from all obligation to obey the moral precepts of that law which is holy, and just, and good. Of this objection to his own doctrine, Paul was aware, when he thus interrogated and replied: Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid! yea, we establish the law, To be delivered from the curse of the law, and to be freed from an obligation to observe its precepts, are very different things. From the former, believers are completely redeemed by the latter, they are bound to universal obedience. Nor would they derive either honour or advantage from its being otherwise. Nay, it is impossible. For what is the sum of those precepts, but love to God, and love to man? Consequently, while God is God, and man is man, those moral precepts must oblige. On supposition they did not, the law would be entirely abolished, and there would be no sin: because, where there is no law, there can be no transgression. Those holy precepts do not only oblige; they require the same obedience, and to the same degree, that they ever did. Nor is it in the power of any man, whose conscience is not seared as with a hot iron, deliberately to approve of any thing which he cannot but consider as a breach of those moral precepts.-The commanding power of the law, in precepts and prohibitions, to which justified persons are subject; constitutes all their deviations from rectitude, no less truly and properly sins, than if their persons were under the curse of the law; which is by no means the case, For, to be condemned by the law, and to be justified before God, are contraries: but subjection to the commands of the law, and complete justification in the sight of our Maker, are

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perfectly consistent. Otherwise we must conclude, either that justified persons are not within the verge of divine authority; or that no sinner is justified in the present life. It is, therefore, a subjection to the commanding power of the law, and not an exposedness to its curse, which constitutes theculpability, or sinfulness, of any desire in our hearts, or of any action in our lives.

That complete justification, therefore, which takes place immediately upon believing in Jesus; though it effectually dissolve the believer's obligation to punishment by the curse of the law; is far from annihilating the authority of the law in its commands respecting those that are justified. No: in every thing of a moral nature, that which would be sinful in a profligate, must be so in them, and attended with peculiar aggravations.-Nay, so far from real believers and justified persons treating divine precepts with habitual disrespect we may venture to say, that none are more sensible of the evil of sin; none more sincerely mourn over it; nor are any more earnest in supplication for the pardon of it, and for sanctifying influence, than those who have the most solid evidence of being completely delivered from the curse of the law. For though, as an Apostle informs us, the atonement of Christ applied to the souls of believers, takes away conscience condemning for sin, with reference to the curse of the law;* yet it by no means prevents the conscience condemning sin, in the sinner: which, on all considerations, whether of God or of themselves, of the law or of the

* Heb. x. 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 14.

gospel, requires repentance, on the part of the sinner; and actual pårdon, on the part of God.*

Again: Some, perhaps, though professed friends to the atonement of Christ, may charge us with so stating the substitution of Christ, the imputation of sin to him, and the satisfaction he made to eternal justice, as leaves no room for the free pardon of sin. But, while those emphatical passages of Scripture that have been recently under our notice, with many others of a similar kind, retain their divine authority; and while an apostle expressly connects the notion of perfectly free forgiveness, with the idea of redemption by the blood of Jesus: we have no reason to be apprehensive of error on this account. For thus it is written: We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. It is free forgiveness, we see, though obtained by the blood of the Lamb: for it is pardon according to the riches of divine grace.

The objection, my brethren, to which I advert, has been often made by those who avowedly reject the satisfaction of Christ. But, for any who really consider the death of our Lord as an atonement for sin, and as essential to the ground of a sinner's hope, to employ the objection against us, would be very extraordinary; and must, presume, proceed from inadvertency. Because, if the freeness of pardon to us, exclude the noblest kind, and the highest degree, of substitutionary satisfaction made by Immanuel to divine justice for us; it must, for

* See Dr. Owen on Justification by Faith, cap. V. p. 201, 202, 203. See also an Essay intituled, The Death of Legal Hope the Life of Evangelical Obedience, Sect. vii.

Eph. i. 7. See also Col. i. 14.

the same reason, exclude every kind, and every degree, of satisfaction on our behalf. But how, then, can such objectors maintain the atonement against Socinians ?*

* In order to show, that the doctrine for which I contend, as taught by Paul, (2 Cor. v. 21. and Gal. iii. 13.) is neither novel, nor more strongly expressed than it has formerly been by authors of eminence, I will present my reader with a variety of quotations, from writers in different ages of the christian church, principally borrowed from Dr. Owen, who collected them, together with a number of others, for a similar purpose.

Thus, then, Justin Martyr: God gave his Son a ransom for us: the Holy for transgressors; the Innocent for the nocent; the just for the unjust; the Incorruptible for the corrupt; the Immortal for mortals. For what else could hide or cover our sins but his righteousness? In whom else could we wicked and ungodly ones be justified, or esteemed righteous, but in the Son of God alone? O sweet permutation, or change! O unsearchable work, or curious operation! O blessed beneficence, exceeding all expectation! That the iniquity of many should be hidden in one Just One, and the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors!'-Gregory Nyssen: Christ "hath transferred to himself the filth of my sins, and communicated to me his purity, and made me partaker of his beauty.'—Augustine: He was sin, that we might be righteousness: not our own, but the righteousness of God; not in ourselves, but in him. As he was sin; not his own, but ours; not in himself, but in us.'-Chrysostom: What language is this! What mind can comprehend or express it! For he says, he made the Just One a sinner, that he might make sinners righteous. Nor yet does he so speak; but that which is much greater and more wonderful. For he speaks, not of the inclination, or the habit, but of the quality itself. For he says not, he made him a sinner, but SIN: that we might be made, he does not say righteous, but RIGHTEOUSNESS; and that, the righteousness of GOD."-Ecumenius: Christ was a great sinner, seeing he took on himself the sins of the whole world, and made them his own." (Apud Witsium, Animadvers. Iren. cap. ii. sect. 5.)—Calvin : • Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. Christ was suspended on the cross. Now it is certain, that he did not suffer on his

From the doctrine of Divine Justice, as it respects the atonement of Christ, we are led to infer, that redemption by his blood is not general but particular, and peculiar to the chosen of God. Redemption by Jesus Christ cannot, I conceive, be

own account: and therefore it follows, either that he was crucified in vain; or that our curse was laid upon him, that we might be released from it. It is not said, Christ was cursed, but that he was made a curse; which is more; for it signifies, that the curse of all was included in him. If this appear harsh and offensive to any one, let him also be ashamed of the cross of Christ; in the confession of which we glory. Nor was God ignorant what kind of death his own Son should undergo, when he pronounced every one accursed that should hang upon a tree-Two things are to be considered, not only in the person of Christ, but also in his humanity. The one, that he was the unspotted Lamb of God, full of blessedness and of honour. The other, that he assumed our person; and therefore, was a sinner, and obnoxious to the curse; not, indeed, in himself, but in us.' Comment. in loc.-The following quotation from Luther contains many expressions which I cannot by any means approve. Thus, however, that eminent German Reformer; • Christ took all our sins upon him, and for them died upon the cross. Therefore it behoved that he should become a transgressor; and as Isaiah the prophet saith, be reckoned and accounted among transgressors and trespassers. And this, no doubt, all the prophets did foresee, in spirit, that Christ should become the greatest transgressor, murderer, adulterer, thief, rebel, and blasphemer, that ever was, or could be in all the world. For he being made a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, is not now [to be considered as] an innocent person and without sins; is not now [to be viewed under the character of] the Son of God, born of the virgin Mary: but [as] a sinner [by imputation], which hath and carrieth the sin of Paul, who was a blasphemer, an oppressor, and a persecutor: of Peter, which denied Christ: of David, which was an adulterer, a murderer, and caused the Gentiles to blaspheme the name of the Lord and, briefly, which hath and beareth all the sins of al men in his body: not that he himself committed them, but for