Slißb7oN'xlx1v. ' 483 Nor can I suffer the punishment due to my iniquities, without being for ever miserable. All the doors of hope are, shut against me, nor by the utmost effort and labour of my 'own powers, can I find a way to escape : If I am left to myself in this state, I must despair and perish.. But blessed, for ever blessed be the Mercy of my God, thathe has sent his own Son to take flesh and blood upon hiin. He has sent him in the likeness of sinful flesh to become a sacrifice for sin, to sustain the sorrows whichI could never sustain, and to provide a laver of his own blood to cleanse us from all sin. Lord, I humbly approach this sacred laver, to wash away thedefilements of my soul. Christ, is become a sacrifice to divine justice, in the room and stead of men. And he is also our great High-priest.: For he offered himself up to thestrokes of justice, and the penal demands of the law of God, and thereby lie bath shown himself to be a priest of reconciliation. How adorable is this contrivance! How amazing is this love ! How should sinners be surpr!zed with a sense of this abounding grace ! Here I behold the Son of .God stooping down from the height of his glory, to become a mortal man, surrounded with flesh and sorrows I behold the first fa- vourite of heaven; the first beloved Son leaving thebosom of his Father, and the fulness of celestial joys, that he might unite himself toour feeble nature, and taste the anguish and the smart that our rebellions had deserved. I behold him forsaken of his Father, and lying under the weight and terror of somo unknown discoveries and impressions of that divine indignation and wrath that was due to sinners ; unknown impressions indeed, that struck the Son of God with amazement, and made his soul exceeding sorrowful even to death. And was all this for my sins, O my Saviour : Didst thou sustain these heavy sufferings from the hand of God, that such a rebel as I might be reconciled ? Yes, all this for my sins, if I an} found a sincere believer on the Son of God. Enquirenow, Omy soul, dost thoubelieve in Christ? Hast thou seen thy heavy guilt, and thy danger of eternal death ? Hast thou been.weary and heavy laden with a sense of thy past iniquities ? Hast thou beenpained at thy heart under the present power of indwelling sin ; And hast thou fled for refuge to the hope set before thee in the gospel ? Hast thou joyfully received Jesus the Saviour by faith in Isis blood ? by a living and active faith ? Hastthou committed thyself to him, to be delivered from the reign of sin, as well as from the condemnation of it ? Then rnayest thou join with the blessed apostle, and speak in the language of faith, He loved nie, and gave himselffor met OA; ii, 20. tia
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