death. 2d, The consequences of that state. 1. It wrought fear in them. 2. That fear brought them into bondage. 3. The continuance of that condition-it was for the whole course of their lives.

First, It is implied, that they were subject, obnoxious unto, guilty of death, and that as it was penal, due to sin, as contained in the curse of the law, which what it comprehendeth, and how far it is extended, is usually declared. On this supposition lies the whole weight of the mediation of Christ. The children to be brought unto glory were obnoxious unto death; and from the curse and wrath of God therein, he came to deliver them.

Secondly, The first effect and consequent of this obnoxiousness unto death, concurring unto their state and condition is, that they were filled with fear of it—for fear of death. Fear is a perturbation of mind, arising from the apprehension of a future imminent evil.' And the greater this evil is, the greater will the perturbation of the mind be, provided the apprehension of it be answerable. The fear of death then here intended, is that trouble of mind which men have in the expectation of death to be inflicted on them, as a punishment due unto their sins. And this apprehension is common to all men, arising from a general presumption that death is penal, and that it is the judgment of God, that they which commit sin are worthy of death, as Rom. i. 32. ch. ii. 15. But it is cleared and confirmed by the law, whose known sentence is, "The soul that sinneth shall die." And the troublesome expectation of the event of this apprehension, is the fear of death here intended. And according unto the means that men have to come unto the knowledge of the righteousness of God, are, or ought to be, their apprehensions of the evil that is in death. But even those who had lost all clear knowledge of the consequents of death natural, or the dissolution of their present mortal condition, yet on a confused apprehension of its being penal, always esteemed it, og QgoTTor, the most dreadful of all things that are so unto human nature. And in some this is heightened and increased, until it come to be φοβερα εκδοχή κρίσεως, και πυρος ζήλος, εσο Dusiv mehhovtog tyg is, as our apostle speaks, ch. x. 27. “A fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." And this is the second thing that is in this description of the state and condition of the children to be brought unto glory: being obnoxious unto the sentence of death, they could not but live in fear of the execution of it.

Thirdly, They are by this means brought into bondage. The troublesome expectation of death as penal, brings them into bondage, into the nature whereof we must a little inquire. Sundry things concur to make any state a state of bondage; as, 1. That it be involuntary. No man is in bondage by his will:

that which a man chooseth, is not bondage unto him. A man that would have his ear bored, though he were always a servant, was never in bondage, for he enjoyed the condition that pleased him. Properly all bondage is involuntary. 2. Bondage engenerates strong desires after, and puts men on all manner of attempts for liberty. Yokes gall, and make them on whom they are, desire ease. So long as men are sensible of bondage, which is against nature, (for that which is not so, is not bondage), they will desire and labour for liberty. When some in the Roman senate asked an ambassador of the Privernates, after they were overthrown in battle, if they granted them peace, how they would keep it, what peace they should have with them? he answered, Si bonam dederitis, fidam et perpetuam; si malam haud diuturnam. Whereat, when some in the senate stormed, as if he had threatened them with war and rebellion, the wiser sort cominended him, as one that spake like a man and a free-man; adding as their reason, An credi posse, ullum populum, aut hominem denique in ea conditione, cujus eum pœniteat, diutius quam necesse sit mansurum. Liv. Dec. i. lib. 8. So certain it is, that bondage wearieth and stirreth up restless desires in all, endeavours in some after liberty. 3. Bondage perplexeth the mind. It ariseth from fear, the greatest perturbation of the mind, and is attended with weariness and distrust, all which are perplexing. 4. Where bondage is complete, it lies in a tendency unto future and greater evils. Such is the bondage of condemned malefactors, reserved for the day of execution; such is the bondage of Satan, who is kept in chains of darkness for the judgment of the great day. And all these things concur in the bondage here intended; which is, a dejected troublesome state and condition of mind, arising from the apprehension and fear of death to be inflicted, and their disability in whom it is to avoid it, attended with fruitless desires and vain attempts to be delivered from it, and to escape the evil feared. And this is the condition of sinners out of Christ, whereof there are various degrees answerable unto their convictions. For the apostle treats not here of men's being servants unto sin, which is voluntary; but of their sense of the guilt of sin which is wrought in them, even whether they will or not; and by any means they would cast off the yoke of it, though by none are they able so to do: for,

Fourthly, They are said to continue in this estate all their lives. Not that they were always perplexed with this bondage, but that they could never be utterly freed from it. For the apostle doth not say, that they were thus in bondage all their days, but that they were obnoxious and subject unto it. They had no way to free or deliver themselves from it, but that at any time they might righteously be brought under its power;'

and the more they cast off the thoughts of it, the more they increased their danger. This was the state of the children, whose deliverance was undertaken by the Lord Christ, the Captain of their salvation. And we may hence cbserve, that,

I. All sinners are subject unto death, as it is penal. The first sentence reacheth them all, Gen. ii. 17. And thence are they said by nature to be children of wrath, Eph. ii. 3. obnoxious unto death, to be inflicted in a way of wrath and revenge for sin. This passeth upon all, in as much as all have sinned, Rom. v. 12. This all men see and know; but all do not sufficiently consider what is contained in the sentence of death, and very few how it may be avoided. Most men look on death as the common lot and condition of mankind, upon the account of their frail natural condition, as though it belonged to the natu ral condition of the children, and not the moral, and were a consequent of their being, and not the demerit of their sin. They consider not, that although the principles of our nature are in themselves subject unto à dissolution, yet if we had kept the law of our creation, it had been prevented by the power of God, engaged to continue life during our obedience. Life and obedience were to be commensurate, until temporal obedience ended in life eternal. Death is penal, and its being common unto all, hinders not but that it is the punishment of every one. How it is changed unto believers by the death of Christ, shall be afterward declared. In the mean time, all mankind are condemned as soon as born. Life is a reprieve, a suspension of execution. If, during that time, a pardon be not effectually sued out, the sentence will be executed according to the severity of justice. Under this law are men now born, this yoke have they pulled on themselves by their apostasy from God. Neither is it to any purpose to repine against it, or to conflict with it: there is but one way of deliverance.

II. Fear of death, as it is penal, is inseparable from sin, before the sinner is delivered by the death of Christ. They were in fear of death. There is a fear of death that is natural, and inseparable from our present condition; that is but nature's aversation from its own dissolution. And this hath various degrees, occasioned by the differences of men's natural constitution, and other accidental occurrences and occasions; so that some seem to fear death too much, and others not at all: I mean of those who are freed from it, as it is in the curse and under the power of Satan. But this difference is from occasions foreign and accidental: there is in all naturally the same aversation from it. And this is a guiltless infirmity, like our weariness and sickness, inseparably annexed unto the condition of mortality. But sinners, in their natural state, fear death as it is penal, as an issue of the curse, as under the power of Satan, as

a dreadful entrance into eternal ruin. There are indeed a thousand ways whereby this fear is for a season stifled in the minds of men. Some live in brutish ignorance, never receiving any full conviction of sin, judgment, or eternity. Some put off the thoughts of their present and future estate, resolving to shut their eyes and rush into it, when as they can no longer avoid it. Fear presents itself unto them as the forerunner of death, but they avoid the encounter, and leave themselves to the power of death itself. Some please themselves with vain hopes of deliverance, though they know not well how, nor why they should be partakers of it. But let men forego these helpless shifts, and suffer their own innate light to be excited with such means of conviction as they do enjoy, and they will quickly find what a judgment there is made in their own souls concerning death to come, and what effects it will produce. They will conclude, that it is the judgment of God, that they which commit sin are worthy of death, Rom. i. 32. and then that their own consciences do accuse and condemn them, Rom. ii. 14, 15. whence unavoidably fear, dread and terror, will seize upon them. And then,

III. Fear of death, as penal, renders the minds of men obnoxious unto bondage; which, what it is, we have in part before declared. It is a state of trouble which men dislike, but cannot avoid. It is a penal disquietment arising from sense of future misery. Fain would men quit themselves of it, but are not able. There is a chain of God in it, not to be broken: men may gall themselves with it, but cannot remove it; and if God take it from them, without granting them a lawful release and deliverance, it is to their farther misery. And this is, in some measure or other, the portion of every one that is convinced of sin, before they are freed by the gospel. And some have disputed what degrees of it are necessary before believing. But what is necessary for any one to attain unto, is his duty. But this bondage can be the duty of no man, because it is involuntary. It will follow conviction of sin, but it is no man's duty; rather it is such an effect of the law, as every one is to free himself from, so soon as he may, in a right way and manner. This estate then befals men, whether they will or not. this is so, if we take bondage passively, as it affects the soul of the sinner; which the apostle seems to intend, by placing it as an effect of the fear of death; take it actively, and it is no more than the sentence of the law, which works and causeth it in the soul, and so all sinners are inevitably obnoxious unto it. And this estate, as we observed, fills men with desires after, and puts them upon various attempts for deliverance. Some desire only present ease, and they commonly withdraw themselves from it, by giving up themselves wholly unto their hearts lusts, and

And

therein to atheism, which God oftentimes, in his righteous judg ment, gives them up unto, knowing that the day is coming wherein their present woful temporal relief will be recompensed with eternal misery. Some look forward unto what is to come, and according to their light and assistance, variously apply themselves to seek relief. Some do it by a righteousness of their own, and in the pursuit thereof also there are ways innumerable not now to be insisted on; and some do it by Christ, which how it is by him effected, the apostle in the next place declares.

Two things, as was shewed, are affirmed of the Lord Christ, in consequence unto the premised supposition of the children's being partakers of flesh and blood, and of their obnoxiousness unto death, and to bondage. 1. That of their natural condition-he himself partook. 2. That from their moral conditionhe delivered them; and that he might do this, it was necessary that he should partake of the other.

1. He himself did likewise partake of the same. The word magazλnows, likewise, in like manner,' doth denote such a similitude as is consistent with a specifical identity. And therefore Chrysostom from hence urgeth the Marcionites and Valentinians, who denied the reality of the human nature of Christ, seeing that he partook of it in like manner with us, that is, truly and really, even as we do. But yet the word, by force of its composition, doth intimate some disparity and difference. He took part of human nature really as we do, and almost in like manner with us. For there were two differences between his being partaker of human nature and ours: 1st, In that we subsist singly in that nature; but he took his portion in this nature into subsistence with himself in the person of the Son of God. 2dly, This nature in us is attended with many infirmities, that follow the individual persons that are partakers of it: in him it was free from them all. And this the apostle also intimates in the word μirizzi, changing his expression from that whereby he declared the common interest of the children in the same nature, which is every way equal and alike. The whole is, that he took his own portion, in his own manner, unto himself.

And this observation removes what is hence objected against the deity of Christ. Cum Christus (saith Schlictingius) hominum mortalium et fragilium dux et fautor sit, propterea is non angelus aliquis, multo vero minus ipse Deus summus qui solus immortalitatem habet, sed homo suo tempore malis, et variis calamitatibus obnoxius esse debuit. It is true it appears from hence, that Christ ought to be a man, subject to sufferings and death, and not an angel, as the apostle farther declares in the next verse; but that he ought not to be God, it doth not appear. As God indeed,