Page:Profit and loss, or, The Christian merchant.pdf/4

 found none - they were all lost, for they had all gone out of the way,” Psalm xiv. 1-8. Rom. iii. 10—18.

When the scriptures declare all men to be lost, it is not with a view to drive them to despair, as if the loss were irretrievable: for they testify that the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which Was lost. We had ail gone astray like lost sheep, says the prophet Isaiah, but the Lord laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. He bare the sins of all who have believed, or ever shall believe on him. Thus he provided for the restoration of the lost, and, in virtue of what he has done and suffered, an innumerable company of lost sinners have been restored. He gave his life a ransom for the lost. Hence we hear an apostle say, “He bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye are healed: for ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls," 1 Pet. ii. 24, 25.

In our natural state, we are all debtors to the few and justice of God, for “cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." A dreadful sum, therefore, stands against us in that account. It is a debt of guilt or unrighteousness which no man could ever pay for himself, and which no creature could pay for him: but when Christ brings any lost sinner to trust in Him, and give up all hope of paying his own debt; his perfect righteousness is placed to the account of that sinner as a full answer to all the claims of law and justice against him. God, the Father and Judge of all, being well pleased with the righteousness