so opposed to human pride, and the precepts of the gospel are so spiritual, so extensive, and so uncompromising, as to excite in the natural man a determined opposition to God's method of justifying and saving lost man.

But to heathen times and nations, sunk in the depth of idolatry, or the infatuated Jews when they "killed the Prince of life," we need not confine this depravity of human nature,—this blindness of the understanding-this carnal enmity against God. It is by nature the state of all. It is our own state. We are "by nature born in sin and the children of wrath," is among those salutary instructions which are imparted to our childhood. And it is in this awful state of rebellion and of ruin that the Lord Jesus finds us when he comes now by his word and Spirit to scatter from our minds the darkness of ignorance, to break asunder the "chain of our sins," to destroy the natural enmity of the heart, of rebels, to make us willing subjects:—in a word, to bestow upon us or apply to us the rich blessings which he has purchased with his own precious blood. This leads us to notice,

II. THE MEANS BY WHICH GOD AND MAN ARE RECONCILED; By the death of his Son."

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As God had to vindicate the honour of his law, and to manifest his inflexible justice, by the just

2 Church Catechism.

punishment of man's apostasy and rebellion, how could mercy be extended to the rebel without violating the justice of the Most High? As all the attributes of Jehovah are coequal, and as the exercise of one attribute cannot be arrested by the exercise of another attribute, how can mercy and justice, which are to each other so opposed in their nature, be fully exercised in reference to the same object? In other words, how can sin be adequately punished and at the same time pardoned; how can God be just and the justifier of the transgressor?

We presume not to state with unhallowed flippancy, as we have with pain heard it stated, that the "divine Being must adopt such and such a plan, that he could not have done otherwise than he has done." Whatever the eternal God can or cannot do, WE CANNOT presume to limit his wisdom or his power; or determine what must, and what ought to, have been the channels through which his mercy and justice, his wisdom and power, might flow, and be made known to his church. We do know that a channel has been opened, through which have been made manifest the manifold wisdom and grace of God. We do know that a plan has been devised and fully executed, by which mercy and truth, righteousness and peace, have embraced each other. And with this developement we ought to be content: for this develope

ment we ought to be thankful, and in this developement we heartily acquiesce.

To the foregoing questions we reply, that, by transferring the guilt and punishment of sin to the innocent Lamb of God-the Lord Christ, who became our surety,-the demands of God's justice were fully answered, while mercy and pardon are extended to the guilty and miserable. This wondrous scheme of redemption was typified by the sacrifices slain and offered for the sins of the people under the Mosaic dispensation. The innocent victim was put to death and offered for the guilty. These sacrifices were a sure index to the great and efficacious sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, who once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself: and, as predicted by the prophet Daniel, "to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness," which righteousness "is unto all and upon all them that believe.”4 Hence, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.""

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2

When the Lord Jesus, expiring on the cross, bowed his head and exclaimed, "It is finished," the

1 Pet. iii. 18.

3 Rom. iii. 22.

4 Dan. ix. 24.

5

Rom. x. 4.

veil of the temple was rent in twain; indicating that not only the middle wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, but also the partition wall between God and man, was broken down; and that a way of access to God was opened for every returning prodigal. Christ shed his precious blood on the cross to extinguish his Father's wrath, provoked and kindled by man's transgression; and to purchase and secure for us miserable sinners peace with God, the favour of God, and every needed blessing here, and the eternal joys of heaven hereafter.

For a moment, my brethren, pause, and contemplate the sufferings of the Lord Christ for the sake of his enemies, his persecutors, his murderers, that he might reconcile them to God, and you cannot but exclaim with wonder in the words of the beloved apostle, "Behold! what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us!"6 "Herein is love, not that we loved God"-Oh! no, "but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins," and "hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ;"_" by the death of his Son!" Will you who profess to know the Lord, and to "have tasted that the Lord is gracious," and to be the objects of God's everlasting love, will you not

6

1 John iii. 1.

7 1 John iv. 10,

8 2 Cor. v. 18.

this day bestow one look of wonder, of gratitude and love, on this amazing work of the Son of God? Will you not contemplate this work of mercy and love, until your own hearts be melted down and moulded into a conformity with the heart of him who loved you and gave himself for you? What are our hearts made of that we can speak and hear of these mysterious truths, time after time, with so much deadness, with so little profit, with so faint a desire, and so feeble an endeavour, to be partakers of "this great salvation"? Alas! what little return of gratitude and homage does the Lord Jesus meet with from his redeemed people; and how amazing is the divine forbearance which bears with so much ingratitude and unfaithfulness! But we proceed to state, what the apostle especially had in view,

III. THE FINAL SAFETY OF THOSE WHO ARE RECONCILED:- -"much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."

The final safety or final salvation of all who are reconciled to God, is in the text inferred from two admitted premises,—each of which is quite adequate to sustain the doctrine stated by the Apostle. And we are not to confound the premises in the text, with the premise from which is drawn the disputed doctrine of the saints' final perseverance. This doctrine is inferred from God's purpose to