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The Christian must serve God with the faculties of the whole Man.

therto triumphed against the original purpose of almighty beneficence: man created in the image of his Creator for blessing and immortality had incurred the curse of death; sin and suffering grew up in the world, which God had formed for goodness and felicity.

To arrest the progress of evil, confound the devices of the wicked spirit, and in the end to perfect the purpose of the creation; it was afore decreed in the eternal councils of God, that the only begotten of the Father, the everlasting Word, at a certain time should come into the world, in the form, and fashion, with the faculties, and affections of humanity; and, in the unsinning perfection of man's original nature, having withstood all the wiles and temptations of the prince of evil, and prepared himself by an unpolluted life exemplifying that perfect obedience to the will of his Father, from which Adam fell, should then offer himself a sacrifice for the sins of Adam and of all his posterity; and, by submitting to that death, which was the consequence of sin, redeem them, under the conditions of a new covenant, from all the effects of sin beyond that natural death,

The Christian must serve God with the faculties of the whole Man.

to which by a just sentence, and in necessary conformity with everlasting truth, they were irrevocably doomed. The eternal Word and Wisdom being united with the humanity of Jesus Christ, He could not have died, but by the Divinity voluntarily withdrawing itself, or assenting to the natural death of the body; neither could the body remain dead, nor the spirit be detained in the mansion of departed souls, after the Divinity willed to re-animate the body, and re-unite it with the spirit. But, when Jesus Christ once yielded to death, making a propitiation for sin, he destroyed sin that had the power of death, and thus despoiled death of its sting, depriving it of all power of evil, beyond the extinction of the natural life. When He entered the regions of the dead; He rendered vain the victory of the grave, and put a period to its dominion. His resurrection proclaimed the benefits thus achieved for fallen man. Having died for sin, and risen again to live in everlasting righteousness glorified with his father, He signified that those, who with faith in him were baptized to his death, were by his resurrection

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The Christian must serve God with the faculties of the whole Man.

born again to righteousness free from the power and defilement of sin; and gave indubitable promise that all, who continue so to exercise their faith in Him as to walk in newness of life, following his example, resisting temptation, and keeping the commandments, shall share his glory in the eternal kingdom of the Father.

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In this eternal scheme of redemption, God effected the objects of his benevolent attributes, overthrew the works of Satan, reconciled justice with mercy, and, in his means of saving the sinner, testified his hatred of sin.

This redemption was first disclosed in the sentence, which God passed upon our first parents for their transgression, and upon the tempter, who was the first cause of sin: that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent, and the serpent should bruise the heel of the woman's seed. The serpent, that is the beast in which the tempter was disguised, and which is therefore put for the tempter, was to be allowed to persecute and trouble the seed of the woman, but not to destroy it; and finally the seed was to destroy the power of the serpent.

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The Christian must serve God with the faculties of the whole Man.

serpent. This was effectually done by our Saviour, who first defeated all the devil's arts of temptation, then triumphed over death, which had resulted from the success of those arts in Paradise, and, in the advantages of the new covenant, established to the mind of the faithful a saving power against their malignant influence.

All the dispensations of God's providence in ruling the world had reference to this great scheme of salvation, and were directed to its consummation. In his infinite goodness the Creator never lost sight of his fallen creature; it was, indeed impossible to his nature, so far as we can conceive of it, that He should have done so. If we could search out his counsels, and look into causes and effects in the moral world; we should doubtless find that He never ordered any event, or inspired any thought into the heart of man, which had not its tendency to the welfare of the obedient creature; and that He never permitted any, which shall finally injure those, who love and obey him; that He never suffered any thing to hurt his creatures, even in the disorder of a sinful

world,

The Christian must serve God with the faculties of the whole Man.

world, except through their own rebellious and alienated dispositions, for which he did not provide an eventual remedy, and at the last convert the evil to good.

Such is the care and vigilance of the Almighty, such is his scheme of mercy projected from the beginning of things, and gradually brought to maturity through a long succession. of ages, for the happiness of his fallen creature man, and so far as revelation informs us, for. him only. For although we read in the sacred volume that some of the angels sinned; yet we do not find that any reconciliation or grace ever was, or will be offered them. On the

contrary it is said that they are utterly excluded from favour, and cursed everlastingly. What was the particular sin of the apostate spirits the scriptures do not clearly inform us, and it concerns us not to inquire. It appears to have been something of pride and selfishness, by which they arrogated what did not belong to them, what the law of the Almighty had forbidden them, and, in the possession of which, they would infringe upon the happiness and privileges of other creatures. But, what

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