thickest of the trees of the garden, just as the damned will desire to do, Rev. vi. 15. Sdly. While our first parents endured this threatened death, satisfaction was made to the veracity of God, but not to his justice, demanding a plenary and sufficient compensation. But on account of the mediatorial covenant · between the Father and Son, there intervened the long-suffering of God, or a deferring of his wrath, which removed that death from man, and deferred it to the day of wrath and the last judgment. 4thly. Christ the Surety, in the fulness of time, underwent this same death of the whole man, in soul and body united, while on the cross he was forsaken of God, and at the same time had the sensation of his most dreadful wrath, who, while demanding payment of him, was pleased to bruise him a bruising not inflicted by men, but immediately by God, who punished him with affliction and imprisonment, which will be the punishment of the damned, as it was of Christ, who is said to be myn and 1 afflicted and in prison, Isa. hii. 4, 8. 5thly. Men were not able to behold this dreadful part of his punishment; for a most horrid and outward darkness concealed Christ from every eye. His whole man suffered this death, till divine justice was satisfied; and it sufficiently appeared to have been satisfied, when God removed the darkness, that the creature who had before acted as an enemy against him, on whom God was taking vengeance, night again refresh him, and when he likewise comforted him with such a sense of his paternal love, as now to be able to call God his Father, and commend his spirit into his hands, &c. 6thly. Moreover he felt, and properly bore this death on the cross, when he cried out, My God! why hast thou forsaken me? He dreaded this death in the garden, as he saw it coming upon him, and this therefore is called the Antepassion; and he was delivered from it when he said, It is finished. 7thly. The Mediator Christ was bound by his covenant engagement to this alone, and neither to spiritual death, which supposes a want of rectitude, nor to corporal death. For when he was made known in the first gospelpromise, Gen. iii. 15. no mention was yet made of corporal death, till verse 19. He therefore could not be bound to that by any vicarious title. The apostle tells us what his corporal death was, Heb. x. 20. When the blood of the sacrifice was shed for sin, atonement was made: but in order to present it to God, the priest carried the blood which procured the atonement into the holy of holies, the vail, which denoted separation by sin, being made to give way. In like manner also, when Christ completed his death, or endured the whole

load of anguish and wrath, having obtained eternal redemption, which he testified by his saying, It is finished, he was. to carry his blood, or soul, into the heavenly sanctuary. The vail standing in the way was his human nature, which, upon. taking upon him the sins of the elect, kept him at a distance from God; but after satisfaction made, that vail was rent asunder, by the separation of soul and body, and conveyed his spirit by an open way to the presence of God. And thus the corporal death of Christ belongs not to the meritorious, (which may be done by the alone death of man, not separated with respect to his essential parts) but to the representing satisfaction. Thus far this learned person.. And who can deny but these things are ingeniously devised, and learnedly connected? But whether they are as solid, as they are uncommon, I imagine I may, with the consent of the lovers of truth, modestly enquire.

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III. I remember to have learned in the communion of the Reformed church to the following effect: 1st. That the death wherewith God threatened man for sin, comprises in its. whole extent all that misery which, by the justest displeasure of God, has followed upon sin, and to which the sinnerman is obnoxious all his life, and whose principal part consists in the want of the favour of God, and in the want of thekeenest sense of the divine curse, to be chiefly inflicted when it shall so please God. 2dly. That Christ, by the interposi tion of his engagements for the elect, took upon himself all that curse which man was liable to on account of sin; hence it was, that in order to the payment of the debt he engaged for,. he led a life in the assumed human nature, subject to many vicissitudes of misery, just like the life of a human sinner. 3dly, That as God uses much forbearance with respect to sinners, and moderates the bitterness of life with some sweetness of patience till the day of vengeance, and of the retribution of his righteous judgment, when the whole weight of the curse shall light upon the condemned sinner; so also Christ, when in the form of a servant, had not always a sense of the painful effects of the sins that were laid upon him, but some times. rejoiced in an eminent mixture of favour; till the hour and power of darkness came, when being called to the bar, be had every thing dreadful to undergo.. 4thly. That as the death which consists in the separation of soul and body, is inflicted on the sinner man as the sad effect of the wrath of God; so in like manner Christ underwent the same death, that in this respect also, making satisfaction to divine justice, he might remove all the curse of that death from the elect,

5thly. In fine, that as all those miseries taken together, are what sin deserves, so Christ, who by his engagement took upon himself all the debt of the elect, did by all these miseries, to which he was subject all his life, satisfy divine justice; so that taken all together, they constitute the rausom which was due for our sins. This, if I mistake not, is the common opinion of our divines, which our Catechism has also expressed, quest. 37.; namely, that all the sufferings which Christ endured both in soul and body through the whole course of his life, constitute his one and perfect satisfaction; though it be certain, that those were the most grievous sufferings with which he encountered on the last night and day; and that what he bore in his body, were far exceeded by those that oppressed his soul: just as the whole of Christ's most holy obedience is imputed to us for righteousness, though he gave an evident demonstration of it, when he was obedient to his Father to the death, even the death of the cross; which consisted in a voluntary submission of soul, rather than in any thing he endured in the members of the body, directed by his holy soul. Which we prove from scripture in the following manner:

IV. 1st. When the scripture speaks of the satisfaction of Christ, it ascribes it to the sufferings of Christ in general, as Isa. liii. 4. "surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;" that is, he hath suffered all the pains and sorrows due to us for sin : and that not only for our good, but in our stead. For, ver. 5. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities;" so that these sins were the meritorious cause of the griefs and anguish of Christ; because the Lord "made them to light, or rush upon him," v. 6. and for these "he was afflicted," ver. 7. when the iniquity was exacted by God, as judge and avenger. But that affliction even then lay upon him, and our iniquity was exacted of him, when he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers, was dumb which certainly happened before the three hours of darkness, ver. 7. He therefore gives too great scope to his fancy, who restrains the things which are affirmed of the afflictions, griefs, and anguish of Christ in general, to the three hours' sufferings.

V. Add what the apostle writes, Heb. ii. 10. " for it became him to make the Captain of their salvation perfect (to consecrate) through sufferings." So that those sufferings, which Christ endured, (and who shall pretend to except any, the apostle speaking in such general terms?) were requisite in

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order to Christ's being a perfect Saviour to us, and a sacrifice consecrated and acceptable to God: for this the reλsiwais or perfecting of Christ, signifies, the performing of all those things to which he bound himself by his suretiship, and especially of those required to the full accomplishment of his sacerdotal expiation. And the apostle applies the sufferings of Christ to this perfecting, or consecrating. Whence Chrysostom concludes well: "Wherefore the sufferings are the perfecting, and the cause of salvation." Nay, the sacred writer had here in view all those sufferings, by which he learned obedience; for being made perfect by them, he be came the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him," Heb. v. 8, 9. But he learned obedience not only by his three hours sufferings, but in general by all his suffering; from which he learned and experienced the full extent of that obedience, to which he voluntarily submitted: nay, indeed, he principally learned obedience from his foregoing sufferings, for by these, as by certain principles, he was trained up to undergo those that were extremely painful. And thus the cause of our salvation is ascribed to all the sufferings which Christ endured in the days of his flesh.

VI. Peter, 1 Pet. ii. 21. speaks the same language; "Christ suffered for us." To suffer here denotes to be in affliction; for all those sufferings are here intended, in which Christ has left us an example of patience. These sufferings he affirms to be for us, that is, undergone as well in our stead, as for our good. For this is ordinarily the signification of the word ng: as in Euripides in Alceste, μη θνησχ. ὑπερ τα δ' ανδρός, ἐδ ̓ ἐγὼ πρό σε die not for this man, as little shall I for thee; which is to be understood in no other sense, but that of substitution; as the subject of the tragedy, exhibiting the wife dying in the room of her husband, plainly shews. In the same manner, Demosthenes in Corona, says, ἐρώλησον τέτες, μᾶλλον δέ ἐγὼ τὰ θ' ὑπέρ σε Tanow, ask these, or rather I shall do it for you. And that this is the true meaning of Peter, we conclude hence, that in chap. iii. 18. he says, Christ suffered for sins; namely, that he might be the propitiation for our sins, 1 John iv. 10. But the sufferings which Christ underwent in our room, I imagine, may be said to be satisfactory.

VII. In fine, as the likeness of sinful flesh, or the sorrowful and contemptible condition of Christ, runs parallel with the whole course of his life, and he took it upon him for sin; so that God did therefore condemn sin, and declare it had nỏ manner of right over believers, either to condemn them, or

reign over them, Rom. vii. 3. it is manifest, that the scripture ascribes the satisfaction of Christ to the whole of his humiliation; consequently they do not take the scriptures for their guide, who confine it to the sufferings only of those three hours.

VIII. 2dly. The scriptures so expressly declare, that Christ's death, even his corporal death, is to be esteemed a part of his satisfaction, that it is astonishing how any one could deny it. Thus Isa. liii. 10. " when thou shalt make his soul (when his soul shall make itself) an offering for sin;" which Christ himself, Matt. xx. 28. calls, to give his life a ransom for many, and he says, John x. 15. I lay down my life for the sheep. But to give his life, is to die a corporal death, which the resurrection puts an end to. For, thus Christ explains it, v. 17. I lay down my life, that I may take it again. And John says, chap. xix. 30. when describing the corporal death of Christ, be gave up the ghost. The argument will still be stronger, if we consider, that here an allusion is made to that typical satisfaction, which was effected by shedding the blood of the victim, so separated from the body, as to be accompanied with death. But the blood is given for the life. And therefore, a true satisfaction was made by the separation of the soul from the body of Christ, in order to keep up the resemblance between the type and antitype.

IX. Add what Paul writes, Heb. x. 20. by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the vail, that is to say, his flesh; the flesh of Christ was doubtless the vail which hindered our access. For, while it still continued entire, it was an indication that sin was not yet abolished, nor the curse removed. It was therefore necessary, that the vail or flesh of Christ should be rent, which was done, when the spirit quitted the flesh: for then the body ceasing to be a system of organs, became a heap of dusty particles, soon to return to dust, unless a speedy resurrection prevented it. And thus a new way was consecrated for us, that is, complete liberty purchased, and full right to the heavenly sanctuary. This was signified and sealed by that rending of the vail in the temple, at the very instant of Christ's death, Matt. xxvii. 51. Hence the body of Christ is said to be broken for us, 1 Cor. xi. 24. It is not improperly observed by the learned person, that, upon shedding the blood of the sacrifice, expiation was made, which was afterwards to be presented to God by bringing the blood into the holy of holies. But I wish he would consider, what I have just hinted, the separation of the soul of Christ from the body answered to the shed

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