It is more than heaven, and earth, and the whole univerle! O how fure and permanent muft this redemption be, that is managed by the Lord of hofts, and his Fellow! What a fure and fweet way to the Father, is the Mån Chrift, fince he is God's Fellow! Think not ftrange that he was able to triumph over all enemies, to outwit the old Serpent, to rife again from the grave, to conquer hell, and purchafe heaven; for the man was God's Fellow. How highly is our nature advanced in Chrift! though not changed into the divine, yet perfonally united thereto Chrift has not loft his dignity, by becoming man; he is the man God's Fellow. O what a wellqualified and glorious Redeemer is he! qualified by the Lord of hofts himfelf, who had made him his Shepherd, who is our Shepherd "The Lord is my Shepherd," fays the believer; and he is My Shepherd, fays JEно, VAH, though in different re'pects: I have made him the Shepherd of my fheep. Q if God's Shepherd be your Shepherd, poor foul; if your heart be pleafed with the choice that he has made of a Shepherd; and God's elect be your elect, God's choice your choice, happy, thrice happy were it for you, that ever you was born. O that a flock of fheep were gathered to him to-day!

6. We may hence fee the terrible flate of unbelievers and Chriftlefs finners, on the one hand; and the comfortable fiate of believers, on the other.

(1.) On the one hand, I fay, we may here fee the dreadful flate of unbelievers, and the damning nature of unbelief. The fword of divine juftice, the fword of God's wrath, is hanging over the head of all thofe who come not under the cover of the blood of Chrift, that was fhed by this awful fword. It is a lofty, but a terrible word you have in Deut. xxxii. 40, 41. "I lift up my hand, to heaven and fay, I live for ever; if I whet ray glittering fword, and my hand take hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and a reward to them that hate me; I will make mine arrows drunk with blood." The fword of God's vengeance must be drunk either with the blood of the finner, or the blood of the Surety, in the finner's room. Now, they who, through unbelief, defpife and reject Chrift, the facrifice to juftice,

which God has provided, they muft themfelves be a facrifice thereto : fee how fearfully this is let forth, Heb. X. 27, 28, 29. 31. "If we fin wilfully, after we have received the knowledge of the truth;" that is to lay, if we wilfully and finally reje&t Chrift; if we live and die in unbelief, refufing the remedy that God has provided, notwithstanding it is made known to us in the glorious gofpel, there is no remedy for us but perifhing; "There remains no more facrifice for fin, but a fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which fhall de vour the adverfaties." O finner, there is not a day you hear fermon, and hear Chrift offered, but if you flight him, you go away with a new load of guilt; hence the hell of profeffors fhall be the greatest and hoteft places in hell the like of Corazen and Bethfaida, the like of Dunfermline, and the places about, where Chrift is preached, fhall go to the center of hell, when others fhall not have fo hot a hell. This fin of unbelief is worfe than the murdering Chrift; for they knew not that he was the Lord of glory: but this fin wilfully rejects him, while you know he is the Lord of glory. The fin of unbelief, what a dreadful thing is it! The man makes God molt true, a liar, like the devil! and refufes to let God have the honour of a full fatisfaction to juftice; will not let God get, fatisfaction for all his fins, as he might have in the facrifice of his Son. O unbelief, unbelief! for a man to have continued all his days, from his infancy, under the drop of the word and calls of the Spirit and the Bride, faying, Come, come to Chrift, and yet the man lives and dies never hearkening.

(2.) On the other hand, here we may fee the comfortable flate of believers in Chrift, and the faving nature of true juftifying faith. The believer cannot but be fafe and happy; for the ftroak of the fword of justice has fallen by him, and has lighted upon his Surety, his Shepherd the death of the Shepherd is the life of the fheep. Though the fheep may be fcattered, and fearred with fatherly chaftifements; yet the Shepherd being fmitten with the fword of vindictive juftice, no firoak of judicial wrath fhall ever fall upon them: for Chrift has borne their griefs, and carried their forrows, and by his stripes

ftripes they are healed: and all that look to him by faith fhall be healed, and faved in like manner. The object of juftifying faith is the man God's Fellow, fa!ling a facrifice to the word of divine juftice. Though you fhould believe all the Bible, the whole divine revelation, except this point, Chrift fet forth to be a propitiation in blood, you have no juftifying faith; the doctrine of the blood of God, of a crucified Chrift, this only is the healing balfam to the bleeding wounds of the finner, that has any fenfe of fin, or fear of wrath. Talk of the law to fuch a man, it is juft as if you should bring a murderer to fee the ghost of the man he had killed Q, fays he, that is the law that I have broken, and fo he is racked and tormented, left the fword of wrath avenge the quarrel of the broken law upon him; but let him fee a Chrift dying on a crofs, with the fword of wrath running through his heart, a Chrift hanging, between heaven and earth in his room, and all the debt of the elect upon his fhoulders, here is a full cordial to a fainting foul; here is the act of justifying faith, the beholding of this facrifice, and acquiefcing in it as the price of redemption; relying on the precious blood that was drawn by that awful fword, and laying the firefs of our falvation upon it that is a laying ftrefs where God laid it, a coming under the covert of the blood of the man that is God's Fellow, as a fcreen from the law and justice. Here is a noble foundation for faith; we may even dare to approach a provoked God, an angry Deity, the God who is a confuming fire, and a flaming fword; why, here is blood, worthy blood, to quench the fire; the man that is God's Fellow bleeding and dying in our nature. We may well fay with Luther, Lord, keep me from a mere God, an abfolute God; a God not in Chrift, not reconciled by the death of Chrift.' But here is the atonement and propitiation; and therefore faith may come boldly to the throne of grace.

7. Hence also we may fee the malignity of an Antichrif. tian fpirit; not only that of Papifts, who bring in their works of merit upon the field of juftification before God, as if any thing could please a dreadful God, befides the blood of his Fellow; but alfo, all others that are

enemies

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enemies to the crofs of Chrift; enemies to the glorious gospel of a cruciffed Chrift.Here the Socinian fpirit. is condemned as Antichriftian, who fay, That God was • never alienate from man; and that Cod, out of his mere bounty, without any interveening fatisfaction, 'pardons fin:' But if fo, why would ever there be fuch a found as, "Awake, Ofword, against the man that is my Fellow?" Why would there have been an atonement, if it was not to avert the wrath revea led from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteoufnefs of men? In vain did the fword awake and finite the Shepherd, if without fhedding of blood there was remiffion.-Here alfo, the Libertine, and Latitudinarian fpirit is condemned. O! what ignorant fottifh fools are they, who make a mock at fin, which being imputed to the Lord Jelus, nade him fweat and bleed in the anguifh of his foul! O what madness are they guilty of, who prefer the fatis. faction of their brutish lufts, to the falvation of their precious fouls, the redemption whereof is fo precious, that it ceafeth for ever, unless the blood of God be fled for. it! Here alfo the Arminian fpirit is condemned, and every Legal fpirit, under whatfoever denomination, who make faith, or any act or part of it, or any thing elfe whatfoever, befides the blood of Chrift, to be our righteoufnefs before God; fuch doctrine darkens grace, incroaches upon the prerogative of the Lord our righte oufnefs, and is contrary to the very nature of faith, which is a paffing from, and difclaiming all other foundations, and a running to, and pleading upon the blood of Christ, fhed by the awakened fword of jullice. The doctrine of our text expofes the malignity of a legal fpirit, which is fo natural to men, and rages fo much at this day; as. if men, by their terms and conditions on their part, could pacify a God of terrible majefty, whom yet nothing will appeafe, but the blood of the man that is his Fellow furely they know not the perfection of God's holinefs, the terror of his juflice, the feverity of his tribunal, the fpirituality and extent of his law, nor yet their own corruption, weaknefs, and wickedness by nature, who will dare to make any thing the ground and, condition of their acceptance with God, but the doing.

and

and dying, the blood and righteoufnels of Chrift. Some make faith, others repentance and new obedience, the flrict and proper condition of the new covenant; but if we will not that our eyes, we may fee that Chrift's obedience, fuffering and fatisfaction, is the only proper and ftri&t, so called, condition thereof: the parties of the covenant of grace, are God and Chrift; Chrift anfwering for all the elect therein: now, the condition of the covenant mult be a condition performable and fulfilled by one of the parties, to wit, Chrift; and the condition is, That he, in his obedience to the death, become a facrifice to the fword of divine juftice; and upon this condition all fpiritual, and eternal blings are promifed to the elect; faith, repentance, and all good are promifed upon this ground; for, fays God,. upon his making his foul an offering for fin, "He fhall fee his feed:" they fhall get the good things promised; faith; love, knowledge, fear, and obedience, whier are all the fruits of this grand condition of the covenant : faith is indeed of abfolute neceffity, and the only means whereby we come to be juftified; "It is by faith, that it may be by grace;" that is, faith renounces itself, and all other graces and good things, in point of acceptance with God, and looks for it only in the righteoufnels of Chrift, which alone covers our iniquities, and makes us to be accepted of God: Not by works of righteoufnefs that we do, nor by faith as a work, or as the fulfilling of a condition, upon which, being performed by us, or wrought of God in us, we may plead for God's making out his part of the covenant; O no; our only plea before God. is this object of faith; the bloody facrifice, made by the fword of juftice, upon the man that is God's Fellow; even that our Lord Jefus has paid our debt, by fulfilling the law in our room, and fatisfying for the breaches thereof. As faith is neceffary, feeing without faith it is impoffible to pleafe God; fo is repentance neceffary; "For, except we repent, we fhall all likewife perifh:" holiness is neceffary, "For, without holiness no man fhall fee God:" they are neceffary as qualities of the covenanted purchased and promiled bleffings of the covenant. None actually in the covenant, are without them; and fo all

that