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kifs each other? Why, it was even in Chrift, when he took our law-room, to pay our debt, and purchase our liberty in fuch a manner as mercy and peace might have their interefts advanced, without injury to truth and righteousness; that mercy might have vent to the credit of truth, and peace might be proclaimed to the honour of righteousness, and the finner faved to the fatisfaction of justice. They meet together and embrace each other in him as the furety, the furety of the better teftament, Heb. vii. 22. We were debtors to the mandatory and minatory part of the law, arraigned at the inftance of divine juftice to pay the debt; Chrift fubftitutes himself in our room and comes under the law to pay the whole debt. It is true, the debt was perfonal, and justice had a demand upon the person that finned, by virtue of the covenant of works; but that covenant never excluded a furety, tho' it provided none. The law promised life, upon our perfonal obedience; but, in cafe we fail, it revealed no furety to make out an obedience in our room. There behoved indeed to be a fecret referve in the covenant of works, whereby the perfect obedience of another was not excluded: For, if the covenant of works had abfolutely excluded a furety in our room, then the covenant of grace had been excluded, and our falvation had been impoffible after our fall; but, tho' the covenant of works did not exclude a furety, yet that covenant did neither provide nor reveal a furety: This is done in the covenant of grace, which is Chrift as furety fulfilling for us the covenant of works, in all the articles of it. Now, is truth and faithfulness at any lofs here? No, the truth of the promise and threatning both, of the law of works, is fulfilled. On the one hand, the promise

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promise of eternal life made to perfect obedience; which, tho' we forfeited in our own perfon, yet we recover in the perfon of Chrift; the promise of life upon the ground and condition of perfect obedience being fulfilled to us in him, who hath yielded that perfect obedience in our room: On the other hand, divine truth and faithfulness, in the threatning of the law, which was death, is glorified, in that it is fulfilled upon the furety; while we, who came under the fentence of death in the first Adam, undergo that death in the fecond. Again, is righteousness and juftice at any lofs by this furety in our room? No, no; whether we look upon it as vindictive or retributive juftice, vindictive juftice is difplayed in its utmost severity upon Chrift; Awake, O fword, against my shepherd, and the man that is my fellow: And fo the fword is drunk in his blood to infinite fatisfaction. Retributive justice is gloriously displayed alfo, in the finner's being rewarded, juftified, faved upon this ground. It is true, might JUSTICE fay, I could have demanded fatisfaction upon the finner himfelf in his own perfon; but, as I can sustain no injury to my honour by fuch a furety as this, whom they call EMMANUEL, God-man, fo I find my honour and intereft, instead of being impaired, is advanced by this exchange of perfons: For, tho' I should damn the finner to all eternity, I'll never get fuch full and complete fatisfaction upon any finite creature, as I will get by one ftroke of my avenging fword upon that perfon of infinite dignity; and fo it pleafed the Lord to bruife him. Why then, they meet together and embrace one another in him, as a furety; and, if truth and righteoufnefs be both pleafed to the full, the parties cannot but all agree, and embrace each

other.

other. Again they meet together and embrace one another in him, as a facrifice, a facrifice and offering of a fweet smelling favour unto God, Eph. v. 2. Why, he offered up himself by the eternal Spirit. O great! Even by his eternal Godhead; a valuable facrifice indeed! They meet together in him, as a propitiation, Rom. iii. 25. Whom God bath fet forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness, &c. Behold him righteous in fhewing mercy; here is the atonement, the propitiation, that very word which the feptuagint calls the mercy-feat in the old testament; and it is the word that the poor publican made ufe of, when he was feeking mercy, faying, God be merciful to me a finner, ὦ Θεὸς ἱλάσθητι μοι. He remembered this inagov, this mercy-feat and propitiation. It is not fimple mercy that he fought, but mercy through a propitiation; he looked to the blood of atonement, to the facrificed lamb of God, faying, Give me mercy for this; by that folemn propitiation, be thou propitious to me. Here it is, that mercy and juftice meet together. They meet together in him, as a ransom, Job xxxiii. 24. Deliver his foul from going down to the pit; I have found a ranfom. In a word they have met together, and kiffed one another in a crucified Chrift, whofe death was the payment of our debt, the punishment of our fin, the price of our redemption, and a purchase of our life, liberty and eternal falvation. Here is the meeting place then of these glorious perfections of God; here is the perfon in whom they centre, that they may be all glorified to the higheft: Mercy, truth, righteoufness and peace, all are pleased. Mercy is gratified, and conftitutes him to be the mercy-feat;

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truth

truth is fatisfied, and centers in him as the way, the truth and the life; righteousness is contented, and declares him to be the Lord our righteousness; peace is perfected, and proclaims him to be the prince of peace. Yea, not only are all the members of the meeting pleased and fatisfied for themselves, in the advancement of their own particular interefts, but they are infinitely well pleafed in each other, and that the interefts of their feemingly oppofite parties are advanced, as well as their own particular claims: Mercy is pleafed that truth hath got all its demands, and truth is pleafed that mercy hath got all her defire, and righteousness is pleafed that peace is proclaimed, and peace is pleased that righteousness is honoured. Mercy and peace rejoice that they are magnified to the infinite glory of truth and righteousness, and truth and rightecufness rejoice that they are glorified to the infinite pleasure of mercy and peace, and hence they not only meet together, but kifs one another. Here you fee where they meet together: So much for an answer thereto more generally.

2dly, More particularly, as to the meeting-time, you may take thefe following particulars for the further clearing of it. Altho' this bleffed meeting once taking place is ftill continued, and cannot be faid properly to adjourn from time to time, and from place to place; for this affembly never diffolves: Yet, in a fuitableness to our weak сараcity and finite understanding, which cannot rightly conceive of a meeting that never had a time to meet, because they met in eternity, and never fhall have a time to part, because they meet to eternity; we cannot conceive of it, I fay, but by taking it, as it were, into fo many parts, or confidering

fidering it in fo many periods: And there are thefe eight remarkable periods, wherein mercy and peace meet with truth and righteousness, and kiss each other.

1. The first remarkable period is this, they met together at the council-table of the covenant of redemption from all eternity, before ever the foundation of the world was laid; and ere ever the morning-ftars fang together, mercy_and_truth _met together, righteoufnefs and peace killed each other: For the council of peace did then meet, Zecb. vi. 13. and all was concerted by infinite wisdom, how mercy fhould be magnified, truth cleared, righteoufness vindicated, and peace concluded, and all in Chrift, who according to the tenor of that covenant (whereof the covenant of grace is but a tranfcript) was to give his foul an offering for fin, and then was to fee his feed, and the pleasure of the Lord to profper in his hand. Then it was that this pleasant meeting in him was firft conftituted, as you may fee, Prov. viii. 30, 31. He being fet up from everlasting, ere ever the earth was, God in all his glorious perfections was delighted in him, and in him his delights were with the fons of men. This was the grand meeting, at which the time and place of all the fubfequent meetings were concerted, and all the other particulars we are to mention are but the refult of this, and as it were emanations therefrom; for it is a meeting that never diffolves, tho' in feveral periods it appears like a new meeting unto us. Therefore,

2. Another remarkable period is their meeting together in the garden of Eden, after man had made himself naked and obnoxious to the flaming fword of divine juftice. Mercy comes walking in

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