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part evident in nature ; for the apostles did slide in the Christian doctrine mostly by this means into the hearts of those to whom they preached : Acts xxiv. 25, ' He reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.' The particularity of it belongs to the gospel revelation, but nature hath some kind of sense of it in itself, and they are urged to repent, ' because God hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness, by the man whom he hath ordained ; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead,' Acts xvii. 31. God judgeth the world in patience now, but then in righteousness, when all things shall be reviewed, and everything restored ; virtue to its public honour, and vice to its due shame.
[6.] If there be a solemn judgment-day, when every one must receive his final doom, this judgment certainly infers a condemnation to a fallen creature, unless God set up another court for his relief ; for now man is utterly disenabled by sin to fulfil the law, and can by no means avoid the punishment that is due to his transgression. I shall prove this by three reasons : — The law to ftillen man is impossible; the penalty is intolerable ; and the punishment, for aught that yet appears, if God do not take another course, is unavoidable.
(1.) The duty of the law is impossible. The apostle tells us 'what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the weakness of our flesh.' It could not justify us before God, it could not furnish us with any answer to his demands, when he shall call us to an account. Man is mightily addicted to the legal covenant, therefore it is one part of a gospel minister's work to represent the impossibility of ever obtaining grace or life by that covenant. Man would stick to the law as long as he can, and will patch up a sorry righteousness of his own, some few superficial things. He makes a short exposition of the law, that he may cherish a large opinion of his own righteousness ; and curtails the law of God, that the ell may be no longer than the cloth, and brings it down to a poor contemptible thing, requiring a few external superficial duties of men. We read often of being ' dead to sin,' and ' to the world ;' it is as certainly true we must be ' dead to the law.' Now how are we dead to the law ? The scripture tells us in one place, that ' through the law we are dead to the law ;' and in another place, that we are ' dead to the law through the body of Christ.' The first place is Gal. ii. 19, ' Through the law I am dead to the law.' Men are apt to stand to the legal covenant, and have their confidence in the flesh, to place their hopes of acceptance with God in some few external things, which they make their false righteousness. For the carnal world, as it cries up a false happiness as its God, so men have a false righteousness wdiich is their Christ. Now through the law they are dead to it. How ? The law su]:)poseth us as innocent, and requires us to continue so : ' Cursed is every one that continues not in every thing,' &c. Suppose a man should exactly fulfil it afterwards, yet the paying of new debts will not quit old scores. And then we are ' dead, to the law by the body of Christ,"" Rom. vii. 4 ; by the crucified body of Christ, by which he hath merited and purchased a better hope and grace for us. Well, the duty is impossible.
(2.) The penalty is intolerable, for who can stand when God is
182 THE FIRST SEltllON. [Pri. XXXII. 1. 2.
angry ? Ezok, xxii. 14, ' Can thine heart endure, or can tliuie hands be strong, in the day that I shall deal with thee ? ' We that cannot endure the pain of the gout or stone, how sliall we endure the eternal wrath of God ? It is surely a very ' dreadful thing to fall into the hands of that living God,' that lives for ever to punish the transgressors of his law.
(3.) The punishment is unavoidable, unless sin be pardoned, and you submit to God's way : for I would ask you, what hope can you have in God, whose nature engage th him to hate sin, and whose justice obligeth him to punish it ?
(1st.) Whose nature engageth him to hate sin and sinners : Hab. i. 13, ' He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.' I urge this for a double reason : partly because I have observed that all the security ot sinners, and their neglect of seeking after pardon by Jesus Christ, it comes from their lessening thoughts of God's holiness ; and if their hearts Avere sufficiently possessed with an awe of God's unspotted purity and holiness, they would more look after the terms of grace God hath provided : Ps. 1. 21, ' Thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thyself.' Why do men live securely in their sins, and do not break off their evil course ? They think God is not so severe and harsh, and so all their confidence is grounded upon a mistake of God's nature, and such a dreadful mistake as amounts to a blasphemy: ' Thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thyself.' The other reason is this, particularly because I observe the bottom reason of all the fear that is in the hearts of men is God's holiness; 1 Sam. vi. 20, ' Who is able to stand before this holy God ? ' and ' Who would not fear thee ? for thou art holy,' Kev. xv. 4. We fear his power ; why ? because it is set on work by his wrath. We fear his wrath ; why ? because it is kindled by his justice and righteousness. We fear his righteousness, because it is bottomed and grounded upon his holiness, and u])on the purity of his nature.