Now from the serious consideration of this comjoact, covenant, and agreement, that was solemnly made between God and Christ, touching the whole business of man's salvation or redemption, I may form up this tenth plea as to the ten scriptures that are in the margin, i^ that refer to the great day of account, or to a man's particular day of ac- count. 0 blessed God ! I have read over the articles of the covenant of redemption thatiuere agreed on between thyself and thy dearest Son; and I find by those articles that dear Jesus has died, and satisfied thy justice, and pacified thy lorath, and bore the curse, and purchased my pardon, and procured thy everlasting favour : and I find by the same articles that luhatever Jesus Christ acted or suffered, he did act or suffer as my surety, and in my stead and room. 0 Lord ! when I look upon my manifold weaknesses and imperfections, though under a covenant of grace, yet I am many times not only grieved, but also stumbled and staggered ; but when I look up to the covenant of re- demption, I am cheered, raised, and quieted; for I am abundantly satisfied that both thyself and thy dear Son are infinitely ready, able, willing, and faithful to perform whatever in that covenant is com- prised, Isa, xxxviii. 16, 17; by these things men live, and in these is the life of my spirit. Men may fail, and friends may fail, and rela- tions may fail, and trade may fail, and natural strength may fail, and my heart may fail, but the covenant of redemption can never fail, nor the federates, who are mutually engaged in that covenant, can never fail, Ps. Ixxiii. 24, 25 ; and therefore I am safe and happy for ever. What though my sins have been great and heinous, yet they are not greater than Christ's satisfaction ; he did bear the curse
^ Eccles. xi. 9, and xii. 14; Mat. xii. 14, and xviii. 23 ; Luke xvi. 2; Eom. xiv. 10; 2 Cor. V. 10; Heb. ix. 27, and xiii. 17; 1 Pet. iv. 5; Isa. liii. 6; Kom. v. 6, 8; Gal. ii. 20.
VERY CLEARLY AND LARGELY OPENED. 399
for great sins as well as small, for sins against the gospel as well as
for sins against the law, for omissions as well as for commissions.
Assuredly the covenant of redemption is a mighty thing, and there are
no mighty sins that can stand before that covenant. If we look upon
Manasseh, in those black and ugly colours that the Holy Ghost paints
him out in, we must needs conclude that he was a mighty sinner, a
monstrous sinner, 1 Kings xxi. 1-16 ; and yet his mighty sins, his
monstrous sins, could not stand before the covenant of redemption.
The greatest sins are finite, but the merit of Christ's redemption is
infinite. All the Egyptians were drowned in the Ked Sea. There
remained not so much as one of them ; there was not one of them left
alive to carry the news ; the high and the low, the great and the small,
the rich and the poor, the honourable and the base, were all drowned,
Exod. xiv. 28 ; Ps. cvi. 11. The red sea of Christ's blood drowns all
our sins, whether they are great or small, high or low, &c., ' Though
my sins be as scarlet, my Redeemer will make them as white as snow ;
though they be as red as crimson, they shall be as wool,' Isa. i. 18.
There is not one of my sins for which Jesus Christ hath not suffered
and satisfied, Eph. i. 7 ; Col. i. 14 ; nor there is not one of my sins
for which Jesus Christ hath not purchased a pardon, and for which
he hath not made my peace. Though my sins are innumerable,
though they are more than the hairs of my head, Ps. xl. 12, or the
sands on the sea-shore, yet they are not to be named in the day wherein
the merits of Christ, the satisfaction of Christ, and the covenant of
redemption, is mentioned and pleaded. Be my sins ever so many ;
yea, though they might fill a roll that might reach from east to west,
from north to south, from earth to heaven, yet they could but bring
me under the curse. Now Christ my surety, that he might redeem
me from the curse, hath taken upon him the whole curse. Gal. iii. 13.
I know there is no summing up of my debts, but Christ has paid them
all. Woe had been to me for ever, had Christ left but one penny upon
the score for me to pay. As I have multiplied my sins, so he has
multiplied his pardons, Isa. Iv. 7. Christ has cancelled all bonds, and
therefore it is but justice in God to give me a full acquittance, and to
throw down all bonds as cancelled, saying, ' Deliver him, I have found
a ransom,' Col. ii. 13-15 ; Job xxxiii. 24. 0 God, though my sins
are very many, and very great, yet if thou dost not pardon them, the
innocent blood of thy dearest Son will lie upon thee, and cry out
against thee ; for he therefore died, that my sins might be pardoned ;
so that now, in honour and justice, thou art obliged to ' pardon all my
transgressions, and remember mine iniquities no more,' Isa. xliii. 25 ;
Dan. ix. 24. Now this is my plea, 0 holy God, which I make to all
those scriptures that respect my last account, and by this plea I shall
stand. Well, saith God the Father, I accept of this plea, I am pleased
with this plea, thy sins shall not be mentioned, Ezek. xviii. 22 ; ' Enter
thou into the joy of thy Lord.'
I shall now make a little improvement of what has been said as to the covenant of redemption, and so draw to a conclusion.
First, [1.] This covenant of redemption, as we have opened it, looks sadly and sourly upon those that make so great a rioise about the doctrine of universal redemption. The covenant of redemption
400 THE C0VENA1«T OF REDEMPTION
. extends itself, not to every man in the world, but only to those that are ' given by God the Father to Jesus Christ.' l [2.] It looks sadly and sourly upon those that make so great a noise about Gods choosing or electing of men, upon the account of God's foreseeing their faith, good works, obedience, holiness, when our election is merely of grace and favour, and flows only from ' the good will of him that dwelt in the bush ;' and faith, good works, holiness, sanctification, are the fruits and effects of election, as the Scripture everywhere tells us,2 and as has been made evident in my opening the gracious terms of the covenant of redemption. But because I have, in another place, treated of these things more largely, a touch here may suffice. But,