3. Therefore, let us be sensible of the necessity of an interest in the
the least crime by any intrinsic value in the acts themselves; the very acts, as well as the persons, might fall under the censure of consuming justice. The death of Christ only procures us life. The blood of Christ only doth quench that just fire sin had kindled in the breast of God against us. To aim at any other way for the appeasing of God, than the death of Christ, is to make the cross of Christ of no effect. This we are to learn from an Ought not Christ to die?
3. Therefore, let us be sensible of the necessity of an interest in the Redeemer's death. Let us not think to drink the waters of salvation out of our own cisterns, but out of Christ's wounds. Not to draw life out of our own dead duties, but Christ's dying groans. We have guilt, can we expiate it ourselves? We are under justice. Can we appease it by any thing we can do? There is an enmity between God and us. Can we offer him anything worthy to gain his friendship? Our natures are corrupted, can we heal them? Our services are polluted, can we cleanse them? There is as great a necessity for us to apply the death of Christ for all those, as there was for him to undergo it. The leper was not cleansed and cured by the shedding the blood of the sacrifice for him, but the sprinkling the blood of the sacrifice upon him, Lev.
14:7. As the death of Christ was foretold as the meritorious cause, so the sprinkling of his blood was foretold as the formal cause of our happiness, Isa. 52:15. By his own blood he entered into heaven and glory, and by nothing but his blood can we have the boldness to expect it, or the confidence to attain it, Heb. 10:19. The whole doctrine of the gospel is Christ crucified, 1 Cor. 1:23, and the whole confidence of a Christian should be Christ crucified. God would not have mercy exercised with a neglect of justice by man, though to a miserable client: Lev. 19:15, 'Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor in judgment.' Shall God, who is infinitely just, neglect the rule himself? No man is an object of mercy till he presents a satisfaction to justice. As there is a perfection in God, which we call mercy, which exacts faith and repentance of his creature before he will bestow a pardon, so there is another perfection of vindictive justice that requires a satisfaction. If the creature thinks its own misery a motive to the displaying the perfection of mercy, it must consider that the