the knowledge of thy ways. Job. 21. 14. That say unto God. No creature durst be so bold to say it to God's face; but it is the language of our natures, though not of our tongues. We desire not the knowledge of thy ways. The laws and ways of God which he commands us to walk in, are too holy, righteous, and spiritual for our corrupted nature.

By sin we stand indebted to God, and therefore have an aversion from him; as debtors hate the sight of their creditors, and are loth to meet them. Adam fled from God, when he had run upon God's score: sin is a disease, and so contrary to that physic which would abate the violence of the humour. God's presence and purity is too dazzling a sight for sinful men : and therefore they cannot look upon God, but are like sore eyes that are distempered with the sun.

Again, there is odium prosecutionis, which implies a detestation opposite to love and affection. And so there is not only an aversion from God, but an opposition to him. Both those parts of hatred are described, And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works. Col.

1. 21.

Here is, alienation, which is aversion; and enmity, which is opposition; and both seated in the mind. Though some expound alienation according to outward, enmity according to inward estate. But the apostle declares hatred to be compleat in those two, alienation and enmity, which is both in mind and works; mind as the seat, works as the issues of it. Enemies in disposition and action, principle and execution.

This odium persecutionis is, 1. Natural, which we call antipathy. And there are steps of this among many creatures: many men have an abhorrency to some kind of meats, and can never endure the taste, nor the sight; and if unawares they eat any of that disagreeing sort, it breeds a distemper in the body. Some men have had antipathy at the sight of some

On what founded.

11

creatures, as Germanicus, according to Plutarch's relation, could not endure the crowing of a cock. Another the smell or touch of a rose. Antipathies have been observed between some creatures after they are dead. The entrails of a lamb and wolf upon the same instrument can never be tuned. The blood of dragons and eagles can never mix together. Some plants will not grow by one another. There is not such a hatred absolutely between God and man, though there be between God and sin: because there may be a reconciliation between God and a sinner, but not between God and sin: for antipathies are irreconcileable.

The enmity between God and a sinner is not founded in nature, but corrupt nature; and this nature may be removed by satisfaction and regeneration. A fundamental reconciliation was the great intendment of God in the death of Christ: for he was in him, as in his ambassador, reconciling the world unto himself: and an actual reconciliation is made between God and a particular soul at the first instant of faith; though this reconciliation be made between God and man, yet not between God and the corrupt nature of man; for it would be against God's nature to be reconciled to that, though he be his creature; because since his nature is infinitely good, he cannot but love goodness, as it is a resemblance of himself, and consequently cannot but abhor unrighteousness, as being most distant from his nature: and therefore never will express any dearness or intimacy to man's corrupted nature, but to man justified and regenerate.

But the enmity which is between God and sin is founded in the nature of God, and the nature of sin. Sin being the summum malum, the greatest evil, is naturally most opposite to God, who is the summum bonum, the greatest good. So that God can never be reconciled to sin, or sin to God: For on the one side God must part with his holiness, or sin with

its malice and impurity, and so God cease to be God, or sin cease to be sin.

As God is unchangeably good both in nature and decree, so sin is unchangeably evil. As God can never cease to be good, so sin can never cease to be sin; because the natural imprinted law of God can never cease to be his law, because it is grounded upon eternal principles of righteousness. God's nature is against sin; for if his hating sin were a mere voluntary act, he might then either love it, or detest it, which he pleased. But is God unrighteous to love unrighteousness? No, it is a voluntary, natural act.

The hatred sin hath to God, hath no mixture of love; the hatred a man has to God, may have some mixture of a natural love, because of the kindness he knows he receives from God.

2. Acquired hatred, which is grounded upon diversity of interests. Various interests must have contrary means for the attainment of their ends. The interest of a sinner as such, qua talis, consists in gratifying the importunities of his lusts, in finding out occasions of pleasures; and the interest of God lies in vindicating the righteousness of his commands, and maintaining the truth of his threatenings.

This is either, 1. Direct. When a man burns with a desire of revenge against another for some real or supposed affront, endeavouring to do him all the ill offices in his power. This none but the despairing and malicious devils are guilty of, who know themselves to be under an inevitable sentence. In this, some place the sin against the Holy Ghost, and make it to be a direct and malicious hatred of God. But that will be a question, whether a creature in a possibility, and probability of salvation, and presuming upon mercy, can maliciously take up arms against God as God. For as I believe, there is no settled opinionative atheism in the world, nor a man ever in any age, that did deliberately think there was

Sin a Contempt of God.

13

no God, so I believe there is no settled malice against God.

But there may be a malicious contempt of Christ, such as Julian's was, who in scorn termed him the Galilean; They have hated me, and my Father also, John 15. 24; me directly, my Father interpretatively or virtually, through many sins. As when he saith,

those that have seen me, have seen my Father also, John 14. 9. Me plainly, evidently, in my person and works; my Father virtually, as I am his extraordinary ambassador in the world, to represent him; and because they have seen the power of my Father acting in and by me in the miracles I have wrought. So that they hated the Father as they had seen him: i. e. not directly, but in his agent our Saviour. Their hatred of God was as their sight of God had been.

1

2. Implicite et interpretative. Idem velle et nolle est proprium amicorum. Lovers are said to have but one soul, and therefore but one will. Men love not the things that God loves, and therefore may be said to hate him. A man may be said to hate God, as men are said to wrong their own souls; and love death, and despise their own souls: He that sins against me, wrongs his own soul; all they that hate me love death, Prov. 8. 36. He that refuseth instruction, despiseth his own soul, Prov. 15. 32. Consecutive, as they do those things that will be an injury unto, and bring death upon them. As a thief may be said in this sense to hate his own life, because he doth those things which will be the occasion and meritorious cause of his destruction.

For no man formally loves death, as death, or despises his own soul, but in doing those things, the effects whereof are such as a man may be said to contemn himself. So men acting those things which justle with God's law, and stand diametrically opposite to his will, are said to hate God. In this respect, sin is called a contempt of God, not formal and express, but implicit and interpretative, because by sin

the law of God is contemned, and consequently the authority, will, and wisdom of the Law-giver; They that despise me, shall be lightly esteemed, 1 Sam. 2. 30.

The nature of hatred being thus explained, let us see what kind of enmity against God this is. First. Negatively. We hate not God as God. It is not the primary intention of a creature to set itself against the nature of God. And indeed, it is impossible; because God, absolutely considered, hath all the attractives of love, since the noblest perfections of the creatures are in a more excellent manner united in him as the original. As a man cannot will sin as sin, because it is purely evil; and therefore cannot be the object of the desire, since his will is carried out to things under the notion of good: so we cannot hate God as God, because of the amiableness of his nature; and what we conceive good, cannot be the object of contempt. No man can hate truth as truth, or good as good; because the one is the proper object of his understanding, the other of his will, though he may hate them both under an apprehension, that they are evil, and inconvenient to him.

*God in himself, as he is known by an open vision, cannot be a motive to enmity, no, not to the devils themselves, but as they apprehend his nature destructive of their well-being.

We never yet met with any so monstrously base, as to hate a creature as a creature; or man as man; not a toad or a serpent as a creature, but as it is venomous. And though Timon was surnamed μισανθρωπος, because possessed with a melancholy kind of hatred; yet he professed he hated bad men, because of their vices; and good men, because they did not concur with him in so intense and exact a hatred of the enormities of the world. And as it is impossible that we should hate a creature under the notion of a creature, because there is nothing in the • Non potesesse motivum voluntatis ad odium. Banet in 22 da.

art. 2.

q. 34.