shews us how sin may be punished, and yet the sinner saved : and this too not only without countenancing sin or dishonouring the law, but in such a manner as to bring more honour to the law, than if it never had been broken, and to manifest more indignation against sin, than if the offender had endured its de- served penalty. It shews us also how the divine per- fections unite and harmonize in the great work of redemption ; how God may pardon those whom he had threatened to destroy, without any violation of his word ; and how he may restore rebels to peace, without any infringement of the demands of justice ; or, as the Psalmist beautifully expresses it, how " mercy and truth may meet together, and righteous- ness and peace kiss each other." It shews us further (which is wonderful indeed) mercy displayed in a way of punishing sin, and justice in a way of pardoning it ; yea, more mercy than if the whole world had been pardoned without any such atonement, and more justice than if the whole human race had been, like their predecessors in iniquity, cast into the depths of hell. In God, as shining forth in the person of his Son, we behold also infinite might. Jesus Christ is called by the Apostle " the Wisdom of God and the Power of God," because that, when mankind had destroyed themselves, and not a combination of all created powers could effect their deliverance, his own arm brought salvation. He sustained the dreadful weight of their iniquities in his own body on the tree, and ransomed an apostate world by his own most precious blood. To all appear- ance indeed he "was crucified through weakness:" he fell a sacrifice to the envy of the priests, the treachery of Judas, the cowardice of Pilate, and the rage of an incensed populace : yet by that very fall he bruised the serpent's head and triumphed over principalities and powers. He submitted also to an imprisonment within the bowels of the earth ; yet soon burst the gates of death, by which it was not possible he should be detained, and shewed himself to be "the Son of God with power by his resurrection from the dead."
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