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CHAPTER VI.

THE APPLICATION OF THE COVENANT OF REDEMPTION TO INDIVIDUAL MEN: UNION AND COMMUNION WITH THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

I. 1. Man's Alienation from God, and Perpetual Shortcoming.-2. Perpetual Necessity for Special Divine Grace.-3. These two Facts Combined and Applied: the Result.-4. Special, Determinate, Effectual Salvation.-II. 1. Prerogatives of the Regenerate: Apostles' Creed:-(a) Communion of Saints:-(b) Forgiveness of Sins :-(c) Resurrection of the Body:-(d) Life Everlasting.-2. Divine Summary concerning these Prerogatives:-(a) We are in Christ, and he is made unto us Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption:-(b) This is of God, and by God:-(c) Thus we are Divinely United to Christ, and have Communion with him :-(d) We are Specially Called and Chosen of God hereunto:-(e) And that in Special Contemplation of our own Vileness:-(ƒ) And to put an End to all Glorying, except in him.-III. 1. Immediate Effect of the Application to us of the Benefits of Redemption in our Union and Communion with Christ.—2. The Mystical Body thus created.-3. Matters involved in our Union with Christ:—(a) God gives Christ to us, to be our Saviour:-(b) He gives us to Christ, to be his People:-(c) Christ's Consent to this Union:-(d) Our Consent thereto :-(e) Unavoidable Certainty of the Result of this Union.-4. The Spiritual Means whereby this Mystical Union is effected :-(a) On the part of Christ, it is his own Spirit— the Holy Ghost:-(b) On our part, Saving Faith in the Divine Redeemer crucified for us:-(c) Infinite Efficacy of these Means.-IV. 1. Fellowship with Christ. -2. Fruits of our Communion with him.-3. Communion with him in Grace.4. Communion with him in Glory.-5. Clearness and Certainty of the Results reached.

I.-1. IN considering the results of God's dealings with the human race, nothing is more obvious than the utter shortcoming of man in every condition in which he has been placed. The original fall of man under the Covenant of Works; the apostacy of the race under the first dispensation of the Covenant of Grace, and its almost total destruction by the flood; the new and nearly complete rejection of God by the whole race during the Noacic dispensation, and the fearful acquiescence in that result manifested by God in the call of Abraham; the entire condition of the race thus rejecting God, as exhibited to us during the whole period covered by the Abrahamic and Mosaic

dispensations; the whole career of the Old Testament Church itself, terminating with the rejection and crucifixion of the Son of God; and now under the Gospel Church for eighteen centuries, the deplorable persecutions that Church has endured, the unspeakable evils of which its own corruptions and apostacies have been the cause, and the ceaseless triumph of every form of wickedness, in one immense portion after another of the whole race, through all these centuries! What are all these but overwhelming exhibitions of the utter shortcoming of man-the whole constituting one boundless proof of his alienation from God?

2. It has been equally manifest throughout the whole career of the human race, and throughout all God's dealings with it, that there has been a perpetual necessity on the part of God, to supplement the ordinary divine helps bestowed by him on man, with special divine aids, in order to secure to man the complete enjoyment of whatever mercies were given to him, or to obtain from him the complete discharge of whatever duties were required of him. The more perfectly we understand the condition of all things under the Covenant of Works, the more wonderful it is that man fell; and in like degree the more clear it is that it was the lack of special divine help-grace-which it was impossible for God to give consistently with the nature of the trial through which man was passing, which made that trial fatal. And the very conception of the Covenant of Grace, and its promulgation after the Fall of man; and all the successive dispensations of it from Adam to Christ; and the advent and whole work of Christ; and the outpouring and whole work of the Holy Ghost; and all the dealings of God with men under the New Testament Church: all constitute one unbroken series of the most illustrious proofs that special divine aid-grace-is the one grand and unalterable condition of duty completely discharged, and of mercy completely enjoyed. And if any thing could make the shortcoming of man more distinct, and the need of special grace more conspicuous; it would be the fact that this being, so impotent to the true and the good, is distinguished most of all by his ineffaceable conviction of the reality of truth and goodness; that this being, so averse to God, the only object of all true religion, has no impulse in his nature so deep and so stedfast as his religious impulse.

3. That all men do not participate of the blessings revealed

in Christ, and embrace the conditions of that eternal life which is brought to light through him; is therefore no more than a new illustration of the whole career of a race, whose evil deeds show that they love what God calls darkness more than what God calls light. That any of them heartily embrace that mercy and completely attain that life; proves, on the other hand, that special divine aid-grace-has been given to them by God. And that God reveals and applies his merey, not to reprobate vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, but to the objects of his free and special love, making them possessors of the unsearchable riches of his grace; is but the continued manifestation of his entire mode of dealing with man. However we may cavil at this, which is but a way of showing our terrible alienation from God; or however we may justly stand in awe as we behold it: we ought to be fully aware that but for this special grace of God, it is infinitely certain that not a single sinner ever would be saved. At any rate, we cannot deny the reality of this divine way of dealing through special grace, without at the same time rejecting the Scriptures as the word of God, discrediting the whole course of divine providence, refusing all credence to the total history of our race, denying the moral government of God which is administered before our face, disbelieving the testimony of every renewed soul, and silencing alike the voice of conscience and the voice of God's Spirit within us. He who can do all this, will have for his pains only this, that he is a living proof of the truth which he denies; for if grace were not special, he might not have been what he is.

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4. The Word was made flesh: they that believe on his name become the sons of God: for they are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. They are born again, born from above, born of the Spirit. For the sons of God are as many as are led by the Spirit of God. By his own blood Christ has obtained eternal redemption for us. And all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him are amen unto the glory of God by us." God according to his mercy saves us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should

1 John, iii. 19.

4 John, iii, 3-7.

2 Rom., ix. 22, 23; 1 Cor., ii. 8–16.
5 Rom., viii. 14. 6 Heb., ix. 12.

3 John, i. 12, 13.

7 2 Cor., i. 20.

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be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. All that the Father giveth me, saith Christ, shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. Such statements as these-and the number of them throughout the Scriptures is past computation-cover the case in all its possible bearings, and hardly admit of being wrested out of their clear sense. Touching the present matter, their simple and naked declaration is, that the elect of God, being redeemed by the blood of Christ, are made partakers of all the benefits of that redemption, by the Holy Ghost. Every thing is special, every thing is determinate, every thing is effectual. Nor is it possible for us to conceive how it could be otherwise, viewed from the divine side of such questions: nor viewed from the human side of them, how it could be possible for any sinner to be saved, if it were otherwise. If we could prove that God does not choose us—what we would gain would be our infallible perdition. If we admit that he does choose us, then he must have changed his mind concerning us, or his purpose to choose us must be eternal. But he tells us plainly not only that his choosing us -our election by him-is of grace, and according to his own purpose; but that our salvation and the holy calling which fits us for it, are not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.*

II.—1. The earliest, the most comprehensive, and the most universally accepted of all the summaries of faith which have existed among Christians-that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed-has recapitulated the chief prerogatives of which the elect of God, by the specific application to them of the benefits of redemption by the blood of Christ, are made partakers through the Holy Ghost. That ancient symbol states first the faith of all Christians concerning God the Father, secondly concerning the Son; thirdly concerning the Holy Ghost; and fourthly concerning the Church. In this last division the great prerogatives of believers are stated under four heads, thus: 2 John, vi. 37, 39.

1 Titus, iii. 4-7.

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* Κατ' ἐκλογὴν χάριτος. Rom., xi. 5.—Κατ' ἐκλογὴν πρόθεσις. Rom., ix. 11.—Κατ ἰδίαν προθεσιν καὶ χάριν τὴν δοθεῖσαν ἡμῖν ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων. 2 Tim., i. 9. John, i. 12, 13.

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(a) The Communion of Saints. For we are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.' And we are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel."

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(b) The Forgiveness of Sins. For there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Moreover, as God not only foreknows and predestinates his children, but also justifies and glorifies them, who can gainsay these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? If God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect, when God himself justifies them ?4

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(c) The Resurrection of the Body. For the declaration of Christ is express that the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. For the Lord Jesus Christ, if he be our Saviour, will change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things to himself. Children of the first Adam who was made a living soul, and was of the earth, earthy, we have borne the image of the earthy: children of the second Adam, who was a quickening spirit, and the Lord from heaven, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly and thus we shall possess the kingdom which flesh and blood cannot inherit-and wherein death is swallowed up in victory."

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(d) Life Everlasting. For God will give eternal life to them Eph., ii. 19, 20. Heb., xii. 22-24. 3 Rom., viii. 1, 2. 5 John, v. 28, 29.

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6 Phil., iii. 20, 21.

4 Rom., viii. 29-33. 71 Cor., xv. 45–54.

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