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left him, and the unclean fpirit came in his room; but when the second Adam came, he brought the Spirit of God again with him: I have put my Spirit upon him; and he fhall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. And, O what is the world without the Spirit of God? what is a man, a minifter, a facrament, a city, a nation, without the Spirit of God? What makes matters fo far wrong in a land, but that there is fo little of the Spirit with minifters and people? There is no life where the quickening Spirit comes not: O Sirs, we will have dead preaching, dead hearing, dead communicating, lifelefs work this day, if the purchased Spirit do not come! When he comes, life comes with him. Can thefe dry bones live? can these dead, formal, lifelefs, unbelieving, hypocritical, and carnal hearts live? Yea, undoubtedly they can, if the Spirit blow: O let your hearts cry, Come, O north-wind; blow, thou fouth: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon thefe flain that they may live. Cry for the purchased and promised Spirit, that we may live, and be lively in our work this day.

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(6.) This blood has purchased all spiritual bleffings: it has purchased pardon of fin; We have redemption through his blood, even the remiffion of fin. It has purchafed recovery after falls, and freedom from total apoftacy to all that believe; I will heal their backflidings. Though he fall he shall not utterly be cast down; for the Lord upholds him with his hand, Pfal. xxxvii. Good news to believers, fay you, he has purchafed all good for them; but not to the like of me; fuch an unbelieving impenitent finner as me. If that be your thought, man, it is an ignorant blunder; I tell you better news, this blood of Chrift, fhed by the fword of juftice, has purchased faith, to the faithlefs; repentance, to the impenitent; grace, to the gracelefs; and nothing did he purchase to any but as guilty finners, deftitute of all good. Here is a good market for you that have no good, no grace: others that are increased with goods, and think that they have a good heart to God, good defires and inclinations, and hope thereupon for God's favour, may be doing with their

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old covenant of works, where they and their money fhall perish but for you that are poor, guilty, filthy, perifhing finners, deftitute of all good in yourselves, here is good news to you; here is grace, free grace, full grace, rich grace, all grace; grace to justify the guilty, grace to fanctify the filthy, grace to ftrengthen the weak, grace to fupply the needy. You that want grace, may come hear and get it; you that have grace, may come here and get more; this blood has purchased all grace, and the purchaser ftands ready to communicate it: for he has no other thing to do with his mediatorial grace, but to give it out to finners, to men, to rebels; He has received gifts for men, even for the rebellious, that God the Lord might dwell among them. O the noble purchase of this blood! It has purchafed freedom from the law, both from the curfe and command of the covenant of works, in fo much that the believer is neither under the mandate, nor the fanction of the law, as a covenant of works: by the obedience of Chrift to the command of that covenant they are made righteous, Rom. xv. 19. Who alfa bath redeemed them from the curse of the law, being made a curfe for them, Gal. iii. 13. The believer indeed is under ftronger obligations to obey the law, as it is a rule of life and holiness, than ever Adam was in a state of innocency; but as it is a covenant of works, and condition of life, he has not a farthing of debt to pay to it, if the righteoufnefs of Chrift be complete and full; yea, this makes the law of God his delight, when he attains to the faith of this, that he has nothing to do with it as it is a covenant.

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In a word, by this blood, shed by the sword of juftice, there is a purchase made of accefs to God. The Son of man was lifted up upon the crofs, to open the gates of heaven, which our fin had fhut; he rent the vail from top to bottom, and we have boldness to enter.into the holiest by the blood of Jefus. The fword awakened against the Son, that he might bring us to the Father; 1 Pet. iii. 18. Chrift has once fuffered for. fin; the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. We are at a distance from God, lying peace

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ably in the devil's arms; but they that were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Chrift. All the fermons, all the means in the world, will not bring us near to God; the means by which he draws men to himself, is just by his blood and righteousness; When I am lifted up, fays Chrift, I will draw all men after me. Well, he was lifted up upon the crofs, where he received the blow of God's awakened fword; he was lifted up into heaven, to his Father's right-hand, and he is lifted up upon the pole of this gofpel; and has he faid, 'I will draw all men after me? O fay, Amen. Lord, let this be a drawing day.

VI. The fixth thing was the application. Now, many, very many things might be deduced from this doctrine, by way of application. I fhall at the time offer you but a few general inferences, and refer the reft to be accommodated more particularly to the rest of the work of the day, as the Lord fhall please to guide and direct. Well, is it fo, that by special orders from Jehovah, the Lord of hofts, the man Christ, his Shepherd and his Fellow, did fall a facrifice to the awakened fword of infinite juftice? Is it fo as you have heard? then we may hence fee, and behold,

1. The infinite malignity of fin, and the dreadful demerit thereof. Did it overflow the old world with a deluge of water? did it confume Sodom and Gomorrah with a storm of fire and brimstone? did it cast angels and men that are under it into Tophet, the place whereof is fire and much wood, which the breath of the Lord doth kindle; fo as the fmoke of their torments afcend for ever and ever? In all this may the demerit of fin be feen; but much more here in Christ, a facrifice to the awakened fword of divine vengeance. Go to Golgotha, and fee the man that is God's Fellow, drinking up the cup of his Father's indignation! fuffering unto blood! fuffering unto death! for, God fpared him not, being now in the room of finners: behold the earth trembling under the mighty load of this terrible wrath; for there was a great earthquake while the fword of God's wrath was running through the man

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that was his Fellow; the heavens grew dark when this awful fpectacle was expofed; the fun was eclipf ed, contrary to the common rules of nature, which made an heathen philofopher cry out, That either the 'frame of nature was diffolving, or the God of nature fuffering.' And what fhall we that profefs to be Christians fay to these things? what fhall we that are finners fay concerning that abominable evil, fin, which wrought this bloody tragedy? It was fin, and our fin too; for he was wounded for OUR iniquities; the Lord laid on him the iniquities of us all, Ifa. liii. 6. O! how heavy did the man that is God's Fellow find the weight of fin to be, when it preffed him to the ground, and made him fweat great drops of blood! when the fword of wrath, which he fuftained in our room, was above his head.

2. Hence behold both the goodness and feverity of God: his goodness, in finding out this way of fatisfaction to his own juftice, and wounding his own Son, that finners, for whom he was Surety, might not be wounded eternally: and the feverity and juftice of God, in exacting fuch a full fatisfaction, that though all the elect had been fatisfying eternally in hell, juftice had not been made to fhine fo fplendidly and gloriously. O if we could think and speak aright of this wonderful mystery! O wonder that we are not more affected with it! that we, miferable wretched finners, should have been purfued eternally by juftice, and could do nothing to avert the ftroak of it; and that fuch a great and glorious perfon, as the Man, God's Fellow, fhould interpofe himfelf; and hereupon the Father fhould-fpare the poor finful enemies, and make way for them to escape, by diverting of his juftice from purfuing them, and by making it take hold of the Son of his bofom; exacting the debt severely from him! Ọ wonder that the Lord fhould pafs by the enemies, and fatisfy himself upon his own Son!

3. Hence behold the wonderful concurrence of the glorious perfons of the bleffed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft, to carry on the work of our redemption; for here is the Lord of hofts, Jehovah, Father, VOL. I.

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Son, and Holy Ghoft, one God, effentially confidered, profecuting the work of redemption; and faying, with refpect to Chrift, the fecond perfon of the Godhead, confidered as he became man and Mediator, Awake, O fword, against the man that is my Fellow. Not that God the Father delighted in the fuffering, as fuch, of his innocent Son; for, he afflicts not willingly, even the childdren of men but confidering the end and the effect that was to follow, the feed that he should beget to eternal life, and the captives whom he was to redeem ; in this refpect, It pleafed the Lord to bruife him; when he might have fuffered all mankind to ly ftill in their forlorn condition, it pleafed him to give his life a ranfom for many. Here the whole Trinity is in concert, each perfon to perform his own part; wherein all the bright perfections of the divine nature do gloriously confpire. O! how does God commend his love to us, in that whilst we were yet finners, Chrift died for us? Rom. v. 8. And, O how he loved us, who washed us from our fins in his own blood? Rev. i. 5. Again,

4. Behold herein the holy fovereignty of God, that over-rules all the actions of men, even these wherein they have a most fenfible hand, and are most inexcufable. Though Judas that betrayed, Pilate that condemned, the innocent Son of God, acted moft finfully; yet the Lord himself had an active over-ruling hand in carrying on his own defigns. What Judas and Pilate did, was not by guess, but just the execution of God's antient decree: how pure and spotless is God in venting and manifefting his grace, holiness, and justice, when men are venting their corruption, impiety, and injuftice! Here is a principal diamond in Jehovah's crown, that he is able, not only to govern all the natural fecond caufes that are in the world, in their feveral courfes and actions, and order them to his own glory; but even devils, wicked men, and hypocrites, their moft corrupt and abominable actions, and make them invariably fubfervient to the promoting of his own holy ends and purposes, and yet be free of their fin, for which they fhall count to him: and as it was no excuse to the crucifiers of the Son of God, that they did what before

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