Of God's Justice
The next attribute is God's Justice: all God's attributes are identical, and are the same with his essence. Though he has several attributes whereby he is made known to us, yet he has but one essence. A cedar tree may have several branches, yet it is but one cedar. So there are several attributes of God, whereby we conceive of him, but one entire essence. Well, then concerning God's Justice, (Deuteronomy 32:4) Just and right is he. (Job 37:23) Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out, he is excellent in plenty of Justice. God is said to dwell in Justice, (Psalm 89:14) Justice and Judgment are the habitation of your Throne. In God power and justice meet. Power holds the scepter, and justice holds the balance.
Question: What is God's Justice?
Answer: Iustitia est jus suum cuique tribuere; Justice is to give everyone his due. God's Justice is the rectitude of his nature, whereby he is carried to the doing of that which is righteous and equal; (Proverbs 24:12) Shall not he render to every man according to his works? God is an impartial judge; he judges the cause. Men often judge the person, and not the cause, which is not justice, but malice. God judges the cause, (Genesis 18:21) I will go down and see if they have done according to the cry which is come up to me. When the Lord is upon a punitive act, he weighs things in the balance, he does not punish rashly; he does not go in the way of a riot, but a circuit against offenders. Concerning God's Justice, I shall lay down these six positions.
1. God cannot but be just. His holiness is the cause of his justice. Holiness will not suffer him to do anything but what is righteous. He can no more be unjust, than he can be unholy.
2. God's will is the supreme rule of justice: it is the standard of equity. His will is wise and good. God wills nothing but what is just, and therefore it is just, because he wills it.
3. God does justice voluntarily: justice flows from his nature. Men may act unjustly, because they are bribed or forced: God will not be bribed, because of his justice, he cannot be forced because of his power. He does justice out of love to justice, (Hebrews 1:8) You love righteousness.
4. Justice is the perfection of the divine nature. Aristotle says, Justice [illegible], comprehends in it all virtues. To say God is just, is to say he is all that is excellent: perfection meets in him as lines in a center. He is not only just, but justice itself.
5. God never did, nor can do the least wrong to his creature. God's Justice has been wronged, but never did any wrong. God does not go according to the summum jus, or rigor of the law; he abates something of his severity. He might inflict heavier penalties than he does, (Ezra 9:14) You have punished us less than our iniquities deserve; our mercies are more than we deserve, our punishments less.
6. God's Justice is such, that it is not fit for any man or angel to expostulate with God, or demand a reason of his actions. God has not only authority on his side, but equity: he lays judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, (Isaiah 28:17) and it is below him to give an account to us of his proceedings. Which of these two is fittest to take place, God's Justice or man's reason? (Romans 9:20) Who are you, O man, that dispute against God? The plumb line of our reason is too short to fathom the depth of God's Justice, (Romans 11:33) How unsearchable are his Judgments! We are to adore God's Justice, where we cannot see a reason of it.
Now God's Justice runs in two channels: it is seen in two things, the distribution of rewards and punishments.
1. In rewarding the virtuous; (Psalm 58:11) Doubtless there is a reward for the righteous. The Saints shall not serve him for nothing, he will reward praeces & lachrymas, [illegible], though they may be losers for him, they shall not be losers by him, (Hebrews 6:10) God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown to his Name. He gives a reward, not that we have deserved it, but because he has promised it.
2. He is just in punishing offenders. And he is just, 1. Because he punishes sinners by a law. Where there is no law there is no transgression, (Romans 4:15) But God has given men a law, and they broke it, therefore he punishes them justly. 2. God is just in punishing the wicked, because he never punishes them, but upon full proof and evidence. What greater evidence than for a man's own conscience to be witness against him? There is nothing God charges upon a sinner, but conscience does set seal to the truth of it.
Use 1. See here another flower of God's crown — [reconstructed: he] is just and righteous. He is the exemplar and pattern of justice.
Objection: But how does it seem to stand with God's Justice, that the wicked should prosper in the world, (Proverbs 12:1) Why does the way of the wicked prosper? This has been a great stumbling, and been ready to make many question God's Justice. Such as are highest in sin are highest in power. Diogenes seeing Harpalus a thief go on prosperously, said, Sure God had cast off the government of the world, and minded not how things went here below.
Answer 1: The wicked may be sometimes instruments to do God's work; though they do not design his glory, yet they may promote it. Cyrus (Ezra 1:7) was instrumental for the building God's temple in Jerusalem. There is some kind of justice, that they should have a temporal reward: God lets them prosper, under whose wing his people are sheltered. God will not be in any man's debt; (Malachi 1:10) Who has kindled a fire on my altar for nothing?
2. God lets men go on in sin and prosper, that he may leave them more inexcusable, (Revelation 2:21) I gave her space to repent of her fornication. God adjourns the sessions, spins out his mercies toward sinners, and if they repent not, his patience will be a witness against them, and his justice will be more cleared in their condemnation, (Psalm 51:4) That you might be justified when you speak, and be clear when you judge.
3. God does not always let the wicked prosper in their sin, some he does punish openly, that his justice may be taken notice of, (Psalm 9:16) The Lord is known by the judgment which he executes: that is, his justice is seen by striking men dead in the very act of sin. Thus he struck Zimri and Cozbi in the act of uncleanness.
4. If God does let men prosper a while in sin, his vial of wrath is all this while filling; his sword is all this while whetting: and though God may forbear men a while, yet long forbearance is no forgiveness. The longer God is taking his blow, the heavier it will be at last; as long as there is eternity, God has time enough to reckon with his enemies. Justice may be as a lion asleep, but at last this lion will awake, and roar upon the sinner. Does not Nero, and Julian, and Cain now meet with God's justice?
Object. But God's own people suffer great afflictions, they are injured and persecuted (Psalm 73:14). All the day long have I been plagued and chastened every morning. How does this stand with God's justice?
Resp. 1. That is a true rule of St. Austin, Iudicia Dei possunt esse occulta, non injusta; God's ways of judgment are sometimes secret, but never unjust. The Lord never afflicts his people without a cause; so that he cannot be unjust. There is some good in the godly, therefore the wicked afflict them; there is some evil in them, therefore God afflicts them. God's own children have their [illegible], their blemishes (2 Chronicles 28:10). Are there not with you, even with you, sins against the Lord? These spiritual diamonds, have they no flaws? Do not we read of the spots of God's children (Deuteronomy 32:10)? Are not they guilty of much pride, censoriousness, passion, worldliness? Though by their profession they seem to resemble the birds of paradise, to fly above, and feed upon the dew of heaven, yet as the serpent, they lick the dust. And these sins of God's people do more provoke God than others (Deuteronomy 32:19). Because of the provoking of his sons and daughters. The sins of others pierce Christ's side, these wound his heart: therefore is not God just in all the evils that befall them (Amos 3:2)? You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for your iniquities. I will punish you sooner, surer, sorer than others.
2. The trials and sufferings of the godly are to refine and purify them. God's furnace is in Zion (Isaiah 31:9). Is it any injustice in God to put his gold into the furnace to purify it? Is it any injustice in God by afflicting his people, to make them partakers of his holiness (Hebrews 12:10)? What does more proclaim God's faithfulness, than to take such a course with them as may make them better (Psalm 119:75)? In faithfulness you have corrected me.
3. What injustice is it in God to inflict a lesser punishment, and prevent a greater? The best of God's children have that in them which is meritorious of hell: now I pray, does God do them any wrong, if he uses only the rod, where they have deserved the scorpion? Is the father unjust if he only corrects his child, who has deserved to be disinherited? If God deals so favorably with his children, he only puts wormwood in their cup, whereas he might put fire and brimstone, they are rather to admire his mercy, than complain of his injustice.
Object. How can it stand with God's justice, that all men, being equally guilty by nature, God should pass by one, and save another? Why does he not deal with all alike?
Resp. (Romans 9:14). Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. (Job 8:3). Does the Almighty pervert justice? 1. God is not bound to give an account of his actions to his creatures. If none may say to a king, what do you do (Ecclesiastes 8:4)? much less to God. It is sufficient, God is Lord paramount, he has a sovereign power over his creatures, therefore can do no injustice (Romans 9:21). Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to honor, and another to dishonor? God has a liberty [reconstructed: yet] in his own breast to save one, and not another, and his justice is not at all impeached or blemished. If two men owe you money, you may without any injustice remit the debt to one, and exact it of the other. If two malefactors be condemned to die, the king may pardon one, and not the other. He is not unjust if he lets one suffer, because he offended the law, nor if he save the other, because he will make use of his prerogative as he is king. 2. Though some are saved, and others perish, yet there is no unrighteousness in God, because whoever perishes, his destruction is of himself (Hosea 13:9). O Israel, you have destroyed yourself. God offers grace, the sinner refuses it, is God bound to give grace? If a surgeon comes to heal a man's wound, he will not be healed, but bolts out his surgeon, is the surgeon bound to heal him? (Proverbs 1:24). I have called, and you refused. (Psalm 81:11). Israel would none of me. God is not bound to force his mercies upon men: if they willfully oppose the offer of grace, their sin is to be taxed as the cause of their perishing, and not God's justice.
2. See the difference between God and a great part of the world, they are unjust. 1. In their courts of judicature; they pervert justice (Isaiah 10:1). They decree unrighteous decrees. The Hebrew word for a judge's robe, Magnil, signifies prevarication, deceit, or injustice. It is often truer of the judge than the robe. The judge deserves rather to have that name than the robe. What is a good law, without a good judge? Injustice lies in two things, either not to punish where there is a fault, or to punish where there is no fault; how frequent! Again, 2. unjust in their dealings. This is 1. either in using false weights (Hosea 12:7). The balances of deceit are in his hand. It is sad to have the Bible in one hand, and false weights in the other. Or 2. in adulterating commodities (Isaiah 1:22). Your wine is mixed with water; when they mix bad grain with good, yet sell it for pure grain. I can never believe he is good in the first table, who is not good in the second. He cannot be godly who is not just. Though God does not bid you be omnipotent, as he is, yet be just as he is.
Use 2. Imitate God in justice. Let Christ's golden maxim be observed (Matthew 7:12): What you would have men do to you, do you even so to them. You would not have them wrong you, neither do you them; rather suffer wrong than do wrong (1 Corinthians 6:7). Why do you not rather take wrong? O be exemplary for justice! Let justice be your ornament (Job 29:14): I put on righteousness (namely justice) as a robe and a diadem. A robe for its graceful beauty; and I put it on, induebam justitiam. A judge puts on his robe, and puts it off again at night; but Job did so put on justice, as he did not put it off till death, semper vestiti. We must not lay off this robe of justice, till we lay down our tabernacle. If you have any thing of God in you, you will be like him. By every unjust action you do deny yourselves to be Christians; you stain the glory of your profession; heathens will rise up in judgment against you. The sun might sooner alter its course, than he could be turned from doing justice.
Use 3. If God be just, there will be a day of judgment. Now things are out of course. Sin is rampant, saints are wronged, they are often cast in a righteous cause, they can meet with no justice here, justice is turned into wormwood; but there is a day coming, when God will set things right; he will do every man justice; he will crown the righteous, and condemn the wicked (Acts 17:31). He has appointed a day, etc. If God be a just God, he will take vengeance. God has given men a law to live by, they break it, there must be a day for the execution of offenders: a law not executed is but like a wooden dagger, for a show. At the last day God's sword shall be drawn out against offenders; then his justice shall be revealed before all the world — God will judge in righteousness (Acts 17:31). Shall not the judge of all the world do right? (Genesis 18:25). The wicked shall drink a sea of wrath, but not sip one drop of injustice. At that day shall all mouths be stopped, and God's justice shall be fully vindicated from all the cavils and clamors of unjust men.
Use 4. Comfort to the true penitent: As God is a just God he will pardon him, Homo agnoscit, Deus ignoscit (1 John 1:9): If we confess our sins (that is, confess and forsake) he is just to forgive us our sins. Not only merciful, but just — why just? Because he has promised to forgive such (Proverbs 28:13). If your heart has been broken for and from sin, you may not only plead God's mercy, but his justice for the pardoning your sin. Show him his hand and seal, he cannot deny himself.
