of his Flesh and when he laid down his life for us We know not what change may be wrought in nature it self by its investiture with glory nor how inconsistent these affections which in us cannot be separated from some weakness and sorrow are with his present state and dignity Nor can any solid satisfaction be received by curious contemplations of the nature of glorifyed Affections But herein we have an infallible Demonstration of it that he yet continueth in the exercise of that Office with respect whereunto all these Affections of Love Pity and Compassion are ascribed unto him As our High Priest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is able to suffer to condole with to have compassion on his poor tempted ones Chap. 4. 15. All these affections doth he continually act and exercise in his intercession From a sense it is of their wants and weaknesses of their distresses and Temptations of their States and Duties accompanied with inexpressible Love and Compassion that he continually intercedes for them For he doth so that their sins may be pardoned their Temptations subdued their sorrows removed their Trials sanctified and their Persons saved And doing this continually as an High Priest he is in the continual excise of Love Care Pity and Compassion VER xxvi In this Verse the Apostle renders a Reason of his whole preceding Discourse and why he laid so great weight upon the Description of our High Priest And he hath probably in it a respect unto what he had last asserted in particular concerning his Ability to save them to the utmost that come to God by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For yet also this High Priest was just to us that is it was just right or meet that we should have this High Priest All others talis nos decebat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pure Sanctus Holy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without malice Beza ab omni malo alienus Innocens Free from all evil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without spot Vul. impollutus Beza sine labe unpolluted without spot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 separate from sins all others from sinners The words will be farther explained in our enquiry into the things signified by them VER xxvi For such an High Priest became us who is Holy Harmless Undefiled Separate from sinners and made higher than the Heavens There is something supposed and included in this Assertion namely that if we intend to come unto God we had need of an High Priest to encourage and enable us thereunto For if in particular we need such an High Priest it is supposed that without an High Priest in general we can do nothing in this matter This therefore is the Foundation which in this Argument the Apostle proceedeth on namely that sinners as we are all can have no Access unto God but by an High Priest And there was no need for him much to labour with those Hebrews in the confirmation hereof For from the first constitution of their Church they had no other way of Approach unto God in and with their sacred services And God had not only by the Institution of that Office among them declared that this was the way whereby he would be worshipped but also with Legal Prohibitions fortified with severe Penalties he had forbidden all men the highest the greatest the best and most holy to come unto him any other way Hereby were they taught the everlasting necessity of an High Priest and the discharge of his Office whatever End or Issue their Typical Priests came unto And herein lyes a great Aggravation of the present misery of the Jews High Priest of their own they have none nor have had for many Ages Hereon all their solemn worship of God utterly ceaseth They are the only Persons in the world who if all mankind would give them leave and assist them in it cannot worship God as they judge they ought to do For if Hierusalem were restored into their Possession and a Temple reedified in it more glorious than that of Solomon yet could they not offer one Lamb in Sacrifice to God For they know that this cannot be done without an High Priest and Priests infallibly deriving their Pedigree from Aaron of whom they have amongst them not one in all the world And so must they abide under a sense of being judicially excluded and cast out from all solemn worship of God until the vail shall be taken from their Hearts and leaving Aaron they return unto him who was Typed by Melchisedec unto whom even Abraham their Father acknowledged his Subjection Whence this necessity of an High Priest for sinners arose I have so largely enquired into and declared in my Exercitations on the original and causes of the Priesthood of Christ as that there is no need again to make mention of it Every ones duty it is to consider it and rightly improve it for himself The want of living up unto this Truth evacuates the Religion of most men in the world Upon this supposition of the necessity of an High Priest in General the Apostle declares what sort of High Priest was needfull for us And this he shews 1. In his Personal Qualifications 2. In his outward State and Condition ver 26. 3. In the nature of his Office and the manner of its Discharge ver 27. And he confirmeth the whole by the consideration of the Person who was this Priest and of the way and manner how he became so compared with them and their consecration unto their Office who were Priests according unto the Law ver 28. The two first are contained in this verse namely 1. The Personal Qualifications of him who was meet to be a Priest for us by whom we might come unto God and 2. His outward state and condition And in the first place the necessity of such an High Priest as is here described is expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Became us Decuit decebat It was meet it was just for us as the Syriack renders it And respect may be had therein either unto the wisdom of God or unto our state and condition or unto both such an High Priest it was meet for God to give and such an High Priest it was needful that we should have If the condecency of the matter which lies in a contrivance of proper means unto an end be intended then it is God who is respected in this word If the necessity of the kind of Relief mentioned be so then it is we who are respected The word is applyed unto God in this very case Chap. 2. ver 10. It became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things Consider God as the Supreme Ruler and Governour of the world as the first cause and last end of all and it became was necessary unto his infinite
or Diminution of an Inheritance which descends from Parents unto Children and not otherwise is gratis dictum without pretence or Confirmation Even in things Moral God threatens to visit the Sins of the Fathers on the Children So the Israelites wandred poenally in the Wilderness forty Years and bare the Iniquity of their Parents The Infants that perished in the Flood and at the Conflagration of Sodom died poenally under the Judgment that came for the sin of their Parents Wherefore the general Foundation of his whole Discourse is unproved and false and the application of it unto the present Case as we shall see weak and impertinent For 2. This renders the Argument of the Apostle as weak and impertinent as any thing can be imagined For it allows Levi to be no otherwise Tithed in Abraham but as part of the Goods which Abraham gave in Tithe to Melchisedec would have descended unto him For he was but one of the twelve Sons of Jacob the Grand-child of Abraham whose share in those Tithes cannot be computed to be worth mentioning much less to bear the weight of an Argument in so great a Cause Besides it is not the Person of Levi but his Posterity in the Family of Aaron that is intended And such Movables as were Tithed by Abraham do seldom descend through so many Generations It is therefore ridiculous to impose such a kind of Argumentation on the Holy Apostle 3. Yea this Interpretation is directly contrary unto what the Apostle designed to confirm by the Instance he gives For that which he aimed at was to prove Levi Inferiour to Melchisedec by his paying of Tithes in the Loyns of Abraham But if he did this no otherwise but that some Goods that should have descended unto him were given unto Melchisedec it Argues him rather Superiour unto him for absolutely he that gives is Superiour to him that receives as it is in general a more Blessed thing to give than to receive 4. That which he proceeds upon is a general Rule of his own framing which is no way applicable unto this particular Case as it is a particular Case It is that as Children Succeed into the room of their Parents as to their Goods and after a sort represent them so Parents before their Children come to Inherit do represent their Children so as that they may be said in some sence to do what is done by their Parents But this is a Rule made without any colour of Reason For 1. I would know when this Representation and Concernment should expire or whether it hold unto all Generations If it hold for ever then may we all be said in some sort to do what Adam did with his Goods and Lands before he died and so of all our Intervenient Progenitors If it do expire and this Relation abideth only for a Season I desire to know the Bounds of that Season Aaron was the first of the House of Levi who is intended in these words and he was the seventh Generation from Abraham in which time it is probable if ever this Right of Inheritance would expire 2. It is not true in any sence in the very next Parents in most cases For suppose a Parent be wicked and flagitious and shall waste his Substance and Goods in Riotous living in what sence shall his Son suppose him a Person fearing God be said so to have disposed of his Goods in him 3. The Truth is unless it be a subsequent Approbation of what our Progenitors have done or by virtue of a Covenant whereby they and their Posterity were Obliged which is the Case in hand Children can in no sence be said to do what their Progenitors have done in the Disposal of their Goods and Inheritances Neither indeed will a subsequent Approbation give any Tolerable sence unto this Assertion unless there be a Power of an effectual dissent in the Children also If a Man give a part of his Estate to Found an Hospital and leave the Care of it unto his Posterity with this proviso that if any of them saw just Cause for it they should re-assume the State into their own Possession in case they do not so they may in some sence be said to do what indeed their Father did But if this be not in their Power though they approve of what he did they cannot be said to have done it But in Covenants the Case is plain Men may enter into a mutual Covenant for the Erection of a Government among them which proving a Foundation of all their Civil Rights for the Future their Posterity may be said to have made that Covenant and to be Obliged thereby as it was in this Case 5. Neither will it advantage his pretence with a seeming acknowledgment of some Impropriety in his Assertion in those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I may so say For although it should be granted that he intends some impropriety in the Expression yet there must be Truth in his Assertion which this Interpretation will not allow For if it be true only in the sence he contends for it is true in none at all for that is not any But the meaning of these words is ut verbo dicam that I may give you a Summary of the whole that which my Argument riseth up unto 6. Having given us this crooked Rule he adds a Limitation unto it whereby he hopes to reduce the whole to his Purpose For saith he this Rule is not to be extended unto the Merits or Sins of Parents and Ancestors though some loss may accrew unto the Children thereby for thence he infers that though we may suffer some loss by the Sin of Adam yet his Sin is not imputed unto us But 1. How far the Children of Flagitious Parents may not only suffer loss but undergo Temporal Punishment also for the Sins of their Parents was shewed before in the Instances of those who perished in their Infancy both by the Flood and in the Conflagration of Sodom 2. The Case between any other Parent and his Posterity is not the same as it was between Adam and us all so that these things are Sophistically jumbled together There is indeed an Analogy between Adam and his Posterity on the one hand and Christ with Believers on the other and never was there nor shall there be the like Relation between any else For these two Individual Persons were appointed of God to be the Heads of the two Covenants and Representatives of the Foederates as unto the Ends of the Covenants Hence the whole Evil of the one and the Good of the other as they were and as far as they were Heads of the Covenants are imputed unto them who derive from them in their respective Covenants But after the first Sin Adam ceased to be an Head unto his Posterity as to the Good or Evil of that Covenant which was now broken and disanulled Neither was he nor any of his Posterity ever after restored or assumed into the same State
the New Testament Ephes. 3. 5. 3. In the Effectual Illumination of the Minds of them that do Believe enabling them Spiritually to discern the Mysteries so revealed every one according to the measure of his gift and grace See concerning it 1 Pet. 2. 9. Ephes. 3. 17 18 19. Chap. 5. 8. Fourthly There belongs unto this Perfection that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Liberty and Boldness which Believers have in their Approaches unto God This is frequently mentioned as an especial Priviledge and Advantage of the Gospel-state Ephes. 3. 12. Heb. 3. 6. Chap. 4. 16. Chap. 10. 19 35. 1 John 3. 21. Chap. 4 17. Chap. 5. 14. And on the contrary the state under the Levitical Priesthood is described as a state of Fear and Bondage that is comparatively Rom. 8. 15. 2 Tim. 1. 7. Heb. 2. 15. And this Bondage or Fear arose from sundry Causes inseparable from that Priesthood and the Administrations of it As 1. From the Dreadful manner of giving the Law This filled the whole People with Terror and Amazement Upon the Administration of the Spirit by the Gospel Believers do immediately cry Abba Father Rom. 8. 16. Gal 4 6. They have the Liberty and Boldness to draw nigh unto God and to call him Father But there was such an Administration of a Spirit of Dread and Terror in the giving of the Law as that the People were not able to bear the Approaches of God unto them nor the thought of an Access unto him And therefore they desired that all things for the future might be Transacted by an Internuncius one that might go between God and them whilst they kept at their distance Deut. 5. 23 24 25 26 27. VVhen any first hear the Law they are afraid of God and desire nothing more than not to come near him They would be saved by a distance from him VVhen any first hear the Gospel that is so as to believe it their Hearts are opened with Love to God and all their desire is to be near unto him to draw nigh unto his Throne Hence it is called the Joyful sound Nothing can be more opposite than these two frames And this Spirit of Fear and Dread thus first given out in the giving of the Law was communicated unto them in all their Generations whilst the Levitical Priesthood continued For as there was nothing to remove it so it self was one of the Ordinances provided for its continuance This are we now wholly delivered from See Chap. 12. 18 19 20 21. 2. It arose from the Revelation of the Sanction of the Law in the Curse Hereby principally the Law gendered unto Bondage Gal. 4. 25. For all the People were in some sence put under the Curse namely so far as they would seek for Righteousness by the Works of the Law So saith our Apostle As many as are of the Works of the Law are under the Curse Gal. 3. 10. This Curse was plainly and openly denounced as due to the breach of the Law as our Apostle adds It is written Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them And all their Capital Punishments were Representations thereof This could not but take a deep impression on their minds and render them obnoxious unto Bondage Hence although on the account of the Promise they were Heirs yet by the Law they were made as Servants and kept in Fear Gal. 4. 1. Neither had they such a Prospect into the Nature Signification of their Types as to set them at perfect Liberty from this cause of dread For as there was a veil on the Face of Moses that is all the Revelations of the Mind and Will of God by him were veiled with Types and Shadows so there was a veil on their Hearts also in the weakness of their Spiritual light that they could not look stedfastly unto the End of that which is abolished 2 Cor. 3. 13. that is unto him who is the end of the Law for Righteousness unto them that do Believe Rom. 10. 4. It was therefore impossible but that their Minds must Ordinarily be filled with Anxiety and Fear But there is now no more Curse in the Gospel-state Rev. 22. 2. The Curse abideth only on the Serpent and his Seed Isa. 65. 25. The Blessing of the Promise doth wholly possess the place of it Gal. 3. 13 14. Only they who will choose still to be under the Law by living in the sins that it condemneth or seeking for Righteousness by the works which it commands are under the Curse 3. Under the Levitical Priesthood even their Holy Worship was so appointed and Ordered as to keep them partly in Fear and partly at a Distance from the Presence of God The continual Multiplication of their Sacrifices one day after another one week after another one moneth after another one year after another taught them that by them all there was not an end made of sin nor Everlasting Righteousness brought in by any of them This Argument our Apostle makes use of to this purpose Chap. 10. 1. The Law saith he could never by those Sacrifices which they Offered Year by Year continually 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bring the Worshippers unto this Perfection And he gives this Reason for it namely because they had still a Conscience of Sin that is a Conscience condemning them for sin and therefore there was a Remembrance made of sin again every Year ver 2 3. Hereby they were kept in Dread and Fear And in their Worship they were minded of nothing so much as their Distance from God and that they had not as yet a Right to an immediate Access unto him For they were not so much as once to come into the Holyest where were the Pledges and Tokens of Gods Presence And the Prohibitions of their Approaches unto God were attended with such severe Penalties that the People cryed out they were not able to bear them Numb 17. 12 13. which Peter reflects upon Acts 15. 10. The Holy Ghost thereby signifying that the way into the Holyest of all was not made manifest whilst the first Tabernacle was standing Chap 9. 8. No Man had yet Right to enter into it with boldness which Believers now have Chap. 10. 19 20. 4. God had designed the whole Dispensation of the Law under that Priesthood unto this very End that it should give the People neither Rest nor Liberty but press and urge them to be looking after their full Relief in the Promised Seed Gal. 4. 1 2. Chap. 3. 24. It pressed them with a sense of sin with a Yoke of Ceremonious Observances presenting them with the Hand-writing of Ordinances which was against them Col. 2. 14. It urged their Consciences not to seek after Rest in or by that state Here could be no Perfection because there could be no Liberty The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Boldness we speak of is opposed unto all these causes of Bondage and Fear It was
behalf This Schlictingius observes and is aware what will ensue thereon against his pretensions which he endeavours to obviate Mirum saith he porrò alicui videri posset cur D. Auctor de Christi sacerdotio in superioribus in sequentibus agens derepente eum sponsorem foederis non verò sacerdotem vocet Cur non dixerit tantò praestantioris foederis factus est sacerdos Jesus hoc enim planè requirere videtur totus orationis contextus Credibile est in voce sponsoris sacerdotium quoque Christi intelligi Sponsoris enim non est solùm alieno nomine quippiam promittere fidem suam pro alio interponere sed etiam si ita res ferat alterius nomine id quod spopondit praestare In rebus quidem humanis si id non praestet is pro quo sponsor fide jussit hic verò propter contrariam causam nam prior hic locum habere non potest nempe quatenus ille pro quo spopondit Christus per ipsum Christum promissa sua nobis exhibet quâ in re praecipuè Christi sacerdotium continetur Answ. 1. It may indeed seem strange unto any one who imagineth Christ to be such a Surety as he doth why the Apostle should so call him and so introduce him in the Description of his Priestly Office as that which belongeth thereunto But grant what is the proper work and duty of a Surety and who the Lord Jesus was a Surety for and it is evident that nothing more proper or pertinent could be mentioned by him when he was in the Declaration of that office 2. He confesseth that by his exposition of this Suretiship of Christ as making a Surety for God he contradicteth the nature and only notion of a Surety among men For such a one he acknowledgeth doth nothing but in the defect and inability of them for whom he is ingaged and doth undertake He is to pay that which they owe and to do what is to be done by them which they cannot perform And if this be not the notion of a Surety in this place the Apostle makes use of a word no where else used in the whole Scripture to teach us that which it doth never signifie among men which is improbable and absurd For the sole Reason why he did make use of it was that from the Nature and Notion of it among men in other Cases we may understand the signification of it what he intends by it and what under that name he ascribes unto the Lord Jesus 3. He hath no way to solve the Apostles mention of Christs being a Surety in the Description of his Priestly Office but by overthrowing the nature of that Office also For to confirm this absurd notion that Christ as a Priest was a Surety for God he would have us believe that the Priesthood of Christ consists in his making effectual unto us the Promises of God or his effectual Communicating of the Good things promised unto us the falshood of which notion really destructive of the Priesthood of Christ I have elsewhere at large detected and confuted Wherefore seeing the Lord Christ is the Surety of the Covenant as a Priest and all the sacerdotal Actings of Christ have God for their immediate Object and are performed with him on our behalf he was a Surety for us also It remaineth that we enquire positively how the Lord Christ was the Surety of the New Covenant and what is the benefit we receive thereby And unto this purpose we must first consider that opinion of some that the whole end of the Mediation of Christ was only to procure the New Covenant although at first view it be irreconcileable unto the nature and notion of a Surety For a Surety is not the Procurer of that whereofhe is the Surety but only the undertaker for its Accomplishment But we must more distinctly consider this Assertion and in what sense Christ may be said to procure the New Covenant by his Death and Mediation And to this end we must observe that the New Covenant may be considered divers ways in various respects 1. In the Designation and Preparation of its Terms and Benefits in the Counsel of God And this although it have the nature of an Eternal Decree yet is it distinguished from the Decree of Election which first and properly respects the Subjects or Persons for whom Grace and Glory are prepared For this respects the Preparation only of that Grace and Glory as to the way and manner of their Communication It is true this Purpose or Counsel of Gods Will is not called the Covenant of Grace which is the expresse declared exemplification of it The Covenant of Grace I say is only the Declaration of this Counsel of Gods VVill accompanied with the Means and Powers of its Accomplishment and the Prescription of the ways whereby we are to be interested in it and made partakers of the Benefits of it But in the enquiry after the procuring Cause of the New Covenant it is the first thing that ought to come under consideration For nothing can be the procuring Cause of the Covenant which is not so of this Spring and Fountain of it of this Idea of it in the mind of God But this is no where in the Scripture affirmed to be the effect of the Death or Mediation of Christ and so to ascribe it is to overthrow the whole freedom of Eternal Grace and Love Neither can any thing that is absolutely Eternal as is this Decree and Counsel of God be the effect of or be procured by any thing that is External and Temporal And besides it is expresly assigned unto absolute Love and Grace see Ephes. 1. 4 5 6. with all those places where the Love of God is assigned as the sole cause of the Designation of Christ unto his Office and the sending of him 2. It may be considered with respect unto the Federal Transactions between the Father and Son concerning the Accomplishment of this counsel of his Will What these were wherein they did consist I have declared at large in my Exercitations Neither do I call this the Covenant of Grace absolutely nor is it so called in the Scripture But it is that wherein it had its establishment as unto all the ways means and ends of its Accomplishment and all things so disposed as that it might be effectual unto the Glory of the Wisdom Grace Righteousness and Power of God Wherefore the Covenant of Grace could not be procured by any means or cause but that which was the cause of this Covenant of the Mediator or of God the Father with the Son as undertaking the work of Mediation And as this is no where ascribed unto the Death of Christ in the Scripture so to assert it is contrary unto all spiritual Reason and understandings Who can conceive that Christ by his Death should procure the Agreement between God and him that he should dye 3. With respect unto the Declaration of it
cause God saw it necessary and it pleased him to put a grievous and heavy yoke upon them to subdue the pride of their spirits and to cause them to breathe after deliverance This the Apostle Peter calls a yoke that neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear Acts 15. 20. that is with peace ease and rest which therefore the Lord Christ invited them to seek for in himself alone Matth. 11. 29 30. And this yoke that God put on them consisted in these three things 1. In a multitude of Precepts hard to be understood and difficult to be observed The present Jews reckon up 613 of them about the sense of most of which they dispute endlesly among themselves But the truth is since the days of the Pharisees they have increased their own yoke and made obedience unto their Law in any tolerable manner altogether unpracticable It were easie to manifest for instance that no man under Heaven ever did or ever can keep the Sabbath according to the Rules they give about it in their Talmuds And they generally scarce observe one of them themselves But in the Law as given by God himself it is certain that there were a multitude of arbitrary Precepts and those in themselves not accompanied with any spiritual Advantages as our Apostle shews Chap. 9. 5. only they were obliged to perform them by a meer soveraign Act of Power and Authority 2. In the severity wherewith the observance of all those Precepts were enjoined them And this was the threatning of death For he that despised Moses 's Law died without mercy and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward Hence was their complaint of old Behold we die we perish we all perish whosoever cometh near unto the Tabernacle of the Lord shall dye shall we be consumed with dying Numb 17. 12 13. And the Curse solemnly denounced against every one that confirmed not all things written in the Law was continually before them 3. In a Spirit of Bondage unto Fear This was administred in the giving and dispensation of the Law even as a Spirit of Liberty and Power is administred in and by the Gospel And as this respected their present Obedience and manner of its performance so in particular it regarded Death not yet conquered by Christ. Hence our Apostle affirms that through fear of Death they were all their life-time subject unto Bondage This state God brought them into partly to subdue the pride of their hearts trusting in their own righteousness and partly to cause them to look out earnestly after the promised Deliverer 4. Into this estate and condition God brought them by a Solemn Covenant confirmed by mutual consent between him and them The Tenure Force and Solemn Ratification of this Covenant is expressed Exod. 24. 3 4 5 6 7 8. Unto the terms and conditions of this Covenant was the whole Church obliged indispensibly on pain of Extermination until all was accomplished Mal. 4. 4 5 6. Unto this Covenant belonged the Decalogue with all Precepts of Moral Obedience thence educed So also did the Laws of Political Rule established among them and the whole Systeme of Religious Worship given unto them All these Laws were brought within the verge of this Covenant and were the matter of it And it had especial Promises and Threatnings annexed unto it as such whereof none did exceed the Bounds of the Land of Canaan For even many of the Laws of it were such as obliged no where else Such was the Law of the Sabbatical year and all their Sacrifices There was Sin and Obedience in them or about them in the Land of Canaan none elsewhere Hence 5. This Covenant thus made with these Ends and Promises did never save nor condemn any man eternally All that lived under the Administration of it did attain eternal life or perished for ever but not by vertue of this Covenant as formally such It did indeed revive the commanding Power and Sanction of the first Covenant of Works and therein as the Apostle speaks was the Ministry of condemnation 2 Cor. 3. 9. For by the deeds of the Law can no flesh be justified And on the other hand it directed also unto the Promise which was the instrument of life and salvation unto all that did believe But as unto what it had of its own it was confined unto things temporal Believers were saved under it but not by vertue of it Sinners perished eternally under it but by the Curse of the original Law of Works And 6. Hereon occasionally fell out the ruine of that People their Table became a snare unto them and that which should have been for their welfare became a trap according to the Prediction of our Saviour Psal. 69. 22. It was this Covenant that raised and ruined them it raised them to Glory and Honour when given of God it ruined them when abused by themselves contrary to express declarations of his mind and will For although the generality of them were wicked and rebellious always breaking the Terms of the Covenant which God made with them so far as it was possible they should whil'st God determined to reign over them unto the appointed season and repined under the burden of it yet they would have this Covenant to be the only Rule and Means of righteousness life and salvation as the Apostle declares Rom. 9. 31 32 33. Chap. 10. 3. For as we have often said there were two things in it both which they abused unto other ends than what God designed them 1 There was the Renovation of the Rule of the Covenant of Works for righteousness and life And this they would have to be given unto them for those ends and so sought for righteousness by the works of the Law 2 There was ordained in it a Typical Representation of the way and means whereby the Promise was to be made effectual namely in the Mediation and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ which was the end of all their Ordinances of Worship And the outward Law thereof with the observance of its Institution they looked on as their only relief when they came short of exact and perfect righteousness Against both these pernicious Errors the Apostle disputes expresly in his Epistle unto the Romans and the Galatians to save them if it were possible from that ruine they were casting themselves into Hereon the Elect obtained but the rest were hard ned For hereby they made an absolute renunciation of the Promise wherein alone God had enwrapped the way of life and salvation This is the nature and substance of that Covenant which God made with that People a particular temporary Covenant it was and not a meer dispensation of the Covenant of Grace That which remains for the declaration of the mind of the Holy Ghost in this whole matter is to declare the differences that are between those two Covenants whence the one is said to be better than the other and to be built upon better Promises Those of
be done by that Covenant against which the Sins were committed neither by the Priests nor Sacrifices nor any other Duties of it Therefore had he promised the Abolition of it because of its weakness and insufficiency unto this end as also the introduction of a new to supply its defects as we have seen at large in the Exposition of the foregoing Chapter For it became the Wisdom Goodness and Grace of God upon the removal of the other for its insufficiency to establish another that should be every way effectual unto his purpose namely the Communication of an Eternal Inheritance unto them that are called But then the Enquiry will be How this Covenant or Testament shall effect this end what is in it what belongs unto it that should be so effectual and by what means it might attain this end All these are declared in the words And Sixthly In general all this arose from hence that it had a Mediator and that the Lord Christ the Son of God was this Mediator The dignity of his Person and thereon both the Excellency and Efficacy of his Priestly Office whereunto alone respect is had in his being called here a Mediator he had abundantly before demonstrated Although the word in general be of a larger signification as we have declared on Chap. 8. 6. yet here it is restrained unto his Priestly Office and his acting therein For whereas he had treated of that alone in the foregoing Chapter here declaring the Grounds and Reasons of the necessity of it he says for this cause is he the Mediator And proceeding to shew in what sense he considers him as a Mediator doth it by his being a Testator and dying which belongs to his Priestly Office alone And the sole end which in this place he assigns unto his Mediatory Office is his death That by means of death Whereas therefore there were Sins committed under the first Covenant and against it and would have been so for ever had it continued which it was no way able so to take away as that the called might receive the Inheritance the Lord Christ undertook to be the Mediator of that Covenant which was provided as a Remedy against these Evils For herein he undertook to answer for and expiate all those Sins Whereas therefore Expiation of Sin is to be made by an Act towards God with whom alone Atonement is to be made so as that they may be pardoned the Mediation of Christ here intended is that whereby suffering death in our stead in the behalf of all that are called he made Atonement for Sin But moreover God had a further design herein He would not only free them that are called from that death which they deserved by their Sins against the first Covenant but give them also a Right and Title unto an Eternal Inheritance that is of Grace and Glory Wherefore the Procurement hereof also depends on the Mediation of Christ. For by his Obedience unto God in the discharge thereof he purchased for them this Inheritance and bequeathed it unto them as the Mediator of the New Testament The Provision of this Mediator of the New Testament is the greatest Effect of the infinite Wisdom Love and Grace of God This is the Center of his Eternal Counsels In the womb of this one Mercy all others are contained Herein will he be glorified unto Eternity 1 The first Covenant of Works was broken and disannulled because it had no Mediator 2 The Covenant at Sinai had no such Mediator as could expiate Sin Hence 3 Both of them became means of Death and Condemnation 4 God saw that in the making the New Covenant it was necessary to put all things into the hand of a Mediator that it also might not be frustrated 5 This Mediator was not in the first place to preserve us in the state of the New Covenant but to deliver us from the guilt of the breach of the former and the Curse thereon To make provision for this End was the Effect of Infinite Wisdom Seventhly The especial way and means whereby this Effect was wrought by this Mediator was by death Morte obita facta interveniente intercedente by means of death say we Death was the means that whereby the Mediator procured the Effect mentioned That which in the foregoing Verse is ascribed unto the Blood of Christ which he offered as a Priest is here ascribed unto his death as a Mediator For both these really are the same only in the one the thing it self is expressed it was death in the other the manner of it it was by blood in the one what he did and suffered with respect unto the Curse of the first Covenant it was death in the other the ground of his making Expiation for Sin by his death or how it came so to do namely not meerly as it was death or penal but as it was a voluntary Sacrifice or Oblation It was therefore necessary unto the End mentioned that the Mediator of the New Testament should dye not as the High Priests of old dyed a natural death for themselves but as the Sacrifice dyed that was slain and offered for others He was to dye that death which was threatned unto Transgressions against the first Covenant that is death under the Curse of the Law There must therefore be some great Cause and End why this Mediator being the onely begotten of the Father should thus dye This was say the Socinians that he might confirm the Doctrine that he taught He dyed as a Martyr not as a Sacrifice But 1 There was no need that he should dye unto that End For his Doctrine was sufficiently confirmed by the Scriptures of the Old Testament the Evidence of the Presence of God in him and the Miracles which he wrought 2 Notwithstanding their pretence they do not assign the Confirmation of his Doctrine unto his Death but unto his Resurrection from the dead Neither indeed do they allow any gracious Effect unto his death either towards God or men but only make it something necessarily antecedent unto what he did of that kind Nor do they allow that he acted any thing at all towards God on our behalf Whereas the Scripture constantly assigns our Redemption Sanctification and Salvation to the death and blood of Christ. These Persons 1 deny that of it self it hath any influence into them wherefore 2 they say that Christ by his death confirmed the New Covenant but hereby they intend nothing but what they do also in the former or the Confirmation of his Doctrine with an addition of somewhat worse For they would have him to confirm the Promises of God as by him declared and no more as though he were God's Surety to us and not a Surety for us unto God Neither do they assign this unto his Death but unto his Resurrection from the dead But suppose all this and that the death of Christ were in some sense useful and profitable unto these Ends which is all they plead