be loft to us. In Chrift, and in him alone, the love of God is manifefted and commended to us; and juft fo far as we know him, and believe the teftimony the Father has given concerning him, fo far, and no farther, we know and believe the love that God hath to us; and just fo far as we know and believe the love of God to us, will our hearts be formed into the fame image. For the Apostle affures us, that we love "God, because he first loved us," 1 John

iv. 19.

66

This fure foundation of the Chriftian faith and hope in God the Apostle fets forth, verf. 4. very fhortly indeed, but very fully and the whole he comprehends in two general views: He gave himself for our fins; and he gave himself for this important purpose, that he might deliver us from a prefent evil world.

No body, fure, will need to be told, that the particle rendered for in our translation, does not bear the fame meaning in these two propofitions, which yet express the same thing, only in different views; viz. Chrift gave himself for us; and, Christ gave himfelf for our fins. The first fets him forth as the ranfom, the price or means of our redemption

1

demption and deliverance from the power
of death; and in this view he is very justly.
faid to have purchased for himself a peculiar
people, who are no more their own, being
bought with a price; redeemed, not with
filver or gold, or fuch corruptible things,
but with the precious blood of the Son
of God. And the right is indifputably.
good, as raifing the dead man is very.
nearly the fame with creating the man
who is thus raised. Again, when he is faid
to have given himself for our fins, this ex-
preffion fets him forth directly under the
notion of a facrifice appointed for the put-
ting away of fin, which fubjected all man-
kind to death, and holds them under it,
until it be destroyed. That the death or
diffolution of the body is the effect of fin,
is generally acknowledged. But by the
view this fame Apostle gives of it, Eph.
ii. 1. 2. 3. fin itself is really the death of
the foul, which is the principal and most
noble part of the man.
It feparates, and
thereby cuts off the foul from God, the
father of fpirits, and the only fountain of
life, the very fubftance of the fpiritual
world; and thus renders it utterly inca-
pable of living as pure spirits do, with re-

spect

fpect either to the business and employment, or to the enjoyments and gratifications of the spiritual life. It is eafy to fee how both thefe expreffions, viz. Christ giving himself for us, and giving himself for our fins, concur in furnishing us with a complete representation of the Christian ftate, as all the parts of it, both privileges and duties, arise as naturally and neceffarily out of this new creation, as the original duties did out of the first.

For, in the first place, it is evident, That all who are thus redeemed from fin and death by Jefus Chrift, must be his abfolute property, whom he has a just and perfect right to dispose of, and employ in what manner his perfect wisdom fees fit and proper. He is their fovereign Lord, as we fee the Apostle calls him, verf. 3.; nor is there any room left them to dispute in remonftrances or exceptions to of his orders. Perfect fubmiffion to any his fupreme authority is all that is left for them. The least alteration, either by adding or diminishing in the order he has established, is fo far renouncing his authority, and fetting up our own wisdom,

or put

which is too generally regulated by our ill-governed wills, in oppofition to his.

What the Apostle here adds, of our Lord's further intention, in giving himself for our fins, completes the view of the Christian's state, very properly called a ftate of grace; which the Apostle calls the grace wherein believers ftand; which we find him always oppofing to the state of those who are under law; and particularly the Jews, who were under that of Mofes, Rom. vi. 14. This completing view of grace the Apostle expreffes by Chrift's delivering his people from this present evil world. Literally, it is taking them out of it. The word the Apostle uses here is that by which the different states of mankind, before and after our Lord's coming in the flesh, are denoted. So the Apostle calls the time of Chrift's kingdom, the world to come, Heb. ii. 5.; where he uses a different word. Hence, fome have thought, that the Apoftle had the Jewish state under the Mofaic law in his eye; and that he means to tell those who wanted fo much to be under that difpenfation, that when Chrift gave himself for fin, there was an end put to that difpenfation,

fation, and that it was his design to take his people out of that ftate, and bring them into that which in thofe times was called the world to come.

That this was one part of our Lord's defign in giving himself, every Christian will readily allow, and that it very well anfwers the Apoftle's views in this epiftle. But befides that, however the institutions of the Mofaic law, on which the Jewish ftate was founded, are called weak and unprofitable, and really were fo; on which account they were removed to make way for a better constitution and church state, established on better promises; yet it neither was, nor ever was called, felf; but became fo only by application and abuse of it. it fhould be allowed, that the Old-Teftament ftate might be called evil, those whom the Apoftle was writing to were Gentiles, who never had any concern with the Jewish state; and therefore could never, with any propriety of fpeech, be faid to be delivered from, or taken out of, a world which they never were in.

evil in it

the mifAnd though

When we confider further, that the word here rendered world, is often and almost

always