Justice and mercy.
He is exactly just, and exactly merciful. He so shews mercy, as it must be done without injury to his justice. Justice must be fully satisfied, that mercy may be fully and comfortably manifested. Now there is the blood- shedding of Christ to satisfy justice, there is forgiveness of sins to declare mercy ; for that is the common speech of people. Ask them how they hope to be saved ? They will answer, They hope to be saved by the mercy of God. It is upon a mistake, for they do swallow up justice in mercy, as if God could not remain exactly just in shewing mercy ; now tell them again, that God is as perfectly just as he is merciful. Ay, but they hope to find better than so, they hope they shall find mercy.
And therefore know, that there is no man that receives this mercy in the forgiveness of his sins till justice be satisfied even to the utmost. If the justice of God were not fully satisfied, I say, the infinite justice of God in the exact rigour, and in the perfect righteousness of it, if it had not been satisfied to the atmost, it had been impossible that any flesh should have been saved.
A71S. 2. And therefore, secondly, consider another thing, and that is, the comparison between Christ and us. Look upon Christ, and there is justice fully satisfied ; look upon us, and there is mercy fully shewed. In us there is no merit, nothing but the guilt of sin ; that if God would receive sinful men to favour, reckon, it must proceed from the tenderness of the bowels of his mercy, from the freeness of his love, by whom we have redemption through his blood, even the remission of our sins in his rich grace in the same, Eph. i. 7, 8 ; it is the tenderness of mercy, and the riches of grace, if he look on us, because there is nothing in us.
Now look upon Christ, who hath indeed satisfied the wrath of God to the utmost, and therefore he is declared to be a Saviour by the resurrec- tion. If Christ should not have remained in the prison, as he was in the
268 sin's antidote.
prison of the grave till he had paid the utmost farthing, God had not been just ; he was indeed our surety, and there was no possibility of our being released from the debt, unless our surety had paid the utmost farthing. But now therefore, when Christ rose out of the grave, and was now released of the bonds of death, and was freed out of prison, into which he was cast as our surety, it is evident the debt is fully discharged, the creditor is fully satisfied, and now our peace is fully made, because Christ hath purchased us, and therefore in respect of Christ we are said to be bought : ' You are bought with a price, and therefore glorify God in your bodies and spirits.' And you are redeemed, saith the apostle ; that is, you are bought, ' not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ,' 1 Peter i. 18. So that there was a price upon the blood of Christ, a value, a worth. Consider the person that shed that blood ; it was one that had two natures : he was God, able to satisfy the wrath of an infinite, offended majesty, and therefore it is said that God purchased the church with his blood. Acts XX. 28 ; that is, because he that purchased the church with his blood was God as well as man. Now by this it comes to pass that his blood was meritorious, of an infinite value, worth, and price, and so he merited the favour of God. It was merited on Christ's part, but not on our part. Every way it is free to us. The gift of Christ is free, for that it comes from the free grace of God. ' To us a child is born, to us a son is given,' Isa. ix. 6. It is a gift, Christ was given, and then the apphca- tion of Christ to us, the acceptation of us through Christ ; this is a gift, and a gift of grace, as the apostle calls it in that same Eom. iv. 4. It is of free grace that God accepts us ; he might have chosen others. "We know that angels fell, and fell irrecoverably ; Christ took not upon him the nature of angels, but he took upon him the seed of Abraham, and so he became a Saviour, not of angels, but of men, Heb. ii. 16. The angels that fell are fallen for ever, but Christ died that he might save men. So that every way it is free. It was free that God gave his Son to this abase- ment, it was free that God gave his Son for men, it was free that God should give men faith to lay hold upon his Son : ' Through faith you are saved by grace, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,' Eph. ii. 8. So that remission of sins, though it be by the blood of Christ, it is an act of free mercy, an act of mercy whereto God is no way bound, but did it freely of his own love and mere motion, and_'of his own good pleasure. Thus you have the words opened. I have shewe'd you what remission is. I have shewed you also how these things stand together, the shedding of Christ's blood, and yet remission of sins by free grace.