SERMON Xi V. 947 may be a strong restraint upon the violent inclinatiòns of men, and bring just vengeance upon them, when they bring injury upon their neighbours. Therefore it is for the welfare of the innocent and the righteous, that the laws have ordained ven- geance for the guilty ; that those who would not injure their fellow-creatures, may be guarded in the enjoyment of their own property and their peace, and mayhave them secured from the sons of injustice. And besides all the punishment that such sinners justly re- ceive from menon earth, God, the great Governor of theworld, has often revealed' his wrath from heaven against all the unrigh- teousness of men, as well as their ungodliness. He has hereby proclaimed his public approbation ofjustice, and his hatred ofall iniquity. His terrors have- sometimes appeared in signal and severe instances agaiiTist. those who have been notoriouslyun- righteous, and who have broken all the rules of equity in the treatment of their fellow-creatures. This the heathens them- selves have taken notice of. And they thought this to be so necessary for the government ofthe world, that their priests have invented a sort of goddess called Nemesis, whose office is to avenge the practice of fraud or violence, and to bring down cuises onthe headof this kind of criminals. As the ancient records of the heathen world give us some histories of divine 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 consider what forcible arguments andmotives the christian religion affords for the practice ofjustice among men. If I were to speakof distributive justice, or that which be- longs to the practice of the magistrate, never was it more glori- ously manifest, than in andby God the Father, when he refused topass by our iniquities without punishment, and laid the dreadful weight of it upon the head and soulof his own Son. Never could magistracy receive 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 de- nounced against sinners. And as punishingjustice was glorified in all its terrors, so rewarding justice also, appeared moot illustrious. Because 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 advancehim, according to his own eternalcovenant. God rewarded him, as a magistrate, distributing justice to a person who had done the greatest things for the honour of his sovereign : He exalted him at his own right-hand, and gavehim
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