them chargeable with innumerable fins. And the declaration, that God is thus merciful, was to be recorded and publickly known, through a long fucceffion of ages, and to extend to fins not yet committed. An act of grace fo general and unreserved, might lead men (not to speak of fuperior intelligences) to difparaging thoughts of the holiness of God, and might even encourage them to fin with hope of impunity, if not connected with fome provifion, which might fhew, that the exercise of his mercy was in full harmony with the honour of all his perfections. How God could be juft, and yet justify thofe*, whom his own righteous conftitution condemned, was á difficulty too great for finite understandings to folve. But herein is God glorious. His wisdom propounded, and his love afforded, the adequate, the only poffible expedient. He revealed to our firit parents his purpose, which, in the fulness of time, he accomplished, of fending forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem finners from the curfe of the law, by sustaining it for them. Confidering the dignity of his person, and the perfection of his obedience, his fufferings and *Rom. iii. 26. U 4 + Gal. iv. 4. death death for fins not his own, displayed the heinousness of fin, and the fevere displeasure of God against it, in a much stronger light, than the execution of the fentence upon the offenders could poffibly do. It difplays, likewife, the justice of this fentence, fince neither the dignity, nor the holiness of the furety, could exempt him from fuffering; and that though he was the beloved of God, he was not spared. This is what I understand by atonement and fatisfaction for fin. II. The efficacy of this atonement is compleat. The Lamb of God, thus flain, taketh away fin; both with respect to its guilt, and its defilement. The Ifraelites, by looking to the brafen ferpent*, were faved from death, and healed of their wounds. The Lamb of God is an object, propofed, not to our bodily fight, but to the eye of the mind, which, indeed, in fallen man, is naturally blind; but the gospel meffage, enlivened by the powerful agency of the Holy Spirit, is appointed to open it. He who thus feeth the Son, and believeth on him, is delivered from guilt and condemnation, is justified from all fin. He is warranted to plead the fufferings of the + John vi. 40. * Num. xxi. 9. Lamb Lamb of God in bar of his own; the whole of the Saviour's obedience unto death, as the ground and title of his acceptance unto life. Guilt or obnoxiousness to punishment being removed, the foul has an open way of accefs to God, and is prepared to receive blessings from him. For as the fun, the fountain of light, fills the eye that was before blind, the instant it receives fight; fo God, who is the fountain of goodness, enlightens all his intelligent creatures according to their capacity, unless they are by fin blinded, and rendered incapable of communion with him. The Saviour is now received and enthroned in the heart, and from his fulness, the life of grace is derived and maintained. Thus not only the guilt, but the love of fin, and its dominion, are taken away, fubdued by grace, and cordially renounced by the believing, pardoned finner. The blood, which frees him from distress, preserves a remembrance of the great danger and mifery, from which he has been delivered, warm upon his heart; infpires him with gratitude to his Deliverer; and furnishes with an abiding and constraining motive, for cheerful and univerfal obedience. III. III. The defigned extent of this gratuitous removal of fin, by the oblation of the Lamb of God, is expreffed in a large and indefinite manner. He taketh away the fin of the world. Many of my hearers need not be told, what fierce and voluminous difputes have been maintained, concerning the extent of the death of Chrift. I am afraid the advantages of fuch controverfies, have not been anfwerable to the zeal of the difputants. For myself, I wifh to be known, by no name, but that of a Christian; and implicitly to adopt no system but the Bible. I ufually endeavour to preach to the heart and the confcience, and to wave, as much as I can, all controverfial points. But as the subject now lies directly before me, I fhall embrace the occafion, and fimply, and honestly, open to you the sentiments of my heart concerning it. If because the death of Chrift is here faid to take away the fin of the world, or, (as this evangelift expresses it in another place) the whole world*, it be inferred, that he actually defigned and intended the falvation of all men, fuch an inference would be contradicted by fact. For it is certain that all men will not be faved*. It is to be feared, that the greater part of thofe, to whom the word of his falvation is fent, perifh in their fins. If, therefore, he cannot be disappointed of his purpose, fince many do perifh, it could not be his fixed defign, that all men fhould be finally and abfolutely faved. The exceeding great number, once dead in trefpaffes and fins, who fhall be found on his right hand, at the great day of his appearance, are frequently spoken of in appropriate and peculiar language. They are styled his fheep, for whom he laid down his life; his elect‡, his own §; those to whom it is given to believe in his name ||, and, concerning whom, it was the Father's good pleasure to predeftinate them to the adoption of children **. By nature, they are children of wrath, even as others +; and no more difpofed in themselves to receive the truth, than thofe who obftinately and finally reject it. Whenever they become willing they are made fo, in a day of divine power; and wherein they differ, it is grace that makes them to differ §§. Paffages in the |