debtor may, by flight, get beyond the reach of his creditor: but to what place can a finner flee where God is not prefent? whofe effential goodness is the irreconcileable enemy of fin, and only clothes itself with juftice to condemn and punish it. In fhort, our Lord's defcription of the Laodiceans," wretched, miferable, poor, "blind, and naked," is the picture of eve

Y child of Adam in his natural ftate, with the fame fatal infcription written over his head, "He knoweth it not." And did he who was rich;-he whom we had offended; -he who stood in no need of us;-he who paffed by creatures of a fuperior order, leaving them to inherit the misery they had chofen, and in our punishment, as well as in theirs, might have displayed and glorified the perfection of his own nature ;—did he, I fay, for our fakes become poor? How aftonishing this grace!-how impoffible to be credited, if he himself had not declared it!

IV. LET us now inquire, in the fourth place, for what end was it that he did this?

It would justly have been deemed an act of uncommon generofity, had he fimply discharged the debt we were unable to pay, that being relieved of that burden, we might be at liberty to earn a fcanty fsubsistence by our future labour and industry. It would have been a higher act of generosity, to raise us at once above poverty, and the fear of want, by fupplying us from his own ftores with the neceffaries of life, "feeding us," as Agur expreffed his wifh, "with food "convenient for us." But the grace of our Lord Jefus Chrift propofed an end still higher than this: He become poor, faith the Apostle, "that we might be rich;" that is, possessed of every thing that could render us completely happy. Here it is that

grace

fhines

forth in its fweetest and most tranfcendent

glory. But how fhall we describe what "eye hath not feen, nor ear heard, neither "hath it entered into the heart of man to "conceive?" The best affistance I can give you, is to felect from Scripture a few of those paffages that speak of the riches which Christ doth at prefent confer upon his people; and then leave your own minds to

imagine,

imagine, how immense their final portion muft be, when Chrift fhall come again to complete their falvation.

66

"In him we have redemption through ❝his blood, the forgiveness of fins, accord"ing to the riches of his grace; for by him "all who believe are justified from all "things."-With pardon, which is the introductory bleffing of the covenant, peace “ with God” is infeparably connected; for being juftified by faith, we have peace "with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." In confequence whereof, believers are received into the house and family of God; not as fervants, but as children: for "to as many as receive Chrift, to them gives "he power to become the fons of God, even 66 to them that believe in his name." 66 hold," faid the Apostle John, "what man"ner of love the Father hath bestowed up

"Be

on us, that we fhould be called the fons " of God." Nor is this a mere title of honour: believers have not only the name, but the nature of children. Accordingly they are faid, by another Apostle, to be 66 partakers of the divine nature." Chrift dwells

dwells in them by his Spirit, in such a manner, that it is not fo much they that live, as it is "Chrift that liveth in them." Once more, as they have the name and nature of children, fo likewise the portion that is connected with that relation: for, as Paul reasons, Rom. viii. 17. "If chil"dren, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint "heirs with Chrift." And what is their portion? It is styled eternal life; a trea"fure in the heavens that faileth not;

a kingdom that cannot be moved;"

an inheritance incorruptible, and unde"filed, that fadeth not away."

These few quotations, which will be familiar to the ears of all who are converfant with the holy Scriptures, may ferve to give us fome notion of the riches which Chrift doth impart to his people. I fhall therefore conclude this head with two noted paffages recorded in the preceding epiftle to the Corinthians, which describe the provision that is made for believers in Chrift, in terms more expreffive than many volumes would fuffice fully to unfold. The one is chap. i. 30. "Of him are ye in Christ Jefus, who of

"God

66

"God is made unto us wifdom, and righ teoufnefs, and fanctification, and redemp"tion." The other is chap. iii. 21. et feqq. "All things are yours: whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life,

t

1

or death, or things prefent, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Chrift's ; "and Chrift is God's."

V. THE fifth and last thing in the text that remains to be illuftrated, is the connection betwixt the poverty of Christ and the riches of his people, or the influence that the one hath upon the other: "He became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich."

66

This connection will appear, if we confider that his voluntary humiliation, in taking upon him our low nature, fulfilling all righteoufnefs, and giving himself for us, an offering and facrifice to God, hath so magnified the law, which we had broken, and given fuch full fatisfaction to the justice of the lawgiver, that a way is now opened for the free and honourable exercife of mercy to the most guilty and polluted of the po

fterity