event assuredly befall us. And (3.) the inexpressible greatness of this unavoidable evil. "How shall we escape?" We shall not, there is no way for it, nor ability to bear what we are, if continued neglecters, liable unto: Matt. xxiii, 33; 1 Pet. iv, 18.

$10. (II) The words thus explained present to us many interesting observations.

Obs. 1. Motives to a due valuation of the gospel, and perseverance in the profession of it, taken from the penalties annexed to its neglect, are evangelical, and of singular use in preaching the word. "How shall we escape if we neglect?" Some would fancy, that all threatenings belong to the law; as though Jesus Christ had left himself and his gospel to be securely despised by profane and impenitent sinners; but as they will find the contrary to their eternal ruin, so it is the will of Christ we should let them know this, and thereby warn others to take heed of their sins and plagues.

Now these motives from comminations or threatenings, I call evangelical.

(1.) Because they are recorded in the gospel; that we are thence taught them, and thereby commanded to make use of them. And if the dispensers of the word insist not on them, they deal deceitfully with the souls of men, and detain from them the whole counsel of God. And as such persons will find themselves to have a weak and feeble ministry here, so also they will have a sad account of their "partiality in the word" to give hereafter. Let not men think themselves more evangelical than the author of the gospel, more skilled in the conversion and edification of the souls of men than the apostles; in a word, more wise than God himself, which they must do if they neglect this part of his ordinance.

It is meet

(2.) Because they become the gospel. that the gospel should be armed with threatenings, as well as attended with promises: and that on the part of Christ, of sinners, of believers, and of preachers. On the part of Christ himself the author of it. A sceptre in a kingdom without a sword; or a crown without a rod of iron, will quickly be trampled upon. Both are therefore given into the hands of Christ, that the glory and honor of his dominion may be known: Psal. ii, 9-12. On the part of sinners; yea of all to whom the gospel is preached To keep them in awe and restraining fear, that they may not boldly and openly break out in contempt of Christ. These are his arrows that are sharp in the hearts of his adversaries, whereby he awes them. Christ never suffers them to be so secure, but that his terrors in these threatenings visit them ever and anon; that they may be left inexcusable, and the Lord Christ justified against them at the last day. He hath told them beforehand plainly what they are to look for, Heb. x, 26, 27. On the part of believers; even they stand in need to be put in mind of the terror of the Lord, and what a fearful thing it is to fall in the hands of the living God; and that even our God is a "consuming fire." And this to keep up in their hearts a constant reverence of the majesty of Jesus Christ with whom they have to do. These comminations give them, also, constant matter of praise and thankfulness, when they sce in them, as in a glass that will neither flatter nor causelessly terrify, a representation of that wrath which they are delivered from by Jesus Christ, 1 Thess. i, 10. They are needful to them, moreover, to ingenerate that fear which may check the remainder of their lusts and corruptions; and to prevent security and negligence in attending to the gospel, which by means of

those lusts and corruptions are apt to grow upon them. The hearts of believers are like gardens, wherein there are not only flowers, but weeds also; and as the former must be watered and cherished, so the latter must be destroyed. If nothing but dews and showers of promises should fall upon the heart, though they seem to tend only to the cherishing their graces, yet the weeds of corruption will be apt to grow up with them, and in the end to choke them, unless they are blasted by the severity of threatenings. And notwithstanding their persuasions, that in the use of means they shall be secured from finally falling, yet they know there is an infallible connexion signified in these awful threatenings, between sin and destruction, 1 Cor. vi, 9; and they must avoid the one, if they would escape the other. Hence they have in a readiness wherewith to balance temptations, especially such as accompany suf ferings for Christ and the gospel. Liberty would be spared, life would be spared; it is hard to suffer and to die. But are we afraid of a man that shall die, more than of the living God? Shall we, to avoid the anger of a worm, cast ourselves into his wrath who is consuming fire. Shall we, to avoid a little momentary trouble, to preserve a perishing life, which a sickness may take away tomorrow, run ourselves into eternal ruin? Man threatens me if I forsake not the gospel, but God threatens if I do. Man threatens death temporal, which yet it may be he shall not have the power to inflict; God threatens death eternal, which no backslider in heart shall avoid. On these and the like accounts are comminations useful even to believers. Again, these declarations of eternal punishment to neglecters of the gospel are becoming on the part of the preachers and dispensers of it; that their message be not slighted, nor their persons despised. God would have even them

to "have in a readiness to revenge the disobedience of men," 2 Cor. x, 6; not with carnal weapons, killing and destroying the bodies of men, but by such a denunciation of the vengeance that will ensue on their disobedience, as shall undoubtedly take hold upon them, and end in their everlasting ruin.

§11. And this will farther appear if we consider,

1. That threatenings of future penalties on the disobedient are far more clear and express in the gospel than in the law. The curse, indeed, was threatened and denounced under the law, and instances of its execution were given in the temporal punishments that were inflicted on the transgressors of it: but in the gospel the nature of this curse is explained, and wherein it consisteth is made manifest. For as eternal life was but obscurely promised in the Old Testament, though really promised; so death eternal under the curse and wrath of God was but obscurely threatened therein, though really threatened. And therefore, as life and immortality were brought to light by the gospel, so death and hell, the punishment of sin under the wrath of God, are more fully declared therein. The nature of the judgment to come, the duration of the penalties to be inflicted on unbelievers, with such intimations of the nature and kind of those punishments as our understandings are able to receive, are fully and frequently insisted on in the New Testament; whereas they are but obscurely inferred from the writings of the Old Testament.

2. The punishment threatened in the gospel, as to degrees, is greater and "more sore" than that which was annexed to the mere transgression of the first covenant. Hence the apostle calls it, "death unto death,” 2 Cor. ii, 16; by reason of the sore aggravations which the first sentence of death will receive from the wrath due to a contempt of the gospel.

And with this ought they to be well acquainted, who are called to dispense the gospel. A fond conceit hath befallen some, that all denunciations of future wrath, even to unbelievers, is legal, which therefore it doth not become the preachers of the gospel to insist upon: so would men make themselves wiser than Jesus Christ and his apostles; yea, they would disarm the Lord Christ, and expose him to the contempt of his vilest enemies. Suffice it to add, that they have been observed to have had the most effectual ministry, both for conversion and edification, who have been made wise and dexterous in managing gospel comminations towards the consciences of their hearers.

$12. Obs. 2. All punishments annexed to the transgressions either of the law or gospel are the effects of God's vindictive justice, and consequently just and equal; "a meet recompense of reward." Foolish men have always had tumultuating thoughts about the judgments of God. Hence was the vain imagination of them of old, who dreamed that an end should be put, after some while, to the punishment of devils and wicked men: so turning hell into a kind of purgatory. Others have presumptuously disputed, that there shall be no hell at all; but a mere annihilation of ungodly men at the last day. That which they seem principally to have stumbled at, is the assignation of a punishment infinite in duration, as well as in its nature extended to the utmost capacity of the subject, for a fault finite, temporary, and transient. Now that we may justify the proceeding of the supreme Judge herein, and the more clearly discern that the punishment finally inflicted on sin, is but “a meet recompense of reward," we must consider that God's justice constituting, and in the end inflicting the reward of sin, is essential to him. "Is God unrighteous,”