which, above all others, is celebrated in heaven0
and in which God is pre-eminently glorious d."
But not to enumerate passages expressive of this truth, let one suffice : " Thou art not a God that hath plea- sure in wickedness : neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight : thou hatest all workers of iniquity6." It is by an appeal to facts that I propose to establish the truth before us. See how God has manifested it,
1. In a way of judgment —
[Go back to the very fall of man in Paradise. An offence was committed ; an offence against a merely positive command ; and which therefore had in it no intrinsic evil, except as a violation of, what I may call, an arbitrary appointment. Yet behold, on account of that one offence were our first parents, and all their posterity, consigned to death ; yea, and the whole creation also, rational and irrational, animate and inanimate, was subjected to a curse.
Go on to the time of Noah, when, for the sins of men, the whole world, with every living creature, was overwhelmed with one universal deluge ; one single family alone, with a small selection of the brute creation, being saved.
Go on to Sodom and Gomorrha, and to all the cities of the plain ; and see them destroyed by fire and brimstone from heaven ; not so much as a new-born infant being spared, or any, except righteous Lot and his two daughters. Are these no evidences of the truth before us? Me thinks they declare, in language that cannot be mistaken, God's hatred of sin, and his determination to punish it to the uttermost.
Behold, at a later period, Achan keeping for himself a wedge of gold, and a Babylonish garment, which ought to have been destroyed. No one was robbe.d ; and the offence was not known to any human being; but yet, on account of that, did God leave for a season all the whole nation, and never return to them in mercy, till the offender was sought out and punished with death.
A terrible act of vengeance also was executed on Uzzah, who, to keep the ark from falling, inadvertently stretched out his hand, and touched it; he himself not being of the Levites, who alone were authorized to touch it. Say, brethren, is not God a holy God ? and is not sin, of what kind soever it be, " that abominable thing which he hates?"
Take but one more instance ; that of David numbering the people. For that one offence were seventy thousand of his
c Isai. vi. 3. d Exod. xv. 11. c Ps. v. 4, 5.