II.

SER M. indecency will they charge upon God. Obut fay they the prince ought not to remit their punishment because of the fanction of human laws and fecurity and peace of the publick; but where they repent and amend God may forgive them, and it is confiftent with his goodness so to do. But here they go upon another falfe fuppofition, which they every where overlook, and that is, that men could have repented and amended without that fupernatural affistance of grace purchased for us by the death of Chrift; if we fhould grant them that God could forgive all fins that are repented of and amended, yet without the death of Chrift this is an impoffible fuppofition, for no man would have repented or amended of any fin. So that here they are under a neceffity of one of these two things, either of abfolutely denying the neceffity of any fuch fupernatural affiftance; which as yet they only infinuate; or of faying that this grace might be afforded without his death, and that it is no purchase of it, which in effect they plainly affirm. But thus the very fame difficulty returns, why God fhould reward a fin with the greatest act of favour and love? And why an act of guilt fhould entitle a man to the greatest grace and bounty of God, the immediate communication of his holy spirit to the guilty perfon? Socinus feems aware of the difficulties that arife to his opinion from the notion of grace, and for that reafon he and all. his followers lay fo little stress upon it.

If the punishment of fin were wholly arbi- SER M. trary, and nothing contrary to the nature of II. God, what reafon can be given why he should punish any fin? or inflict eternal torments upon his creatures whofe fins he might remit without any injury to his nature? If it be no way injurious to the rest of his attributes, furely it would be much for the glory of his goodness and mercy to remit all fin; and he certainly would do this if it were to be done, for he declares, he wills not the death of ang finner, and would have all men to be saved. They own it is injurious to his justice to forgive those that do not repent; but if to remit the punishment of their fin be actually to do away their guilt and make them good, which the Socinians all fuppofe, then there is no neceffity of repentance, for by remitting their punishment they are ipfo facto in a State of

innocence..

It is plain that which led men into this error was the making a judgment of divine риnishments from thofe notions they had of temporal ones, and whatever they conceived of one, they imagined must be true of the other.

pu

If a king remits the punishment of a crime all is well, the malefactor's mind is at ease, and there is no more of it. But God doth not forgive as man forgives, nor doth he nifh as man punishes, His thoughts are not, like our thoughts, nor are his ways like our ways. A foolish prefumption that they muft needs be fo, hath been the cause of almost all

the

SERM.

the errors which men have run into concernII. ing revealed religion from the first appearing of it in the world to this day. But

There are two things farther to be confidered in the nature of fin and its punishment in another world which have no relation at all to temporal guilt or its punishment, which is altogether arbitrary. The first is, that there is an infeparable connection betwen guilt and mifery, fo that fin will become its own punishment in another world, or at leaft in a great degree; the eternal punishment of the damned will be the natural result of their fins, fo that they fhall become their own tormentors. And therefore when we speak of God's remitting the punishment of fin, and think no farther than we do in cafes of temporal punishment, we know not what we say. For God to forgive the punishment of a finner, is to render him good and holy, and perfectly to do away the fin, fo as to put him into the fame condition as if he had never committed it; and thus by taking away the cause, that mifery, which is the effect and neceffary fatal confequence of it is removed. Nay though a man repents of any fin, yet there is nothing in the nature of the thing to hinder the effect of it in another world; fome divine work of God and fanctification of the fpirit is ne-. ceffary to remove the guilt which we have actually contracted to prevent the mifery which is the neceffary confequence of it in another world. But this will clear up farther, if we

confider

confider that other thing which hath no re- SER м• lation to any guilt or punishment purely tem- II. poral.

And that is, that actual pollution and de-. filement of the foul by fin, the effects of moral evil in the mind, is as real as any physical effect upon the body, and makes as great an alteration in the foul, though it be not difcernible to us in this world; fo that fin is areal disease of the mind which must be healed by his blood who is the phyfician of our Souls. We must confider guilt in the foul as mortal wounds and diftempers in the body which must be cured, or eternal death will enfue; (i. e.) all the dreadful confequences of fin in another world; and therefore it is that the punishments of another world go by the name of death every where in fcripture; because they are as fure and neceffary effects of fin, as temporal death is of mortal diftempers in the body.

Still what is objected here is that repentance alters the man, and the mind is changed with it. It is true repentance makes a great alteration for the better, it checks the diftemper and puts a stop to its courfe; and so hinders it from proceeding to fuch inveteracy that it fhall prove mortal. But as a gangrene or any other pernicious loathfome humour, though the course of it is ftopt, and that it is cut off from any farther infection, when it hath prevailed long in the body leaves deep and lasting impreffions, and fuch remains of itself as are VOL. I.

D

never

II.

SER M. never thoroughly removed: So it is with a vitious habit, though the power of it is broke by repentance, the malignancy and evil effects of it prevented for the time to come; yet it leaves fad effects on the mind, which we are to lament and bemoan while we live: And even for the time to come, the vitious inclination is feldom fo entirely deftroyed but that there is fome tendency to the fame disease of the mind again, fome fparks are left to be kindled into a flame.

The great mistake they go upon here is, that a man by repentance and conversion shall fo alter the whole frame and temper of his body and mind, that he shall be entirely innocent and perfectly holy. If this were fo, I muft confefs it would take away much of the force of this reasoning; but it is fo far from this, that the fcriptures reprefent us as miferably defiled with guilt and fin in our most perfect state in this life; the most perfect men are lepers in the fight of God till their leprofie is cured and actually cleansed; and the bleffing and advantage of repentance is, that it puts the mind into a difpofition to have a thorough cure wrought by the virtue of Chrift's blood. And it was from this miferable condition of infirmity that the best of men are in, that feveral of the fathers. inferred the neceffity of the incarnation of a divine perfon; because the fall had fo altered our whole nature, that the change

;