8S. THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST. [SEAM. XXXV. he himself also took part of the sanie, that through his own death he might destroy the devil." Heb. x. 5. Sa- crifices of bulls and goats were insufficient, but a body hast thou prepared me." Heb. ix. 26. " Once in the end of the world he appeared to put away sin by the sacri- fice of himself." This was the design of his incarnation. 3. He makes the cross of Christ, and Christ crucified, to stand for the gospel itself, and glories in it; 1 Cor. i. 23, 24. " Christ crucified is the wisdom of God, and the power of God." 1 Cor. ii. 2. " I desired to know no- thing among you but Christ, and him crucified." Gal. vi. 14. " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ :" And many such expressions he uses, as though the public sermons of Christ, the example of Christ, and the duties that he prescribed, were all as no- thing without the atoning virtue of his death, and his sa- crifice on the cross; for all these wouldnot save us with- out his dying. This is eminently the gospel. Nor is the apostle Paul singular in declaring this doc- trine of atonement, or different in his sentiments from the other apostles. You find Peter and John saying the same things in their epistles: 1 Pet. i. 1$, 19. " Ye were not redeemed with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish." 1 Pet. ii. 24. " Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." 1 Pet. iii. 18. " Christ hath once suffer. ed for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God." I John, i. 7. " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." 1 John, ii. 1, 2. " Jesus Christ the righte- ous is the propitiation for oursips." i John, iii. 16." Here- by perceive we the love of God, that he laid down his life for us." Rev, i. 5, 6. " Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, be glory and dominion for ever." These apostles take every oc- casion to publish the same gospel and the same promises and hopes of salvation, by , the death and sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. VIII. To sum up many arguments in one. These were the doctrines that were witnessed to the world by those amazing gifts of the Holy Ghost, which attended the gospel.* The gifts of tongues, the wonders of pro- * It was generally agreed thatthese gifts of the Holy. Ghost were never set in such an illustrious light, for the defence of christianity, as in a late
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