as it were, come off the
throne of his sovereignty, both to require such duties of men, and to
promise unto them such a free reward. And the reasons of this may be plain
upon God's part and upon ours. In such dealing, he consulted his own
glory, and man's good. His own glory, I say, is manifested in it, and
chiefly the glory of his goodness and love, that the Most High comes down
so low as to article with his own footstool, that he changes his absolute
right into a moderate and temperate government, and tempers his lordly and
truly monarchical power by such a commixture of gentleness and goodness,
in requiring nothing but what man behoved to call reasonable and due, and
in promising so much as no creature could challenge any title to it. When
the law was promulgated, "Do this," eat not of this tree, Adam's
conscience behoved to say, "Amen, Lord; all is due, all the reason in the
world for it." But when the promise is added, and the trumpet sounds
longer, "Thou shalt live!" O more than reason, more than is due, must his
conscience say! It was reason, that the most high Lord should use his
footstool as his footstool, and set his servant in the place of a servant,
and so keep distance from him. But how strange is it that he humbles
himself to make friendship with man, to assume him in a kind of
familiarity and equality? And this Christ is not forgetful of. When he
restores men, he puts them in all their former dignities; "I call you not
servants but friends." Next, his wisdom doth appear in this, that when he
had made a reasonable creature, he takes a way of dealing, suitable to his
nature, to bring forth willing and free obedience by the persuasion of
such a reward, and the terror of such a punishment. He most wisely did
enclose the will of man, as it were, on both sides, with hedges of
punishment and reward, which might have been a sufficient defence or guard
against all the irruptions of contrary persuasions, that man might
continue in obedience, and that when he went to the right hand or left, he
might be kept in, by the hope of such an ample promise, and the fear of
such a dreadful threatening. But then the righteousness of God doth appear
in this; for there is nothing doth more illustrate the justice of the
judge, than when the malefactor hath before consented to such a punishment
in case of transgression, when the law is confirmed by the consent and
approbation of man. Now he has man subscribing already to his judgment