keeping it, and the affrightments to restrain from the breaking of
it. Both promises and threatenings have their fundamental root in the
holiness of God, and are both branches of this peculiar perfection. As
they respect the nature of God, they are declarations of his hatred of
sin, and his love of righteousness; the one belong to his threatenings,
the other to his promises; both join together to represent this divine
perfection to the creature, and to excite to an imitation in the
creature. In the one, God would render sin odious, because dangerous,
and curb the practice of evil, which would otherwise be licentious;
in the other, he would commend righteousness, and excite a love of
it, which would otherwise be cold. By there God suits the two great
affections of men, fear and hope; {b132} both the branches of self‑love
in man: the promises and threatenings are both the branches of holiness
in God. The end of the promises is the same with the exhortation the
apostle concludes from them (2 Cor. vii. 1); “Having these promises,
let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit,
perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” As the end of precept is to
direct, the end of threatenings is to deter from iniquity, so that the
promises is to allure to obedience. Thus God breathes out his love to
righteousness in every promise; his hatred of sin in every threatening.
The rewards offered in the one, are the smiles of pleased holiness;
and the curses thundered in the other, are the sparklings of enraged
righteousness.
4. His holiness appears in the judgment inflicted for the violation
of this law. Divine holiness is the root of Divine justice, and Divine
justice is the triumph of Divine holiness. Hence both are expressed in
Scripture by one word of righteousness, which sometimes signifies the
rectitude of the Divine nature, and sometimes the vindicative stroke of
his arm (Ps. ciii. 6); “The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment
for all that are oppressed.” So (Dan. ix. 7) “Righteousness (that is,
justice) belongs to thee.” The vials of his wrath are filled from his
implacable aversion to iniquity. All penal evils shower down upon the
heads of wicked men, spread their root in, and branch out from, this
perfection. All the dreadful storms and tempests in the world are blown
up by it. Why doth he “rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible
tempest!” Because “the righteous Lord loveth righteousness” (Ps. xi.
6, 7). And, as was observed before, when he was going about the
dreadfulest work that ever was in the world, the overturning the Jewish
state, hardening the hearts of that unbelieving people, and cashiering
a nation, once dear to him, from the honor of his protection; his
holiness, as the spring of all this, is applauded by the seraphims (Isa.
vi. 3, compared with ver. 9‒11), &c. Impunity argues the approbation
of a crime, and punishment the abhorrency of it. The greatness of
the crime, and the righteousness of the Judge, are the first natural
sentiments that arise in the minds of men upon the appearance of Divine
judgments in the world, by those that are near them;[906] as, when
men see gibbets erected, scaffolds prepared, instruments of death
and torture provided, and grievous punishments inflicted, the first
reflection in the spectator is the malignity of the crime, and the
detestation the governors are possessed with.
(1.) How severely hath he punished his most noble creatures for it!
The once glorious angels, upon whom he had been at greater cost than
upon any other creatures, and drawn more lively lineaments of his own
excellency, upon the transgression of his law, are thrown into the
furnace of justice, without any mercy to pity them (Jude 6). And though
there were but one sort of creatures upon the earth that bore his image,
and were only fit to publish and keep up his honor below the heavens,
yet, upon their apostasy, though upon a temptation from a subtle and
insinuating spirit, the man, with all his posterity, is sentenced to
misery in life, and death at {b133} last; and the woman, with all her
sex, have standing punishments inflicted on them, which, as they begun
in their persons, were to reach as far as the last member of their
successive generations. So holy is God, that he will not endure a
spot in his choicest work. Men, indeed, when there is a crack in an
excellent piece of work, or a stain upon a rich garment, do not cast it
away; they value it for the remaining excellency, more than hate it for
the contracted spot; but God saw no excellency in his creature worthy
regarding, after the image of that which he most esteemed in himself
was defaced.
(2.) How detestable to him are the very instruments of sin! For the
ill use the serpent, an irrational creature, was put to by the devil,
as an instrument in the fall of man, the whole brood of those animals
are cursed (Gen. iii. 14), “cursed above all cattle, and above every
beast of the field.” Not only the devil’s head is threatened to be
for ever bruised, and, as some think, rendered irrecoverable upon this
further testimony of his malice in the seduction of man, who, perhaps,
without this new act, might have been admitted into the arms of mercy,
notwithstanding his first sin; “though the Scripture gives us no
account of this, only this is the only sentence we read of pronounced
against the devil, which puts him into an irrecoverable state by a
mortal bruising of his head.” But, I say, he is not only punished,
but the organ, whereby he blew in his temptation, is put into a worse
condition than it was before. Thus God hated the sponge, whereby
the devil deformed his beautiful image: thus God, to manifest his
detestation of sin, ordered the beast, whereby any man was slain, to
be slain as well as the malefactor (Lev. xx. 15). The gold and silver
that had been abused to idolatry, and were the ornaments of images,
though good in themselves, and incapable of a criminal nature, were
not to be brought into their houses, but detested and abhorred by them,
because they were cursed, and an abomination to the Lord. See with what
loathing expressions this law is enjoined to them (Deut. vii. 25, 26).
So contrary is the holy nature of God to every sin, that it curseth
everything that is instrumental in it.
(3.) How detestable is everything to him that is in the sinner’s
possession! The very earth, which God had made Adam the proprietor of,
was cursed for his sake (Gen. iii. 17, 18). It lost its beauty, and
lies languishing to this day; and, notwithstanding the redemption by
Christ, hath not recovered its health, nor is it like to do, till the
completing the fruits of it upon the children of God (Rom. viii. 20‒22).
The whole lower creation was made subject to vanity, and put into pangs,
upon the sin of man, by the righteousness of God detesting his offence.
How often hath his implacable aversion from sin been shown, not only
in his judgments upon the offender’s person, but by wrapping up, in
the same judgment, those which stood in a near relation to them! Achan,
with his children and cattle, are overwhelmed with stones, and burned
together (Josh. vii. 24, 25). In the destruction of Sodom, not only
the grown malefactors, but the young spawn, the infants, at present
incapable of the same wickedness, and their cattle, were burned up
by the same fire from heaven; and the place where their habitations
stood, is, at this day, {b134} partly a heap of ashes, and partly an
infectious lake, that chokes any fish that swims into it from Jordan,
and stifles, as is related, by its vapor, any bird that attempts to
fly over it. O, how detestable is sin to God, that causes him to turn
a pleasant land, as the “garden of the Lord” (as it is styled Gen.
xiii. 10), into a lake of sulphur; to make it, both in his word and
works, as a lasting monument of his abhorrence of evil!
(4.) What design hath God in all these acts of severity and
vindictive justice, but to set off the lustre of his holiness? He
testifies himself concerned for those laws, which he hath set as hedges
and limits to the lusts of men; and, therefore, when he breathes forth
his fiery indignation against a people, he is said to get himself
honor: as when he intended the Red Sea should swallow up the Egyptian
army (Exod. xiv. 17, 18), which Moses, in his triumphant song, echoes
back again (Exod. xv. 1): “Thou hast triumphed gloriously;” gloriously
in his holiness, which is the glory of his nature, as Moses himself
interprets it in the text. When men will not own the holiness of
God, in a way of duty, God will vindicate it in a way of justice
and punishment. In the destruction of Aaron’s sons, that were
will‑worshippers, and would take strange fire, “sanctified” and
“glorified” are coupled (Lev. x. 3): he glorified himself in that act,
in vindicating his holiness before all the people, declaring that he
will not endure sin and disobedience. He doth therefore, in this life,
more severely punish the sins of his people, when they presume upon
any act of disobedience, for a testimony that the nearness and dearness
of any person to him shall not make him unconcerned in his holiness,
or be a plea for impurity. The end of all his judgments is to witness
to the world his abominating of sin. To punish and witness against
men, are one and the same thing (Micah i. 2): “The Lord shall witness
against you;” and it is the witness of God’s holiness (Hos. v. 5):
“And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face:” one renders it the
excellency of Israel, and understands it of God: the word גאון, which is
here in our translation, “pride,” is rendered “excellency” (Amos viii.
7): “The Lord God hath sworn by his excellency;” which is interpreted
“holiness” (Amos iv. 2): “The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness.”
What is the issue or end of this swearing by “holiness,” and of his
“excellency” testifying against them? In all those places you will find
them to be sweeping judgments: in one, Israel and Ephraim shall “fall
in their iniquity;” in another, he will “take them away with hooks,”
and “their posterity with fish‑hooks;” and in another, he would “never
forget any of their works.” He that punisheth wickedness in those he
before used with the greatest tenderness, furnisheth the world with
an undeniable evidence of the detestableness of it to him. Were not
judgments sometimes poured out upon the world, it would be believed
that God were rather an approver than an enemy to sin. To conclude,
since God hath made a stricter law to guide men, annexed promises above
the merit of obedience to allure them, and threatenings dreadful enough
to affright men from disobedience, he cannot be the cause of sin, nor
a lover of it. How can he be the author of that which he so severely
forbids; or love that which he delights to punish; or be fondly
indulgent to any evil, when he {b135} hates the ignorant instruments
in the offences of his reasonable creatures?
Thirdly. The holiness of God appears in our restoration. It is in the
glass of the gospel we behold the “glory of the Lord” (2 Cor. iii. 18);
that is, the glory of the Lord, into whose image we are changed; but
we are changed into nothing, as the image of God, but into holiness:
we bore not upon us by creation, nor by regeneration, the image of
any other perfection: we cannot be changed into his omnipotence,
omniscience, &c., but into the image of his righteousness. This is the
pleasing and glorious sight the gospel mirror darts in our eyes. The
whole scene of redemption is nothing else but a discovery of judgment
and righteousness (Isa. i. 27): “Zion shall be redeemed with judgment,
and her converts with righteousness.”
1. This holiness of God appears in the manner of our restoration, viz.
by the death of Christ. Not all the vials of judgments, that have, or
shall be poured out upon the wicked world, nor the flaming furnace of
a sinner’s conscience, nor the irreversible sentence pronounced against
the rebellious devils, nor the groans of the damned creatures, give
such a demonstration of God’s hatred of sin, as the wrath of God let
loose upon his Son. Never did Divine holiness appear more beautiful
and lovely, than at the time our Saviour’s countenance was most marred
in the midst of his dying groans. This himself acknowledges in that
prophetical psalm (xxii. 1, 2), when God had turned his smiling face
from him, and thrust his sharp knife into his heart, which forced that
terrible cry from him, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
He adores this perfection of holiness (ver. 3), “But thou art holy;”
thy holiness is the spring of all this sharp agony, and for this thou
inhabitest, and shalt forever inhabit, the praises of all thy Israel.
Holiness drew the veil between God’s countenance and our Saviour’s
soul. Justice indeed gave the stroke, but holiness ordered it. In this
his purity did sparkle, and his irreversible justice manifested that
all those that commit sin are worthy of death; this was the perfect
index of his “righteousness” (Rom. iii. 25), that is, of his holiness
and truth; then it was that God that is holy, was “sanctified in
righteousness” (Isa. v. 16). It appears the more, if you consider,
(1.) The dignity of the Redeemer’s person. One that had been from
eternity; had laid the foundations of the world; had been the object of
the Divine delight: he that was God blessed forever, become a curse; he
who was blessed by angels, and by whom God blessed the world, must be
seized with horror; the Son of eternity must bleed to death! When did
ever sin appear so irreconcileable to God? Where did God ever break out
so furiously in his detestation of iniquity? The Father would have the
most excellent person, one next in order to himself, and equal to him
in all the glorious perfections of his nature (Phil. ii. 6), die on a
disgraceful cross, and be exposed to the flames of Divine wrath, rather
than sin should live, and his holiness remain forever disparaged by the
violations of his law.
(2.) The near relation he stood in to the Father. He was his “own Son
that he delivered up” (Rom. viii. 32); his essential image, as dearly
beloved by him as himself; yet he would abate nothing of his hatred of
those sins imputed to one so dear to him, and who {b136} never had done
anything contrary to his will. The strong cries uttered by him could
not cause him to cut off the least fringe of this royal garment, nor
part with a thread the robe of his holiness was woven with. The torrent
of wrath is opened upon him, and the Father’s heart beats not in the
least notice of tenderness to sin, in the midst of his Son’s agonies.
God seems to lay aside the bowels of a father, and put on the garb
of an irreconcileable enemy,[907] upon which account, probably, our
Saviour in the midst of his passion gives him the title of God; not
of Father, the title he usually before addressed to him with, (Matt.
xxvii. 46), “My God, my God;” not, My Father, my Father; “why hast
thou forsaken me?” He seems to hang upon the cross like a disinherited
son, while he appeared in the garb and rank of a sinner. Then was his
head loaded with curses, when he stood under that sentence of “Cursed
is every one that hangs upon a tree” (Gal. iii. 13), and looked as one
forlorn and rejected by the Divine purity and tenderness. God dealt
not with him as if he had been one in so near a relation to him. He
left him not to the will only of the instruments of his death; he would
have the chiefest blow himself of bruising of him (Isa. liii. 10):
“It pleased the Lord to bruise him:” the Lord, because the power of
creatures could not strike a blow strong enough to satisfy and secure
the rights of infinite holiness. It was therefore a cup tempered and
put into his hands by his Father; a cup given him to drink. In other
judgments he lets out his wrath against his creatures; in this he lets
out his wrath, as it were, against himself, against his Son, one as
dear to him as himself. As in his making creatures, his power over
nothing to bring it into being appeared; but in pardoning sin he hath
power over himself; so in punishing creatures, his holiness appears
in his wrath against creatures, against sinners by inherency; but by
punishing sin in his Son, his holiness sharpens his wrath against him
who was his equal, and only a reputed sinner; as if his affection to
his own holiness surmounted his affection to his Son: for he chose
to suspend the breakings out of his affections to his Son, and see
him plunged in a sharp and ignominious misery, without giving him any
visible token of his love, rather than see his holiness lie groaning
under the injuries of a transgressing world.
(3.) The value he puts upon his holiness appears further, in the
advancement of this redeeming person, after his death. Our Saviour
was advanced, not barely for his dying, but for the respect he had
in his death to this attribute of God (Heb. i. 9): “Thou hast loved
righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, even thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness,” &c. By righteousness is meant
this perfection, because of the opposition of it to iniquity. Some
think “therefore” to be the final cause; as if this were the sense,
“Thou art anointed with the oil of gladness, that thou mightest love
righteousness and hate iniquity.” But the Holy Ghost seeming to speak
in this chapter not only of the Godhead of Christ but of his exaltation;
the doctrine whereof he had begun in ver. 3, and prosecutes in the
following verses, I would rather understand “therefore,” for “this
cause, or reason, hath God anointed thee;” not “to {b137} this end.”
Christ indeed had an unction of grace, whereby he was fitted for
his mediatory work; he had also an unction of glory, whereby he was
rewarded for it. In the first regard, it was a qualifying him for his
office; in the second regard, it was a solemn inaugurating him in his
royal authority. And the reason of his being settled upon a “throne
for ever and ever,” is, “because he loved righteousness.” He suffered
himself to be pierced to death, that sin, the enemy of God’s purity,
might be destroyed, and the honor of the law, the image of God’s
holiness, might be repaired and fulfilled in the fallen creature. He
restored the credit of Divine holiness in the world, in manifesting,
by his death, God an irreconcileable enemy to all sin; in abolishing
the empire of sin, so hateful to God, and restoring the rectitude of
nature, and new framing the image of God in his chosen ones. And God
so valued this vindication of his holiness, that he confers upon him,
in his human nature, an eternal royalty and empire over angels and men.
Holiness was the great attribute respected by Christ in his dying, and
manifested in his death; and for his love to this, God would bestow
an honor upon his person, in that nature wherein he did vindicate the
honor of so dear a perfection. In the death of Christ, he showed his
resolution to preserve its rights; in the exaltation of Christ, he
evinced his mighty pleasure for the vindication of it; in both, the
infinite value he had for it, as dear to him as his life and glory.
(4.) It may be farther considered, that in this way of redemption,
his holiness in the hatred of sin seems to be valued above any other
attribute. He proclaims the value of it above the person of his Son;
since the Divine nature of the Redeemer is disguised, obscured, and
vailed, in order to the restoring the honor of it. And Christ seems
to value it above his own person, since he submitted himself to the
reproaches of men, to clear this perfection of the Divine nature, and
make it illustrious in the eyes of the world. You heard before, at the
beginning of the handling this argument, it was the beauty of the Deity,
the lustre of his nature, the link of all his attributes, his very life;
he values it equal with himself, since he swears by it, as well as by
his life; and none of his attributes would have a due decorum without
it; it is the glory of power, mercy, justice, and wisdom, that they are
all holy; so that though God had an infinite tenderness and compassion
to the fallen creature, yet it should not extend itself in his relief
to the prejudice of the rights of his purity: he would have this
triumph in the tenderness of his mercy, as well as the severities
of his justice. His mercy had not appeared in its true colors, nor
attained a regular end, without vengeance on sin. It would have been
a compassion that would, in sparing the sinner, have encouraged the
sin, and affronted holiness in the issues of it: had he dispersed his
compassions about the world, without the regard to his hatred of sin,
his mercy had been too cheap, and his holiness had been contemned; his
mercy would not have triumphed in his own nature, whilst his holiness
had suffered; he had exercised a mercy with the impairing his own glory;
but now, in this way of redemption, the rights of both are secured,
both have their due lustre: the odiousness of sin is equally {b138}
discovered with the greatest of his compassions; an infinite abhorrence
of sin, and an infinite love to the world, march hand in hand together.
Never was so much of the irreconcileableness of sin to him set forth,
as in the moment he was opening his bowels in the reconciliation of
the sinner. Sin is made the chiefest mark of his displeasure, while
the poor creature is made the highest object of Divine pity. There
could have been no motion of mercy, with the least injury to purity
and holiness. In this way mercy and truth, mercy to the misery of the
creature, and truth to the purity of the law, “have met together;” the
righteousness of God, and the peace of the sinner, “have kissed each
other” (Ps. lxxxv. 10).