of unholiness necessary to him. It is necessary that he should
abominate sin, and therefore necessary he should discountenance it. The
severities of God against sin are not vain scare‑crows; they have their
foundation in the righteousness of his nature; it is because he is a
righteous and holy God, that he “will not forgive our transgressions
and sins” (Josh. xxiv. 19), that is, that he will punish them. The
throne of his “holiness is a fiery flame” (Dan. vii. 9); there is both
a pure light and a scorching heat. Whatsoever is contrary to the nature
of God, will fall under the justice of God; he would else violate his
own nature, deny his own perfection, seem to be out of love with his
own glory and life. He doth not hate it out of choice, but from the
immutable propension of his nature; it is not so free an act of his
will, as the creation of man and angels, which he might {b183} have
forborne as well as effected. As the detestation of sin results from
the universal rectitude of his nature, so the punishment of sin follows
upon that, as he is the righteous Governor of the world: it is as much
against his nature not to punish it, as it is against his nature not
to loathe it; he would cease to be holy if he ceased to hate it, and he
would cease to hate it if he ceased to punish it. Neither the obedience
of our Saviour’s life, nor the strength of his cries, could put a
bar to the cup of his passion; God so hated sin, that when it was but
imputed to his Son, without any commission of it, he would bring a hell
upon his soul. Certainly if God could have hated sin without punishing
it, his Son had never felt the smart of his wrath; his love to his
Son had been strong enough to have caused him to forbear, had not
the holiness of his nature been stronger to move him to inflict a
punishment according to the demerit of his sin. God cannot but be
holy, and therefore cannot but be just, because injustice is a part
of unholiness.
3. Therefore there can be no communion between God and unholy spirits.
How is it conceivable, that God should hate the sin, and cherish the
sinner, with all his filth in his bosom? that he should eternally
detest the crime, and eternally fold the sinner in his arms? Can less
be expected from the purity of his nature, than to separate an impure
soul, as long as it remains so? Can there be any delightful communion
between those whose natures are contrary? Darkness and light may as
soon kiss each other, and become one nature: God and the devil may as
soon enter into an eternal league and covenant together. For God to
have pleasure in wickedness, and to admit evil to dwell with him, are
equally impossible to his nature (Ps. v. 4): while he hates impurity,
he cannot have communion with an impure person. It may as soon be
expected, that God should hate himself, offer violence to his own
nature, lay aside his purity as an abominable thing, and blot his own
glory, as love an impure person, entertain him as his delight, and set
him in the same heaven and happiness with himself, and his holy angels.
He must needs loathe him, he must needs banish him from his presence,
which is the greatest punishment. God’s holiness and hatred of sin
necessarily infer the punishment of it.
_Inform. 5._ There is, therefore, a necessity of the satisfaction of
the holiness of God by some sufficient mediator. The Divine purity
could not meet with any acquiescence in all mankind after the fall:
sin was hated; the sinner would be ruined, unless some way were found
out to repair the wrongs done to the holiness of God; either the sinner
must be condemned for ever, or some satisfaction must be made, that the
holiness of the Divine nature might eternally appear in its full lustre.
That it is essential to the nature of God to hate all unrighteousness,
as that which is absolutely repugnant to his nature, none do question.
That the justice of God is so essential to him, as that sin could not
be pardoned without satisfaction, some do question; though this latter
seems rationally to follow upon the former.[930] That holiness is
essential to the nature of God, is evident; because, else, God may
as much be conceived without purity, as he might be {b184} conceived
without the creating the sun or stars. No man can, in his right wits,
frame a right notion of a Deity without purity. It would be less
blasphemy against the excellency of God, to conceit him not knowing,
than to imagine him not holy: and, for the essentialness of his justice,
Joshua joins both his holiness and his jealousy as going hand in hand
together (Josh. xxiv. 19); “He is a holy God, he is a jealous God, he
will not forgive your sin.” But consider only the purity of God, since
it is contrary to sin, and, consequently, hating the sinner; the guilty
person cannot be reduced to God, nor can the holiness of God have any
complacency in a filthy person, but as fire hath in stubble, to consume
it. How the holy God should be brought to delight in man without a
_salvo_ for the rights of his holiness, is not to be conceived without
an impeachment of the nature of God. The law could not be abolished;
that would reflect, indeed, upon the righteousness of the Lawgiver: to
abolish it, because of sin, would imply a change of the rectitude of
his nature. Must he change his holiness for the sake of that which was
against his holiness, in a compliance with a profane and unrighteous
creature? This should engage him rather to maintain his law, than to
null it; and to abrogate his law as soon as he had enacted it, since
sin stepped into the world presently after it, would be no credit
to his wisdom. There must be a reparation made of the honor of God’s
holiness; by ourselves it could not be without condemnation; by another
it could not be without a sufficiency in the person: no creature could
do it. All the creatures being of a finite nature, could not make
a compensation for the disparagements of Infinite Holiness. He must
have despicable and vile thoughts of this excellent perfection, that
imagines that a few tears, and the glavering fawnings at the death of
a creature, can be sufficient to repair the wrongs, and restore the
rights of this attribute. It must, therefore, be such a compensation
as might be commensurate to the holiness of the Divine nature and
the Divine law, which could not be wrought by any, but Him that was
possessed of a Godhead to give efficacy and exact congruity to it. The
Person designed and appointed by God for so great an affair, was “one
in the form of God, one equal with God,” (Phil. ii. 6), who could not
be termed by such a title of dignity, if he had not been equal to God
in the universal rectitude of the Divine nature, and therefore in his
holiness. The punishment due to sin is translated to that person for
the righting Divine holiness, and the righteousness of that Person is
communicated to the sinner for the pardon of the offending creature.
If the sinner had been eternally damned, God’s hatred of sin had been
evidenced by the strokes of his justice; but his mercy to a sinner had
lain in obscurity. If the sinner had been pardoned and saved without
such a reparation, mercy had been evident; but his holiness had hid its
head for ever in his own bosom. There was therefore a necessity of such
a way to manifest his purity, and yet to bring forth his mercy: that
mercy might not alway sigh for the destruction of the creature, and
that holiness might not mourn for the neglect of its honor.
_Inform. 6._ Hence it will follow, there is no justification of a
sinner by any thing in himself. After sin had set foot in the world,
{b185} man could present nothing to God acceptable to him, or bearing
any proportion to the holiness of his law, till God set forth a Person,
upon whose account the acceptation of our persons and services is
founded (Eph. i. 6), “Who hath made us accepted in the Beloved.” The
Infinite purity of God is so glorious, that it shames the holiness
of angels, as the light of the sun dims the light of the fire; much
more will the righteousness of fallen man, who is vile, and “drinks
up iniquity like water,” vanish into nothing in his presence. With
what self‑abasement and abhorrence ought he to be possessed that comes
as short of the angels in purity, as a dunghill doth of a star! The
highest obedience that ever was performed by any mere man, since lapsed
nature, cannot challenge any acceptance with God, or stand before so
exact an inquisition. What person hath such a clear innocence, and
unspotted obedience in such a perfection, as in any degree to suit
the holiness of the Divine nature? (Ps. cxliii. 2): “Enter not into
judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be
justified.” If God should debate the case simply with a man in his own
person, without respecting the Mediator, he were not able to “answer
one of a thousand.” Though we are his servants, as David was, and
perform a sincere service, yet there are many little motes and dust of
sin in the best works, that cannot lie undiscovered from the eye of his
holiness; and if we come short in the least of what the law requires,
we are “guilty of all” (James ii. 10). So that “In thy sight shall no
man living be justified;” in the sight of thy infinite holiness, which
hates the least spot; in the sight of thy infinite justice, which
punishes the least transgression. God would descend below his own
nature, and vilify both his knowledge and his purity, should he accept
that for a righteousness and holiness which is not so in itself; and
nothing is so, which hath the least stain upon it contrary to the
nature of God. The most holy saints in Scripture, upon a prospect of
his purity, have cast away all confidence in themselves; every flash
of the Divine purity has struck them into a deep sense of their own
impurity and shame for it (Job xlii. 6), “Wherefore I abhor myself in
dust and ashes.” What can the language of any man be that lies under
a sense of infinite holiness and his own defilement in the least, but
that of the prophet (Isa. vi. 5), “Woe is me, I am undone?” And what is
there in the world can administer any other thought than this, unless
God be considered in Christ, “reconciling the world to himself?” As
a holy God, so righted, as that he can dispense with the condemnation
of a sinner, without dispensing with his hatred of sin; pardoning the
sin in the criminal, because it hath been punished in the Surety. That
righteousness which God hath “set forth” for justification, is not
our own, but a “righteousness which is of God” (Phil. iii. 9, 10), of
God’s appointing, and of God’s performing; appointed by the Father,
who is God, and performed by the Son, who is one with the Father; a
righteousness surmounting that of all the glorious angels, since it is
an immutable one which can never fail, an “everlasting righteousness”
(Dan. ix. 24); a righteousness wherein the holiness of God can
acquiesce, as considered in itself, because it is a righteousness of
one equal with God. As we {b186} therefore dishonor the Divine Majesty
when we insist upon our own bemired righteousness for our justification
as if “mortal man were as just as God,” and a “man as pure as his
Maker” (Job iv. 17), so we highly honor the purity of his nature,
when we charge ourselves with folly, acknowledge ourselves unclean,
and accept of that righteousness which gives a full content to his
infinite purity. There can be no justification of a sinner by anything
in himself.
_Inform. 7._ If holiness be a glorious perfection of the Divine nature,
then the Deity of Christ might be argued from hence. He is indeed
dignified with the title of the “Holy One” (Acts iii. 14, 16), a title
often given to God in the Old Testament; and he is called the “Holy of
holies” (Dan. ix. 24); but because the angels seemed to be termed “Holy
ones” (Dan. iv. 13, 17), and the most sacred place in the temple was
also called the “Holy of holies,” I shall not insist upon that. But you
find our Saviour particularly applauded by the angels, as “holy,” when
this perfection of the Divine nature, together with the incommunicable
name of God, are linked together, and ascribed to him (Isa. vi. 3):
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; and the whole earth is full of
his glory;” which the apostle interprets of “Christ” (John xii. 39, 41).
Isaiah, again: “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts,
that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their
hearts, and be converted, and I should heal them.” These things said
Isaiah, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. He that Isaiah saw
environed with the seraphims, in a reverential posture before his face,
and praised as most holy by them, was the true and eternal God; such
acclamations belong to none but the great Jehovah, God, blessed forever;
but, saith John, it was the “glory of Christ” that Isaiah saw in this
vision; Christ, therefore, is “God blessed forever,” of whom it was
said, “Holy, holy, holy Lord of Hosts.”[931] The evangelist had been
speaking of Christ, the miracles which he wrought, the obstinacy of the
Jews against believing on him; his glory, therefore, is to be referred
to the subject he had been speaking of. The evangelist was not speaking
of the Father, but of the Son, and cites those words out of Isaiah; not
to teach anything of the Father, but to show that the Jews could not
believe in Christ. He speaks of him that had wrought so many miracles;
but Christ wrought those miracles: he speaks of him whom the Jews
refused to believe on; but Christ was the person they would not believe
on, while they acknowledged God. It was the glory of this person Isaiah
saw, and this person Isaiah spake of, if the words of the evangelist be
of any credit. The angels are too holy to give acclamations belonging
to God, to any but him that is God.
_Inform. 8._ God is fully fit for the government of the world. The
righteousness of God’s nature qualifies him to be Judge of the world;
if he were not perfectly righteous and holy, he were incapable to
govern and judge the world (Rom. iii. 5): “If there be unrighteousness
with God, how shall he judge the world?” “God will not do wickedly,
neither will the Almighty pervert judgment” (Job xxxiv. 12). {b187} How
despicable is a judge that wants innocence! As omniscience fits God to
be a judge, so holiness fits him to be a righteous judge (Ps. i. 6):
“The Lord knows,” that is, loves, “the way of the righteous; but the
way of the ungodly shall perish.”
_Inform. 9._ If holiness be an eminent perfection of the Divine
nature, the Christian religion is of a Divine extraction: it discovers
the holiness of God, and forms the creature to a conformity to him.
It gives us a prospect of his nature, represents him in the “beauty of
holiness” (Ps. cx. 3), more than the whole glass of the creation. It is
in this evangelical glass the glory of the Lord is beheld, and rendered
amiable and imitable (2 Cor. iii. 18). It is a doctrine “according to
godliness” (1 Tim. vi. 3), directing us to live the life of God; a life
worthy of God, and worthy of our first creation by his hand. It takes
us off from ourselves, fixeth us upon a noble end, points our actions,
and the scope of our lives to God. It quells the monsters of sin,
discountenanceth the motes of wickedness; and it is no mean argument
for the divinity of it, that it sets us no lower a pattern for our
imitation, than the holiness of the Divine Majesty. God is exalted upon
the throne of his holiness in it, and the creature advanced to an image
and resemblance of it (1 Pet. i. 16): “Be ye holy, for I am holy.”
_Use 2._ The second use is for comfort. This attribute frowns upon
lapsed nature, but smiles in the restorations made by the gospel. God’s
holiness, in conjunction with his justice, is terrible to a guilty
sinner; but now, in conjunction with his mercy, by the satisfaction of
Christ, it is sweet to a believing penitent. In the “first covenant,”
the purity of his nature was joined with the rigors of his justice;
in the “second covenant,” the purity of his nature is joined with the
sweetness and tenderness of his mercy. In the one, justice flames
against the sinner in the right of injured holiness; in the other,
mercy yearns towards a believer, with the consent of righted holiness.
To rejoice in the holiness of God is the true and genuine spirit of a
renewed man: “My heart rejoiceth in the Lord;”――what follows?――“There
is none holy as the Lord” (1 Sam. ii. 1, 2). Some perfections of the
Divine nature are astonishing, some affrighting; but this may fill us
both with astonishment at it, and a joy in it.
1. By covenant, we have an interest in this attribute, as well as any
other. In that clause of “God’s being our God,” entire God with all his
glory, all his perfections are passed over as a portion, and a gracious
soul is brought into union with God, as his God; not with a part of
God, but with God in the simplicity, extent, integrity of his nature;
and therefore in this attribute. And, upon some account, it may seem
more in this attribute than in any other; for if he be our God, he is
our God in his life and glory, and therefore in his purity especially,
without which he could not live; he could not be happy and blessed.
Little comfort will it be to have a dead God, or a vile God, made over
to us; and as, by this covenant, he is our Father, so he gives us his
nature, and communicates his holiness in all his dispensations; and in
those that are severest, as well as those that are sweetest (Heb. xii.
10): “But he corrects us for our profit, that we might be partakers of
his holiness.” Not simply “partakers {b188} of holiness,” but of “his
holiness;” to have a portraiture of it in our nature, a medal of it in
our hearts, a spark of the same nature with that immense splendor and
flame in himself. The holiness of a covenant soul is a resemblance of
the holiness of God, and formed by it; as the picture of the sun in a
cloud is a fruit of his beams, and an image of its author. The fulness
of the perfection of holiness remains in the nature of God, as the
fulness of the light doth in the sun; yet there are transmissions of
light from the sun to the moon, and it is a light of the same nature
both in the one and in the other. The holiness of a creature is nothing
else but a reflection of the Divine holiness upon it; and to make the
creature capable of it, God takes various methods, according to his
covenant grace.
2. This attribute renders God a fit object for trust and dependence.
The notion of an unholy and unrighteous God, is an uncomfortable idea
of him, and beats off our hands from laying any hold of him. It is upon
this attribute the reputation and honor of God in the world is built;
what encouragement can we have to believe him, or what incentives
could we have to serve him, without the lustre of this in his nature?
The very thought of an unrighteous God is enough to drive men at the
greatest distance from him; as the honesty of a man gives a reputation
to his word, so doth the holiness of God give credit to his promise. It
is by this he would have us stifle our fears and fortify our trust (Isa.
xli. 14): “Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help
thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:” he
will be in his actions what he is in his nature. Nothing shall make him
defile his own excellency; unrighteousness is the ground of mutability;
but the promise of God doth never fail, because the rectitude of his
nature doth never languish: were his attributes without the conduct
of this, they would be altogether formidable. As this is the glory of
all his other perfections, so this only renders him comfortable to a
believing soul. Might we not fear his power to crush us, his mercy to
overlook us, his wisdom to design against us, if this did not influence
them? What an oppression is power without righteousness in the hand of
a creature; destructive, instead of protecting! The devil is a mighty
spirit, but not fit to be trusted, because he is an impure spirit.
When God would give us the highest security of the sincerity of his
intentions, he swears by this attribute (Ps. viii. 35): his holiness,
as well as his truth, is laid to pawn for the security of his promise.
As we make God the judge between us and others, when we swear by him,
so he makes his holiness the judge between himself and his people, when
he swears by it.
(1.) It is this renders him fit to be confided in for the answer
of our prayers. This is the ground of his readiness to give. “If you,
being evil, know how to give good gifts, how much more shall your
Father which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask him” (Matt.
vii. 11)! Though the holiness of God be not mentioned, yet it is to
be understood; the emphasis lies on these words, “if you, being evil:”
God is then considered in a disposition contrary to this, which can
be nothing but his righteousness. If you that are unholy, and have so
much corruption in you, to render you cruel, can bestow {b189} upon
your children the good things they want, how much more shall God,
who is holy, and hath nothing in him to check his mercifulness to
his creatures, grant the petitions of his supplicants! It was this
attribute edged the fiduciary importunity of the souls under the altar,
for the revenging their blood unjustly shed upon the earth: “How long,
O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that
dwell on the earth” (Rev. vi. 10)? Let not thy holiness stand with
folded arms, as careless of the eminent sufferings of those that fear
thee; we implore thee by the holiness of thy nature, and the truth of
thy word.
(2.) This renders him fit to be confided in for the comfort of our
souls in a broken condition. The reviving the hearts of the spiritually
afflicted, is a part of the holiness of his nature; “Thus saith the
high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell
in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and
humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble” (Isa. lvii. 15).
He acknowledgeth himself the lofty One; they might therefore fear
he would not revive them; but he is also the holy One, and therefore
he will refresh them; he is not more lofty than he is holy; besides,
the argument of the immutability of his promise, and the might of
his power, here is the holiness of his nature moving him to pity his
drooping creature: his promise is ushered in with the name of power,
“high and lofty One,” to bar their distrust of his strength, and with a
declaration of his holiness, to check any despair of his will: there is
no ground to think I should be false to my word, or misemploy my power,
since that cannot be, because of the holiness of my name and nature.
(3.) This renders him fit to be confided in for the maintenance of
grace, and protection of us against our spiritual enemies. What our
Saviour thought an argument in prayer, we may well take as a ground of
our confidence. In the strength of this he puts up his suit, when in
his mediatory capacity he intercedes for the preservation of his people
(John xvii. 11); “Holy Father, keep through thy own name those that
thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are.” “Holy Father,” not
merciful Father, or powerful, or wise Father, but “holy;” and (ver. 25),
“righteous Father.” Christ pleads that attribute for the performance of
God’s word, which was laid to pawn when he passed his word: for it was
by his holiness that he swore, that “his seed should endure forever,
and his throne as the sun before him” (Ps. lxxxix. 36); which is meant
of the perpetuity of the covenant which he made with Christ, and is
also meant of the preservation of the mystical seed of David, and the
perpetuating his loving‑kindness to them (ver. 32, 33). Grace is an
image of God’s holiness, and, therefore, the holiness of God is most
proper to be used as an argument to interest and engage him in the
preservation of it. In the midst of church‑provocations, he will not
utterly extinguish, because he is the “Holy One” in the midst of her
(Hos. xi. 9): nor in the midst of judgments will he condemn his people
to death, because he is “their Holy One” (Hab. i. 12); but their
enemies shall be ordained for judgment, and established for correction.
One prophet assures them in the name of the Lord, {b190} upon the
strength of this perfection; and the other, upon the same ground, is
confident of the protection of the church, because of God’s holiness
engaged in an inviolable covenant.