nant be ineffectual? We refift our last remedy, and make void the best means the wifdom of God could devife for our recovery, if, after the revelation of the gofpel, we continue in our fins.

3. If we frustrate this defign of God's wifdom for our recovery, our ruin will be the more dreadful and certain. Impenitency under the gofpel will increase our mifery. If Chrift had not come, we had had no fin, in comparison of what we now have; but now our fin remains, and there is no cloak for our fin, πρόφασιν ἐκ ἔχεσιν. We fall not be able at the day of judgment to preface any thing by way of excufe, or apology for our impenitency. What fhall we be able to fay to the juftice of God, when that fhall condemn us, who rejected his wifdom, which would have faved us? We would all be faved, but we would be faved without repentance; now the wifdom of God hath not found out any other way to fave us from hell, but by faving us from our fins. And thou that wilt not fubmit to this method of divine wisdom, take thy courfe, and let us fee how thou wilt efcape the damnation of hell. I will conclude all with thofe dreadful words which the wisdom of God pronounceth against thofe that defpife her, and refufe to hearken to her voice, Prov. i. 24, 25a 26. Because I have called, and ye refused, I have Stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have fet at naught my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh. They who will not comply with the counfel of God for their hap. pinefs, they fhall inherit the condition which they have chofen,to themfelves: they shall eat the fruit of their own ways, and be filled with their own devices.

SER

SERMON CXL.

The juftice of God in the diftribution of rewards and punishments.

I

GEN. xviii. 25.

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?

N treating of the attributes of God, I have confidered those which relate to the divine underftanding, viz. knowledge and wifdom; I come now to confider thofe which relate to the divine will, viz. these four, the juftice, the truth, the goodnefs, and the holiness of God. I begin with the firft, namely, the juftice of God.

At the 17th verfe of this chapter, God, by a great and wonderful condefcenfion of his goodness, reveals to Abraham his intention concerning the deftruction of Sodom: Upon this Abraham, ver.) 23. interceded with God for faving the righteous perfons that were there; and to this end he pleads with God his juftice and righteousness, with which he apprehended it to be inconfiftent to destroy the righteous with the wicked, which, without a miracle, could not be avoided in a general deftruction. Wilt thou alfo deftroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city, wilt thou alfo destroy, and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? that be far from thee to do after this manner, to play the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous fhould be as the wicked, that be far from thee; shall not the Fudge of all the earth do right? This negative interrogation is equivalent to a vehement, affirmation, fhall not the Judge of all the earth do right? that is, undoubtedly he will. This we may take for a certain and undoubted principle, that in the distribution of rewards and pu nishments,

nishments, the Judge of the world will do righteously.

So that the argument that lies under our confideration, is the juftice of God in the diftribution of rewards and punishments: For the clearing of which, we will confider it,

First, In hypothefi, in regard to the particular cafe which is here put by Abraham in the text.

Secondly, In theft, we will confider it in general, in the diftribution of rewards and punishments.

Firft, We will confider it in hypothefi, in regard to the particular cafe which is here put by Abraham in the text; and the rather, because if we look well into it, there is fomething of real difficulty in it, not easy to be cleared; for Abraham's reasoning, if it be true, does plainly conclude, that it would have been unrighteous with God in the deftruction of Sodom, not to make a difference between the righteous and the wicked, but to involve them equally in the fame common deftruction. That be far from thee to do after this manner, to flay the righteous with the wicked, and that the righteous fhould be as the wicked, that be far from the; fhall not the Judge of all the earth do right? as if he had faid, Surely the Judge of all the earth will never do so unrighteous a thing.

And yet notwithstanding this, we fee it is very ufual for the providence of God to involve good men in general calamities, and to make no vifible difference between the righteous and the wicked. Now the difficulty is, how to reconcile thefe ap pearances of providence with this reafoning of Abraham in the text.

And for doing of this, I fee but one poffible way, and that is this, that Abraham does not here fpeak concerning the judgments of God which befal men in the ordinary courfe of his providence, which many times happen promifcuoufly, and involve good and bad men in the fame ruin; and the reafon hereof is plain, becaufe God in his ordinary providence does permit the caufes, which produce thefe judgments, to act according to their own na

ture

ture, and they either cannot or will not make any diftinction for the calamities which ordinarily happen in the world, are produced by two forts of caufes, either those which we call natural, or those which are voluntary. Natural caufes, fuch as wind and thunder, and storms, and the infection of the air, and the like; these acting by a neceffity of nature, without any knowledge or choice, can make no diftinction between the good and bad. And the voluntary caufes of calamities, as men are, they many times will make no difference between the righteous and the wicked; nay, many times they are maliciously bent against the righteous, and the effects of their malice fall heaviest upon them. Now we fay that things happen in the way of ordinary providence, when natural caufes are permitted to act according to their nature, and voluntary caufes are left to their liberty; and therefore, in the course of ordinary providence, it is not to be expected that fuch a diftinction fhould be made; it is neither poffible, nor does juftice require it; it is not poffible, fuppofing natural caufes left to act according to their nature, and voluntary caufes to be left to their liberty; nor does juftice require it; for every man is fo much a finner, that no evil that befalls him in this world, can be faid to be unjuft in respect of God.

So that Abraham is not here to be understood, as fpeaking of fuch judgments as befal men in the ordinary courfe of God's providence, in which, if the good and bad be involved alike, it cannot be expected to be otherwife, nor is there any injuftice in it; but Abraham here fpeaks of miraculous and extraordinary judgments, which are immediately inflicted by God for the punishment of fome crying fins, and the example of the world, to deter others from the like. And fuch was this judgment, which God intended to bring upon Sodom, and which Abraham hath relation to in this difcourfe of his. In this cafe it may be expected from the juftice of God, that a difference fhould be made between

the

the righteous and the wicked; and that for thefe reafons:

1. Because this is a judgment which God himself executes. It is not an event of common providence, which always follows the nature of its cause, but an act of God, as a judge. Now it is effential to a judge to make a difcrimination between the good and the bad, fo as to punish the one and to fpare the other; and this is as neceffary to all proper acts of judgment in this world, as the other; there being no other difference between them, but that one is a particular judgment, and the other the general judgment of the whole world.

2. When God goes out of the way of his ordinary providence in punifhing, it may reasonably be expected that he fhould make a difference between the good and the bad; for the reason why he does not in his common providence, is because he will not break and interrupt the established order of things upon every little occafion: But when he does go befide the common courfe of things in punishing, the reafon ceafeth, which hindred him before from making a difference; and it is reasonable enough to expect, that in the inflicting of a miraculous judgment, a miraculous difference Thould be made. Without making this difference, the end of these miraculous judgments would not be attained, which is, remarkably to punifh the crying fins of men, and by that example to deter others from the like fins But if thefe judgments fhould fall promifcuously upon the righteous and the wicked, it would not be evident, that they were defigned for the punishment of fuch fins, when men did fee that they fell likewife upon those who were not guilty of thofe fins, and confequently the example could not be fo effectual to deter men from fin.

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Upon all these accounts you fee that Abraham's reafoning was very ftrong and well grounded, as to thofe judgments which are miraculous and extraordinary, and immediately inflicted by God, for the punishment of great and heinous fins, which was the cafe he was speaking of. And accordingly we