Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/134

130 nothing but what is good also, and this in the way and manner dictated by his own infinite wisdom in the Sacred Scriptures of divine truth. He cannot condemn, cast into hell, or predestinate the soul of any person to eternal death. He cannot avenge injuries; neither can he be angry, or punish. He cannot even turn away his face from any one, or regard him with the least severity of countenance; these and the like acts being totally contrary to his essence, and consequently contrary to himself. Wheresoever, therefore, expressions of the kind are found in the Sacred Scriptures, they are to be interpreted solely in reference to the wickedness of man, who judges of the Lord according to the evil state of his own mind. And as it appears to the wicked, when they suffer the punishment due to their crimes, that it is inflicted upon them by the Lord, whom they suppose to be then angry with them, because he does not immediately remove it, therefore, in agreement with such appearance, anger, wrath, and fury, are frequently ascribed to him in the Word, when yet, as before observed, nothing can in reality be more foreign to the divine nature; since, as the Psalmist says, "Jehovah is good to all; and his tender mercies are over all his works," Ps. cxlv. 9. On the other hand, it is equally true, that God cannot, by any mere act of mercy and omnipotence, convert evil into good, hell into heaven, a devil into an angel, or an impenitent sinner, who obstinately refuses the terms of salvation, into an heir of eternal life. These things are not within the limits of divine order, and therefore cannot be performed by any sovereign or absolute act even of omnipotence itself. The only way, as already stated, whereby the divine operations can effectually change a man, is that laid down in the Holy Word, which is, that he suffer himself to be