be said of Judas, that Christ redeemed him from the curse of the law, being made a curse for him? but respecting Peter, this was an undoubted fact. Election and redemption have reference to the same persons, and are of the same extent: the blood of Christ could therefore not expiate the sin which he never bore.

The pious Watson remarks, when speaking of Christ's intercession, Christ does not intercede for all promiscuously, but for the elect. The efficacy of Christ's prayer reacheth no further than the efficacy of his blood: but his blood was shed only for the elect, therefore his prayers only reach them. The High Priest went into the sanctuary with the names only of the twelve tribes upon his breast; so Christ goes into heaven only with the names of the elect upon his breast.'

That the particularity of redemption does not lie in the sovereign will of God, with regard to its application, appears to me very evident. It is allowed, that in the decree of election it depended solely on the sovereign pleasure of God,

whether redemption should be provided for all, or any part of mankind; but as all the transactions connected with that decree are irrevocably fixed, the blessings included in it cannot extend further than the decree itself.

To accomplish the work of redemption something was to be done and suffered by the Redeemer as indispensably requisite to forgiveness. The persons interested in it stood in a relation to Christ which those who perish never did; and this relation was essential to their emancipation from guilt and from ruin. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.' To suppose therefore that what Christ did and suffered for the members of his mystical body, is equally applicable to those who make no part of that body, is repugnant to reason and to scrip

ture.

If the will of God, and redemption, were synonymous terms, the hypothesis in question could

not be matter of dispute. But they are things totally distinct. Redemption was a work assigned to Christ as absolutely needful to forgiveness; and the execution of that work was the completion of God's will. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.' Now these sufferings were absolutely necessary for the salvation of the elect, or they were not: if indispensably necessary, a greater degree of suffering could not righteously be inflicted than was requisite for that end; or, in other words, than was needful to answer the claims of justice: and if these sufferings, as to duration and intenseness, were absolutely requisite for the deliverance of the elect from final ruin; how is the benefit of these sufferings to extend to those who make no part of that number? For if our blessed Lord endured more than the least possible degree of suffering, that suf fering could not be the result of mere sovereignty in him who will minister judgment to the people in righteousness,' but the apportioned desert of imputed sin. It is repugnant to every prin

ciple of justice to suppose that these sufferings exceeded the demerit for which they were inflicted; and not less so to imagine that the merit of those sufferings extended to sin that it never expiated.

It is, I think, hardly possible to conceive of an hypothesis that has so direct a tendency to depreciate the work of Christ, as that which makes the particularity of redemption to lie simply in the will of God, with regard to its application. For if the application be an exercise of mere sovereignty; if there be nothing in the sufferings of Christ to merit and secure this application; the unutterable blessing might without injustice to Christ be entirely with-held; and after all that has been done (were such the will of God) not a single soul be suffered to enter into heaven.

So far, however, is the application of redemption from being solely ascribed to the sovereign pleasure of God, that, on the contrary, it is a prerogative expressly assigned to Christ as me

diator; unto whom power and dominion were given over all flesh, with a special intention that he should give eternal life to as many as had been given to him by the Father in the everlasting covenant. John xvii. 1. 2.

On the same grounds proceeded the admirable petitions of our Lord in an other part of the same chapter. The heavenly blessedness is not asked for his disciples as a boon, but, in virtue of his own ransom, as a matter of right.

Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.'

This language, as it respects the salvation of those for whom Christ laid down his life, is in perfect harmony with his answer to those Jews who cavilled at his mission and his character.

Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I