2. That this Mediator is God in our nature. Therein the wisdom of God appeared, in crossing and counter-working Satan's design. Satan's great design was double — to dislionour God, and depress the nature of man. (L) To dishonour God to man by a false represent- ation, as if he were envious of man's happiness : Gen. iii. 5, ' God doth know in the day that ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.' His first battery was against the goodness of God, to weaken tiie esteem thereof. Now, by the incarnation of Christ, the Lord's grace is wonderfully mani- fested. He is represented as lovely and amiable in our eyes, not envying our holiness and happiness, but promoting it, and that at the most costly rate, and showing love to man above all his other creatures. ' God is love,' 1 John iv. 8. It is eminently demonstrated to us in the Son of God assuming our nature and dying for us, Rom. v. 8. When Christ was incarnate, love was incarnate. Love walked up and down and healed all sicknesses and diseases, love died, and love hung on a cross, love was buried in the grave. When that ill representation was suggested to us, it was necessary there should be some eminent demonstration of the love of God to man. Especially after we had made ourselves liable to his wrath, and were conscious to ourselves that we had incurred his displeasure ; and so it was necessary that we should have some notable discovery of his philanthropy, or love to mankind. Many believers are harassed with doubts and fears, and cannot come to be persuaded that God loves them. ' Herein is love,' and ' God commended his love to us in that his Son died for us.' (2.) The next design of Satan was to depress the nature of man, which in its innocence stood so near to God. Now that the human nature, so depressed and debased by the malicious suggestion of the tempter, should be so elevated and ad- vanced, and set up so far above the angelical nature, and admitted to dwell witii God in a personal union, it is a mighty counter-working of Satan, and showeth the great wisdom of God. When he laboured to put God and us asunder, the Lord sent his Son, who took the unity of our nature into his own person.
3. That being in our nature, he would set us a pattern of obedience hy his holy life ; for he lived by the same laws that we are bound to live by. He imposed no duty upon us but what he underwent him- self, that he might bo an example of holiness unto us. We learn of him obedience to God at the dearest rates ; contempt of the world, and contentation with a low and mean estate, and to be lowly and
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meek in heart, Mat. xi. 29. Now man beinj? so prone to imitation, it is the greatest effect of the wisdom of God thus to obhj:je us, unless we would be utterly unlike liim whom we own as our Lord, and from whom we have all our hopes and expecLations.
4. That he should die the death of the cross to expiate our sins. Gal. iii. 13, ' Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us,' &c. ; Phil. ii. 8, ' He humbled himself, and be- came obedient unto death, even the death of the cross ; '_ that the justice of God might be eminently demonstrated, the lawgiver vindi- cated, and the breach that was made in the frame of government repaired, and God might keep up his just honour without prejudice to his people's happiness, that he might "be manifested to be holy, and a hater of sin, and yet the sinner saved from destruction, Rom. iii. 2.5, 26. An absolute pardon without satisfaction might have exposed God's laws to contempt, as if the violation of them were not much to be stood upon ; therefore God dispensed his grace with all wisdom and prudence ; would show eminent mercy, but withal a demon- stration of his justice and holiness, that the world might still be kept in awe, and there might be a full concord and harmony between his mercy and justice.
5. That after his death he should rise from the dead and ascend into heaven, to prove the reality of the life to come, 1 Peter iii. 21. Guilty man is fallen under the power and fear of death, strangely haunted with doubts about the other world ; therefore did Christ in our nature arise from the dead and ascend into heaven, that he might give a visible demonstration of the visible resurrection and life to come, which he had promised to us ; and so encourage us, by a life of patience in sufferings, to follow after him into those blessed mansions. So that from first to last you see the wisdom of God.
II. The publication of it in the gospel or covenant of grace. It is ' ordered in all things and sure,' 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. The messengers by whom it is published are not extraordinary ones, but men of like pas- sion with ourselves. The great thing in a minister is love to souls. Christ saith, he ' came not to be ministered unto but to minister.' In the covenant of grace, you see the wisdom of God in two things : — (1.) The privileges offered ; (2.) The terms or duties required.