This plan of mercy _exalts the sinner_. If the requisitions of justice were strictly personal, and the economy of Heaven such as to admit of no substitute, the sinner's salvation would have been impossible; because his individual sufferings, though the just consequence of his guilt, could never become the meritorious means of its removal. Suffering, extreme in its nature, and perpetual in its duration, was the desert of transgression; but it could neither repair the injury which sin had done, nor constitute a claim upon divine forgiveness; or, if it _could_--by the very supposition there would be no possibility of any period arriving when that mercy could be enjoyed, because the suffering must be _eternal_. Such, however, was the infinite merit of the Saviour, that in the plan of forgiving mercy, his death was accepted as an equivalent for the sufferings of creatures. By exercising faith in his name, we transfer the burden of our debt, and he liquidates it: we confess we have nothing to pay, and wholly confide in his ability to discharge on our behalf every obligation; in consequence of which the transgressor is treated as innocent; he is released--the door is opened, his chains are broken off, and he is exalted to the favour and friendship of God; and "Who," he inquires, "shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us"