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xlv. 21. They rob Chrift of his glory, in pretending to join to his perfect and compleatly finished work, their own poor and paltry performances; or by totally neglecting the great falvation, he has wrought out by his arm alone.

The Lord will be magnified in the falvation of his people, and had in reverence of all the faints; the bafe and obnoxious idol of felf-righteousness must not stand in the temple of the living God; Dagon fhall fall and Merodach fhall be broken in pieces, and the Lord alone fhall be exalted. I am God and there is none else, and I will not give my glory to another, the glory of my juftice, which would be ftained if I fuffered fin to pass unpunished; the glory of my holiness, which would be greatly obfcured if I did not require a perfect righteoufnefs for falvation; and the glory of my mercy, which would be totally eclipfed if falvation were a debt that was owing for fome creature obedience.

4thly. You are to note herefrom, the exceeding finfulness of fin, and the obnoxious ftate of the finner in confequence thereof. How exceedingly offenfive muft fin be conceived to be, in the eyes of the immaculate Jehovah, feeing that his onlybegotten fon, when confidered as the finner's subftitute, is constrained to drink the bitter cup of unmixed vengeance; nor was there abatement made him in the price, of one drop of his precious blood. Not all the manifeftations of the divine displeasure against fin, in the moft alarming and diftreffing judgments, fo loudly declare the refentment of heaven, or paint the hideous monfter in fuch terrifying colours, as the blood of the holy Jefus, fpilt and poured out like water to expiate fin, and manifeft to the finner that there M 2

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was no other way for his reconciliation. Floods of water that fhall deluge the earth and drown it's ungodly inhabitants; flames of fire and brimftone that fhall devour and depopulate whole countries; do not fo much manifeft God's hatred of fin, as the fufferings of his only-begotten and well-beloved Son. He was fricken, smitten of God and afflicted; he was wounded, bruised, chaftifed, oppreffed, and cut off out of the land of the living; he had done no violence, yet the Lord bruised him, and put him to grief. The most exquifite fufferings of our bleffed Lord, are defcribed and thus fet forth in a variety of expreffions, adapted by infinite wisdom to the greatness and various fenfations of forrow, the illuftrious fufferer felt; by the evangelical prophet, ch. liii. who remarks upon the whole, that tranfgreffion and iniquity, even our tranfgreffions, our iniquities, were the cause.

Settle it then in your hearts as a truth momentous and undoubted, that fin when it seems most pleasing, is then moft poisonous; and when folicited to compliance therewith, turn your eyes to yonder cross; there fee what fin has done, and be affured it is ftill the fame. And while you view the bleeding Lamb ftretched on the wood of his cross; ask your heart, Whence is all this? What has he done? Wretch that I am, what have I done? Have not my fins faftened him to the crofs? Has not my unbelief pierced that tender bleeding heart, that now trembles in the pangs of death, and while bathed in it's own gore, yet flames with love? O grace unparallelled, matchlefs mercy! can it be that it fhould flame with love to me, a finner, and his murderer? Yes, adored be fovereign grace, adored be matchless

and

and fuperlative goodness, the finners furety bleeds, the finners Saviour prays, father forgive, nor did he bleed, or pray in vain. And if when we were yet without ftrength, and ungodly, Chrift died for us, much more will he fave us by living in us; if while we were yet finners, he engaged by death to fave us, how much more being faved he will live to intercede for us. In a word, if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be faved by his life; which leads us to the second principal part of the text, and which presents us with a ftate of amity, from whence to infer the certainty of falvation fecured unto us by his life.

Salvation respects, firft, a deliverance from that death, our fins had deferved, and to expiate which, the Redeemer fhed his blood; this Elihu had an eye unto in that beautiful paffage, Job xxxiii, 24, "deliver him from going down in"to the pit, I have found a ranfom; deliver him; (Pedahhehu,) redeem him, pay the price for him, not of corruptibles, gold or filver, but precious blood, the blood of Christ, pure and spotlefs as a lamb without blemish. I have found a ranfom, (Copher,) a covering, Chrift Jefus the meffenger, the interpreter, the one of a thoufand, the true mercy-feat; in him I am pleafed, in him" my foul acquiefces.

Sin

This, our apoftle alfo looks unto, ver. 9, "much "more then being juftified by his blood, we "shall be saved from wrath through him." being pardoned through the blood of atonement, can no more condemn, and the finner being juftified through the redemption that is in Chrift Jefus, has nothing to fear from the rigour of the law,

or the juftice of God; fince the former can produce no indictment against him, and the latter has accorded to his free and full juftification. The wrath of God, fays the fcripture, is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousnefs of men, but Jefus Chrift is appointed and set forth to be a propitiation for fin, that the finner might be reconciled through faith in his blood, and obtain the remiffion of fins; and hereby be delivered from the curfe, and freed from condemnation. Sinners because of their tranfgreffions have deferved to die eternally, and to wail on beds of inextinguishable fire for ever; and nothing but the blood-fhedding of the Son of God could prevent it; for without fhedding of blood (fays the law which was but a fhadow) there is no remiffion, not even in the fhadow; much lefs in the realizing, fubftantiating difpenfation of the gofpel. But fince Chrift the Lord has died, he has made a full and perfect fatisfaction for the fins of all that shall believe in him; and notwithstanding a finner may cry out in respect of his corrupt nature yet remaining, and the frequent ebullitions of corruption, "O wretched man that "I am, who shall deliver me from the body of "this death? Yet the believer will always have a heart-reviving anfwer in readinefs, I thank God, through Jefus Christ our Lord, I fhall be delivered from the body of death I feel, and from the death I might justly fear, had he not died to redeem

me.

2dly, Salvation refpects that state of bleffedness, which Jefus the forerunner is gone to prepare for his people; and concerning which he hath faid, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where

Sardore who do the

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where I am, there ye may be alfo. This is that falvation, the finner made holy, enjoys in the light of God's countenance; by which his heart is made glad more than with wine; and in the beatific fight of the most amiable of all objects, whofe footsteps fhine with fuch refulgent brightness in the things that are seen, the workmanship of his hands. The royal pfalmift feems to have had a -lively conception of this heavenly blessedness, and a thorough knowledge wherein it did confift, when he fays, Pf. lxxiii, 25, Whon have I in heaven "but thee? What are all the glories that heaven itself can boaft in comparison of my God, a kingdom without Chrift, can yield no happinefs, not even a kingdom in heaven; thrones and crowns, &c. compared with him, are not worth a wish, not even to be enjoyed through everlasting ages and in heaven too. But, fays he, Pf. xvi, 11, "in thy presence there is fullness of joy. What can I want when I have thee? Happy foul that can fay the Lord is my portion, even while on earth these fhall have no lack, and in heaven there is (Sebabb,) expreffive word, fullness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. So near to thee my God, I must be happy, thy munificient hand dispenses bleffings in abundance, and from the smilings of thy face eternal day and infinite delights iffue; for these pleasures, will be fuch for evermore. Not like the tranfient blaze of feeble pleasures arifing from created good, which difappoint our moft fanguine expectations, and vanish tastelefs in the highest enjoyment of them.

Precious falvation! How marvellous the love that first moved it! How unfearchable the wif

dom

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