SO OP THE MORAL LAW, AND THE EVTL OP Sil. [sERM.. V. It is time now to conclude this.discourse with some few reflections. Reflection I. Is the law of God in perpetual force, and is every transgression of it so heinous an evil ; then let " us take a survey how wretched and deplorable is the state of mankind by nature. 'We have all broken the law of our God, which we have been all bound to obey ; we are still bound to obey it and are still breakers of it. Our daily thoughts, our words and our deeds suf- ficiently shew us that we are transgressors, and there is inour nature a perpetual propensity to transgress. Where is the mortal that has lived according to the purity and perfection of this law ? " There is none righteous ; no, not one." Rona., iii. 10, 12. Where is the son or daughter of Adam, that is not pronounced guilty and condemned by it? " Every mouth is stopped, and all the world is guilty before God." What a miserable region is this earth, overspread with sinful inhabitants, criminal creatures, who are all transgressors against the law of the God that made them, and by the sentence of that law stand condemned to death, considered in their natural state? Reflection II. Is the moral law of such constant obli- gation, and is death the due recompence of every trans- gression of it; " Then it is necessary for ministers to preach this law, and it is necessary for hearers to learn it." We should all know our duty and our danger. Not the best of christians are arrived at ádispensation above _the knowledge and the practice Of this law. There is no honour dine to the gospel by explaining it in such a manner as to release us from the duties of the moral law ; for it is one great design of the gospel to restore us again to a chearful and regular obedience to it. To in it, so much further pain or anguishdoes it deserve in body, or in mind, or in both, that is, it requires so much further continuance in life and being, as to sustain that degree of anguish' and sorrowwhich is due to the sinner: And therefore the life of a wicked soul is continued in sorroks, in the other world after the death of the body as a punishment for sip ; and therefore also at the last day shall be raised again, that all wilful and impenitent sinners may sustain punishments according to the various dis- pensations of God under which they hive lived, and the several aggrava- tions of their sins; and all these things shall be perfectly adjusted by the wisdom and righteousness of God, " who is the Judge of the whale earth, and always does What is right;' Gen. xviii. 25.
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