(14) covenant of works had absolutely excluded a surety in our room, then the covenant of grace had been excluded, and our salvation had been impossible, after our fall; but tho’ the covenant of works did not exclude a surety, yet that covenant did neither provide nor reveal a surety. This is done in the covenant of grace, which is Christ, as surety, fulfilling for us the covenant of works, in all the articles of it. Now, is truth and faithfulness at any loss here ? No, the truth of the promise and threatening both, of the law of works is fulfilled. On the one hand, the promise of eternal life made to perfect obedience, which tho’ we forfeited in our own person, yet we recover in the person of Christ : the promise of life, upon the ground and condition of perfect obedience, being fulfilled to us in him, who hath yielded that perfect obedience in our room. On the other hand, divine truth and faithfulness, in thethreatening of the law, which was death, is glorified in that it is fulfilled upon the surety; while we, who came under the sentence of death in the first Adam, undergo that death in the second Again, is righteousness and justice at any less by this surety in our room? No, no, whither we look upon it as vindictive or retributive justice; vindictive justice is displayed in its outmost severity upon Christ : 'Awake, O sword against my Shepherd, and the man 'that is my Fellow.’ And so the sword is drunk in his Blood, to infinite satisfaction. Retributive justice is gloriously displayed also in the sinners being rewarded, justified, saved, upon this ground. It is true, might justice say, I could have demanded satisfaction upon the sinner himself in his own person, but as I can sustain no injury to my honour by such a surety as this, whom they call Immanuel, God-man, so I find my honour and interest, instead of being impaired, is advanced by this exchange of persons, for tho’ I should damn the sinner to all eternity, I’ll never get such full and complete satisfaction upon any finite creature, as I will get by one stroke of my avenging sword upon that petfon of infinite dignity : and 'so it pleased the Lord to bruise him. Why then, ‘ they meet together and embrace one another in him,’ as surety, and if truth and righteousness
