[Meditationes Jacobi Triglandii in opiniones variorum de voluntate Dei et gratia universali, ubi etiam aliquid de scientia media; (Hieronymus de Vogel, 1642)]
Jacobus Triglandius, born the 22nd of July, 1583, at Vianen to Romanist parents, did by providential guidance forsake the traditions of his forebears, having been brought by gracious illumination to embrace the doctrines of the Reformed churches. Nurtured first at Gouda, and later sent to priestly instruction at Amsterdam and Leuven, he was, by inward doubts and the testimony of holy Scripture, compelled to renounce the errors of Rome. Deprived of familial support, he endured privation but was sustained by divine hand, finding employment and, in due course, spiritual enlightenment through study of the Reformed confession. In the year 1602, Triglandius was appointed rector of the school at Vianen and, soon after, entered communion with the Reformed Church. Diligently preparing for sacred ministry, he was ordained at Stolwijk (1607), laboring faithfully thence and at Amsterdam, where he became, in 1610, a bulwark for truth amidst ecclesiastical tumult. As deputy to the Synod of Dort (1618–19), Triglandius did valiantly withstand the Remonstrant innovations, serving on the committee that composed the Canons of Dort—thereby defending the doctrines of election and sovereign grace. Elevated to the professorship at Leiden (1633), he distinguished himself as exegete and casuist, and as pastor in that city, contending mightily against Remonstrant doctrines and civil encroachments upon Christ’s Church. His Kerckelycke Geschiedenissen and other writings remain monuments of godly erudition. Called to his rest in 1654, Triglandius left a legacy of steadfast fidelity, zealously maintaining the purity of the Reformed faith for the edification of generations to come.
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From what we have said above concerning the love with which God embraces the obedience of the rational creature, as being in accordance with His nature, reverencing His majesty, and expressing His image—and concerning the hatred with which He turns away from contrary disobedience and contumacy, as conflicting with His nature, and injuring His majesty—it is plain that, just as God cannot but wish well to that creature who obeys Him and loves Him sincerely and perfectly, so He cannot but will that the creature who opposes Him should be received with punishments worthy according to its merit. Whence it necessarily follows that God cannot leave sin entirely unpunished. We ascribe the former to divine goodness and equity, the latter to divine justice.
God Himself ascribes it to His justice, or to Himself as a just Judge, in Exodus 34:7:
“That by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children,” namely, those who hate Him.
In Psalm 9:5-6, David says that God sits on the throne judging righteousness, and explains in what way He has done this:
“Because He has destroyed the wicked; He has blotted out their name forever.”
In Romans 2:6, the Apostle says:
“That God will render to every man according to his works.”
In Romans 3:6, the same Apostle expressly asks:
“Is God unjust who inflicts wrath?”
He answers that this can by no means happen, nor should it be felt or said, because otherwise He would not be the Judge of the world. There the destruction of the impious is expressly attributed to God’s justice. Indeed, in the first chapter, the same Apostle testifies that this right of God is known to the Gentiles:
“That they who do such things are worthy of death.”
Hence we conclude that there is in God a justice which they call vindicatory, founded in the holiness, purity, majesty, and supreme authority of God, which requires that sins be punished in sinners with worthy and appropriate penalties. But because sins injure the infinite majesty of God, this justice demands that they be punished with the highest penalties, that is, penalties infinite either in gravity or in duration. Hence have arisen the threats attached to the divine law in His word; hence servile fear; hence terrors and anguish in the minds of the impious, expressed by the prophet Isaiah, chapter 33:14:
“The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”
Yet there are those who, although they do not dare to deny that God is just, nevertheless are unwilling to acknowledge that vindicatory justice of God by which He necessarily punishes sins. They think this conflicts with God’s Authority, which in this way would become less than the authority of any men. For since sins are nothing but offenses and certain debts which we contract with God, they wish it to be altogether consonant with reason that God can absolutely forgive them, with no punishment taken for them, or satisfaction accepted for them, unless we wish to concede less to God than to men themselves—seeing that there is no one who cannot forgive injuries inflicted on him, and remit debts contracted with him, with no satisfaction accepted for them.
But they are grievously mistaken, duly considering neither the nature of God nor the nature of sins. For God testifies that He is a jealous God, who most unworthily bears His glory to be transferred elsewhere (Exodus 20:5; Isaiah 42:8; Nahum 1:2-3). But sins transfer the glory of God to creatures, even the vilest, to idols, to man himself, indeed even to his inordinate affections. Hence they are iniquities, the highest iniquities, injuring the highest majesty of God, violating the covenant entered into with Him, conflicting with His purest nature. Hence God’s hatred of sinners, which necessarily brings upon them the punishment of destruction, concerning which Psalm 5:5-7:
“Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the bloody and deceitful man will the Lord abhor.”
Those who injure majesty among men are judged by all nations to be punished with death, nor does anyone judge that they should be pardoned. What, therefore, is to be judged of him who has injured the infinite majesty of God? He who violates the common good among men is devoted to destruction by the whole community; but he who sins against God sins against the most common good, against the universal good; therefore, he is worthy of being execrated by the whole nature of things. Here God acts as Judge, as the Judge of the universe, to whom alone belongs the avenging of all evil, according to what He Himself pronounces, Deuteronomy 32:35:
“Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.”