of becoming better acquainted with God and with his holy will, we have not been forward to avail ourselves of them : and if instruction on the subject of his Gospel has been proffered to us, we have rather turned away from it, as distasteful to us, than listened to it as pleasing to our souls. The very light which would have revealed him to us, has been offensive to us; and we have turned our eyes from it, as bringing to our view an object, whose presence was to us a source of pain.
Nor is this all. We have been " enemies to him;" yea, " enemies to him in our mind :" we have had a decided aversion to his law : instead of contemplating it as " holy, just, and good," we have viewed it as imposing a yoke that could not be endured. And this hatred to it has been proved by our actual rebellion against it: our "wicked works" have shewn clearly enough that the service of sin was more congenial with our minds than the service of our God. As for all the sublime duties which it inculcates, we have lived in a wilful neglect of them : and of innumerable evils which it forbids, we have lived
in the daily and habitual commission Such had been
the state of the Colossians in their time of um-egeneracy; and such is the state of every child of man, till he is renewed by God in the spirit of his mind.]
2. But the Lord Jesus Christ has interposed to deliver us from it —
[" He has reconciled us to God in the body of his flesh through death." Yes: the Son of God himself has left the bosom of his Father, and assumed our flesh, that in the very nature which had sinned he might bear the penalty that was due to sin, and expiate our guilt by his own blood. The sacrifices under the law were substituted in the place of the offender, and they surrendered up their life as an atonement for his sins : and through the death of the victim in his stead, the sinner was reconciled unto his God. So the Lord Jesus Christ has offered himself a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world ; and effected reconciliation for all who believe in him. No longer does God look with anger upon his enemies, when with penitential sorrow they implore mercy for Christ's sake. Not one of their trespasses will he ever impute to them : their iniquities, how great or numerous soever they may have been, are " blotted out by him as a morning cloud," and " cast behind his back into the very depths of the sea." This we are authorized to declare : for " God has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation," and commanded us to proclaim to the whole universe, that " God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them*."]
a 2 Cor. v. 18, 19.