SECTION I1. :533 store natural' religion as a great Prophet or Teacher, ánd to die in the confirmation of it? Might not Isaiah or Jeremiah, or one of the old prophets have been raised to life for such a purpose as this, rather than the onlySou of God sent down to die so cruel a death ? Might not somenew-prophet have been raised upamongst men, and been furnished with the power of miracles like Moses, to have attested all the truths that Jesus preached to the world, and thendiedas a martyr for them, and rose again to give them confirmation ? What doctrine did our blessed Saviour ever pro- nounce, which the tongue of a much inferior person could not have pronounced? What visible miracle did he work, which a Moses or an Elijah could not have wrought-by commission from heaven ? Is the choice of so divine a messenger for such pur- poses of a mere prophet, as might have been fulfilled by much meaner persons, agreeable to the conduct of supreme wisdom? Or had the great God so little value for the peace and happiness of his best beloved Son, as tomake himaneedless sacrifice ? Surely if we believe the history of the gospel, and the language in which it is expressed, our own reason would teach us also to be- lieve, that so glorious a person as Jesus Christ, was sent down and died for some such grand and important design as the mis- sion and death of a meaner person could never effect, that is, as the apostle Paul expresses it, " to purge away our sins by the sa- srifice of himself;" Heb. ix. 26. or as Jesus himself informs us, " to give his life a ransom for sinful men ;" Mat. xx. 28. And it is well worthy of our notice, that in several places of ,the New Testament, where the death of Christ and our re- demption by it are mentioned, there the dignity and sublime cha- racter of our Saviour is at the same time represented, to shew us how great a person this was who must die for our salvation, as in the text now cited; Heb. i. 2, 3. " The Son of Godwho is appointed heir of all things, by whom he made the world, who is the brightness of his glory, and his express image ;" and it is this glorious person who " purged away our sins by himself, that is, by offering himself a sacrifice ;" as Heb. chapters ix. and x. So Col. i.. 14-16. " In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins ; who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature, for by him were all things created, visible and invisible ;" Heb. ix. 13, 14. " If the blood of bulls and goats purified the flesh, &c. how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge our consciences from alead works ?" And in several other places. Do not all these representationsof the matter teachus, that the death of a meaner person than. the Soil ..of,Godwas -not sufficient to- attain these ends, and consequently that so very glorious a person was sent down from heaven to live and die on earth for such purposes as an inferior person's life and death could never haveattained. L13
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