SURETISHIP. ] 85
any one or any means that may give evidence that so it is, — that is, of a "witness. But upon a supposition that what is proposed is his word or promise, there can be no imagination or fear of any defect on his part, so as that there should be any need of a surety for the performance of it. He doth therefore make use of witnesses to coniii-m his word, — that is, to testify that such promises he hath made, and so he will do : so the Lord Christ was his witness. Isa. xliii. 10, " Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen;" but they were not all his sureties. So he affirms that " he came into the world to hear tvitness unto the truth,'' John xviii. 37, — that is, the truth of the promises of God; for he was the minister of the circumcision for the truth of the pror)iises of God unto the fathers, Rom. XV. 8 : but a surety for God, properly so called, he was not, nor could be. The distance and difference is wide enough between a ivitness and a surety ; for a surety must be of more ability, or more credit and reputation, than he or those for whom he is a surety, or there is no need of his suretiship ; or, at least, he must add imto their credit, and make it better than without him. This none can be for God, no, not the Lord Christ himself, who, in his whole work, was the servant of the Father. And the apostle doth not use this word in a general, improper sense, for any one that by any means gives assurance of any other thing, for so he had ascribed nothing peculiar unto Christ ; for in such a sense all the prophets and apostles were sureties for God, and many of them confirmed the truth of his word and promises with the laying down of their lives; but such a surety he intends as undertaketh to do that for others which they cannot do for themselves, or at least are not reputed to be able to do what is required of them.
3. The apostle had before at large declared who and what was God's surety in this matter of the covenant, and how impossible it was that he should have any other. And this was himself alone, in- terposing himself by his oath; for in this cause, " because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself," Heb. vi. 13, 14. Wherefore, if God would give any other surety besides himself, it must be one greater than he. This being every way impossible, he sivears by himself only. Many ways he may and doth use for the declaring and testifying of his truth unto us, that we may know and believe it to be his word ; and so the Lord Christ in his ministry was the principal witness of the truth of God. But other surety than himself he can have none. And therefore, —
4. When he would have us in this matter not only come unto the full assurance of faith concerning his promises, but also to have strong consolation therein, he resolves it wholly into the immutabi- lity of his counsel, as declared l)y his promise and oath, chap. vi.
186 ON JUSTIFICATION.
18, 19 : so that neither is God capable of having any surety, pro- perly so called; neither do we stand in need of any on his part for the confirmation of our faith in the highest degree.
5. We, on all accounts, stand in need of a surety for us, or on our behalf. Neither, without the interposition of such a surety, could any covenant between God and us be firm and stable, or an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure. In the first covenant made v/ith Adam there was no surety, but God and men were the imme- diate covenanters ; and although we were then in a state and con- dition able to perform and answer all the terms of the covenant, yet was it broken and disannulled. If this came to pass by the failure of the promise of God, it was necessary that on the making of a new covenant he shoidd have a surety to undertake for him, that the covenant might be stable and everlasting; but this is false and blasphemous to imagine. It was man alone who failed and broke that covenant : wherefore it Avas necessary, that upon the making of the new covenant, and that with a design and purpose that it should oiever be disannulled, as the former was, we should have a surety and undertaker for us ; for if that first covenant was not firm and stable, because there was no surety to undertake for us, notwithstanding all that ability which we had to answer the terms of it, how much less can any other be so, now [that] our natures are become depraved and sinful ! Wherefore we alone were capable of a surety, properly so called, for us; we alone stood in need of him; and without him the covenant could not be firm and inviolate on our part. The surety, therefore of this covenant, is so with God for us.