(3.) How God will exercise his fatherly justice upon his people, and his patience toward the wicked.
(1st.) His corrective justice toward his people, by many penal evils inflicted up them : 1 Sam. vii. 14, ' If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and the stripes of the children of men.' The faults of the godly procure to them shapp correction : 1 Cor. xi. 32, 'We are judged when we are chastened of the Lord,' &c. There is fatherly love, though also corrective justice, and the saints acknowledge it: Neh. ix. 33, ' Thou art just in all that is brought upon us, for thou hast done righteously, but we have done wickedly.' So David : Ps. cxix. 137, ' Righteous art thou, 0 Lord, and upright are thy judgments.' Sharp corrections are but just ; all is good to the godly.
(2d.) Patience towards the wicked: Rom. ix. 22, voWfj fiaicpo- Bvpia, ' endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath.' They
220 SERMONS UPON 2 THESSALONJANS I. [SeR. III.
shall want no arguments to convince them of their folly and impeni- tency when they are in hell.
(4.) Now it is clouded, then conspicuous. There is a veil upon God's proceedings, they are sometimes secret, always just : Ps. xcii. 2, ' To show forth thy loving-kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night.'
II. Let us apply it to the different recompenses here mentioned ; and so —
1. To the punishment of the wicked : ' To recompense tribulation to them that trouble 3Tou.' There is no great difficulty to suit this part of the judgment to God's righteousness ; for sinners deserve the punish- ment which is inflicted upon them, who lived in ease and pomp, and neglected God's laws, and oppressed his servants, that were more faithful than themselves.
There is a double reason of their punishment —
[1.] Their own disobedience to the laws of their creator, which is enough to involve them in eternal ruin : Rom. ii. 8, ' But to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, tribulation and wrath.' Men that dispute away their duty to God, and live in the world as if they had no superior but such as their interests engage them to own, and as if there were no God, no judgment, there can be nothing pleaded for them.
[2.] Their opposing them that would obey God, and so they make themselves an opposite party to God, and consent with the devil in his apostasy. There are two kingdoms in the world, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan ; these are opposite. It is enough to our ruin to remain in the one and not accept of the other, when God cometh to reckon, Col. i. 18, Acts xxvi. 18. But it is a double condem- nation if we be factors and agents for the one against the other. These carry on not only a defensive but offensive war against God ; for these set themselves point-blank against the kingdom of God in the world, not ODly refusing it themselves, but seeking to discourage others : Mat. xxiii. 13, 'Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of God against men ; for ye neither go in yourselves, nor suffer them that are entering to go in.' They divert others to their power, not only by example, but persecution and opposition to them. And if they have come under some visible engagement to Christ, their crime is the greater. If they smite their fellow-servants, and eat and drink with the drunken, Mat. xxiv, 49, malign, envy, traduce, and injure them who are faithful to the law of Christ, and strengthen the hands of the wicked, no wonder they are punished. Surely that is just which right and equity requireth, either from the nature of the thing or the threatenings of God. It only admitteth this condition, if they repent as Paul did, who did it ignorantly.
2. If we refer it to the other effect, ' To give you that are troubled rest.'
How is this just with God ?
I answer — Tilings may be said to be righteous with God three ways —
(1.) In respect of strict justice, when what we do deserveth the reward by the intrinsic value, worth, and condignity of our obedience. So no
VeR. 6, 7.] SERMONS UPON 2 THESSALONIANS I. 221
obedience, whether <3f man or angel though never so perfect, can bind God to reward it. There is this difference between sin and obedience, that the heinousness of sin is always aggravated and heightened by the proportion of its object, but the merit and value of _ obedience is still lessened. The sin or offence is aggravated, as to strike an officer is more than to strike a private man, a king more than an ordinary officer. Thence it cometh to pass that a sin committed against God doth deserve an infinite punishment, because the majesty of God is infinite ; and so eternal death is the wages of sin. But on the other side, the value and merit of obedience is lessened. The greater God is, and the more glorious his being, the greater obligation lieth upon us to love and serve him ; and the good which we do for his sake being wholly due to him, God is not bound by any right or justice from the merit of the action itself to reward it ; for here the greatness of the object lesseneth the action, or respect thereby performed to it, Luke xvii. 10 ; for the creature oweth itself to God, who made it, and enabled it to do all that it can do ; so that he is not bound to reward it out of his natural justice, but inclined to do it out of his own goodness, and bound to do it by his free promise and gracious covenant.