600 THE ATONEMENT OE CHRIST. mises, and prophecies, in narratives and plain instructions, in darker or brighter discoveries from the beginning of mankind. If I forsake the gospel of Christ, andhis atonement for sin, whither shall my guilty conscience fly to find a better relief ? This is the doctrine that supplies the chiefest wants of a guilty crea- titre, and the chief detects of natural light and reason. Nature skews meno way to recompense the justice of God for myinnu- merable sins. Nature shews me nothing which God will accept in the room of my own perfect obedience, or in the room of my everlasting punishment. If I leave thee, O Jesus; whither should I go ? Thy sufferings are the spring of my hope of pardon, and my eternal life depends on thy painful and shame- ful death. I see and obtain- in this gospel of atonement all that the heathen world laboured for- in vain, by manywild inventions, and painful superstitions. The anger of the God of heaven is pacified by the sufferings of Jesus his Son. O my God, let my soul never run back to infidelity and heathenism, and rove abroad among the foolish inventions of men, in quest of any other methods of atonement. The blood of Jesus is all my hope. Here I see the gracious promises of ancient times fulfilled, even the first promise of mercy that was ever made to fallen man. }Iere I behold the accomplishment of the predictions of the holy prophets since the world began ; 1 Pet, i. 11. " Itwas the Spi- Ht of Christ spalte in them, concerning the sufferingsof Christ, and the glory that should follow ; Gen. iii. ló. Here I see " the seedof the woman breaking the head of the serpent;" 1 John iii. 8. The Son of God manif w ested, and by his own death, des- troyed the orks of the devil.. Here I behold ; Dan. ix. 24, 26. the Messiah cut of,' but not for himself I behold him here on his cross, finishing iniquity, 'transgression, and sin; and bringing in everlasting righteousness. I see, Is. H. IO. his soul made an ofJering for the sins of men i And the prophets Isaiah and Daniel conspiring with the blessed apostles to point to Jesus as an all= sufficient Saviour. I see the types and shadows ofthe Jewish religion so happily answered in this doctrine of the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ, that I am well assured that this is the substance, for it hears the shape and lineaments ot'the shadow. This is the great original; for it carries the exact resemblance of the types and pic- tures that went before, The ancient religion of emblems and figures was confirmed by the amazing wonders ofMoses ; but"the religion of Christ, which centains in it the substance and true glorÿ of alt former dispensations, is not only attested by the miracles of the Sop of God, but he himselfalso appears in the midst of it, in so
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