QUESTION XII. 339 period of time to take flesh and blood upon him, and to become a man, and to be born Of a woman, that he might become the seed . of the woman, according to his early promise made to fallen, usan ; Gen. iii. 15. IV. God ordained andsent his Son to preach this gospel of repentance, faith and pardon, more clearly than ever before, and appointed him to obey his law perfectly, and to suffer the sor- rows of life and death itself, instead of sinful man who broke his law, that by his perfect obedienceand by his sharp sufferings, he might shew how greatly God hated sin, and might vindicate that honour of the law and majesty of God, which the sin of man had violated, and'procure for men a discharge from those evils which he sustained, and obtain full salvation for sinful men. The great God, the Lord of heaven and earth, did not think it becoming his dignity and his majesty, to pass by such grievous offences, without some glorious and terrible demonstration of his own holiness, and his abhorrence of sin, even while he designed to save the sinners : His justice, that is, his rectoral wisdom, did not see it proper to exercise his mercy toward criminals, without some vindication of the wisdom and holiness of his bro- ken law, some reparation of his honour, and some recompence to the authority-of his government, which had been injured by our sins : Nor would hé receive the offending creature into his favour without such a Mediator, as could not only plead for the offender, but could make atonement for his offence. It would be too tedious to enter into the proof of this atonement here. Many and sufficient defences of it are written, and the epistles ofSt. Paul, Peter, and John, are so express in this doctrine, that one would think it needs no farther proof. Titis is set in anon- vincing light in two treatises, viz. OfJesus the Mediator; and The Redeemer and"Sanctùer k. V. Nor is it at all improper, or unbecoming the dignity or justice of God, or the state of man, that God should set up one man, even his own Son, to be the second Adorn, or a head . of life and salvation for multitudes, since it is evident that one man, or thefirst Adam, was the head or springof sin, misery and death to multitudes. Both under the covenant of works and under the covenant of grace, the blessed God is pleased to transact his affairs with men in and by a single person, who was appointed a head and representative of many thou sands. And doubtless there were most important reasons for this conduct of God. VI. But since this appointment ofsalvation by Jesus Christ, I say, thecovenant of grace does not abolish the law of works, in the gene rai terms of it, viz. He that sins shall die; though indeed the particular prohibi- tion of eating of the tree of knowledge grows useless entirely upon Adam's expul- sion from the garden, and his everlasting absence fromAll the fruit there, which was no more in his power toeat., 2
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