Use. If Christ be a sacrifice,

and filth. Though sin abounded, grace did much more abound, Rom.

2. From union with this infinite person by faith. All believers have a communion with him in his death: 2 Cor. 5:14, 'If one died for all, then were all dead.' All were accounted as dying, and bearing the wrath of God, by God's reckoning that death to them. As the sin of Adam is imputed to all his natural posterity, as being one with him in his loins, so are the sufferings of Christ imputed to all his spiritual seed, Rom. 5:18, as being one with him in a real union. Hence we are said to be 'crucified with Christ,' Rom. 6:6, and 'risen with him,' Eph.

2:6, as in the person representing us, as if the same wrath endured by Christ had been endured by us, and the same acquittance given to Christ had been given to us by God together with him; for all his meritorious passions were endured by him in the name of his elect, and for their use, and are fully belonging in the fruit and benefit of them to every believer. What Christ as a mediator did personally do, redounds in the benefit of it to Christ mystical, and is reckoned to every member of his body; we are made, we, and every one of us that believe, are made the righteousness of God in him. Well then, Christ bearing our iniquities is the cause of our justification: Isa. 53:11, 'By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.' If our sin had not been imputed to him, his righteousness could not be accounted to us; the commutation is clear, he first bears our iniquities that we might partake of his righteousness.

Use. If Christ be a sacrifice, 1. We may see the miserable blindness of the Jews in expecting the Messiah as a temporal conqueror. The Jews wait for such a one to this day. Though the promises represent spiritual deliverances under temporal grandeurs, not to raise carnal hopes but spiritual apprehensions, yet are there not multitudes of places which speak of sufferings, misery, death? Is not his heel to be bruised, his garments

to be parted, a restoration to be made by him of what he took not away? Are not the sacrifices of the law to be perfected, his soul to be made an offering for sin, wounds made for transgression, his hands and his feet to be pierced? It was not by the slaying the bodies of men that he is to 'make reconciliation for the iniquities' of men, Dan.

9:24. How can he be a conqueror of kingdoms who is to be cut off, and the city where he was to be destroyed as with a flood, and the desolations of it to be determined? ver. 25, כרת, penally cut off, as it signifies, Lev. 17:4, as one was cut off that had no sacrifice allowed for him.* The right apprehensions of the promises concerning the Messiah in the Old Testament, what he was to be, what he was to do, cannot let you be ignorant of him in the New. How do those poor people overturn at once the whole design of that divine law they seem to reverence in the highest degree! What blindness will seize upon the hearts of men, even under the oracles of God, if the Spirit of God doth not vouchsafe to enlighten them!

2. If Christ be a sacrifice, it shews the necessity of a satisfaction to the justice of God, and a higher satisfaction than men could perform.

Blood must satisfy justice, and no blood but that of the Son of God could be a sufficient and valuable propitiation. If mere mercy could or would have pardoned, it might have done it with or without the blood of the poor creatures mangled under the law. But, alas! neither the blood of those, nor the blood of a rational creature, could take away sin. Less than death justice could not demand; death was settled by the immediate order of God as the penalty of the law. The law, then, after transgression, could not be vindicated in its honour without death. A God of infinite goodness delights not in the shedding the blood of his creatures, nor can we suppose him to be pleased with the effusion of the blood of animals. The institution of the legal sacrifices could not be exemplary to man. What virtue could the pangs of a dying beast represent to him? No other ends can be imagined but an acknowledgment of guilt, the desert of sin, the debt of death, the necessity of a higher satisfaction, and the raising them up to a faith in the promise of God, that another valuable sacrifice should be put in the room of the sinner, to take away that sin, which

the blood of beasts and the eternal groans of men were not able to remove.

3. Christ, as sacrificed, is the true and immediate object of faith. We are revolted from God, and are made uncapable of performing the terms of the first covenant. The precepts of the law are too holy for our corrupt nature, the penalties of the law too grievous to be borne by our feeble nature; a remedy must be looked after. When the venom of sin begins to work in the conscience, and the thunder of the law alarms it to judgment, and the punishment due to sin is presented in the horrors of it, the question immediately is, Whether there be any remedy, and where? How forgiveness of sin is to be attained? The only remedy is proposed in Christ, and Christ as a sacrifice. It is not Christ risen, or ascended, or exalted; not Christ only as the Son of God, or the head of angels; not Christ as the creator of the world, or by whom all things consist; but Christ as answering the terms of the first covenant, as disarming justice: and this he did as a sacrifice. By this he bore the curse, by this he broke down the partition wall, by this he joined apostate man and an offended God. This is that true faith pitcheth on, daily revolves, and daily applies to. This is the first object of the soul, Christ made sin,

Christ bearing the punishment, Christ substituted in the room of the offender. His resurrection and ascension come in afterward to ascertain the comfort. But as his being a sacrifice is the foundation of his being an advocate, a prince, a Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins, so it is the foundation of peace in ourselves. This is that which pacifies God, and only what pacifies God can pacify conscience. This death as a sacrifice purchased our comfort, because it purchased the comforter. Christ begged not the Spirit before he died, John 16:7; he assures them he could not come, unless himself went; and he could not have gone with any success to heaven, if he had not shed his blood; justice would have stopped his entrance:

Luke 24:26, 'Ought not Christ to have suffered those things, and to enter into his glory?' Suffering was to precede his glory. Besides, our comfort lies in his being an advocate. But how is he an advocate?

With his blood in his hands. It is by his blood he speaks in heaven,

and by his blood faith speaks to God. He paid the debt in his suffering, and pleads the payment in his glory. The payment went before the plea in order of nature, and our eyeing the payment precedes our eyeing the plea in order of faith. Both respect God as the rector. Christ, without his garments rolled in blood, could not be answerable to God, nor acceptable to a sinner. Faith is therefore called 'faith in his blood,' Rom. 3:25. As faith is the instrument of justification, so it must eye the cause of our justification, and under that notion wherein it is the cause; and that is Christ as groaning and offering up himself to God a ransom, a righteousness for many. The curse upon Adam is the lash wherewith an angry conscience scourgeth a sinner. The freedom from this curse is only found in the vengeance God exacted of the Redeemer for the sins of all that return to him by repentance. Both the death and resurrection of Christ concur to the same end, viz., our justification, Rom. 14:9, but in different manners; his death as the meritorious cause, his resurrection as declarative of the sufficiency of his death to that end, that as the Son of God and surety of men, he had performed whatsoever he undertook in his being a sacrifice. But the first act of relying faith is about him as a bloody victim. As often as the Israelites were stung by the fiery serpents, they were to look up for health to the serpent lifted up, a type and emblem of the death of Christ. Upon every sin of a believer, the sacrifice is pleaded in heaven by the priest, and ought, in the remembrance of it, to be renewed in the repeated acts of our faith.

4. It is no true opinion that Christ died only for an example.

Wounded he was for the transgressions in Isaiah's time, when his example could reach only those that came after him; but the credit of his sufferings upon his promise to undergo them, might and did reach to the first ages of the world. The expressions in Isa. 53 sound his death higher than a bare pattern, or a testimony to the truth. The notion of expiation of sin was always implied in the notion of a sacrifice, even among the heathens. When they parted with the dearest first-born of their bodies to Moloch, it was not for an example, but for the sin of the soul, Micah 6:6. As Christ was the Son

of God sent, he was a testimony of the love of God; as he was a sacrifice, he was our ransom from the curse of the law.

5. Comfort to every true believer. He was sacrificed for us; God counted him a sinner for our sakes, that he might count us righteous for his sake.

(1.) As Christ hath been sacrificed for them, so he has been accepted for them. He is no more to be made sin, iniquity no more to be charged upon him; his next appearance shall be without the imputation of sin, for the conferring salvation, Heb. 9:28, with all the bonds of a believer's sins cancelled. He is pronounced God's righteous servant, and from this declaration of his righteousness, and the true and believing knowledge of it, doth our justification arise, Isa. 53:11. Had it not been a perfect sacrifice, it could never have wrought such complete effects, and 'for ever have perfected those that are sanctified,' Heb. 10:14. He is gone with the smoke of his sacrifice to heaven, and was well entertained, which is a signification of the completeness and perfection of his righteousness for man, John 16:9, 10. The pure and piercing eye of divine justice could not perceive a spot in him. Had any blemish been, it could not have escaped an infinite knowledge. Nor could the justice of God, in turning over all the registers of the debts owing from the creatures, perceive one but might be cancelled upon the value of this payment, if the creature did not negligently or wilfully refuse his own delivery, and prefer his debts and captivity before it. It was a sacrifice offered according to God's heart, with which his soul was infinitely well pleased. The person of the Son of God made every gaping wound, every panting groan, and doleful agony, grateful to God, and profitable for us. The Godhead united to the manhood put an unexpressible value upon every pang. Not that every pang, or the least drop of blood, was sufficient for our redemption (the law required death, and death must be suffered); but all those passions preceding his death were meritorious in conjunction with his death.

(2.) This sacrifice unites all the attributes of God together for a believer's interest. The flood-gates of mercy are opened, and the fire of justice confined in its flames. The flames of the one centre in Christ, that the streams of the other might flow down to us; rivers of mercy quench not the flames of justice, nor the flames of justice suck up the rivers of mercy. As the sacrificing Christ is a vengeance against sin, it is an act of justice; as it is a means of remission of the sins of those for whom he was sacrificed, it is an act of mercy to the creature. Both justice and mercy join hands to help the fallen creature up. God is just in being merciful, and merciful in being just; so that we may well cry aloud with the psalmist, Ps. 116:5, 'Gracious is the Lord, and righteous.' Justice struck the sacrifice, that the streams of mercy might have a fuller scope. Compassion helped justice to a satisfaction more honourable than could have been had from creatures; and justice helped mercy to a fuller and more illustrious exercise of itself than ever it could have had without it.

Justice is now a second to mercy, of an antagonist it is become an advocate. God must be unjust, if he be not merciful to a believer.

Since our high priest hath been faithful to God, God will not be unfaithful to him, or those for whom he offered up himself. Happy must he be that hath mercy supplicating, and justice itself pleading for him.

(3.) This sacrifice is of eternal virtue. The virtue of the sacrifice is parallel to the office of his priesthood; a priest and a sacrifice are relatives. The immutable oath, then, that constituted him a priest for ever, settles for ever the value and virtue of the sacrifice; for without a sacrifice he could not be a priest; his office would expire if the virtue of his sacrifice did; they eternally live together in conjunction.

It is 'the blood of an everlasting covenant,' Heb. 13:20. It is an everlasting covenant, because an everlasting blood whereby it was settled. The ground of its prevalency is, that it was not the sacrifice of a mere man, but of God, Heb. 9:14.

(4.) The effects of this sacrifice therefore are perfect, glorious, and eternal. It is our deliverance from wrath, the scorchings of hell, and

terrors of punishment. The purity of this sacrifice expiates the impurities of our services. No sin so great but the value of this sacrifice, believed in, can answer it. The highest sin is the transgression of the law, and this is the satisfaction of the whole penalty of the law. Sin is an offence against God, and this sacrifice is the highest pleasure to him. None of our sins can be so great as those that met upon the back of this innocent lamb. It is enough to cross every book of accounts; 'Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth,' and 'Christ that died,' Rom.

8:33, 34. 'There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ,' because he hath as a sacrifice 'for sin condemned sin in the flesh,'

Rom. 8:1–3. Not, no desert of condemnation, that there is; not, no condemnation because of something done by themselves; no, but because of something done by Christ, who hath obliterated the bloody roll of sin and curses by his blood. God will not refuse it to any that believingly plead it; he will not be unjust to the true value of it, nor to his own ordination. If it be unrighteous in God to 'forget the labour of a believer's love,' Heb. 6:10, it will be so to forget the obedience of his Son, and the person interested in it. God was not so ready to bruise him for us, but he will be as ready to apply the plaster of his blood to us.

How great, then, is the happiness of a believer on the account of this sacrifice! Whatsoever is lost by the sin of the first Adam, is gained by the sacrifice of the second; with what boldness may we enter into the holiest with this blood of Jesus in our hands and hearts, Heb. 10:19.

6. We must then lay hold on this sacrifice. The people were to be sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifice, Exod. 24:8, so must we with the blood of our Lamb. Thus only can it save us, 1 Peter 1:2. Thus is our Saviour described by this part of his office: Isa. 52:15, 'He shall sprinkle many nations.' Our guilt cannot look upon a consuming fire without a propitiatory sacrifice; our services are blemished, so that they will rather provoke his justice than merit his mercy; we must have something to put a stop to a just fury, expiate an infinite guilt, and perfume our unsavoury services. Here it is in Christ, but there

must be faith in us. Faith is as necessary by the ordination of God in a way of instrumentality, as the grace of God in a way of efficiency, and the blood of Christ in a way of meritoriousness of our justification. All must concur, the will of God the offended governor, the will of the sacrificing mediator, and the will of the offender. This will must be a real will, an active operative will, not a faint velleity.

We must have a faith to justify our persons, and we must have an active sincerity to justify the reality of our faith. Christ was real in his sacrifice, God was real in the acceptation of it, we must be real in believing it. Rocks and mountains cannot secure them that neglect so great a sacrifice, that regard this atoning blood as an unholy thing. It is as dreadful for men to have this sacrifice smoking against them, and this blood calling for vengeance on them, as it is comfortable to have it pleaded for them and sprinkled on them. Why will any then despise and neglect a necessary sovereign remedy ready at hand? Is it excusable, that when we should have brought the sacrifice ourselves, or ourselves have been the sacrifice, we should slight him who hath voluntarily been a sacrifice for us, and cherish a hell merited by our sin, rather than accept of a righteousness purchased at no less rate than the blood of God? This sacrifice is full of all necessary virtue to save us, but the blood of it must be sprinkled upon our souls by faith. Without this we shall remain in our sins, under the wrath of God and sword of vengeance.

7. We must be enemies to sin, since Christ was a sacrifice for it.

Unless sin die in us, we cannot have an evidence that this sacrifice was slain for us. He that hath an interest in Christ's blood must be planted 'into the likeness of his death,' Rom. 6:5. We are highly unjust, if we will not sacrifice a beloved sin for him, who sacrificed a precious life, of more value than heaven and earth, for us. We should empty ourselves of our filth, since he emptied himself of his glory.

The very expression, sacrificed for us, carries a force and a spirit in it to animate us to this. We must be friends to the duties God enjoins us. It is disingenuity to put him off with a shred of our souls, or a grain of service, who became a holocaust for us. Scanty services are fit only for a scanty sacrifice. As God shews in this sacrifice his

compassions to the sinner, so he declares the certainty and terror of his penalties upon the obstinate rebel. If the Son of God, undertaking to be a sacrifice, was not preserved from death upon the account of his filiation, men cannot expect but to sink under it upon the account of their rebellion. Well, then, let us not look upon the least sin without horror, since it is a crime not to be expiated by any lower price than an infinite blood. It should cause us to mourn also for sin.

It was our unrighteousness made Christ's back and his soul to suffer; he had never felt the wrath of his Father, if we had not broke the law of his Father. When the death of Christ, our sacrifice, comes into our thoughts, the remembrance of our sins should bear it company. We should never consider that Christ died, but we should join also with sorrow the consideration of that for which he died.

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