The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb.…

13. And when God intended the free forgiveness of our sins, how meet was it that he who would be the Mediator of our pardon, should yield to those terms, which are consistent with the ends of Government, and expose not the wisdom, and veracity, and justice, and the Laws of God to the worlds contempt: If no mark of odiousness should be put upon sin, nor any demonstration of Justice been made, the Devil would ⟨p. 103⟩have triumphed, and said, Did not I say truer than God? when he told you of dying, and I told you that you should not die? And if the grand penalty had been remitted to the world, for four thousand years together successively, without any sufficient demonstration of Gods Justice undertaken, why should any sinner have feared Hell to the worlds end? If you say, that Repentance alone might be sufficient, I answer, 1. That is no vindication of the Justice and Truth of the Law-maker. 2. Who should bring a sinner to Repentance, whose heart is corrupted with the love of sin? 3. It would hinder Repentance, if men knew that God can forgive all the world upon bare Repentance, without any reparation of the breaches made by sin, in the order of the world. For if he that threateneth future misery or death for sin, can absolutely dispense with that commination, they may think that he may do so as easily by his threatening of death to the impenitent.

13. And when God intended the free forgiveness of our sins, how meet was it that he who would be the Mediatour of our pardon, should yield to those terms, which are consistent with the ends of Government, and expose not the wisdom, and veracity, and justice, and the Laws of God to the worlds contempt: If no mark of odiousness should be put upon sin, nor any demonstration of Justice been made, the Devil would ⟨p. 103⟩have triumphed, and said, Did not I say truer than God? when he told you of dying, and I told you that you should not die? And if the grand penalty had been remitted to the world, for four thousand years together successively, without any sufficient demonstration of Gods Justice undertaken, why should any sinner have feared Hell to the worlds end? If you say, that Repentance alone might be sufficient, I answer, 1. That is no vindication of the Justice and Truth of the Law-maker. 2. Who should bring a sinner to Repentance, whose heart is corrupted with the love of sin? 3. It would hinder Repentance, if men knew that God can forgive all the world upon bare Repentance, without any reparation of the breaches made by sin, in the order of the world. For if he that threatneth future misery or death for sin, can absolutely dispense with that commination, they may think that he may do so as easily by his threatning of death to the impenitent.