his

power to make good his word, the confirmation he has given of our hopes by the resurrection of Christ, and what is wanting to make the belief of this article a rational act of faith? The promises of God have never borrowed help from moral probabilities: the promises made to Abraham did not: but his reliance on those promises, against all the presumptions of human experience and probability, was the very thing that was imputed to him for righteousness. This compared with the case of Christians. We have a great promise made to us by God in Christ, the promise of a resurrection to life: past ages have afforded no instance of the kind, and daily experience is, as it were, a witness against this hope: under these difficulties whither shall we go for support? whither, but to the promises themselves, and to the full persuasion, that what he has promised he is able to perform? Here is the great article of the Christian faith, even of that faith which will be imputed to us, as it was to Abraham, for righteousness. Conclusion: as the blessed fruit of this faith is to all true believers life and immortality, so it highly concerns us to consider what the event of unbelief must be for whether we like it or not, all who are in the grave shall come forth, some to life, and some to condemnation.

DISCOURSE VII.

ROMANS, CHAP. IV.-VERSE 25.

Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

THE manner of expression here used is different from what is generally to be met with in other parts of the New Testament on the like occasion. Here we are told that Christ was 'delivered' for our 'offences,' and 'raised' for our 'justification;' as if the remission of our sins was to be ascribed peculiarly to the passion, and our justification in the sight of God to the resurrection of Christ: whereas in the chapter before this, verse 25, the Apostle tells us in general that God hath set forth Christ to be a propitiation through faith in his blood;' and in chap. 5. verse 9. particularly and expressly, that, being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him;' and verse 10. that we are reconciled to God by the death of his Son. In the twentieth of the Acts, the Apostle, in his exhortation to the elders of the church, warns them to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood,' verse 28. To the same purpose both St. Peter and St. John speak; the one telling us, 'that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin,' 1 John i. 7; the other, that we have been redeemed 'with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,' 1 Pet. i. 19.

It is the constant tenor of Scripture, that atonement for the sins of the world was made by our great High Priest on the cross; that his death was our redemption, and his blood the price paid for us. So that, when we consider the redemption (which includes our justification) with respect to Christ, the author and finisher of it, it must be ascribed to his death and passion: but as to ourselves, our title and interest in this com

mon salvation being grounded on faith, our justification, though purchased by the blood of Christ, must be appropriated to ourselves through faith in that blood: for the same Apostle who has told us that we are 'justified freely through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus,' hath likewise told us that God hath set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.' For this reason we are said to be justified by faith; not that our faith is the purchase of justification, which we owe to the blood of Christ alone; but because through faith we obtain the benefit of the redemption wrought by Christ Jesus. Now, though the death of Christ was the reconciling of the world to God, yet the resurrection of Christ is the great and solid foundation of our hope and faith in him, even of our faith in his blood, by which he made the propitiation for our sins: and therefore although Christ died for our offences, and by his precious blood made atonement for our sins; yet, since our faith in his death, our hope in his blood, by which hope and faith we are justified, are built on the truth and credit of his resurrection, it is very properly said that he rose again for our justification:' for the death of Christ would have been no justification to us, nor could we have had hope or faith in it, but for the power and glory of the resurrection; which has wiped away the scandal and ignominy of the cross, and made it a rational act of faith to hope for life and immortality from him, who himself once died on the tree. For the truth of this exposition I appeal to St. Paul, who, 1 Cor. xv. 17. has told us, 'that, if Christ be not risen, Our faith is vain; we are yet in our sins.' So that faith in the death of Christ, not grounded on the assurance of his resurrection, is a vain faith, and such a one as cannot deliver us from our sins. Nay, that the death of Christ could not have been a propitiation for sin without his resurrection, he expressly teaches in the next verse, saying, that, if Christ be not raised, then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.'

The power of the resurrection, together with the atonement for sin made by the death of Christ, is very beautifully expressed by St. Paul, Rom. viii. 34. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.' The death of Christ freed us from condemna

tion; but then was our freedom made manifest, when he came from the grave in triumph, and led captivity captive; when he ascended to the right hand of his Father to be our perpetual High Priest and Mediator: for as the Apostle argues, if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life;' i. e. by his resurrection to life and to glory.

This account, as it gives the true interpretation of the text, so likewise does it show of what great moment the resurrection of our Lord was, which was to be the basis and support of the whole Christian institution, and the ground.of our hope and faith in him. That Christ died the death of a common malefactor, after a life spent in innocency, and a constant and laborious teaching of the great duties of religion and morality, was but common to him, and others before him, whom God had raised up to be shining lights of the world. Thus the prophets of old were persecuted and destroyed by sundry kinds of death: but in their blood there was no expiation for sin: the blood of Abel and of the prophets spoke no such language, but cried to God for vengeance against a cruel and a guilty world. Had Christ died like one of them, and been no more heard of, how should we have believed that his death had atoned for all the rest of the blood that had been spilt from the foundation of the world? or that the whole earth had obtained remission of sin from God by destroying one more, and him the greatest of all the prophets, in the most cruel manner? But when our Lord rose from the grave, and brought back with him the pardon which he had sealed with his own blood; when, instead of executing wrath on his enemies, he sent again the offer of peace and reconciliation, and took on himself to be their Mediator and Intercessor, as he had already been their Sacrifice; what room was there to doubt of the efficacy of his death, the efficacy of which was so undeniably confirmed by his resurrection? or what reason to mistrust the salvation he offered others, when, by saving himself from the power of death, he had given the fullest evidence how able he was to save others also? The most incredulous of his enemies desired him only to come down from the cross and they would believe him :' but how much better reason had they to believe him, when he came, not from the cross, but from the

grave, which was by much the surer hold, and from which before no mortal had ever escaped! How undeniable was this testimony of God's love to mankind, that, after the ill reception his Son had found among them, after all the cruel usage he had experienced, and the ignominious death he had suffered, he yet sent him once more from the grave to convince unbelievers, and to proclaim and confirm the pardon he had purchased for them!

His first coming was attended with a mean birth and narrow fortune; his education was suitable to his condition; and the greatest part of his life spent in obscurity: he had no form or comeliness that we should desire him; he was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:' and when he fell a victim to the malice and rage of the people, his best friends, the constant companions of his sorrow, gave him over for lost; they esteemed him stricken and smitten of God:' all their hopes died with him, and the remembrance of his miracles and mighty works was buried in the same tomb with himself; and nothing less was thought of than that this was he who should redeem Israel from all his sins.' But when he came again from the bosom of the earth, having subdued the powers of darkness and of death, then was he declared to be the Son of God with power; and the glory as of the only-begotten Son of God shone clearly through the veil of flesh which had so long obscured it. And from thenceforth our faith has stood, not in the words which the wisdom or cunning of man teacheth, but in the power and demonstration of the Spirit of life: and we can with assurance say, we know in whom we have trusted,' expecting life and salvation from him alone, who is the Lord of life and glory. But after all, if the resurrection of Christ is the support of all other articles of the Christian faith, how is itself supported? To our common apprehension nothing is more incredible than that a man dead and buried should be restored to life again.

To go into the particulars of the evidence of this great event, recorded in Scripture and the oldest writers of the church, would open too large a field of discourse at present; and indeed there are some objections which naturally arise in the minds of men, which ought previously to that inquiry to be removed; for the great difficulty at which men stick, does not arise so