Watts - BX5200 .W3 1813 v.4

356 RUIN AND RECOVERY, &C. the world, given him of the Father as a Mediator, or becausehe is the Sot of Man.-And all that are in the gravesshall come forth; they who have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation ; John 26---29. They who have believed in Christ, and obeyed him, shall be raised up at last to happiness ; but those who have disobeyed thegospel, shall be raised in order to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord ; 2 Thess. i. 9. Nor surely this resurrection of all mankind must be built . upon the foot of a new covenant given or offered to all mankind, since the old covenant of innocency, or the law of works, ap- points eternal life without dying for theobedient, and deathwith- out a resurrection for the disobedient. Such a covenant there- fore as admits natural death to seize even upon those who are obedient to it, and provides a resurrection even for those who aredisobedient, must needs be a different covenant from the law of works, which admits, no death for the one, nor provides any resurrection for the other. There was therefore doubtless a ge- neral proclamation of pardon and salvation to all mankind, who were fallen in Adam, contained in the first promise, or the gospel that was preached to Adam, the first father of mankind, by God himself, in the garden after his fall : And this was again preached to all the world by Noah, the second father of mankind, and a preacher of righteousness; otherwise I think the resurrection would not reach to every man and woman in the world. Let it be considered also, that this very resurrection of the bodies of sinful mankind, brings with it an additional penalty and misery, beyond what the law of innocency threatened, even the everlast- ing punishment of the new-raised body, and the soul as united to it. Now this cannot, with such evident justice, be inflicted upon thenon-elect, if they are under no other covenant but that of innocency, or the law of works, because no such punishment is threatenedor implied in that law, as far as I can read it. Nor would there have been any such thing as sinners arising from the dead, that we can find in the bible, if Chrbt Jesus had not taken upon him to be a Mediatorbetween God and fallen man, so far as to set mankind upon some new foot of hope ; and thus unbelievers and impenitent persons are punished in their new-raised bodies, for rejecting this hope. For since the broken lawor covenant of worksleaves the body under the power of death for ever, wecan hardly suppose that the Son of God, the chief minister of his Father's grace, would provide a resurrection of thebody for breakers of that original law, merely to put them to severer punishments and more intense torments, than that broken law threatened, if there were not some advan- tage in the nature of things, derived to themfrom his mediation,

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