should be free and unforced on the part of the Offerer For since he had deserved the punishment in his own Person it was very fit both that the Sacrifice that was to undergo it for him should be something that was his own otherwise he could have no right to substitute it in his own stead or to offer its life to God in exchange for his own and that he should freely offer it to be killed in his stead otherwise he had not been consenting to the exchange without which it must have been invalid and consequently the Expiation void and hence Lev. 1.3 it is required that he should offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation before the Lord. Fifthly It is also a necessary condition to a true and perfect Sacrifice for sin that it should be admitted and accepted by God in the room and stead of the punishment that is due to him from the Offender himself For by violating his Laws we give God a right to exact the Penalty of them at our own hands so that if he pleases he may refuse to admit of any Substitute to suffer for us and if he will insist upon his right to punish us in our own persons and refuse to admit of any exchange what another suffers for us will signifie nothing to our discharge or acquittal because it is not our own suffering who stand personally obliged to God to suffer the utmost evil that our sin deserves and therefore to admit another to suffer for us is an Act of pure Grace and Favour in him which he may grant or refuse as he pleases So that the Expiatory vertue of all Sacrifice lies in God's admitting and accepting it in exchange for that personal punishment we owe him and hence he is said to have given them the bloud upon the Altar to make an atonement for their Souls Lev. 17.11 that is to have admitted and accepted that Bloud which was offered on the Altar as an Atonement for their lives which were forfeited to him And thus you see what are the necessary conditions of a real and perfect Expiatory Sacrifice all which as I shall now shew you do fully concenter in the Death and Sacrifice of our Saviour As I. In dying or being sacrificed he was substituted in the room of sinful men to be punished for them in order to their being released from their personal obligation to punishment And hence Tit. 2.14 he is said to have given himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works that is he gave his life in exchange for ours and thereby became our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For by what follows it is plain that his giving himself for us here is to be understood by way of an expiation for it was first to redeem us from all iniquity which is the very phrase by which the vertue and efficacy of Propitiatory Sacrifices is expressed for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to redeem in the Greek is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to expiate by Sacrifice in the Hebrew and accordingly the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in the Greek signifies the price of redemption is frequently used for the Hebrew Copher which signifies a price to reconcile or propitiate So that Christ's giving himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity must signifie according to the common acceptation of the Phrase his laying down his life for us as the price of our propitiation with God. For so among the Jews that common form of speech Let me be your redemption was as much as to say let me bear your Iniquities and undergo the punishment of them that you may escape Buxt Lex Chald. 10.78 Agreeably to which in Heb. 9.15 Christ is said to die for the redemption of transgressions that is to buy off the punishment of them with his own bloud For so he is said to have given himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. a ransom or price of Redemption for all 1 Tim. 2.5 6. and to have given his life as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or ransom for many Matth. 20.28 But then secondly his giving himself for us was to purifie us which also refers to the purifications which were made by Expiatory Sacrifices For so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to cleanse from guilt by Sacrifice Thus Lev. 16.30 On that day shall the Priest make Atonement for ye to purifie ye that ye may be pure from all your sin before the Lord and so the word is generally taken not only in the Writings of Moses but also in all other Authors by whom Expiatory Sacrifices are promiscuously called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. atoning sanctifying and purifying Agreeably to which the bloud of Christ is said to purifie us from all sin i. e. from the guilt of all sin 1 Ioh. 1.7 For it was from that that the bloud of Sacrifices did immediately purifie men And hence he is said to have died for our sins 1 Cor. 15.3 to have given himself for our sins Gal. 1.4 and to have once suffered for our sins the just for the unjust 1 Pet. 3.8 and his Bloud is said to be shed for many for the remission of sins Matth. 26.28 and to be a Propitiation for our sins 1 John 4.10 by which expressions it is evident that our sins were the cause and the expiation of them the end of Christ's suffering and it is upon this account that he is said to bear our sins in his own body on the tree 1 Pet. 2.24 that is to undergo the punishment of them in those exquisite torments he endured upon the Cross and to be made sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 even as the Expiatory Sacrifices were made sin i. e. Piacula that underwent the punishment of sin for the Offenders that offered them Lev. 4.3 29. and also to be made a curse for us Gal. 3.13 that is by having the guilts of our sins transferred on him even as the Sacrifices were cursed as was shewed before by the very translation of the guilts of the people upon them and accordingly as by this Translation those Sacrifices were rendered cursed and unclean and as such were to be burnt without the Camp so our Saviour upon the same account suffered without the Gate Heb. 13.11 12. And to name no more in Isa. 53. we are told That he should bear our griefs and carry our sorrows and be wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities that the Chastisements of our peace were upon him and that by his stripes we should be healed that the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all and that for our transgressions he was stricken that his Soul was made an Offering for sin that he should bear our iniquities and be numbred with the transgressors and bear the
and there is no reason could be so sufficient to this end as a valuable Sacrifice to suffer in our stead and bear the punishment of our sin which reason carries with it such an awful severity as must needs dishearten any considering sinner from presuming upon impunity if he go on in his sin For next to exacting the punishment of the Offender himself the most dreadful severity he could have expressed was not to remit it upon any consideration but this that some other should undergo it in his stead and by how much greater and more valuable the person is who undergoes it for us so much greater and more formidable God's severity appears in remitting it to us Since therefore in consideration of our Pardon God would admit no meaner Sacrifice than the precious Bloud of his own Eternal Son he hath hereby expressed the utmost indignation against our sin that he could possibly do unless he had absolutely resolved never to pardon it at all So that now we have all the reason that Heaven or Earth can afford us to tremble at his severity even while we are within the Arms of his mercy For what man in his Wits would take encouragement to sin on from a mercy that cost the Bloud of the Son of God He that can presume upon such a reason of mercy hath courage enough to out-face the flames of Hell and if Hell it self had stood open before us and we had seen the damned Ghosts weltering in the flames of it it would not have given us such a loud and horrible warning of God's severity against our sin as this tremendous Sacrifice of the Son of God doth If then a mercy that is so secured from being made an encouragement to sin by the terrible reason and consideration upon which it is founded cannot deter us from sinning on there is no wise mercy that we are capable of and consequently no mercy that the great God can indulge with safety to his Authority For what mercy can be safe from our abuse and presumption if this be not that is thus guarded with thunder and attended with the utmost severity that mercy could possibly admit of Wherefore if after I have seen my Saviour in his Agony deprecating with fruitless cries that fearful Cup which I deserved if after I have beheld him hanging on the Cross covered with Wounds and Bloud and in the bitter Agony of his Soul heard him crying out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me And in a word if after I have seen that God to whom he was infinitely dear and precious turn a deaf ear to his mournful cries and utterly refuse to abate him so much as one degree or circumstance of a most shameful and tormenting death in consideration of my Pardon If I say after such a horrible spectacle I have heart enough to sin on I am a couragious sinner indeed or rather a desperate one not to be affected or restrained by all the terrors of Hell. Thirdly This Sacrifice of Christ is also to be considered as a most obliging expression of the love of God and our Saviour to us For if God had so pleased he might have exacted our punishment at our own hands and made us smart for ever in our own Persons and this notwithstanding we had heartily repented For though to repent is the best thing a sinner can do yet it doth not alter the nature of the sin he repenteth of so as to render it less evil or less deserving of punishment nor indeed is Repentance a sufficient reason to move the all-wise Governour of the World to grant a publick Act of pardon and indulgence to sinners it being inconsistent with the safety of any Government Divine or Humane so far to encourage Offenders as to indemnifie them by a publick Declaration meerly upon condition of their future repentance and amendment For all men are naturally apt to presume that God will be better to them than his word and therefore had he declared that he would pardon them upon their repentance without any other reason this would have encouraged them to hope that he might pardon them though they repented not at all or at least though they repented but by halves Wherefore since our repentance is not a sufficient reason to oblige God to grant a publick Pardon to sinners and since this was the best reason we could offer in our own behalf to move him thereunto it hence necessarily follows that he might have justly exacted the punishment of our sin of us and made us smart for it for ever notwithstanding the best reason we could have offered him to the contrary But such was his goodness towards us as to admit another to suffer in our stead that so neither we might be ruined nor our sins be unpunished And then that the punishment of our sin might be a sufficient reparation to his injured Authority he admitted his own Son upon his voluntary offering himself to undergo it for us who by the dignity and innocence of his Person rendered that temporary Death he underwent for us equiâ—alent to that eternal Death which we had deserved Now what a Prodigy of love was this that the God of Heaven whom we had so infinitely offended should part with his own Son for us and freely consent that he should undergo our punishment Which while I seriously consider it puzzles my conceit and out-reaches my wonder so that though I have infinite reason to rejoyce in it yet while I am contemplating it I seem to be looking down from some stupendious Precipice whose height fills me with a sacred horrour and almost oversets my Reason But Oh! the amazing love of the Son of God towards us that he should put himself in our stead and interpose his own Breast as a living Shield between ours and his Father's Vengeance which considering the greatness of his Person and of our unworthiness is such a stupendious expression of Love as no Romance of Friendship ever thought of And what is the proper influence of all this love but to oblige us for ever to God and our Saviour in the bands of a reciprocal affection to melt down our stubbornness and enmity against them and draw us on to our duty with the Cords of an invincible indearment For is it possible my sins should be as dear to me as the Son of God was to his own Father and yet the Father left him out of love to me and shall not I leave them out of love to him And when the Son of God hath been so kind to me as to lay down his life for me can I be so ingrateful to him as to doat upon those sins which he hated more than all the shame and torment which he endured on their account those sins that were the cause of all his sufferings the Thorns that gored his Temples and the Nails that pierced his hands and feet Sure if we are not utterly lost to all that is modest and
And therefore to satisfie us in this also after he had abode some time upon Earth after his Resurrection and satisfied his Disciples by frequent converses with them that he was really risen and given them all necessary Orders for their future conduct in the propagation of his Gospel he carried them out to Bethany where after he had lift up his hands and blessed them he ascended before their eyes into Heaven upon which it is said Luke 24.52 That they worshipped him and returned to Ierusalem with great Ioy surely not because their dear Lord was gone from them never in this World to be seen by them more that was cause of sorrow rather than joy to them but because he was gone to the right hand of the Father there to intercede in Person for them and for ever to exhibite that wounded and bleeding body of his by which he had made expiation for the sins of the World and purchased the promise of the Spirit and of eternal life upon this account indeed they had great cause to rejoyce because now they knew they had a sure Friend in Heaven where their main hope and interest lay even that very Friend who not long before had freely exposed himself to a most shameful and tormenting death to rescue them from death eternal and who after such an instance of love they could not but conclude would employ his utmost interest with the Father in their behalf and in a word who being the only begotten of the Father whose precious Bloud he had graciously accepted as a ransom for the sins of the World could not but have an interest with him infinitely sufficient to obtain for them all the graces and favours that were fit either for them to ask or for his Father to bestow So that now if we heartily comply with him as Mediating for his Father with us we have all the encouragement in the world to depend on him as Mediating for us with his Father since he doth not Mediate with him by a second hand or at a distance but in his own Person in that very Person which is not only infinitely dear to the Father as being his only begotten Son but hath also infinitely merited of him by offering him his own life at his command as a Sacrifice for the sins of the World. And accordingly upon this consideration the Apostle founds the hope of Christians 1 Iohn 2.1 2. My little Children these things write I unto you that ye sin not but if any man sin let him not presently give up himself as hopeless and irrecoverable for we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the Righteous and he is the Propitiation for our sins VI. And lastly Another thing which the Scripture proposes to our belief concerning this Mediator is that upon his return from us to Heaven there to Mediate Personally for Men with God he substituted the divine and Omnipresent Spirit Personally to promote and effectuate his Mediation for God with Men. When he went up to Heaven there to Mediate for us with God he did not thereby abandon his Mediation for God with us but immediately substituted a certain mighty spiritual Being to act for him whom he calls the Advocate or as we render it the Comforter and the Holy Ghost and who was to Mediate with Men in his behalf even as he Mediated with them in the behalf of his Father and to Advocate for his Authority as he Advocated for his Father's For so he tells his Ministers whom he left behind him to assert and propagate his Authority in the World I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter or Advocate i. e. to plead for and inforce your Ministry in my behalf whose Ministers you are that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth c. I will not leave you comfortless or without an Advocate I will come to you that is by this Spirit of Truth who is to be my Vicegerent even as I am my Father's Iohn 14.16 17 18. But for the fuller explication of this great and necessary Article I shall first shew what this divine Spirit is which Christ hath substituted to Mediate for God with us in his absence Secondly I shall explain his subordination and substitution to Christ in this part of his Mediation Thirdly I shall shew what it is that he hath done and still continues to do in order to the effecting this Mediation First What this divine Spirit is which Christ hath substituted to Mediate for God with us in his absence I answer it is the third Person in the Tri-une Godhead For that besides the Father and the Son there is a third divine Person subsisting in the Godhead seems to have been a current Doctrine among the ancient Writers both Gentile and Iewish and is most plainly and expresly asserted in holy Scripture which third Person is known in Scripture by the name of the Holy Ghost or the Spirit of the Lord. For that the Holy Ghost so often named in the New Testament is the same with that Spirit of the Lord so much celebrated in the Old S. Peter expresly asserts 2 Pet. 1.2 For the Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost from which words it is evident that this Holy Ghost whom S. Peter here mentions is the very same with that holy Spirit or Spirit of the Lord by whom as we are told in the Old Testament the ancient Prophets were inspired vid. Isa. 63.11 2 Sam. 23.2 Mich. 2.7 and abundance of other places and accordingly S. Peter applies that Prophecy of Ioel 2.28 I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh to that miraculous descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost Acts 2.16 17. but this is that saith he which was spoken by the Prophet Ioel c. which could not be true if Peter's Holy Ghost were not the same with Ioel's spirit of the Lord. But it is most certain that the Holy Ghost whom S. Peter and the New Testament so often mention was in the first place a real Person and not a meer Quality as the Socinians vainly dream For so we every where find personal properties and actions attributed to him Thus he is said to speak Acts 28.25 and Heb. 3.7 yea and his speeches are frequently recorded so Acts 10.20 The Spirit said unto Peter arise therefore get thee down and go with them for I have sent thee and Acts 13.2 The Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them and how can we without horrible force to such plain historical relations which ought to be literal and not figurative attribute these speeches to a meer Vertue or Quality And elsewhere he is said to reprove the world Iohn 16.8 and to search into and know the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2.10 11. and to divide his Gifts
themselves Thus as it was the Custom of all Nations to solemnize their Covenants with one another by eating together so God in condescension to the manner of men and to confirm their Faith in his Promises did by the same Rite engage himself in Covenant with them And in the same manner the Sacrifice of our blessed Lord was a Seal and Ratification of the New Covenant upon which account it is called as the Iewish Sacrifices were the bloud of the Covenant Heb. 10.29 Heb. 13.20 For his Sacrifice upon the Cross was the meritorious Sin-offering in which he as the High-Priest the Head and Representative of his Church did solemnize the New Covenant between God and us and obtained of his Father an inviolable Ratification of his Promise of Grace and Eternal life For in that dreadful transaction God did solemnly engage himself to Christ in the behalf of his Church to perform to her what he had promised to the utmost upon the terms specified in the New Covenant And therefore Christ is said to have made reconciliation in his own body on the Cross and to have slain the enmity thereon Eph. 2.16 and to have made peace that is a Covenant of peace through the bloud of the Cross Col. 1.20 But then to this Sin-offering there follows a Peace-offering and that is the Lord's Supper in which the Church for her self by eating and drinking at this Table strikes Covenant with God and upon those holy signs of Christ's Body and Bloud gives to and receives from God assurance of mutual Amnesty and Friendship and hence 1 Cor. 10.16 20. this holy Supper is called The Communion of the Body and Bloud of Christ and drinking the Cup of the Lord and being partakers of the Table of the Lord. For when God in this Supper doth by the hand of his Priest present his Bread and Wine to us he doth thereby renew his Covenant with us and when we receive and eat and drink God's Viands we thereby renew our Covenant with him Thus God in great condescension to our desponding minds hath been pleased to ratifie his Covenant with us in our own way and manner not that this ratification doth render his Covenant surer in it self for nothing can be surer than his promise and yet for the confirmation of our diffident minds he is sometimes pleased to add his Oath to his Promise and for the same reason to his Promise and Oath he hath superadded these federal Ratifications which being the same with those legal Forms and Rituals by which men were wont to ratifie their Covenants and Agreements with one another are upon that account more apt to assure and confirm our minds And now what a mighty influence must this solemn confirmation of the New Covenant have upon us to excite and quicken our Piety and Vertue and render us actively zealous of good Works For when God hath not only owned all the promises of the New Covenant to be his by the many miraculous attestations he hath given them but hath also vouchsafed by all those federal Rites that were most sacred among men to oblige himself to perform them we have abundant reason to believe not only that it is he that hath promised all the good things of this Covenant but also that he is fully resolved to perform those promises to us if we perform the conditions of them since by the Bloud of his own Son he hath engaged himself to him in our behalf and by the Sacramental signs of the Body and Bloud of his Son he hath engaged himself to us in our own persons to perform what he hath promised to the utmost punctilio So that now our Faith in the Covenant stands upon a firm and immoveable foundation as having not only the Promise aâ—d the Oath but also the Seal of God to depend on and having all the good things of the Covenant thus solemnly consigned to us what abundant encouragement doth it give us to return to God and our Duty For now we are not only assured of his pardon and gracious reception but also of the assistance of his blessed Spirit to back and enforce our pious endeavours and to enable us to conquer all those resistances of flesh and bloud with which we are to contend and to encourage us to contend with all our might we have an immortal Crown of Glory proposed to us as the reward of our victory and are firmly assured that after we have spent a few moments here in the practice of Piety and Vertue we shall be removed from hence into that triumphant state of Immortality there to reign in unspeakable glory and delight among the blessed Conquerors above and sing Hallelujahs with them for ever For to all these blessed things we are entitled by the ratifications of the New Covenant Having therefore these great and precious Promises sealed to us by the bloud of Iesus Let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of Flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord 2 Cor. 7.1 And thus you see how effectually the Death of Christ as it is a Sacrifice for sin contributes to our reformation But after all it must be acknowledged that it contributes only as a concurrent cause with our own endeavours it doth not work upon us as if we were dead Machines that have no vital principle of action in us nor yet as necessary Agents that have no free-will or principle of self-determination it draws us indeed but it is with the cords of a man i. e. with a powerful grace and perswasion but doth not drive or hale us with any violent or irresistible Agency For after all the powerful influence of his Death to reform and amend us we are still in our own disposal and so may resist and baffle the efficacy of his Death and in despite of it continue in our wickedness if we please But if we do it is at our own eternal peril and we must one day expect to answer not only for the bloud of our own souls which in despite of the most powerful method of saving them we have wilfully ruined and destroyed but also for the bloud of our Saviour which we have not only defeated but trampled on and if both these be brought to our account it had been better for us not only that we had never been born but that our Saviour himself had never been born since all that he hath done to save us will be brought in judgment against us as an horrid aggravation of our guilt to inflame the reckoning of our punishment So that unless we concur with this great design of Christ by endeavouring our own reformation to the utmost of our power his Death will not only be as insignificant to our happiness as it is to the redemption of Devils but even those vocal wounds of his which were made to plead for will accuse and condemn us and that eloquent Bloud which in its Native Language speaks better things for us than the
sinner in the World hath a door of access set open to him by the Intercession of Iesus through which he may freely enter and with an humble confidence apply himself to God for mercy and for grace to help him in the time of need Thus by the Mediation of our Saviour God hath taken off that Imbargo which mens guilts had laid upon their commerce with Heaven and made way for a free and generous intercourse between himself and his Creatures V. And lastly This way of communicating his Favours to us through the Mediation of Christ is most apt to assure our diffident minds of God's gracious intentions to perform to us all the good things which he hath promised us upon our performing the conditions of them It is true if God had only promised them we should have had abundant reason to believe him on his own bare word without any farther security but alas to be diffident and distrustful is the inseparable property of guilty minds and so great is our guilt and ill desert and so inestimable are the blessings and favours which God promises us that when we reflect upon both and compare them together it so confounds our Reason and astonishes our Faith that notwithstanding all the security God hath given us we can hardly believe without trembling and diffidence So that had not God given us some other security besides that of his own bare word and promise it would have extreamly puzled our Faith to believe that God sincerely intended such mighty goods for such unworthy Subjects For when ever we reflected on our own guilt and ill-desert we must have looked upon God as our adverse Party as one that was concerned only for his own right and honour to retrieve from us that natural homage we owed him and had hitherto unjustly detained from him and we should have been but too apt to suspect that when once he had obtained this end of us he would be much less concerned to make good our right to his promise than he was to recover his own to our duty Now although this had been a most unreasonable suspicion after the God of Truth had passed his word to the contrary yet there is nothing so unreasonable which guilty minds are not apt to suspect and therefore out of great condescension to this pitiable infirmity of his sinful Creatures God thought meet upon his entrance into a New Covenant with us not only to oblige himself thereby to bestow on us the most inestimable favours if we performed our part but also to put the making good of his Obligation into a third hand namely into the hand of a Mediator who by the nature of his Office is as much obliged to secure our right as God's as being equally concerned for both parties as well that God should make good to us what he hath promised as that we should make good to him what he requires So that now we have no longer to do with God immediately as our adverse party but all our intercourse with him is by a Mediator who by his Office is obliged to be on our side as well as God's and to see that what he hath promised be performed to us as well as that what he requires be performed by us And hence our Saviour is called the Mediator of the New Covenant and the Mediator of a better Covenant which expressions plainly bespeak him to be an Authorized security on both sides for the mutual performance to each other of what they stand respectively obliged to by this Covenant and hence also he is called the Sponsor or surety of a better Covenant because he stands engaged for the performance of both Parties so far as it was possible for him to oblige them thereunto for us to oblige us by the strongest motives to repent and persevere in well-doing and for God to oblige him by the most powerful pleas to pardon and crown us with eternal life the later of which he performs by his Intercession wherein by continually pleading that precious bloud which God hath long since accepted in consideration of our pardon and eternal life he continually obtains Power and Authority from God to bestow on us the blessings he intercedes for So that now we have not only God's Word but also the Suretiship of our Saviour to depend on who not only stands engaged to us for God that he shall perform all his promises to us but hath also right and power upon the just claim of his Sacrifice to oblige him to perform them So that as God in condescension to the pitiable diffidence of guilty minds hath been graciously pleased to seal his Promises with his Oath so that he might leave us no umbrage of distrust he hath superadded to both the collateral security of a Mediator for the performance of them of a Mediator that hath purchased of him all the blessings he hath promised us and paid for them with his own bloud and so is not only obliged to sue for them at the Throne of his grace but also Authorized to claim them at the Tribunal of his Iustice and in a word of a Mediator in whose hands he hath actually deposited all the blessings he hath promised us and made his Executor in trust for the performance of his bequests to the heirs of promise So that now to distrust the performance of his Promise to us is not only to suspect God's Word and his Oath which are altogether as sacred and inviolable as his God-head but also to question the security and arraign the fidelity of a Mediator that died for us that purchased for us with his own bloud all the blessings which God hath promised us by vertue whereof he not only rightfully claims them of God but hath also actually received them in our behalf So that now we cannot be defeated of them unless he will with-hold them from us and he cannot withhold them from us without violating his trust since it is for us and in our behalf that God hath deposited them in his hands and can we imagine that he who was so true and kind a friend to us as to lay down his life to purchase them for us will be now so unkind and unfaithful together as to detain them from us when God hath intrusted him with them in our behalf and fully impowered and authorized him to bestow them upon us Having therefore the security not only of God's Promise and Oath but also of our Saviour's kindness and fidelity for the performance of God's part of the New Covenant if we perform ours what an infinite encouragement must it give us to forsake our sins and return to our duty For now if we repent we have no more reason to question God's pardoning and forgiving us if we persevere to the end in well-doing we have no more cause to doubt of his crowning us with eternal happiness than we have to distrust our present being and existence If therefore the most ample assurance that