this in his judgments in the world. In a case of temporal judgment,
Moses celebrates it in the text; in a case of spiritual judgments, the
angels applaud it in Isaiah. All his severe proceedings are nothing
but the strong breathings of this attribute. Purity is the flash of his
revenging sword. If he did not hate evil, his vengeance would not reach
the committers of it. He is a “refiner’s fire” in the day of his anger
(Mal. iii. 2). By his separating judgments, “he takes away the wicked
of the earth like dross” (Ps. cxix. 119). How is his holiness honored,
when we take notice of his sweeping out the rubbish of the world; how
he suits punishment to sin, and discovers his hatred of the matter
and circumstances of the evil, in the matter and circumstances of the
judgment. This perfection is legible in every stroke of his sword; we
honor it when we read the syllables of it, and not by standing amazed
only at the greatness and severity of the blow, when we read how holy
he is in his most terrible dispensations: for as in them God magnifies
the greatness of his power, so he sanctifies himself; that is, declares
the purity of his nature as a revenger of all impiety (Ezek. xxxviii.
22, 23); “And I will plead against him with pestilence, and with blood:
and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the people
that are with him, an overflowing rain and great hailstones; fire, and
brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself.”
3. We honor this attribute, when we take notice of it in every
accomplishment of his promise, and every grant of a mercy. His truth
is but a branch of his righteousness, a slip from this root. He is
glorious in holiness in the account of Moses, because he “led forth his
people whom he had redeemed” (Exod. xv. 13); his people by a covenant
with their fathers, being the God of Moses, the God of Israel, and
the God of their fathers (ver. 2). “My God, and my father’s God, I
will exalt thee.” For what? for his faithfulness to his promise. The
holiness of God, which Mary (Luke i. 49) magnifies, is summed up in
this, the help he afforded his servant Israel in the “remembrance of
his mercy, as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham and his seed forever”
(ver. 54, 55). The certainty of his covenant mercy depends upon an
unchangeableness of his holiness. What are “sure mercies,” (Isa. lv. 3),
are holy mercies in the Septuagint, {b198} and in Acts xiii. 34, which
makes that translation canonical. His nearness to answer us, when we
call upon him for such mercies, is a fruit of the holiness of his name
and nature (Ps. clxv. 17). “The Lord is holy in all his works; the Lord
is nigh to all them that call upon him.” Hannah, after a return of
prayer, sets a particular mark upon this, in her song (1 Sam. ii. 2);
“There is none holy as the Lord;” separated from all dross, firm to
his covenant, and righteous in it to his suppliants, that confide
in him, and plead his word. When we observe the workings of this in
every return of prayer, we honor it; it is a sign the mercy is really
a return of prayer, and not a mercy of course, bearing upon it only the
characters of a common providence. This was the perfection David would
bless, for the catalogue of mercies in Ps. ciii. 1, &c.; “Bless his
holy name.” Certainly, one reason why sincere prayer is so delightful
to him, is because it puts him upon the exercise of this his beloved
perfection, which he so much delighteth to honor. Since God acts in all
those as the governor of the world, we honor him not, unless we take
notice of that righteousness which fits him for a governor, and is
the inward spring of all his motions (Gen. xviii. 25). “Shall not the
Judge of all the earth do right?” It was his design in his pity to
Israel, as well as the calamities he intended against the heathens, to
be “sanctified in them;” that is, declared holy in his merciful as well
as his judicial procedure (Ezek. xxxvi. 21, 23). Hereby God credits his
righteousness, which seemed to be forgotten by the one, and contemned
by the other;[934] he removes, by this, all suspicion of unfaithfulness
in him.
4. We honor this attribute, when we trust his covenant, and promise
against outward appearances. Thus our Saviour, in the prophecy of him
(Ps. xxii. 2‒4), when God seemed to bar up the gates of his palace
against the entry of any more petitions, this attribute proves the
support of the Redeemer’s soul; “But thou art holy, O thou that
inhabitest the praises of Israel:” as it refers to what goes before,
it has been twice explained; as it refers to what follows, it is a
ground of trust; “Thou inhabitest the praises of Israel:” thou hast
had the praises of Israel for many ages, for thy holiness. How? “Our
fathers trusted in thee, and thou didst deliver them;” they honored
thy holiness by their trust, and thou didst honor their faith by
a deliverance; thou always hadst a purity that would not shame nor
confound them. I will trust in thee as thou art holy, and expect the
breaking out of this attribute for my good as well as my predecessors;
“Our fathers trusted in thee,” &c.
5. We honor this attribute, when we show a greater affection to the
marks of his holiness in times of the greatest contempt of it. As the
Psalmist (Ps. cxix. 126, 127); “They have made void thy law, therefore
I love thy commandments above gold;” while they spurn at the purity
of thy law, I will value it above the gold they possess; I will esteem
it as gold, because others count it as dross; by their scorn of it,
my love to it shall be the warmer; and my hatred of iniquity shall be
the sharper: the disdain of others should inflame us with a zeal and
fortitude to appear in behalf of his despised honor. {b199} We honor
this holiness many other ways; by preparation for our addresses to him,
out of a sense of his purity; when we imitate it: as He honors us by
“teaching us his statutes” (Ps. cxix. 135), so we honor him by learning
and observing them. When we beg of him to show himself a refiner of
us, to make us more conformable to him in holiness, and bless him for
any communication of it to us, it renders us beautiful and lovely in
his sight. To conclude: to honor it, is the way to engage it for us;
to give it the glory of what it hath done, by the arm of power for
our rescue from sin, and beating down our corruptions at his feet,
is the way to see more of its marvellous works, and behold a clearer
brightness. As unthankfulness makes him withdraw his grace (Rom. i. 21,
24), so glorifying him causes him to impart it. God honors men in the
same way they honor him; when we honor him by acknowledging his purity,
he will honor us by communicating of it to us. This is the way to
derive a greater excellency to our souls.
_Exhort. 3._ Since holiness is an eminent perfection of the Divine
nature, let us labor after a conformity to God in this perfection. The
nature of God is presented to us in the Scripture, both as a pattern to
imitate, and a motive to persuade the creature to holiness (1 John iii.
3; Matt. v. 48; Lev. xi. 44; 1 Pet. i. 15, 16). Since it is, therefore,
the nature of God, the more our natures are beautified with it, the
more like we are to the Divine nature. It is not the pattern of angels,
or archangels, that our Saviour, or his apostle, proposeth for our
imitation; but the original of all purity, God himself; the same that
created us, to be imitated by us. Nor is an equal degree of purity
enjoined us; though we are to be pure, and perfect, and merciful
as God is, yet not essentially so; for that would be to command us
an impossibility in itself; as much as to order us to cease to be
creatures, and commence gods. No creature can be essentially holy but
by participation from the chief Fountain of Holiness; but we must have
the same kind of holiness, the same truth of holiness. As a short line
may be as straight as another, though it parallel it not in the immense
length of it; a copy may have the likeness of the original, though not
the same perfection; we cannot be good, without eyeing some exemplar
of goodness as the pattern. No pattern is so suitable as that which is
the highest goodness and purity. That limner that would draw the most
excellent piece, fixes his eyes upon the most perfect pattern. He that
would be a good orator, or poet, or artificer, considers some person
most excellent in each kind, as the object of his imitation. Who so
fit as God to be viewed as the pattern of holiness, in our intendment
of, and endeavor after holiness? The Stoics, one of the best sects
of philosophers, advised their disciples to pitch upon some eminent
example of virtue, according to which to form their lives; as Socrates,
&c. But true holiness doth not only endeavor to live the life of a
good man, but chooses to live a divine life; as before the man was
“alienated from the life of God” (Eph. iv. 19), so, upon his return, he
aspires after the life of God. To endeavor to be like a good man is to
make one image like another; to set our clocks by other clocks, without
regarding the sun: but true holiness consists in a likeness to the most
exact sampler. God {b200} being the first purity, is the rule as well
as the spring of all purity in the creature, the chief and first object
of imitation. We disown ourselves to be his creatures, if we breathe
not after a resemblance to him in what he is imitable. There was in man,
as created according to God’s image, a natural appetite to resemble God:
it was at first planted in him by the Author of his nature. The devil’s
temptation of him by that motive to transgress the law, had been as
an arrow shot against a brazen wall, had there not been a desire of
some likeness to his Creator engraven upon him (Gen. iii. 5): it would
have had no more influence upon him, than it could have had upon a
mere animal. But man mistook the term; he would have been like God in
knowledge, whereas, he should have affected a greater resemblance of
him in purity. O that we could exemplify God in our nature! Precepts
may instruct us more, but examples affect us more; one directs us, but
the other attracts us. What can be more attractive of our imitation,
than that which is the original of all purity, both in men and angels?
This conformity to him consists in an imitation of him,
1. In his law. The purity of his nature was first visible in this
glass; hence, it is called a “holy” law (Rom. vii. 12); a “pure”
law (Ps. xix. 8). Holy and pure, as it is a ray of the pure nature
of the Lawgiver. When our lives are a comment upon his law, they are
expressive of his holiness: we conform to his holiness when we regulate
ourselves by his law, as it is a transcript of his holiness: we do not
imitate it, when we do a thing in the matter of it agreeable to that
holy rule, but when we do it with respect to the purity of the Lawgiver
beaming in it. If it be agreeable to God’s will, and convenient for
some design of our own, and we do anything only with a respect to that
design, we make not God’s holiness discovered in the law our rule, but
our own conveniency: it is not a conformity to God, but a conformity
of our actions to _self_. As in abstinence from intemperate courses,
not because the holiness of God in his law hath prescribed it, but
because the health of our bodies, or some noble contentments of life,
require it; then it is not God’s holiness that is our rule, but our
own security, conveniency, or something else which we make a God to
ourselves. It must be a real conformity to the law: our holiness should
shine as really in the practice, as God’s purity doth in the precept.
God hath not a pretence of purity in his nature, but a reality: it is
not only a sudden boiling up of an admiration of him, or a starting
wish to be like him, from some sudden impression upon the fancy,
which is a mere temporary blaze, but a settled temper of soul, loving
everything that is like him, doing things out of a firm desire to
resemble his purity in the copy he hath set; not a resting in negatives,
but aspiring to positives; holy and harmless are distinct things: they
were distinct qualifications in our High Priest in his obedience to the
law (Heb. vii. 26), so they must be in us.
2. In his Christ. As the law is the transcript, so Christ is the
image of his holiness: the glory of God is too dazzling to be beheld
by us: the acute eye of an angel is too weak to look upon that bright
sun without covering his face: we are much too weak to take {b201} our
measures from that purity which is infinite in his nature. But he hath
made his Son like us, that by the imitation of him in that temper, and
shadow of human flesh, we may arrive to a resemblance of him (2 Cor.
iii. 18). Then there is a conformity to him, when that which Christ did
is drawn in lively colors in the soul of a Christian; when, as he died
upon the cross, we die to our sins; as he rose from the grave, we rise
from our lusts; as he ascended on high, we mount our souls thither;
when we express in our lives what shined in his, and exemplify in our
hearts what he acted in the world, and become one with him, as he was
separate from sinners. The holiness of God in Christ is our ultimate
pattern: as we are not only to believe in Christ, but “by Christ in
God” (John xiv. 1), so we are not only to imitate Christ, but the
holiness of God as discovered in Christ. And, to enforce this upon us,
let us consider,
(1.) It is this only wherein he commands our imitation of him. We
are not commanded to be mighty and wise, as God is mighty and wise: but
“be holy, as I am holy.” The declarations of his power are to enforce
our subjection; those of his wisdom, to encourage our direction by him;
but this only to attract our imitation. When he saith, “I am holy,”
the immediate inference he makes, is, “Be ye so too,” which is not
the proper instruction from any other perfection.[935] Man was created
by Divine power, and harmonized by Divine wisdom, but not after them,
or according to them, as the true image; this was the prerogative
of Divine holiness, to be the pattern of his rational creature:[936]
wisdom and power were subservient to this, the one as the pencil,
the other as the hand that moved it. The condition of a creature is
too mean to have the communications of the Divine essence; the true
impressions of his righteousness and goodness we are only capable of.
It is only in those moral perfections we are said to resemble God.
The devils, those impure and ruined spirits, are nearer to him in
strength and knowledge than we are; yet in regard of that natural and
intellectual perfection, never counted like him, but at the greatest
distance from him, because at the greatest distance from his purity.
God values not a natural might, nor an acute understanding, nor
vouchsafes such perfections the glorious title of that of his image.
Plutarch saith, God is angry with those that imitate his thunder or
lightning, his works of majesty, but delighted with those that imitate
his virtue.[937] In this only we can never incur any reproof from him,
but for falling short of him and his glory. Had Adam endeavored after
an imitation of this, instead of that of Divine knowledge, he had
escaped his fall, and preserved his standing; and had Lucifer wished
himself like God in this, as well as his dominion, he had still been
a glorious angel, instead of being now a ghastly devil: to reach after
a union with the Supreme Being, in regard of holiness, is the only
generous and commendable ambition.
(2.) This is the prime way of honoring God. We do not so glorify God by
elevated admirations, or eloquent expressions, or pompous services of
him, as when we aspire to a conversing with him with unstained spirits,
and live to him in living like him. The angels are {b202} not called
holy for applauding his purity, but conforming to it. The more perfect
any creature is in the rank of beings, the more is the Creator honored;
as it is more for the honor of God to create an angel or man, than a
mere animal; because there are in such clearer characters of Divine
power and goodness, than in those that are inferior. The more perfect
any creature is morally, the more is God glorified by that creature;
it is a real declaration, that God is the best and most amiable Being;
that nothing besides him is valuable, and worthy to be object of our
imitation. It is a greater honoring of him, than the highest acts of
devotion, and the most religious bodily exercise, or the singing this
song of Moses in the text, with a triumphant spirit; as it is more the
honor of a father to be imitated in his virtues by his son, than to
have all the glavering commendations by the tongue or pen of a vicious
and debauched child. By this we honor him in that perfection which is
dearest to him, and counted by him as the chiefest glory of his nature.
God seems to accept the glorifying this attribute, as if it were a real
addition to that holiness which is infinite in his nature, and because
infinite, cannot admit of any increase: and, therefore, the word
sanctified is used instead of glorified. (Isa. viii. 13), “Sanctify the
Lord of Hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your
dread.” And (Isa. xxix. 23), “They shall sanctify the holy One of Jacob,
and fear the God of Israel.” This sanctification of God is by the
fear of him, which signifies in the language of the Old Testament, a
reverence of him, and a righteousness before him. He doth not say, when
he would have his power or wisdom glorified, Empower me or make me wise;
but when he would have his holiness glorified by the creature, it is,
Sanctify me; that is, manifest the purity of my nature by the holiness
of your lives: but he expresseth it in such a term, as if it were an
addition to this infinite perfection; so acceptable it is to him, as if
it were a contribution from his creature for the enlarging an attribute
so pleasing to him, and so glorious in his eye. It is, as much as in
the creature lies, a preserving the life of God, since this perfection
is his life; and that he would as soon part with his life as part
with his purity. It keeps up the reputation of God in the world, and
attracts others to a love of him; whereas, unworthy carriages defame
God in the eyes of men, and bring up an ill report of him, as if he
were such an one as those that profess him, and walk unsuitably to
their profession, appear to be.
(3.) This is the excellency and beauty of a creature. The title of
“beauty” is given to it in Ps. cx. 3; “beauties,” in the plural number,
as comprehending it in all other beauties whatsoever. What is a Divine
excellency cannot be a creature’s deformity: the natural beauty of it
is a representation of the Divinity; and a holy man ought to esteem
himself excellent in being such in his measure as his God is, and puts
his principal felicity in the possession of the same purity in truth.
This is the refined complexion of the angels that stand before his
throne. The devils lost their comeliness when they fell from it. It
was the honor of the human nature of our Saviour, not only to be united
to the Deity, but to be sanctified by it. He was “fairer than all the
children of men,” because he had a holiness above the children {b203}
of men: “grace was poured into his lips” (Ps. xlv. 2). It was the
jewel of the reasonable nature in paradise: conformity to God was
man’s original happiness in his created state; and what was naturally
so, cannot but be immutably so in its own nature. The beauty of every
copied thing consists in its likeness to the original; everything hath
more of loveliness, as it hath greater impressions of its first pattern:
in this regard holiness hath more of beauty on it than the whole
creation, because it partakes of a greater excellency of God than the
sun, moon, and stars. No greater glory can be, than to be a conspicuous
and visible image of the invisible, and holy, and blessed God. As this
is the splendor of all the Divine attributes, so it is the flower of
all a christian’s graces, the crown of all religion: it is the glory
of the Spirit. In this regard the king’s daughter is said to be “all
glorious within” (Ps. xlv. 13). It is more excellent than the soul
itself, since the greatest soul is but a deformed piece without it: a
“diamond without lustre.”[938] What are the noble faculties of the soul
without it, but as a curious rusty watch, a delicate heap of disorder
and confusion? It is impossible there can be beauty where there are
a multitude of “spots and wrinkles” that blemish a countenance (Eph.
v. 27). It can never be in its true brightness but when it is perfect
in purity; when it regains what it was possessed of by creation, and
dispossessed of by the fall, and recovers its primitive temper. We
are not so beautiful by being the work of God, as by having a stamp of
God upon us. Worldly greatness may make men honorable in the sight of
creeping worms. Soft lives, ambitious reaches, luxurious pleasures, and
a pompous religion, render no man excellent and noble in the sight of
God: this is not the excellency and nobility of the Deity which we are
bound to resemble; other lines of a Divine image must be drawn in us to
render us truly excellent.
(4.) It is our life. What is the life of God is truly the life of
a rational creature.[939] The life of the body consists not in the
perfection of its members, and the integrity of its organs; these
remain when the body becomes a carcass; but in the presence of the
soul, and its vigorous animation of every part to perform the distinct
offices belonging to each of them. The life of the soul consists not in
its being, or spiritual substance, or the excellency of its faculties
of understanding and will, but in the moral and becoming operations of
them. The spirit is only “life because of righteousness” (Rom. viii.
10). The faculties are turned by it, to acquit themselves in their
functions, according to the will of God; the absence of this doth not
only deform the soul, but, in a sort, annihilate it, in regard of its
true essence and end. Grace gives a Christian being, and a want of
it is the want of a true being (1 Cor. xv. 10). When Adam divested
himself of his original righteousness, he came under the force of the
threatening, in regard of a spiritual death; every person is “morally
dead while he lives” an unholy life (1 Tim. v. 6). What life is to the
body, that is righteousness to the spirit; and the greater measure of
holiness it hath, the more of life it hath, because it is in a {b204}
greater nearness, and partakes more fully of the fountain of life.
Is not that the most worthy life, which God makes most account of,
without which his life could not be a pleasant and blessed life, but a
life worse than death? What a miserable life is that of the men of the
world, that are carried, with greedy inclinations, to all manner of
unrighteousness, whither their interests or their lusts invite them!
The most beautiful body is a carcass, and the most honorable person
hath but a brutish life (Ps. xlix. 20); miserable creatures when their
life shall be extinct without a Divine rectitude, when all other things
will vanish as the shadows of the night at the appearance of the sun!
Holiness is our life.