Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

As when he resolved to make a Creature, actively to glorify him, in wisdom he must give him reason; yet the making such a Creature was an act of his absolute Dominion.

As when he resolv'd to make a Creature, actively to glorifie him, in wisdom he must give him reason; yet the making such a Creature was an act of his absolute Dominion.

6. His Sovereignty is manifest in the calling some to a more special service in their Generation. God settles some in immediate Offices of his service, and perpetuates them in those Offices with a neglect of others, who seem to have a greater pretence to them. Moses was a great sufferer for Israel, the solicitor for them in Egypt, and the conductor of them from Egypt to Canaan; yet he was not chosen to the High Priesthood, but that was an office settled upon Aaron, and his posterity after him in a lineal descent; Moses was only pitched upon for the present rescue of the Captiv'd Israelites, and to be the instrument of Divine Miracles; but notwithstanding all the success he had in his conduct, his faithfulness in his employment, and the transcendent familiarity he had with the great Ruler of the World, his posterity were left in the common level of the Tribe of Levi without any special mark of dignity upon them above the rest for all the services of that great man. Why Moses for a Temporary Magistracy, Aaron for a perpetual Priesthood above all the rest of the Israelites, hath little reason but the absolute pleasure of God who distributes his employments, as he pleaseth; and as a Master orders this Servant to do the noblest work, and another to labour in baser offices according to his pleasure? Why doth he call out David a Shepherd to sway the Jewish Sceptre above the rest of the Brothers, that had a fairer appearance, and had been bred in arms, and inured to the Toils and Watchings of a Camp? Why should Mary be the Mother of Christ, and not some other of the same Family of David of a more splendid birth, and a nobler education? Though some other reasons may be rendered, yet that which affords the greatest acquiescence, is the Sovereign will of God. Why did Christ choose out of the meanest of the people the Twelve Apostles, to be Heralds of his Grace in Judea and other parts of the World? And afterwards select Paul before Gamaliel his Instructor, and others of the Jews, as Learned as himself, and advance him to be the most eminent Apostle above the heads of those who had ministered to Christ in the days of his flesh? Why should he preserve Eleven of those he first called, to propagate and enlarge his Kingdom, and leave the other to the employment of shedding his Blood?