But what does he see to be the obvious meaning of those expressions? He calls Himself before the Jews, a "jealous God," that is, One who is unwilling that any other god than Himself should be worshiped: why? because He wished to prevent the Jews from sinking into idolatry, like that of the nations around them, and thus to save their souls and those of their posterity from the low and degraded state into which the worship of idols sinks the mind. It might have appeared to the Jews, that He was speaking for His own sake, and because He desired to be worshiped; whereas it was for their sakes and to secure their elevation and happiness, that He so spoke.
In like manner, when God represents Himself in the Scriptures as "angry" and "wrathful" against those that disobey, and as threatening them with His "vengeance," unless they turn from the evil of their ways, what is the plain interpretation of this language? Not that it can be supposed for a moment, that the infinite Divine Being is inflamed with the feeling of anger, which is a merely human passion, and the existence of which with Him would be as contrary to His attribute of wisdom and omniscience, as to that of love and goodness. For anger is a passion produced in the mind by an attack upon its self-love or by opposition to its desires, and is in its very nature a sudden passion: consequently it can have no existence with a mind that foreknows all things—that foresees all the opposition and all the disobedience of men, for ages beforehand. Still less can the passion of anger exist with a mind that is essential love, and which is at the same time, unchangeable; and both these the Lord declares Himself to be. "The Lord," says the
