Part 13
i. 23, 25, ' They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man ;' and after he entitles God, a ' God blessed
for ever.' The gospel is therefore called '-the glorious gospel of the blessed God,' 1 Tim. i. 11, in regard of the holiness of the gospel precepts, and in regard of the declaration of the holiness of God in all the streams and branches ; wherein his purity, in which his blessedness consists, is as illustrious as any other perfection of the divine being. God hath highly manifested this attribute in the state of nature, in the legal administration, in the dispensation of the gospel. His wisdom, goodness, and power are declared in creation, his sovereign authority in his law, his grace and mercy in the gospel, and his righteousness in all. Suitable to this three fold state may be that ternal repetition of his holiness in the prophecy, Isa. vi. 3, holy as creator and benefactor ; holy as lawgiver and judge ; lioly as restorer and redeemer.
1. His holiness appears as he is creator, in framing man in a perfect up rightness. Angels, as made by God, could not be evil, for God beheld his own work with pleasure, and could not have pronounced them all good had some been created pure, and others impure ; two moral contrarieties could not be good. The angels had a first estate, wherein they were happy, Jude
6 ; and had they not left their own habitation and state, they could not have been miserable ; but because the Scripture speaks only of the creation of man, we will consider that the human nature was well strung and tuned
by God, according to the note of his own holiness : Eccles. vii. 29, ' God hath made man upright.' He had declared his power in other creatures, but would declare in his rational creature what he most valued in himself ; and therefore created him upright, with a wisdom which is the rectitude of the mind, with a purity which is the rectitude of the will and affections. He had declared a purity in other creatures, as much as they were capable of, viz. in the exact tuning them to answer one another ; and that God, who
so well tuned and composed other creatures, would not make man a jarring instrument, and place a cracked creature to be lord of the rest of his earthly fabric. God being holy, could not set his seal upon any rational creature, but the impression would be like himself, pure and holy also ; he could not be created with an error in his understanding, that had been inconsistent with the goodness of God to his rational creature ; if so, the erroneous motion of the will, which was to follow the dictates of the understanding, could not have been imputed to him as his crime, because it would have been, not a voluntary, but a necessary effect of his nature ; had there been an error in the first wheel, the error of the next could not have been im puted to the nature of that, but to the irregular motion of the first wheel in
the engine. The sin of men and angels proceeded not from any natural de-
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 205
feet in their understandings, but from inconsideration. He that was the author of harmony in his other creatures, could not be the author of dis order in the chief of his works. Other creatures were his footsteps, but man was his image : Gen. i. 26, 27, ' Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ; ' which, though it seems to imply no more in that place than an image of his dominion over the creatures, yet the apostle raises it a peg higher, and gives us a larger interpretation of it : Col. iii. 10, ' And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of
him that created him ; ' making it to consist in a resemblance to his right eousness. Image, say some, notes the form, as man was a spirit in regard of the soul ; likeness notes the quality implanted in his spiritual nature. The image of God was drawn in him, both as he was a rational and as he was a holy creature. The creatures manifested the being of a superior power as their cause, but the righteousness of the first man evidenced not only a sovereign power, as the donor of his being, but a holy power, as the pattern of his work. God appeared to be a holy God in the righteousness of his creature, as well as an understanding God in the reason of his creature, while he formed him with all necessary knowledge in his mind, and all necessary uprightness in his will. The law of love to God, with his whole soul, his whole mind, his whole heart and strength, was originally writ upon his nature. All the parts of his nature were framed in a moral conformity with God, to answer his law, and imitate God in his purity, which consists in a love of himself, and his own goodness and excellency. Thus doth the clearness of the stream point us to the purer fountain, and the brightness of the beam evidence a greater splendour in the sun which shot it out.
2. His holiness appears in his laws, as he is a lawgiver and a judge. Since man was bound to be subject to God as a creature, and had a capacity to be ruled by the law, as an understanding and willing creature, God gave him a law taken from the depths of his holy nature, and suited to the origi nal faculties of man. The rules which God hath fixed in the world are not the resolves of bare will, but result particularly from the goodness of his nature ; they are nothing else but the transcripts of his infinite detestation of sin, as he is the unblemished governor of the world. This being the most adorable property of his nature, he hath impressed it upon that law which he would have inviolably observed as a perpetual rule for our actions, that we may every moment think of this beautiful perfection. God can command nothing, but what hath some similitude with the rectitude of his own nature ; all his laws, every paragraph of them therefore, scent of this
and glitter with it : Deut. iv. 8, ' What nation hath statutes and judgments
so righteous as all this law I set before you this day ?' And therefore they are compared to fine gold, that hath no speck or dross, Ps. xix. 10.
This purity is evident, (1.) In the moral law, or law of nature ; (2.) In the ceremonial law ; (3.) In the allurements annexed to it for keeping it, and the affrightments to restrain from the breaking of it ;
(4.) In the judgments inflicted for the violation of it.
(1.) In the moral law, which is therefore dignified with the title of holy twice in one verse, Rom. vii. 12, ' Wherefore the law is holy, and the com mandment is holy, just, and good,' it being the express image of God's will, as our Saviour was of his person, and bearing a resemblance to the purity of his nature. The tables of this law were put into the ark, that as the mercyseat was to represent the grace of God, so the law was to represent the
206 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [ExoD. XV. 11.
holiness of God. The psalmist, after he had spoken of the glory of God in the heavens, Ps. xix. 1, wherein the power of God is exposed to our view, introduceth the law, wherein the purity of God is evidenced to our minds,
ver. 7, 8 ; ' perfect, pure, clean, righteous' are the titles given to it. It is clearer in holiness than the sun is in brightness, and more mighty in itself to command the conscience, than the sun is to run its race. As the holiness of the Scripture demonstrates the divinity of its author, so the holiness of the law doth the purity of the lawgiver.
[1.1 The purity of this law is seen in the matter of it. It prescribes all that becomes a creature towards God, and all that becomes one creature to wards another of his own rank and kind. The image of God is complete in the holiness of the first table, and the righteousness of the second ; which is intimated by the apostle, Eph. iv. 24, the one being the rule of what we owe to God, the other being the rule of what we owe to man ; there is no good
but it enjoins, and no evil but it disowns. It is not sickly and lame in any part of it ; not a good action but it gives it its due praise, and not an evil action but it sets a condemning mark upon. The commands of it are frequently in Scripture called judgments, because they rightly judge of good and evil,and are a clear light to inform the judgment of man in the knowledge of both. By this was the understanding of David enlightened to know every false way, and to hate it, Ps. cxix. 104. There is no case can happen but may meet with a determination from it ; it teaches men the noblest manner of livinw a life like God himself, honourably for the lawgiver, and joyfully for the subject. It directs us to the highest end, sets us at a distance from all base and sordid practices ; it proposeth light to the understanding, and goodness to the will. It would tune all the strings, set right all the orders of mankind ; it censures the least mote, countenanceth not any stain in life. Not a wanton glance can meet with any justification from it, Mat. v. 28, not a rash anger but it frowns upon, ver. 22. As the lawgiver wants no thing as an addition to his blessedness, so his law wants nothing as a supple ment to its perfection, Deut. iv. 2. What our Saviour seems to add, is not an addition to mend any defects, but a restoration of it from the corrupt glosses, wherewith the scribes and Pharisees had eclipsed the brightness of it ; they had curtailed it and diminished part of its authority, cutting off its empire over the least evil, and left its power only to check the grosser prac tices. But Christ restores it to the due extent of its sovereignty, and shews it in those dimensions in which the holy men of God considered it as
' exceeding broad,' Ps. cxix. 90, reaching to all actions, all motions, all cir cumstances attending them, full of inexhaustible treasures of righteousness ; and though this law since the fall doth irritate sin, it is no disparagement, but a testimony to the righteousness of it, which the apostle manifests by
his wherefore, Rom. vii. 8, ' Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence,' and repeating the same sense, ver. 11, subjoins a wherefore, verse 12, ' Wherefore the law is holy.' The rising of men's sinful hearts against the law of God, when it strikes with its preceptive and minatory parts upon their consciences, evidenceth the holi ness of the law and the lawgiver.
In its own nature it is a directing rule, but the malignant nature of sin is exasperated by it, as an hostile quality in a creature will awaken itself at the appearance of its enemy. The purity of this beam and transcript of God bears witness to a greater clearness and beauty in the sun and original. Undefiled streams manifest an untainted fountain.
[2.] It is seen in the manner of its precepts ; as it prescribes all good and forbids all evil, so it doth enjoin the one, and banish the other as such. The
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 207
laws of men command virtuous things, not as virtuous in themselves, but as useful for human society, which the magistrate is the conservator of, and the
guardian of justice.* The laws of men contain not all the precepts of virtue, but only such as are accommodated to their customs, and are useful to preserve the ligaments of their government. The design of them is not so much to render the subjects good men, as good citizens ; they order the practice of those virtues that may strengthen civil society, and discoun tenance those vices only which weaken the sinews of it ; but God, being the guardian of universal righteousness, doth not only enact the observance of all
' righteousness,' but the observance of it as righteousness. He commands that which is just in itself, enjoins virtues as virtues, and prohibits vices as vices, as they are profitable or injurious to ourselves as well as to others.
Men command temperance and justice not as virtues in themselves, but as they prevent disorder and confusion in a commonwealth ; and forbid adultery and theft, not as vices in themselves, but as they are entrenchments upon property, not as hurtful to the person that commits them, but as hurtful to the person against whose right they are committed. Upon this account perhaps Paul applauds the holiness of the law of God, in regard of
its own nature as considered in itself, more than he doth the justice of it in regard of man, and the goodness and conveniency of it to the world ; Rom.
vii. 12, the law is holy twice, and just and good but once.
[3.] In the spiritual extent of it. The most righteous powers of the world do not so much regard in their laws what the inward affections of their subjects are ; the external acts are only the objects of their decrees, either to encourage them if they be useful, or discourage them if they be hurtful to
the community'; and indeed they can do no other, for they have no power proportioned to inward affections, since the inward disposition falls not under their censure, and it would be foolish for any legislative power to make such laws, which it is impossible for it to put in execution. They can prohibit the outward acts of theft and murder, but they cannot command the love of God, the hatred of sin, the contempt of the world ; they cannot prohibit unclean thoughts and the atheism of the heart. But the law of God sur mounts in righteousness all the laws of the best regulated commonwealths in the world ; it restrains the licentious heart as well as the violent hand, it damps the very first bubblings of corrupt nature, orders a purity in the spring, commands a clean fountain, clean streams, clean vessels. It would frame the heart to an inward, as well as the life to an outward right eousness, and make the inside purer than the outside. It forbids the first belchings of a murderous or adulterous intention ; it obligeth man as a rational creature, and therefore exacts a conformity of every rational faculty, and of whatsoever is under the command of them. It commands the
private closet to be free from the least cobweb, as well as the outward porch to be clean from mire and dust. It frowns upon all stains and pollutions of the most retired thoughts ; hence the apostle calls it a spiritual law, Rom. vii. 14, as not political, but extending its force further than the frontiers of the man, placing its ensigns in the metropolis of the heart and mind, and curbing with its sceptre] the inward motions of the spirit, and commanding
over the secrets of every man's breast. [4.] In regard to the perpetuity of it. The purity and perpetuity of it
are linked together by the psalmist, Ps. xix. 9, ' The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever ;' the fear of the Lord, that is, that law which com mands the fear and worship of God, and is the rule of it ; and indeed, God values it at such a rate, that rather than part with a tittle, or let the honour of
* Ames de Consc. lib. v. cap. i. ques. 7.
208 CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [ExoD. XV. 11.
it lie in the dust, he would not only let heaven and earth pass away, but expose
his Son to death for the reparation of the wrong it had sustained. So holy it is, that the holiness and righteousness of God cannot dispense with it, cannot abrogate it, without despoiling himself of his own being. It is a copy of the eternal law ! Can he ever abrogate the command of love to himself, with out shewing some contempt of his own excellency and very being ? Before he can enjoin a creature not to love him, he must make himself unworthy of love and worthy of hatred ; this would be the highest unrighteousness, to order us to hate that which is only worthy of our highest affections. So God cannot change the first command, and order us to worship many gods ; this would be against the excellency and unity of God, for God cannot constitute another God, or make anything worthy of an honour equal with himself.* Those things that are good only because they are commanded, are alterable by God ; those things that are intrinsecally and essentially good, and therefore commanded, are unalterable as long as the holiness and righteousness of God stand firm. The intrinsic goodness of the moral law, the concern God hath for it, the perpetuity of the precepts of the first table, and the care he hath had to imprint the precepts of the second upon the minds and consciences of men,
as the author of nature for the preservation of the world, manifests the holi ness of the lawmaker and governor.
(2.) His holiness appears in the ceremonial law ; in the variety of sacri fices for sin, wherein he writ his detestation of unrighteousness in bloody characters. His holiness was more constantly expressed in the continual sacrifices, than in those rarer sprinklings of judgments now and then upon the world ; which often reached not the worst, but the most moderate sin ners, and were the occasions of the questioning of the righteousness of his providence both by Jews and Gentiles. In judgments, his purity was only now and then manifest ; by his long patience, he might be imagined by some reconciled to their crimes, or not much concerned in them ; but by the morn ing and evening sacrifice he witnessed a perpetual and uninterrupted abhor rence of whatsoever was evil.
Besides those, the occasional washings and sprinklings upon ceremonial defilements, which polluted only the body, gave an evidence that everything that had a resemblance to evil was loathsome to him. Add also the prohi bitions of eating such and such creatures as were filthy ; as the swine that wallowed in the mire, a fit emblem for the profane and brutish sinner ; which had a moral signification, both of the loathsomeness of sin to God, and the aversion themselves ought to have to everything that was filthy.
(3.) His holiness appears in the allurements annexed to the law for keep ing it, and the affrightments to restrain from the breaking of it : both pro mises and threatenings have their fundamental root in the holiness of God, and are both branches of this peculiar perfection. As they respect the nature of God, they are declarations of his hatred of sin and his love of righteousness ; the one belong to his threatenings, the other to his promises ; both join together to represent this divine perfection to the creature, and to excite to an imitation in the creature. In the one, God would render sin odious, because dangerous, and curb the practice of evil, which would other wise be licentious ; in the other, he would commend righteousness, and excite a love of it, which would otherwise be cold. By these God suits the two great affections of men, fear and hope, both the branches of self-love in man. The promises and threatenings are both the branches of holiness in God. The end of the promises is the same with the exhortation the apostle concludes from them : 2 Cor. vii. 1, ' Having these promises, let us cleanse * Suarez.
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 209
ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear
of God.' As the end of precepts is to direct, the end of threatenings is to deter from iniquity ; so that of the promises is to allure to obedience. Thus God breathes out his love to righteousness in every promise, his hatred of sin in every threatening. The rewards offered in the one are the smiles of pleased holiness, and the curses thundered in the other are the sparklings of enraged righteousness.
(4.) His holiness appears in the judgments inflicted for the violation of this law. Divine holiness is the root of divine justice, and divine justice is the triumph of divine holiness. Hence both are expressed in Scripture by one word of righteousness, which sometimes signifies the rectitude of the divine nature, and sometimes the vindicative stroke of his arm : Ps. ciii. 6,
' The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.' So Dan. ix. 7, ' Righteousness,' that is, justice, 'belongs to thee.' The vials of his wrath are filled from his implacable aversion to iniquity. All penal evils showered down upon the heads of wicked men, spread their root in, and branch out from, this perfection. All the dreadful storms and tem
pests in the world are blown up by it. Why doth he ' rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest ?' Because the righteous Lord ' loveth righteousness,' Ps. xi. 6, 7. And (as was observed before) when he was going about the dreadfullest work that ever was in the world, the overturning the Jewish state, hardening the hearts of that unbelieving people, and cashier ing a nation, once dear to him, from the honour of his protection, his holiness, as the spring of all this, is applauded by the seraphims, Isa. vi. 8, compared with ver. 9—11, &c. Impunity argues the approbation of a crime,
and punishment the abhorrency of it. The greatness of the crime, and the righteousness of the Judge, are the first natural sentiments that arise in the minds of men, upon the appearance of divine judgments in the world, by
those that are near them.* As when men see gibbets erected, scaffolds pre pared, instruments of death and torture provided, and grievous punishments inflicted, the first reflection in the spectators is the malignity of the crime, and the detestation the governors are possessed with.
[1.] How severely hath he punished his most noble creatures for it. The once glorious angels, upon whom he had been at greater cost than upon other creatures, and drawn more lively lineaments of his own excellency, upon the transgression of his law are thrown into the furnace of justice, without any mercy to pity them, Jude 6. And though there were but one sort of crea tures upon the earth that bore his image, and were only fit to publish and keep up his honour below the heavens, yet upon their apostasy (though upon a temptation from a subtile and insinuating spirit) the man, with all his pos terity, is sentenced to misery in life, and death at last; and the woman, with all her sex, have standing punishments inflicted on them ; which as they have begun in their persons, were to reach as far as the last member of their successive generations. So holy is God, that he will not endure a spot in his choicest work. Men, indeed, when there is a crack in an excellent piece of work, or a stain upon a rich garment, do not cast it away ; they value it for the remaining excellency, more than hate it for the contracted spot ; but God saw no excellency in his creature worthy regarding, after the image of that which he most esteemed in himself was defaced.
[2.] How detestable to him are the very instruments of sin. For^the ill use the serpent (an. irrational creature) was put to by the devil, as an instru ment in the fall of man, the whole brood of those animals are cursed : Gen.
iii. 14, ' Cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field.' Not
* Amyraut, Moral, torn. v. p. 388. VOL. II. O
210 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Exoo. XV. 11.
only the devil's head is threatened to be for ever bruised, and (as some think) rendered irrecoverable upon this further testimony of his malice in the seduc tion of man, who perhaps, without this new act, might have been admitted into the arms of mercy, notwithstanding his first sin, — though the Scripture gives us no account of this, only this is the only sentence we read of pro nounced against the devil, which puts him into an irrecoverable state by a mortal bruising of his head, — but, I say, he is not only punished, but the organ whereby he blew in his temptation, is put into a worse condition than it was before. Thus God hated the sponge whereby the devil deformed his
beautiful image ; thus God, to manifest his detestation of sin, ordered the beast, whereby any man was slain, to be slain as well as the malefactor, Lev. xx. 15. The gold and silver that had been abused to idolatry, and were the
ornaments of images, though good in themselves, and incapable'of a criminal nature, were not to be brought into their houses, but detested and abhorred by them, because they were cursed, and an abomination to the Lord. See with what loathing expressions this law is enjoined to them, Deut. vii. 25, 26.
So contrary is the holy nature of God to every sin, that it curseth everything that is instrumental in it.
[8.] How detestable is everything to him that is in the sinner's possession ! The very earth, which God had made Adam the proprietor of, was ' cursed for his sake,' Gen. iii. 17, 18. It lost its beauty, and lies languishing to this day ; and notwithstanding the redemption by Christ, hath not recovered its health, nor is it like to do, till the completing the fruits of it upon the children of God, Eom. viii. 20-22. The whole lower creation was made
' subject to vanity,' and put into pangs upon the sin of man, by the righteous ness of God detesting his offence. How often hath his implacable aversion
from sin been shewn, not only in his judgments upon the offender's person, but by wrapping up in the same judgment those which stood in a near rela tion to them ! Achan, with his children and cattle, are overwhelmed with stones, and burned together, Josh. vii. 24, 25. In the destruction of. Sodom, not only the grown malefactors, but the young spawn, the infants (at present incapable of the same wickedness), and their cattle, were burned up by the same fire from heaven ; and the place where their habitations stood is at this day partly a heap of ashes, and partly an infectious lake, that chokes any fish that swim into it from Jordan, and stifles (as is related) by its vapour any bird that attempts to fly over it. Oh, how detestable is sin to
God, that causes him to turn a pleasant land, as the garden of the Lord (as it is styled, Gen. xiii. 10) into a lake of sulphur ; to make it, both in his word and works, as a lasting monument of his abhorrence of evil !
[4.] What design hath God in all these acts of severity and vindictive jus tice, but to set off the lustre of his holiness ? He testifies himself concerned for those laws, which he hath set as hedges and limits to the lusts of men ;
and therefore when he breathes forth his fiery indignation against a people, he is said to get himself honour ; as when he intended the Red Sea should swallow up the Egyptian army, Exod. xiv. 17, 18, which Moses in his triumphant song echoes back again : Exod. xv. 1, ' Thou hast triumphed gloriously ;' gloriously in his holiness, which is the glory of his nature, as Moses himself interprets it in the text. When men will not own the holiness of God in a way of duty, God will vindicate it in a way of justice and punish ment. In the destruction of Aaron's sons, that were will-worshippers, and would take strange fire, sanctified and glorified are coupled, Lev. x. 3. He glorified himself in that act, in vindicating his holiness before all the people, declaring that he will not endure sin and disobedience. He doth, therefore, in this life more severely puuish the sins of his people, when they presume
EXOD. XV. 11. J GOD'S HOLINESS. 211
upon any act of disobedience, for a testimony, that the nearness and dearness of any person to him, shall not make him unconcerned in his holiness,
or be a plea for impurity. The end of all his judgments is to witness to the world his abominating of sin. To punish and witness against men, are one
and the same thing : Micah i. 2, ' The Lord shall witness against you ;' and it is the witness of God's holiness : Hosea v. 5, ' And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face.' One renders it, the excellency of Israel, and under stands it of God ; the word JlNJi which is here in our translation pride, is
rendered excellency : Amos viii. 7, ' The Lord hath sworn by his excellency,' which is interpreted holiness : Amos iv. 2, ' The Lord hath sworn by his holiness.' What is the issue or end of this swearing by holiness, and of his excellency testifying against them ? In all those places you will find them
to be sweeping judgments : in one, Israel and Ephraim shall ' fall in their iniquity ;' in another, he will ' take them away with hooks, and their poste rity with fish-hooks ;' and in another, he would ' never forget any of their works.' He that punisheth wickedness in those he before used with the greatest tenderness, furnisheth the world with an undeniable evidence of the detestableness of it to him. Were not judgments sometimes poured out upon the world, it would be believed that God were rather an approver than an enemy to sin.
To conclude ; since God hath made a stricter law to guide men, annexed promises above the merit of obedience to allure them, and threatenings dreadful enough to affright men from disobedience, he cannot be the cause of sin, nor a lover of it. How can he be the author of that which he so severely forbids, or love that which he delights to fpunish, or be fondly in dulgent to any evil, when he hates the ignorant instruments in the offences of his reasonable creatures ?
8. The holiness of God appears in our restoration. It is in the glass of
the gospel we 'behold the glory of the Lord,' 2 Cor. iii. 18; that is, the glory of the Lord, into whose image we are changed ; but we are changed into nothing as the image of God but into holiness. We bore not upon us by creation, nor by regeneration, the image of any other perfection. We cannot be changed into his omnipotence, omniscience, &c., but into the image of his righteousness. This is the pleasing and glorious sight the gospel mirror darts in our eyes. The whole scene of redemption is nothing
else but a discovery of judgment and righteousness : Isa. i. 27, ' Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.' E (1.) This holiness of God appears in the manner of our restoration, viz., by the death of Christ. Not all the vials of judgments that have or shall be
poured out upon the wicked world, nor the flaming furnace of a sinner's conscience, nor the irreversible sentence pronounced against the rebellious devils, nor the groans of the damned creatures, give such a demonstration
of God's hatred of sin, as the wrath of God let loose upon his Son. Never did divine holiness appear more beautiful and lovely than at the time our
Saviour's countenance was most marred in the midst of his dying groans. This himself acknowledges in that prophetical psalm, Ps. xxii. 1, 2, when God had turned his smiling face from him, and thrust his sharp knife into
his heart, which forced that terrible cry from him, ' My God, my God, why
it thou forsaken me ? ' He adores this perfection of holiness, ver. 3, >ut thou art holy.' Thy holiness is the spring of all this sharp agony, and ibr this thou inhabitest, and shalt for ever inhabit, the praises of all thy Israel. Holiness drew the veil between God's countenance and our Sa
viour's soul. Justice indeed gave the stroke, but holiness ordered it. In this his purity did sparkle, and his irreversible justice manifested that all those
212 CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [ExoD. XV. 11.
that commit sin are worthy of death ; this was the perfect index of his righteousness, Rom. iii. 29, that is, of his holiness and truth. Then it was
that 'God, that is holy, was sanctified in righteousness,' Isa. v. 16.
It appears the more, if you consider,
[l.J The dignity of the Redeemer's person. One that had been from eternity, had laid the foundations of the world, had been the object of the
divine delight. He that was God ' blessed for ever ' becomes a curse ; he who was blessed by angels, and by whom God blessed the world, must be seized with horror. The Son of eternity must bleed to death. Where did ever sin appear so irreconcilable to God ? where did God ever break out so furiously in his detestation of iniquity ? The Father would have the most excellent person, one next in order to himself, and equal to him in all the glorious perfections of his nature, Phil. ii. 6, die on a disgraceful cross, and be exposed to the flames of divine wrath, rather than sin should live, and his holiness remain for ever disparaged by the violations of his law.
[2.] The near relation he stood in to the Father. He was his own Son that he delivered up, Rom. viii. 32, his essential image, as dearly beloved by him as himself; yet he would abate nothing of his hatred of those sins imputed to one so dear to him, and who never had done anything contrary to his will. The strong cries uttered by him could not cause him to cut off the least fringe of this royal garment, nor part with a thread the robe of his
holiness was woven'with. The torrent of wrath is opened upon him, and the Father's heart beats not in the least notice of tenderness to sin in the midst of his Son's agonies. God seems to lay aside the bowels of a father, and put on the garb of an irreconcilable enemy.* Upon which account, probably, our Saviour in the midst of his passion gives him the title of God, not of Father, the title he usually before .addressed to him with: Mat.
xxvii. 46, 'My God, my God,' not ' My Father, my Father, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' He seems to hang upon the cross like a disinherited son, while he appeared in the garb and rank of a sinner. Then was his head
loaded with curses, when he stood under that sentence of ' Cursed is every one that hangs upon a tree,' Gal. iii. 13, and looked as one forlorn and rejected by the divine purity and tenderness. God dealt not with him as if he had been one in so near a relation to him. He left him not the will only of the instruments of his death, he would have the chiefest blow himself of
bruising of him : Isa. liii. 10, ' It pleased the Lord to bruise him ; ' the Lord, because the power of creatures could not strike a blow strong enough to satisfy and secure the rights of infinite holiness. It was therefore a cup tempered and put into his hands by his Father ; a cup given him to drink. In other judgments, he lets out his wrath against his creatures ; in this, he lets out his wrath (as it were) against himself, against his Son, one as dear to him as himself. As in his making creatures, his power over nothing to bring it into being appeared, but in pardoning sin he hath power over him self; so in punishing creatures, his holiness appears in his wrath against creatures, against sinners by inherency. But by punishing sin in his Son, his holiness sharpens his wrath against him who was his equal, and only a reputed sinner. As if his affection to his own holiness surmounted his affec tion to his Son ; for he chose to suspend the breakings out of his affections to his Son, and see him plunged in a sharp and ignominious misery, with out giving him any visible token of his love, rather than see his holiness lie groaning under the injuries of a transgressing world.
[3.] The value he puts upon his holiness appears further, in the advance ment of this redeeming person after his death. Our Saviour was advanced
* Lingend., torn. iii. p. 699, 700.
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 218
not barely for his dying, but for the respect he had in his death to this attribute of God. Heb. i. 9, ' Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity ; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of
gladness,' &c. By righteousness is meant this perfection, because of the opposition of it to iniquity. Some think therefore to be the final cause ; as
if this were the sense, ' Thou art anointed with the oil of gladness, that thou mightest love righteousness, and hate iniquity.' But the Holy Ghost seem ing to speak in this chapter not only of the Godhead of Christ, but of his exaltation, the doctrine whereof he had begun in ver. 3, and prosecutes in the following verses, I would rather understand therefore, for this cause, or reason, hath God anointed thee, not to this end. Christ indeed had an unction of grace, whereby he was fitted for his mediatory work ; he had also an unction of glory, whereby he was rewarded for it. In the first regard, it was a qualifying him for his office ; in the second regard, it was a solemn inaugurating him in his royal authority. And the reason of his being settled upon a throne for ever and ever is because he loved righteousness.
He suffered himself to be pierced to death, that sin, the enemy of God's purity, might be destroyed, and the honour of the law, the image of God's holiness, might be repaired and fulfilled in the fallen creature. He restored the credit of divine holiness in the world, in manifesting by his death God an irreconcilable enemy to all sin, in abolishing the empire of sin, so hate ful to God, and restoring the rectitude of nature, and new framing the image of God in his chosen ones.
And God so valued this vindication of his holiness, that he confers upon him, in his human nature, an eternal royalty and empire over angels and men. Holiness was the great attribute respected by Christ in his dying, and manifested in his death; and for his love to this, God would bestow an honour upon his person in that nature wherein he did vindicate the honour of so dear a perfection. In the death of Christ, he shewed his resolution to preserve its rights; in the exaltation of Christ, he evidenced his mighty pleasure for the vindication of it; in both, the infinite value he had for it,
as dear to him as his life and glory.
[4.] It may be further considered, that in this way of redemption, his holiness in the hatred of sin seems to be valued above any other attribute. He proclaims the value of it above the person of his Son, since the divine nature of the Redeemer is disguised, obscured, and veiled, in order to the re storing the honour of it. And Christ seems to value it above his own person,
ice he submitted himself to the reproaches of men, to clear this perfection
the divine nature, and make it illustrious in the eyes of the world. You heard before, at the beginning of the handling this argument, it was the beauty of the Deity, the lustre of his nature, the link of all his attributes, his very life ; he values it equal with himself, since he swears by it as well as by his life. And none of his attributes would have a due decorum with out it. It is the glory of power, mercy, justice, wisdom, that they are holy; so that though God had an infinite tenderness and compassion to the fallen creatures, yet it should not extend itself in his relief to the prejudice of the
rights of his purity. He would have this triumph in the tenderness of his
lercy as well as the severities of his justice. His mercy had not appeared a its true colours, nor attained a regular end, without vengeance on sin. Et would have been a compassion that would (in sparing the sinner) have encouraged the sin, and affronted holiness in the issues of it. Had he dis persed his compassions about the world without the regard to his hatred of sin, his mercy had been too cheap, and his holiness had been contemned. His mercy would not have triumphed in his own nature whilst his holi-
214 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [ExoD. XV. 11.
ness had suffered. He had exercised a mercy with the impairing his own glory.
But now in this way of redemption, the rights of both are secured, both have their due lustre. The odiousness of sin is equally discovered with the greatness of his compassions ; an infinite abhorrence of sin, and an infinite love to the world march hand in hand together. Never was so much of the irreconcilableness of sin to him set forth, as in the moment he was opening his bowels in the reconciliation of the sinner. Sin is made the chiefest mark of his displeasure, while the poor creature is made the highest object of divine pity. There could have been no motion of mercy with the least
injury to purity and holiness. In this way ' mercy and truth,' mercy to the misery of the creature, and truth to the purity of the law, ' have met to gether;' the righteousness of God, and the peace of the sinner, 'have kissed each other,' Ps. Ixxxv. 10.
(2.) The holiness of God in his hatred of sin appears in our justification, and the conditions he requires of all that would enjoy the benefit of redemp tion. His wisdom hath so tempered all the conditions of it, that the honour
of his holiness is as much preserved as the sweetness of his mercy is experi mented by us. All the conditions are records of his exact purity, as well as of his condescending grace. Our justification is not by the imperfect works of creatures, but by an exact and infinite righteousness, as great as that of the Deity which had been offended ; it being the righteousness of a divine
person, upon which account it is called the ' righteousness of God,' not only in regard of God's appointing it, and God's accepting it, but as it is a right eousness of that person that was God, and is God. Faith is the condition God requires to justification, but not a dead, James ii. 20, but an active
faith; such a faith as ' purifies the heart,' Acts xv. 9. He calls for repent ance, which is a moral retracting our offences, and an approbation of con temned righteousness and a violated law ; an endeavour to regain what is lost, and to pluck out the heart of that sin we have committed. He requires mortification, which is called crucifying, whereby a man would strike as full and deadly a blow at his lusts as was struck at Christ upon the cross, and make them as certainly die as the Eedeemer did.
Our own righteousness must be condemned by us as impure and imper fect. We must disown everything that is our own, as to righteousness, in reverence to the holiness of God and the valuation of the righteousness of Christ. He hath resolved not to bestow the inheritance of glory without the root of grace. None are partakers of the divine blessedness that are not partakers of the divine nature ; there must be a renewing of his image before there be a vision of his face, Heb. xii. 14. He will not have men brought only into a relative state of happiness by justification, without a real state of grace by sanctification. And so resolved he is in it, that there is no admittance into heaven of a starting, but a persevering, holiness : Rom.
ii. 7, a ' patient continuance in well doing ;' patient under the sharpness of affliction, and continuing under the pleasures of prosperity. Hence it is that the gospel, the restoring doctrine, hath not only the motives of rewards to allure us to good, and the danger of punishments to scare us from evil, as
the law had, but they are set forth in a higher strain, in a way of stronger engagement, the rewards are heavenly, and the punishments eternal ; and
more powerful motives besides, from the choicer expressions of God's love in the death of his Son. The whole design of it is to re-instate us in a re
semblance to this divine perfection, whereby he shews what an affection he hath to this excellency of his nature, and what a detestation he hath of evil, which is contrary to it.
EXOD. 2tV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 215
(3.) It appears in the actual regeneration of the redeemed soul, and a
carrying it on to a full perfection. As election is the effect of God's sove reignty, our pardon the fruit of his mercy, our knowledge a stream from his wisdom, our strength an impression of his power, so our purity is a beam from his hbliness. The whole work of sanctification, and the preservation of it, our Saviour begs for his disciples of his Father under this title : John
xvii. 11, 17, ' Holy Father, keep them through thy own name,' and ' sanc tify them through thy truth,' as the proper source whence holiness was to flow to the creature; as the sun is the proper fountain whence light is derived, both to the stars above and bodies here below. Whence he is not
only called holy, but 'the Holy One of Israel;' Isa. xliii. 15, 'I am the Lord your Holy One, the Creator of Israel,' displaying his holiness in them by a new creation of them as his Israel. As the rectitude of the creature at the first creation was the effect of his holiness, so the purity of the creature by a new creation is a draught of the same perfection. He is called the Holy One of Israel more in Isaiah, that evangelical prophet, in erecting Zion, and forming a people for himself, than in the whole Scriptures besides. As he sent Jesus Christ to satisfy his justice for the expiation of the guilt of sin, so he sends the Holy Ghost for the cleansing the filth of sin and over mastering the power of it. Himself is the fountain, the Son is the pattern, and the Holy Ghost the immediate imprinter of this stamp of holiness upon the creature. God hath such a value for this attribute, that he designs the glory of this in the renewing of the creature more than the happiness of the creature ; though the one doth necessarily follow upon the other, yet the one is the principal design and the other the consequent of the former; whence our salvation is more frequently set forth in Scripture by a redemption from sin, and sanctification of the soul, than by a possession of heaven, Titus ii. 11-14, and many other places. Indeed, as God could not create a rational creature without interesting this attribute in a special manner, so he cannot restore the fallen creature without it. As in creating a rational creature there must be holiness to adorn it, as well as wisdom to form the design, and power to effect it, so in the restoration of the creature, as he could not make a reasonable creature unholy, so he cannot restore a fallen creature, and put him in a meet pos ture to take pleasure in him, without communicating to him a resemblance of himself. As God cannot be blessed in himself without this perfection of purity, so neither can a creature be blessed without it. As God would be unlovely to himself without this attribute, so would the creature be unlovely to God without a stamp and mark of it upon his nature. So much is this perfection one with God, valued by him, and interested in all his works and ways.
III. The third thing I am to do, is to lay down some propositions in the
defence of God's holiness in all his acts about or concerning sin. It was a prudent and pious advice of Camero, not to be too busy and rash in inquiries
and conclusions about the reason of God's providence in the matter of sin. The Scripture hath put a bar in the way of such curiosity, by telling us,
that the ways of God's wisdom and righteousness in his judgments are un searchable, Rom. xi. 83, much more the ways of God's holiness as he stands in relation to sin as a Governor of the world. We cannot consider those things without danger of slipping ; our eyes are too weak to look upon the sun without being dazzled ; too much curiosity met with a just check in our
first parent. To be desirous to know the reason of all God's proceedings in the matter of sin, is to second the ambition of Adam, to be as wise as
216 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Exoo. XV. 11.
God, and know the reason of his actings equally with himself. It is more
easy, as the same author saith, to give an account of God's providence since the revolt of man, and the poison that hath universally seized upon human nature, than to make guesses at the manner of the fall of the first man. The
Scripture hath given us but a short account of the manner of it, to discourage too curious inquiries into it.
It is certain that God made man upright ; and when man sinned in para dise, God was active in sustaining the substantial nature and act of the sin ner while he was sinning, though not in supporting the sinfulness of the act. He was permissive in suffering it, he was negative in withholding that grace which might certainly have prevented his crime, and consequently his ruin, though he withheld nothing that was sufficient for his resistance of that temp tation wherewith he was assaulted. And since the fall of man, God, as a wise governor, is directive of the events of the transgression, and draws the choicest good out of the blackest evil, and limits the sins of men, that they creep not so far as the evil nature of men would urge them to ; and as a righteous judge, he takes away the talent from idle servants, and the light from wicked ones, whereby they stumble and fall into crimes by the inclina tions and proneness of their own corrupt natures, leaves them to the bias of their own vicious habits, denies that grace which they have forfeited, and have no right to challenge ; and turns their sinful actions into punishments, both to the committers of them and others.
Prop. 1. God's holiness is not chargeable with any blemish, for his creat ing man in a mutable state. It is true angels and men were created with a changeable nature ; and though there was a rich and glorious stamp upon them by the hand of God, yet their natures were not incapable of a base and vile stamp from some other principle ; as the silver, which bears upon it the image of a great prince, is capable of being melted down, and imprinted with no better an image than that of some vile and monstrous beast. Though
God made man upright, yet he was capable of seeking ' many inventions,' Eccles. vii. 29 ; yet the hand of God was not defiled by forming man with such a nature. It was suitable to the wisdom of God to give the rational creature, whom he had furnished with a power of acting righteously, the liberty of choice, and not fix him in an unchangeable state, without a trial of him in his natural. And if he did obey, his obedience might be the more valuable ; and if he did freely offend, his offence might be more inexcusable.
1. No creature can be capable of immutability by nature. Mutability is so essential to a creature, that a creature cannot be supposed without it. You must suppose it a creator, not a creature, if you allow it to be an im mutable nature. Immutability is the property of the supreme being. God
' only hath immortality,' 1 Tim. vi. 16. Immortality, as opposed not only to a natural, but to a sinful death ; the word only appropriates every sort of immortality to God, and excludes every creature, whether angel or man,
from a partnership with God in this by nature. Every creature therefore
is capable of a death in sin. ' None is good but God,' and none is naturally free from change but God ; which excludes every creature from the same prerogative ; and certainly if one angel sinned, all might have sinned, be cause there was the same root of mutability in one as well as another. It is as possible for a creature to be creator, as for a creature to have naturally an incommunicable property of the Creator. All things, whether angels or men, are made of nothing, and therefore capable of defection ;* because a creature being made of nothing, cannot be good per essentiam, or essentially
* Suarez, vol. ii. p. 548.
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 217
good, but by participation from another. Again, every rational creature, being made of nothing, hath a superior which created him and governs him, and is capable of a precept ; and consequently capable of disobedience as well as obedience to the precept, to transgress it as well as obey it. God cannot sin, because he can have no superior to impose a precept on him. A rational creature, with a liberty of will and power of choice, cannot be made by nature of such a mould and temper, but he must be as well capable of choosing wrong, as of choosing right ; and therefore the standing angels, and glorified saints, though they are immutable, it is not by nature they are so, but by grace, and the good pleasure of God ; for though they are in heaven, they have still in their nature a remote power of sinning, but it shall never be brought into act, because God will always incline their wills to love him, and never concur with their wills to any evil act. Since therefore mutability is essential to a creature, as a creature, this changeableness can not properly be charged upon God as the author of it ; for it was not the
term of God's creating act, but did necessarily result from the nature of the creature, as unchangeableness doth result from the essence of God. The brittleness of a glass is no blame to the art of him that blew up the glass into such a fashion ; that imperfection of brittleness is not from the work
man, 'but the matter. So though changeableness be an imperfection, yet it is so necessary a one, that no creature can be naturally without it. Besides, though angels and men were mutable by creation, and capable to exercise their wills, yet they were not necessitated to evil ; and this mutability did not infer a necessity that they should fall ; because some angels, which had the same root of changeableness in their natures with those that fell, did not fall, which they would have done, if capableness of changing, and necessity of changing, were one and the same thing.
2. Though God made the creature mutable, yet he made him not evil. There could be nothing of evil in him that God created after his own image, and pronounced good, Gen. i. 27, 81. Man had an ability to stand, as well as a capacity to fall ; he was created with a principle of acting freely, where by he was capable of loving God as his chief good, and moving to him as his
last end ; there was a beam of light in man's understanding to know the rule he was to conform to, a harmony between his reason and his affections, an. original righteousness. So that it seemed more easy for him to determine his will to continue in obedience to the precept, than to swerve from it ; to adhere to God as his chief good, than to listen to the charms of Satan. God created him with those advantages, that he might with more facility have kept his eyes fixed upon the divine beauty, than turn his back upon it ; and with greater ease have kept the precept God gave him, than have broken it. The very first thought darted, or impression made by God upon the angelical or human nature, was the knowledge of himself as their author, and could be no other than such whereby both angels and men might be excited to a love of that adorable being that had framed them so gloriously out of nothing. And if they turned their wills and affections to another object, it was not by the direction of God, but contrary to the impression God had made upon them, or the first thought he flashed into them. They turned themselves to the admiring their own excellency, or affecting an advantage distinct from that which they were to look for only from God. 1 Tim. iii. 6, pride was the cause of the condemnation of the devil. Though the wills of angels and men were created mutable, and so were imperfect, yet they were not created evil. Though they might sin, yet they might not sin, and therefore were not evil in their own nature. What reflection then could this mutability of their nature be upon God ? So far is it from any, that he is
218 CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [Exoo. XV. 11.
fully cleared, by storing up in the nature of man sufficient provision against his departure from him. God was so far from creating him evil, that he fortified him with a knowledge in his understanding, and a strength in his nature, to withstand any invasion. The knowledge was exercised by Eve in
the very moment of the serpent's assaulting her : Gen. iii. 3, Eve ' said to the serpent, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it.' And had her thoughts been intent upon this God hath said, and not diverted to the motions of the sensitive appetite and liquorish palate, it had been sufficient to put by all the passes the devil did, or could have made at her. So that you see, though God made the creature mutable, yet he made him not evil. This clears the holiness of God.
3. Therefore it follows, that though God created man changeable, yet he was not the cause of his change by his fall. Though man was created defectible, yet he was not determined by God influencing his will by any positive act to that change and apostasy. God placed him in a free posture, set life and happiness before him on the one hand, misery and death on the other. As he did not draw him into the arms of perpetual blessedness, so
he did not drive him into the gulf of his misery ;* he did not incline him to evil. It was repugnant to the goodness of God to corrupt the righteousness of those faculties he had so lately beautified him with. It was not likely he should deface the beauty of that work he had composed with so much wisdom and skill. Would he by any act of his own make that bad, which but a little before he had acquiesced in as good ? Angels and men were left to their liberty and conduct of their natural faculties ; and if God inspired them with any motions, they could not but be motions to good, and suited to that righteous nature he had endued them with. But it is most probable that God did not in a supernatural way act inwardly upon the mind of man, but left him wholly to that power which he had in creation furnished him with. The Scripture frees God fully from any blame in this, and lays it wholly upon Satan as the tempter, and upon man as the determiner of his own will. Gen. iii. 6, Eve took of the fruit, and did eat ; and Adam took from her of the fruit, and did eat. And Solomon, Eccles. vii. 29, dis-
tinguisheth God's work in the creation of man ' upright,' from man's work in ' seeking out' those ruining ' inventions.' God created man in a right eous state, and man cast himself into a forlorn state. As he was a mutable creature, he was from God ; as he was a changed and corrupted creature, it was from the devil seducing, and his own pliableness in admitting ; as silver, and gold, and other metals, were created by God in such a form and figure, yet capable of receiving other forms by the industrious art of man. When the image of a man is put upon a piece of metal, God is not said to create that image, though he created the substance with such a property, that it was capable of receiving it. This capacity is from the nature of the
metal by God's creation of it, but the carving the figure of this or that man, is not the act of God, but the act of man ; as images in Scripture are called
the work of men's hands, in regard of the imagery, though the matter, wood or stone, upon which the image was carved, was a work of God's creative power. When an artificer frames an excellent instrument, and a musician exactly tunes it, and it comes out of their hands without a blemish, but capable to be untuned by some rude hand, or receive a crack by a sudden fall if it meet with a disaster, is either the workman or musician to be blamed ? The ruin of a house, caused by the wastefulness or carelessness of the tenant, is not to be imputed to the workman that built it strong, and left it in a good posture.
* Amyral. Moral, torn. i. p. 615, 616.
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 219
Prop. 2. God's holiness is not blemished by enjoining man a law, which he knew he would not observe.
1. The law was not above his strength. Had the law been impossible to be observed, no crime could have been imputed to the subject, the fault had
lain wholly upon the governor; the non-observance of it had been from a want of strength, and not from a want of will. Had God commanded Adam to fly up to the sun, when he had not given him wings, Adam might have a will to obey it, but his power would be too short to perform it. But the law set him for a rule had nothing of impossibility in it ; it was easy to be ob served ; the command was rather below than above his strength, and the sanction of it was more apt to restrain and scare him from the breach of it, than encourage any daring attempts against it. He had as much power, or rather more, to conform to it, than to warp from it ; and greater arguments and interest to be observant of it, than to violate it ; his all was secured by the one, and his ruin ascertained by the other. The commands of God are
' not grievous,' 1 John v. 3 ; from the first to the last command there is nothing impossible, nothing hard to the original and created nature of man, which were all summed up in a love to God, which was the pleasure and delight of man, as well as his duty, if he had not by inconsiderateness neglected the dictates and resolves of his own understanding. The law was suited to the strength of man, and fitted for the improvement and perfection of his nature ; in which respect the apostle calls it good, as it refers to man; as well as holy, as it refers to God, Rom. vii. 12. Now since God created man a creature capable to be governed by a law, and as a rational creature endued with understanding and will, not to be governed according to his nature without a law, was it congruous to the wisdom of God to respect only the future state of man, which, from the depth of his infinite know ledge, he did infallibly foresee would be miserable by the wilful defection of man from the rule ? Had it been agreeable to the wisdom of God to respect only this future state, and not the present state of the creature, and there fore leave him lawless, because he knew he would violate the law ? Should God forbear to act like a wise governor, because he foresaw that man would cease to act like an obedient subject ? Shall a righteous magistrate forbear to make just and good laws, because he foresees, either from the disposi tions of his subjects, their ill-humour, or some circumstances which will intervene, that multitudes of them will incline to break those laws, and fall nnder the penalty of them ? No blame can be upon that magistrate who minds .the^rule of righteousness, and the necessary duty of his govern ment, since he is not the cause of those turbulent affections in men, which he wisely foresees will rise up against his just edicts.
2. Though the law now be above the strength of man, yet is not the holi ness of God blemished by keeping it up. It is true, God hath been gra ciously pleased to mitigate the severity and rigour of the law by the entrance of the gospel ; yet, where men refuse the terms of the gospel, they continue themselves under the condemnation of the law, and are justly guilty of the breach of it, though they have no strength to observe it. The law, as I said
before, was not above man's strength, when he was possessed of original right eousness, though it be above man's strength, since he was stripped of original righteousness. The command was dated before man had contracted his impotency, when he had a power to keep it as well as to break it. Had it been enjoined to man only after the fall, and not before, he might have had a better pretence to excuse himself, because of the impossibility of it ; yet he would not have had sufficient excuse, since the impossibility did not result from the nature of the law, but from the corrupted nature of the creature.
220 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [ExoD. XV. 11.
It was « weak through the flesh,' Kom. viii. 3, but it was promulged when man had a strength proportioned to the commands of it. And now, since
man hath unhappily made himself uncapable of obeying it, must God's holi ness in his law be blemished for enjoining it ? Must he abrogate those commands, and prohibit what before he enjoined, for the satisfaction of the corrupted creature ? Would not this be his ceasing to be holy, that his creature might be unblameably unrighteous ? Must God strip himself of his holiness, because man will not discharge his iniquity ? He cannot be the cause of sin, by keeping up the law, who would be the cause of all the unrighteousness of men, by removing the authority of it. Some things in the law, that are intrinsecally good in their own nature, are indispensable, and it is repugnant to the nature of God not to command them. If he were not the guardian of his indispensable law, he would be the cause and countenancer of the creature's iniquity ; so little reason have men to charge God with being the cause of their sin, by not repealing his law to gratify their impotence, that he would be unholy if he did. God must not lose his purity, because man hath lost his ; and cast away the right of his sove reignty, because man hath cast away his power of obedience.
3. God's foreknowledge that his law would not be observed lays no blame upon him. Though the foreknowledge of God be infallible, yet it doth not necessitate the creature in acting. It was certain from eternity, that Adam would fall, that men would do such and such actions, that Judas would be tray our Saviour ; God foreknew all those things from eternity ; but it is as certain that this foreknowledge did not necessitate the will of Adam, or any other branch of his posterity, in the doing those actions that were so fore seen by God ; they voluntarily run into such courses, not by any impulsion.
God's knowledge was not suspended between certainty and uncertainty. He certainly foreknew that his law would be broken by Adam ; he foreknew it in his own decree of not hindering him, by giving Adam the efficacious grace which would infallibly have prevented it ; yet Adam did freely break this law, and never imagined that the foreknowledge of God did necessitate him to it. He could find no cause of his own sin but the liberty of his own will ; he charges the occasion of his sin upon the woman, and consequently upon God in giving the woman to him, Gen. iii. 12. He could not be so ignorant of the nature of God as to imagine him without a foresight of future things, since his knowledge of what was to be known of God by creation was greater