When Tigranes, son of the king of Armenia, had said to Cyrus that he would purchase his wife's liberty at the jorice of his life, and she was consequently set free by Cyrus, while some were admiring and extolling one virtue of Cyrus, and some another, she being asked what she most admired in that illustrious hero, answered, " My thoughts were not turned upon him." Her husband again asking her, "Upon whom, then?" she replied, "Upon him who said that he would redeem me from slavery at the expense of his life." Is not He, then, to be caressed and dearly beloved, to be contemplated with faith, love, and joy, who answered for our lives with his own, — de- voted himself to punishment, and at the price of his blood, "while we were yet enemies," purchased us, and rendered us " a peculiar people to himself?" We, now secure, may contemplate in his agon}^, sweat, tremor, horror, exclamations, prayers, cross, and blood, what is God's severity against sin, what the punishment of the broken law and curse are. Unless God, the judge and ruler of all, after having tlioroughly examined the nature, hearts, breasts, ways, and lives of us all, had thence collected whatever was contrary to his law, im- proper, unjust, and impure, — whatever displeased the eyes of his purity, provoked his justice, roused his anger and sevex-ity, — and laid it all on the shoulders of our Redeemer, and condemned it in his flesh, it had been better for us, rather than to be left eternally en- tangled in the snares of death and of the curse, never to have enjoyed this common air, but to have been annihilated as soon as born. " AVretched men that we are, who shall deliver us" from this most miserable state by nature ? " Thanks be to GoJ, which giveth us
USES OF THE DOCTPJNE. 623
the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." May we always, then, be " sick of love" towards our deliverer ! may he always he our " be- loved, who is white and ruddy, and the chiefest among ten thousand !"
The acknowledging of this truth has a respect not only to the manifestation of his justice, but also of the wisdom, holiness, and dominion of God over his creatures: for that justice which, in respect of its effect and egress, we call vindicatory, which, as we have before demonstrated, is natural to God and 'essential, and therefore abso- lutely perfect in itself, or rather perfection itself, this very truth, which we have thus far defended, evidently illustrates; as also his supreme rectitude in the exercise of it, " when he sits on his throne judging righteously;" and how severe a judge he will be towards impenitent sinners, whose sins are not expiated in the blood of Christ ! That justice is not a free act of the divine will, which God may use or renounce at pleasure ; nor is sin only a debt of ours, which, as we were unable to pay, he might forgive by only freely re- ceding from his right: for what reason, then, could be assigned why the Father of mercies should so severely punish his most holy Son on our account, that he might, according to justice, deliver us from our sins, when, without any difficulty, by one act of his will, and that too a most free and holy act, he could have delivered both him- self and us wretched sinners from this evil ? But it exists in God in the manner of a habit, natural to the divine essence itself, perpetually and immutably inherent in it, which, from his very nature, he must necessarily exercise in every work that respecteth the proper object of his justice; for sin is that ineffable evil which would overturn God's whole right over his creatures unless it were punished. As, then, the perfection of divine justice is infinite, and such as God cannot by any means relax, it is of the last importance to sinners seriously and deeply to bethink themselves how they are to stand before him.
Moreover, the infinite wisdom of God, the traces of which we so clearly read in creation, legislation, and in the other works of God, is hereby woudrously displayed, to the eternal astonishment of men and angels; for none but an infinitely wise God could bring it about, that that which in its own nature is opposite to him, inimical, and full of obstinacy, should turn out to his highest honour, and the eternal glory of his grace. Yea, the divine wisdom not only had respect to God himself, and to the security of his glory, honour, right, and justice, but even provided for the good of miserable sin- ners, for their best interests, exaltation, and salvation, and from the empoisoned bowels of sin itself. " Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." By interposing a surety and covenant-head between sin and the sinner, between the trans- gression of the law and its transgressor, he condemned and punished sin, restored the law, and freed the sinner both from sin and from
624 A DISSERTATION ON DIVINE JUSTICE. [PART II.
the law. " He hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and pru- dence/' Eph. i. 8, when he " made all men see what is the fellow- ship of the mj'stery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God," chap. iii. 9 ; for " in Christ are hid all the trea- sures of wisdom and knowledge/' Col. ii. 2, 3.