that befall the wicked chastisements Levit. 26 28. Deutr. 11 2 3. Ps 94 10. Ier. 30 14. Nor doe I well understand how that which is in it selfe and owne nature a punishment should ever be otherwise tho it com from different causes I know and is used for different ends and effects or how thô afflictions may be chastisements to the righteous whilst they live their death can be so to them and much les how that of Infants which make so great a part of mankind and if of believing parents are charitably judged by most and I would be glad to see well proved are righteous and saved for the Apostle makes it the effect of Adams transgression and therefore properly a punishment Rom. 5 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 15 21 22. And therfore that distinction allso used by Dally and others that death to the righteous is only materially or improperly a punishment not formally as the cutting or burning a patient by a Phisitian differs from the like inflicted out of Justice by a Judge on an offender seems not consonant to the Apostle's doctrine seeing death is inflicted by the law-giver for the breach of his law whereas a Patient suffers not as a malefactor It is true that neither death nor any other punishments of the Righteous are meerly vindictive in reference to satisfaction for sin as the Papists mantaine Christ having fully satisfied for their sins and procured the pardon of them which upon their believing is granted them by the covenant of grace but not so as to free them from the temporal evils of this life or death and their bodies lieing in the dust these being excepted after the promis of the Messias Gen. 3. For God having given man a law and threatned his transgressing it with death which implies the temporal of the body the spiritual of the soul and the eternal of both our first parents comprehending all man-kind having trangrest it God coms and hold Assizes summons them to appeare before him charges them with their sin convinces them of their guiltines and then allaying the severity of his Justice with Mercy and free Grace first promiseth a Messias and Salvation and deliverance through him from their Sins by his satisfaction to Justice for them so as he had determined and after agreed with Christ the seed of the Woman in the Covenant of Redemption so that though they and all in them had Sinned and come short of the Glory of God being Spiritually dead in Tresspasses and Sins and therby liable to eternal Death yet they and all their rightteous Seed should be Saved by the Messias from these two kinds of Death which are the great destructive penalties of Sinners And then proceeds to Sentence them what they should all suffer notwithstanding First the Woman who was first in fault declaring her peculiar Punishment as to her Sex besides those common to her with Man in her sorrowful Conception bringing forth and subjection to her Husband and then the Man and all mankind in him both Men and Women are sentenced to Misery in this Life mortality and their Bodies lying in the dust from whence they were taken The Promise and its preceding the Sentence implying that all those tâ—at imbraced God's Mercy through the Messias should have no other Punishment then these temporal and all those that rejected it and so remaining on their first terms with their Creator commonly call'd The Covenant of Works should suffer the Death threatned therein for their Transgressions The Execution of this Sentence hath continued ever since and will continue till the Resurrection that all may feel the bitter fruits of their Apostacy in these temporal Punishments for the bettering of God's People not for their satisfying Justice for their Sins as the Papists affirm seeing they neither can no meer Man much less Sinful being able to satisfy divine Justice for the least offence nor have need Christ having done this sufficiently for them and for the leaving the incorrigible Wicked that will not be bettered by them the more inexcusable in their suffering Eternal Punishment So that those metaphorical expressions of Pardon of Sins by God 's not seeing or remembring them blotting them out covering them casting them behind his back and into the bottom of the Sea c. denoting the plenariness thereof and those sayings of our Divines remtssa cuspà remittitur poena and that Justification takes away all Punishment c. must be understood according to the Covenant of Grace and agreably with the execution of God's sentence upon Sinners For thô remission on of Sin be nothing else then the remission of its puishment yet it s that punishment only which is opposite to pardon such as belongs to the impenitent and is Eternal whereas all those whom God justifies he also glorifies Insomuch that thô the righteous have through Christ the remission of their Sins and eternal Punishment granted them in the Covenant of Grace together with a sanctified use of their temporal that they shall all work together for their good and the sting of Death taken out of their Sin that brought it in being now thereby turn'd out again and victory over the Grave in the Redemptiom of their bodies from their Captivity under it at the Resurrection yet Death is still in all the degrees of it antecedent in the miseries of this Life and kinds of it first and second or temporal and eternal the wages of Sin according to the original threatning And temporal Death a punishment in all according to the original Sentence thô to the Righteous Eternal Life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ their Lord who hath abolish'd Death or Sin which is Spiritul Death and Eternal the consequent thereof thô not their Temporal and brought Life and Immortality to light by the Gospel from the first promise of himself still more clearly and by himself at last most fully to whom be Glory Rom. 6 23. 2 Tim. 1 10. 2. The causes or reasons of the Adjuncts of Death in the kinds manner and other circumstances thereof as why some die a violent others a natural Death these suddenly those leisurely one sooner another later or at such times or places rather than others are in the ordinary course of Providence of which we speak secret to us thô well known to the all-wise God There being such a stupendious variety herein that as in living faces so in dying persons ther 's no perfect agreement in all circumstances each of which are particularly and only known to him who numbers the hairs of our heads and so orders and governs every single person and thing as if it were all he had to do and so all things as if he were not imployed in any particulars The Apostle gives us the clearest account hereof that I know in few words saying God worketh all things after the Councel of his own Will Ephes 1 11. where we have counsel directing will determining and power working or executing all things
Ezeh 16.50 so when som are extraordinarily delivered that is allso ascribed to his soveraignty and befalls the wicked as wel as the righteous as scripture shews us I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a firebrand pluckt out of the burning yet have ye not returnd unto me saith the Lord. Amos. 4.11 So that the experience of all ages verisies Salomon's words which ate interpretative not exclusive of providence and shews how things goe ordinarily under its conduct when he saith all things come alike to all there is one event to the righteous and to the wickâ—d Eccles 9.2 The same manner of afflictions and death materially befalling the one as the other By which unseeming providence God secures his people from the rage and malice of Sathan and wicked men in this world which would not be habitable for saints if they were certainly known and keeps off the scandal of Religion none knowing who are sincere or only hypocritical and mens coming to him for base ends whereby we should have more professors but worse Christians It being sufficient for his people's security that he knows them perfectly and makes a difference between them and the wicked of the world in the same providence where we can make none in his fatherly affection to them therein in his intention direction and ordering thereof for their good and in his issuing all in their eternal salvation 2 As we must not judge amis of God's proceedings so neither must we rashly judg of those so taken away Either of the cause like the Barbarians that judged the Aposte Paul a murderer from the viper fastning on his hand thinking he would fall down dead suddenly of which I have spoken in the reasons or of their eternal state and condition For if the life be good no manner of death is bad and if the life be bad the death is seldom good no evil of punishment but only of sin abates God's fatherly affection to his children but rather increases it or any way lessens their interest in his favor witnes Abel and all the Prophets to Zacharias slain between the Temple and altar Stephen and all the Apostles and Martyrs and best of men in all ages I know but one place of scripture that looks like judging mens eternal state by temporal judgments and that is of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. Which yet is not meant of the next world in hell thô being the worst we read of and not ten righteous amongst them are damned most of them as Christ that knew intimates when he saith Math. 11. it shall be more tolerable for them than Corazin at the day of judgment the degree implying the kind but only the duration of the judgment in this world and as an emblem of the day of judgment when God shal bring a diluviam ignis as Irenaus calls it or rain hell out of heaven upon the world that now is and of the punishment of the wicked as the Psalmist alluding therto tells us this shall be the portion of their cup Ps 11.6 Learne we then to goe no further than scripture that speaks sparingly of mens eternal state and never that I know of concludes damnation from God's punishments here but allways from mens sins unrepented of and let us make no conclusions upon such false grounds nor presume to ascend Christs tribunal in condemning any to eternal punishments Pererius and others are too bold in asserting all the old world that were drowned except infants were damned For not to mention their number that world in all probability being as populous as the present and granting the generality were even of the sons of God that had corrupted their ways yet scripture speaking only indefinitly it is not for us to make it universal that all had or that nome repented upon the flood 's approaching allbeit God only establisht covenant with Noah and his family as afterwards with Abraham and his as the best in their generations Nor lastly must we censure the Relations of any suddenly taken away as if it were for som extraordinary sins that God so deals with them Which was the fault of Job's three friends For the devil whom God ordinarily restrains of his will more than wicked men in regard of his great malice and power and his being in termino or condemnd thô not fully executed whereas men are here only in via or probationers in reference to their future judgment having accused Job falsly and being by God extraordinarily permitted his pleasure on all he hath for the tryal and exercise of this noble champion begins with his estate knowing Job would have valewed that less if he had before lost his children then destroys them allso suddenly sparing the wife that was in his power who it should seem was none of the best for his second in this combat And his friends knowing these things and seeing his bodily sufferings allso to be very great allthô the loss of his children seems his greatest outward affliction his personal being greater in his inward troubles of spirit than bodily for thô he was greivously sore and pained yet not heart-sick or in dainger of death they in stead of comforting him add affliction to the afflicted censure him as unrighteous and think to prove him so by this argument That he that is sorely afflicted of God is either an open sinner or secret hypocrite this Job denies and disputes it with them and Elihu moderates determining God's favor and afflictions to be consistent which God confirms and shews his displeasure against the others Let this example of these good men's censoriousnes keep us from playing the Criticks in such cases and to judge nothing before the time either of God or men rashly lest he deal with us after our folly but stay till this dust that blinds us be blown out of our eyes and then shall we see clearly the reason of all at the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God Rom. 2.5 5 For Application to those especially concernd in the loss of their deare Relations that they bear it Christianly I need say the less of this because many have said so much tho the practise of most is not answerable and especially those that are surprized For the suddennes thereof discomposes our minds makes us inconsiderate and laying aside the rule both of scripture and reason comply with present sense quarelling with God as Jonah for the loss of his guord or any thing next us as the cause thereof as Job's wife with her husbands religion and the good widow with Elijah for the sudden death of her son 1 Kings 17. Briefly therfore 1 Eye God as the author and orderer of all that befalls us His soverainty power goodnes justice wisdom c. in the kind manner measure time and issue of afflictions David was dumb in silence opened not his mouth in murmuring
and we Christians ought and should and for which God is pleased to use them in his Church For thô we have the law that discovers sin and condemns sinners to eternal punishments and the Gospel that tenders us pardon and eternal salvation yet so great is our unbelief and the love of our lusts that we litle regard them till God awaken us and lets us see and feel experimentally by outward or inward troubles or both the evil of our sins and how destructive they are to us and therby bring us to condemn and loath them and our selves for them and valew his mercy through Christ for pardoning them For which ends he makes use especially of those that are most powerful to convince men of and affect them with his justice sins hainousnes the sinners desert and need of mercy Of which kind are those punishments which are generally inflicted on all apparently according to his threatnings wherein are seen the greatnes of the offence God's resolution to punish his power and impartiality in punishing great as well as small so that none can flatter themselves with hopes of impunity And those that have the offence legibly written upon them so that all may read the sin in the punishment and see God's equity therein whereby he is justified and the offender condemned even by himself as well as others as we find among the very heathen Judges 1. v. 7. And those punishments that are great and so shew the greatnes of the offence justice never proportioning them greater but mercy mitigating them to less than the offenders deserts All which kinds of punishment concur in death as most clearly appears by the scriptures which declare God's threatning thereof before and sentencing all it to it after for our apostacy Gen. c. 2. and c. 3. as a suitable punishment for our wilful despising of life virtually promist in the threatning of death and that which shews us the greatnes of our offence in that it is the greatest of punishments comprehending all other miseries as life it deprives us of all other mercies Rom. 6 23. And yet more signally do all these appeare in the kinds of death we this day celebrate the mother bringing forth in sorrow because the woman was first in the transgression and dying for her having transgrest and the litle infant for that only So that its better for us to goe to this house of mourning than feasting as Solomon saith Eccles 7 2. for that is the end of all men and therefore will be thine and mine and the living will lay it to heart intimating the reason of that being the end of all from the usefulnes thereof to the living that seriously will confider it as a spectacle of their own mortality whereof sin especially original was the moral cause whatever were the natural together with the manner thereof in regard of their inward and outward man How bitter therfore should the remembrance of and sorrow for our first transgression be to us and all other sins as proceding from it especially our wilful and deliberate offences which are as so many approbations of our first parents apostacy whereby we have so often declared we should have done as they did had we been in their place how hardly soever we are apt to think and many allso to speak of them And how acceptable should Christ be to us as the only Mediator to bring us back again to God from whom we have fallen and reconcile us to him whom we have offended who by his death hath redeemed their souls from destruction that will embrace him taken away sin the sting of death strength from the law to condemn them eternally sanctified the grave to their bodies by his own lying in it and by his resurrection given them assurance of their victory over it in their bodies rising again and being fashioned like to his glorious body For it is this our apostacy from God at first that brought in this sad separation of all our comfortable relations both spiritual between God our father and us and natural between husband and wife parents and children kindred and friends and soul and body at last here and both from happines for ever hereafter and also intaild upon us all miseries which are more in this life than can be numbered and greater in that to com than can be exprest And Christ only that makes up again the union for his people in spiritual relations his father ours himself our husband all his brethren and fisters and all necessary comforts in natural relations in this life and soul and body to meet again and both with happines for ever freeing us from eternal miseries and all those temporal which he procures not to work together for our good 4. That such as are taken away by untimely death may be examples and warnings to the living 1 To deter them from the like sins where they were notorious and the cause of their punishment every example of punitive justice being a fulfilling of the threatning of the law on the Offender and vertually a threatning for the like offence to others This course God took especially with his Church in its infancy training them up as we doe our children with temporal threats and promises mercies and judgements whereas now in its maturity under the Gospell on a better covenant he uses more especially spiritual promises of grace and salvation and threatnings of spiritual and eternal punishments and deals with us accordingly the more powerfully to allure us to holines and deter us from wickednes Yet in regard we are still men of like passions and no less moved with examples he declares this to be the end of all such temporal judgements to us Christians and requires us to make this use of them 1 Cor. 10.6 The Israelites suddenly destroyed several times in the wildernes saith the Apostle were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they allso lusted commanding us to avoid their sins thereafter mentioned and declaring that all these things happened to them for ensamples or types and are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come v. 7. 11. Thus the untimely death of many of the Corinthians for their profanation of the Lord's supper is recorded that we should beware thereof 1 Cor. 11. v. 30. So allso when the crime is apparent in the punishment as Paul's being guilty of stoning Stephen in his being stoned by the Jews and drawn out of the city supposing he had been dead thô he was miraculously revived or at least restored Acts 14.19 20. And this use we are to make of those extraordinary examples of God's judgments that fall out in all ages and nations for execrable murders perjury and dreadful imprecations great persecution and oppression c. wherein histories abound and †Reinold's God's Revenge of murder Camerarii opere subcisiva centur 1. c. 86. contur 3. c. 3 33 34 36.38 Gorrutius de providentia l.