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for the salvation of all, when all are not saved. That which eventually procures no release for its captives; which finds and leaves them vassals of corruption, is not redemption; to seek the therefore to magnify its importance by contending for its unlimited extent, when the beneficial effects are neither realized by the Redeemer nor the redeemed, is not to extol but lo dobu to depreciate redemption, and to dishonour him iversal by whom it is said to be effected.

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Our blessed Lord, when referring to this important subject, bore a very different testimony, This is my blood of the New Testament, said the adorable Redeemer, which is shed for many for the remission of sin--the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many-I am the good shepherd-I lay down my life for the sheepI give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. According to the evidence of this competent witness, the redemption of these sheep is complete; their emancipation from the power and dominion of sin is infallibly

secured, and if Truth itself may be credited, where He is, there shall they be also.

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As descendants of Adam, our federal head and representative, we are involved in his guilt and obnoxious to punishment: so it is in virtue of our federal relation to Christ, the second Adam, that we become interested in all that he did and in all that he suffered as the Church's substitute. This mysterious union of Christ and believers is, says that eminent servant of God, Archbishop Leighton, that whereon both their justification and sanctification and the whole frame of their salvation and happiness depend, and in this particular view the Apostle insists on it, speaking of Christ and believers as one in his death and resurrection, crucified with him, dead with him, buried with him, and risen with him.' To the same purpose are the remarks of the pious Dorney, when speaking of this union. Christ and the elect are so united, 'That what he did for them was reckoned by justice itself, accountable to the behoof and concernment of each elected person, as much as if every one of them had completely satisfied justice in their own

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persons.' It is such an union, observes Dr. Pye Smith, as forms a ground, in the reason of things, in the feelings and common estimation of men, and in the appointment of God for that reciprocal proprietorship, which is in scripture so emphatically called, his being made, or constituted, sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Thus it appears that there is such an intercommunity of relation between the Saviour and his redeemed as forms a just reason for regarding them as one, in a federal and legal sense-and that the fact of this true union, when reduced to practical and personal application, secures the existence of genuine holiness and virtue.'

Who says But to say that a sinner can be saved by so wupt Univeral appears to me an inexplicable mystery. To suppose that Christ is given to any who reap no Stove saving benefit from him, is, as Mr. Mac Lean justly remarks, not very honourable to the Saviour. God gives his Son to none but those to whom he also with him freely giveth all things, abundance of grace, the gift of righteousness,

Christ to whom he never stood thus related,

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and eternal life; for he that hath the Son hath life.'

The transmission of sin from the sinner to Christ, is a doctrine so frequently inculcated by Jewish rites, by prophets, and apostles, that there can I think be no doubt respecting either its certainty or its importance. So important indeed is it, that without it there is no remission. Now as this doctrine is inseparably connected with redemption, it is natural to ask, Whe

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ther the sins of every individual of mankindofin

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were imputed to Christ, or the sins of a part only? If the sins of every individual, then he suffered the curse of the law for every indivi dual, and redemption is general; but if the sins of a part only, redemption must of course only the be particular, because our blessed Lord could onts not expiate the sin which he never bore.

Such, it has been said, was the preciousness of the blood of Christ, that one drop would have been sufficient for the redemption of the world. But for this notion there is no scriptural warrant. It is incompatible with the honour of divine jus

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idle apertion.

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pers of God.

incompatible with the pur

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tice in the infliction of punishment on Christ:
the unparalleled sufferings he underwent are re-
presented by the inspired writers, and by our
Lord himself, as inexpressibly great; even to
amazement! It is utterly irreconcileable with the
astonishing effects produced by his agony in the
garden, when his sweat was as it were great drops
of blood falling down to the ground.

But were the truth of this strange remark adWho,mitted, of what use can it be to him who shall pleaded, contend for a redundancy of merit in the death for this offlasing term re

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of Christ? For had our blessed Lord suffered ten
thousand deaths without federal relation to man-
kind, the blood he shed would have been equally
precious; yet it would not have been available
for the redemption of a single individual. In this
case he could not have acted as a Surety-as the
Substitute of Sinners: he could have discharged
no guilt, because he had none of his own; and
ours, according to the hypothesis in question,
was not laid upon him; he could therefore
make no atonement, he could pay no price to
divine Justice, and of course effect no redemp-
tion.

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