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THE ATONEMENT OF
CHRIST.
(SEAM.
XXXV.
tween
God
and
sinners
;
it
is
to
point out an atonement
to them,
"answerable
to
their
guilt, which
they wanted,
and
to
discover
a
solid
.foundation for
peace.
This
is
done
in the
death
of
Christ.
A
few
easy reflections
of
natural
conscience,
will
ac-
quaint
all the
thinking
part of
men
that
they
are
sinners,
that
they have offended the
great
and glorious
God
whó
made them
:
And those
that
have
read the
histories of
mankind,
and
have surveyed
distant nations and past
ages, havé
fdund this to
be
almost the universal enquiry
of
men,
"
What
shall we do
to pacify
the anger
of that
God, against
whom
we
have sinned
?"
The
heathen
world
had an awful
notion of the
vengeance
of
heaven.
Hence
arose endless forms
of superstition
:
How many long
and
costly ceremonies,
what painful and bloody rites
of
wor-
ship have been invented
and practised
by
men,
to make
some
compensation for their
crimes
?
All
the
craft
and
contrivance of their
priests, could never have
prevailed
with the bulk
of
mankind, to take such
yokes
of
bondage
upon
them,
if
there had not
been
something in
natural
conscience, which
wanted
an atonement and peace
to
be
made
with heaven, from
a
sense
of their
own
guilt.
The prophet
Micah
introduces
this
general language
of
'an
awakened
conscience,
Wherewith shall
I
come-
before
the
Lord,
or
bow
myself
before
the high
God? Shall
I
come
before him
with
burnt
-
offerings
?
Dill
the
Lord
be
pleased with thousands
of
rams,
or
with
ten
thousands
of
rivers
of
oil?
Shall
I
give
my
first
-born
far
my
trangression,
the
f
iuit
of
my
body
for
the
sin
of
my
soul?
Micah
vi. 6, 7.
Alas
!
all
these
are
vain and
fruitless
proposals:
ßut
the gospel makes the
enquiring
conscience
easy,
when
it
proposes the blood
of
the
Son
of
God, appointed
by
the
Father
as
a satisfactory
offering
for
the
sins
of
men
:
This
is
what the guilty world wanted,
but
could never
find
out. This the
gospel
hath
revealed
and set
in
an open light.
And
indeed,
if
the
great God
who
is
offended, did
ever send down
a Peace-maker
to reconcile heaven
and
earth,
it
is
very
reasonable
to suppose
that
he
should an-
swer the universal cry
of
nature
distressed
with guilt
;
and that
he
should furnish sinful
creatures
with
such
an
atonement
for
sin,
and such
a
solid
foundation
for
their
acceptance
with himself, as
might fully
Satisfy
their rea-