Paul, who is the speaker, fays, through this man, that is, Chrift, is preached unto you the forgiveness of fins. Here we fee, then, the end and aim of the whole Christian religion; and an useful end it is for us, valuable for the great advantages it brings us, and valuable for the ftrong proof which it gives of God's love towards us; view it in this light, and I am fure you must count all knowledge elfe but as dung, as the Apostle fomewhere expreffes the coarfe nature of it in a difparaging phrase confider it as introduced into the world for this end, and you will readily acknowledge, that the Christian religion does not more honour to God, than fervice to man.

But if you carry your views further, and enquire with me, how all the pofitive precepts of the gofpel, which are, properly and ftrictly fpeaking, the Chriftian religion, do confpire in this end, and have an eye to the promoting of a reconciliation between God and man, you will fee great reafon to adore the divine goodnefs, who has built, as it were, all the Chriftian's duty upon his intereft, and made that the rule of his faith and his practice, which has a view only to his fpiritual and eternal advantage. Bleffed,

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Blefled, for ever bleffed be the great God of heaven and earth, who thus vifits man, and crowns him with the tokens of his favour: grant, O moft gracious Lord, that we may first rightly know and then duly practise thy divine will.

Let us confider, therefore, first, how all the precepts of the gospel relating to faith and belief, and fecondly, how all thofe which relate to practice, have an eye towards this great end of Chriftianity, the forgiveness of fins.

I hope I fhall be attended to and easily understood by all who are here present, when I lay down this propofition, that the chief end and aim of the Christian religion is to procure finners that pardon which natural religion could not provide; or, to use the words of the text, all that believe in Chrift are juftified by him from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses; and if not by the law of Mofes, then not by the law of nature, because the law of Mofes contained the whole law of nature in it, and was grounded upon the fuppofition of that as a neceffary rule of duty, and an effential pårt of the religion of his countryThe whole fyftem of what is

men the Jews.

peculiar

peculiar both in belief and practice to the Chriftian religion will appear by the following confiderations to have a regard to this end chiefly, I may say only. For, to begin with the Chrif tian's belief,

First, If Chrift came to procure forgiveness of fins to mankind, then is it neceffary to know and believe aright that he is the Meffiah whom the Jews expected, that he is the Son of God, and that he is God himfelf; for nothing lefs than God, that is, a being incapable of finning could fatisfy the divine justice for the fins of the whole world: had Chrift been a creature only, though he had been a creature of the most excellent nature, yet he had been liable to fin for all created beings whatsoever are, and must be so neceffarily and in their nature. I do not fay he must actually have finned, but that he had been liable to fin; and, if fo, God's condescending love to mankind in accepting the facrifice of him upon the cross was poffible to have been defeated by his tranfgreffing; but we may be fure God does not act fo unwifely as to take measures for men's falvation, which might have been broken by the weakness of the inftrument which God made use of: therefore,

VOL. I.

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we

we may fafely conclude, that fince by Chrift forgiveness of fins was to be procured for all men, C...ift was a being not only without any finful blemish, but incapable of being defiled by any fuch blemish; which is the fame, I think, as to fay and believe that he is truly God.

Secondly, In view of this end of the Christian religion, it is neceffary alfo to believe that he was made flesh and dwelt among us, and that he died for us. In what manner the mysterious incarnation was effected, we have not light enough from scripture or from reason fully to understand: but we are well affured that it happened, and that the divine nature of the fecond perfon in the holy Trinity was united to a human foul and body, both which natures together make up one Chrift: and this, I fay, was neceffary to be done, if man was to be forgiven, because we cannot fee, how Chrift, though really God, could otherwise do any thing meritorious for procuring our pardon without fuffering in the flesh for our tranfgreffions. St. Paul tells us, that without fhedding of blood there is no remission of fins. And, as

God

God he could not fuffer, and therefore it seems neceffary that he fhould have taken upon him a human nature; that fo by the conjunction of these two natures, the fufferings in the human might be of fufficient value and efteem in the father's fight by reason of the union of the divine one.

A third confequence feems to be that Chrift should rise again from the dead and ascend up publicly into heaven; for as we could not have had any one able to procure us pardon for our fins, but one who is truly God himself; and as one who is God himself could not in all appearance procure this pardon, otherwise than by suffer-ing in the flesh for us ; fo we could not, I think, have had fufficient teftimony that he had actually procured this pardon from the father's hands, unless God had fhewn his approbation of his perfon and merit, by railing him in a miraculous manner from the grave. St. Paul himfelf makes the words in the text an inference from the doctrine of Chrift's refurrection: for of that he had largely difcourfed before to the Jews at Antioch, and then he concludes, Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of fins. As if he had faid, Now that it