God is a holy Being ; yea, " glorious in holiness," as well as in every other perfection. " He hateth all the workers of iniquity:" " He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity k," without the utmost abhorrence of it. In this respect also, as well as in the former, " there is no darkness at all in him .•" there is none in his nature; there is none in his dispensations.
Consider his nature : Which of his attributes has the smallest mixture of unholiness? His sovereignty is not a weak par- tiality, but a holy exertion of his will, according to his own determinate and eternal counsels. His justice is not a rigorous severity, but a holy regard to the honour of his broken law. His mercy is not a weak exercise of pity at the expense of justice and truth, but a holy display of his unbounded com- passion, in a way that at the same time illustrates and magnifies all his other perfections.
Consider his dispensations : these, it is true, are oftentimes inscrutable to us ; yet is he " righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works1." We are sometimes indeed ready, through unbelief, to question his wisdom and his goodness"1. When we see the wicked triumphing, and the righteous suf- fering under the accumulated trials of persecution from man and desertion from God, we are apt to be offended, and to ask, whether there be a God that ruleth in the earth? But in both these respects is his holiness expressly vindicated in the sacred writings : the martyrs that are now in glory, at the same time that they expostulate, as it were, with God on the subject of his forbearance towards their persecutors, address him as " holy and true":" and David, when complaining bitterly of the dereliction that he suffered, takes especial care to acknow- ledge that, in the midst of all, his holiness is unimpeached ; " O God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not ; and in the night-season I am not silent; but thou art holy".'" When therefore we are not able to comprehend the reason of God's dispensations, we must still confess, that though " clouds and darkness are round about him, righteousness and judgment are the basis of his throne p."]
The next part of the message points out to us,
I Prov. xv. 11. * Hab. i. 13. » Ps. cxlv. 17.
m Ps. lxxiii. 12—14. n Rev. vi. 10. ° Ps. xxii. 1
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