This, therefore, also belonged unto the care of divine wisdom, ■ — namely, that the glory of God in none of the holy properties of his nature did suffer any diminution hereby.
All this, and inconceivably more than we are able to express, being contained in the sin of our apostasy from God, it must needs follow that the condition of all mankind became thereby inexpressibly evil. As we had done all the moral evil which our nature was capable to act, so it was meet we should receive all the penal evil which our na- ture was capable to undergo ; and it all issued in death temporal and eternal, inflicted from the wrath of God.
This is the first thing to be considered in our tracing the footsteps of divine wisdom in our deliverance by the incarnation of the Son of God. Without due conceptions of the nature of this sin and apostasy — of the provocation given unto God thereby, of the injury attempted to be done unto the glory of all his properties, of his concernment in their reparation, with the unspeakable misery that mankind was fal- len into — we cannot have the least view of the glorious actings of divine wisdom in our deliverance by Christ; and, therefore, the most of those who are insensible of these things, do wholly reject the prin- cipal instances of infinite wisdom in our redemption ; as we shall yet
188 THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
see farther afterward. And the great reason why the glory of God in Christ doth so httle irradiate the minds of many, that it is so much neglected and despised, is because they are not acquainted nor affected with the nature of our first sin and apostasy, neither in itself nor its woful effects and consequents.
But, on the supposition of these things, a double inquiry ariseth with reference unto the wisdom of God, and the other holy properties of his nature immediately concerned in our sin and apostasy.
1. Whereas man by sin had defaced the image of God, and lost it, whereby there was no representation of his holiness and righteousness left in the whole creation here below — no way of rendering any glory to him, in, for, or by, any other of his works — no means to bring man unto the enjoyment of God, for which he was made; — and whereas he had brought confusion and disorder into the rule and kingdom of God, which, according unto the law of creation and its sanction, could not be rectified but by the eternal ruin of the sinner; and had, more- over, given up himself unto the rule and conduct of Satan : — whether, I say, hereon it was meet, with respect unto the holy properties of the divine nature, that all mankind should be left eternally in this con- dition, without remedy or relief ? or whether there were not a conde- cency and suitableness unto them, that at least our nature in some portion of it should be restored?
2. Upon a sujDposition that the granting of a recovery was suited unto the holy perfections of the divine nature, acting themselves by infinite wisdom, what rays of that wisdom may we discern in the find- ing out and constitution of the way and means of that recovery?
The first of these I shall speak briefly unto in this place, because I have treated more largely concerning it in another. For there are many things which argue a condecency unto the divine perfections herein — namely, that mankind should not be left utterly remediless in that guilt of misery whereinto it was plunged. I shall at present only insist on one of them.
God had originally created two sorts of intellectual creatures, capable of the eternal enjoyment of himself — namely, angels and men. That he would so make either sort or both, was a mere effect of his sove- reign wisdom and pleasure ; but on a supposition that he would so make them, they must be made for his glory. These two sorts thus created he placed in several habitations, prepared for them, suitable unto their natures and the present duties required of them; the angels in heaven above, and men on earth below. Sin first invaded the nature of angels, and cast innumerable multitudes of them out of their primitive condition. Hereby they lost their capacity of, and right unto, that enjoyment of God which their nature was prepared and made meet for ; neither Avould God ever restore them thereimto.
MAN CAPABLE OF ENJOYING GOD. 189
And in the instance of dealing with them, when he " spared them not, ])ut shut them up in chains of everlasting darkness unto the judgment of the great day," he manifested how righteous it was to leave sinning, apostate creatures in everlasting misery. If anything of relief be provided for any of them, it is a mere effect of sovereign gTace and wisdom, whereunto God was no way obliged. Howbeit, the whole angelical nature, that was created in a capacity for the eternal enjoyinent of God, perished not ; nor doth it seem consistent with the wisdom and goodness of God, that the whole entire species or kind of creatures made capable of glory in the eternal enjoyment of him, should at once immediately be excluded from it. That such a thing should fall out as it were accidentally, without divine provision and disposal, would argue a defect in wisdom, and a possibility of a sur- prisal into the loss of the whole glory he designed in the creation of all things ; and to have it a mere effect of divine ordination and dis- posal, is as little consistent with his goodness. Wherefore, the same nature which sinned and perished in the angels that fell, abideth in the enjoyment of God in those myriads of blessed spirits which " left not their first habitation."