These two blessings, indeed, which flow from the obedience of Christ, are indissolubly connected in the covenant of grace, so that no one who obtains the pardon of sin can fail of acquiring a right to life. These, however, must be distinguished, and not confounded as if they were one and and the same thing. It is one thing to free from death, another to introduce into life-one thing to deliver from hell, another to conduct into heaven-one thing to free from punishment, another to bestow rewards. Though it is true that no one is freed from death, who is not also made a partaker of life, yet it does not follow that a deliverance from the death which we deserve, is not to be distinguished from the acquisition of glory. There are many grades of life as well as of holiness. The possession of life does, indeed, follow liberation from death, but it is not necessary that this life should be a happy and glorious one; as liberty follows deliverance from prison, but it may be liberty without a throne and a diadem. Joseph might have been freed from prison and not set over the land of Egypt. Between death and life simply there is no medium, but between eternal death, and a life happy and glorious, there is a medium-the life of bondage in which man is now placed. The present life, in which man is bound to the performance of duty, is a state of pilgrimage, not a state of heavenly rest.

While we believe it necessary to make distinctions such as these, we think it improper to enquire curiously, as some do, by what particular acts, Christ made atonement, and by what he merited life for us. Those who make these too nice distinctions, attribute the atonement to his sufferings; and the acquisition of a right to life, they attribute to his active obedience to the law. These distinctions receive no countenance from scripture, which no where distinguishes the obedience of Christ into parts, but, on the contrary, represents it as a thing unique, by which he hath done in our place every thing which the law requires of us. As Christ, by the obedience of his life, has rendered to the law what it required of us, and to which we are otherwise bound; so by this obedience he has satisfied the law, as to those de

mands which it makes upon us: and hence his active obedience partakes of the nature of satisfaction. Again, as his passive obedience proceeded from unspeakable love to us, and as love is the fulfilling of the law, we cannot deny but it was meritorious, and of the nature of a price of redemption, by which a right to life has been acquired for us. Therefore, we should avoid those curious distinctions, and consider liberation from death, and our right to life as flowing from all the mediatory duties, which Christ performed during his humiliation, and all these considered as a perfect whole are called the obedience of Christ. Sin could not be expiated before the law was fulfilled, nor could a right to life be acquired, before the charges preferred against us on account of sin were blotted out. Christ merited by making atonement, and by meriting he made atonement. Unspeakable were his merits, in doing what was most difficult and arduous, for our redemption. This, his perfect obedience accomplished, and, in accomplishing it, gave the most unequivocal proof of his great love to us; by delivering himself up to his Father to die in the room of sinners: he satisfied the demands of a special law, and fulfilled the duties required by his own vocation by all the things which he performed, and which should have been of no avail to us had they not been sealed and consummated by his death. The atonement is not to be ascribed merely to the external shedding of his blood, but also, and principally, to an internal act-his spontaneous and unchangeable willingness to suffer even to the death of the cross for us. By this voluntary offering of himself, we are said to be sanctified.* It is not to be ascribed to the payment of the last farthing, but to the whole of the price of redemption, which is Christ, delivering up and subjecting himself for us.

The objection which Socinus offers against this is of no force. "He says, that atonement and merit are incompatible with each other, for satisfaction or atonement is the payment of a just debt, whereas merit is effected by giving some thing not due on the score of justice." This is accu

*Heb. x, 14.

rate when applied to a satisfaction or payment made by a debtor in his own person, but it has no application when referred to a vicarious satisfaction, in which a surety, while making satisfaction may merit some thing, both in relation to the debtor, and the creditor:-in relation to the debtor, by paying, when under no obligation to do so, a debt for him, and thus graciously freeing him from all obligation to the creditor:-in relation to the creditor he may merit, and this especially if a covenant has been made, in which it is stipulated that upon making a specified payment, it shall be admitted not only as a satisfaction for sin, but as procuring a title to blessings not otherwise due. This is the case here, as appears from Isa. liii. 10. Heb. ix. 15. Col. i. 17, 20. and from similar passages.

IV. We remark, that there are two things contained in the law. There are precepts, which prescribe duties; and sanctions, which ordain rewards to those who keep the law; and punishments to its transgressors. Man who is under the obligation of the law, may be at the same time bound both to obedience, and punishment. This, however, cannot take place in a state of primitive rectitude, but in a state of sin. Because sinful man sustains a twofold relation to God-one the relation of a creature, the other that of a sinful, and condemned creature. In regard to the former he always owes obedience to God, and can never be freed from this obligation so long as he continues a creature, no matter what situation he may be in. In respect to the latter he is obnoxious to punishment. Yet we cannot infer from this doctrine that man pays his debt twice to God. A penal debt is very dif ferent from a debt of obedience. A penal debt arises from past transgressions; a debt of obedience, from the indispen sable- obligation of the creature to obey the Creator, is coextensive with the whole term of its existence, and neither is, nor can be relaxed, even while the creature is suffering the punishment of its transgressions.

V. We remark that there is a threefold subjection to the law-a natural, a federal and a penal subjection. The natural subjection arises from the law as a rule of holiness, and respects the creature as a creature. It is eternal and in

dispensable, because in every situation, the creature is bound to be subject to God, and to obey him. The federal subjection arises from the law as prescribing a condition, upon the fulfilment of which, a reward is to be attained; respects the creature as placed in a covenant state; and prescribes the performance of duty under the promise of rewards and punishments. The penal subjection respects the creature as placed in a state of sin and condemnation, and binds him to suffer the punishment which the law denounces. The first is absolute and immutable; for as long as there is a creature, and a Creator, the creature must be subject to the Creator. God can no more dispense with his claim of subjection upon the creature than he can deny himself. The second is economical and changeable, because it respects man not in a natural, but in a constituted state, it continues in force as long as man continues in that state, and no longer. So soon as he has finished his probation, and by fulfilling the condition, has obtained the reward, he is freed from this subjection. The third is necessary, and inevitable, whenever the creature falls into sin, which is necessarily followed by punishment. The first is founded in a right essential to God-in that natural, underived and necessary authority, which he has a right to exercise over the creature, and the natural dependence of the creature upon him. The second is founded in the sovereign pleasure of God; it results from, and depends upon the will of Deity, whereby he has been pleased to enter into a covenant with his creature, and promise it life under this, or that condition. The third is founded in the judicial authority, and avenging justice of God; and by it he avenges the transgressions of his creature. "Vengeance is mine," saith God, “and I will repay." All creatures, angels, and men, are under the natural subjection to the law. Adam, in a state of innocence, was under the federal subjection. Devils and reprobate men are under the penal subjection.

In this third respect, it is easy to conceive how Christ was subjected to the law-" Made under the law," as the apostle expresses it; and whether he was subjected to the

law for himself or for us. As a man there is no doubt but he was subject to the law for himself as a rule of holiness,* by a common and natural subjection, under which angels and glorified saints are in heaven, who love God and are bound to worship him. But it does not follow from this that he was subject to the law as exhibiting a condition of happiness —that his subjection was a federal subjection, binding him to obtain life by fulfilling a condition. This he must of necessity obtain by the hypostatical union. Much less was he subjected to the law for himself, by a penal subjection, for he was most holy, and absolutely free from all sin. So that when he undertook the twofold office of fulfilling the precepts of the law, and suffering its sanction; all this was to be done in consequence of a voluntary arrangement, by which he as Mediator, engaged to perform them for us. He voluntarily entered into a covenant with his Father, to do and suffer as our surety all those things, which the law claimed of us, and which were necessary to our redemption.

These remarks being premised in order to an accurate understanding of the subject; we shall now proceed to offer proofs in support of the opinion which we embrace. It is confirmed from many passage of scripture. The first which we shall adduce is Rom. v. 19. “ For as by the disobedience of one many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one, are many made righteous." Here the atonement is referred to his obedience, not to that of his death, but also that of his life. 1. Because the apostle treats of his whole obedience, without any limitation; hence this obedience

*Witsius, the elegant author of the Economy of the Covenants, as well as Mr. Turrettin and President Edwards, takes this view of the obligations of Christ as a creature. But as Mr. Turrettin says the human nature of Christ is only an adjunct of his divine person, he could owe no obedience for himself. It is a person only, who is the subject of the moral law, and the person of Christ is the second person of the trinity, who is Lord of the law. His humility is every where in scripture represented as voluntary. Had he been subject to the law for himself he could not have performed an obedience for others. Those great divines rather express themselves loosely than erroneously; not foreseeing the bad use which men of subtle and unsound mind would make of their inaccurate phrases.