THE
DOCTRINE OF
CHRIST’S SUFFERINGS OPENED:

IN THREE SERMONS.

By MR. THOMAS BRADBURY,
MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL.

SERMON I.

Romans 8:32

He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.

These words bear a full proportion to the design for which I have taken them; that is, they show us the sufferings of Christ, in their reality, and their imputation: that Messiah the Prince is come, that he was cut off, but not for himself, Dan. 9:26; that he suffered, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God, 1 Peter 3:18; he finished transgression, made an end of sin; he put it away, by the offering of himself; he made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in an everlasting righteousness. Dan. 9:24.

As the doctrine of the cross is the glory of our religion, it is the foundation of all our hope: the apostle brings it in with a connexion, for, saith he in the former verse, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" The consequent is inseparable, the argument invincible, and therefore his care is to let it be seen that the antecedent is true; to which purpose he offers the text in evidence: "He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all; how shall he not with him freely give us all things?"

He had before observed, "That all things shall work together for our good," Rom. 8:28, and now that all things shall be given in as our property. According to what he says in another place, "All things are yours; whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas, life or death, things present, or things to come, all is yours, 1 Cor. 3:22. The promise takes a large compass; as to the matter of our enjoyment, it reaches to all things; as to the way of it, it is given freely; he does it liberally, and upbraideth not, James 1:5; so that we are not straitened in God, either as to the work of his hand, or the design of his heart. As he is a "sun and shield, as he gives grace and glory, so he withholds no good thing from those that walk uprightly," Ps. 84:11.

And we are assured of what he will do, by what he has done. If there is any thing that he would have grudged, or held back, it must have been the very mercy that he has bestowed already: but it is doing as much as can be, to give us his own Son; and it is impossible that any future grant should go higher; we may look upon what is past as a pledge of what is to come.

The doctrine of the text is, "That God spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all;" and the application we are allowed to make of it is as great and happy, as the truth itself dear and certain, that "he will with him freely give us all things."

It is the former of these that I would now consider; and cannot think upon any better way of doing it for expedition and plainness, than by making the parts of the text to be the plan of the sermon.

You find the apostle is speaking of the most high God, that he is for us: as David says, "The Lord is on my side, I will not fear what man can do unto me," Ps. 118:6; it is the argument that Christ himself has used, "The Lord God will help me, therefore I shall not be confounded: he is near that justifies me: who is he that will condemn me?" Isa. 50:8, 9. And thus the apostle concludes that it signifies very little who is against us, seeing God is for us. Now, this he proves, from what he has done already.

1. He appointed his own Son to be the trustee, the security, the price and assurance of our salvation.

2. This he did to that extremity, as not to spare him from any torments that human nature was able to endure.

3. To all these sufferings there was a divine order: he delivered him up.

4. This was for us all, in our room and stead; he was punished, that we might have a way to escape; and therefore he might say to divine justice, as he did to those that apprehended him, "If ye seek me, let those go their way." John 18:8.

     These are the plain and easy contents of the words, and they amount to this proposition, that

"All the troubles that Christ endured were, by a divine appointment, in the room of his people."

The blow which they deserved, fell upon him: it was thus ordained, it was thus received. "He was wounded for our transgressions: he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed." Isa. 53:5. What manner of love is this; to give us so great a Person, as God’s own Son? To do it in so dear a way, as not to spare him; and that with so kind a view, that it should not only be to us, but for us: these are things that deserve to be taken apart.

I. I begin with the dignity of the gift, the thing, the Person that God bestowed, and that was his own Son. He is so called, 1. By way of distinction from others. 2. By way of eminence in himself.

1st. It is a distinguishing title; you will find the name scattered abroad, as the whole family, both in heaven and earth, are called after him.

(1.) By creation we are all the children of God: "He has made us, and not we ourselves: we are the work of his hands, and the sheep of his pasture," Ps. 100:3. There is "one God our Father, of whom are all things, and we of him," 1 Cor. viii. 6. This is the doctrine of nature; the apostle spoke of it with an approbation at Athens, "as one of your own poets have said, We are his offspring," Acts 17:28.

(2.) Angels possess the name with a dignity above us, as they had an existence before us; for when he laid out the partition between the earth and water, when he set a compass upon the face of the deep, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Job 38:7.

(3.) He has sometimes bestowed the name upon magistrates, principalities, and powers: "I have said ye are gods, and all of you children of the Most High," Ps. 82:6, but very often we find, among the basest of men, Dan. 4:17, those whom he sets over the kingdoms of the earth, where it cannot signify any thing that is either great or good.

(4.) He gave the title to the Jews, and did it by way of distinction: thus he directs Moses to tell Pharaoh; "Israel is my son, and my first-born; let my son go that he may serve me:" thus he upbraids them, when they proved a "foolish people, and unwise, and very ill requited the Lord, who was their Father that had bought them," Deut. 32:6, that is, he had made and established them. It is in these terms he proclaims their return; "I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born," Jer. 31:9. Nor was this a new thing in the earth; for before the flood he was pleased, in that very way, to separate one part of the world from the other: as we are told, The sons of God, the race that called upon the name of the Lord, saw the daughters of men, by which they defiled their separation, Gen. 6:2.

(5.) He has children by sanctification; "to them he gives power or authority to become the sons of God; being born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God," John 1:12, 18. These are renewed in the image of him, who created them: he is a witness to the work of which he is the author, that they are "children and heirs of God," Rom. 8:16, 17. With this principle he tries them, and by that he owns them, saying, "Touch no unclean thing, and I will be a Father to you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord God Almighty," 2 Cor. 6:17, 18.

(6.) He bestows the title upon them by way of adoption. "In the place where it was said to them, ye are not my people; there they shall be called the children of the living God," Hosea 1:10; Rom. 9:25, 26. "We are predestinated to the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ; and the spirit of adoption in our hearts is to make us cry, Abba, Father," Eph. 1:5; Rom. 8:15.

(7.) With this name they are carried up to heaven: He brings "many sons to glory," Heb. 2:10. Upon this head, "Christ and the Father are one," John 10:30, they both speak the same language. It is proclaimed upon the saints’ arrival there, "he that overcomes shall inherit all things; and I will be a God to him, and he shall be my son," Rev. 21:7. Thus he speaks of the whole number, "Behold, here am I, and the children whom God has given me," Heb. 2:13.

With this variety is the name diffused and distributed quite through the Bible: but there is never any danger of misapplying it; for the term, his own Son, is plainly distinguished from every one of them; that belongs to none but Christ: He has, indeed, a name above every name; and though the word may be given about at large, yet there is a sense in it peculiar to him; he has it all to himself. "Of his own will he begat us by the word of truth," James 1:18, and yet he is "the only begotten of the Father," John 1:18: though he brings many sons to glory, yet, as we are told in the parable, he has only one Son, and his well beloved.

2dly. When God calls him his own Son, it is by way of eminence. This was the Father’s decree, this was our Lord’s declaration, that he said unto him, "Thou art my Son," Ps. 2:7. And the apostle looks upon it as a title that reaches above every creature; for "to which of the angels said he at any time, thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee?" Heb. 1:5. It signifies that in him, which it never did, and never can do, in any other; and you may take it to be comprehensive of these four things; 1. Equality of nature. 2. Perpetuity of delight. 3. Unity of counsel. 4. Communion of glory.

1. The term, his own Son, can import no less than an equality in nature. It does so every where: "All nations of men are of one blood," Acts 17:26. "Adam begat a son in his own image, and his own likeness," Gen. 5:3, altogether such a one as himself. Nature is the same in a child, as it is in the fulness of stature; the measure of a perfect man in a beggar and a prince, in a fool and a philosopher, in sickness or in health. It is for this reason that Christ is so often called "the Son of man;" he seems to use it with pleasure and frequency, that we may understand by it, that he was really, as we are, "made of a woman," Gal. 4:4, and in all things "like unto his brethren: forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he himself likewise took part of the same," Heb. 2:14, 17.

And if being called the Son of man does prove the human nature, the Son of God must of necessity signify in him the divine. The derivation of a son from a father, makes a precedence and dependence, according to the train that God has laid before us, but still it leaves the nature the same in both: but as all derivation is to be thrown out when we speak of God, so the title belongs to none but "him, who is before all things, and by whom all things consist," Col. 1:17. Nor has Christ a claim to it, but upon the same perfections with the Father; that he is "Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end," Rev. 1:8, and therefore though he is a Son, yet the name whereby he shall be called, is "the mighty God, the everlasting Father," Isa. 9:6. The words are used in a promiscuous language, as meaning the same thing: "We know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding that we may know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God, and eternal life," 1 John 5:20.

The Jews would never have been offended, had he taken the title with those limitations, that several in our day have put upon it: "But they sought to kill him, because he said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God," John 5:18 He said that God was his own Father; and he says not one word to show them that they had mistaken him. He leaves them possessed of their notion, as a very right one, that the Son of God was equal with God: they knew his words imported this much, "I and my Father are one;" upon which they aver, "For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; because that thou being a man, makest thyself God," John 10:30, 33, 37, 38, though he never said any more than that he was the Son of God: and, as a proof of that, he appeals to the works of his Father. They are so called, not merely because the Father had given him them to do, but as they were works which none beside the Father could do, such as required an almighty arm; "the Father that is in me, he does the works; and I do them, that ye may believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me."

2. This title, his own Son, signifies a perpetuity of love: thus he speaks in the name of wisdom, (as being the wisdom of God, and the power of God, 1 Cor. 1:24.) "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old: I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was; then was I by him, as one brought up with him, daily his delight, and rejoicing always before him." Prov. 8:22, 23, 24, &c. He speaks very often concerning an unity of nature, and yet with a plain distinction of persons.

He is called the only begotten, who lies in the bosom of the Father, John 1:18. This was the witness given to him; he had it at his baptism in a voice from heaven; "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," Matthew 3:17. It was repeated in the "holy mount, when the voice came again from the excellent glory," 2 Peter 1:17, 18, as if when the Father bare witness of him, it would be in no other language than he had used before, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

This he knew quite through the course of life: "He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone, because I do always the things that please him," John 8:29, and therefore though there are many thousands beloved of God, his elect in whom his soul delighted, Matthew 12:18, yet not as he is: so that when we are said to be accepted, it is in him, as the beloved, Eph. 1:6. He alone is the chosen of God and precious, 1 Peter 2:4, we are translated into the kingdom of this dear Son, Col. 1:13.

These characters are included in the title, and ought to be remembered; when we come to consider that he gave him up for us all; not a servant, but a Son; not a rebel, a son that causeth shame, but one who was his delight; "the brightness of his glory, the express image of his own subsistence," Heb. 1:3.

3. It signifies an unity of counsel. Now, as none has understood "the mind of the Lord," Rom. 11:34; there is "none with whom he took counsel," Isa. 40:13; he "put no trust in his saints, and charged his angels with folly," Job 11:18; so how great a name is that by which the child born to us is called, Wonderful Counsellor? Isa. 9:6. He maintains it, and repeats it, even after the Jews had resolved to batter him with stones, for making himself equal with God. He goes on to assert this equality, that the Son can "do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do," John 5:19, 20. The words, doing nothing of himself are not a diminution; the meaning is, that there is a perpetual and an equal concord between them: and it might have been said as truly of the Father, that he can do nothing of himself: for, "whatever things the Father does, these does the Son likewise"’ for the Father loves the Son, and shows him all things that himself does; whereas, had there been an inequality, it might have been said in that empire, that the heart of the king is unsearchable; but as the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God," 1 Cor. 2:10, so the Son knows all that is in the Deity. That must be an infinite mind that is equal to an infinite nature; "No man knows who the Son is but the Father, and who the Father is but the Son," Matthew 11:27.

And is it not a wonder that he should part with him, and give him up for us all, with whom he took counsel? It is plain, that the redemption that he came for, and the sufferings that he came to, were agreed on in "the counsel of peace between them both," Zech. 6:13.

4. The title, his own Son, signifies a communion of glory. We may say to him, as we do to the Father, "thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." There is nothing like an excepting clause in all his commission, such an one as Pharaoh gave Joseph; "according to thy word, shall all my people be ruled, and be thou over the land of Egypt only in the throne will I be greater than thou," Gen. 12:40. Instead of that, he speaks of a "glory that he had with the Father before the world was." This he promises, this he demands: it was his will, that "they whom the Father had given him, should be with him where he was, that they might behold the glory which the Father had given him; for, saith he, thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world," John 17:24, 25. Though the highest insolence of Lucifer was, that he "set his throne is the throne of God," Isa. 14:12, yet, without any inequality, we read that "the throne of God, and of the Lamb, is in heaven, and his servants shall serve him," Rev. 21:1, 2, 3. And as they upon mount Sion have their Father’s name in their foreheads, there is as much said of the Son that they shall see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads.

This is he whom God has given for us, the Lord of glory, James 2:1. It is brought in as a noble aggravation of what he endured, that when "he was in the form of God, and thought it no robbery to be equal with God; he made himself of no reputation, and being found in fashion as a man, took on him the form of a servant, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross," Phil. 2:6.

These are things that I believe to be included within the glorious title of God’s own Son: and we ought to keep them in remembrance, on purpose to see the greatness of the love that gave him for us, and say with the apostle, "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift," 2 Cor. 9:15.

II. We read of this wonderful person that God did not spare him; which signifies the greatness, the extremity of his troubles. The phrase is full and strong, and carries in it a vast meaning; he submitted to the utmost anguish and bitterness. You will understand the word, as you do when it is used in a case that is opposite, "I will spare them in the day that I make up my jewels, as a man spares his own son that serves him," Mal. 3:17. God’s sparing his people then, when he is putting them among his jewels, when they are strung together in the glories of a common salvation, means every thing that can enter into their happiness. We may all know and feel the sense of the comparison, that though a father’s love to a son that serves him, is called no more than sparing him, yet who does not see what a length it reaches; that it comprehends a fulness of delight, a recompense of reward, a confidence, a satisfaction, an open heart and treasure?

Well, in proportion to such an affection as you believe to be contained in a man’s sparing his own son, and God’s sparing his people when they go to heaven, are we to take these words, in this other application, that he spared not his own Son, i. e. he neither hid him from the punishment, nor excused him any particular share in it; he made not the least abatement of what was owing to the guilt of those that he suffered for; "he trod the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God," Rev. 19:15. This you may apply to the six following particulars, viz.

1. His continual meanness. 2. His pains and bodily sufferings. 3. The horror of darkness that came upon his soul. 4. The weight of the law that he was subject to. 5. The scandal of his death. 6. The particular energy that the Father himself gave to all these troubles. There was no abatement in any of them; he drank the last dregs of the cup; not a drop was left or spilt upon the ground.

(l.) You see that God did not spare him from the perpetual meanness of his life. As soon as he was "made of a woman, he made himself of no reputation," Gal. 4:4; he came empty into the world, Phil. 2:7, though in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, Col. 2:9. He was to come of the race of their kings, and was "raised up as an horn of salvation in the house of his servant David," Luke 1:69; but this must be at the time when "the tabernacle of David was fallen," Acts15:16, as if God had cast off and abhorred, and been wroth with his anointed, Ps. 89:38, 39, 40. He had made void the covenant of his servant, and profaned his crown: he had made his glory to cease, and cast his throne to the ground. Bethlehem, the place of his birth, was become "little among the princes of Judah," Micah 5:2, Matthew 2:11, and so crowded with the noble branches of the family, that when "she brought forth her first-born child, she laid him in a manger, because there was no room for him in the inn," Luke 2:7.

What a glory was it that opened the tidings to the shepherds, Luke 2:9, when they themselves were within a circle of light from heaven! Here is a wall of fire round about them; and no wonder, when the great glory was come in the midst of them? To hear the angels preaching the everlasting gospel, telling them "tidings of great joy, that to them was born that day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord;" every word sounded the magnificence of this great thing that came to pass. And in the same breath to be told, that instead of "seeing the Lord of glory, the Prince of the kings of the earth," they should see a child wrapt in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger; this made the narration the most unequal and disproportioned that ever was in the world.

In his youth after he had astonished the doctors of Jerusalem, he goes down, and was subject to his parents at Nazareth; as if he was determined to quench the light of Israel, Luke 2:47, 51.

And as his fame increased, so did his reproach; as he complains in prophecy, "reproach has broken my heart, I am full of heaviness," Ps. 69:20, upon which they "hid their faces from him, they despised and esteemed him not," Isa. 53:3. Though he was "the branch of the Lord, beautiful and glorious," Isa. 4:2, yet he came as a "root out of a dry ground:" all they who were looking for him "saw no comeliness in him; he was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," Isa. 53:4.

He who was to have "the government upon his shoulders," Isa. 6:7, had not "where to lay his head," Luke 9:5; "though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor," 2 Cor. 8:9. He lived upon the voluntary contribution of his hearers; "they ministered to him of their substance," Luke 8:3. Though the great men from the east "brought him presents, gold, frankincense, and myrrh," as the first fruits of a glorious empire, Matthew 2:11, yet the King of kings is a servant of rulers, Isa. 49:7, and the desire of all nations is one whom his own nation abhors, Hag. 2:7. Though "the kings of Sheba and Seba would offer gifts," Ps. 72:10, yet he cannot pay his tribute money till he sends for it out of a fish’s mouth, Matthew 17:27.

(2.) You may refer this to his bodily pains and sufferings. He who was "fairer than the sons of men," Ps. 45:2, has his "visage marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men," Isa. 52:14. "He whose countenance is now as the sun, when it shines in all its strength," Rev. 1:16, "hid not his face from shame and spitting," Isa. 50:6; and though the time will come that from "his countenance the heaven and the earth shall flee away," Rev. 20:11, yet they covered his face and smote him, John 4:6.

He knew the meaning of hunger and thirst, of cruel mockings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonments: he was scourged as a malefactor, had a crown of thorns platted upon his head: "greedy dogs came against him, they pierced his hands and his feet: his bones were all out of joint; his heart like wax melted in the midst of his bowels: they gave him gall for his meat, and in his thirst they gave him vinegar to drink," Ps. 22:16. A body seems to be prepared for him, Heb. 10:5, that he might "bear our sins in his body on the tree," 1 Peter 2:24, so that we see him racked and torn; no "soundness in his flesh, because of God’s anger," Ps. 38:3. This is he that "came by water and blood," 1 John 5:6, for they "pierced his side, and forthwith there came out blood and water," John 19:34.

(3.) He had a horror of great darkness upon his soul: which shows it to be no supernatural spirit, but of the very same nature with ours, capable of grief, and appointed to it. This he desires his disciples to observe and attend; "his soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death," Matthew 26:38, and therefore he orders them to watch. Grief in them was able to cheat itself, it sunk them to sleep: but it kept him awake, and "his sweat was like great drops of blood falling to the earth," Luke 22:44.

(4.) That which pressed him so much was the weight of the law. He was made under the law, Gal. 4:4, and as it is said that such people are under the curse, Gal. 3:  10, it was the curse that we are redeemed from; for no man could, by any means, "redeem this our elder brother, or pay, unto God a ransom for him," Ps. 49:7; no, "he paid himself a ransom for us," 1 Tim 2:6. "The righteousness of the law speaks in this wise, that the man who does these things shall live in them," Rom.10:5; he did these things with perfection and purity, and yet nevertheless the law that was ordained to life, was to him a sentence of death: for though obedience and punishment were divided, so that no person could have both, yet in him they are united: here is a righteous servant, Eccl. 8:14, to whom it happens, according to the work of the wicked; for upon him was laid the iniquity of us all, Isa. 53:6.

(5.) The scandal of his death. God had said to the Jews, "Cursed is every one that is hanged on a tree," Deut . 21:23, Gal. 3:10. The Romans had no such tradition; and therefore he could never have suffered but in this due time, Rom. 5:6, that the sceptre was departed from Judah, Gen. 49:10. The Romans would never have found him guilty of such a crime; the Jews would never have inflicted such a punishment; but he is to be delivered to the Gentiles. Pilate had a mind to be clear of it, and therefore throws it all out of his hands: "Take ye him, and judge him according to your law." The Jews therefore said unto him, "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death, that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, signifying what death he should die," John 18:31, 32. He told them plainly after this, "Take ye him, and crucify him; I find no fault in him;" upon which they reply, "We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God," John 19:4.

Blasphemy is his sin, which none but the Jews would have called so: crucifixion is his punishment, which none but the Romans would have made so; and therefore it is thus ordered, that the "heathen shall rage at the same time that the people imagined a vain thing," Ps. 2:1:and that he might, in every sense of the word, be a curse for us, he is to have it not only from the moral law, but from the ceremonial. They took him, and hanged him on a tree, Acts 5:30, and therefore it is said, when he endured the cross, he despised the shame, Heb. 13:2.

(6.) That which is principally to be minded, is the particular energy that the Father gave to all these troubles; even this was the doing of the Lord. The Jews took him to be stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, Isa. 53:4. They argued as David foretold they would, "Let us persecute and take him, because God has forsaken him." All the varieties of trouble that seized him were under a divine appointment. He who settles the bounds of our habitation, provided none for him, he chastened him, and gave him over to death. The Lord God "wakened and opened his ear, morning by morning, that he might give his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair," Isa. 1:4, 5, 6.

He begs of the Father, like one who had "learned obedience by the things that he suffered," Heb. 5:8, "all things are possible to thee, let this cup pass from me; and, if it may not pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done;" Matthew 26:39. Well, it was his will, the cup which the Father had given him to drink. There was nothing that looked like sparing a Son that serves him. The law was in his heart, and we may say it went to his heart; he felt it there, which made his heart faint within him.

Though he was offered as a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour, Eph. 5:2, yet who would have thought so, when he pleads and groans, and cries, and argues under his burden, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Matthew 27:46. "Why art thou so far from the voice of my roaring?" Ps. 22:1.

This was so evident, that they insult him upon it; "Let us see, say they, whether Elias will come to take him down." Mark 15:36. Elias met him in the mount of transfiguration, and there spake of his decease at Jerusalem, Matthew 17:6, but he could do nothing to prevent it, Luke 9:31. He foretold on mount Tabor, what happened on Calvary. It was still more daring to say, "Let God deliver him, if he will have him; for he said, I am the Son of God."

Upon the whole, you see the truth and propriety of those astonishing words, that "it pleased the Father to bruise him, and put him to grief;" Isa. 53:10. I will not say it was threatened, but it was designed, when God proclaimed, "Awake, O sword, against the man that is my fellow; smite the shepherd;" Zech. 13:7. There could never be a greater occasion to plead, as the prophet does, Jer. 47:6, 7; "O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? Put up thyself into the scabbard, rest, and be still." But the answer was ready, How can it be quiet, when the Lord hath given it such a charge, and has so appointed it? For, as he spared him not, it was he who delivered him up.

SERMON II.

Romans 8:32

He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.

     The apostle takes care to let us know that there was a divine appointment of all the sorrows and grief with which our Lord became acquainted. "He gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God, and our Father," Gal. 1:4.

That second causes had their share and their guilt, is true: the envy of the priests, the rage of the heathen, the jealousy of the rulers, the superstition of the rabble, the influence of Satan, the avarice of Judas, Matthew 27:18, these are placed as an over-ruling providence ordained or permitted them. But still there was a supreme guiding cause, that quickened the movement, and turned the wheels.

What He did, was holy, just, and good. The malignity of the several creatures obeyed his will, without polluting it: to them it was a scene of wickedness, the lust of the flesh and of the mind: malice, pride, and envy, were so many snares of the devil, by which he led them captive, and in that view the crucifying of the Lord of glory, was the greatest impiety that ever human nature ran into: but take it as a model, laid by an all-comprehending mind, an understanding that is infinite, Ps. 147:5, and we may say, here was a train of the best means, in order to accomplish the greatest end.

Never did the divine goodness appear in a nobler design; never did the divine wisdom shine out in a better method; never was any thing more becoming him, "of whom are all things, and by whom are all things, than in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect, through his sufferings," Heb. 2:10.

The Scripture has taken a great deal of care to keep this in view, quite through the story of Jesus Christ, and him crucified; that nothing happened to him, but in pursuance of a counsel and purpose, that was moved and agreed to before the world began; and therefore it is spoken of in my text, as the doing of the Lord.

Had we been told of the priests, who drew up the charge, and stirred up the people, that they spared him not; had this been said of those that reviled him, that cut him with thorns, or nails, or spears, we could easily have understood it: had the apostle told us, that he was delivered up, Acts 3:13, by his countrymen, to Pilate, and by him back again to them, the phrase would have stood without any mystery: but when we read of his being humbled and grieved, neglected and wounded, and all this said of the Father, that thus used his own Son, that he did not spare him, that he delivered him up, it is a thing that man’s wisdom can neither give nor take; and therefore the Holy Spirit has been very abundant to carry this quite through the Bible, as you will see by a long train of particulars.

1. It was agreed on in the counsel between the Father and the Son.

2. It was foretold in the very dawning of the love and kindness that appeared towards men.

3. It was designed in the whole frame of devotion, which God appointed among his people.

4. To this I may add, that these shadows were discharged and abolished, as soon as ever the thing signified was accomplished.

5. It is what the prophets in their several ages gave a lineal witness to.

6. It is a thing of which Christ himself was apprised, and to which he consented.

7. It is what the human nature was prepared and disposed for.

8. This he kept off, till the time appointed for it came, to show that it was always in his power to prevent it.

9. Then he went out to meet it, and received it not only with submission, but obedience.

10. There is to be at, eternal memorial of it in heaven; which shows that the design was laid in the place where it is to be admired.

I have thrown these things into the order and situation that the word of God has given them; and I doubt not that they will let us see that we ought to look a great deal higher than to the powers of darkness in the sufferings of Christ. That it was not merely the push of envy, the produce of malice, treachery, deceit, and murder, but it is to be considered as his own obedience to death, even the death of the cross. It was also the Father’s appointment, what he demanded in law, and what he delighted in, as God only wise, who is blessed for ever; according to the apostle’s distinction, when he argues with the Jews; "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain," Acts 2:28.

First, He observes their action in the whole gradation; they took him, and crucified him, and slew him. Secondly, They did it by wicked hands, and wicked hearts: he could never afford them any better name than betrayers and murderers, Acts 7:52, and yet, Thirdly, The person thus used was delivered, given up, surrendered, and appointed to the self same lot. Fourthly, This was by the foreknowledge of God; he could tell that so it would be: Nay, Fifthly, It is by his determinate counsel, what he had framed and fixed, and brought into a certain sphere, that it should most surely come to pass.

1. We may say, with the scriptures of truth, that the sufferings of Christ were agreed on between the Father and the Son. Indeed, this is the secret of the Lord, and among his invisible things, 1 Cor. 2:9, 18, nor could we ever have known them, had they not been revealed to us by his Spirit, as now they are.

We are expressly told, that Christ, as a branch, should grow up out of his place, Zech. 6:12, and this we know to be out of a dry ground, Isa. 53:2; and though he was to build the temple of the Lord, yet the temple of his body is to be destroyed, in order to it, John 2:19. He should, indeed, bear the glory, but before that he must bear our griefs, and carry our sorrows, Isa. 53:4, and though he should sit upon his throne, he is there as a Priest, as one who has somewhat to offer; and all this scheme of humiliation and trouble flows from the counsel of peace that was between them both.

It was "the pleasure of the Lord that prospered in his hand," Isa. 53:10, not only what the Lord pleased to appoint, but the very thing in which his soul delighted; the darling project, the favourite article, the chief of the ways of God, which he magnified above all his name, Ps. 138:2. There was a model of glory laid, that would both outshine the creation, and outlast it: it will hold when "the first heaven and the first earth are passed away," Rev. 21:1. When he has rubbed out all the figures of Deity, that are engraven upon the universe, he reserves a memorial that shall endure for ever, and that is in the redemption that he has purchased.

Here are a people to be saved who are sold; and, therefore, to make his love triumphant, they are bought with a price, 1 Cor. 6:19. The person who pays it is the Son of God; the thing that he lays down for it is his precious blood, 1 Peter 1:19, 20. To this he was verily foreoreordained before the foundation of the word, though not manifest till these last times. This does not only signify that the happiness we have in him, was then contrived, but the means of bringing it about were then appointed, and that was the precious blood of the Son of God, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot; so that it may be said of all his troubles, they are the birth of an eternal purpose, the decree brought forth.

The disciples knew how to consider the design of God, and the malignity of men, without any jumble or confusion; they work together, and yet are greatly distinct; things are called by their proper names. Here is "the rage of the heathen, the vain imaginations of the people, the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. Herod and Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, with the people of Israel, of a truth, had gathered together against the holy child Jesus; but it was to do what God’s own hand and counsel had determined before to be done." Act 4:25-28. He was not the author of their sin, though they were the tools of his pleasure. We read here, that the determination is attributed both to his hand and his counsel: as if it was not a dead scheme, a thing laid for a peradventure, what may happen, or may not; but the decree was quickened, full of life, and would certainly, after the leisure of many ages, produce what it contrived.

You will suppose that this includes the concurrence of both parties; and it lets us see, that whatever is done, is the effect of a plan that God has purposed in himself: for when the world was framing, and the Redeemer, who was "daily his delight, rejoiced always before him," even then he is said to rejoice in "the habitable parts of the earth, and have his delights among the sons of men," Prov. 8:30, 31, and the argument we have of his delight in them, is the way he took to show it; "The good Shepherd gives his life for the sheep," John 10:11.

2. The sufferings of Christ were foretold in the very dawn of the love and kindness of God our Saviour towards men; he acted upon our recovery, as he did upon the creation. When Adam and Eve had fallen, the human nature was "without form and void, and darkness lay upon the face of the deep:" till be broke silence with that great voice, Let there be light: he was pleased to visit them, as they sat in the region and shadow of death; there he brought to life and immortality to its first light, 2 Tim. 1:10; and that was the morning of our gospel. They were then assured that the serpent should be bruised in the head, Gen. 3:15, crushed and mashed in pieces; that is, in the gospel style, The prince of this world shall be judged, John 16:11. But the way of doing it, is making the conqueror the seed of the woman, and suffering the enemy to bruise his heel. That these expressions denote the human nature of Christ, and his troubles in it, is above all dispute; so that,

The first doctrine revealed to Adam was a redemption through the blood of Jesus, Col. 1:14. That he should be made of a woman, to be made under the law, Gal. 4:4, and being under the law, was under the curse, Gal. 3:10. This is the current article, the thing most in view quite through the Old and New Testament; that he verily should be partaker of flesh and blood, as all the children were, that "through death, he might subdue him that had the power of death, that is, the devil," Heb. 2:14. We may extend the apostle’s observation, and take it in a wider circumference; as he says, "The Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, in thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," Gal. 3:8 The truth is the same, after you have stretched it out as it was designed; that as the justification of sinners should be through a faith in Jesus, even a faith in his blood, God preached before the gospel to Adam and Eve, saying, "in her seed all the families of the earth should be blessed."

It was by faith in this that Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, Heb. 11:4, something that was more a sacrifice, that better agreed to the nature and design of it. As it was managed in a way of slaughter, it had respect to him, who is called, "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." By this he obtained witness that he was righteous; not by this faith, but by the sacrifice; for though the grammatical construction agrees to either of them, yet I rather choose this interpretation, because there is particular notice taken, that God testified of his gifts.

They all knew here was "a hope set before them," Heb. 6:18, that God was gracious in the remission of sins; and they looked to the great atonement, as "the reason of the hope that was in them." So early did God "set him forth, fore-ordained him to be a propitiation for our sins, through faith in his blood," Rom. 3:25. The apostle says no other thing than Moses, in the law, and the prophets did write, Acts 26:22, nay, the very same that Adam, Abel, Enoch, and all they who walked with God, believed and owned in their generations; that his own Son should be delivered up for us all: it was a doctrine that opened to them with the very eyelids of the morning. This has its place among "the first principles of the oracles of God," Heb. 5:12, and in this sense we may truly say, Christianity is as old as the creation.

3. These sufferings of Christ were figured out in the whole frame of that devotion; which God appointed among his people. Their religion before the flood had the light of revelation to guide it. As they offered by faith, as they walked before God, it proved them to be reconciled: for "how should two walk together except they are agreed?" Amos 3:3. Their sacrifices in so many forms were an argument how much they believed that "without the shedding of blood, there could be no remission;" and this must carry their thoughts to him, who was to redeem us "in the body of his flesh through death," Heb. 9:22.

But these rules came to be more digested and multiplied: when he took the seed of Abraham into covenant with him, he gave them circumcision, as a seal of the righteousness of that faith, Rom 4:11, which they had. When they were uncircumcised, they built their altars, as so many types of that altar that sanctifies every gift, 1 Cor. 5:7. They had their Paschal Lamb, as a pledge of "Christ our Passover, who is sacrificed for us," Ps. 51:ult. There was the blood of bulls and goats, whole burnt-offerings, their incense and perfumes all thrown into the same devotions, in hopes of him who has "given himself for us, a sacrifice of sweet smelling savour," Eph. 5:2. They instantly served God day and night, Acts 26:7, they did it with a fervency, an intenseness, and a rest of thought upon the great hope of Israel.

Now, to what purpose should God lead a peculiar people to devotions that required a large expense of time and cost, but only to put them in mind of him, who is "a High-priest of good things to come," Heb. 9:11, 12, and who, "by his own blood should enter into the holiest of all, having obtained eternal redemption for us:" so that Judaism was only Christianity in figures, and shadows of good things to come.

4. I must add to this head, that which still gives more light and force to the argument, that these shadows are discharged and abolished upon the death of Christ. This proves, that as we are never to have them at all, so the Jews had them, not for the sake of the things themselves, but the Holy Ghost signified, that the "way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest," Heb. 9:8. For had there been any virtue in them, "they would not have ceased to be offered," Heb.10:2. But the New Testament speaks of them with contempt, as the Old one did with veneration. They are called "weak and beggarly elements, carnal ordinances," Gal. 4:9, and an obedience to them is "being in bondage," Heb.10:10.

What is the reason that the service of God, which was once a glory, should be now a shame? Rom. 9:3. The apostle has plainly told us, that "what was made glorious has no glory, by reason of a glory that excels," 2 Cor. 3:10. The whole prediction of these typical duties is answered: they were but patterns of things in the heavens; ours are the heavenly things themselves, Heb. 9:23. The body is Christ, Col. 2:17. He has done in one offering, Heb.10:10-12, what they could only give us so many draughts of in a thousand. This proves there was a double end to be answered in the crucifixion of our Lord; first to accomplish the service of the temple; and, secondly to abolish it: and therefore, there is no more occasion to bring oftentimes the same sacrifices; for " Christ has appeared in the end of the world, to put away sin by the offering of himself," Heb. 9:25, 26. You may plainly see the blood of their slain beasts was shed without the gate, and carried without the camp, Heb.13:11. This was afterwards brought within the veil, and upon the garments of the high-priest presented before the holiest of all. And thus is Christ gone, not with the blood of others, but his own; not into the holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself.

They had it as their distinction from all other people, that as "of them Christ was to come," Rom. 9:5, so among them he was to be well known: but "the veil is rent, and the middle wall of partition broken down," Matthew 28:51, and he did this by dying: "He abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, of twain making one new man," Eph. 2:13, 14. This could never he done without his death: for all the ceremonial law was in full force, till "the seed came to whom the promise was made," Gal. 2:19, and the thing was over to which those figures had their allusion.

This proves that his humiliation, from the birth to the grave, from the manger to the cross, was all laid and contrived. "The Son of man went, as it was written of him," Matthew 26:24. It was not a start of second causes, an event that bubbled out unawares; but foreseen, foretold, and fore-ordained. And though what he died for was not the righteousness of the law, yet it is a righteousness to which "both the law and the prophets gave witness," Rom. 3:22. All their devotion was a shadow of good things to come, Heb.10:1, and therefore could "make nothing perfect, as the bringing in of a better hope did; by which we now draw nigh unto God," chap.7:18, 19. You see by these two particulars, that God ever brought up his people in the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sin, and in the knowledge of that remission by the blood of the cross: because almost all things under the law are purged with blood, Rom. 9:22, and why did they so often meet with it, but to keep their faith alive in this great article of a satisfaction to his justice?

5. It is what the prophets, in their several ages, gave a lineal witness to; prophecy was nothing but revelation retailed and dealt out in parcels: "holy men of God spake as they were moved," 2 Peter 1:20, 21, blown about and carried, directed and appointed, borne and upheld by the Holy Ghost. What God at first declared with his own mouth, afterwards he distributed through earthen vessels, at "sundry times, and in divers manners," Heb. 1:1. And as the first and greatest thing that ever he had to tell mankind, was redeeming love, so the light he gave to every prophet was kindled at that. Whatever he said about their duties, their sins, their captivity, and deliverance, were so many lines stretching, pointing, and centering here. As the apostle Peter tells us, that the prophets who inquired and searched into "our salvation, spake of the grace that is come to us," 1 Peter 1:10, 11. It was the Spirit of Christ in them that testified the two main things, "the sufferings of Christ," and "the glory that should follow;" and it was revealed to them, that not to themselves but to us they did minister; they insisted upon things that are now reported among us.

Peter declared this to the Jews, at the time that he set himself to convince them of their sin: "They had delivered up, and denied the holy and just One, and killed the prince of life," Acts 3:13, 14, but he would have them know, that God delivered him up too, Acts 3:17, 18. "For," says he, brethren, "through ignorance you did it; but those things that God before had shown by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he has so fulfilled:" It is a large compass that he takes in his affirmation, to make it the doctrine of all the prophets; and yet you find he does not flinch from what he had said, but tells them over again, "that all the prophets from Samuel, and those that followed after, have foretold of these days," verse 24.

David speaks concerning him, that "his soul was not left in hell," Acts 2:25, which intimates that it was laid there; that his sufferings were of such a nature as to be thus expressed. When our Lord opened the Scriptures to the disciples, who were going to Emmaus, he did it out of the law of Moses and the Prophets, and the book of Psalms, Luke 24:45, 46, proving from all of them, that Christ "must needs have suffered," Acts 17:3, and entered into his glory; that it behoved him, he could not do otherwise.

It is plain from the established songs of Zion, that our praises are owing to "the Lamb that was slain," Rev. 5:9. He was to be "poor and needy before the Lord set him up on high," Ps. 69:29. It was by the mouth of his servant David he said, "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but mine ear hast thou opened," Ps. 40:6, or, mine ear hast thou bored; that is, I am set out and marked to be thy servant for ever: I have got the perpetual badge. The equivalent to this phrase in the New Testament is "a body hast thou prepared me," Heb.10:5, 6. And by matching the one of these to the other, we see that with "the fashion of a man" he took on him "the form of a servant:" Phil. 2:7, 8, preparing him a body, was boring his ear; he had it on purpose to "learn obedience by the things that he suffered," Heb. 5:7.

David also speaks of his "drinking of the brook in the way," Ps. 110:7. Our poetical translator makes no more of it, than that he should stoop to mean refreshments; which is, I think, a mean exposition, and carries but a mean refreshment in it to the faith of God’s people: it is plainly a local phrase; and relates to the sorrows in which he passed over the brook Kidron; the place that had been so bitter to David, when he fled from Absalom, 2 Sam. 15:23, and should be so to Christ, when he was falling into the hands of Judas.

Isaiah did not only "see his glory," John12: 11, but his "sufferings and spake of them;" that in his humiliation "he was taken away; he was oppressed and afflicted, brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before the shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth: He was taken from prison and judgment; cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgressions of my people was be stricken; my righteous servant shall justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities: he poured out his soul to death, he bare the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors," Isa. 53:3-8.

Daniel tells us plainly, that "the Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself; that in the midst of the week he shall die," Dan. 9:26. Zechariah speaks of the sword drawn against "one who is God’s fellow," Zech.13:7, the same thing that the apostle says; that "being in the form of God, he became obedient to death," Phil. 2:6, 7. He is express upon this head, that "they shall look on him whom they have pierced," Zech. 12:10. And what shall I more say? the time would fail me, to speak of all those who have been preachers of the righteousness that is by faith. It was in accomplishment of this design that one of the soldiers "run a spear into his side, and forthwith came out blood and water," John19:34.

6. It is the thing that Christ himself was apprised of, and consented to. "Lo, I come, saith he; in the volume of the book it is written of me." The apostle has a great remark upon the connexion of these words; "That above, when he had said, Sacrifice and burnt-offering for sin, thou wouldest not; then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God; he takes away the first, that he may establish the second," Heb.10:7-10, that is the first appointment of sacrifice and burnt-offering, that he may establish the second, his own designation to slaughter; and "by this will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus, once for all:" as if this was the main will of God, the things that he insisted on, and to which our blessed Saviour paid his homage at last; when he said, "Not my will, but thine be done." He became incarnate that he might become obedient, as will appear from the next head.

7. The human nature of Christ was prepared and disposed for these sufferings: his whole life was cast into such a mould of providence, that from the beginning to the end, he was to be "despised and rejected of men," Isa. 53:2. As David knew, that of the fruit of his loins, "God would raise up Christ to sit on his throne," Acts 2:30, so we should think the son of David would array himself with glory and majesty, and cast abroad his eyes upon every one that is proud, and abase him; but instead of that, he seems to have no relation to David’s throne, but rather to "all his afflictions;" a "reproach to his acquaintance," and a "shaking of the head to all the people," Ps. 132:1.

He conversed with places where they gave him no respect; he chose to live as a prophet "without honour, in his own country," Luke 4:24. He came from Nazareth, out of which no good thing was ever supposed to come, John 1:46. He lived in Galilee, out of which there arose no prophet, chapter7:52. Both his town and his country were of no repute. He asks water to drink of a Samaritan woman, John 4:8, which any Jew besides himself would have thought a dishonour. He was so hungry, as to seek fruit on a fig-tree upon the road, and to go empty away: as if he had laid out for shame and grief, and determined, quite through his life, to make himself of "no reputation," Phil. 2:7.

He had our nature in all the tender sensations. Reproach had broken his heart, by the contradiction of sinners against himself, Ps. 69:20. He was "sorrowful and sore vexed," Heb. 12:3; his body was too weak to bear the cross; he falls under it, "fainting in the day of adversity, to show that his strength was small." He had nature in all its feeling; every power that was able to receive a torture, all the capacities of misery. Crucifixion might deaden the other two by degrees; the more they spent, the less they felt. But he died, as it were, in full life; and the moment he gave out a loud voice, he gave up his spirit too: so that, it is evident, he was made to be "stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted," Isa. 53:4. Not a softening article in all the case, but the very dregs of wrath. There was no sorrow like to his sorrow.

8. He kept off his troubles till the appointed time came. Though I do not give you this as a full argument, yet you will easily see it opens the way to it. He had it always in his power to control or escape the whole wrath of man. When they took him to the brow of the hill, Luke 4:29, on which the city was built, with a design to throw him down headlong, though he was upon the brink of ruin, he comes quietly away. When the officers went to take him, he tied their hands with what he said, John7:45, 46, and they who were to be rulers of his person, were captives to his speeches. When his enemies had worked themselves and the people into a common rage, he did by that storm as he did by others; he said Peace, be still, and it ceased in a moment. When great multitudes went out to take him, "no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come," John 8:20.

The amount of the examples is what he tells us, that "no man can take away my life from me: I have power to lay it down, and power to take it again," chap.10:18. And to this you may add, his assurance of help from above, if ever he desired it: but he gives it as the reason of his being so resigned, because it was of a divine appointment. Thus he argues with Peter; "Thinkest thou that I cannot pray to the Father, and he will presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?"

9. These sufferings are what he went out to meet: he thought it his duty to do so. When he speaks of his being betrayed, forsaken, condemned and crucified; he says, "that the world may know I love the Father; As the Father gave me commandment, so I do; arise, and let us go hence," John 14:31. It is under this control that he prays and cries, "Father, let this hour pass from me; nevertheless, for this cause came I to this hour," chap. 12:26, that is, "There is nothing in this hour which I so dread, but what ought to be there. It is the enemies’ hour, and the power of darkness, a day of darkness and gloominess, of clouds and thick darkness." The sun shrunk in, as if nature itself would do nothing to hinder the whole power of darkness. Yet in all this he only went as it was written of him; nor was there any thing that could be surprising to him, either unseen or unchosen. He submitted to it all. His last action was to bow the head, that he might die in the posture of a willing servant.

10. There is to be an eternal memorial of these things in heaven, which shows the design was laid in the place, where it shall be ever admired. The offence of the cross is ceased to them above: they are no more ashamed of it, than they are enemies to it, but weave it into all their praises. When they speak of Jesus, as the "faithful Witness, the Prince of the kings of the earth," you may say, "Holy and reverend is his name:" but they do not forget that he is the "first begotten from the dead;" and from that title there gushes out an adoration; "To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, be glory and dominion for ever," Rev. 1:5, 6.

Thus the happy throng that are about him, from every part of the grand circle, give in their praises; "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people; and nation," Rev. 5:9. Nay, the angels themselves, those morning stars, sing at our redemption, as they did at our creation; "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive honour, power, strength, salvation, glory, and blessing," verse 11, 12.

SERMON III.

Romans 8:32

He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.

The last thing to be considered in these words, is the great end upon which our Saviour became "obedient to death, even the death of the cross," Phil. 2:6, and that by the appointment of the Father. Why did not God spare his own Son, but deliver him up? What design had he in a scheme so full of wonder, and so full of horror? What means the heat of this great anger? Now, the text I am upon abounds with light as well as comfort; it was for us all.

There is no cloud upon the sentence: it is not to be numbered among the things that are hard to be understood, 2 Peter 3:16, and therefore why should any endeavour to pervert the words of peace and truth, which contain in them so much of good will towards men? Luke 2:14; because there is nothing got by it. To deny the satisfaction that Christ has made, is a robbery upon God, and a murder to his people: it is destroying the "grace wherein we stand," Rom. 5:2.

That I am a sinner, is so true, that there is no pretence to doubt it; that by this God is angry, is a matter beyond all dispute; that without his favour I can have no hope of escaping the wrath to come, is very certain: now, it is not to be supposed that he will be gracious to me with any injury to himself; but, if I am saved, as it will be to the glory of his mercy, so there must be no dishonour upon any other attribute: therefore some way or other he must be "faithful and just to forgive us our sins," 1 John 1:9. He will be "well pleased for his righteousness’ sake: he will magnify the law, and make it honourable," Isa. 42:21. It is not enough that there is "the forbearance of God in the remission of sins that are past," Rom. 3:25, but "he declares his righteousness;" he declares, I say, at this time, in the moment of pardon, his righteousness, "that he may be just, and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus."

And if this is to be the case, there is but one of these two ways for it, either by relaxing the punishment, and erasing what is threatened, or by insisting upon it, and executing the fierceness of his wrath. The former of these is so very inglorious to God, that it cannot be admitted without a suspicion of weakness. Men are oftentimes obliged to acts of grace, to reverse a sentence, and dismiss a criminal; and it is not so much an argument of their goodness, as of their imperfection. They could not in the making of their laws foresee the necessity there would be of dropping them; and in many cases, it is more their interest to release an offender, than it is to destroy him. They pardon because they cannot help it, and drop the terrors that they dare not execute: and so their laws are often repealed or dispensed with, and the penalties they declare are no more than the "blast of a terrible one," a mere "storm against a wall," Isa. 15:4.

But all these shuffling ways are dishonourable to him, who "is the rock, and his work is perfect; a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he," Deut. 32:4. If his law is what he will not execute, to what purpose did he give it? Either he foreknew the sentence would be discharged, or he did not. To say he did not, but that several things happen in the course of life that he could not foresee, is to deny that his understanding is infinite, Ps. 147:5; for, if he is the Father of lights, be must be without any variableness or shadow of turning, James 1:17.

And then if he really knew that, here was a threatening added that would never be accomplished, why should so rash a word come out of his mouth? That be far from the Judge of all the earth, Gen. 18:25, to trifle with his creatures; or to make the terrible things that he says in righteousness, a great noise about nothing. The Lord is righteous, Ps. 65:5, both in giving the command, and in taking vengeance: it is ever true of our God, and ever glorious to him, that "he will by no means clear the guilty," Exod. 34:17.

Now, if there is a satisfaction to be made, upon the ground of which we are pardoned, it must be either by ourselves, or by a surety; either we or he are to find out a ransom. If we can do it, it must be only one of these two ways, either by our active or passive obedience. Our active obedience, though we were able to make it perfect, is no more than it ought to be: it may reach to the demands of the law, but not to the breaches of it. Doing a present work, is no discharge to a former debt: duty can never be an atonement for sin. "He that offends in one point, is guilty of all," James 2:10. And if a person does not "continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, he is accursed," Gal. 3:10. A single failure in a single article lays him under a condemnation.

To say that he accepts of what we ought to do, as an equivalent to what we ought to suffer, is to make void the law, Rom. 3:30, and God forbid that we should do so; for if my duty is to answer all the ends of my punishment, it confounds the whole nature of actions: nor can it be a rational scheme, without supposing that the punishment is quite abolished; and that amounts to no less than if we should say, that God’s justice is an attribute to be totally neglected; that though all the rest of them should sit upon a throne of glory, yet this is cast out like the king of Babylon, "as an abominable branch," Isa. 14:19, as a perfection no longer to be regarded. But this will never pass in heaven, where the method of praise is already settled: "Just and true are all thy ways, thou King of saints," Rev.15:3. "The heavens shall declare his righteousness," Ps. 97:6; he will always appear to be "the holy and the just One." And as "the pleasure of the Lord," Isa. 53:6, has prospered in the hand of Christ, so one head of that pleasure is "for his righteousness’ sake," Isa. 42:21.

So that, I take it for granted, our salvation is, some way or other, become a righteous thing with God, what he does with a reputation to his equity. As we have sinned, Rom. 3:23, and that sin is the transgression of the law, 1 John 3:4, so the law is to be magnified when the sin is pardoned: that can never be by our obedience; for, whatever law it is that gives life, verily righteousness is to be by that law," Gal. 3:21. It must then be by our punishment; and there are but two ways of allowing this, which I believe will appear to be equally trifling.

If the punishment is complete, there is no pardon for us: if it is not, there is no satisfaction to God. As duty consists in all that the law commands, so vengeance comprehends all that the law has threatened.

To talk of God’s accepting our imperfect obedience, instead of what he has required, is to make him guilty of breaking the law, as well as us we do it by a disobedience, and he by a dispensation. And to say that he will receive an imperfect punishment, instead of what he has spoken of, makes the threatening no more than great swelling words of vanity, mere wind and bluster.

I can, therefore, with all the use of my reason, see nothing but a heap of briers and thorns, a long train of entanglement, in denying the satisfaction of Christ; I must suppose that God made a law, which afterwards he thought fit to drop; that he published a threatening without any design of an execution; and that had he foreseen the difficulty, he would never have done it; with all the knotty twisted perplexities that follow, that he is changeable, undetermined, not of one mind, Job 23:13, but that any may turn him.

Or I must think, on the other hand, that he has treated the law as an institution, and his justice as an attribute; and that the reparation he has made to the one, and the honour he has given to the other, is by "the obedience of that one Man, through whom many are made righteous," Rom. 5:19. No "tittle of the law is to fail," Matthew 5:18., not a grain of the threatening is to be lost. Had the execution fallen upon us, there could be no pardon, and therefore it must be upon another: and we are "delivered from going down to the pit, because he has found a ransom," Job 33:24. But I shall have room enough, within the verge of this text, to clear up the doctrine contained in it.

I would observe, that it is all revelation from first to last. The things that we meet with here, are not what man’s wisdom teaches, 1 Cor. 2:4. It is above the light of nature, and either the invention or the capacity of reason; that can neither contrive nor receive it. The day spring, by which we have the discovery, came from on high, Luke 1:78. Every part of the proposition is the pure mystery of God, Rev. 11:, which comes from the opening of the temple in heaven.

First, It is one of those things that we could never have known, that there was such a person as God’s own Son. Supposing that nature and reason could have worked it out by a laborious argument, that "there is an eternal power and Godhead," Rom. 1:20, that it is "he who gathers the wind in his fist, and binds up the waters in a garment;" yet "what is his name, and what is his Son’s name? if thou canst tell," Prov. 30:4. That there was "one always with him, daily his delight," Prov. 8:30, "the brightness of his glory," Rom. 11:33, "the only begotten of the Father," John 1:18; these are titles that this world would never have heard of, if they were not revealed from another.

Secondly, It is no less amazing, when we read of his own Son, that instead of being told on earth what is always seen in heaven, that he lies in the bosom of the Father, it should be said, He did not spare him. The account given us of a Son, is no other than what agrees to an enemy, a rebel, a son that causeth shame: that he who is the Prince of life in nature, Acts 3:15, should be subject to death by Providence; "O the depth of the riches of God! How unsearchable are his judgments," Rom. 11:33.

Thirdly, It is still further out of our depth, that one hated by his nation, envied by his rivals, deserted by his friends, betrayed by men, and insulted by devils, should have this whole calamity devolved upon him by a divine appointment: that the Father of mercies, instead of protecting him from the wickedness of the age, should deliver him up to it. Here are counsels and decrees, predictions and figures, orders and resolutions, that thus it must be: it is not possible that the cup should pass from him, but the will of the Lord shall be done: and as we are encompassed on every side with his marvellous works, the last is of a piece with all the rest; that is,

Fourthly, That this should be for us. His sufferings are considered as ours; in order to which our guilt is regarded as if it was his: "He made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. 5:21. If men object against this part of the doctrine, they had as good to do it against all the other. And, indeed, there are two things that may be observed in the whole scheme of revelation.

1st. That quite through the projected way, there is a pure and perpetual tribute of glory to God: he does it all that he alone may have the praise. For this reason, the Son is the person, his death is the price, a divine decree is the establishment, and a divine imputation the effect. We have no share in finding the surety, or bearing the burden, or fixing the appointment, or giving the pardon. "God is all and in all," 1 Cor. 15:28. And as he did it in no other view than of his own glory, so it shall have no other event. He did it by himself; he did it for himself. "We are to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the Beloved," Eph. 1:6.

2dly. There is nothing can be more opposite to the nature of man. His first iniquity was a falling off from God, and his present corruption is only that apostasy continued; a sliding back by a perpetual backsliding: They would be as Gods, Gen. 3:5, and nothing can be more against the grain, than to tell them, that if ever they are saved, it must be as creatures; for which reason you see all the powers of nature in an uproar, not only against the law of God, but against his gospel.

The apostle has ranged the principles of infidelity in order: they begin with an opposition to the person who comes to save us: they "trample under foot the Son of God," Heb.10:29, denying his Deity when they dare, and concealing it when they dare not sometimes making it a falsehood, sometimes a figure, and sometimes an impertinence: and as they are in the way of rebelling, they go on to count the blood of the covenant an unholy, or common thing; as if it was not enough to take away his Deity, unless, at the same time, they profaned his sacrifice: and, lastly, that the notion may run into practice, "They do despite to the Spirit of grace."

In what I have already considered, the text gives us plain matter of fact,

1. That he who came to save us is the Son of God; that is, One equal to the Father in nature; but, to wave all that, and give a little scope to our argument, he was certainly equal in holiness; "He did no sin, neither was guile in his mouth," 1 Peter 2:22. He was harmless in his actions, undefiled in his person, Heb.7:26, and yet,

2. That he had all the miseries that were ever endured by shame and trouble; a terror of soul, and a torment of body, and that without any allay; as if he must wring out the very dregs of wrath, and have the last drop of the cup of trembling, Ps. 75:8. There was no sorrow like to his sorrow. Very often in judgment "God remembers mercy," Hab. 3:2, but here he had "forgotten to be gracious," Ps. 77:9, and to his own Son had shut up his tender mercies. He was so far from sparing him from his agonies, that he did not spare him in them; his mercy was clean gone.

3. This was not a short and sudden thing; he does not use him as we should have expected he would have done a dear Son, a pleasant child, in speaking against him for a moment, Jer. 31:20, but he is delivered up in a decree that was slow, and big, and pained to bring forth.

Now, if the best person is to have the worst lot, and that by a righteous appointment, what was it for? The question brings us into a narrow compass; we are enclosed; here is a wall on either side, there is no turning to the right hand, or to the left, Num. 22:26. We cannot say any thing against the fact; and therefore what can we say about the cause? If the answer of the apostle will not be taken, I do not see but we must go without one. If it is not for us all, it is impossible to say what it is for. Let us therefore oblige those whose notions make them enemies to the cross of Christ, and suppose there was no salvation of a chosen people to be obtained this way. Let our imaginations do as the dove did, when it flew out of Noah’s ark, Gen. 8:9, rove, and soar, and wander about, and try if there is any rest for the sole of the foot, besides what the Holy Spirit has given us.

1. Will any say that God punishes in an arbitrary way, that he afflicts willingly and grieves the children of men? Lam. 3:33; that when these miseries came rolling upon Christ, he had no regard to sin at all? that "he will destroy the perfect and the wicked, and laugh at the trial of the innocent?" Job 9:22, 23. This I hope, we shall not dare to do, nor they with whom we differ, because it is as contrary to their error, as it is to the truth itself. They give out themselves to be the advocates of the divine mercy, and put this compliment upon their scheme, that it proclaims the Lord to be gracious. Well, if so, he can take no pleasure in the misery of his creatures.

This is saying worse of the gospel, than we can say of death and damnation, Jude 7. They in hell do know that the vengeance of eternal fire is for the punishment of sin: and that any one should endure what they do for nothing at all, that this should be the lot of him, who "knew no sin," 2 Cor. 5:21, is as much against the honour of his goodness, as it is of his justice: For,

2. There will be no pretence that he has any iniquity of his own that made him liable to it. The prophet tells us, that when the Messiah is cut off, it is not for himself, Dan. 9:26, and I am persuaded this is a point that nobody will dispute with him. The Jews had really more excuse for themselves, than we can have for providence, if you do not comprehend in the death of Christ the sin of his people. They say to Pilate, "if he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him to thee," John 18:30. Thus they thought, thus they believed; through ignorance they did it, Acts 3:17. But such a word as this could never come from the mouth of divine justice. God knew his innocence, it was impossible for him to mistake it; and therefore though he is made an offering for sin, it cannot be for his own. He declared him to be a righteous servant, even when he appointed him to bear our iniquities, Isa. 53:11.

3. Was it needful that he should be thus used to "teach him obedience by the things that he suffered?" Heb. 5:7. Many of the saints are destitute, afflicted, and tormented, Heb. 11:37, and God throws them into that lot, for the trial and the lustre of their graces, that they may appear true, and may grow perfect. Thus when we hear of the patience of Job, we see the end of the Lord, James 5:11. That good man wanted to be made better: and, upon the whole, the Lord was very pitiful, and of tender mercy. He closed up the dispensation with a credit to himself, and with an improvement to his servant. Till the end of his troubles, he had only "heard of God, by the hearing of the ear; but then his eye saw him, upon which he abhorred himself, and repented in dust and ashes," Job 42:3, 6.

But was there any thing of this pity and tender mercy in the death of Christ? Did the Lord turn again his captivity? Did he save him from death? No: he not only left him to his enemies’ hands, but left him in them; he then forsook him. And,

Was there any occasion for Christ to learn more of God, to see him better than he had done? No surely. The Messiah was not cut off either for the punishment of his sins, or the improvement of his graces; and therefore his being thus delivered was for us all; as God says, "For the transgression of my people was he stricken," Isa. 53:5. There are two things that I would observe here:

1. The substitution of his person; he was given up for us, to suffer what we should.

2. The extent of his design, that it is for us all; "the household of faith," Gal. 6:10, "the whole family in earth and heaven," Eph. 3:15.

1. The words are as plain as any exposition can make them; he gave himself up for us all. There is no eastern figure, or outlandish form of speech; no peculiarities or idioms, of which we are to fetch the sense from afar. We may understand the phrase without any vain knowledge, or "filling our belly with the east wind," Job15:2. That he died is certain, that it was not for himself, is evident. To deny the former is to lie against all history; to affirm the latter is to blaspheme against all goodness. And therefore it is for us; that is, for those who are his, "whom the Father had given him," John 6:37, his children, his charge. It was either for our sins, that he bore the punishment that was due to us, or only for our example, that we might act as he did. They who are against the former, intrench themselves within the latter: I shall therefore give up my thoughts to these two things:

First, Show you the force and wickedness of the one interpretation. And,

Secondly, The necessity, clearness, and comfort of the other.

1. Let us see how far we are able to go with this exposition, that the death of Christ was for our example only; that we may be taught of him to be so patient to men, so resigned to God, so loose from this world, and so pressing to another. That we are to learn of him, is true, and imitate his behaviour, who "when he was reviled, reviled not again, and when he suffered, threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously," 1 Peter 2:23. The question is not, whether this is a part of his design in dying, but whether it is all? Does it include the whole counsel of God in that article? I conceive not; because,

(1.) If no more was meant by it, there was no occasion that the Son of God should have been the pattern, or so great an extremity of death, the copy. A lower person, and more abated agonies, would have sufficiently answered the end; had he never come into the world at all, we should have been "encompassed about with a cloud of witnesses," Heb.12: 1. "My brethren, we might have taken the prophets who have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience," James 5:10. God has given us these lessons in abundance; the Scripture is crowded with the trials of that faith, by which the elders have obtained a good report, Heb. 11:2, and they that follow them may have a fair copy: so that to what purpose was all this waste? Why should God do a thing that might have been spared, without any damage or scantiness to the Bible?

(2.) I cannot think that he was an example in the sufferings themselves, whatever he is in his behaviour under them. I am sure to call him so, is the most dreadful doctrine that ever was preached to his poor afflicted followers. That they may be used as he was, is true, and that they ought to act as he did, in many cases, but not in all of them. There are several important articles in his trouble, that never can be ours, and we may say with comfort, they never shall be. As,

[1.] The necessity of a submission to the wrath of man. He, indeed, could have delivered himself from the unrighteous sentence, and he did not do it; but I deny that this is our duty. If I can resist an unlawful execution, I ought: if I had the strength of Samson, I am bound to use it against the oppression of the enemy. Christ is the only instance of passive obedience that ever was, or ever should be. He who made them fall backwards by a word, John 17:6, could have done the same with the arm of his power, the right hand that is full of Majesty: but thus it must be that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. The only reason why the people of God did not wrest themselves out of the jaws of death, was because they could not; so that, in this particular, he is no example, nor has he obliged us to be the servants of rulers, Isa. 49:7.

[2.] His bearing the wrath of God, is an article of dying peculiar to himself. He is no example this way: it can never be said of any martyr, that "he became a curse," Gal. 3:13. God does not apply to any of them what the sentence of the law has said of him, "Cursed is the man that is hanged on a tree," Deut. 21: 23. It is not guilt that made them die; there is no load of iniquity upon them, as there was upon him; they satisfy no law; they do not obtain by this execution any pardon for themselves, much less for others; and therefore,

[3.] The horror that lay upon his human soul at that time, is a thing in which he was so far from being our Example, that he is our Deliverer. They shall none of them go out of the world as he did, complaining that God had forsaken them, Matthew 27:46. They are usually full of joy with the light of his countenance.

And, by the way, this may give me an occasion to consider another end which the Socinians assign to the death of Christ, that it was in testimony to his cause and doctrine. To which I answer:

If you consider this abstracted from his resurrection, it is no dishonour to say, that there is scarce a martyr from whose death we may not see more reality in the Christian religion, than the world could do from that of Christ; for if you look upon things only by the outward appearance, his cross was enough to stumble all mankind. Well might they call it "the offence of the cross," Gal. 5:11. To see a person go out of the world, disclaimed by men, disowned by God, is amazing.

Had he gone off, as others do, in a "chariot of fire," 2 Kings 2:11, not "loving their lives to the death," Rev.12: 11; had he cried out as Stephen did, "I see the heavens opened, and the glory of God, and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God," Acts7:56, It might have "stilled the enemy and the avenger," Ps. 8:2. But to hear him crying out after a departed God, must rather affright those about him; excepting in that one instance of his giving up the ghost with a full voice, by which he appeared to be the Prince and Proprietor of life. God forbid we should die as he did, either in darkness or in desolation; angels standing off, the Father withdrawing himself; under every torment upon his body and every anguish upon his soul.

[4.] Such an exposition as this quite defeats the whole end of the apostle’s argument in my text. He brings it in by way of support to what he had said, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" that is, nothing can hurt us, though all the world should be against us. Now, how does this appear? because, "having given up his own Son for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?"

If Christ was only our example in dying, I am so far from concluding that God will give me all things, that I should rather fear he would give me nothing; for, if he uses me as he used him in a dying hour, I shall have no comfort or evidence that he is for me; and the case here mentioned, would rather be my horror than my hope. I shall never pray with regard to the manner of our Lord’s sufferings: "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my latter end be like his," Num. 23:10. I never desire to "tread the wine-press of the wrath of God," Rev.19:15; no, it is our privilege that "Christ did that alone, and that of the people there was none with him," Isa. 63:3, and of his people, there shall be none after him.

I therefore conclude, that we are, indeed, to know "the fellowship of his sufferings," Phil. 3:10, and be "conformable to his death," and thus to be "crucified with Christ," Gal. 2:20, to be "buried with him in baptism unto death," Col. 2:12, but yet when he was given up for us, it must be to another purpose; that is,

2. That he became a Substitute, in our room or stead. The first covenant said, "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," Gen. 2:16, 17. And accordingly there is an angel with a flaming sword, Gen. 3:24, drawn out against Adam in person, if he dared to return. But in the new covenant "this sword is awakened against another," Zech.13:7, not the flock, but the Shepherd: not the man who was God’s enemy, but the Man that was his Fellow, his Equal, and with whom he took the sweetest counsel. "The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed," Isa. 53:5.

(1.) This is the plain and easy, the unforced and natural sense of the words: if they mean not this, they mean nothing. To darken a visible text, is "talking in words without knowledge," Job 38:2. He that stands for me, stands in my place; he that acts for me, acts in my stead: he is what I should have been: he does what I should have done: he that is given or appointed for me, is but where I should be. To force a common sentence is persecution; it is drawing the gold of the sanctuary into little threads and wires, and using a text as Saul did a disciple, compelling it to blaspheme, Acts 26:11.

(2.) The doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction is no single, scattered, independent article, but agrees to the whole stream of the Bible. We have not this truth as the small drop of a bucket, but as the sound of many waters: I will just read them to you, though in the whole discourse there has been a perpetual distribution of scriptures upon the argument.

It is this that we have the Bible for: it lies at the heart of all revelation; for as salvation was the only thing that God had to tell us, so the bruising of Him, who is the seed of the woman, was the only way, Gen. 3:15. This is the righteousness of God, that is witnessed by the law and the prophets, Rom. 3:21. Ever since he made a path for the just, this is the light that shone upon it, till it came to a perfect day.

Whatever I have said upon this subject, has been with many quotations from the word of God: I will therefore only give you some, that I do not remember to have mentioned already, and that without any enlargement upon them; by which it must appear, that he who denies this doctrine, will have work enough upon his hands; he is to fight it out with all the Bible: though they pretend to make a single text or two pass for no more than water spilt upon the ground; yet, "What will they do in the swelling of Jordan?" Jer.12: 5.

Let any one judge what the death of Christ was for, who does but consider what Isaiah says: "Surely, he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. All we like sheep have gone astray, but the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. It pleased the Lord to bruise him, and put him to grief, and make his soul an offering for sin. By his knowledge shall my righteous Servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. He poured out his soul to death, he was numbered with transgressors, he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for transgressors," Isa. 53:4-12.

Thus Isaiah spake of him, and thus he spake of himself: "The Son of man came to give his life a ransom for many," Mark10:45. His apostles are witnesses of these things: "God has commended his love towards us, in that whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," Rom. 5:8. "When we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly," Rom. viii. 3. "God sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, by a sacrifice for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us," Gal. 3:13. "Christ has loved us, and given himself for us," Eph. 5:2. "There is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all," 1 Tim. 2:5, 6. "By his own blood he entered into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us," Heb. 9:12. "The blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, shall purge our conscience," Heb. 9:14. "His own self bare our sins, in his own body on the tree, by whose stripes we are healed," 1 Peter 2:24. "He once suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God," 1 Peter 3:18. "God has loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins," 1 John 4:10. But the time would fail me to give you all of them.

To this I may add, the whole course of the dispensation that we are under. It is the voice of every ordinance. We are baptized with the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins: that is, "as many of us as are baptized into Christ, are baptized into his death," Rom. 6:3. We hereby declare our belief, that he was "delivered for our offences," Rom. 4:25, and rose again for our justification.

What is preaching the gospel, but preaching "the cross of Christ?" It is not only to tell a melancholy story, but to "lift up the Son of man," John 3:14, as the "serpent was lifted up in the wilderness," Num. 21: 9, and say, "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world," John 1:29.

The Lord’s Supper, in both its parts, is a frequent memorial of the doctrine; as often as we do it, it is "in remembrance of him," 1 Cor. 11:24. The bread shows his body that was "broken for us," the cup is the New Testament "in his blood;" and therefore laying aside the imputation of his righteousness, is a sponge to the whole institution, and leaves us in all our worship to be walking in a vain show.

Nor do I ever expect to see the Bible defended in the hands of those by whom it is thus defeated. It is in vain to set out Jesus, unless it be as "a propitiation for our sins through faith in his blood," Rom. 3:25; without this our preaching is in vain, and your faith in vain. To say that he did not bear our sins, is to make the "cross of Christ of none effect," Gal. 5:4.

(3.) This alone can answer the cries of an awakened conscience. "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the most high God?" Micah 6:6. Not with "thousands of rams," but with "the precious blood of Christ," 1 Peter 1:19, as of that one Lamb, who is without blemish and without spot: not with "ten thousand rivers of oil," but in and through him whose name is as "ointment poured forth," Cant. 1:3, and who offered himself as a "sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour," Eph. 5:2; and it may be said of heaven itself; that the whole house is filled with the odour of the ointment, John12: 3. This speaks peace for us, and speaks peace to us. It is the blood of Christ that sprinkles the mercy-seat above, and the conscience here below, that it may serve the living and true God.

It is not duties that will do it; for when a person is made to abhor himself; which is always the case in a thorough conviction, he will see there is no bringing a "clean thing out of an unclean;" Job xiv. 4, that if ourselves are an unclean thing, our righteousness is as filthy rags, Isa. 64:6.

To say that the doctrine of justification by Christ is an enemy to holiness, is one falsehood; and to say that the opposite opinion does promote it, I am afraid, is another, if we may judge of the case by men’s lives. But this we know to be true, that in all the floatings, heavings, and tossings of uneasy conscience, the blood of Christ is our only hope, our only anchor, sure and steadfast.

(4.) The providence of God made this doctrine to be the glory of our Reformation. It was in a gradual opposition to the righteousness of Christ that Popery began to live; and in the noble revival of the truth it began to die. When they set up justification by works, their monks and masses, their penances and pilgrimages, their fasts and fopperies, their confessions and absolutions, their crosses and cringes, their tyranny and trumpery, were the generation of vipers that issued from this womb. And therefore when God poured out a spirit of reformation upon the land, it was not only in scouring the churches of imagery, and rumbling among their idols, but the axe was laid to the root of the tree; Christ alone was "exalted in that day," Isa. 2:17, and the wicked one consumed away by the "brightness of his coming," 2 Thess. 2:8: then were "our priests clothed with righteousness, and all the saints shouted for joy," Ps. 122:16.

And when this doctrine is denied, the Protestant cause is a going. There is the substance of Popery; such people have got the stump of Dagon, they want only the palms of his hands to be set on again.

Go into Poland, as the Jews were ordered to Shiloh, Jer.7:22, and see what an angry God has done there for the iniquity of his people. Socinianism made a gap for Popery: their Racovian vanities were the Roman vehicle. Wherever the righteousness of Christ goes out, the man of sin comes in. The Arians, who denied his Deity, prepared the way for Mahomet; and they who denied his satisfaction, made room for Antichrist. Thus, as they went a whoring from their God, they fell to the mother of harlots and abominations.

2. As he was delivered up for us, so remember it was for us all. Not the whole human race, as has been thoroughly argued in this lecture; but the word is to be taken in the same compass that our Saviour gives it, when he says to the Father, "All mine are thine," and "all thine are mine." John 17:10. The meaning is, that,

(1.) The greatest believer will need it. The chiefest of all the apostles desired to be "found in him, having on the righteousness that is of God by faith," Phil. 3:9. And,

(2.) The meanest shall have it. He gathers "the lambs in his arms," Isa. 40:11; From hence he has his praises above; "To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, be glory and dominion." Rev. 1:5. When we come "to see the King in his beauty, and behold the land that is afar off," we shall find indeed, "the sword upon his thigh;" but, however, "his garment is dipped in blood," Rev.19:13. It is the doctrine we now admire, and we shall hear it rung through the palace of the King. There will be a confluence of persons and praises from the whole compass of time, and the whole circle of nature; all of them together pouring in their eternal melody in those words:

Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.