414 CHRISTIAN MORALITY, VIZ. JUSTICE, &C. [SEAM. XXV. who would not injure their fellow-creatures, may be guarded in the enjoyment of their ownproperty, and their peace, and may have them secured from the sons of in justice. And besides all the punishment that such sinners justly receive from men on earth, God, the great Governor of the world, has often revealed his wrath from heaven against all the unrighteousness of men, as well as their ungodliness. He has hereby proclaimed his publicappro- bation of justice, and his hatred of all iniquity. His terrors have sometimes appeared in signal and severe instances against those who have been notoriously un- righteous, and who have broken all the rules of equity in the .treatment of their fellow-creatures. This the heathens themselves have taken notice of. And they thought this to be so necessary for the government of the world, that theirpriests have invented a sort of goddess palled Nemesis, whose office is to avenge the practice of fraud or violence, and to bring down curses on the head of this kind of criminals. As the ancient records of the heathen world give us some histories ofdivine vengeance, so the bible abounds with more awful and illustrious instances of this kind; which leads me to The fourth head of my discourse ; and that is, to con- sider what forcible arguments and motives the christian religion affords for the practice ofjustice among men. If I were to speak of distributive justice, or that which :belongs to the practice of the magistrate, never was it wore gloriously manifestthan in and by God the Father, whenhe refused to pass by our iniquities without punish- ment, and laid the dreadful weight of it upon the bead and soul of his own Son. Never could magistracy re- ceive such a glory, as when our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, hung and died upon the cross, suffering the penalty that the law of God, the supreme magistrate, had denounced against sinners. And as punishing justicewas glorified in all its terrors, so rewarding justice also appearedmost illustrious. Be- cause our Lord Jesus Christ had fulfilled obedience not only to the broken law which we lay under, but to those peculiar laws which God the. Father also gave him as a Mediator; therefore it pleased God highly to advance
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