Sol. Pardon could not be an act of pure grace, if God received fatisfaction from us; but if he pardon us upon the fatisfaction received from Christ, though it be of debt to him, it is of grace to us: for it was grace to admit a Surety to fatisfy, more grace to provide him, and most of all to apply his fatisfaction to us, by uniting us to Christ, as he hath done.

Object. But God loved us before Christ died for us ; for it was the love of God to the world that moved him to give his onlybegotten Son. Could God love us, and yet not be reconciled and fatisfied?

Sol. God's complacential love is indeed inconsistent with an unreconciled state: He is reconciled to every one he so loves. But his benevolent love, confifting in his purpose of good, may be before actual reconciliation and fatisfaction.

Object. Temporal death, as well as eternal, is a part of the curse if Christ have fully fatisfied by bearing the curse for us, how is it, that those for whom he bare it, die as well as o. thers?

Sol. As temporal death is a penal evil, and part of the curse, fo God inflicts it not upon believers; but they must die for other ends, viz. to be made perfectly happy in a more full and immediate enjoyment of God, than they can have in the body: and so death is theirs by way of privilege, 1 Cor. iii. 22. They are not death's by way of punishment. The fame may be faid of all the afflictions with which God, for gracious ends, now exercises his reconciled ones. Thus much may fuffice to establish this great truth.

Inference 1. If the death of Christ was that which fatisfied God for all the sins of the elect, then certainly there is an infinite evil in fin, fince it cannot be expiated, but by an infinite fatisfaction. Fools make a mock at sin, and there are but few fouls in the world that are duly sensible of, and affected with its evil; but certainly, if God should damn thee to all eternity, thy eternal fufferings could not fatisfy for the evil that is in one vain thought ‡. It may be you may think this is harsh and fevere, that God should hold his creatures under everlasting suf. ferings for fin, and never be satisfied with them any more. But

† By this death of Christ we are greatly excited both to caution, and to detestation of fin. For it must surely be a deadly evil which could not be otherwise cured than by Chrift's death. What man therefore, feriously confidering that his fins were no other way expiated than by the blood of the very Son of God, will not tremble at the thoughts of trampling, as it were, on that most precious blood by daily finning? Daven, on Col. chap. 1. V. 20.

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when you have well confidered, that the object against whom you fin, is the infinite blessed God, which derives an infinite evil to the sin committed against him; and when you confider how God dealt with the angels that fell, for one fin, and that but of the mind; (for having no bodily organs, they could commit nothing externally against God:) you will alter your minds about it. O the depth of the evil of fin! If ever you will fee how great and horrid an evil sin is, measure it in your thoughts, either by the infinite holiness and excellency of God, who is wrong'd by it; or by the infinite sufferings of Chrift, who died to fatisfy for it; and then you will have deeper apprehenfions of the evil of fin.

Inference 2. If the death of Christ satisfied God, and thereby redeemed the elect from the curse: then the redemption of fouls is coftly; fouls are dear things, and of great value with God. "Ye know, (says the apoftle,) that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as filver and gold, from your vain conversation, received by tradition; but with the precious blood of the Son of God, as of a lamb without spot," I Pet. i. 18, 19. Only the blood of God is found an equivalent price for the redemption of fouls. Gold and silver may redeem from Turkish, but not from hellish bondage. The whole creation fold to the utmost worth of it, is not a value for the redemption of one foul. Souls are very dear; he that paid for them found them. fo: yet how cheaply do sinners fell their fouls, as if they were but low prized commodities! but you that fell your fouls cheap, will buy repentance dear.

Inference 3. If Christ's death satisfied God for our fins, how unparalleled is the love of Christ to poor finners! It is much to pay a pecuniary debt to free another, but who will pay his own blood for another? We have a noted instance of || Zaleucus, that famous Locrenfian lawgiver, who decreed, that whoever was convicted of adultery, should have both his eyes put out. It fo fell out, that his own Son was brought before him for that crime; hereupon the people interpofing, made fuit for his pardon. At length, the Father, partly overcome by their importunities, and not unwilling to shew what lawful favour he might to his Son, he first put out one of his own eyes, and then one of his fon's; and so shewed himself both a merciful father, and a just lawgiver; so tempering mercy with justice, that both the Law was fatisfied, and his Son spared. This is written by the Historian as an instance of fingular love in his Father, to pay

|| Valerius, book vi chap. 5.

one half of the penalty for his Son. But Chrift did not divide, and share in the penalty with us, but bare it all. Zaleucus did it for his Son, who was dear to him; Chrift did it for ene. mies, that were fighting and rebelling against him: Rom. v. 8. " While we were yet finners, Chrift died for us." "O would " to God (faid a holy one) I could cause paper and ink to speak "the worth and excellency, the high and loud praises of our " brother ransomer! O the ransomer needs not my report; but "O if he would take it, and make ufe of it! I should be " happy if I had an errand to this world but for fome few years, to spread proclamations, and out-cries, and love-let

ters of the highness [the highness evermore] of the ransom. er, whose cloaths were wet, and dyed in blood; howbeit, " that after that my foul and body should go back to their mo"ther nothing."

Inference 4. If Christ, by dying, hath made full fatisfaction, then God is no lofer in pardoning the greatest of finners that believe in Jesus; and confequently his justice can be no bar to their justification and falvation. He is just to forgive us our sins, 1 John i. 9. What an argument is here for a poor believer to plead with God! Lord, if thou save me by Jefus Chrift, thy justice will be fully fatisfied at one full payment; but if thou damn me, and require fatisfaction at my hands, thou canft never receive it: I shall make but a dribbling payment, though I lie in hell to eternity, and shall still be infinitely behind with thee. Is it not more for thy glory to receive it from Christ's hand, than to require it at mine? One drop of his blood is more worth than all my polluted blood. O how fatisfying a thing is this to the confcience of a poor finner that is objecting the multitude, aggravations, and amazing circumstances, of fins, against the possibility of their being pardoned! Can such a finner as I be forgiven? Yes, if thou believest in Jesus, thou mayeft; for fo God will lose nothing in pardoning the greatest tranfgreffors: "Let Ifrael hope in the Lord; for " with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous re" demption," Pfal. cxxx. 7. i. e. a large stock of merit lying by him in the blood of Christ, to pay him for all that you have done against him.

Inference 5. Lastly, If Chrift hath made such a full fatisfaction as you have heard, How much is it the concernment of every foul, to abandon all thoughts of fatisfying God for his own fins, and betake himself to the blood of Christ, the ransomer, by faith, that in that blood they may be pardoned? It would grieve one's heart to fee how many poor creatures are drudging and tugging at a

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task of repentance, and revenge upon themselves, and reformation, and obedience, to fatisfy God for what they have done against him: And alas! it cannot be, they do but lose their labour; could they swelter their very bearts out, weep till they can weep no more, cry till their throats be parched, alas, they can never recompense God for one vain thought; for fuch is the feverity of the law, that when it is once offended, it will never be made amends again by all that we can do; it will not discharge the finner, for all the forrow in the world. Indeed, if a man be in Chrift, forrow for fin is fomething, and renewed obedience is fonething; God looks upon them favourably, and accepts them graciously in Chrift: but out of him they fignify no more than the intreaties and cries of a condemned malefactor, to reverse the legal fentence of the judge. You may toil all the days of your life, and at night go to bed without a candle. To that sense that scripture sounds, Ifa. 1. 1 r. "Behold, all ye that kin"dle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks; walk " in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that you have "kindled: This shall ye have of mine hand, ye shall lie down " in forrow." By fire, and the light of it, some understand the sparkling pleasures of this life, and the fenfitive joys of the creatures: but generally it is taken for our own natural righteoufness, and all acts of duties, in order to our juftification by them before God. And so it stands opposed to that faith of recumbency spoken of in the verse before. By their compaffing themJelves about with these sparks, understand their dependance on these their duties, and glorying in them. But fee the fatal issue, Ye shall lie down in forrow : that shall be your recompence from the hand of the Lord; that is all the thanks and reward you must expect from him, for flighting Christ's, and preferring your own righteoufuess before his. Reader, be convinced, that one act of faith in the Lord Jetus pleafes God more than all the obedience, repentance, and strivings to obey the law, through thy whole life, can do. And thus you have the first special fruits of Chrift's priesthood, in the full fatisfaction of God, for all the fins of believers.

Surveys the blefsed Inheritance purchased by the Oblation of Chrift, being the second Effect or Fruit of his Priesthood.

GAL. iv. 4, 5. But when the fulness of time was come, God fent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of fons.

T

HIS scripture gives us an account of a double fruit of
Christ's death, viz. the payment of our debt, and the

purchase of our inheritance.

1. The payment of our debt, expressed by our redemption, or buying us out from the obligation and curse of the law, which hath been difcoursed in the last exercise.

2. The purchase of an inheritance for those redeemed ones, expressed here by their receiving the adoption of fons; which is to be our present subject. Adoption is either civil, or divine. Of the first, the civil law gives this definition: that it is,

"* A lawful act, in imitation of nature, invented for the "comfort of them that have no children of their own. Divine "adoption is that special benefit whereby God, for Chrift's "fake, accepteth us as fons, and makes us heirs of eternal life "with him."

Betwixt this civil and † sacred adoption, there is a twofold agreement and disagreement. They agree in this, that both flow from the pleasure and good will of the adoptant; and in this, that both confer a right to privileges, which we have not by nature: but in this they differ, one is an act imitating nature, the other transcends nature; the one was found out for the comfort of them that had no children; the other for the comfort of them that had no father. This divine adoption is,

* Summa Angel. ad verbum. Adoptio eft actus legitimus, imitans naturam, repertus ad corum folatium, qui liberos non habent. Adoptio eft beneficium, quo nos Deus propter Chriftum in filios recipit, et facit nos cum ipso haeredes vitae aeternae. Ravanel.

† Here therefore adoption is taken (as redemption is in Rom, iii, 23.) for actual poffeffion., For as, at the last day, we will perceive the fruit of our redemption, so now we perceive, &c. Calvin o3. this place.