[1.] His vindictive justice. God hath, indeed, many ways manifested his indignation and anger against sin; so that men cannot but know that it is “the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death,” Rom. i. 32. He hath in the law threatened to kindle a fire in his anger that shall burn to the very heart of hell. And even in many providential dispensations, “his wrath is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness of men,” Rom. i. 18. So that men must say that he is a God of judgment. And he that shall but consider that the angels for sin were cast from heaven, shut up under chains of everlasting darkness unto the judgment of the great day (the Ἤ μιν ἑλὼν ῥίψω ἐξ Τάρταρον ἠερόεντα, Τῆλε μαλ’ ἧχι βαθιστον ὑπὸ χθονός ἐστι βέρεθρον, Ἕνθα σιδήρειαί τε πύλαι καὶ χάλκεος οὐδός, Τόσσον ἔνερθ’ Αἴδεω, ὅσον οὐρανός ἐστ’ ἀπὸ γαίης. Homer, Il. θ. 13–16. rumour whereof seems to have been spread among the Gentiles, whence the poet makes his Jupiter threaten the inferior rebellious deities with that punishment); and how Sodom and Gomorrah were condemned with an overthrow, and burned into ashes, that they might be “examples unto those that should after live ungodly,” 2 Pet. ii. 6; cannot but discover much of God’s vindictive justice and his anger against sin. But far more clear doth this shine into us in the Lord Christ:—