And to you also do I appeal. If they who renounced that legal covenant, the provisions of which were chiefly of a temporal nature, and the engagements of it ratified only with the blood of beasts, were counted worthy of such a tremendous punishment as death ; of how much sorer punishment must he be worthy, who renounces the covenant of grace, in which all the blessings of grace and glory are made over to us, and which has been ratified and confirmed with the blood of God's only dear Son? I consent that you shall be judges in your own cause, and the arbiters of your own fate. They who renounced the law were guilty of most egregious folly and ingratitude : but their impiety was not to be compared with yours : for whilst, as renouncing the only means of salvation, you resemble them, your impiety is greater than theirs, in proportion as the covenant which you despise is more glorious than theirs, and the mercies which you reject have been pur- chased for you at a dearer rate.
Know then, that to such persons " there remains no more sacrifice for sins." Under the law, the sacrifices were repeated from year to year ; but not so under the Gospel : Christ will never die for your sins again ; nor will any other offering be made in his stead : and therefore, having renounced him, *' nothing remains for you but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment," whilst you continue here ; and " of fiery indig- nation," when you go hence, " that shall devour all the adversaries" of God and his Christ. Even here, I say, the punishment of such persons is awful : for, to say the least, they are in a state of uncertainty what shall be their fate in the eternal world; and they have frequently in their minds and consciences such an anticipation of their doom, as appals their souls, and terrifies their spirits, and forms a very hell within them : and the moment they go hence, the wrath of an incensed God comes upon them to the uttermost.]
2. From the fixed determination of God to punish it—
[God has said, "Vengeance belongeth unto me; and I will recompense'." And again, " The Lord shall judge his people^." Now if he, as the moral Governor of the universe, has determined to execute justice, as well as to shew mercy; and if the administering of justice be no less necessary to his own glory than the dispensing of mercy, what have the con- temners of his Gospel to expect? He has said, he will thus display his righteousness at the last day : and " we know him who has said it :" we know that he is almighty, and therefore able to inflict punishment; and we know he is true, and
' Deut. xxxii, 3.'). ^ Deut. xxxii. 36.