Man love his Sins any longer that believes and reads that bloody Story of them that is written in the Agony and Passion of the Son of God When we consider that he was delivered for our Offences and that our Sins were the principal Actors of all that woful Tragedy that they were these that betrayed arraigned and condemned him that borrowed the Throats of a barbarous Rabble to cry out Crucify him Crucify him that buffeted and scourged him with the Hands of the rude Soldiers that gored his Sides with the Spear pierced his Temples with the Thorns rent his sacred Hands and Feet with the Nails that fastned him to the Cross how can we believe and consider that our Sins did thus barbarously treat the best Friend we have in the World without being all inflamed with Indignation against them Again how can we reflect upon that dreadful Displeasure God expressed against our Sins in this dismal Example of Sacrificing his own Son for them without being filled with Horror and struck into a trembling Agony at the Thought of them Once more How can we be so desperatly fool-hardy as to go on in our Sins if we believe and consider the Article of the Day of Judgment wherein we must give an Account of whatsoever we have done in the Flesh whether it be good or evil and stand or fall to all Eternity according as we have discharged or neglected this great Condition of our Salvation These are such mighty Arguments as one would think it were impossible for Men firmly to believe and yet not be persuaded by them Thus God in his Mercy and Goodness to us hath furnished the Revelation of his Son with such prevalent Motives that our believing in him almost necessarily draws after it the Performance of the whole condition of our Salvation for upon our believing in Jesus and considering his Proposals we are compassed round about with so many puissant Reasons to submit our selves to his Laws as one would think all the Temptations of the Devil and the World are not able to resist So careful hath God been to secure us from Sin and Misery that knowing the Force of our natural Reason to be so weak to secure us he hath sent us down these fresh Auxiliaries from Heaven by whose Assistance if we do but trust to and imploy them we may easily repulse all the Temptations of Sin and fight our Way through all the Difficulties of our Duty For this is the Victory saith the Apostle by which we overcome the World even our Faith 1 John v. 4 which Words are urged by him as an Instance of the Easiness and Gentleness of our Obedience to the Gospel which is the Condition of our Salvation for v. 3 saith he this is the love of God that we keep his Commandments and his Commandments are not grievous Well but how doth this appear Why saith he for every one that is born of God overcometh the World and this is the Victory that overcometh the World even our Faith For who is he that overcometh the World but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God v. 5 So that he proves the easiness of the Gospel Commands by this Argument that the keeping them depends upon that Faith by which we believe Jesus to be the Son of God By this means therefore God hath mercifully rendred the Condition of our Salvation easie to us by rendring the Performance of it so necessarily consequent to our believing in Jesus in which how good he hath been to us will evidently appear if we consider 4 thly That to beget this Belief in us he hath given us the most plain and convincing Evidence viz. the Evidence of those miraculous Works wherewith he accompanied the Ministry of our Saviour and his Apostles and sealed and confirmed it to the World which of all Kinds of Evidence is the most apt to convince and persuade the World of the Truth of any divine Revelation for this Kind of Evidence appeals to Mens Senses and is such an Argument as they may see and touch and handle and Men are generally apt to give more Credit to their own Senses than to the clearest Inferences and Deductions of Reason And indeed the Generality of Men are hardly capable of any other Notices of Things but what are immediatly impressed upon them by the Objects of their Sense for they have not Skill enough to compare simple Terms so exactly with one another as to compound them into true Propositions and then to infer from every such Proposition its natural Consequents and Deductions These are Things that require a great deal more Art and Leisure than Mens Educations and Affairs will ordinarily afford them But Miracles are Things that are obvious to Mens Senses and from them to infer a divine Commission in the Person that works them is not only possible but very easie to the most vulgar Understanding For Miracles being the visible Effects of a divine Power cannot be supposed to be wrought by any but Persons that are divinely commissionated and he that shews me an immediate Effect of God's Power gives me that in Token that he came from God So that the Argument of Miracles you see is the most plain and intelligible of all others and as it is so it is the most powerful to convince and persuade Men. For whereas had our Saviour proved his Doctrins in a Way of rational Discourse and Inference he must have proved them all singly and apart by distinct and different Arguments which would have been so tedious that the Vulgar would never have Leisure enough to attend them nor yet Capacity enough to retain them but by this Argument of Miracles he proved them all at once because his Miracles were a Token that the God of Truth did approve his Doctrin and it cannot be supposed that the God of Truth would have so visibly approved of his Doctrin in the Gross had any Part or Proposition of it been false and erroneous Thus God out of his infinite Goodness hath not only revealed his everlasting Gospel to us but hath also taken the most effectual Course to convince and persuade us of the Truth of it He hath set his own Almighty Power at Work to still the Seas and raise the Dead to cure the Blind and Lame and Diseased to change and vary the Course and Order of his Creation and all this for no other Purpose but to persuade Mankind of the Truth of those glad Tidings which he revealed from Heaven to them by his own Son And as he hath given us the best Evidences to convince us of the Truth of his Gospel so he hath taken the most effectual Course to continue and perpetuate it to the World For first he raised up sundry Eye-witnesses who conversed with our Saviour and beheld his Miracles and after they had seen him risen from the Dead and ascended up into Heaven did openly publish and testify them to the World and finally confirmed and ratified
beneficial Course and Order wherein he first created them For we see the Heaven and the Elements still as kind to us as ever the Sun Moon and Stars do still run the same Courses and still they cherish and refresh us with the same benign Influences and though for six Thousand years together they have been perpetually visiting us and spending the liberal Alms of their great Creator upon us yet to this Day they are neither wearied nor exhausted but still continue to do us good with the same Freedom and Vigour as when they first danced round the World and sang together for Joy The Fire and Air and Earth and Water are still as liberal to us as ever and do supply us with the same Necessaries of Life as they did from the first Moment of their Being and though for so many Ages we and innumerable other Animals have been liberally maintained out of these vast Store-houses of Nature yet still we find them replenished with an inexhaustible Fulness So that still not only the Earth but all the other Elements are full of the Goodness of the Lord yea and though in their Qualities they are quite contrary to one another yet are their Animosities so tempered by the gracious Providence of Heaven that they all live together like Brethren in unity and the Dryness of this drinks not up the Moisture of that nor doth the Cold of the one quench the Heat of the other The Fire invades not the Air nor the Water the Earth but every one keeps within its proper Bounds and though in sundry Places the Water be above the Earth yet contrary to its own Nature which is to flow and expatiate it self it doth only overlook its Banks but doth not overflow them being bounded by that merciful Providence which in mere Pity to the Inhabitants of the Earth says to its proud Waves hitherto shall ye go and no further So that in short the Continuation of the regular Motions of the Heavens of the Vicissitudes of Seasons and alternate Mutation of Bodies of the safety of the whole Vniverse notwithstanding the rude Clashings of turbulent Matter and of the exact Symmetry of all the Parts of it in Despite of the frequent Rencounters of so many contrary Principles shews not only the Power and Presence of some great Mind but is also a plain Evidence of the Continuation of his Care and good Will to the World And as he hath continued the inanimate World in that most excellent Course and Order wherein he first created it so he hath still preserved all those innumerable Species of Animals which he first gave Being to so that in so many Ages and among so many Chances there is not one Kind of them hath either failed or perished or become less capable of Happiness or less furnished with Means and Abilities of obtaining it So that his Providence is nothing else but a constant Repetition of the Goodness of his Creation and all the Difference between them is only this that in the one he made all Things Good in the other he continues them so 'T is true God hath left himself at Liberty when Occasion requires immediately to interpose in the Course of Nature and to vary from the Order of his Creation And indeed unless he had done so he would in a great Measure have tyed up his own Hands and incapacitated himself from Governing the World but yet he never makes Use of this Liberty but for very good Reason to serve some very great and excellent End of his Government either to punish some notorious Sinner or some very sinful People that so by their Example others may be warned from treading in their Footsteps or to deliver or preserve some eminently virtuous Person or Nation that thereby others may be incouraged to imitate and transcribe their Virtues or lastly to confirm and ratify by some miraculous Effects some necessary Revelations of his Will to the World Unless I say it be to serve some such excellent Ends as these he never interposes by his absolute Power to make the least Interruption in the established Course and Order of the Vniverse And as soon as ever he hath obtained the good Ends that he aims at he withdraws his Hand and immediately remits Things to their primitive Course and Order So that if Gods Creation be good as I have largely proved it is his Providence must needs be so too because it continues the Course and Order of the Creation and never interrupts or varies it unless it be to do some great Good to the World Thus God in his Providence doth continually spread forth the mighty Wings of his Goodness over all his Creation and thereby reaches out Perseverance to the Being and the Happiness of every Creature 2. Another Instance of his doing good in this great Work of his Providence is his continuing Mankind under an awful Sense of Religion notwithstanding the great Degeneracies of human Nature It is very strange to consider how this heavenly Spark hath been kept alive in the midst of such a vast Ocean of Impiety as hath over-spread the World for considering into what monstrous Barbarism Mankind have immersed themselves how miserably they have defaced their own Nature and blotted out their Reason insomuch that in several Ages and several Parts of the World they have had scarce any other Remains of Humanity in them but only their Language and their Shape I say considering these Things it is impossible but all Sense of Religion must long e're now have been extinguished in us had not the divine Providence from Time to Time been exceeding careful to cherish and revive it And this it hath done by very strange and extraordinary Methods sometimes by inflicting strange and amazing Judgments upon great and notorious Offenders sometimes by showering down miraculous Blessings and Deliverances upon virtuous and good Men sometimes by raising up eminent Examples and Preachers of Righteousness such as the Patriarchs among the Jews and the Philosophers among the Gentiles sometimes by making immediate Revelations from Heaven and confirming the Truth of them by miraculous Effects and sometimes by permitting evil Spirits to appear to possess the Bodies of their Enthusiasts and to deliver Oracles by them which though it sometimes tended to promote false Religions among Mankind yet did always prove instrumental to cherish and enliven the Sense and Belief of a Divinity By these and such like powerful Methods hath the good Providence of Heaven from time to time revived in us the dying Sense of Religion and in Despite of our selves continually kept us under its Aw and Restraints which if it had not done we should have immediately run headlong into the most deplorable Confusions and Disorders For not only our eternal but our temporal Interest too is bound up in Religion for this is the Foundation of all human Society and of all the Blessings that redound from it 't is this that gives Life and Security to all those Pacts
a Description of an endless State of Misery as Words can express for how is it possible that Annihilation should signify either a Fire that never goes out or a Worm that never dies So also 2 Thess. 1.9 who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord meaning the wicked Persecuters at Christ's coming to Judgment Now that by that everlasting Destruction he means a State of endless Suffering and Torment is evident if we consider the Description which our Saviour gives of that Punishment to which the Wicked shall be sentenced at the last Day Go ye cursed saith he into everlasting Fire Matth. 25.41 And lest we should fancy that 't is the Fire only that is eternal but not the Punishment v. 46. of that Chap. And these saith he shall go away into everlasting Punishment but the Righteous into Life eternal And that they do actually exist in this Fire and continue in the Torment of it is evident by those Actions that are therein attributed to them such as weeping and wailing and gnashing of Teeth Matth. 13.42 50 which Actions are plain Indications not only of their subsisting in this everlasting Fire but of the extream Horror and Anguish they shall therein endure And as this Fire is said to be everlasting so the Everlastingness of it is described so as to exclude all Limits and prescind from all Determinations For Fire must be extinguished e're it can cease to burn and therefore that which cannot be extinguished can never end but such is that Fire whereunto the Wicked are condemned at the Day of Judgment so Matth. 3.12 whose fan is in his hand but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable Fire And that the Sufferers shall be no more extinguished than the Fire that burns them is evident from Rev. 14.11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever And they have no rest day nor night And how can the smoke of this Fire be said to be the smoke of their torment ascending up for ever and ever unless they exist in it for ever and ever especially considering what follows immediately after they have no rest day nor night Which Expression is the same with that by which the same Author signifies the eternal Happiness of good Men so Rev. 4.8 They rest not day and night saying holy holy holy and Rev. 7.15 The are before the Throne of God and serve him day and night in his Temple And if Day and Night here when applied to the State of Heaven denotes the continued blisful Employment of happy Souls there forever then for the same Reason when 't is applied to the State of Hell it must denote the continued Miseries of the Damned there forever Well then if the Fire of Hell be everlasting yea if it be so absolutely everlasting as that it is unquenchable and if those that are cast into it shall be tormented for ever and ever all which the Scripture doth directly teach then it necessarily follows that the Wicked must subsist in their Miseries for ever and be co-eternal with the Flames that torment them The Reason therefore why that future Punishment to which our Sins do consign and oblige us is called by the Name of Destruction Perdition and Death is not because it puts a final Period either to our Being or Subsistence as some fondly Dream but because it forever separates and disjoyns us from God who is the better and the nobler Life of Man and from all those sweet Perceptions of Comfort and Pleasure of which Life is the Principle And there is no Language Phrases or Expressions can be supposed to patronize a contrary Opinion since the same Scriptures which say that the Wicked shall be destroyed and perish and die say also that they shall be tormented with never-dying Pains as they plainly and frequently do This I have the longer insisted upon because it is a very dangerous Thing for Men to be deceived in this Matter not to know the worst of the Consequents of their own Follies but to expect an easier and a shorter Hell than ever they are like to find And so I have done with the first Thing proposed viz. what is here meant by perishing and proved to you at large that hereby is meant living miserably forever 2 dly I proceed now to the next Thing proposed viz. how we came to be concerned in and obliged to this dreadful Penalty To which I answer that originally we were hereunto obliged by the Law of our Nature for Man being naturally an immortal Creature must necessarily be forever liable to the natural Effects of his own Actions and therefore since Misery is the natural Effect of sinful Actions if we continue Sinners forever we must necessarily continue miserable forever And if God should have inflicted no other Miseries upon wicked Souls when they are separated from their Bodies than what are necessarily consequent to their own Wickedness these would be an Hell of insufferable Torment to them So that from the very Immortality of our Natures we are capable of everlasting Perseverance in Sin and from our everlasting Perseverance in Sin we are fatally damned to evelasting Misery And as by the Law of our Natures we are thus bound over to eternal Punishment so are we also by the positive Sentence and Determination of God who hath not only obliged us to obey him under the Penalty of enduring forever the Miseries that are naturally appendent to our Sins but hath added thereunto all those positive Torments which the Lake of Fire and Brimstone and the Horrors of outer Darkness do imply For so in his Word he hath plainly declared to us that if after he hath tryed us to the utmost we will not be reclaimed but are so desperate as to proceed in our Wickedness maugre all the Arts and Methods he can use to reduce us he will at last shut us up in a State of endless and irreversible Torment And this is no more than what he might very justly and rightfully do for he being the Supream Law-giver of the World hath an immutable Right to enforce his Laws with such Penalties as are sufficient to secure them from being violated by his Subjects for otherwise he would be defective in his Power of Legislation for how could he have sufficient Power to make Laws if he had not Right to enforce them with sufficient Penalties But we that are his Subjects being so apt to offend and so extreamly liable to Temptations thereunto no less Penalty could be sufficient to secure our Obedience than that which is eternal for which Reason he hath enforced his Laws with the Threatning of it And if God thought no less than the Threatning of eternal Punishment necessary to deter Men from their Sins what less than the Execution of that Threat can be sufficient to render them Examples of his Severity against it For Threats without Execution are but mere Scare-crows and it is highly unreasonable for us
so as to receive you into Grace and Favour But when by sending his own Son to die for us he had given us so plain a Proof of the Sincerity of his Affection towards us with what face can we suspect his Kindness For is it likely that he who was so good as to give his Son for us whilst we were in Impenitence should be so implacable as to deny his Love to us upon our Repentance and Amendment Was it not a much higher Act of Love to give his Son for Sinners than to receive poor prostrate Penitents into Favour He then who was so free to do the former we might well imagin would be much more free to do the latter Or lastly Dare we plead for our selves that considering the Anxiousness and Jealousy of guilty Minds God had not given us such Security of his Readiness to pardon and be reconciled to us as was requisite to dispel all those Fears and Doubts by which we were discouraged from Repentance and Amendment But how weak and groundless this Plea is will soon appear to all the World when it shall be considered what an effectual Course God took to obviate all our Doubts and Fears by pardoning us in our own Method namely upon the Motive of a Sacrifice and Intercession of a Mediator especially of such a Sacrifice and Mediator as his own Son For let him be never so severe and stern yet 't is impossible he should be inexorable to the vocal Blood and importunate Intercessions of that dear Person whom he loves above all the World And now when God had so contrived the Method of his pardoning us as to take from us all Occasion either of presuming upon his Mercy whilst we continue impenitent when he hath taken such an effectual Course to raise both our Hopes and Fears which are the Springs of our Action to their highest Pitch and Capacity and given us the greatest Certainty that the Nature of the Thing will bear that he will punish us for ever if we Sin on and pardon and receive us into Favour if now at last we will repent and return what can we say for our selves if in Despite of all this we will run from Mercy whilst its Arms are open to embrace us and leap into Hell with our Eyes open and we see it gaping ready to devour us JOHN III. 16 But have everlasting Life I Am now upon the last Branch of the Text which is to shew you the great Goodness of God to us in promising to us such a vast Reward upon our performing such an easie Condition as our believing in Jesus Christ in which Reward there is first the privative Part of it or the Misery it rescues us from that whosoever believeth in him should not perish Secondly the positive or the Happiness it instates us in but have everlasting Life In the management of which I shall do these two Things 1. Shew you why this Reward is termed Everlasting Life 2. How unspeakably good God hath been to us in proposing to us such a vast Reward 1. Why this Reward is stiled by the Name of Everlasting Life For it is very usual with Scripture to express all the Blessings it promises to Men by the Name of Life for thus by Life the Old Testament very frequently expresses those temporal Blessings which are therein promised and proposed So Deut. xxx 15 See I have set before thee this day Life and Good and Death and Evil in which he plainly refers to those temporal Blessings and Curses which he had proposed to and denounced against them Chap. xxviii for so v. 19 of this Chapter he explains himself I call Heaven and Earth to record this day against you that I have set before you Life and Death Blessing and Cursing Therefore chuse Life that both Thou and thy Seed may live So Levit. xviii 5 Ye shall keep my Statutes and my Judgments Which if a Man do he shall live in them that is he shall enjoy all those temporal Blessings which I have therein promised For so Ezek. xx 21 their living in them is opposed to his pouring out temporal Judgments upon them And hence the Statutes of the Mosaic Law are called the statutes of Life in which whosoever walks shall surely Live and not Die Ezek. xxxiii 15 And as these temporal Blessings promised in the Old Testament are commonly expressed by Life so those eternal Blessings promised in the New Testament are very frequently expressed by Life also So Mat. xviii 8 It is better for thee to enter into Life halt or maimed rather than having two Hands or two Feet to be cast into everlasting Fire So also Mat. xix 17 If thou wilt enter into Life keep the Commandments And Joh. iii. 36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting Life And he that believeth not the Son shall not see Life but the wrath of God abideth on him And because the Blessings which the Gospel proposes are not temporal but eternal therefore that Life by which they are expressed is stiled eternal everlasting and immortal For so 2 Tim. i. 10 We find Life and Immortality joyned together and Rom. vi 22 Ye have your fruit unto Holiness and the end everlasting Life and Vers. 23. The gift of God is eternal Life Now that it is not called eternal Life merely as it is a State of endless Being and Existence is evident because Being and Existence are indifferent Things abstracted from all sense of Happiness and Misery but eternal Life is proposed to us as a Thing that is infinitely desirable in self as being the Crown and Reward of all our Obedience for which Reason it is called the crown of Life Jam. i. 12 And therefore the Reason why the everlasting Blessings of the Gospel are expressed by Life are First Because of the inestimable Worth and Value of Life Secondly Because Life is the Root of all our Sense of Pleasure and Happiness Thirdly Because it is the Principle of all our Activity 1. The everlasting Blessings of the Gospel are called Life because Life is the most inestimably precious of all the Blessings we enjoy For without Life there is nothing can be a real Blessing to us nothing that we can tast relish or enjoy And this the Devil knew well enough when he pronounced so confidently Skin for Skin yea all that a Man hath will he give for his Life Job ii 4 Now it is usual with Scripture to describe the Blessings of the future State by Things that are of the greatest Value among Men by Riches and Treasure by a Crown and a Kingdom by a Paradise or a Garden of Pleasure but as if all these were too faint and dim to represent the true Value of that blessed State it is stiled Life also which is much more valuable than either yea than all those Things together And hence the Apostle calls it a more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory 2 Cor. iv 17 2. It is called Life
should be such as did clearly argue and evince his righteous Severity for otherwise it would have no Force in it to prevent our Presumption And what Motive of Pardon could better evince his Severity than the Suffering of some other in our Room especially the Suffering of his own Son the greatest and dearest Person in the whole Creation For not to be moved to grant a publick Pardon to us upon our hearty Repentance unless this blessed Person would engage to die for us whose infinite Greatness gave such an inestimable Value to his Sufferings as rendred them adequate to what we had deserved to suffer was as great an Argument of his inflexible Severity against Sin as if he should have destroyed at one Blow the whole World of Sinners So that as he hath expressed an infinite Mercy to us in admitting his own Son to die for us so in refusing to pardon us upon any less Motive than his precious Death he hath expressed an infinite Hatred to our Sins and so that very Death which moved God to pardon us moves us to stand in Awe of his Severity the Death of the Son of God upon which we are pardoned being the most terrible Instance that ever was of the Desert of our Sin and God's Displeasure against it Thus our blessed Lord hath not only given us the greatest Encouragement by procuring our Pardon to return from our Iniquities but by procuring it in such a formidable way he hath given us the most dreadful Warning of God's Severity against them So that now we cannot think upon the Reason for which our past Offences are forgiven without being vehemently moved to future Obedience And thus the main Design you see both of Christs Life and Death was to recal us from Sin to the Practice of Righteousness And hence he is said to have given himself for us to redeem us from all Iniquity and to purify to himself a peculiar people zealous of good Works Tit. ii 14 And then he arose again from the Dead to confirm that righteous Doctrine which he had revealed to the World and visibly ascended into Heaven to give us an ocular Demonstration of the heavenly Rewards of Righteousness and there he now sits at the right Hand of God to assure us that if we persevere in Righteousness we shall be continually befriended in the Court of Heaven through his all-powerful Intercession and hath assured us that at the End of the World he will come to Judgment and faithfully distribute those Rewards and Punishments which here he promised and threatned to righteous and unrighteous Persons Thus the main Drift you see of all these great Transactions of our Saviour was to advance the Interest of Righteousness and true Goodness What a mighty Evidence therefore is this of God's great Love of Righteousness that he should send his own most blessed Son upon its Errand to transact such mighty Things on its Behalf For by sending Christ into the World and exposing him to Misery for Righteousness Sake he did in Effect declare that he valued the Interest of Righteousness more than the present Happiness and Enjoyment of his most dearly beloved and only begotten Son and we may most certainly conclude that had not Righteousness been infinitely dear to him he would never have authorized his dearest Son to take such infinite Pains to promote it 4 thly Another supernatural Indication of God's Love of Righteousness is his promising such vast Rewards to us upon it and denouncing such fearful Punishments against us if we despise and neglect it For besides all those temporal Rewards he hath proposed to us if we seek the Kingdom of Heaven and the Righteousness thereof he hath erected a Heaven of immortal Joys and Felicities to crown and entertan it a Heaven that contains in it all the Beatitudes that humane Nature is capable of all that Truth that the most capacious Mind can comprehend and all that Good that the vastest Affections can either crave or contain In a word a Heaven whose Blisses are all as large as our immense Desires and all as lasting as our immortal Beings For 't is a Heaven which consists in an eternal Fruition of the Fountain of infinite Truth and Goodness whose everflowing Streams are abundantly sufficient to quench the Thirst and make glad the Heart of every Being that understands and loves How much therefore God loves Righteousness you may easily guess by these vast Preparations he hath made to entertain it For he built Heaven on purpose to lodge righteous Souls and that they may see he thinks nothing too dear for them he is himself their Feast there as well as their Entertainer He feeds them with his own Perfections and they live for ever as happily as their Hearts can wish upon the Sight and Love and Imitation of his Beauties So vehemently is his Heart set upon Righteousness that he will have every righteous Soul dwell with him and live upon him and partake of all those heavenly Joys in which his own Beatitude consists But as for Vnrighteousness how much his Soul abhors it is evident by those dire Punishments he hath denounced against it by those dark and dismal Abodes which he hath condemned unrighteous Souls to to languish out a woful Eternity to burn in Flames there that never consume and be gnawn with Worms which never devour them to be scared and haunted with Devils without and Furies within and perpetually worried Day and Night without any Ease or Intermission with all the Horrors Griefs and Vexations that an everlasting Hell imports O thou merciful Father of Beings How couldst thou have found in thy Heart to condemn thy Creatures to so wretched a State had not their unrighteous Practices been infinitely odious in thine Eyes No certainly the good God would never have made Hell for a Trifle for the sake of any Thing that his Nature could have endured or dispensed with nor would he ever have cast any unrighteous Creature into it were it not for the implacable Abhorrence he hath to all Unrighteousness And therefore since he hath not only made Hell but warns us of and threatens us with it we may be sure he infinitely abominates that for which he made and threatens it and consequently that he is infinitely concerned for the Cause and Interest of Righteousness 5 thly And lastly Another supernatural Indicaton of God's Love of Righteousness is his granting his blessed Spirit to us to excite us to and assist us in our Endeavours after Righteousness First he sent his Son to propagate Righteousness by his Ministry his Life and Death and upon his Return to Heaven he sent his Spirit to supply his Room and carry on that dear Design of which his Son had already laid the Foundation For in Christ's personal Absence his Spirit acts in his Stead and was sent down from the Father by Virtue of his Intercession to be his Vicegerent in the World to promote and inlarge his heavenly Kingdom to conquer our