4. It may easily be seen, how that God, in the permission of sin, may design to advance his own glory, and the good of his creatures. And that this was really God's design, in the instances which have been under consideration, is manifest from the five books of Moses, in which the history of these things is recorded at large. Particularly, I desire the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th chapters of Deuteronomy may be read, in this view. THE WISDOM OF GOD IN THE PERMISSION OF SIN. SERMON II. GENESIS 1. 20. Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. WISDOM Consists in choosing the best end, and contriving the most proper means to attain it. The MESSIAH had been promised to our first parents, about two thousand years ago; and the time of his advent was approaching: but the world were greatly unprepared for such an event. They did not know that they were in a fallen state, and that they needed a Redeemer and a Sanctifier. They neither knew God, nor themselves; what they were, nor what they ought to be; nor what they needed to bring them right; and were sinking, by swift degrees, into still grosser ignorance and the most stupid idolatry. And had God suffered them all to have taken their own course, till the MESSIAH's birth, ignorance and depravity would have risen to such a height as to have rendered mankind wholly unprepared for the gospel-dispensation. Wherefore, God must interpose, and some method must be taken to check the universal spread of idolatry and ignorance, and to revive the knowledge of the true God, and of the law of nature; and to make mankind sensible of their depravity, of their guilt, and ill-desert, and need of a Redeemer and Sanctifier; and so prepare a way for the coming of Christ, and the erection of his spiritual kingdom. With these views, about two thousand years before the birth of the Messiah, God called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, and separated him from an idolatrous world, and stronger inducements to tell these things to their sons, and sous' sons. Nor could a better method have been taken to lay a lasting foundation for a firm belief, and steady practice of the true religion, It was most for the honour of God, and most for the interest of religion; and so really for the best good of the Israelites, that they should be thus tried; left to act out their hearts, and then punished, subdued, humbled, and brought into subjection to the divine authority, before they entered into possession of the promised land, although it cost them six hundred thousand lives, and many a dreadful day. For to what purpose had it been for God to have brought them straight from Egypt, with all their Egyptian notions and tempers, into the holy land, there to have polluted it, and to have dishonoured him with their abominations*? Besides, from the murmurings and rebellions of the Israelites in the wilderness, there was the fullest demonstration of the divinity of the Jewish religion. For, had not Moses been sent of God, and supported, too, by the interposition of ALMIGHTY POWER, it had been impossible he should have accomplished the design. They would surely have deserted him, and returned to Egypt again. Nor could the children of Israel, how degenerate soever they were, and how apt soever to fall into idolatry, in after ages, ever once scruple whether Moses were indeed sent of God, after such a scene of wonders for forty years together. Nor does it appear that the divine legation of Moses was ever called in question by that people. And whenever they read over the law of Moses, together with the history interspersed in those sacred books, they might not only learn the nature of God and man, and see God's * If it was wise in God so to order, that the Israelites should be oppressed above an hundred years before their deliverance, and then pass through such great trials forty years more, before their entrance into the holy land; how know we but it may be wise that the Christian church in general, and we, in New-England, in particular, should pass through very dark and trying times, for a long season, before God begins to work deliverance in that remarkable manner which may be expected at the ushering in of the glorious day. To be sure, there seems to be a foundation laid for great distresses, and of long continuance, for our sinful land. Better so than to be left to sleep on, secure in sin. Nothing so dreadful as to be ven up to carnal security, and suffered to go on in wickedness and prosper.. right to command; their obligations to obey; and the great evil of sin, from the law of Moses, as being therem he.d forth; but might behold all these exemplified, in a most striking manner, in a series of FACTS. Let them but view the divine conduct in Egypt, at the Red sea, in the wilderness, &c. and it would give them a most lively picture of the DIVINE NATURE; for here they had the HISTORY of the DEITY. And let them view the conduct of the Israelites from first to last, and it would give them a most lively picture of human nature; for here they had it acted out to the life. And God's right to command, their obligations to obey, and the great evil of sin, are set in the strongest light. Nor were the ad vantages of these transactions confined to those ages; for all these things happened, and were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the world are come. God is still the same, and so is human nature too. For, as face answers to face in a glass, so does the heart of man to man. O, the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! Of whom, and by whom, and to whom are all things; to whom belongs giory for ever! And how know we but that the grand affairs of the universe are all conducted as wisely, as were these now in our view? To conclude; let these four remarks be well attended to, and remembered: 1. That, in all these instances of God's permitting sin, he had a view to the manifestation of himself. They gave him opportunities to act out his heart; and so to show what he was, and how he stood affected: and he intended, by his conduct, to set himself, i. e. all his perfections, in a full, clear, strong point of light: that it might be known that he was the LORD, and that the whole earth might be filled with his glory. 2. And he intended to let his creatures give a true specimen of themselves: that it might be known what was in their hearts. But, 3. The advantages of acquaintance with God and ourselves are innumerable. We can be neither humble, holy, nor happy, without it. So that, 4. It may easily be seen, how that God, in the permission of sin, may design to advance his own glory, and the good of his creatures. And that this was really God's design, in the instances which have been under consideration, is manifest from the five books of Moses, in which the history of these things is recorded at large. Particularly, I desire the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th chapters of Deuteronomy may be read, in this view. |