The harmony of the divine attributes in the contrivance and accomplishment of man's redemption…

'Tis for this reason the Scripture propounds the Goodness of God, as the most powerful persuasive to lead men to Repentance. ¹There 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.

'Tis for this reason the Scripture propounds the Goodness of God, as the most powerful persuasive to lead men to Repentance. ¹There can be no kindly relentings without filial Affection, and that is alwaies temper'd with the expectation of favour. Without hope of Pardon, all other motives are ineffectual to melt the heart.

1. 1Rom. 2.4.

Now the first Covenant obliged Man to Obedience or Punishment: It required Innocence, and did not accept of Repentance. The final voice of the Law is, Do, or Die. Guilty Man cannot look on God with comfort under the notion of a Holy Creator, ⟨p. 74⟩that delights to view his own resemblance in the innocent creature, nor of a compassionate Father that spares an offending Son, but he apprehends him to be an inexorable Judge, who hath Right and Power to revenge the Disobedience. He •an 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 expected 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,