Chapter 8

CHAP. VIII.

Divers particulars in which sovereignty appears.

- 1. Sovereignty and the glorious liberty of God appears in 1. His Decrees. - 2. The Works of God, especially 1. Of Creation. 2. Of common Providence. - 3. Works of more special Providence. - 1. Works of Justice. - 2. Works of Free-grace.

The sovereignty of his Decrees, is 1. In these two solemn and celebrious Decrees of Election and Reprobation. He loved Jacob and hated Esau before ever the children had done good or evil (Romans 9); this is a humbling thought to clay graciously disposed which dare not contradict the sovereign potter. The Lord might have appointed my chair before the Throne, and my eternal crown to Judas and to Pharaoh; and the same Lord might so have ordered as the furnace of the traitor Judas in Hell should have been my furnace in Hell. 2. O what depth of love, did the King choose me, or did he once name my name, and write me for life eternal?

This is a hardening thought in the fallen Angels and reprobate men, that they strive against and hate the providence permitting their fall and sin; but do neither strive against, nor hate their permitted fall and sin [illegible] — why does he yet (notwithstanding of his irresistible Decree, find fault with our sin? why does he not blame his own Decree?) who has resisted his will? A graceless soul will flee upon eternal Decrees and Events that belong to God, but is never humbled for sin and remission of duties. The gracious soul is much upon these thoughts, O the freedom of the eternal emanations of free grace, and the depth of the outgoings of sovereign justice, and does mournfully complain of its own sinful actings (Psalms 51:1, 2, 3, 4, 5). We are to say Amen to his way. Sovereignty is not our rule, clay is not to watch over the Lord's acts of holy sovereignty, but in point of submitting to the opened and revealed Decrees, but is to eye the rule, watch over the heart in point of duties.

2. All things to be, and never to be, are written in his book (Psalms 139:16); the number of David's members; all the hairs of the head are numbered (Matthew 10:30); all the piles of dust and sand, all the drops of dew, rain, hail, snow, all the drops of the sea, rivers, lakes, fountains of the Earth (Isaiah 40:12; Proverbs 30:4); all the ounces and dram weights of the hills and mountains are exactly weighed as in balances, and numbered by holy sovereignty; all the blasts of wind gathered in his fists (Proverbs 30:4). He knows how many inches and spans are in the Earth from East to West, and in the compass and circle of the body of the World or great All and the highest Heaven round about (Isaiah 40:12, 17); the number of Angels good and evil, of men, of beasts, birds, fishes, creeping things; he tells the number of the Stars (whether odd or even) and calls them by their names (Psalms 147:4); and sovereignty could have made their number greater by seventy seven millions. So he knows the number of trees, herbs, flowers, leaves of trees, piles or threads of grass, the number of actions, motions, intentions, purposes of Men and Angels, actual and only possible and impossible, but never to fall out; all the stirrings in Heaven and Earth. Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite (Psalms 147:5).

2. He decreed twelve thousand of every Tribe to be sealed, a certain number for an uncertain; he wrote so many, not one more nor fewer. Why are many called and few chosen? The blessed number of persons, by Country, House, Head, Name to be bought by the ransom of Christ's blood is agreed upon between the Father and the Son — not one more paid for and ransomed, not one fewer; the number of the citizens were agreed upon. They are not moveable tenants; the Lord loves not to put out, or to put in; none can take your chair and Crown in Heaven. It is a deep thing to consider how millions of millions of influences and stirrings the sovereign Lord laid up beside himself from eternity to let out upon his hosts of creatures, and especially Men and Angels, and a treasure of influences of grace are with him. Would we bring our witheredness under these eternal dewings, we should have more of the anointing.

3. The Lord's sovereignty decreed not things only, but the connexion of things, as between Bread and Wine used according to the Lord's Institution, and the broken Body and shed blood of Christ: they suit not together of their own nature and essentially; therefore by the intervening will of God.

2. In things of remote nature, this is seen (2 Kings 13:19). If you had smitten the ground five or six times, then had you smitten Syria, till you had consumed it: whereas now you shall smite Syria but three times. The connexion of the King's smiting of the ground and of smiting of the Syrians, is not from the nature of the things themselves, but from the free appointment of God. If Christ talk with the woman of Samaria and ask of her a drink of water, he shall convert her, and the Samaritans before he leave her. If Job be spoiled, he shall humbly submit himself to God, and bless him. There may be more or less conveniency between the things, but all the connection of things in this kind might in their contraries have been as true, if so holy sovereignty had appointed.

He who decrees the existence of things in time and place, he decrees the co-existence of the same things. Now that Joseph should be the subject matter of killing or selling when the Ishmalites came by, and that Ahasuerus cannot sleep in the night, when that very passage of the Persian Chronicle must be read in the which is the story of Mordecai's loyal revealing the treason was from him, and they were tied together by no nature of things, by no influences of Planets and Stars, but by the sovereign will of God: now the co-existence of things is a real event of providence as is clear. It's from the Lord that Peter and Paul lived together in the same age and time, and Abraham and David lived not together, and from the holy decree of God that Jezebel's body be cast out, when there is none willing to bury her; and from the holy decree of God, that the soldiers came with spears to break the legs of Christ, and that they find him dead and so break not one bone of him. Yes, the existence and living and acting of all things, and the co-existence, living and working together of them are from the same providence of God, or then from nature, or from the blind fortune, neither of which we can say; and who appoints the meeting of two seas, or the meeting of two rivers, or of two men at the same place? Or that the new star should be in Cassiopeia rather than in another part of the firmament? Does not David bless the Lord who sent Abigail to meet him with a counsel of peace? Then must these confluences and co-existences of things be written in the Lord's book, and so decreed (Psalms 139:16), and from the Creator God, as the efficient, and for God and his glory, as the end (Romans 11:36; Revelation 4:11; Proverbs 16:4).

The wisdom of God so appoints, as means for his end, that black and white should be in the same body, for beauty, the poor and the rich, the full and the hungry to try the charity of the rich and patience of the poor; that some should weep, some sing and rejoice at the laying of the foundation of the second Temple (Ezra 3:6). Some of these are acts of mercy, Jesus comes by the way and two blind men sit by the way; Matthew, Zacheus are in such places and Christ comes by and saves both the one, and the other.

Some are acts of justice, as the falling of a piece of a millstone by a woman's hand, and Abimelech's near approaching to the tower, that a woman might kill him, who might, twenty other ways have died, if the Lord did not rule all the going of Achab to the war.

The arrow at a venture shot at Achab and passing by hundreds.

The arrow directed to the one only naked part of his body.

The washing of the wounds in such a pool in the field of Jezreel.

The dogs licking of the blood of Achab are all so linked together, by the Lord's holy and just decree, as this is clear, if Achab go to the war against the Syrians, the dogs shall lick his blood, and he shall die in the battle.

The administration of the means of salvation to Capernaum, not to Tyrus and Sidon which would rather have repented than Capernaum, does prove this is from the Lord; if Peter hear, the Lord shall effectually persuade him to believe; if Cain, Pharaoh, Judas, hear, the Lord shall not effectually persuade them to believe. The Lord commands reprobates to repent and believe, if they would be saved; yet did he never decree the belief, repentance or salvation of any of them. Does not sovereignty here shine? Who decrees the non-salvation of Judas, and the non-effectual drawing of Judas to Christ? Which says there be no property so called, and bands of conditions lying upon the Lord; if Judas repent he shall be saved, as if a father promise to his son an hundred acres of land upon condition that the son pay him one hundred shillings; if the father only can and must furnish to the son the hundred shillings, and in the mean time deny the purpose in his heart, to deny to furnish the hundred shillings; it cannot be so strictly said that there is the tie and band of a proper condition lying upon the father, though it does lie upon the son. And however the ways of the holy Lord be equal, yet are they far above our ways, and we are to be silenced at the bottomless depth of holy sovereignty; he lays obligations to duties upon us, and is free from the debt of paying or bestowing the sum of gracious influences (without which we willingly cannot perform these duties) upon us: and he may justly crave what we cannot pay, when our impotency to pay is both our own, and also goes along with our elective, free choosing and hearty willingness, and rejoicing not to pay, and to want the sum, which only the Lord can of free grace give us. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgements, and his ways past finding out (Romans 11:33). To this head also I refer.

That sovereignty which has place in choosing and calling nations, as Israel because he freely loves (Deuteronomy 7:7), Israel, and their seed, not other nations (Deuteronomy 10:7), he says, preach to Macedonia, not to Bithynia, and though afterward the Gospel came to Bithynia, many deservedly perished, old and young, ere it came.

5. It is admirable sovereignty, how many thousand possible plagues and evils he holds off, such as millions of pests, and diseases of Egypt and evil beasts (Deuteronomy 7:15; Leviticus 26:6). Why the bones of Christ are not broken; why a dog stirs not a tongue against Israel; why one only world, not a thousand worlds were created: he appoints how long, what number of minutes, hours, or years, his own shall be in the furnace. The Lord stands beside as master of the work, and eyes the melting, what quantity of honey, or of gall shall be in the cup, how many hours you shall weep, how many days or hours the candle of the Almighty shall shine on your tabernacle. Then be humble, when he shines, and submissive at the time and measure of sufferings; the evils that are holden off us before in their causes they be prepared, when we know not, should teach us to adore sovereignty. A friend that takes our defence when we are absent, and an advocate who answers for the sick and far distant client, and not knowing that his cause is called and debated; yes, for an heir sucking the breasts, does call for much love and esteem. Christ's care shines for Peter and the winnowed believers, when he prays and intercedes that their faith fail not, when they know not any such thing; for a hid love moves much. The Lord fences us, we not knowing any such thing, from drowning and our children in floods, deep wells, from burning quick, from a hell of torment in every tooth, finger, bone, sinew, artery, lith, member of the body, of our selves, of father, mother, son, daughter; and from spoiling, captivity, imprisonment, gravels, guts, botches, convulsions, palsies, possessions by devils, madness, terror, and agony of mind, as many children drowned, be not quick, killed in the womb, and perished in the first world, and hundreds and millions of the like possible destructions, are decreed to pass by me and you, and do fall upon others by holy sovereignty's appointment.

6. The due timing of the world's creation, and of all things of time is from admirable sovereignty, why the world had not being, ten thousand millions of imaginary ages sooner, or so many ages later; and from where came this, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, is a depth of sovereignty. It is wonderful — angels and souls of men are created eternal, time cannot waste them: the body of man, though a creature drawn out of the same nothing, is not so. There is a plant that grows a year only, there is a flower that smiles a month, another three months, some roses are green in March, some in May, some in June only, and there is a tree that grows a hundred years. The like disparity there is of the life of beasts and birds; he has appointed a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born, a time to die; and accordingly are there several outgoings and influences of the Lord.

As 1. He will not have all the four monarchies flourish at once in their rose and bloom, but one to be greater, another lesser, as all rivers are not alike, nor can all conquerors be victors at one time.

2. The Lord lands some children after three months, sucking, laughing, weeping; others live some days in the womb, and the womb is their grave; yet often eternity is a recompense for want of time, and that is gold for iron and copper; others sail fourscore and a hundred years, and never find a gracious harbour. We fret, because the wicked live long and prosper; because we forget that sovereignty has determined how many hours wicked men shall laugh, how many talents or stone weights of the earth they shall have; and because the bride weeps, when shall the night be gone? And the day dawn? And the King come? There is a sort of account rendered of this by John, who had been prophesying of all the vials of wrath to be poured on the earth, especially under the Antichrist's reign, Behold he comes quickly (Revelation 1:7).

3. We complain of circumstances which are well timed by infinite wisdom: should sickness and botches come upon Job, when poverty had gone before? Does the Lord give an account of the substance, or of the circumstances of his actions (Job 33:11)? This ounce of gall must be in, or nothing, the child must be drowned in a fountain and river, when there are none to help. Job was absent when God laid the corner stone of the earth.

4. The Lord times his actions of deliverance well, when our strength is gone (Deuteronomy 32:36; Galatians 4:4; Exodus 12:42; Jeremiah 29:10), but we do badly time our sins. They tempted him, and provoked him; but, when? At the red Sea, and in the wilderness (Psalm 78:17; Exodus 14; Psalm 106:7). It was untimeous sinning in such straits, when their very month was come, so as they could not fly from his hand.