been in our love. We might have loved the Author of our being, the
Father of angels and men, as our Creator and Preserver: we might have
said, "O Lord our Governor, how excellent is Thy name in all the
earth!" But we could not have loved Him under the nearest and dearest
relation, as delivering up His Son for us all. We might have loved
the Son of God, as being the "brightness of his Father's glory," the
express image of His person (altho this ground seems to belong rather
to the inhabitants of heaven than earth). But we could not have loved
Him as "bearing our sins in his own body on the tree," and "by
that one oblation of himself once offered, making a full oblation,
sacrifice, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." We would
not have been "made conformable to his death," nor have known "the
power of his resurrection." We could not have loved the Holy Ghost as
revealing to us the Father and the Son, as opening the eyes of our
understanding, bringing us out of darkness into His marvelous light,
renewing the image of God in our soul, and sealing us unto the day of
redemption. So that, in truth, what is now "in the sight of God, even
the Father," not of fallible men "pure religion and undefiled," would
then, have had no being: inasmuch as it wholly depends on those grand
principles, "By grace ye are saved through faith"; and "Jesus Christ
is of God made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption."

We see then what unspeakable advantage we derive from the fall of our
first parent, with regard to faith: faith both in God the Father,
who spared not His own Son, His only Son, but wounded Him for our
transgressions and bruised Him for our iniquities; and in God the Son,
who poured out His soul for us transgressors, and washed us in His own
blood. We see what advantage we derive therefrom with regard to the
love of God, both of God the Father and God the Son. The chief ground