whether committed before or after baptism or conversion.; It is a fountain, to which we may clailj come for cleansing. He is a"'j5riest whomever lives to ~ma"E:e intercession for us, and who ever presents before God the merit of his sacrifice as a perpetual offering, typified by the morning and evening sacri- fice under the law. .According to the anti-scriptural views mentioned above, when a man first comes to Christ his sins are forgiven, and he then commences anew under the cove- nant of works, and stands in the same relation to God that Adam did before the fall. The condition of salvation is to him as it was to our first parent^ " Do this and live." Christ henceforth profits him nothing. / Bh^ according to the apostle we are not under the law, but under grace. Rom. 6, 14. /"On the ground of the one oftering of Christ, by which those who believe are forever sanctified, (i. e. atoned for,) God does not impute to the j^enitent believer his sins unto condemnation./ He is not judged by the law or treated according to its prin- ciples, for then no man could be saved. But he is treated as one for all whose sins, past, present, and future, an infinite satisfaction has been made, and who has a perpetual claim to that satisfaction so long as he is united to Christ by fiiith and the indwelling of his Spirit. Hence the Scriptures are filled with exhortations not merely to the unconverted, to Jews and Pagans, but to baptized Christians, to repent of sin and to beheve in the Lord Jesus Christ ; that is, to exercise trust in the merit of his sacrifice and the prevalence of his intercession for the pardon of their daily and manifold transgressions and shortcomings. The sacrifice of Christ avails for the sins com- mitted from the foundation of the world to the final consum- mation. It aifords a permanent and all-sufiicient reason why God can be just and yet justify the ungodly.
Paul's defence of himself against the charge of self com- mendation. Vs. 11-21,
He declares that he acted under a solemn sense of his responsibility to God, v. 11. This was not said with the view of commending himself; but rather to aftbrd them the means of vindicating his character, v. 12. Whether his way of speaking of himself was extravagant or moderate, sane or in- sane, his motive in doing as he did was a sincere regard to the glory of God and the good of his church, v. 13. For the love of Christ constrained him to live, not for himself, but for 6*