitch upon other means than what before he had ordained : ' His word that goeth forth of his mouth shall not return to him void, but it shall accomplish that which he pleases, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto he sent it,' Isa. Iv. 11. What is said of his word is true of his counsel, it shall prosper in the thing for which it is appointed ; it cannot
Rom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 17
be defeated by all the legions of men and devils ; for ' as he thinks, so shall it come to pass ; and as he hath purposed, so shall it stand. The Lord hath purposed, and who shall disannul it ? ' Isa. xiv. 24, 27. The wisdom of the creature is a drop from the wisdom of God, and is like a drop to the ocean, and a shadow to the sun ; and therefore is not able to mate the wisdom of God, which is infinite and boundless. No wisdom is exempted from mistakes but the divine. He is wise in aU his resolves, and never ' calls back his words ' and purposes, Isa. xxxi. 2.
III. The third general is to prove that God is wise.
This is ascribed to God in Scripture : Dan. ii. 20, ' Wisdom and might are his:' wisdom to contrive, and power to efiect. Where should wisdom dwell but in the head of a Deity, and where should power triumph but in the arm of Omnipotency ? * All that God doth he doth artificially, skilfully, whence he is called the builder of the heavens, Heb. xi. 10; Ti'/virr,:, an artificial and curious builder, a builder by art. And that word, Prov. viii. 30, meant of Christ, ' Then I was by him, as one brought up with him,' some render it, ' Then was I the curious artificer ;' and the same word is translated ' a cunning workman,' Cant. vii. 5. For this cause counsel is ascribed to God (Isa. xlvi. 10 ; Jer. xxxii. 19, ' Great in counsel ;' Job xii. 13, 'He hath counsel and understanding'); not properly, for counsel implies something of ignorance or irresolution antecedent to the consulta- tion, and a posture of will afterwards which was not before. Counsel is properly a laborious deliberation and a reasoning of things, an invention of means for the attainment of the end, after a discussing and reasoning of all the doubts which arise pro re natd, about the matter in counsel ; tut God hath no need to deliberate in himself what are the best means to accom- plish his ends. He is never ignorant or undetermined what course he should take, as men are before they consult ; but it is an expression in condescension to our capacity, to signify that God doth nothing but with reason and understanding, with the highest prudence, and for the most glorious ends, as men do after consultation, and the weighing of every fore- seen circumstance.
Though he acts all things sovereignly by his will, yet he acts all things wisely by his understanding ; and there is not a decree of his will, but he can render a satisfactory reason for in the face of men and angels. As he is the cause of all things, so he hath the highest wisdom for the ordering of all things. If wisdom among men be the knowledge of divine and human things, God must be infinitely wise, since knowledge is most radiant in him. He knows what angels and men do, and infinitely more ; what is known by them obscurely, is known by him clearly. What is known by man after it is done, was known by God before it was wrought. By his wisdom, as much as by anything, he infinitely differs from all his creatures, as by wisdom man differs from a brute. We cannot frame a notion of God, without conceiving him infinitely wise. We should render him very inconsiderable, to imagine him furnished with an infinite knowledge, and not have an infinite wisdom to make use of that knowledge ; or to fancy him with a mighty power, des- titute of prudence. Knowledge without prudence, is an eye without motion ; and pov/er without discretion, is an arm without a head ; a hand to act, with- out understanding to contrive and model ; a strength to act, without reason to know how to act. It would be a miserable notion of a god, to fancy him with a brutish and unguided power. The heathens therefore had, and could not but have, this natural notion of God. Plato therefore calls him * CulverweU, Light of Nature, p. 30.
VOL. II. B
//
18 charnock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
Mens* and Cleanthes used to call God Reason, and Socrates thouglit the title of 2opAs too magnificent to be attributed to anything else but God alone.
Arguments to prove that God is wise.
Rects. 1. God could not be infinitely perfect without wisdom. A rational nature is better than an irrational nature. A man is not a perfect man without reason ; how can God, without it, be an infinitely perfect God ? Wisdom is the most eminent of all virtues ; all the other perfections of God without this, would be as a body without an eye, a soul without understand- ing. A Christian's graces want their lustre, when they are destitute of the guidance of wisdom ; mercy is a feebleness, and justice a cruelty, patience a timorousness, and courage a madness, without the conduct of wisdom. So the patience of God would be cowardice, his power an oppression, his justice a tyranny, without wisdom as the spring, and holiness as the rule. No attri- bute of God could shine with a due lustre and brightness without it. Power is a great perfection, but wisdom a greater.f Wisdom may be without much power, as in bees and ants ; but power is a tyrannical thing without wisdom and righteousness. The pilot is more valuable because of his skill, than the galley-slave because of his strength, and the conduct of a general more estima- ble than the might of a private soldier. Generals are chosen more by their skill to guide, than their strength to act. What a clod is a man without prudence ; what a nothing would God be without it ! This is the salt that gives relish to all other perfections in a creature ; this is the jewel in the ring of all the excellencies of the divine nature, and holiness is the splendour of that jewel.
Now God, being the first Being, possesses whatsoever is most noble in any being. If therefore wisdom, which is the most noble perfection in any creature, were wanting to God, he would be deficient in that which is the highest excellency. God being the ' living God,' as he is frequently termed in Scripture, he hath therefore the most perfect manner of living, and that must be a pure and intellectual life. Being essentially living, he is essen- tially in the highest degree of living. As he hath an infinite life above all creatures, so he hath an infinite, intellectual life, and therefore an infinite wisdom ; whence some have called God not sapientem, but super-saplentem, \ not only wise, but above all wisdom.
Reas. 2. Without infinite wisdom, he could not govern the world. With- out wisdom in forming the matter, which was made by divine power, the world could have been no other than a chaos ; and without wisdom in govern- ment, it could have been no other than a heap of confusion ; without wisdom, the world could not have been created in the posture it is. Creation sup- poseth a determination of the will, jDutting power upon acting ; the deter- mination of the will supposeth the counsel of the understanding, determining the will. No work, but supposeth understanding, as well as will, in a rational agent. As without skill things could not be created, so without it things cannot be governed. Reason is a necessary perfection to him that presides over all things. Without knowledge, there could not be in God a foundation for government ; and without wisdom, there could not be an exercise of government ; and without the most excellent wisdom, he could not be the most excellent governor. He could not be an universal governor, without a universal wisdom ; nor the sole governor, without an uuimitable wisdom ; nor an independent governor, without an original and independent wisdom ; nor a perpetual governor, without an incorruptible wisdom. He would not
* Eugub. Per. Philosoph., lib. i. cap. v.
t Licet magnum aii posse, majus tamen est sapere.
% Suarez, vol. 1. lib. i. cap. iii. p. 10.
Rom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 19;
be the Lord of the world in all points, without skill to order the affairs of it. Power and wisdom are foundations of all authority and government : wisdom to know how to rule and command, power to make those commands obeyed. No regular order could issue out without the first, nor could any order be enforced without the second. A feeble wisdom and a brutish power seldom or,_never produce any good effect. Magistracy without wisdom, would be a frantic power, a rash conduct. Like a strong arm when the eye is out, it strikes it knows not what, and leads it knows not whither. Wisdom without power, would be like a great body without feet ; * like the knowledge of a pilot that hath lost his arm, who, though he knows the rule of navigation, and what course to follow in his voyage, yet cannot manage the helm. But when those two, wisdom and power, are linked together, there ariseth from both a fitness for government. There is wisdom to propose an end, and both wisdom and power to employ means that conduct to that end. And therefore, when God demonstrates to Job his right of government, and the unreasonableness of Job's quarrelling with his proceedings, he chiefly urgeth upon him the consideration of those two excellencies of his nature, power and wisdom, which are expressed in his works, chap, xxxviii.-xli. A prince without wisdom, is but a title without a capacity to perform the office ; no man without it is fit for government. Nor could God, without wisdom, exercise a just dominion in the world. He hath therefore the highest wisdom, since he is the universal governor. That wisdom which is able to govern a family, may not be able to govern a city ; and that wisdom which governs a city, may not be able to govern a nation or kingdom, much less a world. The bounds of God's government being greater than any, his wisdom for government must needs surmount the wisdom of all. And though the crea- tures be not in number actually infinite, yet they cannot be well governed but by one endowed with infinite discretion. f Providential government can be no more without infinite wisdom, than infinite wisdom can be without providence.
Reas. 3. The creatures working for an end, without their own knowledge, demonstrates the wisdom of God that guides them. All things in the world work for some end ; the ends are unknown to them, though many of their ends are visible to us. As there was some prime cause, which by his power inspired them with their several instincts, so there must be some supreme wisdom which moves and guides them to their end. As their being mani- fests his power that endowed them, so the acting, according to the rules of their nature, which they themselves understand not, manifests his wisdom in directing them ; everything that acts for an end must know that end, or be directed by another to attain that end. The arrow doth not know who shoots it, or to what end it is shot, or what mark is aimed at ; but the archer that puts it in, and darts it out of the bow, knows. A watch hath a regular motion, but neither the spring nor the wheels that move know the end of their motion ; no man will judge a wisdom to be in the watch, but in the artificer that disposed the wheels and spring, by a joint combination to pro- duce such a motion for such an end. Doth either the sun that enlivens the earth, or the earth that travails 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 colour ? 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 humours, excites the virtue of it, and cherishes * Amyraut, Moral. t Amyrald. Dissert, Theol., p. 111.
20 chabnock's wobks. [Kom. XVI. 27.
ttie 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 in- finite wisdom. When things act by a rule they know not, and move for an end they understand^not, and yet work harmoniously together for one 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 idea in his own mind, who orders the rule by ■which the}' act, and the end for which they act, and directs every motion according to their several natures, and therefore is possessed with infinite wisdom in his own nature.
Reus. 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 ful- ness 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 efiect 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 wis- dom 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 arti- ficer is visible in 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 shin- ing 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 un- created 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 hus- bandry 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, intel- lectual 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 under- standing,' 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
Rom. XVI. 27.J god's wisdom. 2T
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 that that what is in the spring, for no crea- ture 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 be- low God in the notion of a creature, so it would be infinitely below God in the notion of wise.
rV. The fourth thing is, wherein the wisdom of God appears. It appears, 1, in creation ; 2, in government ; 3, in redemption. 1. 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 temper- ing 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 ofGod: 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 efiect and the work framed, because the divine wisdom stepped forth in the creatures to a public appearance, as if it had pre- sented 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 the wisdom God created the heaven and the earth ; ' both bear a stamp of this perfection on them.* And when the apostle tells the Romans, chap. i. 20, * The invisible things of God were clearly understood by the things that are made,' the word he uses is, cro/^/xa<r/, not ipyoii ; this signifies a work of labour, but "ro/jj/ia 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 dis- cretion,' 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, * 0 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 anything 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 his second examination.
* Omne opus naturae est opus intelligentise.
2S charnock's works. [Rom. XYI. 27.
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, '0 Lord, how manifold are thy works ! ' How great a variety is there of animals and plants, with a great variety of forms, shapes, figurations, colours, various smells, virtues, and qualities ! And this variety 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 as the earth ; so solid a variety from so fluid a matter as the water; 80 noble a piece as the body of man, with such a 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 noble 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, colours, scents, without our being able to perceive any variety •in the earth that breeds them, and not so great a difi"erence in the roots that bear them. Add to this the diversities of birds, of different colours, 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 vege- tation 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 difi"er ; 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 difierent characters and features imprinted upon the countenances of men and women, the difierences 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 man- kind could not have been put in execution. This variety speaks the wis- dom of God.
(2.) The wisdom of the creation appears in the beauty, and order, and
Rom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 28
situation of the several creatures. Eccles. iii. 11, * He hath made every- thing 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 estab- lished in the order of nature for its conservation, be considered, it would ravish us with an admiration of God. All the creatures are as 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 to- gether. Their line, that is, their harmonious proportion, and the instruction from it, is gone forth through all the earth. Upon the account of this har- mony, 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. f
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 an 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.J 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 knd refreshment necessary for it. Too miich near- ness had ruined the earth by parching heat, and too great a distance had destroyed the earth by starving it with cold.
The sun hath also its appointed motion; had it been fixed without motion, half of the earth had been unprofitable, there had been perpetual darkness in a moiety of it, nothing had been produced for nourishment, and so it had been rendered uninhabitable ; but now, by this 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 incon- veniences 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.
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 pro- vided as an habitation proper for those creatures which derive the matter of
* Amyrant, Moral., Vol. I. p. 257.
t Montag. against Selden, p. 281. Plutarch calls God a^fioviKig xal fioveiKog ; he Baith, NolliiTig was made without music.
t Charlton, Light of Nature, p. 57. § Daille, mel. part i. p. 483.
i Amyraut, Predestin. p. 9.
24 chaknock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
their bodies from it, and partake of its earthy nature ; and garnished with other creatures for the profit and pleasure of man.
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 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 use- fulness 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 mate- rials 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.* 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 afi"ords vapours 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 burthened 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 putrification, 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,t 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. God in his wisdom and goodness ' walks upon the wings of the wind,' Ps. civ. 3.
Rivers are appointed to bathe the ground, J and render it fresh and lively;
* Amyraut. sur diverses text, p. 127. t Lessius.
t Daille, Melan., part ii. p. 472, 473.
Rom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. -25
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 habitation 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 the 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 pro- duceth nourishment for the inhabitants of the world.
The day and night have also their usefulness.* The day gives life to labour, and is a guide to motion and action : Ps. civ. 23, ' The sun ariseth, man goeth forth to his labour 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 motion of the stars, hid from us by the eminent light of the day. It procures a truce from labour, 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 stupefied. 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. Ixxiv. 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 mdmber ! 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 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 * Daille, Melang., part i. p. 477, &c.
26 charnock's works. [Eom. XVI. 27.
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. xis. 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 good- ness ; and upon man's disobedience, they can in their natures be the minis- ters of his justice for the punishing of offending creatures.
(4.) Fourthly, The wisdom is apparent, in the linking 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 signifies, Heb. xi. 3; knit by fit bands 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 con- nection and end, there is a consent in the whole : Hosea 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 ; the air distributes light, wind, and rain to the earth, =;< the earth and the sea render to the air exhalations and vapours, and all together 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 colours 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 colours 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 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 np one entire beauty in the whole fabric ; as every part in the body of man hath a distinct comeliness, ye.i there is, besides, the beauty of the whole, that results from the union of diverse parts exactly fashioned to one another, and linked together.
By the way,
Use. How much may we see of the perfection of God in every thing that presents itself to our eyes ! And how should we be convinced of our un- * Daille, Serm. xv. p. 170.
Rom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 27
worthy neglect of ascending to him with reverent 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 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 con- sidered in all his works of wonder and miracles of nature. No part of Scripture is more spiritual than the psalms ; none filled with clearer dis- coveries 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.
2. The wisdom of God appears in his government of his creatures. The regular motion of the creatures speaks for his 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 ap- pears 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 dis- course to his government of man, as rational, as sinful, as restored.
(1.) 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 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 oif true harmony. So the laws of men are com- posed by wisdom, though they are enforced by will and authority.
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 there- fore called holy and good, Rom. vii. 12 : holy, as it prescribes our duty to God in his worship ; good, as it regulates the ofiices of human life, and pre- serves the common interest of mankind.
First, 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 understandmg to dis- cern, nor will to choose. It is therefore to be observed, that whilst Christ * Castellio, Dialog. 1. iv. p. 46.
28 charnock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
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 govern- ment of man ; since God had made him a rational creature, it was not agree- able 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 with- out 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 where- soever 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 anything 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 pre- vailing afi'ection, 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 any command, but what he had ability to observe ; and since we want not power to forbear an apple in our corrupted and im- potent 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.
Secondly, 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, afibrding him both a knowledge of God and of himself. To be without a law, is for man to be as beasts, without justice and without religion. Other things are for the good of the bod}', 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 honour and excellency of that nation : Deut. i. 8, * What nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so right- eous ?' 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 cha- racters of a particular wisdom ; but now an universal wisdom appears, in accommodating his law, not only to this or that particular society or corpo- ration 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
Rom. XYI. 27.] god's wisdom. 29
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 neighbour, the honour 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 endeavour the preservation of one another's beings, the favouring of one another's interests, and increas- ing 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 shewn by a cessa- tion from action, but signifies an order, 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 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 what 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 operations worthy of him, and bene- ficial to the world.
Thirdly, The wisdom of God is seen in suiting his laws to the consciences, as well as the interest 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 inde- lible 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 ex-
80 charnock's wokks. [Rom. XVI. 27.
cellency 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 some stated time is 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 honour 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 con- sciences of men, is further evidenced by those furious reflections and strong alarms of conscience upon a transgression of it, 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 law 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.
Fourtldy. His wisdom is seen in the encouragements he gives for the studying and observing his will : Ps. xis. 11, * In keeping the 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 re- vealed will of God. There is a strain of reason to suit the rational, of elo- quence 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 peremp- tory, 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 humours 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.* Indeed, virtue and holiness, being perfectly amiable, ought chiefly to aflect 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, * Amyraut.
Bom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 31'
or an instinct to ascend from light and airy substances, God serv es himself of the inclination of our natures to happiness, to engender in us an esteem and aflfection to the holiness he doth require. He proposeth the enjoyment of a supernatural good and everlasting glory, as a bait to that insatiable longing our natures have for happiness, to receive the impression of holiness into our souls. And besides, he doth proportion rewards according to the degrees of men's industry, labour, and zeal for him ; and weighs out a recom- pence, 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 honour 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 recom- pences according to their several actions. Ajid 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.
Fifthly, The wisdom of God is seen in fitting the revelations of his will to after times, 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, connection, 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 his beinc the Messiah, Luke xxiv. 27. 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 efiicacy 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 Ptolemy, king of Egypt, some hundreds of years before the coming of Christ) into the Greek language, the tongue the 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 predic- tions so long before made, they might more readily receive the accomplish- ment 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: Mat. xxvi. 27, ' Drink ye ail 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 com- municants 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 of the blessed virgin, Luke i. 27. There is nothing of her holiness mentioned,
* Thpre seems to be here a confusion of the parable in Luke xix. with that in Mat. XXV. — Ed.
32 chaknock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
■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 dis- ciples 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 pre- valency 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 ditferent 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 unuse- ful 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 dishonour as well as of honour ! The corporation of mankind w^ould 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 liveli- hood, the rich depend upon the poor for their conveniencies. 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 labour for the rich, as the earth sends vapours into the vaster and fuller air, and the rich return advantages again to the poor, as the clouds do the vapours in rain upon the earth. As meat would not aftbrd a nourishing juice without bread, and bread without other food would immo- derately 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
Rom. XVI. 27.J god's wisdom. 33
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.
(2.) 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. Ixxvi. 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 ' 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 flood-gates 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 proposed ! 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 Gen. xxxii.
[2.] God's wisdom is seen in the bringing glory to himself out of sin.
VOL. II. C
8-i chaknock's woeks. [Rom. XVI. 27.
First, Out of sin itself. God erects the trophies of honour 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 incarna- tion 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 mani- fested, 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 abun- dance 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 per- mitted 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 behold 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 incur- able 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 desti- tute of an object wherein to discover itself.
Again, wisdom, in ordering a rebellious headstrong world to its own ends, is greater than the ordering an innocent world, exactly observant of his pre- cepts, 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 honour of his wisdom, while man ruined the integrity of his nature ; and made use of the creature's breach of his divine law, to establish the honour of it in a more signal and stable manner, by the active and pas- sive 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.
Secondly, 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 honour contribute to the illustrating of it against his will. This great crafts-master 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
Eoji. XYI. 27.] god's wisdom. 35
fit to succour us ; and as the God of this world, to inspire the wicked Jews to crucify him, whereby to render him actually the Redeemer of the world, and so made 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-condi- tioned 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 colours, as to begin and perfect a beautiful work with a straw and water, things improper for such a design.* 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 oar good, and for his glory, is an act of goodness ; but to make them serviceable to the honour of Christ, and the good of his people, is a wisdom that may well raise our highest admirations, 1 Cor. iii. 22. They are for believers, as they are for the glory of Christ, and as Christ is for the glory of God.
To chain up Satan wholly, and frustrate his wiles, would be an argument of divine goodness ; but to sufier him to run his risk, and then improve all his contrivances for his own glorious and gracious ends and purposes, mani- fests, 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 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 natu- ral temper in tearing those that were exposed to them for a prey ; but the intent of the magistrates was to punish their crimes. The magistrate inspired not the lions with their rage, that they had from their natures ; but served themselves of that natural rage to execute justice,
Thirdbj, 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 infinite act of 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 per- mission 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 holi- ness, wills sin as an end ; but, in regard of his wisdom, he wills to pennit 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.
* Mouliu's Serin. Decad. x. p. 231, 232.
36 chaenock's works. [Rom. XYI. 27.
First, 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 contrarieties, by the lust and irregular aft'ection 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 gi-eatest wickedness. As God out of the chaos of rude and indigested matter framed the first crea- tion, so from the sins of men, and malice of Satan, he hath erected the everlasting scheme of honour 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 action 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 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 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 the 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 fijst 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 endeavoured 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 endeavoured to spoil the cor- poration 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, avay.i:pa\arjjGa6dai ; all united in him and reduced under one head. That though our Saviom- 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, 23.
Roii, XYI. 27.] god"s wisdom. 37
Secondly, 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 aflection ; 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, and 1. 30.
The Jews' unbelief was a step whereby the Gentiles arose to the know- ledge of the gospel ; as the setting of the sun in one place is the rising of it in another. Mat. xxii. 9. He uses the corruptions of men instrumentally to propagate his gospel ; he built up the true church by the preaching of ' some out of envy,' Philip, i. 15, as he blessed Israel out of the mouth of a false prophet, Num. xxiii. How often have the heresies of men been the occasion of clearing up the truth of God, and fixing the more Hvely impres- sions of it on 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 liesh, Gen. xxxviii. 29 compared with Mat. 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 metropoUs 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 mariners' prayer, ver. 14, evidenceth 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 deliverance 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.
Thirdly, 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 ior that noble part of charity, in holy admonitions and compassion to the souls
38 charnock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
of our neighbours, and endeavours to reduce them out of a destructive to a happy path ? HumiUty would not have had so many grounds for its growth and exercise, and holy sorrow had 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 valour. Now sin being evil, and such as cannot but be evil, hath no respect in itself to any 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.
The sins and corruptions remaining in the heart of a man, God orders for good, and there are good efiects by the direction of his wisdom and grace.
As the soul respects God.
1st, God often brings forth a sensibleness of the necessity of depend- ence 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 : Mat. xxvi. 35, « Though I should die with thee, yet I will not deny thee.' God leaves sometimes the brightest souls in an 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 : Hosea 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 regenera- tion 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 become 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 humour. This was the reason of the apostle Paul's ' thorn in the flesh,' 2 Cor. xii. 9, 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
Rom. XYI. 27.] god's wisdom. 39
a condition, that they may lay the faster hold on him who is ' near to all that call upon him.'
2dly, God hereby raiseth higher estimations of the value and virtue of the blood of Christ. As the great reason why God permitted sin to enter ' into the world, was to honour himself in the Redeemer, so the continuance of sin, and the conquests it sometimes makes in renesved men, are to honour 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 right- eousness of Christ for our justification. We should confide in inherent righteousness, and slight imputed.
If God should take ofi" 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 Re- deemer. 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 honour 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 wash- ing us, if our infirmities did not mind us of fresh reiterations and applica- tions of it.
Our Saviour's ofiice of advocacy was erected especially for sins committed after a justified and renewed state, 1 John ii. 1. We should scarce remem- ber we had an advocate, and scarce make use of him, without some sensible necessity ; but our remainders of sin discover our impotency, and an impos- sibility for us either to expiate our sin, or conform to the law, which neces- sitates 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. 25, '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 condemna- tion,' chap. 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.
3dly, 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 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
40 charnock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
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 forwai'd.
Our Saviour, after his resurrection, put Peter upon the exercise of that love to him, which had so lately shrunk his head out of suiiering, John xxi. 15-17 ; and no doubt but the consideration of his base denial, together with a re- flection upon a gracious pardon, engaged his ingenuous soul to stronger and fiercer flames of afiection. A believer's courage for God is more sharpened oftentimes by the shame of his fall. He endeavours to repair the faults of his ingratitude and 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 vigour, 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.
4thly, Again, humility towards God is another good divine wisdom brings forth from the occasion of siu. 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. 29, ' 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 prin- ciple of love in me to thy name. He was ashamed that himself, who ap- peared 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. h. 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 shewing 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 a man's own corruption, to keep up a sense of the ancient sale we made of ourselves to both.
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 humi- lity, and an occasion of a thorough sanctification and growth in grace, which prepares us for a state of glory.
1st, He makes use of one sin's breaking out to discover more, and so
EoM. XYI. 27.] god's wisdom. 41
brings us to a self-abhorrency and indignation against sin, the first step to- wards heaven. Perhaps David, before his gross fall, thought he had no hj'pocrisy in him. We often find him appealing to God for his integrity, and desii'ing 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 desii'es God to ' renew a right spirit ' within him, and speaks of ' truth in the inward parts,' Ps. li. 6, 10 ; the stirring of one 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 expres- sions against God upon the account of his own integrity, upon his recovery from his afiiiction, 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.
'idly, 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 wis- dom 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 observ- ing 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 ob- noxious 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 ambush prevents the design of the enemy upon a greater, as God sutlers heresies in the church, to try our faith, so he sutlers 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 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 humoured, that a man might not fall from the craziness they have left in him, which he is apt to do if relapses are not carefully provided against. A man becomes more careful of anything that may contribute to the resurrection of an expired disease.
Mly, 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 im- petuous stirring of a humour in a disease is sometime critical, and a prog-
42 charnock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
Dostic of the strength of nature against it, whereby the disease loseth its strength by its struggling, and makes room for health to take place by de- grees. 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 uncapable 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 of before, and therefore, as he proves more strong, 60 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 bruis- ing 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 foun- tain 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 permit- ting it to stir and defile.
4:thbj, Sometimes divine wisdom makes it an occasion to promote a sanctification in all parts of the soul. As the working of one ill-humour 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 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 endeavoured a thorough sanctifica- tion : Ps. li. 7, ' Purge me, wash me ; ' and that he meant not only a sanc- tification 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 sometime takes occasion from one sin, to reckon with men in a way of justice for others, so he sometimes takes occasion from the com- mission 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 has been the occasion of a man's conversion. The fall of mankind occasioned a more blessed restoration, and the falls of par- ticular 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.
5thly, Hereby the growth in grace is furthered. It is a wonder of divine wisdom, to subtract sometimes his 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
Rom. XVI. 27. j god's wisdom. 48
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. 5. How doth faith, that sunk under the waves, lift up its head again, and carry the soul out with a greater liveliness ! What ardours of love, what floods of repent- ing 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 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 God is. They would not behold the lustre of divine wisdom, as without night we could not under- stand 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 pur- poses 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.
(3.) The wisdom of God appears in the government of man in his conver- sion and return to him. If there be a counsel inframing the lowest crea- ture, 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
44 chaenock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
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 endow- ments, 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, 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 humours, divers 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 inter- pretations 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 guided 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 seasons of conversion. The prudence of man consists in the timing the execution 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 intro- duce his grace into the soul in the fittest season.
This attribute Paul, in the story of his own conversion, puts a particular mark 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 v)ise God, be honour 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
Rom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 45
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 honour and his creatures' happiness.
It is observable, which I have upon another occasion noted, 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 suHered him to kick against the pricks of miracles, and the convincing discourse of Stephen at his martyrdom. 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 havock of the church. Acts viii. 3. He had surely many more accomplices, 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 oppor- tunity, 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, dis- appoints the high priests, shields his people, discharges their fears by pull- ing Saul out of the devil's hands, and forming Satan's instrument 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 ofliering 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 ; be- cause, without moving men according to those faculties, they would remain unprofitable and unuseful in man. 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 accom- modate 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 omr happiness, and bending our wills according * Daillc sur Philip., part i. p. 545, 546.
46 chakxock's wores. [Rom. XYI. 27.
to this light, to desire and move couveniently to this end of our calling ; efficaciously, yet agreeably ; powerfully, yet without imposing on our natural faculties ; sweetly,* without violence in ordering the means, but effectually, without failing in accomplishing the end. And therefore the Scripture calleth it ' teaching,' John vi. 45, ' alluring,' Hosea ii. 14, ' 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 con- straint. 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 theii- 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 spii-it 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 oilers, 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 thej- 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 con- duct 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 know- ledge and study that those eastern nations used, which was much in astro- nomy. 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 diseipHne 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 of his law, both in that it was the gi-eatest evil that man might fear, and so was a convenient means to keep him in his due bound, and also in the pro- portion of it to the transgression. Nothing less could be in a wise justice * Sanderson, part ii. p. 205.
Eoli. XYI. 27.] god's wisdom. 47
inflicted upon an oflfender 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.
First, His wisdom appears in judgments, in the suiting them to the quali- ties 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 oflendiug, 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 work- ing ;' so some understand the place : ' With the fro ward he will shew him- self froward.'
He proportions punishment to the sin, and writes the cause of the judg- ment 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 Egyp- tian* 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. Afiiictions also are wisely proportioned. God, as a wise physician, considers the nature of the humour and strength of the patient, and suits his medicines both to the one and the other, 1 Cor. x. 13.
Secondly, In the seasons of punishments and afiiictions. He stays till sin be ripe, that his justice may appear more equitable, and the offender more in- excusable: 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 pur- pose ; 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 chambers and retiring-places God had provided for them. He made not Jerusalem the shambles for his enemies till he had made Pella and other places the ark of his friends. As Pliny tells us, the providence of God holds the seas 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
48 chahnock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
was established in the faith ;* he would not expose her to so great combats while she was weak and feeble, hut gave her time to fortify herself, to be rendered more capable of bearing up under them. 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.
Thirdly, It is apparent in the gracious issue of afflictions and penal evils. It is a part of wisdom to bring good out of the 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 integi-ity 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 medi- cines. 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.f 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.
Fourthly, 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 know- ledge of Christ by those chains in that city that triumphed over the earth, Acts xxviii. 31. And his afflictive bonds added courage and resolution to others — Philip, i. 14, 'Many waxing confident by my bonds' — which could not in their own nature produce such an effect, but by the order and con- trivance of divine wisdom. In their own nature they would rather make them disgust the doctrine he suffered for, and cool their zeal in the propa- gating of it, for fear of the same disgrace and hardship they saw him suffer. J 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, Philip, 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 favour to the doctrine among those barbarians. How often hath
* Daille sur 1 Cor. x. p. 390. t Daille sur Philip. Parta. p. 116, 117.
t Turretine, Serm. p. 53.
Rom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. 49
he multiplied the church by death and massacres, and increased it by those means used to annihilate it !
Fifthhj, 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 com- posures, curious threads in his webs, and he works them like an artificer. A goodness wrought for them, curiously wrought, Ps. xxxi. 19.
First, 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 notions* 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 law for a season, to shew himself the absolute Lord and Governor of nature. Yet if frequent alteratiojis of tlsis nature were made, they would impede the know- ledge 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 may be opened for their removal into that country ; the truth of his prediction in their captivity accomplished, and a way made after f 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 afiiiction. He might have struck Goliah, the captain of the Philistines' army, with a thunderbolt from heaven when he blas- phemed 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 con- front 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 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 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 in- tended preservation of a people.
Secondly, 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^ * Qu. ' motions ' ?— Ed. t Qu. ' for ' ?— Ed.
VOL. II. D
60 chaknock's works. [Rom. XVI. 27.
his darling people their deliverance. When Paul was upon his journey to Damxaseus with a persecuting commission, he is struck down, for the security of tJae 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 th« 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 trisimph 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, Esther viii. and ix. 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 works of his own hands.' ' He scatters the proud in the iimagination 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 diose in their superstructure, that no human power or wisdom .could raze them dow^a. He hath then disappointed their projects, and befooled their -craft. How often hath he kept back the tire 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 others.
Thirdl}', 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 Aholiab with the spirit of wisdom and understanding in all cunning workmanship, Esod. 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 honoiu* 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 cut 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 con- versation with Jethro, a man of more than 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 chnrch in the world. So Elijah, a high-spirited man, of a hot and angry temper, one that slighted the frowns and undervalued the favour of princes, is set up to stem the torrent of the 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 favourers never designed, nor ever dreamed of; but God by his infinite wisdom made these several desio;ns, like several arrows shot at
Rom. XYI. 27. j god's wisdom. 51
rovers, meet in one mark to whicli he directed them, viz., in bringing forth an instrument to render peace to the world, and security and increase to his church.
(3.) The wisdom of God doth wonderfully appear in redemption. His wisdom in creation ravisheth the eye and understanding ; his wisdom in government doth no less affect a curious observer of the links and concate- nation 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 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 in his person, were hid all the treasm-es of wisdom and knowledge, Col. 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 'nisdom of God. Christ is the wisdom of God principally, and the gospel instrumeutally, as it is the power of God instrumeutally 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 capa- city of an angel, more than the abstruse qualities of the creatures are to the understanding of man. No wisdom of men or angels is able to search all the veins of this mine, to tell all the threads of this web, or to understand 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 appre- hensions of it as a child doth of the counsel of the wisest prince. It is so bidden 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 kno^Ti by the church the manifold wisdom of God,' Noiv made known to them, not before, and now made known to them ' in heavenly places.' They had not the knowledge of all heavenly mysteries, though they had the possession of heavenly
52 chaenock's wobks. [Rom. XVI. 27.
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 ex- cellent 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 good- ness. The means are the conjunction of two natures infinitely distant 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 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 honour, 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 revela- tion, ordering all affairs and occurrences in the world for the attaining the end of his counsel. Wisdom refers to the mystery, prudence to the mani- festation of it in fit ways and convenient seasons ; wisdom, to the contriv- ance 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 honour 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 con- gruous to the wisdom which appeared in the execution of his counsel, and the conditions of enjoying the fruit of it, most wise and reasonable.
First, The greatest different interests are reconciled, justice in punishing and mercy in pardoning. For man had broken the law, and plunged him- self into a gulf of misery. The sword of vengeance was unsheathed by jus- tice, 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 destruc- tion, and mercy votes for salvation. Justice would draw the sword, and drench it in the blood of the offender ; mercy would draw 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.
First, Justice pleads. I arraign before the tribunal a rebel who was the
KoM. XYI. 27.] god's wisdom. 58
glorious work of thy hands, the centre of thy rich goodness, and a counter- part of thy own image. He is indeed miserable, whereby to excite thy com- passion ; 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 of his crime. He is a rebel, not by necessity, but will. "VVTiat constraint was there upon him to hsten to the counsels of the enemy of God ? WTiat 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 honour. 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 righteous- ness and reason be rejected by the supreme and infaUible reason, because the rebellious creature hath trampled upon it ? What ! must God abrogate his holy law, because the creature hath slighted it ? What reflection will this be upon the wisdom that enacted it, and upon the equity of the command and sanction of it ! Either man must sufier, or the holy law be expunged, and for ever out of date. And is it not better man should eternally smart under his crime, than any dishonourable reflections of unrighteousness be cast upon the law, and of folly and want of foresight upon the lawgiver ? Not to punish would be to approve the devil's lie, and justify the creature's revolt ; it would be a condemnation of thy own law as unrighteous, and a sentencing thy own wisdom as imprudent. Better man should for ever bear the punishment of his ofience, than God bear the dishonour of his attri- butes ; better man should be miserable, than God should be unrighteous, unwise, false, and tamely bear the denial of his sovereignty. But what ad- vantage would it be to gratify mercy by pardoning the malefactor ? Besides the irreparable dishonour to the law, the falsifying thy veracity in not exe- cuting the denounced threatening, he would receive encouragement by such a grace to spurn more at thy sovereignty, and oppose thy holiness by run- ning on in a course of sin with hopes of impunity. If the creature be restored, it cannot be expected that he that hath fared so well, after the breach of it, should be very careful of a future observance ; his easy re-ad- mission would abet him in the repetition of his ofi"ence, and thou shalt soon find him cast ofi" all moral dependence on thee. Shall he be restored with- out any condition or covenant ? He is a creature not to be governed with-
64 chaenock's woeks. [Rom. XYI. 27.
out a law, and a law is not to be enacted without a penalty. What future regard will he have to thy precept, or what fear will he have of thy threat- ening, if his crime be so lightly passed over ? Is it the stability of thy word ? What reason will he have to give credit to that which he hath found already disregarded by thyself? Thy truth in future threatenings will be of no force with him who hath experienced thy laying it aside in the former. It is necessary therefore that the rebellious creature should be punished, for the preservation of the honour of the law and the honour of the lawgiver, with all those perfections that are united in the composure of it.
Secondly, Mercy doth not want a plea. It is true, indeed, i^he sin of man wants not its aggravations : he hath slighted thy goodness, and accepted thy enemy as his counsellor ; but it was not a pure act of his own, as the devil's revolt was. He had a tempter, and the devil had none ; he had, I acknow- ledge, an understanding to know thy will, and a power to obey it, yet it was mutable, and had a capacity to fall. It was no difficult task that was set him, nor a hard yoke that was laid upon [him] ; yet he had a brutish part, as well as a rational, and sense as well as soul, whereas the fallen angel was a pure intellectual spirit. Did God create the world to suffer an eternal dishonour, in letting himself be outwitted by Satan, and his work wrested out of his hands ? Shall the work of eternal counsel presently sink into irreparable destruction, and the honour of an Almighty and wise work be lost in the ruin of the creature ? This would seem contrary to the nature of thy good- ness, to make man only to render him miserable ; to design him in his crea- tion for the service of the devil, and not for the service of his Creator. What else could be the issue, if the chief work of thy hand, defaced presently after the erecting, should for ever remain in this marred condition ; what can be expected upon the continuance of his misery, but a perpetual hatred and enmity of thy creature ? Did God in creation design his being hated, or his being loved by his creature ? Shall God make a holy law, and have no obe- dience to that law from that creature whom it was made to govern ? Shall the curious workmanship of God, and the excellent engravings of the law of nature in his heart, be so soon defaced, and remain in that blotted condition for ever ? This fall thou couldst not but in the treasures of thy infinite knowledge foresee ; why hadst thou goodness then to create him in an in- tegrity, if thou wouldst not have mercy to pity him in misery ? Shall thy enemy for ever trample upon the honour of thy work, and triumph over the glory of God, and applaud himself in the success of his subtilty ? Shall thy creature only passively glorify thee as an avenger, and not actively as a compassionater ? Am not I a perfection of thy nature as well as justice ? Shall justice engross all, and I never come into view ? It is resolved already, that the fallen angels shall be no subjects for me to exercise myself upon, and I have now less reason than before to plead for them. They fell with a full consent of will, without any motion from another ; and, not content with their own apostasy, they envy thee, and thy glory upon earth, as well as in heaven, and have drawn into their party the best part of the creation below. Shall Satan plunge the whole creation in the same irreparable ruin with himself? If the creature be restored, will he contract a boldness in sin by impunity ? Hast thou not a grace to render him ingenuous in obe- dience, as well as a compassion to recover him from misery ? What will hinder, but that such a grace, which hath established the standing angels, may establish this recovered creature ? If I am utterly excluded from exer- cising myself on men, as I have been from devils, a whole species is lost ; nay, I can never expect to appear upon the stage. If thou wilt quite ruin him by justice, and create another world, and another man, if he stand, thy
Rom. XVI. 27.] god's wisdom. SS
bounty will be eminent ; yet there is no room for mercy to act upon unless, by the commission of sin, he exposeth himself to misery ; and if sin enter into another world, I have little hopes to be heard then if I am rejected now. Worlds will be perpetually created by goodness, wisdom, and power ; sin entering into these worlds, will be perpetually punished by justice ; and mercy, which is a perfection of thy nature, will for ever be commanded silence, and lie wrapt up in an eternal darkness. Take occasion now, there- fore, to expose me to the knowledge of thy creature, since, without misery, mercy can never set foot into the world.
Mercy pleads, if man be ruined, the creation is in vain ; justice pleads, if man be not sentenced, the law is in vain ; truth backs justice, and grace abets mercy. What shall be done in this seeming contradiction ? Mercy is not manifested, if man be not pardoned ; justice will complain, if man be not punished.
Thirdly, An expedient is found out by the wisdom of God to answer these demands, and adjust the differences between them. The wisdom of God answers, I will satisfy your pleas. The pleas of justice shall be satisfied in punishing, and the pleas of mercy shall be received in pardoning. Justice shall not complain for want of punishment, nor mercy for want of compassion. I will have an infinite sacrifice to content justice, and the virtue and fruit of that sacrifice shall delight mercy. Here shall justice have punishment to accept, and mercy shall have pardon to bestow. The rights of Iboth are preserved, and the demands of both amicably accorded in punish- ment and pardon, by transferring the punishment of our crimes upon a surety, exacting a recompence from his blood by justice, and conferring life and salvation upon us by mercy, without the expense of one drop of our own. Thus is justice satisfied in its severities, and mercy in its indulgences. The riches of grace are twisted with the terrors of wrath. The bowels of mercy are wound about the flaming sword of justice, and the sword of justice protects and secures the bowels of mercy. Thus is God righteous without being cruel, and merciful without being unjust ; his righteousness inviolable, and the world recoverable. Thus is a resplendent mercy brought forth in the midst of all the curses, confusions, and wrath threatened to the offender.
Thus is the admirable temperament found out by the wisdom of God, his justice is honoured in the sufferings of man's surety, and his mercy is honoured in the application of the propitiation to the offender. Eom. iii. 24, 25, * Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ ; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.' Had we in our persons been sacrifices to justice, mercy had for ever been unknown ; had we been solely fostered by mercy, justice had for ever been secluded ; had we, being guilty, been absolved, mercy might have rejoiced, and justice might have com- plained ; had we been solely punished, justice would have triumphed, and mercy grieved. But by this medium of redemption, neither hath ground of complaint. Justice hath nothing to charge when the punishment is inflicted, mercy hath whereof to boast when the surety is accepted. The debt of the sinner is transferred upon the surety, that the merit of the surety may be conferred upon the sinner ; so that God now deals with our sins in a way of consuming justice, and with our persons in a way of relieving mercy. It is highly better and more glorious than if the claim of one had been granted, with the exclusion of the demand of the other. It had then been either an unrighteous mercy