§8. The gospel being of this nature, thus taught, thus delivered, thus confirmed, there is a neglect of it supposed, (ver. 3, apeλeσavles) "If we neglect," if we regard not, if we take not due care about it. The word intimates an omission of all those duties which are necessary for our profitable retaining the word preached, and that to such a degree as utterly to reject it; for it answers to those transgressions of, and stubborn disobedience to the law, which disannulled it as a covenant, and were punished with excision. "If we neglect;" that is, if we continue not-in a diligent observance of all those duties which are indispensably necessary to a holy, useful, profitable profession of the gospel.

§9. There is an awful punishment intimated upon this sinful neglect of the gospel; "How shall we escape," fly from or avoid a just retribution,, "a meet recompense of reward? As the breach of the law had a punishment, suitable to the demerit of the crime, inflicted on the quality; so there is to a neglect of the gospel even a punishment justly deserved by so great a crime, so much greater and more dreadful than that attending the law, by how much the gospel, on account of its nature, effects, author, and confirmation, was more excellent than the law. A "sorer punishment," as our apostle elsewhere calls it, chap. x; as much exceeding the other as eternal destruction under the curse and wrath of God, exceeds all temporal punishments what

The manner of ascertaining the punishment intimated, is by an interrogation; "How shall we escape?" Wherein three things are intended. (1.) A denial of any ways or means for escape or deliverance. There is none that can deliver us, no way whereby we may escape: See Peter iv, 17, 18. And (2.) the certainty of the punishment itself, it will as to the

event assuredly befall us. And (3.) the inexpressible greatness of this unavoidable evil. "How shall we escape?" We shall not, there is no way for it, nor ability to bear what we are, if continued neglecters, liable unto: Matt. xxiii, 33; 1 Pet. iv, 18.

$10. (II) The words thus explained present to us many interesting observations.

Obs. 1. Motives to a due valuation of the gospel, and perseverance in the profession of it, taken from the penalties annexed to its neglect, are evangelical, and of singular use in preaching the word. "How shall we escape if we neglect?" Some would fancy, that all threatenings belong to the law; as though Jesus Christ had left himself and his gospel to be securely despised by profane and impenitent sinners; but as they will find the contrary to their eternal ruin, so it is the will of Christ we should let them know this, and thereby warn others to take heed of their sins and plagues.

Now these motives from comminations or threatenings, I call evangelical.

(1.) Because they are recorded in the gospel; that we are thence taught them, and thereby commanded to make use of them. And if the dispensers of the word insist not on them, they deal deceitfully with the souls of men, and detain from them the whole counsel of God. And as such persons will find themselves to have a weak and feeble ministry here, so also they will have a sad account of their "partiality in the word" to give hereafter. Let not men think themselves more evangelical than the author of the gospel, more skilled in the conversion and edification of the souls of men than the apostles; in a word, more wise than God himself, which they must do if they neglect this part of his ordinance.

(2.) Because they become the gospel. It is meet that the gospel should be armed with threatenings, as well as attended with promises: and that on the part of Christ, of sinners, of believers, and of preachers. On the part of Christ himself the author of it. A sceptre in a kingdom without a sword; or a crown without a rod of iron, will quickly be trampled upon. Both are therefore given into the hands of Christ, that the glory and honor of his dominion may be known: Psal. ii, 9-12. On the part of sinners; yea of all to whom the gospel is preached. To keep them in awe and restraining fear, that they may not boldly and openly break out in contempt of Christ. These are his arrows that are sharp in the hearts of his adversaries, whereby he awes them. Christ never suffers them to be so secure, but that his terrors in these threatenings visit them ever and anon; that they may be left inexcusable, and the Lord Christ justified against them at the last day. He hath told them beforehand plainly what they are to look for, Heb. x, 26, 27. On the part of believers; even they stand in need to be put in mind of the terror of the Lord, and what a fearful thing it is to fall in the hands of the living God; and that even our God is a "consuming fire." And this to keep up in their hearts a constant reverence of the majesty of Jesus Christ with whom they have to do. These comminations give them, also, constant matter of praise and thankfulness, when they see in them, as in a glass that will neither flatter nor causelessly terrify, a representation of that wrath which they are delivered from by Jesus Christ, 1 Thess. i, 10. They are needful to them, moreover, to ingenerate that fear which may check the remainder of their lusts and corruptions; and to prevent security and negligence in attending to the gospel, which by means of

those lusts and corruptions are apt to grow upon them. The hearts of believers are like gardens, wherein there are not only flowers, but weeds also; and as the former must be watered and cherished, so the latter must be destroyed. If nothing but dews and showers of promises should fall upon the heart, though they seem to tend only to the cherishing their graces, yet the weeds of corruption will be apt to grow up with them, and in the end to choke them, unless they are blasted by the severity of threatenings. And notwithstanding their persuasions, that in the use of means they shall be secured from finally falling, yet they know there is an infallible connexion signified in these awful threatenings, between sin and destruction, 1 Cor. vi, 9; and they must avoid the one, if they would escape the other. Hence they have in a readiness wherewith to balance temptations, especially such as accompany sufferings for Christ and the gospel. Liberty would be spared, life would be spared; it is hard to suffer and to die. But are we afraid of a man that shall die, more than of the living God? Shall we, to avoid the anger of a worm, cast ourselves into his wrath who is consuming fire. Shall we, to avoid a little momentary trouble, to preserve a perishing life, which a sickness may take away tomorrow, run ourselves into eternal ruin? Man threatens me if I forsake not the gospel, but God threatens if I do. Man threatens death temporal, which yet it may be he shall not have the power to inflict; God threatens death eternal, which no backslider in heart shall avoid. On these and the like accounts are comminations useful even to believers. Again, these declarations of eternal punishment to neglecters of the gospel are becoming on the part of the preachers and dispensers of it; that their message be not slighted, nor their persons despised. God would have even them

to "have in a readiness to revenge the disobedience of men," 2 Cor. x, 6; not with carnal weapons, killing and destroying the bodies of men, but by such a denunciation of the vengeance that will ensue on their disobedience, as shall undoubtedly take hold upon them, and end in their everlasting ruin.

§11. And this will farther appear if we consider,

1. That threatenings of future penalties on the disobedient are far more clear and express in the gospel than in the law. The curse, indeed, was threatened and denounced under the law, and instances of its execution were given in the temporal punishments that were inflicted on the transgressors of it: but in the gospel the nature of this curse is explained, and wherein it consisteth is made manifest. For as eternal life was but obscurely promised in the Old Testament, though really promised; so death eternal under the curse and wrath of God was but obscurely threatened therein, though really threatened. And therefore, as life and immortality were brought to light by the gospel, so death and hell, the punishment of sin under the wrath of God, are more fully declared therein. The nature of the judgment to come, the duration of the penalties to be inflicted on unbelievers, with such intimations of the nature and kind of those punishments as our understandings are able to receive, are fully and frequently insisted on in the New Testament; whereas they are but obscurely inferred from the writings of the Old Testament.

2. The punishment threatened in the gospel, as to degrees, is greater and "more sore" than that which was annexed to the mere transgression of the first covenant. Hence the apostle calls it, "death unto death," 2 Cor. ii, 16; by reason of the sore aggravations which the first sentence of death will receive from the wrath due to a contempt of the gospel.