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WORK

OF

REDEMPTION.

İSAIAH li. 8.

FOR THE MOTH SHALL EAT THEM UP LIKE A GARMENT, AND THE WORM SHALL EAT THEM LIKE WOOL: BUT MY RIGHTEOUSNESS SHALL BE FOREVER, AND MY SALVATION FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION.

THE design of this chapter is to comfort the church under

her sufferings, andthe persecutions of her enemies; and the ar gument of consolation insisted on; is, the constancy and perpetuity of God's mercy and faithfulness towards her, which shall be manifest in continuing to work salvation for her, protecting. her against all assaults of her enemies, and carrying her safely through all the changes of the world, and finally crowning her with victory and deliverance.

In the text, this happiness of the church of God is set forth by comparing it with the contrary fate of her enemies that oppress her. And therein we may observe,

1. How short-lived the power and prosperity of the church's enemies is: The moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; i, e. however great their prosperity is, and however great their present glory, they shall by degrees consume and vanish away by a secret curse of God, till they come to nothing; and all their power and glory, and so. their persecutions, eternally cease, and they be finally and irrecoverably ruined: As the finest and most glorious apparel will in VOL. I.

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time wear away, and be consumed by moths and rottenness. We learn who those are that shall thus consume away, by the foregoing verse, viz. those that are the enemies of God's people: Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose . heart is my law, fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.

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2. The contrary happy lot and portion of God's church, expressed in these words, My righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation. Who are meant as those that shall have the benefit of this, we also learn by the preceding verse, viz. They that know righteousness, and the people in whose heart is God's law; or, in one word, the church of God. And concerning this happiness of theirs here spoken of, we may observe two things, viz. 1. Wherein it consists; 2. Its continuance.

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(1) Wherein it consists, viz. In God's righteousness and salvation toward them. By God's righteousness here, is meant his faithfulness in fulfilling his covenant promises to his church, or his faithfulness towards his church and people, in bestowing the benefits of the covenant of grace upon them; which benefits, though they are bestowed of free and sovereign grace, as being altogether undeserved; yet God has been pleased, by the promises of the covenant of grace, to bind himself to bestow them, so they are bestowed in the exercise of God's righteousness or justice. And therefore, the apostle says, Heb. vi. 10. God is not unrightcous to forget your work and labor of love. And so 1 John i. 9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful, and just to forgive us oùr sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So the word righteousness is very often used in scripture for God's' covenant faithfulness; so it is used in Nehem. ix. 8. Thou hast performed thy words, for thou art righteous. So we are often to understand righteousness and covenant mercy for the same thing; as Psal. xxiv. 5. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Psal. xxxvi, 10. Continue thy loving kindness to them that know thee, and thy righteousness to the upright in heart. And Psal. li. 14. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salva

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tion; and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. Dan. ix. 16. O Lord, according to thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away.—And so in innumerable other places.

The other word here used is salvation. Of these two, God's righteousness and his salvation, the one is the cause, of which the other is the effect. God's righteousness, or covenant mercy, is the root of which his salvation is the fruit. Both of them relate to the covenant of grace. The one is God's covenant mercy and faithfulness, the other intends that work of God by which this covenant mercy is accomplished in the fruits of it. For salvation is the sum of all those works of God by which the benefits that are by the covenant of grace are procured and bestowed.

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(2) We may observe its continuance, signified here by two expressions; for ever, and from generation to generation. The latter seems to be explanatory of the former. The phrase for ever, is variously used in scripture. Sometimes thereby is meant as long as a man lives. So it is said, the servant that has his ear bored through with an awl to the door of his mas ter, should be his for ever. Sometimes thereby is meant during the continuance of the Jewish state. 50 of many of the ceremonial and Levitical laws it is said, that they should be statutes for ever. Sometimes it means as long as the world shall stand, or to the end of the generations of men. So it is said, Eccles. i. 4. "One generation passeth away, and another cometh; but the earth abideth for ever." Sometimes thereby is meant to all eternity. So it is said, "God is blessed for ever," Rom. i. 25. And so it is said, John vi. 51. If "If. any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.”........And which of these senses is here to be understood, the next words determine, viz. to the end of the world, or to the end of the generations of men. It is said in the next words, "and my salvation from generation to generation." Indeed the fruits of God's salvation shall remain after the end of the world, as appears by the 6th verse: "Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment,

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and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner, but my vation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished:” ~ But the work of salvation itself toward the church shall continue to be wrought till then: Till the end of the world God will go on to accomplish deliverance and salvation for the church, from all her enemies; for that is what the prophet is here speaking of; till the end of the world; till her enemies cease to be, as to any power to molest the church. And this expression, from generation to generation, may deter mine us as to the time which God continues to carry on the work of salvation for his church, both with respect to the beginning and end. It is from generation to generation, i. e. throughout all generations; beginning with the generations of men on the earth, and not ending till these generations end, at the end of the world.......And therefore we deduce from these words this & housesabeus

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Quinte brow sit ne tot, noïts disa no seudonuq sit not mende bå The Work of REDEMPTION is a work that GOD carries on from the fall of man to the end of the &terviDalmer Listent bus (7950 Paz Unid world.

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THE generations of mankind on the earth did not begin till Y «u{ } after the fall. The beginning of the posterity of our first parents was after the fall; for all their posterity, by ordinary generation, are partakers of the fall, and of the corruption of nature that followed from it; and these generations, by which the human race is propagated, shall continue to the end of the world: So these two are the limits of the generations of men: on the earth; the fall of man, the beginning; and the end of the world, or the day of judgment, the end. The same are the limits of the work of redemption as to those progressive works of God, by which that redemption is brought about and accomplished, though not as to the fruits of it, for they, as was said before, shall be to all eternity.,.

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work of redemption and the work of salvation are the same thing. What is sometimes in scripture called God's

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saving his people,is in other places called his redeeming them. So Christ is called both the Saviour and the Redeemer of his people.

BEFORE entering on the proposed History of the Work of Redemption, I would,

1. Explain the terms made use of in the doctrine ;...and, 2. Show what those things are that are designed to be accomplished by this great work of God.

First, I would show in what sense the terms of the doctrine are used......And, 1. I would show how I would be understood when I use the word redemption,...and, 2. how I would be understood when I say, this work is a work of God carried on from the fall of man to the end of the world. le burg” · I. I would show how I would be understood when I use the word redemption......And here it may be observed, that the work of redemption is sometimes understood in a more limited sense, for the purchase of salvation; for so the word strictly signifies, a purchase of deliverance; and if we take the word in this restrained sense, the work of redemption was not so long in doing. ng in doing. But i en OU ACHE it was begun and finished with Christ's humiliation. It was all wrought while Christ was upon earth. brow It was begun with Christ's incarnation, and carried on through

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Christ's life, and finished with his dem to expiriense H
death, or the time of his re
maining under the power of death, which ended in his resur-
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rection: And so we say, that the day of Christ's resurrection is
the day when Christ finished the work of redemption, i. e.
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then the purchase was finished, and the work itself, and all
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But then sometimes the work of redemption is taken more gabala od odt rsarto le b mshui to rsb ad largely, including all that God works of accomplishes tending to boy t to this end; not only the purchasing of redemption, but also a teda dolder t

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all God's works that were properly preparatory to the pur-
chase, or as applying the purchase and accomplishing the suc-
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; so that the whole dispensation, as it includes the
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preparation and the purchase, and tourgmisbar le cow d
and the application and success
of Christ's redemption, is here called the work of redemption.

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