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be recollected with deep humili- advanced so much nearer to ty and repentance, with fervent death and the judgment seat. and renewed applications to the Have we made equal progress in blood of Jesus Christ, for clean-our journey towards heaven? In sing. There was, every year, in our preparations for our final the Jewish church, a remem-exit? Are we proportionably brance of sins, and an annual more humble; more abstracted atonement for them. It is of from the world; more heavenly infinite moment that we should minded, more full of love, faith be purged from our old sins. In and goodness? Have we increasa penitential recollection of them ed in all the fruits of righteousour graces may be increased andness? If this be our happy case, the sanctuary cleansed.

what occasion have we of joy and praise for the grace, bestowed upon us? If it hath been the reverse, what occasion is there of fear and trembling? Of awaking immediately out of sleep, and of escaping for our lives to the city of refuge!

Further, it may be proper on the commencement of the New

Again, we should consider the afflictions of the past year, all the way in which the Lord hath led ts, to prove us, and to try what was in our hearts. If we have been afflicted on temporal or spiritual accounts; if we have suffered in name or estate; if our dear enjoyments have been taken from us, and our acquaint-Year, to inake a renewed and scance removed into darkness, we should recollect our sorrows with patience, submission and contentment. We should be great-unreservedly and for ever. The ly ashamed, and sincerely re- great and numerous mercies of pent, that we have been such sin- the year concluded, the perfec ners, such froward children, astions and commands of God, to make it necessary that we should be thus corrected. Remembering our affliction and misery, the wormwood and the gall, our souls, like the prophet's should be humbled within us.

There is also a great propriety in considering in what manner we have spent the year. Whether it hath been in idleness and pastimes? whether we have stood all the day idle, and done nothing for our souls, for the honor of God and the good of men? Nay, should we not consider whether we have not done much evil? Another important portion of time is passed away. We have one year less to live, than we had at the commencement of the last year. We are

lemn dedication of ourselves, our time, talents, and opportunities entirely to God, to serve him

challenge this of us all. We
are his, and not our own. These
are so many cords and bands to
draw us to our heavenly Father,
and fix us for ever in his service.
We have received all from, and
owe all to him, and are wholly
dependent on
him for every
thing which we can need or
hope. Shall we not therefore
glorify him in our body, and in
our spirit which are his? The
apostle beseeches Christians by
the mercies of God, that they
present their bodies living sac-
rifices, holy and acceptable unto
God. This he affirms to be
their reasonable service.*
It will be proper further to ob-

* Rom. xii. 1.

created dependencies, we must repose our whole confidence on his providence, determining, by his grace assisting us, that come what may, prosperity or adversity, life or death, we will cleave unto him, and be found waiting and prepared for his salvation.

In a word, we should begin the year with special prayer for the remission of past sins, that they may not be remembered against us to blast our expectations, and bring the curse of God upon us and all our enjoy

serve, That as we begin the year with the same uncertainty with which Paul went up to Jerusalem, not knowing what will befall us, we should begin it with an impressive, practical sense of what may be the events of it with respect to ourselves and our families, our country and the church of God. Our times are in the hand of God. He changeth the times and seasons. He changeth our countenance, and sendeth us away. We know not what a day, and much less what a year may bring forth.ments, in time to come: That This year we may die. Sick- we may have peace with God, ness and death may make our and in our own souls, and conhouses desolate. We may sus- stantly rejoice in the hopes of tain great losses in our worldly glory. We should importuaffairs. Our souls may be fill-nately pray for grace to do the ed with darkness, fear and trou-duties of the year we have beble. We are exposed to nume- gun, and to prepare us for its rous dangers, enemies and mis-events: That we may be enafortunes. It is therefore of in-bled to make the most happy finite moment that our minds should be deeply affected with these views, and that we should be prepared for the events before us. We should be excited to watch and pray always, and to be ever ready for the coming of our Lord. We should begin the year with an entire submission to the will of our heavenly Father, with respect to the events of it, committing ourselves and families, the church of God and all that concerns us and them, wholly to him; trusting in his wisdom, power and goodness, to direct, and dispose of us and them as shall seem good in his sight. We should do this rejoicing that the Lord reigneth; and that he makes all things work together for their good, who love him, who are the called according to his purpose. Owning his sovereign dominion, and renouncing all

progress in the divine life, growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: That he would grant unto us and all our brethren thro' the whole Christian world the fresh anointings of his Spirit, support them and us, in every trial, and cause us to be more abundant in all the fruits of righteousness: That he would bless the United States of America, give us a year of health, peace and plenteousness: That he would bring all nations to the knowledge of the truth, and fill the whole earth with his glory. In fine, That if it should be the year of our death, that God would receive us to his mercy, and give us everlasting length of days in his presence and kingdom. Such a beginning of the first day of the first month would greatly serve to cleanse the sanctuary, and render the

day indeed a happy New Year. strengthen and beautify the Would miserable hypocrites, house? What joy would there who have a name to live while be in heaven? What joy a they are dead, properly consid-mong the saints, and returning er their danger: That while the prodigals on earth? How would Father purges all such branches glory be given to God in the in Christ as bear fruit, and caus- highest? Shall we not all therees them to bear more fruit, he fore unite our importunate, intakes all those branches away cessant prayers, and persevering which bear nonet: That now exertions thus to cleanse, enthe ax is laid to the root of the large and strengthen the sanctutrees, and that every tree there- ary? fore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the firet: That even this year, they may be cut a sunder, and have their portion assigned them, with their fellow deceivers, in the pit where there isno redemption, and now repent and become Christians indeed, how would this cleanse the sanctuary ? How would this wipe away the spots in our holy feasts? How joyfully might we then hail the day when the Canaanite shall be no more in the house of the Lord? When the name of the city shall be, THE LORD IS THERE* ?

These, generous readers, are the happy purposes, which we the editors wish and pray to subserve. These are the meditations, views, exercises and resolutions with which we wish to begin the year ourselves, and which we wish to excite and promote in you. Great indeed have been the goodness and forbearance of our heavenly Father towards us, in sparing us another year, and especially in the six successive years in which we have been allowed to address and congratulate you on the return of the New Year. We acknowledge his kind providence in the success which he hath given to this magazine; and feel our obligations exceedingly increased to live wholly to him, and to employ all our powers and opportunities to his glory, and to serve our generation according to his will. While we congratulate you, generous readers, on the return of a New

Would thoughtless, secure sinners, who have spent all their years in vanity and sin, and have always been despising the riches of the divine goodness, forbearance and long-suffering, and after their hardness and impenitent heart, been treasuring up unto themselves, wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judg-Year, and express our grateful ment of God, now so think upon their ways as to turn their feet unto God's testimonies, and to make haste, and delay not to keep his commandments, how would this cleanse, enlarge,

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acknowledgments to you all who have been the encour agers and supporters of this work, we wish to make you in return the most ample and lasting compensation. But with silver and gold we can never compensate you. We pray to

God to be enabled to do it with that which is far more valuable :

2

A Dissertation on the Atonement, [Continued from page 222.]

UERY II. Did Christ suf

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fer the same evils, in kind and degree, which sinners must have suffered, if he had not died for them?

To be helpers of your faith and love, of your hope and joy: To be instrumental of raising you up to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; to shine as monuments of the Redeemer's love and glory, more precious and beautiful than gold, when the pillars of brass and It is not pretended that Christ marble shall be mouldered away, suffered as great a degree or and the sun shall have lost his quantity of misery, as the everlustre. And shall we for this lasting punishment of all those purpose add, that these are ex- for whom he made atonement, ercises which are always, in a would have been. Neverthegreater or less degree matter of less, no solid objection can from duty, to which we are obligated thence be raised against the sufby the perfections, the com- ficiency of his atonement. For mands, the patience and good- as in regard to his obedience, ness of God; and especially, at so likewise in regard to his sufthe commencement of the year:ferings, it may justly be observThat they give peace and joy ed, that the infinite dignity and to the soul; that they will glo- worth of his person added an imrify God, and cause others to portance and worth to both the glorify him, while they behold one and the other, of which they your good works shining before would otherwise have been desthem. Such a beginning of titute. And with respect to the your years, will have great influ- kind of evil suffered by Christ, ence, through the grace of God, it is obvious that he did not, in to prepare you for the duties and every particular, suffer the same events which are before you; to evil in kind, which those who give you peace and triumph in are saved by him must have sufyour last hours; to add lustre fered. to your crowns, and fulness to Christ never felt the stings of your joys, when time and years a guilty conscience, with which shall be no more. With what sinners will be tormented in the earnestness therefore should we state of punishment. Nor have plead with you thus to begin the we any reason to think, that he year? Were you the fruit of ever experienced the distresses our own bodies, were this, as it of total despair, which will doubtindeed may be, our last address less be a very aggravating ingre to you, what could we recom-dient in the torments of the dammend more in character, more ned. This, however, doth not interesting or beneficial to your- at all affect the sufficiency of selves, more for the divine hon- the atonement, provided his sufor, or for the prosperity of Zion?ferings manifest the same things If therefore you love yourselves, and effectually answer the same your Redeemer, or the house of ends, that were otherwise to have God, we plead with you, by all been answered by the punishmeans, on this first day of the ment of sinners. If the same first month, to arise and cleanse ends are as effectually answerthe sanctuary. AMEN. ed, it is immaterial whether they

are answered by Christ's suffering precisely the same evils in kind, or those which are in some respects different.

But the query, to which we are attending, was especially designed to have it considered, whether Christ suffered the wrath of God.-Mankind, if no atonement had been made, were to suffer the wrath of God; but did Christ suffer this? I answer, he did in some sense, though not precisely in the same sense in all respects, that sinners were to suffer it. But to contribute something towards setting this matter in a just light, I would observe the following things.

sel had determined before to be done. Acts ii. 23, and iv. 27, 28. And the prophet Isaiah tells us expressly, "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." And another prophet introduces God, as giving the order for his execution in these words, "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts : smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered."-But it is needless to multiply quotations. It is plain that the sufferings of Christ were designed by God, and inflicted according to his purpose. The cup which he drank, was the cup which his Father gave him. He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up, that is, to the death of the cross.

Such dreadful sufferings as those to which Christ was delivered up by God, and which he underwent according to the design, and in conformity to the

1. God never was angry or displeased with Christ; nor have we any reason to think, that Christ ever viewed him as being so; but much to the contrary. Whereas God is highly displeased with sinners. His anger against them is exceedingly great, and in the state of pun ishment, if not before, they will have a very distressing and tor-will of the Father, are certainly menting sense of his wrath against them. In this respect they are to suffer the wrath of God in such a sense as Christ did not. But

2. Christ suffered those things which proceeded from and were expressions of God's wrath: he suffered the effects of God's displeasure and wrath against sin.

effects and expressions of great displeasure in God against something. His treating his Son in such a manner, and delivering him up to such dreadful sufferings, are a full proof of great indignation and wrath. The scriptures assure us, that he was well pleased with his Son. They also assure us, that Christ was deThough Christ suffered vol- livered up for us that he suf untarily, or by his own free con- fered for sins, the just for the sent, he nevertheles suffered unjust. Therefore the displeaaccording to the will and com- sure of God, expressed by the mand of God. All the suffer- sufferings of Christ, had for its ings which wicked men were object the sins of men. Those instrumental in inflicting upon dreadful sufferings, to which he him, took place according to the delivered up his own Son, were determinate counsel and fore-effects and expressions of his knowledge of God, and were no wrath against sinners, for whom more than God's hand and coun-Christ became a sacrifice. It is VOL. VI. No. 7.

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