kiss each other? Why, it was even in Christ, when he took our law-room, to pay our debt, and purchase our liberty in such a manner as mercy and peace might have their interests advanced, without injury to truth and righteousness; that mercy might have vent to the credit of truth, and peace might be proclaimed to the honour of righteousness, and the sinner saved to the fatisfaction of justice. They meet together and embrace each other in him as the surety, the surety of the better testament, Heb. vii. 22. We were debtors to the mandatory and minatory part of the law, arraigned at the instance of divine justice to pay the debt; Christ substitutes himself in our room and comes under the law to pay the whole debt. It is true, the debt was personal, and justice had a demand upon the person that finned, by virtue of the covenant of works; but that covenant never excluded a surety, tho' it provided none. The law promised life, upon our personal obedience; but, in case we fail, it revealed no furety to make out an obedience in our room. There behoved indeed to be a secret referve in the covenant of works, whereby the perfect obedience of another was not excluded: For, if the covenant of works had absolutely excluded a surety in our room, then the covenant of grace had been excluded, and our salvation had been impossible after our fall; but, tho' the covenant of works did not exclude a furety, yet that covenant did neither provide nor reveal a furety: This is done in the covenant of grace, which is Christ as surety fulfilling for us the covenant of works, in all the articles of it. Now, is truth and faithfulness at any loss here? No, the truth of the promise and threatning both, of the law of works, is fulfilled. On the one hand, the promise S2 promise of eternal life made to perfect obedience; which, tho' we forfeited in our own person, yet we recover in the person of Christ; the promise of life upon the ground and condition of perfect obedience being fulfilled to us in him, who hath yielded that perfect obedience in our room: On the other hand, divine truth and faithfulness, in the threatning of the law, which was death, is glorified, in that it is fulfilled upon the surety; while we, who came under the sentence of death in the first Adam, undergo that death in the second. Again, is righteousness and justice at any loss by this surety in our room? No, no; whether we look upon it as vindictive or retributive justice, vindictive justice is displayed in its utmost severity upon Christ; Awake, O fword, against my shepherd, and the man that is my fellow: And so the fword is drunk in his blood to infinite fatisfaction. Retributive justice is glorioufly displayed also, in the finner's being rewarded, justified, saved upon this ground. It is true, might JUSTICE say, I could have demanded fatisfaction upon the finner bimself in his own perfon; but, as I can fustain no injury to my honour by fuch a furety as this, whom they call EMMANUEL, God-man, so I find my honour and interest, instead of being impaired, is advanced by this exchange of perfons: For, tho' I should damn the finner to all eternity, I'll never get fuch full and complete fatisfaction upon any finite creature, as 1 will get by one ftroke of my avenging fword upon that person of infinite dignity; and so it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Why then, they meet together and embrace one another in him, as a furety; and, if truth and righteousness be both pleased to the full, the parties cannot but all agree, and embrace each other. other. Again they meet together and embrace one another in him, as a sacrifice, a facrifice and offering of a sweet smelling favour unto God, Eph. v. 2. Why, he offered up himself by the eternal Spirit. O great! Even by his eternal Godhead; a valuable facrifice indeed! They meet together in him, as a propitiation, Rom. iii. 25. Whom God bath fet forth to be a propitiation through faith in bis blood to declare his righteousness, &c. Behold him righteous in shewing mercy; here is the atonement, the propitiation, that very word which the feptuagint calls the mercy-feat in the old testament; and it is the word that the poor publican made ufe of, when he was seeking mercy, saying, God be merciful to me a finner, ὡ Θεὸς ἱλάσθητι μοι. He remembered this ἱλατήριον, this mercy-feat and propitiation. It is not simple mercy that he fought, but mercy through a propitiation; he looked to the blood of atonement, to the sacrificed lamb of God, saying, Give me mercy for this; by that solemn propitiation, be thou propitious to me. Here it is, that mercy and justice meet together. They meet together in him, as a ransom, Job xxxiii. 24. Deliver bis foul from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom. In a word they have met together, and kissed one another in a crucified Christ, whose death was the payment of our debt, the punishment of our fin, the price of our redemption, and a purchase of our life, liberty and eternal salvation. Here is the meeting place then of these glorious perfections of God; here is the person in whom they centre, that they may be all glorified to the highest: Mercy, truth, righteousness and peace, all are pleased. Mercy is gratified, and conftitutes him to be the mercy-feat; truth S 3 truth is fatisfied, and centers in him as the way, the truth and the life; righteousness is contented, and declares him to be the Lord our righteousness; peace is perfected, and proclaims him to be the prince of peace. Yea, not only are all the members of the meeting pleased and fatisfied for themselves, in the advancement of their own particular interests, but they are infinitely well pleased in each other, and that the interests of their seemingly oppofite parties are advanced, as well as their own particular claims: Mercy is pleased that truth hath got all its demands, and truth is pleased that mercy hath got all her defire, and righteousness is pleased that peace is proclaimed, and peace is pleased that righteousness is honoured. Mercy and peace rejoice that they are magnified to the infinite glory of truth and righteousness, and truth and righteousness rejoice that they are glorified to the infinite pleasure of mercy and peace, and hence they not only meet together, but kiss one another. Here you fee where they meet together: So much for an answer thereto more generally. 2dly, More particularly, as to the meeting-time, you may take these following particulars for the further clearing of it. Altho' this blessed meeting once taking place is still continued, and cannot be faid properly to adjourn from time to time, and from place to place; for this assembly never difsolves: Yet, in a fuitableness to our weak caраcity and finite understanding, which cannot rightly conceive of a meeting that never had a time to meet, because they met in eternity, and never shall have a time to part, because they meet to eternity; we cannot conceive of it, I say, but by taking it, as it were, into so many parts, or confidering ! fidering it in so many periods: And there are these eight remarkable periods, wherein mercy and peaсе meet with truth and righteousness, and kiss each other. 1. The first remarkable period is this, they met together at the council-table of the covenant of redemption from all eternity, before ever the foundation of the world was laid; and ere ever the morning-stars sang together, mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace kisfed each other: For the council of peace did then meet, Zech. vi. 13. and all was concerted by infinite wisdom, how mercy should be magnified, truth cleared, righteousness vindicated, and peace concluded, and all in Christ, who according to the tenor of that covenant (whereof the covenant of grace is but a transcript) was to give his foul an offering for fin, and then was to see his feed, and the pleasure of the Lord to profper in his hand. Then it was that this pleasant meeting in him was first constituted, as you may fee, Prov. viii. 30, 31. He being fet up from everlasting, ere ever the earth was, God in all his glorious perfections was delighted in him, and in him his delights were with the fons of men. This was the grand meeting, at which the time and place of all the subsequent meetings were concerted, and all the other particulars we are to mention are but the result of this, and as it were emanations therefrom; for it is a meeting that never dissolves, tho' in several periods it appears like a new meeting unto us. Therefore, 2. Another remarkable period is their meeting together in the garden of Eden, after man had made himself naked and obnoxious to the flaming sword of divine justice. Mercy comes walking in S 4 the |