need of a
mediator as we,--all which were highly blasphemous to imagine. Look then
how much distance and difference there was between suffering, dying
Christ, and wretched men living in sin. None can say but he is infinitely
better, even while in pain, nor(176) the highest prince in pleasure, so
much disproportion there is between sin and pain; so much is the one worse
than the other. Do not think then that Christ died to purchase an
indulgence for you to live in sin. Truly that were to take away the lesser
evil, that the greater may remain; that were to deliver from one misery,
that we may be more involved in that which is the greatest of all
miseries. Nay, certainly if Christ be a Redeemer, he must redeem us
from our most potent and accursed enemy,--sin; he must take away the root,
the fountain of all misery,--sin; that which conceived in its womb all
pains, sorrows, sicknesses, death and hell. You have the great end of
redemption expressed, Luke i. 74, 75, "That we, being delivered from all
our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness."
It was that for which he made man at first, and it is that for which he
hath made him again, "created unto good works," Eph. ii. 10. It was a
higher design certainly, for which the Son of God became partaker of our
nature, than only to deliver us from hell. No doubt it was to make us
partakers of the divine nature, (2 Pet. i. 4;) and this is the very nature
of God,--holiness and goodness. As sin is the very nature and image of the
devil, so the great breach of the creation was the breaking off of this
image of God. That was the heaviest fall of man, from the top of divine
excellency, into the bottom of devilish deformity. Now it is this that is
the great plot for which Christ came into the world,--to make up that
breach, to restore man to that dignity again; so that redemption from
wrath is but a step to ascend upon, to that which is truly God's design,
and man's dignity,--conformity with God in holiness and righteousness.

O that you could be persuaded of this,--that Christ's business in the world
was not to bring a notion of an imaginary righteousness only, by mere
imputation, but to bring forth a solid and real righteousness in our
hearts, by the operation of his Spirit! I say, imputation, or accounting
righteous, is but a mere imagination, if this lively operation do not
follow. He came not only to spread his garment over our nakedness and
deformity,