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tos
THE ATONEMENT
OF
CHRIST
MANIFESTED.
[DISC.
yr
1st
Illustration of
this
Remark. God
would
not
deal
thus with
his
beloved
Son
Jesus
Christ, to make
him
a
bloody sacrifice, for mean and
ignoble
purposes: This
work
of
his
death and atonement
is
by no
means to
be
esteemed
as
a
cypher among the
works
of
divine grace,
or
as
a
mere object
of
speculation and
amusement.
The
blessed
God
has too much love for
his Son
Jesus,
his
only
begotten,
and
his
first beloved; to make him merely
their
talk of
his
church,
or the matter
of
entertainment
for
the.
meditation, or their discourse; there must
be
something
substantial,
holy,
divine and
honourable,
designed
in
and
by the death
of
this
Lamb
of
God
;
whose
sacrifice,
in
the
view
of
it,
is
represented
as
beginning before the
foundation
of
the world.
2d
Illustration of
this
Remark.
God
would
not
deal
thus
with
the
fallen
and
miserable race
of
mankind,
to
appoint
such
a
sacrifice, which
had little
or no
efficacy
in
it.
Our Saviour himself
tells
us,
John
vi.
33, 35.
That
he
is
the
bread
of
life;
and except
we
eat
his
flesh,
and
drink
his
blood,
except the
fallen
and
perishing race
of
mankind apply
themselves to this
way
of
salvation
by
Jesus
Christ, they have no
life
in
them
;
that
is,
there
is no
salvation appointed any
other
way
;"
Acts
v.
12.
3d
Illustration
of
this Remark.
The
blessed
God
would
not deal thus with
his
chief
favourites among
mankind, even the
wisest,
the
best,
and the holiest
of
his
creatures,
to be
a
sacrifice merely to
entertain their rea-
sonings
and
their
meditations
;
but it
is
designed
as
the
food of their
souls,
as
the
life
of
their
spirits,
and
their
hope for
eternity
;
John
vi. 21.
4th Illustration of.this Remark.
Again,
God
would
never
have
dealt thus
with his
chosen and
favourite peo-
ple the Jews, through
all
their
generations,
to have
fed
them
and
pleased them only with types and
figures,
sha-
dows and
emblems,
if
they had
no
substantial
blessings
contained
in
them.
There
were indeed
some
happy
uses
appointed concerning
these types and
shadows, in
the
national
church
of
the Jews,
but this
was
not
the chief
design
of
their institution, but
it
was to figure
out
and
represent
the
solid blessings
of
the
gospel,
the spiritual
and everlasting privileges
which
God
designed for
all his
chosen and
saved ones.
5th Illustration of
this
Remark.
I
might
add
in
the