-- CHAPTER VII: That God orders his election, so as to run in a successive line from godly parents t
persuasion towards a few. And so there is a geometrical proportion still kept, though not an arithmetical.
CHAPTER VII
That God orders his election, so as to run in a successive line from godly parents to their children, does not infringe the freedom of election grace.—That this his way of acting is consonant to all the principles of right reason, and agreeable with his other proceedings.
—The admirable harmony which appears in all his dispensations towards men.—How comely a proportion there is in this truth, that God should draw his election and series of visible saints out of the loins of those who art such themselves, rather than others of mankind, made apparent by a comparison of it with other dispensations of free grace.
Now because all God's gracious dealings and dispensations, though most free and arbitrary, are yet in wisdom so ordered, that they are consonant to right reason, and though not founded upon it, do yet agree with it, we therefore shall further clear these two things, and then we shall have finished this great point.
1. That God should choose the seed of his elect, and order election to run in a right line, is no prejudice at all to free grace shewn forth in electing, neither contraries any other principles of his own which he goes by.
2. It is most consonant unto, and falls in with, all other principles of right reason, and conformable to other of his proceedings.
1. First, It infringes not the freedom of his grace, and the principles he goes by in election.
For, first, election is not founded on it at all, but ex mero Dei beneplacito; God in election not first considering those persons as children of such parents, as being the motive thereunto, seeing in election men came up before him as creabiles, as yet to be created, to such a glory as in heaven they shall have. That was the notion which they appeared to him in. God looked to the end of his works at the beginning, in which he was wholly and absolutely free, only ordaining they should go through this world as a passage to glory; he moulded their condition here to many holy ends and respects, wherein his love should appear: as that they should be ordinarily poor, 'not many wise nor noble;' that they should live in such places, and come of such parents. These respects were not before election, to draw it on, but subserving it as means to manifest that his love the more. And such is this, that his elect should come out of the loins of his elect by his own ordering, which is a respect that manifests his love in electing the more, both unto the fathers and to the children, for which end he ordains it, so as, in the execution and drawing forth his love, these respects come in, but not as grounds and foundations of it. And thus, in a true sense, Rom. 11:28, the Jews are said to be
'beloved for their fathers' sakes,' but not for their sakes elected.
Secondly, As election was free in choosing the Jews, and is free in the choice of those Jews who are to come, and yet God took in this respect too their fathers in it notwithstanding, so it is in ours, and so it goes not by birth as the moving cause, but as the subserving instrument or means to manifest that his love the more, both to the father and the child.
And therefore, thirdly, God oftentimes, if not usually, to shew his grace takes not all the seed: 'Do you say wherein have I loved you; was not Esau Jacob's brother, yet I loved Jacob, and hated Esau?'
Mal. 1:2.
Now, secondly, let us consider what harmony in reason there is for this, that God should ordain the children of holy parents to be holy.
Something to which purpose I have before hinted sparsim in this discourse, as, (1.) That God hath implanted even in affection, yea the gracious affections of parents, the strongest desire of their children's salvation, next to their own; and God knows the heart of a father, as having a Son himself whom he loves, and whom also out of love he chose and ordained heir of all things, Heb. 1:2. Therefore to comply with their desire of his own implanting, he hath ordered the coming forth of his elect in this world so as they shall rather issue out of the loins of his elect than of others, who would not have hearts to desire any such privilege for their children, nor would ever acknowledge it a mercy. It was indifferent in itself, through whose loins his elect should come, for that served but to bring forth men whom he would love; and seeing it would be a gratification from God unto such parents, and but cast away upon others, he rather chose to bestow it upon his own, rather than others.
(2.) And secondly, this is a blessing and privilege more than merely outwards, or which extends but unto this life; it is a spiritual blessing, and reacheth to eternity, and of its comfort the inward man is only capable. All spiritual affections of love to others, though drawn forth in, and by, fleshly relations, will continue for ever; so what spiritual love hath been drawn out between man and wife will continue in heaven, as it is an honour to Christ for ever: 'Lo I, and the children whom thou hast given me;' and to ministers their converts are their crown in the day of Christ, and so likewise are such children to such fathers. It had been a small thing to Abraham to have been counted the father of the faithful, if his comfort from it had been but what he had when he was here, and saw none but Isaac and Ishmael of his seed; no, it is yet to come, when at the day of judgment he shall see so many of God's beloved ones to have been taken out of his loins.
(3.) On God's part, it became him to do this favour for his children, for it agrees with the exactest rules of friendship (which towards his
elect God professeth to walk by, and keep unto) that can be found upon earth, to be a friend unto the family of a friend, a friend unto his house after him; than this, there is no higher commendation of friendship. David and Jonathan, you know, were the noblest pair of friends and highest patterns of friendship we read of in story, and see what a covenant they make each with other: 1 Sam. 20:14, 15, 'Thou shalt not only while yet I live shew me the kindness of the Lord; but also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house for ever;' and, verse 42, their oath was between each other's seed for ever, 'between thy seed and my seed.' Now God professeth himself the truest, the completest friend, and therefore no strain of friendship shall men take up which he will be wanting in, yea, wherein he will not exceed.
What! four thousand years after to remember his covenant with Abraham and Isaac, as in the future conversion of the Jews their seed ho will! Rom. 11:28, the apostle gives this as a reason of that their conversion, 'they are beloved for their fathers' sake.' What an unheard of friendship is this! Can men boast of the like? You know
God professeth of Abraham, that he was his friend: James 2:23, 'and he was called the friend of God;' and in this very respect God chose his seed; and the covenant with them takes in his very consideration
(and unto that of his is ours conformed), thus expressly, Isa. 41:8, 'Thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.' You may see how his choice runs: 'Israel whom
I have chosen, the seed of my friend;' you have it also pleaded by them, 2 Chron. 20:7, 'Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever?'
But the reasons which I most aim at, may be fetched from that comely and like answerable proportion that this his dispensation holds with his other ways of grace. It is just like the course he holds in other his proceedings of grace toward his elect, which I have long observed conformed to these rules following, which all are found to hold in this also, and so may serve as so many reasons of the point.
(1.) I have long observed it by many instances, that God in his ways of grace since the fall, useth, as much as possibly may stand with grace, his old institutions given to man in innocency, and takes them all in for to subserve grace, and keeps unto them; and it is his honour so to do, for thereby he much upholds the glory of his wisdom, and constancy to himself; that he will not be put out of his way by man's sin. Therefore look what end he appointed anything for in innocency, he under grace takes it, and so far as it will any way serve to that end, he useth it and retains it, varying from it as little as may be. The old statutes of the first foundation he takes, and translates them into this new foundation. And thus he having ordained marriage in innocency to derive his covenant of works together with his image unto mankind, therefore he useth it still to that very end to convey his covenant of grace, so far as may be. But to clear this rule to you, upon which this reason is founded, namely, that God doth indeed observe some such like rule as this in his way of grace.
[1.] First see it in the law, which, if anything, was like to fall most cross to any use under the covenant of grace; and you shall see that all the ends God intended it for, he brings about under the gospel, in a subserving way unto grace. God gave man a law to give him life, Do this, with promise to reward him for his works, and that with life, and thou shalt live; even as wages are given to a labourer who is worthy of his hire. This was the primitive ordinance of the law at first; but man's sin perverted and put the law clean by from attaining this its end. 'The commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death,' Rom. 7:10, which gave a full demonstration of sin's being so above measure sinful, that it should so utterly pervert God's ordinance, as the apostle speaks, verse 13. But will God now be utterly put by from using at all the law under grace to this end? No; he will shew that the sin of man cannot wholly make void the ordinance of God. He will not cast it away, because sin hath spoiled it, but will find out a new way how under grace to make use of it to this end. And although to make that direct use of it, that it had before (namely, to save and justify man by the tenure of its covenant, Do this and live), is as incompatible with grace as sin itself is, as the
apostle shews, Rom. 3:27, 28, and chap. 4:14, and chap. 11:6; so that indeed, if a man should be justified by the law, it were not of grace, seeing they are ἀσύστατα; yet God loves his own institution so well, that all the indirect use it can serve to, it shall, so far as it may stand with grace. So Rom. 3:31, 'Do we make void the law through faith?
No, we establish it,' all that may be; for though the law cannot bring to life, itself being weakened through sin, Rom. 8:3, yet it shall bring unto Christ, Gal. 3:24, and he shall give life and justification. And how shall Christ give life? By the righteousness of the law still. For though the righteousness of the law performed by us doth not justify us, yet that righteousness by which we are justified shall not be any other than the righteousness of that law performed by another, even by Christ; God resolved still to make use of it, as far as will stand with grace. So though it be not the righteousness ἐκ τοῦ νόμου, as the phrase is, Philip. 3:9, yet it is δικάιωμα τοῦ νόμου, 'the righteousness of the law,' materially taken, which is fulfilled in our justification, Rom. 8:4, though not the righteousness of the law formally taken; that is, which justifies by the tenure of it, and by the force it hath from the law, and the covenant of it; as the act of a man put out of office is not formally the same act that it was when he did it ex officio, yet it is materially the act of the same man; so it is not of the law in officio, as before, but yet it is the righteousness of the law by which Christ justifies us still; that is, it is the very same righteousness, for the matter of it, which the law enjoins, and which, if Christ had not performed, he had not justified us.
Then, likewise, when he sanctifies us, he makes all the use of the law that may be. He writes it in the heart as at first, though with new ink indeed, yet with the same letters and holy dispositions, so as it is 'not a new but an old commandment:' 1 John 2:7, 'Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment, which ye had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.' Look how it guided man before, so it guides him still, God would make what use he could of it in that work also. Yea, and let me add this, that though he hath utterly excluded works and dispositions of grace conformable to the law from being
the ground of justification, or of faith justifying us, or which faith should so look into, yet he hath ordained them to be evidences of justification, and so a support to faith, and hath made what use might be that way without prejudice to grace. So, Rom. 7:13–23,
'Was that then which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.
For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity of the law of sin which is in my members.' The apostle shews that the use of the law is, as to discover the law of sin in inward dispositions of corruption, so to shew the law of the inward man and his grace; and to what end, but to help assurance, whereof he treats, chap. 8, and that he might see that 'there is no condemnation to him who walks after the Spirit,' Rom. 8:1.
So when God comes to glorify us, he therein makes what use is possibly to be made of the law by free grace. At first in innocency the works of it were ordained to be, not the measure only, but the rule by which, and ground for which, ex debito, by a due debt, the reward was to be given; so Rom. 4:4. But so it cannot be now, for then 'grace were no more grace,' Rom. 11:6. But yet God will retain and make use of it to serve as a rule of proportion, not of debt, even for grace to dispense its reward by. Though it shall not be propter opera, for our works, as then, yet secundum opera, according to works. Though it shall not serve as the rule of obligation to tie God to us by debt, yet of
proportion according to which God will proceed; though it be not the ethical rule of justice, yet it is the arithmetical. As if a father freely promise to give a son a reward according to his service, he may use the same rates of proportion that to a hireling. Thus you see how grace hath recovered that primitive institution which sin had spoiled.
And just so hath God ordained and ordered it in the case in hand. In innocency marriage and begetting of children was an holy institution, appointed by God to propagate, as mankind, so his own image of holiness, and the covenant of works wherein God promised to be their God, from father to son in a natural way; as other creatures begat in their kind, so man in his kind. And therefore God makes the first covenant of works with the father of mankind, for all the rest of mankind his children to be propagated to them by generation, and blessed male and female to that end, Gen. 5:1, that holy Adam should beget holy children. Now, sin had perverted and made void this institution, as it had done that of the law (as you have heard), and that which was ordained to convey the image of God was now by sin found to convey the image of sin, Gen. 5:3. Adam begets in his own (namely, sinful) image. Yet so far as this institution may be rescued out of the hands of sin, and be used by grace, God will restore it, and establish it again under grace. What was God's primitive institution grace will keep to, and make it subserve itself for the propagating of its own covenant, so far as it is not derogatory unto grace itself. And therefore God sanctifieth marriage still, and maketh an improvement of it in holy men and women to the same end that it was at first ordained to. So as the same institution of God's, which was that of nature, does still hold, that 'if the root be holy, so are the branches,' Rom. 11:16, and 'I will be the God of thee, and of thy seed,' Gen. 17:7. Now this continuing of the institution of marriage to such a holy end in people who are holy, was evidently held forth in the nation of the Jews, who were Abraham's seed (it is an instance which I urged before, and therefore will now only mention it), in that Mal. 2:16, the prophet to convince the Jews
(made 'an holy people,' or 'holiness to the Lord,' as he tells them, ver.
11) of those two sins, the putting away the lawful wives of their own
nation, ver. 13, 14, and their marrying strange wives, the daughters of strange gods, ver. 11, he reduceth them to the primitive institution of marriage in innocency (whereunto God would have his people's marriages conformed), when first he made Adam and Eve one flesh, and so to cleave to each other as not to part; and secondly, ordained their marriage and their being thus made one, to 'seek a godly seed,' which end he still aimed at and intended in the marriages of his people. And this end had they perverted by their mixtures with the heathens, whose marriages God had said he would not bless to that end, but curse them in an ungodly issue. So that it appears that God instituted marriage to the Jews then for the same end that at first; so as God ordained it then, and now doth ordain it to the same end, only with such a difference as that grace may appear grace. Which difference is apparent by these particulars;—
For, 1, then holiness was thus by generation conveyed by virtue of a natural necessary covenant; but now, though out of a covenant too,
—'I will be the God of thee and thy seed,'—yet out of a free covenant with his elect, not as a due to the father, as then by the law of nature, by which it was a due that if he begat he should beget in his kind; but as a mere grant of grace now, yet so as that whereas God might have marshalled his elect to come out of other men's loins, he freely chooseth rather to draw them out of their loins who are his elect. And to shew that it is not as a due, but of grace, he therefore takes not all his elect thence, or all their children, but only for the most part out of that rank, so at once to shew that he keeps to his old institution, and that grace is still grace notwithstanding, and not nature. So as that remains still true that was said by John, they are 'born not of flesh
(or blood), but of God,' John 1:13, yea, and of his 'own mere will' does God beget us, James 1:18. He begets those children of his elect as freely as any other; only his will was to take out of that lump and mass of the children of elect (as, Rom. 11:16, the phrase is) rather than of any other.
And, 2, holiness was then conveyed with and by generation itself, as natural endowments are. It was stamped in and with the very
conception. The same mould that shaped them men, stamped God's image also. But not so now. 'In sin,' says David, 'my mother conceived me,' Ps. 51:5 (whose mother yet was a godly woman, and he a godly man, and this by virtue of her covenant also; for in Ps.
116:16, he pleads it, 'Truly I am thy servant, I am thy servant, son of thy handmaid,' and so in respect of his propagation from her who had devoted herself to be God's servant, he acknowledgeth himself to be such in a double obligation). So as still, by virtue of their father's and mother's generation, they are conceived in sin, and that which that act conveys is nothing but sin; for necessarily those children that are sanctified in the womb must first be flesh, and wholly flesh, ere they be sanctified, else this their sanctification were not a regeneration, or a second birth, as John 3:6. And so it is true that they are not born of the flesh or of blood, John 1:13, for when they are thus wholly conceived in sin, through the influence generation hath on them, then after God comes and sanctifies many of them, sometimes in the womb, sometimes afterward, yet so as though generation serves not herein as the immediate instrument or means to stamp grace, as then it did, yet still it serves as the channel to direct the course in which grace should run and is dispensed. And observe it, this is carried with the very same (or like) terms of difference that we observed in God's making use of the law in the covenant of grace to subserve it; for look as it was not (as was said) the righteousness, ἐκ τοῦ νόμου, that is, by the force, power, and tenor of the law formally taken, that now justifies us, yet the same righteousness of the law materially taken, which before should, still doth. So is it here; the seed of godly parents, whose God he is by covenant, and so the same subjects materially since the fall as before, are ordained to be sanctified, but not the same way; not from or through their generation, or being begotten of them, formally considered, as was said of the righteousness of the law. So that it may still be said that the primitive law of generation is still fulfilled.
And again, in like sense to that (which was also observed of the law) that God is said to reward, not propter, yet secundum opera, not for works, as then, yet according to our works, so here, though the
covenant goes not per or propter, for or through their births, yet it is conveyed secundum, according to birth, even as before.
Now to strengthen this rule further, which is made the foundation of this reason, take another instance to confirm it. God's end and institution in making the world, and all the creatures, was, that they should be used by man to holy and glorious ends, as holy utensils employed for God's glory, and together with it make for man's good, and contribute to him (whilst he serves God) every one their help and comfort, as tenants do provisions to their lords; and this was their primitive liberty and perfection; but man being fallen, Satan enters upon this world as a possession fallen unto him. The creatures are delivered up and betrayed into the hands of Satan and sin, and so are lost unto God and to themselves, they losing that liberty to which they were created, and being themselves subjected to Satan's tyranny, and accordingly they are often mustered up in rebellion against men by God, and conspire by cross accidents and events to work his ruin and misery, as once his happiness, as we see in all the crosses and afflictions with which this world is fitted. All this you have Rom. 8 ver. 20, 21, 'The creatures,' says the apostle, 'were made subject to vanity, not willingly.' Their will is that natural instinct which God hath put into them at the first, to arrive at the end for which he made them, against which they are forced to men's lusts, and ravished, and oppressed by them, which is called a 'vanity,' because it is a frustration of that end for which God at first ordained them. But God resolves not to have his primitive end and purpose in creation to be thus frustrated; therefore to his elect at present, he sets all these creatures this task, to 'work together for their good,' ver. 28, though not in so direct a way as at first, get in a more oblique
(but certain) course. To this, as to their common mark, they all tend and take their flight, though about, by the bow, as we say, not by the string, grace will work and wheel them about to their primitive end and institution. And further, God as yet not so fully pleased with so indirect a course, hath appointed a time fully to restore them to this their pristine perfection. He will rescue the poor oppressed creatures out of the hands of sin and Satan; a day is coming, wherein there
shall be holiness to the Lord written 'upon the bells of horses' going to the plough and cart, which shall be as holy in their use to God, as Aaron's bells once were, with which he went into the congregation; and their pots they drink, or seethe their meat in, shall be holiness to the Lord, as were the bowls before the altar: Zech. 14:20,' In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness unto the Lord, and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar.' The prophet speaks of the new Jerusalem, when the saints shall reign. And this you may further see to be God's very aim and end in appointing a time for that 'new heaven and new earth wherein righteousness dwells,' even that he might attain his first institution concerning them. Thus more expressly in Rom. 8 the apostle, speaking of the time of Christ, the second Adam's kingdom, after the resurrection, says that by Adam they were thus indeed subjected, but in hope. For that God's institutions must take place and be restored, although man's sin hath put them out of course, and so they shall be
'delivered from that bondage of corruption into a glorious liberty.'
Just thus had sin spoiled God's first institution of marriage, which was to propagate holiness, and his image, sin clean perverting it to convey Satan's image to all mankind; but grace towards his elect vindicates it, and sets it a-running in its natural course again. So presently, after the flood, God set grace on work in a line of succession in Seth's posterity, so afterward in the Jews, and so still in the Gentiles. And when the reign of grace shall be fully restored (as in the new Jerusalem it shall), then their seed, and their seed's seed generally and without interruption, shall be for ever holy, as was observed out of Isa. 59:21; for the privileges will be restored which they had in innocency, even as this liberty of the creatures will.
(2.) A second rule which I give, that God hath squared and chalked out his ways and proceedings of grace by, which also falls in with this of his towards the children of elect, and so may further shew the wisdom of God in ordering it thus, is this, that God hath so plotted and contrived his goings forth of grace, that look by what ways or means sin comes upon mankind for his ruin and destruction, God
takes up those very ways to choose, as means to save his elect of mankind by, and effects so to do it. Which holds forth a further thing than the former; for this shews, that as he makes good his institutions in innocency under grace, so he makes use of the same weapons with which sin was wont to fight against him, and this he chooses to do, as we may observe in many particulars, which we will first view, to make good the rule, and then make use of it in the point in hand.
[1.] Because by a man sin and death came upon man, therefore by a man shall grace come, and the resurrection from the dead. You shall find it given as the reason, 1 Cor. 15:21, 'Since by man came death, by man comes also the resurrection from the dead.' God did it on purpose to answer sin in its kind; it is there brought as the reason of that great counsel of God, of saving us by that man Christ Jesus.
Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ, a reason it was, not as the ground of that his counsel, but as concurring with, and fitly falling in with, that his counsel.
[2.] Furthermore, 'as by one man sin came upon all,' so 'the gift of grace by one man hath abounded unto many,' Rom. 5:12, 15.
[3.] Yet further, as Satan used the woman as an instrument to work that one man Adam unto that sin, which by him, not her, is propagated, so God used the woman to bring forth that same one man, Christ, who should restore and save us. This God had in his eye, as appears plainly in that, to confound the devil, he tells him,—for if you observe, unto the serpent is that speech directed,—that 'the seed of the woman should break the serpent's head.' As if he had said, I will spoil your plot in using the woman; you had better never have gone that way to work; the seed of her shall break thy head. And the apostle himself hints it, for the honour of women, 1 Tim. 2:15, for having said ver. 14, that 'the woman was first deceived, and first in the transgression' (there speaking of that sin of Eve as a reason of all women's being excluded from all honourable offices in the church, and so laying low and debasing all womankind), he adds notwithstanding that 'she shall be saved' (that is, womankind as well
as men), 'by,' or 'for that tearing a child,' διὰ τῆς τεκνογονίας, namely Christ, in that one of their sex did bring forth Christ to save us, even as one of their sex overthrew us. Thus some of the ancients, and modern divines also, have taken it, that his scope should be, to compare the hand that woman had, and the service she did in saving man, with that ill turn she did man in tempting him to that sin, which brought death upon all; and so, indeed, the analogy or proportion between these and the former words is more full and direct, and ad idem, for, First, So he compares the eminent act of one woman in sinning, with the most eminent act of a woman in doing good.
Secondly, It is so made the reason why women should be saved notwithstanding. The Greek hath it, διὰ τῆς, &c. 'for that childbearing;' there is an article added, and διὰ is a note of causation, as rendering a reason why womankind (though one of them damned man) should be saved, seeing they made a recompense, as he had alleged the other as a reason of their debasement.
And thirdly, Thus also it is more general, as reaching to the honour of all women, as the other doth unto the dishonour of all, whereas otherwise that ordinary child-bearing is but of mothers only. I do not exclude that other interpretation, that he speaks of the proper calling of women, in which (as some read it) God hath ordained to save them, as in opposition to what he had said of excluding them from speaking and bearing offices in the church, those high callings; yet so, as I think, being taken in this sense, rendereth it more for their honour, as more generally reaching all women, even as Eve's fall reacheth universally to their dishonour; whereas the calling of childbearing reacheth but some of women only, namely, mothers.
[4.] Fourthly, The way by which Adam's sin was derived, was by imputation, he representing us all; and God, to make us amends, takes the same course to justify us, by imputing or reckoning Christ's righteousness ours, who represented us also in his obedience.
[5.] Fifthly, Satan insinuating a temptation by discourse to the outward ear deceived Eve, and she through unbelief listening to his temptation, fell and ruined us. And God hath ordained in recompense, the preaching of the gospel, and bearing of it, to beget faith, and faith all graces else, and so to be the instrument of saving us.
The like correspondent recompense (to instance in no more) hath God made in the thing in hand, by ordaining a succession of his elect in a line, and an engrafting the children into the fathers' covenant, thereby ordering that generation should in some respect he the channel and stream for his free grace to run into the vessels of mercy, because that generation is and was the instrument that conveyed sin and the curse to us and ours; that so the blessing might come in at the same door upon us, through which the curse entered. Only, as the apostle says, in that like case which we instanced in, Rom. 5, 'that as by one man sin entered, so by one man grace,' yet with a glorious difference on grace's part; so as ver. 15, 16, he gives a different glory to grace, 'Not as the offence, so is the free gift'; the one 'entered upon all men,' ver. 12, naturally and necessarily, but grace comes upon them, and is received 'as a free gift,' ver. 16–18. So here, propagation is used as the channel of grace and as the channel of sin; but so to be understood, as with a servatis semper prærogativis gratiæ, with a not as by any natural influence generation hath, as it conveys sin, naturally and necessarily; but this other is freely conveyed, and therefore oftentimes is not derived until the children be come to ripe years, and not at all to some of their children, to shew that grace will be grace in it; yet so as God hath in a great measure freely entailed it to their seed. And the reason why God delights to use the same ways to convey grace which conveyed sin, is, First, By way of compensation, to make them amends, that they might be able to say, that all things are wrought about for their good.
And, secondly, that the same things that tended most unto their hurt should be means of conveying the greatest good.
Yea, thirdly, hereby he justifies his course in conveying sin, and takes off much of the seeming harshness and inequality that wicked men lay to his charge therein, in that he useth the same way to derive a blessing of grace. If they quarrel the imputation of another's sin, the answer is ready, that God hath provided that we may be saved by the imputation of another's righteousness; if that seem harsh, that men should convey unto their children sin and death together with their being, and that men's very issuing out of the loins of Adam should render them sinful and corrupt, how doth this lenify it, that if they will turn to God they may be made instruments of conveying a blessing to their children greater than that curse, a grace surpassing that sin (for so the promise runs). Why then, O man, shouldst thou quarrel against God?
Fourthly, God therein shews forth the glory of his wisdom, that in those very things wherein Satan dealt proudly God should go beyond him. Satan knowing the curse denounced by God, that if Adam fell, all his children should fell in him, and should by a just law have in their very generation from him that sin derived, thought he, Man's fall will be such a check and blemish unto God's proceedings that it will quite spoil the game, that it can never be played out, but will hold all mankind, young and old, under an inevitable law of being damned, and that by a law which God hath set, which Satan had put this absurdity now upon, that through that very thing by which they are made men they should at once be made sinful men, at once nati and damnati. But how does God circumvent and go beyond him heroin, and not only removes out of check, but gives him a mate! He lets that law stand in full force, and suffers all mankind by generation to be corrupted, and cares not, he having an elect under hand among them, whom only he means to save, and who above all his works are
'known unto God from the beginning,' Acts 15:16; whom he hath so ranked and mustered in their succession and genealogy written in his book, that still it may fall out, that by generation this blessing may be conveyed, and that in that line election may run. Thus did God's wisdom lie in ambushment to retort this absurdity back again on sin
and Satan, to their greater confusion, which is the most pure revenge and glorious victory that could be.
And this fourth and last reason of the former rule hints me to another rule, by which I have observed God to have regulated his proceedings of grace, which also holds in the matter in hand, and may be a further reason for it; and it is, that God hath made his proceedings of grace suitable to, and justifiable by, the like common proceedings and principles of men one towards another, so as he will be able to justify them according to the principles taken up by, and current among, men themselves, and to take in all sorts of reasons to make good his ways; as for instance, that God should love one man, and ordain him a vessel of honour, and not another. Do not kings the like?—Dan. 5:19, 'And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive, and whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down'—and you quarrel not them. Does not the potter take the same lump, and make vessels of honour and dishonour? 'Who art thou, O man, that disputest against God?' Rom. 9:21. Again, that for the sin of man the creature should be cursed, and his children fall from their dignity with him; do not men ordain the like by a law of nations? namely, that traitors' houses be made jakes, their children accounted tainted, oftentimes their whole families ruined and rooted out. So among the Persians, and Grecians, and others. Yet again, that the death and satisfaction of another (namely, Christ) should be accepted to acquit us, which the Socinians can by no means swallow, is just by the consent and suffrage of all nations, whenas the party that satisfies for that other shall be willing to it, and freely undertake it, as Christ did. This we see in the law of hostages, which is in force and use among all nations, and when the covenants are broken by those for whom they remain hostages, they are justly slain, though in themselves innocent. Now Christ became our surety and an hostage for us. Thus likewise, that we should be justified by the righteousness of another, and have our sins imputed to him, and his obedience to us (which the papists stomach at), is justifiable by all laws of men, which enact