Wiiither, ah! whither art thou flying?
To what dai-k undiscovered shore ? 'J'hou sccm'st all troml)ling. shiv'ring, dying,
And wit and humour arc no more." Tii.
ARGUMENTS FOR VINDICATORY JUSTICE— CONSENT OF MANKIND. 521
" That which is truly evil," says Tertullian, " not even those who are under its influence dare defend as good. All evil fiFs nature with fear or shame. Evil doers are glad to lie concealed ; they avoid making their appearance; they tremble when apprehended." Hence the heathens have represented Jove himself, when conscious of any crime, as not free from fear. We find Mercury thus speaking of him in Plautus: —
"Etenim ille," etc.
" Even that Jupiter, by whose order I come hither, Dreads evil no less than any of us :
Being himself descended from a human father and mother, There is no reason to ■wonder that he should fear for himself."
Hence, too, mankind have a dread awe of every thing in nature that is grand, unusual, and strange, as thunders, lightnings, or eclipses of the heavenly bodies, and tremble at every prodigy, spectre, or comet, nay, even at the hobgoblins of the night, ex- claiming, like the woman of Zarephath upon the death of her son, " What have I to do with thee? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance?" Hence, even the most abandoned of men, ^^'hen vengeance for their sins hangs over their heads, have confessed their sins and acknowledged the divine justice.
It is related by Suetonius, that Nero, that disgrace of human na- ture, just before his death, exclaimed, " My wife, my mother, and my father, are forciug me to my end."^ Most deservedly celebrated, too, is that expression of Mauricius the Cappadocian, when slain by Phocas, "Just art thou, O Lord, and thy judgments are righteous!"
But, moreover, while guilty man dreads the consequences of evil, which he knows he has really committed, he torments and vexes him- self even with fictitious fears and bugbears. Hence these verses of
Horace : —
" Somuia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, Nocturnes lemurcs, portcntaque Thessala iinxit," [rides ?] ^
— ideas for the most part ridiculous, but, as the old proverb says, " 'Tis but reasonable that they should wear the fetters which them- selves have forged." Hence the guilty trembling mob is imposed ujDon and cheated by impostors, by vagrant fortune-tellers and astrologers. If any illiterate juggler shall have foretold a year of darkness, alluding, namely, to the night-season of the year, the consternation is as great as if Hannibal were at the gates of the city. The stings of conscience vex and goad them, and their minds have such presentiments of divine justice that they look upon every
1 His mother, Agrippina, had poisoned her last husband, the Emperor Claudius, to make way for his succession, and Nero rewai'ded her by causing her to be murdered. He likewise caused his wife, Octavia, and his tutor, Seneca, to lose their lives; and was in every respect, perhaps, one of the greatest monsters of wickedness that ever disgraced human nature. — Tb.
! Hor. Epis. ii. 2., 208.
622 A DISSERTATION ON DIVINE JUSTICK [PART I.
new prodigy as final, or portentous of the final consummation. I pass over observing at present that if once a conviction of the guilt of any sin be carried home to the mind, this solemn tribunal cannot thoroughly be dislodged from any man's bosom either by dismal solitude or by frequent company, by affluence of delicacies or by habits of wickedness and impiety, nor, in fine, by any endeavours after the practice of innocence. The apostle in his epistle to the Romans, chap, ii., enters more fully into this subject. Two things, then, are to be concluded firom what has been said, that mankind are guilty, and that they acknowledge, —
1. That God hates sin, as contrary to himself, and that there- fore it is impossible for a sinner with safety to appear before him- But if God hate sin, he does it either from his nature or because he so wills it. But it cannot be because he wills it, for in that case he might not will it; a supposition most absurd. And, indeed, that assertion of Socinus is every way barbarous, abominable, and most unworthy of God, wherein he says, " I maintain that our damnation derives its origin, not from any justice of God, but from the free- will of God,'' Socinus de Serv. p. 3. cap. 8. But if God hate sin by nature, then by nature he is just, and vindicatory justice is natu- ral to him,
2. That our sins are debts, and therefore we shun the sight of our creditor. But 1 mean such a debt as, with relation to God's supreme dominion, implies in it a perpetual right of punishment.
And such is the second proof of the minor proposition of the second argument; the third remains.
Thirdly, The jnihlic consent of all nations furnishes the third proof of this truth. There are writers, indeed, Avho have affirmed (a thing by no means credible) that some nations have been so given up to a re- probate mind that they acknowledge no deity. Socinus hath written^ that a certain Dominican friar, a worthy honest man, had related- this much to himself of the Brazilians and other natives of America. But who can assure us that this friar has not falsified, according to the usual custom of travellers, or that Socinus himself has not in- vented this story (for he had a genius fertile in falsehoods) to answer his own ends? But let this matter rest on the credit of Socinus, who was but little better than an infidel. But nobody, even by report, liath heard that there exist any who have acknowledged the being of a God, and who have not, at the same time, declared him to be just, to be displeased with sinners and sin, and that it is the duty of mankind to propitiate him if they would enjoy his favour.