Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

1. All sin in its nature is a contempt of the Divine Dominion. As every act of Obedience is a confirmation of the Law, and consequently a subscription to the Authority of the Lawgiver, Deut, 27.26. so every breach to it is a conspiracy against the sovereignty of the Law-giver; setting up our Will against the Will of God is an Articling against his Authority, as setting up our reason against the methods of God, is an Articling against his Wisdom; the intendment of every act of sin, is to wrest the Sceptre out of God's hand. The Authority of God is the first attribute in the Deity, which it directs its edge against; 'tis called therefore a transgression of his Law. 1 John 3.4. And therefore a slight or neglect of the Majesty of God; and the not keeping his Commands, is called a forgetting God. Deut. 8.11. i. e. a forgetting him to be our absolute Lord. As the first notion we have of God as a Creator, is that of his Sovereignty, so the first perfection that sin struck at in the violation of the Law, was his sovereignty as a Lawgiver. ⟨p. 753⟩Breaking the Law is a dishonouring God, Rom. 2.23. a Snatching off his Crown; to obey our own Wills before the Will of God, is to prefer our selves as our own Sovereigns before him. Sin is a wrong and injury to God, not in his Essence, that is above the reach of a Creature, nor in any thing profitable to him, or pertaining to his own intrinsic advantage; not an injury to God in himself but in his Authority, in those things which pertain to his Glory, a disowning his due right, and not using his goods according to his will. Thus the whole world may be called, as God calls Chaldea, a Land of Rebels. Jer. 50.21. Go up against the Land of Merathaim, or Rebels: Rebels, not against the Jews, but against God. The mighty opposition in the heart of man to the Supremacy of God is discovered Emphatically by the Apostle. Rom. 8.7. in that expression, The carnal mind is enmity against God, i. e. against the Authority of God: because it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be. It refuseth not subjection to this or that part, but to the whole; to every mark of Divine Authority in it, it will not lay down its arms against it, nay it cannot but stand upon its terms against it; the Law can no more be fulfilled by a carnal mind, than it can be disowned by a sovereign God.