Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

1. This Sovereignty of God appears, in requiring satisfaction for the sin of man. Had he indulged man after his fall, and remitted his offence without a just compensation for the injury he had received by his Rebellion, his Authority had been vilified, man would always have been attempting against his jurisdiction, there would have been a continual succession of Rebellions on mans part, and if a continual succession of indulgences on Gods part, he had quite disowned his Authority over man, and stripped himself of the flower of his Crown; satisfaction must have been required sometime or other, from the person thus rebelling, or some other in his stead; and to require it after the first act of sin, was more preservative to the right of the Divine sovereignty, than to do it after a multitude of repeated revolts. God must have laid aside his Authority, if he had laid aside wholly the exacting punishment for the offence of man.

1. This Soveraignty of God appears, in requiring satisfaction for the sin of man. Had he indulg'd man after his fall, and remitted his offence without a just compensation for the injury he had received by his Rebellion, his Authority had been vilified, man would always have been attempting against his jurisdiction, there would have been a continual succession of Rebellions on mans part, and if a continual succession of indulgences on Gods part, he had quite disown'd his Authority over man, and stript himself of the flower of his Crown; satisfaction must have been requir'd sometime or other, from the person thus rebelling, or some other in his stead; and to require it after the first act of sin, was more preservative to the right of the Divine soveraignty, than to do it after a multitude of repeated revolts. God must have laid aside his Authority, if he had laid aside wholly the exacting punishment for the offence of man.

2. This Sovereignty of God appears, in appointing Christ to this work of Redemption. His sovereignty was before manifest over Angels and Men by the right of Creation, there was nothing wanting to declare the highest charge of it, but his ordering his own Son to become a mortal Creature; the Lord of all things to become lower than those Angels, that had, as well as all other things, received their being and beauty from him, and to be reckoned in his death among the dust and refuse of the World: He by whom God created all things, not only became a man, but a crucified man by the Will of his Father.