3dly. (which either alone or in concurrence with these other reasons is certainly in the words), That he might deter them from the sin he cautions them against by the pernicious event and conse- quent of it; and this is, that therein they would depart from him who is the great, terrible, and dreadful God, the living God, who is able to punish and avenge their sin, and that to all eternity. And this appears to be in the words, in that he again insists on the same argument afterwards; for to the same purpose he tells them that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” chap. x. 31. And as this property of life, as it is in God essentially and causally, whence he is called “The living God,” is exceedingly and eminently accommodated to encourage us unto faith, trust, confidence, and affiance in him, in all straits and difficulties, whilst we are in the way of our duty,-—as our apostle declares, 1 Tim. iv. 10, “ For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God;” or, ‘This is that which encourageth us unto and supporteth us in all our labourings and sufferings, namely, because he whom we trust in, whom we expect assistance from here, and a reward hereafter, is the living God:’ so it is that which deservedly casts the greatest awe and terror upon the minds of men in their sins and rebellion against him. For as this life of God includes in it the notion and consideration of all those properties which hold out encouragements unto us in things present and to come; so it doth also that of those dreadful attributes of his power, holiness, and eternity, which sinners have reason to bethink themselves of in their provocations of him. Thus he frequently prefaceth expressions of his severity against stubborn sinners with "8 ‘0, “TI live, saith the Lorp ;” as it were bidding of them to consider what thence they were to expect. And this seems to me the principal reason why the apostle thus states the sin of their apostasy, that it is a departure from the living God.
4thly. He may also so express it, at once to intimate unto them the greatness and folly of their sin. They thought, it may be, it was but the leaving of these or those observances of the gospel; but, saith he, it is a departure, a flagitious defection and revolt, from the living God. And who knows not this to be the greatest sin and highest folly imaginable? To depart from him who will be so great a reward unto them that obey him, and so severe a judge of them that forsake him, what greater guilt or folly is the nature of man capable of ?
VER. 12-14. ] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 129
And this is the evil which the apostle here cautions professors against, which I have insisted on the longer, because it is directly opposite unto that great duty which it is the general design of the epistle to press them unto. And we shall take such observations from this last clause of the verse as the words and the reasons of using them do present unto us; and the first is, that,—
Obs. V. The malignity and venom of sin is apt to hide itself under many, under any shades and pretences.
I speak not of the evasions and pretexts wherewith men endea- vour to cover or countenance themselves in their miscarriages in the world, and unto others, but of those pleas and pretences which they will admit of in their minds, partly to induce their wills and affec- tions unto sin, and partly to relieve and countenance their con- sciences under sin, Amongst those reasonings which these Hebrews had in themselves about a relinquishment of the gospel and its in- stitutions, they never considered it as an apostasy from the living God. They looked upon it as a peculiar way of worship, attended with difficulties and persecutions, which perhaps they might please God as well in the omission of. By this means did they hide from themselves that mortal malignity and poison that was in their sin. And so it is in every sin. The subtlety and deceit of lust doth still strive to conceal the true and proper nature of sin whereunto it enticeth or is enticed. When Naaman the Syrian would, notwith- standing his conviction, abide in his idol-worship, because of his secular advantage, it is but a going with his master into the house of Rimmon, and bowing there, not that he intended to have any other God but the God of Israel, 2 Kings v. 18 ;—so long ago had he practically learned that principle which men had not until of late the impudence doctrinally to advance in the world, namely, that an arbitrary rectifying of men’s intentions alters the nature of their moral and spiritual actions. Hence they say, that if one man kill another, not with an intention to kill him, but to vindicate his own honour by his so doing, it is no sin, or at least no great sin, or much to be regarded. And what is this but directly to comply with the deceitfulness of sin, which we have laid down? for none sure is so flagitiously wicked as to make the formal nature of sin their object and end; nor, it may be, is human nature capable of such an excess and exorbitancy, from itself and its concreated principles, but still some other end is proposed by a corrupt design and incitation of the mind, which is a blind unto its wickedness.. But of this deceit of sin I have treated at large in another discourse." Therefore,—