I propound in the name of the Lord the doctrine of life, salvation, and
peace. Let it be known, therefore, to you that God the Father, looking
upon the sinful children of men, and seeing them all in a perishing
condition by sin, out of infinite bowels of tender compassion, has
provided a glorious way of mediation, of propitiation for sin. And, to
that end He has sent His only beloved Son out of His bosom, who has
taken man's nature upon Himself, united in a personal union to the end
that He might be a fit Mediator to stand between a provoked God and
sinful souls. And this Christ has borne the full vials of the wrath of
His Father, the curse of the law due to sin, satisfied infinite divine
justice, and made a full atonement between God and sinful man. Upon
these terms alone, now, He tenders and offers to every poor, wearied,
distressed soul all that His Son has purchased by His blood, all His
merits, that they might be an atonement for sin, a propitiation for your
soul to discharge all your sins, that you might come through Him to
stand acquitted before the Father for evermore. This is the sum of the
gospel, and this I present and preach and offer to you, and this I offer
not only to the least sinner, but to the greatest sinner in the world.
This I present as in the name of God, as the message we have in the name
of God to deliver unto you. And now, whatever your sins have been
heretofore, God only requires that your souls should now stand admiring
the infinite riches of His grace in His Son, and that your souls should
be taken off from the creature and sin to live upon Christ, surrender
your souls to Him, and cast your souls on that infinite, rich grace of
God in Him; and upon that instant, every one of your sins, though never
so great and heinous, yet I pronounce in the name of the Lord, every one
of them is pardoned and all is done away with as if they had never been
committed. This is the sum of the gospel unto those who come to see
their sins and are sensible of their need of Christ by their sin.
Jeremiah Burroughs [The Evil of Evils]
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