Use 1. See how God doth beset us on every side. To fence and bound us within our duty there is a threatening of eternal death ; to invite us to go on in our way, the promise of eternal life and glory. Surely both motives should be effectual ; our whole life is a flight from wrath to come, and a running for refuge to take hold of the blessed hope set before us in our pursuit after eternal life : Prov. xv 24, * The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.' We are still running further from hell, and approaching nearer to heaven ; the more we hate and avoid sin, the further we go from the pit of ever- lasting destruction ; and the more we give ourselves to holiness, the nearer heaven every day, our right is more secured, and our hearts more prepared. More particularly we have by tliis conjoined motive a great help against temptations. The world tempteth us either by the delights of sense or by the terrors of sense ; therefore God propoundeth this double motive, — the terrors of everlasting death and the joys of everlasting life, that we may counterbalance terrors with terrors, and delights with delights : as Luke xii. 4, 5, * Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no mOre that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear : fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell, yea, I say unto you, fear him.' On the other side : James v. 5, 'Ye have lived in pleasure upon earth, and been wanton, ye have nourished yourselves as in a day of slaughter ; * Luke xvi. 25, ' Son, remember that in this life thou receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things ; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented ; ' they are excluded from the pleasures at God's right hand for evermore. Or else quite cross, as the world tempts us by the hopes of some sensual contentment, so we may resist the temptation
VeR. 23.] SERMONS UPON ROMANS VI. 373
by the belief of everlasting death : Rom. viii. 13, 'If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.' Surely this should make us abstain from all sinful pleasures, how much soever v^e are addicted to them. So as the world tempteth us with the fears of some temporal vexation, the believing of everlasting life should help us to bear the evils of our pilgrimage, or sufferance for well-doing: 2 Cor. iv. 17, 'Our light affliction, that is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' Thus are we environed on the right hand and on the left.
Use 2. From this conjunction let us learn that God is both a right- eous judge and a gracious father : 1 Peter i. 17, ' If ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's v#ork.' He hath his gifts for the godly and punishments for the wicked. All our claim is grace ; the punishment of the wicked is due debt, the sentence of God's law hath made it their due; but yet our reward is not the less sure, though it be more free.
2. Let us consider these two branches apart.
First, The wages of sin is death,
1. What is meant by death ?
2. How it is said to be the wages of sin.
First, What is meant by death ? There is a twofold death, first and second, temporal and eternal.
1. Temporal death, that is also the fruit of sin : Rom. v. 12, ' By one man sin entered into the world, and death by ^in, and so death passed upon all men, for that all men have sinned.' Death is an evil, for nature abhorreth it, as appeareth by our unwillingness to die. Now if it be evil, it must be either the evil of sin or of punishment. God threatened it as a punishment in case of disobedience : Gen. ii. 17, ' In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' It is an enemy ; ' The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death,' 1 Cor. xv. 26. Would God give mankind into the hand of an enemy if he had not sinned against him ? Now this evil remaineth partly that there might be some visible punishment and bitter effect of sin in this world. Unknown torments are despised, and many slight hell as a vain scare- crow ; tlierefore God hath appointed temporal death to put us in mind of the evil of sin. Partly for a passage into our everlasting condition, that the righteous may enter into glory, and the wicked go to their own place. It would make religion too sensible if the righteous should have all their blessedness and the wicked all their punishment here : therefore there must be a passage out into the other world.
2. Eternal death, in opposition to everlasting life, which is the fruit of holiness. The opposite clause showeth what a kind of death it is. This is called the second death : Rev. xx. 6, ' Blessed and holy is he that hath {)art in the first resurrection, on such the second death hath no power ; ' and ver. 14, ' Death and hell were cast into the lake of fire ; this is the second death.' It is called death, because death in all creatures that have sense is accompanied with pain. Trees and other vegetables die without j)uin, but so doth not man and beast ; and death to man is more bitter, because he is more sensible of the sweetness of life than the beasts are, and hath some forethought of what may follow