it. Nay, I might perhaps run this a little higher, and affert that therefore it would be unjust to require any lefs, any more eafy punishment. That fin deferves it, is very plain, if we confider,

1. Against whom it ftrikes. This is the way of measuring offences agreed to all the world over, that the meafure fhould be taken from the confideration of those against whom they strike. This we may obferve in the laws of God, which enjoin that offences fhall be punished according to the quality and condition of the offenders and the offended. The daughter of the high priest, if the committed uncleannefs, was to be burned without mercy, Lev.xxi. 9. fo was not every one who was guilty in that way. Again, he that curfeth his father and mother is adjudged to die, Lev. xx. 9. fo was not he that curfeth his equal. The fame.

meafure is kept in our laws: if one kills his equal, then he dies; but there doth not thereby redound any injury to his pofterity; but if a man kills the king, makes any attempt against the government, then life, lands, name and all goes. Now, if we confider in this cafe the quality of the offender, a poor mean worm, that dwells in cottages of clay, that has his foundation in the dust, that is crushed before the moth, that holds all of God: And then on the other hand, cónfider him who is offended by every fin, not a prince, or fome great man, who is but flesh and blood at the best; but the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity, he who is a great God, and a great king, above all the earth: behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small duft of the balance: behold, he taketh up the ifles as a very little thing: and Lebanon is not fufficient to burn, nor the beafts thereof fufficient for a burnt-offering. All nations before

before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? There is no proportion here. Now, if it deferves so severe a punishment that is committed against man, what must it not deferve that is committed against this God? As it were injurious to compare God to man; fo it is injurious to compare the demerit of any offence com mitted against man, and the demerit of that which is committed against the great God.

2. Confider the damage that fin doth; and then we will fee what fin deferves: we will fee that the terrible punishment we have been difcourfing of, is nothing too fevere. If we confi der man with respect to the creatures that are under him, the inanimate part of the creation, and the brutes; he was appointed to be their mouth, by which they should pay homage to their Creator; he was to be their treasurer, to pay in a reve nue of glory for them to their Creator and governor: but man by fin puts himself out of all capa city for this; he lays an ill example before his fellow creatures. But all this is nothing when compared with the injury he doth to God by every fin. This, if throughly and well understood, would for ever clear the juftice of God, in punish ing fin with eternal punishment. True it is indeed what Elihu fays, If thou finneft, what doft thou against him? or if thy tranfgreffions be multiplied what doft thou unto him? Job xxxv. 6. That is to fay, God lies beyond our reach; we cannot by our fins detract from, as neither can we by our holinefs add to his happiness; but this is no proof that we do him no injury. A rebel clapt up in prifon, or in the hand of the king's guard, is not

able

able to reach the prince's perfon, nor render him diffatisfied; yet he may then injure him, and doth it, when he unjustly reflects upon his govern ment. Juft fo is it with finners: indeed they cannot fcale the walls of heaven, they are not able to climb over the eternal ramparts, which raife the fence of the Almighty's facred throne, and there ftab his perfon; but yet they injure him in his name and honour, and even in his life, by every fin: it is intended murder; and this is death by the laws of God and man. That among men it is not always punished fo, is only because it is not always difcovered; for when it is discovered by words, or overt, though ineffectual, actions, it is punished. Every fin fpits upon God's holiness, tramples upon his authority, brands his wifdom with folly, denies his goodness, and braves, and gives a defiance to his power: what punishment then can be too great for this? Now fure, (3.) Sin deferves it, if we confider the obligations that are by every fin trampled upon. Every one will own that the fins of children against their parents, of fervants against their mafters, of fubjects against their lord, and the wives against their husbands, tare fins of a black hue, a crimson dy, and deferve therefore, a very fevere punishment; and accordingly are fo punished in all nations: but all thefe obligations are none to what we all ly under to God; fo that there is more perfidy, falfhood, and treachery in all our fins againft God, than in any of thefe: therefore, it is but just that there should be a proportion, kept bewixt the offences and the punishment.

4. That fin deferves fuch a punishment, is the judgment of God; and we know that his judgment is always according to truth. It is not the

mistaken notion of a man, who in the most momentous truths may trip; but it is the judgment of the only wife God, who is a God of knowlege, by whom actions are weighed. I think we need not go fo far back at present for a proof of this as the penal fanction of the law, fo long as we have the death of Chrift, as an evidence of it, nearer hand. If an infinite perfon, ftanding in the finner's room, muft, for his fins, have fuch a load of wrath laid upon him, what lefs muft the punishment of the finner himself be than eternal wrath? None can pretend to believe the truth of the gofpel, and question the juftice of God in punishing finners eternally; for is it not ridiculous to admire divine severity in the eternal punishment of wicked men, and not to attend to infinite justice punishing feverely his own beloved Son? What wonder is it that wicked men thould be for ever tormented for their own fins, if the most righteous Son of God fuffered for the fins of others? He that without a reproach to his goodness, could endure his most dear Son to fuffer fo long as one hour, will much better endure unjust finners to be tormented with eternal punishment.

5. That fin deferves fuch a punishment, is not only the judgment of God, but of men too. The common reafon of mankind speaks its juftice. This appears by the fentiments the heathens had of this matter. They had not a revelation to guide them, and therefore had wild fancies about the manner of these punishments which they judg ed eternal: but that there were fuch punishments, and that they were just, they had no doubt. Hence it was that their poets did condemn Tantalus to fuch a place, where he should have rivers juft washing up to his lip, and yet fhould not be able

to

to drink of them; and fo remain eternally under the violence of thirft, with this gnawing aggrava tion, that he had waters just at his very lip. But we may yet have a more clear proof of the judg ments of men in all nations, in their fanctions of human laws. Do not all of them for crimes, condemn to perpetual imprisonment, or to death? The one is an eternal punishment of lofs of life, and its concomitant advantages; and this punishment is inflicted without refpect to a future life; as appears in this, That fuch laws are execute upon them, of whom none has reason to think that they fhall have any fhare in the advantages of a future life. And that perpetual imprisonment is not eternal imprisonment, is not because that it is thought unjuft, but becaufe neither the law-makers, who put it in execution, nor they who break it, live to eternity.

6. That fin deferves eternal punishment, appears from the acknowlegement of the punished. This is a very strong argument; for although they who are yet wallowing in their fins, and are lulled fast asleep in the lap of carnal fecurity, will not acknowlege fo much: yet if we enquire at thefe whom God has awakened, and to whom he has given a discovery of the exceeding finfulness of their fin, whether with a profpect of mercy or not, they will all with one mouth acknowlege that fin deferves eternal wrath. Thefe whom the Lord deals with, in order to their converfion, will all fubfcribe to the justice of God, should he damn them eternally. I do not fay that they will be content to be damned; but they will own that God were most just should he deal fo by them. And not only is it fo with them, but even with thefe who are funk to the utmost in black defpair.