266 THE ABSOLUTEDOMINION 1. For the first of these, whether buyinghere be taken properly or metaphorically I will not now inquire. First. Mankind, by sin, became guilty of death, liable to God's wrath, and a slave to Satan, and his own lusts. The sentence in part was past, and execution begun : the rest would .have followed, if not prevented. This is the bondage from which we were redeemed. Secondly. He that redeemed us is the Son of God himself Godand man, and the Father by the Son. " He purchased us with his own blood ; " Acts xx. 28. Thirdly. The price was the whole humiliation of Christ; in the first act whereof, his incarnation, the Godhead was alone, which, by humbling itself, did suffer reputatively, which could not really. In the rest, the whole person was the sufferer, but still the human nature really, and the divine but reputatively. And why we may not add, as part of the price, the merit of that obedience wherein his suffering did not consist, I yet see not. But fromwhom were we redeemed? Answer. From Satan, by rescue against his will; from God's wrath or vindictive justice, by his own procurement and consent. He substituted for us such a sacrifice, by which he could as fully attain the ends of his righteous government, in the demonstration of his justice and hatred of sin, as if the sinner had suffered him- self; and, in this sound sense, it is far from being an absurdity, as the Socinian dreameth, for God to satisfy his own justice, or to buy us of himself, or redeem us from himself. 2. Next, let us consider how we are God's upon the title of this purchase. By " God," here is meantboth the Son, who, be- ing God, bath ,procured a right in us by,his redemption, and also the Father, who sent his Son, and redeemed us by him, and to whom it was that the Son- redeemed us. "Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood ; " Rev. v. 9. In one word, it is God as Redeemer, the manhood also of the second person included, that hath purchased this right. Here you must observe that God, as Creator, had a plenary right of propriety and government, on which he founded the law of works that then was. This right he hath not lost. Our fall did lose our right in him, but could not destroy his right in us. Because it destroyed nur right, therefore the promissory part of that law was immediately thereupon dissolved, or ceased, through our incapacity, and therefore divines say that, as a covenant, it ceased; but because it destroyed not God's right, therefore the preceptive and penal parts of that law do still re- main. But how remain? In their being; but not alone, or with- out remedy ; for the Son of God became a sacrifice in our stead; YI
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