Archive for December 1st, 2009
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SERMONS UPON EZEKIEL XVIII 23.
SEKMON I.
Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? says the Lord God ; and not that he should return from his ways, and live?
EZEK. xviii. 23.
THERE is nothing so necessary to draw us to repentance as good thoughts of God. In the first temptation the devil sought to weaken the reputation and credit of God’s goodness in the hearts of our first parents, as if he were harsh, severe, and envious in restraining them from the tree of knowledge, and the fruit that was so fair to see too, Gen. iii. He lays his first battery against the persuasion of God’s goodness and kindness to man; if he could once bring them to doubt of that, other things would succeed the more easily. So still he labors to raise jealousies in our hearts against God. David was fain to hold to this principle when the prosperity of the wicked was a temptation to him; yet ‘God is good to Israel.’ Ps. Ixxiii. 1. That was the truth which the temptation did oppose, that God is good to his people. With carnal men he prevails the more easily. The blind pagan world had this for a maxim, to daimonion phthoneron, the gods were envious, and took no pleasure in the felicity of man, and therefore looked for some notable cross after some eminent triumph or applause for any worthy under taking. In the bosom of the church this conceit possesses many men’s hearts, that God is harsh and severe, and delights more in our ruin than salvation, and therefore they cast off all care of their soul’s welfare. Oh, what a monstrous picture do men draw of God in their thoughts, as if he were a tyrant, or an inexorable judge, that gave no leave for repentance, or left any hope of pardon to the guilt! Thus in the prophet’s days there were some that thought they must die and be miserable, and none could help it. They had a proverb, that, ‘The fathers had eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth were set on edge.’ They must smart for their fathers’ sins, whether they repented, yea or no. Therefore God stands upon his justification and vindication from so foul a surmise. Here you have a part of his purgation; ‘Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, says the Lord God?’
The words are propounded by way of interrogation; in which form of speech there is more evidence, efficacy, life, and convincing force; q d., Ye know it is evident that I have no such desire, no such pleasure.
It dares not enter into your thoughts that I should take pleasure in the bare destruction of the creature. This pleasure of God is expressed
1. Negatively, what he delights not in, ‘Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?’
2. Positively, what he doth delight in, ‘That he should turn from his ways, and live.’
God had rather his conversion. In both are implied two great truths; as, omnis qucestio supponit unum et inquirit aliud; namely, the connection between sin and death, repentance and life, wicked and die, return and live. God doth not obscurely null or disown his judgment and execution according to that law, or give you any hopes that his law shall not be executed, but tells you what he takes pleasure in; rather in the conversion than in the destruction of the creature. The first question implies a strong negation, that he doth not delight in the mere slaughter of the wicked. The latter question is a strong affirmation; only remember in both parts that these things are spoken by way of comparison. Repentance is more accept able to God, as an holy God, than sin and wickedness; their conversion than their disobedience. And as God is a merciful God, and loves all the creatures which he hath made, so their life is more pleasing than their death; a thing more acceptable in itself to such a being as God is.