5. Closely allied to this is the view that holiness is not so much an attribute, but the 'whole complex of that which we are wont to look at and represent singly in the individual attributes of God.' So Bengel looked upon holiness as the Divine nature, in which all the attributes are contained. In the same spirit what Howe says of holiness as the Divine beauty, the result of the perfect harmony of all the attributes, 'Holiness is intellectual beauty. Divine holiness is the most perfect beauty, and the measure of all other. The Divine Holiness is the most perfect pulchritude, the ineffable and immortal pulchritude, that cannot be declared by words, or seen by eyes. This may therefore be called a transcendental attribute that, as it were, runs through the rest, and casts a glory upon every one. It is an attribute of attributes. These are fit predications, _holy_ power, _holy_ love. And so it is the very lustre and glory of His other perfections. He is glorious in holiness.' (Howe in _Whyte's Shorter Catechism_.) This was the aspect of the Divine Holiness on which Jonathan Edwards delighted to dwell. 'The mutual love of the Father and the Son makes the third, the personal Holy Spirit, or the Holiness of God, which is His infinite beauty.' 'By the communication of God's Holiness the creature partakes of God's moral excellence, which is perfection, the beauty of the Divine nature.' 'Holiness comprehends all the true moral excellence of intelligent beings. So the Holiness of God is the same with the moral excellency of the Divine nature, comprehending all His perfections, His righteousness, faithfulness, and goodness. There are two kinds of attributes in God, according to our way of conceiving Him: His _moral_ attributes, which are summed up in His Holiness, and His _natural_, as strength, knowledge, etc., which constitute His greatness. Holy persons, in the exercise of holy affection, love God in the first place for the beauty of His Holiness.' 'The holiness of an intelligent creature is that which gives beauty to all his natural perfections. And so it is in God: holiness is in a peculiar manner the beauty of the Divine being. Hence we often read of the beauty of holiness (Ps. xxix. 2, xcvi. 9, cx. 3). This renders all the other attributes glorious and lovely.' 'Therefore, if the true loveliness of God's perfections arise from the loveliness of His Holiness, the true love of all His perfections will arise from the love of His Holiness. And as the beauty of the Divine nature primarily consists in God's Holiness, so does the beauty of all Divine things.'
6. In speaking of God's Holiness as denoting the essential good, the absolute excellence of His nature, some press very strongly the _ethical_ aspect. The good in God must not be from mere natural impulse only, flowing from the necessity of His nature, without being freely willed by Himself. 'What is naturally good is not the true realization of the good. The actual and living will to be the good He is, must also have its place in God, otherwise God would only be naturally ethical. Only in the will which consciously determines itself, is there the possibility given of the ethical. The ethical has such a power in God that He is the holy Power, who cannot and will not renounce Himself, who must be, and would be thought to be, the holy necessity of the goodness which is Himself,--to be the Holy. The love of God is essentially holy; it desires and preserves the ethically necessary or holy, which God is.' (Dorner, _System_, vol. i.)
7. It was felt in such views that there was not a sufficient acknowledgment of the truth that it is especially as the Holy One that God is called the Redeemer, and that He does the work of love to make holy. This led to the view that holiness and love are, if not identical, at least correlated expressions. 'God is holy, exalted above all the praise of the creature in His incomparable praise-worthiness, on account of His free and loving condescension to the creature, to manifest in it the glory of His love.' 'God is holy, inasmuch as love in Him has restrained and conquered the righteous wrath (as Hosea says, xi. 9), and judgment is exercised only after every way of mercy has been tried. This holiness is disclosed in the New Testament name, as exalted as it is condescending, of Father.' (Stier _on John_ xvii.)