Gospel reconciliation, or, Christ's trumpet of peace to the world

You have read much of the blessedness of Reconciliation, what a happy condition it is to be at peace with ⟨p. 68⟩God, especially in these times of war, and trouble, when there is so little peace in the Land. And you have read that God begins the work; But how doth he do it? observe; it is not God merely considered as Creator of Heaven, and Earth, that infinite first being of all things; But (the first thing propounded in the first Chapter to be opened is this,) It is God [in Christ] reconciling him to the world. God and man were enemies; an enmity, and a breach there was, and the breach was infinitely wide, and dreadful; how shall God and man now come to be reconciled? you will say, the Lord is a God of infinite mercy, and he sees his poor creatures must needs perish eternally if he come to take advantage against them; therefore it may be God was willing to pass by all, and so free of himself, and his own free Grace to be reconciled to such, and such creatures as have sinned against him, and so Reconciliation was made up; No, this was not the way, there is more required than this. Let God, and the creature be put together without any Further Consideration: and all the mercy of God on the one side; and all the Cries, and tears and repentings of the creature, on the other side, this will never make up a peace. This you must know is the Doctrine of the Gospel; that man having made a breach betwixt God, and himself, and consider God merely in himself, as he is himself, without relation to a Mediator; and then take all the mercy of God on one side, and all the tears, and repentings, the Cries and Prayers of the creature, on the other side; and both these together can never make peace. What must there be more, you will say? That which we have in the Text, God [in Christ] reconciling the world. It is not God in himself reconciling the world to himself, but it is God in Christ. So that there must come something between God, and us as to the matter of Reconciliation, or otherwise there can never be a Reconciliation made. This thing I have often had occasion to treat of; and I am very willing upon every occasion to set this before those that I am to preach unto;