VeR. 13.] SERMONS UrON ROMANS VUI. 45
to their flesh and sin, as they are tliemselves, and would have him to be.
[2.] His luialterable truth. ' God cannot he,' Tit. i. 2. Though the tlu-eatening in the present judgment doth not always show the event, but merit, yet it follows afterwards ; for the scripture must he fulfilled, or else all religion will fall to the ground. He caunot endure any should question it, it is not a vain scare-crow : Deut. xxx. 19, 20, ' I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing ; therefore choose life, that thou and thy seed may live ; that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him, for he is thy life, and the length of thy days.'
[3.] His all-sufficient power : 2 Thes. i. 9, ' Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power ; ' and Eom. ix. 22, ' What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endureth with much long- suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction ? ' If God will do so, surely he can,' there is no let there : Heb. x. 29, 30, ' Vengeance belongeth to me, and I will recom])ense, saith the Lord ; and again, the Lord shall judge his jieople.' He liveth for ever to see vengeance executed ; if it seem to l)e so terrible to you, God knoweth it is with a resign of love, to awaken those that are carnal. What a case am I in then ! And to make the converted more cautious that they do not border on the carnal life. God maketh no great difference here between the righteous and the wicked; hereafter he will.
SERMON XVIL If ye live after the flesh ye shall die. — Eom. VIII. 13.
The first Use is information.
1. To show the lawful use of threatenings. 2. The folly of two sorts of people. [1.] Of those that will rather venture this death, than leave their sinful peasures. [2] Those that would reconcile God and flesh, God and the world.
1. The lawful use of threatenings.
Threatenings are necessary during the law of grace. Two argu- ments I shall give for the proof thereof: (1.) If threatenings were needful to Adam in the state of innocency and perfection, much more are they useful now, when there is such a corrupt inclination within, and so many temptations without ; in the best there is a double prin- ciple and many inordinate lusts, that we need the strongest bridle and curb to suppress them. (2.) If Christ came to verify God's threatenings, surely God hath some use of them now ; but so it is, the devil would represent God as a liar in his comminations : Gen. iii. 4, ' Ye shall not surely die.' Christ came to confute the tempter, and would die rather than the devil's reproach of God's threatenings should be found true ; surely this is to check thoughts of iniquity.
46 SERMONS UPON ROMANS VHI. [SeR. XVII.
[1.] The folly of two sorts of people. [1.] Of those that will rather venture this death than leave their sinful pleasures, and live a holy life. Carnal men think no life so happy as theirs, being escaped out of fetters of religion and bonds of conscience, in the apostle's expression, ' Free from righteousness,' Rom. vi. 20. Whereas the truth is, none are more miserable ; for they carry it so, as if they were in love with their own death : Prov. viii. 36, ' He that sinneth against me, wrongeth his own .soul ; and they that hate me, love death.' You hazard soul and body, and all tliat is near and dear to you, for a little carnal satisfaction ; for the present you get nothing but the guilt of conscience, hardness of heart, and the displeasure of the eternal God ; and for the future, ever- lasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, when the body and soul shall be cast into hell-fire. Consider this before it be too late ; there is no man goeth to hell or heaven, but with violence to conscience or lusts ; those that go to hell offer violence to their conscience.
[2.] Those that would reconcile God and flesh, God and the world, and secure their interest in both ; that hope to please the flesh, and yet to be happy hereafter for all that ; would keep up a profession of godliness, while they live in secret league with their lusts. God will not halve it with the world, nor part stakes witli the flesh ; you cannot please the flesh, and enjoy God too ; for you have but one happiness ; if you place it in contenting the flesh, you cannot have it in the fruition of God : ' Their end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and who mind earthly things,' Phil. iii. 19. Worldly pleasures will end in eternal torments ; and so much delight, so much more will your torments be, for contraries are punished with contraries : Eev. viii. 7, ' How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much sorrow give her.' Therefore, so miich as you gratil'y the flesh, so much you endanger the soul. Will you, for a little temporal satisfaction, run the hazard of God's eternal wrath ?