ESSAY VI. A View of the Manifold Salvation of Man by Jesus Christ, represented in Order to Reconcile Christians of Different Sentiments. INTRODUCTION. MANKIND by nature liesunder the ruins of the fall, both as guilty and as sinful. We are guilty in our persons, and exposed to the divine anger, as well as sinful in our natures, and ever ready to break his holy law. Whosoever therefore becomes our complete Saviour must relieve us under both these distresses. As weare guilty in the sight of God, we are condemned in the court of his law and justice, we are liable to bear the punish- ment due to our sins, and we have lost all pretence of right to the favour of God and eternal life. Now our blessed Lord Je- sus Christ, who has undertaken the work of our salvation, is an all-sufficient Saviour in every respect ; by his obedience, death and.intercession, he relieves us from the guilt of sin, and so de- livers us from all obligations to the punishments of hell: He reconciles us to God, and gives us á right to life and salvation in theheavenly world. As we are sinful creatures we are ever ready to offend God afresh, and are utterly unfit for his heavenly presence : And Christ saves us in this respect, by changing our vicious nature and temper, sanctifying us by his grace or holy Spirit, so that we may be prepared for the enjoyment of God in heavenly places. In these two things the substance of our salvation chiefly consists : And `since these divine affairs could not be so well un- derstood byus, according to those sublime ideas by which God the Father and his Son transact them in their eternal counsels and their subsequent dispensations, therefore God has been pleased to reveal them.to us under such ideas or representations, and in such forms of language, as are borrowed from our com- mon affairs in human life : and that not only by one figure or emblem, but by many representations thereof, that we might view themon all sides, and have a fuller knowledge of them, so far as is sufficient for our present state, or necessary to our sal-. vatión. SECT. I.The Characters of Christ as our Deliverer from the Siufìriness of our Natures. First, Let us takea very brief survey of this matter, as our
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