suffering and dying in the room and stead of sinners, when he was wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for their sins, and stricken for their iniqui ties; that is, to make satisfaction for them; this was what was enjoined in covenant; this commandment he received from his Father, and he was obedient to it, even to die the death of the cross; and this work was proposed and appointed to him in covenant, and declared in prophecy, in order to finish transgression, make an end of sin, and make reconciliation for iniquity, and this he did by the sacrifice of himselt. Now as this whole scheme was drawn in council, and settled in covenant, it was proposed to Christ, and he readily agreed to it, and became the surety of the covenant, the better testament, and engaged to assume human naiuie, to do and suffer in it, all that the law and justice of God could require, and should demand of him, in the room and stead of sinners, in order to make full satisfaction for their sins, of which the above things are the ground and foundation. Now,

III. There is nothing in this whole transaction that is injurious to any person or thing, or that is chargeable with any unrighteousness, but all is agreeable to the rules of justice and judgment.

1. No injury is done to Christ by his voluntary substitution in the room and stead of sinners, to make satisfaction for their sins; for as he was able, so he was willing to make it; he assumed human nature, was qualified to obey and suffer, he had somewhat to offer as a sacrifice; as man, he had blood to shed for the remission of sin, and a life to lay down for the ransom of sinners; and as God, he could support the human nature in union with him under the weight of sin laid on it; and bear the whole of the punishment due unto it with chearfulness, courage, and strength: and as he was able, so he was willing; he said in covenant, when it was proposed to him, Lo, I come to do thy will; and at the fulness of time he readily came to do it, went about it as soon as possible counted it his meat and drink to perform it, and was constant at it; and what was most distressing and disagreeable to flesh and blood, he most earnestly wished for, even his bloody baptism, sufferings and death; and volenti non sit injuria. Besides, he had a right to dispose of his own life; and therefore in laying it down did no injustice to any: the civil law will not admit that one man should die for another; the reason is, because no man has a right to dispose of his own life; but Christ had; I have power, says he, to lay it down; that is, his life, hence he is called, The prince of life, both with respect to his own life, and the life of others, Acts iii. 15. and accordingly it was in his power to give it as a redemption-price for his people; wherefore he came to give his life a ransom for many, and which he did give; and he also had a power to take it up again: was a good man admitted by the civil law to die for a bad man, it would be a loss to the commonwealth, and is another reason why it is not allowed of; but Christ as he laid down his life for sinners, so he could and did take it up again, and that quickly; he was delivered to death for the offences of men, to satisfy jus tice for them; and then he tose again for the justification of them; he died

once, and continued a little while under the power of death, but it was not possible for him to be held long by it; when through it he had made satisfaction. for sin, he rose from the dead and will die no more, but will live for ever for the good of his people. Nor is the human nature of Christ a loser but a gainer by his sufferings and death; for having finished his work, he is glorified with the glory promised him in covenant before the world was; is crowned with glory and honour, highly exalted above every creature, has a place at the right-hand of God, where angels have not; angels, authorities and powers being subject to him; nor has the human nature any reason to complain, nor did it ever com➡ plain of any loss sustained by suffering in the room and stead of sinners, and by working out their salvation,

2. Nor is there any unjust thing done by God throughout this whole transaction; there is no unrighteousnes in him, in his nature, nor in any of his ways and works; nor in this affair, which was done to declare his righteousness, that he might be just, appear to be just, and be the justifier of him that believes in Jesus; upon the foot of a perfect righteousness, and full satisfaction made for sin. The person sent to do this work, and who was given up into the hands of justice, and not spared, was one, God had a property in, he was his own Son, his only begotten Son; and it was with his own consent he delivered him up for all his people; and who being their surety, and having engaged to pay their debts and to answer for any hurt, damage or wrong done by them; and having voluntarily taken their sins upon him, and these being found on him by the justice of God; it could be no unrighteous thing to make a demand or satisfaction for them; and accordingly it was exacted, and he answered, as the former part of Isai. liii. 7, may be rendered; that is, satisfaction was required of him, and he answered to the demand made upon him; and where is the unrighteousness of this? Christ's name was in the obligation, and that only; and therefore he was the only person that justice could lay hold upon, and get satisfaction from: besides, there was a conjunction, an union, a relation between Christ nnd his people, previous to his making satisfaction for them; which lay at the bottom of it, and shewed a reason for it; as in all such cases where the sins of one have been punished on another; as when God has visited the iniquities of fathers upon the children, there is the relation of fathers and children, and the fathers are punished in the children, as being parts of them; thus Ham, the son of Noah, was the transgressor, but the curse was denounced and fell on Canaan his son, and Ham was punished in him; when David numbered the people, and so many thousands suffered for it, here was a relation of king and subjects, who were one in a civil sense, and the one were punished for the other. Thus Christ andTM his people are one, both in a natural sense, being of the same nature, and partakers of the same flesh and blood; and so satisfaction for sin was made in the same nature that sinned, as it was fit it should; and in a law-sense, as a surety and debtor are one, so that if one pay the debt it is the same as if the other did it; and in a mystical sense, as head and members are one, as Christ and his

people be head and members of the same body, so that if one suffer, the rest suffer with it; nor is it any unjust thing, if one part of the body sins another suffers for it; as, if the head commits the offence, and the back is punished: Christ and his people are one, as husband and wife are, who are one flesh; and therefore there can be no impropriety, much less injustice, in Christ's giving himself a ransom-price for his Church, to redeem her from slavery; or an offering and sacrifice for her, to make atonement for her transgressions: and as there appears to be no unrighteousness in God through this whole affair, so far as he was concerned in it, so there is no injury done him throngh a satisfaction being made by another; for hereby all the divine perfections are glorified.

3. Nor is there any injury done to the law of God; it has the whole of its demands, no part remaining unsatisfied; for it is neither abrogated nor relaxed; there is a change of the person making satisfaction to it, which is favourably allowed by the lawgiver; but there is no change of the sanction of the law, of the punishment it requires; that is not abated. The law is so far from being a looser by the change of persons in giving it satisfaction, that it is a great gainer; the law is magnified and made honourable; more honourable by Christ's obedience to it, than by the obedience of the saints and angels in heaven; and is made more honourable by the sufferings of Christ, it bearing the penal sanction of it, than by all the sufferings of the damned in hell to all eternity, Isai. xliii. 21.

he may be said to be an he was at the first of it,

Secondly, The causes, spring, and source of satisfaction. 1. So far as God the Father was concerned in it, efficient cause of it, and his love the moving cause; he began it, made the first motion, set it a work; All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. v. 18. he called a council upon it, he contrived the scheme of it, he set forth Christ in his eternal purposes and decrees to be the propitiation for sin, to make satisfaction for it; and he sent him in the fulness of time for that purpose; he laid on him the iniquities of his people, and made him sin for them by imputation; he bruised him, and put him to grief, and made his soul an offering for sin; he spared him not, but delivered him into the hands of justice and death: and what moved him to this, was his great love to his people.

11. In like manner Christ may be considered as an efficient cause, and his love as a moving cause in this affair; he came into the world to die for sinners, and redeem them to God by his blood: he laid down his life for them; he gave himself for them an offering and a sacrifice unto God, a propitiarory, expiatory one; and what moved him to it, was his great love to them, and kindness for them; Hereby perceive we the love of God, that is, of God the Son, because he laid down his life for us, 1 John iii. 16. and the love of Christ is frequently premised to his giving himself to die in the room of his people.

III. The matter of satisfaction, or what that is which gives satisfaction to the justise of God; so that a sinner upon it, or in consideration o it, is acquitted and discharged; and this is no other than Christ's fulfilling the whole law, in the 100m and stead of sinners; this was what he undertook in covenant; hence he said, Thy law is within my heart; he was willing and ready to fulfil it; and when he came into the world, by his incarnation he was made under it voluntarily, and became subject to it, for he came not to destroy it, but to fulfil it; and he is become the end of the law, the fulfilling end of it, to every one that believes he has fulfilled it,

1. By obeying the precepts of it, and answering all that it requires. Does it require an holy nature? it has it in him, who is holy, harmless and undefiled; does it require perfect and sinless obedience? it is found in him, who did no sin, never transgressed the law in one instance, but always did the things which pleased his Father; and who has declared himself well pleased for his righteousness sake, and with it; and that as wrought out for his people by his active obe dience to the law, which is so approved of by God, that he imputes it without works for the justification of them, Rom. iv. 6. Nor is it any objection to this doctrine that Christ, as man, was obliged to yield obedience to the law for himself, which is true; but then it should be observed, that as he assumed human nature, or became man, for the sake of his people, to us, or for us, a child is born; so it was for their sake he yielded obedience to the law. Besides, though he was obliged to it as man, yet he was not obliged to yield it in such a state and condition as he did; in a state of humiliation, in a course of sorrow and affliction, in a suffering state throught the whole of his life, even unto death; for the hu man nature of Christ, for the moment of its union to the Son of God, was intitled to glory and happiness; so that its obedience to the law in such a low estate was quite voluntary, and what he was not obliged unto: nor is it to be argued from Christ's yielding obedience for his people, that then they are exempted from it; they are not; they are under the law to Christ, and under greater obligation to obey it; they are not obliged to obey it in like manner, or for such purposes that Christ obeyed it, even to justify them before God, and entitle them to eternal life.

11. Christ has fulfilled the law and satisfied it, by bearing the penalty of it in the room and stead of his people, which is death of every kind, Rom vi. 23. corporal death, which includes all afflictions, griefs, sorrows, poverty and disgrace, which Christ endnred throughout his state of humiliation; for he took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses; and was a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs all his days; and all that he suffered in his body, when he gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; when he was buffeted and smitten with the palms of the hand in the palaee of the highpriest; and was whipped and scourged by the order of Pilate; his head crowned with thorns, and his hands and feet pierced with nails on the cross, where he

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hung for the space of three hours in great agonies and distress; and some have confined his satisfactory sufferings to what he underwent during that time, which though very great indeed; and none can tell what he endured in soul and body, in that space of time; yet these, exclusive of what he endured before and after, must not be considered as the only punishment he endured by way of satisfaction for the sins of men; the finishing and closing part of which was death, and what the law required; and hence making peace and reconciliation are ascribed to the bloodshed and death of Christ on the cross, Col. i. 20. Rom. v. 10. which death was a bloody, cruel and painful one, as the thing itself speaks, and the description of it shews, and was also a very shameful and ignominious one, the death of slaves, and of the worst of malefactors; and was likewise an accursed one, and shewed, that as Christ was made sin for his people, and had their sins charged upon him, so he was made a curse for them, and bore the whole curse of the law that was due unto them, Moreover, Christ not only endured a corporal death, and all that was contained in it, and connected with it, or suffered in his body; but in his soul also, through the violent temptations of Satan, he suffered, being tempted; and through the reproaches that were cast upon him, which entered into his soul, and broke his heart; and through his ago nies in the garden, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; and especially through his sufferings on the cross, when his soul, as well as his body, was made an offering for sin; and when he sustained what was tantamount to an eternal death, which lies in a separation from God, and a sense of divine wrath; both which Christ thee endured, when God deserted him, and hid his face from him; which made him say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me! and he had a dreadful sense of divine wrath; on the account of the sins of his people laid upon him, the punishment of which he bore; when he said, Thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been wrath with thine anointed, thy Messiah, Psal. Ixxxix. 38. and thus by doing and suffering all that the law and justice of God could require, he made full and complete satisfaction thereunto for his people; it was not barely some thing, some little matter, which Christ gave, and with which God was content, and what is called acceptilation: but a proper, full, and adequate satisfaction, which he gave, so that nothing more in point of justice, could be required of him.

IV. The form or manner in which satisfaction was made by Christ; which was by bearing the sins of his people, under an imputation of them to him, and by dying for their sins, and for sinners; that is, in their room and stead, as their substitute; these are the phrases by which it is expressed in scripture.

1. By bearing the sins of his people, which we first read of in Isai. liii. 11, 12. where two words are made use of, both alike translated: And he bare the sin of many, w he took, he lifted them up, he took them off of his people, and took them upon himself; and again, He shall bear their iniquities, bao' as a man bears and carries a burden upon his shoulders; and from hence is the use of the phrase in the New Testament: the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, chap ix.