men may be saved without any regard to holiness. This objec- tion is of the same kind with the former: and that there is no just ground for it, our text itself sufficiently declares : for we are " elect unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ;" — elect, not to salvation only, but to obedience also ; — to the one as the means, and to the other as the end.]
What is spoken respecting our being elect " to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ," will lead me to shew, that whom the Father has elected,
II. Christ redeems —
On the subject of obedience being an end to which we are elect, we shall speak under the next head : at present, we confine ourselves to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
That the elect are sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ, is certain —
[Moses, when he confirmed the covenant which the Israel- ites entered into with their God, sprinkled both the altar and the people with the blood of the sacrifices11 : and in like man- ner we, when we embrace the covenant of grace, are sprinkled with the blood of our Great Sacrifice, which purges us from the guilt of all our former sins, and sanctifies us as an holy people unto the Lord : " We come to the blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel1.''
And here it is particularly to be noticed, that it is not by the shedding of the Redeemer's blood that any are saved, but by the application of it to their souls. Millions " perish for whom Christ diedk:" but no one ever perished, whose " heart had been sprinkled from an evil conscience," and " purged from dead works to serve the living God1."]
To this they are elected, as to the necessary means of their acceptance with God —
[None, however elect by God the Father, could come to God, unless a sacrifice were provided for them. All are sin- ners : all need pardon for their multiplied iniquities : no man could make satisfaction for his own sins. One sacrifice was provided of God for the whole world, even the sacrifice of God's only-begotten Son. Through that, God determined from all eternity to accept them : and in due time he reveals it to them, as the way opened for their access to him. Thus they are brought to see Christ, as " the way, the truth, and the
h Exod. xxiv. 6, 8. ! Heb. xii. 24.
k 1 Cor. viii. 11. J Heb. ix. 11. and x. 22.