Part 31
they must do ' as to the Lord,' Col. iii. 23, and children are to ' obey their parents in the Lord,' Eph. vi. 1. The authority of God is to be eyed in all the services payable to man. Proper and true obedience hath God solely for its principal and primary object ; all obedience to man that interferes with that, and would justle out obedience to God, is to be refused. What obedience is due to man, is but rendered as a part of obedience to God, and a stooping of his authority.
5. It must be universal obedience. The laws of man are not to be universally obeyed ; some may be oppressive and unjust. No man hath
496 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. GUI. 19.
authority to make an unjust law, and no subject is bound to obey an unright eous law ; but God being a righteous sovereign, there is not one of his laws but doth necessarily oblige us to obedience. Whatsoever this supreme power declares to be his will, it must be our care to observe. Man, being his creature, is bound to be subject to whatsoever laws he doth impose, to the meanest as well as to the greatest, they having equally a stamp of divine authority upon them. We are not to pick and choose among his precepts ; this is to pare away part of his authority, and render him a half sovereign.
It must be universal in all places. An Englishman in Spain is bound to obey the laws of that country wherein he resides, and so not responsible there for the breach of the laws of his native country. In the same condi tion is a Spaniard in England. But the laws of God are to be obeyed in every part of the world ; wheresoever divine providence doth cast us, it casts us not out of the places where he commands, nor out of the compass of his own empire. He is Lord of the world, and his laws oblige in every part of the world ; they were ordered for a world, and not for a particular climate and territory.
6. It must be indisputable* obedience. All authority requires readiness in the subject ; the centurion had it from his soldiers : they went when he ordered them, and came when he beckoned to them, Mat. viii. 9. It is more fit God should have the same promptness from his subjects. We are to
obey his orders, though our purblind understandings may not apprehend the reason of every one of them. It is without dispute that he is sovereign, and therefore it is without dispute that we are bound to obey him, without con trolling his conduct. A master will not bear it from his slave, why should God from his creature ? Though God admits his creatures sometimes to treat with him about the equality of his justice, and also about the reason of some commands, yet sometimes he gives no other reason but his own
sovereignty, ' Thus saith the Lord,' to correct the malapertness of men, and exact from them an entire obedience to this unlimited and absolute autho
rity. When Abraham was commanded to offer Isaac, God acquaints him not with the reason of his demand till after, Gen. xxii. 2, 12 ; nor did Abraham enter any demur to the order, or expostulate with God, either from his own natural affection to Isaac, the hardness of the command, it being as it were a ripping up his own bowels, nor the quickness of it after he had been a child of the promise, and a divine donation above the course of nature. Nor did Paul confer with flesh and blood, and study arguments from nature and interest to oppose the divine command, when he was sent upon his aposto lical employment, Gal. i. 16. The more indisputable his right is to com mand, the stronger is our obligation to obey, without quenching the reason of his orders.
7. It must be a joyful obedience. Men are commonly more cheerful in their obedience to a great prince, than to a mean peasant, because the quality of the master renders the service more honourable. It is a discredit to a
prince's government when his subjects obey him with discontent and dejectedness, as though he were a hard master, and his laws tyrannical and unright eous. When we pay obedience but with a dull and feeble pace, and a sour and sad temper, we blemish our great sovereign, imply his commands to be grievous, void of that peace and pleasure he proclaims to be in them, that he deserves no respect from us, if we obey him because we must, and not because we will. Involuntary obedience deserves not the title ; it is rather submission than obedience, an act of the body, not of the mind ; a mite of obedience with cheerfulness is better than a talent without it. In the
* That is ' undisputing.' — ED.
Ps. CIIL 19.] GOD'S DOMINION. 497
little Paul did, he comforts himself in this, that ' with the mind he served the
law of God,' Rom. vii. 25. ' The testimonies of God were David's delight,' Ps. cxix. 24. Our understandings must take pleasure in knowing him, our wills delightfully embrace him, and our actions be cheerfully squared to him. This credits the sovereignty of God in the world, makes others believe him to be a gracious Lord, and move them to have some veneration for his authority.
8. It must be perpetual obedience. As man is a subject as soon as he is
a creature, so he is a subject as long as he is a creature. God's sovereignty is of perpetual duration, as long as he is God ; man's obedience must be per petual while he is man. God cannot part with his sovereignty, and a crea ture cannot be exempted from subjection ; we must not only serve him, but cleave to him, Deut. xiii. 4. Obedience is continued in heaven, his throne is established in heaven ; it must be bowed to in heaven, as well as in earth. The angels continually fulfil his pleasure.
7. Exhortation. Patience is a duty flowing from this doctrine. In all strokes upon ourselves, or thick showers upon the church, the Lord reigns, is a consideration to prevent muttering against him, and makes us quietly wait to see what the issue of his divine pleasure will be. It is too great an
insolence againsty the divine Majesty to censure what he acts, or quarrel with him for what he inflicts. Proud clay doth very unbecomingly swell against an infinite superior. If God be our sovereign, we ought to subscribe to his afflicting will without debates, as well as to his liberal will with affec tionate applauses. We should be as full of patience under his sharper, as of praise under his more grateful, dispensations, and be without reluctancy
against his penal, as well as his preceptive, pleasure. It is God's part to in flict, and the creature's part to submit.. This doctrine affords us motives, and shews us the nature of patience. Motives to it.
1. God being sovereign, hath an absolute right to dispose of all things. His title to our persons and possessions is upon this account stronger than our own can be. We have as much reason to be angry with ourselves when we assert our worldly right against others, as to be angry with God for asserting the right of his dominion over us. Why should we enter a charge against him, because he had not tempered us so strong in our bodies, drawn us with as fair colours, embellished our spirits with as rich gifts as others ? Is he not the Sovereign of his own goods, to impart what, and in what measure, he pleaseth ? Would you be content your servant should check your pleasure in dispensing your own favours ? It is an unreasonable thing not to leave God to the exercise of his own dominion. Though Job were a pattern of patience, yet he had deep tinctures of impatience, he often
complains of God's usage of him as too hard, and stands much upon his own integrity ; but when God comes in the latter chapters of that book to justify his carriage towards him, he chargeth him not as a criminal, but considers
him only as his vassal. He might have found flaws enough in Job's car riage, and corruption enough in Job's nature, to clear the equity of his pro ceeding as a Judge, but he useth no other medium to convince him, but the greatness of his majesty, the nnlimitedness of his sovereignty, which so appals the good man, that he puts his finger on his mouth, and stands mute with a self-abhorrency before him as a sovereign, rather than as a judge. When he doth pinch us, and deprive us of what we most affect, his right to do it should silence our lips, and calm our hearts from any boisterous uproars
against him.
2. The property of all still remains in God, since he is sovereign. He did not divest himself of the property when he granted us the use. The
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498 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [Ps. GUI. 19.
earth is his, not ours ; the fulness of the earth is his, it is not ours ; the fulness any of us have, as well as the fulness others have. After he had given the
Israelites corn, wine, and oil, he calls them all his, and emphatically adds my to every one of them, Hosea ii. 9. His right is universal over every mite we have, and perpetual too. He may therefore take from us what he
please. He did but deposit in our hands for a while the benefits we enjoy, either children, friends, estate, or lives ; he did not make a total conveyance of them, and alienate his own property when he put them into our hands ; we can shew no patent for them, wherein the full right is passed over to us, to hold them against his will and pleasure, and implead him if he offer to reassume them. He reserved a power to dispossess us upon a forfeiture, as he is the lord and governor. Did any of us yet answer the condition of his grant ? It was his indulgence to allow them so long. There is reason to submit to him, when he reassumes what he lent to us, and rather to thank him that he lent it so long, and did not seize upon it sooner.
3. Other things have more reason to complain of our sovereignty over
them, than we of God's exercise of his sovereignty over us. Do we not exercise an authority over our beasts, as to strike them when we please, and merely for our pleasure, and think we merit no reproof for it, because they are our own, and of a nature inferior to ours ? And shall not God, who is absolute, do as much with us, who are more below him than the meanest creatures are below us ? They are creatures as well as we, and we no more creatures than they ; they were framed by omnipotence as well as we ; there is no more difference between them and us in the notion of creatures. As there is no difference between the greatest monarch on earth, and the meanest beggar on the dunghill, in the notion of a man, — the beggar is a man as well as the monarch, and as much a man, — the difference consists in the special endowments we have above them by the bounty of their and our common Creator. We are less, if compared with God, than the worst, meanest, most sordid creature can be, if compared with us. Hath not a
bird or a hare (if they had a capacity) more reason to complain of men'a persecuting them by their hawks and their dogs ? But would their complaints appear reasonable, since both were made for the use of man, and .man doth but use the nature of the one to attain a benefit by the other ? Have we any reason to complain of God, if he lets loose other creatures, the devour ing hounds of the world, to bite and afflict us? We must not open our lips against him, nor let our heart swell against his scourge, since both they and we were made for his use, as well as other creatures for ours. This is a reason to stifle all complaints against God, but not to make us careless of preventing afflictions, or emerging out of them by all just ways. The hare hath a nature to shift for itself by its winding and turning, and the bird by its flight; and neither of them could be blamed, if they were able, should the one scratch out the eyes of the hounds, and the other sacrifice the hawk to its own fury.
4. It is a folly not to submit to him. Why should we strive against him, since he is an unaccountable Sovereign, and ' gives no account of any of his matters'? Job xxxiii. 13. Who can disannul the judgment God gives? There is no appeal from the supreme court ; a higher court can repeal or null the sentence of an inferior court, but the sentence of the highest stands irreversible, but by itself and its own authority. It is better to lower our sails than to grapple with one that can shoot us under water ; to submit to that sovereign whom we cannot subdue.
It shews us the true nature of patience in regard of God. It is a sub-
Ps. CIII. 19.] GOD'S DOMINION. 499
mission to God's sovereignty. As the formal object of obedience is the authority of God enacting the law, so the formal object of patience is the authority of God inflicting the punishment. As his right of commanding is to be eyed in the one, so his right of punishing is to be considered in the
other. This was Eli's condition, when he had received a message, that might put flesh and blood into a mutiny, the rending the priesthood from his family, and the ruin of his house ; yet this consideration, It is the Lord, calms him into submission, and a willing compliance with the divine plea
sure : 1 Sam. iii. 18, ' It is the Lord, let him do what seems good in his sight.' Job was of the same strain : Job i. 21, ' The Lord gives, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.' He considers God as a sovereign who was not to be reproached, or have anything uncomely uttered of him for what he had done. To be patient, because we cannot avoid it or resist it, is a violent, not a loyal patience ; but to submit because it is the will of God to inflict, to be silent because the sovereignty of God doth order it, is a patience of a true complexion. The other kind of patience is no other than that of an enemy, that will free himself as soon as he can, and by any way, though never so violent, that offers itself. This sort of patience is that of a subject acknowledging the supreme authority over him, and that he ought to be ordered by the will, and to the glory of God, more than by his own will, and for his own ease. ' I was dumb, I opened not my mouth,' Ps. xxxix. 9, not because I could not help it, but ' because thou didst it,' thou who art my sovereign Lord. The greatness of God claims an awful and inviolable respect from his creatures, in what way soever he doth dispose of them ; this is due to him. Since his kingdom ruleth over all, his kingdom should be acknowledged by all, and his royal authority submitted to it in all that he doth.
A DISCOURSE UPON GOD'S PATIENCE.
The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the
wicked; the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. — NAHUM I. 3.
THE subject of this prophecy is God's sentence against Nineveh, the head and metropolis of the Assyrian empire, — a city famous for its strength and thickness of its walls, and the multitude of its towers for defence against an enemy. The forces of this empire did God use as a scourge against the Israelites, and by their hands ruined Samaria, the chief city of the ten tribes, and transplanted them as captives into another country, 2 Kings xvii. 5, 6, about six years after Hezekiah came to the crown of Judah, 2 Kings xviii. compared with chap. xvii. ver. 6. In whose time, or (as some think) later, Nahum uttered this prophecy. The name Nahum signi fies comforter; though the matter of his prophecy be dreadful to Nineveh, it
•was comfortable to the people of God. For a promise is made, ver. 7, 'The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble ; and he knoweth them that
trust in him ;' and an encouragement to Judah to keep their solemn feasts, ver. 15, and also in chap. ii. 3, with a declaration of the misery of Nineveh, and the destruction of it.
Observe,
1. In all the fears of God's people, God will have a comforter for them. Judah might well be dejected with the calamity of their brethren, not know ing but it might be their own turn shortly after. They knew not where the ambition of the Assyrian would stop, but God, by his prophets, calms their fears of their furious neighbour, by predicting to them the ruin of their feared adversary.
2. The destruction of the church's enemies is the comfort of the church. By that God is glorified in his justice, and the church secured in its worship.
3. The victories of persecutors secure them not from being the triumphs of others. The Assyrians, that conquered and captived Israel, were them selves to be conquered and captived by the Medes. The whole oppressing empire is threatened with destruction in the ruin of their chief city ; accord ingly it was accomplished, and the empire extinguished by a greater power. God burns the rod when it hath done the work he appointed it for ; and the wisp of straw wherewith the vessels are scoured is flung into the fire or upon the dunghill.
NAHUM I. 3.] GOD'S PATIENCE. 501
Nahum begins his prophecy majestically, with a description of the wrath and fury of God : ver. 2, ' God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth ; the Lord revengeth, and is furious ; the Lord will take vengeance on his adver saries, and reserveth wrath for his enemies.' And therefore the whole of it
is called, ver. 1, ' The burden of Nineveh,' as those prophecies are which are composed of threatenings of judgments, which lie as a mighty weight upon the heads and backs of sinners.
God is jealous. Jealous of his glory and worship, and jealous for his people and their security. He cannot long bear the oppressions of his people, and the boast of his enemies. He is jealous for himself, and is jealous for you of Judah who retain his worship. He is not forgetful of
those that remember him, nor of the danger of those that are desirous to maintain his honour in the world. In this first expression, the prophet
uses the covenant name, God; the covenant runs, ' I am your God,' or 'the Lord your God ; ' mostly God without Lord, never Lord without God. And therefore his jealousy here is meant of the care of his people, and the relation that his actions against his enemies have to his servants. He is a lover of his own, and a revenger on his enemies.
The Lord revengeth, and is furious. He now describes God by a name of sovereignty and power, when he describes him in his wrath and fury, ' and is furious.' Heb., HDJ1 b$2, Lord of hot anger. God will vindicate his own glory, and have his right on his enemies in a way of punishment, if they will not give it him in a way of obedience. It is three times repeated, to shew the certainty of the judgment, and the name of Lord added to every
one, to intimate the power wherewith the judgment should be executed.* It is not a fatherly correction of children in a way of mercy, but an offended
sovereign's destruction of his enemies in a way of vengeance. There is an anger of God with his own people, which hath more of mercy than wrath ; in this his rod is guided by his bowels. There is a fury of God against his
enemies where there is sole wrath without any tincture of mercy, when his sword is all edge, without any balsam-drops upon it ; such a fury as David deprecates : Ps. vi. 1, '0 Lord, rebuke me not in thy anger, nor chasten me in thy sore displeasure ; ' with a fury untempered with grace, and insup portable wrath.
He reserves wrath for his enemies. He lays it up in his treasury, to be brought out and expended in a due season. Wrath is supplied by our trans lators, and is not in the Hebrew. He reserves what ? That which is too sharp to be expressed, too great to be conceived. A vengeance it is. And Kin ~)ZOl3l, he reserves it. He that hath an infinite wrath, he reserves it, that hath a strength and power to execute it.
Ver. 3. The Lord is slow to anger: Heb. D^EJN "TIN, of broad nostrils. The anger of God is expressed by this word, which signifies nostrils. As
Job ix. 13, ' If God will not withdraw his anger ; ' Heb., < his nostril.' And the anger whereby the wicked are consumed is called the breath of [his] nostrils, Job iv. 9 ; and when he is angry, smoke and fire are said to go out
of his nostrils, 2 Sam. ii. 9 ; and in the 74th Psalm, ver. 1, 'Why doth thy anger smoke ? ' Heb. ' Why do thy nostrils smoke ? ' So the rage of a horse,
when he is provoked in batile, is called ' the glory of his nostrils,' Job xxxix. 20. He breathes quick fumes, and neighs with fury.
And slowness to anger is here expressed by the phrase of long or wide nostrils. Because in a vehement anger, the blood boiling about the heart
exhales men's spirits, which fume up, and break out in dilated nostrils ; but where the passages are straiter, the spirits have not so quick a vent, and
* Ribera in loc.
502 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [NAHUM I. 3.
therefore raise more motions within ; or because the wider the nostrils are, the more cool air is drawn in to temper the heat of the heart where the angry spirits are gathered, and so the passion is allayed and sooner calmed. God speaks of himself in Scripture often after the rate of men. Jeremiah
prays, Jer. xv. 15, that God would not ' take him away in his long-suffering: ' Heb., ' in the length of his nostrils ; ' i. e. be not slow and backward in thy anger against my persecutors, as to give them time and opportunity to destroy me. The nostrils, as well as other members of a human body, are ascribed to God. He is slow to auger ; he hath anger in his nature, but is not always in the execution of it.
And great in power. This may >• \? {3 L!,s p; Hence as tlic canso of it, or as a bar to the abuse of it.
1. He is slow to anger, and great in poicer ; i. e. his power moderates his anger ; he is not BO impotent as to be at the command of his passions, as men are. He can restrain his anger under just provocations to exercise it. His power over himself is the cause of his slowness to wrath. As, Num.
xiv. 17, ' Let the power of my Lord be great,' saith Moses, when he pleads for the Israelites' pardon. Men that are great in the world are quick in passions, and are not so ready to forgive an injury, or bear with an offender,
as one of a meaner rank. It is a want of a power over a man's self that makes him do unbecoming things upon a provocation. A prince that can bridle his passions is a king over himself as well as over his subjects. God is slow to anger, because great in power. He hath no less power over him self than over his creatures. He can sustain great injuries without an immediate and quick revenge. He hath a power of patience, as well as a power of justice.
2. Or thus, he is slow to anger, and great in power. He is slow to anger, but not for want of power to revenge himself; his power is as great to punish, as his patience to spare. It seems thus, that slowness to anger is brought in as an objection against the revenge proclaimed. What do you tell us of vengeance, vengeance, nothing but such repetitions of vengeance, as though we were ignorant that God is slow to anger ? It is true, saith the prophet, I acknowledge it as much as you, that God is slow to .anger, but withal great in power. His anger certainly succeeds his abused patience ; he will not always bridle in his wrath, but one time or other let it march out in fury against his adversaries. The Assyrians who had captived the ten tribes, and been victorious a little against the Jews, might think that the God of Israel had been conquered by their gods, as well as the people pro fessing him had been subdued by their arms ; that God had lost all his
power, and the Jews might argue from God's patience to his enemies, against the credit of the prophet's denouncing revenge. The prophet answers to the terror of the one, and the comfort of the other, that this indulgence to his enemies, and not accounting with them for their crimes, proceeded from the greatness of his patience, and not from any debility in his power. As it refers to the Assyrian, it may be rendered thus : You Ninevites, upon your
repentance after Jonah's thunderings of judgments, are witnesses of the slow ness of God to anger, and had your punishments deferred ; but falling to your old sins, you shall find a real punishment, and that he hath as much power to execute his ancient threatenings, as he had then compassion to recall them. His patience to you, then, was not for want of power to ruin you, but was the effect of his goodness toward you. As it refers to the Jews, it may be thus paraphrased : Do not despise this threatening against your enemies, because of the greatness of their might, the seeming stability of their empire, and the terror they possess all the nations with round about
NAHUM I. 3.] GOD'S PATIENCE. 503
them. It may be long before it comes ; but assure yourselves, the threat ening I denounce shall certainly be executed, though he hath patience to endure them a hundred thirty-five years (for so long it was before Nineveh was destroyed after this threatening, as Ribera* in loc. computes from the years of the reigns of the kings of Judah), yet he hath also power to verify his word, and accomplish his will ; assure yourselves, he will not at all acquit the wicked.
He will not acquit the wicked. He will not always account the criminal an innocent, as he seems to do by «, present sparing of them, and dealing with them as if they were destitute of any provoking carriage towards him, and he void of any resentment of it. He will not acquit the wicked. How is this ; who then can be saved ? Is there no place for remission ? He will not acquit the wicked, i. e. he will not acquit obstinate sinners. As he hath patience for the wicked, so he hath mercy for the penitent. The wicked are the subjects of his long-suffering, but not of his acquitting, grace. He doth not presently punish their sins, because he is slow to anger ; but without their repentance he will not blot out their sins, because he is righteous in judgment. If God should acquit them without repentance for their crimes,
he must himself repent of his own law, and righteous sanction of it.
He will not acquit, i. e. he will not go back from the thing he hath spoken, and forbear, at long run, the punishment he hath threatened.
The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind. The way of God signifies some times the law of God, sometimes the providential operations of God : Ezek.
xviii. 25, ' Is not my way equal ?' It seems there to take in both. And in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. The prophet describes here the fight of God with the Assyrians, as if he rushed upon them with a mighty noise of an army, raising the dust with the feet of their horses, and motion of their chariots. f Symbolically, it signifies the mul titude of the Chaldean and Median forces, invading, besieging, and storming the city.
It signifies, 1. The rule of providence. The way of God is in every motion of the creature. He rules all things, whirlwind, storms, clouds ; his way is in all their walks, in the whirlings and blusterings of the one, in the raising and dissolving the other. He blows up the winds, and compacts the clouds, to make them serviceable to his design.
2. The management of wars by God. His way is in the storm. As he was the captain of the Assyrians against Samaria, so he will be the captain of the Medes against Nineveh. As Israel was not so much wasted by the Assyrians, as by the Lord, who levied and armed their forces, so Nineveh shall be subverted rather by God than by the arms of the Medes. Their force is described not to be so much from human power as divine ; God is president in all the commotions of the world ; his way is in every whirlwind.
3. The easiness of executing the judgment. He is of so great power that he can excite tempests in the air, and overthrow them with the clouds, which are the dust of his feet. He can blind his enemies, and avenge himself on them ; he is Lord of clouds, and can fill their womb with hail, lightnings and thunders, to burst out upon those he kindles his anger against. He is of so great force, that he needs not use the strength of his arm, but the dust of his feet, to effect his destroying purpose.
4. The suddenness of the judgment. Whirlwinds come suddenly, without any harbingers to give notice of their approach ; clouds are swift in their
motion : Isa. Ix. 8, ' Who are those that fly as a cloud,' i. e. with a mighty
* Page 359, col. 1. t Tirinus in loc.
504 CHAKNOCK'S WORKS. [NAHUM I. 3.
nimbleness ? What God doth, he shall do on the sudden, come upon them before they are aware, be too quick for them in his motion to overrun and overreach them. The winds are described with wings, in regard of the quick ness of their motion.
5. The terror of judgments. The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind, i. e. in great displeasure. The anger of the Lord is often compared to a storm : he shall bring clouds of judgments upon them, many and thick, aa terrible as when a day is turned into night, by the mustering of the darkest
clouds that interpose between the sun a»d the earth. ' Clouds and darkness are round about him ; and a fire goes before him, when he burns up his ene
mies,' Ps. xcvii. 2, 3. The judgments shall have terror without mercy, as clouds obscure the light, and are dark masks before the face and glory of the sun, and cut off its refreshing beams from the earth. Clouds note mul titude and obscurity ; God could crush them without a whirlwind, beat them to powder with one touch ; but he will bring his judgments in the most sur prising and amazing manner to flesh and blood, so that all their glory shall be changed into nothing but terror, by the noise of the bellowing winds, and the clouds like ink blacking the heavens.
6. The confusion of the offenders upon God's proceeding. A whirlwind is not only a boisterous wind, that hurls and rolls everything out of his place, but by its circular motion, by its winding to all points of the compass, it confounds things, and jumbles them together. It keeps not one point, but by a circumgyration toucheth upon all. Clouds like dust shall be blown in their face, and gum up their eyes. They shall be in a posture of confusion, not know what counsels to take, what motions to resolve upon. Let them look to every point of heaven and earth, they shall meet with a whirlwind to confound them, and cloudy dust to blind them.
7. The irresistibleness of their judgment. Winds have more than a giant like force, a torrent of compacted air, that with an invincible wilfulnesa bears all before it, displaceth the firmest trees, and levels the tallest towers, and pulls up bodies from their natural place. Clouds also are over our heads, and above our reach. When God places them upon his people for defence, they are an invincible security, Isa. iv. 5 ; and when he moves them as a chariot against a people, they end in an irresistible destruction. Thus the ruin of the wicked is described : Prov. x. 25, ' As the whirlwind passes,
so is the wicked no more.' It blows them down, sweeps them away, they irrecoverably fall before the force of it. ' What heart can endure, and what hands can be strong, in the days wherein God doth deal with them' ? Ezek. xxii. 14. Thus is the judgment against Nineveh described : God hath his
way in the whirlwind to thunder down their strongest walls, which were so thick, that chariots could march abreast upon them, and batter down their mighty towers, which that city had in multitudes upon their walls.
They are the first words I intend to insist upon, to treat of the patience
of God, described in those words, ' The Lord is slow to anger.' Doct. Slowness to anger, or admirable patience, is the property of the divine nature. As patience signifies suffering, so it is not in God. The divine nature is impassible, incapable of any impair ; it cannot be touched by the violences of men, nor the essential glory of it be diminished by the injuries of men ; but as it signifies a willingness to defer, and an unwilling ness to pour forth his wrath upon sinful creatures, he moderates his pro voked justice, and forbears to revenge the injuries he daily meets with in the
world. He suffers no grief by men's wronging him, but he restrains his arm from punishing them according to their merits. And thus there is patience
in every cross a man meets with in the world, because, though it be a punish-
NAIIUM I. 3.] GOD'S PATIENCE. 505
ment, it is less than is merited by the unrighteous rebel, and less than may be inflicted by a righteous and powerful God.
This patience is seen in his providential works in the world : ' He suffered the nations to walk in their own way;' and the witness of his providence to them was his ' giving them rain, and fruitful seasons, filling their heart with food and gladness,' Acts xvi. 17. The heathens took notice of it, and sig nified it by feigning their god Saturn to be bound a whole year in a soft
cord, a cord of wool ; and expressed it by this proverb, ' The mills of the gods grind slowly;' i.e. God doth not use men with that severity that they deserve, the mills being usually turned by criminals condemned to that work. This in Scripture is frequently expressed by a slowness to anger, Ps. ciii. 8 ; sometimes by long-suffering, which is a patience with duration, Ps. cxlv. 8 ; and, Joel ii. 13, he is slow to anger, he takes not the first occasions of a provocation; he is long-suffering, Rom. ix 22; and, Ps. Ixxxvi. 15, he for bears punishment upon many occasions offered him.* It is long before he consents to give fire to his wrath, and shoot out his thunderbolts. Sin hath a loud cry, but God seems to stop his ears, not to hear the clamour it raises and the charge it presents. He keeps his sword a long time in the sheath. One calls the patience of God the sheath of his sword, f upon those words,
Ezek. xxi. 3, ' I will draw forth my sword out of his sheath.' This is one remarkable letter in the name of God, he himself proclaims it : Exod.
xxxiv. 6, ' The Lord, the Lord God, merciful, gracious, and long-suffering.' And Moses pleads it in the behalf of the people, Num. xiv. 18, where he
placeth it in the first rank: ' The Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy.' It is the first spark of mercy, and ushers it to its exercises in the world.
In the Lord's proclamation it is put in the middle, linking mercy and truth together. Mercy could have no room to act if patience did not prepare the way, and his Truth and goodness in his promise of the Redeemer would not have been manifest to the world if he had shot his arrows as soon as men committed their sins and deserved his punishment. This perfection is ex pressed by other phrases, as keeping silence : Ps. 1. 21, ' These things hast thou done, and I kept silence ;' >j^£; "UlIT /Vt^S? H^N, it signifies to behave one's self as a deaf or dumb man. I did not fly in thy face, as some do with a great noise upon a light provocation, as if their life, honour, estates were at the stake. I did not presently call thee to the bar, and pronounce judicial sentence upon thee according to the law, but demeaned myself as if
I had been ignorant of thy crimes, and had not been invested with the power
of judging ^thee for them: Chald. 'I waited for thy conversion.' God's patience is the silence of his justice, and the first whisper of his mercy.
It is also expressed by 'not laying folly' to men, Job xxi v. 12. Men groan under the oppressions of others, ' yet God lays not folly to them,' i.e. to the oppressors ; God suffers them to go on with impunity. He doth not deliver his people, because he would try them ; and takes not revenge upon the unrighteous, because in patience he doth bear with them. Patience is the life of his providence in this world. He chargeth not men with their crimes here, but reserves them upon impenitency for another trial. This attribute is so great a one, that it is signally called by the name of perfec tion, Mat. v. 45, 48. He had been speaking of divine goodness and patience
to evil men, and he concludes, ' Be you perfect,' &c. ; implying it to be an amazing perfection in the divine nature, and worthy of imitation.
In the prosecution of this,
* Rhodigi. 1. vi. c. 14.
f AqXov ds OTI sy^sigidiov rrjv Tiftugiav xa^sT, xoXsc'v ds, rouresn T^V S^xjji' TOU
v, (tax.go@ufj,fot.v iro/tta£gf. — Theodoret in loc.
506 CHARN OCR'S WORKS. [NAHUM I. 3.
I. Let us consider the nature of this patience. II. Wherein it is manifested.
III. Why God doth exercise so much patience. IV. The use.
I. The nature of this patience.
1. It is part of the divine goodness and mercy, yet differs from both. God being the greatest goodness, hath the greatest mildness ; mildness is always the companion of true goodness, and the greater the goodness, the greater
the mildness. Who so holy as Christ, and who so meek ? God's slowness to anger is a branch or slip from his mercy : Ps. cxlv. 8, ' The Lord is full of compassion, slow to anger.' It differs from mercy in the formal con sideration of the object ; mercy respects the creature as miserable, patience respects the creature as criminal ; mercy pities him in his misery, and patience bears with the sin which engendered that misery, and is giving birth to more.
Again, mercy is one end of patience, his long-suffering is partly to glorify his grace ; so it was in Paul, 1 Tim. i. 16. As slowness to anger springs from goodness, so it makes mercy the butt and mark of its operations : Isa.
rxx. 18, ' He waits that he may be gracious.' Goodness sets God upon the exercise of patience, and patience sets many a sinner on running into the arms of mercy. That mercy which makes God ready to embrace returning sinners, makes him willing to bear with them in their sins, and wait their return.
It differs also from goodness in regard of the object. The object of good ness is every creature, angels, men, all inferior creatures, to the lowest worm that crawls upon the ground. The object of patience is primarily man, and
secondarily those creatures that respect men's support, conveniency, and delight ; but they are not the objects of patience as considered in themselves,
but in relation to man, for whose use they were created, and therefore God's patience to them is properly his patience with man. The lower creatures do not injure God, and therefore are not the objects of his patience but as they are forfeited by man, and man deserves to be deprived of. them. As man in this regard falls under the patience of God, so do those creatures
which are designed for man's good. That patience which spares man, spares other creatures for him, which were all forfeited by man's sin, as well as his own life, and are rather the testimonies of God's patience than the proper objects of it. The object of God's goodness, then, is the whole creation; not a devil in hell but, as a creature, is a mark of his goodness, but not of his patience. There is a kind of sparing exercised to the devils, in deferring their complete punishment, and hitherto keeping off the day wherein their final sentence is to be pronounced ; yet the Scripture never mentions this by the name of slowness to anger or long-suffering. It can no more be
called patience, than a prince's keeping a malefactor in chains, and not pro nouncing a condemning sentence, or not executing a sentence already pro nounced, can be called a patience with him, when it is not out of kindness
to the offender, but for some reasons of state. God's sparing the devils from their total punishment (which they have not yet, but are ' reserved in chains under darkness" for it, Jude 6), is not in order to repentance, or attended with any invitations from God, or hopes in them, and therefore
cannot come under the same title as God's sparing man. Where there is no proposal of mercy, there is no exercise of patience. The fallen angels had no mercy reserved for them, nor any sacrifice prepared for them : God
' spared not the angels,' 2 Peter ii. 4, ' but delivered them into chains of
NAHUM I. 3.J GOD'S PATIENCE. 507
darkness, to be reserved unto judgment ;' i.e. he had no patience for them, for patience is properly a temporary sparing a person, with a waiting for his relenting, and a change of his injurious demeanour. The object of good ness is more extensive than that of patience. Nor do they both consider the object under the same relation. Goodness respects things in a capacity or in a state of creation, and brings them forth into creation, and nurseth and supports them as creatures. Patience considers them already created, and fallen short of the duty of creatures ; it considers them as sinners, or in relation to sinners. Had not sin entered, patience had never been exer
cised-; but goodness had been exercised had the creature stood firm in its created state, without any transgression. Nay, creation could not have been without goodness, because it was goodness to create ; but patience had never been known without an object, which could not have been without an injury. Where there is no wrong, no suffering, nor like to be any, patience hath no prospect of any operation. So then goodness respects persons as creatures, patience as transgressors ; mercy eyes men as miserable and obnoxious to punishment, patience considers men as sinful and provoking to punishment.
2. Since it is a part of goodness and mercy, it is not an insensible patience. What is the fruit of pure goodness, cannot be from a weakness of resentment ;
he is ' slow to anger.' The prophet doth not say he is incapable of anger, or cannot discern what is a real object of anger ; it implies that he doth con sider every provocation, but he is not hasty to discharge his arrows upon the offenders ; he sees all, while he bears with them ; his omniscience excludes any ignorance. He cannot but see every wrong, every aggravation in that wrong, every step and motion from the beginning to the completing it ; for he knows all our thoughts ; he sees the sin and the sinner at the same time ; the sin with an eye of abhorrency, and the sinner with an eye. of pity. His eye is upon their iniquities, and his hatred edged against them, while he stands with arms open, waiting a penitent return. When he publisheth his patience in his keeping silence, he publisheth also his resolution to set sin
in order before their eyes : Ps. 1. 21, 'I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thy eyes.' Think me not such a piece of phlegm, and so dull, as not to resent your insolencies ; you stfall see in my final charge, when I come to judge, that not a wry look escaped my knowledge, that I had an eye to behold, and a heart to loathe, every one of your transgressions. The
church was ready to think that God's slowness to deliver her, and his bear ing with her oppressors, was not from any patience in his nature, but a drowsy carelessness, a senseless lethargy : Ps. xliv. 23, ' Awake, why sleepest thou, 0 Lord ?' We must conclude him an inapprehensive God, before we can conclude him an insensible God. As his delaying his promise is ' not slackness ' to his people, 2 Peter iii. 9, so his deferring of punishment is not from a stupidity under the affronts offered him.
3. Since it is a part of his mercy and goodness, it is not a constrained or faint-hearted patience. It is not a slowness to anger, arising from a des pondency of his own power to revenge. He hath as much power to punish as he hath to forbear punishment. He that created a world in six days, and that by a word, wants not a strength to crush all mankind in one minute, and with as much ease as a word imports, can give satisfaction to his justice in the blood of the offender. Patience in man is many times interpreted, and truly too, a cowardice, a feebleness of spirit, and a want of strength. But it is not from the shortness of the divine arm that he cannot reach us, nor from the feebleness of his hand that he cannot strike us. It is not
because he cannot level us with the dust, dash us in pieces like a potter's
508 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [NAHUM I. 3.
vessel, or consume as a moth. He can make the mightiest to fall before him, and lay the strongest at his feet the first moment of their crime. He that did not want a powerful word to create a world, cannot want a powerful word to dissolve the whole frame of it, and raze it out of being. It is not therefore out of a distrust of his own power that he hath supported a sinful world for so many ages, and patiently borne the blasphemies of some, the neglects of others, and the ingratitude of all, without inflicting that severe justice which righteously he might have done ; he wants no thunder to crush
the whole generation of men, nor waters to drown them, nor earth to swal low them up. How easy is it for him to single out this or that particular
person to be the object of his wrath, and not of his patience ! What he hath done to one he may to another ; any signal judgment he hath sent upon one is an evidence that he wants not power to inflict it upon all. Could he not make the motes in the air to choke us at every breath, rain thunderbolts instead of drops of water, fill the clouds with a consuming lightning, take off the reverence and fear of man, which he hath imprinted upon the creature, spirit our domestic beasts to be our executioners, unloose the tiles from the house-top to brain us, or make the fall of a house to crush us ? It is but taking out the pins, and giving a blast, and the work is done. And doth he want a power to do any of those things ? It is not, then, a faint-hearted or feeble patience that he exerciseth towards man.
4. Since it is not for want of power over the creature, it is from a fulness
of power over himself. This is in the text : ' The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power ; ' it is a part of his dominion over himself, whereby he can moderate and rule his own affections, according to the holiness of his own will. As it is the effect of his power, so it is an argument of his power; the greatness of the effect demonstrates the fulness and sufficiency of the cause. The more feeble any man is in reason, the less command he hath over his passions, and he is the more heady to revenge. Revenge is a sign of a childish mind ; the stronger any man is in reason, the more command he hath over himself : Prov. xvi. 32, ' He that is slow to anger is better than
the mighty : and he that rules his own spirit, than he that takes a city.' He that can restrain his anger is stronger than the Ca3sars and Alexanders of the world, that have filled the earth with slain carcases, and ruined cities.
By the same reason God's slowness to anger is a greater argument of his power than the creating a world, or the power of dissolving it by a word ; in this he hath a dominion over creatures, in the other over himself. This is
the reason he will not return to destroy : because ' I am God, and not man,' Hosea xi. 9. I am not so weak and impotent as man, that cannot restrain his anger. This is a strength possessed only by a God, wherein a creature is no more able to parallel him than in any other ; so that he may be said to be the Lord of himself, as it is in the verse before the text, that he is
' the Lord of anger,' in the Hebrew, instead of ' furious,' as we translate it, so he is the Lord of patience. The end why God is patient is to shew his power : Rom. ix. 22, ' What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endureth with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath
fitted to destruction ?' to shew his wrath upon sinners, and his power over himself, in bearing such indignities, and forbearing punishment so long, when men were vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, of whom there was no hopes of amendment. Had he immediately broken in pieces those vessels, his power had not so eminently appeared as it hath done, in tolerating them
so long, that had provoked him to take them off so often. There is indeed the power of his anger, and there is the power of his patience, and his power is more seen in his patience than in his wrath. It is no wonder that he
NAHUM I. 3.] GOD'S PATIENCE. 509
that is above all is able to crush all, but it is a wonder that he that is provoked by all doth not, upon the first provocation, rid his hands of all.
This is the reason why he did bear such a weight of provocations from vessels of wrath, prepared for ruin, that he might yvu^iaai ri dwarov auTov, shew what he was able to do, the lordship and royalty he had over himself. The power of God is more manifest in his patience to a multitude of sinners, than it could be in creating millions of worlds out of nothing ; this was the dwarbv avrov, a power over himself.
5. This patience being a branch of mercy, the exercise of it is founded in the death of Christ. Without the consideration of this, we can give no account why divine patience should extend itself to us, and not to the fallen angels. The threatening extends itself to us as well as to the fallen angels. The threatening must necessarily have sunk man, as well as those glorious creatures, had not Christ stepped in to our relief. Had not Christ interposed to satisfy the justice of God, man upon his sin had been actually bound over to punishment, as well as the fallen angels were upon theirs, and
been fettered in chains as strong as those spirits feel.* The reason why man was not hurled into the same deplorable condition upon his sin, as they
were, is Christ's promise of taking our nature, and not theirs. Had God designed Christ's taking their nature, the same patience had been exercised towards them, and the same offers would have been made to them, as are made to us. In regard of the fruits of his patience, Christ is said to buy
the wickedest apostates from him : 2 Peter ii. 1 ' Denying the Lord that bought them ; ' such were bought by him as ' bring upon themselves just destruction, and whose damnation slumbers not,' ver. 3 ; he purchased the continuance of their lives, and the stay of their execution, that offers of grace might be made to them. This patience must be either upon the account of the law or the gospel, for there are no other rules whereby God governs the world ; a fruit of the law it was not, that spake nothing but curses after disobedience ; not a letter of mercy was writ upon that, and therefore nothing of patience.
Death and wrath was denounced, no slowness to anger intimated. It must be therefore upon the account of the gospel, and a fruit of the covenant
of grace, whereof Christ was mediator. Besides, this perfection being God's
' waiting that he might be gracious,' Isa. xxx. 18, that which made way for God's grace made way for his waiting to manifest it. God discovered not his grace but in Christ, and therefore discovered not his patience but in Christ ; it is in him he met with the satisfaction of his justice, that he might have a ground for the manifestation of his patience. And the sacrifices of the law, wherein the life of a beast was accented for the sin of a man, dis covered the ground of his forbearance of them to be the expectation of the great sacrifice, whereby sin was to be completely expiated, Gen. viii. 21.
Che publication of his patience to the end of the world is presently after the
sweet savour he found in Noah's sacrifice. The promised and designed com ing of Christ was the cause of that patience God exercised before in the world ; and his gathering the elect together is the reason of his patience since his death.
The naturalness of his veracity and holiness, and the strictness of his justice, are no bars to the exercise of his patience.
(1.) His veracity. In those threatenings where the punishment is ex pressed, but not the time of inflicting it prefixed and determined in the threatening, his veracity suffers no damage by the delaying execution ; so it be once done, though a long time after, the credit of his truth stands un shaken ; as when God promises a thing without fixing the time, he is at
* Testard. de Natur. et Grat. thes. 119.
510 CHARNOCK'S WORKS. [NAHUM I. 3.
liberty to pitch upon what time he pleases for the performance of it, without staining his faithfulness to his word, by not giving the thing promised pre sently. Why should the deferring of justice upon an offender, be any more against his veracity, than his delaying an answer to the petitions of a sup
pliant ? But the difference will lie in the threatening : Gen. ii. 17, ' In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die the death.' The time was there settled, In that day thou shalt die. Some refer day to eating, not to dying; and render the sentence thus, I do not prohibit thee the eating this fruit for a day or two, but continually ; in whatsoever day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die ; but not understanding his dying that very day he should eat of it, referring day to the extensiveness of the prohibition, as to time. But to leave this as uncertain, it may be answered, that as in some threatenings a condition is implied, though not expressed, as in that positive denouncing of the destruction of Nineveh, Jonah iii. 4, ' Yet forty days, and Nineveh
shall be destroyed,' the condition is implied, unless they humble themselves and repent, for upon their repentance the sentence was deferred, so here,
' In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die the death,' or ' certainly die,' unless there be a way found for the expiation of thy crime, and the righting my honour. This condition, in regard of the event, may as well be asserted to be implied in this threatening, as that of repentance was in the other. Or rather, thou shalt die, thou shalt die spiritually, thou shalt lose that image of mine in thy nature, that righteousness which is as much the life of thy soul, as thy soul is the life of thy body ; that righteousness whereby thon art enabled to live to me, and thy own happiness. What the soul is to the body, a quickening soul, that the image of God is to the soul, a quickening image. Or thou shalt die the death, or certainly die, thou shalt be liable to death. And so it is to be understood, not of an actual death of the body, but the merit of death, and the necessity of death ;* thou wilt be obnoxious to death, which will be avoided, if thou dost forbear to eat of the forbidden fruit : thou shalt be a guilty person, and so under a sentence of death, that I may when I please inflict it on thee. Death did come upon Adam that day, because his nature was vitiated. He was then also under an expecta tion of death, he was obnoxious to it, though that day it was not poured out upon him in the full bitterness and gall of it. As when the apostle saith, Rom. viii. 10, ' The body is dead because of sin,' he speaks to the living, and yet tells them, the body was dead because of sin, he means no more than that it was under a sentence, and so a necessity of dying, though not actually dead ; so thou shalt be under the sentence of death that day, as certainly as if that day thou shouldst sink into the dust. And as by his patience towards man, not sending forth death upon him in all the bitter in
gredients of it, his justice afterwards was more eminent upon man's surety than it would have been, if it had been then employed in all its severe opera tions upon man. so was his veracity eminent also in making good his threatening, in inflicting the punishment included in it upon our nature as sumed by a mighty person, and upon that person in our nature, who was infinitely higher than our nature.
(2.) His justice and righteousness are not prejudiced by his patience. There is a hatred of the sin in his holiness, and a sentence passed against the sin in his justice, though the execution of that sentence be suspended, and the person reprieved by patience, which is implied : Eccles. viii. 11, * Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore
the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil ;' sentence is passed, but a speedy execution is stopped. * Perer. in loc.
NAHUM I. 3.] GOD'S PATIENCE. 511
Some of the heathens, who would not imagine God unjust, and yet seeing the villanies and oppressions of men in the world remain unpunished, and frequently beholding prosperous wickedness, to free him from the charge of injustice, denied his providence and actual government of the world ; for if he did take notice of human affairs, and concern himself in what was done upon the earth, they could not think an infinite goodness and justice could be so slow to punish oppressors and relieve the miserable, and leave the world in that disorder under the injustice of men. They judged such a patience as was exercised by him, if he did govern the world, was drawn out beyond the line of fit and just. Is it not a presumption in men to prescribe a rule of righteousness and conveniency to their Creator ? It might be demanded of such, whether they never injured any in their lives ? and when certainly they have, one way or other, would they not think it a very unworthy, if not unjust thing, that a person so injured by them should take a speedy and severe revenge on them ? And if every man should do the like, would there not be a speedy despatch made of mankind ? Would not the world be a
shambles, and men rush forward to one another's destruction, for the wronga they have mutually received ? If it be accounted a virtue in man, and no unrighteousness, not presently to be all on fire against an offence, by what
right should any question the consistency of God's patience with his justice ? Do we praise the lenity of parents to children, and shall we disparage the long-suffering of God to men ? We do not censure the righteousness of physicians and chirurgeons, because they cut not off a corrupt member this day as well as to-morrow ? And is it just to asperse God because he doth defer his vengeance, which man assumes to himself a right to do ? We never account him a bad governor that defers the trial, and consequently the con demnation and execution of a notorious offender, for important reasons, and beneficial to the public, either to make the nature of his crime more evident, or to find out the rest of his accomplices by his discovery. A governor indeed were unjust if he commanded that which were unrighteous, and for bade that which were worthy and commendable ; but if he delays the execu tion of a convicted offender for weighty reasons, either for the benefit of the state whereof he is the ruler, or for some advantage to the offender himself, to make him havea sense of, and a regret for, his offence, we account him not unjust for this. God doth not by his patience dispense with the holiness
of his law, nor cut off anything from its due authority. If men do strengthen themselves by his long-suffering against his law, it is their fault, not any unrighteousness in him. He will take a time to vindicate the righteousness of his own commands, if men will wholly neglect the time of his patience, in forbearing to pay a dutiful observance to his precept. If justice be natural to him, and he cannot but punish sin, yet he is not necessitated to consume sinners, as the fire doth stubble put into it, which hath no command over its own qualities to restrain them from acting ; but God is a free agent, and may choose his own time for the distribution of that punishment his nature leads him to. Though he be naturally just, yet it is not so natural to him as to deprive him of a dominion over his own acts, and a freedom in the exerting them what time he judgeth most convenient in his wisdom. God is neces sarily holy, and is necessarily angry with sin ; his nature can never like it, and cannot but be displeased with it ; yet he hath a liberty to restrain the effects of this anger for a time, without disgracing his holiness, or being interpreted to act unrighteously, as well as a prince or state may suspend the execution of a law, which they will never break, only for a time and for a public benefit.
If God should presently execute his justice, this perfection of patience,
512 CHAENOCK'S WORKS. [NAHUM I. 3.
which is a part of his goodness, would never have an opportunity of discovery. Part of his glory, for which he created the world, would lie in obscurity from the knowledge of his creature. His justice would be signal in the destruc tion of sinners, but this stream of his goodness would be stopped up from any motion. One perfection must not cloud another, God hath his seasons to
discover all, one after another ; ' The times and seasons are in his own power,' Acts i. 7 ; the seasons of manifesting his own perfections as well as other things ; succession of them in their distinct appearance makes no invasion upon the rights of any. If justice should complain of an injury from patience, because it is delayed, patience hath more reason to complain of an injury from justice, that by such a plea it would be wholly obscured and unactive. For this perfection hath the shortest time to act its part of any, it hath no stage but this world to move in ; mercy hath a heaven, and justice a hell, to display itself to eternity, but long-suffering hath only a short-lived earth for the compass of its operation.
Again, justice is so far from being wronged by patience, that it rather is made more illustrious, and hath the fuller scope to exercise itself. , It is the more righted for being deferred, and will have stronger grounds than before for its activity. The equity of it will be more apparent to every reason, the objections more fully answered against it, when the way of dealing with sinners by patience hath been slighted. When this dam of long-suffering is removed, the floods of fiery justice will rush down with more force and violence. Justice will be fully recompensed for the delay, when, after patience is abused, it can spread itself over the offender with a more unques tionable authority, it will have more arguments to hit the sinner in the teeth with, and silence him. There will be a sharper edge for every stroke ; the sinner must not only pay for the score of his former sins, but the score of abused patience, so that justice hath no reason to commence a suit
against God's slowness to anger. What it shall want by the fulness of mercy upon the truly penitent, it will gain by the contempt of patience on the impenitent abusers. When men by such a carriage are ripened for the stroke of justice, justice may strike without any regret in itself, or pull-back from mercy. The contempt of long-suffering will silence the pleas of the one, and spirit the severity of the other. To conclude ; since God hath glorified his justice on Christ as a surety for sinners, his patience is so far from interfering with the rights of his justice, that it promotes it. It is dispensed to this end, that God might pardon with honour, both upon the
score of purchased mercy and contented justice ; that, by a penitent sinner's return, his mercy might be acknowledged free, and the satisfaction of his justice by Christ be glorified in believing ; for he is long-suffering, from an
' unwillingness that any should perish, but that all should come to repent ance,' 2 Pet. iii. 9 ; i.e. all to whom the promise is made, for to such the apostle speaks, and calls it ' long-suffering to us-ward.' And repentance being an acknowledgment of the demerit of sin, and a breaking off unright eousness, gives a particular glory to the freeness of mercy and the equity of justice.
II. The second thing, how this patience or slowness to anger is mani fested.
1. To our first parents. His slowness to anger was evidenced in not directing his artillery against them when they first attempted to rebel. He might have struck them dead when they began to bite at the temptation, and were inclinable to a surrender ; for it was a degree of sinning, and a breach of loyalty, as well, though not so much, as the consummating act. God
NAHUM I. 3.J GOD'S PATIENCE . 513
might have given way to the floods of his wrath at the first spring of man's aspiring thoughts, when the monstrous motion of being as God began to be curdled in his heart; but he took no notice of any of their embryo sins, till they came to a ripeness, and started out of the womb of their minds into the open air. And after he had brought his sin to perfection, God did not presently send that death upon him which he had merited, but continued his life to the space of 930 years, Gen. v. 5. The sun and stars were not arrested from doing their office for him, creatures were continued for his use, the earth did not swallow him up, nor a thunderbolt from heaven raze out the memory of him. Though he had deserved to be treated with such a severity for his ungrateful demeanour to his Creator and benefactor, and affecting an equality with him, yet God continued him with a sufficiency for his content after he turned rebel, though not with such a liberality as when he remained a loyal subject. And though he foresaw that he would not make an end of sinning but with an end of living, he used him not in the same manner as he had used the devils. He added days and years to him after he had deserved death, and hath for this five thousand years continued the propagation of mankind, and derived from his loins an innumerable posterity, and hath crowned multitudes of them with hoary heads. He might have extinguished the human race at the first, but since he hath preserved it till this day, it must be interpreted nothing else but the effect of an admirable patience.