him, the gladder should they be. The making of a thousand new friends could not have expressed so much love as the reconciling one enemy. To love and delight in friends, who had never wronged him, was too narrow, shallow, and slight a way. He had heights, 'depths, breadth of love: Eph. iii. 18, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height.' Which heights and depth of love he would make known, and which nothing but the depths of our misery could have drawn out.

And that this is the reason, see Rom. v. 8, 10, But God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' Ver. 10, For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.' God commends his love towards us, that whilst we were yet enemies, he gave his Son for us, not to be born only, but to die. Both our being sinners, and his giving his Son, commends or sets out his love; and that he might commend it, he pitcheth on this course. And that this love should be pitched upon men, not the angels that fell, it yet further commends his love. There were but two sorts of sinners whose sins could be taken away; and of the twain, who would not have thought but the fallen angels should have been propounded first, and have passed more easily? They were fairer and better creatures than we; and if he regarded service, one of them was able to do him more than a thousand of us. When he had bought us, he must be at a great deal of more trouble to preserve and tend us, than we were able ever to requite in service and attendance upon him. He must allow us much of our time to sleep, and eat, and to be idle in; to refresh our bodies, and tend us as you would tend a child; rock us asleep every night, and make our beds in sickness; Ps. xli. 3, The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness;' and feed us himself in due season. Whereas the angels, they could stand in his presence day and night, and not be weary. And, besides, the nature of the angels had been a fitter match a great deal for his Son. They are spirits, and so in a nearer assimilation to him. Who ever thought he should close to match so low as with us? All this makes for us still the more love, for it was the more free. And the more unlikely it is that he could love such as we, the more his love is commended. The less we could do for him or for ourselves, the more it would appear he did for us. He is honoured more in our dependence than our service. He hath regard to the lowness of his spouse and handmaids, and lets the mighty go, principalities and powers; he loves still to prefer the younger, and make the elder serve them, Rom. ix. The angels are ministering spirits for their good. Among men he culls out still the poor, the foolish, not many wise or noble; and he makes as unlikely a choice amongst his

creatures.

CHAPTER IV.

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That God, in pursuance of his gracious design to save sinners, exercised his wisdom to contrive the fittest means of accomplishing it.-Though God might have pardoned sin without satisfaction, yet he would not; and the reasons of it.

As God's purpose was thus strongly bent upon the salvation of men, so his wisdom and counsel were exercised about the means whereby it might

* Qu. 'he'?-ED

be effected; and it is a business that requires the depths of his wisdom. We silly men set upon many projects, which at first view delight and affect us; and we are hot upon them, which yet upon consultation we find not feasible, and so leave them, meeting with such difficulties in them as we know not how to compass them; though when the heart is fully set upon any business, it will set wit and invention a-work to find out all means that wit can reach to.

Now, as God's strong purpose and delights were in this great work, so also his depths of wisdom were in it also. Therefore God's will is said to have counsel joined with it, to work all by counsel, Eph i. 11. He works all by counsel, to effect and bring to pass what his will hath pitched upon, and the stronger his will is in a thing, the deeper are his counsels about it; and this business, as he resolves to have it carried, will prove such as will draw out his depths of wisdom.

And therefore as you have seen his will thus strongly pitched upon it, as his highest and deepest project, to manifest the dearest affection in him to the utmost, so you shall now see his wisdom soar as high (indeed infinitely) out of our sight, thoughts, and imaginations, to find out a correspondent means, not only to effect it, but in effecting it to shew both love and wisdom, and give full satisfaction to his justice, which was infinitely beyond the reach of any created understanding to have found out.

There was one way indeed which was more obvious, and that was, to pardon the rebels, and make no more ado of it; for he might if he had pleased have ran a way and course of mere mercy, not tempered with justice at all. He might have pardoned without satisfaction. I will not now dispute it; only this I will say for the confirmation of it, to punish sin being an act of his will, as well as other works of his ad extra, may therefore be suspended as he himself pleaseth. To hate sin is his nature; and that sin deserves death is also the natural and inseparable property, consequent, and demerit of it; but the expression of this hatred, and of what sin deserves by actual punishment, is an act of his will, and so might be suspended.

But besides that this way would not manifest such depths of love, though thus to have pardoned one man had shewn more love than was shewn to all the angels who never sinned; it also was not adequate and answerable to all those his glorious ends, and purposes, and other resolutions in this plot, which he will be constant unto, and make to meet in it (and it is the proper use of wisdom to make all ends meet); and God will not break one rule or purpose he takes up; and he hath other projects afoot besides. For,

First, He meant to give a law, whereof he will not have the least iota to perish or be in vain; Mat. v. 18, For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.' Which law might both discover what was sin, and what a heinous thing it was, and shew by a threatening the punishment which it naturally doth deserve, and what the sinner might expect in justice from him; this was necessary, for where there is no law there is no sin; Rom. v. 13, Sin is not imputed where there is no law.' And otherwise there should have been no sinner actually capable of punishment.

Secondly, Giving this law he takes upon him to be a judge, and the judge of all the world; for in the very making of the law he declares himself to be so.

Thirdly, If so, then he is engaged upon many strong motives to shew

his justice against sin in that punishment he threatened; though still in that he is judge of all the world, and maker of the law, he could if he pleased forbear to execute those threatenings (seeing a note of irrevocation was not added to them); for he that made the law may repeal that part of it, yet most strong motives these are to execute them.

For is he not the judge of all the world? And is it not a righteous thing with God to render vengeance? 2 Thess. i. 5, 6, Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:' ver. 6, Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you.' And shall not the Judge of all the world do right?' Gen. xviii. And is he not therefore to set a copy to all judges else, being judge of all the world? Primum in quolibet genere, est mensura reliquorum. And is not he an abomination to him, that justifies the unrighteous and condemns the innocent? Prov. xvii. 15. These may not dispense with the laws, because they are but his justices; and though he might dispense, being the supreme judge, yet if all the world be his circuit, and he means to condemn the angels by the law, and shew his justice on them, how will he clearly overcome when he judgeth them? as it is in Rom. iii. 4. Stop their mouths, as it is at the 19th verse, if he shews not his justice against those sins he pardons. And though he might say to them, Pay what you owe; what is that to you? yet even the men he pardons, and pardons to that end to shew his mercy, would esteem sin less, and pardon less, if it were procured and obtained lightly; and should sin, which is the greatest inordinacy, and would not be brought in compass in his government, which doth order all things, be left to its extravagant course, and passed unregarded, and escaped as free as holiness?

And again, are not all his attributes his nature, his justice as well as mercy? his hatred of sin, as well as the love of his creature? And is not that nature of his pure act, and therefore active, and therefore provokes all his will to manifest these his attributes upon all occasions? Doth not justice boil within him against sin, as well as his bowels of mercy yearn towards the sinner? Is not the plot of reconciliation his masterpiece, wherein he means to bring all his attributes upon the stage? And should his justice, and this expressed by a law, keep in and sit down contented, without shewing itself? No; and therefore he resolves to be just, and have his justice and law satisfied, as well as to justify the sinner; Rom. iii. 26, To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.' And as to run a course of mere rigorous justice pleased him not, so likewise nor to stretch the pure absolute prerogative of mercy. Wherefore some of the fathers have, after the manner of men, brought in mercy and justice here pleading; the project of mercy was his delight, as mercy is, Micah vii. 18. And he had resolved above all to shew it. But then justice also is his sceptre, whereby he is to rule, and govern, and judge the world. Wherefore his wisdom, as a middle attribute, steps in, and interposeth as a means of mediation between them both, and undertakes to compound the business, and to accommodate all, so as both shall have their desire and aims, their full demonstration and accomplishment.

CHAPTER V.

To the effecting of all the designs, both of justice and mercy, it was necessary that a full and complete satisfaction should be made, which we being unable to pay, divine wisdom thought of another person to undertake and to do it for us.-That God's justice is contented with this commutation of the person, since hereby that attribute is more glorified, and all the ends of the law answered, than if we the offenders had in our own persons suffered the due punishment of sin.

6

This accomplishment of all the designs, both of justice and mercy, must be by satisfaction, by full and adequate ransom, avríλurgov; 1 Tim. ii. 6, 'Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time;' which is redditio æquivalentis pro æquivalenti, which the sinner of himself would never have been able to perform. There is no thinking of it; Rom. v. 6-8, For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.' Ver. 7, For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.' Ver. 8, ‘But God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' We are said to be without strength, and it is there brought in, as the great demonstration of Christ's love in dying for us, when we were yet without strength. And if nothing we are, much less anything we have or can offer; the blood of bulls and goats is not able; it is not possible to take away sin by it: Heb. x. 4, 'For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.' Add to them all the creatures that are the appurtenances of man, which man hath to give, as gold, silver, precious stones, not the whole world of them would do. For nothing less noble than man can be a sufficient surety for man's life, which sin deprives us of. All such things are not worth a soul, which is to be lost for sin, said he that paid for one; Mat. xvi. 26, 'For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' And as it is in Micah vi. 7, Will the Lord be pleased with rivers of oil? nay, with thy firstborn of thy body for the sin of thy soul?' There is no proportion; God would never have turned away so fair a chapman, if his justice could afford so cheap a commutation. And as not rivers of oil, so nor rivers of tears, which (as all other actions that come from us) are defiled, and become but as puddle-water.

upon

His wisdom therefore thought of a commutation, so as that that satisfaction should be performed by a surety in our stead, who might be a mediator and umpire, and who might take our sins upon himself, and whom God might lay the iniquity of us all, Isa. liii. 6, and exact the punishment, as Junius reads it; that might become a surety: Heb. vii. 21, 22, For those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath, by him that said unto him, The Lord sware, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec;' ver. 22, 'By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament;' that might make satisfaction, being made sin : 2 Cor. v. 21, For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' That being made of a woman, might be under the law,' Gal. iv. 4. But

when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,' and who so might give and expose himself as a ransom and avríurgov, a sufficient adequate satisfaction.

And his justice will be content to admit of such a commutation, and that

VOL. V.

B

such a satisfaction should be performed by a surety in our stead. For when all parties are satisfied, and no wrong is done to any, justice may well be satisfied. For if the parties undertaking it be willing, volenti non fit injuria, and the great undertaker having power over that thing which he offers to lay down for satisfaction, being lord of it, no other one is wronged.

Neither is the party to be satisfied wronged, if he that undertakes it be of ability fully to satisfy and to fufil what he desires, and if, being the lawgiver, he be willing to assent to this act of his, and to accept it. For, being Lord of his own law, he may dispense with the letter of it, if so be those holy ends, which his counsel had in making it, be accomplished and attained; and if the reason of the law and lawgiver be satisfied, then is the law. Now the ends and grounds of giving God's law were to declare and shew forth his justice, and hatred against sin wherever he found it. Now his justice and hatred of sin is as fully manifested when punishment is executed upon a party assuming our sins on himself, and undertaking to be a surety, as if the sinner himself were punished; if not more, in that he doth but undertake it for another, and yet is not spared. As God is said to hear our prayers, and fulfil his promise, when he answers to the ground of our prayers, though not in the thing; so are the cries of sin, or* justice against the sinner, answered, and God's threatenings fulfilled, when another is punished, because all the ends of the lawgiver are fully accomplished. It is true, the tenor and letter of the law is dispensed with, but not the debt; that is as fully exacted as ever. It is but a dispensation of the party obliged, not of the obligation itself, or of the debt, or of the reason why the debt is exacted. It is not wholly secundum legem, nor yet contra, ¿vdè xarà νόμον ουδὲ κατὰ νόμου, ἀλλὰ ὑπερ νόμον καὶ ὑπερ νόμου,† it is a saying no less solid than elegant, and therefore the more elegant, because it was anciently used in another case. And although the law doth not mention or name a surety, and the malefactor's single bond be only mentioned therein, and the threatening directed against him, and his name is only in the project, because the law in itself supposeth as yet none else guilty, and can challenge none else, yet if some other, that is lord of his own action, subject himself to the law willingly, which will of his is a law to him, and the lawgiver himself, that is lord of the law, accepts this, as seeing the same ends shall be satisfied for which he made the law; in this case the law takes hold of the surety or undertaker, and he may let the malefactor go free.

And now that his wisdom hath found a course and way of mediation between his justice and his mercy, yet who is there in heaven and earth should be a fit mediator, both able and willing to undertake it, and faithful to perform it?

CHAPTER VI.

The great difficulty was, to find out a person of strength equal to so high an undertaking. Neither angels nor men could have found out or presented a fit person. God manifest in the flesh, for redemption of man, was a mystery above all the thoughts of angels or men, and was worthy only of God's wisdom to find out.

The difficulty is still behind, a mystery so great as would have nonplussed heaven and earth, angels and men, Nodus Deo vindice dignus. So as if

* Qu. 'for'?-ED.

†That is, Neither against the law nor according to the law; but above the law and for the sake of the law.'-ED.