THE UNSEARCHABLENESS OF GOD's WAYS.
Rom. xi. 33. 0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and. knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments , and, his ways past finding out !
ON whatever side we look, we are surrounded with mysteries ; yea, we are a mystery to ourselves. The works of creation, and providence, and redemp- tion, are all mysterious ; and the more we know of them, the more we shall be disposed to exclaim, " O the depths !" Perhaps no one of the children of men
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ever had so deep an insight into the great mysteries of the Gospel as the Apostle Paul : yet, when he had unravelled them in a way that no other man ever did, he was constrained to acknowledge, that there were in the Gospel, treasures unexplored, and mines unsearchable, and riches of wisdom that far surpassed the conceptions of any finite intelligence. This is a truth which we ought to be well acquainted with : for, till we are made sensible of it, we shall never regard the Gospel with that reverence and admiration which ought ever to exist in our minds towards it. Let us then contemplate the unsearchableness of God's "judgments," that is, of the means he has appointed for our salvation, and the incomprehensibility of his " ways," by which he dispenses that salvation to fallen man.
He is altogether incomprehensible,
I. In the way he has provided for the salvation of men —
Consider,
1. His sending his only dear Son to be the surety and substitute of fallen man —
[From having been early instructed in that great mystery, the incarnation of the Son of God, we hear of it without emotion : but when we contemplate, that the Creator of heaven and earth became a creature, in the likeness of sinful flesh ; that in order to his being formed immaculate, he was born of a pure Virgin through the operation of the Holy Ghost; and that, being so born, he did actually become a curse for us, and " bear our iniquities in his own body on the tree ;" we are lost in wonder. We are not only at a loss to comprehend it, but seem as if we could not believe it ; so strange, so almost impossible, does it appear : and if it were not confirmed in such a way that it is impossible to withhold our belief, we should be ready to account it blasphemy to assert such a fact, and madness to believe it. But the fact is so : and as, at the first revelation of it, it filled all heaven with wonder, so will it do to all eternity : " the height and depth and length and breadth of the love" displayed in it, will never be explored.]
2. His saving men by a righteousness not their own —