may be comforted, than to indulge in the illfounded mirth that must end in wailing.

Here we may pause. Our inquiry has conducted us to a view of the fearful change in man's condition, produced by the first transgression. It brings before us the corruptions of our nature; it commends to us the serious and diligent investigation of the evil; it calls upon us to look for its existence as unquestionably developed by our own course and conversation; and to be roused to the enquiry wherewithal one thus fallen, polluted, and impotent, may come before God.

However we may imagine that we understand the redemption, or appreciate the name of the Redeemer, we may be assured that our views are defective, if we be not well informed on the point before us; and that our affections, if not attended with consciousness of our individual wretchedness, are not embued with the Spirit's testimony of the Great Deliverer. May we therefore be disposed by the Spirit of grace to meet the light, and to use it! So that whatever may be the character of its discoveries to us, we may with unflinching integrity look at the evil revealed, and wait to hear further what the Lord will speak.

II. REDEMPTION OF THE EARTH.

WE have considered in our last chapter, the condition to which the earth and its inhabitants have been reduced by the transgression and fall of man. We have here to direct an inquiry to the heart-cheering revelation which proclaims the deliverance effected by a great Redeemer.

Redemption signifies the recovering or bringing back of somewhat lost or forfeited, on condition of an ample compensation being made; and the application of this term to the great subject of the Gospel is intended to form a suitable description of the manner in which the earth and lost souls are brought back to the visible glory for which they were originally designed by the Creator. Our last subject served to shew us the scripture testimony respecting the covenant purpose towards the Eternal Son, who from all eternity is the constituted heir of creation, as Heb. i. 2, 8.

C

It served likewise to shew us how by an act of rebellion the inheritance of Christ was as it were marred, and, according to the appearance of things, wrested out of the hand of the rightful owner: a usurper is seen, occupying the place of power and rule over willing vassals, and Satan and sinners leagued together against the Holy One. But we are not to imagine that the conspiracy so formed shall prevail to impoverish the glorious Lord, nor to surmise that by the revolt of men the eternal design of the Almighty is subverted. The counsel of God standeth fast for ever, and the purpose of Jehovah can never be overthrown. The earth with its inhabitants are still the Lord's, and Christ shall reign for

ever.

Had it been the intention of God by creation, only to form a race of creatures capable of happiness and enriched with fulness, we might suppose it possible that such creatures by transgression might so forfeit their blessings as to be given up to their destroying preference of the service of darkness: and in this act Jehovah's righteousness would have been unquestionable. But the Divine purpose being not merely to form vessels that might be recipients of his blessings, but in whom the

Eternal Son should have a peculiar possession, it necessarily follows, that whatever might be the circumstances, or the provocation of the earth, nothing should prevail to alter this covenant gift. Nevertheless, Jehovah, being holy, must adopt measures for the establishment of this gift, whereby the sanctity of the Divine perfection should be unimpeachable; and hence is the covenant act styled redemption, and the possession is established by a compensatory price, in which all the Divine perfections are honoured and satisfied. Thus, speaking of the saved, it is said, "ye are bought with a price; " 1 Cor. vi. 20. "ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ; " 1 Pet. i. 18. And again in Ephes. i. 7. "In whom we have redemption;" and in the fourteenth verse, "until the redemption of the purchased possession."

Redemption is applied to the world universally, as it describes the work by which the earth is kept back from the perdition into which it is perpetually plunging. It is by this purpose in Christ that it is placed under a mediatorial government, which, as it were, holds it together; so that although loosened, dissolved, and ready to perish, it still exists.

The effect of sin would be to destroy the whole earth. We have tokens of this in the daily and hourly decay which meets us in all animal and vegetable creation. We have experience of this in the sicknesses, decline, and death to which we ourselves are by transgression made heirs. But notwithstanding, generation after generation appears, and season after season gives back the suspended beauties of earth. And whence is all this? Only by redemption. All life, all mercy, has been forfeited; and its continuance, whether to the world generally. or to the inhabitants of the world particularly, is only because the earth is redeemed. Thus in Psalm lxxv. 3, it is declared, in reference to the covenant character of Christ, "the earth, and all the inhabitants thereof, are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah." In virtue of this redemption it is that in the long-suffering faithfulness of God, the sun riseth on the evil and on the good, and the rain descendeth on the just and on the unjust.

The expression to which we have referred in Ephes. i. 14, is very comprehensive of the glory obtained by Christ in this act of the covenant. This inheritance is styled a purchased possession, and believers are comforted by the recollection of their privilege, as being