3. This Son of God, after the course of his obedience to the whole will of God, must die, shed his blood, and “ make his soul an offering for sin.” And herein the glory of this salvation breaks forth like the sun in its strength. He must be “obedient unto death, the death of the cross,” Phil. ii 8. If he will be a “captain of salvation,” to “bring many sons unto glory,” he must himself be “made perfect through sufferings,” Heb. ii. 10. There were law, and curse, and wrath, standing in the way of our salvation, all of them to be re- moved, all of them to be undergone, and that by the Son of God; for we were “not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold,
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but with the precious blood of Christ,” 1 Pet. i, 18, 19. And therein “ God redeemed his church with his own blood,” Acts xx. 28. And herein assuredly was the love of God manifest, that “he laid down his life for us,” 1 John iii 16. This belongs unto the means whereby our salvation is procured. © Nor yet is this all; for if Christ had only died for us, our faith in him had been in vain, and we had been still in our sins. Wherefore,—
4. To carry on the same work, he rose from the dead, and now lives for ever to make intercession for us, and to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by him.
By these means was the salvation preached in the gospel ob- tained; which surely manifest it to be “great salvation.” Would God have sent his Son, his only Son, and that in such a manner, were it not for the accomplishment of a work as well great and glorious in itself as indispensably necessary with reference unto its end? Would the Son himself have so emptied himself of his glory, condescended to so low a condition, wrestled with such difficulties, and undergone at length such a cursed and shameful death, had not the work been great wherein he was employed? O the blindness, hardness, and stupidity of the sons of men! They profess they believe these things to be true, at least they dare not deny them so to be; but for the effect of them, for the salvation wrought by them, they value it the least of all things that they have any acquaintance withal. If this salvation, thus procured, do seize on them in their sleep, and fall upon them whether they will or no, they will not much resist it, provided that it cross them in none of their lusts, purposes, or pleasures. But to see the excellency of it, to put a valuation upon it according to the price whereby it was purchased, that they are utterly regardless of. “ Hear, ye despisers! wonder, and perish.’ Shall the Son of God shed his blood in vain? Shall he obey, and suffer, and bleed, and pray, and die, fora thing of nought? Is it nothing unto you that he should undergo all these things? Was there want of wisdom in God, or love unto his Son, so to employ him, so to use him, in a business which you esteem of so very small concernment as that you will scarce turn aside to make inquiry after it? Assure yourselves these things are not so, as you will one day find unto your eternal ruin.
Thirdly, This salvation will appear to be great if we shall con- sider what by it we are delivered from, and what we are interested in, or made partakers of, by virtue thereof. These also may deno- minate salvation to be great, and they may therefore be considered apart.
1. What are we delivered from by this salvation? In a word, every thing that is evil, in this world or that which is to come. And all evil may be referred unto two heads:—(1.) That which cor-
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rupteth and depraveth the principles of our nature in their being and operation; and, (2.) That which is destructive of our nature as to its well-being and happiness. The first of these is sin, the latter is punishment; and both of them take up the whole nature of evil. The particulars comprised in them may not here be distinctly and severally insisted on. The former containeth our apostasy from God, with all the consequences of it, in darkness, folly, filth, shame, bondage, restlessness, service of lust, the world, and Satan, and therein constant rebellion against God, and diligence in working out our owm everlasting ruin; all attended with a senseless stupidity in not discerning these things to be evil, hurtful, noisome, corrup- tive of our natures and beings, and, for the most “part, with brutish sensuality in the approbation and liking of them. But he who understands no evil in being fallen off from God, the first cause, chiefest good, and last end of all,—in being under the power of a constant enmity against him, in the disorder of his whole soul and all the faculties of it, in the constant service of sin, the fruit of bond- age and captivity in the most vile condition,—will be awakened unto another apprehension of these things when a time of deliver- ance from them shall be no more. The latter of these consists in the wrath or curse of God, and compriseth whatever is or may be penal and afflictive unto our nature unto eternity. Now, from both these, with all their effects and consequences, are believers delivered by this salvation, namely, from sin and wrath. The Lord Christ was called Jesus, because he “saves his people from their sins,” Matt. i. 21; and he is also the Saviour who “delivers them from the _ wrath to come,” 1 Thess.i.10. And this is “great salvation.” If aman ‘be but the means of delivering another from poverty, imprisonment, or a dangerous disease, especially if such a one could be no otherwise delivered but by him, how great is the kindness of it esteemed to be, and that deservedly! Providential deliverances from imminent dangers of death temporal are looked on as great salvations, and that by good men, and so they ought to be, 2 Cor. i110. But what are all these unto this salvation? What is the sickness of the body unto the disease, yea, the death of the soul? What is imprisonment of the outward man, under the wrath of poor worms like ourselves, and that for a few days, unto the chains of everlasting darkness? What is a little outward want and poverty, to the want of the favour, love, and presence of God unto eternity? What is death temporal, past in a moment, an end of troubles, an entrance into rest, unto death eternal, an eternal dying, under the curse, wrath, and righteous vengeance of the holy God? These things have no proportion one to another. So inexpressibly great is this salvation, that there is nothing left us to illustrate it withal. And this excel- lency of the gospel salvation will at length be known to them by