Part 12
(3.) This doctrine teaches us humility and submission. The vast dis proportion between the mightiness of God, and the meanness of a creature, inculcates the lesson of humility in his presence. How becoming is humility
* under a mighty hand' ! 1 Peter v. 6. What is an infant in a giant's hand, or a lamb in a lion's paw ? Submission to irresistible power is the best policy, and the best security; this gratifies and draws out goodness, whereas murmuring and resistance exasperates and sharpens power. We sanctify his name, and glorify his strength by falling down before it ; it is an acknow ledgment of his invisible strength, and our inability to match it. How low should we therefore lie before him, against whose power our pride and mur muring can do no good, who can outwrestle us in our contests, and alway
' overcome when he judges' ! Rom iii. 4.
(4.) This doctrine teacheth us not to fear the pride and force of man. How unreasonable is it to fear a limited above an unbounded power ! How unbecoming is the fear of man in him, who hath an interest in a strength able to curb the strongest devils ! Who would tremble at the threats of a dwarf, that hath a mighty and watchful giant for his guard ? If God doth
but arise, ' his enemies are scattered,' Ps. Ixviii. 1, the least motion makes them fly before him ; it is no difficult thing for him, that made them by a word, to unmake their designs, and shiver them in pieces by the breath of
his mouth. ' He brings princes to nothing, and makes the judges of the earth vanity;' they wither when he blows upon them, and ' their stock shall not take root in the earth.' He can command a ' whirlwind to take them
away as stubble,' Isa. xl. 23, 24 ; yea, with the shaking of his hand he makes servants to become rulers of those that were their masters, Zech. ii. 9. Whole nations are no more in his hands than a morning cloud, or the dew upon the ground, or the chaff before the wind, or the smoke against the motion of the air, which though it appear out of a chimney like a black invincible cloud, is quickly dispersed, and becomes invisible, Hosea xiii. 3. How inconsiderable are the most mighty to this strength, which can puff away a whole world of proud grasshoppers, and a whole sky of daring clouds ! He that by his word masters the rage of the sea, can overrule the pride and power of men. Where is the fury of the oppressor ? It cannot overleap the bounds he hath set it, nor march an inch beyond the point he hath prescribed it. Fear not the confederacies of man, but ' sanctify the Lord of hosts, let him be your fear, and let him be your dread,' Isa. viii. 13. To fear men is to dishonour the name of God, and regard him as a feeble Lord, and not as the Lord of hosts, who is mighty in strength, so that they that harden themselves against him shall not prosper.
(5.) Therefore this doctrine teacheth us the fear of God. The prophet
JOB XXVI. 14.] GOD'S POWEK. 187
Jeremiah counts it as an impossible thing for men to be destitute of the fear of God, when they seriously consider his name to be great and mighty.
Jer. x. 6, 7, ' Thou art great, and thy name is great in might. Who would not fear thee, 0 thou King of nations ?' Shall we not tremble at his pre
sence, who hath ' placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree,' that though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet they ' cannot prevail,' Jer. v. 22. He can arm the weakest creature for our destruction, and disarm the strongest creatures which appear for our preservation. He can command a hair, a crumb, a kernel to go awry, and strangle us ; he can make the heavens brass over our head, stop close the bottles of the clouds, and make the fruit of the fields droop, when there is a small distance
to the harvest; he can arm men's wit, wealth, hands against themselves ; he can turn our sweet morsels into bitter, and our own consciences into devour ing lions ; he can root up cities by moles, and conquer the proudest by lice
and worms. The omnipotence of God is not only the object of a believer's trust, but a believer's fear. It is from the consideration of this power only that our Saviour presses his disciples, whom he entitles his friends, to fear -God ; which lesson he presses by a double repetition, and with a kind of
asseveration, without rendering any other reason than this of the ability of God to cast into hell, Luke xii. 5. We are to fear him because he can, but bless his goodness because he will not. In regard of his omnipotence, he is to be reverenced, not only by mortal men, but by the blessed angels, who are past the fear of any danger by his power, being confirmed in a happy state by his unalterable grace. When they adore him for his holiness, they reverence him for his power with covered faces. The title of the Lord of
hosts is joined in their reverential praise with that of his holiness : Isa.
vi. 8, ' Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.' How should we adore that power which can preserve us, when devils and men conspire to destroy us ! How should we stand in awe of that power which can destroy us, though angels and men should combine to preserve us ! The parts of his ways which are discovered are sufficient motives to an humble and reverential adoration. But who can fear and adore him according to the vastness of
his power, and his excellent greatness, since ' the thunder of his power who can understand ! '
A DISCOURSE UPON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.
Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods ? who is like thee, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. — EXOD. XV. 11.
THIS verse is one of the loftiest descriptions of the majesty and excellency
of God in the whole Scripture.* It is a part of Moses's 'Evivixiov, or triumphant song, after a great, and real, and a typical victory, in the womb
of which all the deliverances of the church were couched. It is the first song upon holy record, and it consists of gratulatory and prophetic matter. It casts a look backward to what God did for them in their deliverance from Egypt ; and a look forward, to what God shall do for the church in future ages. That deliverance was but a rough draught of something more excel lent to be wrought towards the closing up of the world ; when his plagues shall be poured out upon the antichristian powers, which should revive the same song of Moses in the church, as fitted so many ages before for such a scene of affairs, Rev. xv. 2, 3. It is observed therefore, that many words in this song are put in the future tense, noting a time to come ; and the
very first word, ver. 1, ' Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song ;' "Vti?1' shall sing ; implying, that it was composed and calculated for the celebrating some greater action of God's, which was to be wrought in the world. Upon this account some of the Jewish rabbins, from the con
sideration of this remark, asserted the doctrine of the resurrection to be meant in this place ;f that Moses and those Israelites should rise again to sing the same song, for some greater miracles God should work, and greater
triumphs he should 'bring forth, exceeding those wonders at their deliverance from Egypt.
It consists of,J 1. A preface ; ver. 1, ' I will sing unto the Lord.' 2. An historical narration of matter of fact ; ver. 3, 4, ' Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the Red sea,' which he solely ascribes to God ; ver. 6, ' Thy right hand, 0 Lord, is become glorious in power : thy right hand, 0 Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy ;' which he doth prophetically, as respecting something to be done in after times ; or farther, for the completing of that deliverance ; or as others think, respecting their entering into Canaan, for the words in these two verses are put in the future tense. The manner of the deliverance is described, ver. 8,
' The floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the
* Trap, in loc. f Manass. ben. Israel, de Kesur. lib. i. cap. i. p. 7. J Pareus in Exod. xv.
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 189
heart of the sea.' In the 9th verse he magnifies the victory from the vain glory and security of the enemy : ' The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil,' &c. And ver. 16, 17, he prophetically describes the fruit of this victory in the influence it shall have upon those nations by whose confines they were to travel to the promised land : ' Fear and dread shall fall upon them : by the greatness of thy arm they shall be
as still as a stone ; till thy people pass over, which thou hast purchased.' Th& phrase of this and the 17th and 18th verses, seems to be more mag nificent than to design only the bringing the Israelites to the earthly Canaan ; but seems to respect the gathering his redeemed ones together, to place them in the spiritual sanctuary which he had established, wherein the Lord should reign for ever and ever, without any enemies to disturb his royalty ;
' The Lord shall reign for ever and ever,' ver. 18. The prophet, in the midst of his historical narrative, seems to be in an ecstasy, and breaks out in a stately exaltation of God in the text.
' Who is like unto thee, 0 Lord, among the gods ? ' &c. Interrogations are in Scripture the strongest affirmations or negations. It is here a strong affirmation of the incomparableness of God, and a strong denial of the worthiness of all creatures to be partners with him in the degrees of hia excellency. It is a preference of God before all creatures in holiness, to which the purity of creatures is but a shadow ; in desert of reverence and
veneration, he being ' fearful in praises.' The angels cover their faces when they adore him in his particular perfections.
' Amongst the gods.' Among the idols of the nations, say some ; others say,* it is not to be found that the heathen idols are ever dignified with the title of strong or mighty, as the word translated gods doth import, and therefore understand it of the angels, or other potentates of the world ; or rather inclusively, of all that are noted for and can lay claim to the title of strength and might upon the earth or in heaven. God is so great and majestic, that no creature can share with him in his praise.
' Fearful in praises.' Various are the interpretations of this passage. To be reverenced in praises ; his praise ought to be celebrated with a religious fear. Fear is the product of his mercy as well as his justice : ' He hath
forgiveness that he may be feared,' Ps. cxxx. 4. Or, fearful in praises ; whom none can praise without amazement at the considerations of his works. None can truly praise him without being affected with astonishment at his greatness. f Or, fearful in praises ; J whom no mortal can sufficiently praise, since he is above all praise. Whatsoever a human tongue can speak, or an angelical understanding think of the excellency of his nature and the great ness of his works, falls short of the vastness of the divine perfection. A
creature's praises of God are as much below the transcendent erninency of God, as the meanness of a creature's being is below the eternal fulness of the Creator. Or rather, fearful, or terrible in praises ; that is, in the matter of thy praise ; and the learned Rivet concurs with me in this sense. The works of God celebrated in this song were terrible. It was the miraculous overthrow of the strength and flower of a mighty nation. His judgments
were severe, as well as his mercy was seasonable. The word N"lij signifies glorious and illustrious, as well as terrible and fearful. No man can hear the praise of thy name, for those great judicial acts, without some astonish
ment at thy justice, the stream, and thy holiness the spring of those mighty works. This seems to be the sense of the following words, ' doing wonders.' Fearful in the matter of thy praise, they being wonders which thou hast done among us and for us.
* Rivet t Calvin. J Munster.
190 CHABNOCK'S WOKKS. [Exoo. XV. 11.
' Doing wonders.' Congealing the waters by a wind, to make them stand like walls for the rescue of the Israelites, and melting them by a wind, for the overthrow of the Egyptians, are prodigies that challenge the greatest adorations of that mercy which delivered the one, and that justice which punished the other ; and of the arm of that power whereby he effected both his gracious and his righteous purposes.
Doct. Whence observe, that the judgments of God upon his enemies, as well as his mercies to his people, are matter of praise. The perfections of
God appear in both. Justice and mercy are so linked together in his acts of providence, that the one cannot be forgotten whiles the other is acknow ledged. He is never so terrible as in the ' assemblies of his saints,' and the deliverance of them, Ps. Ixxxix. 7. As the creation was erected by him for his glory, so ail the acts of his government are designed for the same end. And his creatures deny him his due, if they acknowledge not his excellency, in whatsoever dreadful as well as pleasing garbs it appears in the world. His terror as well as his righteousness appears when he is a ' God of salva
tion,' Ps. Ixv. 5. ' By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us,
0 God of our salvation.' But the expression I pitch upon in the text to handle is, glorious in holi
ness. He is magnified or honourable in holiness ; so the word "V"!^ is translated, Isa. xlii. 21, ' He will magnify the law and make it honourable.' Thy holiness hath shone forth admirably in this last exploit against the enemies and oppressors of thy people. The holiness of God is his glory, as his grace is his riches ; holiness is his crown, and his mercy is his treasure. This is the blessedness and nobleness of his nature ; it renders him glorious in himself, and glorious to his creatures, that understand any thing of this lovely perfection.
Doct. Holiness is a glorious perfection belonging to the nature of God, hence he is in Scripture styled often the Holy One, the Holy One of Jacob, the Holy One of Israel, and oftener entitled] Holy than Almighty, and set forth by this part of his dignity more than by any other. This is more affixed as an epithet to his name than any other ; you never find it expressed, his might;/ name or his wise name, but his great name, and most of all his holy
name. This is his greatest title of honour ; in this doth the majesty and venerableness of his name appear. When the sinfulness of Sennacherib is aggravated, the Holy Ghost takes the rise from this attribute, 2 Kings xix.
22, ' Thou has lift up thine eyes on high, even against the Holy One of Israel;' not against the wise, mighty, &c., but against the Holy One of Israel, as that wherein the majesty of God was most illustrious. It is upon this account he is called light, as impurity is called darkness ; both in this sense are opposed to one another ; he is a pure and unmixed light, free from all blemish in his essence, nature, and operations.
1. Heathens have owned it. Proclus calls him the undefiled governor,
* A%eot,vTos fiyepwv, of the world. The poetical transformations of their false gods, and the extravagancies committed by them, was (in the account of
the wisest of them) an unholy thing to report and hear.* And somef vindi cate Epicurus from the atheism wherewith he was commonly charged, that he did not deny the being of God, but those adulterous and contentious deities the people worshipped, which were practices unworthy and unbecoming the nature of God ; hence they asserted that virtue was an imitation of God, and a virtuous man bore a resemblance to God. If virtue were a copy from God, a greater holiness must be owned in the original ; and when some of them
* 'Ou5? azf/jtiv offiov. Ammon. in Plut. de 'E/ apud Delphos. p. 393t Gassend. torn. i. Phys. sec. i. lib. iv. cap. ii. p. 289.
EXOD. XV, 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 191
were at a loss how to free God from being the author of sin in the world, they ascribe the birth of sin to matter, and run into an absurd opinion, fancying it to be uncreated, that thereby they might exempt God from all mixture of evil, so sacred with them was the conception of God as a holy God.
2. The absurdest heretics have owned it.* The Manichees and Marcion-
ites, that thought evil came by necessity, yet would salve God's being the author of it, by asserting two distinct eternal principles, one the original of evil, as God was the fountain of good; so rooted was the notion of this divine purity, that none would ever slander goodness itself with that which was so disparaging to it.
3. The nature of God cannot rationally be conceived without it. Though the power of God be the first rational conclusion drawn from the sight of his works, wisdom the next from the order and connection of his works, purity must result from the beauty of his works. That God cannot be
deformed by evil, who hath made everything so beautiful in its time. The notion of a God cannot be entertained without separating from him what soever is impure and bespotting, both in his essence and actions. Though we conceive him infinite in majesty, infinite in essence, eternal in duration, mighty in power, and wise and immutable in his counsels, merciful in his proceedings with men, and whatsoever other perfections may dignify so sovereign a being ; yet if we conceive him destitute of this excellent per fection, and imagine him possessed with the least contagion of evil, we make him but an infinite monster, and sully all those perfections we ascribed to him before ; we rather own him a devil than a god. It is a contradiction to be God and to be darkness, or to have one mote of darkness mixed with his light. It is a less injury to him to deny his being, than to deny the purity of it ; the one makes him no God, the other a deformed, unlovely, and a detestable God.
Plutarch said not amiss, that he should count himself less injured by that man, that should deny that there was such a man as Plutarch, than by him that should affirm that there was such a one indeed, but he was a debauched fellow, a loose and vicious person. It is a less wrong to discard any acknowledgments of his being, and to count him nothing, than to believe him to exist, but imagine a base and unholy deity ; he that saith, God is not holy, speaks much worse than he that saith, There is no God at all.
Let these two things be considered :
1. If any, this attribute hath an excellency above his other perfections. There are some attributes of God we prefer, because of our interest in them, and
the relation they bear to us ; as we 'esteem his goodness before his power, and his mercy, whereby he relieves us, before his justice, whereby he punisheth us. As there are some we more delight in because of the good ness we receive by them, so there are some that God delights to honour because of their excellency.
(1.) None is sounded out so loftily, with such solemnity, and so frequently by angels that stand before his throne, as this. Where do you find any other attribute trebled in the praises of it, as this ? Isa. vi. 8, ' Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts ; the whole earth is full of his glory ;' and Rev. iv.
8, ' The four beasts rest not day and night saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,' &c. His power of sovereignty as Lord of hosts, is but once mentioned, but with a ternal repetition of his holiness. Do you hear in any angelical song any other perfection of the divine nature thrice re peated ? Where do we read of the crying out Eternal, eternal, eternal ; or Faithful, faithful, faithful, Lord God of hosts ! Whatsoever other attri-
* Petav. Theol. Dogmat torn. i. lib. vk cap. v. p. 415.
192 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Exoo. XV. 11.
bate is left out, this God would have to fill the mouths of angels and blessed spirits for ever in heaven.
(2.) He singles it out to swear by : Ps. Ixxxix. 35, ' Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David ;' and Amos iv. 2, ' The Lord will swear by his holiness.' He twice swears by his holiness, once by his power, Isa. Ixii. 8 ; once by all, when he swears by his name, Jer. xliv.^26. He lays here his holiness to pledge for the assurance of his promise, as the attribute most dear to him, most valued by him, as though no other could give an assurance parallel to it, in this concern of an everlasting redemption, which is there spoken of. He that swears, swears by a greater than himself. God having no greater than himself, swears by himself ; and swearing here by his holiness seems to equal that single to all his other attributes, as if he were more concerned in the honour of it than of all the rest. It is as if he should have said, Since I have not a more excellent perfection to swear by than that of my holiness, I lay this to pawn for your security, and bind myself by that which I will never part with, were it possible for me to be stripped of all the rest. It is a tacit imprecation of himself, If I lie unto David, let me never be counted holy, or thought righteous enough to be trusted by angels or men. This attribute he makes most of.
(3.) It is his glory and beauty. Holiness is the honour of the creature, — sanctification and honour are linked together, 1 Thes. iv. 4, — much more is it the honour of God ; it is the image of God in the creature, Eph. iv. 24. When we take the picture of a man, we draw the most beautiful part, the face, which is a member of the greatest excellency ; when God would be drawn to the life, as much as can be, in the spirit of his creatures, he is drawn in this attribute, as being the most beautiful perfection of God, and most valu able with him. Power is his hand and arm, omniscience his eye, mercy his bowels, eternity his duration, his holiness is his beauty : 2 Chron.
xx. 21, ' should praise the beauty of his holiness.' In Ps. xxvii. 4, David desires to ' behold the beauty of the Lord, and inquire in his holy temple ;' that is, the holiness of God manifested in his hatred of sin in the daily
sacrifices. Holiness was the beauty of the temple; Isa. xlvi. 11, 'Holy and beautiful house' are joined together, much more the beauty of God that dwelt in the sanctuary.
This renders him lovely to all his innocent creatures, though formidable to the guilty ones. A heathen philosopher could call it the beauty of the divine essence, and say, that God was not so happy by an eternity of life,
as by an excellency of virtue.* And the angels' song intimate it to be his glory, Isa. vi. 3, ' The whole earth is full of thy glory ;' that is, of his holiness in his laws and in his judgments against sin, that being the attribute applauded by them before.
(4.) It is his very life ; so it is called, Eph. iv. 18, ' Alienated from the life of God ;' that is, from the holiness of God, speaking of the opposite to it, the uncleanness and profaneness of the Gentiles. We are only alienated from that which we are bound to imitate ; but this is the perfection alway
set out as the pattern of our actions, ' Be you holy, as I am holy;' no other is proposed as our copy ; alienated from that purity of God, which is as much as his life, without which he could not live. If he were stripped of this, he would be a dead God, more than by the want of any other perfection. His swearing by it intimates as much ; he swears often by his own life :
' As I live, saith the Lord ;' so he swears by his holiness as if it were his life, and more his life than any other. Let me not live, or let me not be holy, are all one in his oath. His deity could not outlive the life of his purity.
* Plutarch, Eugubin de Perenni. Phil. lib. vi. cap. vi.
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 193
2. As it seems to challenge an excellency above all his other perfections, so it is the glory of all the rest ; as it is the glory of the Godhead, so it is the glory of every perfection in the Godhead ; as his power is the strength of them, so his holiness is the beauty of them ; as all would be weak with out almightiness to back them, so all would be uncomely without holiness to adorn them. Should this be sullied, all the rest would lose their honour and their comfortable efficacy ; as at the same instant that the sun should lose its light, it would lose its heat, its strength, its generative and quickening virtue. As sincerity is the lustre of every grace in a Christian, so is purity the splendour of every attribute in the Godhead. His justice is a holy
justice, his wisdom a holy wisdom, his arm of power a ' holy arm,' Ps.
xcviii. 1, his truth or promise a ' holy promise,' Ps. cv. 42. Holy and true go hand in hand, Rev. vi. 10. 'His name,' which signifies all his attri
butes in conjunction, ' is holy,' Ps. ciii. 1. Yea, he is ' righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works,' Ps. cxlv. 17. It is the rule of all his acts, the source of all his punishments. If every attribute of the Deity were a distinct member, purity would be the form, the soul, the spirit to animate them. Without it, his patience would be an indulgence to sin, his mercy a fondness, his wrath a madness, his power a tyranny, his wisdom an un worthy subtilty. It is this gives a decorum to all. His mercy is not exer cised without it, since he pardons none but those that have an interest by union in the obedience of a mediator, which was so delightful to his infinite purity. His justice, which guilty man is apt to tax with cruelty and violence in the exercise of it, is not acted out of the compass of this rule. In acts
of man's vindictive justice, there is something of impurity, perturbation, passion, some mixture of cruelty; but none of these fall upon God in the severest acts of wrath. When God appears to Ezekiel in the resemblance of fire, to signify his anger against the house of Judah for their idolatry,
' from his loins downwards there was the appearance of fire ; but from the loins upward the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber,' Ezek. viii. 2. His heart is clear in his most terrible acts of vengeance; it is a pure flame wherewith he scorcheth and burns his enemies. He is holy in the most fiery appearance.
This attribute, therefore, is never so much applauded as when his sword hath been drawn, and he hath manifested the greatest fierceness against his enemies. The magnificent and triumphant expression of it in the text fol
lows just upon God's miraculous defeat and ruin of the Egyptian army :
' The sea covered them ; they sank as lead in the mighty waters.' Then it follows, ' Who is like unto thee, 0 Lord, glorious in holiness ? ' And when it was so celebrated by the seraphims, Isa. vi. 3, it was when ' the posts moved, and the house was filled with smoke,' ver. 4, which are signs of anger, Ps. xviii. 7, 8. And when he was about to send Isaiah upon a mes
sage of spiritual and temporal judgments, that he would ' make the heart of that people fat, and their ears heavy, and their eyes shut, waste their cities without inhabitant, and their houses without man, and make the land deso
late,' ver. 9-12 ; and the angels, which here applaud him for his holiness, are the executioners of his justice, and here called seraphims, from burning or fiery spirits, as being the ministers of his wrath. His justice is part of his holiness, whereby he doth reduce into order those things that are out of
order. When he is consuming men by his fury, he doth not diminish, but manifest purity : Zeph. iii. 5, ' The just Lord is in the midst of her, he will
do no iniquity.' Every action of his is free from all tincture of evil. It is also celebrated with praise by the four beasts about the throne, when he appears in a covenant garb, with a rainbow about his throne, and yet with
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194 CHARNOCK'S -WORKS. [Exoo. XY. 11.
thunderings and lightnings shot out against his enemies, Rev. iv. 8 com
pared with ver. 8, 5, to shew that all his acts of mercy, as well as justice, are clear from any stain.
This is the crown of all his attributes, the life of all his decrees, the brightness of all his actions. Nothing is decreed by him, nothing is acted by him, but what is worthy of the dignity, and becoming the honour, of thte
attribute.
For the better understanding this attribute, observe, I. The nature of this holiness. II. The demonstration of it. III. The purity of his nature in all his acts about sin. IV. The use of all to ourselves.
I. First, The nature of divine holiness.
In general. The holiness of God negatively is a perfect and polluted freedom from all evil. As we call gold pure that is not imbased by any dross, and that gar ment clean that is free from any spot, so the nature of God is estranged from all shadow of evil, all imaginable contagion.
Positively, it is the rectitude or integrity of the divine nature, or that conformity of it in affection and action to the divine will as to his eternal law, whereby he works with a becomingness to his own excellency, and whereby he hath a delight and complacency in everything agreeable to his will, and an abhorrency of everything contrary thereunto.
As there is no darkness in his understanding, so there is no spot in his will. As his mind is possessed with all truth, so there is no deviation in his will from it. He loves all truth and goodness, he hates all falsity and evil. In regard of his righteousness, he loves righteousness : Ps. xi. 7,
' The righteous Lord loveth righteousness ; ' and ' hath no pleasure in wicked ness,' Ps. v. 4. He values purity in his creatures, and detests all impurity, whether inward or outward. We may indeed distinguish the holiness of God from his righteousness in our conceptions.* Holiness is a perfection absolutely considered in the nature of God; righteousness, a perfection as referred to others, in his actions towards them and upon them.
In particular. This property of the divine nature is, 1. First, An essential and necessary perfection. He is essentially and necessarily holy. It is the essential glory of his nature. His holiness is as necessary as his being, as necessary as his omniscience. As he cannot but know what is right, so he cannot but do what is just. His understanding is not as created understandings, capable of ignorance as well as knowledge ;
so his will is not as created wills, capable of unrighteousness as well as righteousness. There can be no contradiction or contrariety in the divine nature, to know what is right and to do what is wrong. If so, there would be a diminution of his blessedness ; he would not be a God alway blessed,
' blessed for ever,' as he is, Rom. ix. 5. He is as necessarily holy as he ia necessarily God ; as necessarily without sin as without change. As he was God from eternity, so he was holy from eternity. He was gracious, merci ful, just in his own nature, and also holy, though no creature had been framed by him to exercise his grace, mercy, justice, or holiness upon.f If
God had not created a world, he had in his own nature been almighty and able to create a world. If there never had been anything but himself, yet he had been omniscient, knowing everything that was within the verge and
* Martin, de Deo, p. 86. f Turretin. de Satisfact., p. 28.
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 195
compass of his infinite power ; so he was pure in his own nature, though he never had brought forth any rational creature whereby to manifest this purity. These perfections are so necessary, that the nature of God could not subsist without them. And the acts of those ad intra, or within himself, are necessary ; for being omniscient in nature, there must be an act of know ledge of himself and his own nature. Being infinitely holy, an act of holi
ness in infinitely loving himself must necessarily flow from this perfection.* As the divine will cannot but be perfect, so it cannot be wanting to render the highest love to itself, to its goodness, to the divine nature, which is due to him. Indeed, the acts of those ad extra are not necessary but upon a condition. To love righteousness without himself, or to detest sin, or inflict punishment for the committing of it, could not have been had there been no righteous creature for him to love, no sinning creature for him to loathe and to exercise his justice upon as the object of punishment.
Some attributes require a condition to make the acts of them necessary.
As it is at God's liberty whether he will create a rational creature or no ; but when he decrees to make either angel or man, it is necessary, from the
perfection of his nature, to make them righteous. It is at God's liberty whether he will speak to man or no; but if he doth, it is impossible for him to speak that which is false, because of his infinite perfection of veracity. It is at his liberty whether he will permit a creature to sin ; but if he sees good to suffer it, it is impossible but that he should detest that ereature that goes cross to his righteous nature. His holiness is not solely an act of his will, for then he might be unholy as well as holy, he might love iniquity and hate righteousness, he might then command that which is good, and after wards command that which is bad and unworthy ; for what is only an act of his will, and not belonging to his nature, is indifferent to him. As the positive law he gave to Adam of not eating the forbidden fruit was a pure
act of his will'; he might have given him liberty to eat of it, if he had pleased, as well as prohibited him. But what is moral and good in its own nature is necessarily willed by God, and cannot be changed by him, because of the transcendent eminency of his nature and righteousness of his will ; as it is impossible for God to command his creature to hate him, or to dispense with a creature for not loving him ; for this would be to command a thing intrinsecally evil, the highest ingratitude, the very spirit of all wickedness, which consists in the hating God. Yet though God be thus necessarily holy, he is not so by a bare and simple necessity, as the sun shines, or the fire burns ; but by a free necessity, not compelled thereunto, but inclined from the fulness of the perfection of his own nature and will, so as by no means he can be unholy, because he will not be unholy ; it is against his nature to be so.
2. God is only absolutely holy: ' There is none holy as the Lord,' 1 Sam. ii. 2. It is the peculiar glory of his nature. As there is none good but God, so none holy but God. No creature ean be essentially holy, because mutable ; holiness is the substance of God, but a quality and accident in a creature. God is infinitely holy, creatures finitely holy. He is holy from himself, creatures are holy by derivation from him. He is not only holy, but holiness ; holiness, in the highest degree, is his sole prerogative. As the highest heaven is called the heaven of heavens, because it embraceth in its circle all the heavens, and contains the magnitude of them, and hath a greater vastness above all that it encloseth, so is God the holy of holies, he contains the holiness of all creatures put together, and infinitely more. As all the wisdom, excellency, and power of the creatures, if compared with
* Ochino, Predic., part iii. Bodic. 61, p. 347, 348.
196 CHAENOCK'S WOKKS. [ExoD. XV. 11.
the wisdom, excellency, and power of God, is but folly, vileness, and weak ness, so the highest created purity, if set in parallel with God, is but
impurity and uncleanness : Rev. xv. 4, ' Thou only art holy.' It is like the light of a glow-worm to that of the sun, Job xv. 15 ; ' The heavens are not pure in his sight, and his angels he charged with folly,' Job iv. 18. Though God hath crowned the angels with an unspotted sanctity, and placed them in a habitation of glory, yet as illustrious as they are, they have an unworthiness in their own nature to appear before the throne of so holy a
God. Their holiness grows dim and pale in his presence ; it is but a weak shadow of that divine purity, whose light is so glorious that it makes them cover their faces out of weakness to behold it, and cover their feet out of shame in themselves. They are not pure in his sight, because though they love God (which is a principle of holiness) as much as they can, yet not so much as he deserves. They love him with the intensest degree according to
their power, but not with the intensest degree according to his own amiableness ; for they cannot infinitely love God unless they were as infinite as God, and had an understanding of his perfections equal with himself, and as immense as his own knowledge. God having an intimate knowledge of himself, can only have an infinite love to himself, and consequently an infinite holiness without any defect ; because he loves himself according to the vastness of his own amiableness, which no finite being can. Therefore though the angels be exempt from corruption and soil, they cannot enter into comparison with the purity of God, without acknowledgment of a dim ness in themselvess. * Besides, he charges them with folly, and puts no trust in them ; because they have the power of sinning, though not the act of sinning, they have a possible folly in their own nature to be charged with. Holiness is a quality separable from them, but it is inseparable from God. Had they not at first a mutability in their nature, none of them could have sinned, there had been no devils ; but because some of them sinned, the rest might have sinned. And though the standing angels shall never be changed, yet they are still changeable in their own nature, and their stand ing is due to grace, not to nature. And though they shall be for ever pre served, yet they are not, nor ever can be, immutable by nature, for then they should stand upon the same bottom with God himself; but they are supported by grace against that changeableness of nature which is essential
to a creature. The Creator ' only hath immortality,' that is, immutability, 1 Tim. iii. 16.
It is as certain a truth that no creature can be naturally immutable and impeccable, as that God cannot create anything actually polluted and imper fect. It is as possible that the highest creature may sin, as it is possible that it may be annihilated ; it may become not holy, as it may become not a creature, but nothing. The holiness of a creature may be reduced into nothing as well as his substance, but the holiness of the Creator cannot be diminished, dimmed, or overshadowed : James i. 17, ' He is the Father of
lights, with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning.' It is as im possible his holiness should be blotted, as that his Deity should be extin guished ; for whatsoever creature hath essentially such or such qualities, cannot be stripped of them without being turned out of its essence. As a man is essentially rational, and if he ceaseth to be rational, he ceaseth to be man ; the sun is essentially luminous ; if it should become dark in its own body, it would cease to be the sun. In regard of this absolute and only holiness of God, it is thrice repeated by the seraphims, I?a. vi. 3. The threefold repetition of a word notes the certainty or absoluteness of the
thing, or the irreversibleness of the resolve ; as Ezek. xxi. 27, ' I will over-
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 197
198 CHARNOCK'S WOBKS. [ExoD. XV. 11.
sin is not a brutish necessity, such as is in mere animals, that avoid by a natural instinct, not of choice, what is prejudicial to them; but most free as well as necessary, arising from an infinite knowledge of his own nature, and
of the evil nature of sin, and the contrariety of it to his own excellency, and the order of his works.
(2.) Therefore intensely. Nothing do men act for more than their glory. As he doth infinitely, and therefore perfectly, know himself, so he infinitely, and therefore perfectly, knows what is contrary to himself ; and as according to the manner and measure of his knowledge of himself, is his love to him
self, as infinite as his knowledge, and therefore unexpressible and uncon ceivable by us, so from the perfection of his knowledge of the evil of sin, which is infinitely above what any creature can have, doth arise a displeasure
against it suitable to that knowledge. In creatures, the degrees of affection to, or aversion from, a thing, are suited to the strength of their apprehen sions of the good or evil in them. God knows not only the workers of wickedness, but the wickedness of their works, Job xi. 11, for ' he knows vain men, he sees wickedness also.' The vehemency of this hatred is ex
pressed variously in Scripture ; he loathes it so, that he is impatient of be holding it ; the very sight of it affects him with detestation, Hab. i. 13 ; he hates the first spark of it in the imagination, Zech. viii. 17. With what variety of expressions doth he repeat his indignation at their polluted services :
Amos v. 21, 22, « I hate,' ' I detest,' ' I despise,' ' I will not smell,' « I will not accept,' ' I will not regard ;' ' take away from me the noise of thy songs, I will not hear.' So Isa. i. 14, ' My soul hates, they are a trouble to me, I am weary to bear them.' It is the ' abominable thing that he hates,' Jer. xliv. 4 ; he is vexed and fretted at it, Isa. Ixiii. 10. Ezek. xvi. 43, he abhors it so, that his hatred redounds upon the person that commits it ; Ps. v. 5,
he ' hates all workers of iniquity.' Sin is the only primary object of his displeasure. He is not displeased with the nature of man as man, for that was derived from him ; but with the nature of man as sinful, which is from the sinner himself. When a man hath but one object for the exercise of all his anger, it is stronger than when diverted to many objects. A mighty torrent, when diverted into many streams, is weaker than when it comes in
a full body upon one place only. The infinite anger and hatred of God, which is as infinite as his love and mercy, has no other object against which he directs the mighty force of it, but only unrighteousness. He hates no person for all the penal evils upon him, though they were more by ten thousand times than Job was struck with, but only for his sin. Again, sin being only evil, and an unmixed evil, there is nothing in it that can abate the detestation of God, or balance his hatred of it ; there is not the least grain of goodness in it, to incline him to the least affection to any part of it. This hatred cannot but be intense, for as the more any creature is sanctified, the more is he advanced in the abhorrence of that which is con trary to holiness ; therefore God being the highest, most absolute and in finite holiness, doth infinitely, and therefore intensely, hate unholiness ; being infinitely righteous, doth infinitely abhor unrighteousness ; being in finitely true, doth infinitely abhor falsity, as it is the greatest and most deformed evil. As it is from the righteousness of his nature that he hath
a content and satisfaction in righteousness, — Ps. xi. 7, ' The righteous Lord loveth righteousness,' — so it is from the same righteousness of his nature that he detests whatsoever is morally evil. As his nature therefore is in finite, so must his abhorrence be.
(3.) Therefore universally, because necesssarily and intensely. He doth not hate it in one, and indulge it in another, but loathes it wherever he finds
EXOD. XV. 11. J GOD'S HOLINESS. '199
it ; not one worker of iniquity is exempt from it : Ps. v. 5, ' Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.' For it is not sin as in this or that person, or as great or little, but sin as sin, is the object of his hatred. And therefore let the person be never so great, and have particular characters of his image upon him, it secures him not from God's hatred of any evil action he shall commit. He is a jealous God, jealous of his glory, Exod. xx. 5 ; a metaphor taken from jealous husbands, who will not endure the least adultery in their wives, nor God the least defection of man from his law. Every act of sin is a spiritual adultery, denying God to be the chief good, and giving that prerogative by that act to some vile thing. He loves it no more in his own people than he cloth in his enemies ; he frees them not from his rod, the testimony of his loathing their crimes. Whosoever sows iniquity, shall reap
affliction. It might be thought that he affected their dross, if he did not refine them, and loved their filth, if he did not cleanse them ; because of his detestation of their sin, he will not spare them from the furnace, though because of love to their persons in Christ, he will exempt them from Tophet. How did the sword ever and anon drop down upon David's family after his unworthy dealing in Uriah's case, and cut off ever and anon some of the branches of it ! He doth sometimes punish it more severely in this life in
his own people, than in others. Upon Jonah's disobedience a storm pursues him, and a whale devours him, while the profane world lived in their lusts without control. Moses, for one act of unbelief, is excluded from Canaan, when greater sinners attained that happiness. It is not a light punishment,
but a ' vengeance, he takes on their inventions,' Ps. xcix. 8, to manifest that he hates sin as sin, and not because the worst persons commit it. Perhaps, had a profane man touched the ark, the hand of God had not so suddenly reached him ; but when Uzzah, a man zealous for him, as may be supposed by his care for the support of the tottering ark, would step out of his place, he strikes him down for his disobedient action, by the side of the ark, which he would indirectly (as not being a Levite) sustain, 2 Sam. vi. 7. Nor did our Saviour so sharply reprove the Pharisees, and turn so short from them as he did from Peter, when he gave a carnal advice, and contrary to that
wherein was to be the greatest manifestation of God's holiness, viz., the death of Christ, Mat. xvi. 23. He calls him Satan, a name sharper than
the title of the devil's children, wherewith he marked the Pharisees, and given (besides him) to none but Judas, who made a profession of love to him, and was outwardly ranked in the number of his disciples. A gardener hates a weed the more, for being in the bed with the most precious flowers.
God's hatred is universally fixed against sin, and he hates it as much in those whose persons shall not fall under his eternal anger, as being secured in the arms of a Redeemer, by whom the guilt is wiped off, and the filth shall be totally washed away. Though he hates their sin, and cannot but hate it, yet he loves their persons, as being united as members to the media tor and mystical head. A man may love a gangrened member, because it is a member of his own body, or a member of a dear relation, but he loathes the gangrene in it, more than in those wherein he is not so much concerned.
Though God's hatred of believers' persons is removed by faith in the satisfactory death of Jesus Christ, yet his antipathy against sin was not taken away by that blood ; nay, it was impossible it should. It was never designed, nor had it any capacity to alter the unchangeable nature of God, but to manifest the unspottedness of his will, and his eternal aversion to anything that was contrary to the purity of his being, and the righteousness of his laws.
(4.) Perpetually. This must necessarily follow upon the others. He can no more cease to hate impurity, than he can cease to love holiness. If
200 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Exoo. XV. 11.
he should in the least instant approve of anything that is filthy, in that
moment he would disapprove of his own nature and being ; there would be an interruption in his love of himself, which is as eternal as it is infinite. How can he love any sin, which is contrary to his nature, but for one moment, without hating his own nature, which is essentially contrary to
sin ? Two contraries cannot be loved at the same time ; God must first begin to hate himself, before he can approve of any evil, which is directly opposite to himself. We indeed are changed with a temptation, sometimes bear an, affection to it, and sometimes testify an indignation against it ; but
God is always the same, without any shadow of change, and is ' angry with the wicked every day,' Ps. vii. 11, that is, uninterruptedly in the nature of his anger, though not in the effects of it. God indeed may be reconciled to the sinner, but never to the sin ; for then he should renounce himself, deny his own essence and his own divinity, if his inclinations to the love of good ness, and his aversion from evil, could be changed ; if he suffered the con tempt of the one, and encouraged the practice of the other.
4. God is so holy, that he cannot but love holiness in others. Not that he owes anything to his creature, but from the unspeakable holiness of his nature, whence affections to all things that bear a resemblance of him do flow ; as light shoots out from the sun, or any glittering body. It is essen tial to the infinite righteousness of his nature, to love righteousness wherever
he beholds it : Ps. xi. 7, ' The righteous Lord loveth righteousness.' He cannot, because of his nature, but love that which bears some agreement with his nature, that which is the curious draught of his own wisdom and purity. He cannot but be delighted with a copy of himself ; he would not have a holy nature, if he did not love holiness in every nature ; his own nature would be denied by him, if he did not affect everything that had a stamp of his own nature upon it. There was indeed nothing without God, that could invite him to manifest such goodness to man, as he did in crea tion. But after he had stamped that rational nature with a righteousness convenient for it, it was impossible but that he should ardently love that impression of himself, because he loves his own deity, and consequently all things which are any sparks and images of it. And were the devils capable of an act of righteousness, the holiness of his nature would incline him to love it, even in those dark and revolted spirits.
5. God is so holy, that he cannot positively will or encourage sin in any. How can he give any encouragement to that which he cannot in the least approve of, or look upon without loathing, not only the crime but the criminal ? Light may sooner be the cause of darkness, than holiness itself be the cause of unholiness, absolutely contrary to it ; it is a contradiction, that he that is the fountain of good should be the source of evil ; as if the
same fountain should bubble up both sweet and bitter streams, salt and fresh, James iii. 11. Since whatsoever good is in man acknowledges God for its author, it follows that men are evil by their own fault. There is no need for men to be incited to that to which the corruption of their own nature doth so powerfully bend them. Water hath a forcible principle in its own nature to carry it downward ; it needs no force to hasten the motion :
' God tempts no man, but every man is drawn away by his own lusts,' James i. 13, 14. All the preparations for glory are from God, Rom. ix. 23. But men are said to be ' fitted to destruction,' ver. 22, but God is not said to fit them ; they by their iniquities fit themselves for ruin, and he by his longsuffering keeps the destruction from them for a while.
(1.) First, God cannot command any unrighteousness. As all virtue is summed up in a love to God, so all iniquity is summed up in an enmity to
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 201
God. Every wicked work declares a man an enemy to God : Col. i. 21, 'Enemies in your minds by wicked works.' If he could command his creature anything which bears an enmity in its nature to himself, he would then implicitly command the hatred of himself, and he would be in some measure a hater of himself. He that commands another to deprive him of his life, cannot be said to bear any love to his own life. God can never hate himself, and therefore cannot command anything that is hateful to him, and tends to a hating of him, and driving the creature further from him. In that very moment that God should command such a thing, he would cease to be good. What can be more absurd to imagine than that infinite goodness should enjoin a thing contrary to itself, and con trary to the essential duty of a creature, and order him to do anything that bespeaks an enmity to the nature of the Creator, or a deflowering and dis paraging his works ? God cannot but love himself, and his own goodness, — he were not otherwise good, — and therefore cannot order the creature to do anything opposite to his goodness, or anything hurtful to the creature itself, as unrighteousness is.
(2.) Nor can God secretly inspire any evil into us. It is as much against his nature to incline the heart to sin as it is to command it. As it is impossible but that he should love himself, and therefore impossible to enjoin anything that tends to a hatred of himself; by the same reason it is as impossible that he should infuse such a principle in the heart that might carry a man out to any act of enmity against him. To enjoin one thing, and incline to another, would be an argument of such insincerity, unfaithful ness, contradiction to itself, that it cannot be conceived to fall within the compass of the divine nature, Deut. xxxii. 4, who is a ' God without
iniquity,' because a God of truth and sincerity, 'just and right is he.' To bestow excellent faculties upon man in creation, and incline him by a sudden impulsion to things contrary to the true end of him, and induce an inevitable ruin upon that work which he had composed with so much wisdom and goodness, and pronounced good with so much delight and pleasure, is inconsistent with that love which God bears to the creature of his own framing ; to incline his will to that which would render him the object of his hatred, the fuel for his justice, and sink him into deplorable misery, it is most absurd and unchristianlike to imagine.
(3.) Nor can God necessitate man to sin. Indeed, sin cannot be com mitted by force ; there is no sin but is in some sort voluntary ; voluntary in root, or voluntary in the branch ; voluntary by an immediate act of the will, or voluntary by a general or natural inclination of the will. That is not a crime to which a man is violenced, without any concurrence of the faculties of the soul to that act; it is indeed not an act, but a passion ; a man that is forced is not an agent, but a patient under the force. But what necessity can there be upon man from God, since he hath implanted such a principle in him, that he cannot desire anything but what is good, either really or apparently ? And if a man mistakes the object, it is his own fault ; for God hath endowed him with reason to discern, and liberty of will to choose upon that judgment.
And though it is to be acknowledged that God hath an absolute sovereign dominion over his creature, without any limitation, and may do what he pleases, and dispose of it according to his own will, as a potter doth with
his vessel, Rom. ix. 21, according as the church speaks, Isa. Ixiv. 8, ' We are the clay, and thou our potter, and we all are the work of thy hand,' yet he cannot pollute any undefined creature by virtue of that sovereign
power, which he hath to do what he will with it, because such an act would
202 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [ExoD. XV. 11.
be contrary to the foundation and right of his dominion, which consists in the excellency of his nature, his immense wisdom and unspotted purity. If God should therefore do any such act, he would expunge the right of his dominion, by blotting out that nature which renders him fit for that dominion, and the exercise of it.* Any dominion which is exercised without the rules of goodness is not a true sovereignty, but an insupportable tyranny. God would cease to be a rightful sovereign if he ceased to be good, he would cease to be good if he did command, necessitate or by any positive opera tion incline inwardly the heart of a creature directly to that which were morally evil, and contrary to the eminency of his own nature.
But that we may the better conceive of this, let us trace man in his first fall, whereby he subjected himself and all his posterity to the curse of the law and hatred of God ; we shall find no footsteps, either of precept, outward
force, or inward impulsion. f The plain story of man's apostasy dischargeth God from any interest in the crime as an encouragement, and excuseth him from any appearance of suspicion, when he shewed him the tree he had reserved, as a mark of his sovereignty, and forbade him to eat of the fruit of it ; he backed the prohibition with the threatening the greatest evil, viz., death, which could be understood to imply nothing less than the loss of all his happiness ; and in that couched an assurance of the perpetuity of his felicity, if he did not rebelliously reach forth his hand to take and eat of the fruit, Gen. ii. 16, 17. It is true, God had given that fruit an excel lency, a goodness for food, and a pleasantness to the eye, chap. iii. 6. He had given man an appetite whereby he was capable of desiring so pleasant a fruit, but God had^by creation ranged it under the command of reason, if man would have kept it in its due obedience ; he had fixed a severe threatening to bar the unlawful excursions of it ; he had allowed him a multitude of other fruits in the garden, and given him liberty enough to satisfy his curiosity in all except this only. Could there be anything more obliging to man, to let God have his reserve of that one tree, than the grant
of all the rest, and more deterring from any disobedient attempt than so strict a command, spirited with so dreadful a penalty ? God did not solicit him to rebel against him. A solicitation to it, and a command against it, were inconsistent. The devil assaults him, and God permitted it, and
stands as it were a spectator of the issue of the combat. There could be no necessity upon man to listen to, and entertain, the suggestions of the
serpent. He had a power to resist him, and he had an answer ready for
all the devil's arguments, had they been multiplied to more than they were ; the opposing the order of God had been a sufficient confutation of all the
devil's plausible reasonings : That Creator who hath given me my being hath ordered me not to eat of it. Though the pleasure of the fruit might allure him, yet the force of his reason might have quelled the liquorishness of his sense. The perpetual thinking of, and sounding out, the command of God, had silenced both Satan and his own appetite, had disarmed the tempter, and preserved his sensitive part in its due subjection. What
inclination can we suppose there could be from the Creator, when upon the very first offer of the temptation, Eve opposes to the tempter the prohibition
and threatening of God, and strains it to a higher peg than we find God had
delivered it in ? For in Gen. ii. 17, it is, ' you shall not eat of it; ' but she adds, Gen. iii. 8, ' neither shall you touch it,' which was a remark that might have had more influence to restrain her. Had our first parents kept this fixed upon their understandings and thoughts, that God had forbidden any such act as the eating of the fruit, and that he was true to execute the
* Amyrald, Dissert, p. 103, 104. t Amyrald, Defens. de Calvin, p. 151, 152.
EXOD. XV, ll.J GOD'S HOLINESS. 203
threatening he had uttered, of which truth of God they could not but have
a natural notion, with what ease might they have withstood the devil's attack, and defeated his design ! And it had been easy with them to have kept their understandings by the force of such a thought, from entertaining
any contrary imagination. There is no ground for any jealousy of any encouragements, inward impulsions, or necessity from God in this affair. A discharge of God from this first sin will easily induce a freedom from all other sins which follow upon it.
God doth not then encourage, or excite, or incline to sin. How can he excite to that which, when it is done, he will be sure to condemn ? How can he be a righteous judge to sentence a sinner to misery for a crime acted by a secret inspiration from himself ? Iniquity would deserve no reproof from him, if he were any way positively the author of it. Were God the author of it in us, what is the reason our own consciences accuse us for it,
and convince us of it ? That, being God's deputy, would not accuse us of it, if the sovereign power by which it acts did incline us to it. How can he be thought to excite to that which he hath enacted such severe laws to re strain, or incline man to that which he hath so dreadfully punished in his Son, and which it is impossible but the excellency of his nature must incline him eternally to hate ? We may sooner imagine that a pure flame shall engender cold, and darkness be the offspring of a sunbeam, as imagine such a thing as this. ' What shall we say ? Is there unrighteousness with God ? God forbid.' The apostle execrates such a thought, Rom. ix. 14. 6. God cannot act any evil in or by himself. If he cannot approve of sin in others, nor excite any to iniquity, which is less, he cannot commit evil himself, which is greater. What he cannot positively will in another can never be willed in himself; he cannot do evil through ignorance, because of his infinite knowledge ; nor through weakness, because of his infinite power ; nor through malice, because of his infinite rectitude. He cannot will any unjust thing, because, having an infinitely perfect understanding, he cannot judge that to be true which is false, or that to be good which is evil ; his will is regulated by his wisdom. If he could will any unjust and irrational thing, his will would be repugnant to his understanding ; there would be a disagreement in God, will against mind, and will against wis dom. He being the highest reason, the first truth, cannot do an unreason
able, false, defective action. It is not a defect in God that he cannot do evil, but a fulness and excellency of power. As it is not a weakness in the light, but the perfection of it, that it is unable to produce darkness. God
is ' the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,' James i. 17 No thing pleases him, nothing is acted by him, but what is beseeming the infinite excellency of his own nature. The voluntary necessity whereby God cannot be unjust renders him a ' God blessed for ever.' He would hate himself as the chief good, if, in any of his actions, he should disagree with his goodness. He cannot do any unworthy thing, not because he wants an infinite power, but because he is possessed of an infinite wisdom, and adorned with an infinite purity ; and, being infinitely pure, cannot have the least mixture of impurity. As if you can suppose fire infinitely hot, you cannot suppose it to have the least mixture of coldness ; the better any thing is, the more unable it is to do evil. God being the only goodness, can
little be changed in his goodness as in his essence.
II. The second thing. The next inquiry is, the proof that God is holy, or the manifestation of
Purity is as requisite to the blessedness of God as to the being of God.
204 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Exoc. XV. 11.
As he could not be God without being blessed, so he could not be blessed without being holy. He is called by the title of blessed, as well as by that
of holy : Mark xiv. 61, ' Art thou the Christ, the Son of the blessed ? ' Un righteousness is a misery and turbulency in any spirit wherein it is, for it
is a privation'of an excellency which ought to be in every intellectual being ; and what can follow upon the privation of an excellency but unquietness and grief, the moth of happiness ! An unrighteous manias an unrighteous man, can never be blessed, though he were in a local heaven. Had God the least spot upon his purity, it would render him as miserable in the midst of his infinite sufficiency as iniquity renders a man in the confluence of his earthly
enjoyments ; the holiness and felicity of God are inseparable in him. The apostle intimates that the heathen made an attempt to sully his blessedness, when they would liken him to corruptible, mutable, impure man : Rom.