God and His Glory
“I beseech thee, show me thy glory” (Exod 33:18).
This first divine truth has two principal parts: there is a God, and this God is most glorious.
There Is a God
I will begin by showing, without pursuing many philosophical arguments, that there is a God, the true God. Until Christ came, almost every nation in the world had its own god. Some worshiped the sun; some the moon, called by Jeremiah the Queen of Heaven, to whom some made cakes; some the whole heavens; some fire or brute beasts; and some Baal or Molech. According to Varro, the Romans had six thousand gods. By suppressing the light of nature, people were given over to sins against nature. The ignorant worshiped idols of human invention; the learned worshiped God and angels in those idols. But all these are false gods.
I must now show that there is one true God, the Being of beings, the first Being. This may seem needless to prove, since nearly everyone joins in saying and professing that there is a God. Yet few thoroughly believe it. Even God’s children, who are best able to know human hearts because they study their own, sometimes feel the bitter assault of the temptation, “Is there a God?” The devil sometimes seeks to undermine and blow up the strongest walls and defenses.
The light of nature does show that there is a God. But how many people nearly extinguish that light by grievously sinning against their consciences! Some light remains, though dim, so they dare not conclude that there is no God. Yet if they could see their hearts, they might find themselves secretly suspecting and questioning whether God exists. Even if no one questioned this truth, those of us who build must not begin without our chief supports and pillars. That there is a God appears from these grounds.
First, from God’s works (Rom 1:20). When we see a stately house, we conclude that a skilled builder worked there, though we have seen neither the builder nor the time of building. When we behold the magnificent theater of heaven and earth, can we conclude anything else but that God’s finger, strength, and wisdom have worked here? We do not see him, for he is invisible, or know when he began to build. Yet every creature in heaven and earth loudly proclaims this truth. Who set those candles and torches upon heaven’s table? Who hung its lanterns to light a dark world? A statue of a man requires a maker wiser than the stone from which it is cut. Could anyone form a living man without being wiser and greater than man? Who taught birds to build nests and bees to establish and order their commonwealth? Who sends the sun swiftly across heaven, carrying thousands of blessings to thousands of people and kingdoms? What power of men or angels can make even the smallest blade of grass, or restore life to the least fly once it has died? There is, therefore, a power above every created power, and that power is God.
Second, from God’s word. Such majesty moves in it, and such secrets are revealed by it, that those who refuse to be willfully blind must cry out, “The voice of God, and not the voice of man.” For this reason Calvin undertakes to prove by reason, against every atheist, that Scripture is the word of God. Have you never thought during a sermon that the minister was speaking to you alone, and that someone must have told him what you had said, done, or thought? A word that tells you the thoughts of your heart can only be the word of the all-seeing God who searches the heart.
Again, a word that gives life to the dead is certainly God’s word. God’s word, as it is ordinarily preached, gives life to the dead. It makes the blind see, the mute speak, the deaf hear, and the lame walk. It makes those who never felt the weight of their sins mourn, and those who never could pray breathe out groans and sighs for their sins that words cannot express.
Third, from the children God has begotten. From birth we can read the sentence of death on people’s foreheads, and in their lives we can see what hellish hearts they have. Yet some among this monstrous brood are utterly changed and made new. They have new minds, opinions, desires, joys, sorrows, speech, prayers, and lives. The difference between them and others is so great that people who loved them while they loved their sins now hate them. Where did this strange change come from? From themselves? No; they themselves once hated this new life and these new people. Did they change to gain respect? No; the change brings hatred from father, mother, and friends, and hostility everywhere. Is it merely simplicity, or have they lost their senses? They were once fools indeed, and I can show that they were all fools of the kind Solomon describes. Yet even simple people have been known to become wiser in worldly affairs after being made new. Finally, is the change produced by a slavish fear of hell? Far from it. They detest living like prisoners in Bridewell, doing everything for fear of the whip.
Fourth, from God’s record keeper within every person: the conscience, which tells us there is a God. People sometimes silence it. Yet in thunder, in a great plague, as with Pharaoh, or at death, they find themselves near God’s tribunal and plainly acknowledge him. The fearful terrors of conscience prove it. Conscience arrests people for their debts like a bailiff; therefore, some creditor must have sent it. At times it torments them like an executioner; therefore, some extraordinary judge must have given the command. Where do these dreadful terrors come from? From the people themselves? Surely not. Everyone desires peace and wishes to live and sleep unharmed. Do they come from melancholy? No. Melancholy develops gradually, while terrors of conscience can seize a person suddenly during a sermon or just after some grievous secret sin. Melancholy may be treated with medicine, but many physicians have had to give such people over to other physicians. Melancholy may be borne, but who can bear a wounded spirit? Thus you see that there is a God.
[Objection:] Who has ever seen God, that everyone speaks so confidently of his existence?
[Answer:] No mortal person has seen his face. Yet his “back parts,” the traces by which he makes himself known, have been seen, are seen, and may be seen by the whole world, as I have shown.
[Objection:] Everything comes about through secondary causes.
[Answer:] First, what of it? Does the house have no master because the servants do all the work? This great God maintains his majesty while all creatures serve him. Sometimes, when we behold a particular act of his government, we can still cry out, “Here is the finger of God.”
Second, what if the world is so disordered that shillings pass for pennies and counters for pounds, while the best people are sold cheaply and the worst are highly valued and promoted? If we had eyes to see and minds to understand, we would perceive harmony amid this discord. God is like a wise carpenter still hewing out his work. We seem to see only lumber and confusion. Let us wait until the day of judgment. Then we shall see the infinite wisdom with which he has fitted it all for his own glory and the good of his people.
[Objection:] If there is a God, why does he not hear his people’s prayers? Why does he seem to forget them when they need him most?
[Answer:] Noah’s dove does not return at once with an olive branch of peace in its mouth. A prayer that succeeds may not receive an immediate answer, as though enough company had not yet gathered to carry away the abundance of mercy God intends to give. The Lord always grants what his people ask, either in the thing itself or in something of equal or greater worth. He gives his persistent beggars what they desire, sometimes little by little, like pennies, and sometimes in pounds. He often waits a long time before giving, but he pays them well for their waiting.
Applications of This Truth
[Application 1: Reproof] This truth reproves atheists both in opinion and in practice.
First are atheists in opinion, who conclude or suspect that there is no God. What blasphemous thoughts! Are there such people? People? Rather beasts; rather devils; worse than devils, for the devils believe and tremble. Yet “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Ps 14:1). Some have little understanding or knowledge and no heart for the truth. A scholar of limited understanding, guided only by books, may see events arising through secondary causes yet be unable to lift his dull thoughts to the first cause. Great politicians are like children standing on their heads and kicking their heels against heaven. They think religion is merely a political device for keeping people in awe. Profane people want to continue in sin without restraint or rebuke. They extinguish the light of nature, wishing there were no God to punish them, and so become willing to doubt that he exists. Others have sinned secretly, though not openly, against nature or the light of conscience. God strikes people guilty of incest, sodomy, and self-pollution with dreadful blindness. Still others are notorious lovers of the world who look no higher than their barns or farther than their shops. The world is a pearl held before their eyes, and they cannot see God.
Lastly, I suspect those who have never discovered this thief, the sin born and bred within them. They have not seen it in their own hearts, where it still lies in some dark corner of the soul, ready to cut their throats. Such people sometimes suspect there is no God. This is a grievous sin. If there is no God, there is no heaven, no hell, no martyrs, no prophets, and no Scriptures. Christ would then have been a horrible liar and an impostor. Other sins wrong and grieve God and wound him, but this sin stabs at his very heart. It strikes at his life and, as far as a sinful person can bring it about, is the death of God, for it says, “There is no God.”
Second are atheists in practice. They say there is a God and do not question his existence, but their works deny him. A person who pulls a king from his throne is as vile as one who says there is no king. Such people are nearly as bad as atheists in opinion, and we can find heaps of them everywhere. In practice they deny God by putting other gods in his place: their wealth, honor, pleasure, clothing, and food. They continually wrong the true God in ways idolaters would not dare wrong their idols. They do not seek from him in prayer all that they lack or return everything to him in praise.
[Application 2: Exhortation] Strive to see and behold this God. There is a God; will you not give him a good look? Follow every river until you reach its source. Pass through all creatures until you are plunged into and swallowed up in God. When you see the heavens, ask, “Where is the great Builder who made them?” When you hear of kingdoms changing, ask, “Where is the Lord of hosts, the great Captain of these armies?” When you taste sweetness in a creature or in God’s ordinances, ask, “Where is sweetness itself, beauty itself? Where is the sea from which these drops came, the sun from which these beams shine?” If only people saw this God! To behold him is heaven. If you cannot and do not see him, you are in a corner of hell. Yet what is less known than God? I think that when people hear there is a God around them, his glory should bring them low in the dust.
If people saw him, they would speak of him. But who speaks of God? Indeed, people cannot even speak to God. Beggars learn a practiced way of asking, and many people learn to pray in the same way. They do not see God in prayer, and so cannot truly speak to him through prayer. People sin and God frowns, making the devils quake. Yet their hearts do not tremble, because they do not see him.
[Application 3:] Choose this God as your God. Even if there is a God, what benefit is that to you if he is not your God? Pull down all your idol gods and set up this God. If any creature has ever done you good without God setting it to work for your good, love that creature and regard it as your god. If anything else can help you on your deathbed or after you leave this world, take that as your god. You might have been born in India, never heard of the true God, and worshiped the devil as your god. Choose him alone, then, as your God. Give yourself wholly and forever to him, and he will give himself wholly and forever to you. Seek him with tears, and you will find him. Bind yourself by the strongest oaths and bonds of covenant to be his, and he will enter into covenant with you and be yours (Jer 50:3, 5).
[Application 4: Comfort] This truth comforts those who forsake everything for this God. You have not lost everything for nothing. You have given up shadows for substance, not substance for shadows (Prov 8:18). When every other comfort is gone, there is a God to comfort you. When you have no rest here, there is a God in whom to rest. When you are dead, he can give you life. When you are weak, he is strong. When friends are gone, he will be a sure friend to you.
So much for the first part of this divine truth: there is a God. I turn now to the second: this God is most glorious. His glory appears in four ways: in his essence, his attributes, his persons, and his works.
God Is Most Glorious
First, God is glorious in his essence. No person or angel knows, has known, or ever will know what this glory is. A cockle shell cannot contain the sea. To comprehend God’s essence, one would need God’s own wisdom and thus would have to be God. Yet though we cannot comprehend what his essence is, we can apprehend that it is incomprehensible and glorious. This makes us admire his glory all the more, just as we admire the sun’s brilliance all the more because it is too great for us to look upon.
Second, God is glorious in his attributes, the divine perfections by which he makes himself known to us. These attributes are not qualities added to God, but belong to his very nature. God’s wisdom is God himself, and God’s power is God himself, and so on. Nor are the attributes different things in God. They differ in our understanding and in their effects on different objects. God punishing the wicked displays his justice; God having compassion on the miserable displays his mercy.
Leaving aside elaborate divisions, these are God’s attributes.
1. He is a Spirit, a spiritual God (John 4:24). Therefore he abhors worship and duties performed without the Spirit’s influence. You may confess your sins without shame or sorrow, say the Lord’s Prayer without understanding, or hear the word only to know more rather than to be more deeply affected by it. Such lifeless bodies of holy duties are hateful sacrifices before God.
2. He is the living God. He lives of himself and gives life to all other things. Bring your dead heart, then, to this source of life so that he may give you life. Let his almighty power pull you from your tomb and loosen your grave clothes, so that you may live.
3. He is infinite, without limit to his being (2 Chr 6:18). How horrible, then, is even the least sin that strikes against the infinite and great God! How lamentable is the condition of all with whom he is angry! Infinite goodness has forsaken you, while infinite power and wrath stand against you.
4. He is eternal, without beginning or end (Ps 80:1). How foolish, then, are those who prefer a brief pleasure to this eternal God! Like Esau, they sell an everlasting inheritance for a little stew, for a base desire and its passing pleasure.
5. He is all-sufficient (Gen 17:1). What do you lack, then? You want this God and his love, yet you are reluctant to take the trouble of finding him or to bear the cost of gaining him through the loss of all else. In him are infinite and eternal sweetness, goodness, grace, glory, and mercy, present to be found. Why run from mountain to hill? Why spend your money, thoughts, time, and efforts on things that cannot satisfy? Here is your resting place.
Your clothes may warm you, but they cannot feed you. Your food may feed you, but it cannot heal you. Medicine may heal you, but it cannot support you. Money may support you, but it cannot comfort you when distress of conscience and anguish of heart come upon you. This God is joy in sadness, light in darkness, life in death, and heaven in hell. Here is everything your eye has seen, your heart has desired, your tongue has asked for, or your mind has conceived. Here is all light in this sun and all water in this sea. From him, as from a crystal fountain, you will drink all the refined sweetness of every creature in heaven and earth forever. The whole world is exhausting itself in search of rest; only here can rest be found.
6. He is omnipotent: he can do whatever he wills. Yield, then. Do not persist in sinfully or subtly defending even one sin in secret against this powerful God, who can crush you whenever he pleases.
7. He sees all. He knows everything that can possibly be or be known. Therefore, seek this God’s approval alone in all your ways. What others say, judge, or think of you does not matter. What your fellow actors on the world’s stage imagine does not matter. God is the great Spectator who sees you everywhere. He watches you and takes full notice of every action of your life. Those actions are recorded in heaven. On the great day, that Spectator and Judge will open the record and read it aloud for the whole world to hear. Fear to sin in secret, unless you can find a dark place his eye cannot see. Mourn your secret neglect of holy duties, your secret hypocrisy, sexual sin, and irreverence. Come before this God with shame on your face to seek pardon and mercy. Marvel at his patience: he has seen you and has not damned you.
8. He is true and means to do what he says. Let every child of God take comfort that everything held under a promise will one day be fulfilled. Let every wicked person know that every threat God has spoken will also come to pass. Every arrow set to the bowstring will one day fly, strike its mark, and wound deeply. The longer the Lord draws the bow, the deeper the wound his arrow, his threat, will make.
9. He is holy. Do not be ashamed of holiness, even when it rises above the ordinary standard of uprightness and the blind, mad world calls it madness. “If the righteous” (that is, those who are most holy) “be scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Pet 4:18). Where indeed? Not before saints or angels, whose occupation is holiness; not before the man Christ Jesus, for holiness was his meat and drink; not before the blessed God, whose nature is holy; and not in heaven, where nothing unclean enters. Those who are not holy will never see God, Christ, saints, angels, or heaven to their comfort. Wear holiness now as your crown, for it will be your glory in heaven. If this makes you appear vile, be more vile.
10. He is just and merciful. In himself he is just and will punish every sin. He is merciful in the face of Christ and will punish no sin for which Christ has already borne the punishment. He is a just God toward the hard-hearted sinner and a merciful God toward the humble sinner. He is neither all mercy without justice nor all justice without mercy. Submit to him, and his mercy embraces you. Resist him, and his justice pursues you.
When a child of God is truly humbled, that person commonly imagines God to be hard-hearted, cruel, and reluctant to help, and asks, “Can such a sinner be pardoned?” A wicked person who has never been humbled imagines instead that God does not mean what he says. Despite God’s severe words, this person assumes that a merciful God will not carry out his threats and finds it easy to believe that the greatest sin can be pardoned. Think of God, therefore, as you have heard him described.
Third, God is glorious in his three persons: the Father who begets, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit, the third person, who proceeds. The Father is called the Father of glory (Eph 1); Christ, the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2); and the Spirit, the Spirit of glory (1 Pet 4). The Father is glorious in his great work of election, the Son in his great work of redemption, and the Holy Spirit in his work of application. The Father chooses the house, the Son buys the house, and the Spirit dwells in the house, which is the heart of a poor, lost sinner.
Fourth, God is glorious in his works: creation, providence, and government. Wonder that he should stoop to look upon us, worms, heaps of filth, and lepers that we are. He provides for us and protects us; he put his Son to death, calls us, strives with us, waits for us, and gives himself and all that he has to us. Fear this God when you come before him. People come to him in prayer as though approaching their equals or an idol. They do not tremble at his voice in the word. A king expects to be served with ceremony. Yet how carelessly and slovenly people perform every holy duty! So much for the first principal truth, that there is one most glorious God. We proceed now to the second.
Humanity’s Original State
God first made all humanity in a glorious and happy state, like himself.
To explain this claim, I have chosen the text, “God made man righteous” (Eccl 7:29). It clearly shows that God first made all humanity righteous, glorious, and happy in Adam. When man first came from God’s mint, he shone with glory. There is marvelous glory in all the other creatures, which serve man and furnish his household. How much greater, then, was the glory of man himself, for whom they were made! When man was to be made, God called a parliament, gathered a council, and said, “Come, let us make man in our own image,” as though all the wisdom of the Trinity would be seen in man’s creation.
Where did man’s glory and happiness appear? In the impression of God’s image upon him (Gen 1:26). What greater honor could Joseph, or any subject, have than to be like his prince?
What was the image of God? The schoolmen and the fathers have raised many subtle questions about it, some necessary but difficult. I will pass over their questions and give you the apostle’s judgment (Col 3:10). From it we may describe God’s image in general as man’s perfection in holiness, resembling God’s admirable holiness, by which alone man pleases God.
All the other, lesser creatures bore marks of God’s power, wisdom, and goodness, and made those attributes visible. But God chose man, the finest of his lesser creatures, to display one of his most perfect attributes: his holiness. A king’s wisdom and generosity appear in the way he governs his whole kingdom, but his royal and most excellent qualities appear in the face and character of his son, who stands next to him. More particularly, God’s image appeared in man in these four ways.
1. In his understanding. Man’s understanding was like God’s. God’s image appeared chiefly in this: as God saw himself and beheld his own infinite, endless glory and excellence, so man knew God’s excellence and saw God in his glory. Moses saw God face to face, though Moses was sinful; how much more must Adam have seen him, being perfect? God loved man and therefore revealed himself to him.
2. In his affections. God’s image appeared chiefly in two ways.
First, as God saw and loved himself, so Adam saw God and loved him more than the world and more than himself. Iron put into a fire seems to become nothing but fire. In the same way, Adam, loved by God, became a living mass of love and loved God in return.
Second, as God delighted in himself, so Adam delighted in God and rested sweetly in his embrace. I seem to see Adam continually caught up in joy at having this God.
3. In his will. God’s image appeared chiefly in two ways.
First, as God willed himself alone as his ultimate end, so Adam willed God as his ultimate end, unlike man now.
Second, as God willed nothing but good, so Adam willed nothing but good. Adam’s will was not unchangeable, but it conformed to God’s will.
4. In his life. Adam lived outwardly as God would have lived if he had taken on human nature. God would have lived according to his own will, law, and rule, and so did Adam. Adam’s body was a lantern through which holiness shone, like a lamp burning in his heart. This was God’s image, by which Adam pleased God. Likeness is a ground of love; therefore God loved him dearly and honored him highly, making him lord over all creatures. While he remained in that state, no evil could hurt him. There was no sorrow, sickness, tears, fear, death, or hell; nor would there ever have been, had he remained there.
[Objection:] How was this state ours?
[Answer:] Christ’s righteousness belongs to a believer by imputation, though the believer never performed it. In the same way, Adam’s righteousness and God’s image in him were imputed to us and counted as ours. Adam received our inheritance to keep and pass on to us. When he became bankrupt, we lost it. Yet we had possessed it in his hands, just as an orphan may have a great estate left to him without ever receiving a penny from the guardian who was supposed to preserve it and hand it over.
See here the horrible nature of sin. It drags man down from his throne and strips him of his perfection, however great that perfection was. Adam might have pleaded, “Though I have sinned, this is only one offense, and my first. Lord, I am your firstborn. Have pity on my poor descendants, who will be ruined forever if you do not forgive.” Yet one sin weighed him and all his descendants down into eternal ruin, as we shall hear.
Learn from this how justly God may require every person to obey the whole law perfectly and curse anyone who fails. Man was first made in a glorious state and given the power to please God perfectly. God may therefore demand the debt of perfect obedience. Now man is bankrupt and in prison. If he cannot pay justice every last penny, he must lie in hell forever, for God entrusted him with resources that, if properly used, would have enabled him to pay all he owed.
See, too, how much cause every person has to lament the miserable state into which humanity has fallen. It is sad when the children of beggars live as poor wanderers, but sadder when the children of a great prince come to that condition. Someone who never enjoyed a prince’s favor does not grieve as one who enjoyed it and was then cast out. Man, once beloved by God, is now rejected by him. Once a prince and lord of all the world, he now wanders the earth as a fugitive. This adds to the sorrow of the damned: “Oh, the hopes, the means, and the mercies I once had!” If people can lament the loss of their hopes and ordinary mercies, what kind of hearts have those who cannot, do not, and will not lament the loss of the extraordinary favor they once possessed? Those who remembered the glory of the first temple wept when they saw how much less glorious the second was. Whether God’s temple has begun to be restored in you or its restoration has not begun at all, think of the temple burned and the glory of God vanished and lost.
This also comforts all God’s people. If all Adam’s descendants were perfectly righteous in him, then you who belong to the royal family and are in Christ are all the more perfectly righteous in Christ. The righteousness of the second Adam surpasses that of the first. You are therefore happier and holier in the second Adam than the first Adam ever was in himself. The first Adam could lose all his righteousness. The second Adam cannot and has not lost his. If Christ can be damned, then you can be damned; otherwise, you cannot.
This also reproves three kinds of people.
1. Those who are ashamed of holiness. Lord, what times have we fallen into? God’s image, once the glory of humanity, is now treated as a shame, while sin, humanity’s shame, is treated as a glory. The world spreads false reports about holy living. It calls holiness foolishness, excessive strictness, pride, and hypocrisy. It says that however good a show people make, they are as bad as the worst if all their sins could be written on their foreheads. As a result, many who are almost persuaded to become new people and turn over a new leaf dare not begin to live religiously because they fear the world’s shame. “What will people think of me?” they ask.
People are ashamed to refuse to drink toasts to others’ health and therefore defend the practice as lawful. Our fashionable people are ashamed to fall even a mile behind the latest fashion. They therefore defend exposed breasts and strange clothing as proper. You who change with the times may have enough conscience to want to be honest, and to be thought honest, yet you conform yourselves to every company. When others swear, you are ashamed to reprove them. In bad company, you are ashamed to begin a holy conversation. You claim discretion and say that we must not cast pearls before swine. But the heart of the matter is that you are ashamed to be holy. How dreadful! Is it shameful to be like God? You sinful people! Almost anything but religion can bring a person credit, while many regard religion as a disgrace. I wonder how you dare pray, or how you will look upon the Lord of glory on the last day, when all people, angels, and devils will marvel at the one of whom you are now ashamed. Do you expect wages from Christ when you are ashamed to acknowledge him or wear his uniform?
2. Those who hate holiness. This goes further than being ashamed of it.
3. Those who are content with a limited measure of holiness. Perfect holiness was the image by which Adam pleased God. Will a little holiness satisfy you?
There are three kinds of people who settle for this.
1. The formalist is content with as much holiness as will earn him respect. The form and name of religion can bring honor; its power and practice feel like a burden. People therefore take up the first and cast off the second. Indeed, most follow this course. If they had no goodness at all, they would become the shame, scorn, and talk of the day, so each person adopts the form for the sake of honor.
The form he adopts follows the mold into which he is cast. If his acquaintances are merely respectable, he will be like them. If they are more exacting, praying, reading, and discussing religion, he will not fall an inch behind them. If surpassing his companions and taking first place among them will earn him credit, he will do it whatever it costs. Yet he will never become so exact in his conduct that people hate him for it, unless he thinks the hatred of some will be repaid by greater love and credit from others. He disguises himself to suit each place and company. King Joash was a good man as long as Jehoiada the priest lived.
If a little religion wins people credit, a little will serve for the time. Where more is needed, they will praise good people, good sermons, and good books, and let fall two or three good remarks. What will others think of them then? They cover their nakedness with these fig leaves of ordinary honesty. They bait everything they do with honesty so that they can make their catch, for the only thing they fish for is credit.
You can expose these people by following them home. In their households you will find worldliness, anger, and loose conduct. Follow them into their private rooms, and there they usually neglect their duties or rush through them while entertaining vain thoughts. In this dressing room you will see the stage actors as they are. Their shop windows are closed. Hardly any honesty is visible here, because no profit or esteem comes through a door where no one sees them. Let a minister or faithful friend examine them, expose them, and condemn them as gilded but rotten posts, as hollowhearted and unsound. Their hearts will swell like toads, hiss like snakes, and bark like dogs at those who judge them. Such people have robbed them of the god they served: their gain is gone.
2. The guilty sinner who condemns himself goes further than the formalist. He is content with enough holiness to quiet his conscience. That is why even the heathen have had some religion: they had consciences that troubled them. If this man has lived in gross sins and begins to be tormented by them, he will confess and forsake those sins. But how? Like a dog abandoning its meat, not because it hates the carrion but because it fears the stick. He performs holy duties because he must, not because he wants to make use of them. Otherwise, he can find no peace. When his conscience is quiet, he neglects his duties. When it cries out and stirs, he returns to them. His good moods come and go with his conscience’s fits.
People of this kind boast that they are better than hypocrites because their holiness is more than an outward show. True, but its purpose is only to stop your conscience and quiet its cries. By praying, listening, and grieving, you bribe your conscience, the officer sent to arrest you, into silence. But God your judge has grave charges to bring against you, and soon you will stand before him in dread.
