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thee with every benefit, and even bless thee with the communion of myself; till, having performed thy part, and being amply enough rewarded, I shall at length say, Now return to that nothing out of which thou wast created, and my will is, that this my last command be no less chearfully obeyed than the others, least thou shouldst forfeit by this last act of disobedience, all the praise of thy former obedience. Has the creature any cause to complain of such a stipulation? Nay, rather, may it not give him joy, since it is far better to have existed for a few ages, in a state of holiness and happiness, than never to have existed at all.

XXII. On the other hand, I can scarce satisfy myself in my attempts to remove some difficulties. For since (as we before proved) God does, by virtue of his natural goodness, most ardently love a holy creature, as the lively image of himself, how can this his goodness destroy that image and undo his own work? Is it good unto thee, that thou shouldst despise the work of thine hands? Without deserving such treatment, Job x. 3. If it was good, and for the glory of God, to have made a creature to glorify himself: will it be good, and for the glory of God, to annihilate that creature, who thus glorifies him? And thus in fact to say, thou shalt not glorify me for ever! Besides, as God himself has created the most intense desire of eternity in the soul, and at the same time, has commanded it to be carried out towards himself, as its eternal good: is it becoming God to frustrate such a desire, commanded and excited by himself? Further, we have said, it was a contradiction, to suppose God, addressing himself to a holy soul in the manner following: hunger after me, but thou shalt not enjoy me. Yet in the moment we conceive the holy creature just sinking into annihilation, it would in consequence of that divine command hunger and thirst after God, without any hope of ever enjoying him again. Unless we would choose to affirm, that God at length should say to that soul, Cease longing for me any more, acquiesce in this instance of my supreme dominion, by which I order thee to return to nothing. But I own it surpasses my compre ension, how it is possible a holy creature should not be bound to consider God as its supreme good, and consequently pant after the enjoyment of him.

XXIII. O Lord Jehovah, how little do we poor miserable mortals know of thy Supreme Deity, and incomprehensible perfections how far short do our thoughts come about thee, who art infinite or immense in thy being, thy attributes, thy sovereignty over the creatures! what mortal can take upon VOL. I.

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him to set bounds to this thy sovereignty, where thou dost not lead the way! Lord, we know that thou art indebted to none, and that there is none who can say to thee, what dost thou, or why dost thou so? That thou art also holy, and infinitely good, and therefore a lover and rewarder of holiness. May the consciousness of our ignorance in other things kindle in our hearts an ineffable desire of that beatific vision, by which, knowing as we are known, we may in the abyss of thy infinity behold those things which no thought of ours at present can reach.

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CHAP. V.

Of the Penal Sanction.

T remains that we consider the Penal Sanction, expres sed by God in these terms, Gen. ii. 17. "for in the day that thou eatest thereof (the tree of knowledge of good and evil) thou shalt surely die."

II. Several things are here to be distinctly noted. Ist. That all that God here threatens is the consequence and punishment of sin, to be only inflicted on the rebellious and disobe dient: and therefore Socinus and his followers must absurdly make the death mentioned in the threatening, a consequence not so much of sin, as of nature; but God's words are plain to any man's conscience, that death flows from eating of the forbidden tree. 2dly, That the sin here expressed is a violation not of the natural, but of the symbolical law, given to man for the trial of his most perfect obedience. But even from this he might easily gather, that if the transgression of a precept, whose universal goodness depends only on the good pleasure of God, is thus to be punished, the transgression of that law which is the transcript of the most holy nature of God, deserves much greater. 3dly, That it is altogether agreeable to God's authority and most righteous will, that there be a certain connection between the sin and the punishment, denounced by these words. This also is indicated by the ingemination in the original, Dying thou shalt die; that is, thou shalt most certainly die. So that, it is not

possible for the sinner to escape death, unless perhaps a proper sponser (of which this is not the proper place) should undergo it in his stead. 4thly, That the words of the threatening are general, and therefore by the term death, we ought here to understand, whatever the Scripture any where signifies

signifies by that name. For who will presume to have a right of limiting the extent of the divine threatening? Nay, the words are not only general, but ingeminated too, plainly teaching us, that they are to be taken in their full emphasis or signification. 5thly, That they are spoken to Adam in such a manner a, also to relate to his posterity a certain evidence, that Adam was the representative of all. 6thly, Thaton the very day the sin should be committed, punishment should be inflicted on man; justice required this, and it has been verified by the event. For in the very moment when man sinned he became obnoxious to death, and immediately upon finishing his sin, felt the beginnings both of corporal and spiritual death. These things are here expressed with far greater simplicity than in the fictions of the Jewish doctors, according to Ben Jacchi, on Dan. vii. 25. where he speaks thus: "A thousand years are as one time, and one day, in the sight of the holy and blessed God, according to Psal. xc. 4. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday," and our doctors of blessed memory said, Gen. ii. 17. for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die, is to be understood of the day of the holy and blessed, that therefore the first man did not compleat. his day; (not arrive at his thousandth year,) that of that day he wanted seventy years." But this is far fetched, and savours of rabbinical dotage.

III. It will be far more useful a little more accurately to examine what is here meant by the word death. And, first, it is most obvious, that by that term is denoted that bad disposition of the body, now unfit for the soul's constant residence, and by which the soul is constrained to a separation from it. By this separation the good things of the body, which are unhappily doated on, the fruits of sin, and the sinner's ill-grounded hope, are snatched away at once. God intimates this, Gen. iii. 19. "till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." That is, thy body which was formed out of the earth shall return to its principles, and be reduced to earth again, unto which by its nature it is resolvable as being taken out of it. And the reason why it is actually to be resolved unto earth is, because it really is what God said, thou art dust, now corrupted with earthly desires, a slave to a body prone to sin, and taken from dust. In this sense Abraham confesses himself to be dust and ashes, Gen. xviii. 27. that is a mortal sinner. And David says, Psal. ciii. 14. be knoweth our frame (called, Gen. viii. 21. an evil frame, which passage Kimchi directs to be compared with

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this,) be remembereth that we are dust, attached to the ground, and viciously inclined to the good things of the earth. From this consideration, the prophet amplifies the mercy of God, in exercising it towards sinners, in whom he finds nothing to deserve his love. And by dust is clearly signified, Isa. lxv. 25. the sinful body. Where it is said of the serpent, the devil, now overcome by the kingdom of the Messiah, dust shall be bis food, he shall only have the pleasure to destroy the body, and men of carnal dispositions. Whereas then, after Adam sinned, God condemned him to the death of the body for his sin, it is not to be doubted, but he also comprized this death in the commination. Unless we will venture to affirm, that God has inflicted greater punishment on the sinner, than he threatened before the commission of sin.

IV. There is nothing so surprising but what may be devised by a luxuriant fancy. There is a certain learned man, who, in the words of Moses above explained, can find an extraordinary promise, and even clearer and more pregnant with consolation, than the prophecy concerning the seed of the woman. He thinks here is pointed out the period and boundary of toils; that the meaning is, till thou shalt return to this land, Paradise, the state of happy souls, from which, thou wast carried captive. For, thus Solomon is 'PS, captivated to death, and Jeremiah P, Thy children carried unto captivity. And he thinks, that the opinions of the Jews concerning the gathering of the souls into Paradise, has no other passage or foundation to support it. But this is nothing but the sally of a wanton imagination. Whereas, for our part, we take pleasure only in what is sound and sober, and yields satisfaction to the conscience. But to return to our subject.

V. It is no ways strange, that the Socinians, whose practice it is to wrest the Scriptures, should contradict this truth, and deny that the death of the body is the punishment of sin. Their other perverse hypotheses make this necessary. For, by denying this, they imagine they can more easily answer our arguments, for original sin taken from the death of infants, and for the satisfaction of the Lord Christ, from his death. And as they impiously deny the true godhead of Christ, they allege as the most excellent sign of his fictitious divinity, that he was the first preacher, author, and bestower of immortality; but their blasphemies have been largely and solidly refuted by others. But I am sorry than any learned person of our own should deny, that by the death denounced. Gen. ii. 17. the death of the body ought to be understood;

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and who thinks he grants a great deal when he writes as follows: "From which place, if any insist they can prove a ma"nifold death, eternal, spiritual, and corporal, and other afflic"tions, I can easily bear their fighting with these weapons a"gainst the enemies, so they can extort from them what they "want." These are none of the best expressions. Why, without necessity, grant so much to our adversaries? Is it at all commendable for us to weaken those arguments which have been happily made use of in defence of the truth? This learned person owns, that death is the punishment of sin, and that it may be evidently proved from the sentence pronounced upon Adam, Gen. iii. 19. What reason is there then not to believe, that the same death was proposed to man in the preceding threatening? Are not the words general, and ingeminated to give them the greater emphasis? Is not the death of the body expressly set forth by the very same phrase? 1 Kings 37. where Solomon tells Shimei, thou shalt die the death. Is not the very sound of the words such as a man cannot but have this death of the body come into his mind, unless a prejudiced person should refuse to understand here by death, what every one else does when death is spoken of? Is it not also highly becoming the divine goodness and justice, to inflict nothing by a condemnatory sentence on man, which was not previously threatened against sin; least happily man should plead in excuse he did not know that God would so highly resent, and so severely punish sin? And seeing this learned person would have death eternal here meant, does not that include the death of the body? Is the former ever inflicted on man, but after the latter, by raising him from that death, that the whole man, soul and body, may be eternally miserable? Why are thus suspicions entertained, of which alas! we have but too many? I could wish we all spoke with caution, with fear and trembling! This learned person will, it is hoped, not take amiss, if I here suggest to him the very prudent advice of Cocceius, which in a like case he inculcates on Gen. iii. § 190. “Those of our party, says he, want we should employ stronger arguments against the Jews. And certainly, that admonition is good; namely, when we have to do with infidels we are to make use of cogent arguments; least we become the derision of infidels, and confirm them in error. But as to the inculcating that rule, it is neither safe nor prudent, readily and frequently to oppose it to the arguments of Ecclesiastics. For, if thereby we refute them, N. B. we then go over to the party of the adversaries, and we arm them, and teach them to cavil. But if we don't refute them, but only inculcate that ad

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