will appear in two particulars. First, the Gospel presents us with the articles of peace, which God offers graciously to treat upon with the children of men; and this none but the Gospel doth. Secondly, the Gospel preached and published is the great instrument of God to effect this peace thus offered.

First, The Gospel presents us with the articles of peace, which God graciously offers to treat and conclude an inviolable peace upon with rebellious man. In it we have the whole method which God laid in his own thoughts from eternity of reconciling poor sinners to himself. The Gospel, what is it, but God's heart in print? The precious promises of the Gospel, what are they but Heaven's court-rolls, translated into the creature's language? in which are exposed to the view of our faith all the counsels and purposes of love and mercy which were concluded on by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,, for the recovery of lost man by Jesus Christ, who was sent as Heaven's plenipotentiary to earth, fully empowered and enabled, not only by preaching to treat of a peace as desired on God's part, to be concluded between God and man, but, by the purchase of his death, to procure a peace, and by his Spirit to seal and ratify the same to all those who, believing the credential letters which God sent with him in the miracles wrought by him, and especially the testimony which the Scripture gives of him, do by a faith unfeigned receive him into their souls as their only Lord and Saviour. This is snch a notion as is not to be learnt elsewhere. A deep silence we find concerning this in Aristotle and Tully; they cannot tell us how a poor sinner may be at peace with God. Nothing of this to be spelled from the covenant God made with Adam; that shuts the sinner up in a dark dungeon of despair; bids him look for nothing but what the wrath of a just God can measure out to him. Thus the guilty creature is surrounded on every side as with a deluge of wrath, no hope nor help to be heard of, till the Gospel, like the dove, brings the olive-branch of peace, and tells him the tide is turned, and that flood of wrath, which was poured on man for his sin is now fallen into another channel, even upon Christ, who was made a curse for us,

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and hath not only drunk of the brook that lay in the way and hindered our passage to God, but hath drunk it off; so that where a sea was now appears dry land, a safe and fair causeway, called Heb. x. 20. a living way, by which every truly repenting and believing sinner may pass without any danger from the justice of God, now appeased, into the love and favour of God: "being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Rom. v. 1. We are entirely beholden to the Gospel for the discovery of this secret, which the Apostle solemnly acknowledgeth, 2 Tim. i. 10. where Christ is said to " bring life and immortality to light by the Gospel." It lay hid in the womb of God's purpose, till the Gospel arose and let us into the knowledge of it, as the light of the sun reveals to the eye what was before, but what could not be seen without its light; and therefore it is not only called a living way, but "a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us," in the place beforementioned: so new, that the heart of man never was acquainted with one thought of it till the Gospel opens it, according to that of Isa. lxii. 16. “I will bring the blind by a way he knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known."

Secondly, The Gospel, published and preached, is the great instrument of God to effect his peace. Before peace be concluded betwixt God and the creature, both must be agreed; as God to pardon, so the sinner to accept and embrace peace upon God's own terms. But how shall this be done? The heart of man is so deeply rooted in its enmity against God, that it requires a strength to pluck up this equal with that which tears up mountains, and carries rocks from one place to another. The Gospel preached is the instrument which God useth for the effecting of it: "I am not ashamed (saith the Apostle) of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation." Rom. i. 16. It is the chariot wherein the Spirit rides victoriously when he makes his entrance into the hearts of man; called therefore, "the ministration of the Spirit." 2 Cor. iii. 8. He fashions anew the heart, as he framed the world at first, with a word speaking. This is "the day of God's power, wherein he makes

his people willing." Power indeed to make those that had the seeds of war sown in their very natures against God, willing to be friends with him. Unheard-of power! as if the beating of a drum should carry such a charm along with its sound, to make those on the enemy's side upon the hearing of it to throw down their arins, and seek peace at his hand against whom they even now took the field with great rage and fury; such a secret power accompanies the Gospel. It strikes many times not only the sinner's sword out of his hand, while it is stretched out against God, but the enmity out of his heart, and brings the stoutest rebel upon his knee humbly to crave the benefit of the articles of peace published in the Gospel; it makes sinners so pliant and tractable to the call of God in the Gospel, that they on a sudden, upon the hearing of a Gospel-sermon, forget their old natural affections, which they have had to their beloved lusts, and leap out of their embraces with indignation, lest they should keep God and them at odds one moment longer. Now follows the third.

Quest. 3. Why doth God convey his peace of reconciliation by this channel unto the sons of men? or, in plainer terms, why doth God chuse to reconcile poor sinners to himself by Christ? for this is the peace which the Gospel proclaims, Coloss. i. 20. “And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself," and ver. 21, 22. "And you that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy, and unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight."

Answ. They are too bold with God who say that he could not find out another way; who can tell that, except God himself had told him so? Alas! how unmete is the short line of our created understanding for such a daring attempt as to fathom the unsearchableness of God's omnipotent wisdom? to determine what God can, and what he cannot do? But we may say (and not forget to revere the majesty of Heaven) that the wisdom of God could not have laid the method of salvation more advantageous to the exalting of his own glorious name,

and his poor creatures' happiness, than in this expedient of reconciling them to himself by Christ our great peacemaker. This transaction hath in it a happy temperament to solve all the difficulties on either hand, and for its mysterious contrivance exceeds the workmanship which God put forth in making this exterior world (though that in its kind perfect, and so glorious that the least creature tells its Maker to be a Deity, and puts the atheist to shame in his own conscience that he will not believe so) yet I say it exceeds this goodly frame of Heaven and Earth as far as the watch itself doth the case which covers it. Indeed, God intended by this way of reconciling poor sinners to himself to make work for angels and saints to admire the mystery of his wisdom, power, and love therein to everlasting. O when they shall all meet together in Heaven, and there have the whole counsel of God unfolded to them; when they shall behold what seas were dried up, and what rocks of creature-impossibilities digged through, by the omnipotent wisdom and love of God, before a sinner's peace could be obtained, and then behold the work (notwithstanding all this) to be effected and brought to a happy perfection, O how will they be swallowed up in adoring the abyss of his wisdom who laid the platform of all this according to the eternal counsel of his own will? Surely the sun doth not so much exceed the strength of our mortal eyes, as the glory of this will their understandings from ever fully comprehending it. This, this is the piece which God drew on purpose (for its rare workmanship) to beautify Heaven itself with. When Christ returned to Heaven, he carried none of this world's rarities with him; not its silver and gold, not crowns and diadems, which here men venture their lives, yea part with their souls so prodigally, for. Alas! what are these, and the whole pride and gallantry of this world, to Heaven? that which it glories most of suits Heaven no better than the beggar's dish and scraps do a prince's table, or the patched tattered coat of the one the wardrobe of the other. No: the Lord Christ came on a higher design than this, to earth; the enterprize he undertook to atchieve was to negotiate, yea effect, a peace

betwixt God and his rebel creature man, that had by his revolt incurred his just wrath and vengeance. This was a work that became God himself so well to engage in that he thought none high and worthy enough to be trusted with the transacting of it beneath his only Son, who staid here but while he had brought his negotiation to a happy period; and then carried the joyful tidings of its being finished back with him to Heaven, which made his return infinitely welcome to his Father, and all the glorious inhabitants of Heaven his attendants.

CHAP. IV.

A MORE PARTICULAR ACCOUNT WHY GOD RECONCILED SINNERS TO HIMSELF BY CHRIST.

BUT I shall proceed to give some more particular answer to the question propounded.

SECT. I.

First, God lays this method of reconciling sinners to himself by Christ, that he might give the deepest testimony of his perfect hatred to sin in that very act wherein he expresseth the highest love and mercy to sinners. No act of mercy and love like that of pardoning sin. To receive a reconciled sinner into Heaven is not so great an advance as to take a rebel into a state of favour and reconciliation. The terms here are infinitely wider; there is reason to expect the one, none to look for the other. It is pure mercy to pardon; but truth, being pardoned, to save. Mic. vii. 19, 20. Well, when God puts forth this very act he will have the creature see his hatred to sin writ upon the face of that love he shews to the sinner. And truly this was but needful, if we consider how hard it is for our corrupt hearts to conceive of God's mercy without some dishonourable reflection upon his holiness. "I kept silence," (saith God) Psal. 1. and what inference doth the wicked draw from thence?