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'the power of God-Put to death in the flesh

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but quickened by the Spirit.' And the years of the right hand of the Most High, which he said he would remember, are they not explained by such passages as these? For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, and despised the shame, and is now set down again on the right hand of the Majesty on high.—I ‹ have glorified thee upon earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And

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now, O Father, glorify thou me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was ;" which glory is spoken of in the book of Proverbs, The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting. Then I was by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him: rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth, and my delights were with the sons of men.' Was it not for the joy of bringing many sons and daughters to glory, that he came into the world, made

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of a woman, made under the law, made the 'curse?' Yea verily; for their sakes, in the days of his flesh, he offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, to him that was able to save him from death ;' which he was then undergoing, and was heard according to all his desire, and exalted for his submission and obedience to his Father. It

was he who sunk in the miry clay; and was
raised, and set upon a rock.
The waves of

wrath went over him, the deep waters broke in upon his soul, and his soul was troubled; so that he cried, My soul is sorrowful, exceeding sorrowful,' sorrowful round about, sorrowful

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even to death.' His spirit was distracted, torn asunder by the terrors of Jehovah. The arrows of God stuck fast in him: the mercy of God went clean from him; and the judgments of God rested upon him, for a light to the nations of them who are saved; that they might have the boldness, and not the amazement, through the blood of their Lord, the atonement; who obtained for them the remission and kingdom, not in the way of favour or mercy to himself, but in the way of strict absolute justice, as the due wages of his own most absolute perfect obedience in their stead.

But alas! though all this true doctrine concerning the sufferings of the Lord and following glory be strenuously maintained by those men we speak of, yet they have not thought of it in such as the above-mentioned passages of the Psalms; and therefore, according to the softest thing that can be said, they have inadvertently made all they maintain of the truth in so far of none effect, by pouring into the hearts of God's children the vinegar, wormwood, and gall of God's wrath, which their Surety drank wholly up to their immortal consolation. Wherefore, to ascribe to them any part of the expiatory sufferings of their Lord, as described in the words of the Holy Ghost; what is it, let candour say,

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but implicit blasphemy? designed, or undesigned, does not alter the case of those who are wounded, when they ought to be healed.

The question here is not, whether there be such a doctrine or no, as those men plead for; but whether it be to be found in those advanced proofs of theirs from the Psalms; which, it is alledged, in opposition to their sentiments, have a sense of their own, quite separate from, and absolutely unconnected with, if not altogether eversive of theirs?

If they would allow any weight at all to their positions, and not expose themselves with their tenets to ridicule, they ought to shew the world the sealed authority of the Lord supreme, the only Judge of such controversies. Let them

carry the cause to the only lawful court which binds the conscience of the Christian, and hear what the apostles of Christ say, whom he commissioned his ruling and judging Princes over all the Israel of God, to bind and loose on earth all those things which he himself hath bound and loosed in heaven. We behold them endowed for this purpose with power from on high, shortly after the ascension of the Lord, and not before; upon their decisions, therefore, from the beginning of their acts to the end of their testimony, let us rest all our matters: neither does this make void Moses and the Prophets, any more than the Lord made void his own parables by his interpretations of them; or the prophecies and the law, by fulfilling them.

The apostles, the apostles alone, are the voice of God to the Christian churches; and not Moses and the Prophets. Let nothing therefore be imprinted on our hearts, but the hand-writing of the apostles. The hand-writing of the apostles is God's imprimatur.

Do you believe, then, O friends, and freely allow us, that the Spirit of Christ in his apostles is his own, his only interpreter, exclusive of you and of all the universe? You must either give up your argument, take shame to yourselves, and give God the glory, or advance some other guise kind of proofs than those from the Psalms, from Job, or even those so much insisted upon by you all, ever and anon insisted upon, from Isaiah, chap. 1. Who is among you ⚫ that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? let him trust,' &c. Is this a description of a believer in darkness, and without light (as your argument supposeth) concerning his spiritual state, or his interest in the love of God? According to the prophetic style, one would naturally think in this place of a person in some temporal calamity, who was assured of his eternal happiness, but uncertain as to the particular event of his earthly affairs, which his heavenly Father had kept in his own hand, for the daily exercise of faith, whereby such a one was assured all would be well upon the whole, though for the present he had in himself no assurance of his way, but only in his God, whom

he could trust in all events; as if a son, destitute of all things, in the midst of a dreary wil derness, not knowing one inch of his way towards safety, should there, upon the spot, meet with his own father, friend, and guide, who had come forth to seek him, with power, and will, and great desire, to conduct him to his own abode. But you have other things in your head.

Feareth! and obeyeth!' Are fear and obedience, then, marks with you of one that knoweth not whether the Lord loveth him or not? The apostles would have taught you, that there can be no such fear, or reverence and obedience, as here spoken of, without love for their principle; and no such love without the person's knowledge of God's love to him. Herein is love, ⚫ not that we loved God, but that he loved us.—

We love him, because he first loved us;' and manifested his love to us. Obedience is the ex pression of this love. Thus the debtor and Mary loved much, because they knew their Lord, their creditor, had forgiven them much. But you join creeds with one who daringly said,

God can read the truth of love in thy heart towards him, when thou canst not read the ⚫ truth of love in his heart towards thee.' But, says another, whose creed is rather more sterling, as being one whom God hath confirmed, and upheld for a pattern to all them who should afterwards believe, I know whom I have be

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