On these grounds it is we say that the threatenings and denun- ciations of future punishment unto all sorts of persons are becoming the gospel; and therefore the using of them as motives unto the ends for which they are designed is evangelical. And this will further appear if we shall yet consider,—
1. That threatenings of future penalties on the disobedient are far more clear and express in the gospel than in the law. The curse, indeed, was threatened and denounced under the law, and a pledge and instance of its execution were given in the temporal punishments that were inflicted on the transgressors of it; but in the gospel the nature of this curse is explained, and what it con- sisteth in is made manifest. For as eternal life was only obscurely promised in the Old Testament, though promised, so death eternal under. the curse and wrath of God was only obscurely threatened therein, though threatened. And therefore as life and immortality were brought to light by the gospel, so death and hell, the punish- ment of sin under the wrath of God, are more fully declared therein. The nature of the judgment to come, the duration of the penalties to be inflicted on unbelievers, with such intimations of the nature
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and kind of them as our understandings are able to receive, are fully and frequently insisted on in the New Testament, whereas they are very obscurely only gathered out of the writings of the Old.
2.°The punishment threatened in the gospel is, as unto degrees, greater and more sore than that which was annexed to the mere transgression of the first covenant. Hence the apostle calls it “death unto death,” 2 Cor. ii. 16, by reason of the sore aggravation which the first sentence of death will receive from the wrath due unto the contempt of the gospel. Separation from God under eternal punish- ment was unquestionably due to the sin of Adam; and so, conse- quently, unto every transgression against the first covenant, Gen. ii, 17; Rom. v. 12,17. But yet this hinders not but that the same penalty, for the nature and kind of it, may receive many and great ageravations, upon men’s sinning against that great remedy provided against the first guilt and prevarication; which it also doth, as shall further afterwards be declared.
And this ought they to be well acquainted withal who are called unto the dispensation of the gospel. A fond conceit hath befallen some, that all denunciations of future wrath, even unto unbelievers, is legal, which therefore it doth not become the preachers of the gospel to insist upon: so would men make themselves wiser than Jesus Christ and all his apostles, yea, they would disarm the Lord Christ, and expose him to the contempt of his vilest enemies. There is also, we see, a great use in these evangelical threatenings unto believers themselves. And they have been observed to have had an effectual ministry, both unto conversion and edification, who have been made wise and dexterous in managing gospel comminations towards the consciences of their hearers. And those also that hear the word may hence learn their duty, when such threatenings are handled and opened unto them.
II. All punishments annexed unto the transgression either of the law or gospel are éffects of God’s vindictive justice, and consequently just and equal: “A meet recompence of reward.”
What it is the apostle doth not declare; but he doth that it is just and equal, which depends on the justice of God appointing and de- signing of it. Foolish men have always had tumultuating thoughts about the judgments of God. Some have disputed with him about the equity and equality of his ways in judgments temporal, Ezek. Xviii., and some about those that shall be eternal. Hence was the vain imagination of them of old who dreamed that an end should be put, after some season, unto the punishment of devils and wicked men; so turning hell into a kind of purgatory. Others have dis- puted, in our days, that there shall be no hell at all, but a mere annihilation of ungodly men at the last day. These things being
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288 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [ CHAP. IT.
so expressly contrary to the Scripture, can have no other rise but the corrupt minds and affections of men, not conceiving the reasons of God’s judgments, nor acquiescing in his sovereignty. That which they seem principally to have stumbled at, is the assignation of a punishment infinite as to its duration, as well as in its nature ex- tended unto the utmost capacity of the subject, unto a fault tem- porary, finite, and transient. Now, that we may justify God herein, and the more clearly discern that the punishment inflicted finally on sin is but “a meet recompence of reward,” we must consider,—
1. That God’s justice constituting, and in the end inflicting, the reward of sin, is essential unto him. “Is God unjust?” saith the apostle, 6 éripépwy rhv dpyqv, Rom. ili. 5.’ Opyh, “anger,” or “wrath,” is not that from whence punishment proceedeth, but punishment itself. God inflicteth wrath, anger, or vengeance. And therefore when we read of the anger or wrath of God against sin or sinners, as Rom, i. 18, the expression is metonymical, the cause being de- signed by the effect. The true fountain and cause of the punish- ment of sin is the justice of God, which is an essential property of his nature, natural unto him, and inseparable from any of his works. And this absolutely is the same with his holiness, or the infinite purity of his nature. So that God doth not assign the punishment of sin arbitrarily, as though he might do so or otherwise without any impeachment of his glory; but his justice and his holiness indispen- sably require that it should be punished, even as it is indispensably necessary that God in all things should be just and holy. “The holy God will do no iniquity ;” the Judge of all the earth will do right, and will by no means acquit the guilty. This is dmetopa rod ©<00, “ the judgment of God,” that which his justice requireth, “that they which commit sin are worthy of death,” Rom.i. 32. And God cannot but do that which it is just that he shoulddo. See 2 Thess. i.6. We have no more reason, then, to quarrel with the punish- ment of sin than we have to repine that God is holy and just,—that is, that he is God; for the one naturally and necessarily followeth upon the other. Now, there is no principle of a more uncontrollable and sovereign truth written in the hearts of all men than this, that what the nature of God, or any of his essential properties, require to be, 1s holy, meet, equal, just, and good.