(2.) That God will yet exercise and lay out those
properties of his to the utmost in our behalf. Though he hath made them
all glorious in a way that may tend to our good, yet it doth not absolutely
follow that he will use them for our good; for do we not see
innumerable persons perishing everlastingly, notwithstanding the
manifestation of himself which God hath made in Christ. Wherefore farther,
God hath committed all his properties into the hand of Christ if I may so
say, to be managed in our behalf, and for our good. He 1 Cor. i. 20, 30;
Jer. xxiii. 6. is “The
power of God, and the wisdom of God;” he is “The Lord our Righteousness,” and is
“made unto us of God wisdom, and righteousness, sanctification, and
redemption.” Christ having glorified his Father in all his attributes, he
hath now the exercise of them committed to him, that he might be the
captain of salvation to them that do believe; so that if, in the
righteousness, the goodness, the love, the mercy, the all-sufficiency of
God, there be any thing that will do us good, the Lord Jesus is fully
interested with the dispensing of it in our behalf. Hence God is said to
be “in him, reconciling the world unto himself,” 2 Cor. v.
18. Whatever is in him, he layeth it out for the reconciliation
of the world, in and by the Lord Christ; and he becomes “The Lord our Righteousness,” Isa. xlv. 24, 25. And this is the
second thing required.