proceed from a painful sense of sin, that makes a separation between God
and the soul: This implies sincere repentance in the nature of it. It
must be such a faith in Jesus and his sacrifice, as works powerfully by
holy love, and produces all the good fruits of religion in the heart and
life. All faith is useless to attain peace with God, unless it carries
in it the springs and seeds of love and holiness. Though we are
justified by faith, yet it must not be a mere bold presumption, but a
living faith, which will appear in its fruits.
Thus I have endeavoured to perform the first thing I proposed, and that
was to shew in what manner I conceive of the Son of God becoming an
atonement for the sins of men. Far be it from me, to imagine that every
one must believe these things just after the same order, and in the same
manner in which I have learned to conceive of them: Several learned and
pious men have explained the manner of this atonement in another way:
But they agree in the doctrine of a proper satisfaction for sin.
Different persons behold the representation of these great and important
things of christianity in different lights: And though, according to my
measure of knowledge in the scripture, this manner of conception of the
atonement of Christ seems most agreeable to the word of God, yet, I am
fully persuaded, God has never made salvation to depend upon a nice
exactness of sentiment about the mere order of ranging these divine
discoveries, or about the precise logical relations of the sufferings of
Christ, to our sins, or to our pardon. Whosoever sincerely confesses and
repents of sin, and trusts in the all-sufficient atonement and sacrifice
of Christ, to remove the guilt of it, has abundant assurance from
scripture, that the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse him from all sin,
and that the Son of God has been, and will be his High-priest, to
reconcile him to God the Father.
The Recollection.—It becomes me now to reflect on what I have heard this
day. The atonement of Christ is one of the chief glories, and most
surprising wonders of my religion: It is the ground of my hope, it is
the very life of my soul. Here I have been learning the several
transactions of the great God, the Creator and Ruler of the world, with
all the children of men from the beginning of their creation. The light
of nature informs me in an imperfect manner, and the scripture with much
brighter evidence assures me, that I was made under the law, and not
born to live at random, according to the wild dictates of appetite and
passion. I am informed also, my Creator has guarded the honour of his
law with indignation and wrath, with pain of the flesh, and anguish of
the mind, and death itself, as the penalties to be inflicted on those
that break it. A law divinely wise and righteous, and a sanction of
solemn and divine terror!
But, alas! I am one of the sinful guilty race of man. My very nature is
corrupt, my powers of action are unholy, and I have broken the law of my
God in a thousand instances. My conscience condemns me, my mouth is
stopped, I am guilty before God, I lie under the sentence of his
condemning law by nature, and am by nature a child of disobedience, and
a child of wrath. It is a glorious instance of divine mercy and
forbearance, that he has not executed the severities of his law upon me
long ago: It is rich mercy and adorable patience that my flesh and
spirit have not been filled with all these terrors, that I am not made
as wretched as I have been rebellious.
Nor can I expect, that the great and terrible God, who sent his
indignation upon angels when they sinned, turned them out of heaven, and
chained them in darkness, should forgive all my infinite offences,
without some reparation made for the honour of his broken law. He is a
great God indeed, his majesty is tremendous, and every thing that
belongs to him must have its due honour.
If I labour with all my powers to make him some recompence for my past
iniquities by new obedience, I find it is impossible. The best of my
righteousnesses are all defective: My holiest services want some
forgiveness as well as my wilful sins. Nor can I suffer the punishment
due to my iniquities, without being for ever miserable. All the doors of
hope are shut against me, nor by the utmost effort and labour of my own
powers, can I find a way to escape: If I am left to myself in this
state, I must despair and perish. But blessed, for ever blessed be the
mercy of my God, that he has sent his own Son to take flesh and blood
upon him. He has sent him in the likeness of sinful flesh to become a
sacrifice for sin, to sustain the sorrows which I could never sustain,
and to provide a laver of his own blood to cleanse us from all sin.
Lord, I humbly approach this sacred laver, to wash away the defilements
of my soul.
Christ is become a sacrifice to divine justice, in the room and stead of
men. And he is also our great High-priest: For he offered himself up to
the strokes of justice, and the penal demands of the law of God, and
thereby he hath shewn himself to be a priest of reconciliation. How
adorable is this contrivance! How amazing is this love! How should
sinners be surprized with a sense of this abounding grace! Here I behold
the Son of God stooping down from the height of his glory, to become a
mortal man, surrounded with flesh and sorrows: I behold the first
favourite of heaven, the first beloved Son leaving the bosom of his
Father, and the fulness of celestial joys, that he might unite himself
to our feeble nature, and taste the anguish and the smart that our
rebellious had deserved. I behold him forsaken of his Father, and lying
under the weight and terror of some unknown discoveries and impressions
of that divine indignation and wrath that was due to sinners; unknown
impressions indeed, that struck the Son of God with amazement, and made
his soul exceeding sorrowful even to death.
And was all this for my sins, O my Saviour; Didst thou sustain these
heavy sufferings from the hand of God, that such a rebel as I might be
reconciled? Yes, all this for my sins, if I am found a sincere believer
on the Son of God.
Enquire now, O my soul, dost thou believe in Christ? Hast thou seen thy
heavy guilt, and thy danger of eternal death? Hast thou been weary and
heavy laden with a sense of thy past iniquities? Hast thou been pained
at thy heart under the present power of indwelling sin: And hast thou
fled for refuge to the hope set before thee in the gospel? Hast thou
joyfully received Jesus the Saviour by faith in his blood? by a living
and active faith? Hast thou committed thyself to him, to be delivered
from the reign of sin, as well as from the condemnation of it? Then
mayest thou join with the blessed apostle, and speak in the language of
faith, _He loved me, and gave himself for me_? Gal. ii. 20.
Let me meditate again the sorrows and agonies of my dear, my adored
Redeemer. Infinite agonies and sorrows, beyond all the powers of
language. Is my heart made of stone, that it can hear such an history
and not melt within me, have I no tender part within me to bleed at the
rehearsal of such anguish, and such love? Blessed Jesus smite the rock
of my heart, and let it pour out new streams of repentance and
affectionate gratitude. I was dead, and the Son of God gave himself up
to death, in order to raise me to life again. I was a traitor and an
enemy, and he hath sustained the arrows of the Almighty to reconcile me
to his Father, and turn away his infinite indignation. My great
High-priest has offered up himself a bloody sacrifice for me, that my
guilt might be forgiven, and cancelled for ever.
Think, O my soul, study, contrive, speak, what wilt thou render to the
Lord for such astonishing condescension, and such unexampled grace. How
wilt thou show thy inestimable value of his atonement? What does he
require of thee, but to keep those garments clean, which he has washed
in so rich a fountain as his own blood? And shall I ever wilfully
indulge the practice of sin again, and return to my old defilements?
Shall I ever consent to break the law of my God? Have I not seen the
dreadful nature and dismal effects of it, in the agonies and death of my
dearest Lord? What shall I do that I may never sin more? Lord, I cannot
preserve myself from the fatal infection, while I dwell in a world where
sin reigns all around me, in a world that lies in wickedness; and while
I am so nearly allied to flesh and blood, where folly, vice, and sin run
through every vein to my heart. Jesus, I commit myself afresh to thy
care, thou wilt save the soul that thou hast purchased at so dear a
rate; thou wilt accept and save a returning penitent. Here I devote my
life, my self, my flesh and spirit, and all my powers to thy obedience,
and the purposes of thy glory for ever and ever: My soul looks up to
thee with an eye of humble confidence, and my faith and hope rest on thy
everlasting love. _Amen._
HYMN FOR SERMON XXXIV.
_The Atonement of Christ._
How is our nature spoil’d by sin!
Yet nature ne’er hath found
The way to make the conscience clean,
Or heal the painful wound.
In vain we seek for peace with God
By methods of our own;
Jesus there’s nothing but thy blood
Can bring us near thy throne.
The threat’nings of the broken law
Impress our souls with dread:
If God his sword of vengeance draw,
It strikes our spirits dead.
But thy illustrious sacrifice
Hath answered these demands;
And peace and pardon from the skies
Come down by Jesus’ hands.
Here all the ancient types agree,
The altar and the lamb:
And prophets in their visions see
Salvation through his name.
’Tis by thy death we live, O Lord:
’Tis on thy cross we rest:
For ever be thy love ador’d,
Thy name for ever blest.
Footnote 34:
Every circumstance that aggravates any crime, must aggravate it in a
degree proportionable to that circumstance; otherwise we could never
determine what is the degree of this aggravation, nor adjust the
punishment in proportion to it. On this account, if the crime he
committed against God, an infinite being, the guilt must be infinitely
aggravated.
Footnote 35:
I grant, 1. That their continual persistence and obstinacy in sinful
practices, may naturally render them continually miserable; and 2.
This continued obstinacy may also, in a legal sense, merit continual
new punishment. And perhaps, on these two reasons, the actual eternity
of hell may be justly supported. But unless we suppose every wilful
rebellion against the infinite Majesty of God, to have also a sort of
infinite evil in it, I do not see that everlasting chains, and eternal
fire, are a proper deserved punishment, legally due to their first
rebellion, that is, to one act of sin.
SERMON XXXV.
_The Atonement of Christ._
ROM. iii. 25.—Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation——
Having explained the manner in which Christ is a propitiation for sin; I
come in the second place to propose some reasons to evince the truth of
this doctrine, namely, That God hath ordained his Son Jesus to be our
propitiation or sacrifice of atonement. And here I shall proceed by
degrees, from some apparent probabilities, to more evident and
convincing proofs.
I. The first reason I shall give for it is this, that an atonement for
sin, and an effectual method to answer the demands of an offended God,
is the first great blessing which guilty mankind stood in need of: but
the powers of nature could never procure it, nor could the light of
reason ever shew them how to obtain it: Now it is the design of the
gospel of Christ to supply the wants and deficiencies of guilty nature,
that is both impotent and blind; it is to introduce an effectual
reconciliation between God and sinners; it is to point out an atonement
to them, answerable to their guilt, which they wanted, and to discover a
solid foundation for peace. This is done in the death of Christ.
A few easy reflections of natural conscience, will acquaint all the
thinking part of men that they are sinners, that they have offended the
great and glorious God who made them: And those that have read the
histories of mankind, and have surveyed distant nations and past ages,
have found this to be almost the universal enquiry of men, “What shall
we do to pacify the anger of that God, against whom we have sinned?” The
heathen world had an awful notion of the vengeance of heaven. Hence
arose endless forms of superstition: How many long and costly
ceremonies, what painful and bloody rites of worship have been invented
and practised by men, to make some compensation for their crimes? All
the craft and contrivance of their priests, could never have prevailed
with the bulk of mankind, to take such yokes of bondage upon them, if
there had not been something in natural conscience, which wanted an
atonement and peace to be made with heaven, from a sense of their own
guilt.
The prophet Micah introduces this general language of an awakened
conscience, _Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, or bow myself
before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings?—Will
the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of
rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the
fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?_ Micah vi. 6, 7. Alas! All
these are vain and fruitless proposals: But the gospel makes the
enquiring conscience easy, when it proposes the blood of the Son of God,
appointed by the Father as a satisfactory offering for the sins of men:
This is what the guilty world wanted, but could never find out. This the
gospel hath revealed and set in an open light.
And indeed, if the great God who is offended, did ever send down a
Peace-maker to reconcile heaven and earth, it is very reasonable to
suppose that he should answer the universal cry of nature distressed
with guilt; and that he should furnish sinful creatures with such an
atonement for sin, and such a solid foundation for their acceptance with
himself, as might fully satisfy their reason and their awakened
consciences. And this is no where to be found in so evident and complete
a manner, as in the death of Christ.
II. The very first discoveries of grace, which were made to man after
his fall, implied in them something of an atonement for sin, and pointed
to the propitiation which Christ has now made; Gen. iii. 15, &c. The
first appearance of grace was the promise given that the _seed of the
woman should bruise the head of the serpent_, that is, he should abolish
the guilt, mischief, and misery that sin and the tempter had introduced:
But in order to do this, the woman’s seed must have his heel bruised,
must sustain some personal sufferings.
Immediately after this, sacrifices of beasts were instituted[36] as a
type and prefiguration of some future glorious sacrifice and atonement
that should be made to God for the sins of men. Now it is the very
notion of an expiatory sacrifice, as I have shewn before, that some
creature is provided to stand in the room of the original transgressor
and to bear his guilt and suffer punishment in his stead, that thereby
the transgressor having his guilt taken away, may be delivered and
saved. And when Adam was ordered to put a beast to death which had not
sinned, in order to worship or honour God by it, and when he found that
he himself who had sinned, was not put to death, it was not hard for him
to understand that the beast was put to death in his room and stead: And
it is not unlikely that God told him so.
Let us consider further, that it is exceeding probable, when the _Lord
God made coats of skins for Adam and his wife_; Gen. iii. 21. these were
the skins of the beasts that had been put to death in sacrifice: And
thus God made it appear to them, that their nakedness was covered, and
the shame of their guilt removed, by a blessing derived from the beasts
that were slain. The skins of the sacrifices being put upon their
bodies, might abate something of their former fear, and encourage them
to appear before God, who were terrified a little before, at the
thoughts of their guilt and nakedness. Their deserved death was
transferred to the sacrificed animal; and the skin of the animal
sacrificed, was transferred to them as a covering for their guilt and
shame. These are no obscure intimations of benefit and safety to be
derived to sinners, from some atonement to be made for sin.
If we will hearken to St. Paul, he explains the first promise, when he
says, Heb. ii. 14. that _Christ took flesh and blood upon him, that he
might, by his own death destroy the devil, who had the power of death_,
or had introduced it into the world. Here the Saviour’s heel was
bruised, and the head of the serpent broken; nor can it be well
supposed, how the death of Christ should destroy the works of the devil,
but by making an atonement for the sins of men; for which sins divine
justice had put them under his power or tyranny.
I will not presume to say, that Adam himself could read so much gospel
as this in those first words of promise; or that he knew in so explicit
and distinct a manner, the designs and ends of a sacrifice, when God
taught him the practice: Yet it is very probable, that the great God
condescended to give a much farther explication both of the first words
of comfort concerning the seed of the woman, and of his own appointment
of sacrifices, and of the reason of them, than Moses has written, or
than we who live at this distance of time can ever certainly know.
III. Suppose what I have yet offered, be too obscure a foundation for
this doctrine, yet let us consider that the following train of
ceremonies, which were appointed by God in the Jewish church, when he
separated a peculiar people to himself, are plain significations of such
an atonement for sin as our Lord Jesus has made, and they confirm the
meaning of the first institution of sacrifices.
I will grant indeed, that many of the ceremonies of the Jewish church,
had also some other intendments, _viz._ To distinguish the nation of
Israel from the Gentile world, and to keep them in subjection to God,
who was their political head or king, as well as their God, to preserve
them as a nation in his favour, and restore them when they had offended
him as their governor and king: But a few considerations will give us
sufficient evidence, that these are mere subordinate designs of God in
the Jewish law, and especially in his institution of the ceremonies of
atonement and priesthood.
First Consideration.—The Jewish ceremonies are often represented as
types or figures of gospel-blessings by the apostle Paul; 2 Cor. iii.
Gal. vi. Col. ii. Heb. vii, viii, ix, x. The levitical ceremonial rites
were but the letter, of which the gospel of Christ is the spirit or
meaning: Those were but as a veil to cover the good things of the
gospel; they were but weak and poor rudiments or elements of learning,
to lead us into the knowledge of gospel-blessings. “The law was our
school-master to bring us to Christ. They were but a shadow of things to
come, whose substance or body is Christ; They served but to the example
and shadow of heavenly things: that is, the things of the gospel: They
were a figure for the time present; a shadow of those good things to
come, which the Holy Ghost signified by them.” The great end of these
Jewish ceremonial appointments in the sense of this inspired writer,
was, that they should stand but as types and figures of things under the
gospel; as emblems of the various offices of the Messiah that was to
come, and eminently of his priesthood and propitiation. Now the
substance is superior to the shadow.
Second Consideration.—This is more evident still, if we consider that
many of the defilements which were to be removed by these sacrifices and
purifications, were of an external and corporeal nature, which,
considered in themselves, were generally innocent as to moral guilt, and
did not want such sort of bloody purgations[37]. Thence we may
reasonably infer, that these external defilements of the body, did
typify and represent the moral and sinful pollutions of the soul: and
consequently, that the external and corporeal forms of atonement and
purgation were chiefly designed as types and figures of the blood of
Christ, which was a real propitiation for the sins of the soul.
Third Consideration.—The most exact and happy resemblance and
conformity, between the method of atonement by the priesthood and
sacrifice of Christ, and the appointed rites of the levitical priesthood
and atonement, very naturally leads us to suppose, that one was designed
to figure out and foretel the other; especially since the scripture
gives us such frequent hints of it. The great God, to whom all his own
works are known from the beginning of the world, had the sacrifice and
priesthood of his Son Jesus ever in his eye, when he ordained the Jewish
forms of atonement. He kept in view Jesus the high-priest, who was
hereafter to enter into heaven in the virtue of his own blood, when he
appointed Aaron to go into the holy place, the figure of the true, with
the blood of the yearly expiation. He kept in view the merit of Christ’s
death, which was to be applied to our souls and consciences by faith,
when he appointed the people to be sprinkled with the blood of the
sacrifices: And therefore the blood of Christ is called the blood of
sprinkling; Heb. xii. 24. And when he ordained the morning and evening
lamb for a continual burnt-offering, he pointed, though afar off, to the
Messiah, the Lamb of God, that must take away the sins of men.
These resemblances might be shewn in a multitude of other instances: but
I cannot omit this one, _viz._ As the killing of the beast was designed
to hold forth the violent and bloody death of Christ, the great
sacrifice; so the burning of the flesh and entrails on the altar by that
divine fire, which was always kept alive there, and which was kindled at
first from heaven, seems plainly intended to foretel those sacred divine
impressions of the indignation of God due to sinners, which were to be
made upon the holy soul of Christ himself, _when it pleased the Father
to bruise him, and put him to grief_: For the indignation of God is
often represented by fire.
We must not imagine therefore, that these levitical ordinances were
first in the design of God, as proper statutes for the Jewish nation,
and then that the Son of God came into the world, and passed through
such special scenes of life, death, and resurrection, merely in order to
copy out these Jewish ordinances: But we must conceive the Son of God,
first designed as our great Atonement and High-priest on earth, and in
heaven: And in the view and foresight hereof all those levitical
ordinances were given to the Jews as figures and emblems, to give early
notice before-hand, of the blessings of the great Messiah. Surely the
atonement of the Messiah, which was to be a real relief for the guilt of
all nations, was of much more importance, and held a higher rank in the
ideas and designs of God, than the mere ceremonies given to a single
nation.
If it should be objected still, that those Jewish rites have been
plainly proved by some learned men to be political services done to God
as their King and Governor, for he dwelt in Jerusalem as their king, and
kept his court among them in the tabernacle and the temple. I answer:
1. This may very well be granted as an inferior and subordinate design
of God: For the consideration of God, as the civil or political ruler of
the Jewish nation, is much inferior to the consideration of him as the
Creator, and the Lord of the souls and consciences, not only of the
nation of Israel, but of all mankind, who were to derive benefit from
the sacrifice of Christ. The supreme intent and meaning of any
constitution, does by no means destroy those which are subordinate. It
may be allowed also:
2. That the sacrifices duly offered, did make a real and proper
atonement for the political guilt of the Israelites in the sight of God,
considered as their peculiar king, and continued them in his political
favour, or restored them to it, after some breach of the Jewish laws.
This seems to be the sense of the apostle, Heb. ix. 13. _The blood of
bulls and goats sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh_, as well as of
many expressions in the books of Moses. And yet these same sacrifices
might make a typical atonement for their moral guilt in the sight of
God, considered as their God, that is, as the Lord of conscience, and
the God of the souls of men: And all this with a direct aspect upon the
sacrifice of Christ, the great and real atonement that was to come: And
indeed, the next words; Heb. ix. 14. intimate so much, _How much more
shall the blood of Christ purge your consciences from dead works?_ that
is, from works of sin which deserve death in the sight or judgment of
God, considered as the supreme Lord of souls and consciences.