CHAP. XX.] PB?q&NCE----8,1qSF&OTIO Lq. ?45 committed, instead of obedience, have exposed it to all the penalties of the laws which it has broken. "It appears, therefore, that even granting this fallen creature could live, from the present, a life of unspotted holiness; yet this could be considered in no other light than merely the obedience due to the Cre- ator, and could have no tendency to blot out pa?t transgressions. There is, therefore, no hope to any sinner from the doctrine of justification or salvation by ?nn'ks. And, taken in any point of view, it is demon* strable that no obedience to God, even from the most perfect creature, can merit any thing; and that unn'? of merit, and works of supererog'a- t/on, are equally impossible and absurd: none can do ,nors than he ougAt; and none, by doing his duty, can have claims upon his Maker." On the merit of ru.?erings, their capability to atone for sin, and their tendency to purif?' the soul, the same author, in the same sermon (luoted above, speaks as follows :-- "I presume it will be taken for granted that there was no ?u.?er/ng in the world previously to the introduction of ?/n: suffering is an im- perfection in nature; and a creature in a state of suffering is imperfect, because a miserable creature. If an intelligent creature be found in a state of suffering, and of suffering evidently proceeding from the abuse of its powers, it necessarily supposes that such creature has offended ?Jod, and that its sufferings are the consequence of its offence, whether springing immediately from the crime itself, or whether inflicted by divine justice, as a punishment for that crime. As sufferings in the animal being are the consequence of derangement or disease in the bo- dily organs, they argue a state of mortality; and experience shows that they are the predisposing causes of death and dissolution. De- rangement and disease, by which the regular performance of natural functions is prevented, and the destruction of those functions ultimately effected, never could have existed in animal beings, as they proceeded from the hand of an all-perfect and intelligent Creator. They are, therefore, something that has taken place since creation; and are de- monstrably contrary to the order, l;er.?ction, and hm, mon?/of that crea- tion; and consequently did not spring from God. As it would unkind, if not unjust, to bring innumerable multitudes of innocent be- ings into a state of suffering or wretchedne. ss; hence the sufferings that are in the world must have arisen from the offences of the suffer- era. Now, if r/n have produced rudering, is it possible that ?.?'er/ng can destroy z4n ? We may answer this question by asking another: Is it possible that the stream produced from a fountain can destroy the fountain from which it springs ? Or is it possible that any e?ect can destroy the cause of which it is an effect ?. Reason has already decided these questions in the neKative. Ergo, su.?er/ng, which is the e?reet of sin, cannot possibly destroy that sin of which it is the effect. To sup-- pose the contrary', is to suppose the grosseat absurdity that can possi- bly disgrace the understanding of man. "Whether these sufferings be such as spring necessarily out of the present constitution of nature, and the morbid alterations to which the constitution of the human body is liable from morbidly ineteased or erinted action; or whether they spring, in port, from a vo/tmta? as- sumption of a greater share of natural evil than ordinarily falls to the lot of the individual, the case is not altered; still they are the
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