such our Lord considered them, when he wrestled with and conquered the shame as well as the sharpness of them. But he hath rendered all the sufferings of his people for his sake very honorable in themselves, whatever they are in the reputation of a blind and perishing world. Hence the apostle rejoiced that they had the honor to "suffer shame for his name," Acts v, 41. That is, the things which the world looked upon as shameful, but themselves knew to be honorable. When Moses came to make a right judgment concerning this matter, he "esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt," Heb. xi, 29.

Beside, they are made useful and profitable. The Lord Jesus Christ, by consecrating our sufferings as our way of following him, hath quite altered their nature and tendency, he hath made them good, useful, and profitable. He hath thereby cut them off from their old stock of wrath and the curse, and planted them on that of love and good-will. He hath taken them off from the covenant of works, and translated them into that of grace. He hath turned their course from death towards life and immortality; mixing his grace, love, and wisdom, with these bitter waters, he hath made them sweet and wholesome. And if we would benefit by them, we must always have regard to this consecration of them.

He hath also made them safe. Never did a believer perish by afflictions or persecutions, never was real gold or silver consumed or lost in this furnace. Hypocrites, indeed, and false professors, the fearful and unbelieving, are discovered by them, and stripped of their hopes: but they that are disciples indeed, are never safer than in this way, and that because it is consecrated for them. Sometimes, it may be, through

their unbelief, and want of heeding the captain of their salvation, they are wounded and cast down by them for a season, but they are still in the way. Nay, is it not only absolutely a safe way, but comparatively more safe than the way of prosperity.

$25. Obs. 3. Such is the desert of sin, and such is the immutability of Divine justice, that there was no way possible to bring sinners unto glory, but by the death and sufferings of the Son of God, who undertook to be the captain of their salvation. It would have been "unbecoming" God, the supreme governor of all the world, to have passed by the desert of sin without this satisfaction. That the Son of God who "did no sin," in whom the Father was always well pleased on account of his obedience, should suffer and die, and that under the sentence and curse of the law, is a great and astonishing mystery; all the saints of God admire it, and the angels desire to look into it. What demonstration of the glory of justice can arise from punishing an innocent person, who might have been spared, and yet all the ends of his being so punished to have been otherwise answered? And to say that one drop of Christ's blood was sufficient to redeem the world, is derogatory to the goodness, wisdom, and righteousness of God, in causing not only the whole to be shed, but also his soul to be made an offering for sin, which was altogether needless, if that were true. The truth is, God by a mere free act of his love and grace designed the Lord Jesus Christ to be the way and means for the saving of sinners; while he might, without the least impeachment of the glory of any of his essential properties, have suffered all mankind to have perished under that penalty they had justly incurred, But on supposition of any being redeemed, the justice of God required, that he should lay on the Redeemer

the punishment due to those whose cause he had espoused. It became the nature of God, or the essential properties of his nature indispensably required, that sin should be punished with death in the sinner, or in his surety; and, therefore, if he would bring any sons to glory, the captain of their salvation must undergo sufferings and death to make satisfaction for them. God punisheth sin suitably to the principle of his nature, so that he cannot do otherwise; yet so, as that for the manner, measure, and season, they depend on the constitution of his wisdom and righteousness, assigning a "meet recompense of reward" to every transgression. God cannot at all be to sin and sinners as a devoring fire unless it be in the principle of his nature indispensably to take vengeance on them. In that proclamation of his name, wherein he declared many blessed eternal properties of his nature, he adds this among the rest; that "he will by no means clear the guilty," Exod. xxxiv, 7. This his nature, his eternal holiness, requireth that the guilty be by no means cleared. So Joshua instructs the people in the nature of this holiness of God; chap. xxix, 19, "Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions, nor your sins." That is, if you continue in your sins, if there be not a way to free you from them, it is in vain for you to have any thing to do with this God; for he is holy and jealous, and will therefore certainly destroy you for your iniquities. Now if such be the nature of God, that with respect thereunto he cannot but punish sin in whomsoever it be found; then the suffering of every sinner, in his own person, or by his surety, doth not depend on a mere free voluntary constitution, nor is resolved merely into the veracity of God, in his commination or threatening, but is antecedently neces

nature of God And thus the ne

sary; unless we would have the changed, that sinners may be freed. cessity of the suffering and satisfaction of Christ, if sinners be brought to glory, is resolved into the holiness and nature of God; he being such a God as he is, it could not be otherwise. The same truth is manifest from other considerations.

$26. What God doth because he is righteous, is necessary to be done. And if it be just with God in respect of his essential justice to punish sin, it would be unjust not to do it; for to condemn the innocent, and acquit the guilty, is equally unjust. Justice is an eternal and unalterable rule, and what is done according to it, is necessary; it cannot be otherwise, and justice not be impeached. That which is to be done with respect to justice, must be done; or he that is to do it is unjust. Thus it is said to be "a righteous. thing with God to render tribulation to sinners," 2Thes. i, 6, because he is righteous; so that the contrary would be unjust, not answering his righteousness. God is said, Rom. i, 18, to have "declared his righteousness" by an example in the sufferings of Christ; which indeed was the greatest instance of the severity and inexorableness of justice against sin, that God ever gave. And this he did, "that he might be just," as well as gracious and merciful in the forgiveness of sin. Now if the justice of God did not require that sin should be punished in the Mediator, how did God give an instance of his justice in his sufferings? for nothing can be declared, but in and by that which it requires; for to say, that God shewed his righteousness in doing that which might have been omitted without the least impeachment of his righteousness, is in this matter bold and dangerous.

Again: God is the Supreme Governor and Judge of all. To him, as such, it belongeth to do right. So

saith Abraham, Gen. xviii, 25, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Undoubtedly he will do so, it belongs to him so to do; for, saith the apostle, “Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance, God forbid; for then how shall God judge the world?" Rom. iii, 5, 6. Right judgment in all things belongs to the universal rectitude of God, as the Supreme Governor and Judge of the world. Now the goodness or the righteousness of all things consists in observing that place and order which God in their creation allotted to them, whereon he pronounced they were "very good." And it belongs to the government of God to take care that this order be preserved for the good of the whole; or if it be in any thing transgressed, not to leave all things in confusion, but to reduce them into some new order and subjection to himself. That this primitive order was broken by sin we all know. What shall now the Governor of all the world do? Shall he leave all things in disorder and confusion? Cast off the work of his hands, and suffer all things to run at random? Would this become the Righteous Governor of all the world? What then is to be done to prevent this confusion? Nothing remains, but that he who brake the first order by sin, should be subdued into a new one by punishment. This brings him into subjection to God upon a new account. And to say that God might have let his sin go unpunished, is to say, that he might not be righteous in his government, nor do that which is necessary for the good, beauty, and order of the whole. Farther,

§27. There is no common presumption engrafted in the hearts of men, concerning any free act of God in this matter, and which might have been otherwise. No free decree or act of God is, or can be known to any of the children of men, but by revelation; much less have they all of them universally an inbred per