Doct. 1. The peace of reconciliation with (Jod is the blessing of the gospel. Three things are here to be done in prosecution of the point. First, I shall shew you tliat there is a quarrel between God and man. Secondly, that tlie gospel, and only the gospel, takes this up, and makes peace betwixt God and man. Thirdly, why God conveys this peace of reconciliation into the world in this waj', and by tliis method.
First, There is a quarrel depending betwixt God and the sons of men. Open acts of hostility done by one nation against another, proclaim there is a war conunenced. Now, such acts of hostility pass betwixt God and man : bullets fly thick to and fro on either hand. Man lets fly against God (though, against his will, he shoots short,) whole volleys of sins and impieties. The best of saints acknowledge thus much of themselves, before converting grace took them off. Tit. iii. 3 ; ' We ourselves also were sometimes foolii-h, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures.' Mark the last words, ' serving lusts and pleasures.' They were in pay to sin, willing to fight against God, and side with this his only enemy. Not a faculty of his soul, or member of his body, which is not in arms against him, 'The carnal mind,' saitli the apostle, ' is enmity against God,' Rom. viii. 7. And if there be war in the mind, to be sure there can be no peace in the members, (inferior faculties, I mean, of the soul,) which are commanded all by it. Indeed, we are bj' nature wcn-st in our best part ; the eiunity against God is chiefly seated in the superior faculties of the soul. As in armies, the common soldiery are wholly taken up with the booty and spoil thej' get by the war, without much minding one side or other ; but the principal oflicers, especially the prince or general, go into the field full of emnity against them that oppose them ; so the inferior faculties seek only satisfaction to their sensual appetite in the booty that sin afibrds ; but the superior facidties of the mind, this comes forth more directly against God, and opposeth his sovereignty ; yea, if it could lay a plot effectual to take away the life of God himself, there is enmity enough in the carnal mind to put it into execution. And as man is in arms against God, so is he against man. 'He is angry with the wicked every day ; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready; he hath also prepared for him the instruments of death,' Psa. vii. 1 1 . God hath set up his royal standard in defiance of all the sons and daughters of apostate Adam, who from his own mouth are proclaimed rebels and traitors to his crown and dignity ; and as against such, he hath taken the field, as with fire and sword to be avenged on them. Yea, he gives the world suHicient testimony of his incensed wrath, by that of it which is revealed from heaven daily in the judgments executed upon sinners, and those many biit of a span long, before they can shew what nature they have by actual sin, yet crushed to death bj^ God's i-ighteous foot, only for the viperous kind of which they come. At every door where sin sets its foot, there the wrath of God meets us. Every faculty of soul, and member of body, are used as a weapon of unrighteousness against God; so every one hath its portion of wrath, even to the tip of the tongue. As man is sinful all over, so is he cursed all over. Inside and outside, soul and body, is written all with woes and curses, so close and full, that there is not room for another to interline, or add to what God hath written. In a word, so fiery is the Lord's wrath against sinfvd man, that all the creatures share with him in it. Tliough God takes his aim at man, and levels his arrows prinuu'ily at his very heart ; yet as they go, they graze the creature ; God's ciu'se blasts the whole creation, for man's sake : and so he pays him some of his miserj', from the hand of those creatures which were primitively ordained to minister to him in his happy state ; yea, contril)ute some drops to the filling of his cup. As an en- raged army makes spoil and havoc of all in their enemies' land, destroys their provision, stops or poisons their waters, burns up their houses, and lets out his fury on all his hand comes at: truly thus God plagues man in every creature; not one escapes his hand. 'I'he very bread we cat, the v.'ater we drink, and the air we breathe in, are poisoned with the curse of God ; of which they who live longest die at last. And all these are no more to hell, than the few files of men to the whole body of an army; God doth but skirmish with sinners here, by some small parties of his judgments sent out, to let them know thry have
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3/54. THE GOSPEL OF PEACE.