Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

6. The naturalness of his Veracity and Holiness, and the strictness of his Justice, are no bars to the exercise of his patience.

6. The naturalness of his Veracity and Holiness, and the strictness of his Justice, are no barrs to the exercise of his patience.

1. His Veracity. In those threatenings where the punishment is expressed, but not the time of inflicting it prefixed, and determined in the threatening, his veracity suffers no damage by the delaying Execution; so it be once done, though a long time after, the credit of his Truth stands unshaken: As when God promises a thing without fixing the time, he is at liberty to pitch upon what time he pleases for the performance of it without staining his faithfulness to his Word, by not giving the thing promised presently. Why should the deferring of Justice upon an offender, be any more against his Veracity, than his delaying an answer to the petitions of a suppliant? But the difference will lie in the threatening. Gen. 2.17. In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt dye the death. The time was there settled, In that day, thou shalt dye; some refer day to eating, not to dying; and render the sentence thus, I do not prohibit thee the eating this fruit for a day or two, but continually. In whatsoever day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt dye; but not understanding his dying that very day he should eat of it. Referring [day] to the extensiveness of the prohibition, as to time. But to leave this as uncertain, it may be answered; that as in some threatenings, a condition is implied, though not expressed; as in that positive denouncing of the destruction of Nineveh. Jonah 3.4. Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed; the condition is implied, unless they humble themselves, and repent, for upon their Repentance, the sentence was deferred. So here, in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shall dye the death, or certainly dye, unless there be a way found for the expiation of thy crime, and the righting my honour; This condition in regard of the event, may as well be asserted to be implied in this threatening, as that of Repentance was in the other. Or rather, thou shalt dye, thou shalt die spiritually, thou shalt loose that image of mine in thy nature, that Righteousness which is as much the Life of thy Soul, as thy Soul is the life of thy Body; that Righteousness whereby thou art enabled to live to me, and thy own happiness. What the Soul is to the Body, a quickening Soul, that the image of God is to the Soul, a quickening image. Or thou shalt dye the death, or certainly dye, thou shalt be liable to death.