(1 Sam. ii. 2); it is the peculiar glory of his nature; as there is
none good but God, so none holy but God. No creature can be essentially
holy, because mutable; holiness is the substance of God, but a quality
and accident in a creature. God is infinitely holy, creatures finitely
holy. He is holy from himself, creatures are holy by derivation from
him. He is not only holy, but holiness; holiness in the highest degree,
is his sole prerogative. As the highest heaven is called the heaven
of heavens, because it embraceth in its circle all the heavens, and
contains the magnitude of them, and hath a greater vastness above
all that it encloseth, so is God the Holy of holies; he contains the
holiness of all creatures put together, and infinitely more. As all
the wisdom, excellency, and power of the creatures if compared with
the wisdom, excellency, and power of God, is but folly, vileness, and
weakness; so the highest created purity, if set in parallel with God,
is but impurity and uncleanness (Rev. xv. 4): “Thou only art holy.” It
is like the light {b117} of a glow‑worm to that of the sun (Job xiii.
15); “The heavens are not pure in his sight, and his angels he charged
with folly” (Job iv. 18). Though God hath crowned the angels with an
unspotted sanctity, and placed them in a habitation of glory, yet, as
illustrious as they are, they have an unworthiness in their own nature
to appear before the throne of so holy a God; their holiness grows dim
and pale in his presence. It is but a weak shadow of that Divine purity,
whose light is so glorious, that it makes them cover their faces out of
weakness to behold it, and cover their feet out of shame in themselves.
They are not pure in his sight, because, though they love God (which
is a principle of holiness) as much as they can, yet, not so much as
he deserves; they love him with the intensest degree, according to
their power; but not with the intensest degree, according to his own
amiableness; for they cannot infinitely love God, unless they were as
infinite as God, and had an understanding of his perfections equal with
himself, and as immense as his own knowledge. God, having an infinite
knowledge of himself, can only have an infinite love to himself, and,
consequently, an infinite holiness without any defect; because he
loves himself according to the vastness of his own amiableness, which
no finite being can. Therefore, though the angels be exempt from
corruption and soil, they cannot enter into comparison with the purity
of God, without acknowledgment of a dimness in themselves. Besides,
he charges them with folly, and puts no trust in them; because they
have the power of sinning, though not the act of sinning; they have a
possible folly in their own nature to be charged with. Holiness is a
quality separable from them, but it is inseparable from God. Had they
not at first a mutability in their nature, none of them could have
sinned, there had been no devils; but because some of them sinned, the
rest might have sinned. And though the standing angels shall never be
changed, yet they are still changeable in their own nature, and their
standing is due to grace, not to nature; and though they shall be for
ever preserved, yet they are not, nor ever can be, immutable by nature,
for then they should stand upon the same bottom with God himself; but
they are supported by grace against that changeableness of nature which
is essential to a creature; the Creator only hath immortality, that
is, immutability (1 Tim. iii. 16). It is as certain a truth, that no
creature can be naturally immutable and impeccable, as that God cannot
create anything actually polluted and imperfect. It is as possible
that the highest creature may sin, as it is possible that it may be
annihilated; it may become not holy, as it may become not a creature,
but nothing. The holiness of a creature may be reduced into nothing,
as well as his substance; but the holiness of the Creator cannot be
diminished, dimmed, or overshadowed (James i. 17): “He is the Father
of lights, with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning.” It is
as impossible his holiness should be blotted, as that his Deity should
be extinguished: for whatsoever creature hath essentially such or such
qualities, cannot be stripped of them, without being turned out of
its essence. As a man is essentially rational; and if he ceaseth to be
rational, he ceaseth to be {b118} man. The sun is essentially luminous;
if it should become dark in its own body, it would cease to be the
sun. In regard to this absolute and only holiness of God, it is thrice
repeated by the seraphims (Isa. vi. 3). The three‑fold repetition
of a word notes the certainty or absoluteness of the thing, or the
irreversibleness of the resolve; as (Ezek. xxi. 27), “I will overturn,
overturn, overturn,” notes the certainty of the judgment; also, (Rev.
viii. 8), “Woe, woe, woe;” three times repeated, signifies the same.
The holiness of God is so absolutely peculiar to him, that it can no
more be expressed in creatures, than his omnipotence, whereby they
may be able to create a world; or his omniscience, whereby they may be
capable of knowing all things, and knowing God as he knows himself.
3. God is so holy, that he cannot possibly approve of any evil done by
another, but doth perfectly abhor it; it would not else be a glorious
holiness (Ps. v. 3). “He hath no pleasure in wickedness.” He doth not
only love that which is just, but abhor, with a perfect hatred, all
things contrary to the rule of righteousness. Holiness can no more
approve of sin than it can commit it: to be delighted with the evil in
another’s act, contracts a guilt, as well as the commission of it; for
approbation of a thing is a consent to it. Sometimes the approbation
of an evil in another is a more grievous crime than the act itself, as
appears in Rom. i. 32, who knowing the judgment of God, “not only do
the same, but have pleasure in them that do it;” where the “not only”
manifests it to be a greater guilt to take pleasure in them. Every sin
is aggravated by the delight in it; to take pleasure in the evil of
another’s action, shows a more ardent affection and love to sin, than
the committer himself may have. This, therefore, can as little fall
upon God, as to do an evil act himself; yet, as a man may be delighted
with the consequences of another’s sin, as it may occasion some public
good, or private good to the guilty person, as sometimes it may be an
occasion of his repentance, when the horridness of a fact stares him in
the face, and occasions a self‑reflection for that, and other crimes,
which is attended with an indignation against them, and sincere remorse
for them; so God is pleased with those good things his goodness and
wisdom bring forth upon the occasion of sin. But in regard of his
holiness, he cannot approve of the evil, whence his infinite wisdom
drew forth his own glory, and his creature’s good. His pleasure is not
in the sinful act of the creature, but in the act of his own goodness
and skill, turning it to another end than what the creature aimed at.
(1.) He abhors it necessarily. Holiness is the glory of the Deity,
therefore necessary. The nature of God is so holy, that he cannot but
hate it (Hab. i. 13): “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and
canst not look on iniquity:” he is more opposite to it than light to
darkness, and, therefore, it can expect no countenance from him. A love
of holiness cannot be without a hatred of everything that is contrary
to it. As God necessarily loves himself, so he must necessarily hate
everything that is against himself: and as he loves himself for his
own excellency and holiness, he must necessarily detest whatsoever
is repugnant to his holiness, because of the evil of it. Since he
is infinitely good, he cannot but love goodness, as it is {b119} a
resemblance to himself, and cannot but abhor unrighteousness, as being
most distant from him, and contrary to him. If he have any esteem for
his own perfections, he must needs have an implacable aversion to all
that is so repugnant to him, that would, if it were possible, destroy
him, and is a point directed, not only against his glory, but against
his life. If he did not hate it, he would hate himself: for since
righteousness is his image, and sin would deface his image; if he did
not love his image, and loathe what is against his image, he would
loathe himself, he would be an enemy to his own nature. Nay, if it were
possible for him to love it, it were possible for him not to be holy,
it were possible then for him to deny himself, and will that he were no
God, which is a palpable contradiction.[901] Yet this necessity in God
of hating sin, is not a brutish necessity, such as is in mere animals,
that avoid, by a natural instinct, not of choice, what is prejudicial
to them; but most free, as well as necessary, arising from an infinite
knowledge of his own nature, and of the evil nature of sin, and the
contrariety of it to his own excellency, and the order of his works.
(2.) Therefore intensely. Nothing do men act for more than their glory.
As he doth infinitely, and therefore perfectly know himself, so he
infinitely, and therefore perfectly knows what is contrary to himself,
and, as according to the manner and measure of his knowledge of himself,
is his love to himself, as infinite as his knowledge, and therefore
inexpressible and unconceivable by us: so, from the perfection of
his knowledge of the evil of sin, which is infinitely above what any
creature can have, doth arise a displeasure against it suitable to that
knowledge. In creatures the degrees of affection to, or aversion from
a thing, are suited to the strength of their apprehensions of the good
or evil in them. God knows not only the workers of wickedness, but the
wickedness of their works (Job xi. 11), for “he knows vain men, he sees
wickedness also.” The vehemency of this hatred is expressed variously
in Scripture; he loathes it so, that he is impatient of beholding it;
the very sight of it affects him with detestation (Hab. i. 13); he
hates the first spark of it in the imagination (Zech. viii. 17); with
what variety of expressions doth he repeat his indignation at their
polluted services (Amos v. 21, 22); “I hate, I detest, I despise, I
will not smell, I will not regard; take away from me the noise of thy
songs, I will not hear!” So, (Isa. i. 14), “My soul hates, they are a
trouble to me, I am weary to bear them.” It is the abominable thing
that he hates (Jer. xliv. 4); he is vexed and fretted at it (Isa. lxiii.
10; Ezek. xvi. 33). He abhors it so, that his hatred redounds upon the
person that commits it. (Ps. v. 5), “He hates all workers of iniquity.”
Sin is the only primary object of his displeasure: he is not displeased
with the nature of man as man, for that was derived from him; but with
the nature of man as sinful, which is from the sinner himself. When
a man hath but one object for the exercise of all his anger, it is
stronger than when diverted to many objects: a mighty torrent, when
diverted into many streams, is weaker than when it comes in a full body
upon one place only. The infinite anger and hatred of {b120} God, which
is as infinite as his love and mercy, has no other object, against
which he directs the mighty force of it, but only unrighteousness. He
hates no person for all the penal evils upon him, though they were more
by ten thousand times than Job was struck with, but only for his sin.
Again, sin being only evil, and an unmixed evil, there is nothing in
it that can abate the detestation of God, or balance his hatred of it;
there is not the least grain of goodness in it, to incline him to the
least affection to any part of it. This hatred cannot but be intense;
for as the more any creature is sanctified, the more is he advanced in
the abhorrence of that which is contrary to holiness; therefore, God
being the highest, most absolute and infinite holiness, doth infinitely,
and therefore intensely, hate unholiness; being infinitely righteous,
doth infinitely abhor unrighteousness; being infinitely true, doth
infinitely abhor falsity, as it is the greatest and most deformed evil.
As it is from the righteousness of his nature that he hath a content
and satisfaction in righteousness (Ps. xi. 7), “The righteous Lord
loveth righteousness;” so it is from the same righteousness of his
nature, that he detests whatsoever is morally evil: as his nature
therefore is infinite, so must his abhorrence be.
(3.) Therefore universally, because necessarily and intensely. He doth
not hate it in one, and indulge it in another, but loathes it wherever
he finds it; not one worker of iniquity is exempt from it (Ps. v. 5):
“Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” For it is not sin, as in this
or that person, or as great or little; but sin, as sin is the object
of his hatred; and, therefore, let the person be never so great, and
have particular characters of his image upon him, it secures him not
from God’s hatred of any evil action he shall commit. He is a jealous
God, jealous of his glory (Exod. xx. 5); a metaphor, taken from jealous
husbands, who will not endure the least adultery in their wives, nor
God the least defection of man from his law. Every act of sin is a
spiritual adultery, denying God to be the chief good, and giving that
prerogative by that act to some vile thing. He loves it no more in his
own people than he doth in his enemies; he frees them not from his rod,
the testimony of his loathing their crimes: whosoever sows iniquity,
shall reap affliction. It might be thought that he affected their dross,
if he did not refine them, and loved their filth, if he did not cleanse
them; because of his detestation of their sin, he will not spare them
from the furnace, though because of love to their persons in Christ,
he will exempt them from Tophet. How did the sword ever and anon drop
down upon David’s family, after his unworthy dealing in Uriah’s case,
and cut off ever and anon some of the branches of it? He doth sometimes
punish it more severely in this life in his own people, than in others.
Upon Jonah’s disobedience a storm pursues him, and a whale devours him,
while the profane world lived in their lusts without control. Moses,
for one act of unbelief, is excluded from Canaan, when greater sinners
attained that happiness. It is not a light punishment, but a vengeance
he takes on their inventions (Ps. xcix. 8), to manifest that he hates
sin as sin, and not because the worst persons commit it. Perhaps, had a
profane man touched the ark, the hand of God had {b121} not so suddenly
reached him; but when Uzzah, a man zealous for him, as may be supposed
by his care for the support of the tottering ark, would step out of
his place, he strikes him down for his disobedient action, by the side
of the ark, which he would indirectly (as not being a Levite) sustain
(2 Sam. vi. 7). Nor did our Saviour so sharply reprove the Pharisees,
and turn so short from them as he did from Peter, when he gave a
carnal advice, and contrary to that wherein was to be the greatest
manifestation of God’s holiness, _viz._ the death of Christ (Matt. xvi.
23). He calls him Satan, a name sharper than the title of the devil’s
children wherewith he marked the Pharisees, and given (besides him) to
none but Judas, who made a profession of love to him, and was outwardly
ranked in the number of his disciples. A gardener hates a weed the more
for being in the bed with the most precious flowers. God’s hatred is
universally fixed against sin, and he hates it as much in those whose
persons shall not fall under his eternal anger, as being secured in
the arms of a Redeemer, by whom the guilt is wiped off, and the filth
shall be totally washed away: though he hates their sin, and cannot but
hate it, yet he loves their persons, as being united as members to the
Mediator and mystical Head. A man may love a gangrened member, because
it is a member of his own body, or a member of a dear relation, but
he loathes the gangrene in it more than in those wherein he is not so
much concerned. Though God’s hatred of believers’ persons is removed
by faith in the satisfactory death of Jesus Christ, yet his antipathy
against sin was not taken away by that blood; nay, it was impossible
it should. It was never designed, nor had it any capacity to alter the
unchangeable nature of God, but to manifest the unspottedness of his
will, and his eternal aversion to anything that was contrary to the
purity of his Being, and the righteousness of his laws.
(4.) Perpetually: this must necessarily follow upon the others. He
can no more cease to hate impurity than he can cease to love holiness:
if he should in the least instant approve of anything that is filthy,
in that moment he would disapprove of his own nature and being; there
would be an interruption in his love of himself, which is as eternal as
it is infinite. How can he love any sin which is contrary to his nature,
but for one moment, without hating his own nature, which is essentially
contrary to sin? Two contraries cannot be loved at the same time; God
must first begin to hate himself before he can approve of any evil
which is directly opposite to himself. We, indeed, are changed with a
temptation, sometimes bear an affection to it, and sometimes testify an
indignation against it; but God is always the same without any shadow
of change, and “is angry with the wicked every day” (Ps. vii. 11),
that is, uninterruptedly in the nature of his anger, though not in the
effects of it. God indeed may be reconciled to the sinner, but never to
the sin; for then he should renounce himself, deny his own essence and
his own divinity, if his inclinations to the love of goodness, and his
aversion from evil, could be changed, if he suffered the contempt of
the one, and encouraged the practice of the other.
4. God is so holy, that he cannot but love holiness in others. {b122}
Not that he owes anything to his creature, but from the unspeakable
holiness of his nature, whence affections to all things that bear a
resemblance of him do flow; as light shoots out from the sun, or any
glittering body: it is essential to the infinite righteousness of his
nature to love righteousness wherever he beholds it (Ps. xi. 7): “The
righteous Lord loveth righteousness.” He cannot, because of his nature,
but love that which bears some agreement with his nature, that which
is the curious draught of his own wisdom and purity: he cannot but
be delighted with a copy of himself: he would not have a holy nature,
if he did not love holiness in every nature: his own nature would be
denied by him, if he did not affect everything that had a stamp of his
own nature upon it. There was indeed nothing without God, that could
invite him to manifest such goodness to man, as he did in creation:
but after he had stamped that rational nature with a righteousness
convenient for it, it was impossible but that he should ardently
love that impression of himself, because he loves his own Deity, and
consequently all things which are any sparks and images of it: and
were the devils capable of an act of righteousness, the holiness of his
nature would incline him to love it, even in those dark and revolted
spirits.
5. God is so holy, that he cannot positively will or encourage
sin in any. How can he give any encouragement to that which he cannot
in the least approve of, or look upon without loathing, not only the
crime, but the criminal? Light may sooner be the cause of darkness than
holiness itself be the cause of unholiness, absolutely contrary to it:
it is a contradiction, that he that is the Fountain of good should be
the source of evil; as if the same fountain should bubble up both sweet
and bitter streams, salt and fresh (James iii. 11); since whatsoever
good is in man acknowledges God for its author, it follows that men are
evil by their own fault. There is no need for men to be incited to that
to which the corruption of their own nature doth so powerfully bend
them. Water hath a forcible principle in its own nature to carry it
downward; it needs no force to hasten the motion: “God tempts no man,
but every man is drawn away by his own lust” (James i. 13, 14). All
the preparations for glory are from God (Rom. ix. 23); but men are said
to “be fitted to destruction” (ver. 22); but God is not said to fit
them; they, by their iniquities, fit themselves for ruin, and he, by
his long‑suffering, keeps the destruction from them for awhile.
(1.) God cannot command any unrighteousness. As all virtue is summed
up in a love to God, so all iniquity is summed up in an enmity to God:
every wicked work declares a man an enemy to God (Col. i. 21): “enemies
in your minds by wicked works.” If he could command his creature
anything which bears an enmity in its nature to himself, he would then
implicitly command the hatred of himself, and he would be, in some
measure, a hater of himself: he that commands another to deprive him
of his life, cannot be said to bear any love to his own life. God
can never hate himself, and therefore cannot command anything that is
hateful to him and tends to a hating of him, and driving the creature
further from him; in that very moment that God should command such a
thing, he would cease to be {b123} good. What can be more absurd to
imagine, than that Infinite Goodness should enjoin a thing contrary to
itself, and contrary to the essential duty of a creature, and order him
to do anything that bespeaks an enmity to the nature of the Creator,
or a deflouring and disparaging his works? God cannot but love himself,
and his own goodness; he were not otherwise good; and, therefore,
cannot order the creature to do anything opposite to this goodness,
or anything hurtful to the creature itself, as unrighteousness is.
(2.) Nor can God secretly inspire any evil into us. It is as much
against his nature to incline the heart to sin as it is to command
it: as it is impossible but that he should love himself, and therefore
impossible to enjoin anything that tends to a hatred of himself; by the
same reason it is as impossible that he should infuse such a principle
in the heart, that might carry a man out to any act of enmity against
him. To enjoin one thing, and incline to another, would be an argument
of such insincerity, unfaithfulness, contradiction to itself, that it
cannot be conceived to fall within the compass of the Divine nature
(Deut. xxxii. 4), who is a “God without iniquity,” because “a God
of truth” and sincerity, “just and right is he.” To bestow excellent
faculties upon man in creation, and incline him, by a sudden impulsion,
to things contrary to the true end of him, and induce an inevitable
ruin upon that work which he had composed with so much wisdom and
goodness, and pronounced good with so much delight and pleasure, is
inconsistent with that love which God bears to the creature of his own
framing: to incline his will to that which would render him the object
of his hatred, the fuel for his justice, and sink him into deplorable
misery, it is most absurd, and unchristian‑like to imagine.