him as fpeaking of himself in his highest capacity; as he certainly must do, if at all, when he speaks of himself as the fon, correfponding to the Father.

If Chrift had not fatisfied the jews that he did not mean to make himself equal with God, would they not have produced it against him at his trial, when he was condemned as a blafphemer, because he confeffed that he was the Chrift only: and yet no jew expected" any thing more than a man for their Meffiah, and our faviour no where intimates that they were miftaken in that expectation. It is plain that Martha confidered our Lord as a different perfon from God, and dependent upon God, when fhe faid to him, John xi. 22. I know that even now, whatsoever thou wilt afk of God, God will give it thee.

VI. OF ATONEMENT FOR SIN BY THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

You have been taught by divines, that if Chrift be not God, he could not have made an infinite fatisfaction for the fins of mankind. But, my brethren, where do you learn that the pardon of fin, in a finite creature, requires an infinite fatisfaction; or, indeed, any fatisfaction at all, befides repentance and reformation, on the part of a finner? We read in the fcriptures that we are justified freely by the grace of God, Rom. iii. 34. but what free grace, or mercy, does there appear to have been in God, if Chrift gave a full price for our juftification, and bore the infinite

weight of divine wrath on our account, We are commanded to forgive others, as we ourselves hope to be forgiven, Matt. vii. 14. and to be merciful, as our Father, who is in heaven, is merciful. But furely we are not thereby authorised to insist upon any atonement, or fatisfaction, before we give up our resent ment towards an offending and penitent brother. Indeed, how could it deferve the name of forgiveness if we did? If he only repent, we are commanded to forgive him. Luke xvii. 4.

You read in the scriptures that Christ died a sacrifice for our fins. Heb. ix. 26. So he did, and a facrifice it was of a sweet smelling favour to God. To die, as Christ did, in the glorious cause of truth and virtue; to die, as he did, in order to fhow us an example of patiently suffering death for our religion, and the good of mankind, and in a firm hope of a refurrection to a future and eternal life; to die, as he did, in express atteftation of his own divine miffion, by his manifest resurrection from the dead, and as the fulleft proof of that doctrine, by means of which finners are continually reconciled unto God, was a noble facrifice indeed. We also are commanded to prefent our bodies a living facrifice. Rom. xii. 1. And we are required to offer the facrifice of praife to God continually. Heb. xiii. 15. But it is plain that all these are only figurative expreffions, and used by way of comparison. Neither our bodies, nor our prayers, can be confidered as real facrifices; nor, are we, there

fore, obliged to fuppofe that Chrift was a real facrifice. And though we, like him, fhould be called actually to lay down our lives for our brethren, 1 John iii. 16. which, in imitation of him, we are enjoined to be ready to do, we fhould be facrifices only in the figurative fenfe of the word.

It is true, that no man who is a finner (and all men have finned) can be justified by his works. We all stand in need of, and must have recourse to, free grace and mercy; but it is a great dishonour to God to suppose that this mercy and grace takes its rife from any thing but his own effential goodness; and that he is not of himself, and independent of all foreign confiderations whatever, what he folemnly declared himself to Mofes, at the time of the giving of the law, to be, namely, a God merciful and gracious, longSuffering, abundant in goodness and in truth. Exod. xxxiv. 6. or that he requires any other facrifices, than the facrifices of a broken spirit, and a contrite heart, which he will never defpife. Pf. li. 17.

Can we wish for a more diftin&t and perfect representation of the manner in which God forgives the fins of his offspring of mankind, than our faviour has exhibited to us in that most excellent parable of the prodigal fon; in which the good father no fooner fees his child, who had abandoned him, and wafted his substance in riotous living, returning to him and to his duty; but without waiting for any atonement or propitiation, even while he was yet a great way off, he

ran

20.

ran to him, fell upon his neck, and kissed him, Luke xv. The fame reprefentation we see in the parable of the creditor, who freely forgave his fervant, becaufe he humbly defired him. Let us not then, my brethren, deprive the ever-bleffed God of the most glorious and honourable of all his attributes, and leave him nothing but juftice, or rather vengeance, which is exprefsly faid to be his firange work, Isaiah

xxviii. 21.

It is impoffible to reconcile the doctrine of the fatisfaction for fin by the death of Chrift, with the doctrine of free grace, which, according to the uniform tenor of the fcriptures, is fo fully displayed in the pardon of fin, and the juftification of finners. When, therefore, the apoftle Paul fays, Rom. iii. 24. That we are justified freely by the grace of God through the redemption that is in Christ Jefus, the latter claufe must be interpreted in fuch a manner as to make it confiftent with the former; and it is far from requiring any force or ftraining of the text to do it. For it is only neceffary to suppose that our redemption (or, as the word properly fignifies, and and is indeed frequently rendered by our tranflators, our deliverance) from the power of fin, i. e. our repentance and reformation, without which there is no promise of pardon, is effected by the gospel of Jefus Chrift, who came to call finners to repentance; but ftill God is to be confidered as the giver, and not the receiver, with refpect to our redemption; for we read

that he spared not his own fon, but gave him up for us all. Rom. viii. 32.

To fay that God the Father provided an atonement for his own offended juftice is, in fact, to give up the doctrine. If a perfon owe me a fum of money, and I chufe to have the debt difcharged, is it not the fame thing, whether I remit the debt at once, or fupply another person with money wherewith to pay me in the debtor's name? If fatisfaction be made to any purpose, it must be in fome manner, in which the offender may be a fufferer, and the offended perfon a gainer; but it can never be reconciled to equity, or anfwer any good purpose whatever, to make the innocent fuffer the punishment of the guilty. If, as Abraham fays, it be far from God to say the righeeous with the wicked, and that the righteous fhould be as the wicked, Gen. xviii. 25. much farther muft it be from him to lay the righteous inftead of the wicked.

I wish the zealous advocates for this doctrine would confider, that if it be neceffary, in the nature of things, that the justice of God be fatisfied before any fin can be pardoned, and Christ be God as well as the Father, whether the justice of Chrift ought not to have been fatisfied in the first place. If so, what other infinite being has made fatisfaction to him? But if the divine nature of the fon required no fatisfaction, why should the divine nature of the Father require any?