The exercise of this righteousness in God presupposes sundry things: The creation of all things, in their kind, order, state, and condition, by a free act of the will and power of God, regulated by his goodness and infinite wisdom: for our God does whatever he pleases; he works all things according to the counsel of his own will. In particular, the creation of intelligent, rational creatures in a moral dependence on himself, capable of being ruled by a law, in order to his glory and their own blessedness. The being and nature of mankind, their rational constitution, their ability for obedience, their capacity of eternal blessedness or misery, depend all on a sovereign free act of the will of God. The nature of the law given to these creatures, as the means and instrument of their moral, orderly dependence on God; of which the breach of that law would be a disturbance. The eternal, natural, unchangeable right that God has to govern these creatures according to the tenor of that law which he has so appointed for the instrument of his rule. This is no less necessary to God than his being. The sin of those creatures, which was destructive of all that order of things, which ensued on the creation and giving of the law. For it was so Of the principal end of the creation, which could be no other but the glory of God from the obedience of his creatures, preserving all things in the order and state wherein he had made and placed them; Of the dependence of the creature on God, which consisted in his moral obedience to him according to the law; and, It was introductory of a state of things utterly opposite to the universal rectitude of the nature of God.
Only the right of God to rule the sinning creature to his own glory abode with him, because it belongs to him as God. And this represents the state of things between God and the sinning creature; wherein we say, that upon a supposition of all these antecedaneous free acts, and of the necessary continuance of God’s righteousness of rule and judgment, it was necessary that the sinning creature should be punished according to the sentence of the law. Only observe, that I say not that this righteousness of judgment, as to the punitive part or quality of it, is a peculiar righteousness in God, or an especial virtue in the divine nature, or an especial distinct righteousness, which the schoolmen generally incline to; for it is only the universal rectitude of the nature of God, sometimes called his righteousness, sometimes his holiness, sometimes his purity, exercising itself not absolutely, but on the suppositions before laid down.
Adapted from The Priesthood of Christ: Its Necessity and Nature by John Owen
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