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3d Place, for clearing the way, That great Lawgiver of the world has annexed rewards and punishments to those laws he has made. The authority of God is a tender point in. deed. He has faid," he will not give his glory to another," and therefore he has taken care to guard the laws he has made with fuitable rewards and punishments. God indeed is not obliged to give man any further reward for his obedience, than what flows from the obedience itself, which is fufficient to be a reward to itfelf; for "in keeping God's commands there is great reward," Pfal. xix. II. But fuch is his matchlefs and unbounded goodness, that he propofed no lefs reward of obedience than eternal life; a reward fuitable to man's obedience, which deferves no fuch thing, but to the bounty of the giver. On the other hand, again, he has annexed a dreadful penalty to his laws, break them we may if we will; for God has not made it impoffible we fhould; but if we do, then the heavy curse of God will follow us. "Curfed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.” The fame mouth that pronounced law, pronounces the the curfe, Gal. iii. 10. And we know, whom he curfes they are curfed, and whom he bleffeth they are blessed · in

deed

4th, Thefe laws, which God has given us to walk by, have a fourfold property mentioned by the apostle, Rom. vii. 12. “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, juft, and good;" aud ver, 14." We know that the law is fpiritual, but I am carnal, fold under fin.

1. We fay, it is holy; the law of God is the exact tranfcript of the holy will of God. There is nothing in it difagreeable to, or unworthy of the holy God, who always acts like himself, and is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, or look upon fin.

2. It is juft. It is the very measure of all justice among men. It is a law that gives God his due and man his: nay, man has no right or property in, or title to, any thing but from this law. What this makes his, is fo, and no more can jully be claimed.

3. It is good. It is not a law made to gratify the lufts of an earth-worm, it is not a law made without regard to the advantage of thofe who live under it: but God, in framing his law, has exacly confidered what might be for man's

good,

good, both in time and in eternity; and has, in matchless goodness and infinite wisdom, ordered the matter fo, that duty and intereft go ever together, and a man can never act against his duty, but he wrongs his real interest, even abstracting from the confideration of future rewards and punishments in another life.

4. The law is fpiritual. It is not fuch a law as is prescribed by man, which only reaches the outward man; no, it is fpiritual, reaching to the foul and all its inward actings. It prefcribes bounds to the fpirits of men, obliging them to inward obedience and conformity to it in their motions, inclinations, and affections; not a thought, nay, nor the circumftance of a thought, but falls under this fpiritual and extenfive law, which made the Pfalmift fay, "I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy com. mandment is exceeding broad," Pfal. cxix. 96.

The way being thus cleared, we fhall now, in the Second place, show you what fin is. Sin, which is here charged upon all, properly and formally imports,

1. A want of conformity to the law, of which we have been difcourfing. The law requries and enjoins duty. It obliges us not only to actions fo and fo qualified, but to have a right principle of action; it not only enjoins holy thoughts, holy words, and holy actions, but moreover it requires that the very frame and temper of our hearts be holy; and when we fall fhort of this, then we fin. That the law obliges us as to the frame of our heart, is plain, fince it requires that the tree be good as well as the fruit; that the worship and fervice we perform to God be with the whole ftrength, foul, and heart.

2. Sin imports a tranfgreffion of the law, for " fin is a tranfgreffion of the law," I John iii. 4. Indeed, when trasigreffion is taken in a large fenfe, it comprehends all fin; but it may be, and is frequently restricted to actual fins, and fins of commiffion; as the former branch of the defcription is to original fin, and fins of omiffion. Sin is an oppofition to the law of God. God bids do, arise, work; man tranfgreffes the command, and fits ftill idle. God forbids fuch and fuch finful actions, man does them in oppofition to the command of God, which flows from a contempt of God's authority; fo that we may fay,

3. That every fin implies, in its formal nature, contempt

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of God, as that which is its fource. Sin flows from a fecret enmity of heart against the Almighty, and therefore carries in it a high contempt of him. It may be, men are to blind that they cannot difcern any fuch thing in it; but God makes breaking the law, and defpifing or contemning the law, to be all one, Amos ii. 4. "Thus faith the Lord, For three tranfgreflions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punithment thereof, because they have defpifed the law of the Lord, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caufed them to err, after the which their fathers have walked." Sin in most men's eyes is a harmless thing; but how far otherwife would it be if its nature were seen in a juft light by the eye of faith; if we faw it trampling upon God's authority, goodness, and ho. linefs, and even endeavouring as it were to ungod him.

But that ye may further understand what fin is, we fhall, in the

Third place, mention a twofold infeparable property or adjunct of fin, with which it is ever attended. And,

1. Sin is the defilement of the foul; fin is a filthy thing. The beauty, the glory of man, confifts in his conformity to the holy and pure law of God, and in as far as he devi ates from that, in fo far is he defiled and polluted. Every fin hath a Satan in it, and robs the foul of its beauty, occafons a fort of loathfomeness, whereby, in the eyes of God, and even of itself, it becomes ugly and abominable; it is the abominable thing which God hates, "Oh do not this abominable thing that I hate," faith the Lord, Jer. xliv. 4. The natural state of man is, upon the account of this filthiness, compared to a wretched infant that is cast out,

in all its natural pollutions," Ezek. xvi. and to every thing else that is filthy, to puddle, mire, and dirt, and to a menftruous cloth; but yet all of them are not fufficient to give a juft idea of its filthiness.

2. Sin, as it is attended with filth, fo it is attended with guilt. It makes the finner guilty; it obliges him to undergo the penalty which God has annexed to his law; it car rics ever along with it a title to the curfe of God. When the law of Gol is confidered as that which represents his holiness and fpotlefs purity, whereby it becomes the meafure and standard of all beauty, glory, and purity, to us; then fin, as it ftands opposed to it in this respect, is looked

upon

upon as a stain, a blot, a defilement: but as the law to God carries on it the impreffion of his royal authority, the breach of it binds over to juft punishment for the reparation of the honour of that contemned authority.

Thus we see what it is that all men are charged with. God here lays home to them a breach of law, reprefents them as condemned and guilty, deformed and defiled creatures. "All men have finned," every one has broken the holy, juft, good, and spiritual law of the great Sovereign of the world; all are guilty of a contempt of his authority, all are defiled with that abominable thing which his foul hates. Left any one fhould take occafion to clear himself, and fay, O I am not the perfon spoken of, I never contemned God, I never defiled myself, and so I am not guilty of that which is charged upon mankind. Left any fhould fay, I am clean, God has put a bar upon this door, by extending the charge to all without exception.

And fo I come, in the

Fourth place, to inquire into the import of this univerfal particle all in my text; and it imports,

ift, That perfons of all ages are involved in the fame common mifery. Young and old have finned. The fuck ling upon the breaft, as well as the old man that is stooping into the grave. None needs envy another. The old man needs not envy the innocency of the infant of days, for the youngest carries as much fin into the world as renders it ugly, deformed, and guilty. Indeed there are who have not finned at the rate that others have done. Children have not finned "after the fimilitude of Adam's tranfgref fion," Rom. v. 14. their age would not allow them; but fin enough they have derived to them from Adam to damn, to defile them.

2d, Perfons of all profeffions, Jew and Gentile, whatever their religious profeffion be. This evil is not confined to thofe of one religion, but is extended to all: the apoftle fums up all mankind, as to religion, under two heads, Jew and Gentile; and at large, in the foregoing part of this epistle, proves them both to be finners.

3d, All ranks of perfons, high and low, rich and poor. This is not an evil of which the prince can free himself more than the peafant. Those who may be thining in gliftering apparel are upon this account vile and filthy

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as the toad they cannot endure to look upon: these who may condemn or abfolve others, may themselves be under a fentence of condemnation; nay, it really is fo with all who are not faved from their fins. Even these very men who have fometimes forgot themfelves fo far, as to advance themselves above the laws, are yet not only fubject to God's law, but lying under an obligation to punishment on account of their breaches of this holy, juft and good law. 4. Perfons in all generations are guilty. It was not only fome poor wretches in the old world which God swept off the face of the earth by a flood, that have finned, but perfons of all ages, ranks, and qualities, in all generations. There is not one exception among all the natural defcendants of Adam, man nor woman, great nor fmall, rich nor poor, king nor beggar, all have finned, from the greatest to the leaft. None can justly upbraid another with what he has done in this matter, fince all are in the provocation : All have finned, and come fhort of the glory of God.

And this leads us to that which we did, in the next place, propofe to difcourfe of to you, viz.

Fifth, The import of this coming fhort of the glory of God. And this takes in or implies,

Ift, That man has fallen hort of that glory which he had by the conformity of his nature to God. Man is faid, 1 Cor. xi. 7. to be "the image and glory of God;" and indeed fo was he in his first and best estate. O what of God was there in innocent Adam! A mind full of light; how wonderfully did it reprefent that God who is light, and in whom there is no darkness at all! A pure foul, the exact tranfcript of the divine purity! The rest of the creatures had in them fome darker reprefentations of the glory of God's wildom and power, but only man, of all the creatures in the lower world, was capable to represent the holiness, righteoufnefs, and purity, and other rational perfections, of the ever-bleffed Deity; and upon this account man was "the glory of God." God, as it were, gloried in him as the mafter-piece of the visible creation, in whom alone more of God was to be feen than in all the rest befide. This man has now loft; he has fallen thort of the beauty and glory, which made him "the glory of God."

2d, Man has loft the glory he had, as he was the deputy

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