I shall only add, in one word, that an argument from the consent of all is by consent of all allowed to be very strong: for thus says the philosopher, "What is admitted by all, we also admit; but he who would destroy such faith can himself advance nothing more cre- dible," Aristotle, Nicom. iii.
And Hesiod says, " That sentiment cannot be altogether ground- less which many people agree in publishing." And, " When we dis- course of the eternity of the soul," says Seneca, " the consent of man- kind is considered as a weighty argument; I content myself with this public persuasion," Seneca, Ep. 117.
And again, Aristotle says, " It is a very strong proof, if all shall agree in what we shall say." And in that observation another author concurs : " The things that are commonly agreed on are worthy of credit." And here endeth the second argument.
CHAPTER V.
The thii'd argi:ment — This divine attribute demonsti-ated in the works of provi- dence— That passage of the apostle to the Romans, chap. i. IS, considered — Anger, what it is — The definitions of the philosophers — The opinion of Lac- tantius concerning the anger of God — Anger often ascribed to God in the holy Scriptures — In what sense this is done — The divine anger denotes, 1 . The effect of anger ; 2. The A\ill of punishing — What that will is in God — Why the justice of God is expressed by anger — The manifestation of the divine anger, what it is — How it is " revealed from heaven" — The sum of the argu- ment— The fourth argument — Vindicatory justice revealed in the cross of Christ — The attributes of God, how displayed in Christ — Heads of other arguments — The conclusion.
III. ^It remains, then, that we should now consider, in the third ' See division, page 512.
6-12 A DISSERTATION ON DIVINE JUSTICE. [PART 1.
place, what testimony God has given, and is still giving, to this essential attribute of his in the Avorks of providence. This Paul takes notice of, Rom. i. 18. "The wrath of God," says he, "is re- vealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness."
The philosopher Aristotle says that " anger is a desire of punish- ing on account of an apparent neglect;"^ a definition, perhaps, not altogether accurate. Seneca says that Aristotle's definition of anger, that it is " a desire of requiting pain," differs but little from his own, namely, that " anger is a desire of inflicting punishment," book i. " Of Anger," chap. 3, where he discusses it with great elegance, according to the maxims of the Stoics. But Aristotle reckons aopyriffiav^ among vices or extremes, Ethic. Nicom. lib. ii. cap. 7. But Phavorinus says that " anger is a desire to punish the person appearing to have injured you, contrary to what is fit and proper." But in whatever manner it be defined, it is beyond a doubt that it cannot, properly speaking, belong to God. Lactantius Firmianus, therefore, is lashed by the learned, who, in his book " Of the Auger of God," chap, iv., in refuting the Stoics, who contend that anger ought not in any manner whatever to be ascribed to God, has ven- tured to ascribe to the Deity commotions and affections of mind, but such as are just and good. Suarez, however, excuses him, in his disputation " On Divine Justice," sect. 5, and contends that the nature of anger is very specially preserved in the disjjosition of punishing offences.
But however this matter be, certain it is that God assumes no affection of our nature so often to himself in Scripture as this ; and that, too, in words which for the most part, in the Old Testament, denote the greatest commotion of mind. Wrath, fury, the heat of great anger, indignation, hot anger, smoking anger, wrathful anger, anger appearing in the countenance, inflaming the nostrils, rousing the heart, flaming and consuming, are often assigned to him, and in words, too, which among the Hebrews express the parts of the body affected by such commotions.^
In fine, there is no pertwhation of the mind, no commotion of the spirits, no change of the bodily parts, by which either the ma- teriality or formality'* (as they phrase it) of anger is expressed, when we arc most deeply affected thereby, which he has not assumed to himself
But since with God, beyond all doubt, " there is no variableness,
I Book viii. chap. 5, of his Topics. * A deprivation of irascibility.
3 Numb. XXV. 4; Dcut. xiii. 17 ; Josh. vii. 2G; Ps. Ixxviii 40; Tsa. xiii. 9; Deut. xxix. 24; Jiulgcs ii 14; I's. Ixxiv 1, Ixix. 24; Isa. xxx. oO ; Lam. ii. G ; Ezck. v. 15; I's. Ixxviii. 4'J; Lsa. xxxiv. 2; 2 Chron. xxviii. 11 ; Ezra x. 14; Ilab. iii. 8, 12.
* The materiality of anger is what is csscnti.ally necessary to constitute anger ; the formality mcaus its external marks and characters. — Tk.
ARGUMENTS FOR VINDICATORY JUSTICE — PROVIDENCE. 543
neither shadow of turning," it will be worth while strictly to examine what he means by this description of his most holy and unchange- able nature, so well accommodated to our weak capacities. Every material circumstance, such as in us is the commotion of the blood and gall about the heart, and likewise those troublesome affections of sorrow and pain with which it is accomjianied, being entirely ex- cluded, we shall consider what this anger of God means.