438 THE ATONEMENT OF CHEIST MANIFESTFn, to receive the special and everlasting blessings of his grace ; besides all the consolations and the joys which the saints arc partakers of here on earth, from their first calling to their glori- fication, must have some regard to this great sacrifice, ever fresh in the eye of God. 5. This salvation spreads through and beyond all the sins that ever we committed, from the beginning of life to this clay ; and beyond even all the miseries that mankind ever sustained by their original fall, and apostacy fromGod ; had they all received this grace it is enough to balance themall. In the dignity of the divine nature, united to the man Jesus, there is provision enough 4o answer for all this abounding iniquity, and price sufficient to buy all the blessings that God ever bestowed upon his fallen crea- ture-man, and sufficient pardon and happiness for all the sinners that are willing to submit to the grace of God, and receive these blessings in his own appointed away. It is only impenitence, and rejection of the gospel, hinders the universal effect of it. O amazing and blessed extent of this salvation ! 6. I add, in the last place, the doctrine of the salvation of the Lamb of God, slain from the beginningof the world, carries a glory through all the perfections and attributes of God himself, which might he discovered at large in a survey of the several glories of his nature, his justice, andwisdom, his power and his truth,his grace and goodness, in the salvation offallen men : there is never a perfection of God that is honoured, but it is in and by this blessed medium, the death and mediation of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. II. Rem. How necessary,how solid, and important, is this doctrine of the salvation of Christ, by the atonement of the Lamb ! It is not a mere matter of speculation, amusement, and discourse; but it isof infinite concernment to men to be acquaint- ed with it; John xii. 27. For the purposes and designs of this hour, even of the atonement and death of Christ, the Lord Je- sus, the Lamb of God, cameinto this world : This might be illus- tratedalso in manyparticulars ; as 1. God would not deal thus with his beloved Son Jesus Christ, tó make him a bloody sacrifice, for mean and ignoblepur- poses : 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 the talk of his church, or the matter of entertainment for their meditation, or their' discourse ; there must besomething substantial, holy, divine and honourable, designed in andby the death of this Lamb of God; whose sacri- fice, in the view of it, is represented as beginning before the foundation of the world.
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