penalty of transgression. On the other hand, they may become not only great alleviations of punishment, but the means of great and lasting benefit to the transgressor. Wherefore to call them punishment in the proper sense, would be to say that even under a perfect administration the violation of duty stands an equal chance of being advantageous; and that under an imperfect administration fitness to be punished is not a proper ground upon which justice can proceed, either with safety or certainty : results which subvert all moral distinctions. It will be observed that the very terms I have used, and every idea they all suggest, necessarily involve a lawgiver, a law, and a subject of it-three terms which absolutely stand or fall together. So that the existence of an infinite Ruler of the Universe, the approver of right doing and the punisher of wrong doing-the administrator also of the boundless complexities incidental to both actions, is involved in the very nature of our own moral constitution.

3. What has been said in the preceding paragraph embraces the whole distinction between punishment properly considered, and whatever is merely incidental thereto-whether these incidents appertain to the actual infliction of the punishment, or whether they appertain immediately to the trangression itself, or whether they appertain to the method of dealing with the culprit between the perpetration of the offence and the infliction of the penalty. To suppose that all these incidents are merely proofs of an imperfect administration, would not alter the case at all, or affect the moral principles involved in it, even if the supposition were true. To suppose, with regard to the infinite administration of God, that all these incidents must have been foreseen by him, and all been allowed for in giving us such a nature as he has, and such a moral code to the universe as is answerable to that nature-is but stating the condition under which the principles themselves operate, under which the incidents themselves occur. The infinite complications of the universe, and the infinite wisdom, power, justice, and goodness of God in directing them all by his adorable providence, are subjects of the most transcendent interest: but the very thing we need is the means of piercing those endless complications which surround us on all sides, the fundamental truths upon which that boundless and irresistible providence may be at once understood and vindicated. If we will deal justly with ourselves, as the beginning of that

perpetual right doing which God approves, and which diffuses satisfaction through our own souls, we shall find that God has laid in the very nature we possess those precise elements, and has explicated throughout his most blessed word those great and satisfying truths, whereby the conscience and reason he has given us are competent to justify his ways, and to know, not only that he is, but that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

4. How God could permit transgression to go unpunished, is wholly inconceivable. The highest manifestation which has ever occurred of his infinite grace to sinners and his infinite compassion for the miserable-the cross, namely, on which his only begotten Son offered himself a sacrifice-is the very highest proof of which we can conceive, that every transgression and disobedience must receive a just recompense of reward. And so the Scriptures perpetually assert. That which our own hearts teach us we deserve-punishment for transgression; that which our reason can discover no possibility of avoiding, when contemplated merely on the human side of the case; becomes an irresistible necessity as soon as we allow ourselves to contemplate the divine side of it. There is no more possibility that God should allow sin to go unpunished, than that he should allow innocence to be condemned. And in nothing is he more careful to inform us, than that the apparent departures from these eternal necessities which we observe in human affairs, are but temporary and anomalous; and that the stupendous departure from them in the work of redemption through the divine Saviour of sinners, is the very highest manifestation of the principles themselves, wrought out through the infinite goodness of God, to the infinite glory of God, and springing from a transcendent generalization of all the perfections of God.

5. Satan, and man, and the brute creation, and the earth itself-our universe; all, lying under the curse of God, lie under the force of all the truths I have stated, all the principles I have distinguished. Every thing is polluted by sin; every thing lies under the penalty of transgression; every thing has actually received sentence, and awaits a farther sentence at the great day; every thing must endure, in some form or other, its due recompense. Besides this, whatever things are incidental to transgression, let them be what they may; and whatever are incidental

to punishment; and whatever are incidental to process in its widest sense, if I may so speak; all-all must be encountered. And the infinite complications of the universe, and the infinite dominion of God, are-as to the former but elements, and as to the latter but the means, whereby, and wherein, infinite wisdom, and justice, and grace continually expatiate in accomplishing the eternal purpose of God's infinite will, to his own boundless glory. The entrance of the Covenant of Grace modified everything. The primeval promise of a Saviour, uttered by God as a part of the sentence he pronounced on Satan, changed the condition of the universe. God revealed therein the principles on which he would act towards a universe lying under his curse: on the one hand, inextinguishable wrath against Satan and his seed; on the other hand infinite grace towards fallen man; gloriously developed throughout the word of God, and efficacious to eternity. But still the curse remained, and the universe lay under it; and it lies under it still. A universe under God's curse-but with the promise of an infinite deliverance, limited only in that Satan and his seed have no part in it; a universe before our eyes, after so many weary ages, still struggling under that curse towards that deliverance; groaning and travailing in pain under the bondage of corruption, but still cherishing the hope in which it was subjected of attaining to the glorious liberty of the children of God.

III. 1. Let us attempt to estimate in a more detailed manner this mixed condition of the universe, as the elements thereof are delivered to us in the account of them inspired by God himself. Nothing more remarkable ever occurred on earth. It is God the Creator and Ruler of the universe, Satan the head of the fallen angels and the destroyer of the human race, and the first parents of that race, who are the parties to transactions so wonderful. And the questions adjudged are vast beyond the conception of any but God himself; the fate of the universe he had created, the destiny of the human race created in his own image and now fallen from it-the overthrow of his first covenant as a Covenant of Life-the first discovery of his new and better covenant-the question of his own eternal glory, of vengeance on the Devil and his seed, of grace and salvation for his own elect! How can the grandeur of such topics, and the utter insufficiency of human reason for their solution, be more clearly displayed, than by the fact that their solution resulted, as I have before ventured to ex

press it, through a transcendent generalization of all the perfections of God, and that the method of that salvation lay in the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God!

2. The first three chapters of the Book of Genesis, with which the inspired volume opens, contain a detailed though wonderfully compact statement of the creation of the heavens and the earth and all that in them is; very especially of the creation and original nature and primeval estate of man; of the giving to him by God of the Covenant of Works, his trial under it, his breach of it, and the consequent fall of the sentence of God upon all the parties implicated in this transaction, and upon the universe which was involved with them; and of the first intimation by God, that the great deliverer should come, and that all things should be restituted and recapitulated in him. It is the closing portion of these transcendent acts, with which, at this moment, we are specially concerned in the present attempt to appreciate the condition in which the universe was left, when they were all finished, and our first parents were driven from the Garden of Eden; the sentence of God, namely, and the promise of the Seed of the woman, and the threat of the destruction of Satan. The whole of these vast subjects have been carefully analysed and expounded, as the sources of complete and universal knowledge to us, touching the matters to which they relate-in a former Treatise; and having occasion now to examine a portion of them for the special purpose immediately before us, I content myself, as to what does not fall necessarily into the present use, with this general reference to that Treatise.

3. The Scriptures abundantly testify that Satan, under the form of the serpent, was the real tempter of our first parents.' His sentence, therefore, has this twofold aspect of the bestial and the diabolical nature of the agency which produced the fall of man; and as God has put these aspects together, we need not be careful to separate them. The penalty denounced on him, was for his agency in the fall of man. Whatever punishment he may deserve, or receive for other sins, it is for his part in the ruin of man that he is sentenced and punished, in connection with the dispensation of God towards man. Because thou hast done this, is the formula used by God; the very same used in sentencing Adam; the fault first, and then the punishment. Not 1 Rev., xii. 9; xxii. 1-3.

only does the curse of God and all that is involved therein rest on Satan, but it does so in a manner the highest and deepest of all; cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field; of which a flagrant-as well as a symbolical exhibition should be made to the universe, in the prostrate condition of the serpent, and in the vileness of his common sustenance. But the main part and proof of the penalty and curse on Satan, lies in the enmity denounced by God between the Devil and his seed on the one side, and the woman and her Seed on the other side.' We have herein a very extraordinary intimation of the preternatural generation of Christ, and of all that is involved therein; and the enmity between the seed of Satan and the Seed of the woman is as clearly denounced as the enmity between Satan and the woman. But beyond all doubt, Christ is that Seed of the woman intended, and his people in him as their head.' And again, beyond all doubt, the obstinately impenitent are embraced among the seed of Satan, and are expressly and repeatedly called the children of the Devil, a generation of vipers and the like. The obstinately and finally impenitent are, therefore, no more embraced in any provision of the Covenant of Grace, terminating in salvation, than the Devil himself is. This quenchless and eternal enmity of Satan and his seed to the woman and her Seed, is a large part of their interlocutory sentence, and of so much of the penalty of transgression as is executed upon them before their final sentence and second death. Pitiless hate, and malice, and every evil passion consuming them; aggravated beyond conception by the object of their enmity being worthy of their boundless love, and beyond the reach of their inextinguishable hate; a state of case applying in its degree, to their enmity towards every child of God. At the same time the enmity of the Seed of the woman to Satan and his seed, begets in these enemies of God, endless disquiet, dread, and terror, and ends in their total overthrow, ruin, and perdition. Even their partial success in bruising his heel, being utterly malicious and diabolical, can add nothing but misery and pollution to them, and can effectually promote only their own punishment and woe. It can never be more than a partial success, bruising the heel only;

1 Gen., iii. 14, 15.

2 Ps., cxxxii. 11; Isa., vii. 14; viii. 8; Matt., i. 23-25; Luke, i. 31-35; Gal., iv. 4.

3 Matt., iii. 7; xiii. 38; xxiii. 33; John, viii. 44; Acts, xiii. 10; 1 John, iii. 8.