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tude could require; and excellent, as eternal wisdom itself could devise. Admirable righteousness! Who that is tauglit of God would not, with Paul, desire to be found in it ? and who, that is conscious of an interest in it, can cease to admire and adore the grace that provided, and the Saviour that wrought it?

Is the obedience of the Lord Redeemer so glorious in its nature, so excellent in its properties, so free in the manner of its communication to the ungodly, and so extensively useful to all that possess it? What encouragement then has the miserable sinner to look to it! How safely may he confide in it, as allsufficient to justify his ungodly soul! For, be the demands of divine law and infinite justice ever so great, or numerous, or dreadful; the work of Christ completely answers them all. There is greater efficacy in the grace of God, and in the work of his incarnate Son, to justify and save from deserved perdition; than there can be demerit in the offences of a sinner, to incur condemnation and ruin.

Nor can it seem strange that the work of Christ should be thus efficacious. For God the Son performed it, in the capacity of a substitute. God the Father declares his delight in it, and treats as his children all those who are vested with it. And it is the principal: business of God the Holy Spirit, as a guide and comforter, to testify of it. So that every other righteousness, in comparison with it, is quite insignificant: if set in competition with it, is viler than dross, and worse than nothing. In this righteousness Christians. of all ages have gloried, both living and dying, as the only ground of their hope. In this most perfect obedience believers are now exalted, and the saints in heaven triumph. For the work of Christ finished on a cross is the burden of their songs.But who can

point out all its beauties? Who can show forth half its praise? After all that has been written or said about it, by prophets or apostles, here on earth; after all that has been sung or can be conceived, by saints or angels in the world of glory; considered under its divine character, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF JEHO VAH, it exceeds all possible praise. The inhabitants of the heavenly world must be conscious, that their loftiest strains, though expressed with seraphic ardour, fall vastly short of displaying all its excellence. So that,

"When Gabriel sounds these glorious things,
"He tunes and summons all his strings."

CHAP. XIII.

Concerning the Consummation of the glorious reign of Grace.

As divine Grace is glorious in itself, and infinitely superior to all that is denominated free favour among men; as the way in which it reigns is absolutely without a parallel, and such as will render it forever dear to all the disciples of Christ; so the end of its benign government is equally glorious; for it is eternal life. Reviving, ravishing thought! This, in subordination to his own glory, is the great design of God in every gracious dispensation toward his people. The emphatical phrase is used in scripture to signify, An everlasting state of complete holiness and consummate happiness, in the presence and fruition of God, in all This ́ Persons and perfections. To this blissful state, Grace as a sovereign, infallibly brings her subjects, through the Person and work of Immanuel.

To assist our feeble and contracted minds in forming some faint ideas of celestial blessedness, and to inform us by whom it shall be enjoyed; it is-compared by sacred writers to the mest delightful and glorious things that come under our notice in the present world. For instance: To denote its superabounding delights, it is called paradise, in allusion to the garden of Eden for at God's right hand are pleasures for ever more. To signify its grandeur, magnificence, and glory, it is called a crown and a kingdom. As a crown, it is unfading and incorruptibe. To intimate that none shall enjoy it, except in virtue of the Redeemer's obedience, it is denominated a crown of righteousness. It is also called a crown of life and a crown of glory. As a kingdom it was prepared for believers before the foundation of the world, and is the kingdom of their Father, who bestows it upon them here, in right to possess ; hereafter, in perfect enjoyment. To ascertain its perpetuity, it is called an everlasting kingdom; and those that enjoy it, are called kings, are said to sit upon thrones, and to reign in life.-To inform us who shall possess it, and on what ground, it is called an inheritance. Plainly denoting, that none but the children of God shall enjoy it for a servant, considered as such, cannot inherit. We must therefore be the sons of the highest, by adoption and regeneration, before we can justly hope to enjoy the heavenly patrimony. For however diligent the sons of God may be in keeping his commands, and in performing his will: they shall not possess it under the notion of a reward of duty, or as wages for work; but under the idea of a testamentary gift. Yes; it is a gift by way of legacy, and is bequeathed to them in the everlasting testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to those words, I appoint

by testament unto you a kingdom,*~ The kingdom is most glorious, the inheritance most free to the children of God, and absolutely unalienable.

Nor are the heirs of this boundless bliss without some joyful foretastes of it in this life. Faith being, as the apostle defines it, the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen; they anticipate, in some degree, the joys of the upper world. In the present state, they receive the earnest of their future inheritance, and rejoice in hope of the full fruition. Nay, at some bright intervals, they rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. For he that believeth hath everlasting life, in the promise, and in the earnest of it. Having fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them; those two immutable things, the promise and the oath of God, in either of which it is impossible for him to lie; afford them strong consolation respecting their final preservation and eternal happiness. Living by faith on the dying, the ascended Redeemer, as their surety and sacrifice, their righeousness and advocate and viewing the stability of the promise, the covenant, the oath of Jehovah; they have the greatest assurance that, when Christ who is their life shall appear, they also shall pear with aphim in glory.

The future happiness of believers may be considered, either as it is enjoyed by the separate spirit, before the resurrection and the last judgment; or by the soul and body united, after that awful period is come, and those grand events had taken place. That the separate spirits of the saints are possessed of thought and consciousness, and that they enjoy

* Luke xxii. 29. Thus the celebrated WITSIUs renders and interprets the passage. Oecon. L. iii. C. x. § 28. To the same effect, BEZA and CASTALIO translate the words..

ineffable bliss in communion with Jesus their exalted Head; are truths manifestly contained in the unerring word. Soon as that mysterious union, which subsists between soul and body in the present state, is dissolved by death; the soul, being made perfectly free from the being of sin, immediately enters into glory. Death, to the saints, far from being a penal evil, is numbered among their privileges, and makes one article in their comprehensive inventory of divine blessings.* Death is the gate by which they enter those heavenly mansions prepared for them; in the possession of which they enjoy delights that could not be experienced in this mortal state. The knowledge of that sublime blessedness, and of an interest in it, made Paul desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better; infinitely preferable to all that can be enjoyed in this world.

The same incomparable man and infallible teacher says.; Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: at the same time declaring, that it was far more eligible to him and his piouscotemporaries, to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. Now if the apostle's words have any sense, and if their meaning be at all intelligible, we cannot suppose him to have imagined, that his immortal soul, when separated from the body, would lie in a sleepy, unconscious, inactive state, till the sound of the archangel's trumpet should awaken it; which notion is by some warmly espoused. For in such a state of absolute insensibility he could not with any propriety, be said to be with Christ, or to enjoy the presence of God. Before the dissolution of his body, he rejoiced in the light of Jehovah's countenance, and had much communion with his.

* 1. Cor. iii. 22.

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