Part 3. Twelfth Argument.

PART 3.

WE have hitherto considered man as a miserable inhabitant of a wretched world. We have seen him surrounded by multitudes of wants; pursued by legions of distresses, maladies, and woes; arrested by the king of terrors; cast into the grave; and shut up there, the loathsome prey of corruption and worms. Let us now consider him as a moral agent; and by examining his disposition, character, and conduct, let us see whether he is wisely punished, according to the sentence of impartial justice; or wantonly tormented, at the caprice of arbitrary power.

We cannot help acknowledging it is highly reasonable, First, that all intelligent creatures should love, reverence, and obey their Creator; because he is most eminently their Father, their Master, and their King: Secondly, they should assist, support, and love each other as fellow subjects, fellow servants, and children of the same universal Parent: and, Thirdly, that they should preserve their souls and bodies in peace and purity; by which means alone they can be happy in themselves, profitable to man, and acceptable to God. This is what we generally call natural religion, which is evidently founded upon eternal reason, the fitness of things, and the essential relation of persons.

The propriety of these sanctions is so self evident, that “the Gentiles, who have not the written law, are a law unto themselves, and do (but alas! how seldom, and from what motives!) the things contained in the law:” thus “showing that the work,” the sum and substance “of the law,” though much blotted by the fall, is still “written in their heart.” Nor will it be erased thence in hell itself; for nothing but a sight of the equity of God’s law can clear his vindictive justice in the guilty breast, give a scorpion’s sting to the worm that gnaws the stubborn offender, and arm his upbraiding conscience with a whip of biting serpents.

Since the moral law so strongly recommends itself to reason, let us see how universally it is observed or broken: so shall matter of fact decide whether we are pure and upright, or polluted and depraved. TWELFTH ARGUMENT.

Those who reject the Scriptures, universally agree that “all have sinned;” and that “in many things we offend all.” Hence it appears that persons of various constitutions, ranks, and education, in all nations, religions, times, and places, are born in such a state, and with such a nature, that they infallibly commit many sins in thought, word, or deed.

But one transgression would be sufficient to render them obnoxious to God’s displeasure, and to bring them under the fearful curse of his broken law: for, even according to the statutes of this realm, a man who once robs a traveller of a small sum of money, forfeits his life, as well as the bloody highwayman, who for years barbarously murders all those whom he stops, and accumulates immense wealth by his repeated barbarities. The reason is obvious: both incur the penalty of the law which forbids robbery; for both effectually break it, though one does it oftener and with more aggravating circumstances than the other. So sure then as one robbery deserves the gallows, one sin deserves death. “The soul that sinneth,” says God’s law, and not the soul that committeth so many sins, of such and such a heinousness, “it shall die.” Hence it is, that the first sin of the first man was punished both with spiritual and bodily death, and with ten thousand other evils. The justice of this sanction will appear in a satisfactory light, if we consider the following remarks:—

1. In our present natural state we are such strangers to God’s glory and the spirituality of his law; and we are so used “to drink” the deadly poison of “iniquity like water,” that we have no idea of the horror which should seize upon us after a breach of the Divine law. We are, therefore, as unfit judges of the atrociousness of sin, as lawless, hardened assassins, who shed human blood like water, are of the heinousness of murder.

2. As every wilful sin arises from a disregard of that sovereign authority which is equally stamped upon all the commandments, it hath in it the principle and nature of all possible iniquity; that is, the disregard and contempt of the Almighty.

3. There is no proper merit before God, in the longest and most exact course of obedience, but infinite demerit in one, even the least act of wilful disobedience. “When we have done all that is commanded us, we are still unprofitable servants;” for the self-sufficient God has no more need of us than a mighty monarch of the vilest insects that creep in the dust beneath his feet: and our best actions, strictly speaking, deserve absolutely nothing from our Creator and Preserver, because we owe him all we have and are, and can possibly do. But if we transgress in one point, we ruin all our