2.

15.

27.

Eph. v. 8.

5.

ii.

8 E R M. the guidance and affiftance of his grace enabling us VI. to withstand it, and to overcome it. The law of the Heb. ii. 10.Spirit of life in Chrift Jefus (faith St. Paul) hath freed Rom. viii. me from the law of fin and death. He infufes a light 2 Cor. iv. 6. difcuffing those fogs which fteam from carnal sense 1 Cor. ii. and appetite; fo that we may clearly difcern divine 1 John ii. truths, the will of God, the way to happiness: he inferteth principles of fpiritual life and ftrength, Rom. xii. 2. Counterpoifing and overfwaying corporeal and fen1 John v. 3. fual propenfions; fo that we can reftrain fenfual dePhil. iv. 13: fires, and compofe irregular paffions, and fubmit 2 Cor. iii. readily to God's will, and obferve cheerfully God's Heb. xiii. law, and freely comply with the dictates of the Spirit, or of right reafon; he fo continually aideth, enColoff. iii. courageth and upholds us, that we can do all things 5.11 through Chrift that ftrengtheneth us; fo that by his Rom. vi. 6, power and help the flesh with its affections and lufts are crucified; the earthly members are mortified; the old man (which was corrupted according to deceitful lufts) is Heb. xii. 1. put off; the body of fin is jo deftroyed, that henceforth we should not ferve fin; fin doth not reign in our mortal bodies, fo that we (muft) obey it in the lufts thereof; we are renewed in the Spirit of our minds; and do put on the new man, which is created according to God in righteoufnefs and true holiness.

21.

Gal. v. 24.

ii.

Eph. iv. 22.

12.

Rom. viii.

13.

Eph. iv.

ii. 10.

10.

23

μαρτίαν ἀν

Heb. xii. 4. Our Sins alfo are very grievous enemies of ours, Igès - loading us with heavy guilt, ftinging us with bitter Tayw remorfe and anxious fear, keeping us under miferable bondage, expofing us to extreme mischief and mifery; them our Lord hath alfo routed and vanquifhed in regard to this performance was the name Jefus affigned to him; as the Angel told Jofeph : Matt. i. 21. She fhall bear a Son, and thou shalt call his name Jefus, 1 Tim. i. for he shall fave his people from their fins: [From their fins; taking in all the causes and the confequences of them; from all those spiritual enemies, which

35.

draw

5 Ὁ Χρισὸς ὁ υἱὸς τὸ Θεὸ ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν τῷ γένει τῶν ἀνθρώπων διὰ τοῦ ἰδίου πάθους πληροτάτην ἀπέδωκε τὴν σωτηρίαν, ἵνα ὅλον τὸν ἄνθρωπον τῆς

ἁμαρτίαις

VI.

1 Pet. ii.

24. iii. 18.

draw us, or drive us into them; from the guilt and s ER M. obnoxiousness to punishment, the terror and anguifh of confcience, the wrath and difpleasure of God following upon them, the flavery under their dominion, the final condemnation and fufferance of grievous pains for them;] the guilt of fin he particularly freed us from; for he loved us, and washed us Rev. i. 5. from our fins in his own blood. Chrift died for finners, (for us then being finners,) that is, that he might deliver us from our fins, with all their caufes, adjuncts, and confequences. He bare our fins on his own body 1 Pet. i. 19. on the tree; the blood of Chrift cleanfeth us from all fin; he is the propitiation for our fins, and for the fins of the 1 John i. 7. whole world; he was manifefted to take away our fins; iv. 10. once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put Heb. i. 3. away fin (eis adéτnoi àμaprías, to the abolition of fin) Rom. iii. by the facrifice of himself; we are juftified freely by 24 God's grace, through the redemption that is in Chrift Jefus; by his obedience many are conftituted righteous, 6, 7. (or free from the guilt and imputation of fin ;) he justifies the ungodly; covering their fins, and not imputing them unto them. So doth he wipe away the guilt of fin; and he voids the condemnation paffed for them; for there is no condemnation to them that are in Rom. viii. Chrift Jefus; who is there that can condemn, fince1, 34. Chrift hath died, or rather hath risen again?

ii. 2. iii. 5.

ix. 26, 28.

Rom. v. 19.

He hath alfo appeafed God's wrath for fin, and removed the effects of it, (the punishment and vengeance due to fin and threatened for it :) fo that being enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of Rom. v. 10. his Son; being juftified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jefus Chrift: Jefus is the ; Thef. i. puómeros, who delivers us from the wrath to come; Rom. v. being juftified by his blood, we shall be faved by him from

wrath.

The strength and dominion of fin he hath also

αμαρτίαις ἐνεχόμενον πάσης αμαρτίας ἐλευθερώση. Damafus Epil. apud Theod. 5.9.

broken,

I.

10.

VI.

Rom. vi.

22, 6.

SER M. broken, by the grace afforded us, whereby we are able to refift and avoid it: fo that fin henceforth fhall not domineer over us, or reign in our mortal body: Being 14, 12, 18, freed from fin, we are enslaved to righteousness, and made fervants to God. The body of fin is deftroyed, fo that we no longer ferve fin. Whence confequently he hath fubdued, utterly weakened, or quite destroyed (as to any force or mischievous influence upon us) those other adverfaries, which depend upon fin, and by its power oppofe and afflict us.

Our Confcience is fuch an enemy accufing us, condemning us, vexing us with the memory and sense of fin; fuggefting to us the depth of our guilt, and the danger of our ftate, terrifying us with the expectation of punishment and vengeance: but our Lord (by fecuring us of mercy and favour upon repentance and fincere obedience) hath filenced and Heb.ix. 14. ftilled this adversary; hath by his blood (as the Apoftle to the Hebrews fays) purged our confcience from dead works; hath delivered them, who through fear of death were all their life-time fubject to bondage; fo that thence we obtain a steady peace of mind, a joyful fatisfaction in the fervice of God, a comfortable hope Rom xv. of future blifs: peace, comfort, and joy are the adjuncts Rom. xiv. of that ftate he fhall put us into, and the fruits of that spirit he bestoweth on us.

ii. 15.

13.

37.

Gal. v. 22. Gal. ii. 16. iii. 11.

Heb. vii.

Rom. viii.

Gal. iii. 12.

v. 3.

The Law alfo (in its rigour, as requiring exact obedience, and as denouncing vengeance to them 19. who in any point violate it) is, by reafon of our Rom. x. 5. weakness and inability fo perfectly to obferve it, an 3. enemy to us; juftifying no man, perfecting no man, caufing, increafing, aggravating, quickening, declaring Rom. vii. fin; yielding occafion to fin of killing us, working wrath, Rom.iv.15. miniftering death and condemnation, fubjecting us to a iii. 20. v. curfe, (as St. Paul teacheth us :) but our Lord, by mitigating and abating the extreme rigour thereof, by procuring an acceptance of fincere (though not acCurate) obedience, by purchafing and difpenfing pardon for tranfgreffion thereof upon repentance, by

13.

20. vii. 7,

3, 10, 11.

8,

1 Cor xv.

56.

2 Cor. iii.

7,9.

conferring

13.

VI.

Rom. iv. 6.

conferring competent ftrength and ability to perform S ER M. it in an acceptable degree, hath brought under this adversary; hath redeemed us from the curfe of the law; hath juftified and imputed righteoufnefs to us without the Gal. iii. 12, works of the law, (without fuch punctual perform- Rom. iii. ances as the law exacts :) we are delivered from the 21, 28. law, (as to those effects of it; the condemning, discou- Rom. vii. raging, enflaving us,) we cease to be under the law, Rom.vi. 14. (in those refpects,) being under grace, being led by Gal. v. 18. the Spirit, as St. Paul tells us. The Law indeed is still our rule, our guide, our governor; we are obliged to follow and obey it; but it ceafes to be a tyrant over us, a tormentor of us.

6, 4.

26.

Death is alfo an enemy, (the laft enemy, faith St. 1 Cor. xv. Paul, which shall be deftroyed, is death,) the enemy, which naturally we moft fear and abominate; that which would utterly deftroy us.

20.

Apoc. i. 5.

Sans.

2

This enemy our Lord hath vanquished and de- A&s ii. 24. ftroyed by his death and refurrection he opened 1 Cor. xv. the way to a happy immortality; he abolished death, Col. i. 18. and brought life and immortality to light by the Gofpel: As i. 15. He by his death defeated him that had the power of Aexny`s death; and delivered them, who by fear of death were Tim. i. through their whole life fubject to bondage; he pulled 10. out fin, which is the fting of death, and reverfed the Heb. ii. 14. sentence of condemnation, to which we all stood obnoxious. The wages of fin (that which we had de- Rom. vi. served, and was by law due to us for it) was death; 23. but the gift of God is everlasting life, by Jefus Chrift our Lord.

Laftly, Hell, (that is, utter darkness, extreme difcomfort, intolerable and endless mifery,) the most dismal of all enemies, our Lord hath, by the virtue of his merits, and the power of his grace, put us into a capacity of avoiding; he hath (as St. Paul before 1 Theff i. tells us) delivered us from the wrath to come. O Hell, I Cor. xv. where is thy victory? Death and Hell fhall be caft into 55. the lake of fire.

Thus hath our Lord in our behalf vanquished

and

I

10.

Apoc. xx.

14.

VI.

8 E R M. and defeated every thing that is oppofite, or prejudicial to our falvation and welfare. Many indeed of these things do in a more immediate, more peculiar, and more fignal manner concern the faithful members of the Chriftian Church, and are directly applied to them; yet all of them in fome fort, according to God's defign, and in refpect to a remote capacity, may be referred to all men. They are benefits which God intended for all men, and which all men (if they be not faulty and wanting to themselves) may obtain. How they more especially appertain to the faithful, we may fhew afterward.

APPLICATION.

1. Hence arifeth great matter and cause of glorifying God; both from the thing itself, and its extent; for the magnitude of beneficence is to be estimated, not only according to the degree of quality, but according to its amplitude of object: to redeem any doth fignify goodness, to redeem many doth increase it, to redeem all doth advance it to the higheft pitch; the more are obliged, the greater is the glory due to the benefactor.

Hence the earth being full of the goodness of the Lord, the Lord being gracious unto all, and his mercy being over all his works, all creatures partaking of God's bounty, is fo often infifted upon in those divine hymns, as a ground of praise to God.

Some fo do indeed speak of glorifying God for his difcriminating grace, as if grace the narrower it were, the better it were: but is not selfishness and envy at the bottom of this? Is not this the difpotion of those in the Gofpel, who murmured-is thine eye evil because mine is good?

It is dangerous to reftrain God's benevolence and beneficence within bounds narrower than they really are; thereby diminishing his glory.

2. Hereby is discovered the general obligation of

men