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in proportion to its demerits, and of exhibiting an awful warning to the whole creation, He would have exacted the full penalty which we had incurred? These are the dreadful forebodings with which our breafts might naturally have been filled. And if we had endeavoured to confole ourselves with the reflection that God delighteth in mercy, and had ventured on that ground to hope for forgiveness; how reasonably might we have feared, that no me thod was to be devised, in which the Judge of the Univerfe could exercife mercy towards man confiftently with his holiness and his juftice! After all our inquiries, our pleadings, and our hopes, there ftill lay open before us the gulf of eternal death.

IV. Such was by nature the miferable ftate of man. So truly did the law work In wrath. So truly was the commandment, which was ordained to be unto life, found to be unto death. So plainly by the law was the know, ledge of fin imparted and diffufed; the knowledge of its heinous guilt, of its univerfal and deadly influence. So effectually did fin taking occafion by the commandment, deceive us, and ay us. So fatally was the law which is boly, and the commandment which is holy and just and good, made by our corruption and

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tranfgreffions death unto every man (s). Thus condemned, thus helplefs, thus deftitute of all claim to mercy, thus ignorant whether to human guilt mercy could be extended confiftently with the other attributes of God, was the whole race of Adam. But God is infinite in mercy, goodness, and wifdom. He faw what man could not difcern. He perceived the means of reconciling the offer of forgivenefs to fallen man, with the demands of his own righteous and violated law. O wretched man that I am! cried St. Paul; who fall deliver me from the body of this death (t)? A faviour was at hand. There was Oné in heaven able to make an atonement: able to make a full, perfect, and fufficient facrifice, oblation, and fatisfaction for the fins of the whole world; and fuch a fatisfaction as it would be confiftent with the righteoufnefs and the juf tice of God to accept. But was this faviour willing as well as able to make the atonement? He was willing. He was aware what must be the price of man's falvation; and that price he freely offered, and took upon himself to pay. And who was this faviour? What being was it that undertook this moft aftonishing office of mercy? It was the eternal Son of the eter

() Rom. iii. 20. iv. 15. vii. 10-13

(t) Rom. vii. 24.

nal God. It was one of the persons of the incomprehenfible godhead. It was Jefus Chrift, who was one with the father. It was Jefus Chrift, who in the beginning had made the world, and now engaged to redeem it. He became furety for man. The humiliation, the fufferings, which he faw that as man's furety he muft undergo, difmayed him not. He knew that the iniquity of the human race was to be laid upon him; that with his stripes mankind were to be healed. He knew that he' muft himself become the facrifice in the place of man. He knew that he muft leave the glory, in which he had reigned with the Father from eternity; that he must come down to dwell on earth; that he muft himfelf become man, and fuftain all the infirmities and evils of human nature, fin only excepted, which could not approach to him. He knew that he must be a man of forrows and acquainted with grief; that he fhould be defpifed and rejected by the world which he came to fave; that of the followers whom he fhould particularly felect to be his companions and friends, he fhould be betrayed by one, denied by another, forfaken by all. He knew that he fhould be delivered up to his bittereft enemies; that he fhould be exposed as a mark to the fhafts of fcorn, infult, and cruelty;

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and that he must make atonement by his blood; that he must fuffer a painful and ignominious death, crucified between two malefachimself condemned as a malefactor, though he was the Lord of Glory. abafement, all this anguifh he forefaw to be neceffary, if he would purchase redemption for mankind. All this abasement and anguish he forefaw; but it fhook not the purpose of his love. Though he was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God; he made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a fervant, and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himfelf, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (u). By this his obedience unto death the great atonement was made. The gate of heaven was thrown open to man. Pardon through the blood of Chrift, fanctification through the Holy Ghoft, and everlafting happiness in the world to come were offerred, as purchased by the facrifice of Chrift, to all who should fly for falvation to him.

How then may we acquire an interest in thefe bleffings? By faith: by faith only.

(u) Philipp. ii. 6-8.

Faith is ordained of God to be the inftrument, the only inftrument, by which we may receive and apply to ourselves the mercy of God, the atonement of our Redeemer. Believe in the Lord Jefus Chrift, and thou shalt be faved. A man is juftified by faith. The law worketh wrath: therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with Go through our Lord Jefus Chrift; by whom alfo we have access by faith into this grace wherein we ftand. The righteoufnefs of God (the method of juftification which God hath ordained) without the works of the law (without our works being required to do that which they never could do, to pay an atom of the price of falvation) is manifefted, being witneffed by the law and the prophets; even the righteoufness of God which is by faith of Jefus Chrift, unto all, and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference; for all have finned and come fhort of the glory of God; being juftified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in fefus Chrift, whom God hath fet forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood (w). Juftification by faith alone, through the merits of our Lord Jefus Chrift, is the grand doctrine of both testaments. Under Rom. iv.

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(w) Acts, xvi.31. Rom. iii. 28. Gal. ii. 16. 15, 16. v. 1, 2. iii. 21-25.

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