To the natural man, in the Apostolic age, when the Gospel, as is acknowledged, was rightly stated, the work of redemption by Christ, appeared to be a foolish, shocking affair, (compare Cor. i. 18. 23, 24. Chap ii. 14. 2 Cor. iv. 3.) We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. For while they were, as the same apostle observes, at enmity against God and his law, (Rom. viii. 7.) to hear that the Son of God incarnate died on the cross, to declare God's righteousness, to condemn sin, to magnify the law and make it honourable, must needs stumble and confound the carnal Jews, and appear foolishness to the pagan Greeks. No miracles therefore were sufficient to convince them of the divine original of the Gospel. Nothing short of the immediate influences of the spirit of God to open their eyes and take the veil from their hearts. But unto them who were thus CALLED, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. And if our Gospel is hid, it is hid to them that are lost. The preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that perish. For indeed it had been a foolish thing for God to have given his Son to die to save sinners, had there been no need of it: and there had been no need of it, had not the divine law, which man had broken, and by which he stood condemned, been holy, just, and good, a glorious law, worthy to be honoured by the blood of an incarnate God. But to natural men, the divine law does not appear to be thus glorious and thus worthy of honour: rather it appears an odious, hateful law, which ought to be repealed. For the carnal mind is enmity against God, is not subject to his law, neither indeed can be".

u If God, antecedent to a consideration of the gift of his Son, viewed in the glass of the law, was an ugly, hateful being; then he deserved to be hated and abhorred and then the law which required us to love him on pain of death, was an unreasonable, tyrannical law: and then it deserved to be hated and treated with contempt, and not to be loved and honoured and then the death of Christ to do it honour, was not the wisdom of God, but a stumbling-block and foolishness and the Gospel is not divine, is not from God: nothing remains but infidelity.

III. An antinomian spirit is an antichristian spirit; to hate the divine law is to be an enemy to the cross of Christ; to hate the divine law is to be an enemy to the Son of God incarnate, who loved the law, and died to do it honour; an enemy to his character, and to the very design of his death. And,

An antinomian spirit is the very source of infidelity. For if the divine law is an odious, hateful law, it is incredible, it is absolutely incredible, that the Son of God should come from heaven, and die to do it honour. Therefore, every antinomian is at heart an Infidel. But every unregenerate man is in this sense an antinomian. Rom. viii. 7. Therefore every unregenerate man is under the reigning power of infidelity. And therefore it is written, (1 John v. 1.) Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And, (Rom. x. 9.) If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall

To say, that the law is holy, just, and good, in requiring us to love a hateful character on pain of death, is worse than infidelity. To believe God a hateful being, and a tyrant in our hearts, and yet with our mouths to say, it is in him holy, just, and good, to require us to love him on pain of death, is to speak lies in hypocrisy. My Theron believed the law holy, just, and good, in requiring supreme love on pain of death, when he said, "Let all heaven for ever love and adore the infinitely glorious majesty, although I receive my just desert and perish for ever." He saw God's character exhibited in his law to be lovely. This led And him to see why Christ so loved and so honoured this character on the cross. Christ crucified, in this view, appeared to him the wisdom of God. Should one tell Theron, that Christ never did love this character of God; never did think "that all heaven ought for ever to love and adore the infinitely glorious majesty, viewed as thus disposed to punish sin with so great severity ;" and should he affirm, that this is a species of love beyond what Jesus Christ ever had :" and that it was not from love to this character originally, and to do it honour, that Christ was willing to endure the cross and despise the shame; but merely because he was bribed, because his Father hired him by the joy set before him: and should one endeavour to prove all this from scripture; Theron, shocked with the blasphemy, would be ready at once to pronounce the man worse than an infidel. And yet, if this is not the point of light in which Mr. Cudworth views things, I know not what he means, by what he says, p. 224. for, in any other view, there is no force in what he says. For if Christ verily thought in his heart, and that previous to a consideration of the joy set before him, that "all heaven ought for ever to love and adore the infinitely glorious majesty, for being so severe against sin;" then Theron, through the regenerating influences of the Holy Spirit, was only brought to view things in a Christian light. That is, in the same light that Christ did.

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believe in thy heart, that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

IV. If God the Father gave his Son to die, if God the Son voluntarily left his Father's bosom, and expired upon the cross to do honour to the divine law; then on the cross of Christ we have the highest possible external proof of the goodness of the divine law. The highest proof which could have been given by God the Father or God the Son; and so the highest external proof, that God our Creator is infinitely worthy of our supreme love and universal obedience, and that our disaffection to him and to his government is entirely groundless, yea, infinitely criminal, exactly agreeable to the import of the divine law. Therefore,

To doubt of the infinite amiableness of God our Creator, to doubt of the absolute perfection of his law and government, or to doubt whether our disaffection be thus groundless and thus criminal, is to doubt of the truth of the Gospel. Every objection against the divine character, every objection against the divine law, every sin-extenuating, self-justifying plea, is the lauguage of infidelity. For if our objections against God and his law are of the least weight, or if our pleas do in the least render us excusable, then Jesus was not the Son of God. For if Jesus was the Son of God, God and his law are wholly right, and we are wholly wrong, and as much to blame and as inexcusable as the curse of the law supposes; for this was the ground on which he died. And if in his death he sealed a falsehood with his blood, surely he did not come from God.

Therefore, to believe with all the heart that Jesus is the Christ, is to believe with all the heart, that God our Creator is infinitely amiable, infinitely worthy of supreme love and universal obedience from his creature man. And to believe with all the heart, that the divine law, which requires this of us, in our present state, on pain of eternal damnation, is a holy, just, and good, and glorious law, worthy to be magnified and made honourable by the obedience and death of an incarnate God: to believe with all the heart that our disaffection to the divine character, law, and government, is not only entirely groundless, but infinitely criminal; and to believe with all the heart, that the Son of God, in this view, be

came incarnate, lived and died, that he might declare God and his law to be wholly right, and the whole blame to be in us; or in other words, that he might declare God's righteousness, and condemn sin in the flesh; that this was the import of his being made a curse to redeem us from the curse, and that this was the design of his being set forth to be a propitiation; and that it is only in his name, and through him, who has thus done, that God can be just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. But,

To believe these truths with all the heart, to come cordially into these sentiments, is perfectly contrary to every vicious bias inthe heart of a sin-loving, sin-extenuating, self-justifying, God-hating, law-condemning creature; which is the character of every unregenerate man. Therefore,

Every unregenerate man is not only at heart an infidel, but even as great an enemy to the truth of the Gospel, as he is to the holiness, justice, and goodness of the law. Therefore,

No man can say that Jesus is the Christ, but by the Holy Ghost. 1 Cor. xii. 3. No man can come to the Son, but whom the Father draws. John vi. 44. And whosoever believeth Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. 1 John v. 1. And yet,

V. From this view of the mediatorial office and work of Jesus Christ, his true character and divine mission may be infallibly determined. Had he been an enemy to the divine law, which the God of Israel had so honoured on Mount Sinai, and in the whole Jewish dispensation, it had been a full proof, that he was not the Messiah promised in the Jewish sacred writings. A full proof, rather that he was an enemy to the God of Israel, and on the side of his rebellious subjects, who all agree to hate his law. But now it appears, that,

He loved his Father with all his heart; was perfectly in his interest, wholly on his side, and on the side of his law and government. He judged his Father to be wholly right, and we to be wholly wrong; his Father's law to be holy, just, and good, and we altogether to blame, even as much to blame as the law supposed; and was as great an enemy to the wickedness of an apostate world, as the Father himself. While his

regard to the welfare of lost sinners was so great, that he was willing to die for their redemption, he looked upon them so much to blame, and so deserving of the threatened punishment, that he had not the least desire they should be pardoned, unless in a way in which it should be most explicitly acknowledged, that it had been a worthy becoming deed in God to have punished them according to law. And thus he was to perfection his Father's friend, and to perfection an enemy to the spirit of his Father's rebellious subjects. Thus he loved righteousness and hated iniquity. And in this frame of heart, he perfectly obeyed his Father's law, and offered up himself a sacrifice to God, for the sins of the world. Which is,

A full demonstration that he was sent of God. For he is his Father's very image. We may often, from the countenance of a child, guess who his Father is; but here the Son is the express image of his Father's person. So that no man, who knows God the Father, can doubt whether Jesus is his Son. For the very glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ. Justly therefore did our blessed Saviour condemn the infidel Jews, as hating his Father, because they hated him; for he and his Father were so exactly alike, that to hate him was a full proof they hated the Father also, (John xv. 23.) and justly did he dispute their claim to have God for their Father, and argue that they rather had the devil to their father, from the malignant spirit they showed towards him, who was the very image of the Deity. John viii. 42. If God were your Father, ye would love me. Ver. 44. Ye are of your father the devil. And justly did he attribute all their opposition to him and to his cause, to their ignorance of, and hatred to, the true God, and affirm that no man could be an infidel, but from a wicked, ungodly heart. John iii. 19, 20, 21. Chap. vii. 17. Chap. viii. 38. 48. Chap. xv. 21. 25.

To say that Jesus Christ, who loved the divine law, and lived and died to do it honour, came from the devil, who hates the divine law, and hath set up his kingdom in opposition to it, and is at the head of the grand rebellion in the intellectual system, is just the same kind of absurdity Christ's enemies were driven to of old, when to evade the evidence exhibited in his miracles, they said, he casteth out devils by