But, before I proceed to consider this part of the text as it stands absolutely in itself, give me leave to close up what hath been now spoken concerning God's right unto us, with two or three Inferences.

First. See, here, how dear we are unto God, and how highly he esteems of us, that he thus strengthens his right to us by so many multiplied titles.

As those, who prize any possession, seek to confirm it to themselves by all the ways that law and equity can find out; and have writings upon writings and evidences upon evidences for it, that their title to it may be unquestionable: thus seems God to deal with us. A single right, for so dear a portion and inheritance, is not enough; and, therefore, though he hath made us, and preserves us, and bountifully supplies us, though we profess ourselves to be his own; yet, to prevent all doubts and suits, he buys us too. He buys what is his own, that it might be more his own: and, because justice and vengeance lay in their claim to us, that the title of his mercy might not be litigious, that there might be nothing in himself to hinder his quiet enjoyment of us, he pays down a full price to justice, and satisfies all its demands. So dear are we to God! And,

Secondly. See how unfaithful we are to him, that we need so many bonds and engagements laid upon us to secure us.

So slippery and deceitful are our hearts, that we are still starting aside from him; and, though we have no right to dispose of ourselves, yet are we still selling or giving away ourselves to every lust and vanity. And, therefore, as we use to deal with those who are of a suspected honesty, lay all the bonds upon them that possibly we can and make them enter into strict and punctual engagements, so doth God with us: he trusts us not upon a single obligation; but makes us enter into bond upon bond; and all scarce sufficient to make such fickle and treacherous creatures stable and faithful to him.

And,

Thirdly. Hence learn, that all impiety and irreligion are the highest wrong and injustice in the world.

Will a man rob God? saith the Prophet Malachy: ch. iii. 8. intimating, by the very question, that this is such a horrid and heinous sin, as that it is not easy to be supposed any man would be so profligate a wretch as to be guilty of it: and therefore sacrilege, a stealing and purloining from God, is justly

branded as one of the most foul and odious sins that can be committed. And yet this is a sin more commonly committed, than most men think of. Every wicked man is guilty of sacrilege. He robs God, steals from him, and alienates that which is properly his due. Thou stealest thyself from him, thy heart and thy affections, thy love and thy service: these thou givest to thy lusts, and to the world; and maintainest his sworn enemies upon his right and due. If it be sacrilege, to convert things hallowed and dedicate to profane and common uses, art not thou then a sacrilegious wretch, who stealest away thy soul from God, which is by so many just titles his own; and convertest it not only to common, but filthy and unclean uses? The Apostle tells us, that we are the temple of God: 2 Cor. vi. 16: our hearts are the Sanctum Sanctorum, the "Holiest of Holies" in this temple; and all our faculties are dedicated things, the holy utensils for the worship and service of God. And, what! shall we pollute this temple; set up idols there; and serve our lusts and follies with those very instruments and vessels, which God hath made and prepared for his own service and worship? And, yet, how many such sacrilegious persons are there! The worldling sets up an image of gold in the temple of God: and therefore covetousness is, by the Apostle, called idolatry, Colos. iii. 5: Mammon is his God; and all the hallowed vessels of the temple, his thoughts, designs, and affections, must all be employed in the service of this idol. The sensual unclean person turns this temple of God into a stew; and, with the heathen, makes his temple the scene of all his impurities. The beastly drunkard makes this temple the place of all his riot and excess; and, with impiety as great as Belshazzar's, makes the bowls and vessels of God's sanctuary serve him only to quaff and carouse in. And, indeed, there is no sin whatsoever, but it is compliçated of sacrilege. For what is sin, but, as the Schools define it, an aversion of the soul from God, and an inordinate conversion of it to the creature? now to convert that to the creature, which is proper and due to God, is to rob him, to take away what he hath hallowed, to pollute and profane things dedicate, to defile his temple. And, now, to close up this, consider that dreadful threatening of the Apostle, 1 Cor. iii. 17. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.

And, thus much, for the Proposition in the text, ye are not your own, but God's.

II. The next thing to be considered is the REASON: For ye are bought with a price.

The force of this reason I have already shewn you. I shall only now consider it absolutely, as it is in itself.

In these words is held forth unto us the great mystery of the Gospel, our redemption by Jesus Christ. I shall not treat of it in that latitude, that a full and complete handling of this subject would require; but confine myself to speak more briefly only to these few heads.

What this price of our redemption is.

To whom this price was paid, and of whom we were bought.

How the payment of a price can be consistent with the free mercy and grace of God in saving us.

What it is, that we are by this price redeemed from.

i. Let us consider WHAT THIS PRICE IS, WHICH IS PAID DOWN FOR OUR REDEMPTION.

And that is a price infinitely inestimable, consisting in all those dolorous sorrows and sufferings that our Lord Christ underwent in the days of his flesh, when it pleased the Lord to bruise him. In his nativity and circumcision, was this rich exchequer first opened; which was never afterwards shut, till he paid out to the very last farthing, the very last drop of his most precious blood, as a full and satisfactory price of our redemption. But, though the whole course of his humiliation and abasement was part of this price which he paid; yet, because the chief and greatest sum of it was told down to God in his death and last passion, and all his other sorrows and sufferings were completed in this, therefore the Scripture doth principally ascribe our redemption to the blood of Christ. So, 1 Peter i. 18, 19. Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold.... But with the precious blood of Christ. His soul was made an offering for sin: Isa. liii. 10. The blood of Jesus Christ....cleanseth us from all sin: 1 John i. 7. and many other places to the same import. Now the blood and death of Christ, and all other parts of his exinanition, carried in them a sufficient, yea a redundant value, to expiate the sins of the whole world; from the infinite virtue of the hypostatical union of the divine with the human nature, whereby his blood became the blood of God; his sufferings, the abasement and humiliation of God: and this made it a

price, not only equivalent unto, but infinitely surpassing and outbidding the purchase, for which it was offered,

ii. Let us consider, TO WHOM THIS PRICE WAS PAID; and that is to our great creditor, God.

The Socinians, on purpose to undermine this fundamental doctrine of Christ's satisfaction, tell us, that, if we are redeemed by a price in this strict and proper sense, that price must then be paid into the hands of Satan, because we are in bondage under him but this is as weak, as it is impious: for, indeed, Satan is not our creditor; we owe him nothing, but hatred and aversation: neither is any man, that is kept in ward for crimes or debts, properly said to be his goaler's prisoner, but the king's or the creditor's; so, though we are naturally in bondage under Satan, yet he is but our goaler: we are not his prisoners; but God's, who is both our sovereign, and our creditor. And therefore the price is not to be paid to him, by whom we are detained: but to him, by whose authority or by whose suit we are detained; and that is, the justice of God: and therefore Christ, by satisfying the justice of God, releaseth us from under the power of Satan. We are under a twofold bondage to the Devil: the one moral, by our sins and vices, doing his work and toiling in his drudgery; and thus we are his slaves: the other legal, by the guilt of sin binding us over and making us liable unto his plagues and torments. Christ hath redeemed us from both improperly, from the former; by the power of his grace breaking asunder our chains and fetters in our conversion, and so setting us free from the service of sin and the Devil: most properly, from the latter; by the infinite virtue of his merits ransoming us from that death, and woe, and wrath, to which we stood exposed, and which else the Devil would have inflicted upon us, as being the great minister and executioner of divine vengeance. Now we are not properly redeemed from our moral bondage, our slavery to sin and Satan, but conquered: therefore no price was paid to him, under whose vassalage we were held. But we are properly redeemed from our legal bondage; from our liableness to eternal death and sufferings: yet the price ought not to be paid to Satan, but unto God, whose minister and executioner Satan is.

And this is in answer to the Second Enquiry.

iii. The Third general Enquiry is, HOW THE PAYMENT OF A

FULL AND SATISFACTORY PRICE CAN BE CONSISTENT WITH THE FREE GRACE AND MERCY OF GOD IN SAVING US.

For the Scripture speaks so much of God's mercy and free grace in saving sinners, that some have thought it very difficult to reconcile those expressions with the notion of a price of redemption, properly so called. The chief sense in which grace is said to be free, is, that it gratuitously confers upon us the benefits of our redemption without merit or desert. If then these be merited, if an equal price be paid down for them, what becomes of all those magnificent exaltations of free grace, which the Scripture seems so much to glory in? I, even I am he, that blotteth out thy transgressions for my name's sake: By grace are ye saved, &c. Certainly, what is so dearly bought and purchased as by the blood of Jesus Christ, cannot be said to be a free and gratuitous gift.

To this I answer, in the general, that these things are not at all inconsistent and, therefore, it ought to be no prejudice to our most high veneration of the infinitely rich and infinitely free grace of God in our redemption, although that redemption be purchased for us, and a price paid down fully answerable to the demands of divine justice.

I shall endeavour to clear up this, in these following particulars. 1. We are not so freely redeemed, pardoned, and saved, as to exclude all merit and desert on Christ's part.

This is not necessary to the establishing of free grace, that our Saviour himself should be the object of it. For God transacted with his Son, only upon the terms of strict and impartial justice: nor was there ever any one sin, that he was pleased to take upon himself, that was pardoned to him; but a plenary satisfaction was exacted from him, and justice had out its full due in his sufferings. Every sin stood him as dear, as it would have done the sinners themselves, had God resolved never to have administered mercy and grace unto them: and, therefore, saith the Apostle, Col. i. 14. In him we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: and, without shedding of blood there is no remission: Heb. ix. 22: and, This is my blood.... which is shed....for the remission of sins: Matt. xxvi. 28. All our sins were laid upon him, and imputed to him; and he underwent and eluctated the whole pressure of those punishments, that were due unto them, and is now set down at the right-hand of the Majesty on high, to make intercession for us. So that,