Chapter 9

CHAP. IX.

Of the sovereignty of God in the works of creation and providence, in other considerations.

1. In regard of the Lord's manner of working. 2. And of his end of working. 3. And of his omnipotent arm. 4. Of his holiness, he could not in greater wisdom have created things (for nothing can be added to infinite wisdom and goodness) so infiniteness was at the creating of a worm, as at the creating of the Angel Gabriel: but in regard of things created, he could have made a more perfect world than this and the Angel-nature, man's nature, the Sun, Birds, Beasts of more excellency, as touching perfection both of nature and accidents, than these that now are; But here sovereignty has place.

2. The foot should not complain, why made he not me the head? And the least of stars, why made he me not the Sun? Nor the Earth say out of the lump of poor nothing out of the which I came, he might have made me the Globe of the Heaven of Heavens, or an Angel, but he would not.

3. Why made not God the first Adam as perfect as the second Adam? A house that can stand alone is better than an old house that needs a prop. O quarrel not, the Vine tree is a more noble plant than the thorn, and the one must be propped else it grows not. 2. The man Christ needs influences of graces as well as another man. 3. The Angels and glorified spirits need the like; Man a house of clay needs a pillar of excellent matter of the gold of free grace to hold him up in his actings.

4. Why made he me not as holy as the man Christ? Why was this man born blind? O cease, he who gives not an account of any of his matters, when he made you a man might have made you a snake or a stone; he is debtor, of two eyes, or of half an eye, of the lowest gift or grace imaginable to no man; close with all he does. That is an evil wit that disputes with God; submission, silent submission to the hardest dispensation makes the child of God victorious; we are above all things in conquering, when we are below all things, in submitting for the Lord.

2. Job or any answer (Job 38:8): Who shut up the Sea with doors, as if it had issued out of the womb? Ver. 9. When I made the cloud the garments thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it. Job 26:7. He stretches out the North over the empty place, and hangs the Earth upon nothing; give a reason of East and West.

3. The Lord puts forth sovereignty on Jeroboam's arm to dry it up, on Mephibosheth's feet, upon the man's eye-holes (John 9) that they should be empty of eyes, on Judas his bowels, on Job's body smitten with boils, his outgoings of sovereignty appear on the Fig-tree which he curses, on the Gourd of Jonah, for he blasts it, on the Fig-tree and Vine-tree, for he mars them (Joel 1:4). As it pleases him he sets one piece of clay on the Throne, to glister, another bit of clay behind the mill, where he sweats and is hungry; Zeph. 3:12. I will leave in the midst thereof an afflicted and a poor people, or sick; yes dried up, as fish-ponds and brooks use to be when the rest are swept away. Joseph is rich and all the corn of Egypt is his, and his brethren want bread, and are low like carriers, driving horses with loads on them.

5. Job gets no leave to swallow his spittle (Job 7:19). Precious Israel is plowed (Psalm 129:1) and her back made a field of blood; like two legs and a piece of an ear of a devoured sheep, plucked out of the mouth of a Lion (Amos 3:12), the man Christ a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, a worm and not a man; and all the Earth sits still and is at rest (Zechariah 1:11), the wicked shine, are fat, their breasts are full of milk; and you stumble at this, Shall any teach the Almighty knowledge (Job 21:22, 23, 24; Amos 6:1, 2, 3; Psalm 73:1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, &c.).

6. Except sovereignty, what can silence the mind of one who stumbles and doubts, and weeps, because so many infants are burnt in Sodom with fire, so many in the old world are drowned with waters in the mother's womb and the cradle, the young sucking children of the Amalekites, and of Babylon, who never drew a sword against the people of God, could never bow their knee to the Idol God Bel, nor stretch out their hands to him, perish by the sword, and their heads dashed against stones? O they were guilty of original sin, yes and so were Moses, David, Samuel, Noah, Job, and Daniel when they were in the womb and weeping on the breasts.

7. Sovereignty determines what is just; righteous Abel dies in blood, godly Josiah in war, many bloody men smile out their soul in peace; I took Sodom away (says the Lord, Ezekiel 16:50) as I saw good; a wall falls upon twenty seven thousand and kills them (1 Kings 20); the Lord shoots an arrow of the pestilence at the camp of the Assyrians, and without a miss takes away, in one night, an hundred and fourscore and five thousand chosen men (Isaiah 37:36; 2 Chronicles 13:18); there fell of Israel at once five hundred thousand; how many graves must be there? Pharaoh and his princes are drowned in the Sea, Herod killed with worms; then simple judgments as divided from sin, prove nothing; but how are we to stoop and tremble at holy sovereignty?

As touching gifts and graces much is to be seen of sovereignty. Elihu says (Job 32:9): "Great men are not always wise, neither do the aged understand judgment." Beauty is a debt that God owes not to pay to Absalom; nor wisdom to Achitophel more than to a stark fool, or to any man who is born as a wild ass colt. This sovereignty gives faith to Abraham, to Moses meekness, to David sincerity, to Josiah zeal, to Job patience, to the man Christ the fullness of the Spirit above measure. There is more grace of godly painfulness given to Paul than to the daily eye-witnesses of Christ; "I labored more abundantly than they all" (1 Corinthians 15). You might have had wisdom and used it, as Achitophel; and yet says one, God has given me no more grace, therefore let God blame God that I do as I do; if he had given me more grace, I would have done better: and if I had a heart according to the heart of God, I would have been as holy, sincere, and zealous as David; but he denied it to me, out of his absolute sovereignty, which is far above my will and my strength, influences of grace both for the obtaining of the habits and the acts of sovereign grace.

These practical propositions are to be considered. Proposition 1. It is proud nature which says, God is to be blamed; for whether the Lord give, or withhold more grace; holiness and spotlessness does essentially convey his sovereignty. "Is it not lawful for me to do, what I will, with mine own," says he who is Almighty (Matthew 20:15). For he who is in an unsearchable way, above all law that binds the creature, can be subject to no blame. Suppose the evil servant say (Matthew 25:24): "Lord, I knew you, that you are a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not strowed;" that is, you seek much obedience, and a large harvest, and sowest upon my heart little grace, and gave me but one talent; if you had given me five talents, or two talents, I should have done as well as the servant who received five or two: but you did not any such thing, therefore blame yourself: and so it is the very complaint of the very malignant servant. As also the rich glutton's divinity reflects upon the gracious dispensation of God (Luke 16:30): "No, father Abraham, but if one went to them from the dead, they will repent;" which is, as much, as God is to be blamed, that his five brethren repent not; for he bestows not sufficient helps of salvation on them.

What is the book of Moses and the Prophets but a paper roll of letters and syllables? Would he send a preacher from hell, and a messenger from heaven to give them sufficient warning and instruction of a heaven and a hell, it were good, but that he does not, he then is to be blamed; not my five brethren. He who shows mercy on whom he will, and hardens whom he will, and that by a strong mighty will which no man can resist, he can find fault with no man, though he sin and harden his own heart; for his absolute sovereign will is far above me and my strength; but so does the Lord, says the carnal man (Romans 4:18, 19), and the Holy Ghost says, such an objection is unworthy to be moved or answered; nor becomes it base clay and the clay pot so to argue with the great potter and former of all things.

Influences for getting of the habits or performing the acts of saving grace, are the Lord's own; therefore sovereignty is his law, he may bestow them, or withhold them, as he pleases; especially if the creature be willing to want these influences, and if the sun rejoice with all his heart at the influences and concurring providences of God to the contrary sinful actings, as he does (Exodus 5:2, 8, 16, 17, 18; Psalm 14:4; Psalm 10:6, 7, 8, 4, 10, 11; Psalm 36:3, 4; Psalm 84:5, 6, 7, 8; Proverbs 1:11, 12; Proverbs 2:14; Proverbs 4:16, 17; Proverbs 10:23; Proverbs 14:9; Proverbs 7:18; Proverbs 9:17; Psalm 49:11; Luke 11:39; Psalm 5:9; Psalm 64:6).

Though we could not conceal the Lord's concluding of all under unbelief, and their guiltiness, who are so concluded, and the mystery of the Lord's rejecting the Jews and calling the Gentiles, with the free obedience of the one and free disobedience of the other, and the Lord's having mercy on whom he will, and hardening whom he will, with their willing running in ways of disobedience and rebellion, and say as Paul (Romans 11:33): "O the depth," &c., yet adversaries have no cause of objecting this to us more than to the Scriptures of God.

Proposition 4. Gracelessness is satisfied with gracelessness, and is no more desirous and thirsty for grace nor darkness after the sun light, or coldness desires the fire's heat. Yes, as Satan cannot destroy Satan, the body of sin cannot love to be subdued by grace; and the man hating both Christ and his Father (John 15:24), and pleasing himself in that way, who yet complains that God does withdraw his grace, and so cannot command us, or exhort us to repentance, is like to him who lies still in the furnace, and loves to be burnt, and complains that he is scorched and tormented, and the Lord will not lift him out of the furnace.

What a proud Pelagian nature is this, for any to say had he the habit of grace which was in David, he could act as David, and could secure himself from adultery and murder; but how did David, who had David's heart, fall in these horrid crimes? Can any interpose himself surety, and put grace which he has not, or nature which he cannot command, to undertake to obey God in all things? Were it not safer to be pained with the bondage of sin, and be sick for Christ and his grace, and never to interpose self to be surety for self, but to be strong in free grace only (Ephesians 6:10)?