A Memorial of Mrs. Margaret Breckinridge

by John Breckinridge; Samuel Miller

It is my earnest desire, dear children, to open this way of salvation to your minds, and to recommend it to your serious and solemn attention. Believe me, "it is not a vain thing for you, it is even your life." Unless you are, by the grace of God made partakers of this great salvation, it "had been better for you that you had not been born."

By the salvation revealed in the Gospel is meant, delivering us from all the ruins of the fall—from the condemnation of sin and the power of sin—restoring us to the favour and image of God—and bringing us to the everlasting enjoyment of his presence in heaven. This is salvation. Now I wish to show you how this great and blessed result is accomplished by the undertaking and work of Jesus Christ, whom we are accustomed, on that account, to denominate, with emphasis, our Saviour.

Man was made upright; in full possession of all the powers necessary to perfect moral agency, and with all the dispositions which prompted to a perfectly correct use of those powers. But "man being in honour abode not." He rebelled against God. He violated the covenant under which he was placed, and became liable to the dreadful penalty which it denounced against transgression. In this fall of our first parents we are all sharers. "In Adam," says the apostle, "all die." "By one man's disobedience," he again declares, "many were made sinners." We have all totally lost our original righteousness; so that there is now, by nature, "none righteous, no not one." In short, we have all become guilty and polluted before God, and incapable of regaining his image or his favour by any merit or doings of our own. How, then are we to be delivered from these deplorable circumstances? How shall we escape that perdition which is the just reward of sin? "How can we escape the damnation of hell?" How can any be saved? God cannot set aside his own law, or permit his authority and majesty, as a righteous Governor, to be trampled under foot. To "clear the guilty;" to take impenitent rebels into the arms of his love, would be to "deny himself." Where, then, is our refuge? Must we sit down in despair, and say, "There is no hope?" No, by no means. A God of infinite wisdom, power, and love, has devised and proclaimed a wonderful plan by which sin was punished while the sinner is pardoned; by which justice is completely satisfied, while mercy is extended to the guilty and vile; by which "grace reigns through righteousness, unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord."

This wonderful and glorious plan of mercy consisted in the Father giving his own Son to obey, suffer, and die in our stead, as our substitute; and in the Son consenting to bear the penalty of the law for us; to put away our sin by the sacrifice of himself; and to bring in an everlasting righteousness for our justification. Yes, dear children, however coldly an unbelieving world may receive the amazing annunciation, the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, condescended, in his wonderful love, to assume our nature; to take the place of the guilty and the perishing; and to become the victim of Divine justice in their stead. His language, in the eternal counsel of peace, was, "Let me suffer instead of the guilty. Let me die to save them. Deliver them from going down to the pit; I will be their ransom." This wonderful, this unparalleled offer was accepted. The Father was well pleased for the righteousness sake of his Son. He accepted it as the price of our pardon; as that on account of which all who repent and believe should be justified. So that the Scriptures may well say concerning the Saviour—He is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. He is the Lord our righteousness. He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his stripes we are healed. He bare our sins in his own body on the tree. He died the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. He delivered us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.

Here then, dear children, is the way, and the only way of a sinner's acceptance with God. In virtue of the covenant of redemption, the righteousness of Christ, or what he did and suffered on our behalf, is placed to the account of his people, as if they had performed it in their own persons. Though sinful and unworthy in themselves, God is pleased to pardon and accept them as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness sake of his beloved Son. I am aware, indeed, that some who speak much of "the merits of Christ," and profess to rely entirely on those merits, represent the whole subject in a very different light. They suppose that in consideration of the sufferings and death of our blessed Saviour, the old, original law of God, requiring perfect obedience, is repealed, and a mitigated law now prescribed as the rule of our obedience. So that now, under the Christian dispensation, a perfect obedience is not even required, but only an imperfect one, accommodated to our fallen condition and our many infirmities. But still, they insist, that this imperfect obedience is the meritorious ground of our acceptance with God; and, of course, that eternal life is the purchase of our own obedience. In short, the doctrine of these errorists is, that the benefit conferred by the sufferings and death of Christ, consists, not in providing an entire righteousness for us, but only in abating the demands of the law; in bringing down the divine requisitions more to a level with our ability; and still enabling us, low as we have fallen, to be the purchasers of salvation by our own works.

Be assured, dear children, this view of the subject is a grievous departure from the Scriptural doctrine concerning the way of salvation. The Bible represents our pardon and acceptance with God as not founded, in any respect, or in any degree, on our own obedience; but as wholly of grace—as a mere unmerited gift, bestowed solely on account of what the Redeemer has done as our substitute and surety. It represents the holy law of God as remaining in all its original strictness without repeal or mitigation; and as falling with the whole weight of its penalty on all the impenitently guilty. But it declares that penalty to be removed from those who repent and believe the Gospel, not on account of any worthiness in themselves, as the meritorious ground of the benefit; but only on account of the perfect righteousness of Him who came to seek and save those who were lost. In short, a gracious God saves his people not by overlooking their sins; but by lifting the penalty from them, and laying it upon the divine Redeemer, and for his sake letting them go free, and accepting them solely on account of his merit.

This righteousness of Jehovah the Saviour is said to be "to all, and upon all them that believe;"—that is, it is imputed to none—set to the account of none but those who receive Christ by faith. Faith is that great master grace by which we become united to the Saviour, and interested in his atonement. This righteousness, therefore, is called the righteousness of faith, and the righteousness of God by faith. Hence we are said to be justified by faith, and to be saved by faith. Not that faith, as an act of ours, is, in any measure, the ground of our justification; but all these expressions imply, that there is an inseparable connexion, in the economy of grace, between believing in Christ, and being justified by him, or having his righteousness imputed to us. Happy, thrice happy they, who can thus call the Saviour theirs, and who have thus "received the atonement!" Though unworthy in themselves, they are graciously pronounced righteous by their heavenly Judge, on account of what the Mediator has done. Their sins, though many, are, for his sake, forgiven them. They are freely justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses. They are "accepted in the Beloved." Though polluted and undeserving in their own character, they are "complete in Him." There is no condemnation to them now; and in the day of judgment they shall find, to their eternal joy, that there is both safety and happiness in appearing in the righteousness of Him who loved sinners, and gave himself for them, clothed in "robes which have been washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb."

But we not only need to be justified by the righteousness of Christ; we also indispensably need to be sanctified by the Spirit of Christ. Accordingly, the purification of our nature, as well as the pardon of our sins, is one of the benefits purchased by Him, and secured by covenant to all believers. Hence the teaching and the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit must be regarded as an essential part of the great salvation of which I am speaking. We need as much to be delivered from the love of sin as from its condemnation. And for both, the plan of mercy held forth in the Gospel of Christ, makes equal and effectual provision. "Whom he justifies, them he also sanctifies; and whom he sanctifies, them he also glorifies." By the power of the Holy Spirit, the dominion of sin is broken in the hearts of all who are brought under the power of the Gospel. The reign of corruption in the soul is destroyed; the love of it is taken away; and though not perfectly sanctified in the present life, yet every believer has his sanctification begun. It is carried on, not by his own wisdom or strength, but by the same divine power by which it was commenced; until he is, at last, made perfectly holy, as well as perfectly happy in the presence of his God and Saviour.

Thus does it appear that salvation is all of grace, sovereign, unmerited grace. The original devising of the plan, in the eternal counsels of peace, was prompted, not by any foresight of faith and holiness in the fallen creature; but in mere grace. The plan itself, in all its principles and provisions makes our salvation perfectly gratuitous, and wholly excludes all human merit. After the plan was formed and executed, and the knowledge of it imparted to us, no one would ever accept of it, did not the same grace which formed it, incline the sinner to lay aside his native opposition, and accept of the offered mercy. And even after cordially accepting it, no individual would ever cleave to his hope, and continue to embrace it, and live under its power, were he not "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation."

After the foregoing statement, the great question is, what message does this plan of salvation bring to YOU? The message which it brings, dear children, is an unspeakably solemn one. It charges you with being sinners—miserable sinners in the sight of God—without merit—without help, and without hope in yourselves. It offers you peace, and pardon, and sanctification, and eternal life, through the atoning sacrifice of the blessed Redeemer. It entreats you to lay aside your enmity, and to receive these benefits with humble and adoring gratitude, as a free, unmerited gift, "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Its language is, "Whosoever will, let him come, and take of the water of life freely." And again, "Whosoever cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out." It calls upon you to renounce all confidence in yourselves, and to receive and rest on Christ alone for salvation as he is freely offered in the Gospel; to receive him as the Lord your righteousness, and the Lord your strength, and rejoice in him as your only hope. To this end, it is indispensable that you be convinced of sin; that you experience a deep and cordial sense of your own sinfulness and unworthiness; that you despair of saving yourselves; that you fall at the footstool of sovereign grace, feeling that you deserve to die, and that you can have no hope but in the atoning blood, and sanctifying Spirit of the Redeemer. It is your duty and your privilege to go to the Saviour at once, and cast yourselves on his mercy, without waiting for any qualifications to render you worthy of his favour. You are commanded to go to him as miserable, helpless sinners, not with a price in your hands; but to receive from him all that you need to make you holy and happy here and hereafter. And until you are prepared thus to go to him, as miserable, unworthy sinners, who deserve God's wrath and curse forever; until you sincerely feel that you have nothing to plead but the merit of another; until you are ready to cast yourselves at the feet of the Saviour, and to be indebted for pardon and eternal life as a mere gift of grace, you have yet to learn the vital element of practical religion.