his holiness be vindicated by a perfect obedience.
Again, God's infinite juftice, which stands up for
the penalty or threatening of the law, infomuch that
none can approach to a juft God, unless his justice
be fatisfied by a compleat facrifice. Now, as our
natural want of conformity to the law, makes the
holiness of God ftand in the way of our approach
to him; fo our natural want of ability to give fa-
tisfaction, makes the juftice of God to be a bar
against our approach. O who will draw this bar of
God's injured perfections! 3. The bar of natural
enmity and fin on our part, Ifa. lix. 2. Your iniqui-
ties have feparated betwixt you and your God, fo as
we cannot approach to him. We are enemies to
God by wicked works: This is a bar that cannot be
broken, but by an Almighty arm.
Thus I fay,
all mankind was barred out from the prefence of
God, there was no approaching to him. 2dly, I
premife, That the work of him who fhall ap-
proach to God, in our ftead, and as our reprefen-
tative, muft include the breaking of these bars.
He that will engage to approach unto God as our
head to bring us back to God, muft engage to
break thofe bars; and fo, 1. To break the bar of
a violated covenant of works. And accordingly,
Chrift comes, and by his obedience to the death,
he magnifies the law and makes it honourable :
The precept of the law that we had broken, he
muft fulfil, by obeying perfectly. The promise of
eternal life which we had forfeited, we muft reco-
ver by redeeming the forfeiture, bringing in ever-
lafting righteoufnefs: The threatning and penalty of
eternal death he must endure, or the equivalent, by
coming under the curfe of the law. 2. To break
the bar of God's injured perfections, by vindicating

the

the holiness of God, and fatisfying the justice of God, that fo thefe and the like injured attributes of the divine Majefty may not stand in the way: for, while they do, there is no approaching unto God. 3. To break the bar of man's natural enmity against God, otherwife he that engages himself to approach unto God, cannot bring us to God with him.

These things being premifed, we may the more eafily fee what is the work that the Lord Jefus engaged his heart unto, in approaching unto God: He comes to God in our ftead, who could not approach in our own perfons: It is below the majesty of a great king to treat and tranfact immediately with a guilty rebel and traitor; and fo it is below the majesty of the great God, to tranfact immediately with wretched finners: And who then will approach? Therefore he tranfacts immediately with Chrift, a person of equal dignity with himfelf as to his divine nature, and a perfon able to break all these bars, and fo make an open door for himself as Redeemer, and then for all the redeemed at his back, to approach unto God as their eternal rest and happiness: And all this he does, by fulfilling the broken law; for he came to fulfill all righteousness by fatisfying God's injured perfections, infomuch that God is well pleafed for his righteousness fake, and by deftroying man's natural enmity, infomuch that they are reconciled to God by the death of his Son.

But, more particularly, I would fhow here, (1.) What engagements Christ came under. (2.) What approach did he make to God under these engagements. (3) Under what confiderations are we to view the God to whom he engages to approach. (4.) In

(4.) In what station did he engage to approach unto God. First, What engagements did Chrift come under, when he engaged himself to approach unto this God? He came under engagements about the whole work of our redemption. And, ft, He engaged to put himself in the form of a fervant, by taking on him our nature, and taking our place in law, that fo the law might reach him in the stead of the guilty finner; otherwise the law-curse due to us could never have reached him. Now, to this engagement belong feveral things, which I shall shortly deliver in fo many fcriptural expreffions. He engaged to be made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. He engaged, even he who knew no fin, to be made fin for us, that we might be made the righteouf nefs of God in him. And thus, 2dly, He engaged to fatisfy, not only the law, in all its commands and demands, but also all the injured attributes of the Divine Majefty by bringing in everlasting righteoufness: He engaged to give himself a facrifice, and to give his foul an offering for fin, and to give his life a ransom for many: He engaged to make peace by the blood of his cross, and fo to repair the breach betwixt God and man, making way by his blood to the holy of holies, that we might have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jefus, by a new and living way, confecrate to us through the vail, that is to fay his flesh, that we might come again to God with full affurance of faith. And in order to this, 3dly, He engaged to redeem by power as well as by price, and make a willing people in the day of his power; and that having bruifed the head of the ferpent, and destroyed the works of the devil, he should bring forth bis prifoners out of the pit wherein there was no

water;

water; he engaged to lead captivity captive, to take the prey from the mighty, that the lawful captive might be delivered, Ifa. xlix. 24, 25. and so to reftore the loft image of God upon man, and to make them partakers of the divine nature. And thus 4thly, He engaged not only to deftroy fin and condemn it in the flesh, because it tended to deftroy God's law, to darken his glory, and to ftrike at his being, as well as to ruin the finner; but alfo to destroy death, and bring life and immortality to light: He engaged to come, that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly: And in all thefe Chrift becomes engaged to the Father for our debt, for our duty, and for our fafety. And as he became engaged to God for us, fo he became engaged to us for God; that having engaged to God for our debt, we should be juftified; having engaged for our duty, we should be fanctified; and that having engaged for our fafety, we should be glorified, and fafely brought to heaven, to be for ever with the Lord. 1. He engaged for our debt, that it should be paid every farthing, to the uttermost that the infinite holiness of God could command in the precept of the law, and to the uttermoft that the infinite juftice of God could demand in the threatning of the law; and fo he is able to fave to the uttermoft, because he ever lives to make interceffion upon the ground of that compleat payment that he made by his obedience unto death. And here ftands the ground of our juftification before God; this ground he engaged to God for us to lay down, and upon this ground he engages to us, that we shall be juftified, faying, I will be merciful to their unrighteoufnefs, their fins and iniquities will I remember no

more.

more. 2. He engaged not only for our debt, but for our duty having engaged to God to make a and holiness for us, he engages purchase of all grace and holiness for in his promise to us, to give us the new heart and the new Spirit, to make us know the Lord, and to put his fpirit within us, and caufe us to walk in his Statutes; to put his fear in our hearts, that we shall not depart from him; and confequently that we shall not fin the fin unto death, nor live and die under the power of fin; and that fin fhall not have a final dominion over us; but that the law of the Spirit of life in Chrift Jefus fhall free us from the law of fin and death. And in confequence of these two engagements for debt and for duty. 3. He also engages for our fafety, faying to the Father, I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand, John x. 28. He engages to the Father, that of all that he hath given him, he shall lofe nothing, but shall raise it up again at the laft day; and that they shall all be with him where be is, to behold his glory. And hence iffue all the promises wherein alío he engages to us for God, fuch as, that be will farve us from falling, and prefent us faultlefs before the prefence of his glory with exceeding joy; and that though we may be fometimes carried captive of our enemies by conftraint, yet that we fhall overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and fit with him on his throne, even as he overcame, and is fet down with his Father on his throne: And that no crofs fhall come, but what fhall be for our advantage in the end, whatever for the prefent it seem to be to our fenfe; but that all things fhall work together for our good who love him, and are the called according to his purpofe.

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