The works of the reverend and faithful servant of Jesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…The workes of the reuerend and faithfull seruant af Iesus Christ M. Richard Greenham,…

2 When we are to speak of the displeasure of the Lord, we are so become humble suitors¹ to God, that he would reveal more to the hearts of men by his spirit, than the mouth of man is able to deliver. For the terms of wrath and fire are not able to utter the depth of the judgements of God, though for our capacity he can use no words more vehement to us. For as in expressing the power of God, the highest name we can reach unto, is to call him King; so to express his anger he often challengeth to himself the title of wrath, whereby he showeth to us nothing else, but that he is purposed to plai• the part of an angry one, as if indeed he were angry: and though it be true, that we find no such affections fall into the Lord, yet because we cannot otherwise imagine how he should be revenged on the ungodly, he is content to instruct us herein by the name of an angry God. And indeed it is the purpose of the Lord in such places to show his justice to men, but because to say the Lord is just, moveth too little, he sometimes saith he is angry, to move us more effectually: out of this attribute of the Lord we may make our profit. First nothing in the world, no kind of word setteth out the vile nature of sin more than this doth, to say our sins make the Lord angry. It carrieth some force to say, that sin is the work of the flesh, to call it the work of darkness the work of the devil, and all these are effectual: but none of them is able to come into the balance of comparison with this one, that it moveth the Lord to wrath, because though it be not possible, that God should be angry, yet if it were possible,² that any thing should do it, it is sin. Secondly, I would have no man henceforth persuade himself, that God will be a proctor of his sin, or that he will give him pillows to ease, bolsters to hold out, or curtains to cover his sin, for sins move the Lord to wrath. He could not leave sin unpunished in David his chosen, nay he would not spare his whole Church the people of Israel from punishment, and therefore he will not bear with one ⟨p. 697⟩particular member. Leave men and come to Christ, who though he had committed no sin, yet because he took upon him our sin, how was he punished: though he lived in all obedience, first in heaven, & then in earth, yet when he came to death, how bitter was that cup of wrath to him?