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King of Israel and a blessing to all, He spared them -He bore with their follies, and kept them together as a distinct people until He performed His word. Thus from Adam, through all the ages of the world's history, until Christ was born of Abraham's seed-of the tribe of Judah-of David's line-in a royal city,the Jewish people were permitted to continue, because God was faithful to his covenant promise, and could not suffer His word to fail.

Thus, both with respect to the promised seed which was Christ, and to the seed which should serve Him, God has proved faithful to His covenant. No promise has been broken. Every thing is done which in the council of heaven was determined. Christ came.

Christ obeyed the law. Christ died, and was buried, and rose again, and ascended up on high, leading captivity captive, and now sitteth at the right hand of God as our Mediator and Advocate with the Father.

Thus, the covenant promises of God are all seen to have been faithfully fulfilled up to the gift of Christ; but are the promises in the Gospel as stable and sure? Yes, certainly; for these, likewise, are all made unto us for Christ's sake. They are given to believers, only because their glorious Head won them in the race He ran. They are His by right-His by purchaseHis by hard and severe labour alone; and they are made over to His body the Church, in virtue of its relationship to Him. God, then, will give all promised blessings to His children. He will not suffer His faith

fulness to fail. His covenant will He not break, nor alter the thing that has gone out of His lips. (Ps. lxxxix. 33-34.) This being the word of Him who cannot lie-who cannot deceive-who cannot deny Himself, (2 Tim. ii. 13), it should be sufficient to banish doubt or fear; but "God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath; that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." (Heb. vi. 17 ad fin.) Never be it forgotten, that all the promises of the Gospel were made to Christ in the eternal covenant. They were conditional on the fulfilment by Him of the work He undertook to accomplish for our redemption, sanctification, and glorification; and, therefore, if ever a doubt crosses the mind of a believer in Jesus, let him remember how faithfully his Head and Representative fulfilled His engagement, how that faithfulness was acknowledged and accepted by His Father, when He said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," and then, after all the work of Christ was finished on the cross and in the grave, raised Him up to sit on His right hand; and let him ask himself, whether

the Father can deny to Christ that which He has won-that which He has earned-that which is His by virtue of the most solemn engagements? And he must see the folly of mistrusting One “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (Jas. i. 17), who will not swerve from the promises He has given to us in Christ, but will make them "sure to all the seed." (Rom. iv. 16.) Let, then, this assurance be the comfort of all who have reason to believe that they are heirs of the promises. God is faithful, and all blessings here and hereafter which He has given unto Christ for His people they shall surely have, for they "are Christ's, and Christ is God's (1 Cor. iii. 23); and "if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and jointheirs with Christ." (Rom. viii. 17.)

CHAPTER XX.

THE MERITORIOUS CAUSE OF JUSTIFICATION IS THE
WORK OF OUR COVENANT REDEEMER.

"O Saviour of the world, who by Thy cross and precious blood hast redeemed us, save us, and help us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Visitation of the Sick.

Lord."

THERE is no subject in the whole range of knowledge, human or Divine, more interesting and valuable than that of our justification, for upon it is grounded the scheme of salvation; and, therefore, for the sinner's comfort and hope, it is essential that he should have clear views of it, or he may go on to the last with clouded prospects, and no well-established peace; or be animated with hopes, which are derived from unscriptural, and, consequently, false views of God, of Christ, and of redemption.

By all Prostestant Churches, the doctrine of justification by faith, has been considered the key-stone of Christianity; and, as all forms of Popery and Arminianism are grounded on mistaken views of it, no other truth was more earnestly, prayerfully, and boldly

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maintained against all opposition, at the period of our glorious reformation.

But, before proceeding with the consideration of this subject, it is necessary that we should have clear views of the various senses in which the terms justify and justification are employed by the sacred writers.

That these are words of various signification in reference to salvation, there is abundant evidence. In the first place, we find that they are employed to express a state of inherent holiness or purity. Thus the word "justified" is used in the Psalms, where the writer exclaims, "Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified,” (Ps. cxliii. 2.), by which the Psalmist intends to say that no man, if judged by a God of infinite holiness, could be pronounced just and righteous.

Employing the words just, righteous, and justified, in the same sense, as referring to that righteousness which a man might suppose it is possible to possess; and after striving in his own unaided strength, and irrespective of Divine grace, imagine he has found, Job exclaims, "How should man be just with God?" (Job ix. 2.) Eliphaz says, "What is man that he should be clean, and he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous?" (Job. xv. 14.) Bildad exclaims, "How can man be justified with God?" (Job xxv. 4.) and Solomon tells us plainly, that "there is not a just man upon earth," (Eccl. vii. 20.)

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