offered upon the terms of quitting all sensual lusts, the carnal man esteems the condition impossible, and therefore is discouraged from using any endeavours to obtain it; for to excite hope, it is not sufficient to propose a reward that is real and excellent, but that is attainable; for although hope hath its tendency to a difficult good as its proper object, and the difficulty is so far from discouraging, that it quickens the soul and draws forth all the active powers, by rendering it greater in our esteem; yet when the difficulty is excessive, and confines upon impossibility, it dejects the soul and inclines it to despair. Thus when the condition of obtaining some good is necessary, but insufferable, it takes off from all endeavours in order to it.

To consider it in a temporal case, will make it more clear. As one that labours under a dropsy and is vexed with an intolerable and insatiable thirst, if a physician should assure him of cure upon condition he would abstain from drinking, he could not conceive any real hope of being healed, judging it impossible to resist the importunity of his drought; he therefore neglects the means, he drinks and dies; thus the corrupt heart of man, that is under a perpetual thirst of carnal pleasure, and is more inflamed by the satisfaction it receives, judges it an insuperable condition to part with them for the acquiring of spiritual happiness: and this sensual and sottish despair causes a total neglect of the means. It is thus expressed by the Israelites; when God commanded them to return from the evil of their ways in order to their happiness, they said, "There is no hope, but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart." Jer. xviii. 12. They were slaves to their domineering appetites, and resolved to make no trial about that they judged impossible. "Abstinere nequeo," Grot.

Briefly; in fallen man there is something predominant, which he values above the favour and fruition of God, and that is the world: as in the parable where happiness is set forth under the familiar representation of a feast, those who were invited to it, excuse themselves by such reasons as clearly discover that some amiable lust charmed them so strongly, that in the competition it was preferred before heaven. One saith, "I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it ;" and another, “ I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them;" and a third, "I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come," Luke xiv. 18. The

objects of their passions are different, but they all produce the same effect, the rejection of happiness.

The sum of all is this, that as man fell from obedience, and lost the image of God, by seeking perfection and satisfaction, that is, happiness, in the creature; so he can never return to his obedience, acknowledge God as his supreme Lord, till he chooses him for his happiness. And this he can never entirely do, till he is born again, and hath a new principle of life that may change the complexion of the soul, and qualify it for those delights which are sublime and spiritual.

II. Fallen man can never recover the favour of God; and this is evident upon a double account-he is not able to make satisfaction to God's justice for the dishonour brought to him -he is incapable of real repentance, which might qualify him for pardon.

1. He is unable to satisfy justice for his offence, either by exact obedience for the future, or by enduring the punishment that is due to sin.

It is essen

(1.) Supposing that man could perform exact obedience after his fall, yet that could not be satisfaction. tial to satisfaction, that the action by which it is made be in the power of the person that satisfies. A servant, as a servant, cannot make satisfaction for an injury done to his lord, for whatsoever service he performs was due before the offence, and is not properly a restitution, because it is not of his own. Now the complete obedience of the creature is due to God. He is the Lord of all our actions, and whatever man doeth is but the payment of the original debt. The law requires a perpetual reverence of the Lawgiver, and express obedience to his will in all things: so that it is impossible that the highest respect to it afterwards, should compensate for the least violation of it.

Besides, to make satisfaction for a fault, it is necessary the offender do some voluntary aet, that may be as honourable to the person, and as much above what he was before obliged to, as the contempt was dishonourable, and below that which was due. Unless God receive that which is as estimable in the nature of obedience, as the injury he received is in the nature of contempt, there can be no satisfaction. Now there is a greater dishonour brought to God by the commission of one sin, than there is honour by the perfect obedience of all the angels; for, in their obedience, God is preferred by the creature before things infinitely beneath him, which is but a

small honour; but by one sin he is disvalued in the comparison, which is infinite contempt.

(2.) Man cannot make satisfaction by suffering; for the punishment must be equal to the offence, which derives its guilt from the dignity of the person offended, and the indignity of the offender. Now, God is the universal King; his justice is infinite, which man hath injured, and his glory, which man hath obscured; and man is finite. And what proportion is there between finite and infinite? How can a worth less rebel that is hateful to God, expiate the offence of so ex cellent a majesty? If he sacrifice himself, he can never appease the divine displeasure; for what doth he offer but a lump of rebellion and ingratitude? He can make no other satisfaction but that of the devils, which continues for ever, and is not completed.

2. Fallen man, considered only in his own corrupt and miserable state, is incapable of real repentance, which is a necessary condition to qualify him for pardon; for whereas repentance includes an ingenuous sorrow for sin past and a sincere forsaking of it, he is utterly indisposed for both.

(1.) He cannot be ingenuously sorrowful for his offence. It is true, when the circumstances are changed, that which was pleasing will cause trouble of spirit; as when a malefactor suffers for his crimes, he reflects upon his actions with sorrow: but this hath no moral worth in it; for it is a forced act, proceeding from a violent principle, and is consistent with as great a love to sin as he had before, and is entirely terminated on himself. But that grief which is divine, and is accompanied with a change in heart and life, respects the stain more than the punishment of sin; and arises from love to God, who is disobeyed and dishonoured by it. Now, it is not conceivable, that the guilty creature can love God, whilst he looks on him as an irreconcilable enemy. Distrust of the favour of a person, which is a degree of fear, is attended with coldness of affection; a strong fear, which still intimates an uncertainty in the event, inclines to hatred; but when fear is turned into despair, it causeth direct hatred. An instance of this we have in the devils, who curse the fountain of blessedIf the evil is past remedy, the sense of it is attended with rage, and transports of blasphemy against God himself. A despairing sinner begins in this life the gnashing of teeth against his Judge, and kindles the fire that shall torment him for ever. It is for this reason the scripture propounds the

ness.

goodness of God, as the most powerful persuasive to lead men to repentance, Rom. ii. 4. There can be no kindly relentings without filial affection, and that is always tempered with the expectation of favour. Without hope of pardon all other motives are ineffectual to melt the heart.

Now the first covenant obliged man to obedience or pun- ̧ ishment it required innocence, and did not accept of repentance. The final voice of law is, "Do," or "Die." Guilty man cannot look on God with comfort under the notion of a holy Creator, that delights to view his own resemblance in the innocent creature, nor of a compassionate father that spares an offending son; but apprehends him to be an inexorable judge, who hath right and power to avenge the disobedience. He can find no expedient for his deliverance, nor conceive how mercy can save. him without the violation of justice, an attribute as essential to the divine nature as mercy. And what can induce him to make an humble confession of his fault, when he expects nothing but an irrevocable doom? An instance of this we have in Adam, who being under the conviction of his sin, and an apprehension that God would be severe, did not solicit for mercy, but endeavoured to transfer the guilt on God himself. "The woman thou gavest me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat," Gen. iii. 12; as if she had been designed for a snare, and not to be an aid in his innocent state.

(2.) A sincere resolution to forsake sin is built on the hopes of mercy. Till the reasonable creature knows that heaven is open to repentance, to his second and better thoughts, he is irreclaimable. He that never hopes to receive any good, will continue in doing evil. Despair of mercy causeth a despising of the law. The apostate angels, who are without the reserves of pardon, are confirmed in their rebellion: their guilt is mixed with fury; they persist in their war against God, though they know the issue will be deadly to them. And had there not been an early revelation of mercy to Adam, he had been incorrigibly wicked as the devils; for despair would have inflamed his hatred against God, which is of all the passions the most incurable. Those vicious affections that depend on the humours of the body, which are mutable, alter with them; but hatred is seated in the superior part of the soul, which is of a spiritual nature, and diabolical in obstinacy.

In short; when the reasonable creature is guilty and vi

cious, and knows that God is just and holy, and that he will be severe in revenging all disobedience, he hath no care nor desire to reform himself. He will not lay a restraint on his pleasing appetites, when he expects no recompense; he esteems it lost labour to abstain; and all his design is, to allay and sweeten the fear of future evils by present enjoyments. When he is scorched with the apprehensions of wrath to come, he plunges himself into sensual excesses for some re lief. He resolves to make his best of sin for a time: accord ing to the principle of the epicures, "Let us eat and drink while we may; to-morrow we shall die."

The sum of all is this, that an unrelenting and unreformed sinner is incapable of pardon; for unless God should renounce his own nature and deny his deity, he cannot receive him to favour. And it is inconceivable how the rational creature once lapsed, should ever be encouraged to repentance without the expectation of mercy: and there being an inseparable alliance between the integrity and felicity of man by the terms of the first covenant, the one failing, he could not entertain the least degree of hope concerning the other. By all which it appears he is under an invincible necessity of sinning and suffering for ever; his misery is complete and desperate.

CHAPTER V.

THE WISDOM OF GOD IN REDEMPTION.

GOD by his infallible prescience, to which all things are eternally present, viewing the fall of Adam, and that all mankind lay bleeding in him, out of deep compassion to his creature, and that the devil might not be finally victorious over him, in his council decreed the recovery of man from his languishing and miserable state. The design and the means are most worthy of God, and in both his wisdom appears. This will be made visible, by considering that all understanding agents first propound an end, and then choose the means for the obtaining of it. And the more perfect the understanding is, the more excellent is the end it designs, and the more fit and convenient are the means it makes use of for acquiring it. Now when God, whose understanding is infi`nite, and, in comparison of whom, the most prudent and advised are but as dark shadows, when he determines to work,