must be overlooked ? Is God forced to honour those who dis- honour him ? Has not He as much right to be our enemy, as we have to be his ? When he sees us destitute of any love to him, is he bound to renew our hearts that we may be capable of enjoying him ? Is he unjust if he leave us to eat the fruit of our own wayr?
But an extorted confession of its reasonableness is not sufficient —
God requires of us further,
III. An acknowledgment of its excellency —
The law thus sanctioned is truly excellent : any other would have been less worthy of the great Law- giver—
[Had it required less than perfect obedience, or had the penalty of transgressing it been no more than a temporary punishment, neither his holiness nor his justice had been so conspicuous.]
Any other would have been more ruinous to man —
[A permission to violate that law in ever so small a degree would have been a licence to make ourselves miserable. Had death been annexed to many transgressions, and not to one, we should have been at a loss to know our state. We should have been with more difficulty drawn from seeking righteousness by our obedience to the law. We should have seen less evil in transgressing it. We should have been less anxious to obtain an interest in Christ. Thus, though mercy is provided, we should have been less likely to obtain it, or to secure its continuance.]
Any other would have been less honourable to Christ —
[He would have endured less suffering for us. His inter-
r Is it unreasonable that God should vindicate his own honour ? Are ive at liberty to insult him, and he not to punish us 1 May we be his enemies, and must he treat us as friends ? When our first parents sinned, was God obliged to remedy the evil they had brought upon themselves ? Might he not have left them, as he had already left the fallen angels ? Was there any necessity that God should assume the human nature, and offer himself a sacrifice for his creatures' sin ? If so, they, even after their fall, might have disdained to ask for heaven as a gift ; they might still have demanded it as a debt. Then God is under a law, and we are free from a law ; we are free to live as we please ; and he is under a necessity to save us at all events. The absurdity of such positions is obvious.