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On the whole of this matter; whosoever conceives any other system of redemption than that which is here set forth, draws it from his own imaginations and prejudices; by no means from the word of God. The fifth chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans alone is sufficient to establish what I have maintained. Whosoever candidly considers the doctrine therein laid down, from the sixth verse inclusive, to the end, will plainly see, that 'for us, ungodly, and destitute of strength to help or redeem ourselves, Christ died; that herein God commendeth his love towards us, who were yet sinners; that if his love so abounded towards us, even when we were in sin,' and unredeemed, we may hope for a still greater degree of it, now that 'we are justified by the blood of his Son,' which is sufficient to save us from his wrath;' that if, 'when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, we have much greater reason to hope,' after such a reconciliation, 'to be saved by his life;' that we have not only cause of hope, but of joy in God, through Christ, having already received the atonement.' The candid reader of this passage, having thus seen the redemption of man through the blood of Christ enlarged on, will be farther instructed by a comparison drawn between Christ and Adam, which will shew him how sin and death came into the world by means of the one; and how they are to be taken out of it again by means of the other: By one man,' saith the Apostle, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Although sin is not imputed where there is no law, nevertheless death (through the breach of the first law) reigned from Adam to Moses, even over such as had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him,' that is, Christ, who was to come;' for he represented, and covenanted for, all mankind; insomuch that since by this man came death, by man,' namely Christ, came also the resurrection of the dead;' 1 Cor. xv. 21. However, though they are alike in this, that they both communicated an entail, the former of sin, and the latter of grace, to all who derive under them respectively; yet they differ in this, that we have less reason to complain, if, through the offence of one, many should have died,' inasmuch as all have sinned, than we have to rejoice, and be thankful, for the grace af

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forded to many through one,' since that grace was a free gift,' bestowed on persons no way resembling the donor in righteousness; through whose righteousness, nevertheless, if it is not their own fault, they may reign in life eternal.' But to conclude; as, by the offence of one,' the first Adam, 'judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so, by the righteousness of one,' the last Adam, 'the free gift came upon all men unto the justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.'

Here the doctrine of the satisfaction is expressly asserted, and the parallel between Christ and Adam, between grace and guilt, between life and death; as also between the free gift of grace and life through Christ on the one side, and the entail of sin and death through Adam on the other; is too clearly stated not to convince us, who submit our private opinions to the word of God, that, by nature, we inherit the guilt and punishment of Adam, and, by adoption, the righteousness and reward of Christ; that, according to my text, as in Adam we all die, so in him we must all have sinned, death being the consequence of sin only; and that as in Christ we shall all be made alive, so in him we must all be first rendered righteous, because life is the effect, or reward, of righteousness alone.

It is true, indeed, that actual, rivets the imputation of original, sin; as, on the other hand, repentance and faith secure to us the imputation of Christ's merit. He who sins, consents to what Adam did, and makes himself a party with the father and representative of sinners. He who repents and believes under the Christian covenant, makes himself a party with the father and representative of believers. The sinner inherits death under Adam; and the believer life under Christ. Either inheritance is chosen by an actual, and strengthened by an habitual, imitation of him who established the original title. The natural birth is the initial form whereby possession of the former, and the new birth in baptism that whereby possession of the latter, is conveyed. To this we must particularly attend, because it depends on ourselves to make good our title through Christ; and, therefore, we are exhorted by St. Peter, to give diligence, that we may make our calling and election sure.'

The satisfaction made for sin by the death of Christ, is, I think, sufficiently proved already in this Discourse; but, whereas that is a subject of infinite importance, and much disputed, I should, according to the second head proposed in this Discourse, proceed to a more full and ample proof of it, were it not that I have taken up too much of your time with the first. For this reason I shall defer this proof to another occasion:

Humbly beseeching him, in the mean time, who giveth us the victory over death, through our Lord Jesus Christ,' that he would make us truly thankful for this great mercy, and inspire our minds with the true principles of eternal life promised to us in and through his Son, and our Saviour; to whom, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, be all might, majesty, dignity, and dominion, now and for evermore. Amen.

DISCOURSE X.

CHRIST THE TRUE AND PROPER SACRIFICE FOR SIN.

1 COR. XV. 22.

As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

TAKING it for granted, that, in my former Discourse on these words, the doctrine of imputation, both as to the sin of Adam, and the righteousness of Christ, was sufficiently established on a scriptural foundation, against the only objections that seemed materially to affect it; I shall endeavour in this more fully to prove from Scripture, that Christ hath not only made satisfaction to his offended Father, for our sins, by his blood, so as to exempt us from the punishment of sin; but hath also, by the merits of his obedience, perfected in the reproachful death of the cross, and, through faith imputed to us, entitled us to eternal life, or the full reward of that righteousness, which results from a strict observance of the divine law in all its parts. After this, I shall

endeavour to shew on what terms these inestimable blessings are offered to us by the evangelical dispensation.

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That we may proceed in this matter with the greater clearness and certainty, let us consider, first, that the holy and good God hates sin; that he is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that he cannot even look on iniquity,' Hab. i. 13; secondly, that there is no peace between God and the wicked,' Isa. xlviii. 22; but 'indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, denounced against every soul that doth evil,' Rom. ii. 8, 9; and, thirdly, that we, being born under the breach of God's covenant, and universally prone to wickedness, are, in the eye of Divine justice, all concluded under sin,' Gal. iii. 22; and, consequently, by nature the children of wrath,' Eph. ii. 3; and strangers from the covenants of promise,' ver. 12. In the next place, let us consider what are the effects of this indignation and wrath thus threatened on account of the natural state of sin into which we are born, and wherein we must unavoidably continue, if we are not born again unto a new and better life. They are, exclusion from the sight and enjoyment of God, together with death temporal and eternal. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord;' Heb. xii. 14. The wages of sin is death;' Rom. vi. 23. The wicked shall go away into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil, and his angels ;' Matt. xxv. 41. Such is the state we are in by nature; and such must be its end, if God do not deliver us from it. Without him we can do nothing,' John xv. 5; 'for we are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;' 2 Cor. iii. 5. Every text here quoted might be supported with many others, equally express and plain, whereby it might appear, that we are by nature the servants of sin,' Rom. vi. 17; that we were sold under sin,' vii. 14; that we were set at a distance from God,' Eph. ii. 13; and that we were 'alienated from him, and enemies in our minds, by wicked works;' Col. i. 21.

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Now if it shall appear as plainly from the same Scriptures, that Christ hath taken our sins on himself; hath suffered the punishment appointed for them by the justice of God in order to set us free; and hath, by his covenant, imparted his own righteousness to us; and if it shall also appear, that God, on this account, hath been reconciled to us, and adopted

us for his children and heirs; this ought surely to end all disputes about the doctrine of the satisfaction among Christians, and free that doctrine from every opposer, but the open and professed Deist.

To prove the first of these points, it will be necessary to consider what is meant in holy Scripture by a sacrifice for sin, especially when Christ is represented as such. The common method of doing this is, by weighing the nature and end of the piacular sacrifices under the law, in order to come at the right notion of the great sacrifice, and its effects. And whereas the Septuagint translators were obliged to give, for the Hebrew terms relating to this subject, such Greek ones as expressed the same intent or effect in the Gentile way of worship; which Greek terms, so applied in that translation, the penmen of the New Testament made use of in quoting the Old, and in writing to both the Jews and Gentiles; it hath also been thought expedient to search the ancient Pagan writers for the true sense of these terms. The method is good in respect to the one course of inquiry as well as the other, and can hardly deceive him who pursues it with candour and diligence. But we have a shorter and surer method, as you shall presently perceive.

However, as to this longer one, no ordinary reader of the Greek classics can help observing, that they considered the Deity as angry at their crimes, and disposed to punish them; that they offered sacrifices to appease his wrath, and avert its penal effects; and that they regarded those sacrifices as representatives of the transgressor, and slain in his stead. He who, having observed this (which Grotius and Lomierus will help him to do), casts his eyes afterward over the Greek of the Old and New Testament, cannot but take notice, that the same terms used by the Greek Pagans, in speaking of their sacrifices, for remission, redemption, expiation, atonement, &c. are applied to the piacular sacrifices treated of in both Testaments, not only without any warning given to the Gentile reader of a change of meaning, but evidently to the same effect, and in the same sense; as appears almost every where by the context, and by the confidence which the performers of these sacred rites appear always to have reposed in them. On the modest supposition, that the Holy Spirit, in writing to the Gentile reader in terms familiar to that

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