II. I shall confirm the doctrine. Consider, (1.) How peremptory the threatening of the first covenant is; In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die, Gen. ii. 17. Hereby sin and punishment being connected, the veracity of God ascertains the execution of the threatening. Now all men being by nature under this covenant, the breach of it lays them under the curse. (2.) The justice of God requires that a child of sin be a child of wrath; that the law being broken, the sanction thereof should take place. God, as man's ruler and Judge, cannot but do right, Gen. xviii. 25 Now it is a righteous thing with God to recompense sin with wrath, 2 Thess. i. 6. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil, Hab. i. 13. And he hat•• all the workers of ⟨p. 104⟩iniquity, Psal. v. 6. (3.) The horrors of a natural conscience prove this. There is a conscience in the breasts of men, which can tell them, they are sinners; and therefore liable to the wrath of God. Let men, at any time, soberly commune with themselves, and they will find they have the witness in themselves, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things, are worthy of death, Rom. i. 32. (4) The pangs of the new birth, the work of the spirit of bondage on elect souls, in order to their conversion, demonstrate this. Hereby their natural sinfulness and misery, as liable to the wrath of God, are plainly taught them, filling their hearts with fear of that wrath. Now that this spirit of bondage is no other than the Spirit of God, whose work is to convince of sin, righteousness, and judgment, (John xvi. 8.) this testimony must needs be true; for the Spirit of truth cannot witness an untruth. Mean while, true believers being freed from the state of wrath, receive not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but receive the Spirit of adoption, Rom. iii. 15. And therefore, if fears of that nature do arise, after the soul's union with Christ: they come from the saint's own spirit, or from a worse. Lastly, The sufferings of Christ plainly prove this doctrine. Wherefore was the Son of God, a Son under wrath, but because the children of men were children of wrath? He suffered the wrath of God, not for himself, but for those that were liable to it in their own persons. Nay, this not only speaks us to have been liable to wrath; but also that wrath must have a vent, in the punishing of sin.
II. I shall confirm the doctrine. Consider, (1.) How peremptory the threatning of the first covenant is; In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die, Gen. ii. 17. Hereby sin and punishment being connected, the veracity of God ascertains the execution of the threatning. Now all men being by nature under this covenant, the breach of it lays them under the curse. (2.) The justice of God requires that a child of sin be a child of wrath; that the law being broken, the sanction thereof should take place. God, as man's ruler and Judge, cannot but do right, Gen. xviii. 25 Now it is a righteous thing with God to recompence sin with wrath, 2 Thess. i. 6. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil, Hab. i. 13. And he hat•• all the workers of ⟨p. 104⟩iniquity, Psal. v. 6. (3.) The horrors of a natural conscience prove this. There is a conscience in the breasts of men, which can tell them, they are sinners; and therefore liable to the wrath of God. Let men, at any time, soberly commune with themselves, and they will find they have the witness in themselves, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things, are worthy of death, Rom. i. 32. (4) The pangs of the new birth, the work of the spirit of bondage on elect souls, in order to their conversion, demonstrate this. Hereby their natural sinfulness and misery, as liable to the wrath of God, are plainly taught them, filling their hearts with fear of that wrath. Now that this spirit of bondage is no other than the Spirit of God, whose work is to convince of sin, righteousness, and judgment, (John xvi. 8.) this testimony must needs be true; for the Spirit of truth cannot witness an untruth. Mean while, true believers being freed from the state of wrath, receive not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but receive the Spirit of adoption, Rom. iii. 15. And therefore, if fears of that nature do arise, after the soul's union with Christ: they come from the saint's own spirit, or from a worse. Lastly, The sufferings of Christ plainly prove this doctrine. Wherefore was the Son of God, a Son under wrath, but because the children of men were children of wrath? He suffered the wrath of God, not for himself, but for those that were liable to it in their own persons. Nay, this not only speaks us to have been liable to wrath; but also that wrath must have a vent, in the punishing of sin.
