Our common moral sense of God will tell us that holiness and righteousness must be precious to Him. “Holiness becometh Thine house, O Lord, forever." Psa. 93:55Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever. (Psalm 93:5). Purity and truth, and the maintenance of all the cares of order and integrity, must be according to Him. The conscience will bear this witness.
Faith knows that His grace is precious to Him. "He delighteth in mercy." Mic. 7:1818Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. (Micah 7:18). The gospel provides for the Divine mind. This truth may be beyond the thoughts of the conscience or the moral sense that is in us, but faith understands it.
The gospel is the gospel of the blessed, or happy God (1 Tim. 1:22Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Timothy 1:2)). The feet of those who preach it on the mountains are beautiful in the eyes of the Lord, as are the mystic garments of the priests, the ministers of it, in the Temple "glory and... beauty" (Rom. 10:1515And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! (Romans 10:15); Ex. 28:22And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty. (Exodus 28:2); Heb. 2:77Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: (Hebrews 2:7)).
The divine mind is made known to us. We apprehend it, thus far, with certainty. A meek and quiet spirit is, with the Lord, of great price, and there is richest joy before Him in heaven in the grace that welcomes a lost and returned sinner.
But, are not His counsels dear to Him? Are not the events of His bosom dear to Him? The maintenance of righteousness and of godly order is precious to Him. The exercise of grace is joy to Him. Is not the purpose of His wisdom and the secret of His bosom alike dear to Him? Certainly it must be so. In the zeal of enforcing what is morally right, and in the publishing of evangelical truths, we may overlook this. The Church was the peculiar secret of God before the world was a mystery kept secret from ages and generations but "hid in God." Can we not give this wonderful truth a place among the things that are precious with Him?
The Church is brought before us all through the Word of God. We have it shadowed in the man and the woman of the Garden of Eden. It is brought before us by the Holy Jerusalem at the very close of the Apocalypse.
It is when the Spirit of Christ in David had for a moment rapidly touched or awakened the mystery, that the worshipper exclaims, "How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God!" Psa. 139:1717How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! (Psalm 139:17).
It must be so, though our moral judgment or our conscience, and again our common evangelic faith, do not so quickly grasp it. We know, as we have said, that godliness is precious to Him. But are not His own eternal counsels, the secrets of His bosom. precious to Him as well?
Known unto Him are all His works from the foundation of the world. Redemption was no afterthought with Him. He planned it all. All passed in bright review before Him when as yet there was none of them. And all was precious. And the mystery of the Church that has given a body to Christ, and a partner in glory to the Son of His love, lay there the deepest, because it was the dearest, in the bosom of sovereign and eternal counsels. Words of Truth