Thirdly, What room and place these works have, with respect to punishment and reward. There is a plain difterence, as appeareth, Eom. vi. 23, ' The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.' The works of the wicked have a proper, meritorious influence upon their ruin and destruction ; wicked men stand upon their own bottom, and are left to themselves. We do evil of our own accord, and by our own strength ; but the good we do is neither our own, nor is it purely good. Besides, there is this difference between sin and obedience, that the heinousness of sin is always aggravated and height- ened by the proportion of its object, but the merit and value of obedience is still lessened ; thereby sin and otfence is a^rgravated ; a.s for an instance, to strike an officer is more than to strike a private man, a king more than an ordinary officer. Thence it cometh to pass that a sin committed against God doth deserve an infinite punishment, because the majesty of God is infinite, and therefore eternal death is the wages of sin. But on the other side, the greater God is, and the more glorious, the greater obligation lieth upon us to love him, and serve him, and so that good which we do for his sake is the more due, and God is not bound by any right or justice from the merit of the action itself to reward it, for here the greatness of the object lesseneth the action ; for be the creature what he will, he oweth his whole self to God, who is placed in such a degree of eminence, that we can lay no obligation upon him ; so that he is not bound by his natural justice to reward us, but only inclined so to do by his own goodness, and bound so to do by his free promise and covenant of grace. Aristotle said well, that children could not merit of their parents, and all their kindness and duty they performed, is but a just recompense to them from whom under God they have received their being ; for right and merit, strictly taken, is only between those who in a manner are equals. If not between children and parents, certainly not between God and man. Well then, though sin deserveth punishment, yet our good works deserve not their reward. That grace which first accepted us with all our faults, doth still crown us, and bestow all that honour and glory which we expect at Christ's coming.
But what respect then have our works to our reward ?
An&icer 1. They render us a more capable object of God's delight and approbation. For surely the holy God delighteth in his faithful
80 SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V. [Ser. XVI.
servants : Mat. xxv. 21, ' Eiige, hone serve.' Conformity to' his nature and will suitetli more with his holiness than sin and disohedience.
2. They qualify us, and make us more capable of the rewards of his gospel covenant, which requireth that we should accept of our Redeemer's mercy, and return to our obedience, and continue in that obedience, that the righteous judge may put the crown upon our heads in that day, 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.
3. Works are pi-oduced as the undoubted evidence of a sound faith ; they are a demonstration, a signis notioribus, as most conspicuous, and so fit to justify believers before all the world ; the sprinkling of the blood on the door-posts signifieth there dwell Israelites. So such an uniform course of holiness shows that faith is rooted in them.
4. They are a measure of the degree of the reward ; for, 2 Cor. ix. 6, ' He that soweth sparingly, shall reap sparingly, and he that soweth bountifully, shall reap bountifully,' not only glory, but great glory with great measure. So far we may go safely, and less we cannot, unless we would infringe a care of holiness.
Use. Oh tlien, let us take heed what we do in the body, whether we sow to the flesh or the spirit. Let us be sure that our seed be good, if we would expect a good crop. Now it is seed time, but then is the harvest, works will be inquired after. It is not our voice, but hands; like as Isaac, ' The voice is Jacob's, but the hands are the hands of Esau.' Nothing will evidence our sincerity, but a uniform, constant course of self-denying obedience.
1. An uniform course it must be. A man may force himself into an act, or two ; Saul in a rapture may be among the prophets. A man is judged by his course and walk. A child of God may be under a, strange ap[)earance for an act or so ; you can no more judge of them by that, than you can judge of the glory of a street by a sink or kennel. On the other side, men may take on religion at set times, as men in an ague have their well days, the fit of lust or sin is not always upon tliem : Ps. cvi. 3, ' Blessed are they that keep judgment, .and he that doth righteousness at all times.' When a man's conversa- tion is all of a ])iece, his course is to please God in all places, and in all things, not by starts, and in good moods : 1 John iii. 9, ' Whosp- •ever is born of God, doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, for he is born of God.'