Part 15
i'ault of the wealth, or the dispositions of the persons who are covetous in stead of being generous? It is a calumny therefore upon God to charge him with the sin of man upon this account. The rain that drops from the clouds upon the plants is sweet in itself, but, when it moistens the root of any venomous plant, it is turned into the juice of the plant, and becomes venomous with it. The miracles that our Saviour wrought were applauded by some, and envied by the Pharisees ; the sin arose not from the nature of the miracles, but the malice of their spirits. The miracles were fitter in their own nature to have induced them to an adoration of our Saviour, than to excite so vile a passion against one that had so many marks from heaven
to dignify him, and proclaim him worthy of their respect. The person of Christ was an object proposed to the Jews ; some worship him, others con demn and crucify him, and, according to their several vices and base ends, they use this object : Judas, to content his covetousness ; the Pharisees, to glut their revenge; Pilate, for his ambition, to preserve himself in his govern ment, and avoid the articles the people might charge him with of counte nancing an enemy to Cffisar. God at that time put into their minds a rational and true proposition, which they apply to ill purposes. f Caiaphas
said, that ' it was expedient for one man to die for the people,' which ' he spake not of himself,' John xi. 50, 51. God put it into his mind, but he might have applied it better than he did, and considered, though the maxim was commendable, whether it might justly be applied to Christ, or whether there was such a necessity that he must die, or the nation be destroyed by
the Romans. The maxim was sound and holy, decreed by God ; but what
* Amyrald. de libero arbit. p. 224. t Amyrald. Ironic., p. 337.
EXOD. XV. 11. J GOD'S HOLINESS. 237
an ill use did the high priest make of it, to put Christ to death as a seditious person, to save the nation from the Roman fury !
3. Since the natural corruption of men will use such objects ill, may not God, without tainting himself, present such objects to them in subserviency to his gracious decrees ? Whatsoever God should present to men in that
state, they would make an ill use of ; hath not God then the sovereign prerogative to present what he pleases, and suppress others ? to offer that to them which may serve his holy purpose, and hide other things from them •which are not so conducing to his gracious ends, which would be as much the occasions of exciting their sin as the others which he doth bring forth to their view ? The Jews, at the time of Christ, were of a turbulent and sedi tious humour ; they expected a Messiah, a temporal king, and would readily have embraced any occasion to have been up in arms to have delivered them selves from the Roman yoke ; to this purpose the people attempted once to make him king. And probably the expectation they had, that he had such a design to head them, might be one reason of their Hosannas, because with out some such conceit it was not probable they should so soon change their note, and vote him to the cross in so short a time, after they had applauded him as if he had been upon a throne ; but their being defeated of strong expectations usually ended in a more ardent fury. This turbulent and seditious humour God directs in another channel, suppresseth all occur rences that might excite them to a rebellion against the Romans, which, if
he had given way to, the crucifying Christ, which was God's design to bring about at that time, had not probably been effected, and the salvation of mankind been hindered, or stood at a stay for a time. God therefore orders such objects and occasions that might direct this seditious humour to an other channel, which would else have run out in other actions, which had not been conducing to the great design he had then in the world. Is it not the right of God, and without any blemish to his holiness, to use those cor
ruptions which he finds sown in the nature of his creature by the hand of Satan, and to propose such objects as may excite the exercise of them for his own service ? Sure God hath as much right to serve himself of the creature of his own framing, and what natures soever they are possessed with, and to present objects to that purpose, as a falconer hath to offer this or that bird to his hawk, to exercise his courage and excite his raveuousness,
ithout being termed the author of that ravenousness in the creature. God
ted not those corruptions in the Jews, but finds them in those persons er whom he hath an absolute sovereignty in the right of a Creator, and at of a judge for their sins, and by the right of that sovereignty may offer .ch objects and occasions, which, though innocent in themselves, he knows
ey will make use of to ill purposes, but which by the same decree that he solves to present such occasions to them, he also resolves to make use of
em for his own glory. It is not conceivable by us what way that death of hrist, which was necessary for the satisfaction of divine justice, could be
ought about, without ordering the evil of some men's hearts by special casions to effect his purpose ; we cannot suppose that Christ can be guilty of any crime that deserved death by the Jewish law; had he been so a
criminal, he could not have been a Redeemer.* A perfect innocence was necessary to the design of his coming. Had God himself put him to that
death, without using instruments of wickedness in it, by some remarkable hand from heaven, the innocence of his nature had been for ever eclipsed,
and the voluntariness of his sacrifice had been obscured. The strangeness of such a judgment would have made his innocence incredible; he could not
* This I have spoken of before, but it is necessary now.
238 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Exon. XV. 11.
reasonably have been proposed as an object of faith. What, to believe in one that was struck dead by a hand from heaven ! The propagation of the doctrine of redemption had wanted a foundation ; and though God might have raised him again, the certainty of his death had been as questionable as his innocence in dying had he not been raised. But God orders every thing so as to answer his own most wise and holy ends, and maintain his truth, and the fulfilling the predictions of the minutest concerns about them, and all this by presenting occasions innocent in themselves, which the cor ruptions of the Jews took hold of, and whereby God, unknown to them, brought about his own decrees. And may not this be conceived without any
taint upon God's holiness ; for when there are seeds of all sin in man's nature, why may not God hinder the sprouting up of this or that kind of seed, and leave liberty to the growth of the other, and shut up other ways of sinning, and restrain men from them, and let them loose to that tempta tion which he intends to serve himself of, hiding from them those objects which were not so serviceable to his purpose, wherein they would have sinned, and offer others which he knew their corruption would use ill, and were serviceable to his ends, since the depravation of their natures would necessarily hurry them to evil without restraining grace, as a scale will necessarily rise up, when the weight in it, which kept it down, is taken away?
Prop. 7. The holiness of God is not blemished by withdrawing his grace from a sinful creature, whereby he falls into more sin. That God withdraws his grace from men, and gives them up sometimes to the fury of their lusts,
is as clear in Scripture as anything : Deut. xxix. 4, ' Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear,' &c. Judas was delivered to Satan after the sop, and put into his power for despising former admonitions. He often leaves the reins to the devil, that he may use what efficacy he can in those that have offended the majesty of God ; he withholds further influences of grace, or withdraws what before he had granted them. Thus he withheld that grace from the sons of Eli, that
might have made their father's pious admonitions effectual to them : 1 Sam. ii. 25, ' They hearkened not to the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them.' He gave grace to Eli to reprove them, and withheld that grace from them which might have enabled them, against their natural cor ruption and obstinacy, to receive that reproof.
But the holiness of God is not blemished by this.
1. Because the act of God in this is only negative.* Thus God is said to harden men, not by positive hardening, or working anything in the creature, but by not working, not softening, leaving a man to the hardness of his own
heart, whereby it is unavoidable, by the depravation of man's nature, and the fury of his passions, but that he should be further hardened, and ' increase unto more ungodliness,' as the expression is, 2 Tim. ii. 16. As a man is said to give another his life, when he doth not take it away when it lay at his mercy, so God is said to harden a man when he doth not mollify him when it was in his power, and inwardly quicken him with that grace whereby he might infallibly avoid any further provoking of him. God is said to harden men, when he removes not from them the incentives to sin, curbs not those principles which are ready to comply with those incentives, with draws the common assistances of his grace, concurs not with counsels and admonitions to make them effectual, flasheth not in the convincing light
which he darted upon them before. If hardness follows upon God's with holding his softening grace, it is not from any positive act of God, but from the natural hardness of man. If you put fire near to wax or resin, both
* Testard. de natur. et grat., Thes. 150, 151. Amyr. on divers texts, p. 311.
EXOD. XV. 11. J GOD'S HOLINESS. 239
will melt ; but when the fire is removed, they return to their natural quality of hardness and brittleness. The positive act of the fire is to melt and soften, and the softness of the rosin is to be ascribed to that, but the hard ness is from the resin itself, wherein the fire hath no influence, but only a negative act by a removal of it ; so when God hardens a man, he only leaves him to that stony heart which he derived from Adam, and brought with him into the world. All men's understandings being blinded, and their wills perverted in Adam, God's withdrawing his grace is but a leaving them to their natural pravity, which is the cause of their further sinning, and not
God's removal of that special light he before afforded them, or restraint he held over them. As when God withdraws his preserving power from the
creature, he is not the efficient, but deficient, cause of the creature's destruc tion; so in this case, God only ceaseth to bind and dam up that sin which else would break out.
2. The whole positive cause of this hardness is from man's corruption. God infuseth not any sin into his creatures, but forbears to infuse his grace and restrain their lusts, which upon the removal of his grace work impe tuously. God only gives them up to that which he knows will work strongly in their hearts. And therefore the apostle wipes off from God any positive act in that uncleanness the heathens were given up to (Rom. i. 24,
' Wherefore God gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts ;' and verse 26, God gave them up to ' vile affections,' but they were their own affections, none of God's inspiring), but adding, through the lusts of their own hearts. God's giving them up was the logical cause, or a cause by way of argument ; their own lusts were the true and natural cause ; their own they were before they were given up to them, and belonging to none as the author, but themselves after they were given up to them. The lust in the heart, and the temptation without, easily close and mix interests with one another ; as the fire in a coal pit will with the fuel, if the streams derived into it for the quenching it be dammed up ; the natural passions will run to a temptation, as the waters of a river tumble towards the sea. When
a man that hath bridled in a high-mettled horse from running out, gives him the reins, or a huntsman takes off the string that held the dog, and lets him run after the hare, are they the immediate cause of the motion of the one or the other ? No ; but the mettle and strength of the horse, and the natural inclination of the hound, both which are left to their own motions
to pursue their own natural instincts. Man doth ras naturally tend to sin as a stone to the centre, or as a weighty thing inclines to a motion to the
earth; it is from the propension of man's nature that he ' drinks up iniquity like water ;' and God doth no more when he leaves a man to sin, by taking away the hedge which stopped him, but leave him to his natural inclination. As a man that breaks up a dam he hath placed, leaves the stream to run in their natural channel, or one that takes away a prop from a stone to let it fall, leaves it only to that nature which inclines it to a descent, both have their motion from their own nature, and man his sin from his own corrup tion.* The withdrawing the sunbeams is not the cause of darkness, but the shadiness of the earth ; nor is the departure of the sun the cause of winter, but the coldness of the air and earth, which was tempered and beaten back into the bowels of the earth by the vigour of the sun, upon whose departure they return to their natural state. The sun only leaves the earth and air as it found them at the beginning of the spring, or the beginning of the day. If God do not give a man grace to melt him, yet he cannot be said to com municate to him that nature which hardens him, which man hath from him-
* Amyrald de Predest , p. 107.
240 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Exoo. XV. 11.
self. As God was not the cause of the first sin of Adam, which was the root of all other, so he is not the cause of the following sins, which as
branches spring from that root ; man's free will was the cause of the first sin, and the corruption of his nature by it the cause of all succeeding sins. God doth not immediately harden any man, but doth propose those things from whence the natural vice of man takes an occasion to strengthen and
nourish itself. Hence God is said to ' harden Pharaoh's heart,' Exod. vii. 13, by concurring with the magicians in turning their rods into serpents, which stiffened his heart against Moses, conceiving him by reason of that to have no more power than other men, and was an occasion of his further hardening; and Pharaoh is said to harden himself, Exod. viii. 32 ; that is, in regard of his own natural passion.
3. God is holy and righteous, because he doth not withdraw from man till man deserts him. To say that God withdrew that grace from Adam,, which he had afforded him in creation, or anything that was due to him,
till he had abused the gifts of God, and turned them to an end contrary to that of creation, would be a reflection upon the divine holiness. God was first deserted by man before man was deserted by God, and man doth first contemn and abuse the common grace of God, and those relics of natural
light that ' enlighten every man that comes into the world, John i. 9, before God leaves him to the hurry of his own passions. Ephraim was first
'joined to idols,' before God pronounced the fatal sentence,* ' Let him alone,' Hosea iv. 17. And the heathens first ' changed the glory of the incorruptible God,' Rom. i. 23, 24, before God withdrew his common grace from the corrupted creature, and they first ' serve the creature more than the Creator,' before the Creator gave them up to the slavish chains of their vile affections, ver, 25, 26. Israel first cast off God before God cast off
them, but then ' he gave them up to their own heart's lusts, and they walked in their own counsels,' Ps. Ixxxi. 11, 12. Since sin entered into the world by the fall of Adam, and the blood of all his posterity was tainted, man cannot do anything that is formally good ; not for want of faculties, but for the want of a righteous habit in those faculties, especially in the will; yet. God discovers himself to man in the works of his hands ; he hath left in him footsteps of natural reason, he doth attend him with common motions of his Spirit, corrects him for his faults with gentle chastisements. He is> near unto all in some kind of instructions; he puts many times providential bars in their way of sinning, but when they will rush into it ' as the horse into the battle,' when they will rebel against the light, God doth often leave them to their own course, sentence ' him that is filthy to be filthy still,' Rev. xxii. 11, which is a righteous act of God, as he is rector and governor
of the world. Man's not receiving, or not improving what God gives, is the cause of God's not giving further, or taking away his own, which before he had bestowed. This is so far from being repugnant to the holiness and righteousness of God, that it is rather a commendable act of his holiness and righteousness, as the rector of the world, not to let those gifts continue in the hand of a man who abuses them contrary to his glory. Who will blame a father, that after all the good counsels he hath given his son to reclaim him, all the corrections he hath inflicted on him for his irregular practice, leaves him to his own courses, and withdraws those assistances which he scoffed at and turned the deaf ear unto ? Or who will blame the physician for deserting the patient who rejects his counsel, will not follow
his 'prescriptions, but dasheth his physic against the wall ? No man will blame him, no man will say that he is the cause of the patient's death ; but the true cause is the fury of the distemper, and the obstinacy of the diseased
EXOD. 3TV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 241
person, to which the physician left him. And who can justly blame God in this case, who yet never denied supplies of grace to any that sincerely sought it at his hands ? and what man is there that lies under a hardness, but first was guilty of very provoking sins ? What unholiness is it to deprive men of those assistances because of their sin, and afterwards to direct those counsels and practices of theirs which he hath justly given them up unto, to serve the ends of his own glory in his own methods ?
4. . Which will appear further by considering, that God is not obliged to continue his grace to them. It was at his liberty whether he would give any renewing grace to Adam after his fall, or to any of his posterity ; he was at his own liberty to withhold it or communicate it ; but if he were under any obligation then, surely he must be under less now, since the multiplication of sin by his creatures ; but if the obligation were none just after the fall, there is no pretence now to fasten any such obligation on God. That God had no obligation at first hath been spoken to before ; he is less obliged to continue his grace after a repeated refusal, and a peremptory abuse, than he was bound to proffer it after the first apostasy. God cannot be charged with unholiness in withdrawing his grace after we have received it, unless we can make it appear that his grace was a thing due to us, as we are his creatures, and as he is the governor of the world. What prince looks upon himself as obliged to reside in any particular place of his king dom ? But suppose he be bound to inhabit in one particular city, yet after the city rebels against him, is he bound to continue his court there, spend his revenue among rebels, endanger his own honour and security, enlarge their charter, or maintain their ancient privileges ? Is it not most just and righteous for him to withdraw himself, and leave them to their own tumultuousness and sedition, whereby they should eat the fruit of their own doings ? If there be an obligation [on] God as a governor, it would rather lie on the side of justice, to leave man to the power of the devil, whom he courted, and the prevalency of those lusts he hath so often caressed, and wrap up in a cloud all his common illuminations, and leave him destitute of all common workings of his Spirit.
Prop. 8. God's holiness is not blemished by his commanding those things sometimes which seem to be against nature, or thwart some other of his precepts. As when God commanded Abraham with his own hand to sacrifice his son, Gen. xxii. 2, there was nothing of unrighteousness in it. God hath a sovereign dominion over the lives and beings of his creatures, whereby as he creates one day he might annihilate the next ; and by the same right that he might demand the life of Isaac, as being his creature, he might demand the obedience of Abraham, in a ready return of that to him which he had so long enjoyed by his grant. It is true, killing is unjust when it is done without cause, and by private authority ; but the authority of God surmounts all private and public authority whatsoever. Our lives are due to him when he calls for them, and they are more than once forfeit to him by reason of transgression. But howsoever the case is, God commanded him to do it for the trial of his grace, but suffered him not to do it in favour to his ready obedience ; but had Isaac been actually slain and offered, how had it been unrighteous in God, who enacts laws for the regulation of his creature, but never intended them to the prejudice of the rights of his sovereignty ? Another case is that of the Israelites borrowing jewels of the Egyptians by the order of God, Exod. xi. 2, 3, xii. 36. Is not God Lord
of men's goods, as well as their lives ? What have any they have not received, and that not as proprietors independent on God, but his stewards ? and may not he demand a portion of his steward to bestow upon his favourite ?
VOL. II. Q
242 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Exoo. XV. 11.
He that had power to dispose of the Egyptians' goods, had power to order the Israelites to ask them. Besides, God acted the part of a just judge in ordering them their wages for their service in this method, and making their taskmasters give them some recompence for their unjust oppression so many years ; it was a command from God therefore, rather for the preservation of justice (the basis of all those laws which link human society), than any
infringement of it. It was a material recompence in part, though not a formal one in the intention of the Egyptians ; it was but in part a recom pence ; it must needs come short of the damage the poor captives had sus tained by the tyranny of their masters, who had enslaved them contrary to the rules of hospitality, and could not make amends for the lives of the poor infants of Israel, whom they drowned in the river. He that might for the unjust oppression of his people have taken away all their lives, destroyed the whole nation, and put the Israelites into the possession of their lands, could without any unrighteousness dispose of part of their goods ; and it was rather an act of clemency to leave them some part, who had doubly
forfeited all. Again, the Egyptians were as ready to lend by God's influence,
as the Israelites were to ask by God's order; and though it was a loan, God, as sovereign of the world, and Lord of the earth and the fulness thereof, alienated the property by assuming them to the use of the tabernacle, to which service most, if not all. of them were afterwards dedicated. God, who is lawgiver, hath power to dispense with his own law, and make use of his own goods, and dispose of them as he pleases. It is no unholiness in God to dispose of that which he hath a right unto. Indeed, God cannot com mand that which is in its own nature intrinsecally evil, as to command a rational creature not to love him, to call God to witness to a lie ; these are intrinsecally evil ; but for the disposing of the lives and goods of his creatures, which they have from him in right, and not in absolute propriety, is not evil in him, because there is no repugnancy in his own nature to such acts, nor is it anything inconsistent with the natural duty of a creature, and in such cases he may use what instruments he please.
IV. The point was, that holiness is a glorious perfection of the nature of God. We have shewed the nature of this holiness in God, what it is, and we have demonstrated it, and proved that God is holy, and must needs be so, and also the purity of his nature in all his acts about sin. Let us now improve it by way of use. H Use 1. Is holiness a transcendent perfection belonging to the nature of
God ? The first use shall be of instruction and information.
1. How great and how frequent is the contempt of this eminent perfection in the Deity ! Since the fall, this attribute, which renders God most amiable in himself, renders him most hateful to his apostate creature. It is impos
sible that he that loves iniquity can affect that which is irreconcilably con trary to the iniquity he loves. Nothing so contrary to the sinfulness of man as the holiness of God, and nothing is thought of by the sinner with so much detestation. How do men account that, which is the most glorious perfection of the divinity, unworthy to be regarded as an accomplishment of their own souls ! And when they are pressed to an imitation of it, and a detestation of what is contrary to it, have the same sentiments in their heart which the devil had in his language to Christ, ' Why art thou come to torment us before our time ?' What an enmity the world naturally hath to this perfection, I think is visible in the practice of the heathen, who among all their heroes which they deified, elevated none to that dignity among them for this or that moral virtue that came nearest to it, but for their valour, or
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 248
some usefulness in the concerns of this life. ^Esculapius was deified for hig skill in the cure of diseases, Bacchus for the use of the grape, Vulcan for his operations by fire, Hercules for his destroying of tyrants and monsters, but none for their mere virtue ; as if anything of purity were unworthy their consideration in the frame of a deity, when it is the glory of all other per fections ; so essential it is, that when men reject the imitation of this, God regards it as a total rejection of himself, though they own all the other
attributes of his nature : Ps. Ixxxi. 11, ' Israel would none of me.' Why? Because ' they walked not in^his ways,' ver. 13, those ways wherein the purity of the divine nature was most conspicuous. They would own him in his power, when they stood in need of a deliverance ; they would own him in his mercy, when they were plunged in distress, but they would not imitate him in his holiness. This being the lustre of the divine nature, the con tempt of it is an obscuring all his other perfections, and a dashing a blot upon his whole scutcheon. To own all the rest, and deny him this, is to frame him as an unbeautiful monster, a deformed power. Indeed, all sin is against this attribute, all sin aims in general at the being of God, but in particular at the holiness of his being. All sin is a violence to this per fection. There is not an iniquity in the world, but directs its venomous sting against the divine purity. Some sins are directed against his omni science, as secret wickedness ; some against his providence, as distrust ; some against his mercy, as unbelief; some against his wisdom, as neglect ing the means instituted by him, censuring his ways and actings ; some against his power, as trusting in means more than in God, and the immo derate fear of men more than of God; some against his truth, as distrusting his promise, or not fearing his threatening ; but all agree together in their enmity against this, which is the peculiar glory of the Deity. Every one of them is a receding from the divine image, and the blackness of every one is the deeper, by how much the distance of it from the holiness of God is the greater. This contrariety to the holiness of God is the cause of all the absolute atheism (if there be any such) in the world. What was the reason
* the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God,' but because the fool is
' corrupt, and hath done abominable works,' Ps. xiv. 1. If they believe the being of [a God, their own reason will enforce them to imagine him holy ; therefore, rather than fancy a holy God, they would fain fancy none at all.
In particular, (1.) The holiness of God is injured, in unworthy representations of God, and imaginations of him in our own minds. The heathen fell under his guilt, and ascribed to their idols those vices which their own sensuality in clined them to, unworthy of a man, much more unworthy of a god, that they might find a protection of their crimes in the practice of their idols. But is this only the notion of the heathens ? May there not be many among us whose love to their lusts, aud desires of sinning without control, move them to slander God in their thoughts rather than reform their lives, and
are ready to frame, by the power of their imaginative faculty, a God not only winking, but smiling at their impurities ? I am sure God charges the impieties of men upon this score, in that psalm (Ps. 1. 21), which seems to be a representation of the day of judgment, as some gather from verse 6. When God sums up all together, ' These things hast thou done, and I kept
silence ; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself ;' not a detester but approver of thy crimes. And the psalmist seems to express
God's loathing of sin in such a manner, as intimates it to be contrary to the ideas and resemblances men make of him in their minds : Ps. v. 4, ' For
thou art not a God that hast pleasure in wickedness.' As we say in vindi-
CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Exoc. XV. 11.
cation of a man, he is not such a man as you imagine him to be ; thou art not such a Godj as the world commonly imagines thee to be, a God taking
pleasure in iniquity. It is too common for men to fancy God not as he is, but as they would have him ; strip him of his excellency for their own
security. As God made man after his image, man would dress God after his own modes, as may best suit the content of his lusts, and encourage him in a course of sinning ; for when they can frame such a notion of God, as if he were a countenancer of sin, they will derive from thence a reputation to their crimes, commit wickedness with an unbounded licentiousness, and crown their vices with the name of virtues, because they are so like to the sentiments of that God they fancy. From hence, as the psalmist in the psalm before mentioned, ariseth that mass of vice in the world ; such con ceptions are the mother and nurse of all impiety, I question not but the first spring is some wrong notion of God in regard of his holiness. We are as apt to imagine God as we would have him, as the black Ethiopians were to draw the image of their gods after their own dark hue, and paint him with their own colour. As a philosopher in Theodoret speaks, if oxen and lions had hands, and could paint as men do, they would frame the images of their gods according to their own likeness and complexion. Such notions of God render him a swinish being, and worse than the vilest idols adored by the Egyptians, when men fancy a God indulgent to their appetites, and most sordid lusts.
(2.) In defacing the image of God in our souls. God in the first draught of man conformed him to his own image, or made him an image of himself, because we find that in regeneration this image is renewed : Eph. iv. 24,
' The new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holi ness.' He did not take angels for his pattern in the first polishing the soul, but himself. In defacing this image, we cast dirt upon the holiness of God, which was his pattern in the framing of us, and rather choose to be conformed
to Satan, who is God's grand enemy, to have God's image wiped out of us, and the devil's pictured in us. Therefore natural men in an unregenerate state may justly be called devils, since our Saviour called the worst man Judas so, John vi. 70, and Peter, one of the best, Mat. xvi. 23. And if this title be given by an infallible judge to one of the worst, and one of the best, it may without wrong to any be ascribed to all men that wallow in their sin, which is directly contrary to that illustrious image God did imprint upon them. How often is it seen that men control the light of their own nature, and stain the clearest beams of that candle of the Lord in their own spirits, that fly in the face of their own consciences, and say to them, as Ahab to Micaiah, Thou didst never prophesy good to me ; thou didst never encourage me in those things that are pleasing to the flesh ; and use it at the same
rate as the wicked king did the prophet, ' imprison it in unrighteousness,' Rom. i. 18, because it starts up in them sometimes sentiments of the holi ness of God, which it represents in the soul of man. How jolly are many men when the exhalations of their sensitive part rise up to cloud the exactest principle of moral nature in their minds, and render the monstrous principles of the law of corruption more lively ! Whence ariseth the wickednes which hath been committed with an open face in the world, and the applause that hath been often given to the worst of villanies ? Have we not known among ourselves, men to glory in their shame, and esteem that a most genteel accomplishment of man which is the greatest blot upon his nature, and which, if it were upon God, would render him no God, but an impure devil, so that to be a gentleman among us hath been the same as to be an incarnate devil ; and to be a man was to be no better, but worse than a brute ? Vile
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 245
wretches ! Is not this a contempt of divine holiness, to kill that divine seed
i which lies languishing in the midst of corrupted nature ? to cut up any
.sprouts of it as weeds unworthy to grow in their gardens, and cultivate what
is the seed of hell ? prefer the rotten fruits of Sodom, marked with a divine
curse, before those relics of the fruits of Eden, of God's own planting ? (3.) The holiness of God is injured in charging our sin upon God. No thing is more natural to men than to seek excuses for their sin, and transfer it from themselves to the next at hand ; and rather than fail, shift it upon
God himself; and if they can bring God into a society with them in sin, they will hug themselves in a security that God cannot punish that guilt,
wherein he is a partner. Adam's children are not of a different disposition from Adam himself, who, after he was arraigned and brought to his trial, boggles not at flinging his dirt in the face of God his creator, and accuseth him as if he had given him the woman, not to be his help but his ruin : Gen. iii. 12, ' And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.' He never supplicates for pardon, nor seeks a remedy, but reflects his crime upon God : had I been alone, as I was first created, I had not eaten, but the woman whom I received as a special gift from thee, hath proved my tempter and my bane. When man could not be like God in knowledge, he endeavoured to make God like him in his crime ; and when his ambition failed of equalising himself with God, he did, with an insolence too common to corrupted nature, attempt, by the imputation of his sin, to equal the divinity with himself. Some think Cain had the same
sentiment in his answer to God's demand, where his brother was, Gen. iv. 9,
' Am I my brother's keeper ?' Art not thou the keeper and governor of the world ? why didst not thou take care of him, and hinder my killing him, and drawing this guilt upon myself, and terror upon my conscience ? David was not behind, when after the murder of Uriah, he sweeps the dirt from
his own door to God's : 2 Sam. xi. 25, ' The sword devoureth one as well as another,' fathering that solely upon divine providence, which was his own wicked contrivance ; though afterwards he is more ingenuous in clear ing God, and charging himself: Ps. li. 4, ' Against thee, thee only, have I sinned ;' and he clears God in his judgment too. It is too common for ' the foolishness of man to pervert his way,' and then '. his heart frets against the Lord,' Prov. xix. 3. He studies mischief, runs in a way of sin, and when he hath conjured up troubles to himself by his own folly, he excuseth himself, and with indignation charges God as the author both of his sin and misery, and sets his mouth against the heavens. It is a more horrible thing to accuse God as a principal or accessary in our guilt, than to conceive him to be a favourer of our iniquity ; yet both are bad enough.
(4.) The holiness of God is injured, when men will study arguments from the holy word of God to colour and shelter their crimes ; when men will
seek for a shelter for their lies, in that of the midwives to preserve the children, or in that of Rahab to save the spies ; as if because God rewarded their fidelity, he countenanced their sin. How often is Scripture wrested to be a plea for unbecoming practices, that God in his word may be imagined a patron for their iniquity ? It is not unknown that some have maintained their quaffing and carousing from Eccles. viii. 15, ' That a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and drink, and be merry ;' and their gluttony from Mat. xv. 11, ' That which goes into the belly defiles not
a man.' The Jesuits' morals are a transcript of this. How often hath the passion of our Saviour, the highest expression of God's holiness, been em ployed to stain it, and encourage the most debauched practices ' Grace
246 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Exor>. XV. 11.
hath been turned into wantonness, and the abundance of grace been used as a blast to increase the flames of sin ; as if God had no other aim in that work of redemption, but to discover himself more indulgent to our sensual appetites, and by his severity with his Son, become more gracious to our lusts. This is to feed the roots of hell with the dews of heaven, to make grace a pander for the abuse of it, and to employ the expressions of his holiness in his word to be a sword against the essential holiness of his nature ; as if a man should draw an apology for his treason out of that law that was made to forbid, not to protect his rebellion. Not the meanest instrument in the temple was to be alienated from the use it was by divine order ap pointed to, nor was it to be employed in any common use ; and shall the word of God, which is the image of his holiness, be transferred by base in terpretations to be an advocate for iniquity ? Such an ill use of his word reflects upon that hand which imprinted those characters of purity and righteousness upon it ; as the misinterpretation of the wholesome laws of a
prince, made to discourage debauchery, reflects upon his righteousness and sincerity in enacting them.
(5.) The holiness of God is injured, when men will put up petitions to God to favour them in a wicked design. Such there are ; and taxed by the apostle,
James iv. 3, ' Ye ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts,' who desired mercies from God with an intent to make them instruments of sin and weapons of unrighteousness, as it is reported of a thief, that he always prayed for the success of his robbery. It hath not been rare in the world to appoint fasts and prayers for success in war manifestly unjust, and commenced upon breaches of faith. Many covetous men petition God to prosper them in their unjust gain, as if the blessed God sat in his pure majesty upon the throne of grace to espouse unjust practices, and make iniquity prosperous. There are such as offer sacrifice with an evil mind, Prov. xxi. 27, to barter with God for a divine blessing to spirit a wicked contrivance. How great a contempt of the holiness of God is this ! How inexcusable would it be for a favourite to address himself to a just prince with this language : Sir, I desire a boon of such lands that lie near me for an addition to my estate, that I may have supports for my debauchery, and be able to play the villain more powerfully among my neighbours ; hereby he implies that his prince is a friend to such crimes and wickedness he in
tends his petition for. Is not this the language of many men's hearts in the immediate presence of God ? The order of prayer runs thus, ' Hallowed be thy name,' first to have a deep sense of the holiness of the divine nature, and an ardent desire for the glory of it. This order is inverted by asking those things which are not agreeable to the will of God, not meet for us to ask, nor meet for God to give, or asking things agreeable to the will of God, but with a wicked intention ; this is, in effect, to desire God to strip himself of his holiness, and commit sacrilege upon his own nature to gratify our lusts.
(6.) The purity of God is contemned in hating and scoffing at the holi ness which is in a creature. Whosoever looks upon the holiness of a creature as an unlovely thing, can have no good opinion of the amiableness of divine purity. Whosoever hates those qualities and graces that resemble God in any person, must needs contemn the original pattern which is more eminent in God. If there be no comeliness in a creature's holiness to render it grateful to us, we should say of God himself, were he visible among us, with those in
the prophet, Isa. liii., ' There is no beauty in him that we should desire him.' Holiness is beautiful in itself. If God be the most lovely being, that which is a likeness to him, so far as it doth resemble him, must needs be
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 247
amiable, because it partakes of God ; and therefore those that see no beauty in an inferior holiness, but contemn it because it is a purity above them,
contemn God much more. He that hates that which is imperfect merely for that excellency which is in it, doth much more hate that which is perfect without any mixture or stain. Holiness being the glory of God, the pecu liar title of the Deity, and from him derived unto the nature of a creature, he that mocks this in a person derides God himself ; and when he cannot abuse the purity in the Deity, he will do it in his image, as rebels that cannot wrong the king in his person will do it in his picture, and his subjects that are loyal to him. He that hates the picture of a man, hates the person rerepresented by it much more ; he that hates the beams, hates the sun. The holiness of a creature is but a beam from that infinite sun, a stream from that eternal fountain. Where there is a derision of the purity of any crea ture, there is a greater reflection upon God in that derision, as he is the author of it. If a mixed and stained holiness be more the subject of any
man's scoffs than a great deal of sin, that person hath a disposition more roundly to scoff at God himself, should he appear in that unblemished and unspotted purity which infinitely shines in his nature. Oh, it is a dangerous thing to scoff and deride holiness in any person, though never so mean ; such do deride and scoff at the most holy God.
(7.) The holiness of God is injured by our unprepared addresses to him, when, like swine, we come into the presence of God with all our mire reek ing and steaming upon us. A holy God requires a holy worship ; and if our best duties, having filth in every part as performed by us, are unmeet for God, how much more unsuitable are dead and dirty duties to a living and immense holiness ! Slight approaches and drossy frames speak us to have imaginations of God as of a slight and sottish being ; this is worse than the
heathens practised, who would purge their flesh before they sacrificed, and make some preparations in a seeming purity, before they would enter into their temples. God is so holy, that, were our services as refined as those of angels, we could not present him with a service meet for his holy nature, Josh, xxiv. 19. We contemn, then, this perfection when we come before him with
out due preparation, as if God himself were of an impure nature, and did not deserve our purest thoughts in our applications to him, as if any blemished and polluted sacrifice were good enough for him, and his nature deserved no better. When we excite not those elevated frames of spirit which are due to such a being, when we think to put him off with a lame and imperfect service, we worship him not according to the excellency of his nature, but put a slight upon his majestic sanctity, when we nourish in our duties those foolish imaginations which creep upon us, when we bring into and continue our worldly, carnal, debauched fancies in his presence, worse than the nasty servants or bemired dogs a man would blush to be attended with in his visits to a neat person. To be conversing with sordid sensualities when we are at the feet of an infinite God, sitting upon the throne of his holiness, is as much a contempt of him, as it would be of a prince, to bring a vessel full of nasty dung with us, when we come to present a petition to him clothed in his royal robes ; or, as it would have been to God, if the high priest should have swept all the blood and excrements of the sacrifices from the foot of the
altar into the holy of holies, and heaped it up before the mercy-seat, where the presence of God dwelt between the cherubims, and afterwards shovelled
it up into the ark, to be lodged with Aaron's rod and the pot of manna.
(8.) God's holiness is slighted in depending upon our imperfect services to bear us out before the tribunal of God. This is too ordinary ; the Jews were
often infected with it, Rom. iii. 10, who not well understanding the enormity
248 CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [Exoo. XV. 11.
of their transgressions, the interweaving of sin with their services, and the unspottedness of the divine purity, mingled an opinion of merit with their sacrifices, and thought by the cutting the throat of a beast, and offering it
upon God's altar, they had made a sufficient compensation to that holiness they had offended ; not to speak of many among the Romanists who have the same notion, thinking to make satisfaction to God by erecting an hospital or endowing a church, as if this injured perfection could be contented with the dregs of their purses, and the offering of an unjust mammon, more likely to mind God of the injury they have done him, than contribute to the
appeasing of him. But is it not too ordinary with miserable men, whose consciences accuse them of their crimes, to rely upon the mumblings of a few formal prayers, and in the strength of them to think to stand before the tremendous tribunal of God, and meet with a discharge upon this account from any accusation this divine perfection can present against them ? Nay, do not the best Christians sometimes find a principle in them that makes them stumble in their goings forth to Christ, and glorifying the holiness of God in that method which he hath appointed ; sometimes casting an eye at their grace, and sticking awhile to this or that duty, and gazing at the glory of the temple building, while they should more admire the glorious presence that fills it ? What is all this but a vilifying of the holiness of the divine nature,
as though it would be well enough contented with our impurities and imperfec tions, because they look like a righteousness in our estimation ? As though dross and dung, which are the titles the apostle gives to all the righteousness of a fallen creature, Philip, iii. 8, were valuable in the sight of God, and sufficient to render us comely before him. It is a blasphemy against this attribute, to pretend that anything so imperfect, so daubed, as the best of our services are, can answer to that which is infinitely perfect, and be a ground of de manding eternal life : it is at best to set up a gilded Dagon as a fit com panion for the ark of his holiness, our own righteousness as a suitable mate for the righteousness of God, as if he had repented of the claim he made by the law to an exact conformity, and thrown off the holiness of his nature for the fondling of a corrupted creature. Rude and foolish notions of the
divine purity are clearly evidenced by any confidence in any righteousness of our own, though never so splendid. It is a rendering the righteousness of God as dull and obscure as that of men, a mere outside as their own, as blind as the heathens pictured their Fortune, that knew as little how to dis cern the nature and value of the offerings made to her, as to distribute her gifts, as if it were all one to them to have a dog or a lamb presented in sacrifice. As if God did not well understand his own nature when he enacted so holy a law, and strengthened it with so severe a threatening, which must follow upon our conceit, that he will accept a righteousness lower than that which bears some suitableness to the holiness of his own nature and that of his
law, and that he could easily be put off' with a pretended and counter feit service ! What are the services of the generality of men, but suppositions that they can bribe God to an indulgence of them in their sins, and by an oral sacrifice cause him to divest himself of his hatred of their former^iniquities, and countenance their following practices ? As the harlot that would return fresh to her uncleanness, upon the confidence that her peace-offerings had contented the righteousness of God, Prov. vii. 14 ; as though a small service could make him wink at our sins and lay aside the glory of his nature, when, alas ! the best duties in the most gracious persons in this life, are but as the streams of a spiced dunghill, a composition of myrrh and froth, since there are swarms of corruptions in their nature, and secret sins that they need a cleansing from !
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 249
(9.) It is a contemning the holiness of God when we charge the law of God with rigidness. We cast dirt upon the holiness of God when we blame the law of God, because it shackles us, and prohibits our desired pleasures ; and hate the law of God, as they did the prophets, because they did not
1 prophesy smooth things,' but called to them to ' get them out of the way, and turn aside out of the path, and cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before them,' Isa. xxx. 10, 11. Put us no more in mind of the holi ness of God and the holiness of his law ; it is a troublesome thing for us to hear of it. Let him be gone from us, since he will not countenance our vices and indulge our crimes. We would rather hear there is no God, than you should tell us of a holy one. We are contrary to the law when we wish
it were not so exact, and therefore contrary to the holiness God, which set the stamp of exactness and righteousness upon it. We think him injurious to our liberty when by his precept he thwarts our pleasure; we wish it of another frame, more mild, more suitable to our minds. It is the same as if we should openly blame God for consulting with his own righteousness, and not with our humours, before he settled his law ; that he should not have drawn
it from the depths of his righteous nature, but squared it to accommodate our corruption.
This being the language of such complaints, is a reproving God because he would not be unholy, that we might be unrighteous with impunity. Had the divine law been suited to our corrupt state, God must have been unholy to have complied with his rebellious creature. To charge the law with rigid-
ness, either in language or practice, is the highest contempt of God's holi ness ; for it is an implicit wish that God were as defiled, polluted, disorderly, as our corrupted selves.
(10.) The holiness of God is injured opinionatively. [1.] In the opinion of venial sins. The Romanists divide sins into venial and mortal. Mortal are those which deserve eternal death; venial the lighter sort of sins, which rather deserve to be pardoned than punished, or if punished, not with an eternal, but temporal punishment. This opinion hath no foundation in, but is contrary to, Scripture. How can any sin be
in its own nature venial, when the due ' wages of every sin is death,' Rom. vi. 23 ; and he who 'continues not in everything that the law commands ' falls under a curse, Gal. iii. 10. It is a mean thought of the holiness and majesty of God to imagine that any sin which is against an infinite majesty, and as infinite a purity both in the nature of God and the law of God, should not be considered as infinitely heinous. All sins are transgressions of the eternal law, and in every one the infinite holiness of God is some way slighted.
[2.] In the opinion of works of supererogation ; that is, such works as are not commanded by God, which yet have such a dignity and worth in
their own nature, that the performers of them do not only merit at God's hands for themselves, but fill up a treasure of merit for others that come short of fulfilling the precepts God hath enjoined. It is such a mean thought
of God's holiness, that the Jews, in all the charges brought against them in Scripture, were never guilty of. And if you consider what pitiful things they are which are within the compass of such works, you have sufficient reason to bewail the ignorance of man, and the low esteem he hath of so glorious a perfection. The whipping themselves often in a week, extra
ordinary watchings, fastings, macerating their bodies, wearing a Capuchin's habit, &c.. are pitiful things to give content to an infinite purity : as if the precept of God required only the inferior degrees of virtue, and the coun sels the more high and excellent ; as if the law of God, which the psalmist
250 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Exoo. XV. 11.
counts perfect, Ps. xix. 7, did not command all good and forbid all evil ; us if the holiness of God had forgotten itself in the framing the law, and made it a scanty and defective rule ; and the righteousness of a .creature were not only able to make an eternal righteousness, but surmount it. As man would be at first as knowing as God, so some of his posterity would be more holy than God, set up a wisdom against the wisdom of God, and a purity above the divine purity. Adam was not so presumptuous, ho in
tended no more than an equalling God in knowledge ; but those would exceed him in righteousness, and not only presume to render a satisfaction for themselves to the holiness they have injured, but to make a purse for the supply of others that are indigent, that they may stand before the tribunal of God with a confidence in the imaginary righteousness of a crea ture. How horrible is it for those that come short of the law of God them
selves, to think that they can have enough for a loan to their neighbours ! An unworthy opinion.
2. Information. It may inform us how great is our fall from God, and how distant we are from him. View the holiness of God, and take a pro spect of the nature of man, and be astonished to see a person created in the divine image degenerated into the image of the devil. We are as far fallen from the holiness of God, which consists in a hatred of sin, as the lowest point of the earth is from the highest point of the heavens. The devil is not more fallen from the rectitude of his nature and likeness to God than we
are ; and that we are not in the same condition with those apostate spirits, is not from anything in our nature, but from the mediation of Christ, upon which account God hath indulged in us a continuance of some remainders of that which Satan is wholly deprived of. We are departed from our original pattern; we were created to live the life of God, that is, a life of holiness,
but now we are 'alienated from the life of God,' Eph. iv. 18; and of a beau tiful piece we are become deformed, daubed over with the most defiling mud. We 'work uncleanness with greediness,' according to our ability as crea tures, as God doth work holiness with affection and ardency, according to his iufiniteness as creator. More distant we are from God by reason of sin
than the vilest creature, the most deformed toad or poisonous|serpent, is. from the highest and most glorious angel. By forsaking our innocence, we
departed from God as our original copy. The apostle might well say, Rom.
iii. 23, that by sin we are ' come short of the glory of God.' Interpreters trouble themselves much about that place, ' Man is come short of the glory
of God,' that is, of the holiness of God, which is the glory of the divine nature, and was pictured in the rational, innocent creature. By the glory
of God is meant the holiness of God ; as 2 Cor. iii. 18, ' Beholding' as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory
to glory ; ' that is, the glory of God in the text, into the image of which we are changed ; but the Scripture speaks of no other image of God but that of holiness. We are come short of the glory of God, of the holiness of God, which is the glory of God ; and the image of it, which was the glory of
man. By sin, which is particular in opposition to the purity of God, man was left many leagues behind any resemblance to God ; he stripped off that which was the glory of his nature, and was the only means of glorifying God as his creator. The word iartgovvTou, the apostle uses, is very significant,
postponed by sin, an infinite distance from any imitation of God's holiness,
or any appearance before him in a garb of nature pleasing to him. Let us lament our fall and distance from God.
3. Information. All unholiness is vile and opposite to the nature of God.
It is such a loathsome thing, that the purity of God's eye is averse from
EXOD. XV. 11.] GOD'S HOLINESS. 251
beholding, Hab. i. 3. It is not said there that he will not, but he cannot look on evil ; there cannot be any amicableness between God and sin, the natures of both are so directly and unchangeably contrary to one another. Holiness is the life of God, it endures as long as his life ; he must be eter nally averse from sin, he can live no longer than he lives in the hatred and loathing of it. If he should for one instant cease to hate it, he would cease to live. To be a holy God is as essential to him as to be a living God ; and he would not be a living, but a dead God, if he were in the least point of time an unholy God. He cannot look on sin without loathing it, he cannot look en sin but his heart riseth against it. It must needs be most odious to him, as that which is against the glory of his nature, and directly oppo site to that which is the lustre and varnish of all his other perfections. It is
the ' abominable thing which his soul hates,' Jer. xliv. 4 ; the vilest terms imaginable are used to signify it. Do you understand the loathsomeness of a miry swine, or the nauseousness of the vomit of a dog ? These are emblems of sin, 2 Peter ii. 22. Can you endure the steams of putrefied carcasses from an open sepulchre ? Rom. iii. 23. Is the smell of the stink
ing sweat or excrements of a body delightful ? the word g iwag/'a in James i. 21 signifies as much. Or is the sight of a body overgrown with scabs and leprosy grateful to you ? So vile, so odious is sin in the sight of God. It is no light thing, then, to fly in the face of God, to break his eternal law,
to dash both the tables in pieces, to trample the transcript of God's own nature under our feet, to cherish that which is inconsistent with his honour, to lift up our heels against the glory of his nature, to join issue with the devil in stubbing his heart and depriving him of his life. Sin, in every part of it, is an opposition to the holiness of God, and consequently an envying him a
being and life as well as a glory. If sin be such a thing, ' ye that love the Lord hate evil.'
4. Information. Sin cannot escape a due punishment. A hatred of unrighteousness, and consequently a will to punish it, is as essential to God as a love of righteousness. Since he is not as an heathen idol, but hath eyes to see, and purity to hate every iniquity, he will have an infinite justice to punish whatsoever is against infinite holiness. As he loves everything that is amiable, so he loathes everything that is filthy, and that consequently without any change ; his whole nature is set against it, he abhors nothing but this.
It is not the devil's knowledge or activity that his hatred is terminated in, but the malice and unholiness of his nature ; it is this only is the object of his severity. It is in the recompence of this only that there can be u manifes tation of his justice.
Sin must be punished ; for, (1.) His detestation of sin must be manifested. How should we certainly know his loathing of it, if he did not manifest by some act how ungrateful it is to him ? As his love to righteousness would not appear without rewarding it, so his hatred of iniquity would be as little evidenced without punishing it. His justice is the great witness to his purity. The punishment, there fore, inflicted on the wicked, shall be, in some respect, as great as the rewards bestowed upon the righteous. Since the hatred of sin is natural to God, it is as natural to him to shew one time or other his hatred of it ; and siuce men have a conceit that God is like them in impurity, there is a necessity of some manifestation of himself to be infinitely distant from those conceits they have of him : Ps. 1. 21, ' I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.' He would also encourage the injuries done to his holi ness, favour the extravagancies of the creature, and condemn, or at least slight, the righteousness both of his own nature and his sovereign law. What
252 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Exoo. XV. 11.
way is there for God to manifest this hatred, but by threatening the sinner ? And what would this be but a vain affrightment, and ridiculous to the sin ner, if it were never to be put in execution ? There is an indissoluble con nection between his hatred of sin and punishment of the offender : Ps. xi.
5, 6, ' The wicked his soul hates : upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone,' &c. He cannot approve of it without denying himself, and a total impunity would be a degree of approbation.
The displeasure of God is eternal and irreconcilable against sin ; for sin being absolutely contrary to his holy nature, he is eternally contrary to it. If there be not therefore a way to separate the sin from the sinner, the sin ner must lie under the displeasure of God ; no displeasure can be manifested without some marks of it upon the person that lies under that displeasure. The holiness of God will right itself of the wrongs done to it, and scatter the profaners of it at the greatest distance from him, which is the greatest punishment that can be inflicted ; to be removed far from the fountain of life is the worst of deaths. God can as soon lay aside his purity, as always
forbear his displeasure against an impure person ; it is all one not to hate it, and not to manifest his hatred of it.
(2.) As his holiness is natural and necessary, so is the punishment of unholiness necessary to him. It is necessary that he should abominate sin, and therefore necessary he should discountenance it. The severities of God against sin are not vain scarecrows, they have their foundation in the right eousness of his nature ; it is because he is a righteous and holy God, that
he ' will not forgive our transgressions and sins,' Josh. xxiv. 19, that is, that he will punish them. The throne of his holiness is a ' fiery flame,' Dan. vii. 9, there is both a pure light and a scorching heat. Whatsoever is con trary to the nature of God, will fall under the justice of God ; he would else violate his own nature, deny his own perfection, seem to be out of love with his own glory and life. He doth not hate it out of choice, but from the immutable propension of his nature ; it is not so free an act of his will as the creation of man and angels, which he might have forborne as well as effected. As the detestation of sin results from the universal rectitude of his nature,