Now as man had sinned, and a satisfaction was demanded, it was impossible for a finite creature to satisfy him, who was a GOD of so strict purity as not to behold iniquity: And man by the justice of GOD would have been sent down into the pit, which was prepared of old for the devil and his angels; but when justice was going to pass the irrevocable sentence, then the LORD JESUS CHRIST came and offered himself a ransom for poor sinners. Here was admirable condescension of the LORD JESUS CHRIST! that he who was in the bosom of his father, should come down from all that glory, to die for such rebels as you and I are, who if it lay in our power, would pull the Almighty from his throne: Now can you think that if there was no need of CHRIST’s death, can you think that if there could have been any other ransom found, whereby poor sinners might have been saved, GOD would not have spared his only begotten Son, and not have delivered him up for all that believe in him?
This, my brethren, I think proves to a demonstration, that it was necessary for CHRIST to die: But consider, it will be of no service to know that CHRIST died for sinners, if you do not accept of his spirit, that you may be sanctified, and fitted for the reception of that JESUS, who died for all those who believe in him. The sin of your nature, your original sin, is sufficient to sink you into torments, of which there will be no end; therefore unless you receive the spirit of CHRIST you are reprobates, and you cannot be saved: Nothing short of the blood of JESUS applied to your souls, will make you happy to all eternity: Then, seeing this is so absolutely necessary, that you cannot be saved without having received the spirit of CHRIST, but that ye are reprobates, do not rest contented ’till you have good hopes, through grace, that the good work is begun in your souls; that you have received a pardon for your sins; that CHRIST came down from heaven, died, and made satisfaction for your sins. Don’t flatter yourselves that a little morality will be sufficient to save you; that going to church, or prayers, and sacrament, and doing all the duties of religion in an external manner, will ever carry you to heaven; no, you must have grace in your hearts; there must be a change of the whole man.
You must be born again, and become new creatures, and have the spirit of CHRIST within you: And until you have that spirit of CHRIST, however you may think to the contrary, and please yourselves in your own imagination, I say, you are no better than reprobates. You may content yourselves with leading civil, outward decent lives, but what will that avail you, unless you have the spirit of the LORD JESUS CHRIST in your hearts: His kingdom must be set up in your souls; there must be the life of GOD in the soul of man, else you belong not to the LORD JESUS CHRIST; and until you belong to him, you are reprobates.
This may seem as enthusiasm to some of you, but if it is so, it is what the apostle _Paul_ taught; and therefore, my brethren, they are the words of truth. I beseech you, in the mercies of GOD in CHRIST JESUS, not to despise these words, as if they do not concern you, but were only calculated for the first ages of christianity, and, therefore, of no signification: If you think thus, you are wronging your own souls; for whatever is written, was written for you in these times, as well as for the christians in the first ages of the church.
For the case stands thus between GOD and man: GOD, at first, made man upright, or, as the sacred penman expresses it, “In the image of GOD made he man;” his soul was the very copy, the transcript of the divine nature. He who had, by his almighty power, spoken the world into being, breathed into man the breath of spiritual life; and his soul became adorned with purity and perfection. This was the finishing stroke of the creation; the perfection both of the moral and material world; and it so resembled the divine Original, that GOD could not but rejoice and take pleasure in his own likeness: Therefore, we read, that when GOD had finished the inanimate and brutish part of the creation, “he looked, and behold it was good.” But when that lovely, god-like creature man was made, “behold it was very good.”
Happy, unspeakably happy, to be thus partaker of a divine Nature; and thus man might have continued still, had he continued holy; but GOD placed him in a state of probation, with a free grant to eat of every tree in the garden, except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The day he did eat thereof he was not only to become subject to temporal, but spiritual death; and so lose that divine image, that spiritual life which GOD had breathed into him, and which was as much his happiness as his glory.