2 a Premonition. degrees of Sin : And Chrift died for all our fins : therefore they did every one deferve death: which coffimed not with a right to Life: therefore not with a right to Heaven : And an immortal Soul was not naturally to be annihilated ; therefore to live in fonie punifhment as fe- parated : And Rom. 3. 9. all were under Sin, yet all had not grofs Sin. Rom. 6. 23. The wages of Sin is Death. Rom. 5. 12. Deathpaffedon all, for that all have finned. Rom. 2. 12. As many as have finned without Law, (hallperifh without Law. And we mutt prayfor the pardon of all Sin : Andunpardoned Sin will damn men. Thefe are the reafons on this fide. They of the other Opinion fay, That the Gofpel-Covenant fheweth Gods Nature aswell as the firft Law : That God had not been unjuft in- deed, if he had permitted him to fall into great Sin, and fo to perifh, whocommitted the lean : for he fo permitted Adam to commit the fitft that was before innocent : But the Juftice of Godbound himnot fo to do : nor would have damneda Lover of God, for a (mall Sin, no more than now : That we mutt not feign a Law which we cannot prove: That God changethnot his holy Nature, and therefore not that Law, which is the expreffion of it : That Chrift died for all Sin, and all needs pardon; but that proveth not that the lealideferved death, much lets Hell; but that by Chrifi's Death the deferved punifhment mull be re- mitted t that all, even Infants, are guilty of mortal Sin in Adam: That Death is the wages of that Sin whichbrought it, but not of the leaft: That Adam's Lawwas not feverer than that by Mofes, which faith, Do this and live, and yet condemned not men for fmaller fins t That God proclaimed; pardon of fomeSin, in the very Law of Nature as from his Nature , Exod. 34. and the Second Commandment, That Nature teacheth all the World to believe it : That God raid not toAdam, [In the day that thou thinkeft a vain thought, ] but [ That thoueate , 3 &c. That mortal Sin is pardonable by Chrift which elfe could not by the firft Law : but God could otherwife have pardoned a vain thought, if he would : That noText of Scripture faith, that everySin deferveth Hell, nor is threatned with Death. And as theconditionof thePenalty, fo the conditionof the Promife toAdam is here alto controverted by Divines : r. Some fay that the condition ofLife was perfonal, perfect, perpetual Obedience till his change ; which God would make as he did by Henochwhen it pleafed him: ( which feemeth to me the probablef) Opinion ). 2. Others think that Adam was to have continued in Eden for ever underthat fame conditional Law (which islefa probable.) 3. Others think, that had heover-come the firft temptation, but fo far as to adhereand vanquifh, that is, to continuethe love of God, and not to eat that Fruit, or commit any other mortal Sin, whichof its nature killeth Love, he had been confirmed, as the promifed Re- ward. 4. I have lately met with an exceeding ingenious M. S. (writtenpart- ly againfi my few, after others) which afferteth, r. That the Glory of Juffice is theend of Gods Government. 2. That Do this (perfelily ) and live, or Sin (at all) and die, are the confiant terms of Juftice under every Covenant. 3. That if Adam had performed but one All of Obedience, by that Law, he fhould have been rewarded with confir- mation, or the Holy Ghoft (as the Angels) and with everlatting life. 4. That now all our Reward is only theAft of Gods Juftice, giving us life, as meritedby us in Chrift onthe terms ofthe Lawthat faith, Do tins
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=