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and sin was conducted and helped forward by pleasure and impunity,—it was necessary that God should superinduce a law, and shew them the rod, and affright and check their confidences, lest the world itself should perish by dissolution. The law of Moses was still a part of the covenant of works. Some little it had of repentance: sacrifice and expiations were appointed for small sins; but nothing at all for greater. Every great sin brought death infallibly. And as it had a little image of repentance, so it had something of promises, to be as a grace and auxiliary to set forward obedience. But this would not do it. The promises were temporal, and that could not secure obedience in great instances; and there being for them no remedy appointed by repentance, the law could not justify; it did not promise life eternal, nor give sufficient security against the temporal; only it was brought in as a pedagogy for the present necessity.

5. But this pedagogy or institution was also a manuduction to the Gospel. For they were used to severe laws, that they might the more readily entertain the holy precepts of the Gospel, to which eternally they would have shut their ears, unless they had had some preparatory institution of severity and fear: and therefore St. Paul also calls it, waidaywyiav Eis Xpiorov, "a pedagogy," or institution leading "unto Christ."

6. For it was this which made the world of the godly long for Christ, as having commission to open the xρuñтòv ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων, 'the hidden mystery' of justification by faith and repentance. For the law called for exact obedience, but ministered no grace but that of fear, which was not enough to the performance or the engagement of exact obedience. All, therefore, were here convinced of sin; but by this covenant they had no hopes, and therefore were to expect relief from another and a better: according to that saying of St. Paul, ❝ The Scripture concludes all under sin (that is, declares all the world to be sinners), that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe!" This St. Bernard expresses in these words; "Deus nobis hoc fecit, ut nostram imperfectionem ostenderet, et Christi avidiores nos faceret:" "Our imperfection was suffi

1. Gal. iii. 22.

ciently manifest by the severity of the first covenant, that the world might long for salvation by Jesus Christ."

7. For since mankind could not be saved by the covenant of works, that is, of exact obedience, they must perish for ever; or else hope to be saved by a covenant of ease and remission, that is, such a covenant as may secure man's duty to God, and God's mercy to man; and this is the covenant which God made with mankind in Christ Jesus, the covenant of repentance.

8. This covenant began immediately after Adam's fall. For as soon as the first covenant, the covenant of works, was broken, God promised to make it up by an instrument of mercy, which himself would find out. The seed of the woman' should make up the breaches of the man. But this should be acted and published in its own time, not presently. In the meantime, man was, by virtue of that new covenant or promise, admitted to repentance.

9. Adam confessed his sin and repented. Three hundred years together did he mourn upon the mountains of India; and God promised him a Saviour, by whose obedience his repentance should be accepted. And when God did threaten the old world with a flood of waters, he called upon them to repent; but because they did not, God brought upon them the flood of waters. For one hundred and twenty years together, he called upon them to return, before he would strike his final blow. Ten times God tried Pharaoh, before he destroyed him. And in all ages, in all periods, and with all men, God did deal by this measure; and (excepting that God in some great cases, or in the beginning of a sanction to establish it with the terror of a great example) he scarce ever destroyed a single man with temporal death for any nicety of the law, but for long and great prevarications of it: and when he did otherwise, he did it after the man had been highly warned of the particular, and could have obeyed easily; which was the case of the man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath; and was like the case of Adam, who was upon the same account judged by the covenant of works.

10. This, then, was an emanation both of God's justice and his mercy. Until man had sinned, he was not the sub

ject of mercy and if he had not then received mercy, the infliction had been too severe and unjust; since the covenant was beyond the measures of man, after it began to multiply into particular laws, and man by accident was lessened in his strengths.

11. From hence the corollaries are plain, 1. God was not unjust for beginning his intercourse with mankind by the covenant of works, for these reasons.

I. Because man had strengths enough to do it, until he lessened his own abilities.

II. The covenant of works was, at first, instanced but in a small commandment: in abstaining from the fruit of one tree, when he had by him very many others for his use and pleasure.

III. It was necessary that the covenant of works should begin for the covenant of faith and repentance could not be at first; there was no need of it, no opportunity for it, it must suppose a defailance, or an infirmity, as physic supposes. sickness and mortality.

IV. God never exacted the obedience of man by strict measures, by the severity of the first covenant after Adam's fall; but men were saved then as now: they were admitted to repentance, and justified by faith and the works of faith. And therefore the Jews say that three things were before the world, the law,-the name of the Messias,-and repentance; that is, as St. Paul better expresses it, This repentance through faith in the Messias is "the hidden wisdom of God, ordained before the world unto our glory m." So that, at first, it was not impossible; and when it was, it was not exacted in the impossible measure; but it was kept in pretence and overture for ends of piety, wisdom, and mercy, of which I have given account; it was σοφία ἀποκεκρυμμένη, α wise dispensation,' but it was hidden.'

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12. For since it is essential to a law, that it be in a matter that is possible, it cannot be supposed that God would judge man by an impossible commandment". A good man would not do it, much less the righteous and merciful judge of men and angels. But God, by holding over the world

m 1 Cor. ii. 7.

n Plato, lib. 5. de leg. Demosth. contra Timocratem. Plutar. in Solon. Curius Fortunatianus Rhet. Nemo obligatur ad impossibile.

the covenant of works, "non fecit prevaricatores sed humiles;" "did not make us sinners" by not observing the inpia, the minutes and tittles of the law, "but made us humble," needing mercy, begging grace, longing for a Saviour, relying upon a better covenant, waiting for better promises, praying for the Spirit of grace, repenting of our sins, deploring our infirmities, and justified by faith in the promises of God.

13. II. This, then, is the great introduction and necessity of repentance. We neither could have lived without it, nor have understood the way of the divine justice, nor have felt any thing of his most glorious attribute. But the admission of us to repentance is the great verification of his justice, and the most excellent expression of his mercy: this is the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, springing from the fountains of grace, purchased by the blood of the holy Lamb, the eternal sacrifice, promised from the beginning, always ministered to man's need in the secret economy of God, but proclaimed to all the world at the revelation of God incarnate, the first day of our Lord Jesus.

14. But what are we eased now under the Gospel, which is a law of greater holiness and more commandments, and a sublimer purity, in which we are tied to more severity than ever man was bound to, under any institution and covenant? If the law was an impossible commandment, who can say he hath strictly and punctually performed the injunctions of the Gospel? Is not the little finger of the Son, heavier than the Father's loins? Here therefore it is to be inquired, Whether the commandments of Jesus Christ be as impossible to be kept as the law of Moses? If we by Christ be tied to more holiness, than the sons of Israel were by Moses's law, then because that could not be kept, then neither can this. But if we be not tied to more than they, how is the law of Christ a more perfect institution? and how can we now be justified by a law no better than that, by which we could not be justified? But then, if this should be as impossible as ever, why is it anew imposed? why is it held over us, when the ends for which it was held over us, now are served? And at last, how can it be agreeable to God's wisdom and justice, to exact of us a law which we cannot perform, or to impose a law which cannot justly be exacted? The answering and expli

cating this difficulty, will serve many propositions in the doctrine of repentance.

SECTION II.

Of the Possibility or Impossibility of keeping the Precepts of the Gospel.

15. Ir were strange that it should be possible for all men to keep the commandments, and required and exacted of all men with the intermination or threatening of horrid pains, and yet that no man should ever do it. St. Jerome brings in Atticus thus arguing; "Da exemplum, aut confitere imbecillitatem tuam";" and the same also was the argument of Orosius; and the reasonableness of it is a great prejudice against the contrary affirmation of St. Austin, Alipius et Evodias, Aurelius et Possidius, who, because it is no good consequence to argue 'a non esse ad non posse,' and though it is not done, yet possibly it might; conclude, that it is possible to keep the commandments; though as yet no man ever did, but he that did it for us all. But as Marcellinus said well, It is hard to say, that by a man a thing can be done, of which although there was a great necessity and a severe commandment, yet there never was any example.'—Because in men there is such infinite variety of tempers, dispositions, apprehensions, designs, fears and hopes, purposes and interests, that it were next to a miracle that not one of all mankind should do what he can, and what so highly concerns him. But because this, although it be a high probability, yet is no certain demonstration; that which St. Paul' taught is certainly to be relied upon, "that the law could not do it for us,” that is, could not bring us justification," in that it was weak through the flesh;" meaning, that because we were so weak we could not fulfil the righteousness of the law, therefore we could not be justified by that covenant. "Mosi manus graves, facies cornuta, impedita lingua, lapideæ tabulæ :" "Moses's hands were heavy, his face bright, his tongue stammering, and the tables were of stone;" by which is meant, that the imposition and the burden were great, but the shoulder • Lib. 1. Dial. adv. Pelag.

P Rom. viii.

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