OF GOD'S JUSTICE. THE next attribute is God's justice. All God's attributes are identical, and are the same with his essence. Though he hath several attributes whereby he is made known to us, yet he hath but one essence. 3d. God doth justice voluntarily: justice flows from his nature. Men may act unjustly, because they are bribed or forced: God will not be bribed, because of his justice; he cannot be forced, because of power. doth justice out of love to justice, Heb. i. 9, "Thou hast loved righteousness." He 4th. Justice is the perfection of the Divine A cedar-tree may have several branches, yet it is but one cedar: so there are several attributes of God whereby we conceive of him, but only one entire essence. Well nature. Aristotle saith, "justice comprethen, concerning God's justice, Deut. xxxii. 4, "Just and right is he;" Job xxxvii. 23, "Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out; he is excellent in power and in judgment." God is said to dwell in justice, Ps. lxxxix. 14, "Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne." In God, power and justice meet. Power holds the sceptre, and justice holds the balance. hends in it all virtues." To say God is just, is to say, he is all that is excellent; perfections meet in him, as lines in a centre. He is not only just, but justice itself. QUEST. What is God's justice? 5th. God never did, nor can do, the least wrong to his creatures. God's justice hath been wronged, but never did any wrong. God doth not go according to the summum jus, or rigour of the law; he abates something of his severity. He might inflict heavier penalties than he doth, Ezra ix. 13, "Thou hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve;" our mercies are more than we deserve, and our punishments less. ANS. Justice is to give every one his due. God's justice is the rectitude of his nature, whereby he is carried to the doing of that which is righteous and equal: Prov. xxiv. 12, "Shall not he render to every man according 6th. God's justice is such that it is not fit to his works?" God is an impartial judge, for any man or angel to expostulate with he judgeth the cause; men oft judge the per- God, or demand a reason of his actions. God son, but not the cause, which is not justice, hath not only authority on his side, but equibut malice; God judgeth the cause, Gen. ty. He lays "judgment to the line, and xviii. 21, "I will go down now and see righteousness to the plummet," Isa. xxviii. whether they have done altogether according 17; and it is below him to give an account to the cry of it which is come up unto me." to us of his proceedings. Which of these When the Lord is upon a punitive act, he two is fittest to take place,-God's justice, or weighs things in the balance; he doth not man's reason? Rom. ix. 20, "Who art thou, punish rashly, he doth not go in the way of O man! that repliest against God?" The a riot, but a circuit, against offenders. Con-plumb-line of our reason is too short to facerning God's justice, I shall lay down these thom the depth of God's justice, Rom, xi. 33, six positions. "How unsearchable are his judgments!" We are to adore God's justice, where we cannot see a reason of it. 1st. God cannot be but just. His holiness is the cause of his justice. Holiness will not suffer him to do any thing but what is righteous. He can no more be unjust than he can be unholy. Now God's justice runs in two channels: It is seen in two things, the distribution of rewards and punishments. 2d. God's will is the supreme rule of jus- 1. In rewarding the virtuous: Ps. lviii. 11, tice; it is the standard of equity. His will" Verily there is a reward for the righteous!" is wise and good. God wills nothing but The saints shall not serve him for nought, he what is just; and therefore it is just because will reward præces et lachrymas; though he wills it. they may be losers for him, they shall not be losers by him, Heb. vi. 10, "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed toward his name." He gives a reward, not that we have deserved it, but because he hath promised it. 2. He is just in punishing offenders. And he is just, 1. Because he punisheth sinners by a law. "Where there is no law there is no transgression," Rom. iv. 15. But God hath given men a law, and they break it, therefore he punisheth them justly.-2. God is just in punishing the wicked; because he never punished them, but upon full proof and evidence. What greater evidence than for a man's own conscience to be witness against him? There is nothing God chargeth upon a sinner, but conscience doth set seal to the truth of it. Use 1. See here another flower of God's crown; he is just and righteous; he is the exemplar and pattern of justice. OBJ. But how doth it seem to stand with | God's justice, that the wicked should prosper in the world? Prov. xii. 1, Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper ?" tion, Ps. li. 4, "That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest." A. 3. God doth not always let the wicked prosper in their sin; some he doth punish openly, that his justice may be taken notice of, Ps. ix. 16, "The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth :" that is, his justice is seen by striking men dead in the very act of sin. Thus he struck Zimri and Cozbi in the act of uncleanness. A. 4. If God do let men prosper awhile in their sin, his vial of wrath is all this while filling, his sword is all this time whetting, and though God may forbear men awhile, yet long forbearance is no forgiveness. The longer God is in taking his blow, the heavier it will be at last as long as there is eternity, God hath time enough to reckon with his enemies. Justice may be as a lion asleep, but at last this lion will awake, and roar upon the sinner. Do not Nero, and Julian, and Cain, now meet with God's justice? ОвJ. But God's own people suffer great afflictions; they are injured and persecuted, This hath been a great stumbling, and been | Ps. lxxiii. 14, “All the day long have I been ready to make many question God's justice. plagued, and chastened every morning." Such as are highest in sin, are highest in How doth this stand with God's justice? power. Diogenes seeing Harpalus a thief go ANS. 1. That is a true rule of St Austin, on prosperously, said, "Sure God hath cast-judicia Dei possunt esse occulta, non inoff the government of the world, and mindeth | justa,-" God's ways of judgment are somenot how things go on here below!" ANS. 1. The wicked may be sometimes instruments to do God's work; though they do not design his glory, yet they may promote it. Cyrus (Ezra i. 7), was instrumental in the building of God's temple in Jerusalem. There is some kind of justice, that they should have a temporal reward; God lets them prosper, under whose wing his people are sheltered. God will not be in any man's debt: Mal. i. 10, "Do ye kindle a fire on mine altar for nought?" A. 2. God lets men go on in sin, and prosper, that he may leave them more inexcusable, Rev. ii. 21, "I gave her space to repent of her fornication." God adjourns the sessions, spins out his mercies towards sinners; and if they repent not, his patience will be a witness against them, and his justice will be more cleared in their condemna times secret, but never unjust." The Lord never afflicts his people without a cause; so that he cannot be unjust. There is some good in the godly, therefore the wicked afflict them; there is some evil in them, therefore God afflicts them. God's own children have their blemishes, 2 Chron. xxviii. 10, "Are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord?" These spiritual diamonds, have they no flaws? Do we not read of the spots of God's children? Deut. xxxii. 10. Are not they guilty of much pride, censoriousness, passion, worldliness? Though, by their profession, they seem to resemble the birds of paradise,-to fly above, and feed upon the dew of heaven,—yet, as the serpent, they lick the dust. And these sins of God's people do more provoke God than others: Deut. xxxii. 19, "Because of the provoking of his sons and of his daugh ters." The sins of others pierce Christ's may, without any injustice, remit the debt side, these wound his heart; therefore is not to one, and exact it off the other. If two God just in all the evils that befall them? malefactors be condemned to die, the king Amos iii. 2, "You only have I known of all may pardon the one, and not the other; he the families of the earth, therefore I will pun- is not unjust if he lets one suffer, because he ish you for all your iniquities." I will punish offended the law; nor if he save the other, you sooner, surer, sorer, than others. because he will make use of his prerogative A. 2. The trials and sufferings of the godly as he is king.-2. Though some are saved are to refine and purify them. God's fur- and others perish, yet there is no unrighteousnace is in Zion, Isa. xxxi. 9. Is it any injus-ness in God; because, whoever perisheth, tice in God to put his gold into the furnace his destruction is of himself, Hos. xiii. 9, to purify it? Is it any injustice in God, by afflicting his people, to make them partakers of his holiness? Heb. xii. 10. What doth more proclaim God's faithfulness, than to take such a course with them as may make them better? Ps. cxix. 75, "In faithfulness thou hast afflicted me." "O Israel thou hast destroyed thyself." God offers grace, the sinner refuseth it; is God bound to give grace? If a chirurgeon comes to heal a man's wound, and he will not be healed, but bolts out his chirurgeon, is the chirurgeon bound to heal him? Prov. i. 24, "I have called, and ye refused;” Ps. lxxxi. 11, “Israel would none of me." God is not bound to force his mercies upon men: if they wilfully oppose the offer of grace, their sin is to be taxed as the cause of their perish between God A. 3. What injustice is it in God to inflict a lesser punishment, and prevent a greater? The best of God's children have that in them which is meritorious of hell: now, I pray, doth God do them any wrong, if he usething, and not God's justice. only the rod, where they have deserved the Use 2. See the difference scorpion? Is the father unjust if he only cor- and a great part of the world. They are unrects his child who hath deserved to be dis-just, 1. In their courts of judicature; they inherited? If God deals so favourably with his children, he only puts wormwood in their cup, whereas he might put fire and brimstone; they are rather to admire his mercy, than complain of his injustice. OBJ. How can it stand with God's justice, that all men being equally guilty by nature, God should pass by one and save another? Why doth not he deal with all alike? ANS. Rom. ix. 14, "Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid !" Job viii. 3, "Doth the Almighty pervert justice?" 66 1. God is not bound to give an account of his actions to his creatures. If none may say to a king, What doest thou? Eccl. viii. 4, much less to God. It is sufficient, God is Lord Paramount; he hath a sovereign power over his creatures, therefore can do no injustice, Rom. ix. 21, Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour?" God hath a liberty left in his own breast to save one and not another; and his justice is not at all impeached or blemished. If two men owe you money, you pervert justice, Isa. x. 1, "They decree unrighteous decrees." The Hebrew word for a judge's robe, signifies prevarication, deceit, or injustice: it is oftener true of the judge than of the robe; the judge deserves rather to have that name than the robe. What is a good law, without a good judge? Injustice lies in two things, either not to punish where there is a fault, or, to punish where there is no fault; how frequent! Again, 2. Unjust in their dealings. This is (1). Either in using false weights, Hos. xii. 7, “The balances of deceit are in his hand." It is sad to have the Bible in one hand, and false weights in the other. Or, (2). In adulterating commodities, Isa. i. 22, "Thy wine is mixed with water;" when they mix bad grain with good, yet sell it for pure grain. I can never believe he is good in the first table, who is not good in the second. He cannot be godly who is not just. Though God doth not bid you be omnipotent, as he is, yet he bids you be just, as he is. Use 3. Imitate God in justice. Let Christ's golden maxim be observed, Matt. vii. 12, "What you would have men to do to you, do ye even so to them." You would righteous, and condemn the wicked, Acts not have them wrong you, neither do you xvii. 31, "He hath appointed a day," &c. them; rather suffer wrong than do wrong, If God be a just God, he will take vengeance. 1 Cor. vi. 7, "Why do ye not rather take God hath given men a law to live by,-they wrong?" O be exemplary for justice! Let break it; there must be a day for the execujustice be your ornament! Job xxix. 14, "I tion of offenders; a law not executed, is but put on righteousness (viz. justice) as a robe like a wooden dagger, for a show. At the and a diadem." A robe for its graceful beau- last day God's sword shall be drawn out ty; and I put it on,—et induebam justitiam. against offenders; then his justice shall be A judge puts on his robe, and puts it off revealed before all the world, "God will again at night; but Job did so put on justice, judge in righteousness," Acts xvii. 31. as he did not put it off till death,-semper "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" vestiti. We must not lay off this robe of Gen. xviii. 25. The wicked shall drink a sea justice till we lay down our tabernacle. If of wrath, but not sip one drop of injustice. you have any thing of God in you, you will be like him. By every unjust action you do deny yourselves to be Christians, you stain the glory of your profession; heathens will rise up in judgment against you; the sun might sooner alter his course than God could be turned from doing justice. At that day shall all mouths be stopt, and God's justice shall be fully vindicated from all the cavils and clamours of unjust men. Use 5. Comfort to the true penitent; as God is a just God, he will pardon him. Homo agnoscit, Deus ignoscit. 1 John i. 9, "If we confess our sins, (i. e. confess and Use 4. If God be just, there will be a forsake), he is just to forgive us our sins.” day of judgment. Now things are out of Not only merciful but just. Why just? Becourse; sin is rampant, saints are wronged, cause he hath promised to forgive such? they are often cast in a righteous cause, they Prov. xxviii. 13. If thy heart hath been can meet with no justice here, justice is turn-broken for and from sin, thou mayest not ed into wormwood; but there is a day com- only plead God's mercy, but his justice for ing, when God will set things right, he will the pardoning thy sin. Show him his hand do every man justice, he will crown the and seal, he cannot deny himself. THE MERCY OF GOD. THE next attribute is God's goodness or 1. I shall lay down these twelve posimercy. Mercy is the result and effect of tions: 1. It is the great design of the scripGod's goodness, Ps. xxxiii. 5. Ps. cxix. 64. ture to represent God as merciful. This is a So then this is the next attribute, God's loadstone to draw sinners to him, Exod. goodness or mercy. The most learned of the xxxiv. 6, "The Lord, merciful, gracious, heathens thought they gave their God, Jupi- long-suffering, abundant in goodness," &c. ter, two golden characters when they styled Here are six expressions to set forth God's him Good and Great; both these meet in mercy, and but one to set forth his justice: God, Goodness and Greatness,-majesty and" who will by no means clear the guilty," Ps. lvii. 10. 66 Thy mercy is great above the heavens," Ps. cviii. 4. God is represented as a king, and a rainbow was about his throne, Rev. iv. 3. The rainbow was an emblem of mercy; the scripture doth oftener represent God in his white robes of mercy, than with his garments rolled in blood,-oftener with his golden sceptre, than his iron rod. mercy. God is, 1. Essentially good in himself. And 2. Relatively good to us. They are both put together, Ps. cxix. 68, "Thou art good, and doest good." This relative goodness is nothing else but his mercy, which is an innate propenseness in God to pity and succour such as are in misery. Concerning God's mercy. 2. God is more inclinable to mercy than wrath. Mercy is his darling attribute, which he most delights in, Mic. vii. 18. Mercy pleaseth him. It is delightful to the mother, saith Chrysostom, to have her breasts drawn: so it is to God, to have the breasts of his mercy drawn: Is. xxvii. 4, "Fury is not in me;" that is, I do not delight in it. Acts of severity are rather forced from God, he doth not afflict willingly, Lam. iii. 33. The bee naturally gives honey, it stings only when it is provoked; God doth not punish till he can bear no longer, Jer. xliv. 22, "So that the Lord could bear no longer, because of the evil of your doings." Mercy is God's right hand that he is most used to; inflicting of punishment is called God's 'strange work,' Isa. xxviii. 21. He is not used to it. And when the Lord would shave off the pride of a nation, he is said to hire a razor,' as if he had none of his own. Isa. vii. 20, He shall shave with a razor that is hired.' "He is slow to anger," Ps. ciii. 8; "and ready to forgive," Ps. lxxxvi. 5. mercy is his glory; his holiness makes him illustrious; his mercy makes him propitious. 6. Even the worst taste of God's mercy; such as fight against God's mercy, taste of it; the wicked have some crumbs from mer cy's table; "The Lord is good to all," Ps. cxlv. 9. The sweet dew drops on the thistle as well as the rose. The diocese where mercy visits is very large; Pharaoh's head was crowned though his heart was hardened. 7. Mercy coming to us in a covenant is sweetest. It was mercy that God would give Israel rain, and bread to the full, and peace, and victory over their enemies, Lev. xxvi. 4, 5, 6. But it was a greater mercy that God would be their God, v. 12. To have health is a mercy; but to have Christ and salvation is a greater mercy; this is like the diamond in the ring, it casts a more sparkling lustre. 8. One act of mercy engageth God to another. Men argue thus: I have shown you kindness already, therefore trouble me no more; but, because God hath shown mercy, he is more ready still to show mercy; his mercy in election, makes him justify, adopt, glorify; one act of mercy engageth God to more. A parent's love to his child makes him always giving, 3. There is no condition, but we may spy mercy in it: when the church was in captivity, she cries out, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed," Lam. iii. 22. Geographers write of Syracuse in Sicily, it is so situated, that the sun is never out of 9. All the mercy in the creature is desight. In all afflictions we may see some sun-rived from God, and is but a drop of this shine of mercy. That outward and inward troubles do not come together, is mercy. 4. Mercy sweetens all God's other attributes: God's holiness without mercy, and his justice without mercy, were terrible. When the water was bitter, and Israel could not drink, Moses cast a tree into the waters, and then they were made sweet. How bitter and dreadful were the other attributes of God, did not mercy sweeten them! Mercy set God's power on work to help us; it makes his justice become our friend; it shall avenge our quarrels. 5. God's mercy is one of the most orient pearls of his crown; it makes his Godhead appear amiable and lovely. When Moses said to God, "I beseech thee show me thy glory;" the Lord answered him, "I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will show thee mercy," Exod. xxxiii. 19. God's ocean; the mercy and pity a mother hath to her child is from God; he that puts the milk in her breast, puts the compassion in her heart, therefore God is called, "The father of mercies," 2 Cor. i. 3, because he begets all the mercies in the world. If God hath put any kindness into the creature, how much kindness is in him who is the Father of mercy? 10. God's mercy, as it makes the saints happy, so it should make them humble. Mercy is not the fruit of our goodness, but the fruit of God's goodness. Mercy is an alms that God bestows; they have no cause to be proud that live upon the alms of God's mercy, Job x. 15, "If I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head." All my righteousness is the effect of God's mercy, therefore I will be humble, and will not lift up my head. |