by a perfect obedience. Again, God's infinite juftice, which ftands up for the penalty, or threatening of the law; infomuch that none can approach to a juft God, unlefs his juftice be fatisfied by a complete facrifice.--Now, as our natural want of conformity to the law makes the holinefs of God, ftand in the way of our approach to him; fo our natural want of ability, to give fatisfaction, makes the juftice of God to be a bar › againft our approach. O! who will draw this barof God's injured perfections!

3. The bar of natural enmity and fin on our part; Ifa. lix. 2. Your iniquities have feparate betwixt you and your God," fo as we cannot approach to him. We are enemies to God, by wicked works. This is a bar that cannot be broken, but by an almighty arm.Thus, I fay, all mankind was barred out from the prefence of God; no approaching to him.

2dly, I premife, That the work of him who fhall approach to God, in our room, and as our reprefentative, muft include the breaking of thefe bars. He that will engage to approach unto God as our head, to bring us back to God, muft engage to break thefe bars: And fo,

1. To break the bar of a violated covenant of works. And accordingly, Chrift comes; and, by his obedience to the death, he magnifies the law, and makes it honourable: The precept of the law that we had broken, he muft fulfil, by obeying perfectly; the promise of eternal life, which we had forfeited, he must recover, by redeeming the forfeiture, bringing in everlasting righteousnefs; the threatening and penalty of eternal death he muft endure, or the equivalent, by coming under the curfe of the law.

2. To break the bar of God's injured perfections, by vindicating the holinefs of God, and fatisfying the justice of God, that fo thefe and the like injured attributes of the divine Majefty may not ftand in the way; or, while they do, there is no approaching unto God.

3. To break the bar of man's natural enmity against God, otherways he that engages himself to approach unto God, cannot bring us to God with him.

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Thefe

Thefe things being premifed, we may the more eafily fee what is the work that the Lord Jefus engaged his heart unto, in approaching unto God: he comes to God in our room, who could not approach in our own per fons. It is below the majefty of a great king, to treat and transact immediately with a guilty rebel and traitor: and fo it is below the majefty of the great God, to tranfact immediately with wretched finners: and who then will approach? Therefore he tranfacts immediately with Chrift, a perfon of equal dignity with himself, as to his divine nature; and a perfon able to break thefe bars, and fo make an open door for himself as Redeemer, and then, for all the redeemed at his back, to approach unto God, as their eternal reft and happinefs and all this he does, by fulfilling the broken law; for, he came to fulfil all righteoufnefs, by fatisfying God's injured perfections; infomuch, that God is wellpleafed for his righteoufnefs-fake; and by deftroying man's natural enmity; infomuch, that they are reconciled to God, by the death of his Son.

But, more particularly, I would fhew here, 1. What engagements Chrift came under. 2. What approach did he make to God, under thefe engagements. 3. Under what confiderations are we to view God, to whom he engages to approach. 4. In what flation did he engage to approach unto God.

Ift, What engagements did Chrift come under, when he engaged himself to approach unto this God? He came under engagements about the whole work of our redemption. And,

1. He engaged to put himself in the form of a fervant, by taking on our nature, and taking our place in law, that fo the law might reach him in the room of the guilty finner; otherways the law-curfe due to us could never have reached him. Now, to this engagement belong feveral things, which I fhall fhortly deliver in fo many spiritual expreffions. He engaged to be made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. He engaged, even he who knew no fin, to be made fin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And thus,

2. He engaged to fatisfy, not only the law, in all its commands and demands, but also all the injured attributes of the divine Majefty, by bringing in everlafting righteoufnefs. He engaged to give himself a facrifice; and to give his foul an offering for fin; and to give his life a ranfom for many. He engaged to make peace by the blood of his crofs, and fo to repair the breach betwixt God and man, making way by his blood, to the holy of holies, that we might have boldness to enter into the holieft, by the blood of Jefus, by a new and living way, confecrate to us through the vail, that is to fay his flesh, that we might come again to God with full affurance of faith. And in order to this,

3. He engaged to redeem by power as well as by price, and to make a willing people in the day of his power; and that, having bruifed the head of the ferpent, and destroyed the works of the devil, he fhould bring forth his prisoners out of the pit wherein there was no water. He engaged to lead captivity captive, to take the prey from the mighty, that the lawful captive might be delivered, Ifa. Ixix. 24, 25.; and fo to restore the loft image of God upon man, and to make them partakers of the divine nature. And thus,

4. He engaged not only to destroy fin, and to condemn it in the flesh, because it tended to destroy God's law, to darken his glory, and to firike at his being, as well as to ruin the finner; but also, to destroy death, and bring life and immortality to light-He engages to come, that we might have life, and that we might have it more immediately. And in all thefe Chrift becomes engaged to the Father, for our debt, for our duty, and for our fafety. And as he became engaged to God for us, fo he became engaged to us for God: that having engaged to God for our debt, we fhould be justified; having engaged for our duty, we fhould be fanctified; and that having egaged for our fafety, we fhould be glorified, and fafely brought to heaven, to be for ever with the Lord.

(1.) He engaged for our debt, that it fhould be paid every farthing, to the uttermoft that the infinite holi nefs of God could command in the precept of the law,

and

and to the uttermoft that the infinite juftice of God could demand in the threatening of the law; and fo he is able to fave to the uttermoil, becaufe he ever lives to make interceffion, upon the ground of that complete payment that he made by his obedience unto death. And here ftands the ground of our juftification before God; this ground he engaged to God for us to lay down, and upon this ground he engaged to us that he fhall be juftified, faying, "I will be merciful to their unrighteoufnefs, their fins and iniquities will I remember no more."

(2.) He engaged not only for our debt, but for our duty having engaged to God to make a purchase of all grace and holinefs for us, he engages, in his promife to us, to give us the new heart and the new fpirit, to make us know the Lord; and to put his Spirit within us, and caufe us to walk in his ftatutes; to put his fear in our hearts, that we fhall not depart from him: and confequently that we fhall not fin the fin unto death, nor live and die under the power of fin: and that fin fhall not have a final dominion over us: but that the law of the Spirit of life in Chrift Jefus, fhall free us from the law of fin and death.--And in confequence of thefe two engagements for debt and for duty,

(3.) He alfo engages for our fafety, faying to his Father, "I give them eternal life and they fhall never perish, neither fhall any pluck them out of my hand," John x. 28. He engages to the Father, "That of all that he hath given him, he fhall lofe nothing, but fhall raise it ip at the laft day; and that they fhall all be with him, where he is, to behold his glory." And hence iffue all the promises wherein alfo he engages to us for God, fuch as, that he will fave us from falling, and prefent us faultlefs before the prefence of his glory with exceeding joy; and that though we may be fometimes carried captive of our enemies by conftraint, yet that we fhall overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and fit with him on his throne, even as he overcame, and is fet down with his Father on his throne: And that no cross fhall come, but what shall be for our advantage in the end, whatever for the prefent it seem to be to our fenfe; but that

all

all things fhall work together for our good, who love him, and are the called according to his purpose.

This leads me to a queftion; Why, lay you, who may expect a fhare of this engagement of Chrift? Does he engage in behalf of us all! I anfwer, in fuch a manner as concerns all that hear me, that he engaged in behalf of all that were given him of the Father; and that none of all that hear this gofpel, may look upon themselves as fhut out, he expreffes it thus, John xi. 37.1 "All that the Father hath given me, fhall come to me; and him that cometh to me, I will in no wife caft out:" And confequently he engages in behalf of all that fhall not exclude themfelves from the benefit of this glorious engagement, by their final unbelief, in rejecting this Chrift, and refufing to be faved on thefe terms, which Chrift engaged to fulfil. And fo the door is open to you all, to put in for a full fhare of all that Chrift hath engaged to do; efpecially if you think that your own perfonal bonds and engagements, vows, promifes, and covenants, are not fo good and fufficient as Chrift's perfonal engagement in your room: think you fo, man, woman? O then, here is a good bargain for you; you that have no money to pay your debt; no grace to perform your duty; no ftrength to fecure your fafety; O here is a Chrift engaging to God for your debt, your duty, and your fafety? O let your heart fay with application, AMEN, it is a good bargain for me; and if fo, God hath before-hand faid AMEN, fo let it be. In a word, the fum of Chrift's engagement, that he came under, in his approach to God, was, to fulfil God's law, to vindicate his holiness, to fatisfy his juftice, to bear his wrath in our room, and to be made fin for us, and fo to be made a curfe for us, 2 Cor. v. 21. Gal. iii. 13. He engaged to be made a facrifice, a ranfom, a propitiation for us, and to be all that the glory of God's perfections in the matter of our falvation required.Thus he engaged himself to ap proach to God.

2dly, What approach did he make to God under thefe engagements? In fhort,