A complete body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…A compleat body of divinity in two hundred and fifty expository lectures on the…

Answ. IT is certain that Holiness runs through' all God's Works: Psal. 145.17. The Lord is —holy in all his works. But there are some particulars in which it more eminently beans out to us: there are dark Providences that puzzle the godly, and are the bane of wicked men, the Holiness whereof God will one day vindicate, to the confusion of those ungodly ones who thought him to be altogether like them: but there are other things on which his Holiness is imprinted in Capital Letters which may be reduced to four heads, 1. GOD's Holiness appears in the Image which be stamped upon Reasonable Creatures, and the law which be gave them. I put them together, because in the one they were suited for, in the other they were appointed to their end: when God would make a Creature like himself, and would grave his own Image upon it, he made it holy; Eph. 4.24.— The new man, which after God is Created in — true holiness. As if in nothing could he be equally represented, as in this Perfection: and what else was that Rule of Government, which he gave unto Man, for the regulating of himself by in his whole Conversation, but a Rule of Holiness? This is the Encomium that Paul gives the Law, Rom. 7.12. The Law is holy—. It was a Rule of glorifying God, of loving him with our best love, and our neighbour for his sake, Matth. 22.37, 38. A farther testimony did he give to this Attribute, in the Sanctions which he put to this Law, in that he promised felicity to Man on condition of his perfect conformity to this Law, which consisted in a life of holiness; he engaged no less a reward than Eternal happiness to it; and in that he menaced him with Death in case of his transgression, that if he came short of that Holiness he should die: what greater testimony could he give to the Creature, that he loved Holiness, and hated Iniquity? 2. IN the displeasure which he providentially discovers at Sin & Unholiness. In this he discovers how contrary it is to his nature; the Infinite distance which he stands at from all those that stand in the way of his glory; that he will have no society or fellowship with such; that he will not admit them to any Communion with himself: Psal. 94.20. Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law? As he holds secret and everlasting Correspondence with those that join with him in his ends,