the provocation of the most sensible and severe attribute when it is incensed. This increases the anguish of his sufferings, and embitters the cup of his passion. This renews his sorrows, and makes his wounds bleed afresh. Dreadful impiety! that exceeds the guilt of the Jews; they once killed him being in his humble inglorious state, but this is a daily crucifying him now glorified. Ungrateful wretches! that refuse to bring glory to their Redeemer, and blessedness to themselves. That rather choose that the accuser should triumph in their misery, than their Saviour rejoice in.their felicity. This is the great condemnation, that Christ came into the world to save men from death, and they refuse the pardon. It is an aggravation of sin above what the devils are capable of; for pardon was never offered to those rebellious spirits. In short, so deadly a malignity there is in it, that it poisons the gospel itself, and turns the sweetest mercy into the sorest judgment. The sun of righteousness, who is a reviving light to the penitent believer, is a consuming fire to the obdurate. How much more tolerable had been the condition of such sinners, if saving grace had never appeared unto men, or they had never heard of it! for the degrees of wrath shall be in proportion to the riches of neglected goodness. The refusing life from Christ, makes us guilty of his death. And when he shall come in his glory, and be visible to all that pierced him, what vengeance will be the portion of those who despised the majesty of his person, the mystery of his compassions and sufferings! Those that lived and died in the darkness of heathenism, shall have a cooler climate in hell, than those who neglect the great salvation.

JUSTICE AND MERCY CONCUR IN REDEMPTION.

The two great attributes which are exercised towards reasonable creatures in their lapsed state, are mercy and justice: these admirably concur in the work of our redemption. Although God spared guilty man for the honour of his mercy, yet he spared not his own Son, who became a surety for the offender, but delivered him up to a cruel death, for the glory of his justice.

To declare God's hatred of sin, which is essential to his nature, to preserve the honour of the law which otherwise would be securely despised, and lose its effect, to prevent sin by keeping up in men an holy fear to offend God, an eternal respect in the rational creature to him, it was most fit that the presumptuous breach of God's command should not be unpunished. Now when the Son of God was made a sacrifice for sin, and by a bloody death made expiation of it, the world is convinced how infinitely hateful sin is to him, the dignity of the law is maintained, and sin is most effectually discouraged. There is the same terror, though not the same rigour, as if all mankind had been finally condemned. Thus it appears how becoming God it was, to accomplish our salvation in such a manner, that justice and mercy are revealed in their most noble and eminent effects and operations.

For justice requires a proportion between the punishment and the crime; and that receives its quality from the dignity of the person offended. Now since the, majesty of God is infinite against whom sin is committed, the guilt of it can never be expiated but by an infinite satisfaction. There is no name under heaven, nor in heaven that could save us, but the Son of God, who being equal to him in greatness, became man.

The apostle tells us that it pleased the Father that in him all fulness should dwell. This respects not his original nature, but his office, and the reason of it is, to reconcile by the blood of the cross, things in heaven and in the earth. From the greatness of the work we may infer the quality of the means, and from the quality of the means, the nature of the person that is to perform it. Peace with God who was provoked by our rebellion, could only be made by an infinite sacrifice. Now in Christ the Deity itself, not its influences, and the fulness of it, not any particular perfection only, dwelt really and substantially. God was present in the ark in a shadow and representation; he is present in nature by his sustaining power, and in his saints by special favour, and the eminent effects, the graces and comforts that proceed from it; but he is present in Christ in a singular and transcendent manner. The humanity is related to the Word not only as a creature to the author of its being, for in this regard it hath an equal respect to all the persons, but by a peculiar conjunction; for it is actuated by the same subsistence as the divine essence is in the Son, but with this difference, the one is voluntary, the other necessary; the one is espoused by love, the other received by nature.

One hour of Christ's life glorified God more, than an everlasting duration spent by angels and men in the praises of him. For the most perfect creatures are limited, and finite, and their services cannot fully correspond with the majesty of God; but when the Word was made flesh, and entered into a new state of subjection, he glorified God in a divine manner, and most worthy of him. He that comes from above, is above all. The all-sufficiency of his satisfaction arises from hence, He that was in the form of God, and thought it no robbery to be equal with God; that is, in the truth of the divine nature was equal with the Father, and without sacrilege, or

honour, he became The Lord of Glory

usurpation, possessed divine obedient to the death of the cross. was crucified. We are purchased by the blood of God. And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. The divine nature gives it an infinite and everlasting efficacy.

The design of God was to declare his righteousness, that is, that glorious attribute that inclines him to punish sinners; for in the legal propitiations, although the guilt of men was publicly declared in the death of the sacrifices, yet the justice of God did not fully appear, since he accepted the life of a beast in compensation for the life of a man; but in the death of Christ he hath given the most clear demonstration of his justice, a sufficient example of his hatred to sin, condemning and punishing it in the person of his beloved Son; that the whole world may acknowledge it was not from any inadvertency, but merely by the dispensation of his wisdom and goodness that he forbore so long. And by the death of Christ he hath declared that glorious mystery which no created understanding could ever have conceived, that he is inflexibly just, and will not suffer sin to pass unpunished; and that he justifies those who are guilty in themselves, if by a purifying faith they receive Christ for pardon.

Our exemption from punishment, and our restoration to communion with God in grace and glory, is the fruit of his expiating sin. For this reason the blood of the Mediator speaks better things than that of Abel. For that cried for revenge against the murderer, but his procures remission to believers. And as the just desert of sin is separation from the presence of God, who is the fountain of felicity, so when the guilt is taken away, the person is received into God's favour and fellowship. A representation of this is set down in Exodus xxiv. where we have described the manner of dedicating the covenant

between God and Israel by bloody sacrifices: after Moses had finished the offering, and sprinkled the blood on the altar and the people, the elders of Israel, who were forbid before to approach near to the Lord, were then invited to come into his presence, and in token of reconciliation feasted before him. Thus the eternal covenant is established by the blood of the Mediator, and all the benefits it contains, as remission of sins, freedom to draw near to the throne of grace, and the enjoyment of God in glory, are the fruits of his reconciling sacrifice.

As the freeness, so the riches of his mercy is not lessened by the satisfaction Christ made for us. It is true we have a pattern of God's justice, never to be paralleled, in the death of Christ; but to the severity of justice towards his only beloved Son, his clemency towards us guilty rebels is fully commensurate. For he pardons us without the expence of one drop of our blood, though the soul of Christ was poured forth as an offering for sin. Nay, hereby the divine clemency is more commended, than by an absolute forgiveness of sin without respect to satisfaction. For the honour of God being concerned in the punishment of sin, that man might not continue under a sad obligation to it, he was pleased by the astonishing wonder of his Son's death to vindicate his glory, that repenting believers may be justified before him. Thus in an admirable manner he satisfies justice, and exalts mercy: and this could have been no other way effected: for if he had by mere sovereignty dissolved our guilt, and by his Spirit renewed his image in us, his love had eminently appeared, but his justice had not been glorified. But in our redemption they are both infinitely magnified; his love could give no more than the life of his Son, and justice required no less; for death being the wages of sin, there could be no satisfaction without the death of our Redeemer.