conquering sin and death for us; an example indeed, but more than an example, our sacrifice, and our life, our all in all. It is our duty to walk as He walked, to make Him the pattern of our steps (1 John, ii. 6); but our comfort and salvation lie in this, that He is the propitiation for our sins (v. 2). So, in the first chapter of that Epistle, v. 7, We are to walk in the light, as He is in the light; but for all our walking, we have need of that which follows, that bears the great weight,The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. And so still, that glory which He possesseth in His own person, is the pledge of ours: He is there for us, He lives to make intercession for us, says the Apostle, Heb. vii. 25; and, I go to prepare a place for you, says our Lord himself. John xiv. 2.

We have in the words these two great points, and in the same order as the words lie: I. The Nature and Quality of the sufferings of Jesus Christ; and, II. The End of them.

I. In this expression of the Nature and Quality of the sufferings of Christ, we are to consider, 1. The Commutation of the persons, He himself-for us. 2. The Work undertaken and performed, He bare our sins in His own body on the tree.

1. The act or sentence of the Law against the breach of it standing in force, and Divine justice expecting satisfaction, Death was the necessary and inseparable consequent of Sin. If you say, the supreme Majesty of God, being accountable to none, might have forgiven all without satisfaction, we are not to contest that, nor foolishly to offer to sound the bottomless depth of His absolute prerogative. Christ implies in his prayer, Matt. xxvi. 39, that it was impossible that he could escape that cup; but the impossibility is resolved into his Father's will, as the cause of it. But this we may clearly see, following the tract of the holy Scriptures, (our only safe way,) that this way wherein our salvation is contrived, is most excellent, and suitable to the greatness and goodness of God; so full of wonders of wisdom and love, that the Angels, as our Apostle tells us before, cannot forbear looking on it, and admiring it : for all their exact knowledge, yet they still find it infinitely

beyond their knowledge, still in astonishment and admiration of what they see, and still in search, looking in to see more; those cherubim still having their eyes fixed on this Mercy

Seat.

Justice might indeed have seized on rebellious Man, and laid the pronounced punishment on him. Mercy might have freely acquitted him, and pardoned all. But can we name any place where Mercy and Justice, as relating to condemned man, could have met and shined jointly in full aspect, save only in Jesus Christ?―in whom indeed, Mercy and Truth met, and Righteousness and Peace kissed each other, Psal. lxxxv. 10; yea, in whose person the Parties concerned, that were at so great a distance, met so near, as nearer cannot be imagined.

And not only was this the sole way for the consistency of these two, Justice and Mercy, but take each of them severally, and they could not have been manifested in so full lustre in any other way. God's just hatred of sin did, out of doubt, appear more in punishing His own only begotten Son for it, than if the whole race of mankind had suffered for it eternally. Again, it raises the notion of mercy to the highest, that sin is not only forgiven us, but for this end God's own co-eternal Son is given to us, and for us. Consider what He is, and what we are; He the Son of His love, and we, enemies. Therefore it is emphatically expressed in the words, God so loved the world, John iii. 16: that Love amounts to this much, that is, was so great, as to give His Son; but how great that Love is, cannot be uttered. In this, says the Apostle, Rom. v. 8, God commendeth His love to us, sets it off to the highest, gives us the richest and strongest evidence of it.

The foundation of this plan, this appearing of Christ for us, and undergoing and answering all in our stead, lies in the decree of God, where it was plotted and contrived, in the whole way of it, from eternity; and the Father and the Son being one, and their Thoughts and will one, They were perfectly agreed on it; and those likewise for whom it should hold, were agreed upon, and their names written down, according to which they

are said to be given unto Christ to redeem. And just according to that model, did all the work proceed, and was accomplished in all points, perfectly answering to the pattern of it in the mind of God. As it was preconcluded there, that the Son should undertake the business, this matchless piece of service for His Father, and that by His interposing, men should be reconciled and saved; so, that He might be altogether a fit person for the work, it was resolved, that as He was already fit for it by the almightiness of His Deity and Godhead, and the acceptableness of His person to the Father, as the Son of God, so he should be further fitted by wonderfully uniting weakness to Almightiness, the frailty of man to the power of God. Because suffering for man was a main point of the work, therefore, as His being the Son of God made Him acceptable to God, so His being the Son of man made Him suitable to man, in whose business He had engaged himself, and suitable to the business itself to be performed. And not only was there in Him, by his human nature, a conformity to man, (for that might have been accomplished by a new created body,) but a consanguinity with man, by a body framed of the same piece, this Redeemer, a Kinsman, (as the Hebrew word goel is,)—only purified for His use, as was needful, and framed, after a peculiar manner, in the womb of a virgin, as it is expressed, Heb. x. 5, Thou hast fitted a body for me,—having no sin itself, because ordained to have so much of our sins: as it is here, He bare our sins in His own body.

And this looks back to the primitive transaction and purpose. Lo! I come to do thy will, says the Son. Psal. xl. 7. Behold my servant whom I have chosen, says the Father, (Isa. xliii. 10,) this master-piece of My works; no one in heaven or earth is fit to serve me, but my own Son. And as He came into the world according to that decree and will, so He goes out of it again in that way. The Son of Man goeth as is determined, Luke xxii. 22: it was wickedly and maliciously done by men against Him, but it was determined (which is what he there speaks of) wisely and graciously by His Father, with His own Vo. II.

C

consent. As in those two-faced pictures, look upon the crucifying of Christ one way, as complotted by a treacherous disciple and malicious priests and rulers, and nothing more deformed and hateful than the authors of it; but view it again, as determined in God's counsel, for the restoring of lost mankind, and it is full of unspeakable beauty and sweetness,-infinite wisdom and love in every trait of it.

Thus also, as to the persons for whom Christ engaged to suffer, their coming unto Him looks back to that first donation of the Father, as flowing from that: All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me. John vi. 37.

Now this being God's great design, it is that which He would have men eye and consider more than all the rest of His works; and yet it is least of all considered by the most! The other Covenant, made with the first Adam, was but to make way, and, if we may so speak, to make work for this. For He knew that it would not hold; therefore, as this New Covenant became needful by the breach of the other, so, the failing of that other, sets off and commends the firmness of this. The former was made with a man in his best condition, and yet he kept it not even then, he proved vanity, as it is, Psal. xxxix. 5, Verily, every man, in his best estate, is altogether vanity. So that the second, that it might be stronger, is made with A Man indeed, to supply the place of the former, but he is GodMan, to be surer than the former, and therefore it holds. And this is the difference, as the Apostle expresses it, that the first Adam, in that Covenant, was laid as a foundation, and, though we say not that the Church, in its true notion, was built on him, yet, the estate of the whole race of mankind, the materials which the Church is built of, lay on him for that time; and it failed. But upon this rock, the second Adam, is the Church so firmly built, that the gates of hell cannot prevail against her. The first man, Adam, was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening (or life-giving) spirit. 1 Cor. xv. 45. The First had life, but he transferred it not, yea, he kept it not for himself, but drew in and transferred death; but

the Second, by death, conveys life to all that are reckoned his

seed: He bare their sins.

2. As to the work itself. He bare them on the tree. In that outside of His suffering, the visible kind of death inflicted on Him, in that it was hanging on the tree of the cross, there was an analogy with the end and main work; and it was ordered by the Lord with regard unto that end, being a death declared accursed by the Law, as the Apostle St. Paul observes, Gal. iii. 13, and so declaring Him who was God blessed for ever, to have been made a curse (that is, accounted as accursed) for us, that we might be blessed in Him, in whom, according to the promise, all the nations of the earth are blessed.

But that wherein lay the strength and main stress of His sufferings, was this invisible weight which none could see who gazed on Him, but which He felt more than all the rest: He bare our sins. In this there are three things. 1. The weight of sin. 2. The transferring of it upon Christ. 3. His bearing of it.

[1.] He bare sin as a heavy burden; so the word bearing imports in general, (évýveyxev) and those two words particularly used by the prophet, Isa. liii. 4, to which these allude, (a) imply the bearing of some great mass or load. And such sin is; for it hath the wrath of an offended God hanging at it, indissolubly tied to it, of which, who can bear the least? And therefore the least sin, being the procuring cause of it, will press a man down for ever, that he shall not be able to rise. Who can stand before Thee when once Thou art angry? says the Psalmist, Psal. lxxvi. 7. And the Prophet, Jer. iii. 12, Return, backsliding Israel, and I will not cause my wrath to fall upon thee-to fall as a great weight : or as a millstone, and crush the soul.

But senseless we go light under the burden of sin, and feel it not, we complain not of it, and are therefore truly said to be dead in it; otherwise it could not but press us, and press out complaints. O! wretched man that I am! who